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  1. - Top - End - #61
    Titan in the Playground
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    Default Re: Video games that were bad upon release but were then greatly improved?

    Quote Originally Posted by GloatingSwine View Post
    Imagine Skyrim but you never encounter a dragon, and the only evidence that dragons exist at all is one mildly singed guy standing outside Whiterun asking for health potions.
    I for one take the plight of our mildly singed citizens very seriously!
    Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
    When they shot him down on the highway,
    Down like a dog on the highway,
    And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.


    Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman, 1906.

  2. - Top - End - #62
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    Default Re: Video games that were bad upon release but were then greatly improved?

    Quote Originally Posted by GloatingSwine View Post
    Imagine Skyrim but you never encounter a dragon, and the only evidence that dragons exist at all is one mildly singed guy standing outside Whiterun asking for health potions.

    That’s Fallout 3.
    Not...really?

    I mean the fact that jack and **** grows in the Capital Wasteland is proof enough there's a problem. All of the settlements huddle near the rare sources of water; the only real exception is the Republic of Dave which is just a complete oddball place anyway.

    Honestly turning it back, Skyrim's "dragon problem" is a much bigger immersion breaker already. When the city guard can consistently repel dragon attacks, why is the Dragonborn needed, really? Yeah he can put down the dragons "for good" (supposedly...there seems to be an endless supply anyway), but it's not really borne out that dragons are any more dangerous than other monsters to NPCs. Hell, I've seen more townsfolk die to VAMPIRE attacks than dragon attacks.

  3. - Top - End - #63
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    Default Re: Video games that were bad upon release but were then greatly improved?

    Quote Originally Posted by Rynjin View Post
    Not...really?

    I mean the fact that jack and **** grows in the Capital Wasteland is proof enough there's a problem. All of the settlements huddle near the rare sources of water; the only real exception is the Republic of Dave which is just a complete oddball place anyway.
    And yet none of the societies actually have a visible problem with food or water. There's no visible effort to obtain either, and apart from, as noted, two people in the enture world nobody is noticably suffering from the lack of either.

    The central conflict is focused on solving a problem nobody actually has.

  4. - Top - End - #64
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    Default Re: Video games that were bad upon release but were then greatly improved?

    Quote Originally Posted by GloatingSwine View Post
    And yet none of the societies actually have a visible problem with food or water. There's no visible effort to obtain either, and apart from, as noted, two people in the enture world nobody is noticably suffering from the lack of either.

    The central conflict is focused on solving a problem nobody actually has.
    Isnt the problem that the water will stop, rather than that you need to find some? Of course you arent going to be seeing mass dehydration if the water hasnt actually gone away yet.
    “Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”

  5. - Top - End - #65
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    BlackDragon

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    Default Re: Video games that were bad upon release but were then greatly improved?

    Quote Originally Posted by Keltest View Post
    Isnt the problem that the water will stop, rather than that you need to find some? Of course you arent going to be seeing mass dehydration if the water hasnt actually gone away yet.
    Well, no, as far as we can tell. Nowhere outside the Capital Wasteland has any water issues, even in places like the Commonwealth many years later. Nowhere inside has any issues that we see apart from the random water beggars--heck, in Megaton they're so uncaring about wasting water that the guy whose entire job is maintaining the pipework waits for some gadabout to wander in from the wastes to do his job for him. And none of that changes that the best way to get water to the places you'd assume need it most (like Rivet City) is *not* to purify the Potomac, because it's nowhere near them! Surely your Dad could have just installed smaller versions of his giant water purifier in the main settlements around the place, which would be both cheaper and more effective?

  6. - Top - End - #66
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    Default Re: Video games that were bad upon release but were then greatly improved?

    Quote Originally Posted by Keltest View Post
    Isnt the problem that the water will stop, rather than that you need to find some? Of course you arent going to be seeing mass dehydration if the water hasnt actually gone away yet.
    No? They're on a big ass river.

    The problem is that the water is apparently "too dirty". But purified water is easy to make with a solar still. You can do it with a hole in the ground, a bucket, and a sheet of plastic.

    There's nothing in the game that ever suggests that the Potomac is going to dry up, and even if that were the case building a stupid magic-matter-rearranger purifier downriver of everyone wouldn't be any use anyway.

    Like even if water was a problem it's a problem that can be solved really easily with simple tools. The earliest known examples of distillation are from 1200BC. The capitol wasteland apparently isn't capable of replicating bronze age technology.

  7. - Top - End - #67
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    Default Re: Video games that were bad upon release but were then greatly improved?

    Quote Originally Posted by GloatingSwine View Post
    The problem is that the water is apparently "too dirty". But purified water is easy to make with a solar still. You can do it with a hole in the ground, a bucket, and a sheet of plastic.
    I'm not sure you can do that for radioactive water. Assuming it works, you would have radioactive filters to dispose off.
    Yes, I am slightly egomaniac. Why didn't you ask?

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  8. - Top - End - #68
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    Default Re: Video games that were bad upon release but were then greatly improved?

    Waitaminute, are we really arguing about the scientific plausibility of a plan involving... anything to do with the Fallout universe? Like we've all seen the Fallout games, right? The universe is completely and entirely ridiculous, a point aptly advertised by the literal two headed cows. Layer on that the inherent absurdities of every Bethesda game ever* (or really almost any RPG ever) and of course it makes no sense.


    *Or at least since Oblivion, the first one I've actually played.


    Also I feel a bizarre urge to destruct-test my opinion of Neverwinter Nights 2 again. Clearly lockdown is starting to addle what's left of my brain.
    Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
    When they shot him down on the highway,
    Down like a dog on the highway,
    And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.


    Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman, 1906.

  9. - Top - End - #69
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    Default Re: Video games that were bad upon release but were then greatly improved?

    Quote Originally Posted by Cazero View Post
    I'm not sure you can do that for radioactive water. Assuming it works, you would have radioactive filters to dispose off.
    Society-supporting water has to produce and refine a bit more.

    Like, it's just that Bethesda always picks up an "invisible enemy" in its Fallout games. Lack of water, infiltrator Synths, and a plague.

    Compare to ****ing Dragons man.

    That's why I think there should have been a better central villain in the Commonwealth. Something like the Gunners, acting as the Uber-Raiders. The equivalent of the Mafia with local street gang.

  10. - Top - End - #70
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    Default Re: Video games that were bad upon release but were then greatly improved?

    Quote Originally Posted by Cazero View Post
    I'm not sure you can do that for radioactive water. Assuming it works, you would have radioactive filters to dispose off.
    It's amazingly hard for water itself to be radioactive. (The longest lived radioisotope of oxygen has a half life of 122 seconds, and of the hydrogen isotopes only Tritium is radioactive and that only has a 12 year half life and is super rare and not produced by atomic explosions.)

    It can contain things which are radioactive, and you can distil those out.

  11. - Top - End - #71
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    Default Re: Video games that were bad upon release but were then greatly improved?

    Yeah, that was my assumption. They are filtering out radioactive dust.
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  12. - Top - End - #72
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    Default Re: Video games that were bad upon release but were then greatly improved?

    Quote Originally Posted by Eldan View Post
    Yeah, that was my assumption. They are filtering out radioactive dust.
    And let's be honest, if you want to purify a region like the capital wasteland, you need to basically do a mass filter of its entire aquifer. Pretty serious engineering job.

  13. - Top - End - #73
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    Default Re: Video games that were bad upon release but were then greatly improved?

    The water issue could very well be that the current settlements can get by but the amount of water they're producing isn't enough to sustain population growth. It also may be that simply purifying the water is taking enough time that they have less time to devote people to other projects thereby reducing population and technological growth again. Purifying the river makes it easy on everyone and can be a place for settlements to move to and congregate making it easier for mutual self defense against raiders. I mean there's plenty of reasons I can think of why purifying a major water source is a good idea for future growth. Honestly the only problem I had with the ending when i first played it was I couldn't tell my super mutant buddy to go into the chamber instead of me to fiddle with the buttons.

  14. - Top - End - #74
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    ElfPirate

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    Default Re: Video games that were bad upon release but were then greatly improved?

    Quote Originally Posted by Inarius View Post
    The water issue could very well be that the current settlements can get by but the amount of water they're producing isn't enough to sustain population growth. It also may be that simply purifying the water is taking enough time that they have less time to devote people to other projects thereby reducing population and technological growth again. Purifying the river makes it easy on everyone and can be a place for settlements to move to and congregate making it easier for mutual self defense against raiders. I mean there's plenty of reasons I can think of why purifying a major water source is a good idea for future growth. Honestly the only problem I had with the ending when i first played it was I couldn't tell my super mutant buddy to go into the chamber instead of me to fiddle with the buttons.
    It still just doesn't hold up. Water evaporates. Any new addition will first run through radioactive areas. There is no scenario where it makes sense to make a one time shot lake of pure water and think "gee now all our problems are solved".

    The problem is not that clean water and lots of it isn't a good idea. It's that they picked likely the worst iteration of how to do it. There's no sense in it when you start thinking about it. And then they just put a cherry on the bad idea cake where you can't even solve it like obviously with a supermutant.

  15. - Top - End - #75
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    Default Re: Video games that were bad upon release but were then greatly improved?

    Quote Originally Posted by Inarius View Post
    The water issue could very well be that the current settlements can get by but the amount of water they're producing isn't enough to sustain population growth. It also may be that simply purifying the water is taking enough time that they have less time to devote people to other projects thereby reducing population and technological growth again.
    On the other hand, the Capitol Wasteland supports Tenpenny Tower. A gated community of the wealthy pursuing lives of idleness.

    So they can't be that badly off on the whole.

  16. - Top - End - #76
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    Default Re: Video games that were bad upon release but were then greatly improved?

    Quote Originally Posted by GloatingSwine View Post
    On the other hand, the Capitol Wasteland supports Tenpenny Tower. A gated community of the wealthy pursuing lives of idleness.

    So they can't be that badly off on the whole.
    Let's not bring the most baseless and illogical world building element of Fallout 3 please.

    It doesn't make sense to have a place for "rich people" unless you have some underlying society and economy that support their concept of wealth.

    Without such underlying economy, the only real way to be "rich" is to be a land owner. But that means having serf exploit the land for you, and even then it doesn't make sense.

    I hate Tenpenny. Hate it hate it hate it. It's so stupid.

  17. - Top - End - #77
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    Default Re: Video games that were bad upon release but were then greatly improved?

    Quote Originally Posted by warty goblin View Post
    Also I feel a bizarre urge to destruct-test my opinion of Neverwinter Nights 2 again. Clearly lockdown is starting to addle what's left of my brain.
    Just remember to set your spell-casting companions to 'Scaled Casting', and to never, ever let Qara learn 'Wall of Fire'. You should be fine.
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  18. - Top - End - #78
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    Default Re: Video games that were bad upon release but were then greatly improved?

    Quote Originally Posted by Cikomyr2 View Post
    Let's not bring the most baseless and illogical world building element of Fallout 3 please.

    It doesn't make sense to have a place for "rich people" unless you have some underlying society and economy that support their concept of wealth.

    Without such underlying economy, the only real way to be "rich" is to be a land owner. But that means having serf exploit the land for you, and even then it doesn't make sense.

    I hate Tenpenny. Hate it hate it hate it. It's so stupid.
    Is that the most baseless and illogical piece of Fallout 3’s world building though? Or is it the whole town of slavers with nobody to sell to (prior to the DLC at least) who don’t have their slaves doing any work?

    Or the town of children that has maintained a stable population for a hundred years despite having, at most, 4-6 years of fertility on its female population.

    Or the fact that there are approximately 16 raiders for every other human in the wasteland?

    (Fallout 4 is no better. The Institute keep building ever more advanced synths despite having nothing for them to do and infiltrating the surface despite the surface having nothing they want or need, the Gunners are mercenaries who shoot anyone else on sight so how the hell do they get hired, likewise the robot racetrack and fight club shoot potential customers on sight.)

  19. - Top - End - #79
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    Default Re: Video games that were bad upon release but were then greatly improved?

    Quote Originally Posted by GloatingSwine View Post
    Or the town of children that has maintained a stable population for a hundred years despite having, at most, 4-6 years of fertility on its female population.
    Smalltown makes the water situation and Tenpennytower look positively logical in comparison yes. Even as I played through it I kept wondering how it all held up and going "wait, then... eeeewwww".
    Even the whole water quest and Tenpennytowerr you can paper over in the heat of the moment.

    One of F3's major problems is as I understand it that game was written as if it was taking place decades after the fallout, but then everything got 200 years tacked onto the timeline just because.
    Last edited by snowblizz; 2021-02-22 at 04:58 AM.

  20. - Top - End - #80
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    Default Re: Video games that were bad upon release but were then greatly improved?

    Seems like Miyamoto was right all along: A delayed game will eventually be good, but a rushed game will be bad forever.

    Patches can fix bugs, but they can't fix bad design. (Well, they could, but it basically never happens.)
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  21. - Top - End - #81
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    Default Re: Video games that were bad upon release but were then greatly improved?

    Quote Originally Posted by snowblizz View Post
    One of F3's major problems is as I understand it that game was written as if it was taking place decades after the fallout, but then everything got 200 years tacked onto the timeline just because.
    They just wanted it to be set *after* the original two games, I think...I never quite understood why, because for all its flaws, Fallout 76 shows they can set something much closer to the Great War.

  22. - Top - End - #82
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    Default Re: Video games that were bad upon release but were then greatly improved?

    Quote Originally Posted by factotum View Post
    They just wanted it to be set *after* the original two games, I think...I never quite understood why, because for all its flaws, Fallout 76 shows they can set something much closer to the Great War.
    No, they just didn't look at the first two games as anything but a set of exploitable iconography they could paste onto one of their standard open world experiences.

    That's why they included all the iconic elements of Fallout like Supermutants, the Brotherhood of Steel, the Enclave, and Deathclaws despite there being absolutely no reason for them being present and very good narrative reasons for most of them not being.

    They had no narrative intent to relate their Fallout games to the originals, nor any respect for the narrative or themes of the originals. It's just IP for them to farm your wallet with. (Especially with FO76).

  23. - Top - End - #83
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    Default Re: Video games that were bad upon release but were then greatly improved?

    Quote Originally Posted by GloatingSwine View Post
    Or the town of children that has maintained a stable population for a hundred years despite having, at most, 4-6 years of fertility on its female population.
    My assumption is that Smalltown acts as a childcare/school/orphanage for the whole wasteland. There are hundreds of raiders, including a great many women of childbearing age, but you never encounter any children among them.
    "None of us likes to be hated, none of us likes to be shunned. A natural result of these conditions is, that we consciously or unconsciously pay more attention to tuning our opinions to our neighbor’s pitch and preserving his approval than we do to examining the opinions searchingly and seeing to it that they are right and sound." - Mark Twain

  24. - Top - End - #84
    Eldritch Horror in the Playground Moderator
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    Default Re: Video games that were bad upon release but were then greatly improved?

    I find it somehow weirdly appropriate to Fallout's aesthetic for the entire Wasteland's concept of childcare to be Lord of the Flies with slightly less decapitations.

  25. - Top - End - #85
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    Default Re: Video games that were bad upon release but were then greatly improved?

    Quote Originally Posted by The Glyphstone View Post
    I find it somehow weirdly appropriate to Fallout's aesthetic for the entire Wasteland's concept of childcare to be Lord of the Flies with slightly less decapitations.
    I mean.. Some sort of self providing creche. Yhea, sure makes as much sense as many other things in this world

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