Fallout 3

[Durckad]

Then again I'm a fan of turn based strategy... And Bethesda has a history of making clunky, dodgy feeling pseudo-fps controls. But sadly that's what we'll be stuck with.

Wait, isn't Fallout 3 supposed to be either a pseudo-fps ala Oblivion or the VATS turn-based gameplay?

[EHK for Darwin]

I think Fallout could certainly use an upgrade on the gameplay and combat. So long as it keeps its cynicism, quality story and characters, I'm all good.

I think my main complaint about Bethesda doing this is the overall lifeless and generic feel of all of their games that I've played. Yeah Morrowind (And I'm sure Oblivian afterwards, though I never bothered) was huge. Looked prettier than any other rpg at the time. But it was filled with almost nothing interesting. Thousands of 'chattable' characters, 99.9% of which gave the same generic response. (But thou MUST talk to all of them in, don't want to miss the 1 in 1000 that actually has something original and necessary to say) The combat was...sluggish. And the world, as I mentioned, was huge. And if you were dumb enough to dump your points into seemingly necessary skills like fighting and shit, it took forever to move across. I'm talking 10 minute walks with little more than a random encounter through often redundant scenery that you were guaranteed to get lost in.

I could not play that game unless I cheated to make myself a crossbreed between a Kenyan marathoner and olympic long-jumper. Its the only way to get from point A to point B without having to order out for pizza in between the stave off starvation.

Even than, still couldn't get into it. The quests were run-of-the-mill. I don't recall a single one of them, nor a single character, nor do I recall what the overall plot was. BG2, Fallout? Hell, even KotoR. I remember the people, the settings, the plots, quests, and stories. But Morrowind was thoroughly unengaging and I have no reason to believe that Oblivion was any different.

Hopefully Fallout 3 will be, but who knows.

[GuybrushThreepwood]

Does anyone know what the situation will be regarding voice actors in Fallout 3? One of the main things that bugged me about Oblivion was the horrible voice acting. Not only where there only about 10 voice actors for the cast of hundreds, but they would often have one character have multiple voice actors depending on the path of conversation. Very, very irritating, and not conducive to immersion.

Hopefully that problem will be addressed.

[Space Bandito]

Wait, isn't Fallout 3 supposed to be either a pseudo-fps ala Oblivion or the VATS turn-based gameplay?

Yes. As far as I understand you can turn on the turn based during combat. Whether it remains similiar enough to the origninal Fallout remains to be seen. But let the fan boys bitch before the game is even released. Progress is scary.

[Space Bandito]

Taken from the FAQ http://fallout.bethsoft.com

Key Features:

* Limitless Freedom! “ Take in the sights and sounds of the vast Capital Wasteland! See the great monuments of the United States lying in post-apocalyptic ruin! You make the choices that define you and change the world. Just keep an eye on your Rad Meter!

* Experience S.P.E.C.I.A.L.! “ Vault-Tec engineers bring you the latest in human ability simulation “the SPECIAL Character System! Utilizing new breakthroughs in points-based ability representation, SPECIAL affords unlimited customization of your character. Also included are dozens of unique skills and perks to choose from, each with a dazzling variety of effects!

* Fantastic New Views! “ The wizards at Vault-Tec have done it again! No longer constrained to just one view, experience the world from 1st or 3rd person perspective. Customize your view with the touch of a button!

* The Power of Choice! “ Feeling like a dastardly villain today, or a Good Samaritan? Pick a side or walk the line, as every situation can be dealt with in many different ways. Talk out your problems in a civilized fashion, or just flash your Plasma Rifle.

* Blast ˜Em Away With V.A.T.S.! “ Even the odds in combat with the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System for your Pip-Boy Model 3000! V.A.T.S. allows you to pause time in combat, target specific body parts on your target, queue up attacks, and let Vault-Tec take out your aggression for you. Rain death and destruction in an all-new cinematic presentation.

* Mind-Blowing Artificial Intelligence! “ At Vault-Tec, we realize that the key to reviving civilization after a global nuclear war is people. Our best minds pooled their efforts to produce an advanced version of Radiant AI, Americas First Choice in Human Interaction Simulation. Facial expressions, gestures, unique dialog, and lifelike behavior are brought together with stunning results by the latest in Vault-Tec technology.

* Eye-Popping Prettiness!* “ Witness the harsh realities of nuclear fallout rendered like never before in modern super-deluxe HD graphics. From the barren Wasteland, to the danger-filled offices and metro tunnels of DC, to the hideous rotten flesh of a mutants face.

[squiddly]

God that V.A.T.S. thing in the live demo looks bad. That turn-based fps perspective doesn't exactly have success written all over it. (I'd take Wizardry 8 any day )

But at least there will be lots of "cool" gore (which seems to be their main focus...)

And of course the accompanying videos to headshots and rockets, musn't forget that. That won't get annoying after the first one.

[Intercept]

If I had my way, Fallout 3's combat system would be an utterly shameless rip off of Deus Ex with a few tweaks.

Your ability to kill with a weapon is determined by your expertise in its chosen field. For example, mastery with rifles will allow you to control recoil, breathing and trigger control for steadier aim, faster reload, much less prone to jamming, resolving jam issues faster, etc. It would also be involved with how well you can upgrade your weapon with tons of customization (Like Mass Effect but more) as well as keeping it from being destroyed from extended use.

The stealth mechanics would be trickier. In a perfect world, this would be synonymous with a gymnastics skill that allows you to perform maneuvers unavailable to the typical run-and-gun character. Climbing, hanging, diving for cover, breaking a fall, silent run-walking, wall to wall jumping, etc.

As an aside, I thought the weapon skills in Fallout and Fallout 2 were very silly. Why is it that Small Arms and Energy Weapons are considered exclusive skills? Energy Weapons had firearms designed and modeled exactly like conventional pistols, rifles and miniguns... Yet for any of these guns that didn't spew out plasma, they were considered weapons in different categories. Uhh, what? Why didn't they just divvy up the energy-based weapons to work respectively like the Little Guns or Big Guns depending on how they were designed? You would think it'd be totally logical that someone who's a crackshot with a rifle can easily handle a LASER RIFLE designed to fire the exact same way, except he'd be even better because the laser wouldn't have to worry about silly things like air resistance and conventional physics. You could cook up some bullshit metagaming reason like the Vault Dweller would need knowhow in the Energy Weapons skill to maintain these weapons and keep them from blowing up, but that wouldn't have anything to do with him firing any of the weapons, he never had to repair or upkeep this shit in the game anyway making the point null and if he did it would be part of the Repair skillset anyway.

RPGs involving the control of one character are never fun to play. They're just tolerable to play. If it does end up becoming fun, it's because the combat\movement elements of the game lend themselves much more to elements from action games rather than RPGs. VATS is the closest compromise, but a man can dream...

I can dream.

[LogicWarrior]

Just please - without any rpgcodexer style rudeness.

Hey RPGCodexers aren't all bad, being one myself I can vouch for this. I don't like Bethesda's games all that much, but neither do I condone the threats of violence against Bethesda that go on at our forums.

I thought it might be OK until I saw the gameplay footage, which looks like Gears of War with a pause button and "marching band music".

[Anya, Vengeance Demon]

Maybe this was already clear to you, but in case it wasn't: the music in question comes from the Enclave's radio station, and so it's supposed to sound a little over-the-top with patriotism. That's not the only radio station, and there's also a soundtrack for when you have the radio off.

[LogicWarrior]

I liked Mark Morgan's better. :crossarms:

[Humble Asskicker]

I think my main complaint about Bethesda doing this is the overall lifeless and generic feel of all of their games that I've played. Yeah Morrowind (And I'm sure Oblivian afterwards, though I never bothered) was huge. Looked prettier than any other rpg at the time. But it was filled with almost nothing interesting. Thousands of 'chattable' characters, 99.9% of which gave the same generic response. (But thou MUST talk to all of them in, don't want to miss the 1 in 1000 that actually has something original and necessary to say) The combat was...sluggish. And the world, as I mentioned, was huge. And if you were dumb enough to dump your points into seemingly necessary skills like fighting and shit, it took forever to move across. I'm talking 10 minute walks with little more than a random encounter through often redundant scenery that you were guaranteed to get lost in.

This is a valid criticism on the early Elder Scrolls games, but Oblivion improved upon it immensely. The two things that killed Morrowind for me was the fact that the characters were this monolithic collection of souless, uninteresting print. It felt like wikipedia, not personalities with whom I could interact. And also the combat, which sucked so badly I actually felt sorry for it, but more for myself because I paid money to inflict such tedium on myself.

Oblivion made the characters different and some even interesting (not hard to do when you have Sean Bean and Patrick Stuart voicing your characters, but even others were well-down), made the quests more varied and even interesting. I'm annoyed by the flock who come after the tide of praise, inevitable as the sun rising, who must loudly declare in opposition that Oblivion sucks. That game does not remotely merit that kind of derision.

The combat was also very fun, and such a magnitude superior to Morrowind that I was shocked. That is, until you reach a certain level and the profound irritations of the broken leveling system becomes apparent, where unless you've apportioned your stats counter-intuitively, you're pretty much fucked by the hardcore monsters that will come your way.

Oblivion was a good game that unfortunately lost the interesting design of Morrowind, but was still very fun.

Fallout 3...we'll see. They seem to be aiming for the extreme, "dark" humor and violence of the previous games, but whether it executes this goal successfully or not...well, if it works, most of us will have a great time and that clique of purists with a hard-on for the original games will have ample opportunity to piss and moan, whatever the result.

[Rimmer]

I'm annoyed by the flock who come after the tide of praise, inevitable as the sun rising, who must loudly declare in opposition that Oblivion sucks. That game does not remotely merit that kind of derision.

The combat was also very fun, and such a magnitude superior to Morrowind that I was shocked. That is, until you reach a certain level and the profound irritations of the broken leveling system becomes apparent, where unless you've apportioned your stats counter-intuitively, you're pretty much fucked by the hardcore monsters that will come your way.

Well, you've just stated the main reason why the flock of us think it sucked. It's not just the stupid levelling system that encourages you to raise all your stats in exactly the right order, it's that the WHOLE WORLD levels up with you. You go exploring a cave at level 1 and you know you'll be fighting rats for chests with 7 gold pieces, you go to the same cave at level 30 and you're fighting demons and getting daedric armour. It just kills the exploration. You're not part of the world, the world is part of you. A lot of the fun in Morrowind was trying to sneak past monsters that can destroy you in one hit, that's all gone.

The compass pointer killed all the immersion too. I loved having to follow landmarks in Morrowind (go north until you get to a pile of stones and turn north-west etc), and getting lost. The auto-travel is also stupid, and no, "you don't have to use it" isn't a valid point, because there are no alternatives like the silt striders, ships and mages in Morrowind.

In short, Oblivion took a lot of things wrong with Morrowind and made them right (interesting quests, NPC behaviour, combat) - and at the same time took a lot of things great about Morrowind and made them suck. That's why it's so frustratingly disappointing.

[zakalwe7]

While it's not perfect, a modded Oblivion gets rid of a tonne of the major and minor issues.

[Vestrit]

While it's not perfect, a modded Oblivion gets rid of a tonne of the major and minor issues.

Which anti-leveling mod would you recommend? I've looked a few up but am unsure which one to go with

I tend to agree with THA: yeah, Oblivion's not perfect but I've gotten hours of damn good fun out of it. The leveling thing is annoying, and the game would be a lot better if the main quest wasn't a bit dull when compared with some of the side quests. For instance, the Dark Brotherhood is a great story line and great fun to complete, and sometimes just wondering around the world itself and finding random quests to do is cool fun, but I'll be happy if I never have to go through another dull as shit Oblivion gate.

But I think they got a lot of things right with this game. I'm not a big RPG player, so maybe I've not played the games that make you guys think this one is so bad but I was pretty blown away when I first played it and I'm really looking forward to Fallout 3

[Space Bandito]

While it's not perfect, a modded Oblivion gets rid of a tonne of the major and minor issues.

Oscuro Oblivion Overhaul. Newest version. Total conversion. It is all about immersion. It has tons of settings and an awesome set up that lets you pick how diffucult you want the game. Lets you pick different options from lock bash to a realistic economy.

We can only hope Fallout 3 will have mods like this.

[Anya, Vengeance Demon]

Bethesda has announced the release date for Fallout 3: Oct. 28 for North America, and Oct. 31 for Europe.

[needle]

Which anti-leveling mod would you recommend? I've looked a few up but am unsure which one to go with

Oscuro Oblivion Overhaul. Newest version. Total conversion. It is all about immersion. It has tons of settings and an awesome set up that lets you pick how diffucult you want the game. Lets you pick different options from lock bash to a realistic economy.

yeah OOO is the biz. I was playing an earlier version (1.34?? Whatever was out in Spring this year). But you can't start it on an ongoing game. Mind you starting it again at the beginning is great fun to be honest

eta - oops zak here

[Anya, Vengeance Demon]

Five new gameplay videos for Fallout 3 here; haven't watched them yet, so I can't say what they're like.

[Jon AS]

Five new gameplay videos for Fallout 3 here; haven't watched them yet, so I can't say what they're like.

Looks really good. I actually think I might get this game.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know what kind of DRM they plan on using?

[haLobEnder]

Those videos, while looking great, didn't fully address my fears that this game will be as superficial as previous Bethesda efforts. I really like what I saw of the NPC interaction in the videos but I could see my optimism turn to disappointment if any of the NPCs dish out the same redundant lines as the previous NPC I met. I want Mass Effect level interaction here Bethesda... don't let me down!