Never could get into playing characters that sporadically murdered entire settlements (or evil characters in general), but right now, I think I'll make an exception for the Minute Men. My reasoning being:

1) Anyone who decides to replicate muskets to make single shot, crank powered laser weapons that seem obsolete even compared to things from 200 years ago for the sake of their theme has forsaken common sense and doesn't get my sympathy when things go south.

2) Anyone who, having decided to replicate muskets to make single shot, crank powered laser weapons that seem obsolete even compared to things from 200 years ago for the sake of their theme and continues to use them even after their numbers begin to exponentially decrease has forsaken common sense and doesn't get my sympathy when things go south.

3) The name "Preston Garvey" is an assault on my ears and all who willingly follow the person that name belongs to are asking for trouble. Yes, I can be petty.

i have issues with them been rebel scum lol

But Laser Muskets are AWESOME!! But really what do we know about them? Next to nothing aside from what we saw at E3, and they really didn't focus in depth on weapons. Perhaps Laser Muskets are recharger weapons that have a crank for Overcharge? Or we could find mods and upgrade them. Number 3, well I don't care for the name either. So that's a valid reason.

I actually like the laser musket... think it's just one of those quirky weapons... and I'm sure once modified... it'll be pretty great as a weapon as well. To each there own... I don't know enough about the minute men to say I'll help or kill them.

If they weren't so obviously losing, I wouldn't mind the Laser Musket. But if they're losing people left and right, I think it's time to put it aside and use something better.

Not surprised at all. We got the idiotic Underground in DC and now we have minutemen in Boston. That ghoul is a redcoat mark my words. Can't Bethesda do anything original for once?

We don't know their circumstances but I'd assume they'd be better armed normally. It might just be they've been entrenched for too long that Laser Muskets are all they have. And that if there was anything better they'd use it. Well that's my opinion so far considering the lack of information I have.

Considering the E3 footage seems to have them going from "Take that Laser Musket!" to "Why don't you wear some POWER ARMOR!" I think they might have had something better lying around that they could use.

I was noticing in the gameplay video that each time you crank it, it loaded two "rounds," then fired them both. Maybe you can charge it more for more powerful shots?

One shot one kill.

When I saw it I instantly assumed it was basically the civilian's laser rifle from before the war. More for hunting or contests rather than military grade tech. In the end I like the design. Bonus points if I can crank it once for a quick charge or twice for an overclocked blast.

Actually, one of the leaked scripts seems to be about this exact scene. It would suggest that they lack the power needed to power the armor and that part of the quest is to obtain a power source so that you can use it.

FO4 be all like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tNJeS6O6ds

I can't imagine people would want to hunt with something that not only could disintegrate your prey, but could potentially set the forest on fire if you missed.

Have you ever gone to Alabama?

"Don't know you, don't like you"
Lol

Closest I can figure on a crank powered musket (a musket), is that perhaps they don't need, or use less ammo, on account of the crankin'? Like a wind up emergency radio. So they got that goin' for 'em.

I can't think they'd be pre-war. If you could use a hand crank to power a lethal energy weapon, power would be cheap and plentiful, possibly bypassing the great war all together.

Nope. Been east of West Texas once in my life for a week long trip to D.C. followed by a 5 day stay in New York City.

The minutemen and the Underground compared to the Mormons in NV points out the fault in Bethesda's usual writing. The Mormons are descendants of pre-war Mormons and their existence makes sense. They taught their children their religion and the survival of the mormons make sense in the fallout world, hence the Burned man. They were religious for a reason.

In F3, there is zero reason for the Underground to be the Underground. An organization freeing slaves could potentially be good, but I feel like Bethesda likes to slap on titles and traits on their writing for the coolness factor and nothing more. What reason would wastelanders have to worship Lincoln? You don't need Lincoln to say you want to free slaves. Lincoln comes from an era totally unrelated to the Great War. They say he's a symbol for freedom, but why do you need him?? For what?? Are wastelanders that dumb that they need a long dead prewar symbol to free themselves?

The lincoln comparison may be hard to grasp, but ever since I played Fallout 3, I found the whole situation ridiculous. Fallout is supposed to be about how the world changed after the war, yet the entire Lincoln memorial lore could take place in 1866 by changing a few textures and words.

And Boston What do people think of Boston? Minutemen of course! Let's just name them that to be cool and give them muskets for fun.

Daww, my Alabama joke fell flat...

At any rate, I definitely believe that people would go hunting with laser rifles. There's even seasons specifically set up so that people can take their real life muskets out to hunt. As for disintegrating your target, well, not every hunter is respectful of their kill and it could even be a status statement to mount the disintegrated bones of a deer up on your wall.

I got nothing on forest fires though. I mean, hunters cause fires every now and then without lasers, so I can't imagine that'd stop them from trying out their new toys. Wouldn't stop me if I got a chance to try one out to be honest, though lasers a little more rare in the real world.

This right here highlights issues with Bethesda's writing: you should not even have to sit down and ponder up excuses for their writing to work. The fact that you're even attempting is a sign that their writing does indeed need work.

Needing excuses can happen to anyone, to be fair, but it happens abnormally frequently to Bethesda. If fridge logic occurs once or twice amongst another developer, I think most would have the attitude of shrugging it off because eventually it's bound to happen that the writers miss a gap in logic. With Bethesda though, it's rare when things are logically sound...

If I lived in Boston and was putting together a militia to protect my settlement, you know what I would call them? Minutemen. Why? Because it is a cool name and because it's my heritage.

Giving them "muskets," though, that seems a bit overboard.

Religion works much the same way. People hang pictures of a man believed to have lived 2000 years ago, believing he will free them. Iconography.
Being in the DC area, there stands to be a lot of political and historical iconography for people to find in addition to any texts outlining the nations history. Admittedly, I've never been a slave, but I could see slaves clinging to a notion of a time when men fought and died bringing about emancipation- as something to give hope.

Why are you using someones speculation on laser rifles as hunting weapons pre-war as an example of Bethesda's writing (good or bad) in a game that we have next to no info for, again?

As a Bethesda fan, you're not wrong.

Part of the fun for me though is coming up with reasons for the way things are. I look at these games and wonder, "Well, why is this the way it is?", and I end up immersing myself even deeper than I normally would into the game because I had to come up with my own reason to connect the dots.

It's not an excuse, as more solid world building(as apposed to building the world, if that makes sense) would be greatly appreciated. It's just their style fits me too well for me to get upset about it.

Characters in-universe reappropriating symbols of the Old World isn't something that Bethesda brought to Fallout. There's things like the Two-Headed Bear and whatnot from the old days, and the whole idea of using pre-War iconography and organizations seems to fit the whole idea of "Old World Blues." A lot of the people seem to want to recapture what was lost when the bombs fell in some way or another. I don't think every organization needs an obvious historical allusion in its name, but I don't really begrudge the Minutemen being called as such.

That said, I do think the Railroad being called such in Fallout 3 was nonsensical, if only because I doubt anybody was using locomotives to travel when the name came up.

This is the issue:

The Fallout universe has self-recharging rifles that don't need to be cranked and can fire multiple shots. The technology is obsolete, yet it's used for these laser muskets. Why? His attempt was just one of many attempts to explain why it might exist, with him suggesting it's for hunting.

Even weirder, the self-recharging technology usually svcks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7OWYxng8yU

But even then, it STILL recharges faster than the crank would, and can charge and store multiple shots over time.

In best cases, the technology looks like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxI_zg83VJo

So this begs the question, what is the purpose of the crank?

If we're being reasonable about it, we can assume the Laser musket actually hits really hard despite only having a single shot. However, how on earth does a crank afford it this additional damage? That simply makes no sense. A sniper rifle that hits hard but fires slow because you have to pull a heavier bolt back makes sense, a laser rifle that hits harder because you have to crank something to charge it rather than it charging automatically does not.

So as simple as it is, this little example already showcases flaws in Bethesda's thought process and writing and may be a sign of things to come in regards to the actual content and plot we can expect. The technology itself must logically pre-date the self-recharging stuff to make any sense, but this would mean the Minutemen are insisting upon using archaic technology for no reason other than image. This would be akin to if you and I decided to have a pistol duel tomorrow, and while you brought a Desert Eagle, I chose to bring some 18th century pistol. It's nonsense and it's insane.