Re: [GRIMDARK] Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons Discussion

[Sindri]

Never liked Steven King. Read most of Jules Verne and H.P. Lovecraft by the time I was eight though.

[OneMoreDaySK]

Tangent: did you even get the suspicion that the main reason Paradise Falls exists is so that good-aligned characters would get the fun of exterminating an entire settlement too?

If exterminating Paradise Falls is right, I don't want to be wrong.

Eh, I let them live while playing. Although it was friggin hard to get most of the slaves out. I believe I did a mesmetron /stampede distraction. Aside from the second chances thing I was trying to get my character to do, I would think that having a known place to free slaves is better than destroying their base and having to then hunt out other slave trading post that would eventually pop up, at least from a story perspective. Only group I went berserk on was the folks at Anadale. Dunno why Arbu went hostile after that, though, but luckily a random Yao Gai helped me out there while I escaped.

[FeatherDust]

Arbu

I think you meant "Arefu".

[SilentCarto]

Aside from the second chances thing I was trying to get my character to do, I would think that having a known place to free slaves is better than destroying their base and having to then hunt out other slave trading post that would eventually pop up, at least from a story perspective.

A slave market being hard to find would kind of defeat the purpose.

[Moodyman90]

I glitched out Andale when I went there. I was wandering the wasteland when I discovered it and saw most of the town standing outside a building. Thinking "Why is there a random group of people standing outside a house with weapons?" and not remembering FoE, I walked up and was confronted with "I know you went into my basement!" Not having a "I just arrived here and have no idea who you are?" option I kept with the "I don't know what you're talking about" before going "Yes, I went down there, and you will all now die."
One easy fight later I went down into the basement. Wish I hadn't but the outcome would have been the same if I had discovered it before killing them all.

[Paper Airplane]

So is Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter a comedy? I feel like it would be awesome if the movie actually wasn't a comedy.

It would be kind of similar to Fallout Equestria, really. Take a completely absurd idea, one that sounds like something out of a comedy, and play it with a completely straight face. At the beginning the audience is like "wut." But then you get into it and the ridiculous premise just makes it all the more fun.

[Moodyman90]

I'm not sure how the movie is going to be, but the book plays out like a biography but with instances of vampire slaying and what effect they had during the Civil War thrown in. So in the very least the book plays the concept straight.
Hopefully the movie does to.

[OneMoreDaySK]

Aside from the second chances thing I was trying to get my character to do, I would think that having a known place to free slaves is better than destroying their base and having to then hunt out other slave trading post that would eventually pop up, at least from a story perspective.

A slave market being hard to find would kind of defeat the purpose.

I would believe that at best there would be a hoofington problem: take one out and a worse one appears, more heavily guarded or something like that.

[SilentCarto]

I would believe that at best there would be a hoofington problem: take one out and a worse one appears, more heavily guarded or something like that.

At some point, slaves become economically unviable. Either the slavers keep getting killed, which makes it very hard to recruit new ones, or they have to spend so much on guards and fortifications that the slaves become too expensive for anyone to buy. And thus, trade saves the wasteland (with help from a healthy dose of violence.)

[Sindri]

Yeah, you can't make slavery impossible... but it's easy to make it unprofitable or at least too risky to bother with. Who's going to become a slaver after 70% of the slaving population is killed by one psychopath? Who's going to buy a slave when they know it might make them a target? Who'd be willing to pay for a slave with the added price of massive fortifications, dozens of guards, etc. when they could just hire somebody to do it for a fraction of the price without any risk?

Slavers thrive in the wasteland because nobody opposes them. Slavery is profitable because it's cheaper to buy a person once than to pay them forever. Remove those conditions and it disappears.

[NoodleNugget]

The morning after...

Someone should have warned her that if she ate all that cake she would get a wicked bad tummy ache.

I think it came out okay.

[OneMoreDaySK]

Yeah, you can't make slavery impossible... but it's easy to make it unprofitable or at least too risky to bother with. Who's going to become a slaver after 70% of the slaving population is killed by one psychopath? Who's going to buy a slave when they know it might make them a target? Who'd be willing to pay for a slave with the added price of massive fortifications, dozens of guards, etc. when they could just hire somebody to do it for a fraction of the price without any risk?

Slavers thrive in the wasteland because nobody opposes them. Slavery is profitable because it's cheaper to buy a person once than to pay them forever. Remove those conditions and it disappears.

Good point. The thing now would be is the hero able to free the slaves without getting them killed. I suppose if the character doesn't care for the well being of the slave that would be understandable...

On a different note, the economics of FO:3 are weird. There seems to be no actual income of stuff, no farms or such. Heck, Megaton apparently runs on one brahmin. Anyone explain please?

[Moodyman90]

I'm going with we just don't see the farms in the capital wasteland, or that for the most part is souly based on hunting.
Also trading, lots and lots of trading.

Also the Capital Wasteland isn't as developed as the west so there could just be slow to get there.

[Sindri]

On a different note, the economics of FO:3 are weird. There seems to be no actual income of stuff, no farms or such. Heck, Megaton apparently runs on one brahmin. Anyone explain please?

The economics just don't work. The Capital Wasteland has thousands of consumers and no producers. Then there's the population problems; a few dozen townsfolk and several hundred raiders at any given moment? I kill thousands of raiders and hundreds of super mutants, come back in three days, and they're all back? With fresh gear? The whole economy would have to be based on salvage, but that would have been exhausted a century ago at the least if it didn't refresh itself every time you leave the room. Weapons break or get used for parts, and nobody builds more...

Basically, nobody thought about what made sense. They wanted it to look cool, and feel like it was right after the apocalypse, and they got both of those. But it's impossible for a significant number of humans to be struggling for survival and living off salvage like that for centuries on end; they'd need to either produce their own resources or die out. Not to mention the sheer numbers of casualties every day, and the minuscule populations with very low birth rates trying to replace them. And the tiny gene pool...

[Moodyman90]

That's it! Unless there's a Fallout game that explains what happened to the South of the US, mainly Georgia, I'm moving out west to the NCR. They may have a political screw up but at least they have that stuff nailed down.
*packs his bags and goes*

[Sindri]

Eh, I've covered it before. Probably not the same words, but the same issues. But since a lot of pages have disappeared lately, the archives of discussion are so massive, and somebody else brought up the question, I figured it was fine to reiterate.

[Moodyman90]

Works for me. Sometimes it's good to cover old ground to remind ourselves of just where we've been.

[Sindri]

Though I do get deva vu all the time, it's usually as a result of stuff I am doing, not others.

It's even weirder when instead of a vague feeling of familiarity, you clearly remember where you've seen/heard/done something before... and it was a dream, years ago.

[Somber]

That's it! Unless there's a Fallout game that explains what happened to the South of the US, mainly Georgia, I'm moving out west to the NCR. They may have a political screw up but at least they have that stuff nailed down.
*packs his bags and goes*

Well, if you're me... the south endured the bombs a little better than other parts of the wasteland. Pensacola, Birmingham, Savanna, Miami, Mobile and Norfolk were all heavily nuked. Huntsville, however, survived relatively unscathed despite a nuke hitting the urban center several military contractors and arsenals survived intact. This would lead Huntsville to become headquarters to the Hunters, a paramilitary group that has worked tirelessly to assert control across the south. Several members of the Enclave have infiltrated the group, and there is an internal schism developing on whether or not the Hunters should adopt a more hardline stance or use their resources for more productive uses. Down near Ft. Benning are a number of Super Mutant Enclaves investing the swamps of southern Georgia. Ft. Gordon and much of the city of Augusta is dominated by advanced military robots protecting the ruined base. South Carolina has re-instituted slavery as a means of production, and the plantation owners have found the more 'moral' solution of enslaving mutants rather than humans. In the appalatchia mountains are the Folk who would be quite happy if all the power players were wiped out and people could revert to primativeism. They believe that Rousseau was right and the way to prevent a repeat of past mistakes is to keep settlements small and faithful. The Tennissee River Valley is still home to functioning hydro electric power plants and has given rise to the Order of Steel, a xenophobic off shoot of the Brotherhood. The Hunters and the Order are in a state of undeclared war.

Atlanta is the wild card in the region. A major trade hub, Atlanta was protected from nuclear devistation by an electromagnetic pulse shield. However, the Chinese also bombarded the city with biological and chemical weapons. As such, Atlanta could be a treasure trove of pre war trinkets... the most special of all being the Center for Disease Control, which was working on new strains of the FEV. Some speculate that some new strains of the FEV have broken out, as there are strange and unusual variants of mutant life not seen elsewhere in the deep south. Whoever can control the rail lines through the city has the potential to change the wasteland forever.

This is why I'd love to work on FO4...

[Meleagridis]

You're not the only one to feel some deja vu... fallout logic comes up often here, and Sindri is usually involved.

This is why I'd love to work on FO4...

This is why we'd love you to work on FO4. Though I couldn't see the mutants getting thrown into these plantations without a new source to create them. They still cannot reproduce, yes?

[SilentCarto]

On a different note, the economics of FO:3 are weird. There seems to be no actual income of stuff, no farms or such. Heck, Megaton apparently runs on one brahmin. Anyone explain please?

[NoodleNugget]

That's it! Unless there's a Fallout game that explains what happened to the South of the US, mainly Georgia, I'm moving out west to the NCR. They may have a political screw up but at least they have that stuff nailed down.
*packs his bags and goes*

Well, if you're me... the south endured the bombs a little better than other parts of the wasteland. Pensacola, Birmingham, Savanna, Miami, Mobile and Norfolk were all heavily nuked. Huntsville, however, survived relatively unscathed despite a nuke hitting the urban center several military contractors and arsenals survived intact. This would lead Huntsville to become headquarters to the Hunters, a paramilitary group that has worked tirelessly to assert control across the south. Several members of the Enclave have infiltrated the group, and there is an internal schism developing on whether or not the Hunters should adopt a more hardline stance or use their resources for more productive uses. Down near Ft. Benning are a number of Super Mutant Enclaves investing the swamps of southern Georgia. Ft. Gordon and much of the city of Augusta is dominated by advanced military robots protecting the ruined base. South Carolina has re-instituted slavery as a means of production, and the plantation owners have found the more 'moral' solution of enslaving mutants rather than humans. In the appalatchia mountains are the Folk who would be quite happy if all the power players were wiped out and people could revert to primativeism. They believe that Rousseau was right and the way to prevent a repeat of past mistakes is to keep settlements small and faithful. The Tennissee River Valley is still home to functioning hydro electric power plants and has given rise to the Order of Steel, a xenophobic off shoot of the Brotherhood. The Hunters and the Order are in a state of undeclared war.

Atlanta is the wild card in the region. A major trade hub, Atlanta was protected from nuclear devistation by an electromagnetic pulse shield. However, the Chinese also bombarded the city with biological and chemical weapons. As such, Atlanta could be a treasure trove of pre war trinkets... the most special of all being the Center for Disease Control, which was working on new strains of the FEV. Some speculate that some new strains of the FEV have broken out, as there are strange and unusual variants of mutant life not seen elsewhere in the deep south. Whoever can control the rail lines through the city has the potential to change the wasteland forever.

This is why I'd love to work on FO4...

oh my god that would be so awesome.

@consumer/producer situation
Well I would assume for the most part people still scrounge up Salisbury steaks that have a longer lifespan than twinkies from the leftovers of buildings. And if/when those come in short supply...

Spoiler:

[Moodyman90]

@ Somber. You sir.... I have no word.... I'd sell my soul just to see that made real.

I say if nothing else we send Somber's idea to Obsidian Entertainment and Bethesda Softworks. At worse they ignore it, at best he get's a job and we get an awesome fallout game, maybe even more then one.

[NoodleNugget]

couldn't hurt. Although first Bethesda needs to figure out that legal matter with the fallout franchise.

[Valikdu]

Though I do get deva vu all the time, it's usually as a result of stuff I am doing, not others.

It's even weirder when instead of a vague feeling of familiarity, you clearly remember where you've seen/heard/done something before... and it was a dream, years ago.

That sort of thing has happened to me, too. I'm also occasionally not so good at telling dreams from reality in general.
Have you ever been able to take advantage of that sort of thing, though?

[OneMoreDaySK]

@somber, *whistles* you just come up with that? That's, thats's amazing. Ever send your ideas to Bethesda yet? Probably a long shot, but as long as there is a chance.

Economics wise that would be interesting if your PC could get some land in game, and have some different game on another platform, say, a mobile device, grow crops for you FarmVille style or something. Then proceeds go back to the main game for use and possible upgrades. I believe this I remember hearing about this kind of scenario from Extra Credits. What do y'all think?

Are people even allowed to be just writers for video games? I thought writing was more of a collaborative effort among everyone doing all the other jobs... coding, graphics, design, etc., with most of direction provided by the project's leaders.

Probably not. There are a lot of things to be considered when writing for a game, much less a sandbox-y game like fallout. *sighs* I think this is why a lot of games seem like a movie that couldn't afford hiring a live action cast. (COD:MW I'm looking at you)

[Moodyman90]

Well obviously if Somber did send it in they'd change quite a few things to make it fit better in their canon, but if an idea is good enough they tend to leave it lie.
Point in case is Wild Wasteland, which they add when people would suggest things they didn't want to leave out but was agreed didn't fit the tone they was setting.

[SilentCarto]

Atlanta is the wild card in the region. A major trade hub, Atlanta was protected from nuclear devistation by an electromagnetic pulse shield. However, the Chinese also bombarded the city with biological and chemical weapons.

This is an awesome idea! It's interesting that this would shift the focus to chemical and biological threats rather than radiation. ...not entirely unlike Canterlot or the Core, I suppose.

Oh, great. My GMing brain just kicked in.

The EMP shield doesn't make much sense to exist in a city like Atlanta but not, say, DC. (This is, I note, a problem I have with New Vegas, too. If missile shield technology existed, why was it available to an independently wealthy man but not to the most vital defense cities?) Perhaps Atlanta was only lightly nuked, but one of the blasts cracked open the CDC building and released several virulent plagues on the survivors. You could maintain the "not nuked" idea if an important military location -- say, Fort Benning -- DID have a prototype antimissile system, but some Colonel or General realized that this was the end of the world and, in an attack of conscience, allocated the defense systems to cover Atlanta instead of themselves in an attempt to save as many civilians as possible. Obviously it would need to be some kind of shootdown system rather than an umbrella shield. (Too bad Dahlgren is way over in Virginia, the Naval Surface Warfare Center would be the perfect place to mount a new weapon like that.)

Rather than randomly throwing in bio/chem warheads along with the nuclear ones, perhaps the bio/chem attack was launched via cruise missile by a Chinese submarine several days after it fired its ballistic missiles, when it heard the civilian radio traffic coming from the city's emergency services. This submarine, docked at Mobile and surrounded by the hulks of the ships it sunk with its torpedoes, would make an awesome final dungeon. The remaining cruise missiles even provide an epic regional threat, once the Big Bad is able to acquire something nasty from the CDC to arm them with.

[Moodyman90]

Well, Atlanta is a major transportation hub as far as airlines are concern, and use to be known as Terminus due to the fact all rain lines use to end there. Name got changed due to being made the capital.
Sadly, despite living in Georgia I don't know as much of the military base in the state and close by as I should, but the base near Albany, Ga became important back in the early 90s for having the only desert camo gear in the country at the time.
Blast I can't remember why Moody (no relation) Air Force Base is important....

Yes I am shamelessly plugging places in the area I know of. I can't help it, I feel as if the south is under represented in games. Only major one I know of off the top of my head was Infamous 2.

[NoodleNugget]

Back when Fallout 3 was relatively new I had an idea for a fallout game. Hadn't really fleshed it out as much as you guys but the key concept was that there was a Chinese sky fortress(nukes had to come from somewhere) that was still active and flying over Seattle. you would spend most of your time around the area called The Sound and as such a lot of water based creatures would be there to ruin your day(hello mirelurks). maybe even spend some time in the forests and what not. Quite a bit more chinese interaction and maybe a turn around at some point like how X-8 Research center realized that the courier had no idea what communism was.

that's about as far as I thought about it.

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