Really. :goodjob:

I never once implied the expanse be "pure nothingness". :shrug:

Often I rewrite a line to impart my meaning in a better way (or at least think so ); I also will usually Correct spelling errors that I find, and will very often append rather than create double (or post every other post).

:foodndrink:

I too think Vehicles would be neat, but at the same time they'd also take away from exploring, if anything would be added I'd suggest a Motorbike, that you cant get until after 2/3rds of the game have been completed, or should I say 2/3rds of the Main Storyline. I think Encounters would still be avaialbe while on it, say a Super Mutant could knock you off your bike.

A Question here is, would your Vehicle need repairs if you get attacked while on it a lot? I would think so, since Gear and Weapons need repairs as well. Unlike those though, the Vehicle would require Parts found all over the map to repair it, since Armor required Like Armor, you couldnt repair a Bike with a Bike unless you were near one, and it would make more sense to repair it with Parts.

Fuel would be another thing, as I take it, the cars and motorcycles, and bullet cars in F3 run on Nuclear power, the Fuel would likely be the same for the one used, but how would you re-fuel it? Uless the Bike were say a preserved model from 200 years ago? Or we could just toss out the idea of fueling the bike altogether. If it used Nuclear power I think you could find reserve tanks throughout the map. That would be one solution.

If a Jeep, or Buggy were used they could have a storage area in them to store things.

How would it take away from exploring? I would say it would facilitate even more exploring, especially if the game world is as big as we want it to be...I consider it an alternative to fast travel.

In FO 2, the car was fueled with the same ammo as the energy weapons.

I'm thinking there should be a badarse dune buggy with a minigun on top (think Mad Max)...give a good use for your followers...

Honestly I'd not be thrilled about a car, bus, horsecarriage or whatever. Maybe if I could have Fawkes push me around in a stroller I'd go for it. He could make engine sounds too. That I would like.

Maybe my concept of procedural linking terrain is different from Gizmo's, or everyone is just misunderstanding what he's talking about; but what I have in mind when I think of using procedurally-generated terrain is to increase the size of the world map and lower the density of pre-set special locations.

It would be easier if I had my tablet with me, so I could link to a picture illustrating this, but the movers won't get here until the end of the month, so I'm stuck with the wife's laptop until then. But here's what I had in mind when I thought of Gizmo's suggestion:

Just for the sake of illustration, let's take the Fallout 3 worldmap as an example of the total pre-defined area in the game. We know that they had originally started out with a smaller worldmap, and then expanded it to fit all of the content they were creating; and even adding in places up to the last minute. There's probably a number of locations that were already created, but they just didn't have time to fit into the existing worldmap. For the concept of adding procedural terrain into the game, let's imagine if the Fallout 3 worldmap were cut into pieces and spread apart a bit. What I had in mind wouldn't be as large as the Fallout 1 worldmap, but a happy medium between the two. You'd have a number of pre-defined locations; and between those would be areas that procedurally define themselves as you travel through them between the important locations.

It wouldn't be empty, though (because then, what would be the point?) This where the random encounters would take place, as well as where you'd find a number of other places to explore and come across. It'd just be a way to expand the playable area without having to pre-define every square inch of the world map. Basically, as if you'd split the Fallout 3 worldmap into pieces, and filled in the intervening space with more "stuff." Sure, it take up some design resources, but fewer than you'd think, actually.

Anyway, it's probably not going to happen. But, it would give them a reason to add vehicles into the game; which I know is something a lot of people want. Because the fact is that they're not going to add vehicles unless there's a compelling reason to do so - and that's not going to happen unless the world map gets a bit bigger. Anyway, that's what I had in mind for this. Not just an excuse to add 30 miles of nothing that you have to walk through for arbitrary reasons of just making the game bigger - but as a way to add more content into the world map and stretch out the density a bit more.

I'd imagine that driving by something, instead of walking past it, would reduce the likelihood that you'd discover some place. I see lots more on my bike than I do when I drive and just zip past everything.




My choice would be for one of those tricycles. Souped up with streamers in the handlebars and pulling a red wagon for Dogmeat to ride in or to haul loot. I have to admit there's much to be said for Fawkes pushing me in a stroller, though (especially with sound effects).

A tricycle would be aces. Especially if your companions could ride one too. Dogmeat too. The three horseman of the apocalypse on red racers... Wroum wroum !

here is a suggestion ... BUY A NEW ENGINE THAT SUPPORTS ..CLOTH SIM AND HAS SOME DECENT LIGHTNING ... HIRE SOME MOCAP ACTORS TOO

OH AND HERE IS THE LIST WITH THE ENGINES TO HELP YOU OUT WITH THAT .. SOME ARE REALLY CHEAP AND A LOT BETTER THAN THE GAMEBRYO

http://www.moddb.com/engines

I still think that Tricycles and Strollers top that.

LOL ... and i think that with the new engine there could be even more possibilities then just your Tricycles and Strollers

http://www.moddb.com/engines/cryengine-3

nothing will top this

haha

That is it... and one way to do it that springs to mind are defined zones of wasteland, where you leave a hand made set-piece (like a town), and enter an expanse of auto-generated wasteland (that looks the same as what you see in FO3), eventually coming across areas like wasted industrial parks and derelict bombed out suburbs, apartment blocks, strip malls, later coming to a major shopping mall (this could be a set-piece, hand done with quest NPC's and inhabitants ~or not, and could be an auto-generated interior "dungeon" with forgotten loot of several kinds, or just something special hidden inside ~or not). Trek some more (towards your intended destination), leaving the mall, and off into more wasteland, more junk yards, more crater valleys, more apartments, houses, drive-ins, ghost towns, warehouses, dirt roads, subways, Always with the threat of encounters both animal, humanoid, and environmental as Radiation zones could pepper the land with potentially lethal exposure in some places. Have a map that's 100 square miles instead of 16, and always of course, the option to fast travel to locations you've been briefed about ("Here let me put this on your map..."), or places you've researched or downloaded information about.

Have an encounter in Fast travel, and the game pulls you out of it into the auto generated wastes, where (if you survive the fight) you can continue the trek in real time, or fast travel again to get where you want.

*Another point is that the game need not really retain all the information about the wastes indefinitely, because you'll not likely come that way again ~ever; This works to advantage as Special encounters cannot be returned to.

Yeah, I think that'd work.

Off-hand, another advantage that comes to mind is that it might be a bit easier to work in random encounters in that manner, as well. (As I'd imagine it'd be easier to incorporate a random encounter into an area that's generated to accomodate the encounter, as opposed to plopping the character out of fast-travel into an already-defined area and trying to come up with an algorithm that makes sure enemies and such don't spawn into a wall or into an inaccesible area, etc. For example, if I hit a random encounter while fast-travelling from Rivet City to someplace up-river - you'd have to make sure the encounter - and the player - don't spawn inside of the geometry of the ship itself or at the bottom of the river...)

Or they could just use id tech 5.

To be fair, Fallout 1 (and 2) had the advantage of you blasting through those miles quickly (Realtime).
Though I agree that a bit more spacing and the suggested procedural terrain could be quite nice, one has to be careful not to make the maps to large without plenty of things to do and some way to traverse it quicker.

Not to be nit-picky... but I don't quite get what you mean by "to be fair" ~(even though that's the expression). Fallout had the time go by in hours & days, FO3 could have done the http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/3826/maptc4.swf itself. In the previous version, your wasteland conflicts might be in open wastes, but might be in ruined city, or near cave(s).

Had FO3 done it the way its been mentioned, players would have the option to cross the wastes in realtime or fast travel (similar to Arcanum in a way), and the risks could be similar as well ~Though the incentive should lie in the real time passage.

I hope Fallout 4 has more realistic burn damage. I can burn something dead with my Flamer, but it's not even scorched.

Seems to me that having a vehicle available would dramatically increase the interest in exploring. I think that more folks would enjoy exploring with a vehicle, and for us hardcoe explorers, who knows what can be found in areas not accessible by vehicles?

If we were to have vehicles, I think it might (possibly) be a fun mechanic to need to keep it well-maintained. There was a documentary I saw some time ago (can't remember the name; but it was from that same guy who did all the Civil War docs back in the day,) about the first cross-country road trip; and they were pretty much breaking down every day. (Since at the time most of the roads weren't paved, or in very good condition. Not to mention that cars weren't really built for that sort of abuse.)

It seems to me that anyone who's actually able to cobble together a car from parts that have been degrading for 200 years is still going to have a lot of trouble keeping the thing running. Judging from the condition of what's left of the roads, you're going to be off-road a good portion of the time. Having a vehicle probably means a constant search for spare parts, fuel, etc.

I wouldn't want something like that to be terribly complicated, or something that overly punishes players for obtaining a vehicle, however. Probably something closer to how your equipment degrades as you use them; and then you have to combine spare parts to keep it's condition up. It could even be kind of an interesting sidequest, getting a working vehicle in the first place. ie, you find a mechanic who's life's dream is to build a car; but who needs you to search out specific parts from around the wasteland. Once you have that car up and running, he can either teach you the ins and outs of vehicle maintenance (if you have a high enough repair skill,) or come along with you for the ride - to keep the car maintained. You could even come across upgrades for your vehicle during your travels, etc.

Anyway, that's my two cents on the subject. I still think that there's really no point in having a vehicle at all, unless they expand the world map a bit; or have some other compelling reason to make it something that's actually useful. In Fallout 3, I never really felt like it was something I really needed - and realistically, exploring the Wastes at that scale would mean driving for a few seconds, coming across something interesting, getting out of the car to explore, getting back into the car and driving for a few more seconds, etc... It'd be a neat thing to see in the game, but if it really doesn't bring anything useful to the table, then I think we're better off putting those resources towards something more important.

So you mean kinda like the little quest you did to get the highwayman?

Yes and the playable area encompasses just some few dozen screens or 'maps' of smallish size. The overland map is an illusion. There is nothing there.. just one of 4 or 5 screens that repeat ad nauseum.

It's nice to bandy about buzzwords we really don't comprehend like 'procedural', but it's not really feasible. You think you are the first person to stumble on the idea? You think devs haven't thought of it before, or even implemented it? Well, obviously you know they have.. but not for quite some time.. for good reason. It just doesn't bring enough to the table to make the effort worth it.

And as much as some people complain about worlds feeling 'auto-generated' as opposed to hand-touched.. I can't imagine many being happy with disposing of that hand-touching in exchange for miles of emptiness.

There's a game that has what you want though.. we call it 'the desert'.

You must have missed the point of the Overland map.


~As for Procedural, speak for yourself ...
Click the blue link in my SIG ~its been there all year. The link is a fan made DOOM3 mod that includes procedural cities. Now if a bunch of guys can do that in their spare time, and as well as what's shown in that clip... A professional studio can certainly do the same, and a lot better (and have).

**The reason that I believe it would work in this instance, is that the result need not look like finished "lived in" housing and settlements; All it needs to look like is bombed rubble, and the shells of past structures ~essentially just "cover" for a gun fight. (Of course some areas could be a bit better than that, and have areas that were fine tuned locations), but what they would be depicting is in fact just like those '4 or 5' scenes that FO1 needed to plausibly depict the entire countryside.

*** Neat links I've found:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d2-PtK4F6Y&feature=player_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnWUp9JnLyc&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2aKHqzSQBs&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzRWpkTR8gU

****I may have just found a new future hobby project.

I don't understand why the word "procedural" is thrown out and people immediately assume it to mean "empty", while examples have been thrown out to prove the opposite...if anything, I'd be worried about the game world becoming too repetitive...but that's something that could be solved with a good amount of special encounters and set pieces

Indeed. I wouldn't mind at all a map system like the originals with "Cities" the size of the DC area or smaller as the "set pieces". Special encounters woulds also be set pieces. encounters could be handled but being semi-set piece aswell. Lets say you have a series of predetermined layouts with the "backgrounds" whatever environment your stopped is in. With a set pattern as the routes and spawn points.

What I meant is that the World Map in Fallout 1 & 2, made the travel-time fast and easy (ingame it took hours and days, but in real time it was flipping fast). If you are generating procedural wastes with in general as much time progressing between encounters as in FO1&2 you have quite a bit of walking around to do. And not much else but walking, which gets old pretty fast when you are not going past those miles fast.
This is all assuming you are going to keep it like Fallout 3 (FPS, no world map).

A return of the World Map would be nice, but you would have to have a much larger area, preferable with markers allowing access to area's that allow the same kind of exploration as Fallout 3.
The world map would be a made up of settlements and special interest areas which are larger areas with multiple points of interest.
Which from your last few post is what you seemed to be getting at.