Oasis

[golfmade]

Finished the Oasis quests and what the fuck...

I started talking to the tree I thought to myself
[spoiler:9ae8a805a1] "No, no no no... Bethesda didn't bring Harold all the way over to D.C. to turn him into a tree..."[/spoiler:9ae8a805a1]

Couldn't bring myself to kill him, so I just used the salve to slow his progress. Although doing the quest was too easy. Thought if they at least brought prior Fallout characters into the game the quests would be more involved and more interesting. Silly me.

What did you all think of the quest, let alone how did you go about doing it?

I will give props to Beth for having Stephen Russell do his voice in the game.

 

[Brother None]

The location is stupid, its inhabitants are setting-breaking, the presence of Harold has no proper explanation, and the whole tree-thing feels lame.

The quest itself isn't horrible in design if you ignore that it's another dungeon-crawl on top of all the dungeon crawls this game has. There's four possible solutions (expand, slow, kill via heart, kill with fire) and while they mostly have similar results they do have different rewards, and kill with fire is pretty different from the rest.

But yes, it's not good

Why is this in Gameplay & Tech?

 

[golfmade]

The location is stupid, its inhabitants are setting-breaking, the presence of Harold has no proper explanation, and the whole tree-thing feels lame.

In a way I did like seeing the trees and hearing the birds, and that the water was still radiated, but then of course I wondered what on earth was causing the trees to grow with radiated soil and water only to find that it's Harold... and correct, I saved before talking to him and tried the various points and didn't really get much of an explanation other then he wandered on over to D.C....

The quest itself isn't horrible in design if you ignore that it's another dungeon-crawl on top of all the dungeon crawls this game has. There's four possible solutions (expand, slow, kill via heart, kill with fire) and while they mostly have similar results they do have different rewards, and kill with fire is pretty different from the rest.

But yes, it's not good

Murlocs are meh, and the Merloc king (why the fuck were there 2 inside?) were not that hard to dispatch, even with their funky blue rays of death.

And another question, why the fuck would a BoS outcast join up and become a tree huggin hippy? I still haven't even touched the main questline yet so I've no idea why there are outcasts, but when I think of BoS veterans, last thing I think of is them giving up their tech for trees.

Why is this in Gameplay & Tech?

Apologies, will pay more diligence to putting it in the correct subforum.

 

[Barbalute]

I liked that quest line, because if you fulfilled Harold's wish of killing him, you hurt the child (not physically, obviously). I ended up not doing the slow or quicken, does Harold end up happy with the results of either one?

Also, the BoS guy joins up because they saved his life. Y'know, near death experiences can have a pretty strong impact on people's lives.

 

[Brother None]

I ended up not doing the slow or quicken, does Harold end up happy with the results of either one?

Yes. You get a line which says "they really need you, y'know" and then Harold goes "well gorshed darned I didn't realise that I guess I'll happily suffer for a century more now"

Perfect ending

Also, the BoS guy joins up because they saved his life.

The Outcasts don't take in any recruits and his armor is Outcast Armor. I just figured he scrounged it off a dad Outcast BoS paladin, tho', can't remember him ever saying he was a former BoS soldier

 

[Leon]

I'm pretty sure he was an Outcast that joined the Treehug- uh, Treeminders, and that the armor was his to begin with. I can't back this up at the moment, though.

Also, they really made Harold rather dull personality-wise. He thinks it's funny when he calls Bob "Herbert". I get it. I must have heard that at least three times without choosing any dialog option twice.

 

[Jidai Geki]

The location is stupid, its inhabitants are setting-breaking, the presence of Harold has no proper explanation, and the whole tree-thing feels lame.

Yes, God forbid that they try something different. I personally had no problem with Harold turning up in the way that he did, or the 'Oasis' setting. It was nicely juxtaposed with the wastes.

 

[Brother None]

Yes, God forbid that they try something different.

Yes, that sounds like a fair representation of what I said. Because I basically said "they did something different and I hate that"...wait, hang on, no it didn't.

Here's why it doesn't work:
- The juxtaposition you're thinking of works best not with nature and post-apocalyptica, which just doesn't work (ref: Mad Max 3), but with pre-war clean technology and the reality now - which is why the vaults are so jarring in the original Falllouts. Note Van Buren kept to this theme with the Nursery, which fits better than Oasis exactly because it sticks to the pre-war theme.
- The Treeminders don't work. Dressed like elves, acting like a god-minding peace-loving cult, they are very obviously taken straight from Oblivon, and it's jarring. It becomes even more jarring when the lil' girl actually gives you a "necklace of speech +10", the most blatant "magic item" in the entire game
- Thematically, this spot is broken because there's no dark irony or hard choices. No matter what choice you make (other than burning Harold), you get a pat on the back and a congratulations
- Harold is magically able to sense people coming. Uh what?
- Harold's presence is not explained. Why is he there?
- Harold's presence is jarring in a sequel sense anyway. Even if you could accept the return of the BoS, Enclave, super mutants, centaurs and Dogmeat as "somehow making sense", Harold just takes the cake: how much from the originals did they have to move coast to coast anyway?
- And finally Oasis. The idea of an Oasis is kind of ok, and it being a well-kept secret makes sense (though the idea of their defenses holding up if people find out about it is pitiful, but sadly you don't seem to be able to form a raiding party to loot the place). It being a dense birch forest rather than an actual oasis is kind of "huh?", its existence lacking any explanation other than "magic" (not even "science!") is even more "huh?"

The only really good thing in the entire location is the nice set-up of the Treeminders completely failing to understand or listen to Harold, which is cute and pretty well done.

 

[Lexx]

Harold is imo also a good example for bad dialogs in Fallout 3. I really wished to talk more with him, talk about why he is here, what he has done the last years and so on, but... nothing. Very disappointing.

 

[Ausir]

PC: So, how did you end up here?

Linden: There isn't much more to the story. I was dying and these people saved my life, so here I'll remain.

PC: Dying? How awful! What happened to you?

Linden: I was a Brotherhood of Steel Outcast. We had a deep patrol out here, looking for some tech and then got jumped by some Deathclaws. They shredded everyone else and left me bleeding to death. If it wasn't for Oasis and Bloomseer Poplar, I'd be dead right now. Honestly, I've never seen anything like this place... it's beautiful. It's a shame only a few people will ever get to see it.

PC: Why'd you stay here after you recovered?

Linden: I felt I owed these people for bringing me back from the brink.

PC: What did you have to do to become a Treeminder?

Linden: I sort of fell into it I guess. I woke up here and I just stayed. After a while, I became one of them.

Harold is magically able to sense people coming. Uh what?

Well, this one can be attributed to FEV giving him psychic powers similar to the Master's.

Harold's presence is jarring in a sequel sense anyway. Even if you could accept the return of the BoS, Enclave, super mutants, centaurs and Dogmeat as "somehow making sense", Harold just takes the cake: how much from the originals did they have to move coast to coast anyway?

Yup, if anything, Marcus would make more sense.

 

[Dragula]

Well, this one can be attributed to FEV giving him psychic powers similar to the Master's.

Or the fact he has roots?

 

[Jidai Geki]

The juxtaposition you're thinking of works best not with nature and post-apocalyptica, which just doesn't work (ref: Mad Max 3), but with pre-war clean technology and the reality now - which is why the vaults are so jarring in the original Falllouts. Note Van Buren kept to this theme with the Nursery, which fits better than Oasis exactly because it sticks to the pre-war theme.

Whether or not it works in that context is your opinion, and one which I disagree with. I think it works fine- it was certainly a surprise to me when I finally managed to figure out how to reach the centre of those mountains and found a forest. Along with

Tranquility Lane

and the vaults, the juxtaposition of certain elements within FO3 worked quite well in my opinion.

- The Treeminders don't work. Dressed like elves, acting like a god-minding peace-loving cult, they are very obviously taken straight from Oblivon, and it's jarring. It becomes even more jarring when the lil' girl actually gives you a "necklace of speech +10", the most blatant "magic item" in the entire game

Agreed. I instantly thought 'Oblivion' when those guys started talking. The voice actors sounded exactly the same. As for the necklace, I didn't get that since I opted to kill Harold by destroying his heart, but that does sound fairly retarded.

- Thematically, this spot is broken because there's no dark irony or hard choices. No matter what choice you make (other than burning Harold), you get a pat on the back and a congratulations

Again, I can't speak from experience because I'm still on my first play-through, but I was definitely expecting them to attack me for killing Harold, and they should have done just that, especially since they'd been ignoring Harold's words throughout.

- Harold is magically able to sense people coming. Uh what?

This makes sense if Harold is able to 'feel' through the network of trees/foliage.

- Harold's presence is not explained. Why is he there?

Sometimes less is more. Why is it necessary for his presence to be explained?

- And finally Oasis. The idea of an Oasis is kind of ok, and it being a well-kept secret makes sense (though the idea of their defenses holding up if people find out about it is pitiful, but sadly you don't seem to be able to form a raiding party to loot the place). It being a dense birch forest rather than an actual oasis is kind of "huh?", its existence lacking any explanation other than "magic" (not even "science!") is even more "huh?"

That's the explanation of the theistic Treeminders. It could just as easily be explained by the fact that Harold has become an evolutionary 'jump' allowing the reintroduction of foliage into the wasteland.

The only really good thing in the entire location is the nice set-up of the Treeminders completely failing to understand or listen to Harold, which is cute and pretty well done.

Indeed, but this is undermined a little by the fact that the Treeminders suddenly start to listen to Harold when it comes to them not being hostile towards you.


(Sorry about the small writing, I can't seem to be able to get spoiler tags to work)

 

[Ausir]

- The Treeminders don't work. Dressed like elves, acting like a god-minding peace-loving cult, they are very obviously taken straight from Oblivon, and it's jarring. It becomes even more jarring when the lil' girl actually gives you a "necklace of speech +10", the most blatant "magic item" in the entire game

Not really more blatant than the Hat of Intelligence etc.

Anyway, Harold's presence in Van Buren made much more sense, and was actually connected to the main story.

 

[Brother None]

Not really more blatant than the Hat of Intelligence etc.

It was the most blatant item I met. Look, for some items you can simply talk about functionality: trade suits give you more barter since people look at you as a trader, hats keep the sun out of your eyes so perception bonus, certain armors allow you to move more freely so unarmed bonus (can't explain the gun bonuses, though).

But a necklace? How can a necklace have any function related to speech? That's a level below the other stupid item bonuses, it's right there with Lincoln's Hat.

Sometimes less is more. Why is it necessary for his presence to be explained?

I like less is more, if it's in monster movies or other things dependant on mystery to enhance the experience. I don't really think it applies to any faction or NPC that moved from coast to coast - it was explained (shoddily, but explained) for the BoS and Enclave, why not for Harold?

 

[ScottXeno]

The quest itself isn't horrible in design if you ignore that it's another dungeon-crawl on top of all the dungeon crawls this game has.

I hate that too. It's like Bethesda thought, hey, we do dungeon crawls so well, let's just fill this game up with them. It's all dungeon crawls, every bit of it. There are no real adventures in the cities, not like there were with the Hub, or Junktown. You either go underground or enter a building (and it's the exact same thing when you enter a building. Just because it's a building doesn't make it not a dungeon crawl), wander around the maze-like design, kill anything that attacks you, hack computers, pick locks, loot, leave, find the next one, repeat.

>.<

 

[DexterMorgan]

Above poster: There really is not a lot of adventure feel to this game, is there? You mentioning that word got me thinking about this aspect of old games, which I find akin to adventures from, say, Firefly TV series. You know, swashbuckling in space VS swashbuckling in PostApocalypse land, living on the edge and treading paths not normally taken. I don't get that feel in this game at all.

Could be that's because of conspicuous lack of consequence to my choices (compared to actual Fallout games). Not sure, will give it more thought.

BN and the other guy: That entire area was obviously transplanted straight out of Oblivion, watery dungeon and all. In fact, this is so obvious that I find any discussion about it to be entirely redundant. You guys are wasting your keyboards for nothing.

 

[Jahnri]

I liked the mission a great deal because they stuck to the cult mentality similar to a cargo cult. They see Harold but in there demented way cant understand him as anything other then a God. The outfits thematically seem to suit treehuggers. Which frankly isn't to jarring a reality in a post-apoc world. It even makes sense they would worship the presence of trees in such a world.

Harold made me deeply sad since frankly I didn't have the dialogue choices I needed. I wanted to know more about him. What I realize now is that Beth basically didn't seem to put the time into advanced dialogues. They skimped horribly.

Personally I wanted to convince Harold of the good to the world he could do and try to help him to understand his gift. But NOOOoooo I cant even mention that. Lame.

So I ended up saving him and spreading his infection , speeding it up in hopes his mutated trees could spread over the world.

The BoS made plenty of sense. Running all your life in the waste. Your tired. Worn out. Then you find a place which is peaceful and quiet you can settle down and remove yourself from the waste. That would be tempting to anyone in that world. Unless they are absolute cretins which are exploiters.

Anyways very touching mission. Liked it alot. I just want more advanced dialogues!

 

[the lone deathclaw]

I had to kill harold but i tried it one of the other ways so I let him spread through the wastelands and instead of saying you cruel cruel bastard he goes after your half assed saying they really like you Harold. Harold: Oh I guess I never thought about it that way time to suffer more. Yeah i cannot remember if it's only in Killap's patch but they do mention the fruit at the end of Fallout 2 to set up VB and yes they also show Marcus going East (I usually play the game until just before the enclave so i cannot remember if those were there originally but they felt new). Harold had so much trouble walking in the past two games, FDR looked like a marathon runner, there is no plausible way an infirmed ghoul who could not fight was able to make it to the East Coast unless Dianna took him there.

 

[ferrety]

oh how i hated this elf quest.

i made harold grow faster - i decided his effect on the world around him was more important than his well being. of course, he ended up being happy...

i like that this is a truly 'gray' moral issue. the options are great - help him die, kill him horribly, slow his growth, speed it up.

each impact harold, the treeminders, and the wasteland in very different ways - and there is no clear cut 'moral' choice.

that part i love.

the dungeon stunk. terrible, stupid monsters. (and why did i meet three different kings?)
the conversations stunk. no surprise.
the reward (magic necklace) was absurd.

but the core quest was one of the better ones, if you stripped everything away and built it up again more practically.

and the kings thing bothered me in a different way - why not make a mirelurk (or whatever they are called) society if you're going to give them kings? make women, little baby ones. make killing them a big moral deal too.

oh well.

 

[MisterBibs]

Thematically, this spot is broken because there's no dark irony or hard choices.

I'd argue that the fact that Harold is creating life, but wants to die, is suitably ironic. Maybe not "dark irony", but that's semantics.

Maybe it was just me, but my choice in the quest was a hard choice. I didn't want to kill Harold - he's Harold, for crissake. Plus, I liked that he was restoring the wasteland. Then I heard his speech about not being able to read or sleep or do anything (and the increasing rage in his voice), and I decided to do as he asked. But I felt horrible about it.