As hesitant as I am to wade into the quagmire of a Fallout 3 thread, the calls of justice and potential reasonable debate draw me forward.
No, what I want to hear is a valid counter to anything I've said, because you obviously don't agree.
Alright. I have gone through your posts in this thread, and attempted to locate your main arguments against the game. I have distilled them down to bullet points, and posed my counterpoints.
- Called shots have been simplified - How, exactly? VATS looks like a fairly functional "called shot" system to me. Apparently some body parts may or may not have removed, I'm getting conflicting information on this. Either way, you can shoot people in various body parts to various effects.
- Fallout 3 will not have choices with consequences: Assuming the videos we saw at the start are representative of the game, this is obviously not true. Therefore, I can only assume that you think Bethesda is lying, which will be addressed in "Bethesda is evil" below.
- No multiple solutions to quests, including non-violent options: We have confirmation that someone has completed the game without killing anything but a radscorpion they happened to pass by at one point. Again, I can only assume you think Bethesda is lying. See "Bethesda is evil," below.
- Bad AI: Radiant AI is actually fairly good, it just suffers from Hype Backlash and being in the uncanny valley. Presumably, it has also been improved since Oblivion, though I will concede this point if you can provide a countering source. Either way, RAI is fun to have in open-world games.
- Atmosphere has been canned: Has it? I mean, really? They seem to be going for it to me. In any case, atmosphere is inherently subjective, and I'm not going to get into an argument with you on something neither of us can really define (Yes, I know you think you can define it. You are wrong.)
- "They've completely disregarded the gameworld to an extent equaling or even exceeding the massacre they did on Oblivion": I conceed this point. Bethesda has disregarded the lore of Fallout slightly more than the lore of Elder Scrolls in creating the humanist branch of the Brotherhood of Steel. One deviation from the lore where Oblivion contained none. (Do
not try me on this. I have heard them all before, and it's obvious you've never played more than the first five minutes of Oblivion)
- Bad Animation: I will conceed this point. However, see "Console gamers are stupid graphics whores" below.
- Ability to rip the armor off any character and wear it yourself, even though you can now totally dismember characters: You do realize that this is a
good thing, right? And yeah, it's a little unrealistic to be able to take the clothing from somebody who's been totally dismembered, but it's hardly enough to make the game a disaster.
- "Voice actors are still the same terrible crap from Oblivion": The problem with voice actors in Oblivion isn't that they were
bad. By video game standards, they were actually quite good. It's just that there were so
few of them. And yes, having few voice actors is a flaw. It is not a crippling flaw.
- Bethesda's writers misunderstand the subject matter, and, as an example, are not taking nukes seriously: Since neither of us can genuinely know what writers are thinking, I can only debate the example, not the point. I've yet to see any "jokes" about nuclear explosions. The only thing that comes close is the Fatman, which is clearly a satirical jibe at '50's jingoism and obsessions with having the most and biggest nukes. This sort of thing is Fallout. This sort of thing is, in fact, the basis on which the universe is built.
- Choices that aren't just black and white: I'll grant you that, so far, Bethesda does seem to be leaning towards a more black and white view of the future. This is a shame, but it's not pissing on the soul of the franchise, and you should be willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Yes, Oblivion had nothing but black and white decisions. Oblivion was also an epic fantasy game, where those choices are thematically appropriate.
- Different art style: Now you're just seeing things. The art style doesn't look significantly different to me.
- The SPECIAL system has been altered and stripped down: The SPECIAL system was also imbalanced as fuck and could use some revision. It is not the pinnacle of roleplaying systems. Variety is nice, but sometimes conciseness is, too.
- Oblivion had the same dialogue style as Fallout 3 does: This isn't actually a point being made against Fallout 3, really, but it's significant in that it shows you never played Oblivion for more than five minutes.
- If Bethesda had more subtle nuances of choice, they would have shown them instead of Megaton: Megaton was early, dramatic, and an effective way to show the scope of the changes you could make. There is also innumerable potential for double-dealing and backstabbing in there on the part of the player, which has been fulfilled, if player reports from PAX are to be believed. Subtle choices do not make good previews.
- The interface is all eye candy and blank space and terrible and bad: Some of us like having our interface organized into tabs, and appreciate the added immersion factor of building it into the Pip-Boy. Some of us, apparently, are too lazy to select tabs and want it all on one screen.
- People who thought Fallout was perfect back in the 90s, think it suffers from the graphics and interface now: Yes. The games are good. They have not aged spectacularly well. Standards have risen, and Fallout's graphics and interface no longer meet them.
- Console gamers are stupid graphics whores: Right. Just like all PC gamers are casual gamers who never play anything but Solitaire. This is a baseless, incredibly offensive belief that for some mindboggling reason has gained credence among PC gamers - okay, the reason's not
that mindboggling. It's because it makes you feel smart. You can always say to yourself, "At least I'm better than those stupid console gamers." It's fanboyism of the worst calibur, and you are going to have to abandon this belief if you want anything resembling a reasonable debate, or it will color your arguments. The fact is,
nobody really cares that much about graphics.
- Bethesda is evil: In the end, your argument ultimately boils down to this: You believe, for some
genuinely mindboggling reason, that Bestheda has nothing better to do with its five million dollars than a buy a cult PC gaming liscence that nobody really cares about anymore, produce a triple-A title for the PC, Xbox 360,
and PS3 for ridiculous amounts of money, and deliberately take out all the things that made it "Fallout," solely for the purpose of displeasing its fanbase. Alternatively, you may be suggesting that Bethesda has spent five million dollars on a gaming RPG license that nobody cares about so that they can develop a "Joe Gamer"-friendly, watered down fascimile thereof, rather than spending that time, money, and manpower on making a game in one of the far, far bigger RPG IPs they already own. You are, essentially, stating that Bethesda hates not only Fallout and its fanbase, but also
money. Occam's Razor supports the fact that they did for it exactly the reason they said they did - they're fans of the game and want to make more.
There's one other factor I haven't mentioned at work here - the Fallout fanbase represents a particularly ugly manifestation of the Gamer Entitlement Complex. They think that they are owed another "true" Fallout game. But the simple fact is that they
aren't. They aren't entitled to a new, "true" Fallout game. They aren't even entitled to Fallout 3. A while ago, you send that the fanbase has supported the series through a mediocre game and a terrible one. But that's not true. Fallout: Tactics and Brotherhood of Steel both sold terribly. How have you supported the series? By buying the first two games ten years ago and then talking about them on the internet? Yeah, I'll bet that went a long way toward saving Interplay from bankruptcy. Your support of the series ended with whatever Fallout game you bought last. Stop pretending you're a victim.
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Topic: Fallout 3: Stupidity Discussion (Read 63813 times)