Bay 12 Games Forum

And then there's the old "but DC might've gotten bombed worse because DC" thing.

I can agree with pretty much all of that.
Well, there's megaton and other settlements, altough they're more like villages then anything. I think its mostly an issue of poor presentation on bethesda's part. Megaton should've been much larger and more developed, having farms and actual commerce instead of just being a huge hole in the groun with a few people living here and there, and the local slavers should've been way more stablished, kinda like the pitt and etc. Megaton could've had its own militia and serve as the hub of some NCR-esque faction, and so could Rivet City, considering the kind of stuff they have available.

There were elements that would justify a more developed capital wasteland, but bethesda just chose to not explore them, probably because their initial scope for fallout 3 was already realized and they didnt want to take too much time to released it. Its too bad none of the DLCs have adressed that issue. Instead of proper civilization in the capital wasteland, we got scary swamp rednecks, aliens and virtual reality. This is mostly why the pitt was the only dlc that made some sort of sense.

I agree. On the Rivet City part at least, I never felt like Megaton should be a powerful faction. The only thing they could've done is make it a more lively trading post, with an actual marketplace and that would illustrate the "we're an important trading stop" part just dandy.

But yeah, there is a hillarious place illustrating this problem perfectly just outside Megaton, in that bombed-out city. It's a house nicknamed "abandoned ranch". There are no visible brahmin or herd animals anywhere, so the moniker must be correct, right?
Well, if you enter it you find a woman who claims she is trying to make it out on her own, tired of being a prostitute. In the middle of literal nothing. What is she going to do? Scavenge? From where? The school overrun by raiders? The super-duper mart also overrun by raiders and also quite a ways away (The distances are scaled down for gameplay's sake)? Is she going to magically grow some brahmin for her to ranch or create corn from nothing?

The only place I can even remotely remember that actually has some agricultural value is just outside Canterbury Commons, a grazing grounds with a herd of brahmin.

I dislike how fallout 3's cities feel. Not the usual "Megaton is dumb, huh-huh" stuff, but the fact that nobody seems to grow food for... anything, really.

Now for Rivet City and Canterbury Commons, you could make a case of them being trading towns mostly relying on importing food from other places.

The problem is, there is nowhere producing food. Sure, there's hunting and gathering and Rivet City seems to have some degree of food production, but that seems to be confined to lab-scale operations, not enough to feed a substantial amount of the populace. So either all of these people (all the cities, the brotherhood, the outcasts, the slaves Temple of the Union, the unaccountable amounts of raiders and scavengers strewn throughout the ruins) are getting everything they need from hunting (unlikely given how dense the wildlife seems) or the DC ruins had enough clean, storable, long shelf-life supplies to last its quite booming population for more than a century. Again, seems unlikely.

Quote from: Wimopy on June 19, 2015, 04:17:24 pm

Quote from: Sergius on June 19, 2015, 03:49:46 pm

some generic phrase.

"You" - that will be the player's name in that case. Or probably some title, like always.

Or maybe they'll let you pick a name from the list to be called? "Hey, I'm Killermaster, but please call me John"

Or they'll call you by your title ("lone wanderer", "the courier", etc.)

The thing I really liked about Fallout 3 that just wasn't present in New Vegas was how you built the world.
In Fallout New Vegas, you only ever feel as an errand boy, doing things that the NCR can't do only because they're stretched thin.
In Skyrim, you're never treated with the default respect that being the Dragonborn would foster. Also, Alduin doesn't matter at all in the civil war. When you kill him, nothing really happens afterwards. The civil war continues, the jarls don't care about your deeds until you do them personal favours, and the world just continues to turn.
In Fallout 3, if you do enough good deeds, you get credited as being like a messiah by Three Dog. The BoS with all its technology was bleeding members stemming the Super-Mutant tide...until you stepped in. In Broken Steel, you're outright considered to be the second-most powerful being in the entire Capital Wasteland next to Liberty Prime by the Brotherhood of Steel. Bring clean water to everything and you start to see the changes that occur.
It's not that Fallout 3 makes you the most important person in the world - every Bethesda game does that. What Fallout 3 does is it makes you feel like you're the most important person in the world. Also, "the Lone Wanderer" is a really cool title.

I think this is mostly due to 3dog's reports on the radio being based on your overall karma, something which New Vegas does not have. Just bases it on the things you did.

When I was playing an absurdly evil character, 3dog's quips angered me to such a point I murdered him and then left via the back door to not get squished by the Brotherhood guards.

Pretty much the only reason why people love their games is the amazing worldbuilding.

I find that Beth games are at their best when they center around that world rather than some overlying grand event or intense character drama.

I am not worried about shitty console UI design choices making it to PCs, much the same way I didn't care about it in FO3 and NV. It's just Bethesda following trends in game design like they usually do.

Mods will fix it for people who are bothered by it.

Because mod fix evertything.

Quote from: Krevsin on June 18, 2015, 05:26:16 am

Quote from: Flying Dice on June 18, 2015, 03:22:32 am

Quote from: Putnam on June 18, 2015, 03:14:25 am

Quote from: Flying Dice on June 18, 2015, 03:11:23 am

It's been long enough since FO3 for him to be dead and buried.

...do we actually know when it takes place

We know that FO3 began exactly 200 years after the bombs fell. Elder Lyons was already old as fuck and preparing to die at that point. I don't think we've heard anything definitive about FO4 beyond "roughly 200 years later", but I'd guess that it was enough difference (which could mean as few as 1-2 years, honestly) for Lyons to be out of the picture. That's if you want to go with the interpretation that the D.C. BoS are involved, rather than just the Midwesterners.

Also, because I really don't see Lyons deciding to start a crusade against the Institute when the Wasteland around D.C. is still fucked up and full of assorted minor assholes. The fact that the BoS in FO4 have Vertibirds (which as far as we know only the D.C. BoS have), the blimps (which the D.C. BoS don't have), and motivation enough to apparently attack the Institute is what says to me that it's a group of BoS which includes the D.C. chapter (but is not limited to them), and that Lyons is either dead or sidelined.

Fallout 3 implied heavily that BoS and the Outcasts were on the brink of war and the only thing that prevented the BoS from escalating the conflict was Lyons and some of the paladins. Oh, and the whole enclave thing. In fact if the BoS and outcast patrols meet eachother, they will engage in combat. So tensions are high and the situation is volatile.

I expect Fallout 4 will expand on this conflict if they choose to include the DC chapter.

So the primary reason the Outcasts split off from the D.C. BoS is simultaneously the reason they're not at war with each other? You do remember why the divide happened, right? Lyons decided to go full charitymodo and part of the chapter didn't like that. Lyons and his worldview is the one thing (apart from the tensions caused by the separation) which split the chapter. Remove him from the picture, give them a couple years under a new leader, and I can easily see the factions reuniting. Even more so if an external group of BoS came through and cleaned house -- if the D.C. chapter didn't go back to their old ways, it's equally possible that an external group of BoS helped the Outcasts retake the Pentagon and the Outcasts are the D.C. chapter now.

What I meant to say was that the only thing preventing BoS from going all-out-war with the Outcasts is Lyons and some of his paladins keeping the BoS under their leash and the Outcasts having some measure of respect for the old coot. Remember, the Brotherhood is very much based on pseudo-knightly nonsense (hurray president Eden) and while the Outcasts dislike Lyons' worldview, they still have a lot of respect for him because he is a very experienced elder who has led the brotherhood through some tough times.

Listening to what the senior brotherhood scribes and paladins have to say about the outcasts paints an image of a relationship that while unfriendly is not entirely hostile. They understand why the Outcasts made their decision and even have a certain measure of respect for them, but in the end, the Outcasts chose wrong and the only reason they seem to restrain themselves from striking against the Outcasts outright is the fact that Lyons forbids it.

Now, the Outcasts aren't nearly as well characterized as the Brotherhood since you are only given very few non-dismissive Outcasts to talk with, but given the way senior members of the Brotherhood seem to feel about the Outcasts it is not too difficult to imagine the Outcasts feeling much the same way and having the same respect for Lyons prevent them from open war (remember, the outcasts are comprised entirely of former members of the brotherhood who were heavily indoctrinated into the dogma).

Once Lyons dies, so does the respect the Outcasts have for him and the conflict escalates. Similarily, the BoS due to its influx of newly recruited members who aren't as well indoctrinated as the old guard, has a much harder time containing the desire for war. They cannot reconcile with the Outcasts yet neither side can tolerate eachother's existence, thus leading into an all-out war.