Fallout Does Fallout have good C&C?

[smaug]

I finished a replay of Fallout 1 yesterday and I was curious. I did all the quests in the game (I did Decker’s and raiders quests then I reloaded just to see what they’re about).

What is the great C&C people will mention in the game and what constitutes good C&C? The Master does require you to have read Vree’s autopsy report in order convince him to kill himself, so would that be a good example (I don’t remember any other quests like this in the game)?

 

[jackofshadows]

There's a big confusion regarding the very term C&C. Nowadays people usually imply by that Witcher-like choices out of the blue, not even necessarily tied to any game mechanics, just choose x or y and then, much later be horrifyed or glad by the consequences of said choice.

While in Fallouts context it still implies C&C in the old-school sense - different experience depending on what type of character did you create at the start. Diplomat, thief, soldier or some combination of the above.

 

[smaug]

There's a big confusion regarding the very term C&C. Nowadays people usually imply by that Witcher-like choices out of the blue, not even necessarily tied to any game mechanics, just choose x or y and then, much later be horrifyed or glad by the consequences of said choice.

While in Fallouts context it still implies C&C in the old-school sense - different experience depending on what type of character did you create at the start. Diplomat, thief, soldier or some combination of the above.

My first one was full combat char. This time I just some diplomacy (Cathedral, Skalz gang) along with some combat.

 

[jackofshadows]

Oh there're also weirdos who equate end slides with "&C" but I don't think that's a correct approach.

 

[Comte_II]

Choice and consequences in computer rpgs are all smoke and mirrors. Also underrail blows.

 

[Utfärd]

You can join the Master and get this ending:

 

[Black Angel]

Fallout 1 has good ones, such as revealing your vault's location to the Water Merchants resulted in the Water Chip timer increase but your vault's location also discovered faster by the Master's army. I remembered there's also genocide of the ghouls if you kill all the Super Mutants in the Necropolis Watershed and 30 days passed since.

Both Fallout 1&2 also put a bounty on your character if you get the Childkiller perk/trait, bounty hunters chasing after you.

 

[Viata]

Always took C&C as the choices you make in some places/quests affect you in different places/quests. Making choices in Quest X and have the consequences in Quest X(or any quest that is a sequence of X) is just your average quest, no C&C.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

A different kind than you see today. There definitely has been a gravitation towards immediate payoff rather than having choices with longterm consequences. Savescummers would probably cry if they couldn't have a perfect game because they messed up 10 hours ago and it had a rippling effect.

smaug, remember how you told me you hit the time limit your first time playing Fallout?

 

[Twiglard]

Maxie what good is exactly 4 KiB of random data in a hex representation? Is it at least good quality randomness?

 

[Bad Sector]

There's a big confusion regarding the very term C&C. Nowadays people usually imply by that Witcher-like choices out of the blue, not even necessarily tied to any game mechanics, just choose x or y and then, much later be horrifyed or glad by the consequences of said choice.

While in Fallouts context it still implies C&C in the old-school sense - different experience depending on what type of character did you create at the start. Diplomat, thief, soldier or some combination of the above.

Fallout also does the non-character C&C and in general IMO "good" C&C is a mix of both - not in a "a little of this and a little of that" sense, but in having both the mechanics (like the character build you mentioned, but also things like the armor/weapons/items/etc your char(s) have - e.g. using a faction's clothes to infiltrate said faction vs going guns blazing would be another mechanics-based C&C, as would the context where that'd be in taking your approach into account, like a quest where you have to do something about that faction and getting different results if you infiltrated them vs wiping them out) and the narrative taken into account (responses to your dialog choices are one way to do that, as is the availability of dialog choices - be it because of your character's skills or because of previous actions, and again these could be either dialog choices or something you did during the game - and it doesn't even have to be a "dialog choice", even a topic-based dialog system ala Morrowind could show additional topics if you, e.g. in that example i gave previously found some letter/paper/book/something that introduced a new topic).

I don't think there is any "old school" vs new-school C&C though, the term isn't that old. AFAIK it was Vault Dweller who came up with it to describe how Fallout approached reacting to the user's actions and its mechanics so he'd know best how the term would fit. It does sound nice being an alliteration and all, so it was picked up by marketing but that is another matter.

 

[smaug]

A different kind than you see today. There definitely has been a gravitation towards immediate payoff rather than having choices with longterm consequences. Savescummers would probably cry if they couldn't have a perfect game because they messed up 10 hours ago and it had a rippling effect.

smaug, remember how you told me you hit the time limit your first time playing Fallout?

Yea.

 

[smaug]

C&C that I remember most was Bishop's quest in Fallout 2 that I couldn't do because of my dialogue hours ago with Thomas Moore, which I enjoyed a lot. I think the other gangs will attack you on sight if you help a certain family to much.