This is an interesting project and will prompt some discussion. I also consider the comments so far as valid too. I don't know where I stand on this so far. However, the fact that place names have prevailed in the UK is mostly due to their reference in the Doomsday Book. Some places had their names changed to Norman and have stayed ever since. Some changed to latter English after they were replaced. In more modern times the industrial revolution and population migration saw further changes. For example, Birmingham was a small village and Aston was a town. It is now a district of Birmingham with a population of 1 million. Birmingham Small Arms (BSA) was created in Small Heath not Birmingham connected by the newly constructed road , Armory Road. They made firearms; bicycles; motorcycles; cars; buses and bodies; steel; iron castings; hand, power, and machine tools; coal cleaning and handling plants; sintered metals; and hard chrome process. (ref: Wikipedia). Now why am I saying this? Over the last 200 years the industrial growth has changed the landscape and overturned what had presided for 1000 years. 2077 and the collapse in civilisation that followed would have lead to changes in how people referred to places - quote: "Diamond city is the biggest city I ever saw". It is a baseball stadium for goodness sake. Boston is no longer Boston, it is the wasteland, a ruin. It means nothing any more. people know Goodneighbor more the they know of the Cambridge district. As for what is recorded on computer terminals is irrelevant as most people will be illiterate. The old names will have been largely forgotten. The Lone Survivor may remember but this is not her world. So to the point. I think you are correct. Wastelanders would name places in a way that was more descriptive for them. In FO3 people knew of Rust Town not Washington DC. Keep working on this project as it will prompt some interesting discussion. Kudos given!!!
See, this has always made me wonder: because the pip-boy you have comes with a map, and it's prewar tech. How the heck any of the old names for locations still line up with all the new map markers you'd (presumably) be adding in manually is surreal.
Sadly the real-world equivalent would be like expecting google earth to still know where the hell I am when there's no satellite/4G data plan for me to get that data from. The whole concept has a lot of hand-waving.
Just stumbled on this while looking for a surprisingly non-existent mod type - mapcharts (to hang on walls, not on pipboys). But anyway...
Not a bad concept (in theory) except you're overlooking Novac (though loosely inspired by a few different places) is an imaginery town. FO3 had Megaton and Rivet City etc, but less leeway to invent imaginary towns and funky names because back east the map's far more crowded with real places and FO4 is trying to impart a recognition of, and relationship to, that world to make it feel more real. FO4 hasn't overlooked what you want - they're deliberately pushing further in the opposite direction with a specific aim (and it's a good one). But the game does have some post-war place names like Diamond City.
And unfortunately you've picked on Quincy Ruins when that is one of the few places that has indeed developed a post-war name. And Parsons Asylum wouldn't be shortened because of other Parsons locations (eg Parsons Creamery). Lexington wouldn't be Corvega either because, again, the need to differentiate - i.e. there's a big location called the Corvega factory, and they're not getting rid of name as famous as Lexington! Why? Because of the other thing FO4 is deliberately doing with the whole Minutemen thing and evoking nomenclature of the American War of Independence - names like Lexington and Concord are iconic.
Could you change the name of "Starlight Drive-In" to just "Starlight". It always seemed weird that after 200 years without working cars or movie projectors, the concept of a "Drive-In" would have remained, and Starlight just sounds cooler too.
A thing to keep in mind though is that while scavengers may theoretically refer to places by newer names, your character is Pre-War and has probably been to most of the places he's now exploring and has certainly at least known about the majority of them and assuming they manually update the map they would probably use the Pre-War names as a reference point.
Well I can see one very big difference between Vegas and Boston, Population. Boston has a much bigger population and the likelihood of names changes or name drifting gets lower when there are more people around to correct others of their mistakes. Vegas had a much lower population than Boston and was run by various tribes so name degradation would be expected as people just forgot what things were called. Boston on the other hand has a much denser population and deep history and lore around it and even over that amount of time that has gone by people would most likely keep the names the same out of some pride. The same can be seen in the DC wasteland. Most places have names that are based on the actual name. There is one token name drift in the vain you want to take things and that is Arefu, taken from what is left of the freeway sign. Boston survived the war fairly intact, so it makes sense that many of the names would be intact and visible. The extent you want to make the changes is going to be a very big project as all the dialog is going to have to be changed to match. Good luck with NPC dialogs not to mention the player character. There will also be all the computer terminals that have references to the places that have been made in the present time in the game. I am not saying your mod has no merit, its is just something that is going to be a very big and hard project to complete if you want to do it right.
i will be taking all of this into account thank you. i will mostly be just switching things out or shortening them based on signs present. For instance, Parsons State Insane Asylum is shortened to Parsons Asylum due to much of the title not being present on the sign.
I do not think the place is referenced outside of the cabot quest, however it would make sense that cabot and his employees would refer to it by its full name where they do. the average wastelander would only see whats written on the sign and probably refer to it as such, im moving from the latter angle
If we're going to point to lore, I'd argue that Vegas survived much better than Boston. House's defenses prevented most nukes from hitting, whereas Boston's suburbs and surrounding area still got hit hard. Plus, it was the radiation and fallout that killed most people in Fallout's lore anyways (something Boston would have had a ton of since an entire figurative sea of it exists 200 years later).
I love the idea and I don't think the author needs to worry about changing all NPC dialogue and stuff like that. Changing map markers is all he claims to do and I think that that alone is a great idea.
As far as suggestions go: I wouldn't worry about sticking directly to what we see on signs and whatnot. I'd like to see you get really creative with the names and have all sorts of eccentric scavver nicknames for various places.
it looks like it was a huge settlement until recently and is occupied by gunners now. preston and minutemen refer to it as quincy and they are the point of view i want to project. if it was abandoned id probably agree with you on this one
i was clearing out south boston police station just now and it has no description other than POLICE. it is right across the street from andrew station and i was considering doing just that!!
17 comments
However, the fact that place names have prevailed in the UK is mostly due to their reference in the Doomsday Book. Some places had their names changed to Norman and have stayed ever since. Some changed to latter English after they were replaced. In more modern times the industrial revolution and population migration saw further changes. For example, Birmingham was a small village and Aston was a town. It is now a district of Birmingham with a population of 1 million. Birmingham Small Arms (BSA) was created in Small Heath not Birmingham connected by the newly constructed road , Armory Road. They made firearms; bicycles; motorcycles; cars; buses and bodies; steel; iron castings; hand, power, and machine tools; coal cleaning and handling plants; sintered metals; and hard chrome process. (ref: Wikipedia).
Now why am I saying this? Over the last 200 years the industrial growth has changed the landscape and overturned what had presided for 1000 years. 2077 and the collapse in civilisation that followed would have lead to changes in how people referred to places - quote: "Diamond city is the biggest city I ever saw". It is a baseball stadium for goodness sake. Boston is no longer Boston, it is the wasteland, a ruin. It means nothing any more. people know Goodneighbor more the they know of the Cambridge district. As for what is recorded on computer terminals is irrelevant as most people will be illiterate. The old names will have been largely forgotten. The Lone Survivor may remember but this is not her world.
So to the point. I think you are correct. Wastelanders would name places in a way that was more descriptive for them. In FO3 people knew of Rust Town not Washington DC. Keep working on this project as it will prompt some interesting discussion.
Kudos given!!!
Sadly the real-world equivalent would be like expecting google earth to still know where the hell I am when there's no satellite/4G data plan for me to get that data from. The whole concept has a lot of hand-waving.
Not a bad concept (in theory) except you're overlooking Novac (though loosely inspired by a few different places) is an imaginery town. FO3 had Megaton and Rivet City etc, but less leeway to invent imaginary towns and funky names because back east the map's far more crowded with real places and FO4 is trying to impart a recognition of, and relationship to, that world to make it feel more real. FO4 hasn't overlooked what you want - they're deliberately pushing further in the opposite direction with a specific aim (and it's a good one). But the game does have some post-war place names like Diamond City.
And unfortunately you've picked on Quincy Ruins when that is one of the few places that has indeed developed a post-war name. And Parsons Asylum wouldn't be shortened because of other Parsons locations (eg Parsons Creamery). Lexington wouldn't be Corvega either because, again, the need to differentiate - i.e. there's a big location called the Corvega factory, and they're not getting rid of name as famous as Lexington! Why? Because of the other thing FO4 is deliberately doing with the whole Minutemen thing and evoking nomenclature of the American War of Independence - names like Lexington and Concord are iconic.
http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/6/63/Parsons_State_Insane_Asylum_Front.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20151116051551
I do not think the place is referenced outside of the cabot quest, however it would make sense that cabot and his employees would refer to it by its full name where they do. the average wastelander would only see whats written on the sign and probably refer to it as such, im moving from the latter angle
I love the idea and I don't think the author needs to worry about changing all NPC dialogue and stuff like that. Changing map markers is all he claims to do and I think that that alone is a great idea.
As far as suggestions go: I wouldn't worry about sticking directly to what we see on signs and whatnot. I'd like to see you get really creative with the names and have all sorts of eccentric scavver nicknames for various places.
When people talk about places they tend to shorten names...
Like many people say L.A. instead of Los Angeles....
Washington instead of Washington D.C.
So naturally it's Qincy instead of Quincy Ruins....
Of course that will only work if there's only one such place/name in the neighborhood.
P.S. Subway station names would be a major influence for instance.