Fallout IX: Nuclear Cash Cows Go MMOoooooo!

[MCerberus]

Haven't gotten too far into the update yet, bit so far I'm a fan. Multiple ways to go through a quest as well as outcomes, dialogue options that change based on your stats. Looking good!

Yah I'm just leaving the bar behind and one of the quests has you go into a robot shop where the shopkeeper things everyone is vengeful ghosts and you can play along. The dialog also gives you an option from doing a laaaaaaaaaaaaaate game quest chain from the original progression.

[factotum]

So, sounding like the new Fallout 76 update is giving a good impression to the two people who've tried it, anyone else given it a go?

[Rynjin]

Personally I won't be trying it largely because I believe Bethesda needs to suffer an actual loss on this game so hopefully it sinks in how much they ****ed up. Releasing a game and trying to fix it a year and a half later is not a trend that should be encouraged, and they're probably only bold enough to try it now because people let No Man's Sky get away with this bull**** too.

[factotum]

OK, fair. I did just watch Many a True Nerd playing through some of the new content, and there were definitely still issues--at one point he got accosted by a bandit with no head, which was quite funny, and despite loads of "settler" NPCs having moved into various locations in the game, those locations still looked just as junk-filled and messy as they did before; however, that pretty much applies to most locations in Fallout 4 anyway!

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I don't think the Brotherhood and "racial purity" is that much of a stretch--remember, back in Fallout 1 they explicitly preserved pre-war tech for their own use, and you weren't allowed a sniff of it unless you were a Brotherhood member, and all the games have preserved that characterisation to some extent. So, not racial purity, maybe, but certainly *factional* purity has been a big thing with them.

I never said that it was a stretch, it's just that they were portrayed in a FAR more villainous, or at least morally bankrupt, view than in previous iterations.

Fallout 1 and 2 Brotherhood were more interested in keeping tech and especially energy weapons and power armor out of the hands of the 'peasantry'. Sure, they also didn't like Super Mutants, and they also had issues with ghouls and such, but their focus was primarily tech.

Fallout 3 expanded this a little bit, and were generally less jerk-ish. You had people who didn't agree with this and went to go form their own faction, but even they weren't really bad so much as... focused. The bad guys in power armor were the Enclave, who were the Actually Evil Group and the Brotherhood were willing to stand against them.

Fallout: New Vegas brought back themes that the Brotherhood and NCR were at war at one point (which was present in Fallout and Fallout 2, but more of a side-thing), but the Brotherhood weren't really in any position to be jerks (aside from certain actions with respect to a certain companion's side-quests whom I shall not spoil at this time) since they were... let's be polite and say 'in decline'. They didn't have the firepower to enforce anything anywhere outside the hidden valley, so isolated that they were little more than a footnote. Also, because of changes in game mechanics, Power Armor wasn't actually all that good in New Vegas, and energy weapons were prevelant, and even plentiful in some places (a certain location out by NOVAC, and of course, the Van Graffs), so there was no need to cozy up to them to get the good stuff.

Fallout 4 gave us a Brotherhood chapter which has a fanatic leader AND the power to enforce his views. It's stated a couple of times that he's a particularly fanatic individual, even for the Brotherhood, but since he's the one running the show, no one is going to call him on it. Which means he gets to live out all his jackboot fantasies. They expanded their disinclination to let just anyone have tech to full-on xenophobia to the point that I honestly expected them to start shouting 'FOR THE EMPRAH!' at any moment. Synths being anathema made sense, sure, but purging entire villages for having a suspected synth living in them? Yea, we've gone 40k here.

So no, not really a *stretch* per se, so much as dialing it up from a four to about a twelve. Then throwing in some Blood Raven for good measure.

But that really wasn't the point I was trying to make.

The point is that you'd figure that a faction I could spend this many characters on would at least be *interesting*, however unfortunately I've gone ahead and given you the sum total of anything worth mentioning of them. They're one-dimensional, cardboard cutout, monofocused and about as interesting as watching wet cardboard mildew. Once you get over the shiny of the Prydwin, the only thing you have left for them to offer is to be xenophobic pricks who will kill anyone on even the mere *suspicion* of being a Synth, including their own. They turned what could have been a moving character development scene got cheapened out and not given the seriousness it deserves. The character doesn't grow in the least, and either commits suicide, or blames you for preventing it and goes off to sulk. In no case does the character actually develop in any meaningful way, the subject is not treated with dignity or respect, it's just a thing that happens because hey, let's just throw that in there.

That's my beef with Fallout 4. It's plot-by-numbers, which I could forgive, but it's *boring* plot-by-numbers, without any character development that you'd expect from a plot-by-numbers piece. When a major companion arc ends with me screaming at the screen 'Wait, that's IT?', ya done screwed up somewhere.

The Brotherhood in F4 had such wonderful *potential*. You had such room for development. You had room to grow with the companion de guerre. You had a chance to show a Brotherhood Paladin that his shining golden idol is just gilded dross. You had a chance to have a truly villainous villain that did more than twirl a mustache and order everyone executed, you had an honest chance to actually create a developed villain because you could actually get his perspective since you could *side with him*. You had a chance for Dance to challenge Maxim and make positive change in the Brotherhood. But no... let's not get too hasty here, give them a few rote quests in line with every other quest in the damn game (go here, kill that), and then toss in some nostalgia bait to bring the neckbeards around with Liberty Prime for no bleeping reason.

The institute is even worse, I'll grant that, which is a pretty damn amazing accomplishment all on its own, and the Railroad isn't much better. It says something about the game when the most well developed faction is the one deliberately left blank, the Minutemen. When a bland neutral is the most engaging option... there's something that needs to be addressed, not doubled down on.

As far as F76, you'll need to pay 1500 Atoms for my opinions on their current business model, available TODAY ONLY!.

[LibraryOgre]

Of course, the Fallout 4 Brotherhood were the evolution of the Fallout 3 Brotherhood... and that, itself, was a faction of the Brotherhood that had departed from their technology focus to involve themselves in social engineering. The DC Brotherhood decided to meddle in politics... and one of their members even went full-on fascist in The Pitt.

When talking about the Brotherhood, we have to remember that the DC Brotherhood (and, by extension, the Commonwealth Brotherhood) were schismatics.

[Triaxx]

New Vegas Brotherhood suffers from being something of an amalgam of new ideas of a brotherhood in decline and a post NCR war brotherhood from Van Buren. They failed to develop either idea entirely and it ended up suffering from both directions.

On the other hand, Fallout 4's Brotherhood ended up exactly where I expected it to be. It wasn't just the outcasts who were unhappy with Lyons, and having grown up around that would definitely have colored Maxsons views of things. In addition to the Brotherhood in general being far too rules bound for their own good. They've wrapped themselves into the rules, without leaving any mechanism for altering the rules when they're not working. It's become a religion. And a particularly cruel one with Maxson as it's prophet.

Then again, if he wasn't a genocidal douche-canoe, I'd feel bad about shooting him in the face and stealing his gun.

Also the Capital Brotherhood were schismatics, the Outcasts and subsequently the Commonwealth Brotherhood were more inlines.

[SZbNAhL]

And something else occured to me in playing Fallout 4: Myron was a liar. He did not invent Jet. We find it in places where no one could have been since it's "invention" by Myron, so it has to be pre-War.

(And now I read the article and that's canon)

Whoever wrote that into the article was making some highly flawed assumptions. The cite note goes to a section of the Jet article listing contradictions, which really just boil down to Jet being available from vaults and Mrs Bishop claiming to have used it before Myron was born. The Fallout Bible contains a section on this, in which it's made pretty clear that Myron invented Jet and Mrs Bishop's dialogue was a mistake. They retcon it to being her memories getting messed up by constant drug use. As to the vaults, well, it's Bethesda.

[NeoVid]

Once you get over the shiny of the Prydwin, the only thing you have left for them to offer is to be xenophobic pricks who will kill anyone on even the mere *suspicion* of being a Synth, including their own. They turned what could have been a moving character development scene got cheapened out and not given the seriousness it deserves. The character doesn't grow in the least, and either commits suicide, or blames you for preventing it and goes off to sulk. In no case does the character actually develop in any meaningful way, the subject is not treated with dignity or respect, it's just a thing that happens because hey, let's just throw that in there.

In any other Fallout game, probably even 3, there would have been a quest line with options for overthrowing Maxson, and one of the choices for his replacement definitely would have been Paladin Danse, with major changes in the story depending on whether he'd been revealed as a Synth before or after the revolt. The fact that you can't hammer the factions in FO4 into the shape you want, including the two you are literally handed control of, was a huge disappointment to me. That seems like a set of possibilities that wouldn't have been wasted in the rest of the series.

Also, having a mission where we replace Elder Maxson with Elder Danse would have gotten us a quest named "Danse Revolution," which is a criminally missed opportunity.

[factotum]

In any other Fallout game, probably even 3, there would have been a quest line with options for overthrowing Maxson

Oh yes, and we would have got the opportunity to shoot Preston Garvey in the face and scream "NO MORE SETTLEMENT RESCUES!!!", too...

[PopeLinus1]

Oh yes, and we would have got the opportunity to shoot Preston Garvey in the face and scream "NO MORE SETTLEMENT RESCUES!!!", too...

*wistfully sighs, admires framed photo of New Vegas*

"When will they be home from the war?"

[veti]

*wistfully sighs, admires framed photo of New Vegas*

"When will they be home from the war?"

You want to play New Vegas, play New Vegas. It hasn't gone anywhere. I haven't played any other kind of Fallout since about a month after installing FO4, when I decided life is too short to bother with bad games (and deleted FO4, obviously, thus freeing up a monumental amount of disc space).

[Driderman]

Whoever wrote that into the article was making some highly flawed assumptions. The cite note goes to a section of the Jet article listing contradictions, which really just boil down to Jet being available from vaults and Mrs Bishop claiming to have used it before Myron was born. The Fallout Bible contains a section on this, in which it's made pretty clear that Myron invented Jet and Mrs Bishop's dialogue was a mistake. They retcon it to being her memories getting messed up by constant drug use. As to the vaults, well, it's Bethesda.

Damn you, you're obviously forcing me to replay Fallout 2 to get this cleared up

[PopeLinus1]

You want to play New Vegas, play New Vegas. It hasn't gone anywhere. I haven't played any other kind of Fallout since about a month after installing FO4, when I decided life is too short to bother with bad games (and deleted FO4, obviously, thus freeing up a monumental amount of disc space).

I know. I was using an advanced rhetorical strategy known as making a joke. I deleted Fallout 4 because it does not work on my computer, semi-unfortunately.

[MCerberus]

Set up my camp next to the bar all the newbies get directed to. Stocked my vendor with low level but fully modded useful weapons and ammo for free.

Got cleared out by a level 60+ twice. They even took the level 5 pipe guns.

[PopeLinus1]

Set up my camp next to the bar all the newbies get directed to. Stocked my vendor with low level but fully modded useful weapons and ammo for free.

Got cleared out by a level 60+ twice. They even took the level 5 pipe guns.

I am so torn between wanting more player interaction so that players can have stories involving other players, like 76 was supposed to, and wanting to just play it single-player because I don't want a bunch of ********s messing up my game.

[factotum]

Now they've actually put in NPCs and companions, you wonder why they just don't release a single-player version as "Fallout 76: Actually OK Edition"...

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Now they've actually put in NPCs and companions, you wonder why they just don't release a single-player version as "Fallout 76: Actually OK Edition"...

Other than false advertising? Because it won't run any better until the modding community gets hold of it and applies fan patches. Also because it won't cash in on the microtransactions. And lets players make mods which occasionally COMPETE with those selfsame microtransactions.

Bluntly: it's bad business sense.

[Brookshw]

Now they've actually put in NPCs and companions, you wonder why they just don't release a single-player version as "Fallout 76: Actually OK Edition"...

Because they're selling that as a monthly subscription plan....

[Rodin]

Because they're selling that as a monthly subscription plan....

If the Steam reviews are anything to go by, Fallout 1st is currently taking players' money and then refusing to be applied to their account.

Never thought I'd see Bethesda dropping to Ubisoft levels, but here we are.

[factotum]

Never thought I'd see Bethesda dropping to Ubisoft levels, but here we are.

You don't remember the furore about the "Horse Armor" DLC for Oblivion, that cost a ridiculous amount of money for a tiny bit of content? Bethesda have been trying it on for a while, but, like the proverbial frog in the slowly warming water, we didn't really notice.

[Driderman]

You don't remember the furore about the "Horse Armor" DLC for Oblivion, that cost a ridiculous amount of money for a tiny bit of content? Bethesda have been trying it on for a while, but, like the proverbial frog in the slowly warming water, we didn't really notice.

Arguably the last non-exploitative expansion content from Bethesda was the expansion for Morrowind. I suppose you could also argue for Fallout 3 though I honestly felt it was underwhelming and overpriced. People tell me Far Harbor for Fallout 4 is decent but I'm not about to throw money at something just because it makes their abuse of a beloved franchise of mine slightly just terrible.

[Brookshw]

If the Steam reviews are anything to go by, Fallout 1st is currently taking players' money and then refusing to be applied to their account.

Never thought I'd see Bethesda dropping to Ubisoft levels, but here we are.

Sounds like a systems error, if they're actually taking the money and refusing to deliver,....well,....that's gonna cost them big time.

[PopeLinus1]

Arguably the last non-exploitative expansion content from Bethesda was the expansion for Morrowind. I suppose you could also argue for Fallout 3 though I honestly felt it was underwhelming and overpriced. People tell me Far Harbor for Fallout 4 is decent but I'm not about to throw money at something just because it makes their abuse of a beloved franchise of mine slightly just terrible.

Far Harbor was pretty good. I also liked their Skyrim DLC, for what it's worth.

And while the content for 76 been a hot pile of garbage, I would say wastelanders is actually the greatest thing Bethesda has ever done with Fallout.

No seriously.

It's not better than their other content, arguably, it's not even all that good, but at the very least their trying? The past three Bethesda Fallout games have had a clear decline in the quality of writing, story, and everything else old Fallout was about. And I was resigned for that to be Fallout's fate, you know? Nice looking FPS's that make a million dollars and then maybe once in a blue moon they give Obsidian a turn on the xbox.

And that might still be the case. But for the first time in a long time, Bethesda hasn't done something worse.

[MCerberus]

76 Companion quest spoiler:

Spoiler

Show

So there's an astronaut companion you can rescue from a bunker and has been having bad headaches stemming from being hooked up as essentially a camera for a surveillance system called Athena. A loooooong way down you finally go to unplug ATHENA and the it immediately asks you to kill it, as it had hated what it was programmed to do to "test subjects" this whole time and it was the only way to guarantee a good life for the companion.

That one quest is better written than anything from the base game

[Caelestion]

You don't remember the furore about the "Horse Armor" DLC for Oblivion, that cost a ridiculous amount of money for a tiny bit of content? Bethesda have been trying it on for a while, but, like the proverbial frog in the slowly warming water, we didn't really notice.

The horse armour was, what, £2 or £3 in 2006? Yes, it was overpriced, but it certainly wasn't an ATOM-style ripoff.

[Balmas]

I've been playing the new Wastelanders update since Tuesday, and I think I've come to the same conclusion as some other people: Wastelanders is a good game, which unfortunately is hindered by being part of Fallout 76. The dialogue is interesting, creative, and harkens back to a time when writers understood that dark humor and absurdity were half the appeal of Fallout. You can talk to people, learn about why they want a thing, make jokes, have them actually react to what you say. You can take a quest from one faction, and then immediately backstab them and side with the other faction. It's a massive step in the right direction.

With that said, you're still playing Fallout 76. You won't be able to interact with most of the Wastelanders content until you've ground your way to level 20, which means chasing ghosts on holotapes until at least you've done the first 30-40% of the old main quest. And that's... well, it's not good. Bethesda has added new NPCs to main quest locations, but the gameplay of the old main quest has not significantly changed from listen to holotape, go to location, kill enemy/loot maguffin/load holotape into computer, new holotape.

I'm still optimistic about this update, though. It shows that somebody at Bethesda understands what made the old Fallout great, and gives me hope that Fallout 5 might be not entirely terrible.

[factotum]

It's a real shame Fallout 76 is multiplayer only, because, from what I've seen, it's doing a lot of things right. For a start, it's not set in a desert just because the first two games were--there's actual greenery around. It only being a couple of decades since the bombs fell also plays to Bethesda's worldbuilding strengths, because it's believable to find stuff left over from before. Of course, they still have to shoehorn super-mutants in despite them making no sense whatsoever in this location and time period, so they haven't entirely learned their lesson, but it's a definite improvement. However, even if the Wastelanders update made it better than New Vegas (which it doesn't) I wouldn't play it because of the whole multiplayer thing.

[Brookshw]

It's a real shame Fallout 76 is multiplayer only, because, from what I've seen, it's doing a lot of things right. For a start, it's not set in a desert just because the first two games were--there's actual greenery around. It only being a couple of decades since the bombs fell also plays to Bethesda's worldbuilding strengths, because it's believable to find stuff left over from before. Of course, they still have to shoehorn super-mutants in despite them making no sense whatsoever in this location and time period, so they haven't entirely learned their lesson, but it's a definite improvement. However, even if the Wastelanders update made it better than New Vegas (which it doesn't) I wouldn't play it because of the whole multiplayer thing.

Eh, you barely see any other players and usually it's just running past one another.

[Anteros]

Arguably the last non-exploitative expansion content from Bethesda was the expansion for Morrowind. I suppose you could also argue for Fallout 3 though I honestly felt it was underwhelming and overpriced. People tell me Far Harbor for Fallout 4 is decent but I'm not about to throw money at something just because it makes their abuse of a beloved franchise of mine slightly just terrible.

Skyrim? ESO? Those both had decent to good expansions. I can't remember the expansions for Oblivion well enough to comment on those.