I don't know, i just cared and got invested in the story. Not every emotion can be explained really. The reason i like the story though is mostly because it combined the personal aspect of Fallout 3 with the faction feel of New Vegas, also it had some great grey moral choices which i enjoyed. Other than that the ending just stuck with me for a a week after i beat the game, which means it had impact.

But lets get back to Fallout? the original one.

I think we are still on topic, as the OP was trying to denigrate FO1 in comparison to FO4.

Personally there isn't enough dialogue options for #1 and without a mod, you don't know what your going to say so you won't know if the option goes with your chosen personality until you pick it.

Low int dialogue is missed in the newer games aside from a couple options in New Vegas. In the first 2 games, the low int responses by or to you were hilarious.

Honestly? Low intelligence is kind of offensive and I've seen handicapped people make the point it shouldn't be in the game, doesn't help that the only reason to do it is for comedy.

Like, seriously let's look at notable quotes

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Intelligence#Notable_quotes

"Ooh shiney robot" really? "Me take job because me smarter"

A lot of the dialogue gets so stereotypical mentally handicapped that yea, it gets really offensive so I'm really pretty happy to see low int get removed completely. It does nothing but make fun of people who suffer with actual mental retardation which is down right crappy and don't get me started on the idea it can be "fixed" by adding more points to intelligence because that's equally offensive for NUMEROUS reasons.

That's fair, but I'd like to give my own thoughts on this matter.

The "personal" aspect is an issue I have with both Fallout 3 and 4. When you start including hour long prologues fleshing out your character's relationships, and trying to add an emotional hook into the game you start restricting the player's ability to role play. Bethesda has been trying to take Fallout into a very BioWare-like direction with both Fallout 3 and 4, and I just don't think that's appropriate for this series, Fallout's supposed to be more like The Elder Scrolls than it is Dragon Age in regard to the player character. Sure in Fallout 1 the Vault Dweller always comes from Vault 13 with an initial goal of finding a replacement water chip, but everything else about them is up to you. In Fallout 4 you are always ex-military\law school Nate or Nora who are married, have a son, are reasonably good people, watch their spouse get murdered and their son get kidnapped, then run around the wasteland crying about it.

Even with all of that forced background though; Fallout 4's main quest is probably the one I cared least about. The only reason I consider it better than Fallout 3's is because it wasn't just a bunch of ideas lifted straight from Fallout 1 and 2, and then crudely stitched together into an incoherent plot. I certainly don't consider it on the same level as Fallout 1, which in my opinion still has the best story and ending in the series. I thought the Master was much easier to empathize with than the Father, and

Ah Yes that's right, we are in the generation of being offended by everything, and we have to water it all down until Nobody is offended anymore.


This is the same reason why Jerry Seinfeld said no comedian should ever do a gig at a college or university anymore, because everyone in our generation is being microagressed and offended by everything.


Or you know, we could just let people do what they do and if you don't like it, don't partake in it (ie, don't play low intelligence builds if you're so offended).

I've heard a number of excuses over the years as to why certain aspects of the game have gone missing as the series as progressed, but that is perhaps the lamest one I've heard.

That "entire concept of an action-RPG" of yours is an irrational belief imagined and fostered by mainstream gamers. It is not a concept shared by Bethesda's developers, who correctly regard shooting in their games a role-playing mechanic. In the phrase "action RPG" -- note that Bethesda does not hyphenate it as you do -- "action" describes role-playing. The description signifies that in certain situations traditionally handled by random-number generation, action is used instead.

When a person uses a mechanic in pursuit of playing a role, then that mechanic is a role-playing mechanic. It doesn't matter that the mechanic pervades some other genre of game where it isn't used for role-playing, because its purpose someplace else does not define its purpose Shooting serves a different purpose in Fallout 4 than it does in Doom. Between an RPG and a shooter, the genre of the game causes the shooting to play differently even if they share the exact same shooting mechanic. Tossing a pari of dice is not a role-playing mechanic in craps. It is not a role-playing mechanic in a strategy war game. It is a role-playing mechanic in Traveller.

The game designer, not you, dictates the physical limits imposed by a character's attributes. You may think it unrealistic that your 1 PER character can snipe targets at long range, but you are playing make-believe if you think him out-of-character for doing so. If we're talking Fallout 4, Perception is measurable effects in other areas, and your not liking how it works does not constitute an objective diminishment of RPG-ness.

I'd be curious to hear what you consider to be the requirements of an RPG.


Is Just Cause 3 an RPG? Why or why not?

Edit: You know what, nope not doing it. I had three paragraphs of why explaining why low int isn't cool and why it's not funny or cool to make fun of people because of how they were born, something they can't help but nope not doing it. I'm out.

Yes, I do feel Bethesda's Fallouts are missing something. Like, something really important. Then I realized it is all down to writing. The game treats a gamer like a complete dumb, all the quests in the game I can explain by showing you a simple chain: Dialogue (yes, no, maybe, sarcasm)- reaching the location - shooting- more shooting- even more shooting- gettin back to quest giver- dialogue (no options). Wow, the game lost its mature content. Where are characters with grey-morality (where are interesting characters at all!), dark humour, aggresive dialogues or RPG elements? In Fallout from 1997.


The sentence about water chip and character's son sums it perfectly. Fallout became mainstreamed crap. Good job Bethesda.

I largely agree, but I do think they've done a much better job this time with having factions that aren't "the good guys" and "the bad guys."


Every faction has positive and negative aspects and members who are easy to hate and easy to like. I think if they'd stuck with a silent protagonist the game would have been much better. Voiced protagonist brings a lot of costs with it, which means unless they're cool with spending a ton of time and money on voice acting you're going to lose a lot of choice and get simplified dialgoue. Which is exactly what we got.

I gonna say nope to #1.

I gonna say nope to number 2. What if my build is the smart guy who solves problem with their wits? Or the brute who relies on Strength? Or the pacifist? Nope, I can't deal with any NPC in the entire game except based upon my Charisma stat. I can't out think them. I can't intimidate them(using something other than Charisma, which is dumb, a Str 10 person in PA holding a gatling laser with Charisma 1 can't intimidate. makes 0 sense). So, my starter points really don't mean anything, and there are even level caps on certain builds, meaning even if I tried to do some things, I am held back, which isn't the same in the other games where Special decided your play style, there were skills to enhance this, perks gave added advantages, now Special is nothing more than perk requirements, there are no skills, and perks decide your play style.

3 isn't anything particular with RPG games. Can do this in a lot of different games.

4. ditto.

5 is same response as 2.

6 Depends on your build if you can play it how you want. If you are specialized in killing folks, sure, you can make a killing machine. But again, if you want to approach in a different manner, no, you can't. Just like you also can't play any form of evil outside of psychopathic murderer.

It is a perfectly accurate description of what Bethesda games are. FPS or action mechanics do not suddenly cease to be FPS or action mechanics when you import them into a game labelled RPG. The game has objectively become a hybrid that uses both the character and the player's skill to some extent or another. RPGs of any stripe have never relied on the player himself being skilled at archery, sword fighting, lock-picking etc. It is not "tradition" but the very conception of the genre that characters matter particularly in cRPGs which otherwise have no meaning as a term or genre.

How do shooting in Doom and shooting in Fallout 4 serve different purposes? They serve the exact same purpose. It is undeniable that the mechanics of Fallout 4's non-VATs combat are FPS mechanics not RPG ones. Todd Howard himself has said "We started out with Fallout 4 knowing that, look, we can't apologise for being a role-playing game," he said. "We have to build a first-person shooter, and it needs to be a really, really good one."

This first person shooter they built does not use first-person shooter mechanics because you can improve damage with perks? What is the distinction that makes Fallout 4's shooting RPG mechanics and not FPS ones?

I think it's out of character because the game developers tied PER to accuracy in VATs. So yes they imposed a physical limit for doing so then decided that I, the player could bypass that limit if I felt like it by not using VATs instantly transforming my legally-blind character into an elite marksman. That is, once again, not how RPGs work.

And honestly , I fail to see much of a point beyond , you like fallout 1&2 gameplay over beths hybridization. Which you seem to forget or deny there was a real want of sizable portion for rpg gaming to move into 3D first person real time rendering. Of which the market seems to confirm.

Now is the story really that much better from 1-2 compared to 3 ? I'd say not by that much , and if we are swapping some story for this hybridization to bring the gamer more into the world ... Its an equitable trade off by the majority of game users. And so much so , that using this same set up , New Vegas was developed. But of course tweaked , and more focus on story interaction.

Which of course was made possible by beths version being so malleable. Which is of course part of the game that bears consideration towards how good it is.

And another point you bring up ... player stats effecting game outcome ... Is there really that big of a difference from 1&2 to 3 ... especially considering you could play every fight sequence only using Vats.

Yes, there is. And it's huge.

If you're saying story between 1-2 and 3 with zero consideration of the writing...you might have a point. Purely detached from the writing and implementation of the story 1, 2, and 3 are in the same ballpark. Taking writing and pacing into account and you have a much less friendly comparison.


You can ask, were the writing and pacing of Fallout 1 and 2 really that much better than 3, but the answer is yes.

Is that with discounting the turn based mechanic from the comparison? Meaning the larger portion of the difference is in the turn based mechanic.

Pacing ? sorry I need more definition in what your implying.

Pacing, progression through the story and through the environment.


I'll withdraw that point though, pacing quality is probably the most subjective aspect of most games. I didn't much like the pacing of 3 or 4, but that's largely due to the introduction of BoS (in 3) or just Power Armor (in 4) way too early. Again totally subjective but I like it much better as an end game unlock.


You've moved from the Vault Suit to some leathers to some metal to Combat Armor or a Faction Armor, you've done all you can to upgrade the Combat/Faction armor and now, finally, you get yourself a suit or Power Armor and it's awesome...I like that better than just finding it sitting there on the main path a few yards from your starting point and at level one.


Ditto working to find the Brotherhood and prove yourself to them rather than getting quite chummy the moment you meet them. 4 was better than 3 about that, but still nothing like 1 or 2.

Comparison as a whole. There're no turnbased mechanics in Fallout 3 to discount, if that's what you mean.

Yes the fallout 3 vanilla pacing is a rather fast. However from a first time user experience ... the world is pretty vast with plenty of tedious drudgery of exploration and item collection . And that pacing could of been easily dialed to stretch it out , based on the core mechanics. Of which many mods do , and is very possible by self modding the game once your aware of it.

What is the speed run record for fallout 1 ?

I mean how much player stats effect game scenario outcome. And my contention is that your forgetting how much the turn based mechanic influences that.

So in essence ... remove that mechanic /add real time ... and the difference between the 1-2 & 3 isn't that much.

Why people like the turn based mechanic as apposed to what Baldurs gate did ... I really don't know. Except to bring a video game back into table top dice rolling. Which when your playing that ... the turn based mechanic is employed to better simulate real time aiding in the imaginative process.

Well, no. There would still be quite a difference. Stats in Fallout 3 are just negligable bonus buffs. Even if you changed Fallout 1's combat to a real time variant, it would still uphold the basic premise on the stats "being" the character in all the ways they were designed to. Fallout 3's system by comparison is in the feather weight league.

Why wouldn't they? They are different mechanics.

There's just as much "tabletop dice rolling" in Baldur's Gate. It uses the D&D ruleset (THAC0's and all).

Unless you mean the Dark Alliance games.

It's not a turnbased mechanic there either, just a dice roll mechanic. To my knowledge each character has his own internal clock to determine the pace at which he swings or shoots or casts (what ever the player has ordered him to do). There's nothing really turnbased about that when everyone moves at their own pace and in realtime (as opposed to taking turns in a sequential order controlled by the player). It's a different and in my mind a lot less engaging than a turnbased scenario because you can (in bare basics) just click attack and then watch the combat happen as it does.

No I mean Baldurs gate 1&2 ... and as you pointed out they are different from fallout 1&2 because of each actor having an internal clock.

And with actual table top dice rolling ... you have to use the turn based mechanic ... unless your suggesting some version where the DM has separate stop watches.

Sorry If I confused the conversation by bringing up Baldurs gate ... it was just to illustrate my perplexion towards what I percieved as a purist view for fallout because of the turn based mechanic.

And either way with those 2 methods ... the computer handles game senario outcome almost exclusively ... compared to introducing hand eye cordination of fallout 3

And I still say the actual stats you pick in Fo1&2 are not having as a big an influence as your purporting compared to Fo3.

Would need a parser to tell anyways ... plus the equal ground to test it.

Give me some other games comparison atleast. Because of course if we only have those as the points on a scale ... the gulf can be as wide or narrow as your opinion dictates.