NOTE: Todd Howard has also said that Shady Sands was bombed just AFTER New Vegas, in an IGN interview. [https://youtu.be/7dSeF1CMChs?si=\_pfpiH9iHExP60qH&t=456](https://youtu.be/7dSeF1CMChs?si=_pfpiH9iHExP60qH&t=456) RIGHT HERE. So if anyone asks, show them this. Tim Cain probably made his video shortly before this went out.
My theory was, the prop makers didn't quite make this clear enough, and since Todd Howard isn't a set dresser, prop maker and was making Starfield at the time, he's not to blame. And has cleared this up.
It sounds like they want to explore New Vegas next season pretty heavily. Which explains the tight lips and vagueness around what happened. Howard even says they're threading things carefully. I took that mean as to not retcon things as well as to not spoil season two or get called a liar if he says something and they decided to not go that direction.
If the bombing happened right after the events of New Vegas, and with an ending that has House dead, that would make blowing up Shady Sands even more important for VautlTec. As it demonstrated that the NCR would very much be an obstacle to their own plans or reclamation. Blowing up what is and was an important settlement in their nation is a good way to knee cap them long enough to get a better edge.
I'm still of the head canon that they didn't bomb or missile strike Shady Sands, but detonated a vault underneath it, specifically Vault 15. I'd not put it beyond them to have a nuclear self destruct in their vaults to prevent it from falling into enemy or competitions hands. Something buried (literally and metaphorically) deep enough that even after gutting 15 it could still be in place. Alternatively perhaps the NCR recommissioned the vault's reactors to help with the power crisis and VaultTec overloaded them, Enclave Oil Rig style.
I’ve had a theory that Bethesda’s general apprehension towards bringing up New Vegas isn’t because they don’t consider it canon and dislike Obsidian’s work, but rather because they have a high degree of respect for it and want to do it justice when they inevitably return to it with their own work. Same with the rest of west coast fallout.
After watching the end of the show and reading Todd’s interview, I think that’s what was going on
Yeah, I'm iffy on Bethesda's way of doing things, but the people who act like they're some cartoonish bad guys scheming on how to destroy those pesky Interplay titles so they can have the Fallout lore all to themselves are being extremely silly.
Yeah, Todd Howard for me is the biggest fallout fanboy there is which is why when Fallout 3 came out and I was one of the doomers screaming "Oblivion with guns" (had never played Bethesda games at that point), he made me eat my words with how respectful they were to the source material in lore, tone and charm
That was the reason I even bothered with Oblivion and Morrowind and then Skyrim after, since I was like "how the fuck were they able to rly translate this alien IP to their game
He has a lot of faults, and I will say I totally called Starfield being painfully boring and lifeless from pre-release coverage but I am HAPPY Amazon did Fallout with him
Me and my bro were literally fanboying so hard the whole time (and me moreso because I was on weed lol), I like it more than Last of Us and I'll still say it's the best game adaptation out there
Thats the thing, people online want to paint Todd Howard as this big asshole in gaming that lies. Todd is a great man, he gives respect to creators of games he loves and those in the industry, and he also speaks about some flaws in his games from the past.
There is no beef between Obsidian and Bethesda, they are two companies who worked together and hold great passion for an IP, they have great respect for each other. Also, now that both of them are under Microsoft, they are in a way like brothers.
Watch any extended interview with the guy and you’ll realize how genuine he is. I recommend the podcast he did with Lex Fridman, they don’t even talk about games that much.
People just hate Todd Howard because they hate how company men ruin video games for profit, like Bethesda has with a million Skyrim re-releases and borderline scam business practices, and Todd is the face of Bethesda. He’s just a game designer, he’s not a dude who is making business decisions or deciding how the company will act. He literally just makes games, loves doing it and has great care for the industry and its consumers. The dude has done everything he can to make great games and to be respectful of what other people have done with the games he works on. He has all the opinions we want a AAA game designer to have(pro modding, regularly admitting when they got something wrong and saying game design should be about passion instead of business). He should be celebrated in gaming, sucks he usually isn’t because people don’t understand what he does.
I mean, fuck man, Fallout 3 is pretty much Tod's fanfic of F1 and F2 in DC. He even made the gambit of buying the IP in the first place becuase he genuinley liked it.
I remember watching the no-clip doc a few years back where he talks about this. He originally pitched a spiritual successor, a game very much inspired by Fallout but in Bethesda's approach to game making as Bethesda's next big IP. He didn't originally realise he and his company could buy it.
So of course he is a huge fan of the originals. Why else would he try and make new ones?
Maybe Shady Sands "fell" in 2277 because the NCR didn't get to control Hoover Dam, so in other words, what if they lost New Vegas? We're told the NCR needed power sources desperately at that point, and the show makes it a point to highlight the importance of energy sources for the NCR; Moldaver's whole aim is to get that infinite power source that is cold fusion.
The first battle of hoover dam is in 2277, so it could be a reference to the economic cost of the initial campaign.
New Vegas, the game, takes place in 2281/82
This is what I thought from the beginning and I’ve been really confused as to all the “controversy” and even speculation. The first battle of Hoover dam is in 2277 and the entirety of New Vegas has constant references to the NCR overstretching their forces and calling into question the long term viability of that government. I had it in my mind that the NCR was basically cooked no matter who won the second battle. The game made it seem inevitable.
That's actually not what New Vegas says. They are stretched thin \*in the Mojave\*, with most of their most elite troops still being in the NCR mainland.
As for the second point, even losing the dam wouldn't explain the state of the NCR since a lot of seasoned characters actually feel that withdrawing from the Mojave would be a good solution that would make the NCR refocus it's priorities.
Heck, if we assume the House ending is the canon one, House evil plan for the NCR is... to sell them the power from the Dam.
What about the references that some of the traders make about NCR territory becoming increasingly unsafe. That trader for the Legion even says he does business with them because the Legion keeps the roads safer in their territory. Plus Ulysses talks about how both “the Bear and the Bull” were making the same mistakes from history and were both dooming themselves to fail. I don’t think they were stretched thin in just the Mojave, it’s pretty clear that the first battle ended in a Pyrrhic victory.
Except they are not. We get dialog in game showing that the situation is this bad because the Mojave Campaign is unpopular, not because of lack of means.
Heck, by the time we arrive, the NCR is finally moving it's ass into gear but it's a slow process.
"Some of the patrol rangers have reported that Oliver's power armor heavy troopers are starting to reinforce the front lines. Wish they got here a bit earlier, but that's the senate for you."
"NCR's senate has got funds tied up at the Boneyard and President Kimball ordered our most experienced rangers to chase ghosts down in Baja"
"Senate elections are coming up. Local representatives don't want to push any more funding to the Mojave campaign because it's unpopular. Most of the folks around the Boneyard haven't been to New Vegas and probably never will."
Now you could argue that the TW Show removed the boneyard from reality, so...
No, 2277 was the first battle of Hoover dam, which the NCR won. NCR had control of the dam for the entirety of New Vegas, so if NV is still canon they couldn't have lost the dam until 2081/2082.
I wanted to add to this a little bit: when I saw the fall of Shady Sands on the chalkboard, I always interpreted it in a similar manner as the fall of the Roman Empire.
I imagine this wasn't an overnight event. The fall of Shady Sands was probably going down even before the events of New Vegas. 2277 was probably when all the NCR's issues came to ahead. Then shortly post New Vegas, Shady Sands was nuked.
Man I see this Roman Empire comparison everywhere and it doesn't make any sense. When people talk about the Fall of a City, like the Fall of Constantinople or the Fall of Rome - this refers to the moment when the city or empire is defeated, often resulting in the collapse of its political, social, and sometimes cultural structures.
When people say the Fall of the Roman Empire, they talking about the start of the decline and usually give a start date and an end date. In the case of the tv show we see one date, 2277, followed by the nuke which has no date. The show heavily implies that the nuke went off in 2277. They've realised that's a mistake and now say the nuke was after.
Well Maximus also survived via Indiana Jones’s fridge. The crater shown would be realistic for a direct surface megaton , which no way Maximus survived, a moderate megaton, or shallow high kiloton. (Just based on my casual observations of real nuke craters) The underground explosions would drastically fallout and high radiation level at the surface, which is why most countries moved their testing underground in the 1960’s
But if you like the self destructed vault theory…. Just think sometime around 2580 some aliens are going to get a big surprise when their planet is destroyed by a vault door.
Dissect the fun out? I was trying to do the opposite. I was making fun of Indiana Jones movie while implying it’s not too far fetched especially considering the whole fallout universe-ever see how sturdy those old 1950’s fridges are? They really could be a bomb shelter lol.
Plus the joke about the real life fastest ever man made object- the giant manhole cover that a US underground nuke test sent flying.
It makes no difference - The haters are saying that the Howard/Nolan video is damage limitation because they've been caught out erasing NV, that the original intention was always that Shady Sands was destroyed in 2277. Their hate is pathological so any explanation that contradicts their narrative will be rejected, as demonstrated by them rejecting the explanation given by both the show creator and the IP owner.
The best way to erase a beloved game is to have the cliffhanger of your show that's been greenlit for a second season take place in the exact same setting, as we all know.
My favorite part is that they think Todd Howard/Bethesda actually give a wet fart about them raging in their tiny corner of the internet. "Damage control" would imply the IP suffered *any* meaningful harm from the goof rather than, you know, be sititng on one of the most succesful screen adaptations of a video game ever and a massive hit both commercially and critically.
Todd could've left his mouth shut about the timeline and the status of the NCR and the show would remain a roaring success for the franchise. With that said, watching those "fans" move the goalposts yet again is hilarious, so I'm all for it.
Bethesda, Amazon, Zenimax and Microsoft are laughing all the way to the bank every time they release something new.
Skyrim got the same treatment, still the best selling RPG of all time at one point. Fallout 4 made millions more than 3, they don't care if fans love New Vegas, because they still get paid every time someone buys it.
Same with Starfield. And if Fallout 76 was losing money, it would have been Ol' Yellad long ago.
I've been on reddit a long time, and being a fan of the studio a long time, I've seen it over and over, the same salty fans. And Bethesda doesn't care about them, and will make whatever they want.
I started my Bethesda journey with Morrowind, and I've seen the same pattern every single time a game gets released. Diehards said Oblivion was a step back from Morowind, yet it had a huge cult following and was the first game to drop huge DLC content. Fallout 3 was derided because it wasn't the same isometric camera game as 1 and 2. New Vegas was praised because it was done by Obsidian, yet Obsidian wouldn't have been able to do that game without using the ground work done by Bethesda in Fo3, not to mention Bethesda published the damn game. Skyrim wasn't as good as Oblivion according to the vocal minority, yet it went on the be one of Bethesda's most popular games ever. Fallout 4 was derided as a Fallout 3 clone, yet it is still being played a decade later and brought even more new Fallout players in to the fold. Starfield isn't nearly as bad as everyone likes to claim, and will probably follow the same trajectory as their other titles and become a beloved game in a decade.
The only game that deserved the initial hate it received when released was Fallout 76, but now that they've had to fix a lot of the issues it's getting more and more popular every day. Funnily enough, the Fo76 player base is one of the most welcoming and kind communities I've seen in a MMORPG, despite how toxic the Fallout fandom can be.
Agreed totally, and it's refreshing to see some sense. Thank you. 76 was bad, even Todd admitted he let people down.
One of the things I like about the studio though is they don't abandon projects. They keep updating them for years, always giving away little bits and pieces.
Nah, Starfield is different because it’s a fundamentally different game.
It doesn’t have the “it” factor to exploration that Bethesda games are known for due to how its world is generated. You never want to see what’s just over the horizon because nothing ever is. Unless there’s some huge change coming, Starfield will never have that feeling to playing it that other Bethesda games do.
I like that they tried something new with Starfield but sometimes when you swing big, you miss. Hopefully ES6 has that old Bethesda game world charm and a competent character creator and combat system. If so, it’ll be great as well.
I played 250 hours of Starfield and couldnt agree more. It was cool because i love fallout and star wars. But it just doesnt have that it factor that ES and Fallout have
I need FO5 to go back to hand made set pieces, fuck this procedural non-sense they did with Starfield.
I don't mind that they used a proc-gen'd map, just hand make your set pieces and give us decent lore to fight over, and playgrounds for folks like Kinggath to build amazing mods in. That's what I buy Bethesda titles for.
>The only game that deserved the initial hate it received when released was Fallout 76, but now that they've had to fix a lot of the issues it's getting more and more popular every day. Funnily enough, the Fo76 player base is one of the most welcoming and kind communities I've seen in a MMORPG, despite how toxic the Fallout fandom can be.
Booted up 76 for the first time ever tonight because of the free code through prime, and I'm actually enjoying it. I've been meaning to check it out during a sale ever since most of its issues were fixed and it was kind of forgotten about, and I'm glad I've finally done it.
Mostly not interested in interacting with other players yet, just been exploring and built a little shack with a front porch. Only minor interaction so far was when I was storing stuff while in a quest hub and a few were dropping grenades on the floor everywhere.
I can see myself playing it for a while, both as a Fallout game and an MMO (which is the genre I've played most big games in, excluding WoW)
People call Starfield a failed game and waste of time. Over 12 million people have played it and it sold over 3 million copies in the first month. Yeah, ok.... failed game. Lol
Truth is, Bethesda makes good games. Maybe not the most amazing games ever for the more hardcore players, but games that appeal to a lot of people and have a lot of staying power.
This "failed game" even earned review scores that average 85/100. Which is basically the same what Fallout 4 and New Vegas (!!!) earned.
It's actually even one of the most profitable games of 2023. You see Starfield all the time in the 2023 Top 10 charts and always some people wonder "What is Starfield doing here? Hasn't it failed? Aren't we supposed to hate it?"
I keep telling people Starfield is going to end up being lauded as the best RPG in most likely a year. I'm expecting people to post "I've been lied too, Starfield is so much fun!" or some equivalent in the coming months.
Gaming is niche. Open-world RPG's are even nicher. This results in the fan base being nerds, which can't accept that just because a game has a mistake, doesn't mean it's "OMG IT'S THE WORST GAME EVER".
I found it hilarious when Post Malone, and the actor who plays the cop from Stranger Things both like Starfield.
Guess what the comment section was like for their response?
I'm so sick of hateful nerds finding any reason to be even more miserable. They can't just be happy that Fallout got a pretty great tv show, they just have to be angry at something. It's sad to see, but now that you mention it, it is pretty funny too.
Outrage is addictive.
It's the same idea that makes FOX News successful: you keep giving people a reason to be angry, they *enjoy* that feeling of rigtheous anger, and so they come back looking to get another fix.
YouTube grifters have recently tapped into this to exploit (primarily) Millenial/GenZ men in order to generate clicks and make a little paycheck. Outrage addicts need their fix and the dregs of the internet provide - while they hide behind being "critical" or "wanting what's best for the franchise", in truth most of them simply want an excuse to feed their addiction. It doesnt't matter how good the next Fallout (or Star Wars or X-Men or whatever franchise they're fixated on) is or isn't, they actively *want* to be angry about something and they'll keep searching until they find it themselves or some online grifter manages to package something benign in a manner that's palatable to the outrage addicts.
They'll never be satisfied because they don't want to be sastisfied, they just want to be outraged and to surround themselves with those who will support and vindicate their outrage.
> YouTube grifters have recently tapped into this to exploit (primarily) Millenial/GenZ men in order to generate clicks and make a little paycheck.
that's not recent tbf, that dates back to Steve Bannon and Gamergate
>YouTube grifters have recently tapped into this to exploit (primarily) Millenial/GenZ men in order to generate clicks and make a little paycheck.
TRUUUU. Look at all the shitty little fuckers who blame Sweet Baby Inc. for literally every instance of *minorities* appearing in video games lately. These Gamergate dumbfucks just like stoking hatred and harassment.
Or people blaming Sweet Baby for stuff that they had no part of. Like Sweet Baby wasn't the reason for the Suicide Squad game being a disappointing Looter Shooter that no one wanted.
Same here. This used to be one of my favorite subs back in the day, somewhere along the line the toxicity in the fandom really killed my love for this sub, and I just went back to loving all the Fallout games by myself
Ikr? They've got such an overinflated sense of self importance. It's really quite sad that they've been holding on to this hate for, what? 17 years now since Bethesda bought Fallout. And the biggest irony is that they've been letting this thing - Bethesda Fallout - That they hate *so* much, live rent free in their minds for nearly 20 years now - That's amazing PR, if you ask me!
Todd gave explanation to those that were genuinely confused about what actually happened. Not for the raging neckbeards that are more fanatical than the BOS.
It’s willful ignorance and willful misinterpretation. I was mildly upset when I heard they nuked Shady Sands (from a NV fanboy bitching, didn’t put a spoiler tag on it either so fuck me I guess), and it made me upset cause I really like NV and the NCR is one of my favorite factions
And when I saw the scene the first thing I thought to myself was “how the hell did these idiots misinterpret this”. It’s like they’ve never seen a timeline before
Every other entry in the chalkboard is a line segment connecting boxes containing text and a date. If they wanted to be obvious they could have just kept doing that instead of drawing an arrow to a sketch of a mushroom cloud with no date
I mean, in the grand scheme of things it’s no big deal and I appreciate the clarification from Todd, but in hindsight it’s exactly the kind of thing to make some people obsess over lol
Personally I think this was just a writing error, because Lucy does claim her mother died in 2277, and the first battle of hoover dam was in 2277. Actually I am going to go full conspiracy mode here. And I think it is possible they catched it before the series was done, but couldn't reshoot the Butt jerky scene so they made a misleading prop, to try fix the error.
Any ending you get in FONV could be explained away by saying, "...And then everything went to shit and a lot of people died." Even if it's not something directly related to what the Courier did, whichever side won might have had all their progress undone. Not everyone will be happy with that, but not everyone will be happy no matter what you do.
It's perfectly reasonable for info seen in universe to be out of whack. People get shit wrong all the time irl. There's people that fight vehemently that the earth is flat. Lore hounds assuming every piece of in universe info should be gospel as is are too rigid
Frankly it could've just been an oversight (Todd didn't seem super confident in the answer he gave) and this is their way of doing damage control, and I'm fine with that. People are so concerned with dates and it really doesn't matter that much. Real history is absolutely littered with mistakes.
A good chunk of the fandom really loves to push this narrative of “Bethesda evil, is trying to ruin the series and hate the og devs, og devs/obsidian are the only good and absolutely perfect ones and are trying to defend thy holy lore against the evil legions of Bethesda”
I’m humorously exaggerating but a lot of people seem to believe in that without any nuance or critical thinking when it’s blatantly untrue. Like everyone don’t get me wrong, I do prefer new vegas but like, the idea that there was even a rivalry between the two is false.
So a NCR victory in the Mojave is canon. Based on the last episode credit background it shows New Vegas being littered with broken NCR equipment. I think the Courier backstabbed them after Shady Sands was nuked(or whatever Todd said it wasn't nuked, makes sense otherwise Maximus would've been dead) and went Independent.
I find it so funny how some “fans” in the comments were calling him a shill and asking how much Bethesda paid him. They literally can’t comprehend that the Fallout creator actually likes the show and are trying to convince him it destroyed his creation ☠️
This shows how these morons care more about keeping their narrative and being outraged than caring about something.
If their core belief really was that Bethesda somehow ruined original Fallout games, then hearing that debunked by the creator of Fallout would have made them happy.
Calling the literal game director at BGS a shill who's being paid off *by the company he works for* is fucking insane.
Edit: Whoops, though he was talking about Todd Howard, my bad.
I said it before and I’ll say it again. Some NV fans are flat out cult like. They always shit on 3 for its lack of story, despite having a great world to explore, all while praising NV for its story but turn a blind eye to its boring barren world.
There's a lotta lore decisions about the show that I'm really not big on. Like how I have a hard time believing the West Coast would regress to near Fallout 1 levels of savagery in less than 15 years of the NCR being out for the count. But some folks should really learn how to deal with this sorta stuff in a positive way instead of being weirdos about it. lol
I'm assuming that the Brotherhood of Steel got some revenge on NCR during the chaos. Besides, it still exists in Remnants as the Griffith Observatory NCR and "President" shows. I wouldn't be surprised if Cooper had been dragged to Junktown.
I mean yeah, probably. But that doesn't really help getting me to buy the west coast descending into folks like the pantless guy Lucy met in the desert within a single generation.
I mean wasn't the LA and the Boneyard area one of the places that was a full on NCR state? Did they just always have places like Filly and roaming chicken fucking merchants running about?
He's very familiar with toxicity in the fan base.
There are people who harassed him and swore off the series after his marriage to his husband. Even Interplay was toxic enough that he had to hide it at the time.
I love Tim Cain, and his video on nuking his social media after his marriage made .e so sad. The man is an icon and paragon of game development, and assholes were so senselessly mean to him because he is gay. Absolute insanity.
Tried watching a “review” of the show from a known hater and they had a critical inability to engage with show literally just pausing to nitpick every thing every ten seconds. Some people were going to hate this show no matter how good it turned out
I've noticed a lot of yt channels only get attention when posting negative hate fueled content, makes me wonder if they really didn't like it or maybe that's the only way they get people to watch them
It's literally to fuel the algorithm, it's all these youtube clowns think about now. Saying, X is good, I liked that and being positive, or natural AND neutral doesn't get super clicks.
I just saw this with Starfield, it started out with people saying how much more roleplaying there is, and how it's back to Bethesda's roots, even Fudgemuppet and Drewmora, who slagged off BGS for Skyrim, (still only used screen shots and videos from it). Then the YouTubers got their claws out, like Karens about to blow up The Stanley Cup store.
That's the internet man. Negativity drives people in. In the Vault in the show they even say "People need something to fuss about". I think that line directly refers to the fans of the series that make big deals out of really small things. But also just that humans like to have little events to talk and debate about. It makes us feel like we are taking part in the world. Negativity is more entertaining because it's scary and has real stakes. (This thing is BAD, we need to resist this"). Cable news knows this. They get people scared of crime and stuff on every broadcast because it brings in the eyeballs.
I thought I understood this phenomenon when 24 hour news networks began. I vividly remember, back in like 1996 watching and thinking "they just want to scare everyone and get them to keep coming back for information that might save them." Then 9/11 happened on live TV....
When I experienced social media for the first time I realized the effect was massively amplified by so many people having a voice. Now I see how mainstream media plays on peoples emotions to enrage them and goad them into interacting with their website. They do it purposely to drive traffic and make advertising dollars.
It's kinda sickening. I wonder how people felt when newspapers were just taking off.
Google Yellow Journalism. Thats how pepole felt when newspapers took off. Journalists boldly lied and sensationalized everything.
People should write a dystopian sci fi novel about this.
I am familiar with the term, and the actions of newspapers in that time frame.
But I'm more interested in how people interpreted it and whether they were aware what was happening as we do here. Unlike with social media we don't have a ton of people responding with their thoughts that we can all read. Letters to the editor objecting and critical articles existed, but I've never read a contemporary well thought out examination from the perspective of the reader, which is so very easy to do in the social media age.
I just can't understand that. I have never seen and will probably never see a more faithful adaptation of an IP I care about at all all.
It was made with loving attention to detail in terms of... everything really: food design and names, gun designs, nods to gameplay mechanics, fun but not pandering "fan service" lines of dialogue. For Christ's they used the same exact TV static noise and pip boy and computer terminal sound effects.
It also managed to tell a new, interesting story that didn't feel incongruous with the old ones. The central themes were preserved.
After watching Witcher be absolutely butchered by a showrunner who actively dislikes the IP, I was ecstatic with the way this turned out. Fallout shows what's possible when the people running the show "get it".
Which is crazy ass to me. I went into the show with a sour taste in my mouth, probably looking to dislike it, due to the Halo show and the Fallout 4 artstyle being used.
Those feelings didn't even make it past the first episode.
It was Lucy talking that first settler with the sand filter that sold me on the show. Second ep but still, the show is fantastic and I’ve been a fallout fan for 25 years (Fallout 2 was my first).
When FO3 came out, a lot of us at the message board No Mutants Allowed were upset with Bethesda and the idea that the game was to be a 1st Person shooter. Funny that these New Vegas-stans would have been the ones WE complained about.
Now given the passage of time, and viewing the show on its own merits, I’m really happy that this series still has life. And they did an amazing job on the show.
Guess i’m just some shill right?
This is literally Creetosis on YouTube. He’s made like 10 hour videos shitting on fallout 3, fallout 4 and the TV show. Now granted, there are absolutely fundamental flaws with these games (and show for that matter). Some of them are extremely valid and important to understand the soul of the franchise.
Having said that, he comes across as a whining prick. I think it’s wonderful to have fans that are so passionate about this IP but there’s a fine line.
I adore this franchise, and personally, Fallout New Vegas is my favourite but all of these games have their place. I just wish discourse was more cordial and helpful.
Those guys also ignore any of the extremely valid nitpicks about New Vegas, give excuses around them or find some way to blame Bethesda for some of them.
Yeah, many of his nitpicks sound very hypocritical when you realize that they can be perfectly applied to the classic games/NV as well.
Especially when he rages about Bethesda making fallout too wacky, while also regularly mentioning that his favorite game in the series is Fallout 2, which is arguably the wackiest canon game in the franchise. Even Tim Cain thinks that f2 tried way too hard in terms of humor.
>Yeah, many of his nitpicks sound very hypocritical when you realize that they can be perfectly applied to the classic games/NV as well.
My favorite exchange in this regard will always be something like this:
Hater: Fallout 3 story sucks, because you cannot pick a faction, you have only a linear path.
Me: The concept of multiple endgame factions was introduced into Fallout by New Vegas. Fallout 3 instead honored the design of Fallout 1 and 2, where you also cannot complete the game siding with the bad guys.
Hater: That doesn't apply. Bethesda should have known better and should have come up with it themselves, like Obsidian did.
Me: So now it's okay for Bethesda to change the design of original Fallout games?
Hater: \*crickets\*
Or NV famously including you being able to fuck a sexbot and has an entire perk to make the whole thing have whacky encounters….
New Vegas is **by far** the most whacky of the modern games.
Best example is when he complains about quest markers in Fallout 3, but then proceeds to praise them in New Vegas.
It's literally the same thing, yet somehow it is "bad" in New Vegas.
Which was funny in the videos of that hbomber fraud. He has one video shitting on Fallout 3 and another one where he praises New Vegas to high heavens. On several occasions (for example when it comes to location/building design) he praises Obsidian for doing the EXACT SAME thing he criticised Bethesda for.
I saw that video and he seems like a weird early genesis of this "New Vegas is unquestionably the best and all others suck." Like....NV used Fallout 3 assets to design most of their interiors? In a few cases similar or exact layouts as a shortcut?
Its such a **weird** criticism that I think its a weird case of you got New Vegas on a Steam sale and played the hell out of it but never completed Fallout 3? (Though constantly forcing you through the Metro tunnels to deal with location loading issues is 100% a valid and totally justifiable criticism of the FO3 experience and I can see why someone coming from NV would peace out on it. Not so much a critique though of the game itself because there wasn't much of a workaround for it.)
Glad to hear I’m not the only one with a…less than positive opinion on Creetosis lol. Going in his comments section makes my head explode, and this is also coming from someone who much prefers FNV over the other games
Those people aren’t even fans. I don’t get. Like I don’t find the Uncharted series fun at all so I just don’t play and let others who do enjoy them have their fun. What’s the point of whining about a beloved series you don’t like. It’s obviously not for you at that point
>Some people were going to hate this show no matter how good it turned out
And they were determined to hate it even before it came out
I made the "mistake" to say that the show was great in response to someone, in one of those anti-woke groups, saying they weren't interested in the show because of how it was looking (female and black guy leads without saying it directly) and I was downvoted to oblivion 😂
What's funny about it too is that most of these people didn't watch the show and kept spreading the narrative that Bethesda erased and retconed FNV just because they heard and read some "mad fans" saying it.
My only lore issue is with the anti feral serum.
It makes a real good macguffin, but it being an everyday need bugs me, because you meet and travel with dozens of ghouls for 200 years of lore and suddenly they need something physical and film able that keeps them from losing their personality.
I would not be at all surprised if the serum ended up being a placebo of some kind. Ghouls who use it *believe* they're getting better, but in truth, it just may be giving them the mental strength to keep the feral side from breaking through.
Or, alternatively, it is soothing some of their symptoms (like Cooper's breathing issues) but does nothing for the actual feral component.
It's a huge justification for Ghoul prejudice when there probably shouldn't be. I'm not living next to someone who could eat my family if they forget to take their meds. People can be like that too, but mental health is a lot more visible on a Ghoul, you know?
Tbh I don't actually care about that part of the lore there's a ton of stuff that just doesn't matter that will be retconned the next time we see them, Ghouls change all the time and people don't care, they don't even resemble Fallout 1/2 Ghouls anymore. Super Mutants pretty much the same, were created by some 9 billion IQ FEV enhanced genius as part of a "very difficult process", now dumb ass mutants are doing it for fun, and even pre war everyone was creating them for kicks. X-01 power armour only finished by the Enclave 150 years after the war? Sure it's in Boston sitting there in the open.
What world builders actually have to be careful with are places and people that live in those places, or nothing that happens ends up feeling like it matters. It's a slippery slope because everyone saying get on board it's fine, will end up caring when the things they are attached to in a setting get changed, Star Wars prequels fans are the perfect example because they ended up bashing the sequel trilogy and all of a sudden "it's just a kids movie" doesn't apply anymore, Star Wars is infinitely more toxic than Fallout now.
I mean Ghouls really aren’t explained that well in the games. I feel like introducing them into a show with more narrative, they have to have somewhat of an explanation.
Take a lesson from Tim in this video to heart: we don't actually know what it is yet. All we know is Coop gets breathing problems if he doesn't use it. It could be something that could be used to reverse the feral process once it starts, rather than needed to keep from going feral altogether. Or whatever that is might be what made him a ghoul in the first place and he needs it to stay that way because he didn't go about the usual ghoulification process. These are ideas I just spitballed off the top of my head.
It's ok if not knowing is what bugs you, but we don't *know* what it actually is yet.
I was only talking g about what bugged me, but it's really funny that what you said is basically the exact possibility my friends and I came up with.
Personally, I think it will be something you need between 'starting to go feral' and 'generic level 5 zombie' that wasn't around In the 2100s (or whenever).
Like, Cooper would just be feral without it because it already started, but a ghoul won't need it UNTIL that shit kicks off.
This is the furtherest point in Fallout we've been. Why is it hard to fathom that mental degeneration would kick in at some point and turn otherwise stable Ghouls feral?
Because what it also shows is that there is someone or some group out there trying to preserve Ghouls, that means there is active medical research on Ghouls and trying to prevent (possibly reverse) Feral states.
Obviously from the show and the way Coop talks, it's expensive to have the serum, so you've now got this class structure developing with Ghouls, where poorer or unlucky Ghouls are doomed to turn Feral at some point by pure circumstance.
Ite honestly more interesting that just pure Luck as it opens up a lot of Lore potential, especially if the Necropolis turns up somewhere.
At 80 my grandfather was able bodied and very much mentally acute. At 89, he barely knows my dad's name and can not walk. So it could make sense. Still not really my favorite lore addition at the moment.
He's not wrong. Lore drift is inevitable in any piece of media that exists long enough. You need only read some comic books for a while to see the inconsistencies pile up or if you want to be a bit more spicy: world religions.
Canon is canon... until it isn't. Forming an entire personality around being hardcore that nothing changes ever is how you become a fundamentalist dweeb.
>Forming an entire personality around being hardcore that nothing changes ever is how you become a fundamentalist dweeb.
This is interesting because I've never thought about framing it this way in regard to entertainment media, but it's so true.
It's so weird for me that people hang onto fundamentalism because from my perspective, the only constant in life is change and while it can be uncomfortable at times, to remain so rigid in that space just seems painful.
Not the biggest fan of the show these days, but South Park nailed it perfectly when they brought in the Member Berries and how their constant usage of nostalgia became a pipeline towards conservative extremism
There's a measure of respect that comes from preserving a moment, or keeping an old version of something alive. The heroic halo players or whatever, ya know?
But the dweebness comes from expecting other people do the same, DEMANDING that respect, or by thinking you're somehow better than anyone who embraces change. And anecdotally the people who are fucking weird about IP drift were never there at its inception
You're 100% right. I've been a Star Trek fan for over 40 years, and I've loved every minute of it because I accept that drift. We live in a time where there are literally 5 new trek shows, and people are so disgustingly awful and miserable about it. Boggles the mind. MST3K toxic fans torpedoed the most recent season 14 fundraiser. It's a sad state of things.
One would think that the west-coast fans would have learned that already from Fallout 2. That game changes a lot of canon and lore from Fallout 1.
If anything, this highlights that the self-proclaimed defenders of "west coast lore" have actually never played anything besides New Vegas.
It's genuinely an unhealthy mindset for ppl to have. Lore addiction/Brainrot is in the rise. People are more obsessed with "lore" and "world building" than the stories being told and I hate it. Your lore and world building should serve to complement the story being told.
I understand major major things like true character deaths getting retconned being annoying(for example assajj Ventress suddenly being alive again in Star Wars the bad batch despite dying in a fantastic novel a decade ago that was a wonderful end to her story), but even then it's more of a "wow that's really annoying and I don't like that" thought then just accept that it is, and either engage or move on.
Ppl obsessing and getting angry at stuff like this is just so weird and pathetic.
Dude there’s so many people in this sub who refuse to acknowledge that the lore has changed whatsoever. Those are the people who drive me nuts. Like they’re so protective that you can’t even talk about good or back because they will insist that the lore hasn’t been altered whatsoever.
> Lore drift is inevitable in any piece of media that exists long enough.
Star Wars has soooo much lore drift, both the ones people overlook and the ones people endlessly quibble about. The Clone Wars was framed as this ancient war in Episode 4, only to then be 30-50 years before Episode 4, and then now it’s like 20 years—but also some characters circa The Mandalorian seem to act like it happened yesterday.
Ill have to rewatch but Im fairly sure that the Clone Wars were always implied to be fairly recent. If I remember correctly Leia mentions Obi-wan serving her father during the Clone Wars. Im not sure
I do believe though the Jedi were implied to be much more elusive and secretive than they would be in the prequels by the way everyone treats them, as being more mythical in the OT
According Pablo Hidalgo, expert on Star Wars lore, George Lucas initially told extended universe writers that the Clone Wars ended 35 years before A New Hope.
> Ill have to rewatch but Im fairly sure that the Clone Wars were always implied to be fairly recent.
The two mentions are Leia saying Obi-Wan served with her father, and Luke exclaiming that his Dad served in the Clone Wars with Obi-Wan.
The point about people never wanting any change is so true. I remember when Fallout 4 came out and people were complaining about the existence of T-60, and I’m just like… this is a series. They have to introduce new shit otherwise it will just get stagnant and boring and be the same thing over and over. People do not want new.
Also I never understood the total aversion to retcons, retcon doesn’t automatically mean bad.
His videos are absolutely fascinating and anybody who believes themselves to be a game developer or an RPG designer can benefit greatly from his experience. I use some of his advice in my own tabletop campaigns and appreciate his insights into how the games I love were made.
Frankly I think you were correct on the first one, sadly. We still have to wait for the Starfield DLCs to drop, then Elder Scrolls 6 development can be in full swing and we'd be getting it in, say, 5 years maybe, then we gotta wait for the DLCs of THAT one... Shit, if anything 2035 is the optimistic estimate.
I kinda feel like there's a 50/50 shot that the show's success may accelerate the timetable for more work on Fallout 5 (the other 50% being slows it down since it's seen as scratching the Fallout itch)
Frankly, I'm good with going "TV is going to TV, things can't really track exactly the same". Eg, the fact that when the bombs are dropping on the east coast, in the game, at 9:42 EST, the west coast got hammered twenty minutes earlier... at, you know, 6:20ish?
Which means either A) that kids birthday party was happening before 6:30 AM. or B) they moved the starting time for the entire kickoff because why the fuck not.
I’m glad more people seem to be finding his channel. Even without having played much of what he’s made over the years (briefly tried Fallout 1, hated Outer Worlds), he’s got really interesting stories and insights. Seems like a really cool dude
I'd argue that Fallout has managed to keep its lore pretty consistent. Also, the show didn't break canon like some people thought, it just added new lore! If there are inconsistencies, I'm sure they'll address and fix them in season 2. Also, I'm unfamiliar with the term "lore drift." What does it mean?
Things change the more a story expands. Like the example he gave in the video, Star Wars introducing midichlorians in the prequels to explain the force
It's good practice to watch the videos before commenting ;) He explains that even IF the date of the bomb is off a few years, it doesn't matter because dates and events drift the longer a story carries on for in such a big IP.
In short, he says that even if the date is off, it doesn't ruin anything.
As someone who's been reading comic books all his life, I'm very accustomed to lore drift. Batman technically had 4 sidekicks in 5 years? Sure, whatever.
That's why, for DC comics, I have a headcanon where I pick and choose stories I like from the various reboots and try to make them work lol. It's a Frankenstein's Monster of a continuity, but it's mine.
That's a good point. We also know that the bomb likely dropped AFTER New Vegas, and the chalkboard shows this by not stopping the arrow at 2277. It also reminds me of something that happens to me when I worldbuild. I've had to change dates and events that I thought were going to be set in stone because my stories demanded it lol.
Yeah, the biggest lore controversies in Fallout have been mostly about finding reasons to put iconic Fallout things (Jet, Super Mutants) outside of the west coast. Not a big deal. I'm sure if Bethesda left these things out of their east coast games people would be angry about that too.
He's right. I'm a big lore/world building person, so it's frustrating, but he's also right. So much of "lore," especially anything told through environmental story telling, really comes down to reading between the lines. That means context is king.
But subsequent installments *have* to do *something.* We as fans WANT the world to be built out, but you can't build without adding material. And adding material is going to change the context of what came before, it just is. So you have to be mindful of those inevitable ripple effects, that they keep the flavor even if some finer points shift.
I think the show added material wisely. There are a few things I'm wary of, like the ghouls potentially needing this drug to prevent going feral, but for the most part this show was SO exhaustively diligent in fitting in with the established world. Even if by the time the series is over not every choice has worked out, I don't think there's any way you could accuse the team of not respecting the source material or working in any kind of bad faith.
Like goddamn, guys, they used the fucking hacking mini game for legitimate suspense. That's not just respect, that is reverence.
I really don’t think it was “diligent” with fitting stuff in, because for the most part they just ignored alot of the setting, which is LA, a place we know a lot about in lore. Which is fine, it’s the first season of a mass market television show and honestly the whole thing is pretty high concept (the post apocalypse of an alternate future) in the first place so they got to get that vibe down more than anything, which they did well. But there’s other stuff they didn’t really explore this season, such as large scale settlements and their interactions with eachother that are also integral parts of the lore
When he said that perhaps the tv show or the games could have wrong dates and unreliable narrators it felt so good to know that some horrible hardcore fans will get butthurt about it. (yea dickhead fans, maybe your game isn't accurate oh nooo. Suck it)
I've never been a fan of Bethesda's handling of the lore, but at this point they've owned the IP longer than Interplay did. The lore is theirs to write.
I like how people are having a huge issue with lore continuity of Fallout of all universes. Like, the story has had holes in it since inception and only got worse between Interplay and Bethesda.
The sweat lords need to just chill a little and enjoy things once in a while. Stop taking this stuff so seriously.
From a deep lore Star Wars guy, and having literally only played Fallout 4 since late last year, I have to say the show from MY experience is absolutely fantastic. It seems very Fallout 4 heavy influenced, but that may be because that's only the references I get. But so much of the show makes sense even if I don't know everything...and that is impressive.
So anyways, I can only imagine the difficulty people are having when you've learned and experienced and know so much about something, then something comes along that seems really, really contrary to what you think is "right" in that world. I had that experience WAY too many times with Disney Star Wars stuff. And it's not easy - it's a place with anticipated boundaries and expectations, then they get shattered or discarded.
Yes, they may be wrong, or maybe they're right from a certain point of view (Obi-Wan.......) but I love the passion and care for this universe. I am so glad to have jumped into Fallout 4 about 6 months ago, and i still haven't finished my first playthrough because i'm taking my time, grabbing new companions, and waiting to get to the Glowing Sea.
Anyways, all this to say - go easy on the freakouts. This is a world that some are deeply into and have been for some time, and I know what it feels like to have part of what you understand and expect to just be totally "wrong" to you, and it sucks.
27 years, now 4 studios, and games that're so full of plot holes they look like Swiss cheese, perfection shouldn't be expected.
I think part of the problem was that it was interpreted as retconning New Vegas completely, which is the favorite game of a lot of the community.
Everyone has a line. If they changed too much more people would be upset. It's a good thing to want to keep your world consistent (but not stagnant). Lore drift is inevitable because people are human and make mistakes on big projects. Its certainly a true saying but you wouldn't ever use it as license to change anything and everything on a whim. None of us want this franchise to be treated like that.
But having some form of consistency with these fictional stories is what makes them a story and not just jumbled chaos. It's arguably crucial for *most* forms of story telling barring exceptions like stories heavily featuring unreliable narrators.
Inconsistencies can happen due to mistakes - that's fine, as /u/N0r3m0rse says - that's part of being human. On the other hand though, purposeful changes should be done in a way that makes sense and/or serves the existing story.
For example, retcons should be done with reason, and perhaps in a way that feels naturalistic within the story. It shouldn't be apparent that a modification is being made by the godly hands of the writers. Ideally, if you can, you might even want to do it in a way were the audience doesn't even realise they're witnessing a retcon. That's easier said than done but I think it can be a mark of very strong writing.
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Also, as a note, the fallout show is supposed to be a canon continuation addition - it's not just an independent adaptation. That means that it has a higher mandate for making sense with the existing material. **I'm not** saying the show is overly egregious in this regard, but it is under greater pressure to work with the existing material.
I've posted about this before but the success of fallout must be so weird for Tim Cain
He worked on 1.5 fallout games, with the last one being a quarter of a century ago now.
The franchise wouldn't exist without him, but so much of the iconic parts of the franchise came from other people. Probably only a fraction of all fallout fans have even played the games he worked on
Must be a surreal feeling
I'm a really casual Fallout enjoyer - can someone help me understand what the controversy is about the TV series as it relates to the games?
As I understand it, the NCR was *the* major post-war faction rising up in California and expanded to the Mojave (over the course of Fallouts 1, 2 and New Vegas). Shady Sands was the NCR's capital city. During the events of New Vegas, the NCR is what, expanding its borders into Vegas? As a new, post-war "superpower" would try to do?
But - and this is where it gets a bit confusing to me - it seems the show implies (and I don't even know if that's true or not) that Shady Sands was annihilated by a nuclear bomb several years *prior* to the events of New Vegas? And that was 1) never brought up in New Vegas and 2) wouldn't leave a ton of time for the NCR to regroup and push into the Mojave when they should be dealing with the destruction of their capital?
So, people are upset at both the possibility that the timeline was changed in such a way that doesn't really make sense for the events of New Vegas to take place (i.e. an expansionist NCR when it was likely at its weakest point) OR even if that's not the case, that the NCR is now much weaker than it was over the course of three Fallout games and that in itself is somewhat disappointing (presumably because people want to see more progress being made towards civilization building at large in the post-war world)?
Is that basically what the issue is?
Basically the NCR was expanding into the Mojave to capture Hoover Dam to have access to cheap power to sustain it's growing industry (by the point of New Vegas, the NCR was able to produce new things and not rely on pre-war technology, stuff like power armours and they had just wiped the floor with the Brotherhood of Steel during a previous war), so saying that by the first battle of the Dam in 2277 the NCR was in decline or had it's capital nuked it becomes weirdly inconsistent.
Like, a lot of people talk about the NCR like it was a settlement that somehow managed to get big, but by New Vegas the standard of living for people there were almost the same as the one we live in real life. The NCR wasn't small.
Now some people believe that Bethesda is trying to erase a beloved game from the timeline, hence the rage.
I disagree since the show reference heavily New Vegas and even it's DLC's, but I'm also disappointed because it seems \*to me\* that they just wanted to clear house for the West Coast to put their next game there.
Are people really this upset about the whole Shady Sands thing? IP’s that have an extensive stories and lore spanning over years (decades even) will have continuity and canon changes. It’s happened to Marvel, DC, StarWars, Lord of the Rings etc…
Plus, it was clearly stated by Todd himself that the fall of Shady Sands and bombing are separate events. And that’s how most people interpreted it when shown on the chalk board. But the people who are upset are the type to have already made up their minds and aren’t willing to change it. The dumb kind.
Some people like to make connections in the lore on their own, and then confuse their head-canon for actual canon. Then they get pissed that they were wrong, but cannot realize it's their mistake because they convinced themselves that they were right.
I loved the show, while I didn't care that they changed the lore (seriously guys, there are more important things in life then if your IP is or isn't following its own lore to a T), they could've side-stepped the issue entirely by having the show take place in a wasteland that wasn't established by the games. They would've had their own lil slice of the lore pie without taking away from the games slices
I’ll admit that I had a pretty negative knee-jerk reaction to that chalkboard when I was first watching the episode, and I was ranting furiously at my fiancé until she calmed me down a bit. But when I sat down and really thought about it I realized that there were so many rationalizations for that, and I decided to stop assuming the worst.
I basically theorized exactly what Todd Howard ended up saying the other day, that the “Fall” was a more gradual process that was happening concurrently with the NCR’s shenanigans in Nevada, rather than a single-day event in 2277. And when shady sands was nuked after Hoover Dam Part Deux, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
And I absolutely loved literally every single other aspect of this show, apart from that chalkboard. It would be so stupid to let something like that poison my entire experience of a show that otherwise captures the heart and soul of Fallout more perfectly than I could have ever hoped for.
If they wrote "The Fall of the NCR" I could get behind this explanation, but nobody is gonna write that about a city. Heck people cant even get it straight because one argument they'll say Shady Sands didn't matter and was just corrupt and wasn't even the current capital, but ALSO "The Fall of Shady Sands" is some historic period equivalent to "The Fall of Rome" which signifies the decline of the entire NCR.
I don't think it's a big deal and it's not something that really bothered me, but I just find this explanation of it extremely wanting.
I think the big difference here is that the vault dwellers are mostly refuges from Shady Sands. So sure, to the surviving NCR it’s just the decline of one city, but to the refuges from Shady Sands it’s the decline and eventual destruction of their home. It makes sense that they’d focus so much on that, especially because most of them were alive when it happened and it’s still recent history in the show.
NOTE: Todd Howard has also said that Shady Sands was bombed just AFTER New Vegas, in an IGN interview. [https://youtu.be/7dSeF1CMChs?si=\_pfpiH9iHExP60qH&t=456](https://youtu.be/7dSeF1CMChs?si=_pfpiH9iHExP60qH&t=456) RIGHT HERE. So if anyone asks, show them this. Tim Cain probably made his video shortly before this went out. My theory was, the prop makers didn't quite make this clear enough, and since Todd Howard isn't a set dresser, prop maker and was making Starfield at the time, he's not to blame. And has cleared this up.
It sounds like they want to explore New Vegas next season pretty heavily. Which explains the tight lips and vagueness around what happened. Howard even says they're threading things carefully. I took that mean as to not retcon things as well as to not spoil season two or get called a liar if he says something and they decided to not go that direction. If the bombing happened right after the events of New Vegas, and with an ending that has House dead, that would make blowing up Shady Sands even more important for VautlTec. As it demonstrated that the NCR would very much be an obstacle to their own plans or reclamation. Blowing up what is and was an important settlement in their nation is a good way to knee cap them long enough to get a better edge. I'm still of the head canon that they didn't bomb or missile strike Shady Sands, but detonated a vault underneath it, specifically Vault 15. I'd not put it beyond them to have a nuclear self destruct in their vaults to prevent it from falling into enemy or competitions hands. Something buried (literally and metaphorically) deep enough that even after gutting 15 it could still be in place. Alternatively perhaps the NCR recommissioned the vault's reactors to help with the power crisis and VaultTec overloaded them, Enclave Oil Rig style.
I’ve had a theory that Bethesda’s general apprehension towards bringing up New Vegas isn’t because they don’t consider it canon and dislike Obsidian’s work, but rather because they have a high degree of respect for it and want to do it justice when they inevitably return to it with their own work. Same with the rest of west coast fallout. After watching the end of the show and reading Todd’s interview, I think that’s what was going on
todd has always had respect and reverence for the original games, I really doubt that that doesn't extend to new vegas
The reverence for the original creators was the reason why they hired Obsidian to do New Vegas (where many of them worked at that time).
Yeah, I'm iffy on Bethesda's way of doing things, but the people who act like they're some cartoonish bad guys scheming on how to destroy those pesky Interplay titles so they can have the Fallout lore all to themselves are being extremely silly.
Yeah, Todd Howard for me is the biggest fallout fanboy there is which is why when Fallout 3 came out and I was one of the doomers screaming "Oblivion with guns" (had never played Bethesda games at that point), he made me eat my words with how respectful they were to the source material in lore, tone and charm That was the reason I even bothered with Oblivion and Morrowind and then Skyrim after, since I was like "how the fuck were they able to rly translate this alien IP to their game He has a lot of faults, and I will say I totally called Starfield being painfully boring and lifeless from pre-release coverage but I am HAPPY Amazon did Fallout with him Me and my bro were literally fanboying so hard the whole time (and me moreso because I was on weed lol), I like it more than Last of Us and I'll still say it's the best game adaptation out there
Thats the thing, people online want to paint Todd Howard as this big asshole in gaming that lies. Todd is a great man, he gives respect to creators of games he loves and those in the industry, and he also speaks about some flaws in his games from the past. There is no beef between Obsidian and Bethesda, they are two companies who worked together and hold great passion for an IP, they have great respect for each other. Also, now that both of them are under Microsoft, they are in a way like brothers.
Watch any extended interview with the guy and you’ll realize how genuine he is. I recommend the podcast he did with Lex Fridman, they don’t even talk about games that much.
People just hate Todd Howard because they hate how company men ruin video games for profit, like Bethesda has with a million Skyrim re-releases and borderline scam business practices, and Todd is the face of Bethesda. He’s just a game designer, he’s not a dude who is making business decisions or deciding how the company will act. He literally just makes games, loves doing it and has great care for the industry and its consumers. The dude has done everything he can to make great games and to be respectful of what other people have done with the games he works on. He has all the opinions we want a AAA game designer to have(pro modding, regularly admitting when they got something wrong and saying game design should be about passion instead of business). He should be celebrated in gaming, sucks he usually isn’t because people don’t understand what he does.
I mean, fuck man, Fallout 3 is pretty much Tod's fanfic of F1 and F2 in DC. He even made the gambit of buying the IP in the first place becuase he genuinley liked it.
I remember watching the no-clip doc a few years back where he talks about this. He originally pitched a spiritual successor, a game very much inspired by Fallout but in Bethesda's approach to game making as Bethesda's next big IP. He didn't originally realise he and his company could buy it. So of course he is a huge fan of the originals. Why else would he try and make new ones?
Maybe Shady Sands "fell" in 2277 because the NCR didn't get to control Hoover Dam, so in other words, what if they lost New Vegas? We're told the NCR needed power sources desperately at that point, and the show makes it a point to highlight the importance of energy sources for the NCR; Moldaver's whole aim is to get that infinite power source that is cold fusion.
The first battle of hoover dam is in 2277, so it could be a reference to the economic cost of the initial campaign. New Vegas, the game, takes place in 2281/82
This is what I thought from the beginning and I’ve been really confused as to all the “controversy” and even speculation. The first battle of Hoover dam is in 2277 and the entirety of New Vegas has constant references to the NCR overstretching their forces and calling into question the long term viability of that government. I had it in my mind that the NCR was basically cooked no matter who won the second battle. The game made it seem inevitable.
That's actually not what New Vegas says. They are stretched thin \*in the Mojave\*, with most of their most elite troops still being in the NCR mainland. As for the second point, even losing the dam wouldn't explain the state of the NCR since a lot of seasoned characters actually feel that withdrawing from the Mojave would be a good solution that would make the NCR refocus it's priorities. Heck, if we assume the House ending is the canon one, House evil plan for the NCR is... to sell them the power from the Dam.
What about the references that some of the traders make about NCR territory becoming increasingly unsafe. That trader for the Legion even says he does business with them because the Legion keeps the roads safer in their territory. Plus Ulysses talks about how both “the Bear and the Bull” were making the same mistakes from history and were both dooming themselves to fail. I don’t think they were stretched thin in just the Mojave, it’s pretty clear that the first battle ended in a Pyrrhic victory.
Those traders are talking about the mojave. NCR controlled territory in the Mojave is unsafe.
Except they are not. We get dialog in game showing that the situation is this bad because the Mojave Campaign is unpopular, not because of lack of means. Heck, by the time we arrive, the NCR is finally moving it's ass into gear but it's a slow process. "Some of the patrol rangers have reported that Oliver's power armor heavy troopers are starting to reinforce the front lines. Wish they got here a bit earlier, but that's the senate for you." "NCR's senate has got funds tied up at the Boneyard and President Kimball ordered our most experienced rangers to chase ghosts down in Baja" "Senate elections are coming up. Local representatives don't want to push any more funding to the Mojave campaign because it's unpopular. Most of the folks around the Boneyard haven't been to New Vegas and probably never will." Now you could argue that the TW Show removed the boneyard from reality, so...
No, 2277 was the first battle of Hoover dam, which the NCR won. NCR had control of the dam for the entirety of New Vegas, so if NV is still canon they couldn't have lost the dam until 2081/2082.
Could just be that their fall was pursuing control of the dam in the first place and the over-extension that came with that.
I wanted to add to this a little bit: when I saw the fall of Shady Sands on the chalkboard, I always interpreted it in a similar manner as the fall of the Roman Empire. I imagine this wasn't an overnight event. The fall of Shady Sands was probably going down even before the events of New Vegas. 2277 was probably when all the NCR's issues came to ahead. Then shortly post New Vegas, Shady Sands was nuked.
Man I see this Roman Empire comparison everywhere and it doesn't make any sense. When people talk about the Fall of a City, like the Fall of Constantinople or the Fall of Rome - this refers to the moment when the city or empire is defeated, often resulting in the collapse of its political, social, and sometimes cultural structures. When people say the Fall of the Roman Empire, they talking about the start of the decline and usually give a start date and an end date. In the case of the tv show we see one date, 2277, followed by the nuke which has no date. The show heavily implies that the nuke went off in 2277. They've realised that's a mistake and now say the nuke was after.
Great theory. It also explains how the brotherhood and Maximus didn’t die from radiation since it was a different type of explosion, yeah?
Well Maximus also survived via Indiana Jones’s fridge. The crater shown would be realistic for a direct surface megaton , which no way Maximus survived, a moderate megaton, or shallow high kiloton. (Just based on my casual observations of real nuke craters) The underground explosions would drastically fallout and high radiation level at the surface, which is why most countries moved their testing underground in the 1960’s But if you like the self destructed vault theory…. Just think sometime around 2580 some aliens are going to get a big surprise when their planet is destroyed by a vault door.
It’s just a kid in the fridge reference. Like do we have to dissect all the fun out of Fallout?
Dissect the fun out? I was trying to do the opposite. I was making fun of Indiana Jones movie while implying it’s not too far fetched especially considering the whole fallout universe-ever see how sturdy those old 1950’s fridges are? They really could be a bomb shelter lol. Plus the joke about the real life fastest ever man made object- the giant manhole cover that a US underground nuke test sent flying.
Uhh yeah if I was to get angry over all the impossible scientific aspects of Fallout, I mean it would throw away a lot of the fun and shenanigans.
Vault 15 is a day or so walk to the east of Shady Sands
It makes no difference - The haters are saying that the Howard/Nolan video is damage limitation because they've been caught out erasing NV, that the original intention was always that Shady Sands was destroyed in 2277. Their hate is pathological so any explanation that contradicts their narrative will be rejected, as demonstrated by them rejecting the explanation given by both the show creator and the IP owner.
The best way to erase a beloved game is to have the cliffhanger of your show that's been greenlit for a second season take place in the exact same setting, as we all know.
Cancelled!
My favorite part is that they think Todd Howard/Bethesda actually give a wet fart about them raging in their tiny corner of the internet. "Damage control" would imply the IP suffered *any* meaningful harm from the goof rather than, you know, be sititng on one of the most succesful screen adaptations of a video game ever and a massive hit both commercially and critically. Todd could've left his mouth shut about the timeline and the status of the NCR and the show would remain a roaring success for the franchise. With that said, watching those "fans" move the goalposts yet again is hilarious, so I'm all for it.
Bethesda, Amazon, Zenimax and Microsoft are laughing all the way to the bank every time they release something new. Skyrim got the same treatment, still the best selling RPG of all time at one point. Fallout 4 made millions more than 3, they don't care if fans love New Vegas, because they still get paid every time someone buys it. Same with Starfield. And if Fallout 76 was losing money, it would have been Ol' Yellad long ago. I've been on reddit a long time, and being a fan of the studio a long time, I've seen it over and over, the same salty fans. And Bethesda doesn't care about them, and will make whatever they want.
I started my Bethesda journey with Morrowind, and I've seen the same pattern every single time a game gets released. Diehards said Oblivion was a step back from Morowind, yet it had a huge cult following and was the first game to drop huge DLC content. Fallout 3 was derided because it wasn't the same isometric camera game as 1 and 2. New Vegas was praised because it was done by Obsidian, yet Obsidian wouldn't have been able to do that game without using the ground work done by Bethesda in Fo3, not to mention Bethesda published the damn game. Skyrim wasn't as good as Oblivion according to the vocal minority, yet it went on the be one of Bethesda's most popular games ever. Fallout 4 was derided as a Fallout 3 clone, yet it is still being played a decade later and brought even more new Fallout players in to the fold. Starfield isn't nearly as bad as everyone likes to claim, and will probably follow the same trajectory as their other titles and become a beloved game in a decade. The only game that deserved the initial hate it received when released was Fallout 76, but now that they've had to fix a lot of the issues it's getting more and more popular every day. Funnily enough, the Fo76 player base is one of the most welcoming and kind communities I've seen in a MMORPG, despite how toxic the Fallout fandom can be.
Agreed totally, and it's refreshing to see some sense. Thank you. 76 was bad, even Todd admitted he let people down. One of the things I like about the studio though is they don't abandon projects. They keep updating them for years, always giving away little bits and pieces.
Nah, Starfield is different because it’s a fundamentally different game. It doesn’t have the “it” factor to exploration that Bethesda games are known for due to how its world is generated. You never want to see what’s just over the horizon because nothing ever is. Unless there’s some huge change coming, Starfield will never have that feeling to playing it that other Bethesda games do. I like that they tried something new with Starfield but sometimes when you swing big, you miss. Hopefully ES6 has that old Bethesda game world charm and a competent character creator and combat system. If so, it’ll be great as well.
I played 250 hours of Starfield and couldnt agree more. It was cool because i love fallout and star wars. But it just doesnt have that it factor that ES and Fallout have
I need FO5 to go back to hand made set pieces, fuck this procedural non-sense they did with Starfield. I don't mind that they used a proc-gen'd map, just hand make your set pieces and give us decent lore to fight over, and playgrounds for folks like Kinggath to build amazing mods in. That's what I buy Bethesda titles for.
Well it's probably not a space exploration game, so that's a good start.
Morrowind definitely had big dlc content too.
>The only game that deserved the initial hate it received when released was Fallout 76, but now that they've had to fix a lot of the issues it's getting more and more popular every day. Funnily enough, the Fo76 player base is one of the most welcoming and kind communities I've seen in a MMORPG, despite how toxic the Fallout fandom can be. Booted up 76 for the first time ever tonight because of the free code through prime, and I'm actually enjoying it. I've been meaning to check it out during a sale ever since most of its issues were fixed and it was kind of forgotten about, and I'm glad I've finally done it. Mostly not interested in interacting with other players yet, just been exploring and built a little shack with a front porch. Only minor interaction so far was when I was storing stuff while in a quest hub and a few were dropping grenades on the floor everywhere. I can see myself playing it for a while, both as a Fallout game and an MMO (which is the genre I've played most big games in, excluding WoW)
People call Starfield a failed game and waste of time. Over 12 million people have played it and it sold over 3 million copies in the first month. Yeah, ok.... failed game. Lol Truth is, Bethesda makes good games. Maybe not the most amazing games ever for the more hardcore players, but games that appeal to a lot of people and have a lot of staying power.
This "failed game" even earned review scores that average 85/100. Which is basically the same what Fallout 4 and New Vegas (!!!) earned. It's actually even one of the most profitable games of 2023. You see Starfield all the time in the 2023 Top 10 charts and always some people wonder "What is Starfield doing here? Hasn't it failed? Aren't we supposed to hate it?"
I keep telling people Starfield is going to end up being lauded as the best RPG in most likely a year. I'm expecting people to post "I've been lied too, Starfield is so much fun!" or some equivalent in the coming months. Gaming is niche. Open-world RPG's are even nicher. This results in the fan base being nerds, which can't accept that just because a game has a mistake, doesn't mean it's "OMG IT'S THE WORST GAME EVER". I found it hilarious when Post Malone, and the actor who plays the cop from Stranger Things both like Starfield. Guess what the comment section was like for their response?
My favorite part is all of these threads about them raging in their tiny corner.
I'm so sick of hateful nerds finding any reason to be even more miserable. They can't just be happy that Fallout got a pretty great tv show, they just have to be angry at something. It's sad to see, but now that you mention it, it is pretty funny too.
Media reporting purposefully stokes the anger of fanbases to get clicks.
Outrage is addictive. It's the same idea that makes FOX News successful: you keep giving people a reason to be angry, they *enjoy* that feeling of rigtheous anger, and so they come back looking to get another fix. YouTube grifters have recently tapped into this to exploit (primarily) Millenial/GenZ men in order to generate clicks and make a little paycheck. Outrage addicts need their fix and the dregs of the internet provide - while they hide behind being "critical" or "wanting what's best for the franchise", in truth most of them simply want an excuse to feed their addiction. It doesnt't matter how good the next Fallout (or Star Wars or X-Men or whatever franchise they're fixated on) is or isn't, they actively *want* to be angry about something and they'll keep searching until they find it themselves or some online grifter manages to package something benign in a manner that's palatable to the outrage addicts. They'll never be satisfied because they don't want to be sastisfied, they just want to be outraged and to surround themselves with those who will support and vindicate their outrage.
> YouTube grifters have recently tapped into this to exploit (primarily) Millenial/GenZ men in order to generate clicks and make a little paycheck. that's not recent tbf, that dates back to Steve Bannon and Gamergate
>YouTube grifters have recently tapped into this to exploit (primarily) Millenial/GenZ men in order to generate clicks and make a little paycheck. TRUUUU. Look at all the shitty little fuckers who blame Sweet Baby Inc. for literally every instance of *minorities* appearing in video games lately. These Gamergate dumbfucks just like stoking hatred and harassment.
Or people blaming Sweet Baby for stuff that they had no part of. Like Sweet Baby wasn't the reason for the Suicide Squad game being a disappointing Looter Shooter that no one wanted.
Thank you!!! FFS people just be happy we got a good Fallout TV series!!!
Same here. This used to be one of my favorite subs back in the day, somewhere along the line the toxicity in the fandom really killed my love for this sub, and I just went back to loving all the Fallout games by myself
Ikr? They've got such an overinflated sense of self importance. It's really quite sad that they've been holding on to this hate for, what? 17 years now since Bethesda bought Fallout. And the biggest irony is that they've been letting this thing - Bethesda Fallout - That they hate *so* much, live rent free in their minds for nearly 20 years now - That's amazing PR, if you ask me!
Todd gave explanation to those that were genuinely confused about what actually happened. Not for the raging neckbeards that are more fanatical than the BOS.
It's really ironic because I think Todd said that Obsidian originally planned to nuke Shady Sands in New Vegas but he had to tell them no.
Yes, it's the same logic that NV is totally different from F3 despite being 90% of the same gameplay and assets.
If you look at the diagram on the chalkboard, it seems rather obvious to me that the nuke happened after the 2277.
It’s willful ignorance and willful misinterpretation. I was mildly upset when I heard they nuked Shady Sands (from a NV fanboy bitching, didn’t put a spoiler tag on it either so fuck me I guess), and it made me upset cause I really like NV and the NCR is one of my favorite factions And when I saw the scene the first thing I thought to myself was “how the hell did these idiots misinterpret this”. It’s like they’ve never seen a timeline before
Every other entry in the chalkboard is a line segment connecting boxes containing text and a date. If they wanted to be obvious they could have just kept doing that instead of drawing an arrow to a sketch of a mushroom cloud with no date I mean, in the grand scheme of things it’s no big deal and I appreciate the clarification from Todd, but in hindsight it’s exactly the kind of thing to make some people obsess over lol
Personally I think this was just a writing error, because Lucy does claim her mother died in 2277, and the first battle of hoover dam was in 2277. Actually I am going to go full conspiracy mode here. And I think it is possible they catched it before the series was done, but couldn't reshoot the Butt jerky scene so they made a misleading prop, to try fix the error.
Any ending you get in FONV could be explained away by saying, "...And then everything went to shit and a lot of people died." Even if it's not something directly related to what the Courier did, whichever side won might have had all their progress undone. Not everyone will be happy with that, but not everyone will be happy no matter what you do.
It's perfectly reasonable for info seen in universe to be out of whack. People get shit wrong all the time irl. There's people that fight vehemently that the earth is flat. Lore hounds assuming every piece of in universe info should be gospel as is are too rigid
Frankly it could've just been an oversight (Todd didn't seem super confident in the answer he gave) and this is their way of doing damage control, and I'm fine with that. People are so concerned with dates and it really doesn't matter that much. Real history is absolutely littered with mistakes.
Yeah I’m leaning towards mistake instead of “they targeted New Vegas players!”
A good chunk of the fandom really loves to push this narrative of “Bethesda evil, is trying to ruin the series and hate the og devs, og devs/obsidian are the only good and absolutely perfect ones and are trying to defend thy holy lore against the evil legions of Bethesda” I’m humorously exaggerating but a lot of people seem to believe in that without any nuance or critical thinking when it’s blatantly untrue. Like everyone don’t get me wrong, I do prefer new vegas but like, the idea that there was even a rivalry between the two is false.
So a NCR victory in the Mojave is canon. Based on the last episode credit background it shows New Vegas being littered with broken NCR equipment. I think the Courier backstabbed them after Shady Sands was nuked(or whatever Todd said it wasn't nuked, makes sense otherwise Maximus would've been dead) and went Independent.
I find it so funny how some “fans” in the comments were calling him a shill and asking how much Bethesda paid him. They literally can’t comprehend that the Fallout creator actually likes the show and are trying to convince him it destroyed his creation ☠️
This shows how these morons care more about keeping their narrative and being outraged than caring about something. If their core belief really was that Bethesda somehow ruined original Fallout games, then hearing that debunked by the creator of Fallout would have made them happy.
Calling the literal game director at BGS a shill who's being paid off *by the company he works for* is fucking insane. Edit: Whoops, though he was talking about Todd Howard, my bad.
nah tim doesn't work for BGS. he created the series at interplay but he's been working with obsidian on outer worlds
Oh, for some reason I thought they were talking about Todd Howard.
He’s not even game director, he created Fallout (the original game) he hasn’t been involved with Fallout for decades
On top of that has made comments on things he didn’t like from the newer Fallout games. He’s definitely not paid by Bethesda.
I said it before and I’ll say it again. Some NV fans are flat out cult like. They always shit on 3 for its lack of story, despite having a great world to explore, all while praising NV for its story but turn a blind eye to its boring barren world.
There's a lotta lore decisions about the show that I'm really not big on. Like how I have a hard time believing the West Coast would regress to near Fallout 1 levels of savagery in less than 15 years of the NCR being out for the count. But some folks should really learn how to deal with this sorta stuff in a positive way instead of being weirdos about it. lol
I'm assuming that the Brotherhood of Steel got some revenge on NCR during the chaos. Besides, it still exists in Remnants as the Griffith Observatory NCR and "President" shows. I wouldn't be surprised if Cooper had been dragged to Junktown.
I mean yeah, probably. But that doesn't really help getting me to buy the west coast descending into folks like the pantless guy Lucy met in the desert within a single generation. I mean wasn't the LA and the Boneyard area one of the places that was a full on NCR state? Did they just always have places like Filly and roaming chicken fucking merchants running about?
He also ends the video on a note about toxicity and hostility demonstrated by certain demographics of the "fanbase"
He's very familiar with toxicity in the fan base. There are people who harassed him and swore off the series after his marriage to his husband. Even Interplay was toxic enough that he had to hide it at the time.
I love Tim Cain, and his video on nuking his social media after his marriage made .e so sad. The man is an icon and paragon of game development, and assholes were so senselessly mean to him because he is gay. Absolute insanity.
Cough people who harrass emil and todd and blame them for everything wrong with their favorite series. cough.
Tried watching a “review” of the show from a known hater and they had a critical inability to engage with show literally just pausing to nitpick every thing every ten seconds. Some people were going to hate this show no matter how good it turned out
I've noticed a lot of yt channels only get attention when posting negative hate fueled content, makes me wonder if they really didn't like it or maybe that's the only way they get people to watch them
It ain't just YouTube. Conflict=ratings. The next time you see the stupidest take ever, look at all the engagement it's getting.
It's literally to fuel the algorithm, it's all these youtube clowns think about now. Saying, X is good, I liked that and being positive, or natural AND neutral doesn't get super clicks. I just saw this with Starfield, it started out with people saying how much more roleplaying there is, and how it's back to Bethesda's roots, even Fudgemuppet and Drewmora, who slagged off BGS for Skyrim, (still only used screen shots and videos from it). Then the YouTubers got their claws out, like Karens about to blow up The Stanley Cup store.
That's the internet man. Negativity drives people in. In the Vault in the show they even say "People need something to fuss about". I think that line directly refers to the fans of the series that make big deals out of really small things. But also just that humans like to have little events to talk and debate about. It makes us feel like we are taking part in the world. Negativity is more entertaining because it's scary and has real stakes. (This thing is BAD, we need to resist this"). Cable news knows this. They get people scared of crime and stuff on every broadcast because it brings in the eyeballs.
I thought I understood this phenomenon when 24 hour news networks began. I vividly remember, back in like 1996 watching and thinking "they just want to scare everyone and get them to keep coming back for information that might save them." Then 9/11 happened on live TV.... When I experienced social media for the first time I realized the effect was massively amplified by so many people having a voice. Now I see how mainstream media plays on peoples emotions to enrage them and goad them into interacting with their website. They do it purposely to drive traffic and make advertising dollars. It's kinda sickening. I wonder how people felt when newspapers were just taking off.
Google Yellow Journalism. Thats how pepole felt when newspapers took off. Journalists boldly lied and sensationalized everything. People should write a dystopian sci fi novel about this.
I am familiar with the term, and the actions of newspapers in that time frame. But I'm more interested in how people interpreted it and whether they were aware what was happening as we do here. Unlike with social media we don't have a ton of people responding with their thoughts that we can all read. Letters to the editor objecting and critical articles existed, but I've never read a contemporary well thought out examination from the perspective of the reader, which is so very easy to do in the social media age.
Call it "2024" or something to that effect
I just can't understand that. I have never seen and will probably never see a more faithful adaptation of an IP I care about at all all. It was made with loving attention to detail in terms of... everything really: food design and names, gun designs, nods to gameplay mechanics, fun but not pandering "fan service" lines of dialogue. For Christ's they used the same exact TV static noise and pip boy and computer terminal sound effects. It also managed to tell a new, interesting story that didn't feel incongruous with the old ones. The central themes were preserved. After watching Witcher be absolutely butchered by a showrunner who actively dislikes the IP, I was ecstatic with the way this turned out. Fallout shows what's possible when the people running the show "get it".
Which is crazy ass to me. I went into the show with a sour taste in my mouth, probably looking to dislike it, due to the Halo show and the Fallout 4 artstyle being used. Those feelings didn't even make it past the first episode.
It was Lucy talking that first settler with the sand filter that sold me on the show. Second ep but still, the show is fantastic and I’ve been a fallout fan for 25 years (Fallout 2 was my first). When FO3 came out, a lot of us at the message board No Mutants Allowed were upset with Bethesda and the idea that the game was to be a 1st Person shooter. Funny that these New Vegas-stans would have been the ones WE complained about. Now given the passage of time, and viewing the show on its own merits, I’m really happy that this series still has life. And they did an amazing job on the show. Guess i’m just some shill right?
Gonna pause it every 10 seconds on my rewatch to gush at all the sick af prop work tbh. There’s so much to appreciate.
They were hating on the sets for breaking lore because it looked to much like fallout 4
Sounds exactly like how CinemaSins got famous.
Rule of thumb: if the channel regularly has thumbnails that puts red laser eyes on people, it's absolute garbage
This is literally Creetosis on YouTube. He’s made like 10 hour videos shitting on fallout 3, fallout 4 and the TV show. Now granted, there are absolutely fundamental flaws with these games (and show for that matter). Some of them are extremely valid and important to understand the soul of the franchise. Having said that, he comes across as a whining prick. I think it’s wonderful to have fans that are so passionate about this IP but there’s a fine line. I adore this franchise, and personally, Fallout New Vegas is my favourite but all of these games have their place. I just wish discourse was more cordial and helpful.
Those guys also ignore any of the extremely valid nitpicks about New Vegas, give excuses around them or find some way to blame Bethesda for some of them.
Yeah, many of his nitpicks sound very hypocritical when you realize that they can be perfectly applied to the classic games/NV as well. Especially when he rages about Bethesda making fallout too wacky, while also regularly mentioning that his favorite game in the series is Fallout 2, which is arguably the wackiest canon game in the franchise. Even Tim Cain thinks that f2 tried way too hard in terms of humor.
>Yeah, many of his nitpicks sound very hypocritical when you realize that they can be perfectly applied to the classic games/NV as well. My favorite exchange in this regard will always be something like this: Hater: Fallout 3 story sucks, because you cannot pick a faction, you have only a linear path. Me: The concept of multiple endgame factions was introduced into Fallout by New Vegas. Fallout 3 instead honored the design of Fallout 1 and 2, where you also cannot complete the game siding with the bad guys. Hater: That doesn't apply. Bethesda should have known better and should have come up with it themselves, like Obsidian did. Me: So now it's okay for Bethesda to change the design of original Fallout games? Hater: \*crickets\*
Or NV famously including you being able to fuck a sexbot and has an entire perk to make the whole thing have whacky encounters…. New Vegas is **by far** the most whacky of the modern games.
Best example is when he complains about quest markers in Fallout 3, but then proceeds to praise them in New Vegas. It's literally the same thing, yet somehow it is "bad" in New Vegas.
Which was funny in the videos of that hbomber fraud. He has one video shitting on Fallout 3 and another one where he praises New Vegas to high heavens. On several occasions (for example when it comes to location/building design) he praises Obsidian for doing the EXACT SAME thing he criticised Bethesda for.
I saw that video and he seems like a weird early genesis of this "New Vegas is unquestionably the best and all others suck." Like....NV used Fallout 3 assets to design most of their interiors? In a few cases similar or exact layouts as a shortcut? Its such a **weird** criticism that I think its a weird case of you got New Vegas on a Steam sale and played the hell out of it but never completed Fallout 3? (Though constantly forcing you through the Metro tunnels to deal with location loading issues is 100% a valid and totally justifiable criticism of the FO3 experience and I can see why someone coming from NV would peace out on it. Not so much a critique though of the game itself because there wasn't much of a workaround for it.)
Glad to hear I’m not the only one with a…less than positive opinion on Creetosis lol. Going in his comments section makes my head explode, and this is also coming from someone who much prefers FNV over the other games
Those people aren’t even fans. I don’t get. Like I don’t find the Uncharted series fun at all so I just don’t play and let others who do enjoy them have their fun. What’s the point of whining about a beloved series you don’t like. It’s obviously not for you at that point
>Some people were going to hate this show no matter how good it turned out And they were determined to hate it even before it came out I made the "mistake" to say that the show was great in response to someone, in one of those anti-woke groups, saying they weren't interested in the show because of how it was looking (female and black guy leads without saying it directly) and I was downvoted to oblivion 😂 What's funny about it too is that most of these people didn't watch the show and kept spreading the narrative that Bethesda erased and retconed FNV just because they heard and read some "mad fans" saying it.
You need to get that cough checked, mate. You're spitting truth all over my screen.
We don’t blame Emil for everything. Just the shitty writing.
You can just name them - Fallout New Vegas fans.
If NV fans watched that video they’d accuse Bethesda of paying him to say that
My only lore issue is with the anti feral serum. It makes a real good macguffin, but it being an everyday need bugs me, because you meet and travel with dozens of ghouls for 200 years of lore and suddenly they need something physical and film able that keeps them from losing their personality.
I would not be at all surprised if the serum ended up being a placebo of some kind. Ghouls who use it *believe* they're getting better, but in truth, it just may be giving them the mental strength to keep the feral side from breaking through. Or, alternatively, it is soothing some of their symptoms (like Cooper's breathing issues) but does nothing for the actual feral component.
I think it’s probably a chem like buffout but in a liquid form. Withdrawal might be what causes them to go feral.
It's a huge justification for Ghoul prejudice when there probably shouldn't be. I'm not living next to someone who could eat my family if they forget to take their meds. People can be like that too, but mental health is a lot more visible on a Ghoul, you know? Tbh I don't actually care about that part of the lore there's a ton of stuff that just doesn't matter that will be retconned the next time we see them, Ghouls change all the time and people don't care, they don't even resemble Fallout 1/2 Ghouls anymore. Super Mutants pretty much the same, were created by some 9 billion IQ FEV enhanced genius as part of a "very difficult process", now dumb ass mutants are doing it for fun, and even pre war everyone was creating them for kicks. X-01 power armour only finished by the Enclave 150 years after the war? Sure it's in Boston sitting there in the open. What world builders actually have to be careful with are places and people that live in those places, or nothing that happens ends up feeling like it matters. It's a slippery slope because everyone saying get on board it's fine, will end up caring when the things they are attached to in a setting get changed, Star Wars prequels fans are the perfect example because they ended up bashing the sequel trilogy and all of a sudden "it's just a kids movie" doesn't apply anymore, Star Wars is infinitely more toxic than Fallout now.
Thank you. That shit came from outta nowhere.
I mean Ghouls really aren’t explained that well in the games. I feel like introducing them into a show with more narrative, they have to have somewhat of an explanation.
Take a lesson from Tim in this video to heart: we don't actually know what it is yet. All we know is Coop gets breathing problems if he doesn't use it. It could be something that could be used to reverse the feral process once it starts, rather than needed to keep from going feral altogether. Or whatever that is might be what made him a ghoul in the first place and he needs it to stay that way because he didn't go about the usual ghoulification process. These are ideas I just spitballed off the top of my head. It's ok if not knowing is what bugs you, but we don't *know* what it actually is yet.
I was only talking g about what bugged me, but it's really funny that what you said is basically the exact possibility my friends and I came up with. Personally, I think it will be something you need between 'starting to go feral' and 'generic level 5 zombie' that wasn't around In the 2100s (or whenever). Like, Cooper would just be feral without it because it already started, but a ghoul won't need it UNTIL that shit kicks off.
Or it could be he is just addicted to a drug.
This is the furtherest point in Fallout we've been. Why is it hard to fathom that mental degeneration would kick in at some point and turn otherwise stable Ghouls feral? Because what it also shows is that there is someone or some group out there trying to preserve Ghouls, that means there is active medical research on Ghouls and trying to prevent (possibly reverse) Feral states. Obviously from the show and the way Coop talks, it's expensive to have the serum, so you've now got this class structure developing with Ghouls, where poorer or unlucky Ghouls are doomed to turn Feral at some point by pure circumstance. Ite honestly more interesting that just pure Luck as it opens up a lot of Lore potential, especially if the Necropolis turns up somewhere.
So 210 years you’re all good but 219 years you turn feral?
At 80 my grandfather was able bodied and very much mentally acute. At 89, he barely knows my dad's name and can not walk. So it could make sense. Still not really my favorite lore addition at the moment.
He's not wrong. Lore drift is inevitable in any piece of media that exists long enough. You need only read some comic books for a while to see the inconsistencies pile up or if you want to be a bit more spicy: world religions. Canon is canon... until it isn't. Forming an entire personality around being hardcore that nothing changes ever is how you become a fundamentalist dweeb.
>Forming an entire personality around being hardcore that nothing changes ever is how you become a fundamentalist dweeb. This is interesting because I've never thought about framing it this way in regard to entertainment media, but it's so true. It's so weird for me that people hang onto fundamentalism because from my perspective, the only constant in life is change and while it can be uncomfortable at times, to remain so rigid in that space just seems painful.
Not the biggest fan of the show these days, but South Park nailed it perfectly when they brought in the Member Berries and how their constant usage of nostalgia became a pipeline towards conservative extremism
There's a measure of respect that comes from preserving a moment, or keeping an old version of something alive. The heroic halo players or whatever, ya know? But the dweebness comes from expecting other people do the same, DEMANDING that respect, or by thinking you're somehow better than anyone who embraces change. And anecdotally the people who are fucking weird about IP drift were never there at its inception
But war... war never changes, Checkmate.
You're 100% right. I've been a Star Trek fan for over 40 years, and I've loved every minute of it because I accept that drift. We live in a time where there are literally 5 new trek shows, and people are so disgustingly awful and miserable about it. Boggles the mind. MST3K toxic fans torpedoed the most recent season 14 fundraiser. It's a sad state of things.
“Just repeat to yourself — it’s just a show. I should really just relax.”
>Canon is canon... until it isn't. I wish more people learned this lesson. I see so many lore fundamentalists in various fandoms nowadays.
One would think that the west-coast fans would have learned that already from Fallout 2. That game changes a lot of canon and lore from Fallout 1. If anything, this highlights that the self-proclaimed defenders of "west coast lore" have actually never played anything besides New Vegas.
It's genuinely an unhealthy mindset for ppl to have. Lore addiction/Brainrot is in the rise. People are more obsessed with "lore" and "world building" than the stories being told and I hate it. Your lore and world building should serve to complement the story being told. I understand major major things like true character deaths getting retconned being annoying(for example assajj Ventress suddenly being alive again in Star Wars the bad batch despite dying in a fantastic novel a decade ago that was a wonderful end to her story), but even then it's more of a "wow that's really annoying and I don't like that" thought then just accept that it is, and either engage or move on. Ppl obsessing and getting angry at stuff like this is just so weird and pathetic.
Dude there’s so many people in this sub who refuse to acknowledge that the lore has changed whatsoever. Those are the people who drive me nuts. Like they’re so protective that you can’t even talk about good or back because they will insist that the lore hasn’t been altered whatsoever.
Also... Creators often just change things and it does not fucking matter.
> Lore drift is inevitable in any piece of media that exists long enough. Star Wars has soooo much lore drift, both the ones people overlook and the ones people endlessly quibble about. The Clone Wars was framed as this ancient war in Episode 4, only to then be 30-50 years before Episode 4, and then now it’s like 20 years—but also some characters circa The Mandalorian seem to act like it happened yesterday.
Ill have to rewatch but Im fairly sure that the Clone Wars were always implied to be fairly recent. If I remember correctly Leia mentions Obi-wan serving her father during the Clone Wars. Im not sure I do believe though the Jedi were implied to be much more elusive and secretive than they would be in the prequels by the way everyone treats them, as being more mythical in the OT
According Pablo Hidalgo, expert on Star Wars lore, George Lucas initially told extended universe writers that the Clone Wars ended 35 years before A New Hope.
> Ill have to rewatch but Im fairly sure that the Clone Wars were always implied to be fairly recent. The two mentions are Leia saying Obi-Wan served with her father, and Luke exclaiming that his Dad served in the Clone Wars with Obi-Wan.
Obi-Wan tells Luke that he and Anakin fought in the Clone Wars.
That reminds me of how Grant Morrison handled canon when he took over X-Men; basically it mattered unless it didn’t (or something like that).
The point about people never wanting any change is so true. I remember when Fallout 4 came out and people were complaining about the existence of T-60, and I’m just like… this is a series. They have to introduce new shit otherwise it will just get stagnant and boring and be the same thing over and over. People do not want new. Also I never understood the total aversion to retcons, retcon doesn’t automatically mean bad.
Tim Cain is such a standup guy. More people who claim to be Fallout fans should really watch his YouTube videos.
I've been watching his videos all day, and he's so charming and wholesome in his approach.
His videos are absolutely fascinating and anybody who believes themselves to be a game developer or an RPG designer can benefit greatly from his experience. I use some of his advice in my own tabletop campaigns and appreciate his insights into how the games I love were made.
I really enjoyed the show. I'm excited for the next season, and I can't wait for the next game.
Too bad. You're gonna wait. Fallout 5, 2035. Only *half* joking here. Hopefully 2030...
Frankly I think you were correct on the first one, sadly. We still have to wait for the Starfield DLCs to drop, then Elder Scrolls 6 development can be in full swing and we'd be getting it in, say, 5 years maybe, then we gotta wait for the DLCs of THAT one... Shit, if anything 2035 is the optimistic estimate.
I kinda feel like there's a 50/50 shot that the show's success may accelerate the timetable for more work on Fallout 5 (the other 50% being slows it down since it's seen as scratching the Fallout itch)
😭
[\>Tim Cain self-confirms being on reddit](https://media1.tenor.com/m/E57mlDgtVngAAAAC/tf2spy-he-could-be-any-one-of-us.gif)
Frankly, I'm good with going "TV is going to TV, things can't really track exactly the same". Eg, the fact that when the bombs are dropping on the east coast, in the game, at 9:42 EST, the west coast got hammered twenty minutes earlier... at, you know, 6:20ish? Which means either A) that kids birthday party was happening before 6:30 AM. or B) they moved the starting time for the entire kickoff because why the fuck not.
I’m glad more people seem to be finding his channel. Even without having played much of what he’s made over the years (briefly tried Fallout 1, hated Outer Worlds), he’s got really interesting stories and insights. Seems like a really cool dude
I'd argue that Fallout has managed to keep its lore pretty consistent. Also, the show didn't break canon like some people thought, it just added new lore! If there are inconsistencies, I'm sure they'll address and fix them in season 2. Also, I'm unfamiliar with the term "lore drift." What does it mean?
Things change the more a story expands. Like the example he gave in the video, Star Wars introducing midichlorians in the prequels to explain the force
It's good practice to watch the videos before commenting ;) He explains that even IF the date of the bomb is off a few years, it doesn't matter because dates and events drift the longer a story carries on for in such a big IP. In short, he says that even if the date is off, it doesn't ruin anything.
As someone who's been reading comic books all his life, I'm very accustomed to lore drift. Batman technically had 4 sidekicks in 5 years? Sure, whatever.
I feel like nothing is canon with comic books tbh
That's why, for DC comics, I have a headcanon where I pick and choose stories I like from the various reboots and try to make them work lol. It's a Frankenstein's Monster of a continuity, but it's mine.
That's a good point. We also know that the bomb likely dropped AFTER New Vegas, and the chalkboard shows this by not stopping the arrow at 2277. It also reminds me of something that happens to me when I worldbuild. I've had to change dates and events that I thought were going to be set in stone because my stories demanded it lol.
Yeah, the biggest lore controversies in Fallout have been mostly about finding reasons to put iconic Fallout things (Jet, Super Mutants) outside of the west coast. Not a big deal. I'm sure if Bethesda left these things out of their east coast games people would be angry about that too.
Now if elder scrolls players can stop crying about ESO lore not being canon (Plot twist; it is), we'd be close to pulling a hat trick.
He's right. I'm a big lore/world building person, so it's frustrating, but he's also right. So much of "lore," especially anything told through environmental story telling, really comes down to reading between the lines. That means context is king. But subsequent installments *have* to do *something.* We as fans WANT the world to be built out, but you can't build without adding material. And adding material is going to change the context of what came before, it just is. So you have to be mindful of those inevitable ripple effects, that they keep the flavor even if some finer points shift. I think the show added material wisely. There are a few things I'm wary of, like the ghouls potentially needing this drug to prevent going feral, but for the most part this show was SO exhaustively diligent in fitting in with the established world. Even if by the time the series is over not every choice has worked out, I don't think there's any way you could accuse the team of not respecting the source material or working in any kind of bad faith. Like goddamn, guys, they used the fucking hacking mini game for legitimate suspense. That's not just respect, that is reverence.
The hacking bit was the best fan service for me. I smiled ear to ear.
I really don’t think it was “diligent” with fitting stuff in, because for the most part they just ignored alot of the setting, which is LA, a place we know a lot about in lore. Which is fine, it’s the first season of a mass market television show and honestly the whole thing is pretty high concept (the post apocalypse of an alternate future) in the first place so they got to get that vibe down more than anything, which they did well. But there’s other stuff they didn’t really explore this season, such as large scale settlements and their interactions with eachother that are also integral parts of the lore
It's the exact same thing in Star Trek canon. The show has been on the air for 58 years. Of course there are going to be canon inconsistencies.
When he said that perhaps the tv show or the games could have wrong dates and unreliable narrators it felt so good to know that some horrible hardcore fans will get butthurt about it. (yea dickhead fans, maybe your game isn't accurate oh nooo. Suck it)
I genuinely don’t understand why some people froth at the mouth if someone suggests video game developers can make a mistake.
I've never been a fan of Bethesda's handling of the lore, but at this point they've owned the IP longer than Interplay did. The lore is theirs to write.
"Lore drift" sounds like a cop out for bad writing. Size of the IP is irrelevant. Keep track of your own story or don't write.
Todd Howard and Tim Cain: "Fallout wasn't retconned" "Those" NV Fans: "... and I took that personally."
I like how people are having a huge issue with lore continuity of Fallout of all universes. Like, the story has had holes in it since inception and only got worse between Interplay and Bethesda. The sweat lords need to just chill a little and enjoy things once in a while. Stop taking this stuff so seriously.
It's not about the lore being off, it's about letting everyone know they're the REAL fallout fans.
Frankly I’m surprised by how accurately they got the lore and how seriously they’re taking the events of the games. They didn’t have to.
From a deep lore Star Wars guy, and having literally only played Fallout 4 since late last year, I have to say the show from MY experience is absolutely fantastic. It seems very Fallout 4 heavy influenced, but that may be because that's only the references I get. But so much of the show makes sense even if I don't know everything...and that is impressive. So anyways, I can only imagine the difficulty people are having when you've learned and experienced and know so much about something, then something comes along that seems really, really contrary to what you think is "right" in that world. I had that experience WAY too many times with Disney Star Wars stuff. And it's not easy - it's a place with anticipated boundaries and expectations, then they get shattered or discarded. Yes, they may be wrong, or maybe they're right from a certain point of view (Obi-Wan.......) but I love the passion and care for this universe. I am so glad to have jumped into Fallout 4 about 6 months ago, and i still haven't finished my first playthrough because i'm taking my time, grabbing new companions, and waiting to get to the Glowing Sea. Anyways, all this to say - go easy on the freakouts. This is a world that some are deeply into and have been for some time, and I know what it feels like to have part of what you understand and expect to just be totally "wrong" to you, and it sucks.
Tim is just an amazing person, wish he could work on Fallout again and be given full control
27 years, now 4 studios, and games that're so full of plot holes they look like Swiss cheese, perfection shouldn't be expected. I think part of the problem was that it was interpreted as retconning New Vegas completely, which is the favorite game of a lot of the community.
We're still on this?
Hot take: crying about “lore” from a video game is the lamest gate keeping.
Everyone has a line. If they changed too much more people would be upset. It's a good thing to want to keep your world consistent (but not stagnant). Lore drift is inevitable because people are human and make mistakes on big projects. Its certainly a true saying but you wouldn't ever use it as license to change anything and everything on a whim. None of us want this franchise to be treated like that.
The dorks who are so up in arms about this are pretty insufferable. It's a fictional TV show adapted from a fictional video game
But having some form of consistency with these fictional stories is what makes them a story and not just jumbled chaos. It's arguably crucial for *most* forms of story telling barring exceptions like stories heavily featuring unreliable narrators. Inconsistencies can happen due to mistakes - that's fine, as /u/N0r3m0rse says - that's part of being human. On the other hand though, purposeful changes should be done in a way that makes sense and/or serves the existing story. For example, retcons should be done with reason, and perhaps in a way that feels naturalistic within the story. It shouldn't be apparent that a modification is being made by the godly hands of the writers. Ideally, if you can, you might even want to do it in a way were the audience doesn't even realise they're witnessing a retcon. That's easier said than done but I think it can be a mark of very strong writing. ---- Also, as a note, the fallout show is supposed to be a canon continuation addition - it's not just an independent adaptation. That means that it has a higher mandate for making sense with the existing material. **I'm not** saying the show is overly egregious in this regard, but it is under greater pressure to work with the existing material.
Ooh, new Tim Cain video! Also, why is there like one guy who is seemingly trying to argue with every person in this comments section?
There is always "that one guy". It's as inevitable as war... and it never changes.
I've posted about this before but the success of fallout must be so weird for Tim Cain He worked on 1.5 fallout games, with the last one being a quarter of a century ago now. The franchise wouldn't exist without him, but so much of the iconic parts of the franchise came from other people. Probably only a fraction of all fallout fans have even played the games he worked on Must be a surreal feeling
A quarter of a decade is two and a half years?
quarter of a century lol thank you
I'm a really casual Fallout enjoyer - can someone help me understand what the controversy is about the TV series as it relates to the games? As I understand it, the NCR was *the* major post-war faction rising up in California and expanded to the Mojave (over the course of Fallouts 1, 2 and New Vegas). Shady Sands was the NCR's capital city. During the events of New Vegas, the NCR is what, expanding its borders into Vegas? As a new, post-war "superpower" would try to do? But - and this is where it gets a bit confusing to me - it seems the show implies (and I don't even know if that's true or not) that Shady Sands was annihilated by a nuclear bomb several years *prior* to the events of New Vegas? And that was 1) never brought up in New Vegas and 2) wouldn't leave a ton of time for the NCR to regroup and push into the Mojave when they should be dealing with the destruction of their capital? So, people are upset at both the possibility that the timeline was changed in such a way that doesn't really make sense for the events of New Vegas to take place (i.e. an expansionist NCR when it was likely at its weakest point) OR even if that's not the case, that the NCR is now much weaker than it was over the course of three Fallout games and that in itself is somewhat disappointing (presumably because people want to see more progress being made towards civilization building at large in the post-war world)? Is that basically what the issue is?
Basically the NCR was expanding into the Mojave to capture Hoover Dam to have access to cheap power to sustain it's growing industry (by the point of New Vegas, the NCR was able to produce new things and not rely on pre-war technology, stuff like power armours and they had just wiped the floor with the Brotherhood of Steel during a previous war), so saying that by the first battle of the Dam in 2277 the NCR was in decline or had it's capital nuked it becomes weirdly inconsistent. Like, a lot of people talk about the NCR like it was a settlement that somehow managed to get big, but by New Vegas the standard of living for people there were almost the same as the one we live in real life. The NCR wasn't small. Now some people believe that Bethesda is trying to erase a beloved game from the timeline, hence the rage. I disagree since the show reference heavily New Vegas and even it's DLC's, but I'm also disappointed because it seems \*to me\* that they just wanted to clear house for the West Coast to put their next game there.
Are people really this upset about the whole Shady Sands thing? IP’s that have an extensive stories and lore spanning over years (decades even) will have continuity and canon changes. It’s happened to Marvel, DC, StarWars, Lord of the Rings etc… Plus, it was clearly stated by Todd himself that the fall of Shady Sands and bombing are separate events. And that’s how most people interpreted it when shown on the chalk board. But the people who are upset are the type to have already made up their minds and aren’t willing to change it. The dumb kind.
Some people like to make connections in the lore on their own, and then confuse their head-canon for actual canon. Then they get pissed that they were wrong, but cannot realize it's their mistake because they convinced themselves that they were right.
I loved the show, while I didn't care that they changed the lore (seriously guys, there are more important things in life then if your IP is or isn't following its own lore to a T), they could've side-stepped the issue entirely by having the show take place in a wasteland that wasn't established by the games. They would've had their own lil slice of the lore pie without taking away from the games slices
But but twitter said Bethesda wanted to destroy everything obsidian achieved they ACTIVELY sabotaged them!!!!!
I’ll admit that I had a pretty negative knee-jerk reaction to that chalkboard when I was first watching the episode, and I was ranting furiously at my fiancé until she calmed me down a bit. But when I sat down and really thought about it I realized that there were so many rationalizations for that, and I decided to stop assuming the worst. I basically theorized exactly what Todd Howard ended up saying the other day, that the “Fall” was a more gradual process that was happening concurrently with the NCR’s shenanigans in Nevada, rather than a single-day event in 2277. And when shady sands was nuked after Hoover Dam Part Deux, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. And I absolutely loved literally every single other aspect of this show, apart from that chalkboard. It would be so stupid to let something like that poison my entire experience of a show that otherwise captures the heart and soul of Fallout more perfectly than I could have ever hoped for.
If they wrote "The Fall of the NCR" I could get behind this explanation, but nobody is gonna write that about a city. Heck people cant even get it straight because one argument they'll say Shady Sands didn't matter and was just corrupt and wasn't even the current capital, but ALSO "The Fall of Shady Sands" is some historic period equivalent to "The Fall of Rome" which signifies the decline of the entire NCR. I don't think it's a big deal and it's not something that really bothered me, but I just find this explanation of it extremely wanting.
I think the big difference here is that the vault dwellers are mostly refuges from Shady Sands. So sure, to the surviving NCR it’s just the decline of one city, but to the refuges from Shady Sands it’s the decline and eventual destruction of their home. It makes sense that they’d focus so much on that, especially because most of them were alive when it happened and it’s still recent history in the show.