Puuky Baby on playable ghouls and supermutants

[Saint_Proverbius]

<strong>[Game -> Update]</strong>

Get ready for more glee and fun straight from the pipin' hot <A href="http://forums.interplay.com/viewtopic.p ... >interplay discussion threads on playable races</a> in <i>Fallout 3</i>. Remember, kids, regardless of how much sense it makes, or how little, it's KEWL, so it's gotta be in <i>Fallout 3: KEWLER THAN FALLOUT 2</i>. Here's a quote from <b>Puuk</b> on the subject of playable races:
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<br><blockquote>But ghouls live a VERY long time. It's not unreasonable to have a ghoul be more than 150 years old, or more. Also, playing a ghoul, or super mutant, would result in a lot of prejudicial treatment by the smooth-skinned locals. It would definitely be a different playing experience. The player would have to carefully weigh how much emphasis he would put into his speech skills just to avoid getting in a lot of fights, or at least heavy emphasis on stealth skills. Also, not every human would instantly go homicidal on a ghoul or super mutant on first sight. In fact, a ghoul or super mutant might be able to use their scary appearance as an intimidation tool. Just because the PC is a ghoul or super mutant does not mean they must fight through the whole game; the player would just have to play strategically.</blockquote>
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<br>Yeah, because a 100+ year old ghoul or supermutant shouldn't have any experience at all over the course of that long, long lifespan, should they? I mean, they've never <i>killed a rat</i> in that time or <i>fixed a well</i> or done anything remotely like a mundane starter quest in either <a href="http://www.interplay.com/fallout">Fallout</a> or <a href="http://www.interplay.com/fallout2">Fallout 2</a>, right? Let's also ignore the supermutants service in <i>The Master's Army</i> as experience gaining, shall we? They wouldn't gain experience by being part of <i>The Unity</i>, being linked telepathically to <i>The Master</i> or anything.
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<br>Not in <b>one hundred freaking years</b> have they done anything remotely worth a few dozen levels of experience, and that's why they should be playable, right, Puuk?
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<br>Spotted this at <A href="http://www.nma-fallout.com">No Mutants Allowed</a>.

[swordinstone]

Also, playing a ghoul, or super mutant, would result in a lot of prejudicial treatment by the smooth-skinned locals. It would definitely be a different playing experience. The player would have to carefully weigh how much emphasis he would put into his speech skills just to avoid getting in a lot of fights, or at least heavy emphasis on stealth skills.

Doesnt sound like there will be much of those skills left to focus on when the game is finished.

[Mad Max RW]

Not in <b>one hundred freaking years</b> have they done anything remotely worth a few dozen levels of experience, and that's why they should be playable, right, Puuk?

In that case, wouldn't a 30 year old human player have done something in his lifetime to gain experience?

[Megatron]

I think it's sort of in perspective as everyone else has the same sort of generation as you and you do start off with some base skills.

While Super-Mutants would have 5 times as many skills as well as differents mins and maxs in special.

[Saint_Proverbius]

In that case, wouldn't a 30 year old human player have done something in his lifetime to gain experience?

I don't think you can even start at 30 years old in Fallout or Fallout 2. However, in both scenarios, you start off in very, very sheltered environments. A supermutant would have most likely started his or her existance as a supermutant in The Master's Army, being a soldier, raiding caravans, attacking small villages for fresh dipping stock, and so on. A ghoul would have started his or her new life as a ghoul exposed to either radiation, like the Bakersfield ghouls, or a combination of radiation and FEV, like Harold did. Either way, they'd be in the wasteland, having to survive.

And if it's unlikely that someone could hit 30 with no experience, it's highly improbable they could make it three to five times that length of time without gaining any!

[Mad Max RW]

I thought about the sheltered life, but they still would have learned something. In Fallout 1 your character must have learned some science skill from using the computers and whatever while living in the Vault all those years. Fallout 2 you had to know about hunting and living off the land with your tribe. It's not like in both instances you were created in a day. It feels almost like you were born, put in cryogenic sleep, then woke up years later to save the world.

[swordinstone]

I thought about the sheltered life, but they still would have learned something. In Fallout 1 your character must have learned some science skill from using the computers and whatever while living in the Vault all those years. Fallout 2 you had to know about hunting and living off the land with your tribe. It's not like in both instances you were created in a day. It feels almost like you were born, put in cryogenic sleep, then woke up years later to save the world.

If you taged Melee or Unarmed in FO2, it started around 70%-85% or something like that didnt it? I was thinking the same thing about Fallout 1 tho, it took a long time to get science up... provided you were working on other skills to support yourself.

[N]

Hmmm....

Well perhaps in Fallout 1 -- the reason you were in the Vault to start with, is where you got your initial skills. After all, you don't start at ALL 0, do you? No, you don't. Nor do you start as a master (100% or more...).

Essentially, that marks, at best, a living where you studied a few things, maybe learned a bit, and now, as a fledgling, you're ready to go out into the world and learn, get more experience, etc.

The same goes for the tribal beginning -- you don't start at all 0's, so the percentage points you have represent the exerience you learned up and until you start playing the game.

But a ghoul, who's lived for 100 years? 150 years? Who had existed before the war? Or a supermutant was a trained soldier, telepathically linked to the master, etc etc...? It seems like there'd be a FAR greater instance of having higher skills (in various ares) being that old, having existed and or lived through the war, or surviving ON YOUR SKILLS out in the wasteland, etc.

Whereas surviving in a tribal village set apart from the rest of the world, or in a vault underground, doesn't seem as plausible to have raised your skills to such a heightened level through necessity or otherwise.

[Mad Max RW]

It doesn't take a 100 years to master anything. A human can pretty much master high technology if he spent 20 years of his life around computers and nothing else.

The best way to keep from over-complicating things and at the same time making it more realistic is to drop mutant and ghoul PC's and make age a factor in the game.

[Saint_Proverbius]

I thought about the sheltered life, but they still would have learned something. In Fallout 1 your character must have learned some science skill from using the computers and whatever while living in the Vault all those years. Fallout 2 you had to know about hunting and living off the land with your tribe. It's not like in both instances you were created in a day. It feels almost like you were born, put in cryogenic sleep, then woke up years later to save the world.

Maybe that's where they learned their starting skills, with the concept of zeroth level to the level at which they level their shelter. There's only so much you can learn from a computer versus actually doing, after all.

The big difference is that while the Chosen One was putzing around Arroyo, waiting for the Elder to tell him or her it's time to save the village, a supermutant or ghoul would be out in the harsh reality of the wasteland.

A supermutant would most likely be fending off humans who want to kill him or her because they think he's part of the Remnants of the Master's Army, which are still trying to kill off the humans in favor of their new world order. Even if that mutant ere in Broken Hills for most of it's life, there's still the thing about being in The Master's Army, fighting the humans. A supermutant is bound to have at least a few levels worth just from serving the Master. Even if it weren't fighting, it would still be getting knowledge dumps from The Unity.

Ghouls don't have it that much better in the wasteland, certainly not a sheltered life. Imagine the hardship of migrating from Bakersfield to Gecko? Imagine working in the power plant, getting it up and running. Imagine fending off humans who equate ghouls to supermutants, only smaller. If they weren't exposed during he Vault 12 fiasco, they were exposed running caravans too close to Mariposa, like Harold was and like Talius was. Either way, they were right there in the wasteland, dealing with things directly and have been for 150+ years.

[Mad Max RW]

We're looking at it realistically, and I doubt JE Sawyer or anybody else behind FO3 will do the same. It's easier to do go with small, medium, large, fast, faster, fastest, and rock, paper, scissors, than something that makes sense

[Zetura Dracos]

This is all bull-shit! Why the hell dosent Sawyer ask the true fan base instead of shacking it up with all the BIS fan-boys to make them buy the game? You'd think that he would see all the bad press people were giving Fobos and say "Look at that, if I make Fallout 3 I sure as hell dont want to do what those guys there are doing or Im fucked!" But hes not! Hes making a whole new string of shitty mistakes! And it really pisses me off that he wont listen to those who actually know the series, will give constructive critisism, and dont talk in L33T for whatever reason he dosent. Honestly it makes one wonder how humanity survives when we wont listen to things that contradict us and refuse to grow into more civilized beings which is exactly what games are doing anymore, theyve gone for the most part from being intelligent peices of hard work that gave you options and made you think, to gore fests with the sole objective of finding a way to make things blow up in more vivid higher-polygon ways for Joe Sixpack his third cousin of a wife and their ADD positive kids. Douglass Adams was dead on with the Golgafrinchams at the end of "The Retaurant at the End of the Universe" instead of progressing as a society we're sitting about taking bathes and making documentaries about ourselves.

[chrisbeddoes]

It would be acceptable if you had a different story . But that would drain from other more important things .

Like dialogue.

Still it is their game .

And they are discussing this issues .

Did Chuck discussed the thong issue ?

I bet not.

[Forty-six & Two]

Im not for making Fallout 3 into another FOBOS piece of crap, but hey, things do change, even in the wasteland of Fallout... also theres other parts of the U.S than just the areas in Fallout 1 & 2 right? Other places with more vaults and more F.E.V contaiment areas. More exposed humans that have become ghouls. Maybe supermutants found a way to beat the sterility problem, some of them arent just big lumps of meat and a pea-brain, Marcus was pretty bright you know, not scientificly though, but others might be. It doesnt even have to be a mutant that figures out a cure for the sterility, maybe a human scientist does. Maybe some of you want the Fallout world to stand still in the same place forever, but that kinda seems abit boring doesnt it? The whole point of the game has always been "what happens after they drop em?" Let the world evolve. Although, it has to be done correctly of course, so that it fits the timeline fairly acuratly. Thats just my opinion.

[axelgreese]

I think when Fallout 3 comes out I'll play this game instead.

[Forty-six & Two]

I think when Fallout 3 comes out I'll play this game instead.

Well I dont know, the graphics arent really up to date but the gameplay is really cool though.. it just lacks abit replayability maybe? It has to be turn-based as well, I just hate real time. And more races! Id be really cool if I could play a radioactive bunny! Could I? Please!?!? :badgrin:

[Langy]

Maybe Supermutants and Ghouls will start out at higher levels than level one in FO3? If they did that, what would be wrong with it (besides the fact that if you're a supermutant you'll probably be attacked on sight by a few thousand people...)?

[Saint_Proverbius]

. also theres other parts of the U.S than just the areas in Fallout 1 & 2 right? Other places with more vaults and more F.E.V contaiment areas.

Actually, no. FEV is located at exactly two places in the Fallout world, West Tech and Mariposa.

[Strap]

all this "kewl" mutie bullshit is really making me :x

BAH!!!! the only thing that this will do is fuck up fallout yet again. i would rather look to the past than the future for good ideas.

[EN.]

Some people on the boards are asking for the character to be able to turn into a race instead of picking it straight from the start.

It's hard to work into the setting, but it's possible. There could be an option that allowed you to dip yourself in the vats (or at least the remains of the vats... there were still some puddles of the stuff in the military base in FO2 IIRC) that would turn you into a supermutant... I'm not sure how you would become a ghoul though.