Goodbye to River, who most of you know as Fallout 4’s Dogmeat
July 3, 2021 10:24 AM Subscribe
I said goodbye today to River, who most of you know as Fallout 4’s Dogmeat. Heartbroken doesn't cover it, but I won’t eulogize her here. For twitter, I thought it'd be appropriate to look back at her impact on that game. (plus, writing about game dev hurts less than grieving) [Twitter link] - Game Developer @JoelBurgess explains how knowing a dog changed a video game. Threadreader link.
this was a very, very sweet & informative thread about the goodest girl
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posted by taquito sunrise at 11:07 AM on July 3, 2021 [9 favorites]
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posted by taquito sunrise at 11:07 AM on July 3, 2021 [9 favorites]
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I've been playing Fallout 4 off and on lately with lots and lots of mods. One of them is Everybody's Best Friend; it lets you keep Dogmeat as a companion in addition to a human. (This was apparently the original intent but got removed sometime during development.)
Anyway, after one too many instances of him getting under my feet in the middle of looting, I finally sent him home. He looked at me forlornly and wandered off (still forlorn) but I had made up my mind. I kept adventuring without him.
Shortly afterward, I turned a corner and there he was, still (forlornly) heading toward Sanctuary Hills. So I sighed and told him to come along. And kept tripping over him.
posted by suetanvil at 11:59 AM on July 3, 2021 [24 favorites]
I've been playing Fallout 4 off and on lately with lots and lots of mods. One of them is Everybody's Best Friend; it lets you keep Dogmeat as a companion in addition to a human. (This was apparently the original intent but got removed sometime during development.)
Anyway, after one too many instances of him getting under my feet in the middle of looting, I finally sent him home. He looked at me forlornly and wandered off (still forlorn) but I had made up my mind. I kept adventuring without him.
Shortly afterward, I turned a corner and there he was, still (forlornly) heading toward Sanctuary Hills. So I sighed and told him to come along. And kept tripping over him.
posted by suetanvil at 11:59 AM on July 3, 2021 [24 favorites]
Sad to read.
But F4 finally made me give up on post-apocalyptic games. The "LOLnukes/science" comedy had been rubbed into the ground. And even the brand new buildings you could create looked like battered garbage. I know it's a game. But in 100 years... no one could bother sweeping? Repainting walls? Making stuff look a LITTLE nicer at least in SOME areas? It all just felt so lazy. Such a re-tread.
I never came close to finishing it, and I quite liked F3.
posted by SoberHighland at 1:05 PM on July 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
But F4 finally made me give up on post-apocalyptic games. The "LOLnukes/science" comedy had been rubbed into the ground. And even the brand new buildings you could create looked like battered garbage. I know it's a game. But in 100 years... no one could bother sweeping? Repainting walls? Making stuff look a LITTLE nicer at least in SOME areas? It all just felt so lazy. Such a re-tread.
I never came close to finishing it, and I quite liked F3.
posted by SoberHighland at 1:05 PM on July 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
The only good thing about Fallout 4.
There was also Nick Valentine and his Philip K. Dick-esque storyline, which I loved...but yeah. Dogmeat was a very, very good dog. I didn't bring him along for most of my wanderings, but I made very, very sure to build him a doghouse right outside my own house in Sanctuary Hills with food and water dishes right next to it.
. for the real-life version of the goodest dog.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 1:40 PM on July 3, 2021 [8 favorites]
There was also Nick Valentine and his Philip K. Dick-esque storyline, which I loved...but yeah. Dogmeat was a very, very good dog. I didn't bring him along for most of my wanderings, but I made very, very sure to build him a doghouse right outside my own house in Sanctuary Hills with food and water dishes right next to it.
. for the real-life version of the goodest dog.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 1:40 PM on July 3, 2021 [8 favorites]
But in 100 years... no one could bother sweeping? Repainting walls? Making stuff look a LITTLE nicer at least in SOME areas? It all just felt so lazy.
Says the synth.
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:34 PM on July 3, 2021 [3 favorites]
Says the synth.
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:34 PM on July 3, 2021 [3 favorites]
But in 100 years... no one could bother sweeping? Repainting walls? Making stuff look a LITTLE nicer at least in SOME areas? It all just felt so lazy.
The reason is because a lot of the fun of F4's basic gameplay is exploring, treasure hunting (i.e. searching for and finding bits of loot) and fighting groups of surprise enemies, all of which requires untamed land.
Yeah, it makes no sense in a place that's been settled for over a century after the war but gameplay trumps story. And as an opportunity to fart around in a game, it's fine. It's an enjoyable experience. In my headcanon, the dates are all wrong and the whole thing takes place a mere thirty-or-so years after the war and I skip the whole Institute quest because that's just awful.
posted by suetanvil at 5:33 PM on July 3, 2021 [6 favorites]
The reason is because a lot of the fun of F4's basic gameplay is exploring, treasure hunting (i.e. searching for and finding bits of loot) and fighting groups of surprise enemies, all of which requires untamed land.
Yeah, it makes no sense in a place that's been settled for over a century after the war but gameplay trumps story. And as an opportunity to fart around in a game, it's fine. It's an enjoyable experience. In my headcanon, the dates are all wrong and the whole thing takes place a mere thirty-or-so years after the war and I skip the whole Institute quest because that's just awful.
posted by suetanvil at 5:33 PM on July 3, 2021 [6 favorites]
(I mean, the whole game feels like someone wrote a script outline first, then they did a half-decade's worth of iterative design on the game and never updated the script to match it.
The Institute is just a villain for its own sake. They kidnap people of no obvious significance, question them with torture (even though they don't have any information the Institute wouldn't already have) and replace them with synths for no reason. They talk about their Important Work but never ever tell you what that work is or how the whole kidnapping thing fits into it. They're gratuitiously cruel to their humanoid synths just 'cuz and they insist they're not people 'cuz I said so.
The whole "are synths human" question could have been interesting but in this game, it's just "are not/are too".
Then, there are the factions. When you choose one, all the others become your enemy, even when they're basically on your faction's side. None of this "have a chat with the other faction's leader who's learned to trust you" stuff; that's far too wishy-washy-peacenik for this game. We have to make the tough decisions!
(Although I suppose that there's also realism in being ruled by an idiot who refuses to make even a minimal effort to avoid bloodshed while rambling on about making hard decisions.)
New Vegas (recall: Obsidian, not Bethesda) did this really well, BTW. Bethesda should have ripped off more of the New Vegas design.
There are some very good bits, granted. A lot of the companions are really well written, for example. But over all, as a story, F4 is pretty bad.
Although I guess it's my favourite piece of Fallout fan fiction.)
posted by suetanvil at 6:29 PM on July 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
The Institute is just a villain for its own sake. They kidnap people of no obvious significance, question them with torture (even though they don't have any information the Institute wouldn't already have) and replace them with synths for no reason. They talk about their Important Work but never ever tell you what that work is or how the whole kidnapping thing fits into it. They're gratuitiously cruel to their humanoid synths just 'cuz and they insist they're not people 'cuz I said so.
The whole "are synths human" question could have been interesting but in this game, it's just "are not/are too".
Then, there are the factions. When you choose one, all the others become your enemy, even when they're basically on your faction's side. None of this "have a chat with the other faction's leader who's learned to trust you" stuff; that's far too wishy-washy-peacenik for this game. We have to make the tough decisions!
(Although I suppose that there's also realism in being ruled by an idiot who refuses to make even a minimal effort to avoid bloodshed while rambling on about making hard decisions.)
New Vegas (recall: Obsidian, not Bethesda) did this really well, BTW. Bethesda should have ripped off more of the New Vegas design.
There are some very good bits, granted. A lot of the companions are really well written, for example. But over all, as a story, F4 is pretty bad.
Although I guess it's my favourite piece of Fallout fan fiction.)
posted by suetanvil at 6:29 PM on July 3, 2021 [4 favorites]
. For River.
Can we talk about how originally all the reference material the dev had collected was for snarling/aggressive dogs until they met the real dog?
posted by vespertinism at 8:47 PM on July 3, 2021 [7 favorites]
Can we talk about how originally all the reference material the dev had collected was for snarling/aggressive dogs until they met the real dog?
posted by vespertinism at 8:47 PM on July 3, 2021 [7 favorites]
Been addicted to the FO4 universe ever since I bought it 3 years ago. Dogmeat is a fantastic companion. Far better than *cough* Mac Cready or the massively useless Deacon.
For those looking to commemorate Dogmeat/River in a manner appropriate to The Best Good Dog Ever's passing, Nexus.com has statuary mods to really make you ache for the "Weh!" Noise Dogmeat makes on patrol.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 9:12 PM on July 3, 2021
For those looking to commemorate Dogmeat/River in a manner appropriate to The Best Good Dog Ever's passing, Nexus.com has statuary mods to really make you ache for the "Weh!" Noise Dogmeat makes on patrol.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 9:12 PM on July 3, 2021
I don’t play games much but this thread was lovely. It made me miss my German shepherd/Rottweiler cross like all get out though.
posted by warriorqueen at 10:28 PM on July 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by warriorqueen at 10:28 PM on July 3, 2021 [2 favorites]
New Vegas (recall: Obsidian, not Bethesda) did this really well, BTW. Bethesda should have ripped off more of the New Vegas design.
Obsidian makes mediocre engines and great games.
Bethesda makes brilliant engines and terrible games.
posted by Justinian at 5:12 AM on July 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
Obsidian makes mediocre engines and great games.
Bethesda makes brilliant engines and terrible games.
posted by Justinian at 5:12 AM on July 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
I don't know; everybody on the forums complains about the engine and how buggy it is: building is a nightmare, even though users are much more restricted in the placement of objects than designers are; and limitations of the engine are allegedly responsible for weird restrictions in new content brought out by Bethesda for Fallout 76 (which I understand has the same engine).
E.g., they recently introduced individual semi-private "shelters" to let players build more things without slowing down the game world; but users can't put a whole lot of things in the shelters, including display cases - and honestly that's a major use case for private shelters; people wanted to display things. And you can't have any resource production in them (not even a tap producing water). Nobody really knows why, but they're pointing fingers at the game engine.
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:23 AM on July 4, 2021
E.g., they recently introduced individual semi-private "shelters" to let players build more things without slowing down the game world; but users can't put a whole lot of things in the shelters, including display cases - and honestly that's a major use case for private shelters; people wanted to display things. And you can't have any resource production in them (not even a tap producing water). Nobody really knows why, but they're pointing fingers at the game engine.
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:23 AM on July 4, 2021
Yes, now the engine is pretty nightmarish Joe. It's more than 10 years old! But it was groundbreaking at the time.
Completely agreed that they're beating the horse well past its expiration date now.
posted by Justinian at 6:50 AM on July 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
Completely agreed that they're beating the horse well past its expiration date now.
posted by Justinian at 6:50 AM on July 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
F4 finally made me give up on post-apocalyptic games.
I picked up Horizon Zero Dawn on Steam last week, and I super enjoyed their post Apoc vision. It’s both more primitive, yet more advanced, at the same time.
posted by Fleebnork at 6:57 AM on July 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
I picked up Horizon Zero Dawn on Steam last week, and I super enjoyed their post Apoc vision. It’s both more primitive, yet more advanced, at the same time.
posted by Fleebnork at 6:57 AM on July 4, 2021 [1 favorite]
Then, there are the factions. When you choose one, all the others become your enemy, even when they're basically on your faction's side.
How do you figure they're basically on your side?
One side wants to keep their property and treat the Commonwealth like their colonial possession. I don't buy that the Institute are villains for its own sake -- they're hereditary slavers, and they act like it. They treat the synths like American slaves and the Commonwealth kinda like helots.
Another side wants to free the synths.
The third side wants to exterminate the synths, the people who made them, anyone who doesn't meet their standards for racial purity, and anyone who dares to use tech they've decided is only for them.
New Vegas (recall: Obsidian, not Bethesda) did this really well, BTW.
No, they didn't. You can't make any kind of peace between the NCR, Legion, and House/Yes Man. Only one side can rule the Mojave and the rest slink off in defeat.
What NV did better was have a bunch of ancillary mini-factions, like the Boomers and the Khans, that you could bring in on one side or another, as well as a bunch more that couldn't even do that like the Kings. That unfortunately disappeared up the settlement system's ass in FO4.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:04 AM on July 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
How do you figure they're basically on your side?
One side wants to keep their property and treat the Commonwealth like their colonial possession. I don't buy that the Institute are villains for its own sake -- they're hereditary slavers, and they act like it. They treat the synths like American slaves and the Commonwealth kinda like helots.
Another side wants to free the synths.
The third side wants to exterminate the synths, the people who made them, anyone who doesn't meet their standards for racial purity, and anyone who dares to use tech they've decided is only for them.
New Vegas (recall: Obsidian, not Bethesda) did this really well, BTW.
No, they didn't. You can't make any kind of peace between the NCR, Legion, and House/Yes Man. Only one side can rule the Mojave and the rest slink off in defeat.
What NV did better was have a bunch of ancillary mini-factions, like the Boomers and the Khans, that you could bring in on one side or another, as well as a bunch more that couldn't even do that like the Kings. That unfortunately disappeared up the settlement system's ass in FO4.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:04 AM on July 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
How do you figure they're basically on your side?
Both the Brotherhood and the Railroad want to end the Institute. The Railroad wants to save the synths as well while the Brotherhood wants to destroy them, but without the Institute, the existing synths will just live out their lives as humans and then die, ending the line. Either way, synths are gone.
So it would be a reasonable compromise for the Brotherhood to let the Railroad rescue the remaining humanoid synths in exchange for their extensive knowledge of the Institute and its operations. After all, they'll all be destroyed eventually; it'll just take some time. A player who has gained the trust of both sides' leaders should have been able to broker an alliance.
Also, it really sucks to get to know and like a bunch of characters and then go murder them.
You can't make any kind of peace between the NCR, Legion, and House/Yes Man.
Sure, but at the same time, picking a side doesn't entail wiping out the entirety of the other two. But more importantly, it's relatively easy to navigate the choices without having to wipe out any of the sympathetic factions you've met beforehand. You can go on a murder spree but you don't have to.
I don't buy that the Institute are villains for its own sake -- they're hereditary slavers, and they act like it.
That's a reasonable interpretation.
My take is that the Institute, like the Enclave, sees itself as the last remaining fragment of True Civilization, hiding until they can cleanse the world of the mutants and repopulate it themselves. Previous attempts to contact the above-ground world had gone badly so now they stay hidden. They interfere with the above-ground culture in order to keep the area destabilized; a stable, united Commonwealth is a threat. They deny the humanity of synths because that allows them to treat them as appliances and their plan depends on that.
But the fact that we can speculate about this is what damns the writing. The game should have made all of this clear, and it doesn't. The Institute acts like a mysterious bad guy and even talking to their leader doesn't flesh out their motives at all.
(It's still a fun game, though.)
posted by suetanvil at 3:34 PM on July 4, 2021
Both the Brotherhood and the Railroad want to end the Institute. The Railroad wants to save the synths as well while the Brotherhood wants to destroy them, but without the Institute, the existing synths will just live out their lives as humans and then die, ending the line. Either way, synths are gone.
So it would be a reasonable compromise for the Brotherhood to let the Railroad rescue the remaining humanoid synths in exchange for their extensive knowledge of the Institute and its operations. After all, they'll all be destroyed eventually; it'll just take some time. A player who has gained the trust of both sides' leaders should have been able to broker an alliance.
Also, it really sucks to get to know and like a bunch of characters and then go murder them.
You can't make any kind of peace between the NCR, Legion, and House/Yes Man.
Sure, but at the same time, picking a side doesn't entail wiping out the entirety of the other two. But more importantly, it's relatively easy to navigate the choices without having to wipe out any of the sympathetic factions you've met beforehand. You can go on a murder spree but you don't have to.
I don't buy that the Institute are villains for its own sake -- they're hereditary slavers, and they act like it.
That's a reasonable interpretation.
My take is that the Institute, like the Enclave, sees itself as the last remaining fragment of True Civilization, hiding until they can cleanse the world of the mutants and repopulate it themselves. Previous attempts to contact the above-ground world had gone badly so now they stay hidden. They interfere with the above-ground culture in order to keep the area destabilized; a stable, united Commonwealth is a threat. They deny the humanity of synths because that allows them to treat them as appliances and their plan depends on that.
But the fact that we can speculate about this is what damns the writing. The game should have made all of this clear, and it doesn't. The Institute acts like a mysterious bad guy and even talking to their leader doesn't flesh out their motives at all.
(It's still a fun game, though.)
posted by suetanvil at 3:34 PM on July 4, 2021
without the Institute, the existing synths will just live out their lives as humans and then die, ending the line. Either way, synths are gone.
If the Brotherhood thought like that, they'd judge ghouls and mutants by the content of their character. Synths are intolerable abominations that need to be destroyed; they believe this enough that they hightailed it out of DC just to come kill them all.
Also, it really sucks to get to know and like a bunch of characters and then go murder them.
Ah. I'm someone who, after the first playthrough, just kills Danse when I meet him so I don't have to pretend to get along with the brotherhood magahats. Ad mortem!
I won't pretend that the writing is great, but it's serviceable for a video game. Probably below where NV's writing is, but OTOH Ulysses so help me God if you mention the Bearrrrrr or the Bull one more time...
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:38 PM on July 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
If the Brotherhood thought like that, they'd judge ghouls and mutants by the content of their character. Synths are intolerable abominations that need to be destroyed; they believe this enough that they hightailed it out of DC just to come kill them all.
Also, it really sucks to get to know and like a bunch of characters and then go murder them.
Ah. I'm someone who, after the first playthrough, just kills Danse when I meet him so I don't have to pretend to get along with the brotherhood magahats. Ad mortem!
I won't pretend that the writing is great, but it's serviceable for a video game. Probably below where NV's writing is, but OTOH Ulysses so help me God if you mention the Bearrrrrr or the Bull one more time...
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:38 PM on July 4, 2021 [2 favorites]
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posted by deadaluspark at 10:37 AM on July 3, 2021 [1 favorite]