I think all of you guys should avoid this game. You will definitely hate it. Those of you with Pip Boy editions let me know, I’ll take those off your hands. Wait at least a month before buying (and downloading) all of you…or at least until after I have mine downloaded…
I’m waiting until Steam has a sale. And possibly until I have a new video card.
Man, there was that one year when Steam had Arkham Asylum and Arkham City in Game of the Year Editions for dirt cheap and I got to binge on those. There’s a lot to be said for waiting. I’m hoping for an Arkham Origins Deluxe Edition on sale this Christmas. Maybe even Shadows of Mordor and Borderlands: The Pre-sequel.
But… not Fallout. I think I’ll just go ahead and take one for the team there, paying full first-run price. The rest of you can try catching up on the SDMB discussion of the game a year later.
Historically Bethesda open-world games have required bleeding edge hardware to run at max settings, but have performed pretty well on middle-of-the-road stuff so long as you’re willing to dial down the graphical goodies. As I understand things this is running on Skyrim’s engine, so if you can run that you should be good. You just might not be able to use the swankiest texture maps and lighting googaws.
I’m not saying that the games are comparable, but I got Shadow of Mordor ($15 or so FWIW), and while it isn’t as big as Bethesda games, is still an open world. And it runs basically perfectly on my circa 2009 computer. The main thing I upgraded since was my video card, and even it’s not top of the line (GTX 750 Ti, something like that?). Skyrim ran fine although it couldn’t really handle the official graphics packs.
Those specs are on-par for der_Witcher 3 (that’s probably where they stole them from), so that’s probably a reasonable guess. If you ran Witcher 3, you’re going to be fine. If you didn’t play Witcher 3, stop wasting your time on a Bethsoft-written Fallout game and go play that masterpiece.
You can have my Pip-Boy when you take it off my cold dead wrist. At that point, you can have the cell phone too if you want it.
Bethesda has more info about its leveling system. And apparently the Perks poster will come free with all pre-ordered copies.
I love a challenge!
I’m a bit annoyed to hear that the companion ‘Dogmeat’ will be unable to die. My least favourite thing about Skyrim was that quite a few of the characters were arbitrarily made immortal. I want to be able to fail the main quest, and surround myself with corpses, or it’s not a completely ‘open world’.
I absolutely hate pre-release hype and do my best to ignore it all, but I confess Fallout 4 has weakened my defenses a bit. I like the little stat videos and they make good use of Vault Boy. They’re a bit of a misfire in that I think overly sanitized, bloodless violence would be a better fit, but they’re still fun.
I’m also pretty optimistic about the stats system. Getting a few stat points on a level just isn’t very interesting. I like the focus on perks and getting a new little gameplay toy or quick every level. My concern is that Bethesda kinda sucks at making interesting abilities, Skyrim’s perk trees are filled with bland stat boosts, but in principle I love it.
I’m completely okay with Dogmeat being immortal. I’m not a hardcore, ironman player and if I’m being completely honest I can’t imagine not reloading if he did die.
Choosing between immortal Dogmeat and his previous made-of-glass incarnation, I’ll take immortal every day.
I realize that there’s a potential middle ground there but that’s not what they’re offering us.
Bbbut… puppies. Or excuse me, Puppies!
I worked hard in Fallout to keep Dogmeat alive, generally by locking him into rooms so he wouldn’t go wandering into security fields, step on mines, etc. Ian, I’m afraid, had to die because he could work a door knob. But for these newer games, I’ve just been setting my companions essential in the console. The challenge of keeping them alive doesn’t interest me any more.
/nod.
Plenty of times, I wind up dismissing followers because frankly, none of them are as good at stealth as my characters, who always wind up either stealth snipers or melee ninjas. Sucks when your dog bumps into your target and alerts them to you, or aggros and starts attacking before I want to.
And if you don’t go for a stealth build, there are still plenty of liabilities, like friendly fire. My firebug/demolitionist builds almost always run solo for that reason, even with companion-damage-reduction feats.
You can always tell your companions to stay at your house/room.
It would still take me out of the game knowing there’s an immortal dog waiting for me at home.
On a different matter; in the new SPECIAL Intelligence cartoon, it makes reference to it helping with computers, robots (perhaps) and medicine - is that also a vehicle the character sits on at the end?
Shouldnt an immortal dog belong to an immortal human player? 
Supposed official system requirements:
Then I’m afraid you’re doomed to get taken out of the game by the hundreds of other metagame absurdities as well. Like, why do humans take so goddamned many shots to the face before they cease to be a threat to you?