Fallout: The Frontier - Released!

[megamike15]

autumn leaves was considered a classic even before Bethesda ripped it off.

but it is sad that most one or 2 man projects that take one year to make are much better then most of the 7 year ones.

 

[Señor Wally]

Why do all of these multiple-years-in-development, high-concept, 100+ developer mods always turn out to be embarrassing dumpster fires, while New Vegas mods made by a handful of people turn out awesome but aren't appreciated?

Nobody who still plays New Vegas plays it for linear spray-and-pray action, and yet these geniuses sunk 7 years into making a knockoff Call of Duty in the Gamebryo engine and it was the most hyped mod of the year until it wasn't. Meanwhile nobody noticed Autumn Leaves until Bethesda ripped it off to put in Far Harbor. It makes me sad.

While every criticism you pointed out for Frontier is 100% valid, it's almost given that the big multi man projects die harder. Frontier wasn't a singular vision and the leads for two of the routes had an exact opposite approach to the guy from the NCR route and each guy had their own shortcomings. Generally, they were barely organized and they really needed someone(a project director) to reign everyone in. To filter the good from the bad. It had a project director, but he was essentially just a technical guy by the sound of it. A glorified bug fixer and.... scheduler...?
In interviews, he seems very uncertain about key details of NV's mythos and even less about the project he himself worked on.

tldr: The same thing that happens to student films. Weak leadership and the right hand barely knows what the left is doing.

 

[RangerBoo]

While every criticism you pointed out for Frontier is 100% valid, it's almost given that the big multi man projects die harder. Frontier wasn't a singular vision and the leads for two of the routes had an exact opposite approach to the guy from the NCR route and each guy had their own shortcomings. Generally, they were barely organized and they really needed someone(a project director) to reign everyone in. To filter the good from the bad. It had a project director, but he was essentially just a technical guy by the sound of it. A glorified bug fixer and.... scheduler...?
In interviews, he seems very uncertain about key details of NV's mythos and even less about the project he himself worked on.

tldr: The same thing that happens to student films. Weak leadership and the right hand barely knows what the left is doing.

^This right here. The project lead for the Frontier, tgspy, is one of the most incompetent projects leads since Hunt Down The Freeman. He pretty much let the writers and devs do and put whatever they wanted in the mod and didn't have anybody playtest or go through the mod to make sure that it was lore friendly. It also didn't help that he hated New Vegas and the OG Fallout's, hasn't played New Vegas in years or has ever played the OG Fallout's. This is the last guy you want being a project lead for a mod for New Vegas.

 

[Señor Wally]

^This right here. The project lead for the Frontier, tgspy, is one of the most incompetent projects leads since Hunt Down The Freeman. He pretty much let the writers and devs do and put whatever they wanted in the mod and didn't have anybody playtest or go through the mod to make sure that it was lore friendly. It also didn't help that he hated New Vegas and the OG Fallout's, hasn't played New Vegas in years or has ever played the OG Fallout's. This is the last guy you want being a project lead for a mod for New Vegas.

The lore friendly thing is really funny. After the fact, there were claims that they weren't aiming to be lore friendly. Though, I can't recall if the devs themselves made this claim or not. However, on the very day of the Frontier's release, I was in a Discord voice chat amongst several folks, including a dev. When one fella spoke up and said that that the mod is not lore friendly, the dev snapped back and insisted that indeed, it was lore friendly. He then argued back and forth with the guy. This continued until the first guy got laughed out of the chat for some hilariously ignorant comment about mormons(long story and irrelevant).
But based on that, I'm confident it was probably meant to be lore friendly, regardless of what anyone tells you.

Not a huuuge revelation or anything. Lore is the least of the issues. But I think it's funny.

Even funnier, the guy that got laughed at seemingly returned on the day of the Discord 4chan chat raid. I recognized the voice. I guess HE had the last laugh, afterall.

 

[Señor Wally]

Also, tgspy recently did an AMA. Someone asked why he would mod for NV if he thought 3 was so much better. He said it was because 3's engine is worse for modding. So even then, another one of 3's shortcomings is what keeps him from modding 3. lol

 

[Alphons]

you prevented silus from being interrogated.

 

[Norzan]

He said it was because 3's engine is worse for modding. So even then, another one of 3's shortcomings is what keeps him from modding 3. lol

Makes his claim that Fallout 3 is "sleeker" and "better designed" even more hilarious. When a Bethesda game is hard to mod you know that game is a complete disaster.

 

[0wing]

I am honestly surprised that Odin and Nazo didn't name all the Asian Crusaders after their favorite hentai characters or favorite Asian porn stars. I mean, seriously!

And people keep saying that Crusaders of Steel questline is this mod's salvation. LoL!

 

[DerDoctorSchnabelVonRom]

It also didn't help that he hated New Vegas and the OG Fallout's, hasn't played New Vegas in years or has ever played the OG Fallout's

Oh god, I had no idea. How does someone like this end up as PROJECT LEAD for the biggest New Vegas mod ever? I'm guessing technical ability, but it's not like there aren't New Vegas modders who are both technically talented and well-versed in lore. I try not to rag on modders too much because I generally admire what they do, but the unbelievable awfulness of this mod is just so fascinating to me.

After the fact, there were claims that they weren't aiming to be lore friendly. Though, I can't recall if the devs themselves made this claim or not.

I'm pretty sure it was advertised as such on the Nexus page. I'm wondering when they were going to mention the giant helicarriers and Wolfenstein enclave space station. You see about four vertibirds in the entirety of Fallout 2, and one in the whole of New Vegas. Apparently 90% of the entire US arsenal was stored in Portland.

 

[1Punman]

I think they're playing a different version then I did. Some voices sound different , there were no mean options in joining the Crusaders and there no option to refuse to join.

I am surprised they didn't comment on Jolene's backstory of being a NCR spy in the Brotherhood.

Also, tgspy recently did an AMA. Someone asked why he would mod for NV if he thought 3 was so much better. He said it was because 3's engine is worse for modding. So even then, another one of 3's shortcomings is what keeps him from modding 3. lol

Only thing that numbnuts was honest about, but even then I am not sure.

 

[cordelionreaver]

Apparently The Frontier youtube channel found the videos because they are arguing with commenters.

Its under the Blujay58 comment.

 

[RangerBoo]

Apparently The Frontier youtube channel found the videos because they are arguing with commenters.

Its under the Blujay58 comment.

They deleted all their posts after getting roasted in the comments and tried to silence and false report anybody criticizing them. LOL!

 

[Big No]

The lore friendly thing is really funny. After the fact, there were claims that they weren't aiming to be lore friendly. Though, I can't recall if the devs themselves made this claim or not. However, on the very day of the Frontier's release, I was in a Discord voice chat amongst several folks, including a dev. When one fella spoke up and said that that the mod is not lore friendly, the dev snapped back and insisted that indeed, it was lore friendly. He then argued back and forth with the guy. This continued until the first guy got laughed out of the chat for some hilariously ignorant comment about mormons(long story and irrelevant).
But based on that, I'm confident it was probably meant to be lore friendly, regardless of what anyone tells you.

Not a huuuge revelation or anything. Lore is the least of the issues. But I think it's funny.

Even funnier, the guy that got laughed at seemingly returned on the day of the Discord 4chan chat raid. I recognized the voice. I guess HE had the last laugh, afterall.

I believe that one fella was TK-Mantis, or he was at least in a similar boat.

 

[Dayglow Drifter]

Why do all of these multiple-years-in-development, high-concept, 100+ developer mods always turn out to be embarrassing dumpster fires

I've been thinking about this and I think that the main reason is that much of the mod is already teased and marketed before it gets made, which is somewhat necessary when you want to attract volunteers, but this generally results in them realizing early on in development that they've bitten off more than they can chew. From there it's a series of sacrifices that gradually deteriorate the quality of the mod; the worldspace is either filled out with nothing or with whatever garbage they can get people to contribute, likewise the writing often suffers from lacking quality or consistency as this huge team of volunteers with little to no structure all kind of cobble something together, additionally management problems can arise when the more technically skilled modders kind of hold more or less all the power regardless of whether they have any leadership.

 

[megamike15]

it does not help that the mod community is fragmented.

the frontier team seems to hate other peoples mods. they would out right call someguy's mods bad [ going through them again and so far besides red bear's bounty going on to long they are fine.] with one of it's member even doing a whole video essay about how bad they are because it dares to have references.

this was nazo and like the coward he is deleted the video.

tgspy ran a modder trying to add actual legion content from the nexxus.

and this is not even getting into the tkmantis bs.

 

[Señor Wally]

At first, one could easily be sympathetic to the Frontier and its devs, even despite all the bs behind the scenes and the weird content because "it's a labor of love".
But it wasn't really. The Frontier began as a vanity project and as time passed, it became bloated with different, contrasting people with no central vision. And then some the devs were kind of transparent in how little they seemingly cared for the series at large. Now it's hard to see the Frontier as anything BUT a vanity project.
On one hand, you don't have to pay for it but it would also cost a person nothing to NOT play it so...

 

[Señor Wally]

I believe that one fella was TK-Mantis, or he was at least in a similar boat.

It wasn't. The guy I'm thinking of had a nasally high pitch German sounding accent, which is why it was easy to recognize later. Far off Mantis' chill dude low pitch North American voice. lol

Similar situation, though.

And he was arguing with the "Enclave and Legion are Trump supporters" guy.

 

[cordelionreaver]

At first, one could easily be sympathetic to the Frontier and its devs, even despite all the bs behind the scenes and the weird content because "it's a labor of love".
But it wasn't really. The Frontier began as a vanity project and as time passed, it became bloated with different, contrasting people with no central vision. And then some the devs were kind of transparent in how little they seemingly cared for the series at large. Now it's hard to see the Frontier as anything BUT a vanity project.
On one hand, you don't have to pay for it but it would also cost a person nothing to NOT play it so...

It wasn't a "labor of love" it was a "labor of ego." Devilswish wanted to flex and the whole mod suffered for it.

it does not help that the mod community is fragmented.

the frontier team seems to hate other peoples mods. they would out right call someguy's mods bad [ going through them again and so far besides red bear's bounty going on to long they are fine.] with one of it's member even doing a whole video essay about how bad they are because it dares to have references.

this was nazo and like the coward he is deleted the video.

tgspy ran a modder trying to add actual legion content from the nexxus.

and this is not even getting into the tkmantis bs.

I heard they ran TommInfinite off Nexus for awhile, but I never heard how or why.

For TKmantis it didn't help that he whined about not getting to voice a character. He was going to voice a legionary but he wanted to do his own voice, didn't want to take voice direction and took months to send voice lines.

 

[Señor Wally]

Exactly, I don't like to throw names around but Devilwish definitely had an ego going into it. I guess he wanted something for a resume or wanted to be seen as a technical wiz.

Unfortunately, technical prowess isn't something hardcore Fallout fans are interested in seeing in their ROLEPLAYING SERIES about an interactive environment and web of action and reaction. Whoda thunk?

 

[DerDoctorSchnabelVonRom]

On one hand, you don't have to pay for it but it would also cost a person nothing to NOT play it so...

Time is money. And getting therapy after being traumatized by scalies, foot fetishism, and underaged-girl-enslavement being forced into your favorite game also costs money. But I don't disparage them for that because watching the shitstorm from the sidelines has been incredibly entertaining to me.

he was arguing with the "Enclave and Legion are Trump supporters" guy.

The whole "enclave is objectively evil" thing is so baffling to me. Shouldn't you attempt to portray ideologies that you disagree with in the interest of player choice, and try to make their motivations make sense? I'm pretty sure Josh Sawyer and John Gonzalez don't agree with the ideals of Caesar's Legion, and Tim Cain didn't think that all humans needed to be turned into mutants. You can't join the Enclave in Fallout 2 either but at least it was for reasons that made sense in the context of the plot, and they weren't all 2D caricatures.

technical prowess isn't something hardcore Fallout fans are interested in seeing in their ROLEPLAYING SERIES about an interactive environment and web of action and reaction.

Emphasis on "hardcore" Fallout fans. It's now the time where I have to inform you that Fallout 4 is, regrettably, a game that exists.

Y'know, Chris Taylor once said that "Fallout is giving the world to the player and saying, 'Yeah, if you want to do this, do it. There's a reaction to it. Or if you want to do that other thing, do that. I don't care what you do, but you will care, because there will be consequences for your actions.'" But weirdly enough, it's apparently easier to spend hundreds of hours making the game action-packed, rather than adding depth or a branching narrative. Hell, even if you're a shitty writer, you can still give the player a choice. Literally not a single person who worked on Fallout 1 was a professional writer of any kind.