Fallout: New Vegas: You Got A Bad Reputation

[John Funk]

Fallout: New Vegas: You Got A Bad Reputation

Did you find Fallout 3's Karma system less than spectacular? Obsidian is looking to address that with Fallout: New Vegas' "Reputation" mechanic.

Fallout 3 [http://www.amazon.com/Fallout-3-Game-Year-Xbox-360/dp/B001REZLY8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1278513813&sr=1-1] was a great game in many respects, but one of the parts where it fell short was how the game handled morality - more specifically, how characters reacted to you. Sure, you lost Karma for robbing that one guy and shooting him in the face, but his next-door neighbor still greeted you with a friendly smile. And did more than two or three people treat you any differently if you blew up Megaton?

Karma isn't going away in Obsidian's Fallout: New Vegas [http://www.amazon.com/Fallout-New-Vegas-Xbox-360/dp/B0028IBTL6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1278513839&sr=1-2], but there's a new addition now: The Reputation system will affect how any given group or faction treats you depending on what you do for (or to) them. In practice, Obsidian is aiming for a system where your standing with a group will have "real-world implications and will affect the dialogue options you are given, the quests available to you and how people treat you in the world."

"With reputation, it's really supposed to represent what people know about you," says New Vegas Project Lead Josh Sawyer. "It is important to us that your standing [with] factions change, and as factions react to you, you get a palpable benefit from it."

Every action you take will change your reputation modifier, whether positive or negative, and that will change how the NPCs in the game treat you.

"This can manifest in a number of different ways," Sawyer says. "People might give you free things, they might give you discounts at places. If you terrorize a town, they might actually be terrified enough to give you a tribute. If you screw around with one of the bigger groups, like Caesar's Legion or NCR, they might send hit squads after you.

"It's not just good and evil, it's basically whatever you do with that group so you can have a lot of different relationships with different groups in the game."

To read more, check out The Escapist Editor-in-Chief Russ Pitts' preview of Fallout: New Vegas [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/previews/7505-First-Look-at-Fallout-New-Vegas].

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[SomeBritishDude]

Wow. You guys really are stretching out that preview aren't you?

I mean I get you guys are chuffed to get an exclusive but seriously. Let it go.

 

[GothmogII]

Hmm, let's hope it's not the kind of rep where everyone and their grandmother three towns over knows instantly who you are without any prior knowledge of you heh.

 

[John Funk]

Wow. You guys really are stretching out that preview aren't you?

I mean I get you guys are chuffed to get an exclusive but seriously. Let it go.

It's a four page preview, not everyone reads to the end, and there's some cool information there that you might have missed if you were skimming.

 

[Jared]

I just wonder what kind of things will effect it and how its going to work in the end.

I did like the system in Fallout 3, but, it was too easy to go one way or the other at times

 

[Crossborder]

Damn, these guys really know how to get me interested in their games. It seems they are fixing everything I was dissapointed in. I am so getting this game.

 

[gblock]

My personal fear is a recreation of WOW's reputation farming for correcting a mistake.

Having personally accidentally slaughtered my mutant friend with a sniper rifle in VATS, I can attest to the feelings of many - that sometimes, things happen that you don't mean to. In the case of our friend, left nameless to avoid spoilers, his habit of rushing into combat ultimately led to an untimely encounter with a bullet intended for the person he insisted on standing in front of.

If reputation systems magnify the effects of these and other behavioural issues in the game - let's not call them bugs, as bad AI isn't a bug, it's an absence of a feature - then those reputation systems act against the intent of the player, and increase the visibility of the game's underlying mechanics to the user. In other words, the user throwing the controller through his television is 'breaking the fourth wall'.

Reputation and faction always sound cool, but I've yet to ever play an implementation that didn't feel just as broken as the neighboring town not being aware that you've just eaten the Mysterious Stranger with some fava beans.

I'll withhold judgment, I guess, but I definitely have a bias against.

 

[John Funk]

A reputation system or w/e similar to the one from Fallout 2 would be perfect. As has probably been said so many times, Obsidian are the only people capable of saving Fallout from Bethesda. Let's pray that they can do it right.

Fallout 3 was a great game in many respects

If you mean that as in that it was good in alot of peoples opinions I don't have alot to say about that, but otherwise I feel betrayed by my favorite news poster.

I never played it beyond the first hour. Just wasn't my cup o' tea. Was judging from Russ' review and how I've heard coworkers talking about it.

 

[Irridium]

A reputation system or w/e similar to the one from Fallout 2 would be perfect. As has probably been said so many times, Obsidian are the only people capable of saving Fallout from Bethesda. Let's pray that they can do it right.

Fallout 3 was a great game in many respects

If you mean that as in that it was good in alot of peoples opinions I don't have alot to say about that, but otherwise I feel betrayed by my favorite news poster.

I never played it beyond the first hour. Just wasn't my cup o' tea. Was judging from Russ' review and how I've heard coworkers talking about it.

It was a great game, but it screwed with the Fallout lore quite a bit... and wasn't on the same levels as Fallout 2 (haven't played the first) in terms of story and writing.

Thats just my opinion of course.

OT: Game looks sweet, and if it has the same modding capabilities as Fallout 3, its a definite buy for me.

 

[Subzerowings]

Fallout 3 was a huge dissapointment compared to TES IV: Oblivion in my opinion.
I know Obsidian is making this one instead of Bethesda, but it looks so much alike.
I really can't go through another game where the colors pretty much solely consist of sepia tones, neon blue hues or putrid green scales.

Edit: Gray is such a drab color to.

 

[Yureina]

Hmm, another extension of that preview...

I don't care though, because Fallout 3 was awesome and this will be hopefully just as, if not more, awesome.

This reputation stuff if done right will certainly make my games interesting, if nothing else. I have games where I frequently try to keep all "settlements" alive, if only so that I can wring their vendors of every cap that they have after i've gone on a crazy scavenging spree. I wonder how this system will affect that part of my gameplay.

 

[The Undoer]

A reputation system or w/e similar to the one from Fallout 2 would be perfect. As has probably been said so many times, Obsidian are the only people capable of saving Fallout from Bethesda. Let's pray that they can do it right.

Fallout 3 was a great game in many respects

If you mean that as in that it was good in alot of peoples opinions I don't have alot to say about that, but otherwise I feel betrayed by my favorite news poster.

I never played it beyond the first hour. Just wasn't my cup o' tea. Was judging from Russ' review and how I've heard coworkers talking about it.

What I was afraid of was that you liked it, but hearing you say you didn't.. Well, I think I love you, John Funk.

Grooouuuuup hug!

And reputation? That could be dodgy, hopefully not like WoW rep, the grinding is annoooying.

 

[fanklok]

So it goes from Oblivion with guns to Morrowind with guns? Awesomesauce.

 

[capt.fodder]

The idea of a reputation system like this always looks good on paper, but it frightens me. I can't attest to what their code looks like (hmmm), but this kind of system adds a LOT of points of failure and potential for bugs into the code. These types of systems are notoriously difficult to QA due to the sheer number of paths through the dialogue trees. I hope this doesn't result in the RPG part of this game getting all screwed up.

 

[The Shade]

So it goes from Oblivion with guns to Morrowind with guns? Awesomesauce.

That 'bout sums it up!

 

[Brotherofwill]

Wow. You guys really are stretching out that preview aren't you?

I mean I get you guys are chuffed to get an exclusive but seriously. Let it go.

You don't have to read it if you don't want to. I like the exposure, it beats reading about Wall Street on a gaming website, that's for sure.

Wow. You guys really are stretching out that preview aren't you?

I mean I get you guys are chuffed to get an exclusive but seriously. Let it go.

It's a four page preview, not everyone reads to the end, and there's some cool information there that you might have missed if you were skimming.

Yeah, I think the preview is awesome. Keep them coming, I'll read it again and again if I have to .

Anyway, Fallou: NV is turning out really nicely. All the missing pieces that Bethesda seemed to overlook in their iteration (Believable character interaction, satirical 'vibe', lots of strange weapons, large impact on the gameworld, no fear of outside danger in the wasteland) seem to be improved upon. The only thing that's missing is the combat. I still think the game has promise but the 1st person real-time, turn-based combat mix just didn't sit too well for me in F3. It doesn't seem like they are changing too much about that, which sucks because I'd prefer if they'd change it to their own style (maybe like in Kotor 2, could work as a tweaked 3D Fallout combat model).

 

[Sir Kemper]

Wouden't really call it a new feature, the original's had a reputation system too... Of sorts.


Anyway, it seems like this game is really starting to become something both groups will like, and by both groups, I mean those like me who loved the 3rd game, but could never get into th first few, and those who loved the first few and couden't get into the 3rd one.