It proves to me that despite a lot of fantastic looking work put into it...
It just doesn't work.

But :shrug:, I think it might be workable if one considers this mod a preliminary effort; Where the final work replaces the actor and building meshes with custom faces and adobe huts, and generally cleans up the place (Shady Sands was fairly clean).

I know this amounts to a purely graphical update, but neither the Village, nor the inhabitants in the video remind me of Shady Sands (though that might be different in Junktown's case).

:evil: ~Can't help it... In the end, if all these were done to perfection... I'd want it to play out in bird's eye 3d/isometric. :facepalm:

It's not even attempting to recreate the original Shady Sands... so no, it doesn't prove anything.

What's it doing then? ~It uses the original voices and names (and presumably locations)... What's it doing then? (and why call it "return to Shady Sands" ?)

Indeed, not only would you need totally new textures and meshes to match up with the originals, you'd need to overhaul the combat, dialogue, and SPECIAL mechanics back in.

You wouldn't need to touch the mechanics to recreate the plot, story and locations.

You couldn't recreate the plot and story very well though seeing as how Fallout 3 has a very low character limit for dialogue.

Don't get me started on the voice acting; modder voice work always makes my ears bleed, and couldn't possibly compare to what was present in Fallout which featured the best voice actors in the profession. I don't even want to know what the Master would sound like in a Fallout 3 mod.

You can break dialog down to fit. That wouldn't be an issue at all.

I do agree about amateur voiceovers though. It's painful and I tend to purposefully avoid mods that include it.

You'd likely need to a ton of rebalancing, however. Everything in Fallout 1 was put into the game and balanced specifically for that system and how it worked. Enemies that provided a decent challenge in Fallout 1 might either be too difficult or too easy for Fallout 3's sysem, depending on the circumstances.

At a guess, I'd imagine you'd have to at least completely scrap all of the XP gain from the originals and put in something that works better for the current system.

And if you really wanted to "recreate" the original games with the GECK, there's also the matter of coding back in all of the reputation perks you'd end up getting (like Childkiller, etc - bad example, I know, but you get the idea...) which would often change the way that NPCs would respond to you.

If you just took Fallout 3, and put in all the characters, locations, and dialogues - it still wouldn't have much in common with Fallout 1, when you get right down to it. Simply because even disregarding the ruleset and camera position; there's still more to a game than that.

It might be possible (though obviously a ton of work.) I wouldn't even be against someone doing that (and frankly am suprised no-one's attempted it on a large scale yet.) But it still wouldn't be my kind of thing. I still own the original games; and I'd be very suprised if any sort attempt to "redo" Fallout 1 or 2 didn't come out as a pale shadow of it's former self. ie, the originals would still be a "better," more complete gaming experience.

Have you ever seen those cheep foriegn knock off s of movies? They have the same plot, and story and all that jazz. Are they the same? Nope.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XX8Y5-BZLaM <- Original
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhGrA0KwkVg&feature=related <- bollywood knock off

Unless it was a really massive undertaking (such as Roguedao?s recreation of the planescape setting) I?d be really hesitant to try it out. I never tried FO 1 or 2 and frankly I think Id be a bit dissapointed if I did. Its got alot of hype but Id inevitably see the game as I would see a game today. I think the people who tried Planescape: Torment today would feel the same. Yes the story would be captivating and yes there would be a certain "thing" about it but It would not measure up to the hype.

Well. there's Killian in there, and the buildings and looks of the town don't match Fallout 1's at all.
It's simply another settlement with Fallout 1's voice acting and village name.



Yep indeed. Plus you're also forced to see the [Skill/Karma/Stat] thingy for the unique dialogue choices.
You can't convince the Master his plans will fail if you're limited in the number of character in dialogue.

Master: So there you are at last. Will you join the Unity or will you die? JOIN! DIE! JOIN! DIE!
VD: [Charisma] Prove me that the Unity is the best.
Master: I don't have anything to prove to you! Prove!
VD:[Charisma] Your plans will fail.
Master: And what is that?
VD:[Charisma] Mutants can't breed.
Master: Preposterous! The FEV-2 virus doesn't destroy the reproductive organs.
VD:[Charisma] Now it does.
Master: Do you have any proof?
VD:[Charisma] Here.
Master: Ah! You made this up, only to fool me.
VD: [Charisma] You can't accept the facts.
Master: But it cannot be! Anything I've tried work and now this! THIS!
VD: [Charisma] Sorry. Your race will die.

Indeed, the dialogue can svck a lot because the player would have shorten dialogue responses.

Just some things I've noted;

Some of you seem to think that re-making FO1 and FO2 as mods would also entail the recreation of the special system and turn-based combat. That, my friends, is well outside the capabilities of the modding community, unless somebody figured out a way to hack the GECK. More than likely, a mod will re-create the plot, settings, npcs, etc. of FO1&2 to the limits of the modders on the project, but use the existing system that FO3 uses. Of course, this means that modders would also have to rebalance some areas (which I suspect will be done as part of the project.)

However, points do go to those who pointed out that the dialouge would be cumbersome (at least) due to the character limit of the GECK dialouge system. However, not all ameture voiceovers are horrible. I know of one NWN2 module that uses a custom voiceover... and that modder must've had a good software or microphone, since you could barely hear the ususal sound distortions that plauges non-professional voiceovers. Unfortuantly, that level of quality tends to be few and far between (just as mods w/ voiceovers are rare.)

I don't actually think the character limit for the PC's dialogue would be that much of a hindrance. Keep in mind that while the player responses are limited, the NPCs he/she is talking to can be of any length. That would mean that some of the player responses might have to be modified; but that's something I'd bet a little bit of imagination would be able to overcome. Occasionally you might have to also modify the NPC dialogue to really get it to work, but that's something I keep seeing people pointing out as a huge limitation with the GECK; and frankly I think that's making a mountain of a mole hill. Example:

(Can't remember any word-for-word interactions from Fallout 1, so I'm ad-libbing all of this...)

Fallout 1 Original Dialogue:
NPC: Gee, I sure wish our crops didn't always seem to be failing. We just haven't been able to get the harvests that we used to.
PC: [Science]Have you ever considered rotating your crops?
NPC: No, what are you talking about?
PC: Well, if you alternated planting and harvesting cycles in each of your plots, you'd be able to replenish the nitrogen content of your soil and get increased harvests and greater long-term longevity.
NPC: That's great, I haven't thought of that.

Adapted Dialogue with a 15-character PC limit:
NPC: Gee, I sure wish our crops didn't always seem to be failing. We just haven't been able to get the harvests that we used to.
PC: [Science]... Crop rotation?
NPC: I've never heard of this "crop rotation." What are you talking about?
PC: [Science]Well...
NPC: Oh, I never thought of that. So you're saying that if I alternated planting and harvesting cycles in each of my plots, I'd be able to replenish the nitrogen levels of my soil and get increased harvests? That's a great idea, thank you Vault Dweller - this village will be forever in your debt.

Sure, it's a bit limiting. But it only takes a bit of imagination to overcome it. Is there really anyone here who felt that the conversations in Fallout 3 were really so terribly limiting because of this minor limitation?

EDIT: Note, that's probably not the optimal example. But that's me taking literally 30 seconds to come up with something. Anyone working on a mod is going to (presumably) be putting a bit more time into this than that. And likely come up with something that flow even better than that. The point remains, though. It wouldn't be that much work to modify some of the PC responses a bit.

Obviosly they can't be remade as games, but it would be interesting to replay them if they were made fit in Fallout 3 engine. I'd feel sorry for the poor bastard who took the challenge to make it, though, but it certainly would be worth trying as a user.

The NPC dialogues do have a character limit of about 80 I believe. That's not as absurd as the PC's character limit, but it's still very restrictive considering how in depth Fallout's dialogue often was.

A lot of the NPCs in Fallout 3 had some pretty lengthy soliloquoys, if I remember correctly. Even if they do have a character limit (i don't have the GECK installed on this comp, and it'll be another month before my own arrives - stupid slow movers,) they must have some way of bypassing the NPC character limit (my first guess is that it would be through the "More" button.) Either way, your Dad certainly had no problem at all talking at great length; and neither did a lot of the other NPCs in the game. (What's-her-name in Megaton certainly has a lot to say if you ask her about Megaton's history...)

And again - is anyone actually going to try and prove that the dialogue in Fallout 3 was so terribly restrictive? I don't see the arbitrary character limit as any real hindrance. If they were able to get it work with Fallout 3 just fine, then I certainly can't imagine it shouldn't work for importing Fallout 1 or 2, with possibly a few minor changes in their implementation.

So yeah... mountain vs mole hill....

I wondered about a DDS image of the text as the background image for the button.

I't ain't impossible. For instance look at black mesa source, a remake of half-life 1! Pretty impressive huh? Though it was already a first person game. And fallout 1-2 is 2-D. But it ain't impossible. But it will probably take a long time to make.

HL wasn't an RPG.....

Yeah, I'd bet something like that would work, too.