Lessons learned from New Reno?

Brother None

Brother None

This ghoul has seen it all
Orderite
Chris Avellone (no, he's not directly tied to this title, but he's one of the Obsidian heads), discussed New Reno recently, here:

After the critical drubbing Undermountain received, Avellone’s contributions to Fallout 2 – most notably the entire, Mafia-controlled city of New Reno, with its bountiful side-quests and other distractions – were warmly welcomed, even if some Fallout zealots considered them tonally out-of-step. “I’m very proud of New Reno,” Avellone says, “as I think there’s a lot of fun sandbox things to do there. I’m proud of Vault City’s design, too – I added a lot more quests there, along with little touches here and there. Overall, I think Fallout 2 is better scope-wise but poorer aesthetically. I don’t think there was a strong genre policeman overseeing Fallout 2, and it suffered for it.”

Now, my thoughts on this are:

1. New Reno is the best-designed town in the Fallout franchise in terms of quests and sandbox gameplay. This point is debatable of course, but not a lot of people will deny New Reno does the whole open-ended varied intelligent quest design really well.

2. New Reno is a big dump on the Fallout setting. Probably one of the most controversial locations prior to Fallout 3, we've debated this to death, and I do feel the consensus is that it does not do well within the setting. Here's the stickler: this has always been a sensitive point to MCA. I sometimes wish the criticism of New Reno had been more clearly aimed at the setting, because we don't want to mix setting and quest design judgements and get MCA completely in the defensive.

3. "Overall, I think Fallout 2 is better scope-wise but poorer aesthetically. I don’t think there was a strong genre policeman overseeing Fallout 2, and it suffered for it." Oh yes. This tickles my fancy, this admission. Fallout 2 was as bad as Fallout 3 when it came to inconsistent world design. That doesn't mean its individual locations were bad, just that they fit together poorly. It's an important lesson to learn, since both F2 and F3 suffer lack of direction to a lesser or greater extent, and it's an important lesson to take on board.

So thoughts:
- Quest-design wise, you can't beat New Reno, and from Van Buren's design look it grew on this principle. Let's hope it's still on board for New Vegas despite the limited design time.

- Setting-wise I think this is a toughy. Fallout 3's world is both more and less recovered than Fallout 2's, but this is set closer to Fallout 2 than to Fallout 3 location-wise. Are we going to take Fallout 2's reconstruction level on board? If so, does a town that thrives not on trading (Hub), looting (LA Boneyard) or agriculture (Shady Sands), but on entertainment industry become more viable? Is there any way in which New Reno's parastic nature can become more realistic? Should we add more traders? Slavers?

- Fallout 3 did not show so much as a glimpse of building a realistic, breathing world. No single location made sense and all the locations put together made no sense at all. This is a big stickler for New Vegas to improve on, but New Reno is a really bad platform on which to improve this.

My hope would almost be New Vegas isn't like New Reno at all in economy and population, but somehow that seems unlikely.
 
yes New Reno was a awkward one. Was it a major stop on the trade circuit? because I never had a clue how the hell the economy would work. My biggest gripe was the Mafia....

If they were just Gangs and not to Mafia....IMO it would not have been as much of Setting Buster.

On to New Vegas.

I would be happy with either.

1. A Major Trade hub, this brings all the political intrigue with it. Because if you get enough people together more then 1 wants to be the boss.

2. a Bombed out mess ala The L.A. Boneyard. I always wondered what walking though a destroyed city would look like. Since I have never Been to Detroit. A Truly Obliterated city would do wonders now that we(Some) have already seen what it would like to be in a Subway under one.
 
I think using the NCR-run Hoover Dam from Van Buren would be a good thing, even if not as an actual location (although it is quite close to Vegas), then as a major faction with its stakes in New Vegas. Hoover Dam's government would be a good contrast to a (likely) mob-run Vegas, and it would be interesting to see what the relations between the two towns are.
 
TheGM said:
A Major Trade hub, this brings all the political intrigue with it. Because if you get enough people together more then 1 wants to be the boss
Click to expand...

A major trade hub similar to...er...The Hub really seems to be the only viable option.

I hope Obsidian doesn't simply accept that Bethesda got away with a nonsensical world economy, so they can as well. It's a big point that needs overhauling from Fallout 3, and to be honest there aren't a lot of options for what actually works in a post-apocalyptic setting. New Reno certainly did not.
 
I personally hope, that "New Vegas" will get some Hub style. Lots of caravans (not one dude running around with a guard and maybe one brahmin) and maybe some agriculture on the borders. I could also come out better with New Reno if it would at least show a bit that there are lots of traders/ caravans somewhere or anything like that.

Still. At the moment I can really not believe, that New Vegas will become like all the senseless Fallout 3 locations or like New Reno in Fallout 2. At least I hope so.
 
Brother None said:
TheGM said:
A Major Trade hub, this brings all the political intrigue with it. Because if you get enough people together more then 1 wants to be the boss
Click to expand...

A major trade hub similar to...er...The Hub really seems to be the only viable option.

I hope Obsidian doesn't simply accept that Bethesda got away with a nonsensical world economy, so they can as well. It's a big point that needs overhauling from Fallout 3, and to be honest there aren't a lot of options for what actually works in a post-apocalyptic setting. New Reno certainly did not.
Click to expand...

There was going to be a joke about but I am to sick to write it as my brain are not working good....

And the Economy in FO3 was just there.....never explained why. they use caps.....and thats it.

At least FO1 took the time to make a paragraph as why they use caps and such.
 
I wanted to start a thread about what people thought the scope would be of 'New Vegas', this seems to be just a good a place to post it.

Regarding what I would like to see of New Vegas, well definitely not a 'New Reno 2', a city full of gangsters.

I rather had seen a map and locations such as in Fallout 1, 2, and Van Buren but if it will be primarily focused on one location and perhaps surroundings, I hope its sort of a cross between the Boneyard/Hub; a few 'major' settlements in Vegas with smaller ones around them and in the area around the city.

I am not sure if Las Vegas would be a primary target but it is close to some major military airfields so it will probably has suffered its share of damage due to nuclear bombs, the rest could be from the slow collapse of the city due to maintenance.

A working economy, not loads of little places that have no reason to exist without some form of farming, cattle raising or salvage.

Perhaps the place could be a cause for dispute between the NCR and Vault City for example, with the Wrights/New Reno also have some interest.
Add to that some homeless Super Mutants looking for a place to stay and perhaps Ghouls that are descended from the city's locals and tourists.

As I understand, Vault 15 is close by so perhaps some people from that place became a local raider gang.

Well I guess what could be added or mentioned is Hoover Damn to the East and Area 51 somewhat North of Las Vegas, the last explaining why perhaps some Paladins of the BOS are nosing around (if they are included, it is not required, Fallout can live without the BOS).
 
What's the cliff notes on New Reno and peoples objections with it? I havent played Fallout 2 in like 9 years so I dont remember what issues the place had.
 
Well it felt very overdone, this city full of raiders, with big crime families competing with each other and even a porn studio producing new movies.

I guess a one-of-a-kind-city might not be so bad but like many I fear that designers might go for the easy route and use Las Vegas 'background' to turn it into New Reno 2.
 
Yeah, I know what you are talking about now. That's one of the problems I guess, how to incorporate what is interesting about a setting without breaking the rules of our world.

It would be like having a gang of Elvis impersonators when there has never really been much in the way of Rock and Roll in Fallout.
 
Perhaps the place could be a cause for dispute between the NCR and Vault City for example, with the Wrights/New Reno also have some interest.
Click to expand...

How about it being a cause of dispute between the NCR-run Hoover Dam and the Brotherhood of Steel, incorporating the NCR-BOS conflict from Van Buren?
 
Actually, strike that. I'd like the NCR-BOS conflict to be mentioned, but I don't want the Brotherhood to be part of the story here.
 
It'd be a relief to have a Fallout that doesn't use the BoS as a crutch, to be honest. That faction has been way overused.
 
Personally I would like to "not" see the NCR and BoS at all at the beginning. As you pointed out Ausir, Hoover Dam controls the water to the region and whoever controls the dam, controls the Vegas.

I would like to see some small and not so small communities in the Vegas ruins. This community has grown around "XXX traders" place and that community is mainly based on "YYY crafter" headquarters. Then there are some drifter communities, some laborers and all. Some indicators that this is a town living off trade with others would be nice.

Then there is the "Big Bad Guy" who (and whose men) control the Dam and have their fingers in every operation in the area.

You could create a lot of different groups with different aims who all want to get rid of this guy. (A rival small crime organization, slaves, a group of rangers, a small BoS outpost that you get into contact with in later stages that wants to access military bunkers ad the dam...) I would love to play the SOB that gets backing from some of these groups and brings down "THE MAN".

Of course after bringing the bastard down you would find out that you have some even bigger problems to solve :D

I would like to see just a small bit of BoS if it is used at all. Just a handful of scouts that can help you with knowledge instead of "PEWPEW POWAH".
 
Well, I would prefer if they kept the Van Buren version of Hoover Dam (either as a location or as a faction), not only because it's well designed, but also in order for all the work on Van Buren not to go to waste, and to pay at least some tribute to it by incorporating it into the official canon. Yeah, I know, I'm sentimental.

And if it's set around the time of FO3, they could keep Van Buren's version of the Dam without including the NCR, simply saying that NCR doesn't exist anymore.

Also, even Bethesda actually incorporated some of the stuff from the Hoover Dam design document for Van Buren into their canon, namely the Hei Gui stealth armor and a mention of the Chinese sabotage of Hoover Dam in 2077.
 
Ugh no more water monopolies please, I am sick of those.

Like Ausir, I rather see Hoover Dam being a hub of civilization and trading.

Its been two hundred years after the War now, plenty of time for the place to turn into something.
 
I don't know. I guess I would like to play the bastard that makes NCR's acquisation of the place possible at the first place :D.

Sentimental or not, the VB documents and background is already there and they are very detailed so those are usable too.

I guess it is sentimentality on my part too. I wanted to re-live the FO1 experience of creating something that goes beyond your dreams by accident/side quest :D (SS to NCR)
 
Ausir said:
I don't want the Brotherhood to be part of the story here.
Click to expand...
If the Brotherhood aren't there to hand out all the endgame guns and laz0rz, someone else would have to.
A return of the Gun Runners could probably make sense
 
I understand but then a new setting might have been better to recreate the Fallout 1 atmosphere.

The East Coast could have been wonderful for that, taking place around the time of Fallout 1 (before, during, after), introducing its own politics and factions that in time might have grown to the proportions of Fallout 2's NCR, New Reno, and Vault City.

But alas.

Just remembered a very good lesson I hope they have learned.

NO. MORE. FUCKING. ENCLAVE!!!!

They're dead, gone, pushing up daisies, gone to that great fascist field upstairs or cavern downstairs.

All I will tolerate is some sporadic badly equipped soldiers, pretending at making a go, or ex members who have since then gone their own way.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top