New Fallout 3 Info

[Roy_Ziegler]

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.

That is the case in practically every RPG, including Fallout 1 and 2…

Most areas outside towns or factions are 100% hostile, and most random encounters are hostile with a couple exceptions like merchants which you could substitute in Oblivion with Imperial soldiers and rangers and deer.

As for wilderness encounters in FO3, they’re supposedly varied. One example they gave was finding someone on the verge of death who needs water, I believe.

[Killzig]

IIRC, in Fallout there was a lot of combat that cropped up in towns too. Rescuing that BOS initiate in The Hub is one situation I can think of. Also the gang kids in Junktown…

[zengonzo]

Fallout did have a good number of non-hostile random wilderness encounters, though. You can find them in a few others, too, like Fable, STALKER …

It seemed particularly strange to me in Oblivion, though, where the world is so detailed. I’ll be glad to see that different in Fallout 3.

[Alan_Au]

Yeah, the guide is fun. They had some giveaway at the demo today also (btw, demo was awesome) - everyone got either a poster (from the PA FO3 comic), a hand puppet (also from the strip), a vaultboy/pipboy shirt (forgive me, NMA-ers, I never remember the difference), and there were a couple of other giveaways of the game itself. Of course, I got the (yawn) poster.

The item(s) you got depended on which type of card(s) you turned-in at the booth. Different cards had different SPECIAL stats depicted on them. I ended up with an Intelligence card and got a puppet for it. Supposedly there was a Luck card out there (not sure how many, maybe just one?), which was redeemable for the game itself.

• Alan

[Janster]

I want…this…game.

ktnxbye

[Disconnected]

That is the case in practically every RPG, including Fallout 1 and 2…

Yes, but you’re mostly missing the point. I’ll readily agree most or all cRPGs could use some more variety. But Oblivion (and Bethesda games in general) goes about the hostile/safe zone shit in an absurd sort of way.

Going with your Fallout example, Fallout gives you a warning & tells you exactly what it is you’re about come across. It’s no surprise then that Slavers or Rad Scorpions will attack you on sight, because to one you’re made of money & to the other you’re made of teh tasties.

In Oblivion, on the other hand, you typically don’t have a clue who some random group of strangers are. What you do know, is that men and mer gets along just fine. Thus having them rush you in a mad frenzy is just about the last thing you’d expect them to do.

Basically it’s a problem of player expectation. When the game says it’ll do one thing & then does another, it’s annoying in the same sort of way it’s anoying to buy a pund of coffee, only to find out the bag’s full of flour (though at least that’s kind of interesting too… Still wondering just how the hell that happened).

As for wilderness encounters in FO3, they’re supposedly varied. One example they gave was finding someone on the verge of death who needs water, I believe.
I hope you’re right. The original Fallouts could certainly do with a bit (well, a lot) more variety.

[MattKeil]

In Oblivion, on the other hand, you typically don’t have a clue who some random group of strangers are. What you do know, is that men and mer gets along just fine. Thus having them rush you in a mad frenzy is just about the last thing you’d expect them to do.

Most of them are desperate vagrants and thieves. It’s pretty much exactly what I’d expect them to do.

The issue wasn’t with the behavior of the country ruffians for me, it was the fact that the level scaling eventually had them all wearing armor worth half a city block.

[zengonzo]

Fallout did have encounters with merchants, the Brotherhood and other travelers. I was just playing the other day on GameTap and I’m pretty sure the very first random encounter was with a group of traders.

[zengonzo]

The issue wasn’t with the behavior of the country ruffians for me, it was the fact that the level scaling eventually had them all wearing armor worth half a city block.

That was definitely a problem itself, but regarding their behavior they come straight at you like men possessed and don’t stop until they are dead themselves - which doesn’t make as much sense for road agents.

[Balsamic]

it’s annoying in the same sort of way it’s anoying to buy a pund of coffee, only to find out the bag’s full of flour (though at least that’s kind of interesting too… Still wondering just how the hell that happened).

You sure it was flour and not, you know, “coffee”?

I’ve read a lot of previews, and have read many examples of non-hostile encounters happening in the wasteland. The guy who needs water is one, there was also one where a lady with a bomb strapped to her runs up to you, screams for help, and then runs away and blows up, and then there’s one with a traveling merchant.

I’ve also read about shit going down in cities, I know you can kill the sheriff, and I know that he’ll attack you if you mouth off too much. Also, and this is probably a SPOILER, but bad stuff happens if you tell the sheriff about Mr. Burke’s plan.

So there you go. We’re just gonna have to wait to see the game before we know the exact way this stuff plays out.

[zengonzo]

I’m hoping for the awesome.

But this quarter is so loaded with joy, I’m actually not that anxious.

[Killzig]

That was definitely a problem itself, but regarding their behavior they come straight at you like men possessed and don’t stop until they are dead themselves - which doesn’t make as much sense for road agents.

IIRC, Todd said they had a raider behavior where they’d harass you and scurry back off into their cave/windstream, but later removed it because it was too annoying or something like that. :(

[Roy_Ziegler]

snipperydoodah

Ah, I understand. I remember in one of the my first playthroughs of Morrowind getting to a bridge and this guy standing there. I go, “oh, hey, I’ll go talk to him.”, then he summons a skeleton and just attacks me for seemingly no reason. In retrospect I guess he was a bandit, but I remember going, “What the hell!?”.

[zengonzo]

IIRC, Todd said they had a raider behavior where they’d harass you and scurry back off into their cave/windstream, but later removed it because it was too annoying or something like that. :(

Augh! That’s like the predators from Far Cry 2.

Damn playtesters!

[Roy_Ziegler]

Also, apparently you can cow(brahmin)tip in this game?

Fallout 3 features cow tipping. That’s all I need to know. I literally fell over laughing after watching one of the Bethesda devs tip a brahmin.

http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showpost.php?p=6906216&postcount=747

[Unicorn_McGriddle]

That comes more or less directly from the VT:M rules though, no?

What? No. There are no “kill zones” in Masquerade where Humanity loss is suspended and you’re encouraged to go nuts. Similarly, Elysium or other neutral ground is a social convention, not a supernatural compulsion, although it may be backed up with a supernatural compulsion like those provided by Presence or Dominate – or by straightforward physical threats like guards or (most commonly) the knowledge that everyone will attack you if you start something.

Violence in Masquerade is not necessarily to the death, and the Humanity mechanics are intended to frame violence as part of a personal struggle with madness rather than the point of the game. Bloodlines was a ludicrous perversion of its source material.

[Ed_Solomon]

Bloodlines was a ludicrous perversion of its source material.

I think I liked you better when I thought you were Ebonstone.

[anaqer]

There are no “kill zones” in Masquerade where Humanity loss is suspended and you’re encouraged to go nuts. Similarly, Elysium or other neutral ground is a social convention, not a supernatural compulsion […] Bloodlines was a ludicrous perversion of its source material.

Oh, gotcha. I wasn’t that intimate with the pen and paper ruleset.

[Unicorn_McGriddle]

What apostrophe?

[Aeon221]

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.

Dude, you just totally failed your skill check on your Forum Jedi Mind Rape. You’ve got a specific complaint, surely you can bring up some specific examples instead of playing the “lol ur dfensieve” card. Or maybe you’re just lost in meme-land. Whatever. That’s your deal.

Me, I remember playing Morrowind and being chased into towns by hordes of goddamn cliff racers who the guards went after. I also remember several quests for the thieves guild where I slaughtered people in Balmora’s bars rather than dicking around with pick pocketing, then running to that one bar with the dude who gives you directions to the main quest spy guy to pay off my fees at half price. And of course there was the time I massacred the entire island of Vvardenfell just for lulz.

And in Oblivion, the same kind of stuff happened. Not once, but several times I was chased by those forest caster bitches that summoned bears and shit and had to take refuge in a town. There were also the Assassins Guild quests that had you murdering people left and right inside of towns. And lets not forget the ending of the game, which turned the Imperial City into a goddamn warzone.

So, no, I never really got the feeling that the cities were all that safe. Maybe Arcanum did it better – I do recall getting jumped by those goddamn orcs in Tarant all the flipping time. Eat lead, you mendicant sons of bitches! Funny thing though, the one time I tried to play a nice character was in Oblivion, and it was also the first and only time I’ve ever had a character go to jail. She spent something like fifty days in prison before I finally gave up. No good deed goes unpunished, I guess.

I never had a quest break because I did it out of order, although I did manage to break a few quests because I’m a goddamn murder machine, so I dunno when that was supposed to happen. And since I spent several hundred hours total in both games on multiple characters doing it a different way each time, I expect I’d have run into it at some point if it was common. So, sure, pop me with whatever arcane ordering of quests I’d have to do to get them to break.

I can’t believe that I wasted this much time arguing with someone over something this lame. I also can’t believe I made it through a post this long without typing fuck or cunt or shit or cock even once! Woo go me!