So one of the things I, and many who played the original Fallouts, miss most about the games is the ability to travel dozens or hundreds of miles to entirely different areas. Bethesda fans on the other hand, love their exploration and free roaming. I propose that these things aren't mutually exclusive.

So here's my proposition: Break the gameworld into small, medium, and large sections based on squares. Then you could have a bunch of areas created for random encounters (some desert areas, some mountain areas, some abandoned and ruined urban areas, a few farms, etc) and some small unique encounter locations.

Fallout 3 will be used as a base size, imagine Fallout 3 as a 10 x 10 map, so 100 total squares.

I'll diagram Fallout 2 based on this.

Please view the image: http://i9.photobucket.com/albums/a96/The_mango55/Games/FalloutMap.jpg

Besides the maps shown there would be 15 one square maps for the http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Special_encounters. There would also be 15 random encounter squares (3 desert, 3 urban, 3 mountain, 3 farm, and 3 others). If you aren't familiar with random encounters in Fallout 1 and 2, you can encounter various things such as groups of enemies/animals, caravans, prospectors, raiders fighting farmers, slavers capturing tribals, gangs fighting other gangs, and so on.

As you can see, my idea would make the Fallout 2 map 53% larger than Fallout 3 (including random/special encounter squares), despite covering a MUCH larger area, and while these areas are centered around cities or major points of interest, they still give room for exploration.

Wow, you've put a lot of thought and work into this. I approve and give you an enthusiastic thumbs up.

Why was this moved?

I put a lot of thought into this, I hoped it would be viewed by more than the 2 people who come into this forum :sadvaultboy:

Interesting. Reminds me of Yossarian22's GTS. It'd be a nice nod towards realism if you could split the FO3 or FNV maps up into independent sections, disallowing fast travel entirely but connecting each section with an activator type "portal" like the hand cart from The Pitt or the steamboat from Point Lookout. Dragon age used a similar system to use limited map area to simulate a much larger space. What you'd miss though are the vistas, having FNV's Lucky 38 visible from everywhere on the map. But I'm sure that with the proper layout it could still be managed.

If it's any consolation, I like this idea. Best of both worlds.

Cause New Vegas is already made and cannot be changed this way.
Only way your idea (Which I think is brilliant since it would bring map nodes back and still have some exploration aspect to it) could be put into a game is if it's a new game, which is why it was moved to [Series Discussion].
You could always create a link in your sig to it.

I remember thinking something like this would be the only way for a Fallout 1 mod made through the GECK would be possible. Like when you walk out to the edge of a "square" (i.e. the exterior cell), you get a box asking you if you want to leave and go to the world map, where you do something like a blend between the fast travel mechanics of the new games and the normal travel between locations in 1 and 2.

But it would not be continuos walking. At the end of a square you would enter a world map and travel to a new square. which means you would have loading screens every time you wanted to enter a new area. Then whenever you wanted to enter a house.

Am I right or am I just not getting it?

I like the idea, but the issue for me is how to trigger the end of the map. As the maps don't match the end of towns using a town gate appears to be out... It looks like invisible walls are needed (which I have no trouble with, but others seem to).

You can't walk from Modoc to New Reno, if that's what you're asking. But it's not like the boxes are the size of the blocks on the Strip, they are absolutely huge. The Klamath/Den zone alone would be the size of Point Lookout. You probably won't be seeing loading screens any more than you do now, unless you're a person who never uses fast travel.



well yeah it's kind of like invisible walls. When you get to the edge of a location you hit a trigger zone that opens a box asking if you want to bring up the world map.

If you say no you can turn around and go back. If you say no and keep going, then you hit an invisible wall.

So its like the system in Baldurs Gate. When you hit the edge of this area it brings up the world map and you move to a new square on the world map where you continue walking. Would it still be in first person?

Yeah it's still first person.

It sounds great. Anyone got any idea how to mod it in?

I have zero experience with worldspace creation, let alone creating a new map, but what I was thinking is that you could take the existing world map and make a duplicate for each zone. Then delete everything that wasn't in the zone from it's respective duplicate, except possibly huge landmarks that should be visible in the distance. You could then tweak the inaccessible area immediately surrounding the zone to remove anything recognizable, preventing the same landscape from showing up in two zones. The pain would be all of the NPCs that would normally be moving between zones, you'd have to somehow transport them at the appropriate times.

I'd like this to be used in future fallout games. The world would seem big again.

That's a pretty cool Idea maybe in a future fallout game they might use that. :tops:

That's a good idea. I had a http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1094022-fallout-4-speculations-suggestions/page__view__findpost__p__16419652 a while back.

The maptravel and nodesystem (imo) offers much greater variety and interest in gameplay and locations than one big map can. And moreover, using that kind of system would greatly help setting Fallout series apart from the TES series.