Ya what was great was sneaking in pitch black and having one spot you just a few feet from you blowing up your ear drum with that [censored] hiss they do ya having a mini heart attack and droping my controller is always fun.

Basically they either make them the old shambles that are slow but hard to kill without using a chainsaw or double barrel shotgun to administer a headpendectomy (blinks that's actualy a word???) due to them not actualy Having any vital organs due to being, you know, dead, or you make them very fast due to whatever reason.

...you know you're a Lore Monkey when how fast an enemy moves gives you reason for pause.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

I'm leaning towards your answer, for technical reasons mostly. If their AI actually has knowledge of windows and makes decisions to use them, that sounds like a fair bit of extra work, and also that would mean technically the same should be possible with many other NPCs, so why not let other enemies use windows as well? It's possible they can, but why not showoff that feature, why only show ghouls?

The other thing that comes to mind, zombies coming through windows is a very common thing in most zombie media, it's a major part of the scares in zombie games/movies/etc. And as we all know zombies are incredibly hot in recent years. So yeah, maybe a scripted event that happens in a few spots, perhaps even specific to just one quest or location that's designed to mimic scenes from the various zombie media people love but using ghouls of course because it's Fallout.

EDIT: Well reading the liveblog the ghouls coming through windows and cracks is definitely not one location, but could be all related to that area being infested. It certainly does sound more like spawn points, rather than them actually coming through windows arbitrarily.

I'm expecting lots of references to The Walking Dead. I liked the shambling zombies in movies like "Night of the Living Dead", and if shambling Feral Ghouls were to be implemented properly in Fallout, they would need to be in huge groups of, say, 20 to 30 at a time just to be a real threat. I don't really think huge numbers like that would be feasible. I don't really care about the "lore" on this issue, I care about what's fun. Running around popping a few shamblers here and there wouldn't be fun to me.

Beth doesn't contradict the lore because they own it, Beth has decided feral ghoul are fast and so, thats the lore, folks needs to stop acting like the lore from the old games is the only lore that can exist.

Owning it cannot undo the established lore, they can but ignore it, not erase it.

They can replace it though.

Think it works ok both ways. Fast or slow I think the main part is the mindless, relentless attacks with the threat of being overwhelmed. If anyone has seen the film The Nest, it has this zombie film feel but there are no zombies in it what so ever.

I really liked The Last of Us infected, getting overwhelmed trying to fight off the rabid humans whilst in the background you could see the horror of the hobbling clicker get ever closer. Yikes Best of both worlds.

As for Fallout, loved the metro ghouls and can't wait to see FO4 combine it with the upgraded lighting. Looking forward to some scares.

^^ Your sig made me gigglefart.

It's a video game.

That aside, sure, there can be argument for "realism" and plausibility, but, if you want realism and plausibility, look at the exclusion zone around Chernobyl; it's absolutely teeming with wildlife and vegetation, and there's growing evidence for adaptation among the wildlife.

Around Fukushima, there's radioactive effects like the daisies - http://media.newindianexpress.com/Daisy.jpg/2015/07/23/article2935945.ece/binary/original/Daisy.jpg

all in all, however, the plant life and what wildlife can't be deterred from the exclusion area are flourishing.

Ghouls?

It's a pretend make-believe universe. Who knows what ghouls are. Any number of fun explanations could lend plausibility to the ghoul condition.

The ghoul condition could result from a mutated strain of bacteria responsible for acne, or the mitochondria in human skin cells mutated, and/or, a trophic cascade of anatomical changes occur including massive production of adrenaline.

Aliens are part of the Fallout universe. Ghouls could be the result of failed alien abduction experiments with a contagious six-transmitted viral gene therapy thing, and one pre-ghoul person infected another, and another, and they infected others, until the infection spread all over the wasteland.

Once upon a time, radiation was basically synonymous with magic in the public eye.

Radiation exposure caused super heroes, super powers, and strange mutations. The Incredible Hulk is direct result from that mindset. In that respect, radiation exposure, for many things in the fallout universe can be the god of the gaps in lending explanation for something, anything, whatever.

What made kdfadlkoimdij happen? I dunno. Radiation?

Does it need an explanation?

Whatever the case, I like fast enemies, slow enemies, sneaky enemies, surprise enemies, scary enemies, smart enemies, stupid enemies, big enemies, small enemies, and all sorts of enemies.

If we have really fast ghouls ... good.

I'm okay with that.

'd

On topic: the argument that they 'should' be slow because of constant decomposition goes for the fact that they shouldn't be strong/powerful/very much of any kind of threat at all.

Also there has to be some kind of way their body keeps itself intact otherwise none of them would have icky gooey eyes.

Constant regeneration and constant decay.

That's still ignoring it... Like paving a parking lot over the tiled floors of the buildings that were there first.

** Funny thing though... They may invent anything they want [they are allowed that], but they seem to just copy the original material and concepts verbatim.
I mean... FO3 was a loose mix of the Fallout 1 & 2 plots [The water quest, and the Enclave threat, and the supermutant threat], and FO4 looks to be one of the known alternate Fallout 2 plots that Black Isle scrapped.

It's bad enough that they are fast in the first place but that those malnourished rotting things can run faster than a healthy human is just absurd. And to add a cherry on top they're mindless 28 Days Later rip-offs.

Weren't they supposed to be just...crazy ghouls? Make them sneaky and silent but slow, give them a melee weapon and not make them like ''OHH RUNNING ZOMBIES SO SCARY''

You be surprised what a human body can do when high on adrenaline, notice that in 3/NV they where only fast once they spotted you otherwise they where prowling along at quite a somber pace.

True. They must be hungry.

But a crazy person is not a dumb person, I expect it to do crazy stuff in smart ways, not be a running sandbag.

Super man cant fly. he also cant hold his breath in a vacuum (It weakend him but not enough to keep him traqed) or for long underwater.

but then the 1950s happen and boom... they finally decided yes he can fly in atmosphere and hold his breath in a vacuum and fly and maneuver in a vacuum.

so yes they can basically erase established lore over time any time they feel like it.

To be fair, one of the reason they are called feral ghouls to begin with, not just ghouls is because there brains rotted away, so it kinda makes sense (done get me wrong, it is a stretch, but it is fictional media, some stretching for the sake of story and game mechanics is only natural)

You say that as if lore is some sacrosanct thing and not written by a bunch of fallible, humans who can and do change their minds. And who want to sell a product and will change/adapt lore based on what they think is popular.

Rule of cool. Does the creepy zombie-looking thing's head asplode when I shoot it in the face with a shotgun? Check. Does it matter that they move fast?

ghouls are NOT zombies.

they suffered radiation. not death.

(and they don't lack muscle, they lack skin. hell i got LESS muscle than fo3's ghouls, and i CAN run

They lack some of anything according to the lore. Sometimes organs are supposed to be sticking out of their bodies and in Fallout 3 there was a ghoul who's arm kept falling off. Ghouls are rotting, it is not just 'the skin'. It is pretty much everywhere for all we know. Only part that seems unaffected is the brain and perhaps some vital organs. Everything else will constantly rot and regenerate, including the muscles.

Be more interesting if they were all over the place like the flame thrower ants for that one side quest my first encounter for that I was very under levelled for it and it felt very much like a bad horror movie but the fear was real and redivulous because I was just trying to leave but constantly being blocked off and killed