Again this arises my beef with the whole "dad killing him self FOR NO [censored] REASON" thing, then they call me out in the ending for sending Fawkes into the controll room for not sacrificing myself.

But Fawkes is immune to radiation, why the hell would I kill myself (like my idiot dad) when I could send a person completly unaffected by radiation into the control room instead?

At least the option is available for Fawkes to head into the control room. However, neither RL-3 nor Charon (despite being equally viable in terms of radiation immunity) can be asked to do it.

Needless to say, Fallout 3 suffers heavily in the writing department.


I always found that completely hilarious, as if they almost intended to do it.

It says something along the lines of "but the child refused to follow the example of the father, instead allowing a true hero *cue a picture of Fawkes stupidly grimacing* to sacrifice themselves for the greater good of mankind."

The short answer of course, is that they couldn't get Ron Perlman to do any more voice-overs for Broken Steel's changed storyline.

I went in to help the good ol' US of A.

I inserted the FEV, and killed myself

Fawkes wouldn't have done it.

*scribbles in notebook*
*clicks pen*

Your sacrifice has been noted Sergeant. Your President thanks you.

Don't even get me started on the ridiculousness of the Enclave.
But that's for a different thread.

"You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain."

Your dad didn't sacrifice himself for no reason. He wanted to finish what he started. He's the real Hero in this situation, anything Liam Neeson does is heroic.

Why Liam Neeson? Why? Why did you have to play a character that I hate?

A good voice actor regardless. Although in my opinion McDowell's work blew his out of the water.

I suffer no ill consequences for convincing a computer to do something completely illogical, which he did, and proved catastrophic to him.

When I myself chose not to do something illogical (going into an irradiated hell-hole) and send my radiation proof bud in instead, the game acts like that was bad.

Spoiler alert: I live anyway.

Also about my dad.

"you'll never take project purity."
"all right dad, now jus open this airlock and I'll unless a 5mm hail upon these idiots."
"No honey, I have to kill myself."

And as the end proved, Colonel Autumn proves absolutely no challenge in a fight.

With Autumn dead that early it would have probably proved catastrophic to the Enclave, and I would have actually gotten the G.E.C.K.

I saw Dad killing himself a little differently. At least my supposed thoughts about his mindset. Dad is about to start the purifier when the Enclave shows up, about to destroy/take everything he has worked for: a part of it in memory of his wife, and took the only action he thought he had left, all based on the hope that you will get there again and are bright enough to figure out the code. A little hope is better than no hope at all.

But, but.

Why throw away self preservation in the name if progress when your heavily armed nigh invincible daughter is right behind the jerk ass harassing you?

Though I have no doubt of your destructive abilities, aren't you behind an unbreakable door?

That's why be should have lowered the door instead if irradiating the chamber herp derp.

Herp derp? Grow up [censored].

The problem, then, is not with the story as such, but with the 'heavily armed nigh invincible daughter'. It's a problem common to all these games, be it FO3, New Vegas or Skyrim, namely that eventually (and usually pretty quickly) the player becomes a living god for whom the petty concerns of mere mortal NPCs are trifles that can be settled in a matter of seconds. The story, though, is not (and, realistically, cannot be) written with that in mind. The Enclave are meant to be a terrifying threat to the Wasteland, not a bunch of idiots who can be massacred by the dozen by a kid who's just left a vault. I don't think that is going to change, either, as the bulk of players like levelling-up and being heavily-armed and nigh invincible.

My favourite character has an Endurance of 1, wears no armour and has no resistance-boosting perks. For her, that scene was very real as, despite the sophisticated weaponry she had at her disposal, there was no way she could have helped her father had he opened the door: in a straight-up toe-to-toe fight against 3 Enclave soldiers she'd have been dead in about 2 seconds. I think that is the kind of situation the story is intending to convey.

I think the best way to approach these stories, and indeed the whole world(s), is to consider things from the point of view of an NPC, not that of the god-like player. Why, for example, have people from Megaton never thought to go and get rich by taking over Super-Duper Mart? Because real people die when they get shot, and real people starve in environments like the Wasteland when they're injured and can't work. It's not worth the risk.

That's sort of similar to what I did when I modded the Enclave soldiers in Fallout 3 specifically to provide a much greater challenge to the player. Those two Enclave soldiers with their plasma rifles in close quarters would be deadly at this point.

As a side note, the game quality improves significantly when the primary enemies are actually able to kill the player rather easily if you're not careful.

Where can I get this, the game gets pretty boring when even Hellfire Troopers seem like complete squishy pushovers to you.

I actually just modded it myself by making the Enclave troopers have higher health and armor which is essentially max DR (at the same time, if I'm not roleplaying Enclave I simply decide not to pick up any Enclave armor, since its overpowered in the hands of the player).

However there's a few mods on the nexus out there which do similar things. "Elite Enclave troopers" is one I believe.

Edit: Here's the link: http://fallout3.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=10126

(mind you I haven't downloaded this particular one so I can't vouch for its effectiveness, although it seems pretty good).

Because the writers have a strange sense of morals, not only on this quest but also for example. Tenpenny Tower.

Dad killed himself because he finally realized his Project Purity was stupid, he finally figured out with some dirt and rocks he could filter water, he couldn't take how dumb he had been and killed himself right there.

It was the right thing to do.

Disagree. It's all of his work about to be taken away, all he's lived for, he has no reason to continue going on if his live's work is about to be taken and or destroyed.

How about his child? That not a good enough reason?

Not when the child just plowed through a whole room full of Enclave soldiers and clearly is in no real danger.

Funnily enough, its likely Jame's own sabotage which kills his son in the end.

No that quest was fine. The player does something good, or at least attempts to. The ghouls abuse this and kill the people living in the building. The player did a good thing for attempting to help both sides peacefully, which is why you got good karma if you helped with bringing about a truce between the two sides.

I'm sorry but Dad was a pure coward for doing what he did.

but that's okay now he can't spread his stupidity through the wasteland.

More like a very irresponsible father. I find it every hard to believe that he couldn't foresee the people of the Vault wanting to kill his kid after he left the Vault. He opens the door and a bunch of radroaches get in and start killing people. They were lucky it was just radroaches. And James thought he was keeping us safe? I felt real safe when the guards started trying to beat me to death and shoot me.

He got alot of people killed and put his son in serious danger. That is why I never fully understood why it is I should give a rats ass about dear old Dad.