Any New Ideas?

[Galaga Bee]

Anybody have any *new* ideas for the Fallout series that you would like to see in Fallout 3? The only limitations I will place on this (within reason) are that the idea should be something that hasn't been in the series before, regardless of whether or not it's been done in another game already; because let's face it, it's ALL been done before, in one way or another. So, as an example, if you liked Force Push in KOTOR (and the way it was shamelessly pirated into Fable), and you'd like to see something like that in Fallout 3 (Note to developers: please, please, please don't include anything like that in Fallout 3), then that's ok, but if you liked the repair skill in Fallout 2, then post that idea elsewhere, cause that's not what this thread is for (even though I seem to be the only one posting in this forum anyways). Also, keep in mind they are just ideas, doesn't mean they would actually work or be feasible. Just brainstorming.

Here's a couple ideas of mine:
1) Jet packs. These fit perfectly into the 60's view of what the future would be like (right at the height of the cold war), and were invented in the 60's as well. Would be one-time use items (since there probably wouldn't be a way to refill the tank), and last only for a short duration (like real jet packs, which only last a few minutes). Maybe only a few in the entire Fallout 3 game environment.
2) Beatniks. At the very least, a few left-over books lying around which are parodies of books like "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac or "Naked Lunch" by William S. Burroughs or "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley might fit in well.

[Smoke_Jaguar]

I know they were obsessed with flying in the 50, and jet packs and whatnot, but i think you should be like on a quest to find...the holy vault 13 jet pack, and use it to fly to some place like the Enclave.
---I wanted voices on the character you made, like in Jagged Alliance2.Like 3 voices for male and 3 for female(a harsh voice, a charismatic voice and a flat voice) Not talking while in dialogue mode, more like a Planescape kind of talking voice.
---This is a broad concept of mine: Don't get me wrong, i think the SPECIAL system is the best in rpg so far, but i think it would be better to leave some skills to the player own skill, because some people actually have some skills, but they don't pick them in the game, but they know how to destabilize a philantetic oxycarbon nucleic conductor.

[Galaga Bee]

I have to disagree with you about the SPECIAL system, IMO doing away with it would be like doing away with the abilities and skills from D&D; it's just not the same game without it.

To make yet another comparison between Oblivion and Fallout 3, I like the way that they have the stats running in the background in Oblivion, while still allowing for some "player skill" to be involved. Example: in Oblivion, you have a "Marksman" skill, which determines how effective you are with a bow and arrow, by determining how much damage you cause, how far you can shoot, etc. However, you are still required to aim and shoot, and if you miss... well, you miss.

I see no reason why they can't do something similar with Fallout 3, where the SPECIAL system continues running in the background but the player is allowed to engage in combat or other activities in real-time (or near real-time). But, if they did away with SPECIAL entirely, then the game would be nothing more than a simple FPS, which isn't what people want.

Edited:
I think maybe I did get you wrong a little bit on this, because after reading your post again it seems like maybe you and I were on the same page with this, that they should have the stats from the SPECIAL system but also allow some player skill to be involved, such as aiming, dodging, etc. Hope I didn't misread your post too much.

[Smoke_Jaguar]

Yeah I was totally with you on that one LOL

yeah, it's basically what you said, I wouldn't leave the SPECIAL system out of Fallout in any way, shape or form, but for example, since we are the only 2 people posting here.....
although, the 'player skill' which I implied was not related to the skill of the player on how a player shoots, dodges, strafes, but 'skill' as in barter 'skill',
repair 'skill', traps 'skill' , should be less on \stats\ and more on YOUR skill with, say..... traps( i.e. you have a remote controlled explosive trap, and
you press it when to go off, instead on placing it with a timer and hoping it blows when it should)
as to Oblivion, man there are almost no comparisons story wise, because in 1997 and 1998 when Fallout 1 and 2 were released, it was a touchy subject (the nuclear war) but now, as terrorists are blowing stuff up and humanity never inventing an actually EFICIENT alternate power source (other than petroleum and uranium) should act as a warning.Where in Oblivion, lumber and metal won't run out....

[Galaga Bee]

I think RPG's should strive to implement ways for skills to be as interactive as possible, even to the point of including a "mini-game" as a way for the player to demonstrate their own deftness at the particular skill, if possible (or necessary).

Some skills (such as repair, for instance) tend to lend themselves more towards simply having a stat which governs it and not much of an interactive component, so that basically you just equip the item, choose "repair", and it gets fixed to the extent that the governing stat allows it to be.

However, other skills tend to lend themselves towards having some sort of interactive component to it. For example, with the stealth skill, while you have a governing stat which determines how effectively your character sneaks in all areas, the developers can still make it interactive by making it so that in addition to toggling it on and off, the player can only sneak in certain poorly-lit or well-concealed areas, so that the player is forced to carefully apply the sneak skill in order for it to work.

Then there are other skills which can even allow for mini-games, such as lockpicking (as in Oblivion or the Thief series) or computers. As pure speculation, I wouldn't be surprised to see a lockpicking mini-game in Fallout 3, or perhaps some sort of computer-oriented mini-game instead (similar to Deus Ex: Invisible War). If it's well received enough in Oblivion, I could also see a persuasion mini-game similar to the one in Oblivion being included (although the jury is still out on the Oblivion mini-game, since Oblivion is one of the first games I've heard of to implement a persuasion mini-game; dialogue trees don't count).

[Smoke_Jaguar]

yeah I totally forgot about lockpicking in Thief, it was a great implementation, and should be regarded in future games.As for comps, story wise, if there are no comps around, how can a tribal learn comp skills?anyway
that should also be a \mini game\ as you nicely put it.

[Galaga Bee]

Well, the guy who designed the lockpicking mini-game in the latest Thief game is the same guy who did it for Oblivion (I think), or at least they hired some guy who was a developer for the Thief series or something to work on Oblivion, so if he's still working for Bethesda then it wouldn't be much of a stretch to see the same sort of mini-game in Fallout 3.

However, I'm not necessarily in favor of the lockpicking mini-game for Fallout 3, not because it's not fun (it is), but because it's been done before in other games and I would like to see something else. I think there's kind of a limit to the number of mini-games you can have in one game, so if there's anything else that is different yet just as fun, I would just as soon have something else be the mini-game instead (such as computers). I don't really have anything against it, I just think something else might be more fun.

As for the tribal "where did that computer skill come from" issue, obviously there are computers lying around, or else why else would you need the skill to play the game in the first place?

[Kipi]

The idea of making the use of skills more interactive is IMO very good. Here is how I think it could be done in some skills:

Stealth: The number of the skill determines how well character can avoid making noise in different grounds and how well he can avoid getting spotted in different lights. While sneaking player must select the route himself, and the fact that how dark it is determines how well player can be seen and the ground determines how possible it's that player makes some noise while sneaking. For example, sneaking inside is easier since the floor doesn't make so much noise than for example some areas outside where there could be wood, stones and such things which could cause some noise. Also different floors can make different ammount of noise, like old wooden floor can cause more noise than rock-floor in caves...

Lockpick: I don't know about the minigame in Thief and Oblivion, but somekind of minigame where the the moving of the mouse is used to determine the successing. Player must move his mouse in correct way to success. If the lock is easy to pick, the "route" of mouse is easier and so on. With higher skill in lockpicking the game reacts slower to the mouse, thus making it easier to move the mouse in correct way.

Repair: Minigame where player must connect correct cables and such. Again, if the item is easier to repair, then the minigame is also easier. With higher skill you get better hints to how repair the item.

[Galaga Bee]

I like the idea of a repair minigame, however I think the problem with implementing it is that "repair" is a fairly broad topic.

Repairing a computer is different from repairing a gun, which is also different from repairing a car. As a result, I don't really see how it would be possible to have 1 minigame which encompasses all of the potential items that could be repaired, and having a separate minigame for each type of item that is repaired is overkill.

But... before I completely poopoo this idea, it would still be possible to have a minigame for one specific type of item being repaired (such as computers) but not any other type of item, or a quest-specific minigame which only involves the repair of one specific type of item (such as a car or cars) and is only encountered at a certain point (or points) in the game.

In other words, the devs could decide to include a minigame where (for example) every time you repair a computer there is a minigame, but all other times when you repair anything it just uses your skill modifier instead.

Or, the devs could also decide to include a specific side-quest which has a repair minigame at a certain point that requires you to play the repair minigame in order to proceed (similar to a game like Myst, for instance).

My personal viewpoint however, is that the payoff for the inclusion of either a quest-specific minigame or a minigame for just one particular type of item is not worth the resources the devs would have to devote to develop it. I just can't see the devs choosing to devote a huge portion of their time to developing a minigame (or minigames) which doesn't get used much.

Edited:
These particular types of minigames would make for some great mods, though.

[YaWaNLoNG]

Seeing as we've helped the wasteland for the past 2 games. Life should be a "little" easier. A mobile headquarters would be great, van, truck or wagon AND you have to leave people to watch it. Limited fuel, even those nuclear batteries should have been all used up by now. Firearms would be a rarity until you find a way to replace ammo indefinetly. By now the last super mutant is dead so i guess they should allow you to recruit deathclaws. Map includes both coasts, or maybe NOT in the US. Vehicle combat. More use for skills that allow you to survive in the wild. Limited food supply maybe? To insure atleast one character is a good outdoorsman.

[Kipi]

Originally Posted by YaWaNLoNG

Seeing as we've helped the wasteland for the past 2 games. Life should be a "little" easier. A mobile headquarters would be great, van, truck or wagon AND you have to leave people to watch it. Limited fuel, even those nuclear batteries should have been all used up by now. Firearms would be a rarity until you find a way to replace ammo indefinetly. By now the last super mutant is dead so i guess they should allow you to recruit deathclaws. Map includes both coasts, or maybe NOT in the US. Vehicle combat. More use for skills that allow you to survive in the wild. Limited food supply maybe? To insure atleast one character is a good outdoorsman.

Firstly, the mobile HQ sounds interesting idea. It would offer lots of possibilities, like better way to storage items you don't currently need and so on... Also, there could be option to add weapons to those vehicles, and thus using them in battle, especially in wilderness. A bit same way as in Fallout: Tactics.

Secondly, about the rarity of batteries, ammo, fuel and firearms: What about if the production of those items would have started again? It could be that there are few places which produce each such type, and thus there wouldn't be too much of those, but those wouldn't be rare either. Also, it could be that player is able to take control over such factories. The way how this is achieved can vary, but by doing this player would get items cheaper by visiting the factory at times. Of course, there would be limits how often player is able to get new items from one factory, thus removing the possibility to exploit it too much.

And lastly, about the food-thing: This assumes that the game is party-orientated. It won't work on single-character games. Also, I would imagine that there is more bigger cities in the game if it's situated after second Fallout, so the amount of food produced should also been grown. So, I don't think this as so good idea, but it's not so bad either. It just depend on the style of the game and what time it's situated...

[Shao-Loki]

...but I won't go pointing fingers.

I would like to see FO3 turn into a TES-like first person game. You could even run the guns like in Deus Ex, where the higher your skill goes, the smaller the targeting reticle becomes.

How about some cybernetics? Maybe you only get a targeting reticle if you get cybereyes...but then, I don't want it to turn into Shadowrun, either.

I like the jetpack idea, but let's make it run on micro-fusion cells (Like the Highwayman), and have a carry limit....I.E. your character weighs 120-220 pounds (depending on stats/gender), and your gear weighs X....Char Weight + X = Total load. So, if you jetpack is rated at 300 pounds, you might have to drop some stuff and come back for it later.

I also like the minigame idea for lockpicking and repairs and traps. You could do something like Wizardry 8 did with lockpicking and trap disarming.

Example: You have to fix your car. Popping the hood, the view changes to the engine bay. The higher your Repair/Science skill, the more components are highlighted, and what you have to do to them is explained in more detail when you mouse over. If your skill isn't terribly high, you might get some Yellow Outlines, indicating a possible required repair, but your character isn't sure. If it's highlighted in Red, then you KNOW it's broken (whether you know how to fix it or not is another animal...no body could miss fluid pumping out of a radiator with a bullet hole in it, but they might not know how to fix it). And if it's Green, you KNOW that is NOT the problem.

Just don't get too crazy with it. This is Fallout 3, not Tetris 3-D. We don't want to spend hours dinking with wrenches and hammers and crowbars (and flipping the blasted L-block!) just to get the freakin' car to work.l

Also, some sort of DOS-like shell could be implemented, kind of like Enter the Matrix, so you could interact with the computers in the game. The higher you Computer/Science skill, the more commands are displayed, and the more detailed their descritpions are.

And, finally, if I added all this into a game (the mini-games) I'd have a "USE CHARACTER SKILL" button, for those people who don't want to dink with the minigame. Click that button, and SPECIAL makes a skill check. Success? The game tells you what parts you need to get, h4x0r's the computer, or picks the lock. Fail? The game tells you that you failed...better hope you weren't disarming a bomb!

-Loki

[Kipi]

Originally Posted by Shao-Loki

...but I won't go pointing fingers.

I would like to see FO3 turn into a TES-like first person game. You could even run the guns like in Deus Ex, where the higher your skill goes, the smaller the targeting reticle becomes.

How about some cybernetics? Maybe you only get a targeting reticle if you get cybereyes...but then, I don't want it to turn into Shadowrun, either.

IMO, absolutely no! I don't want to see my favourite gameserie to turn out to be more or less FPS with only good graphics and without good gameplay nor story...

I like the jetpack idea, but let's make it run on micro-fusion cells (Like the Highwayman), and have a carry limit....I.E. your character weighs 120-220 pounds (depending on stats/gender), and your gear weighs X....Char Weight + X = Total load. So, if you jetpack is rated at 300 pounds, you might have to drop some stuff and come back for it later.

Hmm... not bad idea...
If it is implemented to the world map, then your character could move a lot faster than normally walking or with car...

I also like the minigame idea for lockpicking and repairs and traps. You could do something like Wizardry 8 did with lockpicking and trap disarming.

Example: You have to fix your car. Popping the hood, the view changes to the engine bay. The higher your Repair/Science skill, the more components are highlighted, and what you have to do to them is explained in more detail when you mouse over. If your skill isn't terribly high, you might get some Yellow Outlines, indicating a possible required repair, but your character isn't sure. If it's highlighted in Red, then you KNOW it's broken (whether you know how to fix it or not is another animal...no body could miss fluid pumping out of a radiator with a bullet hole in it, but they might not know how to fix it). And if it's Green, you KNOW that is NOT the problem.

More or less what I suggested a while back...

Just don't get too crazy with it. This is Fallout 3, not Tetris 3-D. We don't want to spend hours dinking with wrenches and hammers and crowbars (and flipping the blasted L-block!) just to get the freakin' car to work.l

Actually, I don't mind if it's well made...

Also, some sort of DOS-like shell could be implemented, kind of like Enter the Matrix, so you could interact with the computers in the game. The higher you Computer/Science skill, the more commands are displayed, and the more detailed their descritpions are.

Well, that would definately add some interesting variety to game...
That way computers could hold much more info, since it's not limited by the ammount of dialogue options...

And, finally, if I added all this into a game (the mini-games) I'd have a "USE CHARACTER SKILL" button, for those people who don't want to dink with the minigame. Click that button, and SPECIAL makes a skill check. Success? The game tells you what parts you need to get, h4x0r's the computer, or picks the lock. Fail? The game tells you that you failed...better hope you weren't disarming a bomb!

But of course, it would be harder to success with using the button only... that would encourage players to actually play the minigames until they are so high in level (and probably already bored to those games) that success is almost sure...

[Malta Soron]

Originally Posted by Shao-Loki

Also, some sort of DOS-like shell could be implemented, kind of like Enter the Matrix, so you could interact with the computers in the game. The higher you Computer/Science skill, the more commands are displayed, and the more detailed their descritpions are.

And then using a real-existing language, so you can use your l33t hax0r skills

[Shao-Loki]

It just can't be more advanced than DOS. After all, this is Fallout, and computer languages were not terribly sophisticated in the 50's and 60's. Mostly machine-code, IIRC.

Besides, if they used a *real* language, then only the l33t3st of the l33t would be able to interact with the computers....hence then commands displayed off to the side, with a higher computer/science skill yielding more commands. All the commands are still there, but you get told about more of them with a high Intelligence / Science rating.

-Loki