http://bulbage.com/fallout2.html

scroll down to the traits section and tell me which ones you don't understand.

Yes, but the design of fallout 1/2 is very easy to understand, EVERY stat, item, person, pretty much anything has a description.
Having to right click to get the proper action is hardly something that is hard to understand, there are only 3 different icons?

Gliders seem neat, but I have a small problem with heights.

I know that I have played the game, and I have first hand use of the perks/traits, but link me a manual to a game, and ask me a question about it, and if I am provided the proper info, I bet I can answer that question.

some thing like the fast shot trait, or I guess ( even though I don't fully understand the dice system in FO 1/2 ) a question about dice rolls, maybe its because I played magic the gathering and got used to reading to see what a card does, but I am just used to figuring out what things do.

Dice system in a nut shell for FO:

(your skill -difficulty penalty) => Item your using skill on.

So small example your gun skill is 100% enemies AC is 30 with no other factors your % to hit would be 70%. Random dice determines if you get your hit. Thats a super simplified version that doesn't take in to account lots of modifiers but you get the basic Idea.

So why should the game be dumbed down for those who can't be bothered to read? Aside from the Search for More Money.

Where does one stop in the search for more money? Frankly, there will always be idiots who can't grasp simple concepts even when it's spelled out to them right in front of their eyes. You'll find that if your game calls for the player to push A to win, someone will be stupid and push B and wonder why they lost. I say if they can't be bothered to read something that is clearly written out, they're probably are not really your target demographic.

This reply is equally appropriate to the last person that replied to me...

These people arent neccesarily idiots. Funnily enough, not everyone is the same, not everyone learns in the same way. Some people aren't book/long wordy description people. They arent stupid... Richard Branson is a key example of someone who finds it hard to read/learn from a book/manual (he has dislexia), does anyone want to call him stupid?

I think the "Stupid" approach would be to assume that one way suits all - When we know clearly that it doesnt.

Here's a crossover design issue from MMOs. The last thing an MMO player wants is to play a character for many hours only to discover that they inadvertently gimped their character. By "gimped" I mean that the player cannot play their character the way they had planned to play it. Faced with the decision of playing a character which is not fun to play, or rerolling, many players will simply quit the game.

When explaining stats and character creation, the new player will need to know what impact each option will have later in the game. The more stats make a difference in gameplay, the more likely this gimping will occur.

That is a good point. No one's going to want to make a character with low STR only to find out hours later that they won't be able to accurately wield that sniper rifle they had their eyes on.

I'd think that's more of a design problem to be considered than anything necessarily insurmountable. One thing I've always liked are Bethesda's opening tutorial levels, with the optiont to change and refine your character before leaving. I think it might be neat if the tutorial was expanded to give the player a better sense of the sort of character they have made with the stats they had picked, with an eye towards making sure the player hasn't inadvertently "gimped" their character. Intuitive and complete stat descriptions would assist in that aim as well, I'd think. (ie, if weapons were to have minimum STR requirements, then the description for the STR attribute could include a list of what weapons are "useable" at what STR levels, etc.)

The ideal RPG ought to be able to combine the best of worlds, with the player having a clear and concise concept of what the character's limitations and strengths are going to be before passing the "point of no return," without having to sacrifice a certain level of elegance in terms of what those stats affect.

Well they can do it without spoiling stuff - and a stat description of "Your STR is 8, this enables you to use A,B,C and F" is pretty coddling. The issue of players gimping themselves, with respect to items, is just an issue of item design. A Sniper Rifle doesn't need a STR that classes as Very Good for example, Average would be ok - the opposite for a minigun. That's pretty intuitive, I'd hope. Generally when you leave the character creation you know what your character's going to play like just from the skills and stats descriptions - they were quite clear in the earlier games, and in pretty much any game I've played, heh.

Well, yeah - that was just an example. I have to admit that I've made characters in Fallout 1 and 2 that I thought would end up a bit on the weak side while still being able to use your average rifles and the like - only to find out that I was a point short. The Weapon Handling perk handled any problems I ended up running into - but again it likely helped that I knew such a perk existed and was able to hold out long enough to pick that. The more casual player that's likely to get frustrated by running into this sort of problem is probably also not the sort who'd know ahead of time what perks would later be available to them.

I generally found I left character creation in those games with a fair understanding of what sort of character I was ending up with, but at the same time a bit more "coddling" during character creation to help out a wider variety of players isn't really going to take away from my experience, either. Simply having "These are the sort of weapons you'll be able to use without penalty at your STR level" would be a decent compromise in my mind.

There is a valid that has been made, I think, that while the original Fallouts were more of a niche game, that current-gen games are trying to reach a wider audience. There ought to ideally be a way to acceptably cater to both types of gamers without taking away from anything. It's like back in the tabletop days - no matter how complex the ruleset became, so long as there was a competent GM to assist in character creation the player didn't actually need to know much about the inner workings of the system or which Stats affected what. I've GMed many a game where the players had no idea how the game worked beyond a basic understanding of how the challenge rolls worked. During creation, players would pick something that they thought would fit the character they had in mind, and I would tell them what sort of character those stats described and made suggestions about any changes they might want to make.

Might be neat to see a videogame that could do something like during character creation, I think.

Well for that you can offer people premade characters, but still allow them to tweak it, so they can get a Stealther, a Sniper, a talker, etc. Might be a lot of permutations to cover, but it'll help those in need.

Just like, as a reminder for people who haven't played them, in FO1 and 2.

Yep, I know. Not really getting this "character creation as a hurdle" issue.

Well, that's kind of a given, isn't it? But you still run into the problem with if you take, say, a "Sniper-Boy" pre-made character and then drop the STR down by a couple points - the more "casual" player could end up being frustrated to find out his "Sniper" can no longer effectively use a sniper rifle. Pre-mades are one tool to be used, but I don't see how there's no room to expand the toolset, so to speak.

Sure, we can just stick with "good enough for me" and be happy in our niche elitism. But I also wouldn't have a problem playing a nice "hard-core" RPG with enough "coddling" to cater to a wider audience.

Yeah, elitism, heh. Again, then you just design the sniper rifles around that. Maybe have one rifle that a weakling can carry but the heavy damaging one will require a stronger person. You'd have to be stupid to assume you should be able to carry around a Barret .50 when your strength is classed as Below Average or, forbid, Weak. Clear descriptions were done in the earlier games, quite well so, I guess you have to read two sentences and that'd be an issue, heh. But I guess they could have an "interactive" character creation to get the point across even more so - as laughable as an NPC instructor saying "You'll need to be STRONGER if you want to use this baby *hint hint*" is, hehe.

Underneath the layers of condescension, that might be an interesting idea.

Well hardly condescending - if they're given information up front and manage to somehow "gimp" their character (not being able to use a weapon is hardly doing so) well, their fault for not paying attention really.

It wouldn't take much to be better then the first one, the first one died within months of sales and had 0 replay value, bombed the charts for gameplay, and not to mention- Ticked Off 95% of Fallout Fans.



Honestly I expected more from a game with the Fallout Title in it. It was just shoot em' up nonsense to drive a few bucks to help the dying Interplay from going bankrupt - and failed miserably. In fact I think they would have been better off NOT releasing it, but instead a Fallout 2 Expansion.


2 would depend on many things, are they going to put effort into it, or just slop it together and try to make some money again?
I don't look forward to any information on this. I would rather see new things like Fallout 4, or even the New Vegas, or a MMOG made, all of which will be 10x more successful then the original BOS.

Please. I don't buy the dyslexia angle. If those folks are affected to that point, they're probably are not going to be playing a roleplaying game to being with, especially when there's a fair amount of text to be read.

No, most people are just too damn lazy to bother reading things through. It's no condition other then being lazy. Especially since stuff like this was brought up when someone mentioned users coming ONLINE to a MESSAGE BOARD to complain about not being able to perform AIMED SHOTS. Those people were largely just being stupid, if not all of them. Highly doubt there was many, if any, dyslexic users in that. Having premade characters that do not have restrictions will resolve that nicely enough, as those who can't be bothered reading can just go with whichever premade fits them the best.

Are they stupid? Maybe. Maybe not. In either case, complex games like RPGs (or any game that involves a moderate amount of reading...) are not really for them. So why focus on them as part of your demographic? It should not have been hard to design a well thought out game like Fallout 3 that doesn't treat people like they're idiots or can't read, and still be successful.

For Bethesda, since they like to have character creation during their tutorial, can have an ADVANCED button, that warned users that this option is for experience players only, and have traits in there, much like they had the option to have a custom "class" in Oblivion.