Fallout 3

[onodera]

Originally posted by FrostyBoy
I haven't finished the game yet. I fear I am not even 1/10th of the way through after realising not long ago how easy it is to walk past an important place without noticing it. The game is too big!

Too big? It barely has a dozen quests and there are 1.5 towns in the whole world.

[Alinestra Covelia]

There is a good number of quests that are never listed in your PIP Boy. Counting those, I'd estimate there are closer to 30 or maybe even 40 quests, total. Some are rather short but others are just as lengthy as main quests.

As for your 1.5 towns comment, that's just flat out wrong.

[onodera]

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia
There is a good number of quests that are never listed in your PIP Boy. Counting those, I'd estimate there are closer to 30 or maybe even 40 quests, total. Some are rather short but others are just as lengthy as main quests.

As for your 1.5 towns comment, that's just flat out wrong.

Yeah, I forgot the Underworld, Tenpenny's and the Paradise Falls.
Rivet City: 1
The Underworld: 2
Megaton: 2.5 (half of the time you blow it up)
Paradise Falls: 3 (half of the time you kill them all)
Tenpenny: 4

The Citadel and Little Lamplight are mandatory quest sites.

Arefu: 0 <- 4 NPCs, 1 quest.
Girdershade: 0 <- 2 NPCs, 1 quest
Grayditch: 0 <- 2 NPCs, 1 quest
Andale: 0 <- 7 NPCs, 1 miniquest
Agatha's House: 0 <- 1 NPC, 1 quest, 1 miniquest
RRs' Hideout: 0 <- 4 NPC, 1 quest, 1 miniquest

Don't get me wrong, the game's good, but it's much smaller that F1 or F2.

[ZEE]

you also forgot Canturbury Commons, the main caravan stop point

[Guynemer]

And the Republic of Dave.

[onodera]

Both don't count as cities.

CC has 1 quest and what, 5 NPCs?
Republic of Dave has 1 miniquest, has to be visited to complete a quest, and has 8 NPCs, 3 of which are kids.

[Alinestra Covelia]

You didn't say cities, though - you said towns. If you were including "cities" in your definition then you're kinda missing out DC itself. (Granted, it's overrun with mutants and Talon company, but you also didn't say anything about it having to be populated with people. And in any case it's probably smarter now than it was before the war )

[onodera]

Sorry, there are no separate words in Russian for 'town' and 'city', so I tend to use them interchangeably.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Oh, okay my bad

Yeah, if you mean "populated settlements" then it's true, Fallout 3 has fewer than 1 and 2 do. Possibly because D.C. must've taken a direct hit with a nuke and then all the people died.

But the game feels a lot bigger to me. Cause in 1 & 2 you were basically fast-traveling between a few distinct locations. But here in most cases (not the city, but everywhere else) you actually walk the distance, seeing all the landscape and the wandering encounters.

[onodera]

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia
Oh, okay my bad

Yeah, if you mean "populated settlements" then it's true, Fallout 3 has fewer than 1 and 2 do. Possibly because D.C. must've taken a direct hit with a nuke and then all the people died.

But the game feels a lot bigger to me. Cause in 1 & 2 you were basically fast-traveling between a few distinct locations. But here in most cases (not the city, but everywhere else) you actually walk the distance, seeing all the landscape and the wandering encounters.

Yeah, I do understand that the map of F3 is like 3x3 squares of an F1 or an F2 map, which is 1/2+ of California in each case, so it would be unreasonable to expect many populated places, but why isn't Girdershade overtaken by Raiders or Slavers?
Also, I know that the F3 map is packed with goodies, but it seemed large only during the first playthrough.
Right now I'm playing an evil, evil Slaver (melee characters weren't much fun, so it's a shooty one again), and I realize I can see across half the map. Literally, you can see Agatha's relay tower from the National Guard Depot, Tenpenny Tower from Megaton and those triple smokestacks on one of the power plants from basically anywhere. It's nice that you can pick a landmark in the distance and walk towards it, but it's starting to feel cramped when you know where verything is.

[DrSpike]

I started this over the weekend. I'm still in Megaton - it's great so far.

[pg]

FO3 seems much larger than FO1/FO2 to me. Those games were mostly dead space on the maps, at least you can explore in this game.

[N35t0r]

Originally posted by onodera
Also, I know that the F3 map is packed with goodies, but it seemed large only during the first playthrough.
Right now I'm playing an evil, evil Slaver (melee characters weren't much fun, so it's a shooty one again), and I realize I can see across half the map. Literally, you can see Agatha's relay tower from the National Guard Depot, Tenpenny Tower from Megaton and those triple smokestacks on one of the power plants from basically anywhere. It's nice that you can pick a landmark in the distance and walk towards it, but it's starting to feel cramped when you know where verything is.

Lower the view distance in video details

[Spaced Cowboy]

Went to Paradise Falls last night as I'm exploring map markers that have popped-up over time that I have not been to. I do remember seeing this on the way to the minefield.

It was so hard not to just start something with those guys, but I wanted to see what was in the town.

Spoiler:

I paid 500 caps to get in and another 1200 caps to free the three kids. It seems like there are a lot of flipping slavers in there. At level 16 I should have no trouble taking them out, but I'm still not sure that is something my extremely good character would do. I ended up leaving to go to explore some other place on the map.

Also it seems like these random places on the map don't really have anything special except for caps and ammo.

I also wish the carrying weight was more realistic.

I must be carrying 15-20 weapons and a huge store of ammo. That doesn't count all the meds (100+ stimpaks), 4000 caps, and mines and grenades.

[onodera]

Originally posted by Spaced Cowboy
Went to Paradise Falls last night as I'm exploring map markers that have popped-up over time that I have not been to. I do remember seeing this on the way to the minefield.

It was so hard not to just start something with those guys, but I wanted to see what was in the town.

You should've joined them. Slavery is a profitable business. You can enslave raiders, if you want to stay good.