RetroAmerica
It Wandered In From the Wastes
During the period of Classic Fallout, one used to be able to pick the age of the character and though that had no particular effect on the game, it was all part of the role playing experience, allowing the player to in effect make the Vault Dweller or the Chosen One in the prime of their lives, or perhaps more aged and experienced, which depending on the character you built, the age you chose would in effect make more sense for that particular character build.
In Fallout Tactics, this issue was never really addressed as all your BOS troops were preset characters, and with Van Buren, I can't recall there being any benefits for an older versus younger character.
However, by the time in which Fallout 3 came out, and the world of Fallout transitioned into full 3D, the player finally was given the option of building that 40 something year old character. However, though Fallout 3 gave you the option to make your character look like he was verging on pension age, they quickly slapped you an arbitrary you're 18, and the rest of the game world will treat you as such, no matter how old you make your character look.
New Vegas also suffered from this problem, with no matter how elderly you made your courier look, he still was treated as though he was in his late 20's/early 30's. Also, I've noticed the same thing with Bethesda's Fallout 4, whereby you can do a ton of editing of one's character, but again he seems timelocked in that mid twenties stage of life, regardless of how aged you make the character.
Now some might ask, why is this important? Well for one thing, it takes away from the story telling aspect very quickly, if you build a character who looks like he's edging sixty, but the character which he encounters, talks to him as though he's still basically a kid. Also, one quickly loses immersion, as in Bethesda's Fallout 3, when the radio announcer addresses you as though you're a kid, no matter how old you visually make your character.
Now how could age be implemented in the game one might ask? Well, for starters a character's age should have some impact on stats and skills. For instance, if you're playing a character who's say in his forties and you have small guns tagged as one of your skills, then your character due to his age, should in theory start with more points in that particular skill as he has in effect used it throughout the course of his life. However, when you try to put new points into a skill, they should be lower, simply due to the fact, that unless your character happens to be some form of a genius, most struggle with learning new habits or skill sets after a certain age.
Also a converse system could be added, whereby if you chose a younger character, he starts out with far less points and no skills to tag initially, but as he advances, different options are opened up, to realistically show the progression of a younger character, into a more skill expert in certain fields, while the older character might cap out on certain skills and areas, however he would have the advantage of starting with higher stats in certain areas.
Also, this could effect dialogue choices too, as an older character would look rather amiss asking a question about perhaps what is a vault, or things in which he should have some degree of general or specific knowledge about, versus the younger character, who as he has yet to have these particular experiences could be forgiven, if he were to ask, why are caps still being used as currency etc.
Overall, I think the implementation of an age system, would create for a much more unique play experience, and would allow the player to create a much more diverse and interesting character, rather than basically creating the same god-like construct repeatedly.
In Fallout Tactics, this issue was never really addressed as all your BOS troops were preset characters, and with Van Buren, I can't recall there being any benefits for an older versus younger character.
However, by the time in which Fallout 3 came out, and the world of Fallout transitioned into full 3D, the player finally was given the option of building that 40 something year old character. However, though Fallout 3 gave you the option to make your character look like he was verging on pension age, they quickly slapped you an arbitrary you're 18, and the rest of the game world will treat you as such, no matter how old you make your character look.
New Vegas also suffered from this problem, with no matter how elderly you made your courier look, he still was treated as though he was in his late 20's/early 30's. Also, I've noticed the same thing with Bethesda's Fallout 4, whereby you can do a ton of editing of one's character, but again he seems timelocked in that mid twenties stage of life, regardless of how aged you make the character.
Now some might ask, why is this important? Well for one thing, it takes away from the story telling aspect very quickly, if you build a character who looks like he's edging sixty, but the character which he encounters, talks to him as though he's still basically a kid. Also, one quickly loses immersion, as in Bethesda's Fallout 3, when the radio announcer addresses you as though you're a kid, no matter how old you visually make your character.
Now how could age be implemented in the game one might ask? Well, for starters a character's age should have some impact on stats and skills. For instance, if you're playing a character who's say in his forties and you have small guns tagged as one of your skills, then your character due to his age, should in theory start with more points in that particular skill as he has in effect used it throughout the course of his life. However, when you try to put new points into a skill, they should be lower, simply due to the fact, that unless your character happens to be some form of a genius, most struggle with learning new habits or skill sets after a certain age.
Also a converse system could be added, whereby if you chose a younger character, he starts out with far less points and no skills to tag initially, but as he advances, different options are opened up, to realistically show the progression of a younger character, into a more skill expert in certain fields, while the older character might cap out on certain skills and areas, however he would have the advantage of starting with higher stats in certain areas.
Also, this could effect dialogue choices too, as an older character would look rather amiss asking a question about perhaps what is a vault, or things in which he should have some degree of general or specific knowledge about, versus the younger character, who as he has yet to have these particular experiences could be forgiven, if he were to ask, why are caps still being used as currency etc.
Overall, I think the implementation of an age system, would create for a much more unique play experience, and would allow the player to create a much more diverse and interesting character, rather than basically creating the same god-like construct repeatedly.
