Opinion on Fallout 3

[deadsanta]

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Originally Posted by Gauda Well, which game doesn't have boring moments? It's kind of weird to criticize a game for not being perfect.

I'm not criticizing it for not being perfect, that would be stupid of me wouldn't it? But you know that, which is why you try and paint me into that corner, rhetorically. Shame on you. When I said it was boring I gave specific reasons: 1) Quests make you fight through aeylid-ruin-like dungeon crawls and give you primarily ammo or caps (which you use to buy more ammo) and the same trash (literally), over and over. 2) No one to interact with. 3) No factions (Beyond the generic "good" and "evil").

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*mild spoilers* Most claims here are dead wrong. The very quest you mentioned does branch: you can do several things after you head to the town on the destroyed bridge (the name escapes me at the moment). You can steal, lie, kill or be the vigilant hero.

That's flat-out wrong, and the place is called Arefu. I'm glad you mention it, because it gets cited as one of *the* best side quest in this game, so let's look at it in more depth (some spoilers, but it's practically a starter-quest, not central to plot, no biggie):

You get sent there by a girl in your starting town (She just says "I have a problem" and you say "I'll help!"). You arrive and you have a choice of either a) Helping the settlers (All three of them in Arefu, because that's how few NPCs there are) b) Helping the "bad" guys c) Not doing anything but breaking into homes and looting their stuff to have more bullets to fire at random encounters. Note that option c) is the mental equivalent of turning the game off and watching TV. So you pick option a), because it seems the most fun and here's how that quest goes:

1. Help me? Cool, go look in those shacks and see if everyone is OK!

solution: Walk 10 paces, open 2 doors, note simultaneously that "everyone" is OK and that all three of them have nothing else to say to you now or every again. Open third door and see two corpses: not OK dude. Click on one to verify not-OK-ness, get a seeming CSI style forensic clue that you think will be important later in a whodunnit but will actually be nothing but one additional line of exposition. Go back and tell quest-giver that a couple folks aren't OK.

2. Find them and defeat them!

Solution: You are given three map coordinates nearby, you have merely to explore them to determine where the bad guys are and then deal with them. However since you have played this game a bit, you know they will be in the endless metro system of copy-paste doom, along a circuitous route of cunningly placed underground rubble. Skip the 2 random fight encounters at the other sites (or go for the ammo caches there, your choice) and proceed through the "maze" which willl never branch more than once a floor.

You find the bad guys, and in a predictable twist, they possibly aren't bad. So now you have your big "branch": Kill them or persuade them, which I argue is no branch at all, just a choice of 2 outcomes. You choose "persuade" and they go along like idiots with everything you say, a dialogue with one character that lasts maybe 3-4 lines. I should mention that there are 5 bad guys, but again, only the leader interacts with you, and does anything to advance the quest, so those 4 others are just there to establish his bona fides as "leader", and as window dressing.

There's a kid there you have been sent to find originally, by his sister in the starter town, and her letter will essentially "solve" the whole problem of this quest chain for you if you mention it in conversation, which is lazy writing in the extreme.

3. (or)Talk to bad guys.

So you have that conversation with the leader, and then the kid (who is 20 feet away), and that's it, quest over. You go back to Arefu and tell them they are safe, and get a reward. You will never get another quest to or from that place (I haven't, after 50 hours and 80 locations). The "bad guys" will give you a reward when you go back, but again: No followup, no quest. One of them reveals himself to be a vendor, and will trade with you now. Buy more ammo or watch TV?

The girl who sent you from your starter town to that one-quest joke? Oh yeah, she doesn't talk to you beyond "Nice Day!" after you do all that for her bro. And, goes without saying, no quest followups.

Lazy. Farking. Writing.

You say some other stuff like

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Almost every quest has follow-up jobs

Which is patently untrue, and I challenge you to back this up with examples (plural). Outside of the main plotline, almost nothing has a followup quest. In fact, one of the few people with a follow-up quest chain is the starter quest-giver Moira in Megaton, a town which 70% of gamers will blow up right off the bat.

some citations:

Sheriff: One quest, says "hey" to you forever afterwards.
Walter: One quest, after which he becomes a buyer of scrap metal, which I do not consider a "quest".
Girl who's brother has gone missing: Yeah, we covered that.
Leo Stahl: One "quest", which is to get him to stop using drugs, which you just do by talking to him once.
Leo Stahl's family: Will not reward you for fixing his addiction, or even acknowledge it has happened.
Maggie: Will tell you how to steal from her dad in a dialogue. Nothing else.

And it goes on and on...

That's just megaton, I could do the same in Rivet City, Canturbury Commons, etc... If it isn't on the main quest chain/plot line it gets no attention from these devs.

Compare that to an area called The Den in FO2, and here I'll just link to a walkthrough:

Fallout 2 Walkthrough

compare that to the quest chain I just described, where the area (a side-trip from the plot, mainly) has 11 quests, one of which offers you 10 ways to arrive at a viable resolution-- and you'll see that there is just no comparison in scripting, branches, skill checks, everything.

FO3 = FO Oblivion with a few more side quests and a bit more writing, which just nudges it into the elementary school-level of problem solving skillset.

[Foss]

The more I play F3 the more I like it.

In the beginning I wasen't sure if it would be another Oblivion with no real depth. But I really think they have done so much more out of the RPG elements compared to Oblivion.

I think they get alot out of the SPECIAL system and your skills when it comes to dialogue. Speech is used alot to try to convince people and there tends to be alot of dialogue options that relates to a stat or a skill. So if you haden't gotten enough of that stat or skill you wouldn't get that dialogue option.
Not all of those actually changes the outcome of the dialogue. But its still a nice thing I think.

I also like that alot of places that might not have any quest related to it or atleast not a quest you have a gotten at that point, still contains some sort of story related to it. So its just not another empty building or town.
Many times told through holo tapes or Computer terminals you find there.

I even found a relay tower (radio tower) that I activated and heard the same transmission over and over about a man begging for some to help him and his wife as their boy was sick and they had hid themself close by in a sewer drain.
You didn't get a quest for it, but I was curious so I found the drain and went it and found the radio that played the message and in the next room I saw the skeletons of what I assume was the mother and father.
Made me wonder how old that transmission actually was.

Anyway, I really enjoy it. I love Fallout 1 and 2 but I don't try to compare F3 with those since they are quite different in looks and the way you play.

[Gauda]

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Originally Posted by deadsanta I'm not criticizing it for not being perfect, that would be stupid of me wouldn't it? But you know that, which is why you try and paint me into that corner, rhetorically. Shame on you. When I said it was boring I gave specific reasons: 1) Quests make you fight through aeylid-ruin-like dungeon crawls and give you primarily ammo or caps (which you use to buy more ammo) and the same trash (literally), over and over. 2) No one to interact with. 3) No factions (Beyond the generic "good" and "evil").

Sure, but all the same, these reasons beg the questions:
1)Doesn't scavenging make sense, in light of the universe of fallout being a bleak, where everyone is struggling just to survive?
2)Do you mean to say that there is no dialogue in fallout 3, and that there is nothing you can do with anything? Because if there is, then that's certaintly interaction.
3)And why does it need factions besides the obvious "good" and "evil" (I take it you're referring to BOS and that mercenary company), to be good? That seems like a rather arbitrary requirement. (this game doesn't have dancing mushrooms appearing every now and then, therefore it sucks!). *spoilers* Besides, I would certainly call the family a faction, especially since you can "join" them, through a perk.

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Originally Posted by deadsanta That's flat-out wrong, and the place is called Arefu. I'm glad you mention it, because it gets cited as one of *the* best side quest in this game, so let's look at it in more depth (some spoilers, but it's practically a starter-quest, not central to plot, no biggie):

I didn't mention that quest, you did. And I personally don't agree that that quest is the best side-quest in the game. You recaption of the quest is good enough, though I disagree that the location of the family is as obvious that you make it out be, and you missed many of the choices you can make along the way. But even so, I don't see how you can with a straight face say that this is a horrible quest, even in light of your own description. I've seen far worse side quests, and relatively few better.

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Originally Posted by deadsanta Which is patently untrue, and I challenge you to back this up with examples (plural). Outside of the main plotline, almost nothing has a followup quest. In fact, one of the few people with a follow-up quest chain is the starter quest-giver Moira in Megaton, a town which 70% of gamers will blow up right off the bat.

Doesn't work that mate. If you make a claim, and I make a counter-claim, then the burden of proof lies on you, not me. But hey, let's roll with it, since I made aditional claims to the counter-claim, and since you seemingly has candidly admitted that you are wrong, when it comes to your original claim. *spoilers*
quest involving saving kid's dad from fire ants, branching quest with several follow up jobs. Arefu quest.

There you go, examples. I don't care to give any more, because I have a feeling that even if I gave you a thousand examples, you would still not be convinced.

[Toastmeister]

Reading the thread and having played several Bethesda games; imho either you like Bethesda games or you don't. I am in the second camp and feel that Bethesda produces what boils down to essentially the same game over and over again. Their games usually sound great on paper but the actual execution/formula just doesn't click. The end result is that Bethesda games leave me (us?) wondering "what's the point?", which pretty much defeats the purpose of playing a computer game - especially a RPG. Anyway for those of you in the Bethesda camp - enjoy your pointless drivel! There are plenty of other games for the rest of us to enjoy, unfortunately not Fallout 3.

[deadsanta]

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Originally Posted by Gauda Sure, but all the same, these reasons beg the questions:

You need to go look up what the term "Begging the question" means, because you are essentially using it to discredit your own argument. Which is fine by me, because you are using it accurately: Creating a questionable premise and answering it yourself, in an exercise of obviously circular logic.

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1)Doesn't scavenging make sense, in light of the universe of fallout being a bleak, where everyone is struggling just to survive?

I did not argue, anywhere, nor would I, that "scavenging doesn't makes sense" in this world. You made that argument up yourself, and then tried to have me speak it by answering it yourself. How's high school debate club shaping up, you learning some useful things, I hope? You learned how to beg your own question today, anyway.

My argument is that the activity of doing nothing but acquiring ammo is boring and pointless, after a few hours, from a game-playing POV, and it remains so into hour 40.

The rest of your comments are the same, you invent and exaggerate claims, attempt to put the words into my mouth and then create a fallacious answer to your made-up "question" (Including citing one "example" of a side quest with branches, when I link you a FO2 walkthrough that has dozens, which this game patently does not have, or you would have cited them. Branching quests just aren't in the game for the most part I've trekked most of the wasteland now and out of 80 locations, ~65 of them are just enemies and ammo, and the others don't do much of anything except autoresolve when you chat with someone). I won't be responding further to you in this thread, I already said my bit and defended it, I'll summarize:

FO3 is slightly less empty than Oblivion, a watered down, dumbed down Fallout wanna-be; FO3 is an rpg-lite shooter that has some nice art, good atmosphere and decent death sequences but which lacks any great depth and has been horribly overhyped by media and fans alike.

[Lady Dragonfly]

I will post my final verdict after I finish the game (I am half-way through) but the first impression is this: it is definitely not a Fallout game but it is a solid, enjoyable game if one is willing to overlook flawed writing (a significant turn-off for me personally) and outdated animation. Combat is rather generic and they need to get rid of that slow motion thingie but it can be challenging and VATS is good.

[Kipi]

WARNING! SPOILERS IN THIS POST!

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Originally Posted by deadsanta Which is patently untrue, and I challenge you to back this up with examples (plural). Outside of the main plotline, almost nothing has a followup quest. In fact, one of the few people with a follow-up quest chain is the starter quest-giver Moira in Megaton, a town which 70% of gamers will blow up right off the bat.

Megaton:
- Walter (I count his Scrap Metal hunt as second quest, but that's my opinion)
- Moira
- The letter quest that takes you Arefu, then to The Family headquarters
- The Android quest. Starts from Megaton, when you find out more you get new quest from the Crossroads member to save the android.

Rivet City
- The quest where you must find some proof against certain merchant who wants to join the "council". After founding the letter, you have to choose what to do with it (thus branching second quest, as you can use it against the merchant or against the council member who hired you)

Wasteland
- Safe the boy's dad from fire ants. Results two more quests
- Nuka Cola Challenge. First you must take the tour (which is, btw rather boring, as it was probably supposed to be), then you must bring Nuka COla Quantums to either the lady, or you can accept the job from her neighbour and bring all those Nuka Cola to him instead.

Those are what I can think of top from my head, and I haven't explored even closely everything, and I mostly skipped Rivet City, Citadel and several other places. Never visited GNR as the quest to go there was overwritten when I talked to Dr. Li in Rivet City.

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That's just megaton, I could do the same in Rivet City, Canturbury Commons, etc... If it isn't on the main quest chain/plot line it gets no attention from these devs.

Perhaps the quest side is a bit weak, especially if compared to Fallouts. But definately the devs have been concentrating all those other places as well. Have you ever fully explored all those other Vaults, buildings, factories and such which aren't linked to main questline? And if you have explored, have you paid attention to all those holodisks and computer notes found all over those places? Each place has quite colourful history, which is showed if you bother to actually read/listen every holodisk and to hack every computer. Some deep stories down there.

[Gauda]

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Originally Posted by deadsanta You need to go look up what the term "Begging the question" means, because you are essentially using it to discredit your own argument. Which is fine by me, because you are using it accurately: Creating a questionable premise and answering it yourself, in an exercise of obviously circular logic.

Relax man. You don't need to give me a lesson in neither logical fallacies, rethoric or logic. I'm no professor in either, but I know all those topics well enough: When I said begs the question, I was (obviously) not referring to the logical fallacy Begging the question. Though I admit that the choice of words were poor. What I ment was, these questions comes to (my) mind. Note that scavenging in the universe of fallout is simply a rephrasing of "Quests make you fight through aeylid-ruin-like dungeon crawls and give you primarily ammo or caps" with "positive" language, instead of negative. And is also a statement, not an argument (though the question was certainly loaded )

Also, I can see in one sentence why you feel I've put words in your mouth, but that doesn't justify ignoring the whole argument. Which makes me believe that you don't have any counter-arguments. By the way, I cited two examples distinct from the one I've allready mentioned, not one.

I'll summarize too:

Your review of fallout 3 is incredibly superficial, it is full of factual errors and badly argued arguments. It shows a clear bias, and a lacking ability to differentiate between the developer and the game. Not recommended to anyone.

[Soontir Fel]

Normally you shouldnt compare this game with Fallout 2, they are different in many ways. But since it is the sequel to F2, you can make the comparison. And when you do it, there is a big chance that you'll be disappointed. So compare it to Oblivion and you'll see it as an improvement.
I have a feeling if Bethesda named the game something other than F3 - like makers of the Tactics did - people would be less critical, it would not be a sequel but a new story told in Fallout universe.

[SupaCat]

I have to say, I liked the game. The dialogue is decent, combat is well done, characters that I could actually have sympathy for (except for some), more possibility's to solve quests and even moral questions (just look at Oasis, I was suprised by Bethesda, in a good way).

Yeah, sure, characters like Mr. Burke are pretty one sided evil, and even the ending is in this way built (where are the 200 endings???), in the kind of: this is the good way, that's the evil way. But I have to say SPOILER when I returned to vault 101 and saved them, and then they asked me to leave again, I actually cared about it. END SPOILER

SPOILER:
I really hate the ending, there were no movies of how the places you've touched changed during the years, something I really looked forward to. The main quest in general had its moments. The battles together with the BOS are actually cool and not boring like in Oblivion.

About the NPC's... I only found 1, and that being Fawkes, the mutant. The Npc system is well done and they don't annoy you. (I never found Dogmeat by the way...).

About the Fatman, I've only used it once, when I was obligated to use it by the game. After that, not once. I have to say, alot of battles would have been easier if I used it, hell I found 10 mini nukes so some of the very high level creatures could be so easy...

The Vats is pretty cool. Though, for sniping, it's easier to not use VATS.

Right now, I can't think of anything else, but I'll update and nuance the bits a bit more, perhaps.

Overall, Fallout is a fun game with some very nice touches. It has restored my faith just a little bit in Bethesda.

[Gunda]

Fallout 3 is not classic Fallout I completely agree. It's more. There are some many places to go and so many things you can do or screw up and not be able to do other things through out the game.

Let me first say that I have hated every Bethesda game till Fallout 3. Oblivion sucked, Morrow wind sucked. I found myself increadibly bored with each of these other heavily promoted and, for what ever reasons popular, games from this game house. Fallout 3 is the only one of their games(of the ones I have tried) that I wanted to play only because it was Fallout and continue to play even after beating the game. I have a few complaints First one being my primary gripe. It suffers from KotOR1 complex.... character leveling stops at 20th level. BUT you can continue to improve the character through quests. I reached 20th level 20 hours before I completed the game. Which I think I had not even explored 50% of the game at the point I ended up beating it by accident.

------------------------------SPOILER SECTION---------------------------

I find the posts by Gauda without merit other then a few statements. Yes I will agree with you for the most part it is a series of shoot those guys get these things sell that crap for more ammo to kill more people with. Yes there is a ton of that. KotOR was completely straight forward(sure you could pick where to go and it was either good or evil) and yet I find myself replaying it over and over agian out of love for the universe. But you say things like there's no side quests...... (Here comes the sniper rifle to shoot holes through your statement)

Mageton :
Water purifaction guy (Walter) I never found him my roommate did I couldn't do those quests while my roommate did.
Moira crater side supply 9 quests all of which net you character expanding perks provided you give it your all and do it to its extreme. Ok not all the quests do but at least one for each of the chapters you help her with gives you a sweet perk.
Maggie (little girl you mentioned)though I have not completed this series as yet, haven't gotten her to unlock what I've read about that she helps you find things about her guardian
Deliever the letter to the Wests in Arefu... through your brake down of this quest it run through differently for me then it did for you or my roommate. I agree that you can either kill them or kill the people in Arefu, but you can also set things up between the two and get mutally benifcial out comes for both parties. The Family member that you mentioned unlocked as a merchant after you completed the quest tells you he is during the conversations with him. Did you hack any of the computers in their compound? Did you join them? Did you do anything other then rapid read and pick an answer when it didn't work reload and try something else or did you live with your out come?

Canterbary Commons :
obvious quest : rescue the town from the Antaganist and the Mechanist. Don't have to kill either of them. Further quests enclude assisting the merchants (I admit I have not overly explored this town out of desire to explore the world.)

Necropolis :
Charon : merc that will follow you after you do some stuff for him
Crowley : Kill four people for keys that will unlock doors in other locations to let you do more things like ohhh launch an ICBM!!!
There's a couple others but I forgot them

Several folks have brought up the Ants in Greyditch.... as that this has basically been walked through via the other person I will forgo the walk through on that. But there is also a few people in Rivet city that you can get items from Greyditch to help them out or change their lives.

Rivet city :
Pinkerton : not explaining his quests but pointing him out I don't want to kill everyones game for them
The Daughter of the Restraunt's operator
Bannon's ply to keep the other fellow off the council
enslaving Flak
Help the museum recover various items of American lore, toys and other stuff, I know of 8 things they will buy from you.

Bigtown :
Rescueing the villagers
Fixing the robots
enslaving Red

Paradise Falls
Enslvaing 1 of three people Red from Big town, Flak Rivet city and a chik I couldnt find in Tenpenny tower

There's tons of things to do. Did you bother to listen to the radio station Three dog DJ's for GNR (galaxy news radio) He constantly points things out for you to do, and then praises you for doing them, Personally I find the recognition of your deeds effecting your game. did You find the soil strativarous for Agatha? Did you find all the Bobbleheads? What were your SPECIAL stats? There is not a single stat that was not used in something I have done. Due to my habit of saving multiple times I was able to go back to an early save and continue to play the game as if I had not beaten it. I had but 1 level up at that save left. YES if you follow the Main thread the game is short but you miss 90% of the game. 90% of the stuff you can do.

You focused on the items that bugged you and decided to make a post ripping on an extremely large and even now constantly finding new things game. I Know even now with the 98hours I have spent exploring that I have only found 10 of the bobbleheads(not needed but a fun target to go for).

Have you tried to join talon company? Faction 1
Have you tried Becomeing a Slaver? Faction 2
Have you Worked for Tenpenny? Faction 3
Apparently you worked with Brotherhood of steal faction 4
But you didnt join the enclave oh my god is that faction 5? yes it is.

The point is you made a biased statement and when the one person that tried pointing out the flaws in your theroies you harped on his use of words. My spellings is horrible so I don't doubt that will come under fire since I am pointing out the other quests deadsanta didn't. The point is explore the game before you tare it apart. it really is huge. If rapetitive fights and ammo collecting bug you Don't play WoW, EQII, FO3, KotOR, MAsseffect, hell don't play a single RPG. Because for the most part that is what RPG's are. a series of similar fights with collecting gear to sell for better gear or ammo being the premise OMG Fallout was the same way. In fact I feel that the heart of Fallout is captured in the FPS/3rd person RPG. You just didn't like it cause it wasn't classic Fallout. As a Recall Fallout one was exactly the same only I couldn't control the shooting everything was VATS and turn based.

I found myself thinking that you didn't even bother to PLAY the game you just zerged it. What do you think the colonists of our own world did in the explorer years? Talk to this person get "quest" to go here and explore that: outcome payment and footprint in history books.

Maybe you should have just sat and watched TV.

[Minalkali]

I agree with Gunda, the game is about exploration, just wandering around the wasteland and finding cool stuff. I heard on the radio about trees being somewhere up north, and on my way up there I came across Big Town, found a crashed ufo, and rescued a bunch of people from super mutants. And then when I eventually found Oasis, the quest there became one of my favourites in the game so far. Each outcome had its upsides and its downsides, there was no clearly 'good' or 'evil' way to do it.

[Darth Malignus]

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Originally Posted by Lady Dragonfly I will post my final verdict after I finish the game (I am half-way through) but the first impression is this: it is definitely not a Fallout game

Not true. They carry Vault Uniforms in the beginning. Ergo, it´s a Fallout game.

[Minalkali]

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Originally Posted by Darth Malignus Not true. They carry Vault Uniforms in the beginning. Ergo, it´s a Fallout game.

It's called Fallout 3, therefore it's a Fallout game.

[SupaCat]

Does it matter if it really is a fallout game or not? The most important thing is that you enjoyed it, right?

What makes a Fallout game anyway?