Why do the quests seems to shallow? : Fallout 3

» Sat Sep 26, 2009 9:19 pm

The quests are better in Fallout 3 than Oblivion in that they are usually more complicated and more paths through the quests.

However, there are fewer and less of a sense of advancement. In Oblivon with the guilds you gain rank, NPCs respect you more, and you change your guild. In Fallout 3 the quests are very stand alone, and when finished not much is usually changed. Little things maybe but not big things in the Fallout 3 world.

There is still a lot to do with exploring.

[Regarding Oblvion].... Quest- and world-wise, F3 is definitely a step backwards for Bethesda :mellow:

I don't know if I'd go that far. They are very different worlds. But I do think the replay value is much greater than Oblivion

» Sun Sep 27, 2009 6:11 am

I have only been playing for a few weeks, and have hardly seen any of the game. However, I have come across dozens of unmarked quests, such as the one to get the MIRV, and Grady's package.
Oblivion had more quests, but then again, Oblivion was teeming with life, whilst Fallout 3 is a desolate wasteland, so I think too many quests would spoil the atmosphere.
Hopefully within the next year or so, talented modders will release some big quest mods, the Fallout equivalent of Lost Spires, or Heart of the Dead for instance.

» Sun Sep 27, 2009 12:17 am

The stage is set in FO3 for a war in which the character is hired as a mercenary between the Brotherhood, Talons, Raiders at Evergreen Mills, Slavers etc.

J

Cant forget the Xmen, you mention the Brotherhood but not the Xmen..... oh crap wrong universe my bad

.

My gripe was the length of some of the quests there could of been more to them say for example in Andale but it ends before I know it

. pretty minor though I really enjoy the Bethesda games, still like Morrowind the most though

.

» Sun Sep 27, 2009 2:03 am

Thats what modders are for is it not?

I mean I know I keep saying it, but as soon as I get a PC, I'm planning on creating a quest revolving around actually becoming one of the Tree Carers (I think thats what they're called anyway...I haven't been to Oasis in quite a while).

Although, I think it would be cool to expand the quests at Tenpenny Tower to include a siege by ghouls, kinda like a zombie siege from the movies

» Sat Sep 26, 2009 4:10 pm

I agree with the original poster. Fallout 3 *could* be more immersive in the way the story effects the rest of the world. I am not talking about changing the way the game looks like the quest "Oasis" does. What I mean and what the original poster describes is a world that changes more based on your actions...more involving more meaningful quests and inter-related, that build upon one another that have more meaning to the world in which you live in. Yes many can say that is what the main quests are for. And yes I agree, that is. The main quest in Fallout 3 revolves around your characters personal struggle to find his father. That is fine and well. But in the Fallout world there are obvious other struggle going on, and that there could be a deeper sense to these struggles added to the game by involving these struggles into deeper game play. In an RPG world, side quests could be better served as important parts to the rest of the world you live in. That these are important struggles and while Fallout 3 does offer this, they are isolated rather then building upon a great morale or immoral victory that has a profound effect in the world. Like I said quests exist like this but they are merely one-offs and don't build to a cause that effects the world...

» Sat Sep 26, 2009 5:05 pm

I agree with the observations that the quests seem quite short, and we are able to do them all in a very quick period of time.

After spending a year building with the GECK, I think I understand why - its the richness is potential responses in Fallout3 versus Oblivion or Morrowind. With quests in most older games and many modern ones, the quest story-line is fairly static with the same verbal responses to the player in most situations. Some games offer a level of diversity in NPC dialogue responses to player actions, but not very much and most are linear.

Fallout3 took this in the other direction, where the NPCs typically have ALOT of potential responses based on your alignment, your faction-relations, your relationship with a particular NPC - in some cases are more than a dozen potential responses that an NPC can give to a player for a single quest stage. This does BIG things for immersion in my view, as the player can do a quest from many different angles and perspectives, and get different outcomes. The big drawback of this method is that it severely limits how many quests/quest-stages the teams can make in the time they have allotted. So what we got were quests that seem alot shorter to most players, but that have alot more Potential depth than other games.

Its a trade-off in my view. I think they went too far with this aspect of immersion, as it came at the cost of short quests that don't last long. If you took that same quest developer and limited responses to 2 or 3 per stage no matter the alignment, etc, then that same quest designer could build Alot more quest stages. Of course I would like to have my cake and eat it too, with Long, Deeply-rich quests. We didn't get that this time, but I'm hoping the next game will take it even farther.

Miax

» Sun Sep 27, 2009 2:11 am

The op is saying the quest are bland. Basically the whole game is, if I remember right we are playing in a burnt out shell of a city were most the people would just as well kill you for some reason. Considering the setting I think the devs did an ok job on the quest. If the devs go to far one way, to little, or a nice balance regardless some people wont be satisfied.

» Sun Sep 27, 2009 8:30 am

I agree.

The main quest and the side quests feel shallow due to mediocre storylines and mediocre writing.

» Sat Sep 26, 2009 4:47 pm

Yeah I agree with Hoss, and...

.. Fallout 3 oozes quality. Me thinks if it had remained in, and was developed by Interplay it would be very different and not particularly better. No doubt the forums would be occupied by a small group of dedicated fans whining and groaning about what could have been. Can't please everyone. S'the way of the fans. (Read: Geeks.) Like Trekkies when new shows arrive they all complain, and moan, and yet never miss an episode, and never fail to discuss what could have been, and what is better. S'almost like fans of any series don't realise that usually the people writing and creating what they eventually put out there for the fans... are fans themselves.

In this case, RPG players, becoming devs. Doesn't make them any less RPG players or fans. Or what they create any less RPG than what used to be in the isometric days. Or any less respectful of the original lore, fluff, canon of the IP than if they had created it themselves. They just brought it forward and presented it to a modern audience... and it was a win. :wub:

What you mentioned above, is sadly the one thing that is known about 'the geek'culture....the endless complaining, no matter what. Remember the comic book guy from the Simpson? worst. episode. ever! :hehe:

I know this since i'm a proud card-carrying member of the nerd club myself.

Sometimes it's better just to point and laugh....but sometimes you'll get annoyed and feel compelled to answer.

But getting back to the topic at hand, the 'bad writing'...it's true to an extent. Some of the dialoque, for example are groan worthy. but the way i see it, it kinda fit with the overall theme that fallout 3 has. It's supposed to be the future as the people in the 40's 50's and 60's saw it. There's the red paranoia, fears of nuclear war, aliens abduction, zombies and whatnot...it's like every comic books and drive in movies from that era comes to life!

Now, anybody who's ever read a comic book from that era...like the Ec comics with tales from the darkside, and movies like creature from the black lagoon for example...may knows that the narratives of those storylines and the dialoques are similiar to Fallout 3. People from that era just have different way of telling a story. that said, i don't know if it's intentional from the part of the dev's or not....but for my part, with those i just mentioned in the back of my mind...it all fits with the overall package that FO3 presented.

*shrugs*

» Sat Sep 26, 2009 6:05 pm

Gebus...god forbid that people plays game just to have fun...not everybody out to play an 'epic game'

:facepalm: People like you make me want to stop visiting this forum.

» Sat Sep 26, 2009 5:09 pm

The quests in FO3 are, for the most part, rather insipid. I love the game overall, the exploration, atmosphere, etc. but the quests are often lacking.

Imagine if in Oasis you were tasked with something that actually mattered, or a series of game world impacting quests. Breaking into a lab to steal genetically enhanced seeds that could survive radiation, restoring a brahmin to provide non-irradiated milk, destruction of a series of raiders on the wasteland's best farms that are then re-inhabited and fixed up (in-game, actually change) by the inhabitants of Oasis. You would see your actions affecting the game world. Likewise, raiders could hire you to wipe out those pesky Oasisians, or perhaps Dr. Li wants the seeds herself - making you choose between who to sell them to.... The choices would actually have some world impacting morality instead of simple, localized tasks that do NOTHING to change the world or your sense of immersion.

Everything is there at the game developers fingertips. The hard work is mostly done in terms of the world creation - but Bethesda always seems to fall on its face in terms of quest execution and, especially, depth.

The stage is set in FO3 for a war in which the character is hired as a mercenary between the Brotherhood, Talons, Raiders at Evergreen Mills, Slavers etc. but nothing ever materializes.... the player could be hired to steal vital intelligence from each base without being detected (no violence!), or having to assassinate the key leader of each faction (instead of assassinating a group of nobodies for a set of keys for .... loot) which results in a clear decline in their power.

A megalomaniac scientist in a vault decides to have all the scientists and engineers in the wasteland mezzed and brought to his/her vault to work as enslaved help - requiring you to forge a pact with the Slavers, or, vice versa, you are hired to put an end to these mysterious disappearances of the wasteland's best minds. Much more intriguing to me than a non-immersive nonsense quest about some octogenarian that somehow isn't slaughtered by the wasteland's raiders and monsters who sends me for a musical instrument.

I love FO3 but every time I play I get frustrated by the shallow nature of the quests and how non-important and non-impacting they feel to the game world. There is no sense of conflicting loyalties and actions beyond a few quests and some mentions by 3-Dog that never really materialize. Ghouls mention being "shot at on sight" by Brotherhood members but no one sends you to set an example by killing a patrol and impaling them on spikes - followed by escalating acts of justice (terrorism?) against the BOS.

Further, why, in the midst of quests, is there never an offer to switch sides or a third party or even a fourth?

To me the wasteland could have been teeming with quests that flesh out the dynamics between the different settlements in terms of economics, power, military issues etc. with scripting that is clearly "normal" b/c it happens in Oblivion, FO 3 etc. but just without the depth.

Had to vent. I realize many will disagree. And, there are some quests that start to have this feel - but many "end" before they even get started. The Temple of the Union and Paradise Falls set the stage for a huge questline that could have ended in a new utopia for ex-slaves and a decimated Paradise Falls or vice versa or, with the inclusion of other political necessities, other parties getting involved. Instead we are given a few one dimensional quests and then its all over - even though you wonder why the Slavers don't mount an expedition to wipe out the memorial and take it back.

Why is dialogue wasted sending me on a quest for freaking cola when there could be actual emotionally impacting interactions in the wasteland?

There is a poignant, vibrant world that is bequeated to Bethesda by the makers of Fallout and it seems to be wasted in FO3. Ghouls, from the minute you meet Gob, wrench at the heart for some and repulse others yet so little is done with that in a way that stretches across the wasteland..... like setting up voting booths in every settlement and leading the drive or an emancipation/equal civil rights movement and the violent and polical resistance it would meet (bribing officials of each settlement, or threats, or midnight visits from goon squads) etc.

Here's hoping Bethesda hires some creative deep thinkers for FO4 because Bethesda clearly (CLEARLY!) has a vastly talented group of world-creaters - now they need to get some who know how to flesh it out.

J

I know, I get roasted everytime I make a comment involving a plot change or modification. I always thought that Gob should have been a side quest where you escort Him to take over the Ninth circle bar in Underworld. That you helped Doc Barrows find His cure for "ghoulification". That instead of hunting down the Enclave Lyons would have sent you to destroy Vault 87 where the mutants were transformed by FEV and while there, you stumble upon a cure to reverse the mutation and Doc Lesko in Grayditch would have been the man to help you develop a mutagen to reverse the mutation, and you escorted Him to work with Doc Barrows in Underworld and accidently He helps the Doc cure the ghouls. Why did not the West coast Brotherhood be brought into Broken steel. They could have either worked on reconciliation for Lyons and the Outcasts, or had Lyons executed. And the Canterbury commons search party still bothers me. They were looking for the lost girl named Cheryl and it could have been revealed that maybe Brick was the missing girl. I know I'm whinning, offer me some cheese to go with my whine. Have a good evening.

» Sat Sep 26, 2009 7:42 pm

The strange thing is though there many people who complain about nothing changing before the LW arrives, and then suddenly the world starts changing, which seems altogether too strange. Having the LW making a massive impact on the game world could lead to that getting worse. I mean, whilst the Lone Wanderer is a major character in the Wastes... he's not bigger than the Wastes. Having him have a greater impact than he does already might make it seem a little too... comic book hero... and the Wastes a little less organic, and more of a playground for the player.

Evil exists and can't be put down forever in a post-nuclear world filled with people fighting to survive. You'll get pockets of good, but the majority of it will remain a killing ground for predators... be they human, animal, or crazily mutated super freaks and insects.

» Sat Sep 26, 2009 11:07 pm

:facepalm: People like you make me want to stop visiting this forum.

feeling's mutual, buddy.

» Sat Sep 26, 2009 4:27 pm

,,,,

$

of course

Here and there in the game you can see the remains of would have been quests that died from running over time and budget

Environments are Beths core competency anyways

It would be nice if they had better resources for storytelling but this is no perfect world unless your definition of such includes major svckhole

» Sun Sep 27, 2009 6:29 am

Thats what modders are for is it not?

I mean I know I keep saying it, but as soon as I get a PC, I'm planning on creating a quest revolving around actually becoming one of the Tree Carers (I think thats what they're called anyway...I haven't been to Oasis in quite a while).

So we have to learn how to mod the game to get a coherent story?

I know, I get roasted everytime I make a comment involving a plot change or modification. I always thought that Gob should have been a side quest where you escort Him to take over the Ninth circle bar in Underworld. That you helped Doc Barrows find His cure for "ghoulification". That instead of hunting down the Enclave Lyons would have sent you to destroy Vault 87 where the mutants were transformed by FEV and while there, you stumble upon a cure to reverse the mutation and Doc Lesko in Grayditch would have been the man to help you develop a mutagen to reverse the mutation, and you escorted Him to work with Doc Barrows in Underworld and accidently He helps the Doc cure the ghouls. Why did not the West coast Brotherhood be brought into Broken steel. They could have either worked on reconciliation for Lyons and the Outcasts, or had Lyons executed. And the Canterbury commons search party still bothers me. They were looking for the lost girl named Cheryl and it could have been revealed that maybe Brick was the missing girl.

That's what I would've liked to see to. More connectivity and crossover.

Here and there in the game you can see the remains of would have been quests that died from running over time and budget

That just makes it worse. It makes it seem like the game wasn't cleaned up before shipping. In other words - unfinished.

» Sat Sep 26, 2009 8:55 pm

I know, I get roasted everytime I make a comment involving a plot change or modification. I always thought that Gob should have been a side quest where you escort Him to take over the Ninth circle bar in Underworld. That you helped Doc Barrows find His cure for "ghoulification". That instead of hunting down the Enclave Lyons would have sent you to destroy Vault 87 where the mutants were transformed by FEV and while there, you stumble upon a cure to reverse the mutation and Doc Lesko in Grayditch would have been the man to help you develop a mutagen to reverse the mutation, and you escorted Him to work with Doc Barrows in Underworld and accidently He helps the Doc cure the ghouls. Why did not the West coast Brotherhood be brought into Broken steel. They could have either worked on reconciliation for Lyons and the Outcasts, or had Lyons executed. And the Canterbury commons search party still bothers me. They were looking for the lost girl named Cheryl and it could have been revealed that maybe Brick was the missing girl. I know I'm whinning, offer me some cheese to go with my whine. Have a good evening.

A lot of your ideas are good ones and some of those things bother me as well. People will always disagree with you. It's the way of the forum. :shrug: More and better stories and more and better dialogue in the game would be excellent, but if we'd lost any of the great open world to get it I would have been very disappointed. The best thing in Oblivion and FO3 to me is the open, sandbox world. You can get stories in other games, but you don't get such great, detailed open worlds in other games. I always, always feel constrained in linear games and want to come back to FO3 and play in its environment.

» Sat Sep 26, 2009 6:29 pm

Maybe in FO4, or even New Vegas, they'll do what Treyarch did with World at War. They assumed everyone already knew what they were doing and made it in some ways complex as they thought everyone knew what they were doing. So now FO3's brought in new players ,that would be otherwise put off, they could add all the immersion and Game World changes.

» Sun Sep 27, 2009 4:54 am

A lot of your ideas are good ones and some of those things bother me as well. People will always disagree with you. It's the way of the forum. :shrug: More and better stories and more and better dialogue in the game would be excellent, but if we'd lost any of the great open world to get it I would have been very disappointed. The best thing in Oblivion and FO3 to me is the open, sandbox world. You can get stories in other games, but you don't get such great, detailed open worlds in other games. I always, always feel constrained in linear games and want to come back to FO3 and play in its environment.

Did you play Morrowind?

That's exactly what it was "more and better stories and better dialogue" in an open world. As you can see in this thread someone admitted that if Oblvion/Fallout 3 was as "deep" as Morrowind it would've turned them off.

Oblivion, plot/story wise, was a step back from Morrowind.

There were more factions in Morrowind. Less in Oblivion. None in Fallout 3.

If Oblivion would've been as "deep" as Morrowind with those graphics...its' greatness would've been undeniable and unquestionable.

Bethesda doesn't have to sacrifice the "openness" of their worlds, they just have to go back to the Morrowind model and make a good story.

» Sun Sep 27, 2009 8:55 am

^^ for the love of Led Zeppelin!

Enough with the 'deep' Morrowind already!

I suggest you pick up your copy of Morrowind and rub it all over your body.... I heard it cures all kind of diseases!

Or I could use it like a shuriken and flick it in someones eye...

» Sat Sep 26, 2009 7:34 pm

Or I could use it like a shuriken and flick it in someones eye...

LOL!

Gotta admit...that's a good one :thumbsup:

Keep it up young Skywalker!

» Sat Sep 26, 2009 7:37 pm

^^ for the love of Led Zeppelin!

Enough with the 'deep' Morrowind already!

I suggest you pick up your copy of Morrowind and rub it all over your body.... I heard it cures all kind of diseases!

Well, a bit of Morrowind would've cured a good bit of Fallout 3 from Fallout 3. :hehe: But to be honest, it wasn't that great in comparison.

» Sat Sep 26, 2009 10:03 pm

Well, a bit of Morrowind would've cured a good bit of Fallout 3 from Fallout 3. :hehe: But to be honest, it wasn't that great in comparison.

You...didn't think that Megan Fox was all that.... so i could not take your opinion seriously sir..or ma'am

Joke :hehe:

» Sun Sep 27, 2009 12:22 am

Enough with the 'deep' Morrowind already!

I suggest you pick up your copy of Morrowind and rub it all over your body.... I heard it cures all kind of diseases!

Actually yes, it does. And I'm not your buddy.

» Sun Sep 27, 2009 8:15 am

Actually yes, it does. And I'm not your buddy.

Well..scuse me a sec while i wiped away a cyber tear.....

» Sun Sep 27, 2009 2:25 am

Actually yes, it does. And I'm not your buddy.

...body