Fallout 3

[Horticulture Tycoon]

The picture on the right makes it look like you'd be too busy working on your suntan to bother saving the world.

The green filter never bothered me, but then I could see how it could be more of an annoyance on PC since you're sitting closer to the screen.

[Wrestlevania]

I must be a thorough pervert then, apparently; I adore Fallout 3's bleak, melancholy desolation.

I mean, that screenshot just makes it look like Oblivion with guns...

[Erkki]

It just isn't Fallout with a blue sky.

[gdf]

Oh well, agree to disagree.

As I said, I got so sick of the same green sluge that I needed to change it

[DanJW]

Yeah, have to say I prefer the filter as well. It makes me feel like the air and upper atmosphere is still thick with radioactive dust. It might be nice to turn the filter down a little bit, but not off completely.

[toblix]

Okay, so what is the definitive source of which mods to install? I find all sorts of recommendation, but none in which I have the extreme confidence I have in you people. I'm more after mods that make the original game easier/less fiddly to play, like inventory management, etc., not after additional content and shit like that. NMA used to be my source of FO info, but... they can't be trusted.

[gdf]

http://falloutmods.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_3_Mods

I use there, and the front page has links to the best sources for stuff.

What don't you like about the inventory screen? I find it much less annoying than Oblivion's default one was (not as good as the modded one).

[ThunderPeel2001]

Yeah, although that might be fun to play around with... I guess some of us like the green and brown depressing sludge!

(Reminds me of Mrs. Doyle... "some of us like the misery!")

[toblix]

Okay, two things:

• How long does it take from a patch is released until it's released on Steam?
  
• Has anyone experienced a weirdness with the Live UI overlay, in which I have to click about a cm below everything to make it register?
  

[ThunderPeel2001]

Yes! The user interface is very annoying. I can't believe this hasn't been fixed yet (and I'm not using the Steam version, although I haven't booted up Fallout in a few weeks).

[ysbreker]

I just finished it. Some random observations:

• I don't really like the interface. The pipboy is ok, but somehow it's not exactly user friendly.
  
• The voice acting is rather bad. 6 voice actors for all the NPC's you meet isn't something I expected from such a big budget title. I guess I'm spoiled by GTA4 in that regard.
  
• Weapons and armor degrade waaaaayu to fast :/ Why can't I repair my gun with scrap metal or other objects found in the wasteland? This goes double for the custom guns, why can't I use the parts I used to make the gun with to repair my gun with?
  
• why is everything so crammed close together? I think the only thing to scale is the mall. everything else feels so crammed together.
  

Some random things I found rather questionable in the story:

• Where do the kids from little lamplight come from? I mean do they get dumped there by their parents or something?
• How is it that I can meet ghouls who say they are over 200 years old?
  
• Ghouls are apparently sterile. how do you get new ghouls?
  
• Super mutants are apparently sterile. how do you get new super mutants?
  
• How old is Fawkes? He wears a vault 87 suit, has he been in there for 200 years?
• How is it that I can open random vault doors without problem and yet find dead skeletons right in front of them from people trying to get in?
  

I enjoyed the game, but it's got so many rough edges it makes me a bit sad. Especially regarding the timeline. So many things just don't fit.

[DanJW]

Weapons and armor degrade waaaaayu to fast :/ Why can't I repair my gun with scrap metal or other objects found in the wasteland? This goes double for the custom guns, why can't I use the parts I used to make the gun with to repair my gun with?

I like the repair system - you are not a gunsmith and don't have a portable metal mill so replacing parts from another weapon is the only way to repair a fiearm. You are right about the custom weapons though

Some random things I found rather questionable in the story:

• Where do the kids from little lamplight come from? I mean do they get dumped there by their parents or something?
  
  I wondered the same thing
  
  
• How is it that I can meet ghouls who say they are over 200 years old?
  
  Because they are 200 years old? Being dead, they don't age.
  
  
• Ghouls are apparently sterile. how do you get new ghouls?
  
  When a live human with the 'ghoul gene' dies from radiation.
  
  
• Super mutants are apparently sterile. how do you get new super mutants?
  
  This is a big part of that subplot, although I admit is is never stated explicitly:
  The super-mutants take humans back to Vault 87 and convert them into more super-mutants.
  
  
• How old is Fawkes? He wears a vault 87 suit, has he been in there for 200 years?
  
  It seems he has. Although maybe he just found the jumpsuit there.
  
  
• How is it that I can open random vault doors without problem and yet find dead skeletons right in front of them from people trying to get in?
  
  Because you are 57% more awesome than they were.
  

I enjoyed the game, but it's got so many rough edges it makes me a bit sad. Especially regarding the timeline. So many things just don't fit.

Yeah I know what you mean. That's the price Bethesda paid for shoe-horning their own story into the universe (particularly bad with the goody-goody Brotherhood of Steel). I still enjoyed it though.

[gdf]

I don't know, I mean, GTA IV had plot holes and stuff too but maybe they weren't as evident. Perhaps they were more jarring for you, even Oblivion's brokenness wasn't a deterrent in the slightest for me.

As for weapon degradation; I found that most of my guns lasted ages, long enough to not be a huge annoyance and I had the same, fairly frequently used baseball bat for fifteen hours.

I agree that the landmarks are far too condensed in one corner, I'm at thirty hours and I've only just crossed to the eastern half of the map for the first time.

The voice acting and scripting were great for me, I didn't notice the same actors time and again like Oblivion and the sheer number of characters and dialogue options mean I would have accepted something far less varied. Really thought Bethesda did a mark-up job on that front.

Oh, and the skeletons are probably from long ago, before the Vaults were opened up again.

[ysbreker]

The thing about the voice acting in Fallout 3 compared to that of GTA4 is that every voice actor in GTA only has one role. In fallout 3 it's one voice actor for at least 3 roles. This is is not true for (most of) the main quest characters. Which makes it all the more grating to me, since you're more on side quests than on the main quest thus hearing the same voices over and over again. This doesn't help with the suspension of disbelief.

I guess they spent most of their voice acting budget on Ron Perlman, Malcolm McDowell and Liam Neeson.

[Aon]

Are you honestly complaining about having Liam Neeson as your father?

And furthermore, are you asking Bethesda to have a unique voice actor for all of it's hundreds of NPCs? While it may be possible with the more prominent characters in GTA, it is unfeasible in FO3, especially considering that people who do not play the game day in, day out would have a very difficult time recognizing that a voice is recycled between Arefu and Paradise Falls.

While the guards all having the same voice is immersion breaking, so is hearing the voice of a pedestrian I swore I run down five minutes ago.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Are you honestly complaining about having Liam Neeson as your father?

And furthermore, are you asking Bethesda to have a unique voice actor for all of it's hundreds of NPCs? While it may be possible with the more prominent characters in GTA, it is unfeasible in FO3, especially considering that people who do not play the game day in, day out would have a very difficult time recognizing that a voice is recycled between Arefu and Paradise Falls.

While the guards all having the same voice is immersion breaking, so is hearing the voice of a pedestrian I swore I run down five minutes ago.

Yeah, ysbreker! What the fuck are you talking about??! Are you out of your mind?!?!

(Kidding.)

[gdf]

I haven't spoken to a single guard in Fallout 3, haven't committed any big crimes (other than a power of undetected stealing).

[James]

I must be a thorough pervert then, apparently; I adore Fallout 3's bleak, melancholy desolation.

Hey, me too. Post apocalyptic wasteland is weirdly appealing to me. The non-green version doesn't look devastated enough, to me.

For the record, I'm playing the game on my 360, but I use my computer monitor for my consoles (I don't have an actual HDTV), so I'm sitting inches from it at my desk.

I haven't actually played the game in ages. I loved it when I started back when it was released, then I eventually had to drag myself away to play some of the other games that had come out, and I haven't returned to it yet. I will, though.

[toblix]

Okay, so I've played this some more, and I've gotten over the bump where I stopped playing the last time. I've done the quests in Megaton and the Super-Duper Mart, and I did some of the fire ant stuff in Grayditch. I'm currently in Aretu, but I'm getting the feeling I'm doing the wrong quests or something... both the fire ants and the horrible WoW-esque river monsters took ages and all my ammo to kill, and the (feeling of) openness of the game leads me to believe there's a real chance I may have headed in the wrong direction or something. I basically have three quests I can pursue:

1. The Arefu one (Blood Ties?), where I have to find "The Family"
   
2. The GrayDitch one (Those!), where I have to enter the subway,
   
3. The main quest one, where I head towards DC.
   

Is there a distinct difference in difficulty between these? The last one I instinctively want to delay, since it's the main quest, and I always delay those. The second one seems like madness, since the fire ants burn me to shit in no time, and no doubt I'd have to face a bunch of them (and likely a mother ant or some shit). The third one, I don't know, I may be able to talk my way through it, but it seems like a combat heavy thing.

Anyone have some advice on which way to go, or even if there's some other stuff I should be looking at? I'm at level five, I think. The enemies I met going North-West were easy (some flies and stuff), but once I hit the river I was raped through a hole.

PLEASE HELP!!!!

[gdf]

None of them are particularly challenging, but I'd suggest doing the Arefu one first, then Those!, then pursue the main questline. Geographically it makes sense. If you find the game too challenging then I'd seriously consider moving the difficulty down to Easy or Very Easy, it makes the game much more enjoyable and it's still surprisingly challenging.

[toblix]

Yeah, I was surprised at the combat difficulty. It may just be me not "getting" the various systems, though, like repairing and bartering. I though I had plenty of ammo and stimpaks, but they quickly find their use. Also, I tend to spend skill points and perks towards more adventury things like conversation options. So I've gotten [speech (100%)] a couple of times, which indicates I'm a bit ahead of the curve on that. I should probably spend some points on skills that let me kill dudes with fewer bullets.

[DanJW]

I would mention that although the main quest is short, it isn't that short. Also, DC is the most dense area of the game in terms of content - possibly about 60% of the side-quests are there. So even though you may set off on the trail of your father, expect to get side-tracked along the way (and feel free to do so).

There's really no need to do the quests in the game methodically. You will be zigzagging all over the place before long. Best just to let your curiosity guide you and do whatever seems interesting at the time; and you can always finish a quest later after getting halfway through it.

Oh and the Arefu quest has the opportunity to resolve it without fighting (besides some critters). If you have good conversation stats and you choose to do so. A lot of the "people" quests have non-violent approaches.

[Nappi]

You could keep on helping Moira with the Wasteland Survival Guide. I guess you had only done the Super Duper Mart part? And of those two, you should definitely do Blood Ties first. Those fire ants are tough buggers.

The game can be pretty hard at first. Finding ammo was a problem for me in the very beginning and the reason why I started stealing stuff even though I was aiming for as much of positive karma as possible. Things soon became easier when I started peeking into every closet, box, desk and drawer. The Scrounger perk you can choose when you reach level 8 helps a lot as well. You should also note that even though there are situations where you are bound to use more skimpaks and/or ammo than you are able to get back, you will also stumble across places with plenty of both and minimal resistance.

Fallout 3 has a lot of elements I usually dislike in games like creatures that run towards me trying to eat my face, depressing setting, dark tunnels and so on. That's why, when I bought the game, I was already expecting that I would just freak out and never touch the game again after a while of playing. I'm at level 15 now (having barely touched the main quest) and I keep coming back simply because the world is so intriguing. I'm really impressed with what Bethesda has done.

[Wrestlevania]

I completed the Arefu quest without violence. Not if you don't count the numerous man-traps they scattered around anyway.

I tried to do the fire ants quest, but seemed to hit a dead end. I managed to find the underground lair, kill everything in there, but didn't come across any queen ant. Just lots of workers and the occasional soldier ant. Have I missed something? Is there more than one underground lair?

Also, I can't complete the police station mission not far from vault 101, as all the residents were killed in the first super mutant attack on the town. They've told their friends were dragged away to the police station of a nearby town, but they've not given me any directions. And the way point for that quest points at their hamlet still and I can't make it move from their. It's really frustrating!

Last time I played I was in DC, just outside the museum where the ghouls live next to (or beneath--can't remember). It's not particularly challenging so far. Even the battle with the behemoth super mutant outside Galaxy Radio was a piece of piss, with the soldiers who got killed dropping an awful lot of very expensive equipment. Which you can just help yourself to.

Which reminds me: I've not played this for over a month now and really should get back into it again.

[Nappi]

I tried to do the fire ants quest, but seemed to hit a dead end. I managed to find the underground lair, kill everything in there, but didn't come across any queen ant. Just lots of workers and the occasional soldier ant. Have I missed something? Is there more than one underground lair?

Then you probably missed the mad scientist as well?

The entrance of the hatchery is on the other end of Marigold Station. Look at the local map for areas you might have not visited yet.