Fallout 3 - Official Thread

[Paul Git]

I've spoken to both the Sherrif and the guy in the bar at Megaton and am not sure what to do!

If I destroy the place, I assume that means the quests I can get from Megaton residents end prematurely? I quite like the crazy woman who wants me to research stuff.

Not the best answer I know, but interestingly,

she actually survives, albeit becoming a ghoul in the process. I visited the ruins immediately after blowing it up, and she was outside, a little confused. She then nicked off to another town, but I haven't been after her yet. I presume she's still part of the game, otherwise why bother?

[Mr. Gerbik]

.::: Hush now, MMO's ruined everybody's perspective. Give it some time, they'll find their old ways again in time.

I was talking to a friend yesterday about Fallout 3 not being as straightforward as Oblivion, but still having a little bit too much signposting. We agreed that it would be more fun if the game forced you to explore more instead of clearly telling you where to go all the time. But this thread is filled with experienced gamers somehow unable to find Megaton, or missing out on the quest from the Sheriff there, or getting lost despite the compass and the dotted line on the map, or wondering how they're supposed to know an area is too dangerous and difficult for their current level... I can't imagine how difficult it must be for Bethesda to get the balance just right between true freedom to explore and all-out hand holding so as not to alienate a large portion of its potential audience.

[locke_211]

I was talking to a friend yesterday about Fallout 3 not being as straightforward as Oblivion, but still having a little bit too much signposting. We agreed that it would be more fun if the game forced you to explore more instead of clearly telling you where to go all the time. But this thread is filled with experienced gamers somehow unable to find Megaton, or missing out on the quest from the Sheriff there, or getting lost despite the compass and the dotted line on the map, or wondering how they're supposed to know an area is too dangerous and difficult for their current level... I can't imagine how difficult it must be for Bethesda to get the balance just right between true freedom to explore and all-out hand holding so as not to alienate a large portion of its potential audience.

I absolutely agree, but the thing is I've played Morrowind to death and didn't experience any problems with the above, I just kind of went with the flow. For some reason I get more of a feeling with Fallout that I'm playing it rubbishly and "not doing it right". That might be because Oblivion has dumbed me down

[TheSlugFormerlyKnownAsNap]

I can't imagine how difficult it must be for Bethesda to get the balance just right between true freedom to explore and all-out hand holding so as not to alienate a large portion of its potential audience.

The most obvious solution would be to use the characters or an in-world information system to help the players if they so desire. So if you can't find a destination or don't want to go look for it, you get a map from an abandoned shop or retrieve the information from a terminal or ask somebody in the gameworld. And if you want to explore, you don't go asking them questions or say 'nah I'll find it' if they offer help.

[New York Mikey]

I'm finding it Oblivion esque as others have said, with the main differences being that some areas are too rock hard to get past early on. I like that part though - you can get through tough areas at a low level by using your brain, mines, grenades, etc etc. I'm currently exploring the national guard office at level 6 - clearly I'm not supposed to be there for a while!

The other big difference for me so far is that the side quests have a lot more developer time invested in them, to make them different and interesting. And the stealth/speech options seem to be really viable alternatives so far.

Overall, it feels like a cross between Oblivion, Mass Effect, and Bloodlines: Masquerade. Not a bad combo IMO.

[JLR]

I'm probably going to stay out of this thread in the same way I have with fable, simply because I wan't to experience the game my way. I don't want to find myself trying things or playing through it a certain way because of what I've read in here.

But, I do want to say this is terrificily emmersive already. I played it for a solid 6/7 hours yesterday. I love everything about it so far, and I've had a great deal of fun with exploration. It can be an incredibly tense gaming experience at times, too, and I'm making use of sneaking about a lot.

Amazing

[Sergeant Squid]

SO is this good, then?

[Timmo]

no

[El Spatula]

It's utter shite.

[hanzo]

Well I'm a little bit like omg what the! But I'm getting used to it. I literally can't stop thinking about it today - What adventures await me tonight?

[Meh]

More underground corridors, apparently.

[Timmo]

A poorly animated man asking you use all your ammo in a dark tunnel for a meagre reward.

[Guest]

It needs hours and hours of play to get into, and you need to overlook a load of flaws, and embrace the apolocyptic landscape.

It's ashame it doesn't grab you right from the off. I have grown to like it, but it's only through really trying to get on with it...

[Sergeant Squid]

I kind of liked the idea of an RPG thats NOT set in a fantasy world with Elves and Dwarves and shit. Getting sick of those.

Something akin to the starter bits of Half Life 2, where you're in a messed up city but with the added depth of an RPG would be lovely.

Is that what this is?

[Lorfarius]

Don't know nuffin about any vaults but the dog I can help with:

How I found him:

I stumbled on the scrapyard near Megaton. I went for a rest for a few hours and the dog found me.

I did see a dog milling around the yard as well and nearly shot it but tried to avoid it. I wish I could change his name, though.

Whereabouts is the scrapyard? East? I was attacked by a vicious dog when I first left vault 101. I kiled it. Hope it wasnt him

[hanzo]

I kind of liked the idea of an RPG thats NOT set in a fantasy world with Elves and Dwarves and shit. Getting sick of those.

Something akin to the starter bits of Half Life 2, where you're in a messed up city but with the added depth of an RPG would be lovely.

Is that what this is?

Kind of. The only thing I miss from Oblivion is the feeling of whoaaa the world is limitless! there's so much stuff! I look at F3's world and go "Oh man Life is pretty depressing.". STALKER had a similarly bleak world but it was filled with colour and lots of wildlife and was interesting. F3's world can't do that for obvious reasons and reveals itself much slower and emptier.

I do like it a lot, just takes getting some used to after years and years of happy shiny elves

[Rayn]

I kind of liked the idea of an RPG thats NOT set in a fantasy world with Elves and Dwarves and shit. Getting sick of those.

Something akin to the starter bits of Half Life 2, where you're in a messed up city but with the added depth of an RPG would be lovely.

Is that what this is?

Not really... In Fallout, there's mostly ruins of cities and desert. It's all very bleak and barren, but it's sci-fi as opposed to fantasy, and it really works for me. It's the visually and atmospherically oposite of Oblivion.

[Paul Git]

It needs hours and hours of play to get into, and you need to overlook a load of flaws, and embrace the apolocyptic landscape.

I must admit there was a point for me when I was just about surviving, being very poor on money / stimpacks / ammo, whilst struggling to kill anything without being damaged considerably. Then I took out a couple of raiders, looted their hunting rifles, killed more and made decent money just selling the armour I looted from the bodies. The cash went on stimpacks and ammo, which helped me up a level or two and I didn't look back.

I like the fact that there's places I can't go yet without being pinned back quite quickly. Venturing into the built up areas,

I came across an enormous fucking scorpion which I only just about killed thanks to my flamethrower, and found a fort on my wanders that was being patrolled by a dude with a rocket launcher. I left him alone, for now

Another creature I came across a lot in the city area is

those giant flame-spewing ants. Had SO MUCH fun taking them out with the hunting rifle, but don't play it with headphones when theres about 6 scrabbling around the block you're on, it sounds horrible!

[Rudi von Starnberg]

Whereabouts is the scrapyard? East? I was attacked by a vicious dog when I first left vault 101. I kiled it. Hope it wasnt him

The scrapyard is to the north-east near the town of Minefield. When I found Dogmeat,

he was in amongst the corpses of a bunch of raiders and there had been gunfire just before I found him. So presumably he belonged to a raider initially.

Still haven't found any other vaults though I've been trying to.

[ThreeHeadedMonkey]

i love this, absolutely love it. Got off to a pretty rocky start, some proper horror survival huge monsters and very little ammo vibes but after some careful fights and a bit of experience super mutant heads are going everywhere.

managed to take down an entire 'village' of raiders on the way to vault 112, storming around a train yard with a shotgun and little else. then on the way back to the ship found some huge tower with some old guy at the top, KABOOM, i've now got a sniper rifle. i expected some odd game mechanics to stop me going around killing all these seemingly important characters, but no, i casually walked down the stairs and accepted a small mission from the tower security for 700 caps and some free ammo.

[GGSolid]

Has anyone else felt the same macabre fascination with exploring ruinied houses? In Oblivion it was a case of "oh theres another cookie cutter castle" and while I'll probably feel the same much later on in Fallout 3 for now theres a definate attraction in exploring the ruined landscape.

[Geo]

Pretty near the start question involving a sidequest at

Tenpenny Tower

So:

I'm trying to get rid of the Ghoul problem but don't really want everyone to die so I tried to be nice and get the ghouls to move in to Tenpenny tower but like 2 of the people wouldn't have it and I don't think I have any posibility to get the ghouls in peacefully anymore(or do I?) So I'm just gonna let them in the bottom door. I got the key from that old radio presenter (danger?) and went down to the generator room to open the door to the metro but the big blast door says it needs to be opened elsewhere. Any ideas?

EDIT: No bother, found it, there was a second door round the back.

[GViper]

Has anyone else felt the same macabre fascination with exploring ruinied houses? In Oblivion it was a case of "oh theres another cookie cutter castle" and while I'll probably feel the same much later on in Fallout 3 for now theres a definate attraction in exploring the ruined landscape.

This. I've explored every house I've found so far looking for things to steal. Got me in trouble at

Rivet City though, and I lockpicked my way into the woman's room in the Muddy Rudder, and her security guy was asleep, so I start stealing away, and he wakes up and starts shooting at me. Cue me having to kill half the bloody ship just so I can escape with my life!

I'm such an addict to stealing stuff

[ThePinkNinja]

If you are talking about Andale

I stole the key to the safe off one of them and when I went out to check it thats when they admitted they were cannibals

Ah brill, will give that a go as there's something about that lot that makes me want to kill them in a most horrific way, but I don't want the negative karma of attacking them first.

Can't play it tonight as I'm in the middle of Reillys Rangers and the g/f has watched it all so far so want's to see how it ends and she isn't round til tomorrow .

I've decided I'm gonna blow Megaton to hell once I've got the quests out of the way. I've already got the bobblehead so it has no purpose being there anymore.

[ThePinkNinja]

Has anyone else felt the same macabre fascination with exploring ruinied houses? In Oblivion it was a case of "oh theres another cookie cutter castle" and while I'll probably feel the same much later on in Fallout 3 for now theres a definate attraction in exploring the ruined landscape.

I'm the opposite, could spend ages exploring Oblivions world but this world bores me to tears. Fed up of walking through the metro tunnels, headshotting bandit swho are wearing no head armour 5+ times before they go down. I'll finish it just because I'm stubborn but I won't enjoy it

[ThePinkNinja]

I'm finding it Oblivion esque as others have said, with the main differences being that some areas are too rock hard to get past early on. I like that part though - you can get through tough areas at a low level by using your brain, mines, grenades, etc etc. I'm currently exploring the national guard office at level 6 - clearly I'm not supposed to be there for a while!

The other big difference for me so far is that the side quests have a lot more developer time invested in them, to make them different and interesting. And the stealth/speech options seem to be really viable alternatives so far.

Overall, it feels like a cross between Oblivion, Mass Effect, and Bloodlines: Masquerade. Not a bad combo IMO.

Where abouts is the National Guard Office my good man? and more importantly is there sweet loot and bobbleheads/books to be had?

[Garibaldi]

Yeah, I'm with you there. Finding anything pre-war is fascinating. I keep looking out for posters and stuff or looking for old houses to trawl through. I found an old trailer and found a skeleton on the bed with whisky bottles near it. It was a pathetic little scene and it made me a bit sad. Then I hit the corpse (out of some sort of some sort of misplaced anger - I think I got angry at the war) and it broke and I felt bad.

Standing on a hill and looking out at the ruined motorways, roads and houses is a bleak thing in this game.

Seeing something move in the distance isn't a welcome sight at all.

It's made me feel sad things.

Absolutely. I think the brilliance of it is that you are the character as, after having an initial burst of excitement at open skies and stretching landscapes, you see so much destruction and desperation that you feel longing towards the clean, orderly environments of Vault 101.

I stole through a drainage pipe in the wilderness, found a dead body outside a locked door, opened it up and found a skeleton leaning over a table, his hand on a C.B radio tuned into static, yet surrounded by food and supplies. Why did he die? I love these touches.

[Sergeant Squid]

I love the idea of this game that I seem to have developed in my head by reading stuff in here:

Exploring a desolate landscape, rooting through fucked up houses and office blocks, walking down abandoned streets with paper flying in the wind, burnt out cars and the occasional skeleton lying about, coming into fights with bandits and scavengers and then being attacked by giant mutated animals.

Am I close?

[Mr. Gerbik]

I love the idea of this game that I seem to have developed in my head by reading stuff in here:

Exploring a desolate landscape, rooting through fucked up houses and office blocks, walking down abandoned streets with paper flying in the wind, burnt out cars and the occasional skeleton lying about, coming into fights with bandits and scavengers and then being attacked by giant mutated animals.

Am I close?

That's exactly it.

[ThePinkNinja]

Pretty much but the actual fights are few and far between. The fights are frustrating cause damage seems ridiculously low and headshots mean nothing. The rest is right.