Fallout 3 [spoilers, etc]

[Murgos]

One of my merchants, the one who sells armor, got assraped (body parts everywhere) by a pack of death claws just before I came wandering by.  I was wondering if he was going to respawn or is he done?

[shiznitz]

Done.

Do I need Tesla armor to repair Tesla armor? Probably moot since I am close to getting Reilly's.

[Sky]

Eh? I have something like 3,000 .44 ammo. It becomes more common. Particularly on merchants and the traveling salesfolk.

I've been playing for two months now and have only hit 200 .44 ammo a couple times. Merchants never have the stuff, maybe once every few weeks game-time they'll have a dozen rounds. I even did the quest where you can invest in the travelling traders and their stock still sucks.

Yes, Tesla for Tesla. I don't use it because it lacks the +STR. I wish you could use it to repair Enclave armor, since it's similar. I wear Enclave because it's the main stuff I can find to repair with.

[Tebonas]

Thats why I love Reillys. It can be repaired with both Talon armor and normal Combat armor the merchants sell you. I would love the Tesla for the look, but I can't handle the repairs.

[MahrinSkel]

The humor is buried, but you have to play the game long enough to find it.  Frankly I'm glad they didn't try too hard.  Else you end up with WoW's need for a pop-culture reference every five steps.  It's a good, solid game on its own (if you ignore much of the main plot).

Eh, I don't want pop culture references either. I just want more cooky Fallout type of characters. It's part of what made the games unique. Everyone in the others was a bit more self-entertaining and resigned to death and sarcasm. When I say this one is a bit dramatic, I just kind of mean the general attitude/dialogue is typical "Save Me!! Wahhh!!" RPG fare. And Guards act morose like they do in Oblivion. You could place most of the dialogue here in any Fantasy RPG and it'd be right in place.

You're not listening (or looking) closely enough.  I am doing a lot of sneak-and-snipe with the silenced 10mm, and I caught two super-mutants having roughly the following conversation:

Super Mutant 1: "I was thinking, it hurt my head!  I was thinking, about from before.  I think I knew a woman.  Or maybe, I *was* a woman?  Arrgghhh, it hurts!"

Super Mutant 2: "You talk too much, like a stupid human!"

SM1: "I was through talking to you, anyway."

Fake Edit: Here's a YouTube clip of those two mutants.

--Dave

[stray]

I was almost exclusively using a sniper rifle to pick super mutants off. Never got close enough to listen to them.

[Murgos]

I was almost exclusively using a sniper rifle to pick super mutants off. Never got close enough to listen to them.

There were three or four conversations that got a good laugh out of me.  There is one quest where there is this drawn out (two minutes?) phone/radio conversation that was a riot (about collecting humans for food.)  I can't remember which quest it was though.

[rk47]

No I think this one's funnier.

Taken off 1UP:
Q: why the player couldn't have one of his/her followers do the deed during the endgame? (Step into Radiated Chamber n Sacrifice himself)

    Emil Pagliarulo: That's a great question, and one that's obviously come up quite a bit in different forums. Let me try to shed some light on why the game is like that -- it's a pretty interesting look inside the development process.

    All of the followers were implemented into the game fairly late in development, after the main story had already been nailed down. So, you know, we had the scene at the end of the game, with deadly radiation, and never really compensated for the fact that you could have a Supermutant, or Ghoul, or robot, who could possibly turn the purifier on for you. We'd only ever planned for you sending Sarah Lyons into the purifier, because we knew, from a story standpoint, that she'd definitely be in there with you.

    What we could do -- and what we did ultimately do -- is cover that stuff in dialogue. You can ask those followers to go into the purifier, and they'll tell you why they won't. We felt that fit with their personalities, but really, they didn't "sell" that to the player in a single line of dialogue. So, in the end, the player's left with a, "Huh, why the hell can't they do it?!" sort of feeling.

    So the story does kind of break down. But you know what? We knew that, and were OK with it, because the trade-off is, well, you get these cool followers to join you. You meet up with Fawkes near the end of the game, and it's true you can go right with him to the purifier. So we could've not had him there as a follower, and that would've solved the problem of him not going into the purifier -- because, at that point in development, that was the only fix we had time for. But we kept it, and players got him as a follower, and they seem to love adventuring him with. Gameplay trumped story, in that example -- as I believe it should have.

    So if we'd planned better, we could've addressed that more satisfactorily. But considering how it all went down, I feel good about the decision we made there.

Good job Emil.  /facepalm

This is why Bethesda have difficulty improving beyond their sandbox game.

[ashrik]

you know, I came into that post expecting some previously unseen and interesting reasoning behind that particular decision. I left that post slightly more cynical than I came in

[stray]

Nice spoiler btw. 

Kidding! I don't give a shit. 

Seriously though... I'm getting a Total Recall feel from that ending. Is that far off?

Feel free to post an ending with a spoiler tag.

[rk47]

[apocrypha]

Taken off 1UP:
    So if we'd planned better, we could've addressed that more satisfactorily. But considering how it all went down, I feel good about the decision we made there.

That's truly pathetic. They just couldn't be arsed to give your followers dialogue specific to that quest. I'm deeply disappointed in that cavalier approach tbh. Fucktards.

[Reg]

Well at least they shipped a working game - even if the ending was weak. Bioware would have sacrificed gameplay for the story. Obsidian would have shipped it with no ending at all and left it to fanboys to figure out what was supposed to happen based on scrap files found on the DVD.

[stray]

And.. Many others do complete their games. If they start copping an attitude like that, then they're not much better than some developer carelessly churning out the latest shitty movie based game. It tells me that they're not really inspired. There are games, and then there are games where the development team was so stoked about giving a goddamn amazing experience that they even denied free hookers to get it out the way they wanted. This is not the latter.

[eldaec]

Personally, I'd have just made up an excuse for any companions to be elsewhere.

Heroes don't get away clean, the constant of narrative angst cannot just be ignored.

'Oh, you sent in the radiation immue mutant, or the ghoul who is already dying, well done'

Is not a suitably heroic ending.

[Hindenburg]

It is in the Black Isle Fallout universe.
Fuck, they allowed you to plant a bomb in the presidente 

[rk47]

Personally, I'd have just made up an excuse for any companions to be elsewhere.

Heroes don't get away clean, the constant of narrative angst cannot just be ignored.

'Oh, you sent in the radiation immue mutant, or the ghoul who is already dying, well done'

Is not a suitably heroic ending.

you know what was required right? somewhat who can withstand radiation and press buttanz.
it didn't have to kill anyone. Guess what? being a good guy can convince people to be a hero. Being a bad guy you pull out a gun and point it at someone else, 'Move it or lose it'. That's Role playing. That's what being Good/Evil is about. Not being stupid.

[eldaec]

Personally, I'd have just made up an excuse for any companions to be elsewhere.

Heroes don't get away clean, the constant of narrative angst cannot just be ignored.

'Oh, you sent in the radiation immue mutant, or the ghoul who is already dying, well done'

Is not a suitably heroic ending.

you know what was required right? somewhat who can withstand radiation and press buttanz.
it didn't have to kill anyone. Guess what? being a good guy can convince people to be a hero. Being a bad guy you pull out a gun and point it at someone else, 'Move it or lose it'. That's Role playing. That's what being Good/Evil is about. Not being stupid.

You had Sarah there if you are being evil.

Having the mutant go in and no harm being done is just a non-ending.

[Hindenburg]

You had Sarah there if you are being evil.

How is that evil in any way, shape or form? You already lost a father, you've already sacrificed far more than her, why should you also have to die?

[eldaec]

Because she is (a) a girl, (b) a secondary character and (c) established as morally worth saving.

Sending Sarah in if you are good would be like Spock sending Uhura into the radiation chamber at the end of Wrath of Khan.

Or for that matter, it would be like Kirk ordering Spock in for no reason other than Kirk has a hot date that night and so can't be dead.

Sending Fawkes in would be like sending a red shirt.

[Hindenburg]

a=Machism, b=irrelevance, and c=subjectivism, especially since, if you're playing good, you also are.
The bitch tries to GUILT TRIP you into going in. She's a complete prick, and you've proved beyond doubt that you do a far better job at helping the wastes than anyone in her little leet group ever could.

Sending Fawkes would be what anyone with half a brain would do. Also, aren't redshirts supposed to die?

[Lantyssa]

(a) I'm a girl, too.
(b) As a primary character, I need to live.
(c) I saved her entire unit back at GNR.  They owe me a raincheck.

Also, "all the illogical send Fawkes/Charon/etc. in while hopped up on Rad-X and we can all go get a cool drink of water at the pub afterwards" reasons.  The story is just as rewarding if the hero lives.  Moreso to me since I value living over senseless deaths.

[rk47]

Hi,

 Fawkes & Charon ARE IMMUNE to radiation.

Good day

[apocrypha]

PLUS it would have let you carry on the game after finishing the main plot line! It's just incredibly shoddy and I think Stray said it best - uninspired.

[eldaec]

(a) I'm a girl, too.
(b) As a primary character, I need to live.
(c) I saved her entire unit back at GNR.  They owe me a raincheck.

(a) Yeah, but you're an afterthought, the writer plainly has a male character in mind, otherwise we wouldn't be trapped in a room with the cute spunky blonde archetype.
(b) Why?
(c) Fine if you are evil, but that isn't valid argument if you are the good protagonist.

Sending Charon/Fawkes in (or a random bystander) would be fine if this were not the climax of the story. And I agree that it is a shitty climax, I agree that it is made worse by contriving to have various radiation immune chaps in the room. But 'guy presses some buttons then strolls out for cheeseburger' is not an appropriate finish.

[eldaec]

PLUS it would have let you carry on the game after finishing the main plot line! It's just incredibly shoddy and I think Stray said it best - uninspired.

There's the real reason, and personally if I were the writer, I'd have had whichever companion you have put a radiation suit on if required, get locked in the purifier,  make Sarah your new companion, then have you charge off somewhere else for another final final battle.


But they didn't do that, the purifier is the climax, and given that they are going for the whole wrath of khan thing, it has to be you or Sarah.

[Tebonas]

It was a shitty climax with too many logical troubles anyway. I MYSELF was almost radiance resistant as well as doped up on anti rad medication. I could have made a picnic for half an hour before taking a little nap and then pressing the button.

They introduced their perks and items late in the game as well?

[Lantyssa]

I would posit that if it's their shitty writing that gets one thinking the ending is stupid, we as consumers are correct in saying the allowed options are stupid.  Having circumstances forced on a character provides drama.  Having a character's actions forced (in one of the most open-ended RPGs at that) on the player is bad writing.

It's also something that could have been rewritten as a third option in about ten minutes.  Production time wouldn't have taken much longer, since they could still end the game there, which means about five more minutes of the voice actor's time to say everyone lived and the hero went down to the pub.

There's no justification for bad, forced endings.

[stark]

Fortunately, on my first playthrough I was an evil character.  I hacked the terminal to Fawkes room and killed it with fire, I killed everyone in that wretched ghoul city including Charon, and I send in the Lyon girl instead of going myself.  No logical inconsistency that way.

[eldaec]

  Having circumstances forced on a character provides drama.  Having a character's actions forced (in one of the most open-ended RPGs at that) on the player is bad writing.

Completely agree. I'm just saying that having Charon press the button would be even more shitty, and 'teh community' is whinging about the wrong thing.

Fortunately, on my first playthrough I was an evil character.  I hacked the terminal to Fawkes room and killed it with fire, I killed everyone in that wretched ghoul city including Charon, and I send in the Lyon girl instead of going myself.  No logical inconsistency that way.

And I guess this is the object lesson for us all. Bethesda can only write for pantomime villains, so you might as well roll with it.

[Lantyssa]

/glueonmustache
/twirlsmustache

[Sophismata]

Taken off 1UP:
    So if we'd planned better, we could've addressed that more satisfactorily. But considering how it all went down, I feel good about the decision we made there.

That's truly pathetic. They just couldn't be arsed to give your followers dialogue specific to that quest. I'm deeply disappointed in that cavalier approach tbh. Fucktards.

They did give your followers dialogue specific to that quest. That's the sad part - they chose to prevent followers from helping you out while providing no real reason for doing so.

[taolurker]

There are actually mods that are adjusting quests, like you could in Oblivion.

Maybe there will be a better ending out there somewhere?

[Samwise]

So, I just started playing this.  I think there's something wrong with me, because I'm not finding it all that great so far.  The stuff in the vault was kinda fun, but since then it seems like I'm just spending all my time wandering across an endless brown landscape and shooting orcs and giant bugs, pausing only to click through the occasional shitty dialogue tree.  I'm dissatisfied with how many precious bullets it takes me to kill the giant bugs, and it seems like there's a neverfuckingending supply of them, so I've been levelling up my gun skill exclusively, but I haven't noticed any corresponding increase in my killing power.  WTF?

I just now got to the radio tower thing and the guy wants me to fix an antenna or some shit.  How much further do I have to go?  Does it get any better?

[stray]

I lasted till about level 14 feeling that way. Although damage should be easier (and even boring than it already is) than what you're experiencing. Are you using VATS at all?