Tons of people shows a positive outlook towards ghouls

-Herbert Dashwood

-Manya Vargas

-Nova

-Three Dog

-The freed slaves of the Temple of the Union

-The Railroad

Just to name some off the top of my head.

Tons of people express a positive outlook to ghouls, have trade relations with them, or have them as members of their organizations.

I would like them to do away with the house building; I think it's terribly off ~setting-wise. Settlers build houses, but the PC shouldn't be one; not if there is any kind of mission this time around. The time for the PC to build a house, is after the game concludes.

Ghouls become Feral by continued exposure to high levels of radiation, as evidenced in places like Camp Searchlight. You rarely ever see sane ghouls hanging out in highly irradiated areas, mostly just Ferals. Radiation may be great for a Ghoul's body, but it definitely isn't good for their mind.

One of my chars in New Vegas is a Ghoul (through a mod), and i roleplay him as a Legion Marked Man Ghoul. He gains significant Endurance and HP Regen when irradiated, but being irradiated also greatly diminishes his Intelligence and Charisma. When under Critical Radiation, he's practically unkillable due to regenerating 6 HP/sec, but his Intelligence and Charisma are garbage, so are the skills related to them.

I did say Megaton so that covers everyone in Megaton. But yeah I see your point there are some individuals and some small factions with positive views. But the over all population is still against it. Megaton I would figure treat Gob more as a novelty then anything else but that is just my view.

In the end though it is easy to see why people mistrust even hate ghouls. It is human nature to fear the unknown and blame others for bad things. The reason why humans came up with creatures such as werewolves in the first place was because it was a way to explain murders. People couldn't live with the idea that they would be living with a serial killer so they would blame it on a monster. A creature that lives apart from them. People blamed witches and vampires for everything from crops dying to a rat infestation.

In a world like Fallout where people live in close knit communities and something goes wrong, it is far easier to blame a monster than your neighbors or your own lack of education. And when you have actual mosters like ghouls around... well it just makes it easier.

The NCR got over ghoul hatred because they expanded and took over ghoul settlements. So yeah it was easier for people to see that ghouls aren't boogeymen. They aren't the creatures their parents used to scare them out of travelling to far from home. "Don't go out at night or the ghouls will get you." Type deal.

Humans will always have a monster to fear aka an escape goat. Whether it is another group of humans or something completely made up like a Vampire.

The NCR even has some ghouls as Rangers at Ranger Station Echo.

Guess that makes more sense than a clone body, given what we know about the setting. Either way, I guess it wouldn't be a perfect cure. The fact that they deteriorate into ferals indicates their brains rot away. Would just be a monster with a better body.

I'm still not sure what sure makes ghouls go feral. I always assumed a ghoul could go for on potentially forever without ghoulifying. What I wonder is what a ghoul's brain would look like.

Seemed to me that F3 made it seem like they went insane from being unable to stand the change that came over them. I could be wrong though.

I don't think being upset with their condition turned them into violent, mindless, rabid skeleton people.

Dashwood made it sound like deterioration:

I was basing my comment off of the convo you have with Carol in Underworld. From the Wiki:
"My skin started to get dry and flake off. Everyone's did. It took a while, months, maybe a year. But sooner or later, everyone ended up like this. Some of them went crazy. Some of us just accepted it. After a while, other Ghouls would find their way in here and Underworld just sort of grew. No one bothered us down here, and we were happy enough to leave them alone. And once my Greta showed up, it was a good enough life for me."
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Carol

The comment she made about "Some of them went crazy. Some of us just accepted it." is what was throwing me off. I read crazy as "Feral" and I see now that is not necessarily the case.

I agree that if your on a mission stopping to build a town is getting more then side tracked, but I think beth will let you continue end game this time around. I see it as something fun for the end game to keep me busy until the eventual dlc come out. I will of course make a house to operate as a main base (though the garage we've seen may do that already).

As for ghouls yes they are oppressed. It would probably be worse with faction like the brotherhood, even the eastern brotherhood still doesn't care for mutants and I doubt the institute is any better. There are also ghouls who hate humans and will actively cause harm to them.

See, you're heading into that territory of trying to dictate one kind of character other player's PCs should be. Personally I look forward to this feature as it can only enrich my experience.

You certainly aren't necessarily wrong. That's good evidence for that interpretation.

I appreciate you saying so. What turns Ghouls feral is probably one of those things where it's not just one cause but several to get the effect. Perhaps we'll never know!
"How is a raven like a writing desk?"

The kind of character the PC should be, gets dictated by the premise of the main quest. In Fallout, the PC had five months to explore an area the size of a US state, to find and return with an obscure machine component to save 1000 +/- people that were basically [and/or included] their own family.
Playing house is not the kind of character to be on that quest.

In Fallout 2, it was essentially the same situation.

In FO3, the PC had one relative on Earth that they knew of, and the only home they ever knew ~exiled them after trying to kill them. The game expects the PC to search for their dad. It never made sense that it would encourage them to setup a house in Megaton. It's true that FO3 had an ignorable MQ, and that the player could decide that meant whatever they wished. (A shame IMO. I liked the series better when the game would quit on a player like that.)

I don't really want to play as a ghoul. I don't see the appeal.

You're wrong. Gecko, Reservation, Dayglow, Bright Brotherhood and it wouldn't surprise me if there is something in Tactics I'm forgetting right now. Ghouls do 'not' turn feral from radiation, if they did then we have big holes in the lore that would need to be retconned. And it'd be far easier to retcon the "radiation turns 'em feral" than it would to retcon every instance where continued exposure to radiation has 'not' turned the ghouls feral.

Besides, IMO the "feral" crap should be retconned out in favor of regular ol' crazies. Never like the feral crap, never will.

We already have the normal "crazies" in people like Gallo from Fallout 3, and the non-feral looking "feral" ghouls in Searchlight.

Ferals make sense as a more deteriorated version of crazies that wouldn't have existed in Fallout 1's time, since they wouldn't have had enough time to mentally deteriorate that much.

Don't be silly, androids can't become ghouls... silly

Ferals should be replaced with what they originally was, mindless ones. Slow-moving almost romero-esque kind of "zombies". I don't mind ghouls being so bat[censored] that their minds have went completely to the point of animalism. But the way they depicted the "feral" variant I have issues with and would rather be retconned back to the original mindless ones.

They do not make sense, and should not deteriorate into a more athletic and dangerous adversary.


Indeed.

So... Vampirism is supposed to be a one way street as well. I don't think its unreasonable to say ghoulification can't be cured either. There were hundreds of vampires in tes games and none of them found a cure. Its not like fallout is any more realistic than TES. Its completely fantasy. Radiation would never cause parts of your skin to shred off or allow you to survive it. That's far more ridiculous than a cure...

TES is high fantasy where they all live happily ever after; Fallout is a place where no one lives happily ever after, and where cruel fates can be permanent. Curing Ghouls basically trivializes them. It should also kill most of them on the spot once cured; the PC included. One can imagine that their body ages at a frightening rate; a rate kept in check by their ability to constantly regenerate. To cure them of their condition should still leave them a withered husk, like some of those 25 year olds we've all seen that look 30 years older than they are, only with ex-ghouls I'd think it should be far far more traumatic... far worse. A cure should leave them dead or almost dead, and no longer capable of rapid recovery.

*This doesn't even broach the social aspects of ghouls in the series, or how a cure would affect how society treats them. Ghouls are basically like lepers in Fallout.

No no no. The beginning of the main quest dictates what your character's basic backstory is. In Fallout 2 my Chosen One I liked to imagine was amazed by the outside world and steadily forsook his Arroyo tribalisms in favour of becoming more modern and progressive. Obvisiouly this is retconned through ending slides, but in my head fanon I like to think he saved his people, but he decided to embrace the outside world than stay tribal.

Not all main quests need an immediate sense of urgency. Fallout 3's for example was never very urgent and I liked this because it gives you time to explore and keep in mind I started 3 before Broken Steel. When I went backwards I appreciated Fallout and Fallout 2 because they had that sense of emergency, but once I delivered the GECK to Arroyo I took my time because I think any main quest that forces you to rush through the game is a poorly designed game trying to hide its flaws. My support of settlement building is that I like to have a wide array of options for how I like to play. Take Skyrim and its options. I don't care for vampirism and I don't want to be Thane of every hold all the time, but those are options should I want them. But I think you've become too sympathetic to 'Luddite Mentality' of Anti-Beth fans of Fallout. You're a smart man and I respect you, but I feel you're too busy looking backwards on the RPG mechanics and systems of old without even considering embracing the new. We know little of how settlement building will work. I'm pretty hyped for Fallout 4, but we all know Bethesda are prone to 'hit and miss' so I'm not expecting 'The Ultimate Enhancement to RPG systems of all time!' but I do think with a broad mind and so on, it can enrich the setting so much. Take me, my vision is that my character will see the world of now lamenting on what it has become and decides to use his Pre-War knowledge to try and create a refuge for the knowledge and learning of the Old World. Obviously I doubt I can go super in depth and make libraries and terminals and yadda yadda yadda, but I DO think with a creative mind and a vision for building, you can accomplish a lot of rich roleplay ore to mine out of your head.