Why Fallout is not Fallout - General

Bethesda games are like fun parks, designed to keep your attention and make you go wow, but apart from that they don't really have any substance to them. You can go on a ride and feel the same enjoyment but if you're looking for a deeper connection, it simply isn't there.

[QUOTE=cccritical;52548620]I always wondered if posters who say this actually got to the end of the game yeah you had the option of letting the enclave take the purifier, and then poison the water so that any mutated untermensch who unknowingly drank "purified" water died orrr you purify it yourself so that 70% of the inhabitants of the wasteland don't die from drinking water too pure for them it's not as contrived or nonsensical an ending as everyone makes it out to be[/QUOTE] And I'm just beginning to wonder (because this is the first time I see someone defend [i]that[/i]) if you actually, like, paid attention to the events prior to the finale. Eden all but explicitly tells you that Col. Autumn didn't want to poison the purifier, that's why he needed the lone wanderer to do it. And the fact that neither daddy nor BoS knew about this crazy idea that no one was going to implement anyway, so the first one had no reason to irradiate himself while the latter had no reason to throw bodies at the memorial. There's literally no reason given at all to stop Autumn.

I've watched a lot of videos on the same topic and played a shitload of Fallout and all it really boils down to is "What is your definition of a TRUE Fallout game?" Fallout 3 and 4 focus more on exploration and having interesting stuff to do just as you roam around aimlessly while the first two titles focus more on the story, narrative freedom, worldbuilding, atmosphere, an characters. New Vegas is a bit of a blend of the two, which is why, as someone who started with Fallout 3 but then went back to experience what the first two had to offer, New Vegas is not only my favorite title in the series, but my favorite game of all time.

[QUOTE=cccritical;52548620]I always wondered if posters who say this actually got to the end of the game yeah you had the option of letting the enclave take the purifier, and then poison the water so that any mutated untermensch who unknowingly drank "purified" water died orrr you purify it yourself so that 70% of the inhabitants of the wasteland don't die from drinking water too pure for them it's not as contrived or nonsensical an ending as everyone makes it out to be[/QUOTE] To be fair, even if the enclave successfully poisoned the water, it would still be an awful plan. They're only tainting one (albeit large) source of water, but who's to say people will keep drinking from it once they notice everyone who drank from it died. And it'd be no secret to anyone that the Enclave fucked with it. They stormed the purification plant with vertibirds and soldiers decked in power armor. Then suddenly after that literally everyone who drank from the plants water all died. It wouldn't take long for people to put two and two together. Even if they did successfully poison it, it's not like there aren't easy solutions to purify it. Just boil it. And even if the poison could survive that heat, there's still another easy way to purify it. Just set up a tarp and collect the rainwater. Neither solution is that difficult. The only way the enclaves plan would make any sense is if they were to contaminate multiple water sources at once without anyone knowing.

[QUOTE=DinoJesus;52548875]To be fair, even if the enclave successfully poisoned the water, it would still be an awful plan. They're only tainting one (albeit large) source of water, but who's to say people will keep drinking from it once they notice everyone who drank from it died. And it'd be no secret to anyone that the Enclave fucked with it. They stormed the purification plant with vertibirds and soldiers decked in power armor. Then suddenly after that literally everyone who drank from the plants water all died. It wouldn't take long for people to put two and two together. Even if they did successfully poison it, it's not like there aren't easy solutions to purify it. Just boil it. And even if the poison could survive that heat, there's still another easy way to purify it. Just set up a tarp and collect the rainwater. Neither solution is that difficult. The only way the enclaves plan would make any sense is if they were to contaminate multiple water sources at once without anyone knowing.[/QUOTE] No one drinks from the river already because it's already horrible. So if they clean it, then poison it, and tell everyone to drink from it, at best some people are going to die and everyone thinks they lied about it being clean, never even knowing they poisoned it. I must have talked about how shitty Fallout 3's story is hundreds of times on this forum and every single time more idiocy comes up with it that I never noticed before.

[QUOTE=JCDentonUNATCO;52548907]No one drinks from the river already because it's already horrible. So if they clean it, then poison it, and tell everyone to drink from it, at best some people are going to die and everyone thinks they lied about it being clean, never even knowing they poisoned it. I must have talked about how shitty Fallout 3's story is hundreds of times on this forum and every single time more idiocy comes up with it that I never noticed before.[/QUOTE] [URL]http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Headscratchers/Fallout3[/URL] There's so many plot holes they had to make subpages for specific plot holes. :v: My favorite plothole is TALKING A COMPUTER INTO SUICIDE!

[QUOTE=gudman;52548745]And I'm just beginning to wonder (because this is the first time I see someone defend [i]that[/i]) if you actually, like, paid attention to the events prior to the finale. Eden all but explicitly tells you that Col. Autumn didn't want to poison the purifier, that's why he needed the lone wanderer to do it. And the fact that neither daddy nor BoS knew about this crazy idea that no one was going to implement anyway, so the first one had no reason to irradiate himself while the latter had no reason to throw bodies at the memorial. There's literally no reason given at all to stop Autumn.[/QUOTE] Gonna jump on the "hue hue you didn't pay attention" conga line and say there's an incredibly obvious reason why the player wants the Brotherhood to control the Purifier: whoever controls it gets to be the big hero distributing purr water to the people. The Enclave wanted it because it'd allow them to make every city in the state dependent on them for clean water, which falls in line with Autumn's more practical attitude towards wastelanders.

[QUOTE=gudman;52548745]There's literally no reason given at all to stop Autumn.[/QUOTE] Ah yes, no reason other than the Enclave's PURITY FIRST!!!! fascist nonsense and the fact they're willing to literally poison the well with an unstable compound which, surprise surprise, backfires and fucking turns potentially the only viable source of water in the region into an even more toxic hole that is now no longer radioactive battery acid but instead liquid genocide, designed to kill you on touch. And the fact the same guy basically got your dad killed. And the fact he tries to torture the information out of you. And the fact he then engages a mutiny against the president just in an effort to get you killed. Yes, no reason to stop him at all.

[QUOTE=cccritical;52548620]I always wondered if posters who say this actually got to the end of the game yeah you had the option of letting the enclave take the purifier, and then poison the water so that any mutated untermensch who unknowingly drank "purified" water died orrr you purify it yourself so that 70% of the inhabitants of the wasteland don't die from drinking water too pure for them it's not as contrived or nonsensical an ending as everyone makes it out to be[/QUOTE] Colonel Autumn didn't know about the FEV and I [I]think[/I] he intended to use it as leverage to bring the wasteland to heel not just murder everybody tho he was certainly cool with that. He was like Enclave-lite which makes it that more disappointing that there was no real Enclave option in FO3 [editline]7th August 2017[/editline] Enclave-lite compared to the literal Nazi's of FO2 not like a good guy with a flawed cause or anything

Colonel Autumn fucking tortures you out of information and if you comply and give it to him he pulls a gun and pops your head off, and if my memory serves me right he goes on pretty heavy-handed racist rants throughout. He has absolutely no regard for anyone's life and is just as bad as Eden, if not worse because he basically plans to work a mutiny against him which is why the president entrusts [I]you[/I] and not [I]him[/I] with the virus.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;52548944]Ah yes, no reason other than the Enclave's PURITY FIRST!!!! fascist nonsense and the fact they're willing to literally poison the well with an unstable compound which, surprise surprise, backfires and fucking turns potentially the only viable source of water in the region into an even more toxic hole that is now no longer radioactive battery acid but instead liquid genocide, designed to kill you on touch. And the fact the same guy basically got your dad killed. And the fact he tries to torture the information out of you. And the fact he then engages a mutiny against the president just in an effort to get you killed. Yes, no reason to stop him at all.[/QUOTE] Don't confuse Autumn's motives with Eden's motives. Autumn wanted to make the Jefferson Memorial purifier into an extremely valuable strategic asset for the water it provided, much like how the NCR made the Hoover Dam into a strategic asset for its geographic placement and the power it generated. Eden wanted to use the modified FEV to poison the water supply of the entire capital wasteland and make it inhospitable for non-Enclave life.

I have severe doubts that Autumn would have distributed the water equally to everyone and I'm quite sure he would have slam dunked that FEV into the water supply himself if it meant no more muties.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;52549004]I have severe doubts that Autumn would have distributed the water equally to everyone and I'm quite sure he would have slam dunked that FEV into the water supply himself if it meant no more muties.[/QUOTE] Isn't telling him about the FEV one of the way to make him fuck off at the end? Really not arguing that he isn't evil because Bethesda has never heard of grey but I dunno there's a little more to it or w/ev

[QUOTE=Zang-Pog;52548340]If you'd actually look into Fallout 1 and 2 more than what the video said you would realize they're one of the deepest RPG games we've ever had. They're roleplaying games that let you as a player play a wide variety of roles instead of forcing you down a narrow path of about three different things that lead up to similar conclusions in the end. Just because you don't have the attention span to enjoy such games doesn't make them dated, it just means you're more used to FPS games with watered down RPG mechanics[/QUOTE] I'm not denying this at all. I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy in this thread (it's died down for the most part now tho). Everyone was basically parroting the OP pretending that they played Fallout 1 and 2 first, claiming Fallout 3 ruined everything. Fallout 3 was a good game, in many ways better than the first two. Sure its dialogue/story was lacking in comparison to the original, but there's more to a game than that.

[QUOTE=Not64;52549091]I'm not denying this at all. I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy in this thread. It's as if everyone's pretending that they played Fallout 1 and 2 first and then Fallout 3 ruined everything. Fallout 3 was a good game, in many ways better than the first two. Sure its dialogue/story was lacking in comparison to the original, but there's more to a game than that.[/QUOTE] Like abysmal shooting?

And the weird physics glitches. I thought it was hilarious when sometimes you'd shoot an NPC and they'd start spazzing all over the place.

[QUOTE=Not64;52549091]I'm not denying this at all. I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy in this thread (it's died down for the most part now tho). Everyone was basically parroting the OP pretending that they played Fallout 1 and 2 first, claiming Fallout 3 ruined everything. Fallout 3 was a good game, in many ways better than the first two. Sure its dialogue/story was lacking in comparison to the original, but there's more to a game than that.[/QUOTE] There's quite a lot of old farts on this forum you know? Who is pretending? I played Fallout 2 before 3 came out and prefer the originals, although I respect the new platform the game has evolved to. New Vegas is king to me though. Fallout 3 is no where near perfect and it's not the first game that dazzled audiences on release only for it to be looked upon condescendingly in retrospect.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;52548117]Yeah, Fallout 4 is more overbearing with your son existing, but you're also given more freedom regarding them than people say. You can still deny Shaun as your son as soon as you meet him again, you can also just flat out deliver a load of buckshot to his smug face immediately. All of those SHAUUUUUUUUN moments people keep talking about also tend to have some kind of evasive dialogue option where you don't mention shaun at all, or options where you instead seek revenge for your spouse, rather than seek to recover your lost son. You're given a set of established origins (lawyer and soldier, married and with a single child), but your actions from the moment you step out of cryo are yours.[/QUOTE] I'd argue quite a few games do mostly avoid that issue, though. Including Fallout New Vegas, you're almost never really in a particular hurry there. Even when you're after Benny he clearly has enough of a head start that you're not going to catch up to him before he reaches his final destination anyway. On the other hand I'd argue Fallout 1 is one of the worst examples of it, because the time limit is so definite. Even looking for Shaun in Fallout 4 you're not like "I have 100 days until SHAUN FUCKING DIES" So from a narrative and even gameplay standpoint it is telling you to hurry like hell... but actually you should be taking your sweet time and doing quests because otherwise you won't be leveled enough to stand a chance later on. You [i]should[/i] be doing all the quests in Junktown which has so little to do with the water chip quest that you can't ask people about it there, but it makes no sense to do so at all.

[QUOTE=elowin;52549234]I'd argue quite a few games do mostly avoid that issue, though. Including Fallout New Vegas, you're almost never really in a particular hurry there. Even when you're after Benny he clearly has enough of a head start that you're not going to catch up to him before he reaches his final destination anyway. On the other hand I'd argue Fallout 1 is one of the worst examples of it, because the time limit is so definite. Even looking for Shaun in Fallout 4 you're not like "I have 100 days until SHAUN FUCKING DIES" So from a narrative and even gameplay standpoint it is telling you to hurry like hell... but actually you should be taking your sweet time and doing quests because otherwise you won't be leveled enough to stand a chance later on. You [i]should[/i] be doing all the quests in Junktown which has so little to do with the water chip quest that you can't ask people about it there, but it makes no sense to do so at all.[/QUOTE] Iirc they later patched out the time limit, but narrative wise it still remains.

They only removed the [I]second[/I] time limit in Fallout 1, when the game goes from finding a water chip to wiping out the mutants. Community mods such as Fixit allow you to mess around with both time limits. You still only have a hundred days to find the water chip in the updated game, which can be expanded to I think 300 days if you buy some extra water supplies for the vault. And New Vegas still has the same dissonance issue seeing as your character can literally leave the Mojave and go venture off into completely different regions and Benny will never, ever move on with his plans until you pop up at his casino. The idea is that you catch him by surprise too soon after he robbed you of that chip to be able to move his plans forward, but that doesn't really work if you've been away for what can amount to months of ingame time. [editline]8th August 2017[/editline] Should probably mention The Witcher 3 in that regard since it does actually lock away some content if they clash with the current state of the story: you can't start one of the expansions at all if you are early in the story and still looking for ciri, since Geralt actively refuses to go on vacation while his daughter is missing somewhere and potentially in danger. And most of the other activities such as contracts are explained by the fact Geralt needs to make some money to keep his equipment and supplies in check: since it's an extremely story-centric and linear RPG as opposed to games like New Vegas which are a lot more freeform in comparison, this does make good sense. On the subject of dissonance there's also Assassin's Creed which solves the issue in a rather creative way by simply having the events take place in non-chronological order, since it's all memories being replayed and it's kind of a jumbled mess with the animus user sifting through all this data back and forth.

Really didnt think I'd sit through that whole video but I did.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;52549254]They only removed the [I]second[/I] time limit in Fallout 1, when the game goes from finding a water chip to wiping out the mutants. Community mods such as Fixit allow you to mess around with both time limits. You still only have a hundred days to find the water chip in the updated game, which can be expanded to I think 300 days if you buy some extra water supplies for the vault. And New Vegas still has the same dissonance issue seeing as your character can literally leave the Mojave and go venture off into completely different regions and Benny will never, ever move on with his plans until you pop up at his casino. The idea is that you catch him by surprise too soon after he robbed you of that chip to be able to move his plans forward, but that doesn't really work if you've been away for what can amount to months of ingame time. [editline]8th August 2017[/editline] Should probably mention The Witcher 3 in that regard since it does actually lock away some content if they clash with the current state of the story: you can't start one of the expansions at all if you are early in the story and still looking for ciri, since Geralt actively refuses to go on vacation while his daughter is missing somewhere and potentially in danger. And most of the other activities such as contracts are explained by the fact Geralt needs to make some money to keep his equipment and supplies in check: since it's an extremely story-centric and linear RPG as opposed to games like New Vegas which are a lot more freeform in comparison, this does make good sense. On the subject of dissonance there's also Assassin's Creed which solves the issue in a rather creative way by simply having the events take place in non-chronological order, since it's all memories being replayed and it's kind of a jumbled mess with the animus user sifting through all this data back and forth.[/QUOTE] That kind of storytelling works for Assassin's Creed because it's all planned to be this huge game brand with multiple games, so they need something to keep on going. What's great about Witcher 3 was how much they fleshed out the characters, all very flamboyant, with individual personalities, motivations, grudges and so on, point me another game that did that so well, because to me TW3 is an incredibly grounded game in that regard, all this attention to detail makes it uniquely deep.

bathesda needs to let obsidian make a fallout 4: Somewhere-else again. [editline]7th August 2017[/editline] [QUOTE=Ganerumo;52549254]They only removed the [I]second[/I] time limit in Fallout 1, when the game goes from finding a water chip to wiping out the mutants. Community mods such as Fixit allow you to mess around with both time limits. You still only have a hundred days to find the water chip in the updated game, which can be expanded to I think 300 days if you buy some extra water supplies for the vault. And New Vegas still has the same dissonance issue seeing as your character can literally leave the Mojave and go venture off into completely different regions and Benny will never, ever move on with his plans until you pop up at his casino. The idea is that you catch him by surprise too soon after he robbed you of that chip to be able to move his plans forward, but that doesn't really work if you've been away for what can amount to months of ingame time. [/quote] Whats more, the battle of hoover dam just starts out of nowhere. like you do feel like you have a hard timer as the quests keep rolling on by but there really isn't any "Hey the dam can kick off between this time and this time" in new vegas. Gameplay wise, its a safe decision, storywise its rather a lost opportunity. Also I'd like to touch on the DLCs which for NV were fantastic, jumping between post apocolyptic noir to the utter ruins of the american military complex, to the primitive tribes, to the horrible research complex, yes they have problems, yes there's never really any reason why ulyssies goes after you, but compared to fallout 3 and 4, NV stands apart in strength of narrative.

[QUOTE=Sableye;52549787]bathesda needs to let obsidian make a fallout 4: Somewhere-else again[/QUOTE] Is it even known if it's just because Bethesda isn't willing to let Obsidian make another Fallout out or is it because Obsidian is content to just do it's own thing for now? With PoE II coming out in 2018 I doubt they're taking on anything else huge at the moment.

[QUOTE=Anderan;52549820]Is it even known if it's just because Bethesda isn't willing to let Obsidian make another Fallout out or is it because Obsidian is content to just do it's own thing for now? With PoE II coming out in 2018 I doubt they're taking on anything else huge at the moment.[/QUOTE] I've heard it said that Obsidian and Bethesda are on very amiable terms still, and that Obsidian would enjoy the opportunity to work on another Fallout game. However, I suspect that it is simply that Obsidian don't feel like taking on another big project right now. They're doing pretty well for themselves, in terms of keeping busy, with Pillars of Eternity. As you brought up.

[QUOTE=Ganerumo;52547926]Pre-war ghouls aren't exactly the most sane bunch and a lot of them also weren't particularly skilled in any domain. An interesting, unwritten but strongly implied part of the Fallout lore is that most of the brightest minds of the country ended up locking themselves away and cut all contact with the survivors, who for the most part were unqualified average people who were denied vault entry and didn't have a secluded enough location to hide from the bombs. Lots of scientists, engineers, etc ended up trapped in the vaults where they died slow, possibly painful and humiliating deaths as a result of Vault-Tec's experiments. Others willingly hid far away from civilization, sometimes with plans in minds and sometimes just to get the fuck away from people. And then the rest were shot on sight by the newly formed BOS which was made of particularly pissed ex-military who really weren't fond of those bright minds whose modern inventions lead to the downfall of all civilization as we know it.[/QUOTE] I mean about basic shit. Like, in New Vegas, people don't know who Elvis is. People don't know what fish are. In Fallout 4, people don't know what baseball was. One pre-war ghoul could sort out things like that if people just bothered to ask or listen. You'd figure one ghoul would walk by in 200 years and hear this stuff and say "uh no."

I was pleasantly surprised that he had criticisms of fallout 3 that I actually agreed with. Usually most people bring up plot holes that are sometimes actually explained in the game. It used to be on my bucket list to one day make a video like this, going through every knitpick people have with the fallout 3 point by point.

[QUOTE=Gmod4ever;52549907]I've heard it said that Obsidian and Bethesda are on very amiable terms still, and that Obsidian would enjoy the opportunity to work on another Fallout game. However, I suspect that it is simply that Obsidian don't feel like taking on another big project right now. They're doing pretty well for themselves, in terms of keeping busy, with Pillars of Eternity. As you brought up.[/QUOTE] Obsidian have been extremely busy the last couple of years. Working on Pillars of Eternity and two expansions, Tyranny, Pathfinder Adventures, and Pillars of Eternity 2. As well as maintaining Armoured Warfare until this year.

It would've been really nice if Obsidian had worked in the Fallout series into their schedule, and were able to produce new entries alongside Beth. That way, we could basically have two different Fallout series' running along side eachother that entertain both sides of their audience.

[QUOTE=eatdembeanz;52548936]Gonna jump on the "hue hue you didn't pay attention" conga line and say there's an incredibly obvious reason why the player wants the Brotherhood to control the Purifier: whoever controls it gets to be the big hero distributing purr water to the people. The Enclave wanted it because it'd allow them to make every city in the state dependent on them for clean water, which falls in line with Autumn's more practical attitude towards wastelanders.[/QUOTE] Except that Autumn has absolutely no motivation himself. What he wants to do with the wastelanders, have an irradiated sex slave party? Create a variant of NCR - well then maybe it isn't so bad, let them? Brotherhood has no plans anyway, they just want to distribute the water and go on fighting mutants in the ruins all day. Enclave literally does nothing, they have no motivation for doing anything, their president is retarded and glitchy, second in command is just sort of... there. And considering the fact that you can be evil in this game and can blow up Megaton for no reason at all, murder people or sell them as slaves for some caps - Col. Autumn's actions (he kills some people and tortures you) just pale in comparison. [QUOTE=Ganerumo;52548944]Ah yes, no reason other than the Enclave's PURITY FIRST!!!! fascist nonsense and the fact they're willing to literally poison the well with an unstable compound which, surprise surprise, backfires and fucking turns potentially the only viable source of water in the region into an even more toxic hole that is now no longer radioactive battery acid but instead liquid genocide, designed to kill you on touch. And the fact the same guy basically got your dad killed. And the fact he tries to torture the information out of you. And the fact he then engages a mutiny against the president just in an effort to get you killed. Yes, no reason to stop him at all.[/QUOTE] Same as above + the fact that dad killed himself because he didn't want the Enclave to fix the damn thing. Then again, I don't care about dad. Yeah, Autumn tortures you. Oh no, what a terrible person, he doesn't deserve to turn the purifier on. It has to be a guy/girl who blew up Megaton, sold a bunch of people into slavery, murdered people, ate people and engaged in cult activities. Characterisation in Fo3 is fucking abysmal, which is what I'm getting at. I can make up tons of reasons to stop Autumn, too bad the 'writers' of this game couldn't be bothered to.