art by NCMares

This week, instead of the usual single topic, I'm going to shotgun out a number of tidbits that you might like to know about. First:

...to the Fallout: Equestria Reddit community! On July 15th, the Fallout: Equestria subreddit was honored as Reddit's "Subreddit of the Day".

wallpaper by Bluedragonhans

This week also marked the very friendly and successful Reddit "cultural exchange" between members of the My Little Pony and SquaredCircle (professional wrestling) subreddits. It's always cool to see that kind of positive interaction between very foreign fan groups.

(It also spawned some nice art like this week's opening feature piece by NCMares. )

In Fallout-related news, Bethesda released a couple new videos of Fallout 4 gameplay and combat from their E3 showcase:

This is familiar footage, so there isn't much in the way of new information to be gleaned. However, that hasn't prevented Arkuhtect from obsessively checking each frame for any new clues, and he has broken down what he has found here.

I was alerted to this by Eurogamer, whose Fallout 4 Friday video this week covers the most interesting bits, as well as talking about The Art of Fallout 4, the artbook for Fallout 4 which has recently appeared available for pre-order on Amazon. (He also does a bit regarding customizing keyboards for Fallout 4. Amusing timing to me, as this week I prepared for the upcoming game by purchasing a new keyboard -- a Corsair Gaming K70 RGB mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX Red switches -- and installed the "Corrosive" profile to get that proper Fallout "Vats of Goo" look.)

Of course, the exploration video does again stir up concerns that Fallout 4 has significantly changed or even done away with skills, replacing them with an expansion of the perks system. Barring new evidence, this does seem likely. But I'm withholding judgement on whether this is a positive or negative change until I have a chance to play the game. I know there has been a lot of visceral negative reactions to the very idea, and I can understand that people are resistant to having something they are deeply fond of being altered. (Remember, there are still people who react with mindless vitriol at the very idea of ponies and Fallout.) But I remain firmly in the "change isn't necessarily bad" camp. The Fallout games, as much as we love them, aren't impossible to improve on. And just because something is beloved through the power of nostalgia doesn't mean it should be used as a template for future incarnations. Progress and evolution don't have to be evil and scary.

This upcoming movie might be absolutely awful.

But if so, it won't be because they made the characters female.

Any more than the original was good because the cast was male.

(But then again, I'm one of those heathens who actually preferred the cast of Extreme Ghostbusters, so what the hell do I know?)

As a final note, a lot of people have been asking if I will write another Fallout: Equestria story after playing Fallout 4. The answer is that I don't know. All the reasons that I voiced before about not wanting to write a sequel still apply. But they didn't prevent me from giving you "Origin Story". And if anything would be capable of inspiring me and driving me to write another story in the Fallout: Equestria universe, it would be a great new Fallout game!

My first foray into Fallout-themed writing was writing a series of "PipBoy Diaries" for my friends in the Fallout 3 Underground modder community. Essentially, a "Let's Play" in written form, rather than as a series of YouTube videos. If you guys are interested in that sort of thing, I think I could be easily persuaded to spend a number of my upcoming blogs delivering a written "Let's Play" of my first Fallout 4 playthrough. (Warning: it would, by nature, be both non-pony and full of spoilers.) Let me know in the comments if you would want to read that.