I don't feel slighted at all; I just believe that sequels should stay true to their predecessors. The more we actually raise this issue actually increases the possibility of a real Fallout sequel because sooner or later Bethesda might actually listen. The chances are slim, but it's always a possibility.

Its different when faceless life does something vile. Its not the same as group given/purchased control over something, and deciding to irrevocably alter/deface it despite longtime fan opinion... Its quite like a new building owner demolishing the gym in his apartment complex to put in additional parking. You as a tenant who used it and [liked the building for it] don't really have a say, and though you are free to leave or accept it ~it means that that you have to uproot, and/or lose something you valued due to another's callous choice. Its hard not to have some resentment.

*That's a figurative example ~not at all meant literally.

Did they ever even consider a compromise (as a goodwill effort)? It does not seem so. It would appear that they always intended a TES clone "Fallout". Which begs the question "Why pick Fallout at all?".

It's easier to use another person's creation than it is to develop your own. It's definitely clear that they had no intention of creating a traditional Fallout game since they stated that very fact since day one.

A logical philosophy, but you understand how incongruous it sounds here? This IS the official Fallout Forum, the people here are going to be the ones who feel the most connection with the games and their ethos. You're telling me that you, who have played the TES games, who have moderated their forums for years, would not feel that as a fan you had been betrayed if it was sold up the river and lost a good portion of what it was? (I'm not saying that's what has happened, but from some people's perspectives, it may be).

The very fact that these people have been carrying the torch for so long should be enough to convince the devs that they owe it to them to get it right.

Nope, I would not feel betrayed or slighted. I might think, "well damn, there goes that avenue" but I would still cherish the games Bethesda did make and probably wish someone would be able to make those types of games again. But I would just move on to some other interest, some other game or some other aspect of life that amused me at the time.

And no, I don't feel any devs or company owes anyone anything. I am happy that devs and companies sometimes do please me but I don't feel it is owed to me to continue doing the things I want them to do.

For example, I was disappointed that "unarmored" was not in Oblivion but many others didn't miss it at all. More than not played always with armor on so it was fine with them. I don't expect that they will put it back in their next game just because I am one of the few that loved playing unarmored. I guess I am of the belief that nobody owes me anything ever. Especially someone in the buisness of entertainment. I loved "I Love Lucy" of the sixties but did not like "Lucy" of the sixties. I did not think Lucy owed it to me to return to black and white, bring in Mr. Arnez to play a part or live in an appt. in New York so that I could experience "I Love Lucy" that I loved again.

Tell ya what, I have a bit of fun bantering about this but already know that it won't bring us any closer to "getting" what the other is saying much less change the way we feel about Bethesda's Fallout 3. We simply see the buisness world differently. I don't expect a company to stay true to me any more than I expect my son's to stay true to the values and lessons I have taught them. I don't think either owes that to me. They are on their own and who am I to expect more than they expect or want for themselves?

Indeed, Now there is basicly no hope of ever seeing a fallout in the originals style and caliber again. It's like saying that you like Chocolate icecream however one day everyone desides that "chocolate" is now Vanilla and not only that it the same vanilla flovor as 8 of 10 other companies selling icecream. What you call "Chocolate" doesn't and will not exist anymore. Now would you be mad?

:foodndrink: I fully agree, but the term "owe", brings "legalists" out... Some would join just to post "They bought it, they owe you nothing!" ~and its true; Now that they have it (matured and respected ~made valuable by our fandom)... Its like a long drawn out "http://www.nlcs.k12.in.us/stalker/redhen.htm" with us as the little read hen and Fallout.. the wheat dropped by the farmer.

While its true that the fans themselves had little effect on the game being great... [That's true of a lot of great games], it is the case that the fans kept it a going concern with sites like DAC & NMA. These fans I'll wager had a measurable effect on the decision that the Fallout IP was still viable after all this time, and it was by their word of mouth that Fallout gained it's significant reputation. So it is only in the sense of moral obligation (which rarely caries weight in the business world) that they produce a new classic in keeping with what the fans would expect ~namely Gameplay & Dialog. Fans would expect 3D, as the PC landscape has changed and their is no reason not to use it; but 3D need not be first person and all the limits that entails. No... The fans that got what they expected were the fans of the companies prior efforts. They were the Chosen ones from the start.

That's an off anology IMO ~Lucy was Black and white by limitation, Fallout was turnbased/ISO by design.

*There is also something more to say on that... Would a work like Citizen Cain be as powerful if done in color ~Its possible if the original crew designed it so, but a mere re-coloring of the film would not improve it IMO, and might actually damage its effect on the viewer. Fallout repainted with the FPP brush has certainly done so for me. It only seems right when in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BtqrjfHSnA&feature=channel_page, and that only lasts until something attacks, or an NPC wants to talk.

Oooo... Icecreams' a bad choice
But the sentiment's right. :goodjob:

Good post Gizmo. I mean when you basicly imported Oblivion code directly inot FO3 you know there a problem. I mean the GECK even calls the world space Tamerial. Thats why FO3 really came off a a PA total conversion of Oblivion than an real try at making a good FO game.

There was more than black and white and I think I even mentioned another reason or two. Anyway, I said I give up and that while fun for a bit to take another stab at offering my side and my views for a bit that...well I know there is no changing it. Why do you then reply to me for further debate? I really wanted to just have my say on it (something I rarely post or share due to the mere drone of the subject becoming so tiresome) and then run off into the sunset to leave you all once again with your opinions which I already said I shall never understand. I have tried as I do so like you and others here that do have views that differ from my own, but when I say I'm bowing out since I know it's not a situation or thing that anyone can win or lose I would be so pleased if folks wouldn't continue to poke back. :shrug:

I'm gone again and maybe in a couple of months or more I'll come back and say the same things. Of course, the same folks will still be here to debate how wrong I am and how I just don't get it. I get it...I just disagree.

WTF, that's pretty bad. o.o

The devs owe you nothing. You do not get to have a sense of entitlement here. It doesn't matter how long ago you played what games however many times. They don't have to compromise, they don't have to please you. And to attempt to do so would be a disaster, you know why? Because you or people like you will never be pleased.

*Sorry, but this makes sense if you read post 157... I just never expected someone to then post in those exact words.

This reminds me of the whole http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1fKzw05Q5A about what plants want... when all they want is water.

*This is also the same thing as Hitchikers' when the machine can't comprehend that Aurthur just wants tea, Crushed leaves in hot water. Pleasing the FO fan base is pretty simple, use the first two as a blueprint, fo5r a 3d/ISO DX9 RPG. :shrug:

Is that true?

I believe it is. As far as I can tell, FO3 is TES4 with tweaks, optimizations, a new dismemberment mechanic, and different art assets. The SPECIAL system is new and loosely derived from the previous games, though it had farther reaching effects in those games, and in FO3, it matters very little what you set them at, and raising them is trivial where before they were all but set in stone and altered the way the entire game played out.

It could be (but I can't know), that guns are based on the Oblivion bow. Others have modded guns into Oblivion.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJULunXsrhU

I believe the topic was "what was your biggest issue with Fallout 3 - if any?". As in discussing details of the game that could be changed or modified to improve your experience with the game. Let's keep away from a general bashing of Bethesda and the entire game - it's not really constructive.

Why would Bethesda write a code completely from scratch if they're using the same engine anyway? :shrug:

It's like saying Icewind Dale is Baldur's Gate 2 with a few tweaks.

Think his point isn't that it's the same engine, rather feels like a TC of another game.

IMO it is.

Ice wind dale is a different series that uses the same engine ~Its intentionally a combat RPG that is light on everything else (and I liked it a lot).
Fallout 3 is not a combat version of TES set in the future, but its equally not of the style and gameplay expected from the series ~and it could have been. There is no reason the Gamebryo engine could not have been used to do a 2008 version of Fallout (IE. Fallout 3). Just look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhwu94XYXu4&feature=related. There is no technical reason it couldn't have been turn based either (or just included TB ~as Tactics did).

I wouldn't have minded an included RT mode (so long as the combat XP was halved )

The upset is that they made it FPS :shrug:, when that's not a one size fits all gameplay panacea for any and all titles under the Sun. (and it doesn't fit the series, as evidenced that none of the others were FPP, and Interplay games preceding and following Fallout were ~and Fallout 2 was still done the same ~and Tactics, which was done from scratch).

If they chose to, they could likely create a DLC that converted Fallout 3 to [better] Iso-3D ~even Turn based combat.
They could contract it out to someone else even
If no one is allowed to ask for it ~then it just gets swept under the rug, and reported that no one really wanted that.

On topic.

1. There's not much variation in the combat. Enemies either stand where they can see you and shoot you or charge straight at you.
If you'll permit me to tell a (relevant) story, I remember STALKER, where there was this type of mutant called a poltergeist. Basically, it caused the misc items in the environment to levitate up into the air and then slam into you - but the creature's ability wasn't limited by line of sight. If you were in a certain radius of the creature, you were targeted by the flying crates of death. This made these creatures interesting to fight, because you had to hunt through the really dark corridors chasing down this creature before you even had a target, let alone start shooting at the quick-moving beastie.

The point is, when everyone said "We need harder enemies" before Beth released Broken Steel, what they really meant is "we need enemies that are more interesting to fight". I think that means you need to have different tactics to deal with different types of enemy - and vice versa, the different enemies need to have different methods of dealing with you. As is, you just shoot/hit it back and duck for cover/stimpack as needed. Whatever your preferred weapon is, you can use it with impunity.
Now consider what happens if bloatflies or eyebots or Mr Gutsy's could actually fly above melee range. Grenades, mines, melee and unarmed weapons then become less useful for dealing with them. Or if small arms and unpowered melee weapons did half damage to power-armored enemies, making big guns, energy weapons and explosives the preferred tool, or weak enemies that just follow you and flee if attacked, but if something knocks your health down they'll go for you?

2. Not much brain work.
There's a little in the hacking and lockpicking, but not much and it's repetitive. I've played mods that add some very challenging puzzles and problems as quests and notes, so I know it's possible (The A Note Easily Missed series and the treasure maps mods especially). The workbench and chemistry set could have been so much more.

3. Caps and Rewarding rewards.
I like rewards to be memorable - like the Blackhawk - or at least related to the quest/quest giver - like the little things Moira gives you as you do her work. Solid stacks of caps as rewards don't make sense in a wasteland where most people are near/at poverty (unless that's used to highlight the point: a huge whack of caps from the rare few people who do have that much).
I'd like random rewards for repeatable quests. Something like the things you get from the people who reward you for being good or evil, but actually worth it.
Caps shouldn't be a separate "monetary" item in the trading screen. They should be in the NPC's inventory as extra to even up a barter.

There's a bunch of other things, but those are the things that would require the most work.

I was going to say that I wish gamesas had endeavoured to excel at at least one aspect of the game, but to be fair, they do: modability. Aside from that, though there's nothing substantive that really sets FO3 apart from any other game. Granted, that is a Big Thing and I wouldn't have bought the game otherwise.

There's also a lot of cut corners that give the impression BS wasn't overly dedicated to a quality product. For example, I've not once seen the GOAT results 'skit' play out properly without my intervention as a roadblock. And only once did I hear Mr. Brotch's response to Wally Mack's opinion of the test. Then there's the voice acting. While it's a cut above OB and much of it is quite good, I can't help but cringe when I hear Gob say "A place called the Underworld..." in his second voice, or Lucy West say "ForAllTheTrip". Little things, but when added up they speak volumes.

Back to the game at large, though, the only things that really turn me off are the combat system and related AI, and the stealth engine. Combat, at least, is a big part of the game; but it's incredibly bland and uninspired, and lacks any real strategic value. Modding has done a lot to improve this and Vanilla is unplayable in comparison, but there's only so much modding can do. I'd like to see some more 'situational' or environmental combat options, from something as simple as knocking a MOB over an edge, or the ability to peek (and shoot or toss a grenade) around a corner, or shoot/toss over my shoulder, to more complex things like kicking a chair at an attacker. And, of course, my opponents should have an IQ which rivals that of mayonnaise and thus be able to use the same tactics against me.

Though the First Person aspect is, off course, the initiator of the redesign, the (in that post) mentioned 'complaints' aren't actually a consequence of the game being First Person. They could have been added into a First Person game is all I'm saying.


And you hit the nail right on the head there.
You see making a game such as a Fallout sequel cost a lot (man hours, equipment, etc...). To make a return you either make a game that appeals a large market or you bump the price up several times.
It's a business in the end and the (false) entitlement many people feel factors little in numbers

There are Indy companies off course, but the successful ones are makers of gimmicky games often with colorful 2D graphics.

I don't know... Beth definitely has a different design philosophy than what Interplay and Black Isle had with Fallout 1 and 2. But they weren't really Indy games. Bioware's KOTOR had a different style of playing combat-wise, in between realtime and turn-based, and it was still highly popular. What Beth essentially did was convert their own gamestyle to the Falloutworld, which is great for TES-players and new people that never played Fallout 1 and 2 before, but it isn't for the people that played and enjoyed the first two. I guess that's my biggest issue.

SPECIAL isn't really applied in a way that could work most efficiently. Agility isn't really that useful, unless you choose to only use VATS-combat, Charisma is hardly used. It all feels like a gimmick to me. Choice and consequence is thrown out the window at the first opportunity (in the first two C&C started at character creation). I don't really know where I'm going with this, let's just say that I feel that the market was definitely there to make a game where the mechanics and design choices would be somewhat in line with the first games, but it was Beth's choice to create a game that doesn't even remotely play like the originals.

The Lockpicking and Hacking could be skill related but only in a way of simplifying it.

Lets say that during hacking, with higher science U'd have less words on screen to choose from, instead of just "U need a few more points in science to even begin". This is very frustrating, as it forces U to go back to previously un-lootable places.

Well, it seems I was a bit late for that party yesterday. I'll drop a couple of thoughts anyway.
One thing that I didn't see mentioned, which I think is the key to understanding why people are upset about FO3, is that Fallout is by all means a piece of popular culture. A work (of art if you wish) intended for the public. It is also successful. Maybe it's not the most famous piece of digital entertainment ever, but still it constantly enjoys praise by most people interested in its genre and it always has a reservation in any "best RPGs" list. It has therefore attracted an audience that, as it happens in such situations, consider it as belonging to them, regardless who the legal owner of the ip is.

Now you may not agree, people often don't. There are two opinions about this sort of thing really, both very valid. Some people say that the creator or the current owner of a work is allowed to do whatever he wants with it without having to suffer any deprecation (or whatever it's called). But consider this: if you just happened to come into legal possession of a van Gogh painting (say for example that you inherited it) would you consider it your undeniable right to paint over it and alter it in a way that it would be more fitting for decoration of your living room? You would have every legal right to do so of course... but you can probably see that it just feels very very wrong. (The example is extremely exaggerated of course, since a Fallout sequel is by no means a van Gogh original but an exaggeration is necessary to understand the game's fans if you're not one of them.) So if altering a van Gogh painting seems wrong to you, there's one logical conclusion: you might be the legal owner of it but it doesn't really belong to you. It belongs to everybody, it belongs to the public... it's not the painting that you own, it's rather the responsibility of preserving it and guarding it.

In extension, the creator himself is ultimately charged with the same responsibility regarding his very own work. Some people argue that once you 'release' your work to the public, it doesn't belong to you any more. The proof to that is that this work is from that point on open to criticism and interpretation. It's a pretty serious matter actually... for the creator to maintain such total ownership of his work, the only way is application of censorship which, most would agree, is not a good thing. Example: If I buy FO3 I consider it mine... why? because I can interpret it any way I want. I may want to do nothing more than spend all my gaming time sitting in a bench in Megaton watching at the sky, and I can claim that FO3 is, for me, a 'sky-watching simulation'. You would probably think that I was an idiot and you might say so, but the truth is, neither you nor Bethesda can forbid me to do it... well they could, if there was a law that would allow them to have me arrested if I didn't play FO3 the way it was intended to be played, as a 'post apocalyptic RPG' or whatever. But since there's no such law and we don't want such a law to ever exist, then I am virtually the absolute owner of my FO3 game - maybe I'm not the owner of the rights to sell my copy or to make a sequel or to change its code etc. but I'm the owner of my gaming experience no matter what, and that's what counts for me.

I personally like to draw a line at some point. In order to not go to the other extreme, I consider that someone has every right to create a work the way they want, as long as it satisfies all legal requirements. I am willing to overlook or accept any controversial features of it if, I believe they derive from honest creative vision. ie. I would praise FO3 unconditionally, if I believed that it is different from its predecessors because its creators honestly felt that this was the best way to provide a seamless, unique and beneficial (why not) experience, even if that experience was reserved for a selected few that would be able to 'get it'. Unfortunately I don't believe that. I believe that Bathesda are essentially 'crowd-pleasers' - people willing to compromise as much as possible in order to please as many people as possible - always within their abilities and skills of course, so don't argue that in such a case they could be making casual games for mobile phones, they probably could, but it's not what they know how to do best, such a thing may sound lucrative at first but it would involve great risk as it would take them way out of their 'comfort zone'.
As such I feel I have the right to feel in a way 'betrayed': they took something of 'mine' and they sold it to someone that didn't care about it in the first place.

If you think I went out of topic, well... I think you're wrong
But to make it clear here's my conclusion: My biggest issue(s) with Fallout3 is that it was too different from it's predecessors without taking any actual risks whatsoever.

Just acquiring the Fallout franchise and making the Fallout 3 they wanted to make was a both a huge risk (since it is so different from its predecessors) and not a huge risk (since Bethesda continued to use their TES gaming mold).

No *major* game developer nowadays suddenly changes their way of making games. Everyone sticks to what they're most comfortable with at doing. Development costs are simply too high nowadays - and publishers demand return of investment.

For games that dare step out of the mold, look for indie developers or European game developers.