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Fallout 4 - How the hell are Bethesda going to make this work?

spindoctor said:
Is it foolish to hope that Bethesda will drop their Gamebryo engine for id tech 5? The timelines would seem to match up. id was acquired by Zenimax in mid 2009 and Fallout 3 GOTY was released late 2009, which is when they would have stopped working on the game. Assuming that Fallout 4 went into pre-production a few months later, it's a safe bet that they would have access to a near completed version of id tech 5, right?
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I have this feeling that they're still going with Gamebyro, or rather Creation Engine, as they call it now, which is based on Gamebyro. They mentioned it few times during the Skyrim reveal and hyped it up quite a bit, iirc. They might have changed it enough to give it a new name, but Skyrim reeked of Gamebyro through and through. Same problems, similar glitches and all that. I really hope they didn't put more resources into it. Ad while id tech 5 sounds all nice and dandy, we don't know if it's going to be that much better and more suited for large scale open world games.
 
brotkasten said:
I have this feeling that they're still going with Gamebyro, or rather Creation Engine, as they call it now, which is based on Gamebyro. They mentioned it few times during the Skyrim reveal and hyped it up quite a bit, iirc. They might have changed it enough to give it a new name, but Skyrim reeked of Gamebyro through and through. Same problems, similar glitches and all that. I really hope they didn't put more resources into it. Ad while id tech 5 sounds all nice and dandy, we don't know if it's going to be that much better and more suited for large scale open world games.
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I guess it's just wishful thinking on my part that id tech 5 be used. Rage did have reasonably large open areas although it was nothing compared to the Fallout games. But hey, if we could trade the janky and buggy Gamebryo engine for smaller maps, I'd be okay with that.
 
spindoctor said:
I guess it's just wishful thinking on my part that id tech 5 be used. Rage did have reasonably large open areas although it was nothing compared to the Fallout games. But hey, if we could trade the janky and buggy Gamebryo engine for smaller maps, I'd be okay with that.
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Would they be able to provide a similar level of modding support with Tech 5? Because if the choice is between Tech 5 and mods, I'd go with the latter every time.
 
They should either double down on either VATS or real-time combat. Right now they are both sort of half-assed, as VATS is too easy to exploit and real-time combat is just complete garbage.
 
grumble said:
Two hundred years? I mean that's a long time. I can imagine a lot of places would still be violent tribal societies, but wouldn't a significant fraction of the world be semi-civilized by then?
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Two hundred years seems like a lot since the Western civilization has progressed so much since 1500. But historically speaking, 200 years isn't that much when you look at changes across different eras. Life expectancy in post nuclear world would be much shorter than it is now (bad nutrition, lack of access to modern medicine, radiation causing cancer, people fighting for resources etc.), so creating a stable society that would look to reestablish former glory would not be a matter of decades most likely. Then you can add the fact that there's no longer easy access to resources like coal or oil etc. since we've already mined everything that's near the surface.

That said, I think the world would look like in Enslaved, ie. vegetation everywhere.
 
They probably have a massive library of assets that can be mixed and matched across multiple games. Change up the color or fabric schemes to fit the time, ie wood, metalic, and you pretty much have a gigantic, modular toybox that can fit whatever criteria you need.

Not to mention gameplay wise the games were very poor, although I did like VATS. There is an enormous room for improvement for combat and how enemies/NPC react. Considering the experience and size of the hypothetical budget required, I'm sure they will be fine since much of the design is already completed.

My friend who works at Zenimax also mentioned that from what he saw the combat does look a lot cooler. I'm not sure what he meant, but there seems to be a greater focus on it this time around. He isnt working on it though.
 
It's one of those franchises that can get away with releasing the same game every 5 years. Because of the time difference no one realizes it's the same game only with new skins.
 
AlphaDump said:
My friend who works at Zenimax also mentioned that from what he saw the combat does look a lot cooler. I'm not sure what he meant, but there seems to be a greater focus on it this time around. He isnt working on it though.
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That scares me. The games would be a lot better if the combat was tightened up and if VATS didn't take a minute to load on my i7/GTX570 build, but I'd hate to see a greater emphasis put on combat. I honestly would like to see more opportunities to use skills like medicine, stealth, outdoorsmanship, and trapping to get through what would normally be combat-only scenarios.
 
Izick said:
Some people are going to argue against this, but I believe that has a lot to do with the Gamebyro engine and Bethesda's limitations at the time. I think we'll see a lot of similar imrpovements to the Fallout franchise that we saw in Skyrim. I think they'll imrpove the real-time shooting of it, although VATS will be the way to go.

Honestly, if they just do similar imrpovements like they did with Skyrim, I'll be happy. Even after just beating New Vegas (+DLC) a month ago, I'm ready for more Fallout. I just love that universe.
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Yeah. The leap from Oblivion to Skyrim was enormous. A next-gen Fallout 4 will hopefully be an even bigger leap, building off what they did with Skyrim.
 
Next Gen fidelity plus no loading cells and larger towns due to 8GB of ram will be enough to make it feel like a fresh experience.
 
GhaleonEB said:
Yeah. The leap from Oblivion to Skyrim was enormous. A next-gen Fallout 4 will hopefully be an even bigger leap, building off what they did with Skyrim.
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Oblivion to Skyrim was a giant leap forward? While it did look considerably better graphically, I'd argue that everything else about the game was worse. If Bethesda takes a similar approach to Fallout, I wouldn't even buy the game during a Steam sale.
 
Better shooting mechanics, a cool different setting and leave the other things the same as before and I think that a lot of people would buy it.
 
bunbun777 said:
This but may I also ask for a decent story or at the least a character with a bit of a connection to the world. Some kind of theme that focuses on relationships.
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I've always liked the "outsider exploring a strange new world" feeling that all of the Fallout games have had, so I personally wouldn't like a character with a greater connection to the land. But, maybe more areas like the vaults that tell stories without cutscenes or excruciating long dialog would be great. I can't remember what vault it was, but the one with the voting system that elected the next vault leader (re:
sacrifice
) would be great. Also I think, having more human enemy types (or at least intelligent enemy types) would keep these vaults from feeling like rat/mantis killing simulators.

Edit: For some reason, I started thinking about a species of intelligent radscorpions ( like the one you encounter in Fallout 2 ) when I mentioned more intelligent enemy types. Oh, and both rats and deathclaws were becoming more intelligent in Fallout 2 as well. It'd be cool to run into critters like those in the wastes.
 
I don't need Fallout to be aesthetically different. I just want it to run on a better engine, and have different and more fleshed out characters. To me, it would be cool to see it set in a different country. People often say that it wouldn't be fallout if it were, but that seems weird to say for a game who's entire setting is that the entire world has gone to shit.
 
RoboGeorgeForeman said:
That scares me. The games would be a lot better if the combat was tightened up and if VATS didn't take a minute to load on my i7/GTX570 build, but I'd hate to see a greater emphasis put on combat. I honestly would like to see more opportunities to use skills like medicine, stealth, outdoorsmanship, and trapping to get through what would normally be combat-only scenarios.
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To ease your worries a bit, he did say it looked pretty awesome overall - to quote "It's definitely fallout". I had originally asked about VATS returning but he didn't know, and thats when he made the comment about the combat being "much cooler" this time around. It is using the same engine however... upgraded to a large degree. It was just an in house demo, so he didn't see a whole lot, nor does he wants to break NDA.

He seemed to be way more excited about Wolfenstein out of all their projects.
 
I've never been able to finish FO3 or NV because of the what the OP says.

The thing is, I really like post apocalyptic novels, movies, everything. But man, after 30 or so hours of staring at shades of brown and grey my eyes and my brain gets so bored/numb I just turn it off. I really want to play these games, I like them, but I can't bring myself to do it.

A great counter point here is that I spent 100+ hours in Oblivion and have over 300 + hours in Skyrim. I ended up trying NV after playing Skyrim and man, it was bad. Skyrim is full of life and color and "Verticality" NV was lifeless, colorless, and FLAT as far as the eye could see. I dropped it pretty quickly.

An example of a post apocalyptic game I've played and finished is Enslaved (a great game, with a excellent story and pretty cool ending, it's under rated) I'd really love to see a sequel to Enslaved and see what other adventures Monkey and Trip go on. The world is a big place after all.
 
RoboGeorgeForeman said:
Oblivion to Skyrim was a giant leap forward? While it did look considerably better graphically, I'd argue that everything else about the game was worse. If Bethesda takes a similar approach to Fallout, I wouldn't even buy the game during a Steam sale.
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I didn't think such a thing existed. But apparently it does. There's someone out there who doesn't think Oblivion is the worst Elder Scrolls game.
 
Leverage next gen tech for more dynamic gameplay, diverse environments. Hire a good writer.

Basically the same as always.
 
Dragonzord said:
I didn't think such a thing existed. But apparently it does. There's someone out there who doesn't think Oblivion is the worst Elder Scrolls game.
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I don't think it's a good game, but the magic system, guilds ( Dark Brotherhood and Thieves Guild particularly ), stat/skill system (leveling system was dumb though), dungeon layout, and characters were all considerably better in Oblivion. Oh, and the cities/towns were so much bigger and more interesting than the ones in Skyrim.

I guess the melee combat was a bit better in Skyrim and ranged/stealth were beyond broken in both, but I can't really think of any other improvements.
 
I'd like more culture. Maybe you could find a nuclear sub and travel to Tokyo, or Hong Kong for an act.



But overall I don't see how to get rid of the bleakness. It's kind of a integral part.
 
Coulomb_Barrier said:
Call me bland but I like the bleakness of it all.

It's what post-apocalyptic is all about. It's not meant to be Disney.
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Anticitizen One said:
I hope it's set in California or at least west coast. I missed that aspect from the first 2 games
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What if a post-apocalyptic Disney Land-ish park was a visitatable location? I don't think anything has been done like that in Fallout yet. You could have
fun
looking robots (well they'd obviously be in some state of ruin as well) instead of the typical Mr. Handy/Sentry Bot/Robobrain populating the area, and maybe an interesting backstory.
 
Fallout 4 is a difficult prospect for Bethesda because increasingly people demand the graphical fidelity of linear, average-length game in a massive open world filled with hundreds of hours of unique content. Creating such a compelling world is no small task and next gen it will be even harder to model hundreds of individual building interiors if they are to meet the demands for a more urban, populated environment.

How are Bethesda, or any company, reaslitically expected to produce a post-apocalyptic game that looks like Metro: Last Light, for instance (self-proclaimed to be the current benchmark in PC graphics) at an open world scale? It's a mammoth task and I think some people should perhaps lower their expectations.

Fallout 3, New Vegas and the various DLCs were amongst my most played games this generation. I love the universe. I think Bethesda did a great job of resurrecting a dormant franchise, preserving most of its core values and transferring it into 3D space. In doing so they turned a niche PC franchise into a premier one.

A couple of things I'd like to see in Fallout 4:

  • Refresh VATS. I love the VATS system, but it's far too easy to just go for head shots every time. There need to be compelling reasons to shoot at legs and to disarm opponents. Perhaps have more mutated creatures that require you to shoot certain parts or have more head resistance.
  • Better presentation all round. Improved animations, more unique voice acting. I think the poor animation partly contributes to the poor shooting in F3.
  • Expansion on the factions mechanic in NV
  • Optional sustainable vehicles such as buggies, bikes and a Mad Max-inspired helicopter. Having to scavenge for parts/fuel from the wasteland. I stress optional, as I'm not advocating a RAGE-esque system where vehicles were integral and the world was clearly built to accommodate them. Keep the terrain as random and unforgiving and as it's always been.
 
RoboGeorgeForeman said:
I have a hard time agreeing that DC felt more alive with all the invisible walls and metro system routes that litter the Capital Wasteland.
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Personally, I encountered a lot more invisible walls in NV than F3. F3 did a pretty good job of arranging rubble to block you in. The barriers were almost always visible and made sense. In NV, I straight up ran into invisible walls on multiple occasions.
 
I think it would be cool if it has a skill tree like Skyrim but for each type of weapons ( pistols, shotguns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, rocket launcher etc)

Also I hope looting is a big part of it, a bit like BL2 in terms of quantity of weapons with all types of effects, makes exploring a lot more fun too as you can possibly run into some crazy guns and stuff)

Also shooting legs in VATS or arms should have a more impact and if you shoot say the left arm, that arm should NOT at all able to be used, meaning they wont pick up assault rifles but tend to use pistol or run away)

More variety and towns, from large cities to small settlements, I would love it if the time zone was a few hundred years after the bombs fell, so we see more civilised areas, followed by a wild west scene if you go down south for example.
 
I dont see how they couldnt take the Skyrim route of just making it mechanically better and add some more stuff + update engine + make it prettier = done

just bigger, better, and more

it's not gonna be fundamentally different because it's Fallout, but im fucking down for Fallout 4 if it's just better and bigger 3/NV

let Obsidian write it though
 
Pretty much all they need to do besides a brighter color palette is making the game play better. I'm talking about the controls. The aiming needs to feel like an actuall shooter, instead of the broken mess that we got.
 
spirity said:
I guess that depends on the government. We're lucky, we have civilized state organisations that are empowered by us to look after our interests (usually). If we lost that, all hell would break out. It could be reformed, but not if a sufficient enough power kept us under heel.

But yeah, 200 years is a long time for shit to be so fucked up, and it doesn't explain why neighboring countries haven't intervened either to invade or offer aid. Unless they're all screwed up.
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The place that was going to be the NCR was formed 70 years after the Great War and it took them 40 years (and the help of the player) to become the NCR. In a century, they've expanded to be a proper country, with a government and an army. A country that's expanding to the rest of America.

As for other countries, everything got nuked. Not to mention that fossil fuels running out was what sparked the whole thing so there wasn't that much international travel.
 
Drazgul said:
Would they be able to provide a similar level of modding support with Tech 5? Because if the choice is between Tech 5 and mods, I'd go with the latter every time.
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Good point. I'm sure most PC gamers would prefer mods as well. Thing is, Bethesda get most of their money from console gamers who haven't been able to mod these games and would thus likely value better performance and better visuals a lot more. It's possible (I'd even say likely) that the mod support that Bethesda has provided for their games might be coming to an end next gen.

Also, wasn't there a news story about Bethesda employees being seen in Boston taking photographs? And wasn't the logical conclusion that they were prepping for the next Fallout to be set there?
 
tokkun said:
Personally, I encountered a lot more invisible walls in NV than F3. F3 did a pretty good job of arranging rubble to block you in. The barriers were almost always visible and made sense. In NV, I straight up ran into invisible walls on multiple occasions.
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Really? Cause FO3 has invisible walls around the edge of the square map, while NV has some mountains and whatnot to block you from going to the majority of the borders; even when NV's map is square too, you cannot really reach all four borders.

Then again, I found FO3 more visually and architecturally interesting than NV. Hope next gen lets them do an even bigger city in ruins.

Some guy photoshopped city landscapes with star fields from dark areas of the country and obtained stuff like this

san-francisco-golden-gate.jpg


This is what I should expect, except with a little more, you know, devastation.
 
ElFly said:
Really? Cause FO3 has invisible walls around the edge of the square map, while NV has some mountains and whatnot to block you from going to the majority of the borders; even when NV's map is square too, you cannot really reach all four borders.
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It's not just about borders of the map. There were plenty of invisible walls in the middle of the map in NV. The game has an issue where it will make inclines that are too steep to walk up, but that you can still get up by jumping and positioning itself in crevices. Eventually you would get to the top of a ridge, thinking that you had succeeded in negotiating a shortcut between regions, only to run into an invisible barrier. That sort of thing is a lot more frustrating than hitting a wall on the edge of the map, where you already expect there to be one.
 
I'd like some more party control, I know that was only really a thing in Fallout Tactics, but if you're going to throw out most of the other gameplay elements, adding some multi-character control wouldn't hurt.
 
ElFly said:
Then again, I found FO3 more visually and architecturally interesting than NV. Hope next gen lets them do an even bigger city in ruins.
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Me too.

For me Bethesda build incredible open-worlds with incredibly disappointing NPC hubs (towns, cities, forts), so my biggest concern is the latter. I hope they picked upon this problem early in the design cycle.

Secondary concern: Fallout is post-apocalyptic, not apocalyptic. The Capitol Wasteland looks like the bombs went off a couple months before hand. Less grey dirt, more flora and fauna. Kind of like how the area around Chernobyl looks now.
 
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