Fallout 4 scepticism...

[JimboUK]

 

 

Everyone that is a Fallout fan, knows he/she is going to buy this game... so stop fooling yourself and buy it already....

 

We all expect it to be buggy... and it most likely will be. But that will not stop us from buying this game however, and you know it.

 

If it even touches a quarter of the fun i had with Fallout 3... it will be worth double the price. Fallout 3 was 7-8 years ago... and i am still playing it.. not many games have survived that long without un-installing in my Library. (except for the occasionally re-install because i had foocked it up with too many mods... :wink:

 

 

In fact, Out of the nearly 200 games i own on steam,... the only ones are:

 

Fallout 3.

Dragon age Origins.

Left 4 Dead. (The original, not the console kiddy's crap sequel)

Divinity 2

Half Life 2 (with the cinematic mod)

Skyrim.

 

So.. yeah... I already own Fallout 4.. how about you ?....

 

 

Hail Bethcrashda !!!....

 

 

(Maybe we should build a shrine to them..... no seriously.)

 

Speak for yourself, there are plenty of Fallout fans who were not impressed with FO3 and are thus more than a little sceptical of FO4. I can't understand why anyone really looking forward to FO4 would want their first playthrough ruined by bugs and crashes? why not wait until it's been patched a few times? it only takes a little self control.

 

 

 

Nope... I play Skyrim.. what.. like 4-5 years now ?... There are still bugs in it... even "floating bugs" as i call them.. that is: sometimes they happen.. sometimes they do not, differers from play-through to play-through. without any load order changes.

 

Fallout 3 had bugs.. it still does... The Unofficial Fallout patch people solved many of them.. they do wonders.. but in doing so, created new ones that where never in the game before. I play with the Wanderers edition and with Mats Mutant mod on Max difficulty... you haven't lived until you walk in a scarcely lit metro tunnel.. and suddenly get jumped by 200 very angry feral ghouls of various strengths and size... the stuff of night mares.

 

Run.. or fight ?...

 

Oh, and the Raiders decide to help the feral ghouls.. while also still fighting them themselves.. Feral ghouls don't care, they'll fight everyone and anyone.. you only try to stay alive...perhaps a few nearby super mutants join the party... Chaos for everyone !....

 

Oh man.. I have had some memorable fights indeed.

 

Oh yeah.. and next to those.. another 60 or so mods, and an ENB... basically to make the game look better and be way more difficult.. oh.. and some Armour and a few weapon mods.. but trust me, with my set-up.. you'll need them. So please don't tell me Fallout 3 is no good.. I found it so good, that It hooked me to RPG's... and i was a hardcore FPS gamer.

 

Okay... Maybe YOU don't like it, fair enough.. I absolutely hate Fallout NV... not many people will agree with me.. so be it. What i am saying.. is.. There will always be bugs in a new game or an older...its part of gaming.

 

So why wait ?...

 

Besides... Maybe you have the time to wait, but i potentially do not, and i want to play Fallout 4 before its too late for me to do so..

 

 

The bugs are far worse on release, look at Skyrim, the thing constantly crashed to desktop because they'd not made the thing large address aware, how can you possibly become immersed in a title when at the back of your mind you know it's going to crash? I'm not saying don't play Fallout 4, I'm suggesting waiting until it's had a couple of patches, the GECK isn't out until next year so it's no good looking to the community to fix it. I actually like Fallout 3 as a game, I've been playing it tonight and have clocked up hundreds of hours over the years, I couldn't play it vanilla though, I tried that on release and it was awful.

 

I'm not enthusiastic for Fallout 4 because I'm a fan of RPGs, that's what the original games were and it's what New Vegas is. Fallout 3 as an RPG is garbage just like Skyrim, no meaningful choices, no consequence for anything you do. on rails quests, a clichéd story, laughably bad dialogue, an incoherent world that makes no sense once logic is applied to it and of course the one dimensional tropes that are the games NPCs. Yeah it's fun with MMM's increased, increased spawns and an army of companions but it's not what Fallout should be, it's supposed to be an RPG and it just isn't, it's a story led shooter with a poor story.

[RelicDuDe]

 

The bugs are far worse on release, look at Skyrim, the thing constantly crashed to desktop because they'd not made the thing large address aware, how can you possibly become immersed in a title when at the back of your mind you know it's going to crash? I'm not saying don't play Fallout 4, I'm suggesting waiting until it's had a couple of patches, the GECK isn't out until next year so it's no good looking to the community to fix it. I actually like Fallout 3 as a game, I've been playing it tonight and have clocked up hundreds of hours over the years, I couldn't play it vanilla though, I tried that on release and it was awful.

 

I'm not enthusiastic for Fallout 4 because I'm a fan of RPGs, that's what the original games were and it's what New Vegas is. Fallout 3 as an RPG is garbage just like Skyrim, no meaningful choices, no consequence for anything you do. on rails quests, a clichéd story, laughably bad dialogue, an incoherent world that makes no sense once logic is applied to it and of course the one dimensional tropes that are the games NPCs. Yeah it's fun with MMM's increased, increased spawns and an army of companions but it's not what Fallout should be, it's supposed to be an RPG and it just isn't, it's a story led shooter with a poor story.

 

 

 

I can agree with you on most points. However, it was my first RPG... i wasn't used to talk in games other then with my shotgun. dumb story's didn't matter to me... i played on-line mostly anyway. I bought Fallout 3 on disk.. thinking it was an FPS... Imagine my surprise... And perhaps i was lucky, but i don't remember many crashes with the vanilla game. It wasn't until after a year that i bought it on steam... That's when the crashing started... I only modded it because it made the game look better, fix some crashes.. and made it more difficult. Nope.. it isn't a terrific story, the few choices you get to make don't matter at all... but neither do they in ME, to name one... and i never use VATS, so it feels indeed like a shooter with a weak story.. sort off.

 

But it grabbed me... i have a thing for apocalyptic scenes, with or without zombies.. i always loved shooters, and so Fallout 3 was the perfect game for me. Over the years i have learned that the fun of an RPG isn't in the story choices, that usually don't matter at all.. in any game for that matter.. or the endings, which are also mostly disappointing... but in the way there.. the game-play... Fallout 3 is dated... that's obvious even with an ENB.. but i still love to play it... I hardly use any companions, mostly not... Because walking alone through the fallout world feels good to me. The way i have set it up its a rather tough game to play alone.. luckily i love to snipe, am rather good at it.. and the npc's are petty dumb... :)

 

But i may not have the time to wait another year to play Fallout 4.. or even half a year, so i am going to try and play the vanilla Fallout 4.. and hope for the best. Hey... Maybe we get lucky, and Bethesda at least tries to limit the bugs to a minimum... stranger things have happened.. i now that for a fact...

[stilichos]

I still get confused when people say "Oh, did you see the Gamescom footage?" As a way to say that the game looks terrible, did I see the same footage as everyone else? The footage recorded out of some guys camera phone in a poorly lit room? Yeah, I don't buy the 'game looks like crap' argument based off of that. Plus we've seen screenshots where they take advantage of the volumetric lighting and other features in the game that make it look really impressive.

 

I don't want Bethesda to become Crytek, who publicly stated that they care more about graphics than a compelling story. Yeah, they nailed the graphics, but personally thats about it. The interactions feel off. Namely here I am, a supersoldier, the only hope they've got, and they're insulting me for being more machine than man!

 

So no, I don't want them to focus more on graphics than they already are, because it looks awesome as is.

 

To be honest, I haven't played Fallout 3, I plan on finishing a quest mod I'm working through, and then I'll see whats what with Fallout 3. As of yet, I am Loving New Vegas. And bugs don't bother me much, I played Battlefield 4 on release, I could tell something felt, weird. But I didn't really spot any blatant bugs or anything, and my only problem with New Vegas is that I can't minimize my game to look up something when I get stuck, because it crashes. My only instability with Vegas was once I started adding mods, big surprise right?

Someone also mentioned "They're asking us for some 30$ DLC, and we don't even know what we're getting!" I prefer the DLC personally For this reason! Why? Because if I Knew what I was getting, that means that it is essentially content that they are putting behind a paywall because the suits with cigars thought they could get more money out of us.

This way, not even the Dev's know what they're going to make, only that it will be worth the 30$ in the end.

[Signette]

Biggest complain isn't actual graphics as they are, it's an ANCIENT engine. You can have really outdated or subpar visuals but with powerfull enough engine you can make it look at least stylish. There are tons of examples where visuals aren't that great tbh, but overall picture, and mainly FEELING of the game is "alive": Bioshock, Borderlands, Wolfenstein The New Order, even Unreal Tournament 3 looks and FEELS way better than FO3 and NV wrapped together. No one asks for super realistic visuals that require top rigs with 4x Titans, just some more life.

 

And this is VERY important since FO4 will be more of a FPS than RPG, same as TES games were more of an Sandboxes than actual RPGs and FO3 being almost mindless shooter with some dialogues... In FNV we had a far-far reminder that this game has something to do with role playing but actually game went down to first-person shooter/brawler every time. And since Beth will use insanely outdated engine they simple CAN'T do better than wooden manequins as people/creatures with clunky movements, abominable, almost non-existent gunplay/fighting (which is HUGE part of this game) and so on, and there no need for tons of screenshots or video footage, any peson who've seen games made on this engine have a good idea how will it look like. I've already mentioned that if game would be isometric classic RPG, that all wouldn't matter even a bit (like Wasteland 2), but since they chose another approach, they have to deliver. I simply can't imagine person being happy about techincal part of this game who have played at least one game I provided as example above. It DOESN'T look awesome, in fact it doesn't even look decent, and that's not tastes, that's simple comparison.

 

Regarding DLC's, I didn't have a big problem, at least with Beth games, but on the other hand they sometimes release crap like Hearthfire (for Skyrim) and it wouldn't be an issue but since some awesome mods require ALL DLC's I have to buy it, regardless there are mods that do the same WAY better than current DLC. Hope we'll have less trash DLC's sold for FO4, but hope is rather thin...

[Tony the Wookie]

Speak for yourself.

 

I have watched and re-watched every trailer out there and I find Fallout 4 to look very pleasant. Not spectacular or awe inspiring or anything like that, just simply pleasant and inviting and what I look for when I play a game.

 

I love how nice and soft the lighting is on the characters, how when the Vault Tech salesman at the door moves around you get the most subtle shadow from his hat coming across him in the most natural of ways, an untrained eye would probably never notice these kind of things however. It feels like getting back to the fundamentals to me, not overkilling it with super high res textures that have too much baked in lighting and too harsh shadows.

 

I love that Bethesda isn't trying to meet the 'Game Industries' standard of beauty and they are taking a step back and having simple textures that give my eye a rest. It isn't what is expected of a next-gen game, but who wants to be the guy that always does what others expect of him?

 

To me it is like eating cookies you grandma baked as opposed to getting dessert at a fancy high end restaurant. Something about it just feels comfortable and right.

 

 

 

Don't get me wrong, I love working with Unreal and its lighting and shader systems, and it is obviously the better engine when it comes to making things look pretty. But that isn't the kind of game Fallout is.

 

 

 

And just FYI, animations and player movements don't have hardly anything to do with what game engine you use. You can build that stuff from scratch in any engine, granted I have only ever done it in Unity, as I am a 3d modeler and not a programmer who wants to mess with the inner workings of the Unreal Development Kit or the CryEngine... I'll save that for the real programmers, I would probably break something...

[Signette]

Textures are way out of point, you can easily have it in almost any game, I'm sure FO4 will have them released in no time when game goes live by modder community, and lights... well, you can make miracles with adjusting ENB right, making picture almost as realistic as possible, but it's all doesn't matter when overall game feeling is off. It was a good point, saying that you can build stuff from scratch, but Gamebryo is just too outdated for it and probably can't be reworked or updated. In every trailer and footage it's too obvious that animations and overall world interactions hardly changed since like Morrowind... that's sad, really. Havok is awfull, you shoot rocket at wooden door aaand... nothing. You hit enemy with a bat and red splatter covers hard surface of body, same as after the bullet. Dismemberment is very local and poorly done. Seriously, pick id Tech, UE, Frostbite, anything... I bet even Unity would work better for the shooter than engine from early 2000s. It obviously can't handle the load, after very light improvements Skyrim basically broke down under its weight, I fear what will happen with FO4 at this rate. Seriously, motherload of bugginess will go away just with applying better suited (not top-rated) engine for this job. That's all I'm saying. Why they stuck in the past so hard is beyond me, Beth isn't some 10 men indie studio...

Edited October 24, 2015 by Signette

[Tony the Wookie]

I have a feeling that you don't quite understand what a game engine actually is...

 

Havok is a physics engine, totally different discussion there.

 

Animations and how the character reacts to the world is all just a script. A complex one when games get much more complex, but it is still just a script.

 

 

 

If input 'W' key is pressed by player, then character 'player' will move foward 'x' amount of units while 'walk' animation is played.

 

Then you have to program in an ease in and ease out value so that the player doesn't just start and stop without momentum. Then you have to write some code to blend animations so that you don't get an abrupt change from 'idol' to 'walk' in an unnatural fashion. Then you write more code about what happens when the player's collision box runs into another collision box. You can start writing stuff like, If the player's mass is greater or equal to 'x' then object will move, if else (if not) then the player's momentum value returns to '0'.

 

It is all just complicated script layered to trigger movement of objects and to blend from animation to animation.

 

 

I have done it from scratch in Unity and did the animation work while a programmer did it from scratch in Unreal. Your real complaint should be that you don't like Bethesda's animators and/or programmers that created this for Fallout. Though I have yet to see anything game breaking about it in Fallout 4. I do agree that Fallout 3 was done pretty bad.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The conversation with the Vault Tech guy at the door looks pretty much how it should look, he moves naturally, the camera angels are good. When the player runs to the vault with his wife, her running is natural and fits. The generic crowd has some weak animations as the bomb goes off, but that is just filler crowd, who cares, nobody will notice that stuff.

 

The super mutants seem to walk with presence, the generic guards in the preview walk totally how they should, the battle scenes at the end of the e3 trailer cut from one to another too quick for me to give an assessment of them.

 

On the next trailer with the Minutemen battle... The player talking to the dog looks great, the dog running is natural. The fight against the raiders looks pretty average to me, I liked the dog mauling the guy animation.

 

The Preston Garvey conversation looks like a Mass Effect 3 conversation, and I love Mass Effect 3.

 

Getting into the power armor... simply amazing...

 

The guy getting gunned down by the machine gun, I'm not sure what more you could ask for there, it was great for what it was.

 

The power armor feels so heavy! This is actually a pretty amazing gem among a lot of average and solid stuff. The power armor looks great in VATS.

 

The Deathclaw fight... "it's too obvious that animations and overall world interactions hardly changed since like Morrowind" really.... really....

 

The Piper conversation looks good too.

 

 

 

I do hate the dismemberment, you have a very good point with that, but other than that part it looks great. It isn't Black Ops 3 or anything, but there is no way a game on this scale could ever be on that level.

 

 

 

Who cares that the engine is based off of Gamebryo? Obviously it is updated, and is looking great. It doesn't look like Unreal, but the Unreal Engine or the CryEngine aren't going to handle a world that big with that much open world stuff going on. They would crash with that much stuff and Bethesda would have had to start putting in load screens and making interior cells separate world spaces.

 

I'm not knocking Unreal or CryEngine, I love working in both those engines, they are very, very pretty. But Bethesda makes games on a scale that is soooooooo much bigger than they are designed for.

 

If the game has issues it is NOT because the game engine is too weak, because none of the other ones you listed could host a game this size either. If the game has issues it is because they just made the game too damn big for their own good. That is what Skyrim's main problem was as far as I can tell (didn't play a lot of Skyrim, but never ran into any bugs when I did).

 

 

 

Like I said, I've worked in Unreal a whole, whole lot, I went to GDC and learned the CryEngine from a couple guys who worked on the Crysis game, I've built games from scratch in Unity. This isn't the first game engine I have worked with, and my opinion from what I can see in the trailers is that it looks damn good.

 

Obviously I can't say how easy it is to work with since it hasn't been released yet, but there are no reasons for concern with anything I have seen to date.

[Tony the Wookie]

 

but Gamebryo is just too outdated for it and probably can't be reworked or updated.

 

Have you ever met a professional videogame programmer?

[Moksha8088]

With FO4 having a voiced player, what provisions in the Creation Kit will allow authors to make quests and complex characters? Without those two types of mods, game interest will be limited to maybe two playthroughs. Creative ENBs and dress up and weapon kits will not cut it. Quest and complex characters (outside of the 12 followers built into the game) are essential for players to be fans years after the release. Will the Kit provide batch lip sync creation? Can someone like Arthmoor do his magic and repair the holes left after the updates are finished (sometime after the 4th DCL is released)?

[JimboUK]

 

 

Regarding DLC's, I didn't have a big problem, at least with Beth games, but on the other hand they sometimes release crap like Hearthfire (for Skyrim) and it wouldn't be an issue but since some awesome mods require ALL DLC's I have to buy it, regardless there are mods that do the same WAY better than current DLC. Hope we'll have less trash DLC's sold for FO4, but hope is rather thin...

 

I hope we don't have to buy the ending separately as we did with FO3.

 

With FO4 having a voiced player, what provisions in the Creation Kit will allow authors to make quests and complex characters? Without those two types of mods, game interest will be limited to maybe two playthroughs. Creative ENBs and dress up and weapon kits will not cut it. Quest and complex characters (outside of the 12 followers built into the game) are essential for players to be fans years after the release. Will the Kit provide batch lip sync creation? Can someone like Arthmoor do his magic and repair the holes left after the updates are finished (sometime after the 4th DCL is released)?

 

There's a discussion here on that http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/2989934-f4-mod-question-difficult-with-main-character-now-talking/