So lets say I'm making a Fallout mod project, now what?

[TheAnimeHunter]

I may or may not be working on a Fallout mod project of some form or another. I've heard that No Mutants Allowed can be very critical of Fallout mod projects in general, so I was hoping I could have something of a conversation with you guys about big mod projects in general like Fallout: New California, The Frontier and learn from you guys were they went wrong and what could've been done to make those mods better.

I also want to know more about the general philosophy behind introducing new lore with a Fallout mod, what should be avoided when doing so and what I should do to make sure things introduced in my own mod project fit in with the Fallout setting.

Thanks! Hopefully, I'm doing this right because it has taken me a good 20 minutes to figure out how I could try and make a post on these forums.

 

[Iprovidelittlepianos]

It’s your mod dude, it doesn’t really matter what we think. There are threads about The Frontier and New California that you can read through to give you an idea of what those mods did wrong.

If you want my/our advice on whether your mod fits well into Fallout or not, it would be best to post your specific ideas so we can critique them.

As far as introducing lore and what should be avoided, all I can really say is to try not to contradict what was established in Fallout 1 unless you think the idea is worth it. For example, ZAX in Fallout 1 claims that super mutants shouldn’t live to more than 100 years or so, which is directly contradicted by including super mutants in Fallout 2 and later New Vegas. I think this change is acceptable because it gave developers the chance to explore more interesting concepts with super mutant societies and opinions that weren’t able to be explored in the original game.

 

[Alphons]

My general advice- it should stand on it's own. If you don't have an idea how to include something from other games, then don't do it.

Don't be afraid to be add something new, but if you ask yourself "Does it fit?" then it probably doesn't.

You've only mentioned NV projects, but I would recommend also looking at FO2 ones- Resurrection, Nevada and hopefully soon Sonora.

 

[Mr Fish]

When it comes to the lore all you gotta do is to remain consistent to the established lore with your mod.
However, that means you have to decide which lore is canon and which isn't.
Because Bethesda's products and even FNV has lore inconsistencies with the earlier games.
So you have to make a hard choice right there when it comes to consistency.



The other two things aren't necessarily as important but should still be considered.

One is to play other TC mods and see what their lore is and preferably avoid inconsistencies with them too cause the way I see it Bethesda is never going to give us a "Proper" fallout game so all we got to rely on is TC mods and if those were to all remain consistent with one another then that'd be great.

Second thing is to simply ask "what are the consequences of this new lore". Like factually adding in aliens can work (though Bethesda's approach was terrible) but what are the consequences of adding it in?


If you really want to be careful about the lore then you got a lot of hard work ahead of you. A simple line of dialogue could have massive consequences. Like that one line of dialogue by a slave in The Fort makes everyone think that legionnaires are just rape-happy and will rape women on the spot. Which is something I find absurd. But the dialogue line is in there and people will run off with it.



Ultimately though, Fallout is a shitshow when it comes to the lore so if you feel overwhelmed by it then just do your thing and have fun with it.

 

[Slaughter Manslaught]

I also want to know more about the general philosophy behind introducing new lore with a Fallout mod, what should be avoided when doing so and what I should do to make sure things introduced in my own mod project fit in with the Fallout setting.

My cents, its something I've discussed with The Dutch Ghost as well.

1. Don't be too unoriginal. One criticism I've seen, both at most big mods in general and Bethesda, is that they seem too afraid to innovate. They're basing Fallout on Fallout, but Fallout wasn't based on Fallout, it was based on other things. FO3's main story suffers from being a big mish-mash of FO1 (main quest around Water, Super Mutants, Vault as central), FO2 (Enclave as main villains, GECK) and even a bit of FOT (Super Mutants vs Brotherhood). Its not wrong taking something existing and spinning/twisting it somehow (like, "what if there was another Maxson-style rebellion, but the Scientists won?), but don't do just that.

(this is a problem with Star Wars as well, btw)

(This is also worth thinking mechanics-wise. My big criticism of Fallout of Nevada is that they were too timid with the mechanics changes. Especially considering how good Nevada is at accomodating diverse skills and stats. Practically didn't touch the SPECIAL system, when a project like theirs was ripe to do so. SPECIAL has its issues, and they have been discussed hundreds of times)


2. Research the local area, not everywhere has to be the West Coast (well, unless it is the West Coast). I feel like Bethesda was mindlessly aping the Classic Fallout aesthetics by having DC be a desert... which literally makes no sense because DC is essentially a giant swamp. The Commonwealth and Appalachia are far more interesting and well-done, in that aspect. Then there's (alternate) history, like "what happened before the war?" and such.

Even the West Coast shouldn't be "just" the West Coast. Central Coast of California and Eastern Nevada are not exactly alike.


3. What's the local myth? This is something I've never seen raised before except by myself. Fallout 1/2/FNV lean strongly in Wild West aesthetics and tropes (yes, folks, Fallout was ALWAYS a western) - 1 already did that but was subtler, 2 was subtle as a club to the head, FNV straight out said "fuck it" and shoved the Wild West in your face, but it was New Vegas, so it worked perfectly. Westerners and Mad Max were some of Fallout's biggest influences.

Fallout 4 seems to lean into the American Revolution, Fallout 76 seems to lean strongly into the old working class struggles of the Appalachian Region (like the Battle of Blair Mountain) and local cryptid and conspiracy theory lore.

It wouldn't make much sense to have cowboys in Porto Rico or Florida, but Pirates? Hell yeah. But Pirates wouldn't make sense in Kansas, if you get my drift.


4. Find the sources of Fallout. Remember, Fallout is a derivative setting. Find these sources. History is always good. Fiction-wise, the Golden Age of Science Fiction is Fallout's big influence. Mad Max as well. There are other non-Golden Age works, like the Hardboiled Graphic Novel.


5. Pre-War is not Post-War. Time passes. The Pre-War world should be this ancient, faded world of yesterday. The Pre-War world ended in the decades after the nukes, and created the "Mad Max Cowboys with Lasers" world of Fallout. People live in the shadow of that great ruin. The world turns, things change. People don't just stay doing the same thing forever. People begin again.

6. Don't contradict previous canon, at least not without a VERY good reason. Like, Super Mutants cannot breed. At all. If there's a Super Mutant breeding, there better be a killer reason for why that is happening, and that should be a massively important plot point - Super Mutants being able to breed would have a bigger impact on the setting than a nuke.

 

[Alphons]

General outline of what various TCs did badly in my opinion:


Nevada:

Rewritten 3 or 4 times and at one point the narrative just falls apart. Whole bunch of different ideas were cut out at various stages of development leaving some obvious holes (for example Vegas lost 2 districts, whole bunch of quests and various alternate paths for the mayor's investigation quest).


New California:

Very ambitious, but they didn't have a team or enough passion to make it alone for 15 years. Would've worked better in FO2 or with it's travel system like Salt Lake Stories mod.

There's nothing between the major locations aside from badly navmeshed ground, so you end up going towards your objective for 10 minutes without anything happening. Majority of buildings are inaccessible props.

Main story tries too hard to tie itself to the other Fallouts and that's why the MC is a pre-war superweapon mixed with Vault Dweller's DNA by remnants of Unity and who becomes the NV Courier after the events of New California.


Frontier:

They went out of their way to make a distant new location and then shoehorned in every faction. Why not make some local factions?
You could even have the NCR and Legion with a small presence supplying weapons or training recruits, so the player could have an incentive to support the Frontier faction that alligned itself with their NV faction.

It had a giant team, but no lead designer so everything is disjointed.

You can ask House 20 questions about his plans for the future, but you can also say fuck you to him and mutilate him with a golf club.
Frontier meanwhile dumps on you long, boring monologues and cutscenes that you don't have any input in and can't skip at all.

 

[Slaughter Manslaught]

For example, ZAX in Fallout 1 claims that super mutants shouldn’t live to more than 100 years or so, which is directly contradicted by including super mutants in Fallout 2 and later New Vegas.

The Glow Holodisks do say that FEV ensured that the Hayfleck Limit was completely broken.
We also know that FEV fixes all genetic issues humans have.
They also have perfect immune systems and never get sick, ever.
So, Super Mutant cells can replicate forever, they will never suffer deleterious mutations like we do, and they never get sick.

It's not straight out "Super Mutants are immortal", but it's pretty much said. I think it makes sense ZAX has no idea Super Mutants are immortal, because obviously, he never saw them live that long. He never saw them at all, in fact.

 

[TheAnimeHunter]

It’s your mod dude, it doesn’t really matter what we think. There are threads about The Frontier and New California that you can read through to give you an idea of what those mods did wrong.

If you want my/our advice on whether your mod fits well into Fallout or not, it would be best to post your specific ideas so we can critique them.

I'd argue it does matter to an extent. You guys are Fallout veterans, if anybody in the community can help point me in the right direction (besides the devs behind old-school fallout) it would be you guys.

When it comes to specific ideas, that's going to wait until later as much of that is still being developed. I want to at least get a first draft complete before I want to give details regarding faction/region lore.

Don't be afraid to be add something new, but if you ask yourself "Does it fit?" then it probably doesn't..

Fair enough, though on that note I do have something to ask. I understand that a part of Fallout's aesthetic revolves around a 1950's styled atompunk future that was nuked (or at least something along those lines), would you say that sort of 1950's styling of things extends to the post-apocalypse? One idea I've been toying with is having the aesthetics of a raider group borrow from punk rock. Brightly colored mohawks, lots of leather, stuff like that, mainly because I think it fits the general raider vibe without sticking out too much in an apocalypse.

In this case, is there some kind of line I'm crossing?

When it comes to the lore all you gotta do is to remain consistent to the established lore with your mod.
However, that means you have to decide which lore is canon and which isn't.
Because Bethesda's products and even FNV has lore inconsistencies with the earlier games.
So you have to make a hard choice right there when it comes to consistency.



The other two things aren't necessarily as important but should still be considered.

One is to play other TC mods and see what their lore is and preferably avoid inconsistencies with them too cause the way I see it Bethesda is never going to give us a "Proper" fallout game so all we got to rely on is TC mods and if those were to all remain consistent with one another then that'd be great.

Second thing is to simply ask "what are the consequences of this new lore". Like factually adding in aliens can work (though Bethesda's approach was terrible) but what are the consequences of adding it in?


If you really want to be careful about the lore then you got a lot of hard work ahead of you. A simple line of dialogue could have massive consequences. Like that one line of dialogue by a slave in The Fort makes everyone think that legionnaires are just rape-happy and will rape women on the spot. Which is something I find absurd. But the dialogue line is in there and people will run off with it.



Ultimately though, Fallout is a shitshow when it comes to the lore so if you feel overwhelmed by it then just do your thing and have fun with it.

Is there a way I can get an overview of the lore established in a Fallout game without having to comb through a wiki page? The closest thing to this I can think of is either the Fallout Bible or the Van Buren Design Documents. As cool as both of those are, their relation to canon (or at least canon as far as the west-coast games are concerned) is unclear to my knowlege.

My cents, its something I've discussed with The Dutch Ghost as well.

1. Don't be too unoriginal. One criticism I've seen, both at most big mods in general and Bethesda, is that they seem too afraid to innovate. They're basing Fallout on Fallout, but Fallout wasn't based on Fallout, it was based on other things. FO3's main story suffers from being a big mish-mash of FO1 (main quest around Water, Super Mutants, Vault as central), FO2 (Enclave as main villains, GECK) and even a bit of FOT (Super Mutants vs Brotherhood). Its not wrong taking something existing and spinning/twisting it somehow (like, "what if there was another Maxson-style rebellion, but the Scientists won?), but don't do just that.

I'm not sure if there's an actual term for what I'm going to describe, but how important are "theatrics" in a Fallout story? The Kings, Caesars Legion, The Boomers, The Khans, The Brotherhood of Steel and seemingly the entirety of New Reno all have some (in my opinion) near fantastical gimmicks that seem incredibly out of place if not impractical in a post-apocalyptic setting. Would it be a bad idea to focus on groups and communities that have a more grounded approach to the post-apocalypse? Or at the very least, factions that are driven by real ideologies instead of some weird quirk.

Note, I don't mean to say that these factions are bad. It just seems strange to me that a group like The Kings, as cool as they are, would lean so heavily into the Elvis Impersonator shtick.

 

[Alphons]

Fair enough, though on that note I do have something to ask. I understand that a part of Fallout's aesthetic revolves around a 1950's styled atompunk future that was nuked (or at least something along those lines), would you say that sort of 1950's styling of things extends to the post-apocalypse? One idea I've been toying with is having the aesthetics of a raider group borrow from punk rock. Brightly colored mohawks, lots of leather, stuff like that, mainly because I think it fits the general raider vibe without sticking out too much in an apocalypse.

In this case, is there some kind of line I'm crossing?

Is there some reason for them to dress like that? When you say borrow do you mean that they literally copied something?
Like Blades taking their name from pre-war brand or Kings borrowing from Elvis' impersonators.

 

[Mr Fish]

Is there a way I can get an overview of the lore established in a Fallout game without having to comb through a wiki page? The closest thing to this I can think of is either the Fallout Bible or the Van Buren Design Documents. As cool as both of those are, their relation to canon (or at least canon as far as the west-coast games are concerned) is unclear to my knowlege.

Again, it really depends on which lore you want to incorporate. But if you do not wish to incorporate FO3, FO4 and F76 due to the massive lore inconsistencies then the wiki's are pretty much unreliable at this point as they incorporate every bit of lore no matter how much of a mess it creates. The Bible is outdated and IIRC had issues even for its time and Van Buren design documents means FNV becomes non-canon and while they are relatively easy to read whereas with FNV you'd have to play through the entire game multiple times not everyone will agree with it due to it being unreleased.

And I completely forgot about the Restoration Project for Fallout 2, that's another divergence in canon technically. I consider it to be canon.

A simple thing would be to just create an alternative thread to this one where you ask us here questions about the lore and we can try to fill in what's missing.

But I mean, you don't have to have a major focus on vaults for example, if you need a vault to be in the game you don't need to explore the lore of vaults, you can simply explore the lore of that one vault and be fine. And nothing stops you from adding in new lore. Like I had an idea for a agricultural facility who's job was to basically try to create an alternative to meat from plants and they experimented with some rapid mutation formulas (Not FEV) and when the bombs struck the place got shot out but the plants were resilient and started to spread, creating a kind of tall weed blood grass. The problem with this blood grass is that it is extremely invasive towards any other plant life so if left un attended it will continue to spread and might end up being uncontrollable. A lot of wildlife is attracted to this grass but it is toxic and prolonged exposure leads to a slow poisoning, the resulting rotting carcass is devoured by the emerging roots from the grass that helps keep it fed. It also cannabilizes its own when it starts to die which helps it survive.

New lore, doesn't conflict with anything else.

You shouldn't ignore all other lore that came before it but you don't have to have inclusions of everything else either. It really depends on the lore you want to include and what you intend to do with it. So, give a couple of examples of what you had in mind and then we can critique them a bit better.

Fair enough, though on that note I do have something to ask. I understand that a part of Fallout's aesthetic revolves around a 1950's styled atompunk future that was nuked (or at least something along those lines), would you say that sort of 1950's styling of things extends to the post-apocalypse? One idea I've been toying with is having the aesthetics of a raider group borrow from punk rock. Brightly colored mohawks, lots of leather, stuff like that, mainly because I think it fits the general raider vibe without sticking out too much in an apocalypse.

In this case, is there some kind of line I'm crossing?

Hahaha, no, you're not crossing a line. You haven't seen the Followers Of The Apocalypse in Fallout 1? Some of them are straight up punks. If anything the 50's shit is all Bethesda. Look at the architecture of the original games. The remains of the old world. It was the idea of what the future was in the 50's, not 50's in the future. There should only be a tint of 50's aesthetics in Fallout. And post-war? The world continued to grow and evolve. The further away from the nuke date you set your game the less 50's aesthetics there ought to be.

I'm not sure if there's an actual term for what I'm going to describe, but how important are "theatrics" in a Fallout story? The Kings, Caesars Legion, The Boomers, The Khans, The Brotherhood of Steel and seemingly the entirety of New Reno all have some (in my opinion) near fantastical gimmicks that seem incredibly out of place if not impractical in a post-apocalyptic setting. Would it be a bad idea to focus on groups and communities that have a more grounded approach to the post-apocalypse? Or at the very least, factions that are driven by real ideologies instead of some weird quirk.

Note, I don't mean to say that these factions are bad. It just seems strange to me that a group like The Kings, as cool as they are, would lean so heavily into the Elvis Impersonator shtick.

Oh that right there is a divergence in the fanbase. Some like the outlandish designs and others want it depressingly realistic (like STALKER or Metro or something) and to those people I say: We already have those things. They're called STALKER and Metro. And more. Fallout is fun because it has fantastical elements.

I don't think you should concern yourself with everything needing to be practical. A bit of flare here and there is what makes something iconic and fun. Of course, don't go completely overboard with it. Obsidian should probably have dialed the roman stuff back a notch or two.

A realistic place is realistic. But also forgettable.

 

[TheAnimeHunter]

Would've worked better in FO2 or with it's travel system like Salt Lake Stories mod.

There's nothing between the major locations aside from badly navmeshed ground, so you end up going towards your objective for 10 minutes without anything happening. Majority of buildings are inaccessible props.

So you think a similar travel system as Fallout 1 and 2 could translate well into 3d?

My idea is to have each town be a hub world, with smaller "encounter zone" hub worlds in between them where the player will encounter something before they can discover the next town, removing the open world entirely. If there's a better idea that I'm missing that doesn't involve just copying Fallout: The Story I'd like to hear it. Simply put, I don't know if copying Fallout: The Story's travel system would be a great idea. It's faithful to the classic Fallouts, yes, but it's not fun to play as a FPS.

That being said, what if these "encounter zones" were, well, anything besides an empty desert? What if these were places where the player will stumble upon a small side-story then can either interfere in or ignore? Stuff like that.

 

[Mr Fish]

So you think a similar travel system as Fallout 1 and 2 could translate well into 3d?

My idea is to have each town be a hub world, with smaller "encounter zone" hub worlds in between them where the player will encounter something before they can discover the next town, removing the open world entirely. If there's a better idea that I'm missing that doesn't involve just copying Fallout: The Story I'd like to hear it. Simply put, I don't know if copying Fallout: The Story's travel system would be a great idea. It's faithful to the classic Fallouts, yes, but it's not fun to play as a FPS.

That being said, what if these "encounter zones" were, well, anything besides an empty desert? What if these were places where the player will stumble upon a small side-story then can either interfere in or ignore? Stuff like that.

Ask @Gizmojunk
I think he did something like that.

 

[TheAnimeHunter]

Is there some reason for them to dress like that? When you say borrow do you mean that they literally copied something?
Like Blades taking their name from pre-war brand or Kings borrowing from Elvis' impersonators.

No, it's purely just an aesthetic difference that helps separate them from other raider groups. The closest thing to an in-game explanation I have is that most people in the raider group are younger people addicted to Psycho.

 

[TorontoReign]

So you think a similar travel system as Fallout 1 and 2 could translate well into 3d?

My idea is to have each town be a hub world, with smaller "encounter zone" hub worlds in between them where the player will encounter something before they can discover the next town, removing the open world entirely. If there's a better idea that I'm missing that doesn't involve just copying Fallout: The Story I'd like to hear it. Simply put, I don't know if copying Fallout: The Story's travel system would be a great idea. It's faithful to the classic Fallouts, yes, but it's not fun to play as a FPS.

That being said, what if these "encounter zones" were, well, anything besides an empty desert? What if these were places where the player will stumble upon a small side-story then can either interfere in or ignore? Stuff like that.

Yes.

 

[Alphons]

Travel system in Salt Lake Stories (timestamped).

World map is a separate interior you get transported into after activating the car.

You can get 2 more vehicles with different cell consumption. There're no random encounters.

 

[Gizmojunk]

 

[TheAnimeHunter]

Two things.
1. I'm not sure if a map menu like that is even possible in New Vegas' engine.
2. You made the FO2 Enclave Armor a mod just a month before New Vegas came out? That's wizard!

 

[Gizmojunk]

At the time, I had assumed that the engines they used could have implemented the map (I later mocked up) in a similar way to that seen later in Skyrim, but with a Fallout 2 style cosmetic overlay.

IIRC, menus in FO3/NV (like the terminals) are 3d mesh models, and the map could be just a complex click menu.

 

[TheAnimeHunter]

IIRC, menus in FO3/NV (like the terminals) are 3d mesh models, and the map could be just a complex click menu.

What do you mean by a "complex click menu"?

 

[Gizmojunk]

I have never delved deep (enough) into the engine to make a custom terminal, but it always seem to me that the overland map could be a world space of its own, with an overhead camera looking down on a terrain model, not unlike what appears in Skyrim.