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Well, it’s... interesting.

Hopefully solo is viable and isn’t just Preston Garvey style missions ad infinitum. Better not require net connection or PS Plus for solo either.

 Nostromodamus wrote:
Well, it’s... interesting.

Hopefully solo is viable and isn’t just Preston Garvey style missions ad infinitum. Better not require net connection or PS Plus for solo either.

I'd have to go back to the beginning of his speech, but he seemed pretty clear that always online was a requirement of how the game functioned. 'Yes, you can play solo' was pretty much a follow-up to that statement.

Yeah, I’m just hoping it’s gonna be better than it seems right now. I’m currently disappointed. It’s like they took the worst parts of Fallout 4 (procedurally generated quests and settlement building) and made a game of it. Online requirement would be the final turd on the coffin for me.

I didn't even beat fallout 4, so i'm kind of meh on this. The last one I just couldn't get motivated to do anything, I just didn't feel any drive to explore, or accomplish anything in game...it just felt empty despite the world being filled with little things to do. Couldn't get invested in the story either, honestly i've never particularly had a blast with fallout 3 either...Skyrim though I played for a good 6 months plus after it came out.

So it's Fallout 4, but with no mods, online only, and any attempt to play the game like a proper singleplayer Fallout game will just be a futile pile of irritating garbage as you continually fend off the trolling of Swag420Blazin and XxDarkeSoul97xX.

Mmmmmmmmmmnothanks.

Huge missed opportunity by them if they don't allow players to keep the online griefers away. Even PvP-loving FunCom wasn't dumb enough to try that with Conan Exiles. I can see an argument that without an external threat, players would eventually get bored and quit playing. PvP is obviously one way of providing that external threat. But there are other ways to do that, as well.

Eumerin wrote:
Huge missed opportunity by them if they don't allow players to keep the online griefers away. Even PvP-loving FunCom wasn't dumb enough to try that with Conan Exiles. I can see an argument that without an external threat, players would eventually get bored and quit playing. PvP is obviously one way of providing that external threat. But there are other ways to do that, as well.

Even if there's a no-PvP mode, that doesn't stop people trolling. There will be ways to annoy and irritate anyone trying to play the game "properly" even if you can't outright kill them, even if they go so far as to disable the "nuking other players stuff" part of it(which I don't think they can tbh, it makes a point of noting you need to harvest rare resources from the blast zones resulting from such attacks). Even something as simple as players' avatars having collision enabled can be a tool for a dedicated arsehole.

Voss wrote:

 Nostromodamus wrote:
Well, it’s... interesting.

Hopefully solo is viable and isn’t just Preston Garvey style missions ad infinitum. Better not require net connection or PS Plus for solo either.

I'd have to go back to the beginning of his speech, but he seemed pretty clear that always online was a requirement of how the game functioned. 'Yes, you can play solo' was pretty much a follow-up to that statement.

Devil could be in the detail, but if you take the presentation at face value, it'll be like Diablo III. You get the Fallout game you'd expect and can play solo without anybody's interference, with the only caveat that you need a permanent Internet connection.

It's not ideal but I can live with that, I guess.

Gameplay-wise, I think it's cool. Expansion of the fauna is good to see, they seem to have redone the Ghouls to look cool and zombie-like again (and not the yucky Ferals of Fallout 4), they've made sure that the laser musket isn't the stupidest gun in the franchise anymore and - I'm going to say this with some caution - they seem to let you pick settlement sites freely. That'd be a big one for me.

The big unknown is still how solo and multiplayer work. If I can play this all by myself without any other players around, that's cool. If I can have a bit of coop with my buddies, that's cool too. especially if I can use my existing character. If there's no way to avoid PvP if you play multiplayer, I'm not sure I'll have an interest in it.

From what's been said, it seems like the 'option' to play solo simply means you're not teaming up with anyone (you can squad up with up to 3 other people), there will still be 'dozens, not hundreds' of other people in the world according to Howard. Basically, any other Vault Dweller you run into is going to be a player rather than an NPC by the sound of it.

Some other info:
- you can move your character between servers, so if you want to join a friend's game or simply play on a more/less busy server you don't necessarily lose your progress, gear or customisation.

- You can indeed build anywhere thanks to the C.A.M.P. device. Settlement building seems to work as per FO4, with the addition that your creations can be smashed up by enemies (both creatures and players) so you need to defend what you build. On the other hand, you can apparently 'pack up' everything you've built and re-build it anywhere else without having to pay material costs again... Handy if a nuke is incoming.

- Because yes, there are multiple fireable nukes around the map. You collect parts of a launch code from defeated enemies, and when your squad has a full code you can head to a bunker, open up a map and fire off a missile at a destination of your choice. This obviously destroys anything built in the area, and allows you to get some rarer (presumably radioactive) components.

- VATS seems to be gone, since obviously you can't slow down time in a multiplayer world. I guess it might re-emerge in some form, but there's no indication of that in the footage. Given the pip-boy is an older model than the other games, that could be a (somewhat flimsy) lore excuse.

- No mention of if there'll be any NPCs around, beyond enemies. None of the footage showed any dialogue choices, beyond an emote/interaction wheel for communication with other players.


On the whole, I'm somewhat torn. On one hand, the prospect of another massive world to explore, which looks incredibly pretty and seems to be filled with some interesting new creatures and locales, is very enticing, and as I mentioned before, I do love the idea of teaming up with some mates to try and bring order to a little corner of the wasteland. On the other hand, I'd like to know there's some checks and balances in place for PvP stuff (or the option to disable it entirely). Otherwise, you're going to quickly find that the first squad to get 4 sets of power armour and build a Doom Fortress are going to make the game hell for everyone else...

A few dozen players on a map 4x the size of FO4 means it's presumably possible to go some time without seeing anyone, but as soon as you do, they're probably going to kill you, which is frustrating and immersion-shattering at the same time, given you're all supposed to be from the same Vault on the same general mission... If there are PvE servers or the option to hide other players/yourself and go about the world functionally solo, that might be more appealing, but if a lot of the game's content revolves around having multiple players (both together and against each other) then that's creating as many problems as it solves.

No choice but to wait and see, I suppose. There's apparently a beta of some form coming before the November release, hopefully that's open enough that I can get in on it and try before I buy, as this is definitely one I'm on the fence about and in competition with quite a lot of other stuff at the back end of the year.

 Yodhrin wrote:
So it's Fallout 4, but with no mods, online only, and any attempt to play the game like a proper singleplayer Fallout game will just be a futile pile of irritating garbage as you continually fend off the trolling of Swag420Blazin and XxDarkeSoul97xX.

Mmmmmmmmmmnothanks.

Thats exactly my take on it. I turn off online mode in Dark Souls for that very reason. This will be the first time pretty much ever that I will pass on a Fallout game. And that is including old school PC versions

 KingCracker wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
So it's Fallout 4, but with no mods, online only, and any attempt to play the game like a proper singleplayer Fallout game will just be a futile pile of irritating garbage as you continually fend off the trolling of Swag420Blazin and XxDarkeSoul97xX.

Mmmmmmmmmmnothanks.

Thats exactly my take on it. I turn off online mode in Dark Souls for that very reason. This will be the first time pretty much ever that I will pass on a Fallout game. And that is including old school PC versions

The fact that the industry is trying to push this "always Online" moronity, in spite of the fact it benefits absolutely bloody nobody, is driving me up the wall. Trying to shoehorn in player-interaction is even worse. Wanna know the fastest way to kill any sort of immersion? Other players.

And that's not even mentioning that Fallout 4 was a horrendous experience for me, in almost every way except the basic exploration and how they did Power Armour. I was really hoping they'd just salvage what few good parts of F4 and then try to implement those with a more F3 / New Vegas kinda vibe. But then money and success make me very uncomfortable as well.

Immersion isn't really what this model goes for.

They know there are a lot of multiplayer shooter players. Lots of 'em. Trying to create 'enough' content for a single player RPG is almost an exercise in futility- players burn through crafted content fast.* But throw basic base building tools and add multiplayer, and the hordes will entertain themselves. Its a genre and market shift, which kinda sucks, but makes some sense from a business perspective.

*(exception here for dragon age inquisition, which had too much crap filler content that didn't contribute to the game at all. Early zones were too big and too long and several of the later zones were just empty, irrelevant wastes of time).

Its kind of sad, because the intro to vault 76 looks really intriguing. There is a sense of desolation and emptiness to the vault, as if the robots are running it, all the other people are dead, and the 'overseer' is just a recording.

But nah, it isn't an intriguing mystery, just multiplayer, and you're a loadlord/ late spawn.

I would say Bethesda realizes full well that this is a big experiment. It's telling that they made this a side game (76, rather than an actual #5 in the series), and it's set very much outside the continuity of the series by being set so far in the past in an area isolated from the other games' settings.

So, yeah, they're not willing to bet a proper Fallout 5 on this. In a way, I hope the game sort of fails, but not too badly. Bad enough that Bethesda won't try this online MP thing again, but not so badly they stop making Fallout games entirely. I'd still like to give the game an honest chance, but I need to know more about the options regarding solo play.

Mmmmm dunno about you guys but this sounds like it could be a ton of fun... (derp )

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
In a way, I hope the game sort of fails, but not too badly. Bad enough that Bethesda won't try this online MP thing again, but not so badly they stop making Fallout games entirely.

Would probably be best for us solo players, but I reckon the chance for that is slim. Bethesda has three demographics to draw from: Fallout fans who aren't averse to gibing a different genre a try, Bethesda fans who would like to have a multiplayer component to a game whose gameplay they enjoy (in spite of what M'aiq advises) and people who just like this kind of multiplayer game for whom the Fallout setting is secondary (or a bonus, making it to their preferred genre for the first time). With these things it's always good to keep in mind that there's a large player pool out there that is just waiting to be tapped, and losing existing solo only customers could easily be made up for by new customers.

I'd rather hope that Bethesda is proud of its legacy and just explores additional genres rather than shifting its focus entirely. I don't mind expansion if it doesn't come at the expense of existing customers.


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 Desubot wrote:
Mmmmm dunno about you guys but this sounds like it could be a ton of.

Yep, it's sure to be a ton of! No question!

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
I would say Bethesda realizes full well that this is a big experiment. It's telling that they made this a side game (76, rather than an actual #5 in the series), and it's set very much outside the continuity of the series by being set so far in the past in an area isolated from the other games' settings.

So, yeah, they're not willing to bet a proper Fallout 5 on this. In a way, I hope the game sort of fails, but not too badly. Bad enough that Bethesda won't try this online MP thing again, but not so badly they stop making Fallout games entirely. I'd still like to give the game an honest chance, but I need to know more about the options regarding solo play.

Being set before the others really doesn't matter- apart from the commonwealth tech, weapon development largely doesn't happen past apocalypse day. The environment should be more radioactive and hostile, but all the familiar tech and toys would still be present, because its all pre-bombs anyway.

no brotherhood is kind of a relief, as is actually new enemies that aren't mirelurks. (Somewhat annoyed to see supermutants, honestly, though theyre enough of a signature that I know why they're included)

As for isolated... It isn't at all. West Virginia from the 'capital wasteland' of Fallout 3 is a day or two on foot.(From the Bethesda offices its barely an hour by car if it isn't rush hour) The west edge of fo3's map should actually wander into west Virginia at a couple points up near the NW corner.

Thinking about it, 76 could actually take time to explain why supermutants are in the capital wasteland in 3.

But yeah, I'm in the same boat as you: They absolutely need to sit down and expand on solo play before I even consider buying in. And I don't mean playing alone on a joint server, I mean no intrusions at all by others, chat boxes or anything else.

 Geifer wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Desubot wrote:
Mmmmm dunno about you guys but this sounds like it could be a ton of.

Yep, it's sure to be a ton of! No question!

Derp . i think it will be interesting for sure at the minimum. just hope it doesn't go full Rust. that game was bad :/

Guys, this isnt Fallout 5. This is a spinoff of the series trying to pull some survival fans over. Before you guys freak out about always online and getting picked on by people. You should probably look in to some of the newer survival games and how they deal with the issues. Instead of throwing your hands up and yelling "harumph!"

Take Conan Exiles. Always online game, but you can make your own private solo server or a server that has a password for friends only. You can also play PvE and build forts, locking people out or protected by your thralls. Big deterrent for griefers who do not want to die a lot for no luls or people who dont want to lose valuable gear. Also, most of them are worried about saving their own gak from the environment.

I'm not saying all of these features will be in, but it is way too early to be calling "pass" on it.

Edit: sweet baby jeezoo this new phone and keyboard are really upping my typos.

So, basically dead on arrival. That's good to know.

I hated and avoided the settlement mini-game (mini-game seems like the wrong word for it) in FO4. So naturally the next FO game looks to be about that.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
So, basically dead on arrival. That's good to know.

Yeah, I mean Rust, Ark, and Conan are all dead games closing their servers down soon. They would all still be alive had they not left early access. Grumble grumble dang kids grumble grumble

 Dreadwinter wrote:
Guys, this isnt Fallout 5. This is a spinoff of the series trying to pull some survival fans over. Before you guys freak out about always online and getting picked on by people. You should probably look in to some of the newer survival games and how they deal with the issues. Instead of throwing your hands up and yelling "harumph!"

Take Conan Exiles. Always online game, but you can make your own private solo server or a server that has a password for friends only. You can also play PvE and build forts, locking people out or protected by your thralls. Big deterrent for griefers who do not want to die a lot for no luls or people who dont want to lose valuable gear. Also, most of them are worried about saving their own gak from the environment.

I'm not saying all of these features will be in, but it is way too early to be calling "pass" on it.

It isn't too early to pass. Its exactly the right time, when the developer take s time to explain the focus is multiplayer shooting and base building. For people who were looking for the next fallout RPG, they've been given several warnings that this game isn't really for them- the intended way to play is explicitly multiplayer, in a very unfallout way you're supposed to hunt down unused nukes and use them on the local region to scavenge rare resources (for base building), and while there is something of a story framework, squadding up in power armor is obviously the intended end game. Most people know what kind of games they'll enjoy. Anyone hoping for a single player RPG is rightly going to be suspicious of this.

Especially after Elder Scrolls fans were presented with ESO rather than ES6 a couple years back... Which required several major overhauls (and free to play) to keep its audience.

Could 76 be a good multiplayer survival game? Sure. But its going to be a complete mismatch to a sizable percentage of the existing customer base. That may even be good for Beth financially and could widen interest, but that still doesn't help the players that wanted another RPG. Because past precedent is really clear- Beth will do a bunch of platform ports rather than fast track a proper sequel.

Without some kind of story to it I don't really have much interest. There are a ton of survival games out there that have building and FPS-esk combat. A Fallout skin over that is kind of interesting but will likely not be worth $60 to me.

I'll wait to make a final decision but frankly with how bad FO4 was I am very skeptical and I am a huge Fallout fan that has been playing since the first one. (Even Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel, which was a terrible game also...)

Did I miss something? Did they say no story or rpg aspects?

 Dreadwinter wrote:
Did I miss something? Did they say no story or rpg aspects?

90% of games these days qualify as having "story or RPG aspects", that doesn't make them single player story-driven RPGs.

Anyone expecting anything more than "environmental storytelling"(ie, audiologs & notes and occasional staged scenes of skeletons or whatever), "kill 10 megaracoons for their pelts", and maybe some vaguely traditional quests from automated sources like recordings of the Overseer or a robot, will almost certainly be disappointed. This is not "Fallout 4 but four times the size and with other people in it", by all indications it's a stanbdard multiplayer survive'y-build'y-shooter thing with some Fallout trappings.

Ohhhhh, I get where you guys are coming from now.

Doom! Dooooooom! Doooooooooooooom I say! Doom is coming! (Not the new game)

 Dreadwinter wrote:
Ohhhhh, I get where you guys are coming from now.

Doom! Dooooooom! Doooooooooooooom I say! Doom is coming! (Not the new game)

Watching the presentation again (because why not?) it's not particularly clear how this is going to shake out. Sandwiched in between the Overseer sending you on a quest and being able to play solo and do quests is only the mentioned that the people coming out of the Vault are real people (aka the players). Later on, he says with regard to it being multiplayer that all persons and characters are real people.

Right now you can still see whatever you want to see: a fully functional solo game that needs a constant Internet connection with quests as we're used to, or a large, empty multiplayer map entirely populated by real people as far as characters you can interact with are concerned.

I don't think Voss is wrong. If you are looking for a traditional Fallout, this is not going to be it. There's hope parts of it will come close, but considering how many people already disliked Fallout 4 (for whatever reason) that may just not be close enough.

Me, I don't have enough information one way or another, so I'll just wait and see. And hope for the best, because I still want this to be good. But I can see why you would give Fallout 76 a pass even at this early stage.

 Geifer wrote:

I don't think Voss is wrong. If you are looking for a traditional Fallout, this is not going to be it.

But the important thing to keep in mind is that it was clearly never meant to be. So you're not missing out on a single player Fallout sequel because of this, it's not a Fallout game that's had online stuff imposed on it. It's something entirely different, and I can certainly see how it won't be to some people's tastes, but complaining it's not a 'proper' Fallout game is like complaining Halo Wars wasn't an FPS (for instance. Just the first example that came to kind of a genre-switched spinoff). You're asking for it to be something it was never even intended to be, that you had no reason to expect it to be.

I'm sure there will be another main-series Fallout title in the not too distant future, maybe even before TES6 or Starfield as both of those are being pitched for next-gen consoles that don't exist at more than a R&D level yet. We might even see another dev be given a go with the license as per New Vegas.

FO76 being an experiment with an online model doesn't preclude there from being more single-player stuff down the line any more than the existence of Fallout Shelter does, or the new Elder Scrolls mobile title interferes with the development of TES6. Some will enjoy it, some won't, either is fine, but complaining it's not something it was never going to be seems pointless.

I also can't help but wonder that given how vocal parts of the Fallout community were about disliking Fallout 4 for various reasons, if Bethesda had rocked up at E3 and said 'here's Fallout 5, built on the same tech as Fallout 4*', there would have been just as much backlash. As far as some people were concerned, they were damned if they did the same thing and damned if they did something different...

I'm still torn, but the more I think about it the more I'm coming round to the idea. The lack of story content/quests is still a concern, perhaps, but then I realised that when I'm playing FO4, I routinely slack off the quests in my log to go and explore, gather supplies, kill stuff, build settlements, then only remember Shaun's missing after I've built a 4-storey homestead, cleared half a dozen dungeons or crossed half the map ticking off location markers and scrounging precious Duct Tape... This is undoubtedly more of a sandbox, but it's a sandbox built around doing the things I like doing in FO4 anyway. YMMV, obviously, but I'm slowly but surely getting a bit more excited for this.

*(as FO76 appears to be)

 Paradigm wrote:

 Geifer wrote:

I don't think Voss is wrong. If you are looking for a traditional Fallout, this is not going to be it.

But the important thing to keep in mind is that it was clearly never meant to be. So you're not missing out on a single player Fallout sequel because of this, it's not a Fallout game that's had online stuff imposed on it. It's something entirely different, and I can certainly see how it won't be to some people's tastes, but complaining it's not a 'proper' Fallout game is like complaining Halo Wars wasn't an FPS (for instance. Just the first example that came to kind of a genre-switched spinoff). You're asking for it to be something it was never even intended to be, that you had no reason to expect it to be.

I'm sure there will be another main-series Fallout title in the not too distant future, maybe even before TES6 or Starfield as both of those are being pitched for next-gen consoles that don't exist at more than a R&D level yet. We might even see another dev be given a go with the license as per New Vegas.

FO76 being an experiment with an online model doesn't preclude there from being more single-player stuff down the line any more than the existence of Fallout Shelter does, or the new Elder Scrolls mobile title interferes with the development of TES6. Some will enjoy it, some won't, either is fine, but complaining it's not something it was never going to be seems pointless.

I also can't help but wonder that given how vocal parts of the Fallout community were about disliking Fallout 4 for various reasons, if Bethesda had rocked up at E3 and said 'here's Fallout 5, built on the same tech as Fallout 4*', there would have been just as much backlash. As far as some people were concerned, they were damned if they did the same thing and damned if they did something different...

I'm still torn, but the more I think about it the more I'm coming round to the idea. The lack of story content/quests is still a concern, perhaps, but then I realised that when I'm playing FO4, I routinely slack off the quests in my log to go and explore, gather supplies, kill stuff, build settlements, then only remember Shaun's missing after I've built a 4-storey homestead, cleared half a dozen dungeons or crossed half the map ticking off location markers and scrounging precious Duct Tape... This is undoubtedly more of a sandbox, but it's a sandbox built around doing the things I like doing in FO4 anyway. YMMV, obviously, but I'm slowly but surely getting a bit more excited for this.

*(as FO76 appears to be)

Yes? No? Maybe? I wouldn't go so far as to say there was no reason to expect a new Fallout to be the same as an old Fallout. Me, I started playing Bethesda games with Morrowind. Then Oblivion. Then Skyrim. I didn't play Fallout 3 because I was a fan of Fallout and wanted a new game after waiting so long after Fallout 1 and 2, which I only played recently. I've come to expect certain gameplay from Bethesda's Elder Scrolls games which, to my joy, they continued in Fallout 3 (now with guns), had Obsidian continue it in New Vegas and then did the same thing again in Fallout 4. Sure, you have Elder Scrolls Online and, well, I didn't play that. And Fallout Shelter, which I really like, but it's a little promotional game in a familiar setting. All those other games? The same thing that progressively got better with every iteration (barring the jump to consoles with Oblivion). These are pretty much Bethesda's identity, and to say that the first thing you expect from Bethesda upon announcing a new game is anything but that is, I don't know, the mark of a peculiar outlook? Because most people don't do that. Bethesda has built up expectations among its fanbase over long years. Let's not pretend otherwise.

Of course there's no reason to believe that a classic Fallout 5 won't come. You'll never get rid of those two big questions, though: Did this game push back the "real" game and by how long? Again, Bethesda built a reputation on a certain style of game. If you like that kind of game, you rely on Bethesda to keep doing that and if they don't: boom, disappointment. Doesn't matter if you go and say Fallout 76 was never going to be that game. The programmers were employed, the time has passed, the resources were spent, and it could have been that game. It just turned out not to be.

Lack of story content might be a concern, that's true. We don't know yet. It seems safe to say there will be quests considering it's been spelled out explicitly. The question really is what kind of quests we can expect, and how diverse and story driven any unique ones are. They'll get the crafting and sandbox part right, I'm sure, and will no doubt have "look for this material" or "kill some Ferals" radiant quests. I'll no doubt enjoy that part of the game (if I play it), as like you I liked the sandbox part of Fallout 4. I can't help but share some concern over the RPG elements of the game, though. The whole multiplayer everyone's a real person thing needs some clarification. Because if you have quests and a story and not just pure PvP (which is fine if you like that kind of game, but Bethesda seems to want to at least throw a bone to single player people looking to do some questing), the presence of NPCs that are part of and convey the story is kind of mandatory.

Except, of course, we are missing out on a single player Fallout sequel. Let's not pretend that ESO and the Elder Scrolls CCG and the upcoming Blades and the endless reinventions of Skyrim didn't put off ES6

Skyrim hit in 2011. It's 2018 and they're just teasing ES6, after 76 and after Starfield. So two more years minimum, probably 3-4, given the usual pace of the main Bethesda studio. So maybe Fallout 5 at least a year or two after that, assuming they don't decide that multiplayer survival with a fallout paint is a better financial option for the franchise (and they don't have other projects in the works, or it fails badly enough that it's a franchise killer, like ME:Andromeda).

People are absolutely going to grumble that they won't see the sequels they actually want for a decade at a time, when the industry norm is 2-3 years.