So while I've been wandering the wasteland of Fallout 3 for the last week (and enjoying it immensely), i've been keeping in the back of my head the fact that Bethesda seems to be working on making the world a better place and create FOOL (Fallout Online).

Now, obviously they have the skills and talents down pretty well covered to start when it comes to creating the stories, missions and landscape, but I just wanted to touch on a few ideas that have been in my head. One, just to quickly sum it up, are creatures. Obviously we in a "wasteland", life is sparse as it is, but i think we could add a few more NPC creatures to the mix such as:

Zombies - Similar to ghouls, but is much greater #'s, and were born from the 50's attempt at sci-fi improved beautifcation methods. Ok, now that I think about it, the reasoning is similar to Resident Evil, but you get the idea... Have 20 stagger towards you, in which tye really can;t be killed but only destroyed, when ammo is at a premium....might be a fun way to keep gun nuts in check and increase the size of the ammo suppliers coin purse (no snickering

Mutated birds - A sci-fi tribute to Mr. Hitchcock...

Giant tunnel worms - Both random, smaller, 100 pound, sharp toothed burrowers jumping above and under the ground to keep PC's on their toes...as well as giant, Dune sized ones for the larger missions... Oh yes, the earthworms will have their revenge!

Now i'm not sure whether these would fall under the NPC catagory or as possible player charatcers in addition to the assumed human, ghoul, or super mutant classes that might be avaiable as PC classes, but what about mutuated, evolutionized, walking, talking, very intelligent, two-headed brahmin...? I think they would make a nice addition to the "good" side of PC's in addition to the human class, that is, assuming mutuants and ghouls are looked at as "not-so-good", but I digress... Oh yea, I definetly think being able to have an NPC companion like a dog would still be good for PC's to have. Maybe as a sub-catagory, "ranger" sort of class...?

Oh yea, quick thought, can we please add Binoculars to the items list? Also, what about some form of note pad PC's can write into their Pip-Boy so we know where to revisit, what "junk" items are important o make pther items, etc...?

Ok, the next idea is possibly a solution to the fact that I have no clue how Bethesda might combat the mixing in of VATS to a live MMPOG. I would not suggest doing what Pirates of the Burning Sea (i'm of a fan of them though) did when it comes to combat and create a mini instance everywhere. I like how Fallout 3 still does a coin toss when aiming a gun in live time, but what about making a "hot key" for where one might want to aim? Say 1 is for the head, 2 for the left arm, 3 for the right arm, etc....and for the love of God, can be bring back the groin shots? Hell, entire TV's have been made to watching hysterical videos of peopel getting hit in the groin. Anyways, just an idea. But to make that type of combat worth while, we need to look at avatar movement, interaction, etc...

Basically, in my mind, it needs to be improved immensely. I don't mind the rigidness of the PC's movement as much, thats something I can live with, but its the lack of "fluid" motion when it comes to aiming and the movements of NPC's that makes it very tough. Anyways, just my two cents there... What about adding "iron sights" to add to the realism of it all?

Ok, now the biggest difference between, say, WoW and FOOL is obviously more heavy artillery. To put it simply, I think Hellgate has done a great job in this area, but my main concern is not with the possible interaction of guns in combat, but the ammo... Please, please, please...can FOOL be the first game to (1) use more than just 1 "type" of, say, assault rifle (M-16, Ak-47, H&K G3, FN-FAL, etc...) so it makes it harder to repair items (BTW, I love that new quirk in the game) and (2) find ammo to match? But that brings me to my main point, "ammo".... In my mind, taking 1 second to search a body and then be equiped with ready to shoot magazines filled with ammo is just begging for horrible firearm combat. My suggestion? Make "magazines" a completely new item. They must be found, maintained, be the propper fit to a gun (Idea: that could make a lesser powerful gun become important if it can take different magazine types...brought to you by Vault-Tec!?), and then LOADED! This way if someone has 500 rounds, but only 3 magazines... Well, the first 15 seconds of combat might be Rambo'ish, but then they have to run and hide and manually reload three magazines again (would be a cool first hand view movement) while the guy with the hunting rifle can walk around all day with loose rounds, with less replenishing time popping shots off at his pleasure... Oh yea, one more thing....after 200 years with no Remington or Sierra bullet making company in sight, i'm sure a LOT of the post-war leftover rounds aren't hanging in there too well...i.e. I think we need much more gun jams due to poor ammo. Maybe have different "classes" of ammo... We gotta give the HtH guys a chance after all...!

Ok, the last of my rant has to do with character creation and user interface...bascailly, this needs to be improved. Again, it doesn't seem very fluid or user friendly, but I'm sure you guys are working on it...

Anways, just some ideas from what i've seen throughout my followig of Fallout since '97 as well as other MMPOG's...I hope this helps! If anyone at Bethesda could use some assistance as far as weaponary stats, notes, and ideas, I would enjoy helping out where I could. I am a part time gunsmith and weapon historian if it's worth anything. If anyone has any other ideas, I would love to hear them!

Go on...press the shiney red Launch button, see what happens! Jericho, meet World of Warcraft......!!! Have fun in the wasteland! Just remember, don't drink the water, it's imported from Chernobyl...


-Nantucketeer

It will be Interplay (the orginal owners of Fall Out), who still have the exclusieve rights on a fall out morp, not betheseda

And what is your idea of using Speech to convince people to see your way? How would we need Charisma in the SPECIAL system when all you do is talk to real people anyway? I don't get how an MMO in the Fallout world can be succesfull and hold true to the series.

It's Interplay (the original makers of Fallout) that's working on Fallout Online, not Bethesda. See:

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_Online_FAQ



How not to make Charisma a dump stat? Other main statistics and most of the skills can be transferred to a MMORPG without major problems, but Charisma in Fallout games was pretty much all about interacting with NPCs, while MMORPGs naturally focus on interaction between the players, making Charisma's original use less useful.

In single-player Fallout games, Charisma influences two skills - Barter and Speech, both of which would be pretty useless with PCs, and while still having their uses with NPCs, limiting Charisma to that would make it a dump stat. While IMHO it would be good to keep that original use as well, I think merging Barter and Speech into one skill that governs all interaction with NPCs could make it at least less useless.

Another idea is to introduce a Leadership skill, which would allow your character to temorarily boost the skills or stats of his friends. It could also help you gain ranks in a faction more quickly, if a faction system where you can gain ranks within them is implemented.

I agree with pretty much everything said in the first post. you got alot of good points in there.

Fallout Online will pretty much just be a spin-off, and we don't want more spin-offs

Don't let Sony Online Entertainment anywhere near it.

Thank you for the correct on Interplay, I would not want them to go unnoticed after all their hard work.

And while I do think Leadership would be a nice add, so as a method of boosting stats for those PC's around you, I think Charisma would still be important when interacting with NPC's for missions and such.

I'd rather have Bethseda work on the online version of the game since i've played all three versions of fallout before and the tactical system much less to be desired for and the 3-D version like Fallout 3 is the BOMB here in the case.