This is basically a thread where fans of Fallout 3 can go and express why they like the game without those who hate Fallout 3 bothering or judging them. If you hate Fallout 3, no need to reply to this thread.
Anyway i guess i enjoy it because i like exploring, I get a big satisfaction discovering new locations. Sometimes i will just walk around the wasteland at random, no intended destination, even when i have the Explorer perk.
We could go with 'How do you enjoy FO3?'. In here we could describe our most satisfying moments in our playthroughs. It'd be informative too. If you come across something that can be made particularly fun/therapeutic/satisfying using a certain approach/mod combination, you could share it here, so that the rest can try it too to see the result.
For instance, my most enjoyable moment in FO3 is Li telling me we can't go on seeing as Garza has heart problems. Not much fun, right? Well, yes - it's not. It gets fun if you kill him and get Li to get pissed at you. The sheer amount of anger and desperation in her voice is well worth the ammunition you've just wasted.
And there are more such situations. I dunno, maybe being a cruel, murderous monster is so much fun in FO3, because it's the only time the cardboard cutouts the game characters usually are show any kind of emotion and passion.
The other thread, "Why Do People Love Fallout 3", seems too confrontational, as if saying "How could anyone love this game" and some of the post in it come from people who do not enjoy it. I created this thread so people who enjoy Fallout 3 can say what they want. Theres already so many threads detailing why people hate F3, why not one where people who like it can say why they like it, without judgment.
I enjoyed Fallout 3 at first. But then as I took time to stop and look around, it kinda got to me.
I found that this works best if you want Fallout to be enjoyable;
Consider it to be a spin-off like Fallout: Tactics, not an actual part of the main series. In this way, you can play Fallout 3, and play a post-apocalyptic game while not having to worry about the bullshit/injustice they did to the actual Fallout series' universe/gameplay if you just consider it a spin-off. I like to nitpick what might and might not be canon. Everytime I want to think something in the game can be considered canon, I just ask myself "What would the developers say (in a private conversation, not in a article)". There's only very small portions of the game though that I like to consider actual Fallout-series canon, like simple universe stuff such as computers and (some) technology. But the actual main story-line I discard as non-canon, and just play it as a spin-off.
I disliked Tactics for a long time too, until I started looking at it in the way of "nothing the game does/says is really canon".
So there you have it. That's how I enjoy Fallout 3. Also my first Fallout game was none other than the late, great Fallout (1). Best game in the series.
I enjoyed it as B action movie, that one watches to kill some time. Overall, it was pretty forgettable experience. And forgot I had. Few years later, after playing New Vegas and replaying originals I reminded myself what games from this series are suppose to be.
I enjoyed Fallout 3 because it was such a refreshing change from the earlier titles. I am also intrigued by 1st person games and games that incorporate elements of role play, for me, these are especially fun.
After the first vanilla run through, I wanted to recreate the DC Wasteland as I thought it should be, never mind Three Dog's comments about having seen a real tree, 200+ years later, and depending on where the actual nuclear impacts were, there should be a lot more plants and insects about, ... look at the exclusion zone surrounding the Chernobyl power plant 28 years later, ...
My current load order:
Fallout3.esm
Anchorage.esm
ThePitt.esm
BrokenSteel.esm
PointLookout.esm
Zeta.esm
CRAFT.esm
CALIBR.esm
Project Beauty.esm
EVE.esm
FO3 Wanderers Edition - Main File.esm
Mart's Mutant Mod.esm
Abbreviated Effects.esm
AQFH3.esm
FO3 Wanderers Edition - Alternate Travel.esp
DarNifiedUIF3.esp
CRAFT - Activation Perk.esp
PCB.esp
Chems and Meds Re-Textures Pack.esp
FO3 Wanderers Edition - Main File.esp
FO3 Wanderers Edition - DLC Anchorage.esp
FO3 Wanderers Edition - DLC The Pitt.esp
FO3 Wanderers Edition - DLC Broken Steel.esp
FO3 Wanderers Edition - DLC Point Lookout.esp
FO3 Wanderers Edition - DLC Mothership Zeta.esp
Placable Lights v2.2.esp
FO3 Wanderers Edition - Followers Enhanced (BrokenSteel).esp
FO3 Wanderers Edition - Optional VATS Realtime.esp
FO3 Wanderers Edition - Optional Restore Tracers (automatics only).esp
FO3 Wanderers Edition - Project Beauty (Followers Enhanced).esp
EVE.esp
EVE Operation Anchorage.esp
EVE - FWE Master Release.esp
EVE - FWE Master Release (Follower Enhanced).esp
EVE Anchorage - FWE DLC Anchorage.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - DLC Anchorage.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - DLC The Pitt.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - DLC Broken Steel.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - DLC Point Lookout.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - DLC Zeta.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - Zones Respawn.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - Natural Selection.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - Project Beauty.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - FWE Master Release.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - FWE Master Release + DLCs.esp
Mart's Mutant Mod - FWE Master Release + Project Beauty.esp
Wanderer.esp
body blood replacment.esp
level100mod.esp
Flora Overhaul.esp
FO3 RWL GOTY.esp
BetterFoodPackaging.esp
PureWater-NoRad-.esp
aqfh3.esp
Total active plugins: 56
Vurt's Flora Overhaul gives the wasteland an overgrown look and tends to make combat a little more challenging as the enemy is often masked by the trees, bushes, and tall grass.
Fallout Wanderer's Edition adds another level of immersion and role playing as the Avatar has to eat, drink and sleep, and has more opportunities for crafting items. Work benches and reloading benches are now more important, and Stimpaks take longer to heal.
Mart's Mutant Mod adds more variety to the random creatures while enhancing them.
DarNifiedUIF3 changes the way the HUD is displayed and decreases the Font size so that the screen is no longer crowded by HUD text and graphics.
Enhanced Visuals (EVE) changes the way energy weapons look and act in the game.
Real World Lighting drastically changes the indoor and outdoor lighting to give a more realistic ambiance to everything and gets rid of a lot of the "where is that light coming from?" errors found in many of the underground locations.
Project Beauty, changes the way the NPC's look (the BOS Scribe in the Arlington Library looks hot now).
PureWater removes radiation from much of the exterior water, ... water is generally used to wash radioactive particles from contaminated areas, after 200+ years of weather, much of the radioactive fallout would have been washed away, ... it would still exist, just not the way the FO3 game portrays it, ... and what is with the exploding vehicles???
Level100mod allows the Avatar/Character to progress beyond the Level 30 limit.
Not shown is NMC's most excellent texture packages that change the way world textures look, there are also several item re-texture packs used.
Because I was play-testing the AQFH 3 mod, I did not have the DC Interiors mod running(conflicts), but I do have it and will reactivate it. This always puzzled me, a seemingly intact building can not be entered, ... it is boarded up, ... after such a violent nuclear war, who went around boarding things up? (gremlins) and why? (who knows why gremlins do what they do?) ... and why can't I just pull the boards off and enter? (because the gremlins will get angry and eat you) DC Interiors adds more explorable locations and incidental stories.
I liked the original game and thoroughly enjoy the malleability of the game engine to change they way things look and work. And people are still making mods for it, ... just awesome.
After the first vanilla run through, I wanted to recreate the DC Wasteland as I thought it should be, never mind Three Dog's comments about having seen a real tree, 200+ years later, and depending on where the actual nuclear impacts were, there should be a lot more plants and insects about, ... look at the exclusion zone surrounding the Chernobyl power plant 28 years later, ...
You also have to remember that Chernobyl was also just one nuclear reactor. In the Fallout world they use fission bombs, where each bomb is like dropping a nuclear reactor on top of your enemy (less nuclear explosion ((it's still there, but only has the explosive yield of probably the Little Boy from WWII)), much more radiation release). Las Vegas itself had over what, one-hundred bombs dropped on it (Mr. House managed to destroy many of them, but still. This is to give you an idea of how many bombs were dropped on each city/area all over the world)? I assume that's like 50 Chernobyls' in one area.
You also have to remember that Chernobyl was also just one nuclear reactor. In the Fallout world they use fission bombs, where each bomb is like dropping a nuclear reactor on top of your enemy (less nuclear explosion ((it's still there, but only has the explosive yield of probably the Little Boy from WWII)), much more radiation release).
Good point, I think that comparing the nuclear reactor accident with a blast caused by nuclear weapon is not quite right anyway. What really happened in Chernobyl was not a nuclear explosion. The roof of reactor chamber was blown up by explosion of accumulated hot steam, followed by second "conventional" explosion caused by ignited hydrogen. Unlike in the real nuclear blast, there wasn't any blast wave - moving wall of high-pressure compressed air capable to wipe out even huge trees with its roots; preceded by wave of thermal radiation igniting any kindling material. Therefore, any plant life is completely wiped out in blast radius of nuclear weapon.
After the first vanilla run through, I wanted to recreate the DC Wasteland as I thought it should be, never mind Three Dog's comments about having seen a real tree, 200+ years later, and depending on where the actual nuclear impacts were, there should be a lot more plants and insects about, ... look at the exclusion zone surrounding the Chernobyl power plant 28 years later, ...
You also have to remember that Chernobyl was also just one nuclear reactor. In the Fallout world they use fission bombs, where each bomb is like dropping a nuclear reactor on top of your enemy (less nuclear explosion ((it's still there, but only has the explosive yield of probably the Little Boy from WWII)), much more radiation release). Las Vegas itself had over what, one-hundred bombs dropped on it (Mr. House managed to destroy many of them, but still. This is to give you an idea of how many bombs were dropped on each city/area all over the world)? I assume that's like 50 Chernobyls' in one area.
After the first vanilla run through, I wanted to recreate the DC Wasteland as I thought it should be, never mind Three Dog's comments about having seen a real tree, 200+ years later, and depending on where the actual nuclear impacts were, there should be a lot more plants and insects about, ... look at the exclusion zone surrounding the Chernobyl power plant 28 years later, ...
You also have to remember that Chernobyl was also just one nuclear reactor. In the Fallout world they use fission bombs, where each bomb is like dropping a nuclear reactor on top of your enemy (less nuclear explosion ((it's still there, but only has the explosive yield of probably the Little Boy from WWII)), much more radiation release). Las Vegas itself had over what, one-hundred bombs dropped on it (Mr. House managed to destroy many of them, but still. This is to give you an idea of how many bombs were dropped on each city/area all over the world)? I assume that's like 50 Chernobyls' in one area.
Respectfully, no. I was referring to radiation levels remaining after 200+ years. Please read on, as I did research what I thought the wasteland should look like for potential mod stories.
You also have to remember that Chernobyl was also just one nuclear reactor. In the Fallout world they use fission bombs, where each bomb is like dropping a nuclear reactor on top of your enemy (less nuclear explosion ((it's still there, but only has the explosive yield of probably the Little Boy from WWII)), much more radiation release).
Good point, I think that comparing the nuclear reactor accident with a blast caused by nuclear weapon is not quite right anyway. What really happened in Chernobyl was not a nuclear explosion. The roof of reactor chamber was blown up by explosion of accumulated hot steam, followed by second "conventional" explosion caused by ignited hydrogen. Unlike in the real nuclear blast, there wasn't any blast wave - moving wall of high-pressure compressed air capable to wipe out even huge trees with its roots; preceded by wave of thermal radiation igniting any kindling material. Therefore, any plant life is completely wiped out in blast radius of nuclear weapon.
[sigh] ... here we go again. Look, if you are going to submit rebuttals to the reasons why I enjoy Fallout 3 and why I changed it around to my liking, then I will have to respectfully disagree with you two on this issue for these reasons, fair enough?:
Nuclear weapons are most definitely not "like dropping a nuclear reactor on top of your enemy", in fact, they are much more destructive than a reactor meltdown but at the same time they are much "cleaner" in terms of radioactive contamination. Nuclear Weapons use much much smaller amounts of enriched nuclear material and use it very differently than a nuclear reactor.
I know this sounds counter-intuitive, but there it is.
In addition, I was not referring to the immediate effects of nuclear blast damage, rather the residual effects of nuclear radiation from fallout after 200+ years. Of course the blast damage would burn most of everything off, but 200 years later, things would have grown back.
While the Fallout Canon does not give too much detail about what nuclear weapon types were used during "The Great War", was it Bombers?, or Missiles?, or a combination of both?, you also have to consider the technology of the time, as warped as it was.
How many warheads? What distribution? Air burst? Ground burst? A mix of air and ground burst? Relative 'cleanliness' of the warheads? Size of the warheads? Weather patterns? Winter or summer?
The technology described in the Fallout-verse is that nuclear fission and then later, nuclear fusion, were the predominate power sources due to the dwindling supplies of fossil fuels and research into Atomic Energy Physics was much farther along by the year 2077.
I submit that they were not using "Fat Man(plutonium implosion type)" and "Little Boy(uranium gun-type)" fission bombs throughout the war, but very possibly near the very end of the exchange a tiny few of these obsolete weapons may have been dropped. Consider also that the only time such nuclear fission weapons were used in our history, very little residual radiation remains, there is some, but Hiroshima and Nagasaki are thriving cities today.
Yes, it was an "all out nuclear war," possibly where missiles were used in first strikes(one per target), and possibly followed up by bombers, but it does not negate the half life of radioactive nucleotides, no matter how many bombs were dropped on certain targets, ... seeCHART 1 – EFFECTS OF RADIONUCLIDESand the half-life table under "Health Concerns" here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fission_product
(in Chart 1, only Americium-241 and Plutonium-239 have half lives longer than 200 years and are not generally products of nuclear fallout. Commonly, plutonium-239 and rarely americium-241 are the fissile material used in the nuclear weapon.Depending on weapon efficiency, some of the nuclear material will not be consumed/split/broken down in the chain reaction and small amounts will be dispersed by the initial blast).
... it looks to be about an average of 30 years for most, not all, but most of the radioactive contamination to have dissipated to habitable levels for plants and animals to spread/thrive/mutate/grow/reproduce/etc. in large areas of land and water.
Yes, there will be scattered pockets of sustained contamination and most pre-war food items would be inedible, not from radiation, but due to shelf life. Natural foods would be okay, plants and animals would be edible, just don't eat their bones and certain organs.
Ah yes, why air bursts as opposed to ground burst?
"A surface burst is an explosion in which a weapon is detonated on or slightly above the surface of the earth so that the fireball actually touches the land or water surface. Under these conditions, the area affected by blast, thermal radiation, and initial nuclear radiation will be less extensive than for an air burst of similar yield, except in the region of ground zero where destruction is concentrated."*
"A high altitude burst is one in which the weapon is exploded at such an altitude (above 30 km) that initial soft x-rays generated by the detonation dissipate energy as heat in a much larger volume of air molecules. There the fireball is much larger and expands much more rapidly."*
"Although thermal radiation, EMP, and ionizing radiation from a nuclear blast are all damage producing, at yields below about a megaton the blast and shock produced by a nuclear weapon are the predominant means of damaging a target. For some targets, such as underground bunkers and missile silos, blast and shock are virtually the only effective destructive mechanisms."*
"In addition, blast and other “common” weapons effects are likely to be much more powerful in the nuclear case than in the realm of conventional weapons. [nuclear weapon effects] are so severe that combinations of two or more simultaneously (as in a real event) may not add linearly..."*
Basically, it is more effective/destructive. *source
The only direct evidence from the effects of radioactive contamination we can study and verify is the effects on plants and animals in the vicinity of nuclear power plant disasters, which are quite "dirty" compared to nuclear weapon detonations above ground, ie; "air burst" type nuclear weapons. see Why a nuclear reactor can never turn into a nuclear bomb
Using the Fukushima Daiichi (4 reactor vessels) and the Chernobyl disasters as worst-worst case scenarios where salted, dirty and inefficient nuclear weapons may have been used during a global nuclear war, is an appropriate comparison.
The 500+ nuclear weapon tests are another good source of study as the initial plant and animal life was burned off, yet it always returned. Life can be found all over the world in the most adverse of conditions, yet there it is.
The illustration I was making was that plant and animal life would make quite a remarkable recovery after 200 years, especially since 90% of the human population is gone and mankind is no longer able to "muck things up" on the scale it did before the nuclear war.
Side Note: Ever notice the radioactive waste barrels everywhere? These could have been illicit waste disposal of radioactive waste products, or possible "clean up" efforts after the war, or both. This would certainly make a mess after The Great War, and yes, the vicinities of these dumps would be highly radioactive in real life and in-game they are. No argument there.
"The radiation doses necessary to produce a significant deleterious effect are very difficult to estimate because of long-term recovery (including natural regeneration and the migration of individuals from surrounding areas that are less affected), compensatory factors present in natural plant and animal communities in both terrestrial and aquatic environments." -source
Another consideration is the representational scale of the main map in Fallout 3, distances are foreshortened, but the area represented is quite large, very very large, so there would be a lot of areas that would have escaped direct impacts and fallout shadows, and in turn would not have experienced "burn off" of plant and animal life.
50 nuclear detonations per city or target everywhere?, no. My impression was that Mr House was exaggerating.
Consideration: Numbers of detonations where? In what configuration?, under what weather conditions?, at what altitudes? The list of qualifying conditions is so long as to render statements like "one-hundred bombs dropped on a city" totally meaningless as it is a waste of military assets with no additional benefit. The benefit in this case being the obliteration of the target.
It only takes 1 nuclear weapon of sufficient yield to destroy a city using the nuclear weapon technology available from 1945 to present day. Consider what that technology would look like in 2077? ... going backwards to 1945 Little Boy bomb technology? ... that does not make sense. So what if there was such a device (a Fat Man) in the center of Megaton, there is only one, it was a dud (or not 'armed') and as I understand, it was probably dropped by a "friendly?"
Follow up attacks would be primarily against military targets such as mobilized armies and airbases and whatever military support networks that remained after "first strike" and would use a mixture of conventional and low yield tactical nuclear weapons, and again, the half-life products from their use is only 30 years in most cases.
Yes, yes, yes, they could have used "salted" warheads and bombs, but definitely not all of them were such nasty devices and certainly not 50-100 per city world wide. The premise of Fallout is that pockets of civilization survived, nobody would survive if all the warheads and bombs were cobalt and 50-100 warheads and bombs per city were used.
In fact, it looks like Washington seems to have had no direct hits, after all, the Capitol Building is still standing, yes?
Not only that, where is the Trinitite? and the craters? (When the Trinity test site blast occurred, it not only created a large crater, but also turned the New Mexico sand into glass. This green glass is called "Trinitite")
As you can see, I had put a lot of thought into my view of what the DC area should look like 200+ years after a global nuclear war, mostly for game mod creation research.
Another level of enjoyment comes from figuring out what the heck happened and why, who started the war?, how did people survive? what causes "ghoulification", and after 200+ years, why do Fancy Lad Snack Cakes taste so good?
Still, ... I am scratching my head over the exploding vehicles and boarded up buildings, ... any thoughts on that?, ... anyone?
In addition, I was not referring to the immediate effects of nuclear blast damage, rather the residual effects of nuclear radiation from fallout after 200+ years. Of course the blast damage would burn most of everything off, but 200 years later, things would have grown back.
Hey, back on topic. This thread was made for people to share why the enjoy Fallout 3. Im pretty sure theres tons of threads on here explaining how Fallout 3 may or may not be unrealistic in terms of how long plants wont grow after a nuclear bombing.
Get an Enclave armour (officer armour in COL Enclave Replacer will be best suited for this purpose).
Summon a bunch of Enclave soldiers (5 is okay).
Turn on the Enclave Radio.
Massacre everyone in Little Lamplight to an upbeat, American patriotic song (it's funniest with 'The Washington Post' for me, but pretty much any will work). Remember, you are killing annoying creepy walking mannequins. The game should give you karma really.
(No) Man, I love your posts. This one remind of another way I enjoyed Fallout 3 - by watching F3 kill everything playthrough by Many A True Nerd. That felt kinda... cathartic Part about Little Lamplight was just great.
Get an Enclave armour (officer armour in COL Enclave Replacer will be best suited for this purpose).
Summon a bunch of Enclave soldiers (5 is okay).
Turn on the Enclave Radio.
Massacre everyone in Little Lamplight to an upbeat, American patriotic song (it's funniest with 'The Washington Post' for me, but pretty much any will work). Remember, you are killing annoying creepy walking mannequins. The game should give you karma really.
I think so. Though i never understood why people tend to have a disturbing obsession with killing children. I just go there during the main quest and then never return again. I like the idea childre not dying so i dont accidentally get Child Killer because some dumbass kid got into the way of my missile blast radius. I like the idea of a place where you cant just shoot your way through, you have to use speech and/or barter to get through. Only Macreadie (idgaf if i mispelled that brat's name) and Princess annoyed me, the others were just....kids. Oh, and Sticky, but i melt him with my A3-21 the minute he talks to me.
Speaking of which i like how the Plasma Rifle in F3 looks like an actual rifle, not a heavy weapon like in Fallout 1 and 2. I also like the Enclave armor in this one better, the one in Fallout 2 and New Vegas just looks too bulky. Lore wise i think the "Shocktrooper" armor is used in the Capital Wasteland is easier to build, easier to maintain, and while probably not as protective, is much easier to move around in. Remember the East Coast Enclave, while foreboding, is but a remnant of a much larger organization that once terrorized the West Coast.
It's not an obsession with killing children. It's just that Little Lamplight was a mistake. But that's okay. Mistakes happen, right? You just gotta know when and how to fix them and that's it. Problem solved. The Enclave thing is just added so that you can have some laughs along the way.
I'm assuming it's okay to follow your divergence about killable children, X12: I personally feel it's more of a realism concern. It doesn't really do to tout immersion as one of your prime selling points and then make the weakest people in the wasteland (children) and the only ones the game actually ever forces you to rush headlong into danger with (every single essential NPC) and make them invulnerable to any possible misfortune that man, beast, or environment could inflict. Throw in a perk that makes it so that you can never lose your dog and you've pretty much got Michael Bay's Fallout. (And I don't know much about much, but my take's always been that if I'm firing missiles into a space where children are present and I accidentally blow one of them up, I probably deserve whatever punishment I get, karmic title or otherwise ).
With that out of the way, though, I think Fallout 3 is a great game to just lose yourself in. I enjoy it most for the game that it could have been-- I explore the Capital wasteland, putting together stories in my head, tweaking this or that faction just so, making it all fit together a little more sensibly. I very much enjoye the exploration, especially when I don't have to involve myself too much with any NPCs. The soundtrack is pretty good, even if I've still got mixed feelings about in-game radio, and the art design for a lot of the environmental assets is fantastic.
I've also got to admit, even if it sometimes made me a little too aware of how unbalanced/unpolished the combat was, there was something about running around tearing up the wasteland with nothing but light armor and a dart gun that no other game has yet quite matched.
I know this seems like a troll answer, but it's the truth, and for all the critiques I could trot out the game is still very enjoyable, especially with mods. The writing is no masterpiece, but the worst bits tend to overshadow the average ones in people's memories and it's really not as bad as some would have it.
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