To Okie:

The Brotherhood of Steel is a faction with a vested interest in recovering technical artifacts, particularly weapons of war.
Liberty Prime represents, far and away, the pinnacle of both these goals for the organization. If they had even an inkling that such a weapon might exist in the ruins of the Pentagon, it'd be grossly out of character for the Brotherhood to not send a team to recover it. It's also not exactly a major contingent; the wiki itself describes it as small.

And no, people in the Fallout world were not cognizant of the dangers of radiation. As mentioned, they irradiated their food to preserve it and drank irradiated beverages. 50s science, of which Fallout represents a highly idealized interpretation, was not aware of the dangers of much that it did.

While people are more awre of the hazards post-war, there is a logical and plausible reason given for Megaton's existence around a bomb. It was founded by a cult which worshipped the bomb, which is perfectly plausible in the Fallout universe; we've seen much more ridiculous things. Once the town was established, it makes perfect sense that people would go live there; would you rather scraqe by day-to-day in the wasteland where you are almost guaranteed a painful, agonizing death (at best), or would you go live in a settlement around a bomb which has not exploded for 200 years, and shows no signs of doing so anytime soon?

It's an obvious choice. Both are risky, but placing yourself in proximity to the bomb is FAR less of a risk than simply living in the wasteland. Think about it. It's easy enough to survive in as the Lone Wanderer, but "actually living" in the Capital Wasteland would be damn near to a living hell. I'd pick the large, well-defended settlement and a tiny risk of death by accidental detonation over being caught, dismembered, and impaled by Raiders or Mutants any day.

@TheTuninator,

indeed, I can see why someone would want to live in Megaton, it's essentially a wasteland fortress. aside from having a bomb that most don't even consider a threat.

I too don't see where all the criticism towards Bethesda's writing comes from.

I have not seen a single thing in Fallout: New Vegas that constitutes "better" writing than anything found in Fallout 3. I haven't gotten extremely far into the game due to other schedule obligations, I haven't really had time to play, but I really haven't had any memorable moments or characters in New Vegas. Arriving in New Vegas, there was The Kings, which I thought was an interesting faction, and I liked the questline for them. There are some elements to New Vegas which were memorable - Gun Runners for one. But I just haven't really had any moments that stood out for me in New Vegas.

I had those characters and moments by the bunches in Fallout 3. So many memorable characters, so many memorable plot points. I just don't see where this "the writing in New Vegas is SO much better" argument comes from, cuz the way I see it, there's nothing in the storyline of New Vegas that's better than any of the writing in Fallout 3.

What great writing? Elaborate what you mean. What characters moved you? What plot devices struck you as well executed? Did the narrative make sense in its own context? Was the setting constructed believably?
My contention is that the characters with more than a one dimensional personality can be counted on one hand, the plot was predictable and stale tripe from start to finish, the story had more holes and fail than a large brick of Swiss failcheese, and the setting they constructed completely fell apart on every level but a visual one.

This isn't just me asserting my opinion as fact or flaming, I can defend those claims. To dismiss my first claim all you'd have to do is name a few characters that have deeper personality than someone you'd expect to find in a middle school creative writing assignment. My second contention is also pretty obvious, the entire plot is driven first by a contrived motivation to find daddy, and then driven by your desperate hunt for the MacGuffin.

To name a few plotholes off the top of my head: Why does your dad want to take apart a GECK to use one part? A GECK can terraform a landscape into fresh, virgin land. It tells you that explicitly. Picking it apart for one bit is akin to melting down a machine gun to make a combat knife. Why does Eden trust someone he has no reason at all to rely upon with the crux of his ebil, ebil plan? This isn't a minor detail, this is a critical part of the story that is entirely unexplained. A giant supercomputer shouldn't be making a mistake that huge. Why does James commit suicide rather than surrendering to the Enclave? This is meant to be a touching moment of self sacrifice, but it fails because it's entirely unnecessary self sacrifice purely for the sake of audience manipulation.

Finally, the setting works beautifully at a superficial glance. Though if you start thinking about it for more than two seconds the glaring problems begin to become apparent. Where exactly does this population get its food? Are they living entirely off of twinkies, boxed dinners, and mole rat steak? Scavenged food wouldn't sustain a population like the one in the Capital Wasteland for more than a couple weeks, and after that they would be down to squirrel nuggets and deathclaw burgers. That begs the question, what are the mole rats and deathclaws eating? This isn't nitpicking, this is a major problem in an open world game that is supposed to create a setting that is somewhat believable exist in.



Companies fought over the rights to Fallout, Bethesda won. I didn't know Bioware was in the bidding until reading this thread, and now I feel like writing emo poetry.



I've never played either, and I loved Fallout 3. When Fallout 3 got something right, it hit the nail on the head... and when it got something wrong it missed the nail and had to be rushed to the emergency room. I'm not hating on Bethesda by pointing out that they have a consistent track record of awful writing. I think the games they make would be close to perfect if they would just do something as simple as hire a competent, dedicated writing staff and let them handle the story and dialogue bits. If they already have one, which I doubt, they need to fire them and hire someone who can do a decent job. There are lots of young writers out there who would actually have some passion and creativity to weave into the story.

What memorable characters? Name them.

Pandabearparade It's just a game you're are not suppose to look that deep. You're suppose to just try and enjoy it. If you cant enjoy it then it's best you move onto another series of games. I mean wouldn't that make sense?

So you really hate fallout 3 that much? Fallout 3 and NV are in my top 5 games. I like them both for their different points.

I did enjoy it, the bad elements hampered my enjoyment of an otherwise great game. Hopefully if Bethesda sees that people notice a bad story driven primarily by a badly implemented MacGuffin, they will improve the stories in future games. One thing Bethesda does well is improve each game slightly from the last one made (in my opinion, at least).

Moving on, what did I mention that required a deep reading to note? It's all pretty surface level stuff, no deep reading required. I'll take "Well you take it too seriously!" as a concession that you can't rebut anything I said. :hehe:

The points you made you did have a point but I like to fill those little holes myself with my own imagination.

I have no doubt that fallout 4 will follow the lore more correctly and the story will be deeper. With the amount of money they are bringing in they are a lot more to spare on resources.

I loved oblivion but I am actually hoping they bring out fallout 4 first LOL

Well, hopefully. Though I suspect the 'resources' they will invest in will be yachts, gold toilet seats and diamond topped pimp canes.

LOL yea well I wouldn't blame them

Its a part of a brotherhood quest.

Comparing one of the best-written quests of Fallout: New Vegas to one of the more poorly-written ones in Fallout 3 is hardly fair, wouldn't you agree?

If you compare FO3's better questlines and areas to NV's better questlines and areas, say Tranquility Lane and the Pitt, I think Fallout 3 holds its own well enough. It's not as well-written overall, but it's hardly garbage across the board.

To address James, he clearly did that so as to prevent the Enclave from being able to torture him for the information. If he had surrendered, they would have taken him back to Raven Rock and tortured him until he gave up the purifier password. So, in my opinion at least, his actions are perfectly justified within the context of the story.

As far as the food issue goes, yes, FO3 does not represent where the population gets its food from. But neither does NV; all there are is the NCR Sharecropper Farms and then some small livestock herds. Most of the major military installations have no visible source of food, either, and the sharecropper farms is hardly going to be able to provide for the entire region. Both games gloss over the issue, and I really don't have a problem with them doing it, as it's clearly done for the sake of game design.

I can also name quite a few memorable characters (for me, naturally) from Fallout 3:
-Three Dog
-Sydney
-Fawkes
-RL-3
-Moira
-James
-Butch
-Eden
-Elder Lyons
-Sarah Lyons

I could just as easily rattle off a list of names that long for NV; both games have their merits.

Well, I did love tranquility lane, though the Pitt doesn't count because it's a DLC.



They likely would have killed him and only realized after he was dead that they needed something from him, judging by the incompetence of the Fo3 Enclave. But the rational thing to do would be for him to just cooperate, he obviously wasn't going to defeat the army of men in power armor who wanted to seize his little project. He put the life of his child in danger by provoking the obviously hostile men. The Enclave let the scientist who cooperated live and stay her Raven Rock to join the researches, and that's likely the fate that would have been guaranteed them all. They would be imprisoned, but also have access to far superior technology to further the project. Doesn't sound like a bad trade for someone who wants to get the project running, and sure beats the alternative situation that he put the others in... realistically, if your character didn't have magical protagonist powers, James got them all killed.

Also, isn't seizing a plant that doesn't belong to you for the 'good of the people' something the NCR would do? Seems similar to me.



No, there is a lot more than that that references where the food and water comes from. The brahmin barons fighting over ranch land, for example, and [SPOILER] Heck threatening a food embargo on the strip. The bighorn ranchers spread throughout the various locations. They address the issue, and it's a really vital issue for a world that's supposed to be a wasteland.



Three Dog- I'll give you Three Dog, though I don't find him very interesting, he's one of the more developed characters. +1

Sydney- Just and cut and paste mercenary girl, no personality to speak of. +0

Fawkes- He doesn't get much face time, but I'll give a half point for Fawkes. He's good, but underused. +.5

RL-3- It's a shame a robot is one of the 'characters' you mention to actually have some personality and development. I think that says a lot about the state of the human NPCs in Fo3. +0

Moira- Some people find her annoying, but I'll give you this one. I like Moira. +1

James- No, he doesn't have depth. He's a stereotypical dad who has to leave his family for the greater good. The only reason the viewer is tricked into thinking this character has dimensions is because Liam Neeson can make ANY role sound deep and awesome, he's just good like that. +0

Butch- ...Seriously? You put a Stephen King bully on the list? I'm docking credit for that one. -1

Eden- Eden I love, though only because he's voiced by Malcolm McDowell. Like James, I don't know if this really should count, the actual writing is still awful. The scene and performance have an amazing effect, but if you turn the sound off and just read what Eden is saying, it makes no sense. Why is the brilliant super computer of epic evil giving me the key to foiling his grand plan? He has no reason to trust me. An inconsistent character, though memorable.. so I'll give you this one. +1

Elder Lyons- Alright, you've got me here. +1

Sarah Lyons- Eh.. nah, just a blond J. I. Jane. +0

So, in total, we come to 3.5 total characters in the game. You didn't mention Amata, and I liked her character (though a bit bland, still good for Fallout 3), so I'll give a bonus point. 4.5 total, still able to count 'em on one hand.

Well that's the point really isn't it, it wasn't supposed to be a fair example. Just an example to cast FO3 in the worst light possible to fit a particular point of view. And I still didn't find it very convincing. Vault 11 was certainly well done, but all in all is about the same quality and substance of many FO3 examples. It isn't like the comparison was a War and Peace -vs- Mad Comics #11 example anyway.



And make comparable lists of faults and holes between the two just as easily. I kind of have to roll my eyes at all the complaints as well. The two games are similar enough that any argument trying to paint one as unequivocally better than the other is foolhardy to say the least.

I didn't make the example, but to be honest... let's compared the best quests from each game. Tranquility Lane and... well, actually, I find most quests to be that good in New Vegas. Boone's first quest, the quest to fix Rex, the vaults, the Sarsaparilla stars... all amazing quests, each equal to Tranquility Lane, which is the best that Fallout 3 has to offer. (Well, fine, the final battle was cool too, but the battle of the Dam matches it)

@PandaBearParade-You're missing the whole point. Memorable characters are inherently subjective; you can't grade someone else's list of memorable characters and declare them to be memorable or not, because that's still just your opinion. "Grading" my selection of characters is rather pretentious; those are the people I like, based on my personal tastes. You don't have the right to determine the characters I find memorable, and I don't have the right to determine what characters anyone else finds memorable. For example, I didn't put Amata on the list because I didn't have strong emotions towards her one way or the other; she was a decent character but nothing amazing to me.

Sydney also had a pretty fair amount of character development, didn't you find A Note From Little Moonbeam's Father?

Anyways, it's pointless arguing over how good characters are, because as I have repeatedly noted, it's a very subjective matter. I was just pointing out that, personally, I found Fallout 3 to not want for memorable characters.

And yes, there were the beef barons, I did forget about them. You could easily make the point that Fallout 3 actually addressed the issue of water supplies for some communities while NV fails to do so, though. And we never actually *see* the Brahmin ranches. There's also no plausible explanation given in FONV for how food might actually be imported into the heavily populated areas. This was something I looked past in both games, I personally did not find it that big a deal.

I also would hardly call the Sasparilla quest or Rex's quest equal to Tranquility Lane, but that's just my opinion. What I would consider great quests in FO3 off the top of my head: The Pitt's main storyline, Tranquility Lane, Vault 87 (forget the name of the quest), the Wasteland Survival Guide, basically every quest from Point Lookout, and that's just what I remember right now. I also thought the part of Tenpenny Towers that forces you to make a choice between killing the ghouls or letting them move in and then end up killing everyone was actually pretty well done, to be honest. NV's got a ton of awesome ones, but Tranquility Lane is hardly the only great quest FO3 has to offer.

"My contention is that the characters with more than a one dimensional personality can be counted on one hand", to quote myself. What you find memorable is subjective, though you did say memorable so we were talking about two different things, sorry. I assumed you were asserting that those characters had depth and development, which is false. I wouldn't presume to tell you you're wrong to 'like' a character*, though. So I apologize for misunderstanding your point. Though I do hold to the fact that the characters mentioned are, as stated above, poorly developed caricatures for the most part. That was my point.

*Unless you like Jar-Jar Binks, which is unforgivable.




I don't think I did, actually. So I might have to concede that point.




New Vegas addresses the water supply issue... quite a lot, really. The Hoover Dam has a pipeline that leads straight to New Vegas, Goodsprings has a spring (hence the name), and the Colorado river is clean, which explains how the legion gets all those bottles of water they carry around.

Not so much as I've explained. The overwhelming emphasis of the Brotherhood of Steel as presented in both Fallout 1 and 2 is on preservation of technology they already possess, not scouring the wastes to acquire new tech heedless of risk. Hence their isolationist attitudes and their leaving both Mariposa and the Glow completely untouched, even though they are aware of the existence of both locations, are relatively close to both (certainly compared to D.C.), and know for a fact that both locations possess advanced technology. It makes absolutely no sense that such an organization would decide to send an expedition across the entire country to a location they know nothing about just in case there was some cool tech there.



If people in the Fallout world were not cognizant of the dangers of radiation then why do things like Geiger counters, Rad-X and RadAway exist? People in the Fallout world were well-aware of the dangers of radiation.



I'd go found a settlement where my family wasn't one cracked casing away from succumbing to an agonizing death via radiation poisoning particularly considering how potentially dangerous contaminated water seems to be in the Fallout 3 world. Of course at the very least one would expect the bomb to be disarmed yet somehow even that elementary precaution escaped the inhabitants. The reason it did of course as others have pointed out is because Bethesda wanted an unexploded nuclear bomb for the player to be able to detonate. Once again the issue is not new ideas, it's stupid ideas that defy common sense.



Really? Strange nuka-cola addicts and out of place foreign mercenaries don't seem to have much problem with it. Imagine what a proper group of settlers could manage. You want to say the rest of the wasteland is so dangerous that Megaton is worth the risk but given the entirety of Fallout 3 we know this isn't the case since places like Girdershade exist and Dukov hasn't been murdered even though he doesn't know how to lock his front door.

It's not believable in any way. The speech checks were insipid and the replies worse.

@ PandaBearGuy-Sorry for the misunderstanding if it was unclear, I was indeed referring simply to characters I liked. I would never presume to argue RL-3 had depth and development.
Where's the NV pipeline? I don't think I saw that.

@ Okie-I was referring to pre-war Fallout; they are clearly far less cognizant of the dangers of radiation than society is today. Also, the Megaton bomb is clearly only contaminating the pool of water directly around it.

As far as safety goes, Girdershade and such are clearly an exception; they've survived mostly by being so small and getting lucky. Look at Big Town; a sizeable settlement that is regularly preyed upon because it cannot defend itself. Think of how many random encounters there are with Slavers or Raiders or wild animals brutally murdering Wastelanders. Sure, *some* people manage to survive in the wasteland, but many more die.

Dukov's supposed to have survived because he's an extremely capable fighter in an area of the Wasteland where not a ton of Raiders or slavers are going to go. Again, he's the exception, not the rule. You'll note that both Dukov and Sierra are more than a little mentally unhinged, as well. The loonies live out in the wasteland by themselves, most of the more pragmatic and sane individuals are concentrated in settlements.

Weird, was there something to that quest I missed? Because the quest seemed to be:

1. Talk to King
2. Talk to Followers
3. Talk to King
4. Fast travel to Jacobstown
5. Fast travel to one of three locations to loot a dog brain
6. Fast travel back to Jacobstown

As someone mentioned, people are picking some pretty stark examples to compare against NV. There are plenty of terrible, terrible quests in NV. And they are not better than the ones in F3. Some examples of quests that are either poorly written, poorly designed or both:

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Return_to_Sender
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Still_in_the_Dark
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Young_Hearts (or any Boomer quest)

There are more quests in NV. At least double. So it's pretty easy to pick and choose either 'great' quests or 'awful' quests.



And things like Helios fall into this category. They basically wanted to give the player a giant laser that went, "pew pew" regardless of the fact how the whole thing is set up doesn't make much, if any, sense. And to think a genius brotherhood scribe couldn't figure out what I accomplished in like... 10 minutes? And then the laser itself has pretty much nothing to do with the plot going forward outside a seemingly minor reputation loss and a mention on New Vegas radio.

And I mean, I don't care. I know at the end of the day, it's a video game. But people make it out like New Vegas is the second coming. A flawless, immaculate title in the face of Fallout 3. New Vegas has plenty of ridiculous things in it.

Maybe it was more epic because I hadn't been to Jacobstown and choose to hunt down the legion dog, which involved cutting through Legion vermin to get to it. Killing Legion gets a quest epic points in my book, I guess. Though any quest can be boiled down to 'talk to x, go to y, talk to x again, fetch item z, return to x', that isn't a critique of this particular quest, it's a critique of questing in general. This quest offers character development for the King, the followers, and introduces you to a new location and characters.

Return to sender was a bad quest, though the end of it was really awesome. Hanlon is awesome.

Still in the Dark isn't bad.. well, except for getting the air filtration parts, which is a pain. It's longer than most quests, but the end rewards merit a longer quest line.

Oh, and yes, I agree on Helios One. That location should have been handled better overall. The gun should pack three times the punch, and the power rerouting should be noticable, whoever you send it to. Though the quest is still better than the equivalent Fallout 3 counterpart, which is Power of the Atom. Both are there to give the player a big explosion.

Still In The Dark wasn't mechanically bad, but if you consider it, it really doesn't make much sense. I love the Brotherhood, but there's no way they would trust a random wastelander with carrying sensitive messages and retrieving mission-critical information when they could just send, say, Veronica to do it. Especially since you could just run to the NCR and sell them all out at any minute.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the quest, but if you think about it those actions are drastically out of character for the Western Brotherhood. They're supposed to be secretive and distrustful of outsiders yet the Hidden Valley guys practically roll out the red carpet for you. You're entrusted with more top-secret information than the Head Paladin himself.

Well, when I did it Veronica was with me, so it made sense. My understanding is that if Veronica isn't with you they put a bomb collar on you, so you can't sell them out.. is that not the case?