Could Fallout 3/4 Have Been More Tolerable in a Different Time Setting?

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Unorthodox Outlander

It Wandered In From the Wastes
When discussing Fallout 3 and 4,many people have bemoaned the fact that civilization has stagnated heavily and not actually developed, with people still considering scavenging to be a viable means of gather resources and raiders being everywhere.

Now, idiotic writing and other inherent flaws with these two games aside, could shifting the setting of the game earlier in the fallout timeline (a.k.a. closer to the immediate post-war period of time) make this a bit more easy to accept and make the games a bit less aggravating as a result?



On another note, would the settlement feature from Fallout 4 (another feature that has drawn the ire of some) have been better suited to an earlier time period as well (since it would make more sense that you're kind of rebuilding civilization in the ruins of the Old World without much in the way of pre-existing towns/cities), and would it have been received better as a result?
 
In my opinion, yes. I actually really like the atmosphere in Fo3/Fo4, exploring those ruined landscapes, scavenging and so on, but it just makes absolutely no sense 200 years after the war. That said, just shifting the timeline wouldn't fix all the issues with those games, but I definitely think that a game set shortly after the bombs fell, using the art assets from Fo3/4 and some form of the settlement building mechanic, could be a good spin-off to the series.
 
It depends. In terms of setting, it would have been better if it was close to when the bombs fell. In terms of Fallout 3 story it would also make more sense (since water would have been really contaminated back then and so purifying it would have been essential for the survival of the Capital Wasteland).

As long as the Enclave, the Brotherhood of Steel and Harold weren't around, then it would be much better.

Now in terms of mechanics, it wouldn't make any difference, since those are not affected by the setting/timeline.
 
Moving Fallout 3 to around the same time as F1 might had helped. It does remove the Mutants, BoS, and Enclave - but that's also a good move. But then what? Same old story about water? Enclave replaced with, say, local NG-turned warlord or Black Talon working for some employer?

Fallout 4 is the same thing. Removing the BoS and the more fanciful stuff of the institute would work, but F4 was probably only chosen because of the quest in F3. A altered F3 would change F4 to begin with.
 
Yes. That was their biggest mistake. The nonsensical setting, the two hundred year lore gap, all the unoriginal carry-overs...I can't even imagine what it would be, because so much would have to change. If they had to be original, could properly connect their stories to pre-war world, and didn't need to have a developed setting it would be a completely different game.
 
Frankly, if Bethesda had used a ~20 year frame with a lot of intentional ambiguities baked in and a stark, dear rising 1 esque characterizations for a large chunk of it's disposable bad guys; the current series would have been a much better game.

Look, anyone could foresee that Beth was going to make mistakes and have problems with the existing background material but this didn't have to be such a major issue. Like the commonly uttered phrase "it's not a bug, it's a feature"; the trick was in turning these weaknesses into strengths for the game;

Have ever character in the game treat it like it has been 20 years and yet, put some (not in your face! LOOK AT ME! blatant) conflicting details like various computer systems and certain characters refer to the war being 200 years ago and [This is the important part] actually do not resolve these discrepancies in game, a la Easter Island Statues and the like.


Once you throw in a decent amount of ambiguity, especially amplified by things like the Operation Anchorage and similar DLC, a large portion of the lore issues cease to be problems and become an enriching part of this iteration of the word.
 
It would still require better writing and removal of the Super Mutants and the Brotherhood of Steel, and I would not mind if the whole settlement building is either removed or done in a more RPG way (the player needs to recruit builders, technicians, caravans that can provide raw material, etc), but perhaps it could have worked better.
But the whole theme park vibe still would have to be lost and this overdone recalling of the 50s or Colonial Times as in Fallout 1 and 2 people did not mull much about the past other than what they could recover from it, and even then pre war culture was mostly forgotten other than by the BOS scribes, Followers of the Atlantis, and the occasional Vault Dweller.
 
From the top of my head

FO3 set in year 2100:
-Main plot thing is terraformer hidden in Raven Rock facility (but can't be activated due to it's energy problems)
-Children of Atom take place of SMs, catching survivors and converting them to their faith (humanity should start from the beginning)
-Megaton is now MegaMall trading hub with refugees and a leaking fusion reactor under it
-BoS is now local militia consisting of former members of local law enforcement
-Enclave is now two groups of former US troopers and civilian contractors: one under Dr. J.H. Eden survived in Raven Rock facility, second group is led by Colonel Autumn in Adams Air Force
-5 endings: help militia, help Eden and Autumn, join CoA, make a truce against CoA or wipe out all faction leaders and leave Wasteland to rot

If it sounds interesting enough for someone I could work on it and flesh it out.
 
Dutch;
Personally, I think BoS and the Mutants could have been included in the game without too many issues if they had been used much, much more sparingly (and abusing the ambiguity card I mentioned in my previous post.)

But that also stumbles upon the fact that various parts of the Beth. games are completely uncoupled from each other and just piled on top of each other, creating a mound rather than an interlocking structure that is way voluminous and grand yet require an actual effort of world building. Parts like an actual working weapon progression, logical map layout, a "wasteland" that borders the play area on one or two edges that "allows" nomadic disposable bad guy clans into the player's game world; a bid bad evil that is on the horizon and so on.
 
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