ERYFKRAD Long time no see. How have you been?
I dont seem to have privileges to reply to this on my profile, and i dont mean to stick around, so...
Not bad. Busy. But not with what i would prefer doing. Maybe if i steal Tims triangles on next reboot ill acquire his godly powers and prevent another RPG-pocalypse.
Ellef,
janjetina,
Dreed and
LeStryfe79
Regards gentlemen. As well as several others i remember well who chimed in one way or another.
He was, and I think he understood the narrative importance of the Fallout series more than anyone else on FNV working on the story arc (ex: it was common in F1 and F2 to have over-the-top mouthpieces (and visual mouthpieces) "antagonists" for a certain faction). That's why I think he made House and Caesar work well - but NCR felt lacking and tacked on (which wasn't John's call, but the problem overall was throughout the game there was no one was like "Tandi" who exemplified the NCR faction on a personal level - the leadership of the faction felt disconnected and distant).
John is a great writer, and he's very easy and up-front to work with. Would continue to work with him on future projects without a doubt.
Hanlon should have been the face of NCR. He was perfect as a deeply constructed, excellently written, well likable but realistic (non pandering) character and someone with intimate detailed historical and military knowledge of NCR. This doesnt require making him an actual leader (although he should have been moved somewhere else a bit more important in the narrative). In fact it would have been better if there was some other face assigned to that role of NCR inner corruption and nepotism, so Hanlon can play against it.
Easy to say so now, in hindsight, of course. But it had seemed obvious to me since i first found him in that out of the way base.
In general narrative and history of Fallout setting i disagreed with the whole deal of expansion of NCR, since that was taking the setting in direct opposite of what it was supposed to be. Simply, re-establishing pre-war society all over again is not Fallout. While logically it can only create a repeat of the same mistakes and failures that caused the nuclear war, since no side or factions behaves any differently. So even if one would play for NCR and succeed... it would be opposite of success. It wouldn't be an evolution of the Fallout setting, but its devolution and regression. Some may take that as "deep" but i only see it as a pointless endeavor.
This does not mean the setting must always remain the same, but i dont think thats the only option.
I clashed a lot about these very subjects with the team who tried to mod-resurrect Van Buren here, as i found the same problematic narrative caused implications for the setting in its files.
And then i never could stomach the idea and implementation of the Legion, either. Nor the half attempt to make it seem as if its a faction one could play for, or ideology one could subscribe to as "one of the sides".
Every single line we hear of their "philosophy" was just bloody stupid, if youll pardon my direct wording. And although the player has options to reject it and argue against and act against it, it was never anything i could see as remotely acceptable, logically, philosophically or realistically, in on itself. The Legion seem to have been envisioned as this absurdly violent, murderous, completely genocidal faction, but then the narrative seemed to have tried to establish some sort of moral ambiguity about it - and failed because there cannot be any actual logic and reasoning to such an ideology - and at the same time tried to keep them as villains of the story - which also didnt work due to the very attempt to make them seem ambiguous. (i expect that dysfunction of the studio you described played a role in that too).
Its very much like trying to establish that isil is somehow an acceptable ideology/movement that could produce an actual society, instead of a cancer that self destructs and eats itself and just destroys everything around it.
So, i would say that trying to establish such an extreme faction worked directly against attempts to make it "one of the sides" in the conflict.
Having a recruitable NPC wouldn't really made a difference - UNLESS that NPC was an actually narratively important character, with whom or through whom the Legion and all of its broken "philosophy" - tyrannical cult of personality - death/violence cult - would be exposed for what it really is and destroyed/changed. I believe there was this one interesting character... who got burned a lot, thrown in the river? And i think he was one of the main characters in the DLC? I would use him.
That way, on one side i would have Hanlon (NPC), on the other side the Burned Man, (cNPC) each very well familiar with faults of their factions and philosophies.
And then we could play.
(Not sure what i would do with House, but i would surely cut down and fuse a lot of Vegas content into a more post apocalyptic, condensed content more in line with originals atmosphere.)
Its not that i prefer simplistic binary distinctions, but i think a lot of people mistake moral ambiguity for moral complexity. And then the result is moral relativism, dissolution and absurd wishy-washy samey muddy effluence with no meaning. Its the difference between a story created by an actual master storyteller like George Martin, which has characters and events that are morally complex, a few that are morally ambiguous and a few that are outright downright fucking evil - compared to the pathetic fan fiction of a tv show where everything is just forcefully ambiguous, pretentious and disgustingly cheap.
I think you did very well in creating actual moral complexity in PST, so... with all of the above in mind as reference, i would like to hear what do you think about this issue of distinction between moral ambiguity and complexity, in narrative and gameplay, if you catch some time in near future. I feel that narrative and gameplay are very much interdependent, especially in RPGs so this issue affects both. And feel free to correct me if i got something wrong about Van Buren/Legion.
I can count the number of genuinely useful questions asked in the entire thread on two hands, and with room to spare.
This thread basically turned into a Reddit AMA after a certain point: a bunch of retards spamming inane questions, mostly asking about trivia (see: several such inquiries above this post) and hoping that Lord Avellone will bless them with a direct response, then getting upset about shitposting theoretically interfering with their chances of receiving an audience and a blessing. The shitposting had already been going on for many dozens of pages before the shift into a Reddit AMA, improving the thread's objective entertainment value immensely.
Also, some of the Obsidian fanboys have asked decently hard-hitting questions, but have largely been screeched out of the thread by adoring Avellone fanboys trying to protect their fifteen minutes with the man.
None of this inane trivia is useful or important in any way, and the stargazers are as transparent as plate-glass windows.
Luckily you were there to lead by example and show how its done to those you criticize.
Shitposting is "objective" increase in entertainment value? Aint you funny.
Might wanna take a step back and think about how you seem to be doing exactly the same as those you criticize, just from a slightly different prismatic angle in which you are correct and "they" are wrong. Not only in this context either. Im only saying this because i think you have brains enough to get it, mind you. Not that there isnt anything to criticize, there is plenty, but maybe one should stop just before falling into that ego trap. Thats one way to change your nature, or let it distort you. (cutting down on transparent butthurt is also very healthy in the long run)
