The Official Fallout 3 thread of post-apocalyptic proportions!

I rented Fallout 3 this past week and finished one play through in about 16-hours. I really enjoyed it. I didn't like Oblivion, but I'm definitely happy that I played Fallout 3. I seriously felt bad about some of the decisions I had to make. Much worse than how I feel over decisions in other games, including Fable and the like. Anyway, the only "bad" decision I made was letting Butch's mom die:lol. And seriously Fawkes and Liberty Prime were the highlight of the game for me.
 
mclem said:
So, Mothership Zeta's due RSN, and so I'm starting to plan my sojourn into the DLC. I've only recently finished Fallout 3, played it to the end of Blood Ties shortly after completion and only came back to it very recently, and then played the thing to death. I'll be taking a break before I actually carry out this plan, though, partially for the sake of my housemate's sanity.

I'm planning to get all the DLC - yes, I know Operation Anchorage isn't as good as the rest, but I'm loath to leave the set incomplete - but I'm trying to work out how best to actually get it for the best final play experience - firstly I'll need to formally re-finish the game (After I completed it, I went back to a save at the end of
Vault 87
for running around for achievements), then after that play through them in order - but I'm not sure about the influence each DLC package has on the whole; I'm dimly aware that Broken Steel, for instance, adds
Super Mutant Overlords
all through the normal questing areas.

My current plan, then, is:
1. Purchase Broken Steel. However, do not 'finish' the game yet; stick with that save in
Vault 87
. Hopefully this'll up the level cap even if I've not yet finished the game in that save (can people confirm?)
2. Purchase Operation Anchorage & The Pitt (I suspect if I shop around I can get the disc version for less than the download cost, unless there's a reason to avoid that version of the DLC?); play them.
3. Complete the main quest and play through Broken Steel. I assume you can play on after the end of Broken Steel? (If not, Bethesda are buffoons!)
4. Play through Point Lookout and Mothership Zeta.

Are there any major flaws with this battleplan that I ought to be aware of?

If you could do all the DLC over again, how would you play it?
Click to expand...

1. Yes, the level cap increases when you load your game, you'll get a pop-up box informing you that Broken Steel has loaded, and the level cap is now 30.

2. I've heard of no difference between the disc version and the digital version of those packs.

3. Yes, you can continue to play when you finish the Broken Steel quests.

I basically did the same thing you plan to do. I had a save right before the Project Purity door, and then I downloaded all the packs. Loaded that save, got a bunch of pop-up's about the new stuff, and then I was off. I leveled to 24 or so before I went back and actually completed the main story.
 
To those that have played Zeta: is it like Operation Anchorage and the Pitt, where you are stuck there until you finish? Or can you come and go as you please? I would assume from the nature of the area that you're stuck there until you finish.
 
Plissken said:
To those that have played Zeta: is it like Operation Anchorage and the Pitt, where you are stuck there until you finish? Or can you come and go as you please? I would assume from the nature of the area that you're stuck there until you finish.
Click to expand...

Stuck there until you're finished.

Anyway, finished it earlier and I have to say it's probably the most disappointing DLC of the bunch.

You're on what I assume to be a pretty big ship (especially if the ending is anything to go by) but it all feels so claustrophobic, you're constantly seeing the same walls, corridors, areas with steam pipes...the environment as a whole is just bland and just added to the disappointment I felt with the DLC.

The pick ups are also very disappointing, only 5 new weapons to pick up (3 of which are pretty useless once you find the Disintegrator), no new armour sets unless you do something evil to acquire one and something I found really odd...there are no alien blasters to pick up.

Sheer madness, my alien blaster is nearly broken and was hoping this DLC would allow me to repair it as well as pick up a few spares. I suppose the Disintegrator makes up for it, but it's still a very strange omission.)

Story is pretty bare bones as well, there are some hints at what could have been a great story but they are cast aside for a pretty crappy resolution which comes out of nowhere.

And the most baffling of all decisions, no translator/subs so you can actually follow the bare bones plot.

Unless you really want a couple of new guns, avoid this DLC until the price drops or when you trade in your vanilla copy for the GOTY edition.
 
That's disappointing to hear. I can't believe you go to an alien ship, and there aren't any alien blasters.....that just seems odd. However, I thought I read in an interview that they were adding some kind of "alien epoxy" with Zeta, that would allow you to repair your unique weapons without needing duplicate guns. Did they scrap that, or am I just remembering wrong?
 
Plissken said:
That's disappointing to hear. I can't believe you go to an alien ship, and there aren't any alien blasters.....that just seems odd. However, I thought I read in an interview that they were adding some kind of "alien epoxy" with Zeta, that would allow you to repair your unique weapons without needing duplicate guns. Did they scrap that, or am I just remembering wrong?
Click to expand...

The epoxy is still in there, but the game doesn't actually tell you that's what it's for so I just stopped picking it up half way through, same goes for the alien crystals.

The lack of a pop up box to explain what its use is yet another example of how lazy Bethesda has been with this DLC release.

Thanks for telling me though, looks like I'll have to head back up there and hope I can still pick up a few.
 
Liquid Helium said:
Is there any way you can
understand what the samurai guy is saying?
Click to expand...

Nope, you also can't understand what the Aliens are saying. (lack of translator is odd considering they appear to be able to understand what other characters are saying)
 
Speedymanic said:
Stuck there until you're finished.

Anyway, finished it earlier and I have to say it's probably the most disappointing DLC of the bunch.

You're on what I assume to be a pretty big ship (especially if the ending is anything to go by) but it all feels so claustrophobic, you're constantly seeing the same walls, corridors, areas with steam pipes...the environment as a whole is just bland and just added to the disappointment I felt with the DLC.

The pick ups are also very disappointing, only 5 new weapons to pick up (3 of which are pretty useless once you find the Disintegrator), no new armour sets unless you do something evil to acquire one and something I found really odd...there are no alien blasters to pick up.

Sheer madness, my alien blaster is nearly broken and was hoping this DLC would allow me to repair it as well as pick up a few spares. I suppose the Disintegrator makes up for it, but it's still a very strange omission.)

Story is pretty bare bones as well, there are some hints at what could have been a great story but they are cast aside for a pretty crappy resolution which comes out of nowhere.

And the most baffling of all decisions, no translator/subs so you can actually follow the bare bones plot.

Unless you really want a couple of new guns, avoid this DLC until the price drops or when you trade in your vanilla copy for the GOTY edition.
Click to expand...

The blaster can actually be repaired by the girl you first meet (Somah, I think?). She ridiculously charges you to do so however (the game even makes a joke about how pointless that is, since you are aiding her escape as well with the weapon). This whole DLC just reeks of laziness.

Anyway, I found 15 of the alien transmission messages, I'm guessing there's 25 in total. Once I finish that up, I think I'm officially done with Fallout 3.
 
I just finished Mothership Zeta and I really liked it.

Was the first DLC pack I bought, any suggestions on which to buy next?
 
Ikuu said:
It's a shame MS are complete and utter cunts, so annoying that I can't just buy the exact points I need rather than having to buy more than I want.
Click to expand...

Go to the zune site and login you can buy in 400 point increments there.
 
Finished MZ an hour and a half ago, probably the biggest DLC disappointment considering it's the final one. I had more fun with Anchorage honestly. Identical corridors, go here to push buttons objectives, shallow plot with terrible dialogue, most of it becomes inaccessible when you're finished, waves of enemies, it was basically another good concept that Bethesda decided to just let wither on the vine. They really need to fire whoever's doing their writing. You couldn't even tell the American Soldier the world went boom for christ's sake.
 
I got the dlc and I'm about a half hour into it and I'm enjoying it so far.

For those disappointed you can't repair the alien blaster: pick up the alien epoxy on the ship. When you use it it repairs your current weapon by 25% I think... I already have 7 of them.
 
Gestahl said:
Finished MZ an hour and a half ago, probably the biggest DLC disappointment considering it's the final one. I had more fun with Anchorage honestly. Identical corridors, go here to push buttons objectives, shallow plot with terrible dialogue, most of it becomes inaccessible when you're finished, waves of enemies, it was basically another good concept that Bethesda decided to just let wither on the vine. They really need to fire whoever's doing their writing. You couldn't even tell the American Soldier the world went boom for christ's sake.
Click to expand...


Couldn't agree more. It felt like a ten minute chunk of gameplay repeated a dozen times.
 
Gestahl said:
You couldn't even tell the American Soldier the world went boom for christ's sake.
Click to expand...
Ugh, maybe you missed it. But there is a conversation between the NPCs about it.

Anyway nothing really stellar about Mothership Zeta in my opinion. I killed
Ghenghis and took his armour, the NPCs didn't acknowledge it. The others died when helping me out.
 
Visualante said:
Ugh, maybe you missed it. But there is a conversation between the NPCs about it.
Click to expand...

I saw that. But why shouldn't I be able to say something like that? Why am I stuck with choices like "I am Moses here to shepard you to the Promise Land!", "Eh, I'll help if no one else will and nothing good is on tv", or "Argh fuck you"?
 
Gestahl said:
I saw that. But why shouldn't I be able to say something like that? Why am I stuck with choices like "I am Moses here to shepard you to the Promise Land!", "Eh, I'll help if no one else will and nothing good is on tv", or "Argh fuck you"?
Click to expand...

Why the fuck are you asking us why? :lol
 
OK fuck this BETHESDA goddamn it, I do a memory maintenance on my HD, and now I have 1240/1200 and 60/58! Seriously WTF!!!!!!!!!
 
neoism said:
OK fuck this BETHESDA goddamn it, I do a memory maintenance on my HD, and now I have 1240/1200 and 60/58! Seriously WTF!!!!!!!!!
Click to expand...

That happened on the Broken steel update as well. Recovering the gamertag worked for most people.
 
Speedymanic said:
Sheer madness, my alien blaster is nearly broken and was hoping this DLC would allow me to repair it as well as pick up a few spares.
Click to expand...
You can fix any weapon with the alien epoxy. The little girl tells you about it. Equip the weapon and use the alien epoxy. All weapons can be repaired to 100% using this method.
 
Oh yeah also...
I had Fawkes with me when I cleared out the Purifier room at the end and had to make the decision to go in myself, or ask Lyons too. What the fuck! Fawkes could have done it, took no damage, and we all could have lived happily ever after. I was seriously expecting that option to pop up when I said "There's got to be another way..."
 
ToyMachine228 said:
Oh yeah also...
I had Fawkes with me when I cleared out the Purifier room at the end and had to make the decision to go in myself, or ask Lyons too. What the fuck! Fawkes could have done it, took no damage, and we all could have lived happily ever after. I was seriously expecting that option to pop up when I said "There's got to be another way..."
Click to expand...

Strange. In my game he did do it.. but then again I had already installed Broken Steel so that might have affected it? I don't know but he went in there in my game.
 
MMaRsu said:
Strange. In my game he did do it.. but then again I had already installed Broken Steel so that might have affected it? I don't know but he went in there in my game.
Click to expand...

I believe Broken Steel adds the option of him doing it.
 
Yeah well I really didn't see the point of him not doing it. The ending talking about no sacrifice and shit.

Fuck that :lol .
 
I recall reading an interview where they stated the followers were added pretty late in development, well after the main story stuff was finished, so that was why you originally couldn't have them hit the button. I always thought it was pretty weak, especially when Fawkes would walk through that irradiated area to get you the
G.E.C.K.
, but if they've added an option for him to activate the purifier in Broken Steel, I'll have to try it next time I play through.

Bought Mothership Zeta today, so far I've enjoyed it, I'm up to the part where
you unfreeze the guys in cryostasis
. I'm surprised that you get an
Alien Disintegrator
so early, it makes everything way too easy. Of course, I am level 30 and have energy weapons maxed, so that might be why it rocks so much, it's pretty much a one-shot kill on everything I've encountered so far. I was hoping for the final DLC they would have made the mothership a level 28-30 area, so those that have maxed out their characters at lvl 30 would be at least a little challenged. I suppose I could bump up the difficulty to Very Hard.
 
I've had the PC version for about 6 months now, and I have finally decided to play it since my backlog is out of the way. Can anyone explain how to update the game to the latest version? I've tried to update via patches from Bethesda's website, but I keep getting an error message, and I'm forced to re-install.
 
well finished zeta, started out pretty interesting but then just fell into a mindless fps for 2 hours (which for fallout 3, is a bad thing). And with a pretty neat "set piece" finale".

but otherwise it was a poor last choice for dlc, it shoulda been point lookout last.
 
I had Dogmeat out fetching some ammo when I got beamed by the UFO, as soon as the beaming up 'cutscene' began I got message telling me Dogmeat's puppy was outside Vault 101 :( - Does that mean it killed Dogmeat automatically, or was he already dead and all the puppies are called Dogmeat, and it was just telling me he was waiting outside the Vault?
 
Just finished Zeta and I'm a bit dissapointed. What could have been an awesome survival story surrounded by likeable character devolves into a corridor shooter with many of the same trappings that Anchorage had. There are some pretty cool setpeices and the end is almost worth the entry fee but in the end I find this hard to recommend. The enviroments are bland, the gameplay is not fun, the atmosphere fails in most regards and there is nothing compelling about the additional characters. Point Lookout remains the pinnacle of the Fallout 3 DLC so far, basically because it was a mini version of the game. We need more like that, hopefully this train hasn't ended yet.
 
WTF is wrong with this patch (1.7)? After downloading Zeta, when Fallout3.exe loads it crashes when the cursor pops up. I disabled the newest mods, used FOSE/FOMM and it still crashes. What the heck did I do?
 
MrTroubleMaker said:
yes

finally an npc with 100 repair skill and the Alien Epoxy is great too, now i can get all my "unrepairable" items to 100 CN, thanks Bethesda :)

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Somah
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Alien_Epoxy

edit: she
doesn't stay on board though after MZ is finished :(,
will need to bring my cool stuff there for the first time play though
Click to expand...

Fawkes was never a she and one of the Fallout 3 guys confirmed it in an interview somewhere.
 
I played Mothership Zeta for about an hour last night, and I don't know why people are saying it's bad. I think it's pretty awesome so far (then again I also really liked OA). The way those one aliens shimmer and move is just creepy and awesome.

I can't wait to hopefully finish it up tonight.

Speedymanic said:
The epoxy is still in there, but the game doesn't actually tell you that's what it's for so I just stopped picking it up half way through, same goes for the alien crystals.

The lack of a pop up box to explain what its use is yet another example of how lazy Bethesda has been with this DLC release.

Thanks for telling me though, looks like I'll have to head back up there and hope I can still pick up a few.
Click to expand...
in one of the corridors
the girl tells you that she's seen the aliens using it to fix their guns
 
JodyAnthony said:
I played Mothership Zeta for about an hour last night, and I don't know why people are saying it's bad. I think it's pretty awesome so far (then again I also really liked OA). The way those one aliens shimmer and move is just creepy and awesome.

I can't wait to hopefully finish it up tonight.


in one of the corridors
the girl tells you that she's seen the aliens using it to fix their guns
Click to expand...

Fallout 3 as a real time first person shooter only, is awful to me, its real time aiming is all based on dice rolls to see if you hit the target, with aim only mattering if your aiming somewhere in the same time zone of the enemy. So when they try and do a "fps" based dlc for long periods of time, its .....system starts showing its rough edges, aiming in a general area and just unloading while some of your shots pass the dice rolls and some don't (love watching bullets curve TO their target in mid air :lol ) gets old for extended periods of time. Dont try and be a halo game without real first person shooter combat imo, in the standard game it works, coupled with vats.

I hope new vegas has standard fps aiming, with a standard cone of fire (it probably wont tho oh well), the whole "illusion" that its real time is broken. I Noticed this on a sniper rifle early on where my reticule is off but the bullet hits the head like its an aimbot or something.

imo I hope borderlands does it right. Make the stats effect rate of fire, recoil, jamming, ability to use a weapon, but leave the actual AIMING part, all player skill based for real time, OR stats based for VATS time.


itd be like playing half life 2 or cod4, and having shots miss due to failing dice rolls, it wouldnt be much fun, and since this dlc is more "fps" then "rpg", it wasnt that good to me.
 
Just finished Zeta. It's certainly not the worst of the dlc (that would be either Broken Steel or Operation Anchorage), but it's no Point Lookout either. It's a fun, if way too action orientated, little sidequest. What's weird is the game seems to think I'm level 31 (I only just reached the max level). It says so in loading screens and it says so on the exp-bar. It's probably just one of the many glitches Fallout got since the dlc, but it's still weird.

DSC00348.jpg
 
eXistor said:
Just finished Zeta. It's certainly not the worst of the dlc (that would be either Broken Steel or Operation Anchorage), but it's no Point Lookout either. It's a fun, if way too action orientated, little sidequest. What's weird is the game seems to think I'm level 31 (I only just reached the max level). It says so in loading screens and it says so on the exp-bar. It's probably just one of the many glitches Fallout got since the dlc, but it's still weird.
Click to expand...
Broken Steel is one of the worst DLC? WTH? It's the best one. Greatly, extends the game. This current DLC is the worst. Shooting aliens is boring. You would have thought the opposite.
 
knitoe said:
Broken Steel is one of the worst DLC? WTH? It's the best one. Greatly, extends the game. This current DLC is the worst. Shooting aliens is boring. You would have thought the opposite.
Click to expand...
Broken Steel was alright, but I had the worst time with it, the game froze so many damn times and struggling with other problems. My main memory of playing BS is having to deal with glitches. I'm sure if those weren't in there I would have liked it a lot better.
 
eXistor said:
Broken Steel was alright, but I had the worst time with it, the game froze so many damn times and struggling with other problems. My main memory of playing BS is having to deal with glitches. I'm sure if those weren't in there I would have liked it a lot better.
Click to expand...
BS wwas my 1st DLC. Had zero issues. Every one downloaded, Anchorage > Pitt > Point > Zeta, afterward added more and more glitches. This is on X360.

BS raise the cap, add new perks and allows you to make the "perfect" attribute / skill character. These alone makes it best DLC to me. No way I would play other DLCs w/o lvling incentive.
 
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