Duck and Cover

i know im new and everything, but ive already noticed everyone rips on fot. there are shortcomings to the game, such as it was developed partly/mostly by an outside company, and of course the memory leak... but i also hear other things. mostly these issues:

--its tactical AND not turn based
i personally think that its a good change of pace. plus i havent seen too many rts/rpg games out there, let alone decent ones. taken at face value, fot is good for what it is, and the setting makes it all that much better.

--you start off in BOS as an initiate
can you think of a better faction for a tactical based rpg in the fallout setting? i cant.

--the plot is driven by missions
considering you are a 'ranking officer' (or however you wanna put it) of the brotherhood of steal, a military minded organization... it fits.

--its not in cali
how many games can you make in the same exact place before it gets old? im gonna say two. *L* besides that i live closer to chicago, so the setting is an invited change. supposedly it was a global nuclear war, why not branch out?

--the brotherhood of steal split up and flew on blimps? give me a break.
i cant think of a better way to move the setting to somewhere as far as chicago. and come to think of it, moving it so far away keeps it from interfering too much with the original story lines. that way if they could fudge some of the stuff along the way and no one would complain (or shouldn't have).

----currency system
--a)we want bottlecaps, not ringpulls
given the fact that the setting is far, far away from california... wouldn't they have some other form of currency? its completely logical
--b)bos scrips/trade in
first off is the fact that there are two currency and no easy way to convert... the bos has an elitist background and plus the 'new' bos, if you read into a little bit, is slowly converting the untamed chicagoland area. of course its only because they want to reach their own goal easier, but what the hell, making a new regulated standard is an easy way to gain sway. second the bos makes you trade crap you find in for money, and then trade back the money for better equipment. this is also logical... most of the fresh recruits are not from within the bos. they also crashed-landed in the area, and need a way to find new supplies (or at least scrap material to make new supplies). this is a reward-like system... rewarding thurough recruits, while still (once again) furthuring the goal of the bos themselves.


all that being said, i am not without my own gripes... mainly the game engine memory leak, the weapons, and the end of the plot for the game. the weapon distribution was kinda lame and they could've made you scrap along a little better. i also hate the brotherhood of steel, and fighting robots the whole way to the end was lame.

at any rate, with that being said... most of the problems anyone has with the game can be rectified with a mod. they released the editors for that reason. you dont like the game? mod it. plain and simple. im more than sure there are plenty of people in these forums that if they got together could easily make a full mod that could be the new standard for fot... something everyone agrees on.

now, please feel free to flame.

all that being said, i am not without my own gripes... mainly the game engine memory leak, the weapons, and the end of the plot for the game. the weapon distribution was kinda lame and they could've made you scrap along a little better

As for the issue of the weaponry, it is partially addressed in this topic thread (which happens to be mine, yay!) :
http://www.duckandcover.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3672

i actually i like the fact that fot uses real life weapons... the fact that they dont accurately portray the real life counterparts for fot wouldn't bother me so much if they were scattered accurately throughout the game, or better yet, if each weapon was useful at some point. thats not the case, and it pisses me off. i think in many rpg's (or at least rpg based games where you can equip items)... items are an important part of the game, and are the best way to reward players for progressing in the game, or exploring every last part of it... this concept wasn't implimented in fot.

edit: for the record, i liked the fact that fo2 had real life weapons too. in fact i thought most of them were fictional till i found the pancor jackhammer functional replica on a website.

sabin-x wrote:i know im new and everything, but ive already noticed everyone rips on fot. there are shortcomings to the game, such as it was developed partly/mostly by an outside company, and of course the memory leak... but i also hear other things. mostly these issues:

Oh where to start? No idea what you mean about the memory leak but people either are against the game because of the casual disregard to what has been established in the RPGs or just the fact it's so rushed and not at all what was promised.

sabin-x wrote:--its tactical AND not turn based
i personally think that its a good change of pace. plus i havent seen too many rts/rpg games out there, let alone decent ones. taken at face value, fot is good for what it is, and the setting makes it all that much better.

???? I think only the most die hard fan would not welcome a Fallout game that was done in a different genre, along as the game was true to it's roots and done well. Since the game has a TB mode I think most complaints are that the TB isn't as well implemented as it possibly could be.

sabin-x wrote:--you start off in BOS as an initiate
can you think of a better faction for a tactical based rpg in the fallout setting? i cant.

Raiders, Reavers, Super Mutant Army, The BOS as envisioned in Fallout, The Enclave, some new Paramilitary organisation. There are plenty of possibilities.

sabin-x wrote:--the plot is driven by missions
considering you are a 'ranking officer' (or however you wanna put it) of the brotherhood of steal, a military minded organization... it fits.

I've got nothing against a mission based campaign for a tactical combat game, but then they should of left out driving around the wasteland looking for random/special encounters. The two don't really work well together. There's no reason with a bit of intelligent writing that the begining of the campaign couldn't of been a bit more non-linear, sure it would of meant a bit more scripting but I think the engine could of handled it.

sabin-x wrote:--its not in cali
how many games can you make in the same exact place before it gets old? im gonna say two. *L* besides that i live closer to chicago, so the setting is an invited change. supposedly it was a global nuclear war, why not branch out?

Nothing against exploring more areas of the wasteland, but I thought that we'd see the world map as mostly set in the ruins of Chicago, much like the way LA was depicted in Fallout. Plus with moving it across the country they should of abandoned a lot of the existing groups and come up with some new ideas rather than made the changes they did.

sabin-x wrote:--the brotherhood of steal split up and flew on blimps? give me a break.
i cant think of a better way to move the setting to somewhere as far as chicago. and come to think of it, moving it so far away keeps it from interfering too much with the original story lines. that way if they could fudge some of the stuff along the way and no one would complain (or shouldn't have).

Well I've got nothing against the blimps in a post apoc. setting, but the blimps suggest a larger infrastructure than was shown in Fallout. It's just that if they hadn't of used the BOS then there wouldn't of really been a need to invent a way to move them to the Chicago area.

sabin-x wrote:----currency system
--a)we want bottlecaps, not ringpulls
given the fact that the setting is far, far away from california... wouldn't they have some other form of currency? its completely logical

I have nothing against using ring pulls rather than bottle caps, but the whole point of bottle caps is that they were backed by the water merchants of the Hub, who's backing ring pulls? Plus there are no cans in FOT, I'd of thought that if they were going to use ring pulls they might of put in some nuka cola cans instead of bottles. Though I don't really think cans and ring pulls fit the retro 50's style of the Fallout universe (when was the first soda can on sale?).

sabin-x wrote:--b)bos scrips/trade in
first off is the fact that there are two currency and no easy way to convert... the bos has an elitist background and plus the 'new' bos, if you read into a little bit, is slowly converting the untamed chicagoland area. of course its only because they want to reach their own goal easier, but what the hell, making a new regulated standard is an easy way to gain sway. second the bos makes you trade crap you find in for money, and then trade back the money for better equipment. this is also logical... most of the fresh recruits are not from within the bos. they also crashed-landed in the area, and need a way to find new supplies (or at least scrap material to make new supplies). this is a reward-like system... rewarding thurough recruits, while still (once again) furthuring the goal of the bos themselves.

I have no problem with the use of BOS scripts or making the recruits trade items I've said as such in the FO3 forum, but it doesn't gel with all the flash new bunkers, the numbers of Paladins wandering around in PA doing nothing or the Brotherhood's disregard of vehicles, and the abundance of vehicles.

sabin-x wrote:all that being said, i am not without my own gripes... mainly the game engine memory leak, the weapons, and the end of the plot for the game. the weapon distribution was kinda lame and they could've made you scrap along a little better. i also hate the brotherhood of steel, and fighting robots the whole way to the end was lame.

The real world weapons were a mistake, but the distribution of armour wasn't handled too badly, you didn't tend to find one grade of armour and then a better one before you had a real chance to wear it in combat as with FO2. The robots were a bad idea, one or two would have been fine or as security in the vault as the rpgs but they weren't as much fun to play against as the SM's. I disliked how the BOS were handled, if they wanted a gung ho military organisation they should of created a new one.

sabin-x wrote:at any rate, with that being said... most of the problems anyone has with the game can be rectified with a mod. they released the editors for that reason. you dont like the game? mod it. plain and simple. im more than sure there are plenty of people in these forums that if they got together could easily make a full mod that could be the new standard for fot... something everyone agrees on.

now, please feel free to flame.

But if you fork out for a game you shouldn't have to mod, make your own maps to make it as it should be. Mapping's great for extending the life of a game, not for making the game that the developers should've made in the first place.

good points.

i personally think that the bos idea was actually pretty good. the fact that when you first mead them in fo1, they are real elitest, and in fo2 they are a little less elitest, but still just as snobby... just as they described in the intro to fot. one side was problematic and easier to descriminate against since they were the ones with the new idea... so they get sent off on a mission that might fail. keeping the bos angle also relates back to the other games in at least some way instead of just having completely the same setting with no tie ins. im sure that would've pissed just as many people off.

good point on the ring pulls, i hadn't really thought of that. but if you wanna go as far as to say that soda cans werent too popular in that era, you could also point out that the pancor jackhammer wasn't even a concept, let alone reality... which is the same case with lots of the other real life weapns. another counterpoint is that there wasn't enough social interaction with outlanders to even get a story on if ringpulls are backed or not, or by whom, or even how they came to be currency.

i dont think the real world weapons were a mistake in and of themselves, in fact i like seeing weapons that are real/conceptional... it adds a little hint of realism to it... but the implimentation was horrid. throwing away the fact that you get a shotgun, double barreled shotgun, submachine gun and the most decent handgun you'll see for a while (unfortunately not due to the fact that you dont see enough other handguns)... you start seeing shit like the H&K Caws, and the likes way too damn early. oh yeah, and dont forget the fact that most guns aren't overly acceptional enough to have any sort of purpose at any point.

i also dont like the implimentation of the bos. its highly unrealistic. they (recently?) crash landed and they have a shiney new bunker retrofitted for the brotherhood, and constanly have more and more newer bunkers leading on through the game? no, thats lame.

also... about the editors. at least they released them. they could've just forgotten about it totally and left fot as a very linear game that everyone bitches at (or doesnt even talk about because it wont go anywhere from that point on). and like i said, im pretty sure it wouldn't be that hard with all the people in this forum to put together a campagn that is much better than fot would've been even if it wasn't lacking in the areas mentioned. people modded fo1 & fo2, didn't they?

all that being said. the purpose of the post was to point out that fot isn't really that bad of a game. at the very least to play through once. the fallout motif is just an added bonus IF NOTHING ELSE... of course i think its more.

sabin-x wrote:good points.

i personally think that the bos idea was actually pretty good. the fact that when you first mead them in fo1, they are real elitest, and in fo2 they are a little less elitest, but still just as snobby... just as they described in the intro to fot. one side was problematic and easier to descriminate against since they were the ones with the new idea... so they get sent off on a mission that might fail. keeping the bos angle also relates back to the other games in at least some way instead of just having completely the same setting with no tie ins. im sure that would've pissed just as many people off.

I think the BOS in FOT are a complete bastardisation of the BOS in the RPGs. They could of easily of found other ways of linking to the established universe, i.e a new vault, or vault city type affair, or had a new militia having to deal with the influx of the SMs.

sabin-x wrote:good point on the ring pulls, i hadn't really thought of that. but if you wanna go as far as to say that soda cans werent too popular in that era, you could also point out that the pancor jackhammer wasn't even a concept, let alone reality... which is the same case with lots of the other real life weapns. another counterpoint is that there wasn't enough social interaction with outlanders to even get a story on if ringpulls are backed or not, or by whom, or even how they came to be currency.

A few lines of text in the item description or added to the speech files when trading with non-BOS personnel would of gone a long way to establishing some background. After all the background of Fallout is one of the main reasons people like it so much.

sabin-x wrote:i dont think the real world weapons were a mistake in and of themselves, in fact i like seeing weapons that are real/conceptional... it adds a little hint of realism to it... but the implimentation was horrid. throwing away the fact that you get a shotgun, double barreled shotgun, submachine gun and the most decent handgun you'll see for a while (unfortunately not due to the fact that you dont see enough other handguns)... you start seeing shit like the H&K Caws, and the likes way too damn early. oh yeah, and dont forget the fact that most guns aren't overly acceptional enough to have any sort of purpose at any point.

I think the real world weapons were a big mistake, first there's the dispute over their effectiveness, then the descriptions are far too detailed. How does the character know so much about pre-war weaponry, even the BOS treat pre-war tech with regiously fervency. If they had to add weapons based on real life counterparts they could of at least made the names and item descriptions from the character view point, more generic and less detailed, everytime I read the item descriptions I got taken right out of the flow of the game. And without the RW weapons there wouldn't of been such deluge of weaponry on offer.

sabin-x wrote:i also dont like the implimentation of the bos. its highly unrealistic. they (recently?) crash landed and they have a shiney new bunker retrofitted for the brotherhood, and constanly have more and more newer bunkers leading on through the game? no, thats lame.

I don't think they've recently crashed, I can't remember if the splinter group left to follow the Super Mutants, or just went into a voluntary exile. If they were following the SMs it would depend on whether they left straight away or decided to find out what happened to the SMs after several years. It's likely that since they decided to travel by air that they either left before Fallout, or sometime after the SM army went East. I wouldn't think you'd follow a slowly moving ground force in a Blimp, you might though use a Blimp to get ahead of that force so that you'd have time to set up and wait for them. And I get the impression from the intro that the SMs left soon after the defeat of the Master, so the BOS could have been there for nearly 40 years. Either way the bunkers, proliferation of PA and advanced weaponry, the vehicles with nice neat BOS logos just don't gel with the need to recruit locals, the encouragement to scavenge etc.

sabin-x wrote:also... about the editors. at least they released them. they could've just forgotten about it totally and left fot as a very linear game that everyone bitches at (or doesnt even talk about because it wont go anywhere from that point on). and like i said, im pretty sure it wouldn't be that hard with all the people in this forum to put together a campagn that is much better than fot would've been even if it wasn't lacking in the areas mentioned. people modded fo1 & fo2, didn't they?

They didn't have to release the editors, but then they've kept some back as well as some sprites meant for FOT2. Given the reception FOT received it could be said that they released the editors to encourage more sales of the game, or future sequals.

sabin-x wrote:all that being said. the purpose of the post was to point out that fot isn't really that bad of a game. at the very least to play through once. the fallout motif is just an added bonus IF NOTHING ELSE... of course i think its more.

FOT is a mediocre game at best, if I hadn't played it first I'd prefer JA2, but I'm a little more used to the way FOT handles though I think JA2 is the far better game. For me it's only the editors that keep my interest in the game. Most games are usually ok to play through once. : ) Without the Fallout licence I don't think FOT would of sold half the copies it did.

sabin-x wrote:...ive already noticed everyone rips on fot. there are shortcomings to the game, such as it was developed partly/mostly by an outside company...

While I'm not anything near 100% satisfied w/FoT, I can and do defend certain parts of it. The issue of FoT having been developed by an outside company should not have resulted in the bastardization of the setting the way it did. IPLY didn't support MF the way it should have, and we can partially blame C. Taylor, I suppose, since he seems to have tried to use FoT to remake the FO universe based solely on his view of it, disregarding what the other original designers had done.

sabin-x wrote:--its tactical AND not turn based
i personally think that its a good change of pace. plus i havent seen too many rts/rpg games out there, let alone decent ones. taken at face value, fot is good for what it is, and the setting makes it all that much better.

I think FoT should have been TB-pure, but should have addressed some of the tactical weaknesses of this type of game in a better way than the easily exploited/poorly balanced Overwatch mode. This would have avoided the rather frantic pointing and clicking that often occurs while trying to micromanage six squadmembers in pseudo-RT (CTB).

It should also have gone w/a straight square- or hex-based movement system. The way things were set up it is evident that it was designed for CTB-play, and that TB was an afterthough thrown in to appease the hardcore TB fans. The game doesn't play well in TB, IMHO. It's..."squishy".

sabin-x wrote:--you start off in BOS as an initiate
can you think of a better faction for a tactical based rpg in the fallout setting? i cant.

As Requiem stated, there are all sorts of groups that could have filled this gap. Here are some alternates:

• A Vault-based faction that is seeking to expand like Vault City was. Vaults had certain advantages in Tech, but didn't have the overwhelming advantage in firepower that the BoS had. So while the player could have easily had access to things like FA kits and Stimpacks, there would be no need for conventions to limit the player's access to Power Armor and Miniguns.
• There are other groups similar to the BoS in the FO universe. They are by no means unique, as the reference to the Union of Atomic Workers in The Hub showed. (Talk to Jake in FO and you'll see what I mean.) Another fictional group could easily have been invented that wasn't quite up to the BoS' level. In this case, the BoS could even have been one of its enemies at some point in the game, which could have helped explain why the BoS was so much weaker in FO2, had the game taken place in the same time period that FoT did.
• FoT could have simply been a multple-angled approach to the same story. For instance, let's say that the designers had taken it upon themselves to make a game about the war between the BoS and the Master's Army. You could have played through the game twice, choosing which side to play on. This could have been magnified in another story, w/a player being able to play through the same story from several different angles, each time using a different faction. (Unfortunately the focus was on MP, though, so SP was given less attention that it should have.)

sabin-x wrote:--the plot is driven by missions
considering you are a 'ranking officer' (or however you wanna put it) of the brotherhood of steal, a military minded organization... it fits.

I don't have a problem w/this. A mission-based approach fits the genre. I think there should have been more emphasis on non-combat interactions, though. Ways of letting the character affect the game other than simply blasting their way toward objectives. Yes, even diplomacy could have come into play, w/Piloting having been added on top of the skills catalogue, rather than at the expense of Speech.

sabin-x wrote:--its not in cali
how many games can you make in the same exact place before it gets old? im gonna say two. *L* besides that i live closer to chicago, so the setting is an invited change. supposedly it was a global nuclear war, why not branch out?

No problems, here.

However, if the location was changed, why not truly create another region, rather than simply shoehorning the BoS into a new concept? A fledgling, similar organization in a new region would have fit the bill here. However, no real attention was paid to actually developing the areas. The new locations are simply locations on the map, made different mostly by tilework -- "Hey, these guys built a place out of junk!" -- but with little mention of culture, history, etc. In short, all of the things that make a game world come alive. Was there any real life to Coldwater? Not really. It's just a set of adobe buildings w/a gambling house set into a valley. Why is it there? How long has it been there? These questions are all unanswered, and the player can't even ask them, unless he likes talking to his monitor.

sabin-x wrote:--the brotherhood of steal split up and flew on blimps? give me a break.
i cant think of a better way to move the setting to somewhere as far as chicago. and come to think of it, moving it so far away keeps it from interfering too much with the original story lines. that way if they could fudge some of the stuff along the way and no one would complain (or shouldn't have).

I think that the blimps themselves were believable enough. They aren't really that hard to build, although as shown I think they were a bit too advanced.

However, it didn't stop there. There is concept art of these airships being escorted by jet- and prop-driven aircraft. That was definitely outside of the scope of the BoS, an organization that lamented that it didn't have a single functioning car in FO1. (You can see float texts to this effect in the BoS classroom at Lost Hills.)

----currency system
--a)we want bottlecaps, not ringpulls
given the fact that the setting is far, far away from california... wouldn't they have some other form of currency? its completely logical
--b)bos scrips/trade in
first off is the fact that there are two currency and no easy way to convert... the bos has an elitist background and plus the 'new' bos, if you read into a little bit, is slowly converting the untamed chicagoland area. of course its only because they want to reach their own goal easier, but what the hell, making a new regulated standard is an easy way to gain sway. second the bos makes you trade crap you find in for money, and then trade back the money for better equipment. this is also logical... most of the fresh recruits are not from within the bos. they also crashed-landed in the area, and need a way to find new supplies (or at least scrap material to make new supplies). this is a reward-like system... rewarding thurough recruits, while still (once again) furthuring the goal of the bos themselves.

sabin-x wrote:...the weapons...and fighting robots the whole way to the end was lame.

Adding "realism" to the FO universe by way of weapons is not the way to go. In addition to opening a huge can of worms when a designer sits down to balance them in game terms, very few RW weapons fit the FO universe.

Remember that FO is a post-apocalyptic, retro-future, Sci-Fi game. The timeline diverged from our own right around the time of WWII and so w/the exception of the Mauser 9mm, the Colt .45 and perhaps a few others, there's not place for the highly experimental weapons of the '80s, such as the Pancor Jackhammer.

The FO universe is a place where certain technological advancements we take for granted were never made. This is why the computers still run on vacuum tubes and power armor is the clunky, braided hose-laden affair that it is. The only decent weapons introduced in FO2 -- ranged weapon-wise -- were the Pulse family. These look very much like they were taken from the pulp sci-fi comics and B-Movies that FO claims as its inspiration. (Yes, there are other influences, e.g. Mad Max.)

Like Requiem said, the weapon descriptions in FO2 were far too detailed. Compare the weapons introduced in FO2 to those of FO and you'll see a vast difference. Essentially, those in FO were broad types, that could easily have been filled by any one of a broad number of models.

sabin-x wrote:at any rate, with that being said... most of the problems anyone has with the game can be rectified with a mod.

Amen. These are in the works. However, they are a long time in coming.

Cheers,

OTB

i like ctb. i didn't like it at first, but i think its more enjoyable to play the game that way after experimenting with it. considering the missions usually take an hour+ to finish in ctb, i cant imagine what tb would do to it... i dont wanna think about how long id be playing.

and im well aware tb was just thrown in to appease the older fo gamers, but even if it were made to accomidate both tb and ctb (which would be a feat in and of itself), ctb will still be the more superior way to play the game, if only because it cuts the playtime down to something reasonable.

also, there are probably other factions that they could've used as a main faction, but i think the train of thought was "how can we tie this into the old games, and still keep it from interfering with their storyline too much?". then that probably led to "what organization in fo is most military minded?". ill agree the story line could've been a lot better... i could think of a few minor changes to the existing story line that could've made it better. one would be making the real life weapons have more realistic attributes (like accurate dmg), and actually giving them to the players at more appropriate times.

anyway, how many full mods are actually in progress right now? ive seen a few that claim to be in progress bot dont look like it.

good points actually...
it doesnt suck all out, its just not as fallouty as fallout fans would have liked it to be.

but it is also good that it is not as fallouty as fallout, because then, it would just be a shitty rpg fallout, with no rpg, and only killing

haha, well put

sabin-x wrote:--its not in cali
how many games can you make in the same exact place before it gets old? im gonna say two.

I'm gonna say, a hell of a lot. California is a brilliantly done setting.

sabin-x wrote:i like ctb. i didn't like it at first, but i think its more enjoyable to play the game that way after experimenting with it. considering the missions usually take an hour+ to finish in ctb, i cant imagine what tb would do to it... i dont wanna think about how long id be playing...ctb will still be the more superior way to play the game, if only because it cuts the playtime down to something reasonable.

I swore I'd never play FoT in CTB when I first got it. Then, on my 3rd or 4th game, Peoria caused me to use it sparingly. Then I was using it for overland travel. Now I'm a die-hard CTB player.

CTB also offers more tactical play. It's easier to coordinate fire-and-maneuver in CTB -- even though it's a bit more frantic than TB -- and Overwatch, while a step in the right direction, isn't as nasty has having a hail of fire pouring down on you while you try to dash across a street.

sabin-x wrote:also, there are probably other factions that they could've used as a main faction, but i think the train of thought was "how can we tie this into the old games, and still keep it from interfering with their storyline too much?". then that probably led to "what organization in fo is most military minded?".

Why not just come out and say it? You know, "This game was designed to milk an established franchise."

sabin-x wrote:ill agree the story line could've been a lot better... i could think of a few minor changes to the existing story line that could've made it better. one would be making the real life weapons have more realistic attributes (like accurate dmg), and actually giving them to the players at more appropriate times.

The issue of RW weapons and other issues of "realism" don't have much place in FoT or similar systems. FoT is based on an RPG system which is geared toward heroic action, not a realistic simulation of actual combat. As long as you have Hit Point you will have to make weapons increasingly more powerful as the campaign unfolds. This is where the whole can of worms w/a RW weapons catalogue is not only opened, but also dumped on the table and smeared across its surface. You will always find gripes about what weapon should do more damage, range, etc., etc., etc., ad nauseum. This was one of FoT's problems, in addition to the fact that they tried to deluge the game w/largely redundant weapons, many of which -- as you mentioned -- which were not available until they were no longer viable. ("Why should I use these POS SMGs? I've had more AKs than I can shake a stick at since mission 2...")

sabin-x wrote:anyway, how many full mods are actually in progress right now? ive seen a few that claim to be in progress bot dont look like it.

Check the modding forum. There's a stickied thread devoted to the subject there. AFAIK there are three full-up SP campaigns in the works, which are also mods, mostly looking to put the "Fallout" back in "Fallout: Tactics".

OTB

atoga wrote:I'm gonna say, a hell of a lot. California is a brilliantly done setting.

If they had set FOT after FO2 then they should of kept it in California, but moving it across country was a sensible idea to keep from mucking up the continuity as established in FO2. Unfortunately they still didn't manage to do this, nor did they take advantage of a new area to create new societies and refashion a new Fallout world without affecting the old. The Reavers were great, far more interesting than Vault 0 and the Robots, a pity they weren't fleshed out more. Edit The ghouls weren't really 'The Ghouls', they should of come up with a new regional slang term for them. I like the Deathclaws in Fallout but the DeathGoats in FOT sucked, I'm not a fan of intelligent Deathclaws. If they needed a tough melee creature they should of used the aliens. They could of kept the SMs moving east, but they should of added centaurs and floaters, just for the visual variety if nothing else. A few robots here and there wouldn't of been so bad, if they had left out the humanoid bots. More vaults, and citizens (of all types) who could equip weaponry would of helped. More should of been done with the rats, roaches etc, though they really needed some giant ants : ). The Beastlords would of been better as cannibals, or hostile tribals that used dog packs for hunting. There are a myriad of things that could of been done taking advantage of the new area.

sabin-x wrote:also, there are probably other factions that they could've used as a main faction, but i think the train of thought was "how can we tie this into the old games, and still keep it from interfering with their storyline too much?". then that probably led to "what organization in fo is most military minded?".

Starting the story with a vault citizen from a new vault would of established the link to the old games much quicker than using the BOS, especially the BOS as they were depicted. And even though they were descended from the US Military and used terms such as General, I didn't think that the BOS in the RPGs were at all military minded, far more like a religious community than an army camp.

sabin-x wrote:and im well aware tb was just thrown in to appease the older fo gamers, but even if it were made to accomidate both tb and ctb (which would be a feat in and of itself), ctb will still be the more superior way to play the game, if only because it cuts the playtime down to something reasonable.

What's a reasonable playing time? If the gameplay's good, then the longer the better. Contolling all six party members can be a chore, at least in TB you get to implement some tactics, in CTB it's too easy to just move en masse and rush the enemy, in fact moving each player seperately in CTB (with your finger hovering over the w key) can be a right pain in the ass, especially if they are spread across the map and can't all be seen at the same time. Basically real time is far better suited for twitch gaming than tactical gaming.

requiem_for_a_starfury wrote:The Reavers were great, far more interesting than Vault 0 and the Robots, a pity they weren't fleshed out more.

Yes, indeed. While I cringed that the FoT designers couldn't find another cult to pillory besides Scientology, and some of their combat taunts, I loved these guys. I wish some 'bot missions had been cut rather than the Reaver missions.

Requiem wrote:Contolling all six party members can be a chore, at least in TB you get to implement some tactics, in CTB it's too easy to just move en masse and rush the enemy...

Don't do that when your opponents are equipped w/automatic weapons. A single minigun can tear a squad apart with one or two bursts... *grimace*

OTB

OnTheBounce wrote:Why not just come out and say it? You know, "This game was designed to milk an established franchise."

*L* i must've accidentally left that one out

requiem_for_a_starfury wrote:Starting the story with a vault citizen from a new vault would of established the link to the old games much quicker than using the BOS

true, but thats also been done before...

requiem_for_a_starfury wrote:Contolling all six party members can be a chore, at least in TB you get to implement some tactics, in CTB it's too easy to just move en masse and rush the enemy

i agree about it being a chore, sometimes i wish there was some sort of pause button implimented so i could pause and give orders and then unpause... but i think it worked out for the better. you just dont get that feeling when your team is scattered about of "oh shit, im being rushed by giant gun toting things that are going to ream my ass" in tb... and you also wouldn't get the same panic if there was a pause button for ctb. however, i disagree about ctb being simpler... as far as tactically. if you dont organise your troops the right way and you move them up, or dont give them proper cover... they can very easily be destroyed. if you dont believe me, try playing a few games of MP with ctb... try to play with more than two players, that livens it up a bit.

sabin-x wrote:true, but thats also been done before...

Not necessarily a bad thing, if they had of kept that bit and changed everything else I doubt that people would of complained as much (then again they probably would).

sabin-x wrote:i agree about it being a chore, sometimes i wish there was some sort of pause button implimented so i could pause and give orders and then unpause... but i think it worked out for the better. you just dont get that feeling when your team is scattered about of "oh shit, im being rushed by giant gun toting things that are going to ream my ass" in tb... and you also wouldn't get the same panic if there was a pause button for ctb.

Panic is for a FPS and the like, tactical games generally just don't get the pulse racing in the same way.

sabin-x wrote:however, i disagree about ctb being simpler... as far as tactically. if you dont organise your troops the right way and you move them up, or dont give them proper cover... they can very easily be destroyed. if you dont believe me, try playing a few games of MP with ctb... try to play with more than two players, that livens it up a bit.

I've no wish to play MP, MP is FOT's biggest sin, too much of the SP game was rushed, abandoned or dumbed down for the sake of MP. Not too mention all the 14yr old clannies that love to troll the forums.

I've played through the single player campaign and several of the fan made maps in both CTB and TB, TB gameplay IMHO is the far superior experience.

requiem_for_a_starfury wrote:Panic is for a FPS and the like, tactical games generally just don't get the pulse racing in the same way.

well considering you put time and effort into these characters and having them die off is never fun... its kinda like playing hardcore diablo 2 characters. (please kill me now for mentioning that... 'thing')

sabin-x wrote:well considering you put time and effort into these characters and having them die off is never fun...

If your main character dies there's always Alt - L, if one of the other party members die then that's the nature of the game, you can't expect to engage in combat with zero casulties. Unless it's my mistake, for instance forgetting to unselect a character and moving the whole party into a mine field at once, or very near the end of a mission where all my squad members are encumbered with loot, I almost never reload if one of the recruits die. They implemented a reputation penalty in Brahmin Wood if you lost a recruit, they should of done that for all the missions it would of made the game more interesting. One of these day's I'm going to see if I can get through the entire recruit pool without deliberately getting people killed.

sabin-x wrote:its kinda like playing hardcore diablo 2 characters. (please kill me now for mentioning that... 'thing')

I'll have to take your word on that.

requiem_for_a_starfury wrote:if one of the other party members die then that's the nature of the game, you can't expect to engage in combat with zero casulties.

I only lost 1 guy in my game through FoT, and that was Kevin to the last Bohemoth outside Vault 0. The stupid gimp wouldn't duck behind the sandbags to get healed

i never lost one char whilest playing through FOT. i guess im just too methodical