Lack of emphasis on retroness was a core concept?

Can't say I agree with that assessment. It was an aesthetic quality, not a core concept of the game itself in my view. :shrug:

I still think that this should be a non issue, because the east and west are essentially isolated from each other and therefore the rebuilding civilizations would have developed their cultures independantly.

There were a lot of core concepts they missed, and that are missing. The peculiar retro aspect was certainly one of them IMO, but not a [relatively] major one...
I did find it very annoying myself that the Fallout setting suddenly seemed redefined as if by someone who thought. "Hey I get it, its all 50's, they're like stuck in the fifties and its all leave it to beaver and stuff, but with nukes and guns". :shrug:
*Can't say I agree with that assessment.

That's the point though. Bethesda didn't misinterpret it that way. They weren't ignorant about what the series originally was (concerning the retroness).

But they themselves decided to make a conscious change in design choice. They wanted to shift Fallout towards what they thought was a very unique concept and one which would make the series stand out amongst the various other post-apocalyptic genre games and movies. This of course, was an increased emphasis on the 1950s Atomic Age aesthetic design.

I find it was an excellent decision on their part.

I think it would help.. but only if the setting were pushed back to before or concurrent with the original game.

Less. Fallout was not set in a retro 50's, it was set in the wrecked remnants of one.

As somebody who started with Fallout 3 and worked backwards, I thought the 1950s thing was amazing, personally. Maybe if I started with F1 things would be different, but I just liked it.

I thought that Bethesda did a good job with the environmental aesthetics and I didn't feel that they departed too much from the original design in that area; my only complaint is the lack of those cool orange art deco doors from Fallout 1/2. On the other hand I found their armor/creature/weapon designs out of place, most of them didn't really mesh with the 1950s comic book world that Black Isle was shooting for; most of them just looked too modern.

Thats another thing, Fallout 3's art design felt too realistic for Fallout, something a little more comic bookish would have been very cool to see in full 3D like that.

I loved the artistic take they did with Fallout 3, it seemed to fit well with the notion that the DC wastelands would still be fairly cut off and much of what they find while struggling to rebuild with very limited to no resources - since the DC area in the Fallout universe was hit very hard and destroyed much of the area while ruining many chances of nature being able to replenish for a long time without an improved water supply.

The DC wastelands doesn't have someone like Mr. House and the NCR around, the few people who didn't turn out like the raiders did the best they could with what little was left after the war. The Bortherhood of Steel tried to help, but they aren't exactly big on the sharing of technology and that hasn't helped with the slow rebuilding efforts. The same with the Enclave.
And the 50s feel was great, so retro and corny in areas. Like the whole proganda thing that was still going around with some.

It was refreshing and a change from most games that try to show the aftermath of events like the Fallout Universe, other games usually try to go for a more near future look which becomes pretty boring very quickly. Fallout 3's 50s feel felt much more fitting when you consider that in the 1950s there was a lot of proganda and fear over the Russians and the fear of a nuclear war, the government, the US government in particular, tried to keep the people in a constant state of fear by using scare tactics like the Russians being the big bad and that nuclear war could happen at any time, that way they made big profits from people's fear.
Scare tactics are still used to this day to make big profits over common sense.

With the Fallout universe it made a lot of sense that the state of fear was kept around for a very long time, that state of fear led to social progress not really developing because the government of the Fallout US wanted to keep the society in a so-called stasis that would develop in a few areas in regards of technology, but keep the people from developing a stronger self awareness and common sense about the lies they were being told.
By the time of the war, the population was so brain washed that when a real threat arrived they reacted badly as each country almost completely destroyed one another in a push to control the remaining resources.

Now centuries after the war, humanity is struggling to rebuild and much of what's left is still from a very 1950's centric era and is bound to shape the way they think about things. Factions like the Enclave are bound to use that to their advantage to keep people in fear while having a firm hand over things.
Social and technological progress after being almost wiped out can be slow going, more so if that progress is being controlled by those who want to shape it to their exact liking.

I thought they did a great job of that.

Also agreed here (sort of); Modern designs [IMO] are fine, they just need that 'pop 50's mind-set' to them. I'd have no problems with finding an http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/trpod.jpg player in the ruble (as long as it seemed appropriate).

I can't fully agree here, but I understand it. I would have preferred the ghouls look like the http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/compare-1.jpg, and not http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20101229215018/fallout/images/8/85/Gob.jpg; but for the regular humans... Realism is good, [IMO] it needs only just a touch of the older "comic book" style. Think of http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/Aradesh-1.jpg, I think Obsidian did a good job of what I mean, in the http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/Aradesh2.jpg.

That's not to say that I'd not want to see a few http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/detailed.jpg in the mix...

As for actual 50's fashion and mannerisms... as though living in a time-capsule... (IE. Bee-hive hair and greasers...) I'd rather not see them at all; I'd rather see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_SHozxzwqs, not a future idea of their past.

To me the ghouls are fine as is to an extent. I think that they need to put some variety into the feral ones, not just the normal ghouls. Also give them a touch of mutating like the original's. Also if super mutants appear in the next one, don't use the same face for each one, not everyone has to have a unique face, but maybe use 10 different faces as a start.

The feral ones (are just one); they could have done more than one though (at least for the PC version). I like the Ferals, and would have rather they spend time getting that face to work with their lip-sync, and used them for all of the ghouls.
(But Ferals still do not look right IMO, just better than GOB).

The original ghouls looked (and I have to assume deliberately so), like the pop 50's green monster ~feared made from radiation exposure... The Ferals in FO3 did not, nor did any other ghoul NPC .

The 50's aesthetic was not just in their head it extended to their reality itself... Fallout was their pop 50's fears & hopes made fact ~brutal fact in some instance.

** Consider in GhostBusters when Ray thought up the cutest most harmless thing he could imagine (The Stay-Puffed Marshmallow man)... and it appeared there and tried to kill them. It would have been an error to make him look anything but like he did in the ads... even if the the wrong look genuinely looked cooler (or more believable).

A retro-fifties I-Pod would be a device, not an aesthetic design; I don't have a problem with modern devices being introduced into Fallout with a retro-fifties twist. I'm talking actual art, the aesthetic appearance of the Enclave's power armor in Fallout 3 for example did not look like it belonged in the Fallout world, it looked more at home in a modern Japanese animation. Now there's nothing inherently wrong with the design, it's a nice piece of art, but that doesn't mean it fits the world.

We agree. I think it looks fine, just not as what they present it to be... Now... Had they stashed 20 of them on a sunken nuclear sub at a harbor in the Atlantic... and presented them as Chinese power armor... would you have accepted them?

Probably, China's technological designs would have had their own distinct look, and based on Operation: Anchorage's stealth suit the Enclave's power armor in Fallout 3 would have been more at home with them than an organization that is trapped in America's past.

Well you have to remember that alot of the power armor was developed right before the start of the great war, as well as combat armor. There was a period of very rapid change in the fallout world within a few decades prior to the great war, so styling would change as well.

American technology looked retro up until the end, see the T-51b. Regardless I'm talking about the core art style of the series, Fallout 1/2 had a very distinct "World of Tomorrow nuked to hell" look to them, Bethesda got the environment right in Fallout 3, but many of their armors/creatures/weapons looked modern and felt out of place; many of these designs were redesigns of Fallout 1/2 artwork that originally looked more in line with Fallout's goofy 1950s comic book world. Vault Boy, the Assault Rifle, Deathclaws and the T-51b power armor are the only returning elements in Fallout 3 that weren't redesigned to look more modern.

And they stick out.

And deathclaws were redesigned.

As far as the OP, loved the overdoen 50s style. What i dont understand as a dinosaur is why people dont get why its overly done when bethesda explains it right there in the game. its not the west coast, it the east coast at WASHINGTON, where the propaganda is where its gonna be the most saturated in all the country. West coast the settlements have been there for years while the settlements in Capital wasteland are relatively new, seeing megaton and rivet city being maybe at most only 20 years old. So a few settlements that are relatively new isolated away from any major areas, i can see how the 50s were overlayed. Gave the impression that pretty much the founders were not originally from the areas also, meaning that the Capital wasteland is pretty much on its second generation as far as repopulating it goes. So washington being main target for alot of the missils to begin with explains the still heavy areas of radiation, high radiation, population starting out, and the wildlife/raider threat out there also explains why theres no crops and low population with huge ciity right there being scavenged explains why they still eating prewar food. Bethesda does care about fallout fans, hell if u look they explain alot of the differences reasons for. They just aint in ur face with it, they make u go and see/find it. They tell the story as one who learns by walking the roads and exploring. Another thing is people gotta realize that this was Bethesda first crack at the game in making it the same but new and did a really great job with it. I love fallout nv to death but really Obsidian only added a more indept story that was pretty much it. The layout/design/textures was straight from FO3 and the added extras that improved the game in ways was done by modders, which we wouldnt have a majority of that if Bethesda didnt care about thier fans by giving them the tools to improve the game also to see what ideas modders can come up with along side their own ideas to improve. FONV improvements wouldnt be there if Bethesda didnt care about Fallout fans.
I will go ahead and say that FO3 is not perfect but i am liking the direction they are going. I love the turn base feature back when they first came out, but my tastes have changed. I could problemly go out on a limb and say that if they did release a turn based one again i problemly wouldnt play it, or put no where near the playthrus i have with 3 and NV. We saw FO3 as a "blank" slate fo bethesda and thanks to the modding community, there were huge improvements in FONV. And since Bethesda got one last FO game thatit can reproduce before it goes back to....interplay..... i really hope that they bring in Obsidian back and have them work on the MAIN story and have the bethesda team take over on the sandbox and lvl designs . Win/Win and Bethesda/Obsidian goes out with a nuclear explosion.

Fallout 3's DC is set 200 years later ~not 20; The people that followed either aren't native to the area or they have lived in utter stagnation for 180+ years (Which I don't think is possible without dying off from disease).
The 50's propaganda aspects would not seem sensible to revive by newcomers ~anymore than travelers finding a Viking longhouse in the mountains would start acting like Vikings (discounting a commercial them park).

The plot of FO3 is an awkward mish-mash of the previous two games, and pairs factions that were 70 years apart when they were each destroyed.

IMO active 50's attitudes only belong in the pre-war era of the game's timeline; and only where its affects culture and design aesthetics. Personally I would like to see less of the 50's rubble and debris in populated areas. The FO3 Citadel was jarring in that the BOS lived in there for years and kept it a mess; (Would any military group do that? Would a 50's styled military group do it?).

thats was i was tryign to say is that alot of the people there were only there for so long, a lil over 20 years. the 50s theme actually does work in FO3 because u only see the remains of the posters/logs/notes/clothes/food/etc but the people aint talkign in 50s lingo and what not like they did in FONV, its just the items that are left around that people have scavenged from nearby locations.

Butch comes to mind as the first greaser in the series.

It has progressed since FO3; but it also started there I believe.

In New Vegas only residents of the Strip act like pre-war individuals, and that's because they were conditioned to do so by their pre-war boss.

Is it possible to explain that without spoilers? (I've not reached the strip yet)

If NV is set 232 (or so) years after the war... How could anyone (but ghouls and robots) remember anything pre-war?

*** Do you mean Mr. House (being pre-war?) demands it of them?

New Vegas is set 204 years after the Great War and I think House just told them how people acted Pre-War and they liked it or he demanded it of them so tourists could have the complete Pre-War Vegas Experience.

A lot of Gamblers do say they like the Pre-War way to talk.