That sentence had too many syllables apologize!!!!!

That's not the way to look at it. One should look at games ~especially series games, as distinct from one another [series if more than one]; like Go, Chess and Backgammon. Experiences all their own. Fallout doesn't need to change ~period; changing from Fallout to whatever the hell it's become, just means it isn't Fallout anymore. It's like if 'Trivial Pursuit' became Mousetrap, or Othello became 'Hungry Hippos'. When someone gets tired of a game, they should naturally move on to another ~not mutate the game into something else, to spark new interest. Games should improve over iteration, but wild and radical mutations should be new games, not part 2/3/4/5 of an established one.

Yeah but a chess board can stay the same for centuries. Computers can change drastically in a matter of months. That's why you have games from every genre pushing the current computers to their limits. For example, sound has improved. Beeps and bops with Soundblasters are a thing of the past. Now we have full orchestra soundtracks on big games like the TES, Fallout, Civilization, and Battlefront games.

Wiith today's technology, I'd hate to play a top down version of Fallout after playing Fallout 3. It's was ok 20 years ago, but not anymore.

Borderlands references are the best.

This is a good point I think most people miss. There have been so many game series that have changed to appeal to a wider audience, even more so than they already have (Final Fantasy comes to mind), and people, especially the hardcoe fans, get upset. Who doesn't have a series that they have stopped playing or have gotten completely fed up with over the years? Is there truly anyone who doesn't have a series like that? You know, something you use to love, and then it became something you don't love anymore.

Ultima was like that for most. Diablo was like that for some, and Fallout seems to be like that for a certain group of people, the one's who grew up playing the originals. Nobody can fault them for being upset for what it is, new fans or old fans alike. I do think, some of the opinions held on both sides tend to get pretty extreme as I tend to be more in the middle because I enjoy Fallout 3 and New Vegas, albeit in different ways than I've enjoyed the originals, certainly not the writing haha. But, it can't be too hard for people to understand why Fallout 3 is disappointing to a lot of hardcoe Fallout fans and why many of these fans are apprehensive relative to Fallout 4.

Certain peoplecan complain all they want, Bethesda is gping to keep the game as it already is. Will they add in some requested mechanics through dlc? Of course they will add some. Are they going to listen to the people that constantly hate on them though and add in nonsense from the first 2 games or shamelessly rip off certain things from NV just because people want the "Original" feeling back? Highly doubtable. Might as well get over the past and realize what's coming to save yourself the heart ache.


Sadly though the typical complainers aren't going to listen, your only hurting yourselves.

I agree, Fallout works well as a FPS imo.

...I mean, first person shooters are for casuals! Fallout should be a text adventure for truly hardcoe roleplayers, like me!

That was an interesting metaphor. Props on that.


I'm okay with change to an extent, its a matter of how far they're gonna go and call it Fallout. Skyrim was.... Hard for me. I've learned to accept the game for what it is and I can enjoy it now, but I thought getting rid of CHARACTER CLASSES was blasphemy at the time. I still kindve do.

Games like Fallout can change without going too far. Oblivion is a good example. It changed from Morrowind a lot but still kept enough to be recognizable as what I PERSONALLY consider the essence of elder scrolls.

I think removing skills has the potential to work out okay, but what about Fallout five? Is SPECIAL gonna get canned next? Will the forums still defend it as "adapting" if that were to happen?

Its critical that BGS picks what it wants to mess with very carefully. Time will tell, we still know relatively little.

Edit: Want to put emphasis on skill removal "potentially" being okay. I'm certainly not thrilled about it. If anything, I just don't want the perk tree to be cut and pasted from Skyrim.

I like your posts, man. Its always nice to see a moderate on the boards who can empathize with multiple opinions.

Have you played the originals?

Yeah well we still gotta wait for more information on this game. But please, let's continue...

he is right, it does not matter what the originals were, it is being made by a different company, who works on different types of games. You can complain all you want, but it does not stop the inevitable and you will simply hate video games more and more as time passes with the the "everything must be pure" attitude.

what the heck is borderlands?!.....................................

The problem here is that some of them aren't simply apprehensive about it, but more already spelling doom and gloom over it without ever so much as giving it a chance

But about your other point regarding having a series change to the point you get fed up with it: I personally haven't had this happen to me in video games, but then I'm generally not a huge gamer. I play Beth games and that's pretty much it. I have, however, had this happen in television and movies. Star Trek for example. I grew up with it. Been watching it for over 40 years now, but with the new movies that have come out, I've realized this isn't "my" Star Trek. It's not my series anymore. I've accepted that, I've accepted that my beloved series has changed, and it's not the one I love anymore. I still love and watch everything up to, and including Enterprise, but that's as far as I can go with it. I don't [censored] and moan about it because I do understand and accept that everything changes, and if you don't (or can't) change, you die. Unfortunately Star Trek in it's current form is dead to me.

How?

Honest question.

Well, I'm one of those guys, who can pick up Fallout 1 and be svcked right in. To me that was the best Fallout made. I can pick up Fallout 3, and while it's different, I enjoy it. I'm not going to get all bent out of shape if they do something "a little" different than what I expect from them, but if they did happen to streamline it too much, turning it into the Fallout version of Bioshock, then I'd be really upset, and Gizmo would probably resign from the forums lol.

True, Rabid cynicism can ruin video games as a hobby. Its perfectly okay to have opinions on the direction of a series however. If I have to be a part of industry where I have to accept every game with a smile, then this isnt an industry for me.

Its also false that community feedback (complaining) won't change things. Look at Dragon age 2.

Well, it does matter in the sense that they should take the strong points of those game and implement them in their version. I don't think they should make the same game as the originals. In fact, I've become quite fond of the first-person, real-time Fallout Bethesda version. A lot of Fallout fans seemed to love New Vegas, including myself? Why is that? I think there are quite a number of reasons: the writing, the storytelling, the impact the player has on the world. People like this type of stuff, including Fallout fans.

I can't blame Bethesda for not making this a strong point of theirs, considering their own TES franchise has suffered from a lack of this, going as far back as Arena, including Daggerfall and Morrowind, and I'm a huge fan of Morrowind. I would hope to see more of this quality in Fallout 4, and we might. We'll have to wait and see.

Oh man, someone should make a thread about this. I'm one of those too who's definitely been disappointed by the change in direction to Star Trek. Voyager was the last good one imo, but I'll have to watch more Enterprise.

lol, we agree on something? This is crazy.

Please please please, only speak for yourself. Im a bit over this 'a large majority of fans, or feedback of numerous fans' etc. This is a forum where individual people post. You arnt posting for a company or organisation, you are posting for yourself so please dont claim to speak for anyone bar yourself.

And you know... as many people have suggested and its getting old to read.. if you dont like it, dont play it!.

Here are two things people need to think about:

1. People keep mentioning series that have had teh same design all the time. This DOES NOT work with bethesda, every single one of their games used a slightly different system. Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim, not a single one of them shared a realy system. They SEEM Similar in some cases, but in pretty much every way but the most basic, it used a different system. they never used a relatively unchanging system, like Pokemon, for example, has.

EDIT: before people bring up new vegas, it was made by a different company, not bethesda.

2. Bethesda is a company, what they care about is making money. NOW, what game that they have made, made the most money? It was not Morrowind, It was not Oblivion, and it sure was not fallout 3.....it was skyrim. So, what company in their RIGHT MIND would not go in a similar direction with their other, relatively similar, series.

what i meant by my comment is in a single game. nothing changed in skyrim, even when it with all the complaints before it was released. Also, Despite everyone saying Oblivion was "Dumbing down" Bethesda ignored them and wen the opposite way with skyrim and "dumbed it down" even more.

finally, yeah, seriously, The only way i can watch Enterprise was a bad B series that was so bad it was something funny

I think BSG are being careful about what they mess with. SPECIAL is iconic to the series. Perks are too. The specific skills, not quite so much. The function they serve, yes, but when I think of "Fallout", my first thought isn't that it must have 100-scale skills. They're making a distinction between the elements that give FO it's personality, and the mechanics that can be tweaked while still serving the purpose. Hopefully we'll see more about FO4 soon so we can make a more informed assessment of what exactly they've done and how well the new mechanics work.

SPECIAL is simply a left over from the GURPS RPG many many many years ago (also GURPS is still going). It wasnt so much a last minute creation but it occured because Interplay were going to use the GURPS system and then were denied the ability to use it. Thus we have SPECIAL.

THere was no need for it to really be kept for FO3, but it was and I think thats because its pretty much an ideal way to cover all the stats people would think about their character. You dont need to reinvent the wheel every time

Um, you do know the game is already pretty much Locked, and made?

Right now the game is in Q&A (quality assurance/crash testing) and fine tuning.

An open letter like this is somewhat pointless at this point. It'd be of more impact if this letter were written for Elder Scrolls VI, or Fallout 5; games that might actually have a chance of getting a little bit of community influence in the early stages.

Further, there's things you mention like immortal companions that can be remedied with console commands, and even mods.

All due respect, but, I'd think you'd know this if, as you claim, you've played all the other games in the series.

To everyone else as well that wants to trifle; deal with it, and wait for the game to actually get released.

If it really means that much, wait 6 months after the game has been released to gain the benefit of patches, bug-fixes, and a whole host of mods adding, fixing, changing, and even removing things from the Vanilla installment to fulfill the desires of everyone poised to rage-quit because ... reasons.

C'mon folks.

There's console commands, and there will be mods. Take deep breaths, and relax. If the game isn't up to your ever so refined and discriminating subjective standards, then, wait a minute, or longer, and if it means THAT much, make your own mod if someone hasn't already done such.

I would agree with you on SPECIAL being iconic. No matter where it came from, Fallout made it their own.

I probably sound like a broken record but I'll just have to wait and see how Bethesda handles the perks. I still want my Vault boy perk artwork, I still want the tongue and cheek perk descriptions, I still want the classic perks that have been around since FO1 to return, I still want the perks to have a theme (Cowboy, sneering imperialist), etc.

What I don't want is for the perks to be uninspired, general perks, like in Skyrim. "Novice spells cost half as much to cast"