Fallout 3 Impressions and Opinions

[Covenant]

It's possible Anna Holt was an Enclave spy all along, and her story of only cooperating after the Enclave captured her is bullshit, which would explain why Autumn keeps her alive but shoots you if you cooperate.
Of course, thanks to poor storytelling that's left for us to speculate, so many things are left up in the air that should be revealed at some point or other.

I'd think she's a spy, but was the Enclave trying to learn something from her hydroponics research, or was their original aim to bring Rivet City's weapon systems back online? I have to assume Holt was working with Pinkerton before Li, according to Pinkerton and others' stories about how Li just showed up and stole his research team. Confusing stuff.

[Darth Onasi]

It's possible Anna Holt was an Enclave spy all along, and her story of only cooperating after the Enclave captured her is bullshit, which would explain why Autumn keeps her alive but shoots you if you cooperate.
Of course, thanks to poor storytelling that's left for us to speculate, so many things are left up in the air that should be revealed at some point or other.

I'd think she's a spy, but was the Enclave trying to learn something from her hydroponics research, or was their original aim to bring Rivet City's weapon systems back online? I have to assume Holt was working with Pinkerton before Li, according to Pinkerton and others' stories about how Li just showed up and stole his research team. Confusing stuff.

Well I think Pinkerton says he was driven out shortly after Li arrived, so that'd be some 19 years where the Enclave could've recruited her. I have to assume after the oil rig was nuked they'd have to recruit more personnel around that time anyway.

[Covenant]

Right, but what I mean is that the research team that works with Li was originally Pinkerton's. Either the Enclave was interested in her for her work on the Rivet City weapons refurbishing program or because she was making hydroponics advances, or possibly the advances in portable fusion power. The Enclave is capable of sending out feelers to be certain, but why her and not someone else is my question. If she was a sleeper agent for some time, long enough for her to have prior relationships by the time James arrives, it would have been because of something. It's not like she joined the team after Project Purity, to spy on Li.

[Stark]

Regarding what Covenant said back in the last page, a good dynamic game instantly has a way better and more 'involved' story than shit like Fallout with plot holes everywhere. I can go on for hours about the fantastic, interesting and awesome shit that comes out of Space Rangers' very simple universe, by the simple expident of allowing things to happen by themselves. Every attack that goes wrong or system crushed while you're mining or sector cut off from the safe areas by legions of robots or market crash or political faction means more because you know some snotty idiot didn't write it, it just happened. Every time you have to ask yourself 'well what the fuck do I do with 100,000 units of cocaine now the market crashed and I'm wanted on 12 systems' or 'HOLY FUCK THE ROBOT ARMADA WHERE'S THE FLEET' or 'I hope I can get to Military Base Psychonaut before they go on the offensive', it's more fluid and immersive than 'go get my watch from the farm because I'm lazy'. It even means failing or dying isn't really a loss.

[PeZook]

The retardness on some epic quests is quite common for Bethesda: it happened in Morrowind and Oblivion,too.

Morrowind: "Oh fuck yes we can now try and kill Dagon! Why don't you be a sport and assault his deadly mountain stronghold of doom by yourself, while we put these here fingers up our asses and not use our massive armies to help you?"

and Oblivion: "The Empire is threatened with utter destruction! Demons rampage across Cyrodill! The heartland is in danger of invasion! No, we will not send a single legion to aid you because they are all busy keeping order in the provinces (yeah, 'coz they're totally not patrolling the roads all over the place...). Use the militias. And no, the fact you're a high-ranking officers of the Blades bearing orders from the imperial heir doesn't matter. Shoo, I need to jack off some more."

The only thing different is that in Oblivion, you can go and ask for the legion to come and help (to hear Ocato tell you to go fuck yourself), while in Morrowind the topic doesn't even come up.

Bethesda really fails at logic here. Jesus christ, it's not that hard to work around plot limitations without such artificial constructs...but, heh. These are the same guys who thought having ten guys stand in a line would make the player feel like part of an army, so...

[Darth Onasi]

Morrowind: "Oh fuck yes we can now try and kill Dagon! Why don't you be a sport and assault his deadly mountain stronghold of doom by yourself, while we put these here fingers up our asses and not use our massive armies to help you?"

Dagoth Ur, not Dagon
And to be fair, it was repeatedly stated that as the Nerevarine you really were the only one capable of even getting close to Dagoth Ur, let alone confront him and use the tools to kill the Heart of Lorkhan and save everyone from impending giant robot related doom.
Yeah it's the ye olde chosene one cliche, but it works. In fact you only get in at all because Dagoth Ur wants to talk to you face to face.
Besides, the Legion was generally uninterested in the whole thing, and the Ordinators are just.. no.

You're right on Oblivion though. Then again it could well be justified by saying that Ocato is crazy.
Ever seen him go to his supposed Elder Council meetings? It's him, by himself, sitting at a giant round table having a tea party with his imaginary friends.

[PeZook]

Dagoth Ur, not Dagon
And to be fair, it was repeatedly stated that as the Nerevarine you really were the only one capable of even getting close to Dagoth Ur, let alone confront him and use the tools to kill the Heart of Lorkhan and save everyone from impending giant robot related doom.

Yeah, maybe your chosen one badassness was necessary to actually kill Dagoth Ur, but sending some people to help me get up the goddamned mountain would've been...you know, kinda nice.

Yeah it's the ye olde chosene one cliche, but it works. In fact you only get in at all because Dagoth Ur wants to talk to you face to face.
Besides, the Legion was generally uninterested in the whole thing, and the Ordinators are just.. no.

Well, I was the head of all noble houses and commander of the imperial legion, so the legion couldn't really tell me "Uh, sorry, no"

You're right on Oblivion though. Then again it could well be justified by saying that Ocato is crazy.
Ever seen him go to his supposed Elder Council meetings? It's him, by himself, sitting at a giant round table having a tea party with his imaginary friends.

Heh...that seems to be the best explanation I've seen
It's too bad the plot doesn't even mention it anywhere, it would've been so awesome

[Covenant]

It's most obvious when the problem is something that just depends on greater firepower. Me being a chosen one in a realm of magic and gods makes some sense--they should have just said "We have no power on that mountain, and any forces we send will fall under his dark sway, so this quest is yours and yours alone! Take anything from my divine armory you wish," and sent you on your way. It's dumber in things like Oblivion where occasionally people DO venture into the Oblivion gates, just that they're really, really terrible at fighting there.

I do like the occasionaly guardsman corpse, and the idea of them walling in against the gates is not a terribly bad idea, so I didn't find it unrealistic for them to be part cowardly, part careful with regards to the gates and their demon hordes. At least it kept the daedra out of the towns--if they had all charged to their death, and forced US to clear out the town for them, I think we'd criticize them for being criminally stupid too. We know they had tried to assault the gates before, and you can help them retake that burnt city, so they're not uniformly wusses. But that's really the point at which there should have been SOME ability to see the legions and the guard at work, even if not seeing it is just a relatively minor quibble, as they do occasionally draw in some other forces... just very paltry few. Still, they did it a lot more than they did in FO3, which is the game in which the Big Military Force you were allied with had really nothing better to do than send a squad of guys with you. Lyons Pride was, what, just sitting on their asses until you got back and they decided to let you join, when they could have come with us?

I'm not sure how the game could have accomidated you AND the squad, but I could think of ways--especially if your squad split up. Half to hold the front gate and keep the mutants out, the other half (with you) to sweep through and retreive the GECK. Anyway, not a big deal, I just wish they would either a) help or b) make note in-game that they're unhelpful bastards. It's the combination of "We are so mighty, and we've come to save you" with "Yeah, hey, go do everything yourself" that's annoying. If they had made the Brotherhood Paladins complain about how gutless command has gotten, or they had acted more suprised about how badass you are, or other such things, then it wouldn't be a big deal. In-Character it makes no sense, and Out-of-Character it just serves to antagonize the player.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

The Brotherhood are useless dicks in general, like when you first meet Lyons.

* Two super-mutants appear*
*I vapourise both of them without the Brotherhood getting in a shot*
Lyons: Rar what the fuck are you doing here?!
Me: I could have killed them without your help.
Lyons: Rar this place in dangerous and stuff!

Nobody in the game seems to appreciate the super-scientist-warrior-Vault-Dweller who has defeated legions single-handedly and has, towards the end of the game, the most high-tech armoury in the Capital Wasteland.

[Vendetta]

And no-one ever figures out where you live and tries to steal your shit.

Though NPCs can actually get into your house. (Crowley came to kill me at home after I stiffed him out of the T-51b).

[Pablo Sanchez]

Yeah, maybe your chosen one badassness was necessary to actually kill Dagoth Ur, but sending some people to help me get up the goddamned mountain would've been...you know, kinda nice.

I always assumed the reason they sent you through the Ghostfence alone was that you were immune to all diseases, including Corprus. IIRC Dagoth Ur's efforts to shoot blight and corprus diseases out of Red Mountain via the ash storms were intensifying at the end of the main quest storyline, so if they had sent an army with you it would have been incapacitated with diseases. That's what I got out of it, anyway.

I actually thought that Morrowind did a fairly smart job with justifying the usual stupid plot holes that result from making the player the focus of action, and having that action small enough to be dominated by the player--who is after all one dude. Like instead of having the antagonist faction be met with military force, as in Oblivion, the Sixth House was almost like an epic fantasy Bond villain: a madman lurking in a volcano lair (Dagoth Ur) and sending out his assassins, preparing to deploy a superweapon (Akulakhan with Lorkhan's Heart) which the protagonist could only stop by gathering intelligence and finally retrieving a MacGuffin (Sunder and Keening). The war in the shadows theme worked a damn lot better for an RPG than Oblivion's open war against daedra, which resulted in shit like the embarrassing set piece Battle for Bruma, where you and maybe 20 guys fight a marginally larger number of daedra. How epic.

[PeZook]

I always assumed the reason they sent you through the Ghostfence alone was that you were immune to all diseases, including Corprus. IIRC Dagoth Ur's efforts to shoot blight and corprus diseases out of Red Mountain via the ash storms were intensifying at the end of the main quest storyline, so if they had sent an army with you it would have been incapacitated with diseases. That's what I got out of it, anyway.

Hmm. Excellent point, though they could've mentioned that in dialogue.

I actually thought that Morrowind did a fairly smart job with justifying the usual stupid plot holes that result from making the player the focus of action, and having that action small enough to be dominated by the player--who is after all one dude. Like instead of having the antagonist faction be met with military force, as in Oblivion, the Sixth House was almost like an epic fantasy Bond villain: a madman lurking in a volcano lair (Dagoth Ur) and sending out his assassins, preparing to deploy a superweapon (Akulakhan with Lorkhan's Heart) which the protagonist could only stop by gathering intelligence and finally retrieving a MacGuffin (Sunder and Keening). The war in the shadows theme worked a damn lot better for an RPG than Oblivion's open war against daedra, which resulted in shit like the embarrassing set piece Battle for Bruma, where you and maybe 20 guys fight a marginally larger number of daedra. How epic.

Heh...that battle would've worked so much better if it was more confined, like Kvatch. Kvatch actually felt somewhat epic because it happened in tight quarters and low visibility (and the destroyed city helped). Bruma was just...damn. Note to game writers: if the engine can't handle an open-field set piece battle, don't write set piece battles into the plot.

I mean, christ. What would've been wrong with Daedra besieging Cloud Ruler Temple?

[Darth Onasi]

What's ironic is that the Outcasts who are supposed to be the xenophobic "real" Brotherhood out for only themselves actually have a visible presence outside of D.C., their patrols routinely attacking the random raiders/monsters/Enclave around there.
Meanwhile the BoS sit in the Pentagon like drooling idiots who not only don't help you, they don't feel like protecting an outpost full of technology that's within spitting distance.
Oh but they have an entire squad in the Arlington Library, to say nothing of GNR.

[Nephtys]

CLEARLY, Three Dog's five songs and ramblings about scumbag/saint 101 are so important, they need to station 10 Paladins at GNR (with a Fatman), have Lyon's Pride patrol near there, and station five more troops out at the Washington Monument. All while the entire Citadel has maybe 10 or so actual Power-armored Paladins at home at any time, not counting Lyon's Pride.

Oh. And the radioactive roadblock in front of the whitehouse is so vital, that four Paladins need to guard the dead end.

Not exactly the most effective use of manpower.

[Covenant]

CLEARLY, Three Dog's five songs and ramblings about scumbag/saint 101 are so important, they need to station 10 Paladins at GNR (with a Fatman), have Lyon's Pride patrol near there, and station five more troops out at the Washington Monument. All while the entire Citadel has maybe 10 or so actual Power-armored Paladins at home at any time, not counting Lyon's Pride.

As I've said countless times, it's obvious that GNR is being held by the Brotherhood because Three Dog is the chosen propagandist of the Brotherhood. Without Three Dog, the Brotherhood would have a hard time staffing their soldiers, since the Brotherhood is generally just as abrasive as the Outcasts. However, we know from their own statements that they rely on the locals for manpower, so without volunteers they never would have the amount of men required to hold Citadel.

And we also know the only reason that they have problems holding Citadel, regardless of local recruits or not, is because they have allowed themselves to drift from the Californian Brotherhood's mission and got their funding and reinforcements cut off until they return to the original directive. And Elder Lyons wanted to do that in order to protect the people, but on the other hand he doesn't seem interested in protecting the people. So I have no idea what he's talking about. All I can figure is that he didn't want to protect individual communities--he wanted to "protect the people of D.C." by going on a crusade against the Supermutants in particular. They seem to have no real interactions with slavers or raiders or Tenpenny's violent goons, and they seem way too eager to shoot at the friendly ghouls of Underworld.

So I'm pretty sure the Brotherhood is just looking for a way to end the mutants, not to protect the individuals themselves. This lead to them getting overstretched, and so they've taken to defending GNR and Three Dog's transmission station (the only purpose of the Washington Monument) despite the risk involved, since it allows them to keep their numbers somewhat up. Due to the loss of Three Dog's transmitter they have been falling on harder recruitment times, and therefore have been forced back to Citadel as the mutants drain their numbers. It all makes sense!

[Darth Onasi]

The worse thing is they could've just deliberately portrayed the BoS as the inefficient, lazy assholes they have always been and it might have worked better.
After all, in Fallout 1 they were rather unhelpful, bureaucratic arms dealers who sent potential new recruits to die in a radioactive hole, in 2 they were on their knees due to their hubris, in Van Buren they dug themselves into an unwinnable war with the NCR. Hell even in Tactics at their most effective they would've been lost without their local recruits.

It would've been nice to have some dialogue in 3 aside from the Outcast's ramblings about how downright stupid the BoS is.

So I'm pretty sure the Brotherhood is just looking for a way to end the mutants, not to protect the individuals themselves. This lead to them getting overstretched, and so they've taken to defending GNR and Three Dog's transmission station (the only purpose of the Washington Monument) despite the risk involved, since it allows them to keep their numbers somewhat up. Due to the loss of Three Dog's transmitter they have been falling on harder recruitment times, and therefore have been forced back to Citadel as the mutants drain their numbers. It all makes sense!

I'd believe that if it weren't for the conversations with Lyons.

Me: Can I join you guys?
Lyons: No, no way. We gots enough recruits. Yessir.

*later*

Me: Well you've just lost your new recruit, your captain, several knights and you let me take your armor, laser rifle and hand held nuclear launcher with which I defeated that Behemoth. Can I join you now?
Lyons: Nope.
Me: .....

[Covenant]

I'd believe that if it weren't for the conversations with Lyons.

It's a smokescreen--don't believe Elder Lyons or Sentinel Lyons about the status of the BoS, they're not trustworthy sources of information, any more than the Emperor is about the status of the Galactic Empire. You've gotta listen to what the Outcasts and other Paladins say about their status outside of a direct query into joining them--they mention many times that they're stretched so thin they can't do anything aside from hold the Citadel. Their 'outposts' are the Galaxy News Radio station, which they claim is a nice port in the storm, but it's clearly indefensible without special Protagonist assistance, so I'd interpert their feelings of goodwill to Three Dog's broadcasts. We also know for a fact that Three Dog rarely gets the full story, and lacks knowledge of very, very broad elements of the theme, such as the Brotherhood's violent intolerance of the Ghouls. Seeing as he isn't interested, or even able, to leave the station he depends entirely on the Brotherhood for his food, water, power and security. He's also not a reliable witness. Listen to Gunney talk about the new recruits too. It's obvious that even Raiders would be better off than the shit they have. Plus, listen to the Lead Designer talk about their status when you arrive:

The war with the Super Mutants – a conflict that has continued unceasingly for over twenty years – rages on, and the Brotherhood is feeling the strain of this extended conflict. Without reinforcements from the West Coast, Lyons has been forced to recruit locally, and the results have been less than stellar: most new conscripts are overeager, unskilled, or both, and as a result their survival rate is atrocious. So low, in fact, that that word has spread throughout the Capital Wasteland – join the Brotherhood of Steel, and you’ll be dead within the week.

So the fact that they can't field qualified individuals in any number can't be due to a lack of combat experience (everyone has that as good or better than the brotherhood), a lack of power armor training (not only does it only take a few hours to learn, but some like Reilley and her crew are better fighters without the armor already--arguably even the children of Lamplight), or a lack of need. The only reason they aren't fielding more people is because of their rampant xenophobia and mistrust of the locals, even ones who have been proven effective combatants, know how to use armor, and are actively serving their needs. What could Redding possibly have added to the Brotherhood that the Lone Wanderer did not until they finally rubberstamped him? I think it's clear that the Brotherhood is also paranoid of mutation and seeking to keep their organization exclusive, even though they rely on local wasteland recruits, kinda like a slightly more benevolent Enclave.

[Enigma]

I leveled up to 10 but it assigns me -11 skill points. I can't reset nor continue so basically I'm stuck and either have to restart from an earlier save or I'm totally screwed and have to restart the game from scratch. Anyone here got this problem? Were you able to fix it?

[PREDATOR490]

Enable the cheats and modify your skills to lower amounts of points then once you get through the level up bit, raise them back to what they should be. I think it is because you have too many skills and the level up requires you to spend ALL skillpoints before you can go on. The other option is to download a mod, there are some that allow more than 100 to be placed in a skill to prevent this situation.

[Covenant]

Alternately, you can open the console and type something like "closeallmenus" to shut down the levelup screen. I don't know what you did to get -11 skillpoints... but I can only imagine. Did you cheat at all?

[Enigma]

Alternately, you can open the console and type something like "closeallmenus" to shut down the levelup screen. I don't know what you did to get -11 skillpoints... but I can only imagine. Did you cheat at all?

Mainly used "tgm" for god mode and maxed a couple of skills but I still have several skills that haven't been maxed so I'd still be able to add skillpoints.

[SylasGaunt]

I've been having some fun playing with the GECK, mostly in making new weapons to fiddle with, some of which are fairly normal (like an AR that has the same effects as that incindiary chinese pistol), some are ludicrously overpowered (Laser gatling using liberty prime beam or my micro-nuke firing minigun), and some are just strange (like the dart gun I made that shoots bloatfly darts and next.. dog launcher!).

I still need to sit down and do the vault tutorial so I can learn to make myself a hideout in the wastes.

[Ryan Thunder]

I've been having some fun playing with the GECK, mostly in making new weapons to fiddle with, some of which are fairly normal (like an AR that has the same effects as that incindiary chinese pistol), some are ludicrously overpowered (Laser gatling using liberty prime beam or my micro-nuke firing minigun), and some are just strange (like the dart gun I made that shoots bloatfly darts and next.. dog launcher!).

I still need to sit down and do the vault tutorial so I can learn to make myself a hideout in the wastes.

I'm so making an AA-12 and Frag-12s for my shotguns with that...

[Enigma]

GAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH! Why does Bethesda hate their customers so much? At least once every game session, FO3 would crash and shut down my video card! What the hell? The computer is running but the monitor says that there is no signal in other words the video card turned itself off. I reboot and it returns to normal.

[Enigma]

Durrrrrr. I managed to get back into the game but when I reached the point where I level up it brings me back to that -11 skillpoints glitch. Using the closeallmenus doesn't work, instead it levels me by one level everytime I use the code.