# Fallout 4 details **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [December 12, 2013, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-details/676193 "2013-12-12T19:57:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2013, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-details/676193/21 "2013-12-13T22:27:34Z")
Them muties and ghoulies are 'bout to catch a wicked beatin! ---
**Author:** ![Telperion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telperion/32/509_2.png) [@Telperion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telperion)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2013, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-details/676193/22 "2013-12-13T22:49:13Z")
> [@Kinthalis](#): > > No I don’t believe so. The Witcher 2 engine was proprietary I believe. And so is the Witcher 3 engine. It’s the same engine, RedEngine 3. Although the engine doesn’t make all that much difference past a certain point, as en example CryEngine 3 has been used for everything from _Crysis 3_, which looks amazing on high settings, to _State of Decay_ which looks about ten years old. The difference lies in the environment design and texture work, and it’s a lot easier to texture and design a linear shooter with minimal environment interaction than an open-world game with thousands of unique objects. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2013, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-details/676193/23 "2013-12-13T23:44:51Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I’m really confused. Are you saying that _New Vegas_ was a good game, or a bad game? It’s an awesome game (except maybe for the Big MT bit, which is fantastically well written but ugh gameplay). _Fallout 3_ however is very much not. And a lot of is has to do with the fact that it was made by Bethesda people who may or may not have understood what Fallout was about and mostly went with what would be “cool”. And what they felt was cool about the Elder Scroll games and would be just as cool in _Fallout_. So you get retardedness like a town built around a live A-Bomb. That the people worship. Yeah :smack:. NV was for the most part the brain child of JE Sawyer, one of the original Fallout creators (and the one who made the P’nP RPG and fleshed out much of the setting), and he didn’t shoehorn cool bits in whether they fit or made sense or not - instead he thought about how his world would behave if people were people, and it turns out that generates a bunch of cool set pieces on its own. Things that happen to have deeper meanings and everything. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2013, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-details/676193/24 "2013-12-13T23:53:21Z")
Okay, gotcha. I thought you were saying the opposite. I did like Megaton in the 3rd game, though. Thought it was a cool _Planet of the Apes_ reference. Also, it made a real pretty mushroom cloud if you set it off. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-details/676193/25 "2013-12-14T00:08:42Z")
It might be cool. It \*is \*kinda cool, actually, as a setpiece. But if you think about it for two seconds from its inhabitants’ perspective, it’s really really stoopid. It could be less so if _everyone_ in town was crazy kooky cultists, but they aren’t. So you’ve got people who’ve grown up in a nuclear wasteland caused by nuclear bombs ; seem fairly intelligent and even tech-savvy ; understand radiation sickness and that it is, in fact, a bad thing… but who are happy to live next to the shit that destroyed the world (and leaks radiation. And is unstable, which they know since they’ll hire you to fix it) like it makes no nevermind. ---
**Author:** ![LawMonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-details/676193/26 "2013-12-14T00:28:16Z")
Hmm. I seem to be alone in preferring Fallout 3 for plot, leaving aside the stupid thing at the end. It had at least a certain amount of emotional resonance–I cared about the character and the plot. NV, the protagonist was a cypher, and the plot was just revenge. Rather cold, though I did like the factions and being able to influence/change the world. Hopefully 4 will have the heart of 3 with the best gameplay/etc. of NV. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-details/676193/27 "2013-12-14T01:19:22Z")
Why didn’t they call Fallout: New Vegas “Fallout 4” anyway? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-details/676193/28 "2013-12-14T01:23:34Z")
Personally I liked _Fallout III_ and _Fallout:NV_ about as much. Fallout III had a more genuine “after the Apocalypse” feel to me, and seemed less linear. Plus Burke & company didn’t make my skin crawl as much as the Legion so I could actually take the evil path there. Probably due to the sheer over-the-top nature of things like blowing up Megaton just because they didn’t like looking at it. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-details/676193/29 "2013-12-14T01:32:24Z")
On the linearity of FNV: Did anyone ever succeed in going up North without taking the long way early on? The main quest has you taking the road that goes South then turns anticlockwise and goes North to Las Vegas through Novac. But it’s technically possible to go straight to Las Vegas by taking the road straight North of Goodsprings or the road that passes by the quarry. Yet, those two shortcuts are treacherous. Has anyone gotten through with a low level character without cheats? How? Technically, you had the choice of not taking the long road but it seems practically impossible. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-details/676193/30 "2013-12-14T01:32:27Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Personally I liked _Fallout III_ and _Fallout:NV_ about as much. Fallout III had a more genuine “after the Apocalypse” feel to me, and seemed less linear. Except you (and Bethsoft) missed the point. Fallout has never been about the “post-apocalypse”. It was always about the post-post era, when humanity was trying to find a way to rise again, and then dealing with all the faults and failings that led to the collapse in the first place. There’s nothing wrong with making a post-apoc game. That game is also not _Fallout_. Edit: Yes, I’ve gone north at low levels. It’s actually not hard. You can easily sneak around Black Mountain, or even just run your ass off. You can also take a low level character with some ammo, snipe cazadors out of the way, and go up that way. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-details/676193/31 "2013-12-14T01:52:58Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > It’s also harder to design random encounters for a guy driving along rather than a guy on foot. Most of the time you’re not getting into random encounters just going from point A to point B. Most of the time you notice something that you could avoid, but go out of your way to see what it is. Letting people drive doesn’t stop you using all the same tricks once you get off road, but it also lets you set up gangs charging tolls or snipers watching the street without the bypass being trivial. > [@](#): > > And really, does it add that much? In real life, we drive everywhere because walking would take forever and be mundane and be boring, but in these games, walking can be exploring, random encounters, etc… not a daily commute. If you’ve already explored an area and travel is mundane, there’s usually a fast travel mechanism. The game _is_ often a daily commute. Even when visiting an entirely new location, you often still follow the same worn path three-quarters of the way there. Giving us a more immersive form of fast travel for use on these main thoroughfares, as well as giving us a movable trunk to put our spare loot in, would be much appreciated. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-details/676193/32 "2013-12-14T02:11:29Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Except you (and Bethsoft) missed the point. Fallout has never been about the “post-apocalypse”. It was as of Fallout III, and that’s the first Fallout game I ever played. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-details/676193/33 "2013-12-14T03:10:40Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > _Fallout 3_ however is very much not. And a lot of is has to do with the fact that it was made by Bethesda people who may or may not have understood what Fallout was about and mostly went with what would be “cool”. And what they felt was cool about the Elder Scroll games and would be just as cool in _Fallout_. So you get retardedness like a town built around a live A-Bomb. That the people worship. Yeah :smack:. You never played _Wasteland_? Megaton and the Children of Atom are a direct reference to the Servants of the Mushroom Cloud and their temple outside Las Vegas. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-details/676193/34 "2013-12-14T03:12:29Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > It was as of Fallout III, and that’s the first Fallout game I ever played. But even as of Fallout III it makes fuck all sense with the timeline established in-game ! The bombs didn’t fall yesterday, they fell two hundred years ago. But people are still surviving in gutted old buildings and shanty towns, living off scrounged canned food and drinking old pisswater ? Coke caps as currency (yeah, I know that’s a _Fallout 1_ thing. But _Fallout 1_ really did take place only a few generations after the War. By the time of Fallout 2 printed and minted money’s already back, there’s even a random encounter with a treasure trove of now worthless bottlecaps) ? No agriculture at all ; no new solid structures whatsoever ; no civilization to speak of ; no attempt to, in the words of Sawyer, “build a new world in the image of the old” ? Give horribly mutated humanity some credit. Two hundred years is plenty of time to \*do \*shit, Deathclaw & Super Mutant infestations or no. People have conquered entire New Worlds in less time than that, and they didn’t even have laser gatling guns 😛 As for the Legion, they’re not that bad really. Well, OK, they’re absolutely fucking evil BUT they make internal sense and have coherent beliefs. Realistic and brutally \*efficient \*beliefs, too. Tenpenny OTOH wants to nuke Megaton just because he considers it an eyesore. An eyesore on the desolated bloody wasteland vista of busted highways and radioactive dust. Way to not be cartoonishly evil, sir, may I twirl your moustache for you ? (And BTW, what’s an Englishman doing in D.C., when all contact got shut down 200 years ago, was he frozen or something ?) Generally speaking, the game also lacked much of the general Fallout theme and charm of the post-apoc guys finding out stuff about the Old World but getting it wrong or twisted because they lack key context or details. Stuff like the Elvis impersonators in the Vegas outskirts, or the way the original Vault Dweller’s tribal descendants started worshipping his suit - they don’t really remember why, but they still know Holy Vault 13 is Important, and so are its artifacts. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-details/676193/35 "2013-12-14T03:14:30Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#): > > You never played _Wasteland_? Nope, that was before my time. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to try the next one out, though. \*Wasteland \*had a very different sort of atmosphere and theme than _Fallout_ though, hadn’t it ? ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-details/676193/36 "2013-12-14T03:15:17Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#): > > You never played _Wasteland_? Megaton and the Children of Atom are a direct reference to the Servants of the Mushroom Cloud and their temple outside Las Vegas. How is Wasteland? Is it still worth playing? Not Wasteland 2 which is going to come out soon, the 1988 version you refer to. ---
**Author:** ![cckerberos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-details/676193/37 "2013-12-14T03:21:51Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Except you (and Bethsoft) missed the point. Fallout has never been about the “post-apocalypse”. It was always about the post-post era, when humanity was trying to find a way to rise again, and then dealing with all the faults and failings that led to the collapse in the first place. Exactly. You’d never guess from walking around in 3 that the game takes place 200 years after the war. One of my WTF moments was walking inside the Brotherhood of Steel base and seeing that it was filled with trash just like everything else. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-details/676193/38 "2013-12-14T03:22:28Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > How is Wasteland? Is it still worth playing? Not Wasteland 2 which is going to come out soon, the 1988 version you refer to. I tried playing a couple times via and found it difficult to get into the plot. That was prior to the Steam version, maybe that will be better. I really should try again. Had the original for C64 and never finished. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-details/676193/39 "2013-12-14T03:36:04Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > Nope, that was before my time. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to try the next one out, though. Steam also has the first one, which comes free with getting the sequel pre-release. > [@](#): > > \*Wasteland \*had a very different sort of atmosphere and theme than _Fallout_ though, hadn’t it ? Sort of. Rather than one person, you control a party of Desert Rangers and encounters are handled with text and a picture of what your group encountered. _Fallout_ was made as a spiritual successor [and much of the series contains references to its inspiration](http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Wasteland_%28game%29). ---
**Author:** ![Recusant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@Recusant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Recusant)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2013, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-details/676193/40 "2013-12-14T03:43:25Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#): > > I tried playing a couple times via and found it difficult to get into the plot. That was prior to the Steam version, maybe that will be better. > > I really should try again. Had the original for C64 and never finished. I doubt the Steam version is going to do much more than add to ease of getting it running and perhaps adding modability; I wouldn’t expect it to change much within the game itself. That said, it’s definitely worth a playthrough, but be forewarned that it’s very much a game of the late 80’s/early 90’s, a period when games were… quite different than they are now, or even as they were in the late 90’s. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-details/676193.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fallout-4-details/676193.md?page=3)