Daddl

Yeah, if you want a good compagnion then choose one of those: - early in the game take Charon - he's easy to find and you don't need to be high level to get to him. - after you gain access to the citadel the paladin Cross is a good choice - after Vault 87 Fawkes is a great choice - it's not like you'll be finished exploring the world by then, so pause the main campaign and go exploring with your favourite Hulk imitator The dog was a shitty compagnion in the first games, too. They got that one right! I just discovered the fun of using mini nukes indoors... nothing like cleaning out a few enclave or super mutants with one of those!

I just reached level 20 (final level as I'm playing on a console, so no mods/cheats for me) after entering the citadel with Dr. Li. I did most of the big non-main quests first and only now decided to continue (now nearly 100h into the game) the main story. And there's still quite a few corners of the map (even in the center of DC) I haven't visited yet. Oblivion might have been a 'bigger' world, but Fallout definitely beats it in content! One more thing I really learned to love during all those hours: no more generic books you find everywhere and that repeat each other endlessly. I like the way much of the background story is told through location specific messages and log entries in terminals all over the wastelands. This adds much more to the immersion than the many books radomly found all over Cryondil in Oblivion.

But which ones? I got them from dead ghuls in the metro tunnels, but the metro's protectrons are 'pacified' by simply showing a metro ticket (of which I have about ten right now). Others - like in the Super Duper Market - require an identification specific to the location (like an employee ID). With the blue access cards there is no hint what their use could be (no hidden areas, locked doors or robots to pacify where I found them) - they seemed like random loot...

Anyone found out what the blue access cards are for that can sometimes be found on dead ghouls? Just a small reference to FO1 & FO2 where you aways needed those to access certain areas? I already got two of them, but haven't found anywhere to actually use them...

Ok, enjoying a week off I'm now 80 hours into the game and haven't progressed further into the main campaign than talk to the good doctor in Rivet City - and only because I bypassed the GNR mission by stumbling upon her doing the Wasteland Guide missions. Great fun so far - I'm at Level 16, done a ton of exploring and many, many sidequests - right now in Oasis, just about to decend into the caverns to end Harolds live (or not - I haven't decided yet), maybe I'll do Fort Constantine (allready aquired the keys) or the Head of State mission afterwards, or Agatha's violin search, or the GNR mission after all... I have like eight major missions active right now and still find more for each I finish - damn it's so hard to decide!

I'm currently on my way to Rivet City - still haven't followed dad to the radio station, but doing the Wasteland Guide quest on Rivet City's history. Unfortunately it'll take me until Sunday night or even Monday until I can continue playing - friends, family and social life sometimes really, really get in the way of important things!!! Â Ah well, at least I can play some Fallout 2 on the train ride... Probably going to clean out the Wanamango mine or rid the world of Metzger!

With oblivion you can spend that time on a single playthrough even without any mods. I think It took me about 140 hours to play through the original game and the two expansions (Knights of the Nine and Shattered Isle). But then I explored almost every cave and really tried to be thorough. If I get 2/3 of that time from Fallout 3 I'm more than satisfied.

Mods are fine and dandy, but I have long work days (often up to 12h), and with those my patience with software and hardware issues (despite being a developer myself) has shrunk to near zero. I don't have the time (or nerves) for all that shit anymore. There came a point when I was so fed up, I just went and bought me a console - and I haven't regretted it for a single day. The cost for the console hardware and the few games I bought (including some like Oblivion that I already owned for the pc) was less than getting a new gaming pc or updating my old one. And as the next ArmA and OFP releases will be multiplatform I don't see any needs to invest in the pc anymore. Since my company provides me with a personal notebook, I might even throw the old rig out completely and save all costs for a private pc. After all the only pc games I played during the last year (Fallout 1 & 2) run fine in a virtual machine, so no problem there. For me playing on a console saves time, nerves and money - which contributes greatly to my enjoyment of actually playing the games. I'll rather waive the chance to use mods for that. It took me months to play through Oblivion, Knights of the Nine and Shattered Isles on the console, and it was pure fun with no technical issues at all.

Yeah, either try to stay 'high' or go to the doctor in Megaton to heal your addiction (50 caps iirc). As long as you just take one dose of a drug (apart from stimpacks) at a time and wait until way after it's effects end before taking another dose you should be safe from addiction. Just use them with care. I assume you play the PC version? Stability is the one reason I'm happy to play on a console. Although the console versions are reported to have quite a few issues, too, I haven't encountered a single bug. If only Bethesda hadn't cut out the PS3 from future DLC I'd be very happy indeed. But who knows - in the end Oblivion got it's GOTY-version that included most of the DLC previously only available for PC and 360 (I actually preferred to play that game on the console despite having it for the PC, too), so maybe I'll get lucky afterall.

I actually like having them on my heels - 1-2 grenades, a few shots with the combat shotgun and voilá: 3-4 pieces of shiny combat armor (used to fix the one I'm wearing since I first encountered them), good weapons and a few stimpacks richer. What's there to complain about? I think Mr Burns is right: if you get too much bad karma some other fraction will be after you, so you'll have to learn to live with them. As I haven't gone to Tenpenny Tower yet (but also had the suspicion that they were responsible), I'm also curious whether it's possible to void the contract on yourself by killing the guy who paid for it. BTW: has anyone broken into Mr. Burke's house in Megaton yet? It's 100 lock picking skill (or is there a key somewhere?) to get in there, but is it worth the effort? I've heard difficulty doesn't nescessarily translate into content...

Lab is good for de-toxifiying yourself (healing addiciton). The one time i tried to make a potion it told me to wait 24hrs until it´s done and what i got was a bottle of purified water, meh :-/ No change of ingredients or taking influence in the process. Seems like it's as worthless as the workbench (free to use at Moira's and also found in several dungeons), as the lab costs way over 1000 caps (due to my bad bartering skill like 1700 caps for me), while healing the addiction at the good doctor's place costs just 50 caps... Pity, I really liked the potion making part in Oblivion (best way to make tons of money easy).

Well, drugging people to death with super stimpacks was plain useless anyways - I always preferred to pickpocket them a live bomb - and, yay, that still works! At least they kept the addictions . As far as I can see you get addicted rather quickly now - something I seldom managed to do (unintentionally) in the original games. Now just take two Buffouts too quickly and - bang! - you're hooked. At least there's an easy way to get rid of them at the medic's place. Still, fighting through a long, ant-filled dungeon, trying to make the Med-X stock last through was a sobering experience. While I still use them sometimes, I've gotten much more careful now! BTW: Once you have your own house you can also buy a lab - accoring to Moira it's for mixing your own chems. As I haven't bought it yet, what can you do with it? Produce your own medications (stimpacks, Rad-X, etc.)? And do you need to buy/find 'instructions' like you need for the 'home-brew' weapons?

Mhhh... I haven't seen more or less bashing than anywhere else. Having just played the old games again, I must say that FO3 does a great job in continuing the story. Not that I don't have some gripes about it (the crappy animations caused by the Oblivion engine), too, but storywise and from an rpg aspect they did very well in taking a 3rd-party franchise into a new era (i.e. from 2D to 3D) - and I think that's a view shared by many. That the most dedicated fans of the old games (and that's the crowd you find there) feared for the worst before the release and afterwards were most likely to find discrepancies and complain about them is only natural. Some may take more time to learn loving the new way their favorite franchise is played, but eventually most will come around. After all Beth really did a great job! Their FO3 forums seem to reflect that. Anyways, what would you recommend me to do next: follow my father to the GNR station or continue exploring the wastelands? I did Arefu and the associated quest, did the quest with the ant infested town and the little boy, cleaned Springvale High (not the mines downstairs, tho), and for the survival guide my next mission would be testing the repellent stick. Anything else that might fit my lowly level 6 char? Or should I first follow the GNR trail and explore more later?

My old account there (Joltan) worked fine, don't know what your problem was. I also recommend the No Mutants Allowed website for all kinds of general fallout info (also for the older games). They have a forum related to the games, as well as walkthroughs (not for Fallout 3 yet), gameplay hints, etc.

No, I don't think I have - as I said, I'm still Level 6, and haven't entered DC yet, just following quests and exploring the outskirts. Among other encounters with the super mutants I did the mission where you meet the BoS soldiers in the metro and then have to find their (dead) trainee in the super mutant infested building, tho. A few aimed grenades in VATS and they were history. Nice combat armor on the trainee - and a power armor on a dead BoS knight, too... I'm sure there will be much tougher enemies ahead, but I'm biding my time (haven't even proceeded to the GNR site yet) doing side missions and exploring.

Well, the conversions (last I checked, which -admittedly - was quite a while ago) don't seem to be complete yet, are they? OFP can be bought for less than 10 bucks, and it's still worth it's money. Only one patch to download, and no extra mods and addons required (as surely would be the case for the ArmA conversions - with all the islands and extra units required). As for MP, I really hope it improved. When it was new, ArmA MP sucked big time compared to OFP - I'm sure it's patched up now, but I had the impression he was more interested in SP anyways.

I don't find the super mutants very hard - a few well aimed grenades or rockets get rid of them nice and easy. Fire Ants are another matter - too small and numerous to afford wasting 'nades, but soaking up way too many bullets if you don't get lucky with their antennas quickly. I'm still only Level 6, so with higher gun skills and better weapons that may change, but for the moment super mutants are nice big and soft targets, easy to hit and (so far) only found in groups of 3-4.

Jupp, those are the two 'drug dealing' ghouls inside the metro station. I didn't realize there was a manhole next to the barrels! When the Geiger counter started to run havoc next to them I didn't look further and rather went to check the other 'suspected' locations.

BTW: Has anyone found "the family"? I went to all three sites indicated, but even tho the drug lab mutant at the subway station gave me hints they were somewhere east (i.e. at one of the other two sites) I couldn't locate them anywhere near those places (although I encountered my first Super Mutants and Rad Scorpions at the open air cinema and the hideout respectively)...

I'd get OFP Goty - three games for the price of one, and each one (yes, even Codies' "Red Hammer") way better than the ArmA campaign. The graphics may look dated, but if you play on modern hardware you can raise the quality settings quite a bit so it doesn't look too bad. I bought ArmA when it was released and was utterly dissapointed. Even for online play I still prefered OFP to it's successor. Maybe it got improved with patches and the addon, but for me the great campaigns still make OFP way superior to ArmA. After all a game's first goal is to entertain - and ArmA never really delivered on that, despite much better graphics.

Had my first hours of gameplay now (unfortunately I couldn't dedicate as much of the weekend to playing as I wanted to). So far I've escaped the vault, done most of the quests in Megaton, and I am now ready to advance further into the city. Among other things I've: - helped the addict come clean - repaired the pipes - explored the Super Duper Market for medication and food - got radiated (and gained a nice perk) - disarmed the bomb (shot Burke when he tried to kill the sheriff) and thus gained my very own house ( and butler robot!!! ) - found some more info about my father - got some more quests and quest pointers that will require me to explore Mine Town and some other places The game plays great, and I really like VATS, even if the camera sometimes really fucks up. I always liked to use aimed shots in the original games, and having an AG of 7 I didn't need to resort to normal shooting too much so far (which, considering I'm playing on a console, is a blessing). It doesn't feel like 'Oblivion with guns', even tho it's obviously the same engine (and, yes, the animations still suck), but rather reflects the setting and atmosphere of the original games very well, without being a mere copy. And it doesn't feel like a simple shooter either. It's a great rpg! As for the performance, I can't complain. Playing on a console (PS3) everything runs perfectly fine with no technical or gameplay issues so far, but I imagine on the PC with all the usual hardware and driver mess it might be more of a pain in the ass. Nevertheless the game is really worth playing! @xav: The bomb decision is a definite fork that you can't avoid to take. Either you get the house in Megaton or you destroy the town and gain a room in Tenpenny Tower. Neither result will impede your game, and I don't think it is possible to do all the quests, as at least some are mutually exclusive. If you don't want to decide now, simply leave the decision for later - do all the other quests in Megaton, then follow the main story or go exploring.

Wohooo! Just received my collectors edition - unfortunately I'm still at work with a few more hours to go...

Right: Also they can't really change your username due to the limits of the forum software. Instead you'll get a new account and loose everything but your postcount. If that doesn't bother you then follow chris' advise and PM one of the mods. One more remark: if it's just because you joined/left a squad, then think about getting a new username that doesn't need to be changed every time something like that happens.

I just started to play the original Fallout games again - lost my original disks years ago, but found that Amazon has both plus Tactics as a White Label release (all on one DVD, patched to work properly on Windows XP). Bought the pack, and installled the games in a VM. Sweeeeeet! There's nothing more satisfying than pickpocketing someone, and putting an armed explosive in their pack! If you haven't played them yet, do so! They are old style iso-view games, with turn based combat, but they are simply the best rpgs of that kind besides the Baldur's Gate series. There's still quite an active and dedicated community around these old games, which speaks highly for their quality! I really recommend adding the high res patches and the inofficial patches for Fallout 1 & 2 (they don't add content, but simply fix things Interplay and Black Isle never got around to - like the famous FO2 bug regarding the safe in New Reno).

I think the epaper-like displays are really the way to go in all mobile devices, as they only require energy while changing the display, but remain stable afterwards without any additional energy consumtion. At the moment I'm using a HTC Diamond Touch smartphone to read ebooks and surf the web while traveling. Thats quite comfortable, but the display sucks the batteries empty way too quickly. Not really the way to go if you're further than a few hours away from the next plug. What I don't like (as stated before) is the approach kindle and Sony are taking in that you can't read the ebooks you bought on other devices. For years I've been buying my ebooks at http://www.fictionwise.com/ - with the distinct advantage that they offer the books for multiple plattforms and in multiple formats - and once you bought a book, you can redownload it for any plattform (and as often) as you like. As I said before, I started reading them on an old HP Pocket PC, then later on a Symbian smartphone, and nowadays I read them on a Windows Mobile phone. If I had an IPhone or something else, I'd be able to read them with that, too. So the books I bought 5 years ago still work for me although I have a completely different plattform nowadays, and they most likely will continue to do so for the forseable future. I don't think the same is true for the proprietary ebook services like the new Sony reader. It's the same as with music downloads - as long as you're not free to use them on whatever device you want (and thus are able to preserve the investment with changing technologies) ebooks will lack compared to a traditional book that will still be readable even in a 100 years from now.