Well the explanation for Roll v Role was in that next paragraph. The one with the discussion of the importance of game mechanics to games themselves.

Regarding FO3 and powergamers - I think I understand your point. That powergamers want to have maxed out everythings, and this is quite easy to do in FO3... But my point was that it is quite easy to do this in FO3. It's a sort of non-Achievement. I was pointing out that applying min/max mentality to FO3 is a pointless exercise since the returns on getting the extra 50 skill points is near zero - thus making the game less about spending all your time working out optimal builds and more about actually playing. But that's okay - I've gotten used to people ignoring not understanding what I'm trying to say - I guess I have some work to do on improving my English.

Here's another way of putting it - you're talking about allowing Players the opportunity to customize their gaming experience - and you state that having a deeper game mechanics system - one with meaningful impact for stat placement and perk choices would help do that, while frivolous things like House decorating does not. Sounds like a very reasonable and rational argument - except that what it really is, is a statement of accepted conventional wisdom.

Does forcing a player to customize their play-style actually allow them to customize their gamine experience? Being forced to choose at character creation and Level-up, how I'm going to play the game - why is that better than being forced at the time of any given decision, how I'm going to play the game. In your "more customizable gaming experience" game, I would have to decide early on whether I wanted to be (for example) a Stealth Sniper or a Big Guns Assault Specialist, whereas in FO3 - that decision is made in front of the locker at one's House when deciding which load-out of gear to take (ie Recon Armor and Sniper Rifle vs Power Armor and Missile Launcher). When someone reaches Fort Wheaton in your game - they really only have one method for dealing with it (the one they specialized for), but in FO3 you can simply Fast Travel home and tackle the bad guys however you want. So why is yours the more customizable gaming experience?

As to what impressed me so very much about FO3's storyline - well it's a number of things. Partly the coherence (yes I mean that) of it, and partly the sheer audacity of thumbing its nose at so very many gaming conventions. The FO3 story really is a breathtaking break from the usual. I've put my thoughts about it in a comment left on http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?showtopic=941863.

In your example, your SPECIAL isn't really holding you back, as you have skills in Big Guns, Small Guns, etc, that can affect what weapons you want to kit yourselves out with - to an extent with the heavy weapons and Strength (missed this the first time, oops). Granted, it's not really sensible to apply a relevant SPECIAL system to a game not designed for it. A stronger SPECIAL system would make the total game experience more customizable, rather than the varied solutions to individual problems (remember the dumb character's game in the earlier ones was slightly different). In any case, one good reason for them to have a relevant, meaningful SPECIAL system, - above all others - is that they put one in.

I'm not sure I understand. I'm saying that if I am forced by the game mechanics to specialize my character, then either the upcoming encounters are badly balanced or I have to play the character in the style that I specialized for. If the game mechanics allow my character to do everything well, I still have to decide at any given encounter how I'm going to handle it - often requiring a change in inventory.

Although I suppose that the FO3 style of character creation does make it difficult to experience the game as a gimped out weak character. That's definitely one customization option that's taken off the table.

Edit: for (hopefully) increased clarity - and typos

Perhaps WoW was a bad choice. There's some pretty good writing in WoW as well - and that is one VERY developed game world, with very deep Lore and a huge amount of History. But my point was about games that are so very stats oriented, where the gaming mechanics become so important that even with a rstory rich world like Azeroth, people are playing for Phat Lewts. All I'm trying to say is that having a rich and robust gaming mechanic system does not necessarily mean a rich and robust gaming experience. That focusing on the dice-rolling and stat building has the potential to detract from the actual role-playing part of the game.

Well, the SPECIAL system being robust isn't FORCING you to specialize. You can play a generic-type character, or one that's slightly better in Perception and Intelligence than luck, and so on. Just that I doubt the FO3 situations were designed with a strong SPECIAL in mind, as it was implemented as is. If there was a strong SPECIAL, I'd figure there'd be ways around problems for players that fall into sneaky, shooty or chatty buckets, for example, to varying degrees in each. But yes, if you choose to specialize your character in a strong sense, then you should play the way you specialized for.

I guess there's two ways at looking at how you can vary the game play. One in a macro sense that affects how you play through, other is micro in how you fix the problem you're facing. A stronger SPECIAL system, allows more of the former and doesn't have to negatively impact the latter.

I really do believe that the generation gap, has influenced Fallout 3. The problem is, that Bethesda, rather then marketing to its core audience, who grew up with the game...instead they felt that it would be better to sell a product, simply because it has brand recognition, rather then producing a product for the fans. Then again, it seems these days, that what comes out for the computer, are basically "Demolition Man", for your IBM. Its true, what some have said in past remarks on this thread, that we are in the "fast food gaming" era. Now games like Civ2, Prisoner of Ice(Call of Cthulhu) etc...they may have not been fancy, but like a good book or film, it kept you wanting to find out what happens next. When it came to the main storyline of Fallout 3, you really don't feel all too connected to it. In Fallout 1, and Fallout 2, you were given a good reason, about why you should care about whether or not you progress in the main storyline. Fallout 3, on the other hand, gave you no reason to care, outside of "I must avenge my father", but even then the way that his role was written so poorly, that you really didn't seem to notice his absence. The sad thing is, I have to say that VBS1 had more character development, and a story then anything that has come out of Fallout 3. I'd have to say, overall though, for the most part, I think that Fallout 3, will be one of those products that epitomizes that "generation gap". After all, you can't ever remake "The Longest Day" or "Casablanca", so it stands to reason that you can't remake Fallout 3, in Fallout 1's image.

Thing is, Beth DID market to their core audience and not to the original fallout fans.

Why do you think Beth did what they did? Do you think they have something against you and the FO1 fans?

They did design FO3 to their core audience, because their core audience buys games like this one, and their TES audience is substantially larger than the rabid FO1 fanbase. They thought they could sell more games that way. If they could get some FO1 fans onto teh bandwagon, then well and good.

Sorry, misquote.

Exactly. Knowing this I don't get why TES fans find it so hard to understand then why the Fallout fans are upset, generally speaking.



:blink:

To be perfectly honest by the end of your sentence I was uncertain about exactly what it was you were trying to say. An elementary understanding and application of grammar and punctuation might go a long way in people "(beginning) to comprehend what (you) have to say". From what I've seen in the past few pages you haven't had a whole lot to say that actually added anything to the conversation.

the fact is Bethsuda owns the rights to van buren so they will more than likely us it which is how it should be so says maccy man.

I can understand being upset. What i can't understand is being obsessed.

Yeah. The lack of grammar in his posts is slowly killing me... >.<

Maybe no one read that synopsis I did on the FO3 storyline, or then again maybe everyone thinks I'm a deluded moron. Fallout 3 does more to make me care about the Main Quest storyline then either of the previous games did - but you are right, it isn't just "given to you". The idea that a Player is supposed to go through the game, develop their own ideas and opinions on the Capital Wasteland, and then is given those final choices at the end of the game - that is so totally not "fast food gaming". Although I suspect that your observation of the trend towards "fast food gaming" culture is exactly why so many people don't appreciate the main storyline. Because it isn't a story of revenge, or one-man-against-the-armies-of-evil, or rescuing the princess or any of gaming's standard plots-in-a-box. It's a story about discovery, sacrifice and redemption.

Seriously, even if you discount my take on the storyline (or simply think it's still simplistic or totally wrong after reading it) Fallout 3 is about exploring the world and observing the odd, interesting, quaint, etc. stories told by age-old computer terminals or amusing layouts of items or the exhausted diaries of someone who previously explored the same building you are currently wandering through. A lot of what Fallout 3 gives back is dependent on the Player putting something in - again a testament to how this is totally not a "fast food gaming" type of game.

I think all credability in this topic, was just removed by the latest posts. Yes I would like to see Van Buren done in some forum, whether or not in a Fallout 4 developed by Beth I do not know.

No, I think I get what you're saying: playing the game (i.e. being able to run around and do anything you want) is more important to you than what you maybe perceive as the tediousness of putting together specific characters. Am I close? The thing about that is, there are certain games out there that give me that "I just wanna turn it on and do stuff" satisfaction but I usually buy those games knowing that they'll be in my collection just for that reason. When I play an RPG and especially a Fallout game I really expect to be able to have the way I play affected because of my initial time spent thinking about how I want to go through the game. That's actually one of my favorite moments, that initial time deciding the build.



Well in this sense sure, I am certainly a Fallout conservative in that I want subsequent games to contain the fundamental aspects which made the games brilliant to me in the first place. Without my perception of brilliance based on those fundamental aspects all I'm left with is a pretty decent game with beautiful wrapping.



It looks like Malcador already addressed your usage of the word "force" but I'll give it a go as well. You're not forced into anything at all. You can create characters that are well-rounded OR specialized. The difference is being able to choose, specifically, what kind of character you want. Now, to address your quoted question: Because what you're describing sounds much more like a cheat or an exploit than it does a customization. In reality (at least in the societies I've been a member of!) you don't have a bunch of people who are all just extremely fantastic at getting everything or anything done and in role-playing, all the way back to teaming up with people in pNp games, people generally love having the option to be specialized. It's just an inherent and fundamental aspect of great RPG gaming. Really, wandering around doing everything just sounds like "sandbox" not "RPG", doesn't it? And if you've got a character who can accomplish everything the first time around what sense is there in playing the game ever again? Replayability was one of the most impressive aspects of Fallouts 1 & 2. I'm still playing those games a decade later!



I'll certainly agree with you there! Bethesda may never have thumbed their nose harder at the convention of RPG's when they decided to forego good storytelling and replace it with "cool stuff."



So far everybody is right in that you haven't lent anything to this discussion other than annoying and poorly-constructed sentences full of insults. I'd probably report you if you hadn't just made the first appearance on my ignore list. Congrats! :tops:



Care to explain yourself? Not really fair to do a drive-by post which makes a disclaimer like that.

Apparently, I'm bang on about people not being able to understand what I'm trying to say. NOWHERE do I say that it's better to be able to "do what you want all the time". Let me clarify (and this'll probably answer your silly comments about the word "force" - sheesh). I am responding to your claim that a more robust gaming MECHANICS system makes for a more customizable gaming experience. Please bear that in mind.

In a system with a more important gaming MECHANICS system - one where stat placement and skill/perk choices, etc. have GREATER IMPACT on the game - one must decide at character creation, and at the various level-ups "What is going to be my playstyle". Yes, you can choose to be a generalist - but in a system with a good gaming MECHANICS system - you are a JACK of All Trades, MASTER of None. This is one of the "drawbacks" to FO3, where most characters end up being Generalists that are MASTERS of All Trades.

Therefore, unless the game is poorly balanced - when you reach an encounter, you must play by the style you chose at character creation/level up. In FO3, you choose at every encounter, how you are going to play it. From my perspective, there is no reason why one is a more customizable gaming experience than the other.

You call it more "sandbox" and not as "RPG". Okay, that's certainly a reasonable comment - although I don't necessarily believe that it is necessarily a less "RPG" style of play. Regardless, it is definitely not a less customizable style of play.

Wait...honestly? Says who? This is the greatest problem I have with Fallout 3 and my greatest argument against why it IS NOT good RPG mechanics! You should not be forced into a genericized character while given the impression that picking out your attributes in SPECIAL or taking the "GOAT" are going to mean anything. And I am sorry but I am not buying the "I make my decisions and handle situations based on each specific occassion" as being "customizable". That's how I personally handle politics and NOT how I want to handle the idea of "role-playing" you know, playing a role? How is playing a role any fun if all the roles are the same? I truly don't understand your argument. I mean, I think I get what you're saying and if I do, I just simply don't understand what you want from an RPG. As I said, I think more of what you want is a sandbox game with the appearance of choices & consequences (of which there really aren't any that have any meaningful effect in the game anyway).

I, unlike a few fans on these forums, was neither a TES fan, in fact I can't stand the game, or a hardcoe Fallout fan when I picked up Fallout 3. I was strictly a RPG fan, of course I have other tastes than that (I have played Civilizations (II through to IV) and all the Command and Conquer series even now that EA has betrayed everything that was Westwood), between Fable 2 and Freelancer, I expected an amazing storyline, because that is why I buy games, and at least some kind of fluid game play. I don't think your a "deluded moron" I think you are as appreciative as I am that Bethesda has recreated a series, for better or worse, that RPG fans can enjoy. While I do not think of it as a "fast food" version of the previous Fallouts, rather, I think of it as the future of RPGs, an amazing environment with a gigantic atmosphere, conduced by both the story and the graphics (I still think, however, that the graphics were pathetically consolized and the art work looks so much better and I really want to see them get closer to that art work than to what works on an Xbox 360), that is becoming easier and easier to jump in and play.

However, Bethesda has my time for only one more game. They need to aggressively work on both character development and storyline, that is what I test all games on, even Halo had a better storyline when compared to Fallout 3. Because Fallout 3 was a story of revenge, after the Enclave "gets" your father killed you go after the Enclave, it was one-man-against-the-armies-of-evil, you can't join Talon Company nor are the Enclave neutral you destroy everything that is evil and you do rescue the princess, you save the Wasteland, after all, from its water troubles. It used to many cliches that took me out of an atmosphere I had thought was built around the story of survival and discovery of a world that had gone MAD, (sorry if no one gets that Cold War joke).

There were only few memorable characters like Harold, who I thought was the ONLY comic relief beyond Liberty Prime and Fawkes in the whole game, Colonel Autumn, who was not only a true anti-hero but the only one who seemed to have human traits that extinguished him from other characters who seemed to all leak from the same template, and Fawkes, who I thought of as a real character that oozed with human emotions, (you expect those from a female :vaultboy: ). However, characters were so poorly wasted, like Colonel Autumn or Sydney, and I don't mean because they trudged across the Wasteland and died or they idiotically tried to stop the player from actually helping them, what I mean is, they were simply not put as more major characters in the storyline and were instead thrown in the background and there to fill some plotholes, which in some cases made even more.

Yes, I thought of it as a story told from age-old computer terminals to, then Liberty Prime gets up and works perfectly fine and throws all the zeal and creativity from those detailed reports out the window. Then, at the end, you are awarded with sacrifice of your character, even though others should have been able to do it for you, those same friends you were saving by not poisoning the water purifier. What I am saying is, is for those who followed the story closely, for those who cared a lot about what was going on, they found themselves being punished with a poorly written story.

But, just remember this, when I thought EA had screwed the entire Command and Conquer series with that crap they dared to attach the title to, Command and Conquer: Generals, they revamped and made an extraordinary story when it came to Command and Conquer 3, (I still didn't like how they threw away Killian Qatar though), so Bethesda still has time when it comes to a fourth step in the series. I am an optimistic person and give the benefit of the doubt.

A lot of really interesting points there, good post.



Well if you consider aping one of the most beloved characters from the original game, changing his personality and making many of the original fans like myself slap my head "memorable" then yes, it was memorable. :facepalm: That's another gripe of mine, will Bethesda be capable in Fallout 4 of coming up with anything as memorable as the factions, quests and characters of the originals? So far 90% of Fallout 3 was copied, pasted and misinterpreted from the original games.

Harold made no sense, true, I to couldn't believe he was in the game, but highlighted the lack of innovation when it came to character design. Considering I believe Harold was supposed to make an appearance in Van Buren anyways, he seemed to just be a throw around character because of his wandering and comic relief, so I had some suspended disbelief over how he had got from California to a mountain in DC without dieing.

I actually considered saying that Fallout 3 was not meant to be a step forward, rather a stand still so new gamers could catch up, but indeed misinterpreted with the change over of game mechanics that caused much of the poor story to be flushed out. I can understand deeply how a previous Fallout 1 and 2 fan feels to see a complete 180 change up in Fallout 3 from what you were all used to, to me Command and Conquer had the same thing happen to it with the change over from isometric to 3D graphics with that game I wish not to mention and became, for a time, a pointless RTS with nothing original attached to itself, taking queues from the real world more than from the universe it was supposed to be a part of, and not at all being utilized as a story telling tool like in Command and Conquer 3.

I would say, if I was Bethesda, I would be focusing on how to fill the plot holes of Fallout 3 and create originality, rather than continuity. They should be telling a story not using graphics to bedazzle their audiences with a false facade, like EA decided to do with the game I will not mention again, just because I think it might kill a brain cell, and Bethesda has done with Fallout 3. I'm sure if they do that, this might be a totally different conversation, we might even be able to forget about the ghost of Van Buren. I mean really, how great are bad guys that wear football helmets and pads and are taken seriously as slavers? Even I could come up with a better bad guy than an old scientist who blows everything up.

After 10 years and a change of ownership, there had to be some continuity, I think. Unfortunately, I think it's very difficult to reference a previous game correctly, in that one will never win over some percentage of players, no matter what one does.

After reading your posts, I must say that I disagree with you about the importance of storytelling in RPGs. I would prefer the story to remain a guidepost, and nothing more. I want to create my own story, and I want my character to be a unique entity in the game world. I would rather have a Fallout 1 style of story, which gets me moving, and in the process of accomplishing that, I run into all sorts of other things to do, each of which moves me to discover what's really going on. I don't want to be railroaded by a story, much like shooters railroad players (and claim to be shooter/rpg hybrids).

So short main quests don't bother me...at least not as much as lockstep main guests one often finds in many games these days.

It sounds to me like what you want is a Bethesda game. And that's fine, they do what you're describing really well. Thing is, myself and many other Fallout fans don't want to play this type of game. This, to us, is not a matter of a "you got your chocolate in my peanut butter...hey wait!" situation. To many of us it's more like, "Hey! You got your toothpaste in my orange juice!" Both things are good and serve their purpose but mixed together create a pretty foul flavor. (IMO, of course)



<_<

See, I think this is what Bethesda tried to do...it just didn't work out like a Fallout game should, imo. It really felt like a Bethesda wandering sandbox type game with RPG elements that held no real consequences.

OMG! 90% copied pasted and misinterpreted? Well sure - that's because you have FO3 SUX fever. I can point to any part of FO3 and you can say that either they copied it, or they tried to copy it but did it so wrong it doesn't make sense.

They used the name "Enclave" - TOTAL COPY!!!! But it's a totally different group then it was in FO2 - THAT'S BECAUSE THEY MISINTERPRETED!!!!! Can you see how dumb that sounds?

Earlier you asked me why I thought the storytelling in FO3 was good - and I linked a thread that had my interpretation of what the FO3 storyline was. YOu haven't commented on it at all - in fact, it looks like you continue to make claims that I specifically address in that thread. Perhaps, I linked it wrong - so I'll quote it here (typos intact) instead:

You have any comment about that? Or are you going to use this as another opening to bash FO3 for poor voice acting and decoratable houses ?

Cut the BS with the "FO3 SUX fever" nonsense, please. Enclave is back, and tries to do the same thing they did in Fallout 2 - kill all those contaminated impure humans with the FEV, except this time it's in water instead of the jet stream. That's a straight lift. The fact that the BoS, Super Mutants, Harold are thrown in with varying degrees of stretching belief and some silly things ("Steel be with you", heh) is also obvious to see. You'd have to be blind or willful to not see a great deal was copied from the previous game. Not 90%, but I'm sure that was just hyperbole.



I disagree, not that it's bad. You become the saviour or the executioner of thousands of people, or conversely do nothing and things remain as is. It's not standard for a video game, but I think it was pretty run of the mill for an RPG.

I'd cut it if people would stop demonstrating it. 90% copied or badly misinterpreted? That's like saying FO1 is 90% lifted from Mad Max, except for the parts where they screwed up the copy/paste. It's a bad, dumb, untrue statement.

If you want to disagree with my assessment of the story, that's fine. It's not definitive or Canon or anything - I was just pointing out the many different ways that FO3 is not a standard story - and most of these bits are the ones people complain about. Seriously, you can't be claiming that FO3 is a "standard par for the course" video game storyline?

Point 1 - The Ending: Obviously different from standard video game storylines (and vehemently complained about)
Point 2 - The Absence of a Final Boss: Obviously different from standard video game storylines (and slightly complained about)
Point 3 - The bulk of the story-telling occurs OUTSIDE of the Main Quest, leaving a very short Main Quest line: Obviously different from standard video game storylines (and vehemently complained about)
Point 4 - The Enclave!!! Total COPY!!! - And they copied badly because it's not exactly the same!!!: NOT THE VILLAIN! They get in your way, and negatively affect your progress, but you aren't trying to thwart the Enclave in FO3, you're trying to remove the radiation from the Capital Wasteland's water. That's right, an Evil Empire type faction that's essentially a bit of window dressing - Totally different from previous Fallouts and video game stories in general (and vehemently complained about)

The story is innovative and audacious, and it's a shame that it's gone over so many people's heads - even when it's laid out as simply and blatantly as I did upthread.

Edit: typos