Fallout 3 [spoilers, etc]

[Ingmar]

Did anyone ever encounter Uncle Leo? I saw that person once then never saw him again.

I think he's just a random flavor encounter.

[Litigator]

Did anyone ever encounter Uncle Leo? I saw that person once then never saw him again.

He was probably pissed because you didn't say hello to him.

[shiznitz]

I may just be a dumb fucking twit but do I have to PiPBoy every time I want to change weapons? I skimmed TFM and didn't see anything about hotkeys.

[Ingmar]

I may just be a dumb fucking twit but do I have to PiPBoy every time I want to change weapons? I skimmed TFM and didn't see anything about hotkeys.

Assuming PC version, in the inventory screen hold down one of 1 through 8 and click the weapon you want to be in that hotkey.

[lac]

Wait, so you CAN get a robot from that wandering guy?  I don't care if it sucks, I want it.  That fucker told me that the robot wouldn't like me, so no dice on buying it.  Do you have to have bad karma to get that one or something?
And Litigator, forced events like that tend to deactivate your companions, but not permanently, you just have to talk to them afterwards and they will follow you again.
EDIT: clarification

Robot requirement is annoying. You have to have *neutral* karma.

I can't seem to get out of neutral karma. Stealing everything I want and accidentally doing good karma quests has kept me neutral throughout the game.

The robot and the dog have pathing issues. As soon as I jump over some rocks they are happily capering off over the roads until they catch up on the other side, no matter how far it is. The dog tends to die if I lose them like that for a long time but the robot just goes on killing everything until he can catch up.

I lost the robot close to the nuka cola factory, twenty minutes later I'm sneaking  up to a raider roadblock and suddenly I see it lit up with flames and plasma fire. It was my robot that was coming from the other side, wiping out the roadblock. I followed the path he took to reach me for a bit and it was littered with corpses.
Ain't nobody messing with the sergeant.

[Khaldun]

There are some things that bug me, partly because so much works right about the set-up, stories, quests, etc.

1. If you're going to make an open world where players can do almost anything when they want to do it, you need a flag for when an important quest pivot has been killed. I don't mind the quest being unavailable, but I want the world to know it's unavailable and for NPCs to know when someone important is dead. If you fink out Burke to Lucas, Burke kills Lucas and then you can kill Burke without the Megaton residents aggroing on you--but then no one in Megaton seems to know that it happened, from what I can see. I didn't keep playing in that branching version, so maybe later there's some consequences? I assassinated Tenpenny the first time I met him when I was playing a good character, and nobody in Tenpenny Towers knew it no matter how many times I went back, and this made it impossible to complete the Ghoul quest as a good character. I'm replaying as evil now and I'm never sure what's going to happen when I blow the shit out of a town in terms of quests and such (I didn't explore the full map on the first play-through, on purpose).

2. You can spend a lot of time trying to do things that apparently can't be done, and never be sure whether you're right when you come to the conclusion that it can't be done. When I got taken to the Enclave base, I was partnered up with a Brotherhood of Steel character who had joined me. I think I pretty much searched the whole base after I persuaded the President to destroy itself and never found her. I'd at least like to know what happened to her. Fawkes is outside the base waiting, after all. I also spent a lot of time trying to free Nathan: it would have been nice if there was a way to do that (maybe there was and I didn't find it).

3. The AI on companions is indeed pretty poor...I find I tend to park them somewhere for a while while I sneak around and headshot most bad guys, just because they get in the way too much. At least they'll go into sneak mode when you do. Dogmeat gets killed in almost any fight if I have him with me. On the other hand, running cross-country to Rivet City with your father after freeing him from Braun's VR was hilarious because the asshole kept attacking everything with a tire iron while being impossible to kill. "If that's the way it has to be", he says, attempting to solo a Deathclaw with a tire iron.

4. Just curious about being evil: do the Raiders in the wasteland ever start to say, "Hey, here comes a fellow badass" and not aggro on you? I assume that you can get into Evergreen Mills as a friendly--it seemed set-up for that as I prowled through it and killed everyone while playing a good character.

[Lantyssa]

3. The AI on companions is indeed pretty poor...I find I tend to park them somewhere for a while while I sneak around and headshot most bad guys, just because they get in the way too much. At least they'll go into sneak mode when you do. Dogmeat gets killed in almost any fight if I have him with me. On the other hand, running cross-country to Rivet City with your father after freeing him from Braun's VR was hilarious because the asshole kept attacking everything with a tire iron while being impossible to kill. "If that's the way it has to be", he says, attempting to solo a Deathclaw with a tire iron.

He died to a radscorpian when I tried to follow him.  Here I am in decent combat armor and bristling with weapons and dad decides to milk the radscorpian's venom in his vault suit.

It's weird though.  Enemy AI seems decent enough, but NPC AI is terrible.  Maybe it's because I either kill things quickly or because I'm trying to move about for the best tactics, but ugh.  I hate having NPCs with me.

[rattran]

Has anyone left the President alive and finished the game?

[Hindenburg]

He died to a radscorpian when I tried to follow him.  Here I am in decent combat armor and bristling with weapons and dad decides to milk the radscorpian's venom in his vault suit.

Did you try to loot the corpse? Fairly certain it would say "unconscious", since even a generous dosage of shotgun shells to the head didn't kill him. Heck, not even a Fat Man shot killed him. Yet he dies from a bit of radiation.

Curiously enough, i *think* it killed Doctor Li. And her helpers. And everyone in the Science lab.

[Khaldun]

Yeah, the father just goes "unconscious" after he heads for Rivet City. He can't be killed at that point, no matter what. Same as when you're leaving Vault 101 in the very beginning of the game: you can't kill Amada, Stanley or the robot no matter what.

Some plot points that frustrated me slightly:

Did anyone else assume that Dr. Li was a traitor working for the Enclave? I thought that was what all the weird hesitation and reluctance was about, and that "I need to rest" thing--that she'd called the Enclave in when the project was working.

I see why the Brotherhood is so hung up about the Enclave in the last act of the game, but it would have been nice to be able to tell someone, "Hey, by the way, I know where Super Mutants come from." Plus nobody even blinks about the fact that I've got a Super Mutant following me around when I come back to the Pentagon.

If you play good and disarm the Megaton bomb, Burke just disappears from Megaton. As far as I could tell, he doesn't return. That seems a waste of a good villain.

Equally, I was a bit surprised that I didn't get *some* kind of dialogue-tree showdown with the Enclave Colonel who was responsible for the death of my father at the very end. I just tossed a Nuka-Grenade on him and his escorts, bang, no more Colonel.

The whole last act (from releasing your father from Braun's VR onward) feels rushed and full of holes compared with the languid, careful pacing of the main quest in the early part of the game. 

[Khaldun]

Also, another bit of weirdness: did anyone else get their face and facial hair completely redone as a result of sitting in the VR in Vault 112? After I'd gotten out of Tranquility Lane and I stood my character up, I noticed that he had a new face from when he went in.

[Hindenburg]

but it would have been nice to be able to tell someone, "Hey, by the way, I know where Super Mutants come from." Plus nobody even blinks about the fact that I've got a Super Mutant following me around when I come back to the Pentagon.

You can tell that to Lyons. He goes lolwut and thanks you.

Equally, I was a bit surprised that I didn't get *some* kind of dialogue-tree showdown with the Enclave Colonel who was responsible for the death of my father at the very end. I just tossed a Nuka-Grenade on him and his escorts, bang, no more Colonel.

There is.
You can even let him walk.

[Rasix]

Equally, I was a bit surprised that I didn't get *some* kind of dialogue-tree showdown with the Enclave Colonel who was responsible for the death of my father at the very end. I just tossed a Nuka-Grenade on him and his escorts, bang, no more Colonel.

I was able to talk to him. As with most other "talk them down" encounters, they seem to capitulate rather suddenly (he did have a longer tree than most).  They should have fleshed out dialog trees a little more in a lot of instances during the main plot and certain quests.  I felt it was a little too easy to get a speech win and the speech win almost automatically meant a sudden conclusion.

The whole last act (from releasing your father from Braun's VR onward) feels rushed and full of holes compared with the languid, careful pacing of the main quest in the early part of the gam

Yep.  My feelings were "ohh shit, they're already wrapping this up aren't they?".  Just too fast and too rushed.  There could have been a lot more side activities instead of just skipping to the end like they did.

[Khaldun]

Ah, I should have tried talking to more people before letting them activate the robot.

Same with not throwing a grenade on the Colonel. That's my bad, I guess. It reminds me a little of Deus Ex in that respect, in a good way. You get so used to be not allowed to do things that cause the rollercoaster to roll off the track that when you're playing a game, you assume that being able to do something means that you're not missing out on some narrative or sequence that's tied to the main questline.

I really did expect that when I got back from captivity in the Enclave there would be a bit more pacing with side quests before you were allowed to launch the climax. Say, that I'd be asked to go out and find some part they needed for the robot, or something else of that sort.

I really do wonder what happened to Star Paladin Cross after we were captured by the Enclave. Again, maybe something I didn't explore enough of, and there was some reference around to her fate that I could have found.

 

[Ingmar]

Ah, I should have tried talking to more people before letting them activate the robot.

Same with not throwing a grenade on the Colonel. That's my bad, I guess. It reminds me a little of Deus Ex in that respect, in a good way. You get so used to be not allowed to do things that cause the rollercoaster to roll off the track that when you're playing a game, you assume that being able to do something means that you're not missing out on some narrative or sequence that's tied to the main questline.

I really did expect that when I got back from captivity in the Enclave there would be a bit more pacing with side quests before you were allowed to launch the climax. Say, that I'd be asked to go out and find some part they needed for the robot, or something else of that sort.

I really do wonder what happened to Star Paladin Cross after we were captured by the Enclave. Again, maybe something I didn't explore enough of, and there was some reference around to her fate that I could have found.

 

NPCs in your group go back to their waiting-around-for-you spot after that. So if you had Charon, he'll be back in Underworld, Dogmeat is hanging around at Vault 101's entrance, etc. Presumably Star Paladin Cross is hanging around the Citadel somewhere.

[Khaldun]

Yeah, that's what I thought would be the case, but if she was there, I couldn't find her.

Reading through the bug list at the Fallout wiki, I see one of the bugs I encountered many times--that when you rescue the Brotherhood initiate who is trapped in the building with Super Mutants, then his commander sometimes shows up outside your Megaton house when you leave it and runs away from you. At a certain point in the game, that happened almost every time I left the house, and occasionally it would happen when I emerged out of a Metro to a new location. It made me wonder whether there was supposed to be some kind of ongoing content involving these two Brotherhood characters (the commander is Paladin Hoss, the initiate is named Pek), say that they would occasionally show up to help me out in a battle or something of the sort.

[Ingmar]

I had a weird bug on the main quest last night. Somehow in the process of rescuing the kids from Lamplight to gain access to Vault 87, my quest status got set *ahead* of where it was supposed to be, so I couldn't get the kids to open the gate for me, nor could I get Joseph to hack the back door terminal. I had to use the no clip console cheat to go through the gate to proceed.

Also a word of warning, if you want to fully explore and/or loot Raven Rock, do NOT talk the computer into self-destructing.  I think I cost myself a bobblehead in there. Guess I will be doing a 2nd full runthrough! I was going to have to do one anyway, I finally figured out the Windows Live stuff but it doesn't retroactively give you achievements you already did. :(

[Rasix]

Yeah, that's what I thought would be the case, but if she was there, I couldn't find her.

She was in the lab when I went there to start the end game.  Just walking around, so I suppose she could wander.  She was still wearing the helmet I put on her, so she was relatively easy to pick out.

[Khaldun]

I had a weird bug on the main quest last night. Somehow in the process of rescuing the kids from Lamplight to gain access to Vault 87, my quest status got set *ahead* of where it was supposed to be, so I couldn't get the kids to open the gate for me, nor could I get Joseph to hack the back door terminal. I had to use the no clip console cheat to go through the gate to proceed.

Also a word of warning, if you want to fully explore and/or loot Raven Rock, do NOT talk the computer into self-destructing.  I think I cost myself a bobblehead in there. Guess I will be doing a 2nd full runthrough! I was going to have to do one anyway, I finally figured out the Windows Live stuff but it doesn't retroactively give you achievements you already did. :(

I never did see or find Joseph in either of my trips to Lamplight, actually. But Mayor McCheese or whatever his name is opened the gate for me.

It's not just that you can't talk the computer into self-destructing: I think if you pass into the War Room, you can't go back to some of the earlier parts of Raven Rock.

[Litigator]

I had a lamplight bug too.  Princess clipped into the gate and got stuck and then, when the mayor tried to open it, it didn't open.

[kildorn]

wait, my PC fallout should be giving me achievements? SHIT.

[Ingmar]

wait, my PC fallout should be giving me achievements? SHIT.

Yep, log in with your xbox live info. Welcome to the yet-another-full-playthrough club!

[shiznitz]

F3 is my first contact with Windows Live achievements. What do they do for me if I don't have an Xbox?

[Hindenburg]

Nothing.
And if you do have an xbox?
Nothing.

[Litigator]

Nothing.
And if you do have an xbox?
Nothing.

You should be able to use the icons for achievements you earn as your player icon.  I don't know why they don't implement this, except that they probably want to sell people icons.

[Big Gulp]

Nothing.
And if you do have an xbox?
Nothing.

Oh come on, now.  Don't we all have that crazy achievement whore acquaintance (I won't go so far as to call them a friend) who cyber stalks you and constantly keeps you appraised of how many points they've got because it's the only thing they have in life besides a fat, unemployed spouse?

Just me, then?

[schild]

[Hindenburg]

Circle of Doom? 

I can understand being baited by the promisse of more KuF goodness, but CoD is a failure in everything but art direction.

[Ingmar]

I think for my 2nd playthrough I am going to push the main quest right to where you get power armor and the enclave show up all over the wasteland before I go exploring. I went a litttttle too far beyond that in my current one and cut off some opportunities (like most of Raven Rock) so I'm going to leave a bunch of stuff I haven't explored for the 2nd I think. The maximum wandering-the-wasteland-fun point seems to be once the Enclave shows up.

Is anyone else getting randomly attacked by the Brotherhood Outcasts? I didn't think I did anything to piss them off. Is it because now I'm wearing tech they want?

[Lantyssa]

I haven't seen that.  I even 'stumbled' across some of their power armor and they like me.  I haven't been given access to the Brotherhood Citidel yet, so I don't know if that changes things.  Did you invade their fort?

[Ingmar]

I haven't seen that.  I even 'stumbled' across some of their power armor and they like me.  I haven't been given access to the Brotherhood Citidel yet, so I don't know if that changes things.  Did you invade their fort?

Negative, I even sold them some guns at one point I think. I'm wondering if it is because I am buddies with the regular Brotherhood.

[Lantyssa]

Maybe.  I should mention what the guy says if you talk to him while in possession of Outcast armor is darkly humorous.

[Sky]

After wandering around doing random stuff, I decided to increment the plot forward by going to GNR for the first time. Really nice change with the NPC's dialogue and fighting through the super mutants with a brotherhood unit.

Will I ruin any more plot if I do Rivet City stuff without moving the main plot forward from GNR?

I'm still level 10 on my first playthrough :) And I've been playing alot, in my view. You guys are nuts :)

[schild]

Will I ruin any more plot if I do Rivet City stuff without moving the main plot forward from GNR?

Might as well do the main plot through Rivet City since it takes you there.

[Khaldun]

Going to Rivet City is a good thing to do. Just don't advance the plot beyond that: it accelerates pretty quickly into the final stuff if you don't make a conscious decision to stop, and if you're feeling really immersed, stopping at some of the points where you have to stop feels like walking out in the middle of a crisis--the first time you get to that stuff, it may be hard to stop when you need to.