Holycrapholycrapholycrap, who wants to come out to Las Vegas??? We can have a Fallout tour!

You know, I've actually done Fallout tours for 1, 2, and 3. I have this habit of showing up near places where those games are released. My New Vegas tour is by memory right now though.

Wish I could afford a visit to Vegas right now

If anyone wants to come on a Fallout 3 tour, I could arrange that, however! Even take you down to see the metro.

< = germany.
*wants a game in the fallout universe located in germany* ._.

Would certainly be interesting, since we really have no idea at all what happened with the rest of the world. They likely aren't in much better condition, but given the fact that the American vaults were set up as experiments according to Fallout 2, they could actually be a good bit better off. I'd imagine Japan might be doing reasonably well, but still mostly underground. China would likely be close to America. Russia would likely be having even more trouble. Most of Europe would likely be similar to, but perhaps slightly better than, America.

But really, Fallout lore of other countries is almost non-existent.

One notes that only two countries really matter in Fallout: The U.S.A and China.

there's a reason for that really, fallout is a parody of the 1950s era "American dream". Germany and Europe were rebuilding under the Marshall plan at the time, so culturally it doesn't really belong IMHO.

Europe has the STALKER series for their post-apocalyptic nightmare.

Heh, be mindful of comments when surrounded by passerbys:

"I blew the head off a prostitute with a 12 gauge right around here..."

Be more cautious when people who aren't part of the tour respond "You too?"

Oh, and @ whoever was talking about how empty stuff seemed, it is an unfortunate side effect of the style of game. Can only put so much on screen at a time, and so it is very difficult to make a place seem populated. Of course that also comes up in nearly every game. "Cities' have dozens of inhabitants and almost ten buildings in nearly any game where you actually go into that city. Unless of course the city is a big part of the game like in Assassin's Creed or Prototype or Spiderman, etc.

it might also be a side effect of the fact that they are still using the Gamebryo engine.

not complaining about it, btw, although I have heard others do so.

just wish they'd license facial expression technology from Valve

Yeah, I guess with the way the game is setup, there are natural limitations, but I still wish there was some sort of work around, but the only thing I can think of are 2d fake 3d meshes seen from behind inaccessible areas. Or breaking things into smaller cells or something, but then the side effect would also be smaller rooms. And loading times between rooms I imagine.

Still, after playing New Vegas, it makes me wish they did a Terminator game using this engine. It'd be a place where it makes sense there's a smaller human population that is scattered around, etc.

A little FYI- according to the various Fallout Bibles (Google) the rest of the world suffered because America launched it's entire nuclear deterrent (possibly automated) in response to the fisrt nukes.
And they went everywhere.

So - expect radioactive dead zones in the pacific, large parts of tropical Asia looking like Utah, a rather hammered China, etc, etc.

Tir.

I do feel like the devs oversold the glitz and glamour and well...size of the new vegas strip. I guess I understand that it would have taken longer development time, and resources, and scripting, but cmon, 4 casinos...3 really, do not make a 'strip' in the grand terms they were gushing about in preview/interviews. It should have been at least twice that.

I don't think its possible. The vaults are a defining aspect of the Fallout universe. They have been a driving force of the Fallout games.

Fallout: You're the Vault Dweller, having to save your vault.
Fallout 2: You're the Chosen One in search of a GECK, something which was only deployed to vaults.
Fallout 3: You're the Lone Wanderer, a vault citizen outcast from your people.
Fallout NV: Well, I haven't found how a vault dominates this plot yet, just two side quests that have taken me to vaults 22 and 34, but I'm sure the Courier will have something vault relevant to deal with in the main plot...

Without the vaults, it's simply not Fallout and the vaults aren't present outside of America.

I do feel the options behind the vaults remain vast for purposes of story. I mean, seriously, the vaults were intended to be 'dude, that's fucked up', and I've been consistently amazed at how each of the non-benign ones make me go "Dude, that's seriously fucked up."

Just several side quests that send you to various vaults. A couple main quests send you to them, but they aren't really a big focus in that regard. There is certainly nothing I've found that directly links the Courier to a vault in any special way.

Are you sure about that? Like I said, we know next to nothing about the other nations of the world. There really isn't any reason to believe that other countries didn't have at least a couple of vaults for important people.

Yes, I am quite sure. While canon leaves open the possibility of Vault-Tec vaults being built in other nations (strictly through not making any mention of it) the presence of vault-tec vaults in other nations given the experimental purpose as well as the whole Enclave issue, means there would be a huge issue with the installation of vaults in other nations.

I would fully expect vaults to be in other locations of the world. They are, after all, just self-sustaining bomb shelters. However, they would not be managed under vault-tec like the ones in the US were. The vaults in say France may actually have been built to, you know, help people.

Except they wouldn't be vaults.

They would be fallout shelters, nuclear shelters, or some other name.

Watch the original Ocean's Eleven. The Strip wasn't that big in the 50's. We're letting the modern glitz and commercialization cloud our thinking.

There was one other (canon-ish) game, Brotherhood of Steel, whose protagonist was not from a Vault. Courier Six isn't from a Vault, but you are a Wasteland legend that has ranged as far north as Montana, and definitely has been through New Reno. You're known in several circles even at the start of the game.

Check out the Canyon Wreckage site west of Primm.

OH! I found a second Fat Man site at Cottonwood Crater. You have to go through the Fire Root Caverns and off a bunch of Fire Geckos, but it's easier than Deathclaws. You may run into some texture errors up there, but there's a dead prospector up there with a Fat Man in the inventory. East of Searchlight!

One thing linking the Courier to Vaults:
THE PIP BOY ON HIS ARM FOR EXAMPLE!
Which he got from the Doc, who was once a Vault-Dweller himself.
Furthermore, it's implied that you can actually meet the Daughter of the Vault-Dweller from Fallout³.
And there was Fallout Tactics, which had you be not from a Vault too.

Which is basically entirely irrelevant to the discussion of how well off the other countries are at the moment. Actually, it likely means that they are better off, given the standards that the vaults were built to, and that American companies in general were held to. Just check out the rocket museum.

I have the sneaking suspicion that the doctor is the sole survivor of Vault 11.

Have you checked where the overall you're getting from him is from?
It's the Vault 22 Overall i think. Maybe 34.

Your initial Vault Suit is 21, which I believe you can buy in the gift shop. 34 is the Boomer suit.

He might've been the Overseer of 21, but the sense I get from his talking about losing everything is that he's from 11.

hmm . . i did not check . . IS Vault 21 even at the map?
gah, i will hate myself for this but . . i am starting a new character . .
gonna go explore on very easy this time, and without hardcore mode . .
did not see much of a special ending for the hardcore mode anyway <.<

Vault 21 is a hotel/casino across the street from either the Ultra-Luxe or the NCR embassy. Half of it was filled with concrete when Mr. House won ownership in a bet.

Vault 21's experiment was to fill it with gambling addicts, stock it with tables, and have gambling the sole method of conflict resolution. Mr. House won a bet against the Overseer and was going to completely encase it, but relented after a passionate appeal by one of the citizens. It was then converted into a casino/hotel.

Vaults 43, 68, 69, and 77 are my favorite.

They did pretty well with the creepy factor for this set. 11 breaks my heart, though.

I'm thinking 3 had an addition to the air supply like 19, making them susceptible to suggestion.

And yes, I am a fan of those vaults as well.

i'm still waiting for the last fallout to drop in price

*shrugs*
in store, it was listed at 49€ . . but they sold it for 39€ O.o

You mean Fallout 3? Or one of the DLC packs? Or what? And for what platform?

right now i am playing a torrented version(i think) of FNV, because i'm gonna keep my collectors edition in mint state and because the german voicework in the retail is sucking more dick than a hungry cambodian child prostitute . .

Pirated, not Torrented.

*shrugs* Probably.
I dunno actually . . Buddy at work handed my an HDD and said:"Here, thought you'd like FNV before it hits Stores on Friday" This was on Wednesday.
And i had fucking FORGOTTEN about FNV up to that moment <.<

Hehe, fun stuff. Might not be pirated then, not sure. Could be a review copy or something like that. Oh well, cool that you get to keep your actual game in mint condition.

I just bought it on Steam. Sigh, it sounds pretty good based on this discussion. The fact you can handload cartridges is awesome and I really need to support firearms maintenance and handloading awareness in the general population of gamers, who will otherwise have their heads filled with misconceptions from Modern Warfare 2.

I should write them a letter that I will buy any titles that contain handloading and firearms maintenance on principle.

Yah, working for a huge ass telecommunications corporation with a bunch of other geeks and nerds does have it's up sides . .
Half of them play Shadowrun, Battletech or WH40 ^^

Buying from steam is an idea too. But i love going to a shop, browsing around and just grabbing whatever i can afford and running home like a little boy to play with my new toy ^^
Furthermore, if you really want to do the reloading stuff, you will have to help the convicts in the NCRCF, because they are more or less the only way to get that done in early game as far as i can see . .

Good to know about the convicts.

Heh, I'll bet that before Fallout, lots of gamers didn't even know that firearms *could* have stoppages. I mean, you play Rainbow Six Vegas 2 or what have you and you never even get a stovepipe.

Yeah, but you usually play top of the line para military units on both sides, so getting good gear is not too difficult to explain in these cases . .
And good military grade gear should not have any such problems either . .
In the Universe of fallout, there is little to no NEW gear hitting the wastelands.
It's ALL used, when you get it . . usually . . BOS and Enclave and Vaults are usually the only points where you can get practically new gear.
In FNV there seems to be a bit more somehow, with the Gun Runners and the Silver Rush Enegy Weapons Store . .

That's all well and good about starting with a well maintained perfectly clean gun, but after blowing through 500 rounds in full auto mode because you're getting swamped by endless streams of enemies you're going to start getting overheating and carbon buildup issues.

Probably.
But does that happen often in these games? O.o
I don't know, i don't play them anymore . .
I thought it was usually sneaky silenty killy of 1 or 2 dozend enemies?

Also, if you have questions about F³. Ask here.
Most of us probably will answer with lengthy postings that can and probably will contain various spoilers ^^

I am curious to see if everyone is killable. And what happens to the game if I just kill everyone I see (well, almost everyone, still need merchants).

Yes, you can basically just kill everybody . . you just won't get all that far in the game then, because you don't get many quests and the only loot/XP are going to come from your kills mostly . .
But you can, indeed, simply do that, as far as i have read O.o

I'm playing it and enjoying it but it crashes frequently.

i did not have any crashes as of yet somehow O.o

I don't remember Fallout 3 crashing this much. :/ I just updated my nvidia drivers. Sometimes I get weird buzzing sounds while playing, so I wonder if I have to try and update my audio drivers or something.

there is some instability, though the ability to add mods via the community (and patches as necessary, though the devs have been pretty good at cleaning up), makes a big difference.

Reinstalled to try and fix frequent CTDs.

They did a patch in the last couple days (Not sure when, Steam does them automatically for me) because I started up a new character and noticed that a few perks and such had changed (Kamakazi gives an AP bonus instead of a damage bonus). I also found that my game wasn't running nearly as slowly when I had a bunch of people around. Still slowed down during the battle for goodspring, but I could actually fight unlike the first time around.