Look harder. The game started with developing the combat engine.
*Also, read my SIG.

And it was going to be changed from it roots and "mutated" into whatever made the game the most fun for the audience at the time, exactly like what was done with Fallout 3 and NV.

And I have read your sig, it means nothing. What defines "familiar" or "unfamiliar" is entirely subjective to the individual, and can range from anything from mechanics to the universe/lore. Given that none of the Obsidian staff who worked on Fallout 1/2 seem to find Fo3 or NV "not Fallout", who is anyone else to say they aren't?

Also, your link is broken and leads nowhere.

No, they worked on it for three years; they had the rug pulled out from under them, and were given two weeks to do something about it ~or be canceled.
They stripped out any infringement, but it's still the same game they designed.

Alas, it looks like DAC is no more.

*The SIG is Fixed though.

Yes it was, and that was a game that was designed from the beginning to have the overall product come before even something as important as GURPS, or what is now SPECIAL in the current games,

It being a turned based, isometric, game was because that is what people bought, and enjoyed, the most at the time, not because it was supposed to be that forever. This is as true for Fallout as it is for all games, and all media in general. Media is made to be bought, and enjoyed, by as many people as possible. What defines "as many people as possible" changes daily, and so media changes with it, and none of it is any less valid ten the previous entry in a series despite its changes.

This is true of Fallout 3 and NV as well, and even the creators of the series understand this.

The question I am left with is this, if the people who made the game in the first place accept this, then why can't you, as a supposed fan of their product, accept this as well?

To my recollection, Tim Cain said it was already a risk to go for turnbased design back then, so no, it wasn't "what people bought and enjoyed the most at the time".

They designed it because they were GURPS players. Do you really think that it matters if it lost the GURPS name?

Not true, Most were realtime, and many were first person. In fact the big RPG they shipped before Fallout was first Person with duel wielded weapons.

Because I cannot play a Fallout game in the recent FO games. It's TES in a different setting, with minor cosmetic differences.

A good straw man argument would be that the people who are asking for an isometric projection based UI are actually asking for something new. Fallout cannot return to Isometric projection because it never was in isometric projection.

The thing is that we all know what people mean when they say that they want the old isometric view that was in Fallout from the beginning and ended when Fallout 3 came out. This can only be attributed to pure nostalgia. I will admit that I have a little of it myself. There are, though, some people (from what you have said, you are not one of them) that view the isometric projection as some kind of dogma. When talking about the changes BGS has made to the franchise, this is what many of them will key in on first. When they post about it, it seems like they believe it is of Earth shattering significance. The way they talk, they could not have gotten any further than 15 minutes into FO3 or FO;NV without taking their discs out to a skeet range and blowing them to bits with a 12 guage.

I don't see how that adds up. Most RPGs are the time were turn based, action games were still largely divorced from RPGs, because the action elements couldn't keep up with many of the things RPGs needed to do to be RPGs.

RPGs didn't start to go actiony until around 2002ish.

And again, who are you to say NV isn't a Fallout game when the people who made the series said it is?

Baldur's Gate is not turnbased. None of the Infinity Engine games are. To my recollection they were designed the way they were to speed up the PnP based combat (like Darklands did years prior); to not have them turnbased but real time whilst still sporting the rounds under the hood and with a tactical pause option to adhere to the DnD rules. The era, to my knowledge, is referred as "the golden era of RPG's", not the golden era of turnbased RPG's.

I wasn't trying to imply it was, I realized that wasn't clear and changed it before you posted.

The point I was making was that era was known for its isometric, both real time and not, games. Its literally THE safest best one could make at the time.

Ok. But the trending was moving away from TB is what I was implying. The most successful game of the time, for these sorts of games (not counting for FPS's like Duke3D or Half Life, or other genres), was probably Diablo; and it's definitely an action game by definition.

It has nothing to do with nostalgia, it has to do with the specific type of game and what it offers that FPP/RT does not. The Fallout series was not an attempt at a digital Westworld, they way that FO3 is. Nostalgia is looking back with fond memories... The Fallout players here still have the original games installed, and play them. Comparisons of what is wrong, come from short term memory.

Diablo caused the suits to demand feasibility studies to see if they could insist that Fallout be made realtime. Diablo released in 1996.
Menzobarranzan: FPP realtime.
Stone Prophet: same
Stonekeep: same; released by Interplay two years before Fallout.
Even Bard's Tale [1985] was first person, and the first person "Dungeons of Daggorath" came before Bard's Tale.
BT wasn't turn based ~though, but it wasn't real time either.

*Did you ever play Gauntlet? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLnkCAFihqA
It's Diablo ~topdown, minus the stat upgrades.

Most of those people worked on Fallout 2.

It was starting to move away from TB, but TB then isn't like what it is now. It was still very popular and successful.

Also, Diablo is an hack-n-slash adventure game. I don't see why they would factor that in when making Fallout. It would be the same as Bethesda being worried about CoD tanking TES sales.

Morrowind was a bigger risk then Fallout 1 was.

1. Diablo isn't an RPG.

2. Corporate are always idiots.

And? Is Fallout 2 not a Fallout game anymore? What about Tim Cain, who worked on Fallout 1, saying he enjoyed Fallout 3, and that it got the lore, universe, setting, SPECIAL, and things like VATS done well?

This is what always happens with these kind of arguments, they boil down into increasingly segmented, and overly specific, views on what defines "the true experience", that end up ignoring most installments in the series, and what 90% of the people who worked on it think.

And that only leads me to the armor piercing question. When you don't agree with the majority of people who worked on the series, and the majority of games in the series, are you actually a fan of the game/series as the devs imagined it? Or are you just a fan of your specific views on what the series should be?

The same claim can be made for FPP/RT in that it offers what a trimetric/TB game cannot.

Please define what you mean by a "digital Westworld".

I would also like to know how you would be able to make a comparison when you say you cannot play FO3 and FO:NV.

I'm just saying what I remember Tim said on some panel some time ago (I suspect he knows what he's talking about -- can't find the link right now, though), and what I remember of the time and games myself. The increasing popularity of realtime action games (like Diablo) and the consoles put a risk and uncertainty on creating a TB game like Fallout. Diablo is indeed a H&S adventure, but it was an extremely popular game of similiar posture. Later, Herve and his goons made the effort and consolified both Fallout and Baldur's Gate (Dark Alliance and PoS) with known results.

I wouldn't know about Morrowinds riskyness, I remember it being talked about that Bethesda was at the brink of bankrupcy at the time, but not much else.

I agree; but most would probably not, and would call anything with stats and leveling up ~an RPG.

Of Morrowind... They were following the [safe] fantasy RPG trend. Fallout went in the opposite direction. Fallout was a classic RPG without the faeries, spells, and other crap; and a turn based one at that.


The series has gone down hill with every game since; with respect to the setting. It suffers the 'copy of a copy' effect, where subsequent interpretation is a bit off.
(Like the chess playing scorpion.) As a game ~on its own merits, FO3 is impressive, and even enjoyable; but its insertion into the series does not impress. With FO3, they discarded everything notable [the strengths] of the series, and refined what mattered least to it. That's the pity of it. All we got was a beautiful hiking sim set in a skewed interpretation of the Fallout setting. Visually it's about as spot on as one could make. They did a better job of the landscape than [I think] even Troika would have done, even had they used the Source engine.

When in doubt look to the source. The technology will change, and should change, but the essential game should not; and if it must, then that's what spin-offs are for.

• Of course.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmbYjVy9Xcg
• When did I ever say that?

There was a lot more goofy stuff in Fallout 2. It didn't spoil it for me, but it was just absolutely chock full of pop culture references that could hurt your suspension of disbelief.

So what you are saying is that you have never actually liked Fallout, as a series, in both the way the people who made the games define it, and the way series are usually defined?

At which point I have to ask, why do you even come here when you have never liked Fallout(the series)? What is the point beyond endlessly, and needlessly, hating on something you never really enjoyed? It's like going on the CoD forums, and complaining about how every CoD game is garbage, when you only ever liked CoD 1. It's like..... if you don't like the series, why go on the series forums and complain about it? Especially when there are like 4+ games in the series past the one game you did like?

I mean, I could understand doing it if there was only two games in the series, because then they might make the third game more like the one you liked, but when its gone 4 or more games, and you think all of them are worse, why bother anymore? The series is obviously just not for you, and never will be.

And, ironically, your claim of "a copy of a copy" is exactly what you propose. Games which endlessly copy each other gameplay wise, because the gameplay should never change ever, games should only increase the graphics, and maybe do a few balance tweaks. And that has never been the case for ANY game series, ever, so I am not sure why you expect it to apply to Fallout.

All of this is just baffling in every way possible. It's just an increasingly large pile of things that don't add up.

You are saying that ~of me, but I am not. You often make assumptions of others, and attribute those as poor judgment, but I rarely (if ever) see any that are accurate to the other person's argument. Each is tinged to serve your points ~accurate or not.

*Do you know what "copy of a copy effect" means?


There is no one here that is asking for a direct copy of Fallout or Fallout 2, but [presumably] with a different campaign.

Then what exactly are you saying?

If you think every game is worse then the original, and even more worse then the one before it, then how can you say you like the series?

It's hard to NOT make assumptions of what you are saying, when what you are saying often times makes NO SENSE without applying some assumption to it.

I've already explained this in the posts above.
I think that every game would seem to have been been loosely copied from the previous title; with details (and core concepts) missed in the endeavor.
And if you look at it, it does seem like FO3 was a direct evolution of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifnMjqdm4QE; it could pass for a https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLFvVvotTxg. [Albeit loosely, and much improved.]

And your posts really make no sense, because you never fully explain what you mean. You just keep using incredibly loose phrases like "it lost details and core concepts", which could mean any number of things, and then say "no that's not what I meant" any time anyone brings up anything.

The only real concept you have brought up,and explained in any real way, that you felt has been lost is the fact its not longer turn based and isometric, which has been proven to be a null factor, as it is with every other game series that has gradually shifted gameplay types, and still remained faithful sequels in the process.

FO 3 plays no more like BoS then it does Tactics or Fallout 1/2. Hell, NV's trailer more matches BoS's then Fo3's did, what with the giant "blowing up the strip" finale, on top of lots more action then even Fallout 3's trailer had.

Indeed, but it should be obvious to any that have played the Fallout series ~no?

Has it now? Since when, and by what proof other that wishing it so?

Simply put: In a side by side comparison, which [Interplay] product would FO3 seem likely based upon to the casual observer?
(And of course, I don't mean the game mechanics, because in that ~it's based on neither.)

I know what Westworld is, I am asking what you mean by a digital Westworld in respect to Fallout 3 and Fallout NV. I don't see a connection to the movie in any of the Fallouts including the Interplay versions.

See, this right here is the source of the problems. You keep saying it's obvious, or should be obvious, as if what defines a series is some objective list of things that everyone agrees on, when its not, not even for the Devs, who have internal arguments over core concepts such what makes mutant animals and ghouls.

What YOU define the series as is different then what everyone else does, as it is for everyone, including the devs. Until you actually define what the series means TO YOU, it wont be obvious, and this conversation will just go on forever, with no side being able to make any headway, because no side understands the others position.

You need to make a bulleted list of everything that defines the series to you, and an explanation of why you thing the newer games don't have it, for any meaningful conversation to be able to occur.

Since games like Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, Zelda, MegaMan, and tons of others have exist, changed their mechanics, and still remained faithful games in those series to everyone from the people making them, to fans who were there from the beginning.

Depends on who you ask. For myself, and many others I know, it would be Fallout 1, as Fallout 3 does a far better job of maintaining what we define the Fallout series as, the lore, which BoS got wrong in basically every way, whereas Fallout 3 got the lore right enough for even Fallout 1's maker to compliment on doing so.

Again, this is not a thing based on hard, objective, facts, but subjective perceptions.

*edit*

We should probably make a "what defines Fallout" therad, so we don't continue to derail this one any further.

And to give my own answer to the OP's question, no it "shouldn't" be isometric, it would be interesting if it was, but there is nothing specifically defining it as needing to be IMO.