New Fallout has been announced.

[Redvenge]

Thank you! Let's see...

"If you see a sign that says 'Ammo' in a Fallout game, you know that is an NPC are you are like 'OK, whatever but they are NPCs'. But, if you see a sign that says 'Ammo' you know a player made that, and that's a different... a very different mood' and it's very 'Fallout-y'"-Todd

... wtf does that MEAN? Can you just show us the leveling mechanics? How does progression work? How long will I have to grind before gaining a level? Is there a Stealth system? How are you implementing Power Armor? If I can't see a server list, how can I choose to join a "private server"? What is "end game"? Why should I keep playing after me and my friends get Power Armor and can punch out your poorly scripted super monsters?

So much of this interview sounds kinda... foolish. As though they are completely out of touch with online gaming or even their own players. For instance, nukes have the "side effect" of killing players. Their primary purpose was to create a new "high level" zone to raid. But, it never occurred to them that players would put the "side effect" of murdering opponents ahead of the shallow "progression". Man, I cannot wait to hear "Tales from the Fallout76 BETA". It's gonna be wild!

 

[sXeth]

Thank you! Let's see...

"If you see a sign that says 'Ammo' in a Fallout game, you know that is an NPC are you are like 'OK, whatever but they are NPCs'. But, if you see a sign that says 'Ammo' you know a player made that, and that's a different... a very different mood' and it's very 'Fallout-y'"-Todd

... wtf does that MEAN? Can you just show us the leveling mechanics? How does progression work? How long will I have to grind before gaining a level? Is there a Stealth system? How are you implementing Power Armor? If I can't see a server list, how can I choose to join a "private server"? What is "end game"? Why should I keep playing after me and my friends get Power Armor and can punch out your poorly scripted super monsters?

So much of this interview sounds kinda... foolish. As though they are completely out of touch with online gaming or even their own players. For instance, nukes have the "side effect" of killing players. Their primary purpose was to create a new "high level" zone to raid. But, it never occurred to them that players would put the "side effect" of murdering opponents ahead of the shallow "progression". Man, I cannot wait to hear "Tales from the Fallout76 BETA". It's gonna be wild!

The every character is a player/no NPCs thing is a bit funny too when they get nailed down to it and are basically "Well ,we just use robots where the NPCs would be" like talking robots aren't NPCs themselves, how very unprogressive of them.

Playing Conan Exiles, which has human NPCs, I can see the case for wanting a clear delineation of "Thats a player" (having been on both ends of the inadvertent PvP engagement), but they picked the weirdest spin to try and put on it.

The "Ammo for sale" sign bit actually does sound kind of like a base is an instance. You see a sign or whatever thats somethings there then have to interact with it to actually enter the instance and do whatever.

 

[Redvenge]

The "Ammo for sale" sign bit actually does sound kind of like a base is an instance. You see a sign or whatever thats somethings there then have to interact with it to actually enter the instance and do whatever.

I have no idea what he was trying to say. It comes across as though he has this preconceived scripted idea of how players are going to react in every instance. It just sounds out of touch and weird. Remember Dragon Age:Inquisition and the "awesome button"? This sounds eerily similar.

FO76 could be an amazing game, but Todd needs to do fewer public speaking appearances. He just sounds crazed when you try to pin him down on the details.

Did you see this interview about the "dreaded PvP":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbk9tvpuciY&

I'm still a bit lost, since they are still light on details. Bring on the BETA, I guess.

 

[sXeth]

The "Ammo for sale" sign bit actually does sound kind of like a base is an instance. You see a sign or whatever thats somethings there then have to interact with it to actually enter the instance and do whatever.

I have no idea what he was trying to say. It comes across as though he has this preconceived scripted idea of how players are going to react in every instance. It just sounds out of touch and weird. Remember Dragon Age:Inquisition and the "awesome button"? This sounds eerily similar.

FO76 could be an amazing game, but Todd needs to do fewer public speaking appearances. He just sounds crazed when you try to pin him down on the details.

Did you see this interview about the "dreaded PvP":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbk9tvpuciY&

I'm still a bit lost, since they are still light on details. Bring on the BETA, I guess.

I mean, one one hand, he's hardly the first in the genre to have crazy ever-spiralling out of control ideas with questionable logic on the balance and delivery thereof, and non-pragmatic expectations of player behaviour (Hell, you can outside the genre and look at stuff like Ultima Onlines Ecology System (the interviews on youtube of that one).

On the other hand, he's hardly the first, and a professional AAA company should at least in theory, have some idea of what boiling tar pit they're shoving their hand in.

 

[Redvenge]

From most of the interviews, YouTube ads, even the E3 reveal, my response to FO76 has been:

Nope. No thanks. Next?

But, I watched the NoCLip Making of Fallout 76 documentary and my view changed to:

Huh. Maybe... If I could log in with some real world friends... this could be really fun.

I'm thinking to myself "Why didn't they use this as a basis for their reveal? It answers design questions, brief gameplay mechanics overview, even the scope of end-game and nukes. What monkey-butt is running the marketing at Bethesda?"

Anyway, maybe this will answer some questions and change some minds. If you don't want multiplayer Fallout, it probably won't change your mind (Warning: 40 minutes long, but the first ~5 and last ~8 are not about FO76):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi8PTAJ2Hjs

I'm not going to pre-order or anything, but I will keep an eye on it.

 

[sXeth]

From most of the interviews, YouTube ads, even the E3 reveal, my response to FO76 has been:

Nope. No thanks. Next?

But, I watched the NoCLip Making of Fallout 76 documentary and my view changed to:

Huh. Maybe... If I could log in with some real world friends... this could be really fun.

I'm thinking to myself "Why didn't they use this as a basis for their reveal? It answers design questions, brief gameplay mechanics overview, even the scope of end-game and nukes. What monkey-butt is running the marketing at Bethesda?"

Anyway, maybe this will answer some questions and change some minds. If you don't want multiplayer Fallout, it probably won't change your mind (Warning: 40 minutes long, but the first ~5 and last ~8 are not about FO76):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi8PTAJ2Hjs

I'm not going to pre-order or anything, but I will keep an eye on it.

Yeah, while that leaves a few things unfortunately vague (Anything to do with bases), its much better then anything Todd Howard has blabbered out (or blabbers out in that video when he does appear). And there's a lot of more structured ideas put forth from people who appear (and have at least some credentials) to know what they're dealing with.

There's warning signs too of course, particularly the affirmation of TH's design philosophy of "Let's do whatever random shit and fix it later if we need to". A rocky launch or a string of bad updates can annihilate a multiplayer title incredibly fast. And they aren't getting the community to clean up their mess with mods on this one. Along with whatever their microtransactions are (because Bethesda has definitely not won any big warrants of optimism on that front).

(I also admire the brass balls on the one guy who basically said the PvP insistence is Todd's personal horse on pubic video, lol)

 

[Sassafrass]

I'm intrigued, but also cautious considering this is a mode they seemingly wanted to put in Fallout 4, but couldn't because as they said in the documentary, the code is more or less 20 years of "What the actual fuck is this fucking mess." and had to hire a whole new group of people to actively figure out how to unfuck that mess so they can do 24-32 player online.

I do appreciate that they're ambitious enough to try something like this. It didn't didn't really work with ESO on launch, but that eventually developed into a fairly decent MMO, if incredibly rough looking, so I'm kinda expecting something similar with F76. I do have a couple of things I want to know about for sure though, like the PvP stuff, the base building and the fact it apparently moves with you across servers, the penalties for dying, who made the dumbass choice to show all players on the map even if it is 4 times bigger than F4's and what there will be to actually do once you hit the end game.

But otherwise, I'm quietly looking forward to wander around West Virginia, bip some creatures, bip some assholes then get nuked into oblivion.

 

[Zontar]

So the rumor about a remastered Fallout 3 coming to Switch? Oh right, it's full of shit just like the SC rumors.

Not gonna lie, I'd love a Fallout 3 remastered edition.

 

[Smithnikov_v1legacy]

I don't recall them using country or anything past the 50s as the main song for the games in the series.

Not for the main theme, but big band was always prominent, and New Vegas had some country golden oldies. Though yes, this is the first time it got to be front and center, and given the locale, it makes perfect sense.

 

[stroopwafel]

I also watched both Noclip documentaries(stellar work btw) and have to say I changed my mind about the game a bit as well. I'm actually surprised how open and matter-of-fact Bethesda is. I had to laugh at the part where they had to call in the Doom guys for the monumental task of adding multiplayer mode to that 30 year old dinosaur engine of theirs. But still, as much as I was initially disappointed by an online only Fallout game it might actually mitigate Bethesda's problem with their Fallout games and that is tedious and boring quests that all center on the same item fetching that can't even be separated from the radiant quests(FO4 seemed even worse than FO3 in that regard). I always have the problem with Fallout that I lose interest in the game when I'm done exploring the map as the quests are simply so unengaging. If progression is actually tied to exploring the map(which is a blast) and killing enemies instead of tedious quests it could solve that problem and make it a much more interesting game in the process.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Crazy thing i heard is there are no human npcs in the game All the missions are given by robots and computers. This kills the game for me and i have lost all interest in it. I thought part of the game was rebuilding the world after the bomb? Whats the point if its only 6 or so gamers in a world 4 times bigger than FO4 and the only other living thing are monsters. Supposedly there are no super mutants and ghoul. Im sure alot of people will enjoy the game but for its dissapointing. But, thats ok, cant expect every game to be what i want.

 

[Sassafrass]

Crazy thing i heard is there are no human npcs in the game All the missions are given by robots and computers. This kills the game for me and i have lost all interest in it. I thought part of the game was rebuilding the world after the bomb? Whats the point if its only 6 or so gamers in a world 4 times bigger than FO4 and the only other living thing are monsters. Supposedly there are no super mutants and ghoul. Im sure alot of people will enjoy the game but for its dissapointing. But, thats ok, cant expect every game to be what i want.

Well, given that Fallout 76 is set in one of the few control vaults that weren't set up to fuck with people and actually save them, I can forgive this one for having a lack of NPCs; not a lot of people on the surface who couldn't make it in the Vault or find safety aren't going to survive a nuke going off. Although technically speaking, they could've made some of the vault dwellers NPCs but then again, how would they have set up a decent selection of stock in such short a time?

But also as for the no NPCs rumbling, I recall hearing from either their conference or on the quite fantastic noclip documentary that there will be a bunch of ghouls who haven't quite yet gone feral. Now if they'll be quest givers, traders or just another enemy to dip remains to be seen, but I'm kinda hopeful there's at least one NPC trader.

 

[Redvenge]

Supposedly there are no super mutants and ghoul.

There are Super Mutants. There is a new faction of "semi-feral" Ghouls who can use weapons to kill you, before they eat you. I think there are "regular" feral Ghouls, but I am inferring that from a developer interview. "All the old enemies of previous Fallouts will be in Fallout76, as well as new monster types."

The focus of the game is exploring an intricately detailed world with your friends, rather than world building and immersive story. The new game mechanics are based on "group buffs" and heavy focus on crafting with some base-building elements. It's formula is such a large departure from previous titles that I can understand why the premise my turn people off.

Also, this company does have the nick-name of "Bugthesda". It's launch is pretty much guaranteed to be rocky. In addition, there are concerns about it's aging engine and implementation of the in-game mechanics. It may well turn into dumpster-fire, but it has my interest as of now.

 

[sXeth]

At one end of the spectrum, you're going to get an MMO-ish based on the player-economy model (Ultima Online, Runescape (at least the one I played in high school), Eve, etc) where players are the cooks, crafters, miners(scavengers I guess), etc and fill in the NPC role. Within this model actual bandits tend to pretty rare because if you get tagged as one of the bad kids, then people stop selling you supplies.

On the other end, you'll get "griefy" PvP, nukes being spammed left and right, and people building phallic monuments while you hear them cussing out their grandmother over the backbeat of their battery dead smoke detector.

Where and how they land between those two extremes, is still a wait and see, but yeah, if neither of these are all that appealing, thats certainly a valid opinion.