Rowan
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| Posted 06/04/10 at 09:12 PM | Reply with quote #1 |
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For discussion of the start of the game.
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Landofett
Registered: 06/03/10
Posts: 2
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| Posted 06/04/10 at 11:50 PM | Reply with quote #2 |
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I made the mistake of going straight into Vault 15. Quickly realized success was more likely in this Shady Sands place. So far so good I suppose.
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LiathroidiDana
Registered: 05/25/09
Posts: 17
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| Posted 06/05/10 at 08:39 AM | Reply with quote #3 |
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Downloading from Steam now, always wanted to play this, looking forward to it!
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LiathroidiDana
Registered: 05/25/09
Posts: 17
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| Posted 06/06/10 at 06:17 AM | Reply with quote #4 |
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Ok well iv explored Shady Sands, just a few questions.
I'm totally out of ammo, where can I get some more?
And where should I go next, straight to Vault 15 or somewhere else?
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Rowan
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| Posted 06/06/10 at 02:43 PM | Reply with quote #5 |
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Have you been bartering with people? There's a button on the right during conversation that lets you trade with most people, not just shopkeepers.
It's up to you where you want to go.The game tends to give you pointers as to decent places to go, and you have pointers towards Vault 15, but you may also have some other places on your map now.
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Rowan
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| Posted 06/06/10 at 07:57 PM | Reply with quote #6 |
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Another note - it's very easy to miss important information in Vault 15. Keep a close eye on your little text box in the lower left of the screen.
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Bobbicus
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| Posted 06/10/10 at 02:19 PM | Reply with quote #7 |
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That seems to happen alot in the game - important info that only appears in the textbox. I kinda like it, it means that instead of drawing your attention to something the way that Planescape does (and tipping off that THIS IS A PUZZLE SOLUTION) it makes you observe things and think. Of course, it's also really frustrating. I don't remember it being used much in 2.
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Bobbicus
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| Posted 06/10/10 at 03:07 PM | Reply with quote #8 |
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| So my thoughts on the opening -
Really well done. Especially compared to the "Temple of Trials" crap in the sequel. You create your character, get talked at by the Overseer who tells you in a well-acted monologue your mission and your time limit, watch a pretty cool cinematic and then step out into the world -
-except it's not. It's a dingy little cave with rats. Rather aggressive rats, too. Kinda a letdown after all that buildup, really you're LEAVING THE VAULT, and it turns out the "outside world" is just a dirtier version of the vault-
-except then you see that glow of sunlight, you exit it and -
BAM! - the contrast of the tiny corrider of the vault opening and the huge expanse of the wasteland is really well done. The player obviously wasn't born in a vault, so in order to give a sense of that "emerging into the unknown" you first start in a dingy little corridor, just for a bit, and THEN you're presented with the vast expanse of the wasteland. Subtle, but effective.
From a game standpoint, the case is also well designed. Rats tend to get aggressive, wander right up to you, and then run out of AP right next to you, allowing you to punch them without wasting AP to get in range, or shoot them with wicked high accuracy if you're a guns person. It also teaches you some things about the first main area, Vault 15 - which is also a dark area filled with rats. And bigger rats. So, if you try shooting at a rat in the intro cave from far away, you learn quickly and in a non-threatening setting that shooting shit in the dark is really hard unless you're really close. The cave is easy to waltz out of it you want to just get on with it, or you can dick around and practice killing rats.
Finally, I love that little text blurb - the "for the first time in your life, you are seeing the outside world" Pay attention to that box! Alot of flavorful stuff goes in there.
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Rowan
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| Posted 06/10/10 at 03:18 PM | Reply with quote #9 |
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The chief benefit of Fallout 2 is that it helps with a lot of the really annoying interface quirks of the original. Like the text box, or the steal-to-change-party-members thing.
You're right about the rats and the AP, it's actually pretty useful for teaching combat without saying "this is a combat training tutorial!" Also, how many RPGs have started with the player fighting off rats? 50%? 75%?
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Bobbicus
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| Posted 06/10/10 at 03:36 PM | Reply with quote #10 |
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| I actually prefer Fallout 2 as a game to go back an replay - it's not as tight and self-contained as the original, but the interface tweaks, huge world, and expanded use of small guns really appeals to me.
Poor rats. They're really quite friendly in reality.
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Bobbicus
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| Posted 06/10/10 at 04:45 PM | Reply with quote #11 |
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| On Shady Sands -
Normally, when a player starts a game of Fallout and is staring at that large map, they hit the Vault 15 button and start awanderin'. Then they come across this unknown circle in the desert, curiosity gets the better of them, and they enter Shady Sands.
Shady sands serves a few purposes - it demonstrates that life in the wastes, while hard, is possible, that there is a communication and trade network in place, it points you in new directions for after Vault 15, and it offers up some sidequests to complete, as well as giving you a source of antidotes and healing from radscorpion poisons. It's pretty well done - everything you NEED from it is in the one central area, though there's a side area to explore. It's nice enough, but never really grabbed my interest.
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crimsonclone
Registered: 09/02/08
Posts: 156
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| Posted 06/10/10 at 10:00 PM | Reply with quote #12 |
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Thoughts from the opening-
End of the world is caused by US vs China over diminishing resources. Forward thinking for a retro-future setting.
Single point of failure on the water purification system, someone didn't do a good job with the failure criticality analysis when they built the vault (yes I know where the spares ended up but still).
Even so given how dire this failure is entrusting the vaults future to one person seems a bit lackluster, even if the player character is special. Then again given the remains in the vault suit right outside the front door I wonder how many people have been sent out on this task before the player.
Anyone else get mobbed by the rats and almost die? Forgot the disadvantage finesse puts you at the beginning. Agree with the tutorial part, if you can't get past the rats the game teaches you that you should rethink your character build.
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bluewyvern
Registered: 01/20/09
Posts: 16
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| Posted 06/11/10 at 12:13 PM | Reply with quote #13 |
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This is my second attempt at Fallout. I had heard how wonderful it was for a long time, and finally gave it a try last year, but I found it INCREDIBLY hard. I was constantly on the run, under attack, out of ammo and about to die. From the very start of the game I could do nothing else but wade through a sea of bloodthirsty rats.
I really, really wanted to play the game, especially since picking up and falling in love with Fallout 3 a few months ago. So I was glad to hear the VGC was taking it on, and I gave it another try.
I just spent a few minutes with it, wading again through the rats and trekking out to Vault 15, where I discovered I didn't have a rope, then backtracking to Shady Sands. I figured out a lot of interface stuff this time around that I didn't understand before, like how to do targeted combat, how to sneak, and how to reload a gun. Part of it was realizing what features I might be missing after playing Fallout 3. There's still a lot of stuff I couldn't figure out how to do, like holster my weapon or toggle walk/run. I'm spoiled by modern games with integrated tutorials, I guess, and I quickly realized I desperately needed to read the manual, stat.
I'm in the middle of doing that now. There's all kinds of info I never would have guessed, like that leftover AP goes into AC. Huh? Guess I shouldn't spend them all walking away from that rat towards where I was trying to go before it attacked me. No wonder I had so much trouble before.
I'm also struck by the denseness of the manual. I love that. I love wordy game manuals that belong within the game world. But at the same time, it's very hard to skim for information -- there are hardly any section breaks, just walls of text -- and I'm certain that this kind of manual (y'know, if we still had manuals instead of in-game tutorials) would never fly today. If you proposed asking players to absorb this much text before being able to control a game today, you'd be laughed out of the room. Heck, it starts out with a very dense technical description of the effects of a nuclear detonation. Great atmosphere, but you've gotta love to read.
Fortunately, I do, so I'll jump back in once I've finished with the manual and figured out how to play the thing...
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Jess Haskins
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Bobbicus
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| Posted 06/11/10 at 01:21 PM | Reply with quote #14 |
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| Walking away from the rat is actually a better strategy - if you get far enough away, you reduce the number of attacks he can make. Which is far better than 3 extra AC.
I was constantly on the run, under attack, out of ammo and about to die. From the very start of the game I could do nothing else but wade through a sea of bloodthirsty rats.
Yup, sounds like fallout!
But seriously, this game can be brutal in a way modern games simply don't even attempt.
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bluewyvern
Registered: 01/20/09
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| Posted 06/11/10 at 02:35 PM | Reply with quote #15 |
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Also, just finished reading the manual and I STILL don't know how to holster my gun.
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Jess Haskins
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Bobbicus
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| Posted 06/11/10 at 02:58 PM | Reply with quote #16 |
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| You have two "weapon slots" in your inventory, which you switch between with that red button on the top-left of the weapon block. Leave one of those slots empty, and simply switch to the "unarmed" weapon when you want to holster your weapon.
It's interesting to note that some people (Shady Sands guards) won't notice if you have brass knuckles equipped. Others, such as professional soldiers or law enforcement, will still consider you to be armed. It's pretty neat.
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bluewyvern
Registered: 01/20/09
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| Posted 06/11/10 at 07:48 PM | Reply with quote #17 |
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Ah, thanks. I thought that might be a hack, and there was a better way.
Went back and played some Fallout 3 today. It's hard to go from Wasteland ass-kicker back to puny Vault weakling...
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Rowan
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| Posted 06/12/10 at 05:07 PM | Reply with quote #18 |
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You were a puny Vault weakling at the start of Fallout 3, too. Man, I ran away from so many raiders at the start of the game.
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Bobbicus
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| Posted 06/15/10 at 12:38 PM | Reply with quote #19 |
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Which makes it so much more satisfying when you hit level 18 and turn into a killing machine with the Slayer/Sniper perk. Sniper + full auto = 1 shot-kills on most things.
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AndrewArmstrong
Moderator - Psychonauts
Registered: 07/22/08
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| Posted 07/29/10 at 02:23 PM | Reply with quote #20 |
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The intro is...fine. You really, really need to read the manual first however. Without doing so you are destined to die.
This time I read up, checked explicitly about NPC cohorts, and patched the game properly about 3 times (NPC mod too so I can change armour and a few other bits, and unofficial patch applied too) before properly doing the intro and knowing the combat system.
If anything I don't think there is enough forced early combat against easy creatures. Vault 15 would have been a death trap if I hadn't gone to shady sands and got Ian, and played through the intro a few times to get used to how it works.
The actual quests? I've played up to vault 15 before and so I've done them before, although last time not with a talking character. It provides a nice working space, a very helpful NPC and a reasonably easy start to the game. You can glean enough information to not be beaten to a pulp or get stuck in Vault 15, and the bandits can be talked to - although myself, I mercilessly beat them up and took all their stuff to rescue the poor other girls there.
Thematically it works excellently however. Shame there is no "walking into the sunlight" video, but the presence of a vault suit is well noted before, and the cave is a good alternative to starting someone with NPC's around them. The manual tutorial is useful, although holstering yeah, isn't mentioned (took me a while to think about too).
Shady Sands shows a small settlement, working reasonably well. Simply is that though, a small place, not much to do!
One interesting thing was the passage of time. The 140 day limit immediately screams "hurry", but I took my time - actual in-game movement takes hardly anything, but I've found that overland travel, book reading and the anti-poison creation took actual real amounts of time...it is really harsh that you could visit Vault 15 for nothing (ie; if you hadn't got a rope) since it is backtracking PLUS the fact you'll likely get some encounters too! Rather hardcore especially since the clues to the water chip are basically non-existent once you visit Vault 15.
I did also miss the rifle there too, and found almost everything - damn they are crafty hiding things behind walls and in corners in Vault 15!
Also if you really want to, despite the implications, you can actually kill everyone in the town and steal everything, quite a lot of freedom there even if the choice usually is kill everyone or kill no one 
Now onwards down south! I guess...since, well, there simply is no where else on my map!
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Bobbicus
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| Posted 07/29/10 at 03:20 PM | Reply with quote #21 |
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My game is currently bugged out - whenever I walk into the raider camp, everyone runs around screaming about how I've returned from the dead. Guess some trigger got flipped accidentally. Regardless, it's cut off for me now.
I like the brutal intro - it's really only brutal if you don't play to your strengths. Talky characters can pick up allies and better weapons, shooty characters can waltz through after picking up the SMG, and punchy folk can easily punch the rats into submission. You just have to play the character you've created. I hear some folks refer to this as "role-playing." 
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Rowan
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| Posted 07/29/10 at 03:22 PM | Reply with quote #22 |
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I'm going through and playing older RPGs for a chapter in the book I'm slowly working on. Right now I'm doing early 90's PC RPGs, like Ultima Underworld and Might & Magic III. These are games I never played when they were new and their interfaces were normal, and I just stare at them blankly sometimes. Everything seems far more awkward than it should, although I know that's normal for the time. Put me in front of a game I played when it was new and normal - a Gold Box game, or Ultima VI, and I'm fine.
Fallout, it seems to me, may be in the last batch of RPGs where yeah, you need to RTFM (or have people like us to help you). It's pretty counterintuitive sometimes. Not necessarily difficult, although it is at times, but definitely dense.
And by the way, you're going to want to carry around another rope, as I discovered to my chagrin a bit later in the game.
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Rowan
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| Posted 07/29/10 at 03:23 PM | Reply with quote #23 |
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@Bobbicus - actually, the "returned from the dead" thing isn't a bug. Keep going in the camp!
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Bobbicus
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| Posted 07/29/10 at 06:13 PM | Reply with quote #24 |
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The bug is that they constantly shout it over and over again, to the point where my screen is almost completely filled with little floating texts. It's bizarre.
And I think that if you didn't learn your lesson about carrying a rope after Vault 15, you deserved that nice little surprise !
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AndrewArmstrong
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| Posted 07/30/10 at 04:55 AM | Reply with quote #25 |
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Yeah, I've got a spare rope. Lots of followers allow me to carry the crap like radios, rope, 10' pole, maps...etc
Dense is a good word. Baldur's Gate is similar, in a way, but it gives you an extensive long (and rather fun) tutorial in a sandbox area, while this you can immediately have an encounter with 3 mole rats going immediately east - as I did in one of my first attempts, dying horribly!
Made me wish for Autosaves - since saving is of course a bit annoying and I don't trust quicksaves
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