Duck and Cover

How about just one burned-out city? A whole city modelled with 5 or so towns/communitys living in different areas with everything in between modelled? To travel around quickly you could use the world-map or trains.

It'd be lot better than just random encounters, there'd be a city happening? So you could see what the post-apoc has done to places like parks, librarys, museums etc. as well as have intresting tactical shoot-outs with gangs or just do quests for some people.

Also you get more of a diverse area while being pretty consistent. Like docks, parks, ghettos and stuff? On the out-skirts of the town are the wastes and a few industrial areas. Plus there could be towns inside the city if it's large enough? Like the hub mabye. Towns aren't that big as it only seems to be a few blocks big at maximum?

Also being in a single city it wouldn't affect other stories/sequels much and the threat doesn't need to be really big or bad as you only need a nuke as an enemy really...though it might be a bit anti-terrorist sekret agent and not very fallouty.

Another positive idea would be that technology wouldn't be too uber. Most of the technology would just be brought in from around the wasteland and nothing would be too advanced as it'd be hard to get into a city and towns built inside citys would have limited space.

Hey, you are good for something after all

I think this would be a great idea...only thing that doen't make sense is the technological influx from the wasteland. Where caravans can go, your character should be able to go. And a ruined city would be a massive storehouse for prewar artifacts, even if it was bombed and plundered.

Maybe if the caravan came once each year...or every two years...lost half of its guards on the way on a regular basis, so that the player would believe that going into the wastes would mean certain death.

Apart from that, I would really like to explore such a setting. I also think that it was the "ruined civilization" maps that made FO:T enjoyable.

I was thinking some of the rarer techs like heavy/energy weapons and the better armour. They'd still be in the game, but harder to find that just wandering south and stealing a bunch of guns. Though this is non-linear, it's also a bit lame?

I think I posted most of the topics in here but stopped since vb started? oh welks.

I'd prefer to keep it in the city, like how you can't just keep wandering in fallout until you come to the east coast? Mabye the city is against the sea and most paths are blocked except for several caravan routes that are guarded. Though I don't see why you couldn't be able to scout around the city for experience or a change of scenery.

Pretty good idea, Megatron. Might be kinda hard to do, but what the hey? You might lose some of the 'lone hero against the elements' factor though.

Hmm, I think one of the most evocative images of the post apocalypse is an empty city, so it could work if done right. If you think about it a city is huge and you could easily take up a world map with just one city plus a few outlying areas in the wasteland, depending on how much detail you go into.

One of the things about FOT that disapointed me was that after the intro showing the ruins of chicago hardly any of the maps were in a ruined city.

Kind of like the first part of PS: T, you mean?

Something tells me you guys are in for a treat...

I don't know about ps: t as I never played it?

The idea came from escape from new york. Which it'd be a bit like, but with mutants/ghouls, more weapons and towns?

There could be one large central city with bombed out skyscrapers and such with people living in them, or serving as lookout. Since the city was hit with an atomic bomb there's not going to anything too terribly large. Perhaps the bomb missed the city by a few miles, somkind of guidance mishap with the planes, so the bomb only took out a corner of the city with the initial blast, of course the blastwave did damage to other parts of the city, plus the fires and all that fun stuff. If they focused the game mostly in one city and surrounding farms they could put in a huge sewer system, plus a Vault. The vault could have more levels to it instead of the three that you get to see.

Briosafreak wrote:Something tells me you guys are in for a treat...

I wonder... Were Pyro and JE actually the same guy all this time?

OH TEH IR0NY.

The concentration on a major city sounds nice but I don' t like the idea of a nuke missing the city by a few miles. How much miles are we talking about? 5? 10? Seems close enough for the population to be exposed to a healthy mutation-dose of radiation. Everything further than that and it would be a serieous mishap in guidance but the fallout wouldn' t dimminish that much. Besides the radiation would still be around for years to come.

I' d rather see the city being prone to heavy bombardements (thus destroying large parts of the city and it' s buildings) and viral agents (reducing the initial population). They could even have used EMP bombs for all I know, thus destroying most of the electronical based equipement scattered around the city, making sure there isn' t anything to overpowering for players to be found.

All in all this starts to sound like a city I designed for FOpnp for the European sourcebook. A huge burned out husk of a city with a sewer and subway system where all sorts of gangs and/or religious groups fight for supremacy, food and survival. A pre-war governmental institution has a sort of 'Vault' beneath the surface which is actually a small city on its own account. They are an autonomous society and much like the Enclave they yearn to rebuild their former glory of by-gone days, but they are ample equiped to take it all by force.
Various settlements could pop up inside the city indeed. Like Megatron said; they only need to be a couple of blocks in size. Parks could be changed into agricultural towns, as could suburbs. Even the sewers could contain small towns. The industrial area' s would fit quite nice for gangwarfare, a constant battlefield where everyone' s out for the last scraps of preserved technology.

Just my two cents on the subject.

But wouldn't it take forever for the fourteen years time limit to expire this time? Honestly, if there's no way to waste time like travelling around the map, this game would take forever unless they've got a new time system going.

I like this idea because it makes all of the areas more dynamic in respect with to each other. Something happens in Sector F4, which pisses off somebody over in U83, causing a total gang war over in the sublevel of B5.

Yeah, a big city would be craaasey. Think Arcanum. Depth and player-confusing is a good thing.

Ozrat wrote:But wouldn't it take forever for the fourteen years time limit to expire this time? Honestly, if there's no way to waste time like travelling around the map, this game would take forever unless they've got a new time system going.

I think you should still be able to travel on the world/city map, but you'd get more from it if you decided to wander. If the city was fleshed out enough and had happenings you'd prefer to take a wander around, but there could be a subway/world map interface for people who want to get from A to B

I like this idea because it makes all of the areas more dynamic in respect with to each other. Something happens in Sector F4, which pisses off somebody over in U83, causing a total gang war over in the sublevel of B5.

I thought something like this would be cool, start the city off with a few gangs and powerful individuals, hundreds of mutants and a few towns and let it play out. Towns could be burnt to the ground, several gangs could join and become a powerful mafia. No scripts, just actions and reactions.

It'd take a long time to do, but not forever. Many rooms could be put together and then put those together? After you've built several rooms building a block of flats wouldn't take too long. Since the player won't be going in every building, and most having collapsed or been damaged s/he couldn't go in every building anyway. Except for a few unique buildings, most areas would just provide cover or something to look at?

I like the idea of a living world though, some games keep saying it (along with ground-breaking AI), but a world that's constantly changing and doesn't revolve around you for once would be pretty darn dope.