Fallout Series: Because Arguing Never Changes

there's bad bugs with a fan patch I've found.

This is the first time I have heard of the Restoration Patch. Is it compatible with the Steam version?

From what I have found, it seems possible, with some tinkering.

The Restoration patch is great. It adds some cut quests and locations, and fixes most bugs. The quality of some of the restored content can be debated (mainly the parts that were not fully developed and are more fan made than restored, like the EPA), but at least they don't break the game balance.

Also the patch usually comes with nice to have patches, like displaying the game in high resolution (almost mandatory on today's screens), showing the armours on your companions or giving Cassidy a talking head.

I think Nate/Nora is a Synth despite it being a retcon from Far Harbor. Why? Because it explains why Nate was left alive when Kellog killed the rest of his Vault. It also fits Father's insane parent issues that he'd make a Synth replica of his father to raise his replica of himself.

That doesn't make much sense. If Nate/Nora was a synth, Father could have deactivated them the moment they started causing trouble for him. Furthermore, if Father wanted a synth parent, wouldn't it make more sense to make the spouse a synth as well and have two synth parents helping each other and searching for their son together, rather than leaving one traumatized over "witnessing" their spouse's death?

It also doesn't make a lot of sense in the context of the Institute ending. The Institute would catch onto their leader never aging real quick, methinks.

Edited by PhiSat on Apr 17th 2024 at 3:50:50 AM

I like the ambiguity of the Far Harbour suggestion that the Sole Survivor is a synth, because, even if it doesn't make too much sense, it is fun to head canon and roleplay with. Not confirming it avoids continuity issues and pissing of people that twist would upset, while still suggesting allows for fun roleplay opportunities as the Survivor grapples with that idea.

Honestly, Far Harbour is amazing. From the tone to the plot to the atmosphere to the characters to the moral ambiguity, it's great.

So it's your fault!

Edited by king15 on Apr 17th 2024 at 11:23:46 AM

Fun fact, "Sole Survivor" is a moniker that TV Tropes and the Fallout Wiki made up in the hours after the gameplay reveal for lack of an official moniker for the protagonist (it's just based on Todd Howard saying "you emerge as the sole survivor of the vault" in his speech) and is used nowhere in the actual game, in fact it only ever started showing up in official products a few months after release, probably because the fandom latched onto it so hard.

...I'm honestly curious, going back, where I personally may have played a role in deciding on that as an interim term until we got an official one (which we never really did). I was actively, fervently editing both here and on the Wiki at the time.

He left the protag alive as an alternative tissue harvesting subject in case Shaun was injured or died during extraction, he explicitly says as much in the intro. "At least we still have the backup."

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Apr 17th 2024 at 4:09:29 AM

See now, when I played the game, I found that if I lined up my position with the map's gridlines and travelled across the map exactly horizontally or vertically, using the lines as a guide, I would get precisely one random encounter per click, which made it fairly easy to reach the base. If anyone's playing the game now, give it a try and see if it works for you, too.

The Synths don't seem to have recall buttons. Also, Father seems to have created an elaborate fantasy in his head of his parent raising himself either way. That's canon to the game. He's deeply up his own megalomaniac ass.

I plan to install Fallout 3 again, to see how long it takes for my character to become a mass murderer.

One can mass murder at level 2, because of the bomb.

So I'll see how many hours of in-game time it takes me.

Edited by Luisdalas on Apr 22nd 2024 at 2:07:26 AM

Crimes against humanity speedrun! Love to see it!

The Synths do have reset codes. You have to be in close proximity to them to use them but it's an option when you're doing Institute missions and getting rid of problematic Synths. Father could have instantly reset Nate/Nora the moment they misbehaved if they were Synths and given his megalomania probably would have until they acted "right".

Edited by PhiSat on Apr 23rd 2024 at 3:17:16 AM

The combined total of active players across the entire series across all platforms managed to break 5 million in a single day.

Bethesda development boss Todd Howard ruled out moving the action of Fallout away from the United States, saying the “Americana naivete” informs so much of the game series' tone.

Not really surprising. A Fallout game taking place in another country would require basically everything about the setting to fit the local culture, which in turn would make it enjoyable only to people familiar with that culture (and also a completely different setting altogether). American culture has the advantage to be fairly well known worldwide.

On that note, I do wonder how a Fallout game set in New York's ruin would play like.

No more New York traffic at least.

This is one issue I completely with Todd Howard on, Fallout is fundamentally an American-centric series. Its presence in America is not just a mere fact of setting choice. It's a core aspect of the themes and aesthetics of the series. Going to the UK, or France, or Russia or anywhere would be cool from a worldbuilding perspective but it wouldn't be Fallout. Not in the ways that matter.

I'd be incredibly interested in a game set in, say, China... With the caveat that it was written by Chinese writers who "Understand the assignment" as it where. Seeing the setting through a different cultural lens would be fascinating.

I get not wanting to try, there's a hundred ways it could go wrong, but there's a hundred ways most things can go wrong.

I think that would be a neat idea, and I've got a friend from China who has QUITE A LOT to say about the country and government that could be used Fallout game.

We were actually having lunch a while back and he brought up that there's no way the background lore would actually be approved in a China focused Fallout game, I can't remember what parts exactly.

Yeah, that's part of the problem. The best country for a non-American Fallout would definitely be China, and there's no way in hell China would allow that.

There have been some hints that China was stuck in the 50s just like America was. What was China like in the 50s? Culturally, I mean. Most American history from that era focuses more on Russia.

Canada or Mexico would also work for Fallout, I feel, since both nations are deeply influenced by the United States and its culture due to their physical proximity and, canonically, both were occupied (and in Canada's case outright annexed) by the US military during the leadup to the bombs. You'd probably want to set it close to the border in either case, of course, but both would be very solid choices IMO.

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Apr 30th 2024 at 1:17:32 AM

I think Fallout Tactics brushes up against Canada, not that exact lines on a map really matter either way.

I'm a Canadian myself and have some ideas about how a Canadian fallout game would work. There's plenty to criticize and celebrate both.

And yeah it's 100% true that "Fallout China" would, well, be Banned in China. A lot gets banned in China though so you'd just have to take that one on the chin.

50s China was Mao's era, with all the nastiness that came with it like, you know, that Great Leap Forward thing and it's effects.

In the same way Fallout USA are some kind of caricature of 1950's USA, I'd expect Fallout China to look like the USSR from the 50's spy movies.

Come to think of it, one possible representation of the rest of the world in Fallout would be as an exaggerated version of how the USA could have imagined it in the 50's.

Edited by C105 on Apr 30th 2024 at 12:06:22 PM

I mean that's what I'm saying I don't want to see. Fallout takes the vision of American idealism of that era and turns it on its head.

Satirizing Russia through the lens of American media is unfair. There's plenty to work with on their own "merits" as Papers, Please and Hrot show.