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[ForsakenLotus]

Fallout gets a pass because the games have some very memorable, fun and interesting characters and there are some very good moments. With the Elder Scrolls, there are hardly any memorable characters and fewer good side quests. Plus, when you add in all the jank, poor voice acting and lip syncing, poor animations, etc. the game really has a tough time conveying emotions.

And after everything, when you also consider the open ended structure of the game you get poor pacing and overall structure, although they do have a lot of good environmental storytelling which can be easy to overlook.

Like, you can't even begin to compare something like Fallout 4 to The Witcher 3 or Skyrim to Mass Effect 2 when it comes to storytelling.

 

[Sou Da]

In FO4 it'd play out more like:

1) TELL ME EVERYTHING (he doesn't say shit)
2) THREATEN (hard check, he is afraid, but doesn't say shit)
3) ATTACK (punch him, he doesn't say shit)
4) LEGION?

He gets up and turns hostile. You're forced into a fistfight and you beat him into submission. He tells you what he knows and you're rewarded.

Nope. He'd die and you get it from a holotape or something.

I'll miss skill checks. I always see opportunities to insert them F4 quests.

 

[Psychoward]

Fallout gets a pass because the games have some very memorable, fun and interesting characters and there are some very good moments. With the Elder Scrolls, there are hardly any memorable characters and fewer good side quests. Plus, when you add in all the jank, poor voice acting and lip syncing, poor animations, etc. the game really has a tough time conveying emotions.

And after everything, when you also consider the open ended structure of the game you get poor pacing and overall structure, although they do have a lot of good environmental storytelling which can be easy to overlook.

Like, you can't even begin to compare something like Fallout 4 to The Witcher 3 or Skyrim to Mass Effect 2 when it comes to storytelling.

Elder Scrolls world building and quests kicks Fallout 3's butt

 

[Currygan]

their storytelling is mostly serviceable, because that's not the intent; some questlines in ES and FO are indeed great, complex and very long, but it's all about making a huge open world filled to the brim with interesting lore for the player to delve into, and they're the absolute best in the industry at that, in my opinion

 

[Tesseract]

new vegas remains the goat

 

[Tigress]

I think part of it could be it's just harder to make a longer story work in an open-world context. You have almost no control over pacing or anything like that. Certainly there are exceptions to that from other developers, but it's maybe easier to do the smaller side stories.

I agree but Bethesda could still do better than what they did. I mean I can enjoy the games and the story is good enough for me to have fun (it's not so bad that it impedes on my fun. it's not Killzone Shadowfall levels of bad anyways <- that one the story was so bad it was annoying me the whole way through. You know you have problems when I can't supsend disbelief cause I'm pretty good at just taking the story for granted). But I honestly think I could probably do better and I don't think I'm a great writer (I do think I have a decent amount of imagination though but good luck in me putting it in writing in any sort of decent way ).

I think Obsidian showed a really good way of doing an open world game with a good story that lets you still free roam. They made the story about a bunch of factions warring over an area and your influence is what helps decide who wins. I think the problem with Bethesda is they insist that the story must revolve around the character (like now it is about our character's finding her/his kid) rather than using the character as a medium to discover the story and the story being about the world. I think the latter type of story works much better in these kind of games and the former that Bethesda likes doing is more suited for linear games where they have more control over the story.

 

[Seyavesh]

new vegas remains the goat

it truly makes me sad that people will sincerely believe that fallout has always been rooted in shit writing and poor character depth when it exists
their take on the mission (the movie) is just so fantastic, especially in how the key characters and conflict all tie back to the main game
edit:
now that i mentioned it i gotta link the theme because it's truly gorgeous
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oag1Dfa1e_E
ropekid/joshua sawyer's insight into the development behind the characters/story of honest hearts and new vegas is really cool- his strong knowledge and appreciation of history and culture really shines through. it's actually quite a shame that the stuff has never really been collected so it just sits around on stray messageboards

 

[Red Blaster]

boy it sure would be nice of adults were writing fallout games again

 

[Granadier]

Going back and playing New Vegas for 20 mins gave me more story satisfaction than the 30 hours of Fallout 4 I've played.

FO4 is amazing, but the storytelling and dialogue is it's weakest point in my opinion.

 

[vocab]

Guys, Guys. Fallout 4 is an rpg. You just have to look harder

 

[Ivory Samoan]

Going back and playing New Vegas for 20 mins gave me more story satisfaction than the 30 hours of Fallout 4 I've played.

FO4 is amazing, but the storytelling and dialogue is it's weakest point in my opinion.

I think they nailed it story/dialogue wise, it's obviously just a matter of taste, but the dice roll syle dialogue with high charisma is super fun; and there are some well written quests all over the show IMO.

As a reference, I played NV twice clocking in about 150 hours a playthrough, so I've got a solid point of reference on that front. Fallout 4 is the relaxing wasteland adventure I need after a long day of IRL work, it's quite a relaxing post apocalypse ride I reckon. NV felt more serious, but was amazing in its own right for sure.

 

[Red Blaster]

*tear*

 

[AcceptableGhost]

I really hope Obsidian gets to make another Fallout game some day...

 

[AndreH121]

The choices are great but it can seem overwhelming at times.

 

[tuxfool]

*tear*

I always feel bad in these threads when people start posting these flow charts. Dammit.

 

[Jonm1010]

Fallout 3 is the most disappointed I have ever been in a video game. I legitimately can not find a good thing to say about the writing.

It was a game that I loved at the time because the exploration and immersion was like nothing I had experienced in a game before.

However outside of one particular side quest the entire story was god awful and the only thing that kept me going was the exploration and immersion.

 

[Jonm1010]

The choices are great but it can seem overwhelming at times.

Yeah I am not so much in love with the overwhelming number of choices Obsidian gave me so much as I am just having what choices are available leading to an overall solid story.

 

[Psychoward]

*tear*

You can frame Heck for eating his own son? Dope

When I played it though that quest got annoying because I had to kill the assassin they sent for me and then naturally everyone in the building turned on me making it a real bitch to complete as a non sneak character

 

[joecanada]

Fallout gets a pass because the games have some very memorable, fun and interesting characters and there are some very good moments. With the Elder Scrolls, there are hardly any memorable characters and fewer good side quests. Plus, when you add in all the jank, poor voice acting and lip syncing, poor animations, etc. the game really has a tough time conveying emotions.

And after everything, when you also consider the open ended structure of the game you get poor pacing and overall structure, although they do have a lot of good environmental storytelling which can be easy to overlook.

Like, you can't even begin to compare something like Fallout 4 to The Witcher 3 or Skyrim to Mass Effect 2 when it comes to storytelling.

Depends what you mean by storytelling. I'll spend twice as much time exploring Fo4 and looking at diaries, notes, holotapes and enjoying the campy humour as I did in the witcher. The witcher has a better main story as far as I can tell but it sure wasn't anything noteworthy... All very predictable really. The choices for skill checks in NV mentioned above were good for sure but I don't give much credit to NV as it was just an add on basically to fo3 but I would welcome that again for sure. A more in depth story add on to 4 would be sweet

They are both tied for subpar framerate though both give me major headaches.

 

[Fine Ham Abounds]

Well, credit where it's due, so none, really. Their "environmental storytelling" in Fallout is just as stupid as the dialog.
I mean,

Give me a break.

I liked the skeleton in the subway with the cigar and hat and sunglasses with the teddy bear next to him with the hat cigar and sunglasses on, tho

 

[tuxfool]

The choices for skill checks in NV mentioned above were good for sure but I don't give much credit to NV as it was just an add on basically to fo3 but I would welcome that again for sure.

Calling NV just an Addon for FO3 won't enamour you with many people around here. It is also a demonstration of why Bethesda doesn't improve, a lot of people just don't value the things NV did correctly by RPGs and by the Fallout name.

 

[joecanada]

Calling NV just an Addon for FO3 won't enamour you with many people around here.

It is what it is. same game different story. The real problem with it is that it probably should have been combined into one. Once you put a hundred hours into 3 it doesn't matter that the story is better in NV, it's just more of the same and just washes it out. I probably did 80 in 3 and 40 or so hrs in NV, it's better but not better enough to be honest.

 

[Tigress]

The choices for skill checks in NV mentioned above were good for sure but I don't give much credit to NV as it was just an add on basically to fo3 but I would welcome that again for sure. A more in depth story add on to 4 would be sweet

Fallout New Vegas used the same engine sure. So the gameplay was very similar. But that doesn't make it an add on. The things they did on that game were very different and much improved and I'm not sure why they don't deserve credit for that when it was what they changed that made the game so much better. Sure, they built off of what Bethesda did with F3. But they fixed what Bethesda did wrong, added stuff, and in general made a much more solid game out of it than what Bethesda made. And honestly with what htey did with NV it is a much deeper game than F3... so I don't see why it shouldn't get credit even if it is an "add on". Which it really isn't. Or are all the Gran Turismos add ons cause they just build on the game before them and use the same mechanics but improve and add on stuff?

And I loved F3, don't get me wrong so I'm not one of those that sees F3= shit, FNV= good. I see F3= Fun in spite of flaws and FNV as in The Fun of F3 but with a lot more substance and flaws fixed.

I kinda see F4 more like F3 (no surprise, same developer ). It's super fun, but it definitely has flaws and is a lot more shallow than NV. But in the end what is important is it is a really fun game. But I'm hoping Obsidian gets to do again what they did with NV. Take the super fun of F4 and add some substance to the game and make it a solid RPG (F4 may be a great game but it's a weak RPG.

It is what it is. same game different story. The real problem with it is that it probably should have been combined into one. Once you put a hundred hours into 3 it doesn't matter that the story is better in NV, it's just more of the same and just washes it out. I probably did 80 in 3 and 40 or so hrs in NV, it's better but not better enough to be honest.

If you really think the only thing different about it is different story, you really weren't paying attention and are just looking at the shallow aspects of both games. Here's an easy overlook that's shallow but still is a better summary. F3 is a fun open world sandbox with some decent RPG elements (enough to be an RPG but it's kinda a weak one). FNV is an open world sandbox RPG that knows what an RPG is and is aimed a lot more at RPG fans and not just a wider audience.

Also, you can tell you are wrong when there are several people who love one game and hated the other. If they are so similar, how can there be a lot of people who love one and hate the other (and I'm talking both ways. You get people who loved F3 but couldn't get into New Vegas and vice Versa. Also, New Vegas is a lot more tolerated by the fans of hte original who hate the new ones. If FNV was just 3 with a different story, you really wouldn't see such a divide. At worst you'd probably see people who preferred one or the other but either liked them both or didn't like them both).

 

[tuxfool]

It is what it is. same game different story.

Not even close in my eyes. You just don't value the same things, so to you it looks like more of the same.

 

[joecanada]

Not even close in my eyes. You just don't value the same things, so to you it looks like more of the same.

Could be. I'm more into exploration than the speech checks and whatnot so all the choices in NV are only mildly amusing to me.

 

[Seyavesh]

pulling jsawyer posts about HH

I should say that I totally understand why the majority of people side with Joshua. When I wrote the characters and presented the conflict, I knew then that the majority of people would side with Joshua. Daniel's viewpoint has a large amount of additional weight if you share his basic beliefs about Christian salvation. If you don't, people usually perceive the value of their "innocence" as minor (or even negative).

It seems sort of obvious to say this, but if you don't fundamentally believe the universe works the way that Daniel believes it does, he's never going to be particularly convincing.

During development, some people on the development team complained that Joshua Graham was not a huge monster of a man who appeared by flying in on a chariot of fire wearing a necklace of human heads. Turning him into a physical giant or a typical "badass" would have weakened his humanity (and monstrosity), I think. I wanted him to be engaging in a mundane activity when the player first encountered him.

Follows-Chalk does build up Joshua along the way to the camp, but you can easily miss the triggers if you don't go directly to the camp. I've also noticed that a lot of people miss the huge mural of Joshua Graham and White Leg corpses painted below it. Now that I think about it, I can't remember anyone talking about the Survivalist's mural that's near the center of the map. It illustrates the Sorrows' belief in the Father in the Cave.

I think we could have done a better job presenting these things, but some of it can be chalked up to the open environment and the rest to iteration time.

q:
Is there any reason that Three Mary's is full of trash? I'm wondering if I'm missing something subtle, or if it as simple as the White Legs like collecting junk.
a:
The White Legs don't know how to make anything of their own, so they basically just scavenge and litter.

bonus:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtlcDvqpV5w

That one was the funniest to do because each take I would exaggerate the phrases more until they became ridiculous.

The folk/western ones were more difficult because they weren't quite in my range and the guitarists had to learn the music on the spot. I was really surprised when Bethesda used Home on the Wastes in the Ultimate Edition trailer. I had no idea they were even aware of it.

 

[sjay1994]

I think they are good at building lore (world building), but not great at making plots.

I am more interested in side quests than I ever am doing the main missions.

 

[HK-47]

NV wasnt just skill checks. It had a more thought out world, improved gunplay, crafting, better difficulty options, a better main plot line, deeper characters, rebalances on skills and perks.

 

[Seyavesh]

NV wasnt just skill checks. It had a more thought out world, improved gunplay, crafting, better difficulty options, a better main plot line, deeper characters, rebalances on skills and perks.

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1015758/Do-(Say)-The-Right-Thing
this should be required watching for anyone who wants to make comparisons between fallouts and fo4's move away from rpg aspects in general

 

[Psychoward]

. Here's an easy overlook that's shallow but still is a better summary. F3 is a fun open world sandbox with some decent RPG elements (enough to be an RPG but it's kinda a weak one). FNV is an open world sandbox RPG that knows what an RPG is and is aimed a lot more at RPG fans and not just a wider audience.

FNV is better from an open world sandbox though as well since there's more variety in NV's world than 3's Capital Wasteland plus there's no terrible metro tunnels in NV which completely ruined exploring DC.

 

[Denton]

Boxcars in New Vegas is wonderful.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpvDVAX2lfw

Thanks to this vid I found "Fallout characters call people" prank calls. I just pissed myself laughing. At work.

 

[Ogimachi]

NV wasnt just skill checks. It had a more thought out world, improved gunplay, crafting, better difficulty options, a better main plot line, deeper characters, rebalances on skills and perks.

Indeed. Here's hoping some modders will port FNV over like the Morrowind and Oblivion conversions in Skyrim.

 

[Dick Justice]

Depends what you mean by storytelling. I'll spend twice as much time exploring Fo4 and looking at diaries, notes, holotapes and enjoying the campy humour as I did in the witcher. The witcher has a better main story as far as I can tell but it sure wasn't anything noteworthy... All very predictable really. The choices for skill checks in NV mentioned above were good for sure but I don't give much credit to NV as it was just an add on basically to fo3 but I would welcome that again for sure. A more in depth story add on to 4 would be sweet

They are both tied for subpar framerate though both give me major headaches.

Yeah, an addon with far superior rpg mechanics, writing, characterization and quest design.

 

[Ogimachi]

I'd like to read an in-depth comparison between the FNV x FO4 companions.

If you try to pair the "types":

Codsworth x ED-E
Piper x Cass
Danse x Boone
Strong x Lily
Preston x Arcade
Dogmeat x Rex
Hancock x Raul
Cait x Veronica

[FO4 has Nick Valentine, X688, Deacon and Curie as outliers]

I mean, It's not even fair. To say FO4 pales in comparison is an understatement.

 

[Dick Justice]

I'd like to read an in-depth comparison between the FNV x FO4 companions.

If you try to pair the "types":

Codsworth x ED-E
Piper x Cass
Danse x Boone
Strong x Lily
Preston x Arcade
Dogmeat x Rex
Hancock x Raul
Cait x Veronica

[FO4 has Nick Valentine, X688, Deacon and Curie as outliers]

I mean, It's not even fair. To say FO4 pales in comparison is an understatement.

It's funnier to compare companions between NV and 3, the latter having people who wouldn't join you if you were "too nice".

Also, bonus dialogue.

 

[KORNdoggy]

tbh, they're usually pretty awful. the fact the best story that's come from bethesda was actually made by obsidian says it all.

 

[Ultimadrago]

As much as I wish people would let New Vegas go, its dialogue absolutely smashes Fallout 4's. Like wow. I largely have a hard time believing people were paid to write the script. And I'm no huge crazed Obsidian fan, mind you.

 

[Rushersauce]

All these vídeos and dialog options you guys are posting from NV bring tears to my eyes and make my sides hurt. I'll install it and play it for like the seventh time.

 

[afternoon delight]

All these vídeos and dialog options you guys are posting from NV bring tears to my eyes and make my sides hurt. I'll install it and play it for like the seventh time.

Yeah after posting the ol Toaster from the Big MT it just made the decision for me- time for a sixth round!

The images on the last page by the way are absolutely slaying me though, dear god I'm choosing Terrifying Presence this time around.

 

[Palculator]

They get no credit and they shouldn't.

They get no credit because they are bad at it. Morrowind might be the sole exception but they was over a decade ago

Morrowind still had Michael Kirkbride on board and they didn't bother with voice acting.

 

[Arulan]

I saw this posted on RPG Codex. This about sums up Bethesda's mindset for their fictional worlds:

 

[Denton]

I saw this posted on RPG Codex. This about sums up Bethesda's mindset for their fictional worlds:

Pete Hines, the certified internet asshole (who is insanely good at his job)

 

[Rushersauce]

I saw this posted on RPG Codex. This about sums up Bethesda's mindset for their fictional worlds:

Wow......
Now I'm even more outraged

 

[Karl Hawk]

I saw this posted on RPG Codex. This about sums up Bethesda's mindset for their fictional worlds:

Wow... just wow.... I'm fucking amazed how much of a dismissive ass he is

 

[Ogimachi]

It gets worse:

Doomzzg &#8207;@Doomzzg
@DCDeacon @JohnstonJarrett This is what happens when degenerates get's ahold of a franchise they don't care about

Pete Hines &#8207;@DCDeacon
@Doomzzg we cared about it enough to take a risk and do something with it when nobody else was.

Kilus &#8207;@Kilus
@DCDeacon @Doomzzg Except Troika Games bid on Fallout at the same time you guys did so it's not fair to say 'when nobody else was'

Pete Hines &#8207;@DCDeacon
@Kilus @Doomzzg nobody else was making a game. i don't recall who else reached out about the IP. i'm sorry if you don't enjoy what we make

Seriously, this guy is the fucking worst. As if seeing the series constantly butchered by Bethesda wasn't enough already.

 

[Arulan]

Troika's Fallout

What could have been.

 

[ZombieSupaStar]

It gets worse:



Seriously, this guy is the fucking worst. As if seeing the series constantly butchered by Bethesda wasn't enough already.

He basically needs to say "we won the bidding war, so if you don't like our games, that's just tough shit."

You aren't going to PR over nma/codex members.

 

[Ogimachi]

He basically needs to say "we won the bidding war, so if you don't like our games, that's just tough shit."

You aren't going to PR over nma/codex members.

I mean, they already shit on the lore, I'm used to it by now, but he's lying there. That's simply not what happened, and the video above proves it. He said nobody was making a game and they took a risk, when actually there were at least 2 being made. Van Buren and Troika's.

 

[Rushersauce]

He basically needs to say "we won the bidding war, so if you don't like our games, that's just tough shit."

You aren't going to PR over nma/codex members.

He basically needs to say "we SHAT on Fallout's lore, we don't care" well, he kind of said that. He is a big c.

 

[ZombieSupaStar]

I mean, they already shit on the lore, I'm used to it by now, but he's lying there. That's simply not what happened, and the video above proves it. He said nobody was making a game and they took a risk, when actually there were at least 2 being made. Van Buren and Troika's.

Yeah my brain checks out on any lore Bethesda comes up with. Helps me enjoy the sandbox more. I'll be interested to see what Fargo does with the van buren ip.