Ok so I've noticed that a few things I do/have done in the game don't seem to register in the overall storyline, or with other NPCs etc.


Let me give you an example, in Megaton I chose to "agree" to Burke's proposition to blow up the town and told Simms immediately afterward. This is where it takes an odd turn, it's as if I chose a course of action that the game developers didn't anticipate. In order to get the Silenced 10mm that Burke had, as soon as Simms showed up to arrest him in Moriarty's, I simply opened fire on him (Burke) and took his belongings (thereby also saving Simms from getting shot outside). I didn't get in trouble for it at all and things seemed to go normal until later on.

So I'm going about my business and because I betrayed Burke's trust of course the Talon mercenaries are on me like ticks. I dealt with it for a good while but after being confronted by 3 of them coming out of a building (for about the 50th time) I got sick of it and decided to put it to an end. So what do I do? Go to Tenpenny tower of course. I kinda figured this was gonna be a "shoot on sight" type of situation but to my surprise they let me in, and talked to me like it was no big deal. I figured "Ok, so they just don't know who I am, whatever". So I work my way up to the penthouse to confront Tenpenny himself and I'm thinking "This is it, there's about to be a ridiculous fight". Well I go out and speak to him, and there's not even any conversation choices that would allow me to tell him who I am and that I was there to kill him. He's just chatting it up with me like I'm your average joe and conversation wise the basically the only thing I can do is be friendly back. As a matter of fact during the conversation I see that even my killing of Burke hadn't registered because he still speaks as if Burke is alive and well. So after I exhausted all talking options I decided, [censored] it, I'm gonna kill him anyways for being such a [censored].

So I pop him from behind with that same Silenced 10mm, it gives me good karma, I take his things and go. Only back in the building, the guards don't react, the guests don't react, nothing. It's almost as it would be in real life if you were to kill a recluse and nobody found out. They just didn't know. Even at this point I was like "Ok they just don't know yet or something."



It didn't bug me until I went into Warrington station to look for the ghouls that were trying to live there. I speak to Roy and of course he's prattling about his plan to get into Tenpenny tower and blah blah blah, and I realize there's no conversation option to tell him "Tenpenny is dead, I killed him". You have to speak to him as if Tenpenny is alive and well and it even initiates my quest to help him get in. I'm thinking "WTF?" I killed two major NPCs in the game and it doesn't seem as if it really changed anything.

So I guess my question is this, did I do something wrong? Maybe I explained all that too much but I wanted you guys to really get a feel for what I was talking about. It's not the only experience I've had like this but it's definitely the most noticeable. Did my killing of those guys mess up some continuity within the game or what? Because it'd be nice if when I killed off a character, it made some kind of difference.

Yeah, during my first game I popped Tenpenny for putting a contract out on me and nobody in the building noticed for months.

I think that's a common issue in open world games. It's impossible, or at least very difficult, to program proper responses for every action that the player gets into their head to do.

As for your question, it doesn't break the game's continuity. You'll still be able to finish their associated quests unless you kill someone absolutely pivotal to the quest's progression. At the very least, all you suffer is a break in immersion.

Along those lines . . .

If you question Tenpenny enough, he claims that he told Burke to *evacuate* Megaton. There's no option for the player to tell Tenpenny that Burke told you the complete opposite and there's no option for the player to go ahead with an evacuation based on this new info.

Eileen

I did a similar thing except I refused Burke's proposition, then killed him. Later on, I decided to gut and loot Tenpenny Tower. When I got to Tenpenny himself, he spoke of Burke as if he wasn't dead.

I had killed everyone by the time I got to Tenpenny, so obviously the tower didn't notice I had killed him.

With that, I tried to go to the ghouls... but again, Roy spoke of Tenpenny as if I hadn't opened his head up. So, I opened Roy's head.

Ok well at least I'm not the only one with this problem.

What's really annoying is the bad karma I get if I steal any of the tower resident's stuff. They're all [censored] people, why should I get bad karma for taking from them?


And Burke's house in Megaton, I still get bad karma (and probably hot lead thrown at me) if I break in there. And they KNOW he was gonna blow up the town!



It's ridiculous.

Ha! Man, if you've noticed that anything you do in Fallout 3 registers anywhere you've noticed more than I have. Also, wrong forum holmes.

What forum should I be in?

It said general discussion. Kinda figured that included questions.

Try the http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showforum=33 at the top of the page. This is the Fallout Series General Discussion forum for Fallout 1, 2, Tactics, and possibly future Fallout games. Not trying to be nitpicky, but you may find even more people there with opinions on your topic.

That's correct, the more freedom you are given in the game, the harder it is to make the game respond believably to everything you can do. So it should come as no surprise that in a game like Fallout 3, the developers would fail to provide suitable responses for some choices the player might make.



If you blow up Megaton, Megaton is gone, some people mention the fact that it's gone, I'd call that "registering", I would also definately refer to Three Dog talking about your actions on the radio as "your actions registering in the game". Granted, not every NPC in the game will talk about everything you've done, but anyone who would claim that your actions don't register in the game is either not very perceptive, or has not played the game enough.