Fallout series

Unimaginative Username said:
Fallout 5 (2057): You are Nukaborn and have to find your grandfather who, after untangling a complex web of marriages, turns out to be yourself. You are also a tranny (VAULT TRANSGIRL SAYS TRANS RIGHTS).
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I can't wait to watch my favorite franchise decay even further until it's a somehow even more hollowed out shell of its former self full of tranny shit and le heckin wholesome gay love stories!
 
30+GameOvers said:
Boy this is a blast from the past, I haven't heard anyone defending writing in Fallout 3 in any way shape or form unironically in years. Closest thing would be the underage edgelords on /v/ who don't actually care about it and just want to trigger people with contrarian opinions.
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Do you like anything thats in fallout 3?
 
Unimaginative Username said:
Fallout 3 (2008): You have to find your father.
Skyrim (2011): You are Dragonborn.
Fallout 4 (2015): You have to find your son.
Starfield (2023): You are Starborn.
Fallout 5 (2057): You are Nukaborn and have to find your grandfather who, after untangling a complex web of marriages, turns out to be yourself. You are also a tranny (VAULT TRANSGIRL SAYS TRANS RIGHTS).
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Story in Bethesda games is always shit, I mean the best one is arguably Skyrim and that's because they keep it simple: You are the chosen one, you are here to slay the dragon". I don't think anyone is expecting anything out of them in the story department, especially after Starfield, what I am more interested in is their dialogue quality. Allow me to present the downfall of TES as an example:
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RPGs live and die by their characters, setting, dialogue, quests and player choice. I am more interested how they will screw them up this time instead of what asinine reason to run around a desert Emil will give us this time. If they couldn't make looking for your baby emotionally engaging, then they might as well give us a simple plot like New Vegas does where we just want to hunt down some asshole instead. Considering that Starfield is their new design document for how their games will look going forward, and taking the limitations of CC2 into account, I doubt there will be too many quests that aren't generic "kill me this" or "bring me that" type of quests. We can't even expect a good open world out of them now that they learned that they can design 3 or 4 dungeons, spread them thru out the entire game and then randomly generate a wasteland with 2 or 3 random encounters out of a pool of maybe 30 total, for 100 hours straight
starfield dungeons.webp
starfield vs morrowind faction quests.webp

So yeah, not looking too hot. The shitty story of the week is the least of that game's problems, they have big shoes to fill after Starfield and Fallout 76 and I think they are too big for their britches. Outer Worlds 2 looks like it will unironically scratch that same itch much better, especially after the recent previews.
 
Adam Basile Woodrow said:
I wonder if they will depict the Strip with or without checkpoints because Obsidian were unfortunately limited in the past due to the hardware.
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they just have the vault tec villain guy nuke New Vegas on the first episode since it would cost too much money to depict an actual civilization and it'll just be cheaply made scrap remnant villages populated by jeet actors
 
Just found out about this beautiful Fallout 4 mod His Kingdom Come that adds a readable King James Bible as well as several Christian related workshop items. Might be bugged for NG since old workshop mods often don't show up.

Another mod of the same guy also adds a bible radio station.
Adam Basile Woodrow said:
I wonder if they will depict the Strip with or without checkpoints because Obsidian were unfortunately limited in the past due to the hardware.
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>implying the writers of the show ever played the game
 
Adam Basile Woodrow said:
I wonder if they will depict the Strip with or without checkpoints because Obsidian were unfortunately limited in the past due to the hardware.
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To be fair, I don't think the ending credits for Season 1 depicted the Strip with checkpoints. Also, from the few short scenes we got of the Strip in the trailer, I didn't see any checkpoints either. I don't think they'll be there, but I'd laugh if they are.
 
Anachronistic2 said:
I don't think they'll be there, but I'd laugh if they are.
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No matter how they decide to present the strip, they can only lose.

It's good that the Strip is divided into three parts, because it's too big to defend/secure one large area (of course, it looks better without checkpoints).
 
30+GameOvers said:
Colonel Autumn or the abomination that is the Eden dialogue chain, night and day difference.
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I'm not trying to argue Fallout 3 is good writing-wise just to pre-empt any such accusation.

Autumn's Enclave being the "nicer" version of the West Coast Enclave like Lyon's Brotherhood was the "nicer" version of the West Coast Brotherhood seemed like such a obvious opportunity or possible story divergence. I'd go as far to say that that the only reason Colonel Autumn is there when James dies is just to make the idea of siding with him completely untenable from a story perspective.

He coups Eden because he wanted to carry out a genocide basically, a mass killing of the "impure," who are still American citizens in Autumn's eyes by and large (and he means that, including Ghouls). It's incredibly simple, but if it wasn't counter-balanced by the fact he's indirectly responsible for killing your in-game dad, there's a trace amount of nuance there that siding with him wouldn't be completely off the table.

It's lame-ass simple, but outside of the Master in 1 and faction leaders in New Vegas it's actually par for the course. He could've represent a dilemma for the player, essentially long-term vs. short-term thinking with regard to Project Purity and future plans for the wasteland. Anything further than this would require essentially re-writing Fallout 3's main story, at least everything after the Enclave make their first appearance, you could probably keep everything up until that point more or less the same because there's nothing in-game that shows the Enclave are committing the same routine atrocities as in Fallout 2, the Master from Fallout 1, or the indiscriminate killing by the Calculator. Out of all the games up to that point his Enclave were effectively the most harmless villain-group and had the least dire consequences for the Wasteland should they have won — not any worse than the Legion at least, Lanius or Caesar.

Like you mentioned with Eden though, Autumn having any commendable qualities was almost surely an accident. He exists in 5 scenes:
1. Kills dad.
2. EMPs you after getting the GECK.
3. Interrogates you.
3.5 Openly defies Eden and you get told that he didn't agree with mass killing undesirables.
4. Conversation at the Jefferson Memorial.

I guess it speaks to the main story's quality that the best part of it is what you could've potentially done with Autumn.

I'm reminded of The Pitt, which has a reverse-Autumn situation where the leader of the slavers is super reasonable and has a legit long-term plan whilst his underlings are just comically evil retards. Stealing the baby from its parents to get experimented on by some slaves in a literal monster-infested hellscape in a dirty lab is the most contrived attempt a moral conundrum ever and is emblematic of Bethesda's writing: no subtlety, especially when they attempt nuance - keeping the baby where it is, is the right choice. Asher did nothing wrong.
 
>IMPLYING said:
I'm reminded of The Pitt, which has a reverse-Autumn situation where the leader of the slavers is super reasonable and has a legit long-term plan whilst his underlings are just comically evil retards. Stealing the baby from its parents to get experimented on by some slaves in a literal monster-infested hellscape in a dirty lab is the most contrived attempt a moral conundrum ever and is emblematic of Bethesda's writing: no subtlety, especially when they attempt nuance - keeping the baby where it is, is the right choice. Asher did nothing wrong.
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Lyons probably would have wound up doing little different if he had been the one who had been buried under the rubble. According to Casdin Lyons was just as active as a participant it the Scourge as he was, so its entirely possible its what lead to him having that first crisis of faith in the Brotherhood's mission.
 
>IMPLYING said:
I'm reminded of The Pitt, which has a reverse-Autumn situation where the leader of the slavers is super reasonable and has a legit long-term plan whilst his underlings are just comically evil retards. Stealing the baby from its parents to get experimented on by some slaves in a literal monster-infested hellscape in a dirty lab is the most contrived attempt a moral conundrum ever and is emblematic of Bethesda's writing: no subtlety, especially when they attempt nuance - keeping the baby where it is, is the right choice. Asher did nothing wrong.
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I swear I remember reading someplace that the Pitt DLC was a response to people who wanted more morally-gray choices and characters than what was in the base game. But it wasn’t the black-and-white morality that made the game’s story mediocre, it was the writers themselves who weren’t very good, regardless of what kind of story they were trying to write. Thus the attempt at being “morally-gray” still ended up being just as contrived as the “good guy vs. bad guy” base game. They were just like “let’s write about obviously good things conflicting with obviously evil things! That’s what moral ambiguity is, right?”
 
scathefire said:
I swear I remember reading someplace that the Pitt DLC was a response to people who wanted more morally-gray choices and characters than what was in the base game. But it wasn’t the black-and-white morality that made the game’s story mediocre, it was the writers themselves who weren’t very good, regardless of what kind of story they were trying to write. Thus the attempt at being “morally-gray” still ended up being just as contrived as the “good guy vs. bad guy” base game. They were just like “let’s write about obviously good things conflicting with obviously evil things! That’s what moral ambiguity is, right?”
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Well, whatever they did with Pitt and Point Lookout it's some of the best content in that game, so they should have done more of it. I liked how siding with the Raiders is the morally right choice for the longterm, once you get over muh slavery. The slaves are pathetic and useless, they don't have a plan once they are freed, it is implied that Wehrner is even worse than Arshur so a good portion of slaves will flee as soon as they can instead of staying behind, there is pretty much no hope for the cure ever being found since the city lost it's one remaining scientist and means to get more and they can't feed themselves so they will likely starve. Most importantly, Bethesda never programmed in how slave NPCs react when they're freed so they eternally plan their escape as if they were still being monitored by raiders, which is as awkward as it sounds. Point is, that siding with Arshur and the raiders is the only path that really makes sense, and it doesn't feel right to side with them, which is some good writing. Shame this is about the peak of that game, Point Lookout story is quite literally unfinished so it stops halfway thru and you just get a half-assed final battle with no consequences between the ghoul and the brain. Side quests were fine, but do you really want that to carry your experience? And it doesn't really get better from here, most content in the base game is garbage, and the "good" parts are either so out of the way you will never get to them without using a guide(The Oasis) or are so horribly written and stupid that they take you out of the experience(The Superhuman Gambit, btw that ruined town is supposed to be the hub of commerce for the region but there is zero traders there aside from one diner and maybe a random traveling merchant. You figure out this writing.)

I find it funny that Bethesda actually goes above and beyond to explain how people of The Pitt and Point Lookout get their food, you can tell even in those early days people mocking Megaton and the rest of the wasteland for having no farms or other means of feeding themselves really bothered them. It shows that they know how to write a well designed world, or at least one that makes some sort of sense, they're just too lazy to do so.
 
scathefire said:
I swear I remember reading someplace that the Pitt DLC was a response to people who wanted more morally-gray choices and characters than what was in the base game. But it wasn’t the black-and-white morality that made the game’s story mediocre, it was the writers themselves who weren’t very good, regardless of what kind of story they were trying to write. Thus the attempt at being “morally-gray” still ended up being just as contrived as the “good guy vs. bad guy” base game. They were just like “let’s write about obviously good things conflicting with obviously evil things! That’s what moral ambiguity is, right?”
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I've heard that too.

I think they're generally stymied in trying to portray something controversial that could be approached with nuance depending on the situation, especially something like slavery. Considering how many retards there are out there, they feel the need to beat the player over the head with, "Slavery is bad! We don't agree with slavery at all! It's unjustifiable, complete unjustifiable! We really, really, really don't, not in the slightest, support slavery. But..."

They really heap on how absurdly shit and pointless an existence the slaves live. Even after you liberate them they're still working like slaves because...

It pushes you to wanting to help the slaves so much and let you the player know that it's a rotten practice that the Asher and baby stuff at the very end is far too abrupt in how it's introduced. You are never told or so much as hinted about what the true nature of the "cure", or the fact said "cure" isn't even a "cure" at all in a literal sense, but a symbolic hope of a cure in the future. You're not allowed to push Werner on the details, or get shut down in the process and I think out of the core group of plotters he's the only one who knows. It's perfectly functionable as a twist but it comes out at the last 10% of the DLC and like most Bethesda things you're stick in a binary with how you can handle it, and when set in the context of how Bethesda typically does these things, it's unusual there's no "golden ending" for this. It's either: keep the status quo with brutal slavery but a family kept whole, or end slavery but (possibly) subject a baby to callous experiments after killing both its parents and essentially receive the same vague timeframe as to when a cure will be found as you do from Asher and his wife.

The only other instance of this I can recall in 3 is the Ghoul and Tenpenny Tower situation, where there's effectively no "good" ending unless you don't involve yourself at all. Unless you consider slaughtering the ghouls the good ending, in which case I largely agree, but killing them before the crime means you're killing mostly innocents so it's Schrodinger's moral dilemma. Arbitrary black and white approaches are usually all you get, usually with a choice to make the good choice even gooder or the bad choice even badder. You don't even get the option to tell Ashur to pack it in a bit, or have his men cool their jets a little; though I suppose that presents another possible criticism in the same way "kill yourself" to Eden was, in that it seems like you're getting way too much bang for your buck in what you could possibly convince someone to do.

Fallout 3 had 2 "kill yourself" speech options btw, though the one in Anchorage is understandably less talked about.
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I did enjoy the Pitt though.
They must have spent 80% of their time creating the Steelyard and placing those ingots though.
 
GodJesusHimself said:
Fallout 3 is my personal favorite. Don't really play the originals or the newer installments, though I own them all.
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It was the first one I played so there's a nostalgia factor to it's relatively positive regard in my mind. I can shit on and tear down the writing but I won't avoid talking about it or playing it again just because I can recognise its flaws nowadays. I think I hold it in higher regard than 4 but I think nostalgia is doing that. I think in terms of exploration, despite 4's better map and less bland aesthetic, I preferred exploration the Wasteland in 3 than in 4.

When I did play New Vegas for the first time, I approached it like 3, assuming there was a sole path to go through to reach the ending. Yes Man/Independence was, until I played it again years later, the only actual ending to that game in my mind and the reason young-me rated it so lowly until I actually realised I was being a retard.
 
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When you present yourself as one of the most pragmatic and smartest individuals in all of the wastes (to the point of predicting the end times to near perfection) but you suddenly get retconned into being part of some nonsense cabal that decided to blow up the world because of capitalism or somethin'
(nvm if you are still alive, you are probably getting a humiliating death because of the writers projecting some guy they dont like onto you)
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The handsome tard said:
When you present yourself as one of the most pragmatic and smartest individuals in all of the wastes (to the point of predicting the end times to near perfection) but you suddenly get retconned into being part of some nonsense cabal that decided to blow up the world because of capitalism or somethin'
(nvm you if you are still alive, you are probably getting a humiliating death because of the writers projecting some guy they dont like onto you)
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Is it really a retcon if most fans won't consider it canon? The only people that care about the lore are youtubers(who just read the wiki and don't actually know anything) and old-time fans who will refuse to consider this piece of shit part of the Fallout universe, just like with POS and 76. Your average player/watcher won't care and will just give you the flouride stare if you use too many words, let alone comprehend what is going on in the story at any level. As laughable as Emil's quote about "pages of the book being turned into paper planes" is when you remember how bad his writing is, it makes sense when you consider just how stupid and ignorant your average tourist is. It's not just DSP who blindly skips past dialogue options and blindly goes towards the next objective marker anymore, that's your average nu-Fallout player.
 
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