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Fallout 4

Mosher

Mushroom dad
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This recently got released: http://www.thesurvivor2299.com/

A countdown, with morse code beeps.

It translates to

"ZL QRNE FVFGRE. V'Z URNQVAT GB GUR VAFGVGHGR. TBQ XABJF JUNG UNCCRARQ GB GUVF CYNPR ABJ. GUVF BYQ ONFGNEQ JVYY URYC HF. UR ZHFG URYC HF. —0321—"

which was decoded to

"MY DEAR SISTER. I'M HEADING TO THE INSTITUTE. GOD KNOWS WHAT HAPPENED TO THIS PLACE NOW. THIS OLD BASTARD WILL HELP US. HE MUST HELP US. —0321—"

I'm not sure what the countdown is counting down to right yet, but this article is a pretty good read.

The morse code on the Survivor 2299 site (which was registered by Zenimax, and is almost certainly counting down to the Spike VGA's reveal trailer for Fallout 4 edit: It seems I got the date of the Spike VGA's incorrect, so that isn't what it's counting down to.) has changed now from the date 11-12-13 (which is weird, because it's an American company making a game presumably set in America, yet they're using a non-American date format of DD-MM-YY), to a series of letters transmitted in Morse code.

"ZL QRNE FVFGRE. V'Z URNQVAT GB GUR VAFGVGHGR. TBQ XABJF JUNG UNCCRARQ GB GUVF CYNPR ABJ. GUVF BYQ ONFGNEQ JVYY URYC HF. UR ZHFG URYC HF. —0321—"
Once these letters were deciphered (using a Caesar cipher, apparently, I don't know if that's relevant) they translated to:

"MY DEAR SISTER. I'M HEADING TO THE INSTITUTE. GOD KNOWS WHAT HAPPENED TO THIS PLACE NOW. THIS OLD BASTARD WILL HELP US. HE MUST HELP US. —0321—"
THE INSTITUTE.

In case you don't remember, The Institute is a location which has been mentioned before within the Fallout series, both in Fallout: New Vegas, and Fallout 3 (where I suspect it was introduced specifically to follow up on this time around).

The Institute lies within the Commonwealth, which, pre-war, was known as Massachusetts. The Institute itself has been around since before the war, at which point is was know by the name "Massachusetts Institute of Technology." Robert House attended there in the Fallout lore, apparently.

The Commonwealth, from what we know of it so far, has been portrayed as one of the harshest areas in the world, even by Fallout standards. Irradiated, destroyed, ravaged by raiders and various factions vying for control, it's a brutal place. The one exception to this, however, is The Institute, which is under strict martial law, and which uses sentient, true A.I. androids as slave labor, but which is nonetheless safe for those who are able to get into it.

The Institute was mentioned in Fallout 3 during the quest "The Replicated Man," as a scientist from the Institute, Doctor Zimmer, and his bodyguard hired the Lone Wanderer to track down an escaped android for them. During this quest the Lone Wanderer encountered a member of another faction who had come from the Commonwealth, Victoria Watts. Watts was a member of "The Railroad," who, inspired by the real-life underground railroad, smuggled enslaved androids away from the controls of their masters, to safety.

So here's what we can gather so far. Survivor 2299, which is most likely Fallout 4, will almost certainly take place in the Commonwealth, among the wreckage of Boston and the surrounding areas, and will likely feature heavily both the Institute and the Railroad within its main storyline (if I had to guess you'll probably be able to choose which to side with, but that's my own inference, no more). The player character will also probably be referred to as "The Survivor," likely after "surviving" some sort of catastrophe during the game's prologue (I'm taking bets on whether the disaster will be set in a vault, my money is on "yes"), and the game will be set in 2299, 18 years after Fallout: New Vegas (which, itself, was set four years after Fallout 3).

Also of note is that it seems Three Dog will have found himself in the Commonwealth by the start of Fallout 4, as the actor confirmed almost a year ago that he's been doing voice acting for the new game.

So, Survivor 2299. ALL ABOARD THE HYPE TRAIN! CHOO-CHOO!

Edit: There was also a "leak" this past Spring where a supposed Bethesda employee let the internet know that Fallout 4 would be set in Boston... I hesitate to even mention it though, because the whole thing was super sketchy, and the smart money has been on Fallout 4 being set in Boston literally since The Commonwealth was introduced in Fallout 3.

http://observationdeck.io9.com/survivor-2299-aka-fallout-4-what-we-know-so-far-1469828076

IS ANYONE ELSE REALLY HYPE FOR THIS YET?
 
Very excited. The only upcoming AAA title I'm excited about, really.

I hope it is spawned more from New Vegas than vanilla or Skyrim.

I hope they implement a good hardcore mode. If they can't read the tea leaves and see that people really want gritty, challenging, immersive EotW games, then I don't know what to say.
 
I am so-so hyped, but I imagine it will be a great train ride.
 
I've already pre-purchased my hype-train tickets and everything.
 
I'll be getting the game no doubt but... hyped? Not really. I expect it to be much like Fallout 3, fun in the gameplay but horrible in the story department. Bethesda's writers have never been brilliant (even in Morrowind, one of my favorite games of all time, the writing was only okay) and they've really gone to crap in their last few games. Maybe I'll be wrong. Maybe Fallout 4 will be the most brilliant game ever released. But I doubt it. They'd have been better off licensing the game to Black Isle Obsidian again, New Vegas was buggy upon release (but so are all of Bethesda's games) but it felt a lot more like an RPG than Fallout 3 did and the writing was light years ahead of Bethesda's efforts. I'll be going into this one with high hopes (hope springs eternal) but realistic expectations, if it's better than "Fallout 3 in a new place" then I'll be pleasantly surprised.
 
I'd be hyped if they would have let Obsidian, again, do the job.
I'm more than dubious of Bethesda to do a proper job - though at least it should be gorgeous.
 
I'll be getting the game no doubt but... hyped? Not really. I expect it to be much like Fallout 3, fun in the gameplay but horrible in the story department. Bethesda's writers have never been brilliant (even in Morrowind, one of my favorite games of all time, the writing was only okay) and they've really gone to crap in their last few games. Maybe I'll be wrong. Maybe Fallout 4 will be the most brilliant game ever released. But I doubt it. They'd have been better off licensing the game to Black Isle Obsidian again, New Vegas was buggy upon release (but so are all of Bethesda's games) but it felt a lot more like an RPG than Fallout 3 did and the writing was light years ahead of Bethesda's efforts. I'll be going into this one with high hopes (hope springs eternal) but realistic expectations, if it's better than "Fallout 3 in a new place" then I'll be pleasantly surprised.

I've never felt like the main quest was all that important in any Bethesda game. It gave a general direction and an end goal that finishes the game once you're ready but I've never felt like that was the focus point. The side quests you pick up along the way and during your exploration is the bread and butter of the games and I've always enjoyed them immensely. It's certainly not an award winning novel but nobody expects it to be. :confused:
 
I've always thought for a game like TES or Fallout you don't need a great story you need great characters and settings. It's all about the world that one can experience. That's why Skyrim is so addicting is you literally can get lost inside Bethesda's universe.
 
I've always thought for a game like TES or Fallout you don't need a great story you need great characters and settings.

That's sort of how I feel too... Which is why I somehow like Fallout 3 slightly better than New Vegas I think. Slightly. New Vegas did everything better than Fallout 3 for me, except for the setting. I thought Fallout 3 felt more like a post apocalyptic world. I had no Dunwich Horror moment of being super far and by myself in FNV. Same with Skyrim in a way, it had a strong setting, but average story at best. I still think Morrowind was their best game simply because it had a strong, unique setting, and somehow managed to do story ok.
 
This is unlikely, but is there any possibility of having Obsidian's writers create a main storyline and quests, with Bethesda doing the setting and technical development?

It's possible sure. Bethesda owns the license, they could outsource any part of the development they wished. It might be a logistical nightmare coordinating the two teams but it could be done. It won't though, don't get your hopes up. Bethesda has no reason to consider that there is any problem with their games considering sales have done nothing but go up with each new game they released, so why on earth would they bother doing this?

A lot of people obviously feel that story is not as important to these games as other aspects, and that's fine, that's valid. I just wish Bethesda would stop calling their games RPG's though if that's the case, one of the few criteria that most people agree on as a "core element" of RPG's is that it has to be strongly story focused. Call it a first person adventure game and I have no more complaints. Personally I agree that Bethesda games don't HAVE to be strongly story focused, focusing on exploration and setting alone can and has paid huge dividends. I've sunk as many hours into Skyrim and Fallout 3 as the next guy, they are fun games. They are just bad RPG's because they do story so poorly.
 
Role -- You choose the type of character you want to be.
Playing -- You must be able to play it yourself.
Game -- It must be a game.

Seems like it fits the definition rather well, but if we are going down the criteria you've specified, the games still have excellent stories. There have been quite a few side quests throughout both Elder Scrolls and Fallout that were fantastic and the worlds they're set in have pieces of lore strewn about that you can find and read if you are so inclined. Sure, you don't have to read an 80 page lore dictionary to know what's going on, but there's still a ton of stuff in all these games that even someone who has a hard-on for in-depth story would not typically notice or find their first playthrough because there is so much content and little connections around the world that you simply cannot grasp the first time.
 
For me RPGs are all about immersion. Good immersion is produced by a variety of factors, but the one that is most often botched is choice. Skyrim and F3 both had choices, but they felt a bit more contrived. Many poorer RPGs are slammed for having virtually no choice (being "on rails" is the most common term I hear for it). Contrived choices lead to poor immersion, and if I'm not immersed, I stop caring pretty quick.

New Vegas did a much better job on this front. I got into my characters, and generally felt interested in seeing how things turned out when I traveled down my chosen path, plus I was interested in replaying the game with a different path.
 
Role -- You choose the type of character you want to be.
Playing -- You must be able to play it yourself.
Game -- It must be a game.

No, sorry, this definition doesn't cut it. By this definition almost every game released nowadays is an RPG. You've got to narrow it down a lot more than this in order for the label to have any meaning.

Seems like it fits the definition rather well, but if we are going down the criteria you've specified, the games still have excellent stories. There have been quite a few side quests throughout both Elder Scrolls and Fallout that were fantastic and the worlds they're set in have pieces of lore strewn about that you can find and read if you are so inclined. Sure, you don't have to read an 80 page lore dictionary to know what's going on, but there's still a ton of stuff in all these games that even someone who has a hard-on for in-depth story would not typically notice or find their first playthrough because there is so much content and little connections around the world that you simply cannot grasp the first time.

Of course there are bits and pieces of it that are good. They generally put a lot of effort into the Daedric quests in Skyrim, for example. Most of the ones I've done were great. But you can cherry pick well written parts out of almost every RPG, that doesn't mean every RPG is great. The main quests of both games are average at best (Skyrim) and completely horrible at worst (Fallout 3). The worlds are of course fantastic, but let's not forget that Bethesda created the ES world ages ago when they could still afford to devote lots of resources to writing, and Fallout's world wasn't created by them at all.

As for the lore, sure, they add to it every game, but one of these days feel free to go to the UESP page and check out the in-game books that were wr
 
This is going to be good.

edit: There was, IIRC, something a while back when Bethesda employees were spotted at the MIT campus. It was pure rumor, and seemed not entirely legit, but it adds some credibility to Boston.
 
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