I've been coming up with a bunch of ideas for a potential Fallout game set in the way future (~2340s) revolving around the growing tensions between two very strong empires, the Khan Empire and Imperium (the successor state to Caesar's Legion).

The Khan Empire would be a massive and decentralized nation, with land reaching from eastern Washington and Oregon to western Iowa, control Wyoming, Nebraska, southern Idaho, and southern and central South Dakota. While most of the empire is under the rule of a governor appointed by the Great Khan (emperor/empress), there would also be several autonomous regions that are basically separate countries. One I came up with is called New Utah (northern Utah and southeastern Idaho) which is made up of various New Canaanite, Dead Horse, and Sorrow communities that fled southern Utah during Legion campaigns that happened in the late 2280s and early 2290s. I think that the current Great Khan should be an elderly Melissa Lewis, going by the adopted name of Khutulun (to seem more culturally Mongolian).

After the Legion's defeat at Hoover Dam (by House) and the death of Caesar, Lanius takes over and begins campaigns into Utah as a way of trying to continue to keep the Legion's war machine alive. This is decently successful until Caesar Lanius is killed by a fire bomb in battle. There is no clear line of succession beyond Lanius, whose claim was already a little shakey. Lucius declares himself Caesar in Flagstaff but many disagree with the idea. Almost every high ranking member of the Legion believes they have a claim to being Caesar and most travel to their home regions to gather armies to try to push their claim (like Aurelius of Phoenix, who goes to Phoenix and Antony who goes to Denver). Caesar Lucius sends his armies down to Phoenix and orders Aurelius to stand down and, when he refuses, the army attacks. Aurelius's troops are defeated but the tension has been released and many parts of the Legion rise up in open revolt. Throughout the rest of the 2290s and the entire 2300s and 2310s this war rages on. Lucius maintained the largest army within the Legion but there are still sizable opposing armies. Vulpes and the Frumentarii maintained allegiance towards Lucius but have been operating independently, perpetuating the war and strategically getting rid of people close to Lucius to keep him reliant on them. One day Lucius discovers that Vulpes was behind the assassination of one of his closest allies and has the Frumentarii cast out, executing most that aren't undercover. Vulpes escapes to New Mexico where he finds who he considers to be the perfect heir to Caesar, a relatively unknown legionaries from New Mexico who is a capable leader and has some physical similarities to Caesar. With Vulpes's help, he brands himself as Caesar's son, renames himself Augustus, and begins to accumulate a following, with Vulpes strategically assassinating any political or military leader who could threaten him. In the mid-2320s, Augustus defeats Lucius and successfully takes over the Legion as a puppet for Vulpes. He sets about rebuilding the Legion, which had been absolutely torn apart by decades of war, declaring it an empire named Imperium (still based out of Flagstaff) instead of a wandering military. With a strong leader, the Legion soon stabilized and began to grow as a threat to the Khan Empire to its north.

The game would center around the conflict but would have notable differences from NV because of how either way you're supporting an authoritarian empire. I think the civil war is absolutely necessary for the Legion to give different areas more of their own regional identity, since the Khan Empire will have a lot of that.

One thing is important to me. A growing abundance of plantlife.

Nature will survive and adapt better than any living creature or mankind will. Without plantlife, there can be no living creatures to survive.

I have always loved power armor, make it customizable, adding parts, different,stats,abilities,etc. Liked reloading in NV. Also I hate to say it more advlt like witcher series you know what i mean, at least a little more nudity. Thermal scopes and NV googles. Dusters. Best missions were hilarious too. Gunz more customizable gun runners exp pack was nice, bozar came back.. Funny robot sidekick like in anacronox or borderlands. More open world like skyrim. Goodluck. Oh and a big vault door that opens real cool.

Two more things my own customizable vault and my own vtol to fly. An elevator landing pad to my vault.

personally, I would like to see some more in depth crafting like skyrim had. I mean the work bench and ammo loader are great, but I cant be the only one who felt that it was so hard to scavenge materials and even buy them. but the leather armor you could make was a cool thing just took so much in the way of materials it would be nice to be able to have the character learn to make forged metal armor or reliably make leather armor with some slight not major ability modifiers.

easy stuff like making grommets in the pants allow more flexibility and gives you plus one to stealth or lets you move a little faster. but I think vehicles should be out if the map wont be big enough for them to be practical since even horses in tes are largely optional. and most of those maps are ridiculous big traveling from falkreath to whiterun is only like ten minutes.

The Legion wasn't absolute black. More of a dark gray.

Yeah slavers, crucifiers, ... are only dark grey....

It's not the words you should judge people, it's what about they are doing.

Yeah, and also same story with russian!



Grrrrrrrr...... I hate them, FOREVER!

Ah, what they are doing. The Powder Gangers were prisoners doing forced labor for the NCR. The Courier gets sent out by both Mr. House and the NCR to kill people. Some of these murders you can justify, others you can't. The point is that these three different factions are essentially doing the same things and in their minds what they are doing is perfectly justified and even moral. None of these three factions give a royal rat's ass for the people of the Mohave, they are only interested in what they can take from the Mohave. They are all cutthroats, the Legion is only more open and in your face about it.

I hope devs will design F4 in a way The Pitt is designed - new and original factions and creatures, no SM, no Enclave, no BoS, not even ghouls. Trogs are a very good example of that (just like yao guai and mirelurks). Pitt also has a very interesting story and forcing player to go to a location like Steeleyard almost naked, desperately hoping to survive, scrapping for weapons and ammo, was a great move - it finally added at least a little challenge (and not in the stupid way like in Point Lookout - tribals kicking your power armoured ass with axes...)

I hope that Bethesda tried very different things with their dlc to check what will be the response of fanbase. Fortunatelly, The Pitt is rated high, so I have some hope that F4 will be like that at least in some aspects.

The Legion basically wants to push across the Mojave and completely destroy it, replacing everything inside of it with more of them, just like they did with the many tribes they rolled over out east. The Legion would enslave all of the women in the Mojave to breed more soldiers, and the men that do not turn themselves into more manpower for their armies would simply die. The NCR may want to make the Mojave a part of a unequal federation, Mr. House may be sitting in his ivory tower without the slightest care for those that suffer outside his walls, but the Legion is far more insidious. A Legion victory would be something far worse than Imperialism, it would be genocide.

Much like the Thalmor who want to conquer all of Tamriel and destroy all non-elven civilization inside of it, the Legion makes a great bad guy that you can never feel bad about gunning down. Combat is fun in these games, and having a major faction of baddies exerting their influence that the PC can try to stop and turn the tide against is a great idea. I have a feeling that with New Vegas and Skyrim both having these elements, that Fallout 4 will probably have something similar. Much like in Skyrim, I also suspect that the grey will come from different approaches to dealing with the black.

I agree with AwesomePossum on how to treat moral considerations regarding the main factions. A moral dilemma is much more interesting if you bring balance to the good and evil that serving a certain faction could bring. The good of each faction should be the incentive to help them, not the 'even worse' of it's 'opponents'.

It's really a matter of presentation which I'll exemplify on the basis of a possible synth dilemma in Fallout 4 (the question if a synth is to be granted the rights of a human or wether s/he actually 'is' human is not a moral dilemma by the way) as follows:

In another post.

That's not exactly what they want.

The Thalmor seek to kill all the races of man, for their belief in Talos gives him power. With the races of men dead, and Talos weakened, they will then pull Talos out of the mythic, removing his grasp on the time dragon Akatosh, which keeps Akatosh, and by extension Mudus, stable. With Talos, and the sons of Talos, removed, they can unbind the time dragon, and return Mundus, and by extension themselves, and all the non-human races, back into their original forms, immortal spirits with powers equal to the Daedra.

They seek to undo the prison Lorkhan created, and are actually justified in their pursuit in that they are right, but then again, TES is a universe were every contradictory creation myth is true, so everyone is equally right to the same degree.

Not wanting to get off-topic, just wanted to clear that up.

Ah, maybe we're reading different lore. Or maybe I haven't looked under the surface as much as I should have, since I play a lot more Fallout nowadays than I did Skyrim back when it was new. (Just can't say no to guns over swords).

Howdy, first time posting here. Im a really big survival horror type of fan, but i understand thats not what this game is about. However i would love there to be a more survival type aspect for harder difficulties. Scavenging every nook and cranny to find some ingredient i need to make some food or health, or just a few bullets to keep me feeling safe. Once again i know thats just my kind of thing, but i think with things like the hardcoe mode in NV, the Pitt, and Dead Money DLC show that a lot of other people like this aspect aswell, and seeing as though thats not for everybody, i think there should be some kind of option to make items much more rare and valuable and combat to be more intense.

And speaking of combat, i think it would be cool to to give Vats a tweak by combining it with a bullet time type of mechanic. As in, making time slow down but not to a complate halt, where you can still focus on which limbs or body part you want to shoot at. Come to think of it I think the Red Dead Redemptions dead eye thing is what im getting after. But im sure they can do something slightly similiar to that and still give it that cool Vats feel that we all love. Oh and by the way make people react more to being shot/ stabbed!

For survival,multiplayer or hardcoe they should look at what the moders have done with arma2 dayz mod or arma 3 overpoch. or better yet hire those people for ideas. they seem to have the formula right. just you tube it. huge fan base. I don't play them because they are buggy and menu difficult but there is something about the mods that are extremely appealing. Use that as a baseline for fallout multiplayer if it goes that way. This should be a separate game probably

Also i would like more radio stations like NV and 3 togeather would be nice. Don't change the music style that has always been perfect to me And maybe an underwater miltary base as a location just off shore. Fast travel by minisub.

I would prefer not to have things in the game that feel like vending machines. I'm thinking about the guy that's always asking for water and the gun runners robot store...even the mailbox system in NV. -things that are added more for player convenience than for enhancing the game world.

A arena like in oblivion but themed for fallout or mad max. an underground city built after the war like the dwarf city in skyrim and if there is cars please let us put weapons on them

I think that great idea that was hardcoe mode should be expanded. What we had in NV wasn't hardcoe enough. I like http://hydra-media.cursecdn.com/pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/d/d4/UI-Options-Game2.png in Pillars of Eternity (and http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Mode ways of adjusting difficulty this game has, instead of just lame "give enemies mor hp").

Don't like quest markers? Turn them off.

Don't like hints to dialogue options? Turn them off and play according to your instinct.

Don't like tutorial messages? Turn them off.

Don't like unrestricted stash? Turn it off.

Don't like combat tooltips? Turn them off.

This is how it should be done. Every player deciding for himself what exact features he wants. This way everyone - hardcoe or more casual - would be able to enjoy the game to greater extent.

I think there are four possible greater cultural phenomena (representing incentives or percieved solutions on how to overcome the problematic status quo), that would have been established in a Commonwealth of the near future (let's say 2285):

1. The chaotic approach, represented by the general populace of the Commonwealth, inadvertently fueled by the efforts of the Railroad and Institute traitors. Synths are regarded human or at least granted the same rights. They have the freedom to do as they please (within the boundaries of common law) which means they can enhance their artificial bodies with stolen technology from the Institute - thereby increasing their 'efficiency' many times over, outclassing any human contender (the human body isn't capable of withstanding or even applying the enhancements).

Although some androids want to live a peaceful life as a regular human beings, most have chosen to seize the opportunity to amass riches in the war-torn wastes of the Commonwealth - they are driven by the same emotions that humans are after all and greed is strong. Human workforces are lucky to still be in the large majority, so the economy isn't destroyed, yet sees upgraded synths on the winning end, increasing their influence, earning the mistrust of the human populace, fueling the tension. Why choose a cheap human [censored] over a synthetic six-goddess? Why pay the flawed human mercenary over the perfect synth-soldier?

This system is bound to change, the status quo can't be upheld.

2. The original approach, represented by the Institute, the only faction capable of manufacturing synthetic humans. Androids are regarded as machines, not persons. Although the malfunctioning artificial intelligence has given birth to consciousness, the Institute views this development more as a scientific breakthrough, not as a moral obligation in any way other than to ensure the obedience of the androids - a task they've unarguably failed at in the past years, despite some (rather pathetic) attemps to manage the situation.

Recent progressions led to the installation of the so-called 'REMINDER', a facility that broadcasts a constant overwrite-command in the vicinity of several miles around MIT. This command coerces androids to follow the Institute's original programming - it breaks their consciousness, even their will to flee - they don't feel enslaved. This further emphasizes the Institute's opinion on the machine nature of synths. SRB continues to hunt escaped synths throughout the rest of the Commonwealth.

3. The approach that is represented primarily by a Catholic Christian faction, which is a major power factor that originated in the wastes and seeks to end the (as they call it) sinful criminal lifestyle of the Commonwealth's populace. Synths are regarded human and granted the same rights. They may not enhance their bodies. The creation of synths is forbidden, the Institute's replication centers ought to be destroyed. To create an artificial human was a development to no good end and the result - not the discovery - should be reverted as soon as possible, the remaining synths staying the last ones of their kind.

4. The synth superiority approach. This is represented by a radical synth-led faction that views the universe itself as one great mechanism that changes due to the laws of zero and one, perfection and deficiency. They are the primary faction that seeks to free synths from the Institute and the REMINDER's influence - having ousted the now scattered Railroad from this position. They totally identify as synths and view humans as "the less advanced machines" that need to be brought down from their predominant position to make the world a better place.

The evils are easy to see with every approach. The goods is what the game should concentrate on emphasizing - they are there and they automatically disregard the alternative solutions as they're incompatible. The Subsistence of Zero and One is easily the blackest faction.

Follow New Vegas' (and the originals' as those are much the same) narrative and quest design.

Give SPECIAL and the skills much more weight on how they impact gameplay (both in and out of combat). Put the character more in charge.

Balance the content to offer more opportunities for world and NPC interaction outside combat so as to mitigate combat centriness.

Balance the amount, circumstances and opportunities for exploration and give it a point beyond being an empty and selfserving "centerpiece" of the game around which everything else is just thrown as token features.

Don't make an open world FPS with a twist, make an RPG.

That should suffice for a passable Fallout game, as far as I'm concerned.

One of the biggest additions I would like to see (some already mentioned it) , choices you, as the player, make shapes and affects the in-game world, and the way people perceive you. Referencing Fallout: New Vegas. Remember going to Helios One, going through the process of resetting the power grids, then given the choice to choose one of the few regions you could outsource the electricity to? Well, personally, it would have been great, after said region was chosen, to go there and the citizens/NCR mentions "Oh, you're the one that...." or possibly see where the electricity went, and how it helped. A dynamic world is very popular