I was hoping one of you Fallout 3 experts can help me with something...

Today, I noticed something peculiar with the caravan merchants...tell me what you think...

Every once in awhile after saving my game (usually at Arefu or Agatha's house) I decide to "wait" for 2 hours so that I can shuffle through the caravan merchants to make sure they are still alive. The caravan merchants always appear in a distinct order that I have basically memorized.

The wiki lists the order as: Doc Hoff, Crazy Wolfgang, Crow, Lucky Harith. This is the same pattern that I see.

This morning I was playing FO3 and exploring the MDPL-16 power station area (it's East of Vault 92 and the Chaste Acres Dairy Farm). I noticed I was carrying too much stuff so I fast traveled to Arefu to dump the excess stuff at the West house. I saved the game and went outside to check on the caravan merchants.

For some reason the caravan merchant order is mixed up! Doc Hoff appears AFTER Wolfgang and not before. The new order is: Wolfgang, Doc Hoff, Crow, Lucky Harith.

I even reloaded the game from my save at the West house and the same sequence happens. I tried sleeping and waiting 24 hours and its the same. I am on the Xbox 360.

WTF?!? Should I be worried about a glitch occurring?

I don't see a problem based on what you've posted.

As a general rule though, hanging around Arefu is usually a bad idea in Fallout 3, as the residents there are vulnerable to getting killed by all kinds of nasties spawning nearby.

Sorry...What you read was an incomplete post. Sometimes I have to submit an incomplete post because if I take too long typing the forums log me out and my post is lost. Usually I send a partial post and then "edit" it to completion. Re-read it now...