In defense of online Fallout

[RichardGrey]

Here I will present a couple of the arguments which I have seen leveled against the general FOOL idea, and my rebuttals to these arguments. Have at you.

- Argument 1: For reasons ABC...XYZ, "Fallout Online" would not be exactly precisely Fallout. down to the exact sprites; the inclusion of such and such places and people and quests and items; etc.

Rebuttal: No way! Since you bring up this argument at all, it is safe to say that we just part ways here. Your taste is not my taste. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

For me, personally, it isn't Fallout per se which is good, but games with some or all of the virtues of Fallout. Even, god forbid, games which are good in slightly different ways! I loved Fallout 1 better than any game. But when Torment came out, I didn't shun it just because it wasn't Fallout; I embraced it because it was good. Some people I've met are big Wasteland fans, and feel that Fallout was a big stupid waste of time that didn't live up to Wasteland at all. I think Fallout is a neat game in its own right. This is 100% personal taste.

- Argument 2: MMORPGs are expensive and very risky prospects. Interplay has no resources for making one, and almost certainly no interest. Even assuming it were possible, such a project might siphon away resources from FO3 (assuming optimistically that such beast will ever show itself, let alone any time soon).

No rebuttal. For the realization of actual FOOL this is pretty much a death blow. My question is why I am compelled to give a damn. I could easily be interested in FOOL-in-10-years, or FOOL-alike, and talk about the feasibility of those. I could just as easily be interested in the ideas and talking about them. Just because the discussion is not focused on the asinine problems of MMORPGs doesn't mean that it is meaningless, either.

----- Down to brass tacks! -----

- Argument 3: The distances involved mean that players will either spend a lot of time in transit, or their little legs will have to propel them at horribly unrealistic speeds. Reducing the distances to make travel times better neglects the isolation and loneliness that are such a cool part of the setting.

Rebuttal 1: So let it take a long time to travel. A lot of the interest of the setting is the wastes, survival, etc. Other than lack of creativity in existing games, is there any reason why a game couldn't even focus almost exclusively on travel? Why should travel be the boring, bad part to be avoided? Especially in a post-apoc setting this is a ludicrous opinion. Why shouldn't traveling take at least some time? NEWS FLASH: OTHER GAMES HAVE TRAVEL TIMES!

Rebuttal 2: So increase travel speed to an intermediate extent, as much as you can without destroying disbelief/thrashing video cards/etc. Games already do this left and right, people! As it stands, no Fallout game spans the entirety of the US, or expects you to be able to jump instantaneously from The Glow to Arroyo. Short of that, it is still possible to make things more convenient by numerous means.

Rebuttal 3: Suspend one or more of the constraints. *whine whine whine.* Yeah, I know, we have to have everything just so.


- Argument 4: The SPECIAL system or specific skills won't translate. E.g., speech, barter, etc. ALTERNATELY: everyone will just use the fighting skills.

Rebuttal 1: Boo hoo. And Fallout didn't use GURPS. So what? There is nothing holy about SPECIAL that it needs to be 100% intact.
Rebuttal 2: Speech works if there are NPCs to talk to. This itself presents interesting problems - note I didn't say TOTALLY INSURMOUNTABLE PROBLEMS, just interesting ones. Barter presents a similar face - there is no reason in principle why the same things which made barter work in the single player game couldn't make it work here. E.g. as a skill for getting better prices, and maybe for being applied in quests/scripts/free roleplaying.
Rebuttal 3: The fighting problem depends on the assumption that all anyone will ever do in an online game is fight. BZZT - Not true, although an understandable generalization given what's most popular. To varying extents games which are not 100% about fighting have already been done. Need I remind you that Everquest was not the beginning of MUDs, and certainly won't be the end?

Argument 5: It will ruin things for there to be so many players.
Rebuttal: Where are you from, kid, that you think an Online game has to have as many players as Everquest? Are you aware that people have been happily playing on MUDs ranging from 10-200 players for 20 years+?

That's enough for now. Go to town.

[Blacken]

Amen.

*goes back to MUDding*

[DarkUnderlord]

Time to feed the troll.

For me, personally, it isn't Fallout per se which is good, but games with some or all of the virtues of Fallout. Even, god forbid, games which are good in slightly different ways! I loved Fallout 1 better than any game. But when Torment came out, I didn't shun it just because it wasn't Fallout; I embraced it because it was good. Some people I've met are big Wasteland fans, and feel that Fallout was a big stupid waste of time that didn't live up to Wasteland at all. I think Fallout is a neat game in its own right. This is 100% personal taste.

Shock horror. You mean, you actually like other games that aren't Fallout? Who would've guessed. I can't wait for Civilization: Fallout and Fallout: Caravan Trader. Let's just hoare the name out some more shall we?

- Argument 3: The distances involved mean that players will either spend a lot of time in transit, or their little legs will have to propel them at horribly unrealistic speeds. Reducing the distances to make travel times better neglects the isolation and loneliness that are such a cool part of the setting.

Rebuttal 1: So let it take a long time to travel.

I'm sure everyone will be thrilled when it takes them four hours online to move from one city to the next. I think the problem here is the World Map. You can't travel on it in an MMORPG. If you did, you'd pop onto it, whip across it and appear at another city in no time at all when supposedly a few days game time has passed. If game-time actually passed while travelling, then the time you character arrived at a city would be different to the time for my character.

A lot of the interest of the setting is the wastes, survival, etc. Other than lack of creativity in existing games, is there any reason why a game couldn't even focus almost exclusively on travel? Why should travel be the boring, bad part to be avoided? Especially in a post-apoc setting this is a ludicrous opinion. Why shouldn't traveling take at least some time? NEWS FLASH: OTHER GAMES HAVE TRAVEL TIMES!

Uhuh. Right. I'm sure people are really going to enjoy playing a game where all they do is walk for hours just to get somewhere.

Rebuttal 2: So increase travel speed to an intermediate extent, as much as you can without destroying disbelief/thrashing video cards/etc. Games already do this left and right, people! As it stands, no Fallout game spans the entirety of the US, or expects you to be able to jump instantaneously from The Glow to Arroyo. Short of that, it is still possible to make things more convenient by numerous means.

See above.

- Argument 4: The SPECIAL system or specific skills won't translate. E.g., speech, barter, etc. ALTERNATELY: everyone will just use the fighting skills.

Rebuttal 1: Boo hoo. And Fallout didn't use GURPS. So what? There is nothing holy about SPECIAL that it needs to be 100% intact.

Fallout is what they call an "RPG". You're talking about ditching that and making an online game where everyone would simply run around and kill everyone else. Diablo and plenty others do that already. Fallout is a game with a diplomatic route, a thieving route and a combat route. FOOL would be combat, all the time.

Rebuttal 2: Speech works if there are NPCs to talk to. This itself presents interesting problems - note I didn't say TOTALLY INSURMOUNTABLE PROBLEMS, just interesting ones.

... and when it comes to talking to other players, speech is completely useless.

Barter presents a similar face - there is no reason in principle why the same things which made barter work in the single player game couldn't make it work here. E.g. as a skill for getting better prices, and maybe for being applied in quests/scripts/free roleplaying.

How would barter work when selling an item to another human player? If I want to sell you my combat shotgun for 1000 bottlecaps, to get rid of it and undercut the tradesmen, how would barter kick in?

Rebuttal 3: The fighting problem depends on the assumption that all anyone will ever do in an online game is fight. BZZT - Not true, although an understandable generalization given what's most popular. To varying extents games which are not 100% about fighting have already been done. Need I remind you that Everquest was not the beginning of MUDs, and certainly won't be the end?

MUD's attract a different sort of audience. Namely, those who can type, speak correct english and form proper grammatical sentences. When the world is flooded with 1000 kiddies with 300% Energy Weapons skills and there you are, with your 300% speech skill, what are you going to do? Talk them out if it?

Argument 5: It will ruin things for there to be so many players.
Rebuttal: Where are you from, kid, that you think an Online game has to have as many players as Everquest? Are you aware that people have been happily playing on MUDs ranging from 10-200 players for 20 years+?

MUDs are made for free, aren't they? They don't need millions of dollars in development, they don't need anyone to pay much for them. They're also low on graphics and bandwidth requirements, compared with an MMORPG. Also, how are 10 people going to enjoy a Fallout MMORPG? Do you actually know what the "MM" in that stands for? Here, I'll tell you, Massively Multiplayer. 10 people is not "Massively". Also, if only 10 people where playing at any one time, they wouldn't be generating enough revenue to keep the server alive.

[vVolf]

*Sits back, grabs a BUD, and watches the convo...* :drinking:

What ever you said...I bet it was worth saying. I couldn't be bothered to read all of it...

[Saint_Proverbius]

- Argument 1: For reasons ABC...XYZ, "Fallout Online" would not be exactly precisely Fallout. down to the exact sprites; the inclusion of such and such places and people and quests and items; etc.

Rebuttal: No way! Since you bring up this argument at all, it is safe to say that we just part ways here. Your taste is not my taste. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

For me, personally, it isn't Fallout per se which is good, but games with some or all of the virtues of Fallout. Even, god forbid, games which are good in slightly different ways! I loved Fallout 1 better than any game. But when Torment came out, I didn't shun it just because it wasn't Fallout; I embraced it because it was good. Some people I've met are big Wasteland fans, and feel that Fallout was a big stupid waste of time that didn't live up to Wasteland at all. I think Fallout is a neat game in its own right. This is 100% personal taste.

I hate to point this out, but if it can't be done in such a way that it resembles Fallout, why bother making FOOL? After all, Fallout is more than the names of the things in it, and about all you could retain from Fallout are those names.

- Argument 3: The distances involved mean that players will either spend a lot of time in transit, or their little legs will have to propel them at horribly unrealistic speeds. Reducing the distances to make travel times better neglects the isolation and loneliness that are such a cool part of the setting.

Rebuttal 1: So let it take a long time to travel. A lot of the interest of the setting is the wastes, survival, etc. Other than lack of creativity in existing games, is there any reason why a game couldn't even focus almost exclusively on travel? Why should travel be the boring, bad part to be avoided? Especially in a post-apoc setting this is a ludicrous opinion. Why shouldn't traveling take at least some time? NEWS FLASH: OTHER GAMES HAVE TRAVEL TIMES!

NEWS FLASH: Other games are SMALLER than Fallout. How long do you think it'd take you to walk from Reno to San Franscisco? Think that'd be fun to do in real life?

You pretty much have to make FOOL that way because Fallout is supposed to be desolate. There's only a few scattered pockets of mankind left, buddy, because we're talking post apocalypse stuff here.

Rebuttal 2: So increase travel speed to an intermediate extent, as much as you can without destroying disbelief/thrashing video cards/etc. Games already do this left and right, people! As it stands, no Fallout game spans the entirety of the US, or expects you to be able to jump instantaneously from The Glow to Arroyo. Short of that, it is still possible to make things more convenient by numerous means.

Welcome to I Don't Get The Idea Of Persistent Time Club.

It's actually not possible because you have to maintain a set amount of time for the server. Day has to come at the same time for everyone, you know. You can't just have Day for one guy and Night for the other because one player waltzed around outside city limits for a while.

Rebuttal 3: Suspend one or more of the constraints. *whine whine whine.* Yeah, I know, we have to have everything just so.

Just because you're incapable of "getting it" doesn't mean it's not how it has to be.

- Argument 4: The SPECIAL system or specific skills won't translate. E.g., speech, barter, etc. ALTERNATELY: everyone will just use the fighting skills.

Rebuttal 1: Boo hoo. And Fallout didn't use GURPS. So what? There is nothing holy about SPECIAL that it needs to be 100% intact.

Now you're just being a twit. Fallout's character system IS the SPECIAL system. It was designed for Fallout, and that's how things are. Accept it.

So what if Fallout didn't use GURPS. Fallout was a unique setting that was established when Fallout was released. It wasn't based on a pre-existing GURPS title. Your ability to jump from saying Fallout was originally supposed to use GURPS and used SPECIAL instead to saying that because GURPS was ditched means SPECIAL can be ditched is flat out ludicrious. Why? Like I said, Fallout has been established with SPECIAL upon release of the title.

This basically goes back to the statement, "If it doesn't resemble Fallout, why make it 'Fallout Online'?" If it doesn't have SPECIAL, the ability to use those skills in a manner that they're balanced in the fashion that they were in Fallout, then frankly, the only reason to slap the "Fallout" name on there is to whore it out.

Rebuttal 2: Speech works if there are NPCs to talk to. This itself presents interesting problems - note I didn't say TOTALLY INSURMOUNTABLE PROBLEMS, just interesting ones. Barter presents a similar face - there is no reason in principle why the same things which made barter work in the single player game couldn't make it work here. E.g. as a skill for getting better prices, and maybe for being applied in quests/scripts/free roleplaying.

It's called CONSISTANCY. Look it up. Speech skill would be useless because it wouldn't work on players, dig? Gun skills, steal, and other skills would work. Which would you rather have? Something that works everywhere or something that only works in the rare case of NPCs shacked up in set towns?

Given that players might want to kill you, and that Speech skill won't save you from those people, think you'd be likely to use it? If you didn't say, "no" here, you're dumber than I can give you credit for.

Rebuttal 3: The fighting problem depends on the assumption that all anyone will ever do in an online game is fight. BZZT - Not true, although an understandable generalization given what's most popular. To varying extents games which are not 100% about fighting have already been done. Need I remind you that Everquest was not the beginning of MUDs, and certainly won't be the end?

Actually, fighting is all people would do. Why? Because you can't limit the ability for players to kill one another in a setting like Fallout. It's been established in the game that nothing is immortal.

Furthermore, if you can't kill people, what are you going to do if someone uses the Steal skill on you? Complain to the nearest server admin?

What about evil characters doing "bad" things? Are you going to say that either all people are GOOD in the game? Or are you going to make it so there's no karma balance at all, no consequences for the players who do "bad" because no one "good" can stop them?

It has nothing to do with "what's popular", is has to do with a little thing called, "reality". Players have to be able to kill other players, to twart them if they're evil, or for evil people to be able to do "bad stuff" to good guys.

Argument 5: It will ruin things for there to be so many players.

Rebuttal: Where are you from, kid, that you think an Online game has to have as many players as Everquest? Are you aware that people have been happily playing on MUDs ranging from 10-200 players for 20 years+?

You think an MMORPG can survive with 10-200 players? Here's the part where I have to flat out say that you're a moron. Server rental alone would cost more than the monthly fees would generate.

[Rosh]

Rebuttal 3: The fighting problem depends on the assumption that all anyone will ever do in an online game is fight. BZZT - Not true, although an understandable generalization given what's most popular. To varying extents games which are not 100% about fighting have already been done. Need I remind you that Everquest was not the beginning of MUDs, and certainly won't be the end?

Yet it's the primary focus of MMORPGs. As Prov said, speech and social skills are a slim minority focus, and speech is only good on NPCs. People are hardly going to dish out a load of money to sit around chatting when they could get that for free. MMORPGs, as most large online games do, get their focus from conflicts. From PvP, PvM, etc. Otherwise, the game loses it's thrill due to doldrums and the game then only has whatever features and skills to explore as it's expected longevity. When the novelty of those go away and any long-term drive to be on the game fades, so will the subscriber's interest have faded long before then.

Rebuttal: Where are you from, kid, that you think an Online game has to have as many players as Everquest? Are you aware that people have been happily playing on MUDs ranging from 10-200 players for 20 years+?

Where are you from, kid, that MUDs are subscription pay? Most are free. In fact, a definite minority are pay. DSL is donation, Medthievia is annoying with their messages to donate shitloads of money for items, to supposedly pay for server costs but just fatten up Mikey while the ones who actually do all the work don't receive shit aside from in-game powers - all on a code derivative. Gemstone III was subscription since Gemstone II. Islands of Kesmai has been dead for a while in it's main incarnation. There's very few subscription MUDs.

10-200 would support the costs for a MUD (even if you figured they were subscription), but only because per minute there's very little bandwidth usage. It could often be measured in single to double digits in kilobytes. In MMORPGs, you'll often have 3-5KB/sec or more stream, which gets incredibly expensive depending upon the amount of subscribers.

[MrBlue]

You lot really took RichardGrey's "defence" apart..lol

[Mikey]

but just fatten up Mikey

dude i'm scrawny as hell. eddie norton in fight club-scrawny.

one thing.
in FOOL, there shouldn't be anyone fighting only to improve his mad skillz. why? fighting in FOOL should rely on the player's skill, not his experience. i think Neocron is going to use that.

bring on the "it'll be Quake 3 crappenfest in a fallout suit!" arguments, heh.

[Saint_Proverbius]

but just fatten up Mikey

one thing.
in FOOL, there shouldn't be anyone fighting only to improve his mad skillz. why? fighting in FOOL should rely on the player's skill, not his experience. i think Neocron is going to use that.

bring on the "it'll be Quake 3 crappenfest in a fallout suit!" arguments, heh.

That kind of removes the whole character thing, doesn't it? If you're relying on your m4d sk1llz rather than the character's knowledge or abilities, that's no longer role playing, is it?

[Mikey]

hmm, not necessarely Saint.

instead of having to fight the post-nuclear equivalent of a bunny a thousand times just to be able to fight a superbunny a thousand times and so on and so forth... you can immediately start (carefully) hunting - for example - a mutant with friends.
now, the former will probably bore the shit out of you, so you'll tend to bitch about real life things to other bored bunny-bashers. while being able to decently fight right away might make you enthusiastic about the game and the fact that you've succesfully rid the world of yet another "evil commie mutant". you might even celebrate it at Cassidy's, where you'll speak well of player X's proficiency with the gauss rifle and yell racial slurs at a passing ghoul.

oh yeah, an important thing to prevent an online FPS (cos FOOL should be First Person/Third Person) bonanza. no fucken' spawn locations.
in my example a couple of humans (with a "pure" bloodline!) ambushed a mutant. but they won't find another mutant wandering by himself. fuck, a mutant patrol might find the corpse and try to track down the friends. that's a nice setting for good role-playing.

if there's a spawn though, then you're right, they'll just hang out there and shoot shoot shoot.

[Saint_Proverbius]

You missed the point entirely. If you're the one using your l33t g43m3r sk1llz instead of the character's skills and attributes, then there's no reason for the character to have Agility and Gun Skills.

[Strap]

id rather have FO3, with COOP ability through lan, or possibly gamespy.
i dont care for MMORPG's

[Mikey]

that is an option Saint, yes.

but i'll use the Sniper as example.
if you have a good perception, you'll see your target from much further and much more clear too.
if you've got good gun skillz, your grip will be steadier (as opposed to someone with low to no skills, who won't be able to keep his goddamn sniper rifle still) and thus your chances to actually hit your target will drastically improve.

[Rosh]

That still takes it away from the skills of the character and also puts too much into the skill of the player. That might be how Neocron might be doing it, but it's intended to be a MMOFPS moreso than a MMORPG.

In order for your situation to work, it would also have to be put into a first-person perspective, with FPS controls and the like. Not only does that skullfuck the original environ of Fallout, but it's further making the Fallout role-playing to be in just name only.

[Saint_Proverbius]

Fallout Strike!

[Mikey]

Fallout Strike combined with some RP'ing.
perfect

[Saint_Proverbius]

Yeah, because X-Com Enforcer added so much to the X-Com setting.

Mikey just doesn't get it.

Mikey, when you said perception could extend how far you can see in first person, you obviously don't quite get the fact that this is something that should be a graphic setting. Why? Because the people with the minimum specs need to lower the visual range to get a decent frame rate. That is, unless you intend all snipers to be only the ones with the high end systems. See, this is why isometric works better for RPGs.

Furthermore, it's hard to justify the other benefits of perception when you're limited to a 80-90 degree view angle. Someone using Sneak to come up on you from the side? Wouldn't matter what perception you had because you're still limited to that 80-90 degree FOV.

[Mikey]

tsk tsk, Saint. accusing others of misunderstanding while you're not quite grasping the point yourself.

naturally the quality of your vision also depends on your computer's graphical abilities. but no matter how great your hardware is, it won't make you see further (i'm talking in-game) than the software allows you to.

suppose the standard sight maximum is 100 yards. it would depend on your perception. (standard = 5 Perception).

how higher your perception how further you can see. never mind the damn quality of what you see.

practical example:

you --> supercomputer with the most insane graphical abilities and your perception is 6.

me --> average computer with average graphical card, but my perception is 10.

we're both snipers. well then... you should be screwed, because i can see you coming from 150 yards while you only see 110 yards far.

understand ?

of course, i might miss. twice. and you might hit me at your first attempt. but that would depend on other factors.

[Rosh]

Mikey, you just proved his point again. A person with a low-end computer is fucked, unless they put more into Perception. In which, they would run into that silly thing of a spec block, where they couldn't put in more than what they had to scale back for. So putting in more into Perception would be worthless.

Try again.

[Saint_Proverbius]

Even after explaining, Mikey doesn't get it. We're not talking about "graphics quality", we're talking about VIEW RANGE. How far out you can see. The farther distance you can see, the higher the polygon count there is. The higher the polygon count, the better hardware you need to push it.

If you have say, a GeForce 1, you're stuck with a 4 Perception? Hmmm? So now rather than attributes being determined by the player's choice at the start of the game, or even by the player's ability as in the case of first person shooters, your ability to be a sniper is determined by your hardware?

What the fuck kind of logic is that? Mikey, dude, stop now. You're a complete moron. I recommend you totally forget this thread even exists.