Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

[chitoryu12]

Well, that would explain it.

[Covenant]

Three Dog's VA:

Early in his career he had minor appearances in several Spike Lee films, such as She's Gotta Have It and Do the Right Thing. He was portrayed (as a child) by Travis Kyle Davis in the Disney Channel Original Movie, The Color of Friendship which was based on what happened when his family hosted a foreign exchange student from South Africa during the Apartheid era. (He also had a cameo in this movie playing one of Congressman Dellums' aides.) In addition, he provided the voice acting for the character "Koh the Face Stealer" in the animated Nickelodeon series Avatar: The Last Airbender, as well as the narration for "Key Constitutional Concepts", a documentary produced in 2006 by the Annenberg Foundation.

He also played "Dog 3" in She's Gotta Have It (1986). How fortuitious.

Yeah you can skill around it or just swim the river and plot around it, but that doesn't change that the quest and dialog is insensitive to anything else. What's the point of a stupid alignment system if it doesn't DO anything, even if you look past the retarded integer-based 'comlpete good quest = can murder 20 people in cold blood and still be good' approach everyone uses because they're unimaginative and stupid?

Karma/Reputation didn't do much in Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 either, outside of a few perks and a few odd other things, like various people's opinion of you and your ability to recruit party members. There weren't any evil party members, but there were a few who wouldn't join or would leave if you became negatively Karma'd or a Childkiller, if you recall.

Karma has always been kinda irrelevent, except for perks. However, FO3 dispensed with reputation entirely, which used to measure how people felt about you in towns, and was independant of morality. If you were a good guy in an evil slaver town your reputation was shit, and that's how it should have stayed. I'm all for ditching the meta-concept of karma as it stands and moving back towards reputation, since that's more important. If I steal things and nobody knows, people shouldn't treat me badly. This was a problem in Oblivion too, where I was secretly a member of the Thief Guild and nobody should know, but everyone apparently did. I wish it was more tied to luck. Good things happening to good people, bad things happening to bad people. Not a true interpertation of Karma but more interesting.

[Samuel]

Indeed, indeed.

What I love is both the "Rar, PC is evil!" followed by the reports of quests I finished in the good-aligned way. Or just that aforementioned "101 kid sob story"...

But yeah, you'd think one extra counter, and maybe 7 lines of dialog total, and it would have been slightly less meaningless.

But I find it totally silly that the -only- difference between Good and Evil is the folks they send after you randomly. Supposedly the speech challenges change in difficulty, and I have noticed the Slavers went from saying I didn't belong to being all buddy buddy...

But other than that, it's entirely irrelevant to the game entirely. Might as well not be there. Hell, one of the benefits listed in the guide of evil was that raiders wouldn't automatically attack me, and they still do.

And it's made all the more irrelevant due to the hobos being a free source of unlimited +karma.



Though, to be fair, all of the "karma" systems I've ever seen have been entirely slider-garbage of minimal consequence...

Long answer:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KarmaMeter

Short Answer:
Yep, you have it nailed. I believe that the idea of the karma meter is flawed- Stark or Covenant both have a rationale and explanation why.

[Ohma]

One thing that's bugged me due to its change from Oblivion (the last Bethesda game I played) is the crime and punishment system, or lack thereof. When Leo Stahl left me alone in his restaurant, I immediately hacked the terminal to unlock the floor safe. Problem is, he immediately walked in as I began hacking, so he caught me and started swinging a knife at me.

Hilariously, I was able to hack Moriarty's computer while he was sitting in front of it without him saying a word to me about it, without even sneaking.

Also, Fallout 1 honestly was probably a bit worse than 3 in terms of dialogue. The majority of quest npcs rarely had more than a few lines about each quest, and non-quest npcs usually had even less. 2 was much much better, though 2 also had crazy SoD exploding bullshit.

[Covenant]

Fallout 2 did indeed have more dialogue options overall, as well as more NPCs to talk with that would have deeper story value. Fallout 3 is really not all that bad, some of the dialogue for certain characters is fairly satisfying, and it's just too bad that Three Dog and a few other characters don't take note of your alignment/reputation. Now, this is something that FO3 shares with FO1, FO2, and nearly every game out there, so it's a criticism of a lazy design principle that everyone lets slide. What I find reprehensible is how much people wank to FO1 and shit on FO3 for the stupidest of things. Like, they whine about the graphics. So? In FO1 you got Tycho here:


"a man in dusty leather armor with a trenchcoat and gas mask."

Yeah, that totally fits. Okay, so when FO1 does something as stupid as making one of your rare companion NPCs just a standard Raider model, it's what... just limitations of the game? But when FO3 doesn't spend a zillion CPU cycles correctly modelling walking and facial animation in the middle of combat it's unFallouty? Honestly, the big thing about Fallout that was different than other games that used the exact same stats but had swords instead was the violent, ruined, curse-laden atmosphere. Fallout 3 gets that. Stupid turn-based isometric wankers want us to wait for another one of those can come out--so I can once again have the glorious fun of watching my idiot team-members walk into enemy miniguns, forcefields, and landmines because the game never let me tell them how to behave. I do admit, Jagged Alliance is a great game, but it's not like Fallout's gameplay was complex or well done, and they just need to admit it was fun because it was fun, and not because it was a gameplay model to aspire to. X-Com's combat was infinitely deeper, and I'd love to see a new one of those.

Forever chaining the Fallout franchise to a fucking isometric map and only one playable character, just because the older games had it, is POOR GAME DESIGN. You gain nothing from that. FO1's combat was as simple as "Go Prone With Sniper and have an AK as backup." The few times you used overwatch or other things was a little clever, but the stuff they yell about (like exploding cars) is way more tactical than corner hogging. Realtime also makes it more important to watch your position so you don't get flanked. Grenades are way more complex now that they bounce with Havoc and can be manually aimed to land where you want, and in FO1 and 2 grenades, as well as big guns, were basically entirely irrelevent to the gameplay. You could use them but they were basically a joke and only used for occasional color. The supremacy of sniper rifles in the fallout games made them inherently less tactical overall, and bursts from combat shotguns tearing everything apart just made it worse. You never got any large weapon until the very end, flamers had no ammo, and rockets were a pain and impossible to aim manually for effective area blasts. It all came down to the Turbo Plasma Rifle shooting people in the eyes--or conversely, Turbo Plasma Rifle with Quickshot firing four times. This is tactical depth?

[Ryan Thunder]

Apparently, Clover has power armour training.

[Andrew_Fireborn]

Apparently, Clover has power armour training.

Really? Cause I couldn't get her to put on anything more protective than a combat helmet...

[Ryan Thunder]

Apparently, Clover has power armour training.

Really? Cause I couldn't get her to put on anything more protective than a combat helmet...

Odd. Initially I had that problem, but after some time (not very long, maybe an hour or so of gameplay) she'd use whatever I gave her. Which happened to be quite a bit of junk. I gave her Vengeance (named gatling laser) for a while. Then, I couldn't be bothered carrying some named power armour this guy gave me at the Oasis, handed it to her, and she put it on!

Unfortunately, she died on me while I was getting the GECK, but I didn't realize until the game autosaved.
Spoiler

Holy shit, the Enclave has Ospreys and force fields? The Wasteland is doomed.

[Covenant]

Spoiler

Holy shit, the Enclave has Ospreys and force fields? The Wasteland is doomed.

Spoiler

The Master had a base full of forcefields as well, so field wall technology is one of those things not at all uncommon in pre-war military bases. Seeing as the Enclave has been able to hang onto pre-war tech, including their rather unreliable vertibirds, they do indeed have enough tech to fuck the Wasteland if they want. But a lack of logistics and a small soldiering force means they're still limited to using gizmos like power armor, helicopters and the occasional doomsday device to get the job done. And after FO3, well, it may be their last act. I find that somewhat sad, but the Enclave shouldn't be the only threat left. One of these times they're going to have you fighting the BoS.

[Darth Onasi]

It seems to me that in Van Buren, the BoS were being set up as antagonists, perhaps for Black Isle's Fallout 4.
The design notes say how the western BoS went to war with the NCR and reached a stalemate due to their low numbers vs. NCR's relatively massive army. There was also a somewhat unfriendly BoS faction to be present in the game itself.

Granted, Bethesda doesn't have to follow any of that. But they do have everything related to Van Buren, and have made references to it in Fallout 3, albeit as easter eggs. But I could see Bethesda using that background for the next game.

[chitoryu12]

One thing that's bugged me due to its change from Oblivion (the last Bethesda game I played) is the crime and punishment system, or lack thereof. When Leo Stahl left me alone in his restaurant, I immediately hacked the terminal to unlock the floor safe. Problem is, he immediately walked in as I began hacking, so he caught me and started swinging a knife at me.

Hilariously, I was able to hack Moriarty's computer while he was sitting in front of it without him saying a word to me about it, without even sneaking.

It's how the detection system was designed. If an NPC doesn't detect you, then he or she will act as if you're never there. Of course, sometimes I just can't figure out how I can be hiding in a small room out of everyone's vision and still be counted as detected, even if they never saw me walk in.

[Vympel]

I'd prefer if they come up with a different threat than "enemy with technologically advanced weapons" next time around. I don't always want to be fighting mooks in Power Armor.

[Covenant]

I'd prefer if they come up with a different threat than "enemy with technologically advanced weapons" next time around. I don't always want to be fighting mooks in Power Armor.

FOT2 had an interesting idea, somewhat based on Fountain of Dreams--going down to Florida to irradiated Florida where a radiation-damaged GECK had resulted in flora and fauna going absolutely apeshit and tearing through the people there, with the interesting moral questions of how ethical it is to kill off the re-emergence of these lifeforms, dangerous as they are, after having been the cause of demolishing the world in the first place... and how rare to see such a green, vibrant place. It'd be interesting, I think. Lots more dangerous critters.

[Stark]

I'd like to see a less 'neighbourhood' game than the existing ones, where either lack of resources (lol people may have looted all the stims in 200 years) or some goal or pressure drives the player into new areas constantly rather than cross-tracking so that you see a wide variety of factions, terrain and funky nuclear shit. This is, however, well outside Bethesda's capability.

[Covenant]

I'd like to see a less 'neighbourhood' game than the existing ones, where either lack of resources (lol people may have looted all the stims in 200 years) or some goal or pressure drives the player into new areas constantly rather than cross-tracking so that you see a wide variety of factions, terrain and funky nuclear shit. This is, however, well outside Bethesda's capability.

Well, Fallout was generally heavily involved in man's recovery in the wastes, so that would definately be a game I would want to play, but it may not be fallout. They seriously do need a more Survival oriented game though. Metal Gear Solid 3 had a lot of gameplay elements that could be seen as steps towards that (needing to bandage your wounds and eat, for example) but we've yet to actually see one. It certainly wouldn't be hard to envision, but it would be a complicated sell. Plus, I've already seen mods for FO3 that remove all the "stupid RPG aspects" that apparently some subset think distract from the shooter elements. I can only imagine what kind of mods they'd release for "The Stark Covenant: Chronicles of Origin of Survival-X!!" Probably stuff like "Full Canteen Mod" and "More Common Bullets Mod" and "No Permanent Limb Damage Mod." Sissies.

[JointStrikeFighter]

The Stark Covenant: Chronicles of Origin of Survival-X!!

I would totally play that game.

[Darth Onasi]

I recall a rather well balanced eating mod for Morrowind, I'd totally get one for Fallout 3 if it were as good.
It's a little odd that survival through eating and drinking was going to be implemented in the original Fallout (the leftover and now useless canteens and food attest to this), and still hasn't made it into the series.

[Zixinus]

I for one would like to see the whole "mutant" human thing explored further. We only seen ghouls and super-mutants but what else can happen? That has to be an interesting question.

[Covenant]

One thing just struck me that I was just realizing I was missing from the game that would have given me what I was looking for--an objective for a second playthrough. Elder Scroll games have had a big focus on Guilds in recent iterations, with lots and lots of faction points to build up, big decisions that alter the way things end, and other branching decisions that alter the kind of experience you have. Aside from the choice to detonate Megaton (which is foolish for many reasons), I don't know any. In Oblivion I spent so much time exploring, having fun, doing small quests, assaulting Oblivion gates, and most importantly, doing Guild quests! On one run I'd become the world's most daring thief, with long and well-done quests for that. In another I'd become the most respected mage in the land. I never did become Tamriel's most famous mercenary, but if I had wanted to, the Fighter Guild was there as well. And the Assassin guild, for those who wished to indulge in such things, had it's own unique and fairly awesome quest lines.

Fallout 3 is utterly devoid of this, and while Fallout wasn't huge into it, Neph reminded me that there were things you could do similarly, such as becoming a Made Man.

It's really amazing, looking back, how many quests, little side-thingies, and random dungeons you had in Oblivion. Fallout feels much smaller by comparison, and the lack of guilds gives me much less reward for replaying differently. The Thieves' Guild quests, for example, had unique dungeons as well as a reason to break into all the most interesting homes, and that itself was enjoyable. I really liked looking around at stuff, sneaking around, picking locks, etc. There's almost no homes in FO3, and certainly no Thieves' Guild. The slaver quest just isn't the same as a fully developed quest arc with big benefits. I'm pretty sad.

Can people here tell me what there's really left to do? I've left plenty of quests undone and areas unexplored, but all the major stuff I think I've covered. I played through as Unarmed/Energy... I'd be interested in doing a big guns game but having seen the ease at which I murder legions of soldiers with a plasma rifle, I don't really know if that would be much different.

[Darth Onasi]

I for one would like to see the whole "mutant" human thing explored further. We only seen ghouls and super-mutants but what else can happen? That has to be an interesting question.

According to in game dialogue, the Pitt has a variety of horribly mutated humans.
So we might see more of that... unless Bethesda takes the cheap way ou.

[Zixinus]

According to in game dialogue, the Pitt has a variety of horribly mutated humans.
So we might see more of that... unless Bethesda takes the cheap way ou.

What I mean, is what other kind of humans can appear? I'm not exactly looking for freakshows (if I remember the thing about the Pitt right) but new, interesting mutants that gained some kind of abilities or somewhat-useful features. What happens to people if they get the FEV but don't become super mutants? What happened to the rest of the intelligent super mutants? What about the ghouls?

Yes, I may be risking some X-men stlye crap, but I think that it would be possible to handle the question competently and in a interesting way.

[Covenant]

What I mean, is what other kind of humans can appear? I'm not exactly looking for freakshows (if I remember the thing about the Pitt right) but new, interesting mutants that gained some kind of abilities or somewhat-useful features. What happens to people if they get the FEV but don't become super mutants? What happened to the rest of the intelligent super mutants? What about the ghouls?

Yes, I may be risking some X-men stlye crap, but I think that it would be possible to handle the question competently and in a interesting way.

It's a legitimate question. So far we've seen several types of mutants arise:

Mild Exposure FEV mutants: Generally crazed animals that would attack caravans, which prompted Harold and the Master's human selves to explore Mariposa military base. These must have been unusual critters, created by passive exposure to FEV, to have distinguished themselves from your average mutant wildlife.

The Master: A being who was so messed up by an incredibly prolonged period in an FEV vat that his body became amorphous and could absorb others, including their thoughts. Note that the Master didn't begin to transform until after he escaped the Vat, and early on his mutation was very similar to how Harold ended up: "The green slime that I was immersed in is the source of all the mutations we traced to here. My skin is starting to fester and peel. In other areas it is bubbling and starting expelling a green mucus-like substance. Some days the pain is almost tolerable."

Harold and Talius: Two ghoul-like mutants created from exposure to FEV, but which are not ghouls. I'd consider these two similar to the Master in that their bodies became squishy and seemed to have a capacity for absorbing/cohabitation with other life forms (such as Bob) but a much milder dose. Harold is nearly immortal like a super-mutant and Talius is an unknown, but he was one of the Vault Dwellers sent by Vault 13 out before the player, so it shows an non-radioactive human can create a Harold-like mutant. Possibly moderate exposure. Note, not only does Harold look much different than a ghoul, he also has entirely different physical properties.

Slags: A subsurface mutant tribe near Modoc, encountered in Fallout 2. They're intelligent but their bodies are no longer able to tolerate the Sun or Daylight brightness. Aside from this they seem to have no other unusual characteristics, but could be mistaken by a Vampire by some of Vance's family morons I suppose. They took to smearing themselves with glowing green fungus, probably the same as the Lamplight fungus, in order to scare off people from their farm, which they tended at night before heading back underground.

Psykers: The Master's mutant hybrids were generally flavors of stupid, but some were intelligent by design. He spent a great deal of work trying to bring out psychic powers via FEV, and some of them turned out okay. However, they're all utterly insane and wear psychic inhibitors, but they do have documented abilities. That's some X-Men stuff there I suppose, but they're all dead now. Theoreatically such mutants could arise again.

FEV'd Mutant Fireants: Fallout 3 has some critters who were intentionally modified to an unintentional end, showing that mutagens are available enough that people can do experiments with them. These turned out poorly, as nearly all FEV subjects seem to do, but someone could clearly dicker with a small amount of FEV and create lasting mutations from it. Supermutants are sterile due to their complete exposure to FEV, but tiny amounts of FEV look like they can't match-up and destroy the sexual characteristics of their hosts.

Centaurs: The western and eastern centaurs are different, but the Western ones are made from dropping a grab-bag of animals together, which fuses them. Dumping a person and a deathclaw in the same vat, for example, would create a fused critter, maybe with two heads, maybe one, who knows. Centaurs are made from people, dogs, rats, and brahmin, generally.

Modified Plants: There's even some intelligent plants. In Fallout 2 there was a talking Spore Plant and a Chess Playing Radscorpion created via some sort of genetic fiddling, not exactly sure what or how. Depending on how silly you enjoy your fallout you could theoretically have more things like that.

[Darth Onasi]

Harold and Talius: Two ghoul-like mutants created from exposure to FEV, but which are not ghouls. I'd consider these two similar to the Master in that their bodies became squishy and seemed to have a capacity for absorbing/cohabitation with other life forms (such as Bob) but a much milder dose. Harold is nearly immortal like a super-mutant and Talius is an unknown, but he was one of the Vault Dwellers sent by Vault 13 out before the player, so it shows an non-radioactive human can create a Harold-like mutant. Possibly moderate exposure. Note, not only does Harold look much different than a ghoul, he also has entirely different physical properties.

Non-radioactive humans actually seem to be the common factor in making Harold-like mutants. Talius was from Vault 13, the Master was from Vault 8 and Harold was also from a Vault, non-game Black Isle lore has it that he's from Vault 29.
Rather than a dumb race of gorillas, the Master wanted to create a super race of his own kind, which is why vault dwellers were crucial to his plans. So yeah it's most likely that Harold is a proto-Master of sorts.
Some of the psychic abilities he attributes to Bob in Fallout 3 may actually be his own.

This is why I hate Vault 87 by the way, purposefully creating dumb brutes - out of vault dwellers no less - with the same FEV is really silly.

[Zixinus]

Another aspect, is the aliens. We saw them all over the Fallout games, obviously watching or at least somewhat aware of the Wasteland. I know that they're supposed to be Easter Eggs but there is allot of storytelling potential there. The inhabitant of a ruined wasteland a powerful spare-faring civilization overlooking it.

That's some X-Men stuff there I suppose, but they're all dead now. Theoreatically such mutants could arise again.

Well, I don't mind X-Men level superpowers as long as its handled properly. The last thing needed would be a teenager with the melodramatically required massive level of angst required.

If the topic is approached seriously, a great story could be made from it.

[Covenant]

Well, I don't mind X-Men level superpowers as long as its handled properly. The last thing needed would be a teenager with the melodramatically required massive level of angst required.

If the topic is approached seriously, a great story could be made from it.

Usually the mental powers were created alongside complete insanity, and the creator of the Fallout universe has actually said they'd like to see the psyker elements phased out of the canon entirely. Now, we don't need to take their word for it, since they created an incredibly mixed-up and inconsistant Universe already, but I think handling it at all requires very careful writing. Making much out of it would be similarly dangerous, but having a shaman or somesuch character like Sulik wouldn't destroy the game.

The Master had potent mental powers, and so did Hakunin, the tribal village shaman who was able to speak to you in your dreams. I'd like to see Aliens kept out of things, since once we go down that route we're basically never coming back--the 1950's has a very particular view of aliens, and it's so campy as to be extremely SoD breaking. The only way Fallout and 1950's aliens interact well would be if the Aliens pulled a "Day The Earth Stood Still" thing and actually were the ones who fired the first nukes to stop humanity from becoming a threat. Afterall, the Enclave were thinking of expanding into space. If they were similar to the Klaatu aliens they may have seen this as a threat to the rest of the galaxy, for humanity's insane greed and power to spread, and touched off the war with a few key bombs. But still, a stretch, and it makes the death of earth seem much less important or meaningful.