Fallout 3 - a lot deeper world building?

[CT Phipps]

Inspired by the discussion in the Todd Howard thread, thank you @R.Graves , @Traeger91. and @Norzan

I decided to do this thread discussing the ups and downs of Fallout 3. I think there's a lot more going on in Fallout 3 than is typically given credit for and I think that it is a game that primarily benefits from mood and emergent storytelling. Basically, a lot of the game isn't 100% accurate from literal representation as it is a massively scaled down version of any civilization but you get a strong sense of what the Capital Wasteland is like from the way the game treats your character from the beginning.

The obvious game to compare this to is Oblivion and Skyrim with the former being the heart of the Empire and largely a safe place unless you go into dungeons or literal Hell. The latter, though, is in the throws of a Civil War and thus is full of raiders, bandits, and random monsters that are now starting to actually attack the settlements themselves. You get the sense of a breakdown in orderly society just by the kinds of monsters and dangers you face in the Wasteland.

It has its flaws, don't get me wrong. Would it have killed the developers to include one or two small farms or crops outside of Megaton? I feel like they should have had crops growing on the top of Rivet City as well. They corrected some of the biggest plot holes in the game with The Pitt (explaining where Paradise Falls sells its slaves) but could have gone deeper into the history of the setting. Even so, some groups are unexplained like the Regulators and Talon Company.

Pros

1. I feel like the mood of the Capital Wasteland is that of a dying civilization. It's a nice contrast to the first two games where things are slowly coming back together. Even in Fallout 1, new culture is emerging and by Fallout 2, new culture has arrived. Fallout: New Vegas keeps that feel by having nation states having emerged. Here, civilization has failed and it is a dying culture. There's no larger law in the region, the only local authorities are ones that are centered around one or two communities, and all of them are under siege except for Rivet City. It is a huge dangerous struggle to travel from Megaton to Canterbury Commons to Rivet City.

2. Much adieu is made of the Brotherhood of Steel being a bunch of good guys in this setting but I feel like the game nicely makes it clear that they're on the backfoot. Despite their power armor and abilities, we encounter them getting their asses handed to them by a Super Mutant Behemoth. We also find out they've suffered a mutiny and the Outcasts have taken however many members of the chapter with them. Basically, Elder Lyons tried to be the Vault Dweller and didn't succeed.

3. The use of Washington DC is a good choice for the themes of American exceptionalism and nationalism leading to the destruction of the country as a whole. Of all things, I'd argue that Fallout 3 seems most inspired by Ancient Egypt in terms of what it's going for with dusty wind swept monuments in the middle of a desert. Ozymandias and all of that. A lot of the quests also reflect the attempt to recover the motivating traditions of the past like the Declaration of Independence, protection of the Lincoln Memorial, and rebuilding basic infrastructure like museums and radio communication. Even the triteness of the celebration of Nuka Cola is from a place of love.

4. The 3D invocation of the post-apocalypse is also something that the gameplay really helps as every single location in the game seems to have a story involved in it. You explore any random building and you'll find a couple that has committed suicide with some MED-X all around a skeleton in a bathtub, a family of cannibals, or a guy who has set himself up as the patriarch of his family like so many Libertarian settlers and yet elected as the president. The terminals really are well done in terms of keeping so many little stories going and ranging from ridiculous to the tragic. Like the teddy bear swinging in the wind outside of a bomb shelter.

5. The Enclave was a controversial choice for this game but I think it actually works very well thematically. They're the remnants of the US government who destroyed the world and thus are people who want to reinstall their own petty society back onto a people who have constant visual reminders of what an utter failure that view was. An anarchist collectivist society has emerged in most communities in the Wasteland and is obviously superior to most of what the Enclave offers.

The Mediocre

1. I mentioned the fact that the game suffers from scaling down efforts. I think this is inevitable in most RPGs as you can't do an entire city in any game engine, no matter how you try. You need to trust your audience to let their imagination do the work in many cases and most people won't care. However, there's some pretty glaring places where this hurts the suspension of disbelief. They're obviously trying to invoke a desert with the preciousness of water from both real life communities and probably fucking Dune for all I know but water is such a precious resource in RL that every community has to have enough of it to live anyway or there'd be no community period. So James wanting to give unlimited Purified water to the Capital Wasteland is fine, that's a admirable goal everywhere, but they'd need to have a basic minimum anyway. It'd have been better if he'd said the Purifer was going to purify the Basin and make it green arable land or clean up the entire region.

2. There's very little sense of how this world connects to one another as parts of the map. Does the Republic of Dave hail from Rivet City, the Pitt, or what not? Who does the Brotherhood of Steel protect? When did the Vaults collapse and did any of the people survive? Perhaps to become Raiders? The Great Khans are all descendants of Vault 15 and that informs their continued eternal hostility.

3. It feels like some of these stories are half-assed when they put so much effort into others. Like Little Lamplight and Big Town is a fucking stupid idea but you could actually tie it all together pretty easily with the fact the kids are right next to the Super Mutant base and Big Town is where the kids are kidnapped by the Super Mutants for harvesting. Is that something that was deliberate? That it's a farming operation? Or is that just pure coincidence?

The Bad

1. The timeline is stupid. People have mentioned that this doesn't make any sort of damn sense as 200 years in the future and wouldn't make much sense if it was 30 years in the future with all the functioning computer terminals and food that's still good in vending machines. It is a place where there's a severe shortage of arrable land and water is a precious commodity but electricity is in abundant fucking supply. In the Glow, at least you understand why nothing has changed because it's fucking ridiculous, but the atmospheric worldbuilding contradicts anything literal.

2. There's no sense of actual history to the Capital Wasteland, which is a shame because so much of that is what makes the Elder Scrolls good. There's just "The Pre-War Era" which is nicely expanded on and then there's the Post-War Era which seems to have all happened at once. The most we actually learn about the history of the Post-War Era is when the Brotherhood of Steel arrived and Enclave but nothing about the local communities or groups. Who founded the Church of Atom? Why? When? Where did James get his education? We don't find out he was a member of Vault 21 until NV. Maybe we could have believed he grew up in Rivet City but it turns out he and Doctor Li are newcomers.

3. The recycling of the previous genre goes overboard with one too many of the factions. Imagine if they'd bothered calling their Super Mutants....ANYTHING ELSE. Call them the Troglodytes or the Ogres or what not. Even if they're made with FEV, they have an entirely different culture and origin story than the Master. Then maybe the Brotherhood and Enclave might have been better. Maybe Lyons was here to investigate rumors of the Enclave's escape to begin with.

 

[Alphons]

An interesting read and I agree with some of your points.

1. I feel like the mood of the Capital Wasteland is that of a dying civilization. It's a nice contrast to the first two games where things are slowly coming back together. Even in Fallout 1, new culture is emerging and by Fallout 2, new culture has arrived. Fallout: New Vegas keeps that feel by having nation states having emerged. Here, civilization has failed and it is a dying culture. There's no larger law in the region, the only local authorities are ones that are centered around one or two communities, and all of them are under siege except for Rivet City. It is a huge dangerous struggle to travel from Megaton to Canterbury Commons to Rivet City.

I personally don't feel it- the Capital Wasteland is filled with groups and lone hermits that wouldn't even survive in "civilized" parts of California.

Grandma Sparkle running her bistro in the middle of nowhere, Sierra Petrovita and her simp in Gildershade, Dukov and his girls, Arefu, cannibals from Andale, Republic of Dave, Big Town and Little Lamplight all exist in this super dangerous territory without any care and with only very basic equipment.

Compare any of these with Adytum or Gunrunners base in Fallout 1.

I also don't feel that they desperately struggle for survival when they decide to pay me thousands of caps not for exterminating all these massive threats around them, but to instead look for collectible cola, some worthless pre-war junk in the museum or deal with a scary ant lady that could be shot with a hunting rifle the moment she walks into the middle of their town.

I think it would be great if Fallout 3 leaned into this fall of civilization, just like you've said it would really contrast with 1 and 2.

The fall of Rockopolis and Grayditch could be made into much bigger events that scare all these weirdo wastelanders into leaving their dens and moving into the bigger settlements for safety in numbers, similar to Albuquerque in Fallout Resurrection.

2. Much adieu is made of the Brotherhood of Steel being a bunch of good guys in this setting but I feel like the game nicely makes it clear that they're on the backfoot. Despite their power armor and abilities, we encounter them getting their asses handed to them by a Super Mutant Behemoth. We also find out they've suffered a mutiny and the Outcasts have taken however many members of the chapter with them. Basically, Elder Lyons tried to be the Vault Dweller and didn't succeed.

The problem with BoS is that they could be replaced with a totally new faction and almost nothing would change. There's nothing interesting about their portrayal to excuse dragging the faction from one coast to another.
You could have a branch of US military survive in that bunker under Pentagon the BoS uses and the only difference would be having privates instead of initiates.

They do nothing with the Outcasts in the game aside from random encounters and delivering junk items to that guy outside their Fort.
They could have added a part of MQ where BoS decides to end the conflict to focus everything on Enclave and have the PC act as a mediator or part of the assault on the fort, depending on chosen approach.

3. The use of Washington DC is a good choice for the themes of American exceptionalism and nationalism leading to the destruction of the country as a whole. Of all things, I'd argue that Fallout 3 seems most inspired by Ancient Egypt in terms of what it's going for with dusty wind swept monuments in the middle of a desert. Ozymandias and all of that. A lot of the quests also reflect the attempt to recover the motivating traditions of the past like the Declaration of Independence, protection of the Lincoln Memorial, and rebuilding basic infrastructure like museums and radio communication. Even the triteness of the celebration of Nuka Cola is from a place of love.

I would love if it leaned more into building something new from the ashes of the old nation.
I'm not American so maybe it matters less to me, but almost all of these feel meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

I don't recover the Declaration of Indenpendence from it's old world tomb for it to serve some new purpose. It'll just gather dust in some guy's collection of old items until he succumbs to red-lung in the rusty air carrier he calls home.

Similar with Nuka Cola- it doesn't matter if I get them for her museum. She'll be dead in max 1 year when some raiders decide to take a tour of a museum, her simp grows tired of waiting and just takes what he wants by force or their neighbour cannibals pay them a visit.

The radio dish and Lincoln memorial are actually pretty good in that regard.

You use the dish from museum that educated people about space accomplishments of the old world to instead help them communicate safely in the new world.
You use a memorial that reminded people about fight against old world slavery to instead shelter the victims of new world slavery (though it doesn't do a great job against Supermutants with bazookas).

5. The Enclave was a controversial choice for this game but I think it actually works very well thematically. They're the remnants of the US government who destroyed the world and thus are people who want to reinstall their own petty society back onto a people who have constant visual reminders of what an utter failure that view was. An anarchist collectivist society has emerged in most communities in the Wasteland and is obviously superior to most of what the Enclave offers.

Similar issue as with BoS is that they don't do anything interesting with them to warrant dragging them from one coast to another.

They could be replaced with a totally new faction of government that survived in Raven Rock bunkers and now emerges to claim what is rightfully theirs. Instead of gassing everyone else with FEV like FO2 Enclave or poisoning the water with other FEV like FO3 Enclave, they instead offer their superior tech and supplies to anyone who willingly subjugates like Autumn alludes to in 1 voice line.

You could even expand on the Outcast conflict, where the Pentagon group tries to help everyone, but often fails, while the Raven Rock attempts to ruthlessly control everyone they deem inferior to them and decide on their own.

My other issue with them is they're so dehumanized.

FO2 Enclave was a faction with an evil goal, but it's individual members felt human- whether good ones like Cookie or Dr Curling or evil ones like Richardson and Schreber and all the others in between like Sarge, comms officer, Snookie, Chris, quartermaster, Granite or Raul.
FO3 Enclave is a bunch of mostly faceless mooks that you just gun down without any other interactions aside from Autumn and that 1 technician in the crawler.

 

[CT Phipps]

An interesting read and I agree with some of your points.

Glad to hear it.

I personally don't feel it- the Capital Wasteland is filled with groups and lone hermits that wouldn't even survive in "civilized" parts of California.

I don't have much of a problem with this idea because either the Capital Wasteland will become a happy settled place because of a Good Karma Courier slaughtering enough Super Mutants, Raiders, and Enclave soldiers that it becomes a safe place to live or it will die. The whole point is it's all on you.

Grandma Sparkle running her bistro in the middle of nowhere, Sierra Petrovita and her simp in Gildershade, Dukov and his girls, Arefu, cannibals from Andale, Republic of Dave, Big Town and Little Lamplight all exist in this super dangerous territory without any care and with only very basic equipment.

I feel like that kind of misses a lot of context. Dukov is a famous mercenary for example, the cannibals from Andale ARE the threat that other people face, and Big Town is under constant threat from Super Mutants. A lot of these places are also going to be fucked (Sierra probably only is alive because of the Jayne Cobb-esque guy) but they're alive for now before things get even worse.

Compare any of these with Adytum or Gunrunners base in Fallout 1.

I mean, isn't the point that the CW is fucked without you? It'd probably be even worse if not for Elder Lyons taking down so many Super Mutants and Raiders.

I also don't feel that they desperately struggle for survival when they decide to pay me thousands of caps not for exterminating all these massive threats around them, but to instead look for collectible cola, some worthless pre-war junk in the museum or deal with a scary ant lady that could be shot with a hunting rifle the moment she walks into the middle of their town.

1. You actually do get paid to murder all these massive threats in this game, though. The Regulators do that.
2. Sierra is a flake, that's kind of the point of the humor of her quest.
3. Rescuing a priceless cultural artifact seems a very important thing to do. If you have a choice between saving the Mona Lisa or King Tut's sarcophogus versus some living people, many would argue it's more important to do the former.
4. If she's shot in the head, she'll probably lose 5 hit points and then unleash her ants. Which is to say I think you either embrace the fact it's a woman being a supervillain or not.

I think it would be great if Fallout 3 leaned into this fall of civilization, just like you've said it would really contrast with 1 and 2.

I dunno, I think it kind of did but didn't forgo humor either.

The fall of Rockopolis and Grayditch could be made into much bigger events that scare all these weirdo wastelanders into leaving their dens and moving into the bigger settlements for safety in numbers, similar to Albuquerque in Fallout Resurrection.

Likewise, people living alone in the Wasteland is a good way to survive not being big targets. They could also be people who are survivors of other communities. I like the suggestion some posters have made that Evergreen Mills used to be a major community before Raiders killed everyone in it and took it over, probably fairly recently too.

The problem with BoS is that they could be replaced with a totally new faction and almost nothing would change. There's nothing interesting about their portrayal to excuse dragging the faction from one coast to another. You could have a branch of US military survive in that bunker under Pentagon the BoS uses and the only difference would be having privates instead of initiates.

I mean you would lose the entirety of the Outcast plotline, you would lose the fact Elder Lyons is betraying the Brotherhood of Steel's codex, you would lose the weirdness of a bunch of knights fighting people in the Wasteland, and you would also fail to introduce them to a new generation of players. Mind you, I've always thought the idea it would be impossible for power armored soldiers to cross the USA to be ridiculous and we should see a lot more travel across the former USA.

Really, the big question is why they retconned Tactics when they could have just said Elder Lyons is the last surviving remnant of the Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel.

They do nothing with the Outcasts in the game aside from random encounters and delivering junk items to that guy outside their Fort.They could have added a part of MQ where BoS decides to end the conflict to focus everything on Enclave and have the PC act as a mediator or part of the assault on the fort, depending on chosen approach.

I dunno, it's backstory for people who are very invested in the storyline of the Brotherhood and how Elder Lyons have gone off the rails. The thing is that the Brotherhood Outcasts are still deserters and traitors. They may be following the code more accurately but the Elders of Lost Hills would still consider them to have betrayed their oaths.

I would love if it leaned more into building something new from the ashes of the old nation. I'm not American so maybe it matters less to me, but almost all of these feel meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

Fallout 2 is all about saying the past is dead, Fallout 3 says the past is important but you need to keep the good while leaving behind the bad. A lot of nations have very different relationships with traditionalism and nationalism than the United States, though.

[qiote]I don't recover the Declaration of Indenpendence from it's old world tomb for it to serve some new purpose. It'll just gather dust in some guy's collection of old items until he succumbs to red-lung in the rusty air carrier he calls home.[/quote]

I mean, he's explicitly attempting to preserve history in a museum so it's not lost. It's not his private collection.

Similar with Nuka Cola- it doesn't matter if I get them for her museum. She'll be dead in max 1 year when some raiders decide to take a tour of a museum, her simp grows tired of waiting and just takes what he wants by force or their neighbour cannibals pay them a visit.

Well, in the end, all of those cannibals are dead and the Raiders dramatically reduced because you, the player, can stop and canonically do.

You use the dish from museum that educated people about space accomplishments of the old world to instead help them communicate safely in the new world.
You use a memorial that reminded people about fight against old world slavery to instead shelter the victims of new world slavery (though it doesn't do a great job against Supermutants with bazookas).

Very funny point.

Similar issue as with BoS is that they don't do anything interesting with them to warrant dragging them from one coast to another.

They could be replaced with a totally new faction of government that survived in Raven Rock bunkers and now emerges to claim what is rightfully theirs.

You can argue about the BOS not being necessary but I have no idea how you'd replace the Enclave. They're the Pre-War US government. My confusion is why they made them survivors of the Oil Rig versus having it be another faction that's been there for the entire time.

Instead of gassing everyone else with FEV like FO2 Enclave or poisoning the water with other FEV like FO3 Enclave, they instead offer their superior tech and supplies to anyone who willingly subjugates like Autumn alludes to in 1 voice line.

Yeah, you probably should have had a "side with Autumn" option because it doesn't matter who gives water to the Capital Wasteland. No one will care.

My other issue with them is they're so dehumanized. FO2 Enclave was a faction with an evil goal, but it's individual members felt human- whether good ones like Cookie or Dr Curling or evil ones like Richardson and Schreber and all the others in between like Sarge, comms officer, Snookie, Chris, quartermaster, Granite or Raul. FO3 Enclave is a bunch of mostly faceless mooks that you just gun down without any other interactions aside from Autumn and that 1 technician in the crawler.

Yeah, I feel like they could have done a lot more with John Henry Eden or Colonel Autumn. They don't even bother to give a new face to the villains of Broken Steel.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

Something funny is that three of the points you list as either mediocre or outright bad ("very little sense of how this world connects to one another as parts of the map", "stupid timeline", "lack of history") are the only points you list which I'd actually consider to be properly a part of worldbuilding. Everything else would fall under ambience or aesthetic in my rubric.

And indeed I would agree that Fallout 3 does generally have ambience or aesthetic or whatever, but I think it's worldbuilding is hilariously bad. There is no "world" to Fallout 3, it's just a bunch of things plopped down with fun in mind, and indeed the aesthetic, but nothing actually coheres together. Hell, even within the things plopped down, things seldom cohere but instead are just some arbitrary and perhaps vaguely related things.

 

[Alphons]

I don't have much of a problem with this idea because either the Capital Wasteland will become a happy settled place because of a Good Karma Courier slaughtering enough Super Mutants, Raiders, and Enclave soldiers that it becomes a safe place to live or it will die. The whole point is it's all on you.

Two separate points- it might become, but it was very dangerous until LW's arrival exactly 200 years after the war.

How'd they survive for so long outside of Rivet City, Tenpenny, Megaton and maybe Paradise Falls if they're so oblivious?

They should be hardened by the Wastes and heavily armed or at least well hidden like Agatha and Oasis.

Second one is gameplay related, but without using mods like Rebuild Capital your actions just don't do any dents in the population of hostile humans and creatures. Even after all of Broken Steel, wiping out Fairfax, Evergreen Mills, Old Olney and Vault 81 I just don't feel like I did anything similar to wiping the Fiends leaders, Powder Gangers, Boneyard deathclaws or Shady Sands scorpions.

I feel like that kind of misses a lot of context. Dukov is a famous mercenary for example, the cannibals from Andale ARE the threat that other people face, and Big Town is under constant threat from Super Mutants. A lot of these places are also going to be fucked (Sierra probably only is alive because of the Jayne Cobb-esque guy) but they're alive for now before things get even worse.

Dukov is just one guy wearing pajamas and armed with a 10mm SMG. He has a loft right next to a raider camp and doesn't even lock his doors when he goes to sleep.
His sole security measure is a sign informing that he'll shoot if you unholster a weapon.

He'd fit right in Freeside, but in the middle of Washington ruins? Maybe with some automated turrets, a door intercom or a couple of merc buddies, but he has neither of these.

Andale doesn't fit the Capital Wasteland at all. They prey on friendly Wastelanders that let the their guard down when passing through town and they don't have any defenses or even walls that would help them against any hostiles.
They're all unarmored and armed with basic weapons like pistols and sawn-offs.

You can actually compare them with another cannibal group from FO3- the hunters that sell strange meat. They all wear leather armour and are armed with hunting and assault rifles. Andale would be wiped out by just a couple of raiders.

Big Town is under the threat from Supermutants for centuries and slavers for unspecified amount of time. How'd they survive and why did they stay there for so long? Nothing keeps them from moving to any other spot on the map. There is literally nothing there.

I mean, isn't the point that the CW is fucked without you? It'd probably be even worse if not for Elder Lyons taking down so many Super Mutants and Raiders.

I meant in how the locations are defended.

Let's compare Republic of Dave and Gunrunners. Both are dangerously close to a deathclaw nest.

Dave has a pre-war chain link fence, his hunting rifle, a single guard with assault rifle and a couple of women and kids.

Gunrunners have a moat, single narrow bridge, a couple of guards with miniguns guarding it and several more with energy weapons and rifles around the entire perimeter.

1. You actually do get paid to murder all these massive threats in this game, though. The Regulators do that.

Regulators only care about human fingers, not even of specific individuals.

Nobody cares about the deathclaws in Old Olney or the massive Supermutant camp right next to the Rivet City. Raiders in Springvale or Lurks near Gildershade.

3. Rescuing a priceless cultural artifact seems a very important thing to do. If you have a choice between saving the Mona Lisa or King Tut's sarcophogus versus some living people, many would argue it's more important to do the former.

Rescuing it would imply it's in danger. Nothing changed in 200 years, the security system is still working, the building is not falling apart.

Would it be still a major dilemma if I just could go for Mona Lisa tomorrow and save some people right now?

4. If she's shot in the head, she'll probably lose 5 hit points and then unleash her ants. Which is to say I think you either embrace the fact it's a woman being a supervillain or not.

But if you hire a merc and they fail, then she wouldn't unleash the ants as revenge?
It wouldn't even be a problem if a major caravan hub just had some defenses.
I'd expect some jobs related to the safety of caravan routes instead.

I mean you would lose the entirety of the Outcast plotline, you would lose the fact Elder Lyons is betraying the Brotherhood of Steel's codex, you would lose the weirdness of a bunch of knights fighting people in the Wasteland, and you would also fail to introduce them to a new generation of players. Mind you, I've always thought the idea it would be impossible for power armored soldiers to cross the USA to be ridiculous and we should see a lot more travel across the former USA.

What is the Outcast plotline?
The game does nothing with them outside of collecting "tech" items for them.

Personally I think the most important question about the various established factions appearing across the entire country is "Should they?" and not "Could they?".

Could Brotherhood appear in California, Washington, Boston and West Virginia?
Could they also appear in the next game that was set for example in New York?
Yes, they could.

But I don't think they should, because it just becomes repetitive.

Fallout 3 was a perfect point to introduce a plethora of new factions and mutants.
Factions could even also have Power Armor and mutants be created with FEV. Just do something new.

You can argue about the BOS not being necessary but I have no idea how you'd replace the Enclave. They're the Pre-War US government. My confusion is why they made them survivors of the Oil Rig versus having it be another faction that's been there for the entire time.

The Enclave was a shadowy cabal within the government, they weren't an entire government.

Raven Rock could be anything- science labs, Army/Navy/Air Force base, luxurious bunker for CEOs or even a bunch of politicians not affiliated with Enclave, that have decided to hunker down when the president dissapeared from Washington.

 

[laclongquan]

About the disconnect between areas

Take three "ant" area for examples: Marygold, Shalebridge, and Corvegas factory. Only one area, Marygold has anything resembling a story relating to Ant (Those! quest) (genius naming, that one, Beth writer at their finest). Nothing in Shalebridge and Corvegas. So they stand alone like an afterthought in the world map. No reason of existence at all. No linking, and disconnect.

Now, if you have some good writer, you can develop some subquest relating to these areas in the line of ant. Something relating to Enclave deserter/scientists maybe. Some kind of botched experiment with FEV at those locations, so at Shalebridge you have different type of ants, and at Corvegas you have Giant Ants (and maybe linking that with Antagonizer too), and finally at Marygold you have Fire Ants.

But no, not any of that linking parts. Not at Fallout 3.

 

[Dr. Sep]

About the disconnect between areas

Take three "ant" area for examples: Marygold, Shalebridge, and Corvegas factory. Only one area, Marygold has anything resembling a story relating to Ant (Those! quest) (genius naming, that one, Beth writer at their finest). Nothing in Shalebridge and Corvegas. So they stand alone like an afterthought in the world map. No reason of existence at all. No linking, and disconnect.

Now, if you have some good writer, you can develop some subquest relating to these areas in the line of ant. Something relating to Enclave deserter/scientists maybe. Some kind of botched experiment with FEV at those locations, so at Shalebridge you have different type of ants, and at Corvegas you have Giant Ants (and maybe linking that with Antagonizer too), and finally at Marygold you have Fire Ants.

But no, not any of that linking parts. Not at Fallout 3.

That would be too difficult for Bethesda. That would mean that they would have to coordinate their writers instead of giving them random portions of the map to do whatever they want with.

 

[CT Phipps]

I'll get back to addressing this but some of y'all might enjoy: "Why Fallout 3 is better than Fallout 4"

 

[Hardboiled Android]

About the disconnect between areas

Take three "ant" area for examples: Marygold, Shalebridge, and Corvegas factory. Only one area, Marygold has anything resembling a story relating to Ant (Those! quest) (genius naming, that one, Beth writer at their finest). Nothing in Shalebridge and Corvegas. So they stand alone like an afterthought in the world map. No reason of existence at all. No linking, and disconnect.

Now, if you have some good writer, you can develop some subquest relating to these areas in the line of ant. Something relating to Enclave deserter/scientists maybe. Some kind of botched experiment with FEV at those locations, so at Shalebridge you have different type of ants, and at Corvegas you have Giant Ants (and maybe linking that with Antagonizer too), and finally at Marygold you have Fire Ants.

But no, not any of that linking parts. Not at Fallout 3.

Drawing some connection between these locations would have been great, A+ stuff. But Fo3 fails at even the most basic level of worldbuilding, namely - What are the consequences of Grayditch dissappearing?

Well, sure, it's a personal tragedy for some Little Rascal extra named Bryan Wilkes, that's nice. Someone will have to take him on or enslave him. But beyond that kid's personal tragedy, how does it matter that an entire settlement has disappeared? We can't know the exact population of Grayditch pre-ants, but the cleared area seems pretty sizable. Certainly it would be at least the third largest civilized settlement in the urban ruins after Rivet City and the Citadel.

An entire settlement disappearing hasn't affected anyone anyhow, aside from Bryan Wilkes and the one unnamed random encounter survivor? How did these people make a living? Doesn't seem like they grew their own food or purified their own water. Was this a major center for hunting and meat processing? Was it a major center for prospecting the DC Ruins? Did they buy food or water from Rivet City or Megaton? How are Megaton responding to these lost customers, and the loss of whatever commodity Grayditch produced? Would Grayditch being re-established be in anyone's interest? Has the Brotherhood taken any notice of what's happening in Grayditch, given it's practically their backyard?

None of these questions are answered. Grayditch just exists as a staging ground for a quest, a quest that is almost purely a send-up to a particular B-Movie and mad science in general, with no consequence for the rest of the world and little resonance with the game's theme. Grayditch, like most locations in 3, just exists as an island floating on its own. There is no worldbuilding, there's hardly any world.

 

[Yossarrion]

Read your post, agree about mood and vibe. Wish Enclave and BOS were more in depth (Outcasts). 3 would benefit immensely from a NV style story with different factions (Enclave, both flavors of BOS) and letting it play out from there. Seeing how the Capitol Wastes deals with the Enclave style of control vs the Lyons style vs the Outcasts sheer indifference to it would be cool. Would play well with Broken Steel. Missed opportunity all around imo.

 

[CT Phipps]

None of these questions are answered. Grayditch just exists as a staging ground for a quest, a quest that is almost purely a send-up to a particular B-Movie and mad science in general, with no consequence for the rest of the world and little resonance with the game's theme. Grayditch, like most locations in 3, just exists as an island floating on its own. There is no worldbuilding, there's hardly any world.

The entire capital Wasteland is dying with potentially Andale, Grayditch, Megaton, Tenpenny Towers, Paradise Falls, Raven's Rock, the Pentagon, and possibly more communities being destroyed within the span of the Lone Wanderers adventures. All of which can take place over the course of a few days to a few months in terms of gamespan.

A fantastic series of events with catastrophic consequences good and bad happen in a very short amount of time, all centered around the Lone Wanderer.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

The entire capital Wasteland is dying with potentially Andale, Grayditch, Megaton, Tenpenny Towers, Paradise Falls, Raven's Rock, the Pentagon, and possibly more communities being destroyed within the span of the Lone Wanderers adventures. All of which can take place over the course of a few days to a few months in terms of gamespan.

A fantastic series of events with catastrophic consequences good and bad happen in a very short amount of time, all centered around the Lone Wanderer.

But curiously these catastrophes hardly matter to any other community. Three Dawg might mention it in and of itself on the radio, maybe you'll get a random encounter, but otherwise nothing is changed, no one behaves differently. Really the problem is there's not even a pretense of things changing. No, actually, it's worse - the game doesn't even do basic enough levels of worldbuilding to allow us, as players, to infer a pretense.

Fallout 3's not a dying world, it's a dead one, moribund. You'd have some argument here if each settlement blinking out was making things tangibly worse, things were getting more desperate and depraved, but instead settlements like Grayditch or Megaton or Tenpenny Towers or Paradise Falls or the Pentagon disappearing doesn't change anything else, because there's no connection between anything.

 

[CT Phipps]

But curiously these catastrophes hardly matter to any other community. Three Dawg might mention it in and of itself on the radio, maybe you'll get a random encounter, but otherwise nothing is changed, no one behaves differently. Really the problem is there's not even a pretense of things changing. No, actually, it's worse - the game doesn't even do basic enough levels of worldbuilding to allow us, as players, to infer a pretense.

Fallout 3's not a dying world, it's a dead one, moribund. You'd have some argument here if each settlement blinking out was making things tangibly worse, things were getting more desperate and depraved, but instead settlements like Grayditch or Megaton or Tenpenny Towers or Paradise Falls or the Pentagon disappearing doesn't change anything else, because there's no connection between anything.

Yes, it might be the case to see the long term effects if they had Ending Slides that said what the effects on each community was.

Which is the biggest flaw of the game world.

It's ridiculous too because the slides include pictures of some of the events but not actual narration.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

Yes, it might be the case to see the long term effects if they had Ending Slides that said what the effects on each community was.

Which is the biggest flaw of the game world.

It's ridiculous too because the slides include pictures of some of the events but not actual narration.

End lides would be nice but no I don't think it just comes down to end slides. Decisions in New Vegas and Fallout 2 would still feel more impactful than Fallout 3's even without their end movies, simply because the world and locations are (on average) better written.

 

[CT Phipps]

End lides would be nice but no I don't think it just comes down to end slides. Decisions in New Vegas and Fallout 2 would still feel more impactful than Fallout 3's even without their end movies, simply because the world and locations are (on average) better written.

There's flaws in New Vegas but it's overall a better written game due to the attempts to retell Fallout 1 + 2 versus doing its own thing. New Vegas couldn't exist without Fallout 3 and succeeds in large part because it is building on Fallout 3's basis but that's not really a competition because they're trying to do two very different things.

Fallout 3: A blasted hellish wasteland on the verge of dying out.

Fallout: New Vegas: A mostly functional region fighting over an impressive resource (Hoover Dam) and the complicated politics therein.

Mad Max vs. Game of Thrones

 

[Hardboiled Android]

There's flaws in New Vegas but it's overall a better written game due to the attempts to retell Fallout 1 + 2 versus doing its own thing. New Vegas couldn't exist without Fallout 3 and succeeds in large part because it is building on Fallout 3's basis but that's not really a competition because they're trying to do two very different things.

This may be true but it doesn't actually have anything to do with worldbuilding of one versus the other.

Fallout 3: A blasted hellish wasteland on the verge of dying out.

Fallout: New Vegas: A mostly functional region fighting over an impressive resource (Hoover Dam) and the complicated politics therein.

Mad Max vs. Game of Thrones

This aesthetic distinction (which is real) doesn't serve to justify the lackluster worldbuilding of Fallout 3. In the dying world of Mad Max, we see far better worldbuilding than we do in Fallout 3.

 

[CT Phipps]

This aesthetic distinction (which is real) doesn't serve to justify the lackluster worldbuilding of Fallout 3. In the dying world of Mad Max, we see far better worldbuilding than we do in Fallout 3.

I could talk all day about the world building elements I really like but I have the feeling that if I did, it would all just be dismissed as not counting. Especially if I attempt to defend the wacky gonzo world and satire. So I wonder if anyone is actually interested in hearing any of it or all responses would be, "no, you're wrong. It sucks."

In which case, why bother?

 

[Norzan]

New Vegas couldn't exist without Fallout 3 and succeeds in large part because it is building on Fallout 3's basis

Literally nothing New Vegas does well is tied with Fallout 3. The bad parts of New Vegas are the parts that carried over from Fallout 3 like the bad gameplay and graphics. The writing, quest design, world design, worldbuidling, rpg elements, dialogue system, the faction system and many others have nothing to do with Fallout 3.

Can this misconception just die honestly? New Vegas is a good game being held down by a bad game.

 

[CT Phipps]

Literally nothing New Vegas does well is tied with Fallout 3.

I mean, you could listen to people who hate Fallout 3 and love New Vegas or you could listen to the far far vaster number of people who love both.

Mostly because the former is just an asinine argument.

"Eighty nine percent of the game is the same but that doesn't matter because better writing and the wacky stuff is now in a cowboy hat!"

 

[Norzan]

I mean, you could listen to people who hate Fallout 3 and love New Vegas or you could listen to the far far vaster number of people who love both.

There are literally many people who like Fallout 3 but don't like New Vegas, what are you talking about? They call New Vegas boring because it's not a theme park that only exists for the people to go around shooting. They also complain about being locked out of quests because of faction choices.

You are still dodging the argument, nothing New Vegas does well is tied with Fallout 3. In many ways it's the antithesis of Fallout 3.