Oasis

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MB said:
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.
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Why is that semantics? Irony and dark irony are completely different things.

Oddly enough I have never been able to kill Harold in Fallout or Fallout 2 no matter how batshit insane my character was, but my second build already had no problem putting the flame on Harold.

Ignore the nostalgia factor for a reason: Bethesda doesn't even bother to make you care about the character. If you already do then yeah, that may be a factor, but I don't see how their character really impacts your decision either way.

It's cool that they pulled the right strings for you for whatever reason, but for me...I'm too much a gameist. The moment I realised all 3 choices (so excluding the burn one) lead the the same result as far as ingame elements are concerned but different rewards, I realised my decision was irrelevant. It's not like I was planning to travel back to Oasis to chat with Harold and listen to his sage advice; he has practically no dialogue to speak of.
 
Brother None said:
Ausir said:
Not really more blatant than the Hat of Intelligence etc.
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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.
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I can't remember which armor gives you a gun bonus, but that could be explained in any number of ways from extra recoil compensation (or perhaps just less perceived recoil), a steady arm with less sway, or in the cse of power armor perhaps targeting assistance via in helmet HUD or similar system. Just my two cents.
 
Why is that semantics? Irony and dark irony are completely different things.
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Because I can't imagine any situation you'd define as darkly ironic that isn't, ultimately, ironic.

If you already do then yeah, that may be a factor, but I don't see how their character really impacts your decision either way.
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Given Fallout's comparitive lack of popularity among gamers before Fallout 3 came out, I'd say there's no major problem with that. If you know the original two games, Harold is a special character you've seen before, and your memories have a greater chance of steering you towards one option or another. If you don't, he's just a talking tree that wants to die.

The moment I realised all 3 choices (so excluding the burn one) lead the the same result as far as ingame elements are concerned but different rewards, I realised my decision was irrelevant
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Taken to an extreme, why play any of the Fallout games anyway? In any open-ended RPG, choices are inherently irrelevent, as any continuance of the series will be based on the fact that the last game 's main character made the good / helpful choices.

I don't deny that the choice you made is lessened by the fact that there aren't custom endings for each location (which I am both upset they don't exist but understand why they don't), I still don't have a problem with the quest.
 
MisterBibs said:
Because I can't imagine any situation you'd define as darkly ironic that isn't, ultimately, ironic.
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A cow is an animal, that doesn't make every animal a cow.

Given Fallout's comparitive lack of popularity among gamers before Fallout 3 came out, I'd say there's no major problem with that. If you know the original two games, Harold is a special character you've seen before, and your memories have a greater chance of steering you towards one option or another. If you don't, he's just a talking tree that wants to die.
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That relative lack of popularity is rather imaginary, y'know. There's a reason why Bethesda paid $1 million for the setting.
It's also not an excuse. If Fallout is so impopular, why include the character in the first place? It's not as if Harold adds anything to the situation, there were a dozen ways to get almost exactly the same general location and choices without using Harold.

Taken to an extreme, why play any of the Fallout games anyway? In any open-ended RPG, choices are inherently irrelevent, as any continuance of the series will be based on the fact that the last game 's main character made the good / helpful choices.
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No, because the game world reacts to your choices and shows you consequences. This does not happen in Fallout 3.

I don't deny that the choice you made is lessened by the fact that there aren't custom endings for each location (which I am both upset they don't exist but understand why they don't), I still don't have a problem with the quest.
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It isn't just lessened by the lack of custom endings, it's lessened by the fact that the characters barely respond to the choice you make. Unless you choose to burn Harold, everyone is completely fine with whatever choice you make it, even though it is presented as a tough moral choice with multiple sides to it beforehand.
 
Don't forget the Days of our lives-style conversation between the two top treehuggers. Ugh.
 
I don't deny that the choice you made is lessened by the fact that there aren't custom endings for each location (which I am both upset they don't exist but understand why they don't)
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Why don' they?
 
Ausir said:
Why don' they?
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From what I understand, they were going to do it - thus the "200 endings" promise - but each slight alteration to the endgame video for each possible subquest and each possible way of doing those subquests made it unfeasable.

Would I have liked location-specific endings? Sure, I was dissapointed when they weren't there. Did I think about half of the locations could have specific endings? Yeah. But I thought about it (and looked in the guide to confirm) there's already more than 3 endings, depending on what quests you did. I'm not doing all the permuations because that sort of thing is way too much math for me.
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Honestly, making two 15sec slideshow + narrative per sidequest isn't that huge a work, I think Bethesda got lazy on this one. How many sidequests are there ? 20 ? That's 10 minutes of narrative here, not much considering the hours of recorded voice acting.

In the end, it's only a simple ending script with "play the good video if player chose the good path, play the bad video is player chose the bad one, and don't play anything if player skipped the quest entirely". Nothing complicated here.

To take the most popular example of choice and consequence in the game, Megaton, do you really think they couldn't in the years of development take a few screenshots of either the town with Simms and Moira, or the crater left after the explosion, and write a few lines of narrative telling what the town or survivors ended up as in the next years ? That would have been enough for me to acknowledge I actually did something there that changed the place. One silent 1sec slide is not enough.


To get back on topic, I liked the Oasis sidequest, it was a breath of fresh air after hours of pointless dungeon crawling. That is, until I found out I *had* to go though that cave no matter what (no flamer available and I was playing good anyway). I wish you could convince this little girl to tell Harold what he means to her, or make the worshipers realize what Harold is and actually listen to him. I guess that's not fun/fulfilling enough in Bethesda's mind. Am I the only one that still enjoys peaceful solutions ?

Point is, I don't remember any sidequest in F3 that didn't involve shooting or destroying something at one point or another. I miss the old dialogue challenges the originals had.
 
ferrety said:
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.
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Mirelurk Kings are scattered throughout the game. I guess they could have made a society, but obviously they didn't want to add too much back story or dialog because 12 year old FPS fanatics wouldn't like it. Which is funny because the people that don't like to read in games (that I have observed anyway), just click through the text real fast anyway, so it wouldn't hurt to add more of it.
 
I actually thought of The Witcher and the Druid Grove in the Swamps, the same 'oasis of calm in an inhospitable place' as this. To then have a great character from F2 turn up here and be tortured by Bethesda just so they could claim 'continuity' and 'being true to the series' was too fucking far.
 
I can't remember which armor gives you a gun bonus, but that could be explained in any number of ways from extra recoil compensation (or perhaps just less perceived recoil), a steady arm with less sway, or in the cse of power armor perhaps targeting assistance via in helmet HUD or similar system. Just my two cents.
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But in the game, it's not explained at all.

Sure, you can explain it in many ways, just like evolution or creationism can be explain in many ways too :P
 
OK, fine, one could explain the gun bonus. Even the speech bonus from good-looking clothing. I can even live with the AGI bonus for light clothes. But then how doe one explain END, medicine and science bonuses? Or how come do hats INCREASE perception or sneak? I thought it would be logical the other way round.
 
From what I understand, they were going to do it - thus the "200 endings" promise - but each slight alteration to the endgame video for each possible subquest and each possible way of doing those subquests made it unfeasable.
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Wait, I have a great idea! How about doing it the way Fallout 1 and 2 did instead? Or is 1997 tech unfeasible now?
 
With the advent of advanced technology, slideshows and voice overs arranged in a specific order based on simple variables has become a lost art.

Much like the trebuchet, the practice of making a bunch of fucking pictures and having someone speak a few paragraphs of wording into a microphone is all too difficult to replicate today.

Yea, yea, hurf durf.
 
Lost art? Luckily that Poland is still a bit backward so we actually got slideshows and voice overs for The Witcher! Maybe they could impart their knowledge to Beth?
 
Commiered said:
Lost art? Luckily that Poland is still a bit backward so we actually got slideshows and voice overs for The Witcher! Maybe they could impart their knowledge to Beth?
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Poland- an ancient land with lost art of slideshows and voice overs...
 
Personally I thought the quest was really neat and I was excited to talk to Harold again, in the end I really enjoyed it and felt it was one of the best conflicts of morality the game has to offer too (regardless of what others think) but did have a few problems:

Harold shows up pretty randomly in FO2 for no good reason so I accept him in this pretty easily. Though I admit him getting across the nation is a little wonky. I'd have loved if Harold would have mentioned the friends he traveled with and name dropped Marcus/Lenny/Goris. In the end the how isn't as important as the why of his situation though. The mutated FEV virus could have shown up a few interesting side quests like perhaps hinting that's why Behemoth's are created from as well. More could have been done here and as it is the mutant FEV strain is left as a foot-note instead of a really interesting new threat to the Fallout world.

The ending doesn't show a thing about the choice you make in this bonus quest that is arguably just as, if not more, important for the fate of the Capital Wasteland than Project Purity. Why the Lincoln memorial and the slave movement gets a bonus video shot and this doesn't is beyond me. Of course there are plenty of extra things that the ending really should have done. The main quest is terribly weak and the ending is nearly pointless. I can't deny it.
 
Ausdoerrt said:
OK, fine, one could explain the gun bonus. Even the speech bonus from good-looking clothing. I can even live with the AGI bonus for light clothes. But then how doe one explain END, medicine and science bonuses? Or how come do hats INCREASE perception or sneak? I thought it would be logical the other way round.
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You really must have trouble thinking in more abstract terms. Having your apparel affect skills is nearly the same as having to equip tools/lock-picks in your quick use slot in the old Fallout games. In FO3 though since you don't have a quick switch option this could prove annoying to put your weapon away at every locked door (though only slightly more annoying than having to swap armor in combat).

Look at it as the outfit of clothes coming equipped with all the tools and knick-nacks the profession tied to it would require if you really need a "how is this making sense" explanation. Stats can be explained in the same abstracts but you won't accept that, I can tell, so I won't really bother. Fallout has never been a simulated reality though and I don't see the desire to inject it here. Though to be fair the actual weight of your gear (per hints/tips and the manual) does affect your ability to sneak in FO3, the exact formula is unknown to me though.
 
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