Hello, Fallout universe...

[Marshall]

I'm kind of surprised, and definitely disappointed, at the total lack
of any ongoing community here, after a mere 1 year and 4 months since
the release of Fallout 3. I've spent vast amounts of time discussing
other games in their respective usenet newsgroups, including the likes
of Diablo, Diablo 2, World of Warcraft, Half-Life, etc... most of
which went on actively and enthusiastically for years. It wasn't
uncommon to see 400-500 posts a day in most of those, for months at a
time sometimes.

So ok, I'm a bit late starting FO3... I've been mostly playing WoW and
Lord of the Rings Online for the past few years, but finally got
around to buying and starting to play this great, awesome game. It
soooo deserves its game of the year status, and then some. Ground
breaking stuff, in my opinion. Not without issues and shortcomings,
but all in all, in my top-5 of all the games I've ever played.

So, I figured I'd go and check out the game's usenet presence, and
chat with other enthusiasts of this great game about various and
sundry. So color me shocked, to see a mere 1600 or so posts to this
group, in the past *seven years*! A mild blurp of posts since FO3 came
out, peaking (more like a molehill than a peak, but I digress) around
last spring and summer and then completely dying with hardly a trace
and just the occasional vapid spam here and there.

What's up with that? I know FO3 is a single-player game with no online
multiplayer option, which I'm sure factors into its longevity and hold
on the average player's attention span, but still... I'm really amazed
that there isn't some decent-sized group of the more hardcore Fallout
fans continuing to discuss it somewhere. Is this not the best forum
for finding and talking with those people? Is there some other online
forum I'm not aware of, where people regularly congregate to discuss
the Fallout games?

Or is usenet finally dead, and I missed the funeral? Should I turn the
lights off on my way out?
-Sad and lonely in Usenetland

[David]

Post by Marshall
I'm kind of surprised, and definitely disappointed, at the total lack
of any ongoing community here, after a mere 1 year and 4 months since
the release of Fallout 3. I've spent vast amounts of time discussing
other games in their respective usenet newsgroups, including the likes
of Diablo, Diablo 2, World of Warcraft, Half-Life, etc... most of
which went on actively and enthusiastically for years. It wasn't
uncommon to see 400-500 posts a day in most of those, for months at a
time sometimes.
So ok, I'm a bit late starting FO3... I've been mostly playing WoW and
Lord of the Rings Online for the past few years, but finally got
around to buying and starting to play this great, awesome game. It
soooo deserves its game of the year status, and then some. Ground
breaking stuff, in my opinion. Not without issues and shortcomings,
but all in all, in my top-5 of all the games I've ever played.
So, I figured I'd go and check out the game's usenet presence, and
chat with other enthusiasts of this great game about various and
sundry. So color me shocked, to see a mere 1600 or so posts to this
group, in the past *seven years*! A mild blurp of posts since FO3 came
out, peaking (more like a molehill than a peak, but I digress) around
last spring and summer and then completely dying with hardly a trace
and just the occasional vapid spam here and there.
What's up with that? I know FO3 is a single-player game with no online
multiplayer option, which I'm sure factors into its longevity and hold
on the average player's attention span, but still... I'm really amazed
that there isn't some decent-sized group of the more hardcore Fallout
fans continuing to discuss it somewhere. Is this not the best forum
for finding and talking with those people? Is there some other online
forum I'm not aware of, where people regularly congregate to discuss
the Fallout games?
Or is usenet finally dead, and I missed the funeral? Should I turn the
lights off on my way out?
-Sad and lonely in Usenetland

I regularly read the group but there is little traffic and not much
worth a reply. I occasionally read the Nexus forums

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/modules/login/index.php?redirect=/modules/register/do_register.php

as well and use that site for downloading various mods.

Bring up a subject worthy of discussion and I will certainly join in.

[Marshall]

Post by David
I regularly read the group but there is little traffic and not much
worth a reply. I occasionally read the Nexus forums
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/modules/login/index.php?redirect=/modules/register/do_register.php
as well and use that site for downloading various mods.
Bring up a subject worthy of discussion and I will certainly join in.

Fair enough. I did go check out the Nexus site and forums, and they
look interesting and a bit more populated. But while I'm here, I'll
toss out a couple of my main questions.

I have the basic gameplay pretty well down, and I've gotten several
chars up to 20. Haven't finished the main storyline yet with any of
them, there's way too much to do and see still in the base game,
before I hit the 'done' button and move on to any of the DLC. I'm not
a very linear guy anyway, which is one of the reasons I love this game
so much :-)

Always being curious about underlying game mechanics, I've studied the
wikis and such to try to get the lowdown on how stats and stuff work
in the game, but most of it doesn't really tell you much... just
mirrors what the game itself tells you, if you bother to read and do
basic math. Some things that I can't seem to find anywhere in the
wikis, is info on crit percentages and the 'hidden' SPECIAL bonuses
which I suspect do exist, and aren't defined in the game literature
anywhere I can see.

Regarding crit percentages, is there any way of telling/knowing what
your base underlying crit% is, ingame? I know that you gain bonuses to
your crit% from one or more perks and the Luck stat, and perhaps other
things you aquire ingame that I'm unaware of yet... but reading in a
wiki that the Finesse perk adds 5% crit, doesn't tell me a lot unless
I know what my actual total crit% is beforehand. I mean, if my crit%
is already like 40% or something, then 5% from a perk is much less
important than if my base was only 5-10% to begin with!

I'm used to games where you can find out most of your base stats, so
you know what you're dealing with. Curious George :-)

And regarding the SPECIAL stats, their tooltips and the info I can
find about them, is pretty minimal. For instance, Agility- affects
small guns and sneak, and increases available VATS points. Ok, you can
see the obvious affects that putting a point into agility does... you
get 2 pts each to sm. guns and sneak, and some Action points. But I
have this nagging hunch that there's a whole lot more to these SPECIAL
stats, the bonuses they provide, and the things they affect, than just
that. For instance, how does your underlying crit% increase as you
level up, does it increase, and if it increases, does putting more
points in Agility affect that increase?

This is just the tip of the iceberg of all of the questions on this
kind of stuff that are rolling around in my brain during gameplay,
regarding how the game really works. If you have any knowledge along
these lines, or know of any truly informative links about this kind of
stuff, I'd be very grateful for your sharing, thanks!

[David]

Post by Marshall

Post by David
I regularly read the group but there is little traffic and not much
worth a reply. I occasionally read the Nexus forums
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/modules/login/index.php?redirect=/modules/register/do_register.php
as well and use that site for downloading various mods.
Bring up a subject worthy of discussion and I will certainly join in.

Fair enough. I did go check out the Nexus site and forums, and they
look interesting and a bit more populated. But while I'm here, I'll
toss out a couple of my main questions.
I have the basic gameplay pretty well down, and I've gotten several
chars up to 20. Haven't finished the main storyline yet with any of
them, there's way too much to do and see still in the base game,
before I hit the 'done' button and move on to any of the DLC. I'm not
a very linear guy anyway, which is one of the reasons I love this game
so much :-)
Always being curious about underlying game mechanics, I've studied the
wikis and such to try to get the lowdown on how stats and stuff work
in the game, but most of it doesn't really tell you much... just
mirrors what the game itself tells you, if you bother to read and do
basic math. Some things that I can't seem to find anywhere in the
wikis, is info on crit percentages and the 'hidden' SPECIAL bonuses
which I suspect do exist, and aren't defined in the game literature
anywhere I can see.
Regarding crit percentages, is there any way of telling/knowing what
your base underlying crit% is, ingame? I know that you gain bonuses to
your crit% from one or more perks and the Luck stat, and perhaps other
things you aquire ingame that I'm unaware of yet... but reading in a
wiki that the Finesse perk adds 5% crit, doesn't tell me a lot unless
I know what my actual total crit% is beforehand. I mean, if my crit%
is already like 40% or something, then 5% from a perk is much less
important than if my base was only 5-10% to begin with!
I'm used to games where you can find out most of your base stats, so
you know what you're dealing with. Curious George :-)
And regarding the SPECIAL stats, their tooltips and the info I can
find about them, is pretty minimal. For instance, Agility- affects
small guns and sneak, and increases available VATS points. Ok, you can
see the obvious affects that putting a point into agility does... you
get 2 pts each to sm. guns and sneak, and some Action points. But I
have this nagging hunch that there's a whole lot more to these SPECIAL
stats, the bonuses they provide, and the things they affect, than just
that. For instance, how does your underlying crit% increase as you
level up, does it increase, and if it increases, does putting more
points in Agility affect that increase?
This is just the tip of the iceberg of all of the questions on this
kind of stuff that are rolling around in my brain during gameplay,
regarding how the game really works. If you have any knowledge along
these lines, or know of any truly informative links about this kind of
stuff, I'd be very grateful for your sharing, thanks!

Sorry, I'm not a stats player. I'm interested in whether a particular
perk or stat contributes to my staying alive but beyond that I really
do not care. It is OK that you do, I just can't help you. I think I
did see some sort of discussion about that when I was attempting to
find out something concerning Broken Steel, which I didn't discover,
but which site it was on I'm not sure. Do a search on "broken steel
walkthrough pc" (no inverted commas) and it's in the first ten sites
somewhere.

Best of luck,

[Marshall]

Post by David
Sorry, I'm not a stats player. I'm interested in whether a particular
perk or stat contributes to my staying alive but beyond that I really
do not care. It is OK that you do, I just can't help you. I think I
did see some sort of discussion about that when I was attempting to
find out something concerning Broken Steel, which I didn't discover,
but which site it was on I'm not sure. Do a search on "broken steel
walkthrough pc" (no inverted commas) and it's in the first ten sites
somewhere.

Meh, I just hadn't scouted around the wiki well enough. Further
perusal brought up this page:
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Critical_Chance

Thanks anyways :-)