fallout lacks the roaming abilities of gta but it makes you want to play over and over because of the many encounters you happen upon

the battles in fallout 3 let you chose what you want to do i like and love fps i cant stand turn based games(to tedious and not enough action)though i don't quiet know anything about tactical combat if its like what i think its is it would be interesting if they combined it with the fps style (you could send out search parties to scout areas and loot cities or farms plus you could build armies to fight the last of the enclave :celebration: :vaultboy: :celebrate: :lightbulb: :thumbsup: :flamethrower: :intergalactic:

Van Buren, was not designed as a shooter, and to turn it into a shooter...well that would be like remaking "Casablanca"...Classics should never be altered to fit a format, that they were not written for.

Hm. While I'd like to see all that work made manifest....no, I wouldn't like to see it in a "Fallout 3 style".

I'd agree 100% with that though I would be curious to see if Bethesda could pull Van Buren off well. I wonder if Bethesda has it in them to actually create a game with a TBC/RT toggle?

I'd love too see FO4 made from Van Buren. I think if they did do this They would probably stick closer to the original intent and mechanics otherwise I dont see why they would even bother. Actually I dont think they will ever do it except maybe when they feel they cant milk anything more from the franchise they might but I doubt it. I think you should probably consider this to be like the family jewels and they will stay in the safe.

Question - is the lack of challenge due to the difficulty level of FO3 or is it an actual result of the gameplay? i.e. It looks to me like you are saying that making the combat real-time pausable makes it easier - and I'm not sure that that necessarily follows.

Because FO3 is a "shooter". (eye-roll smiley)
Maybe they should remake Van Buren as a choose-your-own-adventure book, because that's what FO1 is. (eye-roll smiley)

Cute as your wit is, I think he does have a point in VB being designed with a viewpoint in mind, which wasn't first person (with a lousy third person).

I'm not disputing that point. Van Buren was most likely intended as TB/ISO - possibly with a real-time option - and locations, whatnot were probably conceived with that consideration. I'm just disputing the whole "shooter" thing. That's wrong.

Anyways, I voted No - because I don't think Beth is vested enough in the Van Buren world and design docs in order to bring it off. The killer aspect of FO3, for me, is how well realized the Capital Wasteland is - and that's because DC is their area (not just IRL, but they conceived that world). I doubt they could do the same thing with someone else's design docs.

You mean as opposed to FO3 which markets itself as a choose-your-own-adventure book but is actually a pop-up?

You know there seems to be this point of view that somehow if you dont have third person or ISO only point of view you cant have a good story or RPG. Thats just B.S. Also Fallout 1 & 2 were evry bit as much shooters as a lot of other games. Its just that you could do other things like use stealth or negotiate or sometimes use other skills like science to resolve certain quests. How many people finished those games without killing hundreds of people?

For me I want First person and 3rd person and I do want a story driven game that makes full use of Kharma and Reputation and skill etc. That can be accomplished regardless of the physical point of view of the game. But like I said in previous posts I wouldn't worry my little head about it because Van Buren will remain in the family safe never to see the light of day again.

Are you saying that Fallout 3 is not a Post-Apocalyptic Role-Playing Game?

I think what he was saying (and if not, just pretend it's me saying it) is that it is an RPG that promised many shades of grey, many ways to solve quests and real consequences for your actions. All things that are by and large missing from Fallout 3.

Nah. Just messing with you. Didn't really understand your comment either, and was hoping I could draw you out.

I actually liked Choose-Your-Own adventure books. And if you're saying Fallout 1 is old-fashioned, less "actiony," then so be it. But at least it presented you with choices and was a good RPG. Which was why I bought it in the first place.

Fallout 3, was too linear for my taste. Characters lacked personality and the stories were too simplistic. But NOT because of the shift from turn-based to shooter. I don't even mind that. In fact, I liked Fallout 3 a lot, but my only beef with it was the poor writing and simplified character development system. Which I'm most critical about when it comes to RPGs. Is Fallout 3 an RPG? Yes, but a very simple one. They seemed to focus more on graphics and effects than the actual story and character development (SPECIAL). Hence "pop-up." I enjoy it as an FPS, but not as an RPG.

As Bockscar said, I don't believe that you can't have a good shooter RPG. System Shock 2 was one. Mass Effect was one. Half-Life, almost felt like one. But only because the characters and stories were compelling.

EDIT: @Aqualamb


Yes, that's exactly what I was saying.

Well
I guess I disagree. I found that Fallout 3 had all sorts of moral ambiguity, that even by doing the "right" thing - you get a horrible result. And I thought that the variety of methods to solve quests was quite large - including the options like lying to the quest giver or just killing them or through Speech tests or by clever abuse of Stealth Boys, etc.

The "real consequences" thing you've got me at. While there are certainly a couple of examples of this (OMG! U BLOWED UP MEGATON) - I felt this part was a bit lacking.

But all-in-all, if someone were to describe FO3 to me right now as "an RPG with many shades of grey, many ways to solve quests and real consequences for your actions" I'd say that they'd have a fairly good description.

edit: typo, grwy replaced with grey

Sure, it's easy to draw me out - just call FO3 an FPS, or threaten to kill Crazy Wolfgang, or claim that Paralyzing Palm isn't overpowered....

Look, if you thought the writing was lousy, that the characters were flat, that NPC interaction was too strained, whatever - that's fine. But it still does not make Fallout 3 a "shooter".

Fallout 3 is an RPG. Heck, if you try and play it like a shooter, you get boned. Look at all the "OMG! STOOPIT READOOR SIRVIVEDED HEEDSHOOTS!!" threads that were going around.

I think you're half-correct. I think this is what Bethesda tried to create and how they themselves would describe their game (why, they do describe it this way! :hehe: ) but I think they came up short most of the time. I never got the impression that there were more than "right, neutral, wrong" options to choose from and most of the time they seemed very obvious or simplified. Sometimes the game really struck gold (particularly in the android side-quest) and I think Bethesda, if they make it a necessity to focus more on this angle, will have a much better game on their hands.

Really? Consider the maximum Karma-gain solution to Tranquility Lane. Actually, consider Tranquility Lane itself - and the questions it raises . Bethesda actually refernces the whole moral ambiguity - the Wasteland is a harsh place when explaining about their writing for the follow-up to the Tenpenny Towers Quest. And the fact that there are also obviously right and obviously wrong (morally speaking) solutions - but that you can choose which one you prefer for each situation - that's part of the many shades of grey thing too.

If you are unwilling to see things, that does not mean that they aren't there.

Maybe, I thought Tranq. Lane was interesting for sure. But think about how meaningless the karma system really is. You can get it back by repeatedly donating or giving a guy water? You can repeatedly lose it by stealing? That seems like a glaring oversight and an exploit to me.

Yeah, the Karma system is a bit broken. I'm not sure how I would go about fixing it, but the failing to hack a computer exploit? Or the purified water thing? There should be diminishing returns at the very least. Still, the very existence of a Karma system, the acknowledgement that the Player can do bad things - that's a step up from a lot of games that still get called RPG's.

Yes but it's a step down from Fallouts 1 & 2. That's the whole thing here. I'd agree it's a much better RPG than has been around in the past few years save for a special few (MOTB, M.E., KOTOR 2 to name a couple) but that's also an unfortunate symptom of the climate of the current gaming industry. It's certainly a good step for RPG gaming but it doesn't live up to what the originals had to offer. Just think about what we'd have if all those aspects of statistics, karma, dialog, storytelling...think about what we'd have if Bethesda kept their beautiful wasteland design and incorporated all those great things the original games had in much more meaningful ways? They might well be on their way, I just think they missed the mark on this game and they've admitted as much in regards to certain aspects (claiming that they focused on certain things more than others).

Rather generous I'd say.

I'm trying my best to be diplomatic about it. I did enjoy the game afterall. It's certainly not on par with my favorite cRPG's nor is it as good as it could have been. Can we do better? Yes. Is it better than most of the games out there in recent years posing as "RPG's"? Yes, some. Is it ok to be complacent with a game just because it's better than the competition even when there's barely any competition? No. Which is why I'd rather talk about what could be better than what I deemed "OK" or good. Things never get better if you stand around saying "Eh. This is good enough, I can't complain."

no hablo ingles