SMALL SPOILER ALERT...... Talk about stirring the pot....Wow, did Bethesda (Beth' for short.) go down a dark path or what. Allow me to explain; I'm a middle aged man, a Father, a disabled War Vet. and lost his wife.....notice the similarities? So, traditionally, Beth' starts an Elder Scrolls or Fall Out Game with just the player/character about to start his/her adventures.....ALONE. With Fall Out 4 (F/O 4) they now give the player a, short lived, history with a spouse and child.....of which the spouse gets murdered, and child kidnapped, and you, helpless to do anything about it.

Traditionally, I would go about a game exploring, and/or building up skills, and this was no different.......EXCEPT this gnawing feeling in the core of my soul that my son has been kidnapped , and WTF am I doing.... Bobble-head searching!!!! So for me, being a vengeful and pretty much, moral man, there is only one way to play F/O 4.....do the main quest....find the son, avenge your spouse, then go about life, or death, in the Common Wealth, HOWEVER.....the writers made the main quest so linier....so mono-directional; it is sooooo coincidental, how everything in the story just falls into place....AND am practically forced to get directly side tracked in some factions political aspirations!!!

Well, all that aside, I finally find my son, who by the way, I find out, was the one who released me from the Vault, and could have saved me, and brought me to the Institute right from the get-go.....only to find an he's an old man "Claiming" to be my son!!!! Now here's the clincher.....so when I ask him to "prove it" the best the F/O 4 writers tell us, is we just have to take the old mans word for it.......ARE YOU KIDDING?!?!?!?! Beth' writers gave the Institute, a whole background of human abductions/swapping, genetic research, etc........and they have the gall to tell us the institute/old man is incapable of doing a PATURNITY/MATURNITY TEST!!!!!!! Which, by the way, could have spurred a whole different series of quest paths. On top of that, he....my Son.....wants me......his Father, to lead a force to commit mass murder!!!

Ultimately, I know it's just a game, but, in my opinion, when Beth' started the prelog, with a spousal murder, and child kidnapping.....and not have the time, funding, or imagination of quest-path options for the players character to seek justice....was/is just plain sad! They should never have started the "introduction" the way it did, with out some "REAL....IN DEPTH THOUGHT"!!!

On a positive note.....thank you Beth' for making the Common Wealth VERY explorable!!!

Uhh Beth has only made 2 Fallout games and both jam an entire backstory into the beginning of the game, only TES actually starts you "alone"

being alone isnt all that its cracked up to be.....

Top of this forum says "No Spoilers", you know.

Ya, that wasn't exactly a "small" spoiler in the top post there. Hopefully a mod will move this soonish.

agreed and at OP Father looks like a combination of the man and woman you made at the beginning and their is nothing to suggest he is not your son.

I would hardly call that a small spoiler there bud. Anyways to your point choosing your path, that's the game. So for you you want to find your son /take vengeance etc... so you stay focused on that path. Or maybe like most people your ADD and wonder off in search of bobble heads and Jangles the moon monkey. I am no where near the end, probably about half way and I have yet to commit to any one faction because they are all tools for eventually finding my kid as each one provides a little more experience, equipment and knowledge needed to survive in the wasteland. Sure you could come out of a vault you have been frozen in for 200 years and blindly run off to find your kid in a world that is completely unfamiliar to you or you can fight, survive, learn what happened to your kid and then go save him when its not a certain suicide mission. Or maybe your someone who doesn't care about the kid. Being released from the vault is like a new lease on life, no attachments to your past you head out make a few friends, rob, steal, kill, slam chems until your addicted to psychojet and trying to bang Cait in what is left of a supermutant hideout amongst the bags of human remains. Or maybe you dont do that. I'm just saying its all personal preference.

An idea I posted a while back.
http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1576250-fathershaun-plothole-fix/#entry24760760


Some people complained it would removed the sadness or loss, or whatever from the ending. I think the simple solution is...you get access to your son, after the main storyline, if you support the institute. If you do not, you eventually gain the information at a remote data backup outpost, or maybe extracted from a special synth. But since you blew up the institute, you also blew up your son and have to live with that.

The game is structured a lot like New Vegas, and obviously drew inspiration from how that storyline was structured.

First, you are given a McGuffin to chase down. In New Vegas it was Benny. In Fallout 4 your son. The purpose is to give you a pretext to get out there and see what the world is all about. Then, upon finally catching up with your McGuffin everything opens up.

After confronting Benny, you have seen the world and have met and are being courted by the major factions, including a 'personal faction' option with Yes Man.

After confronting Shaun, you have seen the world and have met and are being courted by the major factions, including a 'personal faction' option with the Minutemen.

In both cases, your initial motivation has been largely resolved and now you are set up to deal with the world as a whole from a position to tip the scales of power and determine who controls the wasteland.

Yes, and no. F/O 3 you get the feeling to look for your Dad, who you believe is alive.....that's a quest....a positive curiosity to seek life, and an explanation of departure. And when you find him, you find out he's on his own quest to better the lives of humanity.

In New Vegas, granted, it starts with the player being shot.....and you go to seek revenge (at least I do) and an explanation of the "why" of it. But even that quest line is just about YOU, the player/character, the INDIVIDUAL.

When F/O 4 writers involved a spousal murder and child kidnapping, only speaking for myself, that puts a really dark twist to story telling.....on top of that, the writers REALLY limited the possible quest options.

Look, I know, there are a lot of folks that don't see the similarities of real emotions and story telling.....but I do.....I've lived it. I know it's just a game, but it touched a nerve with me. Just sayin'.

My apologies for the spoilers. Thank you for moving the post to the appropriate location.

So, I ask, why don't you think the F/O 4 writers included a paternity/maternity test in the main quest....given the genetics background of the institute? It just seems that it wouldn't be a problem if, when asked to "prove it"....Shaun(?) actually could get it done. As far as Shaun looking like the default character at the beginning of the game.....I changed my looks....moot point. Heck, we all have doppelgangers in the world. I thought a cheek swab would have been an easy thing to include....positive....definitive....insurance.....just for peace of mind.

I really like your options/suggestions; I mean, even if others don't agree with your possibilities......you offer a plethora of possibilities given the magnitude of the main quests emotional rollercoaster. I just felt the F/O 4 writers wrote the main quest line as too linear.....too matter of factish. Truthfully, I was really hoping Shaun (the old man) was a Synth....it would have made sense given the Institutes background.