Fallout 3

[Wurtsi]

Damn And everyone complained that the game was "too short"? Whaa?

Anyone else got a different estimate?

That sounds about right. I've played around 70 hours and I still have probably a third of the locations undiscovered. Granted I have all the expansions installed.

The main story is just fairly short and way more exciting than in Oblivion, where most people just get bored and start exploring. It doesn't really force or encourage you to go to most of the map. You have to do that all by yourself, which kind of does give the illusion that the game is short.

[mikemariano]

I'm trying to play Fallout 3 again without using fast travel.

The biggest allure of Fallout 3 is exploration. The environment is gorgeous and detailed, and it's fun to be extremely careful walking around.

Enemies are a big drawback to this, though. Combat gets tedious with every single enemy on the horizon making a beeline for you from half a mile away. I stopped exploring primarily because combat took so long and was never optional.

Now that I have the Animal Friend perk, I'm trying to break the habit and explore again.

[Irishjohn]

The biggest allure of Fallout 3 is exploration. The environment is gorgeous and detailed, and it's fun to be extremely careful walking around.

Hear, hear. I want to go back to Fallout 3 just to wander around aimlessly and ignore the story. I just couldn't help but drive on to find Liam Neeson the first time.

I just started Oblivion on the PC, too, with the same object in mind.

[Hermie]

Agreed with the fact that exploration pretty much IS the game. While the Random Anecdotes From When I Was Wandering Around are more scripted than f.ex. the stories of the Thumbs in Stalker and Far Cry 2, they are still really amusing, and there's enough of them that you will still have a lot of unique experiences.

For example, I was wandering around the wasteland, when I found an abandoned grocery store. I go in, and see a pretty obvious trap, that I then disable, and I find a couple of grenades behind the counter. While I explore the rest, I see an unusual amount of cereal boxes, and then another step trap. Then I look up, and see a giant mallet fastened to the ceiling. Sneaking suspicion, followed by coy smile. I reload the autosave from before I enter the store, and this time I don't touch anything except the second steptrap. Sure enough, the mallet swings down, hitting the first of an entire row of cereal and laundry detergent boxes, knocking them down in a domino effect. The last one falls on the other trap, which then triggers another set of objects falling into eachother, until it culminates with dropping the grenades to the floor. Pause. Boom! Items go flying everywhere, and a little jingle plays.

I still haven't talked to anyone else who has found this thing.

[elmuerte]

What? is that real? because it sounds awesome. I guess some LD was bored.

I didn't enjoy exploration much in Fallout 3. There simply wasn't much to do or see. And the metro maze of the city simply sucked. I don't know if I liked it more or less than exploring in Oblivion. I got annoyed in Oblivion by the constantly spawning oblivion gates that I decided to rush through the main story line, and shortly after that I stopped playing. I did enjoy exploring Morrowind a lot. As other said, there was much more variation in the world, but also much more to do (even though they often it just was a fetch quest). The world in Fallout 3 was pretty much the same allover, with only some slight variation.

[Nachimir]

I thought the run speed in Fallout 3 was pretty fast, enough to not make exploring a bore. Overall, for brown wasteland the map was designed with quite a bit of variance differentiating areas. I tended to explore new ones on foot, slowly checking out any new locations that showed on the compass, and then using fast travel between places I knew already.

Occasionally, if it looked like there were big gaps in the map between places I'd explored, I'd strike out on foot to see if any new ones showed up. Finding every single location like this alongside completing it filled about 80 hours

If anything it was the combat that got repetitive: Wait for creature to get close, enter VATS, do headshots. Repeat.

[thl]

I'll second El Muerte by saying that Morrowind was much more fun for sheer exploration than oblivion or Fallout 3, but in general I think I'd say I liked that game more* so that fits.

The only part that about Fallout 3 that got on my nerves was the first few times i tried the metro tunnels. After that I fast traveled until i was uber, then went back and cleared them all out rather quickly. The Ghoul mask really helped with that.

I personally LOVED the lovecraftian aspect of that one creepy house near Tenpenny Tower, which was completely neglected unless you went looking for it (although I think they tied a Point Lookout quest to it, probably just to get more people to go there), and found a handful of other little oddities along the lines of the rube goldberg store, like the supply closet with all the plumbers helpers or the door that leads to a wall saying "FUCK YOU" or even the three missile defense radars.

I remember back in Morrowind finding a shipwreck of pillows and later finding a guy from Balmora who owned a pillow shop and was looking for pillows because he had fallen on hard times... I'm a complete sucker for those minute throwaway stories that Bethesda loves to embed in their games. After a while I already have top tier gear so the only real reward for exploring every corner (other than to satisfy my OCD) is uncovering these little stories that help flesh out the world. To me, that'd be like the ultimate job... coming up with these little stories most players will never find.

*I still loved and played the shit out of Oblivion and Fallout 3

[ThunderPeel2001]

For example, I was wandering around the wasteland, when I found an abandoned grocery store. I go in, and see a pretty obvious trap, that I then disable, and I find a couple of grenades behind the counter. While I explore the rest, I see an unusual amount of cereal boxes, and then another step trap. Then I look up, and see a giant mallet fastened to the ceiling. Sneaking suspicion, followed by coy smile. I reload the autosave from before I enter the store, and this time I don't touch anything except the second steptrap. Sure enough, the mallet swings down, hitting the first of an entire row of cereal and laundry detergent boxes, knocking them down in a domino effect. The last one falls on the other trap, which then triggers another set of objects falling into eachother, until it culminates with dropping the grenades to the floor. Pause. Boom! Items go flying everywhere, and a little jingle plays.

Ha, wow! I've not come across that. It's hard to know what's unique and what's something that everyone will have seen. There's that weird town where everyone is super-happy. I've yet to explore that properly.

I've not seen that Lovecraftian house near Tenpenny Tower yet, either... I've still to explore TP Tower at all (although I did take one save and go and blow up Megaton just to see if you really could -- answer: Yes, you really can, and it's quite impressive!).

Well it looks like 80 to 100 hours is what I'm looking at. Anyone know how far into the main quest I am (at the Citadel). I'm afraid that you can't continue after you've finished the game (from what I've picked up in this thread), so should I do as much exploring before pushing on with the dull story?

[Squid Division]

If you don't plan on picking up any DLC (Broken Steel lets you continue the game) then just save when they tell you there's no turning back when

you get back to the Citadel

Also there is 1 missable bobblehead that you can't just go back for at (just the name)

Ravenrock

when you get to it look up online where it is in the place. Every other bobblehead you can go and get whenever.

Bobblehead hunting was a lot of fun for me. It gives you something to go hunt down after you've done everything else. It gets you to some really interesting places including a Lovecraftian little easter egg.

Edit: you're getting close to the end (and very close to the bobblehead I was talking about above).

[elmuerte]

The best place I found was the one with the living tree. It was a nice variation.

What was this Lovecraftian thing?

Edit: oh that place, yeah visited that too.

Edit 2: To see the rube goldberg machine:

Edited May 4, 2010 by elmuerte

[Garple]

it's fun to be extremely careful walking around.

Idlethumbs.net

Seriously, that's a great boxquote. Also, I agree. My character specialized in stealth (and small firearms). It got to the point where I could pick almost anybody off from a quarter-mile away before they even saw me.

[Garple]

There's that weird town where everyone is super-happy.

All I can say is: "OR ARE THEY???"

Definitely explore that town.

[miffy495]

Ahaha. I do find that weird about a lot of future-oriented media. Anytime some group of people seem happy, there's always something sinister behind it. Science Fiction seems like it wants to make us suspicious of anyone happy, which is great at creating conflict for your story, but seems weird to me when I reflect on it.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Ahaha. I do find that weird about a lot of future-oriented media. Anytime some group of people seem happy, there's always something sinister behind it. Science Fiction seems like it wants to make us suspicious of anyone happy, which is great at creating conflict for your story, but seems weird to me when I reflect on it.

Ah, but these guys are living in absolutely squalor, and they sound like robots... Robots I tell ya! (We shall see if I'm right.) I think the anti-happiness in sci-fi thing was a reaction to the grey, white picket fence 50s, and the fear of conformity. The Stepford Wives, etc. (Just my 2c.)

Thanks for all the suggestions (especially Squid Div), looking forward to getting stuck in again

[DanJW]

I didn't enjoy exploration much in Fallout 3. There simply wasn't much to do or see. .

The joy of exploration in Fallout 3 comes not from the landscape, but from the traces of human life. Every time you find an abandoned camp or a building with signs of occupation, you can piece together a little story about who was there and why. The detail in these cases is amazing, as some of the stories above show. There is the sense of intimacy that comes from stepping into what was once someone's personal space, even though that person is long gone and probably dead.

In fact I would say that this is the central theme of Fallout 3; "The traces we leave behind and what they say about us".

[chummer]

The joy of exploration in Fallout 3 comes not from the landscape, but from the traces of human life. Every time you find an abandoned camp or a building with signs of occupation, you can piece together a little story about who was there and why. The detail in these cases is amazing, as some of the stories above show. There is the sense of intimacy that comes from stepping into what was once someone's personal space, even though that person is long gone and probably dead.

In fact I would say that this is the central theme of Fallout 3; "The traces we leave behind and what they say about us".

I second this. Fallout 3 has a bland landscape, but I love finding an old holotape, PC, or note that lets my mind build a context for what I see.

Tangent: I was playing about a month ago and found a dead body in a house somewhere in the Capitol that read "Search the house" or something to that effect; anybody know what this is a part of? Is there an actual thing this leads to or are they just teasing me?

[Squid Division]

I'm don't know what instance you're talking about, but everything in fallout leads to something else. The problem is that the payoff is never that great. There are a bunch of unmarked quests that take you all over the wasteland but never end up getting you that much.

[MrHoatzin]

I remember back in Morrowind finding a shipwreck of pillows and later finding a guy from Balmora who owned a pillow shop and was looking for pillows because he had fallen on hard times... I'm a complete sucker for those minute throwaway stories that Bethesda loves to embed in their games.

Man, I totally remember stumbling upon that ship (I could probably pinpoint it on a map of Morrowind if you laid it out for me), I also remember leaving a third of my inventory in that ship, loading up on pillows and taking them all the way back to Balmora... only to have the pillow store dude not give a shit about all the pillows I was carrying. For whatever reason, those pillows were ridiculously heavy.

I know what you're saying about exploration too. Morrowind was a lovely place to explore. I tried to go back recently, but it is so mind-blowingly ugly and not in an endearing kind of way some old school games are. Arx Fatalis was released within a few months of Morrowind and that game is still quite playable. I wish they would polish up the models a little, fix some of the bugs and re-release it as a netbook game.

Of all the Bethesda games Fallout 3 is the least broken one. I never loaded up on super expensive loot that I couldn't unload anywhere and the barter system is neither an infuriating minigame nor a weird trial and error thing that encourages you to try to flatter people so that they would give you a better deal. Maybe my problem was that I'd always make sneaky klepto characters who got too good at stealing, to the point where no one could buy any of the stuff I could steal. Fallout fixed a lot of that. There was always an incentive to drag loot back to the store to sell it. The monsters didn't level-up with you, etc. etc.

By far, my favorite part of the game was that it was set in "the real world" which allowed them to do more subtle and affecting things with the story that fantasy is generally not good for. For example, setting the thing in a familiar city wherein around every corner there could be a familiar landmark, the escaped slaves having the decapitated head of Abraham Lincoln in their hideout, getting to retrieve a Stradivarius violin, etc. All of these could've been done in a fantasy setting, but they would have to be re-digested into the world and explained, and as a result it wouldn't be as powerful. Does that make sense?

So whatever, it is a little drab. It wins at a shitton of other levels.

[George B]

So I just picked up Fallout3 goty edition in the steam sale and have a question for you dear thumbs.

Should I start my first ever fallout3 experience with any or all of the dlc installed? My first instinct was just to install em all, but after walking out of the vault and being assaulted by too many new quest pop-ups in too short a time I began to second guess my decision... I also killed the overseer by accident

What do you say?

[Hermie]

Pretty sure the only one you need installed is Broken Steel, that one raises the level cap, and allows you to continue the game post story ending.

[George B]

Pretty sure the only one you need installed is Broken Steel, that one raises the level cap, and allows you to continue the game post story ending.

See, I wondered if the original ending is worth seeing. I'm back on vanilla for now. It's relatively easy to enable or disable the dlc, so I'll take a wait and see approach.

Got a sniper rifle too!

[MrHoatzin]

The original ending was a little silly and random methinks. I was always under the impression that the new ending was basically the old ending with an epilogue tacked on to it.

Those who've actually played the expanded ending, was it basically:

And with that amazing selfless sacrifice the clean water flowed through the Beltway wasteland for ever, spreading happiness, joy, good cheer and whathaveyou wherever it trickled, THE END... and then the dead hero got better and went on to kick some more ass.

If you can have yourself a smooth transition from the game to the expansion packs, why not go for it?

[mikemariano]

I'm trying to play Fallout 3 again without using fast travel.

Wow, did I really say that way back in May of last year? I'm still trying to do this, as I've completed very few Broken Steel quests and haven't even started Point Lookout. Right now I'm working on a main game quest (Head Of State) I had no idea even existed until now.

I'm told to go back into DC, so I figure, "I need to sleep! I'll go to Rivet City and rest in my hotel room before starting this quest."

Instead, I kept dying along the way.

Areas I cleared out less than a day ago are now crawling with Super Mutants and Enclave soldiers.

On my fourth attempt to get back to Rivet City, I made it! I walked up the gangplank and—my game froze. A genuine crash in an Xbox game!

Ah, Fallout; don't ever change.

[Roderick]

I have sort of maybe officially given up on Fallout 3. I gave it a fair shot and played for multiple hours, well into Megaton, gave it some time... but I just can't play it. The world is far too bleak and bleary for my tastes, I just can't get myself to care for it or be even remotely interested in exploring it!

It's a source of hurt, because people unanimously love this game and it promises so many riches... but it just doesn't do anything for me. I know if I'd play it some more perhaps I'd get to the 'good' parts, but cripes. I feel a failure as a gamer

[toblix]

What?! Why would you feel like a failure? I don't love the game, either, and I'm people.