So in the end, did the Super Mutants add to anything?

[The Dutch Ghost]

Hah, you're thinking of Special Agent Frank Horrigan, I think Ghost was referring to the Airborn FEV the Enclave were planning to let loose in Fallout 2.

Yep, Reconite is right, I meant the Enclave's airborne version of FEV of which President Eden's version was a weak rip off of.

And it would have been a big thing, wiping out anyone who isn't inoculated.

Beth just copied what has been done before, most likely thinking that they could get away with it with no one saying that it has been done before in the franchise.

 

[Professor Danger!]

Hah, you're thinking of Special Agent Frank Horrigan, I think Ghost was referring to the Airborn FEV the Enclave were planning to let loose in Fallout 2.

Yep, Reconite is right, I meant the Enclave's airborne version of FEV of which President Eden's version was a weak rip off of.

And it would have been a big thing, wiping out anyone who isn't inoculated.

Beth just copied what has been done before, most likely thinking that they could get away with it with no one saying that it has been done before in the franchise.

Haha. My bad. I totally read that wrong.

Actually, I liked that aspect of Fallout2. Actually, I actually never thought of the "bad guy" in Fallout2 as the new version of the virus. I guess most videogames have taught me to not think abstractly like that.

 

[Lingwei]

My problem with the supermutants was the lack of out of game and ingame consistency. We were told before the game was released that the supermutants were stealing people, presumeably to dip in the vats...uh strap into the medical beds and be subjected to gas...was it ever actually even explained how they were subjected to the FEV?

Then ingame we never see any of this. We hear three dog bleating on about the supermutants stealing people. We have a quest where we have to rescue two people who had been kidnapped. We come across random ladies (who are all dressed the same...guess they must have the same supplier of white tank tops). But then we hear the supermutants in Vault 87 saying they had run out of FEV. So why are they still kidnapping people? Why do they even kidnap people? This was never explained. Why were they defending the Capitol Building. What were the Talon Company Mercs attacking the Capitol Building for? You would think there would be some sort of explanation about why they are throwing away a huge number of personnel and weapons. Instead all we get is a kinda meh set piece battle between two forces that have no discernable reason to be fighting over the building.

So in conclusion the supermutants were only there to change up the enemy roster a bit, and of course answer the prerelease claims of 'it's not fallout'.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

So why are they still kidnapping people?

Because Super-Orcs in FO3 eat them, IIRC?

TBH, I don't so much mind the fact that East-coast mutants were created as a completely new faction, but I do agree with TDG that there was really no need to do that if they were to be of completely no consequence to the story.

 

[Jericho]

I thought it was fairly obvious that the Super Mutants in the Capital Wasteland were just a remnant of the Master's Army that went all the way over to the East Coast, and were attracted to certain areas in it where there were exceedingly high levels of radiation. Vault 87 just happened to be a place of F.E.V. experimentation that the Super Mutants found. Simple.

 

[chaosapiant]

I thought it was fairly obvious that the Super Mutants in the Capital Wasteland were just a remnant of the Master's Army that went all the way over to the East Coast, and were attracted to certain areas in it where there were exceedingly high levels of radiation. Vault 87 just happened to be a place of F.E.V. experimentation that the Super Mutants found. Simple.

Actually, that's not correct at all. The super mutants in F3 are an entirely separate group from the ones in F1 and F2. They were citizens in a vault exposed to another (different) FEV test by Vault-Tec/Enclave.

Overall, I enjoyed them in all three games. The problem is, if you don't search enough for the "why and how" of them, they just look like a cheap rip off of the ones from F1 and F2...which they are. But they are justified rip offs.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Why are they justified rip offs?

Is there anything in Fallout that says that loads of Super Mutants are essential to Fallout?

 

[chaosapiant]

Why are they justified rip offs?

Is there anything in Fallout that says that loads of Super Mutants are essential to Fallout?

Not quite what I meant. by justified, I meant that there reason for being there was explained. As to whether they needed to be there or not, is opinion. I didn't mind them. If they weren't there, I wouldn't have minded either

 

[Argonnot]

Would have been better for them not to be in the game, instead more emphesis being on enemies like the talon company, or distinct differing gangs of raiders that are fighting eachother in the ruins of DC. Hell, Talon company was interesting at least, I learned about them before I ever encountered them (Hearing about them from grandma sparkle, and Riely beforehand) the after that, fuck all, only that they tenatiously defended thier base, and attacked the capitol building constantly. Also thier apparent access to long range artillary. They were freaking interesting, and yet nothing goes along with them story wise, all we get is them attacking you if your good. Hell, even that in itself is interesting, unlike the regulators who aren't even in the damn game unless you take the lawbringer perk, or are evil. Instead we get a few lines of dialog explanation, and them appearing mysteriously all over the capitol wasteland with an ubscure goal that nobody knows about. Thats interesting, not giant green orc things that much on people and suffer from an extreme case of shot in the face, and lead by larger, stupidier orc things that defy the laws of biomechanics and presumably eat even more people.

 

[cratchety ol joe]

Fallout 3 is canon,

Time for me to jump in and reveal SUPER-GLITTERING-GEM-OF-HATRED

I have to question the above statement, if fallout 3, is so very very 'cannon' why are there countless community mods which attempt to 're-falloutise' the game? I think its safe to conclude that its not just me that feels that vanilla FO3 falls VERY short of cannon, and in this matter of mutants...

I agree with most here;

They have no story as to why they are there
They contradict already written and accepted cannon
They offer no interaction beyond "yippy more xp"
They seem entirely less threatening that in any other FO game
- a good example is in FO:tactics where a tiny and only just co-ordinated group of SM's nearly wipe out the BOS in the area... but then this is in a fallout game where standing in front of a SM is a sure way to die (see also: .50 Cal MG to the face)

tldr - super mutants have no place in FO3

For those that bother with what I think:
Really the super mutants of FO3 just don't need to be there, and while I agree they're role could be easily filled with any other angry confused wasteland group. I truly believe it was simply "oh, they're in the previous games.. we gotta have them." a piss poor game design effort.

The alternate FEV experiments is just poor, and makes no sense, FEV came about in its use, because of one very naughty lad known as 'the master' to have it suddenly appear on the other side of the continent is just illogical. The fact that these mutants have no leadership (in all previous encounters SM's NEED a leader focus or they simply forget what they're supposed to be doing and wander off on they're own. no longer acting in any form of organised force, and I expect in-fighting would feature heavily in such leaderless situations)

The wasteland of FO3 seems about as harsh as a walk through a forest, sure, there are things that bite, but once you've stomped on them all is well. Something that was touched on briefly here raised a point that erk's me endlessly, there are literally hundreds of viable settlement points in FO3's wasteland that seem untapped for resources or even just they're safety...

Anyway, before I digress on a rant of epic proportions about other inconsistencies in FO3. I'll stop here with a big 'Super Mutants in FO:3 make no sense' vote.

 

[Sanford]

There's no point in having them in. Maybe, just maybe they would have worked as a very rare enemy type, so you can really see that they're almost completely wiped out, but otherwise, no. Recycling old enemies using retarded excuses to do so (a vault based on FEV experiments? were they on crack? what's next? a pac-man vault?) is NOT the way to go.

 

[Jericho]

response

Ah, thank you for the corrrection. I still like that idea though.

Time for me to jump in and reveal SUPER-GLITTERING-GEM-OF-HATRED

I have to question the above statement, if fallout 3, is so very very 'cannon' why are there countless community mods which attempt to 're-falloutise' the game? I think its safe to conclude that its not just me that feels that vanilla FO3 falls VERY short of cannon, and in this matter of mutants...

For the same reason a ton of Star Wars fans tend to ignore the prequels, even though they have no way of actually affecting the canon of that universe. No matter what type of entertainment you look into, there are inevitably going to be folks who don't like the direction things go into. That doesn't lessen that actual canonity of the item though.

They have no story as to why they are there

Experiments gone wrong from Vault 87 seems to work.

They contradict already written and accepted cannon

Technically, any "new canon" will contradict old canon because the old canon wasn't written in mind in regard to what will be written later. This happens all the time in different works of fiction. Sometimes it's called adding, sometimes it's more derisively called retroconning. Still canon though.

For instance, some people could if they wanted to, claim that the Enclave's introduction in Fallout 2 contradicted the canon set down in Fallout 1 that the Brotherhood had the most sophisticated technology out there. Saying's it's a contradiction though is just looking at new sources of canon in a negative light.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Experiments gone wrong from Vault 87 seems to work.

Again, check the background of FEV and the nature of the Vault Experiments.

They were never intended to create things like super soldiers.

 

[Jericho]

Experiments gone wrong from Vault 87 seems to work.

Again, check the background of FEV and the nature of the Vault Experiments.

They were never intended to create things like super soldiers.

F.E.V. wasn't initially meant to create super soldiers, but instead folks immune to Chinese biologicals, but even in the first Fallout the background had the United States government looking into using it for just that purpose once they realized its strength/size-increasing capabilities. And the Master was certainly using it in FL1 to create Super soldiers.

The Vault Experiment of 87 was simply to study the effects of their F.E.V. testing. That it created Super Mutants was the result, which you can argue was unexpected, but the experimenters were certainly expecting something to happen with their tests.

 

[cratchety ol joe]

Technically, any "new canon" will contradict old canon because the old canon wasn't written in mind in regard to what will be written later.

And why should any new writings be more prominent or important than an already established and accepted base set of features / rules or idea's?

I think it rather rude that someone could come along and write a new set of information about Romeo and Juliet about the scenes in which Romeo rides his space bike through the Gurbugik galaxy fending off the entire Oblofiab race with his wrist mounted masers... which would be new cannon? sure its a cool idea, but its doesn't fit the basic story of Romeo and Juliet or its ideals.

The same applies to a game such as Fallout which has an already well established history and information. A cool idea is a cool idea, but not all cool idea's need be bludgeoned into place simply because they are so cool. And then for the well established fan base to be told; "well fuck you, all that stuff you thought was right, isn't right.. what we just wrote is right... neener neener" I find the whole theory that 'new cannon = true cannon' to be quite insulting.

 

[Tremer]

Time for me to jump in and reveal SUPER-GLITTERING-GEM-OF-HATRED

I have to question the above statement, if fallout 3, is so very very 'cannon' why are there countless community mods which attempt to 're-falloutise' the game? I think its safe to conclude that its not just me that feels that vanilla FO3 falls VERY short of cannon, and in this matter of mutants...

For the same reason a ton of Star Wars fans tend to ignore the prequels, even though they have no way of actually affecting the canon of that universe. No matter what type of entertainment you look into, there are inevitably going to be folks who don't like the direction things go into. That doesn't lessen that actual canonity of the item though.

what?

the prequels affect the way you see the character, you see their origins and motivation of their actions, for that reason, some people hate the prequels, the other is that multiple times GL dont respect the continuity.

but it still share the same story, characters, and places, F3 dont Thats why some people (include me) thinks F3 is not cannon

 

[cogar66]

The Enclave and their super bio agent were a big thing.

I'd put Frank Horrigan and Project Purity in the same "Who Cares?" category, actually.

Hah, you're thinking of Special Agent Frank Horrigan, I think Ghost was referring to the Airborn FEV the Enclave were planning to let loose in Fallout 2.

Bio Agent
Special Agent

The main point of Fallout 3 was to stop the Enclave from putting the FEV into the water supply, which as you know is extremely similar to F2 so they were both on the same level of importance. Just like the waterchip in F1 and the G.E.C.K. in F2 Project Purity is what leads you into the main problem.

Edit: I aimed this post at the wrong person.
Just read the other post. Yeah it's a rip-off, and it sucked hard. However you can't claim that Fallout 3's story wasn't as important as Fallout 2's when the stories are almost identical. It's the same with Project Purity, Tycho mentions irradiated water in Fallout 1, meaning the science is obviously different than what it would be in real life, so you can't use the whole "DIRT WOULD REMOVE 99.9% OF RADIATION IRL" bash on Fallout 3 and not use it on Fallout 1, where a large part of the story is finding a water purification chip. Basically you guys go:

"FALLOUT 1 STORY = SO AWESOME AND AMAZING! IT GOES LIKE THIS GET WATER CHIP FOR VAULT SO IT CAN PURIFY WATER AND THEN STOP SUPER MUTANTS!"

"FALLOUT 3'S STORY SUX MAD COX BECAUSE SCIENCE PROVES THAT 99.9% OF THE RADIATION WOULD BE REMOVED FROM THE WATER!"

"FALLOUT 2 IS AMAZIN IT'S STORY WAS SO EPIC THE STORY WAS TO STOP TEH ENCLAVE FROM DESTROYIN THE WORLD WITH FEV! IT WAS TRULY EPIC!"

"FALLOUT 3 SUX BECAUSE THE MAIN STORY WAS TO STOP TEH ENCLAVE FROM DESTROYIN THE WORLD WITH FEV! IT WASN'T NEARLY EPIC ENOUGH!"

You can't honestly claim one game has an amazing storyline and another has a shitty storyline when they are almost exactly the same. Stick to this: It was a ripoff, plain and simple, they had a chance to make up a whole new interesting story, and they didn't.

 

[Professor Danger!]

The main point of Fallout 3 was to stop the Enclave from putting the FEV into the water supply, which as you know is extremely similar to F2 so they were both on the same level of importance. Just like the waterchip in F1 and the G.E.C.K. in F2 Project Purity is what leads you into the main problem.

Edit: I aimed this post at the wrong person.
Just read the other post. Yeah it's a rip-off, and it sucked hard. However you can't claim that Fallout 3's story wasn't as important as Fallout 2's when the stories are almost identical. It's the same with Project Purity, Tycho mentions irradiated water in Fallout 1, meaning the science is obviously different than what it would be in real life, so you can't use the whole "DIRT WOULD REMOVE 99.9% OF RADIATION IRL" bash on Fallout 3 and not use it on Fallout 1, where a large part of the story is finding a water purification chip. Basically you guys go:

"FALLOUT 1 STORY = SO AWESOME AND AMAZING! IT GOES LIKE THIS GET WATER CHIP FOR VAULT SO IT CAN PURIFY WATER AND THEN STOP SUPER MUTANTS!"

"FALLOUT 3'S STORY SUX MAD COX BECAUSE SCIENCE PROVES THAT 99.9% OF THE RADIATION WOULD BE REMOVED FROM THE WATER!"

"FALLOUT 2 IS AMAZIN IT'S STORY WAS SO EPIC THE STORY WAS TO STOP TEH ENCLAVE FROM DESTROYIN THE WORLD WITH FEV! IT WAS TRULY EPIC!"

"FALLOUT 3 SUX BECAUSE THE MAIN STORY WAS TO STOP TEH ENCLAVE FROM DESTROYIN THE WORLD WITH FEV! IT WASN'T NEARLY EPIC ENOUGH!"

You can't honestly claim one game has an amazing storyline and another has a shitty storyline when they are almost exactly the same. Stick to this: It was a ripoff, plain and simple, they had a chance to make up a whole new interesting story, and they didn't.

How about Fallout 3 ripped off aspects of the previous games and did so poorly in a completely uninteresting fashion. There are no new original ideas anymore. However, if you remake something, you should add something to it. A new twist or some kind of relatively original or unique view of it. Bethesda did nothing of the sort. What they did give us was a poorly done "Cliff Notes" summary of a couple plot points that appeared in previous games. Nothing more.

Oh, and a radio. Yay.

 

[Enclave Patrol]

I wasn't annoyed at all for fact that there were super mutants around. I was annoyed at fact, how stupid and pointless their presence in game was. There has been speculation that muties were looking for another source of FEV in the ruins, but apparently for some reason that storyline wasn't finished. But fact that they were only fighting for some undisclosed reason with Talon Company was idiotic. Same applies to Talon company too, it would have been nice if their presence too would have made any sense at all. It's basic flaw of FO3 that there is factions involved that just fight there without apparent reason. Mutants attacking player do make some sense due to fact that they aren't very clever and pretty though fighters, but mercs and raiders should understand to avoid attacking clearly superior enemy.

It's pretty common in movies, TV, comics and pulp fiction that antagonists survive to sequels via strange narrative that often contradicts previous parts of story. But according to normal logic of sequels antagonists that survived should always be stronger and their plan should always be even more insane, that is another major failure in FO3. As there were remenants of both antagonists of previous parts with much less impressive plans or no plans at all.

Cogar66: FO3 could have worked if would have been happening before FO2. With FEV part being limited scale test for global version of same plan.

 

[Argonnot]

Well fallout three would have been much more well recieved if it was a prequel, and the super mutants not being super mutants, but as thier termed, meta humans, and being more human in size. The brotherhood being replaced by the national gaurd, and the enclave being the shadow government the enclave formed form when operations moved to the oil rig. There, thats all, you now have a uniqe story with shit that hadn't been done in other games, say, setting it 30 years after the bombs fell, your father being born before the war, and people in the wastes just rebuilding from the ashes, there, everything makes more sence, why the buildings still stand, why theres still power, and why everyone lives in sheet metal houses. And I'm not a coperately funded writing staff that had a 2 year working period plus developement time. Now that, would be interesting.