Why 200 years?

[Tom]

I'm wondering why the developers chose to set the game 200 years after the war. The world doesn't make any sense under the 200 years setting. Am I to believe that mankind fails to rebuild for 200 years? And all those untouched resources, working terminals and elevators, and skeletons that remain in the same position for 200 years?

On the other hand, it would fit right in if it was set 50~100 years after the war. No one says that their game has to move in chronological order. I can't think of any advantage for this particular setting except the shock value (What? It's been 200 years?) and some minor connections to Fallout 3.

[casualsailor]

After the fall of the Roman Empire the world languished under the Dark Ages for a millinium (1000 years). And they didn't have to deal with radiation or the destruction of their entire way of life by an apocalyptic war.

200 years is not that long to recover from nuclear holocaust.

[CursedPanther]

You're definitely not the first to question that and it does make little sense. In my opinion it's just Bethesda's attempt at detaching from Interplay's version of Fallout, without actually having to install a new name for the franchise. Whatever happened back then had minimal impact on this era of the game.

[Nite69]

it will make more sense when you get further in game and meet the institute, just keep playing

[MaximumEffort]

I wonder why are people getting so attached to a number.. it seems silly

[Nite69]

Originally posted by sjrekis:

I wonder why are people getting so attached to a number.. it seems silly

it happens all the time with games they analyze every little detail and speculate just for discussion I guess

[LAZERFACE]

So exciting, when ever i see a new name, I think back to my beginning, the fear, excitement, frustration and unknown. Did i make the right choice? Man its the reason in 3000hrs i have never finnished chapter 3. I do not want it to ever end. Welcome to the game new guys.

[MaximumEffort]

Originally posted by =EGC= _Nite_:

Originally posted by sjrekis:

I wonder why are people getting so attached to a number.. it seems silly

it happens all the time with games they analyze every little detail and speculate just for discussion I guess

I can understand that. But whats the difference between setting the gam 200, 150 or 100 years? I don't really care gamplay wise how many years have passed. Let it be 300, that will not change how the game is played by any means.

[vienna]

I regard the BethSoft Fallouts in the same vain as the Star Wars Prequels. They happened but I refuse to acknowledge their existence.

The first game in the series takes place in 2161, approx. 80 years after the bombs dropped. In that game you see self sufficent settlements, trade economy, and fiat currency. ~80 years after that, in Fallout 2(and later in New Vegas), you have city states, democratic republics, mingin towns and even freshly minted fiat currency backed by gold. So yeah, humanity is rebuilding on the West Coast.

The only reason the East Coast hasn't rebuilt its infrastrucure to any degree is purely for asethic choice. "Give Oblivion enough of a paint job to appear as a Fallout game" or in this case, "Give Skyrim enough of a paintjob to qualify as a Fallout game." Its bad writing and design descions run amok. So in the end, the only thing we got were paint jobs, shallow worlds in an even more depthless game.

[Incunabulum]

Originally posted by Tomwelcome:

I'm wondering why the developers chose to set the game 200 years after the war. The world doesn't make any sense under the 200 years setting. Am I to believe that mankind fails to rebuild for 200 years? And all those untouched resources, working terminals and elevators, and skeletons that remain in the same position for 200 years?

On the other hand, it would fit right in if it was set 50~100 years after the war. No one says that their game has to move in chronological order. I can't think of any advantage for this particular setting except the shock value (What? It's been 200 years?) and some minor connections to Fallout 3.

Because the first game was set approximately 60 years after the war, the second 80 years after that and BGS wanted to move their game as far from the originals as possible so they don't have to worry much about conflicting canon and 'this hasn't happened' yet conflicts.

Personally, I would have said moving it to the East Coast alone would have been enough and set it approx 20-40 years AGW. Long enough that (non-ghoul) pre-war survivors are rare and/or were too young to remember much, not so long that significant rebuilding should have already happened. There's no significant communication between the East and West Coasts and a big honking difficult-to-cross mountain range (and if they had left out the recent Russian and Irish immigrants!) so there's no need to worry much about what has/is/will happen out in the Mojave.

I like to pretend FO3 and FO4's timeline is only 20 years later instead of 200.

[Incunabulum]

Originally posted by casualsailor:

After the fall of the Roman Empire the world languished under the Dark Ages for a millinium (1000 years). And they didn't have to deal with radiation or the destruction of their entire way of life by an apocalyptic war.

200 years is not that long to recover from nuclear holocaust.

Except there was no actual Dark Age. Simply an age without major technological progress. There was still significant infrastructure built, lots of preserved knowledge, and population growth. Europe didn't descend into a hellscape full of predatory bandits and emptied settlements .

[casualsailor]

Originally posted by Incunabulum:

Originally posted by casualsailor:

After the fall of the Roman Empire the world languished under the Dark Ages for a millinium (1000 years). And they didn't have to deal with radiation or the destruction of their entire way of life by an apocalyptic war.

200 years is not that long to recover from nuclear holocaust.

Except there was no actual Dark Age. Simply an age without major technological progress. There was still significant infrastructure built, lots of preserved knowledge, and population growth. Europe didn't descend into a hellscape full of predatory bandits and emptied settlements .

I think you're making my point for me. Despite all of the advantages that people during the Dark Ages had over those in FO4 there was little progress for over 1000 years. So 200 years to recover from nuclear holocaust is not that long.

[Chuc]

Originally posted by Incunabulum:

Originally posted by Tomwelcome:

I'm wondering why the developers chose to set the game 200 years after the war. The world doesn't make any sense under the 200 years setting. Am I to believe that mankind fails to rebuild for 200 years? And all those untouched resources, working terminals and elevators, and skeletons that remain in the same position for 200 years?

On the other hand, it would fit right in if it was set 50~100 years after the war. No one says that their game has to move in chronological order. I can't think of any advantage for this particular setting except the shock value (What? It's been 200 years?) and some minor connections to Fallout 3.

Because the first game was set approximately 60 years after the war, the second 80 years after that and BGS wanted to move their game as far from the originals as possible so they don't have to worry much about conflicting canon and 'this hasn't happened' yet conflicts.

Personally, I would have said moving it to the East Coast alone would have been enough and set it approx 20-40 years AGW. Long enough that (non-ghoul) pre-war survivors are rare and/or were too young to remember much, not so long that significant rebuilding should have already happened. There's no significant communication between the East and West Coasts and a big honking difficult-to-cross mountain range (and if they had left out the recent Russian and Irish immigrants!) so there's no need to worry much about what has/is/will happen out in the Mojave.

I like to pretend FO3 and FO4's timeline is only 20 years later instead of 200.

Fo4s timeline is 210 years from the war not from fo3

[Incunabulum]

Originally posted by casualsailor:

Originally posted by Incunabulum:

Except there was no actual Dark Age. Simply an age without major technological progress. There was still significant infrastructure built, lots of preserved knowledge, and population growth. Europe didn't descend into a hellscape full of predatory bandits and emptied settlements .

I think you're making my point for me. Despite all of the advantages that people during the Dark Ages had over those in FO4 there was little progress for over 1000 years. So 200 years to recover from nuclear holocaust is not that long.

There was signficant progress over that timeframe. Calling it a 'Dark Age' is a misnomer and today its normally called the 'Middle Ages'. There was significant technological progress - just not at the rate of the later Renaissance but easily comparable to any of the previous ages.

[Incunabulum]

Originally posted by Chuc:

Originally posted by Incunabulum:

Because the first game was set approximately 60 years after the war, the second 80 years after that and BGS wanted to move their game as far from the originals as possible so they don't have to worry much about conflicting canon and 'this hasn't happened' yet conflicts.

Personally, I would have said moving it to the East Coast alone would have been enough and set it approx 20-40 years AGW. Long enough that (non-ghoul) pre-war survivors are rare and/or were too young to remember much, not so long that significant rebuilding should have already happened. There's no significant communication between the East and West Coasts and a big honking difficult-to-cross mountain range (and if they had left out the recent Russian and Irish immigrants!) so there's no need to worry much about what has/is/will happen out in the Mojave.

I like to pretend FO3 and FO4's timeline is only 20 years later instead of 200.

Fo4s timeline is 210 years from the war not from fo3

Yes, I know. I didn't write anything that suggests that FO4 was set 210 years after FO3. I wrote that both games are set approximately 200 years AGW (After Great War).

[Hobo Misanthropus]

It only doesn't make sense if you take our developed infrastructure for granted.

For example, if every electrical transformer in the United States were to just explode right now, WITH a manufacturing infrastructure it would take 50-60 years to replace them all.

You grossly underestimate just how difficult it is to build up from nothing.

I'm not even going to address terminals or robots functioning 200 years in the future with zero maintenance. If dipping people into goop can turn them into Super Mutants Robots can last forever.