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[Ioric Kittencuddler]

Before I respond to that long ass post of yours I'd just like to know, what exactly made you so completely certain that I've only played Oblivion for 5 minutes?

[Deon]

I won't insult more. There're a lot of facts being said here like exploding dead cars etc. which are really nasty and bad.

I will tell you just one thing: If they will allow an interesting walkthrough way without killing a single man, I think I'll be able to forgive them. I want to roleplay a peaceful man-trader not a butcher!

[McDoomhammer]

I don't understand your metaphor.

You're just reading too much into it.  It's not a metaphor, just a simile.  The clumsy waitress or hair in the salad don't represent anyone or any specific thing, they are just minor inconveniences.  Sure, they might spoil what would have been a good night and yes, the customer is entitled to be upset and say so.  But neither will kill him and he will have other meals, just like you'll play other games.  The point of the analogy is simply that he doesn't have to be such an ass about it, it's not the end of the world.

That said, I applaud Greg for having the patience to track down all those dislocated points and address them so well.  Why not respond to the rest of his 'long ass' post while you wait for your answer?  It's exactly what you said you wanted.

Deon... probably not likely.  In fact, I sort of hope they don't.  In an RPG like Planescape: Torment, that works and is awesome.  In the Fallout setting, it would have to be really well done, because it's a satirical game and the nature of satire is that often as not Everyone Dies.  If they allow you to actually acheive something good without having to get yourself dirty in the process, they're doing it wrong.

That said, perhaps it could be pulled off.  Help me out, was it possible to get through F1 or F2 without killing anyone?  (For the purposes of the question, anything more monstrous than a super-mutant doesn't count.)

[Ioric Kittencuddler]

As far as I can remember, in Fallout 1, you were never trapped in an area and forced to kill someone before you could proceed.  You couldn't talk your way out of random encounters, but your could run from them, and you could talk your way out of many scripted situations, including super-mutants, and even the final boss fight.  Fallout 2 continued that trend to a degree.  Meanwhile, in Oblivion killing is the only possible solution to almost everything.  It's been confirmed in Fallout 3 that Super-Mutants are mindless killing machines who cannot be communicated with non-violently, ever.  And that's apparently perfectly true to Fallout and Fallout 2 (Where you could get one in your party!) according to Todd Howard.

Your right McDoom, I should just answer if I'm going to.  It doesn't matter what could possibly have made him so absolutely certain that I have only played Oblivion for 5 minutes, because his whole post is just a list of mistakes, misinterpretations, and what can only be intentional twisting of the truth. There really can be no question, except... Why would anyone think it was worth their time to do that?  I mean, I'm doing this out of conviction.  Conviction that I don't want to see Fallout 3 because as huge a success as Oblivion if at all possible because it looks to ruin nearly everything I as a Fallout fan liked about the series, and because I can't stand to see people getting so thoroughly duped.  Is it conviction that anyone who seems to dislike something that is popular must be some sort of crazy hippy propagandist because no one with money and power would ever want to screw people over for more?  It's definitely not the apathy that is supposedly the reasoning behind most of my detractors.  So what is it?  Well, anyway, here goes.

- 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.

This information is straight from the developers, confirmed with game play footage and screen shots.  The possible targets for a called shot are the head, the torso, the right arm, the left arm, the right leg, the left leg, and the weapon.  You can watch the recent game play videos for examples.  You can only do called shots with projectile weapons.  All weapons can be used with VATS, (which if you still don't know is basically a pause button that lets you cue up attacks that are then executed in slo-mo with a repetitive cinematic camera) but if it's a thrown weapon or a melee weapon you can only cue a general attack.  The reasoning behind this for thrown weapons is just that the only thrown weapons are grenades that apparently always explode on impact, though I haven't actually seen any used in combat outside of VATS so there's a chance they work like real grenades.  The reasoning behind this for melee weapons is typical Bethesda design.  Basically, they thought it would look bad if you swung in melee and it didn't hit, so they made it autohit, but they didn't want people to abuse the autohit to always go for the head so they removed the option to target body parts. 

Apparently, not once did they ever consider just doing it like the original games did and adding a dodge animation, or maybe they did, but removing the option was less work.

- 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.

I didn't say Fallout 3 would not have choices and consequences.  I said it would have stupid ones, like Blow up Megaton Y/N?

- 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.

What was that quote again? Lemme find it.  Here.

From Pete Hines, PR manager:

Greg Howson: Can you tag Medicine, Repair and Barter, and focusing on those skills, still be able to complete the game?

Pete Hines: Sure. We recently had someone play through the game and finish it while only killing one thing very early in the game...a Radroach. I'm not saying I recommend everyone run out and try to play the game as a pacifist, but if you want to give it a try, it has been done.

Well, that's not exactly an enthusiastic yes is it?  More like a... 'Well, technically... yes.'

Of course that directly contradicts something said by Lead Producer Todd Howard and Lead Designer Emil Pagliarulo in an interview with PC Gamer Here:

PCG: So you tried to make it so that even if you take a few people out of the equation, the quest is still solvable?
Todd: As much as possible. It’s not always the case. You might kill someone and it will tell you “You can’t finish this quest anymore, this person has died.” Pretty much 99.9 percent of people in the game can be killed.
Emil: Yeah, even the quest-givers. They give you a quest, you blow their head off, that’s your decision. It’s simply more fun for the player where you might close off branches of the quest, but other branches are still open.
Todd: And the other answer to that question is that we don’t want players to have the expectation that they’ll be able to do every quest any style. Pretty much, Super-Duper Mart, there’s no way to talk your way through that. We get the question a lot, “Is there a non-violent path through the whole game?” No. I mean, you might be able to, I guess, but it’s not a goal.
Emil: I guess technically, because there’s a Stealth Boy, and because there’s a Protectron [security robot] in the back room of that Super-Duper Mart, if you could sneak in there and hack that computer, you could activate that Protectron, he’ll go and he’ll kick the s*** out of all of those raiders.
Todd: There are probably too many for him to kill every single one of them.
Emil: But enough to whittle them down so that science-boy could definitely get through there.

PCG: On average, how many ways would you say there are to solve each quest?
Emil: Probably three. Combat, stealth, talk…
Todd: Stealth science talk… there’s usually a combat option of some kind, and then a “other than combat.”
Emil: And “other than combat” has a lot of permutations, so it’s hard to tell. I mean, I could kill half the guys and then do some speech.

Anyway, I didn't say there weren't going to be multiple paths through quests.

- 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.

If by hype backlash you mean lies and false advertising then partly I agree.  Remember the video demonstrating RAI with the woman who invites you upstairs and lights her dog on fire for being too noisy?  It came to light later that that video was actually scripted.  RAI couldn't do all of that, and it's blatantly obvious to see just by playing Oblivion for more than five minutes after getting out of the mandatory tutorial dungeon if you use fast travel to teleport to the nearest city.  Watch NPCs stand around staring at walls for hours on end, then hold a stilted conversation about mudcrabs, or even themselves in the third person.  Then wander home at night and sleep.  That's pretty much all they do.  We were told it would allow NPCs to buy items and steel stuff, but the only characters that steal stuff only do it in certain specific situations that might as well be scripted, and no one buys anything.  In Fallout 3, the only mentioned RAI improvement is that NPCs will now lean against walls sometimes instead of just staring at them.  If you watch the videos you can very clearly see the player walk right up in front of a bunch on people worshiping the Megaton bomb and plant the detonator on it without any one of them reacting in any way.  Todd has said that the Combat AI is improved and NPCs will now scan the area and take cover behind anything available unless they're "too badass" to do so, like super mutants.  Of course this has not been seen in any of the game play videos where they instead charge suicidally towards you or stand in one place and fire.

- 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.)

Yes, really.  Nuclear bomb cars?  Everything is shades of gray or brown.  Fucking dialogue using the fucking F word almost every fucking other fucking word.  And the music...  The music is so completely off.

- "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)

Here's the first of your random "It's obvious you've never played more than the first five minutes of Oblivion"  First of all, you can't even get out of the god damned mandatory tutorial dungeon in the first five minutes.  Secondly, if you really have heard it all, you're either in denial, or didn't care about the lore in the first place.  Assuming it's the latter I'll continue.  The Kind of Worms.  In Daggerfall, a powerful lich, possibly even a god.  In Oblivion he's a wimpy little Altmer you can off with a strong sneeze.  Mankar Camoran, Son of Haymon; The Camoran Usurper (Who himself was apparently son of the daedric prince Molag Bal and a Breton woman) and a Bosmer woman.  In Oblivion he's an Altmer.  Then entirety of Cyrodiil.  It was originally mostly a jungle with all sorts of wetlands and whatnot.  In Oblivion it's medieval fantasy western Europe.  Well, the whole plot of the main quest really.  There were multiple times in Tamriel's history where the Amulet of Kings was not worn by a member of the Septim line with no daedric invasions to speak of.  There are probably more, but they don't come to mind immediately.

In Fallout 3 there are several instances already shown.  Onc that comes to mind immediately is the contradiction of it's own lore created for itself.  Specifically, "Vault 101, no one ever enters, no one ever leaves."  "You're about to leave to look for your dad who also left."  Sheriff Simms "I'll be damned.  You're from that vault, vault 101." ....Which no one ever enters or leaves so there's no reason for him to immediately jump to that conclusion or even believe it if he was actually told outright.

Then there's the fact that the Super-Mutants are completely mindless killing machines, and that they, the BoS, and the Enclave are even in Washington DC at all.  Oh yeah, and all the tiny nuclear explosions everywhere.

- 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.

Yes... Alone, it's not enough to make the game a disaster.  Alone, most of these flaws are not enough to make the game a disaster, but if these flaws were alone then you wouldn't have written this long ass post.  And it's not a good thing, it's stupid.  One size fits all armor that automatically repairs itself from having all it's extremities ripped off is stupid.  It was stupid in Oblivion where the clothed magically changed from skirts to pants depending on who wore them, and it's even stupider in Fallout 3 when it's predecessors didn't even have that flaw.

- "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.

Ok, I agree that Oblivions few VAs weren't terrible, but they sure weren't terribly good.  Most performances were fairly flat, though a few stood out.  Really, the problem is that they insist on having fully voiced acting.  Is reading outdated or something?  Seriously, they could have had so much more and better dialogue if they hadn't insisted on it all being voiced.  This has been done for years and worked perfectly.  All this full VA does is lower the amount of dialogue they can produce, or force them to cut the budget of more important things in order to pay Liam Neeson for a few more lines.  That's another thing.  Why the crap are they hiring Hollywood actors to do the voices?  They should hire professional voice actors, like the guys that dub anime.  Ever heard of Steven Jay Blum?  No?  Well if you've played more than a few recent games you've almost certainly heard his voice.  Professional VAs are better at voice acting that Hollywood actors and also cost less.

- 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.

Fallout had tons of crazy hand held weapons.  Lazer mini chain guns....  One thing they didn't have was silly nukes.  Nukes were never a joke weapon because nukes really did turn the world into what you were experiencing, and people knew it.  In Fallout 3 we have exploding nuclear burnt out cars, miniature nuclear missile launchers, and a city "built around the crater of an unexploded nuclear bomb" which the citizens worship, which is still active, and which is ready and perfectly able to detonate.  No one is even bothered when you go up to the bomb and start tinkering with it right in front of them.  Then you leave and go to a hotel to detonate the bomb and watch the explosion because...  No apparent reason.  Not that that's really all that surprising since there was no apparent reason why this shady character would trust the first random stranger he saw to stick the detonator on the bomb in the first place.  Oh yeah also, no sex, and children are invincible.

- 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.

Morally ambiguous choices were one of the major things that set the Fallout series apart from other games.  It may not be pissing on the soul the have them missing but it's definitely ripping out one of the lungs.  The devs have stated on many occations that you can choose to be either good or evil, or neutral, which probably means the same thing it does in Bioware games, Good: "There is no need for a reward." Neutral:  "Thank you for the reward." Evil: "I want more reward!  Also, I may or may not kill you for no reason!"

- Different art style: Now you're just seeing things. The art style doesn't look significantly different to me.

It boggles the mind how you can look at Fallout 3 and see the same art style as Fallout 1 and 2.  Did you not look at any of the screen shots?  All the colors are completely washed out.  The vibrant blue skintight vault jumpsuits are now dull and baggy.  Everything in the vault is all dark and "gritty" looking.  The opening of the vault door is done completely wrong though I suppose that's to make up for the limitations of a first person perspective.  Getting outside, things are more gray than brown, and any vibrant colored have been dulled down and darkened.  The guns all look completely different.  The power armor looks like places on a mech under suit rather than a fully enclosed mechanized powered suit.  And come on.  Look at what they've done to the super-mutants seriously!
Marcus the Super mutant in FO2 that would join your party. http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Image:Marcus.jpg

Two pics of FO3 super-mutants/Uruk Hai/ RE3 Nemesis:
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Image:VATS.jpg
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Image:Behemoth.jpg

If that's not significantly different I'd like to know what you consider significantly different.

God that post is so damn long.... I need to sleep.  I'll try to finish responding later.

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

I see: Ascended-PC-Gamer vs Optimist-New-Gamer debate here

Yeah, I see it.

[Virtz]

- 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.

You've pretty much answered it yourself, less bodyparts to target and less meaningful effects to go with it. In Fallout 1 and 2, a hit to the head could knock out an enemy for a few turns, a hit to the groin had an extra knock-down effect, a hit to the eyes was a near-guaranteed critical, a hit to the leg would knock-down an enemy and make him walk slower and a shot to the arm could cripple it. And Bethesda's idea of crippling is stupid. You can go on and shoot weapons with both arms crippled, except with lowered accuracy. In Fallout, a crippled arm meant you were a one-armed bandit, a crippled leg meant you moved like a ghoul, a damaged eye meant you shot like a... man with a damaged eye. And you couldn't sleep off crippled limbs like you can in FO3 either, you needed a doctor.

Also, you get about 5 shots per "turn" (or however you'd call a VATS round), which probably makes aimed shots an insta-kill. In other words, looks over-powered. Though that might just be due to the buffed character for the preview (although you wouldn't be able to do this in FO 1/2 even with a 10 agility character).

- 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.

Bethesda simply has a bad track record of promises made versus promises fulfilled. I remember them promising hundreds of ways to do a simple fedex quest in Oblivion. Turned out to be absolute bullshit. I look at them no differently than I look at Peter Molyneux these days.

- 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.

They may have some extra interactions built in compared to the average NPC, but the result is that they look overwhelmingly retarded compared to simplistic NPCs like in Gothic or The Witcher. Not to mention Ultima VII AI did what Radiant AI set out to do over 10 years earlier and did it better. It may have been done with good intentions, but it misses its purpose by a mile. I'd be truly surprised if they managed to make it work well for FO3. And it doesn't look that way thus far, the enemies in the presentations either stand there and shoot or run towards you and shoot and occassionally just go off and act retarded like one of those raiders who just stopped there and crouched till they got killed.

- "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)

Ok, first off, Oblivion. Have you seen the excuse for changing Cyrodil from a rainforest to a Middle-Earth rip-off? It's the most retarded piece of "lore" I've ever read. Some fucktard emperor says "You hate the jungle, so I'll take away the jungle.", what sort of retardation is this? Do you think Eskimoes would be pleased if you made their Arctic homeland into Hawaii just because you think their living conditions are unenjoyable? And they fucking slaugheterd Mannimarco, they changed him from ubermensch lich to a pansy, bare-foot Altmer and they let the player just kill him like any other level-scaled enemy, how fucked is that?

Second, Fallout 3. They're making up shit that would make Fallout Tactics' storyline look like lore. The Brotherhood branch you've already mentioned, a "Sentinel" rank among the Brotherhood reserved for Lyon's superhero daughter, the fatman, exploding nuclear cars (who the fuck would drive something that explodes in a nuclear blast when it crashes?), behemoths (they wouln't be half bad if they didn't act like ogres and wear skulls and human bodies), vault "thugs", having all 3 major FO1/2 factions move to the East coast, Enclave radio and all that just from the various previews. Expecting better from in-game stuff just seems like wishful thinking to me.

- "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.

No, they were simply bad. That is, they were relatively fine when speaking calmly, but when they tried to act angry or happy, it was freaking terrible. Just. Horrible. The retarded faces didn't help either.

- 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.

Look at it this way - the only places where nukes were used in FO 1 and 2 were the final stages. They weren't trivial, they were what ended the new danger in the nuke-created wasteland. Having nukes blow up when shooting cars, destroying a shithole town of bomb worshippers or when shooting a stupid looking, supposedly pre-war weapon is trivializing.

- 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.

Oblivion didn't have any decisions.

Though you could argue that Fallout 1 pretty much had sort of black and white choices as well, despite Tim Cain's best wishes (like the removed Junktown twist ending).

- Different art style: Now you're just seeing things. The art style doesn't look significantly different to me.

The weapons and the armours look very different, the only thing similar is the BoS helmet. Everything basically looks like made of junk despite supposedly being pre-war tech. It looks like they took more hints from Fallout Tactics than from Fallout 1 or 2.

- 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.

It was? Compared to what? Oblivion's broken, 3-weapon, level-scaled joke of a system?

- 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.

Linear topic based is good? The only place where this varied was the Dark Brotherhood and those choices were meaningless. And actually, Fallout 3 is supposed to be different, full dialogue choices rather than crappy topics. Although the quality of the dialogues is yet unknown to me.

- 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.

Some of us like to plan leveling ahead, which is sort of a problem when all the information is split into shitty little tabs.

Look, it's pretty simple. When making a character or when leveling up in Fallout and choosing the stats to up, you can see how it alters things like damage resistance, AP, AC, melee damage, skills, etc.. With a shit, broken up screen like in Oblivion, you have to scroll back and forth through the tabs and that's assuming this detailed information is available at all.

And you say this means we're lazy? Well, how about playing chess where you can only see a quarter of the board at a time? Sounds fun? No? How lazy of you.

- 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.

I agree, the inventory interface was shit. 7 items on screen is bad. Too bad Fallout 3 is no different and it's still fucking 7 items on screen.

[GregHayes]

Yikes. Think I might have left you guys unanswered a little too long. Alright, I'll try to respond to both of you as well as I am able. Let's see if I can find the Bay 12 forum's character limit.

Before I respond to that long ass post of yours I'd just like to know, what exactly made you so completely certain that I've only played Oblivion for 5 minutes?

You commented saying that Oblivion had the same dialogue system as Fallout 3, only with only one or two options per line, and that you would have preferred a dialogue system in the style of Morrowind's Big List of Topics. (Alternatively, someone else may have said that and the names were just starting to blur together; if that's the case, I apologize) This comment is clearly made in ignorance, because Oblivion's dialogue system is the Morrowind Big List of Topics. There are, of course, a handful of dialogues done in the "Fallout 3 but with only a few options" style. For example, most of the dialogue in the "goddamn mandatory tutorial dungeon" that you can't get out of within the first five minutes.

This information is straight from the developers, confirmed with game play footage and screen shots.  The possible targets for a called shot are the head, the torso, the right arm, the left arm, the right leg, the left leg, and the weapon.  You can watch the recent game play videos for examples.  You can only do called shots with projectile weapons.  All weapons can be used with VATS, (which if you still don't know is basically a pause button that lets you cue up attacks that are then executed in slo-mo with a repetitive cinematic camera) but if it's a thrown weapon or a melee weapon you can only cue a general attack.  The reasoning behind this for thrown weapons is just that the only thrown weapons are grenades that apparently always explode on impact, though I haven't actually seen any used in combat outside of VATS so there's a chance they work like real grenades.  The reasoning behind this for melee weapons is typical Bethesda design.  Basically, they thought it would look bad if you swung in melee and it didn't hit, so they made it autohit, but they didn't want people to abuse the autohit to always go for the head so they removed the option to target body parts.

Apparently, not once did they ever consider just doing it like the original games did and adding a dodge animation, or maybe they did, but removing the option was less work.

Dodging (or any kind of special enemy behavior that involves physical movement) is significantly more difficult to do well in a 3D environment than it is in a 2D one. However, I will conceed that the thing with melee weapons kind of sucks.

I didn't say Fallout 3 would not have choices and consequences.  I said it would have stupid ones, like Blow up Megaton Y/N?

Oh, come on. What is this, kindergarten? "It does too have choices and consequences," "Oh, yeah? Well they're dumb choices and consequences!" However, I am a little curious  - what exactly constitutes "smart" choices and consequences. Give a hypothetical example (not one from the original Fallout games, please, I want a control).

What was that quote again? Lemme find it.  Here.

~snip~

Well, that's not exactly an enthusiastic yes is it?  More like a... 'Well, technically... yes.'

Of course that directly contradicts something said by Lead Producer Todd Howard and Lead Designer Emil Pagliarulo in an interview with PC Gamer Here:

~snip~

Anyway, I didn't say there weren't going to be multiple paths through quests.

You didn't technically say it. You certainly implied it by saying that Bethesda had never done them before and had shown no examples. And I don't see the contradiction. In both cases they say that the game is technically completable with a pacifist run, although they wouldn't necessarily recommend it. Okay, that works. Pacifist runs are supposed to be challenging.
[/quote]

If by hype backlash you mean lies and false advertising then partly I agree.  Remember the video demonstrating RAI with the woman who invites you upstairs and lights her dog on fire for being too noisy?  It came to light later that that video was actually scripted.  RAI couldn't do all of that, and it's blatantly obvious to see just by playing Oblivion for more than five minutes after getting out of the mandatory tutorial dungeon if you use fast travel to teleport to the nearest city.  Watch NPCs stand around staring at walls for hours on end, then hold a stilted conversation about mudcrabs, or even themselves in the third person.  Then wander home at night and sleep.  That's pretty much all they do.  We were told it would allow NPCs to buy items and steel stuff, but the only characters that steal stuff only do it in certain specific situations that might as well be scripted, and no one buys anything.  In Fallout 3, the only mentioned RAI improvement is that NPCs will now lean against walls sometimes instead of just staring at them.  If you watch the videos you can very clearly see the player walk right up in front of a bunch on people worshiping the Megaton bomb and plant the detonator on it without any one of them reacting in any way.  Todd has said that the Combat AI is improved and NPCs will now scan the area and take cover behind anything available unless they're "too badass" to do so, like super mutants.  Of course this has not been seen in any of the game play videos where they instead charge suicidally towards you or stand in one place and fire.

Yes, I remember the video. That was not "lying." Bethesda did, in fact, intend for Radiant AI to function that way, they just hadn't gotten it working properly yet, and at no point did they say, or even imply (it was a video demonstration, for crying out loud! Of course it was scripted!) that was RAI in action, just that it would look something like that. In the end, they couldn't get it working, so they settled for a simpler system.

I will conceed the thing with the bomb.

Actually, from what I saw of the combat AI in the videos, it did look much improved, although to be fair, the only time the AI really caught my attention was when a wounded bandit tried to run away.

Yes, really.  Nuclear bomb cars?  Everything is shades of gray or brown.  Fucking dialogue using the fucking F word almost every fucking other fucking word.  And the music...  The music is so completely off.

Nuclear-powered cars: Missed the whole "Fifties naive optimism about nuclear power and the future" thing, huh?

Shades of gray or brown: Quick test. Do a google image search for "Fallout". Come back and report to me the two most prominent colors. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Overuse of swearing: There are 14 swear words between the Megaton and Tenpenny Tower videos, most of them "damn" or a variation. Variations on the word "fuck" occur about four or five times, and are mostly limited to the conversation with the Sheriff.

Music: I'll admit I haven't been paying particular attention to the music.

Here's the first of your random "It's obvious you've never played more than the first five minutes of Oblivion"  First of all, you can't even get out of the god damned mandatory tutorial dungeon in the first five minutes.  Secondly, if you really have heard it all, you're either in denial, or didn't care about the lore in the first place.  Assuming it's the latter I'll continue.  The Kind of Worms.  In Daggerfall, a powerful lich, possibly even a god.  In Oblivion he's a wimpy little Altmer you can off with a strong sneeze.  Mankar Camoran, Son of Haymon; The Camoran Usurper (Who himself was apparently son of the daedric prince Molag Bal and a Breton woman) and a Bosmer woman.  In Oblivion he's an Altmer.  Then entirety of Cyrodiil.  It was originally mostly a jungle with all sorts of wetlands and whatnot.  In Oblivion it's medieval fantasy western Europe.  Well, the whole plot of the main quest really.  There were multiple times in Tamriel's history where the Amulet of Kings was not worn by a member of the Septim line with no daedric invasions to speak of.  There are probably more, but they don't come to mind immediately.

In Fallout 3 there are several instances already shown.  Onc that comes to mind immediately is the contradiction of it's own lore created for itself.  Specifically, "Vault 101, no one ever enters, no one ever leaves."  "You're about to leave to look for your dad who also left."  Sheriff Simms "I'll be damned.  You're from that vault, vault 101." ....Which no one ever enters or leaves so there's no reason for him to immediately jump to that conclusion or even believe it if he was actually told outright.

Then there's the fact that the Super-Mutants are completely mindless killing machines, and that they, the BoS, and the Enclave are even in Washington DC at all.  Oh yeah, and all the tiny nuclear explosions everywhere.

Oookay. Perhaps I haven't heard all the nitpicks on Oblivion's plot, then. I'll conceed that one to you, for now. Let's focus on the game at hand.

Your comments on "inconsistencies" regarding Vault 101 are basically shooting fish in a barrel, but I'll take what I can get. I'm reasonable certain your father's disappearance from Vault 101 is a plot point. It's obvious he either figured something out he wasn't supposed to and escaped, or the Overseer had to break protocol regarding him for some reason, as with Vault 13. And how is the Sheriff recognizing him as being from there inconsistent? He's wearing a Vault 101 jumpsuit. (Now, I'll grant that this may happen anyway, in which case you have a bit more of a point, but we have no evidence toward that)

Source on the Super Mutant mindless killing machine thing? I remember hearing that somewhere, but I can no longer remember if it was official or just NMA ranting. And people being on the east coast isn't particularly stupid. It's been a matter of decades since Fallout 2, and almost a century since Fallout 1. The Enclave being there is hardly a huge lore breach - the survivors needed a new headquarters after the Oil Rig blew up, and where could be better than Washington DC? The old capital, easily accessible by vertibird, and, best of all, far, far away from the crazy ass mutants in California who blew up the Oil Rig. And, well, why shouldn't the super mutants and Brotherhood of Steel have made their way east, eventually?

I'm kind of pressed for time, right now. I'll finish this later.

[Hyndis]

Well that's all well and good if you only like simplistic games, but some people actually like depth and complexity... like Dwarf Fortress players for instance.  So it's pretty upsetting when one of the few remaining icons of deep, complex games gets dumbed down for mainstream appeal.

And still, no one has even touched on my question of why the hell they'd buy the Fallout rights in the first place when they were planning to make a game like this.  They spent allot of money on a license that most of their target audience wouldn't even recognize.

Bethesda games are simple? Have you actually played one. Yes, Bethesda games do tend to be somewhat buggy, but that is simply due to the massive scope of these games, and a flaw which I can overlook thanks to the magic of the quicksave button.

These games have staggering amounts of stuff to do in them, though due to the sandbox nature of the game it has to be primarily player motivated. There is no ironclad plot which you must follow, as is the nature of JRPG's which are linear games. Nope, you just get plopped down in the middle of the world, given basic abilities, then told to go muck around. You can do pretty much anything you want within the sandbox. How is this a simple game?


I also seriously think you're over estimating the size of the Fallout audience. The old Fallout games were made over a decade ago. They were niche games at best.

Bethesda has turned this tiny niche into a thing with mass appeal for a much larger audience, reviving a dead franchise. Yes, the Fallout franchise was dead before Bethesda bought it and began working on Fallout 3. Dead. As in pining for the fjords. But Bethesda revived it and hugely expanded its audience. I don't see how this is a bad thing, aside from having a twisted sense of elitism.

[Hyndis]

I won't insult more. There're a lot of facts being said here like exploding dead cars etc. which are really nasty and bad.

The cars are apparently nuclear powered, so I'm assuming by shooting them the reactor itself is damaged and causes damage to everything nearby.

I will tell you just one thing: If they will allow an interesting walkthrough way without killing a single man, I think I'll be able to forgive them. I want to roleplay a peaceful man-trader not a butcher!

The game has already been played through in a peaceful manner, resulting in the death of only a single scorpion (probably by accident, but I think the scorpion deserved it) while completing the entire plot.

[kcwong]

These games have staggering amounts of stuff to do in them, though due to the sandbox nature of the game it has to be primarily player motivated. There is no ironclad plot which you must follow, as is the nature of JRPG's which are linear games. Nope, you just get plopped down in the middle of the world, given basic abilities, then told to go muck around. You can do pretty much anything you want within the sandbox. How is this a simple game?

In the main plot, Morrowind/Oblivion are no different than any other scripted RPGs. Actually they are worse, due to the lack of choice. You can choose to do it, or not do it. Once you decided to do it, it's always either return item, kill target, or kill target and return item.

The staggering amounts of stuff to do in Morrowind and Oblivion only exists in player's head - you are correct in calling them a sandbox. But Fallout fans do not want a sandbox. We want a real RPG, a term vastly misused these days, as in the kind with a solid plot with multiple branches for players to choose. Like an interactive book - those with choices you can make and then jump to different pages.

To have a good plot the world must be a living one - it must react to what's happening. Bethesda's games are not like that, what you've done have little impact in the world. NPCs are hollow and empty. That's what's called as "simple".

Good RPGs are like an interactive book. Choice, consequences, personalities, conflicts, feelings, emotions.

Morrowind/Oblivion don't have those. They are just a very pretty blow-up doll. I enjoyed these two pretty dolls for a while, but eventually I grew bored with them. That's not what I wanted most. That's not what Fallout fans wanted.

Imagine one day Bethesda went belly up, and someone bought the Elder's Scrolls franchise, and make a new game called where you go around the land, using your soultrap spells to capture monsters, then pit them against each other. You can play it on PC, XBox and PS3, and you can pit your monsters against an other player's monsters online.

As in Pokemon.

Then they name it "Elder Scrolls 6: Trials of the Beastmaster".

Morrowind/Oblivion fans will bring out the torches and pitchforks.

[McDoomhammer]

These games have staggering amounts of stuff to do in them, though due to the sandbox nature of the game it has to be primarily player motivated. There is no ironclad plot which you must follow, as is the nature of JRPG's which are linear games. Nope, you just get plopped down in the middle of the world, given basic abilities, then told to go muck around. You can do pretty much anything you want within the sandbox. How is this a simple game?

In the main plot, Morrowind/Oblivion are no different than any other scripted RPGs. Actually they are worse, due to the lack of choice. You can choose to do it, or not do it. Once you decided to do it, it's always either return item, kill target, or kill target and return item.

The staggering amounts of stuff to do in Morrowind and Oblivion only exists in player's head - you are correct in calling them a sandbox. But Fallout fans do not want a sandbox. We want a real RPG, a term vastly misused these days, as in the kind with a solid plot with multiple branches for players to choose. Like an interactive book - those with choices you can make and then jump to different pages.

To have a good plot the world must be a living one - it must react to what's happening. Bethesda's games are not like that, what you've done have little impact in the world. NPCs are hollow and empty. That's what's called as "simple".

Good RPGs are like an interactive book. Choice, consequences, personalities, conflicts, feelings, emotions.

Morrowind/Oblivion don't have those. They are just a very pretty blow-up doll. I enjoyed these two pretty dolls for a while, but eventually I grew bored with them. That's not what I wanted most. That's not what Fallout fans wanted.

Imagine one day Bethesda went belly up, and someone bought the Elder's Scrolls franchise, and make a new game called where you go around the land, using your soultrap spells to capture monsters, then pit them against each other. You can play it on PC, XBox and PS3, and you can pit your monsters against an other player's monsters online.

As in Pokemon.

Then they name it "Elder Scrolls 6: Trials of the Beastmaster".

Morrowind/Oblivion fans will bring out the torches and pitchforks.

Or you could log on to a MUCK or assemble a gaming troupe and role-play in the even more accurate sense of the word.

[kcwong]

These games have staggering amounts of stuff to do in them, though due to the sandbox nature of the game it has to be primarily player motivated. There is no ironclad plot which you must follow, as is the nature of JRPG's which are linear games. Nope, you just get plopped down in the middle of the world, given basic abilities, then told to go muck around. You can do pretty much anything you want within the sandbox. How is this a simple game?

In the main plot, Morrowind/Oblivion are no different than any other scripted RPGs. Actually they are worse, due to the lack of choice. You can choose to do it, or not do it. Once you decided to do it, it's always either return item, kill target, or kill target and return item.

The staggering amounts of stuff to do in Morrowind and Oblivion only exists in player's head - you are correct in calling them a sandbox. But Fallout fans do not want a sandbox. We want a real RPG, a term vastly misused these days, as in the kind with a solid plot with multiple branches for players to choose. Like an interactive book - those with choices you can make and then jump to different pages.

To have a good plot the world must be a living one - it must react to what's happening. Bethesda's games are not like that, what you've done have little impact in the world. NPCs are hollow and empty. That's what's called as "simple".

Good RPGs are like an interactive book. Choice, consequences, personalities, conflicts, feelings, emotions.

Morrowind/Oblivion don't have those. They are just a very pretty blow-up doll. I enjoyed these two pretty dolls for a while, but eventually I grew bored with them. That's not what I wanted most. That's not what Fallout fans wanted.

Imagine one day Bethesda went belly up, and someone bought the Elder's Scrolls franchise, and make a new game called where you go around the land, using your soultrap spells to capture monsters, then pit them against each other. You can play it on PC, XBox and PS3, and you can pit your monsters against an other player's monsters online.

As in Pokemon.

Then they name it "Elder Scrolls 6: Trials of the Beastmaster".

Morrowind/Oblivion fans will bring out the torches and pitchforks.

Or you could log on to a MUCK or assemble a gaming troupe and role-play in the even more accurate sense of the word.

Well then, please convert all the "RPG" in my previous post into "CRPG".

[Hyndis]

The staggering amounts of stuff to do in Morrowind and Oblivion only exists in player's head - you are correct in calling them a sandbox. But Fallout fans do not want a sandbox. We want a real RPG, a term vastly misused these days, as in the kind with a solid plot with multiple branches for players to choose. Like an interactive book - those with choices you can make and then jump to different pages.

To have a good plot the world must be a living one - it must react to what's happening. Bethesda's games are not like that, what you've done have little impact in the world. NPCs are hollow and empty. That's what's called as "simple".

Good RPGs are like an interactive book. Choice, consequences, personalities, conflicts, feelings, emotions.

Morrowind/Oblivion don't have those. They are just a very pretty blow-up doll. I enjoyed these two pretty dolls for a while, but eventually I grew bored with them. That's not what I wanted most. That's not what Fallout fans wanted.

I don't think its even possible for a game to do that considering current budgets, computer power, and development cycles. A game such as that would require a massive budget and immense hardware (which means not many people could play it), not to mention probably a longer development time than Duke Nukem Forever. Those three things, a massive budget, tiny market, and ages developing and not having any income, make it nigh impossible to create such a game.

Bethesda even pointed out how things had to be cut simply due to the realities of the development cycle. For instance, in Fallout 3 you can pick up whatever clothes you like and wear them. However, the player is not mistaken for a mechanic when wearing mechanic's coveralls, nor a doctor when wearing a lab coat. They wanted to do this, but having to have all new reactions from every NPC to every possible suit of clothing the player could wear simply isn't possible with their budget and development time. Nor probably would it be plausible to do considering hard drive space since all of those recorded lines take up a lot of room.

Imagine one day Bethesda went belly up, and someone bought the Elder's Scrolls franchise, and make a new game called where you go around the land, using your soultrap spells to capture monsters, then pit them against each other. You can play it on PC, XBox and PS3, and you can pit your monsters against an other player's monsters online.

As in Pokemon.

Then they name it "Elder Scrolls 6: Trials of the Beastmaster".

Morrowind/Oblivion fans will bring out the torches and pitchforks.

Ironically there are some fan-made mods that do almost exactly that.

You're comparing Pokemon to the Elder Scrolls is simply off base. Fallout 3 is keeping in the same general theme as the previous games; a post apocalyptic wasteland full of moral ambiguity in a satirical 1950's pro-nuke timeline.

Yes, the implementation of it has changed significantly, going from an isometric view to a first/third person view, but such is the nature of things. Remember that the previous games are over a decade old. They have not aged well at all, and releasing a Fallout 2 clone as Fallout 3 would be a horrible flop in today's market.

It is all about the market, by the way. Thats the whole nature of the business, and it is a business. The Fallout franchise was completely dead. Bethesda paid a pretty penny to buy the IP, then paid even more money to develop a game. They expect, and are extremely likely to, recoup on the money they spent. At the same time they will revive the Fallout franchise and expand it from a tiny niche market to something with a broader appeal, all while keeping the same general theme of Fallout.

[kcwong]

The staggering amounts of stuff to do in Morrowind and Oblivion only exists in player's head - you are correct in calling them a sandbox. But Fallout fans do not want a sandbox. We want a real RPG, a term vastly misused these days, as in the kind with a solid plot with multiple branches for players to choose. Like an interactive book - those with choices you can make and then jump to different pages.

To have a good plot the world must be a living one - it must react to what's happening. Bethesda's games are not like that, what you've done have little impact in the world. NPCs are hollow and empty. That's what's called as "simple".

Good RPGs are like an interactive book. Choice, consequences, personalities, conflicts, feelings, emotions.

Morrowind/Oblivion don't have those. They are just a very pretty blow-up doll. I enjoyed these two pretty dolls for a while, but eventually I grew bored with them. That's not what I wanted most. That's not what Fallout fans wanted.

I don't think its even possible for a game to do that considering current budgets, computer power, and development cycles. A game such as that would require a massive budget and immense hardware (which means not many people could play it), not to mention probably a longer development time than Duke Nukem Forever. Those three things, a massive budget, tiny market, and ages developing and not having any income, make it nigh impossible to create such a game.

What's not possible to do? A living world? I point you to many other great CRPGs made many years ago, including Planescape: Torment and Fallout 1 and 2 themselves.

It's not possible in Fallout 3 is only because they're reusing the design, engine and methods from Morrowind/Oblivion.

Bethesda even pointed out how things had to be cut simply due to the realities of the development cycle. For instance, in Fallout 3 you can pick up whatever clothes you like and wear them. However, the player is not mistaken for a mechanic when wearing mechanic's coveralls, nor a doctor when wearing a lab coat. They wanted to do this, but having to have all new reactions from every NPC to every possible suit of clothing the player could wear simply isn't possible with their budget and development time. Nor probably would it be plausible to do considering hard drive space since all of those recorded lines take up a lot of room.

Contrast that to Fallout 2, where you can wear dropped items and some NPCs are indeed scripted to recognize what you're wearing and react on it. The gang guarding the items in The Den (looking for a kind of leather armor used by the slavers), the army base sergent (looking for power armor, "You're out of your uniform SOLDIER!"), etc.

It's a difference in design. Other CRPGs do things by scripting them, while Bethesda is trying to use AI, which is not possible currently.

To make a living, breathing world, when your AI fails, you need to script it.

Imagine one day Bethesda went belly up, and someone bought the Elder's Scrolls franchise, and make a new game called where you go around the land, using your soultrap spells to capture monsters, then pit them against each other. You can play it on PC, XBox and PS3, and you can pit your monsters against an other player's monsters online.

As in Pokemon.

Then they name it "Elder Scrolls 6: Trials of the Beastmaster".

Morrowind/Oblivion fans will bring out the torches and pitchforks.

Ironically there are some fan-made mods that do almost exactly that.

Community-made mod is different; you have to actively go download it to give it a chance to bother you, and it's completely optional.

You're comparing Pokemon to the Elder Scrolls is simply off base. Fallout 3 is keeping in the same general theme as the previous games; a post apocalyptic wasteland full of moral ambiguity in a satirical 1950's pro-nuke timeline.

But things are changed irrationally (stated by others already), nuclear explosions all around you, etc. Some of the atmosphere is lost.

Yes, the implementation of it has changed significantly, going from an isometric view to a first/third person view, but such is the nature of things.

Personally I don't think a first/third person view is *that* bad. But there are more at stakes than just the look.

Look at Neverwinter Nights. The Witcher. Knights of the Old Republic. They are all in full 3D and first/third person view. But they are CRPGs, not FPS. Combat is not based on player skill.

But when it's Bethesda doing it, you have to worry about them making it look like their previous games - Morrowind and Oblivion. They are FPS for combat.

Remember that the previous games are over a decade old. They have not aged well at all, and releasing a Fallout 2 clone as Fallout 3 would be a horrible flop in today's market.

I don't need an identical game, or I'll just go replay Fallout 1 & 2. But they have to keep the things that make it "Fallout". Like being a CRPG, not FPS. Have a living world. Complex moral choices and consequences. Keeping the lore intact (i.e. not contradicting it without a good reason and in-game explanation).

[beorn080]

I don't think its even possible for a game to do that considering current budgets, computer power, and development cycles. A game such as that would require a massive budget and immense hardware (which means not many people could play it), not to mention probably a longer development time than Duke Nukem Forever. Those three things, a massive budget, tiny market, and ages developing and not having any income, make it nigh impossible to create such a game.

Whilest remaining completely neutral on this subject having played none of the Fallout series, I would like to point out that Dwarf Fortress does exactly what he described minus it being a CRPG.