Here's an example of my "twisting" what you said:
You cited three sources you trusted. Two of them gave Falloout 3 some pretty darned good reviews. Now, this is in your own words- the ones I'm twisting - I assumed you cited them as people "who've basically panned Fallout 3 worse than (you) have". Twenty Sided? He's quite harsh, and it's harsh because he backs up his criticisms with discussions about Fallout 3 (and not how it should have been more like the originals). But two out of three entusiastic thumbs up? Even going by your own pool of reviewers, the majority of previous Fallout fans liked the game plenty.

That bit about the Branston Pickle being too thin? I guess you missed the last lines of the review - about how there was bread enough that there's still enough Branston Pickle to wallow in "until your eyes fall out. Fallout 3 that is." That was most definitely not a negative review.

And, the Brainy Gamer? Did you get a chance to read the follow-up to your .sig post? The one where all those students who loved FO1/FO2 and were guarded/apprehensive of FO3 then went on to actually play FO3? A big hit it was. Almost the exact opposite of what you were trying to argue previously.

Fallout 3 may well have broad appeal, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have appeal to people who have previously enjoyed the franchise. Just because there's a lot of head exploding - that doesn't mean that it doesn't have anything for deeper hardcoe role-playing fans. Cripes, as a Fallout afficiando - you probably know this very well - that super-violence in a game does not necessarily equate with a lack of role-playing.

Dude. You're like an annoying drunk who sits down at the bar where I'm trying to enjoy a nice snifter of scotch and talk with my mates. The only difference is that I don't have the luxury of getting up and moving to the other side of the room. Out of anybody at this forum, you might be the first to go on the "ignore" list. I like debates, but you really are an annoying pest. I don't wish to continue chatting, if you'll excuse me...there's somebody on the other side of the room waving to me.

Not sure that follow up has much credence. They loved Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 after struggling to do it (ah, God bless the youth) then love Fallout 3 quickly. Some of their, heh, comments are funny though. "It encourages the player to reassess. Circumstances change quickly in Fallout 3, and you must respond. Sometimes you must change your mind or your strategies to deal with events or situations, and making the wrong choice usually has consequences. You must think things through." was a particularly amusing one. Previously enjoying the franchise is a bit different from being classed as a "hardcoe fan". That group tends to have some complaints with the game - which means they hate it, obviously.

Well, Malcador - here's the type of people he was talking about:

(emphasis mine)
Anyways, how did they respond?


Interestingly, this is the follow-up post to the one linked in Aqualamb's .sig - and here's what he said that prompted me to add a second edit to my comment:


But that's okay - because these folks obviously have nothing in common with "die-hard Fallout fans".(insert eye roller. BTW I do this as my personal "accent" - to add character to my posts. I guess I'm insecure enough to believe my crazed ranting is too bland.) I'm sure that my bringing up one of Aqualamb's "trusted sources" - a post that directly follows up on his "favorite" and explicitly states the opposite of what he's arguing - really does sap the "credence" from what I'm saying.

My god you are irritating! You are like fingernails on the chalkboard of my mind!

Of course they're not die-hard fans! They're much more used to the type of game that Fallout 3 is. How much Fallout bible reading do you think they did? How many playthroughs of the first games do you think they played? The only thing that saps the credence of what you say are the many ways you can twist an argument into an unrecognizable pile of straws.

You need to learn to take words from my post that, well..mean something. My point was the credibility of that whole experiment and their loving Fallout 3 not your personal credibility (although I'm not exactly sure that is in abundance anyway) They're definitely not hard core fans, if you think that playing the game and liking it means you're hardcoe, well you're foolish. So really, throwing that back at him doesn't carry much weight as you think. Although I'm not sure what the point of this is now, but we'll have fun Fisking each other, heh.

Arguing about reviews doesn't accomplish much. I'll read a review, probably agree with some part, disagree with some, don't care about the rest. The next review might be totally opposite. Regardless, reviews typically don't impact my purchase decisions or how I end up feeling about a game. Reviews, regardless of works cited (often other reviews) are still the opinion of the writer, and everyone has an opinion.

Reviews end up being like political pundit sites. We like reviews and reviewers we tend to agree with, and dislike review and reviewers we disagree with. We use these reviews as ammo for our arguments and call it gospel.

Like I posted before, I agree with the OP some, disagree some, and the rest of it, I would call picking at issues I don't care about. I can understand that some folks can't like this game because of what came before it. That's fine, but there are others here who can.

Well considering that my personal take is that he values my arguments as much as discarded bubble gum he's stepped in...

When I read that follow-up, the motivations of those students certainly seemed familiar to me.
"many of these students were skeptical about Fallout 3, worried about the new game tarnishing the Fallout legacy"
"skeptical about Bethesda's ability to deliver a "genuine Fallout" game"

These seemed to me, very familiar. Perhaps these attributes don't apply to that-group-of-people-I'm-referring-to, or perhaps that "it doesn't count" because these gamers are mere dilletantes - Johnny-Come-Latelies - and it's just a mere coincidence that the words the Brainy Gamer used to describe them seem to fit so many other people so very well.

Anyways, your point is that this group of people, who happen to have very similar concerns to "die-hard Fallout fans", that my bringing them up isn't particularly relevant. Okay. Got it. I conceded earlier that the definition of "die-hard Fallout fans" was probably going to be an issue - so perhaps I should have backed off that point earlier. How about we just define "die-hard Fallout fan" as someone who thinks FO1/FO2 is superior to FO3 in every conceivable way. That a good definition for you?

Regardless, my point is that there are loads of people who liked the original games, that also think Fallout 3 is the bee's knees. That, even with the first-person, gun on screen, real-time, head exploding gameplay - Fallout 3 is still very rich in Role-Playing and has plenty to offer some hardcoe RPG fans. Although, I will concede (yet again) that Fallout 3 is not for everyone.

It isn't for everyone, but not in the sense I'm sure you have, heh. Don't be asinine, die-hard Fallout fans are just that, very ardent fans - not just because they see Fallout and Fallout 2 as being superior to this game, they can and most do I think, but not necessarily so. I'm not sure those people in that article had the same concerns to the similar degree. All depends on how much give they will permit on the areas that they care about, that's what differentiates a hardcoe fan from a normal one - also I guess the level of which they're vocal is another, hah. So you can like both, just depends on whether or not you care about what's missing. hardcoe fans bemoan the window dressing that is SPECIAL, weak dialogue and a rather bland and rehashed story, others really dig the LARPing in-game or the exploration.

Am I the only one who's kind of lost the thread of the discussion, here? I'm sure you guys are making valid points, but I'm unable to really express just what that is, anymore. Or rather, I think I have an idea of what points you're both reiterating, but I don't see where those points are being contested?

I get that Wasteland Ranger feels it's important to make clear that some people enjoy the game even if some of us find criticisms. (I'm sorry if I'm getting this wrong, I could be misunderstanding the central argument at stake, here.) I just don't see where anyone is disputing that.

And I get that Aqualamb feels that many people weren't happy with all of Fallout 3's changes to the franchise, even though many did. (And again, I apologize if I'm completely out of line, here.) But again, I don't see where that's in dispute.

The gist of what I'm getting here (and I'm only referring these two by way of illustration, my purpose isn't to "call anyone out" or put words in anyone's mouth,) is:

"I find fault with Fallout 3."

"I don't, I like the game."

"But I didn't like it as much as you."

This is an extreme exagerration, and I'm not trying to start anything. But if I might humbly suggest, we'd be breaking more ground if we could all be a bit more clear about just what it is we're trying to say here. Because I'm frankly a little confused as to what the debate is about, anymore. In that these past few pages of posts seem to be framed as a debate, but I can't for the life of me figure out exactly what central dispute is.

I'm semi-confused myself, but this is basically it:

What usually happens is Waster (you got his name wrong, fyi) sees a post with "Aqualamb" even when it's not addressing him, and feels it's his duty to attempt to falsify it for the good of Fallout 3 fanboyz everywhere. Not sure why, unless he's on a payroll. I wasn't really even taking part in the conversation until he dug a post of mine up which then derailed the thread into oblivion (pun ftw!). I'm really not even interested in discussing what he's trying to poke at me with, to be honest.

Like I said...it's like I'm at a bar in Boston and I make an off-handed comment about the Yankees and the one devout Yankees fan in the bar comes stumbling drunkenly over to me and wants to know why I don't like his team as much as he does. It's really not a discussion I want to have.

Here's what the Waster of the Ranges thinks (since he's such a HUGE Beth really devoted fan).

There are some people who are applying a ridiculous standard to Fallout 3 - one so high that no game (including the originals) could hope to meet. This leads to statements which are blatantly false - and are later ret-conned into "hyperbole" or "exaggeration". Waster of the Ranges primarily has a problem with those false statements being made about the game. Additionally he is offended that some sort of revisionist viewpoint is applied to them, that not only excuses those false statements for being wrong - but also does not concede that the point the false statement was used to support is weakened/undermined/wrong as well.

Note that Waster of the Ranges supports his first contention (regarding the ridiculously high standard) by pointing out that whenever any aspect of Fallout 3 is demonstrated to even come close to Fallout 2 - the standard is adjusted/modified. For example, the OP is a very long and very thought out post - which the author himself concedes has a lot of nit-picking in it. Waster of the Ranges maintains that if that level of scrutiny was applied to a non-Fallout 3 game, then that game would also look pretty bad.

However, Waster of the Ranges has accepted that the "some people" he was talking about will never accept that argument - and as such, he has decided to focus only on statements made about Fallout 3 that can be demonstrated to be wrong. Well at least demonstrated to be 90% wrong. (insert winking smiley)

I hope that clarifies things.

Edit: Just in case - my issue *this time* is with the statement that 90% of die-hard Fallout fans are disappointed with Fallout 3, as demonstrated by all the negative reviews it received. Note that after pointing out that Fallout 3 received a LOT of positive reviews, including a majority of the reviewers mentioned by Aqualamb - everyone is still pretending that the majority (perhaps not 90%) of die hard Fallout fans are disappointed.

To be sure - 90% - is now a hot button after Aqualamb claimed that:
1. 90% of FO3 is copy/paste from older games or bad misinterpretation of Lore,
2. That 90% figure was an "exaggeration, and
3. Even though the 90% number is wrong it doesn't change the fact that Fallout 3 is highly unoriginal.

Pretending? Take a poll at each of the "die-hard" websites dedicated to the original games. Also, I still don't get why any of this is a big deal to you. It's like your life is invested in defending Fallout 3. It's weird. Something else I'd like to bring up (if for nothing other than teh lulzies) is your statement about Fallout 3 being held up to unreal or unfair expectations (which in and of itself was a bit of a lolercoaster of a read). So, holding SPECIAL and dialog up to the standards of the original games is unfair or unreal? I don't get it.



Does this keep you up at night?

When we say 90% of die hard fallout fans dislike FO3, the first question we need to address is: Define die hard Fallout fans. I would argue, that by by definition, die hard Fallout fans dislike FO3.

A more interesting number might be: What percentage of all players who liked the earlier Fallouts dislike fO3?

'zactly.



Well I don't see that it's any more or less interesting, just a different question. I was originally responding only to the use of the phrase "die-hard" a few pages back. To answer your question with a guess? Probably quite a few. Hell, maybe even 90%

Oooooh!!!!

And if it did? Nice response - call me a l00ser. Good one. That really stings.

So, to bring it back to the topic being discussed - I'd like to point out that, even if you totally reject the Waster of the Ranges "Anti-Fallout 3 Bias Conspiracy Theory", please take into account that a lot of what "some people" are claiming - that some overwhelming majority of die hard Fallout fans is disappointed with Fallout 3 for example - has not been demonstrated to any degree. In fact, some anecdotal evidence has been presented to counter that claim (see almost any of the large number of NMA Fallout 3 Review Round-up posts). In fact, when the person presenting the argument of "bad reviews" listed three reviewers he trusted - they yield two very positive reviews and one very hard-hitting negative one.

Uhhh, it'd be weird?



Disappointed is NOT synonymous with "anti" or hatred or even dislike. Say that outloud to yourself a few times.

Probably, maybe? Clearly, the vast majority of "die hard" fallout fans don't like fallout 3. What does that tell us? Not much. It's like saying that 90% of Americans think they are American.

Sadly we'll never find that out, as the people registered here are sort of skewed. Other sites likewise. Varying degrees of like. Take this game, you have some that see it as an abomination, some that think it fell short, some that think it was ok but could have been better, some that think it was good with negligible areas, and others that are convinced it's the Second Coming made machine code - like the thing speaking in third person above The last three or four like it, but have varying opinions.

Oh my god, Kjarista, yer breakin' my heart again. Do I have to remind you of the quote which I commented on which apparently was a big enough deal to Waster to start this whole stupid derailment? I do? Ok, here:

You know, my first post in this thread said that at some point, "being disappointed in Fallout 3" was going to be made one of the pre-requisites for being considered a die-hard Fallout fan. 'Zactly how is that even close to reasonable?

Regardless, this is what I originally waded in to point out: There are a large number of positive reviews for the game (the very metric Aqualamb cited in his original "90%" proclamation) - and that's concedeing Aqualamb's insinuation that positive reviews from sites with advertising "don't count".

I believe that there are quite a large number of people who have played Fallout from way back when, who have read the Fallout Bibles, who consider themselves hardcoe die-hard fans of the Fallout series - and are not disappointed by Fallout 3. But I'm not going to claim that it's the majority (let alone 90%) - because I have no way of knowing what that number actually is.

Jaysus Christmas laddie, your name isn't Stephen Bullock by any chance, is it?

I dig the hostility and passive-aggressiveness going on here, heh.



The majority of reviews over on NMA weren't from "hardcoe Fallout fans", by any stretch. Most were gaming sites, newspaper and magazines. Most of them were incredibly positive...but read like marketing posts, I mean, honest praise is something, sounding like you're reading talking points is another, it became a joke after a certain number.

Okay, now I understand what we're actually talking about again. Thank you. (And sorry to Waster of the Ranges for spelling your name wrong, as well.)

Can we agree on just a couple things, though?

1) Unless some official polling company comes out with some hard numbers, any sort of speculation about how many people have what sort of opinion about what is just that - speculation. Of all the people who bought Fallout 3, and all the people who played the original games, only so many will ever bother to go on-line to look up stuff for it. Of those, only a fraction will come to an online forum. Most of those will just lurk for a little while. Only a very small percentage of them will bother to post anything on here. And we can assume that most of those posting on a forum will represent those with some strong feelings on the subject. It doesn't represent an accurate cross-section, so you can't project any real numbers out of anything gleaned around here. If I set up a poll asking how many people liked Fallout 3, that only represents the opinions of those people who participated in that particular poll - in no way could I extrapolate those numbers and assume they're accurate to any degree for the world at large.

2) The same goes for reviews. Reviewers only represent the opinions of the person who reviewed it. If you could track down every single on-line and published review of Fallout 3 and work out the percentage of those who felt anything specific about the game - you still couldn't extrapolate that into a real-world number that means anything other than "of the reviews I found, this percentage felt this way about this aspect."

3) Some of us enjoy nitpicking over the game. Myself, I find it a fun exercise. This is an industry I'm interested in, one in which I've been working for a number of years to get into (with limited success, admittedly.) I like discussing the finer points of game design, and I find Fallout 3 to be an interesting topic for this sort of discussion, given the unique qualities of this game and the franchise's history.

4) Just because some of us like to point out the flaws doesn't mean that we also can't see the good points of the game. I, for one, don't feel the need to add a disclaimer at the end of every one of my posts saying that while I might find what I feel are flaws doesn't mean I don't like the game. In fact I quite enjoy it for the most part. That it doesn't live up to what I was hoping for only means that I feel there is room for growth. Had I felt that there was nothing good to build on, I for one would not bother posting around here more than once or twice.

5) That I find a number of points to nitpick over doesn't mean that I'm holding this game up to a higher standard than I did the previous games. For one - if I am to consider Fallout 3 a sequel to Falluot 1 and 2, then it merits criticism on that basis. Many criticisms I hold against Fallout 3 also could be applied to the earlier games. I don't see how that's supposed to invalidate my opinion, though. If anything, I feel it's even more of a glaring flaw if something that didn't work well in the previous game wasn't fixed in the sequel (as that's what sequels are supposed to do.) I don't see how that's ret-conning the original argument. By and large, I'm not talking about Fallout 2, except by way of example. Myself, I try very hard to consider Fallout 3 on it's own merits. But I don't feel guilty if I hold the previous games up for comparison - because it's a sequel and warrants comparison as such.

6) The rose-colored glasses argument doesn't hold weight. You can still buy Fallout 1/2/Tactics, and they still run on modern computers (sometimes they need a bit of tweaking, but they do run.) A lot of use "hard-core" fans still own our original copies of the old games and play them on occasion. I went through and replayed all the old game in anticipation of Fallout 3 in the months leading up to the release. I don't have an altered view of the original games because I just played them last month. (And I don't think anyone here is necessarily saying this, but it is a point I feel the need to make on occasion.)

7) It is entirely possible to be a "hardcoe" Fallout fan and appreciate Fallout 3 as a good game. Frankly, I rather enjoyed Fallout 3. I'm looking forward to a Fallout 4 and see #3 as more of a learning process, but that doesn't mean I'm not glad they made it. I would take umbrage at any statement that would imply that I'm not as big a "fan" as anyone else simply because I refuse to hate Fallout 3. (Again, I don't think anyone here is actually saying that - or I would hope we're all mature enough to see the fallacy of that position.)

8) Number of criticisms doesn't necessarily mean a bad game. I loved Mass Effect, for example - but I have just as many complaints about that game as I do for Fallout 3. I even liked Mass Effect more than Fallout 3, and I could nit-pick that game just as much. A flaw is a flaw is a flaw, however. Just because I may like a game doesn't mean I can't point out what I didn't like, no matter how small the issue is. And even if I didn't like the game, it doesn't mean it has to have a number of gamebreaking flaws. It's more a matter of whether or not the good points outweigh the negative points. And that's always going to be subjective. We can discuss these various points, but our opinions are not debatable - because there is no "wrong" or "right" opinion.

Yes, that's a whole wall of text in a thread that's primarily composed of walls of texts. But I also think we can have much more interesting and civil conversations about the game if we could agree on at least some of these things.

I'll get down off my high-horse now...

Really? I don't. :stare:

I'd love to keep the thread open, but when it ends two or three of the same people reiterating the same discussion points, with a little side order of cross-forum bashing, flame-bating and general inability to let off-topic sidebars go, it ends up locked.