Fallout series

[Imperial Citizen]

3 had Dad and the named BoS characters, IIRC. It's actually an interesting little story across the Fallout and Elder Scrolls games themselves. In F1/2, your end goal was destructive in nature, the only problem was getting there, and in essence the entire main quest was simply the act of getting directions to where you needed to go. Even in Morrowind, Bethesda was unable to emulate this, and so they introduced the "essential" tag, which played the famous "with this character's death" message, essentially a glorified "congrats, genius, you broke it" message. This was then changed to immortality for Oblivion, apparently because console players thought that reloading the autosave was more obnoxious than the game just flatly refusing to let them kill people (also worth mentioning is that Oblivion introduced children, and something something ESRB). New Vegas walked it back towards the old Fallout games, limiting the essential tag itself to only children, but arguably halfway cheating by having Yes Man both reincarnate and be physically incapable of holding a grudge.

By the time of Skyrim and F4, however, the philosophy seems to have shifted from "don't let the player softlock themselves" to "don't let the player lock themselves out of content", and the results are plain to be seen. Conclusion: it really does take serious skill to make a story that can adapt to the player being an omnicidal lunatic, and that's something that's been lost in both the downgrade of writer skill over the years and the increased emphasis on scripted spectacle as games have gotten more advanced.

It speaks to something I can attest to going from Bethesda's Fallout to Black Isle's Fallout. Bethesda gives the player the opportunity to try everything and do everything. NPCs will wait for you to complete a quest, you can find all types of weapons and use them immediately, players know what skill they need for a lockpick or a hack. Bethesda makes the game world play the same regardless of how you set up a character. Karma and faction makes an impact on what happens, but the quests all end up being a series of combat events.

Black Isle structures their games for a specific pathway. If you set up a character a certain way it can make certain quests a challenge. The best example I can think of is if you start Fallout 2 as a guns character. It makes the tutorial a bit of a slog because you don't get a gun until the first town, and its a shit gun. Now this style allows for alternative pathways to quests, getting out a situation through speech, stealth, or combat. At the same time, these pathways aren't shown as options, especially if it involves using the Science, Repair, or Lockpick skill as you don't know what things that the skill can be used from. So when I first played Fallout 1 and 2, I tended to focus on combat and neglected the other aspects of the games.

 

[Hideous K]

Dare to enter my magical realm?​

Better Lore Friendly Dynamic Immersive Piss Factory Overhaul Project Redesigned Redux More Immersive Features Overhaul - The Frontier Edition​

LIST OF FEATURES:

- A new Piss Factory chain has arrived in Portland, situated in the Industrial zone of Portland.
- The factory's surroundings are guarded by Scavs, expect combat.
- The factory is heavily guarded by Piss Fetishists, rumors say that their leader has somehow acquired a tank cannon, proceed with caution.
- Two new "drinkables"
- One new addiction.
- A massive overhaul of the Portland North Pump Station.
- New enemies.
- One new, drinkable water type.

I am so sorry for posting this

 

[A_Callow_Youth]

It speaks to something I can attest to going from Bethesda's Fallout to Black Isle's Fallout. Bethesda gives the player the opportunity to try everything and do everything. NPCs will wait for you to complete a quest, you can find all types of weapons and use them immediately, players know what skill they need for a lockpick or a hack. Bethesda makes the game world play the same regardless of how you set up a character. Karma and faction makes an impact on what happens, but the quests all end up being a series of combat events.

Black Isle structures their games for a specific pathway. If you set up a character a certain way it can make certain quests a challenge. The best example I can think of is if you start Fallout 2 as a guns character. It makes the tutorial a bit of a slog because you don't get a gun until the first town, and its a shit gun. Now this style allows for alternative pathways to quests, getting out a situation through speech, stealth, or combat. At the same time, these pathways aren't shown as options, especially if it involves using the Science, Repair, or Lockpick skill as you don't know what things that the skill can be used from. So when I first played Fallout 1 and 2, I tended to focus on combat and neglected the other aspects of the games.

Yeah, I get that. I think it's part of what makes New Vegas such an effective compromise of the two design philosophies, because as much as the old guard hates to admit it, OG Fallout could be fucking obtuse at times. There's actually a moment in Dead Money that I swear is the developers expressing frustration at the Bethesda formula.

That thing on your wrist - it's a convenience. Tells you where to go, what to do, dulls your brain.

That's probably why we've never seen somebody take New Vegas' philosophy and run with it: there's not only a fine line between not thinking and having to think too much, but that line is itself in a different place for each player.

 

[2021Murder]

There certainly is satire of corporations; the Pulowski Preservation Pods, the uncaring attitude of Nuka Cola towards the environment and people.

I don't see anywhere in the games where the idea of capitalism is criticized, but these people only view large corporations and their ability to get away with criminal acts and unethical practices as the end result of capitalism. Not something innate to humanity like greed or a lust for power.

the commies also seem to forget that pre-2010s mocking corporations for being psychopathic was as non-partisan as mocking hitler or whining about traffic and taxes. Its why a 3-time Nixon voting advertising executive specializing in selling cigarettes to children can joke about murdering Walt Disney and the other Disney execs after having a shitty time at disney land. its why not a single fucker in america legitimately cared about "piracy" when it came to taping something off the tv or recording something off the radio.

 

[Imperial Citizen]

Yeah, I get that. I think it's part of what makes New Vegas such an effective compromise of the two design philosophies, because as much as the old guard hates to admit it, OG Fallout could be fucking obtuse at times. There's actually a moment in Dead Money that I swear is the developers expressing frustration at the Bethesda formula.



That's probably why we've never seen somebody take New Vegas' philosophy and run with it: there's not only a fine line between not thinking and having to think too much, but that line is itself in a different place for each player.

There is also the fact that Obsidian had very little to build from the ground up. Bethesda gave them the gameplay and graphics, allowing them to be more detailed in the story and quests. The same applies to Fallout 2 as it was released a year after Fallout 1 with little to no changes in the gameplay besides the modification to companions. And the only new models were tribals, New Reno, Wanamingos, the Shi, and the Enclave. In turn Fallout 2 had a much larger world with more quests.

What Bethesda does great is that feeling of random adventure. Walk in any direction and there will be a ruin to explore or a monster to fight. But in New Vegas, there are vast stretches of land bereft of enemies. And the game directs you towards a particular path: Goodsprings to Primm to Nipton to Novac to New Vegas. Go in the opposite direction you run into super mutants, cazadors, or deathclaws. It is a brilliant way to direct a player than putting up an invisible wall, but repeat playthroughs suffer from following the same beginning.

 

[A_Callow_Youth]

There is also the fact that Obsidian had very little to build from the ground up. Bethesda gave them the gameplay and graphics, allowing them to be more detailed in the story and quests. The same applies to Fallout 2 as it was released a year after Fallout 1 with little to no changes in the gameplay besides the modification to companions. And the only new models were tribals, New Reno, Wanamingos, the Shi, and the Enclave. In turn Fallout 2 had a much larger world with more quests.

What Bethesda does great is that feeling of random adventure. Walk in any direction and there will be a ruin to explore or a monster to fight. But in New Vegas, there are vast stretches of land bereft of enemies. And the game directs you towards a particular path: Goodsprings to Primm to Nipton to Novac to New Vegas. Go in the opposite direction you run into super mutants, cazadors, or deathclaws. It is a brilliant way to direct a player than putting up an invisible wall, but repeat playthroughs suffer from following the same beginning.

Oh, yeah. I am sick and fucking tired of that tutorial, but I need to do it if I'm going to hit level 2 by the time I leave town. If there's one great hubris to New Vegas, it's that it assumes that it got its plot hook into the player and they're going to go along with the story. It is possible to take the 15 to Vegas and bitch slap Benny at level 1, hell it's not even that hard if you know what you're doing, but it is certainly a rude awakening for new players, and historically one of the first things that gets brought up against NV in any argument.

 

[Watcher]

Now that you mention it, the parallels are startling, what a timeline that both would be associated with the same song.

It's referencing Crowbcat's Mass Effect Andromeda video which parodies the game's trailer by showing a montage of broken features in the game. People have been saying "Crowbcat video when" since the mod came out.

Reflecting on it, there really aren't any unkillable essential NPCs in Fallout 3 or New Vegas (outside of children). Makes you wonder why they couldn't manage that in Oblivion or worse Skyrim where anyone attached to any major quest was fucking immortal.

It's very hard to do this from a writing perspective I don't necessarily blame developers if they avoid doing this. Morrowind for example still had killable NPCs that broke quests they just eventually went "fuck it you broke the quest" if you killed them. With FNV it feels like it was genuinely a huge challenge to write the story from the perspective "anyone is killable at any time" which is why they added Yes-Man, who is technically unkillable.

 

[A_Callow_Youth]

It's referencing Crowbcat's Mass Effect Andromeda video which parodies the game's trailer by showing a montage of broken features in the game. People have been saying "Crowbcat video when" since the mod came out.

It's not just that, The Frontier actually used the same song for one of their own trailers.

 

[Shitassdeaddude]

So is the frontier worth downloading? If not anyone got a good modlist to recommend? I kinda want to get back into new vegas.
So something with content added and some rebalance but no wacky shit.
P. S. I hate bullet sponges

In addition to what Alcatraz recommended, Autumn Leaves is a neat little whodunnit quest mod with some good writing.

EDIT: Also if you want vehicles with actual physics, skip over the Frontier and just get XRE Cars.

 

[Watcher]

 

[Coldsteel the Hedgehog]

View attachment 1869920

Why the fuck are people like this?

 

[Watcher]

This is apparently a reference to a rap song.

 

[Shitassdeaddude]

This is apparently a reference to a rap song.

That doesn't make it okay.

 

[A_Callow_Youth]

View attachment 1869920

I bet they thought they were being funny, but they overplayed it and just took it into WTFland. As Fallout 2 showed, they key to this kind of joke sex is brevity, not giving the player the most dialogue options of any single conversation in your mod.

 

[Ghost of Wesley Willis]

Thank you Frontier dev team for making me uninstall your raging dumpster fire of a mod midway through my playthrough and reinstalling New Vegas Bounties and the rest of someguy2000's mods for a fresh new playthrough.

 

[A_Callow_Youth]

Thank you Frontier dev team for making me uninstall your raging dumpster fire of a mod midway through my playthrough and reinstalling New Vegas Bounties and the rest of someguy2000's mods for a fresh new playthrough.

What happened, and in which chapter? I skipped the clean install and "do a new save" parts of setting it up, too.

 

[Feline Supremacist]

She slammed the knife through his manhood. Ahzrukhal writhed. She got up calmly.

Ghoul fanfiction. Hard pass.

 

[Alcatraz]

Yes Man

Yes Man was there to ensure that the game was able to be completed, in case you fucked yourself over with the NCR, House or Legion. It's probably why his questline is technically the shortest, as you can outright speed your ass to the ending by saying you wish to ignore most of the other factions, complete the Fortification Hill bit, and then install the override chip at the substation.

Thank you Frontier dev team for making me uninstall your raging dumpster fire of a mod midway through my playthrough and reinstalling New Vegas Bounties and the rest of someguy2000's mods for a fresh new playthrough.

What was it that made you uninstall? Was it a slow burn, or did something hit you hard and ruin it?

 

[Tor Lugosi]

Yeah, Yes Man's route was basically a "break glass in case of the player fucking their self over" safety measure. Most of the content for it is basically just House's stuff but with a "Or not." at the end of the objective, e.g. "Go solve the Three Families' problems and ensure their loyalty. Or not."

 

[A_Callow_Youth]

Yes Man was there to ensure that the game was able to be completed, in case you fucked yourself over with the NCR, House or Legion. It's probably why his questline is technically the shortest, as you can outright speed your ass to the ending by saying you wish to ignore most of the other factions, complete the Fortification Hill bit, and then install the override chip at the substation.

Yeah, Yes Man's route was basically a "break glass in case of the player fucking their self over" safety measure. Most of the content for it is basically just House's stuff but with a "Or not." at the end of the objective, e.g. "Go solve the Three Families' problems and ensure their loyalty. Or not."

That's what I'm saying. He's not technically unkillable, but it's still a narrative workaround that prevents the player from softlocking the game. Perhaps I undersold the achievement of weaving a story as complicated as New Vegas' without needing more than one character to be immortal. The point is that it's very fucking hard to make a game that doesn't unravel the moment the player starts blasting people that the developers didn't intend them to, and it's become something of a lost art in RPGs. From Bethesda's essential system to safe zones that don't let the player draw their weapons, there have been varying degrees of elegance to how games have gone about trying to avoid having the player break the game, and New Vegas probably has the second best of them all, right after OG Fallout.