The maps wouldn't be random. If you're traveling on interstate 70 then that's the map you'd see every time you followed I70. Towns and such would be on the maps. Raider camps and so on and so on. So you wouldn't be rolling the dice when you hit the wall.

So basically the only places you can explore is cities and quest locations, no thanks.

Oh my god, that is so awesome!!! Yeah, if modders can do something brilliant like that, imagine what Bethesda could do with the new engine and multiple professional developers! Aaaah, I wish...

Thing is when we dinos say "node-map system like the originals" people seem to think "exactly like the originals". But really, that is not what I mean at least. I'd like to see the world travel, giving us a feel of how big the wasteland is when the nearest settlement is 200 miles away and not 200 meters like what we've got not. Fallout 1 and 2 covered entire California and a bit more together, F3 covered a fraction of DC and the rural outskirts, NV covered a fraction of Vegas and the deserty outskirts. Sure, it is meant to represent a bigger gameworld, but it just feels so cramped when you can see locations that are supposed to be far away from each other actually being just behind a knoll.

I enjoy the wandering aspect of Fallout, and I like how much more realistic the node system is (in terms of representing time). I'd like a hybrid, like so many people suggest. Actual total space in the game is equivalent to that of Fallout 3/NV/Skyrim, but spaced out over a more believable distance. Basically how Gabe's prototype looks.

On one level guys, the Bethesda/Obsidian fallout games ALREADY have a node map system. Each DLC is on e different map, a different node - so any argument that things like exploration, immersion, etc are impossible in such a system clearly fail.

no now we have fast travel, so the old map will not be back,
but ad some random encounter on the fast travel instead

just ad horses, mc, car, truck, apc, tanks, ship and bring back the supertanker from fallout 2

wouldn't adding vehicles cause the map to feel smaller?

the map have to be big enough for vehicles to mack sens, and enough water mass to go by ship

But fast travel kinda eliminates the need for vehicles. Which i'm positive is being discussed in another thread.

So back to nodes and node type ideas.

I personally think node would increase your ability to explore. Imagine if, instead of the New Vegas we have now, you went from the 'Southern Mojave' node, into the 'New Vegas' node, where you could explore a large city, with only part of it being House's renovated area, and the rest being lawless ruins, shattered not by the bomb, but by 200 years of neglect and scavenging! Poking around the long-abandoned Old Strip, with its mass of crumbling casinos, and then if you wanted, leave through the north to enter the 'North Mojave' node.

The game engine wouldn't need to have so much stuff loaded, and they wouldn't be stuck with trying to make the city roughly the size of what you can walk around in the map in the current system. It could be kinda like the current DLC thing, but in a way it would be more like MMO zoning.

We're on the same page. I agree.

i don't know if i miss the old map type!

but i miss some parts of it.
the old maps was big, had the feeling of a world map and not as to day a part of a city-map.
F3 had a WOW feeling when everything is on top of etcher. ex the outcast brotherhood bunker is just a bride away from the biggest raider town in the game.

and also the random encounter, the unique random locations you was running in to based on your luck skill.
in F3 the random was just ooo not another band if mobs to kill

My post copied from the official suggestions thread:


Nodes could be the size of, say, the whole Point Lookout DLC? Technically, that is a node in Fallout 3 already. So there could be a big bunch of such nodes, you could travel far north on a world map, get to nodes that have snow and pine trees, then you can travel south or west and get desert plains or mountaints, and east there could be mapes by a lake or the sea, and somewhere else there's this marsh land, and to that direction there is a huge city (maybe Chicago, but only a little is accessable. You could get up on some roof and look around you and the city scape would seem endless, but it's just scenery).

Sure, we could have all that in one world map that is just a few square miles, but don't you also think it feels so very cramped? I mean, in FNV you walk abit and you get snow and pine trees in a very very small location, walk a minute (in real time) south you have red canyons, walk a minute east you have a small version of Vegas, walk a minute south of that and you have some settlement that realistically is 10 miles away.
With a pretty world map (please don't think we want the old graphics back with this), new and improved with loads new features and functions to make it interesting and entertaining, you have a big bunch of nodes. There are nodes for some cool place like a forest (Point Lookout for example), there'd be nodes for settlements (I'd say New Vegas strip, Freeside, West Side and North Vegas in one node? But with loading inbetween of course, just not as split up as the Strip was, that felt stupid), then there'd be nodes for smaller settlements, faction HQ's, points of interests and caves/bunkers.

Maybe you also could have the option to walk between the nodes in real time, with randomly generated wasteland inbetween? Anyways, if you travel on the world map (which would be much more detailed than the old one, this one showing the old pre-war roads and highways, train tracks, gas stations, farms, uninhabited pre-war suburbs/small towns, mountain passes etc.) you can click anytime you want to enter the world, and depending on what's nearby, like a gas station, you'd enter a map with a gas station by the road. Maybe there's some random loot there, maybe some NPC you can talk to or trade with, maybe even a quest giver or someone hostile. I'd bet raider gangs would mostly hold up along the roads where people generally travel, so if you want to avoid ambushes you could try and take a detour away from "civilization".

And if you do get random encounters or special encounters, there wouldn't just be this boring pop up "You encountered: Molerats. Engage? Y/N", but there could be this little artwork of a situation and a little more descriptive/immersive message, and then the yes/no alternative if you can avoid it. And if you always want to avoid easy and annoying random encounters, there could be this little box you could check that skips all ambushes you get an option to skip (that is, if your level/skill/perception/whatever determines it is high enough). Maybe also an auto-resolve button, and you'd come away with less ammo for your main weapon and if unlucky, some lost HP and/or stimpaks. For special encounters, there'd be special artwork for it all and some interesting description to set the mood. Like RPG's used to, with text (for those that like to read interesting stuff, for those who just like loot and killing, just click "ok").

yes indeed

why not have a combo of the 2 types of maps.

first you have the F3 map in the center and then on the border′s you have a line off nodes were you can travel to far off places. some kind of stratmove.
many Bord-games/war-games have that way whit a hexagon/zone in main central map and bigger zones around (sea zones and land areas.)

You know, I was against the "node" system but after reading some through posts I think it's plausible. Imagine being in a big city and you want to go to another part of the city. The Strip loading screens however were not fun so I hope something can be done about it if it comes to be used in FO4. I don't want to enter one section and then if I want to go to another part I have to go through like five loading screens...

Using a Node Map like in the old games you'd move on the map to 'Big City', and it would bring up a smaller node map of the internal nodes you've been to already. You'd then click on the one you wanted to go to, and bam you're in. Like for New Vegas, at first you'd only have Freeside, but then you'd end up with the smaller nodemap showing Freeside South, Freeside North, The Strip South, The Strip North, instead of you being forced to zone repeatedly to get to the NCR Embassy like you currently have to, you'd just click on The Strip South, and there you'd go, you'd appear at the entrance to that part of the strip.

Imo the node system is fine, as long as each individual node is sufficiently large. I would find it acceptable to have cities in their own nodes a-la Deus Ex:Human Revolution, and have a crossable wasteland to get to those nodes as is currently already available in New Vegas with DLC. The thing that would make it work though (imo) is to have a great deal of travelling between each node and really space out the locations, preferably with the use of vehicles - and all travelling available in real-time and not watching blips on a map.

My Repost from the discussion on the Official Suggestions Thread---------


@SavageBeatings

If each node could potentially get to the size of Point Lookout I think that would work. It still has the size to feel like your exploring, but still small that they can focus more on story and filling in the world with more than "cram".......

For the traveling between the "nodes" I would want to see them take sort of a RAGE direction with it. Imagine that first real town you encounter in RAGE, your come to basically a dead end while driving in your buggy witch leads to the settlement. Now basically this town is a "node" which us where you'll do all your interacting with quest givers and NPCs.
If you were to take away the few settlements you can enter while still in the wasteland(no loading to enter buildings) your left with the basic concept of using a node based map system and your buggy is "fast travel"

Really RAGE was almost a perfect example, if they added some RPG elements to it and made their nodes less linear you would end up with basically what were talking about with Fallout using Nodes.

If fallout did take this route it could mean that the people who want to see vehicles aswell as the ones who don't, both end up with having their way with small compromises from each.
Vehicles would stay out of the main nodes but would be the ideal way to get around from one node to the next.

The more I talk about it the more I wish Fallout were actually going this route. It makes me pretty mad too, thinking of how great RAGE could have been if it tried to be more like Fallout and less like DOOM.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the older Doom games(newer ones...meh) but I definitely think it's time for them to let go of that name, it should've died long ago. Now my when I think of Doom I think....."YOU SMELL WHAT THE ROCK IS COOOOOOKN'?"
*runs head first into a wall

I know I'm Rambling so I'll cut this before I go too far off topic and piss myself off thinking of RAGE.

This is pretty much the only purpose I had envisioned for vehicles in future fallout games; safer and faster ways to cross the wastes between settlements/locations. However, I would like the ability to travel and explore the wastes on foot also. I can't comment on how this was done in RAGE, as I refuse to buy console-focused games without being pretty damn sure they'll still be good on PC.

Werent there like squares and the likes in the old games? How would we implement that into the new games yet still have the open world/free roam vibe?

If the gameplay inside the nodes was left remnicient and supportive of what it is now (large nodes with explorable terrain), I don't see how it wouldn't work. It would, obviously, sacrifice some of the "sandbox" feeling, but not too much (imo) as it would also promote for more varied exploration through more varied landscapes.

I loved that feeling of freedom though... it makes you feel more THERE, you know what Im saying?

Sure, I can understand that even though I don't hold it as much at value (at least not for the same reasons, and not with the implementation).

I don't see why the wastes couldn't simply be another node of sorts, simply having a large expanse of generic roadways and terrain for the player to traverse between destinations. Having it sparsely populated and with certain tunnels/mountain passes where more terrain could be loaded would mean it could even be done on consoles.

Troika attempted something like that with Arcanum, but honestly I don't know of many people who actually opted to walk from location to location instead of using map travel. In Arcanum the developers put most of their time into the actual nodes, and rightfully so since the nodes represented the most important parts of the game; the rest of the world felt more like empty filler that you could pass through if you were bored enough.