Fallout: The Good, The Bad, And The Apocalypse (McAllister)

## Introduction

The internet has provided many unique ways to communicate since its creation. These ways range from the slow, efficient email all the way to the quick instant messaging, and have proved to be significantly useful. This usefulness, however, has been questioned by many a scholar, as some say we have become lazy from it, and some even say we have become lonely. The internet has also allowed for such things as online communities, usually centered around a text or a group of texts, such as poems, songs, or even video games. These communities have grown and also become useful, but not in so much of a negative way as some may view it. These societies formed can be very social while also being very informative. Either way you look at it, the communities we have formed wouldn't have been possible without the access we currently have due to the internet.

   Some people, such as Nicholas Carr, may think that the use of technology could be causing us to become stupid. In fact, he addresses this issue as such when he states "My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles." in his article "Is Google Making Us Stupid?". While this quote may be addressing internet browsing in particular, this general principle applies to all of technology. As technology improves, our ability to reason with our known knowledge dwindles. As a result, we have become more embraced into technology as we only know more technology as a solution to our current issue. Video games fall into this category of technology just as much as any other type of technology. Some claim video games make people violent, while others claim video games improve intelligence. However, one thing most people can agree on is that video games most definitely influence us.

One way video games have directly influenced us is through our need to form and be a part of online communities. These online communities are places where people can gather to collect information and discuss that information, but not individually. Rather they discuss as a whole, allowing anyone to become part of this community and taking into consideration all the opinions of those involved within the community. These communities can range from communities centered on collecting knowledge about the game, to communities discussing and debating that knowledge, and even to communities which create their own information based upon the knowledge collected, sometimes known as "fan-fiction." One of the things that ties communities together, barring the communities who debate everything, is a shared collective opinion. While you don't necessarily have to share this opinion to join the community, there is often an opinion held by most members of the community that one could consider the community's opinion. While these communities may be unifying, there also exists those communities that debate their opinions, which, in turn, causes the members of the community to really engage themselves in the discussions and even the meanings behind the game. This is true for more than just video games, however, as communities around poems, novels, and even songs provide the same experience for the members of those communities.

Another thing we have discussed in HUM211 is if video games could be considered art or not. This is debated by many, but one source that is quite credible in this argument is Ian Bogost's "How To Do Things With Videogames" article. While some may argue that video games are not art, Bogost supports video games as art. At one point, Bogost questions "What lessons can video games learn, even from a rudimentary understanding of art history?". Bogost is right to question this, as this is the central reason this debate is so heated. Bogost, like me, believes there needs to be a set definition for what art is before video games can be called art, but at the same time, using what others have defined art as, either applied video games to that classification or somehow removed a piece of "art" from that group. When one defines art too loosely, you can easily apply video games to that definition. However, when one defines art too narrowly, you can easily remove things everybody considers art already from the classification, such as sculptures or movies.

   As a whole, video games are quite an interesting topic when it comes to how they affect us. They give cause for debates, such as debates between the differing opinions of what the publisher's intention to make a certain thing was. They also affect us through the forming of communities to collect knowledge, which is like forming tiny societies with a shared interest, and sometimes through applying the subjected video game to the peoples' own visions through fan fiction, fan art, and even mods. These communities are very beneficial to the players at large, as they allow ways to connect that they could not otherwise. These communities were formed for the people and by the people. While others may say there are negative effects on people by technology, these communities are absolutely in the list of pros for the effects technology has had on society. These communities have many reasons to be formed, and plenty of reasons to stay active. Overall, they allow us to discuss the topics of the author's intentions, as well as form communities around the gathering of knowledge, and even our own renditions of the video game.

## Authorial Intentions

Bethesda is the creator of the Fallout series from Fallout 3 and beyond, while the Fallout games before Fallout 3 were created by Interplay Entertainment. While Bethesda may have only inherited the Fallout series, it has taken the lore and gameplay down a brighter passage. The story in Fallout is very immersive, and often, that is what causes players to fawn over the series. The story Bethesda has made is only a continuation and expansion upon what Interplay made, but the entire story seems so fluid, you can hardly notice. The gameplay may be different between the publishers, but the intention behind gameplay remains the same. The immersive story can be seen from many different perspectives, while all perspectives are technically from the same character. Well, more like a character spot, in this instance, as the character one can play varies greatly.

    The Fallout series has many different ways you can play, such as with different characters and your characters can travel down different paths. Sometimes, those paths even lead to different endings. The creators of Fallout obviously wanted the players to play a character of their own design. To elaborate upon this, Bethesda's most recent Fallout title, Fallout 4, had such a in-depth and complex appearance customization that Fallout 4 was hyped way out of proportion just through seeing the face customization options months before release. There are some communities already derived around the customization options, creating characters who are references to pop culture. This is only the customization, however. Fallout 4 also has an in-depth leveling and Perk system, using the old S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system but using a new Perk system. The old perk system also had skills, but this system has combined the two. Unlike the other games, Fallout 4 also has no level cap, or the level at which you can no longer level up. This leads to it taking until level 270 to obtain all the points of the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system and all ranks of all perks. To put this in perspective, Fallout 3 originally capped at level 20, and only moved to a level 30 cap through DLC, or downloaded content. While this may put off the image of having to restart to make a new character, the time it would take to obtain level 270 supports this. Knowing what RPG players like, the intentions of Bethesda and even of Interplay was to have a player go through the game with one character, embracing all that that character would do and all of his or her skills, and then, after finishing the game, go back and create a whole new character with a whole new set of skills. Not only this, but the creators also intended for these new playthroughs to take different paths, or decisions made during the game. These different pathways are inherent through any game with decisions that actually affect gameplay. In some cases, such as Fallout 4, these different paths even lead to different endings of the game, and this further persuades players to go back, create a new character, and take a different path through the game.

These authorial intentions are often discussed on Fallout online communities. There are discussions on the characters people have made, how they made them, and why they made them that way. There are also many discussions about the different paths you can take within the Fallout titles, the multiple endings, and even the individual decisions made by the players and why they made those decisions. Sometimes, even how those decisions or that path link to your character is discussed. These discussions are a vital part of the knowledge communities of video games.

## Knowledge Communities

As discussed before, knowledge communities are a vital part of the Fallout franchise, and in fact, most all video game franchises. A knowledge community is simply a community derived around finding, collecting, and organizing information on a subject, which in this instance, is the Fallout series. While Bethesda does collect useful knowledge to put into strategy guides, or actual material books that contain information useful in the game, the online knowledge communities are indefinitely better, as they change, fluctuate, and modify themselves after demand. These knowledge communities may not even go over things common between playthroughs, but may go over certain builds, or specific ways to build and potentially even play a character, or other aspects that could be different for each playthrough. There is also random encounters within Fallout, so while one player may encounter an NPC wearing Power Armor painted with hot rod flames, while another player plays through 10 characters and never sees this NPC. These random encounters would be logged onto a knowledge community, so everyone could see. Even glitches are captured and displayed on knowledge communities, as there is no guaranteed way to find these most of the time, and if that glitch is a special glitch, then one would obviously want to share their luck or misfortune with the rest of the community.

One such knowledge community would be the Fallout Wiki. The Fallout wiki has information on all of the Fallout games, including the spinoffs and even the cancelled Fallout games, which I knew nothing about until I read the wiki. The information gathered on each game can be from the tiniest details, like the statistics of what Raiders, one of the enemies in the game of Fallout, drop when they die, all the way to directions of where to find some of the best weapons in the games or how to complete the main quests and the locations of secret along the way. Being a wiki, it is editable by all those who visit, but it has a sensor for what is and what isn't confirmed by canon sources, such as Bethesda. It is there so people who are reading know that what they are reading is true, or about as true as it can be coming from sources other than directly from the producers. The Fallout wiki also contains information on lore, or story that isn't necessarily in any of the games, but rather from Bethesda themselves, to link together certain information with the story, or even just to cause the game to be even more immersive. As people discover more things about the game, they add more information to the wiki, so even though sometimes, people will edit and change information to make it more correct, it is most generally expanding with every change. With a game as large as the Fallout titles, information to post is all around you in the game, ready to be discovered. Unlike many other knowledge communities, however, the Fallout wiki is determined to tell you of non-personalized information. So, instead of telling you what characters they created, they would tell you of every character creation and leveling option and how it affects gameplay.

On the other hand is the Fallout Reddit. This knowledge community is more like that of a forum. It does in fact contain personalized information about specifics stories and characters. It is made of discussions, which allow people to add their own say to a discussion, but not change what others have said. Not only is it a community to obtain knowledge, but is more of a community than the Fallout wiki is, as they even have contests and community events, which may or may not be even be promoting the addition of information to the Fallout reddit community.

## Remediation

### Modding

As with most large RPGs, the modding community is humongous. Mod is short for modification, and are changes made to the game. The difference between this and a patch or an update is that a mod is created by users and you can choose whether or not to add them to a game, while patches or updates are changes made by the creators of the game and are usually required to download to play the game, especially if it is an online game. Mods can vary in purpose, from anywhere to changing the appearance of the launched Mini-Nukes to tiny infants all the way to changing all of the grass and foliage to be green instead of radiated-yellow. There are even non-appearance based mods, such as adding a companion to the game, or changing how people react to certain things. Mods can be very large, but for a mod to be well liked, it does not have to be. For example, one of the more popular mods for Fallout: New Vegas was to add an answer to a Rorschach test at the beginning of the game that said "Two Bears High-Fiving". It had no effect on gameplay, and was only seen once per playthrough, but was so small and insignificant that plenty of people downloaded it. It was so popular, Bethesda made a reference to it in one of Fallout: New Vegas' DLC, where an Native American NPC was named "Two-Bears-High-Fiving". These mods, small and large, appearance-based and functional, are numerous. Modding communities have even sprouted up through the peoples' love for mods. Mods can enhance a game, and make it more immersive, or they can add ridiculous things to spice up the game after beating it, or in a humorous way. Sometimes, people will add these ridiculous mods just to obtain more viewers when streaming. Mods are often either not used, or used in great quantities.

### Fan Fiction

Fan-fiction is also another way people have expressed themselves about the Fallout series. While it seems with the character creation and paths you can take, in addition to mods, that there is all you could ever want in a character's story, a large fan-fiction community still exists for Fallout. Not it's own community, but rather a section of another community the fan-fiction on fanfiction.net is quite tasteful and not all about the relationships between NPCs or player made characters, unlike many other texts that have fan fictions based around them on fanfiction.net. Some of the fan fiction detailed there is of characters who did nothing but live in vaults, or characters who took a path not available within the game, or even the rare relationship-based fan fiction. However, these are not the only fan-created things of Fallout.

### Other Remediation

Then there is all the other fan-created things that are using Fallout, such as fan music or fan art. The music is easily done, as there can be remixes of the songs form the Fallout series, which are just songs from the early 19th century, or even mods that add or change the music in the game. While this may not be on a scale of fan fiction or the mods themselves, it still exists. Fan art is also a large thing, as it is with every online following. If something makes it on the internet, good chance is there is art of it. An art website like DeviantArt is where an art based community resides, creating fan art or original art of whatever they feel like. While the community is not Fallout-based, it is very large and there do reside members who create fan art for Fallout.

## References

1. ↑ Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" Course Readings, HUM211.
2. ↑ Bogost, Ian. "How To Do Things With Videogames." Course Readings, HUM211
3. ↑ Fallout wiki. http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout\_Wiki
4. ↑ Fallout reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/
5. ↑ Fallout section of fanfiction.net. https://www.fanfiction.net/game/Fallout/