Returning to Fallout 4
With all the Fallout 76 news that is crossing my Google News feed, I'm really starting to get a hankering to play Fallout 4 again (which means that I'll be splitting my time between Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Fallout 4 when I'm at home base with my gaming computer).
Thankfully (seeing as there are pretty ho-hum reviews of Fallout 76), I'm not a fan of multiplayer games. I didn't think that the open world post-apocalyptic setting of Fallout would make for a very good multiplayer game anyway. Either there would be just too many people, which would be completely immersion breaking (especially given the sort of gamer that ends up in these sort of games...) or there would be no-one, which would mean that it would be pointless and that likely resources would have been diverted from making it a great gaming and narrative experience.
I've always been a fan of the Elder Scrolls and Fallout games in their modern incarnations (I enjoyed them in their older forms as well, but you got to evolve!). There was always so much to discover and so much that was told through hints in the world. These were the real gems of the game, not so much the main story line! When you added in the crazy amount of modding support, then these games became something more than what the developers could ever have imagined.
This has hit home pretty hard recently, as the Switch version of Skyrim (whilst being a decent port) has nothing on a fully modded PC version!
Settlements
This leads me to the reason why I bounced off Fallout 4 when it first came out. I had bought it as one of my special treats to myself even though I rarely buy games at launch these days (mostly due to an overly long Steam backlog). I had sat down, ready to savour the long term slow exploration of the world over the next few months to half a year. Just sipping in the sights and just enjoying the experience.
However, after a little while, I got completely irritated by the entire "Settlements" mechanic. So much so, that I just gave up on playing it. It really was that annoying!
To sum it up, as you progress in the game, you begin to lead a group of Settlements that are allied to the Minuteman faction. Which is nice and a great idea, however, it manifests itself in a building and management simulation, done from the First Person Perspective of the game. Now, don't get me wrong, I LOVE my management sims (see Rimworld or to a much lesser extent Judgment)! However, when you are a leader of a group of settlements, it really sucks to have to individually build and place each and every little detail and vegetable patch.... Micromanagement gone wild!
So, I quit! That is to say, I came in one time and just blew up each and every settlement.... (in the game...).
The Revelation
So, recently when I discovered that there was a mod called Sim Settlements that basically abstracted away the micromanagement, essentially leaving you only the role of "zoning" areas for building (just like Sim Cities), I jumped at the chance to get back in and begin my experience anew!
After an hour or so of tinkering with mods and mod managers (the kids were at school and daycare, and I put off writing up my travelling tax declarations...), I finally had it all working and going well (you can see the first stream on Vimm at @msearles). Ah, going back to the days of modding... these days it is much much easier, although there was a little glitch with the Mod manager which meant that it had some problems with finding and reading the .ini file.
A couple of extra lines the .ini file were enough to fix part of the problem (thanks be to the internet, the short cut of modders, coders and gamers everywhere!). The last part (and the greatest time sink) was realising that I had named the config file Fallout4custom.ini.ini... So, that is with two .ini "extensions", thereby screwing everything up... Brain fail...
I'm a kid again!
...and so I have myself a nice early Christmas present, a newly re-polished gem of a game that is ready to savour! I'm looking forward to exploring the wastelands again, accompanied by one of the best soundtracks ever to feature in a game!
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Hah I never played fallout actually. CoD was my things tho! Haha soo the christmas family time is doomed you say? :DD
#steemitbloggers
If only my kids were old enough to play with me....
CoD? I'm sure that particular disorder can be fixed...
Hahaha it comes to the taste I guess haha :D
I think I have around 200 hours played in Fallout 4, I just love that game! Hadn't heard about Sim Settlements before though, I'm going to have to check that out for sure.
200 hours! Wow, that's impressive.. although, I suspect I will be going down that route in the next couple of months!
I love that little hut/cafe, just my kind of place
Ha... yes, but not part of the game!
I played a previous version of fallout and was watching the kids playing the new one, I may be tempted to get it and try the new one it looks pretty cool
Nah, the new multiplayer one (Fallout 76) isn't really that good from what I hear... wait for a while, or get Fallout 4 which should be at a decent discount by now!
Good advice thanks I will look into that, but maybe after Christmas, I can now get out with my camera again so will be going nuts walking around getting shots in the city after a months break
Do you have the DLC as well? The storylines are better than the base game to follow in my opinion. I had a lot of fun in the Nuka World. Harvey hated it that I became the leader to a bunch of raiders though lmao.
It's fun to kill my own subordinates after doing some quests with them when their captains didn't know it. For someone who loves the concept of 'betrayal among villains' so much, I enjoyed that part the most. They're raiders after all.
Careful on the modding though, once you install something and it worked nicely, chances are you'd download a shit ton more mods XD
Well, enjoy your wasteland adventure, but don't forget there's always ANOTHER SETTLEMENT THAT NEEDS YOUR HALP GENERAL!
LOL, stupid settlements... I have some DLC, I can't remember which... quite possibly all of them, seeing as the game is old enough!
I remember having some seriously heavily modded versions of Oblivion and Skyrim. Mostly the complete overhauls, that made the game not scale to your level.
Fall out 4 looks awesome. We have part 2 or 3 on console never did find time to play it. My kid though I think finished the games. He would love to play 4 and hopefully this Dec I'll have some time to play finally also lol.
These games are great, a huge time sink! Also, easy to play in short bursts...
Never heard of FO4, but I do know about SIM.
Ahhh... Simcities is the best, but I've recently played the successor. Skylines, it is pretty decent!
Noted on that! Thanks!
I'm in complete agreement on all points. I've heard mixed things about Fallout 76 to start with and I'm not into multiplayer so I'm 'meh' about it. I'd rather go back to Fallout 4 and a fully modded PC Skyrim, at least until F76 calms down and we can see what it really becomes after all the hype is up.
Yeah, I'm not convinced that the hype has really made things better for what I consider should have stayed as a single player game... in these open world games, I don't want to meet a real life person!
Sounds like you are going to have a lot of fun with this. I myself love the good old fashioned board games with people in the room with me :)
For one, I am not a computer expert and it would drive me crazy to try to figure things out - already have to do plenty of that for things I consider my work.
And, I am short of time as it is and I could see getting sucked up in a game and then, falling behind on life tasks...
So, I stay away.
Haha! People are overrated!... Although I do love board games, I'm really trying to teach my girls to get into board games!
Hahaha!
I've been playing Fallout 3 lately too (cause I've only got a PS3) but I'm literally wandering around at the moment trying to find Nuka-Cola.
Recently came across my old copy of Fallout 2 (PC) that was packed away in storage. It's my FAV
Oh come, we've all wanted to do it!
Fallout 2, wow back to the isometric age! I should go back to it, but they really did a good job modernising the franchise!
They certainly have, I jumped from #2 to New Vegas, so I've gone back to fill in the gap - must say, I really enjoyed the user interface and graphics in Vegas.