Fallout 4 Post-Release Bullshit

[Merusk]

I agree and that's why I don't do them. I'll wait until the DLC falls if it's more than a few bucks extra. Hell, I didn't miss the Fallout 3 DLC at all since I never bought most of it. I only got the New Vegas DLC because I waited until there was a reasonable bundle 6 months later.

[Falconeer]

Am I the only one who hates the term "season pass" to DLC.? I don't mind paying for DLC expansions, but season pass makes me feel like I'm buying admission to the zoo for the summer instead of putting money down for DLC I'll have in my steam library forever.  Even if its a good deal (cheaper than the individual DLCs that come out) I somehow always feel like I'm being ripped off by anything called a season pass in a video game.

I hate them too. And not just that. I have a tendency to not go back to games I've already played no matter how cool a DLC is because that game, to me, is in the past. There are exceptions, but for the most part I am not that into DLC. You know what and when I love DLCs? When they are given to me for free in the "Complete Edition" you buy one or two years later. That feels right, like you are finally playing the whole game. Other than that, if I cannot wait (see Fallout 4) I'll just play the game straight as it comes when it is released, and most likely not give a fuck about the DLCs at any given point.

Only a few days ago I bought Shadow of Mordor for 15$ with 18 DLC (which were supposedly all the content from their Season Pass). Not sure if any of that is good, but in such a case I am not gonna complain about extra content and fluff. But generally speaking, as I said, don't see why I would pre-pay for content I don't even know what is it going to be about.

[Furiously]

Am I the only one who hates the term "season pass" to DLC.? I don't mind paying for DLC expansions, but season pass makes me feel like I'm buying admission to the zoo for the summer instead of putting money down for DLC I'll have in my steam library forever.  Even if its a good deal (cheaper than the individual DLCs that come out) I somehow always feel like I'm being ripped off by anything called a season pass in a video game.

I hate them too. And not just that. I have a tendency to not go back to games I've already played no matter how cool a DLC is because that game, to me, is in the past. There are exceptions, but for the most part I am not that into DLC. You know what and when I love DLCs? When they are given to me for free in the "Complete Edition" you buy one or two years later. That feels right, like you are finally playing the whole game. Other than that, if I cannot wait (see Fallout 4) I'll just play the game straight as it comes when it is released, and most likely not give a fuck about the DLCs at any given point.

Only a few days ago I bought Shadow of Mordor for 15$ with 18 DLC (which were supposedly all the content from their Season Pass). Not sure if any of that is good, but in such a case I am not gonna complain about extra content and fluff. But generally speaking, as I said, don't see why I would pre-pay for content I don't even know what is it going to be about.

Season passes tend to be shitty dlc too.

[Azazel]

And you get that sort of shit that Gearbox/2K pulled with the Borderlands Pre-Sequel, where they just shutter the studio and cancel that last bit of "season pass" DLC. Because fuck you, we already have your money so we owe you nothing - that's why. 

[stray]

This is as likely to not be any worse than FO3. So I'll probably play it. I liked NV more.

I can't find anything to be excited about it though... other than Courtenay Taylor doing the protag (and/or wife?).

[Cyrrex]

Oddly, I liked NV better too...though I never came close to finishing it really.  And yet I played FO3 through twice, the last time within the last year or so.

[Lantyssa]

I could never get into NV.  The direction felt too forced.  I know it was setting up a narrative, but every time I tried to go back it felt old.  With FO3 I just picked a direction and headed off.

[Bunk]

That was a problem with NV. An open world game isn't very open world if 7/8 of the directions you could head from the starting town lead to instant death. I've tried to go back to play it again, but I know if I do, the first ten hours will be the exact same series of events. I guess I could betray the town and join the Powder Gangers, but that plot thread is so bare, there's almost no point.

I am hoping that 4 will do a bit better job filling out the plot a bit more for people who make a "non standard" choice in how they do things. A la the pros and cons of nuking Megaton, though even there the "bad" option should have been filled in more.

[stray]

That was a problem with NV. An open world game isn't very open world if 7/8 of the directions you could head from the starting town lead to instant death. I've tried to go back to play it again, but I know if I do, the first ten hours will be the exact same series of events. I guess I could betray the town and join the Powder Gangers, but that plot thread is so bare, there's almost no point.

I am hoping that 4 will do a bit better job filling out the plot a bit more for people who make a "non standard" choice in how they do things. A la the pros and cons of nuking Megaton, though even there the "bad" option should have been filled in more.

The bad option for megaton sucks if you went to megaton first.

But I'm pretty sure if you just wander around out of the cave, you might run into the big highrise. The old dude gives you the mission to blow up Megaton that way, if I'm not mistaken. Which makes more sense from a story pov (if you want to be an ass).

It just requires a different kind of playstyle most people don't use. They follow quest checkpoints instead and go to Megaton.

[brellium]

That was a problem with NV. An open world game isn't very open world if 7/8 of the directions you could head from the starting town lead to instant death. I've tried to go back to play it again, but I know if I do, the first ten hours will be the exact same series of events. I guess I could betray the town and join the Powder Gangers, but that plot thread is so bare, there's almost no point.

I am hoping that 4 will do a bit better job filling out the plot a bit more for people who make a "non standard" choice in how they do things. A la the pros and cons of nuking Megaton, though even there the "bad" option should have been filled in more.

Yeah, that was a design decision in FO:NV. They wanted to introduce you to the wastes and the players, and in that it wasn't too different from FO1 and FO2 (Trying to get to Navarro was a death sentence in most cases). In FO3 the enemies scaled with you in level, where in FO:NV they had specific levels.

[Malakili]

Yeah, the giant mountain in the middle of the map is a little lame, it basically does force a linear approach to the first part of the game (until you get to New Vegas itself).  On the other hand, overall I liked New Vegas a lot more than Fallout 3.  It "felt" more like a Fallout game to me for reasons that I can't necessarily articulate.

[Merusk]

More desert, more ruins. FO3 had too many somewhat-intact structures around since it was in D.C. Setting it in a major urban environment was an error.

[stray]

More desert, more ruins. FO3 had too many somewhat-intact structures around since it was in D.C. Setting it in a major urban environment was an error.

The generation it was made for didn't do it favors either... just about every other game was brown and grey too. Except they chose a whole setting where even making an effort at anything else was pointless too.


OTOH, this new game looks almost overly fun and colorful for an FO game. So...umm...


Screw it. I gotta stop bitching.

For now.

[shiznitz]

Oddly, I liked NV better too...though I never came close to finishing it really.  And yet I played FO3 through twice, the last time within the last year or so.

Exactly the same for me.  I played FO3 saving Megaton and killing Megaton.  The first made the early levels much easier. For NV, I never even made it into NV but I explored the hell out of everything else.

[Signe]

Me too.  NV was my fav of the series and one of my fav games ever.

[Merusk]

One of the great pieces of NV was the multi-pronged approach to the storyline. Caesar, New Rep or Mr. House you could go any way fairly naturally. FO3 I always felt forced to get the reactor going and your 'big choice' was "Die or die."

Fuck you, SuperMutant. You get your ass in there and change that goddamn nuclear device yourself. You're the one immune to radiation, not me. I don't give a fuck what "my story" is or whatever the bullshit line forcing me to die was.

[HaemishM]

If you bought one of the DLC's, you survived. 

[brellium]

If you bought one of the DLC's, you survived. 

There's some good DLC's for both games, For FO:3 Mothership Zeta, just to kill Grays and for NO:NV Old World Blues, fucking funniest 4 hours ever spent in a game.

[calapine]

Me too.  NV was my fav of the series and one of my fav games ever.

Yours and mine.  Soo many hours played. Even kept a (badly written, I guess) personal diary from the perspective of the my courier. Helped with immersion.


The big question for Fallout 4 for me is: Play it on release or wait long until until all the mods are out that turn it into something even better... 

[Miasma]

Think I'll wait until Christmas so that most of the game breaking bugs are fixed.

Witcher 3 makes my computer's fans spin up rather noisily, I might have to do a round of upgrades for this.

[lamaros]

FO3 was too grey. NV was better, but I found the game boring once you got to Vegas itself, the faction crap bored me.

I usually hate the way video games end though, I don't enjoy the dramatic arc that means it always has to be 'epic'. I prefer a game of subquests that you cohere in to a narrative more subtly.

The background story in NV I like, but when you were thrust centre stage I found it naff.

[Fabricated]

NV had a few things that were kinda videogamey that bothered me.

Namely the NCR and Legion forgiving you the instant you entered House's casino no matter what you've done, because they couldn't really account for what the player might have done before then.

[Khaldun]

I sort of liked NV better, in fact specifically including the faction play. Had more of an emotional hook for me. I also didn't feel all that constrained once I got down to the town that the Legion has invaded--past that point I felt I had a couple of different places to go and some of the gear and skills I needed to go there. Especially on a second run-through, where I had some sense of how to get to places differently than the game 'intended' me to get there.

[Jeff Kelly]

The problem I had with FO 3 is that the Fallout series is pretty much a satire of pulp sci fi/postapocalyptic fiction of the fifities and sixties and the ideology they promoted. It's basically a satire of the American Dream through the lens of fifties futurism. FO3 wasn't.

Fallout and Fallout 2 have a pretty dark and nihilistic humor and are also satirizing the wide-eyed and naive futurism, the blind belief ithat progress can only be positive and the "hurrah patriotism" of the fifties and sixties as evidenced in the literature and movies of the time and also evidenced in PSAs and things like the original "world of tomorrow" style exhibits. That's why it's a retro-futuristic game and that's also why it's so effective. It fuels its narrative from the fifties' vision of the American Dream, that even today politicians use when they mention the "good old times".

It's basically a "what if" scenario. What if all of the things that 1950's futurism proposed actually came to pass? That's why you still have computers driven by vacuum tubes and displays that use vacuum fluorescent tubes. That's why everything runs on nuclear power and that's also why the service robots look like they are straight out of lost in space and the weaponry looks like it could be straight out of Buck Rogers. That's also why the apocalypse in the Fallout universe happened, because the two major blocks never got over their propaganda and actually believed they could win an all out nuclear war against an utterly demonized opposition.

FO3 is only using the basic post-apocalyptic world building of the Fallout universe. It isn't interested in the original subtext (the ridiculousness and outright potential danger of 1950's futurism and cold war patriotism) and it also doesn't add a subtext of it's own. It misses both the scathing satire and also the dark nihilistic humor of previous games. It even misses any sort of twisted pop culture references the originals had. Except for a few isolated incidents like Liberty Prime or the radio broadcasts the robots transmit.

New Vegas came a lot closer to what I like about Wasteland and Fallout 1 and 2 than FO3 did. Also because Vegas is a piece of Americana that fits better into the Fallout Lore than Washington DC. Just like California in the original games Vegas is also much better known to people that are not from the US than Washington or Boston. FO3 is a great game and it has its moments but it also feels like it completely misses the point of the previous games. It's also hard to relate to when you're not from the US since the minutiae of the historical significance of the Capital Wasteland are almost entirely lost on people not from the US and also because it doesn't really tie into the area it plays in quite well. FO3 could have been set almost anywhere in the world without any need to modify the story.

So I'm not that hyped for FO 4 actually. It misses a key ingredient that made the original games and New Vegas great in my opinion (Black Isle's or Obsidian's writing and world building) and it is set in a part of the US I neither know much about nor particularly care for (Boston). It doesn't evoke the same level of familiarity that Vegas does or San Franscisco or LA or New York or even Miami. That's because those areas are part of the pop-cultural canon all over the world while Boston isn't. There's a reason Rockstar set the GTA games in certain cities during specific time periods. Vice City works because everyone knows Miami Vice and Scarface. San Andreas and V work because everyone knows about Hollywood and rap and hip hop culture of the nineties and today and GTA 3 and IV work because New York is basically the default setting for the majority of the cultural output of the US.

The only thing I know about Boston or even Massachusetts is that it is a place that exists and that seems to have some cultural significance for Americans.

[KallDrexx]

In FNV, even though I had been to Vegas nothing there really evoked familiarity about the story or setting except for the main city in the game having casinos.  It's not like that immensely helped my enjoyment of the game.

I've been to SF several times and the only place I would recognize if it was in a video game would be the golden state bridge.  All other references would have gone over my head.  I can't think of many other cities that I'd recognize landmarks in a video game enough to make it worth playing on it's own.  In the end what mattes is the stories in the game and how fun the gameplay ends up being, both of which are completely irrelevant to what city it is based in.

[Merusk]

NV had a few things that were kinda videogamey that bothered me.

Namely the NCR and Legion forgiving you the instant you entered House's casino no matter what you've done, because they couldn't really account for what the player might have done before then.

Really? I never got that, but then I also never picked a side enough to piss them off until I got to the Casino. I made a beeline to NV in all my playthroughs.

[Merusk]

The only thing I know about Boston or even Massachusetts is that it is a place that exists and that seems to have some cultural significance for Americans.

The start of iconography is something that's set there. You could have given the same criticism in the 80's as nobody gave a rat's ass about Miami until Miami Vice. The same was true about Portland/ Seattle until the 90s grunge movement. Now you have imagery to go with them.

[Khaldun]

I sometimes feel like gamers have a hard time distinguishing between "this is my personal perception or hang-up" and "the designers did it wrong".

I'm not even sure I'd agree that FO3 doesn't have the same tone as FO2 in terms of its jabs at 50s futurism. It's a bit more earnest in its main plot, but there's plenty of set pieces that seem to me to say, "here's 50s futurism in the heart of American power, where it looks different than out West". The museums, for example.

[Malakili]

One of the big things that I liked about New Vegas is that it came with a Hardcore mode straight out of the box.  In practice it isn't that "hardcore" but it did make the game feel a little more like I had to pay attention to actually surviving in the wasteland. 

[calapine]

I sometimes feel like gamers have a hard time distinguishing between "this is my personal perception or hang-up" and "the designers did it wrong".

I'm not even sure I'd agree that FO3 doesn't have the same tone as FO2 in terms of its jabs at 50s futurism. It's a bit more earnest in its main plot, but there's plenty of set pieces that seem to me to say, "here's 50s futurism in the heart of American power, where it looks different than out West". The museums, for example.

Think so too. Both FO 3 and NV clearly seem routed in a very American 50ies style concept of the future. So while I'd really want a "Fallout Europe" I have it admit it most probably wouldn't work, because you would lose the Fallout-style that makes it what it is.



Edit: Regarding Jeff's points... I am not sure they matter. I have no attachment to Boston, but neither did I to Washington or Vegas, but in the end both drew me in.




Things like this are neat, but not needed IMHO to appricate the game.

[Jeff Kelly]

I sometimes feel like gamers have a hard time distinguishing between "this is my personal perception or hang-up" and "the designers did it wrong".

Well I could probably preface every single sentence I write with "in my humble opinion..." or "I think..." or we could simply agree that it goes without saying that stuff people write on the internet may contain traces of opinions and worldviews even though it might not be explicitely marked as such at the beginning of each and every sentence.

[Jeff Kelly]

To all of you who disagree with my opinion on the setting, that's fine.

Don't underestimate though just how ingrained certain pieces of Americana are in the cultural consciousness of the western world. It's not necessarily about indicidual places that you could recognize. I guess that most people wouldn't be able to tell you where Compton is or the exact route of Route 66, some might confuse the Chrysler building and the Empire State building etc. Mentioning those places evokes something in the cultural consciousness of individuals that is not necessarily coupled to any sort of real landmarks but about what people "just know" about those places from being exposed to popular culture about them. In the same way that a lot of foreigners could probably tell you how the stereotypical "American Apple Pie" looks like even though they don't know how to bake one.

To put it another way. If you mention Germany, people either tend to think about the third Reich or about people wearing traditional leather trousers that drink beer, listen to polka music and like to eat fermented cabbage. There's a reason why the Oktoberfest is probably more well known all around the world than any other cultural export and there are probably an untold number of films, books and games that are set in WW2 Europe where Nazis are the generic enemies while the same can't be said for WW1. Steampunk works because "Victorian England" is such a well known brand that it doesn't even matter if that particular version of England actually even existed. The version of 1950's America that gets lampooned in those games and that Republican presidential candidates tell you about when they reminisce about "the good old times" didn't technically either.

All I'm saying is that there are settings I think work better because people are - or at least think they are - somewhat familiar with. For me Washington DC or Boston don't evoke quite the same sense of familiarity that for example New York or Vegas would. Even though I've been to neither one of those locations.

[Tebonas]

I couldn't get into Washington either, but for some reason I think Boston could work better. For starters, contrary to Washington which was all inner city and wasteland, it seems to have suburbs. You need Suburbs for 1950s America. 

[schild]

I like my games fun, not navel-gazing.

[Tebonas]

Incidently, Fallout 3 was less fun as well. Fuck the "Where is the right Subway Station exit for this area of the sectioned-off city" minigame. That part I just endured because I liked the rest.