Fallout Series Discussion

[Deimos]

and when you look at Louisiana from North to South, it's quite different. I can't speak for the south, but i can for the north, having lived here my whole life.

It's actually quite dry up here in northside of LA, compared to down south anyways. people are definitely different. Up north LA we're a bunch of country hicks the most of of (though i'm somewhere in between Country and City). And down south, well i'm not entirely sure what it's like, but i do know there are some subtle, and some more pronounced, differences from North and South Louisiana, whether cultural or geographical. I'm not sure if Bethesda would do it justice.

[Unionhack]

Having family up north (until a hurricane wiped out the orange groves they had) and living in the south, the differences aren't so pronounced unless you talk to the more extreme people of both ends of the spectrum. Not everyone here is a one-toothed alligator hunter living on a shack on the river, but there are some.

It's basically farmers up north and fishermen down south. Though there's plenty of cane being grown here.

For sure though, the culture of New Orleans pretty much ends at the borders of New Orleans. If they were to do a Fallout around Louisiana, I think that for the maximum effect they would have to base it around NOLA. The rest of Louisiana's culture isn't as pronounced, except for the Cajun thing (which, again, doesn't really get a lot of attention save for the occasional festival or museum unfortunately). You don't hear about Voodoo in Alexandria, you know?

That brings up the problem of the levees though, since after the bombardment they'd probably fall into disrepair over 200 years and thus make the whole city flood up again. So unless in the Fallout universe they invented a new, more efficient way of preventing flooding in New Orleans; or if the Cajun culture is more pronounced in Fallout, then I don't think Louisiana would be the best place to have a Fallout game.

Then again, they have a way of making places interesting in that universe, so I could always be wrong.

[Deimos]

I'm hungry for alligator now.. anyways, i'd still like to see one based on the area. i mean, with these next gen consoles, they should definitely be able to build a bigger world.

[Kerr]

You can set a game around New Orleans without having the city itself be the main settlement people live in. Adytum is pretty small in proportion to LA as a whole and not many people lived in DC itself. I do think a flooded New Orleans could be interesting to explore. Still there are plenty of other places you can set a Fallout game.

Although with New Orleans the soundtrack could have Johnny B. Goode. Who doesn't like Johnny B. Goode? I should have used Johnny B. Goode in Vault 54.

[All hail!]

I'm playing New Vegas and the King is invisible. Any advice on what to do?

[sinister]

Are you sure he is invisible? He can be upstairs on the third floor.

[Red Guardian]

I want to see more info on areas outside of America before anything else on the West Coast. I want to see how China or Russia ended up after the bombings, you know?

I believe it is hinted that China is just like in Mao Tse-Tung's regime.
We hear about it somewhere in Operation: Anchorage (yes, I know it happens before the nuclear outburst but it isn't really that hard to picture the chinese still living that way).

I don't know about Russia but it seems that a lot of countries in Europe united. They are known as the Commonwealth. I believe there was a rumor saying that the setting for FO4 would be there. Do any of you remember such thing? Would be nice, really. But it's in America yet again.

[Mattbott]

maybe dlc could be set in the euro zone, and the main game in America

[Kerr]

Russia was still the Soviet Union. It had a consulate open in LA. It was probably on better terms with the US than during our Cold War and they didn't fight in the resource wars, that was China and US. Still I doubt that got along that well. Resource Wars also had the European Commonwealth in the Middle East, then European Commonwealth started to break apart and the states bickered with each other.

Just before the bombs fell wasn't some great time to be alive and then the bombs ruined everything. The bombs made it worse obviously but things were going to [&@%!] before the bombs fell.

---

Talking about communists, I'd like to see a Post-Apocalyptic communist society in the next Fallout. It's something they haven't done before. I totally see having a society after a nuclear war becoming communist and relying on collective state-ownership instead of private property. Especially a small scale community where all the people in the community know each other and can easily interact. If you wanted you could even go for an anarchist collective instead of more authoritarian communists.

[Red Guardian]

^ I feel that Metro 2033 is pretty much a Fallout in Soviet territory. Give it a try.

[Rose of Sithis]

Yo so I've been trying to play FO3 on Windows 7 but it crashes every time I launch. I've tried verifying the integrity of the game's cache and all that but it's a no-go. It crashes at different times but I've never been able to get into actual gameplay. Once I was able to get through character creation but it crashed immediately after I finished. Google didn't help me. What do?

[Rook]

Have you tried re-installing the game?

[Rose of Sithis]

Have you tried re-installing the game?

Just tried it. That'd be a no-go.

[The SheoDovah]

You can set a game around New Orleans without having the city itself be the main settlement people live in. Adytum is pretty small in proportion to LA as a whole and not many people lived in DC itself. I do think a flooded New Orleans could be interesting to explore. Still there are plenty of other places you can set a Fallout game.

Although with New Orleans the soundtrack could have Johnny B. Goode. Who doesn't like Johnny B. Goode? I should have used Johnny B. Goode in Vault 54.

I agree with Kerr. A flooded city would be interesting to explore in Fallout and the plot could be as simple as trying to create a new sanctuary from mutated creatures. It would give Bethesda a lot of creative freedom to throw in water based enemies and add a minor underwater combat system.

Regarding Fallout 4. I do hope neither the BOS, Enclave or supermutants feature in it due to the East Coast having less reasons for them to be there. Lyon's BOS is located in the DC and lack the resources to spread out, The East Coast Enclave was destroyed by a teenager and the BOS and Mutants are a dying breed.

[Unionhack]

On the contrary, one might say the BOS is quite strong. And the master's army was very, very big and full of creatures that have an incredibly long lifespan.

Lone Wanderer was 19. I'd say that's an adult. You also have to account for the days he spends traveling, in context FO3 may take over a year.

[The SheoDovah]

True but the bulk of the BOS's force was on the west coast and the war with the NCR reduced their numbers. I doubt they would have enough resources to send out a force to establish a new branch in the east coast. The East Coast BOS, i doubt they have the manpower to make it to the commonwealth unless F4 takes place several decades after 3, which i feel would give them a lot of room to grow and expand. But a few years, i would have trouble believing it due to the Enclave putting up a fight and without the LoneWanderer, i suspect they would have lost. However, that generally applies to every Fallout Hero and main factions.

As for the Lonewanderer, true and in theory, it could have taken a few months just to get used to being outside along with surviving but i feel that they didn't protray it that way. That said, it was Bethesda's first entry into the Fallout franchise.

[philfredobob]

The East Coast Enclave was destroyed by a teenager

So? the same can happen on Fallout 1 , 2 , and New Vegas. The age slider goes down to 16 years old. The people we're playing as are supposed to be legendary. My Vault Dweller was only 18 when he stormed the Master's Fortress, and my Chosen One was 22. It's not important.

As for the Lonewanderer, true and in theory, it could have taken a few months just to get used to being outside along with surviving but i feel that they didn't protray it that way. That said, it was Bethesda's first entry into the Fallout franchise.

The Vault Dweller and the Lone Wanderer left their respective vaults with the same resources, and as stated above, can leave at the same age. Fallout 1 showed it pretty much the same way, and that game runs on an actual timer of about 1 year to get everything done properly (IE we know he did it all in a relatively short amount of time, with no prior experience of the wastes).

About previous factions not reappearing in future games; I'd say to have them suddenly disappear and/or have no mentions in the next game would be a waste of the Fallout setting, so I'd disagree with setting any game anywhere that's miles away from anything we've ever heard about (well, again ). The only location in the Fallout universe I think that would be okay in, would be Alaska, because it has history and significance and we've heard a lot about it.

So I'd rather have the next game be somwhere relatively close to Washington and Maryland and Virginia and stuff, so I could hear about what had happened in the places I had been, and so that they could retcon anything that needed retconning and let us know about it, or they could just be given a new explanation. (for example, Bottlecaps as currency in the Capital Wasteland could be easily retconned out, and replaced with something more suitable whenever they talk about the region, or Jet being found in the CW)

[Kerr]

Fun Fact: Originally Fallout: New Vegas was going to be an interquel set between Fallout 2 and 3.

I do think the South and Canada would be neat places to go with Fallout but really you could set a good Fallout basically anywhere. And if it's set near DC you could have groups from there show up and have east coast mutants move there. Basically what I'm saying is have the Tunnel Snakes be one of the meanest gangs in the wastes. Lyons Brotherhood is probably going to be fine, they got over a lot of the stupidity that plagues the Brotherhood back west. That said they are still a military dictatorship which isn't cool. They're benevolent, for now, but will it last? If you do have the Lyons Brotherhood I'd love to see Scribe Bigsley again. He was one of my favourite characters in Fallout 3.

The New England Commonwealth is the most likely location for Fallout 4, it's mentioned a lot and Desmond Lockheart even says he's going north to deal with another rival. If it is set there I won't be surprised if it turns out you're an android.

The Lone Wanderer being young doesn't really have anything to do with it. Although the Enclave in Fallout 3 were kind of incompetent, why didn't they just blow up the citadel with an orbital strike? I doubt they were wiped out though.

A good thing to do with bottlecaps is just explain who backs it and how, like in Fallout 1 Water Merchants back it and bottlecaps are exchangeable for water which has an inherent value. I'd assume it's Rivet City backing it seeing as it's the biggest settlement around and we know they had purification there working on a small scale before project purity spruced up the tidal basin. I imagine Rivet City probably grew after Fallout 3, I'm assuming the stupid evil let's kill everything ending won't be canon. When it comes to Jet people from the west must have brought it over (although they never say that) but I wish they'd be more thoughtful when it comes to loot placement. You can find jet in vaults that haven't been opened, it's like in Dawnguard where I found books that had been written in the last few decades in a library nobody had been in for centuries.

[philfredobob]

Fun Fact: Originally Fallout: New Vegas was going to be an interquel set between Fallout 2 and 3.

It wouldn't have made a huge difference if it had been, really. There aren't really any references to 3 in NV so whether it had been set before or after 3 it probably would have turned out almost exactly the same, just with the dates of major events changed slightly.

The Lone Wanderer being young doesn't really have anything to do with it. Although the Enclave in Fallout 3 were kind of incompetent, why didn't they just blow up the citadel with an orbital strike? I doubt they were wiped out though.

Retcon! Really though, I wouldn't mind if all of Broken Steel were retconned out. They could just assume that Broken Steel is non-canon and solve a lot of problems.

The New England Commonwealth is the most likely location for Fallout 4, it's mentioned a lot and Desmond Lockheart even says he's going north to deal with another rival. If it is set there I won't be surprised if it turns out you're an android.

While I would like to see the commonwealth, I hope they don't make The Institute one of the focal points of the story. I'd like to be able to visit the place and do a couple of quests there, meet the androids and their creators and such, but I don't want the main quest to revolve around it.

Also, Desmond Lockheart has to reappear, that guy was great.

[The SheoDovah]

I can see the Commonwealth being a huge part of Fallout 4 and i really hope it's not Terminator:Fallout Edition. It would probably be good but i rather have an original plot instead of a rehash of a film.

I disagree regarding New Vegas if it was a interquel. Obsidian would have most likely hinted at what's happening with the BOS in the NCR or modified the plot to slot into the period of time between F2 and F3 although i can see the Brotherhood and NCR war being a part of it or the NCR fighting both the Legion and the Brotherhood on two fronts. But it would be a bit tricky to not contradict any new lore from F3.


Yeah, Broken Steel introduced the mother of all plot holes. I mean, a giant freaking space laser and they didn't use it because.................. erm...... whoever took over the Enclave was stupid. I mean, it was a nice idea and made the Enclave into a much bigger threat but for them not to use it or just retreat and use it, it makes no sense. It would have been nice if after the Battle of the Purifer, they nuked the Citadel and the add-on could have focused on trying to salvage the remains of the BOS whilst dealing with the Enclave. And we would have gotten more Liberty Prime. We need more Liberty Primes. I mean, the dude throws mini nukes like footballs!


But yeah, Broken Steel doesn't really add much and just tries to tie up loose ends. It does undermine the whole final choice of either sacrificing yourself, letting Lyons do it or using Fawkes, who for some reason decides to flat out refuse before BS is installed and it is a bit far fetched that the Lone Wanderer managed to survive fatal levels of radiation without turning into a ghoul or being mutated by it.

[Kerr]

The only reason you had to sacrifice yourself in the first place was because of contrivance. They wanted to have the ending revolve around the idea of sacrifice but the way they tried to do it just doesn't work. But you see it was important that you get to the purifier as quickly as possible, if you don't the Enclave might turn it on before you do and purify the water in the tidal basin. Actually seeing as you might be stupid enough to put the modified Fev in the water it's possible the Enclave would have done a better job with it than you.

I hope a future Bethesda Fallout game learns from New Vegas in terms of making all weapon classes viable for the entire game. Being able to pick Energy Weapons at the start as a Tag Skill but not getting one for quite a while was a problem in Fallout 1, 2 and 3. I do prefer Guns in New Vegas but Energy Weapons are certainly viable. In 1,2 and 3 it's a gotcha for new players. If you're playing Fallout 1 for the first time how are you meant to know that you won't get an Energy Weapon for half the game but that when you do it'll be one of the best weapons around? Unless you looked it up or someone told you, you won't. Removing Big Guns as a skill was a good idea, as was combing First Aid and Doctor into one Medicine skill. First Aid was redundant anyway, Doctor healed your HP and fixed broken limbs.

Now that I think about it, combining Melee and Unarmed might be a good idea. I played a Melee character in New Vegas, I enjoyed it but it was annoying having to put points into Unarmed to get perks that affect Melee and Unarmed. I know they're not the same skill exactly but at the end of the day most skills and stats tend to be combing things. Sure using your fist and an axe isn't the same but neither is using a sledgehammer and a knife.

[The SheoDovah]

Fallout 3's "choice" lacked any depth in my opinion. It was just Die, get called a coward by Ron Perlman or let it explode. I feel that the choice should have been built up and actually give you a moral dillema. It was just crap in it's implementation and made no sense other then "You will die because you are the lone wanderer and we need to wrap up the plot." I still find it hard to believe that he/she survived the chamber with miminal effects and the choice was reduced to just a small step.

I would have changed the entire ending completely. Instead of the whole purifier being the climax, i would have implemented the option to join the Enclave or for a chance to discover that the BOS's intentions are questionable instead of being the power armoured knights. I won't claim it's a good choice as it's not. But it lacks the moral choices of New Vegas's Lonesome Road. That said, end choices seem to be something that Fallout does not do well.


It was a good idea to merge the guns skills as a majority of players would not have access to the bigger guns untill half way through the game without running out of ammo. Imagine being restricted to only using the Fatman because it was just the biggest gun that you had a lot of skill with. It's overkill, ammo is expensive/rare. And a pistol would be better if you could level up the skill without having to sacrifice big guns. Same with the medic skill.

I would like to see Melee and Unarmed get merged. They could have two paths for it via Perks. One path leads you to become a heavy hitter. The other allows you to beat the [&@%!] out of deathclaws and cazadors.

I am a bit skeptical about Bethesda's ability to deliver a Fallout game but i'm hoping they will look at NV, take the best parts of it, add what they've learnt with Skyrim(the good parts without making it Skyout) and improve the plot. Hopefully, F4 will be announced within the next year and it will be amazing.

[Kerr]

I asked Josh Sawyer about combining Unarmed and Melee:

ryan-kerr asked: At any point in making Fallout: New Vegas did you consider combining Melee and Unarmed like First Aid and Doctor? The two skills are rather similar (punching someone and using an axe are different true, but so is using a knife and using a sledgehammer,) they appeal to a similar play style and in order for a Melee specialist to get some of the best Melee perks (e.g Piercing Strike and Slayer) they need a significant Unarmed skill even if they don't plan on using unarmed weapons. Thanks.

I did consider that, but I considered it late in the development cycle. Deciding what skills to combine or separate can be tricky for a number of reasons. A distinguished play style or use between them is a good reason to separate them, e.g. Explosives plays pretty differently from Guns, but Guns doesn’t play dramatically different from Energy Weapons. On the other hand, in a skill-based game, folding too many skills together can make characters feel overly similar. If Melee and Unarmed were to remain separate in the future, I think they should feel more distinct in play.

Source

I agree, you don't want to have too few skills but if they are going to keep them as separate skills they should play differently.

[The SheoDovah]

I agree. They could create a lot of unarmed styles with different perks and disadvantages. For example, a boxing PC could strike quickly and do a lot of damage but is easily outmatched by fast enemies or Deathclaws. Whilst a Karate PC is capable of taking down enemies quickly but can be easily killed if they cock up. I never felt that i was hitting someone with my bare fists in Fallout and it never felt like i became a master of unarmed combat. It was just punch,punch, oh, i can do a special move that looks a bit meh in First Person View but looks much better in Third Person View.

But i think they would need to reinvent Fallout's Gameplay in order to make every combat skill feel different and i'm unsure if Bethesda would be willing to either heavily modify the Creation Engine or invest in an engine that is capable of doing this. I feel that energy weapons should be a lot more powerful then guns to a certain extent. For example, a laser pistol should outclass most pistols but is outclassed by the higher tier pistols. It's been a while since i've played Fallout:NV so i could be wrong.

I would like to see Fallout 4 have a large arena for the PC to take part in or build a robot to take part in.

[Unionhack]

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