Korten12 said:
In recent topic debates about where the next Fallout should take, many said other countinents, like Europe and such but some say it wouldn't be Fallout.
Now from the Fallout games i've played, 3 and NV (tried the first two but couldn't get into at that time but I might in the future) and from what it seems that the lore is deeply intwined within American culture of the 50's? Also with Vaults only existing in the US, since it does say on the Fallout Wiki that it took 645 billion dollars (I am guessing they got the info from F1/2) to build all of them.
So could someone explain this more througly.
I have heard China might work since China was a big part of the Great War.
Grouchy Imp did a good job explaining.
Grouchy Imp said:
I would say that is mainly because of the feel of the original games. Ok, Fallout 3 took a different take on the Fallout world and totally changed it's vibe (mainly by completely removing the strong undercurrent of humour the originals had), but the original Fallouts played on the idea that after a nuclear war the survivors settled into a rancher/frontiersman stlye of life, strongly remenicient of the Wild West. And the Wild West is a distinctly American phenomenon. With that in mind, it follows that having a Fallout in Paris makes about as much sense as shooting a Western in London.
Another point is the things that make Fallout would disappear. For example, Super Mutants only exist in America as they were genetically engineered there and wouldn't be found elsewhere. Vault-Tec is an American company and so other countries wouldn't have Vaults - they might have Bunkers, or Shelters, but they wouldn't be Vaults. Deathclaws were engineered in America and wouldn't be found elsewhere. The Enclave, as the remenant of the US government, wouldn't exist elsewhere. The Brotherhood of Steel, as the remenant of the US military, wouldn't exist anywhere else (except Afghanistan and Iraq. ZING!). Once you've removed from Fallout everything that makes it Fallout, you just have another post-apocalyptic RPG, so it makes no sense to move Fallout to another country.
the closest thing that would be close to Fallout: Europe would Fallout: Resource Wars, a game Obsidian says they would like to play that would take place in Europe during the Resource wars, though it wouldn't be post-apcoplytic since The Resource Wars were before the Great War. They said it was also be multiplayer team-based.
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout:_Resource_Wars
I don't think setting Fallout outside of the US is a paticularly good idea on a lot of levels.
Please read further after I am going to say something that is incredibly arrogant, though I will explain myself. What that is: American culture is the civilized world's culture.
Understand that as things stand now (though this has not always been the case, and might not be the case in the future) the US and it's ideas have spread all through the world as a result of business (huge chains like Mcdonalds and Starbucks) and our TV shows and movies. A lot of anti-Americanism is based off of jealous as much as anything, from people who wonder why they aren't as relevent, and why a good portion of the decent TV shows they watch are all set in places like New York City, or why a hero in a movie always has to be an American. The answer to this is not just that the US invests the most in such things (Hollywood, and the massive TV production facilities in New York City, which is incidently why so many TV shows are set there). We make bigger budget, higher quality movies and shows, and have also created a situation where exposure means that pretty much everyone around the world is familiar with the US, and (despite what they might say) can both empathize with us, and in many cases strive to embrace our values (or those displayed in Hollywood movies).
The point here being that whether your in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, or any other corner of the world, people are going to know about the USA. People know about Washington DC and it's landmarks, and New York City and it's iconic locations. They know about west coast culture, and who a lot of our leaders are and the issues we debate. They know this because they have seen it on screens since they were young. Years ago I remember reading a study about how people in other countries like Korea know more about US cities like New York than some of their own major cities simply due to exposure.
The point here being that while everyone wants to feel relevent, and like their nation and culture is important (there isn't a world unity yet), not to mention the comfort taken from seeing signs of life where they live (no matter how harsh the enviroment), but in the end a guy from Korea is liable to both be extremely ignorant of Europe and not really care, and a european is liable to feel the same about a lot of other countries.
This is to say nothing of ridiculous rivalries. I remember back with "Shadowrun" how they did sourcebooks on Germany and Berlin, which were apparently written by a French guy. While a lot of people are familiar with the English-French rivalry, French-German animosity is also very rampant, and by showing a "post awakening Germany" in the light they did (read the Berlin sourcebook sometimes) this caused a pretty substantial gripe fest. This ended with a German guy writing a sourcebook that pretty much defined France as having been decimated into a wasteland. I suspect this bickering was one of the big things that lead to the downfall of second edition (I think it was) Shadowrun, because it was everywhere in the gaming community, even among non-Shadowrun players, and apparently there were fistfights over it at RPGA and KA GE events.
Americans (despite what many might think) tend to be fairly open minded. Nobody insults America like other Americans. However when people start messing with other countries it gets REALLY touchy.
This is to say nothing of power creep, that is to say that as a series progresses, even into prequels, the power level involves expands to give players more things to toy with. This is true of both video games and RPGs. This leads to situations where say the world powers might be say the US and China. However when you get around to say doing the Poland sourcebook/chapter or whatever, when it was supposed to be a minor or irrlevent player, you wind up with all of these super weapons and massively deadly monsters and such, and even if a prequel or whatever people are going to go "WTF, why isn't Poland ruling this world, or hadn't conquered it before the war".
Examples of this, again from things like Shadowrun (and some White Wolf games) are when they started introducing varient magic systems and power catagories, which inevitably trumped pretty much everything else. Sure Haitian Voodoo spellcasting, or Aborignie Dreamtime sorcery might be interesting, but should it nessicarly be far more powerful than Native American Shamanism, or traditional sorcery developed by huge guilds of wizards? Especially when those were defined as the dominant power base that had been keeping these other things on the fringes.
I *DO* understand that Europe has some powerful military forces, and I won't get into arguements about soldiers and training because everyone believes themselves to be unusually fierce (even if small) and have the best Special Ops. community. However, a game set back during the "Resource Wars" at this point is liable to include tons of new toys, far better than the prototype weapons developed by the US and China which appeared (in Fallout) and that is going to be a "WTF" issue like other similar ones. In general, you do not see games degenerating back to crappier weapons for sequels.
What's more too many surviving enclaves of humanity kind of ruins the entire "the world has been wasted" viewpoint. In the end nobody wants to think they were killed to a man, or didn't recover as well as the US, but the whole "we are alone" vibe is a big part of the game's atmosphere. Sure we had a singular european refugee (assuming Tenpenny wasn't lying) but I'd tend to think if he was scaenging in the DC Wasteland (before he found his tower) that's a good sign there isn't much in Europe, and maybe that he was the only surviving human being at the time he departed.
Right now both for marketing purposes, and for development purposes, I think Fallout should remain now and forever US-centric.
Also I'll be blunt, I think the US would be relatively accepting of games set in Europe and the like, but internationally would be a bigger problem as I explained.
