Aristes

I don't think teachers are underpaid. Well... I think most folks who do a good job are worth more than they're paid, but that's a human condition and worth is such an ambiguous notion. However, I have a lot of respect for teachers and the teaching profession.

Sulik had tons of personality. Dogmeat? Come on, folks! I haven't felt compelled to take a single NPC with me in Fallout 3. I took Dogmeat and dropped him off at home. I've helped individuals for short period. Otherwise, Fallout 3 is a loner game for me. Fallout 1 and 2 could be also, but the joinable NPCs had great personality. Even that backshooting imbecile, Ian.

Yeah, sneak is overpowered. One shot kills a lot of the time. Plus, you can really use the environment to your advantage. It's not like WoW or something where the monster evades if you get to a place they can't reach. I've either sneak/sniped tons of baddies or hopped back and forth over small barriers shooting bad guys right and left.

My problem with the teachers union, particularly in California, is that it spends union money on non-education related issues. For example, prop 8 was not related to education. Please, for the love of God, please don't say something stupid about the proponents of prop 8 'lying' about California classrooms. Prop 8 had nothing to do with the classroom, pay, or fair treatment. Whether they 'lied' in their ads or not is irrelevant. The CTA is a political operation that pursues an agenda beyond protecting teachers. Otherwise, unions are a part of life. I don't really like to rail against them. They have become unpopular with the American public, and the reason for their unpopularity cannot be universally attributed to conservative campaigning. A lot of folks see them as corrupt and associated with organized crime, although how much of this is true today I don't know. I don't necessarily know if unions are bad or good. That's not really my call.

I think that was Reagan, bro, not Nixon.

It looked like a joke to me, but I found it oddly compelling. If it's FFO, then that's one MMORPG I'll avoid.

Then explain to me why teachers are payed a pittance when the "most valuable resource in the world" is in their hands? ...And yet every teacher I know is in a Union, which completes the full circle of this argument.

At one point, I think some of the folks at BIS were talking about having Fallout games set in various parts of the world. I think different animals would almost certainly have come into play. Bethesda, in a lot of ways, really seemed to go too far to accomodate familiarity. Radscorpions, ghouls, Molerats? These things were staples in Fallout 1/2 and I think they just wanted to play it conservative by providing the things most recognizable to the fans. The Yao Whatzits seem to be the exception, although there might be more that have escaped my mind. Of all the old school stuff, Bethesda did the best job with Deathclaws, providing at least two areas with a lot of exposure. Deathclaws can be a real bitch in pairs, but they aren't so bad one on one. Having to make sure you don't draw multiples of them can make for intense gameplay. Frankly, I think the Deathclaws are tougher opponents than the end game foes on the main story path.

Yeah, I guess I was being antagonistic. I don't know what it is. This discussion seems to bring out the bad boy in me. Ah, hell, I don't want any more bad blood over it. I tell you what though, you can help my karma by antagonizing me and I won't respond. Next time, it's my turn. Seriously, I honestly think they pretty much had to have radscorpions because it's one of the things Fallout must have. I hate them because there's not a lot of profit in killing them. Although I guess you could make a factory for those darts. *shrug*

That actually might make a little sense. I don't think the game is pathetically easy on the hardest settings like a lot of folks claim. I think there are things that can make it super easy, but some of them entail gameplay I don't like. For example, I can get a lot of one shot kills with super high sneak and sneak crits. *shrug* I liked the game on middle and I like it on very hard.

You were misleading because scorpions are only in 3/5 of the US. How dare you. Furthermore, Bethesda didn't conduct any radscorpion research. They're just lucky that scorpions exist in Maryland. otherwise, they'd have SOOOO much egg on their face. hahaha Seriously, though, even if scorpions only existed in the western US, Bethesda would have felt compelled to put them in the game. The numbers of folks who attack the game based on the "lack of realism" associated with east coast radscorpions is probabably pretty small when compared with the folks who would complain because they were lacking in Fallout 3.

Yeah, I got a special chinese fire pistol or some such, but I sold it.

If we're going by realism, then Fallout 1 and 2 were completely unrealistic also. Something that struck me in Fallout 3, however, is that the brotherhood of steel were such slobs. I'm telling you, the first thing any military operation is going to after they've secured their base of operations is get some of the grunts on cleanup duty. Rivet City is another example. Once it became a permanent residence, they'd clean the damned place. Sure, some folks would have filthy rooms, but the hallways and common areas would be clean of debris. I think Fallout 2 did this best, where the Republic of California was pretty much spotless. I think Fallout 3 bought into the "junktown" idea and forgot about how sterile some of the areas in the earlier games felt. Plus, if we're totally honest, if humans survived to the extent they did in the Fallout gameworld, then society would have moved a lot further towards cohesion. No biggie. It's fun to make these points, kind of like nitpicking a movie, but these picayune details, like radscorpions and clean military barracks, really don't detract very much from my experience.

I'm playing Fallout 3 on a second run. I also have it cranked to the hardest setting. Great stuff. I'm also playing Wrath of the Litch King. The wife refused to switch to LotRO, which means my poor character there languishes.

You're just evil, Hurlshot, you rat bastard. Hey, sleeping around while liquored up is great. Just make sure you don't wake up in jail with some prostitute's underwear in your pocket and needle tracks in your arms. It might get you over your ailing heart, but only because you'll end up married to bubba. And, at 6'4" and 300lbs, you'll be bubba's bitch, not the other way around.

The point I was making about sales, and I took Hurlshot to mean the same thing, isn't that numbers equate to quality. As Walsingham and Gromnir say, quality is in the eye of the beholder. The point is that commercial success has made Fallout 3 the continuation of the series. Like Amentep says, Fallout 1/2 and Fallout 3 might not be the same game, but both might have good sales and critical acclaim. However, sometimes the later version dwarfs the original, either in sales or acclaim, and becomes the flagship. I enjoyed the original Fallouts more than Fallout 3. ...But I think Fallout 3 will increasingly become the Fallout franchise. Don't come after me with flaming brands and pitchforks for saying that. I don't contend that it should, and I didn't make it happen, but I think it's the case. The worst you can say about me is that I'm enjoying Fallout 3 a lot and that I'm glad that it's continuing the series because I don't think it would have continued otherwise. It might seem like a grave injustice to some of you, but sheer numbers have finally broken the back of what has been an incredibly vocal and active fanbase. There will always be some who rail against this turn of events, but I don't think developers really need to take the ol' skool fans as much to heart going forward.

You truly frighten me, Walsingham. Honest to goodness, I think you're quite mad. No one post, but all of them. I'm listening to the sounds of birds chirping. Time for bed.

Would the me of today love PST as much as my younger self did? I dunno. I do know that it's still my favorite computer game. I played the game multiple times. Then I hacked my stats to max to ensure I could get all the dialogue options. Then I downloaded an editor to go through the dialogue and game info to ensure I didn't miss anything. I don't care what I would think of it if I played it for the first time today. I'll never forget playing it for the first time then. Great stuff. No savior of the universe for me. I just want to find out who I am.

I've gone to the Vault Tec building again and, once again, I'm surprised that there really isn't that much there. I mean, I downloaded the locations and access codes for the vaults, which is good enough, I guess. I really did love clearing the place though. Some funky stuff with the robots. Even after you disable them, you can still kill them for xp if you really want. I mean, you're already level 20 way before the game ends anyhow. I love the outside area, and I even like the subways "dungeons," but I really hate slogging through the muties in the city. Damned greenskins. What the hell? Can't walk two steps without finding one and, no matter what anyone says, you have to waste a lot of ammo on them at very hard. Well... unless you sneak attack crit them. heh heh heh

If you have a good reason to skip the next volleyball season, I'd do so. Just keep in mind that taking off the next season and NOT filling the time is going to mean more time to mull. I've had this problem exactly ONE time. ~DR is pretty much right. Just let time do its thing. Even now, a few years out, my heart still stops when I think about her. ...And there was absolutely no future for us. I guess it didn't help that I'm married, which put a big damper on our friendship. I mean, nothing like having a terrible problem that you can't discuss with your wife. I'll tell you, it's absolutely grueling, but you will get past it. It's as simple as that. Keep on living, and you'll recover. However, I will say one thing. I've been lurking here for a bit. That doesn't really mean I know anything, but I have heard about what's going on. As a good friend, you should want her to have a successful marriage. You should want her to patch things up and be happy. However, you can't help it if you want her to be free, so don't feel guilty. If her relationship with her spouse has deteriorated to the point that she harbors romantic feelings for someone else (you), then she has two options. Find out what's wrong and do something to save her marriage or, if it cannot be saved, get out of it. If she ends up leaving her husband, then maybe that will be a sign for you to pursue (slowly or quickly) a relationship. Just don't let these feelings between you be the reason you lose a good friend. Even if it hurts a bit to be around her, a true friend is hard to come by. ...And, no matter what, you never know what the future will bring. Don't burn any bridges. In the meantime, keep talking about games and giving people hell. It's especially good if you're having a hard time sleeping at a quarter to five in the morning.

Okay, I have to admit that I was seriously busting a gut over all this, but I did want to end with a more or less friendly note. I understand a lot of folks don't like that the old Fallout franchise has gone to Bethesda. If you hate it in principle there's very little to discuss. I'm wracking my brains, and the best I can come up with is how much nerd rage I personally had over Might and Magic IX. I thought, and I still think, it was the ruination of the series. I guess I am a true hypocrite in that I did post a couple of unkind words about it in the forum of the time. Not for long, but I did have a rant or two. The point is, Fallout is what it is. The game has been extremely successful, as I understand it. If that's the case, then Fallout 3 is Fallout. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Fallout 3 has been more commercially successful than Fallout 1 or 2. Perhaps more than 1 and 2. If that's the case, then the battle is over. Nothing argues like success. When the objective is making money, sales are king, whether you think folks are foolish for buying. So, for some of you, Fallout is dead. Fair enough. However, there are still good games on the horizon. There must be something out there that you can enjoy. ...And, all kidding aside, if the biggest problem is that you hate the fact that it's billed as a sequel, don't think of it as one. Think of it as "Fallout: DC Wasteland." Seriously, enjoy what you can enjoy in the game and don't fixate on something that you hate. Finally, I'm genuinely sorry. I have been a jerk about all this. I was laughing about it way too hard and I don't think that was good of me at all. I should have started with this post and then maybe the last two pages wouldn't have been deleted. EDIT: Damn, and the chief moderate beat me by a minute.

Ah, not a bad choice. I'll have to buy White Rabbit and listen to it as well. In fact, I am!

Haha I've got to stop somewhere along the line. I've been a bad boy. Anyhow, haven't played the game, so feel free to ignore this post.

I don't care whether folks on this board like the game or not. I do hope the game is successful because I want another Fallout game along the lines of Fallout 3. I guess I'm one of the ol' skool Fallout fans who loves the game. I can think of some things to improve, but that's been the case since 1 and 2 shipped. Some of these opinions really are from folks giving the game a fair shake. As far as Janmanden, I'm hoping folks don't have to be around here and posting for a long time before they can engage in discussion. Who cares how many posts he has or whether folks now him or not? The big thing about Janmanden is the whole over the top weeping and bemoaning the "loss of Fallout." Give me a break. "I have played this bastard child of Fallout and the bloodline is clearly broken. It's a fake. No wit or charm or attention to detail. No humor, atmosphere or depth. Nothing except cuddly, sweet and rude. Out of character, out of context, out of style. Completely shallow. No one to love or hate. To sum it up: it's everything I have seen and come to expect from Bethesda Softworks." I mean, I don't want to completely mock the statement above, but Good Lord, man! You're obviously alive. It's not like Bethesda stole your child (no, the 'true child of Fallout' doesn't count as your child.). It's not like they destroyed your home or killed you. If this isn't the game you want, go find another. If you really didn't like specific things about the game, just take them to Bethesda and suggest improvements. It really seems to me that most game designers respond to the fans if they make enough noise. Hell, sometimes too much if I judge by patches I've seen. You know, if it weren't for Bethesda, there might never have been a Fallout 3. You would rather they didn't design a game so many of us enjoy because you don't like the name? That's entirely selfish. Seriously, Fallout 3 takes nothing from you that you hadn't already lost. If you can't accept that, go to hell. Hmm, I wonder if the mods will edit that?

I stand by what I said earlier. It may be that the unsubstantiated story is true, but it's not like major news organizations haven't had to back off from stories they've already printed. ...And since Newsweek didn't print a named source and only gave rumors, they won't even need to print a retraction. It may be true, but we should wait for the audit. If this story is true, and the audit bears that out, I'll gladly admit to being wrong. That's the point. We should argue based on facts, and the newsweek article is not fact. It smells of the usual backbiting between staffs at the end of a failed campaign. As for Stevens, who the hell cares? He's a convicted fellon. If he had won, the Senate, both republicans and democrats, would probably have refused to seat him. Nuts. I know folks like to argue just to argue and whatnot, but Stevens is a criminal. Now, as far as his service to his state, yes, he's brought home a lot of bacon. The problem with earmarks isn't that they're universally bad. Even McCain didn't say that they had always been bad. What he said, and I agree with him on this, is that they are institutionally dangerous. The system is flawed at its most basic level by encouraging unethical behavior. In fact, since it's hard to tell the difference, even ethical behavior becomes suspicious. There are ways of ensuring federal funding at the state level without relying on earmarks and, frankly, the federal government should essentially confine itself to funding federal programs that begin and end at the federal level. Grants to the states should not be part and parcel of the federal system. That was the whole issue with federal mandates, often tied to federal funding, in the 1990s. Nice to see the damnably corrupt Republicans taking over from the damnably corrupt Democrats. Want to encourage faith in the government? Start acting in good faith.