My biggest issue with Fallout 3 are all the people who complain about it and bash folks who never got the opportunity to play the first two. The only thing that playing Wasteland or Fallout 1 makes us is OLD, it does not make us better than anyone who hasn't.

My main problems with Fallout 3, which I'm sure have been listed ad nauseum here, are the following:

1) More than anything else would have to be the bugs; particularly game/quest breaking bugs. I find this true of just about any modern video game but unfortunately games don't have smooth gameplay straight from the get go and almost always need an immediate patch. Damn, at least let me play through the game without crashes and freaking broked quests!!!!! That's too much to ask apparently.

2) I was extremely disappointed at the devs attitude (Even stated in an interview by them) that their focus was predominantly gameplay over storyline. This was my big non bug related complaint; for me the heart of the RPG is the story and the characters, watering them down in this genre in order to focus on VATS or other systems really upsets me as I expect story and characters to be of high quality when in an RPG. Course this also is shared with many an RPG as well anyway, I can count how many RPGs had truly exceptional chatacters and stories and have fingers left over but it was a big gripe against Fallout 3.

3) The length of story related quests, both main and side, were way too few. I had hoped to have much more purposeful things to do outside of simple sandbox exploration, which while I do enjoy immensely, should be accompanied by equivalent storied quests.

4) The size of the cities/towns/settlements. Megaton, Rivet City and Paradise Falls are just fine, but just about everywhere else was too small and had too few residents to qualify for towns. One of my biggest disappointments was Canterburry Commons which, from descriptions, I expected a bustling market city like the Hub from the original or at the very least a city-sized Market District from Oblivion's Imperial City. Arefu, is also an honorable mention in being too small; some of these cities only had 4-5 families and even then in some cities most were dead when you reach them like Brian Wilks' city meaning even less people there. I wish some of these settlemesnt were fused together to make bigger cities/towns, even if that meant less number of communities across the worldspace.

5) The choice/consequence factor not being properlly displayed. The world didn't seem much affected by my actions (Seldom does in most RPGs that claim they do anyway). But it svcks to not have visible changes in the towns you visit or with the people you help/harm as a consequence of the choices I made.

7) Related to above, the endings not showing a city-wide compilation of how my journey affected them like it did in the original Fallouts. I didn't even need, although would have also preferred, to have 4-5 different endings per city; just give me a 1 good/1 bad ending per each city/settlement and I'd be a lot happier.

8) Not having developed companions. Related to character depth I know, but this specifically irks me. Maybe Bioware and Obsidian spoiled things for me because they have companions with their own sidequests, banters, storylines and who are also affected and often change during the course of the game. I so wish Fallout 3's companions had this. (Originals didn't have this either but I think it would have made the game better).

9) Npcs with deeper connections with my characters. Something I miss in most RPGs, where are the npcs that have true connections to my PC. Where are family members, true close friends, mentors, people who make my PC feel like he isn't yet another loner coming from nowhere to again save the world? Sure F3 had Dad and the promising Amata, many RPGs have a love interest or several, but usually this is kept very limited or only the surface of these characters' relationships to the PC are ever explored throughout the game.

10) Some of the specific little details to make immersion better. F3 had some good clutter and level design, compared to others I've seen anyway, but some things that are cruicial for the world's reality was glaringly missing and hurts beliveability. My primary example of this is the missing Brahmin pens in the towns and sites of agriculture in order to display how residents have food outside of the traders. Sure I guess the town has hunters that go and get food and the other stuff is acquired by barter but this was missing from the cities among other similar things.

Anyway that's what I can think off at this moment as far as my main disappointments with F3. I should mention though that most RPGs also suffer from 1 or more of these as well as there is no one perfect RPG out there that provides everything I'm looking for. :shrug:

I'm only 18 yet I've played them all. It doesn't make me old. It just gives you more experience in role playing games.

There's very few (if any) Fallout 1/2 fans here who look down on Fallout 3 fans. Most of the bashing is aimed at Bethesda who turned an isometric turn based series into 'The Elder Scrolls With Guns', and old fans have every right to be upset about that.

Now that's some gymnastics you've done to make that work, heh.

:thumbsup:

I certainly bash the choice itself... but I'd assume that few in Bethesda were actually responsible for that choice, most just likely did as they were told. I can sympathize with mandating that the new product satisfy their current customers and the perceived mass market ~but cannot then sympathize with choosing Fallout as their new product.

Well anyone has the right to be upset about anything they are upset with really. But, what good does being upset do? All it does is make you upset and unsettled and does nothing to change anything.

I can't imagine walking around upset over how a game turned out all the time when there is nothing I can do to change the facts. Waste of my energy really.

And at your age, that's a precious commodity!

No really, as a day 1 purchaser of both FO1 and FO2 I was very pleased with FO3.

:foodndrink:

*But only if they were in the right in the first place... I've seen folks near the point of road rage at another driver, for them not making a turn, out "getting out of their way" ~even if that driver had pedestrians in front of their car. ~That's not a right to be upset :blink:

I've been stopped at a corner preparing to make a right turn , and had someone make a fast left turn around me, and right turn in front of me, because I stopped for a stop sign... That is a right to be upset.

With Fallout 3 :shrug:....
Its as if my favorite corner Pizza shop stopped selling cheese, and began using a cheese substitute on all "pizza" pies because enough folks were lactose intolerant. "Its less fat, an' tastes the same ~so stop complaining". It would be a hassle for me because it would mean that my favored corner spot is no longer enjoyable unless I accept the substitution.

*In this stretched example... the shop just calls it pizza, not Pizza with Cheese substitute.

I'm Syraxis and I approve this statement. :thumbsup:

So you get upset over traffic. I'm too old to waste energy on such things. :shrug: Should someone turns in front of me, I have a mini heart attack and then go find a coffee shop and settle down lest I have a full blown cardiac arrest. At some point in time we have to learn to let such things bounce off us or we do ourselves harm.

The way games change through the years and owners is one of those things I let bounce as is road rage. Now if, someone were to hit those pedestrians and harm them, I'll take the time to help them but no time will be spent on the idiot that ran them over. I save my energy for things that really matter like caring for the above hypothetical pedestrians.

And I said, "you have the right to be upset about anything you wish." So...if you enjoy walking around upset...so be it.

If you live in a small niche of a town... that person will likely do it to you again, and again, and again. :rolleyes:

My post wasn't really about traffic though, it was about being upset while in the wrong (with traffic examples).

I wouldn't consider New Orleans a small niche of a town.

I think I'm in love!! :hubbahubba:

*Sigh*
The town is irrelevant to the reference eh? and she lives in Alaska.

Also... the "Niche town" = our remote corner of the gaming industry.

But what do you gain from being upset or angry regardless of the reason or where you are? You gain nothing. The game doesn't change, the traffic doesn't change and Mr. Macky still can't drive and you steer way clear of him when you see him coming. I mean, all you will gain is ulcers and heart disease and a nervous breakdown. :shrug:

In the end, you can laugh about it or cry about it but it's still the same. I chose to laugh.

My being upset about FO3 and my traffic example were not {originally} related. It was never about my being upset, but about other's right to be upset when they are in the wrong... Like a purse snatcher being upset that the owner called for help and got them arrested.

You gain nothing from just being upset, it can spur you to do something, right? Heh, if you choose not be upset by anything well..some sort of death that sounds like.

Bottom line is though, what is accomplished by being upset? That is all I am saying. At no time have I questioned anyones rights to be upset. As I said, if you or others feel better being upset all the time...go for it.

No, it doesn't. But voicing differing opinions and debating said opinions can help change the series direction in the future.

To an extent, but rarely as we had thought it would.

My biggest issue with Fallout 3 is that it's not a very good game.

That's a pretty broad statement. No reasons it is not very good? Just not for you? Perspective? Combat? Story? Give us a hint.

I'm not too fond of the lack of diplomatic choices. Seems I was always faced with not completing a quest or killing someone. :shrug:

The story is what bothers me mostly. I also hate all of the repetetive hacking and lockpicking, and the boring wasteland, and the boring settlements, and feeling as if the wasteland and settlements therein are not dynamic enough to be fun. I hope they come up with something way better in Fallout 4.

Additionally, FPS > RPG. But this has been repeated over and over, however it is another reason why I don't enjoy the game as much as others.

Yes... In the originals, the PC had a lockpick skill, and he/ or she either could pick it or not; (Best method IMO).

The hacking minigame was a trivial annoyance that brought the game to a halt every time you wanted your PC to access a terminal. The terminal UI once you were in though was great, and worked as well or better than the originals IMO.

*Both issues come of different ideas of what's wanted by the player... but in these cases, it seems a trivial thing to make it an option in the game to behave one way or the other. For the traditional way, give a flat rate XP award, and for the lock picker option, double the XP, and divide by the number of attempts (or something like that), where the lock picker assumes the risk of lower XP, but has the potential for greater if they perfectly pick ti lock.

*For the record... between the two lock pick UI's I prefer the one in Oblivion over Fallout 3
(but greatly prefer the one in Hilsfar over either ; Hilsfar required several unique picks to open a given lock, and you could break the one you needed, but still have the picks for a different lock)
http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/tougherlock.png