Do you guys ever play Fallout like THIS?

[charwo]

The thing I will say is that the Fallout map is STILL the Capital Wasteland. But the wasteland doesn't mean barren, in fact wasteland has rarely ever meant barren in common parlance. Wasteland is a variant of the Involuntary Park:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involuntary_park

 

The DC wasteland is unfit for human habitation because of highly contaminated Potomac (probably from highly damaged and still operating nuke plants to the north that keep the Metro grid powered) and that because of the critters out there, it's unsafe for human subsistence farming. Only fortified urban areas as safe, and that assumes they have some kind of analogue to the Madre vending machines, most likely that that the nuka cola machines and grocery vendors, especially the Salisbury Steak dispensers, are self replicating, allowing subsistence without agriculture. My one criticism there is that this would prevent staple farming, but not horticulture: creating semi-protected gardens and orchards and only come out at irregular intervals under heavy guard to harvest and GTFO.

[Talwyn224]

I think the one main factor that the designers over looked in Fallout 3 was weather or rather lack of it. It took modders here to implement a decent addition to the game which features weather events like rain etc. Just because there's been an atomic war, doesn't mean the rain has stopped forever. In addition, FO3 takes place 200 years after WWIII so by that stage, any weather changes would have settled down into a new pattern or even reverted back to the original one [what ever that may have been in 2077?].

 

So even if the Potomac is being polluted by damaged industrial facilities and nuclear power plants upstream, with enough regular rainfall, plant life would still get enough moisture to survive. The other thing to consider is even if Bee populations were wiped out, other insects would have survived as they are dam hardy critters and as we know roaches takes literally 1000's of rads to kill. Also not every plant species need insects to propagate themselves so if the pollinating plants all die out then other plant species will fill the void left behind, establishing a new eco system.

 

All the designers had to do was speak to any decent botanist/biologist and they could have told them that and this is the sort of stuff I recall from high school biology and from watching various Nature documentaries.

[charwo]

But, but TALWYN!!!! You're basically saying that realism is more important than style, or tropes or even more important than blindly ignorant cultural expectations! Not only will a commitment to realism challenge and educate the audience (and education is for NERDS!!) but it will force companies to do research and step up their game (in this case game making). Who in the world would possibly want that??!!!

 

(Me me me me me me me me me!!!!!!! :dance: )

[Talwyn224]

But, but TALWYN!!!! You're basically saying that realism is more important than style, or tropes or even more important than blindly ignorant cultural expectations! Not only will a commitment to realism challenge and educate the audience (and education is for NERDS!!) but it will force companies to do research and step up their game (in this case game making). Who in the world would possibly want that??!!!

 

(Me me me me me me me me me!!!!!!! :dance: )

 

 

[slaps own forehead]

 

DOH! :facepalm:

 

How foolish of me to forget the basic truth!

 

:tongue:

[7thsealord]

The other thing to consider is even if Bee populations were wiped out, other insects would have survived as they are dam hardy critters and as we know roaches takes literally 1000's of rads to kill.

 

Most of your points are well-taken, but the rad-tolerance of cockroaches is a tired and now proven inaccurate trope.

 

('Mythbusters' episode a while back. They tested various insects, and roaches are actually rather wimpy compared to some others. Boll Weevils, for instance, have PHENOMENAL rad-resistance. But I guess a mutated giant Boll Weevil might not have the same impact as a giant roach.) :cool:

Edited February 6, 2013 by 7thsealord

[Talwyn224]

The other thing to consider is even if Bee populations were wiped out, other insects would have survived as they are dam hardy critters and as we know roaches takes literally 1000's of rads to kill.

 

Most of your points are well-taken, but the rad-tolerance of cockroaches is a tired and now proven inaccurate trope.

 

('Mythbusters' episode a while back. They tested various insects, and roaches are actually rather wimpy compared to some others. Boll Weevils, for instance, have PHENOMENAL rad-resistance. But I guess a mutated giant Boll Weevil might not have the same impact as a giant roach.) :cool:

 

Indeed I stand corrected. I hadn't seen that Myth-busters episode but did a quick search of my own and found that roaches are indeed quite susceptible to a high dose of radiation.

[charwo]

To the end of radioactive contamination: see the Life After People episode on Toxic Revenge. The nuke plants don't melt down but wore than that the pools with even more toxic fuel rods and such burn and create horrific dead zones. But they are highly localized, and though it doesn't say outright, those dead zones are completely gone by the time the conning towers fall. And from cross referencing with other episodes, their sister series and the Red Forest article, the dead zone effect will last for maybe a decade, and the radioactivity other than a nuisance will be gone within two or three generations, in part because of particle dispersion, new soil generation, holding particles in plant growth, and other things.

 

This is where the prewar over engineering is useful: due to advanced construction and materials and a still somewhat functioning power grid, you can justify a lot of DC not being flooded or covered in thin soil 200 years later. Although I admittedly consider Fallout 3 and New Vegas to be 100 years after the nukes, not 200. This does require some retconning of the first games, but surprisingly not a lot. It makes the post war factions seem a lot less lazy. And thus it is better all around.

[Talwyn224]

 

Although I admittedly consider Fallout 3 and New Vegas to be 100 years after the nukes, not 200. This does require some retconning of the first games, but surprisingly not a lot. It makes the post war factions seem a lot less lazy. And thus it is better all around.

 

 

This is something I absolutely agree with. I honestly believe the designers of FO3 set the game too far ahead into the future. The Capital Wasteland should almost be a pile of rubble with hardly any structures intact, let alone have a traverse-able subway system. FO3 should be set at least 15 to 20 years after the original Fallout finished. This would have been in keeping with events described after FO with the West Coast BoS sending out missions in airships to head back east to explore post war America. Now this is the story that is used in FO: Tactics and is the origin of the Mid West BoS however it makes more sense to include more than one airship that transport Owen Lyons and his chapter across the wastes, coming down somewhere near The Pitt. This should occur somewhere between the years 2180 & 2197. I think it'd make how the Capital Wasteland, as it appears in FO3, a far more plausible landscape and region.

 

I suggested a while back that Fallout could be retconned to fix up a lot of the glaring inconsistencies but was dismissed by those who refused to see any changes at all to the current story. The thing is, ANY story can be re-written, often the re-write can improve on the original work and there is nothing to say that any story is carved into stone tablets, forever unchanging. Bah... balls to that I say. I have no problem with the original Fallout game, in fact I'd like to see it updated into the current format we have with FO:NV. Perhaps one day we'll see a mod that'll do that? Anyway, I still have the old games and I fired them up once in a blue moon but they haven't aged well and despite the fun I had with them years ago, what we have today is infinity better and more immersive.

 

The sequel, FO2, never really appealed to me all that much as a story as it had too much of the feel that the authors were cashing in on the success of their 1st game, plus there were far too many pop culture references for my taste.

[Talwyn224]

If you wish for it... sometimes wishes might just come true! :biggrin: It's odd how you think about a thing and suddenly there it is.

 

Just look at this guys!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gtPQpoV6IV0

 

arcoolka is remaking Fallout 1 using the FO:NV game as its base. Wow... I'm very impressed now.

 

Can't wait to use this mod.

[panzersharkcat]

Bravo. Which ones did you use? I've wanted to try to get something like this for a while but my current computer would hate me if I tried doing that. This is just so I can keep track for future use with an upgraded computer.