Fallout VIII: Another Thread Needs Your Help General

[The_Jackal]

It isn't that the shooting mechanics are better in FO4 that causes people to conflate it with CoD. It is that it both has better shooting mechanics AND it has removed all but the most vestigial of RPG elements from the game, trivializing your ability to affect and influence by reducing your speech options to 'yes', 'sarcastic yes', 'greedy yes' (with RNG dice roll to see if you suceed), or 'not right now'. That's it. You have four ways to respond to an NPC, and three of them are just different ways of saying the same thing while the last is basically a neutral response. Your responses do not, in any way, reflect your character's experiences, knowledge, skillset, or any other factor (other than the Silver Shroud questline in which you have a different set of 'yes', 'greedy yes', 'scarcastic yes' without a 'not right now' option, in which they got the character to actually have emotion).

Yes, this has been covered. But, on the other hand, I never found any other CRPG's 'choices' to really be momentous or interesting. If you're lucky, you'll get a 'choose your ending' decision at some point, but the rest of the 'options' have little or nothing to do with how the story turns out. Low int? You can choose a 'low int' response'. The situations where the dialogue options offered to you make any difference in the track you traverse to complete the game. Rather, they just provoke an NPC response at the end of whatever subplot or story you're dealing with.

There is zero actual roleplaying in the game beyond what any FPS has. Hell, it has LESS. There is more conversational depth in Titanfall 2, with your own mech, than there is with the vast majority of all NPC's you ever interact with in FO4. THAT is the problem.

Does Titanfall even have dialogue options? I never bought Titanfall 2, heck, I never installed Titanfall 1, once I learned it came with that Origin cancer.

I don't mind a better shooting mechanic, I mind that they took away what made Fallout great. It was never about great combat mechanics, it was never about shiny graphics.

Perhaps, but does every iteration of a game need to be a remake of that game, forever? When Blizzard released World of Warcraft, it wasn't Warcraft anymore. Well, Fallout 4 was less of an RPG, but a much, much better sandbox, and had much better gameplay, IMO. Did some things suffer for the change in focus? Sure. But I don't think it's necessarily true that trend must continue forever. You have to admit, Far Harbor was pretty solid, and there were some very fun subplots in Fallout 4. I thought the companions and NPCs were well done, even the ones I disliked.

Even FO3 was not spectacular graphics for its day. What it had was a world to explore, with tons of NPCs, larded heavily with over-the-top campy acting and chewing of the set left and right. It didn't take itself seriously. Sure, it didn't make sense at points. Why go into a heavily irradiated bunker when I have a companion who is not only immune to the effects of radiation, but actually *HEALS* from it AND is contractually obligated to do what I say, down to a brainwashed level (Charon)? Fine. You can pick it apart all you want, and there's plenty to pick. But in the end, it wasn't the plot that made Fallout such a great game (although campy b-rated plot was pretty amusing, especially if you keep in mind the MST3K mantra), it was the environment and how over-the-top your interaction with it could be.

There's plenty of silly in FO4. The Silver Shroud, the Constitution, Strong... it's out there. It's maybe more thin on the ground than you'd find in a game with lower production values, but developers don't have infinite budget, and decisions get made about what priorities are. If you really do care more about the dialogue than the shooting, graphics, sandbox quality, and all the other features of the game, yeah, you're probably going to never be happy with Fallout and its sequels from now on. Me, I'm pretty pleased, but then I also liked a few Call of Duty titles too.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Yes, this has been covered. But, on the other hand, I never found any other CRPG's 'choices' to really be momentous or interesting. If you're lucky, you'll get a 'choose your ending' decision at some point, but the rest of the 'options' have little or nothing to do with how the story turns out. Low int? You can choose a 'low int' response'. The situations where the dialogue options offered to you make any difference in the track you traverse to complete the game. Rather, they just provoke an NPC response at the end of whatever subplot or story you're dealing with.

I would most strongly disagree. Heck, Fallout: New Vegas. You can have six or seven dialogue options in some cases, depending on what skills/perks you have, and each one has a different way of resolving a situation.

Does Titanfall even have dialogue options? I never bought Titanfall 2, heck, I never installed Titanfall 1, once I learned it came with that Origin cancer.

I don't blame you, I'm not a fan of Origin either. But in watching Let's Plays, yes there is. At several points, your mech will talk, and you will have an option to respond. This is a timed option, so having only three or so options makes sense, you're talking about needing to hit a button within a couple of seconds, more options would be detrimental in that instance, unlike in Fallout in which you have all the time in the world to develop things. And your different dialogue options will actually affect your mech's dialogue going forward. It may not ultimately change the plot, but the game at least acknowledges that you MADE a dialogue choice, which is better than FO4 can say.

Perhaps, but does every iteration of a game need to be a remake of that game, forever? When Blizzard released World of Warcraft, it wasn't Warcraft anymore. Well, Fallout 4 was less of an RPG, but a much, much better sandbox, and had much better gameplay, IMO. Did some things suffer for the change in focus? Sure. But I don't think it's necessarily true that trend must continue forever. You have to admit, Far Harbor was pretty solid, and there were some very fun subplots in Fallout 4. I thought the companions and NPCs were well done, even the ones I disliked.

False conflation. I'm not asking for a remake, I'm asking for the same level of competence when it comes to writing. The only subplot I'd consider 'fun' was the Silver Shroud. Okay, Strong got a couple of chuckles out of me too. That's... pretty much it. Granted, Fah Habah was an improvement over The Pitt, but that's not a particularly high bar to pass. It almost rose to the level of 'not incompetently written' and at least made an attempt at chewing the scenery, even if it kind of fell flat.

And I would MOST strongly disagree that it is a 'better sandbox'. It is infinitely WORSE as a sandbox because of the railroad you are stuck on with regards to the main plot. I suppose it depends on what you mean by 'sandbox quality', because in my opinion (and again, MY opinion, not trying to claim it is some kind of objective fact here), a sandbox means doing what you want to do. In FO4... you really can't. You are limited by the constraints of the abysmal narrative. You can't even give someone a solid 'piss off before I shoot you' response. You're apparently the most mild-mannered milquetoast murderhobo ever to get a four digit plus body count. The only impact faction choice makes is who gets blown up at the end, and even that is barely a token handwave. This is, on several orders of magnitude, more linear than any previous Fallout offering. Hell, in F:NV, you can head straight from Goodsprings to New Vegas, assuming you can handle the Cazadores in the valley along the way, and dodge the fire geckos and fiends. FO4 requires a specific route, and either won't let you enter areas or just flat out will not spawn items in that are required to progress until plot-related things are done IN ORDER. This is the illusion of a sandbox covering a heavily railroaded, almost linear plot. Ultimately, your choices have minimal impact on how the game plays out, the game never acknowledges your choices except one, it's just another ride in Disneyland.

There's plenty of silly in FO4. The Silver Shroud, the Constitution, Strong... it's out there. It's maybe more thin on the ground than you'd find in a game with lower production values, but developers don't have infinite budget, and decisions get made about what priorities are. If you really do care more about the dialogue than the shooting, graphics, sandbox quality, and all the other features of the game, yeah, you're probably going to never be happy with Fallout and its sequels from now on. Me, I'm pretty pleased, but then I also liked a few Call of Duty titles too.

I give no cares about graphics. Hell, I'd take Morrowind level graphics if it means getting a writing team who isn't a simplistic bot churning out generic and reused phrases. You can take voice acting and stick it right up after the graphics if it meant they didn't have to reuse stock phrases over and over and over again because they couldn't afford the voice actor time.

If you want better gunplay, fine. I get that. And it's probably the only thing that FO4 does better than the other Fallout offerings, so give credit where it is due. But that's the *ONLY* place where FO4 has a definitive edge over previous offerings. The rest is complete and utter garbage. The writers should be drug out into the street and shot... or worse, forced to watch what they've made.

[Avilan the Grey]

Can someone please explain why 4 written responses are "role-playing" while 4 voiced choices isn't?

Also, I think I'm going to name my new Not!Nora Debra McDonald.

[GloatingSwine]

Can someone please explain why 4 written responses are "role-playing" while 4 voiced choices isn't?

Also, I think I'm going to name my new Not!Nora Debra McDonald.

Having voiced dialogue doesn't preclude roleplaying. (See: Witcher 3, the number of permutations in the Bloody Baron quest alone are amazing, all down to how you roleplay Geralt)

It just requires far far more effort than Bethesda "Yes/No/Sarcastic" are willing to spend.


Additionally, New Vegas had options which require certain skills other than speech in order to work. That means, crucially, that two different characters who make different choices on level up will have different options in the dialogue.

That's what roleplaying really means. Having different options depending on choices you made. Crucially it also means there are things different characters can't do, so there are consequences to your choices as well.

Bethesda are ****ing terrified of players "missing something", so they make everything as anodyne and identikit as possible so nobody feels sad that they didn't pick Explosives and so can't persuade the grouchy prospector to give them dynamite.

[Triaxx]

I am absolutely stunned at your comparison of Fah Hahbah to the Pitt. I put it on par with Honest Hearts for here are choices while none will make everyone happy, none are Snidely Whiplash evil.

[Brookshw]

@Brookshw: What's your character's gun skill? Vanilla Fallout New Vegas? Gun Condition? Weapon for that matter. You're waving the flag of the shooting being awful, but there's more than one thing that has an effect on it.

Agreed, there are many things that are part of the spread calculation and the specifics of an example aren't relevant as you will find the mechanic still in effect across the board, albeit with more or less noticeable affect. Incidentally, Gun Condition is not a factor in determining spread.

When you mention:

You're waving the flag of the shooting being awful

this isn't accurate. My position is that F4 had improved shooting. That a thing is better doesn't mean that 2nd place is automatically awful. I assume you like more than one type of ice cream, but ultimately have one favorite. Does that mean your second favorite is by default awful? Much like the jump to CoD, there is a broad spectrum that exists between the extremes that seems to have been overlooked.

I'll see your article and counter with this one: Men against Fire The short version is it's talking about an inherent human desire to neither kill or be killed and thus to fire over the heads of enemy soldiers. Something else skill can be representing is overcoming this tendency.

Interesting but it doesn't support your point as well as you think. Notably from the article, various factors went into deciding whether or not to fire, including tactical considerations (which in Fallout, means deciding whether you want to initiate hostilities or if a companion is in the way), how isolated or exposed to danger you were (which in Fallout you're relatively isolated with maybe a companion for backup and you're definitely in the fire line, that article would indicate you'd have a much higher likelihood of firing), personal experience with danger (in NV your a courier who regularly travels a highly hostile land and has been shot in the head, which should improve the likelihood of wanting to shoot the enemy), a support role (which....no, we're not in charge of lugging the ammo around for Boone and are too busy with that to shoot) and so on.

Not the least, that some inherent desire not to kill wouldn't explain either 1) that the same spread mechanic is in effect against hostile animals, or 2) why captain 500+ kills with no human compassion should suffer the same spread chance that effects captain pacifist.

Anyway, what is there that we're still trying to say to one another? I think I cleared up the mechanic which apparently you weren't aware of, or at least weren't aware of how it worked, and we both should be now understand where we differ on preferences and where we share concerns about the direction F4 took.

Some people STILL hates Fallout 2 because it ruined the series.

Huh. Don't think I've heard that one before.

Switching gears, I got to thinking about vaults recently and had two things I wanted to throw out.
1) Did Vault 34 change an approach in Fallout where it tends to try and stay away from real world debates? Fallout tends not to delve into religion as a source of conflict (though it certainly does use other ideologies), or sex, or other things that are particularly hot button topics (largely at least). Here in the US, gun ownership is definitely a hot button topic (doubly so around elections and mass shootings). In Vault 34, we find out about a large struggle that developed in large part about the vault dwellers views on gun ownership and access. Was this a break from the norm and dived into a real world divisive issues?

2) How do vaults actually open from the outside? Fallout 4 gave us a nice example of plugging in our PIP boy, but I can't recall if that was consistent with all of the games. Thinking back through the different vaults I can't seem to recall there actually being some locking mechanism that prevents an outsider from opening the vault, but that might be failing memory. Unless someone on the inside actively was preventing you from opening it (or guarding it I suppose), I think we could freely open any door. Is that correct? I started thinking about this in relation to the opening video in F2, in which the Enclave is sitting calmly outside of a vault, waiting for the people to come out, then guns them down. Why were they waiting? Easier to get the people all together to gun them down? Didn't want to risk damaging anything inside? Were they being prevented from entering - and if so why would that make sense if the vault dwellers walked out waving hello? I haven't played F1 or F2 in probably over a decade at this point, so maybe someone who has more recently better recalls how opening vaults worked, or if any were locked originally and had to be opened through some means.

[Triaxx]

Most vaults relied on being remote and hidden to remain safe. Prior to 4 locking mechanism's were human operated. I always figured the Enclave sent one guy up to talk and tell them it was safe to leave and then waited.

I didn't say I thought it was awful. I liked it far better than F4's shooting. You 're the one telling me it's awful.

[Balmas]

Switching gears, I got to thinking about vaults recently and had two things I wanted to throw out.
1) Did Vault 34 change an approach in Fallout where it tends to try and stay away from real world debates? Fallout tends not to delve into religion as a source of conflict (though it certainly does use other ideologies), or sex, or other things that are particularly hot button topics (largely at least). Here in the US, gun ownership is definitely a hot button topic (doubly so around elections and mass shootings). In Vault 34, we find out about a large struggle that developed in large part about the vault dwellers views on gun ownership and access. Was this a break from the norm and dived into a real world divisive issues?

Hmm. I'd never thought of Vault 34 as being commentary on gun control. To be honest, it's always struck me as being just another vault experiment, on the same lines as the others. It's not about "do we, as an American society, need gun control," but about "What happens if we have a vault with all the guns in the world?"

This is especially so when you consider that hte remnants of that vault can be found in the world. The Boomers have always struck me as... well, as somewhat goofy. You help them fix their solar arrays and clear out ants from their weapons stockpile. You listen to a kid tell you a heavily skewed version of their history, Then, you help them raise a bomber. It almost feels like you're not meant to take them seriously.

2) How do vaults actually open from the outside? Fallout 4 gave us a nice example of plugging in our PIP boy, but I can't recall if that was consistent with all of the games. Thinking back through the different vaults I can't seem to recall there actually being some locking mechanism that prevents an outsider from opening the vault, but that might be failing memory. Unless someone on the inside actively was preventing you from opening it (or guarding it I suppose), I think we could freely open any door. Is that correct? I started thinking about this in relation to the opening video in F2, in which the Enclave is sitting calmly outside of a vault, waiting for the people to come out, then guns them down. Why were they waiting? Easier to get the people all together to gun them down? Didn't want to risk damaging anything inside? Were they being prevented from entering - and if so why would that make sense if the vault dwellers walked out waving hello? I haven't played F1 or F2 in probably over a decade at this point, so maybe someone who has more recently better recalls how opening vaults worked, or if any were locked originally and had to be opened through some means.

I'm pretty sure that there's always been a terminal right outside the door. I'd posit that this is the way you'd open it from the outside, either using a pipboy or some kind of password. This is borne out by Vault 3, where you get inside the vault not by interacting with the door, but with the adjacent terminal. Then in Fallout 3, when you return to the vault, you're able to open the door to Vault 101 by entering the password, "Amata," at the same style of terminal.

I'm pretty sure that all the other vaults in the series are open when you get to them, but the principle is pretty sound, I think.

As for the Enclave being ready to "welcome" the population of Vault 13, I'm confident that was the result of the Enclave being heavily involved in the Great Experiment. Either they told Vault 13 to open their doors, or they just knew when Vault 13 was supposed to open.

[Brookshw]

I didn't say I thought it was awful. I liked it far better than F4's shooting. You 're the one telling me it's awful.

That quote was your own words, directed at me.

@Balmas, mentioning the Great Experiment reminds me of the Great Game we learned about in Point Lookout, I wonder if they'll revisit it.

[DigoDragon]

Spoiler: Visual representation of me revisiting this thread

Show

Well you took too long to bring us pizza!

This is especially so when you consider that hte remnants of that vault can be found in the world. The Boomers have always struck me as... well, as somewhat goofy. You help them fix their solar arrays and clear out ants from their weapons stockpile. You listen to a kid tell you a heavily skewed version of their history, Then, you help them raise a bomber. It almost feels like you're not meant to take them seriously.

Why, cause they can shell an intruder from two miles out, but can't find a single can of Raid?

[The_Jackal]

I would most strongly disagree. Heck, Fallout: New Vegas. You can have six or seven dialogue options in some cases, depending on what skills/perks you have, and each one has a different way of resolving a situation.

None of those choices are going to change the content that's presented to you. The map doesn't change, the zones you visit don't change, the factions don't change. Nothing changes, because, by definition, it all has to be prepared ahead of time. You get a choice of which faction goes hostile? Yeah, Fallout 4 has that. You get the alter the ending of some story missions? Yeah, Fallout 4 has that. The real difference is that New Vegas has lower production values, so it's far less time-consuming and expensive to produce alternate dialogue.

I don't blame you, I'm not a fan of Origin either. But in watching Let's Plays, yes there is. At several points, your mech will talk, and you will have an option to respond. This is a timed option, so having only three or so options makes sense, you're talking about needing to hit a button within a couple of seconds, more options would be detrimental in that instance, unlike in Fallout in which you have all the time in the world to develop things. And your different dialogue options will actually affect your mech's dialogue going forward. It may not ultimately change the plot, but the game at least acknowledges that you MADE a dialogue choice, which is better than FO4 can say.

What's the force and effect of the choice you make? Because without an real in-game impact on the story or the content you're playing, this is just a contrived quick-time event. It's like the end of Modern Warfare 2 where you're prompted to push the knife into the face of what's-his-douche, General Chainsmoker.

False conflation. I'm not asking for a remake, I'm asking for the same level of competence when it comes to writing. The only subplot I'd consider 'fun' was the Silver Shroud. Okay, Strong got a couple of chuckles out of me too. That's... pretty much it. Granted, Fah Habah was an improvement over The Pitt, but that's not a particularly high bar to pass. It almost rose to the level of 'not incompetently written' and at least made an attempt at chewing the scenery, even if it kind of fell flat.

No, what you're asking for, while you won't acknowledge it, is a set of design and production decisions that have trade-offs. Everything costs money. You want more complex writing, with more consequences, and better dialogue? Well, that has some trade-offs: Less time for world building, lower production values, fewer quest lines, or a higher price.

And I would MOST strongly disagree that it is a 'better sandbox'. It is infinitely WORSE as a sandbox because of the railroad you are stuck on with regards to the main plot. I suppose it depends on what you mean by 'sandbox quality', because in my opinion (and again, MY opinion, not trying to claim it is some kind of objective fact here), a sandbox means doing what you want to do. In FO4... you really can't. You are limited by the constraints of the abysmal narrative. You can't even give someone a solid 'piss off before I shoot you' response. You're apparently the most mild-mannered milquetoast murderhobo ever to get a four digit plus body count. The only impact faction choice makes is who gets blown up at the end, and even that is barely a token handwave. This is, on several orders of magnitude, more linear than any previous Fallout offering. Hell, in F:NV, you can head straight from Goodsprings to New Vegas, assuming you can handle the Cazadores in the valley along the way, and dodge the fire geckos and fiends. FO4 requires a specific route, and either won't let you enter areas or just flat out will not spawn items in that are required to progress until plot-related things are done IN ORDER. This is the illusion of a sandbox covering a heavily railroaded, almost linear plot. Ultimately, your choices have minimal impact on how the game plays out, the game never acknowledges your choices except one, it's just another ride in Disneyland.

You're absolutely not stuck on the railroad. You can hoof it straight out of the Vault, walk right past Codsworth, bypass the Minutemen, and be off into the wilderness. But then, I don't know why you'd get tilted over 3 introductory quests to get you pointed in the right direction. How I'll agree that the Lifetime movie-of-the-week macguffin was not ideal, but who cares? There's still plenty of content, quests, NPCs, progression, etc., out in the game, I'm not going to let one melodramatic premise ruin my fun.

I give no cares about graphics. Hell, I'd take Morrowind level graphics if it means getting a writing team who isn't a simplistic bot churning out generic and reused phrases. You can take voice acting and stick it right up after the graphics if it meant they didn't have to reuse stock phrases over and over and over again because they couldn't afford the voice actor time.

Then, seriously, Obsidian. Stop wasting your time. I don't go tilting on the League of Legends or Heroes of the Storm threads just because they're retarded, bastardized RTS games with all the complexity peeled off so they'll appeal to console plebs. I don't jump into the Final Fantasy threads or the platformer threads just because they have design choices I don't agree with. There's a difference between being a bad game, and being a game you don't like. Fallout 4 is a game you don't like. Great, okay. That's your opinion, and it's sheer folly to try to change it for you. But it's a great game, by any test that matters.

If you want better gunplay, fine. I get that. And it's probably the only thing that FO4 does better than the other Fallout offerings, so give credit where it is due. But that's the *ONLY* place where FO4 has a definitive edge over previous offerings. The rest is complete and utter garbage. The writers should be drug out into the street and shot... or worse, forced to watch what they've made.

Again, this is just hyperbole. There's plenty of crummy writing in all types of titles. Heck, the highly celebrated Shadow of Mordor had writing (and voice-acting) that was just crinche-worthy. And you might want to go back and re-check some of that Morrowind content, because my suspicion is that nostalgia-goggles might have taken hold of you. I remember it being full of some really dumb, contrived BS. Sure, there were cool things in it too, but again, you could say that of Fallout 4.

[Avilan the Grey]

Anyway, I am really excited about this playthrough.
I really like the way she turned out (I also realized afterwards that she kinda looks like the girl in the Automatron poster. Not on purpose). Basically the first thing I will build is a robot workbench (using a mod) and then prioritize Codsworth (slowly upgrading) when I am not explicitly trying to help a companion or get their perk.

Spoiler

Show

[Triaxx]

Maybe use the Everyone's best friend and the cyberdog reskin for Rex? So you've always got a robot buddy?

[The_Jackal]

Anyway, I am really excited about this playthrough.
I really like the way she turned out (I also realized afterwards that she kinda looks like the girl in the Automatron poster. Not on purpose). Basically the first thing I will build is a robot workbench (using a mod) and then prioritize Codsworth (slowly upgrading) when I am not explicitly trying to help a companion or get their perk.

Spoiler

Show

She reminds me of Imperator Furiosa, for some reason.

As for Codsworth, I find myself defaulting to Dogmeat and Lone Wanderer, when I'm not perk-chasing. I find there isn't a companion in the game that can match 25% of my own damage, between dumb as paint AI and lack of scaling from weapons.

I was doing a sneaky gunslinger build in survival, I need to get back to that, but I'm kind of running into the upper limits of the feasibility of the Deliverer. I can work around it with liberal use of explosives, I suppose, but that works best indoors. Outside, it's anyone's guess if that Deathclaw is going to step on my mine trap.

[Avilan the Grey]

She reminds me of Imperator Furiosa, for some reason.

As for Codsworth, I find myself defaulting to Dogmeat and Lone Wanderer, when I'm not perk-chasing. I find there isn't a companion in the game that can match 25% of my own damage, between dumb as paint AI and lack of scaling from weapons.

I was doing a sneaky gunslinger build in survival, I need to get back to that, but I'm kind of running into the upper limits of the feasibility of the Deliverer. I can work around it with liberal use of explosives, I suppose, but that works best indoors. Outside, it's anyone's guess if that Deathclaw is going to step on my mine trap.

Well she has a large forehead. But she's smart... Also, can anyone tell I like freckles?
I don't do survival because it's just too annoying.

Dogmeat, since he counts as a full companion, is my second least favorite after whatshisname... Strong. I have played through the game twice, and the second time I did use him because I wanted his perk. With this build, just like my sniper build I started with, I will recruit him for XP then put him on Provisioner duty so I don't have to deal with him.

[Rynjin]

Your screenshot of the charop screen reminds me that Fallout 4 set its foot wrong with me from the word go: I can't dye my hair funny colors in 4 like the previous Bethesda published games.

[Spore]

As for Codsworth, I find myself defaulting to Dogmeat and Lone Wanderer, when I'm not perk-chasing. I find there isn't a companion in the game that can match 25% of my own damage, between dumb as paint AI and lack of scaling from weapons.

I agree. Though wandering alone does become a bit dull after a time. Do robot allies count as companions?

[Avilan the Grey]

I agree. Though wandering alone does become a bit dull after a time. Do robot allies count as companions?

Yes.
But I'm sure there's a mod for that.

[Triaxx]

I have Robot Home Defense plus an adapter mod which escapes me off the top of my head which allows me to take Automatron bots in addition to my companions. The downside is they function like the RHD bots in that death is permanent for them unlike bots in the companion slots which can be resurrected.

[Spore]

Yes.
But I'm sure there's a mod for that.

There's hardly a need for that on normal difficulty settings. I'll go ahead and say it. With a non-stealth character, the companion is the immortal distraction anyway.

In other questions. You do not have the means of long distance communication (except when you have radios EVERYWHERE). So how is the rest of the world outside of the US faring with nuclear devastation? (Sorry if this has been asked before. I feel it has, and several dozen times).

[factotum]

So how is the rest of the world outside of the US faring with nuclear devastation?

Canonically, the rest of the world went halfway to heck long before the bombs dropped--the European and Middle Eastern confederations used up all their remaining oil during the Resource Wars and were essentially reduced to barbarism in 2060, 17 years before the bombs. China and the US were the only countries left with any resources to speak of by 2077, AFAIK, at least partially because the US had developed workable fusion technology to reduce their dependence on oil.

I believe one of the games J. Sawyer would really like to make would be set during the UK's invasion of the middle east, but I guess that would be a Tactics-style game rather than an RPG.

[Avilan the Grey]

There are a few mysteries that are canon but not explained.

For example there is a ferry line between (somewhere on the eastcoast of the US) and Ireland. Since Fallout is heavy on the nostalgia I assume it's the White Star ferry line (not the actual company, but the route). Both Colin, Tenpenny and Caith all actually emigrated; they are not randomly having Irish / British accents for the fun of it.

That tells us two things for sure:

• Things in England and Ireland are bad enough that people go to the US, as it is, to find a better life.
• There is enough resources by someone to keep a secure connection across the entire Atlantic Ocean.

[Brookshw]

. Both Colin, Tenpenny and Caith all actually emigrated; they are not randomly having Irish / British accents for the fun of it.

I couldn't say re: Tenpenny, Colin, but Cait iirc is spoken of as being of Irish decent, but not having directly immigrated herself. If you're familiar with Boston "Southie" (or at least, bad Boston accents), there is a very large Irish community in the area. I assume her accent is a nod toward the rl make up of Boston and not an indication that she's actually from Ireland. If there was any direct statement by her that she's actually from Ireland directly then I don't recall it. Similar, can you remind me on Colin & Tenpenny and how we know they're emigrated? Not saying your wrong, just don't remember myself.

That tells us two things for sure:

• Things in England and Ireland are bad enough that people go to the US, as it is, to find a better life.
• There is enough resources by someone to keep a secure connection across the entire Atlantic Ocean.

Could be (though exiled also comes to mind, or individuals having fled issues particular to themselves), and it's a bit tricky to say that three people is evidence of a secure connection. There's definitely room to develop it further.

[Triaxx]

It only mentions Cait as being of Irish Descent on the Wiki, but the way her conversation sounds makes it seem like she's immigrated over after getting herself free. She mentions coming to the Commonwealth and crossing water, but...

[DigoDragon]

• Things in England and Ireland are bad enough that people go to the US, as it is, to find a better life.

Given the state of affairs in post apocalypse USA, that actually scares me.

It only mentions Cait as being of Irish Descent on the Wiki, but the way her conversation sounds makes it seem like she's immigrated over after getting herself free. She mentions coming to the Commonwealth and crossing water, but...

Maybe someone figured out how to mass-produce bio-diesel and ships crossing the Atlantic run on that. Have sails come back into style?


Now I wonder what the range on the Institute's teleporter is.

[Avilan the Grey]

Tenpenny outright states he is from England.
Colin's computer has details about him coming from Ireland.
Caith's parents were Irish for sure, her accent tells me she weren't born in Boston (though since it's done by a Scottish actress, it's not actually sounding like she's from Ireland, either ), and she mentions traveling far over water.

[Triaxx]

I suspect sails are a more likely answer, though given Fallout 2 had you firing up an old tanker, it's possible there are seaworthy ships we're just not seeing.

[factotum]

There is enough resources by someone to keep a secure connection across the entire Atlantic Ocean.

That could be done via sailing vessels, as DigoDragon suggested. By the time you get to the middle of the 19th century sailing vessels are routinely making round-the-world trips (it was actually quicker for ships to return from Australia by sailing across the Pacific due to prevailing winds), all without using fuel, so a cross-Atlantic trip ought to be pretty easy via sailing ship given Fallout levels of technology.

[Avilan the Grey]

That could be done via sailing vessels, as DigoDragon suggested. By the time you get to the middle of the 19th century sailing vessels are routinely making round-the-world trips (it was actually quicker for ships to return from Australia by sailing across the Pacific due to prevailing winds), all without using fuel, so a cross-Atlantic trip ought to be pretty easy via sailing ship given Fallout levels of technology.

True. Sails or like the early steamers with sails.

[Spore]

Given the state of affairs in post apocalypse USA, that actually scares me.

I can see fictional English people revolting against a democratic rule and getting their monarchy back - along with the monarch abusing this new found power to their worst. Also I feel the British royal family would be shielded against Fallout's bombs about as well as Vault-Tec leadership.

Oh, I can see a British Queen having lavish banquets, and Brahmin/Mutant Goat races to entertain themselves. Maybe with an occasional fox wolf hunts.

Codsworth renamed 'Jeeves' with a monocle welded onto the model.