Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

[Covenant]

I don't want to compare FO3 much to FO1 and FO2 because that's what a chorus of braying jackasses at No Mutants Allowed do constantly, and without even a tenuous grip on reality. I will say though that Oblivion had larger settlements than this too, and Morrowind's Vivec felt much, much larger too. Even small cities outside the Imperial Capitol had an actual sense of scale to them, to the point that an frontier outpost like snowbound Bruma would have felt expansive in Fallout 3. Bruma, one of the smaller cities in Oblivion, would be bigger than Megaton. Rivet City almost doesn't count as a city due to it's corridor structure, but it does have a high NPC count--almost as many as The Hub.

However, even shitty ol' Shady Sands had about 11 characters, and Junktown had nearly 20. Junktown and Megaton are also strikingly similar, but Megaton has nearly as many NPCs in it as Rivet City, which is quite a bit, when you add up all the people who lived there or move to live there anyway. That's kinda depressing, because it sure FEELS tiny. I suppose experience is everything.

[Stark]

The lamest part about the vaults is that they made no effort whatsoever to imply size. They say LOL ONE THOUSAND and it's clearly a small motel for a dozen people. Even a window, a balcony, a matte fucking painting or something could have suggested to the player that they were in only a small part of the vault and that it was teeming with life... instead of being an obviously inbred community with a population smaller than my science class in highschool. The damaged vaults of course would have been trivial to have controlled sizes, and indeed a vague outline of the 'full' layout would have allowed all the vaults to be different without clearly being unrelated in layout.

Nah, make them tiny dungeons with 10 NPCs and leave it at that.

[Zixinus]

Blood for the blood god?

Sorry, don't understand the reference.

[Jaevric]

Amusingly (well, it's amusing for me at least), it occurs to me that the small populations -- at least the small non-Raider populations -- for the past 200 years may go a long way to explaining the rather odd appearances of most of the NPCs. There is obviously some serious inbreeding going on, even in the relatively large communities of Megaton and Rivet City. The Raiders, who seem to be a considerably larger and more nomadic population, may have less of a problem with this. I never really paid attention to their faces for longer than it took to put a few bullets into them.

I also question the existence of a Vault baseball team, given the distinct lack of anything like enough space in a Vault to play baseball.

[Darth Onasi]

It's not only the populations that defy scale, I mean, they say Project Purity and all of it's advanced hi tech gear was abandoned for 20 years because of super mutant raids and nobody was willing to protect it.
That'd be fine if it wasn't for the fact that you can see both Rivet City and the Citadel from the memorial, Rivet City is literally within spitting distance and it's only a short walk from the Citadel.
Are they seriously saying the BoS could garrison the GNR just so Three Dog could rant on about things nobody cares about and play 300+ year old music but would leave a supposedly vitally important mechanism to rot for two decades when it's right next door?

[Samuel]

Blood for the blood god?

Sorry, don't understand the reference.

It is from Warhammer:

Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!

It is the warcry of the followers of Khrone, the God of slaughter and bloodshed.

[Vendetta]

The lamest part about the vaults is that they made no effort whatsoever to imply size. They say LOL ONE THOUSAND and it's clearly a small motel for a dozen people. Even a window, a balcony, a matte fucking painting or something could have suggested to the player that they were in only a small part of the vault and that it was teeming with life... instead of being an obviously inbred community with a population smaller than my science class in highschool. The damaged vaults of course would have been trivial to have controlled sizes, and indeed a vague outline of the 'full' layout would have allowed all the vaults to be different without clearly being unrelated in layout.

Nah, make them tiny dungeons with 10 NPCs and leave it at that.

The vaults pretty much were weird inbred holes in the ground. That was the point of them.

[Xess]

I agree that the Vaults should have been bigger. Hell the whole game should have been bigger. But even though the scale is smaller than Oblivion as far as I can see its just as replayable. Oblivion didn't really have that much in the way of change from dungeon to dungeon either. That's a fault of Bethesda's of course.

Yet another reason why I bought the PC version so I could mod it. Wish I didn't have to but I still enjoy it.

[Stark]

The vaults pretty much were weird inbred holes in the ground. That was the point of them.

This explains why they're constantly described as taking 1000 people each when they actually take a dozen... how? The vaults we see make no sense as the Super Vaults Of Living In of the lore; they're just glorified bomb shelters. There is no sense of scale whatsoever, and they didn't even ATTEMPT to show such scale in an easy way. For fucks sake, the V101 security team is THREE TIMES THE VAULTS POPULATION.

[Enigma]

I bought the game yesterday and within ten minutes of playing the game I had buyer's remorse. I should have waited until it dropped in price. There goes my $60+. I hoped that Bethesda kept the feel of the Vaults from the other games but instead they give us a tiny underground shack. How the hell did Vault 101 ended up with about a couple dozen dwellers? I understood that they were supposed to hold hundreds if not at least a thousand people. What disappointed me most was the look, feel and size of the Vault. It felt like a rundown underground metal shack. They should have called it a Wall Safe not a Vault.

Other than that, it seems like they didn't put much effort into this game and instead made a total conversion Oblivion mod. I give this game a 5\10.

[Ryan Thunder]

The vaults pretty much were weird inbred holes in the ground. That was the point of them.

This explains why they're constantly described as taking 1000 people each when they actually take a dozen... how? The vaults we see make no sense as the Super Vaults Of Living In of the lore; they're just glorified bomb shelters. There is no sense of scale whatsoever, and they didn't even ATTEMPT to show such scale in an easy way. For fucks sake, the V101 security team is THREE TIMES THE VAULTS POPULATION.

There are parts of Vault 101 that you can never get to, unless I'm mistaken.

Although, you're right, it never seems very large...

[Pablo Sanchez]

This explains why they're constantly described as taking 1000 people each when they actually take a dozen... how? The vaults we see make no sense as the Super Vaults Of Living In of the lore; they're just glorified bomb shelters. There is no sense of scale whatsoever, and they didn't even ATTEMPT to show such scale in an easy way. For fucks sake, the V101 security team is THREE TIMES THE VAULTS POPULATION.

I'm less annoyed by the clumsy and unimaginative compression of space and population than I am by pure thoughtlessness like Vault 106. Potent hallucinogens were released into the air supply ten minutes after the door closed? Okay, that's fine, I get it. Now explain to me how living people are still kicking around in there, 200 years later, still wearing Vault 106 jumpsuits. It's explicitly stated that the maintenance staff at Vault 101 have a hard time keeping the place running. How did a bunch of maniacs manage to keep the food, water, jumpsuits, and maternity ward going for a couple of centuries?

Also I wish that the game did a better job of dealing with your character rising in power. If a man rolled up to you in a fresh suit of T-51b Power Armor, hauling a Gatling Laser, you would not fuck with him. But obviously, a raider carrying a tire iron is going to look over at his friend with the Chinese pistol at 10% condition and nod decisively. "I'm pretty sure we can take this guy." Bethesda fixed the "every mugger now has daedric armor and weapons" problem from Oblivion but declined to make the muggers know what league they're in.

Even throwing a bone by having non-hostile NPCs pee themselves a little when they see me come around looking like the second coming of Frank Horrigan would have been nice. The engine obviously has the ability to detect this kind of thing, because Oblivion NPCs were always saying annoying shit like "you look like a sneaky sort of fellow!" or saying that I looked wealthy, or whatever bullshit.

Enigma-
Despite listless area design and engine instability, the game is still rather entertaining. You should give it a little more play before you decide it sucks.

[Vympel]

I'm less annoyed by the clumsy and unimaginative compression of space and population than I am by pure thoughtlessness like Vault 106. Potent hallucinogens were released into the air supply ten minutes after the door closed? Okay, that's fine, I get it. Now explain to me how living people are still kicking around in there, 200 years later, still wearing Vault 106 jumpsuits. It's explicitly stated that the maintenance staff at Vault 101 have a hard time keeping the place running. How did a bunch of maniacs manage to keep the food, water, jumpsuits, and maternity ward going for a couple of centuries?

Yeah, that was bizarre. The only thing I can think of is that the Vault 106 inhabitants were insane but not completely maniacal - they don't attack each other, and we see when your own character gets hallucinations, he's still capable of functioning somewhat, he's just not seeing the world as it really is. It's still a damn stupid idea and fits well with the "this is like 10 years after the Great War, not 200".

Also I wish that the game did a better job of dealing with your character rising in power. If a man rolled up to you in a fresh suit of T-51b Power Armor, hauling a Gatling Laser, you would not fuck with him. But obviously, a raider carrying a tire iron is going to look over at his friend with the Chinese pistol at 10% condition and nod decisively. "I'm pretty sure we can take this guy." Bethesda fixed the "every mugger now has daedric armor and weapons" problem from Oblivion but declined to make the muggers know what league they're in.

I think they talked about this and decided it simply wouldn't be fun to have Raiders and the like piss off and run when they see you coming. I know I'd find it annoying. I'd rather just kill their dumb asses. Most RPGs do it this way anyway.

Even throwing a bone by having non-hostile NPCs pee themselves a little when they see me come around looking like the second coming of Frank Horrigan would have been nice. The engine obviously has the ability to detect this kind of thing, because Oblivion NPCs were always saying annoying shit like "you look like a sneaky sort of fellow!" or saying that I looked wealthy, or whatever bullshit.

Yeah, that would've been cool. There's never acknowledgement that you're even wearing power armor.

[Losonti Tokash]

I have raiders run from me pretty frequently, especially after the first moron's head explodes in a single burst.

As for the city sizes, it was never something that bothered me too much. I always assume they're a bit of an abstraction to begin with since it's ridiculous that such a small population base could survive for so long in such a shithole. There's also the fact that it's set around Washington DC, which after the war probably became one of the most irradiated and wrecked pieces of real estate on the planet.

[Darth Onasi]

I'm less annoyed by the clumsy and unimaginative compression of space and population than I am by pure thoughtlessness like Vault 106. Potent hallucinogens were released into the air supply ten minutes after the door closed? Okay, that's fine, I get it. Now explain to me how living people are still kicking around in there, 200 years later, still wearing Vault 106 jumpsuits. It's explicitly stated that the maintenance staff at Vault 101 have a hard time keeping the place running. How did a bunch of maniacs manage to keep the food, water, jumpsuits, and maternity ward going for a couple of centuries?

It's implied on the terminals that the Overseer and observation/security staff were in safe areas, releasing the crazy gas in controlled intervals.
This explains how they could last to a certain extent - presumably something went wrong and the lunatics took over the asylum as it were.
It doesn't however explain why the vault is in such bad shape despite being sealed and why despite this the vault jumpsuits on the survivors are pristine, and there are no women, not even bodies.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

All three Fallout games would have made a lot more sense if they had taken place a couple of decades after the Great War. Even in FO1, it was preposterous to think that every raider would have a functioning pre-war pistol or SMG, that you could find working assault rifles lying around by the dozen after a century of neglect, or that you could throw the lights on in a heavily nuked vault (The Glow) after the equivalent of crossing a few wires. In FO2 and 3 the logic gets even more broken.

[Darth Onasi]

All three Fallout games would have made a lot more sense if they had taken place a couple of decades after the Great War. Even in FO1, it was preposterous to think that every raider would have a functioning pre-war pistol or SMG, that you could find working assault rifles lying around by the dozen after a century of neglect, or that you could throw the lights on in a heavily nuked vault (The Glow) after the equivalent of crossing a few wires. In FO2 and 3 the logic gets even more broken.

Actually in Fallout 1 the abundance of firearms is a plot point; it turns out the BoS is using the resources of Lost Hills to manufacture and sell firearms to anyone who can trade them supplies they need, like food.

[Enigma]

<snip>Enigma-
Despite listless area design and engine instability, the game is still rather entertaining. You should give it a little more play before you decide it sucks.

I know it is entertaining but it doesn't inspire confidence in me. From what I've played so far and from the comments and opinions made about the game is that it feels like a Fallout game but it isn't a true Fallout game. This doesn't mean I'll be dumping the DVD into the trash like I did to SOF:Payback.

Bah, I'll see if I still feel the game is sucky or not after I finish it.

[Covenant]

I gotta say, my normal frustration is back again--lack of bulky Dweller bodies, despite Oblivion's ability to let me specify size and shape. I'm sorry, but the 150 pound Vault Dweller I'm sporting looks absurd with a minigun in his hands, it kinda ruins them for me.

This explains why they're constantly described as taking 1000 people each when they actually take a dozen... how? The vaults we see make no sense as the Super Vaults Of Living In of the lore; they're just glorified bomb shelters. There is no sense of scale whatsoever, and they didn't even ATTEMPT to show such scale in an easy way. For fucks sake, the V101 security team is THREE TIMES THE VAULTS POPULATION.

Abstraction or not, sometimes these things are small in a very, very literal sense. Andale, for example, is literally just a handful of people, and the dialogue leaves no room for abstraction. This is no more visible than in Vault 112, which I stumbled onto pointlessly early and ruined vast amounts of the plot for myself while just doing some cursory exploration of areas I felt might contain interesting, hard-to-obtain lewt. This is a fucking Vault which LITERALLY has only 14 people in it. Not that the other people are in closed-off areas of the vault, but that there are literally no more than 14 places for people to be. Now, Vaults in FO1 and FO2 were tiny too, so I'm willing to let things slide overall. However, it would have been nice to see something similar to the Black Mesa introduction to Half-life 1, where you at least are required to run down a massive corridor of living spaces or something, giving you a feeling of a sprawling complex. Maybe a tunnel run where Amata opens up a route for you, and you get to see a map of the vault, showing that your route will pass through only a fraction of it. Or somesuch.

Honestly, I don't know why they didn't make everything farther away from each other. There's no reason to make the DC stuff so cramped, and if they wanted to make the Jefferson Memorial impossible to hold they should have increased the supermutant population density around there, or set up some Ork Waagh Banners, er, I mean, Supermutant Spikey Barricades along the sides of it so that it was an inaccessible fortress. They probably also should have smashed up the insides, obviously. It doesn't seem unreasonable that the Brotherhood, whose members are generally still not huge fans of the locals, would get sick of defending some damn Wasteland professor's pipedream. Their reasons for defending GNR are, if you follow my train of logic laid out in an earlier thread, purely self-serving. Three Dog's brotherhood-wanking propaganda makes the population support the Brotherhood, despite the Brotherhood's lack of interest in the general population. Without the local's support, explicitly the kind of support that GNR advocates the people give the Brotherhood, their situation there would be very tenuous as they depend on the locals for food, ammo, and soldiers. GNR is just "Radio Steel," with the Dog as their Tokyo Rose (or Tokyo Mose, depending on your opinion of the Brotherhood).

[Vympel]

I believe the Brotherhood at GNR also state that it's a defensible outpost in DC, of which they have few.

[Covenant]

I believe the Brotherhood at GNR also state that it's a defensible outpost in DC, of which they have few.

I think that they mean it's friendly, not that it's defensible. We've seen that it is absurdly indefensible, to the point that they require special assistance from Sarah Lyons' special forces team (an encounter I originally did not get due to plot-fuckery caused by my inadvertant discovery of 112--along with no fatman either!) and the beyond-the-norm intervention of the Lone Wanderer. In my case, that intervention was enough to take on the entire assembled group of Supermutants in hand-to-hand combat using a dismembered Deathclaw hand strapped to my forearm versus minigunners, and yet several of the Brotherhood managed to get themselves killed. Were it not for Plot Shields and my skillful aiming of the Fatboy, I'd consider it likely that the entire garrison would have been eliminated. They may not have expected a Behemoth to show up, but they certainly weren't prepared to handle one if it did, and it did. That puts the Brotherhood's threat-management capability below that of Evergreen Mills' raider population.

If it weren't for Three Dog broadcasting from there, the GNR complex would provide no more strategic value than any of the other ruined structures in the area, and it's too far from anything important to be useful for striking the mutants. The Ranger compound is much better situated to interesting areas, and better defended. Furthermore, if it wasn't for their interest in promoting Three Dog's propaganda broadcasts, why bother to garrison the Washington Monument whatsoever? It's on the mall in the middle of a fucking mutant bunker complex, next to Underworld which they antagonize, surrounded by avenues of attack, and staffed by only two surviving Brothers, one of which who has no weapon other than a goddamn ripper--and by my point in the game, one of those managed to die to mutant attack, so now it's understaffed. I'm not suprised. A ripper is no match for a fucking minigun.

Add that all up and it's clear they're trading men and equipment to defend a radio station and a transmitting tower which provides no logistical military benefit except propaganda to the D.C. residents. Even without his transmitting dish, Three Dog was able to reach all the downtown D.C. area. The only merit to holding and repairing the Mall outpost was to be able to broadcast their "Our Saviors the Brotherhood" message outside into the Wastes. If they had really been interested in a secure outpost from which to launch attacks, making a deal with Rivet City for space on the top Flight Deck would have been smarter, and also have put them closer to the action, and given them a base they could use to secure Project Purity.

[Zixinus]

Here is a mystery for the ages:

So, the entrance to Vault 87 is so irradiated that its impossible to get in, right? And the only other entrance is trough Murder Pass (ignoring the question of how the hell did a few kids stave off super mutants)?

So, how do the super mutants get out? Are they THAT immune to radiation?

EDIT: Actually, scratch that. How do they get their victims in without killing them?

[Darth Onasi]

Here is a mystery for the ages:

So, the entrance to Vault 87 is so irradiated that its impossible to get in, right? And the only other entrance is trough Murder Pass (ignoring the question of how the hell did a few kids stave off super mutants)?

So, how do the super mutants get out? Are they THAT immune to radiation?

EDIT: Actually, scratch that. How do they get their victims in without killing them?

It's not completely impossible, you can with the right protection get to the door.. which inacessable by act of programming so you die.
Still, I suppose the muties don't care what their victims are exposed to as they're going to be vatted anyway (given these stupid muties have no concern over getting pure specimens for superior breeds unlike the Master).

Then again it seems like the entrance is caved in from the inside so... maybe they just walk past the invincible children

[Tolya]

I am not annoyed by the game's scale. The world is a lot different than those of Fallout 1&2, which was simply a barred radioactive desert.

I am annoyed however, with the departure from what made Fallout so great: the sense of rebirth of human civilization and the PC's place in it.

Let's be honest, we don't play Fallout for killing Super Mutants. We play it because it brilliantly showed the postapocalyptic society. Hell, they could remove all that mutated shit from Fallout 2 and I would still play it.

The best quests in Fallout involved not so much killing or exploring, but social interactions. Remember the whole New Reno deal with warring families? Or becoming a boxing champion? Or the Vault City? Or the NCR? Those were brilliant locations and someone really put some thought into how the player can interact with the society.

Fallout 3 for the most part lacks that. Most quests involve going somewhere and killing something. There are brilliant instances like the Harkness android quest or Rivet City history, but other than that...

Also, compare the quest number in Fallout 2 and Fallout 3. There are so many places in the world that are just holes in the ground with not too much to do.

Overall, I think the game is still very good and I enjoyed it thoroughly (I still do). But someone should ask those folks from the late Black Isle how to do a proper RPG. Seriously.

--EDIT: Also FO1&2 scale was reinforced by the fact that the player knew that only vital important locations are explorable. Which left quite a huge chunk of cities left to your own imagination.

[salm]

I had the same problem with Fallout as with Oblivion. I had a whole bunch of fun exploring, leveling and killing bad guys - the VATS was a brilliant implementation - but only for 8 or so hours. After that it simply got boring and i have no interest in further exploration, even though i´ve only explored maybe 1/4 of the map.
That´s why i´m not a big fan of these sandbox type games. Just give me a linear plotline and lilnear levels and i´ll be happy.

Personally i don´t care about abstractions (very few people per vault, functional guns after years and years without maintenance) and similar things. Sometimes they have to be used to make improve gameplay. Imagine Fallout without functioning assault rifles. That would suck.