Then why not call it "Fallout"?

I've said more than once, I love the setting, but I could do without it so long as the rest was intact.

FO3 has most of the setting "spot on", and they did nearly all of the art better than I think Troika would have... but the rest was chucked.

You do more to invalidate your signature each post, heh. But I think the person you quoted has it essentially right - they couldn't come up with something new and getting an IP that is already popular and pretty fleshed out is too hard to pass up in that case. Either that or they were Fallout fans all along, heh.

Was the 'Fallout Begins' a Batman reference?
Because if it was, I should point out that Nolan didn't call his film 'Batman 5'.

Who was that aimed at? What signature? :blink:


The IP itself wasn't, in my view, popular enough to be self-justifying. I mean, there are a billion more famous, more popular and financially successful IPs they could have bought - even in terms of post-apoc, they could have chosen Stalker which at least is a little more recent. The last two Fallout games (OK, spin-offs) tanked, and nobody had released a successful Fallout game in 10 years. That's not really something you can describe as a ready-made market. It was a niche game even at the time - albeit a well-loved one.

I think you're correct in that the logical conclusion is that they loved Fallout.


True, and a fair point - but Bethesda have this thing where they reboot every game they make - chuck the lot and start again, bar the setting - and have done that since Arena. If you look at the difference between Daggerfall (TES 2) and Oblivion (TES 4), it's almost unrecogniseably different, although granted it's first-person and real-time - but systemically it's different and the whole chargen bit in the middle is different. I guess I see it as though there was a missing middle-step between Fallout 2 and Fallout 3 - like there's something in the middle that should have come out 5-6 years ago and didn't. Maybe Gizmo's jokey video he always refers to in his signature is that missing step - and to be honest it looks like the sort of thing I'd have played.

Its actually a fun little mod. I just recently bought RR again from GOG.com (because my original was from a Fallout RR bundle :rofl:, and it came without the RR soundtrack ~Which is ? the reason to buy it.)

I should add a bit more to that mod... I did not know of RR @GOG, so I did not assume there would be many to want it (for lack of owning the game), but I've been asked...

BTW Redneck Rampage is great by itself, sans Fallout mod. (But then IMO... the best four shooters ever made were all made with the BUILD engine.)
*Rage isn't technically made yet

Thing is, the developers called it a sequel, not a reboot, and we judge it as such. Had they released it as a reboot, we would have assessed it differently.



People I would call "the creators of Elder Scrolls" are Chris Weaver (founder of Bethesda and executive producer of Arena and Daggerfall) Vijay Lakshman (lead designer and producer of Arena), Julian Lefay (lead programmer of Arena and Daggerfall) and Ted Peterson (designer on Arena and Daggerfall). None of them works at Bethesda anymore. None of the leads on Arena and Morrowind are at Bethesda now, only two of the Daggerfall designers.

In fact, Weaver was forced out of the company after ZeniMax took it over, similarly to how Brian Fargo was forced to leave Interplay after it was taken over by Herve Caen (although Robert A. Altman is a far more successful businessman than Herve).

What other IPs could they have bought at the price they paid for Fallout's ? Look at what they'd see, an IP that they don't need to waste time creating that's held by a company that's eager for money, and is popular. The popularity alone isn't their justification, lack of creativity is, but the popularity's sugar. Their love for Fallout is decent marketing material, too.

I think the point was that what Bethesda calls 'sequel' is a 'reboot'. That's the way it is with Elder Scrolls - each successive game takes place x years later in a new part of the world, and the previous hero evaporating.

They still do consider the events of previous games to be canon, while Nolan started a separate version of his Batman canon in his movies. They were never said to be sequels to the Burton/Schumacher ones.



Unlike Stalker, Fallout was available, on sale from a pretty desperate publisher that was facing bankrupcy.



Not really, since they still take place in the same continuity, even if in a different part of the world. Arena events are still referred to in Oblivion books. And from a sequel I expect building up on the game mechanics of the predecessor (like the Elder Scrolls games actually did), not throwing them away and adopting the gameplay style of another series.

FO3 takes place in same continuity as previous Fallouts, no? Some past events are also referenced on terminals, etc. As for what constitutes a sequel, we'll have to agree to disagree on that one. There are many examples of sequels that adopt a new gameplay style. Recent example: Divinity 2 - Ego Draconis.

It does, which is why princess stomper's comparisons to Batman Begins aren't really applicable.

Maybe a better anology would be the film 'Alien' and its sequel 'Aliens'. Both have the same setting and main protagonist/antagonist, however they are completely different kinds of films. The original had the structure of a horror/slasher film whereas the second was pretty much an action movie.

But point taken, maybe Fallout 3 should have been called something like 'Fallout: the Capital Wasteland' instead.

(I actually did buy Arcanum because the setting intrigued to me, but iirc was ultimately put off by the wonky combat mechanics and overall lack of polish. I appreciate games with original/unusual settings but also want to have fun playing them. Oddly enough there are many older games that I do get nostalgic about [eg Wizardy: Crusaders of the Dark Savant or the original Privateer or Bethesda's Daggerfall], but could not now bring myself to play them for any length of time. Maybe all those years of PC gaming have turned me into a technology junkie!)

Ok... This can loosely be compared to a new author continuing an old series, and the text and wording not feeling right ~except for me... if the author takes the book off on his own tangent, I tend to think less of the books from that point on. It stops being what I [and the original author] liked and becomes what the new author likes. They tried this with the new Hitchhiker flick, and the script author they hired had never read the books before taking the job. As such, I liked the original BBC film better, and the Radio play best of all.
*Yes I know Douglas Adams changed his tale around, but no matter what he did, it was done in his style ~so it worked. I've also read a bit of Brian Herbert, and he's no substitute for Frank.

Game-wise Fallout 3 offers nothing from the originals (its true :shrug:); Setting-wise... its an unintentional parody IMO; Art-wise... Its bloody awesome, and I couldn't have asked for better (Although I could have asked for more accurate modeling of established items).

The second point would be that the only percentage of the total FO3 fanbase that would care would be the fans of the first two, (and I think it's differences would have been better accepted ).

I still have Wasteland and Pools of Radiance, installed... I bought the recent Bard's Tale spinoff for the bundled originals that were included [Bard's Tale 1, 2 & 3] ~and I've played them recently more than the new one. :shrug:

I do appreciate complex graphics, but they are the icing no? not the cake (at least not for me).

I'd liked "Fallout 3D" but maybe the devs skipped this name because it would remind people too much of "Duke Nukem 3D". Or maybe somehow the "D" got lost in print somewhere?

The only Troika game I like is their vampire action-RPG, indeed it's one of my favourite RPGs, but that one was only made playable due to community patch. Troika always had very good ideas, but these all mean squat if you can't even make a playable game.

All Troika games were more playable for me than any Bethesda game. But your experiences may vary, of course.

I never acquired Bloodlines (though I'd meant to), I've really only played ToEE, and Arcanum (briefly). Arcanum is what they say... really interesting, and bland looking.
ToEE was very fun ~Especially after every patch I could find. (But for some reason I only really enjoyed the combat :shrug:. The rest of the game had its moments, but was not generally interesting... I did not get ? way through, but its one of those I always intend to start again and finish ~this time...)

That wouldn't be good choice IMO.
you see back when Duke Nukem 3D was made, it was a big deal for a platform game to go 3D.
Every major release is 3D! Even the ones that have no business being 3D in the first place... (unfortunately) It would be illogical even to assume that FO3 would be anything but 3D...
So calling it 'Fallout 3D' would make as much sense as calling it 'Fallout: the Game' or something.

:lol: But with Duke3D, the gameplay was mostly the same ~Its still a platform shooter; Later with Manhattan Project... also a platform shooter.
(and gameplay-wise a better sequel to Duke 2 no? ) ~Not that Duke3D wasn't great, and its still one of my top 4 favorite shooters.

@ Topic:
If I had to guess (and who can do else?), I'd guess that Bethesda saw the potential of a vast open world setting that had a history, and a full pre-made canon to work with (and alter to suit). It could be applied to their game model, and would attract the right demographic if done a certain way. (and it did)

Man... if only FO3 was as good a sequel to FO1&2 as Duke3D was to Duke1&2 then, as far as I'm concerned, they could have called it anything they liked

I will say that IMO its a better sequel in some ways, but [IMO] it just doesn't seem to concern itself with the activity of play in the previous 3 games (Tactics included). This is to me the chief concern with any sequel that I would usually be interested in.

Just look at Diablo 3 (what we've seen of it.) Diablo was a top down hack-n-slash that relied on swarm and slick design. If you played it in FPP (were that an option), you could never see the swarm come at you from all sides, and it would never have quite the same effect. D2 kept this, and D3 improved on it immensely (in full 3d, and using 3D to its fullest ~as it applies to the series gameplay).

*Same goes for Disciples 3.

Bethesda only changes the art direction of every TES game, IE the Daedric armor in Oblivion looking nothing like its Morrowind counterpart; they haven't really changed the gameplay system an awful lot since the transition from Arena to Daggerfall, and they certainly haven't changed the lore of every game only expanded upon it. Fallout 3 is a bit different; they didn't really change the art direction at all and like TES games the lore of the past games is still there. The events in both Fallout and Fallout 2 are referenced, so they definitely took place in the Fallout 3 world. A reboot is traditionally a complete reworking of the story from the ground up, Batman Begins was a a reboot because it's set in a completely different continuity from the other four Batman films and reimagines the origin of Batman and Batman characters. TES 2-4 and Fallout 3 are intended to be sequels as they are set in the same continuity, and have titles that point out as much.

I understand what you're trying to get at here, but Fallout 3 isn't a reboot it's a sequel. Whether or not Fallout 3 is a good sequel is another story, and quite frankly one that I'm tired of discussing so I'm not going to bother going into it. Suffice to say that I believe Bethesda's choice of gameplay direction for this "sequel" is more about fear than anything, they were probably afraid that a traditional Fallout game wouldn't sell (which is absurd considering their aggressive marketing department), and they could have been afraid that they wouldn't have been able to make a very good traditional Fallout game. Either way Bethesda shot themselves in the foot by choosing not to try something new and broadening their experience and role playing styles.

Whatever future is in store for "Fallout 4" (if it's developed by bethesda that is... you never know) I hope they learn a few things from Obsidian with Fallout: New Vegas in the design category.

Now this may sound completely irrelevant but I'll get to the point.

In the last couple of months, I have stopped playing RPGs and I went back to Adventure games.
While researching for any worthwhile adventure games that I have not played, I came across a pretty popular argument of the genre's community:
the fact that many companies/developers that were formerly producing true adventures, are now more concerned with making adventure games for action gamers.
That leads to a weakening of the genre... yet on the other hand it ignores a group of people that is if fact not as small as the 'mainstream' seems to believe
(proof: apparently the best selling game in the first half of this year in the US was an adventure!)

With that in mind, I am interested in finding no fault in FO3 other than this:
FO3 was an RPG game for non RPG gamers.

while FO1&2 where obviously made for RPG gamers.

(and BTW Duke Nukem 3D is a better sequel IMO because it stayed true to its audience... - or at least that's what I thought back then)

Adventure games 'survive' better under such conditions, since there is a vibrant indie and underground scene - people make games on their own with minimal to no budget... and they often do wonders (my latest favorite: the Lost Crown - a huge game made almost entirely by one single person!!)

True RPGs unfortunately don't seem to have such an active underground - I assume it's because of the genre's complexity - there seem to be some indie games coming out every now and then, but of what I understand they are mostly action RPGs.

Am I off topic? I'm not because:
FO3 was an RPG game for non RPG gamers - thus FO3 is a game made with the intention to sell to the largest possible amount of people.

And it's a shame... I want a new RPG for RPG gamers because I'm no action gamer (any more)!
(For better or for worse, all my hopes are now on Bioware's Dragon Age... Bioware has done a lot of things right for the genre in the past (of what I understand Mass Effect wasn't presented as a pure RPG anyway) and hopefully they'll decide to stay as true to the audience with that game as they advertise.)


Heh... don't rush: let's first hope that Obsidian won't have learned too much from Bethesda with Fallout 3 in the design category.

I don't have any trouble believing they actually were fans of the franchise. Fallout has long been one of those games that designers like to brainstorm about, after all. When I was minoring in Game Design, half of the people in my classes (myself included) were basically working on Fallout remakes for our projects; or at least Fallout-inspired games. One of the age-old stock questions developers get asked in interviews is "what game would you have liked to work on, and what would you have done with it?" And I've come across plenty of answers in dev interviews where Fallout was mentioned.

Todd, especially, has this philosophy of breaking down a game to (what in his opinion are) it's base components, and building it back up from there. (During the pre-release hype, he used to be on Xplay a lot, had this little segment where he'd talk about stuff like that.) In his mind, Fallout 3 is the natural result of this - going back to the root of what makes Fallout, Fallout; and then going back to the drawing board with those base elements.

Sure, I disagree with some of those decisions. (I think some of the stuff they "took out," was actually vital to what I looked for in a Fallout game, and what I'd liked about those games most.) But he made it in his own vision. I actually think that was the right way to go about it. I even agree with him not looking for help from any of the original designers of the game. He made the Fallout game he wanted to play. Looking at the games Todd and co make, I have a feeling that they probably really liked Fallout 1 and 2, but always thought "you know, I'd enjoy it a lot more if it was more of an action game." And that's really the only way to go about something like this, anyway.

I'd rather he had a vision of what he wanted to do, and stuck to his guns; than dilute it by trying to please everyone. He didn't make the Fallout 3 I would have wanted (or the Fallout 3 I would have made had I been in his shoes.) But I respect Bethesda for going with what they wanted to do.

(And yeah, yeah... Sales plays a part in that, as well. If they didn't think this was going to sell, they wouldn't have made it in the first place. But it's possible to be both. Like Nolan's Batman reboots - if you make a Batman movie, it's with the intention of raking in the big bucks. But that doesn't mean you can't bake it with love, so to speak, as well. That's always an artistic consideration, though. It comes with the job; and it's one of the challenges built in to creating something.)

I mean frak, Fallout 3 is hardly my ideal vision of where the franchise could have gone. But if they were really doing it solely to make mega-bucks, they would have put more work into realistic "boob physics," than VATS; worked harder at corny jokes and sophomoric humor than their storytelling, etc. In real life, people rarely do anything for just one reason. If I go to the store for a jelly donut; it's for a number of reasons. It's not just about "am I eating this because I'm hungry, or because I want something that tastes good?" I have to weigh where I want to go versus how much gas it'll take to drive there, how much money I want to spend, how healthy I want to be that day, what's going to be a good value for my money, etc. Even the guys who made that donut aren't just doing it for one single reason, either.

Wait a minute..