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[Mrbob]

2 questions:

360 vs. PC: Which version is best and why?

Are the environments all brown and grey or is there more variety as you progress?

PC version will be better, but how are you playing the game?

I have a PC which can run the game better, but bought it on 360.

I'll take some extra loading and a small graphical downgrade for playing it on my plasma with 5.1 sound.

 

[revolverjgw]

The museums including the National Archives are all along the National Mall (where the Capitol and the Washington Monument are). You should be able to see Brotherhood of Steel tags for this place too. Treat your quest marker like religion

Wow, seriously? I did look there for a while. My quest marker seemed to indicate for me to go down into the subway, and once I was down there it didn't point back out of the entrance so I assumed I had to keep going underground.

Oh well, even when you're lost in this game, you're accomplishing something, collecting crap or killing fools. And I did find a lot of fast-travel hotspots, maybe that will speed up some later quests.

 

[Zeliard]

Question to anyone who did the Fire Ant quest in Grayditch:

Spoiler

I ended up killing what I thought was all of them who just roaming around town, but I guess I never found the nest to eradicate them for good. My quest marker for it also disappeared at some point, so I'm hoping it didn't glitch up. What did I miss?

There's a glitch that's really pissing me off. One of my NPCs has a chain gun and after the last skirmish, he put it away. Except, I still hear the sound of it firing. I tried talking to him, going to a different area, fast traveling. Nothing makes it stop. I guess I'll reload to a save a little bit before then.

Did you try getting into another fight?

 

[Cornballer]

Is it worth using big guns if I'm not very skilled with them? Not sure if it's a waste of ammo and carrying capacity to have one on me if I'm not going to be very effective with them.

 

[TheExodu5]

Since no one else answered your question, I'll throw it out there.

My system is similar.. E6600 core2duo, 7900GT, 2 GB RAM

It autodetected the medium profile which was high textures and a few other things turned down. Looks just fine, runs great. Been enjoying the hell out of it.

I'll add to this as well:

If Oblivion ran fine on your system, then Fallout 3 will run even better. On my E6600, 8800GT, I cannot maintain a constant 60fps in Oblivion. In Fallout 3, I have High settings, at 1680*1050, with 2X AA, and I never drop a frame below 60fps. The game runs beautifully well.

 

[kathode]

Wow, seriously? I did look there for a while. My quest marker seemed to indicate for me to go down into the subway, and once I was down there it didn't point back out of the entrance so I assumed I had to keep going underground.

Oh well, even when you're lost in this game, you're accomplishing something, collecting crap or killing fools. And I did find a lot of fast-travel hotspots, maybe that will speed up some later quests.

I'm going off memory, but there may be a subway entrance right in front of the archives entrance, so you might have just misinterpreted the marker. The best way to test whether or not your marker is pointing to a particular door is to get right next to the door and strafe left and right. If it's the door in question, the compass marker will match the movements of the door exactly.

 

[The Lamonster]

PC version will be better, but how are you playing the game?

I have a PC which can run the game better, but bought it on 360.

I'll take some extra loading and a small graphical downgrade for playing it on my plasma with 5.1 sound.

I have the same setup. Yeah, I guess it's worth it to get the 360 version.

 

[Pellham]

Can people people please tag their spoilers? Particularly those from later in the game? Thanks.

sorry No.

 

[garath]

I have the same setup. Yeah, I guess it's worth it to get the 360 version.

I don't want to sound like a PC snob, but the ridiculously fast load times, better performance (if you have a decent system) and mouse/keyboard far outweighs my 5.1 sound and 50" tv setup. Headphones take care of the sound and I don't even notice the smaller screen.

 

[Jugendstil]

The sense of exploration in this game is top notch. People who are worried or complaining about the setting being monotonous need to keep in mind that is a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Even with the bombed out landscape, I find it to be anything but monotonous. The amount of detail in the environments and settings is almost overwhelming. Wandering across the landscape and exploring abandoned buildings and settlements at night is really spooky.

I'm also not sure why people are complaining that the game is lacking in humor, I'm still near the beginning of the game and I've laughed out loud several times at the NPC dialog and dialog options for your character. I love that everyone is pissed off and generally has a bad attitude. I guess I would too in that setting. That said, it makes it hard for me to be nice. I'm almost always a good guy in these games, but so far I've accrued a lot of bad karma in FO3. I can't help it, people are assholes so they leave me no option but blowing their heads off. Although the traveling traders probably didn't deserve to be murdered, except that I wanted all their merchandise and it was fun to throw frag grenades at them and watch their rag doll corpses get splattered across the terrain. I guess I am an evil bastard.

 

[Like the hat?]

I have to say thanks to bethesda for making the 360 version have as quick of load times as it does (it seems maybe 1-2 seconds max whenever the rare loading screen pops up)

plus it has screen tearing, but it is very minimal. nothing distracts me more than screen tearing, and this game seems to have it for the most part nonexistant

 

[Hazaro]

The first time I met him when I first got to Megaton, I was at neutral so I couldn't recruit him. So I went inside that bar on the bottom level behind that girl's counter and basically laid waste to everyone in there (and managed not to piss off the rest of the town). By the time I finished, I was at "Evil Opportunist" (funny just how true that is considering the reason why I annihilated those people) and Jericho took an interest. I still didn't have nearly enough caps at the time to get him, though. It actually took me quite a while to get the 1000 caps to recruit Jericho, since they're relatively scarce in the game (especially towards the start), and I had to spend chunks of them at times for stimpaks and ammo. It was really worth it, though (except for the occasional shoddy A.I. pathfinding), and the fact that it costs so many caps made it a very meaningful decision.

Anyone know if it's possible to have more than 2 NPCs tag along simultaneously in this game? I'm wondering whether or not I'll have to drop Jericho whenever I stumble on Dogmeat. I'd really rather keep both alongside me.

Lets not forget the best part about a follower... UNLIMITED MOBILE STORAGE! YEAH BABY! :lol

I think it's unlimited, I've only put like 60 on him.

I read you can have Dogmeat and a Follower AND a quest helper.

*Oh and I can say that Repair is by far the best skill to level up. I should of maxed this first.

 

[The Lamonster]

I don't want to sound like a PC snob, but the ridiculously fast load times, better performance (if you have a decent system) and mouse/keyboard far outweighs my 5.1 sound and 50" tv setup. Headphones take care of the sound and I don't even notice the smaller screen.

All the WoW I already play makes my back hurt. Couch wins!


One more issue before I get this game: Does it require any HD memory? I'm on my last leg of that wimpy 360 15GB hard drive...

 

[TheJollyCorner]

this game desperately needs a 'Thunderdome' somewhere. That would be awesome!



...I did notice, however, that Megaton during certain times of the day reminds me a lot of BarterTown from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. I love it.
Damn, I wish Bethesda and Evolution Studios could team-up and make a legitimate Mad Max game. Exploration/RPG elements of Fallout, racing mayhem of Motorstorm... match made in heaven.

 

[Rodeo Clown]

Did you try getting into another fight?

Yeah, that's what ultimately fixed it. Still really annoying for the brief period it lasted.

 

[Zeliard]

Lets not forget the best part about a follower... UNLIMITED MOBILE STORAGE! YEAH BABY! :lol

I think it's unlimited, I've only put like 60 on him.

I read you can have Dogmeat and a Follower AND a quest helper.

*Oh and I can say that Repair is by far the best skill to level up. I should of maxed this first.

Yup. Great bonuses when you have an NPC ally. Jericho's damage and accuracy are both at high levels. If anyone was wondering whether or not it's worth it to shell out the 1,000 caps to have him join you, it really is (especially if you're in the mood to wander to more dangerous parts of the Wasteland, or find yourself having difficulties in combat in general).

 

[Gumby04]

Power Armor at lvl 7? That seems so fast. I'm almost level 5 and I've just done a few things for Megaton and am working on the Fire Ants.

rofl... me too.. im lvl 5 also.. but i just barely finished the fire ants mission

 

[Gumby04]

can i go back into vault 101

Spoiler

if i kept amata alive but killed the overseer?

 

[Hazaro]

Yup. Great bonuses when you have an NPC ally. Jericho's damage and accuracy are both at high levels. If anyone was wondering whether or not it's worth it to shell out the 1,000 caps to have him join you, it really is (especially if you're in the mood to wander to more dangerous parts of the Wasteland, or find yourself having difficulties in combat in general).

Only downside is you need to do 51%+ of the damage to get EXP, but I haven't found that too be much of an issue since I use him as my meatshield while I run up and blast people in the face with the combat shotgun. :lol

 

[EviLore]

Lots of exploring, lots of accumulating wealth in my lair. Having a great time, actually. The locations are pretty unique and interesting to explore, and heavy on atmosphere. The item condition mechanic isn't annoying, and really makes duplicate items useful beyond beind vendor trash.

I made a bit of a face when I shot an enemy directly with a nuclear weapon and it was only severely wounded, but I'll live.

 

[FlyinJ]

Does this game have the same or slightly modified ramping of monsters and loot depending on level the Oblivion had?

I'm noticing robots wandering around areas of the wasteland that only had moles and dogs before.

Ugh.

 

[Zeliard]

Only downside is you need to do 51%+ of the damage to get EXP, but I haven't found that too be much of an issue since I use him as my meatshield while I run up and blast people in the face with the combat shotgun. :lol

Ah, that's awesome to know, since I was wondering why I'd occasionally get XP and not. I knew I wouldn't get any if I never hit the enemy, but it was puzzling because I'd get some XP sometimes after shooting one, and sometimes it wouldn't give me anything. So the 51%/majority of the damage thing makes complete sense.

Do you know if you can heal Jericho? I know you have to and can heal Dogmeat when you get him or he'll die, but I'm not sure about Jericho. He can definitely die, I know that (I've messed around and killed him a couple times before quick loading a previous save), but I don't think I saw an option to heal him unless I missed something. When you talk to him you can change his tactics and the length at which he follows you - was there a heal option in there too?

 

[FlyinJ]

Ah, that's awesome to know, since I was wondering why I'd occasionally get XP and not. I knew I wouldn't get any if I never hit the enemy, but it was puzzling because I'd get some XP sometimes after shooting one, and sometimes it wouldn't give me anything. So the 51%/majority of the damage thing makes complete sense.

Do you know if you can heal Jericho? I know you have to and can heal Dogmeat when you get him or he'll die, but I'm not sure about Jericho. He can definitely die, I know that (I've messed around and killed him a couple times before quick loading a previous save), but I don't think I saw an option to heal him unless I missed something. When you talk to him you can change his tactics and the length at which he follows you - was there a heal option in there too?

I don't know about Jericho, but I had an NPC following me around for a quest, and there was a dialog option for "are you hurt?" when I talked to her which let me give her stimpacks.

 

[TheJollyCorner]

I made a bit of a face when I shot an enemy directly with a nuclear weapon and it was only severely wounded, but I'll live.

:lol :lol :lol it would be awesome if Radroaches could survive that. Death by BB gun? Sure. Nuke? Survivors, baby.

 

[scarybore]

Fallout 3 is finally available to download from Steam if you are in the UK, presumably the same for the rest of my Euro chums. Really looking forward to playing the game, this thread has had me envious for days.

 

[painey]

Lets not forget the best part about a follower... UNLIMITED MOBILE STORAGE! YEAH BABY! :lol

I think it's unlimited, I've only put like 60 on him.

I read you can have Dogmeat and a Follower AND a quest helper.

*Oh and I can say that Repair is by far the best skill to level up. I should of maxed this first.

I have Fawkes as my partner, and therefore I am invincible. It seems he has around 10,000HP and heals on his own, and is equipped with a minigun that destroys even Deathclaws in mere seconds. It makes all the quests I have left much better as I can just adventure without worrying about the boring combat.

 

[Hazaro]

I have Fawkes as my partner, and therefore I am invincible. It seems he has around 10,000HP and heals on his own, and is equipped with a minigun that destroys even Deathclaws in mere seconds. It makes all the quests I have left much better as I can just adventure without worrying about the boring combat.

>Boring combat :|

Anyway, I just take a nap. Jericho has like 4,000 hp or so it seems.

I like leveling so I keep shootin

 

[PistolPete]

I've been seriously thinking about going out to go get this game...

Would you guys recommend it for a person who loved Fable 2 and liked Oblivion a bit?

I recommend this game to anyone with a pulse.

 

[Zeliard]

I have Fawkes as my partner, and therefore I am invincible. It seems he has around 10,000HP and heals on his own, and is equipped with a minigun that destroys even Deathclaws in mere seconds. It makes all the quests I have left much better as I can just adventure without worrying about the boring combat.

Boring combat, pfft. The real-time stuff is janky, but VATS is pretty fucking great and there are a huge amount of different weapons. I wander the Wasteland hoping to get in random fights because the combat overall is really fun.

 

[Hazaro]

Oh god I just found Andel or whatever it was called.

I had to open the fridge.

 

[painey]

>Boring combat :|

Anyway, I just take a nap. Jericho has like 4,000 hp or so it seems.

I like leveling so I keep shootin

After 40 hours of shooting the same 5 enemy types, it becomes very dull, especially when you just want to wrap up your quests.

 

[Chiggs]

Where do I find this Fawkes guy?

 

[Zeliard]

After 40 hours of shooting the same 5 enemy types, it becomes very dull, especially when you just want to wrap up your quests.

So vary it up, then. There are tons of weapons. You don't have to headshot enemies with a rifle every single time. Open-ended sandbox games are as repetitive as you make them.

 

[GDJustin]

Has anyone found the National Archives for Abraham Washington's quest? I was running around the DC streets and subways for like 3 hours, I could not find the fucking place. The streets are hard to navigate because you never really know where you're going to find a dead end, and the subway can be so monotonous and confusing.

If you speak to the questgiver, he'll give you a map pinpoint for where specifically you need to go.

 

[ZombieSupaStar]

Does this game have the same or slightly modified ramping of monsters and loot depending on level the Oblivion had?

I'm noticing robots wandering around areas of the wasteland that only had moles and dogs before.

Ugh.

it levels but in ranges now

everything isnt leveld absoulte based on your level, some areas are say levels 1 - 5, if you go in at level 1 you fight level 1 stuff and that zone is locked there forever (so when you go back at 5 everything is level 1), also lets say you Never went there and are now 9 the highest enemy you face there is 5 (since the range was between 1 and 5) thats how it works now, also some areas are designed for higher levels (so you can't complete the game at level 1 lol!) so you walkinto say a level 10 area (10 to 15 or whatever) at level 5 you will get owned without some crafty strategies. as far as items go there are some that are dropped based on your level range, and some hand placed in the world to find, this was how morrowind did it actually i think. However some npcs do scale with you (end boss or something im assuming, to keep certain spots a challenge, when you can roll over everyone else), its not a totally static system like I would prefer but much improved over oblivions imo.

 

[TheJollyCorner]

So vary it up, then. There are tons of weapons. You don't have to headshot enemies with a rifle every single time. Open-ended sandbox games are as repetitive as you make them.

I can't be the only one who finds it incredibly rewarding to blast someone's leg off at the knee...

I just love watching the slow-motion death ballet.

 

[Peronthious]

Question to anyone who did the Fire Ant quest in Grayditch:

Spoiler

I ended up killing what I thought was all of them who just roaming around town, but I guess I never found the nest to eradicate them for good. My quest marker for it also disappeared at some point, so I'm hoping it didn't glitch up. What did I miss?

Spoiler

Go into the shack next to the Wilkins' house where the boy says the Doctor lived. He has a bunch of things there that direct you to the fire ant nest.

 

[Zeliard]

I can't be the only one who finds it incredibly rewarding to blast someone's leg off at the knee...

I just love watching the slow-motion death ballet.

I've had some serious wow moments during VATS with the right mix of weapons, targetting and camera angles. My character has at times looked like the coolest fucker on the face of the planet as he cocks his rifle and shoots some mutant's leg off. Very cinematic.

I'm actually holding off on getting Bloody Mess since I don't want everyone to basically just blow up when I shoot them. I'm enjoying the physics at play.

 

[Rodeo Clown]

I have Fawkes as my partner, and therefore I am invincible. It seems he has around 10,000HP and heals on his own, and is equipped with a minigun that destroys even Deathclaws in mere seconds. It makes all the quests I have left much better as I can just adventure without worrying about the boring combat.

Fawkes is just amazing. The only NPC I've cared about so far.

 

[Zeliard]

Spoiler

Go into the shack next to the Wilkins' house where the boy says the Doctor lived. He has a bunch of things there that direct you to the fire ant nest.

Spoiler

Oh, is that the shack that you get a key for in the Wilkins' house? I actually got the key but never went into the shack because I had to stop the game, and when I came back to it I just forgot about it. Figures. Thanks for the info.

 

[ZombieSupaStar]

I've had some serious wow moments during VATS with the right mix of weapons, targetting and camera angles. My character has at times looked like the coolest fucker on the face of the planet as he cocks his rifle and shoots some mutant's leg off. Very cinematic.

I'm actually holding off on getting Bloody Mess since I don't want everyone to basically just blow up when I shoot them. I'm enjoying the physics at play.

thats the one thing I like about the old bloody mess, that I dont really like in this version, in the old game criticals or mess kills had varitions, this game seems just to be xploding gibs everywhere!

some unique cool death animations woulda been nice.

like an aimed headshot from a sniper rifle would go thru his eyes, and he walks around screaming and blood gushes out then he falls down dead, smgs tear chunks outta the torso etc...

 

[painey]

So vary it up, then. There are tons of weapons. You don't have to headshot enemies with a rifle every single time. Open-ended sandbox games are as repetitive as you make them.

Good point. Next time I see a Super Mutant Behmoth, I'll whip out my BB Gun to make it more interesting. Yeaaaa...

SWhere do I find this Fawkes guy? Chiggs

During the storyline,

Spoiler

when you are in the Vault looking for the G.E.C.K, Fawkes will be locked up in a room. Let him out and he will get the G.E.C.K for you saving you from the radiation heavy room, he will also kick the Mutants asses on the way there. Once you get out of the Enclave base Fawkes will be there shooting the Enclave with his minigun, and you can convince him to join you

 

[Rodeo Clown]

During the storyline,

Spoiler

when you are in the Vault looking for the G.E.C.K, Fawkes will be locked up in a room. Let him out and he will get the G.E.C.K for you saving you from the radiation heavy room, he will also kick the Mutants asses on the way there. Once you get out of the Enclave base Fawkes will be there shooting the Enclave with his minigun, and you can convince him to join you

Yeah, he's pretty late game. You should probably note that.

 

[ZombieSupaStar]

rofl... me too.. im lvl 5 also.. but i just barely finished the fire ants mission

can you wear it tho?...

 

[painey]

Rodeo have you found Agathas Shack? I just need the Agatha quest and then I can wrap the game up.

 

[chespace]

PC version will be better, but how are you playing the game?

I have a PC which can run the game better, but bought it on 360.

I'll take some extra loading and a small graphical downgrade for playing it on my plasma with 5.1 sound.

I like playing it on the PC but have had to put up with crashes to the desktop, crashes when I try to quit the game, and most recently, last night, after going through the grocery shop and mopping up, my game started choking hard. I would exit the grocery store (which was running fine, 60+ fps) and then outdoors would be really really slow, until a few seconds later, crash. I tried loading previous saves outdoors and the same thing would happen. I thought maybe it was my INI file so I got Zzoram to send me a vanilla one and it actually made things worse. It would crash without even loading the level.

Not taking any chances, I down clocked my CPU to 3.6 (8.5 x 425), deleted all my Fallout 3 files (and stashed the saved games somewhere), and redownloaded from Steam. And before I went to bed, I left Prime95 running with my down clocked CPU just to be sure.

Woke up this morning and tried starting a new game and got out of the vault. Everything seems fine so far outdoors. Plus I was able to NOT kill the Overseer, and pick up the bobblehead that I missed in my father's office.

Guess I'm starting over. :lol

I have my old save games but I'm afraid to load them now in case it corrupts everything else.

From now on, I'm just gonna play it straight. Save a lot (proper save files, not quicksaves) and no messing with the INI.

 

[Hazaro]

I've had some serious wow moments during VATS with the right mix of weapons, targetting and camera angles. My character has at times looked like the coolest fucker on the face of the planet as he cocks his rifle and shoots some mutant's leg off. Very cinematic.

I'm actually holding off on getting Bloody Mess since I don't want everyone to basically just blow up when I shoot them. I'm enjoying the physics at play.

Oh man, I was in Megaton and I had the 5 shot revolver and I got a critical with my last bullet from 300 meters away, 11% chance, as I watched the bullet cam spin around his arm tore off and he did a half twist.

That was amazing.

Also, where can I find a Steam Gauge Assembly? I want to finish my rail launcher.

 

[Zeliard]

Good point. Next time I see a Super Mutant Behmoth, I'll whip out my BB Gun to make it more interesting. Yeaaaa...

I could see myself getting bored with the combat if I had a limited imagination and did the same thing over and over.

 

[Rodeo Clown]

Rodeo have you found Agathas Shack? I just need the Agatha quest and then I can wrap the game up.

I haven't even gotten that quest yet. I did things kinda out of order. I really pushed through the main quest until it was nearing end. Now I'm exploring and doing side quests.

And I still hate deathclaws. I wandered near

Spoiler

Vault 92 and there's a ton of them there.

There should be a warning about that.

 

[soultron]

I ran into Mr. Burke in the Megaton saloon and killed his ass after he told me he wanted to destroy Megaton. (I've already seen the mushroom cloud scene in trailers anyway.) I really liked his suit, but didn't like his attitude.

But... Did I just fuck up the game? (Remember in Oblivion, "You've killed a character important to the story and can no longer continue.")