As far as DC - I got the feeling that it was just more heavily-contested than a lot of the areas you see in post-nuclear California. In the same relative area that would be a couple hexes in Fallout 1 or 2's world map, you have quite a number of factions and settlements fighting over limited resources. I get the feeling in Fallout 3, that particular area hasn't had time in the past 200 years to settle down and unify itself and work on an actual rebuild effort. (Frak, the Scientific Community - such as there is in DC - can't even agree on what they should be working on.)

That's sort of my own personal rationalization as to why you don't see things particularly improved in that area.

Of course - I have no rationalization as to why the radiation hasn't settled down in all that time, and why there's still so much salvage after all this time, etc. (You'd think if it was such a highly contested area, and resources are so limited - that most of these places would have been picked clean.) One rationalization (and again, that's all these are) is that all this stuff you scrounge up in the Wastes isn't remnants from the Pre-War, but items that were lost or misplaced by their previous owners' mis-haps. (ie, if I search a house and find boxes of ammo and some food - those aren't necessarily the belongings of a Pre-War family's - but what was left behind by the previous occupant, who met an unfortunate end in the Wastes and never returned to his stash.)

On the other hand - I do sort of agree somewhat with the general sentiment that it feels like it hasn't been 200 years, really. And honestly - as far removed as F3 is from the originals - I don't see why they even needed to progress the timeline in the first place. They could have set these events in tandem with the original games (or even have them take place earlier in the timeline) without stepping on any toes. There's no real storyline reason why all of these events in Fallout 3 couldn't have taken place just 50 years after the War, just as easily as they could have done 200.

Not me, but I've been thinking about going back and playing 1 and/or 2.

Actually, as an old-time tabletop, paper and dice gamer, I remember when the project was still a GURPS license.

I've started with Fallout 2.
Fallout 3 is dumbed down and it misses a lot of things from his grandfather... That's why I consider it only as a "good game" and not Fallout

I'm waiting for my copy of Fallout Collection. It's coming in a day... or two! :celebration: I am currently playing Fallout 3.

You're forgetting the core reason for Fallout 3, and indeed life in the Capital Wasteland in general:

The water is hot.

Lingering background radiation not withstanding, but even after 200 years, the Water sources of the Capital Wasteland are still unfit for local consumption without purification. While purification processes exist on local levels, it's not capable of supporting large populations.

The example of Megaton that you used can also illustrate my point. Yeah, Megaton doesn't want for food but for water? The water beggar outside Megaton reveals the town hordes it's water supply, and talking with Walter at the Water Treatment facility brings to light the fact that outside him, nobody knows how to maintain the facility and the facility itself is on it's last legs (Hence why you keep bringing him scrap).

For whatever reason (Which I personally suspect is D.C.'s water is getting infected by the putrid quagmire that comprises the area around Pittsburgh) D.C. doesn't have access to non-radiated sources of water like the Core Region (Where local wells were rampant). Water, as much as food, determines population levels. The opportunity for expansion exists, yeah, but not the means. That was the whole point of Project: Purity.



I have to agree with that. It even seems like Bethesda was going to go that route (What with some dialogue choices) before the Enclave showed up. I'd have rather had the game set in conjunction with the first Fallout game myself.

It's the same in the Core Region, water is irradiated there also, it's no different. Wells have been around since the stone age, anyone could have dug to an aquifer. Many, if not all of the wells in the core region weren't pre-war either. Large armounts of water are a problem all over the continent, and probably the globe, it's no different anywhere else. And that still doesn't explain the abundance of pre-packaged food stuffs in D.C. People are actively wandering the wasteland, afterall, and more than a few at that,

No, it is different.

If water was irradiated everywhere, Tribal Villages wouldn't survive to the point of going back to being Tribal. I'm not saying there wasn't some radiation seeping into the groundwater, but it's obvious the Capital Wasteland got a heavier dose of it then the Core Region. The toxic chemicals and industrial refuse couldn't have helped matters either.

You're also not noticing the primary difference between the Capital Wasteland and the Core Region: No Agriculture. This is Bethesda, the guys who's last two Elder Scrolls games came complete with corn fields. The lack of anything more complex then hunting and gathering (The existence of Mutafruits suggests some plants still produce edibles, and there are the gardens of Oasis), suggests to me either nobody knows a lick about farming (Which is conceivable, given D.C. is a heavily urbanized area, but at least one hobby gardenist must have survived...) or that - surprise, surprise - the water sources of the Capital Wasteland (and perhaps even the soil itself) does not take well to producing foodstuffs.

Hell, Doctor Li in Rivet City was working on viable Hydroponic technology. If that isn't the "Smoking Gun" for why the Capital Wasteland is still a no-man's land I don't know what is.



Washington D.C. is home to 5.3 Million People, currently. Imagine what that population was in 2077. Now factor in, 200 years later, there's a paltry few hundred living in the D.C. region. A few hundred in a area that housed MILLIONS.

I can completely buy the fact that there's still plenty of Instant Potatoes and Breakfast Cereal around. I still wouldn't eat the Salisbury Steak though.

Ok, my whole point was that the D.C wasteland doesn't correspond to the way things work elsewhere. You say there is no agriculture in FO3, Bethesda didn't include it, for what reason? It's the same question that corresponds to the inconsistency that is the entire Capital Wasteland. And why wouldn't the water/soil take any worse than the Core Region? D.C may have been hit harder, but radiation particles don't spread, they remain close to their original designated area and dissipate. Any other hotspots will be localised to those hotspots, and nowhere else. Dr.Li is just working towards a better future, by reproducing non-contaminated vegetables, but for the sake of sustainance and expansion, contaminated vegetable would have to do, I doubt the D.C wastelanders are anymore particular of what they eat than any other impoverished community.

More to the point, the food is just laying around, untouched. Are you telling me you wouldn't have hoarded as much as you could for your own survival or the survival of your associated community? You also forget that food was wiped out just as much as the millions of people. All the food in D.C, assumed to be gathered from the few stores/marts that still exist, wont amount to a sustainable source after the great war. Yet the wasteland is abundant with the stuff, a veritable oasis of airtight carboard.

That's because things work differently in the Capital Wasteland. Not every region in the world is going to be affected by this pseudo-science Fallout exactly the same way. You're also not taking into account the entire Capital Wasteland would fit into, at most, a 10 hex grid in one of the previous Fallouts. What we're seeing takes place in a region that, realistically, is probably the same dimensions as the Boneyard from Fallout 1 (Which was also a small area that had several groups living in it in relative squallor).




Are these supposed to be rhetorical questions? Because if I answer them, given your posting habits it'll just be dismissed as "Subjective" or "Conjecture", which is really all we have to go on.



You're thinking in terms of Real World physics. Remember, the entire universe of Fallout is based off the scientific conjecture and theories of a Nuclear Catastrophe in the 1950s.



Argh!

Do you understand what Hydroponics means? It's not just non-contaminated vegetables (Which would be theoretically impossible, given in previous Fallout games all the crops we're introduced to have mutated thanks to the slight airborne strain of the FEV virus), frankly it has nothing to do with contamination at all. It has everything to do with growing crops WITHOUT SOIL. Given the rocky barrens of the Wasteland (And the shrived black husks of trees), I'd say the Soil of the Capital Wasteland is not going to supply any sort of foodstuffs beyond what few hearty Mutafruit plants are available (Oasis is a localized phenomenon).



You can only take as much food as you can carry. Even with a backpack or even ideally, a grocery cart, you can only haul a finite supply of food. And if there's anything all three Fallouts agree upon, it's that the Wasteland is a dangerous place. The opportunities to horde would be limited I think.

Also while a lot of food would be destroyed, a city of 5.3 million (Which would probably be double that in 2077, so around 11 million) houses a LOT of food. Given the average Wastelander is probably lucky to live till he or she is 30 years old, that's still a lot of food at the end of a generation to the start of the next. Given the left overs are pretty much Breakfast Cereal and Instant Potatoes, I'd say the choicest bits have already been scavenged.

And let's not forget our sole example of a dedicated Food Store (That wasn't a corner market) was picked clean to the point there was just empty tin cans lying around.

They work differently for the sake of working differently, then? We maybe dealing with Science! but that Science! wont be regional, the science will be the science everywhere. I don't think we should be discussing scale either, there's no reason why the D.C wasteland would be smaller to such a significant degree, it was something that had to be done because I don't think even the greatest most dedicated dev team on the planet would be able to replicate an interactive wasteland to the scale of the originals within any reasonable amount of time. You can can disregard that if you like, I can't know that for sure, it just makes alot of sense to me.


That's not fair. Things are either subjective, or they aren't. But in these instances they usually are. I'm just trying to use as much common sense as I believe I can. Conjecture can still be intelligent, and if that's the best we can do, then that's the closest anyone can get to a discussion on matter like these. Either that or we should just go find something else to do.


If I didn't I do now. But yes, I did. And yes it would be theoretically impossible, but we're using Science! And that explains everything, flavour text in the originals mentioned crops as thriving in the warm climate, mutated vegetables were good enough for the core region. The point is there is soil everywhere. Rivet city has the exception of being urban based, so they would rely on hydroponics and trade. Whereas a community like Megaton is surrounded by nothing but untapped terrain. But no-one seems to have any survival instinct in D.C, no wells, no irrigation, no nothing it seems. It's not like they've even tried.


Right, but a community works together for the betterment of their survival, scav teams are a good idea, and maybe some of the more able residents of towns like Billy Creel should do more than wander about from day to day. These communities have the potential and the infrastructure to make an effort, but they're happy stagnating it seems.

Ok, so there's alot of food in D.C, it's 200 years after the world was sent asunder, people have been colonising, good and bad, there are communities, more than enough raider groups, wanderers, scavengers, they all need to eat on a daily basis, no-one's hoarding the food, not everyone has the stomach for human meat, no-one's farming. So where's the food coming from year to year? How has the entire Capital Wasteland been sustaining itself for 10 years, let alone 40, or any other suggested number beyond what can be proved. I don't see alot of Mirelurk meat in Megaton, I don't see any infact. I see alot of prepackaged food, though, it seems to be all they eat.

It might be science everywhere, but there's still outside factors to be realized. For example, the East Coast has been settled longer then the West Coast, as a result the East Coast is considerably more urbanized over a smaller area then the West Coast. This results in more factories, more military installations, and generally more urban "stuff". Also, the world of Fallout doesn't seem to have the same qualms on Nuclear Power or even the storage of toxic waste, so for the sake of argument let's assume Environmental Laws are pretty lax. You squeeze all that potentially hazardous junk into one location, and then set off a device that disrupts the natural order of things and...well...I can only point to The Pitt. Even at it's worst, there's no location in the Core Region that even compares with the Toxic Waste Dump of that place. If you have areas like that surrounding a region, that region itself is going to be fundamentally different then a place in the Core Region would be.

To put it another way: After a Nuclear Fallout, would the survivors in London proceed about things in the exact same manner as survivors in rural Scotland?




You misunderstand. I was pointing out that the D.C. Wasteland we're familiar with is one small chunk of a larger picture. And pieces like The Pitt paint a very bleak picture for that region, compared to the areas in and around the Core Region. I also used the example of the Boneyard for that very reason - because I notice a lot of similarities between the Capital Wasteland and the Boneyard of Fallout 1.




Well, to be fair, they're likely the descendants of the U.S. Political System. Not even trying would be their MO.

But in all seriousness, this seems to be a point we're going to agree to disagree on. Just because an area is surrounded by untapped soil, doesn't mean it's suitable for cultivation. And everything I've seen of the Capital Wasteland points to the whole area being dead in the literal term. Outside one FEV aided location, there's not a hint of green anywhere in the Wasteland.

Googling Soil reports on the Washington D.C. area just brings up a lot of lingo I don't fully understand or even pretend to comprehend the gist of, but one thing I do know from living all my life in and around the farming industry - Rocky terrain makes crappy farm ground.




Megaton's an unfair example though because time and time again it's been stated that Megaton has reached it's capacity due to the lack of water supplies for expansion. Again, we come back to one of the central themes in Fallout 3. The people of the Capital Wasteland can't expand without clean, fresh sources of water. Yes they can survive on the irradiated stuff, but only for so long (The Water Beggars).

Water has been proven to be the limiting factor in these communities.



Honestly, to me it's another indication that the Capital Wasteland hasn't been seriously inhabited for very long. But at the same time, it's not the *only* thing the inhabitants eat. If you talk to the gal running the restaurant in Tenpenny Tower, and ask her about Tenpenny, she'll comment about how he always eats a Iguana Bit Sandwich for lunch.

So I think it's more they use the pre-war stuff to supplement their diets, rather then be all of it.

So what? This is the way the world is, just as grass is green in our world. Packaged food in 2077 may be so packed with preservatives that it's indestructible. Might as well ask why plastic pop can rings last for thousands of years.

No farming? How is anyone supposed to farm when the "normal" people are seemingly vastly outnumbered by raiders, slavers, and supermutants, in addition to a large array of dangerous animals. Even a casual glance of European history shows us that agraculture requires security.

Look around the wasteland: How many people do you see?

Let it go now We've gone off topic enough as it is. I'll believe what I believe.

...no agriculture? Everybody seems to raise Brahmin. No plants, sure, but apparently plants(and trees) don't grow so well outside of Oasis anyway.

Sorry. Didn't mean to bring that back up.

I love the original Fallout games. I prefer 2 over 1 in every regard. I'm also a big LucasArts adventure game fan, so take that as you will.

Well in contrast i would say Beth tok it to a new level in comparision to the other games of Fallout.
Lets start the contrast, would you or would you not attempt to make your enemies capital reduced to ashes? LA and every other city in F1 the remain of it was only the ground floors walls left standing and maybe a a bit of the roof. In Waistlander about the entire DC is intact except a few collapsed buildings and a few bomb holes.



I diagree. I can accept food surviving due good tecnology, as well as Nuka Cola. But that there is actually someting left to loot is what is weird.
Eridicate 90% of the population in a tight place, 10% survived by other means and remained human. Then they get out of the vaults, or similar. They would be out in about 15-40 years, everything beyond that would be due heavy radiation or special orders. They would use up and looted everything except VERY hidden areas or in collapsed ruins, befreo 10 years has passed.

The raiders lack a food source, the slavers also lack a food source, and the super mutants lack the gunpower to resist the BoS in reality. BoS with their lasers and PA would clear out DC before 10 years had passed, because the super mutants lacks the gunpower to resist them. Same with the slavers and raiders.
And the raiders AND slavers are a % of the total population, if they combiner are over 40% there is someting wrong somewhere. My guess it to blame Beth.

For the last part, 200 years and no serius settlements? Give up please.... The Hub was created 15 years after the bombs fell right? There would be someting akin to the Bone Yard in the DC, that simple.

Isometric view for the win? Playing Tactics with a few multi level buildings demonstrated how annoying that could be.



What do you want, a world simulation? I suppose it's easy to find imperfection, especially when you are out to find it. There were also lots of stuff lying around FO1/2, you know, and the few farms in those worlds weren't nearly sufficient to sustain the population either.

Thee is alot of packaged food in FO3, but therea re also brahmin, mole rats, mirelurks, yao gui, dogs, and apparantly the favorite of the Raiders, humans, to eat.

I wonder how many BOS there are...there seems to be more Supermutants, and I know for a fact that I can kill Enclave and Outcasts wearing PA with a hunting rifle, and many Supermutants seem to be armed with hunting rifles.

And when the greatest concentration of people in the game is under 20 or so, just how many settlements SHOULD there be?

We can play this game all day.

The only weak spot on a Power Armore was the eyes, the 2nd weakness was shockwaves and similar. The 3rd weakness is that the Power Armore can be teared trough by wearing the materials out.
So we got these choices:
*Sniping the eyes
*Explosives
*Massive minigun fire and i mean massive

The mutants did not have acces to Lasers, Plasma, massive Electric(aka pulse) nor Gauss rifles or pistols. Nailboards would not work, Super Hammers and other high power weapons could do that however. The Super Mutants are to stupid to get a supply line, the advanced teach is dropped by the Brootherhood.
Taking down somebody in Power Armore with an Assault Rifle is like attempting to take down a tanks with a assault rifle, it does not work that way. The glass for the eyes are bulletproff but that that thick, a powerfull rifle could penetrate it(don't forget the shock of the bullets hit to the wearer).
The thing is that only the Super Mutants with Rocket Launchers, Miniguns and Super Hammers are a treats, nobody else of them. And their to stupid to take downthe BoS a smart way.

My complain about the food was that it was all unlooted. That does not make sense at all.
And talking about sense as you say, Waistlander tok it to a whole new leve compared to the older games in the series. It makes 0 sense at points, and barely a little at other places.
Now say we change the years after the war so the game is set in 2097 instead, then it could make sense

Besides, how many farms in F1 did not se? You encounter TONS of farmers in F2.

I didn't find these annoying at all. On the contrary, I liked this development of the combat system.

i own every game in the series besides that abomination for the ps2 and xbox

though i admit i didnt know about them until the launch of fallout 3, so far every game has been completely amazing though i do feel as if the the first one is a tad bit short

Isometric works best when there is no roof. It works worst when buildings have multiple floors.

I don't agree with that. It becomes a problem when it isn't addressed. For whatever reason Tactics didn't provide a see-through system behind walls, which wasn't a problem in the originals. As for roofs and multiple floors, your view would shift to the floor your character was at, and the roof would disappear when you came within proximity. What is so problematic about that?

is supposed to shift. it wasn't just Fallout either, it was every ISO game, including the Ultimas, which featured extensive roofing and strangely angled walls. It was always very annoying, not only to lose sight of your character, but it also made finding things, like wall safes and containers, annoying. That stupid "circle of vision", or patch of viewing through walls Fallout had, well, svcked.

Supposed to sounds more like a development flaw rather than a flaw in isometric perspective, as it's completely possible for such problems not to exsist. I've never played the Ultimas, so I can't comment on their shortcomings. I thought the circle of vision was a good feature, my only gripe would be it being too small, but that has its advantages too. All I know is it didn't get in the way of playing, and it provided what was needed, which was to be able to see your character and his/her immediate environment behind a wall. I also liked that it added a psuedo-search feature to most rooms/areas, not being able to just enter a room and see everything, you had to 'look around', Vault 8's living quarters made extensive use of this feature. It may not have been perfect, but it was, in my opinion at least, a successful feature, and a good idea to work from and improve upon in the future. Maybe some people would be more content with a The Sims type isometric perspective.

Those issues are easily fixed in the age of 3d graphics, with the simple ability to rotate your view. As for multiple levelled places, I've never had issues with it in the many games where such environments exists for ISO, so long that it was taken into consideration to make items easy enough to see or have them highlightable.

I've played the games in the wrong order. FO3 then FO1 and then 2 and a little bit of Tactics in between.

Seems that many of the old players view the game through the rosy colored glasses of nostalgia.
What was good about fallout 1+2 was the interactive story bit and that makes up for the bad parts of the games and there's alot of that.

FO 1+2 combat is bad. If you expect the games to play anything like UFO:Enemy Unknown of Jagged Alliance, you're in for a major disappointment. In FO 1+2 your tactical options are very limited and gamey.
If you design a character with low to average Agility, you are first of all, screwed, and second, the best thing you can do is just pull the trigger every turn.

High agility characters basicly got 2 tactics, both very gamey and required:
1. melee critters: hit and retreat far enough that the mobs cannot follow and attack you in the same turn. Rinse and repeat. The FO2 early game is particularly bad for this. I can understand how new players might dismiss the entire game for it's early impression.
2. ranged enemies: walk round corner, shoot, retreat back behind corner in one turn, so thay cannot shoot back. There's no readied actions in FO, unlike games like UFO.

Then there's the party members who will not even move 1 hex to the side, if you are in their line of sight between the mobs and will instead shoot you in the back.
Then there's the balance. I like to be critical of FO3 in this regard, but FO3 mostly trivializes your SPECIAL and tag choices.
Pick the wrong SPECIALS and tags and FO1 or 2 and you are screwed. There's good skills and useless skills and you always need agility. Like FO3, you don't need charisma at all and endurance is weak.