Fallout 3 discussion with Spoilers

I thought I would start this thread instead of wrapping "spoilers" around everything I write in the other thread.

First the general impression and where I am at. So far, I'm level 19 and have explored many areas, I think about 1/2 of the map. I haven't progressed very far in the main quest because I've read that it is really short. My dad was just killed and I rescued the scientists from the memorial building and have just now entered the Brotherhood of Steel compound (Pentagon).

I don't know what it is about this damn game that I like so much, but it has that one more turn feel (or in this case one more area to explore). I find myself setting out on a quest but getting distracted by some new area that is just over the horizon. I always think "Ok, let's check this area out but don't go inside. Just go there so I can fast travel back to it after I've done the quest." What happens everytime I think that? I go in the damn building anyways because it looks too cool to just pass up. So a half hour or hour later I emerge from the building and the whole process starts over again. I'll start heading out for my quest and get sidetracked, lol. I got hooked to GTA San Andreas for pretty much the same reason. There was a ton of cool stuff to do other than the main quest or even the side quests.

I was totally wrong about Fallout being horrible as a 1st person game. The whole destruction of the world viewed through the first person is eerie sometimes. Like when I was walking down a destroyed freeway it was just creepy how much it looks like some of the freeways back home (minus the destruction of course )

That being said I want all the writers for this game shot on site. Seriously what the hell were they thinking. I posted a gripe about Vault 106 in the other thread and it turns out that was just the tip of the iceberg. These cool areas have so much potential but fail miserably because the writing is just so horrible.

Lets take the AntAgonizer and Mechanist quest for example. This was a pretty good idea I thought. 50's superheroes in the flesh battling it out. It was something I wasn't expecting. But when you actually do the quest you never find out why the AntAgonizer could control the ants or what was her story. You just had a few options to choose from and the options were either to help her or kill her or the lady killer perk which she gives up and gives you the armor without a fight. Once again you have no idea how you convinced her to give up, you just click the Lady killer line and she suddenly has a change of heart AGHHHH….so much potential wasted on idiotic writing.

How about the other Vaults I've come across. Like (I think) Vault 108. It's a vault full of clones named Gary. They attack you on sight and gives no clue as to why or what happened in that vault. You just kill the Garys and get your bobblehead.

Now the main story has been ok. It's another Water purification quest but ehhh I can live with that. However I can't live with the Virtual Reality area that you go to in Vault 112. The only "good" option to get out of there is to kill everyone….WTF??? This gives me "good karma" by killing everyone. Ooook…

So the game is good but I really really wish that Beth would buy a clue and hire some decent writers or writers that know how to conclude a story.

Edit: I just remembered that in the Hubris Comics building there is a terminal with some info on the fictional comics coming out, a beta test for a computer game and an email from a fan.

The email was basically saying exactly the same thing I just said about the AntAgonizer, so Beth expected the the Fallout fans to be upset about the lame "I'm Evil, join me or die" writing. Either they're making fun of those fans or themselves. Either way it's a pretty cheap way of saying "We know the writing sucks, but we don't care."

Aye, I agree, there could've been more information regarding certain situations. I enjoyed trying to figure out what went wrong in the various vaults (87, 92, 106, 108, 112), but they often don't provide enough information. However, some of them are pretty damn disturbing (reading logs by people experiencing the various experiments).

During my 2nd run through the game (a much more complete one than the first), I discovered something - I strongly advice everyone to get 75 in Science, so you can hack most terminals. There's a lot of information hidden in such terminals, and it helps paint a more complete picture.

In general, every vault contains one specific experiment - Vault 101, where the main character grew up, is an experiment to see what society looks like if the door to the rest of the world is simply never opened, trapping the people inside forever.

Another example is Vault 108, where the logs say that the social experiment in 108 was an experiment with cloning. The clones, however, kept becoming more and more hostile to anyone but other clones, and they ended up rioting. Now, long after everyone else is dead, they are still cloning themselves.

Vault 87 is probably the most disturbing, where people were infected with FEV virus without knowing it. According to the medical logs, nearly 100 people died of "unexplained causes" (the term used for people dying of FEV).

All of this was organized by Vault Tec, who claimed they were building Vaults to protect people, but in reality were doing massive, social experiments on the people living in the Vaults. Usually, only the Overseer and a few others knew about the experiments taking place there.

I just completed the game and loaded an older save game to explore the rest of the world.
I like the exploring and the side quests. I expecially think they did a good job in given many of the "dungeons" some sort of story to it so it doesn't feel like just another monster den.
I didn't thought the main questline was that good and the ending seems cheaply made compared the Fallout 1/2. They seem like they wanted to do the same as those games by letting you get to see the places you had affected through the game. But it seems like they just showed images and not gave any information of how those people/towns would turn out in the future because of what you did.

I also wish there were some more about the Super Mutants. You hear alot of rumors about them, that they seem to be searching for something and that they kidnap people but no one knows what they do with them.
I really wanted to explore that story but it doesn't seems like there is anything to explore.

I also liked how you get to find out about the vaults being used for tests. It wasen't something that seemed to be in the old Fallout games but was mentioned in the Fallout Bible. So was nice to get some first hand experience with it.

You learn more about them when investigating Vault 87. They are the result of a human experiment gone wrong, and now they're kidnapping people and turning them into new mutants/eating them. I still don't know what they're looking for, however, but I assume you can find out what if you're just thorough enough.

One thing that annoyed me greatly is that Fawkes is unable to save the day. I mean, come on, you're standing at the edge of an area which is "highly radioactive", and Fawkes is unable to do it by himself. It would've been a very cool ending to have him along, and get a special ending because he - the super mutant - ended up saving mankind! The irony!

The main draw for me in the game has been finding locations that are fleshed out with backstory. It's mainly these locations that show me that Bethesda are capable of creating some very moody stuff, hence I am disappointed that they chose to go with the "freeroaming" approach, since much of the world is filled with boring filler as well. I wish they had done it "old-school" Fallout style, and really focused on fewer locations that are really worked out. Because Bethesda can do it, there are glimpses of brilliance here and there.

It's nice to see plenty of skill checks as well, but the quality of these is often rather low I think. Especially the stat checks are quite often very badly written, and I get the feeling that it doesn't *really* affect anything. This is a bit of a problem with the game also, since there are lots of choices to be had sure… But are there any consequences and follow-ups? Perhaps I'm not looking hard enough, but it doesn't feel at all like I'm having an impact on the Wasteland. Putting this into the ending slide like the old Fallouts did it would've been a great move, but it's largely absent.

The main quest is godawful and best left avoided. It works great in the beginning where your simple guideline is "find Dad", which works well as a carrot to get you exploring the Wasteland. Once you get to the Vault (can't remember which number it is) where Dad is, it's a really boring railroad to the end though. I'm still left wondering how the hell the Presidents right hand man survived when Dad kills himself in Project Purity. I read somewhere that the guide appearantly states that his robe is super radioactive resistant, but that is a really weak explanation and one which I wonder has any ingame basis. Plus, if you use a noclip cheat, I believe you can actually basically check that he *is* dead in Project Purity.

So yeah, this game is a bit of a rollercoaster for me. All in all, for me it's Bethesdas best game since Daggerfall without a doubt. But I feel the connections to the older Fallouts are *really* weak and forced except for some of the "50s of the future" visuals. The game is at its best when you're exploring the wasteland and find all the interesting places. But for me, the boredom quickly sets in due to the abundance of enemies and fairly standard "dungeons" with little of interest in them.
It has much more "personality" and quality content than Oblivion, but they've still got a long ways to go if you ask me.

If you're a real fan of freeroamer games though, then Fallout 3 is likely a really good choice.

As far as I know, it was a different agent talking to Dad? I never percieved that as the same guy you talk to later - they just both look very Gestapo-like.

Originally Posted by Maylander
You learn more about them when investigating Vault 87. They are the result of a human experiment gone wrong, and now they're kidnapping people and turning them into new mutants/eating them. I still don't know what they're looking for, however, but I assume you can find out what if you're just thorough enough.

I was in Vault 87 (obviously) and I know they did the experiements with FEV. I just didn't get the idea that that was the cause of the mutants in DC.
Also hearing through out the game that these mutants seems like they always kept comming no matter how many you killed and took people somewhere (and most likely turned them into mutants) must mean there must be another place that they could have come from.

Originally Posted by Starwars
I'm still left wondering how the hell the Presidents right hand man survived when Dad kills himself in Project Purity. I read somewhere that the guide appearantly states that his robe is super radioactive resistant, but that is a really weak explanation and one which I wonder has any ingame basis. Plus, if you use a noclip cheat, I believe you can actually basically check that he *is* dead in Project Purity.

Originally Posted by Maylander
As far as I know, it was a different agent talking to Dad? I never percieved that as the same guy you talk to later - they just both look very Gestapo-like.

I am at the same impression as Starwars. I think its the same person aswell.
I actually thought my dad might be still be alive when I saw Colonel Autumn capture me and bring me to the Enclave base.
Also not sure, but I think I remember your dad saying Colonel to the agent before he dies.

Just seems strange if they are not the same as they look identical and it doesn't appear to be a uniform they carry and you don't see any other agents like that than those 2 in the whole game.

lvl 20 WTF!!!!!!11111

seriously, I just completed vault 112, with the for every post-max-payne-1-game mandatory dream-sequence. Ok, I played almost all week, 40 hours. I have the feeling there is still much to be explored. Did some jobs in Rivet city basically, big town (?), and really not far into the main quest. But this is all peanuts, the loading screen tells me "11 quests completed" 'cmon. Ok, I went a bit off-track here and there, which is unavoidable in downtown DC. Killed a lot of Mutants, got plenty of ammo but 'CMON! LVL 20 ?! END?!

lol, no shocking - shocking! And AGAIN Bethesda AGAIN didn't manage to deliver a halfway balanced game! I mean I really have to admit: I really enjoyed this game, sure didn't listen to all of Todd Howards lies this time, had really no expectations. But THIS really makes me want to quit the game. Motivation down from 95 to 10. Wait for the patch?

"I'm Mad, I'm Really Mad! And what's gonna surprise you - it's not the exploding cars!"

So I finished it, the end felt both abrupt and silly actually, especially since I had enjoyed the main story up until then. But suddenly you get the option to into the "highly radioactive" chamber in T-51b Power Armor, pumped up on Rad-X and with tens of RadAway in your inventory, and you still die? That's balls. And, as Maylander said, not being able to get Fawkes to do it is too.

Further disappointment arose from my actions of saving every last good person in the game got no special mention more than a general good karma speech.

Also, after hitting level 20 not even half-way through the main quest everything became too easy, my only concern was keeping Dogmeat alive and finding paths that the CNPCs could follow me on… I hardly used any Stimpaks, finding food enough to make up the little health I lost at times. Also, two-shotting everything with Lincoln's Repeater in the end of the game, which is supposed to have the most challenging enemies, felt a bit silly. All those saved grenades and mines and stimpaks and ammo to no use… I actually never had to use the Fat Man as everything just died anyway!

But there were positives too, many of them. The feeling of as good as all places having a real story behind it was really nice. Some quests were very well done, and especially the one with Harold in Oasis offered multiple choices that weren't obvious which one I wanted to take, playing a good character. Combat overall worked well enough, and some crude sense of humor made me chuckle a bit every time I got to follow the bullet going into a Super Mutant's head and all of his limbs falling off due to Bloody Mess I also think it felt a lot more like first-person Fallout than I had expected, but they were low when I started the game.

Definitely the best Bethesda game I've played, but I really disliked the other two, Morrowind and Oblivion.

Morrowind was best one so far imo. Generic npcs and dungeons aside I thought it was a great free roaming game.

Fallout 3 lacks good some good writing. But some npcs and locations are amazing. I like the game a lot so far.

so what happens after level 20 is reached, are there no more stat points or perks to distribute? just the XP level keeps going up?

You just don't get any more XP.

Originally Posted by Toaster
You just don't get any more XP.

That's ok with me. I mean, at lvl 20 you're already too powerful (hell, I finished the game and wasn't even lvl 17 I think and nothing could really kill me). Maybe they could have made the last 5 levels or so exponentially higher to achieve, so you can finish the game at lvl 15 if you're not the 'explorer' type or 20 if you are.

So which is the best karma route to take?

Upon getting to level 20 and maybe discovering at least half of the landscape locations and relative interactions, depending on your chosen level-up skills and perks etc, you will continue for the rest of the game and have to live with the *consequences* of those level-up choices.

If for example i was at max karma and then began stealing items my karma would drop dramatically and would then open up the negative karma options that i have been purposely evading. Could i then later, try to regain lost karma and return back up to max? - varying the karma levels to enable the unopened quests?

Would it perhaps have been better from the outset of the game to maintain a neutral karma level, varying sometimes up and sometimes down as you progress through the quests?

I am purposely trying to stretch out the game but as a *consequence* of trying to be a goody two shoes i have attracted gangs of talon merc riff-raff and there's a price on my head! - maybe i should have been a bad guy after all.

Then the Regulators come after you - I don't know if you can walk a neutral path and get left alone.

Hey, at least the Talon Mercs had some decent armor!!

The next run through for me will be at neutral karma level as i find it impossible to play a bad-guy, the dev's suggest being a tad evil is allowed, ethically wrong but somehow fits in with a post-apocalyptic scenario - not sure though - it isn't your own ethics as such but the reaction to the ethics of others (npc's) - why should humans change ethics post apocalyptically. The 'Tranquility Lane' quest requires that you kill and loose 3 or 4 karma levels, there's no way of escaping from killing or the quest and even the result isn't morally (logically) justified….or is it?

Yep, the Talon merc armour isn't too bad, i used the Metal armour and helmet mostly till now but having just completed the Taft Tunnels quest (per Dr Li) things are beginning to look up armour-wise. In the tunnels i gained the Enclave Power Armour and Helmet, also gained the Tesla Armour and Helmet both similar and a big armour boost - also got the Plasma rifle off the dead guys. The quest ('the waters of life') leads to the Citadel where much of the storyline becomes clearer - i also peaked at "The Robot" ! - i wonder if i can come alive?

The quest in Trainquility Lane can be solved by ending the simulation - talk to the old lady, then solve the puzzle in the abandoned house. This will give you good karma instead of bad (no need to do any quests for Betty at all).

Even though this is a spoiler thread, I don't think you want too much information about "The Robot". There's more to come, I can tell you that much.

Question, I'm having trouble getting INTO Rivet City. Am I missing something obvious? The Bridge/ramp to a door needs 100 lockpick, so there should be another way.