Neato Does the ghoul's stack stay standing up, anyway? And that limb regeneration thing perk sounds cool! You've got quite a few perks I didn't even have the chance to pick (different base stats), too.

One of my favorite perks so far is 'Mysterious Stranger'. It was already fun in the original Fallouts, but the way they implemented it in F3 is pretty sexah too...if you're in VATS, there's the odd chance that he will show up and blast the shit out of your target with a .44 magnum. He's wearing your typical trenchcoat/hat combination and a "gunslinger" tune plays everytime he appears. Sweet.

I was tempted by the Cannibal trait but I already have enough bad karma. I can't seem to get this playing "good" thing right.


*SPOILERS*

Ok, so I found the Family on your directions. I haven't found a 'neutral' solution there, I guess the only real neutral solution is to let them in peace and arrange a basic pact between the gang and the town (town provides blood packs, they leave the town alone). Oh and keep the brother at their compound.

I actually went for the highroad and talked the brother out of staying there, patted everyone on the back, arranged a truce between the gang and the town (blood in exchange for protection) and learned the 'ways of the vampire'. I used intelligence/medicine skill to persuade the leader, so I dunno how you will do it if your medicine isn't very high yet.

Btw, hacking difficult? Not enough skill to access terminals or having troubles with the minigame? It's fun, and easy! Just takes some attention, but I'll be the first to admit that I'm sometimes confused by it too.

Did two extremely fun quests yesterday...let's just say that one involved a robot with a wig. Awesome. The MQ is still spinning up and I haven't even seen a fraction of the entire map yet. Maybe i will go explore some vaults next...

Erm, where and when was the option to choose traits? i kinda missed this, i think.

There are no traits in Fallout 3. Only perks. Most traits have been reworked into perks now, though.

I never really got why they abandoned traits. They were fun, made your character even more distinct and were completely optional. For Satis: you could pick up to two traits at character creation, which came with both a bad and a good effect. Some favorites of mine:

Jinxed



The good thing is that everyone around you has more critical failures in combat, the bad thing is - so do you! If you or a non-player character have a failure during combat, there is a greater likelihood that the failure will be upgraded (or is it downgraded) to a critical failure.

Chem reliant



You are more easily addicted to chems. Your chance to be addicted by chem use is twice normal, but you recover faster from their ill effects.

Kamikaze



By not paying attention to any threats, you can act a lot faster in a turn. This lowers your armor class to just what you are wearing, but you sequence much faster in a combat turn. You have no natural armor class. You must wear armor to have an armor class. Your sequence gets a +5 bonus.

heh, those sound pretty fun. Are those the only options, or just examples?

Regarding the obsessive compulsive stacks, they were just like that... I was actually walking out of his lair when I noticed it. Freakin' bizarre. I then picked up one of the pencils and the whole stack collapsed. Really neat.

The regeneration perk I picked up by doing a quest for a chick in Megaton. I don't let myself get that irradiated much, so it's not really very helpful. I haven't had the option to pick up cannibalism or mysterious stranger yet.

Btw, did you find the 'superheros' yet? That the most recent quest I finished. Awesome quest, btw. And I picked up some sort of custom laser pistol from it.

btw, what's MQ?

Oh, the hacking minigame is just confusing to me. I mean, I understand the premise, but it's just a pain in the ass imo. Lock picking I totally kick ass on, though.

They're just a few examples. Here is the full list:

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Traits#Fallout_2

(scroll down and universal traits + fallout 1 for all of them)

I'm actually thinking of doing an overhaul of the fallout 3 skills system once they release a construction set, if I can technophobically manage it. For one, by putting traits back in and limiting perks to every two or three levels (every 3 in the original fallouts). And the skill system...I'm lvl 15 now and I maxed out 5 stats or so, thanks to 10 INT + perk that adds 3 skillpoints everytime. Not cool. Needs some nerfing.

I also pack 160 stimpacks and a shitload of other drugs atm. So far, combat is a little bit too easy...and I feel it would be even easier if I used guns. I occasionally use a plasma rifle and it pwnz all. Seriously. And I suspect there are much more powerful weapons still. I would set the difficulty to hard but perhaps only when I reach the lvl cap because you also get more XP at higher difficulty levels.


MQ is Main Quest, you n44b Cool @ megaton perk...I didn't find it, it seems. But that's cool. And mysterious stranger might not be that awesome if you use guns yourself and can shoot the crap outta everything. I was going toe-to-toe with a deathclaw yesterday and only had 2 bars of HP left as I was about to exit VATS, thinking I was going to die...but the mysterious stranger saved my ass with a few well-placed magnum shots. Thanks stranger!


SPOILERS


Yeah, superheroes quest was fun. That secret door to the mechanizer's lair had me cracking up, with its 10 layers or so. Glorious corny fun. I managed to talk the Mechanizer out of it (even with my low speech), he seemed pretty sane still. But the Antagonizer...she got all crazy on my ass and I killed her. Whatchagonnado, eh?

Did I mention I hate mirelurks? Ugh. Tough, tough bastards...fast and serious damage too, often crippling. But I noticed they're not as bad if you use ranged tactics on them...'eye' is vulnerable. But as a melee/unarmed character you -for some reason- can't aim at specific body parts. God knows why. I do cripple one limb after another with my 10 luck, but I can never pick which.

Cleared 2 vaults yesterday. One of them infested with mirelurks, the other the scene of a strange experiment (and fun!). I've yet to find a vault with a relatively stable survivor in other than 101. Oh and I travelled WAY up North to the Republic of Dave and then found some old sattelite dishes. Recovered launching codes and even launched some nukes to god knows where. I hope I didn't nuke anything important. I love this game.

lol, sounds cool. I haven't progressed all that much further than where I was. But yes, this game is totally awesome. I'm playing as ranged, specifically energy and small arms. My main weapons are a laser rifle and a .32 hunting rifle, depending on ammo. I'll also swap over to a pistol. I'm currently exploring a toy factory I stumbled across. Good, wholesome fun.

I'm starting to think the enemies could be a little more varied, though. Not that it's bad or anything, it just gets a bit repetitive killing the same thing over and over again. :p I do like how every building seems to be unique.... I don't think I've stumbled across any place that was constructed identically.

Yeah, apart from the occasional animals/bugs you meet in the wasteland most of what you kill is raiders and mutants, really. Super mutants get stronger (super mutant brutes, super mutant masters) but raiders stay raider afaik. The problem isn't so much that the enemy types don't vary too much, more that most of them only appear in specific places or contexts. I still occasionally meet enemies I haven't seen before (maybe because I'm reaching higher levels?) but rarely out in the open.


Btw, just general reminders to you and Peltz:

- once you complete the MQ the game is over, so don't rush it
- a patch is supposed to be released any time soon now

cool on the patch, and I did know about the MQ ending the game. I'm in no hurry to finish it... mainly exploring.

I finished up the toy factory. There was some guy at the end called 'The Scientist'. I put him down pretty easily. I'm wondering if he was part of some quest or other. Oh well, hopefully it won't kill the quest, just allow me to instantly complete it when I pick it up.

Heh, I love how can you stumble into places like that. I found stuff like the nuka cola plant, a robotics assembly station, etc all over the wasteland. Fun. Didn't find the one you describe yet...maybe for later, or for a second run through.

I progressed a little bit in the MQ and did some things in there that were apparently abominable. Now I'm 'very evil' again...and I try SO goddamn hard to do the right thing. Meh. I guess I'll have to play the goody-good guy for a while now, if I can bring myself to that.

You find Reilly's rangers yet? It's a long and hard quest and in an erhm troubled area, so perhaps not. And did you get the tour in the Nuka Cola museum? fun, fun.

P.S. F3 is doing great, review-wise

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/fallout3

One of the higher overall PC scores ever on metacritic iirc

I haven't discovered any of those things you mention. It shows how expansive this game is. I've been pretty focused on getting to rivet city... finally made it now, so I'm wandering around exploring it and talking to its denizens.

I think I'm level 10 now and both my energy weapons and small arms skills are in the 80s... with the sniper perk I have, I can typically kill a super mutant with 2-3 shots from my laser rifle.

There was this one part on the way to the city that was just a solid line of old, broken cars. But there was also some guy with a missile launcher. He shot at me, hit the cars and the whole line of like 20 vehicles exploded... it threw me hundred of feat in the air without arms, legs or a head... so I reloaded and started sneaking around... he shot at me again, the cars exploded, but this time I was far enough away not to die immediately. I got a huge dose of radiation and all my limbs were crippled I ended up dying again somehow.

So the third time I went around the long way and killed them from behind. Bastards. :p

Sometimes the game does weird stuff. I killed a super mutand who was on a balcony with a missile launcher. Well he was stuck there and couldnt leave. So the final shot was a critical hit into the arm, first the arm came of but then, then the dead body took off like a rocket. I mean i was like 50-100m from the dude and it flew over me so i had to look behind me where he was flying off to. So he flew above me and far away, i think he landed on a rooftop, coz the body was nowhere to be found. At these moments i wish for a movie recording.

You probably semi-insta-died from major radiation poisoning after that second blast. You invariably die at a 1000 radiation...and suffer extremely weakening effects at other levels.

Explosion effects feel very real in F3. Even a faraway explosion will make the earth tremble slightly in a believable way. But when a lot of shit explodes at the same time shit gets fucked up, yeah. I remember running through the deeper parts of DC between the super mutants, but I stumbled upon a few super mutant brutes with rocket launchers and miniguns in a relatively open street with lots of car wrecks around. Only barely made it out alive with shit exploding left and right.

Oh and just a little bit further I somehow convinced a poor guy to go disarm a mini nuke. Was the first (and last) time I saw a 'fatman' explosion.

For a precision shooter like you one super mutant probably is a breeze...the problems only begin when in a room and there's 3 super mutants with miniguns, right?

Yea, I can handle 2 or so without any issues. If I get 3 on me at once I start taking some hits, especially if there's no cover for me.

I'm obviously still playing... I found out about this place called Oasis from some guys that forced me to kill them So I headed up there... what a really cool quest. It was imaginative and different, with several very different potential endings. That, I think, is what makes this game so awesome. I won't talk about it too much to avoid spoilers, but I'm just continually impressed by this game.

I then headed westward toward some broken radar dishes and found a military base just beyond them. I've started working my way into one of the radar dishes and am looking forward to what I find.

BTW, I found this door in the wasteland that I could open. Of course I opened it and behind it was a wall with the words "FUCK YOU" spray painted on it. Freakin' amazing. I snapped a screenie... I'll post it later.

Haha, yeah, I found that door too. Had me laugh as well. Almost as hard as when I found the Mechanist's lair.


Haven't found the oasis you mention yet...so thanks for not spoiling I progressed a little bit further in the MQ and I finally got me some power armor training. Look out, wasteland!!

Other than that just messing around...I had plans with that military base of yours Satis, but I think i messed them up by working for someone. No matter.

What's your fav spot to kill time btw? I like Underworld, for some reason. Even with all the uglies around it's a cosy place, in a central spot. Feels safe.

Oooh, I got myself a ghoul mask! Don't ask me where I got it (spoiler), but it's awesome. Feral ghouls don't go hostile on me when i wear it...I can stroll right past them. Makes subway travel a lot less spooky!

I'm thinking about creating a secondary character already...a completely psychotic mass murderer with a penchant for fire, big explosions and all that jazz. Bloody mess, pyromaniac, ladykiller/black widow will all be mandatory perks. Oh and this character WILL be evil. Like, really evil. Not like my current one who only accidentally is evil.