I wanted to give FO3 a go. I've never actually played it, but I know enough that I thought I'd like it and wanted to give it a try. The intro got me totally hooked (one of the things I think Bethesda actually does better than Obsidian), but I had to stop shortly after. Man, the game just gets no love. No replacers for the goofy animations, nothing to improve the look of the NPC potato heads, almost no quality of life improvements (things like a loot menu, or visual objectives; those things which improve NV so much)...

Ironically the one thing I found to be better than NV was how many texture packs were around. There's HD texture packs for everything.

I thought it might be better to give TTW a go, but that's so incompatible with just about everything I don't really want to touch it.

I actually thought that New Vegas had more goofy animations than 3. Yes, 3 had the infamous chicken run, but New Vegas running looks comparable to how Woody from Toy Story runs, or a mentally deficient prospector.

3 modding is not on the scale of New Vegas modding, but it's still far more expansive than most other mod communities, being a Bethesda game (the gold standard of game modding since Bethesda decided to give a pay cut to their playtesters).

3 and NV are difficult subjects for me, almost comparable to my feelings on comparing Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2. While I think 3 does some things way better than New Vegas does, it's hard to deny that New Vegas, in most of the elements gamers care about, does much better than 3. That being said, I do think that I had the most fun playing 3 than I did New Vegas. New Vegas is more of a game you take your time with, while 3 is a game where fun awaits around every corner. New Vegas has greater peaks, but 3 is overall much more consistent (at least in it's map design). New Vegas starts to really reach it's peak when you get to the Strip, while FO3 is great from the moment you exit the Vault to the moment you end the game, whether that be in the radioactive project chamber or overlooking the destruction of the Adams Air Force Base (or if you're like me, and you always finish the game overlooking a post-apocalypse Earth from your sparkling new spaceship, there's that too.)

That being said, 3 really did get it's time in the spotlight from 2008 to 2015. It didn't become a PS3 and Xbox 360 best seller for nothing, y'know. Fallout 3 was a highly influential action RPG which has influenced the market today. I bet elements of 3, whether some like it or not, in some way or another, influenced some devs from CDPR and other modern gaming companies. I see elements of 3 in Cyberpunk 2077 just as much as I see elements of other action RPGs like Mass Effect in it.

Anyway, I'm getting off track. Just know that Fallout 3 is still beloved by many and was considered a modern classic shortly after it's 2008 release. Time has both boldened that claim and also weakened it. The discussion of whether 3 or New Vegas is better is like trying to decide whether apples or oranges are your favorite fruit. Enjoy them both for what they are.

I somehow made TTW work with my load order and I honestly love playing through a much more stable FO3. Then be able to use that same character in a type of new game plus for the Mojave Wasteland. I have a really great mod setup that is still true to the original style. Using Bleed and Jsawyerbatty also revamps the difficulty for a brand new experience. Not to mention AWOP for FO3 is just jaw dropping too.

It mainly sucks that a lot of favorite mods are broken like animations and character overhauls. I use two separate profile setups for Fallout a TTW and a FNV in MO2. So that I can enjoy the Amazing overhauls out there that are generally incompatible.

@Blonde New Vegas has horrible animations, but the great thing is, I don't have to care; there are replacers. I can't believe no one ever did anything about FO3 animations or the characters appearance.

I think most of NV's problems, of which there are many, can be overlooked due to the fact that Josh and the guys had so little time to develop it. But both Bethesda and Obsidian get many things wrong, just not the same things:

When I start NV, after the tutorial, I talk to a couple people and I get a pretty good sense of the world around me: If I want to get to the Strip, I can travel North, which makes for a short and direct road, but a very dangerous one. Or I can make my way to Primm, following the road that circles around the Mojave, which is a longer but safer road, and follow my attacker's footsteps. There are roads and landmarks to help guide you. The world is built like a world. But the only reason I'm following the trail is because that's what the game tells me I need to do. Tracking down a guy who shot me so I can recover the package he stole, isn't something I'd do. I just don't have that kind of work ethic, specially for such a crappy job.

Fallout 3 shows me my life in the vault. A kind, loving, mild mannered dad that spends time with me, gets me my first gun and reads me passages of the bible. My childhood friend. A few assholes picking on me. Those are all real life relatable things. So when trouble begins, I'm immediately invested in the story. The Overseer might be a horrible person, but he's Amata's dad, so you think twice about killing him, same as with all the cops in the vault. They're all people you know and grew up around. However when you get out of the vault, the only reason I know I need to go to Megaton, is because that's what the quest tells me to do. I have never heard of Megaton before. How would I even know to go there? No directions, no clues, no nothing.

In FO4 there's an infamous conversation with Father where you try to ask him why he's doing what he's doing and he replies that "It's too complicated, you wouldn't understand". It's hard to verbalize just how stupid that line is. It's not quantum physics we're talking about, it's his motivations. How can it be so complicated that his own dad who loves him wouldn't be able to understand? Even if it was complicated, it might be a good idea to try, considering Shaun is thinking about making you his successor. How am I supposed to continue whatever the Institute is doing if I can't understand it? If that was Obsidian writing, Father would have an intelligent and compelling reason for everything.

But if it was Obsidian writing the character, I can tell you exactly what the problem would be: you wouldn't have any reason to care about the Institute. I know this because that's exactly the kind of villain Obsidian designs, intelligent but unsympathetic.

If you make a poll about who people side with in NV, the first place would be House/NCR depending where you make the poll with Yes Man in second place. The legion is always very a distant fourth, because other than purely looking to finish the game with all factions, or wanting to play as a total psycopath, there's no reason to join the legion. Caesar can give you tons of reasons why he does what he does, but not one for why you should join him or care about his legion. In fact, he doesn't even try, he just assumes you should obey him and starts giving you orders. And that's not just Caesar. Think back to the master or the Enclave in FO2. Obsidian gives you well written, complex antagonists, but they're never antagonists you would think of joining.

If Father wasn't my son, I wouldn't think twice to destroy the Institute. But because he is, it actually makes me think for a moment who I want to side with, despite the fact the Institute is completely evil. And with something so simple Bethesda actually gave some meaning to that choice. It's not just about who you think it's best to rebuild the Commonwealth, it's also about family. And that's something I can relate to, so I get invested in the world they created.

@CommunistDragon I'm sure I could get TTW to work, but most of the mods I use and consider essential, including FCO, either I know are not compatible or there's no telling if they are.

There are quite a number of replacer animations and models for NV that work in 3 as well. The enhanced camera WAR animation mod works if you install manually. Asurahs anims also work if you install manually. I also got one of the high quality pipboy model replacers to work in fallout 3 this way.

The general rule is that, if its replacing something that's vanilla, you can just drop it in the data folder because it will likely have the same name as the file you're replacing. So the game will just use that.

@G0RII Asurah's anims has an esp with FNV as a master so I'm not sure it would work. Well, it could work, but you'd have to edit the esp quite a lot and I'm not sure that's something I want to do. WAR could work, now that you mention it. Which isn't really ideal, but it's better than vanilla for sure.

I guess that would be one less thing. There's still a lot it lacks though.

I get it. It's a 12 year old game. Most people have moved on to FO4, which is vastly superior. But there are still mods being made for it, so you would think people would address those issues. Except they haven't. Oh well.

Id highly recommend TTW plenty of compatible mods from New Vegas since its ported to the improved New Vegas engine.

@LamaMilk TTW is what I thought I would use. But if you go to the mod's webpage there's a huge list of incompatible mods compiled by the author himself. And many of them are essentials for me, including FCO.

gavin gold wrote:

@G0RII Asurah's anims has an esp with FNV as a master so I'm not sure it would work. Well, it could work, but you'd have to edit the esp quite a lot and I'm not sure that's something I want to do. WAR could work, now that you mention it. Which isn't really ideal, but it's better than vanilla for sure.

I guess that would be one less thing. There's still a lot it lacks though.

I get it. It's a 12 year old game. Most people have moved on to FO4, which is vastly superior. But there are still mods being made for it, so you would think people would address those issues. Except they haven't. Oh well.  

oh I know. You take the files themselves and place them in fallout 3s data folder. They share the same names as the default animation files so the game will use them over the ones in the bsa archive. My version of fallout 3 is currently set up this way. Trust me it works.

Fallout 3 had no love, I sadly agree. But it was literally the first Fallout game on this new game engine, a lot of people were just picking it up around 2009 or 2010 or so, including me who brought both games. Still, That....other site has a lot of Fallout 3 mods on it still. Tho F3 really is a dumpster of a game engine-wise as it crashes more than Skyrim for me.

Maybe its because those who mod Fo3 are Bethesda fans... which is all you need to know about their creativity

Serious note, theres a lot of mods with TTW compatibility patches - its best just to try it

blahblahblah wrote:

Maybe its because those who mod Fo3 are Bethesda fans... which is all you need to know about their creativity

Does that also apply to you? New Vegas is technically a Bethesda property with many Bethesda conventions. So many in fact that New Vegas was given the labels "Fallout 3.5" and "More Fallout 3" not even a day after it's release. That sounds like a massive stamp of creativity if I've ever seen one.

Heisenberg wrote:

blahblahblah wrote:

Maybe its because those who mod Fo3 are Bethesda fans... which is all you need to know about their creativity

Does that also apply to you? New Vegas is technically a Bethesda property with many Bethesda conventions. So many in fact that New Vegas was given the labels "Fallout 3.5" and "More Fallout 3" not even a day after it's release. That sounds like a massive stamp of creativity if I've ever seen one.

Oi mate

Without New Vegas, we would never see things like: DT, Weapon/Armor Condition, different ammo types, etc.

54yeggan wrote:

Without New Vegas, we would never see things like: DT, Weapon/Armor Condition, different ammo types, etc.

Without Fallout 3, we wouldn't have seen a New Vegas, a Fallout 4, a 3D Fallout, or the very existence of a Fallout game post-Interplay.

You see, New Vegas was a great game for what it did right. It was a decent middle ground between the old and new Fallout while also being a (mostly) perfected Fallout 3. It didn't need to bring as much innovation or as much evolution as a new Fallout game, because it was a spin-off.

Now I'm not going to criticise Obsidian or New Vegas for being "Fallout 3.5" or "More Fallout 3", but the very implication that Obsidian has shown more creativity than Bethesda and therefore their fans must be less creative too as a result is absurd. Modern day Obsidian have shown no creativity besides filling a hole in the market. Bethesda, for all their faults, have indeed shown more creativity than Obsidian have. Settlement creation, multiplayer, the power armour overhaul, whether you agree that these are good changes or not it shows that Bethesda make huge leaps from game to game. Obsidian are much more systematic and methodical.

A recent example of Obsidian's lack of creativity is The Outer Worlds. I'm going to say it here that TOW was quite clearly developed because Cain, Urquhart and Boyarsky lost their precious Fallout license. TOW is another game that is fun, but hardly creative. It was a success financially because the market for single player Bethesda-esque titles was dry and has been since 2015. I like The Outer Worlds, but it gives a lot of insight into how Obsidian design their games. They wanted to create another game like New Vegas under the Fallout name, couldn't, so then proceeded to create another game like New Vegas not under the Fallout name. About as creative as a teenager altering words to make it seem like they didn't just copy their friend's homework. And Bethesda fans are the ones that lack creativity?

Bethesda titles have given birth to some of the greatest mods ever to brace gaming as a medium. Enderal, Nehrim, Falskaar. Meanwhile The Outer Worlds modding scene is non-existent and New Vegas's modding community is dying as the days go by. Once F4NV is released, FNV will share the same fate as FO3 did when TTW released. At that point the only people not making the switch are either those who can't run Fallout 4 or just want to play on the outdated Gamebryo engine for some reason.

@blahblahblah TTW has a huge list of incompatibilities, and doesn't support many things I consider essential, including FCO.

And I've actually grown a little more sympathetic to Bethesda's approach. What is the point of a deep story, meaningful choices or a complex world? Most people are really stupid and won't appreciate it anyway.

People say the want depth and choices. But they don't. When they're actually presented with a difficult choice, most people will either A) Download a mod to remove it B) Simply take the choice that makes the biggest amount of people happy, with no other consideration, or C) Just be mindlessly evil "because it's more fun".

Look at the nexus pages for FO4. It's all tits and guns. No one cares about the story or the aesthetics or anything like that. You can't ask the developer to deliver more when the fans don't actually want it.

@54yeggan Meh, DT and DR are largely the same things, Weapon/Armor Condition is fine but I think it degrades way too fast, and different ammo types are honestly overrated.

In NV, energy weapons ammunition is so plentiful that there's no reason to use anything other than Max Charged ammo. "Special" explosives, like plasma and pulse, are actually less powerful than the regular versions, so you can just stick to that. And super ammo suffers from the "precious factor"; it's expensive and rare, and I'm willing to bet most people don't even use them because they save it for one of those occasions where they really need it, which ends up being never. Most of them are functionally identical to the normal ammo anyway, the only kind that is consistently better is the AP.

@Heisenberg I have no confidence in them ever releasing F4NV. Those massive projects never go anywhere. Look at Beyond Skyrim. They said they were going to make the entirety of the TES world. All these years later, and considering there will be a new TES soon enough (2 years, 3 years maybe), how much of that have they actually done? I checked the site just to be sure and as far as I can tell, the only thing they have actually released is Bruma. Not even Cyrodiil, just Bruma. Back in 2016, when I played Skyrim for the last time, those guys had already been working on that for years, and they hadn't even released Bruma. Yet they were claiming the project was still alive and well.

I think people who actually believe we will ever get something like F4NV are deluding themselves. Best case scenario they'll end releasing a little something, maybe an area or whatever. But by then the game will be like 15 years old, there will be other great games, and maybe fallout 5 will be close.

This is obvs just my opinion.

I'll be honest, I installed TTW last week, and was planning on fully playing Fallout 3, and then doing a Fallout NV playthrough. I was really excited to play through it all because I had never played Fallout 3 to it's completion before.

It started off well, I played the section in Vault 101 (I had played it multiple times, so I kind of went through it quickly).

But when I exited the Vault door, and went into the Capital Wasteland, I instantly just didn't want to play it. Like I just wanted to uninstall it. There's literally no good reason for it, in a moment, I just didn't want to play it. And so I uninstalled F03 and am now playing FNV again, except playing through Fallout: New California (which I'm playing through the first time).

Idk why I'm turned off of FO3. I'm able to play FNV + F04 so many times and I love playing them, but it's just not the same.

I have played through quite a bit of the game in previous playthroughs, and why it's obviously not been awful, I haven't enjoyed myself. Maybe the gameplay is too outdated, maybe there's not enough faction choice for me, maybe I'm just stupid lol.

(Edit)
Also I do want to say, that I don't just want to hate on the game, just for hating sake, I do really want to enjoy this game obviously lol

The only thing that makes me keep replaying FO3 was the Mothership Zeta Crew Mod. Though incomplete, the mod provides a very 'interactive' playthrough after completing the original DLC.

This right here. Can attest that Mothership Zeta Crew was something else. Love, hate, tragedy, drama... it had it all. A beautiful piece right there.

TTW enables the excellent 'weapons of millenia' mod which is worth the admission price alone.
Personally I love the green, toxic look of FO3, which gave it a truly oppressive feel, and I think its absolutely gorgeous even in vanilla.

TTW! TTW!! TTW!!! TTW!!!!