Fallout 3 [spoilers, etc]

[Reg]

I think he's right about there only being the two quests. I got the ranger quest in the chop shop and the only thing I could talk to the rest of the ghouls about was Crowley and what he was up to. Once I'd talked to the other ghouls about that it unlocked the conversation choices that allowed me to just collect keys and not kill all of those people.

[Ingmar]

Even if I can get out with my life, that whole group of quests is locked out and I'll have no way to get them back.

The only quest you do in Underworld is Crowley's, so it's not like you are missing anything.  You can start the Rangers quest there, but it's not required, you can start it elswhere too.  The place is really more a merchant hub than a quest hub.  Also, as was previously mentioned, if you avoid the place for a few days and come back, they usually calm down.  The only thing I can think of that you might be missing out on is Charon as a companion, and that's only if you kill him or Ahzrukhal, or the town never de-aggros.

Oh, and in the future, take the keys to Fort Constantine, unlock the doors but leave the armor, then give them to Crowley.  Head back to the Fort and pick up the armor.  Profit.

Or just give him the keys, follow him a ways outside of town, and shoot him. He'll walk all the way to Ft. Constantine if you let him.

[Shrike]

That's what I actually ended up doing.

The only issue with this was he seemed to like to swim and I kept losing him in the river. After the third reload, I just capped him when we hit the riverbank and took his keys.

Of course, it was a headshot with a sniper rifle...

[Rishathra]

So Crowley telepathically knows whether you've taken the armor or not, but not whether you took the keys, and he'll never show up to claim the armor himself?

Oh no, he does eventually find out if you use my method, but he travels to the Fort first, and then assaults you out in the wasteland, as opposed to in Underworld, surrounded by allies.  I had thought I got away with my little trick nice and clean until I got jumped by him out by Fort Independence.  I ran away because I didn't want to kill him, but he continues to follow me.  It has actually become rather amusing.  He's persistent.  I'll lose him for a few days, and then he'll pop up someplace else and take shots at me.

There's also the option of just grabbing the armor.  It ends the quest so you don't get a chance to be paid by Crowley, but as far as I can tell, he just bitches at you about it and doesn't go hostile.

I checked back to confirm, there are only two quests in Underworld, Crowley's and Reilly's Rangers.  You don't have to actually speak to Reilly to start the quest, and it doesn't end in Underworld.  So you're in the clear, aside from possibly losing Charon.  There's an optional mini-quest involved in hiring Charon, if you don't want to spend the caps, but otherwise, that's it for Underworld.

[Tebonas]

Plus the Scrap Metal Trade-In, in case your Megaton contact vanishes (as he often does).

[Reg]

I mainly like it for the new merchants. My Megaton guys keep running out of caps on me these days.

[Shrike]

The wandering traders usually are well stocked with caps, so they're always worth checking out. They also--the weapons guy in particular--have much better repair skills. Important for weapons like gatling lasers and sniper rifles where spares are hard to come by.

I also made a habit of hitting Rivet City and even checking in with The Family trader if I needed particular sorts of ammo or more caps than were otherwise available. There are also a number of scavengers that often have useful things and a few caps scattered around the map.

[Rishathra]

I trade pretty much exclusively with the wandering merchants, only occasionally going to places like Flak and Shrapnel if I need a particular weapon to repair with, or Sydney for ammo.  My trick for finding them quickly is to fast travel to Paradise Falls.  If one is not there, wait one hour.  Repeat until one shows up.  You never have to wait more than two hours, and they are never more than two hours separated from each other, if you are looking for a particular one.  The travel order is Crow, Doc Hoff, Harith, Wolfgang.

[Dtrain]

I'm late to the party on this one, so forgive me if I'm , but Liberty Prime was fucking

Otherwise the game was "meh" to "somewhat better than decent."

Also,

Fawkes says, "Sorry, I feel it's your destiny to die like an idiot while I stand aside, perfectly able to help, and do nothing."

Where is my dialogue option for:

Fawkes old chap - ever since I stepped out of Vault 101 I have been a shining beacon of hope in these shattered lands. I have run every errand (no matter how inconsequential,) for every whiny snot nosed incapable fuck left alive in this wasteland, and a few who I think might have been dead already. I am seconds away from jump-starting an entire eco-system. When sentient beings first notice me, time slows as a nimbus of light appears behind my head and a chorus of angels can be heard faintly even through the seventh veil. However, if you do not get your lumpy orange ass into that chamber and push <SPOILER?>ENTER, I am going to shove that laser minigun up your behind and pull the trigger. Afterwards I'm going to drag your body all the way back to that shithole where I found you (yes, even as this earth's last hope is going into meltdown,) murder all the children I see along the way with your penis, and throw you back into that cell before I piss all over your festering corpse. Now please, think again, and try not to get philosophical about my destiny.

Also,

[MahrinSkel]

<brilliance>

Dtrain wins the thread.

--Dave

[Tebonas]

Fawkes doesn't have a penis, though. Because Super Mutants are equipped like Barbie dolls, and doubly so because Fawkes was a woman before that. So that threat wouldn't work.

Other than that I agree.

[Nazrat]

Fawkes doesn't have a penis, though. Because Super Mutants are equipped like Barbie dolls, and doubly so because Fawkes was a woman before that. So that threat wouldn't work.

Other than that I agree.

Don't slow him down.  He is on a roll.  

[Lantyssa]

That was a much more eloquent way of phrasing what I said to Fawkes.

[Shrike]

My character was all about making the other poor, dumb bastard die for his country. It was a foregone conclusion that Lyons was going to take one for the team. Felt a little bad about it, but since Fawkes decided to be a dick, well...

If they game hadn't promptly ended at that point, Fawkes, I, and Vengeance were going to have a little heart-to-heart over his/her/it/whatever's instransigence.

[Riggswolfe]

A friend told me that in some DLC coming soon the game will no longer end like it does. Rather you will be able to keep wandering the wasteland. How that will work is anyone's guess.

[rk47]

Continue ? 9
Insert more coin. 

[Dtrain]

Fawkes doesn't have a penis, though. Because Super Mutants are equipped like Barbie dolls, and doubly so because Fawkes was a woman before that. So that threat wouldn't work.

Other than that I agree.

Fawkes says, "Super Mutant physiology does not support the manifestation of genitals."

Explain it to the dead children, Fawkes.

[squirrel]

And that folks is how you win this game. Or how the Shark did. Which I also did. RAWR.

[Khaldun]

Here's a question about being evil. Can you enslave Flak without aggroing all of Rivet City? I've snuck into his room at night and done it and everyone in the whole city aggroes the second that Flak runs off with the collar on. I didn't have any trouble enslaving the woman in Tenpenny Towers.

If you aggro all of Rivet City, does that bork the main quest? Because I could pretty much kill them all except for Harkness and the kids, who can't be killed.

[Rasix]

Like others have mentioned, cities de-aggro after a few days apparently.

[MahrinSkel]

Here's a question about being evil. Can you enslave Flak without aggroing all of Rivet City? I've snuck into his room at night and done it and everyone in the whole city aggroes the second that Flak runs off with the collar on. I didn't have any trouble enslaving the woman in Tenpenny Towers.

If you aggro all of Rivet City, does that bork the main quest? Because I could pretty much kill them all except for Harkness and the kids, who can't be killed.

It won't let you kill someone you still need for some other quest (including the main one).  I was starting another character to check out Unarmed skill, and went on a rampage through Vault 101.  I couldn't kill Amata, or the guy who is fixing the robot, or that robot.  I think they're essential to a quest, "Trouble on the Home Front", that you can do later.  And it never lets you kill kids, ratings systems makes that an automatic disqualification for going on the store shelves in some countries.

--Dave

[Khaldun]

Yeah, my first act as an evil karma person was to try and kill everyone in Vault 101 before I left, so I found the same thing. Ok, time to drench Rivet City in blood, then. It's not like most of the people there have anything to sell me that I want, anyway.

[lesion]

If you put on a Stealth Boy you can do pretty much anything and get away with it. Most of the time.

[tmp]

slight necro, but:

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.

Have to disagree; having a super-mutant guy* that i'd been open-minded enough to free from his cell and then travel with throughout the wastes ... in the end step in to push the button thus both saving others from unnecessary sacrifice and starting new era for the whole ravaged land with his act -- that's enough symmetry, karma payoff and other stuff in it to make it a very satisfying and complete (optional) ending. Even a ghoul doing it despite most of the remaining humanity treating them like shit works good enough in this context.

And hell, if they must kill you then it's not like they didn't have tool already in the game to explain it in way that avoids the whole "lol, radiation" stupidity -- when you retrieve GECK from its chamber you're given option to activate it. If you go for that, it warns you that GECK annihilates everything nearby to turn it into new matter. If you go with it and do activate it there, it blows your head off in blue pulse of some mcguffin energy. Yup, it's the same GECK that's stuffed into the puriifier in the end to make it work. A much simpler, and much harder to avoid cause of death than +1 rad/sec.

*) Fawkes is not a girl, the guy giving interview was just mistaken

[Ironwood]

I agree with the Acronym.

[Hindenburg]

Anchorage is out.
Level cap raised to 30, and new ninja armour. 

[Velorath]

Anchorage is out.
Level cap raised to 30, and new ninja armour. 

This isn't the DLC that raises the cap to 30 (that one doesn't come out until March).

[Rishathra]

It's short and straightforward but I had fun.  Got a kick out of seeing the non-abused weapon and armor textures.  I was very disappointed, though, when I found out that some of the cooler outfits from the sim aren't in the armory afterwards.  Both the Chinese and American winter gear with balaclava were pretty sweet looking.

The gauss rifle makes up for it.  Every shot makes you feel like all at once.

[Engels]

I just got it, will play it through this weekend, but I gotta say, it was a royal pain to get to work. First, purchase 1000 points on windows live. Then download it to some esoteric folder under /users/<account name>/Appdata/Microsoft/xboxlive/yada/yada. Then copy the 3 files to the steam account DATA folder. Then launch the game, log into Windows Live and then the danged content works.

[Jeff Kelly]

A short technical question. I recently got Fallout 3 and tried to install it on my Macbook Pro (native on Vista with Bootcamp). The game won't let me run it at the native display resolution however. I can only select

800x600
1024x768
1280<8something

although I have 512 MB of Video RAM.

What's the deal there?

[Sky]

First, purchase 1000 points on windows live.

Yeah...no.

Is all this DLC stuff you guys talk about fee-based? It's nice they're adding onto the game, but wtf? How much $ is 1000 windows live points? I installed the stupid Live app and saw it was fee-based and shrugged off Fallout 3. Maybe if they release all the DLC at some point as an expansion for a few bucks. Though I don't really buy expansions, I'd rather just buy another game mostly. The only chance F3 DLC has is if Saint's Row 2 and GTA4 don't get some kind of performance patching.

[Sky]

What's the deal there?

Driver issue?

[Hindenburg]

How much $ is 1000 windows live points?

About 12 USD.

[Engels]

microsoft decided to build monetary inflation into the system before hand. they are just so forward thinking that way.

[Lantyssa]

It's stupid you can't get the content through Steam, since many of us purchased the game that way.

My roommate tried for an hour to get it, but Windows Live has the most god-awful interface.  Had an account but didn't, somehow.  Gave up on Live after this.  Funny though, because after a fifteen second 'fix', the roomie was playing.

Hint to MS and others:  Work on your user interface.  Google trumps throw-your-keyboard levels of frustration.