This is a post of an email I sent to gamesas regarding future Fallout games. Hopefully my thoughts can gain some momentum and amplification here.

----- email start -----

Comment regarding Fallout: New Vegas

While I appreciate a new Fallout game as much as the next person, and I loved Fallout 3, I am at somewhat of a loss as to why you are revisiting the Vegas area for your next game. While "The Pitt" expansion pack is set in Pittsburgh, you went back to Vegas for a whole new game.

My question and concern is: Why?

We've done Southern California/Nevada a couple of times already (Fallout 1 and 2, at least), and now we've done Washington, D.C.

Why aren't we going to New Orleans, or Chicago, or perhaps even Alaska? While I understand that both D.C. and Vegas can use mostly the same engine (due to almost the exact climate types used in the game), it would be nice to see the effect of the nuclear holocaust on the weather once in a while (like radioactive rain, cloud changes and super-lightning strikes, for instance). Due to the desertification model in the current game engine, though, it won't happen.

However, change the location, and you change the climate. Imagine having to slog it through radioactive blizzards in Power Armor while slugging it out with Super Mutants in Chicago, for instance. Or perhaps slogging through radioactive swamps around New Orleans while avoiding dinosaur-like mutant crocodiles and super-ghouls (with cajun accents, no less), praying that floods and hurricanes don't come through while you're knee- or chest-deep in the muck.

These scenarios could be facilitated by the Brotherhood of Steel stumbling on transportation designs (yes, they should be making foundries and vehicles shortly after the end of Fallout 3). Furthermore, the BOS could end up discovering ship plans and sending out explorer ships...perhaps even all the way to China. Perhaps explore Europe, or Rio in Brazil.

All I'm saying is that you have a monster franchise, and you could easily have 3+ games in development simultaneously, if only you'd diversify the location settings for each game. The (single) game engine would only need upgrading for weather, building designs, and new enemy models by location. The small picture in Fallout 3 was great, but imagine the bigger picture...and the bigger story at work. Even with drastic climate change, there will be pockets of humanity everywhere (or at least ghouls, super mutants and critters). The water purification plant in D.C. at the end of Fallout 3 will definitely have an effect on surrounding locations. You have the chance to create not just a couple of cities, but an entire (ruined) world.

Please try to go to other locales in future games. If you need creative thought on such ideas, I'm available - just ask. I'm unemployed and I've got tons of time on my hands. I love the post-apocalyptic genre (Wasteland was my first such game on the C64). Regardless of my (constructive) criticism, I will be awaiting Fallout: New Vegas with excitement. I just want to see the if the rest of the world survived, too.

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After I finished the email, I thought further about it and realized I forgot Australia, Africa, The Phillipines, and maybe even a defrosted Antarctica or Greenland. Just because the planet got nuked doesn't mean that everything got affected equally. Hopefully, this will give gamesas a swift enough kick to the rear so that they open up several full-sized studios and start world-sized development.

Maybe even dust off the old "World of Xeen" concept and create several games that, once purchased and installed, would make one seamless world. One large United States of American Wasteland, for instance (go ahead and use it, but don't do it half-way, guys).

And please, work on the vehicles, too. Once you do that, you have everything you need to resurrect Steve Jackson's "Car Wars" game (yet another post-apocalyptic game that has languished for far too long). Hell, I'm unemployed...I'd work on the "Car Wars" game myself, even though I don't know artistry or DirectX programming. It'd be too cool - kiss Grand Theft Auto goodbye.

I didn't read the entire thing. Sorry.

1) Don't send an email. It wont reach anyone important enough to look at or even consider your suggestions. Cut out the middle man, write a letter.

2) Whilst some of those are great ideas, they're all 'here and there' gimicks, not really anything to sell an entire game. Weather and natural disasters are just obstacles, and things to look at, not core emphasis of the game. Especially a game like Fallout.

3) You mentioned something about the BoS. Tell me, why does it have to be the BoS? Vagrants made their way to San Fran on a frigate in FO2. The BoS aren't the only resourceful faction in Fallout. And most of us are getting sick of them being a prominence. This is Fallout not "BoS: A post-apocalyptic pickle".

Fallout may be in the makings of becoming what you call a 'monster franchise' But that doesn't mean it should be a rushed and milked affair. Just let Fallout be Fallout. It's not the only PA franchise on the market.

Chi-Town has been done in tactics...Kinda.

Chicago (or rather tribal villages that sprung up around the obliterated city) is in Fallout Tactics.

Now a setting in which the fallout radiation "accelerated" the growth of the local wildlife, rather than severely stunting it or outright eradicating it, would be very interesting. I am getting quite tired of the "radioactive desert" motif. A "mutated" jungle or swamp that is infested to the brim with all manner of horrific beasties would be a nice change of pace. The Louisiana Bayou or the Florida Everglades would be perfect backgrounds for this.

Your thoughts?

I think that would be neat, Fallout tactics 2 was set in flordia, but got scraqed.


I think that if beth doesn't watch what they do, there gonna drown in there own water so to speak, oblivion and fallout 3 where fun games, but they are also a large step down in terms of the way the game puts less stress on what the character can do and more on what the player can do.
much like the morrowind>oblivion change was, Oblivion is fun, it has great eye candy, but Morrowind is the better RPG.
Stats became less important, with just a few that made a big impact, less dialog choises, and pretty much no way to fail.

Everyone gets it wrong [depicting New Orleans]

I think its a great setting, but I don't think it fits Fallout per se.

Fallout seems best suited to American locals with a known nuclear history.
Like http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/vegas_vic-1.jpg for instance

You might want to read this:

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_Tactics_2

Plus, it's not Beth making the game in Vegas, it's Obsidian, and if Pete Hines is to be trusted on that matter, it's totally Obsidian's idea. ^_^

Well, they would have a real life example to look to for how an irradiated environment might work. Chernobyl. I still say F3 should have been designed like that, with nature retaking the urban environment, rather then a desert.

To be honest - it should have. There's nothing pointing towards this working differently in the Fallout world - the classic games had a brownish yellow orange desert environment precisely because there's already deserts everywhere in that region.