No-one's asking for a horse and carriage. No-one's asking for a dated system. Just because S.P.E.C.I.A.L was created over a decade ago, doesn't by any means make it obsolete. FO3 could have been a modern game with superb Fallout mechanics, and to be honest, the thought process in letting values do their work, is nil.

To take your car anology. Some people don't want to be forced to use traction control and computerised ceramic breaking systems. Some people want to excersise their grey matter, some people want to drive, than be driven. No-one should be forced into either situation. Though the priority should always goto the original concept. There is already more of a market for the gamer that doesn't want to think. Fallout is hardly filling a gap in the market in its current image, unless you consider the concept of 'neither here nor there' a winning formula.

The point is, the market has changed, hence the carriage thing. The ATV example may be appropriate, considering the difference in size of the two markets though.

So your saing there is now no market for the "tradional" style of RPG?

I'm not arguing that SPECIAL is obsolete. I'm arguing that markets change and products need to change to meet the new and different demand. My first car was a Ford Torino. There's probably enough steel in a Torono to make several Focuses...my current car. Lots of steel is pretty good in a car, but my current car is probably all the more safer, with the sorts of safety features they didn't have in 1970.

I saw a Gran Torino for sale the other day...yes, you can still buy them, jsut as you can still buy FO1. And yes, someone will buy it. But for all the fun I had in my Torino, I'd rather get 30mpg, airbags, and an engine that collapses down instead of into my lap.

More on the market for a gamer who doesn't want to think....wow. Yet for all of that...for all the supposid inferiority of FO3, it has been a financial success, and lots of people like the game. I certainly do. They must be doing something right, and that is to provide a darn good MODERN RPG.

I love it when a very specific SPECIAL discussion derails into a classic gaming - modern gaming debate. :rolleyes:



Let's pretend: Do you really think a MODERN RPG by Bethesda would be a financial failure if it had the superior technology of DX10 and next gen consoles, Havok, whatever, while having a closer approach to classic Fallout gameplay system, instead of simplifying or getting rid of Fallout's signature character system?

SPECIAL worked. Period. If newer installments of Fallout need to change it because the market changed, well, Fawk the market.

No, I'm saying that the market for traditional RPGs is VERY SMALL compared to the market suitable for a game like Fallout 3.

Remember, that even FO1, which did well for an RPG, still captured a very small market, compared to other types of games. RPGs have always been a niche market, and it's probably safe to say taht market share is going to be inversely proportional to the hardcoe-ness of the RPG gameplay.

I think it would be less successful than FO3. At least that's what Beth decided.

Oh, and you can afford to "fawk the market", since you didn't invest anything and your next paycheck isn't dependent on game sales.

I don't really see how using the original SPECIAL (the calculations etc for the derived stats) would have made it from a "mainstream" to a "niche" RPG.

Then Bethesda shouldn't have bought the license for a niche game.

Seems to me that the more impact the stats have, the more likely it is for a player to end up with a character they don't like to play. Console gamers aren't really known for multiple plays of games. If, for example, after 50 horus of gameplay, the player realizes that it was ha huge mistake to give their player 2 in strength, the typical console player...or casual PC player..probably won't bother to reroll. Same is true with karma: If a casual player finds that their karma choices riun the game for them, not being able to fix that will likely jsut have them top playing.

Now, all of this is counter to roleplaying, but it's gotten to the point that these casual players drastically outnumber us, even in a game like Fallout 3. it's unfortunate, but there you go.

Well the bought an RPG, not an adventure or action game...thats what I say why wouldn't then expect that stuff? But as you say thats they way it is now....

edit: Also why woudl gamesas care they bought the game they have there money now right? So why not build it more to the original crowd?

It could always be something linked to difficulty level. I'd like the difficulty levels to be about more than just enemy HP.

Good idea Ausir. That or an option tick (a "new" and a "classic" option or somesuch.)

Or simply. Explain in (for argument sake) layman's terms, with a few extra lines of text, with the breakdown of each stat's uses and effectiveness. Bethesda's interactive character creation in FO3 meant the childrens book had to be incredibly vague to gameplay. It's not like making sure the player gets it would have been such a hard thing to do.

But, Bethesda didn't dumb it down for the mainstream I'm guessing. They were just out of their league with its concept.

They thought they could make a game that sells, and it appears they were right. This is a lot easier for me, I think, because I like the game. I can understand taht no amount of logic is going to get folks who are disappointed to like the game.

Personally, I'm glad Beth made this game. It's certainly much better than not having a new Fallout at all, IMO.

there would have been another Fallout regaurdless. there was an action remember, with out buyers....

That's not true at all. Diablo, Pokemon, and Final Fantasy were all huge mainstream hits when Fallout was released. There's plenty of room for RPGs.

Why? They seem to be doing pretty well for themselves.

They could use handholding to avoid that. People that don't want to worry about stats can benefit from pre-generated characters and auto-leveling mechanisms. A lot of RPGs use stuff like that. They primarily nerfed SPECIAL because they don't ever want to punish player choice, and some gamers don't like the mix of RPing elements in action games (so they scale back the RPing elements).

Could have been EA. Could have been The Sims: Fallout. Imagine all of you posting all over the EA boards about it, and getting banned 5 minutes after you started. Could have been Troika, which could ahve goine out of business with tehg ame partially finished. Could ahve been anything, and there is no way of knowing now.

Diablo and pokemon are hardly RPGs, and personally, neither is FF.

I'm sure there are people that would say the same thing about Fallout 3 and Oblivion. Certainly the industry considers them to be RPGs.

They could have done alot better. And I doubt applying meaning to gameplay would have alienated anyone, at all. Those who care about the gloss, would be able to do just that. And everyone else could appreciate gameplay effort, instead of condemning the lack thereof.

And we would have had a new Fallout, by a more honest and savvy company no doubt. Troika or Obsidian, anyone? Hell maybe then Beth fans would have had their new TES already.

AFAIK Troika split up mainly because their publishers forced them to release incomplete games which required much more time for tuning and bug fixing. By mentioning EA, you made me praise for Bethesda. :lmao: No, seriously, I'm also glad to have a new Fallout installment, I appreciate their effort and I don't regret buying F3 (at least I'm on PC and I can mod it), but I still want to voice my complaints and concerns about some VERY BASIC, VERY OBVIOUS STUFF for the possible sequels.

That's fine, of course. I'm hoping for some improvements as well.

Actually, they went out of business partly because they weren't able to get the Fallout license (together with Activision). Had they gotten it, they would have survived at the very least one game longer.

What I'm gleaning from this discussion is that people want something like...


Strength having a much greater and direct impact on your damage with melee and unarmed.
Perception having extra effects besides awareness of enemies such as VATSing more detailed descriptions of enemies like number values for health, resistances, alignment, stats, etc as well as a listing of loot in the pockets and body.
Endurance having a much greater impact on your overall durability through not just HP but also resistances to damage types and status effects.
Charisma once again determining how many followers you can have max and how powerful they are such that a max charisma character with the right perks could legitimately have a veritable army of powerful followers.
Intelligence... is apparently just fine but you might want a return of the "low intelligence" build which is treated as an incomprehensible lunkhead by all NPCs and thus gains certain options unavailable to characters smart enough to hold a real conversation that isn't grunts and drooling.
Agility you want to have additional sway over the actual use of weapons besides the additional action points and skill upgrades it already provides, such as having a more direct effect on your attack rate or recovery speed?
Luck returning to its ability to modifying random and scripted encounters directly based on how lucky various situations and outcomes would be?



Sounds... well it sounds like a monumentious balancing nightmare.

None the less... neat.