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Posted by: mirocu Nov 13 2015, 04:39 PM

Yeah... The irony of me starting this thread is not lost on me



But go right ahead! This is the thread for Fallout 4 quest spoilers as well as hints and tips on... how to.... build something.. maybe... Oh, I donīt know. Just spill the beans, will you!

Posted by: mALX Nov 13 2015, 05:30 PM

Thanks Mirocu! I'm waiting for juicy info to be posted on here with baited breath...oh! Here is one I saw yesterday: (for Cheats/Hints/Spoilers):

COC QASMOKE = the testinghall. To return you will need to coc back to somewhere like Sanctuary.


The codes for bottlecaps is the same as it has always been for gold = 000000F

Player.additem; Player.modav; unlock; kill; resurrect = all the same: (etc).

Posted by: Winter Wolf Nov 13 2015, 11:30 PM

The irony is not lost on me either. First Mirocu resurrects the ages old Fallout speculation thread and now he starts a Fallout 4 spoiler thread. I cannot fault his talents in necromancy.

Happy to see a place we can discuss things openly. It is not fair on those who have yet to buy the game to see things that ruin it for them. The mods at the Beth forum missed some new member who posted the ending to the game in multiple threads before he was spotted. There are many upset people over there.

The ending is something I will take my time getting towards and I do not plan to get there before the end of next year, so I doubt I can (or will) say anything about that.

Awesome to hear that mALX is not afraid to discuss spoilers when she hasn't seen the game. Very few people can do that.

I shall be back.

Posted by: mALX Nov 13 2015, 11:37 PM

Oh yeah, I love to know what is going on; and normally I am one of the first to play on a Bethesda game, so not knowing is killing me, lol.

Posted by: Winter Wolf Nov 14 2015, 02:25 AM

This is still going to be hard to do. I would hate to ruin the game for somebody else as we are all at different stages in the game. I might, for example, be happy to discuss one thing but not another.

The way that we all bounce conversation off each other means that you still might read something you regret.

Perhaps the onus should just be on the reader. That is the only way that it will work.

Okay. Spoilers ahead.


**




Early in the game we come across a Vertibird. I will not say where but it happens really early in the story. There is a whole holotape scene that gives you a background on how the Vertibird ended up there. It sure sounded like it was connected to the Great War.

Did it all happen so fast that I missed the point of the scene????

I thought the Vertibirds were only in development stage in 2077 and only entered full service in 2085.

Was this a transportation rather than military one perhaps?

Posted by: mALX Nov 14 2015, 02:27 AM

Was it the crashed one in the robot factory?


And yeah, the reader that comes to the Spoiler thread knows they will be reading stuff that will reveal places in the game they may not have reached yet; so if they don't want to find them out then they won't be here reading, so don't worry about it.

I personally love to discuss them and learn; and some of the things I learn might cause me to buy the game where I might not have planned to for a while (like what happened to me with ESO).

Posted by: Winter Wolf Nov 14 2015, 02:32 AM

Yes, the scene they rolled out at E3 (which shows the Vertibird and the Power Armor) is the same one I am talking about. The one where you jump off the building. It happens on a Museum building though.

The trouble with the story pacing is that it all happens really quick. You do not have time to breathe.

It makes it hard to follow.

Things like Vertbird lore should not be messed around with.

Posted by: mALX Nov 14 2015, 02:37 AM

I think you are right on the vertibird history, here is the pre-FO4 source I found:


http://fallout.gamepedia.com/Vertibird


And it describes the difference between the transport and milliltary ones so you can determine which the museum one is.

Posted by: mALX Nov 14 2015, 07:11 PM

Just from what I've seen on YouTube = really not a fan of the main questline (4) choices of possible endings; and really disappointed in the ending vid not including any of the results/consequences of the player's choices or actions throughout the whole game like previous Fallout games included; or the fact that there was just one singular vid for 3 of the possible 4 choices.

It kind of felt like a cheap knockoff of a Fallout ending. The main quest itself felt like it was trying to be emotionally manipulative; and imho was overall underwhelmilng.

However, it did look like it would be a fun game to explore and build settlements in; toy around with that feature like in Far Cry.

Posted by: hazmick Nov 14 2015, 08:03 PM

I haven't done much of the MQ yet. Got to Diamond City and went back to exploring.

It's all "My husband is dead and my baby is gone" but I have no emotional connection to them so there's nothing drawing me into the MQ.

Then there's the whole thing about people not liking Synths. Nobody in the game has actually explained why they hate synths, and nobody will explain what The Institute is.

Why should my character care about any of it? She just wants to build stuff and shoot people.

Posted by: mirocu Nov 14 2015, 08:59 PM

Exactly how my characters have approached the MQ in all Beth games

Posted by: mALX Nov 14 2015, 09:09 PM

That is what I felt about it in FO3 too; it was hard to drum up emotions about the missing father for me, so I really wasn't keen on pursuing him; though eventually did just due to a lack of any other quests left to tackle and wanting to explore Raven Rock and see it implode and follow Liberty Prime across that bridge.

But watching these FO4 vids, the beginning sequence of events was too rushed and quick to build up any emotions for the spouse; and you didn't even get to hold the child, just spin its mobile. I didn't feel like they gave the Player any reason to feel a tremendous emotion for them that would constitute the emotions they are expecting to drive the player through the main questline in this.

In contrast, in the game "The Last of Us" - I felt more for Ellie in a very short time and genuinely cared if she made it or not - And I will freely admit crying several times in her story through that game; and not just hers but the protagonist's and what he went through.

Posted by: mirocu Nov 14 2015, 09:13 PM

Letīs just face it; Beth should only do the sandbox part...


I genuinely donīt see a reason for a MQ in any of thier games to be honest. It would be far better if they simply concentrated on the "side" quests. I really liked many of them in both Oblivion and Fallout 3

Posted by: mALX Nov 14 2015, 09:46 PM

I did care about Uriel Septim VII in Oblivion; and felt awful when he died - and felt sad when the Knights of the Nine went back into their tombs. I remember crying and feeling shocked when Arch Mage Traven died; and being terrified of the zombies and the Oblivion gates opening up all over as I walked around, how the sky would rumble and turn red; and remember feeling horrified by the dead bodies left in their wake if you didn't handle the Oblivion gates in a timely fashion. I remember feeling sorry for Martin when I first brought him to Cloud Ruler Temple and he felt so alienated from everything he knew and clung to you as a friend.

So at one point, Bethesda did know how to make a good questline. They knew how to place it there so you could approach it if you wanted to but avoid it if you didn't. Back then they let the Player make all the decisions about what they wanted to do in their games; in their roleplay; just offered them great stories to get into at their own will and pace.

What changed was that Todd Howard got angry over how many people ignored the main questline in Oblivion that he had worked so hard on, he couldn't believe anyone wouldn't want to save the world.

So from that point on he started trying to force the main questline down the Player's throat (as in Skyrim) and/or make it a contrived emotional experience that he didn't think the Player could walk away from (like searching for your father in Fallout 3); and now in Fallout 4 he is doing both by kidnapping your child and jackhammering you into the main quest as quick and hard as he can.

But he's forgotten how to build the emotions like they used to do in their early games. And that is what made me really feel the quests in Bethesda's older games and the stories in TES Lore.

Posted by: mirocu Nov 14 2015, 10:06 PM

I can understand that. He was probably very proud of it and wanted people to experience it. But a lot have, just not 100% of the players.

Posted by: mALX Nov 14 2015, 10:33 PM

I loved the Oblivion main questline a lot, once I got use to the Oblivion gates and wasn't so scared by them. I went from being afraid walking around because the sky would suddenly redden and start thundering - to running around trying to trigger the gates to open, lol.

Posted by: mirocu Nov 14 2015, 10:56 PM

Watched a video just now and I gotta say, those ghouls were much less scary than in 3.. Also, is the humour gone or am I being unfair from the ten minutes I watched?


I must say, having a voiced character kinda ruins the whole Fallout thing for me. I may be a bit whiny here but it doesnīt feel like a Bethesda game. Or maybe Iīm just suffering from the Morrowind syndrome

Posted by: Winter Wolf Nov 15 2015, 12:47 AM

Yeah, I feel the vibe has certainly changed. It is no longer has that Fallout 3 level of humor. I enjoyed 'the bombs have fallen and there is rubble everywhere, but don't worry, life goes on.' Now it feels like a fast shooter with the whole settlement and trading thing going on in the background.

I will say though the Ghouls do not feel or look as scary, but they are very terrifying in combat. Most enemies that tend not to focus on your follower (Ghouls and Mirelurks, so far for me) rush at you very quickly and scare the crap at out you when they charge.

All over I will say the combat feels great. Low level enemies like the basic Raider and Super Mutant are bloody tough now. Yesterday I was attack by 2 simple Super Mutants, bloody hell, I had to switch to the Mini Gun just to finish them off.

**

I agree with comments about the MQ. I have always thought that if Beth will not allow the character to see the MQ from an evil perspective then they should just drop the whole idea. Playing a 'hero' MQ all the time is completely stupid in the modern world. We like our characters to be grey, not some knight in shining armor.

The story writing has gone down hill since Emil has played a larger role in the company. Todd is trusting the wrong man with the forming of the story lines.

And to show you just how controlled things are, I read that if you do not follow your spouse up the hill and run off in another direction the Chinese drop the nuke straight away!

I realize that there is no other way to do it but it just shows you that if the lore says the bomb hits at before 10, don't worry Todd says, we can make it 9-30 as well.

Posted by: mALX Nov 15 2015, 12:57 AM

Humor and Easter Eggs were a huge part of what made me originally fall in love with Fallout 3. It was a hugely fun game; still is, even after numerous play throughs.

Posted by: hazmick Nov 15 2015, 01:20 AM

Any questline that involves you searching for someone is difficult to get right. If the player doesn't feel a connection with the person they're looking for, there's little to stop them getting distracted.

For example: I had a little side quest earlier where a member of my settlement had been kidnapped by raiders. I got right on it, suited up in my power armor and rescued the heck out of my armor shopkeeper. I cared about that guy, so I did the quest.

Oblivion's MQ also worked better because it didn't try and force a backstory onto your character. FO4 is just "You're a heterosexual, middle-class, American with a baby called Shaun. Go.". How am I supposed to identify with my character when I'm none of those things?

----------------

I'll have to disagree with you guys on the Ghouls. FO3 ghouls were so goofy and stupid. FO4's really give me the spooks.

Having fun fighting Super Mutants though. They're really tough. The suicide bomber versions are the worst, since they use a mini nuke and just run at you.

Fought a Mirelurk Queen earlier too. That was...not fun.

---------------

As for the humour aspect, I kind of get what you mean. I felt the same when Skyrim came out, like it was missing something that I loved about Oblivion.

Saying that though, I have found a crashed spaceship, complete with alien. My character welcomed him to the wasteland in the traditional fashion

Posted by: mALX Nov 15 2015, 02:30 AM

I agree with you on that you have to feel something to be inspired to embrace the story you are given; and I think that is the problem with this story.

You are dumped into the story; told who you are and who should mean something to you; and then the story moves forward at an accelerated rate and then expects you to jump on board without any reason you should other than being TOLD it is your child and wife.

You can't expect someone to care just because you told them "that is your spouse and child," you have to make them feel it inside before moving the story forward.

The Player is barely given a few minutes in front of a mirror with them saying stuff like "I like your hair like that..." touching a few objects in the house; spinning a crib mobile - the robot interrupts your thoughts constantly with his household chore talk; the banging at the door - there is no time to feel anything before you are raced to that vault.

I watched an interview with Todd Howard regarding that mirror facegen scene, and he was in ault over those voice lines while the Player is making the facegen on the characters. He felt like those spoken lines were solid gold during that face gen sequence; and that the Player would be bowled over by that and feel the connection between their character and the spouse deeply from those few spoken lines.

Well, it doesn't work that way from what I've seen and heard from players. And you are right about Emil. He has done some really interesting questlines, but they are not universally accepted as believable or endearing, which is what is needed if you want someone to care about a character quickly.

These guys have worked together so long that they think alike; and maybe that is the problem because there is no outsider's viewpoint on whether X will be believable enough to endear a person fast enough for them to care about Y enough to go to great lengths to save them.

It is too bad, because in "The Last of Us" had me bawling over the death of the protagonist's child and the fear he wouldn't care about what happened to Ellie - all in the same amount of time it took Bethesda to kidnap Shaun.

Posted by: Winter Wolf Nov 15 2015, 02:36 AM

I enjoyed the ghouls in Fallout 3. Man, the sounds they would make in the train tunnels or indoor gave me many a sleepless night. The combat is better in this one though. The ghouls are awesome when they charge.

So for me it is a bit of both.

**

You must go through many boxes of tissues, mALX.

Posted by: mALX Nov 15 2015, 02:52 AM

No, I use what is known as "Tennessee Tissue" - I rub my eyes/tears on my sleeve,

My X-husband that died in 2010 was worse, he used to cry over children's movies like Shrek,

Posted by: Winter Wolf Nov 15 2015, 08:04 AM

Just started playing around with the 'follow the red path' quest. It is the start of the Railroad quest line. It is very cool as you have to make your way through the rubble and see where it leads. The only trouble was the number and strength of the enemies. Ha! I died a number of times before I decided that it would be a better idea to come back later. The down town Boston area is fun to explore, but the enemies are like L'Enfant Plaza- crazy!!!

Beat up some legendary Super Mutant and grabbed his chameleon piece of armor. It is helping with the sneaking around the down town area. Ha!

Posted by: mirocu Nov 15 2015, 08:45 AM

You disagree with me!!?? YOU CANīT DO THAT!! I AM RIGHT AND YOU ARE......!


Sorry. Thought I was on the official forums...



I am two of those things but I still donīt like the concept of a predetermined background. This is a Bethesda game and in my world that spells sandbox all the way, including my character. And I seriously donīt like the out-of-character-talking. It was fine in Deus Ex but again, this is a Beth game and to me it doesnīt fit. My character is mute, damnit!!

Posted by: hazmick Nov 15 2015, 02:17 PM

Yeah the voiced character thing really limits your options. If there were more voices then it might be better, but you've just got the one accent. Then when you choose your conversation options it's never clear what you're actually going to say. Most times the "Sarcastic" conversation option is just rude and unfunny.


-------

Got a bit further with The Minutemen. My character, Alice, helped to retake their fort and set up comms, so now the wasteland has a cool new radio station. Then she helped them set up some artillery that she can call in if she needs it. She'll probably never use it but it's nice to have the option

We found a legendary something-or-other called 'Swan' which is sitting in a pond near Diamond City. Alice decided to leave it alone for now, at least until she knows what it is.

Posted by: mALX Nov 15 2015, 06:32 PM

Oh wow, do they have chameleon armor in this game? Awesome! I was surprised how long the combination lock was on that door into the underground railroad headquarters was till the guy making the vid spelled it out, lol. Then I was like, "DOH! Of course!"







I didn't know you were an American! Or that you had a son named Shaun!


But yeah, the voice: the lack of choices makes you stuck with a "goody" character - even the sarcastic responses are so mild; no cursing, etc. So your character can't be evil and sound all Nancy Kerrigan; and you sure can't be Black, Hispanic, or Oriental and sound like that.

I think I proved in Oblivion that I don't mind a voiced character if it reflects my character's personalty correctly; but these voice files don't fit with my character at all, don't say the things she would.

If they can program the robot to call your character "F___Face;" then why can't my character curse when a lockpick breaks? The voices should not have been used to such an extent; or you should have had a choice of voices to pick through. OR - they could have taken the voices from BruceVayne's voice sets for Oblivion that were hugely popular so people could continue using the voice for their character that they were used to hearing on them.

(which I hope some modder does for us). Because none of my characters have ever had a middle American accent; they sound like they come from somewhere interesting.











Those quests sound interesting! I know Swan is a boss fight with/for a unique weapon, but - don't know WHAT Swan is. Weird and ugly, and it reminded me of Sheldon Cooper's "Dogypus" mixture of man's best friend under water for the biosphere projects = sort of like a combo of a super mutant and duck maybe? Anyway, the weapon was cool, I do know what it is.

Posted by: mirocu Nov 15 2015, 09:34 PM

So the Muties are using chameleon armour? Cool

Posted by: mirocu Nov 15 2015, 11:14 PM

Man, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n1e31noTHA sweet-talks the game so much I actually wanna get it! If the game came complete on disc I think I would

Itīs a seven minute presentation basically and even though I put it here it doesnīt actually have any real spoilers. Just a few words on what you can do in the game and what you can find.

Posted by: mALX Nov 16 2015, 12:44 AM

He is most def excited!


Well, on the perks - one that is really seems to be taken a LOT by those in the vids I've been watching is the one that negates radioactivity in the water and gives the player the ability to swim underwater (waterbreathing).

All the games have had some apparatus for water breathing, but we still had to be careful of rads till now.

It kind of cancels out the whole nuclear wasteland idea when the water isn't radiated, it was kind of a disappointing change to me. Making the game too easy; neutralizing the fallout. I didn't like the idea of making it so easy. Watching how much radiation you took in was major for roleplaying wasteland survival.

I don't plan to take that perk if I ever play the game.

Posted by: Winter Wolf Nov 16 2015, 02:24 AM

The chameleon armor is great. Because the game uses a layered system I have only found a piece for my right leg. Lol. The chameleon enchantment only works when I am in sneak and not moving, otherwise I am visible. It is still quite handy when I take that first sneak attack, as the enemy has less chance to spot me as long as I do not move. But when they do find me, quick get outta there!

I found my first Hunting rifle last night. Wow, it is much better than the one in FO3. It uses 308 bullets and does around 40 damage. Yeah baby!!

**

Some pics for you folks. The first one has a big quest spoiler. Do not click if you are worried about such things.

http://i.imgur.com/Lc9ljm8.jpg


The others are a look at some of the settlement building in the game

http://i.imgur.com/r8FsRsl.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/XhBwW4y.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/NwUZIkc.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/rfYNtj5.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/gkzHAL1.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/EZSTdVj.jpg

Posted by: mALX Nov 16 2015, 02:31 AM

So you were right about little Maxson grown up! He came out to be one tough mother, too!

I love the last one; S6 - now THAT is my type of place !!! WOO HOO !!!

Posted by: hazmick Nov 16 2015, 02:47 AM

Holy molerats, your settlement looks fantastic! How many residents do you have?

I've got half of that area walled off, but I only have 17 residents so I don't need/want to expand more just yet. I also desperately need more steel, copper, and turret parts too.

----

Alice has been doing some Brotherhood of Steel stuff. She joined up and did some area clearance and tech hunting, then the big BoS airship appeared so she headed over there. Now she's got a shiny suit of BoS T-60 Power Armor to add to http://i.imgur.com/V5ZqhbW.png

Posted by: mALX Nov 16 2015, 02:56 AM

Wow, this place is Awesome !!!!!

Posted by: Winter Wolf Nov 16 2015, 02:59 AM

Unfortunately I cannot take credit for that Sanctuary settlement. Those pics are what I found on the net but I thought it would give a good indication of how large you can build. The person who did design it said he spent 6 straight hours building it up.

I only have a small man cave on the top of the garage across the street. It feels great for a small design and have placed heaps of smaller items to give it a homely feel.

One day I will work out how to use OneDrive and take screen pics from my Xbox One. I am too lazy at the moment.

**

Ohh, Brotherhood airship. I haven't seen that yet (other than at the e3, of course).

Posted by: hazmick Nov 16 2015, 03:20 AM

I must have spent about 10 hours building my settlement, but resources are so hard to come by after a while that it goes really slowly. I'm just reclaiming the area one house at a time, expanding the walls a little bit whenever I can.

Not sure how you trigger the airship arrival. It appeared as I was leaving Kellogg's base during the MQ. You might have to have done some BoS quests beforehand.

---

Screenshots are easy peasy:

Take the screenshot
Exit the game and open 'Upload Studio'
Go to 'My captures'
Select the picture you want and press the button that used to be the start but on Xbox360 controllers
Select 'share' then 'OneDrive'
Open up OneDrive on your PC and the picture should be there
Upload it to imgur or whatever and there you have it: http://i.imgur.com/437k6A6.png

Posted by: mALX Nov 16 2015, 04:07 AM

Holy Cow! I don't know about the airship, but the helicopter transport you get a baton flare that you set off and it calls the helicoptor to your site. You can take it to any place on the map that you have already discovered; and from what I've heard it is via the Brotherhood that you get that backup.

(and from what I hear, they are also the ones that give you the jet packs).

Posted by: hazmick Nov 16 2015, 05:07 AM

Yeah I've got the Brotherhood's Vertibird smoke grenades, but I haven't used one yet. I've flown in Vertibirds a few times though, to and from the airship. When you first go there you fly over a fairly big distance and you get to use the minigun, which was fun.

I also have some goodies from The Minutemen - a flare gun which calls in reinforcements, and some smoke grenades used to call in artillery strikes. I always forget about them though so they just sit in my inventory.

Posted by: mirocu Nov 16 2015, 08:31 AM

Wolf - Love the S2 pic - pure Fallout feel!

What do you guys think of the power armour now when itīs more like a vehicle?

Posted by: Winter Wolf Nov 16 2015, 09:01 AM

Thanks for the help!

Is it still a double tap of the console button and then press Y for the screen pic?
I tried it offline but nothing happened, perhaps I need to be online. After all that would make sense. Lol.

I loved the airship pic. Those boys in power armor love showing off!



Wow, that sounds epic. I haven't even touched any BOS. In fact I haven't even seen them yet. I am too busy cleaning the raiders out of downtown. Had an amazing shootout in Combat Zone before. Dogmeat has been tossed for Cait now. She is as quiet as a church mouse compared to old Dogmeat. His nails clicking on the floorboards was so loud I couldn't concentrate. My Irish lass is running around with a serrated Chinese sword. Lookout muties.

Thanks Mirocu. The game looks so cool in those shots.

Posted by: mALX Nov 16 2015, 03:23 PM

I'd be interested in hearing what goodies you get from each faction, this is the first I've heard about getting stuff from the Minutemen (although I knew they give you power armor in the first few minutes).

Posted by: hazmick Nov 16 2015, 03:40 PM

mirocu - I really like the power armor in FO4. It feels...powerful. Really has that space marine feel to it that was missing in previous games.
I wasn't sure about it at first since you need fusion cores to power it up, but then I realised you can still use it without them, just not as effectively. Being able to customise it is really cool too.


Wolf - Yeah that's right. Never considereed offline/online for screenshots, but now that you mention it...

I haven't met Cait yet, but I don't use companions anyway. My character Alice is a sniper so there's no need to have anyone else tagging along. Plus we'd constantly be worrying about their safety and end up getting distracted.

Found some dog armour for Dogmeat earlier though. Not sure if it actually helps, but he looks pretty cool and that's what really matters




Here's a https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-t40w1Nysg with some hints and stuff you can do in game. Didn't know where to post it, but this thread seems safest.

Posted by: mALX Nov 16 2015, 04:25 PM

These were some great tips!

Posted by: SubRosa Nov 16 2015, 04:38 PM

Cool, they really do have dog armor!

Posted by: mALX Nov 16 2015, 04:50 PM

And it's not a DLC!!!

Posted by: mALX Nov 17 2015, 02:19 AM

So, am I to understand there is no place for safe storage for the Player's loot? I mean, the settlements are all open public areas, where does the Player store their stuff they don't want messed with?

Posted by: Winter Wolf Nov 17 2015, 04:30 AM

Thanks Hazmick!

mALX- All settlements that you build have a ton of cabinets and storage items you can place where you like within the settlement zone. Not sure about the settlers stealing items, I have not seen it occur in my game yet.

Two other things I have noticed- The game does have waving clothing. I checked last night on my long length cloak. Yes, it does move at the hem. Very stylish. And two, it no longer seems to rain as much under shelter. I ducked under an overpass to avoid the rain and noticed the rain effect had stopped. Very sweet!

Posted by: mALX Nov 17 2015, 04:44 AM

But is it safe storage? Where it doesn't reset every 10 game days; where NPC's can't go in it, etc. I wonder if your quarters at the Institute have safe storage; kind of like you had at the College of Winterhold? I'm going to look that up and see.






Ok, everyone says the workshop in Sanctuary.

Posted by: mALX Nov 17 2015, 05:41 AM

Oh, ok - the house you buy for 2000 in Diamond City is probably one that other NPCs don't just walk into.

Posted by: hazmick Nov 17 2015, 01:51 PM

mALX - none of my settlement containers have reset yet, so it's possible that any container you build is classed as safe storage. NPC's don't rummage around in any containers you build, as far as I know. NPS Settlers don't just wander around anyway since they all have work to do - growing crops, trading, guard duty etc.
However, items stored in a settlement's workbench can be scrapped and used to build things, so it's not a good long term storage.



Alice discovered Vault 81 today. Fully functional and inhabited by vault dwellers, all shiny and clean in their vault suits. After we found a lost cat and saved the Vault from a potential disease outbreak the Overseer gave Alice her own private room. Being able to sleep in a clean bed for the first time in 200 years was a nice change.

Posted by: mirocu Nov 17 2015, 03:15 PM

Wow, finding a vault still in use sounds cool. I mean we do leave 101 in 3 but since then we donīt really find one in good shape, and I donīt count the Garysī vault to be in good shape...

Posted by: mALX Nov 17 2015, 04:10 PM

That is Awesome! Oh, that is so cool !!! Now I would love that kind of quest (and reward) - and seeing all the vault dwellers would remind me of vault 101 !!!! I love the sound of that !!!


@ Mirocu - Urk, I HATE the Gary's !!!!!! But ... Vault 101 was still a working vault after you leave it; you just weren't welcome in there anymore once you helped them, lol.

Posted by: Destri Melarg Nov 17 2015, 09:07 PM

Wait... you were supposed to help them?!

Posted by: hazmick Nov 17 2015, 09:41 PM

Alice traveled all the way to the far south of the map today, to an area known as 'The Glowing Sea'. It's heavily irradiated, and at the centre is a crater caused by the bomb which you see at the start of the game. The crater is home to some followers of Atom, while the barren hellscape around them is home to Deathclaws and Radscorpions. It's such eerie place. I loved it.

Oh, I took some screenshots.

http://i.imgur.com/HlUgmLW.png

http://i.imgur.com/1KcN74L.png

Posted by: mirocu Nov 17 2015, 10:22 PM

Awesome power armour shots!

Posted by: mALX Nov 18 2015, 01:02 AM

SPEW!!!! Uh, did they have water issues after your visit?







These shots are spectacular! Boy did you ever capture the feel of that place! But how are your Rads staying so low there? And what is the flag? Is there a settlement there?

I'm in agreement with Mirocu, these are excellent shots of the power armor too!

Posted by: hazmick Nov 18 2015, 01:59 AM

Power armor gives you a big radiation defence, since the armor is sealed. Alice was also popping Rad-X like crazy

There are a few ruins out there, though everything has been pretty much flattened. The flag is on top of an old military bunker, which was pretty much unharmed since it's partially underground.

There's a suit of power armor, that I've seen on a loading screen, which I'm hunting for. It has huge shoulder plates and just looks gorgeous.


-----


Alice checked out the Museum of Witchcraft earlier. She's never been more glad to have her power armor on. The atmosphere in the building was so terrifying and exciting. I'd recommend paying it a visit. Just...bring lots of big guns.

Posted by: mALX Nov 18 2015, 02:16 AM

Oh, did you get to explore the bunker? I'll have to look that up on youtube! Museum of Witchcraft - this is the first I've heard of it! Looking that up too!

Posted by: Destri Melarg Nov 18 2015, 08:22 AM

I'll answer this here to avoid spoiling it for anyone else:

I just found a red bandana tonight on a raider's mongrel mutt inside a satellite array just east of Sanctuary Hills. I think they might be pretty common items, but you'll have to talk to someone who has progressed further in the game than I. To get Dogmeat to equip something just use the trade option to open his inventory and if the item is something that he can equip the option will come up. On the console it is the Y or Triangle button. Don't know the PC equivalent.

Posted by: mALX Nov 18 2015, 10:19 AM

Thank you! When I saw him with the bandana, I knew I'd just have to get it!

Posted by: hazmick Nov 18 2015, 08:10 PM

Exciting news. Today Alice found some pieces of that nice looking power armor I mentioned. It's called the X-01. So far she has the head, arms, and chest pieces. Apparently the power armor you find in the wasteland is different depending on your level, so we should hopefully find the leg pieces soon.


Alice has also been helping the Brotherhood of Steel a bit more. They have several types of side quests available, like getting farms to supply food or finding technical documents for their scribes. Alice's favourite kind of quest is the Squire escort. Basically you get a young kid to follow you as you clear a location of enemies. Since Squires are children Alice doesn't need to worry about them in combat, and she gets paid well to do it.

Had a really great fight earlier on. We saw some BoS folks out on patrol so we followed them and helped them fight some Super Mutants. Then the vertibird that arrived to pick the squad up attracted some raiders. During the ensuing fight, the vertibird got shot down and landed in a parking lot - massive explosions everywhere, bits of raider flying around. It was so chaotic and exciting. Random encounters like this are one of my favourite things about Fallout, and it makes the world feel so alive.

http://i.imgur.com/E4UgfHr.png

Posted by: SubRosa Nov 18 2015, 09:05 PM

The first car to break the sound barrier!

That is a different suit of power armor than I have seen in all the other screens. It is the FO2/Tactics armor, with the dog-face helmet. It is good that they have multiple types of power armor out there. Is the T-51 out there too?

Posted by: hazmick Nov 19 2015, 03:50 AM

It is indeed So far Alice has found the T-45, T-51, T-60, X-01, and Raider power armors. I think that's all of them. Each can be upgraded, modded and painted and you can mix and match different pieces.


-----

Alice unlocked some new hairstyles earlier. I'm not sure how, it might have been a magazine she found. Regardless, she finally has style options other than '40s housewife' so we're both happy.


Got some screenies of that armor. ft new hair:

http://i.imgur.com/gYNMURl.png

http://i.imgur.com/2mlqRk9.png

It's painted with Vault-Tec paint which gives Alice a charisma bonus (not that she needs it) and also makes her look like an Ultramarine. *Side note* - Super Mutants are often referred to as 'Greenskins' in FO4.


Here's another screenie. I don't think this is a spoiler...it's not quest related...just an unexpected side character. If you've seen the first few minutes of the game then you'll understand. http://i.imgur.com/KBXbiVO.png

Posted by: mALX Nov 19 2015, 05:48 AM

Holy Cow, your character is most def bigger than Squire, lol.








Wow, is that power armor ever huge compared to Alice !!!! She is beautiful, I love the first hairdo a lot!

Yeah, I saw the ghoulified Vault Tech Agent in a vid a week ago, lol. I think you can make him a follower, if you wanted to, that is

By the way, this thread is also marked for spoilers; so don't worry about that. Your spoilers are welcome here! Bring 'em on! lol.

Posted by: mirocu Nov 19 2015, 08:17 AM

Oh, thatīs just awesome! I love when they do stuff like that!

Posted by: mALX Nov 19 2015, 02:05 PM

Me too! My all time favorite was Moira,

Posted by: hazmick Nov 19 2015, 04:18 PM

I love the huge shoulder/neck area of that set. I think it makes it look even bigger than other suits.

Underneath that power armor she's wearing a full set of heavy combat armor, and underneath that she's wearing a skintight BoS uniform. When she takes all the armor off she looks tiny! I'll get a screenie later to compare.

Posted by: mALX Nov 19 2015, 04:57 PM

Oh how cool that you can layer their clothing now and get the DR beneflt from every piece? Awesome!

Posted by: hazmick Nov 19 2015, 05:24 PM

Yeah the clothing system is really good. There are 8 parts of the body that can equip clothing - Head, eyes, face, left arm, right arm, left leg, right leg, torso.

Some clothing covers multiple parts of the body - for example, a dress covers the torso and legs so you can't equip anything on top of those areas, but you can still equip arm armor with it. Skintight clothes like the Vault Suit cover everything from the neck down but can still have stuff equipped on top.

The damage resistance of each piece of clothing is split into three parts - Physical damage (melee and bullets), energy damage (laser and plasma weapons), and radiation. Not all clothes protect against radiation though.

Alice currently wears combat armor, which protects against physical and energy damage equally well. She then upgraded each piece to protect against radiation, but this also made it heavier since she used lots of lead in the crafting process.

Posted by: mirocu Nov 19 2015, 05:29 PM

Ah! No "dumbing down" in that area then

Posted by: mALX Nov 19 2015, 06:14 PM

These changes are very welcome ones, I love this!!!!

Posted by: hazmick Nov 20 2015, 11:34 PM

Alice joined up with the Railroad today. As factions go, this one is pretty cool. Lots of sneaking around, dead drops, secret passwords etc. You even get to pick a nickname for your character. Alice went with "Charmer", though there were some other good options.


Oh, she also went back and found out what 'Swan' was. Turns out he's a big Super Mutant Behemoth who wears/has grown around part of a swan boat. Alice has never been so glad she was wearing power armor than the moment that thing jumped out of his pond.

Posted by: mALX Nov 20 2015, 11:46 PM

I love the sneaking type quests/questlines - one of the things I missed so much in the Thieves Guild in Skyrim! They really made that fun, I like that a lot!

Ooh, that Swan thing - did Alice kill it? Urk, that thing was gross! I know it was a tough fight!

Posted by: SubRosa Nov 21 2015, 01:50 AM

It is nice to hear more about factions. That was one thing the Fallout 3 really lacked. The Brotherhood of Steel was pretty much the only one there was to join, and that was automatic with the main quest.

Posted by: hazmick Nov 21 2015, 03:30 AM

Got the jetpack upgrade installed on some power armor earlier. Alice is going to have a lot of fun playing with this.

Using the jetpack drains the power armor's currently equipped power core AND the player's action points, so the length of the flight can vary but it will never be more than a couple of seconds. I'd say it's more of a jump pack than a jetpack, but it looks cool.


Alice is also putting her technical expertise to use aboard the USS Constitution, helping the robot crew fix up the ship. It's really fun so far - she even got to fire the cannons!

Posted by: mALX Nov 21 2015, 03:49 AM

That Constitution quest looked like fun; a bit like Buttons in FO3,


Your backpack's got jets, huh? I've been waiting 3 weeks to post this; ever since I found out you could get them in FO4:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z9XTeeA43o



BWAAHAA!


Aw, I am surprised the jet packs don't give you a lot of time flying around, darn it!

Posted by: SubRosa Nov 21 2015, 04:19 AM

Now you are making me wish for a https://youtu.be/iyCEEAsMZEo mod, jetpacks and all.

Posted by: hazmick Nov 21 2015, 03:31 PM

Ooh I'd love a set of that gear, and Pre Vizsla's Darksaber too.

The power armor jetpack feels bigger though, more like the original Iron Man suit in the films - you know that huge grey one?

http://i.imgur.com/rXyoEzH.png



Oh and here's one of http://i.imgur.com/yKI2A9D.png, shortly before Alice helped him and his crew.

Posted by: Lopov Nov 21 2015, 05:06 PM

I love his hat, hopefully it's lootable.

Posted by: mALX Nov 21 2015, 05:33 PM

That looks Awesome! I guess it is def worth being able to jet out of a fight or up onto a rooftop to loot some hidden stash only found while using a jet pack or toggling clipping - have you found anything like that?

Ah, Buttons! Captain Ironsides! I got a kick out of him, lol.







BWAAHAA!!! Already planning his death, huh?

Posted by: hazmick Nov 21 2015, 05:43 PM

No looting required, you get your own version from him once you finish the quest. Though siding with the robots is optional, so I suppose there might be some looting if you side against them.

--------

I attempted to make a video of the jetpack flight. Apologies for the quality, the Xbox --> OneDrive --> YouTube process is not kind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6iWR2giAWc

As you can see, the max flight time is about 1.5 seconds. If Alice had more action points it might stretch it out a bit further. She'll have to experiment with different suit upgrades to make a suit specialised for flight.

Posted by: mALX Nov 21 2015, 05:56 PM

Oh wow, it barely got her a tiny bit in the air! I was picturing jetting out of reach of deathclaws; jetting to tops of buildings, etc. But ... still looked cool, lol.

Posted by: hazmick Nov 21 2015, 08:56 PM

When you think about how heavy the power armor must be, it's not that surprising. It'll be handy getting across rivers, since you can't swim in the armor, and it'll be helpful with climbing cliffs and whatnot.

Posted by: mALX Nov 21 2015, 09:09 PM

Oh yeah, well worth it - not to mention fun and just plain cool to be able to do it!

Posted by: Winter Wolf Nov 21 2015, 11:11 PM

I had a Vertibird land on me yesterday!

Damn thing got shot down by a large group of Muties down on the south part of the map. The Brotherhood thought they would fly in and lay the smackdown. The trouble was the muties were packing even more serious firepower. The Vertibird spun around in the air in loops and then crash straight into the hill where I was watching.

It landed right on top of me and I lost 85% of my health. Lol.

**

I have just started playing with the Power Armor. Beth did it really well and the whole thing feels great. Really nice to be able to mix and match the sets and put different paint jobs. Have not tried the jet packs yet, but it sounds very cool. Took a journey into the Glowing Sea and finally found Virgil.

Posted by: mALX Nov 22 2015, 12:03 AM

This is fantastic! Awesome! I would love to have seen this on a vid! But what makes it even greater - you did lose health by it landing on you! In FO3, I don't remember ever losing health when hit by crashing copters, and in fact my character walked right through them as if clipping was toggled.

Getting injured feels so much more realistic!

Posted by: hazmick Nov 22 2015, 07:48 PM

Vertibirds are constantly getting shot down around me. They must have really low health or something because they seem to just drop out of the sky when anything so much as glances at them. It looks really cool though.

----

Alice has been adventuring with companions recently.

First was Piper, the journalist from Diamond City. She and Alice became best friends almost immediately. They both like helping people, and talking their way out of tricky situations. As a character, Piper is pretty interesting. She really is just trying to help people, and Alice was happy for her to tag along.

Then we met Cait, the cage fighter from The Combat Zone. At first Alice wasn't sure about her since Cait just likes fighting, drugs and alcohol. After a while though we learned a bit about her backstory and we started to like her more, then we did her personal quest in which she asks you to help cure her drug addictions. Long story short, Alice now gets the Lover's Embrace xp bonus whenever she sleeps in a bed with Cait nearby

Posted by: mALX Nov 22 2015, 07:54 PM

I thought Piper was beautiful, if I'm thinking of the right NPC - would have liked to be able to get that face on my character, lol.

Posted by: hazmick Nov 23 2015, 03:38 AM

Got a bit further in the Main Quest today. Visited the Institute, decided to side with the Brotherhood, kind of regret it. The Brotherhood seemed great at first, but now they're all "you need to kill everyone else just in case they stand in our way later on.". Feels like the New Vegas MQ all over again.

And of course I forgot to save the game earlier so I can't go back. Alice is just going to power through this last bit then we'll have to start aaaaalll over again. Dear oh dear. Having to rebuild my settlement again is not going to be fun.

Posted by: Winter Wolf Nov 23 2015, 03:46 AM

What level were you when you did this?

I journeyed down south with Cait but the Gunners and those droids kept kicking my butt. They have a very damaging laser blast that shoots out of their head. Lol. I was only level 13 and I think the droids were level 22 or something. I told Cait to just 'deal with it' and decided to go back to the Vault later.


Shame about the Brotherhood, Hazmick. Avoiding the quests until a bit further in has always been my plan in Beth games. I am avoiding Minuteman at the moment for the same reason. Having raiders attack my base and destroy things would drive me insane.


**

And for people new to the game there is a root cellar in the rear yard of one of the houses in Sanctuary. Perfect for a character that is going to avoid the MQ and settlement building, and play as a smuggler type. It is a really tiny home base with only a bed and some shelving. I have placed an item in the storage chest to see whether it resets.

Posted by: hazmick Nov 23 2015, 06:27 AM

I think I was about level 50 or 51. The only things in the game I have serious trouble with are followers of Atom and their gamma guns. +99 rads per shot, and it's an automatic weapon? nope nope nope nope get me out of here. Those Assault Droids you're on about are tough too, especially that laser beam attack they can do. Their arms are the weak points - just shoot them off and most robots set on fire.

You'll know when the time comes to make a choice. You visit Virgil for a second time and get a quest objective to build something, and optional objectives to ask for help from each faction. I should have saved the game then but I wasn't paying attention

Posted by: Winter Wolf Nov 23 2015, 10:14 AM

Ah, okay, that makes sense. I plan to head back there once I level up a bit. The Mirelurk kings nail me at low level in the south part of the map so I should just relax and let the character level up.

+99 rads per shot. Wow, that sounds crazy!

I have also worked out the whole OneDrive-UpStudio thing. Thanks for that. I have just realized that I need gold to share things to OneDrive. I have let my gold slip as I mostly play Beth games and use the Live only for downloads.

Posted by: mirocu Nov 23 2015, 10:35 AM

You got 99 problems and the rads are all of them...

Posted by: hazmick Nov 23 2015, 05:47 PM

Well that, as they say, is that. 5 days, 4 hours, 56 minutes of play time and Alice has finished the main quest.

The ending was suitably exciting, with plenty of shooting and running and lasers. The Brotherhood of Steel final mission is reminiscent of Fallout 3. You rebuild Liberty Prime and take him for a walkabout through the city. It was pretty cool, with synths teleporting in and super mutants getting involved. Watching a giant robot pick up and throw a Super Mutant Behemoth like a ragdoll was fantastic. Fighting alongside the Brotherhood soldiers was great, and it really felt like a battle.

It all ends with a big nuclear explosion and a 'War, war never changes' thing. You get to continue playing afterwards though which is nice. The Brotherhood give you some new power armor, complete with jetpack, to go along with your promotion.


Now Alice is doing it all over again. We won't be touching the main quest at all this time. Just going to focus on settlement building and exploring. I have a save game 40 minutes into the game, which is just before you leave Vault 111. I tweaked Alice's SPECIAL stats and made some very minor physical appearance changes. The worst thing about starting again is that she doesn't have her nice haircut anymore, so the first order of business is to find a hairdresser.

Note: some hairstyles aren't available in the character creation but are available from hairdressers as soon as you leave the Vault.

Posted by: mirocu Nov 23 2015, 06:01 PM

Cool! hazmick first out to finish Fallout 4 at chorrol!!


Iīm very surprised how people talk about its ending being so close to Fallout 3. To me it sounds like they should have come up with a new thing instead of using the very same formula, albeit with a little sprinkling on top.

Posted by: hazmick Nov 23 2015, 07:05 PM

I liked it. It was exactly what you'd expect from the Brotherhood of Steel what with their love of technology and killing stuff.

I'd like to see how the other factions do things differently, especially the Institute since they're the 'bad guys'.

Posted by: mirocu Nov 23 2015, 10:31 PM

Different endings then, eh?



There. Thatīs as much British/Canadian as Iīll ever get

Posted by: Destri Melarg Nov 24 2015, 01:14 AM

Congrats on beating the game, hazmick! I assume 5 days playing wasn't just the MQ but the BoS quest line and some side quests/exploring as well? I've got 25hrs in and I've only just met Nick Valentine!

Posted by: hazmick Nov 24 2015, 01:41 AM

Thanks Yeah most of my time was spent exploring and settlement building. The settlement stuff is so addictive and I just get absorbed in it for hours.

Posted by: mALX Nov 24 2015, 03:12 AM

Yeah, I was not happy at all with the end of the main questline in FO4. It was like the Tenpenny quest, where no decision was satisfactory and anything you did left you feeling disgusted.







Wow, how did I miss this? I really like that they have added the ability to have relationships; and you don't have to be "mourning" the wife from 200 years ago for the rest of the game! Awesome!







I saw this cellar in a vid a couple weeks ago, the guy was doing a series of "Looting" vids where he shows all the secret places - there is also a cave under Sanctuary with some mole rats in it and a fusion core (but you can't live in it, there are respawning mole rats and nuclear waste rads in there).









HOLY CRAP !!!!








I was glad to see Liberty Prime again, kind of. I mean, it felt like a gratuitous thing by Bethesda, but I'm probably just being cynical about that.










In my opinion, it wasn't close enough to the Fallout classic ending; and had no sprinklings on top either. I think it was a thoroughly diluted version of how Fallout classically ends, and the only thing they seem to have hung onto from it is the "War, War never changes" line - but they played it so many times in game that it became eye-rolling - like in the beginning when the guy is looking at himself in the facegen mirror and says "War, war never changes" as he is looking at himself in the mirror - and that is before the war!

So - truthfully, I am not a fan of the main questline in FO4; but I would like to build settlements and explore in it; and try out the new toys like jet packs/etc.

Posted by: Destri Melarg Nov 24 2015, 03:12 AM

Fallout 4: The Wasteland Settlement Simulator

Posted by: Winter Wolf Nov 24 2015, 04:54 AM

Congrats Hazmick!

I am around 65 hours in and have completed nothing! A Beth game is for me to just roam and roam, slowly visiting each major location and finding some of the minor ones too. I only do quests when my quest log starts to build up. The MQ will slowly take me a year to complete.

Oh, and also having fun playing around with Destri's settlement simulator™.

Posted by: Winter Wolf Nov 25 2015, 11:50 AM

Okay, I have grabbed some screen pics from my Xbox One.

http://i.imgur.com/VqkmLar.png

http://i.imgur.com/uBIMj8f.png

http://i.imgur.com/lZsMaAE.png

And speaking of crashing I have come across two downed passenger aircraft in the Boston wasteland. It is so neat to think about all the circumstantial things that would be impacted by the bomb and a nice addition by Beth.

Posted by: mALX Nov 25 2015, 03:28 PM

These pictures are spectacular! I'm tickled that you got the one of the helicopter that crashed on you! But the graphics are so amazing in your screens; holy cow! I think my favorite is Dogmeat swimming, D'aaaaaw !!!!

Posted by: Acadian Nov 25 2015, 04:26 PM

Wolf, those are great shots - especially the doggie one. Thanks for sharing!

Posted by: mirocu Nov 25 2015, 05:07 PM

Nice pics, but what is the red stuff on your health bar?


The second pic really has that Silent Hill atmosphere.

Posted by: Lopov Nov 25 2015, 05:24 PM

Really great pics, Winter Wolf.

Did you crash the Vertibird or how did it crash?

Do NPCs show up on the compass because I don't see a marker for the approaching NPC.

Nice to see Dogmeat going for a swim, though the last pic shows a ruined and flooded house, there's certain warmth to it as well.

Posted by: hazmick Nov 25 2015, 05:41 PM

Ah the infamous Vertibird! That foggy picture looks great too, really spooky.

With regards to crashing, there's a holotape near the downed Vertibird and power armor in Concord that talks about it. Mentions the impact of the EMP part of nuclear weapons. Really gives it more depth.

Posted by: SubRosa Nov 25 2015, 07:20 PM

That first pic makes me think: "time to get out the marshmellows!"

Wow, that fog goes look like Silent Hill. I hope there aren't any triangle-headed monsters with 10 foot swords around there!

I hope Dogmeat doesn't turn the water yellow!

Posted by: Winter Wolf Nov 26 2015, 07:20 AM

mALX- Thanks! I was lucky that I hit the save in the moments after that bloody thing landed on me. So it was simple to load it back up and grab the pic. Glad you enjoyed the quality!!

Acadian- I have spent years following the visual journey of Buffy and her ever changing clothing attire. I am just happy to return the visual favor!

Mirocu- The red part of the health bar represents radiation. Beth have changed it for this game. Now what happens is that as you acquire radiation your health maximum decreases. So if you use a stimpak your health can now only reach the part where the red bar is. Radaway will make the red bar disappear.

Lopov- The Vertibirds in this game are shot down all the time by the enemies in the game. In this case I was watching a battle between Muties and the BOS. The Vertibird spun in a huge circle and then crashed straight on top of me. I lost 85% of my health. Lol.

Not sure about NPC's I must have a check on that. Enemies certainly do.

Hazmick- Thanks for your help in taking screenpics. Me and Microsoft never seem to see things eye to eye so I always seem to need somebody's help to use their tech!

SubRosa- Marshmellows, Triangle head & yellow water. Your observations are always spot on!

**

I have taken some more pics but will post them over in the Screen thread in the next few days. There are no spoilers, just a look at the game for those yet to buy.

Posted by: mirocu Nov 26 2015, 08:24 AM

Aah, interesting. Actually a change I like, imagine that?

Posted by: mALX Nov 26 2015, 01:49 PM

I think that is his rads stat.

Posted by: hazmick Nov 27 2015, 03:59 AM

So Alice wants to help people by building up settlements, but you need to be a member of the Minutemen to get lots of the quests to clear and build in new areas.

Alice wouldn't mind joining them if she could just be a regular person, but oh no you have to be their leader straight off the bat. Then when you say 'no' to the offer, the dialogue makes you sound like a b...bad person.

She might go head with it in the future, but for now http://i.imgur.com/EiyInUN.png has to find her own adventures. (She really misses the Minutemen radio station you unlock later on. It's got great music.)

Posted by: SubRosa Nov 27 2015, 04:36 AM

I love Alice's armor!

Posted by: hazmick Nov 27 2015, 05:40 AM

That's the Combat Armor, with a Gunner Harness outfit underneath. The armor's looking a bit mismatched with all the different colours going on, but once Alice finds a workbench she can upgrade some of it to match.

The Gunners are tough enemies, but we like their outfits. Lots of military greens and browns. My favourite.

Posted by: Winter Wolf Nov 27 2015, 06:41 AM

I like the face and makeup that you have done on Alice. Wow, that is so neat. Clean and flawless.

Posted by: mALX Nov 27 2015, 09:03 AM

Oooh, Alice is Awesome! It really bugs me when they put something in the game everyone should be able to do, and then tie it in to a questline so you can't do it without following that questline through - but then to HAVE to be polite and nice too? Grrrr!

Posted by: Kiln Nov 27 2015, 09:20 AM

The changes from Fallout 3 are mostly good. I've dumped probably 50 hours into it so far and still have plenty to explore. Seems kind of light on missions though to be honest. I just haven't ran into enough random missions that aren't "bring me two bags of fertilizer" type fetch quests to feel satisfied with the scope of the game strictly from a questing perspective.

Environments and buildings however are very nice and makes it fun to just explore. Wandering around for hours usually nets you something useful, especially toward the beginning of the game, provided you're careful. Combat improvements are also welcome and make the game easier to play as a shooter. VATS is also better because it doesn't create a safe spot on the fly where you can just scope out your opponents in a risk free environment.

I feel like one of the best things in the game is the settlement system, building your own fortress is pretty satisfying and will suck up as many hours as an entire campaign of most games by itself. The system could work better, like allowing you to turn off "snap to" other objects, which gets annoying sometimes because it won't allow you to build walls at slightly off angles. The game also won't let you place things like junk walls close enough together because of the collision boxes extending past the actual objects so your walls have gaps that can't really be sealed in a way that looks secure. You also can't place doors on existing buildings, such as your house in Sanctuary. Overall though, it is a welcome mechanic but it lacks polish and is sometimes glitchy.

The main factions tend to be pretty entertaining to work with. I have to say that the missions they send you on all vary and keep things interesting but I feel like there should be more going on. There are only a handful of quests for each faction (from what I've seen so far) that don't directly advance the main story. As I said though, the ones that are there are pretty well done.

I also like that your followers interact with people from other settlements in various ways and have their own opinions about things you do and places you go. Often a follower will add useful insight about your environments "where there's sunken buildings, there's mirelurks" and similar comments that have at times actually put me on alert and helped me not get killed.

Now what did I dislike? No hardcore. Most fans agreed that New Vegas, while flawed, added something good when it came to having an optional mode where you needed to eat, drink, and sleep to live. Many fans were hoping Beth would follow suit with a hardcore mode in FO4.

The weapons, while loaded with possible mods, are mostly the same. Some things like converting a .308 rifle to .50 caliber don't really work realistically. For instance the .308's better receivers for the base caliber do more damage than the .50 caliber conversion, which frankly, is retarded. On no planet do the ballistics even come close to the .308 being even nearly as powerful as the 50 BMG, which I'm assuming is the intended caliber.

This is especially annoying because caliber conversions are among the last mods unlocked and they're almost useless aside from switching to a different ammo type. I also wish you could change the finish color on weapons and non power armor. Painting that tetanus trap of a pipe rifle would be among my first priority, especially since I imagine there aren't many vaccinations in the wasteland.

Skills and attributes. They're gone. Sort of. Instead the entire system has become the SPECIAL system. At the top are the attributes and below is a list of perks that you need to have the correct number of points into the basic "attribute" to unlock. Problem is that you get one point per level to spend on either a new perk or an attribute point. So if you aren't careful when setting your base attributes at the start of the game, you'll waste 5-6 levels just improving your base attributes to get to the useful abilities. It's alright but this system most likely was simplified to give more mass appeal and catering to mainstream gamers.

Dialogue is a mixed bag. The voicework is pretty excellent and does add emotion to an otherwise slightly flat gameplay mechanic. Problem? It suffers from a simplified Mass Effect style conversation wheel where you don't ever really know what you're about to say. Sometimes the sarcastic remark is witty and harmless, which doesn't upset people and sometimes keeps you out of a fight. Sometimes the sarcastic comment will get you shot in the face by a half dozen well armed guys. You never have complete control and you roll the dice on what you're about to say unless you pick the generic "nice guy" response every time. Then there's the problem that often, asking for more info robs you of actually responding to the question by advancing to the next set of dialogue choices.

Overall the game has been very fun, as is obvious by the number of hours I've logged. It does have a whole bag of flaws though and I went in with a rabid fanboy attitude to this game and while it is very good, I was let down in some ways.

Posted by: hazmick Nov 28 2015, 12:41 AM

I figured out today that if you have a food & drink stall in your settlement, your residents (minus those on guard duty) will all gather around it at the end of the day.

I had a spare area of flat land available so I built a bar/comfortable seating area with the food & drink stall in the middle. Now, at around 8PM every day, Alice's settlers all come and sit around in the pub for a while.

The only issue is that the food & drink stall is slightly taller than the walls, so I can't put a roof over it. I hope the barman doesn't mind standing in the rain.

Posted by: mALX Nov 28 2015, 06:22 PM

That is awesome! (except not being able to put a roof over it; I wonder if it is prefab why they made it like that? )

Posted by: hazmick Dec 1 2015, 02:59 AM

Stumbled upon a really cool quest today. A Chinese nuclear submarine off the shore, stranded for the last 200 years. All of the crew were ghouls due to a nuclear warhead leaking radiation all over them. Only one of the crew, Captain Zao, wasn't feral. He was probably one of the nicest people we've met in the entire game, and Alice didn't hesitate to give him a hand.

Alice helped him fix up his sub, and he plans to sail back to China. He also gave Alice some signal beacons which she can use to call in some pretty devastating tactical nuclear strikes.


This is one thing FO4 does better than the previous games - world building. Specifically to do with the greater effects of nukes and pre-war stuff. I hope they do more of this sort of thing in the DLC.

Posted by: mALX Dec 1 2015, 06:15 AM

That sounds Awesome !!!

Posted by: Destri Melarg Dec 1 2015, 08:24 AM

A possible work-around is to build a two story structure for your bar and, once the second floor walls are up, remove the second floor either entirely or just above/around the spot you want the food & drink stall to go. That way you either have a pub with high ceilings or a second floor landing that can accommodate a pool table.

Posted by: hazmick Dec 1 2015, 10:33 PM

Ooh that's a great idea! It looks much better now. Put in some fancier furniture along with the pool table to give it a VIP lounge feel.

---------

Alice had a stressful day today, dealing with feral ghouls.

The first encounter was in a foggy swamp, and Alice darn near peed her power armor when the ferals started leaping out of the water. Things only got worse when a Super Mutant Behemoth lumbered out of the mist. What followed was a great deal of shooting from Alice and some swearing from me.

The second encounter was...odd. Alice found an old school, and after reading some info on a terminal it turned out that before the war, the school was being used as a test facility for a new food paste. One side effect of the paste was that it turned everyone pink, and Alice had to fight a seemingly endless number of pink feral ghouls. As I said, it was very odd.

--------

I also discovered that each type of store in your settlement (armor, weapons, clothing etc.) can be upgraded to tier 4 if it's manned by a specific NPC. The Vault-tec Rep is the NPC for the general store, and Alice found the lady who upgrades the clothing store at a radio station. All the other NPC's can be found in random encounters.

Posted by: mirocu Dec 1 2015, 10:35 PM

Pics!!

Posted by: Rihanae Dec 1 2015, 10:43 PM

I'm currently playing a fallout version of Lissa! Looking forward to some mods to youngify her and possibly remove the main quest options... any news on a creation kit?

Posted by: mALX Dec 1 2015, 11:15 PM

I want to see a screenshot too!!!!!



















I heard January.

Posted by: King Of Beasts Dec 3 2015, 03:59 PM

I can't find Virgil's lab in the institute, and I need his cure.

Posted by: mALX Dec 3 2015, 04:49 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=os3o5LWiwxw

Posted by: Destri Melarg Dec 4 2015, 07:52 PM

Hey hazmick, where are the screenies?

Posted by: hazmick Dec 4 2015, 08:30 PM

My internet and Xbox LIVE haven't been working properly, and you can't upload any screenshots that are taken whilst offline. Hopefully I'll have some up tonight or tomorrow.

Posted by: Lopov Dec 4 2015, 10:15 PM

Are these fellows as rare as they were in the Capital Wasteland or are they encountered more often?

Posted by: mALX Dec 4 2015, 10:25 PM

I think there are fewer of them, only two I know of so far = Sunshine Tidings Co-op, and at a power station to the west of Natick Banks - but they respawn so you can fight them over and over again. I've heard they are a lot smaller than the ones in the Capital Wasteland.

Oh, and Swan is supposed to be some kind of unique Behemoth; but he does not respawn.

Posted by: hazmick Dec 4 2015, 10:44 PM

I'm not sure of the exact number of Behemoths. I've seen 3 so far. They, along with all FO4 Super Mutants, are slightly smaller (but more intelligent) than in previous games because they are from a different strain of FEV, and were originally created by The Institute.

Virgil, the Super Mutant you meet in the MQ, used to be an Institute scientist working on the project.

Posted by: hazmick Dec 5 2015, 02:58 AM

Right, here we go.

http://i.imgur.com/JxBtXbQ.png

http://i.imgur.com/NErBt8m.png

http://i.imgur.com/a0dr7OV.png

Posted by: mirocu Dec 5 2015, 08:27 AM

Yay, the bar has opened! Free drinks for all!!

Posted by: Destri Melarg Dec 5 2015, 08:51 AM

Great pics!!! Love the second floor with the Brahmin head(s) on the wall! How do you get all your settlers to congregate at the bar? Mine are usually too busy standing on my dining room table or fighting each other for my bed .

Posted by: mALX Dec 5 2015, 04:29 PM

This is AWESOME!!! I LOVE the VIP Lounge !!!!

Posted by: Lopov Dec 5 2015, 04:58 PM

I agree with posters above, the VIP lounge looks great.

Is the robot in the 2nd pic a waiter or a guest?

Posted by: mALX Dec 5 2015, 05:55 PM

Okay, Hazmick - my son just told me he is buying Fallout this weekend; so I'll be playing it when he is out of the house = so if you want to give some tips on how to make awesome rooms like these here, I'm all ears !!!

Posted by: Destri Melarg Dec 5 2015, 06:35 PM

Since I know you like watching Youtube videos as much as I do:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgEA2LDNWM

Posted by: mALX Dec 5 2015, 06:44 PM

WOO HOO! Thanks!


*mALX runs off to watch vid...*

Posted by: Destri Melarg Dec 5 2015, 06:51 PM

There's actually a series of 3 I think that will tell you everything you need to know. After that, and judging by the great work you did modding Oblivion for Maxical, I imagine that I will be looking to you for advice in a few weeks!

Posted by: mALX Dec 5 2015, 07:00 PM

Oh, he gave some great tips I hadn't heard before!

I'll check out those other vids too. I plan to rewatch this one once I've started playing the game, set up my laptop next to my son's TV, lol.

Oh, if you clear out the debris houses in Sanctuary; does the bunker disappear?

Posted by: Destri Melarg Dec 5 2015, 07:05 PM

Unfortunately you can't clear all the houses in Sanctuary… only the ruined ones. The Bunker is behind one you can't clear, so it stays.

Posted by: mALX Dec 5 2015, 07:09 PM

Oh, well - I didn't want to lose the bunker, so that is good then. Only bad is that the number of supplies you can glean from Sanctuary is limited by those houses.

By the way, if anyone can name some great deposits for finding building supplies, feel free to list/post them here! I do plan to play with the settlements rather than race out and "find my son,"

Posted by: hazmick Dec 5 2015, 09:54 PM

Glad everyone likes the bar Alice's settler's seem to love it.

All settlers automatically gather around the bar at the end of the day, around 8PM.




That's Codsworth, who spends his time wandering around Sanctuary. He was your butler before the bombs fell, but he doesn't do much butlering anymore.



mALX - Building is super easy once you play around with it for a little while. If you're planning to go into settlement building then make sure to put lots of points into Charisma - lots of settlement related perks in there. I'd advise doing a sweep and clear of Sanctuary ASAP and just scrap everything you find - cars and trees included.

Posted by: mALX Dec 6 2015, 01:34 AM

Ooh, thank you for the tips!

Posted by: hazmick Dec 6 2015, 05:00 AM

Had a big ol' power cut yesterday/today and my save file got corrupted. Time to start again...again.

Got a proper plan this time though. Alice isn't going to Concord (so we can avoid the Minutemen) and won't be doing any faction stuff for a while.

Did the sweep and clear of Sanctuary. You get more than enough resources to get started. Alice has managed to wall off the entire settlement, build the building which will become her power armor garage, and build the shell of the new bar...all without leaving the settlement. All that building got her up to level 6 so she's strong enough to go hunting for more uncommon resources like gears and oil (which she always needs).

Need to head to Diamond City for a haircut first though.

Posted by: mALX Dec 6 2015, 05:41 AM

Oh no! You lost that gorgeous settlement you built? Gaaaargh!!!!!

Posted by: hazmick Dec 6 2015, 06:32 AM

I prefer to think of it as a surprise renovation project

By avoiding the Minutemen in Concord I won't get those settlers coming to Sanctuary, which is a good thing because 3 of those 5 people are the most annoying characters in the game and can't be...disposed of...once they move in. New Sanctuary will be exactly how Alice and I want it.

The most annoying part of starting again is having to re-capture all of the other settlements. Alice had cleared and populated every settlement on the map, and linked them together with trade routes - even the settlement located on an island! It'll take some time to redo all that stuff.

Posted by: mALX Dec 6 2015, 03:53 PM

Oh, these are good tips! That is amazing that you got all the settlements and trade routes set up before! Did all your settlements look as good as that one you showed us screens of? Are there any other things you might do differently in your renovation?

I would love it if you made a VLog of your re-establishing these settlements; yours looked awesome!

There is one settlement someone made a video of called "The Castle" - and from the comments it must have been spectacular, but the vid was removed for some reason, so I never got to see it.

Posted by: hazmick Dec 6 2015, 04:58 PM

The Castle is Fort Independence. You take it as part of the Minutemen questline, but you can settle there without having to join them if you want. If you join the Minutemen at a later date then they just move right in since it's already clear. It's got tall walls and is already wired up with electricity (just needs some generators) but there's not actually much room for expansion due to a big radio tower in the middle of the courtyard.

There are very few settlements that are as big as Sanctuary. Most settlements just had a shelter, some crops, and some turrets - most didn't even have walls! There are 2 main ones that I'll focus on - Starlight Drive-In and Spectacle Island. Those 2 are all large enough for a good sized settlement.

The Drive-in has a huge area of flat land which is perfect for building structures. I use that as a staging area for the whole operation - putting a recruitment beacon there and sending settlers to other locations as they arrive.
Spectacle Island is huge, so I plan on building a large community there. The only problem would be the large number of Mirelurks on the island. Turrets and walls should keep them at bay.

Not sure about a VLog, but I might make a thread and throw everything in there.

Posted by: mALX Dec 6 2015, 05:19 PM

Oh, that would be Awesome!

I saw Spectacle Island in a vid once, but the guy was just setting it on his map and searching for a boss to fight that he thought should be there, like a tougher mirelurk or something. (which he didn't find, but did find plenty of the regular ones). How do you set up access to it for NPC's? Do you put a dock all the way to it? (or a boat trip?)

I'll have to look up that drive-in one in vids and see what kind of settlements people have been putting up there, it sounds like a great place to build if it is like I'm picturing = that drive-in from Fallout 3 that had raiders and vicious dogs that was near Andale.

Posted by: SubRosa Jan 21 2016, 06:19 PM

I found http://imgur.com/gallery/Mk5afvT.