ok so i was reading a post on map ideas and somthing struck me. what is travel going to be like? can you travel in a world map style like in FO1/2 or do you run around like in wow.

thinking about this in some depth the 1st point is this is a game set in a waste land. and really when travelling through the waste land you probably shouldn't run into half the game population. it should actual be pretty rare to bump into someone. my thought process for this is, it wont feel like fall out if there are 30 players fighting over rapidly sporming mole rats for some quest of some sort.

so how do you over come this? well i guess the world map like in FO1/2 works pretty well. but the small zones would be pretty restricting.

this i guess is where it gets tricky. i guess you could zone in on a randomly generated zone thats pretty big. maybe its generated based on the area type your in ect. then once generated by roll if other players zone in near by they have a chance in poping in on the zone you are in. if you did this you could limit the number of "random" players who could be in the one playing zone at any time.

this sort of set up would have the bonus of having a FULL ON pvp world being semi viable as there is less change that you are going to run into someone who will kill and loot you every 5 seconds. the other point is can this be sustained on a surver? (i dont know thats why i ask).

i guess it could in a similar way to wow has dungeons that people can enter separate to the rest of the world.

actual this sort of set-up would be great. by creating multiple instances of the same area or zone (even towns) if the world gets too populated it wont matter as the number of people could be semi limited. in the town situation if you wanted to find someone they could invite you to the zone they are in. this would probably reduce lag in high population zones, and trading could be done through an AH style set up. which are linked to that down or hub.

anyway that probably enough for thought. but what do people think.

Sounds like a really nice way of handling it, actually.

They've probably already got stuff like that laid out though, fairly central to the game, but it's still sounds nice.

Oh yeah, and as far as I know, there's no indication anyone is going to be freely looting your corpse at all, or even freely killing you, correct me if my information is out of date.

Segregating players in an MMO isn't really a great idea. You want to try and encourage interaction and encounters, rather than avoid them, with the caveat that you stay below the overpopulated line.

At the end of the day, I'm not convinced that the lone wandered motif is necessarily compatible with an MMO format. The focus of the first two fallout games was certainly on a central, heroic character. That's easy, because they were single player games. In an MMO though you need to take a different approach. You have players coming from different places and settings and with different goals and ideals. The game needs to focus much more on a persistant world than a single beginning-middle-end narrative.

Yes, the Vault Dweller & his/her descendent were both lone heroes, but the residents of Shady Sands weren't. Nor were the ghouls of Underworld or the citizens of Vault City.

I think that there'll still be avenues for players to pursue solo play, but at the end of the day an MMO that eschews group content is far more likely to disappoint than one that dares to deviate from its canonical roots. Maybe you'll sit and sigh, wishing that I were near
Then maybe you'll ask me to come back again
And maybe I'll say "Maybe"

i totally agree, no point in having a MMO if you NEVER play with anyone. but in saying that running around in a zone with heaps and heaps of poeple (EG wow pick your major farming or leveling zones) will detract from the feel of the game. it is a waste land.....

i guess i am saying there needs to be a balance. a ballance of player to player interaction and still keeping the feeling of being in a destroyed world. i think age of Conan set up zones in this way, where the general chat was linked but only so many poeple would be in each area.

the FULL pvp stuff i mentioned was a sort of carry on from one of the other posts and is also in part a result of playing the fallout 2 mod mmo (FOonline 2238) where although at the start of the game the world seemed very brutal and unforgiving, and further on its the same but manageable and rather satisfying. but in saying that it still needs a bit of work to turn it into some crisp mmo gaming as at the moment it feels like a mod and a mod with bugs.

i guess i could be alone with my ideas that the waste land is pretty empty, what do other people think in that regard? because with the following a fallout mmo will get from hardcoe gamers and fans of the newer games should make it fairly popular from the start so high populations are a possibility.

The post kind of reminds me of Guild Wars, where I would zone into a zone that would be customized for me or my party, but no one else. Only this time it could be a bit more random, but not terribly massive.

I like the idea of busy towns, and open wastelands that you can run through anywhere, but of course there will be key routes that become the "path" between cities/towns/shanties, and these will be prime spots for raiders looking to jump a caravan.
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i guess that is sort of what i am getting at, but in guild wars there was no chance to zone in on or with someone else unless you party with them. i am proposing that if someone is trying to zone in on the same map square (working from a fallout world map view) then there is a chance that they can pop into your instance. not sure what % that chance would be but depending on the size of the zone the number of new people/parties zoning into an area can be semi limited.

i guess you could also set up a zone chat that could be viewed by people within the near vicinity (maybe set it up as a radio channel thats has a range limited due to interference from radiation) not necessary in the same zone/instance. then trough the chat you can add them to your party and they can be moved into the same version of the zone as you.

sorry thats a bit of a mouthful and not written well. but i hope you get the idea. (sorry 4 am and just got back from the pub)

While I definitely like the idea of zones preventing loot thieving or 30 people in the same area camping a single spawn... I think back to the actual Fallouts. You must remember that every few squares you would encounter something: Raiders, town Patrols, Caravans, Prospectors, Ghouls, Super mutants, Crazies, Slavers, Paladins searching for the holy grail, Car salesmen, and Other lone wanders.. Just to mention some of the ones which could be other players in an MMO.

A lot of people are thinking "This is a wasteland, and if I'm not alone, it's not like fallout." But without enough people, there would have been very few quests, few encounters or Funny moments, and Few chances to alter your reputation.

I agree fully that Overpopulation in the wasteland would be outside the story. However a healthy population even in the wastes... especially if quite a few join the raiders, is more than fitting. Think of the Trappers in Klamath, They had a group dedicated to technically "Camping a Spawn". And if you really think about it.. How many Skeletons, bodies or piles of bones did you see? Those could be fallen players easily.

I'm not trying to argue, I'm just offering the alternate point. Fallout has room for lots of people to be running about. I believe the key, which our friends at gamesas well know is: "If it's done Correctly."

Take a caravan guarding job for example. It leaves at a specific time, say every 10 minutes so it's not overly boring between.. Anyone who wants to join it would talk to the Guy giving the job. Eliminating some of the need for "LFG!" which was never uttered in Fallout to my knowledge.

This one event, the caravan leaving town, could easily set off a set off a series of missions available until it leaves. Guards need to be hired, Merchants could get their stuff insured by the caravan company and travel in safety. Raiders could gain missions to ambush them. Those Choosing PvE could get beset on by wild animals while those choosing PvP could fight the Raiders.

ALL requiring a good number of people to be playing in the same area, and fully fitting with the Fallout universe. And now, I will shut up, my apologies to any I might have offended.

stand corrected and i agree.

In my opinion this is bad idea... i dont think there is Need to prevent 30 ppl from entering one zone. Its MMORPG if You want to play alone play SP but in mmo there should be such encounters. Altho one nuianse is that the bigger the world smaller the chance. If world is big enough its issue only for few weeks then everything gona settle down and no need for loading zones or any restrictions its an MMO- MASSIVELY Multiplayerr if you dont like Mass of people you should definitely roll to single player games.
P.S There is no offense meaned!

Best regards
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At first Instancing is killing what MMO's are about. You cant instance players its unreal and it was ok in last century where servers wasnt able to handle so much ppl. Or the game is high performance with mmo with 500-1000+ ppl in one zone cant be.

We dont know yet where will be FO situated. It could be another 100 years in future. Where civilization is more advanced. So wandering around Wasteland without ppl could be past.

From what I know FO will be PVP without restrictions oriented with not too much hardcoe dead. But hardcoe enough to force you to avoid next one.

If you are afraid of dying play smart or dont go alone. If some1 is stupid enough to go "dig gold" next to raiders base, or near frequent road alone he deserve to die.

And about ppl camping spawns.. what if they make it exhaustible and it will respawn some hour later randomly on map. Or the map will be so enormous with so much spawns there wont be need to camp one.

About chat options... For example you will need to buy a radio and tune it up for specific frequency (specific zone chat)

And where are you pulling this information from?

Haven't seen anything by gamesas locking down the type of PvP the game would have, nor the radio thing.

i really hope not. then i may just play red dead redemption.

And where are you pulling this information from?

Haven't seen anything by gamesas locking down the type of PvP the game would have, nor the radio thing.
they did, they said that PvP will be optional a matter consent as for the radio thing its probably in, there was a "telecom" tower in the concept arts...

I think in general a more open universe where all players can interact would be best by far. It could just be where the starting point is having more population that other areas. The further you wander out into the wastes the more scarce seeing other players all the time will be.

I am not a fan of creating max number of players for certain areas of normal game play at all. STO comes to mind when I think of that. While it is OK I guess at certain points when in a smaller world like STO is you find yourself switching instances (switching to other servers or groups of people) because of people being inactive, afk, or just that instance being an insane lag fest for one reason or another. Not to mention trying to cope with the utterly insane chat system.

I think too as people grow and progress in the game other areas or towns will become populated by them while starting areas or towns will be primarily populated by the new players. Having multiple different starting towns would help thin things up a bit as well in the event of a mass load of players (keeping fingers crossed).

As far as dying in the wastes. The simple method of this is to just respawn in the nearest town. Certain towns may be safe havens from normal game actions or activities. It would also be a great place for those of us that are logged in forever crafting while we sleep or whatnot.

I think a game that does it fairly well is AO. When you start there are always a lot of people around. But as you progress and move into areas that require more skill or experienced players things begin to thin out a fair bit. Plus I think one thing to remember too is that some people will go absolutely batty and play till they pass out at their PC's. Other may be weekend warriors or more casual players. I think this would add a lot to the thinning of people over time as people levels of experience will be vastly different in a fairly quick time frame.

There could be crowded area's thats healthy not a bad thing, and exploration of area's...for example if you walk alot in the desert you will find nothing while walking for long times. But there is a chance you might find something interesting.The downside for that is that it will take time and sometimes boredom kicks in or dangerous events. (danger muaha! )
The upside is not everyone will be doing that daily....thats where you feel the solo lost feeling. I hope its not gonna be WoW like you only can go get special stuff with big groups. But can survive in a cool way solo, I loved that about for example Star Wars Galaxies.

I hope there also will be a chance to create little camps or maby even towns, and crafting. And Unique characters not like WoW....I liked WoW for a while but I got bored quickly.....not creative and only a few ways to go follow the path. PvP or Guilds that is only about Epic Item hunting.

I didn't like the instanced off world in guild wars and i wouldn't like it in Fallout online. The whole point of MMO is running into random live people teaming up or fighting over a mob. I played guild wars for a month and only because it was free, to play in a little world of my own is the dumbest thing you could do to a mmo. I quit Wow after 5 years of grinding in hopes for a new MMO so far on my list are SWTOR and Fallout online only one will get my bottle caps and im hoping fallout wins! don't let me down chris

I agree about the instance thing actually, the random meeting of people in a huge online world is the cool thing about it.