I hope you get it, Rader. Or one of us does.

I just can’t imagine it’s better than Fallout4, or even Fallout3 and New Vegas.

I think some of it depends whether you prefer single player or multiplayer games. I myself played ESO a good couple of months for instance, and I prefer the single player games, for sure. When enemies die in SP games for instance, they are done. They don't respawn right back in front of character ten seconds later because I wasn't quick enough to get back out of their "zone." That is my biggest prob with ESO. I could never get that glorious "aftermath" cooldown feeling which I so love in single-player games. If 76 is handles spawning in such a heavy-handed way, yuck. Especially since there are guns in that game.

But then, my favorite part of ESO was meeting other players. So there are positive things as well (in my opinion). For a lot of gamers this is tops. So it all depends.

Well, it's definitely going to be much different both by virtue of being an MMO and that it's another game made by Bethesda (albeit not by the main Beth studio). I don't think it will entirely be an apples to oranges comparison, but I also think it being an MMO should be kept in mind a lot. I want to give this game a chance once it goes on sale. For all their flaws (and there are many) and their varying quality, BGS has not let me down yet when it comes to enjoying the games they make.




Somewhat unfortunately, that's the nature of an MMO. Got to have respawning enemies because of the amount of people running around. It doesn't bother me too much, but it is somewhat of a let down. Some of the things that I don't like about ESO in relation to other TES games are just part of being an MMO (though, of course, not always). But as you touched on, being an MMO has also allowed it to do some cool things that single-player games just aren't capable of doing.



___________________________________________________________




So here's some of the research I gathered on Fallout 76, or at least from what I understand. Some of this was endemic to the game while some of it is the Wastelanders update.

-It's only 25 players per server world, so it isn't like, say, ESO, where you encounter them all the time.
-The map is 4x bigger than Fallout 4's, so that further decreases the likelihood of running into other players; while the concept of Fallout with friends is also intriguing, I'm more interested in the single-player aspect and I think the loneliness aspect makes more sense for Fallout.
-(Wastelanders update) Human NPCs are back, and they are also involved in the main quest, so that has been changed. It also has a dialogue system more similar to Fallout 3, where your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats can also unlock unique dialogue options. Apparently, there will also be several romance options available as well.
-Your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats all start at 1 and are increased as you go along.
-If you don't want to PvP at all, there is an option you can toggle off. That way, griefers can't just bother you and you won't accidentally initiate combat if you shoot another player.
-(Wastelanders update) One of the main things about this new update is--surprise!--a conflict between settlers and raiders. The questline does something similar to Fallout 4, where you can do quests for both sides until a certain point of no return.
-Similar to Fallout 4's settlements. You can make a CAMP (not sure if it is an acronym or not). However, since they are public servers and these CAMPs are not in separate world spaces, they are not persistent and will disappear when you log off. It sounds like private servers might enable them to be persistent and stay there even when you log off.
-Speaking of private servers, there are some available for (I think) $100 a year. I'm ambivalent about this. On one hand, a lot of it smacks of being a cash grab (a heavily overused term but can arguably be used here). On the other hand, I imagine these private servers ain't cheap to just hand out. I doubt I'd ever get one, but the option is there.



There's obviously a lot more to it, but I've been typing long enough as it is. I do find the regurgitation by the "Bethesda BAD" crowd to be annoying and more of a gamer circlejerk, but I also try to balance it out and not just sound like a Bethesda apologist. There were definitely some big missteps by Bethesda with this game (although it is not the main Bethesda studio at the head of this project). But I can see a lot of potential with this game. I'm also a sucker for exploration and freedom, which Bethesda delivers in spades. I honestly don't know much about West Virginia's geography and history, and it's a pretty unique setting for a game. I'm tempted to get the game now, but I've also got other games in my backlog, so I can wait for a sale.

I think what BGS lost with this whole 76 debacle was trust. The way they behaved from day 1 was simply inexcusable. I won’t say it makes them bad, more like “par for the course”. They aren’t any worse than any other big AAA studio. Perhaps it just stung a bit more because, while they have had some controversies in the past (paid mods, horse armor), they really hadn’t shown themselves to be quite as despicable as companies like EA. Honestly they aren’t even quite there yet. That said, the direction BGS has indicated it intends to travel is troubling, and it’s a direction I cannot and will not support. I am sitting out 76 as it’s a game that I feel is not for me. However, I will definitely be watching the development of Starfield. As far as I’m concerned, this game will tell the tale of BGS’s future. Will they continue down the same path as EA, or will they manage to right the ship and restore the trust that their fans once had in them? Only time will tell, but I’m willing to wait and see.

That's a totally fair take. I will say that BGS has concerned me lately as well, and that is part of why I don't think a full-price tag is justified for me yet. We'll see if these issues with BGS are the start of a trend. Hopefully that is not the case.

I'm itching to hear more about Starfield and I wish we could hear something new about it. A Bethesda-style RPG in outer space would be a dream--provided they make a good game, of course.

Are you saying all MMOs are like this? 76 too? (I know 76 is not supposed to be a true MMO, but you know what I'm saying.)

It wouldn't bother me either if it were done in a more realistic way. For instance, if the spawnpoints weren't exactly right in front of the player-character, literally enemies will pop out of thin air in ESO right in front of us. Maybe if these spawnpoints were in some inaccessible location. ESO's enemy spawning is like going back to my Atari days! It's something I couldn't rationalize in any sort of roleplay terms. "Well, they spawn like this due to magic" does not work for me.

/nerdrage




Yes, I heard they were going to add them back in.

I don't know about every MMO, but a lot do. One I played when I was a kid, RuneScape (the old-school one, but not the original one), did the same thing. I imagine Fallout 76 would do something similar. Think about it for a moment. In a singleplayer game, it's easy. You just set enemies to be perma-dead, or at least take a long time in-game to respawn. But in a multiplayer game, you're not the only person running around. Other people are doing the same content and have to level up and loot too. If you didn't have these enemies respawn often, you'd have a lot of frustrated players not getting in on the action. And in ESO, there are a lot of them. You have to enough going around. Unfortunate, but necessary. There are some tweaks here and there, like World Bosses having a longer timer to respawn and some solo dungeon instances (such as specifically group-designated dungeons, where enemies stay down until you come back to the dungeon in a later play session), but generally speaking, you need to have enemies for all the players online. For the most part, you can still think of yourself as the real hero of the game, that the story (or stories) are centered around you--provided you don't think about it too much.

I know you are a hardcore roleplayer. Unfortunately, the nature of MMOs inhibit that to some extent, making some kinds of roleplaying difficult or outright impossible. On the other hand, it allows for other kinds of roleplaying that you simply can't do in a singleplayer game. But MMOs tend to have much more emphasis on looting and leveling. ESO, no matter how hard it tries, simply can't be a so-called "true" Elder Scrolls game. The MMO genre doesn't allow for it.



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Back to Fallout 76, if and when I get it, I kind of want to make a new thread for alliterative adventures a la Boston Bewilderings, etc. Maybe "West Virginia Wayfaring." But I know I'd probably be the only one here playing the game, or at least for some time, so perhaps that isn't appropriate. Well, in any case, it will probably be a while until I get the game anyway.

I don't see any issue with a Point Pleasant Pleasantries, or Mothman Prophecies, or Radio Quiet Zone topic for the daily doings in Fallout 76.

Well you know, maybe if we see enough of what you are doing in the game it may change some of our minds about it!

I understand this. Exactly why I started this segue with my original statement "I think some of it depends whether you prefer single player or multiplayer games. " Those who prefer MP will have no problem with what I see as a huge annoyance. It's just too bad spawning and respawning has to be done in this particular way.

If 76 spawns enemies over and over right in front, I ain't getting it. There's no way I could handle such a game, but with guns instead of hand-weapons / magic. But I will gladly watch others here at Chorrol and see how they handle this.




I was able to RP all the time though. I wouldn't play the game, otherwise. All it took for me was to simply slow down, take in the environment, listen to what my character's thoughts might be, and so on. All that classic stuff we all used to talk about in the old Beth forums. It's not impossible. I even met a couple other players who were like-minded.

Sorry for going off-track. I'll be quiet, now. Hope you get 76. Or one of us does.

Aha! I will make a convert out of you yet like a Child of Atom! BASK IN ATOM'S GLORY!



Right. I just wanted to make clear why it's done that way in case it wasn't. It's rather disappointing to me too, though. One of the things I also initially strongly disliked and sometimes hated about the game was just how much level-scaling there was and how almost everything was tied your character's level. With a lot more experience and hindsight, as well as delving into much more of what the game offers (particularly PvP), I understand that it is a "necessary evil" of sorts. Now it doesn't bother me too much...though that's much easier to say when you are a higher level or max level. But I do wish that a lot of quests weren't so level-scaled. Kind of boring when quest enemies are practically always the same levels of difficulty throughout the whole game. That's probably because of the One Tamriel update, which removed level restrictions on entering zones, let you travel to whatever zone you want at any time (save for probably Coldharbor), and implemented wide-ranging enemy-level scaling. I didn't start playing this game until that update. While I ultimately probably prefer the way they do it since that update and it became much more similar to other TES games, I can see some of the downsides to the change as well.

Perhaps respawning enemies won't be so bad in Fallout 76 since there are so few players per game world. But we'll have to see when I get the game.




If you ever argue with me again, you will regret it! Haha, no worries. That's why I said some kinds of roleplaying were affected. You can still certainly roleplay in ESO. In fact, I've seen many guilds whose core function IS roleplaying. I just meant that the RPing was inherently different in an MMO, that's all.

Yes, I misread what you wrote about roleplaying.

I didn't know ESO features level scaling, but I suppose that in an MMO this is also another feature which is somewhat of a must. The challenge to balance all these different factors in a gameworld packed with thousands must be never-ending.

Back on topic, have you watched any Let's Play videos Rader, or are you maybe going into this blind? I did watch one video a few months ago. It looks gorgeous, of course.

Now that you mention it, it's probably best that I look up some gameplay videos first. From what I understand, the gameplay itself is a lot like Fallout 4, which is fine by me. I think the gameplay of Fallout 4 (i.e., the feel of combat and running around and shooting) was mostly really good, although obviously there is some room for improvement. Other things like perks, enemy design, etc., is something I'll have to look at for myself some more.

I'm pretty sure Lizzie has it.

If you choose to spawn at a wayshrine; there will be no enemies nearby. If you choose to spawn where you died; you resurrect as a ghost for fifteen seconds. That gives you time to either run to safety or hide somewhere. The enemy doesn't suddenly spawn in front of you; they are just still there from when they killed you.

On 76 = I have to agree with Khajiit and Rader; not even thinking of giving that kind of price on 76. I've noticed on Steam the price of all the Fallout games is much higher than it was when I bought my Steam copies; (I guess to bolster their high "second launching" price of 76). If the price goes way down; I might consider it; but so far I haven't heard enough good about the game to be even tempted.

And again = have to agree with Khajiit and Rader in that I am very concerned about the direction BGS is headed; and don't feel comfortable giving them my money without proof of what I'm getting from them anymore.

Along those lines = I have recently noticed that the new Zenimax Launcher (as of February's Patch 25) is now calling itself "Bethesda.net Launcher" in some of its scripts and files; and that suddenly now when I contact Support via the Zenimax Launcher I am suddenly being directed to a Bethesda.Net site and having to sign in on a Bethesda.net account instead of my ZOS account. What is that all about?

So now...does this mean that this year's "Skyrim" Chapter is just Bethesda re-launching Skyrim for the 100th 7th time?

Unless I am misunderstanding what you are saying, I believe she is referring to instances in delves and other places where you kill enemies and they sometimes materialize out of nowhere when you have been there for a time. That has happened on many occasions to me as well and it does inevitably break some immersion, even if it is a necessary feature. Her point doesn't have anything to do with whether she dies, but NPCs she kills. Or if there are a bunch of other people in the delve or wherever you are, it might not be NPCs you killed but other players.




Todd Howard, you've done it again! You sly dog!

On a serious note, apparently Zenimax support doesn't give a damn about support (for Cyrodiil especially), so hopefully Bethesda actually does something about it? Maybe it is just a consolidation of support resources into one place instead of separated. I don't know.

Correct, I was talking about enemies not staying dead, instead they literally respawn within seconds right in front of the character. If I could mod Elder Scrolls Online, that would be the first thing to change.

If 76 handles respawning enemies in a similar way, there's no way I'd be able to handle this! Because now we're talking about enemies with guns spawning back!

Fallout 76 is on sale through May 21st for 25% off (so $30 currently). But perhaps more importantly, I just discovered it is a free play weekend. As of this post, there is a little over 1.5 days left of the free play, if you want to try it out yourself. I might try it tomorrow.

Awesome! Let us know your impressions. I'll microwave some popcorn for everybody.

If I were single and without children, I'd try it out for sure, I'd probably even buy it. Now it doesn't make too much sense to get it, because I know that with another child on the way, my gaming time will decrease, not increase.

Unfortunately, I just didn't get around to trying out the free play weekend. I still got a bit of time to buy it on discount and I probably will, but I want to make sure I actually plan on playing it right away in case I want to refund it.

I bought the game about 6 minutes before the sale ended and finally tried it out this morning. It was about maybe an hour so that isn't much to go by, but here are some of my early impressions.

• While I am not one to spend painstaking amounts of time tweaking every minute detail of my character, I still like having the option for it. When it comes to the body of your character, the character customization is pretty lacking. The only body customization is the thin/muscular/fat triangle. It's not like, for example, ESO where you can do all sorts of things to so many parts of the body.
• While I am not one to spend painstaking amounts of time tweaking every minute detail of my character, I still like having the option for it. When it comes to the body of your character, the character customization is pretty lacking. The only body customization is the thin/muscular/fat triangle. It's not like, for example, ESO where you can do all sorts of things to so many parts of the body.
• On the other hand, something that is pretty cool is that you can change a lot about your appearance at any time after you leave Vault 76. So for role-playing purposes, you could add a couple scars to your character to indicate that they had been in a tough fight or remove scars to signify healing over time. It's not something I really thought of before, but I really like the addition even though I probably will use it little if ever. There is also a pretty good amount of facial customization when you create your character.
• It's somewhat of a minor issue, but some menu controls are kind of unintuitive. To get to the main menu, you first press ESC as usual, but that takes you to your map. THEN you press Z or click on "Menu" in the top-left corner. Doesn't make sense to me, but whatever.
• Fallout 76 seems to be better optimized than Fallout 4, the latter of which sometimes has FPS slowdowns in places it really shouldn't have had. My computer isn't some Uber l33t G4mer Pro beast, but it shouldn't have had many problems in that regard with Fallout 4. It's more understandable with 76 since it is about a year or so newer than my laptop. But I digress.
• I don't like the aesthetics of the map, but that is a minor gripe. It's a little too...cartoony, for lack of a better word, for my taste. It doesn't need to look like it is on the Pip-Boy and I'm perfectly fine with adding some flavor to it, but whatever. Maybe it'll grow on me, though: I've barely explored the map so far.
• While I think Fallout 4's dialogue wheel could've been improved, I think it is for the better that the dialogue system is back to being more like Fallout 3's, though so far I haven't found too different of options in dialogue (e.g. "good," "neutral," "jerk"). I'm sure it'll be different as I go along.
• One (possible) step back regarding dialogue, though--although I've only been in two conversations that apply to this--is that dialogue with multiple NPCs is stilted when the NPCs talk to each other. When I say stilted, I mean there can be a longer pause between two different NPCs talking to each other than there should be. Fallout 4 did an excellent job in this regard, from what I remember. I add the "possible" caveat in case this isn't actually the case throughout the game.
• I like the addition of needing food and water to survive and it doesn't seem to be obnoxious. It's hard to strike a good balance between obnoxious and trivial for survival mechanics, so it likes it'll be good here.
• There's a bit of a delay whenever I click to pick up or interact with something, which can get annoying. On the other hand, a cool addition they have is that, if you hold E, you can use certain items right away. Stimpak or Radaway sitting on a table? You can use it immediately instead of putting it in your inventory and finding it or even having to go through a hotkey. Particularly nice for schematics that you pick up.

Some other things I have barely been able to get into like using the C.A.M.P.--which is the analog to Fallout's 4 settlement workbenches, but you can shift where you place the C.A.M.P. for just 5 caps--and perk trees. Thus, I don't think there is nearly enough for anyone here to go by to see if they would like the game. But I'm hopeful. We'll have to see where this goes from here.

I have always hated the Fallout maps; they are all horribly unreadable to me.

On the NPC's conversations = All that was just added to the game recently; so I do have hope they will improve that.

Thank you for the review of the game; I have really been wondering = but still holding out. I didn't buy it this sale; but probably will eventually. On the "Camp" = watch Juggernaut's Fallout 76 vids on building camps; he is amazing! I used his tips in Fallout 4; they made a huge difference in my settlements.

One of my biggest hopes for 76 was that eventually they would create single player content, and have private worlds where you can play without other players around. I got annoyed the other day when I noticed that the private worlds are only going to be accessible by paying for a subscription (Fallout First). Maybe I’m not fully understanding it so someone please correct me if I’m wrong, but paying extra for an after thought single player experience? If that’s the case then it definitely looks like 76 will never be for me.

Yes, that is one of the things I like about the way ESO was done = Players can't attack you anywhere but in Cyrodiil; and you can set your game to automatically decline any duel invites anywhere else. You have to actually seek PvP if you want it. Plus = in ESO other Players can't bother your houses.

I don't know if it is true or not; but I have heard that other Players can actually destroy your "camps" in 76; and that they can gang up and harass another Player (although from what I've seen; they do get banned for doing that).

But = from what I've heard; they only allow something like 20 players on each instance of the game; so at least they can't come at you in a horde or zerg, lol. I am pretty sure that it is exactly how World of Warcraft did it too; (back when my son played it years ago). They had 20 person "parties" if I remember correctly.

I will really be interested in hearing Rader's thoughts on this game to be able to really decide if I want to try it or not.

Well, I really wouldn't call it a review yet, but I think there is a good chance I'll like it.



A lot of content IS single player, though, both from what I have heard and what I have played. It's sort of like ESO in that sense. There's only 25 people per world and even in the two times I encountered someone, they quickly were gone.

Well, I mean, to an extent I get having to pay a subscription in order to get the private servers. But overall, I feel ambivalent about it. On one hand, it is kind of lame and feels more like just another way to get money out of players after all the nonsense that had been going on before then, and I'm not sure that it is worth THAT much money to get a private server. On the other hand, I imagine keeping up that many servers ain't cheap, there are few players per world in the first place, and they don't necessarily HAVE to have private servers available for an MMO.

If I enjoy it enough and I play it enough, I'll consider getting a private server that we can all play on. (Who knows, if enough of us play there could be a way to split the cost of the server.) If so, maybe you'll think about trying it out as well, although obviously you'd have to decide whether to drop money to get the game in the first place.




From what I understand, players now cannot hurt you at all unless you attack back. Or maybe it was that you both have to agree to a duel like in ESO. I did get a message once that said my workshop was under attack, but I saw absolutely nobody there and I barely had anything up anyway.

Yes, it is only 25 people per world. You can actually see them on your maps as little dots, although I don't know if you can change that in settings or change your own visibility. That's a good decision on their part, not just because of potential griefing and trolling but because too many players would be detrimental to the atmosphere of a Fallout game.

Well, I also have to keep in mind that the kind of things I'm looking for in the game are not going to all be the same kind of things that others are looking for, so I'm trying to give an honest chance from what I think others' perspectives will be. I think I'm going to like the game, but I'll need to play more before I can decide whether anyone else here will want to play it.

Awesome, thanks for your honest assessment, Rader. You really went into detail about a lot of things I like to pay attention to, such as character customization. Still waiting to hear what NPC combat is like. But your few instances with other players don't sound too bad.

I've read all sorts of things about 76 in the new forums up until this past winter: good things and bad. I haven't been keeping up these past few months, though I do remember reading about players invading other player camps. Overall, this is rather rare. And invaders do get banned, as long as they are reported. Most folks seemed respectful, though.

Glad you mentioned combat, Renee, because that is one of my next critiques.

• Sometimes, NPCs in combat are insanely stupid. Like, absolute buffoons. Granted, I've really only fought low-level enemies, this has mostly applied to feral ghouls and the Scorched, and my light armor and lightning may factor in too. But there have been too many times where enemies should absolutely notice me but react slowly. On the other hand, Scorched have demonstrated a pretty decent capability of taking cover. Also haven't had much challenge in fights, but like I said, it's still early on and these have mostly been low-level enemies.
• Equipment degradation is back. Fallout 3's and perhaps more so New Vegas's systems often became more of a chore than an interesting mechanic, but so far I like how 76 has handled it. It's not obnoxious or tedious but it's not superfluous either. It adds to the survival feel. Whether that holds up at higher levels I don't know, but right now I like it.
• Crafting: There's actually good reason to use it! I found it pretty useless in New Vegas and 4, as you could find pretty much all you needed by adventuring or possibly just buying them if you really had to. Careful about food, though, because it can spoil in your inventory is you go too long with it.
• For all Bethesda's flaws, they excel at making exploration fun and having interesting side stories, especially through environmental storytelling. 76 is no different. I won't go into too much detail, but one example is a aide quest involving college students making a new drink called NukaShine just before the Great War, which mixes Quantum with some extra stuff including a "special" secret ingredient that you must discover. It also features an amusing, drunk Robobrain named Biv. E. Ridge and he sounds far different than any Robobrain you have heard before.
• i have only explored a small fraction of Appalachia, but what I have seen is gorgeous. Obviously, yes, graphics are part of it, but it's more than that. Design goes beyond just pretty pixels. And West Virginia may be my favorite Bethesda-designed environment yet.
• The main story so for is pretty meh. Not bad, but not that interesting, at least not yet. But FWIW, it arguably nudges you less to do it than the main quest for 3 or 4, if that is important to you.
• I'm not sure what I think of the perk system yet. I'll discuss it more later.
• Radaway and chems weigh a bit more than in Fallout 4 and now Simpaks have weight. I think that is a great choice for a Fallout MMO so you don't stockpile them. And I honestly probably wouldn't mind if they did it for the next singleplayer Fallout either. You can take some perks to reduce their weight, though.
• I've put a total of about 5 minutes into my C.A.M.P. so I can't tell you much, but I can tell you that, similarly to ESO, you now have to find plans to learn before making a C.A.M.P., although there will be a few plans you know right off the bat. I think this is another improvement overall.

Anybody who tells you it's just Fallout 4 multiplayer is lying and giving you a falae impression, or they somehow forgot how 4 works. Sure, there are a bunch of similarities, but I've already encountered quite a bunch of key differences already. That said, if you do like Fallout 4 there is a good chance you will like 76. Even if you didn't like 4, 76 is different enough that you might like it still.


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Overall, I've enjoyed my 11 or so hours of playing the game and I am optimistic about the rest of the game. But I'm still not sure how much I would recommend it to the ladies and gents here at Chorrol. I do have a sense of what you all like, but it would help my decisions in that regard if you all give some criteria that you are looking for. What are the most important things for you in a Fallout game (e.g. lore, roleplaying, setting)? Please also try to be somewhat specific when possible, such as what you did and didn't like about 3/NV/4. If that makes sense.

Thank you for continuing to post your thoughts on 76 as you go along Rader. Can you go into a bit of detail about how building is implemented? Do the camps disappear if you exit the game?

Ah, now the latter question of this I CAN answer. When you log back in and the game puts you in a world, you will get a prompt that tells you that your C.A.M.P. could not be placed and it will give you an option to either 1) stay in that world or 2) put you in a world where there is room for your C.A.M.P. where you last placed it.

You can also move the C.A.M.P. during gameplay. When you go into your map, you can see at the bottom-left of your screen the key to move your base (I think it was "z"). You have to pay a few caps to move it, but it is a meager amount. Not sure if it scales to your level, though, because I think it went up from 5 caps at the beginning to now 8 caps. Still, don't need to pay much.

I'll try to get into the building aspect more the next time I log on. Then I can better answer those questions.

That is interesting that you can tell it to go to a world in which your base will fit. I would hate to know I worked really hard on a base just to have it disappear upon leaving the game.

Haven't played again since I last posted here due to ESO: Greymoor's release, but there are a few other things that I have thought about.

• I cannot fathom why you have to sell each individual item you want to sell to NPC vendors instead of having it done in one whole transaction. Fallout 3/NV/4 had no trouble making it possible to buy and sell multiple things in a single transaction, so why is it being tedious here? I don't know, maybe it has to do with this not being the main BGS studio, yet main BGS couldn't implement it in Oblivion or Skyrim either! I'm pretty sure Morrowind let you do it in one go too.
• I've also read that trading with players is easily exploitable by scammers because, if you are trading instead of selling for caps, apparently you trade one item back and forth at a time. That's really stupid. Why would it be done that way? But I have not interacted with other players at all, so I can't go from experience on this one.
• I'm nowhere close to this, but there is also a cap on your caps (ba-dum-tss) that you can hold. The maximum number of caps in your inventory at any given time is 30,000. Why? I guess it prevents the economy from being broken, but it also feels rather arbitrary to me.
• I've thought some more about the perk system in here and I don't know what to think of it. I don't hate it, but I'm not really a fan either. The way it works is that your character starts off with 1 in every S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stat. Sure, that's fine. Every time you level up, you pick one S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stat to increase by 1 and then you have several perk cards that you can choose from. Again, I suppose that's fine, but this next part is leading up to where I start to feel ambivalent. Sometimes you can pick up perk card packs from doing content, but you can only have a certain number of cards active depending on a given stat's level. The number, level, and rank of your cards factor into this. Here's what I mean by those three words:
  
  -----Number: Total number of cards you can have at a given time
  -----Level: What minimum stat level that perk can be taken at
  -----Rank: Whether or not the card has been improved by stacking the same effect on it; for example, the 1st rank of a card might be "+10% damage with non-automatic pistols" and the 2nd rank might make it "+20% damage with non-automatic pistols
  
  If you rank up a card, it counts as two cards, which I suppose works fine. So for example, if your Strength is 2, you can have 2 Strength-type cards at rank 1 (the cards might be either or both for Strength 1 or 2), or 1 Strength-type card at rank 2 (i.e., improved the effect from rank 1).
  
  But HERE is where I become a bit ambivalent. If you have an excess of cards for a given stat in your inventory, you can mix-and-match which perks you choose after you've equipped them, too. So for example, if I have a Luck of 1, and I have equipped a card that increases the chance to find extra ammo in containers, I can swap that out with a card that increases the chance to find extra chems. If you are wondering why I am on the fence, here is why: On one hand, this gives a lot freedom to the player to change things up and doesn't hard-lock them into choices that may not work out. On the other hand, player freedom needs to have the line drawn somewhere even in a Bethesda game and choices need to matter. Plus from a logic standpoint (I know, we're talking about logic in vidya games here), that's kind of absurd that your character would magically forget something, suddenly learn something else, and then could just unlearn that new thing out of nowhere and relearn the old thing in such a fashion.

I don't know if or how much the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. and perk system changes in this regard later on in the game. I don't even know how high up your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. can go. The previous games, with very few exceptions in specific situations, capped each at 10, implying a max level of 100 in this game yet I have seen players have WAY higher levels than that on my map. From what I understand, you increase one of your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats by 1 at every level up, but maybe that isn't the case. Therefore, I want to add the disclaimer that I don't know the entirety of how leveling works.

NGL, that perk card system sounds like a mess. Perhaps it will get better as you play?

I played some more in the past week or so, and I've finally reached a verdict on whether I think you (as in all of you) would enjoy the game. But first, I explored the C.A.M.P. feature a bit more. Not too in-depth yet, but a decent amount that I can at least speak on it some.

• There is a wide variety of things you can craft and it seems to be much more than Fallout 4, which should be expected. There are also more categories for types of things you can craft. However, the navigation of the menus to find what you want to build is somewhat cumbersome. On the plus side, you can toggle a function that ONLY shows you the furnishings that you have learned the plans for, or have the full range of options shown so that you can see if there is something else you want to hunt down the building plans for.
• Each furnishing you want to build also has a bunch of variants in style, giving you more options for building. However, there seems to be at least one downside to this: Things that should be their own separate option are actually a variant of another type of building piece. I say this because when I was looking for a doorway, I couldn't find it as its own separate thing, but rather as a variant for a plain wall. That's IIRC, at least. Just...why? I was getting annoyed that I couldn't find a wall with a doorway and then happened to find it by flipping through variants because I was also trying to build something else.
• This isn't solely C.A.M.P.-related, but it is relevant. When you go to a workbench of any type, there is an option to scrap all junk, which is convenient.

And now, for my verdict. I do like this game, I really do. Maybe I'm just a sucker for more Fallout, but I think there is some real potential for this game and there is a good foundation to build upon...

...But as much as it pains me to say it, based on what I know of the gaming preferences of other Chorrolites here, I don't believe any of you would enjoy the game. As a result, I cannot honestly recommend that any of you buy this game. Not at full price, at least. Maybe if a sale bumped it down to $20 I would say give it a try, but certainly not at the sale for $30 that I got or the full price of $40. It sucks, because this is my second-favorite franchise (behind The Elder Scrolls) and I would love to be able to get together in the world of Fallout.

The overarching problem is that this game is waaaay too rough around the edges. The gameplay design itself is pretty decent, but the game severely lacks polish in a lot of places. Some examples:

• After the great strides Fallout 4 made in the flow of dialogue between characters and between you and NPCs, Fallout 76 regresses on this front severely. I got to be honest...it's pretty bad. Often there are strange pauses in conversation. Hell, I routinely have an NPC say something to me and over 5 seconds and sometimes even 10 seconds pass it finally gives me the list of dialogue options to choose from. Holo tapes have quite often had weird, long pauses between characters conversing with each other, although less so when you actually encounter them in conversation at least.
• The overall AI can be incredibly stupid. It seems to actually get better, even decent, if you encounter a sizable group of them or they are a decent level, so maybe it is just a matter of enemy difficulty. But way too often have enemies taken way longer to notice me than they should, or they notice me but take forever to actually respond. This has mostly been the case with the Scorched and Feral Ghouls, though. Robots have been much better about it, such as the tiny "MK [number] Liberator" machines that the Chinese government planted in the area Pre-War and that you sometimes enter combat with.
• It takes a good 5+ seconds, whenever you get out of a loading screen, for you to be able to actually move. The camera fades in, but you can't move until it completely fades back in. It gets very annoying. In 3 and NV, it was instantaneous (although maybe that wasn't the case when they first came out; I played them way after). In 4, it could be a little bit bothersome, but nothing too bad. For whatever reason, though, 76 is obnoxious about it.

There are some other things I can't remember at the moment, but there is a very noticeable lack of polish. Some might even call it "unfinished" but I don't think that it the right word here. Not now, at least. Sometimes "unfinished" and "lack of polish" can be the same thing, but I think in this case it is just the latter. And boy, is there a lot of polish that is needed.

But there are some things going for it that I can point out. As always with BGS games (even though this isn't the regular studio), there is a lot of interesting lore and exploration and the setting is appealing and a nice change from the kinds of places you usually see in video games set in the real world. I want to see more of what is out there. They got more creative with the enemy types they have in the game as well, and there are still plenty that I haven't encountered yet because I am still a pretty low level (e.g. the Mothman, Radtoads, Scorchbeasts).

I have over 200 hours in Fallout 76 now and I've definitely enjoyed it even with all the gripes I still have. I'll go into more detail later if I remember to, but here are some more quick hits.

1) I've tried Nuclear Winter and...it's actually really fun. I was hesitant at first to play it, but it's neat.

2) I have, not once, had a player try to grief me. There have been a couple annoyances where extremely high-level players have stupidly high-damaging builds that kill things in one or two shots for certain Events (basically quests that happen sporadically and can be done any time they spawn) leaving you unable to get XP for kills, but that has been extremely rare.

3) Let's talk about the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. perk card system a bit again. For the kind of game Fallout 76 is, I don't mind it. Any single special stat maxes out at 15. Temporary boosts from food, chems, drinks, etc. can increase the max to 20. But for the purposes of the perk cards, it is limited to whatever the stat number is. I maxed out Intelligence at 15, for example, and my perk cards equipped at any given time can only have a max value of 15.

There is sort of a similarity to ESO in that Level 50 is a major benchmark. Once you hit level 50, you can equip a Legendary perk card, which are special perks that you can only get past Level 50. I am at level 156/157 currently, so I got Legendary perk cards for levels 50, 75, 100, and 150. (I believe 200 and 300 are the last times I can get a Legendary perk card). Each legendary perk card can be leveled up 4 times with perk coins. Perk coins are earned by scrapping regular perk cards you already own, which are easy to obtain again when you level up. Speaking of, when you level up past 50, you get the option of either picking another perk card or switching a point from one S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stat to another.

And to reiterate, you can change out regular perk cards on the fly (NOT Legendary ones, though, as those are choices that you live with as soon as you make them). From a logic standpoint, it's kind of goofy. How do you magically unlearn and relearn a skill? But from a gameplay standpoint, this is very helpful. Have a bunch of perk cards to increase automatic rifle damage but you want to use a shotgun for some time? Switch out the cards for those that increase shotgun damage, spread, reload speed, etc.


One last thing: Automatic Tesla Rifle with quadruple ammo capacity, 25% faster reload speed, and [I forget what the other legendary perk is]? Magnificent. *chef's kiss* Initially I just named it Death Ray but then I came up with a better, more original name: Jazz Hands.

Cool, I am glad one of us is exploring 76. I went though a phase last year when I really wanted to try it (this was when I was involved with ESO) but Fallout is my second love compared to Elder Scrolls. Maybe one of these days...



Yes, from what I've read, stuff like this rarely happens nowadays. It's just like in the early days of a lot of games--some gamers don't know what the boundaries are, or something. After awhile, these sort of players move on, I guess.

Fallout 76 is currently on sale for a whopping 67% off.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1151340/Fallout_76/

I'm not sure what the Deluxe Edition is about, but the Steel Dawn update comes with the regular game already. Wastelanders and Steel Dawn were free updates. I assume the Deluxe Edition includes atoms and some in-game goodies. In any case, the regular edition is only $13.19. I think it will be worth it for you all to give it a try, as long as $13.19 isn't a big deal to spend for you (I don't want to make any assumptions about people's economic situations).

Hopefully, I'll see you all in game at some point. If you do, you log in with your Bethesda account (even if you aren't going through the Bethesda launcher). If you don't have one, it looks like it just generates a long, random series of letters and numbers when you make an account based on usernames I have seen elsewhere.


EDIT: The offer ends on February 15th. I'd even be willing to gift a copy to someone if they are on the fence about it. I hope I get to encounter another Chorrolite in Appalachia!

I started up a new guy in Appalachia over the weekend, so I figured I'd share my thoughts on the game thus far.

I played for a couple few hours over the weekend, but didn't get much further than the around The Wayward. C.A.M.P. feature is nice and I look forward to finding the perfect spot for a home.

They added some nice quality of life features, like scrapping all junk at any workbench. You can also create new, and repair existing armors and weapons at their respective benches. Repairing isn't dumb like in 3 or NV, though - you can use repair kits (haven't found one yet) or components from junk.

You can also find blueprints and recipes all over the place for crafting and cooking. NPCs are a welcome addition, too, as the last time I tried the game out was before the update that brought wastelanders. The world seems more alive now.

I'm digging the environment, too, because it's a nice break from everything being dead or a desert. I've found plenty of the great little details Bethesda worlds have and I'm looking forward to exploring the huge map!

Appalachia was active on Saturday evening. Three nukes went off in the span of 15 minutes, and one was close enough to Amos that he could see the lingering dust cloud from his location in Summersville. There must have been a number of teams out having fun.

Nukes and... Appalachia. I never thought hear a paragraph constructed, mentioning those two terms one after the other.

When the world was supposed to end due to the end of the Mayan calendar (December 2012), I had this crazy idea of driving off to Catoctin, where it seems nothing so horrible could hurt us there.

Well, to be fair....I don't think any nukes did go off in Appalachia. At least, not during the war (as far as I can tell anyway). The nukes in game are just a story mechanic. The blast zones produce high level irradiated monsters for group hunts.

If you listen to Old Gods of Appalachia, you know that Appalachia does not need radiation to spawn monsters from the unplumbed depths of Earth's worst nightmares.

This sounds like something my wife would love to listen to.

Well, I guess it was a short stint, but I'm checked out of 76. The last couple of times I booted up the 'ol machine, I just had no desire to keep playing it. I think MMO games just don't move the needle for me anymore. I hardly ever ran into other players, so it probably has to do more with MMO mechanics.


Ah, well

That is the question, I suppose. What happens to a multiplayer game if only one player shows up?

From my point of view, nothing. I play online games as though they were single-player games. I treat other players as though they were NPCs with unpredictable AI. In fact, I've been known to log onto test servers in order to play by myself.

I only play one multiplayer game (ESO) and, like Pseron, do so basically solo. I'm there for the mass and scale (which dwarfs Oblivion & Skyrim combined) and, fortunately, ESO is quite solo friendly. I'd imagine it really depends on how solo-friendly the multiplayer game is. . . .

I also play MMOs solo, although I do prefer regions, where there aren't a lot of other players around. That's why it pays off (for me) to play through DLCs way later after the release date, because a majority of players are busy in other regions / DLCs. As a result of not liking too many other players around, my least favorite zones / towns are those that are the most populated.

Is anyone still playing 76?