Fallout 3 Impressions

Bob · Post by **Bob** » Tue Sep 22, 2009 3:33 pm

I'm playing through with FWE and Robco Certified. My science nerd spends half his time making sure his robots aren't shooting him in the back.

But yeah.. I like that it gives you a use for things in the base game that hardly ever come into play. I worry about my radiation level. I have keep track of food and water (though not to a tedious level.) I've managed to make it past some tough situations through the use of drugs. Morphine has saved my ass a few times.

Tscott · Post by **Tscott** » Tue Sep 22, 2009 4:39 pm

I finally burned out too. I always seem to do so when playing an evil character. I've done the main evil things, wandered around a bit, redid The Pitt (turns out my first time through I missed a few areas, because I sided with a certain side), collected some teddy bears, now I'm thinking "Now what?" I couldn't get motivated to do the main quest either time I went evil.

Still, I probably put over 250 hours into the game over the last year so I can't complain at all about getting a little burned out after that.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Tue Sep 22, 2009 10:59 pm

Question and necessary spoilers:

The Pitt leaves you in somewhat of a moral quandry. Ashur sounds like a decent man who found himself in a bad situation, though I personally think he went too far in his methods. Yet the slaves would kidnap his child, and I'm not certain they have the scientific abilities to complete the research for the cure (perhaps that is revealed later). So what happens if you just don't choose? Can you leave the city, letting the two side fight it out? Or are you forced to side with one or the other? Just wondering.

Tscott · Post by **Tscott** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 1:15 am

Re: The Pitt

Spoiler:

Combustible Lemur · Post by **Combustible Lemur** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 12:43 pm

I felt the same problem. So I left the baby with the mom, then proceeded to kill every slaver in the map. All of them including ashur, I also sent wherner packing. Unfortunately the slaves couldn't figure out that their dictator and every overseer was no longer among the living and were still pissed at me.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 1:40 pm

Spoilers, if you haven't played The Pitt don't read.

This is a somewhat of a moral quandary, but below is my reasoning . . . I am going to side with the slaves for several reasons:

1) While I believe that Ashur was given a bad hand, I don't think he played it well. Did he need workers? Sure, but did the overseers have to be such brutes? If you say they needed that to maintain order/control and keep people from leaving, it no better than any other dictatorship. If people have to be kept in the Pitt by force, then it simply shouldn't have existed.

2) He also stepped across the line when he started dealing with slavers and importing workers. It might be one thing to try and impose order within the Pitt, but to bring people into that situation by force is wrong. He's basically trying to keep a non-functional system functional. I question whether people should have been living there to begin with if it had to be by force.

3) While the kidnapping of a child from its parents is morally repugnant, I feel he and his wife brought it upon themselves by their actions. By keeping the population in slavery, importing others as slaves, and then brutalizing and killing them, I think Ashur forfeits rights to any moral obligation from me.

4) The irony of this all is that the slaves in the end WILL benefit from all that Ashur built. Because he kept the mills working, because he kept the population there, because he discovered/created the cure, they are now in a position to benefit from Ashur's actions as repugnant as they are. But in the end, they are really benefiting from all of their sacrifices . They, not Ashur, are really the ones that the Pitt was built by - on their bloody backs and corpses. So it only seems fair that in the end, they take control of their own destiny. It is their time.

I'd be interested in what others thought and how they solved all of this.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 1:42 pm

Tscott wrote:Re: The Pitt
Spoiler:
If you leave after speaking with Asher without taking the child, it's assumed you've sided with the slavers. The slaves will riot against the slavers and be hostel to you. You can easily hold back and avoid any fighting, as the slavers should take care of them. But all that's left at this point is to "speak" to Wernher, after Media tells you where he is. Whether you need to fight Wernher or not depends on a speech check (or Black Widow perk). Then you can leave for sure. My guess is the main quest must be completed either this way or the other before you can leave, but I'm not 100% sure on that.

Yeah, I left without taking the baby to see what happened, and the slaves didn't like me. I tried leaving the Pitt and I couldn't. The gate stayed locked. So the game forces a choice on me. I wish there had been a way for me to hold the child, denying her to either side, and then negotiate a deal between both sides. That would have been a cool twist. But the world doesn't always work that way so I guess it is true to life.

EDIT: I tried to see if there was some way to play the middle. I stole the baby but refused to give it to Werhner and had to kill him. I then went underground to see if I could turn off the lights and release the Trogs, gutting his army, maybe forcing a compromise. But no go - from looking at screenshots, they actually removed the terminal that I would use to do that! So I guess if I kill Werhner, I'm back on Ashur's side. I guess I need to go talk to him and see if I have any options then. My guess is not.

Tscott · Post by **Tscott** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 2:58 pm

I'd be interested in what others thought and how they solved all of this.

My first time through, I played as a neutral/good character. I drew the line of my moral compass at kidnapping a kid from the mother, and thus sided with the Slavers. I exited, with as little conflict as I could (I think there was one slave I had to kill on my own), and talked Wernher into leaving, rather than killing him. I figured I was minimizing my impact in a messy situation and was counting on Ashur to keep his word that things would turn around when a cure was finalized.

My second time through I was playing evil and took the child without question, and dealt with the people in power. Further spoilers follow, if you haven't finished this questline yet be wary:

Spoiler:

I always felt a similar moral quandary with the Tenpenny Tower quest, and my first few playthroughs always left it unfinished because I didn't care to try to force any of the solutions on either party.

Grifman · Post by **Grifman** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 3:56 pm

Tscott wrote:
I'd be interested in what others thought and how they solved all of this.
My first time through, I played as a neutral/good character. I drew the line of my moral compass at kidnapping a kid from the mother, and thus sided with the Slavers. I exited, with as little conflict as I could (I think there was one slave I had to kill on my own), and talked Wernher into leaving, rather than killing him. I figured I was minimizing my impact in a messy situation and was counting on Ashur to keep his word that things would turn around when a cure was finalized.

Here's where I disagree. Siding with the slaves ends their brutalization. You will get the same result, a cure for the radiation sickness and a restored Pitt, but the slaves are now in power, not Ashur and his thugs. The violence against the slaves now ends, along with the raids on the outside to bring in more slaves. As the new leader, you can insure this. To me, the kidnapping, though repugnant, was a better moral choice than leaving Ashur in power which would only continue the oppression of the slaves and raids on outside areas.

Interestingly, if you go back and talk to Ashur and ask him if he'll now free the slaves he refuses.

Madmarcus · Post by **Madmarcus** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 11:37 am

114 hours in and I went ahead and ended the Main Quest (and thus the game). I don't think its as much of a disappointment as others made the ending out to be. I wish there had been a pro Enclave path but oh well. Overall I thought that not having to get the GECK yourself was a much bigger let down. I intentionally left around 50% of the non Main Quest contest undone so that I can reply it as a pure survival game via mods.

Flatlander · Post by **Flatlander** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 4:36 pm

I finished my first playthrough and just loved it. Played as a sniper/negotiator.

Spoiler:

Madmarcus · Post by **Madmarcus** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 5:15 pm

I don't have the DLC and Fawkes died on the way back to the Pentagon (he got separated from me while on the highway near the car fort so I'm not sure what really happened) which meant I sacrificed myself.

I'd been playing a sciencey do-gooder so I'd probably try a more speech oriented explorer with shakier morals.

MonkeyFinger · Post by **MonkeyFinger** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 7:55 pm

Flatlander wrote:I finished my first playthrough and just loved it. Played as a sniper/negotiator.

Spoiler:
I definately plan on having another go at it. When I finished the game, I had Fawkes go into the Jefferson Memorial chamber at the end. I assume that in Vanilla Fallout 3 your character has to go in and it kills you and ends the game instead of having you wake up a couple weeks later .

There's still an awful lot of stuff I haven't done in the game. Haven't been to Tenpenny Tower or Paradise Falls, haven't gone to Point Lookout, havent done Broken Steel or Mothership Zeta, even though I have all the DLC installed. So the next playthru will have a lot of gaming newness! I think I'll try an entirely different character.

Spoiler:

Save Point Lookout for when your character gets up into the 20s, level-wise.

Scoop20906 · Post by **Scoop20906** » Mon Dec 28, 2009 1:36 pm

I considering getting the Fallout 3 Game of the Year edition on steam so I can get all the expansions in one easy pack.

However, I know that steam hides the installation directory for alot of games. When I played fallout 3 before I installed some of the mods for the game which made the game alot better. I just want to see if anyone has purchased Fallout 3 on steam and was also able to install the fan made mods as well. I'm guessing NO but just wanted to see what everyone knew or thought about it.

Sepiche · Post by **Sepiche** » Mon Dec 28, 2009 1:53 pm

Scoop20906 wrote:I considering getting the Fallout 3 Game of the Year edition on steam so I can get all the expansions in one easy pack.

However, I know that steam hides the installation directory for alot of games. When I played fallout 3 before I installed some of the mods for the game which made the game alot better. I just want to see if anyone has purchased Fallout 3 on steam and was also able to install the fan made mods as well. I'm guessing NO but just wanted to see what everyone knew or thought about it.

The install folder for most steam games is in [steam folder]/steamapps/common

I've never had a problem using mods on any Steam games, Fallout 3 included.

Scoop20906 · Post by **Scoop20906** » Mon Dec 28, 2009 2:14 pm

Sepiche wrote:
Scoop20906 wrote:I considering getting the Fallout 3 Game of the Year edition on steam so I can get all the expansions in one easy pack.

However, I know that steam hides the installation directory for alot of games. When I played fallout 3 before I installed some of the mods for the game which made the game alot better. I just want to see if anyone has purchased Fallout 3 on steam and was also able to install the fan made mods as well. I'm guessing NO but just wanted to see what everyone knew or thought about it.
The install folder for most steam games is in [steam folder]/steamapps/common

I've never had a problem using mods on any Steam games, Fallout 3 included.

Cool, thanks for the post.

Madmarcus · Post by **Madmarcus** » Mon Dec 28, 2009 2:51 pm

FO3 from Steam works fine with mods. I just restarted with FOOK2 and made the happy discovery that with the use of FOMM it doesn't care whose Steam account is active.

Sudy · Post by **Sudy** » Sat Feb 13, 2010 12:47 pm

GOTY $24.95 @ D2D through Feb. 15th.

Any recommended mods for a first-timer?

Edit: It seems that the D2D version of FO3 may not support some "FOSE" modding tool. Can anyone elaborate? Does this mean the D2D version is incompatible with mods? Not jumping to conclusions, but want to be sure.

Two Sheds · Post by **Two Sheds** » Sat Feb 13, 2010 1:45 pm

Sudy Nym wrote:GOTY $24.95 @ D2D through Feb. 15th.

Any recommended mods for a first-timer?

Edit: It seems that the D2D version of FO3 may not support some "FOSE" modding tool. Can anyone elaborate? Does this mean the D2D version is incompatible with mods? Not jumping to conclusions, but want to be sure.

FOSE is required by some mods, but not a lot. I've not looked at mods in a long time so I can't be of much help in recommendations. Check out Fallout 3 Nexus, and anything that requires FOSE will tell you.

That said, if it's your first time you might want to just play without any mods. It's a perfectly good game on its own, and you wouldn't really know what you're changing or why.

Sudy · Post by **Sudy** » Sat Feb 13, 2010 1:49 pm

Thanks, that's actually what I would have hoped. There's nothing inherently broken that most agree must be fixed? Like leveling mustn't necessarily be slowed down, or anything?

Madmarcus · Post by **Madmarcus** » Sat Feb 13, 2010 2:02 pm

I think leveling needs to be slowed down, Then again I'm an explorer by nature, if you concentrate on doing the main quest and side quests you find while doing it you might be ok with vanilla leveling.

Freezer-TPF- · Post by **Freezer-TPF-** » Sat Feb 13, 2010 2:57 pm

I think the leveling is okay in general, but I'd avoid any perks that give you % bonuses to XP since you won't need it. The other complication is I think the higher difficulties give you more XP per encounter, which exacerbates any concerns about leveling too fast. I played on Normal (or whatever it is called). For me, the best parts of FO3 are the atmosphere and exploration. The combat is serviceable but eventually gets rather tedious and repetitive, so I didn't worry too much about leveling too fast. One of the DLCs (Broken Steel?) removes the level cap, so that fixes one problem re. leveling.

Sarkus · Post by **Sarkus** » Sat Feb 13, 2010 4:22 pm

Sudy Nym wrote:Thanks, that's actually what I would have hoped. There's nothing inherently broken that most agree must be fixed? Like leveling mustn't necessarily be slowed down, or anything?

I wouldn't choose any perks that speed up your leveling, but at this point the new level cap introduced in the Broken Steel DLC pretty much covers doing just about everything in the game before hitting the level max.

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Sat Feb 13, 2010 4:33 pm

A word of warning: apparently the D2D version of Fallout 3 is incompatible with mods that use the "script extender" (whatever that is, but it's common). I don't know the details, but it's possible that you'll be locked out of major mod packages if you download the game. (This is definitely the case with Direct2Drive versions of FO3 and Oblivion. I don't know if it's true of Steam.)

EDIT: Looks like you were already discussing such concerns. Cancel red alert.

Holman · Post by **Holman** » Sat Feb 13, 2010 7:28 pm

While we're at it, does the latest FOOK mod use this FOSE that is unsupported in the D2D version of the game?

EDIT: It looks like latest FOOK mod does require FOSE for full functionality.

Sudy · Post by **Sudy** » Sat Feb 13, 2010 10:28 pm

Well, I'm on the fence. I really want FO3, but the truth is I have 974 other games in my backlog, and I can't foresee whether I'll want to use one of those mods someday. I'm sure it'll be $30 or less on Steam within the next couple of months, right ? Heck, it'll probably be $10 before New Vegas comes out.

For the sake of argument, do you suppose replacing the problematic D2D .exe with an "altered" .exe would alleviate the potential problem?

MonkeyFinger · Post by **MonkeyFinger** » Sun Feb 14, 2010 10:46 am

Freezer-TPF- wrote:I think the leveling is okay in general, but I'd avoid any perks that give you % bonuses to XP since you won't need it. The other complication is I think the higher difficulties give you more XP per encounter, which exacerbates any concerns about leveling too fast. I played on Normal (or whatever it is called). For me, the best parts of FO3 are the atmosphere and exploration. The combat is serviceable but eventually gets rather tedious and repetitive, so I didn't worry too much about leveling too fast. One of the DLCs (Broken Steel?) removes the level cap, so that fixes one problem re. leveling.

I personally didn't have a problem with the leveling but some people did, as noted you can avoid the perks that do things like increase how much experience you get which would help if that was a concern. I've got 130+ hours in FO3 so far and did spend some time before Broken Steel came out smashed up against the level cap of 20 and thus not gaining experience but for whatever reason it didn't bother me.

And a minor nit, Broken Steel doesn't remove the level cap but instead increases it from 20 to 30.

Two Sheds · Post by **Two Sheds** » Sun Feb 14, 2010 1:06 pm

Sudy Nym wrote:Well, I'm on the fence. I really want FO3, but the truth is I have 974 other games in my backlog, and I can't foresee whether I'll want to use one of those mods someday. I'm sure it'll be $30 or less on Steam within the next couple of months, right ? Heck, it'll probably be $10 before New Vegas comes out.

For the sake of argument, do you suppose replacing the problematic D2D .exe with an "altered" .exe would alleviate the potential problem?

If you really want to play it, I say go for it. None of the mods that use FOSE are what I would call essential. Hell, I had a pretty heavily-modded game going the last time I played through and I think only one of them required it. The core game + DLCs + hundreds of mods that don't require FOSE will be enough to keep you entertained, I assure you.

Creepy_Smell · Post by **Creepy_Smell** » Sun Feb 14, 2010 1:50 pm

I really enjoyed F3 and only mods I installed were a menu mod and speed mod. Sort of weird since I heavily modded Morrowind and Oblivion. Haven't really had the urge to look into more mods for F3 which is weird since I normally mod stuff like crazy.

tripcrow · Post by **tripcrow** » Sun Feb 14, 2010 3:19 pm

Just finished Fallout3 on XBox360. This has to be the best game, PC or console, that I’ve ever played.

Finally a game that I didn't feel like I was being disadvantaged in any way by not playing it on the PC. Didn’t need any tips the whole game and found the difficulty perfect on normal. The controls were fairly intuitive and complete. While the depth of story and the diversity of playing style were just right.

Outfreakinstanding.

Tscott · Post by **Tscott** » Sun Feb 14, 2010 3:58 pm

I've finished the game 3 times, and played a couple other characters extensively. The only mods I had were the unofficial patch and the mod to add up to 100 songs to the radio station.

You could overload the game with tons of other mods, but the game doesn't need it. Besides when I last looked all the body improvement mods were pornographic. Not that I'm a prude, but I don't want to be rewarded with a view of a stiff cock every time I kill a raider and steal their armor.

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Sun Feb 14, 2010 4:00 pm

I like the graphics mods and weapons and companions. Also any weight mods are really helpful.

Sarkus · Post by **Sarkus** » Sun Feb 14, 2010 6:47 pm

I finally decided to ditch GFWL and after a lot of googling around about how to bypass it, found out there is a little utility you can download that does all the work for you. Yay!

Buatha · Post by **Buatha** » Mon Feb 15, 2010 9:03 pm

Following the advice of people here (and unfortunately receiving a gift card to Best Buy), I bought the add-on disc with Point Lookout and Broken Steel.

So, is it best to start from scratch with the content installed (if that is the correct term), or is it safe to add later? I keep hearing rumors of people having stability issues when incorporating the new content in current games.

Creepy_Smell · Post by **Creepy_Smell** » Mon Feb 15, 2010 10:43 pm

Buatha wrote:Following the advice of people here (and unfortunately receiving a gift card to Best Buy), I bought the add-on disc with Point Lookout and Broken Steel.

So, is it best to start from scratch with the content installed (if that is the correct term), or is it safe to add later? I keep hearing rumors of people having stability issues when incorporating the new content in current games.

I haven't had any problems but I haven't modded F3 very much. Works fine so far with a 30+hr save I have.

Sudy · Post by **Sudy** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 8:14 pm

Long time reader of reviews and impressions, first time player.

Should I wait until the end of the main game to touch the DLC? This is what I presume and desire, but I'm worried if I don't activate something/listen to the radio signals now, I'll be missing out. I'm also concerned I'll forget which quests/radio signals are DLC-related as my log fills up.

With the level cap increase, how much should a first time player be looking to decrease experience gain through mods? I read Blackhawk say he used 75% in another thread, and had been happy with it. I'm going with that for now, but am concerned at all the reports I've heard about people reaching level 20 and only being 15% of the way through the game. I like looking forward to leveling, and don't want combat to be too easy or be overgeared too early.

Doomboy · Post by **Doomboy** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 10:09 pm

If I remember right, it doesn't matter when you do the Mothership or Alaska things. I have heard people recommend doing The Pitt around level 15, and Point Lookout around level 23.

Broken Steel is after the main game.

You will learn power armor skill from doing the Alaska mission. And it never tells you that. So if you want to learn that from doing story missions, I would wait until after the obvious moment of learning it during the main storyline.

Tscott · Post by **Tscott** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 10:09 pm

Most of the DLC is separate from the main quest and can be done at any time. You should be aware that when you start most of the DLC, you can't come back until you've finished. So just be sure you're ready to take a break from exploring the wastelands or downtown DC before starting any of those areas. But it doesn't matter if you do them before or after the main quest. Broken Steel is the exception to that- it takes place after the main quest and you won't have access to it until then.

AjD · Post by **AjD** » Mon Jun 14, 2010 10:36 pm

Interesting... so you can't return to the "regular" FO if you go into one of the add-on areas? Until you complete the add-on?

Is Oblivion like that too? I wonder if it's a limitation of the engine.

Tscott · Post by **Tscott** » Tue Jun 15, 2010 12:47 am

Usually it's plot related, not a limitation. For Operation: Anchorage you enter a simulation, and you must complete it to exit it. For Mothership Zeta the whole objective is to escape. In Point Lookout and The Pitt, you can move back and forth, but I think at certain points that option is gone due to the plot.

It's no different than some other areas you would normally encounter in the wastelands- you could enter a building, a vault, a cave, etc. and find yourself needing to fight your way through before you can exit again. I just mention it because the DLC are naturally longer.