Uncle Tim with morning prep for game dev is such a comforting presence. Yeah I gotta get to work and manage this titanic project but Uncle Tim's got the cadence started. It's wonderful.
The moment in Fallout 2 when you get the car was so AMAZING! Just cruising over the map, your buddies around and a trunk full of weapons and supplies. No one could stop us!
Funny thing, in FNV I recently found a wrecked Highwayman and inside the trunk there was a bunch of loot, including an armoured vault 13 jumpsuit and a vault 13 canteen. Coincidence? 🧐
Agree. I remember an article about body degradation. Researchers said that hypothetically it's possible to live forever by changing your organs or putting your brain into a new body. But the only thing that we don't know how to "update" is our own brain. You can live as long as you want, but eventually your brain will start to shut down and you can't do anything about it. I think something similar happens to ghouls. They can live for a 100, 150 years, but at some point their brain condition worsens and they become feral. I suppose this "drug" is what stops the brain from degradation. In the beginning a ghoul has to take, say, one vial per week to keep himself functional, but with time he'll have to consume more vials to the point that they are completely useless. Then it's either a bullet to the brain or going feral.
Even book writers can have lore drift on in their own book series. Like when Arthur C. Clarke wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey together with Stanley Kubrick, the destination of Discovery One was Jupiter. But in 2010: Odyssey Two it was changed to Saturn because of multiple things. Kubrick wanted Jupiter because the rings on Saturn were hard to visualize in a way he was happy with it. Clarke changed it to Saturn in the 2nd book because of the new discoveries made by Voyager.
Hope you read this Tim: from a mid-40's gamer for whom og Fallout already seemed old when I played it (90's-2000's gamers & devs know what I'm talking about here) and was still the coolest game I've ever played-you're a scholar, gentleman and a Boss (if those Fallout premier shots are anything to go by), thanks for being the creator of one of the most subversive and fun games of my young adult life but also for being an open-eyed and positive influence in a modern era of increasing clannishness. You rock! \m/
I also think it's important to note that (although you alluded to this with your early star trek example) that lore drift can sometimes be a very positive thing. Sometimes changing lore, even fundamental lore, can open up new ideas and new areas to explore for an IP that can lead to some wonderful stories that wouldn't have been possible otherwise.
One of my favourite examples of drastically changing lore for the right reasons is the Battlestar Galactica reboot because almost every single change and new creative decision was an improvement over the original.
@hellsregect but for dramatic effect! Honestly, though, she felt like one of those people we all know who can't make a good decision for the life of them.
Hey Tim, can you make a video of your top 10 books, I read A Canticle for Leibowitz (since you mentioned it inspiring the brotherhood) and it got me into reading and it was one of the best things I have ever experienced.
@@alfieburns9019 my jaw literally dropped after that part, was actually my first book outside of school work and it took a bit to get into imaging the scenes but by that point I had it down and I was stunned lol
Hi from the russian fan sector.)) I just viewed series to the end and absolutely agree Timothy's point. In light language, a very good series! Visuals, actor's playing, camera, dramatic act, soundtrack. Fan bros, look at picture in whole view: it is a great work, that distribute our loving GameWorld to the RealWorld! With love and peace, Ilia "uncle Eli" Karnauhov.)
That scene with Thaddeus taking that drug. At first I thought it was something mixed with Radium and it was going to turn him into a ghoul but then I thought, Ghouls dont regenerate like that and in the same show The Ghoul had to stitch his finger back on. I think he drank FEV or at least some kind of variation of it. I got the impression that he was no longer human anymore after drinking it. The regeneration and radiation resistance but also surviving that crossbow bolt to the neck is what makes me think that way.
To be fair, Thaddeus still had all the pieces of his foot, they just needed to be brought back together. Cooper's finger was completely severed (also, I think the finger he sewed on was Lucy's). But I agree that Thaddeus definitely has more going on than "became a ghoul".
@@erraticonteuse good point. I was thinking that when typing but I thought the immediate regeneration and surviving the crossbow bolt to the neck are too much for him to simply be a ghoul. It could be her finger but also isnt. The finger he sewed seemed too much like a perfect fit to be hers but also it did look like he pocketed Lucy's finger during their exchange.
@@MrLOLZdude15 that is also true but Hancock did say it was the only one of its kind but his credibility can be put to question. We do know that the chem gave Hancock a serious high but for Thaddeus he looked sober. Also another thought that I have is whats the point for the skin to regrow if it was just going to start peeling off later down the line.
I just found you and your channel yesterday, and man, I'm so glad I did. I'm a huge fan of Fallout, and watching your videos (about Fallout and other stuff) warms my heart. You have such an awesome, down-to-earth way of sharing your thoughts. I love how you explain lore drift and why it is inevitable/okay. I can't wait to watch more!
me too, i always thought tim was amazing but never imagined he would be on youtube, then i searched his name to see if he did anything on the show and discovered hundreds of videos on game design, that is like finding a treasure chest
Lore drift does happen, but it's mostly a negative. If you constantly alter the foundational structure of your make believe universe it has a negative effect on a persons ability to engage and stay invested. How it affects you will depend on how invested you are in the IP.
This is just a theory but it could be that the anti-feral drug is for ghouls that are starting to go feral. Like, they could go a bit or a while without it depending on the individual, but when they start going feral, that’s when they need to get the drug (if they can even find it, I mean look what cooper had to do to get 60 vials of the stuff). Regardless, I’d love to see how the show elaborates more on it in the second season
They all but said that in the show, I'm pretty sure. Cooper's other ghoul friend said he only started experiencing feral symptoms 20-something years ago.
Wow! With your Conan example I realize just how much of my favorite media has lore drift. Since the show dropped this was the first i'd heard the term and while i understood it, i couldn't directly tie it to anything! Thank you as always!
Tim, thank you for explaining these concepts. Hopefully that helps part of the community recalibrate their expectations to be more realistic. Keep up the great work!
I really love this, Tim. Any world, fictional, historical, or otherwise - is interpreted by humans who *suck* at remembering detail, and worst of all it's not even lived detail. Much like you said about your experiences at Interplay differing from others' recollections, the same thing applies to lore. Anyway, I'm really enjoying all of the videos you're putting out and just want to say thanks!
I personally find a difference in "lore drift" and "lore driving off a cliff". Problems arise with the latter, and when it's done on the same things every time it becomes worse. You can clarify things to be slightly different to what they were before, especially in a universe where information is related mostly by word-of-mouth, but if you constantly change a big aspect of the lore or "lore flip-flop", especially in a manner that negates previous information every time it happens then that's a problem for me. An example of Ghouls needing and not needing food and water in the same game.
As much as I like Tim Cain’s positive approach, I also agree to your "lore driving off a cliff". As much as we try to find some potential explanations or theories on why this or that changed, why this or that happened when there are lore drifts, sometimes the real reasons are based on carelessness, ineptitude or laziness by the game directors or whoever is responsible. Tim’s approach of "letting go" is an healthy one, that I tend to follow now. I’ve seen so many IPs I cared about getting mistreated, like Star Wars, The Witcher, or Tolkien Legendarium, and I’ve learned to care more about what I effectively liked then and to care less about what I dislike now.
@@TheMaxyms While I do agree partially, I also think that there's no reason to give money to the careless, inept or lazy people. There's a reason why I cancelled my last (and only) subscription in 2021 or why half of the games I play have come 10+ years ago.
there's that riddle from George RR Martin: in Gone With The Wind how many children does Scarlett O'Hara have, since in the book she has 3 children, and in the movie she has 1 and his answer is none since she doesn't exist, so both are equally wrong
One thing I think intense fans of any franchise need to consider is how the broader audience experiences things. Directors could create a movie that hits every lore-accurate bullet point and make super fans extremely happy. But would that same movie *also* appeal to a broader audience? Too often fans interpret 'lore drift' as insulting their intelligence or a change that was intentionally nefarious to snub the original content, but that's almost never the case. Sometimes, the people with the money who are producing this stuff are just considering a larger market than the fraction of a fraction of superfans who will analyze every second of film for lore accuracy.
The way I see it, the show lore is event canon but not mechanically canon. Film/TV often requires different storytelling tools from games, so I'm not going to be mad when an adaptation from one medium to another swaps in some of the storytelling tools of the new medium, even if it may *technically* result in different lore, because if the whole franchise had always been a show, the lore would also have been different. There's still no lore to explain how Stimpaks work, but nobody care because we understand the real purpose is to make the game easier to play/let the show do cartoony violence and let the characters survive anyway. Giving ghouls an anti-feral serum is an efficient way to show the audience that there's more downsides to being a ghoul than just losing a nose, it gives Cooper a weakness when he's otherwise been shown to be very in control of himself in every situation he's been in; it also makes it understandable why Lucy would think it was good to release Martha but then have to kill her (an important character development for Lucy). TV shows can't spend the time to explain things that games can or else it would drag and potentially better scenes or characterization would get a short shrift.
The problem here is the show borrows a lot of “mechanical” elements to its own detriment. It’s why I say the lore problems are problems of believability
I cant tell you how much I enjoy listening to you! I didnt even care that much about Fallout or game design before I got recommended your channel but it's really interesting listening to you talk. Very calming too. Big ups
Honestly, I just think the Ghoul drug was radaway. We see it hooked up to Coop when he's in the grave, and it makes sense to me that if feralisation can be caused by continued exposure to radiation, Radaway would be able to stave it off.
I've seen it be mentioned a few times and honestly I think it makes sense. The whole feralisation treatment might look like it comes out of nowhere, but it's not that far fetched when you actually stop to think about it. There has to be an explanation as to why some ghouls are fine after 200+ years but others have gone feral. And if it's simply Radaway, then it would explain why it's never really been mentioned before. It's not a miracle cure, it's one of the most ordinary healing items in the game.
I would buy that if it wasn't for the traveling snake oil salesman turning Thaddeus immediately into a ghoul with one huff of whatever it was he gave him
@@ermwhatdaheck I'm really hoping that season 2 comes with a reveal that it was a drug laced with FEV, and that Thaddeus is turning mutant, rather than ghoul. It would line up with already establish FEV lore in regards to the healing factor.
I think that’s my biggest annoyance with a lot of the “Bethesda Bad” part of the Fallout/Elder Scrolls fandom. Lore is never consistent, because you really don’t want lore to be that consistent otherwise you end up writing yourself into a wall, more open ended stuff is better for lore because you can come up with wacky and fun explanations or better lore. That’s not to say you can’t have consistency but it should really apply to the most important aspects.
Much of my frustration with lore drifts (especially significant ones) comes more from the fact that I cherish the lore as it was previously written and feel like I've lost a universe that I loved and that it will not come back. For Fallout in particular, I feel that it would have been better if the TV series was non-canon and could focus purely on entertainment without worrying about changing pre-existing lore.
I'm interested to learn what you think about them moving Shady Sands so close to LA To me this is the biggest problem so far. I even like the idea of this medicine to delay the moment ghouls become feral.
I feel like it was unnecessary as well. Maybe they wanted those buildings to be around the crater for cinematic purpose, but in my opinion, empty brahmin pastures and barns would create an even bigger impact.
@@evgeniygerkus9242 they could also just leave it as Boneyard and it wouldn't change anything for the show. AFAIK, it was also one of the biggest NCR cities and even had medical university. Also, cars on the edge of the crater made me cringe. It wasn't an earthquake and ground came down, it was a damn nuke! There should be nothing in a few miles radius standing around the hole that big that has no roots/basement or isn't put there after the explosion.
@@zhulikkulik Also, I'm still curious why Hank decided to only nuke Shady Sands. He spent enough time on the surface to learn of other city states getting in the way of Vault Tec and their plan to rebuild the world according to their design.
Hank is a middle manager in a power trip. Don't expect every move he makes to be the most intelligent or well considered. As the Ghoul said "this kid used to pick up my wife's dry cleaning" Hank is only a "somebody" because of the experiment of Vaults 31,32 and 33 and even then, while not explicitly stated I get the feeling from the text convo between Norm and Vault 31, that "Bud" the roomba is Hank and Betty's Superior. He answers, to a brain on a roomba. Anyone that's ever worked a coorperate job with an absurdly long chain of command will have experienced a Hank in their lives. He even pulled the classic "Middle Manager" move of "My peons are not listening to my insane demands! I'm going to go tell MY boss!" It's the only reason the Ghoul let him live, because the Ghoul is very interested in meeting Hank's boss.
Very well said. Criticisms - ESPECIALLY online - shouldn't be an attack. Lore drift is a good phrase for this too, it might be a bit destructive and discombobulating but its natural and ultimately inevitable. Also I'm personally still holding out hope that the regeneration serum was FEV or some offshoot.
Natural is entirely dependent on how organic it meshes. It’s why comparative myth is useful. We can comb the Bible and using context clues and cross referencing figure out pretty easily when something doesn’t fit because so much of it was written by very different people at very different points in time, with different events going on. It tends to be much harder when applied to mythologies that seem to have completely supplanted what was the main religion in an area. The Bible is easy to pinpoint its non native influences. But it’s a whole lot harder to strip apart any indo European mythology and figure out what doesn’t belong in it because enough of it is heavily consistent. Lore changes. It drifts, but consistency with those changes is never equally dramatic
I found this channel in my recommendations a few months ago, and it's been an absolute treasure trove. I'm not even halfway through the back catalog but everything's been pretty great so far. I don't usually like UA-cam's algorithm, but when it hits, it really hits. I used to be pretty anal about "lore breaking" in the past, but frankly after the show's announcement I stopped caring so much, seeing how some people get so aggressive about it. To me at least, lore drift is only really an issue if it invalidates/breaks older stories. Otherwise it doesn't really bother me much. You already brought up the Necropolis plot with the water pump in the video, which is one of the instances where I think lore drift really broke something, since obviously that plot doesn't work if ghouls don't need water. An instance of lore drift that I don't think breaks anything is Jet being pre-war as of Fallout 4. It does change the context of the plot with Myron and the Mordino family in Fallout 2, but it doesn't necessarily break it - Myron is already a complete egotistical scumbag, lying about inventing Jet is totally in-character for him. Then there are really minor instances of lore drift which either don't affect much at all, or are so easily resolvable it's not even an issue. Power Armor requiring fusion cores as of Fallout 4(can't these co-exist with the TX-28 microfusion packs mentioned in the first Fallout? Surely there are multiple power sources a suit could run off of?) and T-60 power armor being better than T-51(Fallout 76 of all games resolved this by just changing their stats so they're sidegrades to each other. Not a big deal whatsoever) Despite this, I've still seen a ton of people get extremely angry over these two changes in particular, despite them being really minor and not breaking any existing plots. I have a whole list of problems with the way Bethesda handles the series, but some of y'all need to chill.
I think Dune and Conan are a bit different to lore changes in Fallout because the movies are completely separate entities to the books, whereas the Fallout series takes place in the same world and whatever lore changes happen in it will likely become canon in the game world too.
@ULTRAOutdoorsman I was really hoping that with Microsoft owning Obsidian and Bethesda we might see Obsidian making more Fallout games but I doubt if that's ever going to happen.
Very Professional statement, Sir. Thank you to be a Senpai by flashing a beacon of light to help us find our guidance. Wished my Professors from my college where atlast this motivatet to explain (themselves) and teach/ show a different perspektive of the world at the same time.
Hi Tim, it's not just fallout 3 or 4 where ghouls don't need water - there are two seperate cases in Fallout 2 of a ghoul being alive for years in a coffin
@@Thagomizer people overlook the fact in the show that the ghoul isnt just left in that coffin forever, hes kept alive so that his captor can keep harvesting parts of himc to sell, im sure hes fed and given water
Tim doesn't even know his own games. Don't listen to this fraud, he is just cashing in on the Fallout TV SHOW. -- EDIT; To all the future people who wanna reply to my comment, TIM only worked on the first game. A GAME that came out in 1997. 1997 is the last time he worked on the Fallout IP. 1997.
I’ve been a fan of your work for like a decade at this point, and I just found out recently about your channel. I’ve learned so much about what makes coding interesting. I’m only learning simple R-based scripts and code for statistics, but some of the way you approach the topics helps me reframe how I look at coding. It’s not as daunting as it used to be. Once I get R handled, I plan on going into Python and C# to build a toolkit for marketability
Not new it's been a saying for many years. Same with using words like gnarly - people just move on to speaking in a general way people understand. I still use take a nap though, or bedtime.
I didn’t mind the ghoul stuff, i honestly think it’s a cool addition, i just can’t wrap my head around the thinking of having shady sands fall before the events of new vegas
Hello Tim! I think I may have another way for you to explain what you call Lore Drift. I recommend looking up a book called The Drunkard's Walk, by Leonard Mlodinow. It's all about how randomness in the statistical sense affects things. The title refers to the effect of a single drop of dye when put into still water. Without guidance, statistics basically takes over, and it performs a "drunkard's walk" through the water. This basically is used to explain how without a particular goal or vision to establish your direction, you have no way of expecting how that direction will change, and the project will propagate. Actual choices made in adherence to a goal have to be made repeatedly to make directed progress in anything, and once you aren't the visionary, you cannot control how it will go. Eventually the stories of Homer were not his.
You didn't understand. They threw the bombs, and after that shady sands rose up from the ashes. When Lucy's mom realised there was an actual city working outside she escaped with her two kids, and then is when shady sands get bombed for a second time and all goes to hell. Then is when the mom turns into a ghoul.
I think the other difference is that everyone plays everything differently. Some people like to pick through every terminal and talk to every NPC. Others just care about the objectives and keep pushing forward. Some have both traits where we hoard everything and get sidetracked by every little side-lore objects like Holotapes or notes. Sometimes the information is given but people miss it as well.
Ah yes vehicle lore. It is implied in FNV and 4 that people are using vehicles, and it’s outright stated in 76 that they are. Wish we could have one for lore friendly fast travel.
Thx Tim! I enjoyed the discussion about lore drift. I appreciate when the drift is tied back into source material (like the introduction of some kind of virus, environment adaptation, really any narrative development) when it’s tied back into source material the drift seems to retain a little more of it’s original DNA.
“The reverend mother Helena… goyim? Mohiam? Idk Helena Bonham Carter lol. Reverend mother Helena!” This whole bit had me in stitches , thanks Tim. Btw, her name is Gaius Helen Mohiam, so close enough.
Love your content, Mr Cain. I have an immense amount of respect for you and this video just reinforces that respect. I know that some corners of the internet won’t take your message here to heart but I hope you reached someone.
I don't understand why I'm not seeing people mention that this special ghoul drug could just be something new. It's been several years since the earlier games, and some ghouls have been alive quite a while. Maybe some of them finally worked out a method to maintain their humanity. New things are invented between media installments all the time.
@@agodelianshock9422 Just as Tim suggested, the technology was always there, just no one realised the drug had this impact on ghouls - it wasn't designed and marketed as "anti feral drug" it could be anything, but at some point someone tested it out and realised it works - and it would be hard to test since you'd need someone who either was almost feral or already feral (it's a bit unclear how far ghouls can go)
People don't mention that because it was clearly just contrived/bad writing with no precedent in any of the games. But Fallout lore has been kinda inconsistent since Bethesda took over, and it was always a silly universe that didn't take itself too seriously, so the convenient ghoul-transformation-drug didn't bother me that much.
@@AssailantLF So what, any story beat or plot line that wasn't already previously established is bad or lazy writing? The idea of a ghoul drug was introduced with Hancock in F4...it's how he became a ghoul. Whether or not this is related to the drug in the show that Thaddeus takes, or the serum Cooper is taking to prevent becoming feral, we don't know. It's an unanswered question. Unanswered questions aren't bad or lazy writing, especially in an ongoing story. They're kind of the engine that drives a story forward. Let them cook, and reserve judgment for when the story is over.
The way I see it, there are lore things that are not originally explained because the writers didn't think it really mattered or just didn't have time to go in depth, like the whole ghoul thing. I think the anti-feral medication was pretty cool and the ghoulifying drug was hilarious (somehow it kinda reminded me of random encounters in 1 and 2, and also wild wasteland in NV). However, there are things best left vague, and I really don't like what they are doing with Vault-Tec. Sure, they didn't straight up say "we WILL start the war", but the Vault-Tec guys clearly already had this idea as their main tool, they weren't just brainstorming. I always liked how vague some of the pre-war lore used to be because it gave that feeling of "it's not about who's waging war; war always happened and it will always happen".
I think Vault-Tec conspiring with the other corporations to drop the bombs themselves does still stay within that commentary about war, in the sense that it still explores *why* war happens. War happens because of factionalism and desire for resources, but those factions go beyond just governments and ideologies. It's about how there are different ways of getting entrenched into your faction's position, whether you really believe in your side's ideology, or if you're just trying to get paid or even just justify your own existence. I also think that Vault-Tec functions as a metaphor in this way. Because it's a ridiculous answer, but I ask you, what *is* a non-ridiculous reason to drop atomic bombs in the context of Mutually Assured Destruction? Would either of the political powers or ideologies had a better reason? If there had to be an answer to the question of who dropped the bombs (and I understand of you think there shouldn't have been one) "Vault-Tec" is by far the most thematically appropriate over the US or China or any other country.
Really enjoying & appreciating your videos, Tim, thank you! I think the concept you’re echoing here is genetic drift, defined approximately as “the change in trait frequency, in a population, over time.” Definitely feels analogous!
Hey Tim, I think something I am curious about that I haven't really seen anyone else discuss is how the "Master" would effect Vault 33 from the show. To my understanding of Fallout 1 the Master prioritized vault-dwellers to become super mutants and he would have been close by to Vault 33. I don't know if a question like this warrants a whole video but from my own understanding if this is the case then it is something I would like to see more people discuss and see different perspectives on.
I think this is really the biggest incompatibility between the show and the games, and was done for the sake of a better setting for the show. Other fallout sources have said there are other vaults in the LA area (i heard the fallout bible says that) and i think it just has to be accepted that the master ignored these vaults for some reason.
I really enjoyed your wise words about lore drift, which I think lore is like a living organism: it keeps evolving over time until it becomes extinct. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and nicely illustrating with three major lores.
Limitations are good, the story should fit the lore. You can break the lore as long as you explain how the thing you did was possible, thus creating new lore but changing fundamental things about the lore makes the IP not be the IP you paid good money for (or in the case of public domain not be what people wanted it to be).
For my taste you can change a lot IF the change is traded for just as good if not more story beats and developments. Otherwise you're losing the original charm AND failing on the delivery of what you're trying to set up.
@@SyaniitiI think it depends on the medium. I'm thinking specifically of Fallout because that's prescient but I think you can generalize a bit. A TV show is an adaptation. It has to adapt, it's impossible to follow the lore 100%, especially when a game series is set up so open ended. You follow the lore where you can but fundamentally you are trying to tell an interesting and engaging story. That's far more important than sticking to it totally and having a faithful but dull TV series that's only good for spotting Easter eggs.
My interpretation of what you said previously in your video regarding the TV series has allowed me to enjoy all Fallout equally, and that is the idea of misinformation and inaccuracies in the world of Fallout itself. If "History is written by the victors" and warring factions being a huge theme in Fallout, it makes sense to believe that everyone is trying to write history "their way". I personally hope these smaller lore drifts continue to happen, as it makes the world feel more alive than it already was. As always, thanks for your videos Tim. You're an amazing guy! ☢♥
You've established that, due to Conan, there are two separate canons in your head -- film and book. Which, I think, a lot of us do with things like Marvel or Star Wars. In my case, I am not a Star Wars fan. Not any longer. And I was one of the biggest of the biggest, read a whole bunch of the EU books. I'm not telling anyone they can't enjoy the sequels, but they simply weren't what I wanted to see. Knowing how fandom and canon works, it really isn't as simple as you've described. "Lore drift" can be a naturally-occurring phenomena, but in many cases, it's due to sheer incompetence. Whoever was directing that Star Trek series you were talking about, where women couldn't be captains, let's be real, Tim...the director of that series did not know Star Trek lore, did not respect Star Trek lore, or didn't know enough about the lore to fathom that women are equals in this society. And that, to me, speaks volumes about where art is going. From my perspective, lore drift CAN be good, but it must be executed properly. It's all monetized, Tim. You know as well as I do, this is all about money, this isn't about art. Another point to add into this is...okay, so, when do us EU fans get to see our stories, then, on the big screen? We never will. Only the new generations will have their heroes until they, too, are tossed aside for a new generation, only for the cycle to perpetuate itself infinitely. No no, you're absolutely right on some things, Tim. Like, the horrible words directed at Rose from The Last Jedi (I don't know the actress' name), horrible words directed at actors for their jobs in this industry, is absolutely unjustified. I don't think anyone (with a good head on their shoulders) disagrees with this. When I criticize a show or film, I do not refer to the middlemen who had no say in the production of the project. This...should be common sense. Couldn't be me, though, so I take no responsibility for what stupid people do. Look at Halo. Just...look at it. Do some people enjoy the show? Sure. My cousin does. But he's a normie. He doesn't know Halo lore, he's just seeing the Master Chief kicking ass and...not really being himself, but, my cousin is enjoying it. But all the Halo fans are dunking on the show (for good reason). The Halo show is terrible. The only people who enjoy it are normies who never liked Halo to begin with. And, you know, had the director of this Halo show made the show lore-accurate, I bet the normies would've eaten it up like hotcakes, regardless. Because they're normies. They'll accept any amount of eye candy. So...why not just go by the lore? For one, just one fandom, can we go by the lore? Does every single franchise have to go through a 1984-esque rewrite of history? We're all gonna be speaking Newspeak by the time the new Fallout show is done. Fallout 3, ghouls don't need food or water or air? I...must admit, I don't remember this. I think that's around the time of Fallout 4, with Billy in the fridge. Several retcons took place throughout Fallout 4, which I was...not happy with every step of the way. Enclave Power Armor existing pre-War in Nuka-World? Oh, please. Bethesda insults our intelligence. Us geeks, we LOVE lore. We LOVE discussing this stuff, theorizing about what comes next within the rules you've established for us. And then it turns out there are no rules. Listen, I don't care about the synths/androids whatever, I don't care about Bethesda having the Shi not get nuked by the Enclave (which you Interplay guys wanted for some reason, which, admittedly, I am curious about), but...what's the point, man? Is it too much to have a cohesive narrative? You're okay with stuff changing to not make sense or to contradict what comes before? Why? One last complaint before we finish this up, Tim. Fallout, like Star Wars, was something special. You can be where you are now, revel in your opportunities, enjoy your current projects, whatever it is you do, but you guys at Interplay did, at one time, create something that means a lot to a lot of people. I know you don't own the IP, I know Obsidian doesn't own the IP, I know there's nothing any diehard fan can do about this situation except watch in absolute horror as Fallout, along with everything else, crashes and burns by the wayside. Always remember, Tim, that Fallout meant something once. It wasn't just senseless eye candy for the masses like everything else is, now. Everything fades into mist. The past is erased, the erasure forgotten. The lie becomes truth and then becomes a lie again. I'm not joining the normie groupthink, Tim. Death to Videodrome! Long live the New Flesh! EDIT: None of this means I hate the show. I will give it a shot and see where it goes, although, yes, from the retcons I have seen thus far, I ain't too happy with them.
I think the part of ghouls not needing water nor food isn't canon, or at least it isn't anymore, if I remember correctly one of the writers of Fo4 explain that the sidequest of the ghoul kid was more of a joke quest, cause there's more evidence in those game that ghouls need to eat and drink water, I guess the current canon is that they´re more resilience than humans.
Yeah, I always find it funny when people take every quest to be permanently lore-defining or breaking no matter what the tone of that quest is. Tim also mentioned in his video on New Game+ that he didn't really intend for aliens to be canon in Fallout, he just thought it was funny to have a crashed spaceship with a velvet Elvis painting, but now everyone assumes the existence of aliens to be canon (and Bethesda gave them a DLC).
In fallout New Vegas I got the impression that ionizing radiation sustains ghouls like a kind of regenerative nutrient. Which explained the quest where you can help a group of ghouls to go into space aboard rocketships, since the unshielded cosmic radiation would be enough to sustain them. They could be wrong about that of course. But it seemed like a neat explanation at the time.
I just wished Bethesda didn't do California again. They have the rest of the country to focus on but they really need the BoS to market towards casuals. Like what's it like in Florida, Texas, the Great Lakes area?
People have been begging for a West Coast Fallout property for years at this point and now that they finally do you're having second thoughts? No, fans do not deserve anything they recieve.
@@jayjaybob2 I don't think anyone is raving. "Why just hate on things" If I as a fan off Fallout see a fallout product/game that is not good I will point out what I don't like about it. It is called criticism. And without it, nothing is improved.
@@renaigh We already have 3 fantastic games set on the West Coast, with 2 of them in California itself. This was just Bethesda putting their foot down on old lore telling everyone they own the IP and will destroy it to achieve more casuals which is obvious from their obsession with putting BoS in everything. You come off as a tourist.
I think the ghoul healing thing is a misdirect, which you picked up on, Tim. To avoid spoilers, we see a ghoul lose a body part that doesn't magically regenerate. I think to, let's say regrow a limb, a little forced evolution is in order. That would be interesting to know - in your conceptualization of F.E.V, does ingesting it through an inhaler yield similar results to being dipped? Love the channel and always look forward to a new upload.
Lore drift can be absolutely bad. An example is the 'Kid in a Fridge' quest in Fallout 4. A kid is locked in a fridge for 200 years without food or water to last and turns into a ghoul but doesn't die? The premise is bad, the change is bad, it upends major plot points (the Necropolis water pump) & worldbuilding, for absolutely no benefit If Ghouls don't need food or water and live off radiation why can't I recruit only Ghouls to my settlement and not have to grow food & get water? why are the ghouls in FO3 drinking the FEV poisoned water if they don't need it?
Why can Dean Domino suck the Cloud like it's nothing when it isn't made entirely of Radiation? Why are there so many bits of food lying around the Villa when Dean would have surely eaten it all by the time the Courier arrives, oh wait! I've figured it out. It's Because It Doesn't Fucking Matter! Dead Money is still a masterpiece of storytelling regardless of whether or not Dean needs to scoff down a fancy lad cake every couple hours.
Really appreciated the emphasis on civility here. It’s okay to be passionate about IP’s and care about established lore- but lore drift happens. It’s okay to disagree too! It just never has to get to *that* point
@@509Gman disagreement is not toxic at all. It can usually be the opposite. Same for voicing it- if used properly it can start great dialogues and maybe even change perspectives. It’s when we start insulting each other… over creative differences… when toxicity begins to lurch in
I did let out a sigh when all the entrances to the vaults were sticking out in the open. They were fairly hidden and that helped them not get discovered by the Master
To be fair, the Unity doesn't seem to be searching in full force until the middle of the first game. Before, it was just caravans and a small mumber of vaults listed in the cathedral.
I personally really loved the detail that a sign of a ghoul becoming feral is the person repeating their name to themselves. it felt so sad and eerie, kind of like how dementia patients frequently in the latest stages of the disease have a pattern of remembering their favorite music if nothing else.
Concerning the ghoul, I'm mostly curious if they have faster regen with the small radiation in the air or something. Fallout (post 3) has shown that ghouls do regen in high levels of radiation. Maybe the show did a variant of that?
While I can certainly accept lore drift as an element that is often natural, necessary, and even beneficial in fleshing out unexplored or odd ends of a setting, I do not think it's a good pretense to stand on for much broader issues that can be brought up in lore shifts. Like you apply the logic to the ghouls there, but can you fully apply the rationale to the BoS sometimes major shifts? Power Armor? The Master? The Enclave? The world itself? You had a car, why did vehicles become a no-go later? You had towns and cities being rebuilt and built up from nothing, creating something new. Why did those go away? It is merely "lore drift" that every town turned into a scrap heap?
I feel bad that you have to get dragged into a lot of the Fallout "drama" but I really appreciate you using it to steer into topics you like to talk about.
I'm sure you've played a lot of different games but at least professionally, you have an obvious affinity for the RPG. Are there any other genres that interest you, that you'd maybe like to dip your toes in for a one-off experimental project if you had the time? Or, more controversially, are there any genres that you find it difficult to understand the appeal of?
The drug that turns the user into a ghoul was present since fallout 4 i think the scene could have been better like it happend to hancock in fallout 4 (him being a drug addict) he got the biggest high he ever experienced and turned into a ghoul
One of the core aspects of either expanding the lore or changing the lore is keeping to the themes of the story itself. One of the core things in Fallout that doesn't need to be explained is "who dropped the bomb" - it's not relevant, because the story isn't about blaming a single faction, it's the humanity itself that brought the world to the apocalypse. This applies to basically every lore change Bethesda brought - it's short-sighted, it doesn't go with the themes of the game, it feels like it just wasn't thought through because someone said "that sounds cool, lets put a ghoul in a fridge" and just went with it. Other things, on the other hand, absolutely benefit from being explained. If you want to learn about the horror of the Vaults or what unethical things a company was up to before the war, you can - that builds the themes of the game. Just compare the Wikia entries for "the Fog" from Far Harbor and "the Cloud" from Dead Money. The Cloud is painfully explained in detail, the Fog is just like "oh weird radiation makes people go crazy".
Yeah, sometimes lore is retconned for good reason or necessary change. The world isn't static and some perceptions we initially had are incorrect. The issue is that this show didn't need to share the same canon as the games. You can make adaptations that fit your story without needing to worry about taking into consideration writing around a large open world with varying outcomes. The second is, much like the majority of Bethesda Fallout, is that their rule of cool generally detracts from the old and new stuff they actually get right. And it's kind of frustrating when fans feel disrespected and find any criticism is discouraged. I get the need to curb harassment but there's this one sided dynamic with an ingroup granted clemency. I'm going to circle around the entire dumpster fire that is the current consumer revolt in gaming to highlight Bethesda's poor handling of Starfield's negative steam reviews.
In terms of the ghoul drug - it absolutely serves a purpose, by giving the audience a condition to look for for Cooper turning feral and explaining why anyone even tolerates ghouls when feral ghouls exist. That's one of the biggest problems with ghouls in society in the Fallout setting. Why would anyone ever let them live for a second if they just randomly turn feral? As for "who dropped the bomb". Bethesda didn't change anything, so I'm not sure if that's one of the short sighted changes you're talking about. They never said who dropped the bombs but it obviously wasn't Vault Tec.
@@wmidler the show didn't need to have Cooper a ticking time bomb before he goes insane from lack of medication. Considering Cooper's behavior, you don't need the threat of him going feral to be a threat. Before this, ghouls didn't turn feral randomly and inevitably. It was further exposure to increased levels of radiation. There was a whole plotpoint with Hancock of ghouls being discriminated because of this incorrect perception. Making them dependent on a drug in a post apocalypse doesn't fix this, it outright exacerbates the issue.
@@wmidler "There is suddenly a drug that prevents ghouls from going feral" isn't something that should be dropped just out of the blue. A skilled writer would recognize that this is a massive part of lore and devoted special attention to explaining it. Again, Bethesda and/or Amazon just "wanted" it, so they made it happen. As far as Vault Tek's plans - there is an awful amount of dialogue in the TV series that makes no sense UNLESS you assume either the person is lying, or someone from the game (which the new info contradicts) was lying previously. That is a lousy way to write dialogue and plot.
There are a lot of people who just wine that they prefer F1 or F2 to the other sequels. Which I do seem to prefer too. There is actually a lot to critique in later installments when it comes to visual direction, mood and narrative decisions. For example new fallouts make you believe that people just live on the wasteland for 200 years and they never ever build something new. They mostly just adapt scraps and ruins. The music contrasts with the wasteland very often because of the radio option (near constant flow of 50s music vs a few motifs to set the tone. ) I do appreciate fallout as a series growing in popularity though. It make the community bigger which means also more people that share my opinion and maybe have enough spark in them to actually create a mod or something else.
ah yes my daily dose of tim cain in the morning
I'm the same way. I get withdrawal symptoms on the weekends.
Uncle Tim gets to sleep in on weekends
@CainOnGames and Uncle Tim deserves it ❤
How much cocoa in such a dose?
Uncle Tim with morning prep for game dev is such a comforting presence. Yeah I gotta get to work and manage this titanic project but Uncle Tim's got the cadence started. It's wonderful.
I used fallout 1 and ur design principles for world building for a presentation at school and got a 100. Thanks Tim Cain!!!
Good for you man, congrats!
epic
"Notice I never did a personal attack?"
This is why you're the GOAT, Tim.
The moment in Fallout 2 when you get the car was so AMAZING! Just cruising over the map, your buddies around and a trunk full of weapons and supplies. No one could stop us!
_this bad boy can fit so many microfusion cells in it_
Coming from someone who grew up with Mad Max, it was pretty special.
Funny thing, in FNV I recently found a wrecked Highwayman and inside the trunk there was a bunch of loot, including an armoured vault 13 jumpsuit and a vault 13 canteen. Coincidence? 🧐
Awesome theme song too!
And music goes HARD
Hi Tim. It's us, everyone.
It is me - the everyone!
Hi us. It's everyone, Tim.
So true!
I approve of this
Hi Tim!
i personally don't think its a cure i think its just delaying the inevitable feralification
Same
Agree.
I remember an article about body degradation. Researchers said that hypothetically it's possible to live forever by changing your organs or putting your brain into a new body. But the only thing that we don't know how to "update" is our own brain. You can live as long as you want, but eventually your brain will start to shut down and you can't do anything about it.
I think something similar happens to ghouls. They can live for a 100, 150 years, but at some point their brain condition worsens and they become feral. I suppose this "drug" is what stops the brain from degradation. In the beginning a ghoul has to take, say, one vial per week to keep himself functional, but with time he'll have to consume more vials to the point that they are completely useless. Then it's either a bullet to the brain or going feral.
Would be funny if it's just placebo, as so far we haven't really seen it preventing going feral in any substantial way
Agreed. Tim is just kinda dumb.
Totally agree
My mother always told me we can disagree, but we don't need to be disagreeable doing it.
Everyone wants to disagree, they just can't agree how to do it.
@@chengkuoklee5734 Nice.
Lore... Lore never changes.
(Except it constantly changes)
A bit like war. War always changes, really.
@@MostBronzeChunner"War changes all the time, actually."
* LOUD FALLOUT INTRO THEME *
War has changed. ID tagged soldiers carry ID tagged weapons, use ID tagged gear. 😂
@@Orinslayer It seems like war changed but in actuality it was just that WE never changed, which ended up causing some confusion.
@@phantombigboss8429literally gamebryo moment
I've been binging these videos. So well spoken and full of genius
Even book writers can have lore drift on in their own book series. Like when Arthur C. Clarke wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey together with Stanley Kubrick, the destination of Discovery One was Jupiter. But in 2010: Odyssey Two it was changed to Saturn because of multiple things. Kubrick wanted Jupiter because the rings on Saturn were hard to visualize in a way he was happy with it. Clarke changed it to Saturn in the 2nd book because of the new discoveries made by Voyager.
Hope you read this Tim: from a mid-40's gamer for whom og Fallout already seemed old when I played it (90's-2000's gamers & devs know what I'm talking about here) and was still the coolest game I've ever played-you're a scholar, gentleman and a Boss (if those Fallout premier shots are anything to go by), thanks for being the creator of one of the most subversive and fun games of my young adult life but also for being an open-eyed and positive influence in a modern era of increasing clannishness. You rock! \m/
I also think it's important to note that (although you alluded to this with your early star trek example) that lore drift can sometimes be a very positive thing. Sometimes changing lore, even fundamental lore, can open up new ideas and new areas to explore for an IP that can lead to some wonderful stories that wouldn't have been possible otherwise.
One of my favourite examples of drastically changing lore for the right reasons is the Battlestar Galactica reboot because almost every single change and new creative decision was an improvement over the original.
Starbuck was far worse in the reboot. They turned her into an annoying brat
@@Twm532 ngl anyone named starbuck sounds like an annoying brat
@hellsregect but for dramatic effect! Honestly, though, she felt like one of those people we all know who can't make a good decision for the life of them.
@@Twm532 She needed a character flaw because she was good at everything.
@@Twm532 Yes. They made her better and hotter :P
You are the Santa of UA-cam - giving us all awesome presents almost daily!
Hey Tim, can you make a video of your top 10 books, I read A Canticle for Leibowitz (since you mentioned it inspiring the brotherhood) and it got me into reading and it was one of the best things I have ever experienced.
Sure thing! I’m on it.
@@CainOnGames Thanks Tim, you just made my day!
GREAT book, also read on Tim’s recommendation. One of my favorites now. Lord of Light is next after I finish the Tolkien series
I’ve also been reading A Canticle for Leibowitz since Tim mentioned it, the ending of the first story absolutely threw me, it was epic.
@@alfieburns9019 my jaw literally dropped after that part, was actually my first book outside of school work and it took a bit to get into imaging the scenes but by that point I had it down and I was stunned lol
Hi from the russian fan sector.)) I just viewed series to the end and absolutely agree Timothy's point. In light language, a very good series! Visuals, actor's playing, camera, dramatic act, soundtrack.
Fan bros, look at picture in whole view: it is a great work, that distribute our loving GameWorld to the RealWorld!
With love and peace, Ilia "uncle Eli" Karnauhov.)
That scene with Thaddeus taking that drug. At first I thought it was something mixed with Radium and it was going to turn him into a ghoul but then I thought, Ghouls dont regenerate like that and in the same show The Ghoul had to stitch his finger back on.
I think he drank FEV or at least some kind of variation of it. I got the impression that he was no longer human anymore after drinking it. The regeneration and radiation resistance but also surviving that crossbow bolt to the neck is what makes me think that way.
To be fair, Thaddeus still had all the pieces of his foot, they just needed to be brought back together. Cooper's finger was completely severed (also, I think the finger he sewed on was Lucy's). But I agree that Thaddeus definitely has more going on than "became a ghoul".
He also might have been slightly hallucinating the rapid regeneration of his foot.
Reminder that Hancock in Fallout 4 took a drug to become a ghoul. Could be the same stuff Thaddeus was given.
@@erraticonteuse good point. I was thinking that when typing but I thought the immediate regeneration and surviving the crossbow bolt to the neck are too much for him to simply be a ghoul.
It could be her finger but also isnt. The finger he sewed seemed too much like a perfect fit to be hers but also it did look like he pocketed Lucy's finger during their exchange.
@@MrLOLZdude15 that is also true but Hancock did say it was the only one of its kind but his credibility can be put to question. We do know that the chem gave Hancock a serious high but for Thaddeus he looked sober.
Also another thought that I have is whats the point for the skin to regrow if it was just going to start peeling off later down the line.
I just found you and your channel yesterday, and man, I'm so glad I did. I'm a huge fan of Fallout, and watching your videos (about Fallout and other stuff) warms my heart. You have such an awesome, down-to-earth way of sharing your thoughts. I love how you explain lore drift and why it is inevitable/okay. I can't wait to watch more!
One of my favorite things to come out of the TV show is discovering this channel
me too, i always thought tim was amazing but never imagined he would be on youtube, then i searched his name to see if he did anything on the show and discovered hundreds of videos on game design, that is like finding a treasure chest
He’s delightful, very positive
Lore drift does happen, but it's mostly a negative. If you constantly alter the foundational structure of your make believe universe it has a negative effect on a persons ability to engage and stay invested. How it affects you will depend on how invested you are in the IP.
This is just a theory but it could be that the anti-feral drug is for ghouls that are starting to go feral. Like, they could go a bit or a while without it depending on the individual, but when they start going feral, that’s when they need to get the drug (if they can even find it, I mean look what cooper had to do to get 60 vials of the stuff). Regardless, I’d love to see how the show elaborates more on it in the second season
They all but said that in the show, I'm pretty sure. Cooper's other ghoul friend said he only started experiencing feral symptoms 20-something years ago.
Ooo-boy, I remember how mad some fans were when Star Wars had lore drift adding Midi-chlorians.
lol bunch of Jedi flexing over who’s bigger that was a weird lore spin to be sure
Lore. Lore never changes.
That "Book version and movie version" seems like a really good mentality to have, I'll try to use it going forward, thanks!
Wow! With your Conan example I realize just how much of my favorite media has lore drift. Since the show dropped this was the first i'd heard the term and while i understood it, i couldn't directly tie it to anything! Thank you as always!
I stumbled across your channel when you spoke about the Fallout TV show and have found your stories + commentary excellent. Thanks!
I really like how down to earth you are with everything.
One of the only lore drifts I noticed in the show was there weren't any glitches and bugs like the game.
Can we appreciate the irony that the game mimics reality in that you never get to see the car driving around because of engine limitations? ^- ^
One modder got cars working really well
@ULTRAOutdoorsman Shh.
i just know you ripped this off someone on twitter
Tim, thank you for explaining these concepts. Hopefully that helps part of the community recalibrate their expectations to be more realistic. Keep up the great work!
That arnold impression was on point, hahah 😄
i liked your word on Lore Drift.
I really love this, Tim. Any world, fictional, historical, or otherwise - is interpreted by humans who *suck* at remembering detail, and worst of all it's not even lived detail. Much like you said about your experiences at Interplay differing from others' recollections, the same thing applies to lore.
Anyway, I'm really enjoying all of the videos you're putting out and just want to say thanks!
I personally find a difference in "lore drift" and "lore driving off a cliff". Problems arise with the latter, and when it's done on the same things every time it becomes worse. You can clarify things to be slightly different to what they were before, especially in a universe where information is related mostly by word-of-mouth, but if you constantly change a big aspect of the lore or "lore flip-flop", especially in a manner that negates previous information every time it happens then that's a problem for me. An example of Ghouls needing and not needing food and water in the same game.
As much as I like Tim Cain’s positive approach, I also agree to your "lore driving off a cliff".
As much as we try to find some potential explanations or theories on why this or that changed, why this or that happened when there are lore drifts, sometimes the real reasons are based on carelessness, ineptitude or laziness by the game directors or whoever is responsible.
Tim’s approach of "letting go" is an healthy one, that I tend to follow now. I’ve seen so many IPs I cared about getting mistreated, like Star Wars, The Witcher, or Tolkien Legendarium, and I’ve learned to care more about what I effectively liked then and to care less about what I dislike now.
@@TheMaxyms While I do agree partially, I also think that there's no reason to give money to the careless, inept or lazy people. There's a reason why I cancelled my last (and only) subscription in 2021 or why half of the games I play have come 10+ years ago.
@@Syaniiti you’re definitely right on that.
there's that riddle from George RR Martin: in Gone With The Wind how many children does Scarlett O'Hara have, since in the book she has 3 children, and in the movie she has 1
and his answer is none since she doesn't exist, so both are equally wrong
Loving the popsicle shirt, Tim!
One thing I think intense fans of any franchise need to consider is how the broader audience experiences things. Directors could create a movie that hits every lore-accurate bullet point and make super fans extremely happy. But would that same movie *also* appeal to a broader audience? Too often fans interpret 'lore drift' as insulting their intelligence or a change that was intentionally nefarious to snub the original content, but that's almost never the case. Sometimes, the people with the money who are producing this stuff are just considering a larger market than the fraction of a fraction of superfans who will analyze every second of film for lore accuracy.
At this point hitting that lore accurate bullet has gotta be like 0% chance. War never changes, but games change a hell of a lot lol
The way I see it, the show lore is event canon but not mechanically canon. Film/TV often requires different storytelling tools from games, so I'm not going to be mad when an adaptation from one medium to another swaps in some of the storytelling tools of the new medium, even if it may *technically* result in different lore, because if the whole franchise had always been a show, the lore would also have been different. There's still no lore to explain how Stimpaks work, but nobody care because we understand the real purpose is to make the game easier to play/let the show do cartoony violence and let the characters survive anyway. Giving ghouls an anti-feral serum is an efficient way to show the audience that there's more downsides to being a ghoul than just losing a nose, it gives Cooper a weakness when he's otherwise been shown to be very in control of himself in every situation he's been in; it also makes it understandable why Lucy would think it was good to release Martha but then have to kill her (an important character development for Lucy). TV shows can't spend the time to explain things that games can or else it would drag and potentially better scenes or characterization would get a short shrift.
Fnaf book type lore
The problem here is the show borrows a lot of “mechanical” elements to its own detriment. It’s why I say the lore problems are problems of believability
sry im not reading all that
@@Ne0ConKillerbragging about being illiterate why?
@@andrewmoluf4299 I just stated simple intent. No bragging, no saying I cant read. Therefore your comment is quit ironic!
I cant tell you how much I enjoy listening to you! I didnt even care that much about Fallout or game design before I got recommended your channel but it's really interesting listening to you talk. Very calming too. Big ups
Honestly, I just think the Ghoul drug was radaway. We see it hooked up to Coop when he's in the grave, and it makes sense to me that if feralisation can be caused by continued exposure to radiation, Radaway would be able to stave it off.
I've seen it be mentioned a few times and honestly I think it makes sense. The whole feralisation treatment might look like it comes out of nowhere, but it's not that far fetched when you actually stop to think about it. There has to be an explanation as to why some ghouls are fine after 200+ years but others have gone feral. And if it's simply Radaway, then it would explain why it's never really been mentioned before. It's not a miracle cure, it's one of the most ordinary healing items in the game.
I would buy that if it wasn't for the traveling snake oil salesman turning Thaddeus immediately into a ghoul with one huff of whatever it was he gave him
@@ermwhatdaheckwe dont know hes a ghoul. Maximus has already shown his intellectual inneptitude, theres no reason to trust him now.
@@ermwhatdaheck I'm really hoping that season 2 comes with a reveal that it was a drug laced with FEV, and that Thaddeus is turning mutant, rather than ghoul. It would line up with already establish FEV lore in regards to the healing factor.
@@WGSXFrank I 100% thought that as well, and I thought maybe Cooper had taken that drug in the past too at some point.
Found your channel a few weeks back and have been binging on your videos. Awesome to hear these stories straight from you.
I think that’s my biggest annoyance with a lot of the “Bethesda Bad” part of the Fallout/Elder Scrolls fandom.
Lore is never consistent, because you really don’t want lore to be that consistent otherwise you end up writing yourself into a wall, more open ended stuff is better for lore because you can come up with wacky and fun explanations or better lore.
That’s not to say you can’t have consistency but it should really apply to the most important aspects.
Much of my frustration with lore drifts (especially significant ones) comes more from the fact that I cherish the lore as it was previously written and feel like I've lost a universe that I loved and that it will not come back. For Fallout in particular, I feel that it would have been better if the TV series was non-canon and could focus purely on entertainment without worrying about changing pre-existing lore.
I'm interested to learn what you think about them moving Shady Sands so close to LA
To me this is the biggest problem so far.
I even like the idea of this medicine to delay the moment ghouls become feral.
I feel like it was unnecessary as well. Maybe they wanted those buildings to be around the crater for cinematic purpose, but in my opinion, empty brahmin pastures and barns would create an even bigger impact.
@@evgeniygerkus9242 they could also just leave it as Boneyard and it wouldn't change anything for the show.
AFAIK, it was also one of the biggest NCR cities and even had medical university.
Also, cars on the edge of the crater made me cringe. It wasn't an earthquake and ground came down, it was a damn nuke! There should be nothing in a few miles radius standing around the hole that big that has no roots/basement or isn't put there after the explosion.
@@zhulikkulik Also, I'm still curious why Hank decided to only nuke Shady Sands. He spent enough time on the surface to learn of other city states getting in the way of Vault Tec and their plan to rebuild the world according to their design.
Hank is a middle manager in a power trip. Don't expect every move he makes to be the most intelligent or well considered.
As the Ghoul said "this kid used to pick up my wife's dry cleaning"
Hank is only a "somebody" because of the experiment of Vaults 31,32 and 33 and even then, while not explicitly stated I get the feeling from the text convo between Norm and Vault 31, that "Bud" the roomba is Hank and Betty's Superior. He answers, to a brain on a roomba.
Anyone that's ever worked a coorperate job with an absurdly long chain of command will have experienced a Hank in their lives.
He even pulled the classic "Middle Manager" move of "My peons are not listening to my insane demands! I'm going to go tell MY boss!" It's the only reason the Ghoul let him live, because the Ghoul is very interested in meeting Hank's boss.
@@AHungryHunky do you think Moldaver interrogated Hank and managed to get anything out of him concerning Vault Tec's nuclear arsenal?
Tim... I can't express the immense appreciation I have for you and videos like this.
Very well said. Criticisms - ESPECIALLY online - shouldn't be an attack. Lore drift is a good phrase for this too, it might be a bit destructive and discombobulating but its natural and ultimately inevitable. Also I'm personally still holding out hope that the regeneration serum was FEV or some offshoot.
Natural is entirely dependent on how organic it meshes. It’s why comparative myth is useful. We can comb the Bible and using context clues and cross referencing figure out pretty easily when something doesn’t fit because so much of it was written by very different people at very different points in time, with different events going on. It tends to be much harder when applied to mythologies that seem to have completely supplanted what was the main religion in an area. The Bible is easy to pinpoint its non native influences. But it’s a whole lot harder to strip apart any indo European mythology and figure out what doesn’t belong in it because enough of it is heavily consistent. Lore changes. It drifts, but consistency with those changes is never equally dramatic
I found this channel in my recommendations a few months ago, and it's been an absolute treasure trove. I'm not even halfway through the back catalog but everything's been pretty great so far. I don't usually like UA-cam's algorithm, but when it hits, it really hits.
I used to be pretty anal about "lore breaking" in the past, but frankly after the show's announcement I stopped caring so much, seeing how some people get so aggressive about it. To me at least, lore drift is only really an issue if it invalidates/breaks older stories. Otherwise it doesn't really bother me much. You already brought up the Necropolis plot with the water pump in the video, which is one of the instances where I think lore drift really broke something, since obviously that plot doesn't work if ghouls don't need water. An instance of lore drift that I don't think breaks anything is Jet being pre-war as of Fallout 4. It does change the context of the plot with Myron and the Mordino family in Fallout 2, but it doesn't necessarily break it - Myron is already a complete egotistical scumbag, lying about inventing Jet is totally in-character for him.
Then there are really minor instances of lore drift which either don't affect much at all, or are so easily resolvable it's not even an issue. Power Armor requiring fusion cores as of Fallout 4(can't these co-exist with the TX-28 microfusion packs mentioned in the first Fallout? Surely there are multiple power sources a suit could run off of?) and T-60 power armor being better than T-51(Fallout 76 of all games resolved this by just changing their stats so they're sidegrades to each other. Not a big deal whatsoever) Despite this, I've still seen a ton of people get extremely angry over these two changes in particular, despite them being really minor and not breaking any existing plots. I have a whole list of problems with the way Bethesda handles the series, but some of y'all need to chill.
I think Dune and Conan are a bit different to lore changes in Fallout because the movies are completely separate entities to the books, whereas the Fallout series takes place in the same world and whatever lore changes happen in it will likely become canon in the game world too.
@ULTRAOutdoorsman I was really hoping that with Microsoft owning Obsidian and Bethesda we might see Obsidian making more Fallout games but I doubt if that's ever going to happen.
Very Professional statement, Sir. Thank you to be a Senpai by flashing a beacon of light to help us find our guidance. Wished my Professors from my college where atlast this motivatet to explain (themselves) and teach/ show a different perspektive of the world at the same time.
Hi Tim, it's not just fallout 3 or 4 where ghouls don't need water - there are two seperate cases in Fallout 2 of a ghoul being alive for years in a coffin
Not years, weeks or months.
@@Thagomizer people overlook the fact in the show that the ghoul isnt just left in that coffin forever, hes kept alive so that his captor can keep harvesting parts of himc to sell, im sure hes fed and given water
@@carterthacker5837he had an IV attached above the grave
Tim doesn't even know his own games. Don't listen to this fraud, he is just cashing in on the Fallout TV SHOW. --
EDIT; To all the future people who wanna reply to my comment, TIM only worked on the first game. A GAME that came out in 1997. 1997 is the last time he worked on the Fallout IP. 1997.
@@Palendrome yeah of rad-away not water
I’ve been a fan of your work for like a decade at this point, and I just found out recently about your channel. I’ve learned so much about what makes coding interesting. I’m only learning simple R-based scripts and code for statistics, but some of the way you approach the topics helps me reframe how I look at coding. It’s not as daunting as it used to be. Once I get R handled, I plan on going into Python and C# to build a toolkit for marketability
Lore Drift sounds like the name of a video game about a multi-timeline adventure in a fantasy setting
more like Science-Fiction
Fiona and cake tv show
Lore… Lore Always Changes
"I think they need a nap"
new touch grass, "take a nap"
Tim is incredibly based for saying this.
Yep, I'm gonna start using that.
My favorite part of the video
Not new it's been a saying for many years. Same with using words like gnarly - people just move on to speaking in a general way people understand. I still use take a nap though, or bedtime.
A subgenre of telling these kids they're up past their bedtime.
I didn’t mind the ghoul stuff, i honestly think it’s a cool addition, i just can’t wrap my head around the thinking of having shady sands fall before the events of new vegas
Lore Drift is 100% exactly like Tokyo Drift, and I'm glad you made that analogy.
@ULTRAOutdoorsman They spin out lol.
@ULTRAOutdoorsman I think it works because if your lore's not outta control, it's not in control.
It's more like Lore Hydroplaning
Hello Tim! I think I may have another way for you to explain what you call Lore Drift. I recommend looking up a book called The Drunkard's Walk, by Leonard Mlodinow. It's all about how randomness in the statistical sense affects things. The title refers to the effect of a single drop of dye when put into still water. Without guidance, statistics basically takes over, and it performs a "drunkard's walk" through the water. This basically is used to explain how without a particular goal or vision to establish your direction, you have no way of expecting how that direction will change, and the project will propagate. Actual choices made in adherence to a goal have to be made repeatedly to make directed progress in anything, and once you aren't the visionary, you cannot control how it will go.
Eventually the stories of Homer were not his.
Little Billy in the refrigerator didn’t need food or water for 200 years, and he never aged 😂
You didn't understand. They threw the bombs, and after that shady sands rose up from the ashes. When Lucy's mom realised there was an actual city working outside she escaped with her two kids, and then is when shady sands get bombed for a second time and all goes to hell. Then is when the mom turns into a ghoul.
@@sisiwhatever1162 understand what? It’s Fallout 4 sarcasm… smh
I think the other difference is that everyone plays everything differently. Some people like to pick through every terminal and talk to every NPC. Others just care about the objectives and keep pushing forward. Some have both traits where we hoard everything and get sidetracked by every little side-lore objects like Holotapes or notes. Sometimes the information is given but people miss it as well.
Ah yes vehicle lore. It is implied in FNV and 4 that people are using vehicles, and it’s outright stated in 76 that they are. Wish we could have one for lore friendly fast travel.
That would be great, I got so used to morrowind travel that in Skyrim I only used carriages or running lol
What a mature and wise way of looking at "lore drift"
I read “love drift” and clicked wondering if Tim was alright
Thx Tim! I enjoyed the discussion about lore drift. I appreciate when the drift is tied back into source material (like the introduction of some kind of virus, environment adaptation, really any narrative development) when it’s tied back into source material the drift seems to retain a little more of it’s original DNA.
“The reverend mother Helena… goyim? Mohiam? Idk Helena Bonham Carter lol. Reverend mother Helena!”
This whole bit had me in stitches , thanks Tim. Btw, her name is Gaius Helen Mohiam, so close enough.
Love your content, Mr Cain. I have an immense amount of respect for you and this video just reinforces that respect. I know that some corners of the internet won’t take your message here to heart but I hope you reached someone.
I don't understand why I'm not seeing people mention that this special ghoul drug could just be something new. It's been several years since the earlier games, and some ghouls have been alive quite a while. Maybe some of them finally worked out a method to maintain their humanity. New things are invented between media installments all the time.
@@agodelianshock9422read the comment you responded to again slowly and you’ll get your answer 😂
@@agodelianshock9422 Just as Tim suggested, the technology was always there, just no one realised the drug had this impact on ghouls - it wasn't designed and marketed as "anti feral drug" it could be anything, but at some point someone tested it out and realised it works - and it would be hard to test since you'd need someone who either was almost feral or already feral (it's a bit unclear how far ghouls can go)
People don't mention that because it was clearly just contrived/bad writing with no precedent in any of the games. But Fallout lore has been kinda inconsistent since Bethesda took over, and it was always a silly universe that didn't take itself too seriously, so the convenient ghoul-transformation-drug didn't bother me that much.
It could be a placebo too
@@AssailantLF So what, any story beat or plot line that wasn't already previously established is bad or lazy writing? The idea of a ghoul drug was introduced with Hancock in F4...it's how he became a ghoul. Whether or not this is related to the drug in the show that Thaddeus takes, or the serum Cooper is taking to prevent becoming feral, we don't know. It's an unanswered question. Unanswered questions aren't bad or lazy writing, especially in an ongoing story. They're kind of the engine that drives a story forward. Let them cook, and reserve judgment for when the story is over.
This was perfect, and excellent in your descriptions. Thank you.
The way I see it, there are lore things that are not originally explained because the writers didn't think it really mattered or just didn't have time to go in depth, like the whole ghoul thing. I think the anti-feral medication was pretty cool and the ghoulifying drug was hilarious (somehow it kinda reminded me of random encounters in 1 and 2, and also wild wasteland in NV).
However, there are things best left vague, and I really don't like what they are doing with Vault-Tec. Sure, they didn't straight up say "we WILL start the war", but the Vault-Tec guys clearly already had this idea as their main tool, they weren't just brainstorming. I always liked how vague some of the pre-war lore used to be because it gave that feeling of "it's not about who's waging war; war always happened and it will always happen".
I think Vault-Tec conspiring with the other corporations to drop the bombs themselves does still stay within that commentary about war, in the sense that it still explores *why* war happens. War happens because of factionalism and desire for resources, but those factions go beyond just governments and ideologies. It's about how there are different ways of getting entrenched into your faction's position, whether you really believe in your side's ideology, or if you're just trying to get paid or even just justify your own existence. I also think that Vault-Tec functions as a metaphor in this way. Because it's a ridiculous answer, but I ask you, what *is* a non-ridiculous reason to drop atomic bombs in the context of Mutually Assured Destruction? Would either of the political powers or ideologies had a better reason? If there had to be an answer to the question of who dropped the bombs (and I understand of you think there shouldn't have been one) "Vault-Tec" is by far the most thematically appropriate over the US or China or any other country.
Really enjoying & appreciating your videos, Tim, thank you!
I think the concept you’re echoing here is genetic drift, defined approximately as “the change in trait frequency, in a population, over time.”
Definitely feels analogous!
Hey Tim, I think something I am curious about that I haven't really seen anyone else discuss is how the "Master" would effect Vault 33 from the show. To my understanding of Fallout 1 the Master prioritized vault-dwellers to become super mutants and he would have been close by to Vault 33. I don't know if a question like this warrants a whole video but from my own understanding if this is the case then it is something I would like to see more people discuss and see different perspectives on.
Master didn't even know the location of vault 13
@@VORASTRAwhich was hidden in the mountains. Nobody knows about it.
I think this is really the biggest incompatibility between the show and the games, and was done for the sake of a better setting for the show. Other fallout sources have said there are other vaults in the LA area (i heard the fallout bible says that) and i think it just has to be accepted that the master ignored these vaults for some reason.
Well we know that vault 31 had at least one nuke. That could be a pretty big deterrent to leaving those vaults alone.
I really enjoyed your wise words about lore drift, which I think lore is like a living organism: it keeps evolving over time until it becomes extinct. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and nicely illustrating with three major lores.
the duality of an adaptation "do you bend the lore to make sense of a story OR mold a story to fit an established lore!"
Limitations are good, the story should fit the lore. You can break the lore as long as you explain how the thing you did was possible, thus creating new lore but changing fundamental things about the lore makes the IP not be the IP you paid good money for (or in the case of public domain not be what people wanted it to be).
For my taste you can change a lot IF the change is traded for just as good if not more story beats and developments. Otherwise you're losing the original charm AND failing on the delivery of what you're trying to set up.
@@SyaniitiI think it depends on the medium. I'm thinking specifically of Fallout because that's prescient but I think you can generalize a bit. A TV show is an adaptation. It has to adapt, it's impossible to follow the lore 100%, especially when a game series is set up so open ended. You follow the lore where you can but fundamentally you are trying to tell an interesting and engaging story. That's far more important than sticking to it totally and having a faithful but dull TV series that's only good for spotting Easter eggs.
2nd one every time
Don't forget the 3rd option: change the lore to fit the limitations of the game engine.
My interpretation of what you said previously in your video regarding the TV series has allowed me to enjoy all Fallout equally, and that is the idea of misinformation and inaccuracies in the world of Fallout itself. If "History is written by the victors" and warring factions being a huge theme in Fallout, it makes sense to believe that everyone is trying to write history "their way". I personally hope these smaller lore drifts continue to happen, as it makes the world feel more alive than it already was. As always, thanks for your videos Tim. You're an amazing guy! ☢♥
You've established that, due to Conan, there are two separate canons in your head -- film and book. Which, I think, a lot of us do with things like Marvel or Star Wars. In my case, I am not a Star Wars fan. Not any longer. And I was one of the biggest of the biggest, read a whole bunch of the EU books. I'm not telling anyone they can't enjoy the sequels, but they simply weren't what I wanted to see. Knowing how fandom and canon works, it really isn't as simple as you've described. "Lore drift" can be a naturally-occurring phenomena, but in many cases, it's due to sheer incompetence.
Whoever was directing that Star Trek series you were talking about, where women couldn't be captains, let's be real, Tim...the director of that series did not know Star Trek lore, did not respect Star Trek lore, or didn't know enough about the lore to fathom that women are equals in this society. And that, to me, speaks volumes about where art is going.
From my perspective, lore drift CAN be good, but it must be executed properly. It's all monetized, Tim. You know as well as I do, this is all about money, this isn't about art.
Another point to add into this is...okay, so, when do us EU fans get to see our stories, then, on the big screen? We never will. Only the new generations will have their heroes until they, too, are tossed aside for a new generation, only for the cycle to perpetuate itself infinitely.
No no, you're absolutely right on some things, Tim. Like, the horrible words directed at Rose from The Last Jedi (I don't know the actress' name), horrible words directed at actors for their jobs in this industry, is absolutely unjustified. I don't think anyone (with a good head on their shoulders) disagrees with this. When I criticize a show or film, I do not refer to the middlemen who had no say in the production of the project. This...should be common sense. Couldn't be me, though, so I take no responsibility for what stupid people do.
Look at Halo. Just...look at it. Do some people enjoy the show? Sure. My cousin does. But he's a normie. He doesn't know Halo lore, he's just seeing the Master Chief kicking ass and...not really being himself, but, my cousin is enjoying it. But all the Halo fans are dunking on the show (for good reason). The Halo show is terrible. The only people who enjoy it are normies who never liked Halo to begin with. And, you know, had the director of this Halo show made the show lore-accurate, I bet the normies would've eaten it up like hotcakes, regardless. Because they're normies. They'll accept any amount of eye candy. So...why not just go by the lore? For one, just one fandom, can we go by the lore? Does every single franchise have to go through a 1984-esque rewrite of history? We're all gonna be speaking Newspeak by the time the new Fallout show is done.
Fallout 3, ghouls don't need food or water or air? I...must admit, I don't remember this. I think that's around the time of Fallout 4, with Billy in the fridge. Several retcons took place throughout Fallout 4, which I was...not happy with every step of the way. Enclave Power Armor existing pre-War in Nuka-World? Oh, please. Bethesda insults our intelligence. Us geeks, we LOVE lore. We LOVE discussing this stuff, theorizing about what comes next within the rules you've established for us. And then it turns out there are no rules. Listen, I don't care about the synths/androids whatever, I don't care about Bethesda having the Shi not get nuked by the Enclave (which you Interplay guys wanted for some reason, which, admittedly, I am curious about), but...what's the point, man? Is it too much to have a cohesive narrative? You're okay with stuff changing to not make sense or to contradict what comes before? Why?
One last complaint before we finish this up, Tim. Fallout, like Star Wars, was something special. You can be where you are now, revel in your opportunities, enjoy your current projects, whatever it is you do, but you guys at Interplay did, at one time, create something that means a lot to a lot of people. I know you don't own the IP, I know Obsidian doesn't own the IP, I know there's nothing any diehard fan can do about this situation except watch in absolute horror as Fallout, along with everything else, crashes and burns by the wayside. Always remember, Tim, that Fallout meant something once. It wasn't just senseless eye candy for the masses like everything else is, now.
Everything fades into mist. The past is erased, the erasure forgotten. The lie becomes truth and then becomes a lie again.
I'm not joining the normie groupthink, Tim. Death to Videodrome! Long live the New Flesh!
EDIT: None of this means I hate the show. I will give it a shot and see where it goes, although, yes, from the retcons I have seen thus far, I ain't too happy with them.
The story of the Star Trek episode (Turnabout Intruder) that establishes women can't be captains was written by Gene Rodenberry himself lmao.
Tim hit 100k subs just a week or two ago and he’s already at 118k! Amazing! Thanks for putting in the effort to make these videos, keep ‘em coming!
I think the part of ghouls not needing water nor food isn't canon, or at least it isn't anymore, if I remember correctly one of the writers of Fo4 explain that the sidequest of the ghoul kid was more of a joke quest, cause there's more evidence in those game that ghouls need to eat and drink water, I guess the current canon is that they´re more resilience than humans.
Yeah, I always find it funny when people take every quest to be permanently lore-defining or breaking no matter what the tone of that quest is. Tim also mentioned in his video on New Game+ that he didn't really intend for aliens to be canon in Fallout, he just thought it was funny to have a crashed spaceship with a velvet Elvis painting, but now everyone assumes the existence of aliens to be canon (and Bethesda gave them a DLC).
In fallout New Vegas I got the impression that ionizing radiation sustains ghouls like a kind of regenerative nutrient.
Which explained the quest where you can help a group of ghouls to go into space aboard rocketships, since the unshielded cosmic radiation would be enough to sustain them.
They could be wrong about that of course. But it seemed like a neat explanation at the time.
Glowing Ones are really interesting ghouls that I'm afraid will be over explained or "justified" within the setting just to appease the pendants.
So Tim is salty as well for that kid in the fridge. We feel you, Tim.
I just wished Bethesda didn't do California again. They have the rest of the country to focus on but they really need the BoS to market towards casuals. Like what's it like in Florida, Texas, the Great Lakes area?
People have been begging for a West Coast Fallout property for years at this point and now that they finally do you're having second thoughts? No, fans do not deserve anything they recieve.
@@renaigh People wanted a west coast game not a "fallout property" stop lying
@@Olter_ Why just hate on things? It has to be so exhausting to spend so much time raving against something you didn't like.
@@jayjaybob2 I don't think anyone is raving.
"Why just hate on things"
If I as a fan off Fallout see a fallout product/game that is not good I will point out what I don't like about it.
It is called criticism. And without it, nothing is improved.
@@renaigh We already have 3 fantastic games set on the West Coast, with 2 of them in California itself. This was just Bethesda putting their foot down on old lore telling everyone they own the IP and will destroy it to achieve more casuals which is obvious from their obsession with putting BoS in everything. You come off as a tourist.
I think the ghoul healing thing is a misdirect, which you picked up on, Tim. To avoid spoilers, we see a ghoul lose a body part that doesn't magically regenerate. I think to, let's say regrow a limb, a little forced evolution is in order. That would be interesting to know - in your conceptualization of F.E.V, does ingesting it through an inhaler yield similar results to being dipped? Love the channel and always look forward to a new upload.
Lore drift can be absolutely bad. An example is the 'Kid in a Fridge' quest in Fallout 4. A kid is locked in a fridge for 200 years without food or water to last and turns into a ghoul but doesn't die?
The premise is bad, the change is bad, it upends major plot points (the Necropolis water pump) & worldbuilding, for absolutely no benefit
If Ghouls don't need food or water and live off radiation why can't I recruit only Ghouls to my settlement and not have to grow food & get water? why are the ghouls in FO3 drinking the FEV poisoned water if they don't need it?
Why can Dean Domino suck the Cloud like it's nothing when it isn't made entirely of Radiation? Why are there so many bits of food lying around the Villa when Dean would have surely eaten it all by the time the Courier arrives, oh wait! I've figured it out. It's Because It Doesn't Fucking Matter! Dead Money is still a masterpiece of storytelling regardless of whether or not Dean needs to scoff down a fancy lad cake every couple hours.
absolutely unplayable 😢
I would be interested if radiation affects different people in different ways. E.g. some might need water some might not.
@@renaigh Dead Money was decent writing that was strangled by bad gameplay.
There's no confirmation that Billy was in the fridge for 200 plus Years though,could've been much more recent
I've never seen Tim so fired up. I love it! :)
Really appreciated the emphasis on civility here. It’s okay to be passionate about IP’s and care about established lore- but lore drift happens. It’s okay to disagree too! It just never has to get to *that* point
Civility goes both ways, don’t call me toxic just for voicing a dislike for a certain creative choice.
@@509Gman disagreement is not toxic at all. It can usually be the opposite. Same for voicing it- if used properly it can start great dialogues and maybe even change perspectives. It’s when we start insulting each other… over creative differences… when toxicity begins to lurch in
why does this guy always put me in a good mood?
I did let out a sigh when all the entrances to the vaults were sticking out in the open. They were fairly hidden and that helped them not get discovered by the Master
To be fair, the Unity doesn't seem to be searching in full force until the middle of the first game. Before, it was just caravans and a small mumber of vaults listed in the cathedral.
I personally really loved the detail that a sign of a ghoul becoming feral is the person repeating their name to themselves. it felt so sad and eerie, kind of like how dementia patients frequently in the latest stages of the disease have a pattern of remembering their favorite music if nothing else.
There’s lore drift and there’s throwing your design documents into the garbage
Which is something hasn't ever done since well they are obsessed with bringing even the worst ideas from the fallout Bible into canon.
I don’t know how rubber stamping literally everything is any better
Thank you for your work and attempting to be a voice of reason.
Concerning the ghoul, I'm mostly curious if they have faster regen with the small radiation in the air or something. Fallout (post 3) has shown that ghouls do regen in high levels of radiation. Maybe the show did a variant of that?
While I can certainly accept lore drift as an element that is often natural, necessary, and even beneficial in fleshing out unexplored or odd ends of a setting, I do not think it's a good pretense to stand on for much broader issues that can be brought up in lore shifts.
Like you apply the logic to the ghouls there, but can you fully apply the rationale to the BoS sometimes major shifts? Power Armor? The Master? The Enclave? The world itself?
You had a car, why did vehicles become a no-go later? You had towns and cities being rebuilt and built up from nothing, creating something new. Why did those go away?
It is merely "lore drift" that every town turned into a scrap heap?
Tim, these thumbsnails are drifting closer and closer to the "one does not simply walk into Mordor" meme by the day. 😄
I'm so glad I found your channel like a year ago. Been loving these "talks" we all need a guide in this world. ❤
I feel bad that you have to get dragged into a lot of the Fallout "drama" but I really appreciate you using it to steer into topics you like to talk about.
You are well loved Tim. Since I was a child. You understand story telling and how to make fun games that permiate through ones life.
I'm sure you've played a lot of different games but at least professionally, you have an obvious affinity for the RPG. Are there any other genres that interest you, that you'd maybe like to dip your toes in for a one-off experimental project if you had the time? Or, more controversially, are there any genres that you find it difficult to understand the appeal of?
Commenting for the bump - I’d love to see Tim answer this one.
Imagine if Tim was a Master rank in Street Fighter 6.
@@MostBronzeChunner imagine Tim making a "boomer-shooter"
The drug that turns the user into a ghoul was present since fallout 4 i think the scene could have been better like it happend to hancock in fallout 4 (him being a drug addict) he got the biggest high he ever experienced and turned into a ghoul
Lol they made ghouls come from a drug? seriously glad I never played much of 3 or anything after
Such a polite way of saying "retcon."
Stop acting like retcon is the evil disingenuous thing.
It is what it is.
They really crossed a line for me when they gave Conan a talk show.
One of the core aspects of either expanding the lore or changing the lore is keeping to the themes of the story itself. One of the core things in Fallout that doesn't need to be explained is "who dropped the bomb" - it's not relevant, because the story isn't about blaming a single faction, it's the humanity itself that brought the world to the apocalypse. This applies to basically every lore change Bethesda brought - it's short-sighted, it doesn't go with the themes of the game, it feels like it just wasn't thought through because someone said "that sounds cool, lets put a ghoul in a fridge" and just went with it.
Other things, on the other hand, absolutely benefit from being explained. If you want to learn about the horror of the Vaults or what unethical things a company was up to before the war, you can - that builds the themes of the game. Just compare the Wikia entries for "the Fog" from Far Harbor and "the Cloud" from Dead Money. The Cloud is painfully explained in detail, the Fog is just like "oh weird radiation makes people go crazy".
Yeah, sometimes lore is retconned for good reason or necessary change. The world isn't static and some perceptions we initially had are incorrect.
The issue is that this show didn't need to share the same canon as the games. You can make adaptations that fit your story without needing to worry about taking into consideration writing around a large open world with varying outcomes.
The second is, much like the majority of Bethesda Fallout, is that their rule of cool generally detracts from the old and new stuff they actually get right.
And it's kind of frustrating when fans feel disrespected and find any criticism is discouraged. I get the need to curb harassment but there's this one sided dynamic with an ingroup granted clemency. I'm going to circle around the entire dumpster fire that is the current consumer revolt in gaming to highlight Bethesda's poor handling of Starfield's negative steam reviews.
In terms of the ghoul drug - it absolutely serves a purpose, by giving the audience a condition to look for for Cooper turning feral and explaining why anyone even tolerates ghouls when feral ghouls exist. That's one of the biggest problems with ghouls in society in the Fallout setting. Why would anyone ever let them live for a second if they just randomly turn feral?
As for "who dropped the bomb". Bethesda didn't change anything, so I'm not sure if that's one of the short sighted changes you're talking about. They never said who dropped the bombs but it obviously wasn't Vault Tec.
@@wmidler cry babies gonna cry.. let em. they can cry through the multiple seasons this shows gonna get.
@@wmidler the show didn't need to have Cooper a ticking time bomb before he goes insane from lack of medication. Considering Cooper's behavior, you don't need the threat of him going feral to be a threat.
Before this, ghouls didn't turn feral randomly and inevitably. It was further exposure to increased levels of radiation. There was a whole plotpoint with Hancock of ghouls being discriminated because of this incorrect perception.
Making them dependent on a drug in a post apocalypse doesn't fix this, it outright exacerbates the issue.
@@wmidler "There is suddenly a drug that prevents ghouls from going feral" isn't something that should be dropped just out of the blue. A skilled writer would recognize that this is a massive part of lore and devoted special attention to explaining it. Again, Bethesda and/or Amazon just "wanted" it, so they made it happen.
As far as Vault Tek's plans - there is an awful amount of dialogue in the TV series that makes no sense UNLESS you assume either the person is lying, or someone from the game (which the new info contradicts) was lying previously. That is a lousy way to write dialogue and plot.
There are a lot of people who just wine that they prefer F1 or F2 to the other sequels.
Which I do seem to prefer too.
There is actually a lot to critique in later installments when it comes to visual direction, mood and narrative decisions.
For example new fallouts make you believe that people just live on the wasteland for 200 years and they never ever build something new. They mostly just adapt scraps and ruins. The music contrasts with the wasteland very often because of the radio option (near constant flow of 50s music vs a few motifs to set the tone. )
I do appreciate fallout as a series growing in popularity though. It make the community bigger which means also more people that share my opinion and maybe have enough spark in them to actually create a mod or something else.