No I don't expect civilization to start day one after the bombs but some progress should have been made prior to the super mutant uprising.
Even if the place is in a state of chaos and anarchy some people should have stepped up to create a better place, people did in Junktown, Hub and Adytum.
And if Super Mutants came along shortly after the bombs dropped which meant people didn't have much of a chance to restore a better civilization then how come it's been at such a stalemate the whole time?
They should've overrun the place a long long time ago.


I understand raiders existing, what I don't understand is their purpose.
Even though Fiends were mostly hostile in New Vegas they at least gave a little explanation to them.
But the general raiders in FO3 made no sense since they swarmed all over the place with no leader, no goal, no purpose, no production, hell, how do they even get ammo since none of them produce any more?
And if they are raiders then what do they raid? How do they get food? Ammo? Medicinal drugs and chems? Do they produce it themselves? If so then why are they raiders? Why are they all psychopaths? Why are many of them cannibals?
I understand raiders being part of the wastes, but if they became raiders then they became that for a reason which is not explained in FO3.

So no, they make no sense to me in CW.
I could understand them if there were less of them, but the amount of raiders in FO3 was just ridiculous.


Ah, yes, a mercenary group, doing mercenary jobs...
Still makes no sense to me.
I mean, this place is such a [censored]hole that bugs and wild beast swarm all over the place, super mutants and ferals swarm all over the place, why would they set up shop here?
There are few settlements and barely none of them prosper, why set up a mercenary group in this crappy place?
Why not relocate to a more civilized place where jobs might actually be coming in?
I don't see why they decided to set up their shop here if there isn't much mercenary work to do.
I mean, Burke contracted them to kill the player character if one disarmes the bomb in Megaton. (With money that comes from nowhere. >_>)
But who else in the capital wasteland has contracted them?
Who else has the money to contract them?
And I don't understand them attacking on sight.
What if I went to them being completely neutral in karma, not having pissed anyone off, why should they attack me?
Maybe I would want to contract them.
Maybe I would like to join them.
Or help them out by donating items and knowledge.
Nope, isntead they just shoot on sight without giving a good reason.
So why are they there if they're just gonna shot everyone?
What's their goal?
It's not profitable for them to be in CW and I don't see any reason for them staying there.
They're just there as an excuse to have a mercenary group sent after you if your karma goes Good.
But story-wise it isn't a profitable place for them to operate in and they would likely be better off to move to a more prosperous place where people acftually have the money to contract them.

So no, they make no sense to me in CW.

They have overrun the place, besides from a few exceptions like Rivet city, Megaton etc which were successful in at least building a community and in defending themselves and repelling them. Some towns were more unfortunate like for example Big town which they regularly used as a food resource. Mutants also can't overrun everything, because of all these different factions i mentioned. Ever seen mutants fighting raiders? Even Talon company fights them. BOS have also kept them in check so the "stalemate" (which is still more in favor of the mutants), is perfectly explained and rationalised.

From having questions about why the civilization hasn't progressed you've gone to wondering how the civilization hasn't vanished completely. You make me think you are just saying all these because you are caught in the infamous FO3 vs FNV war and just trying to find ways to accuse FO3. I may be wrong and sorry in advance if i am indeed wrong.




Existence of raiders, as i've said before, is as rational as the law of physics. After the nuclear war, as Greatest Alive said, their purpose and goal is to loot to survive and come from general population (it would be no wonder if most of the surviving population became raiders). As for where to they get their rations... They raid, hence they are called Raiders. That's why you usually find them in abandoned buildings, which they have raided or just occupied, like the Mart, and that's where they get their provisions from, which is maybe the most consistent and rational thing in the game. If something like that should happen in real life it would be the exact same story. They also don't have a leader, they are anarchists and don't work alltogether, even if every one of them is called "raider". Also they have no reason to product anything because they.. raid. I'm honestly petrified by your questions.






Quotes from wiki:

Q: If you have good karma, a 1000 cap bounty will be placed on your head, and Talon Company mercs holding a private contract will periodically attempt to collect.
The reason for this is simple - in 2277, they are working for an unknown third party, with simple orders - keep the Capital Wasteland a lawless, disorganized place.
A:Yes, since that's their purpose they wouldn't want some good karma (they attack you on sight if you have a good karma) vigilante restoring order to the wasteland to run loose, so they will put you out of the way. In addition since they are working for a third party Burke was only a side job for some quick caps.

Q:Doing various jobs, from bounty hunting to fighting against the super mutant occupiers of Washington, DC.
A:So yes, there is enough reason for them to be in DC.

And finally, maybe you would also want to become a farmer (play harvest moon) or become the president of what's left of America and rebuild civilization (play sim city 3000 or smth) or whatever else. You get my point. There is a limit to what they can add in a game, but don't tell me the story is inconsistent for not being able to me a contract with them, join them, or donate to them, because they have covered that it as well as it gets.

I prefer NV's forming of the raiders into gangs, the generic raiders populating the FO3 wastelands made no sense, way to many guys and girls wandering around but apparently never considering raiding any of the settlements.....Girdershade (2 people, only one of which is armed) is right next to the biggest raider base and Canterbury Commons is wide open and basically undefended. Simply put there isn't enough for the raiders to raid to survive, unless their raiding each other? There must be some leadership since they have established at least three bases.

In FO3 supermutants are apparently searching DC for more FEV virus.....except there doesn't appear to be any in DC. They are taking captive to dip and eat, well mainly eat since they cannot dip anybody (no FEV left). So where are the new supermutants and centaurs coming from, they should be dying out simply because they have no way to replace their loses anymore.

Talon Company are mercenaries but apparently aren't really doing anything except shooting up passing travellers and fighting the Supermutants for the Capitol building....which doesn't appear to have anything for either side to be wasting their strength on. The Talons are obviously a fairly organised force but dont really appear to have any goals, really they are just a better armed/armoured group of raiders.

I loved FO3, but really aside from the Enclave and the Brotherhood, most of the factions weren't filled out at all, way to generic......does anybody really think FO3 wouldn't have been improved by the raiders being in actual gangs (with leadership you could interact with), with Supermutants having some sort of plan (and a leader like tabitha or marcus), with the Talon Company being like Caeser's Legion, with the Enclave being a joinable faction.

Yea and Novac is defended by a sniper agaist ceasar's legion. Goodsprings has virtually no guards. And so on. You can't expect them to populate every place with guards so that they can defend against the myriads of enemies. Besides the engine can't handle it.



I could say the same about the crops in vegas. "Not enough to feed everyone, it doesn't make sense" though i don't. Cause games have their limits. Did you expect to have the same anologies with real life?


And these are independant from each other. Besides these people are anarchists as i said, i would even be irrational for them to have an established leadership.




Wiki quote:

In 2078, the original inhabitants of Vault 87 were taken to airtight chambers and exposed to a concentrated form of FEV. The Overseer and his security guards were not aware of what it was, but were simply following orders from Vault-Tec. When the first vault dwellers were turned into super mutants, they forcibly mutated the others, until the whole population was either mutated or dead.

The Vault 87 super mutants are obsessed with the preservation of their brand new species. Since they are all sterile, instead of reproducing in a natural way, they have been kidnapping humans from all over the Capital Wasteland and bringing them to the vault to mutate. They have been doing so for nearly 200 years, until their source of FEV started to run out. Because of the shortage of the "green stuff", as the super mutants call it, there are now super mutant bands searching all over the Capital Wasteland for a new source of the virus.

2078 + 200 = 2278 and cause it says nearly, let's say 2277. At 2277 (in which FO3 takes place) their source started to run out. So what makes you think they should be dying out? You would be right if it was like 50 years or so after their source was depleted.



Again their goal is clear and clever. And it's the 3rd freaking time i mention it. Keep the wasteland in chaos, so that none flourishes or becomes too strong and brings order to the wasteland. This could have many purposes. We know for a fact that they have this goal and are hired by a 3rd party. For all we know they could be controlled by the chinese, or some Enclave branch. Their existence is actually interesting for these reasons.


In case you think i'm a FO3 really devoted fan and hate FNV etc i assure you this is not the case. I, too, believe that a faction system could make FO3 even better. You shouldn't be able to join or interact with everything, but i agree with you on this. I like both games and each has a strong/interesting side for me.

Present me with a number proving that EVERYONE liked NV better. The cockroach anology is in very poor taste.

My biggest problem with Fallout 3 was the set of plotholes in the main story. I was extremely impressed with the game and its story... right up until Liam Neeson died. After that it went downhill into a big ditch of problems.

Edit: I've found the voice acting in New Vegas is generally somewhat better than in Fallout 3. Maybe that is just a personal taste thing, but barring Liam Neeson Fallout 3 had some really really variable voice acting. New Vegas has for me been generally much better. In fact in general dialogue in New Vegas is just better than in Fallout 3 I feel. Why this is I'm not sure, maybe it could be something to do with not blowing the entire VA budget on a big name?

Sigh, my point was exactly that you don't have to have a 100% compliance rate in order to make a generalization. Please read it again.

Though, from my experience and from what i've seen and read, this rate is not enough to make one here.

It's a game and most games don't try to be 100% realistic. Just like movies, sometimes you have to sacrifice realism for the story.
That aside it can still try to be plausible of course.

Unfortunately most peoples that post their opinions on the net tend to generalize a lot.
As a result, flamewar ensures.

I always felt FO3 would have made more sense if it took place about 100 years earlier.
On the other hand one may argue that DC got it so hard, it simply took a lot of time until it became even remotly habitable again.
The only thing I really thought felt out of place were some of the vaults that always looked as if desaster had just hit there a couple of weeks before the player arrived.
That didn't make much sense to me.

The radioactivity argument always is a bit of a mixed bag to me.
I can understand why some people want more radiation - as a kind gaming mechanic.
That most of the surface radioactivity is gone after 200 years seems plausible, though.
And neither in FO1 or FO2 did it play a big role most of the time (exceptions being the Glow, for example)

You can point to problems with NV (and yes Novac is silly), but it doesn't cover the fact that FO3 has generic Raiders who attack everything that moves in the game and don't really work as Raiders....because they dont actually raid anybody. They are really just there to provide a easy kill early in the game and soon just become annoying, they are the bloatflies of the human world.

It would be irrational to think they wouldn't have any established leadership, gangs generally have leaders, usually the toughest, meanist SOB in the gang. The idea that they are some sort of anarchist commune, where they are all independents and they somehow supply themselves with food, water, X-Rad, Radaway, ammo, weaponry is frankly a little silly.

In NV, you have the Great Khans, The Kings, Fiends and Powder Gangers as gangs you can interact with and the other guys (vipers & scorpions) as the generic raiders who are barely holding on due to being surrounded by tougher factions and they look like they are barely surviving with many of them lacking weaponry and armour.......frankly this is superior to the FO3 version of generic raider, it just works better hopefully FO4 wont repeat this mistake.







The Supermutants are locked in a conflict with EBOS, and everybody else in the wastleland, no source of FEV means no new supermutants to replace their loses, so they will be dying out......the only question is how long that extinction will take.

Also 'nearly' 200 years is how long exactly, how many supermutants were created each year, how many captives died to successfully produce one supermutant (since the supermutants had no one to show them how it worked (like the master), and they are true dumb-dumbs, the casualty rate was probably high).




That's what the wiki says, I don't remember seeing anything in game to back it up.....the Talon Company were a huge missed opportunity in FO3, unfortunately in effect they are a better version of the Raiders.




If Bethesda take the things that FNV did well for FO4.....improved companion interactions/quests, improved factions (including Raiders, selling drugs to the Fiends allowed me to scout their base before attacking it), improved crafting (needs more work) etc and add it to a world like FO3 they will have an amazing game on their hands.

I agree though that Bethesda should implement some of the improvements FNV made if they plan on making a Fallout 4, and learn from FNV's mistakes.

Who do they raid?

No settlement is ever raided in game, nor mentions being raided......we can assume they resupply by raiding, there is just no in game evidence for the assumption. I do remember BS added the only real raid in the game (on a EBOS water caravan), but thats about it.

The Fiends most likely got their weaponry from , they took it intact so large supply of food, weaponry, medical supplies etc. You can also find some dead ones who were obviously attempting to loot a location for high tech weaponry.......also the only supplier of high tech weaponry and ammo in NV are not exactly good guys.



They get dumber as they get older (belemoths), and the rooms full of failed attempts to produce mutants in FO3 would seem to point to their failures in the process, even assuming the first generation was able to pass on their knowledge by the time FO3 rolls around I doubt it was more complex than 'dip hummy in green stuff'.



If you have good karma the talon company hitmen try to kill you, if you have bad karma the regulators try to kill you.....that's a hell of jump to them being paid by a mystery person to keep the wasteland in turmoil for some mysterious reason that is never mentioned in game.

Seeing them stationed mostly in buildings like mart and other facilities with dead bodies and loot all around the place looks like raiding to me. What do you think this is about? Sightseeing? Again, what did you expect? Real time raids? A raiding-cinematic-flashback? Do you think the game - no - any game, can support something like that?



It's true they can have a form of leadership as you described though something like that, in gangs usually changes once a week. It's nothing like in Ceasar's Legion like you would hope. Gangs are in general nothing like organizations or organized armies, and a leadership like that - "the toughest, meaniest SOB", can hardly be described as leadership.

As for where they find them, i hate to repeat myself. If all these raider-occupied buildings, which were, ofcourse, full of rations and ammo before or during the war, won't do for you, maybe you need the game to explain that to you too?



At my previous post i quoted something. Their FEV supply hasn't even ended yet. It's also clearly stated that second generation mutants (aka dumb-dumbs) knew how to successfully produce another of their kind and that's the reason they actually search for it. Did you think they had nothing better to do and one day they decided to go find more FEV without knowing what to do with it?
In addition 200 years is objectively a long time in which they could have created plenty of mutants. It's amusing you need to calculate their number by how many mutants they produced each day/month/year to "prove" that mutants in DC should be fewer. You wanted that explained too?



Yea.. if you ignore the fact that they are equiped with latest technology weapons, have a large base and organized patrols and also have a contract on your head and ambush you in various locations.

Besides, if you care so much about lore and loregaps, you could search about them on the internet and learn about them from a reliable/official source. In every game there are such minor gaps, though i don't even consider this a gap because it was obvious to me in-game.

This is a holotape, looted by the (failed obviously) assassination team:

"Boys and girls, we've got ourselves another holier-than-thou white-knight who needs putting down. Here are the details:
Name: (PC Name)
Race: (PC Race)
six: (PC six)
The bounty is 1000 caps this time around. And for a change of pace, they want the head this time.
Good hunting!"

Vaults never had the kind of weaponry they have to begin with unless their expirement "required" it to have it. The only two major supplies of high tech weaponry, or even major weapons are the Gun Runners and Van Graffs. But, the weapons are very expensive. Where do they get the caps to purchase these weapons and ammunition? Or the medical supplies? The Vault would have surely run out of medical supplies by then. Do you ever see an in-game event where they (Fiends) go and raid places? No, but its implied. Fallout 3 is the same way.

The question may still remain as to where the Fallout 3 Raiders got their weapons. Why Wheaton Armory of course. It is occupied by a gang of raiders when you arrive there. It being an Armory would mean it would have a ton of weapons and ammunition and maybe even a ton of medical supplies. But, that can't last forever, right? There are caravans roaming the CW, who are guarded by mercenaries. Why would a caravaneer need a guard? Because of the countless raiders and critters that want to kill him/her. The point is, you don't need in-game scripted events to show what is obvious.

As for Super Mutants, I do not remember it being stated that they get "dumber" as they age, only that its implied they get quite larger. Passing on how to "turn" humans shouldn't have been that difficult, considering how the Super Mutants learned that Ghouls cannot be turned and that they all seem to know that they need to find more Green stuff to turn them.

I don't see a jump at all. Regulators try to kill you because you are evil and they are lawmen, simple. With the Talon Company, however, its not so simple. Why are they being contracted to kill you? Because they are inherently evil? No. A more reasonable explanation would be that someone in the CW area benefits from sustained destabilization and chaos. You being a good guy and killing bad guys obviously doesn't help what they are want.

Seems like scavenging with poor taste in furnishing to me. :wink_smile: if the only places they are raiding are unoccupied building with loot (which isn't raiding) and the occasional scavenger they happen across then there are way to many raiders and way to little prey.

All groups of humans have leaders, either appointed or unappointed so Raiders would have leaders, not least because they put together a major base, set up slave pens and captured a Belemoth......I guess that took longer than a day.

NV version of the Raiders is superior IMO, with more background, interaction and multiple factions......FO3 has generic raiders, sorry but NV does everything FO3 does with Raiders only much better.



The Wiki says the FEV supply is running out and all of the FEV chambers in game say empty....which is why their searching for 'green stuff' in the capitol building, which is the first place i'd look for a highly dangerous virus. :whistling:

Basic fact, lots of Supermutants die during Fallout 3......they are never ending in Fallout 3 because they respawn, even if this is stupid (see the supermutant fort next to the purifier) game wise, lore wise they have limited to no ability to restock their numbers so yes they should be dwindling in numbers.






Actually that's one of the stupid things about the Talon Company, HUGE outlay of caps for no apparent gain since nobody seems to benefits from presence, except EBOS...the enclave don't need them or intact with them in any way and the main foe of the Talon Company are the Supermutants, seems like their helping to restore order rather than prevent it.

They also provide the good karma assassination team, I guess they work for that creepy guy at the scrapyard since that the only guy paying for dead good guys in game.

The only official source is the games.

Actually its much better implied in NV, with all the abandoned farms and the population fleeing to outer vegas (most seem to end up living in the sewers), also the fiends raiding the area are mentioned on Radio New Vegas. You can also talk to the leader of the fiends about why he set up in the Vault and about Westside (which has well fortified entrances and an armed miltia). So lots of loot to pay the van Graffs for weaponry and the Great Khans for drugs, at least until the places to raid run out......unlike FO3 of course, with its never ending supply of loot. :celebration: no need to raid, just pick a building, move in, add decoration and kick back and enjoy.



Wheaton Armory seems to primarily a nuclear bomb storage site with a destroyed barracks/admin building, I doubt there was a huge supply of weaponry and ammo in the bombed out building.....all these individual raiders looted the same site individually and peacefully divided up the spoils amongst themselves?



There are four traders roaming the CW, including a stop at the Raiders home base :facepalm: instead of setting up shop to support a population (there's a reason those idiots die you know), there are no caravaners at all in FO3 until EBoS/Rivet City start running water caravans.

It isn't even implied that the raiders have attacked any of the settlements in recent memory.....you have to talk to the oldest person in Megaton to find out they settled there originally as protection from raiders.




Well east coast supermutants are supposed to be dumb, even by supermutant standards so we can only go by the two types, one of which is a giant creature that doesn't seem to have the power of speech. Maybe they are bright enough to learn that ghouls cannot be turned in and humans can in 200 years of practice...doesn't remotely mean they have anything but a hugely limited knowledge of the process.





Regulators are self appointed 'lawmen' who kill people they consider to be evil and are usually pretty modestly equipped, the Talon Company are a much larger, orgainised, well equipped, well funded mercenary company that primarily fights supermutants and tries to kill the Lone Wanderer if he's a good guy (also if he's neutral or down right evil).

Anybody know how exactly the Talon Company are working to destabilise the region, seems like aside for their strange hatred for the Lone Wanderer they seem to spend all their time helping to stabilise the region by reducing the numbers of supermutants fighting the EBoS.

Unoccupied? You can tell that to the skeletons and bodies. Many may be unoccupied, with the raiders being the first to occupy them. What's your problem with that? When the war started and people headed to vaults/shelters it's only natural they left most things untouched. In addition, there are both caravans and scavengers. If all these don't satisfy your view on game consistency, maybe you would want to consider watching movies instead of playing games.


Yes, that's probably the greatest thing they could ever do in a team.



Sure, as i've already said, i agree with you on this. Why repeat it?

Don't have to apologise, agreed FNV has a better raider system with factions etc, though we were supposed to be talking about FO3 environment/story consistency? Not about FNV?



Perhaps you mean the experiment cells? Besides most of the vault is inaccessible to the player. Even if they had ran out of it, 200 years, 2 aeons of production are... quite a few don't you think?
You may not have looked in the capitol, but the mutants are a little less intelligent and they may not be effective in finding the virus or they may never succeed at all.



Huge outlay of caps? You keep saying for no apparent reason. I quoted their holotape. Does it really not say anything to you?
Also, fighting the super mutants won't bring order to the wasteland. If they let the super mutants gain too much power, everything will be overrun by them and the conflict will stop and there would be only one ruling faction in the DC wasteland.


Well yea because they are evil, malicious, very mean and enjoy killing good fellows. That's what you get from their concept? Greatest Alive explains that too. The holotape gives hints about it. The lore states it. They can't have any do-gooder wandering around the wastes, giving hope, uniting the people, aiding BOS who want to bring order to the wastes and generally "making things right".

They could have been hired by anyone who wished to gain control over DC and their goal is quite intelligent. For example the chinese could have hired them to keep the factions from uniting or becoming too powerfull, to prepare a final assault, starting from DC and their goal would perfectly serve the chinese's goal.


In every single game out there (except in games that are not so lore-heavy), some lore loopholes are explained by developers or written in "encyclopedias". There are always such loopholes in lore-heavy games and rarely can one implement every single piece of information into a game.

For the record according to the wiki the Talon Company being hired by a 3rd party to keep the wasteland disorganized is only mentioned in the official strategy guide. So you can't really can't use it to defend Fallout 3. It'd be like defending a movie that fails to explain a basic plot point by saying it was explained in the novelization. If I have to buy the strategy guide to figure out what the hell is supposed to be going on the game has not done it's job.

You know I felt the same way til I played fnv my second time and it hit me like the vault did.

Yes, none said it is mentioned in the game, though i had already assumed it by their holotapes so i wouldn't mind. It's easy to assume it, if you think like you would think in real life. None would kill a do-gooder because he is just evil, he would always want to satisfy his own ends.

Even if they failed providing this information in the game, the official strategy guide is an official source so the information IS valid. Almost every rpg out there has lore explained on its site, official guide or manual which is never mentioned in the game. Check for yourself...

I think the problem people have with the destruction of fo3 is that they have too much faith in ALL mankind. The west coast is a perfect example of what humans can do when they work together and the east coast shows what happens when people stick to themselves. It happens even today so you can't expect the entire us to look like the west coast and fir the ghouls. He's talking about how everywhere but underworld regular ghouls hated you. Meeting them in random encounters they hated you especially if you kill Roy or whatever.

I think Bethesda was trying to show what could happen if we don't cooperate with each other compared to the west coast. I know plenty of people who would say [censored] it of they woke up yo a place like dc of even new Vegas. We aren't all go getters.

I know the difference between Regulators and Talon Company. In fact, Regulators are irrelevent to the discussion so I have no idea why you continually bring them up in the first place. And why are the mercs fighting the Super Mutants in the city? Why do they come after you when you have good karma? Because they are hired to do so. Thats the whole point of them being called mercs.

It seems as though you are refusing to listen to whats being said, so I won't be explaining this anymore.

Something I always wondered was who was paying Talon Company in the first place? Talk about plot holes. Was there a Bad Guys Anonymous meeting that I missed or something?

I think it's been established pretty well anyway that Fallout 3 had it's fair share of plot holes and weak faction storylines.

The Brotherhood of Steel were nothing like their west coast counterparts aside from wearing power armor and having big guns (The Outcasts better fit the mold that the BoS originally made). The Talon Company had no logical reason for existing. The Institute is somehow able to make advanced robots but no story was developed to expand on their potential. Raiders didn't raid anything. At least the Enclave were still the same genocidal maniacs that they've always been but they were led by a computer which was never actually explained.

If it's not mentioned anywhere in the game then it's not exactly "clear and clever" as you've put it. I shouldn't have to consult a strategy guide to have a group's motivations and existence explained (beyond the obvious Bethesda wanted another enemy variant). Can you give me a similar instance in New Vegas where you had to consult a strategy guide just to have any clue why a faction was doing what it was doing? I can't think of one.

Just as an aside even this explanation doesn't make much sense and I fail to see how you would manage to assume it considering one of the major incidents we see them involved in (fighting Super Mutants in D.C. ruins) is completely at odds with this explanation of their behavior. If their goal is a disorganized Capital Wasteland then why are they taking on Super Mutants? Wouldn't they want Super Mutants to be as free to operate and as numerous as possible both to harass the Capital Wasteland's inhabitants and to drain the resources of the Brotherhood? How does this fit in with their claimed motivation?

A mystery man who is never mentioned in game but wants to keep the Capital Wasteland down by killing dangerous 19 year old Vault Dwellers who give water to beggars and simultaneously help to eliminate the single biggest threat to a rebuilt D.C.

It makes perfect sense!