[secretballot]

Similar effect with the Fallout series. A whole lot of the fanbase has never played any of the three 2D games (Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout Tactics). The series started, for them, with Fallout 3.

I’m kinda that way with Elder Scrolls. My first one was III (Morrowind) and I’ve still never played the first two.

[amatecha]

Yeah, for me, Fallout 1 and 2 are the definitive Fallout games (ignoring Tactics as I never played it). I felt like 3 and onward were like Elder Scrolls total conversions, and I always saw them as "spiritual successors" but not exactly cut from the same cloth, or something. Like, same universe, but very different style and feel, and far less memorable or influential to me. Of course I played the first two games at a far more impressionable age, but the actual atmosphere of the games was a lot more gritty and impactful, even comparing the "eras" today.

[somenameforme]

The worst part about it is that the new games completely miss the irony in the themes. In the original the Vault Boy design that shows up everywhere was in stark contrast to the entire atmosphere and theme of the game, which was dark to the point that it'd probably have trouble being remade in modern times without extensive censorship. It created an amazing and immersive feel to the game somehow, in spite of the graphics being simple to the point of most characters looking literally identical (which can be quite confusing in an RPG where characters also wander).

But the new games are goofy throughout and basically just Skyrim with guns in a post apocalyptic setting, which feels like they just took the Vault Boy meme and turned it into a game. Even things like nuking an entire town has no 'oomph' behind it thanks to the goofy feel of the game, which feels thematically much more like Borderlands than it does Fallout.

[ecshafer]

The Bethesda Fallout games are not the same universe. Sure canonically they are but there is a giant aesthetic difference. Fallout 1 was occasionally wacky but was mostly straight. Fallout 2 went a bit more comedic. But the main thing is that these were post apocalyptic societies that were trying to still evolve and move on. Bethesda Fallout leaned too much into the 1950s tropes everywhere and increased the comedic levels to much. It stopped being their own separate societies living in these post apocalyptic societies, and started being just a comical post apocalyptic world full of 1950s references, despite Fallout NOT being based on the 1950s.

[Ekaros]

My take is that original Fallout was a post-post apocalyptic setting. Apocalypse was gone and many societies were building up again. Especially when you get to Fallout 2 with Vault City and NCR. Fallout 3 the people had not gone anywhere. It was just set dressing.

Even if 4 had one hyper advanced society that came from in essence nowhere. The rest hadn't done anything much in the time period... Like they had been around for tiny bit. Or living their lives in some weird retro style for some unimaginable reason.

Well Bethesda now builds collections of dioramas, not worlds.

[ecshafer]

Total agreement. The one thing that is really annoying in all of the 3d Fallout games, New Vegas included. Is that they are still living in ruins. People's homes are full of burned garbage, broken shelves, and trash on the floors. They don't differentiate a ruined house and a house that people live in. In 1 and 2, people live in shacks, but its their homes. Some people view the past as mythology and they practice shamanism. Some enclaves are advanced but they are view the outside as dangerous and full of barbarians. Even though its not "realistic" its much more believable.

[mikkupikku]

New Vegas more or less fits the first two IMHO. It's 3 and 4, the proper Bethesda ones, which really shit things up in inexplicably ways. Neither of them even feel like remotely plausible settings, let alone fit in Fallout.

[Joel_Mckay]

It is said Bethesda was kit bashing the initial titles.

Griefers don't get mad... we all know it is true =3

[lproven]

Um.

Could someone please tell me what these phrases mean in old-people English?

> Bethesda was kit bashing the initial titles.

And

> Griefers don't get mad...

And in context...

> we all know it is true

And this emoji?

> =3

This comment and having to ask makes me feel 116 instead of 58. Jeez.

[Joel_Mckay]

In general, people expect to see someone at least tried to find details/definitions on their own. Then to ask other people to take time to clarify subjects. In this case, LMGTFY:

By the time later Game releases were in production, world assets were already being heavily recycled. It doesn't describe the popularity of expansion/add-on packs, but rather the quality of the content discussed by the parent thread. Jokes like "learn to shoot, while walking backwards..." are still meme truisms from the Games design.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_(franchise)#Games

"Kitbashing" is a term originally from film/TV/model-builders for visual effects models with heavily recycled parts from multiple kits (see red dwarf or star wars set documentaries for details.) Accordingly, many modern games also mix generic re-skinned asset packs rather than hire fussy artists. The joke meme about "if you see barrels, than you know the game developers were out of ideas..." highlights how process people try to build products hoping people won't care about the drop in content quality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitbashing

YC has a population of folks that bury anything that doesn't fit personal opinions. It is a poorly structured interface in some ways, as people tend to interpret context based on whatever they were doing 30 seconds beforehand.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griefer

Don't worry about it... =3

“Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. You understand it better but the frog dies in the process.” (E.B. White)

[reactordev]

Daggerfall is a must!!! You'll get to see how it shaped Bethesda and the Elder Scrolls games that came after (including Morrowind)

[chongli]

Yeah, Daggerfall really holds up well today. The game can be downloaded completely for free (truly gratis; no DLC, no ads) on Steam. Then using the official data files you'll get the best experience playing with Daggerfall Unity [2] which is a fanmade rewrite of the game engine on Unity. DFU fixes/avoids a lot of longstanding bugs in the base game, runs in high resolution, and has a long draw distance (which is a big deal since the in-game distances are VAST).

[1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/1812390/The_Elder_Scrolls...

[2] https://www.dfworkshop.net/daggerfall-unity-1-0-release/

[bloqs]

Thank you for this. I feel i missed this title as a youth but it was of the era i loved. Modern games have somewhat spoilt old input and controls for me but a modernisation is just what i need

[opan]

You might also be interested in Barony.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/371970/Barony/

[chongli]

Daggerfall by default has some pretty weird controls but even the original game lets you customize them enough to play with WASD movement and strafing and full mouse-look. It's very smooth. DFU makes the frame rate even smoother so that it really has a great feel!

[secretballot]

Yeah, it’s on the list for when I can put 20+ hours a week into video games again without constant interruptions (kids, man, hahaha, I appreciate pick-up-and-put-down sorts of games so much more than I used to)

[Tade0]

The world is surprisingly huge for a game that came out in 1996.

I recall looking over the shoulder of my friend who was playing it religiously and seeing all those dots on the continent map, asking my him if those are all navigable locations, to which he replied: "yeah, I haven't even visited all of them yet".

[reactordev]

They recently remastered it for modern systems, it will be there when the kids ask “What’s that?” And you get to open Pandora’s box for them. “Oh this? This… is Elder Scrolls”.

I had a similar moment in my life when my daughter asked me about D&D late 2010s. They’re grown now but boy did I bombard them with nerddom.

[Klaster_1]

Morrowind was my first TES too and I recently tried Daggerfall Unity. In 20 hours, I learned that I don't like shallow vast sea games at all. I don't want to "reolplay" and grind computer generated quests. Even Starfield was better as it at least had modern quest lines, although with awful writing.

[tmtvl]

Did you deliberately leave out Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, or did you just forget it exists?

[secretballot]

Console only fallout game? Fake. Can’t be real.

[edit] but really, I was like “man, I feel like there’s another one…” but figured I must have just been thinking of the never-made sequel that got as far as some planning (Van Buren).