I love the atmosphere of Fallout 3 a bit more than New Vegas, it's so....ambient, serene in some ways. It also has a nostalgic charm, but gameplay wise it's worse than New Vegas.

I can't play for long for fear of hitting the caravan routes and they get attacked, being on PS3, I can't make the caravan guys essential, and they're the only merchants worth using when upgraded.

Around the point between 'The Waters of Life' and 'Picking Up the Trail' I lose interest.

Compared to New Vegas, settlements just feel kind of bland.

Is there ANY way to spice up the gameplay?

I suppose you can try roleplaying, if you haven't. But I don't really know, given that I lost interest at about Lvl 8 on my first playthrough. I stuck through out of duty, but damn.

Fallout 3 is what you make of it, unfortunately, since it(honestly) doesn't have as much depth as New Vegas. For instance, my character had an emotional moment in Point Lookout when she restored the Lighthouse for no real reason. It meant a lot to her to bring some light to a perpetually dark, stormy, and creepy place. Little goals like that might help you.

-Nukeknockout

Just exploring trying to find every peice of content is what keeps me going I mean for instance I thought shalebridge was just a broken pylon thing but there is a tunnel near it the shale bridge tunnels where there are two ant colonys fighting and you can chose to protect one I had never seen and i've seen most if not everything there is in fo3.

Beth games begin to get fun once you finish the quests they wrote.

In other words.. you make your own little stories, scenarios, goals. Give your character a purpose beyond 'find dad'. If you rely on quest markers to enjoy the game then RP'ing probably isnt for you.

I'm on the 360. Yes, there is a sure-fire way to spice things up for you. This is how I and some others play. Look for a thread titled Fallout 3 hardcoe. It's got to be at least 20 pages back by this time. Us 360 and PS3 users contributed to it as we have no access to mods.
Here's the deal:

No fast travel. Ever. You cannot be overencumbered. Ever.
If something breaks in the wastes, you must discard it.... no matter what. Previous characters have had to discard Vengeance, Eugene.... special items so dear to me, yet they broke in the wastes and I tossed them down.
You can only repair/craft things when you are standing next to a workbench and are safe. No exceptions.
Only a doctor can repair broken limbs. You cannot. So walk your crippled ass to a doctor.
No sleeping in the wastes unless you have a companion.
You must create weight limits. My big guns character cannot carry 4000 missiles. He can only carry two. I look at clip size, and pack accordingly. I cannot carry 600 rounds of .556. But ten clips (at Xuanlong rife clip size) sounds reasonable.
I carry two each of every chem. Five each radaway and rad x.
I don't carry multiple outfits. If I can't lockpick or hack something, guess I will have to come back if I'm around these parts again. Which can sometimes mean never. Oh well.

As for weapon loadout, we all differed in what felt right to each of us. In the end, make it hard for yourself.
I opt for this:
one sidearm
pair of spiked knuckles
one ranged weapon, here you will have to make a choice... hunting rifle? assault rife? I usually go for the hunting rifle or Lincoln's Repeater. More accurate at range and easier to repair than the Xuanlong.
One big gun. Tends to be a mini gun. I can carry two ammo loadouts for it.
I also usually pack two grenades, two plasma grenades and two land mines.

Upon leveling up:
You cannot put skill points into skills that you did not use the previous level.
You cannot ever add to the barter skill. More on this later.
There are several perks, which are game-breaking. As in you will be so OP. Grim Reaper's Sprint is one of these game breakers.
You cannot choose all perks that benefit you. You must choose some of the lame ones as well. Lame perks meaning things like Gun Nut.... basically any perk that adds points to your skills. With BS installed, you find that you will 100 anyway in your specialties, with most else being in the 90s by the time you hit level 30.
You cannot choose Educated or Comprehension.
I tend to roll with what I get on the GOAT. This current playthrough I was destined to be a Pip boy programmer. Usually I'm supposed to be chaplain....
And my SPECIAL is not that all special. Intelligence is at 6, Strength is at 7, Luck is 4... Actually I was chatting with Dr. Lesko the other day, and how he explained his "situation" was pretty hilarious as he dumbed it down for me as I tried to comprehend what the hell he was talking about.

As for barter. Have you noticed that by level 30 you have 90K caps? With nothing to spend it on?
So this is what I do. I do not sell anymore. I trade only. The value in the barter window MUST equal 0. At all times. Which means I am not selling anymore. I am trading the value of my goods for the value of their goods. With the barter at zero, it's a fair trade, no?
It was hard to first stick to this, but it has been very liberating. Often times I cannot pay for repairs and other things, like food or medicine. Yes, I also carry food and eat that in the wastes. My guy hates roach meat and bloat fly meat. Squirrel stew is appealing, but squirrel on a stick is not. But I digress.
I'm very careful about what I spend my money on.... Currently level 12, just bought a workbench for my house. I'm left with 72 caps, which I will hold on to in case I need to make repairs at a vendor in the future.
So, just a few ideas. I'm currently playing this way, as well as playing Dead is Dead... so I'm much more careful about which targets I engage. Saw two bears last night. Half health and no stimpacks..... I snuck around them , and found a puddle I could drink out of. I like being not ridiculously overpowered. I still fear for my life.
We found it hard to create an RP for this game. Don't know why... I'm RPing in Oblivion right now. That's pretty natural-feeling. FO3 is harder for me to RP for some reason.


Sorry for wall o'text. But these are some ideas to further your enjoyment of the game. I've advanced the game to the point where there are now seriously armored enemies roaming about. I hear there's some work guarding caravans down at Rivet City, I need cash bad. Gonna check it out.

@Big Daddy- I'm not looking for hardcoe mode thing, I just want to enjoy Fallout 3 like I used to. Alot of my issue goes back to the caravans, those guys are very useful for me and my character, the problem is that I don't have a PC so I can't make them essential. One time it took me five reloades near the Temple of the Union just to keep Wolfgangs caravan from being hit by this freaking deathclaw, and only because I charged to the Deathclaw instead of following Wolfgang :/

@Do'tirath- It's not an issue of the quests, because I honestly spend more time just scavenging and making up my own little stories, like I envisioned that one skeleton in the neighborhood beside the Corvega factory was out getting his mail after a hard night at work, only to be scorched by the blast of the bombs.

@Eden- I spent 2 years playing New Vegas, there isnt much, if any, content I dont know about.

In my game, I don't care about the caravans. Oh yes, I used to care, A LOT. I would do advance the main story as fast as I could to get power armor out on the streets. I would then farm enclave locations until I had 8 sets of well-repaired armor, in addition to any weapons and extra ammo. I would RPP the armor and weapons on the caravan crew as fast as I could. This was my way of at least guaranteeing that they would last. And they usually would last forever with this set up. I would RPP more ammo and better, as in 100%, power armor as I leveled up.

What I'm saying is that after doing all that, I'm tired of being a walking God of Destruction and Wealth. So if a caravan fails to show up.... that's life in the wastes. Unless they are a major part of your RP, as you mentioned.... Every once in a while I'm lucky and find the dead merchant. I take his key. Then retrace the caravan route for a while. Sometimes I find the pack brahmin, sometimes not. :twirl:

@mpls Big Daddy

That sounds awesome, I'm going to start a new game in a bit using those rules.

Cool. Just make careful decisions when picking up bobbleheads. never get a stat builder. I want three for my current character: Big Guns, Unarmed, Science. So if I want three, I should only take two.

I found the thread

http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1176044-fallout-3-hardcoe/

Also. Turn off your music. I literally shouted out loud when attacked by a Deathclaw out of the blue the other night.

Well it wouldn't hurt to take a break. It's been almost a year since I have really sat down and played it.

I have, I usually go months on end without playing, I try to play again just to have the hope I'll get back into Fallout 3, but there isnt much enticement for me because New Vegas feels more....alive....and progressive. Fallout 3 just feels so empty compared to it. I love Fallout 3 in ways, but with all the improvements over 3, it's hard to enjoy it like I used to :/

@Big Daddy- I don't really RP, I meant my character in terms of using them for their huge cap level. I have the caravans fully upgraded, if the die, I dont know much anyone else with as many caps as they have on them.

Well if you don't really RP then maybe it's time to put it in the retirement home and visit in a few years. If you have the means you could always invest in a PC, it's amazing what mods can do for a game.

I feel very similar.

Although something that has always drawn me back to Fallout 3 is the setting and atmosphere. Even after New Vegas came out, I felt compelled to explore downtown DC again.

Of course, I believe mods are what has allowed me to continue playing it all this time. To be honest, I don't think I could still be playing it on the XBOX.

If you have a PC (and you probaly do since you are on the forums) I would recommend buying Fo3 and/or New Vegas. They are very cheap, with the Fo3 GOTY only 20 USD and FNV 15 USD normally, and 75% off during the upcoming holiday sale, thats $5 (!) for Fo3 GOTY and $20-$25 for NV and all DLCThey are both non-CPU intensive, I play both on a budget laptop and neither game lags at all. Fallout is just so superior on PC :fallout: , partialy due to the lack of bugs, but mainly for mods. Mods can double or triple the lifespan of your game, and are the only reason I personally play Fo3. Some of the better quest mods are on par with official DLC. If you decide to buy FO for PC be sure to check out the http://fallout3nexus.com/, and its counterpart the http://www.newvegasnexus.com/, the premier modding website for the latest Fallouts. :tops:

And while on topic, I might as well mention that the is a "play as Enclave and blow stuff up with vertibirds mod :flamethrower: ," much to the delight of to more prominent Enclave supporters on the forums.

Nope, I play my games on PS3, PC gaming and rigging is to expensive for me. My computer is not modified for gaming period.

You don't need to "rig" your PC for any Bethesda games. I use a common, work horse laptop and it runs all the games from Oblivion to New Vegas to Skyrim with more or less good performance. I don't get 60 FPS, lucky to get even 30 (though with my overly optimized Fallout 3 I get above that) but hailing from a depression-struck home where owning a television was a huge thing, I'm content with less.


Colonel, if you ever get a PC that runs Fallout 3 give it another try and play an Enclave character. You won't regret it!

I second this.