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[DAREALGUMMY]

I don't think anybody or even the article has any issue with this. The article takes issues with populated settlements and their respective cultures not progressing at all or even not providing any reason for existing the way they do.

Okay sure, I think SOME settlements make sense like Rivet City. I don't remember exactly how it went in to detail but weren't the scientists there making crops there? Isn't that some sort of progression? Isn't there caravans going all around the Capital wasteland? I know they're small compared to the big ones in FO1 but they're something. Megaton might be the hardest to defend and I don't want to. Only thing I can fathom is Colin Moriarty uses his riches to keep it going so he can get richer.I feel like that area in the US is not exactly organized and well put together like in the West. Hell the chapter of BoS is with conflict with itself. It's all a big warzone ready to happen. Everything is almost at a standstill for a reason. The Enclave are planning to take over so they can mold it in to their own thing while the BoS is determined to stop them because Lyons ignored their main objective.
In no way am I saying is FO3 is perfect, hell, I think the shandification of Fallout 3 video is brilliant. But I don't see how these flaws make FO3 a bad game because of these mistakes.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

Also I don't even care about the story and I barely even scanned through it at the end but wasn't one factions goal to stick a "medicine" or virus in the water? so obviously the factions had very different goals, hence the battle. I mean I barely read some of the dialogue but I'm pretty sure even I got that much out of it.

Nope. Just a race to see who was the one to push the button is all. /s

President Eden wanted to poison the water supply to kill basically everybody. But the thing is Eden was a powerless figurehead over the Enclave (who was actually lead by Autumn), and could possibly be dead by the final battle anyways. The last bit really was a "race to see who was the one to push the button".

 

[lazygecko]

The whole idea and execution of Megaton always came across as really hamfisted to me. The extra cynical part of me wants to believe they just constructed this town and the quest to detonate the nuke just so they could have a nice vertical slice spectacle for their E3 presentation. Not unlike how certain movies shoehorn in stuff merely to have "trailer moments".

 

[Kabuki Waq]

Bethesda is the most overrated janky dev of all time. The AI in these games suck so much ass that it ruins all immersion.

 

[bengraven]

This is stupid.

The only issue Fallout 3 has is that it actually feels like a prequel to Fallout 1 and 2, despite taking place 200 years later.

It's a fucking great game and NMA people need to get over it.

 

[DAREALGUMMY]

President Eden wanted to poison the water supply to kill basically everybody. But the thing is Eden was a powerless figurehead over the Enclave (who was actually lead by Autumn), and could possibly be dead by the final battle anyways. The last bit really was a "race to see who was the one to push the button".

But there was motivation behind it, that's the difference from that picture. Eden had a clear picture of what the world was to be. The virus would have wiped out anyone who wasn't part of the Enclave. Autumn disagreed with Eden most of the time and that's why he just went nuts at the end. He had his own ideals for a new US.

 

[lukeskymac]

The only issue Fallout 3 has

Come on.

 

[bigace33]

Eh, opinions vary. Fallout 3 is one of the greatest games ever made. In fact, I'm going to reinstall it and play it again before FO4 drops.

 

[Arulan]

This is stupid.

The only issue Fallout 3 has is that it actually feels like a prequel to Fallout 1 and 2, despite taking place 200 years later.

It's a fucking great game and NMA people need to get over it.

Criticism, how does it work?

it doesn't make sense that the ARMY just stops looking for you in GTA either but hey we all gotta dissect games because they are realistic and meant to be, right? I mean if you want to pick out plot holes go for it, but nothing about fallout was designed to be realistic, just the fact that hey I can try to survive in this messed up crazy world.

Video games aren't exempt from criticism that other forms of media would receive for doing similarly. When creating fictional worlds, consistency is important. The setting is just as important as any other part of the story. This is especially true for RPGs and genres with strong focuses on setting and story, otherwise you're consistently breaking your suspension of disbelief. Most people may not care when they play GTA, but the fact that you can't alter the state of the world, damage anything, or that the game's simulation is only running for a small area around you ruins any belief that the city is real.

 

[tbb033]

This is like complaining about how Joel/Mike can eat and breathe on the Satellite of Love.

It's not meant to be some hyper real well thought out apocalypse simulator, it's supposed to be fun. And it succeeds at that. In droves.

 

[tbd]

Straight to the point, right? Explaining how you think such a short story in a video game is shit should never require 8.000 words. Is this his first text?

Before anyone tries to "call me out" on my pic or something, I know FNV has its own share of issues, but it's still in another league entirely.

Nah, enjoyed F3 as much as I enjoyed FNV, the invisible walls everywhere in the overworld of FNV, the empty settlements with two important characters (why did the super mutant mansion even have multiple floors?) and lackluster licensed soundtrack hurt it pretty bad. To me nothing comes close to the Tranquility Lane or that cannibal families that pretend to be an American suburb picture-book-family until you find it out which was almost everything I love about Fallout.

 

[tuxfool]

But I don't see how these flaws make FO3 a bad game because of these mistakes.

I also don't think that this is being argued by most people here. However, they are inherent flaws in the game and depending on the person those flaws don't compare favourably to both previous (1&2) and subsequent NV games.

Some people prefer that the context of the world follows internal logic and rules in a sensible manner. FO3 doesn't in various places.

 

[HK-47]

This is stupid.

The only issue Fallout 3 has is that it actually feels like a prequel to Fallout 1 and 2, despite taking place 200 years later.

It's a fucking great game and NMA people need to get over it.

Like someone has to be a NMA flamelord to criticize Fallout 3.

 

[tintin1029]

Oh god, in Part two he rips off MrBtongue even harder. Even mentions the whole "What do they Eat?" thing.

 

[Imperfected]

I do think there's a middle-ground between "Fallout 3 is completely nonsensical" and "anyone questioning Fallout 3's setting is over-analyzing a perfectly good narrative".

As a for instance: I've noticed in most complaints about Fallout 3 that people don't seem to have a problem with Oasis. Oasis is campy, it's full of scientifically improbable (to put it kindly) stuff; it's very "Fallout" in the feel of it. There are, perhaps, a few minor "narrative mechanics" about it that don't add up - for instance, the fact the water in Oasis all seems to be irradiated, or questions about why the Wasteland's mutant wildlife hasn't overrun (or isn't at least trying to overrun) a fertile place with a working ecosystem - but none of them really add up to enough to break suspension of disbelief for most players.

I think that Oasis is evidence that a lot of the areas of Fallout 3 have serious narrative problems. You have evidence here that the players who are complaining can be induced to "buy in" to the narrative. They are willing to achieve suspension of disbelief and go along with the setting. They have done so in parts of the game where they felt comfortable doing it. The "problem" areas - Megaton, Tenpenny Tower, Little Lamplight, etc. - are problems not because these players are completely unwilling to participate in the setting and narrative, but because they are a bridge too far in terms of accepting certain contrivances or plot holes.

Though, my personal complaint will always be an artistic one: for as much as Bethesda sacrificed the potential for more coherent setting and narrative for the sake of having the game take place in Washington, D.C., I honestly don't feel like they did much with it. There are a few somewhat underwhelming set-pieces and one or two mildly chuckle-worthy historical references, and that seems to be the entire sum of all value they extracted from using the District of Columbia as their setting. I don't think it was worthwhile when put up against all the narrative and aesthetic problems it caused. (I do think it could have been, it's just their use of the city in the setting is not spectacular.)

 

[foxtrot3d]

Oh god, in Part two he rips off MrBtongue even harder. Even mentions the whole "What do they Eat?" thing.

Yup. I think he makes some good points but he blatantly rips off of MrBTongue's excellent analysis without even crediting him. MrB differentiated FO3 from NV perfectly. Bethesda used FO3 to construct scenarios that would make for interesting gameplay such as a town built around a bomb, Camp Searchlight, the Super Mutant filled Capital Wasteland, etc. But, while these areas are fun they make little narrative sense. Obsidian on the other hand treat their world as much as a character than the story itself and thus care more about weaving the narrative of their game into the world itself so that the line between story and side content becomes blurred, narrative cohesion is more important to Obsidian that constructing purely interesting/fun gameplay mechanics.

FO3 is still a great game that is a lot of fun but it makes no narrative sense.

 

[joecanada]

Criticism, how does it work?



Video games aren't exempt from criticism that other forms of media would receive for doing similarly. When creating fictional worlds, consistency is important. The setting is just as important as any other part of the story. This is especially true for RPGs and genres with strong focuses on setting and story, otherwise you're consistently breaking your suspension of disbelief. Most people may not care when they play GTA, but the fact that you can't alter the state of the world, damage anything, or that the game's simulation is only running for a small area around you ruins any belief that the city is real.

Hey I don't disagree with you but unfortunately video games are so far behind in world building, story, narrative quality that I mostly like the campy B rated stories in games because they are generally at least a laugh while the ones that actually try to be serious are pretty much just bad overall. There's no "Godfather" or even "Star Wars" out there in terms of video game stories. I liked fallout 3 for the corny jokes and great 50s era fearmongering about communists and the posters, politics, etc... not so much the actual story of finding a pure water source.
My issue is with people picking on FO3 consistently as doing something worse than other games like it really pales in comparison , but really is only a fraction worse than most. Criticism is good if it gets better games, but so far its pretty spotty out there and "press X to skip cutscene" will be my go to move many times.
Spot on with your analysis of GTA though. They really haven't done anything with it since GTA3, there should be a lot more immersion by now.

Edit - I should also note that many video game stories which are touted as good are blatant copies of movies, Rockstar is the king of this.

 

[Tunavi]

Does fallout 4 fix a lot of the fo3/nv problems?

never played any

 

[tintin1029]

I've been reading more of it.

Is it just me or is becoming Plinkett the only way to critique something nowadays. Like, I'm reading this with Plinkett's voice in my head narrating it.

 

[Horse Detective]

Too bad it was awesome, popular, and sold tons.

 

[draetenth]

Does fallout 4 fix a lot of the fo3/nv problems?

never played any

? Fallout 4 isn't out yet. We can only go by some trailers so we don't know if Fallout 4 fixes anything.

 

[foxtrot3d]

Does fallout 4 fix a lot of the fo3/nv problems?

never played any

How would we know?

 

[Ogimachi]

? Fallout 4 isn't out yet. We can only go by some trailers so we don't know if Fallout 4 fixes anything.

We know it's still using gamebryo, so there's that.

 

[Sotha_Sil]

While I still find Fallout 3 to be a very enjoyable game, and one of last gen's best games, it does not fit in the Fallout world very well. New Vegas, however, is my clear game of the generation.

From the brief bits we've seen, it looks like Fallout 4 might be a bit more in-line with things, dialog system notwithstanding.

It's not supposed to be about the barren wasteland that's seemingly impossible to overcome, it's about rebuilding through the wasteland. In a time when humans should be banding together to build something new from the ashes (something they are in every other Fallout game quite successful at), they often revert to their base desires that brought about the apocalypse in the first place.

 

[tintin1029]

We know it's still using gamebryo, so there's that.

And it has a player character that literally speaks it's dialogue. So that kinda takes away the whole player Agency feel that FO1,2 and NV had.

 

[lukeskymac]

And it has a player character that literally speaks it's dialogue. So that kinda takes away the whole player Agency feel that FO1,2 and NV had.

And that dialog has been dumbed down. And that there are no more skills, only perks. Also Intelligence is literally useless now. Figures.

 

[Arulan]

Criticism is good if it gets better games.

That would certainly be ideal, but money talks louder. Much like other media industries, what caters to the mainstream has little to do with the quality of said media.

As for Bethesda, I believe they hit their inflection point with Morrowind and have been on a decline ever since. They certainly won't be turning back after the commercial hit that was Skyrim. It doesn't help that professional critics are often oblivious to these problems, and then proceed to give mediocrity glamorous reviews and GOTYs. Why didn't critics point out the narrative and setting issues of Fallout 3? Why was the use of quest markers in Oblivion not questioned after Morrowind when it has such repercussions? Why is the "fake" nature of the simulation in GTA ignored when it's one of the largest focuses of the franchise?

That said, I don't think criticism needs to serve that purpose. In academia works of art are discussed for years before reaching any consensus. Video games may not have much presence in academia but discussions such as this one serve a similar purpose. How often are games released to incredible hype and praising reviews to be reflected on a few months after release to find out that it has numerous problems and not deserving of the initial praise?

 

[googoomuck22]

And that dialog has been dumbed down. And that there are no more skills, only perks. Also Intelligence is literally useless now. Figures.

none of that is confirmed though is it

 

[Tyrus]

The fact that some posters are in here saying they barely read the dialogue and just wanted to shoot shoot bang bang things shows a large chunk of those who loved Fallout 3 and hand-wave the narrative and characterisation issues don't really care about the story or characters or world consistency in the long-run - they're exactly who Bethesda targeted in their game design, those who want to get lost in exploration and the the craziness of their version of the Fallout world and just shoot things.

Maybe that's why many disliked New Vegas? You actually had to think and didn't have landmarks right next to each other everywhere, so exploration for interesting things took more effort?

I personally love New Vegas and I think it's multiple dialogue choices, use of the skills and perks, factions, reputation and storyline is far superior, even though I thought F3 was initially still better after my first playthrough of NV. It just feels more like the Fallout world, not some theme park with ridiculous things that throw cohesion out the window (Little Lamplight is so stupid).

The complaints aren't about realism, it's about how Fallout 3 offers up a story (clean the water) but doesn't even stick to its own rules and just bends them whenever it needs to make a plot point work.

 

[joecanada]

That would certainly be ideal, but money talks louder. Much like other media industries, what caters to the mainstream has little to do with the quality of said media.

As for Bethesda, I believe they hit their inflection point with Morrowind and have been on a decline ever since. They certainly won't be turning back after the commercial hit that was Skyrim. It doesn't help that professional critics are often oblivious to these problems, and then proceed to give mediocrity glamorous reviews and GOTYs. Why didn't critics point out the narrative and setting issues of Fallout 3? Why was the use of quest markers in Oblivion not questioned after Morrowind when it has such repercussions? Why is the "fake" nature of the simulation in GTA ignored when it's one of the largest focuses of the franchise?

That said, I don't think criticism needs to serve that purpose. In academia works of art are discussed for years before reaching any consensus. Video games may not have much presence in academia but discussions such as this one serve a similar purpose. How often are games released to incredible hype and praising reviews to be reflected on a few months after release to find out that it has numerous problems and not deserving of the initial praise?

true its a hype industry like most media and I'm learning to get the old GOTY editions or whatever for a lot of these games. Skyrim for instance is a good game but again its the focus on this huge world with the same "go to cave get treasure" type quests, "kill this guy" or similar. I would love a word a third that size but more secrets, interaction, destructible environments, etc... hell I was just thinking about it and almost forgot skyrim had an actual story.

 

[Brakke]

Dude has a bad tone but his basic premise is fine. "Blistering stupidity" get real.

But whatever. Fallout 3 excels at tableau and in little bottle episode adventures. Plenty to like about that game.

 

[Fredescu]

The silliness of locating the water purifier at the Jefferson Memorial is another good example of how Fallout 3 tends to be about providing a visual spectacle over something that makes sense in a story. I don't think this is a bad thing in and of itself, but the previous games in the series (and the one after it) appealed to people who liked text and plot and story, so there's more backlash than there would have been if it had just been a standalone IP.

 

[lukeskymac]

none of that is confirmed though is it

Dialog - see E3 presentation
Skills - No skills tab on new PipBoy, also see below
Intelligence - Now only increases XP gained. So, useless.

 

[googoomuck22]

Dialog - see E3 presentation
Skills - No skills tab on new PipBoy, also see below
Intelligence - Now only increases XP gained. So, useless.

well as for dialogue we saw what, 2 conversations? which are also evidently very early on in the game, we have no idea if there have been concessions made to the dialogue system as a result of a voice protagonist.

Skills, again we don't know for certain they're out, evidently they're there in some form as in the E3 presentation we see a bobblehead for barter http://imgur.com/g3N7Y9e. Also some of the gun crafting requires a certain 'science' or 'gun' level http://i.imgur.com/FhpabhZ.png

so yeah, certainly nothing concrete yet

 

[bender]

Intelligence - Now only increases XP gained. So, useless.

Really? That seems like an odd choice.

 

[Enduin]

Intelligence - Now only increases XP gained. So, useless.

That's a bit of an overstatement seeing as we have no idea how large or small an impact it will have some XP gain, especially when the level cap seems to be at least 50 this time around and not 30. Having a low INT might mean a painfully slow lvling process.

INT also probably is a requirement for certain perks so dumping it will lock you out of a good number of them most likely which isn't exactly smart. Plus we have no idea if or how speech checks work out which INT is usually a top contender in. So I'd hardly say it's useless. At least with what we know so far.

 

[Ogimachi]

none of that is confirmed though is it

Skills are gone, it looks they were either replaced by perks with multiple ranks or a skyrim-like system.

Intelligence thing is confirmed, though:

 

[Femmeworth]

WTF

Oh god, that just made me think. Will 4 have enemy level scaling?

 

[Enduin]

WTF

Oh god, that just made me think. Will 4 have enemy level scaling?

No, yes.

Bethesda is tweaking the way auto-scaling works for Fallout 4 to create more challenge. "We call it rubberbanding; we'll have an area [where enemies scale from] level 5 to 10, and then this area will be level 30 and above," Howard says. "You'll run into stuff that will crush you, and you will have to run away."

So certain areas have fixed ranges where the enemy's level will slightly scale to your own, but only within that limited range. Which is actually a pretty good idea for an open world game where they can't predict just when or how long a player will be in a specific area.

I'm pretty sure Pillars of Eternity did something similar for critical path encounters. Dragon Age Inquisition did this as well I believe.

 

[danm999]

DC was on of the places directly attacked iirc (what one of those VR history machines implied?). While the other games dealt with the "Fallout" of the nuclear apocalypse not being one of the concentrated center of the attack.

LA and San Francisco were hit very hard too according to the lore. But they rebounded in a way DC just didn't in Fallout 3.

 

[DAREALGUMMY]

LA and San Francisco were hit very hard too according to the lore. But they rebounded in a way DC just didn't in Fallout 3.

Again it could be attributed that the West doesn't have as much harsh weather as the East does.

 

[danm999]

Again it could be attributed that the West doesn't have as much harsh weather as the East does.

I dunno, seems like Virginia has more forgiving weather than a lot of California which is basically a desert in Fallout 1 and 2.

Or maybe there's a lore reason that Fallout 3 doesn't go into; the Western Vaults might have received more GECKs.

Anyway, Fallout 3's story honestly has bigger problems than the nitpicks about how its setting should look.

 

[Sakura]

Yea, Fallout 3 was pretty bad if you actually care about story and the world (which, to me, is important in an RPG). But NV was better in that regard and hopefully Fallout 4 continues in that direction.

 

[danm999]

Yea, Fallout 3 was pretty bad if you actually care about story and the world (which, to me, is important in an RPG). But NV was better in that regard and hopefully Fallout 4 continues in that direction.

Having replayed Morrowind recently I really hope they can get something like that together again (I realize most writers who worked on that have long since left).

 

[FrostuTheNinja]

Yeah, they don't even poop. Video games have a long way to go.

 

[DieAntwoord]

Has this been posted yet?

 

[Solid Samus]

That's like asking if someone's already posted pie charts and kart charts ten pages into a Polygon thread

 

[Fredescu]

Has this been posted yet?

There's a similar paragraph in the part 5 article that puts it better I think.

Dad built a water purifier that didn’t work, for people that didn’t need it, and then made it release radiation it shouldn’t have, to prevent it from falling into the hands of people trying to fix it. This killed the man who had no reason to sabotage it and didn’t kill Colonel Autumn, who had no means to survive. This put the Enclave – an army with no reason to attack – in charge of the purifier, which was of no value to them. Then the player entered vault 87 to recover a GECK, a magical matter-arranger that they shouldn’t need and that would be better put to use in virtually any possible manner besides fixing the purifier. Colonel Autumn, who shouldn’t be alive, captured the player with a flash grenade that shouldn’t have worked that was thrown by soldiers who had no way to get there. The final battle was a war between the Enclave and the Brotherhood of Steel, to see which one would get to commit suicide trying to turn on the purifier that neither of them needed. This resulted in more sabotage that threatened to explode a device that shouldn’t be explode-able, ending with the death of the player character, who had the means to survive but didn’t, and who was never given a good reason for doing any of this.

 

[Femmeworth]

That's like asking if someone's already posted pie charts and kart charts ten pages into a Polygon thread

It's hard to tell who is being ironic at this point.

 

[kamineko]

Having replayed Morrowind recently I really hope they can get something like that together again (I realize most writers who worked on that have long since left).

Pretty sure that's the last of that. Must not be where the sales are