Fallout 3 Spoilers

[Slowtrain]

Harold as a tree seemed more like somethng out of the Shivering Isles, rather than a Fallout game.

 

I didn't dislike it exactly, but it seemed somewhat out of place.

 

I liked they brought Harold back, but surely they could have come up with something a bit more interesting or even more relevant to the gameworld? He is kind of an iconic character in terms of the Fallout world.

[jero cvmi]

Harold as a tree seemed more like somethng out of the Shivering Isles, rather than a Fallout game.

 

I didn't dislike it exactly, but it seemed somewhat out of place.

 

I liked they brought Harold back, but surely they could have come up with something a bit more interesting or even more relevant to the gameworld? He is kind of an iconic character in terms of the Fallout world.

 

Harold being made a talking tree that's worshipped by elven druids tree lovers was a shock to me.

I stopped playing at that point.

[Slowtrain]

I stopped playing at that point.

 

 

I just quietly left the place and never went back. Just pretended I never happened upon it in the first place.

[Promethean]

The whole encounter could have been interesting. Instead its was stupidly written character assassination.

 

I facepalmed big time

[Tel Prydain]

Dear sir, I do believe that you are speaking to us out of thine posterior, at least in regards to the quest complexity. While I do agree, dear sir, that Fo3's quest assigments are a superb improvement on Oblivion, their complexity is not, in the slightest, on the level of Fallout 1.

 

The following post has originated on NMA, in response to a claim that Fo1's quest were more primitive than those of Fallout 3.

Yeah. A few things.

 

A) I never said they were on par with Fallout 1. I only said that they were one reason that people like FO3 over Oblivion

B) The list only covers the main quests, not the 'ad-hoc' quests like the cannibalistic families.

C) That list is deliberately misleading in many cases. For example, it describes

Edited April 29, 2009 by Tel Prydain

[Tigranes]

...I also know that when said big explosion happens, the game abruptly ends and you cannot go back to do any quests you may have missed. Hence the warning, because if you haven't played the main plot before, you might end up doing quests which lead to this supprising big bang before you are ready...

 

CrashGirl: This is aaaaaaages ago, but I was saying that I thought if you stop after the big explosion then you can avoid the endgame. I didn't realise that is too late though? I suppose Vault 112 really is the point of no return?

 

I had in fact become bored of the game after about 25 hours; I had found about 100 locations and I could tell that though there was a lot left to the world, ti was going to be exactly the same. Additionally, from ~level 12 (despite mods to nerf VATS and SPECIAL and bobbleheads) combat broke and you became a God in true Elder Scrolls tradition, so I wasn't having as much fun. So I decided to check the key areas I really wanted to see before I finished, which included Harold-land, those satellite dishes and the Republic of Dave.

 

Harold basically epitomised the limitations of Bethesda storytelling / quest design for me. There is an element of choice, there are clearly branching storylines and 'consequences', but it always is let down by (a) the fact that stories don't make sense on close inspection, (b) everything is so fast, so speeded up, and the dialogue pretty much screams the conclusions at you, so that you feel like you're playing a speeded up version of an RPG; © the dialogue quality is poor. Even if Harold becoming the 'Tree-God' thing is really really silly, there were silly cults before in FO and for me, even if it doensn't fit the setting, it could have been a very sad, emotional dialogue with Harold, or those wastelanders who are out there clinging to this weird ritual. Instead it's just... 'what the hell'.

[HoonDing]

Having not played the original Fallouts and hence not knowing who Harold was, the entire 'Oasis' quest in FO3 reminded me a lot of the chapter in Lord of the Rings where you meet that strange fellow Tom Bombadil - something that almost brusquely breaks the pace in the adventure and is kind of out of place. But even then, Tom Bombadil did offer some insights about the big picture, this Harold didn't really do anything... seems to me it was just a quirky easter egg that Oblivion puts in all their games (for instance, the corpse of Indiana Jones in Morrowind, Luke Skywalker in Bloodmoon, etc).

[~Di]

...I also know that when said big explosion happens, the game abruptly ends and you cannot go back to do any quests you may have missed. Hence the warning, because if you haven't played the main plot before, you might end up doing quests which lead to this supprising big bang before you are ready...

 

CrashGirl: This is aaaaaaages ago, but I was saying that I thought if you stop after the big explosion then you can avoid the endgame. I didn't realise that is too late though? I suppose Vault 112 really is the point of no return?

 

This was my post, not CrashGirl's, so I'll respond:

 

You can continue on after Vault 112 (except then you have to contend with everything the Enclave can throw at you, which are power-armored baddies everywhere, ground and air) and go on exploring the wastelands. However, as soon as you begin the final main story quest (which begins after V112), you're pretty much stuck and the big bang at the end of that is indeed the end of the game. I didn't know that on my first game, and found myself done before I'd explored even a small portion of what I'd wanted to explore. Hence, my warning to CrashGirl.

[Tigranes]

Ah. That's odd - when I had finished the game, I went back to save outside the BOS Citadel, after Raven Rock; i.e. just before you talk to people and Liberty Prime starts its steamrollin'. Then I went exploring to the satellite dishes and so forth, and looked okay. I didn't erally go to the cities again though, so who knows. Probably safer to stop before 112 as you say.

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

I prefer exploring after Raven Rock, if only because of the Enclave showing up once in a while.

[CoM_Solaufein]

The good thing about being far ahead in the main quest is the Enclave and shooting down their helicopters as they fly overhead.