Fallout 3 did not ruin the lore established in previous games.

[SajuukKhar]

I already explained this in the other thread. These places could not exist at in this world at this point in time.

Again, broken economy and ecosystem.

No you really haven't proven why they couldn't exist.

Scrap metal isn't exactly hard to come by, farms do exist, as do hunters, fishers, mechanics who can repair robots, and a caravan system to transport what one place has to places that need it.

 

[endtherapture]

What exactly has been rebuilt? Even with the purifier (that nobody needs)? This goes back to my point on the broken economy in the other thread. No one produces anything. After 200 years. These caravans couldn't logically exist.

It's a mess.

Lets see the entire town of Megaton was built, and places such as Rivet City, and Tenpenny tower do get maintenance.

They aren't trying to build beyond what they need because that's what destroyed the planet in the first place.

Also, just because you don't see them, hunters, fishers, and other people of the sort, do exist.

I already explained this in the other thread. These places could not exist at in this world at this point in time.

Again, broken economy and ecosystem.

What's really weird is that people praise Bethesda's "amazing worldbuilding skills" and then then handwave and say stuff like "just because you don't see them, hunters, fishers, and other people of the sort, do exist".

If they exist then show them Bethesda!

 

[SajuukKhar]

What's really weird is that people praise Bethesda's "amazing worldbuilding skills" and then then handwave and say stuff like "just because you don't see them, hunters, fishers, and other people of the sort, do exist".

If they exist then show them Bethesda!

That's like saying Bethesda should show every single building that would realistically be in a town.

If they did that half the map would be covered by one city.

Its like when people complain about there being no bathrooms in RPGs, they shouldn't have to show everything that anyone with half a brain would know exists.

 

[endtherapture]

What's really weird is that people praise Bethesda's "amazing worldbuilding skills" and then then handwave and say stuff like "just because you don't see them, hunters, fishers, and other people of the sort, do exist".

If they exist then show them Bethesda!

That's like saying Bethesda should show every single building that would realistically be in a town.

If they did that half the map would be covered by one city.

Its like when people complain about there being no bathrooms in RPGs, they shouldn't have to show everything that anyone with half a brain would know exists.

I think showing the economy and infrastructure of a post apocalyptic wasteland based on trade where one of your main skills can be "barter" is actually quite important.

 

[SajuukKhar]

I think showing the economy and infrastructure of a post apocalyptic wasteland based on trade where one of your main skills can be "barter" is actually quite important.

I think showing a caravan system, and detailing how people have mechanical skills, is enough for most people to go "ok".

the only people I have ever seen complain about Fallout 3 in that regard is people who need every little thing shown/spelled out for them or else their suspension of belief gets shattered.

Not to mention the fact it is specifically stated the science team at rivet city genetically grows food.

 

[Hargrimm]

I think showing the economy and infrastructure of a post apocalyptic wasteland based on trade where one of your main skills can be "barter" is actually quite important.

I think showing a caravan system, and detailing how people have mechanical skills, is enough for most people to go "ok".

the only people I have ever seen complain about Fallout 3 in that regard is people who need every little thing shown/spelled out for them or else their suspension of belief gets shattered.

Not to mention the fact it is specifically stated the science team at rivet city genetically grows food.

Riddle me this: Where do they get their FOOD from? Nothing grows in the Capital Wasteland. Are they surviving on 200 year old scavenged food?
I laugh hard.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Riddle me this: Where do they get their FOOD from? Nothing grows in the Capital Wasteland. Are they surviving on 200 year old scavenged food?
I laugh hard.

They genetically grow it, well Rivet City does, and yes things do grow in the captial wasteland.

The Mechanist's parents were bean farmers.

 

[Milanezi]

All I know is I played this game for about 5 times, doing most sidequests (only did I go through DLC). I don't think it broke any canon, but then again, I never saw Fallout as a game that's much into the canon, it's more like a post-apocalyptic role-play, it is whatever you want it to be, it only gets "upgraded". Plus it is true: whatever happens in one place, despite the scenario,is bound to replicate somewhere else. Can't one member of the Enclave have survived and started it all again with a bunch of other people? Can't someone from BoS start something entirely different with people who think like him (does two Hells Angels chapter act exactly the same? Hells Angels Brazil is much more passive than those in the USA, yet they are the same MC)?

 

[SajuukKhar]

Can't one member of the Enclave have survived and started it all again with a bunch of other people? Can't someone from BoS start something entirely different with people who think like him (does two Hells Angels chapter act exactly the same? Hells Angels Brazil is much more passive than those in the USA, yet they are the same MC)?

Not according to "true" fallout fans, every faction has to remain the same until they die off and get replaced by another faction that remains the same until it dies off.

Because people like Lyons, and Autumn growing a brain and realizing "what this shit didn't work last time why would it work now?" is such an improbability.

 

[Eddie the head]

Everything they did had a reason behind it and good one at that, so it needed to change it couldn't stay the same. I would rather them evolve the story then invent contrivances to make things the same as they where before. And if you are relay resistant to it changing like this then you can't complain when things become stagnant. If you are ok with things never changing ok ignore this but if you don't like that then, well this is part of the problem.

I can see where you're coming from but the actual changes they made aren't necessarily any good. Especially as far as gameplay is concerned. That said, however, it's a problem that runs much deeper than Bethesda. How can you reach the depth and complexity of your predecessor if you have to put up with an ever more demanding market; at least as far graphics are concerned? You can't make a game with a mere dozen unique copy-pasted character models and maybe three environments/buildings in this day and age. And expect it to sell. So their choices were reasonable.

Anyways. As far as Fallout 3 is concerned - it felt like a shallow, if prettier, addon compared to its sequels. It's not too bad on its own merits, but not what I was looking for.

And the people over on the NMA forums are notoriously hard to please. Broken base, indeed.

Where you talking about Fallout 3 with the "changes that are not necessarily good?" Because I was talking about NV with the changes and such. With the "problem that runs much deeper than Bethesda" makes me think you are talking about Fallout 3. I was defending New vegas I don't know if I got that across? Or am I just confused about your statement? I'm sorry I have to ask.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Listen - it's a game. Stop being nitpicky and just enjoy the damn thing.

If only people could, if only people could.

 

[Zenn3k]

1: K, I kind of agreed with you in the first place. Regardless the faction system kicked the shit out of the boring Karma system in FO3. Oh, you stole some stuff, I guess you're a evil person...here the evil ending for you, stealer!

The faction system was poorly handled, and the ending sliders in New Vegas were determined BY YOUR KARMA. Steal shit from people = bad ending in New Vegas also.

2: So all it takes to impress is some tall walls eh? The wasteland should look like a wasteland, desolate, and that usually means brown and dusty. You don't think wasteland without thinking "Road Warrior". The dunwich building looks just like the RobCo HQ to me, I see little difference. Paradise falls? Really? Generic town #248? Whats impressive about this place? Arefu was the vampire town, or rather, where the vampires were attacking. Anyway, only thing I liked about the Capitol Wasteland was exploring The Mall. Seeing as its only about a 2 hour drive from me. Megaton is incredibly ugly, especially from the outside, its worse than Vegas with its ugly walls.

A nuclear wasteland should look like a nuclear wasteland, not a fucking normal desert that I could drive an hour and reach.

-The Dunwhich building had its ghost thing, and all the Lovecraftian/Cthulhu stuff in it.
-Paradise Falls had a vibe to it, the first thing you see when you approach it is some guys head getting blown off by an explosive collar, when that happened, you knew this was the place the badass raiders lived.
-I was actually thinking of Andale, that was the cannibal place.
-Not to mention Tenpenny tower, a tower owned by a crazy guy who wants an entire city nuked because it obstructs his views, that guy was such a douche, but a memorable one, and you can get everyone killed by a bunch of Ghouls.

New Vegas had
-Goodspringes, a normal town
-Primm, another normal town
-Novac, a normal hotel
-Nipton, a on fire normal town

Even the homes of the biggest bandit groups, the friends and the Powder gangers were
-A normal looking prison with nothing special about it
-A vault that looks trashy, but otherwise normal

everything about New Vegas's locations was... normal.

3: Your complaint about DT was just as bad. DT is bad, but DR is somehow perfectly designed? DR made the game too easy. DT allows for difficulty.

The problem with DT in New Vegas is that it makes better armor useless, heavy armor like the t-51B power armor was no better then a good set of light armor because DT ensured you would ALWAYS take 15% of the damage

Damage threshold in the original Fallout's worked because you COULD entirely negate damage with a high enough rating.

Damage Reduction in Fallout 3 worked more like Damage Threshold in Fallout 1 and 2 then Damage Threshold in New Vegas did.

4: Oh please. The entire bottom of the map is not railroad. There is a ton of things to do along the way, Novac and its quests for instance, Route 188. Yes, 10 hours of a game you can easily spend 50+ in and not do everything...thats obviously half the game, not to mention you are questing, leveling, and earning caps all along the way. Who said exploit? Go to Hidden Valley, go past Blackrock Mountain, go east a bit to avoid aggroing the death claws...home free. You wanna talk bad game design, being an unstoppable god before you hit level 10, thats bad game design. I like having areas in the game that can actually be challenging and allow me to see if I can figure out my own solutions.

Spoiler

everything in red are areas your not supposed to go to until you level up and backtrack, which is to say most of the bottom half of the map.

And again, I shouldn't have to use an exploit back path to get around a monster barrier that your not supposed to get around, because monster barriers are fucking pointless.

5: Why is waiting until you've done all you want to do before you do the last mission that clearly warns you that you cannot go back...such a problem?

Because it is, 100%, entirely unnecessary to end the game there.

You seem to want a lot more hand holding in your games than I do. Lets agree to disagree, I need to go to bed.

You want to talk about hand holding?

You mean like New Vegas that held you hand for most of the game?

Were every step you took for the first 10 hours was a carefully planned little trainride set up by the developers?

Compared to Fallout 3 which told you "GO WHERE YOU WANT AND DO WHATEVER YOU WANT" the moment you stepped out of the vault, New Vegas was the hand holding KING.

do you even know what hand holding is?

1: Somewhat by your Karma, mostly by your actions with that faction. As well, the karma system was adjust in Vegas so that minor things like stealing had very little effect. In my most recent game, I stole a few things...not many, but a few, killed 3 feral ghoal roamers (which oddly gave positive karma, go figure) and was well into good karma. You steal half the items in Megaton and you're "evil".

2: Fine fine, FO3 had some better locations. Especially if you consider a city with a giant fucking roller coaster as a "normal town". Novac's dino statue was more interesting than a 50 story tower that you only actually SEE 2 floors. Whats the point of tenpenny tower being so large if inside, its actually a 2 story building? Lame. The giant statue around south of Primm is more interesting than 2Story-Tower.

3: This is simply wrong. I've worn light armor and I've worn heavy armor. The difference in combat is MASSIVE. There is a 20% minimum damage, which as I mentioned before, just makes the game a bit harder, instead of faceroll easy mode of FO3. The 20% works both ways as well, which gives you a fighting chance against the worlds hardest foes. Otherwise, DT is a straight up reduction of damage.

4: Lots of things here. First off, most of those circles are on the edges of the map, they are also a bit over exaggerated. The circle over top of Hidden Valley there, that shouldn't exist, there is nothing tough in that area at all...the most violent creature are level 2 bark scorpions. Otherwise, what is wrong with having dangerous spots on the map? This IS a wasteland you know, its suppose to be a DANGEROUS place. Its not a fucking theme park like FO3's world, where at level 2 you can run/swim you way to Rivet City with absolutely zero threat...yawn. I'll take those red circles with interesting and dangerous locations over "wee look at me, I can run the entire map naked, lulz".

There are some set pieces at the start of Vegas to introduce you to the plot and the factions, I don't see the problem with that. Its nothing compared to the 3 hour snore inducing "experience your entire childhood and shoot radroaches which have absolutely no reason to be inside a SEALED VAULT with a BB-Gun and have a birthday" story that FO3 truly forces on the player each time through the game. Holy shit you wanna talk about railroad. Argue yourself out of that.

Again, its not an "exploit". I find it funny that you get a map with giant red circles all over it, complain about that, but when someone tells you there is a way to avoid that mess, you call it an "exploit". Its a path, filled with a few bark scorpions straight east of Sloan, its clear as day, its not hidden. Its a bit tricky once you reach Blackrock Mountain, but if you use the Stealth Boy found in Victor's hut in Goodsprings, that area is not a problem.

Here is a video for ya: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X13TiavuQI Wow, so many exploits. Yup, look at that "railroad" your are forced into down south, yup yup yup.

5: Thats opinion. Thats where the game ends, it tells you thats where the game ends, it tells you that you cannot return after this point...point of no return. It doesn't matter if YOU think the game shouldn't end there or not, thats where it ends, and it has to end eventually.

Fallout New Vegas is not only vastly superior to Fallout 3 in every single way (with FO3 maybe having cooler locations I'll grant you), especially when it comes to characters. NV has more characters and more INTERESTING characters in just Vegas itself and the surrounding areas than FO3's entire world.

Vegas is not only better than FO3, its better than Skyrim. Skyrim isn't even an RPG, its a movie. There are 2 places in the ENTIRE world of Skyrim that give the player a choice, just 2. The civil war, and the Dawnguard DLC (vamp or hunter). EVERYWHERE else the story is a straight line with no choices to be found.

Your view is clearly twisted by a bad experience, what that was, I have no idea. Maybe a game breaking bug after hours of playtime? Shit happens, and they've all been patched. You should try the game again with an open mind and you'll probably find like the majority of the Fallout fan base, that Vegas is the superior title in every conceivable way, there is absolutely NOTHING that FO3 does better.

 

[Nomanslander]

Let's go point by point here:

1. For starters, construction on Vault 87 began in 2066 and ended in 2071. FEV was first developed four years after; hell, the Pan Immunity Viron Project, which became FEV, didn't even start until 2073. So how did Vault Tec build a vault that revolved around something that hadn't even been created yet?


Original intentions for the Vault 87 in favor for testing FEV which seemed more interesting.

If that doesn't immediately undermine the existence of Vault 87, then what about the fact that human testing of FEV didn't seem succesful until 2076, at which point the military was told to construct a base, Mariposa, for this purpose. And upon Mariposa's construction in 2077, ALL FEV research was moved there. So tell me why the US government would spend more money reformatting Vault 87 to become an FEV experiment lab (because if it was already built, it had a different role in the experiment, which raises the question why they would change the role to begin with)

They find the results for the original experiment not so productive or the result were concluded and they choice to start experimenting with Vault 87 differently. And if money is an issue, you really have no clue how stupid governments are in spending the tax payers money on B.S.

Also not all FEV research. They made alteration to FEV and wanted to see what the results would be, hence why the mutties from Vault 87 are so different. In any experiment, there's always hundreds of different alterations made for testing to see different results. Or another words I bet all over American and Canada there's dozens of Vault 87 like vaults experimenting different alterations of FEV to see what other results were made. All this info classified then to the highest authority.


when they've been spending money on the war with China, the development of a number of technologies, mining what little oil is left, and already built an FEV research center and spent $645 billion on the vaults? Or tell me how Vault Tec got a hold of FEV if it was moved to Mariposa and if it was so secret that even some of the soldiers at Mariposa didn't know testing was going on?

It's called compartmentalization, I use to be in the Navy, so I use to be part of that system. You have several different people doing separate jobs, and no one knowing exactly what the mission details pertain. All I knew was I had to load bombs onto an F-14 and they went and bombed something. ALL militarys and governments work that way.


I mean, Vault Tec was a big corporation, but so was West Tek (who reluctantly gave up the research as it was), and the military is pretty powerful too. The point at which they would definitely know about it is in February 2077 when FEV research was leaked, but then they'd be months behind Mariposa by the time they got Vault 87 refitted, so what's the point.

Any results can prove to be valuable.

Let's also remember that Vault Tec wouldn't have had the military prisoners that Mariposa used for human testing. Vault 87 would be empty until the Great War, so how could Vault Tec test any modifications they made to the FEV?

Don't you think the vaults were experimented on with living test subjects before hand to make sure they could sustain a community after the bombs fell? Well there you go! lol


What, did they just blindly modify FEV without testing the results on anything before this?

Test researchers do it all the time.NO REALLY!


That seems stupid, especially when Mariposa was testing and achieving success with the FEV modifications they made, so what would be the purpose of starting from scratch and making inferior modifications?

RESULTS, and result might prove valuable.

Unless you want to argue that the FEV in Vault 87 is the same as the FEV in Mariposa, but then the super mutants shouldn't be stupid.

I'm not!

Vault 87 was full of vault dwellers, people untouched by post-war radiation (the radiation from the nuke outside the vault didn't seep in), and the Master concluded that these kinds of people made for the best and most intelligent super mutants; that's why he was going after Vault 13. So if Vault 87 used this strand, the super mutants in Fallout 3 should all look the same as those in the first two games and New Vegas, as well as be incredibly intelligent. But that's not the case.

That's the Masters, West Tek and Vault Tek and the Government wouldn't care, they'd rather through darts around blindly til one hit bullseye.

So what is it? Did they used the same strand and it's inconsistent with how FEV works? Or were they given the base strand that Mariposa received before modifications were made and asked to modify it themselves, which wouldn't serve much of a purpose, not to mention they did a horrible job? Of course, them doing a horrible job would result in the mutants being stupid, but they're even less intelligent than the least intelligent of mutants in the first two games. So how do the Vault 87 mutants form an organized fighting force, train themselves in weapon use, replicate the FEV transformation process with captives, and do it all without an intelligent leader like the Master in Fallout 1 or some intelligent super mutant (because they lock up Fawkes)? Speaking of Fawkes, why is it that he has been a super mutant for 200 years and yet hasn't grown to behemoth size? And why specifically did he retain his intelligence?


There's always a black sheep to every experiment. Look at any scientific research that's been done in ANY field and you'd see how someone different results are produced even when the exact same measures are taking. Especially with live subjects.

ETC ETC ETC

Honestly, it seems like you're taking every measure to argue against any possibilities in Vault 87 being plusable and not for the sake of logic. Instead, for the sake of bashing on the idea with great prejudice.

 

[MaulYoda]

And DR makes everything except heavy armor pointless, but DT is more useful with heavy armor than DR was with light armor. DR is also pointless in Fallout 3 to begin with because VATS is the most effective means of reducing damage. Not to mention that DT accounts for the differences in DMG vs. DPS while DT does not. And a few extra points of DT do a lot more than a few extra points of DR

By that logic DT is pointless to New Vegas because the best way to reduce damage is vats also.

DT ignores DPS actually, it focuses solely on the power of each individual bullet. It doesn't balance between them, it ignores one entirely.

Also I found light armor to be more useful with DR then I found heavy armor to be with DT. With DR + light armor can still negate some attacks entirely.

With DT and heavy armor you still take THE EXACT SAME DAMAGE from low damage weapons, aka most weapons used by NPCs, as you would with light armor due to the bleedthrough caused by the fact that you can only ever negate up to 80-85% of a weapons damage.

DR + light armor = some attacks negated entirely
DT + heavy armor = same damage taken as light armor for 95% of attacks

DR + light armor > DT + heavy armor

First of all, you take 75% percent of damage in VATS in New Vegas, so it's effective, sure, but not so much more effective than DT (if at all). It's like having a DR of 25 vs. a DR of 90 in the Fallout 3 version of VATS. 90 is going to make you virtually invincible (which was overpowered). 25 is not

DT does take DPS into account. Higher DAM is better against armored and tougher opponents, while higher DPS is better against unarmored targets. And what light armor can negate some attacks entirely with such a low DR value? In order to negate an attack entirely, you'd have to have a DR of 100% (which isn't possible). DT can negate some weapon attacks entirely. And of course, that applies to both you and your enemies. DR only applied to you

Also, you don't take the same amount of damage; heavy armor has a higher DT value, so you negate more damage. But DT negates up to 80-85% of damage? That's a lot. Do you know what your DR would have to be to do that? 80-85. There is not a single set of armor in the entire series that has that high of a DR value (except leather armor for EMP damage, which was 500). The most damage any armor in Fallout 3 can negate is 50%, and that's heavy armor. Most low armor negates between 2-10%

DT + heavy armor = Negating 80-85% damage
DR + light armor = Negating 2-10% damage

DT + heavy armor > DR + light armor

 

[MaulYoda]

- Why are there Super Mutants in the Capitol Wasteland, and why are they dumber?

Let's go point by point here:

1. For starters, construction on Vault 87 began in 2066 and ended in 2071. FEV was first developed four years after; hell, the Pan Immunity Viron Project, which became FEV, didn't even start until 2073. So how did Vault Tec build a vault that revolved around something that hadn't even been created yet?

Simple, the original intentions for Vault 87 were dropped in favor of testing FEV instead when it became clearly more interesting. Military and government does this all the time.

=)

You know, there was the rest of my post where I go over that

But okay, the military and government does this all the time. And in fact, they did. They built Mariposa specifically to test FEV on humans. And by the time Vault Tec could've obtained FEV and begun testing it on humans themselves (not that they necessarily should've been able to obtain it), they would've been months behind Mariposa. So why would the government want them to just start from scratch when they were already achieving success with Mariposa? Why, after spending $645 billion on the vaults and a ton of other spending, would the government decide to spend more money on retrofitting this vault to research FEV when they had just spend money building Mariposa to do this? What exactly was Vault 87's original experiment that it was so unnecessary to the Vault Experiment that it could be changed? Wouldn't it be mentioned somewhere that the experiment was changed? Because then you're just trying to explain for Bethesda what Bethesda neglected to explain themselves. And the Enclave wasn't exactly best pals with the super mutants, so why would they approve a vault to be re-modified to create things that the Enclave would eventually try to destroy?

 

[MaulYoda]

DR still exists in New Vegas, so I don't really know what we are arguing about, since you can use both, one of them or neither if you are so inclined

DR is barely used in New Vegas. Most of the armor that has any DR value (and it's a very low DR value) has 0 DT, so the DR is rather ineffective (possibly an oversight or a bug that it's there). Some characters also have an added DR, and some drugs give you DR. But you know what? I don't have a problem with both of them being used; that's how it was in the original Fallout games. I have a problem with DR being used on its own

 

[JPArbiter]

I just got around to this beast and reading the OP I have to ask.

People were complaining about Jet? Seriously? Bethesda needed an AP recovery Item, and calling it Jet was convenient. what is the big deal?

Personally i loved fallout 3, it was fun and fresh and it did not deal with stuff like the NCR (which I was not to fond of). I wish I could have gotten around to playing new Vegas but I got tired of the game crashing on my 360 all the time or saves getting corrupted. I am actually hoping that rumors of fallout 4 being in Former Boston are true, and maybe in future iterations we can have Canon Midwest (Kansas/Missouri/Iowa) and Texarcana located adventures.

 

[Nomanslander]

snip

Oh I posted too early in your response...

Go up and you'll see me going point to point with your arguments.

=)