Review Edward R Murrow's Dissertation on Fallout 3

[Elwro]

BTW, trais, you know that the crater in Megaton is not a result of a hit from an unexploded bomb? It's explained in the game.

 

[trais]

Erm... no. I did couple things for Moira, talked to that Colin guy about dad and that's about that. Is that explenation any good?

 

[Darth Roxor]

Morrowind:

this is not entirely true. At the 'meet vivec' step, you can kill him and unlock an alternative path leading through the Corprus-struck dwarf

 

[elander_]

this is not entirely true. At the 'meet vivec' step, you can kill him and unlock an alternative path leading through the Corprus-struck dwarf

Actually, i believe, you can do this as soon as you can lockpick the 100 level door that leads to Vivec's room. No need to wait for Vivec meeting. Someone correct me if i'm mistaken.

 

[Helton]

Actually, i believe, you can do this as soon as you can lockpick the 100 level door that leads to Vivec's room. No need to wait for Vivec meeting. Someone correct me if i'm mistaken.

You're not mistaken.

 

[Applegate's Breasts]

It's about Baldur's Gay now.

 

[drunkpriest]

 

[Silellak]

approaching left side of the location will open location that is to the left on a world map

You must gather your party before venturing forth.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

... said the man who found combat hard and "death easy".

The fun part about Fallout 3 combat and death.. You can have 3 raiders shooting you up with SMGs and hunting rifles, beat them to death and live, then walk off a ten foot cliff and die.

I'm confused. Are you really saying that city run by kids is less stupid than city run by mobsters?

Yeah, because the whole point of a casino is to launder dirty money and hide activities from the Feds. Since they run the town, there's no point in casinos. Without cops, there's no way there would be four rival mobster gangs because they'd wipe each other out until only one remained. There certainly wouldn't be a really weak mobster family like the Wrights. You'd have one gang and it would wipe out any competition before it really got started, there's nothing to stop it.

In Fallout, Gizmo had Killian to keep him in check. He needed a casino to hide his activities. You had a struggle between a fledgling authority and the seamy underbelly of society. The same thing with the Falcon and the cops in The Hub.

Now, I do have a problem with the kids' town in one fairly major area. Where do the new kids keep coming from? While the idea of kids' towns fits the post apocalyptic theme, it certainly doesn't fit 200 years after the apocalypse. That's where it gets dumb.

Ridiculing the fact that Megaton was build in crater of unexploded bomb got old 6 months ago, so I'll focus on Moira. Will it be enough if I point out that you can get extra perk from her, which will grant you ability to regenerate your crippled limbs if you're radiated?

As opposed to getting a perk that improves your Speech skill because you're cleaning out Brahmin pens? So, you get really radiated, she tosses some experimental cure down your throat, and you develop a new ability. How does that not fit the retro-future theme?

BTW, I never finished Survival Guidebook quest, so I'm wondering how does she plan to print that book?

How many holodisks are laying around the wasteland?

I see. So, you have problem with 1 working car, but working computers even in damaged buildings (I'm pretty sure there is working terminal in Dunwich Building, but half of the floors there are missing!) are ok?

Fallout 3 does have a lot of computers laying around that work. Of course, Fallout's computers are vacuum tube based so yeah, most of them would still work after the bomb blasts if they had power and the shockwaves didn't break them.

May I say instead, that booby traps made of cherry bomb, lunch-box and handful of bottle caps are way more deadly than professional landmine or grenade?

Are they? I never checked the damage on those things. But then again, nitpicking the damage of such things in a CRPG is a little silly, especially one like Fallout. Look at the damage on the Louisville Slugger in Fallout versus the 14MM Pistol. Sometimes of the damage of items are tweaked versus real world common sense depending on other things. The bottle cap mine mine be tweaked because you have to craft them kind of like how the Louisville Slugger does more damage than the 14MM pistol because you have to get right up on someone to use it.

Or mention that telephone booth looking nuclear shelters?

How are the booths not appropriate? You should have seen some of the devices they sold back in the 1950s as cheaper alternatives to fallout shelters. I laughed my ass off when I first encountered one of those booths, opened the door, and the burnt bodies flopped out.

(About me not using guns in Fallout 3) Lucky you...

Yeah, I didn't use guns in Bloodlines either.

Unless you could find working cars laying around in Fallout 2, which I do not remember. All I remember is one guy fixing up a broken car that you could then use, what exactly does not make sense about this? Other than the obvious lack of a gasoline supply, of course.

Fallout had a nice special encounter about how cars no longer exist. But even if that guy got one that worked, where are you going to find tires that hold air 160 years after the nuclear war? Or hoses for a cooling system that didn't dry rot out in the wasteland. Or a transmission that isn't gummed up because the oil gelled up.

To clarify, I have no problem with car being nuclear powered, but I do have a problem with car exploding and emitting radiation after being hit by few bullets.

That's the problem I have with them as well. They're too damaged fragile. I beat a raider to death up against a car and the car blew up before the raider died. They need about 10 times the amount of hit points they have, or possibly be highly resistant to normal damage and more vulnerable to plasma or laser. I can see one going up after 8 or so plasma shots, but not a few swings from a sledgehammer.

Erm... no. I did couple things for Moira, talked to that Colin guy about dad and that's about that. Is that explenation any good?

Megaton's crater is the result of planes trying to land at the nearby airport when the bombs started falling. So, basically, repeated plane crashes. Also, they built Megaton from plane parts.

They were going to get rid of the bomb that ended up there, but the Church of the Atom were helping build the town. They needed the labor to haul plane parts from the airport to finish the town, so they kept the bomb.

One thing that cheesed me off is I couldn't rub it in the Church of Atom's face that I broke their bomb after I diffused it.

 

[trais]

Yeah, because the whole point of a casino is to launder dirty money and hide activities from the Feds. Since they run the town, there's no point in casinos.

I'm pretty sure there are some casinos in the world that are set up because they can generate profit, not to launder money. But I agree, main reason for New Reno to be in F2 is because "it's cool". It's silly, it's a stretch, but F3 took F2 "theme parks" and multiply them to ridiculous levels.

As opposed to getting a perk that improves your Speech skill because you're cleaning out Brahmin pens? So, you get really radiated, she tosses some experimental cure down your throat, and you develop a new ability. How does that not fit the retro-future theme?

You mean perk you get in Broken Hills? I don't actually remember what it gives and why, but I'd rather get speech bonus than regeneration bonus. I think super powers may fit Spiderman game, but not Fallout one.

BTW, I never finished Survival Guidebook quest, so I'm wondering how does she plan to print that book?

How many holodisks are laying around the wasteland?

So everyone have pipboy, to read them?

Fallout 3 does have a lot of computers laying around that work. Of course, Fallout's computers are vacuum tube based so yeah, most of them would still work after the bomb blasts if they had power and the shockwaves didn't break them.

So computers are rock-solid and immune to EMP, but there are no cars that can survive bombing? I'm 100% sure in Fallout 1 intro was ad of full analog car. There shouldn't be any problems repairing such car, even if it would be damaged.

May I say instead, that booby traps made of cherry bomb, lunch-box and handful of bottle caps are way more deadly than professional landmine or grenade?

Are they? I never checked the damage on those things. But then again, nitpicking the damage of such things in a CRPG is a little silly, especially one like Fallout. (...)

Ok, it may be nitpicking. But it's same "wouldn't it be cool" syndrom F2 suffers from. It's cool you can make your own weapons from junk, but find so much other stuff, that it would be pointless to make even more, if crafted stuff weren't way more powerfull. For the record, bottle cap mine is 5 times more powerful than standard frag mine, according to http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_3 ... Explosives

Or mention that telephone booth looking nuclear shelters?

How are the booths not appropriate?

Why waste money and build full-fleged Vaults then? It may fit 1950 retro setting, but not fallout setting per se.

To clarify, I have no problem with car being nuclear powered, but I do have a problem with car exploding and emitting radiation after being hit by few bullets.

That's the problem I have with them as well. They're too damaged fragile. I beat a raider to death up against a car and the car blew up before the raider died. They need about 10 times the amount of hit points they have, or possibly be highly resistant to normal damage and more vulnerable to plasma or laser. I can see one going up after 8 or so plasma shots, but not a few swings from a sledgehammer.

They shouldn't explode at all. Why would you need atomic bombs if you can create as much destruction by simply crashing one car into another? Or making some other kind of road accident. In city with lots of traffic you could get chain-reaction and results would be astonishing.

Megaton's crater is the result of planes trying to land at the nearby airport when the bombs started falling. So, basically, repeated plane crashes. Also, they built Megaton from plane parts.

Repeated plane crashes? So pilots didn't see burning wrecks of earlier crashed plans? Or they just all happened to crash in the same place? That doesn't make much sense either. But ok, I can swallow it, tho' I still find Moira's guidebook silly.

 

[Ausir]

Why waste money and build full-fleged Vaults then? It may fit 1950 retro setting, but not fallout setting per se.

They were a cheap alternative made by a competitor of Vault-Tec.

 

[Tintin]

So did the debate continue at ITS or not? Too lazy to check.

 

[Edward_R_Murrow]

Cleanup time.

Listen you denial beserker - you were wrong. There are tons of checks, and most of them are not 'gimme more money'. Most are in fact 'I can get the quest done more quickly' checks. I've also encountered medical, repair, explosives quest checks. And those are just the skills I had high enough. The fact you wrote 'there are scant other checks apart from gimme more money' indicates exactly what VD and I have criticised your piece about.

See...here's the problem with your argument. That's what you experienced versus what I experienced. Seeing as it's a big "sandbox game" with a lot of stuff, there could be alot of checks unmapped out. You could have skirted all the "gimme moneys", or I could have just run into a ton of them by chance. We only have our impressions to go off of. Mine were that a majority of skill checks seemed to be of the "gimme more money" variety. I'm open to the fact I could be wrong on this, but "That's what I experienced!" isn't really solid proof against mine. Like I said, wait for a Per Jorner/DSimpson style guide that breaks everything down, or go do it yourself by diving into the game files. Then you can gloat all you want with strong evidence at your side, and not a crappy version of Volourn's arguments.

That's how you prove someone wrong, not "Nuh, uh. I saw differently! You're in denial!".

The schematics are not 'radically useless'. You were wrong. PERIOD. FFS

Maybe "radically" was a bad word. Whoops. Still don't think they're worth the effort except in very rare cases where you find them abnormally early. Seems like a few others agreed with my impressions, and a few others didn't. Seems like the people who find schematics useless found the game easy and the people who didn't found it challenging. Seems kind of telling.

Shutup. By saying 'actual' and nothing more, you clearly implied actual vampires.

If I was trying to imply "actual vampires", wouldn't I have writtren that, instead of "actual vampire people"? You're just trying way too hard to find faults for some reason.

Plus, it's also a matter of vampire taxonomy. To me, vampires are blood drinkers, like vampire bats, and that's all you need. It doesn't need to be straight out of D&D, Blade, Underworld, or White Wolf to be a "proper" vampire. But I realize that might not be other's impression of a vampire, so I added "people" onto it, to specify that they were people first and foremost, but with the quality of vampires.

You clearly hadn't talked to the quest NPCs right through when you wrote that.

I wrote the entire review a few days after playing. Nice assumption though.

Yeah ok, what you were clearly implying was they were lawyers. FALLOUT 3 SUCKS, IT'S GOT ACTUAL RAYMOND BURR PEOPLE! HARRY HAMLIN AND SUSAN DEY COMIN' AT YA!! ALAN DERSHOWITZ ATTACK!

I'm saying vampire isn't clearly defined as an undead, superhuman, magical creature and could have multiple meanings, including something as "mundane" as a lawyer. You just assumed that to go all postal on the review.

Ummm... projecting much?

I'll take that as evidence I'm spot on.

This cuts to the heart of the matter, it is very strong evidence that at the time he wrote the review, Murrow had given the game a cursory play, and based his words mainly on prior expectations

Strong evidence? Seems more circumstantial. Like I said before, maybe I missed a bunch of these other meaningful (read; checks that actually do stuff more than flavor) non-moneygrubbing checks. It isn't a very strong case.

One would not normally expect a flock of screeching automatons to descend simply because this criticism is made of a review. But of course, I have forgotten that I am now posting on BethesdaBashingIsSacredCodex. How remiss of me.

Ok. You think this is Bethesda-bashing? Why did I praise some of their quests as brilliant? I don't even think VD went that far. Then feel free to actually take on some of the major points of the review instead of building some poorly done circumstantial case. The combat is still awful, the locations dull, and too much emphasis is put on the terrible style of generic hack and loot gameplay hat plagued Morrowind and Oblivion. Even VD admits the role-playing is an "exotic side dish" and constitutes only "25%" of the game. Why don't you look at my criticism of the other 75% and understand why I said it was a mediocre game?

And here's some more fun.

Because overall all BG1 locations represent less than 10% of any sandbox game world. Most BG maps were generic "wilderness" with some combat and a few NPCs. Such maps could be cleared in less than 10 min. 20 such maps look impressive on gameworld map, but take no more than a few hours to deal with them all. They are not "gameworld", they are content filler.

I always liked Mad Libs. Let's try something like that, shall we?

Most of Fallout 3 was generic "dungeons" with some combat and a little backstory. Such places could be cleared in less than 10 min. 85 such locations look impressive on gameworld map, but they aren't very impressive to play. They are not "gameworld", they are content filler.

 

[Twinfalls]

Cleanup time.

See...here's the problem with your argument. That's what you experienced versus what I experienced.

ESF argument ahoy! A review is just an opinnion!1!

Who wrote something and submitted it to be published on the front page of the Codex? Who wrote a piece which was described as a 'dissertation', and who intended it to be at the very least a 'review'?

See, here's the thing Murrow. You must some kind of serious primadonna if you can't accept even the most basic of criticism. The fact is that you can not have played a substantial amount of the game if you only experienced 'gimme more money'. It's as simple as that. I suspect that now that you've played more of it you agree with me, but aren't prepared to admit it.

If you were prepared to dismiss a facet as major as skillchecking, without at least acknowledging that you hadn't played much of it - and couldn't even consult an external reference, then your review was guilty of exactly what it's been called up on - glib and mistaken.

That's how you prove someone wrong

So why don't you go ahead and do just that? It was you, after all, who wrote the 'dissertation'. I don't expect Captain Forensic aka DU to do this for you, since he's long ago demonstrated he's just arguing for the sake of it and hasn't even played the game at all.

The schematics are not 'radically useless'. You were wrong. PERIOD. FFS

Maybe "radically" was a bad word. Whoops.

Hooray! See, that wasn't so hard, was it? Now just take it a little further - you know you can do it! The schematics are not 'useless' and to dismiss them entirely like that shows some problems with your review. It's a glib dismissal and you were mistaken.

That's how you suck it up, sweetie.

Plus, it's also a matter of vampire taxonomy...(etc)

Sorry, no sale. All you wrote was 'actual vampire people' in a manner intended to cause derision. You spent not a word more in explaining yourself if you actually thought there was more to it. Quite frankly, I do not believe you.

Once again, glib, and in this case, misleading.

I'm saying vampire isn't clearly defined as an undead, superhuman, magical creature and could have multiple meanings, including something as "mundane" as a lawyer. You just assumed that to go all postal on the review.

I mean seriously - this is just ridiculous. When you write about 'vampires' in a review about a Bethesda RPG and explain no further (no, 'people' is not explaining further), what do you expect readers to think you mean? It's some kind of unreasonable 'assumption' to think you mean vampires in the typical sense? Is this supposed to be a joke?

One would not normally expect a flock of screeching automatons to descend simply because this criticism is made of a review. But of course, I have forgotten that I am now posting on BethesdaBashingIsSacredCodex. How remiss of me.

Ok. You think this is Bethesda-bashing? Why did I praise some of their quests as brilliant? I don't even think VD went that far. Then feel free to actually take on some of the major points of the review instead of building some poorly done circumstantial case.

I was referring to the others who joined the thread with that comment, not you. I've already pointed out where I commented that some of your review was really good, made good criticisms, and I was mistaken to dismiss your entire review as just a diatribe.

As I seem to need to point out multiple times - I'm not the one writing a review here.

edit:edit:edit! freaking quote blocks

 

[DefJam101]

10 pages of arguing fucking semantics.

 

[Twinfalls]

1539 idiotic one-or-two-line posts of no substance whatsoever. Go the fuck away from this site, please.

 

[elander_]

There's a Fallout 3 walk through here:
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_3_walkthrough

And a list of quests here:
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout_3_quests

From what it shows it shows a better picture.

There are 11 main quests that give you some achievement points.

There are 17 side-quests that also give you achievement points and are comparable with the Tenpenny Tower quest i guess.

There are 21 small quests without achievement points. I suppose these are the simple quests that can be done in 10 minutes.

There are 8 repeatable quests, which i think is cool. It's too bad some of these are fetch quests.

The bulk of the game are the side quests and the main quests because those should be the most developed quests. Overall i don't think this is too bad. There's 17 role-playable side-quests against 11 linear main quests. It looks like Bethesda has strike a good balance.

 

[DarkSign]

Uhm perhaps the momentum of the huge ass rocket displaced the ground...not the explosion that didnt happen?

Wow. That's pretty much a no-brainer.

 

[DefJam101]

1539 idiotic one-or-two-line posts of no substance whatsoever. Go the fuck away from this site, please.

You don't know shit about me, stop assuming that I am talking about you directly. Would you rather I joined in and spewed some shit about a game I haven't played? No? Didn't think so. What I have seen for the last 5 or so pages is you people arguing about the difference between being radically useless and only slightly useless. It's great that you think you're cool because you're of the 'old crowd', but I really could care less.

 

[Twinfalls]

1539 idiotic one-or-two-line posts of no substance whatsoever. Go the fuck away from this site, please.

You don't know shit about me.

Boo-hoo. I know that you've now made 1540 completely useless posts.

 

[DefJam101]

Well, that certainly is revealing.

Carry on.

 

[Twinfalls]

Oh, you've stopped crying! That's the spirit. Chin up and back to work on that post count!

 

[Twinfalls]

Now, I do have a problem with the kids' town in one fairly major area. Where do the new kids keep coming from? While the idea of kids' towns fits the post apocalyptic theme, it certainly doesn't fit 200 years after the apocalypse. That's where it gets dumb.

Yes, it's pretty seriously idiotic. I think it stems from Bethesda's style of designing. We know from Oblivion interviews that a bunch of different people are assigned to each come up with quest lines. They go off and come up with their stuff apparently with no real collaboration, then have a meeting where each one describes what they've done and the others say 'wow, cool'. Check the credits for FO3, there's about 10-15 people credited with writing and quest design.

It's not a cohesive vision, and as VD described so accurately in his review, it ends up being a theme-park, with 'wouldn't that be cool' stuff just clunked together.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

I'm done with this thread.

 

[MountainWest]

Railroad Rifle... no more?

This never really turned into to the drama I had hoped for. I have to applaud DU, though, on his insistence using "flip-flop" and the stinging jabs that were we here at RPGCodex. Sadly, VD never took the bait. A little "Yeah, I know of RPGCodex; I used to run it until you backstabbed me and turned it into shit", would've probably sparked something good. Now we'll never know, and it makes my heart of hearts sad.