Fallout 76 Community Spotlight: GamingWithMaps

Wild and wonderful West Virginia is filled with deep history.

From Camden park to the Cranberry Bog, each location has a story to tell. These stories are encased in notes, journals, terminal entries, holotapes and more. However, post-apocalyptic Appalachia isn’t the only one with history. The real-life counterpart is filled with rich and exciting stories as well.

GamingWithMaps is a YouTuber who delights in creating compelling videos that cover lore both in-game and in real life. His videos dive deep into the stories that can be found within locations in Fallout 76, but he doesn’t stop there. GamingWithMaps also researches the real-life counterparts and the history found hidden within their stories.

“My lore videos have covered the stories of individuals, like Senator Sam Blackwell, groups, like the Raiders of Big Bend Tunnel, events, such as the Dyer Chemical Massacre, and locations, like Sugar Grove.” He says. His videos didn’t start with the real-life history as well, but rather evolved to include it. “In the process of creating a video on Morgantown I started researching some of the real-world history of the city and ended up sharing it.”

Since then, his channel structure has changed to encompass both. “I started adding real-world history, related to the Fallout Universe content, from then on. The structure of these videos has evolved from the early ones where I showed exactly where to find the pertinent lore, to just covering that lore with clips of the relevant information. I really have enjoyed learning the history of West Virginia in the process.”

Humble Beginnings

GamingWithMaps started gaming early on, on PC. “My father was an early adopter of home computing, so I have had a PC in the home for as long as I can remember.” he says. “He and my brother introduced me to Railroad Tycoon, Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, DOOM and Wolfenstein. Probably not appropriate games for a Kindergartener, but these games were just the intro to the amazing, engaging, always expanding world of gaming.”

When it comes to Bethesda Game Studios titles, he is no stranger. “My first Bethesda game was Morrowind. I spent a couple hundred hours of my early teenage years on Vvardenfel, and that was before I even started the work to fulfill the requirements of the Nerevarine Prophecy.” he says.

Then along came Fallout. “Fallout 3 was my first Fallout game. I still remember the feeling of awe at walking out of Vault 101 for the first time and seeing the desolate wasteland stretched out in front of me. I did not know much about the world of Fallout when I started playing. In learning all I did, delving into the crumbling ruins of the Capital Wasteland, I only wanted more of this alternate future-past to sift through. I enjoyed the stories of New Vegas and 4, and I was not expecting another Fallout game until after Elder Scrolls VI, so when the teaser for 76 popped up on the internet, I was thrilled. I will admit that I was worried about it being the multiplayer game with no human npcs that it was at launch, but the world of post-apocalyptic Appalachia amazed me. No Fallout game has felt as apocalyptic as year one of Fallout 76.”

The love of the lore

We asked GamingWithMaps what inspired him to start creating lore videos on Fallout 76? “I have thoroughly enjoyed Appalachia, and all the stories contained within terminal entries, notes, Holotapes, and environmental story telling.” he says. “It was frustrating to me to see people attack Fallout 76 for not having stories, or not having lore, or breaking the lore when I knew from experience that this was not at all the case. It seemed to me the stories were told with more subtlety, and that if I could pull all of the parts of the stories together, I could show people the amazing lore there is to find here.”

GamingWithMaps created his first video in the fall of 2017, which is sadly lost to the ages due to hardware malfunction. “It was a complete overview of the layout, personnel, and the fall of Vault 111 in Fallout 4. It even included an examination of the Minnesota Starvation Experiment to look into the temperament of the security team.” he says.

He didn’t give up there, and in July 2019 he took up the role of being a videographer once more. His first video was about an hour long and was part quest walkthrough and part lore video on the Wasted on Nukashine quest. About two months later, he released another video covering the story of Morgantown.

GamingWithMaps plans to continue to release his videos, despite his busy life. “I had a goal for a time of releasing one every week to two weeks, but I work full time, so I just do not have the time to make them that often. I have been undergoing a six-month coding bootcamp for the past four months, so my lore delivery has slowed, but I have many more planned, and the releases will increase in frequency again.”

The Process

Recording these videos is no quick feat. First, is the research.

“The first stage of the research is just a search of Google, Encyclopedia Britannica, and Wikipedia. I then look at the source materials for any claim I find to try to be sure what I am finding is accurate. I look at government sites for cities, counties, and parks. Government sites still have to try to be fact checked as local municipalities like to claim they are the first to have done something, when the truth is closer to them having been one of the first to do it. I try to use as many primary sources as I can. In game I go over the relevant area(s) looking for lore and environmental story telling.”

After the research is done, it's time to start planning the shots. “Most of my lore videos are shot in 30 second to one minute still shots showing the content that I am covering. Originally, I shot these all in one big file that had to be parsed for each video, but around the time I started covering Lewisburg I changed to individual files for each shot.” The amount of files needed for each video can vary. “Some locales might require well over 100 shots to get the entirety captured. I then spend half an hour to an hour labeling these videos to make finding them and storing them easier.”

This leads to a lot of files, as he quickly learned. “To date I have 1,427 of these shots, taking up 150 GB of my stock footage folder.”

From there, it’s on to the next stage of the video creation process. “Once I have explored the area, read all the lore I can find, and check online to make sure I have not overlooked anything, I write the script over the course of a few days. I record the audio over the course of an hour or so and edit it together in the course of 3-4 hours.”

The results are captivating, moving videos such as this one on the lore of the Eastern Regional Penitentiary.

The Discoveries

GamingWithMaps has made an incredible number of videos to date. In doing so, he’s discovered some interesting bits of history both in real in life and in game, but what is his favorite lore discovery?

“The story of Darius Angler, the man who made the Toxic Valley toxic. I used to share my videos on the Fallout 76 subreddit, and it seemed to be the case that most people did not know why the Toxic Valley is covered in a layer of toxic white powder.” He says.

In his quest to explore and share lore, he’s learned some interesting bits of American History as well. “Early American history is filled with people who did an incredible breadth of things in their time. One of these people is John J. Beckley, the namesake for the town of Beckley that can be found in game. Born in 1757 in London, he was sold into indentured servitude by his parents at the age of 11. He crossed the Atlantic to arrive in Virginia where he served as a scribe from 1759 until his master died in 1773. He was elected councilman of Richmond, Virginia in 1782, and then mayor of the city in 1783, a mayorship he held twice. He became the first clerk of the United States House of Representatives, and the first Librarian of Congress.”

Where to watch

Thanks go out to GamingWithMaps for taking time to talk with us about his fascinating lore videos. We learned a lot about content creation, and American history along the way!

To watch more of GamingWithMaps’s videos, you can find his youtube channel, Irresolute Cartographer, here.

For alerts on videos and more content, check out his twitter here.

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