I'm pretty sure it was supposed to stay closed and never opened.

Edit: Yeah, from the http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Vault_101 :

Wouldn't that have been easy enough to do by just having an malfunctioning door. The door worked fine when we left, and I suppose when they let your parents in. Seems there should have been some notes about how they had to jury-rig the door to get it to open the first time because "for some reason" it wasn't working. Oh well, no wonder the experiment wasn't obvious, Bethesda broke their own vault experiment.

My post was about the body count, not the experiments. Fo2 & FoNV experiments weren't lethal (expect the one with plants). Although some FoNV had incident later, like the one attacked by raiders. Fo3 is the one with highest body count, and FoNV still have a fair share of death. The problem come when the number of lethal vaults outnumber the number of vaults from which people survived, and then populated the outside world. People don't come from nowhere. Also, most people you learn about hiding in small bunkers in Fo3 failed to survive and reproduce. They didn't have enough ressources to survive the decades of nuclear winter. Also, vault experiments aren't supposed to be lethal. It is about seeing how population adapt agains't odd, and provide that knowledge to upcoming generations of survivors. (at least amongs some circles of survivors, like the Enclave)

That's because they were already overdone in Fallout 3 (and were a silly idea to begin with). The mystery (what little there was) died for good with over exposition done for [censored] and giggles.

Implementation is a bit dull because you only read about them in consoles. Fine if the vaults were destroyed by foreign forces or something and you'd read them document the threats but it's like every vault you come across they imploded.

Mentioned this in another thread but it'd be awesome if you could actually enter the vaults WHILE sht is going down. You get to listen to different opinions and at the end of the quest choose sides. Makes for a great morally-grey scenario.

Gaaaaaarrrryy? GARY! Gary? Gary. GARY! Gaaaaaaaarrrryyyyyyyy!

I'd like to see a stable Vault that is still inhabited, either by the original population or by wastelanders who made it home. I mean, honestly, why -haven't- people in D.C. tried to fix up the empty Vaults? It's not like they're hard to find, and they're almost certainly full of usable tech. A Vault would make a really nice settlement, and would be a logical source of renewable stimpaks and other goods unavailable (logically) elsewhere in the wastes.

I would love the vaults to be setup different in the new game. This could be attributed to different contractors or different blueprints. The FO3 vaults were boring IMO. Very dull layout with little actual living space.

Well isn't that how Fallout 3 started? Sht going down in Vault 101?

Honestly the social experiment thing being a recurring theme is one of the things I like most about these games and makes exploring vaults really interesting for me because most of them have some unique story behind them. Would be dull if most of them were like "after X time we opened the vault and went outside and some of us still stay here". They'd go from social experiments to underground towns.

I wouldn't mind it if we didn't do the 'subtle messages drives residents to mass murder' thing once again. Two is enough.

Hmmmm, a vault full of cannibals. Andale on a large scale, they leave the vault at night to hunt wasteland residents.

That one vault in NV was creepy. The one where they elect the Overseer only for them to be executed. Yeah, creepy!

To be honest, I didnt enjoy the Election vault that much. It was a good idea they had with elections determining peoples fates and the scene in the basemant part undernearth the Overseers chamber but something just felt off about that vault experience. To me it was slightly akin to Red vs Blue (the powder gangers vault). Factions there, factions in the Election one too. Just felt a little weird.

Yeah and it was a really well told story. In the end one of the vault dweller actually made it out, into the wasteland. Much like the ss

That was my favorite one.

To exist in a world where violence is required to survive? Sounds more like a sick inside joke between Vault-Tec employees than a successful experiment....

Not sure where I heard of it, but wasn't there one with One guy and like 200 females? THAT would make an interesting scenario (or maybe a pormo...or horror film)

Before I heard about the One guy and Puppets Vault I actually thought it was a vault I had never found in one of the games. It was only later then I learned it was from a Comic.

This was pretty much the whole premise of the game; as most people were dead before the PC ever left the vault. Most of the world was also looted before they got there... unless the location was very isolated/ hidden, or so lethal that no one lived through looting it.