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Fallout 3 Fundamentals Released via Game Informer
CVG is carrying details out of the newest Game Informer magazine, which has a huge feature on Fallout 3. The relatively spoiler free information gives us hints at some of the biggest elements of the game, such as combat, character creation and growth, and the possibility of multiple endings. " Fallout 3 kicks off with your birth and your mother's death in a vault hospital. This is where you get to create you character as your father (voiced by Liam Neeson) hands you over to the DNA analyser, before removing his mask to reveal similar traits to the ones you picked ... Fans will be pleased to hear that the Karma system is making a return, and there are 9-12 possible endings based on your actions. If it's even half as good as Oblivion, this should turn out to be something very special indeed."
Part of the beauty of Fallout was the Action Point-based combat. It forced you to stop and think about what you were doing every "round." This sounds like a major step downward to me - a token AP system to appease the fans, while having a real-time system to draw the Oblivion-FPS crew.
That said, I do understand why they need to do this. Unfortunately, computer gaming in general and especially RPGs are on a downward trend as far as sales go. You have a couple of big names - Oblivion, Neverwinter Nights - and a bunch of smaller names that just get ignored. Why would a smaller company waste time on that when they could make a console game, where RPGs still enjoy a large following?
Bringing it around full circle, Fallout was a big brand back in the day, but by this point, I don't doubt that it will have been built up so much by people when it comes out that it will inevitably disappoint a large number of people. Better to just ignore all the hype until the game comes out.
The problem with Morrowind and Oblivion is that they are of that rare breed, the western RPG... or are they?
Morrowind and Oblivion allow the player to travel anywhere anytime BUT are at the same time on rails.
This is an odd mix of western and japanese style RPG.
A typical Bioware western RPG restricts where you can move at certain time BUT typically gives you a certain amount of freedom to choose your alignment.
A typical japanese RPG gives you a named character to play with a pre-defined background and you follow the a completly linear plot with a single possible ending.
Morrowind and Oblivion are an odd mix of this and it confuses people. You certainly are free in these games to do what you want WHEN you want BUT at the same time the quests you do undertake do not offer you a choice. There are no moral choices beyond choosing to do a certain quest or not. No light or dark path, for that matter you can easily complete quests for factions that are each others mortal enemy.
People that don't like these games are the people who don't think the freedom to explore and go were you want is worth the sacrifices to focus and story telling. Oblivion is designed to upgrade its enemies to suit your level. Great for allowing you to explore but it also results in utter nonsense like bandits holding you up for pennies when they are dressed in the most expensive armours.
In more focussed games with less freedom to travel you don't have this. The designer KNOWS roughly what level you will be when you enter an area and will have designed the quests and enemies for that level. So at level 20 you won't see a street punk with the stats of a superman.
it doesn't help that if you choose to follow the main story line you find yourselve on a story that is as on rails as any japanese RPG BUT without it really touching on your character. The designer doesn't know what class you are, what race or even what level.
It is not that Oblivion is a bad game. It is just that it clashes with what a lot of people want in an RPG. Because there are so few western RPG's around we still play it, only to then get frustated because in many ways it just ain't an other bioware style title.
For reference, look at what they did with Half-Life 2. The atmosphere in that game is incredibly well designed and defined, and in those first few minutes of play, it's very easy to believe that City 17 exists...
No one ever said Real-Time with pausing is the same thing as turn-based. We knew it wasn't going to be turn-based, no one is really surprised. That being said, if done right, it can still be FUN. The same? Of course not... I don't care if it is the same, as long as I feel like I am playing a Fallout game, I'm cool with whatever the mechanism to play that game is. Damn... I feel like I am back on NMA :)
HOWEVER, agreed that the game should not use Oblivion (or any of TES games) as a benchmark for what Fallout 3 should be. From what I have gathered, beyond using the same object/map-building/graphics rendering engine, the ruleset underneath may be rather different than the other games. Is that good? I don't know... the proof will be in the good. However, from little bit I have read, we don't get everything we want, but it certainly doesn't sound nearly as bad as I had maybe thought 4-5 months ago.
Ugh. The AP system isn't what made fallout Fallout. The witty dialog, the gripping environmental immersion - broken, might I say, by the AP system - the choices to make - those are what made fallout Fallout.
... as do graphics engines. I don't think this AP system will be a "bones to the old crowd" type gesture. It will add breaks and pauses to the game-play just as the original AP system did. I just hope this time that the next time I walk into an area with 52 rats on screen it won't take me three hours to clear it waiting for all 52 enemies to move. The AP system was AMAZING for small encounters of 6 entities. Once it got to be more than that, it was a serious pitfall of the game - and turned a LOT of people off to it. Not only was it frustratingly long to wait through, but it interrupted the rhythm of the game, jarring you out of your sense of immersion.
Game mechanics have to change with the times
Having the kind of graphics engine they will, that jarring effect will be even more pronounced if they had gone with the classic AP system.
You morons whining about how it won't be exactly like your precious original fallout annoy the hell out of me. "If it isn't broke, don't fix it" you say - but a lot of it WAS broken by today's standards. It's still extremely entertaining to dust off and play, but it still has gameplay flaws: just like every other game out there. It was a fantastic game, one of the best, but even the best have faults. Remember that.
What it really boils down to is the eternal conflict between roll-players (a derogatory term which I'm reclaiming) and roleplayers. (Fallout is -- was -- loosely based on GURPS, and is of course a CRPG.)
You don't play real pen-and-paper RPGs in real-time, and the original D&D was based on a tabletop wargame. So yeah, there are going to be a lot of fans of turn-based game mechanics attracted to RPGs. Lashing out against those attracted to CRPGs because of the tactical combat aspect is a bit backwards.
And the thing is, single-player CRPGs, according to Gary Gygax at least, don't even allow for roleplaying... as playing a role requires an audience (any other definition, as he's commented, makes every game a roleplaying game and the definition becomes meaningless); so what remains to attract RPG fans are the core game mechanics... which are essentially based on board games.
If your only requirement is to lose yourself in the atmosphere of the Fallout world, you'd be just as satisfied playing a Fallout point-and-click adventure game, or a pure FPS, or a Dragon's Lair-style interactive movie.
Are you kidding? I'm throwing down like it was 1986.
I want to be able to take my time and pick out my morbid strategy before I proceed to blow someone innocent childs ribs out, and I'm not sure if that is truely plausible with this new combat system. But it's been a long time and I guess we have to accept some changes and the combat system is minor changes in my eyes. At least it's minor changes if the new system owns up to what combat is supposed to be in a Fallout game, because while combat is very important it's as a tool you apply (like dialog) as you proceed through the game. This is probably much easier achived with turn based combat though, and if this new combat system turns combat from tool into gameplay feature then it probably won't deserve the Fallout label - and then again if they do it right maybe it will. VTM Bloodlines had real time combat, and that never turned into anything like the monotome AI bashing most elderscroll games have been.
Also, if the game is half as good as Oblivion it'll be one of the worst games ever because Oblivion was upright horrible.