I'd like to see FO4 take place shortly after the war, say ~30 years or so. Say you are born in a vault which just opened and set up a Vault City sort of encampment. All around you people are starving, sick, dying, Society, what is left of it, had degenerated to a warlord sort of situation, where the powerful determine who will survive. Ruins everywhere, and within them, small pockets of people try to defend themselves and eek out survival by microfarming land which yields very little. Remnants of the government and military hole up in their bunkers and camps, and often forage the countryside, carrying away what they can. The land is blasted, pocketed with piles of rubble, stubble in the fields, and deep, dark tangles of woods which harbor who know what.

The people are generally ignorant of their new world. The young folks can't read, nor do they see a use for reading. The old folks remember the before days and know secrets that could be useful. The government is operation in it's own interests, as is the military. Both are armed, but sometimes the patrols never come back. Sometimes the posts get raided and destroyed, with the spoils of war lost in the wastes, to show up later in the hads of youth ganges.

From a lore point of view, we can explore how, and why various factions emerged, how settlements came to be. From a RP point of view, if our basic mission is to either promote the development of society (good) or maintain the state of anarchy(evil) or to build your vault city, (neutral?), the qusts you embark on will change the path of history, both short term and long term. The city overseer would want to make alliances where possible, engage in political intrigue, and go to war when necessary. You would be tasked to accomplish some of these goals, and the way you decide to handle them will determine the outcome. Do you follow the overseer's orders no matter the consequences, or do you decide to take matters into your own hands? What is the overseer trying to do anyway?

How does this sound so far?

I'd like to see FO4 take place shortly after the war, say ~30 years or so. Say you are born in a vault which just opened and set up a Vault City sort of encampment. All around you people are starving, sick, dying, Society, what is left of it, had degenerated to a warlord sort of situation, where the powerful determine who will survive. Ruins everywhere, and within them, small pockets of people try to defend themselves and eek out survival by microfarming land which yields very little. Remnants of the government and military hole up in their bunkers and camps, and often forage the countryside, carrying away what they can. The land is blasted, pocketed with piles of rubble, stubble in the fields, and deep, dark tangles of woods which harbor who know what.

The people are generally ignorant of their new world. The young folks can't read, nor do they see a use for reading. The old folks remember the before days and know secrets that could be useful. The government is operation in it's own interests, as is the military. Both are armed, but sometimes the patrols never come back. Sometimes the posts get raided and destroyed, with the spoils of war lost in the wastes, to show up later in the hads of youth ganges.

From a lore point of view, we can explore how, and why various factions emerged, how settlements came to be. From a RP point of view, if our basic mission is to either promote the development of society (good) or maintain the state of anarchy(evil) or to build your vault city, (neutral?), the qusts you embark on will change the path of history, both short term and long term. The city overseer would want to make alliances where possible, engage in political intrigue, and go to war when necessary. You would be tasked to accomplish some of these goals, and the way you decide to handle them will determine the outcome. Do you follow the overseer's orders no matter the consequences, or do you decide to take matters into your own hands? What is the overseer trying to do anyway?

How does this sound so far?

Really good.

Also interesting would be to see the "morally gray" aspects of Fallout implemented in a game where some NPCs remember a world before the Great War. Slavery, for example shows up in the Fallout Universe - Post-Apocalyptia has a large dose of "Survival of the Fittest" where the strong exploit the weak - but in a game where there would be people who remember the Good Old Days, the implementation could be quite interesting.

Well in both games people that don't remember the pre-War days still take issue with slavery, so that's not morally gray in Kjarista's setting. Would be an interesting setting though, while I'm still against them jumping backwards in time from the third game, it's definitely got more, heh, "grimdark" and survival elements to it that'd seem more real than what we have now.

How does this sound so far?

Absolutely - even in the not-yet-on-its-feet Capital Wasteland - people generally don't approve of Slavers. But, for example - the Head of State Quest deals with Slaves and is tied to the Lincoln Memorial. The ideals represented there are pretty strong, but only because the Great Emancipator himself is invoked. A similar type of quest in a different setting would still have human drama - but would feel much more like freeing this one set of slaves as opposed to standing up for a set of ideals.

But you can't have Preznit Big Hat in every game - but in the situation proposed by Kjarista, you could have people who actually remember a time when Slavery was seen as an atrocious evil. Who could be used to represent the Pre-War ideals and morality around Slaving. Perhaps this doesn't sound at all interesting to you - and I can understand that - but it cetainly holds appeal for me.

Or in other words - in FO3, whenever I come across Random Encounter Slavers, fighting them isn't all that different than fighting Raiders. These guys are just generic scum. In contrast, when I put .44 Magnum rounds into the Slavers who have occupied the Lincoln Memorial - well that has a much different feel for me - because the idea that Slavery is Wrong is invoked - not as a personal choice, but as something with more meaning. IMO, a game set in a world where some people remember the Pre-War days could do something similar. And not just about Slavery, but about any differences in morality that existed in Fallout's Pre-War World and the Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland that the game would be set in.

Sounds like maybe you should be on the payroll. Hehe. I'm not entirely certain this is specifically what I'd like to see but it's certainly more in the direction of a Fallout world I'd prefer to explore. 30 years after the war would be a really exciting time to explore, imo. I do like the fact that your choices for the PC seem more relevant and meaningful than "OMG follow dad because water!"

I just watched that BBC docu-drama someone posted a link for last weekend. Pretty grim.

Well, it's still nothing new due to that setting, slavery is wrong whether or not you're looking at an effigy of Lincoln. Most of the moral issues in Fallout are usually of the type that border on absolutes (child killing, slavery == bad , prostitution == big deal) as everything else is sort of irrelevant due to surviving. And in any case, hard to be morally grey with those issues. But, considering it more, you could have interesting/amusing groups that want to put some Puritanical morals among the survivors (cliched "The war was punishment, repent ye sinners" church or something). The idea that you're in a "civilized" vault spawned settlement does allow for some pretty interesting moral choices though. Shame it won't get fleshed out, heh.

everything else is sort of irrelevant due to surviving

I think the game's environment would have been equally as captivating if the entire DC area was overgrown with wild plantlife.

Cutting your way through a forest and finding a broken city like Olney, or a Satcom Tower, or the Mall area as a great, open field with mutated snakes swimming in radioactive-algae laced reflecting pool, or the Lincoln memorial wrapped in 150 years of vines with swarms of (harmless) mutant crows nesting in it would be just as creepy. And make alot more sense.

I get it. "50's View of the Future". Whatever. I hate that excuse. Does it really have to kill off everything except a few shrubs? Is there NO room for any sort of modern logic or science? Is it inconceivable that more modern concepts could be used as well? If you say no, than I guess the mid-80's Mad Max raiders must REALLY stand out like a sore thumb to you.

If they wanted to capture that classic "post-apocolyptic" feel, they could have done it with just half the world map, and let the other half make a little bit of sense.

The wasteland itself is the best character in the game, don't get me wrong. And D.C. being hammered so hard in the war (allegedly) explains a little of why everything is SO dead. But I agree, the franchise can't keep jumping further and further into the future and maintain any credibillity here.

Honestly? I remember when Fallout 2 came out, I thought "160 years after the war? What the hell?" Even the ORIGINAL Fallout, I remember thinking "80 years? Huh. That kinda svcks. I would rather have had just 2 years after the bombs."

I'm actually positive about this, though. I doubt Bethesda will make Fallout 4 with the same bone-dry desert wasteland theme. I think it's a natural jump to switch gears and do a more organic wasteland (Florida would be AWESOME. POST NUKE DISNEY!), but it IS Bethesda we're dealing with. Fallout 4 could be even DEADER. Who knows.

Well 50's view of the future isn't an excuse, it's the basis for the series. The series can moving on in the future just fine, as it doesn't always have to be a tale of "nukes fell, now try to survive". As long as it's in the same area and keeps ties with the previous one, the timeline can move forward, show how humanity recovers and faces obstacles that would set back that recovery, etc. Of course you'd reach a point by which you're back at a pre-War level, but ideally that's far beyond a critical point by which the series has been overmilked anyway. It'd be interesting to see an area that nature has somewhat battled back against the wasteland, but it should be an oddity rather than sprawling jungle.

All that's debateable. Untill Fallout 3, the 50's motif was limited to a few cosmetic choice; the cars, some architecture, a few other minor things. It never slapped you across the face with it over and over like Bethesda does.

That aside, you can go forever into the future, and still have it be post-apocolyptic. Extreme example: You could have towering buildings of new glass and steel, and a perfectly healthy populace, running cars, etc., as just one perfectly intact city with high walls, holding back the horrors of the wasteland. (Memory fails... Wasn't that kinda like Logan's Run?)

You can do ALOT thematically after a nuclear war. Having the ENTIRE population of your world be dirty, poor, pathetic, helpless, and starving, living in squalor and filth... where everything is either dead, dying, or poisonous... it's just overly pessimistic, heavy handed, and naive, in my opinion.

Why not a sprawling jungle? Look, "I am Legend" may have been laughable at parts, but can anyone really say that it's depiction of New York being re-taken by nature wasn't effective in instilling a disturbing image of post-apocolyptia? Not to mention being a touch more believable than everybody somehow surviving in a desert with no vegitation, no rain, no farmland, and no supply of livestock to speak of?

Yeah. I know. It's a video game! But I don't see why the same expectation for a semi believeable world that is applied to other forms of media shouldn't be applied to games. Especially when they're aimed at a 'mature' audiance, who, presumeably, isn't satisfied with amateur sci-fi navel-gazing that even a 3rd grader can perforate with a logic stick.

Reality svcks. That's why people play video games.

Ever seen Threads? Another grim one. I'd suggest anyone asking "LOL how fun would you have in wasteland?" to watch it.

#1) Way to add to the conversation.

#2) Speak for yourself, buddy.

I'm just sayin' people have stressful lives, so they get on the internets and their consoles to get away from reality.

Everything in fallout is improbable

but it's fun, so what difference does it make?

I'm just sayin' people have stressful lives, so they get on the internets and their consoles to get away from reality. Everything in fallout is improbable, but it's fun, so what difference does it make?

I had wondered why gaming quality has tended to dip in the last couple of years.

My father, one of the smartest, most driven person I have known (yes, I may be a bit biased) would sit down and watch shows like Maverick. When I asked him why he would watch such a shallow, stupid show, he said that he just needed time to relax and disengage his brain. People often look for this kind of entertainment...more now than before I think. Simpler, faster playing games...easier games are just right when you really don't want to think about anything.

Heh, probably true. Proves my statement more so. I remember a PC Gamer article where the author wrote, and I can't remember for the life of me who it was, that games could go two ways : comic books, high quality with a relatively small fanbase, or movies, low quality but huge market appeal. Paraphrasing him, but his point was interesting - although at the time we all knew which way that was gonna go.

You see this trend in MMOS as well as everywhere else. The more casual a game goes, the more it tends to pick up players. The MMO market used to mean Everquest and UO, both complex (perhaps EQ moreso) ad requiring massive amounts of time. WoW, with simple gameplay, broke the market wide open.