Conversation from

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1515754-if-obsidian-makes-another-fallout-should-it-be-isometric/?p=23925399

continued here as to not further derail that thread.

-It literally isn't, and until you accept that, the people who disagree with you will never be ever to truly understand the position you are coming from, and you will never be able to truly understand why they disagree with you.

-Some of the locations in Southern California like Bakersfield, and..... that's about it really.

-And Fallout 3 still keeps the actions of the player in quests, the place in which actions matter, for the whole game. Same with dialog checks, and tons of other stuff.

-Which, as has been shown, was never a requirement for a Fallout game.

-Care to explain your reasoning behind why that is true, even when people like Tim Cain, Chris Avellone, and JSawyer, disagree?

-They haven't been refining anything for 20 years, they throw out everything and start over from scratch every single game. Even Todd admits that they do nothing but "reboot" the series every installment.

-Depends on your subjective view of RPGs I guess.

And all of those were/are explained/explainable though logical and realistic things such as parallel development, and are present even in games post Fallout 3, made by the people who worked on Fallout 1/2. The only argument you have ever made against them is the claim that everything was supposed to remain localized forever, which is illogical an unrealistic.

Its a GAME, an abstraction, as you so like using. The Citadel having a filthy floor is there for the same reason all the other stuff in the game is, to present a certain kind of feeling, one of a desolate wasteland. It's supposed to be taken about as literally as the movie Neon Genesis Evangelion 3.0 having the NERV complex be totally empty except for 5 people, when it would need a staff of hundreds to operate. The makers of NGE 3.0 have even said they knowingly didn't create all the people who should be there just to give the movie the kind of feeling they wanted, the same is true for Fallout 3, and used again in NV.

Tim Cain and Chris Avellone disagree, until you can explain why the people who basically made Fallout 1/2 are wrong in that regard, I simply can't accept this argument.

It should be iso-3d if the dev wants to make that specific game that way, but nothing so far has defined the series has to be that way forever.

So again, why are Fallout 2, Tactics, 3, and NV, not Fallout games?

Fallout for me, is defined by that black look at the future, and the depths people will go to in order to survive and build for the future. All this talk about exploration vs writing etc, if it makes you smile and think about what is truly best/ least worst to do, it's Fallout.

This is the question above all. Unfortunately, it knows no clear answer. 'Fallout' is an abstract concept, one that is fed by and at the same time breeds a multitude of differing attributes.

I think it's important to realize that no Fallout game defines Fallout. That means no developer is able to define it either.

For me, a (main-series) 'Fallout' consists of these following properties:

1. It's an RPG.

2. It's set in a post-apocalyptic America of an alternate timeline, that's inspired by 50's pulp science fiction. It's basically a 'world of tomorrow' nuked to hell.

3. It continues human history as it realistically would (given the setting) and thus factors in human nature.

4. It devotes itself to war and how it never changes. War is what brings the thrill and the possibility for change.

Hence comes along what imo is the path to success:

RPG

influenced by

Setting as a whole

reduced by

Everything that doesn't matter for the particular setting that was chosen as the respective Fallout's stage

Now what's the best way to bring that to fruition?

Fairly easy. Have an Overarching Narrative Element that influences every aspect of the game, especially gameplay. This is the basic definition of what Fallout should be in my opinion.

Yeah, when I think of Fallout, this is the first things that comes to my mind. Which is also why I find it unlikely that we will ever see a Fallout outside of the US, or at least not anytime soon. Maybe if the series lives on for many decades the US is eventually milked dry and it moves elsewhere

While the setting provides the tone and the framework inside which things happen, what matters first and foremost is what happens inside that frame and how.

Fallout is about the interplay between the dark and ironic setting, branching playerdriven narrative and its multifaceted and reactive conclusion (especially about the conclusion), in depth character centric system to provide proper RPG gameplay, and a persistent reactive world that provides reward and punishment accordingly. Roughly put; there's more to it if digging for details and nuances.

When will you back these claims with proofs?
As for what I said in the quote, (that you didn't print)... Are you saying that's wrong? As in disagreeing that different people might interpret the same material differently, (and value what they personally make of it, as opposed to what someone else does)?

What I pointed out was that the FO3 kept almost nothing beyond the cosmetics of the original series... What people interpret from it ~is based upon a completely different endeavor [aside from a few nouns]. What's valued from Fallout should be based upon [interpreted from] what was IN Fallout, and FO3 doesn't offer very much of that to interpret. What's valued of FO3, should not be attributed as errors of omission in Fallout. They are both very good at what they intend to be good at, but they are not both good at the same thing, and the series is Fallout.
[IE. what Fallout was good at; not FOBOS, Not Tactics, not Bethesda's FPP open world sims either.] This is separate from the IP, which they all share.

That's a remarkably disheartening answer if you are serious.

The remainder (of your post) doesn't seem sensible to me, so I'll have to wait until you expand a bit upon it; it cannot mean what I think from the first read.

*This however, could use further explaining. Tell me... would you class DoomRPG as an RPG? How about No One Lives Forever [1 or 2]? How about Arx Fatalis? Pillars of Eternity? Witcher [1]?
(And why or why not.)
Your opinion here would make things a lot clearer for phrasing my future replies.

At least we agree on Diablo's status.

I would say that it appears to me that Bethesda defines "RPG" as a kind of digital LARPing; would you disagree?
Do you think of Fallout [1] as intending a kind of digital LARP?

you're just describing the original games and obviously thats not a description of fallout 3, bethesda games are mostly defined by the worlds they craft, random exploration and being able to make your own path thru the game and play it how you want and so the crafted world and atmosphere is really the most important part, a good story certainly makes a game better but its not the most important part of a bethesda game.

Fallout, much like TES, allows such a unique roleplaying experience that I have tried and failed to find elsewhere. I am able to take on the life of any character I wish to be and journey with him through his travelling towards great adventure and danger, towards new lands and new societies, and towards new challenges and choices that may shake the very core of his being. I am completely in love.

Fallout New Vegas has been out for 5 years now, and its stood the test of time for me. My plan is to move on to Fallout 4 when it eventually releases, but that is what I think Bethesda and Fallout are about - roleplaying in a open and sandbox way that is quite unlike many others.

I think so-called 'Bethesda-games' (fortunately Bethesda isn't tied to this formula) are shallow excuses for interactivity. Roleplaying is nothing without interaction. If you have to imagine the choices and consequences you're not playing a game. Imagination is a greater force than that. It should be channeled and focused on the game's implications in order to give meaning to the game's theme. The game should inspire me, which is only possible if it's finely crafted throughout, not only in the level-design department.

Just to let you know: I have much fun criticizing and dissecting games and imagining how I'd do it myself. So please don't think I want to ruin anyone's fun or what, I couldn't do that anyway . So when I talk about how bad this and that aspect of this and that game is in my opinion and why, that's actually my idea of fun.

The other canon Fallout games (Fallout, Fallout 2, New Vegas) have their problems too. That doesn't mean I hate them, no I love them. But if a designer doesn't know what needs to change and what needs to be emphasized and why, their game doesn't end up in the best of shapes imo.

The thing is...there really wasn't much IN Fallout, when you stand back and look at it objectively. The Setting of a post-apocalyptic wasteland in a retro-50s Red Scare style was a pretty big part of the draw. What's kept me playing Fallout for over a decade isn't the mechanics of the game - which could get downright frustrating at times (It's an action point style game without a cover mechanic. Even the first XCom had a cover mechanic), or some deep and nuanced story (Distilled to its core, the story of Fallout is the same story of pretty much any RPG - Evil "Wizard" Seeks to Conquer the World).

It's the setting. The retro-yet-futuristic styling, and the Music. If Bethesda has butchered everything about Fallout (which I don't believe it has, but for argument's sake), you still have to credit them for bringing those iconic, yet forgotten, songs from the past into a whole new experience with the radio.

The mechanics can change, the story can change...it's the setting that keeps me walking the Wasteland.

Well, I think you have a bit of a warped perception of Bethesda games, since there is plenty of interactivity. My travels in New Vegas were not all that different than in Fallout 3. Ive tried to find a peaceful solution to Tenpenny Tower, and ended up with a genocide for not properly taking everything into account. In Oasis, I set the northern Capital Wasteland on the road to blooming once again, albeit damning the final wish of one of the oldest beings in the world, and Ive also used my varying skills to train a small wasteland town in self defense, only to have the town eventually fall to the depths of the wastes for not realizing just how dangerous the wasteland actually is.

I have no problem against improvements, and I think that Bethesda is doing their usual thing of cooking up something quite different than what came before. New Vegas was basically a Fallout 3 expansion pack - and it was fine, but going from TES to TES there is a huge amount of variation, and I suspect that the usual pattern of completely breaking down the game and building it up anew is exactly whats going on right now. If you like New Vegas, they will undoubtly be looking towards it to see what fans like. After all, it sold millions of copies and had rave reviews, just like Fallout 3.

-I have, several times, by citing numerous others games that have gone through the same kind of gameplay transitions, and remand true to the series despite it.

-No, not at all. I perfectly understand that people have different views on things, and value their view on said thing rather then what someone else makes of it.

-That really depends on what you define as the cosmetics of the series. I, and many others I know, often find gameplay to be the most cosmetic feature, as gameplay changes all the time to suit whatever the current market favors. On the other hand, the lore/universe remains fairly constant between titles, making it something you can always consistently expect to a relatively high degree. Just like Final Fantasy almost always has crystals, airships, and a mechanic named Cid, Fallout has its 1950's scifi b-movie world, super mutants, ghouls, etc. etc.

-Having played Fallout 1/2 many times, the only real differences I see between them was that Fallout 2 went overboard on the humor/pop culture references in several places, and the end boss was kinda forced. Besides that, they played exactly the same, just with a few different skills, and some tweaks to balance that made things more balanced in some areas, and less balanced in others, resulting in an equal overall gameplay experience.

-I think trying to define "RPG" nowadays is difficult, as there has been so much seeping in between genres in general, that most of them have lost a hard, objective, definition. I generally try to avoid the argument of IS IT/IS IT NOT X kind of game, because those are all based on highly subjective, and equally personal, views on what actually makes X type of game, X type of game. However, I do see how arguments could be made both for an against each of those titles being RPGs.

-I can see where one could get that notion, but I also know people who have ALWAYS played RPGs, even the D&D tabletop game, with the belief that the character they make is some idealized version of themselves, in whatever world the RPG is set in, thus turning every RPG they have every played into a digital LARP. I can't really speak to the intent of Fallout, or any RPG for that matter, when the design of RPGs in general has always allowed for both to exist simultaneously.

The only real intent I can speak to is that the game was made to be fun, how you define that fun is really up to you.

Sure they have. I've heard that "We want to reinvent the wheel with every new title" quote from Todd, but it might not mean what you think it means. The http://www.abload.de/img/samegamexqasg.jpg speak for themselves loud and clear. It's dogmatic.

But before you arm your Bethesda defense missiles to rain fire and brimstone upon me, get a load of this... It's not a bad thing as far as TES is concerned; it's not an attack in that context. Whether or not their progression with that series has been always for the better is debatable (I for one prefer Morrowind over the later titles; including Fallout 3), but that's how you make a good sequel (proven by success). By reiterating the past design; improving and correcting the mistakes, and adding stuff without altering the core. It's not so different from other longlasting series' like Civilization or Heroes of Might & Magic, Command & Conquer. Et cetera.

What's wrong with it is that its apparently their only blueprint of a game and as a result you can now add Fallout 3 to that picture between Oblivion and Skyrim without it looking out of place at all. Succesful as it may be (money is money... sure, but they could've made as much or more simply by making a new title or another TES just the same), it smells like creative bankrupcy and needless homogenizing of the potential of their whole studio and the Fallout series to do "this one game" over and over again with only nominal and cosmetic differences between the separate franchises (especially since the adapted franchise used to be something completely different).

Of course. Its how the series was made to be. Obsidian (obviously) knew this when they made New Vegas, it's clear from how the game works, even if they couldn't follow the gameplay form. They understood the series. Bethesda should too.

fallout 3 is my favorite game of all time, i still see a lot of things about it i don't like and would do different myself, like having all skills at or near 100, the SPECIAL all really high, a perk every level, i don't want watered down rpg elements, but they do have a formula they stick very close to todd howard talks about it all the time, i know what to expect for the most part in a bethesda game. open world, sandbox, do what you want pretty much, ignore quests or the entire story if you want, combat oriented, decent tactical and stealth elements and a gameworld condusive to that, lots of varied enemies and different types of locations, large building complexes and dungeons, you're gonna get all that every time, they may do some things different here and there, like tweak rpg elements but they aren't gonna deviate too much but a little bit.

when you say "thats how the series is made to be", black isle doesn't own the franchise so that's inconsequential at this point, i think bethesda has done a good job with the game and taken it in a better direction overall, maybe not in every area like strict rpg elements, most rpgs now are kinda hybrids, they've evolved and bethsda games are not story driven, thats just not how they make games, they craft large open worlds, meant to be explored and played in a lot of different ways, ignoring the main story and quests all together if you want, they don't make games like old time rpgs, its not what they do. they craft huge open worlds and let the player decide how they want to approach the game, you can be stealthy, take on companions, do the main quest/or not, be tactical, be passive and not use combat or go guns blazing, and there is going to be an emphasis on a well crafted gameworld thats fun to explore. thats a bethesda game.

@ Jaramr: Yeah I exaggerated. I just really want Bethesda to further improve on these qualities and (and this is the most important part for me) make this the major focus of their games, especially when it comes to an intertwined world, meaningful choices regarding everything you have a choice in and narrative driven game design that emphasizes game world realities through gameplay. If exploration is the focus, then I'll always feel more like a cameraman, not like a player.

The why on Earth buy a franchise that's near polar opposite to anything they are used to, or would want to create? Is this not unlike having some company buy the X-Men franchise, and hand it over to an eccentric writer who pens all future X-men films, and comics as drawn out philosophical and ethical diatribes against discriminations and inequality...
~because they don't do action scripts? What a cop-out IMO. They had so much potential with this series, but they cast it aside for what little of it they wanted to draqe their other product with.

This is erasing the definition of Fallout, and penning a new one.

fallout 3 sold almost twice the units as NV, fallout 3 sold about 8 million and NV about 3.9 million, but i'm sure they will incorporate some of things most fans likes but the things fans didn't like in NV, like a mostly void landscape with very few buildings or real locations, prob half of the locations were a few tents or a shack if that, and there were 3 dry lake beds that were empty except for a few ants, and those 3 dry lakebeds took up 1/3 of the map and the map didn't lend itself to a tactical or stealth approach to the game very well, mostly you were out in the open when you engaged ememies, the world that was crafted was ok for a story driven game but as far as being tactical, stealthy and having large building complexes/dungeons to get lost in and explore, NV was lacking in those area's...fallout 4 will be a different games in many ways and very innovative but its gonna have even better exploration, a more detailed and probably much much larger gameworld with a lot more content then any of their previous games and i do want them to incorporate things like traits, better rgp elements, something like a reputation system for factions, maybe being able to join certain groups, being less overpowered, having better character creation so your initial build can't be turned into a jack of all trades with all skills at or near 100 etc.

Im not sure exactly where I talked about it (Im working on like 4 hours of sleep here, had a rough night). But I did talk about how I think Bethesda has made some really huge improvements since the entry into this decade. I really disliked Oblivion, the gameplay, the story, both of it made my head spin as to why they would ever do that. Sure, its got a lot of the good gameplay underneath, but it feels like stuff like the level scaling, voice acting, and the much less interesting Cyrodiil we ended up with just hindered me enjoying the game. Now, we flash forward to Fallout 3, and the game underneath is vastly improved - the level scaling makes a lot more sense, no more bandits with Mithril, the voice acting, although not great, has certainly improved. And damn, the Capital Wasteland was such a interesting place. The thing is though, is that the game had some absolutely amazing writing - directly alongside stuff that I honestly wasn't really impressed by. For stuff like Tenpenny Tower there's stuff like talking to President Eden, for stuff like Oasis there's stuff like "You fight the good fight with your voice?". It went even further into the DLC. Absoloutely amazing master classes in game design in stuff like Point Lookout and The Pitt, and stuff that I just don't quite understand like Mothership Zeta and Operation Anchorage.

Fallout 3 had a lot of absolutely amazing stuff alongside some really questionable stuff. I'd say that the sum of its whole is one of the best experiences in gaming, but there are some niggling things at the sides. But anyways, the last two games designed in the Bethesda style this decade have mostly avoided that. New Vegas has a lot of stuff that I like, alongside improving all of the game mechanics just by virtue of developing ontop of modding ideas, and my god, they actually have more than a handful of people doing the voices! I would love to see some more documentation on the relationship between Bethesda and Obsidian at that time, but I have a feeling that they were helping eachother out both in New Vegas and Skyrim. Skyrim has a huge set of improved writing, in my opinion its filled with Tenpenny Towers instead of President Edens, and just like in New Vegas they constructed absolute grey in the choices between major factions. Combine this with hiring even more voice actors than New Vegas, and all sorts of budget being put into making the game be as high quality as possible, it seems like...Well, they've gotten a lot better than they have before, and I think most of what I disliked about Bethesda is completely gone now. I guess Oblivion was just a fluke, that they had a rough spot after Morrowind and then completely recovered. Im sure with next-gen consoles we're going to see something really cool, something that was never really possible on the old potato hardware. Its just a question of waiting until when it actually shows up.

The numbers I heard for sales the last time I checked VGcharts was 8 million for Fallout 3, and 6 million for New Vegas. New Vegas is immensely popular, mostly from being the fresh face of Fallout. I do have issues with New Vegas' world design aswell. I think it came from a combination of budget and time. The game is still absolutely a great game though, even though its rushed development is evident in some places. Its really quite amazing its accomplished so much when the circumstances of a game like that almost always end in failure. Think about it, another company gets brought on to do a sequel, and the marketing suits who probably don't even play games want it out for christmas? That doesnt usually end well, and although I was spared a lot of the major bugs on launch day ive heard some absolute horror stories about NV back in 2010. Still, the game is five years old now, and still gets thousands of people playing it every day on Steam. If thats not success, I don't know what is.

Fallout 3 sold 4.54 million and NV sold 3.79 million.

On XBox! 0.92 vs 1.09 on PC, 3.57 vs 2.86 on PS.

But it's not a matter of sales, because content has almost nothing to do with financial success. Marketing has.

tweet pete hines and ask him

companies go bankrupt because because of poor game sales, so game sales are very important, and as far as NV goes a lot of the fallout 3 fanbase bought NV so it had a built it buyer base already, the series was already re established and so NV was riding on the back of Fallout 3s success and it still came up short on sales even if its 6 million thats 2 million less than FO3 and for a newer game, so yeah it was a successful game but it wasn't a blockbuster like FO3 it was a bit of letdown to a lot of people after playing FO3, the hardcoe NV fans are made up of mostly FO1 and 2 fans being more story focused anbd bethesda fans are generally gonna like FO3 better because its made in the style of a bethesda game, exploration and combat focused, NV wasn't as good for combat, the crafted world didn't lend itself to tactical or stealth gameplay, there just wasn''t the locations you could hide, sneak around, lay mines etc....the city area had no real enemies except the fiens and most of the map was open desert so it was kinda like head to head confrontations...so the map itself or crafted world realy didn't give you many tactical or stealth options and bethesda games are very combat oriented, you don't have to play em like that, you can sneak around or run away etc but they're very combat focused with a lot of human enemies and NV wasn't. hardly anyone shot at you, mostly just deathclaws, gecko's and cazedores.

For me Fallout is about places, people and ideas set in a post-apocolyptic 50's-pop alternate reality of the US. That's what what I liked about F1 and F2. Almost every place you visit in those games has interesting people and situations in the context of the game world. F3 had some, but for me, not very many.

Exploration is not that important in and of itself. Anything can be explored--an empty dumpster, a pile of dirt. The important thing is what is there to be discovered. My favorite thing about F3 was seeing places appear on the horizon--places that look like Fallout places, designed with interesting ideas. Unfortunately, most of these places had nothing worth discovering imo--just generic enemies and generic loot. At the end of F1 and F2, I wished each game would keep going. I wanted to see more. By the end of F3 I was ready for the dissapointment to end. Just my take.

Something lost on the current gen, is that it's better to end a game while the player still wants more of it, better than not ending it, and allowing the player's interest to wither to past apathy into downright becoming sick of it. This would happen with any game no matter how great ~eventually.

A player that quits while interested, will probably return to it, and play it again. Games I got sick of, I've rarely gone back to.