Fallout 4's E3 presentation. How will it go? [merged] : Fallout 4

» Thu Nov 26, 2015 10:56 pm

That would be or permissible if it wasn't for the fact that fallout is a series that is extolled for its writing and depth...

» Fri Nov 27, 2015 5:33 am

There's this neat little thing called subjectivity that you may want to look into.

» Fri Nov 27, 2015 4:18 am

I feel the same way. I really liked the Capital Wasteland. There were some great characters too. Three Dog, Colin Moriarity, Dukov, Bittercup, Crowley, Sierra Petrovita, Ronald. All very memorable characters, and some were really funny.

» Fri Nov 27, 2015 12:43 am

this^

It will be a memorable game, but not groudbreaking.

» Fri Nov 27, 2015 6:27 am

Irony must be lost on you especially when you open with the assertion that "Bethesda is the best at world building and creating the right atmosphere"...

Seriously your post is filled with arrogation and dogmatic claims...again irony is lost on some.

» Fri Nov 27, 2015 2:11 am

Well said. RPG all the way, thank you.

» Thu Nov 26, 2015 4:39 pm

Saying 'best' doesn't literally mean 'best'. You took one word from my comment to suit your argument of me being objective. From the rest of my comment, it's clear that I was being entirely subjective. People can like what they want, I was just stating what I look for in a Bethesda game. Your following comment was unnecessary and bigoted. Just because you look for a certain thing in the series doesn't mean I have to. That's a problem I've found with forums; the majority follow a set belief and can't understand how somebody could think differently.

» Fri Nov 27, 2015 6:20 am

To list a few

-House supposedly deflected most of the bombs heading for the region, and indeed, we only see 2-3 actual places were nukes hit in-game, none of which are in the city itself. If House deflected all the nukes around the city, as the game so indicates, why is most of the city completely leveled? Without even any sort of significant rubble to show for what was? Especially when every other major population center that was hit, even going back to Fallout 1 city depictions, have mountains of ruined, but intact, buildings? In short, where did the city magically vanish off to?

-Similarly, House's deflection of the nukes kept the water clear, except the water in towns water towers. Why are the water towers irradiated for seemingly no reason when all the other water is clean?

-With the exception of Goodsprings and Nellis, all the farms are either NCR owned(Sharecropper), exist only because of the NCR maintained water system(Freeside), or exist only so recently as to be post NCR(the animal husbandry farm, raided farmstead, Wolfhorn Ranch), with no indication the existed before the NCR showed up.

Given that none of the towns without farms have any visible places were farms were before the NCR showed up, and no one talks about anyone having farms before the NCR showed up, with the exceptions of the already mentioned Goodsprings and Nellis, and given that attempting to eat the local plant life would have quickly depleted it to the point none would be left near any town, yet there is, and given that the Mojave has less edible animal life then even D.C. does..... what exactly did people eat for the 200+ years before the NCR showed up and gave them farms/brought people who knew how to farm/fixed the things people needed to make farms?

Even Fallout 3 explained the lack of farms as being due to the fact you CAN'T farm in the C.W. because everything is ass. What exactly is the explanation as to why people in an effectively untouched part of the world were seemingly unable to do anything agricultural wise until the NCR showed up, besides the two exceptions previously mentioned, which just makes everyone else's lack of action even more bizarre?

» Fri Nov 27, 2015 12:22 am

Try reading my post and the one that I quoted...
You're literally making up your own arguments now.

» Thu Nov 26, 2015 9:39 pm

I loved the Radiant Story system in Skyrim. The randomized quests were pretty solid for what they were, but don't forget that same system governed the random world encounters, and much of Skyrim's reactivity towards player actions. With all of the ways NPCs would respond to things they saw you do, Skyrim is Bethesda's most responsive game yet. I still remember assaulting someone in Skyrim, and later getting a letter from some random NPC asking me to beat up one of his co-workers at a mill; and that co-worker happened to be a huge jerk, too.

My predictions for Fallout 4:

- Overhauled character progression. Still XP based, but no level cap; your limit on the most powerful perks will be your SPECIAL distribution, and skills may go away. (maybe even a system where you spend XP to "buy" perks or skill points, so long as the other prerequisites are met. Ugh, this isn't the place to brainstorm new leveling mechanics, but I can't help myself)

- Less arbitrary and cheesable karma system. Or, no karma system at all. Same goes for New Vegas's reputation system (which was more impactful and more broken than Fallout 3's karma, but I think it's less likely to return).

- More logical world. Skyrim's setting was a huge return to form compared to Oblivion's or even Fallout 3's; it brought back the complex politics, vibrant setting, and lore-consistent geography/social hierarchy that made Morrowind so memorable.

- An improved and tweaked Radiant Story: fewer randomized quest objectives, more reactivity and random world encounters. I think we'll still see repeatable quests, though, of course.

- Better characters. How, and to what extent I have no idea, but they stated quickly after wrapping up Skyrim that they wanted to improve on their characters

- Overhauled or completely replaced VATS.

- Building off of the new lore that Fallout 3 added, like the future of the Lyons Brotherhood and androids. If we see any characters from Fallout 3 make a return, my guess is an advlt Arthur Maxson, and Dr. Li.

» Fri Nov 27, 2015 6:32 am

Come on man, we all know that AP (the Todd Howard clone) loves to defend his favorite game, Fallout 3, especially if the case involves detract NV.

And

best definition of Fallout 3 I've ever seen

» Thu Nov 26, 2015 11:00 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IRsdy0WLQU&app=desktop

This just...really guys? Lol.

» Fri Nov 27, 2015 1:27 am

Ok. THAT was funny.

So, just remember, no matter what, just keep talking.

» Thu Nov 26, 2015 8:48 pm

I can agree with these. But don't remove VATS and give me my SPECIAL and Boobleheads!

» Thu Nov 26, 2015 5:39 pm

I agree. VATS is a roleplaying combat mechanic (i.e. depends on character skill, not player skill) and I prefer it, in most situations, to the first-person-shooter mechanics found outside VATS.

» Thu Nov 26, 2015 3:25 pm

Lol at the ending "you're being pickedup by mic..."oooo sh**"

Todd owns.

» Thu Nov 26, 2015 2:10 pm

I'm cautiously optimistic I guess, Based on what I know so far, my real concern is that BGS has basically remade Fallout 3, with a smattering of NV thrown in it. The first trailer seemed very reminiscent in appearance and structure of the earlier games, though it is nicer looking, modestly anyway...

Last thing I want to see tomorrow is BGS explaining the general premise of the game, and then doing nothing else by hype how cool it looks.... If we've still got klunky game mechanics, and stilted character animation.... sadness..... :sadvaultboy:

» Thu Nov 26, 2015 4:34 pm

I don't think they'll remove VATS, just change it or replace it with something similar, but more balanced. The implementation in 3 boosts your crit chance and makes you almost immune to damage; New Vegas tried to balance this, but there's only so much a numbers tweak can do before you're better off just trying something else. I agree that it should stay, if only because I'm pretty awful at FPS games, but the current state isn't perfect.

They won't be getting rid of SPECIAL, either, but there will definitely be changes to character progression. That's just something Bethesda likes to reinvent each game. Conservative guess is that it's functionally identical to the older games, just with a differently organized perk menu and skills. Wild guess is that they completely overhauled it in some unpredictable way. They could nix skills and relegate their functions to perks/SPECIAL to make all of those choices substantially more significant. Or they could nix the level cap and have us "buy" perks and skill points with XP, skill points becoming exponentially more expensive the more we spend. Or something I can't describe in one sentence.

Oh, and if Bethesda does put Traits in Fallout 4, I imagine they'll be a bit different than what we've seen. Most of the traits in the other games were forgettable; I want to see more traits that fundamentally change the way we play the game, like Logan's Loophole.

» Thu Nov 26, 2015 6:11 pm

Wasn't the presentation like 4 hours ago?

» Fri Nov 27, 2015 6:27 am

Try 20 hours from now. It goes at 7pm PST on the 14th. That's tomorrow by my clock.

» Fri Nov 27, 2015 1:33 am

Nope, tis about 20 hours from now....

» Fri Nov 27, 2015 12:48 am

Oh, I'm from Europe and thought it was at 4 AM. Well, obviously it is, but on the 15th of July. Nevermind

» Thu Nov 26, 2015 5:50 pm

I imagine ill see a lot of fallout 3 where there should be innovation or elements from fallout new vegas but I hope to be proven wrong but what im most looking forward to are the screenshots and articles.

» Thu Nov 26, 2015 3:57 pm

In less than 24 hours, we will have been given a real glimplse of Fallout 4 gameplay courtesy of Bethesda's E3 conference. As many people on this forum agree, our protagonist will almost certainly begin his or her journey in a pre-war setting. The idea of the "nuclear family" has been very strongly portrayed in the trailer, and the theme of connecting both the pre and post-war eras throughout suggests that this will be the case. The likely scenario of losing our family in the nuclear blast we saw at the end of the trailer would also add a great amount of depth to our character. We would emerge alone in a new world as a changed person. A soldier, a scavenger, a survivor.

The following is my final summary of what I believe will end up being the start of our journey. A great deal of thought has gone into this, and although I may be way off the mark, it will be interesting to see if any of this actually turns out to be accurate. I have evolved this idea from my previously posted theories, and I have provided links below to the threads containing my supporting evidence.

Evidence thread 1: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1520460-evidence-of-pre-war-protagonist-and-tutorial

Evidence thread 2: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1520658-evidence-of-pre-war-protagonist-and-tutorial-thread-2

We begin with a bright flash of light. After a second or two, we see what appears to be a nurse who is shining a light into our eyes. We are sitting down, and it would seem that we are having some kind of medical screening, mirroring the tutorial from Fallout 3. But this time everything in the room looks new, and we are not inside a vault. As we look around we can see daylight shining in through a nearby window. This is quite clearly pre-war. A second person enters the room carrying a clip-board. They sit down opposite us and introduce themselves, saying that they will be conducting the "interview". They then ask if they can confirm a few details, and we are led through the character generation process. We select our gender, race, physical appearance, and finally our name. The interviewee then completes the greeting, and we are given a few reassurances as well as mention of a research programme. Our current location is then revealed. We are inside the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The screen fades to white...

The next scene fades in, and we are in what looks like an army training facility. There are a few other would-be soldiers in the room as well as several members of army personnel. One of the officers approaches us and engages in conversation. We are then led through to a physical training area, where we will be given an opportunity to practice various movement controls such as crouching, jumping and climbing. Either during or after this process, we will select values for each of our seven primary stats. Most likely, the training would consist of seven stages, one for each stat. After this, we are led into another area and given basic non-vats weapon training. We get to use a number of ranged weapons, as well as engaging in hand-to-hand and melee combat. There will no doubt be the inclusion of aim-down-sights when using ranged weapons outside of vats, and the combat system will likely be much closer to that of a full-blown FPS. Finally we are led out through another door, and the screen again fades to white...

The third scene fades in, and this time we are in conversation with somebody at what looks like a social gathering or event. Discussion is made of the ongoing state of world affairs, and it becomes clear that the person we are talking to is known to us through our time training in the army. It would also seem that we haven't seen this individual for some time. They ask us what we've been up to since the training. This leads us into the next stage of character creation, where we select our specialist/tagged skills and our traits. We are then asked if we ever managed to settle down, and through various dialogue choices, we identify the kind of person we would perhaps be interested in. Our friend then suggests, possibly involving a speech check of some kind, that they may be able to help us out. At this stage we are introduced to the person who will later become our spouse/partner as per the events shown in the trailer. Their appearance and other characteristics would be based on the dialogue choices we made in the previous conversation. The screen once again fades to white...

Before the final part of the tutorial, we are given a transition screen with various glimpses of events including our couple posing for the photograph we see at the start of the trailer, the introduction of our child into the family, and the increasing global tension as portrayed with images of newspaper headlines. Eventually the screen fades in again, and we are awoken by our spouse/partner who has just received some alarming news. We go into the kitchen and switch on the radio. The announcer tells us that the outbreak of global war is now imminent, and that martial law has been imposed. We also hear mention of vault-tec, and we find out that our family has secured a place in one of the vaults, namely vault 111. From one of the bedrooms, we hear a baby crying. We follow our spouse into the room as they proceed to pick the baby up and comfort them. We also hear a dog barking.

The radio broadcasts become increasingly more worrying, and the conversation turns to the subject of preparing for the worst. Our protagonist then proceeds to carry out a small number of objectives, perhaps involving other members of the community. There is an increased military presence in the town, and one of the soldiers tells everybody to remain calm and to return to their homes until further notice. We go back to the house where the rest of our family are waiting. A few essential items have been packed ready to bring to the vault, and we wait in anticipation for further news.

Within a short time, the radio announcer confirms our worst fears. Nuclear detonations are being reported across the country. The sky is suddenly filled with the sound of air-raid sirens, and the family dog starts to bark loudly and runs out of the house. There is no time to grab our belongings. We run outside, and begin making our way towards the vault. We hear a thundering noise, and a vertibird sweeps overhead. We see many people in a state of panic, gathering up belongings and filling their cars. Others are running towards the park that leads to the vault entrance. A tank can also be seen rolling across the street in front of us, partially blocking the way ahead.

We eventually arrive at the vault gates and push our way through the crowd of people towards the soldier at the front. We confirm our identity and are let through. We make our way round and up towards the vault entrance. There are a small number of other civilians, as well as a vault security guard and another individual wearing a lab coat, possibly a vault-tec scientist or maybe a doctor. He is holding a clip-board. There is also a soldier in power armor guarding the controls for the huge circular vault access lift. The scientist gives notice to the soldier that all subjects are now present, and the soldier begins to unlock the controls to the access lift. Why did the scientist refer to us as subjects?

A sudden blinding flash is quickly followed by a nuclear fireball reaching up towards the sky in the distance. We brace ourselves as a powerful blast wave is thrown outwards in the direction of the vault at incredible speed, the mushroom cloud expanding upwards behind it. And then the blast wave hits. We are thrown to the ground, our body feeling like it's being torn apart. We realise that we are still able to move, although the high winds are keeping us pinned down. We look around to see our family a short distance away from us, they are not moving. Behind us, we hear the scientist shouting, he crawls towards the lift access controls and pushes the huge metal lever. The lift beneath us begins to move and we are being carried down towards the vault door. The scientist clambers onto the lift, and as it begins its descent, the piercing sound of the winds above us becomes unbearable. The lift comes to a halt, and we see the scientist push a large red button next to the vault door. As the door swings into life, we notice that the scientist is also injured, although how badly is hard to tell.

We both go inside and the door is sealed shut. We see the scientist limp over towards a nearby railing, clutching his side. It is clear that we are also badly injured. Our whole body feels numb and our head is spinning. We try to take in the magnitude of what has just occurred, but the physical and emotional impact proves to be too great. We lose consciousness and fall to the floor. Screen fades to black...

**

The next section would bring us into the main game. We wake up in a cryochamber somewhere deeper inside the vault. We hear a siren, and an automated voice warning of a system failure. As we exit the chamber, we find that we have some kind of device - obviously a pipboy - attached to our left wrist, and our clothes are tattered and worn. We are briefly introduced to the mechanics of the pipboy, vats combat will be introduced once we are outside. After a quick search, we find a blue armored jumpsuit and a pistol inside the overseer's office. We also find a skeleton on the ground, looks like the scientist didn't make it. But the skeleton looks like its been there for a very long time. Inside the office, we find a terminal. On the terminal are details of ongoing research conducted over several months. There are also references to something called the Institute, and we quickly discover that all of the potential vault dwellers had attended the same research project that we did back at MIT. It would also seem that this was in some way connected to our being accepted for a place in the vault. The last entry is an unlock code for the vault door. We select this, and are told that the door controls have now been activated. As we make our way towards the control panel, a communication comes in over the vault's PA system. It is from the institute.

Thus opens the main quest. We realise that it is probably not safe to stay here, and so we access the vault door controls and make our way outside. Just before we leave, we are given a final opportunity to modify any of our stats. When we arrive at the surface, we are shocked to see just how much the world around us has changed. Who knows how many years we're been down there, or how we have survived for so long. We still need answers, but the first thing we must now do is search for signs of other survivors...

» Thu Nov 26, 2015 7:20 pm

Well given that they more or less deliberately leaked Dishonored 2 with what is clearly a faked "rehearsal", I suspect at best its going to be a split press conference.