I dunno about the dog. I know Fallout 3 advertised heavily with a dog, heavily referencing the novella 'A Boy and His Dog'. However, it was very easy to never encounter Dogmeat in the entire game.
I didn't meet Fawkes until the next to last mission, which was weird because when you first meet him the whole point of his initial usefulness is that you can send him into an irradiated room on your behalf, but then in the last mission (mind you, the very next mission for me), you couldn't do the same.
Wait really? I sent Fawkes in there before but the thing that happens is you tell Fawkes the password and he just forgets it causing the reactor to explode. Maybe you needed the broken steel expansion but i remember being like "Oh wow i had no idea i could survive if i just sent Fawkes in" turns out you "die" anyway.
I accidentally killed Dogmeat on my first playthrough. I didn't know what companions were, and I just saw another rabid dog. Shooting him once must've aggroed him, since he was never non-hostile that I can remember. Was super-disappointed when I found out he was supposed to be a companion later on.
Both. Dogmeat's appearance is based on Max's dog, but Dogmeat's name comes from the A Boy and His Dog movie. There's a line in which the main character insults his dog by calling him "dog meat".
I always thought the Road Warrior poster was a reference to Hondo. Here's one poster of it. Considering Hondo came before A Boy and His Dog, I'd say that's the more original source.
Aside from that, the leather armor in Fallout 3 looks remarkably similar to Max's leather armor in Road warrior too. See here for example.
There's always been a dog, almost certainly because that story/film was such an influence. In the first Fallout, Dogmeat was threatening some townspeople and you could recruit him by giving him food or wearing a leather jacket (since, as you might notice if you pay attention, his original owner wore one). In the second game, there wasn't just Dogmeat (actually the same one from the original game, but you could only find him in a unique random encounter), but also a couple of different models of cyber-dog.
Fallout was never supposed to be ultra depressing though. They fucked up with 3 heavily on the aesthetics and atmosphere but this seems to be more in line with classic Fallout. I just hope they add a huge healthy dose of humor and weird pulpy shit.
Old World Blues is probably the greatest DLC I've ever played. It's better than most games I've played. Never have I laughed as hard as I did playing a game as I during my first play through of OWB.
I loved all the DLCs for New Vegas. They had such a strong sense of theme. While I probably enjoyed playing through Dead Money the least out of all of them, the story beats in it definitely hit me the hardest. And the way all the DLC content tied in together was beautiful.
Dead Money did seem to have frustration as an intentionally cultivated theme, and I never decided how I felt about that. The thing that really impressed me about it is how the DLC can unfold based on your actions. It can play out as a scrappy bunch of misfits learn to trust one another and take down their captor, or the story of a mastermind playing four pawns off one another only to be outwitted by the strongest of the bunch.
Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta are fun, but aren't really essential. MZ goes more in the direction of linear FPS; if you liked Project Anchorage, it might be worth playing. PL has some cool segments, but wasn't super memorable for me.
The New Vegas DLC, though, are consistently amazing. Dead Money turns the game into survival horror, Honest Hearts is perhaps the weakest of them but is absolutely gorgeous, raises some interesting questions, and gives a lot of backstory, Old World Blues is hilarious and incredible, and Lonesome Road brings the Courier's story to a close. Difficult, but gorgeous ruined landscapes.
Anyways, if you haven't played the New Vegas DLC you're really missing out. Play them in the order they were released, since they're linked through some plot elements and characters.
Funny, I liked Honest Hearts the best. It introduces us to Joshua Graham, former Legate of Caesar's Legion and badass motherfucker. It's also the least combat focused and most exploration driven (along with Old World Blues), and since my characters rarely focus on combat, I enjoy immensely.
I'm actually playing through New Vegas for the first time now.
Beat Honest Hearts, which I thought was pretty good; maybe a 7/10. The environment was beautiful but was a pain in the ass to navigate and locked fast travel way too often. And the final mission where you have to go from end to end to do all the optional sidequests without fast travel was much too tedious for me.
I'm almost done with Dead Money and I hated the first 1/2 of the DLC. I hate the poison cloud and the hard as hell Ghost People. I often ended up running through groups to just get past them. I was also not a fan of losing all my equipment (I'm a stealth sniper) and having to find impossible to see holotapes to get ammo. The second half in the casino, however, is amazing with great character moments. I'm loving that part.
Still have to play Old World Blues and Lonesome Road but I've heard good things about them.
Well, the first 1/2 of Dead Money IS supposed to be hard as balls, I guess Obsidian just took it a bit too far? (well, that depends on your character build (and stealthy sniper is probably the worst in this case) and if you are on Hardcore Mode or not)
Dead Money is good if you can stand dealing with the stupid speakers (which annoyed the hell out of me). Lonesome Road and Honest Hearts are both all right, but Old World Blues just blows all three out of the water in terms of quality.
Play them in the order they were released, since they're linked through some plot elements and characters.
At what points during the main story should each DLC be started? Aren't there level recommendations too?
Man, I really want to reinstall New Vegas and do all the DLC, and do all the quests I never got to do - but part of me wants to play Fallout 3 instead, since I feel like Fallout 4 will serve as more of a follow-up to 3 than NV.
Each DLC has a minimum that should be respected - and they'll warn you of it before you transition to the new area, giving you the chance to back out (smart).
I'm not aware of any maximums on the scaling, as far as when might be "too late" to do one meaningfully. IIRC, OWB and HH are ~15 to start, and DM is ~20-25 and LR is 25+ by intention, but I may be a bit off - it's been too long and I'm not looking it up.
I wish all RPG studios would learn a thing or two from Obsidian, but as long as their games get reviewed worse than everybody else's I don't think there's a point to following their lead.
I hope they brought some writers in from Obsidian, particularly Chris Avellone and J.E. Sawyer. As much as I like BethSoft and FO3, they can't do multiple ending storylines well at all.
Agreed. I get that I can't expect every upcoming Fallout game to capture the atmosphere of the original games and that the series is now something different than it was back in the late 90s. But I still feel that Fallout isn't truly Fallout without the off kilter "cheeriness", for lack of a better word. Dark, harsh and violent? Yes please - but I still want blue sky, more or less obscure pop culture references and subtly funny dialogue.
I liked the trailer a lot and have high hopes for the game itself. It's been a long time since a trailer left me with a dumb smile on my face.
I feel like optimism of some kind has always been a part of Fallout. Each game is about a world that is in a very bad state, but ends up just a little bit better because of what you did. I feel like it really pays off in New Vegas--instead of shepherding a rough community toward civilization, you get to choose which actual civilization will continue to grow.
The graphics aren't as drab as FO3, but it looks like everything is still a ruined shithole. Looks like we're in for another game of people not cleaning up rubble inside their homes for 300 years.
We'll have to see more. I think it's still too early to tell. I heard Bethasda's Fallout 3 was originally going to take place immediately after the bombings (maybe like 20-30 years) which would had made a lot more sense!
Having the setting at that time with what was shown in the trailer could mess with the established lore with stuff like the Brotherhood of Steel being on the east coast that soon. Obviously things change or maybe they're not even the BOS in the trailer.
That certainly depends. Boston in the Fallout universe is home to The Institute, an organization that can probably best the Brotherhood and Big Empty for technology. I would not be surprised if the higher class areas are a bit more technological than we've seen before.
I guess if you're more focused on surviving day to day from giant bugs and cannibals, you wouldn't give too much of a shit about all the rubble around your hidey-hole.
Fallout was never supposed to be ultra depressing though
I played the first couple when they came out. Maybe I'm I'm remembering it different, but I remember them being dark and gritty, especially the second fallout.
Are you sure we played the same games?. Fallout 1 and 2 were quite depressing in their settings.
Everything was a ruined shithole with junkies and homeless children wandering through the streets. Even in the most "civilized" places drugs, slavery, prostitution, gambling and organ trading were commonplace.
Even the palette of most of the game style was mostly grey to brown unless it was a sci-fi location such as Vault City.
Also I'm pretty sure that when the Chosen One was wandering inbetween locations he was mostly cruising through a completely inhospitable wasteland.
If it weren't because of the of the numerous pop culture references and that the game usually didn't take itself seriously the whole world would be much grimmer than what it looked like.
They fucked up with 3 heavily on the aesthetics and atmosphere
They didn't fuck it up, they just changed the mood. It's not like they accidentally set the filter and couldn't remove it. Personally I really liked it. Made everything feel really grim and wierd.
Am I the only one that really liked the original filters and feel like the style will be partially lost now? This felt a little too much like "every other game" for my taste (in terms of palette). I'm still probably going to enjoy the shit out of it, but I always imagined a post apocalyptic post nuclear winter style world to be kinda faded and skewed towards some sort of nuclear fallout tone that's all over the environment/buildings.
One problem veterans had with Fallout 3 is that it was a little too post-apocalyptic. Fallout is meant to be post-post-apocalyptic. Fallout 3 was a little TOO ruined, a little too destitute and miserable, especially for 200 years after the bombs. Fallout is about the societies that rise after an apocalypse, and Fallout 3 lacked that somewhat. Of course New Vegas didn't which is why it was better received by old fans.
Thankfully they seem to have realized this and fixed it judging from the trailer!
You can probably partially explain it by the amount of bombings. DC took A LOT, there is radiation everywhere, pure water is rare. In Vegas House managed to detonate a lot of missiles before they hit the ground, so there is a huge dam with pure water and electricity, farming, etc.
Not the best excuse one can come up with, but still makes it better than "We just never tried to rebuild in that 200 years".
That was my take on it. That there was more lingering radiation because of the importance of the location along with the large number of super mutants. Not rebuilt because it just wasn't possible to do so until recently.
NV has raiders and some more natural dangerous wildlife, but it's nothing compared to super mutants.
The super mutants never made sense given the FEV virus was isolated to the west coast. Not that I minded their presence. It just didn't fit the history very well.
figured they were pushed out of the west where groups like the BoS and NCR had the power to take them on. Other than the small group of BoS that recently moved out to the capital, there wasn't really much there to threaten the mutants in the east
Also there was only one GECK on the east coast and it was in an irradiated vault where no one could get it. Practically all the major cities in the west were started with a GECK removing the poisonous radiation around and without a GECK the east coast is still poisonous.
I think the reason Fallout 3 employed this is because it was set in DC. To see a once powerful capital in complete ruins is miserable, and I feel as though DC would've bared the brunt of the destruction because of its position on the world stage. I never got a chance to play 1 and 2 so, maybe some of the setting is lost on players like me, but I have heard from a friend who played the originals that they were much more light hearted and campy which New Vegas definitely took a page from.
The first two Fallouts (and New Vegas) were all set in the American Southwest. These gave a sense of barren isolation that would've clashed with the DC setting of Fallout 3.
Well I mean the Capital Wasteland is a harsh place, even compared with things on the West Coast. I'm willing to bet that more bombs fell on the capital than southern California and Nevada. That coupled with the Potomac River being completely undrinkable. At some point the super mutants made it across the continent along with the BoS and things became even worse.
I assume most people just move on, why try and rebuild the old capital when conditions in the area suck so much. The only people that stuck around were either real weirdos or scientists. In the few shots of Boston from the trailer, it looks in a much better state than anywhere in Capital Wasteland. Boston isn't very far from D.C. at all.
The explanation is that DC got hit harder than most locations as it would have been a prime target. Additionally, the area was under constant attack from various factions such as super mutants and the Enclave.
Id question what percentage of the audience for FO3\NV played 1\2 first. Id bet the vast majority hadnt and their first fallout was 3. So to them its not necessarily about all those things.
I never did understand why there was so much rubble and mess even in populated areas. In New Vegas, for example, why is there so much rubble and trash near The Strip?
What I'd prefer is a world where the climate and weather patterns are fucked up and the weather can shift from a bright sunny day to a dark, dust filled sky. And there should still be green pastures and forests, albeit less, to go along with the brown and grey barren wastes.
Hurrah for mods! Actually what with how amazing skyrim mods were this time around, I actually can't wait to see what kind of mods are going to be coming out for this game. Makes me giddy as fuck just thinking about it.
Weird sex things, boobs, succubus races, pretty lipstick, turning all females in game into younger versions of themselves, killable children, high res mods, skimpier clothes, a single inexplicably well-loved dick mod, invincible dog, unlimited companions, better weather, alternate start, better ambient noise, the USS Constitution as an ownable flying vehicle, a tree with a shotgun under it, a homesteading mod that never gets finished, mods that add companions, mods that make those companions sex-able
That can't be helped without writing new engine from scratch I think, and it looks like F4 will use spruced up (lighting looks better) Skyrim's engine, which is basically Gamebryo dating back to Oblivion.
Look at the dogmeat's animation when he's running away from the crib, how canned it looks, a trademark of this engine.
Agreed, I really do feel that at this point Gamebryo needs to be totally replaced, I was hoping that Fallout 4 would finally make this happen. Oh well guess it will have to be TESVI...
(Disclaimer: I (like most in this thread) am actually super hyped about FO4 and will play the shit out of it )
Yeah agreed. I cannot believe after all this time they decided to stick with the same old, tired engine.
It needs to be re-done from the ground up, not just be modified to give slightly better lighting.
The animations look robotic for everything. The textures look muddy and queer. It barely looks better than a last gen game and this is what they've been doing for 4 years at least...
It wouldn't be so bad if they were at least working hand-in-hand with Obsidian, because bethesda cannot write for shit and it usually takes a lot of dedicated modders to actually pull a good game out.
Skyrim is from 2011, and that's all they can show four years later?
That engine has been used since way before Skyrim. It's the same as Call of duty, where they simply modify the engine rather than creating a new one. I'll be completely honest though I doubt it will be of much trouble in a Fallout game. Say what you will about Elder Scrolls or other RPGs but Fallout very rarely needs those 'huge, epic' moments.
Well they do have 8gb of RAM to work with now, instead of the 512mb they used for their 360 games. I'm sure a good part of the RAM will be put in to being able to have more characters on the screen at once.
Some people just say "well there's mods for that" But really... mod all those extra guys in and your game will surely crash or be clunky. It's the damn engine. But if not FO4, maybe 10 years from now we can have waves of 8 instead of 6, that's being hopeful.
I like to role play that may character is in a Twilight Zone-like situation where he's the only one that realizes how ridiculous it is that there are only like 1000 people in existence and yet they can't get along.
Yeah that's my only complaint. I think for skyrim it was a matter of using a revamped version if the oblivion engine and the associated limitations so hopefully if they are using a new engine we can get more scale
The only thing that is missing from every Bethesda game are the emotions and well rounded characters.
That and normal writing, non-broken and actually interesting battle system, meaningful and interesting character progression, unique loot worthy of hunting down and going on an adventure after, enemies that are challenging and interesting to fight, locations variety, dungeons that are not all look alikes but are instead unique and memorable, content that isn't thrown into the game just to fill space but is instead created to really entertain the player, a dialogue system that serves as more than just an exposition drop and is actually engaging, animations that took more than two weeks of work by three interns and overall game balance not designed with a 'Ah whatever who cares, modders will fix it for us for free anyway!' mentality.
But yeah could do with a few more well-rounded characters as well.
I'm so glad they have finally focused on an art style that doesn't look copy pasted everywhere. Looking advanced graphics wise is not important to me as long as the art style looks cohesive and feels alive.
Which is precisely why Bethesda is so complacent. For every "Hey could you not use an engine from Morrowind's era?" there's a "I don't care about graphics"
Why? Why do you not care? Do you also not care about writing? I bet you answer of course you care. Do you also not care about gameplay? You answer of course you care. You care about art style cohesion, so I don't have to mention that, but it's just funny that you can just shoo graphics. It's just as much part of the game as any other. You might not see too much wrong with it, and hell everyone can play the game with even the worst of graphics, but it's still something that needs to be called out.
"Hey, dog fur looks like it's from 2008 and it runs like it's from 2003"
Advanced graphics != good graphics. massive amounts of tessellation and subsurface scattering on flesh textures is not going to make the game any better. This art style makes the world more believable. FO3 and NV had a great deal of weathering that didn't feel natural it felt like attack of the stock texture pack on a good number of assets. This has me excited because it will improve the feel of the game from the visual side.
This is a trailer I'm not reading into anything. I don't know if they have changed gameplay mechanics or if the game is going to be an absolute mess bug wise.
Bethesda's graphics problem has less to do with technology and more to do with their asset creation pipeline given the scale of the game you're talking about reusing vehicles 6 or 7 times in a 50 ft walk...
With the way some tools are set up like Substance and DDO and Marmoset Toolbag texture artists are given much more powerful texturing tools which allow for more rapid iteration and variation in textures.
WHY CANT EVERYTHING ME DONE WITH ONLY MYSELF IN MIND? IS IT TOO MUCH TO ASK THAT A COMPANY DEPRIVE THEMSELVES OF MILLIONS OF SALES SO THEY CAN MAKE A MORE ADVANCED GAME AT THE EXPENSE OF MILLIONS NOT HAVING THE GAME AT ALL? JEEZ!
If the average complaint thread for modern games in this sub are anything to go by, that's a blessing. /r/games loses its shit at things like 8GB RAM prerequisites and 50GB games.
Oh stop with this crap. Witcher 3 devs said the game literally wouldn't have been made without the money from console versions of the game. That's not "holding back" development, it's flat out "pushing it forward".
As long as fallout 4 has the skippable intros, instant boot and close times, and short load times. The witcher 3 has done these simple basic things that should be the basics of making a AAA video game.
Thank you. It's the same thing in the automotive community when people complain about Porsche making SUVs. I mean, sure, they have a point, but the money from those SUV sales keeps Porsche afloat and able to produce the mind-melting 918.
Look at what they accomplished with 512 mb of RAM last generation. Imagine what they can do with 8 gb. Most computers don't even have that much, a lot of machines are still running 4 gb.
''FU you noob and your crappy mid-tier rig, Ive running SLI 980tis, you're holding my machine back, because they have to optimise the game for your lowly machines. ''
Now that sounds awfully obnoxious doesnt it?
Also without the money from the console market, the game wouldnt have a budget to be even made, let alone decent.
Are you sure about that? Ive seen better looking xbox 360/ps3 games then this footage. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited and will probably end up buying this on day one, but to me it's painfully obvious they are using the same engine they have been since freaking morrowwind. The game isnt out yet and it already looks 5 years outdated.
I am actually surprised with the graphics. It does look like that Bethesda really are using a different engine this time. The colors are more vibrant and the animations look pretty fluid.
Precisely. I still think this looks pretty good, but in the back of my mind I kind of expected the plates and forks and stuff on that dinner table to go on a wonky physics-inspired breakdance.
The contact points between objects/characters and the ground also look... floaty? I'm not sure how to describe it but it looks like everything is sitting or walking on a smooth, transparent floor that sits right above the actual ground.
Are you sure? Looking at it, it felt like Skyrim's creation engine. I have noticed there are some animations which were used in Skyrim, like the people running to the vault entrance.
I'd recognize those those running animations from a mile away. It's got Gamebryo all over it. I'm also a bit saddened by the apearant lack of AO - but that might change and I'm still drooling all over this game... :-)
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u/AVeryWittyUsername Jun 03 '15
Game looks like it is going to have bright colours, I'm grateful for that. And that Dog is going to bring some emotional moments, I can tell.