Warlockracy - Potatozone game reviewer, has good Fallout 2 and Morrowind mod reviews, why is there no discussion about him?

[30+GameOvers]

I think what people want is a middle ground between civilization and anarchy (which is what New Vegas was by being on the frontier of the NCR, you had plenty of untouched ruins and unopened Vaults while still having some complex post-post apocalypse elements). There's still a lot of untapped potential in the setting that hasn't been explored, both from a mechanical and story standpoint.
California-Nevada-Arizona can be for big developed complex bureaucratic societies, and Boston and DC can be the permanently anarchic raider hellholes. Off the top of my head, you could have competing city-states, or tribes that are semi-civilized at around early modern levels of development. Have it be a gradient: the further east you go, the less developed things get. Embrace the Mad Max inspirations with nomads in the Great Plains. We haven't seen a fully urban Fallout where the entire map is the city: have it be that for whatever reason it was inaccessible until recently, and prospectors and settlers are now moving in, akin to NV.

Van Buren would have been place in Nevada/Arizona region, and it was pretty interesting. Plenty of barely touched pre-war locations and primitive tribes with pockets of civilization here or there. The story would have been focused less on interpolitics of the region and more on the big bad like the first three Fallout games, but the world would have been connected in a similar way as in Fallout 2, that includes an entire trade routes side quest chain once you repair a train. There still isn't anything like it within the franchise, be it official or a fan project. Main Quest is very interesting too as it would have been kind of time based like Fallout 1, and if you didn't do certain objectives or did them fast enough the situation in certain locations would have changed completely and changed your interactions there. The very first half of the game would have you constantly chased by a robot fleet and on the constant move, if you got caught you would be transported back to the starting location of the game(idea recycled for Old World Blues with the pylons), you could tell Black Isle really wanted to experiment with Van Buren.
When compared to VB, most fan-ideas or fan projects look really tame and by-the-numbers, either imitating New Vegas or Todd's Fallout. This is why I said we will never see anything other than a New Vegas or a Todd game, this is all the fans know or care about. Same tropes, the same templates, just with a different flavor or background and usually done and written worse than the base material or inspiration. I don't trust the fans after The Frontier, I would rather just have VB and then I will be happy. I'm sure people who never heard of it will like it, too.
And frankly, it's been 200 years after the war by the point New Vegas and Fallout 4 happened. It is utterly ridiculous to have any pre-war buildings or ruins not touched by civilization, all of America should have been civilized by this point like NCR. Look how much the writers had to pull problems and excuses out of their ass just to make Mojave as uncivilized as it is, and it still makes DC and Boston look like Africa in comparison. Nobody gets this, everybody wants tin shacks and raiders everywhere like in the TV show, nobody can do this setting justice as far as I am concerned.

All any kind of "Fallout game" needs is clever writing, but that cannot exist because the people who write games are not the same people who write games now.

Bingo. Just look at Fallout 4, they tried copying the amoral faction conflict of NV, but it is so BORING. Minutemen are literally just barely organized farmers that don't even follow your orders, Railroad were promised to be a secret organization working behind the enemy lines but ended up being retarded SJW larpers with a password to their secret lair that might as well be "Password123", Brotherhood are just MidWest BOS lite who don't act like any Brotherhood(destroying The Institute, for example) from any game. At this point, why not just give us a DIFFERENT FACTION? And then there is Institute, which is just Big MT with really bad writing, but since you get to be their leader and effectively control them, there is literally no reason NOT to sign up with them even if you're sympathizing with other factions: Minutemen General can make sure that Synths don't attack settlements, Railroad Agent can simply limit production of Synths and free them in secret, and BOS Operative can act as a puppet leader for the interests of The Brotherhood. I brought up Frontier, it really isn't better there either, it's a Fallout 3 fan's interpretation of New Vegas factions because that's exactly what it is, most Frontier devs were Bethesda fans first and foremost and some didn't even finish a single playthru of NV in their lives. We will never get a game like NV again simply because you're not allowed to make one, even if you could there is no talent left to make it work.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Finally finished the video. It sounds like the usual issue of concepts that sounds good on paper but will come either as unpractical to implement well, irritating to play or underwhelming. Also will need a lot of filler to have a standard game time.

The way to do this is to add moral ambiguity. You make it so no one faction is correct and every faction has some kind of fatal flaw. The NCR is corrupt, The legion is brutal, Mr. House is both cold and calculating, and a remnant of the old world, Wild card has the courier who has no administrative experience whatsoever.

You then add compelling and interesting characters with interesting and creative quests and then you can make good factions.

All any kind of "Fallout game" needs is clever writing, but that cannot exist because the people who write games are not the same people who write games now.

Moral ambiguity just flips the question from "what is best" to "what is least bad". It's slightly more realistic but still doesn't make the politics interesting. It also tends to be contrived to reach some sort of moral equilibrium.

I agree good that character writing is one of the few ways to make politics interesting since it creates a personal stakes, and you can manipulate people to do some horrific actions for the right pussy.

 

[Lt. H. DuBois]

Does he ever state in which game engine this hypothetical Fallout game would be in, as in the old school top down or the Bethesda model, maybe I missed it? I know it mainly used old school footage but I figured thats just alot easier to use for a slideshow.
Never mind Im stupid its the old system I rember him talking about the random encounters

 

[Napoleon III]

Moral ambiguity just flips the question from "what is best" to "what is least bad". It's slightly more realistic but still doesn't make the politics interesting. It also tends to be contrived to reach some sort of moral equilibrium.

I think that it does make it very interesting, or at the very least it make the story a lot better. One thing I have noticed that fallout from classic fallouts to New Vegas struggling with is effectively communicating the issues present with the "good" side and the virtues of the "evil" side. It is too subtle a lot of the time. If you listen to Tim Cain talk about Junktown, from FO1 you see that it was supposed to be more gray than it ended up appearing to a lot of people.

Part of the reason I like the moral ambiguity is because the story never fully reaches a conclusion. People still fucking talk about New Vegas factions. That type of story telling may not be for everyone and it sounds like you don't like it very much which is fine, but I greatly enjoy it.

Caesar being a very brutal but also extremely capable leader makes him much more interesting than if he was just a brutal bad guy. I do love Frank Horrigan though.

I agree good that character writing is one of the few ways to make politics interesting since it creates a personal stakes, and you can manipulate people to do some horrific actions for the right pussy.

One of the things the old Fallouts had was a lot of really good characters with strong personalities. This is something the millennial writer simply cannot accomplish as they are fundamentally incapable of writing an interesting character.

 

[Deus Exica]

Just look at Fallout 4, they tried copying the amoral faction conflict of NV, but it is so BORING

And unfinished. The Institute don't even have an overarching goal that would make them a good/bad option. They simply do evil shit for the lulz but you can't ask them why. The Minutemen literally play no role in the main plot outside of being your failsafe faction, and The Brotherhood are only flawed because they're meanie racists.

Fallout 4's faction formula is just 'Good and reasonable end goal, but there are genuine fucking retards involved' which just makes the choice stupid and unfun.

 

[30+GameOvers]

And unfinished. The Institute don't even have an overarching goal that would make them a good/bad option. They simply do evil shit for the lulz but you can't ask them why. The Minutemen literally play no role in the main plot outside of being your failsafe faction, and The Brotherhood are only flawed because they're meanie racists.

Fallout 4's faction formula is just 'Good and reasonable end goal, but there are genuine fucking retards involved' which just makes the choice stupid and unfun.

Institute's goals are simple: Make better Synths. That's it, they're basement dwellers obsessed with their real dolls. Granted, this is mostly the direction that Shaun is taking and you eventually replace him if you want more nuanced goals for the organization, but for the duration of the game there really is no higher ambitions for Institute other than building a better power generator and keeping their fuckdolls safe from Railroad and Brotherhood. The world Fallout 4 build isn't actually that bad, but the writing is abysmal and nothing is DONE with the factions. Far Harbor actually got it right, the entire main quest of Fallout 4 should have worked like in the DLC.

If you listen to Tim Cain talk about Junktown, from FO1 you see that it was supposed to be more gray than it ended up appearing to a lot of people.

Junktown was made black and white due to Interplay's meddling. Black Isle wanted Gizmo's ending to be good since he would build Junktown into a proper town via the funds from his casino(Not unlike House in NV), meanwhile Killian would turn people away due to his autistic need to hang everyone who's done a petty crime, therefore turning Junktown into a dystopian dead shithole eventually as nobody wanted to get on his bad side. This was reversed because Interplay thought that players would get confused if the fat, ugly dude who was clearly evil had the good ending, so they switched the endings around. All while still keeping the name "KIllian Darkwater" for the "good guy". I'm surprised there wasn't more meddling, with how stupid Interplay higher ups were, but then again they did force all the sex and pop culture references, as well as that stupid intro dungeon, into Fallout 2.

Caesar being a very brutal but also extremely capable leader makes him much more interesting than if he was just a brutal bad guy. I do love Frank Horrigan though.

I can't take this guy seriously after finding out that he has less intelligence than a molerat

Less charismatic, too.

 

[Agarathium1066]

I can't take this guy seriously after finding out that he has less intelligence than a molerat

Less charismatic, too.

He loses a point from his hairline.

 

[OrangeManeXTinyHatGVNG]

He aint exactly special in that regard, when the Ukraine thing happened, plenty of nationalistic Russians started shrilling about "Forgive us glorious west!!", ironically only the pro-monarchy shitbags didnt do a 180 turn.

monarchists and weirdly commie(?) south americans proved to be true ride or die niggas for mother russia much to my amusement. Slave Rossiya.

I find this warlock feller amusing and interesting as well, albeit perhaps a wee bit slanted. Is there a similar youtuber to him that focuses on slavjank? i seem to remember another one with similar views. Slavs and larouche cultists are right about the butchers fookin apron btw lads. Tiocfadh Ar La.

 

[Tablet County]

I think everyone who's played a Fallout game has their own dream Fallout in their hearts and Warlockracy's was certainly more interesting than mine. Warlockracy is a political philosophy sperg so it makes sense that his dream Fallout game is peppered with stuff which interests him.
The rewrite of the Enclave to be more than just a leftist caricature of American exceptionalism is welcome, and now thanks to Warlockracy and some research, I now know that the John Birch Society existed and is the forefather of every /pol/ talking point.

 

[Newcomer 42]

I can't take this guy seriously after finding out that he has less intelligence than a molerat

Kek, gotta love checking NPC stats. To be fair, Caesar is overrated, his legion are legit psycho barbarians who will break down the second he kneels over, and they're stupidly evil IIRC.
I found the Legion trying too hard, and the Enclave should be let it rest already.

I think everyone who's played a Fallout game has their own dream Fallout in their hearts and Warlockracy's was certainly more interesting than mine.

Agree. I would like to explore the rest of the world, or at least somewhere besides America. Ie: How's China? Are these commies hiding in bunkers eager to destroy the free world at the first opportunity? IIRC in Fallout 2 this was implied with the nuclear submarine you had to repair, but thankfully you could hack their main computer to stop their mad plans.

 

[Tablet County]

How's China? Are these commies hiding in bunkers eager to destroy the free world at the first opportunity?

I thought about that once. I liked the idea that China managed to maintain the continuity of government in the wake of nuclear apocalypse, having relative control over a series of discount Vaults where instead of Epcot's Brave New World it's 1984; Middle Kingdom Edition. The surface would be completely out of government control and is where all the traditional wasteland wandering would take place.
That's all just half-baked spitballing though. I have a problem similar to Emil's when it comes to worldbuilding where I come up with an idea that sounds cool and work backwards. I assume that's an issue all amateurs share.

 

[Frightened Rabbit]

Atom RPG is damn good, but it stays way too close to the form of Fallout 1-2 at times.
I think the sequel Trudograd is way better overall.
Check both out if you have not played them.

Kind of Necroing but I almost never find people who have played ATOM, either of them, I really like their games, I do a run of each bi-annually usually, Atom RPG really worked on me because it kept so close to the OG fallout while also diverging from it in the spots that mattered. Even if Swordhaven is only in 0.4.0 it is still really interesting, what is there shows promise and makes me want to see them blow up, more people should know about them.

 

[Deus Exica]

Institute's goals are simple: Make better Synths. That's it, they're basement dwellers obsessed with their real dolls.

But they have no actual plan to use those Synth's for anything. They have nothing that they plan to do. They aren't going to take over The Commonwealth or really accomplish anything. If all they want to do is jack off underground and make robots (don't even get me started on how retarded everything surrounding Synths as a concept is) then they should explain that.

 

[Lurkerish Kandor]

Moral ambiguity just flips the question from "what is best" to "what is least bad".

I've been looking for a single snappy sentence to get across why I often end up not caring about subversive "morally gray" narratives, and this is perfect.

You haven't actually challenged the player's way of thinking or behaving: its not subversive, it's just reinforcing the mindset of "always take the best/least bad option". From my perspective, I either need to be a natural gameplay shitposter, or there needs to be real incentive to take bad actions for the ambiguity to mean much

 

[Rezza]

I think everyone who's played a Fallout game has their own dream Fallout in their hearts and Warlockracy's was certainly more interesting than mine. Warlockracy is a political philosophy sperg so it makes sense that his dream Fallout game is peppered with stuff which interests him.
The rewrite of the Enclave to be more than just a leftist caricature of American exceptionalism is welcome, and now thanks to Warlockracy and some research, I now know that the John Birch Society existed and is the forefather of every /pol/ talking point.

Call me weebs I don't care, but I always want to see Fallout set in Japan. They're the only country that have the nukes fell on them, and it would be interesting to see a Fallout game set in that place. You can take from the Warring States era for ideas of factions fighting one another for dominance and survival, where betrayal and clandestine operations are not only plentiful but the optimal way to survive

 

[Tablet County]

But they have no actual plan to use those Synth's for anything. They have nothing that they plan to do. They aren't going to take over The Commonwealth or really accomplish anything. If all they want to do is jack off underground and make robots (don't even get me started on how retarded everything surrounding Synths as a concept is) then they should explain that.

I would've figured that the Institute's ultimate plan would be to create some sort of Singularity or at least a transhuman society a-la Altered Carbon, transferring their consciousnesses (or at least copying them) into quasi-immortal Synth bodies. It's not exactly the most original idea for a faction of ivory tower science nerds but it'd at least be more interesting than literally nothing.

 

[30+GameOvers]

But they have no actual plan to use those Synth's for anything. They have nothing that they plan to do. They aren't going to take over The Commonwealth or really accomplish anything. If all they want to do is jack off underground and make robots (don't even get me started on how retarded everything surrounding Synths as a concept is) then they should explain that.

That's exactly their whole MO: They are doing science for shits and giggles, no end goal in sight. Just like Big MT. Why Shaun has such a fixation on synths, we will never know, likely because he sees them as his own legacy, due to them using his DNA as their basis. Shaun also continued the FEV program to make local super mutants despite there being no reason to continue it, and yet he ordered the kidnappings and research to go on anyways. Institute has a leadership problem, that's where the player steps in, and it's a damn shame that the main quest isn't centered around how the player uses that power to change, or destroy, the organization(altho there is a mod, "Project Valkyrie" that does this).
Scientists doing sick shit for no reason isn't a new concept, both in media and in reality, so I can easily buy this. It's just that it wasn't written very well, which again is the core problem with Fallout 4: Some good ideas, poor execution on almost everything.

Agree. I would like to explore the rest of the world, or at least somewhere besides America. Ie: How's China? Are these commies hiding in bunkers eager to destroy the free world at the first opportunity? IIRC in Fallout 2 this was implied with the nuclear submarine you had to repair, but thankfully you could hack their main computer to stop their mad plans.

In the cancelled "Fallout Extreme" game for the PS2 and Xbox, sort of a followup to Fallout Tactics or at least it's console counterpart, you would find out that China got their shit together and your ragtag group of revolutionaries would go from taking down Brotherhood concentration camps where they slaughtered mutants to making their way to China on foot, crossing Alaska, Canada and post-war Russia and Mongolia, to stop them from launching another nuclear missile at US. The final mission would take place in the Forbidden City, trying to stop a launch of a "Doom's Day Missile" that was big enough to destroy all of USA, or what's left of it. Take that as you will. The game would have some really cool local native factions, both in US in form of Native American tribes and in Russia/Mongolia in form of Huns and Cossacks, and of course you would get to fight The Chinese outside of a simulation for once. Scratch yet another cool concept we will never see.

 

[Newcomer 42]

Call me weebs I don't care, but I always want to see Fallout set in Japan. They're the only country that have the nukes fell on them, and it would be interesting to see a Fallout game set in that place. You can take from the Warring States era for ideas of factions fighting one another for dominance and survival, where betrayal and clandestine operations are not only plentiful but the optimal way to survive

Not-Gundams in a post-apoc setting?

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I think the whole idea of politics in gaming is some sort of holy grail that both players and devs chase that doesn't work 99% of the time because politics irl aren't as complicated as intellectuals like to pretend. In the end it's everyone voting in their own best interest on few topics of interest.

Only people in the WEF can do the kingmaker long term bullshit that appear in most games.

 

[Moja Zemlja]

He didn't retcon the Legion, just added in a subfaction that follows BAPism/vitalism.

Retcon was the wrong word (though the Legion using vertibirds is very out of character), I dislike when people do the Legion and most of the times its never actually the Legion but some kind of splinter or subfaction. I like the Legion because of how they are and if I want to side with them then I want to side with the actual Legion, let me be Caeser's top guy huffing all his farts about muh dialectics.

No one faction is ever 100% united behind a single ideology, they're always at least somewhat big tents organized under broader orientations.

Thats fine but I don't like how they're his actual family following a warped perception of his teachings, the slave soldiers of the legion are reconditioned to prevent former tribal loyalties like this getting in the way. If it was not the PC's actual family and just a weird cult thing after they found the PC's book I'd be more willing to entertain it.