[josephduffy]

Fallout has been a great game for those wanting to invest heavily in the role-playing aspect of a game. Fallout 76 and its groups are an example of how the internet can be fantastic.

IGN released a good video on some of the players of Fallout 76, including the Wasteland Theatre Company featured in the article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0wccxcmrlA

[orbital-decay]

Paradoxically, this mostly happens because Fallout 76 doesn't have much to offer after finishing the story, so players found other ways to amuse themselves than perpetual grinding in a glorified slot machine.

[xen2xen1]

Ha. I'm starting a chain store of vendors near train stations (run 6 copies of the game and sell stuff to other players) for pretty much that reason.

[LegitShady]

The game is overmonetized trash, and the fallout game doesn't seem to add anything at all to the theater company's performance. It might as well be second life or vrchat or any of a million other games that aren't abusive microtransaction garbage.

Fallout 76 was a real turning point from bethesda, where they went from inept buggy RPGs to actively evil over monetization on a game that should never have been released in that state.

[petetnt]

I agree on the "should never been released in that state" part, but currently Fallout 76 is by far the best Fallout game Bethesda has made. The newer campaigns are fun and engaging, well written even and there's lots to do. Best of all the community is super friendly and non-toxic: something that is almost impossible to find in 2023.

Sure, there are things that are grindy and made grindy on purpose (eg. getting gold bullion or legendary scrip which are capped daily) and there are things that have worked and things that have not, but as far as monetization goes the game lets you enjoy every single piece of content without grinding or spending a single dime outside of the initial investment. I have played the game hundreds of hours and didn't feel like I was missing anything - I have even bought all of the cosmetics I have wanted purely just by using the currency the game occasionally drops you.

The game is currently -75% off on Steam (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1151340/Fallout_76/) and while it still might not be on par with the likes of 2 or New Vegas, I highly recommend it to anyone that were disappointed in Fallout 4 or even 3.

[AlecSchueler]

Is it worth playing as a single player?

[petetnt]

I'd say it is, though interacting with other players do make the game better. You can do the main storyline together with friends, but only the party leader can complete the missions - so if playing with group of friends you need to repeat every quest with everyone which is not optimal. That said you can easily complete all of the missions solo: only the really end game missions are so hard that they are easier to complete with others.

There's tons of content where all the people on the server contribute together, but you don't need to communicate or coordinate. There's some content that are meant to be done with group, but you don't need to communicate too much on those either: just jump into a random party, have fun and jump out of the party.

And of course you can also just roam around the map with friends or visit the houses of randoms and that's neat too.

Usually when I am playing solo, I just jump into a random party to get some perk bonuses and do whatever I need to do, then jump into another party that's build around some objective and do that, then continue playing solo and so forth.

Like I said, the community is SUPER friendly and non-toxic, so you can engage with other players or ignore them as much as you want to without one anyone grieving.

[orbital-decay]

Bethesda is the company that invented microtransactions (horse armor in TES IV Oblivion) and coined the term "DLC" if I'm not mistaken, so I'm not sure if that was that different from what they were doing before.

[asdff]

Bethesda on the other hand offers some of the only console titles that lets you actually install user modification in the game. They aren't totally evil. I think its surprising you can mod skyrim to the point of it blowing up on xbox just like you can on pc actually.

[9WwFaLaTtBDaoS]

The horse armor wasn't evil in any way, they haven't really joined into the microtransaction mania and if they hadn't been the first someone else would have.

[LegitShady]

sure, but for fallout 76 there are no user mods at all. the trend is not positive.

[technothrasher]

I thought it was Microsoft that basically invented microtransactions for their Xbox Live Marketplace, and encouraged developers to utilize the model. But you can go all the way back to the 1980's with Atari's GameLine to see the very first "download a game for $1" type of digital transactions.

As to who coined the term DLC, could have been Bethesda, I don't know that one.

[LegitShady]

play fallout 4 and then 76 and tell me which is more overmonetized. Even better if you can somehow play the launch fallout 76 before they started taking back their "game design decisions" that removed NPCs and the entire story was told through reading and tapes. Don't forget your premium fallout 76 monthly subscription.

[ehnto]

Two very different game types, F76 was not a sequel to F4, and it was not even a spin off like Fallout New Vegas. It is a forever game/Game as a Service/ Always Online game. They were super duper clear about it all too. All good if you don't like it but you are spinning tales if you act like they put microtransactions into a singleplayer game.

[LegitShady]

I never said it was a sequel, I said one is overmonetized garbage, and it isn't free to play overmonetized garbage either - it was a full price game at launch. A full price fallout full of microtransactions, now with a premium monthly membership, etc.

that it isn't a sequel isn't relevant.

[ehnto]

It was always meant to be a game as a service, they had to monetize it long term and they have been adding free content regularly.

I think the mistake they made was not calling it Fallout Online in order to set expectations and of course, release a complete game at launch.

[LegitShady]

they also launched a full price game and then later dropped the price because it didn't sell. Whatever they always intended, microtransaction laden games launching at full price without justification is a anti consumer.

If they had made it free to play or inexpensive with microtransactions at the start that would have been less bad, but their intention the whole time was to take people for the full price, then have microtransactions, and also a monthly premium subscription. I think it has gatcha mechanics too. It's basically the holy grail of anti consumer business models.

[shrimp_emoji]

Required watching for anyone curious about how bad the launch of 76 was: https://youtu.be/kjyeCdd-dl8

Blizzard and Bethesda used to be my favorite game companies, and I'm grateful they noticed my migration to Linux and decided to make it easy on me by making me either not want to play their games at all or wait for years until they're available on Proton and I can buy them cheaper with all DLCs and bugfixes.

[footlose_3815]

That whole video watched like an ad, it made me sick.