Fallout 4

Hear, hear!

To each his own. I liked how the DLC experimented a bit more with the colour palette, but I haven't played them personally so I can only talk about the base game from my experience. I'll admit though that many of the mods that tried to change colours in FO3 were pretty damn ugly and only made things worse. Though for Skyrim the modders really stepped their game up, because some of the mods for that made it look absolutely gorgeous.

I only mod Bethesda games after finishing a first playthrough anyway and I'm not a fan of total conversion stuff or anything that detracts too much from the developer's vision. I've also found that I use less mods witch each new Bethesda title. I don't think I have much more than 10 mods installed for Skyrim, which pales in comparison to what I did with Morrowind and Oblivion after that playing the vanilla versions for a good while. It's not that they're necessarily getting better (they're certainly becoming simpler and more accessible), but they do get kinda more polished with each new entry.

Haha, you're never gonna let this go - you're enjoying that Soviet street cred too much.

 

They did largely make sense at least in the DLC. Dead Money's reddish filter made sense because the place was actually filled with a reddish, toxic gas that had diluted and spread through out the area. Honest Hearts and Lonesome Road were dusty planes, and it's much easy and cost-efficient to add a color filter than to sprinkle billions of tiny sand particles everywhere.

But it will be nice to finally get a game that's colorful. And modders can still add whatever ENB and SweetFX presets they want to their heart's content. Personally will probably avoid these, due to the fact that 1. ENB is incompatible with SLI, and 2. A lot of these are buggy, inconvenient to implement, and incompatible with some other mods (like the essential 4GB patch for previous games).

 

Hmm... I was actually thinking of the DLCs for FO3 (Operation Anchorage, The Pitt, etc.), but I haven't played the ones for New Vegas either so it's new to me. Anyway, yeah, I agree with you and damn it I remember that 4GB thing. :lol:

 

Lovely art.

 

I was just browsing Steam, and saw yet another Fallout Recommendation for me in the Steam Store. "Fallout 3 again, really? .... Wait a minute. Does it say Fallout 4? ..... REALLY?!"
Then I hurried here to post about it because I remembered the old thread about Fallout 4 that had turned out to just be fake rumors and it wasn't ever gonna happen, but I found this several days-old thread instead. *Late*.
I've been interested in Fallout 3 ever since I heard about it, but I've seen enough of it to determine that I'm too much of a Graphics-bi*ch to actually bother playing it. That's why I've been really anxious to get a new Fallout-game that I may enjoy. I love the scenery, the story behind it, and especially all the 50's music. I'm hearing a bit too much negative comments about it for the moment, and it does indeed not look very spectacular, so for once I'm actually not gonna pre-order. I'll wait 'till release and see how everyone likes it.

Also, I hope we get to meet these guys, I think they're really awesome:

Spoiler

 

That was fast. And oddly specific.

And Skaara, I'm pretty sure those guys are exclusive to the Dead Money DLC. Doubt we'd see them make an appearance outside of the Sierra Madre, considering the Courier kinda ruined their collective days, meaning not many are left. Certainly not enough to make the trek to Boston.

 

Haha, that's really well figured out (even though some of it is based only on assumptions).

 

Indeed. I would understand if this was some low-budget, alternative indie title where the idea and artistic value of the game is more important than how popular or profitable it becomes... but Fallout 4 is the exact opposite - a massive AAA production with a huge budget. In no way does this mean that FO4 doesn't have artistic value (it has plenty and that shit is subjective anyway), but the nature of the project means that Bethesda has to listen to what people say and in some ways pander to some of those who are complaining if it wants to survive as a company.

If you are someone who is spending little yet at the same time innovating, then you can probably pull off being an artist and an entrepreneur (fuck I hate that word) for a while, but if you are a large company with hundreds of employees and budgets in the tens of millions, then you have to sacrifice plenty of your artistic integrity if you want to make another game - as you're now in the territory of expensive product as opposed to a one-time art experiment.

Of course, it's not like this one "tweet" will have any immense effect on the sales of Fallout 4, I'm just saying that it's unwise to keep that sort of attitude in all aspects of the game and especially its marketing.

 

And Bethesda just won E3.

Inb4 major criticisms from Komo, maybe Bamul.

 

I... yeah, I was going to post what I thought about the gameplay reveal, but you guys beat me to it and Komo nailed down pretty much all of the criticisms I had in mind. :lol: Though I'll admit one thing I wasn't going to write about is the streamlining aspect, but that's also a good point. If we look at Morrowind and then at Skyrim... well, one is a fairly hardcore RPG by today's standards whilst the other is one of the most popular and accessible games ever made. I have nothing against action RPGs as I have to admit that I don't find the idea of playing a game like Fallout 2 that exciting anymore (it has really aged), but I have fond memories nevertheless. However, what really pisses me off is that Bethesda often seem to "streamline" in the wrong direction. They get rid of interesting storylines and decisions with actual consequences, they really restrict how you can develop your character as a person whilst keeping all the shit like looting and traditional dungeon-crawling (I'd take the former over the latter any day).

And so I'm not just repeating what Komo said, I also gotta point out the graphics. They are not "bad" as there is a (barely noticeable) improvement over previous games... but those fucking character walking and facial animations. Jesus Christ, why Bethesda, why?!

On a more optimistic note, here are some things that I liked: a voiced protagonist may add some flavour to the story, the crafting system and village building - although both ripped off straight from the mods that I remember using in Fallout 3 - look pretty awesome. The fact that we do get to play as a woman after all is pretty nice too.

Also, wouldn't it be hilarious if we can shoot the robot in the face just like Howard says... only for him to get back up later because he is an "essential" character?

 

Ha, guess I had you two pegged pretty good.

As for the mods aspect, I mean, it just seems like good business sense to me. They're clearly doing it on a larger scale than, say, New Vegas did with things like weapon mods and whatnot, but when a community comes together to appreciate something limited but cool, and a developer taking the time to fully, properly implement and optimize something you prototyped seems pretty cool. I haven't quite messed around with most of these mods, but the Vertibird for one looks ten times better than anything that could have been done in the previous games.

Anyways, large deconstruction of posts incoming:

Spoiler

So what would you think would be the reasonable, moral thing for Bethesda to do in this situation where they drew ideas from their community?

I mean, we all know what to expect from a Bethesda game.

I feel like this may be a slight exaggeration.

The Witcher 3 also had downgrades because of overestimates of upcoming console power. Still remember both being considered very impressive-looking games at their respective times.

Can't find the full context and original quote of this, but it seems kinda silly of them. Probably would have been better if they'd just said, "it's not cost/time-efficient for us to make them work with our limited engine" (I mean you've got to admit, their engines have generally been pretty limited in a lot of areas).

I enjoyed the story, to each their own. Unless you're referring to its relation with the previously established canon, which they weren't exactly gentle with, but they certainly did a far better job than the last guys that tried to make a new Fallout game.

That was pretty weird and dumb on their part, forgot about that. I can understand not wanting to comment on every little bit of speculation and fake "leaks", but when a guy spends that much time and money making a fake announcement, that's a pretty clear point at which it's going to be beneficial to step in and say, "Alright, that's enough."

Alright, looked through these.
1. "Skyrim has over 70 voice actors." Might be off by one, but I counted 71 VO's outside of DLC and songs.
2. "Creation kit to be released in January." I mean, seems like something he was told/genuinely believed at the time. Correct me if I'm clearly wrong on that aspect, but being wrong and lying aren't mutually exclusive. I also liked the comment, "He didn't say WHICH January he might release it."
3. "Skyrim has INFINITE QUESTS". I mean, in a way it's technically true. I feel like they were pretty clear on what that meant, I certainly didn't go into it expecting a huge influx of handcrafted experiences, even as my younger and more naive self at the time.
4. Don't understand this one. Lots of what I gathered from the top comment seemed like valid criticisms of an ambitious but imperfect game though.

I haven't seen enough of the mechanics in action, but "completely" does seem like a bit of an exaggeration. Will have to see the lack of skills in action to form an opinion, I kinda preferred FO3's perk system (having to specialize is a nice idea, but kind of frustrating in a game you can easily play for 100+ hours on a single playthrough), stats are the same as skills to me in this aspect, crits seem like a weird design choice but I am interested to try it out. From a pure gameplay perspective, disregarding realism and RPG tradition, having a tool that you can use so often for a boost is generally more fun than having random spikes of extra damage, but it certainly is a really strange choice, and I'm curious to see if it breaks the game at all.

Never grew up with CRPG's and whatnot. I respect the advances they made, but I'm not exactly gonna mourn the idea of them playing less of a role.

One thing I certainly don't miss about Fallout is the overabundance of essential characters. I absolutely loved that aspect of New Vegas, how they made sure to program in at least one way for the game to end that was independent of your interactions with major characters.

Fingers not quite crossed, but hopefully with actual dialogue options and whatnot, we'll see more character development and good storytelling. Kinda hard to develop a character that's literally a blank slate with no voice or emotions.

Heard many people immediately dismiss it, but I too love the idea.

 

Komo is referring to the lack of crossbows and spears in Oblivion, both of which were present in Morrowind, which was an even less expensive and less technologically advanced game. I haven't looked for any original quotes on that, but I too remember them coming up with some really stupid excuse for this. Another parallel phenomenon that could be compared to this is how armour and equipment works in Bethesda games; in Morrowind you could mix and match all sorts of different armour pieces - you could even have clothes underneath your armour AND robes over your armour at the same time (making you look like some kind of badass warrior monk). On top of that, Morrowind allowed you to wear more than one necklace and - if I remember correctly - a ring on each of your fingers. In Oblivion all of this was reduced to a binary system of you either wearing armour or clothes, no way of using both at the simultaneously. Moreover, you could only wear two rings and armour suits were turned into a smaller number of items (top, bottom, helmet, boots and gloves) as opposed to individual pauldrons and all that awesome crap in Morrowind. In Fallout 3 this was reduced to a single piece of armour and hats + goggles...

I didn't really grow up with them either as most of the games of my childhood were arcadey games from late 1980s and 1990s (it's what happens when you're born in the mid-90s, but in a second world country). On top of that, there were plenty of late 1990s and very early 2000s shooters later on in my childhood. However, FO2 was one of the few cRPGs that I first played when I was really young.

True. I mean, in theory you have more choice in RPGs that don't feature voice acting for the main character because there is more left to your imagination, but then you usually end up making him or her as close to yourself as possible and it still feels kinda lame when everyone else speaks whilst you don't. With voiced characters we usually end up with more relatable protagonists that don't feel as dull and sometimes they force us to roleplay more, as roleplay should in theory be about pretending to be someone else as opposed to a different version of yourself. I preferred Geralt in W1+2+3 (though I know this is biased as fuck as I'm familiar with the character and his motivations from 7 books) or Shepard in ME1+2+3 over the Grey Warden from Dragon Age: Origins. Though an example of a not-voiced protagonist that really worked in my opinion, and from an RPG that isn't very old, is KotOR.

 

Well to me it looks really fun cannot wait to try the TotalAarons 4 steps to success

Step 1- Can i kill the dog?
Step 2- Can i glitch through a wall and beat the game F3 style
step 3- Error-10221212022 cannot find edit-ok-1-2
step 4 Bethesdagame.exe has stopped working

 

Haha :lol: Messing about with Bethesda games is always pretty fun though.

On a less positive note (yet again), I gotta highlight the fact that the Xbone version getting mods - plus that Bethesda.net thing - sort of hint that we might see paid mods? I would hope not and this is simply an assumption, but Bethesda already tried this with Valve so I wouldn't be surprised if they will try to take a slice of the pie once again.