A possible explanation for Fallout's lack of plundering?

[stebbinsd]

A common criticism about the worldbuilding in Fallout 3 and 4 is why 99% of the Commonwealth geography looks like it was right after the bombs fell.

I think I may have an explanation for this. Here are my thoughts on the topic:

And yes ... shameless plug is shameless. But then again, it's not against the rules to share a youtube video if it helps make a point in an otherwise legitimate discussion, and the rules don't seem to make an exception to this permission just because the person posting the video in the forum is the same guy that made the video in the first place. Besides, I'm not even monetized yet, so I'm not even getting paid for your views.

Anyway, what do you guys think?

[WastelandAssassin]

I watched the video , and in my opinion , while what you have discussed is interesting , I don't think it explains anything in terms of the world

it might work for FO4 , but considering the 7 or so years of FO3 and NV prior to FO4 and the real introduction of the Institute , it looks like a huge dosage of hindsight

 

if I were to try and explain it , I would say that it has nothing to do with the actual story of the game

for example , if people were so gun crazy throughout the 200+ years since the war , spraying as they are in the game , there would probably be no bullets to be found (as they aren't manufactured , and enemies are wasting them in the hundreds with the way the AI works) . and if there are so many people around , do you really think you would find food around? if it's a building still standing up , someone would have gone through it . so in terms of gameplay , in 200 years of consumption with barely any manufacturing , most places would have been picked clean of anything useful , meaning that the game would have nothing for you to find

 

my point being , I think the decision is directly centered around gameplay , not story . and there is really no way to make this look realistic

for example , look at mods like Frost , that are trying to set the game far sooner

the mods remove a lot of the items around , as people would scrounge around for anything usable as soon as possible . but even these have a major issue , as going through a place that holds a group of people , but you only being able to loot 2 rounds and a can of food just doesn't make sense . groups of people won't stick together if they can't sustain the groups , and so you have to make sure that the player can loot enough supplies to make it realistic that the group would have been able to survive with these supplies

 

as a final point , as realistic as these games are trying to be , they aren't realistic

no mechanic in this game is actually realistic , and everything about it is completely gamified

on the one hand it's good , as it being too realistic will mean the mechanics aren't well noticed (imagine a realistic version of a needs system , where you will die after several days without water , not several hours . a system where you don't have to shove 3 pigs and an elk every few hours to sate your hunger . if the effects are meant to be realistic , you should never really be in a situation where it gets that bad , especially if NPCs actually behave like humans , and carry some of the supplies you need so much , as they should also play by the same rules)

if enemies shot at you as though every bullet counts , you would never see anyone using a minigun . in fact , you would probably never see anyone firing an automatic weapon , just to conserve the little ammo they have , or actually make it count . but these are all things left to the player and the player alone . NPCs play by different rules , enemies play by different rules , and I've never really seen any game that does this differently (although Stalker does this pretty well)

[stebbinsd]

it might work for FO4 , but considering the 7 or so years of FO3 and NV prior to FO4 and the real introduction of the Institute , it looks like a huge dosage of hindsight

Well, as i pointed out in the video, the point is that it's symbolism and imagery so the Institute can consider themselves justified. So it doesn't have to be coherent in-lore, just like the colors of the wardrobes in Beauty and the Beast.

[WastelandAssassin]

I'll give you one thing , the video was very fascinating and informative (I wasn't expecting much , looking at the video here , with the fleshy colors and such)

it provides an interesting point of view , and a nice breakdown of the institute , with a very interesting comparison to the templars . I've never seen something like this done , so for that alone I say the video is worth watching

and while I think you are giving Bethesda too much credit on this , and maybe overthinking this a bit , I would still suggest that people go and watch this , more for the actual breakdown of the institute than the supposed point of the video

 

I hope you can take this as constructive criticism , and I do hope to see more interesting breakdowns from you , if you plan on making them

so don't take my wall of text in the previous post as anything other than me expressing a different opinion , one that doesn't really give Bethesda anywhere near as much credit as you gave them ;)

[stebbinsd]

Glad you enjoyed it! :)

 

Be sure to subscribe to help the channel grow. I hope one day to get monetized!

[stebbinsd]

Also, if you want more story analysis right now, here's a playlist with two more videos already in it: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpL3n7W6QqgDomKSQ62WbqAVr7U0wpel2

[zanity]

Err- cos it is a GAME, that has to find game MECHANISMS that are fun and rewarding. I know click-bait youtubers are currently spewing all kinds of sad nonsense about Fallout 3/4/76- and sadly far too many innocent desperate Fallout fans are making money for these click-baiters by watching their nonsense.

 

Anyone with an IQ in at least double digits can understand what are called GENRE CONVENTIONS.

 

A real life Holmes or Poirot could never have worked with the police system in the way described by the books. Does this mean i need some pedantic fool to 'explain' the conceits within these stories as if they really do pertain to the real world?

 

Genre conventions. SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF. Is it so hard for people to get a bit of education about anything these days? Do the world a favour. Go out of your way to punish ANY click-baiter on Youtube. Feel proud when you refuse to listen to nonsense just because said nonsense is spewed by a person with a lot of subcribers.

 

Go read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". Learn about the lifelong search for quality. Youtube is an amazing service. There are many amazing people there- some with astonishing subs, some with hardly any. But the youtubers most worth ignoring are those happy to say such stupid things they literally bruise your brain.

 

Anyone who says to me "why does Fallout 4 seek to have rewarding game mechanisms rather than arbitary 'realism' " (when such 'realism' isn't even a thing in the sense of 'genre', 'genre conventions' and why genre exists in the first place) is someone I'll never need to listen to again on the Fallout subject.

 

Of course 'bad' fan commentary is the excuse used by Todd and Disney for giving us bad Fallout and Star Wars in the future. True, 75%+ of the fans of anything haven't the first idea about what actually makes the thing they love work. Years and years and years ago those fans would have 'trusted' the 'experts'. Today, those fans THINK they are the 'experts'- which I think is both sad and hilarious at the same time.

 

Rather than make another video essay, it would be better for the person to "go back to school"- not physically but to exploit the internet for research- to do a virtual 'english lit and game design' 'degree' by educating oneself and reading up on the wealth of Human knowledge that covers both topics. No-one is an 'expert' simply cos they want to be. And no subject is free from 'expertise' (like game design in Fallout 4) just because you'd wish to have it so to make yourself feel 'included'.

 

When INFORMED critics of Fallout 4 talk about the game, it certainly isn't to ask "why the commonwealth is so unplundered?". No, INFORMED (educated) critics focus on the lack of true role playing, or problems with the story-telling, or poor coding/engine design (against possible industry standards for a company with the resources and wealth of Bethesada).

 

Then again, it is the sea of ill-informed click-bait youtubers who are letting Beth off-the-hook re:everything wrong with Fallout:76.

 

My biggest disappointment with the click-bait crowd is simple tho. Beth could churn out a Fallout or Skyrim year after year after year if it took the approach of EA, Ubisoft and Activision, and allowed external dev teams to use the existing tools to bang out new entries with essentially the same tech. But how many of these so-called fans are calling on Beth to do this? NONE. And why. Cos they are so nit-picky, they imply new stories recycling most of the last entry (engine and gameplay mechanisms) would not be worth while.

 

Click bait fans actually help erode the very IP they profess to love. I loved 'Far Harbour'. I loved 'nuka world'. Both, I felt, captured the fallout spirit far better than the base game. But click bait fools have a pseudo-intellectual incentive to deny that they are a proven route to rapid new full(ish) Fallout entries.

 

No, according to the click-baiters, it has to be something astonishingly 'new' and 'improved' or nothing at all. All based on a failure to understand the merits of the thing in the first place.

 

PS why does Fallout 4 contain the things it does? Because they are LAZY, poorly thought out STEALS from hazily remembered SF films and TV of the 1960s/70s/80s. Just how JJ Abrams and his team 'craft' current totally dreadful genre TV and movies. Men recalling their Dad's collection of VHS genre movies- industry writers who can't even be bothered to rewatch the original material to see how their half-remembered scenes actually worked in the original narrative.

 

The story in Fallout 4 is rubbish because, quite literally, it is rubbish. It has been tweaked, reworked and redone- never for reasons of quality, many many times before the game was finally released. In Michael Bay's horrific 'The Island' (a literal ILLEGAL theft of Project Clonus), the 'institute' like underground base looks like it does cos it is the cheapest and laziest convention imaginable- the non-thinking man's dull-witted depiction of an 'enlightened' (even when flawed or evil) futuristic environment. Fallout 4 is the Michael Bay version of Fallout 3.

 

When Red Dwarf does the institute cliche (Holoship) it rags on the cliche without mercy, producing satire, straight humour, character development and Humanity. In Fallout 'the institute' is jaw-droppingly awful and tedious. The lesson of Fallout 4 is "what Todd does".

 

I'm reminded of Id. When John Carmack tried to take charge of game design, iD FAILED and failed terribly. But when Carmack left art and design to others, and iD actually produced a game, Carmack hated the idea that gamers might love the game's design and art more than appreciating Carmack's coding skills. Carmack wanted to be the 'rock star' at iD- but never felt he was. When Beth bought iD, Carmack was immediately a pain in the backside for this same reason, which is why Beth encouraged him to leave them alone and go work on VR at another company.

 

And Todd is Carmack, tho a manager not a master coder. You can tell the titles where Todd left them alone, and those where 'Todd the genius' insisted on being front and centre, like Fallout 4. This is why no rapid Skyrim 2 and Fallout 4 follow-up. A sane publisher would have immediately set external devs to work on new entries, like all those LEGO games that appear mutliple times a year using the same engine. But Todd is a 'jealous god' who wants to be SOLE CREATOR on Beth's 'real' output- the three worlds of Elder Scrolls (inc Fallout and Starfield). He gave 'failed' 'rock star' Carmack 'the boot' so the world would know Todd is the 'real deal'.

 

Personally I don't understand why 'fanboys' don't find the issue of corporate psychology more interesting. It has far more to do with the real reasons for the content in most vanilla mass produced 'genre' media (like the godawful Westworld) than anything microscopic analysis of the output itself will reveal. There's an old computer saying "garbage in, garbage out". Analyse the 'narrative' of something like a transformers movie or Fallout 4 and you'll fall prey to it. But when you know they're simply cut-n-pasting the half-remembered 'cool' stuff from a hundred different SF shows and movies from the last century, you'll get their method.

[csbx]

^ INTP gonna INTP. Not that I disagree.