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Videogame 'fans' need to shut up about everything

Rohit_N

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Serpent in the Staglands Project: Eternity Wasteland 2 Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong
http://www.destructoid.com/videogame-fa ... 4476.phtml
In fact, that's exactly what one man, No Mutants Allowed's Vince Weller, declared when Fallout 3 was released: "It's not a Fallout game. It's not even a game inspired by Fallout, as I had hoped. It's a game that contains a loose assortment of familiar Fallout concepts and names ... Electricity, pre-war electronic equipment, powered and still working computers (just think about that for a second), working cola & snack machines, weapons, ammo, scrap metal (needed by many), and even unlooted first aid boxes are everywhere."

Because the game did not adhere 100% to this one man's vision of what Fallout was, the game was no longer a Fallout game. Because various concessions were made to the loot and environment in order to keep the game playable and fun, it was a betrayal. Oh no, unlooted first aid boxes! No, it wouldn't make sense for such things to survive in Fallout's world, but it's a videogame, and it has to function like one, something that these so-called fans seem to forget.

I actually kinda sided with Sterling when he wrote that anti-column, but arguments like this are no longer even new. Like some have said, it's like there are more people whining about other people whining.
 
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Actually, Bethesda was pretty serious about staying true to the original Fallout (not 2, though). Of course they weren't going to make a TB isometric game, but that's another matter entirely (TB isometric games are long dead).

Anyway, I found the following blog post by Todd Howard very interesting and informative.
[url=http://fallout.bethsoft.com/eng/vault/diaries_diary1-08.01.07.html:15fh3rfb]Todd Howard[/url] said:
When we started Fallout 3 in 2004, we obviously had big ideas of what we could do with it, and I talked to a lot of outside people, from ex-developers to press folks to fans. What made it special? What are the key things you'd want out of a new one? The opinions, and I'll put this mildly…varied. A lot. But they would all end the same, like a stern father, pausing for affect – "but do not…screw it up." Gulp. Let me write that last one down a few times.

I'm going to assume that if you're reading this, you've probably read between 1 and 50 previews of Fallout 3 already (they're linked on this site). There's already too much info out there, in different forms and in conflicting ways, for me to cover or correct it all here. If there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that the information never gets out 100% correctly, and you will certainly never be quoted correctly. For the record, I never compared the violence in Fallout to Jackass, I compared it to Kill Bill…big difference. I also never said "fantasy is riding a horse and killing things," but oh well. Ultimately the game speaks for itself (certainly better than I do). The other thing to keep in mind is that preview comments often circle around the small-footprint sensational elements (Fat Man, toilet drinking, bobbleheads, etc), while sometimes missing the key points of the hour-long demo we give, which are: player choice, consequence, sacrifice, and survival.

Survival is a key theme of the game, not just for you, but for the characters living in the world. The no-longer-simple act of survival, and the uniqueness of it, gives each character special meaning. What has each one sacrificed to do so? You have to find water sources to drink from, and balance your health and radiation levels. There are countless sources of water. Yes, the game has toilets (just like…the real world), and if you want, you can drink out of them. That's a better solution than saying, "sorry player, you can drink all water types but this one." Don't confuse a preview mentioning toilets with what we're focused on.

I hope over the next year you'll come to see this website as a good place to get information on the game, right from us. Please know it's going to be a slow trickle all the way up to release for a few reasons, 1) the game is a long way off yet, and 2) we mess with the game until it's done. If something big changes that we've already discussed, we'll do our best to let you know. Suffice it to say, you should have more then enough info when the game hits the shelves to decide for yourself if Fallout 3 is worth your time and money.

The massive expectations of what this game means to everyone who loved Fallout, RPGs, and gaming-in-general is not lost on us. It's impossible to discuss the game with anyone without them referencing Oblivion and/or the Fallout legacy. In many ways, it's the sequel to both games. It's our "next" RPG after Oblivion while also being the sequel to one of the greatest games in the history of electronics. No pressure. We hear from everybody. If you have an opinion on what/how the game should be done, I guarantee we've heard it. From "don't change a thing, make it exactly like the others" to "I don't care as long as it has mutants," and every permutation in between.

If you know us, you know we work by a few key philosophies, and "reinvention" is one of them. I've seen too many things I once loved fall down the hole of numbing repetition, missing the innovation and flair the 1st one had. We tear down The Elder Scrolls each time and rebuild it, trying to find new ways of presenting the ultimate-fantasy-world-do-whatever-you-want-sandbox game each time. I guess I'm a product of Ultima 4 through 7, where I was at my "I can play games all day" period of my life. I saw Richard Garriott reinvent that game each time, from the interface to the combat to everything else. If any game is going to have the same impact it had years before, it must use new ways of doing it, because time changes not just the technology, but most importantly, the person viewing it.

And that's how we approach Fallout - find its spirit, the feelings it left you with, the impact it had when you first played it, and make that happen again…ten years later.

I also read the old reviews, which is a great way to get insight into how a game made people feel at the time. It's fun to read what stuck out to people back then, not just the world and its choices, but things that may look aged now, but were state of the art then; such as the SVGA graphics, the characters talking with full voice, and the over-the-top death animations. None of that registers now, but for 1997, the game certainly used the latest tricks to pull you into the world.

Obviously we had the old games to look at, and Fallout 1 became our main model and inspiration. I always preferred the tone of it, and it's the one we focused our time on dissecting. We also went through all the original source material, as well as the "Fallout Bible," put together by Chris Avellone, whose work is always fantastic. But one of my favorite sources, when we received everything (yes, everything) from Interplay, is the original "Fallout Vision Statement", back when it was called "Fallout: A GURPS Post Nuclear Adventure." This is the document detailing what Fallout was to be, and is a 14-point bulleted list. Here they are, in order, with direct quotes (enjoy – I know I did):

  1. Mega levels of violence. "When people die, they don't just die – they get cut in half, they melt into a pile of goo, explode like a blood sausage, or several different ways – depending on the weapon you use."
  2. There is often no right solution. "Like it or not, the player will not be able to make everyone live happily ever after. "
  3. There will always be multiple solutions. "No one style of play will be perfect."

The others are: "The players actions affect the world.", "There is a sense of urgency," "It's open ended," "The player will have a goal," "The player has control of his actions," "Simple Interface," "Speech will be lip-synched with the animation," "A wide variety of weapons and actions," "Detailed character creation rules," "just enough GURPS material to make the GURPSers happy. The game comes first." That one is actually crossed out in the document, as they dropped GURPS, and lastly:

  • 14. "The Team is Motivated" "We want to do this. We care about this game and we will make it cool."

Ten years later and I don't know that I would change a word of what we want to do today. Especially that last one. We have an incredibly passionate and amazing group here; I've been privileged to work with many of them for over a decade. Hopefully in another 10 years people will look back and say, "Nope, they didn't screw it up." Hopefully.

Flame away.
 

bhlaab

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Destructoid is such a faggot website for faggots and I'm annoyed that i have to sign up just to call this guy a faggot in the comments
 

entertainer

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they got BN seriously pissed:

Yeah, if I could interrupt the circle-jerk for a second. Two things.

1) Yeah, Jim totally went out of his way there to accurately portray people's opinions. Oh wait, no he didn't. He completely ignored NMA's positive response to BIS' Van Buren, which was RT/TB, with a movable camera and multiplayer. Does that sound 100% identical to Fallout to you? Was it dismissed because of that? Nope. In fact, rather than just blindly following mister hate here, try actually reading Vince's review and see if he accurately portrays the man's opinion.

2) The best response to people who are overly critical, in your view, is to troll and flame them? Oh wow, way to show you're much better than them, there. You've got to be kidding me. Pot calling the kettle black, much?

Here's a novel thought, rather than wasting energy getting annoyed at other people's opinions and then falsely representing them as completely one-sided, thus doing exactly what you're accusing them of doing, actually look at the arguments, dismiss that which has no merits, and consider that which might. Every opinion tends to have a point here or there, you don't have to agree with it as a whole.

I do love articles like this, tho'. It's essentially game journalists getting pissed off because consumers are way more critical than they are. Way to have your job done for you, guys.

also some dumbfuck

I found Fallout 3 to be a very enjoyable game and I've lost a fair few hours to it, and I really didn't think of it as "Oblivion with Guns" outside of the fact you could tell it was a Bethesda game. On the contrary, I find Fallout a very hard game to get into and I've barely played it because (ironically) it's different to Fallout 3. The combat is slow and cumbersome, it's not very forgiving and so forth.
the key to understanding destructoid readers :lol: :lol:
 

bhlaab

Erudite
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Nov 19, 2008
Messages
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I'm so sick of seeing these faggots with their "being a true fan is taking shit in your mouth and learning how to swallow" mentality.

If only because they're the same people who flood Roger Ebert with angry letters about how games really are art

WHICH IS IT are they pointless entertainment that you're not allowed to have strong opinions of or is it an artform meant to be scrutinized YOU CAN'T HAVE BOTH FUCKING PICK ONE
 
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Bloodlines? Only a few firearms were actually useful in the game, most were just pea-shooters with excruciatingly bad aim and slow reloading.

FFS
 

KalosKagathos

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Droog White Smile said:
Bloodlines? Only a few firearms were actually useful in the game, most were just pea-shooters with excruciatingly bad aim and slow reloading.

FFS
Now you're outright lying. Only .38 and Braddock 9mm can't hit shit. All the other guns range from fairly accurate (Brokk) to pinpoint accurate (McLusky). If you bothered to put some points in your firearms skill, that is.
 

Dirk Diggler

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Aug 24, 2009
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Go play the first three Sonic games again and try to tell me that it was about speed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDP4aJg_Ydk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUrir6FKvJ0&feature
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_ZdV-EGLpk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD3o0EE4k5E

Right, I'm sure it was purely incidental that you could beat most of the levels in under a minute or a minute and thirty seconds tops.

P.S. True patriots don't criticize their government. We don't need people who hate freedom around here. *spits*
 

ghostdog

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FO3 sucks because each and every character and situation you face in its "fallout universe" is devoid of any creativity , humor , wittiness , intellect. <- Everything the original fallouts had in abundance.

FO3 is a game created by monkeys that have a knack at making sandbox game mechanincs over and over again.
 

Black

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Messages
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Dirk Diggler said:
Right, I'm sure it was purely incidental that you could beat most of the levels in under a minute or a minute and thirty seconds tops.
They would make Sonic slower if they had the technology to make slow games back then you know.
I shud no im a gamin jargonist after all
 

Derper

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Aaaargh
roadwarrior_l.jpg


vs.

fallout-3-head-burst.jpg


No difference.
 

Truman

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Droog White Smile said:
Anyway, I found the following blog post by Todd Howard very interesting and informative.

[url=http://fallout.bethsoft.com/eng/vault/diaries_diary1-08.01.07.html:36mw9zcg]Todd Howard[/url] said:
When we started Fallout 3 in 2004, ...

That's quite respectable and a good read.
 
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Dirk Diggler said:
Go play the first three Sonic games again and try to tell me that it was about speed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDP4aJg_Ydk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUrir6FKvJ0&feature
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_ZdV-EGLpk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD3o0EE4k5E

Right, I'm sure it was purely incidental that you could beat most of the levels in under a minute or a minute and thirty seconds tops.

Those are speed runs. Playing normally, there is a high chance you'll miss jumps and / or run into cleverly placed enemies / spikes

Droog White Smile said:

For cases where the change goes explicitly against established norms of the series/movie/book/whatever, see They Just Didnt Care. For those where the change or plot detail is agreed by at least general consensus to be a legitimately bad one, see Wall Banger.

hmmm

might want to read your own links next time
 

Monk

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Good point by Howard, but they missed Ghost Dog's arguments.
 

Dirk Diggler

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Clockwork Knight said:
Those are speed runs. Playing normally, there is a high chance you'll miss jumps and / or run into cleverly placed enemies / spikes
I don't really see how pointing out that a skilled player is capable of circumventing challenges that would slow them down is an argument against speed being a central component of StH series' gameplay.
 

Black Angel

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I've just stumbled into this gem somewhere in the internet. No wonder Jim 'Cucking' Sterling carried on to love Fallout 4 because he can romance everyone in that game without any consequences :lol:

Looking at game 'journalists' recent shenanigans, I'm also amazed how they've been this retarded for a very long time now. At this particular article, Jim 'Cucking' Sterling didn't even make that article by taking into account that Van Buren was pretty looked forward to, nor the fact that Troika also wanted to gain the rights :roll:
 

RuySan

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I didn't mind Jim Sterling (quite surprising because i find fat people repulsive) but then he made a negative review of Avalanche's Mad Max and I became just like any other rabid fanboy.
 

taxalot

I'm a spicy fellow.
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Codex 2013 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015
I didn't mind Jim Sterling (quite surprising because i find fat people repulsive) but then he made a negative review of Avalanche's Mad Max and I became just like any other rabid fanboy.

I know, right ? Fucking people having opinions, ugh.
 

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