Editorial What's Old is New Again

[Clockwork Knight]

Which is just a gimmick and affects nothing - just like Oblivion's system - you could still kill anyone at first levels.

Oh? You can kill a Deathclaw at Lv2? You do know SOME creatures WILL spawn no matter what level you are in certain locations?

Level scaling only affects spawn points but UP, places that spawn Deathclaws will spawn Deathclaws no matter what level you are ... its not as if they scale to you and that is true to NPCs that have FIXED stats and equipment, Dave is the same when you are lv 5 or lv 15 as NPCs dont have levels, just fixed statistics.

This explains how FO3 scaling works.

http://planetfallout.gamespy.com/wiki/D ... blivion%3F

 

[Sceptic]

Oh yeah, there's the Intense Training one. It was present in FO2, in a milder form, though

Gain and IT can't really be compared. Gain gives you a max of ONE point in each stat and starts at level 12. IT gives you max of 10 points in ANY stat and starts at level 2. IT is much, much more broken. But FO3's more serious problem is that it's so easy to max all skils. Even in FO2 that was not possible as skills went so high and became so expensive past 100, though you didn't really need to take any of them past 150 anyway.

 

[CraigCWB]

What horrible elements?

The only thing i could complain about the game engine is the lack of a auto-target/attack system as KotOR but that is a designer decision as I am pretty sure the engine can do it.

Well, I'm replaying it now and I've got a lot to complain about now that it's not a new experience and I'm pretty much just sand-boxing it. For instance, the critter density is much too high and combat is almost constant until you've cleared paths across the map. Which brings up the the fact that the respawn is too slow. It really strains credulity that the player could literally depopulate the wasteland at level two in a couple hours of play time while all those caravans and power-armored patrols were unable to pull that off over a period of many years. Ans speaking of encounter density, the "special" encounters ain't so special. You literally can't avoid them if you try. I know, because I tried. I hit 3 or 4 just running from the start position to paradise falls. And every damn one of them was a "look at me! I'm a wastelander with no backstory and nothing to say! Come kill me and steal my crappy stuff" throwaway. Oh, except for that one that was "My name is who-gives-a-fuck and I have no backstory and the only thing I have to say is that I'm thirsty, so give me water and gain karma or kill me and lose karma it's totally up to you isn't this great!?" type thingie. Only Bethesda could make rare special encounters more common and more dull than ordinary critter spawns.

Oh, and another thing? It takes 5 minutes real time to run from one corner of the map to the other. That's an awfully small sandbox. And speaking of sandbox design, I'd actually rate Fallout 3 lower than Oblivion in that regard. Once you get past the "Wow, that's cool!" thing the NPCs actually seem pretty lifeless.

And then there's the modding community, which after 2 years seems to have settled upon the goal of turning the Wasteland into a playground for naked anime goth barbies. Who knew that's what Fallout was REALLY all about? In any case, I hope Obsidian puts a trojan horse in the exe reformats any hard drive that has naked anime goth barbie mods on it. They can always claim it was an unintentional bug that they are having trouble tracking down, right?

Most horrible elements were design decisions, like magical clothing and the boobleheads.

Yeah, those were horrible. But even worse was the fact that they intended the player "game" the system and be the most hideous and despicable possible human being until they got bored with that, and then turn around and rehabilitate their character into a respected paragon of virtue by handing bottles of purified water to beggars which are conveniently located in close proximity to the purified water dispensers. And so on.

And then there's all the ideas that had promise - like the whole slavery thing, for instance - where instead of depth and a meaningful RPG experience they went the shallow route and just made the slavers into randomly foul-mouthed bottlecap dispensers.

In NV we have 3 main fractions with their own path (Legion,NCR and House), also by the sound of a recent interview we have the 4th path as we take out the others and we have smaller factions (Kings, Khans, Apocalypse) that it seems we can influence as well.

I think that's a bunch of blah-blah-blah. In all Bethesda games, the player gets to be all things to all people. Except for whcihever group or groups is hardcoded to be the enemy. That's, as you put it, a design decision.

It seems to be a entire game BUILD on choices and consequences, if we go with House that means NCR and Legion will be pissed at us and also the other factions that are allied with them, no idea how much influence we CAN do with the smaller factions but still its something better that Enclave Vs Brotherhood of Steel.

"Choice and consequence" gets over-used way the hell too much these days. Especially in regards to dialog trees. That's not a fricking FEATURE. One would EXPECT that when they are presented with a list of dialog choices that when they pick different answers, they get different results. The only reason that's pitched as something cool is because certain studios which will remain nameless to protect the innocent shipped a lot of games where you could pick one or more than one or even all of the choices and no matter what you did you got to the exact same end point.

The average text adventure from the 1970s blows the doors off anything Bioware or Obsidian or Interplay ever did when it comes to dialog-based "choices and consequences". That's because the developers weren't trying to present the player with an interactive movie. They were trying to provide the player with an adventure.

Well, that's enough out of me. I'm just pissed off because Fallout 3 was the best RPG I've played in years and it's not a very good RPG. That's depressing. I've been hoping that Bethesda and Bioware would pool their talents and come up with some sort of hybrid that showcases what both do well. This partnership with Obsidian comes pretty close, but from what I've been reading in interviews it sounds more like Obsidian just got co-opted by the Bethesda machine. Oh well. MOTS but different is still better than most the pother crap that's been getting shoveled lately. I'd rather have Fallout 3.5 than fucking Mass Effect in a Fallout setting.

 

[CraigCWB]

But FO3's more serious problem is that it's so easy to max all skils.

Which doesn't matter, because even Forest Gump could beat Fallout 3 on the hard settings. Lack of challenge is FO3's other biggest problem.

 

[CraigCWB]

Oh? You can kill a Deathclaw at Lv2?

Yes, and so could you if you weren't too busy roleplaying and hid in the trailer while it stumbled across your frag mines and then finished it off with a couple grenades and a rock-it-launched frying pan to the head. You've been playing Bethesda games how long?

You do know SOME creatures WILL spawn no matter what level you are in certain locations?

Of course. That's so we can build deathclaw gauntlets so that we can take out whole outcast patrols, at level 2.

I recall getting a whole set of orc armor, an orc battle axe and some other orc stuff at level 2 in morrowind by using the excellent strategy of climbing up onto the conveniently placed rocks that they couldn't path to and then shooting them for half an hour with my level one bow. I've understood Bethesda's design philosophy very well, ever since then.

Level scaling only affects spawn points but UP, places that spawn Deathclaws will spawn Deathclaws no matter what level you are ... its not as if they scale to you and that is true to NPCs that have FIXED stats and equipment, Dave is the same when you are lv 5 or lv 15 as NPCs dont have levels, just fixed statistics.

I'm not sure what you are saying there, but NPCs do have levels. I just loaded up the Geck, and it says Dave is 1.5 times the players level, with a minimum level of 5 and a maximum level of 8. He has a generic merc adventurer armor and a generic chinese assault rifle.

I reckon my level 2 could take him, wearing a vault suit and armed with spiked knuckles :O

Oblivion had copy/paste dungeons, its not hard as you just duplicate the cell and then change their ID name and enter/exit points and in Oblivion after a while, if you seen a certain dungeon type you seen them all ...

It wasn't "after a while". It was right away. There were only 4 dungeon types, right? Ayelid Ruind, Caves, Forts and Sewers? And maybe half a dozen "population" types? That's one area where Fallout 3 blows the doors off Oblivion.

 

[Luzur]

It wasn't "after a while". It was right away. There were only 4 dungeon types, right? Ayelid Ruind, Caves, Forts and Sewers? And maybe half a dozen "population" types? That's one area where Fallout 3 blows the doors off Oblivion.

like "nuked house ruin", "nuked subway", "nuked cave" and "nuked city"?

 

[Drakron]

Well, I'm replaying it now and I've got a lot to complain about ...

And I have no idea why you quoted me when I was talking about the engine, I only pointed out Fallout 3 makes you play as a FPS as I prefer KotOR system.

But stil, its a hundred times betters that the isometric, real time with pause crap that BioWare done with Dragon Age.

Oh, and another thing? It takes 5 minutes real time to run from one corner of the map to the other.

That is complete bullshit, even in open areas you have mountains and other obstacles to slow you down and its bigger that Oblivion map that could also not be crossed from one point to another in 5 minutes, even in a horse.

And then there's the modding community, which after 2 years seems to have settled upon the goal of turning the Wasteland into a playground for naked anime goth barbies.

Mods are mods, you cannot use them in a argument of how good or bad the game is.

Fallout 3 mod community pretty much transitioned from Oblivion so that is hardly surprising, I could also say Dragon Age mods suffer from the same problem.

Yeah, those were horrible. But even worse was the fact that they intended the player "game" the system ...

I know.

And then there's all the ideas that had promise - like the whole slavery thing, for instance - where instead of depth and a meaningful RPG experience they went the shallow route and just made the slavers into randomly foul-mouthed bottlecap dispensers.

Opposed to what?

You wanted a slavery simulator? I have no idea why you think slavery have any promise on roleplaying, maybe you want to be one that you can (there are slavery quests) but the fact they are hardly nice people

Raiders are not slavers you know and raiders are one of the fractions that is hostile to the player, Slavers are just in a few locations, Paradise Falls and Lincoln Memorial. and they start out as neutral

I think that's a bunch of blah-blah-blah. In all Bethesda games, the player gets to be all things to all people. Except for whcihever group or groups is hardcoded to be the enemy. That's, as you put it, a design decision.

Never mind its a Obsidian game, that even in the very flawed Alpha Protocol had C&C.

Also what the fuck do you want? someone or something HAVE to be the antagonist and that is not a design decision, its storytelling 101.

"Choice and consequence" gets over-used way the hell too much these days. Especially in regards to dialog trees. That's not a fricking FEATURE. One would EXPECT that when they are presented with a list of dialog choices that when they pick different answers, they get different results. The only reason that's pitched as something cool is because certain studios which will remain nameless to protect the innocent shipped a lot of games where you could pick one or more than one or even all of the choices and no matter what you did you got to the exact same end point.

And then you show no idea what choice and consequence is, a choice is joining the Master, get dipped and get a game over.

Dialog choice can lead to a consequence and yes, most of the time its how its done but how the fuck can that be avoided? its still SOFTWARE and things have to be setup so the game understands what happened, triggers and flags MUST EXIST at this point.

Even Deus Ex did so, Paul Denton can only be saved IF you kill everyone on the building as they are tagged them being dead flags Paul as alive and moves it to the next stage.

The average text adventure from the 1970s blows the doors off anything Bioware or Obsidian or Interplay ever did when it comes to dialog-based "choices and consequences". That's because the developers weren't trying to present the player with an interactive movie. They were trying to provide the player with an adventure.

Bullshit.

Oh wait, BULLSHIT! YOU FUCKING LIE !!!

I played adventure games back in the day and they are linear as fuck, at best you have different endings but what sets them is what you do in the end.

THAT is not choice and consequence, that is "select the right dialog choice so I can advance in the game" as it WHAT IT DID, even Ripper that had a random element still have the exact same puzzles, same dialog and same solution despite we could not know what scenario the game was going to load.

MOTS but different is still better than most the pother crap that's been getting shoveled lately. I'd rather have Fallout 3.5 than fucking Mass Effect in a Fallout setting.

Mask of the Betrayer is not MotS, MotS stands for Mysteries of the Sith as far *I* give a damn and NWN 2 a boring pile of crap, never bothered with the expansion but by the looks of it, its the same crap ... the fact you like it speaks volumes.

Despite its many flaws, FO3 is a playable game ... NWN2 is not even that.

 

[CraigCWB]

Drakron,

And I have no idea why you quoted me when I was talking about the engine, I only pointed out Fallout 3 makes you play as a FPS as I prefer KotOR system.

But stil, its a hundred times betters that the isometric, real time with pause crap that BioWare done with Dragon Age.


I quoted you because I was responding to issues and claims you brought up. Was I a bad boy?

That is complete bullshit, even in open areas you have mountains and other obstacles to slow you down and its bigger that Oblivion map that could also not be crossed from one point to another in 5 minutes, even in a horse.


I'm guessing from the vigor of your response that you suspect I'm right but are too lazy to go into FO3 and verify it. The game is tiny. It probably takes less than 5 minutes. And "obstacles" don't slow me down. Why do they slow you down? My guy runs the same speed no matter where he is. Are you roleplaying again? Your naked anime goth barbie got tired so you went into "walk" mode? Got hungry so you stopped in at the diner, and then decided to stay the night?

Nope, sorry, but the only thing that makes the game map seem large is the encounter density. And if you clear the map - which is pretty much mandatory anyway - that's not an issue anymore.

And by the way, who told you Fallout 3 was "bigger" than Oblivion? I'm not going to re-install Oblivion to verify but I'm not buying that at all.

Mods are mods, you cannot use them in a argument of how good or bad the game is.


Of course I can, and I will. Particularly in a game that's designed from the ground up to cater to the mod community. The quality and type of mods being released is also a pretty good indicator of the type of person the game company is targeting which goes a long way towards explaining why they make some of the design decisions they make.

Fallout 3 mod community pretty much transitioned from Oblivion so that is hardly surprising, I could also say Dragon Age mods suffer from the same problem.


Yes, they do. And does that tell us anything? I'm sure Mass Effect would also have the ridiculous hair and eyes and the anime goth barbie thing going on, if it were mod-friendly. I don't know about you, but that's not MY demographic. Bethesda doesn't expect me to like their game. They aren't making games for people like me.

Opposed to what?

(re:slavery.)

Well, they already have a companion system in the game. One thing they could have done is let you keep slaves you captured and use em as packmules. Or if that would have been unbalancing, maybe buy them back. There are mods that try to do that but they seriously hose up the game (at least for me) with their scripting errors and their bugs. The devs could have done it much better than 3rd party modders and it would have been completely in keeping with the game setting. Also, what happens when you get in good with the slavers? They give you different one liner greetings and a random trivial "gift" like a stimpack once in a while. Could that be any more disappointing? And so on. And don't get me started on how lame Canterbury Commons - the alleged trade hub - was in this game.

But really, I shouldn't have to explain to you how they could have added more depth. Unless you're borderline retarded or ADD I'm sure there were a lot of times you said to yourself "This is cool, but I wish they'd have let me do x, y and z!". Some of those things you wanted and that I wanted they could have done quite easily, but they made a design decision not to. They were probably worried that their target audience would get bored or confused.

You wanted a slavery simulator? I have no idea why you think slavery have any promise on roleplaying, maybe you want to be one that you can (there are slavery quests) but the fact they are hardly nice people


The slavery simulator is already there. I just wanted it done better. There isn't any aspect of this game that wouldn't have been better and more interesting with a more imaginative and in-depth treatment. And what does "nice people" have to do with anything? The player is not a "nice person" unless you decide to skip whole sections of the game. The player is a greedy self serving asshole. Just like everyone else in the wasteland.

And then you show no idea what choice and consequence is, a choice is joining the Master, get dipped and get a game over.

Dialog choice can lead to a consequence and yes, most of the time its how its done but how the fuck can that be avoided? its still SOFTWARE and things have to be setup so the game understands what happened, triggers and flags MUST EXIST at this point.

Even Deus Ex did so, Paul Denton can only be saved IF you kill everyone on the building as they are tagged them being dead flags Paul as alive and moves it to the next stage.

I'm not here to school you on the history of computer games.

Bullshit.

Oh wait, BULLSHIT! YOU FUCKING LIE !!!


So says the guy who didn't think it was possible to kill a deathclaw at level two, and who claimed that NPCs don't have levels or stats in FO3.

Whatever. Go play one of those text adventures and then come back and tell me they didn't have more and better "C&C" than any new game has displayed? There are "game over" choices every couple of minutes in most of them.

I played adventure games back in the day and they are linear as fuck, at best you have different endings but what sets them is what you do in the end.


Right. You're a master gamer, and a master design analyst. I forgot. Silly me.

Mask of the Betrayer is not MotS, MotS stands for Mysteries of the Sith as far *I* give a damn and NWN 2 a boring pile of crap, never bothered with the expansion but by the looks of it, its the same crap ... the fact you like it speaks volumes.


I'm arguing with somebody who doesn't recognize one of the most commonly used acronyms in the game industry? lol

More. Of. The. Same.

Despite its many flaws, FO3 is a playable game ... NWN2 is not even that.

I don't disagree. I've stated several times on this website that I despise the type of games that Bioware and their fellow travelers are making these days. I stated right here in this thread that I liked FO3 more than any other RPG in recent years. I even liked it better than Oblivion, though to be fair Oblivion is the better game from an RPG standpoint. FO3 is just more fun. I weigh "fun" more heavily, because neither amounts to much evaluated as an RPG.

 

[CraigCWB]

like "nuked house ruin", "nuked subway", "nuked cave" and "nuked city"??

Yeah, and don't forget the vaults!

FO3 does use the same recipe as past Bethesda games with having a limited number of "schemes" that they use for interior locations and a limited number of population spawns, but they did a much better job with the illusion that each location was different. Except for the subway stations... but then in reality subway stations aren't really all that different from one to the next, are they?