The trailer is littered with brand new modern looking skyscraqers and i have not seen anybody mention them.

Who could have built these? The Brotherhood of steel? The Institute?

Edit: And by brand new i don't mean brand new, i mean it as in post-war.

Building 1 http://i.imgur.com/O7jo9MV.png

Building 2 http://i.imgur.com/yz9217z.png

There was shacks everywhere and I think Megaton was just a huge scrap pile. The Institute is supposed to be pretty advanced, so it would make sense that buildings would be in better condition near there. Hard to say though.

I'm not sure if they were created following the apocalypse, but it seems that many iconic buildings have either been sufficiently renovated or have remained unscathed from atomic blasts. Overall the structures in the trailer seemed fairly stable with little indication of damage. It looked more as though any abrasion had been simply caused by neglect over the years rather than bombs or firearms.

I hope we get a mix of scrap-metal shanty towns like Megaton and pre-war building towns like Goodsprings.

I think it's the BoS who helped rebuild. The Institute will probably be filled with a bunch of uptight ******** like Tennpenny Tower but really smart. So I doubt they would help the common folk.

Considering that mankind has been building habitable structures for literally thousands of years, I don't see why it would be so far fetched that somebody, somewhere in that Post apocalyptic wasteland would find a way to resurrect some of the old knowledge of architecture.

Seconded. Fallout 3 architecture seemed out of place for the Fallout series.

Edit: I'm hoping that every structure is filled with rubble, garbage and skeletons.

Fallout 3 (which I enjoyed, BTW) had the appearance of the Great War being last week, rather than 2 centuries ago. Seems logical that somebody would've been able to resurrect some of the knowledge of the old world and start passing it on somewhere out there.

You know...rebuilding after the apocalypse. A stagnant world, is a dull world.

Pure speculation on my part, but assuming Boston was a primary target same as DC, perhaps the MIT people had developed a prototype stasis shield which negated the physical destruction of missile blasts , leaving mostly just the radioactive dangers afterwards. There would still be economic ramifications and a ceasing of industrial production and supplies, but some repair work might still be possible for a few years afterwards .....

I think a lot of the Capital Wasteland was still highly irradiated, but after 200 years I don't know enough about radiation to say whether or not the area would have cleared up. The half-life of common nuclear material is pretty long.

I believe in FO lore it was hit the hardest.

That would make sense, if i wanted to nuke a country, i would aim for the capital.

It's probably going to be a wait and see sort of deal.

I said this before but it might not actually be reasonable to bring real physics into it. Fallout is very much about 1950s notions of physics where nuclear contamination isn't really well understood. As in the physics are different. So really it just goes along with the story that the area was hit the hardest, thus has very little civilization.

The thing is a lot of the base building materials were ruined. New trees aren't growing. So stuff like wood is actually pretty scarce.

You don't need wood

What about mud, sand, rock, scrap metal? Unless every wastelander is an idiot they're capable of making civilizations on par or greater than earlier Human societies.

Ancient aliens...

Yea, I'm expecting we get some story about how Boston wasn't hit hard or was somehow shielded during the war.

I'm guessing the taller / post war buildings were built by the Institute or Enclave or perhaps a new entity. I am curious about how much Boston can be explored veritcally. Do you get to the upper floors of buildings via a loading screen, or can you explore stairs and catwalks like in The Pit?

Yes i know. But wood is the basis for every form and structure. YoyYou actually lay wood as supports for a wet adobe homes. As well as roofs. And scrap metal tin wont stand on its own. I beems are heavy and sometimes require tools to move.

Ya know. I'm getting a bit tired of this.

DC wasn't hit. Pittsburgh wasn't hit. Vegas wasn't hit. Now Boston wasn't hit. Did any of the Chinese missiles hit anything aside from LA?

I think from the trailer we can assume that Boston was hit.

They look pretty sci-fi- but at the vantage we see, they could be retro-futuristic structures; pre war.

Let us remember that vaults were (purported to the public as) a place to ride out a nuke fight. This means nuclear war was on the collective conscience of the nation. It may be that Boston, with all of it's higher learning, and huge amounts of cash, had somewhat of a think tank that developed structures with nuclear warfare in mind. Perhaps far fetched, but maybe not?

I suppose I can appreciate that, I just have a hard time understanding the stagnancy. I don't work construction or anything, but don't modern buildings use rebar? It's not like they don't have the tech and manpower. Especially since Boston supposedly has slave labor from androids.

This started in FO3. Fallout 1 & 2, had stagnant areas, but most people (who weren't crazy or junkies) tended their homes. In FO3, everyone lived in filth and debris ~even the paramilitary BOS, in the Citadel. (And no one can say straight-faced that the BOS elders would not have rounded up a cleaning crew of initiates ~first day, and handed out the tooth brushes and soap.)

It's there to needlessly hammer the point that it's the post apocalypse.

Don't forget just plain regular slave labor.

DC was also pretty ugly on account of the irradiated water supply and the super mutant infestation, regardless of how hard it was hit (which was pretty hard).

I wouldn't mind if Boston was a mixed of DC-level rubble and what the Institute rebuilt on top of that. Maybe we'll get a plot about bringing the Institute's cloistered technology and prosperity to the common man.

This is because Bethesda clearly designed a recent post-nuclear world, as in, 10 years after the bombs, tops. Hence the worthless society, garbage living conditions, poisoned water and freaking tents.

Then they shoe horned it into being set after FO2 because they had to have the friggin Enclave.