Well surely there's some nit-picking going on. For myself, it's a favorite past-time.

I don't think anyone's saying that Bethesda didn't do the best they could in the time they had with this game (or well... at least most of us aren't - don't want to get into too broad a generalization.) For myself, there are many elements in the game that show that this is a game that they really cared about - they could have made a shovelware game that was just trying to cash in on the franchise (and of course part of the reason of continuing any game series is to try and build on the popularity and reputation of the previous games. But as evidenced by Brotherhood of Steel - there's a difference between trying to just make some money, and trying to make a quality game that's a valuable contribution to the series.)

The topic of this thread is important - it's not "Top 10 ways the game fell apart," but "Top 10 Ways to Improve." Some of us find it a fun exercise to try and come up with potentially constructive criticisms about the game. Even if some elements of the game weren't even particularly poorly implemented - there's always room for improvement. Even if you thoroughly enjoyed the plotline I'd think there's room for improvement in that area, for example. Or if you absolutely loved the manner in which side plots, unmarked quests, and dungeons were presented - there might be ways to further improve on that formula in a way that would be even more impressive the next time around.

Personally, I think to an extent (and by no means am I saying any one "side" is more responsible for this than another - or that this is the only cause) one of the causes for these threads to turn into debates about the quality of the game is the defensive quality of some of the following posts. It's a trend I've noticed that if you start a thread with some suggestions for improvement, you'll get some response posts saying that some of those elements presented for improvement work perfectly fine. Then it starts to go the way of everyone debating to what extent (or lack thereof) that particular element worked in the game.

Certainly a lot of these suggestions could be worded better and less in a manner of fixing a broken element, and more in line with improving that element regardless of your subjective views on the topic. But we're all human, and I think very few of us (if any) are professional writers or debaters. So I feel it's also important to understand that many of us discussing these things aren't saying it's a horrible game by any means (I proudly display my collector's lunchbox and bobblehead at my computer desk,) discounting the developers' efforts put into the game, or saying that they purposefully cut corners or got lazy. Only that there's room for improvement and these are the ways we feel those improvements could be made, or how we'd like to see those them go about it the next time around.

Yeah I thought this too. As for Myron making a trek to DC to make jet, not possible. Myron was stabbed and killed by a jet addict in a bar in New Reno, or so his epilogue slide says if he's in your group and alive when you leave the enclave base. Jet had no place being in Fallout 3 and they made absolutely no effort to explain its presence there.

For that matter, Super Mutants had no place there either. They were kinda' explained but in all the references to the FEV in Fallout 1 and 2, there was never once mention of a 2nd testing facility in DC. 2nd, why would you put a biological testing facility in a major population center? In the event of an outbreak or other disaster, the entire population center would become infected in a matter of days. 3rd, how are the current super mutants infecting new prisoners? I doubt any of them, other than Fawkes or ... I think his name was Uncle Joe would have the mental capacity to do more than push a few buttons and kill stuff, much less mix complex compounds.

When I find "svcked" in the first bullet point, I'm typically going to stop reading, and chalk the thread up as muckraking, regardless of what "I like this game, BUT" throwaway line the OP uses. And then someone has to talk about people defending the game. It does get old, thread after thread, rehashing over the same things using the same arguments.

The point is, There IS disagreement as to what needs to be changed and how much it needs to be changed, and what is working ok. If you guys REALLY want to carry on a civilized conversation with the like of people like me, words like "svcks" isn't the way to do it.

I can take some constructive criticism too =)

That makes a lot of sense, and I think I went a long way to discredit my own thread. A lot of the bullets had to be reduced down from the 2 paragraph explanations they were, because no one was going to read the wall that this post originally was.

Thanks for helping this thread improve

Well, I think I get where you're coming from. But at the same time, it's like I said - it's not like we're running for office here, or or submitting professional-level editorials. Sort of the very nature of a forum is that it's a little more on the casual side. There's only so much diplomacy one can realistically expect from someone putting out a post like this. There's already a couple extra layers of disclaimer material you have to put out in the front of any topic you start with any sort of criticism you make towards the game just to even attempt to keep it from ending up as another debate about what people like about the game. (Frak, I'm probably going to re-write this post three of four times before I settle on something that I think is accurately conveying the point I'm trying to make without derailing it in poorly-chosen words or examples.)

I mean, I also thought the ending wasn't very good. Were it the ending to any other game than one with Fallout in it's title - I thought it would have been rather good, actually. But I expect much more from a game that's supposed to be a direct sequel to a series that is known for it's in-depth and detailed epilogues. But that's also entirely subjective, too. No two people are going to feel exactly the same about something like this. It's something I think could improved, and I also feel that many of the people who enjoyed Fallout 3's ending would have liked it even more had it been more in-line with what's expected from a Fallout series. Is there a better way to phrase this concept than "the ending svcked, it should be better in the next game?" Absolutely, but at some point I also think concessions might need to be made for the fact that not everyone here is a professional writer.

In other words, if we can agree from now on to try and phrase these things in more diplomatic wording, then it would only be fair if others could overlook it if we occasionally let our own opinions slip into our posts from time to time. I understand that it might be frustrating to see topics that appear to be dragging the game through the muck, but it can also be tiring to have to bury your point in so many layers of disclaimers to just get to what you wanted to talk about in the first place just because you have a differing opinion.

Exactly. I honestly could not see WHY we were asked to blow up Megaton. Tenpenny's reasoning was very very weak. Now if Tenpenny had actually been a good guy, and there was some sort of major, tangible threat coming from Megaton that required it to be blown up (or was the most efficient means), then it starts being tougher. Say, maybe there was some sort of disease that was originating from Megaton, and either the player chooses to destroy it, or risk more of the wasteland to find a cure. That sounds a little corny, but at least it becomes a more morally challenging situation then "I don't like Megaton, blow it up"



It was poorly done, and I think using permutations to say "We have a ton of endings!" was very misleading. Bethesda knew they're dealing with an RPG market, and that having a say in your ending is important. But when you count minor changes like the color of your characters skin as an ending, come on, that's just a marketing move, and an underhanded one at that. When I heard there were over 200 different endings, I had thought that meant the "such and such happens to this town" and what not, like we had in previous Fallouts.

I edited the original post. I had to distill a lot of my thoughts down to a single bullet point so people could READ it, and I lost a lot of clarity in the process.

Feel free to give it a re-read and tell me if you think it's better =)

NEEDS. DYNAMIC. WEATHER. SYSTEM.

I dislike constantly walking in dust and would like to be able to gain radiation through radioactive rain, or radioactive snow. Its washington DC, It needs to have some weather.

I didn't read all the posts, and never made it all the way through the game, but 3 things I kept hoping to see when opening bathroom stalls were:

1. a feral ghoul drinking from a toilet like a dog.

2. a stall door that wouldn't open, and a grunting response from a super-mutant "occupied!"

2. a super-mutant shot dead on the toilet, ala Vincent Vega in 'Pulp Fiction'.