Just a thought...

[avenger69ie]

i've been thinking quite a bit about fallout lately due to the recent hype with van buren, the gas bot etc...

what i'd like to see in fallout 3 would be this... In fallout, and fallout 2, there were lots of places to get food and drink, but travelling teh wastes is totally different as we all know, what if in fallout 3 it was essential that you had to consume a certain amount of both just to stay alive, this would also make the outdoorsman skill a lot more practical ( if its still going to be used)
imo that would add a distinct post apoc feeling to the game.

[Megatron]

I don't want to really micro-manage and keep stopping to eat food. Mabye if it took place over a short time it wouldnt be to bad if it wasn't a big deal and stuff

[atoga]

I don't want to really micro-manage and keep stopping to eat food. Mabye if it took place over a short time it wouldnt be to bad if it wasn't a big deal and stuff lol

it'd probably have to be automatic, otherwise the playa would be stopped whenever they were travelling. Could be a good feature though

[avenger69ie]

what i was thinking was, if theres currency, and obviously if fallout 3 is gonna be anything like its predecessors,it will.
you could buy supplies, ie:1 weeks food and water rations, the cost could vary depending on where you are and how numerous the local resources are (food and water)

[SuperH]

Well, you did have that kinda stuff in the other fallouts, there's a bunch of different types of food and drink. I'm pretty sure (at least I always assumed) that as you traveled across the world map, occasionally if your outdoorsman skill wasn't high enough you'd be forced to consume some. If not... it seems that all the food was useless... anyway, am I right? I seem to remember being dehydrated and taking damage from it at times, if I wasn't carrying any water with me.

[avenger69ie]

thats true, but it happened to me very rarely, and i almost never had food after the early missions, also i deliberetly kept my outdoorsman skill low so i could get my xp up quicker, anyway i think that food and water should play i bigger role in fallout 3, as they are more essential essential for survival in a wasteland than a gun or a knife... also, if there's a shortage of water and food in the wastes, there are bound to be more raiders ...which would be nice.

[Cosmus]

Yeah, outdoorsman was used to get food and whatnot. I think every 12 hrs, it checked. It was supposed to reduce food in inventory if it failed, but wasn't finished (to my knowledge).

[requiem_for_a_starfury]

Didn't they drop getting dehydrated in FO2? I can't remember ever putting points into Outdoorsmanship in that game, or getting hit for not carrying the water flask.

They should bring it back as it was in Fallout, it doesn't need to be any more complicated than it was.

[Dan]

The idea sounds good, but it can cause a lot of problems...
Having to feed the charecter a few times a day, is maybe more realistic, but it doesn't add anything to the game...
It doesn't deepen the survival setting, it's just annoying.

If anything like this should be implemented, it should be done so it adds to the setting, and doesn't annoy the player.

[Strap]

it should arise rarely and slow you down, but not make you have to find an iguana on a stick before your "hunger meater" runs out and you die. thats just no fun

[Silver]

I wouldn't like this, as said before, micromanagement like this is a waste of time to me. Maybe if there would be a option with this future, if not, please NO.

[SuperH]

I dunno, sure it would be a pain in the butt to have to watch every second that you move on the world map to make sure you have enough food, but maybe if they took the old system and just made it more consistent it would be good.

Like for instance, you'd only get told that there's a big problem when you have no food and you fail like 5 outdoorsman checks, cause then you're definately starving. Lose some hp or whatever there, because you have to eat poison berries to stay alive.

Ha, I've always said, the one thing fallout needs more of is cannibalism. Sure, there's a bit with Bob, but it's the apocalpyse! People should be eating each other left and right... or maybe not that much but still. If you get really starved, you should be able to eat dead bodies. Or like kill your party members and eat them...

Ha yeah that's a bit much I know. Ignore that last paragraph unless you agree it should go in the game...

Realistically though, yeah, I think it could be a nice thing to make it a slightly larger part of the game than it was in Fallout 1 and 2, seeing as you do spend a whole lot of time doing just about nothing on the world map in them. All you ever get is random encounters and if you're lucky, special encounters for the most part. Letting the player know that the character is using their outdoorsman skill every once in a while (aside from when it's really high, which it does do pretty consistentley in the others) might not be a bad idea.

[avenger69ie]

it should arise rarely and slow you down, but not make you have to find an iguana on a stick before your "hunger meater" runs out and you die. thats just no fun

you wouldnt have to die if it was realistic, for instance, if you dont have enough food you become weakened, same with water... although dehydration would be more severe and quicker than hunger to kill, the average human can live for 3 weeks without any food and only water.

[axelgreese]

The idea sounds good, but it can cause a lot of problems...
Having to feed the charecter a few times a day, is maybe more realistic, but it doesn't add anything to the game...
It doesn't deepen the survival setting, it's just annoying.

If anything like this should be implemented, it should be done so it adds to the setting, and doesn't annoy the player.

agreed.

Don't add an element to the game just for "realism" or because "it'd be cool", add an element because it would bring something to the table.

[Dark_Machine]

To the best of my knowledge, the Fallout games weren't ever intended to be immersed in realism. 'Least, that's how it seems to me.

And after all, you're the Hero of the Wasteland. Big guns, lots of fighting, saving people left and right (if you so choose), I think that it's just assumed you'll eat and drink when necessary. After all, a hero that's too stupid to know when he/she is thirsty isn't much of a hero at all.

[VasikkA]

Nah, that wouldn't add anything into the game. Feeding you character was very annoying in Ultima 7, I wouldn't want to see that in Fallout 3. If they decide to include it, it should be determined by your Outdoorsman -skill. Most of the time spent by your character is travelling long journeys by foot, therefor Outdoorsman would be the right skill to determine this stat.

[axelgreese]

I think that it's just assumed you'll eat and drink when necessary. After all, a hero that's too stupid to know when he/she is thirsty isn't much of a hero at all.

It's known as abstraction, OTB has many good posts on the subject. Just because you don't literally see them do something doesn't mean it's not happpening.

[Lup_Alb_13]

I think that the Ultima aproach on eating is a little too annoying but any of you have played Betryal at Krondor? There you must eat but this was quite simple solved by removing 1 day ration at 00:00 every day. You don't need to specifically eat sommething but you must have food rations in your backpack. You can eat in a tavern if you want so you won't loose any food rations in that day and you receive a morale boost because you have eaten fresh food instead of dry meat and things like this. When you travel without food you lose hitpoints and strength every day until you die. If a character must eat and drink, the player must do a lot of planning before he ventures into the wastes...

[swordinstone]

I think it could add a lot to the setting and feel of the game... but it should definately be automatic... all the player has to do is make sure he actually has food and water... be able to hunt for it with the outdoorsman skill... perhaps tracking could be part of that skill, or a whole other skill on its own... it could certainly be used in other aspects of the game... perhaps an over all "observation" skill.

[Silver]

How about this, you just exterminated everything in Vault 451, it took you 6 hours. Then you save, move to the closest city, finding out you don't make it cause you forgot some nuka cola and a nuked twinky...

Great! I see it happening already .