Fixing Fallout 3

[AntonioBarbarian]

I've actually though of something now too.

So, after deactivating the bomb and moving into the town, Simms asks if you want to do another quest. The quest involves going into Springvale and dealing with the raiders, when you got the school, instead of being all hostile, the raiders in the outside would be friendly, also there would be 2 to 3 raiders in front of the main entrance plus their leader, you would have a conversation with him, which would make the quest solveable trough 3 ways. First, you would say something along the lines of "I'm sure we are all tired of talking, let's finish this now." to wich the raider leader would reply "Alright, time you meet end!" , which would make all the raiders hostile, forcing you to kill them all (both inside the building and outside). Then, the second way, by passing a speech check (around 40 speech would give around 60 to 70% of suceding, it would make the raiders stop raiding Megaton and move somewhere else. The third way would be the hardest, you would not only convince the raiders to stop raiding Megaton, but also make them protect it and Springvale (more on it later), but it would require quite the abilities, around 50 to 60 in speech to get the same 60 to 70% chance of sucess.

I'd suggest a barter solution, too. Maybe even something along the lines of making a proper feud, with people giving tribute for protection and other works. Of course, that would involve convincing both parts of the conflict.

What bout this for the 3rd solution: Talk to raider leader, pass speech and then a barter check, he gives you one day to convince Simms of letting the raiders in and protect the town, pass a speech check with Simms, he tells you to talk to the other residents (named) and convince them, most won't care when you talk to them, Moriarty, Cromwell, Manya and Billy have to be convinced (trough a speech check with Cromwell, Manya and Billy and both a barter and a speech check with Moriarty).

Also, I though about a post-BS story, which involves essentially rebuilding the Wasteland.

After "Who dares wins" you will do a few scouting missions with the Lyons' Pride in DC, to contain the Super Mutants, then Tristan will give the Pride a quest to go into Vault 87 and blow it up, but you can ask him you could do it other way, this way would involve finding and convince both Fawkes and Uncle Leo to pacify the Super Mutants, it would need high speech, charisma and inteligence (there would be checks with both of them), after you pass these checks with Fawkes and Uncle Leo, wait around a week, a SM will approach you out of nowhere and tell you to go to the Vault 87 entrance (the irradiated one), on the Super Mutant outpost outside of it, you will find a few Mutants, Fawkes and Uncle Leo, they would all be friendly, Fawkes will tell you that they managed to convince the Muties to stop fightning, they would settle in Vault 87 and stop kidnapping people (except raiders, Talon Mercenaries, and people who attacks them), there will still be a few hostile Mutants around, but they won't respawn once killed, and DC would become almost empty, the Behemoths, if there are any left at this point, would still be hostile, togheter with a few Muties around them. Also, I haven't decided if Fawkes becomes unaveilable as a companion after the quest, which I belive he should as hes pretty much OP after BS ends. After this quest all the kids of LL move to Big Town to give space to the Muties (Fawkes will tell you he had to do it because there where too many Mutants for the Vault), and caravans stop in LL (which will have a few Muties outside to take care of the Brahmin and trade), there will also be named Super Mutants inside both the Vault and the caves which will trade with the player.

After that you return to the Citadel and talk to Elder Lyons and Tristan, making the Brotherhood "friendly" towards the Mutants and stop attacking them (unless they meet hostile Mutants).

Then you return to Megaton where you find Susie Mack and a few other Vault 101 Dwellers, she will tell you Simms wants to see you in his house and give you the key to it, when you go inside you see Simms and Amata talking, you talk to them and discover that they broke a deal, the Vault inhabitants will move to Megaton and Springvale to help them grow, and the Vaults reactor would be used to power up the town, but they demanded that Megaton be rebuilt to be a better and more confortable town, Simms will give you a quest, find a GECK, he tells you a merchant told him about the Burkittsville Vault, but they couldn't know if theres a GECK, then you can either go directly to it (Don't know how to implement it, maybe use the "Eastern Wasteland Project" http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/16183/? as the world for it?) or go to Vault-Tec HQ in DC, go into a new area (the Basement) and repair the computer cables (you only see the DC Vaults in the mainframe because the cables of the computers with the location and data about Vaults from other areas were damaged) then acessing the mainframe and getting it's location (it would be Vault 100), once you got there, outside of it would be the cannibals, after you killed them and opened the Vault, an inhabitant (with an Armored suit) appears and talks to you, telling there was a civil war in the Vault (the experiment would that half of the population would be patriots, and the other half know communist supporters, seen what would be the effect of having two camps of different ideology in an enclosed space, and see if they would either agree to disagree and try to survive or fight until the one the sides is dead, the latter happened) and that he is the only survivor, he also asks if he can join you (he becomes your companion, otherwise you can tell him about the CW and he moves either to Megaton or Rivet City, or somewhere in the World Map where the Vault is), he also tells you about the GECK and that there are a few robots guarding it, after you defeat the robots, you get the GECK and return to Megaton, then you talk to Simms, he evacuates every one from town while you activate it in front of the Bomb, you are knocked unconsious by the blast and awakes 8 months later, in the new Megaton Clinic, still headed by Doc Church, with Andy helping him, theebuilt, like the rest of the town (I imagined Shady Sands-styled buildings), you also meet Head Paladin Tristan, he tells you that Elder Lyons is diying and he wants to talk to you before going away.

When you get to the Citadel you find him in his quarters, sitting in a couch (or something else), he tells you he fell ill in the last few months and feels hes passing away, he also tells he asked Sarah if she was ready to become Elder, to which she said she wasn't, you now must go to Fort Independence and convince Casdin to stop bickering and become Elder, but he must promise he will still aid the Wasteland, you are also given a holotape to Casdin to explain the situation (recorded by Lyons). Once at Fort Independence you must pass a very hard speech check to convince Casdin that must become Elder but still help the Wasteland, passing the check Casdin and you head to the Citadel, he talks to Lyons and accept the offer to become Elder, keep running Project Purity and helping the wastes. After the conversation the wish goodbye to each other and Lyons passes away, you then leave the Citadel and return 24 hoours later, Lyons body is cramated alredy (and disappears from the game, you can still loot him after he dies), when you return Casdin is now Elder Casdin, the Outcasts are members of the Brotherhood again (which now ocupies Fort Independence and the Outcast Outpost, which is renamed to "Anchorage Simulator", and also patrols the Capital Wasteland), though the Aqua Pura is now paid (1 cap, 1 bottle).

Thats it for now.

 

[Oppen]

I don't quote because it's too long. I like the idea with the super mutants, but why not including in the quest a part about actually convincing Little Lamplight kids to move to Big Town? I imagine one of the ways to do it is to convince them they'll get killed by the mutants otherwise (like a bad karma one, imagine they become sort of xenophobe towards mutants, ala Vault City, because of your manipulation; maybe screw up the quest if you fail a check with this one). Another one would be to actually explain them the situation (that you need them to move to pacify the mutants).

 

[zegh8578]

Heh, see - OP is one person - just one - and managed to think of plenty a solution for narrative flaws in FO3. It just goes back to show how lazy and half-assed the original writing was, and it irritates me that good solutions should have been so available to them, but still overlooked :I

 

[naossano]

I am not sure that we could talk about actual writting. In my opinion, Bethesda team essentially wrote concepts, but didn't devellopped them.

 

[AntonioBarbarian]

I don't quote because it's too long. I like the idea with the super mutants, but why not including in the quest a part about actually convincing Little Lamplight kids to move to Big Town? I imagine one of the ways to do it is to convince them they'll get killed by the mutants otherwise (like a bad karma one, imagine they become sort of xenophobe towards mutants, ala Vault City, because of your manipulation; maybe screw up the quest if you fail a check with this one). Another one would be to actually explain them the situation (that you need them to move to pacify the mutants).

Yes, maybe after talking to Fawkes at the Vault he says theres one more thing, that you need to convince the LL kids to move out because the Vault is too small for all the mutants, using a high speech would easly convince MacCready to lead the kids to Big Town (After all that time you should have alredy rescued Red and Shorty and there wouldn't be any more dangers left, 'cept the slavers maybe, and raiders) either telling the real story or using fear like: "Hey MacReady, the Mutants are coming, they are going to storm Murder Pass and eat all of you, you guys better head to Big Town right now!".

Also, the factions could have a few changes too:

Brotherhood:

Star Paladin Cross, Tristan, Gunny, and all other Paladins (unnamed ones too), would have Brotherhood T-51b's.

The Lyons Pride would use their own T-51b's, the boots and the part above the hands (forgot the name) would be painted blue.

Initiates would use Brotherhood Combat Amor (NV Reinforced Combat Armor with brotherhood symbols in Black or blue.

Outcasts:

All outcasts would use T-51b's

Enclave:

Enclave Light Trooper: Use Enclave Combat Armor (Reinforced Armor from NV, painted black, grey and light brown, white Enclave symbol)and armed with the post-war R92 Assault Rifle (Uses 5.56 ammo, black, does a bit more damage than the Chinese Assault Rifle and is more durable).

Enclave Trooper: Uses Adv. Power Armor (Remnants PA from NV, should be the same model, but black/dark blue-ish gray) and armed with Tri-Beam Laser Rifles or normal Laser Rifles

Enclave Shock Trooper: Uses Adv. Power Armor MKII (http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/4641/? , a bit of work on the textures wouldn't hurt, my opinion though) and are armed with Miniguns, Gattling Laser or Rocket Launchers, rarely you might get one with a Fat Man.

Enclave Tesla Troopers: Uses Enclave Tesla Armor (would have a few changes, but would still look like the FO3 Tesla Armor), they are armed with Plasma Rifles, Plasma Casters and rarely with a Gattling Laser.

Officers and Scientists remain the same, also Raven Rock would be a bit bigger (would have some levels below), including Hydroponics Farms, reactor, and civilian quarters (Civilians would use a Jumpsuit similar to the Vault Jumpsuits, except being grey with black details instead of blue and yellow).

 

[Mohamed2001]

Wow, that's amazing. Might post mine after a while.

 

[naossano]

Some ways to make Fallout 3 plot less horrible, with a minimum of changes.

Use some a minimum of factions rules.
If you mess with a faction, they hate you.
If you wear some faction clothes, some members could be fooled.

Not necessary as much features as New Vegas, but enough to not have you brain explode by the sillyness of Fallout 3 faction system.

Of course, less crash, the hardcore mode & the wild wasteland mod.

A world travel system instead of the need to go in all those useless generic places...
OR just keep the worldmap the size of the actual Washington, and move into it the relevant locations that were previously outside.
Some ways to make the game world more focused/efficient.

Some ways to make the look for dad that less a hurry.
Let's say, for instance, you go to Moriary first, he tell you to meet someone near Tempeny tower a week later.
So you have believable reasons to do something else, for the time being.
Then the person you should meet dies in front of you.
Moriary then provide another Rendez-vous near Andale two week later.
If you go, the guy will tell you about GNR or Rivet City, without knowing where dad is.
You could also go directly for vault 112, but if you want to wander around, the game provide you a believable reason to take your time.
You could also learn at River City/Jefferson that Dad will come back a month later. When he doesn't, Madison will ask you to go for him.


Essential & forever allied characters
As for the Outcast, the Lyons Brotherhood shouldn't treat you well if you betrade them.
To be fair, the game should normally allow you get rid of anyone, but i can't figure out a way to get rid of everyone.
But i don't mind keeping alive some characters from vault 101, as the beginning seems more like a prologue.
Same for James/Madison/Autumn/Sarah Lyons before the arrival of the Enclave. As soon as you get to the Citadel, you should be able to choose if you want to help them, kill them or ignore them.
If you choose to get rid of them, you should be able to figure out that you need to go to the vault 87 by looking into the Citadel/Madison Lab computers.
If you did some bad thing agains't the BOS, before going to the Citadel for the first time, they wouldn't trust you, but won't be initialy hostile.
It's like the pardon from the Legion/NCR when you arrive in the strip.
Also, the Citadel should have far more civilians that what we see. They are here for 30 years after all. Plenty of time to make babies.

Access to Vault 87.
Instead of being occupied by magical children, it could be occupied by a squad of Brotherhood Outcast.
Instead of releasing slave child, they would ask for specific technologies.
Technologies that Lyons Brotherhood of Steel have.
So, you will have to choose between killing the outcast, sneak through them, convince them to let you anyway, or negociate a tech deal between both brotherhoods.
Or you could try to steal the tech from the other BOS.
If you get caught and fail to talk your way out, you will be an ennemy of Lyons Brotherhood.

There, you will meet Casdin, the leader of the outcast, while the guy in Fort Independance will be replaced by a quartermaster.
You will have the possibility to do some quests for them, to increase your reputation. (if you tell them you work for the BOS, it will drop it a bit)

Inside the vault, there are still yellow super-mutants, but you will learn somehow that there is a leader that expelled all other original super-mutants, and focused of recruiting dumb ones.
Somewhere in the Capital Wasteland, there is a small settlement with pacifist super-mutants, that would provide informations about why he expelled them.
Basically, he was a deceiver that wanted to increase his power. When he saw that radiated humans made dumber, but also easier to manipulate super-mutants, he took the opportunity to create his own army.
If you choose to release Fawkes, that boss will appear when Fawkes is after the Geck.
If you don't release Fawkes, the boss will appear after you got out of the radiated area in which the Geck is.

Then, if you have a low reputation with the Outcast, you will get kidnapped by the Enclave like the original game, but being betrayed by the outcast. (that become ennemies)
If you have an higher reputation with the Oucast, the Enclave will wait outside the cave.
You can choose to surrender yourself or fight back. (if you surrender, the Oucast members live and stay neutral to you)
If you fight back, you will have to face some endless waves of Enclave members, until all your outcast buddies die. Then, you are captured. (The Fort Independance Outcast will be hostiles to you)

Raven Rock
Autunm won't try to kill you or order anyone to do it, if you behave.
You will be free to go to meet the President.
On your way to him, you will be free to understant the Enclave way of life, with civilians, hostipals, school, a full micro-society, full of innocent people. (also, there was an Enclave chapter here since the great war, not since the fall of the Oil rig)
Then, the president will propose you the same deal that usual, but would be far more convincing, appealing on the common points that you have, as a vault citizen, compared to the Enclave members. (free of radiation, isolated, born with propanganda about pre-war America)
So you will not only be able to join the Enclave, but to have believable reasons to do so at that point. Same for the Brotherhood, if you were hostile to the Enclave before going to their HQ, you will be forgiven.
If you join them, you will not only have to take the FEV, but also to kill a captured ghoul/BOS member, to prove that you are on their side.
If you join them, you will follow Autumnn into a float of vertibird.
Inside that vertibird, you will assist the Enclave in destroying the Citadel and the soldiers outside.
Then your vertibird will be shot down and you will have to fight Liberty Prime on foot.
Then fight you way into the Jefferson Memorial and fight agains't the Lyons'pride (or their replacement if they're dead)

If you choose not to join the Enclave, you could fight you way out, or you could try to use the differences between Autumn & Eden to make them fight each other. (with lenghty discussions between them)
So you will be able to flee without fighting. Then, you will hear Autunmn instead of Eden on the radio.

If you already pissed the Enclave & the brotherhood or intend to do it, (and your dad), you could use some schematics found in Raven Rock, to launch an orbital strike agains't the Jefferson Memorial, and bury those two dictatorial groups.
You will have to go to some tower around Raven Rock (the one with the ghoul scientist) to initiate the strike, then learn that you will have to manually put a signal near the site. So you will need to go in the battle site, but not necessary fight.

If you choose that option, it will have the opposite effect of the Enclave ending.
Instead of making muties die, all the ghouls, super-mutants and some very irradiated humans, would feel healthier, stronger, better overall. Even the feral ghouls and dumber super-mutant will regain some of their intelligence, and form new settlements.
On the other hand, normal humans will slowly die in all the area.

Regarless the ending you will choose, you should get proper slideshows about every significants locations/characters. A reminder that things matter.

If you help the Enclave, they will be helped by vault 101 citizen to distribute pure water to some selected settlement, that would have to get rid of super-mutants/ghouls in exchange.
If you strike Jefferson, ghoul & super-mutants would distribute that water to other ghouls/super-mutants.
If you choose to help the Lyons brotherhood, you could convince them to give some pure water to the outcast, in exchange of a cease-fire. (not collaboration)

Also, you would need different substitutes for Broken Steel, if you choose an Enclave ending, or an strike ending.



Megaton
Still the same layout, but the cult members are all ghouls.
If they keep the bombs active, it is because of the radiation leak that heal them.
If people want to stay with the ghouls, it's because are the only ones able to dig into a very close, but highly irradiated mine.
Burke still want to get rid of Megaton, but have a reason to do it. He is paid by Roy Philips to get rid of those Megaton ghouls.
So Tempenny would have to rely on Roy's crew to get his minerals, and accept him into the tower.
As Burke & Roy share a common past of thiefs, they intend to use ghouls to get rid of Tempenny & Gustavo's team and rule the tower together.
Tempenny would be oblivious to the whole plot or the intend to destroy Megaton.
If you keep your mouth shut, you will not only get a room in the tower, but a regular income, from the mine benefits.
Being a bad guys should mean more money.
If you talk to Tempenny about it, you will share his fate.
There will be still some human in the tower, but a very few, that doesn't include Tempenny, Dashwood, Gustavo and his men.
Only those who didn't fight back would have survived.

Gidershade/Rivet City
It wouldn't exist. McLaren & Petrovita will live in Rivet City.
Petrovita will be addicted to nuka cola quantum and would die if you don't bring her regularly some nuka cola quantum. (and get paid for each)
McLaren would provide you an access code to a place full of stuff if you help provide a vaccine. (there could be tech that the outcast in Little Lamplight need. So you could avoid to ask those tech to the Lyons brotherhood)
To make the vaccine, you will have to take the Nuka Cola recipe from the Nuka Cola Plant and bring it to the Rivet City doctor.
The clothes quest for McLaren would only be done if Wild Wasteland perk.

Canterbury Commons
There should be far more people there, and generic merchants in case the initial four die.
Also, there should be ways to make the two heroes "stay" in town. Those two would only appear is you take the Wild Wasteland trait.

Arefu/Vampires
Vampires only if Wild Wasteland trait.
Otherwise, they would be regular cannibal that would be either supported agains't Arefu or killed.

Regulators/Talon Company Mercs
No perk that allow to tear fingers/ears, but regular bounties, randomly generated. No regulators, as the bounty hunters works for money.
You take you quests for the only non hostile Talon mercenaries location, the Fort Bannister. Inside that, each one of them will casually say to you that outside the fort, it's everyone for himself.
They would regularly send you agains't specific mister X or miss Y that did something to someone and that someone already paid them to get rid of the target.
You could help them to open another office in the Capitol Building, by getting rid of the Behemoth.

Evergreen Mills
Raiders that could be talked with, that would provide quests.

Vault 101
They would accept you again in the vault after troubles in homefront, provide more dialogs and have trading relationship with megaton.

Vaults
No remaining humans that still live there.
Sadly no Gary if not for the Wild Wasteland perk.



The Cyborg quest
Those cyborg were pre-war creations.
The cyborg would only being woke up, if you can blackmail him for a reward. (cyborg schematics for the outcast, for instance)
(that girl form the rail would die soon after she talked to you)

Operation Anchorage
A real strongold for the chinese general.
Better backstory for the chinese General.
A neutral backstory inside the Outpost computers.
An overly good backstory inside the Mama's dolce computers.
A lot of stuff depicting him as a bloody psychopath in the simulation. (scenery and holodisks)
Him not speaking english in the simulation, and not killing a prisoner, in the simulation, so you never really know if he was a psychopath, a regular general or an altruistic man.

When you get out of the simulation, the brotherhood outcast outpost is surrounded by the chinese renmants.
They got a signal, saying that the simulation was activated, killed the outcast sentries outside, and ask the outcast to give them the stealth suits that belong to them or they will storm the outpost to get it.
If you make the outcast leader accept the deal, there will be some outcast soldiers agains't it that you will have to fight. If you refuse the deal, you will have to kill the chinese and keep the suits.
If you give all the suits to the chinese, they will give you the Chinese General sword and tell you that the guy was actually a great guy, that didn't want to invade Alaska, but couldn't refuse the president orders and let his fellow chinese citizens being stripped from their energy needs.
Also, the Mama Dolce Ghouls won't be hostiles anymore.

So you got both sides opinions of the conflict.


Moira Brown
I hate that character very much, but at the same time, i kind of respect what they tried to do with that character. Lot of "personality", contradictions, lot of dialogs, purposly unbelievable quests.
But that characters is the worst person in the wasteland to write a survival guide. So, if they should have provided us a character that would, at the end of the quest, provide the necessary help to make a proper guide. A character like Pinkerton or Dashwood, that would maybe start a romance with her. Or, at the opposite, make sure that the survival guide is considered no more that a joke in the end, with everyone making fun or the lone wanderer for being part of it.
And, of course, if you blow up Megaton, you blow her up, you don't break ghoul canon.

3 dogs
More annoucements, even if shorter, less vault 101 ass-licking, proper dialog when you meet him (if you do) and a proper team around him. Right know, the guy seems almost as magical as the jerkass lamplight children.

Followers
No more guns for hire costing 1000 caps, but actual characters with dialogs, quests and personnality.



All of those wouldn't make the game great but this is the fewest things that i can imagine would make the plot less horrible and only disapointing.

 

[naossano]

A backstory element that could make the Fallout 3 a little more believable.
Consider some vault (if not every vaults), as actual shelter for people to survive decades, instead of doom device.
You could have social experiments with people actually surviving and emerge as societies later.

In Fo1, the large majority of societies that you encounters are people that just left their vault or that had father or grand-father that lived in vault.
In Fo2-FONV, you still have many people coming from multiple vault that are present in these gameworld.
One of the FOT inconsistency was to make the Brotherhood of Steel come from a vault.

In Fo3, beside you, (even dad isn't), no one is said to come from a vault.
They are all supposed to be there since day one, while all their settlement seems to exist since a few months.
If they had more cleverly read the documents from previous Fallouts, they could have kept the same societies, with just changing a bit of the backstory.
If you take Tempeny tower, for instance. You could keep the exact same ingame content, but make the tower on top of a vault, instead of a metro.
That vault would have billions of tons of stuff, for a very few inhabitants. Those inhabitants would have access to many holodisc about how sell useless junk at low price, buy at low price things valuables etc...
So, by the time you meet them, they just left the vault ten years ago.
They managed to secure the tower they lived under, and make a stable economy.
But they are too few, so they pay security guard, that are allowed to live there. Dashwood could be a guy like that. With his reputation, it would reduce the attack from outside.

I won't say it would solve everything, but it would add far more consistency to have people coming recently from vault, than to have them there since day one...

It would allow them to keep their timeline, to have BOS available, and, at a same time, keep the feeling that the societies haven't risen yet, 200 f****g years after the wars.