So what would you change if you were a developer way back when F3 was announced?

Assume everything you DON'T change remains the same.

I.e. stick to F3 if you can, don't say, "I'd make Van Buren."

Assume you're working for Bethesda.

I'm a big fan of F3 and wouldn't change everything but I think I'd change a few things.

This is your sounding board for it.

Here's my prospective changes
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* Introduce Faction Reputation with the BOS, Enclave, Paradise Falls, Rivet City, Tenpenny Towers, etc.

* As much as I like Talon Company, a PMC makes no sense in the Wasteland. I'd instead have Good Reputation PCs hunted by Paradise Falls Slavers.

* Paradise Falls would have a number of bases around the game, having a much higher prevalence than before.

* The Regulators would have actual characterization and you would have the option of doing Bounty Hunting missions for them. There would be "Sheriffs" at most of the settlements who are all implied to be Regulators.

* I'd actually keep Little Lamplight but make it so they're actually all mutants. They're the same kids from 200 years in the past.

* Keep the BOS as is but I'd make the conflict between them and the Outcasts more visceral. Elder Lyons was sent to wipe out the Super Mutants and has been doing so and establish a Capital Wasteland base for the BOS.

The Outcasts are sick of war and just want to go home to Broken Hills, so they're gathering stuff to assemble a vertibird.

* The ending will have the option to side with Colonel Autumn and the Enclave, the BoS/Rivet City alliance (which you have to organize), or Paradise Falls. Each will have separate ending slides.

* All of the Raider gangs would have names and bases where you could wipe out their leadership and get Good Karma.

We'd also find out that there used to be a bunch more settlements but the Raiders all wiped them out with their populace sold to Paradise Falls.

+ Lots more sickly yellow grass and trees rather than just barren rock.

+ An ending slide.

Otherwise, I'd keep everything.

I'd make the game world more realistic with agriculture and growing plants like in New Vegas and the originals.

I'd hire decent writers

I'd make it so that nobody reacts to your karma, it's an unrealistic and gamey way of showing how the world reacts to your decisions.

I'd make it with a map node system and maybe first person when in settlements.

I'd make it more balanced (no perks that permenentley raise your SPECIAL stats to 9).

I'd put in more Monty Python references.

I'd make each SPECIAL stat useful for more than one thing.

Believe it or not this would have been quite easy for Bethesda to do and I know it's sounds negative but it is what I would have done short of making Van Buren.

While I don't get the "decent writers" comment, I understand most of the statements present.

I will say, though, this I totally disagree with.


Don't take this the wrong way but....who in the world would enjoy that?

I positively LOATHED that in the first two games and could never go back.

Exploration FTW.

I'd completely revamp the story and actually create one that was separate from the originals.

I can respect your opinions but the whole point of the map node system, for me at least, was to not waste resources on empty spaces that would take away from the settlements themselves and allowed you to travel across more of the west coast to see how more of the world had adapted to the atomic-apocalypse rather than one small area (which I found to be one of the main focuses of the originals), look at Fallout 1's settlements and towns, then look at Fallout 3's, not only are there less of them with less quests to do in them, they're also quite small in comparison to Fallout 1's (which is regarded by many as a short but very good RPG, notice the short part). If fallout 3 was made with the map node system, and today's technology and Bethesda's budget, Fallout 3's world could have, theoretically and quite plausibly spanned most of the East Coast and the Mid-west.

And as to the question for who in the world would enjoy that, I imagine me and the other dinosaurs would enjoy that quite a lot.

So noted,

Still I don't think that would work for me. I don't disagree with your desire to see the entirety of the East Coast and Midwest but that's pretty much mapping the entirety of the Fallout world right there. The exploration system means that even small areas like the Pitt and Point Lookout can be sources of immense amounts of fun. I think a good sense of mystery about what's going on in the world and the relative restriction of how far it is to travel makes the game world feel more immense and cooler.

Also it feels more wild, untamed, and wilderness-like that there's all these underground Vaults, ruins, and so on you can stumble on quite by accident.


My question would be, would that really need to be Fallout? Why not just make "Radioactive" or "Washington D.C: 2275" if you're not going to use the BOS, Enclave, etc.

I actually like your ideas of changes for F3 Charlemagne, But i wouldnt say get rid of Talon Co. I would have just given them an explained background(then again, i gave them my own fanfic background)

Solution to that problem would be not to set it in D.C.. Place it somewhere else, closer to the west coast.