Fallout 4 Analysis Part 2 - An Unsatisfying Ending

[@Creetosis]

Timecodes for Major Points in the video: 0:00:00 Start of Video 0:00:25 Part Four: Four Paths to Nowhere 0:01:10 The Minutemen 0:18:31 The Institute 0:26:13 The Case of Three Synths 0:32:22 The Institute (continued) 1:35:49 The Railroad 1:53:43 The Brotherhood of Steel 2:43:18 Part Five: A Miserable End to a Miserable Game 3:08:12 Part Six: A Comparison in Convtrivances and Convenience 3:37:14 Nick Valentine and his Dumb Side Quest 3:55:00 Part Seven: Plot Holes, Retcons and the Destruction of Fallout's Lore 4:03:44 Kid In A Fridge 4:30:08 Part Eight: Sidelined Side Factions 4:30:25 The Gunners 4:32:34 The Triggermen 4:38:06 Raiders 4:40:59 Super Mutants 4:50:43 The Children of Atom 4:53:36 Part Nine: Emil Pagliarulo and Story Writing 5:59:41 Conclusion

[@Creetosis]

Music Used Timecodes: 0:00:00 -- My Chrysalis Highwayman -- Fallout 2 0:01:11 -- Seasons Turn -- RimWorld 0:05:27 -- Blackrock & Roll -- Warcraft III 0:09:41 -- Forbidden Land -- Legend of Dragoon 0:12:48 -- That's a Big Stick -- Hylics 2 0:18:33 -- Troublesome Guys -- Mother 3 0:23:37 -- Technology -- Breath of Fire III 0:25:46 -- Dining Hall Jazz -- Void Bastards 0:27:13 -- Hi Hi Hi -- Earthbound 0:34:20 -- Forbidden Land Battle -- Legend of Dragoon 0:39:27 -- Metal Crusher -- Undertale 0:40:35 -- Milkyway Battle -- FTL: Faster Than Light 0:43:15 -- My Favourite Trick -- Breath of Fire III 0:47:59 -- Forest of Flames -- Mother 3 0:51:58 -- Pokemon Mansion -- Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow 0:53:14 -- Bonetrousle -- Undertale 0:58:32 -- Boss 1 -- Terraria 1:00:49 -- Raven's Descent -- Stardew Valley 1:03:38 -- Blight -- Warcraft III 1:08:32 -- Murasaki Forest -- Mother 3 1:13:05 -- What Gravity -- RimWorld 1:17:21 -- That Old House/Odoro -- Breath of Fire III 1:25:02 -- Black Castle/Vellweb -- Legend of Dragoon 1:28:48 -- Hard Rain -- Mother 3 1:35:50 -- Riding Out -- RimWorld 1:40:55 -- Zoltan Battle -- FTL: Faster Than Light 1:44:58 -- Dance of Swords -- Morrowind 1:47:11 -- Those Awful Ravenous Rainbows -- Slime Rancher 1:49:40 -- Orc 4 -- Warcraft II 1:53:43 -- Piggy Guys -- Mother 3 1:58:41 -- Colonial Battle -- FTL: Faster Than Light 2:02:23 -- Last Man Standing -- Breath of Fire III 2:04:09 -- Metallic Monks -- Fallout 2:06:58 -- Team Plasma Battle -- Pokemon Black/White 2:13:27 -- Carrion Waves -- Warcraft III 2:22:04 -- Porky's Porkies -- Mother 3 2:37:05 -- Human 2 -- Warcraft II 2:40:33 -- World Map Theme 1 -- Legend of Dragoon 2:44:04 -- Dragon Asymmetry -- Breath of Fire III 2:50:42 -- Rockmen Explore -- FTL: Faster Than Light 2:55:09 -- Unfounded Revenge -- Mother 3 3:03:32 -- Turning Point -- Breath of Fire III 3:05:48 -- Wasteland Explore -- FTL: Faster Than Light 3:08:52 -- Acolytes of a New God -- Fallout 3:14:01 -- World of the Strong -- Dragon Warrior VII 3:18:53 -- More Dangerous Guys -- Mother 3 3:22:48 -- Alpaca -- RimWorld 3:26:48 -- Team Rocket Hideout -- Pokemon Red/Blue/ Yellow 3:29:17 -- Human 3 -- Warcraft II 3:32:52 -- Wingly Forest -- Legend of Dragoon 3:38:03 -- Intense Guys -- Mother 3 3:44:15 -- Donden -- Breath of Fire III 3:55:04 -- Moving On -- RimWorld 4:04:37 -- Mansion Basement -- Resident Evil Director's Cut 4:06:09 -- Boss Battle 1 -- Legend of Dragoon 4:10:27 -- Boss 2 -- Terraria 4:13:06 -- Engi Battle -- FTL: Faster Than Light 4:15:53 -- Rough Trail -- RimWorld 4:20:17 -- Doomhammer's Legacy -- Warcraft III 4:25:30 -- City of the Dead -- Fallout 4:30:12 -- The Lava Dwellers -- Stardew Valley 4:31:59 -- Battle 1 -- Final Fantasy IX 4:34:33 -- To a Distant Place -- Breath of Fire III 4:37:17 -- Khans of New California -- Fallout 4:40:26 -- Boss Battle 2 -- Legend of Dragoon 4:44:12 -- The Barrens (Day) -- World of Warcraft 4:47:16 -- Drumbeat of the Dunmer -- Morrowind 4:49:19 -- Moder Battle -- Valheim 4:51:34 -- Cargo Brawl -- Void Bastards 4:55:54 -- Boss Battle Theme -- Final Fantasy IX 4:57:51 -- Biggest Little City in the World -- Fallout 2 5:01:04 -- Chaos Bringer -- RimWorld 5:06:26 -- Boss Battle 3 -- Legend of Dragoon 5:12:01 -- Lost Ship Battle -- FTL: Faster Than Light 5:14:48 -- Intense Guys -- Mother 3 5:16:31 -- Main Menu Music -- Fallout 3 5:18:37 -- Butchered Scarlets -- World of Warcraft 5:21:25 -- Ice Shaman -- RimWorld 5:26:24 -- Mutant Massacre -- Fallout: New Vegas 5:31:29 -- Wasteful Anthem -- Mother 3 5:36:40 -- Valley of Corrupted Gravity/Home of Giganto -- Legend of Dragoon 5:42:29 -- Black Mage Village -- Final Fantasy IX 5:47:40 -- Battle Theme -- Dragon Warrior XII 5:54:33 -- Rejects Unite -- Warhammer 40,000: Darktide 5:59:51 -- Military Precision -- Half-Life 6:01:11 -- Lloyd's Theme -- Legend of Dragoon 6:04:01 -- Fancy Meat Computer -- Hylics 2 6:09:04 -- Tribal Assembly -- RimWorld

[@makimakipapura7543]

Thank you.

[@Rietto]

I wish I could give an extra Like for your objectively correct opinion on NuTrek, as well. ;P

[@EATHER2468]

When seeing this story I thought Sean wanted to half hearted destroy the institute out of revenge and spite. But it was just lazy writing. Like most of current entertainment.

[@EATHER2468]

Can't wait until they add time travel in fallout 5

[@BrettCaton]

Father: I am dying of a disease which is incurable at this time. If only there existed some sort of cryogenic storage, I could be revived at a later time and cured, but, alas, such technology has never been invented and not even our superscientists could invent such a thing. Player: Wut?

[@Creetosis]

lmao, never even considered that

[@Brandelwyn]

Lmao

[@Maverick-7508]

There is also the fact that for the timeline of the game there is a cure that has been known to scientists for over 340 years since it was discovered in WW2 that can literally starve cancer cells to death.

[@kyosokutai]

Father: "If only we had some way to scan my brain to create a immortal synth'thetic body to continue my legacy after I am gone. Alas."

[@atrixtussand2369]

@@kyosokutaimy thoughts exactly.

[@bjobs316]

Watching this video I got the real Bethesda's genius. The Institute is a clear satire to all fallout players who ever created a playable character with 1 intelligence and 100+ science. That's the only reason the Institute is what they are.

[@vizzy61]

oh wow. you're right. i can't believe i didn't realize this before

[@Death2all546]

I thought it was a satire of people who thought the Legion/Enclave had a point and were just doing bad things for the greater good (rather than just being super evil factions with their own opinions on how to properly run things).

[@pcraft8785]

​@Death2all546 legion is based. Hail Caesar!

[@ZorotheGallade]

SHAUN IS SCIENTISTIC

[@danielsurvivor1372]

To be most good faith to Bugthesda, maybe they were trying to make a critique of type of scientists who do science just because without asking moral questions, those exist irl(Fauci, etc) but it doesn't justify Institute being one note boring faction

[@daedriccheddar]

The Institute, one of the most scientifically important places on Earth. They could be curing cancer, but instead they're making robot gorillas.

[@gatordragon6140]

Dumb question because I know they probably don't have an answer but do they ever explain why they wasted resources and electricity on making and storing the synth gorillas?

[@DJWeapon8]

​@@gatordragon6140something along the lines of "is complex you no know"

[@bjobs316]

It wouldn't even be so bad if they gave you other quests about scientific research. Instead you can only help them with the pumpkins at Warwick family and that's all. Literally there is no other activity who show other projects whose purpose is not killing innocent wastelanders.

[@karlkoskie2891]

Technically they did cure cancer FEV cures cancer The institute made a cure for FEV

[@samwellcheck562]

How do you know the robot gorillas aren't the ones curing cancer? Going by their performance in various tests when compared to humans, a gorillas has an IQ somewhere around 30-40, which has to be at least one standard deviation above the average Institute researcher given their actions in-universe. Complete tangent, but don't believe the hogwash about Koko the gorilla having an IQ between 75-95, Koko was a propaganda piece for some hack activist who wanted to pretend apes were people and all the "research" about her (including the notion that she even understood sign language) should be disregarded.

[@gs8737]

The scenario of killing Maxson subsequently resulting in the playable character becoming leader of the Brotherhood of Steel should NEVER have even been considered at all despite eventually being scrapped. That suggests that the BOS operated under the ethos of "might is right" and whoever can take the crown by force shall be king as if they were nothing but a savage and barbaric group of primitive raiders impressed by nothing but combat prowess. There is no way that in any of the previous games that killing an elder or the active leader would have resulted in anything other than the remaining BOS members immediately seeking your death because you would have been perceived as a clear threat to their organization and goals regardless of how any member felt about their former leaders decisions and especially because you were either an outsider or still relatively new as a member. Emil seemed particularly disappointed when he spoke about having to move on from that possibility too. I'm not sure whether to tragically laugh or sigh in desperation.

[@JohnnyJohnnyGalt]

Good point! In fact, New Vegas has an entire side quest around how changes in leadership work in the Brotherhood. Spoiler: it isn't by murdering your way up.

[@derpro8125]

It would also make Todd Howard uncomfortable. I could imagine the nightmares Todd has of Emil killing him in an epic way with an americana theme to it and taking over Bethesda as a result.

[@suckassmork2972]

Look at me Todd, I'm the captain now!

[@lpfan4491]

@@suckassmork2972 "It just works, indeed."

[@jeremytitus9519]

@@derpro8125perhaps that’s why Todd keeps Emil around. He’s afraid of what would happen if he didn’t.

[@Soapy-chan]

"The theme is suspicion" Yeah, I have the suspicion that this is not the theme and this dude is a hack

[@lakshaykochhar6799]

SUS

[@ThomasTheLuckyGamer]

Isn't paranoia more accurate?

[@Soapy-chan]

@@ThomasTheLuckyGamer no, I'm not paranoid

[@Hengebobs]

I... I'm gonna go with Emil doesn't know what the word "theme" means, and thinks its along the lines of "this thought I randomly had afterwards that I think sounds cool" not, you know, an underlining meaning present throughout the story or anything...

[@shawandrew]

I'd say that the theme is frustration. Frustration of not getting amy real chices. Frustration at not being able to ask anyone in the institute to consider not doing anything the dumbest way possible. Frustration that I said no to a quest and I'm given it anyway.

[@austinsultenfuss7661]

It’s actually pretty funny how dismissive Preston is of the player character. Straight up is like” man that stinks…..anyways I could use your help with a settlement.”

[@TheBreakingBenny]

All living creatures of planet Earth, and anyone outside our galaxy, (will if they don't already) know that Preston's settlement is the one in his ass.

[@Whazzupie]

It's the design flaw with the limited dialogue designed for a controller, 4 facing buttons, two of them by default need to be 'no' and 'yes', which leaves them irritatingly short in actual flexibility, because it's designed to have no flexibility. The outcome for most dialogue is already pre-determined (because of course, but follow me here), so they boil down to 'yes, maybe (sarcastic), inquisitive yes, no (but often still a yes)' . They downgraded not just dialogue but some core systems in pretty much every single way to make Fallout 4 more accessible to a general audience, but in doing so also 'dumbed down' most aspects to simple interactions with far less nuance. Arguably most of the debates have to reference back to previous games, because the motivations in this game are detached. You no longer play a blank slate with a vague end-goal objective you need to fulfill and can fill in the gaps to get there, you play a pre-determined character with their own voice and story where you are told how to feel because the story is designed so. The only way it flows in an actual pace is if you take it seriously, which most people don't because you're propped up to care about family (again) that you've hardly ever interacted with, that garbage trope. One of which immediately dies and the other you have only actually interacted with ONCE before being thrown into the post-apocalypse, because they non-sensically both want the player to care but they also B-lined getting into the open world because they *know* that's what people are eager to get to. Their own priorities are skewed :Y

[@grayman4951]

@@Whazzupie I never got the impression the 4-way dialogue system was designed specifically for console controllers, given that both of Bethesda's relevant previous titles, Fallout 3 and Skyrim, had listed dialogue options. My impression was that the reasoning behind it was as superfluous as; "the system is based around 4 dialogue options because it's Fallout 4". Given that a lot of other game design choices they've been making for these games seems to be based on nothing more than immediate player gratification and surface-level "wow cool" symbolism and aesthetics.

[@thebreadbringer]

@@Whazzupie I don't see any reason why a controller should be limited to 4 options. The other games worked perfectly fine with controllers.

[@DJWeapon8]

​@@thebreadbringerit isn't. Its just lousy bethesda™ design. They wanted to copy Mass Effect because it was "hip and cool" at the time. Meanwhile, RPGs have been using a "List" style dialogue system for years and have worked perfectly fine. Needing only 3 buttons on a controller (Up and Down D-pad Buttons, Confirm Button) to work but is able to provide nearly infinite options to the player if the developers and writers decide to do so.

[@kyosokutai]

Also the reason the K.I.S.S principle sounds out of place is because it's a *MECHANICAL* *ENGINEERING* principle, not a *CREATIVE* *WRITING* one.

[@bunnylovingbastard]

Yup and as an engineering turn of phrase it makes alot of sense because in a machine the more complex it is, the more points of breakage you have so a machine that achieves it's goal whilst remaining as simple as possible is the key but additionally it is required to actually fulfill the goal - which arguably the Fallout 4 story writing doesn't

[@michaelmiradezandband]

It's honestly not a bad principle to follow the vast majority of the time. The simplest solution is often the best, even in creative writing. Complicated and good are not synonyms, nor are simple and bad. The way Emil applies it, ironically, is completely wrong. I also love that he's like, I try to stick with one or two central themes... Fallout 4 has a lot of themes. It's about androids that look like people and 1950s Americana... truly on another level. And suspicion, which we didn't realize until much later. Meanwhile, suspicion is not even remotely a theme in Fallout 4. Clearly, Emil liked Bladerunner without even remotely understanding it.

[@saintjerome3298]

The reason Pete Hines had to label Creation Club content as "Mini DLC" was to avoid it falling under the classification of regular DLC as it should have been free to people that bought the Season Pass. Multiple lawsuits were filed.

[@Creetosis]

I know. Its still stupid as fuck and shows how disingenuous they are.

[@Shadethewolfy]

Is that how you spell The Mouth of Sauron's last name? I always spelled it "Heinz" in my head.

[@MediumRareOpinions]

​​@@Shadethewolfy_My master Todd the great bids thee to buy Skyrim once again_

[@ToxicPickle424]

Watching this in a post-Starfield world is something special.

[@brotbrotsen1100]

It was hard to belive that it could get any worse huh? With starfield they couldnt leech off of the good aspects of former stories , the result is a complete mess showing how incapable this whole studio really is.

[@succurro]

I feel like this was the logical conclusion of all of Bethesda's decisions over the past two decades since Morrowind. Keep it simple, stupid.

[@jeremytitus9519]

@@brotbrotsen1100isn’t it beautiful?

[@badunius_code]

2:03:50 "My husband was in the military" "With your experience you might actually fit in with the brotherhood" Which experience? Being plowed by a military man?

[@suomynona4420]

Well, they do need something to do after battle.

[@SvendleBerries]

@@suomynona4420 "Report to the Prydwen as soon as possible. We'll bang, okay?"

[@The_Carmine]

it's called "experience transfer".

[@TheBreakingBenny]

@@The_Carmine Here's a joke: Nate magically became female and Nora always dies. Good jerb Bethesda

[@MLPDethDealr32]

THere was cut content to suggest Nora was also in the Army. Found a mod that restores it.

[@scienceviking4490]

In a realistic setting the Gunners would be operating as basically a protection racket. If you pay them tribute, they'll protect you from raiders, Super Mutants, etc, but if you refuse, they'll go to your settlement, take everything they want, and burn everything else. This could have made for some interesting conflict if you have the opportunity to wipe out the Gunners, but doing so will cause some smaller settlements to be wiped out by Mutants or raiders, because those settlements needed the Gunners' protection. They could even have contrasted the Gunners with the Minutemen, where the Gunners demand a lot, but they _can_ protect you, while the Minutemen don't demand much, or any, tribute, but they're a lot less effective at protecting people.

[@logangustavson]

Wow. That seemingly small change would have such huge gameplay impact

[@sirdogith3783]

It always bothered me that Bethesda makes these small military factions, and does nothing with them. Talon Company? Raiders with more armor and higher damage Regulators? Raiders with higher damage and more health Gunners? Talon Company but without the black armor Why make these factions with a distinctive aesthetic and established territory and do absolutely NOTHING with them??

[@Whodjathink]

@@sirdogith3783 Because thinking of interesting backstories is haaaaard. KISS as the great Emil always says 🙏 But in all seriousness, I agree, the fact that they have these factions that serve as nothing more but more badguys to shoot (exception to Regulators, they're actually "good.") is insane. They don't even have any real motivations outside of the surface level writing bethesda gives us

[@redomer91]

The Gunners are legit underdeveloped and under used. I could see them being useful for interesting quests for all three main quest paths, spicing both the main quest up and giving the gunners more substance than flavored raider. I hope at some point someone will do a total conversion mod for Fallout 4 at some point that revamps the game into a better version of itself.

[@LevattWolfheart]

In addition, what you said provides a reason the gunners would target the minutemen. Free militia is competing with a paid merchant group running a protection racket.

[@MaytayMaya]

Fun fact about Synths: Someone on the original Fallout team suggested something in a similar vein to Synths to Tim Cain who declined the idea because "It doesn't fit into the setting of Fallout." To the point where he put a "No Humanoid or Terminator like robots" rule into making the first Fallout. So there, even Emil doesn't know how to write the 1950's Americania "Theme" or even understand why Fallouts retrofutureistic future works so well.

[@Sattylites]

The funny part is, it totally could work... if written well...

[@mushyroom9569]

It’s almost poetic. In the same way Synths exist as a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to be human, so to does Bethesda’s fallout exist as a pale imitation of the original RPG.

[@istrumguitars]

The fallout 3 quest around synths was good because it was mysterious. Then we learned all about them in 4 and it just got cartoonish. Emil Pagliarulo should be fired.

[@Varangian_af_Scaniae]

@@Sattylites No Synths have no place in a universe where everything electronic is based around vacuum tubes. Synths is for BGS new fantastic Boringfield

[@AlexZebol]

@@Varangian_af_Scaniae not entirely true. Complex machinery including most advanced cybernetics been a part of series ever since Fallout 1. Think of Lieutenant.

[@DrainoMyBraino]

Man the Father twist was pathetic. When you examine baby Shaun at the beginning of the game you character’ll say something like “I wonder what you’ll be when you grow up.” and I knew what the twist was right there. Emil just couldn’t keep it in his pants.

[@catboyrepublican2520]

It's funny how they just didn't think players would pick up on being *RE*-frozen. Like for the entire first half of the game I was wondering why your character is forced to assume Shaun is still a kid, then I realized it was just to desperately hide the obvious twist. Or when they try to trick you with robot Shaun, I remember I got so fucking frustrated that it's obviously a synth but they give you no options to call it what it is.

[@sjfs231]

@@catboyrepublican2520 yeah, my first thought when my PC mentioned Shaun after being thawed was that he probably wasn't a baby anymore

[@vaultboya6253]

Bro, literally. The first thing I said to my roommate when we fired up fallout 4 when it came out was "I'm gonna join what ever faction Shaun is leading for the first play through." after the intro lmao

[@Passageofsky]

LOL, I noticed that too.

[@Shadethewolfy]

"Skyrim is more biblical than any of the stories we've done" Morrowind had you playing as the prophesied reincarnation of a Messianic figure in Dunmeri Ashlander culture who had made promises to denounce the False Gods of the Tribunal and return the rightful ownership of Morrowind back to the Dunmer by driving out the Empire. You literally play as a religion's Christ figure. Emil, what the fuck are you smoking?

[@dmas7749]

man has not achieved chim

[@CoffeeForAll]

The argument that internal consistency shouldn’t be relevant because it’s fiction, is one that many people have used once they aren’t able to provide an argument to defend their position.

[@ZorotheGallade]

"It has flying dragons and talking cats, you don't get to question the talking dog"

[@isaacmayer-splain8974]

​@@ZorotheGalladethat's actually a relatively sane logical extrapolation. There's cats that can speak? There's probably also a talking dog.

[@Slender_Man_186]

@@ZorotheGallade I mean, that one is pretty reasonable, especially considering the dog in question, Barbus, is the pet of a Daedric lord.

[@ZorotheGallade]

@@Slender_Man_186 Yeah, but he phrases it as if you should never be surprised at a dog talking period. It's as if Meridia's Beacon told you "Yeah this is Skyrim, there are talking cats and zombies, you don't get to question why a Daedric Lord's voice is coming out of a gem you picked up in a random ass chest"

[@blank2556]

​@@Slender_Man_186 and Barbus isn't a dog. It's some sort of shapeshifting Daedra.

[@sirdogith3783]

I think it's hilarious that all Preston needed to say is something along the lines of "We don't have the resources for this teleportor. Help me build the minuteman back up and I'll help you as soon as we're able," and it would be more exusable. Currently he sounds completely unreasonable

[@Xpwnxage]

If my supposed subordinate was standing between me and rescuing my child, well, he wouldn't be in the way very long.

[@sirdogith3783]

@@Xpwnxage I still honestly think there should have been an option for the Sole Survivor should have had a solo option. With Automatron and even Nuka World, we were given the chance to have other people that aren't the main factions take us there. Seriously, you get us to build an army of robots and not one of them can build the teleporter?

[@Maverick-7508]

@@sirdogith3783 would have been nice to have an option to have the Mechanist help build the teleporter after you talk them down.

[@Mangaka-ml6xo]

@@Maverick-7508 You crazy?! Would have required efforts and working!

[@Kevin-jb2pv]

Honestly, I had to double-take when this video played his lines, because that is 100% what I _remembered_ him saying, but he didn't. My brain must have just thought that this explanation was so obviously what the game would do to justify making you play out the whole Minutemen path before letting you make progress toward helping your child that it just went and filled that little detail in without me even noticing. I think that a lot of recent Bethesda defenders suffer from this same affliction.

[@Calbeck]

It seems to me that Emil's idea of writing for videogames is "emotional payoffs, no matter what". These don't require deep setups, because they're more like comedy standup jokes. Situation, delivery, punchline, get the laugh/sigh/groan/whatever and move it along to the next gag. Player agency, changing the world, writing complex characters? To Emil, that's like stopping to explain the joke. It might also help explain why so many people think Fallout 4 is a "really good" game but can't articulate very well why. Instead, they often devolve to emotional arguments, because they're defending an emotional investment. Tagging along with Nick Valentine made them feel good: he's quippy, has a great voice and a sense of humor. The story about Nick's old girlfriend gives us a sad, and his developing acceptance of NOT really being the original Nick makes us feel he's something of a tragic character... none of which requires Nick to really have much of any impact on the story as a whole. And ALL of the companions are like that... ultimately disposable, not actually necessary to the story, but with their own stories and personalities you the player are pushed to bond with. For example, it is entirely possible to enter Fort Hagen via the rooftop hatch, but the elevator down will be boarded up, preventing you from confronting Kellogg until you meet Nick. But the entire point of meeting Nick is to hire him to help you find Kellogg, a job he actually hands off to Dogmeat, who doesn't find the roof access at all. On the face of it, there's no reason either of them need to even be with you, except the game won't allow you to remove some boards in order to use an elevator. Ironically enough, the door Dogmeat DOES find is more heavily blockaded and boarded up than the impassable elevator. So, you are required to spend time with at least one companion plus Dogmeat tracking down Kellogg to Fort Hagen so you can experience some companion dialogue and get those emotional bonds going. With this style of writing, worldbuilding is easy: you don't have to pay attention to any old lore or even much of what you've written yourself, except where it's valuable for pulling on heartstrings. Sure, the end result is a mess, but it's a SAPPY, EMOTIONAL mess, and if you can get enough players to invest themselves emotionally, common sense can be shoved off the bus. Your boss will still make bank at the end of the day, you'll keep your job and move on to other projects, and that's a recipe for a successful career. Which is what Emil makes clear in every talk he has on the subject. So far as he's concerned, it's silly to expect a good story in a videogame, because that's not what he's paid for.

[@AbstractTraitorHero]

So your saying this is genuinely the fault of capitalism in part here?

[@Mirthful_Midori]

Same thing happens with the super mutant that somehow stayed smart and fled the institute. If you go to his cave any time prior to when you're supposed to, he simply won't be there. He doesn't exist until the story needs him to. Emil loves to railroad the player down a preset path and that's been the case going all the way back to the "dead drops" portion of the Dark Brotherhood quest in Oblivion, and it is the worst quest line in that game because of it.

[@AbstractTraitorHero]

@@Calbeck I don't think you understand what I was saying that the profit motive in this case, doing what's easier because they believe it will make them more money. Is blatantly a result of capitalism & the capitalist society we live in. While I am a marxist, I did not intend to mean this in like a demeaning or perjorative way. But rather as a genuine comment that in my eyes this kind of seems to be a result of the economic system we live in. And of course games being mainly products rather then any kind of genuine art to most game publishers.

[@maestrofeli4259]

a chain would have been much better

[@SvendleBerries]

@@AbstractTraitorHero - *"doing what's easier because they believe it will make them more money Is blatantly a result of capitalism & the capitalist society we live in."* Not much different from Marxist/Communist societies, where going the easy route is best because theres no reason to work harder or do better since nobody is rewarded for it. In my experience, with most modern mainstream entertainment writing, many writers are open Marxists/Communists (especially in Hollywood). Just because they use the Capitalist system doesnt make their Marxist writing any less Marxist. Thats not Capitalisms fault, as they chose to do what they did according to their ideology. And the only reason why they think they will make more money doing it is because of the ideological bubble they all live in where they all agree with eachother and falsely believe thats how everybody thinks. Or _should_ think. Besides, indie games are basically where most people go now for games, as they often have more work and care put into them. Thats Capitalism; people being able to make their own things that other people can freely choose to buy and support. You dont get that under Marxism/Communism, because the "approved" brands are the only ones allowed to make things, which oddly enough is something major corporations and our government work together on to gatekeep certain things. "For our own good", of course.

[@chavezchavo]

Emil saying that the studio doesn't have a lot of documentation.... That was really infuriating. THERE WAS LITERALLY THE FALLOUT BIBLE! Heck, even if you decide not to use it, Fallout 1&2 both had more than enough lore and information to refer to when it comes to canon and other details.

[@c-puff]

There is literally a Fallout wiki if they don't have anything else 😭

[@happynihilist2573]

The 'kid in a fridge' is the perfect example of how far Fallout has fallen It really shows the fact the writers fail to understand the basic difference between a 'few days after the apocalypse' and *200 F%KING YEARS!* It really shows a lack of basics though and care for the setting

[@SpadeDraco]

Alot of people think that Fallout 3 was meant to be set earlier (20-30 years post war) But Fallout 4 has me convinced that they just have no fucking clue how long 200 years really is. The United States IRL went from colonial backwater to continent spanning world superpower in a little over 200 years. Why the hell is everywhere in a Bethesda Fallout still a raider filled shithole with no sign of civilization or society?

[@TheTurt]

Technically it is stated during the quest that ghouls don’t need to eat or drink, so Billy’s survival isn’t too far fetched (Though you’d think being isolated in a fridge for 200 years should have some negative effects on the body and mind. I sorta just headcannon that Billy went into some sort of hibernation and the Sole Survivors mucking about woke him… and his parents were just too lazy to walk a mile)

[@SpadeDraco]

@@TheTurt Ghouls are established to need to eat not just in literally every other game in the franchise but also in other parts of Fallout 4. There's literally a Brotherhood quest where an initiate is secretly feeding ferals. The random Gunner running up and saying "Durr ghouls no eat" actually makes things worse.

[@DJWeapon8]

@@SpadeDraco I've had 2 settlements where it was almost exclusively populated by ghouls and the game tells me to plant crops because *the ghouls need to eat.*

[@TheTurt]

@@SpadeDraco It's actually still very debated on whether or not Ghouls need to eat or not. Even in previous games like New Vegas you can still find evidence of Ghouls not requiring food. First thought goes to Dean Domino and Yangtze survivors who had no access to food. But then there is also Harland who claims to need sustenance? Some theories go into stating that Ghouls can "feed" off radiation which would make sense for ghouls to need eating if they are eating irradiated food. I don't know. It's such a giant rabbit hole that changes multiple times even in the same game.

[@FaeQueenCory]

Bethesda 100% made each rival faction nuke the Institute because they wanted the verbal symmetry of the final quests being "Nuclear Option" and "Nuclear Family". That's all.

[@the25thprime]

It’ll be the antithesis!1!1! - sick on nv hype & snortin smarties

[@thisisforprivate]

Tbh I always think of it as just being an excuse for “war never changes”

[@Passageofsky]

Yes, that was posdibly the same reason Sean is self titled as Father of The Synths... despite not viewing them as life he created... it's just to parrallel the player being his father, get it? Genius I know... it's so contrived

[@R1z1n_ttv]

Something that's always bugged me about the minute men destroying the Institute is their whole thing is help at a minutes notice, you'd know what would help with that? A damn teleporter

[@Sorain1]

Yup, the Minute Men becoming literally able to get to you within a minute (if they had a team on standby with the teleporters.) would be a huge signature thing and secure their ability to stand up to heavyweights like the Brotherhood of Steel.

[@Passageofsky]

"Help the people at a minutes notice, that was the idea... anyway, You said your son is in the institute and you're heading in to rescue him? And I say another procedurally generated settlement needs our help, here I'll mark it on your map".

[@Mirthful_Midori]

2:46:00 Blowing up the Institute is actually far worse than just setting off a nuke. You've turned postwar downtown Boston into a sequel to Chernobyl. The reason the Glowing Sea at the south end of the map looks as bad as it does is because a nuclear plant had a meltdown after the bombs hit it, not just the bombs themselves. This means that you've essentially turned the center part of the map into more of that. This also means that Bethesda should be aware of the consequences of what you're doing, at least beyond "look at the pretty explosion!" or some such nonsense. It's not an impressive explosion either, you could get the same effect by layering a GIF of an explosion over a picture of a city and making sure the screen goes all white roughly halfway through.

[@DJWeapon8]

Consistency is a frowned upon word in bethesda. Nuking the institute's nuclear reactor should have the same effect as the glowing sea. But like you said, it looks like a Hollywood explosion gif layered over Boston. And considering how nonchalantly and haphazardly bethesda treats nukes in 76, they clearly had no idea, let alone respect, the kind of devastation and consequences a nuclear detonation are in any of their games.

[@Mirthful_Midori]

@@DJWeapon8 Bethesda seeing nukes as little more than "big, cool explosions!" goes back to Fallout 3 with the fat man and exploding cars. People called it out for being farcical back then, but Bethesda has only dialed up the nonsense since then. Like you said about Fallout 76. 76 is just Bethesda taking it to it's logical extreme, where the nukes are now treated as just an end game grind rather than a weapon of nigh unimaginable destruction that nearly ended the world.

[@DJWeapon8]

​@@Mirthful_Midorijesus the fatman launcher... New Vegas should've retconned that fucking thing into non existence. Or at the very least wrote lore that admonishes whoever designed it. Its such a stupid concept. A short ranged pneumatically launched ultra low yield nuclear warhead? Fucking why? The Fallout universe has *late 21st century technology and commercial robots so advanced that they're used for domestic and military applications* for fuck's sake! The military should have Javelin missile launchers at that point! The missile launcher from Fallout 3 and New Vegas? Those should've been end game weapons, can one hit kill a deathclaw, and track targets and arc up and then slam down just like javelin missiles.

[@TheDelinear]

I guess we don't know how far the Institute is underground, whereas presumably the plant that had a meltdown in the Glowing Sea was at ground level - but yeah I'd love to see _any_ kind of consequences in a Bethesda game. Just like you can be head of every faction in Skyrim and people still talk to you like you're a peasant (even people from within those factions!). But no, we can't have interesting things because Bethesda. Bethesda never changes.

[@Mirthful_Midori]

@@TheDelinear Having seen what an underground explosion looks like, that blast would had to have been near the surface. I don't know if this channel allows youtube links, but it's easy enough to look up "underground nuclear detonation" or something similar to see how odd those look.

[@newnamesameperson397]

As someone who writes it'd good to read not only good books but also bad ones. It helps you to improve your craft. I look at emils work and see all the glaring flaws and can tell he's a Terry goodkind. He believes in his own hype and thinks he doesn't need to improve, that his first drafts are perfect. I appreciate emil, he helps me to be a better writer

[@commanderpanda9356]

Emil seems like the type of writer that does not read at all, or of he does, he's only reading YA level fantasy/sci-fi. Some advice for aspiring writers: You need to be reading everything, not just the easy to digest books within your favourite genre. This builds a foundation of deeper understanding of literature, and allows you to pull from greater inspirations.

[@sup1602]

I always knew that emil was a hack writer all the way back when he thought that adding cocaine santa in bloodmoon was a good idea. Espically considering how seriously morrowind took its self.

[@astarteswillum5259]

I read Battlefield Earth once.

[@isaacmayer-splain8974]

​@@sup1602cocaine santa? I'm intrigued.

[@sup1602]

@@isaacmayer-splain8974 Yea it was some khajit character in morrowind who was a massive moon sugar addict. In morrowind lore the khajit were the only race to be able to use moon sugar and not get addicted to it. Just Emil not reading the lore again.

[@Elias-mk6gs]

Emil said that the institute was meant to be an allegory for real life gangster James “Whitey” Bulger, yet still added Johnny Winter as a stand in for real life gangster James “Whitey” Bulger

[@Gorbz]

You know what is funny? Father has cancer. Gen3 synths are based on his DNA. Therefore Gen3 synths are susceptable to developing cancer too.

[@bjobs316]

Considering Father got cancer when he wasn't very old and living in a very clean and safe place with the best healthcare in the Commonwealth, the Sole Survivor should be worried for themself and do a genetic test.

[@boneman-calciumenjoyer8290]

@@bjobs316 meh, just get another dose of Lorenzos blood, it's gonna be fine... I hate how we litterly have magical alien immortality potions in fallout now.

[@bjobs316]

@@boneman-calciumenjoyer8290 aliens in Fallout before: Lol! This random encounter easter egg gave me an op weapon! Funny! Aliens in Fallout now: So there is a generic alien civilization everywhere and nobody never notice it? And why does their look change in every game?

[@EA_SP0RTCENTER]

"but gen 3's can't get diseases!"

[@bjobs316]

@@EA_SP0RTCENTER Tim Cain: *starts a video about FEV with explanations about DNA and viruses and how FEV worked producing quad-helix DNA with enough non-covalent bonds to defend cells from mutagens like radiation* Bethesda: "Ghouls basically live with only air and synths can't get cancer or infections despite being biological organisms."

[@vizzy61]

wait.. father is an old man with cancer who runs an evil faction that is hated by all the other ones in the game. was he supposed to be like caesar? i think they thought he was like caesar. oh dear..

[@the25thprime]

I thought they played that with BoS. They wanna make em legion but they’ll NEVER be legion. It’s why I go w the RR, it’s the only one where you feel like you’re actually fighting and not doing a billion tech radiant quests. Guerrilla & Undercover I guess, but FO4 you’d think ai better = better recognition. They have face reconstruction! Different armor! Why!

[@metadude1234]

One thing that sucks about all Bethesda games; once you get an ending, the entire world almost becomes instantly static. There's no reason for that, beyond them simply going "Well, there's the story - see you in 10 years"

[@linkjokerfanboy9258]

The "Father has cancer" this is SO fucking funny because it means he's likely got a predisposition for it, which means that every synth that was made using his pure dna has a predisposition for cancer

[@memedealermikey]

Well it’s a good thing we have a full vault with diverse pure human dna that we can us- oh wait….

[@rcblazer]

How easily the Super Mutant department could have backfired on the Institute is so funny to think about. Imagine if instead of just retaining his mind, Vergil had become the equivalent of the Master from Fallout 1, and because he worked with FEV during his time in the Institute had figured out how to make more of it himself. Master Vergil then could make the Super Mutants already on the surface raid those still occupied Vaults for more people to create better mutants, creating his own version of the Unity, and taken over the Commonwealth! Then if Master Vergil ever finds the sewer entrance back in like Sturges does when you do the Minutemen quest, he could have sent the mutants to destroy the Institute, bad ending to Fallout 1 style. So much for the good of humanity, eh Shaun?

[@BWMagus]

I wouldn't really say that's "easy", but super mutants attacking their surface teams certainly seems like an issue worth avoiding.

[@ZorotheGallade]

In some alternate universe Virgil is a joinable faction and if you accept it turns your character into a super mutant.

[@piotrciesielski8937]

Just a small comment no one's gonna read ever, but TY Creetosis for this series... You helped me get through the darkest hours of my life. Funny how random people, things we do, etc. can be tangled up in the craziest - yet profound - way.

[@Creetosis]

Thank you! I'm sorry that you had to deal with those dark hours, but I'm glad my videos could help!

[@adradox]

I always thought that Bethesda as studio was made of different teams of developers who sit in separate rooms, have some of the general ideas written on the whiteboard, never communicate with each other and just pile everything into one mess of the game when they are finally done. Lead writer's ramblings, which I never previously saw, just confirmed it.

[@mascamuelassmith8088]

2:15 dr lee was even pointed as the designer of Liberty Prime while ignorong the years the Brotherhood worked on it and the scribes in FO3 that did 90% of the work for it AND REPAIRED IT without lee's help after Broken Steel (Liberty prime was a head after that) Bethesda can't even follow their own lore

[@Otterdisappointment]

Scribe Rothschild really had a reason to be arrogant, didn’t he. He got zero credit for his technical work and we just thought he was an conceited and snobby nerd (for no reason). Hopefully at least Bowditch got the promotion he deserved for his work on the body gloves, kevlar uniforms, T-60 modifications with enclave research, etc. also the fucking Prydwen would’ve been his department too wouldn’t it

[@averymicrowave1713]

I can understand Bethesda completely dismissing the Interplay lore especially considering how it seems to be an industry trend whenever a newer, larger studio works on a game that a previous, much smaller studio had already established. Lore butchery is actually pretty fucking common in that instance (looking at you, Halo). But it fucking grinds my gears so hard when people defend the big studios even though they can't even stay consistent to the same shit *their own team* wrote. At that point it's not even an opinion piece, it's just objectively bad writing.

[@DJWeapon8]

​@@averymicrowave1713man I feel personally attacked by your first paragraph. LOL I'm writing a wishlist/design document for a ground up remake and rewrite of Monster Hunter. Where I'm filling in a ton of worldbuilding and lore that Capcom barely bothered to make. I'm basically writing fanfiction. More extensive and cohesive fanfiction than the official """canon""" anyway, to toot my own horn. LOL

[@TheodoreFeaser]

​​@@DJWeapon8 I dont know anything about mh lore (i just played world and rise and I hate unskippable cutscenes so I ignored it in a babylike tantrum(based)) but I just need to say that the old "prey" and "drome" designs + armor from mh1/2 are really cool and I wish they were in rise

[@DJWeapon8]

@@TheodoreFeaser yeah the old bird wyvern drome armors were really rad. For one, it actually *looks like proper armor.* It looks like a mix of European Lamellar and Japanese Tosei Gusoku.

[@DungeonDiving]

Actual quote from a Bethesda designer in one of those "making of" docs: "You can put anything in a Fallout game!" Bethesda has destroyed our beloved Fallout. They will continue to milk it for every dollar possible while remaking it in their image to appeal to braindead product consooomers

[@fuckoffgoogle1657]

>enter fallout the television series 🤦‍♀️ fucking kill me. Please. I want to die.

[@ZorotheGallade]

1:30:20 This is exactly what I thought when I first entered Diamond City and saw the scene with the man threatening to shoot his brother accusing him of being a synth. For just a moment I thought that would be a main theme, maybe even a mechanic in the game. Am I going to have to watch out for signs of someone being a synth before they ambush me? Are my allies going to be replaced? Are they going to infiltrate my settlements and sabotage me? Of course all of that went out of the window when synths turned out being either a lazy twist on preset characters or unnamed mooks. Hell, the latest Legend of Zelda games have assassins disguised as commoners who blow their cover the moment you pull out a banana (or when you realize they have generic names like "traveler" where almost every other NPC is named) and they still feel more like a looming, threatening presence than synths in FO4.

[@lawson7925]

There is a system in place for Synths to infiltrate settlements. All it really does is lower the settlement's happiness rating and maybe lead to a synth attack though.

[@Zaelkrie]

Calling Out Emil before it was cool, I can't believe the writing got even worse.

[@JRexRegis]

Something Bethesda seems not to understand is the point of the phrase "war never changes". The point is NOT that war is vaguely bad or whatever. The point of "war never changes" is that humanity, for all its advancement and progress, is still waging meaningless wars for meaningless reasons. The point is that war is a uniquely human thing, and to get rid of it, we must change who we are deep down. We must get rid of the adversarial elements in our collective psychology, to ensure that the first instinct isn't conflict, but diplomacy. The point is that in the end, we're still just cave men waging cave man wars for cave man reasons, only instead of sharp sticks and knapped rocks, we use nuclear bombs. The irony of Bethesda's writers seemingly not getting this and their game designers gutting the option to solve conflicts without violence is not lost on me. The classic fallouts weren't about shooting guns or whatever, they were about travelling from place to place, solving ethical problems. Do you aid the mobsters in reno or do you oppose them? Do you help the ghouls or not? Do you kill the Master with words or with violence? The fact that you can beat the final boss of F1 with dialogue is not just something they added for fun, it's part of the overarching theme of the story the game tells. By talking the Master down, you've not only stopped his madness, but also, in a microcosm, made the Vault Dweller represent humanity learning its lesson from the Great War. War may not change - but people do.

[@lord_horrick]

This was really brought to a head in New Vegas. In lonesome road with Ulysses.

[@clintbeastwood5116]

I'm gonna be honest, even on survival mode, the only use for the artillery cannon is blowing up the Prydwen.

[@OuroborosChoked]

...and the BoS park right in front of it regardless... ...when it would be more advantageous and logistically superior to park it somewhere more central to the area they're trying to conquer, since parking along the coast essentially doubles the distance they have to deploy to reach places on the other side of Boston... and cuts their areas of potential retreat to the direction they're likely being attacked from (the land)... or open ocean. It just makes no sense... just like everything else in the game.

[@simonnachreiner8380]

@@OuroborosChoked it somewhat makes sense they park at an airport. Large area clear of buildings, lot's of paved over land for prefabricated structures. I'll admit the giant fuck off set piece being an idle set piece is stupid however the choice of parking space is the least of the issues with it.

[@DJWeapon8]

New Vegas had the Euclid C-Finder for christs sake. Why didn't they use a similar device to mark targets for fire missions instead of the pitifully short range grenades?

[@ZorotheGallade]

@@OuroborosChoked If they were committed to putting it far away they could have parked it over the water. So that it would have had little to no risk at being attacked from the ground.

[@vivechjorviani5440]

3:45:00 you know a good quest could have come if you were tracking down notes from the original Nick Valentine as he tracks down Eddie with help from Synth Nick to follow the clues leading to the same bunker but inside is one feral ghoul and a skeleton, not knowing which is the original Nick and which one is Eddie. Nick would put down the ghoul and come to terms with his Identity crisis.

[@DashingSteel]

OMG yes. I just realised just how bullshit it is that Eddie Winter survived without going feral in what can boil down to a studio appartment, while presumably never leaving his bunker. There wouldn't be enough canned beans in the entire Boston to sustain the man for 200 years! And what, his shitter never broke in all this time neither? He's like a huge glowing middle finger to the player!

[@pantonearqm2791]

Emil maybe no fantasy assassin, but he sure loves to assassinate good franchises.

[@ghilleattano6868]

If you want a funny about the encounter with Art and the Art Synth - the encounter can occur multiple times in different random encounter locations during the same playthrough. I've seen them at least 2-3 times in different locations, even after dealing with them previously. Probably a glitch, but I like to imagine the Institute is constantly cloning those two as some kind of personal Hell.

[@gatordragon6140]

I thought I was the only one lol, I like to think the same thing, way funnier to think it's two synths that the institute keep having one kill the other and just transfer the dead ones conscience into a new body to do it all over again... For science I guess bc it seems like they do science for no reason (ex. Synth gorillas for some reason )

[@bjobs316]

That happened to me too. In the same run I met the old goodneighbor ghouls more than once.

[@ghilleattano6868]

@@bjobs316 Evidently they get around after each encounter.

[@bjobs316]

@@ghilleattano6868 they even came back alive after the first time. But I suppose it's all in Shaun's masterplan: he created their synth's version just to test the player character.

[@ghilleattano6868]

@@bjobs316 I swear the entirety of Fallout 4 is some simulation orchestrated by the Institute as a test with how ridiculous it is.

[@flannelmcmannel]

In regards to my previous comment from part 1, most of the questions my wife had were about the synths, the Institute, their plans, etc. After trying to explain their nonsense, we decided to just laugh as we killed the robots and destroyed the Institute. When presented with the synth child at the end, I watched my wife be conflicted for a second but then realized how stupid it is. She couldn't bring herself to kill the child synth, so she just left him there as the Institute blew up. I asked her why, and she said that even though the robot was programmed to think she was his mother, it doesn't matter because that's not her son.

[@gatordragon6140]

Out of curiosity idr if you brought it up in the first comment, what was her reaction to father being the characters son?

[@jonathanbaggette6541]

Rightfully so

[@cynicaltheastrocreep4504]

For such a faction that has able to surpass the technological developments of ANY faction in the history of fallout, they sure are really stupid lmao. They're just meant to be a gimmick, like all the factions in Bethesda games.

[@flannelmcmannel]

@@gatordragon6140 If I remember correctly, the phrase was "I thought that's where they were going but I didn't think they'd actually be dumb enough to do it". When I explained that the goal was to trick the player into never guessing that twist, she said "no son of mine would be that stupid to release me into the wild while claiming to want to meet me, let alone send murder robots after me"

[@gatordragon6140]

​​@@flannelmcmannelgod your wife is a gem, had me dying the whole way through lol

[@OuroborosChoked]

2:03:54 - I'm surprised your only objection to that exchange is that the BoS guard didn't find having a spouse that was in the military = personal experience to be a faulty conclusion. How about the fact that your character says she _had a spouse who was in the military_ at all? We are over 200 years since the bombs fell. If some lady came up to me and said she had a husband who was in the military, my first thoughts would be: what military? The Enclave? Some local militia? And when she says no, she meant before the great war... the rational response wouldn't be "well then... why not join up?" It would be: "Ok, lady... I think you've had enough Jet. Move along." Now, granted, if you extended the conversation to mention you were cryogenically frozen until just recently, _that_ would give you an in with the Brotherhood... because you could lead them to pre-war tech they were unaware of and obviously works. As it is, the conversation makes no sense any way you look at it.

[@loonylenny]

Your decisions in Black Ops 2 have more of an effect on the story than in Fallout 4 and that game was essentially a go left or go right decision

[@Tony_Cardoza]

"Yeah, my uhh husband used to be in the military, or something. I think?" "Well, come on in. Why didnt you say so? We need awesome, experienced people like you!"

[@simonnachreiner8380]

I actually find it Hil-fucking-larious that when describing a "better minutemen story" you actually kind of describe the main plot of Sim settlements 2 one of the most popular mods on the nexus.

[@gatordragon6140]

To be fair pretty much everything he mentions has been fixed by modders (outside of stuff like the end cutscene) because Bethesda doesnt make good games, they make modding sandboxes

[@simonnachreiner8380]

@@gatordragon6140 Giving them too much credit. They make assets in the creation engine. The "Sandbox" is like one you find at a neglected and abused public park. It sounds OK but when you see it for yourself there's turds in the sand, and when you dig just a little it's full of aids ridden needles. Mabey it was a nice place once but people who didn't value it turned it into shit.

[@cynicaltheastrocreep4504]

​@@gatordragon6140they make games for you to make more similar to other games. Why not just play those other games?

[@CantusTropus]

​@@gatordragon6140I don't know about you but I wouldn't pay 60 bucks for a modding sandbox

[@Whazzupie]

@@CantusTropus Unfortunately (fortunately?) that's what Starfield is definitely gonna be depending on the scope of the modding tools if they're revealed, except it's $70 now lol

[@nottherealpaulsmith]

what gets me about the "defend the castle" mission is that literally any air support could have totally wiped the minutemen out, but despite the institute having teleporters and synths they can't get a single working vertibird (you know, the -PRE WAR- aircraft that the enclave was still building at navarro)

[@gatordragon6140]

Well given how vertibirds are basically the equivalent of paper planes with toy guns strapped to them now (for some dumb reason) it probably wouldn't be too useful, I've literally watched a single raider take out one of the patrolling vertibird with a pipe rifle before

[@DJWeapon8]

​@@gatordragon6140seen the exact same thing. Some rando raider with the harness armor and a semi auto pipe rifle lit up a vertibird, exploding it and killing everyone on board including the 2 power armored knights. There's also a similar thing that became a bit of a meme back in Fallout 3. A lone female raider wielding a .32 caliber hunting rifle in a booby trapped building drew in a fireteam of power armored enclave troopers. 3 of the enclave troops died from frag mines, bear traps, and deadfall traps. The last one was killed by a single .32 round. All of this just proves bethesda doesn't have a clue what "gameplay-story integration" means or how to make sensible damage balancing systems.

[@hideakiakio6698]

Vertibirds we're not pre-war until Bethesda with fallout 3 just like how jet and enclave power armor we're not pre-war until Bethesda and so many people have said that t60 would work better if it was post-war made by the brotherhood of steel in fact there's even a mod that does that.

[@nottherealpaulsmith]

​@@hideakiakio6698 oddly enough i remember them being pre-war from fallout 2, but i just checked the wiki and you're absolutely right

[@doctorgrubious7725]

@@nottherealpaulsmithI just checked the wiki and it says 2072 was when they where developed by the department of defense, however I don’t think it’s too important because helicopters where invented in 1939, Ww2 is canon within fallout so there is going to be some type of helicopter in fallout, and vertibirds are just glorified helicopters The wiki goes on to say “When the Great War struck in 2077, the XVB02 Vertibird was still in the prototype phase”, Which clearly means that there is an XVB01 and 02 if we are going by enclave naming logic, X-01 for example.

[@TheDelinear]

It feels to me like all of the factions are so paper-thin, they all just feel like kids playing at war. The Railroad especially embodies this. One of the very first things we learn from them is how their previous HQ was infiltrated and destroyed. Deacon is meant to be some kind of master of espionage and they're meant to have learned from the mistakes of their past and doubled down on secrecy and security, and yet their new HQ feels like the kind of secret clubhouse a group of kids would make. They have a painted line going right to their door and their password is the name of their secret club FFS! You can't convince me a 7 year old didn't come up with that idea. But yeah, the problems with this faction are inherent in all of them, to some degree. They're all just two dimensional parodies of what a well written faction of that type should be. Maxxson accusing you of not seeing through Danse, despite you having known him for a few hours while the others knew him for years. The Institute being cartoonishly evil and yet you can't effect any meaningful changes or even call them on their BS. And Preston's constant nagging for you to help, when he wouldn't lift a finger to save your own child from kidnappers. They're all just so bad.

[@themanwithnoname1839]

One thing you forgot is deacon will vouch for you EVEN IF he knows nothing of you due to desperation...... If you go right from the vault to them he will say it along these lines "yea i know i dont know you but we are kinda desperate for new recruits" and i was like ah it makes sense as to why they keep getting wiped out........ So i did exactly that, after i took their ballistic weave

[@mushyroom9569]

I think the problem is that Bethesda took inspiration from New Vegas. The factions there are also all cartoonishly incompetent, but that’s less frustrating because the faction leaders wear their incompetence on their sleeves: a government bureaucracy, a middle-aged man with a brain tumor, and the sci-fi Wizard of Oz. Compare that to Desdemona, Maxson, and Father: all pretty reasonable leaders who seem to have their shit together.

[@lakshaykochhar6799]

​@@mushyroom9569 And they're written with consistency.

[@killercobra009]

It’s genuinely sad to see how Bethesda throw everything away for like a short joke. Kid in a fridge could not exist and the game would what? Lose a single 5 minute quest? The entire jet issue is literally solved with a few text changes and loot changes. It’s just utter proof of how they don’t… care about fallout, like you said, it’s just a way for them to print money.

[@BWMagus]

I still maintain that there's a reason only the BoS feels like it has any direction at all, as opposed to the other groups; originally, they were writing the game to be just like Fallout 3, where you join the Brotherhood against the baddies. Then New Vegas came out and everyone loved the factions and the conflict. Well...shit. So now they had to come up with a way for you to join the Institute, instead of it just being a bitter-sweet story of you fighting your own family member. Then they took the Railroad, which was probably a minor faction that only really existed for a few plot points, like the Courser chip, and elevated it to be another faction. Then they realized, damn, we need a Yes Man option, so the Minutemen became that (as I understand it, they, and the Gunners, actually WERE supposed to be smaller, joinable factions fighting each other, like good mercs and bad mercs). So yeah, the other 3 factions were just given some random-ass missions for the sake of there being content, and the people writing the Institute had no idea what they were supposed to be writing because the group was originally just "Evil guys who make replicants." The BoS isn't great, but it does feel like they had some kind of vision and plan for them, not just some arbitrary bullshit quests to pad the run time. I think the same thing happened with the companions. I know that Nick was basically the first thing they came up in the entire game, more or less. But they wanted to have more companions, so we got a bunch of lazy, forgettable, sometimes confusing companions to pad the roster. Content for the sake of content. It's why the map feels like a theme park--can't go 20 feet without there being a thing to empty of all salvage. Why has no one else done it in 200 years when it's literally right next to a settlement? Shut your face, that's why.

[@DJWeapon8]

Add in the fact that bethesda doesn't like design documentation, which made inter team communication and implementing and synergizing new story elements and mechanics unnecessarily difficult, and you get the festering and putrid dumpster juice that is Fallout 4™.

[@michaelamaya9032]

To quote a friend of mine... Bethesda does not make RPGs. They make Action Games with *"RPG Mechanics."*

[@JCRascal14]

I hate how "nitpicking" is used as well. I was talking to my friend about how convenient and absurd it was that the fallout show has "the ghoul" unable to hurt maximus, but then remembers just in time for the finale that he could one shot power armors because of a "weak spot in the weld." Said i was nitpicking, i said : "no, nitpicking would be complaining about a weak spot in the weld when its clearly casted metal and armor, nor welded, so there shoudlnt be any welds."

[@sgtjerry2001]

Yea caught that BS as well

[@galaxychad816]

Man I remember when the fake spoilers for FO4 was "Nuke the wasteland or kill your son". Now that would've actually been a bigger moral dilemma than anything in the game which none of the writers seem capable of or else the player might have to face actual repercussions.

[@christopherbravo1813]

Ironic, considering that the actual game forces you to do both

[@nuclearocean]

One of the first writing tips I've ever picked up is that a good twist should be obvious in retrospective. Some weird things in the story before the twist get recontextualised, revealing what they actually meant. Fallout 4 somehow does the opposite - its twists make prior events even dumber👏🏻

[@dorianshepard2841]

I'm reminded of how there's a raider boss named Red Tourette and her terminal talks about another boss stole her sister. But you can't do anything about it. Just kill Red and her sister doesn't even exist. Virtually none of the raider bosses in game have any consequence to quests besides being deleted, despite having unique names and appearances

[@Kipa2]

>Apply for a new job position >Kill your Boss >Become a new Bo... >Actually No. You go to prison. Wtf Emil? You lied to me!

[@KingofWorms23]

Was hoping you’d mention the reactions to not taking the fake Shawn out with you. It genuinely pissed me off on my first play through when the minutemen guilt tripped me. Calling me mean for not bringing out a robot copy of my dead son at the request of the evil leader of the Institute is the most Bethesda thing ever.

[@tripmann268]

Damn man, just the idea of the Minutemen staging a payback assault on Quincy makes me realise how much potential we really lost

[@fuckoffgoogle1657]

😑 did you even watch the video? Is your IQ 3? It’s gotta be one or the other because there was never any potential for a Bethesda title to be anything but cartoonishly retarded but go on, clap you stupid seal. I bet you’ll play it again 🙄

[@TheREALSimagination]

Funny thing about the Art "experience" is it's a random encounter, which means you're bound to likely see it again in the same playthrough, which again means there are multiple Arts and multiple Art synths running around the Commonwealth.

[@themanwithnoname1839]

Wrong it happens only once

[@TheREALSimagination]

@@themanwithnoname1839 Not in my experience.

[@Saiyangoddess72]

@@themanwithnoname1839 happened 4 times on my first playthrough lol

[@Cat-up6hb]

@@themanwithnoname1839 if your playthrough is 2 hours long, sure

[@Cat-up6hb]

@@themanwithnoname1839short*

[@steelytemplar]

I am by no means an espionage expert, but I can pretty quickly think of ways the Railroad could maintain far better opsec just by using historical methods. 1) Decentralize (as you mentioned). 2) Limit the knowledge agents have of one another. Ideally, an agent should only know the identity of the people who report directly to them. This way, information gained by the Institute capturing and interrogating them is limited. 3) Distribute orders and other important information via "numbers station" radio broadcasts. These broadcasts would use "one-time pad" ciphers whereby strings of (usually) numbers are decoded using a corresponding single use code key. No cipher is ever reused. One-time pads cannot be cracked. 4) Transfer of smaller physical items can be done via dead drops - leaving items at prearranged locations to be picked up later by the recipient. Code-locked delivery canisters can be rigged to destroy the canister contents if the right code is not used. Spycraft can be genuinely interesting if they just put their brains into it.

[@DJWeapon8]

Too complex for bethesda.

[@the25thprime]

I really like how you wrote this, well done. Do you know more or care to elaborate? It sounds pretty cool. Or any informational sources? 🎉

[@steelytemplar]

@the25thprime Thank you! I have picked up this kind of stuff from a variety of sources over the years, so it can be hard to pinpoint where I got it all. The technique of agents having minimal knowledge about other agents is based on the system used by the Soviet Union for their network of "legal resident spies" in other nations like the United States. That is, foreign citizens who worked for the Soviets in the capacity of espionage or policy influence. The latter involved using agents with high positions in the target government to push policies in a direction favorable to the Soviets. For example, it is thought that the Soviets used this tactic to weaken US support for Chiang Kai-Shek's Chinese government in exile in Taiwan, which probably played a part in the PRC being recognized as the "official" China and displacing the Taiwanese government in the UN. Known legal resident spies in high-level government positions include Harry Dexter White and Alger Hiss in the US as well as the "Cambridge Five" in the UK. I first learned about the workings of this system from the book "Witness", the autobiography of Whittaker Chambers, who had been a part of the resident spy network in the United States but later left the network and eventually testified in congress about his activities and the people he knew to be part of the network. While Chambers obviously did damage to the Soviet resident spy program, that damage was definitely limited by the simple fact that, by design, Chambers didn't have a comprehensive knowledge of who else was involved in the network. Numbers stations and, by extension, one-time pad codes get pretty good coverage on KZbin and on Wikipedia. There is also a project called The Conet Project, which made a compilation of numbers station recordings. Many of them actually sound quite creepy. You can read about the use of broadcast radio for code in the book "A Time to Betray" by Reza Kahlili, who worked as a resident agent for the CIA in Iran and received his orders via radio transmissions which he would decode using a code book. I don't recall if a numbers station was used in his case or if messages were encoded into a "normal" broadcast, but it demonstrates how the system works - a broadcast that can be picked up without revealing the agent's location and a code book which allows for an unbreakable code. Dead drops are a common espionage technique. I actually first learned about the use of booby-trapped dead-drop canisters from an episode of the show Deadliest Warrior. That show is pretty silly and far from what I would call a good source of historical information, but I did learn from there about the development of dead-drop cannisters used during the Cold War that would explode if the wrong combination was used in opening them. If you are interested in other real world espionage stuff, I haven't actually read all that much in that area, but I highly recommend the book "Agent Garbo" by Stephan Talty, which tells the story of Juan Pujol Garcia. He was a double-agent working for the British against the Nazis during WW2. Garcia created an entire network of fictional agents in the UK and provided carefully designed false information to the Nazis which included important disinformation about the D-Day landings. Garcia was never found out by the Nazis, who even awarded him the Iron Cross, making him one of a very few people to have been awarded medals by both the Allies and Nazi Germany.

[@AngryJulien]

Even after 6 hours of viewing, not to mention Part 1, the screaming half-life 1 scientist never gets old! 😂😂😂

[@terrymoose7273]

The Minutemen need you to save another settlement. The Institute needs you to enslave sentient toasters. The Railroad needs you to free sentient toasters. The Brotherhood of Steel needs you to shoot everyone because they f**king love science. The lack of a Mister Yes Man option makes you wish for a nuclear winter.

[@QueenAleenaFan]

I'm just a little hobbyist, but design documents are KEY. They help you avoid feature creeping, which (given the Minecraft/Rust Base Building that infiltrated this shit) is very useful for all projects.

[@BWMagus]

Well, that clearly was part of the design, a major feature. Not that they did it very well, but what else is new?

[@Creetosis]

It actually was added fairly late in development, there's a clip where Emil says as much. It will be in Part 4.

[@CamiloFHSC]

I would like to point out that the ending of F1 isn't good because you can make the bad guy repent. It's good because it's well written and the roleplay mechanics give you worthwhile choices. The final boss in New Vegas if you go against the legion does not repent; to the last word of the conversation, he remains the same sadistic monster; "We would have saved you in ways you couldn't even imagine"- all you do is making him realize he's being territorially greedy and therefore it'd be smarter to fall back for now. It's not just that "Father" can't be made to understand his moral errors in his deathbed; is that his errors are idiotically written, and the dialog options are meaningless.

[@sup1602]

I love the dr Klein censors. Make me smile each time. Emil is such a hack writer I don't even know why he is still employed. Probably nepotism. Seriously when bloodmoon came out all the stuff he wrote for it was so immersion breaking. Cocine santa reference seriously. Emil just tosses all the lore out the window. Dude just frogets all the sweat and tears (and all that weight he gained in the crunch) that John Goodmen wrote in Morrowind, John must be very upset what Emil did to TES.

[@TheBreakingBenny]

Emil and Todd are friends from before, so it's safe to say Todd just lets the guy walk over him without at least expressing second thought

[@Tom-xt9fn]

Not sure if you saw Patrician cover one of your videos in a stream a while back, but I think this remake is really good. Using footage to match the examples you're discussing consistently throughout is very tedious to edit, but it's paying off. It turns the video from the kind I'd listen to in the background to one that I'm enjoying with fuller attention. Your content has always been class, but it's good to see you reaching the next level. Edit: Also, any music used is better balanced/significantly less distracting in these newer vids. Lovely stuff.

[@krodh9946]

The response that Danse gives at 2:24:19 is basically an NPC choosing a Speech 90 dialogue option. But in response Maxson doesn’t even melt a little bit which, as you pointed out, is very frustrating and disappointing to listen to. But this quest shows some potential with its writing. Probably why it's the only companion quest I remember so vividly.

[@Kiiw3y]

"My husband was in the military" And the Paladin does not even follow up on that question? WHAT military? Of WHAT state? The NCR? The Legion? Oh wait, those don't exist on the east coast so..... WHAT MILITARY?? I started laughing out loud when I read that line. Out of all the bullshit this game manages to write, this one pissed me off the most so far. What the actual fuck

[@packrunnernes]

Wasn't that about pre-bombs military?

[@Fullmetalnyuu0]

​@pouredupinarat Well yeah, but why would some random BOS knight assume that? And if you told him that fact, and that you were FROZEN and that's how you survived, he'd probably think you were some strung out junkie trying to get a rise out of him. This guy just accepting that at face value (and thinking that being the spouse of someone in the military has some inherent value) is absolutely ridiculous.

[@badunius_code]

5:34:10 "they want their next game to be as epic as Great Gatsby, or Moby Dick, or The Scarlett Letter" Credit where it's due, they've nailed the Dick part

[@brandongreen4439]

I am respectfully waiting until all six parts are out before I commit to this, but I am absolutely floored at imagining how much effort must have went into doing this. Good job, and I look forward to watching the full thing

[@Creetosis]

Parts 5 and 6 won't be out for quite a while.

[@themanwithnoname1839]

Sad part is people will most likely make fun of him for being so critical of it, saying shit along the lines of omg it dont matter anymore cuz of 76 or it dont matter cuz just dont play it then.....

[@Badookum]

​@@themanwithnoname1839Yeah Bethesda fan boys aren't very intelligent

[@BatteryStaples]

Just wanted to say that I really enjoy this sort of long form critique/analysis. It's not the most youtube optimized thing to do I know which is why I really appreciate creators who still take the time to script and edit such long videos. Keep up the good work!

[@Creetosis]

Thank you, it's much appreciated!

[@BWMagus]

Wait, Starfield is going to be written? I thought they were just going to take the plunge and make the entire game radiant quests to procedurally generated planets. It'd save them like 100k in various writers, if we're being generous, and cost them millions in potential sales, but that's obviously their winning business model. Edit: Oh shit, Emil is one of those "muh themes" guys! That explains it! We got another Rian Johnson over here. The only reason he focuses on themes is probably because that's all he can understand; trying to keep character development or plot progression straight is too hard, he needs movies like Fast and Furious to tell him about "family" every 4 minutes so he knows what he's supposed to feel.

[@Fullmetalnyuu0]

Turns out the game is mostly radiant quests to procedurally generated planets after all 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

[@QueenAleenaFan]

"Also reduced are the number of skills, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing." It absolutely was a bad thing. They got rid of spears, bro, and swords that do most of their damage by being thrust straight at the enemy. In a setting where the Imperial Legion is pretty heavily based off of the Roman Legion and there are lots of large monsters that you would benefit from being able to stab with a spear. Skyrim pared it down even more, even though the system was already neutered before that point.

[@Creetosis]

You misunderstand my meaning, I should have been more clear. Sometimes RPGs can have _too many_ skills, so reducing some isn't inherently bad. I agree that Oblivion shouldn't have trimmed down skills at all.

[@QueenAleenaFan]

@@Creetosis Certainly fair enough.

[@Slender_Man_186]

It really is weird how a faction based off of Rome, with weapons that look kinda like Gladiuses, don’t use them to thrust, and it’s especially weird that they don’t have throwing javelins like the Roman Pilum.

[@nuclearocean]

The "Shawn dies of cancer at a certain point in the story" thing got me thinking about two things. First - 150 day time limit in the very first Fallout game. Second - that one sniper character from MGS 3. I've never played it, sadly, but I've heard that he can die of old age if you wait long enough or change the time on your console. But noooooo, modern AAA titles can't be creative to save their lives

[@Slender_Man_186]

The End is the MGS character you’re thinking of, 1 real world week is what leads to him dying, at the same time you can get the best camouflage in the game by doing the fight properly and sneaking up behind him and holding him at gunpoint.

[@pipgang8566]

​@@Slender_Man_186 The end is also genuinely the best boss fight in that game all around, so its kinda a shame its the one you can skip haha

[@Slender_Man_186]

@@pipgang8566 true, sniper fights are almost always the best in MGS, and The End is the best of them all.

[@lpfan4491]

@@pipgang8566 The funny bit being that you can double-skip him. Because as he is irrelevant to the story, getting him at an earlier point in the story does not cause Dr. Brown(Yes, it was a back to the future-reference, didn't carry over well in the localization) to stop you and yell at you about changing the future.

[@virtualatheist]

Glory was a synth and she could regularly be found sleeping in Railroad HQ.

[@lakshaykochhar6799]

I think he mentioned Glory around 1 hour and 30 minutes.

[@donqon]

I think if Glory dies she doesn’t have a synth component, so either Bethesda fucked up or her character is an idiot who self-diagnosed herself

[@Xalozar]

Those endings insulted me greatly since it just hammers home the massive difference in care of the overall story and quality from NV, even though it wasn't perfect the game ACKNOWLEDGES your actions in the mojave and what it affected in the future while in 4 it's all meaningless. Also hearing the "war never changes" quote from their unappealing and boring mouths pissed me right off.

[@ten-finger]

I've never finished F4, so i had no idea about that whole deal with the flags at 3:01:00 and my God, i can't believe my eyes! Diamond City just puts up the flag of the Institute (that they apperently had? Since when?) despite the paranoia, despite the kill squads, despite the kidnappings, despite Broken Mask and everything?! They hang up their banner all over the place, proudly swaying in the wind... Because what, some numbskull from a vault arrived one day and started doing Shauns busy work? What a joke... If Bethesda had any sort of backbone, they could have made Diamond City hostile after the main quest, or had a quest to perform a coup/purge on Diamond City, or just not have a postgame at all... But no... Why bother... On a lighter note, this moment made me chuckle a little bit 1:36:01

[@renegadeguardian]

You know what would fix the Railroad? Just make them all Synths. No really, think about it. If they're all Synths, then it suddenly makes sense why such a small faction can function on minimal supplies, because they're Synths. It also suddenly makes more sense why they care more about Synths than humans... because they themselves are fucking Synths! Seriously! Does anyone else notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!

[@Creetosis]

It wouldn't fix everything, but it would fix a lot.

[@DJWeapon8]

That just leaves their terrible spycraft and standard operating procedures to be fixed.

[@EnclaveEmily]

Fun Fact: When I found Danse in my single play"through", the game bugged out and kept spawning the ghouls over and over and the mission would not end unless I went up the road and killed every single one, preventing them from spawning due to my position. If i went down the road without killing all of them, the mission would be almost soft locked unless i went back up and re-did it again (they all respawned just from me walking for 10 seconds).

[@carneus]

If Emil saw this video he'd be like "haha what a nerd reading so deep into it, just go kill some synths and deathclaws it's so fun lmao"

[@TheBreakingBenny]

He's a sad, strange little man whose children will eventually question his mindset.

[@djjordg2748]

the "history is written by the victor" shit is the most backwards argument i've heard for a game series making inconsistent choices

[@QueenAleenaFan]

Even better for the Magic School in Skyrim, some madlad figured out how to beat it with no spells. Requires Glitches and exploitation of AI, but hey.

[@ZorotheGallade]

Ymfah also beat the Thieves Guild questline without recording any crime and the Dark Brotherhood (almost) without murdering anyone.

[@MediumRareOpinions]

The My husband was military line makes less sense the more I think about it. *What Military?* The BoS Knight has no idea she was on ice for 200 years, so as far as he knows she's lying to his face.

[@Creetosis]

Yep, exactly. It should raise a bunch of questions instead of "oh, okay, you can join us I guess, go find Paladin Danse."

[@Canaris3]

"Makes less sense the more you think about it" might as well be the fukken motto of this game.

[@billjacobs521]

Interestingly, they DO know, though. No idea how, but dialogue can confirm they know where you're from and who you are. No need to explain, that, though, because that sounds like work.

[@reikanou-issen]

I admit, I farted loud right after that Father character declared that he is my son, and my fart sounded a lot more entertaining

[@gatordragon6140]

God i cannot explain how irratated the paper planes quote makes me, not everyone is the lowest common denominator. Emil is one or two steps from the top of the egotistical mountain to the point where im pretty sure he probably thinks he is da Vinci and leo tolstoy mixed with god himself

[@the25thprime]

Lmao

[@TheManeymon]

I never realized just how bad Emile was until now. I knew he was bad and part of the problem, but not until the end of this video did I see just how contemptible he his.

[@chadnorris8257]

There's a theme of suspicion in the game, but the game also goes out of its way to convince you that synths are good people. Morally upstanding companions like the Railroad, and dislike the Institute and Brotherhood. Aside from Curie, who has been stuck in a lab for centuries. You make friends with a man who turns out to be a synth, but he never betrays you or his allies. Everyone who dislikes synths is portrayed as dumb or malicious. Even when you meet DiMA, who killed and replaced the leader of the Harbormen, he's still considered sympathetic even as he plans to do the same thing again. The game presents a difficult choice of how to deal with synths, but also shows bias towards one side over the other. Maxson's arguments against Danse are a sign of this. His problems are more philosophical than practical. He could talk about the idea that the Institute could find Danse, say a code word, and force him to betray the Brotherhood. Instead his argument boils down to just Danse's origins, rather than the security risk he poses.

[@chadnorris8257]

@@remnant1652 It's a bit weird, because that synth component is apparently the only robotic thing about them. Yet they don't require food, water, or rest, to function. Just like a robot. I feel like the component would be able to explain why the Synth brain can be factory reset with a code word, but there should have been more going on to explain their super Human abilities. Especially since there's supposed to be no testable way to tell if someone is a Synth or not. Yet if they don't need nourishment to function, then you could just keep a person in a room for a day or two, and see if their condition is still normal.

[@Cat-up6hb]

what i hate most about the minutemen is that they forcefully take your home street and turn it into their village and you have to let them do that and even help them i wish there was a choice to tell them to get lost or take another settlement since this one belongs to you..

[@brotbrotsen1100]

If you decide to side with them, bethesda should have given you the Option which settlement becomes the base.

[@_Pagan]

The X01 flashlight glare being in the middle of the helmet is so annoying

[@alphacraig4784]

Zamn, cree treating his subs right with this one.

[@scheevyjenkinz8444]

I'm listening to this like a podcast at work and your "Number 15" joke made me laugh out loud

[@lorehunter3182]

I always had a feeling that in Bethesda fallouts that characters lie to the player like how Garvey does as by all metrics he would be the minuteman General but makes you General while still taking up that role, aka lying to you. The synth feels like it’s a clone made the long way round and made by people who lack any knowledge in biology or robotics. Synths really just look and feel like clones, but Bethesda is trying to also make them robots. It’s like having your cake and eating it too but with cloning and robotics.

[@TheDelinear]

Now I'm picturing that Preston actually tells everyone who joins the Minutemen that they're the General, just to make them feel special, while he's still the one who is giving out the orders XD And to be fair, I feel like the synths are meant to be similar to the androids in Blade Runner/Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, which are said to be indistinguishable from humans. However, Fallout 4 doesn't do anything interesting with that concept - it even confirms which ones are androids on death by adding a "synth part" to their inventory, which undermines the whole concept.

[@CorsairPrince]

I'll always take the opportunity to sit through the masters dialogue when it pops up. Such excellent voice acting and writing all around.. oh how I miss it.

[@TheDelinear]

It's wild to think that the one Master VA is the guy who voiced Winnie the Pooh (and Darkwing Duck!)

[@VinylcoteYT]

i just realized something - why is Shaun’s name “Shaun”? i just find it very convenient that whoever took and raised him decided to keep that name

[@Spencer-wc6ew]

I think the computer next to the cryo pods labeled who was in each pod. But knowing Bethesda, it probably labels everyone _but_ Shaun

[@VinylcoteYT]

@@Spencer-wc6ew you’ve made me want to boot up the game and check 💀

[@lpfan4491]

@@VinylcoteYT Results?

[@DashingSteel]

Sole Survivor's spouse yells "i'm not gonna let you take Shaun" as Kellogg shoots them. The really neat part would be if we found out that it was Kellogg's word that made them keep the name. It would be so incredibly human.

[@DarkestIQ]

A looter shooter with a coat of cracking fallout paint with a splash of blade runner on top of it to cover up for the decaying fallout paint.

[@forgototherpassword]

So I will say this: The Railroad are at least consistent in their stupidity, no matter what faction you choose.

[@johngleeman8347]

This was fantastic Mr. Owl. I don't think I've ever seen such a comprehensive look at the factions. They're all terrible but the Institute is the worst in my book. Virtually nothing they do makes any sense. They could have quickly taken over the Commonwealth with their access to power and food and clean water, but instead they started killing the struggling dirt farmers for absolutely no reason whatsoever. The Railroad are incompetent, unlikeable c!@#s, but them being a terrible faction doesn't sink any chance of the game being good the same way that the primary antagonist faction being insane and incompetent does. Thank you for the herculean effort in carefully and painstakingly putting the final nails in FO4's coffin while we all cheer. I look forward to you covering the DLCs. The highs and lows will be a treat to listen to.

[@Edmar_Fecler]

The problem with the Children of Atom, and why they’re not effected by radiation, is because Bethesda has turned radiation into some nebulous ethereal force indicative of a cosmic lovecraftian deity like in Elder Scrolls. The children worship radiation, ergo they worship this deity, therefore it grants them immunity to its effects. No, i’m not making this shit up. This is canon as far as they’re concerned. They created a whole-ass adventure module for their new-age 5e tabletop system that serves as a prelude to Fallout 4, in which the children of atom are attempting to besiege the commonwealth in order to bring their lovecraftian radiation god into this plane of existence. They are led by what is ostensibly a Chaos Space Marine (dude in power armor powered up with magic crystals and a tentacle whip arm), and the climax takes place in a secret underground city that is being consumed by fleshy tentacle creatures as the lovecraftian god is materializing. This is real. This is their canon. Do not be mistaken, however; I do not say all this in their defense. No, quite the opposite in fact. This makes me hate the children of atom, and Bethesda’s fallout as a whole, all the more. Its fucking insufferable. They’ve taken a grounded setting about humanity and the struggles that it entails and ikhave turned it into magic goo-gaa lovecraft lala land bullshit. Shit like this is why i’m making my own fallout tabletop, using the OG system and the OG games and lore. We truly are at the point where *true* fans have no choice but to go “oh yeah? Well i’ll make MY OWN Fallout! With blackjack! And hookers!”

[@billjacobs521]

I don't mind the occasional side reference to Lovecraftian horror, especially considering where this game in particular is set, but yeah, radiation is just whatever they want it to be. I could even swallow the idea that some people have, over the generations, evolved some degree of resistance to radiation, if they at least tried to explain it with some Star Trek-style technobabble.

[@spiderz5145]

This review has made me wary about Starfield, thank you, I didn’t know that Emil was this bad. Edit: yeah I was right to worry, it’s mid.

[@spiderz5145]

@@SnapShot-0 a sad reality.

[@Idazmi7]

@@spiderz5145 I don't even want to see the new Fallout TV series. It will probably be as bad as Halo.

[@Fire_Panda738]

What Creet’s videos and the STAG streams have shown me is just how bad FO4 really is, I say this while FO4 is on of my favourite video games ever (yell at me later Owl Man but hear me out first) I was already a fan of the series going into FO4 and I played a tiny bit of new Vegas with my buddy, but FO4 was the first Fallout game I personally owned, and since I got it I’ve played the hell out of it and I basically had rose tinted glasses superglued to my face. When I found Creet’s videos and the STAG streams I was originally just watching it for the entertainment but as time went on I found myself coming to a realization that Fallout 4 is not all i hyped it up to be, (as cheesy as it sounds) it kinda opened my eyes to the problems this game has, however I still love the game and I still continue to play it despite all the problems it has (and fucking hell does it have a lot of them) I am looking forward to Part 2 of this analysis series and I can’t wait to see the Owl rip this game a bigger Asshole then it (probably) deserves

[@kinagrill]

The game is extremely good at making you NOT question things unless you actively seek to do so, and that's scary in a way. It's just... all surface and no depth.

[@youarealwayscorrect]

Every fallout game has many problems if you scrutinize them well enough, so you're perfectly allowed to call F4 "my favorite fallout game", while also acknowledging all its' flaws.

[@GritterTheBuckethead]

Considering how Cree has said it’s okay to love bad things, (for example, I love Mortal Kombat Annihilation.) and how he hearted your comment; I’d say he’s pretty understanding of your perspective.

[@scienceviking4490]

I think everyone has a piece of media that they really like in spite of it having significant issues. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's good to be aware that you're doing it.

[@samwellcheck562]

They say all sex you have will be compared to your first. I say that's BS. Don't let garbage quality be your standard just because it's what you experienced first. Oblivion was my first Elder Scrolls game, yet I have no issues whatsoever acknowledging that it is absolute ass compared to Morrowind and Daggerfall, and Skyrim... don't get me started on how far that game has fallen in my eyes since first playing it. Bethesda as a whole is a lost cause to me now, all the evidence is there, plain to see, that they are far from capable of producing anything of even Oblivion quality anymore.