Things you like from Fallout 3

Bobbleheads.
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There a just few things I like about fallout 3 which would be the world itself buildings, The general feel that the world is dead for the most part. the pitt and point lookout are good dlc's considering on what fallout 3 is. Other then that not much the world all though good like someone pointed out feels like the war just happened which makes it suffer due to it happening in 2277, Where radiation would have been much less as we have seen in the other fallout games.
 
Aesthetically really great, I really love the idea of John Henry Eden, and think that exploring the DC Ruins was fun, I also think that the Subway system is overhated and is probably one of the most intense, thrilling area's of the entire game, especially with some mods cranking up the atmosphere and difficulty.
 
The Shi Emperor doesn’t really have a personality and I question whether it is supposed to be a sentient AI or just an advanced supercomputer. But the idea of a faction being secretly ruled by an AI seems to be directly ripped from the Shi
 
I don't think a recurring concept in a franchise done differently would be a ripoff. No more a ripoff than the setting getting used again, supermutants being present or vaults being in each game. It's like saying New Vegas ripped off the first games because there is NCR or that House is too similar to The Master.
 
I don't think a recurring concept in a franchise done differently would be a ripoff. No more a ripoff than the setting getting used again, supermutants being present or vaults being in each game. It's like saying New Vegas ripped off the first games because there is NCR or that House is too similar to The Master.
Well there’s a difference between reusing and/or expanding on factions and elements from previous games versus taking concepts that have already been done and applying them to new characters or factions. I suppose I agree that House and the Master are similar in that they are “genius” “immortal” beings that want to save humanity from themselves, so they are about as similar as the Emperor and JHE, who aren’t that similar beyond the basic concept.

I guess my point is I agree with you, John Henry Eden isn’t THAT much of a rip-off, but I don’t agree with most of the examples you provided.
 
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JHE is genuinely an interesting character and it's a shame the game's writing is so hacky that he (or almost anyone else for that matter) isn't explored much. The idea of the leader of the east coast Enclave and "President of the US" being an insane AI who wants to enact his own version of the Enclave genocide plan, with his immediate subordinate Colonel Autumn questioning this and being genuinely benevolent by comparison? That could have been great material. Who cares if it's a mashup of the Shi Emperor and President Richardson from Fallout 2? That's one of the better ways Bethesda cribbed from the classic games.

I recently saw someone else make the point that the Enclave in Fallout 3 are more nuanced than the "kill all muties bottom text" FO2 Enclave, because of the different goals of/disloyalty between President Eden and Col. Autumn. With better writers this could have been explored more: how many Enclave soldiers were truly loyal to Autumn? Maybe some shared the president's views? That kind of thing.
 
Instead of the BOS, they could’ve had the Enclave serve a similar role in the story as the “good guys” that you join to get Project Purity going, then Autumn and his rogue Enclave forces could attempt a coup and serve as the “bad guys”, up until the point you learn that JHE is an AI that plans on genociding the majority of life in the Capital Wasteland, and that Autumn, though still a fascist at heart, has much nobler intentions with Project Purity.
 
I never disliked the Enclave being in D.C. in Fallout 3 nearly as much as I disliked the Brotherhood and FEV. What mainly pisses me off about their existence in Fallout 3 is the fact that the game is set after the Enclave’s destruction in Fallout 2 and is supposed to be the same forces from the Oil Rig. As a matter of fact, the Enclave having a base in D.C. (and even other limited parts of America like Chicago as evidenced by F3 and FNV) makes perfect sense and I could totally see something interesting being done with that. As long as they don’t have any contact with the Oil Rig, I’d be fine with a completely different take on the Enclave. Perhaps their established bases lost contact with the Oil Rig and their president at the time when the bombs fell as a result of an oversight and lead to the D.C. sect to create the John Henry Eden ZAX AI in the first place in order to subside squabbling over who should be leader after years of infighting that still hasn’t been completely resolved as evidenced by characters like Autumn.
 
The problem I have with the Enclave being —anywhere— outside of the oil rig is that though they descended (or rather evolved) from the Secret Service, that doesn't mean that other remnants of the Secret Service elsewhere would also become the Enclave. The Enclave was ... an enclave; hiding out on an oil rig in the Pacific. The Enclave was tip-toeing out on to the mainland; they hadn't even fully staffed Navarro yet. Their range into the mainland was [presumably] half the distance that a virtibird could fly from Navarro. Don't forget the astonishment of the exchange operator when he determined the channel origin of the supposed Enclave member he was talking to (the Player); he was shocked that it was coming from the mainland, and yet not from Navarro.
 
The problem I have with the Enclave being —anywhere— outside of the oil rig is that though they descended (or rather evolved) from the Secret Service, that doesn't mean that other remnants of the Secret Service elsewhere would also become the Enclave.
Yeah not every single person in the government was part of the Enclave, but that doesn't mean the Enclave couldn't have had more than one FOB intended before the bombs. I think the Enclave, unlike practically everything else in in the originals, can be safely expanded upon to other parts of the country with much fuss, and would even be interesting to see how different they are from the one we knew of in F2. And I agree not every Secret Serviceman has to be part of the Enclave, as a matter of fact not even Bethesda thought that as they use remnants of the Secret Service in an actual original way completely unrelated to the Enclave for Vault 79. Whether intentional or by sheer accident.
The Enclave was ... an enclave; hiding out on an oil rig in the Pacific. The Enclave was tip-toeing out on to the mainland; they hadn't even fully staffed Navarro yet.
The Enclave is basically the incarnation of real world conspiracies about a deep state, they were indeed an enclave, but it's not too unreasonable to think a deep state could've run in hidden locations nationwide. Again, the Enclave base on the Oil Rig/Navarro was the only base that we knew of in Fallout 2, and could be expanded upon safely under the right context for future installments. Unlike the very dumb stretch of logic Bethesda did to make Roger Maxson establish radio contact with West Virginia and start an East Coast Brotherhood chapter with complete strangers across the country, or the Lost Hills Brotherhood trekking out in full force on foot from California to West Virginia only 25 years after the bombs, the Enclave planting seeds and FOBs across the nation before the war in the event of the end of the world isn't entirely an unbelievable thing for a deep state to do. Especially when they went out of their way to have vaults around the nation constructed, including 17 control vaults. It's basically the average New World Order conspiracy.
Their range into the mainland was [presumably] half the distance that a virtibird could fly from Navarro. Don't forget the astonishment of the exchange operator when he determined the channel origin of the supposed Enclave member he was talking to (the Player); he was shocked that it was coming from the mainland, and yet not from Navarro.
And in the right context, this also could be expanded upon and explained in a way that's plausible. For example, my idea of the Enclave setting up hidden FOBs in limited strategic locations around in the country (Oil Rig acting as the main base that held the President, D.C., Chicago), and then completely losing contact with them immediately due to an oversight when the Great War caught everyone unawares would explain why they are so astonished. Not to mention Fallout 2 takes place 164 years after the bombs fell. If there was an original plan of communication and regrouping after the war with these planted bases, and the war itself cut off all contact with them, it would be safe to assume as an Enclave member 164 years later with no other contact from those FOBs that they are lost, either destroyed or irrelevant to the current plan. And those other FOBs in question could indeed still become something completely different due to the passing of time and need to adapt, even if they originally came from the same pre-war deep state.
 
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There are many plausible paths to extrapolate a larger presence of the Enclave on the mainland—but they would know about it right? The communications officer didn't know about it. Now of course it's the second game, and would not have story elements from its own sequels, but I would say that it established the past, and that future events should avoid being where they have already been established that they were not.

It could be plausible to have the Enclave greatly extend into the mainland after the events of Fallout 2, but for the nuclear destruction of the Enclave in Fallout 2. Any remnants would be the patrol squads in the field, and who would proclaim to be of the Enclave when there are so very few of them left, and all of them hated? Parallel of the WWII remnants left unmentioned. ;)
*(...a parallel that I think is likely intentional on the Dev's part.)
 
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Only New Vegas did the Enclave after Fallout 2 correctly. Every other game with it felt extremely forced and dumb.
 
The problem I have with the Enclave being —anywhere— outside of the oil rig is that though they descended (or rather evolved) from the Secret Service, that doesn't mean that other remnants of the Secret Service elsewhere would also become the Enclave. The Enclave was ... an enclave; hiding out on an oil rig in the Pacific. The Enclave was tip-toeing out on to the mainland; they hadn't even fully staffed Navarro yet. Their range into the mainland was [presumably] half the distance that a virtibird could fly from Navarro. Don't forget the astonishment of the exchange operator when he determined the channel origin of the supposed Enclave member he was talking to (the Player); he was shocked that it was coming from the mainland, and yet not from Navarro.
What if all different parts of the US military/government were split into the multiple splinter factions and the Enclave from Fallout 2 only the military wing. Maybe the Boston commonwealth's Institute is descended from the science branch. All these factions are in contact prewar and now, they all have access to the vault-tec database. Not just the Enclave.
 
The Enclave had transmitted the All Clear [to come out] signal to Vault 13 over the official channel; they had control over the network. Presumably (had they known to do so) they could have accessed the player's own Pipboy. They are terribly xenophobic though, and I'd bet that would extend to distant factions on the other side of the country; at least without verified genetic testing. But it's the same as I mentioned above; not all government branches would become the Enclave (or be part of it, or chose to work with them).
 
I liked the centaurs in FO3. They were slow as fuck and posed as much a threat as a ladybird landing on your penis when you were napping, naked, in your garden.
 
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