Fallout series

[Dreamer]

If that's true, I don't see why it would be the cause of a problem. People come up with cool sounding ideas for every kind of media and real life stuff and drop the ball on the implementation, making it seem stupid from the outset.

the problem would be that all of the ideas in that scenario are catchy oneliners and not necessarily good story material, nothing a good writer wouldn't fix but bethesda doesn't have those.
Its more of a way to explain why their stories so often have a catchy but overall not thought out premise that is in no way expanded on.

 

[Billy "the Bot" Bobson]

Honestly, the Kings thinking Elvis impersonation was an actual pre-war religion would be one of the less wacky things about Fallout precisely because a lot of the old pre-war culture got nuked and same goes for Caesar's Legion. It seems tacky and goofy, but the execution is a lot better than what we see in Fallout 4 and it explicitly addresses the issue of pre-war culture being seen as alien and unknown to most wasteland tribals.

Caesar himself explicitly says he picked Ancient Rome as the inspiration of his army because the tribals had no knowledge of the pre-war world and had no idea that they were cosplaying and LARP'ing.

Even Boone using a T-Rex as a sniper's nest makes sense because it's a tourist trap that actually exists in Nevada in real life. Hell, it was even in the Pee Wee Herman movie.



Like everyone else already pointed out, the Three Families are descended from three tribes and Mr. House did give them all the old pre-War Vegas stuff for them to emulate. But to be honest, I think the Omertas you see in New Vegas probably aren't the original tribals but more like a later generation, so they probably think this cosplay stuff is a real thing.

Fallout has never been totally tonally consistent or logically sound. Take the Three Families. Do you know how long they've been "rehabilitated"? About 7 years. Benny was the guy who headed the transformation from the Mojave Boot-Riders to the Chairmen. This is all information that is kept fairly obscure from the player. Same with the Legion, which is only 33 years old. Timelines are a bit too short imo. However, it works a hell of a lot better than the fucking Cabots. I refuse to ever let that dumb shit go. Gunners are a neat concept, though one could argue they are a knock off of the Boomers, they're still interesting. The Institute is completely redundant and tone breaking : why do we need yet another group of racially discriminated people and maniacal technocrats? Especially when they possess fucking teleportation and the ability to make perfect artificial life for no fucking reason? The Children of Atom would make a way more interesting faction, better than even the Hubologists. I'd even say the Meresti Family is a great concept, just executed terribly. I'm ok with a little wink-wink nudge-nudge kind of thing, like the Dunwich building or the occasional Alien encounter. I think it splashes in a little color and makes things interesting. But don't ever make that the focus. A lot of people enjoy Point Lookout because it played into Bethesda's strengths: environment and atmosphere. The story is almost always left on the wayside. I can't think of one person who seriously likes Mothership Zeta (or even Operation : Anchorage, though I feel this one is more tragic). Old World Blues is loved because its got fun writing and fun concepts, which again plays into Obsidians strengths. But even Obsidian sucked with their DLC (a lot of people dislike Dead Money for it's difficulty, Honest Hearts for its length, and Lonesome Road because of Ulysses). There needs to be a nice balance between the serious stuff and the wacky stuff. Obsidian blends the two together pretty well most of the time, while Bethesda just cranks them both up to extremes and doesn't really mix them together.

 

[Imperial Citizen]

Another example of a faction that has absolutely no explanation is the Gunners. Yeah, they attacked the Minutemen at Quincy, but who's directing them? What set them down the path of taking contracts for money? Where did they get the idea to imitate the US Army? No one fucking knows, because the game doesn't explain. The only dialogue in the game that has you question where they come from has Deacon reply "I dunno". Ultimately they're no different from the Talon Company in 3: they exist to be slightly higher tier raiders to shoot.

It's not like Bethesda is incapable of writing backstory for enemy mook factions, either, the Forsworn have an actual reason for what they do and are fleshed out in the lore.

I have a feeling that the Gunners might become a bigger focus in Fallout 5. Bethesda had references to the Institute and Vault 76 in Fallout 3, so the Gunners origin being outside of the Commonwealth could hint at them being a faction with greater importance in the next game.

Do you think the bethesda hat theory is correct?
The saying goes that there is a hat at bethesda studios and whenever devs get a cool idea they write it on a piece of paper and put it in the hat.
Then somebody takes the hat and tries to make a story out of those ideas.
That's how you end up with quests such as "kid survives apocalypse in the fridge" ripped from a indiana jones scene and such.
Basically one liners that get turned into a quest for no reason or thought put into them.

Bethesda's design philosophy has been individual quest designers creating the subquests. Someone designed the kid in the fridge quest while another designer worked on the deathclaw egg quest.

It creates a map where there are alot of different quests dotting the map, incentivizing exploration through the world. That's Bethesda's signature as you never know what you will encounter wandering through the games of Elder Scrolls or Fallout. The consequence is that the game can feel disjointed in terms of its stories as each area is only intended for at least one quest and that's it.

In Elder Scrolls it makes sense for dungeons and bandit camps to be repopulated, but having the base camp of the Forged be repopulated after you murder their leader is off-putting.

I wouldn't say that the bethesda hat theory is correct, it's more of a sandbox.

 

[Mola Ram]

In Elder Scrolls it makes sense for dungeons and bandit camps to be repopulated, but having the base camp of the Forged be repopulated after you murder their leader is off-putting.

The worst example of this in Fallout 4 is an unmarked location: Bridgeway Trust. It's right at the edge of downtown Boston, and it's a bank that appeared to be in the middle of a robbery when the bombs hit. There are skeletons of the robbers, tellers, and cops. Behind the counter is a massive vault door, secured with a Master terminal. Inside the vault are dozens of deposit boxes of every skill difficulty lock. I remember finding this place and dedicating all my perks to science and lockpicking just so I could open it. I was in awe of this place. It legitimately felt like I had stumbled upon a lost treasure of the old world, not connected to any quest, just something I found through exploration. I felt like Howard Carter peering into Tut's tomb.

And the fucking vault refills every two weeks.

 

[Imperial Citizen]

The worst example of this in Fallout 4 is an unmarked location: Bridgeway Trust. It's right at the edge of downtown Boston, and it's a bank that appeared to be in the middle of a robbery when the bombs hit. There are skeletons of the robbers, tellers, and cops. Behind the counter is a massive vault door, secured with a Master terminal. Inside the vault are dozens of deposit boxes of every skill difficulty lock. I remember finding this place and dedicating all my perks to science and lockpicking just so I could open it. I was in awe of this place. It legitimately felt like I had stumbled upon a lost treasure of the old world, not connected to any quest, just something I found through exploration. I felt like Howard Carter peering into Tut's tomb.

And the fucking vault refills every two weeks.

So outside of the game mechanics of refilling the world, Bethesda's game philosophy worked. The game inspired you to go off on an adventure, building up your skills, and you were rewarded for your efforts. While Bethesda should have not refilled that location, they probably think that you can get even more rewards, especially since you would have to go out of your way to find the unmarked location.

 

[Mola Ram]

So outside of the game mechanics of refilling the world, Bethesda's game philosophy worked. The game inspired you to go off on an adventure, building up your skills, and you were rewarded for your efforts. While Bethesda should have not refilled that location, they probably think that you can get even more rewards, especially since you would have to go out of your way to find the unmarked location.

Yes, but those mechanics profoundly damaged the way I felt about that location. At first it was this incredible discovery. Once I found it filled up again, it was just a resource to be harvested. It's about as immersion-breaking as this kind of thing gets.

 

[Dreamer]

So outside of the game mechanics of refilling the world, Bethesda's game philosophy worked. The game inspired you to go off on an adventure, building up your skills, and you were rewarded for your efforts. While Bethesda should have not refilled that location, they probably think that you can get even more rewards, especially since you would have to go out of your way to find the unmarked location.

I don't think the bethesda model was ever questioned here.
As for repopulation, i think its done to make the world feel less empty even when you exterminate half of the map.

 

[Imperial Citizen]

I don't think the bethesda model was ever questioned here.
As for repopulation, i think its done to make the world feel less empty even when you exterminate half of the map.

As well as for resource replenishment for crafting. Though I believe they had that in Fallout 3 as well. At least the resources in Fallout 4 can be used for more than just ammo for the junk jet. Though I always love collecting worthless pre-war cash and selling them for caps. I can't believe anyone would be willing to pay for something that's worth even less than a Zimbabwean dollar.

 

[Dreamer]

As well as for resource replenishment for crafting. Though I believe they had that in Fallout 3 as well. At least the resources in Fallout 4 can be used for more than just ammo for the junk jet. Though I always love collecting worthless pre-war cash and selling them for caps. I can't believe anyone would be willing to pay for something that's worth even less than a Zimbabwean dollar.

I didn't like junk collecting in F4 actually. it was cool for lore reasons i guess but mechanically it just put a bigger strain on the shitty inventory weight problem 3d Fallouts have.
I would advocate to screw realism and just make junk items weight almost nothing like in W3 instead of forcing you to micromanage your inventory every time you see a trashcan.

 

[HeyYou]

Do you think the bethesda hat theory is correct?
The saying goes that there is a hat at bethesda studios and whenever devs get a cool idea they write it on a piece of paper and put it in the hat.
Then somebody takes the hat and tries to make a story out of those ideas.
That's how you end up with quests such as "kid survives apocalypse in the fridge" ripped from a indiana jones scene and such.
Basically one liners that get turned into a quest for no reason or thought put into them.

I think Bethesda knows that having enemies encompass a vague aesthetic is enough for most people to shrug and shoot them without much thought. Most people who play Fallout 4 don't care who the Gunners are, it's mostly lore spergs who sit for hours on end trying to figure this out.

 

[ShortBusDriver]

Another example of a faction that has absolutely no explanation is the Gunners. Yeah, they attacked the Minutemen at Quincy, but who's directing them? What set them down the path of taking contracts for money? Where did they get the idea to imitate the US Army? No one fucking knows, because the game doesn't explain. The only dialogue in the game that has you question where they come from has Deacon reply "I dunno". Ultimately they're no different from the Talon Company in 3: they exist to be slightly higher tier raiders to shoot.

It's not like Bethesda is incapable of writing backstory for enemy mook factions, either, the Forsworn have an actual reason for what they do and are fleshed out in the lore.

Honestly I felt like all of Fallout 4 was kind of this way.

There was very little back story for anything going on in the world a problem that I feel like is exasperated by the lack of established settlements.

In previous Fallouts you wander around, come across people, and in general get a feel for what's going on in the world. Every interactions was a little more info

 

[2021Murder]

This is accurate though, in Prisons you'll find actual murderers killing Child Molesters for this.

This is such a hilariously white misconception of prison. The fact that people know and love convicted child molester Patrice O'Neal should prove that.

Basically once you look at convicted rates based on race and look into the details of the cases most "child molesters" are convicted because courts use it as a de facto miscegenation law.

The 4% of child molesters that are European white, usually are beaten severely because of the fact that they're white and weak and usually dont join into the very small tough WN groups in the prison (at least at first).

the fact that child molestation is such a high level crime compared to say gun possession or drug possession leads to weak white guys being put in the same levels as fucking spree killers.

The proof is how many convicted child molesters in the non-white communities are not only loved and respected but are so loved and respected even whites love them.

Now onto fallout

Well they were pickpocketing me so they started it.

Attempting to map political ideologies onto Fallout is funny to me. I'm not sure where "repeatedly applying my power fist to someone's groin" falls under the two axis system.

We've figured out that under a certain population (less than 100k) a meritocracy is what was usually favored and worked. If you dont work you dont eat because there wasnt enough resources to let a welfare state develop. Theres a reason you dont really see much politics going on until the renaissance. The NCR "election" are all but shams too for the most part.

The problem with synths is that they don't really fit the overall lore of Fallout. One of the main divergents from our reality is that the Fallout universe decided to focus on harnessing the power of the atom rather than computers and miniaturization, hence the chunky, retro look of the tech. In FO1 the closest thing we get to AI is ZAX, which is a giant super computer.

In FO2, though, we unfortunately had Skynet, which was retarded and should've been left on the cutting room floor, but was still a leap from perfect synthetic humanoid androids.

Didnt the player decide how smart skynet was? You could easily make it a functional retard or a supercomputer

The best thing Bethesda did was play up the 1950s vibe more.

The CIT is a splinter civilization that has had centuries to evolve beyond where America was in 2077, so it's plausible enough and kind of interesting to mix in a different flavor of retro futurism, with the CIT being more 1970s style than 1950s, I find that interesting..

That was my hope for Fallout 76, that the 70s retro style creeps in once civilization sort of gets back on track. We've sort of fistfucked the 50s era meta-pop culture wise anyways.

The worst example of this in Fallout 4 is an unmarked location: Bridgeway Trust. It's right at the edge of downtown Boston, and it's a bank that appeared to be in the middle of a robbery when the bombs hit. There are skeletons of the robbers, tellers, and cops. Behind the counter is a massive vault door, secured with a Master terminal. Inside the vault are dozens of deposit boxes of every skill difficulty lock. I remember finding this place and dedicating all my perks to science and lockpicking just so I could open it. I was in awe of this place. It legitimately felt like I had stumbled upon a lost treasure of the old world, not connected to any quest, just something I found through exploration. I felt like Howard Carter peering into Tut's tomb.

And the fucking vault refills every two weeks.

How are you still playing after two in-game weeks passed? Thats 70 hours+

 

[Mola Ram]

How are you still playing after two in-game weeks passed? Thats 70 hours+

I didn't say I hated it.

 

[Burned Man]

Another example of a faction that has absolutely no explanation is the Gunners. Yeah, they attacked the Minutemen at Quincy, but who's directing them? What set them down the path of taking contracts for money? Where did they get the idea to imitate the US Army? No one fucking knows, because the game doesn't explain. The only dialogue in the game that has you question where they come from has Deacon reply "I dunno". Ultimately they're no different from the Talon Company in 3: they exist to be slightly higher tier raiders to shoot.

It's not like Bethesda is incapable of writing backstory for enemy mook factions, either, the Forsworn have an actual reason for what they do and are fleshed out in the lore.

The Gunners and Talon company are the are they bet example of the points I was making about the Triggermen. They are cool ideas but fall apart the second you think about them. Much like the Triggermen the biggest problem is how many there are and how they seem to be a singular organization. The Gunner/ Talon company are encountered as often and in as large numbers as the raiders but the raiders you meet are implied to not be a singular gang but a whole bunch of crews either with a fragile peace or small wars with each other. Gunners and Talon company are these gigantic mercenary crews that are able to operate and seize lands like an army but aren't major players in the games they are in despite having the numbers and tech to rival groups like the Brotherhood. So who the hell is hiring them? Who is supplying them? Who is training and equipping them? Whats their chain of command? Are they locals or just a small detachment of an even larger group? Whats their primary mission? How does one hire them? How does one join them?

Its a case like the triggermen where Bethesda gives these groups an identity but doesn't fill it in at all. Its a name and a aesthetic and nothing more. If the enemies where just called Mercs and had more generic armor I'd assume they were unrelated crews doing jobs or scavenging or something and not question it. Fallout 3 gives a great contrast between Riley's Rangers and Talon Comapny. The Rangers are small crew you get to learn the background of you learn their mission and motivations. Talon Company is a huge organization that has more dudes then their are civilians in the wasteland with numerous outposts and garrisons and seem to have no mission outside of being dicks and killing you.

I'd say one thing holding Bethesda back is scale of their wastelands. In Fallout 1 and 2 you travel by over world so I always assumed there was way more settlements and farms that you never visit and people you never meet that had no relevance to the story. Fallout 3 and 4 the capital wasteland and commonwealth are kind of isolated environments that you can explore every inch of and meet every single resident and discover just how few people you can talk to. It makes sense of a wasteland to have a lesser amount of people to interact with due the sparse life but that's not the case with Fallout 3 and 4 there's loads of people they just all happen to be part of large hostile armies is all.

In New Vegas you can explore every inch too but large segments of the population aren't just hostile enemies but fleshed out factions that you can interact with. The Mojave Wasteland is also situated between multiple territories and there is implied to be a lot of travel in and out of the region explaining where these factions are coming from and their goals too.

I feel if the Gunners or Talon Company where written like New Vegas they'd be written like a more fleshed out mercenary company. They'd have one central base with one or two outposts that would be situated near some sort of objective they want to accomplish. You'd be able to talk to them or find files telling you what they are after and possibly who is paying them. Like some of the Gunners they wouldn't shoot you on sight but not tolerate trespassing and they'd number a couple dozen not a hundred plus. They'd also have some quest to deal with them and meaningful interactions. Their leaders would also be full characters and not just named enemies,

If seems like a lost opportunity to do something with these factions. They could have just given them normal gear and names like merc or survivalist and nothing would be lost.

 

[Dom Cruise]

Fallout has never been totally tonally consistent or logically sound. Take the Three Families. Do you know how long they've been "rehabilitated"? About 7 years. Benny was the guy who headed the transformation from the Mojave Boot-Riders to the Chairmen. This is all information that is kept fairly obscure from the player. Same with the Legion, which is only 33 years old. Timelines are a bit too short imo. However, it works a hell of a lot better than the fucking Cabots. I refuse to ever let that dumb shit go. Gunners are a neat concept, though one could argue they are a knock off of the Boomers, they're still interesting. The Institute is completely redundant and tone breaking : why do we need yet another group of racially discriminated people and maniacal technocrats? Especially when they possess fucking teleportation and the ability to make perfect artificial life for no fucking reason? The Children of Atom would make a way more interesting faction, better than even the Hubologists. I'd even say the Meresti Family is a great concept, just executed terribly. I'm ok with a little wink-wink nudge-nudge kind of thing, like the Dunwich building or the occasional Alien encounter. I think it splashes in a little color and makes things interesting. But don't ever make that the focus. A lot of people enjoy Point Lookout because it played into Bethesda's strengths: environment and atmosphere. The story is almost always left on the wayside. I can't think of one person who seriously likes Mothership Zeta (or even Operation : Anchorage, though I feel this one is more tragic). Old World Blues is loved because its got fun writing and fun concepts, which again plays into Obsidians strengths. But even Obsidian sucked with their DLC (a lot of people dislike Dead Money for it's difficulty, Honest Hearts for its length, and Lonesome Road because of Ulysses). There needs to be a nice balance between the serious stuff and the wacky stuff. Obsidian blends the two together pretty well most of the time, while Bethesda just cranks them both up to extremes and doesn't really mix them together.

I liked Mothership Zeta and I even liked the Cabot quest.

But of course I like to think of Bethesda's Fallout as it's own separate continuity from 1, 2 and NV.

I have a feeling that the Gunners might become a bigger focus in Fallout 5. Bethesda had references to the Institute and Vault 76 in Fallout 3, so the Gunners origin being outside of the Commonwealth could hint at them being a faction with greater importance in the next game.

Whoa, they really referenced Vault 76 all the way back in Fallout 3? That's kind of mind blowing to be honest.

 

[SpessCaptain]

Whoa, they really referenced Vault 76 all the way back in Fallout 3? That's kind of mind blowing to be honest.

Theres always been vaults testing things out, I knew there was a vault dedicates to cyrogenics stuff but it seemed like a bit of tidbit lore. I'm sure it could have also been mentioned a few times in the originals too.

Also something interesting that I've learned is that Bethesda usually sprinkles in references to their new games in the last DLC, in Morrowind a nordic soothsayer basically explains the plot of Oblivion. So in turn, Far Harbour will be found mentioning the next game (or 76, idk)

 

[samuraicrack]

Every time I see Josh’s tweets nowadays I get the impression that he was abducted by aliens and replaced with a clone trying to emulate the behavior of teenage American white girls or something.

 

[Burned Man]

Every time I see Josh’s tweets nowadays I get the impression that he was abducted by aliens and replaced with a clone trying to emulate the behavior of teenage American white girls or something.

View attachment 1466176

Is he expecting royalties from this or something? Either way strange uses of the quote if those are real. Now I'm expecting to see it on something like a bootleg sweatshop t shirt with a picture of Mickey Mouse.

 

[samuraicrack]

Is he expecting royalties from this or something? Either way strange uses of the quote if those are real. Now I'm expecting to see it on something like a bootleg sweatshop t shirt with a picture of Mickey Mouse.

It’s not even that, Joshua has openly stated everything there is to know about Graham’s character a decade ago, so him acting shocked that people would quote a character this complex and empathetic to real world people in a lot of ways is just bizarre.

 

[Super Hans]

Every time I see Josh’s tweets nowadays I get the impression that he was abducted by aliens and replaced with a clone trying to emulate the behavior of teenage American white girls or something.

View attachment 1466176

Sawyer was a soyboy since before it was cool. It's one of the things that makes New Vegas a miracle.