[Iraq War Ends]

Afghanistan? I thought we were talking about Iraq?

 

Because they're pretty different in most senses - especially strategic military considerations.

They are the same in the sense that pulling out NAO would lead to an increase in violence and unacceptable chances of undesirable elements getting back into power by means of said violence...

[Fallout 3 Spoilers]

For my part, I was happy with the "anti-climactic" ending. The complaints I've heard make sense, namely that the big-arsed brute could have gone in and put in the code. I also would have liked to see more detailed accounts of what occured after the end. ...But the fact that we didn't have a huge boss fight was great. I'm so tired of the formulaic boss fight at the end of games, especially with the temptation to do it with the robot, that I heaved a sigh of relief. All of my disappointment came after the end and the voice over and splash screen part didn't tell me anything. I didn't even care that the brute wouldn't do my dirty work. I just wanted to know what happened.

Yeah, my complaints with the ending are pretty much the same. After finishing the game once, I am left with a feeling that the main quest is just not good enough to pursue, so I'll be content with roaming around.

 

 

Ironic. I'll get great rep for murdering an entire town.

Including, directly and indirectly, a few slaves...

[Fallout 3]

I found I had to uninstall the thing, knowing just how easy it is to start the game instead of the work I'm supposed to be doing.

+1

[Fallout 3 Spoilers]

This thread is kinda lame. Can we talk about actual spoiler stuff here? Anyone else think the giant robot was simply awesome?

I wasn't aware that GDM and me discussing Tenpenny's prevented you from discussing other things? In fact, for a while we were the only ones who kept this alive.

 

The giant robot was nice, but I expected a quest to find a rare part or a schematic so it could be made operational. It struck me as odd that they were simply able to get it working like that, after years(?) of failures - and avoid any sort of glitch or malfunction at all. Could have been handled better.

[Iraq War Ends]

 

Lol.

[Fallout 3 Spoilers]

-I shot Roy because, from his own words, he sounded like too much of a threat. I'm sorry if that is not considered roleplaying in your book. The game failed to take into account possible reasoning for taking out Roy besides simply doing it as part of the hit. I did NOT metagame shoot him. At least not the first time.

No, no. It IS roleplaying, if you are playing that way, shooting people you think is evil and all... in true vigilante fashion. That doesn't make it a GOOD action, which is the point I'm contending. Do you think Jesus (as in, Last, Best Hope of Humanity), would go around shooting people just because they "look like a threat"? GW would do that, not Jesus.

 

However, it is not roleplaying if you allow karma hits one way or the other to define the choices you make. That is just maxing karma.

 

 

-I never claimed their bigotry as a whole was justified. It was ignorance from living with Tenpenny and his personal opinions in part. Many of them are nothing more than innocent victims. Maybe you didn't actually try the diplomatic solution, but a good number of them were more than willing to realize their prejudices were unfounded and willing to try living with the ghouls. The doctor, an older lady and the adventurer to name a few. How were they not innocent victims? Their prejudices were no worse than Roy's who wanted every last one of them out, even the 'enlightened' humans, confirmed by him having everyone killed when he moves in.

This is relevant how? Those people aren't the bigots I asked about, and they are immaterial to the quest, since it's easy to convince them to accept the ghouls and thus are not part of the list Tenpenny compiles for you. You did however place those bigots on a different moral level from Roy's, when the only difference is that they won't stoop to getting their hands dirty - which is the reason they are living in the tower to begin with.

 

 

Even if it ended up being futile, I would have liked to have seen an option to tell the ghouls about underworld, or an option to say that all of Roy's ghouls could move in except him. Would have been awesome to see his response.

Yes, the option to tell them about Underworld would have been nice, but it it wouldn't really change things... the ghouls want to live in the tower, not Underworld which, by the way, is already crowded enough.

 

 

-Honestly, I don't see how 'evil person asks player to commit evil deed: player kills evil person and earns negative karma' is not 'whack'.

I already addressed this - are you reading? He doesn't only offer the evil option. He is open (if only apparently) to a peaceful resolution to his conflict - which is what makes him difficult to portray as an unredeemable evil bastard. This only becomes clear after he cleans the place out.

 

 

There is another very similar situation where a ghoul in underworld asks you to kill 'ghoul bigots' when in reality he wants them dead because of a key they hold. As a player, you are able to get the keys without killing anyone and still complete the quest. That and you can assassinate this ghoul and not earn negative karma despite his request being a bit less evil than releasing feral ghouls on a tower full of inhabitants.

So, why are you bringing this up, again? It serves as a good example of the karma mechanics working as intended, and a quest that can be completed according to the player's outlook with favorable results. That is quite obviously not the way the Tenpenny Tower quest was designed. I don't understand your comparison.

 

 

Just kill both factions and be done with. [...] Bad Karma hit yes but lost of Exps and l00t.

I only kill for a fee. I get more loot than I can handle already from idiots attacking me all the time.

 

 

Random isn't going to change my mind that it was bad use of the karma system and I'm not going to change his mind about it.

No, the bad use of karma isn't specifically in Roy's case (see Messianic references above), but on Tenpenny, what with the game patting you on the back for walking up to him and shooting him in the face without trading a word. I haven't explored the Burke character too much, so perhaps there's a reason for the game doing that, but even if that's the case, it should require some sort of admission on Burke's part that he's simply carrying out instructions from his boss.

[Pure evil]

In fact if i may indluge my imagintion for a moment I'd suggest the man in question be broken up for spare parts and sold to finance a face transplant for his victim.

Most practical, indeed.

 

And I didn't say insufficient monitoring, I said inefficient... as I would like to think that there was some sort of oversight or negligence, as the alternative implies that somebody knew full well what was really going on, and didn't care. Knowing that there are people sick enough to act that way is depressing enough, but the idea that sane people can be fully aware and be indifferent, that is much worse.

[Fallout 3 Spoilers]

Thing is, while it is true that the player may not know that Roy is planning to kill no matter what, the karma system should, just as you get negative karma for stealing when it would be impossible for anyone to realize it.

No. Didn't I explain this already? The karma system isn't concerned with results or how the world will react to the player's actions. It's an internal indicator that concerns the player alone. Doing bad things, regardless of who gets word, will net you bad karma.

 

 

and unlike every other game in the series and every other quest in Fallout 3 the karma system judged his death as an evil act on my part, despite many other evil characters having alternate non-violent solutions.

Really, stop throwing around these made up statements. There's no way to prove this. I have serious doubts that you have tried every possible outcome in every possible quest and killed any and all NPCs to test your theories. And also, since in F1/2, you didn't get notices every time your karma changed, it's unlikely you have any idea what you're talking about.

 

 

Its a massive deviation from the karma norm.

The "norm" being what happens if you shoot Tenpenny or Burke, right? Well, that's 2v1, so it's hardly a "norm".

 

 

Karma isn't supposed to be a system that judges you on being able to handle an evil character with an alternate non-aggressive means. The karma system isn't supposed to require 'physical proof'.

Right. The karma system is supposed to gauge how good the character is, their intentions, and how much are they willing to go out of their way to make things better for others. Yes, this includes trying to prove to some bigots that ghouls aren't necessarily evil - even if some are.

 

 

Its why you can get positive Karma for offing Doc Morbid without evidence of his 'human meat' in the basement and why you can walk right up to Tenpenny and blast him.

But that's FO2, and this is FO3. The technology has changed, and so, the game is able to require from you that you have something more solid than a gut feeling to off the first dude that looks at you funny. If you can't possibly live with the karma hit, that is.

 

 

You are treating the karma system as if it is the judicial system when it is more of a 'mystical' system.

Hahaha. So? You are justifying your actions by means of metagaming. Your only reason to be 100% sure that Roy needs killing is the hindsight provided by the almighty reload function. And you expect the devs to reward you for metagaming?

 

But at any rate, It's not a question of material evidence, but a question of motivation, in-game reasons, and ultimately roleplaying - a concept which obviously, you don't quite completely grasp. If, in-game, your character only has his whimsical gut feeling as a reason to off Roy, he's a vigilante at best... a fickle sociopath at worst.

 

 

Also, yes I actually do consider Roy significantly more evil than those who hire you to kill him and the other ghouls. Many of the inhabitants are (correctly it turns out) motivated by fear of the ghouls, or a (correct) fear that they may get violent over the repeated refusal of allowing them to live in the tower. Instead of moving on and leaving the tower to the inhabitants, Roy is only interested in murder and is veiling that lust for blood behind an excuse of being persecuted. Also, the hit-job against the ghouls is just 3 ghouls. The assault on the tower is well over 30 men, women and possibly children.

This is strictly false. Roy is interested only in the tower. He just happens not to want to share it with its current inhabitants, which he hates. Further, he has no problem sharing it with the player, a human. If he were driven by his bloodthirst as opposed to his desire to live in there, he would be roaming the wastes murdering humans, not sitting in some tunnels, waiting for his chance to take what he wants.

 

Also, good work at trying to portrait the humans as the poor victims of murderous ghouls, and suggesting that their bigotry against ghouls as a whole is justified by the actions of a single ghoul, but that's really no different than justifying real world racists by mentioning the instances of crimes committed by people of the race(s) they hate. A bigot is a bigot, and a bigot willing to hire hitmen is no better than said hitmen, or the criminals that form the core of the fears that fuel their bigotry. No better as in, not less evil.

 

But yeah, being hired to kill three people is much more acceptable than doing the same for over thirty. Really, it is! \o/

 

 

Again, I have no problem with a negative karma for killing the two ghoul followers of Roy. Its Roy and his relation to the karma system that is whack. About the only way I can rationalize a negative karma hit for Roy is if the game assumes the player is killing him out of bigotry, which certainly wasn't the way I was roleplaying the game.

So far, you have failed to come up with solid reasons to explain why it's "whack", other than your insistence that the player should be rewarded for killing Roy based on actions he will commit. As for roleplaying, you already admitted that you defer to the karma system, so...

[Fallout 3 Spoilers]

Unless you really think the entire series has been 'karma broken' when it comes to killing an evil character who has asked you to murder someone but then you turn around and kill the thug/mafia guy/plain old killer who made the request.

But it's not as clear cut in this case, since Roy also accepts to try and live peacefully with the tower's inhabitants if you can convince them, even if he's a rotten liar, a fact that the player only becomes privy to AFTER trying to have both groups coexist peacefully.

 

 

Also, I never said I KNEW that Roy would end up killing everyone in the tower, just that the game was leading me along as if it was the only 'good' solution and that it really isn't any kind of surprise when he ends up killing everyone. That is what this quest completely lacks, subtlety. Doesn't take a psychic to realize he was up to no good when listening to him, AND asking you to do his dirty work. In that sense the voice actor did a great job. I didn't get a hint of compassion from him.

True enough. But it wouldn't have come off as a surprise either if he had been content with just being let into the tower, seeing how that's what his pals really want, and the whole reason for the quest.

 

 

You can argue real world morality all you like, but in the Fallout 'universe', a character asking you to perform an evil deed, even with no evidence of prior evil deeds (and seriously, how many of the villains sit down and explain how many terrible things they've done before asking you to perform this particular deed) is pretty much always fair game. I can just imagine what you would need to feel happy killing one of the bad guys. "Hmm, why yes let me see, back in 67' I torched a Children of the Cathedral church. Then in 68 I captured about 15 slaves for the slavers." Player: "Ok, yeah you will definitely qualify for lots of positive karma for me".

Again, you are making use of poorly built strawmen to get your point across. Most evil characters you come across either shoot you on sight, or are in the middle of nefarious business when you meet them, as is the case of slavers. In all those cases you have material proof of their deeds, as opposed to a "gut feeling" or mere declarations of bigotry and hate. How about executing the bigots inside Tenpenny's? There are a few of them that are willing to reward your efforts if you kill the ghouls - they effectively want to hire you as a hitman, as they lack the stomach to get their own dirty work done themselves. That ok by your standards, as well? Are they any less "evil"?

 

 

This quest just made me feel like a fool for following the game's suddenly twisted karma system.

Well, try roleplaying, then. The karma system being understood as a minigame of its own makes for very boring playthroughs.

[Pure evil]

Nice. No better way to begin your day than reading about the nth instance of how depraved the human being can become.

 

 

"The very sad fact is that we can't stop people who are determined to kill children. I am satisfied that the action that should have been taken was taken."

 

In my opinion this is a shocking attitude to take. If you know a kid is being abused, and is in real mortal danger you help that kid. You don't ****ing turn the wheel of bureaucracy and go home for pasta. I just wondered what other people thought.

Yes, that shocked me as well. I mean, fundamentally, she's right. Institutions just can't save every kid. But it's appalling to see the head of one of those institutions making such declarations, in a case that, it stands to reason, could only have occurred due to severely inefficient monitoring.

[Fallout 3 Spoilers]

My problem is that I was never given an option to save the people of the tower without dropping my karma an entire level. That makes no sense, that a good character with good intentions is not given the chance to pursue the good option without losing a ton of karma...

But you are given the chance to pursue a good option. It just doesn't turn out ok. Why should it? You don't like how the quest is solved, that's a different issue.

 

And if karma is such a big deal, just go crush that bum outside Megaton under a mountain of water bottles...

 

 

and several quests to boot, since some of the citizens of the tower were needed for future quests. I mean, you can take non-hostile Tenpenny who has just agreed to let in the ghouls out with a cold-blooded shot to the head, and get GOOD karma from that act, but if you take out Roy, who has just told you he plans to massacre the entire human population of the tower, you get BAD karma. That makes no sense at any level.

Yes, that's inconsistent alright. But it's not directly, essentially related to how you conduct your dealings with Roy.

 

 

Personally, I think dialogue was cracked. There should have been an option for the PC, when first talking to Roy and hearing his murderous threats against the inhabitants of the tower, to say something like, "You know I can't allow you to do that" whereupon Roy goes hostile and can be killed without karma loss.

Why should there be such an option? It's not like Roy's plans are any more realistic than any other wasteland lunatic's, unless he enlists the player's help. You needn't kill him if you are playing a good guy, because by simply walking away, you are making sure his plans are unrealizable.

 

Being a good guy isn't shooting bad guys on sight. That's vigilante. There's a difference.

 

 

As it is, the evil character cannot lose with this quest, and the good character cannot win. To me, and literally hundreds of folks screaming foul at the Fallout 3 forum, this seems like a developer "gotcha". They lured good characters into thinking they could be helpful, only to let it dawn on them when it was too late to do anything about it that they had been had... not by Roy, though. By the developers.

So, the player should be able to win out any situation, under all circumstances, everytime? Further, and considering that the player doesn't really lose the quest, he should be able to get exactly the desired outcome, always? And this is so, because...?

 

I've critiziced Beth's decisions wrt other matters, but I applaud their bravery to include a quest without the same cookie-cutter and predictable resolution as virtually every other quest in every other game, in which the result is tailored to suit the player's assumed outlook. A little lack of control over a world that's supposed to be alive and only partially influenced by the player's actions is always a good thing. And for their originality, they get "hundreds", nay, thousands, zillions even, of disgruntled players, crying out in anger at the failure of their Mary Sues to get a suitably clich

[Fallout 3 Spoilers]

Uh, no captain sarcasm. My disappointment stems from the quest being 'karma broken'.

Only... it isn't. You are getting bad karma for killing a rather bigoted and hateful person who, at that point, hasn't done anything wrong. No matter how you try to twist it, that's as far as facts go (facts which you have been blatantly avoiding to discuss). Killing him at that point is wrong, and the game reacts as it should. The fact that the karma system isn't perfect in other instances (Tenpenny, Burke) is irrelevant.

 

I only mention the ability to use the black widow perk to further point out the evilness of Roy, where the only way to prevent what he does is with a bullet to his brain, while many of the other villains in the game like Tenpenny and Mr. Burke who (according to the karma system are more evil) can be talked out of their evil deeds with certain perks or skills.

And we go back again to the root of the problem, the player's inability to talk Roy off his plan. Unless what you are suggesting is that being evil is a crime in itself, punishable by death. Pity we don't have "Detect Evil" in Fallout, eh?

 

 

I understand the point of the quest. The problem is, you can't have somebody in their 'muahaha I'm uber evil and I eat babies' speech tell you he's going to eat babies, but he just needs you to unlock the gate to the carriages and then pass out negative karma for blasting the evil baby eater.

How many babies has Roy eaten at that point, that the player knows of?

 

Also, you need to work on your strawmen.

 

 

Now, if said baby eater said he wanted to check on the babies and asked you politely to unlock the gate for him then went in and ate said babies, THAT would be clever twist and a nice lesson about sometimes you can't trust people and the world sucks etc.

Which is EXACTLY what the game does, only without babies. Roy's plan was to kill the humans all along, and he makes use of the player's good intentions for his own. To him, either way works for accomplishing his goal, but he doesn't know what kind of person the player is, so he presents him with choices acceptable to anyone. Would an evil character help him "check on the babies"?

 

Whatever.

 

 

Honestly, listening to Roy's plan I didn't get ANY vibe of it just being the idle talk of a persecuted ghoul who was willing to settle for a diplomatic solution.

Oh, yes. I'm sure you did read him perfectly the first time you spoke to him. Of course, there's no way to separate that from the wisdom conferred by hindsight, so such declarations aren't worth much. I knew the player was Revan before installing KotOR, too. True story!

 

 

The end of Fallout 1 was a rather similar twist, but it was infinitely better than this F3 quest. It would be like the Overseer telling you, at the very start of the game during the opening cutscene,

that once you left you would never be able to be come back and all you were working for would end up getting you sent away for good from your friends and family. Then you have a dialogue option that maybe if you are extra quick you can say. Overseer says he'll consider it and then the player is expected to be surprised when the Overseer kicks the player out even if they were extra quick.

And the only thing "wrong" with that is that it leaves the player feeling like he's been made a fool of and manipulated - part of the bitter aftertaste I spoke of earlier. It's an unfair comparison as well, since Tenpenny is just an inconsequential sidequest, and you are using the main quest of FO for your example.

 

It's an unexpected and very rare turn of events, and that's part of what makes it so good.

[Fallout 3 Spoilers]

1-Well, it seemed fairly obvious to me that Roy would have done it had the means been on his side of the gate.

As I said, it's immaterial, even if it were that obvious. If that were the rule to follow in court, prisons would be full of people who "had plans" to kill someone, as in, they stated once they would do it.

 

 

2-Its likely the only reason Burke was 'arrested' was because it was the player's word against his. If you immediately draw your weapon and blow Burke's head off after he makes his proposition you don't get in trouble and you get positive karma. Roy was ready for the invasion and it was just a matter of figuring out how to get the gate open (where the player comes in), just as Burke needed an outsider to get close to the bomb. I really don't see Roy as being massively different. The situations seem very similar to me.

Another design oversight, that with the player being allowed to shoot Burke in a crowded bar. Should a design fault dictate mechanics throughout the game?

 

And Roy is as "ready for the invasion" as he is ready to take over Raven Rock and the Citadel. He simply cannot do it without the player's help. If he could, he would have already.

 

The case is fundamentally different in that the sheriff doesn't go in guns blazing. He goes in and arrests some guy who could just walk up to the nuke and set it off, for all the sheriff knows. Roy cannot do the equivalent with Tenpenny's. You are just playing vigilante with the ghouls. That's okay, but you have to deal with the consequences.

 

 

3-First time I talked with Roy I actually did shoot him, but then I saw the negative karma and assumed there must be a 'better' way to handle the situation. Reloaded and tried the diplomatic approach which had an even worse outcome to wiping the ghouls out (despite the karma system telling me otherwise). Reloaded again and went with my original instinct: shoot em' in the head and live with the karma consequences. He might be slightly less of an obvious villain than Burke, but hardly by much.

Because the karma system doesn't deal with results. It deals with player actions. The link between those two is intentionally broken in this quest. Despite the player doing all in his power to make the wasteland a better place for everyone, sometimes it just doesn't work out.

 

 

Also, female characters CAN talk Burke out of blowing the town up by using the Black Widow perk.

So then, your real beef with the quest isn't that it's broken or that the karma thing isn't dead-on. It's simply that you don't have full control over the outcome, and that even reloading, metagaming, and otherwise cheating won't yield your desired outcome and leave you with that warm, fuzzy feeling. Yeah, that's such a shame.

[Fallout 3 Spoilers]

So far, the first quest that seems irrevocably illogical and broken.

It's neither illogical nor broken.

 

Either suck up the karma hit for being a vigilante, or accept that the best intentions need not yield the best results.

 

Or don't get involved at all.

[Fallout 3 Spoilers]

As for Roy being innocent at the point he asks for your help in his scheme, I disagree. If you were to transplant that situation to modern times, turn the player into an undercover cop, Roy into a mob boss and the crime into a 'hit' instead of unleashing ghouls on a tower I believe what he said would be enough for an arrest.

Good thing you are not a judge, then. Material evidence is needed for a conviction... otherwise, threats is the most they can charge anyone with. And Roy isn't a well known criminal with a past record of violent deeds, that the player knows of.

 

 

Being the wasteland and wasteland justice being what it is... Its similar to how Burke is 'arrested' when you run and squeal to the sheriff about him wanting to blow up Megaton.

Good example, only it doesn't work in your favor. The Sheriff clearly states that Burke's being arrested (not summarily executed, along with acquaintances), until things can be cleared up. Not only that, but Burke has a much better chance of setting off the bomb than Roy has of letting his ugly friends inside Tenpenny's.

 

 

Its not that I can't deal with a 'bad' ending... its that all the evidence was there for a negative ending and the ridiculousness of receiving negative karma for putting down the ghoul who was planning it was lame. Now, if Roy had hid his true intentions and simply made a case that life in the wasteland sucks and that they desperately needed shelter and asked for the player to talk to Tenpenny and work something out and he still ended up killing the inhabitants, THAT would be an ironic outcome to the quest. As it is, Roy comes off immediately as a psycho. I didn't feel Roy deserved to move in to the tower, but I felt sorry for his two followers and bothered to convince the tower inhabitants of letting the ghouls stay.

No, that doesn't work either, because Roy is willing to let the player try and convince the residents of the tower to let him and his friends move in peacefully. His "plans" can also be very easily construed as being simply the result of his frustration at being treated as less than human. He does let on a few hints, but he isn't a dead-on bad guy at first, he even admits he may be prejudiced himself. I'm not arguing he isn't a psycho, but he does a good work at hiding it. If he was so obviously the devil incarnate, why didn't you shoot him on sight, instead of trying to solve the matter peacefully?

 

It's quite plain that the player is meant to be deceived by Roy in this matter. As usual, hindsigh + reload give the player the godlike ability to go back in time and see through his deception with uncanny clarity. Bah.

[Personal reactor in five years]

I don't know how to react to this. On the one hand, it is a great thing, enabling cheap reliable distributed power and providing a stable power source for remote communities. Yet, I cannot help but think about the huge proliferation issues this may lead to in the long term. It will make access to radiological materials easier, particularly in countries with little-to no security capabilities that might want this most in the first place. It will also probably spread nuclear technology. Once a country buys a reactor, it will want to develop the capability to refuel it itself (and some to build it themselves in the first place) and will thus have an excuse for building enrichment facilities. I don't see this as a rosy development in the area of nuclear proliferation.

 

We will also see how nuclear waste disposal will occur. If sell such a supposedly hassle-free reactor is sold to say the Central African Republic, I have strong doubts that nuclear-waste disposal is going to be dealt with responsibly...

Since it's a private endeavor, it's reasonable to assume that they will offer an integral service, complete with refueling, eventual maintenance, and depleted fuel disposal. I don't think it'll be possible to have one of these in your backyard, anyhow, so the risks of people stealing the fuel for their own are probably pretty low. The technology is on license from the US govt, so I'm not too convinced that they'd allow these things to be set up on places deemed unsafe.

 

The disposal thing is a valid and very real concern, though.

 

 

Gee, free nuclear fireballs in my backyard and cancer! Thanks, whoever came up with this brilliant plan!

/facepalm

[Fallout 3 Spoilers]

You could make that same argument for every single villain in the game. Why do I get positive karma for killing Tenpenny? Maybe it would have been possible to talk to him and convince him of the error of his ways. I guess you shouldn't receive positive karma for killing anyone because there MIGHT have been an alternate solution.

 

Roy had a horrendous fate planned for every single person in Tenpenny Towers, devoured alive by feral ghouls. Its quite possible there may have even been children in Tenpenny Towers that would be eaten alive as well (which Bethesda conveniently removed from the tower to make slaughtering the tower inhabitants less morally reprehensible). Its nothing more than ridiculous butchering of the karma system to pass out negative karma for killing Roy but positive karma for killing Tenpenny.

Yep, killing Tenpenny for no good reason and not getting bad karma (further, you get a finger!) is a design mistake. But you can't extend that argument any further, really. And Roy's plan is completely ludicrous and unfeasible without inside help which, other than the player, he has a fat chance of securing. And, of course, you have the advantage of hindsight - after the player helps the ghoulies move in, it does look like Roy's darker nature won't get the best of him after all. So yeah, he's an evil bastard. But yeah, he's also quite innocent at that point in the game, which justifies the bad karma for killing him. I'm not saying that killing him may not be the best thing to do. What I'm arguing is that it's neither the right thing to do, nor justifiable from a "good" character roleplaying standpoint, since there are other venues open. The fact that he has planned the demise of the people in the tower is immaterial, and using those plans as an excuse to kill him is not justice, it's murder. Killing a would-be murderer is still murder. You are basing your decision on and justifying it with hindsight, which is metagaming, and as such, not a factor the devs considered when designing the choices available to the player.

 

Why can't you people deal with the fact that not everything is supposed to have a happy ending, regardless of the player's efforts? The quest is meant to leave a bitter aftertaste for those playing a good character. There's this constant whining asking for more adult themes and games less sanitized for kids, and when a game presents a few dark moments in this vein, a reaction like this isn't uncommon. A somber, depressing post-apocalyptic setting, in which everyone ends up living in the house of chocolate at the end of Gingerbread Lane? Um, okay.

 

 

In that case, I agree. If the cannibals were hiding their activities and the PC had no reason to know what was going on, then bad karma for murder. If the PC knows what's going on, then good Karma for getting rid of a murderous bunch.

This is the way it goes for most of the game, and it's the way it goes with Roy. Tenpenny seems to be the exception for some reason, giving you good karma whenever you kill him for whatever reasons. I'm inclined to believe it's a design oversight or a bug.

[Fallout 3 Spoilers]

Yeah, I guess the player should be rewarded for shooting up random people which he cannot convince to see his way, or when he cannot think of a solution to a problem that doesn't involve some good ol' fashioned slaughter. I mean, preemptive justice, all the way!

[Pictures of your games]

PrtScr works for one-time screenies, but as you need to alt+tab and paste to Paint or somesuch, it's not suited if you want to take a few.

 

For all your capturing needs: http://www.fraps.com/

[Fallout 3]

That's one of the most common complaints. I find it to be generally user-unfriendly too, but to be fair, I suspect the huge amount of different stuff you can grab to be the real culprit. If it's not nailed to the floor, chances are you can put it in your pack...

 

The idea to have the Pipboy operate as the UI central hub is cool in concept, but doesn't work too well in practice.

[Fallout 3]

FO3 fanboys unite: http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=176

That's pretty even-handed. I didn't expect such from a 'Codex review. OMG, I'm blinded by prejudice!

[Which Fallout was the greatest?]

Yeah, that can happen if there are hostiles outside. If you have a savegame before the NPC ran away, you can use the console to bring it back:

 

Load the save where the NPC is still where it should be (or elsewhere, but you can still see it), and open the console. Click on the NPC, and on the top of the screen you should get a code beside the NPC's name. That's its ID.

 

Now, in your current game, go back to the NPC's default location... or not. Open the console and input:

 

prid <ID>

 

moveto player

 

Of course, that won't prevent the NPC from running away again...

[Does this sound right to you?]

ROFL

 

I'm spanish and didn't realize about "nova"... that's a great name for a car, alright!

[Does this sound right to you?]

Um, what's wrong with 'Mitsubishi Pajero' or 'Ford Nova'?

Don't know about "Ford Nova", but "pajero" means "wanker" in Spanish.

 

And let's not forget the totally sweet and awesome Mazda Laputa!

[Fallout 3 Spoilers]

Yeah, that would have worked too. But that way, the player would never get the satisfaction of blowing the lying, cheating, murderous maggot farm to pieces!

 

You are probably right about the game not acknowledging the latest developments - Three Dog keeps barking about how the ghouls killed everyone in the tower, but no mention of Roy's death, or the fact that the tower is empty now... but as I said, I think the quest is kinda broken in my game.

 

It may just be me, but I love this kind of twisted resolutions in games. That's why, unlike most people I know, the Prince ending of Bloodlines blew me away. Ahem.