Diamond City: The biggest immersion breaking thing ever (in my opinion)

[YouDoNotKnowMyName]

So, I just wanted to start working on a DC overhaul mod that adds some more buildings.

 

But as I was looking around DC in the CK, I noticed some weird stuff.

 

So I loaded the "exterior" of DC, copied it and pasted it into the "interior" of DC.

 

And it turns out that DC is a lot bigger on the inside then on the outside.

 

 

The light green is the exterior that I copy & pasted into the DC worldspace.

 

Sometimes I just hate this game ...

[DieFeM]

'cause Mayor McDonough is a time lord, and DC is actually his Tardis rofl ;)

 

Like almost all interiors in the game.

 

[RoNin1971]

At least it isn't a total mismatch, like some of the other places. (Fort Hagen Satellite Array comes to mind ... You go down into a huge hall with lots of tanks and a big door. On the outside there is however no trace of this door. Those tanks can't get in or out of that base)

[DiodeLadder]

The building shells are about 30% smaller than they should be in general for the entire game, I think. It's what we have to work with, unfortunately.

 

I think the worldspace map was shrunk down to accommodate the kind of pacing they wanted for gameplay, and also the amount of contents they could create in the given time frame. In Fallout 4, there'd constantly be something to look at or get involved in, and I think that's why people are still playing it. It is easy to take a look at just one element of the game and say how bad it is, etc., but Bethesda people have way more experience than we do, and thinking in a way we can learn something from their work would probably be more beneficial.

[Zorkaz]

It's a technique called "Impressionism" rather than "Realism". Otherwise the game wouldn't come out before the 2030s...

[YouDoNotKnowMyName]

The building shells are about 30% smaller than they should be in general for the entire game, I think. It's what we have to work with, unfortunately.

 

I think the worldspace map was shrunk down to accommodate the kind of pacing they wanted for gameplay, and also the amount of contents they could create in the given time frame. In Fallout 4, there'd constantly be something to look at or get involved in, and I think that's why people are still playing it. It is easy to take a look at just one element of the game and say how bad it is, etc., but Bethesda people have way more experience than we do, and thinking in a way we can learn something from their work would probably be more beneficial.

I know, but still ...

 

"Normal buildings" can easily be fixed by editing the interior, but something like DC (lots of custom made assets that are made to fit together in a very specific way) is almost impossible to "fix".

 

 

That is why I generally like what they did in FO4: The "fake interiors" that are actually part of the exterior worldspace.

That forces the devs to adhere to the exterior architecture.

 

With the modular exterior and interior parts, making the interiors fit the exteriors is a lot easier then for Skyrim, where all the buildings had custom made exteriors and most of the time also custom made interios (that did not match the exterior).

[YouDoNotKnowMyName]

but Bethesda people have way more experience than we do, and thinking in a way we can learn something from their work would probably be more beneficial.

You don't need experience to make something consistent (and / or realistic).

 

I guess I just have a "too literal" way of looking at things like interior cells ...

 

 

Yes, I can accept unrealistic things (like an airship that weighs thousands of tons, or teleportation, or cryo-sleep, ...).

Because those things have in-game explainations (kind of ...)

 

But things like architectural mismatches are just something that make me think "wait, what?"

[YouDoNotKnowMyName]

It's a technique called "Impressionism" rather than "Realism". Otherwise the game wouldn't come out before the 2030s...

FO4 does not have that many interiors ...

 

And I personally would rather have lots of small (apropriatley sized) interiors, then a few that are out of proportion.

 

 

 

But hey, that gives me something to do (trying to fix all the interiors while keeping them "functionally" the same).

So I guess it is all good?

[RoNin1971]

Its actually a common feature among video games. Name 1 'open world' or old fashioned 2D isometric game where all the interior spaces match the exterior... Yup. There are non.

...but I totally get you. Within a game like FO4 its definitely annoying and immersion breaking from time to time, imho.

 

Then again, so is the inability to climb, use ladders (other then as loaddoor), crawling under stuff or through ducts, or just step over an ankle high object (without the need to jump) ...

 

Here's hoping (but not expecting) future installments will keep all that in mind.

[DiodeLadder]

I think it should be noted that it takes more skill to create an appropriation of something than just replicating something 1:1. 1:1 real life references exist, and working with that is very simple. To shrink something down, you need eyes for understanding the essence of the subject, and then translate it in a way it can be communicated to the audience.

 

I myself actually think the scales in Fallout 4 didn't work out, though, and I'm not disagreeing with your points. What I wanted to say was that treating them with more respect may offer you an insight to what may happen in development of a game, mistakes included.

 

About shrinking down the interiors - you might be a completely left-brain person and don't think the way I do, but I think architectures tell stories. For example, the size of Dragonsreach in Whiterun in Skyrim is meant to communicate how important and powerful the Jarl is to the city. If you shrink down the castle interior proportionately to the building shell, you'd probably end up with a less interesting dude in an armchair. I think this kind of thinking can improve what you want to express in some cases.

 

There is one game that does the fully 1:1 size for everything. Arkane Studio's Prey did all the interior matching up 100 % in the space station Talos One. It's only about 830 m long, but it feels huge in game. That's definitely one way to do something, but I don't think you could do it as easily in open world games without sacrificing game pacing. (Prey is an amazing game, by the way. One of the best immersive sim out there IMO.)

 

Personally, I think Fallout 3 and NV assets felt better proportion-wise than the uniform Fallout 4 modular kit. Of course, Bethesda had to sacrifice flexibility and varieties, but those older assets felt more relatable to me.

 

Just trying to offer different perspectives. :happy:

 

 

 

(You know what's the most un-immersive thing in Diamond City? Nat says the motor on the printing press would burn out from printing so many copy of their newspaper, but the printing press itself is HAND CRANKED. :laugh: )