No. That is the flawed logic that supports many of your posts.

I respect that it is your view, but I have no respect for the argument itself.

There is no mandate, no rule book that says that Fallout 4 must be a game in 'the exact image' of Fallout (1).

Therefore, to say that Fallout 4 is no longer Fallout because it has breached some immutable characteristics of the original is flawed.

That you don't like the changes, may be respected, I'm sure those who believed the Earth was flat were disappointed too.

(The http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/ website is fascinating by the way)

Many of the cells of your body are not original, but you remain the same person.

A city may have its buildings and infrastructure change over time, yet it is the same city.

is Fallout 4 entitled to call itself a Fallout game? Of course it is, the argument against that is logically perverse.

You keep speaking of the Fallout series having an 'intended purpose'.

That purpose is determined by Bethesda, the property owner, and their answer (the game Fallout 4) is clear.

I've seen the changes from Fallout (1) and Fallout 4.

I've watched some Fallout (1) clips on youtube as I have no interest in every playing the game,

and I've seen the available material about Fallout 4.

I cannot conceive of why playing Fallout (1) would be preferable to playing Fallout 4.

Though I respect that you may disagree (and probably will).

And this is the answer to it all.
You belittle and dismiss [as wrong] what you admit not understanding.

http://i.imgur.com/XTnQvBO.jpg

I remember what Emil Pagliarulo said about it too.

http://www.1up.com/features/fallout-3-afterthoughts

Oh wow, really?

So that means he's happy about it and (MAYBE) if the situation will play out again he will behave in the same way?

Except that Bethesda did Open World games since a decade ago and now 3/5 of games that come out are Open World?

Also, I fail to see how every non-Japanese development won't be good at creating choices & consequences. I also fail to see how ''choose your girl'' and other ecchi stuff is a good example for comparision (of course, there are some exceptions...some).

I wouldn't say I'm pessimistic. I'm definitely looking forward to the game. But I don't have high hopes for the writing, it's Bethesda's weakpoint lately IMO. It's not that the writing is horribly bad in Skyrim but it's just not that good, it's mediocre for the most part. And a Fallout game without good writing is a great waste. The thing I hope for the most is to be proven wrong in this aspect.

I'm also not too thrilled with how they're handling the perk system (correct me if I'm wrong and misunderstood the system). The fact that every perk is tied to a SPECIAL seems limiting to the overall gameplay design to me. Now you have to have 1 perk or perk "family" (perks with multiple levels) for each SPECIAL score and you can only have one. You don't have stuff like perk A and perk B unlocking for purchase with 4 Charisma and you can get any of them or both, or Perk C unlocking at a certain character level. I would have also preferred it if they didn't remove skills, the same way I would have preferred if they hadn't removed attributes, major and minor skill distinction in Skyrim, traits in FO3, majors, minors and misc skills in Oblivion...

Why is it flawed though? I would rather say that your comparison is flawed as you compare apples and oranges. We are talking about design and entertainment here, and despite of what some might think, yes even something which falls in to art, design and/or entertainment (games, movies, books etc.), follows certain rules. Bauhaus design is called Bauhaus design as it follows certain principles that you find in this particular style. And it would stop being Bauhaus the moment you follow a different design path.

Scientific findings are based on a whole different principle, namely the scientific method. Designs however or styles are a whole different mater. That's one of the reason why you have genres and sub-genres, prequels, sequels and spin-offs. And in that sense I see Fallout 3/4 more as a spin off than sequels - we have yet, not talked about the quality of said games.

See, The Maltese Falcon, Citizen Kane or Casablanca, the ultimate height of the black and white genre could all be colorized but every cinematographer worth his salt would have to cringe at the idea and calling it a travesty of unspeakable manner. A colorized Citizen Kane would have doubtlessly earned the nickname Citizen Candy Kane, of which the typical block buster movie goers would simply shrug it off as fanaticism or purism. Not everything however has to be remastered, digitalized and spiced up just so that it can be sold to billions of movie goers based on some marketing research, all done simply because it sells. - And it really isn't a surprise that some of the big names in the movie industry agree with that assessment. As they understand the implication of artistical merit.

~ The change of heart was not due to the pleas of Steven Spielberg and James Stewart - both of whom testified before Congress last year that the practice of color-enhancing films made in black-and-white put commerce above art. In the case of Citizen Kane, Turner Entertainment, which recently acquired the movie from the RKO film library, decided that a protracted legal battle was not worth the potential commercial benefits of adding new color to an old masterpiece.

And that's what happened with Fallout, at least I assume it did. A change in favor of pleasing the mass market, as the first person perspective and real time gameplay simply sells more copies today touching a much wider audience and market - which it ultimately did. But also with sacrificing the core principles of the previous games which have been based in spirit on Wasteland. This is what also happened already to some extend from Morrowind to Oblivion/Skyrim. Fallout done in real time and first person might be a very enjoyable product in their own right, no one is arguing about that. I do love shooters as well!. But with so many quotes by the original developers, design documents AND the game as finished product as source, it is very easily to identify the definition of Fallout of which gameplay and perspective are a part of. Simply for the fact because those are PURE design choices and not technical limitation. The fact that even today you have a large number of games made in a similar vein like Fallout 1 proves this - admittedly most of which are kick starter projects these days, again highlighting the contrast and conflict between commercial decisions and artistic freedom.

Companies like Bethesda, EA, Ubisoft, Bioware etc. are slaves to their own practices - I am not complaining about this, just saying. Their size and operating procedure simply doesn't allow them to follow a niche approach as how it was a practice in the 1990s and later. Selling 300 000 copies of Fallout 1 was regarded as huge success for the company where a game made by Bethesda has to AT THE MINIMUM sell 1 million copies just to get eventually even. To believe that this has absolutely no influence in the design process would be extremely naive.

But even if a game was not always regarded as very high commercial success it still allowed for something like Planescape or System Schock 2 to be made by larger game developers, some of which are seen as classics by gaming standards, many times copied, but never surpassed. The fact that some companies have become so large today and/or members of parent companies - in this case Zenimaxx, means that marketing research and commercial success dictate the design process and decisions a lot, either directly or indirectly. Namely in a way how for example companies like Bethesda or Bioware could never ever release an RPG under their name that has no full voice acting today despite of its limitation to Role Playing or selling a game which isn't labeled as action RPG. Simply because to market studies tell them that sales would drop to about 50% - arbitrary number, but you get the picture.

Of course, the chief executive of Bethesda or their lead game developer etc. will always see a game that has sold 15 milion copies as the best possible game they could have made in that time. And I will not argue about that point, depending on what their priorities are. But if it was the best possible Fallout game they could have made? That is another matter.

Haha, this is quite true. Also, when has any company ever in the history of anything stayed on top? There will be a time when Bethesda does make a bad TES or Fallout title. It's the cycle of how these things works, highs and lows. Even Square Enix and Bioware have went through it.

This is bogus; they were merely the ones with the most cash to spend on it.

However, let's say that you were correct... What is laudable about expanding a respected series in the polar opposite path on virtually all fronts?

• Where Fallout is about ethics; FO3 is about whim.
• Where Fallout holds one accountable; FO3 forgets everything and resets.
• Where Fallout had methodical strategic combat; FO3 has chaotic melee and VATS exploits.
• Where Fallout had meticulous attention to multiple solutions, FO3 forced fixed solutions.
• Where Fallout had in depth and impactful conversations with... FO3... they said that was a battle they didn't want to fight; and in FO4 conversations are so important to the game that the player can wander off mid response.
• Where Fallout had carefully alloted stats and perks that define a character's talents, strengths and weaknesses; FO3 gave them away like free candy, and made their effects negligible options, and generally implemented only as bonuses; strengths and ~nothing.
  And they included nonsense perks like http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Grim_Reaper and http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Nuclear_Anomaly.
  

Bethesda's games have been well received, but don't imply that they saved anything when they discarded everything of merit and import about the series. The series is now just a pale husk draqed over their other game, dressing up to sell it again to the same buyers.

To question ones pessimistic attitude is no different that to question why they are optimistic. And the answer is that we are all individuals with individual tastes, opinions and expectations.

This thread may not have been started as flamebait but it is indeed just that and it's basically a thread about a group of people on this forum and not the game which is why I'm closing it.

It's already garnered a few personal insults and I expect it will gather more if left open.