Yes. This is a good answer, and something I support. I want as much regional variance as possible, I am not a fan of dragging everything over to the east coast just because its supposed to be Fallout. Trogs would have been a lot better than a recycled enemy, and I would enjoy more original lore to go with absolutely everything on the east coast. The post-apocaplyse allows for much more high imagination stuff than Tamriel does, and I would very much enjoy a game that feels completely alien to everything else in the series. Just like good old Morrowind.

[censored] man, I have no idea what we're even talking about anymore. This entire forum seems like pure insanity right now.

I would absolutely love a new enemy to go in place of the feral ghouls. And I would want a new enemy replacing that every Fallout game if possible. I think we want the same thing, we just got into arguing semantics.

1. Yes, I did and I personally feel it was an excellent point . I never argued that, in fact it's what I've been saying since I PM'd you. Instead of contradicting ghoul lore by making them fast running zombies, they could have made a new enemy to fulfill that role. Good god, how many times am I going to have to repeat it?

2. What ideas? What needed to be dropped? The suggestion was made countless times throughout the 200+ suggestion threads, but Bethesda doesn't read them. You still continue to dodge.

All of the ghouls in Fallout 3 and New Vegas are all clearly rotting. From the first time we meet Gob and here NPC dialogue about him we are told this. It's also heavily substantiated in Underworld. Their limbs wouldn't even need to be falling off, the very fact that they are rotting after 200 years is enough.

You don't see coma patients waking up after a few years of muscular dystrophy and sprinting. Ghouls are constantly rotting and have been for decades if not centuries. Even Moira Brown after being instantly ghoulified is guilty of rotting to an incredible extent.

And the rot is negated by their massive regeneration powers.

Which are so strong that even when Patchwork's arms and legs literally fell off, Doc Barrows could sow them back on and they could heal themselves back to the point of 100% functionality.

They literally regenerate to the point of being able to restore severed limbs to use. It doesn't matter if their limbs rot, they just regrow to rot again.

aaaa pure insanity.

I think we are just misunderstanding eachother a whole bunch. You came across as saying that they should just "Make it better", saying they should replace feral ghouls without any ideas of your own. That is what I wanted, a idea on what we should replace feral ghouls with. The whole thing of it being easier to talk about replacing it than actually concepting a part of the world is what I think caused this entire insane spree, I meant it by saying that we should be a bit tempered in saying that they svck because they don't implement our ideas, but then it came across as white knighting Bethesda which wasnt my real intention but I think thats the major thing that you saw in the post, and reading it back I could have been a lot better in articulating that point.

Alright, lets get back on topic. Lets replace the Feral Ghouls with sometihng high imagination, something really out there, something much more Vvardenfel than Cyrodiil. Personally, I think a form of robot that fills that gameplay niche has a lot of potential. Maybe the tech wasnt there in Fallout 3, but lets say we have a set of scavenger robots that produce more of themselves by svcking up the ruins of the old world. Kinda like a Von Neumann Probe, but in the post-nuclear world. Imagine a bunch of about 2/3rd man height two legged robots skeetering at you when you drop into a metro station to scavenge by yourself. Their chassis isnt very durable, being both made out of scrap and not designed with durability, so it wouldnt take much from your weapons to take them down. But it provides something the same as those feral ghouls. A "Oh [censored]!" moment when you hear a swarm of those things activating when you're in some enclosed space, and you back yourself into a corner and go full auto to try and make it through the night.

Yep. They are basically stagnant, wasting away as they endlessly rebuild tissue.

*Injuries shift that balance, and they can die of injury; as well as be healed by stimpaks.

That I doubt. I would think rather that they would heal over the stump of a lost limb, and be back to normal ~minus the (probably still regenerating) lost limb.

If there was some FO3 ghoul that regrew limbs, I don't know about it. (And wouldn't want to really. Wolverine style regeneration seems far too much like a super-power than a debilitating side effect of the war.)

I think the problem is that they want the ghouls to be cool, instead of pitiable; which is a mistake.

This might be feasible, if they are still just critters in the engine.

One really neat aspect of mods, is that if they improve upon an official asset, the next game (if it includes it) has to improve upon the modded asset.

The shot we have in the Atom Bomb Baby trailer of shooting up Feral Ghouls with a Pipe LMG seems kinda like how I would like them to animate. They're kinda replacements for feral ghouls already, but having some skittish self-replicating robot race prowling urbanized areas would be a lot more interesting than the current form. You could even tie them into lore with The Insitute, saying they are a out of control experiment or somehow related to them. You could even have a quest where some INT-oriented PCs try to spread a virus around the population of them, with the stats in science determining if you would be able to diminish their numbers heavily or just weaken the robots to the point where its a bit easier to deal with.

But yeah, if we were to replace feral ghouls with something else, and I think we should, that is my idea for how it should go. Its completely fine if we still have the old stuff, its not a dealbreaker, but if I was personally in charge of BGS I would be fleshing out something like that as a "Fast zombie" enemy instead of feral ghouls.

No ghoul in Fo3 regrew limbs entirely, but the ghoul Patchwork in the Underworld is said to constantly lose his limbs, forcing Doc. Barrows to sow them back on, and he is shown being able to use all his body parts just fine.

I would suppose it depends on how quickly its reattached. Since he is right there in the same small areas as Doc. Barrows, it probably isn't long enough for the spot to heal over.

Thank you for that excellent idea!

I would also like to point out that Bethesda did explain ghouls in Fo3, the terminal that gives the explain just happens to be bugged, and doesn't link to the proper entries.

The necrosis only appears to happen to the skin of ghouls.

Considering the civilized ghouls are able to move normal speed why would they suddenly lose that ability when they go feral? Or am I missing something.

The complain some people have is that the feral ghouls, who take decay and malnourishment to a whole new level, are somehow capable of not only running as well as well-fed, non-rotting humans, but they can do so at speeds that put said humans to shame.

Feral ghouls actually look less rotted then non ferals, and do ghouls even NEED to eat to stay alive? I mean, I know they CAN eat, but is it ever explicitly stated they need to? or that not eating negatively effects them?

The Ghoul in the basemant of the Rep Conn facility said he was drinking water off the pipes and eating radroach meat. Said he also "did his business in the far corner".
*edit* I think his name was Harland?
*edit2* http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Harland

i've been asking this myself a couple of days ago in some other context..

thought i remembered reading somewhere (or even an ingame ghoul telling? raoul even maybe) ghouls don't need to eat, but then i grew unsure if i'm mixing this up with vampires. like, didn't that one dude in, uh, interview with a vampire iirc, say this - total non-recall...

Is it bugged, or was it disabled? I can see them writing that, adding it, then disabling it for release.

*Do Glowing Ones actively heal ghouls in their vicinity?

Oi - keep it civil - and on topic. I removed a couple of lengthy posts - If you find yourself posting walls o' text that are rude, then delete the posts, go get a refreshing beverage and take a break from posting.

Also, do remember that the ghouls in the game? Fictional! You can argue all you want about cell and muscle degradation impacting speed and what not but still? Fiction! Don't get all hot under the collar about it just because you find someone that you don't agree with. (I KNOW! On the internet, go figure!)

.

I think a lot of people are confusing Zombies with Ghouls. Ghouls are often shown to be fast. Zombies not. Hell its not an uncommin mistake to make. The Security captain at Tenpenny tower kicks calling a certain Ghoul a Zombie in error.

You don't seem keen on ever discussing the subject at hand given the fact that you just dismiss previous points made, and just attempt to deflect everything someone says as "missing the point." The crux of my previous argument was largely a comparison of retcons in other IP's and how it's essentially translated in Fallout lore.

I have addressed your point concerning the representation of Fallout 3 ghouls in correlation to their lore. I don't expect you to go back and reread it so I'll highlight here, again, just for you (even Possum outlined it above). The Ghouls share the Wolverine's regenerative capabilities. You peel some skin off and it just grows back, granted it's not at the accelerated rate that the Wolverine possesses, nonetheless, they regenerate. How that's portrayed in game is via a health bar, in actuality one can surmise the skin growing back and replacing the necrotic flesh.

The difference between say, a feral ghoul and a sentient ghoul, largely comes down to a necessary differentiation so players can see the difference between a potentially friendly ghoul, and the ones trying to eat your face off (as if that wasn't apparent enough - but that's another discussion). You're throwing terms around like common sense as if that has any bearing on the discussion here: come now, we're talking about a fictional creature that defies the laws of rigor mortis (and basic life/death concepts) to begin with. It's not a stretch of the imagination that a seemingly weak creature with muscular dystrophy can sprint fast.

If you want, we can dial this conversation back, or we can just agree to disagree and leave it at that, because it's apparent that the mood has already soured, especially when you use statements like this to incite me:

and this

You're right though, after several pages of this, it has outgrown it's welcome, so do us both a favor and define what it is you want to discuss clearly so we're both on the same page and can address the topic properly, or put me on ignore. You'd be doing me a massive service with either option.

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Edited as per Leydenne's "civility" post.

but hey! the muscle degradation.............

*duck & run*

They have to actively release the built up radiation in order to heal other ghouls. The radiation still deals proximity damage to humans, though.

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http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Glowing_one?file=Fallout3GlowingOne.jpg

By all accounts it is bugged. The terminal itself, and the buttons on the terminal that lead to the quoted text, exist in the game, and are easily assessable by hacking Doc. Barrow computer in his shop in The Underworld. However, clicking on the buttons to open the text does nothing, because they don't properly link to the text. All other instances of removed computer entries resulted in either the entire computer being removed, or the entries being removed from said computer, and, as far as I know, none of them were bugged in such a fashion. The fact that the terminal still exists in the game, and has buttons that are supposed to link to the texts I posted, suggests it was meant to be in the game, and is not cut content.

And yes, glowing ones do heal ghouls around them, but only when they release radiation bursts.