Which system do you prefer as way of gaining resources? To an extent "grinding" is "work" where your work is "adventuring". Much is made both of performing certain non-story (often repeatable) quests for no apparent reason (e.g. Go kill these geckos to get XP or this item) or performing a "second job that you have to pay for" [1].E.g. perhaps, in early F02, you could act as a part-time trapper/hunter for some cash with gecko skins.

Obviously MMO's are still stuck with the problem that people play games to escape real life and also want to follow the rules of life such as not everyone being rich, but what compromises or systems work for you?

Do you want a game where you have to take a possibly boring caravan guard job for some caps/whatever other money/food/some items? Do you want to do a possibly uneventful patrol if you join the Brotherhood of Steel, the NCR security, the Enclave Army or maybe just a member of your player faction? Farm crops or buy low and sell high between towns just to be competitive? A game where if you just want to wander the countryside for a while, you might have to forage for or kill something?

Not everyone plays the game for the same reason, but what is fun for you? What ruins it and what suggestions can you offer regarding a system you would like? Statements are good but constructive ideas are better

[1]Not my saying, stolen from Zero Punctuation Why do games studios have to fight and die? War, war never changes : (

Coming from a largely EVE-heavy MMO background, i prefer the sometimes tedious jobs as a means to an end. But that's EVE, a game driven almost entirely by players and very little in the way of NPC.

If Fallout was like that, it would sweep me off my feet.
Upping a skill would require effort, not doing X amounts of quests - say you want a good high "Medic" skill, well, you'd have to patch up a whole lot of folks/muties to get there. Not simply going "This one Mommy!" every other hour. Makes the leveling up part a bit less adrenaline packed, but makes it much smoother and organic when it comes to developing your character and play style. Because you MADE it, didn't CHOOSE it.

And if the wealth/popularity of independent settlements (Read: Not under law) depended on the players who'd settled there, a rival settlement might see a much higher incentive to attack a "boring uneventful caravan" from that settlement to Vault City - or other major NPC settlement - acting as trade hubs. Player Raiders may even be a common sight.
Trade off for being settled out in the wildlands and not near NPC Settlements, where law is present and violence not so much tolerated, would be rarer types of wildlife to hunt for rarer types of hide - used for better types of armor. Higher yielding crop fields due to good, fertile soil that isn't starved due to over-production. Higher chance of finding exotic robot parts because most who come out there either doesn't make it there, or back.

I think that somewhat answers your question - the spirit of "lawlessness" appeals to me. Not the "Wanna fist-fight? Yes/No/Maybe" 4th grade love-letter affair most MMO's have. And certainly not the "We have to play in this here sandbox before we're good enough to go into the room filled with balls, otherwise we'll drown immediately" - It's a wasteland, everywhere should be filled with just enough sand and balls (hrrhrr) so it's fun to try and survive, but not impossible to do what you want if you set you mind - and numbers - to it.

i wouldn't mind the work part, i actually like the caravan guard jobs in FO2 sometimes nothing happend on the road from A to B while othertimes different enemies approached. Sure repetative quest for caps or some items might get boring but it also gives a bit of "realism" that so many like see in games.

And i think it is right that one should need to work for better gear, What ruins games for me or partly is grinding for gear, sure doing missions for your faction to get parts or caps is also grinding but someway i prefer that over standing at spawn spot killing stuff for a nice weapon drop.

I would definitely want to have jobs as a secondary xp/money buff, personally I think it's really boring to just grind all the time, many mmo's have quests like: go kill XX monsters, return and if you dont have any quests there aren't really anything else to do than grind to lvl up.

I'd just find it fun to have some jobs that require some time to complete but will reward you with a similar xp/money reward as the grinding. It could be boring stuff as mine XX amount of iron ore for the miners or it could be more action filled jobs as being a caravan guard.

More xp depending on how difficult it is.

You could even change the mining so that you get xp/money depending on how much you have mined/gathered/something else depending on what kind of job it is (mining, saluaging, cleaning up the brahmin pens ). Just a substitute for the grinding >_<

Would certainly agree that those sort of quests would give something for everyone to do, regardless of whether they're Lone or Pack wanderers, or simply prefer a set goal instead of the roaming about having to think up things to spend your time on yourself ^^
(Sorry if the last part sounded condescending )

I say grinding, or work should not be a neccasary (Yes i spelled that wrong ) part of the story. ONLY, if the player, wants somethin' extra, like a new plasma rifle.

But patrols would be pretty cool..

PS. I just realized that im grinding in this game im playing...

I believe people should level up fine during story, no grinding, maybe a little, but nothing extreme.

Anytime i play a fallout game i find myself instinctively checking every nook, cranny, crevice, locker and dark hole i can reach for the smallest bit of treasure. I know i'm not alone here. It's compulsive. So, maybe everyone's implied job will be scavenger?
Though it would also be cool if you could further specialize in a means of making money, such as trapper, caravaner or mechanic. y'know, aside from the steady stream of money generated by selling all the silly ammos you loot off corpses when all you really ever need is a super sledge. Cash in fallout just happens matter-of-factly.
Also, if playing a game feels like work, I'm guessin either the game isn't my style, it's poorly scaled, or I need a more strenuous vocation for a more appropriate juxtaposition.

I think what truly ruins a MMO or any RPG for that matter is maxing out your lvl too quickly. Having too low a lvl cap is the main cause of that. That is a chief complaint from a lot of people who played WoW. That is also a big problem in the non-gamesas fallouts. I would love them to be careful about not having a low lvl cap.It can also be a problem if they are giving out too much XP or giving out XP for doing every little thing (such as hacking terminals or picking locks). I think the lvl cap directly affects how much boring grinding you are forced to do in the game. It affects it more than trying to get gear. The crafting portion of this game i believe will be where the truly bad ass weapons will come from.

I personally would much rather be a mercenary guarding a caravan through the wastes than be a wizard going to kill a few wild boars any day.

Work, of course. It may be salvagery or gathering, anything but grinding mobs for resources. The only resources I want to take from animal-like mobs - organics (leather, fur, meat, etc.). If plasma rifle will drop from a deathclaw - I shouldn't play this game. Excuse my bad English... I am a Russian bear, it's hard to type with claws.

I hate the idea of "loot" approach to gaining resources. MMO games that use this system are infuriating. When I kill a creature I want to be able to skin it and take it's resources not rely on a mathematical equation which dictates whether or not the mole rat I just killed has skin fit for skinning and meat fit for eating. Meaning that if I see a pack of mole rats, I know that I can take their skin and meat for barter and trade purposes or to sustain myself by crafting armor and keeping myself fed.

For metal scraps and parts, saluaging of tractors and broken down cars should be the primary method. And in that regard I do not support magically regenerating car parts. As in you approach a car, click it to open a menu and drag the parts to your inventory only for them to re spawn six hours later for another player. One of the strong themes in the fall out universe is scarcity, and that should slap every player in the face often so that they know just how valuable that bit of scrap metal is.

Infinite resources leads to the inevitable rampant inflation and terrible in game economy that every MMO game suffers from. When every noob is getting rewarded with 10 caps for completing quest X, Y, and Z then before you know it the game world has too much money and the economy goes to crap. The world should not generate magical resources and money to reward players. This will also make trade and barter the primary method of transaction, and is much more sustainable in the long run.

Why is there a hunting rifle in my mole rat? That makes NO sense...what so ever. (It's like that motivational of Darth Vader on the beach scooping salt water into a Brita filter.) mole rats should have skin, teeth, claws, and meat...not caps, or guns, or stimpacks or bobby pins. (Though I suppose if you tore open their colons and rifled around in their poop for several minutes you could possibly find a cap or 2. That would still be very rare.)



I love scarcity and scavenging as much as the next Wastelander but having a finite number or resources on a server causes too many problems. Sure you can scrap vehicles till you can't scrap no more, but their should be lockers, toolboxes, crates, etc. in different areas that can plausibly be refilled by say Raiders that may have come in can gotten killed with their loot still at camp...Hell you could have been the one that killed them.



And yet you can't have a MMO with finite resources. Players horde, players quit, new players join. If a player quits playing that has 10% (exaggeration) of all the scrap still in his inventory. That happens 10 times and no more scrap at all left on the server. You join the game 6 months after launch and there's 2 people wearing power armor 10 people wearing leather (another exaggeration) and 800,000 players running around naked with broken hunting rifles. Heaven forbid a friend wants to come play with you a year after launch.



You certainly aren't alone my friend. I too check every nook and cranny. And when I get home from work, I play games to relax, not play a game that just feels like more work.

Having said that, jobs in a game don't have to feel like work.

Exp. You come across a caravan and one of the guards asks you for help "Quest X". They're somewhere between city A and town B and these raiders keep making passing runs on them trying to weaken their defenses enough to come in for the kill. You can ignore him, kill him and the other few guards, travel with them and fight off the raiders as they come in, or go hunt the raider party down and massacre every man woman and child in their gang.



Amen brother, amen. Skills should be broken down into types. Weapons, Crafting, Aid, ect. You have a finite amount of points at level cap say 200 for example. Each skill maxes out at lets say 115. You want to specialize in Guns and explosives. Max out your Guns skill (this being done by actually USING guns) to 115 and using explosives till you get them up to 85. This isn't to say you CAN'T use other weapons...but a weapon you specialize in would deal more damage and break down slower. This gives players options in how they want to play and advance their character.

Exp. With your Plasma weapons skill at 0, you do -25% damage with Plasma weapons and it breaks down 25% faster when used. With your Laser weapons skill at 50 you do 20% more damage with Laser weapons and they break down 20% slower. Big guns at 115 would do like 50% more damage at half the breakdown time. The more you USE a particular type of weapon the higher your skill gets, and the more damage you do with it. (Of course there would have to be some kind of option to re-skill or something to that effect because neither Laser nor Plasma weapons would probably be available at the lowest levels.)

And yet you can't have a MMO with finite resources. Players horde, players quit, new players join. If a player quits playing that has 10% (exaggeration) of all the scrap still in his inventory. That happens 10 times and no more scrap at all left on the server. You join the game 6 months after launch and there's 2 people wearing power armor 10 people wearing leather (another exaggeration) and 800,000 players running around naked with broken hunting rifles. Heaven forbid a friend wants to come play with you a year after launch.


Fair points, but I think if they decide to put the effort in (as opposed to either 'power armour for everyone' or 'lioncloths for every one'), the game masters can manage the resources to get it right, adding in just what is needed. I'd rather not see finite resources per se, but rather limits on growth set by true difficulty. I think this would be partially made acceptable to everyone with a focus on rare/hard to obtain perks, skill/SPECIAL boosts or implants/modifications. It doesn't mean a level 9000 unarmed naked guy can punch his way through power armour (rip out his air hose perhaps, but that's another thread...), but does make him a hell of a lot better than the idiot inside the tin can.

As such, I don't agree with the concept of 'grinding' in an mmo and the hand in hand aspect that with enough time anyone can get 100% completion. There has to be some MMO's for that, but some also have to be a survival of the fittest competition, the latter of which I feel fits Fallout. But that's just my opinion. Why do games studios have to fight and die? War, war never changes : (

If i was a Raider there wouldn't be loot MINI NUKE!

It would be cool if you could set up your own bussiness or caravan.

i like the idea of work because it keeps it more clean if you will, but grinding is good of combat based players and such, while, you cant really grind doctor skill or lock pick skills.

One thing that can avoid things becoming tedious is decision-making. If the player has a stake or say in the things, then it could be more engaging.

Lets say for example there are regular caravan routes between two NPC settlements. Player characters can sign up to guard it and depart together. Then they reach a point at which they must vote between A) The longer safer route in which they only fight relatively weak NPC creatures and receive a small sum of compensation or B) taking the shorter but more dangerous PvP-raiding enabled route that would grant more caps and loot.

I think the way SWG pre-nge handled skill growth would fit Foo wonderfully. In order to gain experience with a certain skill, you had to use it. The skill trees worked really well in that to get to the more advanced skills, you might have to level up several lower skills (Kinda hard to explain if you haven't played it.) You could decide at any time to change your focus and "unlearn" a skill box to take a different path.

The only time players should be forced to participate in a particular style of play, especially one which many players think is boring, should be during a tutorial, and only to introduce players to varying mission/gameplay types.

This is especially true with fallout. One of the things that make fallout unique when it was released was that you were not forced into be a gun wielding 'cowboy'. You had that option, but could also be a pacifist hippie doctor that runs from every random encounter and finds non-violent ways to complete quests.

I prefer the idea of being able to roam the land finding treasure, doing quests for rewards and wealth, and slaying monsters for experience, sadly almost every MMORPG still uses this template for player wealth and It's something that can't really be completely redone only finely re-tuned. I would hate to see a "Real-time" where you earn money based on the amount of real-time you play. I like the system Fallout uses where you get wealth and items by exploring the world. Please don't be offended by anything shown above, I'm only stating my opinion, I mean no harm by any comments, replies and topic that I post in or about.