F3C - Fixing the Main Quest, a Discussion

Skynet 2.0 said:
Would it be possible to contact any members of the Van Buren team, to see what their ideas were for continuing Fallout, and maybe add them in or expand on them?

Contacting them is easy, but I very much so doubt any of them have high interest in putting a lot of time into discussing info/plots. Ideas aplenty, but - for example - last person I talk to about on this topic was Jason Anderson who I asked about his Fallout ideas and docs and while he has plenty (from Troika days or before or after) he'd never turn any of 'em over - they might come in handy someday.

Similarly, I think we've got all the Van Buren docs we're likely to get. The only one who might be interested in doing active filling-in-the-blanks is Foletto (Puuk).

mrowa said:
Can u link this docs ?

Van Buren docs
 
Ok wow there's a lot more info on van buren around than I knew about. I can't say I'm not still wary about a bunch of fans trying to pick up where BIS themselves left off, though...
Just gotta make sure it doesn't end up like a glorified fanfic or something (Yeah I know, I'm one to talk considering my posts in this thread)

Another reason I prefer fixing Bethesda's craptastic story is that it would be a bit of a slap in the face that they kind of have coming to them...
(Plus reuse to assets would make for a much quicker turnaround time)

Most of all I think that the game should at least play like Van Buren (isometric/turn based) before anyone starts tearing pages from its scenario design docs
 
I've had some ideas about a possible evil side to the main quest.

As it stands Mr. Burke is a completely stupid character. Within a second of meeting him he asks you to blow up a town. After you've completed the task he doesn't have anything else to say to you and you're left wondering why he got you to do it in the first place.

Make him an agent (recruiter) of/for the Enclave. Have the player pass a negative Karma check before he reveals anything to you. Somehow make the destruction of Megaton tie into the Enclave's plans and give a plausable reason as to why they didn't level the town themselves; the Enclave didn't want to be publicly associated with the incident.

The next task would be to silence Three Dog. You slowly work your way up the Enclave's ranks from there.

Your final task would be to sabotage project purity and spread whatever that stuff was throughout the wasteland. Only this time it will make sense because not only are you working for the Enclave (on their side) you are also James' son and therefore trusted (presumably) by him and able to surreptitiously complete the task.

One other glaring oversight in Fallout 3 is the reason for why the Enclave would spread their message at all. What do they gain from broadcasting that signal? This needs some serious consideration.
 
My ideas:

1. No unkillable NPCs. Work around it.

2. Instead of your Dad leaving you in the Vault on the Overseer's mercy, he could wake you instead of Amanda and help you escape. He may or may not survive and will pass on the info 'bout the project if he dies. After the escape, you travel to Megaton and try to organize transport to Rivet City and so on and so on, the main quest goes pretty similar to what is it now.

3. Make your Dad contact BoS and sent you to meet them, fill you on the Enclave etc. - either way, he should play a bigger role instead of some guy you see for 5 minutes in game, only to watch him kill himself sensessly behind a nuke-proof glass. He could comment on your actions and even take action if you become evil.

4. Liberty Prime should definetly go on a killing spree, reducing half of the wasteland DC to ashes before exploding due to a mechanical flaw.

5. Have one part of the BoS exterminate other. Or let them be. Or help the Lyon's BoS take out the Outcasts and then sabotage Liberty Prime to wipe out them too (all the sweet loot).

6. Have an option to destroy the Purifier, so one can use it to do evul etc. Or simply to be an asshole. Or take control of it, kill \ enslave \ talk the other scientist to make it a source of cash (selling pure water would bring a lot of cash I wager).

And this are just for the start.
 
Would it be possible to make Liberty Prime a killable NPC and make you face him?

Also I would love to see Burke send you on a couple of seemingly random fetch quests (which are all parts needed to make the pulse charge). Then you can either assemble it yourself (science/explosive skill check) or pay Moira to do it. Then Burke proceeds to nuke Megaton all by himself, warning you to get out of there if he sees future employment potential for you.
 
Brother None said:
Contacting them is easy, but I very much so doubt any of them have high interest in putting a lot of time into discussing info/plots. Ideas aplenty, but - for example - last person I talk to about on this topic was Jason Anderson who I asked about his Fallout ideas and docs and while he has plenty (from Troika days or before or after) he'd never turn any of 'em over - they might come in handy someday.

Similarly, I think we've got all the Van Buren docs we're likely to get. The only one who might be interested in doing active filling-in-the-blanks is Foletto (Puuk).

Could someone ask him or anyone else for the Tibbets and Fort Abandon design docs? Even if no one ever makes something out of it, just for the sake of having all the "complete" docs.
 
I think you should leave the main quest as-in. Allow the player to complete it if they wish, and mod the ending so that they can continue the game after the purifier's operational.

IMO what F3C really needs is a NEW, completely seperate main quest - I love the idea of being able to join any faction, effectively choosing which one gains control over the DC wasteland.

And how about this- allow the player to join the supermutant 'faction' and become a supermutant themselves! I think the supermutants really need some kind of 'evil genius' leading them however. Seems unrealistic that they could organise themselves without some form of leadership.

As for the F3C main quest itself, how about the wasteland's factions battling for control over some kind of super weapon?
 
i really like the feeling when the robot goes beserk maybe an alternative would be to get the supermutants faction to have some GIANT super mutant that does the same job as the robot. or even more cool, battles the robot, Goodzilla style after all huge monsters does match the 50th atmosphere =)

or that you have to sneak in before the robot to and take out some stationary guns to clear the path of the robot. just following the robot is cool at first but isnt that rewarding as it doesnt feel like your doing any part in its success

also the whole storyline with a virus that only effects people that are mutated is flawed. every single living entity has some form of mutation. damn! 300 years of inbreeding in a vault doesnt exactly make a healthy genepool.. if there is anyoen that woudl die from a virus it would be vault dwellers that has limited immune response due to teh sterile enviroment they have lived in. nanobots would be an alternative but maybe that dont match the Fall out universe (i got a masters in biology and that part pissed me off alot) also deadly viruses is soemthing out of our modern fears and doesnt match the fears they had in the cold war ages. back then it was robots-mutants-nuclear wars-aliens-huge monsters. Viruses and terrorists are our fears and dont match the fall out realm.
 
F1 was basicly based on fear of fev viruse and part of main plot was around its effect, same go to F2 wher modificated fev was ultimate weapon of enclave
So basicly virus plays the big role in fallout series
 
There's couple of reasons why I suggested ignoring the vanilla main quest and creating a new one from scratch.

By the time F3C with a modded quest of any kind is released, 99% of people will have already finished the default main quest.
Why bother spending all that effort trying to "unFUBAR" it when most people probably couldn't be stuffed going through it all again anyway?
I know that whenever I start a new game in F3 now I completely ignore it, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Secondly, I honestly think the Bethesda main quest is so innately cheesy and lame that it's not worth fixing. Better to leave it as-is, a relic of horrible design and unimaginative vision.

Lastly, the possibilities of altering the existing quest are limited, but those gained from creating one from scratch are limitless.
 
I would stretch out the part where you are kidnapped from the enclave (up until here it isn't too bad), make you have to sneak out yourself and free other prisoners to confront the president. I would also change the ending so you don't have to die and add in a boss fight with the Colonel rather than the movie style Kill All Commies robot thing.

TBH, though there are some major issues with the plot through out the game - like why the Enclave are hostile to begin with anyway. It'd be better if there were no fixed enemies and no fixed friends - but perhaps the tech isn't good enough for that yet.

I love Fallout 3 but the end of the main quest felt incredibly rushed. Same with the build your own weapon system - the system as great but why are there only 6 or so weapons - It'd be good if there were about 100 more.
 
Well I must say that I doubt this will happen as there appears to be little progress, but I'd have to say that bhlaab on page 1 had some great ideas. Feasible too!

What I'd change:

A sensible beginning? the growing up was a great training session, but waking up and "ARGH! everyones after you run! You're dad ran away and his buddy is dead!", please, this was the most disjointed part of the game. James wants to leave so they shoot whatsit and then deside they're going to hunt you down and baton you to death? where did that come from?

I'd handle this by increasing the number of radroaches and throw in a yao whatsit in the vault entrance (have it open still and jammed) and that chap who's meant to be dead is hiding in a locked room waiting for help.

The Vaults in anarchy, but they won't attack you, the guys are only after the roaches, the overseerer wants to see you, but if you enter the maintainance room or leave the vault without seeing him they'll go instant aggro on you. Talking to the overseerer he'll ask what you know, why it's happened, accuse you of plotting against the vault and you can take it three ways, you can lie and admit you're in on it (aggro), convince him you know nothing - neutral, or protest innocence and get that repair chap in bother.

Basically James left, but in doing so he jammed the door and the only way to fix it is with the console in the maintainance area, (optional quest), the roaches and bear thing ran in while that repair chap was trying to fix the door.

So when you fix it the overseerer will thank you if you're on good terms and let you come and go as you please.

The game needs more methods to find James really, so different mini quests for details, maybe play with the regular method and take out the GNR method, instead have the GNR as a stand alone quest etc.

Really I feel the plot should go:

James leaves the vault - radroach infestation
You hunt for James via clues
You find James, he goes to the memorial.
You talk to Doctor Li, have to quest for her and prove the project is worth while etc.
You get to the facility and find out you need the GECK.
You go get the GECK (NO ENCLAVE CAPTURE!!!!)
return and there are a few methods it could go from here:

a) Enclave attack and kidnap James etc, they want him to help them with a supermutant problem etc, ie recreate that experiment, but with the FEV, you can save him or help him there etc.

b) It looks like it should work, but they need better parts, You can then wander and find bits, buy them or chat to factions about it, like BoS has some parts and knows of places that might have the rest. Talon could have a part. Enclave has the lot, but you have to get into Raven Rock etc.

You build the Purifier and turn it on, you DON'T die! James made the purifier work without mass genocide. You could have it so James dies setting it up I guess, like placing the GECK etc in the water etc.

I believe some off-shoot quests would go down well, like reuniting the BoS, convince them to leave, cure ghoulification at underworld, start a war between BoS and Outcasts, pimp the enclave to towns etc.

Another annoyance should be sorted however, lamplight shouldn't be the source of the thousands of SM, i mean COME ON! What about the enclave? Granted they want to cleanse the wastes, but what if they were making a SM army and it went wrong? Where are those kids coming from too? should that go in that vault? like a human cloning project similar to the Gary vault? Only not insane?
 
Nice idea on making a more difficult and sensible start.

I like the idea proposed earlier of being able to join the raiders, etc. - perhaps not as alternate start to the game but at least have some quest lines where you can join the raiders or mercenaries, etc. kind of like the vampires in MW.
 
I can't really offer much as I haven't played fallout 3 (waiting for price to drop and get it used) but from a general perspective I think one way to go about remaking the game (lol, no easy task that's for damn sure) is to start with each group or faction or whatever and figure out FIRST what their short/mid term/game time goals are to be then slide down the "tree" and flesh out various "branches" (AKA events, quests, locations). If you just start from the beginning and try to think of where various story threads are going you might end up at a "dead end". I think there should be multiple parallel stories so it's possible you could get 10 or more totally different endings etc. But really trying to remake, fix, alter fallout 3 is something that ain't going to be easy at all. You will have to be a master juggler and be able to think from many different perspectives and their possibilities, interactions, ramifications etc. Yeah I salute devoted modders for without them I would hardly have any use for most modern PC games. No easy task
 
Bosk said:
Secondly, I honestly think the Bethesda main quest is so innately cheesy and lame that it's not worth fixing. Better to leave it as-is, a relic of horrible design and unimaginative vision.
Better to exterminate it.....
 
I dont know if this suggestion has been brought up, but I wouldn't mind a main story about the nuke in Megaton.
I mean, its a nuke. A nuke... The factions should be all over that like white on rice. It just doesn't makes sense why they all ignore it and go about twiddling their thumbs all day.

But instead of having that highly idiotic bomb sitting out in that small waterfilled crater, you change it into a pre-war ICBM silo hid under the town or something to that effect. One that had some kind of technical issue and never got its birds flying. With its ICBM(s) and facility crew "preserved" in an airtight environment, just waiting for someone to discover them.
You could even have the name of the town as a clue "Megaton", but no one know why the city has the name, it just always has. Perhaps there exists a family or person who know about it and are desperatly trying to keep it secret. But somehow information leaks, and the factions start sniffing around. Perhaps the Enclave just arrived in the area in search of this site based on old government records. And things just keep escalating from there with the decisions of the player shaping the conflict.
I could just imagine the size of the can of woopass the Enclave and Brotherhood would open on each other to obtain this site. Throw some (intelligent) Supermutants into the mix, and perhaps Alistair Tenpenny as a man with a (devious) plan, and you have in my opinion a main quest that atleast a bit more exciting then the limp piece of fanfic wich is the ingame one now.

I dunno, this is just something that struck me while I was raging about the idiocy of the a-bomb that no one wanted.
 
U are kinda right ther is a atom bomb in town 1 ICBM luncher and warehouse full of atom bombs, satelite luncher guarded by raiders and no high tech fraction is interested ...
Atleast outcast should be running mad to get this stuff
Besides even if they dont know about it player could sell them map cords of its location.

I like ICBM idea instead of atom bomb but i would make it as atom chruch main base and mainly most of megaton would be from atom church this would make some logic is why some1 build town around atom bomb/ICBM silo. Atom church would not agree for any fraction to use or get ICBM tech from thier silo this could make player to help eithier atom church to defend icbm from attack or help other fraction in attack or some other way to get thier hands on icbm
 
I think the bomb should be kept as just simply a normal nuclear bomb that was dropped during the war but didn't explode.

The war in Fallout wasn't supposed to have ICBMs, if I recall correctly everything was done Hiroshima style with bombs dropped from planes.

It occured to me that instead of the town of Megaton being built "around" a nuclear bomb, the bomb could have been naturally buried by sandstorms etc before anyone built a town there. The nuclear bomb could be a recent discovery, only 5 years ago or something. Some of the inhabitants were digging (for some reason, perhaps to make some kind of sewer pipe system, or maybe foundations for more stable buildings) and discovered the bomb.

(Nowadays construction workers still occasionally discover unexploded World War 2 bombs buried underground in London.)

Moira examined the bomb and determined that there was a flaw that meant it couldn't detonate, so it wasn't really anything to worry about, but she couldn't be sure so she recommended nobody started banging it or trying to move it. Some people were worried and left town, but others decided not to, they had lived there for many years and didn't want to leave, and after a while everyone accepted the bomb. Eventually a fanatical Church of the Atom was created.
 
Firstly hello, I'm new here.

There is also the possibility of the megaton bomb being american, as it is identical to those at fort constantine bomb storage. That could also be laziness of making new bomb models.
 
Back
Top