I just realised how unoriginal Bethesda is...

ThatZenoGuy

ThatZenoGuy

Residential Zealous Evolved Nano Organism
Fallout 1=You are a vault dweller.

Fallout 2=You are tribal.

Fallout 3=You are vault dweller.

Fallout new vegas=You are a courier.

Fallout 4= You are a vault dweller.

Notice how 'proper' fallouts have 1 game, and 1 game only where you are from a vault, while so far both of the fucking bethesda ones start the fucking same!?

Jesus fucking christ, its the same deal with Elder scrolls, its now just 'you are criminal with no backstory'.
 
FoT : A wastelander newly recruited by the Bos.
FoBos : A Bos member.
FoS : A vault administrator.

Even with spin-off, you don't start as a vault dweller.
 
You are also most of the time looking for a family member of your family or someone else's. It's Bethesda lazy way of getting your character into a story. There's Fallout 3, Fallout 4, Point Lookout and Far Harbor which use this overused crap.
 
Zerginfestor said:
hasn't this been already been clawed at until there's nothing but clean, white bones? Think this has already been chewed on.

Also, if it took you this long, bud, then holy shit.
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Norzan said:
You are also most of the time looking for a family member of your family or someone else's. It's Bethesda lazy way of getting your character into a story. There's Fallout 3, Fallout 4, Point Lookout and Far Harbor which use this overused crap.
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Father, son, daughters, we haven't looked for a mother yet. Or an aunt who's actually a friend of the family, or an uncle twice removed. The possibilities are endless!
 
You manage a vault and its dwellers, but you aren't part of the vault inhabitants.
 
naossano said:
You manage a vault and its dwellers, but you aren't part of the vault inhabitants.
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Also the world was already kaput, the vault is totally empty and only has one room built when you were assigned to become that vault's overseer.
So that vault never had any vault dwellers before you become overseer.
 
If you're you only picked up the starting character as their lack of unoriginality then I don't think you've look hard enough
 
Yeah.. I don't really mind starting the game as a vault dweller since vaults are a big part of Fallout and "vault dweller" can really only define your background, but I have really gotten tired of "look for a missing relative" being used as the only character motivation that Pagliarulo can come up with. I mean, seriously, I know it's easy to justify chasing after someone who is dear to you or the NPC who gave you the quest, but they could put a little more effort. Also, in most of the cases proceeding with the story/ quest implies that you care about this person, which is difficult when you barely know them, (if at all) so you get that conflict between the emotions that the player character expresses (or the NPC) and the boredom or complete apathy of the player.

Actually, I think it might be interesting if in the next game you spent the first few hours of the game in a vault and could begin to build your character's personality through interacting with the other vault dwellers. I wouldn't even mind if there is a joke ending 2 hours into the game in which you basically refuse to go outside and are content at living inside the vault for the rest of your life :D Of course, that would go against the ideology of Bethesda to provide games in which the fun never ends and you can play for hundreds of hours doing the same repetitive tasks. God forbid a game which has an actual ending! Such an old way of story telling!
 
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Mellow Mute said:
Yeah.. I don't really mind starting the game as a vault dweller since vaults are a big part of Fallout, but I have really gotten tired of "look for a missing relative" being used as the only character motivation that Pagliarulo can come up with. I mean, seriously, I know it's easy to justify chasing after someone who is dear to you or the NPC who gave you the quest, but they could put a little more effort. Also, in most of the cases proceeding with the story/ quest implies that you care about this person, which is difficult when you barely know them, (if at all) so you get that conflict between the emotions that the player character expresses (or the NPC) and the boredom or complete apathy of the player.

Actually, I think it might be interesting if in the next game you spent the first few hours of the game in a vault and could begin to build your character's personality through interacting with the other vault dwellers. I wouldn't even mind if there is a joke ending 2 hours into the game in which you basically refuse to go outside and are content at living inside the vault for the rest of your life :D Of course, that would go against the ideology of Bethesda to provide games in which the fun never ends and you can play for hundreds of hours doing the same repetitive tasks.
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While I do like the Vaults and the idea of being from one, I also feel starting as a Vault dweller is a little overused and it does restrict how you create your character.

The Courier in New Vegas offered the most freedom to players because it established very little about the character. You're a courier who accepted a job to deliver a package to New Vegas and was ambushed, that's it. You can decide whether they're from a Vault or from a raider clan or a tribal or a former NCR soldier etc. You're not limited to what the game has already established about you.

Fallout 4 could have been the same even with the Vault idea still. Someone (cannot remember who) said scrap having a spouse and child, just have the player wake up or be woken up in Vault 111 with no recollection of how they got there. All that would be established is you were frozen in Vault 111, you could be Pre-War or been frozen after the War. Hell you might not have even been frozen, you just woke up in a Vault for some reason.

But instead we're told "You're a soldier/lawyer. You have a wife/husband. You have a son, you live in a wonderful house in an idyllic white picket fence community." Then after the world is bombed and we emerge from Vault 111 we have to find our son, yet we can just dick around instead, which creates ludonarrative dissonance (I think it's called?). Fallout 3 was similar but at least once you leave the Vault you can say your character thought "Fuck dad, I'm making my own way from now on!"

New Vegas gave us the main quest of getting the chip back and whatnot, but you can ignore it without it seeming unrealistic. Your courier might think "I survived getting shot in the head, I'm out. I'm doing something safer."

Having your character start in a Vault could work again, so long as we're not told "You're an engineer who's sister buggered off outside" or something. I just think it offers more freedom to the player to not set the character's origins and leave it to the player via imagination and/or optional dialogue choices. That's just me though.
 
Prone Squanderer said:
While I do like the Vaults and the idea of being from one, I also feel starting as a Vault dweller is a little overused and it does restrict how you create your character.

The Courier in New Vegas offered the most freedom to players because it established very little about the character. You're a courier who accepted a job to deliver a package to New Vegas and was ambushed, that's it. You can decide whether they're from a Vault or from a raider clan or a tribal or a former NCR soldier etc. You're not limited to what the game has already established about you.

Fallout 4 could have been the same even with the Vault idea still. Someone (cannot remember who) said scrap having a spouse and child, just have the player wake up or be woken up in Vault 111 with no recollection of how they got there. All that would be established is you were frozen in Vault 111, you could be Pre-War or been frozen after the War. Hell you might not have even been frozen, you just woke up in a Vault for some reason.

But instead we're told "You're a soldier/lawyer. You have a wife/husband. You have a son, you live in a wonderful house in an idyllic white picket fence community." Then after the world is bombed and we emerge from Vault 111 we have to find our son, yet we can just dick around instead, which creates ludonarrative dissonance (I think it's called?). Fallout 3 was similar but at least once you leave the Vault you can say your character thought "Fuck dad, I'm making my own way from now on!"

New Vegas gave us the main quest of getting the chip back and whatnot, but you can ignore it without it seeming unrealistic. Your courier might think "I survived getting shot in the head, I'm out. I'm doing something safer."

Having your character start in a Vault could work again, so long as we're not told "You're an engineer who's sister buggered off outside" or something. I just think it offers more freedom to the player to not set the character's origins and leave it to the player via imagination and/or optional dialogue choices. That's just me though.
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I do agree it's yet another level of character building you can indulge yourself in, but to me it's far less important than the actions I take once I start playing the game.

You should also consider that you don't need to be born in a vault. You may be one of the first vault dwellers, like Fallout 4 but without all of the unnecessary predetermined character crap. Then you could leave your background before entering the vault up to interpretation or fill a form at your entry in the beginning of the game to describe what kind of life you had before you entered the vault.

I think vaults can be used as a genius plot device. There is also something about exiting a vault, leaving this protected area and setting foot in an unknown and dangerous world for the first time. The departure from the vault symbolizing the beginning of a new life, one that you are in control of. It's easy to identify with that feeling as a player, because we immerse ourselves in these imaginary worlds in the same way. I think that's one of the few bits of narrative that the Bethesda games did well. The blinding light as you open the vault door in 3 and the platform rising up, as if you are transcending into another world in Fallout 4. (that must have been intentional, because a slow rising platform doesn't make any sense otherwise)

But then again, I do agree - even the best ideas can only be used so many times.
 
They also steal creature designs and plotlines like there's no tomorrow. Stole ideas and entire questlines from mods... Ripped off nearly all creatures and factions from older games for fo3. Fo4 is mostly plotholes, contradictions, and clichés. Skyrim is a civil war with dragons (hrmmm where have I seen that before?) I'll just assume the smaller things are homages (such as stealing the name hrothgar) but by and large... Yeah old news buddy. I mean ffs the fo4 mirelurk is just straight up a garthim (google it)
 
R.Graves said:
I mean ffs the fo4 mirelurk is just straight up a garthim (google it)
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And the Hermit Crab is a ripoff of the Wasteland 2 Hermit Crab that was cut from the game but you can still find it in the game files and plenty of concept art on the internet.
 
Risewild said:
And the Hermit Crab is a ripoff of the Wasteland 2 Hermit Crab that was cut from the game but you can still find it in the game files and plenty of concept art on the internet.
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And the crococlaw is stolen from fallout tactics 2 concept art. And almost all their other creatures are just upscaled versions of irl animals. *sigh*
 
But they were original in creating the Tatos! :puke:

Although they probably just read about the Pomato plants and thought they could mix both into one anyway.
 
Prone Squanderer said:
While I do like the Vaults and the idea of being from one, I also feel starting as a Vault dweller is a little overused and it does restrict how you create your character.
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A bit OT, but this is one of my few but major gripes about Fallout 2. It has one of the worst forced backstories in the series. You can't realistically play anything other than a tribal with minimal experience outside. I love the game but that's one of its most glaring downsides imo.
 
Mutant Screg said:
A bit OT, but this is one of my few but major gripes about Fallout 2. It has one of the worst forced backstories in the series. You can't realistically play anything other than a tribal with minimal experience outside. I love the game but that's one of its most glaring downsides imo.
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I agree its forced, but to a degree Fallout 2 is less about your past, and more about your future.

You have every ability to decide what the character is like as a person, the only thing you have no control over, is where they are from.
 
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