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

Nothing is perfect.
My only gripe with the quests, though, is that they're too short. You don't get to develop a contact with the characters involved.

At least the main quest line with Broken steel and the aqua pura come to mind as a world impacting quest.

Because of two reasons: fans don't care and "depth" seems to scare off the casual player.

The game made GOTY with all the issues you mentioned.

I stated something essentially the same as what you said and I was told, by someone on this forum, that I shouldn't be worried about "plot" in games.

I think the people who want "depth" in games are a shrinking demographic.

Modern Warfare 2 broke multiple records and from what I hear the single player campaign is laughable (@6 hrs worth of play)...

If there's "too much" in a game I think it overwhelms the people who just want to mash up stuff. Which is the majority of people, IMO.

I'm like you also, I like the game but get frustrated at the lack of depth the more I play. It was hard getting into Oblivion for the same reason...

I remember when Oblivion came out...I was on these same forums and poster after poster exclaimed pure joy that essentially Oblivion wasn't as 'deep' as Morrowind. They loved how it was more 'action' oriented than 'story' driven...

I was hoping for the depth of Morrowind with the graphics/physics of Oblivion.

You're right. There's so much more Bethesda could've done to make this game truly good.

All you're doing is turning Oasis into the main quest line in the game.

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

I've recently started Oblivion, and I have to say I was completely flabbergasted as to how many things there is to do, both in sheer number of quests and in their length. Quest- and world-wise, F3 is definitely a step backwards for Bethesda :mellow:

Would the "epicness" deny you from having fun if - despite being deep and having real impacting and involving stories - the gameplay in general would still be the same?

Bethesda is good at making depth, look at TES (And TES lore) and Morrowind especially.

Never played oblivion, so i wouldn't know....

But i've read somewhere that the size of downtown DC was originally twice as big, but they cut it by half because otherwise it would be too confusing.

I tend to agree. I've never play an RPG game before, and if the size of the world in fallout 3 were twice as big as they are now...and with twice more quests which last twice as long as the ones in FO3....i would've been overwhelmed and the game would not be as enjoyable for me, or other people that bought this game and never plays an RPG game before.

It's a good decision they made to trim all the fat and therefore make this game more accesible to casual gamers. Had they made this game specially and only to the hardcoe FO and RPG fans...it would probably sold only exactly 20 copies, since the people who would've bought them probably those bitter [censored] at NMA

Probably...if the 'epicness' are what some of the people here is suggesting.

I think it's easy to imagine more when you have such a realised game world to begin with. It's a good thing and we all do it. Years in development, and you get an obscene amount of content and design with FO3. The more you replay it and come to know it the smaller and more shallow it appears, but on your first play-through it seemed to be bursting with depth... when I say seemed, I mean... was. The only thing that really changes is your perception of it. Unless you didn't like it in the first place, which case you turned it off, unimpressed.



Whilst good ideas, they're not exactly world-impacting. Or no more so than some already in the game. For the most part as the LW you encounter disparate people in different circumstances, and you have an impact on their little corner of the Wastes. Put them all together from one long trek to here and there and you change the face of it all. Disarming a nuke. Arming a nuke. Not exactly small choices with low impact. Your ideas sound Fable-y, though. A purely aesthetic change to an area would seem as strange as some think a nineteen year-old turning up to disarm a bomb that's sat untouched for centruries is. Having nice little farms in the Wastes after the hero comes through and removes the Bandits (Raiders) screams Lionhead, not Bethesda. Or being the Bandit (Raider) and removing the nice people to make room for them. Turning a Brahmin into a cow... essentially... sounds fantasy. The nuke disarming gets a lot of criticism but it's still a quirky and a fun thing to do the first time around. So is watching a town being erased from the world. :shrug:

If bethseda follows the wants of new people to rpgs or beth games in perticular then the future of these games is, R.I.P.

This person sounds like my cousin, we both got morrowind goty, he played for 5 mins then never played again that was 7 years ago, what im saying is to the type of person a game like this can either be the best or the worst game int he world. Dumbing down the game isnt the answer to making it appeal to more.

^^ yep ! you're right!

Shouldda kept it tailored to just the loyal fanbase of the original RPG/FO games..


I'm sure the genre can survive with only selling about 35 copies each time they put a new game out....


PS: i AM your cousin..don't tell anybody! :whisper:


Edit nr 2: it's kinda predictable in our little nerd culture that whenever something that was previously only enjoyable to a select group,was suddenly made popular...there's always those select few who will cry foul.

"oh noes!...they're dumbing down our favourite comics/games/ bands/ movies just to sell more copies!'

What they're really saying is:

'dammit!...now i'm no longer part of an elite group which makes me seems like a weirdo...and therefore cool! now even my next door neighbour Billy Bob can enjoy these comics/games/bands movies too!

In my opinion...'dumbing down'are the most overrated words in our little corner of geek haven...along with 'epic'

ok...rant over...* takes a cleansing breath*

I think Fallout 3 had just enough fps shooting in it to keep a lot of people happy, thats not a let down i enjoy it also.

And... those, who genuinely feel that the game could have been made more akin (not copy, mind you) to those it follows without it hurting sales or shooing away the "casual" gamer - because the thing that was, is felt as something that one would want other people (and themselfs too) to know and experience as presented by the techonology today.

Is that sentece even readable? :blink:

It is readable to me!...but maybe because i'm drunk :foodndrink:

Anyway..i agree with you to an extent. That's why i said SOME people.

While i love FO3...i do agree that there's definitely room for improvement. Nothing is perfect in this world...


....except Megan Fox...

In hindsight, we can always find faults with the things we love. I'm sure the devs thought of all those things, and more, the day the game shipped. Perhaps they'll implement such things in later games. One can only hope.

Bottoms up then. :foodndrink:


I'd so much like to disagree on the Megan Fox part referring to her dollness, but I'll just skip it.

She wouldn't be very good on a joypad with her http://coedmagazine.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/megan-fox-freak-thumb1.jpg.

Morrowind was a GOTY and sold well...

So I think it's at least 36 copies that would be sold.



No what they're saying is the group sacrificed quality for quantity. There would be no problem if quality was kept as a goal.

The other problem is the general stupidity and lack of an attention span longer than an eye blink of the majority of people.


The expression "dumbing down"...think about it. Basically it's saying 'we're making something for dummies.' If one enjoys the "dumbed down" version more than the quality product...what does it say about that person?

It's the same as if you told someone you didn't understand them so they started speaking louder and slower...wouldn't that annoy you a little? That's generally how you talk to simple people or children.

pretty sweeping comment you've made there.

Just because YOU think that this game is 'dumbed down'...definitely doesn't make it so.

And just because people enjoy THIS particular version of RPG/ fallout game, doesn't automatically means they imbeciles with short attention span.

Get off your high horse.

I guess this means that you're part of the 'select few'i was talking about then huh

Can i offer you some cheese to go with all those whines?

Oasis is a terrible choice for an exaple quest. What could be more important than an opportunity to That quest asks your character to make a tough moral choice. It is one of the best quests in the game. The failure of that quest is there is no follow through if you pick a certain choice. Beth really, really fails at quest follow up in the game over and over again in a variety of ways.



Oblivion is by no means epic compared to FO3. Your character is just busier. The stories are often longer but they aren't better. And there are more quests, but they are mostly just fetch and kill quests. The FO3 quests are fewer but tend to be more thoughtful and your character actually has dialogue and often gets to make some kind of choice about which direction to go in the quest. I guess I would say Oblivion is just different with its own set of issues to criticize. You may end up prefering it but it's MQ is pretty lame (like FO3) and there are great inconsistencies with the guilds that drive any rational thinker bonkers. Shivering Isles shows the most creativity.

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:

You chose to use the phrase "dumbed down" and said it was "overrated." My only comment was to imply that if in fact it is "dumbed down" what does that say about someone who likes it better than the quality product.


Where did I imply otherwise?

I commented on people in general not people who like one particular type of game or not.


I'm not on one.


No.

I'm not a "group" type of guy and could give a (bleep) what people think. I just want a quality game with depth not a shallow button mashing shoot-em-up


^_^ you could...but you might get an open hand smack in the mouth as payment...