Fallout 3

[Tigranes]

Don't you? Haven't noticed yet, either way. The system is mostly fine, its just the writer being a bit lazy or pedestrian occasionally. Nothing terrible, at least, not after Bioware dialogue.

[Pop]

I haven't run into any instances in which two different things you can say illicit the same reply. The trees are very basic, but at least they make sense.

[Spider]

I mean, in which way is F3 a groundbreaking RPG?

 

It's groundbreaking, in a way, because it's the first (that I've seen) succesful marriage of two schools of RPGs. It offers the exploration and freedom of games like Oblivion and Gothic, while also having dialogue and choice & consequence like Baldur's Gate and the like.

 

It doesn't necessary excel in either department (as in there are games specialized in either that does it better), but the combination makes it stand out a bit.

[Monte Carlo]

Actually, I'm finding the game quite hard.

 

Don't get me wrong, I like it, but the scarcity of ammo and resources (although probably agreeably hardcore for many) is getting tiresome. Also, the lockpicking mini-game? What is that all about? Personally, I'm waiting for Fallout 3: Tactics. I've stopped playing until a decent patch comes out, the instability is a pain.

 

In the final analysis, though, I just can't enjoy first-person perspective games as much as ones with a 'top down' view.

 

Cheers

MC

[Rostere]

Actually, Rostere, in a mere 10 hours you cannot have even scratched the surface, let alone completed any of the dozens of major quests that do indeed have big consequences in the wasteland. Heck, 3-Dog on the radio brags like a proud papa everytime you help someone in need. I found exploring quite rewarding, in that I found lots of bobbleheads, met lots of people, many of whom had lots of caps and needed my help, saved a few towns, emptied a few more... I spent over 100 hours on my first game, and still hadn't found everything. Boring? OMG... you may not like games that offer exploration and freedom, but boring is not the term I'd ever use for this game.

 

Ok, I checked and I've actually played for 13h and 49mins. The thing with F3 is that there's a lot of small details that are well designed, but when it's all seen as a whole it's kind of a letdown. For example, take the Blade Runner- inspired side quest. It was a great idea from Bethesda but when I finished it I was left with a sense of dissatisfaction. It's like if they took part of the story from Blade Runner, but deliberately avoided trying to make any of the points the movie made. It's the same thing they've done with the Fallout setting. It's duplicated nicely (except for the music, ouch) but it's not really used to any great extent.

 

Dialogue is minimal except for a few NPCs, of which a few actually have a personality, but the blandness and lack of interaction here leaves something out that I think is essential for a RPG, at least one that I am supposed to like. For example, NPCs you meet through exploration. I feel it takes from the joy of exploring when you meet a talking super mutant and all you get is something like one greeting phrase. Regardless of how many of these NPCs there are, they add up to nothing in my eyes if they don't involve they player in the game world more. Meeting a friendly super mutant should shatter the player's predjudices of what a super mutant is and question the reflexive antipathy towards "game monsters", it's a great opportunity to invoke different feelings, like pity or disgust. But this is hardly even exploited at all.

 

In short, the game lacks personality too much, which ironically is just what I thought about Oblivion.

[Aristes]

Yeah, I loved the game, but I can see where it's not everybody's cup of tea. I'm pretty forgiving of some of your complaints because I'm used to many many games in the industry with the same problem. Dialogue is a good example. However, that doesn't mean that the dialogue didn't have some glaring problems from time to time, especially depending on the person talking. Tigranes talkes about wild changes in tone? Jericho drove me nuts. He's going to kill you one second and he's your bosom buddy the next for some silly reason?

 

On the whole, I think FO3 is a great game, but that doesn't mean I'm blinded to its faults.

[J.E. Sawyer]

Jericho sassed me so I broke into his house and stabbed him to death in his sleep. Problem solved.

[I want teh kotor 3]

Its the only thing I can see pulling me away from PoP in the near future.

[Aristes]

Jericho sassed me so I broke into his house and stabbed him to death in his sleep. Problem solved.

 

Sometimes you scare me. Somewhat along the lines of Walsingham, who is completely crazy. I especially liked your "Fallout 3 for diners" perk list.

[I want teh kotor 3]

Jericho sassed me so I broke into his house and stabbed him to death in his sleep. Problem solved.

 

The sheriff from Megaton pissed me off, so I blew up the nuke.

[CoM_Solaufein]

Jericho sassed me so I broke into his house and stabbed him to death in his sleep. Problem solved.

I thought of doing that but my karma would probably go down. I don't like those filthy wastelanders giving me any lip.

[Tigranes]

Don't get me wrong, I like it, but the scarcity of ammo and resources (although probably agreeably hardcore for many) is getting tiresome. Also, the lockpicking mini-game? What is that all about?

 

I enjoy the scarcity of ammo, weapons are so easy to come by in FO3 that if you had ample ammo for all of them it would quickly devolve into a monty haul. the Lockpick game still doesn't make sense to me, though. But I like how they stop you from even trying on harder locks without the skill %.

 

Karma is nonsense btw. Couldn't believe it when I stole a single stimpak completely undetected and my Karma went down. HELM SEES ALL. KNOW THIS AND BE JUDGED!

[CoM_Solaufein]

Karma is stupid at times. A traveling merchant was dead so I raided his brahmin for the items it had on it. I get negative karma for it and the merchant is dead.

[Starwars]

I think there is a bit of a tradeoff in the ammo scarcity. I played on the difficulty above Normal (I think there is Hard and Very Hard if I remember correctly?) and I had ginormous amounts of ammo. Just after leaving the Vault you can have, well... a lot of 10mm ammo and it's just not very difficult to get more after that.

I think upping the difficulty to the final step would've changed that, but at the same time it just gets silly when enemies HPs are raised up as a means of difficulty and it's just awkward in how the game plays. I thought the final difficulty in NWN2 has that problem as well (the one above Hardcore rules).

 

Anyways, after playing through the game about 1 and a half times, I have no desire to return to it. While it's a far better game than Oblivion, my enjoyment level played out on a similar curve meaning that I really found the open exploration sort of blinding the first time around, and it's just to explore. But once you've seen it, my interest in the game quickly faded. Like I said, Fallout 3 is a definete improvement on Oblivion, but I still find it waaaay to broad instead of having a lot of depth. I know many would disagree, but I really feel that Beth could've done much better if they had done exploration more akin to the older games, and *really* focused on a few locations instead. Because there are locations in Fallout 3 that are genuinely good and show a lot of promise, but it still feels like it's spread to thin if you ask me.

 

So yep, in the end the game landed in the middle for me. Not nearly as bad as I had feared, but also not nearly as great as I had hoped. I might give it another shot once the construction kit have been released and modders have really gone to work on it.

[~Di]

Ok, I checked and I've actually played for 13h and 49mins.

 

Aw hell, that makes all the difference!

 

The thing with F3 is that there's a lot of small details that are well designed, but when it's all seen as a whole it's kind of a letdown. For example, take the Blade Runner- inspired side quest. It was a great idea from Bethesda but when I finished it I was left with a sense of dissatisfaction. It's like if they took part of the story from Blade Runner, but deliberately avoided trying to make any of the points the movie made. It's the same thing they've done with the Fallout setting. It's duplicated nicely (except for the music, ouch) but it's not really used to any great extent.

 

I'm not a Blade Runner fan, so I honestly don't know which quest you're referring to. What's wrong with the music? I mean, it certainly isn't IWD memorable, but then again I have 3-Dog on most of the time so I can't even remember what the other F3 music sounds like. I just wondered why you didn't like it.

 

Dialogue is minimal except for a few NPCs, of which a few actually have a personality, but the blandness and lack of interaction here leaves something out that I think is essential for a RPG, at least one that I am supposed to like. For example, NPCs you meet through exploration. I feel it takes from the joy of exploring when you meet a talking super mutant and all you get is something like one greeting phrase. Regardless of how many of these NPCs there are, they add up to nothing in my eyes if they don't involve they player in the game world more. Meeting a friendly super mutant should shatter the player's predjudices of what a super mutant is and question the reflexive antipathy towards "game monsters", it's a great opportunity to invoke different feelings, like pity or disgust. But this is hardly even exploited at all.

 

Wow, you found Fawlks in less than 14 hours? I didn't realize that was possible. I never got him until I was about 90 hours in, and ready for end-game. Then again, after my first game I realized that I needed to stop at a certain point in the main quest, lest I end up spending the rest of my low-level exploration fighting

Enclave soldiers and vertibirds

... which were too much for me until I'd leveled up quite a bit. IIRC my character was quite impressed by Fawlks, and through considerable conversation learned a heck of a lot about how the tragedy of super mutants.

 

NPC personality was pathetic, in my view. They just got in my way, gave away my position, had nothing helpful to say and bored me senseless. I never bothered with them after

Dogmeat growled his way down the hall and around the corner, dragging a half-dozen mutants to where I was happily... and safely... looting skill books.

I agree with you on this. Biggest disappointment was the lack of colorful sidekicks... but Bethesda is not known for colorful sidekicks. Bethesda is known for a lone-wanderer on a journey kind of game, so 'twas to be expected.

 

The game did spend a GREAT deal of time discussing the societal issues of prejudice... of ghouls. Several quests dealt with that specifically... the "ghouls are people too" thing... including one that to this day makes me so mad I wanna spit nails because the "best" option ended up in wholesale slaughter. Most hard-core RPGers like choices with unforeseen consequence, but that one just ticked me off.

 

Parts of the main quest were quite emotional for me. I know, I'm a softie. But damn....

 

In short, the game lacks personality too much, which ironically is just what I thought about Oblivion.

 

We differ, obviously. I thought Oblivion had a ton of flaws, and hated the main quest, but I do enjoy games that give me freedom to explore and progress at my own rate. What I thought Fallout 3 delivered was a true Fallout atmosphere in a massive gameworld that for me at least was addicting and awesome! To me, that was the game's personality.

Edited December 8, 2008 by ~Di

[Hell Kitty]

The editor is out now. I dunno about you jerks, but I'm hanging out for a mod that has Moira offering a large selection of lingerie.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

The editor is out now.

 

I think that I'll re-install the game now...

[Tigranes]

I'm hanging out for a mod that has Moira offering a large selection of lingerie.

 

Just check the Top 10 downloaded mods in a month and voila.

 

All spoilers below are not spoilers for anyone who's ever read a single preview or watched a vid, but I'll mark thema nyway.

 

I've been way too busy to play as much as I'd like, since I like nice long stretches for these kind of games, but I think I'm nearing the ten-hour mark. I still haven't even run into Dogmeat, but I did go around pretty weird. Still haven't done the

Megaton bomb or gone to Tenpenny

, and still confusedly Metro'ing around trying to get to

Three Dawg

. Not even level 5 either, thanks to the NMA compendium mod slowing things down (too much, in my opinion - I'm all for making things harder, but it breaks the balance with skill levels so that you can't do anything).

 

I'll probably post a comprehensive look-back after I finish the game, in relation to all the hoopla before release.

 

Oh, all that pre-release fuss about

the Family

? Wasn't as bad as I feared, but they really blew the opportunity to make it good with

Vance

. Like, they actually came halfway to providing a plausible scenario and reasoning, as well as a moral dilemma, but the dialogue was so vague, unpolished, rough, incompetent - in fact, a lot of Bethesda's dialogue reads like they had to write a 50-word version of a 300-word script in fifteen seconds while short on sleep. Real pity, because develop it better and they had a very novel and special situation in their hands. Specifically,

detailed explanation about how these folks came to be cannibalistic - e.g. maybe one guy's background could have been that he had nothing left to eat and had to eat his brother/sister's dead body at one point, or maybe others came from regions where it's acceptable/normal now, due to food shortage. If Vance himself had a background, too, explaining what hsi motivation was for bringing them all together and what the reasoning was behind his 'tenets'. Instead, none of these guys have proper backgrounds, depth or characterisation, it's all half-arsed and it's as if they only exist to give you those 'tenet' lines. Guh.

 

[Rosbjerg]

I gave my copy to a friend, I got to level 15 and explored like 20% of the map or something - but it was really a struggle for me to get that far. I've never been a fan at openworld vs depth so I guess I should've expected to be dissapointed.

 

My biggest grief is really that Fallout 3 constantly reminds me how much I need immersion to enjoy a game, if I loose it too often I get extremely bored.. The story was actually ok, but it was delivered in such a way that I felt no connection to it at all.

[Tigranes]

Tonight's session:

 

A giant

ant queen

boss?!

 

What the hell was that?!

[karka]

I hope somebody make a minimap mod.

[CoM_Solaufein]

Just downloaded the editor. I am going to see how easy it is to use.

[Tigranes]

Tagged bits are mild spoilers, as usual, nothing big.

 

20 hours in and haven't lost interest yet. I think I've explored 2/3 of the map, leaving out the northwestern quadrant and some pockets, but there're probably areas I've missed. I just hate exploring in D.C. now because of all the metros, blockage and super mutants on crack.

 

Level 10 with a good cashflow and good weapons going, and combat is still decent (after KOTOR, nothing is a borefest), but I'm really really sick of Super Mutants now. Unlike most other things you can't snipe at them from a distance, so all you can do is set up mines, wait for them to run in (Radiant AI being so smart), then VATS-shotgun them to the face. If you miss, you die. It's a lot more fun when Raiders in buildings move around... the sniper

camped outside the Arlington Library, I believe

was great because of all the traps and such. Lobbing pulse grenades all over the place inside the

National Archives

was nice too.

 

Dialogue and quest design is still fairly good without being polished or tyte. I am amused at how one of the most fleshed out, well delivered and well VA'd quests so far (the

Android one

) is also cliche enough to make Hollywood vomit. Just like with the Family, there was scope for some interesting explorations, but it was never taken up.

 

Many of the towns are a joke, as tiny as they are (

Canterbury Commons, Arefu and Republic of Dave

), which really contributes to how unrealistic the world is. I mean, completely separate from how it relates to FO1 or 2, the world just so does not make sense, and it screams that at your face as you play. What the hell are about six people doing living in the middle of nowhere with two brahmin, and why are they telling me "they have plenty of water and food" here? Why would three families live in the middle of a freaking

broken bypass

? Would it have killed to have some farms outside Rivet City, and maybe a quest where raiders attack the farm and the city has to decide whether to protect or to cut their losses and

withdraw the bridge

? What about a 'second village' for Tenpenny full of 'second-class' citizens who farm for the main residents?

 

Fun game, good game, but also lots of missed opportunities and Bethesda just can't shed its own skin. Or maybe, doesn't want to. Which isn't all bad.

 

I usually finish games I get this far in, even if I hate them (Lionheart must be the only one I quit mid-way), so I'll probably see it all. Just going to abuse stealth boys and skip the Unlimited Mutant Supply.

[J.E. Sawyer]

Level 10 with a good cashflow and good weapons going, and combat is still decent (after KOTOR, nothing is a borefest), but I'm really really sick of Super Mutants now. Unlike most other things you can't snipe at them from a distance,

Sneak + Reservist's Rifle/Victory Rifle = own zone on super mutants.

[Tigranes]

Haven't found either yet. I think I'm doig it weird, cause I haven't seen Dogmeat either.