Jason Moyer on 27/11/2008 at 23:39
Unless you skipped every location but the metro tunnels, I have no idea how you'd think everything was copy/pasted. There are shared art assets like there are in any game (although with more variety than Oblivion or Morrowind) but the actual "dungeon" layouts are pretty diverse imho, and while 3/4 of them have nothing to do with a quest, they typically have some sort of interesting lore aspect going for them.
My current character is around 20+ hours, level 14-ish IIRC, and I haven't even seen the inside of a metro station yet...
242 on 27/11/2008 at 23:40
Quote Posted by Talgor
I missed only two locations with my exploring character.
Have you explored them more or less thoroughly and how much time it took from you?
242 on 28/11/2008 at 00:08
Quote Posted by Jason Moyer
Unless you skipped every location but the metro tunnels, I have no idea how you'd think everything was copy/pasted.
As I wrote, ~90% of big indoor areas look and feel the same to me. Factories, hotels, business buildings, hospitals, etc.
I mean not only same models for doors, tables, same lighting, same colors etc., but mainly same style of map design, same layouts; same hallways, same rooms, same washrooms, floor after floor, building after building. What's worse, the areas are mostly quite large - to explore once such location (checking loads of items, terminals, safes) lots of time is needed, and while hidden bonuses and side-stories are fun, the process of searching for them isn't. After a while it feels more like a chore than a pleasure.
Quote:
There are shared art assets like there are in any game (although with more variety than Oblivion or Morrowind) but the actual "dungeon" layouts are pretty diverse imho,
I guess you haven't explored enough then ;) It seems Bethesda keeps to firmly believe that quantity of contents is more important than their quality. I understand that it would be nearly impossible to create quality diversified contents for such huge world, but why they keep to do worlds so huge (and naturally have to extensively use copy/paste and auto-generation to fill them enough) is beyond me, their games suffer from it, it's obvious.
quinch on 28/11/2008 at 01:00
Quote Posted by Jason Moyer
My current character is around 20+ hours, level 14-ish IIRC, and I haven't even seen the inside of a metro station yet...
Isn't that only possible if you avoid the downtown area completely? I am finding the metro stations to be quite hard to navigate but downtown is definitely where it's at!
I have to agree with the criticism about there being too much stuff to examine. There is way too much stuff lying around. I recently picked up some rad-x from what must have been the tenth toilet cubicle I opened in an abandoned robot factory and had one of those moments you sometimes have when playing computer games that your wasting your time. I should really have better things to do than search toilets in a computer game! But then if I don't I might miss something....They are desperate to bring together the vastness of the world with the fine, mundane details of everyday life but it comes across as randomly spraying stuff about in the level editor. Need more restraint.
Jason Moyer on 28/11/2008 at 01:05
You can get almost anywhere downtown without the metros, even though it doesn't seem like it. But, no, after 20+ hours I've only visited a few places on the very edge of downtown. I still have almost the entire northern half of the wasteland to explore before I venture into the city.
There is a lot of stuff laying around, but differentiating between what you need and what you don't need doesn't seem to take that long. Even when searching containers I can usually tell if there's something I need pretty instantly, probably because of the lack of variety of random items. I don't even notice the scavenging though, tbh, since it's a staple of every computer RPG I've ever played. Hell, I do the same "going into every bathroom and rifling through the stalls" thing in Deus Ex.
Angel Dust on 28/11/2008 at 02:08
The areas in Deus Ex however are much smaller and tighter in design and consequentially I don't think anyone got bored searching them.
I think the real killer though is the serious lack of unique items, which are usually the staple of RPG's and a big reason to get out there and explore whereas most of the 'rewards' for exploring in Fallout 3 are items/ammo that you already have tons of. Note I don't want every area to be chockablock full of unique items, involved backstory etc but the Bethesda games definitely spread the good stuff, which to be fair Fallout 3 has much more of than previous Bethesda RPG's, far too thin for me.
sh0ck3r on 28/11/2008 at 02:12
So it sounds like this game is maybe an 8/10...
It would be cool if TTLG collaborated on game reviews for games people had discussed here for a while
van HellSing on 28/11/2008 at 09:05
Oh God yes.
Talgor on 28/11/2008 at 09:26
Quote Posted by 242
Have you explored them more or less thoroughly and how much time it took from you?
Yeah, I did explore them very thoroughly... Wanted to be sure I don't miss anything. ;)
With that character my playtime stood at 40 hours, but it was not my first character (who completed the game with 50 hours but missed about a third of the locations), so I was going to and through some familiar places faster than on the first time...
But of course the fact that I'm going through it with several characters without getting bored should say something, too... ;)
X³:TC kind of interrupted my Fallout 3 playing, I still have my stealth/unarmed character in mid-play as well as my favourite: the post-apocalyptic lunatic-bastard. ;)
