Fallout Series: Because Arguing Never Changes

Don't forget that the BoS does recruit exceptional outsiders from time to time. That, combined with keeping good records of who is related to who, and it shouldn't be too hard to stave off incest.

Recruiting more is still better, though. It is by far the biggest advantage Fallout 4's Brotherhood has.

Well, you'd have to take most of the scientists out on account of, y'know, Maxson executing most of them for crimes against humanity, but yeah the numbers add up all things considered.

200 years isn't all that much time either. Enough for 400/500ish people to breed without major complications.

It's about ten generations, maybe a bit less depending on cultural norms. Military types usually get married young, right?

I don't know the exact equation for how many people you would need for a viable gene pool, though.

I've heard that the absolute bare minimum is around 500 unrelated individuals, at least for humans.

Uh, excuse me. Since I don't want to necro a thread from 2016, could someone help me out with a technical problem in Fallout 3?

Theoretically, yes. What's the issue?

I bought the GOG version today and started it up. Thing is, it almost immediately crashes as soon as I press New Game, no matter what settings I change. It just starts loading and then boots me back to my desktop and closes the game. I'm playing on Windows 10, by the way.

> Playing on Windows 10

Honestly, that's probably at least half of the problem. Old Bethesda games do not like modern operating systems.

I've messed around with it for ages and never gotten it to run for longer than 10 mins and then never again.

New Vegas runs a lot better.

I seem to remember some sort of patch that I needed to get the Steam version working on Windows 10... I'll try to find it for you guys.

See, that's part of the thing. Supposedly, the GOG version already comes patched in order to work. It's why I bought it there, and I can't find my problem in their forums.

Thing is, the other Bethesda games have all worked fine on my pc, to the exclusion of Skyrim and Fallout 4, which I never tried because I don't have. I was even playing Oblivion right before writing this reply. And yeah, Windows 10 sucks. If I had another choice I'd probably change it.

edited 6th Jun '18 7:07:41 AM by TheLovecraftian

Alright, I remember now. I had to download Games for Windows Live to get Fallout 3 GOTY working on 10. I have no idea how or why it was needed to make the game work, but it was.

There's probably a feature Win 10 has that hooks in to the old Bethesda stuff or something. Like how the Steam version of Star Wars Battlefront II requires a microphone even if you're singleplayer because of a programming artifact that was never removed.

Silly but does 10 still have the "run this program in compatibility mode for" button? Also try getting the unofficial fan patches. Option three if you're a little mod savvy would be to get tale of two wastelands and see if that fixes it.

I actually got this mod on a recommendation. It basically tricks the game into thinking you have a specific graphics card that lets the game run. I'll leave the mod link here in case anyone runs into a similar problem.

Thank all the gods that I didn't have to install Games For Windows Live. That'd be worse than Origin. My poor computer deserves better.

edited 6th Jun '18 2:55:14 PM by TheLovecraftian

FYI, this is another reason why the game could crash.

Apparently Todd Howard stated that another studio developing another fallout game is "unlikely" meaning New Vegas was just a one-off thing...damnit!

To be fair, when New Vegas was developed, Bethesda was a much smaller studio at the time, so it made sense to farm out development to other studios. Now Bethesda is huge, and is starting to open up multiple branches. Doing everything in-house means more control over the product, so it makes sense.

Open question:

Which Fallout game would you consider to be the best thematically?

New Vegas, no doubt, in my opinion. You all know me, loving to harp on about New Vegas if I can get away with it, but in terms of unified themes? I think it really has the best. I've talked about it before, but I think a lot of the game revolves around two main thematic threads: what to take of the past, and issues of governments/nationbuilding. These are pretty tied: every faction in the game is leaning on the past somewhat, whether the NCR's determination to style themselves as the first full-fledged nation by deliberately aping elements of the pre-War world (e.g. paper money), Caesar's reliance on Roman imagery and historical inevitability, House's attempts to take things in a bold, new direction coupled with his re-establishment of Old World capitalism and his Vegas nostalgia.

Almost everything ties into this, so much of the game's content. Everything's focused on how these different societies are meeting, and the upcoming battle that'll decide the fate of the region. Almost everything else is focused on these issues of the past: Arcade has to decide what he should take from his Enclave father and how much he should do to distance from it as an individual, Veronica has to decide how to handle the Brotherhood being so mired in tradition that it can't adapt to the world, Boone has to find peace both from what happened to his wife and his own actions at Bitter Springs, Raul has to decide how to handle the loss of identity that comes with aging, etc. etc.

And these themes, I feel, largely do come across in gameplay. You explore the roads that define how the land shapes out and how's it developed, you stumble across the occasional remnants and ruins of the past, you in Hardcore Mode deal with the need for resources (at least in principle) that a lot of the game talks about.

Fallout 2 is deep mechnically, but largely thematically inconsistent: it's sprawling, you can go become a slaver or a porn star. Part of the appeal, really. Fallout is short but sweet. Fallout 3 drifts all over with sidequests. Sometimes the Americana aspect just feels like flavourful decoration. 4 has similar drift, but a lot of focus on synth sentience — which would be fine, if I thought it dealt with that issue in meaningful and complex ways.

New Vegas is my absolute favourite thematically. And this is without getting into the DLCs, where trapped in a ruin of the past you have to learn to let go, or help a scarred and bandaged man make peace with his violent past, or deal with a man who thinks every nation currently existing needs to be nuked to avoid the mistakes of the past.

Edited by Lavaeolus on Jul 30th 2018 at 2:03:25 PM

It be uncontroversial to say the Enclave are far and away the most evil faction in the franchise, right?

So why does Caesar's Legion get more shit than anyone? New Vegas is beloved by all but that dern Legion is so bad that people feel compelled to tell hilariously blatant lies like "they dont use guns and are just idiots with machetes using human wave tactics."

It's the power armor, isn't it? Nerds will be more forgiving if you have pew pew.

The Legion gets more characterization. We see more of their crimes firsthand, and the game explicitly shows that killing Caesar and Lanius won't be enough to put a stop to them. With the Enclave, meanwhile, they're isolated, the game doesn't really show their most terrible actions onscreen, and it does pretty much let you wipe them out to the last man. So while they're worse, it's not as open-ended. Honour hath been satisfied. Also yes, nerds will forgive a lot if power armour is involved. You only need to look at the Space Marines (and BOS, for that matter) to see that.

For me, it's that the Legion engages in barbarianism and has modelled itself on Rome at it's turning point towards it's fall, while the Enclave just wanna kill everyone deemed a mutant.

The Legion is shown in detail, we see their crimes, the aftermath, how the victims suffer through it.

The Enclave kills people and then moves on.

We hear the arguments from the Legion, their troopers, their leaders and see how each differs but falls in line.

The Enclave has maybe a few notable figures.

For me, It's not the power armor, I'm not a fan of the insectoid design it has going on and generally it turns me off. It's just the fact that the Legion is a interesting evil force with it's own unique take other than "They're nazis but [x]" which I feel the enclave fits into in general.

When I talk about the evil of the Legion, it's generally praise for making vicious unforgiving bad guys that I can hate with effort into why. Whereas I feel that with the Enclave and similar types of bad guys, you just have to slap a label on them and be done with it as you've made them already pretty evil.

Interesting truly hateable bad guys are hard to find. Often writers tend to go something simple and understandably hateable and then leave it at that. The Legion has effort put in to make them evil.

Edited by EchoingSilence on Aug 24th 2018 at 5:18:23 AM

https://youtu.be/5z8XHe2NoAE

A huge video defense of Fallout 3, pointing out the game does offer plenty of choice, the BOS in this game has precedent in the older games, the subway tunnels and varied environments made the world feel bigger than NV and a lot more.