I actually thought F3 had better writing and plot then the previous and New Vegas- (Hides in bunker)

Though, I loved the Master in F1. Great antagonist with some solid writing around him

Skyrim....I did not care for. It was boring and generic in every regard. The only ES I never finished.

If F4 has the same quality writi ng of F3 then I am not concerned. Just do away with white vs. black factions. I want more grey content!

To those that thought Fallout 3 had 'good' writing - http://i.imgur.com/hOEoPSY.png

So many stupid twists and deus ex machinas. How could anyone think Fallout 3 had good writing?

All this talk of FO3 is making me want to play the game again.

Fallout 3's plot was filled with holes, the "evil" choice falls under the category of stupid evil, the forced parents and forced origin story was actually done pretty badly and the DLCs had little writing in them that made beating them feel rewarding or your actions changed anything.

The main plot wasn't really my cup of tea, but I did enjoy the other side-quests (not counting Tenpenny Tower) and combing through the ruins. More of that, please.

Eh, the ruins often held little importance or any good loot and most of the side-quests forced you down the path of good instead of having options for "evil" characters, evil being near impossible in Fallout 3.

It was better than Skyrim's MQ.

I played through FO3's MQ about 10 times and I'm not yet sick of it. I played through Skyrim's MQ once and I'm sick of it.

I loved Morrowind's MQ the best. It even allowed you to beat it from the beginning and skip the entire thing if you wanted to.

Since I keep seeing this and sympathize with both sides, allow me to attempt to bridge the gap.

Here's some ways the writing in FO3 is seen as bad:

-Little Lamplight. A 200 year old society of children...? Who reproduces wtf?

-The status of the Capitol Wasteland given the timeframe makes no sense; the surrounding areas should definitely have foliage and wildlife, the river should have clean water; instead it's as if the bombs just dropped.

-James is a scientist who is attempting to purify water by building a water purifier not at the source of a river, but at the base where it connects with the Chesapeake Bay. Gee James, I wonder why it's not working.

-Evil in this game is stupid evil. You have absolutely zero motivation to help people like Burke or to blow up the Brotherhood in Broken Steel. It feels impossible to actually make an evil character within this game without being a straight-up psychopath.

-Tenpenny Tower's societal structure makes no sense. They pay rent to Tenpenny, live there, STILL have to pay for food and other services, and meanwhile Tenpenny pisses their money away on ammo for "safaris." Every single resident of Tenpenny Tower, from the merchants to the guards to the citizens, has a direct interest in knocking him off. He's getting the lion's share of their cash and he's powerless himself. Why are these people calmly paying him and not worrying about the day they run out of cash? Kill him off and pool all your money together so that you can all sustain the utopia you have for as long as possible; letting him piss away that wealth on ammo is just shortening all of their lives.

-Megaton's backstory. You can load up FO3 right now and hear this from the mouth of the old lady in Megaton that's married to Nathan (the enclave patriot guy). In a nutshell? After the bombs were dropped, there were dust storms. Somehow, the hole in the ground that this undetonated bomb created provided some protection from the dust storms. Yknow what also provides protection from dust storms Megaton? That convenient Super Duper Market down the road that none of you have bothered to enter in over 200 years. But no, they know better than me, so they took shelter around a bomb. Then, raiders popped up. How are they gonna protect themselves from raiders? By walking miles (yes that's a quote) to an old airport, completely dismantling it, and then lugging those giant hunks of metal miles back to Megaton so that they could build walls around their pretty bomb. Did it not occur to anyone to just like....live in the airport? Or walk out of the Capitol Wasteland completely, since it's one of the hardest bombed areas in the post-apocalyptic world? Or as I stated, go to the ****ing super market and live there instead?
The entire story is full-on nonsense. Compare this to other settlements within the Fallout series, which tend to spring up because they somehow offer food, water, or they happen to be positioned right where a bunch of trade routes cross paths. Megaton has no secure water source. We still do not know how Megaton eats. Presumably Megaton trades for all of this, but we've no clue what they trade besides terrible stories and radiation.

-How are the Tenpenny residents rich? I mean, wealthy people implies they've provided a valuable service to the wasteland...and yet the wastes are completely devoid of any evidence of progress. What service was provided? How did they make their money? Did every single one of them loot a bottle cap factory, because lord knows none of them provided the area with food and water or other services. If they provided the services elsewhere, why the HELL would they come to the Capitol Wasteland, which is worse than most? How would they hear about the tower?

-Intercontinental travel. Tenpenny is the first confirmed case of someone traveling from Europe to the USA post-war. Bethesda just invented a thing and then completely failed to understand why that might be a really big deal. Furthermore, the question remains as to why Tenpenny would have the tenacity to travel across the entire breadth of the Atlantic, but upon reaching D.C. - one of the crappiest hell holes in the entire United States - he decided it was too much effort to travel any further. Yeah ok.

There's actually tons more, but that's a small list that hopefully gives insights into why people hate the writing. Much of it makes little to no sense, with "rule of cool" governing how communities are built and why, whereas logic rarely plays a role.

I agree that FO3 doesn't have the worst writing ever; I think Bethesda did the best they could given the circumstances. Yes they copy-pasted plots from FO1 & 2, but had they made no callbacks or references to Fallout, people would've complained the game was too different and felt nothing like Fallout cause it shared no familiar faces. In that sense, I can actually forgive all the retcons that took place involving the factions and super mutants. The writing aside from the retcons and repeat plots though...? It's still pretty bad.

It's almost as if Fallout 3 and its plot being good or bad is a matter of personal opinion, not fact

The same way those who find FO1 and 2's basic stories of good vs evil as passable.

Good sir, are you interested in a bet?

I'm fully willing to wager those rockets on that ship are going to have no plot function whatsoever, and at most will have some weak backstory like "some crazy scientist attached them years ago, they were there when I found it." If I'm right, you can buy me FO4. If I'm wrong and those get a thorough explanation that provides them with logical consistency and/or actually have plot relevance, then I'll buy you the game.

Sound fair? Because I don't think this would be a wise wager for you to accept.

Depends which MQ you're talking about.

The Alduin quest? Definitely

The civil war quest? Nah. There were actually good reasons for those characters doing what they were doing, and it wasn't all black-and-white.

Nah. Not in any way similar.

Oh right, because Bethesda are the guys who throw in wild inconsistenties right?

Never happened in another fallout game right guys?!

I'll take that bet.

And not similar according to who? You? Fallout 3 may have wild stuff going on, but it's attempted to be explained. It's like wackiness is something of s theme in fallout games, with ghouls trying to reach the moon and some guy merging with technology after having been dumped in FEV, he's even the only of his kind but that's explained because intelligence.


Riiiiiight.

I of course mean the Alduin one. I actually played the Civil War a few times and I don't mind doing it again.

The Alduin MQ was just an extended dungeon crawl at times.

Alright, no idea if you're serious or not or have any intention of keeping to your word, but I actually do. Write down my name, I'll write down yours, we'll wait until release and if the boat actually has some logical backstory to it's rocket engines then I'll send you a copy via Steam.

When I sit here and try to explain why on earth someone would bother attaching Rocket Engines to a 18th century boat though, the only "logical" reason I can come up with is the British re-invaded Boston years before the game took place and they decided to fight them off by attaching rockets to a boat. (which in itself would be a cringeworthy plot) Other than that, I can't possibly explain why that boat has friggin' rockets on it.

It's not the inconsistencies that are the problem, it's the fact that it's written so badly that you can straight up look at them and go "None of this would make sense even in Fallout's universe" because it's true, a lot of the plotholes don't make sense. Like you can explain ghouls and how they didn't immediately die from too much radiation by saying it was the FEV in the air and soil and by saying

"there is still a small amount of FEV from when Mariposa was hit hard during the great war that when mixed with large doses of radiation like a nuclear bomb going off or a radiation bomb going off the person will turn into a ghoul because their entire life they've been exposed to enough FEV particles to change them when hit by massive amounts of radiation at once but the FEV is so small it doesn't create any real noticeable side-effects until a catalyst like a radiation bomb or warhead explodes"

That's hardly an accomplishment. Or a praise.

So i'll be impressed if Fallout 4 will make Al look like the greatest villain in history. It'll be difficult, no doubt, but i'm sure you can do it, Bethesda. I believe in you!

Yeah...

I hate this pic floating around in the internet because most of it is not even true. at. all.

Such as?

How about the very first bit: Dad not letting the "people trying to fix it" have the purifier. Um, no, the Enclave are psychotic, murderous people want to use it to spread a virus to the Wasteland that'll kill everyone but "pure" humans. Not "people trying to fix it". I stopped reading at that point because it's clear from the first sentence the person who wrote that just wants to hate Fallout 3 for the sake of hating it, and will never, no matter what is presented, not hate it

I'm all for constructive criticism, but that ain't it by a longshot.

But the thing is, James really wouldn't have known that unless he is from the west coast.

Dudes in power armor just burst in, threatened him, and murdered a friend right in front of him. That doesn't sound like trustworthy people to me. Besides, he worked with the BoS for years, who do know the Enclave well. He might have heard it from them. He clearly knows who they are (to some extent), he says on the intercom "The Enclave? What are they doing here? Lock the door, we can't let them in!"

He both doesn't know that, nor is it fully true. President Eden wants the virus put in, Autumn himself does not and even has a plan to get rid of Eden and use the water purifier as nothing more than a piece of political bait to get the people to follow and trust the Enclave as their leaders, with absolutely zero ill-intent on his part.