henke on 9/1/2009 at 18:01
Personally I rarely use fast-travel. To me the gameworld feels more immersive if I have to walk everywhere but after maybe 30 hours into the game the idea of having to make the trek between Megaton and Rivet City for the nth time just became too bothersome and I gave in to the occasional fast-travel. I'm on my second playthrough now and using fast-travel more and more. I know some of you (perhaps those who have a life outside of videogames) have the attitude of "why walk when you can fast travel?" And I'm sure there are those among you who are hardcore enough to never have fast-traveled. EVER. (mad propz! ...nerds) I'd like to see the statistics on this.
PeeperStorm on 10/1/2009 at 03:53
I use fast travel to avoid terrain that I've already covered, especially when making multiple trips to move large piles of loot.
Aja on 10/1/2009 at 11:07
For me, these games are about the journey. I just spent three days (real days, as in whatever play-time I had over the course of them) traveling back from Rivet City to Megaton, and when I finally got there after being sidetracked several times and getting lost and then backtracking, etc, it felt like a real journey. Quick travel eliminates the sense of distance that's so essential to Bethesda's trademark atmosphere. If I want to haul loot I figure I should accept the consequences for doing it.
Although maybe I'll change my tune once I hit the northern areas. For now, I treat quick-travel as a last resort, and I haven't had to use it yet.
Rogue Keeper on 12/1/2009 at 12:03
Thanks God for the fast travel option, I don't want to spend the rest of my life playing this.
steo on 12/1/2009 at 16:53
It's good that it's there but it is pretty immersion breaking. Oblivion had the Cyrodil transportation network mod which gave it a similar setup to Morrowind where you could pay for transport around the map by boat, horse and cart or mage teleportation. It would be nice if someone did a similar mod for FO3 but the whole wasteland situation doesn't exactly lend itself well to organised transport.
What would work well, and what Bethesda should've probably done in the first place is implement a Fallout style world map which can be accessed via the pipboy, complete with random encounters.
Rogue Keeper on 12/1/2009 at 17:03
Yes, that's what I originally expected as well.
Anyway, when I started to play it I thought that Megaton is just a sinkhole in comparison to what big trading centres full of developed quests like The Hub or Vault City or New Reno I find later. It was just naturally expected philosophy of the Fallout games, you gradually visit more developed and bigger settlements. Unfortunately Megaton along with Rivet City seem to be the peaks of civilization here... :erg: What a disappointment.
Toxicfluff on 12/1/2009 at 19:05
Quote Posted by steo
What would work well, and what Bethesda should've probably done in the first place is implement a Fallout style world map which can be accessed via the pipboy, complete with random encounters.
Yeah, I did really miss the random encounters. I mean, they are still there, but they aren't of the interesting, if sometimes ludicrous, types you could find in the originals. Finally, although the encounters might be random the locations in which they occur aren't.
Quote Posted by BR796164
Yes, that's what I originally expected as well.
Anyway, when I started to play it I thought that Megaton is just a sinkhole in comparison to what big trading centres full of developed quests like The Hub or Vault City or New Reno I find later. It was just naturally expected philosophy of the Fallout games, you gradually visit more developed and bigger settlements. Unfortunately Megaton along with Rivet City seem to be the peaks of civilization here... :erg: What a disappointment.
That's the main problem with F3, agreed. Too much world with too few non-combat settlements, and with the fairly extensive conversation offered in Megaton they really set your expectations up for a fall.
steo on 13/1/2009 at 03:36
What they really should have done is not build the game around the Elder Scrolls model of excessively massive gameworlds and instead followed the Fallout model of lots of settlements of varying sizes, interspersed by a map of lots of dead wasteland. Then they could've spent more time making the settlements more detailed, allowing you to do all sorts of shit like become a porn star or a boxing champ, join a religious cult etc.
But then, no doubt, lots of reviewers would have said 'if only they'd gone for the big endless environments of their previous games, if only Fallout 3 was more like Oblivion but with guns'.
Rogue Keeper on 13/1/2009 at 08:46
But you see, they were more preoccupied making models with severable limbs. :rolleyes:
And what is worse, all those 9/10 scores in gaming mags from stupid reviewers probably make them think they made something extraordinary and will keep following this path.
Toxicfluff on 13/1/2009 at 13:50
Quote Posted by steo
allowing you to do all sorts of shit like become a porn star or a boxing champ
Oh god, not the boxing. I hadn't done my usual backup save for ages, and I got stuck in the ring. It bored me so badly, so immediately that I couldn't even stand to play it. The only way I got through was by taking moves every 10 minutes inbetween other things.
I doubt if a game with the social detail and scale of the originals couched in contemporary production values (almost too low as they are) is practically possible anyway. Too many custom animations needed (almost too few as it is), far too many lines for too many characters to voice with the pathetically small amount of actors.
