I don't think many FO1/2 fans would call Diablo an RPG.

Bull. I refuse to believe that people couldn't handle SPECIAL in it's original form enough to impact the sales THAT much. You got something to back up such a claim?

I'm not known for giving people in general credit for being smart, in fact, I'm quite the opposite and find most people are incredibly stupid about a great many things. But, that said, it doesn't take a lot of brain power to figure out that a 5 on a 1 to 10 scale is average, and that a character with 2 in a stat is going to have a really [censored] hard time.

So I ask you this: where do game developers draw the line for coddling gamers? The point of a game is that it's interactive, and that means there is a chance of failure. Otherwise, we might as well just throw out player input, and opt for making http://www.progressquest.com/ the most amazing graphically impressive 'game' ever. If there is no chance of failure, there's no bloody point in playing.

You know what I wish Bethesda would have done? Decide that those casuals who can't stand failure on any form can be ignored, and cut back on needless spending. Stop hiring hollywood actors, stop making a bunch of stupid and useless merchantise, and make a worth while game for a change. Stop catering to people who can't handle failure.

That doesn't even make any sense, and there is no way you can know it either. Better financed developers than Troike have pulled the plug on half finished games.

Coddling gamers? Everyone has a different threshold for that. Back in teh day of MuDs, I was involved in a project development designed to challenge hard core table top players. We were using a custom version of Rollmaster rules, featured several layers of faction, toggleable permadeath, rather drastic death penalties, realistic damage, realistic armor attributes (I you fall in full plate, you effectively die), 1sk on weapons capable of that (longbow, among others)....

So, we were pleased with how hardcoe it was, and when we played it, we enjoyed the intensity. Not many other people did though, and I learned a lot about gaming from that experience. If you make the game you want to play, unless your tastes represent a number of players sufficient for the project to be economically viable, then you are making a disaster. And you should never think that making games is a hobby either, with the purpose of doing anything more than making the best game possible, within the resource limits available, with the primary purpose of delivering the best return on investment possible. This is a very expensive process, and there is always substantial financial risk. One failed game can wreck a developer.

It's not about the potential of failure, it's about getting through a great deal of gameplay and finding out that you started wrong, and there is nothing that can fix it. Frustration kills games. The frustration level needs to be suitable for as many players as possible. Good design adds opportunity for configuration there, but not every game is going to match the needs for any given player. Difficulty is always a COMPROMISE, and as such, will never be perfect.

Not really. They just need to actually have designers with experience writing roleplaying systems. There's plently out there, and even then, there have been a ton of suggestions of how to do it on these very boards. It's just up to Bethesda to DECIDE to make those changes.



That's a cop out. You're suggesting, and apparently Bethesda decided this as well, to cater to those who make really bad choices. Come on. It doesn't take a genius to see that a 2 on a scale of 1 to 10 is pathetically low, and one should expect trouble and frustration from it. If they didn't, that's their own damn fault. So, yes, I will definatelly call this a form of coddling. Can't have frustrated players, can we? But that road leads to insultingly easy gameplay. And it will be a big shame for Fallout to end up on that road.

Furthermore, I doubt you can prove that by making SPECIAL more akin to it's original form, that they would have lost huge amounts of sales. In fact, I think World of Warcraft handedly disproves that. It's very easy to screw up a build in WoW, and even knowing when, where, and how to use abilities can be a challenge, especially when you're in a PvP situation. Their solution was to have respecs. And you know what? Fine, have that in the game. I can make the choice not to use it, or remove it via mods. Win win there, the players wanting a better RPG system are served, and the fools who make stupid choices, like putting 2 in Strength, can get a do over.

There are solutions available rather then just breaking the rule system.

So? Many of them wouldn't call FO3 an RPG either.

They may improve it, but it will probably not approach the level that it was in FO1/2. Let's face it, even in FO1/2 there were min/max builds all over the place. I'd be interested in knowing exactly what percentage of players actually experimented with non optimal builds.

As he said, and you left out - "I'm not known for giving people in general credit for being smart, in fact, I'm quite the opposite and find most people are incredibly stupid about a great many things. But, that said, it doesn't take a lot of brain power to figure out that a 5 on a 1 to 10 scale is average, and that a character with 2 in a stat is going to have a really [censored] hard time.". It's not frustrating a person to prevent someone from wielding that awesome minigun, when their character can barely manage 10 lbs, it makes sense in the game world. And you can always design items, solutions or whatever around that, items is the easiest by far. Anything else and you go down the road of letting everyone have anything, and that just cheapens the whole experience.

Well, me, for what it's worth. (But I'm the kind of gamer who used to stick with his first Attribute rolls in D&D and then pick a class based on those results.)

I don't think that a min/max build is possible in an RPG system necessarily points to a flawed system. I had a friend in my old gaming group who always managed to come up with a way to do it with any campaign we ever played. It never mattered how "balanced" the system was - he'd end up with a character with max strength regardless of what else he'd have to give up in return.

(And for the record - I do call Diablo an RPG. It's a different type of RPG than Fallout, of course. But there's been more than type of RPG since before we started playing them on computers anyway. It's not like this is some sort of new concept.)

I also don't see why there's no potential to "outdo" the system from the original Fallouts. I thought it was a pretty good system, for a videogame. But it's not like it was the best ever, either. It's a lot of work coming up with an elegantly-designed system. But it's also something you can do before even the earliest stages of the game development. You don't even need a computer to work through and balance the system - people have been doing that since before computers as well. The old dream was that a lot of these old games would get fully translated onto a computer (because some of those games had quite a bit of tedious math in them.) Even the most niche games on the market still haven't been able to do that yet. But I still would think it should be possible.

I didn't start with an optimal build. I had little idea of what to expect, so my first few characters were very balanced, maybe dipping a little under average on the less combat intensive stats, making sure I tagged weapon skills. It would be pretty stupid for someone to not take a weapon skill if they never played the game, knowing that there's going to be violence in the game. And this was years ago, when I was still a stupid brat of a kid who didn't know much of anything lol.

I think defininte min/max builds POTENTIALLY demonstrate system imbalance in RPGs. The obvious example is the optimal FO3 configuration where INT is maxed and CHA is minned. Obviously there is a stat imballance there.

In the other Fallouts, I might roll up a character and inadvertently gimp the stats, and be unable to play the kind of character I want to play, and be as effective as I want to.

Again, we aren't being limited to roleplayers any longer. i would venture to say that a great many non roleplayers purchased FO3. They aren't going to be interested in stats anolysis. They are going to want to get out there and start shooting things.

Why should non roleplayers be a factor? They're making a roleplaying game for crying out loud. That's like worrying about car drivers when designing a boat.

If they're in it for the shooting, they can get a shooter. STALKER fits the FPS build with the post apoc setting perfectly. I think they handled the setting better then F3 did, personally.

In anycase, the solution is simple, one that was used, surprise surprise, back in the first Fallouts: premade characters. Premades took the complicated part out of starting the game, allowing those more experinced with the game to do as they please. So you don't need to worry about the guy who put 2 in Strength like an idiot, just have a combat heavy premade character, with Small Guns, Medicine, and Repair tagged. Done, they're in the game shooting things as they please. They don't need to worry about their stats, it's already taken care of.

Why wouldn't that have worked, while giving us the roleplaying system we want? And I still say the notion that sales would have greatly suffered if the game was a little more complicated to be completely overblown.

Trying to make a role playing game that appeals to non-role playing game fans... am I the only one that seems something wrong with this concept?

Agreed.

I do think there's a happy medium that we're all overlooking, though. The game hasn't been made yet - but I think at some point we're going to have to see something in a videogame RPG that can satisfy both groups. Because I do agree, we don't generally see a lot of AAA RPG titles unless it can somehow appeal to a more mainstream crowd. That's nothing new, either. I remember back in the day wondering why there weren't more quality RPGs for my SNES instead of just a gigantic glut of sidescrolling shooters.

I just can't help but think there ought to be some hypothetical RPG system floating out there in the ether waiting for someone to grasp it. Something that is elegant in execution with everything to satisfy the niche gamers, while not in any way having the potential to frustrate the generalized gamers (which is sort of what you rely on for the majority of the sales.) I would even go so far as to say that this "perfect" system would also have the capacity to make both highly min/maxed characters for those who want that sort of thing, or to make a more "roleplaying"- based character.

As someone who thinks GURPS with all the optional advanced rules was a little on the simple side - I don't know how much interest I'd have in trying to come up with something like that. (Or that I'd even be someone who'd be qualified to come up with that sort of concept.) But I also can't help but think that some sort of optimum compromise has to be possible.

After the polish of FO3 wore off for me, I began to ponder what could have made this game better and I came to the conclusion that the original SPECIAL system should have been implemented (i.e. higher skill level caps, more meaningful attributes, and multiple attributes factoring into the starting level of skills)...and that my favorite part of the original games, Traits, were completely left out. I loved the idea of using traits to essentially determine and accentuate my play style before my game even started, and I feel like, in many ways, this concept could have gone a long way towards making the FO3 experience even better. Hell...the Traits probably could have been a lot more balanced in this game due to some of the gameplay changes bethesda made to the series (first person perspective, gaining perks at every level, fps-style, faster time of day changes, and *forced leveling)

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One last time: You have to sell the game, and the game needs to make enough profit to keep the company going. In the world of RPGs, that pretty much means HYBRID games. Better that, than no RPGs at all. We all know that RPGs of any sort are an endangered species.

I'll roll in the car drives when building a boat thing:

Car drivers? Do you mean professional drivers, or "casual" drivers? After all, why build a Focus when everyone knows that Ferrari makes REAL cars? Well, MARKET SHARE is the reason. There are all kinds of cars out there to service all kinds of markets. Pure RPGs don't sell well compared to other types of games...like FPS or sports games, for example. If a AAA developer wants to stay in business, they typically avoid making RPGs. Those developer that specialize in RPGs have to try to get a bigger slice of the market, and they do that by developing games that appeal to more than roleplayers.

It's the nature of the market these days, and it's beeen getting worse for years. It's not a good thing for us, but it is what it is.

Woah, woah, heated discussion. I never played Fallout 1 or 2... Wish I did, they look like great games, but I think Bethesda has done really well with Fallout 3 considering the look of the other games. Skills are relatively good, so is S.P.E.C.I.A.L, so all you hardcoe Fallout fans... If you want that, just go play Fallout 1 or 2, I'm sure if I'd played those games I'd be on your side, but since I haven't, I'm in the middle. I can't lean other way, since I've only tried one side. But don't argue with people who are biased, it doesn't work. Trust me, I've tried it, also, I think you all have good points but seriously... If you can actually be bothered to have this long an argument, your all... NERDS LOL jokes, not really, I'm more of a nerd than most of you. Hehe, but anyways, just give it up aye?

I think a good and very thorough tutorial level could help alleviate to some degree the worries of more casual players making characters that don't live up to their expectations. Bethesda's already well down that path anyway, so it wouldn't be that much of a stretch. I was actually one of those players who kind of wished he could loiter around the Vault a bit in the beginning. (Myself, it was mostly for the roleplaying aspect - to get a better sense of what it's actually like growing up in a Vault and determining my character's worldview and background based on that.) Plus, if there's ever going to be an optimal time for "excessive handholding" (depending on what your own personal definition of that would be,) it's going to be during the tutorial level.

For example, if STR was to have an effect on your accuracy with weapons - some sort of gun range anologue could work. The player could try out a variety of weapons and see what they're going to be capable of within the game. If INT is going to limit dialogue options, or for any sort of limiting factor brought on by Attributes - make those "missed" opportunities visible, but greyed-out and unselectable. Say, there's something in the game that only characters with certain levels of PER are going to notice, tell the player during the tutorial level that they're missing out on something.

Just a couple ideas there. This could even be done in stages, with players given multiple opportunities to change out their stats before stepping out into the game world proper.

As far as the STR-limiting factor on weapons - it might not be necessary to just limit accuracy with weapons. Instead it could have an affect on your burst fire and your ability to remain accurate while laying down a cloud of bullets. Or make the character more sluggish when trying to fire things like missile launchers with a low STR.

Barring any of that, I still stand by my position that it's possible to have a well-crafted ruleset without being overly complicated. I've brought this up before, but if we don't want to limit the "casual" players' options we could just do away with the SPECIAL system alltogether. Simply implement a "proficiency system" with all character starting out at level 0 in all Attributes, with a couple points to spend at character creation, and the ability to advance those levels during character creation. Level 0 would represent the human average baseline and anything over that would be higher and higher levels of proficiency.

That way, instead of penalties, it would simply be about lack of bonuses in various areas. Rather than limiting dialogue options with low INT, you'd just need to focus points during level up into that Attribute to unlock further dialogue options. You might still be limited in some areas, but you'd still have the opportunity to "fix" your character throughout the game if you ran into something you really didn't like.

Bringing back Traits with opportunity costs for bonuses could allow the more "hardcoe" players to have those characters with more limiting factors. You could tailor those to various character archetypes. Like something that gives the player and effectively "stupider" character while improving them in other levels. Or something that effectively makes them more intelligent while limiting some of their other options. Picking Traits would be completely optional, so if you wanted more trade-offs and individuality to your character, then you could do so. Any player that picks an optional Trait with clearly defined pros and cons and then later complains about their effects is not someone who would deserve catering to, I should think. (I'm all for trying to accomodate a wide range of players, but you have to draw the line somewhere.)

Anyway, I'm just saying that we're already going away from the SPECIAL system. If we're not going to use that system as it was originally balanced and tweaked for - then we might as well just come up with something totally different that actually does the job it's trying to do. ie, starting from scratch with an idea of what you want the system to do, and then build something that does that well. Rather than take something existing and trying to hammer it into a different-shaped hole. That alone would have alleviated many of the larger complaints that have popped up (like the Level Cap and such,) which I maintain was caused because they tried to do just that.

Repeating this doesn't make it true. You can argue about acronyms all you want, but millions of people buy games like WoW, Diablo, and Pokemon. These are games in which character stats have a profound effect on performance. There is a solid market for RPGs. People like character development.

Bioware, Beth, and Obsidian think they have a problem when they try to make more action-oriented RPGs. They think that most gamers will come in with a preconceived notion of how proficient their character should be. That's why accuracy mods are limited in games like Fallout 3 and Alpha Protocol. It's a tough balancing act, but if the stats become too irrelevant then these action RPGs will just be action adventure games, and lose the appeal of character development.

I understand how the market works, Kjarista, you don't need to keep explaining it. The reason I don't take your argument seriously is because from my observations of sales and best seller lists, your claims are untrue. RPGs aren't a dying breed because there's plenty of RPGs out there with stats that actually matter that sell very well, as Dionysus pointed out. I know plenty of people who play RPGs simply to level up their character and role play it the way they like, but you can't do that in Fallout 3 because it's so easy to munchkin your character so that it's perfect... and it's hard not to since you get Perks at every level, and the skill cap is very low. Even with maxed out skills it doesn't matter though, because the stats have little impact on your character's performance to begin with.

Sadly even Final Fantasy (which is also turn based I might add) has more depth than Fallout 3 because stats are actually important even if they're automatically adjusted for you when your characters level up. Western RPGs used to dominate Japanese RPGs in terms of depth, but now it's the other way around thanks to companies like modern Bethesda and that's just sad. You know what the real kicker is? Games like Pokemon and Final Fantasy are best sellers as well. You can argue that those aren't RPGs, I certainly don't think they meet my standards for what an RPG should be; They are RPGs though, and their combination of gameplay mechanics and sales disprove your argument.

You don't need to create a hybrid to sell an RPG, the problem is that Bethesda is too lazy and "conservative" to do anything else and they confessed this when Fallout 3 was first announced. If Bethesda made Fallout 3 like the original two it would have sold well just because Bethesda's logo would have been slapped on it, the average consumer doesn't research games: they buy based on cover and developer/publisher because they liked that developer's past games. The people here on the forums are a small percentage of the folks who actually buy Bethesda's games.

I agree with you but I will point this out, although S.P.E.C.I.A.L doesnt effect gameplay as much as it used to (I appreciate both sides of the argument on this one) your characters stats still matter...Trying to snipe with a sniper rifle with a skill of 40 is a huge difference then with 100, Player skill doesnt mean that much when you have 100 because the lock-hairs are perfectly stable, while at 40 is all over the place, thats just like in Fallout 1 when you had a low skill and you had only miniscual percentage to hit.

But the Roleplaying goes beyond just stats, take for example that your character can represent anything in Fallout 3 by your actions that direct your characters purpose in the wastes, any outcome is avaliable to any situation and if you want to roleplay as abrahim lincoln or as any character the game lets the choices you make in it determine your roleplaying more then stats...

I loved Fallout 1, 2, FOT, and even Brotherhood of Stell was fun-enough when it wasnt taken in Fallout-canon, but they never really gave you many options for playing the game differently, Fallout 3 offer a variety of playing the game differently while Fallouts of Interplay offered ways to personalize your character.

Im not sure which I like better but I can guarentee that I enjoyed playing missions in ways I know only a few of the millions of Fallout 3 players have done, while in the olders I know about 90% of those players likely finished missions exactly like me.

All the old great RPGs offered great character customization while offering relatively linear ways to play the games, the Fallouts, Diablos, Baldurs Gate, Final Fantasy's, all the old-schools offered these whil Fallout 3 offers a scaled down and relatively unimportant SPECIAL and important skills system while giving us millions of ways to finish every problem, explore, an entire non-linear playing expierence, and every way you want to play the game can be accomplished.

The old Specials were great, and the games were beyond belief, but comparing them to Fallout 3 that has sold more copies in its first week then all the old games combined since they were released, where one is highly advanced gamewise and offered to a huge marketbase where making choices is more important to character development then a classic, isometeric, turn-based game that is tailored to a relatively limited gamer-market (gaming wasnt as widespread and refined as it is now) is a somewhat trivial matter.

Had Bethesda continued how the old games had been made then Fallout series would now be dead, its a sad truth but thats not what modern gamers are interested in. I am proud that the series is growing hugely popular from the the release of Fallout 3. realistically, without Fallout 3 the Fallout franchise would have deid in a few more years, now its one of the most popular gaming markets now, which is enough to make Fallout 3 a great addition to the franchise.

There's no reason to think that had Bethesda made a better character development or made F3 closer to the first two it would be significantly less successful. Comparing the sales of the original games with the sales of F3 is completely biased since the market is today totally different from the one back 10 years ago, and so is the numbers they produce.
Even if it were less successful than F3 is now, it certainly wouldn't be a failure. The Fallout fanbase is just too big and loyal for that to happen. And I'm sure I can speak for many when I say that the fact that F3 is now so popular is of no advantage to the most original fanbase, since it will probably only mean that the series will get further and further away from what we liked about it in the first place.

Thing is, choices without consequences (like "roleplaying as Abraham Lincoln") are meaningless.



How exactly does Fallout 3 offer you more ways to play the game differently than Fallout 1 and 2?



You can't seriously claim that Fallout and Fallout 2 were linear and offered less ways of finishing every problem than FO3. Have you even played them?

Wouldn't you have been able to do that just as well with a more traditional implementation of the ruleset? Okay, given - every option is always open to me in Fallout 3; allowing me to decide what character I want to play. But if I'm sticking to such a high quality of roleplaying, then I have a specific character that I'm roleplaying - I'm picking options that apply to that character. The rest don't really matter beyond underlining the importance of the decision I did make. But if I had picked stats that represent that character to begin with, then the limiting factor of those attributes shouldn't matter, the way I see it.

ie, if I'm roleplaying a thoughtful intelligent character in FO3, then I'm going to have picked a high INT stat to represent that, and will generally be picking those options which apply to that sort of character. If having a high INT meant I ended up with a low STR, then that my low STR limited my options somewhat, it shouldn't matter - because I'm picking the INT-based roleplaying options anyway. If I wanted a character that had more options, I could have picked my stats to represent that (say, a higher STR for that character as opposed to some other Attribute. Maybe I'm very strong and smart, but not too charismatic, for example.) If I have a high INT, low STR, and then start roleplaying a smart, weak character. Picking the options during the game that would otherwise have been limited to a high STR character would be out of character anyway, regardless of whether or not I've always had that option all along.

If I'm roleplaying a character in FO3, then I'm limiting my options by virtue of making decisions relevant to that character - if I'm playing a weakling character, then it's out of character for me to be running around with a Missile Launcher and STR 3, even if the game does support that. Besides, in a more traditional RPG setup, the same quantity of options are still available to you, you simply have to pick the stats that properly represent that character.

If a player does hit an unexpected limitation due to the stats they picked, there are plenty of Bobbleheads out there, not to mention the Intense Training perks you can pick at every level up. That's what they're there for in the first place. Okay, there's lots of freedom in FO3 to be whoever you want - but I feel the same to be true in FO1/2 as well.

I feel the opposite, actually. I felt I actually had more options to define my style of play in the older Fallout games as opposed to Fallout 3. FO1/2 followed an overall design philosophy where every objective (or as many possible at least) is obtainable by as many different playstyles as possible. I'm not saying I don't see that on occasion in FO3, but not to the extent it was available in the older games. I actually felt that the mission structure of the older games was less linear in many ways - almost every objective had multiple solutions, and many could be completed to the satisfaction of opposing factions as well. (Like in Klamath in Fallout 2, I can refill what's-his-name's still or sell the location to his competition. I can even do both. I rarely saw much of that at all in FO3.)

You speak many true points, I was only trying to convey that in Fallout 1 and 2 the games had good structure but stats defined your character more then the actions you took in the game, in Fallout 3 your actions spoke more the stats...While SPECIAL in Fallout 3 isnt as imporatnt it still isnt a non-factor, a character with an endurance of 4 will only have an base Damage rating of 8 while on with an 9 will have one with an 18, so major SPECIAL stats arent completely unimportant, its only your associated skill, lets say melee, with a 40 just because you have a strength of 10 doesnt mean your going to kill everything in sight, the asscoiated skill has more impact then Strenght. While Strength still contributes to Melee skill, its stat determines more of what you could do, while Strength represents your carrying capacity, ie, just because my character is strong doesnt mean my character can cleave of with am arm with a katana, only his skill determines that.

While the origionals had great missions and storylines and offered a few ways to finish missions, I believe Fallout 3 offered more non-linear ways to finish missions, they didn't always offere varying outcomes, usually limited to three, a good, a bad, and a neutral, with varying degrees such as how you completed them or if you killed people, but there were hundreds of ways to advance individual aspects of each mission. In my 500 hours of playing Fallout 3 I'm not sure if I ever completely a mission the same and I would wonder if many even did the same as I did, while in Fallout 1 it always felt, no matter which way I did it, that I always ended up following the same route to complete an objective.

And, this is largely because Fallout 3 offered a more immersive, interactive world (because of the perspective of first person and Bethesdas hugely detailed game-world) that there were more individual ways to expand my character, such as just wandering the wastes in a Regulator outfit with a sniper rifle, or holeing up in Oasis and being its holy defender, I just felt there are more gameplay-wise RPG elements, I acknowledge this because Fallout 1 and 2 lacked a set game-world, ie, as most situations were developed through random-encounters and only the games high=profile areas like the GLOw, settlements, etc offered a set design possibilites, I mean this by if you wanted to develope a RPG character it was limited to what Random Encounters you found in the wastes while Fallout 3 had a set gameworld, where if you wanted to Roleplay you simply didn't enter areas that were relevant to a character or as they were set enviorments I did them in ways that my roleplaying allowed.

The orgionals were increbidely addictive and fun with gret worlds (and Larger then Fallout 3) its only the didnt offere as many set, areas where you knew how to roleplay, it always seemed i was always just playing as a Power-armored soldier while in Fallout 3 I could do anything in any outfit because I knew that by my characters actions I could get through an area according to my players personality.

While the orgionals were great for character roleplaying, there technical limitations didn't allow a game-world roleplaying enviorment. In a turn-based, isometeric game-world this style of game design fit perfectly but in a FP, highly detailed, set gameworld your personal choices and your characters personality determine your roleplaying more then statisticas.

Is this a better system then Fallout 1 and 2, no, it is not, but stat based characters cant work in a hybrid FPS Turn-based game that Fallout 3 is, how the individual player plays determines the game not stats, its how it has to be because having stats determnine your character in this kind of game cant work.

Do I want the SPECIALs to determine more of your character, yes, but they already contribute alot to a system where STATS, SPECIAL, and the player ability to play the game and customize there character has to create balance.

The old games are what they are, some of the best games ever developed, there were better games in there day, but none provided more fun when playing and the same holds true to Fallout 3 now. Its just having Stats determine your characvter is the only way to have made a Turn-based game work, while its almost impossible to have Fallout 3, were how you play the game determines your time with it instead of the ways in which determine stats. In fallout 3 you can beat the game with vey poor stats and no perks on a low level (Although its very hard) while you cnat do this in the origionals because how the design of the game, Stats in Fallout 3 aren't what determine how you play, but they certainly personalize your character and make the game much more fun and convinent to play.

In conclusion I'm just saying that in Fallout 3 how you play instead of your characters sats determine the game while the origionals aere the opposite.

I love all of them, and they all fit into the franchise, but its not possible that aspects of one game that is completely different in design and gameplay to influence another, Bethesda di the best the could to bring Fallout to an gaming world that no-longer has isometerinc, Turn-based games. Even Final Fantasy, the most popular RPG seris of all time is barely turn-based anymore, its a dieing breed. With how the game-market is today Fallout 3 is in my opinion the best kind of RPG well find. It might not capture the SPECIAL system of the Past but it certainly fits the setting, style, and character of the old games, its only trying to compare the two systems is trivial as its simply not feasable to implement a stat-based system in a game such as Fallout 3, and with the huge upswing in Fallout popularity after its release I am happy it is a succesor to the Fallout name.