Forums » Fallout

• ShyGuyWolf

  

  • 404 posts
   

  December 2, 2015 1:40 PM EST

  She's Dead Jim - Leonard McCoy

  if you do a quest that has the BoS show up in the Railroad base.

• Borommakot

  

  • 1217 posts
   

  December 2, 2015 1:47 PM EST

  I'm not sure what you're replying to, bud.

• Paws

  

  • 1595 posts
   

  December 2, 2015 1:49 PM EST

  That's a shame. If I am to infer from Veloth's post that these two characters might affect my opinion about the Synth issue then I don't think it was a good idea to leave them tucked up somewhere for 20 hours of my game.

  Honestly, by the time I got to the Railroad's hq I was already a Minuteman (more bullshit "hey we just met but be our leader"and a member of the BoS well into their questline.

  I can't recall an instance in which the game forced me to confront the issue beyond it being a background plot element.

• Veloth the Prophet

  

  • 641 posts
   

  December 2, 2015 2:36 PM EST

  Phil have you not been to Diamond city?

• Paws

  

  • 1595 posts
   

  December 2, 2015 3:16 PM EST

  I had to go to Diamond City in my quest to find Shaun. Piper was agitating about the Synth subject and even wrote  a paper about it. I saw one guy shoot another guy out of paranoia then went looking for Nick who turned out to be a Synth PI with an agency in Diamond City.

  What I took from that is this is a place paranoid about synths yet happily coexists with one. So I got to thinking, maybe the problem is not that they're machines but rather people feel deceived if a synth doesn't declare himself. As long as it looks like a robot, like Nick, all's cool.

  Despite being both somewhat hypocritical and very understandable I didn't give it much more thought.

  I think this lies in how things are presented to the player. Despite the more emotional connection to the character the voice acting delivers, the game still operates under old Bethesda tropes where exploration takes precedent over story. Not normally a problem, this definitely creates a conflict of interest when the game relies on the player to explore in order to set up future plot elements.

  So the game somewhat holds my hand by introducing these factions at specific points but then releases it and says "go explore" and expects me to care when someone I just met with an agenda I have no vested interest in says "help us."

• Veloth the Prophet

  

  • 641 posts
   

  December 2, 2015 3:42 PM EST

  I'm not sure what the problem is here tbh. I mean you can start and meet the Railroad quest at the very beginning of the game.

• Overhate

  

  • 288 posts
   

  December 2, 2015 4:00 PM EST

  Minuteman and Institute. Thankfully, you can join and lead both without conflict.

  On my second run I'm trying the Railroad, though.

• Tae-Rai

  

  • 622 posts
   

  December 2, 2015 4:13 PM EST

  I just finished the Brotherhood of Steel questline and loved it. I agree with their goals, ideas and methods, even if...
  
  SPOILERS.
  
  ... If the leader wanted to kill Danse for being a Synth  Also, seeing LP was AMAZING. I am keen to try the Insitute questline next though and then the Minutemen 
  
  The Railroad though... Ugh, they are stupid.

• Paws

  

  • 1595 posts
   

  December 2, 2015 4:16 PM EST

  I'm not sure what the problem is here tbh. I mean you can start and meet the Railroad quest at the very beginning of the game.

  I have presented a problem. The game relies on you giving a crap to a certain extent.

  This is a continuation of the discussion you posed:

  So none of the characters or there stories like H2, Glory or Nick Valentine got you interested in the ethics or the Railroads cause? 

  I have answered the question. The problem may lie in the choices I made and the fact I didn't chose to meet the Railroad at the beginning of the game. Why would I? I did not know it was there. By the time I did the Synth moral issue had not been in my face enough to make me care.

• Paws

  

  • 1595 posts
   

  December 2, 2015 4:19 PM EST

  LP? Yes! Tell me, was it shouting anti-communist propaganda and hurling nukes left and right?

  Spoilers:

  Edit: Danse is a Synth?

• Tae-Rai

  

  • 622 posts
   

  December 2, 2015 4:21 PM EST

  Of course! I laughed so hard when I saw a Raider run at it, screaming, before the football nuke came crashing down on him 

• Veloth the Prophet

  

  • 641 posts
   

  December 2, 2015 4:26 PM EST

  I don't understand all this Railroad hate, it's pretty disappointing.

• Paws

  

  • 1595 posts
   

  December 2, 2015 4:27 PM EST

  Sweet! My next quest is called Liberty Reprimed but I have only one night left to enjoy Fallout before I have to go back to work. Have I got enough time to see LP in action or is there a huge build up and fetch missions first?

• Tae-Rai

  

  • 622 posts
   

  December 2, 2015 4:29 PM EST

  SPOILER-Y SPOILS
  
  No, you see him in action during the last few missions. And to the above spoiler edit I missed, he is. It's very hidden

• Overhate

  

  • 288 posts
   

  December 2, 2015 4:29 PM EST

  I just said I'm trying them on my second run

• Paws

  

  • 1595 posts
   

  December 2, 2015 4:33 PM EST

  I don't hate the railroad but just haven't been given a reason to care in my first play through. Narratively speaking my focus has been on finding Shaun because the set-up, acting and story made me care.

  I was interested in the BoS because of the events of F3 so siding with them was because they are the devils I know and am interested in. Maybe if you created a Faction Guide: The Railroad I will find something I missed in my rush to enjoy in my next play through?

• Chris

  

  • 1441 posts
   

  December 2, 2015 4:38 PM EST

  I KNEW he was a Synth. I had wondered why he had Synth parts on him when I killed him after siding with the Institute! 

• Karver the Lorc

  

  • 649 posts
   

  December 2, 2015 4:41 PM EST

  I agree with Phil. I don´t hate them. I just don´t give a crap about them (or Synth, or anything else) because the game didn´t make me care. And I´m really not that interested to start digging for "I want to care".

• Bryn

  

  • 1913 posts
   

  December 2, 2015 4:43 PM EST

  But the more you think about it, it does make sense.
• Paws

  

  • 1595 posts
   

  December 2, 2015 4:45 PM EST

  Damn. Thanks Tai, I'd hate to chase the LP quests only to run out of time and not be able to see it in action for four days - that'd be quite anticlimactic. Not sure how I feel about Danse, look forward to that revelation and how I react.

• Veloth the Prophet

  

  • 641 posts
   

  December 2, 2015 5:11 PM EST

  If that's the case then why care about any of the NPCs it's not like the synth's are this unknowable thing. 

• Bryn

  

  • 1913 posts
   

  December 2, 2015 5:54 PM EST

  A post I saw on Tumblr

  "The Actual Storytelling reason for Nick, Curie, and Danse:

  The three companions exist to drive forward the idea in your mind that synths are not simple machines. Though they go about it in different ways, all three characters attempt to humanize the synths in some way.

  Nick does this by being an important piece of finding your child and having all the answers along the way up until his “programming limitations”. This is a character used by writers to force you to hang around a synth, while the entire time he talks about human emotions and thoughts he had when he woke up.

  Curie takes you through the spectrum, starting as a pure machine and transitioning into as close to a human as possible while relaying to you everything she thinks and feels about the whole process. A writer uses this character to stealthily attempt to make you see yourself in someone or something that was entirely different from you when you met.

  Danse does this by making you fully believe he is flesh and blood human with a sudden realization that he is a synth coming as a surprise. This means you will have conflicted ideas and emotions at this stage, on one hand he’s the same friend you had before but on another he’s a machine, not a human as you’d believed.

  These characters serve an important purpose in investing you in the plight of the synths in the Commonwealth, and while some may still view them as soulless machines in the end, at the very least it made you think."

• Paws

  

  • 1595 posts
   

  December 2, 2015 6:06 PM EST

  See that's interesting because it works well as described but relies on the player having them as companions. Out of those three the only one I have had with me is Danse and he hasn't really opened up to me that much. I know a bit about his background in Rivett City but that's about it. So if the game wanted me to care, why lock that up with characters I haven't interacted with?

  Nick was very helpful and I had no issue with and liked him but my interactions were limited to the main story missions. I had Piper with me then and because not  lot of time passed between picking Piper up and getting Nick as a companion I didn't want to switch Piper that early - I had practically only just met her.

  So these characters acting as narrative devices works provided you actually want them with you. What about the lone wastelander or those of us who have had it up to here with companion AI? How do we get that aspect of the story? Characters as plot devices works for Mass Effect or Dragon Age because you have to have a party. For a game like Fallout where a companion is optional there needs to be another way of providing that context.

• Tae-Rai

  

  • 622 posts
   

  December 2, 2015 6:11 PM EST

  Because they are trying to liberate microwaves :p
• Bryn

  

  • 1913 posts
   

  December 2, 2015 6:17 PM EST

  You don't need companions in Mass Effect 2 if you glitch the game or in any of the Dragon Age games. And an easy way to get that aspect of the story is the beginning of the game, the fight with the brothers, how people were so paranoid about synths and hate them that much that brother will turn on brother at the drop of a hat. It then makes you wonder, would you be ok with a synthetic human coexisting with you? You haven't lived in the same world with them, so their fears are not your own, what is your opinion on the situation? Do you act in disgust that the person pulled a gun on his brother for fear of being synthetic? Do you think he was doing a good job and were happy only cause the guards think he's not a synth?

  Investment is really easy... You just have to try. Investment can't grab you, you have to allow yourself to be invested. When you say "The story hasn't given me a reason to be interested." Sue it has, you just didn't allow it nor thought much on it.

  (ramblings of a kid who's grandfather was big on character and studying humanity and all that jazz and taught his grandson what he knew)