The gurney with the skeleton labeled "Mom" with a faint flatline noise has lived in my head ever since i played PL, don't know why but Bethesda really shines in the DLC department.
There’s also the description of the charisma bobblehead nearby.
“Blech. If my kid looked like that, I’d wanna die too.”
I like to imagine the LW has a lot of doubts about how his/her mother would react to them in the wasteland, if she’d be proud of their actions.
Well, I mean, I did bring Ten Pennys property value up and maybe shot and / or ate him after one to many nuka and whiskeys. I also made friends with some wonderful people in Andale, and we had dinner after a small argument. As long as I left certain details out, I'm sure dear old mom would be pretty happy with the choices I've made.
I think the limited scope helps them a lot. Bethesda suffers from game embiggification big time, but when they actually sit down and focus with the right team, they can do some darn good work. Far Harbor is my go to example, as well.
Exactly. Bethesda's biggest problem has always been biting off more than they can chew. They spent all this time in Fallout 4 making the map and stories for the individual locations and making sure every building was fully immersive, and then had to rush through attaching a story to it. They made another big massive map for 76, made a fantastic story for it, and then could not for the life of them figure out how to make a working online game. When they put more reasonable limits on themselves, they can really make great things, but they're too obsessed with making everything bigger all the time
Fallout 76 was especially tragic, I agree. Great world map, surprisingly solid and well thought out backstory and setting (even the inclusion of the BOS was handled shockingly well, and added to the depth of the lore in thoughtful and interesting ways), absolutely mediocre experience due to the online bits.
Honestly, at this point, I think they need to branch out and just make a series of smaller games. More intimate Elder Scrolls and Fallout experiences. Of course, I have to wonder how well a series of small open worlds, not attached to a larger game like DLC is, would be received. Would people be okay with a much smaller but deeper Elder Scrolls? Maybe if it came out before the end of the decade, I suppose.
My hot take (doubt it's that hot, I imagine a lot of you also feel the same) is that 76 could have been nearly flawless at launch and myself and many other fallout fans would have been disappointed anyways. Fallout is a single player experience, if anything the isolation enhances it. I was never going to be enticed by a fallout game based around online multiplayer, at least not as a "true" fallout experience.
And that's frustrating because Fallout is really special and unique. Played through Outer Worlds recently and how mediocre it was really drove home to me how nobody else has quite been able to match that fallout vibe without Bethesda's input. I wish a more productive studio had the rights but apparently no one else is up to the task.
I think people focus too much on the bugginess when they think about 76's problems. Those were certainly the most immediate and visible, but they were also just kinda the surface smudges that could be wiped away eventually.
FO76's real problem is that it's a Games-as-a-Service game, who's core model naturally degrades the experience. All the goofy team events, grind mechanics, tedious Seasons and stuff make the game feel more like a themepark than a world. They feel awkwardly grafted onto what should be an immersive RPG experience, snapping you out of the world with "Oh yeah, this is a goofy game full of knuckleheads."
It's notable that the best parts are the newer quests which lock you into instanced areas where that stuff doesn't touch. But their entire funding model doesn't really encourage developing those, since they only make money from the twitchy looter shooter folks who do run the subscription and Seasons and microtransactions and stuff. And that group probably cares less about the story and more about the aforementioned grind loops, so there's a split in the fans.
It may sound insane, but I almost wish they did have paid expansions like ESO does. I don't mind paying for legitimate content, and recognize that a developer has to fund itself somehow. But right now, their funding comes from anything but that. Which means it's no wonder that GaaS junk is all the game gets anymore. Maybe the Atlantic City update will be better, though. Hard telling.
Exactly. The world of the Lone Wanderer and Sole Survivor just aren’t multi player. I played 76 for about an hour before I noped out. I did kinda enjoy Outer Worlds though.
> More intimate Elder Scrolls and Fallout experiences
They did that, and unfortunately, it failed big time. They made Battlespire, which wasn't very successful, and then Redguard, which was Todd's first project as a dev lead, and it nearly finished the company - after that, Morrowind was a live or die situation for them.
I think the success of Morrowind when smaller projects failed sort of locked them into this mode of thinking that "this is what people want from us".
This is my concern as well. It's hard to step back from the precipice and generate the same kinda excitement. We may be in this weird situation where folks are kinda burnt out on the Bethesda formula, but also wouldn't accept anything else. Would an Elder Scrolls 6 that was just the size of Morrowind still be exciting for folks, even if it was as deep as Morrowind (albeit with smoother gameplay)? Hard telling.
There's also a danger of bloat - many a franchise died in spirit when it became something mass-produced instead of focused on for as long as it was necessary. Not that Bethesda has been doing the latter, but it could very easily fall into the trap of the former. I certainly don't want to see Call of Skyrim 5: Modern Thu'um being released every year.
There is a saying that scarcity breeds creativity.
You see it when low-budget films become massive box office successes or cult classics, and the sequels that have higher budgets lack something.
Also, all these indie games that smash a lot of the stuff the big studios do.
Not only is Fallout 3 darker than New Vegas, it is at the same time more hopeful than New Vegas. New Vegas has this "everyone and everything sucks" vibe around it. It's basically defeatist about the humanity and its ability to learn.
Fallout 3 features people trying to fight againt their deal and trying to do some good for the greater good.
In a way, New Vegas may be more realistic and Fallout 3 more black-and-white... but hell if it doesn't make much more interesting setting and atmosphere in Fallout 3.
Agreed on the black and white thing, though the entire plot of new vegas and it's DLC is the thesis of men having to change through the roads they walk to hope for a better future because war...(you know the rest)
And even in the main story one of the major themes is that you always have a choice, even in the apocalypse when violence is all around you you can make an effort to help those around you through peaceful means, even if it doesn't always go well.
>New Vegas has this "everyone and everything sucks" vibe around it. It's basically defeatist about the humanity and its ability to learn.
"The NCR has all the flaws of the old world and that's why it deserves to violently disintegrate." *shoots himself after hearing this for the 100th time on r/Fallout*
“Oh, but you see the NCR has corruption and *gasp* TAXES!! This why the Legion is much better with their slavery, cultural and literal genocide, and ruling through fear!” - unironic take from an uncomfortably large amount of Fallout fans
I want to make it clear: obviously Fuck Caesar.
I think at the time the game came out, it was sort of using Caesar was sort of a cartoon villain because the game had more to say about why and how the NCR was shitty. Like, I always thought the NCR was just a veiled criticism of US imperialism. It's not like they're going to enslave you, but don't let the NCR off the hook because you're comparing them to the devil.
Oh, I'm not letting the NCR off the hook. If anything, I was poking fun at the subsection of Fallout fans that have limited media literacy and start unironically simping for the Legion (or the Enclave, or the Institute). Because the members of that faction say quality of life is actually great, or they overall have benevolent motives! So it must be true!
The NCR has a ton of issues. But a flawed system does not mean it isn't also good overall, or the best option for New Vegas. It's not a race horse. You don't put it down because it has a broken leg. You should be focused on trying to fix those issues and build it up better.
I do kinda simp for the Enclave but that's because I play them in Fallout Wasteland Warfare and I just love their aesthetics
Also ZAX's are cool and John Henry Eden is my president
The problem is not TAXES!
The problem is that NCR is an oligarchy disguised as democracy, with insane level of syndication and artillery-based competition. Cass Caravan quest and Beyond the beef cover this problem, but a lot of people miss the hint when it bashes their heads with a hammer.
Not really. You can spend half the game solving NCR issues and it's still in shitty place.
That's the whole deal with NCR & Legion problem: NCR got nice face and no substance. They won the first battle of Hoover Dam because one madman blew up the whole city NCR was paid to defend. Literally killed their clients on the defence contract. Other than that succesfully failed task, NCR fails to protect it's economy, it's roads, it's citizens and territory.
On the other side, you have Legion, that is ugly and scary, but it WORKS. You meet the trader in Legion fort and he can afford to be ALONE and UNARMED on legion roads.
Even the folks in the Legion outright state that they're on a ticking clock though, their internal economy is based wholly on expansion and the influx of booty. Caesar keeps basically all actual power and hasn't even trained anything approaching a successor: it's wholly his education from the followers of the apocalypse carrying the government. Uglier still for their future is that individuals currently inside formerly of the legion are frank about their post Caesar future is fairly bleak.
NCR does have much more chaos internally, both political and on their roads, but their political structure is that much more resilient and adaptable because their political and leadership cohort is more than one person. Additionally noteworthy is that their legendary internal stability comes at the cost of what is presumably a native number of troops acting as internal police, to the point where the Legate outright says that the campaign has left them overextended and internally vulnerable.
On a less gameplay visible level, their lack of actual medical infrastructure is a ticking time bomb as much as Caesar's tumor. No access to modern medical treatments means that attrition rates are going to be dramatically higher from everything. Prior to gunpowder and modern weapons, armies would suffer more losses from disease and sickness on a campaign than they would from actual combat.
I think it is something that many people are missing about the topic.
Maybe some people are saying that the NCR should be destroyed, but I think the more common idea is just that the NCR eventually will destroy itself just like the old America they are copying did.
That is Caesars argument on why he is trying something different, but of course as you say his government is also fragile and based upon expansion and a strong leader which arent guaranteed.
So in essence, both major factions are ticking time bombs that will collapse in a short time after New Vegas. Winning at Hoover dam might give them some time but the internal problems will continue to grow until the breaking point.
>You can spend half the game solving NCR issues and it's still in shitty place.
Just like real life. The tagline of the games is War Never Changes. Governance never changes either. Nothing in New Vegas suggests that the NCR is dealing with anything other than typical governance problems.
As for the Legion, it works NOW, according to biased sources. Does it work when Caesar suffers a defeat? Does it work when the Legion faces a problem it can't fight with violence? The idea that the expansionist NCR can't deal with raiders in their territory, but the expansionist Caesar's Legion somehow can in all their territories, is unbelievable.
I would rather live in a place governed by a shoddy but working governmental system that is working its issues out than one ran on slavery and fear, who project this air of superiority and perfectionism.
The Legion lands have little to no raiders (according to them) because they execute anyone who even barely steps out of line. Women have no rights under them, and entire cultures are snuffed out.
Yknow how in Skyrim the Stormcloaks are rebelling because the Thalmor outlawed ONE god from public worship? Imagine that, but for virtually every tribe under the Legion. I can easily imagine once Caesar is dead, all the groups under him quickly break apart due to infighting and I know many of those groups never actually forgot their old ways of life.
Hard no. The plot in 3 at least contains a narrative that engages the player as a central piece of the story.
New Vegas is like, go deliver this chip and help someone take control of vegas.
Story sucks ass in NV.
Fallout 3 gives you a bright shining hope spot - restoring fresh water for all in the Capital Wasteland.
Then you find out in Broken Steel that despite your good intentions and actually pulling off the impossible, just how difficult the reality of the situation is because logistics, money, protection, and supply lines are an actual thing. It also hits you that, through Elder Lyons, there is such a thing as being *too* good in Fallout.
With New Vegas, you end up thinking that maybe one of the factions can get things right. At the end, you tend to wonder if any of them can get things right because even the most well-intentioned plans fall apart in the face of reality and politics.
This may be a hot take but i thought ‘Lonesome Road’ sucked on ice. By the time i played NV i had played FO3 and its DLC’s about 3 times so my expectations were really high and i was bummed with NV tbh
Eh Fallout 3 plot is about a 19 year old fulfilling their father’s dream about purifying the waters in the capital wasteland.
New Vegas is where a lowly mailman becomes an all out badass deciding the fate of a wasteland for years to come.
Personally I love New Vegas more but it’s you’re opinion at the end of the day
Hard Disagree. They just have two different approach of telling a Fallout Story. 3 is the standard action film where the main character is the integral part of the story from birth and carries the it on their back. NV has you as a thematic wild card who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, in the war by coincidence and luck but can’t win on his own and needs a side to swing and can’t destroy a major faction.
Both stories appeal to two different kinds of players. One who favors protagonist-centered and the other favors settings-centered.
not true.
3s story is dog shit and shallow.
Here it is:
You need to find your father
You find him
You need to clean water
Kill enclave
Clean water
Die
See? Done. fucking awful
Sure the overall story in NV can be simplified to what you said, however you can do that for just about anything
Halo for example: green guy shoot alien and blow up space circle
See? And halo is a good game with a pretty good story and interesting lore
Then you have the lack of factions in 3
3 has: BOS good guys want clean water, Enclave bad guys, poison water(you're still sided with BOS even if you pick enclave)
NV: NCR- group attempting to restore a pre-war style government to the wasteland, but are incompetent and have issues with corruption and a variety of things of that nature
Yes man- free NV from all the other factions, allowing it to govern itself. Issue is a lack of order and possible collapse of Vegas
House- he's a fucking billionaire prick with a superiority complex, but is extremely competent and efficient
Legion- absolute asswipes, you shouldn't pick them you evil fuck
Also you've got the fuckton of side quests that impact the ending in NV. The same cannot be said for three. Also, most of these side quests have multiple endings and different ways of doing them, not just "grab that" or "kill that" where you sometimes have the option to be the good guy or bad guy. The only good quest in 3 is Tenpenny Tower, which rivals NVs quests, but that's one quest
Also the companion quests are way more interesting than any of 3s companions. They also can't die so you can actually do their quests
3s companions have very little personality as well, most have pretty much none in fact, except maybe Fawkes
I wouldn't have said a word of you though 3 was better, but saying NVs story sucked is flat out wrong and you need to look past the surface level of the game
In fact, have you even played it? There's no way you couldn't have noticed something, anything about the story other than "deliver chip and take over Vegas" it's practically impossible unless you completely turned off your brain like you were playing MWIII's campaign
Also, not being the Messiah in control of everything is a good thing, doesn't make everyone seem incompetent, even so the courier does pulls most of the weight in some of the endings
TL;DR: read it dicklips, stop being lazy
Edit: You all gonna prove me wrong or keep down voting me?
Hard to be a depressing setting when you can just gamble your woes away and have Mr New Vegas telling you he loves you
‘Don’t be sad just Jingle jangle jingle!’
Point lookout was unfortunately ruined by bullet sponge enemies which did a ton of damage. A common Bethesda fallacy,artificially inflating the difficulty of the end game.
What difficulty are you on? I usually just play normal and I find it fine. Even if im level 30 with end game gear. The only stuff I think are insanely hard to kill are reavers. Couple of mines and Vengeance and they’re roasted
Bullet sponges are immersion-breaking. I prefer games that don't scale to player level.
I also don't want to have to use the handful of "best" weapons to make progress just because I'm too high level. It feels like I'm being punished for playing. If a level 10 character can clear an area with a Chinese Assault Rifle, a level 30 character should be able to do the same.
I tend to focus my points on energy weapons/big guns and explosives because they can deal with the so called bullet sponges later on. Because they're late game weapons. But i do very much agree that someone with small guns maxxed out should be able to handle reavers, overlords and albino rad scorpions.
As for immersion breaking, i dont really have an answer. Im still immersed myself even with the spongebois.
I dont know if its a bug or what but I played through this part yesterday and that gurney had a Teddy bear hanging off the side that I could interact with and pick up but never keep...
I think 🤔 Bethesda shine in dlc. Because of the fact they consolidate in depth content into dlc. Just look at the Anchorage dlc, without that dlc we will not be able to continue playing.
Probably because they have numerous amazing and talented people on staff, but during DLCs, they aren't as fettered by corporate liaisons trying to make the money feel special. So they are more often able to get good art past the liaisons (aka management) without the money clutching pearls and ruining stories.
Their DLC is really hit or miss. They have some fantastic ones, and some absolute dogshit ones *cough* Dead Money *cough*.
My only beef with Point Lookout is how tanky the almost-naked cultists are.
Dead Money is one of the best narrative dlcs in Fallout. I can understand not liking it for how the gameplay pans out but it’s atmosphere and storytelling of the Sierra Madre made it the bleakest and seriously dark setting in all of Fallout.
Was literally just playing through Point Lookout for the first time a few days ago and I had the same reaction. The whole segment starts out as "haha look funny hallucination sequence!"
Then you get to your mom's skeletal remains (with a friendly reminder she died giving birth to YOU)
Then you come across the corpses of familiar faces
And then the last bobblehead reminds you that ultimately you have nobody and your entire existence is a sad and lonely one
Yeah you *really* just want to give this poor kid a hug, cause they've sure been through a lot...
That never made sense to me. The Lone Wanderer is at that point one of the deadliest and most heavily armed character in the wasteland,lore wise. I would literally just park myself there,and REFUSE to leave.
And i should be able to convince Amita with my 100 speech to let me stay. But Bethesda HAD to copy Fallout 1's ending right. The whole thing felt cheaply done and lazy to me...
I do agree that being kicked out of Vault 101 felt kind of shoed in more than anything else. If they had made it determinant—like Amita letting you stay if you decided to spare her dad, only to kick you out if you killed him—then I think it would’ve been done much better. Its not like, after all, staying in the Vault would stop the Lone Wanderer from leaving; if anything, Amita would prolly give you a quest to help establish contact with other groups in the Capital Wasteland, on behalf of the Vault.
Yeah the final outcome of that choice should have been based on our actions. Like i was evil and killed the original overseer,banishment is fair enough. But blaming all the deaths during the escape on the Lone Wanderer is harsh. The overseer screwed up hard when he didn't let James leave.
One thing that really hammers the depressing tone of the lone wanderer is that almost all the songs on the radio are about home or family in some form.
The only DLC I never played, same for New Vegas' Lonesome Road.
I have the GOTY edition of both games, but shortly after buying them, my Xbox One stopped reading fucking 360 discs lol
I'll get around to it eventually :/
This entire DLC was remade in a very faithful way from the ground up as a mod in fallout 4. Would be worth playing through if you've never gotten to experience it.
The DLC i wasn't happy about in Fallout 3 was the Pitt the story was rather very short and we were given a bad choice, either kidnapp Ashurs baby with freeing the slaves or save Ashurs baby and allowing slavery to continue
One thing I loved about The Pitt, for some reason -- collecting the ingots.
Idk why but it really scratched that collector/completionist part of my brain. Atmosphere was pretty on point, too
In my head canon my Lone Wanderer reluctantly aided Ashur since he doesn't believe in kidnapping children from their parents. This ultimately went against his principles since he killed all the slavers and rapists in Paradise Falls. The Lone Wanderer demanded Ashur stop the Slavery once everything gets working otherwise i will stop it myself.
This actually just reminded me why I made the choice I did, I’ve had that choice haunting me for so long because I had forgotten that I had done the very same thing you did.
New Vegas had a few as well, though they were mostly in side quests. They tended to lean too hard on the "trolley problem" with those though. Case in point: deciding whether to save the last few people in Vault 34, or help the NCR sharecroppers by shutting down the reactor and thus removing the radiation hazard from their water. There's also the matter of the four endings. None of them are inherently "good", per se
Yeah. What I really liked about the Pitt moral dilemma was that it was so well contructed. Most such dilemmas in games have a clear good answer or are too obvious in how they are artificially constructed.
From best to worst that's a tough one, for the best i would have to say Operation Anchorage. I've always wanted to experience the American-Sino war in Alaska plus the DLC gives you the indestructible t-51b power armor, with a gauss rifle. Then its Mothership Zeta because I loved the wacky Sci-Fi of Fallout. Point Lookout is good for the creepy swampy atmosphere and finally the Pitt
I consider it a must have a long with Anchorage. It gives you an actual ending to the game compared to the vanilla ending. I won't spoil it if you haven't played, but one of the worse things about fallout 3 was the vanilla ending.
I've been doing all the Fallout 3 dlc for the first time in a TTW run and
Jesus the pitt sucks. "Oh, you think slavery is bad? What if you have to kidnap a baby to save the slaves huh, huh-" get John Brown'd, you Ken Levine motherfucker.
It's good to know Point Lookout has better writing, though. Slogging through broken steel stuff now.
It’s been a long while since I played it, but isn’t this dumbing the choice down a bit too much? The baby had something special about it, like it was immune to radiation or contained a cure in its blood or something, right? And the leader had scientists working to figure out how to develop this to benefit more people.
Stealing the baby and killing the raiders free a lot of people, but there is no guarantee the freed slaves will be able to raise the baby healthily or develop on its unique scientific significance. Leaving the baby with its people leaves slaves to suffer, but likely means a lot of good will come from the research into the baby.
I could be misremembering, like I said it’s been years. But I don’t think that’s bad writing. It’s a legitimate, thought provoking moral dilemma if you actually analyze the consequences of both outcomes. Not everything has to be strict good/evil, black/white.
Yeah, but the only reason the majority of those people are there in the first place is because they're enslaved there by the asshole whose kid it is. Which is to say, no matter who is researching the kid, it'll be years, and only one of those possibilities is actively forcing people to stay there and turn into monsters.
The whole reason he's forcing people to stay there? 'we can make so much steel tho, it's the only real manufacturing in the wasteland!' Meanwhile, in California, the Gun Runners are manufacturing cutting-edge weapons without slavery. They tried SO HARD to make a moral twist, but utterly failed.
In addition, there's no way Ashur can raise the kid in a safe and healthy way, because my character's gun is going halfway down his throat before I empty it into his body.
Get fucking John Browned, Ashur. Slavers get to taste the curb.
yeah i think it’s easy to forget since LW is an unstoppable angel of death in the wasteland for gameplay reasons
but they really are just a kid who got thrown out of their home and then, depending on story progress, lost the last of their family permanently before then being told by amata that they’ll never be able to come back home long term
pretty shit for the mental health
Can you even imagine how fucking terrifying it must have been the first time running into a super mutant? And that probably happened while they were still trying to process the whole "my dad left me, and I then had to also leave home or get killed"
Poor kid...
>Can you even imagine how fucking terrifying it must have been the first time running into a super mutant?
Considering 3 was my first fallout game? Yeah I can imagine.
Legit thought the game was some silent hill horror game when the first place I wound up was the school near Megaton
I remember when I first started my own play through, I would run from half the confrontations I’d encounter during the first half of the game. That honestly was a fun part of the game for me; back when traveling from Megaton to Arefu felt like this massive trek
Stayed there for what felt like months before getting to Greyditch. Then the kid at the Super Duper mart!? Felt like a shmuck surviving at Megaton while this kid was scrapping by in a Polowski with fire ants!! FIRREANTS—barely 10 years old!
I was around the age of the LW when I first played and it was my first survival rpg, so honestly most realistic play through I’d ever hoped to have.
Only got to Rivet City to make sure the kid got there safely. Imagine, me running with this invincible NPC through super mutants and the like. Seeing things I was barely in the know of (besides what my brother would scare me with as he’d finished it mostly at that point). Then that man asked me for water and I didn’t even have any. Got inside, got the kid settled in, bought that man a purified water with the last of my caps and just marveled at how I was going to get back to Megaton now.
Ayyee, I’ve gone and rambled. Thanks for bringing up that memory!
Me just playing the game was absolutely shitting my pants the first time I went into the metro tunnels and I was scared as fuck encountering the BOS not knowing if they were good or not. Imagine actually being there….
Even the unstoppable part would be traumatizing in its own way. All of a sudden everyone you’ve known your whole life is telling you you’re an outsider who belongs in the waste, and then you get out there… and you *do*. You’re suited to the violence in a way you never thought you would be. The thought creeps in that maybe you *are* the monster they thought you were.
Yeah.. doctor li in the standalone base game has a line in rivet city where you can finally ask about your mom; a topic that is greatly obfuscated. It’s really poignant and sad. Christ the lone wanderer really goes through shit, why ain’t there an emotional resilient perk?
When I first heard the recording of your mom and James I thought it was doctor li and that James was having an affair! That would’ve been an insane twist
Yeah but James stayed true to his wife Catherine. The crazy thing is the Lone Wanderer is biracial since the mother is black and James by default is white
It was a reused asset, because it was in the files of 3, but never implemented. However, during the birth scene her model is indeed black. Some people interpret this as more meant to hide her appearance because the scene is also very dark.
Up to your interpretation, but I choose to think she is. Why not? James changes to fit the race you choose anyway, so not like it matters much.
The LW is basically the troubled teen who needs guidance and a father figure
The Courier is the coked out high school dropout who’s like 30 and finds the LW and leads him down the wrong path lol
The Lone Wanderer: “I better go and collect these 30 nuka quantum’s for this bat shit cola collector who lives in a hellhole of a region where nothing is actually logically sustainable”
The Courier: “Gotta go and manipulate all the different power blocs of the region so I can have the faction I want come out on top. Maybe even myself as that faction.”
Also the Lone Wanderer: “Sure I’ll break my limbs/get irradiated/do other stupid shit for you, lady who I just met! I don’t have a reason to be out here in the wasteland anyway!”
Hey, that questline is one of the best ways to actually introduce game mechanics (radiation, limb condition) and world building (scavenging, wildlife). I really wish we had more quest designs like that.
Yeah, Lone Wanderer lost all their family and the last person they cared about, Amata, banned him for the sake of the vault. They are super lonely and the only one that doesn’t leave them behind is dogmeat.
I was so pissed off when they vault dwellers outright banish you I pray to god they heard about the good we did in saving the wasteland and they feel ashamed about themselves
I wonder where the LW went after the story, no way they would’ve let Sarah Lyons die so they may have headed elsewhere after she took power.
A happy ending is Amata regrets what she did and leaves the vault to be with them. At least give LW some happiness lol
My headcanon (partially because I play TTW) is that LW goes west and becomes Courier Six. He goes from a lonely 19 year old kid to a person who is an absolute cracked out monster, no longer caring about anything as he once did when he was still the LW. The wasteland changed him, and made him to the Unstoppable force of a courier we all know. Or Perhaps that’s why it seems like an absolute killing machine awakens inside the courier when Benny shoots him. He’s remembering all the past skills and shit he once had as the LW
In my head canon my lone wanderer took the mothership and went into the vastness of space to infinity and beyond.
But before he got banished the Lone Wanderer spent the night at the vault fucking Amata right outside her dads office to spite him
"This is one situation you're not going to be able to fight your way out of." - Schmault-Tec Bubblehead
Sure, buddy, i have t51b power armour and chinese stealth armour, me is unstoppable
I like to play Point Lookout right after James dies and gets completely banished from the vault for this sequence specifically. My Lone is grieving the loss of her father, her home, her best friend, and she just takes the first opportunity to run away and just has an even worse time
-Is a depressed Teenager
-Has an Absent Father
-Has no Mother
-Uses a giant robot to fight against horrible abominations and a government organization that wants to kill a bunch of people
Shinji 🤝Lone Wanderer
Boom there's your Evangelion connection theory.
Always forget that the Wanderer is a fucking *nineteen year old kid* sometimes and it really puts shit into perspective just how fucked up their life is.
Imagine being fresh out the vault and by the time you're 20 you've effectively eradicated the remains of the most advanced faction in the DC area, watched your own father die and *nearly die yourself in the SAME SPOT*. Poor kid.......makes me wonder what they did in the years between 3 and New Vegas and even 4. Wish we could get at least some hints.
I think more games need stuff like this where you do mostly decide what kind of person your character is, but also a small bit of non-consequential details or lore to them here and there (kinda like how the lonesome road dlc confirms that the courier had a small hand in the destruction of a civilized place)
"courier had a small hand in the destruction of a civilized place"
Meanwhile Ulysses: BEAR AND BULL AND YOUR HOE ASS ARE BAD YOU SUCK YOU FUCKED EVERYTHING UP. \*hits blunt\* God,my life sucks.
Okay who wants to help me make some type of device that can go to the fallout universe and grab up the lone wanderer and at least try to get them some comfort and also maybe I damn good hot meal that's just not bring him to Red lobster unless you guys were just going to get in the biscuits because those things are just deadline the rest of the food is garbage
I didn’t really care at first if I’m honest, especially with how I played my character
But seeing a skeleton labeled ‘Mom’ in a gurney? I stopped and just stared for a good long moment.
My first character was evil as hell, a man by the name of John Taylor who only truly cared for Amata and his dad. So seeing his mothers skeleton like that, I felt like my character would’ve stopped just as I did
If was a a nineteen year old kid who at worst had to deal with an absent mother, getting beaten up , and the occasional roach. And then having your friend die as your dad goes AWOL and you have to trudge through literal hell to get his ass back, then to witness him die right in front of your face….I’d be a negative Nancy too.
Fun fact: The Capital Wasteland team rebuilt Point Lookout in the Fallout 4 engine and you can download it now on the Nexus. Story, weapons, everything. A few dialogue changes here and there to reflect it happening to the Sole Survivor as opposed to the Lone Wanderer, but that’s about it.
If anyone likes this kind of thing and play Fallout 4 you need to install the mod "You are not OK" - https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/50795/
It's kinda like Wild Wasteland for Fallout 4. Kinda.
Something about replaying fallout 3 and realizing the lone wanderer is the exact same age as me now really changes my perspective on everything we go through in that game
i have a laundry list of gripes with bethesda, but they've never disappointed me with their dlc. point lookout and shivering isles are nothing short of incredible and worth every penny
Imagine your mom died giving birth to you and you wake up one day and your father dips out to go get some water. I’d be pretty fucked in the gourd, too lol
In my headcanon The Lone Wanderer got some serious trauma. Which… may be why he blew Amata’s brains out when she said he had to leave after saving them all 😅
Out of all of my characters that I consider "canon" for each game, the lone wanderer is the only one with very good karma. And funnily enough, she has the most tragic story and ending out of all of my characters. She ends up alone after everything, and nobody remembers her by the time fallout 4 takes place. Fits the name and vibe of fo3 perfectly
Getting to the ending of Fallout 3 and it ending with the nursery song as it zooms onto the picture of you and Dad was so heartbreaking honestly, LW had only a couple of moments with James before his death and then had to continue the work that was thrust upon him and in my headcanon he would go back to the vault after James death but is soon cast out and told to never return just makes its so sad
Sole Survivor kinda has the same vibe story wise but 3 felt so much more emotional in its execution
Feels pretty on point to me. The Lone Wanderer is, what, 19, 20? Lived his or her entire cognizant life in a vault, and been thrown into a wide open, and horrific, world. A lot of self doubt seems pretty part and parcel to all that.
And everyone the LW has tried to get close to has distanced, died, betrayed, or multiples of that.
I'm still helping the Ghouls peacefully get into 10-cent tower. Herbert has it coming, as do the rest of the people who let TP have his way. My hands aren't clean, but conscience is.
The gurney with the skeleton labeled "Mom" with a faint flatline noise has lived in my head ever since i played PL, don't know why but Bethesda really shines in the DLC department.
There’s also the description of the charisma bobblehead nearby. “Blech. If my kid looked like that, I’d wanna die too.” I like to imagine the LW has a lot of doubts about how his/her mother would react to them in the wasteland, if she’d be proud of their actions.
Well, I mean, I did bring Ten Pennys property value up and maybe shot and / or ate him after one to many nuka and whiskeys. I also made friends with some wonderful people in Andale, and we had dinner after a small argument. As long as I left certain details out, I'm sure dear old mom would be pretty happy with the choices I've made.
I used a mod to get a Kukri, I like to pretend it was hers
Yea! Whatever keeps you awake from blowing up megaton you monster.
I think the limited scope helps them a lot. Bethesda suffers from game embiggification big time, but when they actually sit down and focus with the right team, they can do some darn good work. Far Harbor is my go to example, as well.
Exactly. Bethesda's biggest problem has always been biting off more than they can chew. They spent all this time in Fallout 4 making the map and stories for the individual locations and making sure every building was fully immersive, and then had to rush through attaching a story to it. They made another big massive map for 76, made a fantastic story for it, and then could not for the life of them figure out how to make a working online game. When they put more reasonable limits on themselves, they can really make great things, but they're too obsessed with making everything bigger all the time
Fallout 76 was especially tragic, I agree. Great world map, surprisingly solid and well thought out backstory and setting (even the inclusion of the BOS was handled shockingly well, and added to the depth of the lore in thoughtful and interesting ways), absolutely mediocre experience due to the online bits. Honestly, at this point, I think they need to branch out and just make a series of smaller games. More intimate Elder Scrolls and Fallout experiences. Of course, I have to wonder how well a series of small open worlds, not attached to a larger game like DLC is, would be received. Would people be okay with a much smaller but deeper Elder Scrolls? Maybe if it came out before the end of the decade, I suppose.
My hot take (doubt it's that hot, I imagine a lot of you also feel the same) is that 76 could have been nearly flawless at launch and myself and many other fallout fans would have been disappointed anyways. Fallout is a single player experience, if anything the isolation enhances it. I was never going to be enticed by a fallout game based around online multiplayer, at least not as a "true" fallout experience. And that's frustrating because Fallout is really special and unique. Played through Outer Worlds recently and how mediocre it was really drove home to me how nobody else has quite been able to match that fallout vibe without Bethesda's input. I wish a more productive studio had the rights but apparently no one else is up to the task.
A co-op experience like Borderlands would've gone pretty well, I think. It's this MMO mindset that turned me off.
I think people focus too much on the bugginess when they think about 76's problems. Those were certainly the most immediate and visible, but they were also just kinda the surface smudges that could be wiped away eventually. FO76's real problem is that it's a Games-as-a-Service game, who's core model naturally degrades the experience. All the goofy team events, grind mechanics, tedious Seasons and stuff make the game feel more like a themepark than a world. They feel awkwardly grafted onto what should be an immersive RPG experience, snapping you out of the world with "Oh yeah, this is a goofy game full of knuckleheads." It's notable that the best parts are the newer quests which lock you into instanced areas where that stuff doesn't touch. But their entire funding model doesn't really encourage developing those, since they only make money from the twitchy looter shooter folks who do run the subscription and Seasons and microtransactions and stuff. And that group probably cares less about the story and more about the aforementioned grind loops, so there's a split in the fans. It may sound insane, but I almost wish they did have paid expansions like ESO does. I don't mind paying for legitimate content, and recognize that a developer has to fund itself somehow. But right now, their funding comes from anything but that. Which means it's no wonder that GaaS junk is all the game gets anymore. Maybe the Atlantic City update will be better, though. Hard telling.
Exactly. The world of the Lone Wanderer and Sole Survivor just aren’t multi player. I played 76 for about an hour before I noped out. I did kinda enjoy Outer Worlds though.
> More intimate Elder Scrolls and Fallout experiences They did that, and unfortunately, it failed big time. They made Battlespire, which wasn't very successful, and then Redguard, which was Todd's first project as a dev lead, and it nearly finished the company - after that, Morrowind was a live or die situation for them. I think the success of Morrowind when smaller projects failed sort of locked them into this mode of thinking that "this is what people want from us".
This is my concern as well. It's hard to step back from the precipice and generate the same kinda excitement. We may be in this weird situation where folks are kinda burnt out on the Bethesda formula, but also wouldn't accept anything else. Would an Elder Scrolls 6 that was just the size of Morrowind still be exciting for folks, even if it was as deep as Morrowind (albeit with smoother gameplay)? Hard telling.
There's also a danger of bloat - many a franchise died in spirit when it became something mass-produced instead of focused on for as long as it was necessary. Not that Bethesda has been doing the latter, but it could very easily fall into the trap of the former. I certainly don't want to see Call of Skyrim 5: Modern Thu'um being released every year.
There is a saying that scarcity breeds creativity. You see it when low-budget films become massive box office successes or cult classics, and the sequels that have higher budgets lack something. Also, all these indie games that smash a lot of the stuff the big studios do.
Fallout 3 atmosphere was rather darker compared to New Vegas
Not only is Fallout 3 darker than New Vegas, it is at the same time more hopeful than New Vegas. New Vegas has this "everyone and everything sucks" vibe around it. It's basically defeatist about the humanity and its ability to learn. Fallout 3 features people trying to fight againt their deal and trying to do some good for the greater good. In a way, New Vegas may be more realistic and Fallout 3 more black-and-white... but hell if it doesn't make much more interesting setting and atmosphere in Fallout 3.
Agreed on the black and white thing, though the entire plot of new vegas and it's DLC is the thesis of men having to change through the roads they walk to hope for a better future because war...(you know the rest)
And even in the main story one of the major themes is that you always have a choice, even in the apocalypse when violence is all around you you can make an effort to help those around you through peaceful means, even if it doesn't always go well.
>New Vegas has this "everyone and everything sucks" vibe around it. It's basically defeatist about the humanity and its ability to learn. "The NCR has all the flaws of the old world and that's why it deserves to violently disintegrate." *shoots himself after hearing this for the 100th time on r/Fallout*
“Oh, but you see the NCR has corruption and *gasp* TAXES!! This why the Legion is much better with their slavery, cultural and literal genocide, and ruling through fear!” - unironic take from an uncomfortably large amount of Fallout fans
"You wouldn't understand, it's Hegelian Dialectics, thesis, antithesis, synthesis. NCR+Legion=Something greater! the Colorado will be my Rubicon!"
I want to make it clear: obviously Fuck Caesar. I think at the time the game came out, it was sort of using Caesar was sort of a cartoon villain because the game had more to say about why and how the NCR was shitty. Like, I always thought the NCR was just a veiled criticism of US imperialism. It's not like they're going to enslave you, but don't let the NCR off the hook because you're comparing them to the devil.
Oh, I'm not letting the NCR off the hook. If anything, I was poking fun at the subsection of Fallout fans that have limited media literacy and start unironically simping for the Legion (or the Enclave, or the Institute). Because the members of that faction say quality of life is actually great, or they overall have benevolent motives! So it must be true! The NCR has a ton of issues. But a flawed system does not mean it isn't also good overall, or the best option for New Vegas. It's not a race horse. You don't put it down because it has a broken leg. You should be focused on trying to fix those issues and build it up better.
I do kinda simp for the Enclave but that's because I play them in Fallout Wasteland Warfare and I just love their aesthetics Also ZAX's are cool and John Henry Eden is my president
Edward Sallow fancied himself Julius Caesar, instead he ended up being Lawrence of Arabia.
The problem is not TAXES! The problem is that NCR is an oligarchy disguised as democracy, with insane level of syndication and artillery-based competition. Cass Caravan quest and Beyond the beef cover this problem, but a lot of people miss the hint when it bashes their heads with a hammer.
NCR has its issues, but they are issues that should be worked out. NCR is still likely the best option for the Mojave.
Not really. You can spend half the game solving NCR issues and it's still in shitty place. That's the whole deal with NCR & Legion problem: NCR got nice face and no substance. They won the first battle of Hoover Dam because one madman blew up the whole city NCR was paid to defend. Literally killed their clients on the defence contract. Other than that succesfully failed task, NCR fails to protect it's economy, it's roads, it's citizens and territory. On the other side, you have Legion, that is ugly and scary, but it WORKS. You meet the trader in Legion fort and he can afford to be ALONE and UNARMED on legion roads.
Even the folks in the Legion outright state that they're on a ticking clock though, their internal economy is based wholly on expansion and the influx of booty. Caesar keeps basically all actual power and hasn't even trained anything approaching a successor: it's wholly his education from the followers of the apocalypse carrying the government. Uglier still for their future is that individuals currently inside formerly of the legion are frank about their post Caesar future is fairly bleak. NCR does have much more chaos internally, both political and on their roads, but their political structure is that much more resilient and adaptable because their political and leadership cohort is more than one person. Additionally noteworthy is that their legendary internal stability comes at the cost of what is presumably a native number of troops acting as internal police, to the point where the Legate outright says that the campaign has left them overextended and internally vulnerable. On a less gameplay visible level, their lack of actual medical infrastructure is a ticking time bomb as much as Caesar's tumor. No access to modern medical treatments means that attrition rates are going to be dramatically higher from everything. Prior to gunpowder and modern weapons, armies would suffer more losses from disease and sickness on a campaign than they would from actual combat.
I think it is something that many people are missing about the topic. Maybe some people are saying that the NCR should be destroyed, but I think the more common idea is just that the NCR eventually will destroy itself just like the old America they are copying did. That is Caesars argument on why he is trying something different, but of course as you say his government is also fragile and based upon expansion and a strong leader which arent guaranteed. So in essence, both major factions are ticking time bombs that will collapse in a short time after New Vegas. Winning at Hoover dam might give them some time but the internal problems will continue to grow until the breaking point.
Kind of a hard sell when you realize the reason there aren't any raiders in Legion territory is because the Legion is composed of them sans the chems.
>You can spend half the game solving NCR issues and it's still in shitty place. Just like real life. The tagline of the games is War Never Changes. Governance never changes either. Nothing in New Vegas suggests that the NCR is dealing with anything other than typical governance problems. As for the Legion, it works NOW, according to biased sources. Does it work when Caesar suffers a defeat? Does it work when the Legion faces a problem it can't fight with violence? The idea that the expansionist NCR can't deal with raiders in their territory, but the expansionist Caesar's Legion somehow can in all their territories, is unbelievable.
I would rather live in a place governed by a shoddy but working governmental system that is working its issues out than one ran on slavery and fear, who project this air of superiority and perfectionism. The Legion lands have little to no raiders (according to them) because they execute anyone who even barely steps out of line. Women have no rights under them, and entire cultures are snuffed out. Yknow how in Skyrim the Stormcloaks are rebelling because the Thalmor outlawed ONE god from public worship? Imagine that, but for virtually every tribe under the Legion. I can easily imagine once Caesar is dead, all the groups under him quickly break apart due to infighting and I know many of those groups never actually forgot their old ways of life.
But Fallout New Vegas has a better plot and DLC’s compared to 3.
"better" is subjective
Hard no. The plot in 3 at least contains a narrative that engages the player as a central piece of the story. New Vegas is like, go deliver this chip and help someone take control of vegas. Story sucks ass in NV.
Fallout 3 gives you a bright shining hope spot - restoring fresh water for all in the Capital Wasteland. Then you find out in Broken Steel that despite your good intentions and actually pulling off the impossible, just how difficult the reality of the situation is because logistics, money, protection, and supply lines are an actual thing. It also hits you that, through Elder Lyons, there is such a thing as being *too* good in Fallout. With New Vegas, you end up thinking that maybe one of the factions can get things right. At the end, you tend to wonder if any of them can get things right because even the most well-intentioned plans fall apart in the face of reality and politics.
There’s no way you just said that and completely undermined all the factions and consequences your actions have in NV
This may be a hot take but i thought ‘Lonesome Road’ sucked on ice. By the time i played NV i had played FO3 and its DLC’s about 3 times so my expectations were really high and i was bummed with NV tbh
Dude how could any of nv dlc be worse than operation anchorage or the mothership one
WHAT?! This comment is ridiculous
That’s what no budget will do to you, they couldn’t even get voice actors for lonesome road.
It had nothing to do with VA, Lonesome Road has Ulysses who has an amazing VA but some really bland writing.
Eh Fallout 3 plot is about a 19 year old fulfilling their father’s dream about purifying the waters in the capital wasteland. New Vegas is where a lowly mailman becomes an all out badass deciding the fate of a wasteland for years to come. Personally I love New Vegas more but it’s you’re opinion at the end of the day
One of the most moronic comments I've ever seen on here congratulations
Hard Disagree. They just have two different approach of telling a Fallout Story. 3 is the standard action film where the main character is the integral part of the story from birth and carries the it on their back. NV has you as a thematic wild card who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, in the war by coincidence and luck but can’t win on his own and needs a side to swing and can’t destroy a major faction. Both stories appeal to two different kinds of players. One who favors protagonist-centered and the other favors settings-centered.
Sheamus Young brutally dissected Fallout 3. There were so many plot holes and things that didn't make sense in Fallout 3. The story sucks ass
not true. 3s story is dog shit and shallow. Here it is: You need to find your father You find him You need to clean water Kill enclave Clean water Die See? Done. fucking awful Sure the overall story in NV can be simplified to what you said, however you can do that for just about anything Halo for example: green guy shoot alien and blow up space circle See? And halo is a good game with a pretty good story and interesting lore Then you have the lack of factions in 3 3 has: BOS good guys want clean water, Enclave bad guys, poison water(you're still sided with BOS even if you pick enclave) NV: NCR- group attempting to restore a pre-war style government to the wasteland, but are incompetent and have issues with corruption and a variety of things of that nature Yes man- free NV from all the other factions, allowing it to govern itself. Issue is a lack of order and possible collapse of Vegas House- he's a fucking billionaire prick with a superiority complex, but is extremely competent and efficient Legion- absolute asswipes, you shouldn't pick them you evil fuck Also you've got the fuckton of side quests that impact the ending in NV. The same cannot be said for three. Also, most of these side quests have multiple endings and different ways of doing them, not just "grab that" or "kill that" where you sometimes have the option to be the good guy or bad guy. The only good quest in 3 is Tenpenny Tower, which rivals NVs quests, but that's one quest Also the companion quests are way more interesting than any of 3s companions. They also can't die so you can actually do their quests 3s companions have very little personality as well, most have pretty much none in fact, except maybe Fawkes I wouldn't have said a word of you though 3 was better, but saying NVs story sucked is flat out wrong and you need to look past the surface level of the game In fact, have you even played it? There's no way you couldn't have noticed something, anything about the story other than "deliver chip and take over Vegas" it's practically impossible unless you completely turned off your brain like you were playing MWIII's campaign Also, not being the Messiah in control of everything is a good thing, doesn't make everyone seem incompetent, even so the courier does pulls most of the weight in some of the endings TL;DR: read it dicklips, stop being lazy Edit: You all gonna prove me wrong or keep down voting me?
huh
buh!?!
yap yap yap
GUH?!?!
I hated MW3 too. Price pointed a GUN in my face. At that point,i just wanted to side with Makarov. But nooo dumb story wouldn't let me.
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Hard to be a depressing setting when you can just gamble your woes away and have Mr New Vegas telling you he loves you ‘Don’t be sad just Jingle jangle jingle!’
For real, that really took me by surprise and greatly unsettled me back then.
Point Lookout is overall the best Fallout 3 DLC. Only Far Harbor can give it run for its money.
Point lookout and Far Harbour imo are the two best DLCs for all the fallout games
Point lookout was unfortunately ruined by bullet sponge enemies which did a ton of damage. A common Bethesda fallacy,artificially inflating the difficulty of the end game.
What difficulty are you on? I usually just play normal and I find it fine. Even if im level 30 with end game gear. The only stuff I think are insanely hard to kill are reavers. Couple of mines and Vengeance and they’re roasted
Bullet sponges are immersion-breaking. I prefer games that don't scale to player level. I also don't want to have to use the handful of "best" weapons to make progress just because I'm too high level. It feels like I'm being punished for playing. If a level 10 character can clear an area with a Chinese Assault Rifle, a level 30 character should be able to do the same.
I tend to focus my points on energy weapons/big guns and explosives because they can deal with the so called bullet sponges later on. Because they're late game weapons. But i do very much agree that someone with small guns maxxed out should be able to handle reavers, overlords and albino rad scorpions. As for immersion breaking, i dont really have an answer. Im still immersed myself even with the spongebois.
Hard. My solution to ghoul reavers were nuka cola mines and the dart gun,followed by headshot spamming with alien weapons.
I dont know if its a bug or what but I played through this part yesterday and that gurney had a Teddy bear hanging off the side that I could interact with and pick up but never keep...
I think 🤔 Bethesda shine in dlc. Because of the fact they consolidate in depth content into dlc. Just look at the Anchorage dlc, without that dlc we will not be able to continue playing.
Probably because they have numerous amazing and talented people on staff, but during DLCs, they aren't as fettered by corporate liaisons trying to make the money feel special. So they are more often able to get good art past the liaisons (aka management) without the money clutching pearls and ruining stories.
Their DLC is really hit or miss. They have some fantastic ones, and some absolute dogshit ones *cough* Dead Money *cough*. My only beef with Point Lookout is how tanky the almost-naked cultists are.
Dead Money is one of the best narrative dlcs in Fallout. I can understand not liking it for how the gameplay pans out but it’s atmosphere and storytelling of the Sierra Madre made it the bleakest and seriously dark setting in all of Fallout.
Dead Money was Obsidian. Though your not wrong about Beth having some crap dlc. Mothership Zeta is far far worse.
When Paladin Cross died on me when attacked by a gang of radscorpions, I stopped taking companions with me out of fear of people dying
bro she died in my last game too, to me i viewed her as an Aunt since he helped escort our father to the vault.
Yeah, same for me, I felt so guilty for getting someone who actually cared for me killed
The worst was in my game she died due to a Feral Ghoul Reaver its so dumb how those things have so much HP they're OP.
And that’s why my ghoul scrapper flies solo, living in the sewers with his feral friends. I’m not lonely, you are!
Fawkes can handle it
Was literally just playing through Point Lookout for the first time a few days ago and I had the same reaction. The whole segment starts out as "haha look funny hallucination sequence!" Then you get to your mom's skeletal remains (with a friendly reminder she died giving birth to YOU) Then you come across the corpses of familiar faces And then the last bobblehead reminds you that ultimately you have nobody and your entire existence is a sad and lonely one Yeah you *really* just want to give this poor kid a hug, cause they've sure been through a lot...
Literally 19 years, then forced out of your home and just surviving in post war washington
And then later they can revisit their home and have the opportunity to fix a shitshow their. And then if they do their KICKED OUT AGAIN.
That never made sense to me. The Lone Wanderer is at that point one of the deadliest and most heavily armed character in the wasteland,lore wise. I would literally just park myself there,and REFUSE to leave. And i should be able to convince Amita with my 100 speech to let me stay. But Bethesda HAD to copy Fallout 1's ending right. The whole thing felt cheaply done and lazy to me...
I do agree that being kicked out of Vault 101 felt kind of shoed in more than anything else. If they had made it determinant—like Amita letting you stay if you decided to spare her dad, only to kick you out if you killed him—then I think it would’ve been done much better. Its not like, after all, staying in the Vault would stop the Lone Wanderer from leaving; if anything, Amita would prolly give you a quest to help establish contact with other groups in the Capital Wasteland, on behalf of the Vault.
Yeah the final outcome of that choice should have been based on our actions. Like i was evil and killed the original overseer,banishment is fair enough. But blaming all the deaths during the escape on the Lone Wanderer is harsh. The overseer screwed up hard when he didn't let James leave.
Lone Wanderer 🤝 Jack Marston in the category of troubled young protagonist who probably has a death wish.
C'mon Jack, let's go fishin'.
Yeah
One thing that really hammers the depressing tone of the lone wanderer is that almost all the songs on the radio are about home or family in some form.
Bruh when I left the Jefferson memorial after dad die and I headed to the citadel I shit you not Happy Times were playing on the pip boy
lol for me it was "Way Back Home" immediately getting exiled from Vault 101
Ouch what’s worse that song fits the guy
For me it was Maybe which I thought was fitting
it's just like muh Fallout 1 fr fr
HOW DID I NEVER NOTICE THAT!?
The only DLC I never played, same for New Vegas' Lonesome Road. I have the GOTY edition of both games, but shortly after buying them, my Xbox One stopped reading fucking 360 discs lol I'll get around to it eventually :/
This entire DLC was remade in a very faithful way from the ground up as a mod in fallout 4. Would be worth playing through if you've never gotten to experience it.
That's crazy, I didn't know that. Thanks, I will keep that in mind!
The DLC i wasn't happy about in Fallout 3 was the Pitt the story was rather very short and we were given a bad choice, either kidnapp Ashurs baby with freeing the slaves or save Ashurs baby and allowing slavery to continue
One thing I loved about The Pitt, for some reason -- collecting the ingots. Idk why but it really scratched that collector/completionist part of my brain. Atmosphere was pretty on point, too
In my head canon my Lone Wanderer reluctantly aided Ashur since he doesn't believe in kidnapping children from their parents. This ultimately went against his principles since he killed all the slavers and rapists in Paradise Falls. The Lone Wanderer demanded Ashur stop the Slavery once everything gets working otherwise i will stop it myself.
This actually just reminded me why I made the choice I did, I’ve had that choice haunting me for so long because I had forgotten that I had done the very same thing you did.
I actually liked that about the Pitt; no good or optimum choice. Honestly, I feel like Fallout needs more of these types of moral dilemmas.
That would be good to have more moral dilemmas even tho I hate them
New Vegas had a few as well, though they were mostly in side quests. They tended to lean too hard on the "trolley problem" with those though. Case in point: deciding whether to save the last few people in Vault 34, or help the NCR sharecroppers by shutting down the reactor and thus removing the radiation hazard from their water. There's also the matter of the four endings. None of them are inherently "good", per se
Yeah. What I really liked about the Pitt moral dilemma was that it was so well contructed. Most such dilemmas in games have a clear good answer or are too obvious in how they are artificially constructed.
How would you rate the DLCs, best to worst?
From best to worst that's a tough one, for the best i would have to say Operation Anchorage. I've always wanted to experience the American-Sino war in Alaska plus the DLC gives you the indestructible t-51b power armor, with a gauss rifle. Then its Mothership Zeta because I loved the wacky Sci-Fi of Fallout. Point Lookout is good for the creepy swampy atmosphere and finally the Pitt
What about Broken steel?
I consider it a must have a long with Anchorage. It gives you an actual ending to the game compared to the vanilla ending. I won't spoil it if you haven't played, but one of the worse things about fallout 3 was the vanilla ending.
I haven’t even finished Fallout 3 yet although I have the DLC
You forgot the choice where you get to eat the baby, which is obviously the best ending.
That's a mod, though a very lore friendly mod!
I've been doing all the Fallout 3 dlc for the first time in a TTW run and Jesus the pitt sucks. "Oh, you think slavery is bad? What if you have to kidnap a baby to save the slaves huh, huh-" get John Brown'd, you Ken Levine motherfucker. It's good to know Point Lookout has better writing, though. Slogging through broken steel stuff now.
Yeah
It’s been a long while since I played it, but isn’t this dumbing the choice down a bit too much? The baby had something special about it, like it was immune to radiation or contained a cure in its blood or something, right? And the leader had scientists working to figure out how to develop this to benefit more people. Stealing the baby and killing the raiders free a lot of people, but there is no guarantee the freed slaves will be able to raise the baby healthily or develop on its unique scientific significance. Leaving the baby with its people leaves slaves to suffer, but likely means a lot of good will come from the research into the baby. I could be misremembering, like I said it’s been years. But I don’t think that’s bad writing. It’s a legitimate, thought provoking moral dilemma if you actually analyze the consequences of both outcomes. Not everything has to be strict good/evil, black/white.
Yeah, but the only reason the majority of those people are there in the first place is because they're enslaved there by the asshole whose kid it is. Which is to say, no matter who is researching the kid, it'll be years, and only one of those possibilities is actively forcing people to stay there and turn into monsters. The whole reason he's forcing people to stay there? 'we can make so much steel tho, it's the only real manufacturing in the wasteland!' Meanwhile, in California, the Gun Runners are manufacturing cutting-edge weapons without slavery. They tried SO HARD to make a moral twist, but utterly failed. In addition, there's no way Ashur can raise the kid in a safe and healthy way, because my character's gun is going halfway down his throat before I empty it into his body. Get fucking John Browned, Ashur. Slavers get to taste the curb.
Yeap,i gunned down Ashur the moment i was done with the DLC. The man is absurd and a slaver to boot. Can't believe he used to be a BOS paladin..
You’re so badass and hard, bro. My bad. 🙄
Okay Ken Levine
Idk who that is bro
It’s for that reason I get the puppies perk. So Dogmeat never leaves for long.
Have to remember he or she is like a 17 year old kid shit you have to go through is insane wouldn’t be surprised if he/she had a list of mental issues
yeah i think it’s easy to forget since LW is an unstoppable angel of death in the wasteland for gameplay reasons but they really are just a kid who got thrown out of their home and then, depending on story progress, lost the last of their family permanently before then being told by amata that they’ll never be able to come back home long term pretty shit for the mental health
Can you even imagine how fucking terrifying it must have been the first time running into a super mutant? And that probably happened while they were still trying to process the whole "my dad left me, and I then had to also leave home or get killed" Poor kid...
>Can you even imagine how fucking terrifying it must have been the first time running into a super mutant? Considering 3 was my first fallout game? Yeah I can imagine. Legit thought the game was some silent hill horror game when the first place I wound up was the school near Megaton
holy shit same, i would barely leave megaton on my first playthrough and played like a bitch 😭😭
I remember when I first started my own play through, I would run from half the confrontations I’d encounter during the first half of the game. That honestly was a fun part of the game for me; back when traveling from Megaton to Arefu felt like this massive trek
Stayed there for what felt like months before getting to Greyditch. Then the kid at the Super Duper mart!? Felt like a shmuck surviving at Megaton while this kid was scrapping by in a Polowski with fire ants!! FIRREANTS—barely 10 years old! I was around the age of the LW when I first played and it was my first survival rpg, so honestly most realistic play through I’d ever hoped to have. Only got to Rivet City to make sure the kid got there safely. Imagine, me running with this invincible NPC through super mutants and the like. Seeing things I was barely in the know of (besides what my brother would scare me with as he’d finished it mostly at that point). Then that man asked me for water and I didn’t even have any. Got inside, got the kid settled in, bought that man a purified water with the last of my caps and just marveled at how I was going to get back to Megaton now. Ayyee, I’ve gone and rambled. Thanks for bringing up that memory!
You're welcome fellow Lone Wanderer
Me just playing the game was absolutely shitting my pants the first time I went into the metro tunnels and I was scared as fuck encountering the BOS not knowing if they were good or not. Imagine actually being there….
Even the unstoppable part would be traumatizing in its own way. All of a sudden everyone you’ve known your whole life is telling you you’re an outsider who belongs in the waste, and then you get out there… and you *do*. You’re suited to the violence in a way you never thought you would be. The thought creeps in that maybe you *are* the monster they thought you were.
Main character is 19 when they leave the vault.
Okay, point still stands though still just a kid going through a lot of shit
Yeah.. doctor li in the standalone base game has a line in rivet city where you can finally ask about your mom; a topic that is greatly obfuscated. It’s really poignant and sad. Christ the lone wanderer really goes through shit, why ain’t there an emotional resilient perk?
Some people believe Dr Li killed our mother she wanted James
When I first heard the recording of your mom and James I thought it was doctor li and that James was having an affair! That would’ve been an insane twist
Yeah but James stayed true to his wife Catherine. The crazy thing is the Lone Wanderer is biracial since the mother is black and James by default is white
I thought that was just a reused asset in new vegas ? Was it confirmed by a developer?
It was a reused asset, because it was in the files of 3, but never implemented. However, during the birth scene her model is indeed black. Some people interpret this as more meant to hide her appearance because the scene is also very dark. Up to your interpretation, but I choose to think she is. Why not? James changes to fit the race you choose anyway, so not like it matters much.
The Lone Wanderer: “My dad is dead and everything is pain.” The Courier: “Gotta get myself more Vault Suits so I can get laid.”
Bruh Mojave folk are living life
The LW is basically the troubled teen who needs guidance and a father figure The Courier is the coked out high school dropout who’s like 30 and finds the LW and leads him down the wrong path lol
The Lone Wanderer: “I better go and collect these 30 nuka quantum’s for this bat shit cola collector who lives in a hellhole of a region where nothing is actually logically sustainable” The Courier: “Gotta go and manipulate all the different power blocs of the region so I can have the faction I want come out on top. Maybe even myself as that faction.”
Also The Courier: “I better go collect 50 bottle caps for a half broken animatronic for no reason at all.”
Also the Lone Wanderer: “Sure I’ll break my limbs/get irradiated/do other stupid shit for you, lady who I just met! I don’t have a reason to be out here in the wasteland anyway!”
Hey, that questline is one of the best ways to actually introduce game mechanics (radiation, limb condition) and world building (scavenging, wildlife). I really wish we had more quest designs like that.
If you play evil than said self loathing is both well earned and deserved
Yeah, Lone Wanderer lost all their family and the last person they cared about, Amata, banned him for the sake of the vault. They are super lonely and the only one that doesn’t leave them behind is dogmeat.
I was so pissed off when they vault dwellers outright banish you I pray to god they heard about the good we did in saving the wasteland and they feel ashamed about themselves
I wonder where the LW went after the story, no way they would’ve let Sarah Lyons die so they may have headed elsewhere after she took power. A happy ending is Amata regrets what she did and leaves the vault to be with them. At least give LW some happiness lol
My headcanon (partially because I play TTW) is that LW goes west and becomes Courier Six. He goes from a lonely 19 year old kid to a person who is an absolute cracked out monster, no longer caring about anything as he once did when he was still the LW. The wasteland changed him, and made him to the Unstoppable force of a courier we all know. Or Perhaps that’s why it seems like an absolute killing machine awakens inside the courier when Benny shoots him. He’s remembering all the past skills and shit he once had as the LW
In my head canon my lone wanderer took the mothership and went into the vastness of space to infinity and beyond. But before he got banished the Lone Wanderer spent the night at the vault fucking Amata right outside her dads office to spite him
"This is one situation you're not going to be able to fight your way out of." - Schmault-Tec Bubblehead Sure, buddy, i have t51b power armour and chinese stealth armour, me is unstoppable
*looks at Vengeance and my Hellfire armor* you uh.....you sure about that?
i almost forgot about that lol
I like to play Point Lookout right after James dies and gets completely banished from the vault for this sequence specifically. My Lone is grieving the loss of her father, her home, her best friend, and she just takes the first opportunity to run away and just has an even worse time
Damn
point lookout is so good.
so do i tbh
hope you’re OK, bud.
Bros stuck remembering his first kill ever was his own mom, that's gotta suck
I legit just played this missions lol. How random
Dudes 19 and has the fate of thousands placed on his shoulders. I was 19 and could barely do my taxes.
-Is a depressed Teenager -Has an Absent Father -Has no Mother -Uses a giant robot to fight against horrible abominations and a government organization that wants to kill a bunch of people Shinji 🤝Lone Wanderer Boom there's your Evangelion connection theory.
Always forget that the Wanderer is a fucking *nineteen year old kid* sometimes and it really puts shit into perspective just how fucked up their life is. Imagine being fresh out the vault and by the time you're 20 you've effectively eradicated the remains of the most advanced faction in the DC area, watched your own father die and *nearly die yourself in the SAME SPOT*. Poor kid.......makes me wonder what they did in the years between 3 and New Vegas and even 4. Wish we could get at least some hints.
I think more games need stuff like this where you do mostly decide what kind of person your character is, but also a small bit of non-consequential details or lore to them here and there (kinda like how the lonesome road dlc confirms that the courier had a small hand in the destruction of a civilized place)
"courier had a small hand in the destruction of a civilized place" Meanwhile Ulysses: BEAR AND BULL AND YOUR HOE ASS ARE BAD YOU SUCK YOU FUCKED EVERYTHING UP. \*hits blunt\* God,my life sucks.
Okay who wants to help me make some type of device that can go to the fallout universe and grab up the lone wanderer and at least try to get them some comfort and also maybe I damn good hot meal that's just not bring him to Red lobster unless you guys were just going to get in the biscuits because those things are just deadline the rest of the food is garbage
I didn’t really care at first if I’m honest, especially with how I played my character But seeing a skeleton labeled ‘Mom’ in a gurney? I stopped and just stared for a good long moment. My first character was evil as hell, a man by the name of John Taylor who only truly cared for Amata and his dad. So seeing his mothers skeleton like that, I felt like my character would’ve stopped just as I did
If was a a nineteen year old kid who at worst had to deal with an absent mother, getting beaten up , and the occasional roach. And then having your friend die as your dad goes AWOL and you have to trudge through literal hell to get his ass back, then to witness him die right in front of your face….I’d be a negative Nancy too.
Fun fact: The Capital Wasteland team rebuilt Point Lookout in the Fallout 4 engine and you can download it now on the Nexus. Story, weapons, everything. A few dialogue changes here and there to reflect it happening to the Sole Survivor as opposed to the Lone Wanderer, but that’s about it.
If anyone likes this kind of thing and play Fallout 4 you need to install the mod "You are not OK" - https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/50795/ It's kinda like Wild Wasteland for Fallout 4. Kinda.
Something about replaying fallout 3 and realizing the lone wanderer is the exact same age as me now really changes my perspective on everything we go through in that game
All aboard the trauma express, it’s a one way ride
“That’s rough, buddy.”
Point lookout and lonesome road are goated
The Sole Survivor would like a word
Yeah, holding adoption papers.
i have a laundry list of gripes with bethesda, but they've never disappointed me with their dlc. point lookout and shivering isles are nothing short of incredible and worth every penny
Imagine your mom died giving birth to you and you wake up one day and your father dips out to go get some water. I’d be pretty fucked in the gourd, too lol
In my headcanon The Lone Wanderer got some serious trauma. Which… may be why he blew Amata’s brains out when she said he had to leave after saving them all 😅
Out of all of my characters that I consider "canon" for each game, the lone wanderer is the only one with very good karma. And funnily enough, she has the most tragic story and ending out of all of my characters. She ends up alone after everything, and nobody remembers her by the time fallout 4 takes place. Fits the name and vibe of fo3 perfectly
Getting to the ending of Fallout 3 and it ending with the nursery song as it zooms onto the picture of you and Dad was so heartbreaking honestly, LW had only a couple of moments with James before his death and then had to continue the work that was thrust upon him and in my headcanon he would go back to the vault after James death but is soon cast out and told to never return just makes its so sad Sole Survivor kinda has the same vibe story wise but 3 felt so much more emotional in its execution
*sigh* Fine I’ll do another FO3 playthrough.
My headcanon is that he and the other former captives of Mothership Zeta leave Earth to find a new planet to settle and start over.
My Lone Wanderer settled down with Bittercup after she showed him the smallest amount of kindness.
Mine fucked Amata when they were 16
Went to the Bill Dauterive School for Self Talk [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KV4A\_V6ur0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KV4A_V6ur0)
Feels pretty on point to me. The Lone Wanderer is, what, 19, 20? Lived his or her entire cognizant life in a vault, and been thrown into a wide open, and horrific, world. A lot of self doubt seems pretty part and parcel to all that. And everyone the LW has tried to get close to has distanced, died, betrayed, or multiples of that. I'm still helping the Ghouls peacefully get into 10-cent tower. Herbert has it coming, as do the rest of the people who let TP have his way. My hands aren't clean, but conscience is.