Another big difference is that Wasteland's skills had prerequisites. A character needed a minimum Intelligence score before he/she could use a skill. In Fallout, all skills were available for all characters, with no prerequisites. Sure looks like Fallout was simplified to me. Dumbed down? Well, maybe not. Let's look at the skills:

Wasteland skills:
IQ 3: Brawling, Climb, Clip Pistol, Knife Fighting, Pugilism, Rifle, Swim
IQ 6: Knife Throwing, Perception
IQ 9: Assault Rifle, AT Weapon, Submachine Guns
IQ 10: Acrobat, Gamble, Picklock, Silent Movement
IQ 11: Confidence
IQ 12: Sleight of Hand
IQ 13: Demolition, Forgery
IQ 14: Alarm Disarm, Bureaucracy
IQ 15: Bomb Disarm, Medic, Safecrack
IQ 16: Cryptology
IQ 17: Metallurgy

I like that a character needs to be smart in order to take the Medic skill. If you want to be able to fix your own wounds, you may have to sacrifice other attributes in order to have a high intelligence. On the other hand, some skills seem to be redundant. Why are Brawling and Pugilism separate skills? Are all those gun skills necessary? If I can use a Rifle, can't I also use an Assault Rifle?

Fallout skills:
Small Guns, Big Guns, Unarmed, Energy Weapons, Melee Weapons, Throwing, First Aid, Doctor, Sneak, Lockpick, Steal, Traps, Science, Repair, Speech, Barter, Gambling, Outdoorsman

Even with fewer skills, some were redundant or useless. There's no need for both First Aid and Doctor. In practice, Doctor could do everything that First Aid could and more, and cost the same number of points. Gambling was a waste of points, and Outdoorsman was a novelty at best.

The screenshot on the right shows a level 10 character of mine that already has two skills above 100. Talk about min-maxing!


Dumbed Down, or More Fun?

Fallout 3 will have 14 skills, which sounds about right once you get rid of the useless Fallout skills. But what about Wasteland's specialty skills like Cryptology and Confidence (whatever that's supposed to do)? In practice, I suspect those skills came up very rarely in the game compared to weapon skills and Medic. As Fallout did, it's probably best to roll them up into more general skills like Science and Speech. This isn't dumbing down, it's just an attempt to make skills more useful and fun. Spending (wasting?) points on something that you use once is not fun.

Another difference: in Wasteland, you could improve your skills by using them, not just by spending points on them. It's a hybrid of Fallout and Elder Scrolls, except that it preceded both of them. I'm a big fan of systems that reward you for using your character's abilities since it encourages you to role-play your stats, not just assign points to them. Fallout had no such incentives. You could only put points into your skills, even if you never used them. You could be an expert with lasers even if you had never owned or used a laser. But that's standard in most RPG systems.


Breaking Up The Party

One feature that was great in Wasteland was the ability to split up your party into any number of groups. If you have four characters, you can split them into four parties of one character each if you wanted. There were certainly times where having two parties was beneficial. Since you made each of your characters specialists in something, it became interesting when it was time to divide your party. Which party will get the doctor? Can the sneaky guy survive in a party by himself?

This brings me to another huge difference between Wasteland and Fallout (and all other modern RPGs): Wasteland let you create four characters, while Fallout gave you only one. Each game allowed you to have other characters join you, but they played a supporting role.

At some point, party-based RPGs went out of fashion. It used to be that all RPGs allowed you to create a group of characters. Bard's Tale, Wizardry, Might & Magic, Final Fantasy. Ultima is the only one I remember that let you create only one character.

The last time a party-based RPG was attempted was Temple of Elemental Evil by Troika. RIP Troika. RIP party-based RPGs.


Enough Comparison

Now I'm supposed to make a conclusion. I certainly can't say that Fallout is a dumbed down successor to Wasteland. In many ways it is more complex. The combat system itself is far more fun and complex than Wasteland's. Some fat was trimmed in some areas (no one misses the Confidence skill), and more important features were enhanced. It's how games evolve. Wasteland was clearly a computer adaptation of a pen-and-paper style system, but some things don't quite work in the translation.

Looking forward to Fallout 3, I would say that the original Fallout games need to evolve further. Min-maxing was far too easy and effective, making the latter half of the game very easy. All characters ended up wearing the same armor in the same order, no matter what skills you chose. Leather jacket, metal armor, power armor, power armor mark 2. And so on. But these are just details that didn't detract too much from the fun, but should not find their way into modern sequels.

As Fallout 3 is unveiled, I look forward to the evolution of this series. It's already clear that some big changes are in order, but the game sounds fun to me so far! If we could just figure out exactly what this VATS thing is...

So it was very disappointing to play the 2004 Bard’s Tale, which was missing all the classic elements from the original series. The writing was hilarious at times, but the gameplay just wasn’t fun or original. I couldn’t stand the combat and boring story, no matter how great the dialog was. The Bard’s Tale franchise would not be revived. This new game was something completely different. And that’s what I’m afraid will happen with a new Wasteland game.

Sure, a new Wasteland game being released 20 years after the original will have to be dramatically different. But it should still retain its CRPG roots, which the new Bard’s Tale abandoned. Point-and-click action-RPG games fail to act as mediums for telling compelling, immersive stories like those found in Wasteland and Fallout. Action-RPG’s are the new arcade games. Fast action, lots of points, high scores, and as many explosions as possible. That’s all fun, and I still have a great time playing Diablo II, but don’t waste the Wasteland brand name on arcade-style gameplay like this, especially when Fallout 3 will probably be so much more. If InXile wants to make a Wasteland successor, they have to compete with the RPG powerhouse Bethesda and their reputation in the RPG genre.

On the other hand, if InXile wants to make another action RPG like The Bard’s Tale, then they have to compete with Blizzard who... well, I guess we don’t know for sure... but more rumors say that Diablo III is waiting impatiently for its big reveal. A new Diablo would be the action-RPG to blow away all other action-RPG’s for years to follow. A Wasteland game in this genre would be adrift without an audience. RPG fans would not be interested, and action-RPG players would be crack babies for Diablo III.

InXile had better come up with a clear vision for its Wasteland, or another classic franchise will get dumped in the trash like Bard’s Tale. Bard’s Tale’s writing was excellent, so InXile’s heart seems to be in the right place. I wish I could have just watched all the dialog and enjoyed it instead of having to play the game. I’m hopeful that InXile has learned a lot from their first game and will make a satisfying post-apocalyptic RPG. I mean, Brian Fargo is at the helm, and he’s one of the greats, so I’m going to keep my eyes open to find confirmation on these rumors and watch this game closely.

There’s plenty of room for both Fallout 3 and Wasteland on my hard drive. More companies are welcome to make more post-apocalyptic games! This is an untapped genre, and I don’t know why! We have enough elves and gnomes in RPG’s, let’s get some more mutants and leather jackets, please?

Sadly, I notice that the InXile website shows an “Unannounced Project” that is an
“action adventure game”. I guess that could be the Wasteland successor. If so... meh. Nevertheless, I look forward to an announcement.

...most players will find themselves taking advantage of the innovative combat system that Bethesda has developed for the game. The Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System (V.A.T.S.) is what assures that this first-person game so chock full of guns doesn't become an FPS. "We don't want to be rewarding twitch play," Howard says. "It's not an action game. It's a role-playing game." While you'll certainly be able to tackle enemies in real time first-person shooting, V.A.T.S. lets players pause time and select a target at their leisure. Once targeted, a zoomed-in view of that enemy will show all the places you could aim to hit the creature, and the percentage chance you'll succeed... Just like in the original Fallout, you'll have a set number of action points, largely based on your agility score. Every combat move you make will deplete this supply, at which point those AP will begin to regenerate in real time at a rate that also corresponds with your agility. Once you complete all your actions in V.A.T.S. you can continue to attack in real time, but this will dramatically slow the recharge of your action points, thereby encouraging tactical targeting over constant twitch shooting.

I'm confused at the very start of this description. "Most players" will use VATS? Why most players? I interpret this paragraph to mean that there are two modes of combat: real-time, which is designed to be an inferior way to play, and turn-based, which is the ideal way to play. It also seems like you need to switch into real-time mode to let your Action Points recharge. Sounds strange. I'm sure Bethesda will clarify soon. Or rather, I hope they do. I don't quite get it.

I've played games that tried to have both real-time and turn-based combat, and it has never been great. Some examples:

Arcanum, by Troika (who expressed interest in the Fallout license before they went belly-up), had the worst implementation of real-time and turn-based combat in any RPG, in my opinion. The real-time combat was clearly unfinished, as it was much too fast to be playable. Rats could hit me about 3 times per second. I would sometimes be near death before I could even right-click on a monster! Even worse, it seems that the game’s turn-based mode had to make compromises to accommodate the real-time mode. So it ended up that Arcanum had a horrible real-time mode, and a disappointing turn-based mode. It was such a fantastic game otherwise. If only it stuck to one style of combat and did it well, we might have had another great RPG franchise like Fallout. It should have been the game that made Troika rich and famous.

Bioware RPGs like Baldur’s Gate and Knights of the Old Republic used a “real-time with pause” combat system. In real-time mode, it was just something you watched. Then you had to slam the space bar to stop the action, give some orders to your characters, and hit the space bar again to see it all happen. Often, the orders you gave didn’t happen the way you intended them to. As a result, Baldur’s Gate had the most frustrating implementation of the Dungeons & Dragons rules I can imagine. Casting a fireball in such a system was a nightmare, since by the time the fireball went off everyone had moved and one of my characters had wandered into the fireball blast radius thanks to the flawed pathfinding AI! It was neither real-time nor turn-based, and certainly wasn’t strategic or fun. You can’t take a turn-based system like D&D and force it into a real-time system. KOTOR did a better job of this, but only by simplifying combat and making the game too easy.

It always ends up that one mode of play is better than the other. Sure, you could try to play Baldur's Gate in real-time mode, allowing your party members to operate mostly on AI, but you would be far more successful if you used the "pause mode" to micro-manage each character. If real-time mode was so inferior, why have it at all? If you've got one combat system that is fun, why offer a second? Have some confidence in your game design skills, game developers!

So, based on the Game Informer article (which could be inaccurate), it sounds like Fallout 3 is designed to have a turn-based system (VATS) that is the optimal way to play. The real-time mode may exist only to get through simple combat situations quickly, like killing rats that die in one hit.

Overall, I'm optimistic about the idea of VATS. It means that we'll get some sort of turn-based combat system combined with the immersion of a first-person perspective. I look forward to finding out more. A gameplay video that demonstrates VATS would be nice...