Open discution about mod tendencies

[Tahadar]

I've been lurking those forums for a long time. Only recently I've opened an account and start to talk openly. I honestly don't know if this subject will have any impact, but I trust are some aspects about moding that needs to be talked in detail.

 

I know there are mods that are simply made just for the sake of it others just for the visual effects. But I wonder how many of you asked themselves how that mod will screw the wasteland atmosphere and the storyline. Not to mention the game balance.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love a lot of mods and I play them just for fun. But those are ruining the imersion for good.

 

Cybernetic player character? Shinny white clothes? Uber-modern weapons? Compact models of textures? Night vision gear? Laser pointers? Ah, c'mon...

 

Basically the war was in "optimistic '50". Visuals should be vintage style.

Tech should be limited on "victorian steam punk" style. One of main flaws of Fallout Tactics was the weapon way too modern (AK 47, Brownings, etc).

 

Ah, yes, we can just pull out a tech "from some vault" just like a magician pulls out rabbits from hat. OK. So a Vault with limited resources throws out it's main purpose - survival - and starts researching new technologies. And this attempt not only fails to endanger the survival, but is even sucessfull. And the cherry on the top: no one else uses that tech, but you. Cool, ha?

 

Another aspect - and I'm also guilty of this one. You upgrade some enemies in vanila verson to feel the real challenge. You can increase the amount of them, the SPECIAL, the equipment. But they die like anyone else. You loot the gear and bam! Unbalancing is there. You just got a 95% gatling laser that worth 1000+ at any merchant. Ah, yes, you can remove that gatling from loot table, but would not be frustrating for someone that plays the mod to find a 10mm pistol instead of that gatling?

 

Visuals. Another source of frustration. Even they look cool - hell, I spend literally hours staring at toons with nice clothes - they are kinda unrealistic. I've recently saw a pic with some girl with shinny white clothes wielding a sword near a dead behemot. Now THATs an achievement! You kill a behe in melee AND your clothes are still white and shinny. Yeah, I'm kidding, but we are talking about immersion here. Is Wasteland ffs! Clothes should be dusty, dirty, blood stained.

 

Weapons (visuals too). If you look at weapons (moded and retextured ones) most of them looks like factory brand new weapons. Even many of vanila weapons have this issues. They are 200 years old, wtf? OK, I can accept that militaristic organistion (Bos, Enclave, Talons) have great care of their weapons, but raiders and muties?

On the other side: compact polymers weapons (eg. M41A pulse thingie). C'mon, who developed poymers in those 200 years? And who actually manufactured those weapons? Fosil fuels are long gone. They just melted plastic bags and made the case?

 

Again, don't get me wrong, many of them are really cool and I enjoy the mods. But - and that's mostly because I'm some sort of Fallout fanboi - I can't stop thinking at how the weapon / armor / whatever I'm using fits in game world.

 

Yes, I've made overpowered crap too, like any of you. And I used it and honestely was a hell of a fun. But after a couple of hours I throw it away.

 

What do YOU think, guys?

[BadPenney]

If you go to a banquet and you don't like the cold shrimp, then don't put it on your plate. If your dining experience is ruined because someone at the party loves it, then the problem lies with you, not the menu.

[Skree000]

i do like things that seem canonical and realistic

 

but i like wimminz more.

 

Alot of these mods add wimminz to the game and make them look nice, so for the most part, that > canoninity.

 

 

 

mind you, to date i still havent installed or used a single bodymod, too busy modding to really enjoy peoples mods ><

[bben46]

I like the cold shrimp analogy.

 

Fallout is a fantasy world. everyone's fantasy is different. The really great thing about mods and single player games is you don't have to put up with someone else's fantasy. Pick the one you like and the mods that make it so. Just don't use the mods that don't fit your personal fantasy. And allow others the choice to use the mods they want to play their fantasy in their game. If everyone wanted the same fantasy, then everyone's game would be the same.

 

What spoils the game for one will make it fun for another.

 

Remember that magic word, fantasy. Nothing here is real, it can't be. So anything is possible.

 

 

As to: Victorian Steam Punk in the 50's? I lived through the 50s and I don't remember any of that type of stuff. What I do remember was boomerang shaped coffee tables and Danish modern furniture. Steam Punk was invented in the late 90s. I do like it though and would like to see more in the game.

 

New weapons - I find it difficult to believe that as important as weapons are in this society no one has put together a gun manufacturing facility - 200 years? we went from flintlock smooth bore muskets made by hand by individual craftsmen to the M16 mass produced in factories in 200 years. Any small machine shop can produce a very good copy of any weapon, especially if they have a sample to copy. And innovation in the form of new designs would be sure to creep in.

[Yossarian22]

Sexy Maid Costumes, Mirleluk Companions, Dog Launcher,

Playable children, that possibly take down a behemoth with

their powerfirst, Greenworld etc.

 

Are they fit with lore or with Fallout World?

No

Do you need to download them?

no

---

 

Every modder at the very first is modding for his own interests, and if somebody else like it too,

well thats fine. As they point it. Nexus is like a barquette. Go around and pick up what you like,

and leave the Rest, and if you need more lore-friendly mods, you should be iniative and start to

make one. Surely you will get some fans.

 

But you cant ask the community to mod more lore-friendly, coz everybody does what he likes,

and if they cant do what they like, they will proberbly prefer to stop modding at all. So that wouldnt

help anyone.

[Leadpipe]

I'm not going to hate you for your opinion, but I think the underlying assertion that non lore-friendly or unrealistic mods are, in some way, detrimental to the immersion of the game is a bit misguided.

 

Firstly, the issues you bring up are broken (or equally nonsense) in the vanilla game. Apart from the dirty thing, there are enough aspects of the game world to be taken for granted which make no sense in the given game world. Take the existence of operable 200 year old guns and electronics in such numbers, or the total absence of agriculture, or the preponderance of huge creatures in an environment where biomass (sources of calories) is at a premium (animals, in reality would get much smaller in a wasteland environment, not bigger). With all that already in the game, I'll not grudge anyone for making a character with clean clothes.

 

But, ultimately, I view using mods and modding in general as another form of play. In that view, the environment becomes less the simulated world than the limitations of the program.

 

All said, though, I don't use many mods regularly, myself. Just a GNR playlist extender, a classic plasma rifle replacer, and Japanese power armors. Any of the rest I play with as a means of literal play - seeing what someone else was capable of putting together. Implementation doesn't really factor into it.

[Tahadar]

Like I said in the begining, do not missunderstand me.

 

I do enjoy the mods like anyone else, we were just discussing here.

 

I'm not saying "this mod is bad, this is good" I was just giving examples. I am sorry if it sounded different. Like I said I made modification to game engine myself, I'm guilty of overpowered weapons, creatures and such. But being bored @ work I was thinking is a good ideea to start a discussion like this one. Why you had to jump on me like that? :(

 

If anyone felt insulted of offended I apologise.

 

 

PS @Skree000

What's a "wimminz"?

 

PPS @bben46

quote: "New weapons - I find it difficult to believe that as important as weapons are in this society no one has put together a gun manufacturing facility - 200 years? we went from flintlock smooth bore muskets made by hand by individual craftsmen to the M16 mass produced in factories in 200 years."

Yes, but on an Earth thriving with life, non-ravaged by atomic bombs, where the main ideea is "science & progres" not "survival & mutation"

[bben46]

Yes, but on an Earth thriving with life, non-ravaged by atomic bombs, where the main ideea is "science & progres" not "survival & mutation"

 

 

And, in the beginning the people who were making the flintlocks were on the frontier, with limited resources and facing Indian and bandit attacks. The typical frontier gunsmith made only a handful of weapons a year, in between he was usually farming or supporting his family by trading. Gunsmithing was an means to make extra money, not a full time job for most of them. Over time, they were able to expand. Not overnight, but over a lifetime. Then in the next generation, their apprentices made better weapons and made their own machinery. Each generation made weapons just a little better, and with machinery that was marginally better.

 

Several years ago, the TV series 60 Minutes did a segment on a city on the Afghan/Pakistan border that had a thriving industry in making hand made guns for over 300 years. They started making copies of muskets , and when the TV crew was there they showed a man hand making copies of an AK47 that his customers claimed were better than the originals he used as a pattern. They showed hand made versions of a US WWII carbine, Russian sub machine gun, browning light machine gun, British Enfield, Russian Nagant and dozens of other well made hand crafted weapons. Made using techniques barely above what were used prior to the US Civil war in the 1860s. There was no mass production, each weapon was hand made to very precise tolerances. Due to the huge influx of factory made weapons in the region, the art was dying out then, and is probably nearly extinct now.

 

I would expect a world like fallout to have a similar weapons industry. Making copies of what weapons were available, and making a few new designs to try out. The only really difficult part of making a modern gun is the springs. Older spring making techniques would work, but the springs would wear out in a short time under heavy use. Under light use, they would last longer, but still weaken with time.

 

I was thinking that a gunsmith making a custom new rifle would be a good mod. He requires a favor before he will part with his new creation.

[Yossarian22]

I think what you missing is mostly a Issue of the vanilla game itself,

the game Fallout 3 dont care in any part about plausibility or lore.

 

If you really want to fix this issue, its not enough just to add a new location

or a more realistic weapon/armor.

 

It would need a hugh overhaul of the entire game.

This of course is very time consuming, but there are already several good mods

for it.

 

Give it more time, maybe another 6 month and a mod like that will surely be

released. I think the Fanpage NMA has a Project like that running, but not sure.

 

I am always Pro Plausibility and Pro Lore,

but I think we dont have enough Roleplayers here to see much of these mods,

and as I said, you cant tell modders what to do.

Oblivion has a lot of Plausibility and Lore Mods, some of them are really great,

but I think Oblivion may have a different fanbase.

 

Well, only the time can tell.

[Callighan]

Can a mod that's essentially a boss run be lore friendly or plausible?

We should have a lore council which modders could turn to to check whether their mod is lore-friendly.