FALLOUT 3 - discussion thread

[SlaveOfSeven]

Is it my imagination or has the patch increased z-fighting? I only got the game recently so didn't get much play time in before patching, but the first time I noticed z-fighting I realised how rare it seemed compared to previous Bethesda games. Now I see it in every direction I look. Perhaps I'm just noticing it more now or something.

Also, Butcher Pete is one strange song.

 

[PKerr]

Here is a few tid-bits on the new Fallout 3 DLC.

"The achievements for new downloadable content continue as we have just added the Achievements for Fallout 3 on the Xbox 360. This time around there are four new achievements, three of which worth 20 points and the fourth worth 40 GamerScore. The new achievements can only be unlocked in Operation: Anchorage, the downloadable content for Fallout 3 releasing on the 27th January at 800 Microsoft Points. The list contains 4 new achievements worth 100 GamerScore:"



http://www.consolemonster.com/newspost.php?id=0000004791

 

[backstept]

What was the quest part of that? I've been to the building, killed a lot of ghouls, but never fully cleared it or explored it. I think I might have been pretty injured by the time I got to the lower levels so I took off and never got around to going back. What happens? What's the "quest"?

You can listen to some recordings in the building of what's going on. It starts off as just an introduction in to some new system that automatically writes out what a person says, but as you listen you can hear how things degenerated in the building.

there were also some tapes scattered around the building . . . 9 in all I think
they were left by a man searching for his father who had begun going insane and traveled across the wastes. They ended up at the Dunwich Building and in the basement there's this obelisk with a bunch of ghouls worshiping it chanting 'Alhazzared' or something . . . turns out the father and son turned into ghouls

also there is a cool hallucination when you encounter a glowing one

Is it my imagination or has the patch increased z-fighting? I only got the game recently so didn't get much play time in before patching, but the first time I noticed z-fighting I realised how rare it seemed compared to previous Bethesda games. Now I see it in every direction I look. Perhaps I'm just noticing it more now or something.

Also, Butcher Pete is one strange song.

He's hackin' and wackin' and smackin'
He just hacks, wacks, choppin' that meat


also what's z-fighting?

 

[Bluejay]

I don't much like Bethesda but decided to give FO3 a shot and gave up after a few hours of play. I like RPGs but the feeling of "been there, seen it, done it" became stronger and stronger. And I found I have no interest in wandering around a melancholy landscape. In an attempt to find a motivating reason to continue, I read the walkthrough and decided it's not worth getting to the end.

So far, the most recent RPG to get me to replay over and over again is Mass Effect. I'm hoping BioWare has another ace with Dragon Age, due out in March. They've done well thus far.

 

[IDIC]

Also, Butcher Pete is one strange song.

You havent heard anything yet. You should listen to the otherside of the record. Here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCI8NmfGX-U

 

[OdoWanKenobi]

I don't much like Bethesda but decided to give FO3 a shot and gave up after a few hours of play. I like RPGs but the feeling of "been there, seen it, done it" became stronger and stronger. And I found I have no interest in wandering around a melancholy landscape. In an attempt to find a motivating reason to continue, I read the walkthrough and decided it's not worth getting to the end.

So far, the most recent RPG to get me to replay over and over again is Mass Effect. I'm hoping BioWare has another ace with Dragon Age, due out in March. They've done well thus far.

I liked Mass Effect, but I have to seriously dock it points for making me visit the same four environments over and over and over, like Bioware's development team could be assed to make anything in the game and just copy pasted stuff.

 

[SlaveOfSeven]

...also what's z-fighting?

It's when surfaces overlap so closely the computer can't decide which one to draw so tries to draw them both and you get that unsightly flickering where the overlap occurs.

Hardly noticed any of that initially but since the patch it seems much more frequent.

You should listen to the otherside of the record.

It was mostly the second half I was thinking of. I hadn't heard it but I looked up the lyrics. I mean it starts out as your average song that's ostensibly about a serial killer but is actually about a serial, er, shagger but ends up about... Hacking on pulpits and the electric chair? Huh? He goes from shagging everything that moves to wanking over inanimate objects? And China? What's that all about? Crazy stuff. Whatever, a less relaxed moral climate sure seems to produce some amusing and creative innuendo.

 

[Shurik]

I don't much like Bethesda but decided to give FO3 a shot and gave up after a few hours of play. I like RPGs but the feeling of "been there, seen it, done it" became stronger and stronger. And I found I have no interest in wandering around a melancholy landscape. In an attempt to find a motivating reason to continue, I read the walkthrough and decided it's not worth getting to the end.

So far, the most recent RPG to get me to replay over and over again is Mass Effect. I'm hoping BioWare has another ace with Dragon Age, due out in March. They've done well thus far.

I liked Mass Effect, but I have to seriously dock it points for making me visit the same four environments over and over and over, like Bioware's development team could be assed to make anything in the game and just copy pasted stuff.

Mass Effect is indeed a great game, but traveling through those damn mountain planets gets old very fast.

 

[backstept]

...also what's z-fighting?

It's when surfaces overlap so closely the computer can't decide which one to draw so tries to draw them both and you get that unsightly flickering where the overlap occurs.

Hardly noticed any of that initially but since the patch it seems much more frequent.

I haven't noticed any of that . . . maybe your video card needs a driver update or something

one thing I've noticed is that sometimes the LOD meshes will overlap. like the distant LOD mesh for the Lincoln Memorial won't fade out when I get closer.
it usually happens when I've been playing for a good long session

 

[Lookingglassman]

I didnt like Mass Effect. Half the time I didnt know what to do or where to go in order to advance the story. I gave up once I got stuck and got sick of running around the Citadel and other planets trying to find out what I was supposed to do in order to move forward.

Because of that bad experience I wasnt going to get Fallout 3, but I conned my mom into getting it for me for Christmas so I wasnt out 60 bucks. I will admit I really enjoy it. I hope they make a Fallout 4.

 

[SlaveOfSeven]

maybe your video card needs a driver update or something

Yeah, will give that a go. It's a new system and I've switched from XP to Vista and ATI to Nvidia and I can't tell whether the driver is current or not. Too much change and I'm a bit flummoxed at the moment. But yeah, will try updating the drivers anyway.

 

[Iasius]

...also what's z-fighting?

It's when surfaces overlap so closely the computer can't decide which one to draw so tries to draw them both and you get that unsightly flickering where the overlap occurs.

Hardly noticed any of that initially but since the patch it seems much more frequent.

I haven't noticed any of that . . . maybe your video card needs a driver update or something

one thing I've noticed is that sometimes the LOD meshes will overlap. like the distant LOD mesh for the Lincoln Memorial won't fade out when I get closer.
it usually happens when I've been playing for a good long session

I've only noticed flickering of the sky textures at times. Looking down and back up usually fixes it.
I think it's also gotten more rare with the recent patch, but I'm not sure about that since I've also switched to playing under XP instead of Vista lately.
I also occasionally experience suddenly very low framerates that are quickly fixed by saving and reloading from the main menu (seems to happen more often immediately after using VATS).

If anyone knows a fix for those issues, I'd be grateful.

 

[Shurik]

I didnt like Mass Effect. Half the time I didnt know what to do or where to go in order to advance the story. I gave up once I got stuck and got sick of running around the Citadel and other planets trying to find out what I was supposed to do in order to move forward.

Actually, advancing the main story is pretty easy once you have the control of the ship - you just go to the planets the Council asks you to check, talk/kill/destroy everything you must and that advances you through the main quest. Getting to the point where you can control the ship can be frustrating, because most of the time you have to run through Citadel and talk to people, with couple of fights in between.

Still, I liked the game, finished it yesterday and started it once again, with a different character ...

 

[Skywalker]

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!

I just finished going through Fort Constantine, and as I walked out the door back into the Wasteland, my game froze up. Okay, no problem. I saved before leaving the building. So I try loading that save, but it keeps freezing while loading. What the hell? What am I supposed to do now? I have four different saves, but my most recent one on the other save slot was twelve hours ago!

 

[Lookingglassman]

shurik,

I must have been doing something wrong. I did what I was ordered to do, but when I went back to the Citadel I was told to do what I did already. I got sick of running back and forth between the planets and the citadel and not getting anywhere. I talked to the various characters and they were no help. I might give Mass Effect another chance in the future, though.

I am currently Fallout 3 less. I let a buddy borrow it. He let me borrow Dead Space, though so I got that to play. It is a fun game, but I dont like the controls so far and it is hard trying to see the map when I am trying to figure out where to go. It gives me the creeps, though, but still fun to paly.

 

[Shurik]

I must have been doing something wrong. I did what I was ordered to do, but when I went back to the Citadel I was told to do what I did already. I got sick of running back and forth between the planets and the citadel and not getting anywhere. I talked to the various characters and they were no help. I might give Mass Effect another chance in the future, though.

That's weird ... Once I got the ship, I started to explore the galaxy without advancing the main quest, then, after exploring everything I could, I went to free the alien archeologist chick, then to the planet with rachni and matriarch Benezia and then to Feros. Once I finished those 3 planets, I went to Virmire (it appeared on my map sometime during the visits to previous 3 planets), then Ilos and it's basically point of no return from where the game progresses in linear manner until the end.

 

[Bluejay]

Leave the alien archeologist 3rd in the lineup (you can choose the first 2 in any order though I always do Feros first), before Virmire. Her dialogue is different due to this change and it's funny.

 

[Reverend]

Be warned, I just applied the latest patch and found it wiped out ALL of my saves. That's a very nearly completed game on all good karma and a ridiculously overstocked house in Megaton and another bad Karma game I had been working up.
Bugger.

 

[IDIC]

Nothing bad happened when I applied the patch the previous week. Looks like tomorrow is suppose to be the release of the first DLC for Fallout 3, title Operation Anchorage. They say it will take 4 to 5 hours but my guess is probably an hour as things are always over inflated.

 

[LutherSloan]

I agree, the one thing I didn't like about Mass Effect was having essentially all of the planets you visit with the buggy/tank feel WAY too similar. It got old pretty fast. Whereas the attention to detail in Fallout 3 frequently bordered on overkill. The number of little things in the game, like eerie audio recordings, computer logs, etc. made it seem like a real world that has been around for awhile (which makes sense, considering the nuclear holocaust occurred 200 years before the start of the game).