Fallout Fallout 4 Thread

[wishbonetail]

...let them focus on more important things.

Yes, like quest compass and removing all thats left of Morrowind features.

 

[Bad Sector]

Yes, like quest compass and removing all thats left of Morrowind features.

These aren't part of the world and most likely weren't even worked on by the same people.

 

[Trithne]

highly doubt the level design has anything to do with fast travel, but you're welcome to believe that.

Why not? Will an adventure be scripted or freeform depends on your means of transportation. Devs certainly would consider this.

Devs typically design the layout of the world first and then the quests. Again, I highly doubt they're going "Hey, let's put this over here because we're going to have fast travel".

No, but "It doesn't matter how far away we put the quest destination, even to the point of absurdity, because they can FT there" and generally assuming FT will be used (and Quest Markers to know which FT point to go to) influences the design of the world towards small setpiece islands.

Which is fine when you've got a World Map you can traverse to fill in the blanks ala Daggerfall or Fallout, but a bit shit when you take out all the verisimilitude.

 

[Ryzer]

Can someone explain to me why Morrowind world is so good? There are only 3 different locations: deadra ruins, Caves and dwemer ruins. Everything is copy and pasted everywhere with the only difference being the layout.

 

[Valdetiosi]

i'm definitely not a gun nut but i want to know. what's wrong with them? to me they look the simplest mechanisms, those requiring the least amount of maintenance, so in my opinion they look the best candidate to survive the apocalypse.

Didn't meant to say that I hate them. Quite the opposite, I love them.
So that's why I'm quite pissed off that while New Vegas has bunch of them, Fallout 4 needed DLC to add one, next to all the other ugly guns. The only another gun that I can tolerate is double-barreled shotgun, but I suspect that's just copied from DOOM

 

[Gargaune]

While Oblivion has randomly generated detail for erosion and vegetation, the large details like the world shape and layout was done by hand. You can actually open the editor and see the tool it was used to make it, it is quite primitive and doesn't make you a world from absolute scratch.

Also aside from those things, everything else including roads, etc was done by hand. You are grossly overestimating the randomly generated aspects of Oblivion, all it did was to save time for designers from having to place little leaves, grass, etc and other inconsequential stuff by hand and let them focus on more important things. Having those done by hand are a complete waste of time.

This is correct, Oblivion's landscape was generated from a regular heightmap, the initial flora was seeded with an algorithm, and then level designers did an editing pass to polish rocks and trim the bushes here and there. Architecture was handcrafted, though limited tilesets meant plenty of stuff looked like it came out of a conveyor belt, even though it didn't. Pretty sure Bethesda's following titles were built in a similar fashion.

 

[Silverfish]

Can someone explain to me why Morrowind world is so good? There are only 3 different locations: deadra ruins, Caves and dwemer ruins. Everything is copy and pasted everywhere with the only difference being the layout.

Morrowind's world is fine, but nothing special. The only reason it's been blown up into something bigger after the fact was the absence of fast travel and floating quest markers, thus making the game "less casual".

 

[Falksi]

Can someone explain to me why Morrowind world is so good? There are only 3 different locations: deadra ruins, Caves and dwemer ruins. Everything is copy and pasted everywhere with the only difference being the layout.

Vivec's sewers, Ald'ruhn's main hall, Sadrith Mora's towering mushroom town etc. There's more to it than what you describe there.

 

[Wulfric Pinewood]

Actually F4 got fantastic quest lines with new Sim Settlements, you must try this.

 

[Gargaune]

Actually F4 got fantastic quest lines with new Sim Settlements, you must try this.

Speaking of... what exactly does Sim Settlements do? I know it's got an extensive questline and it changes the way settlements are built, but what if I want to keep building my settlements manually instead of assigning plots or whatever? Can you play the quests and build settlements in the vanilla way?

 

[Wulfric Pinewood]

Yes you can do that. Just install Sim Settlements 2 and SS2 Chapter 2 altogether.

 

[markec]

Can someone explain to me why Morrowind world is so good? There are only 3 different locations: deadra ruins, Caves and dwemer ruins. Everything is copy and pasted everywhere with the only difference being the layout.

Not your standard fantasy with alien like fauna and flora that make it stand from other RPGs.

Different biomes each giving distinctive feel to its area.

Distinctive environmental formations that let you orient yourself in the world by eyesight.

Lots of environmental obstacles that forces your to find your way around them while also the layout of the world would often hide dungeons and places of interest. Which makes careful exploration rewarding to the player instead of just rushing to your location.

World features several factions all with unique architecture and culture.

 

[Wulfric Pinewood]

There is new update of Sim Settlements 2 and its Chapter 2.

 

[Bliblablubb]

Can someone explain to me why Morrowind world is so good? There are only 3 different locations: deadra ruins, Caves and dwemer ruins. Everything is copy and pasted everywhere with the only difference being the layout.

Not your standard fantasy with alien like fauna and flora that make it stand from other RPGs.

Different biomes each giving distinctive feel to its area.

Distinctive environmental formations that let you orient yourself in the world by eyesight.

Lots of environmental obstacles that forces your to find your way around them while also the layout of the world would often hide dungeons and places of interest. Which makes careful exploration rewarding to the player instead of just rushing to your location.

World features several factions all with unique architecture and culture.

Morrowind is also:

Every route description contains "follow the foyada" until you know every pebble in it.

Fuck those stupid lost Guars, because you ran another 10 mins in the wrong direction after missing a tiny shrub signaling you to change direction. Again.

Fuck cliffracers. After running around for 5 mins you already have a train of 5 waiting in line to come down and annoy you.

No fast travel eventually means you just aquire "boots of blinding speed" (making you literally blind) and a staff of flying, then open the map fullscreen and stop seeing anything of the environment.

36 lessons of Vivec: Sermon 14.


Just kidding, I loved that game. But I couldn't play it anymore today, the annoyances just outweight the good things. Thankfully ESO got me covered and delivered all the good things condensed in a more modern package.

 

[Bad Sector]

No fast travel eventually means you just aquire "boots of blinding speed" (making you literally blind) and a staff of flying, then open the map fullscreen and stop seeing anything of the environment.

While it doesn't happen out of the gate and you need to work a bit for it, you can enchant (or pay an enchanter to enchant) clothes to fortify your speed. Fortify effects stack, so you can go faster without the boots. Also the boots' effect can be lessened or avoided too.

Of course unlike fast travel, this happens via in-world means and at least i personally prefer it.

 

[wishbonetail]

Morrowind is also:

Every route description contains "follow the foyada" until you know every pebble in it.

And this is great. It means that Morrowind is one of a kind boyscout simulator.

 

[luj1]

Can someone explain to me why Morrowind world is so good? There are only 3 different locations: deadra ruins, Caves and dwemer ruins.

Everything is copy and pasted everywhere with the only difference being the layout.

Not your standard fantasy with alien like fauna and flora that make it stand from other RPGs.

Different biomes each giving distinctive feel to its area.

Distinctive environmental formations that let you orient yourself in the world by eyesight.

Lots of environmental obstacles that forces your to find your way around them while also the layout of the world would often hide dungeons and places of interest. Which makes careful exploration rewarding to the player instead of just rushing to your location.

World features several factions all with unique architecture and culture.

Go into the Construction Set and open up a few dungeons, you'll see how "copy pasted" they are. You literally have toothpicks that are hand placed and shit hidden from you everywhere. Furthermore you have something like 9 different types of "dungeon", ancestral tombs, caves, daedric shrines, dunmer strongholds, dwemer ruins, grottos, mines, derelict ships, velothi towers, etc.

 

[Funposter]

The dungeons in Morrowind aren't very interesting in terms of layout, enemy placement etc. but are made interesting/rewarding because of the hand-placed loot. That's really all there is to it. The actually interesting parts of the world are the regional political and religious conflicts, the tension between west and east (there's a few good visual metaphors for this one) and the main quest's take on a traditional hero's journey narrative. The mushrooms and weird fauna are just window dressing.

 

[Robotigan]

All complaints about "copy paste" or "shallow" design usually come down to the critic not jiving with the aesthetic.

 

[Bliblablubb]

I loved how everyone back then was using the construction kit. Not for modding, but as a map. Find your destination, then move cells until you found a landmark you knew.

Seriously, were there actually players exploring the bottom of the ocean and finding that Deadric shrine by accident?

 

[Bad Sector]

Seriously, were there actually players exploring the bottom of the ocean and finding that Deadric shrine by accident?

I don't remember if i found Daedric shrines by accident because i played the game multiple times over the years, but i do explore the bottom of the ocean for stuff since it is a very obvious place to hide things :-P

And FWIW even nowadays i avoid using the editor to check the map as i find it kinda cheating - i prefer to discover things properly in-game (not just for Morrowind but any game that has a map editor).

 

[Bliblablubb]

And FWIW even nowadays i avoid using the editor to check the map as i find it kinda cheating - i prefer to discover things properly in-game (not just for Morrowind but any game that has a map editor).

That's how I usually roll as well, games like Subnaughtica live off it. But after wasting up to an hour looking for something in vain, I am not above admitting to the conductor that I have a problem and pull the emergency breaks.
Especially sad when you replay a game after a year+ and feel overly confident about knowing where everything is.
Like when I replayed the above mentioned Subnautica, set course for a different entrance to the depth, because I remembered it "larger and easier to enter with the Cyclops", but... managed to run out of battery juice after wasting 1 hour looking for it. Yeah...

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Seriously, were there actually players exploring the bottom of the ocean and finding that Deadric shrine by accident?

iirc there was a chance for m'aiq to tell you about it
but everything else he says is a lie so you have no reason to believe it

 

[Funposter]

Seriously, were there actually players exploring the bottom of the ocean and finding that Deadric shrine by accident?

iirc there was a chance for m'aiq to tell you about it
but everything else he says is a lie so you have no reason to believe it

It's just one of the topics in his dialogue box. It's also phrased to sound way less like nonsense than his other conversation topics.

"You seek the shrine that is no longer there? An interesting concept. Look to the seas to the West. There lies what was once the shrine. Take a deep breath and begin your search."

Pretty much everything else he says is either obviously mocking or absurd. The shrine also lies less westward than the Shunned Shipwreck which can be found up north a little closer to Gnaar Mok, so I can believe that somebody just went zooming around the coast with the Boots of Blinding Speed in order to explore for more shipwrecks or grottos and ran across it. Remember that you can get a Daedric Wakazashi and the Dragonbone Cuirass by exploring those types of locations.

 

[Fedora Master]