Just got Fallout

[aweigh]

Superb trolling match000.

 

[kingcomrade]

Arroyo and the Temple of Trials are not representative of the rest of the game.

Yes they are.

 

[FaranBrygo]

gosh, Fallout 3 is going to suck.

In terms of quality, yes. It will be a mint though. Bethesda will make 4 and 5 and who knows, maybe the cut Interplay gets will be enough to make FOOL? Antichrist cometh.

I never understood the Temple of Trials. How did it get there? If the natives could build something like that then why are they living in huts? Where are the tools that made the building? Arroyo pissed me off because I couldn't see man sliding that far after the removal of civilization. A crude shanty town, yes. Primitave tribal society complete with medican man/witch doctor and crazy prophicies, no.

 

[Balor]

I always thought that they made the temple of trials out of some sort of prewar building, just fitted a few traps, etc.
It does not explain explosives lying around, though.

 

[GoldLeader]

Well, i started my fallout expierience with fallout 2, so it's kind of hard to accept the original as better. IMO they're euqal!

 

[Briosafreak]

I never understood the Temple of Trials. How did it get there?

Jonh Dailey made that area, and he hates it with all his guts. It started as a mandatory memo from the marketing people at Interplay, who pushed for a tutorial level with exactly the characteristics you see in Arroyo to be made. Dailey hated the idea, hated having to make things like the not so bright marketing folks demanded, and still hates even going there...

 

[aweigh]

Hasn't anyone made a Temple-Be-Gone mod like there is one for BG2 (warps you through starting dungeon with all xp + items) and one for Oblivion?

I always put off re-starting FO2 because of the Temple, and just re-start FO1 instead.

 

[Briosafreak]

Actually yes there is one, i can't find it right now though.

 

[Zomg]

Who made San Francisco Briosafreak? Can he breathe without someone holding his mouth open?

 

[aweigh]

laffo

 

[Briosafreak]

Chris Avellone once talked about San Fran:

Polish in Fallout 2? Maybe more to do in Shady Sands? I will say I wish we’d cut some maps out of San Francisco or else cut the location (and Colin McComb would probably agree), and Vault 15 probably wasn’t necessary, either. We were already putting too much into the game anyway, and I think the extra design time ended up detracting from the game rather than helping.

San Fran was a joint effort if i recall correctly, Colin just had to try to organize things.

It has been a while though, ask Avellone and he will tell you more.

 

[kingcomrade]

I always put off re-starting FO2 because of the Temple, and just re-start FO1 instead.

Same here. Shooting rats in the Vault Cavern = okay, since you can get by most of them. Having to put up with a bunch of crap especially if you don't have hand to hand or melee tagged, and good natured, like I prefer to.

San Francisco was by far the stupidest part of Fallout 2.

Arroyo pissed me off because I couldn't see man sliding that far after the removal of civilization. A crude shanty town, yes. Primitave tribal society complete with medican man/witch doctor and crazy prophicies, no.

Couldn't agree more. Especially since these are supposed to be descendants from the Vault Dwellers who left to follow the original Vault Dweller when he was exiled. You'd think they would be MORE advanced than everyone else. If I recall, it's only 70 years after the original game. Sure, people forget things as they get old, but come on. Solik (Sulik? I think I'm mixing it up with a poster here) was also quite possibly the dumbest character ever. Nothing says post-apocalyptic like a Carribbean tribal man with a bone through his nose. ay mon dem bombs be droppin eh?

 

[aweigh]

Well, Sulik's voice-acting was top-notch and humorous but yeah, his character was retarded, just like all of the tribals. It's funny though, I loved FO2 until I played FO1, then realized all the glaring differences and inconsistencies between them. If I'd never played FO1 I'd probably still love FO2, but now It's more of a curiosity.

 

[kingcomrade]

I actually tried to play FO2 before FO1 a number of times, but I lost interest pretty quickly, by the time I got to the first town. Then I decided to try the original, and it blew me away and gave me the fortitude to go through the second. It isn't a bad RPG, I just kinda wish it weren't a Fallout game.

 

[puur prutswerk]

Couldn't agree more. Especially since these are supposed to be descendants from the Vault Dwellers who left to follow the original Vault Dweller when he was exiled. You'd think they would be MORE advanced than everyone else. If I recall, it's only 70 years after the original game. Sure, people forget things as they get old, but come on. Solik (Sulik? I think I'm mixing it up with a poster here) was also quite possibly the dumbest character ever. Nothing says post-apocalyptic like a Carribbean tribal man with a bone through his nose. ay mon dem bombs be droppin eh?

It seems about right to me. The vault dwellers had everything handed to them in that vault and probabbly didn't know anything about survival. They left all their computers in 13 and couldn't build new ones from scratch out of scrap metal. There might have been a few dwellers with knowledge of technology, but they would have had absolutely no experience with wastelandjunk. Only high tech vault stuff.
Everyone else had been in the wasteland for a long time so they are much better adapted to those harsh conditions there. But I agree on the tribal stuff though, that's just weird. Considering that they don't have any history of sticking animal remains through their noses.

 

[galsiah]

I just played Fallout for the first time. It certainly is a great game, though a little rough around the edges (I think I was unlucky in the amount of "roughness" I encountered thgouh). The manual and the introduction have style. In fact the whole game has style.

Some of the descriptions never fail to amuse me:
"You keep a close eye on these rocks, in case they move to attack you."

One complaint I do have is that the NPC scripting / conversation does not always adapt well to player actions. That's not a real design criticism, since I'd probably prefer non-linear but occasional buggy to linear with polish. It'd just be nice if every possibile course of player action were well catered for.

********** Anti-spoiler for first time players **********
If anyone asks you, you most definitely ARE a ghoul. Trust me on this.



**************Spoilers Below**************

A couple of times things went a bit strange when I took action on the basis of dialogue without first triggering the quest (or stage) by making the intended choice. For instance in junktown I went with Vinnie (?) to kill the bartender, with the intention of waiting for him to try, then killing him, then reporting this to the guards. I did this, but it didn't seem to get me anywhere. Going back to see the Skulz, I found Vinnie still alive [though I'd definitely shot and killed him in the bar]. I then talked to Lars, went along to the bar and killed him again.

Another mild annoyance was going to see Razor (of the Blades) after talking to Zimmerman but not accepting the quest to kill her. This seemed a reasonable thing to do, since he seemed a bit suspicious and I wanted to talk to her before accepting the quest. Razor then starts going on about gun runners and won't talk to me. Going back to Zimmerman and accepting the quest fixed things.


However, by far the most annoying was my unerring ability to track down and make the worst possible dialogue choice in the game (I think):

After failing to find the water chip at vault 15, and about 70 days had passed, I was getting a little concerned about the time. I decided to leave side quests / exploration for a while, and focus on finding a chip. At this point I talked to the water merchants at the Hub, and heard that there might be a chip at Necropolis. Going to Necropolis, I spoke with the Ghouls in the sewer, and learned the location of the chip. At the watershed, I met a mutant named Harry.

Being a mostly non-violent, honest guy, I decided to talk to Harry. After all, these mutants were probably just innocent victims of the radiation...

There seemed no reason to lie about being a ghoul, so I told Harry I was not one. The next choice was either to fight (and I was not a violent sort), or to go and see "Lou".
Perhaps I can find more information from this Lou guy thought I - after all, there's no reason to think that these mutants are evil...

It turns out Lou wants to know where my vault is, and then to dip me in a vat. Probably not a wise decision after all then. *Note to self: violent prejudice can be a good thing*. Still, perhaps this happens to everyone - I'm sure I can talk my way out...

Next decision: Tell him where the vault is, or refuse. He doesn't seem a good sort, so I refuse.

Then I can tell him the vault is "Over the mountains to the west - I'll draw you a map.", or I can refuse again. Now of course to those who know where the military base is, "Over the mountains to the west" is clearly a lie. However, Harry hadn't told me where he was taking me, so for all I knew, "Over the mountains to the west" might have been the truth.
Therefore I refused. Ouch.
And refused again. Ouch.
And refused again. Ouch.
And got chucked in a cell.

Taking stock:
The bad: I have no equipment. I'm at the bottom of a military base full of super mutants. I'm locked in a cell. I'm level 5. I have 7 HP. My skills are pretty low (having found no skill books yet).

The good: I'm not bad at lockpicking. I'm with Ian, and the mutants seem to have allowed him to keep his stuff (which I eventually realised I could easily steal without provoking Ian).

After dying in an interesting variety of ways [including the always amusing "This forcefield looks weak enough to walk through" ... *player walks forward and is converted to a pile of ash and bones* - seemingly my science skill was not high enough to add the "...unless you have seven hit points, in which case you'll be fried."], I destroyed the vats and escaped.

After this most of the NPCs who had anything to do with the military base quest seemed rather confused - once (with the BoS elders) to the point of causing an infinitely restarting dialogue, requiring a reload and different decisions. Most of the clues and interesting information found in the Glow etc. were somewhat less involving once I had already heard the punch line from the Lieutenant.

Since going to the military base so early is neither much fun (at least in the not-dying-a-lot sense), nor catered for well in other dialogues - particularly at the BoS -, I'd have much prefered not to bump into this in my first play-through.


Given my bad luck / stupidity, are there any similar such decisions in Fallout 2, which can easily be avoided in retrospect? I'm fine with things turning out to be challenging, or unexpected, but I'd rather not make such a drastic decision if the rest of the game doesn't support it well.

 

[RK47]

...wow man. u played F1 in a crazy way IMO
don't worry too much about F2,but I think you prioritize in the wrong things at the wrong time.

personally, i play fallout with survivability in mind. so i never really go for those dangerous looking quest unless i got enough gear and stimpaks to cover my ass, so I never really met crazy things when unprepared like you did.

 

[galsiah]

The thing is, I wasn't being crazy - not intentionally at least. I was just following the trail of the water chip, which lead me to Necropolis. Then I talked to Harry, and decided to be honest and non-violent. If I'd known this was going to land me imprisoned in a horribly difficult area clearly I would have done things differently.

As it was, I suspected that I had deviated from "the script", but I thought I'd go where chance had taken me. It's just a shame that the game doesn't adapt too well to that scenario. That's understandable - a nonlinear game can't adapt perfectly to everything. It's just unfortunate that I bumped into this the first time through.

Also, having gear and stimpacks would not have helped at all, since all my stuff was confiscated when I was captured and put in a locker the wrong side of a shoot-on-sight super-mutant. Talking my way past him was not possible, and I had a low sneak skill. If I hadn't had Ian with me (and thus been able to steal some equipment), then getting out would have been virtually impossible [stealing weaponry from guards on level 4 would be an option, but I don't think any have small guns].


After this experience, I went back to my more usual shoot-anything-suspicious mode of playing. However, I would have liked to be able to stick to a more diplomatic approach - even after having been captured (if there was a way to do this, I didn't see it). Particularly given that non-violent characters are the most likely to get imprisioned in the first place - most violence first characters would not allow themselves to be taken prisoner. I did allow this because my character was looking for a peaceful solution, and was unaware that mutants were the enemy.

Perhaps I should have pretended to be a ghoul when I first met Harry. It did occur to me, but given my character's current knowledge and attitude, it didn't make too much sense. I hadn't found any evidence that mutants were enemies at this stage. The Children of the Cathedral seemed to be the dodgy folks, and the one I'd spoken to seemed at the time to pity the mutants, rather than to worship them. The fact that this mutant was a mean looking guy with a gun was little evidence - human and ghoul guards were no less threatening, and they weren't all bad guys.

I'm not so much bothered that I got into that situation - it's perfectly reasonable -, just that there was no non-violent way out of it (I think). What would have worked best from a plot perspective would probably have been to give the player some means of escape that was not too hard, but that didn't allow the vats to be destroyed. As it was, destroying the vats was the easy part (at least it is once you've made the wrong decision and died a few times after failing a science check) and escaping was the hard part - for a low level character with no armor and only Ian's spare gun.

 

[Zomg]

Hah - that's too bad that you had a sour experience like that, although it's pretty funny. It's unfortunate that you (apparently) missed the Deathclaw quest in the Hub that would have given you some motivation for dissembling with super mutants. C'est la nonlinear.

Fallout 2 is much less coherent and more compartmentalized - if you can handle a general spoiler there's one piece of advice I'd give to keep the game from getting too weird:


Don't move around the western coastline until you have a reason to - it's easy to ruin the game there by getting a certain item too soon, and to screw up the narrative in general.

 

[galsiah]

Edit: MORE SPOILERS




I saw the deathclaw quest, but I was thinking that it was a time-consuming distraction, and that I should focus on getting the water chip first. It seemed like I was fairly close to getting it, but I couldn't be certain, since the Necropolis might have been another dead end like vault 15.

After meeting the friendly ghouls in the sewer, I was in a fairly All-Species-Can-Get-Along mood, so I went for the open, honest approach.

I wouldn't really say it soured things - just made them slightly less sweet. It's the sort of thing I'd liked to have bumped into the second time through. It'd be nice to have nonlinearity which responded coherently to every circumstance, of course, but that's a very difficult (impossible?) target.

Thanks for the Fallout 2 advice. I'll give the western coastline a miss for a while.