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Offline Crudblud

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Re: Fallout series
« Reply #220 on: February 19, 2014, 03:47:36 PM »
If you spend that much time on character creation then sure. I can see it getting annoying.

But if a game also doesn't draw you in with any kind of good story or environment then it also sucks.

And shouldn't character creation take awhile for a good RPG? That's just kind of standard really. The first Fallout didn't seem like too much of an RPG in the first 5 minutes. More like a point and click rat fighting game.

I'm having trouble working out what you're trying to say. Is it the mark of a good RPG to spend time on character creation or is it in fact crappy if it takes more than five minutes?

As for F1, Vault 13 is only a place to begin, not the game in full, there's plenty of story if you allow the game a little time to get rolling, a large chunk of it comes from the large cast of characters you meet out in the world. If you're looking for a big attention grabbing thing right away, it doesn't have that, what it does have is a world rebuilding itself and lots of stuff to do to help or hinder its progress, ultimately these combine to offer rather a large story surrounding the fate of the future NCR. If you judge it to be a bad game on the first five minutes alone, that's your problem.

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Offline rooster

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Re: Fallout series
« Reply #221 on: February 19, 2014, 04:12:07 PM »
If you spend that much time on character creation then sure. I can see it getting annoying.

But if a game also doesn't draw you in with any kind of good story or environment then it also sucks.

And shouldn't character creation take awhile for a good RPG? That's just kind of standard really. The first Fallout didn't seem like too much of an RPG in the first 5 minutes. More like a point and click rat fighting game.

I'm having trouble working out what you're trying to say. Is it the mark of a good RPG to spend time on character creation or is it in fact crappy if it takes more than five minutes?

As for F1, Vault 13 is only a place to begin, not the game in full, there's plenty of story if you allow the game a little time to get rolling, a large chunk of it comes from the large cast of characters you meet out in the world. If you're looking for a big attention grabbing thing right away, it doesn't have that, what it does have is a world rebuilding itself and lots of stuff to do to help or hinder its progress, ultimately these combine to offer rather a large story surrounding the fate of the future NCR. If you judge it to be a bad game on the first five minutes alone, that's your problem.
First, we can stop assuming I made a judgment off 5 minutes. I played for about 20. I made it to a vault in the east and experienced several crappy battle sequences. If the story gets better great, however I'm sure the combat remains terrible. The only person I talked to was a caravan trader. Yay. They could have at least started you off inside the vault rather than outside which makes it seem like they're discouraging any opening story.

Second, yes it is the sign of a good RPG to spend time on character creation. Usually, I know what I want and it doesn't take too long for me on modern RPGs simply because they're not as thorough as the older ones. If you're spending too much time creating your face then you should remind yourself that you'll never look at it and it doesn't matter. Remind me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the original Fallout ask you to pick a character with a backstory? I thought that was weird. I would rather they feed me a backstory through dialogue with NPCs, but whatever.

It has a high rating, so it must get better at some point. I was just wondering when. Then again people really love FFVII and I never could get into that.

Saddam Hussein

Re: Fallout series
« Reply #222 on: February 19, 2014, 08:29:29 PM »
The only person I talked to was a caravan trader.

Incorrect, you speak to Kenneth Mars right at the beginning.

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Offline rooster

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Re: Fallout series
« Reply #223 on: February 19, 2014, 08:45:19 PM »
The only person I talked to was a caravan trader.

Incorrect, you speak to Kenneth Mars right at the beginning.
Right. The guy who just kinda talks at you and pushes you out the vault.

Offline Blanko

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Re: Fallout series
« Reply #224 on: February 19, 2014, 08:50:27 PM »
It has a high rating, so it must get better at some point.

??????????????????????????????????????

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Offline rooster

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Re: Fallout series
« Reply #225 on: February 19, 2014, 08:51:39 PM »
It has a high rating, so it must get better at some point.

??????????????????????????????????????
Not sure what you're questioning...

Offline Blanko

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Re: Fallout series
« Reply #226 on: February 19, 2014, 08:56:25 PM »
It has a high rating, so it must get better at some point.

??????????????????????????????????????
Not sure what you're questioning...

Bad games never get high ratings, apparently.

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Offline rooster

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Re: Fallout series
« Reply #227 on: February 19, 2014, 09:00:41 PM »
It has a high rating, so it must get better at some point.

??????????????????????????????????????
Not sure what you're questioning...

Bad games never get high ratings, apparently.
You hate everything, so I can see how you're confused.
I find high rated games to be generally enjoyable in some way. Especially since I love this genre and the new Fallout games, I'm sad I haven't enjoyed this one yet. Which is why I'll try again.

Offline Blanko

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Re: Fallout series
« Reply #228 on: February 19, 2014, 09:02:50 PM »
It has a high rating, so it must get better at some point.

??????????????????????????????????????
Not sure what you're questioning...

Bad games never get high ratings, apparently.
You hate everything, so I can see how you're confused.
I find high rated games to be generally enjoyable in some way. Especially since I love this genre and the new Fallout games, I'm sad I haven't enjoyed this one yet. Which is why I'll try again.

But maybe it's high rated because of its gameplay mechanics, which you've already demonstrated not to like.

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Offline rooster

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Re: Fallout series
« Reply #229 on: February 19, 2014, 09:30:01 PM »
It has a high rating, so it must get better at some point.

??????????????????????????????????????
Not sure what you're questioning...

Bad games never get high ratings, apparently.
You hate everything, so I can see how you're confused.
I find high rated games to be generally enjoyable in some way. Especially since I love this genre and the new Fallout games, I'm sad I haven't enjoyed this one yet. Which is why I'll try again.

But maybe it's high rated because of its gameplay mechanics, which you've already demonstrated not to like.
Nah, it looks like it's for the writing and style. It also apparently has one of the top best endings.

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Offline Crudblud

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Re: Fallout series
« Reply #230 on: February 19, 2014, 09:39:54 PM »
If you spend that much time on character creation then sure. I can see it getting annoying.

But if a game also doesn't draw you in with any kind of good story or environment then it also sucks.

And shouldn't character creation take awhile for a good RPG? That's just kind of standard really. The first Fallout didn't seem like too much of an RPG in the first 5 minutes. More like a point and click rat fighting game.

I'm having trouble working out what you're trying to say. Is it the mark of a good RPG to spend time on character creation or is it in fact crappy if it takes more than five minutes?

As for F1, Vault 13 is only a place to begin, not the game in full, there's plenty of story if you allow the game a little time to get rolling, a large chunk of it comes from the large cast of characters you meet out in the world. If you're looking for a big attention grabbing thing right away, it doesn't have that, what it does have is a world rebuilding itself and lots of stuff to do to help or hinder its progress, ultimately these combine to offer rather a large story surrounding the fate of the future NCR. If you judge it to be a bad game on the first five minutes alone, that's your problem.
First, we can stop assuming I made a judgment off 5 minutes. I played for about 20. I made it to a vault in the east and experienced several crappy battle sequences. If the story gets better great, however I'm sure the combat remains terrible. The only person I talked to was a caravan trader. Yay. They could have at least started you off inside the vault rather than outside which makes it seem like they're discouraging any opening story.

Second, yes it is the sign of a good RPG to spend time on character creation. Usually, I know what I want and it doesn't take too long for me on modern RPGs simply because they're not as thorough as the older ones. If you're spending too much time creating your face then you should remind yourself that you'll never look at it and it doesn't matter. Remind me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the original Fallout ask you to pick a character with a backstory? I thought that was weird. I would rather they feed me a backstory through dialogue with NPCs, but whatever.

It has a high rating, so it must get better at some point. I was just wondering when. Then again people really love FFVII and I never could get into that.

Well, 20 minutes and 5 isn't all that different in terms of how much of the game you experienced. Shady Sands, which is en route to Vault 15 from your starting location, is generally where people stop first, in it you meet Aradesh and Tandi, get Ian in your party, fight some radscorpions and Khans and generally get a feel for how pretty much everything in the game works. I can understand people not liking Fallout, really, I can, but I think a lot of people either do what you did or they get killed in their first random encounter and just quit. It's the kind of game that requires a patient and methodical approach, and I'd really advise giving it a few hours at least before dismissing it, it just isn't the kind of game you can assess in 20 minutes.

As for character creation, in a traditional RPG like D&D, as I understand it, each player designs a character and comes up with a backstory for them, they then play that character according to the information they've decided upon. In Fallout, there are three premades with their own backstories that you can play, but by far the most popular — and recommended — option is to create a new one from scratch with whatever backstory you like. I guess it depends how much imagination you want to put into it, personally I didn't like how F3 handled backstory, it was far too prescriptive for my taste, but I can appreciate why some would prefer to have an opening sequence like that rather than having to come up with their own motivations for whatever they're doing.

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Re: Fallout series
« Reply #231 on: February 19, 2014, 10:20:44 PM »
If you spend that much time on character creation then sure. I can see it getting annoying.

But if a game also doesn't draw you in with any kind of good story or environment then it also sucks.

And shouldn't character creation take awhile for a good RPG? That's just kind of standard really. The first Fallout didn't seem like too much of an RPG in the first 5 minutes. More like a point and click rat fighting game.

I'm having trouble working out what you're trying to say. Is it the mark of a good RPG to spend time on character creation or is it in fact crappy if it takes more than five minutes?

As for F1, Vault 13 is only a place to begin, not the game in full, there's plenty of story if you allow the game a little time to get rolling, a large chunk of it comes from the large cast of characters you meet out in the world. If you're looking for a big attention grabbing thing right away, it doesn't have that, what it does have is a world rebuilding itself and lots of stuff to do to help or hinder its progress, ultimately these combine to offer rather a large story surrounding the fate of the future NCR. If you judge it to be a bad game on the first five minutes alone, that's your problem.
First, we can stop assuming I made a judgment off 5 minutes. I played for about 20. I made it to a vault in the east and experienced several crappy battle sequences. If the story gets better great, however I'm sure the combat remains terrible. The only person I talked to was a caravan trader. Yay. They could have at least started you off inside the vault rather than outside which makes it seem like they're discouraging any opening story.

Second, yes it is the sign of a good RPG to spend time on character creation. Usually, I know what I want and it doesn't take too long for me on modern RPGs simply because they're not as thorough as the older ones. If you're spending too much time creating your face then you should remind yourself that you'll never look at it and it doesn't matter. Remind me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the original Fallout ask you to pick a character with a backstory? I thought that was weird. I would rather they feed me a backstory through dialogue with NPCs, but whatever.

It has a high rating, so it must get better at some point. I was just wondering when. Then again people really love FFVII and I never could get into that.

Well, 20 minutes and 5 isn't all that different in terms of how much of the game you experienced. Shady Sands, which is en route to Vault 15 from your starting location, is generally where people stop first, in it you meet Aradesh and Tandi, get Ian in your party, fight some radscorpions and Khans and generally get a feel for how pretty much everything in the game works. I can understand people not liking Fallout, really, I can, but I think a lot of people either do what you did or they get killed in their first random encounter and just quit. It's the kind of game that requires a patient and methodical approach, and I'd really advise giving it a few hours at least before dismissing it, it just isn't the kind of game you can assess in 20 minutes.

As for character creation, in a traditional RPG like D&D, as I understand it, each player designs a character and comes up with a backstory for them, they then play that character according to the information they've decided upon. In Fallout, there are three premades with their own backstories that you can play, but by far the most popular — and recommended — option is to create a new one from scratch with whatever backstory you like. I guess it depends how much imagination you want to put into it, personally I didn't like how F3 handled backstory, it was far too prescriptive for my taste, but I can appreciate why some would prefer to have an opening sequence like that rather than having to come up with their own motivations for whatever they're doing.
Oh, then I didn't make it to a vault. It wasn't Shady Sands either as there were no people.

At this point I'm comparing the game more to something like Baldur's Gate than the newer Fallout games. In Baldur's Gate it takes awhile to create the race, class, weapon variety that you want.

Then, you spend some time in the Candlekeep, getting to know people and a little basic foundation for your own background. It reveals just enough so that you know a little about the what you're getting yourself into. But the motivation when moving forward is still something that you can come up with. But your simple back story is revealed through casual encounters with the people which I feel is more authentic.

Saddam Hussein

Re: Fallout series
« Reply #232 on: February 19, 2014, 11:59:06 PM »
personally I didn't like how F3 handled backstory, it was far too prescriptive for my taste

You are a nineteen-year-old kid and an unpopular loser among your peers.

At this point I'm comparing the game more to something like Baldur's Gate than the newer Fallout games. In Baldur's Gate it takes awhile to create the race, class, weapon variety that you want.

Then, you spend some time in the Candlekeep, getting to know people and a little basic foundation for your own background. It reveals just enough so that you know a little about the what you're getting yourself into. But the motivation when moving forward is still something that you can come up with. But your simple back story is revealed through casual encounters with the people which I feel is more authentic.

In Baldur's Gate, your background is relevant to the story, so it needed to be included.  In Fallout, it's not.  It doesn't matter (at least in terms of the story) who you were or what you were doing when you were living in the vault; you actually have to get out and start doing things actively before you become involved in the story.  So what would be the point of giving you a background - one that naturally wouldn't please everyone - when it could just be left up to you instead?

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Offline Snupes

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Re: Fallout series
« Reply #233 on: February 20, 2014, 01:06:44 AM »
I think this whole "forming an opinion of the game based on the first five minutes" system of criticism is a pretty good idea.

Hopefully you're not addressing me as well with this, I played the game for quite a while.
There are cigarettes in joints. You don't smoke it by itself.

Saddam Hussein

Re: Fallout series
« Reply #234 on: February 20, 2014, 03:50:03 AM »
I think this whole "forming an opinion of the game based on the first five minutes" system of criticism is a pretty good idea.

Hopefully you're not addressing me as well with this, I played the game for quite a while.

According to your posts on the old site, you didn't play it long enough to save even once.
« Last Edit: February 20, 2014, 03:55:49 AM by Saddam Hussein »

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Offline Crudblud

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Re: Fallout series
« Reply #235 on: February 20, 2014, 07:43:42 AM »
If you spend that much time on character creation then sure. I can see it getting annoying.

But if a game also doesn't draw you in with any kind of good story or environment then it also sucks.

And shouldn't character creation take awhile for a good RPG? That's just kind of standard really. The first Fallout didn't seem like too much of an RPG in the first 5 minutes. More like a point and click rat fighting game.

I'm having trouble working out what you're trying to say. Is it the mark of a good RPG to spend time on character creation or is it in fact crappy if it takes more than five minutes?

As for F1, Vault 13 is only a place to begin, not the game in full, there's plenty of story if you allow the game a little time to get rolling, a large chunk of it comes from the large cast of characters you meet out in the world. If you're looking for a big attention grabbing thing right away, it doesn't have that, what it does have is a world rebuilding itself and lots of stuff to do to help or hinder its progress, ultimately these combine to offer rather a large story surrounding the fate of the future NCR. If you judge it to be a bad game on the first five minutes alone, that's your problem.
First, we can stop assuming I made a judgment off 5 minutes. I played for about 20. I made it to a vault in the east and experienced several crappy battle sequences. If the story gets better great, however I'm sure the combat remains terrible. The only person I talked to was a caravan trader. Yay. They could have at least started you off inside the vault rather than outside which makes it seem like they're discouraging any opening story.

Second, yes it is the sign of a good RPG to spend time on character creation. Usually, I know what I want and it doesn't take too long for me on modern RPGs simply because they're not as thorough as the older ones. If you're spending too much time creating your face then you should remind yourself that you'll never look at it and it doesn't matter. Remind me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the original Fallout ask you to pick a character with a backstory? I thought that was weird. I would rather they feed me a backstory through dialogue with NPCs, but whatever.

It has a high rating, so it must get better at some point. I was just wondering when. Then again people really love FFVII and I never could get into that.

Well, 20 minutes and 5 isn't all that different in terms of how much of the game you experienced. Shady Sands, which is en route to Vault 15 from your starting location, is generally where people stop first, in it you meet Aradesh and Tandi, get Ian in your party, fight some radscorpions and Khans and generally get a feel for how pretty much everything in the game works. I can understand people not liking Fallout, really, I can, but I think a lot of people either do what you did or they get killed in their first random encounter and just quit. It's the kind of game that requires a patient and methodical approach, and I'd really advise giving it a few hours at least before dismissing it, it just isn't the kind of game you can assess in 20 minutes.

As for character creation, in a traditional RPG like D&D, as I understand it, each player designs a character and comes up with a backstory for them, they then play that character according to the information they've decided upon. In Fallout, there are three premades with their own backstories that you can play, but by far the most popular — and recommended — option is to create a new one from scratch with whatever backstory you like. I guess it depends how much imagination you want to put into it, personally I didn't like how F3 handled backstory, it was far too prescriptive for my taste, but I can appreciate why some would prefer to have an opening sequence like that rather than having to come up with their own motivations for whatever they're doing.
Oh, then I didn't make it to a vault. It wasn't Shady Sands either as there were no people.

At this point I'm comparing the game more to something like Baldur's Gate than the newer Fallout games. In Baldur's Gate it takes awhile to create the race, class, weapon variety that you want.

Then, you spend some time in the Candlekeep, getting to know people and a little basic foundation for your own background. It reveals just enough so that you know a little about the what you're getting yourself into. But the motivation when moving forward is still something that you can come up with. But your simple back story is revealed through casual encounters with the people which I feel is more authentic.

In addition to what Saddam says, which I definitely agree with, I think it heightens the sense of the Overseer's desperation that he's basically sending random guys out to find another water chip, feeding them this bullshit story about how they're the only one who can do it, this is immediately followed up by finding one of the people who went before you long dead and picked clean by rats outside the vault door. Even if you don't have a concrete backstory, which again I think is unnecessary in this particular game, your vault is certainly in dire straits.

I think this whole "forming an opinion of the game based on the first five minutes" system of criticism is a pretty good idea.

Hopefully you're not addressing me as well with this, I played the game for quite a while.

It was a joke. I assumed everyone would take it that way.

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Offline Snupes

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Re: Fallout series
« Reply #236 on: February 20, 2014, 02:23:27 PM »
I think this whole "forming an opinion of the game based on the first five minutes" system of criticism is a pretty good idea.

Hopefully you're not addressing me as well with this, I played the game for quite a while.

According to your posts on the old site, you didn't play it long enough to save even once.

No, I was simply spoiled by autosaves and didn't think to save even once. :[ The only games I ever think to save in nowadays are ones that either explicitly tell me to or handheld games. Otherwise I forget because it's not really necessary most of the time.
There are cigarettes in joints. You don't smoke it by itself.

Saddam Hussein

Re: Fallout series
« Reply #237 on: February 22, 2014, 05:53:33 AM »
Playing through the original again isn't so bad now that I know what I'm doing.  The main quest is really short, now that I think about it.  The bulk of the game lies in exploring the locations, completing the sidequests, that kind of thing.  It's not a game to be rushed through, and that's the main reason why they ought to have scrapped the time limit.  It just doesn't fit.

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Offline Crudblud

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Re: Fallout series
« Reply #238 on: February 22, 2014, 09:22:28 AM »
Playing through the original again isn't so bad now that I know what I'm doing.  The main quest is really short, now that I think about it.  The bulk of the game lies in exploring the locations, completing the sidequests, that kind of thing.  It's not a game to be rushed through, and that's the main reason why they ought to have scrapped the time limit.  It just doesn't fit.
Did you actually return the chip on your first playthrough?

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Re: Fallout series
« Reply #239 on: February 22, 2014, 07:28:16 PM »
Indeed:

After finally getting back to playing the game, I have delivered a water chip to the Vault!  Huzzah!

I forgot and I was too lazy to check.