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Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

Honestly, I never played the Pitt because Point Lookout, Mothership Zeta, and Operation: Anchorage soured my taste for 3's DLC. I don't even really like 3 as a game, but like wow Anchorage was the lamest thing I'd ever seen shoved into a game.

If I wanted to play a modern military shooter, I definitely wouldn't have opened up Fallout, Bethesda.

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Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

Pwnstar posted:

By the way, people who think the Fallout 3 worldspace is more interesting are wrong. There is no giant dinosaur building in Fallout 3.

I've ranted and raved at long ends about how Fallout 3 is just wrong in general, as a Fallout game and as just a post-apocalyptic setting.

But primarily, it lacks Dinky the Dinosaur and the wild wild west.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

Hedgehog Pie posted:

Having never played the old Fallouts I can't really comment, but I thought it had some interesting ideas as far as a Washington setting goes. It lets you take American ideals to an extreme, warping the national iconography and correlating them with the extremist "values" of the Enclave. I like the greenness: green is the colour of home and the colour of the Almighty Dollar, but in the game it's a very unnatural (stylised) nuclear green that gets everywhere... though perhaps I'm reading too much into that. I think it has some mileage because (having never been to Washington myself so apologies in advance if this seems off) Washington is at once the embodiment of America and a real relic stuck in the past, like much of the Fallout quirkiness. You have memorials, old-styled town houses, testimonies to great ideas... but it all crumbled away under the weight of what it became.

I think my key problem there though is that again it doesn't do quite enough with it to get to that point. I don't think the Enclave or the Brotherhood are very well-explained (again, without having played the early games) so it's easy to lose that thread, and while we get some neat visuals like the Lincoln statue without a head or the irony of Arlington Cemetery having some of the only remaining good plant life, there's not much in the way of development beyond that. In fact, that stuff in general feels kind of tacked onto the main story of you and your dad. It leaped out at me when Li says that "it isn't right" that the Enclave have Project Purity, but at that point I'm asking why. She then tells you not to trust the Brotherhood (who operate out of the Pentagon, I loved it when I put two-and-two together and found that out) either, but (at least in the Broken Steel quests) you then have no option to join up with them. Feels a bit dry.

Don't get me wrong, I really did enjoy seeing the symbols of America in crumbles. The Washington monument being half-skeleton and Lincoln losing his head? Beautiful. If only it could've kept these motifs in the narrative of the story, rather than backdrop.

The big problem I had with the Capital Wasteland, was that everyone seemed to treat the Great War as if it had happened about a week and a half ago. You had characters acting like they'd lived through it and were veterans of America, when it's been literally two centuries since the bombs fell. There's a bunch of just frayed wires of setting; Moriarty is acting like he just hitched a ride over from Ireland to set up his tavern in Megaton. The kids of Little Lamplight are acting like they've never seen an adult before. Even with the assumption that Big Town sends their children to Little Lamplight, it just doesn't hold up. Vault 101 was even more unbelievable: nobody noticed this Doctor and his child that just showed up 20 years before the game started? 101 wasn't very big to begin with and just got smaller til FO3 started.

In regards to being part of the Fallout series, it just wrecks it. The Brotherhood of Steel actually being white-and-shiny knights instead of isolationist assholes felt inherently wrong. The super mutants, which are going extinct, got hamfisted in on the opposite coast of the United States with the biggest "WELL ACTUALLY" I've ever seen in a game. Deathclaws and super mutants are just stapled on because "that's what makes it fallout right?" There was no like, original building to it. The Capital Wasteland was just a bunch of tacked-on old fallout things instead of building another region of the same setting. This is the opposite side of a massive swath of land that 1 & 2 took place on, of course things would be incredibly different. They purposely removed Fallout 3 from the traditional Fallout setting on the west coast, and then did nothing but half-rear end the ideas.

The last thing that got me was how poor the moral choice system was implemented. The extent of your motives for choosing the "evil" path is BECAUSE I CAN. You're given an opportunity to blow up Megaton in the first five minutes of leaving the Vault, and the only thing you're offered to liberally murder everyone you just met is like, a thousand caps. Furthermore, later in the game during Project Purity, you're given the opportunity to poison the entire water supply of the Wasteland. This makes it lethal to literally everyone living there, including YOU. You have NO reason to do this, other than LOL BECAUSE I CAN. Black-and-white moral choice is never good storytelling, but in this case, it was comical.
I could honestly go on for hours about how poorly defined Fallout 3's setting and tone are and how New Vegas definitely captures the Fallout series a lot better, but it's probably been talked to death already.

Malpais Legate fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Dec 31, 2014

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

It would make so much more sense in a lot of areas if it were set in like 2080. What a shame it's set in like, 2280.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014


Oh, so it's literally 200 years after the bombs dropped. I never bothered learning the date in Fallout 3.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

Garrand posted:

Wait, what line is that?

If you complete it to the best possible ending, Blind Diode Jefferson uses all of his sonic upgrades to defend the Big Empty from a sonic attack or something in 2910.

And yeah, it does. I just couldn't be assed to look too hard beyond the hour of the day.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

MooCowlian posted:

For me, the beginning of New Vegas soured it quite a bit in comparison. It felt very linear and railroaded, and left me feeling plenty powerful enough pretty quickly. For me 3 definitely did the survival and scavenging thing a lot better, which is the whole point of he post nuclear war setting for me.

I justify this, in that it's been 200 years. People started settling and developing civilization again over a hundred years before New Vegas began. The true "scarcity" phase of Fallout isn't as strong because civilization and states are rising again. People in the Mojave are probably a lot better off in 2281 they were back in the original Fallout.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

Byzantine posted:

That is literally what happened. Megaton is the oldest city, and at most it's only from the 2210s. Rivet City was founded in 2239, the BoS arrived in the Pentagon in 2255, and Canterbury Commons gathered in 2258. Tenpenny Tower is the youngest major settlement, barely 20 years old.

Which makes it all the more disconcerting that everyone seems to treat the Great War as "last week" rather than "poo poo my great-grandpa heard from his grandpa."

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

Byzantine posted:

I doubt it, since people have completely invented things to bitch about in 3.

*wasteland has radioactivity everywhere, entire plot based on getting clean water*
*every major settlement tells you they were established in the last ~60 years*

"GOD THE ONLY WAY TO MAKE THIS poo poo GAME WORK IS TO JUST ASSUME (since this loving game doesn't explain anything) THEY JUST STARTED BUILDING RECENTLY CAUSE OF RADIATION"

Fallout has always run on SCIENCE!!!!! as opposed to science. Which made it a lot more fun.

But the whole "radiation-free water" plot is dumb even if you ignore how it's scientifically stupid.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

Mantis42 posted:

Wait, getting back to the Chinese thing, how the hell does the Lone Wanderer read the spec op book?

SCIENCE!!!!

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

Keith Atherton posted:

Translating the 2d world into 3d and keeping a lot of the style and references was something I think they did well. I mean, they could have slapped the Fallout tag on a title and ignored the story and previous games completely and still sold as many copies.

I can't say I feel like Fallout 3 was anything but something with the Fallout tag slapped onto it.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

Theta Zero posted:

Doesn't Fallout 3 only have one low-intelligence check, and it being when you're talking to a robot in one of the bombed-out schools?

Yeah, they were making a joke about the piss-poor writing.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

The karma system in New Vegas should've just been dropped to begin with. Only a handful of things change according to Karma, and you literally get positive karma by mowing down raiders that are trying to kill you. The reputation system was a lot better for how characters react to you.

I didn't like Three Dog. I've only played through 3 like, twice, and the second time I made a point to kill him. I probably would've done the same to Mr. New Vegas, if he wasn't an intangible presence, but mostly for shiggles. His flirtatious advances kept me going through the Mojave.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

SolidSnakesBandana posted:

I could watch Joshua Graham clean guns for hours. Oddly that's my favorite part about Honest Hearts. It was just a really cool animation.

I never thought I'd have a crush on a Mormon burn victim, but here we are. :allears: He's just so dreamy.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

They played with that in New Vegas. The NCR lost its gold reserves to the Brotherhood, so all their money is backed by water. It's why it's so valued so low in-game.

But to have water, no marker or token, as a currency? That would be an unwieldy currency system, even in a post-apocalypse setting.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

I like Ulysses a lot. I just don't have the world's biggest crush on him like I do Joshua.

They're very different characters so comparing them is really apples and oranges.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

Agents are GO! posted:

My guess is the voice. I could listen to him talk all day.

I know, right?

Iretep posted:

I'm still not sure what the plot in lonesome road is beyond Ulysses is legion and wants to nuke NCR. As a legion player i'm not even sure why I'm trying to stop him. I think I'm trying to tell him that he's mistaken, I will gladly nuke NCR?

I know he's really wordy and pretentious, but it's pretty obvious what his plans, motivations, and goals are when you just listen to his dialogue.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

Theta Zero posted:

He sure would've been a neat companion like he was planned though. He sounds like he would've been the only companion that actually cared for the Legion, or at least apathetic towards them.

I really would've liked to see full Ulysses too, but I think Lonesome Road had a good theme to it. Before, you knew all the effects of your character's actions as you progressed. The whole air of mystery because you, in-character AND out of character, have no idea what you've done that hurt him so badly was really interesting. He's been lurking in the background for your entire adventure, always a slight step ahead of you, and now you get to find out why he instigated the entire Courier Six situation that got you shot in the head.

And his plans culminated at using the Divide to nuke the faction you're affiliated with, effectively recreating the events of the Divide. The whole BIG MYTH theme of New Vegas's DLC with the two couriers meeting at the Divide, each carrying a message for the other, and causing or preventing another set of nuclear holocausts was a really satisfying conclusion to the DLC story arcs.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

Yeah, one returns to the tribe he left, convinced to undo all the wrongs he caused with the Legion. The other becomes vengeful to the point of pointing nukes at the biggest bastions of civilization left.

You're supposed to draw parallels between the two, that's kind of the point of Ulysses's arc through the DLCs. I'm pretty sure Graham even acknowledges their similarities when you ask him about the White Legs. But they turn down completely different paths when you meet each.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

Seashell Salesman posted:

I don't think I've done a single pro-NCR run since TLR came out, but every time he tries to get back at me by blowing up the NCR. That's the thing that bugs me the most about Ulysses. The character makes me feel like my chosen path through the game was totally unexpected by the writers.

They really shitted up the way he picks his target. If you play anything but Caesar's Legion, you're almost guaranteed to get him targeting the NCR, because working for Yes Man or House provides an overflow of NCR reputation.

Iretep posted:

In my current run I'm idolised by legion and got a bit of positive with NCR and he still wanted to nuke NCR. I'm pretty sure he just hates NCR.

Are you using any Legion-specific armor? That's the only reason I could see why that would happen. It sets your Legion rep to neutral if you ever have their armor disguise on.

It's unfortunate the Mojave doesn't acknowledge the Long 15 or Dry Wells, which would have been a nice touch. But meh, what're you gonna do? DLC and time constraints.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

Edward Sallow, Bill Calhoun, Joshua Graham. AKA Caesar, Bill Calhoun, and the Burned Man. The three that started the Legion with the Blackfoots.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

Arcsquad12 posted:

Got a question for you guys regarding Boone and working for the Legion. I don't plan on doing any Legion quests, but I got an "Accepted" reputation with them. I spoke to Boone and he gave me his ultimatum that if I work with the Legion again he's leaving. If I leave Boone at the Lucky 38, get a high enough reputation with the Legion to get into their safehouse (via giving dogtags to Aurelius), and then immediately start killing them again and lowering my reputation to villified, will Boone still leave because I got a better reputation with them?

Don't talk to Boone again until you've got a higher NCR rep than with the Legion, or you've dipped to a lovely reputation with the Legion.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

Some forum discussion on another site got really mad at me for defending Caesar's Legion as a viable option to ally with in-character. In a wasteland filled with a number of savage tribes that will shoot you on sight, it's no wonder that people willingly assimilate into the Legion for the safety of numbers and organization. Hell, they even let people cross in and out of their borders for trade.

I'm not condoning slavery, rape, etc., but I can definitely see why a man living in the wasteland would choose to submit to the Legion. gently caress if I know why a woman would but Caesar never seemed to care that much about my female courier saving his rear end.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

House really plays to my vanity as a lovely person. When you first meet him, the man says it perfectly: "You and I? We don't have to dream that we're important. We ARE."

He's not the best for the Mojave, by far. I think the Followers of the Apocalypse are the only ones with humanity's best interests at heart, and he throws them out of Freeside at his first chance. But the man rewards you and treats you like royalty for delivering the Mojave to him on a silver platter. If you're a "gently caress you, got mine" person, House is obviously the best choice. Ruling New Vegas would be nice, but to never want for anything or worry at all? Get out of the way, Yes Man, the House Always Wins.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

Not that I really had any inclination to side with the NCR after House introduced himself to me on my first playthrough, there was a significant character that really sold me on disliking the NCR. Thomas Hildern, at McCarran. He has this really loving arrogant line: "Too many people have opinions on things they know nothing about. And the more ignorant they are, the more opinions they have." Like, at first it's "hahahaha I know right?" and then it dawns on you that he's trying to justify endangering nearly everyone in the Mojave to mutant spores from Vault 22.

It's not that I based my decision on one character, but he really didn't help the case by being so moustache-twirlingly evil about it.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

Fereydun posted:

the downside is that you consume abnormally large amounts of drugs, food and drink in exchange for the ability to become an immortal benevolent killing machine

also i forgot that guy was like "pfft SCIENCE!" after you finish the quest

he's totally right imo, science rules and turning the mojave into a hellish jungle plant wasteland just opens up even more gameplay setting options!

Ulysses mentions that the tunnelers are inevitably going to move into the Mojave, and they're strong enough to take down Deathclaws. I think a tunneler VS plant mutant war would be hysterical.

Mojave, mo problems, right?

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

Well, he's a learned, if really wordy and pretentious man. I don't doubt him. But you do casually gun down the Tunneler Queen in Lonesome Road.

So who knows, we might have stemmed the rocky tide on accident.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

Gyshall posted:

with Yes man as secretary of state

Primm Slim can be Secretary of Defense.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

House only having a 5 in Intelligence strikes me as a bit odd, as Lanius has an Intelligence of 6 and Caesar's 4.

I think the SPECIAL allocation isn't really anything more than an easter egg with his 10 Luck and we shouldn't really cite that as anything concrete. House did get really lucky, but he's also obviously more than just of average intelligence.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

Connoisseur posted:

The game does make a statement on what's the SPECIAL essence of certain characters:
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Meat_of_Champions

The irony being that only one of these four has their respective stat above mediocre. Champions my rear end.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

Arcsquad12 posted:

How exactly does it corrupt them? There is tension between the Sorrows and the Dead Horses if you go to war, but peace is maintained by Graham, who can have his warlike tendencies calmed. The Happy Trails caravan successfully makes it to New Canaan, and the 88s are crushed, securing Zion and removing a potential ally to the Legion. The only person who really loses is Daniel, who I don't really sympathize with because he was keeping the Sorrows ignorant with his missionary work. He didn't care that they already had a religion, he tried to impose mormon virtues on them and didn't want them fighting. Like I said, there were moments of tension between the Sorrows/Dead Horses, but never outright war.

It's not the tensions between those tribes that corrupt them. It's leading the Sorrows Hunters to fight the White Legs that gives them their taste of war. The epilogue says that their tribe is forever changed for the startling new development that PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE, and they've lost their childlike naivety and innocence.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

Excelzior posted:

Personally, I find Daniel's view of the Sorrows to be incredibly demeaning and denigrating of their agency. It smacks of White Man's Burden, wrapped in a priestly cloth.

Which brings me to my main qualm with HH: while It's possible to talk Joshua out of executing Salt-Upon-Wounds, tempering his bloodlust with mercy, it is NOT possible to alter Daniel's perception in any way whatsoever (to my knowledge)

What's up with that? Am I missing something?

Daniel's got his heart in the right place, but he needs to get off his high horse. He views the Sorrows like they're literal children, and that's not okay. Waking Cloud is fully grown woman who just maimed a loving legion of White Legs with a bear fist strapped to her bare fist.

She does not need to be lied to, and the Sorrows do not need to be coddled.

Malpais Legate fucked around with this message at 06:00 on Jan 16, 2015

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

Referring to the finale of Dead Money here:

Has anyone tried grabbing all of the gold bars and just chaining together a bunch of Turbos to slow-walk all the way to safety? I don't know where you'd get all that Turbo without console commands, but it sounds like it'd be hilarious.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

Oh my god why didn't I think of that? That's some poetic loving justice, too.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

Byzantine posted:

As a courier, the only correct option is to handle his package

And THEN gun him down with his own gun.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

Hedgehog Pie posted:

I did not unfortunately. I did win around 2500 chips, but I sort of wanted to move on with things after that. I'm not huge on the blackjack and roulette games so I decided not to go much further. I'll keep it in mind though!

Unfortunately the Madre doesn't have slots, where you can literally just sit there and play endlessly until the game starts cheating for you at 10 luck. You can do it pretty easily at Blackjack, but it's less mindless.

That's why the Ultra Luxe is the last one I get kicked out of, every time.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

Luck and Intelligence are the SPECIALs to rule them all. Strength, too, but on a lesser level.

2house2fly posted:

The Sierra Madre totally has slots, I use them when I'm getting close to the win limit to really max out my money.

Oh, I didn't know. I used the roulette to win there.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

xthetenth posted:

I think playing blackjack optimally is profitable even at five luck overall but I'm not sure.

Not quite. At five luck, the casino still actively cheats against you. The House has the advantage, etc. It's at 7 when the odds become even, and from there on out the game will cheat in your favor.

There's no reason why you can't just get legitimately lucky at 5, but it's definitely slanted against you.

Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

Gynovore posted:

Bear in mind, blackjack takes some knowledge. I've played blackjack IRL, and if you don't know the 'basic game' well, the casino will facerape you.

Of course, this doesn't apply at 10 luck. "16 against a dealer 10? Why yes, I will double down!"

At 10 Luck, always hit. Always. There's never a reason not to. You might lose. But at 10 luck, you're (eventually) going to rob the house blind.


Seashell Salesman posted:

Can you make money faster by doing stuff like splitting than just max betting one hand at a time? I've always wondered what the actual fastest way to clean the casinos out was.

Probably not. It's mostly how fast you can hit that dictates the speed at which you clean up, and that just adds more turns that otherwise just prolong it.

Slots are obviously the best for the method, and the roulette is the worst. However, I've got a soft spot for the roulette.

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Malpais Legate
Oct 1, 2014

I get a kick out of going negative on the slots, then getting a 300 times payout or something and literally getting thrown out of the casino as a result of a single spin.

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