When the game comes out, I’ll be curious as to how it plays on older (2005-era) machines. I was pretty excited about FO3 and ready to make it, if not a Day 1 purchase, a Day 8 (post-positive feedback) purchase… until I remembered, rather stupidly, that I can’t even run Rome: Barbarian Invasion with the largest-allowed army sizes without nasty lag. Ah well.
Therlun
4062
It does indeed look great and not only in a max-hardware Crysis way.
I still dont like the weapons, the console UI and the action touch, but after seeing the 5 newest gameplay videos I certainly understand why Bethesda didnt simply create their own post apoc world.
Another thing I’m curoius about is the quest solutions.
The only real example so far seems to be the megaton question, and I wonder how diversified other quests and quest chains are. Anything new on that front?
This game is going to make me buy a new PC this Xmas…at the latest. It all depends on how well I can hold out until I play it. Maybe I should lurk on NMA to quell my anticipation.
Prodigy
4064
Well, that was one of Oblivion’s big flaws, too bad they did not learn from that.
Grifman
4065
FWIW, I’ve read that there are 2 or 3 ways of solving many quests. Some previous previews have discussed this.
Killzig
4066
I think Emil said something to that effect in a forum posting or two. A few of the devs have also highlighted this about FO1/2 as being one of their favorite bits.
The achievements are out and they’re very spoiler-y.
Well, given it’s Bethesda, I’m expecting:
Strictly linear quests that can be broken if done in the “wrong” order.
Retarded rush AI.
Monumental effort wasted on making the AI run in elaborate circles, rather than spend on making it react to its surroundings.
Gameworld divided into nonsensical “everything is hostile” and “everything is friendly” zones.
… And all the other bullshit that has turned the last several years of Bethesda games into HG:L-style games rather than sandbox cRPGs.
Not saying FO3 will be bad. I’m depressingly confident it’ll suck as a Fallout game, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be a bad game. On the contrary, I expect it’ll be great of fun. Morrowind & Oblivion certainly are.
Brendan
4068
Do you want a list of quests and their possible solutions already? Whatever happened to the wonder of discovery as you play a game? Methinks too many people want to know too much about games before they are released these days.
Aeon221
4069
When has that been part of Bethsoft game? That’s like the one flaw they don’t have.
Gameworld divided into nonsensical “everything is hostile” and “everything is friendly” zones.
Are you talking about cities and wilderness? What are you saying? Is this a new language?
… And all the other bullshit that has turned the last several years of Bethesda games into HG:L-style games rather than sandbox cRPGs.
Like what?
Not saying FO3 will be bad. I’m depressingly confident it’ll suck as a Fallout game, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be a bad game. On the contrary, I expect it’ll be great of fun. Morrowind & Oblivion certainly are.
Prodigy
4070
I think it was in a interview or a preview related to Fallout 3 where I read something about NPC using areas instead of pathnodes (as in Oblivion), which made them much more reactive to their surroundings. But I may be wrong.
Will they murder one another in order to accomplish mundane tasks? I think I’d enjoy that.
Prodigy
4072
As long as the guards from every town in the game don’t know I robbed someone I’ll be happy.
I haven’t kept up with this thread. Has there been any discussion about the recent videos and gameplay footage, or just more silliness?
The ratio has improved considerably in favor of information.
Well, the guards in Megaton certainly won’t know after you nuke them!
Killzig
4076
Sounds like they’ve addressed this, from fan interview #2…
5). Will crimes committed in one place automatically be known everywhere and by everyone? Or is this limited to the zone the PC committed the deed in?
It’s limited to the faction you did the crime to, and we also put towns into their own faction. So a crime committed in one town will not affect another, but crimes committed to a group will be known to that group (say the Brotherhood of Steel) throughout the world.
The hostile zone/friendly zone problem was much more evident in Bloodlines than in Oblivion.
anaqer
4078
That comes more or less directly from the VT:M rules though, no?
I hope you aren’t, but it’s kinda hard to work up any sort of optimism about it.
You don’t need to get all defensive about it. But to answer your questions:
They’re certainly getting better at the quest stuff. Oblivion still have problems with quests breaking because the player did something in the wrong order (check Beth’s Oblivion Spoiler forum if you won’t take my word for it), but considering they’ve mainly addressed the issue by simplifying & railroading quests, you’ll just have to forgive me for not cheering.
Town/wilderness areas was exactly what I was referring to. Back when I first played Daggerfall, it surprised the hell out of me. It did again when I payed Morrowind. And again in Oblivion. It simply doesn’t make sense that the game claims “here’s a bunch of sapient creatures” and uses them as “they’ll rush you on sight and fight to the deat unless you’re in a town”. No internal consistency is not the way to achieve the much hyped immersion Bethesda seems to be after.
The myriad other issues I alluded to basically boils down to the fact that the individual game elements don’t hang together very well, or sometimes at all. Apart from not-Sea Dogs 2 (forget the title, sorry) I’m pretty sure Bethesda haven’t ever made a game with a functioning economy, and even not-Sea Dogs 2’s economy was a digital turd.
Again, none of this means Bethesda games in general or FO3 in particular aren’t/won’t be enjoyable. I trust everyone already knows Bethesda tends to make brilliant games, regardless of how unlike the PR claims they turn out to be. Unless you think they can do no wrong, that everything they say is God’s Infallible Truth and that their every game is the pinnacle of perfection, there’s no need to get defensive about it. All games have flaws. Discussing them hopefully makes some of them go away next time, though all things considered, that’s less to be expected of Bethesda than of other developers. After all, the flaws their games do have, have generally been around for more than a decade.
zengonzo
4080
I missed Morrowind in its time, actually, but when I played Oblivion I was pretty dismayed to find out how dumb the wilderness was.
The first encounter I had was when I wandered into a camp, and then someone started shooting at me - which seemed fair, as I was rooting around in his camp. Then the next encounter was someone just out on a hill, and I’d figured I’d see if I could engage him in dialogue or the like, but he just came at me like a murderous fiend.
Most people out in the open world seemed to be blood-crazed psychopaths that exist only to kill - not even ask that you drop all your gold and continue on your way.
