Pre-war tech. Similar machines were used it to train up soldiers. I'd be surprised if our military protagonist was suspicious of them, but stranger mixes happen irl.

But hey, anolyzing neural pathways and translating the electromagnetic data into images is still a few magnitudes above "I had a vision, go there".

I think the strongest thing about going to Concord is Mama Murphy. She's basically an "I win" button for 2/3 of the main quest which was refreshing. I mean does you're PC say "screw destiny" and keeps on going or do they think twice and go back to Mama Murphy with some chems? It's a good role play tool if you're character finds himself stuck.

I think the focus is the dog. I restarted, went straight to Goodneighbor (which wasn't an easy trip at that level). Did the Memory Lounge (saw Deacon in a pod too), met the vault-tech ghoul, then went back and saved Preston, Mama, and the rest. Then avoided Dogmeat, and met them in Sanctuary. And frankly, the story made more more sense. Everything seemed to fit.

I still haven't met Dogmeat. I'll help out the BoS for a bit, then go save Nick and take it from there.

The dialog, story- it all makes sense now. Even the lady at the lounge - at first I never knew why she was there. Now I know.

I think you are right, at the least minute, they changed the beginning. I don't know why, but it looks like they did so that you could meet Dogmeat, and get the PA right from the start.

Yeah, I think they wanted people to get their first PA in the beginning. Codsworth should have been the first companion and since he's been in Sanctuary Hills for 200 years his bewilderment at the state of the Commonwealth could have doubled him as the audience surrogate for players new to the series. He could mention picking up Radio Transmissions form Diamond City (DCR) and 2/3 of the way there the Minute Men and Dogmeat get discovered.

From what I can tell, they made the start of the game play out the way it does for the E3 demo.

They got such a huge positive response from it that instead of removing it, and making it the way they originally planned they kept it in, but also left the original plan in for those like you who find it.

Think about it, what they showed for the E3 demo is the exact same thing as we experience in game if we follow the set path, and I don't think it was the original goal of Bethesda.

And getting shot trying to find the place to "anolyze" neural pathways makes just as much sense as getting shot looking for people to help close by to the old home.

Everything makes as much sense as anything else for our character since none of this makes sense to our character. I normally do not use power armor outside of specific parts, and Dogmeat almost immediately gets replaced after Diamond City, so this does not matter to me.

That's actually a neat find. Someone should make a flow chart of Fallout 4's main quest - it would become a tangled mess after The Molecular Level.

If you say no when Codsworth offers to search Sanctuary with you, you can skip that whole sequence and he never mentions Concord. So one option might be: Say no to Codsworth for searching the neighborhood > strike out on your own > eventually find the Memory Den > Get a solid reference to visit Nick Valentine > ... Nick introduces you to Dogmeat.

I'll have to do that for a character at some point. And I bet you could still do When Freedom Calls and take this path, it's just about meeting Dogmeat.

Honestly, my character being reminded of what she lost makes no sense to me.

Well, you don't go into the Memory Den thinking "I want to watch my lover die again!", your character is asking to relive a memory where they can spend time with their family... and that's the one that appears. Predictable to us, maybe, but our character doesn't know how the Memory Den works.

As good an excuse as any to leave Sean behind

Which makes it make even less sense to go there anyways.

As far as I am concerned, the main story makes the same amount of sense no matter how you go about it, which is 0. You could even make a case for finding Diamond City by accident and getting the lead to Nick through the interview with Piper.

My dude used the memory den because he wanted to remember every detail of the encounter for any clues he may have missed.

Lol.

So compelling. What I said would be plausible.

Lol