Fallout: 76 Catch-All

ranalin wrote:
Stengah wrote:

Fallout with Friends

This... This is the mantra i've always repeated as a wish for each release.

This is definitely what they should've tried. With all the various companions and branching stories, locations, etc they should allow your friends to become one of your companions in your story and you to become one of their companions in their story.

ranalin wrote:

How is this dishonest? They're being very up front about what it is.

After the presentation sure, not during, when they were like, "yeah this is totally a normal Fallout game where you can go out and quest and play solo".
The presentation is what more people will see though.

Regarding whether you'll be able to do servers for groups, doesn't sound like that's in the current plan (as Shadout mentions).

Todd Howard wrote:

Death never means the loss of progression, or the loss of your character. Your character isn't tied to one server. As a matter of fact, you'll never even see a server when you play.

(Video is set to the timestamp for that quote.)

I haven't played lots of multiplayer game but this reminds me of how Fortnite runs. You just get on, you don't look for servers, and you don't even set a region (though you can change your region somewhere in the settings). There is currently no way to have private servers in Fortnite. In the "Save the World" game mode, you can fill out a party with friends and then just play together that way and never see a rando. In the "Battle Royale" game mode, you're always playing with/against randos. And there's no persistent death. You just respawn somewhere on the map.

Not sure how this maps to the Fallout 76 experience, but if either of those modes is close it's more likely to be the "Battle Royale" mode because you're playing with "dozens" of other players, and probably can't fill out a player party with dozens of friends.

Shadout wrote:
ranalin wrote:

How is this dishonest? They're being very up front about what it is.

After the presentation sure, not during, when they were like, "yeah this is totally a normal Fallout game where you can go out and quest and play solo".
The presentation is what more people will see though.

I don't see how that's a lie since the game is exactly that with more added to it.

muraii wrote:

I haven't played lots of multiplayer game but this reminds me of how Fortnite runs. You just get on, you don't look for servers, and you don't even set a region (though you can change your region somewhere in the settings). There is currently no way to have private servers in Fortnite. In the "Save the World" game mode, you can fill out a party with friends and then just play together that way and never see a rando. In the "Battle Royale" game mode, you're always playing with/against randos. And there's no persistent death. You just respawn somewhere on the map.

Not sure how this maps to the Fallout 76 experience, but if either of those modes is close it's more likely to be the "Battle Royale" mode because you're playing with "dozens" of other players, and probably can't fill out a player party with dozens of friends.

Survival games can't run that way. You need persistence. Whether it's them assigning you servers or you picking your own. You will be playing in a dedicated spot so all your changes don't disappear when you log off.

But from the interviews now, it sounds like that is exactly what it isn't. That there is no Fallout game under the multiplayer mode. As in no NPCs for example. How do you reasonably make a Fallout game if you cant interact with quest givers, story characters etc.

Stengah wrote:

ESO is set up more like a traditional MMO isn't it? It was never meant to be like other Elder Scrolls games. So far this looks like a proper Fallout game with multiplayer, not a Fallout skinned MMO.
If they can avoid some of the pvp/greifing problems inherent to the genre, they'll clean up. Fallout with Friends has a huge appeal.

It definitely is a traditional MMO, but that is absolutely not how it was sold and advertised before release. It was marketed as an elder scrolls game that happened to be multiplayer not as an MMO that happened to be Elder Scrolls themed. It was marketed very much like this one is, in fact. "Trust us this isn't an MMO that looks like Elder Scrolls" "Trust us, this isn't Rust that looks like Fallout"

thrawn82 wrote:
Stengah wrote:

ESO is set up more like a traditional MMO isn't it? It was never meant to be like other Elder Scrolls games. So far this looks like a proper Fallout game with multiplayer, not a Fallout skinned MMO.
If they can avoid some of the pvp/greifing problems inherent to the genre, they'll clean up. Fallout with Friends has a huge appeal.

It definitely is a traditional MMO, but that is absolutely not how it was sold and advertised before release. It was marketed as an elder scrolls game that happened to be multiplayer not as an MMO that happened to be Elder Scrolls themed.

You're wrong about the marketing. They never hid that it was a MMO.

ranalin wrote:
thrawn82 wrote:
Stengah wrote:

ESO is set up more like a traditional MMO isn't it? It was never meant to be like other Elder Scrolls games. So far this looks like a proper Fallout game with multiplayer, not a Fallout skinned MMO.
If they can avoid some of the pvp/greifing problems inherent to the genre, they'll clean up. Fallout with Friends has a huge appeal.

It definitely is a traditional MMO, but that is absolutely not how it was sold and advertised before release. It was marketed as an elder scrolls game that happened to be multiplayer not as an MMO that happened to be Elder Scrolls themed.

You're wrong about the marketing. They never hid that it was a MMO.

Then it was simply marketed badly, because that's the message I received at the time.

As far as I recall ESO was very much advertised as an MMO in the Everquest/WoW style.
If anything they have moved a little away from that over time, to be more of Elders Scrolls with multiplayer, though certainly still in the MMO style.

2013 marketing for ESO from GamesCom

Brisbane Times – “I was allowed the freedom to just go where I chose, and the experience was remarkably like the single-player Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.”
Daily Joypad – “…[ESO] looks and plays so much like Skyrim that I had to check myself when an online player would join in my battles.”
Game Informer – “The interesting questlines and familiar combat have kept me engaged so far, and doing it all with friends should make the experience even more exciting.”
The Gamers Hub – “…thanks to the immensely story-driven gameplay, tons of books to read, areas to explore and dungeons to crawl through, it’s hard to imagine The Elder Scrolls Online not striking a chord with TES and MMO fans alike.”
Outside the Box – “The first-person perspective and evocative setting brings The Elder Scrolls Online closer than ever to fulfilling its promise: a multiplayer Skyrim.”
TPReview – “The voice acting was fantastic and the writing was funny as well as interesting, hopefully this is a sign of things to come for the game as a whole.”
VG247 – “It’s basically a new, full Elder Scrolls title with online aspects should you wish to use them. In first-person view, on one of Skyrim’s many islands, I felt like it was an extension of The Elder Scrolls V.”

These are the cutouts from articles that Bethesda chose to put on the ESO site. This is how they actively chose to market less than a year from release.

Shadout wrote:

But from the interviews now, it sounds like that is exactly what it isn't. That there is no Fallout game under the multiplayer mode. As in no NPCs for example. How do you reasonably make a Fallout game if you cant interact with quest givers, story characters etc.

NPC’s and Quests do not a Fallout game make. Fallout is the style and setting, just ask other radically different entries in the series like Fallout Tactics or Fallout Shelter. It might not be what some want from a Fallout game, but it’s pretty instantly recognizable as part of the Fallout universe.

Fallout is a lot like porn. You know it when you see it. Fallout porn is also a lot like porn, but with more robots programmed for pleasure.

I guess I'm all in. Preordered the Power Armor Edition

IMAGE(https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/960x0/https%3A%2F%2Fblogs-images.forbes.com%2Fdavidthier%2Ffiles%2F2018%2F06%2FCapture-19.jpg)

ruhk wrote:
Shadout wrote:

But from the interviews now, it sounds like that is exactly what it isn't. That there is no Fallout game under the multiplayer mode. As in no NPCs for example. How do you reasonably make a Fallout game if you cant interact with quest givers, story characters etc.

NPC’s and Quests do not a Fallout game make. Fallout is the style and setting, just ask other radically different entries in the series like Fallout Tactics or Fallout Shelter. It might not be what some want from a Fallout game, but it’s pretty instantly recognizable as part of the Fallout universe.

Sure, but you wouldnt advertise Fallout Shelter as another big open Fallout RPG?
This might be a perfectly good game, and great Fallout game. But trying to frame it as something even remotely similar to Fallout 3, New Vegas, 4 at least seems wrong, based on the very little information we have.

Nothing wrong with Fallout Shelter either for that matter. Only mobile game I have ever really liked. Was hoping for a Fallout Shelter 2 announcement. But still something completely different from Fallout 3.

Shadout wrote:
ranalin wrote:

How is this dishonest? They're being very up front about what it is.

After the presentation sure, not during, when they were like, "yeah this is totally a normal Fallout game where you can go out and quest and play solo"

They said that you could play it solo, not that it'll be just like other Fallouts or that you could play on private maps and never have to see another player.

muraii wrote:

I haven't played lots of multiplayer game but this reminds me of how Fortnite runs. You just get on, you don't look for servers, and you don't even set a region (though you can change your region somewhere in the settings). There is currently no way to have private servers in Fortnite. In the "Save the World" game mode, you can fill out a party with friends and then just play together that way and never see a rando. In the "Battle Royale" game mode, you're always playing with/against randos.

Not sure how this maps to the Fallout 76 experience, but if either of those modes is close it's more likely to be the "Battle Royale" mode because you're playing with "dozens" of other players, and probably can't fill out a player party with dozens of friends.

You can pre-group with friend in Fortnite Battle Royale to play on the same team, it's just everyone else that's random. I think it'll be more like DayZ, Ark, or Conan than either version of Fortnite. Except on a very few special maps, there's no persistence on Fortnite maps.
Private worlds with mods will be coming, but to start Bethesda will be running all the servers.

We love mods, and so we are 100 percent committed to doing that in 76 as well," Howard said. "We will not be able to do that at launch though. Our goal for launch—this is really new for us—is have a well-running, robust service, and then some period later, we're currently still designing what that service looks like, you'll be able to have your own private world and be able to mod it and do all of that.

I'm expecting modding to be fairly limited compared to what's possible on previous games and dreading that they'll be doing something to force all mods to go through mods.bethesda instead of Nexus, but I'm cautiously optimistic they won't if modded games will be private anyways.

Shadout wrote:

Sure, but you wouldnt advertise Fallout Shelter as another big open Fallout RPG?
This might be a perfectly good game, and great Fallout game. But trying to frame it as something even remotely similar to Fallout 3, New Vegas, 4 at least seems wrong, based on the very little information we have.

That might be why they have instead been marketing it as primarily an online multiplayer game. The initial pre-E3 teaser trailer had very little info but they were pretty explicit about what type of game it was going to be yesterday.

Not to keep this going for too much longer, but a snippet from the presentation:
"First, of course you can play solo. You will be who you want, exploring a huge world, doing quests, experiencing a story, leveling up, we love those things about our games too. We would not have it any other way."
All those points might certainly be true for this game, but clearly they are trying to reference Fallout 3, NV and 4 here.

Shadout wrote:
ruhk wrote:
Shadout wrote:

But from the interviews now, it sounds like that is exactly what it isn't. That there is no Fallout game under the multiplayer mode. As in no NPCs for example. How do you reasonably make a Fallout game if you cant interact with quest givers, story characters etc.

NPC’s and Quests do not a Fallout game make. Fallout is the style and setting, just ask other radically different entries in the series like Fallout Tactics or Fallout Shelter. It might not be what some want from a Fallout game, but it’s pretty instantly recognizable as part of the Fallout universe.

Sure, but you wouldnt advertise Fallout Shelter as another big open Fallout RPG?
This might be a perfectly good game, and great Fallout game. But trying to frame it as something even remotely similar to Fallout 3, New Vegas, 4 at least seems wrong, based on the very little information we have.

Nothing wrong with Fallout Shelter either for that matter. Only mobile game I have ever really liked. Was hoping for a Fallout Shelter 2 announcement. But still something completely different from Fallout 3.

Where are you getting the "No NPC/quest givers" info from. The closest I've seen is people taking the worst possible interpretation of an advertising tweet saying "Welcome to Fallout 76, the online prequel where every surviving human is a real person." My own interpretation is that any human you run into in the gameworld will be players, but you'll still have human NPCs you interact with through your pipboy. I also wouldn't be surprised if Vault 76 is our home base, and it has human NPCs we can interact with between adventures out in the world. Even if it's true that there are no human NPCs in the game at all, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Some of the best quests in previous games were found quests where you find a clue (scrap of paper, errant radio transmission, etc) then investigate where it points to as opposed to being ordered by someone to go to X and pick up or kill Y.

Shadout wrote:

Not to keep this going for too much longer, but a snippet from the presentation:
"First, of course you can play solo. You will be who you want, exploring a huge world, doing quests, experiencing a story, leveling up, we love those things about our games too. We would not have it any other way."
All those points might certainly be true for this game, but clearly they are trying to reference Fallout 3, NV and 4 here.

You’re cherry picking a few sentences that were surrounded by ten minutes of him talking about it being an always online, survival crafting multiplayer game.

There is a questline. There are no human NPCs but there’ll be robots, terminals, holotapes and therefore questlines.

https://wccftech.com/todd-howard-fal...

ruhk wrote:

You’re cherry picking a few sentences that were surrounded by ten minutes of him talking about it being an always online, survival crafting multiplayer game.

Didn't say they haven't talked about it being online multiplayer. Just that they likewise sold it as being a Fallout game in the vein of Fallout 3.
Dont want to turn the thread into an endless back and forth on this though. We seemingly just heard the presentation differently. More info will surely come out soon enough.

Shadout wrote:

Not to keep this going for too much longer, but a snippet from the presentation:
"First, of course you can play solo. You will be who you want, exploring a huge world, doing quests, experiencing a story, leveling up, we love those things about our games too. We would not have it any other way."
All those points might certainly be true for this game, but clearly they are trying to reference Fallout 3, NV and 4 here.

That's not dishonest though. They're saying that there's an underlying story to the game that you can experience without having to team up with others. You create/modify your own character instead of having it made for you (a la Rust) or using a pre-generated one. You can go out in the world to progress your story/quests on your own without needing to spend time looking for a group first. I don't at all get why you think it's wrong for them to reference past games.

Shadout wrote:
There is a questline. There are no human NPCs but there’ll be robots, terminals, holotapes and therefore questlines.

https://wccftech.com/todd-howard-fal...

I'm okay with that, as I said previously, some of the best quests started out with found holotapes/log entries. At the very least, no more "Another settlement needs our help!"

Ok, does NPC in this context mean "friendly/non-hostile"? Or does it include enemies like raiders? It is possible I am very super obtuse.

I don't recall any human enemies from the video. just ghouls and frogs and headless mutants.

I'd take it to mean the latter. No friendly/neutral NPCs in the world, and no NPC human raiders (except for player controlled ones). They could circumvent that a bit by having ghoul raiders. It's only 25 years since the bombs fell, so I'd imagine normal ghouls outnumber the feral ones based on how they supposedly work (prolonged exposure to excessive levels of radiation will eventually turn normal ghouls into ferals).

Nevin73 wrote:

I think if a GWJ server is created, it'll be fine. Ranalin was generous enough to procure a GWJ server for Conan Exiles and there is no griefing, just mutual support.

I really don’t play online games so I have no idea how hard it is to get a dedicated server for a community. Is it rare, common, or somewhere in between?

Balthezor wrote:

I guess I'm all in. Preordered the Power Armor Edition

IMAGE(https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/960x0/https%3A%2F%2Fblogs-images.forbes.com%2Fdavidthier%2Ffiles%2F2018%2F06%2FCapture-19.jpg)

Lucky SOB, looks like it is sold out already.

Wonder if they will do a reissue like the FO4 pip-boy edition.

ranalin wrote:
SpacePPoliceman wrote:

It's incredibly minor, but I'm irritated that they're using a 70s song in their marketing. Not all olde tyme music is the same, Bethesda!

Right, but just how many explicitly state West Virginia in the lyrics?

Well, they could have used this one:

(Not *quite* West Virginia. But it doesn't require an alternate timeline with John Denver in it.)

hbi2k wrote:
Budo wrote:

So I'm assuming no more VATS, but that wasn't part of the original 2 anyway.

VATS is all combat WAS in the first two. It didn't need a name because it was the whole thing.

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dfa6NvNVAAAUHn1.jpg)

Oh man, the nostalgia feels. Targeted shot to the groin with the Lousville Slugger.