I actually had this revelation yesterday with a friend telling me, "With ultimate power, comes an ultimate weakness" (sorry, Superman):
- should wanderers from the wastelands actually be afraid of the wastelands?
I say that at least once or twice a month, large communities would be attacked by a force of a random faction or creature, randomized from a list of forces of many differing sizes and types

- there is also the idea for survival:
Maybe a player HAS to eat food and/or drink water to actually survive, or take a huge penalty to most SPECIAL attributes and EXP earning and/or maybe an extra penalty for prolonged hunger/thirst.

Interesting suggestions from an interesting nerd swordsman. "Don't go crazy on me and start wearin' branches"
- Harold (fallout 3)

"I'm ready to kick ass and chew bubblegum... but i'm all out of bubblegum."
- Duke Nukem

They both sound nice but I hope the second idea doesn't get in the game because to be honest I hate too much realism

The ultra reality ideal that you need food and water to survive is something I haven't seen in a game since Everquest. It's never been "required" in a Fallout game, but it's always been available. I wouldn't mind seeing it where you have to eat or else you start losing stats, but I don't know if the devs would be all "serious face" about it. The sentiment I've always heard is that it becomes tedious in a game setting. Of course, I always add "you have to be able to go to the bathroom to survive."

Towns/camps that come under fire from multiple opposing factions would be a great addition to the sometimes static feeling that MMOs can get. I would do it more often than once or twice a month though. And I would add quest buildup components where, hypothetically, you have a raider camp on the evil side of things, and the city of Shady Sands on the other. Evil Karma characters could do quests for the raiders and over time and effort by the server at large (through collection quests) the raiders could have collected enough guns, ammo, and other necessities to make a larges scale raid on Shady Sands. Opposing this, Shady Sands could have quests to build up their defenses (by Good Karma players doing collection / scav quests) and also to send patrols to beat down the raiders when seen. If Shady Sands builds up enough equipment and NPC power they send a force to the raider's camp. Players could help in these raids, and if enough aid comes along (must be significant) then part of Shady Sands or the Raider Camp becomes unpopulated for a given time. Neither would ever occupy each other, but they definitely want to wipe each other off the map.

I remember in Fallout 1 if you walk around the map for long enough with out armor or a water supply youl have to stop every now and then to look for it. You dont actualy look for it your self, insted you just read the text screen to the left of the hud and it tells you that you had to stop to look for water and youv taken some dammage from dehidration. I cant remember ever dieing from it though. There will be an option to require water in the new non gamesas Fallout game that is being released later this month.

Notice how I didnt say the name of this non gamesas game there? Hopefully that will save me from being beaten and shouted at Join my Fallout Online Facebook page.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=129704254139&ref=ts

On the subject of towns coming under attack, if the attacking force is strong enough, and no-one helps defend a town it should be able to be burnt to the ground, any quest there would be lost, and if you were afk, or even logged-out there you would be taken into slavery, where (through a quest-line) you have to escape, losing most of your gear along the way. And on the nope of Starvation, and dehydration i've already discussed the on my Post "hardcoe Servers?" so if you want to discuss it more you are welcome to do it there Give me an axe and point me towards the caribou, dinners on me.

The Wasteland should definitely be a dangerous place; be it from hazards of the environment itself to the creatures that dwell there. There should only be a few places where the character can feel safe I think.

I think that stuff like required drinking and eating would be a bad idea for an MMO, most people just wouldn't be into that, and these games thrive off the marketability to the masses.

aye.. one certain game has proven that dumbing down everything makes u the most successful mmo out there :p imo, the simpler the better.. as long as its not too simple In gaming terms... Life's a die, then you bich.

I'm sorry but I'm still all-for needing food and water to survive. Everquest did it just fine. You DID NOT ACTIVELY need to press any buttons to eat. As long as you had food and water in your inventory it WAS DONE PASSIVELY. Please explain to me how this is tedious?

Heat/Cold, radiation, disease are all imnportant dangers in a post-apocalytpic wasteland where part of the theme is *SURVIVAL*. Did we all forget about this? As you grow in power, you may need to worry *less* about it, but you would still have to keep it in the back of your mind.

Edit: I'm sorry if some of the above came across as sarcastic or smarmy. I'm just a little tired of games I love turning "carebear" (to use the often-heard terminology) just to convenience (sp!) people.

Another idea to go along with the above, would be to have random waterholes/oasis's (oasi?) out in the wasteland.. but some might have contaminated water that could injure you if you drink it... or maybe mutate you? the quantum-cola-mutated crab things in that other non-gamesas fFalllout game comes to mind ^_^

Now to address the comments from an earlier poster about good/evil quests between raiders and a shadey sands that could result in raids/war, I think thats a pretty awesome idea Similarly, having some quest areas (such as cave complexes/mines, abandoned buildings, etc) switch between differant sorts of MOBs could be intersting as well. Like if a cave complex was inhabited by say mole rats, but after awhile, suddenly some bandits took it over, as if they had cleared it out. Then, once the bandits are killed, either more bandits or some other MoB moves in. You could even have rotating daily quests that use this method.

But, really, when you make it so simple and thoughtless that it comes down to just having stuff in your inventory, it isn't really contributing to the feel of the game for the vast majority of people who never think about it at all, other when they're stocking up to avoid negatives consequences, it just doesn't contribute in a positive way.

I wholeheartedly agree. Games based on the principle of survival should require the player to learn how to survive within the game environment. Not all challenges and dangers should be from MOBs or NPCs.

Radiation should not be the only hazard. Climb a snow-capped mountain? Try not to freeze to death. Out in the head of a barren desert? Try not to die from exposure. Just examples of course, but as I said previously the Wasteland itself should be an enemy of sorts. Sure there should be some safe harbors here and there, or some really naturally wonderful and amicable regions... but also those that are rather harsh or even murderous.

Trying not to play the devil's advocate on this one but... I'm thinking one reason why playing Fallout games in the past hasn't been more like watching an episode of "Survivorman" would be because the game needs to keep a fun atmosphere of play. If you're constantly worried about starving to death then it would be potentially very limiting to how much adventuring can be done. I think that survival needs to play a role in the game, especially if you just go out into the burning desert. I also think that too much of the survivalist play would hamper the fun aspects of the game.

DGL> That particular method doesn't contrivute positlve (except for stat-food) but on the other hand.. does it contribute negatively?

There are plenty of ways to enhance that method to make it more "positive", though once again we could start edging into 'carebear' territory here, which a Fallout game really shouldn't be. However, having access to "stat food" would make eating/drinking useful. Taking penalties for NOT eating (And resting!) would make eating/drinking useful.

IT would also allow for a purposeful cooking skill, and contribute to scavenging as well. In most MMOs that have cooking, you generally only see a few people doing it to get special bonuses because in those settings, its not a matter of day to day survival. In a post-apocalyptic survival setting, it really is.

I'm hesitant to pull out the "realism" word cause who knows how "realistic" the fallout universe will be.. but it does add a strong thematic "realism" to *this sort* of game. Sure in a fantasy game where harvests are bountiful and such, or in a sci fi space game where food is just created from energy converters, a game like *this* needs that survival element.

Oh, and one other thing to note: some people may say its not "Fallout", right? The spiritual father of the Fallout series (perhaps grandfather?), Wasteland, you did need water to survive the desert.

As far as villages, hubs, towns, ect getting attacked by NPCs or critters, i think it's a great idea and a system similar to what Tabula Rasa had would go a long way in doing this. For those that don't know, Tabula Rasa had key areas that players could assault and capture from the NPCs but every so often the NPCs would attack those areas in force and if there wasn't enough players there to defend them they would revert back to NPC control.

I'm iffy on the food and drink idea. On one hand it can add greatly to the feel of the game, but it would run the risk of just adding a monotonous aspect to gameplay. To severly limit that risk, instead of making it an individual player function they should make it so that player settlements would have to maintain a store of food and drink or eventually degrade back to the wasteland. This could be done by players running food caravans to thier faction/guild settlement and/or having small farms as part of the settlement. Modoc from FO2 comes to mind.

That actually sounds pretty neat, I'm against players being forced to eat/drink, but if there are player settlements this could be a pretty nice touch to it. Also if someone wants to destroy the settlement they could target the caravans