I do, indeed.
I get a little grouchy when they get things "wrong", but then I start treating it like an archaeological thing -- the lore gets updated as we learn more accurate info about what happened. The day the bombs fell disrupted a lot. Some was lost. More was misplaced or forgotten. People thought the Enclave created the Advanced Power Armor post-war because no one had ever seen it before. Turns out there had been prototypes made late in the War. People thought Ghouls would die without food or water. Turns out they just go "deathlike" to save whatever remaining energy they have. We've had to completely one-eighty our stances on a lot of things out here in the real world, so I have no problem applying the same approach here. A bit over a hundred years ago "everyone knew" Troy was a myth, and the Iliad likely entirely fiction. Now we are just as sure it was real and Homer's epic was a heavily-embellished account of people who participated in something that really happened, even if the specifics are up for debate.
Yeah, there are still glitches, like the loading screen info for the X-01, but those become the outlier. And even then they're minor -- like, if it showed the X-01 but said something like... "The Enclave took decades to create their own power armor after the war, reverse-engineered from some of the surviving early prototypes that they had made before the bombs fell." Or like that. They get a lot more right than they get wrong. Even with the inconsistencies between their own games -- are the Vault suits leather or spandex or cotton or what? Are they form-fitting or loose? Is the trim yellow or metallic gold? Is it just the jumpsuit, or does it have metal attachments? So it's not just about the disconnect between the Black Isle and Bethesda eras.
And a couple specific responses...
Some of the lore in this game contradicts stuff from previous games. I mean, c'mon brother..........post war armor means exactly that........post war. Why would the Enclave need to secretly make Power Armor before the war? They were part of the U.S. Government. The government seemed to be making Power Armor without it being secret just fine, no different than tanks and planes. Secret vaults for the government make sense, secret Power Armor just doesn't (at least for me it doesn't).
The fact that in the new game they undermine this fact is an example of what I'm saying. Previous games, hell even the load screen messages in FO4, state something different than what is being shown in the new game. They state the armor was made by the remnants of the govt after the great war, but the very future armor is laying around from the past? And at an amusement park, no less. Not very secretive if they have it on display at Nuka World.
The Enclave was the sort of "secret cabal" a lot of conspiracy theorists believe is operating within our own society, and the legitimate government didn't know what they were up to. The T-series power armors were developed by one defense contractor, publicly. The Enclave had taken notes and had their own engineers use their trial-and-error and technical refinement to leapfrog to the next level. While Nuka World opened in 2050, the Galactic Zone didn't open until 2072. And, further, the suit in question here is a Quantum-enhanced X-01, and Quantum was only developed in 2076 and '77. The park had only just rolled out their Quantum-themed attractions and the soda was released to the public the same day the bombs fell. Things didn't fall apart instantly, either. The military research that had seen the soda developed as a side benefit was completed several days
after the bombs fell. There were still people, and they were still doing things, even as everything was breaking down around them.
I will take the fact that one was put on display at Nuka World in the fall of 2076 as an indicator that the Enclave were ready to go public with it, had circumstances not intervened. That suit is set at MkV. While you can find pieces up to MkVI, all the other complete suits are capped at MkIII. I treat the "MkVI" as as much of a gameplay thing as the a-f upgrades you can apply to the T-series armors. The T-45 only made it up to version 'd' before being replaced by the T-51. The T-51a (probably the early prototypes) never saw service, with the T-51b being the first to see service in Anchorage. I can see a few more upgrade cycles maybe up to 'c' or 'd' by the time the bombs fell. I can see Vault-Tec going with the latest version for their custom sets. I don't know that the T-60 ever would have gotten past 'b', as it was just being issued widely when the bombs fell. So I treat all the higher degrees of any of those armors as "hot-rodding" done by post-War tinkerers. So the MkV Bradberton had cooked up would have been something pretty special, and the MkIII's (ignoring the level-based spawn factor) at or en route to the various facilities where you find the complete suits were the earlier prototypes... Then yes, any subsequent work to try to get more MkV's out there (and the difficulties they faced in doing so with so much infrastructure, data, and the people involved lost) would be "post-War". Given "the war was over in a couple hours", anything that happened even the next
day would have been post-War. No one was fighting any more. Surviving enemy soldiers (and the odd enemy submarine) were stranded. There was the war, which culminated in the nukes being exchanged -- and then right after was just picking up the pieces.
So, naturally, we gave up on trying to explain why 200 year old steaks can't exist.
Is this referring to the "salisbury steak" one finds around the wastes in fridges and whatnot (which is, essentially, glorified meatloaf -- i.e., processed food)? And, by extension, Cram, Sugar Bombs, Pork'n'Beans, Dandy Boy Apples, Yum Yum Deviled Eggs, and so forth? I accept that for what it is -- poking fun at the shelf-life of irradiated foods (not sure if you're familiar with that in the real-world application). It's one of the tropes ntegral to the game, like giant mutated insects, personal robot butlers, and atomic-powered everything. It was part of that same chrome-and-aquamarine THE FUTURE! we were promised in the '50s. Yes, even irradiated, cooked, and vacuum-sealed foods would go off after a couple centuries. But radscorpions couldn't exist, either -- they'd collapse under their own weight. If we have to accept one with a nod and a wink, ditto the other. I wouldn't lump that in with the other "bad writing". If, though, you're referring to
actual steaks, the only ones I run across are from more recent mutated animals, like Brahmin, so I doubt they're a couple centuries old.
I enjoy playing it still to this day, but I could never get into the lore on this one after some of the stuff, like the ********* version of the Brotherhood trying to take over the damn planet.
Now,
tihs is where we come into agreement. My biggest issues are gameplay-related. All the way back to Fallout 3. They've tweaked and refined the controls, the number of things you can interact with, and the amount of stuff you can do with them. They've gotten rid of gear condition (thank god), removed the level cap, and incorporated a lot more customization and crafting, all of which I applaud. But I have issues with the core
stories of 3 and 4. New Vegas is such an oddbal for having so much content and being so neutral about what you "should" do. I know the canon ending favors the NCR, and I'm fine with that, but the game doesn't railroad you into it. And there was so much there, especially with all the DLC. But 3 and 4... *sigh*
The original ending of F3 was so infamous, we're still discussing it.
No flexibility. You walked your own self in and gave up your life to get the purifier running. Noble, but there were plenty of alternatives -- including endings counter to the canon one, where you, I don't know, blow it up or something, for whatever reason. And the forced main quest... First time I played, I was doing what I do -- I was out exploring the Wasteland, scouting locations so I could fast-travel to them later for more through clearing, doing side quests... Hadn't even been to Galaxy News Radio yet, let alone Rivet City... and I found my dad in the simulator. But because I hadn't followed the right steps to get there, I didn't have whatever it was we needed to get out, and I was stuck. Had to load an earlier save and skip that location. Why wasn't the possibility of players ignoring the main quest line and accidentally stumbling on the character's father considered?
With 4, the whole thing with the player character's family is such a red herring. You can romance people days after you've seen your spouse shot in front of you. When you find your son, it's... ah... so drastically not what you expect as to be meaningless. Remove the familial relation and things can play out pretty much the same way. When the main driving motivation of the player character is meaningless and irrelevant to absolutely everything, might need to be rethought... The way the Brotherhood acted in 4 is right out of character for how they were in 3 -- and even New Vegas. They act like the Outcasts or the Enclave. I jotted down on a napkin while watching someone else playing though the Institute and Brotherhood endgames a couple thoughts that would have made everything more consistent with the two previous games (let alone the ones that came before) and its own damn story. The Institute is Enclave. The folks who roll into town are either Enclave or Outcasts. There are real BoS scouts on the ground. Elder Maxson has been alerted. And the last DLC can be him arriving with the
true Capitol BoS to smack down the evil tech people (whichever faction they are) and take over the Institute with the player character's help, moving the Railroad in to rehabilitate the synths, and leaving Danse in charge, with you as a strong ally, being General of the Minutemen.
I want the people you run into in-game to react more authentically to how you're equipped. I don't care how many drugs you're on, I have a hard time believing a Raider will think he can take out someone in power armor armed with a gauss rifle... with a pool cue. I want Danse to recognize that I'm even
wearing power armor. I want stuff from the character's backstory to be relevant in-game (all those missed opportunities to use you having been a soldier in the War, anyone?)
Overall I want what 1 and 2 had -- you're helping re-establish civilization out of the chaos of the wastes. Getting the purifier going in 3 was important, yes, and I like seeing the Wasteland Survival Guide in New Vegas, but there's no mention of things in 4. No one mentions the harbor is less radioactive and wonders why. And I'd really,
really like to feel I'm accomplishing something with all the peaceful settlements I visit/establish in all three of the more recent games. You've wiped out or convinced all the Raiders, super mutants, and feral ghouls. You've given the civilizing influences a chance to get some traction... I loved the evolution of th eNCR from 1 to 2. It would be great to see some of that continue.
So yeah, those are my biggies. Flexibility of gameplay (corollary, absence of railroading), authenticity of interaction, and -- the reason we play these games in the first place -- actually feeling like you're accomplishing something.
--Jonah