Nebrule

A little of both, I'm all for anyone experienced to take this concept and run with it, but if it falls on deaf ears, I'll tackle it myself for sure.

As I've been playing and progressing, I notice now that most everyone knows your name. Just walking through a town square, you'll be bombarded with "Good day Henry!", "How are you Henry?", "Look it's Henry!" ect. This is all fine and dandy for the canon story and for the protagonist himself, but the constant reminder that 'you are Henry' quietly serves as a wonder-kill to the personal personas we've grown accustom to quietly materializing as we play. Which is no doubt conditioned from all the 'create a character' RPG formats we've had in the past. While playing, I tried to imagine what would have to be done to actualize the theme and freedom of a nameless, homeless stranger. I think that most of this could be achieved by simply removing specific scripts and lines of dialog. I was also thinking that the removal of main quests and some of the side quests might be necessary, but maybe not. To help conceptualize this, simply put it into practice as you're playing the game now. This is where things take off and here's the premise... - First you begin the game in Rattay (already a mod). Preferably with a different character model than Henry himself to which other modders could create. Henry's voice and dialog (-any identifiers) will still be used. - - All specific lines of dialog either mentioning Henry by name or hinting at any relationships, from NPCs or Henry himself have been removed game wide. Leaving only nameless, direct and alternate lines of dialog, for which there are many. - - For the sake of this initial concept, lets entertain that all Main Quests and some side quests pertaining to Henrys personal story, have been removed. However, I believe many could remain if critiqued with enough attention using the aforementioned method of script, dialog and cut-scene removal if necessary. And that is pretty much it, the recipe for complete freedom of character and immersion as you define it on a personal level to you much deeper than the original story of Henry. Now lets put that in practice... - You wake up at the Millers house as a nameless survivor from Skalitz. You still owe the debt from being cared for, you can either entertain the introduction thieving quest from the miller. Or simply split and go your own way. - - Now, who are you? How will you survive? Maybe you're a Vigilante Ranger hocking the gear, weapons and equipment you take off Bandits? Maybe you're a psycho Bandit, killing and robbing passers by. Maybe you're just a wise old Hermit, gathering plants to create potions to sell. Whatever the life you choose, the reality of it is now hyper-actualized. - - No pressing anxiety or hurried rush in theme to be a known hero as in Henry's story. No one knows your name. Now when you bump into someone and they say "Watch it!" or "What the hell are you doing?" it feels all the more personal. When you get caught thieving, there's no flaunting your reputation or position in status to get out of it. You're no more than a peasant. .......... In short and to conclude for now, the depth and possibilities on enhancing this perspective of immersion are endless when realizing all the mods that could complement this premise and flower from it. I've never officially created a mod and presented it here on the Nexus, but I've been heavily modding games for years and I'm as familiar with modern game engine rules and mechanics as many here are, and I truly believe this conceptual idea is not only possible but would provide a new base model of complete roleplaying freedom within the game world to which other mods could further enhance to your choosing. Whatever your initial impression or opinion of this idea, I simply ask that you put it into practice as you go back and play the game. Imagine all those routine interactions without the identifiers or reminders that you are Henry. I think you're mind will be blown in the revelation of just how possible this is. I'm interested to here any criticism of this or any glaring conflicts that may arise in respect to nuking most of the main story, to which I can't foresee there not being a resolution, and again, if given enough attention couldn't be altered to fit your new nameless character. Let me know your thoughts and opinions. *EDIT - - Got some feedback and info from TheCorex who broke the bad news that this might be dead before it hits the water, at least for now...

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17gfpbd1ndthyjpg/original.jpg

...again when CBBE comes out for F04, that'll pull me right back in. :thumbsup:

I, personally, think settlements could be one of the main reasons Fo4 isn't a proper RPG. Not as a feature but because scheduling making them cut corners elsewhere. Possibly. If they def wanted settlements I think I could (on pen and paper) design a better approach without magical workshops and resources based on "junk" constantly hindering carry cap, fast traveling, scrapping the personality out of the environment, turning toys into wood planks, and turning the trademark hopeless, every man for himself, environment of Fallout into an endless pool of resources and respectful NPCs popping up out of nowhere. As an alternative to settlements altogether, they could have just made a town(s) that you could gain control over, with detailed options attached to it offering a sense of progression. Sounds more appealing to me at least. That's what the problem is, they introduced settlements as a way to replace the individually interesting towns we had before... it's a copout, a money saver and what kills the RPG element.

anybody???

This one is driving me nuts, I just can't figure it out. When night falls, and I'm outside the sky (clouds not actual sky) the entire landscape, structures, ground fog, water all shift in brightness from dark to notably brighter, only near light sources, and with a torch equipped it's rediculous, a nonstop flicker. Without a torch and halfway near a light source it only occurs when moving the camera around. I can confirm this is not the games light source limit issue. - I can go in the middle of nowhere with no other light than my torch and this still occurs. I don't think it is related to shadows as much as it is outdoor lighting, in that I have no issues during the day. I thought it was aliasing or some GPU setting, but that doesn't seem to be it either. I've only got one lighting mod goin : Climates of Tamriel - I uninstalled it to no effect. I recently moved my save to a new PC, my older rig was an ATI 5870... I've bumped up to a gtx980, didn't have this problem before with the outdated ATI. Really need some help with this one! Thanks. Edit : I didn't think this was an issue indoors but turnout it is, but indoor the brightness changes in blocky patches, fk this is killin me. :wallbash: :wallbash:

.....hahahaha. :thumbsup: here's an article (amoung many) that aren't to happy with FO4, this guy makes some points... http://www.thejimquisition.com/2015/11/metabombed-fallout-4-is-vomit-trash/

I just fired Skyrim back up after 6 months, with my 980 and some updated textures, it still on par with FO4 if not beyond in some respects. Literally and ascetically... it's like comparing a magazine to a 2000 page novel. ES is so much deeper it's stupid.

I wish I could've done that, just to get a taste of it all, but I always stick to my one character. I'm gonna go check your mods out.

2197... That's wild!

Every now and again I'll run across folks postin how many mods they have running, usually in a technical support type inquiry, like a detailed edit or a mod itself suggesting "don't use this if you have a lot mods running" ...then you'll see a few folks post questions while mentioning how many mods their running. After all these years, I've noticed through examples like this that 80-100 is about midrange with about 120-160 being the highest I've ever really noticed anyone mention. So this got me thinking... 'how man mods am I running?' I never really bothered to count of the years, I knew I was over 100 but I wasn't expecting... 240 ...haha yeah, all this time on the Nexus got away from me. The funny thing is, I'm pretty stable although it might be worth mentioning I dont use SKSE or ENB's. I Just moved my entire game, save, mods and all over to a new CPU not a month ago, ...kinda surprised how smooth that all went to be honest. Hour wise, I'm at 750 with my first and original character... that's probably nothin compared to some of you guys. But anybody here like myself could take at least half that number or more and add it to the total to make up for all the time spent on here browsing, downloading and creating mods, not to mention all the trouble shooting. So how bout it? Where are you guys at?

...wow, what planet are you on? Is this opposite day? I mean to each their own, but I think you're in a very small minority with that perspective... or you never really played or completed FO3.

yeah, the problem is that A.) main stream reviews are paid off and B.) your average gamers today are more entertained by geeked up, hyper paced mindless action than any type of slower paced story driven immersion... and as I think we've all noticed over the past couple years, that is effecting the style and quality of games being developed. As I pointed out in a previous post, this is excatly whats been happening to the media arts over the past 20 or so years... first music, then televison, film and now games. Replacing intrinsic artistic merit with cheaper, quicker, souless eye candy.

...yep, you nailed it with that. FO4 is completely gutted in comparison. What pisses me off is that there's no excuse, after the success of all those previous titles Bethesda has more f'n money than god, and they act like a bunch of fratboys on a bender the night before the final exam and deliver this sh!t. There was no rush, they had all the time in the world. This time last year, people still had dates as far out as 2017 for FO4's release. It's almost like they got a beta up and runnin, then just decided it was good enough.

I don't think you really read past the point I made on how many of the 'houses' are closed... It wont matter when FO4's been out for 6 months, the foundational design is lacking so much that it's gonna take a good year of CK utilized mods to fill the void. The point is, that as of now there is no flowing ultimatum (consequence/reward) to carry you through the game and hold your interest. The other vanilla Bethesda titles had this foundation. I'm more than confident the folks here on the Nexus can turn this around, but the fact that the CK isn't even out yet and many here like myself have already expressed their waning interest, is telling... especially when, like you said, the game's only been out for a month.

BadReplicant, ...non really, as far as being focused on open world RPGs. CD Project Red (Witcher) comes to mind, although I've never liked their style, but I can honestly think of no other Dev that respects the 'player character' as much as Bethesda. Sadly this is just a symptom of what has been plaguing not only the game world, but music, television, film and the commercial media arts in general for over twenty years now... the capitalistic corporate for-profit business model. The gaming world is just late to the scene, and is the last of the arts to be perverted and gobbled up for the sake of profit.

...You lost your argument with that right there. Oblivion and Skyrim are both known and respected as being the deepest of Bethesda titles, especially here on the Nexus. I get your perspective, but in that is the issue that many of us have, in that the orientation of development from Bethesda has shifted from an immersive RPG focus to that of the mindless point and shoot FPS crowd, which in their eyes encompasses both pickup and play consolers and the FPS pc crowd, which equate to more revenue. ...In other words, they're selling out. FO4 is just a symptom if not blatant proof of that. .......... In short, that is what pisses us off, because it not only defragments what we've come to expect, but opens the door to folks who would defend this new direction such as yourself. If this course continues, it will have a negative effect across the mod community, because the most dedicated and established modders of bethesda titles here on the nexus are orientated towards RPG and immersion and like myself they're getting turned off by what FO4 has given us.

BadReplicant, spot on man, the only people who seem to not 'get it' are the FPS fanboys or at the least, choose to play in that style. Anyone saying that complainers are using modded out past titles as a comparison are either new to the scene or didn't play the vanilla versions enough to have a point of reference. I put over 400 hours into FO3 on PS3 before I discovered the Nexus back in 2009. Vanilla FO3 was intrinsically designed so well that it could carry your interest for that long even on consoles and goes without saying it was more than worth it to me to start fresh on PC after all that invested time, which then promted to me checkout Oblivion and jump into the ES series. This is the depth that AAA RPG focused games are supposed to achieve. They followed FO3 and Oblivion up nicely with NV and even more so with Skyrim. The vanilla versions of both these titles still retained and contained the foundational intrinsic perspective, mechanics and storied depth of their predecessors, both in lore and general content. And That is what's so disheartening about FO4, the issues are not with stability, graphics or actionable gameplay, but with the foundational lack of storied depth and immersion, and that is a problem that even mods are going to be hard pressed fix.

Nobody is trying to speak for everyone here, It's cool that you enjoy and are happy with the game... go play it. Quit hawkin on peoples personal opinions for a rise, Most of us here commenting are in agreement in that vanilla FO4 is lackluster and desperately needs to be improved up, more so than any previous vanilla bethesda title in comparison.

Spot fkin on Kraag, I think that's the note that finally put me over and started this whole rant.

Sure, absolutely... but there's a great many things that need to be taken care of foundationally as well, and should probably take precedence.

You're right SayinNuthin, what do you call vanilla with out the vanilla? That's what we got. The empty structures will be taken care of for sure, just like that great 'DC Interiors' mod did for FO3, but what we're gonna need the most are some mods that really focus heavily on immersion. I've never been a hardocre survival mode, remeber to press 'B' to take a breath immersioner, but we're gonna need some of these mods to add some depth to this mess. I've suggested it in the mod request area before, I think if someone can figure out how to implement some kind of Karma system into the game, that would at least try to mimic what FO3 had on the surface, it would do a lot for FO4. Also, I'm really hoping some folks take their time and do some massive "new lands" areas with towns, quests ect, like some of the goodones for Skyrim.

I've really given it a good run, I'm lvl 31, got plenty of mods, game looks and runs great (now that i've toned down the rainbow bright color palette), but... the more I play it,I just want to go back to FO3 or NV. FO4 just feels like a half ass shell of what the previous titles were. There's just no draw to it... The story is ok for what it is, but man I'm really not a fan of the voiced protag and predetermined Identity at all. I feel robbed of my own character. The map at first was amazing but after hitting about lvl 20 nothing really surprises me. There's a serious lack in misc aesthetic and unique items, what little there is, is overtly repetitive and placed in the world without reason or care. In nearly every other open world bethesda title, this 'junk' was meticulously and strategically placed with purpose and logic. There's also very very few interesting 'random encounters' or freeform side quests, for instance if you're lucky enough to find a message or note it almost always leads to nothing at all, just filler bs. There's literally no 'underworld' compared to the other titles, there a few subways sure, but not miles and miles and miles of them as in F03. There's only a couple shallow caves, instead of dozens and dozens of deep interconnecting ones as before. Besides a military bunker or two there's zero fallout shelters... I mean WTF? it's FALLOUT! Another huge let down is the fact that literally upwards of %90 of all structural buildings are boarded up and inaccessible. That's just inexcusable. What little are, are either meaningless or directly linked to a quest line. In the other titles, each accessible structure from caves and bunkers to houses all had some unique interesting merit to them, often a micro storyline if you took the time to notice. FO4 has this in only a handful of instances. Honest to god, I think the eastern 1/3 of the map in FO3 (DC area) has more content in it alone than F04 does as a whole. The settlement system is obviously a copout feature and time killer to both make the game seem deeper than it really is and to cater to the poor pitiful moddless console versions. I mean it's interesting on the surface, wow cool I get to build and manage my on outpost, but I just keep asking myself... yeah, but whats the point? There's no real purpose behind it, no storied incentive outside of recruiting. That all adds up to the general hollow impression I keep getting the more I play. In Fallout 4 as a whole, there's hardly anything uniquely different about any location, environmentally the entire map is universally the same indoors and out. I just don't feel like I'm really going any where. There's no real impending threat, everything feels 'taken care of' already and the world doesn't really seem all that dark and dangerous. In other words the Common Wealth just feels like far too safe of a place... and what kind of wasteland is that? I'd like to treat this like I did Skyrim, beat the main quest-line then hang it up until next fall when more than enough great mods will be out and possibly a DLC, but unlike Skyrim, I just don't know if mods and DLC's will be enough to turn this one around for me, but if anything can save this, it's the nexus.

Spot on man, that lunge attack is pretty over the top and don't look right or balanced at all. I think if you simply removed their ability to run and disabled those hyper aggressive lunges and attacks and left them so they'd only be able to walk and use their standard attack animations, like the ones they use in close proximity... they'd would really be close to perfect.