Why is a mandate though? They started as military remnants from Mariposa. They do not accept recruits and only allow their own children to be members. How then can they be so far reaching? I like the BoS, but they should be nothing more than they were in Fallout 2. Enclave should be dead and gone; they shouldn't have even made an appearance in Fallout 3. Super Mutants shouldn't have even been in Fallout 3. And the existence of Ghouls even in Fallout 2 has been considered a mistake; they shouldn't have existed beyond Fallout 1. At this point it's regrettable, but it is what it is. **Unless you mean BoS as in the MWBoS or Lyons Brotherhood? I have trouble labeling them as BoS.

It was my understanding that the major events of Tactics were considered canon and that the work itself is semi-canon. Unless this has somehow changed in the past year? Is that article you posted considered the now accepted explanation? If they decided to change their minds on that, then sorry that I was misinformed.

I hadn't considered the point about "meta-humans" spreading. That gives me some hope that Bethesda only used them as an introduction method rather than plans of using them in every game.

I think the developers will actually take a lot of inspiration from the past games.

You are probably thinking of what Emil said.

http://fallout.gamepedia.com/Fallout_canon

"Fallout Tactics and its tabletop component, Fallout: Warfare, were disregarded by Bethesda Softworks during the development of Fallout 3.^[1] However, some high level events were referenced in the game. As explained by Emil Pagliarulo to our founder, this means that at best, the high level events are canon.^[2]"

Note the use of the phrase "at best"

That's precisely what I was referring to. Thank you for correcting me and I apologize that I was misinformed on the matter. **I also appreciate you providing links! I'm currently doing my homework assignments for classes while discussing this so it's difficult for me to go searching.

The BoS being a mandate is somewhat sarcastic. They've been in every Fallout game to date (both canon, semi canon, and non-canon) and very much are the identity of Fallout to the gaming sphere. Whether it fits the context or not, the BoS WILL be in Fallout 4 simply because they are the most iconic, recognizable, and representative figures to the Fallout Franchise.

I can't exactly blame you for saying what you did. Even I say it all the time, becuase it's simply easier to work on the hypothetical given to us by Emil.

Also, the OTHER Fallout wiki says ts semi-canon, and that wiki is the one that Google brings up first, so........ its not exactly hard to see why people think that.

Is it your honest belief that I wouldn't know these?

I doubt it.
First off it was a GURPS adventure with GURPS in the title; that's more than token.
Secondly, the early game was even closer than what ultimately shipped. Yes it became token; and then unspoken token.
These are people that will setup PnP campaigns and play the proposed game at the table.

The quote, "just enough GURPS material to make the GURPSers happy. The game comes first." is exactly what it sounds like, but you are imposing your own min/max assumption. You don't know what theirs is; and I recall that even the aimed shot once had http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/AimedShot_zpsb74moveu.jpg and looked quite a bit GURPS-centric.
*They were GURPSers too. It wouldn't have surprised me at all had the tagged it 'for GURPS players by GURPS players', if they had released it with the license intact.

Now FO3 and FO4 need not be GURPS-centric, but the series had that as its core, and a sequel should always retain the series core. If you look at TES, every TES game retains the series core; but if you look at FO3... its core is TES. I want FO4's core to be Fallout, or at least have scant ancestry to it. I didn't see that in FO3.

In Fallout, they were an isolationist cult ~two week's walk into the salt flats; an optional encounter. In Fallout 2, they were... one dude; (and a special encounter the with its second half disabled).

Tactics was a Fallout themed RTS with a need for asset factions; everything would have been in it; especially the BOS. It got flak for not being a Fallout sequel.

Except FO1 and 2 clearly made all this as jokes and wild wasteland wacky. FO3 has morons make a town around a nuke with radiation seeping out of it for the real and the cool.

And Tactics is canon, it is mentioned in 3 and more than likely NV. Deal with it.

That Todd Howard interview is a year and four months before the release of the game. Meaning it is irrelevant. Game trumps dev interview. Just like there no werewolves in Skyrim, right?

They should not be, because they are the most iconic, recognizable and representative figures of the Fallout franchise.

Bethesda should show people that Fallout is not Brotherhood of Steel, but a universe they are just a part of. What better, more radical and more formidable way than to leave them out? It's not about the BoS, it's about the identity and future of the franchise.

Fanservice is the doom of creativity. If some dev thinks I'd like or respect them by simply serving me known stuff (disregarding everything but nostalgia), by trying to treat me like a dog or something, they lose my respect the very second I notice that. There are many examples in the Fallouts.

PS: Of course the Brotherhood should appear if they need to. But don't serve us yet another chapter/subchapter somewhere unrelated because BoS thought is was a good idea to conveniently and of course completely randomly bless the exact location where the game plays out with their attendance.

Not if they want to keep the more casual fanbase that wants catchy key concepts to identify, rather than a lore tome that demands a full understanding of it.
There are players that think it is set in the 1950's.

Which is the better elevator pitch:

• Fallout is set in a retro future 1950's with these Power Armored guys called the Brotherhood of Steel, and giant mutants, and radioactive ghouls.
  or...
• Fallout is set in a future world prediction of the 1950's; not the 50's, but what they thought would happen in the future; complete with their atomic ignorance, and worst fears made real.

We know which is better; but which is better at hooking a stranger's interest in it ~in line at McDonalds?

Drop this dualism, it's false.

You don't need to understand anything but the game you're playing. The integration into the greater context of the world, the coherence of the Fallout-universe, is task of the developers and doesn't need to be the focus of the game, nor to be comprehended. If you want to do so, fine, but the game needs focus and depth inwards, not outwards.

You're not misinformed, AP is just cherry picking an outdated TH interview. FO3 devs clearly looked at FOT, which is evident in Enclave PA looking nearly identical to FOT PA. Games trump dev comments, especially outdated comments.

Ive stood right next to the nuke and only gotten radiation from the normally irradiated water. Also, you really think the entire thing wasn't made to be a joke? This is Fallout we are taking about here, the series based off of making [censored] cheesy, jokey, 1950's B-movie scifi fics into games.

Already proven why those lines don't make Tactics canon. Deal with it(see, two can play at that game, and it gets no one nowhere).

-Given how you, self-admittedly, talk about games you haven't played.,..... I honestly wouldn't have been surprised about it if you didn't or not. Your comment however slanted to not, so, I took a shot in the dark.

-By that logic then not even Fallout 1 was ture to the "core" of Fallout, as they took te supposed "core" and made it token. At the point in which you have defined parameters to which none of the games in the series fit, how do you not see that theparameters are flawed?

-You are right, it does mean what it says, and what it says is what I pointed out. There isn't some hidden double-speak there, its literally "we are only adding in as much GURPs as needed to make the people who expect a GURPs based game happy" Its literally token pandering.

-By what metric has TES kept its "core"? It certainly isn't gameplay, as Arena and Daggerfall were VASTLY different games in intended gameplay then later games in the series, not to mention Redguard, which is nothing like all the others, yet still just as much of a TES game. Hell, Morrowind basically rebooted all the lore of the series from a stock-standard D&D clone, to some pesudo eastern philosophy disguised beneath western mythos series.

And even after throwing out all of its gameplay and lore, it still remained TES. So, by what metric are you using to define "core" of the series, because the newer games have thrown out everything the original games were meant to be, from gameplay to lore.

Quite literally, the EXACT OPPOSITE is true, and always has been.

Devs can override anything shown in the game, the word of Devs is LAW when it comes to canon. anything in-game that contradicts the dev's word is either a gameplay mechanic, or an artifact from an earlier vision of the series.

This is the standard every game wiki uses.

"There's not more than cryptic one-liners about a Brohood chapter in Chicago, so you don't know that"

And thus, with me speaking for AP, this debate is at an end and will not clutter the pages to come.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

You're thinking too much. Post-apocalyptic world is where it stops. And from that, we can SHAPE EVERYTHING and yes, EVEN IN THE IMAGE OF FALLOUT!

I've stood right next to the nuke and shot at it during the sermon; and was ignored.
(Tried the flamer too; nuthin' doin.)

I don't have Redguard; I've never played it.

Every TES game I've seen has seemed focused on generating a reactive 3D sandbox Tamriel, where the player can wander around doing whatever they want. That's been the core of every TES game I've played. Other than that, the [series] game got worse, as the graphics got better. Every TES game has furthered the [my perceived] TES core.

And that's what happened to Fallout series, once they got it.

Given that most people don't think it would explode ever, shooting it is just as dangerous as shooting the walls for [censored] and giggles to them.

Have you considered maybe replaying Arena and Daggerfall? And no, Morrowind did not reboot the lore of the series, Daggerfall did. Morrowind simply expanded on it. I recommend you take a trip down to the TES Lore forum.

Played them just a couple months ago m8.

And yes, it did, everyone agrees on it. Morrowind expanded on nothing, even throwing out Daggerfall's epic "King Edward" which defined quite a bit of lore of that game. Also, I frequently post on the Imperial Library, a far better forum then here, where people still don't know what happened to the Dwemer, and think Serana was pre-Alessia.

Many of the books in Daggerfall have made their way into Morrowind as well as later games. Daggerfall set the stage for what the Elder Scrolls would become as well as fleshed out the world of which Morrowind heavily expanded upon. There's a few things they've taken out or changed, but nobody threw out anything.

Just looking at the book list in Daggerfall, most of them are in Morrowind actually.

When Dev comment comes POST game release, that may be the case. Unfortunately for you, that Todd Howard comment was from July, 2007. So, sorry for you luck, but it doesn't mean squat. Just like werewolves, yo.

Now, if a dev wants to retcon what appears in an actual game, tjen their game was a piece of crap.

Most people are not the pastor and congregation worshiping it the time.

I agree with evlbastrd. The interview with Todd saying Fallout Tactics wasn't considered was before Fallout 3 even came out. Fallout 3 has two references to Brotherhood in Chicago which would point to Fallout Tactics reference. Which means things changed after that interview. Fallout Tactics might also be referenced in Fallout New Vegas with Caesar talking about Brotherhood in the East that have little knowledge of their past. Which could reference Tactics and the Midwestern Brotherhood still being in Colorado. We also have another developer saying that some parts (the main parts) could still be canon.

Now does this mean everything from Tactics will be canon? I don't believe it does but it doesn't mean Tactics has been completely disregarded by Bethesda. That some of it can be used for future projects.

Everyone involved since the profits started, has been thinking too much. Fallout was a one-shot GURPs campaign setting; a world with a kind of logic to it, but one that functions as a set piece for the adventure; it falls apart when over-scrutinized, and when people attempt to explain and justify it.

They devs had to explain it to new people on their own team... Bethesda's was an entirely new team, and the setting's fidelity shows.

Actually no, if you look at the UESP list of books in Daggerfall, less then 50% of them were in Morrowind.

Out of the 60 books in Daggerfall, only 10 of them made it into Morrowind, Oblivion, or Skyrim, with about 6-7 more getting revised versions with somewhat different text as well. So not even 30% of all of Daggerfall's books made it into Morrowind. 30% =/= most.

And yeah, Kirkbride threw out basically everything but general names for things when he made Morrowind. That was actually one of the biggest complaints about Morrowind from the Daggerfall fans.

You mean the people who WANT the bomb to explode so they can experience atomization, the thing they believe is what their god wants?

Well, I'm not going to spend time counting books on UESP, but I know Daggerfall didn't have that many books to begin with as opposed to Morrowind, which as I've stated, simply expanded upon the lore that began with Daggerfall.

I'm sorry did I say "most", I could've swore I said something else, like many, hmm

But anyway, we have digressed, so let's continue with the main point of discussion.