Just skip the guns and go straight for Gatling lasers, mini nukes and missile launchers. Infinite ammo for all of them.

As for magic in Fallout, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioyBynn2RsI If you really want to see lasers and magic (let's call them Force Powers, shall we?) Maybe you can hand LucasArts a big bag of money so they can develop that game for you.

What is this, I don't even...
http://thecriticalflow.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/argument-invalid.jpg :shrug:

Vault Dweller was cool as a superheroic character because the plot was straight out of a comic book, together with mutants, ghouls and the master.

If we go with the "The Fallout is about people trying to rebuild after the biggest mistake of humanity" line of thinking that Black Isle/Obsidian seems to love so much, ignoring the fantastic threat and if the post-Fallout setting should be about ordinary human factions struggling to survive and gain power, dropping in a protagonist that is a fantastic hero like in the first game is incredibly lame as it kills all the "realism" and "maturity" that having a story about humans brings.
It's basically like a lame power fantasy for nerds that want to compensate themselves for being pushed into a locker before P.E. lessons.

So unless it's like "Vault Dweller was cool as a superheroic character because the plot was straight out of a comic book, together with mutants, ghouls and the master." then everything should be realistic?

It's still an RPG game.

To explain a little further.
Games aren't realistic.
In movies and stuff the protagonists almost always survive through impossible things which simply isn't realistic.
You know Dead Space, yeah, realistically, Isaac Clarke would've died within the first hour on that ship.
You know Dead Rising 2, yeah, Chuck Green would've died within the first ingame hours.
There is not "But they could've" No. It isn't realistic.
Humans are fragile beings and there is no health regenerating crap in real life nor does it make sense in video games.

So Vault Dweller?
He's just as unrealistic as The Chosen One or The Lone Wanderer.
With the gameplay and the story that they progress through
Just cause Vault Dweller happened to fight an army of mutants does not mean he is to be put above the other protagonists.
They're still video games, they'll be unrealistic with the story and gameplay and always will be.

Dead Space?

You mean a game that is described like this:

"The player takes on the role of an engineer named Isaac Clarke, who battles a polymorphic, virus-like, alien infestation which turns humans into grotesque alien monsters called "Necromorphs", onboard a stricken interstellar mining ship named the USG Ishimura."

Sounds like a comic book plot.


In PnP, RPGs that avoid the whole comic book style plot thing and try to be "mature" and mundane tend to adopt more realistic mechanics as a part of that "maturity" precisely to avoid the ridiculousness of the whole superhero inserted into a real situation thing.

Superhero PCs are for the "a great dragon/demon/blob/wizard threatens the world! a hero is needed!" style games. And these games should have a sequel whose plot is like "a great demon/blob/wizard/dragon threatens the world! a hero is needed!", not "this time we are serious and mature and we have a completely ordinary war between two factions."

Saving the world huh?

Wow. Yeah uhm... That's original!...

Seriously, FO1/FO2/FO3/FOT all end up with the PC saving the world. (Or dooming it)
It's getting boring, stale.
At least New Vegas tried with something new instead of a horse that's been beaten so much that it's basically just dust.

And what gives the other protagonists the right to be super-hero's but not The Courier? (DO NOT answer with the whole "save the world" crap again... Or the "Super hero" crap either.)


*sigh* Obviously missed the point.

PC saved the world only in FoT as it fought against a broken computer which would kill everything. In Fo1, he saved a part of America from the Master, in Fo2 he stopped the Enclave from taking over USA, in Fo3 he just affected the area around DC.


Facing the fantastic threat, of course (at least in case of Fallout 1, which is the only Fallout that I care about.) Facing the Master and his mutants.
Super-hero character is just a mirror of the dragon/demon/wizard/blob/etc.

Anyway, it isn't anything new. It's still the whole old tired super-hero stuff, except that this time there isn't a superhuman nemesis. Which is why I like some parts of the OPs idea.

Are we still talking about magic in Fallout or are we off-topic?

Anyway, point is, they're games who plays out in the RPG format with hit points, damage, stats, skills, talents(perks), critical hits, armor etc.
The games after Fallout 1 were played out in the RPG format as well, which means that the PC will become that super-hero even if the only enemy were to be a bunch of rats that are infesting the city.
So I think that what's to blame isn't the story but the gameplay format.
It's due to that that a mailman, a tribal and a vault born manages to do the things they do.

About blobs, mutants, psykers and other fantastic threats.

So we're offtopic then since none of them has anything to do with magic.
With the exception of psykers maybe but we're currently discussing protagonists in games which is largely offtopic.

*Skullbash*

Magic is [censored], Magic is an illusion, Guns you might think are an illusion, but that all changes when you stare down the barrel and a magic rock comes shooting out causing alot of pain until it strikes your brain.

You fail to grasp the way most games work. Unless you are playing some sort of combat simulator the player character will be the most badass character in the game no matter who he fights. Whether it's Aliens or Terrorists thats how it works.
This especially so for RPG were you are rewarded with better abilities and equipment as you progress. Fallout is no tactical shooter even when there isn't some "fantastic big bad".

Also still no reason to have "magic" in the game. The master was the only functioning psyker in the game, all others were failures.

I thought http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Melchior was a functioning Psyker as well.
And wasn't Hakunin also a functioning Psyker?

Which is why making such game about the "serious" and mundane is pretty pointless. Fantastic opponents are much better for super-heroic characters than normal boring stuff. The mundane stops being the mundane when you are a normal character - a few bullets can kill you, you need a lot of co-operation, you need to learn how to fly a helicopter without getting detected, which is all very challenging and requires thinking and you simply can't do some stuff - you have to get over some stuff instead of changing it - that's really mature and realistic.
When you are a super-hero, it just becomes pathetic. You'll never get a serious game about ethics/choices & consequences/politics/etc. because the world is just a
sandbox for the character to play in it, so there's no point in pretending that it's anything different than a comic book.

That's why I'd rather have well done psyker elf-like mutants as enemies and some kind of psyker monstrosity as a final boss than the Obsidian's realistic faction war. My character is above the mundane and so should be his nemesis. I want a good game with good story with a good, extraordinary opponent not some gratuitous choose the future of a part of the wasteland stuff. You can save your "realism" for simulations where it isn't boring.

BTW:
A lot of normal human opponents in Fallout 1 had cheated stats which made them more powerful than the PC (they had higher HP/initiative/critical chance/AP at the same time than the PC could have) - and they had numerical advantage - so until the point where the player got a plasma rifle and power armor the player wasn't a super-character. It was the opposite. And when the player became a super-character it was time to go and face the fantastic threat.


And the master didn't exist until some time before Fallout 1 and wasn't known to the world before Fallout 1. So, there was already a period after war and before Fallout 1 when there were no psykers known. And then a psyker appeared, which proves that it's possible for the number of psykers in the Fallout world to increase. It also proves that it is possible for big horrible things to be unknown to most of people in the Fallout setting.

I like Fallout for different reasons, to see how the world restores itself, and what cultures, cults and laws will brood from the anarchy.
So I'm far more interested in lore than having some mutant super enemy.

So no, I don't want "EXTREME" factions, I want factions that makes sense in what they do and how they came to be.
An elf-like mutant psyker army is that "EXTREME" which justs seems odd and out of place.
If you want though you could probably change every Legionnaire to ghouls and pretend that Legion is some ghoul army. :rolleyes:

Don't get me wrong, I like that factions have their own unique theme and ideology to them, but if they're too out of place then they are just too out of place.
Why Fallout 1 got away with it is because it was the start of the series, it set the roots, and through FEV we could get tons of crazy things.

But why would a group of people mutate into elf-like mutants? How did they mutate into this? And how come they got psionic powers?
Other new humanoids have made sense so far, Slags were basically Van Buren Trogs who were basically just normal humans that through their culture were afraid of living under an open sky.
Pitt Trogs kinda made sense as they mutated the way ghouls do but due to three different radiation sources the result was very different and unique.
And androids also make sense since it fits the 50's view of the future and also due to other AI programming like ZAX and Sky-Net and Calvert.
Most of these kinda make sense in their own way, but how would a human mutate into an elf? And why would he/she get psionic powers when currently only rare FEV subjects and even rarer humans get it?
Why would the become a collective mind and how?

I just don't see how it could work with the lore.

But I wouldn't mind another antagonist Psyker though.
But an army of Psykers is stretching the limits too far.

So, basically, you like Black Isle's/Obsidian's post-Fallout re-imaginings and you don't like the original Fallout?
Seriously, lore? The game and the lore was created by people who wanted to see the "EXTREME" stuff like Super Mutants, The Master, giant scorpions etc. as the main opponent in game they considered using a Flash-Gordon style rocket to get to The Master.
The setting was created with "EXTREME" 50s Weird Sci-Fi stuff in mind, not as a generic post apocalyptic setting about the world just rebuilding.
For example, Tim Cain mentions both "Them" which is about radiation-created giant ants attacking cities and "Canticle for Leibowitz" which is about monks keeping knowledge as Sci-Fi that inspired Fallout. It's a mix of the crazy fantastic things and social things, not just about rebuilding.

You constantly talk about some non-existent Fallout that is just about social stuff and doesn't have cool monsters and cool crazy villains. What's the deal with it? Why do you hate Fallout and want it to become something that it isn't? And if you get your precious realistic "Fallout" that it is about social stuff, why do you want it to suddenly stop being so realistic (despite that you love realism and want to remove cool elements from Fallout) and become your personal playground?

EDIT:


Fallout 1 got away with it because it's based on 50s Weird Sci-Fi. Still, there were times before Fallout when certain things didn't exist and times during Fallout 1 when certain things weren't know, therefore other unknown things may exist. Somewhere.
Each new Fallout is an opportunity to introduce something new. Instead of that we get recycled factions and recycled mutants.


There could be specific radiation fields, chems or other viruses that cause it. There could be drugs that unblock certain functions of human brain or cause specific mutations. These drugs could leak to ground water or some mad creature could live in the research facility and purposefully cause these mutations in other people.


It could be a by-product of telepathy.

I love the first Fallout, it's my favorite game among them all.


I know that the first game was created with the "EXTREME", that's why I said they got away with it cause that was to set the basics for the series.


But the rebuilding of society walked hand in hand with the "EXTREME" in Fallout 1.


Yup, but how much sense would the Fallout universe make if every game some new mega-awesome mutation broke out with tons of new "EXTREME" elements?
It would go farther away from what Fallout 1 was even quicker.
After the third game people would be like "How does this have anything to do with Fallout 1 and it's origins?"
The series need subtle changes in the lore and it's universe, not some crazy out of no-where big bang of unique crap smothering us.


At the 50's the timeline diverged, in 2077 a nuclear war breaks out, then society starts to rebuild, and due to FEV tons of mutations have broke out.
From the anarchy and wild mutations what I like to see is how the world is going to restore itself.
Like, imagine looking out the window of your house and see a bunch of ghouls playing dice while some leatherwearing prosttutes with heavy make-up are chatting up guys armed to the teeth.
It's crazy!
This sort of thing would never happen in the real world (not like I'd want it to) but I'm fascinated by how the culture of civilization will change after complete anarchy has broken out.


Why do you hate Fallout and want it to become something that it isn't?


Erm.. What?
I don't mind the cool elements at all, I love the strange crap in Fallout and want new stuff as well, but I want subtle changes, but not out of nowhere a psyker elf-mutant-like army led by a psyker abomination.

I want new stuff, but I want the new stuff to make sense with the lore.
Be it mutations, robots, aliens, wild-life, cults, weapons, armor, characters, factions, land-scapes, vegetation, culture, law, economy, vaults, pre-war companies, governments, dictators etc.
I honestly though that Legion would be too out of place but they weirdly fit in especially after talking to Caesar himself.


NCR, FotA, BOS.
We got plenty new factions in Vegas.


I'm thinking mentats experiments... But those didn't work out too well. (Sierra Military Depot)


Yup.

[edit]

Honestly, I could see a Psyker who creates a new mutation on people through the use of Mentats and by injecting prototype FEV into humans.
But I'm thinking that their powers would be different, they have a collective mind in that the leader Psyker has the power to read through their minds and see through their eyes.
So that this army of soul-less mutants (Really white, white eyes, bald, a tiny bit over-sized cranium) are all puppets of the Psyker behind it all.
And he'd be dangerous too since everyone of them are basically part of him, so even if one of his get captured the scout can still act as a spy since he can read it's mind and therefor this Psyker has enormous tactical advantages.

Why are they mutated like this?
The enlarged cranium is due to the forced evolution along with the simultaneous mentats usage.
Due to the enforcement of prototype FEV they aren't stabilized enough and therefor loses their hair and skin pigment.
During their transformation they are brainwashed by their leader to become hollows in order for him to connect through their minds, and therefor their iris change.

This I could understand, this I could accept.
But an army or elf-life psyker mutants with magical powers is still a no go for me.

[edit 2]

The prototype FEV injection + mentats could create tons of people with their own psionic abilities, but why I think this is more fitting is because giving them all unique powers would make them too powerful.
This way they are still a force to be reckoned with but they are still beatable.

• unless i am very mistaken, http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Anna_Winslow are pretty magical and already part of fallout canon.
• imo all elder scrolls games would be much much better with guns. everything is better with guns.

Since when did ghosts become part of magic?
I thought it was all about souls not being able to leave the mortal plane because of something and being stuck as a hollow of their former self.

When talking about "Elves" I think about something more like like very thin, long-limbed humans with weird looking eyes, somewhat deformed heads and lack of facial hair rather than typical WoW or D&D elves - and these humans would be much alien and creepy than fantasy Elves due to their shared consciousness and (maybe partial) enslavement by the hive mind. I wouldn't use Mentats and FEV, though but some other drug developed specially for CIA in a secret facility that could be visited by the player.
Basically something that would happen in another part of USA and would be connected to Fallout mainly by the Vaults and equipment types but wouldn't have BoS, supermutants, would have much less FEV mutated creatures, etc.

The player character could be an escaped test subject or someone accidentally contaminated with the drug.

Why do we have to call 'em elves then? Why not something similiar to Trogs in Van Buren/PL? :whistling:

We're talking about elf-like mutants, not about elves here. For example Warhammer Elves basically look like thin, weirdly elongated humans (their heads are also elongated) with pale skin. Very creepy. It would be a good base which could produce interesting psyker mutant looks. They could have unnaturally high craniums for additional creepyness.

Since when ghost are magical???

And NO just no, i dont want guns in TES, we have Fable and Shadowrun for that

Since when they aren't?


What's the deal with that anti-gun sentiment among the fantasy fans? First handguns in Europe were in use before full plate armour and somehow full plate armour is okay for fantasy worlds.

They arent. Magic and Ghosts may both be supernatural, but they aren't necessarily the same thing (All dogs have 4 paws, my cat has 4 paws, therefore my cat is a dog).