xkcd

by **Chfan** » Sat Jan 16, 2010 5:22 pm UTC

Can someone just tell me how to make the CD work again? If I can't do that, I'm not going to torrent it, so I just won't play it. Which is my loss, I know, but I'd ather not be ina gray area. I'm the target suing age, you know.

by **gmalivuk** » Sat Jan 16, 2010 5:38 pm UTC

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=fixing+a+scratched+cd

Toothpaste, apparently.

by **Vaniver** » Sat Jan 16, 2010 7:27 pm UTC

gmalivuk wrote:http://lmgtfy.com/?q=fixing+a+scratched+cd

Toothpaste, apparently.

gmalivuk, I think that's my new favorite site. Thank you.

by **Axman** » Sat Jan 16, 2010 8:20 pm UTC

HOLY TITS THANK YOU.

For the website, because I already knew how to fix a CD. After toothpaste, polish with Brasso.

by **Chfan** » Sun Jan 17, 2010 2:58 pm UTC

I just don't trust Google with my game CDs. Do you really think toothpaste would work? Or will I have to burn a new one?

by **SecondTalon** » Sun Jan 17, 2010 4:34 pm UTC

Chfan wrote:I just don't trust Google with my game CDs. Do you really think toothpaste would work? Or will I have to burn a new one?

Right now, you have a nonworking CD. Worst-case scenario after trying to fix it.... You have a nonworking CD.

by **Chfan** » Sun Jan 17, 2010 5:26 pm UTC

I'll try burning it, and if it doesn't work then I'll do the toothpaste thing.

by **gmalivuk** » Mon Jan 18, 2010 2:43 am UTC

Burning it from what? If your CD doesn't work to install, I doubt it's going to be readable enough to copy, if that's what you're talking about...

by **Toeofdoom** » Mon Jan 18, 2010 3:09 am UTC

I think I remember burning a cd working once, the burning program gives it a few tries at reading the data or something?

by **Chfan** » Mon Jan 18, 2010 11:39 pm UTC

The HowTo article from Google said that burners can often read them or read them more than once. So I'm going to try it and stop derailing.

by **Chen** » Thu Feb 25, 2010 5:19 pm UTC

So I installed all the DLCs and FOOK/MMM and have been playing this again and its a hell of a lot of fun. FOOK is definitely a great addon for the game. I did have to add a mod to slow down xp gain because its WAY too fast if you have the increased spawns mod (part of MMM). I'm already at level 19ish and have just gotten the quest to go through little lamplight. I've done a lot of side quests and operation anchorage, but none of the other DLCs so I may install an even slower XP gain mod. I really found the game ends up losing appeal once you cannot continue leveling. Breaking the level cap though just tends to make things too easy (or unstable).

I am definitely liking increased ammo cost and the feeling of scarcity of some of them. There has to be a really large threat before I pull out my 14 mm pistol to try and kill things because each of those damn bullets is valuable.

by **Decker** » Thu Mar 11, 2010 7:36 pm UTC

Mild necromancy to retell how awesome this game is.
Yesterday I spent a good while slowly sneaking through a town full of landmines, with a psycho sniper taking shots at cars nearby me, making them explode. I camped out in one of the empty houses until nightfall. Then I sneaked out under the cover of darkness and popped the old psycho with a hunting rifle.
The day before, I was walking into super-duper mart when three Talon Company mercs accosted me. I ducked behind a pillar, loaded up a sawed-off shotgun I had just gotten, and took one of them out with two blasts to the head. I backpeddald while I was reloading. One was chasing me with a knife, the other was unloading at me with a machine gun. I took cover behind an old bus while I tried to deal with the one knifing me. Then I realised I did something very, very stupid.
The bus exploded. It finished off the one that was attacking me and left me with about two bars of health left. I ducked behind some rubble hoping that the machine gunner wouldn't finish me off right away.
Luckily for me, I found him buried underneath the debris from the exploded bus.

Note to self, check to make sure your cover dosn't contain a nuclear core.

by **Chen** » Thu Mar 11, 2010 8:29 pm UTC

Yeah I've learned to pretty much never go anywhere near cars. Too much of a risk of horrible death. I installed some mod that increases spawns (I think its part of MMM) and man with the new stuff they added in FOOK a spawn of like 6 enclave is a bitch to take out. Nothing seems to penetrate armor anymore so killing a stupid Enclave soldier in full power armor is a real pain. Opening up with a full clip from the unique minigun from the Riley's Rangers quest seems to work well along with a nuka grenade or two. After that some sort of energy weapon or those ridiculous 14 mm pistols are good for finishing them off. The only flaw tends to be that with that much firepower at them you tend to destroy their power armor completely. Had to carefully use Vats to constantly shoot one in the head so I could get his Tesla armor.

Also without mods, do sniper rifles always fire a tracer? Or is it only every few shots? I can't recall if its the addons I'm using or if its the default behavior, but when its only every few shots its a real pain to line up long range non-vats sniper kills.

by **SecondTalon** » Thu Mar 11, 2010 8:35 pm UTC

I think it's every shot by default. All Bullets Are Tracers and all.

Yesterday, in Point Lookout, I was blasted across a creek by an exploding car. I lived.

Bad

Ass.

Though the Chinese Stealth Suit feels like cheating. Not that I'm going to stop wearing it, mind you... Chinese Stealth Suit + Confederate Hat = I giggle just looking at myself.

That said, anyone else have a problem where (after Broken Steel is installed) Three Dog seems to think you've beaten the original game when you haven't? He keeps talking about free clean water for everyone except.. I haven't purified it yet.

by **Chen** » Fri Mar 12, 2010 1:31 pm UTC

SexyTalon wrote:I think it's every shot by default. All Bullets Are Tracers and all.

Hmm must be FOOK2 then. I guess I'll need to tinker with it.

That said, anyone else have a problem where (after Broken Steel is installed) Three Dog seems to think you've beaten the original game when you haven't? He keeps talking about free clean water for everyone except.. I haven't purified it yet.

I've had this happen. Were you high level? Some things in Broken Steel (like Hellfire armor enclave) seem to be triggered by your level so it might be related to that.

by **gmalivuk** » Fri Mar 12, 2010 3:10 pm UTC

Chen wrote:Yeah I've learned to pretty much never go anywhere near cars. Too much of a risk of horrible death.

That's why I try to blow up all cars before I get to them.

I should play through sometime with one of the mods that makes combat harder. So far, I've been playing the opposite way: since vanilla combat becomes superfluous as soon as you get a plasma rifle anyway, I decided to hell with it and cobbled together some mods to put some ridiculous weapons in a box right outside of Vault 101. My favorite two have to be the Liberty Prime laser (which is already in the game and just has to be duplicated and attached to some handheld weapon) and the orbital nuke pistol (which has damage like a mini-nuke launcher, but the projectile has an orbital nuke model instead, and uses 10mm ammo). These do add an interesting difficulty that doesn't exist in the vanilla version, because shooting at anything too close to me is deadly on account of areas of effect.

What are other folks' favorite location mods? I've tried a few, and my favorite so far has to be Arefu Expanded. The design and aesthetic fits nicely with the existing Arefu community, plus you get a really kick-ass personal vault as a reward for finishing a couple of the included quests. Reykjavik, on the other hand, which also has good reviews on the Fallout Nexus, fails to work for me since I can't even get from the dock to where the quest is supposed to continue. Of course, I definitely understand how much more difficult it is to create a completely new area than to simply add some structures to an existing one, so I'm willing to cut the author some slack (same with the Global Travel System mod, though there I'm additionally frustrated with the author's apparent raegquaat and I'm-taking-my-toys-and-going home reaction to what he perceived as too little interest from other modders...).

by **SecondTalon** » Fri Mar 12, 2010 3:34 pm UTC

Busworld, I think it's called. Makes all those buses and trains and such have interiors. Only real problem I've found is that the person who made it isn't a native English speaker. And when you find the quest associated with it... oh man is it obvious the text was just run through babelfish or something similar.

{I'm also going to throw up a recommendation for Existence 2.0 radio. It's a really, really awesome compliment to the Dunwich building, and basically changes the rest of the game's tone to "Oh, this shit actually is pretty fucked up".. I mean, one of the DJ's chatter bits is something to the effect of "This next song is dedicated to everyone who has died in the time it took me to formulate, speak and broadcast this sentence."}

by **gmalivuk** » Fri Mar 12, 2010 3:42 pm UTC

Yeah, I should get more of the radio mods as well. Another thing that's included in Arefu Expanded is, once you get to your personal vault, there's a very nice playlist that starts broadcasting from there with other pre-war stuff (kind of similar to the GNR genre, but without Three Dog's incessant and repetitive chatter).

To make use of bus and train interiors, I'd probably have to start a new game, since due to the aforementioned safety measure, pretty much any of the ones that can be blown up have already been blown up. (Though of course the ones in the subways can't be, so those might be neat even in my current saved game.)

by **SecondTalon** » Fri Mar 12, 2010 11:33 pm UTC

Indeed. The quest is also located in a subway car and involves a group of ghouls that .. apparently learned English from a German>English dictionary. And being polite, you emulate their language perfectly.

by **SurgicalSteel** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 9:06 pm UTC

Quick question to people who played the earlier Fallout games. Does anyone remember if you had body part specific damage in the earlier games like you do in Fallout 3? I remember in Fallout 2 you could attack different body parts of the enemies, so enemies had body part specific damage, but I don't remember if it was in the first game as well, or if the player had it too. I'd install them and just check myself but they seem to crash out on my Win7 machines. Thanks.

by **headprogrammingczar** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 11:07 pm UTC

That feature was a staple of all three games.

by **SurgicalSteel** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 11:48 pm UTC

Thanks for the info.

by **SummerGlauFan** » Tue Mar 23, 2010 3:37 am UTC

Yeah, my favorite mods are FOOK, MMM (freaking ghoul regeneration...), the Beauty Pack, and Arefu Expanded. There was a cool one that gave you a lightsaber, but FOOK seems to hate it. There are a ton of awesome radio mods too, one I found pretty funny was a super mutant radio station (it's called something like "talk thing with Cruck," though I don't have it on my current computer).

edit: Oh, my, I keep finding new things this filter does. Hehe...

by **Vaniver** » Sat Mar 27, 2010 1:23 am UTC

jenisebhruvel wrote:Esentially yes. although they share the same engine, the one used for fallout 3 is a modified version. I've talked to many people on the subject and it seems like I'm not the only one who is having a hard time getting into Fallout 3 due to its extreme similarity to Oblivion. It's still fun, especially up until you leave the volt. I loved the game design that went into introducing you to the gameplay and in letting you choose your character. It just seems like more of a God for Oblivion than an entire new and interesting game which makes me keep setting it aside for Far Cry 2 and Left 4 Dead.

I liked the Oblivion engine the first time for expansiveness and fidelity of its environments. But it does feel dated now and while Fallout 3 is an update version it still feels like oblivion in terms of vis, plus some of the effects were not that polished. I didn't really like some of the wind wisp effects, they didn't seem to blend well.

I agree with this some, but to me Fallout feels more natural and Oblivion feels more like Fallout Without Guns. But Oblivion did come first, and regardless it is clearly a Bethsoft game instead of a Black Isle game.

by **TheSweetKill** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 1:33 am UTC

Check out my Mods for Fallout 3 on:

http://www.fallout3nexus.com/modules/me ... id=2198917

Try my guns

by **SecondTalon** » Mon Feb 21, 2011 3:33 am UTC

If they were anything but cheatsticks, I probably would. Thought the heavy incinerator variant looks interesting. Might fit in with the Warhammer 40k Power Armor...

by **emceng** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 2:10 pm UTC

So how many of you have played with a melee heavy character? I just started one, and it is much more difficult. One thing though. I had a much stronger reaction when killing things, specifically dogs. Before I'd just grab my rifle or 9mm or whatever, and pop them. Next enemy please! Bludgeoning them to death with a baseball bat? Disturbing.

by **Menacing Spike** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 2:26 pm UTC

emceng wrote:So how many of you have played with a melee heavy character? I just started one, and it is much more difficult. One thing though. I had a much stronger reaction when killing things, specifically dogs. Before I'd just grab my rifle or 9mm or whatever, and pop them. Next enemy please! Bludgeoning them to death with a baseball bat? Disturbing.

If you have operation anchorage:
Shoot the sword out of the chinese boss dude's hand, pick it, glitch it out of the simulation (method was dragging a body so you can activate it while you are exiting the machine before simulated objects disappear).
You now have a ridiculously overpowered thunder sword. Have fun!

Melee is also far more amusing with the bloody mess perk.

*knife poke*
*BOOOMSPLAT*

by **The Sleeping Tyrant** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 3:48 pm UTC

Menacing Spike wrote:
emceng wrote:So how many of you have played with a melee heavy character? I just started one, and it is much more difficult. One thing though. I had a much stronger reaction when killing things, specifically dogs. Before I'd just grab my rifle or 9mm or whatever, and pop them. Next enemy please! Bludgeoning them to death with a baseball bat? Disturbing.

If you have operation anchorage:
Shoot the sword out of the chinese boss dude's hand, pick it, glitch it out of the simulation (method was dragging a body so you can activate it while you are exiting the machine before simulated objects disappear).
You now have a ridiculously overpowered thunder sword. Have fun!

You don't actually need to glitch it out of the simulation. You find a copy in the armory once the simulation is done; it's sitting on the shelf behind the power armor. Along with the ridiculously fun stealth armor.

by **Menacing Spike** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 4:02 pm UTC

The Sleeping Tyrant wrote:
Menacing Spike wrote:
emceng wrote:So how many of you have played with a melee heavy character? I just started one, and it is much more difficult. One thing though. I had a much stronger reaction when killing things, specifically dogs. Before I'd just grab my rifle or 9mm or whatever, and pop them. Next enemy please! Bludgeoning them to death with a baseball bat? Disturbing.

If you have operation anchorage:
Shoot the sword out of the chinese boss dude's hand, pick it, glitch it out of the simulation (method was dragging a body so you can activate it while you are exiting the machine before simulated objects disappear).
You now have a ridiculously overpowered thunder sword. Have fun!

You don't actually need to glitch it out of the simulation. You find a copy in the armory once the simulation is done; it's sitting on the shelf behind the power armor. Along with the ridiculously fun stealth armor.

Yeah but it has like 1/10 the damage of the simulation one and breaks when you swing it too hard.

by **The Sleeping Tyrant** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 8:21 pm UTC

Menacing Spike wrote:
The Sleeping Tyrant wrote:
Menacing Spike wrote:
emceng wrote:So how many of you have played with a melee heavy character? I just started one, and it is much more difficult. One thing though. I had a much stronger reaction when killing things, specifically dogs. Before I'd just grab my rifle or 9mm or whatever, and pop them. Next enemy please! Bludgeoning them to death with a baseball bat? Disturbing.

If you have operation anchorage:
Shoot the sword out of the chinese boss dude's hand, pick it, glitch it out of the simulation (method was dragging a body so you can activate it while you are exiting the machine before simulated objects disappear).
You now have a ridiculously overpowered thunder sword. Have fun!

You don't actually need to glitch it out of the simulation. You find a copy in the armory once the simulation is done; it's sitting on the shelf behind the power armor. Along with the ridiculously fun stealth armor.

Yeah but it has like 1/10 the damage of the simulation one and breaks when you swing it too hard.

Really? I'll defs have to check that then.

by **illiterati** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 10:44 pm UTC

Fallout 3 is a god among modern rpg/fps hybrids. Actually, it may just be a game-god in general. Am curious, however, if others have found New Vegas to be as engrossing? I find myself still addictively playing F3 while New Vegas sits idly on the shelf. I'm not sure if its a dilemma of differing atmosphere, variations in game play or myself just being an elitist bitch who's unwilling to give New Vegas a chance to sink in. Thoughts? I somewhat hope it's the latter and that New Vegas will be awesome next time I give it a chance. Otherwise, i'd surely like to see more expansions for F3. Perhaps apocalyptic Amish communities. :twisted:

by **Vaniver** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 10:48 pm UTC

illiterati wrote:I'm not sure if its a dilemma of differing atmosphere, variations in game play or myself just being an elitist bitch who's unwilling to give New Vegas a chance to sink in. Thoughts? I somewhat hope it's the latter and that New Vegas will be awesome next time I give it a chance.

I found New Vegas more enjoyable than FO3. I recommend playing at least until you hit New Vegas. Your mileage may vary.

by **illiterati** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 11:06 pm UTC

Vaniver wrote:
illiterati wrote:I'm not sure if its a dilemma of differing atmosphere, variations in game play or myself just being an elitist bitch who's unwilling to give New Vegas a chance to sink in. Thoughts? I somewhat hope it's the latter and that New Vegas will be awesome next time I give it a chance.
I found New Vegas more enjoyable than FO3. I recommend playing at least until you hit New Vegas. Your mileage may vary.

Really? Hm...I shall keep this in mind. I really want to enjoy New Vegas but I couldn't immerse myself in it for some reason. Does the storyline pick up quite a bit when you hit the actual New Vegas city?

by **Vaniver** » Thu Apr 07, 2011 11:14 pm UTC

illiterati wrote:Really? Hm...I shall keep this in mind. I really want to enjoy New Vegas but I couldn't immerse myself in it for some reason. Does the storyline pick up quite a bit when you hit the actual New Vegas city?

Yes. The storyline changes from "hey, someone put a hole in my head, I probably ought to do something about that" to "my actions are determining how this conflict between factions plays out." Going from the narrow path to New Vegas to being able to go anywhere makes for a rather large difference.

It seems to me like the charm of the game is mostly in the side quests and the factions. The side quests seem about as good as FO3. The factions seem much more like FO2 than FO3- the Brotherhood of Steel are dicks again, for instance, instead of white knights- and that can be somewhat demotivating for someone used to working for nice people. (Every way to end the game, for example, requires killing a group or person I didn't want to kill.)

by **Chen** » Fri Apr 08, 2011 1:21 pm UTC

While I loved Fallout 3, New Vegas was a much better game. There is still a ton of places to explore (which I was originally worried about) and the quests/factions just feel much more fleshed out. I had downloaded one weapon mod (Reloaded I think) and it added a good amount of challenge to the game by dramatically increasing weapon damage. I haven't really played any of the New Vegas DLC though yet. I did kinda get tired of it after finishing it with all the endings. Still thats 4 separate playthroughs which is pretty damn good IMO.

by **SecondTalon** » Fri Apr 08, 2011 2:02 pm UTC

Let's say you aren't Revenge Oriented. That's okay - you can wander around and not ask anyone about the Courier jobs and the people who passed through and for the most part you can get through the game without it ever really coming up. Even in the showdown with the guy who shot you, you can still ignore the whole revenge thing and get various endings that attempt to satisfy. As the game is mostly about everything *but* the Main Quest, and the Main Quest feels like something you do when you're not sorting out Boone's head or making Raul feel useful or whatever, this kinda works out.

Then again, maybe the game feels like it's about everything *but* the main quest because the main quest is so bland and uninteresting.

Compared to Fallout 3, though.... I don't know. Fallout 3 is way the hell more oriented to it's main story which means that if you have any issues at all with the main story, you can't really ignore them. Certain enemies only show up after checkpoints are passed, you gain neat skills (read:PowerArmor) only after a Main Story checkpoint is passed, as opposed to New Vegas's side quest(s) that teach it to you. But mostly.. you leave the Vault not because you're told or because you necessarily want to, but because Your Dad left and you want to find out what happened.

So what happens if you think your Dad is a douchebag and you just want to get out and see the world? You... don't really progress on the main story.

It's basically a good way of looking at the East/West Storyline/OpenEnded RPG Divide - Do you want a detailed engaging story that to get the most out of you have to sacrifice your own roleplaying and resign yourself to playing a particular kind of person (East, Fallout 3) or do you want an open ended world where you have to go digging to find the stories but at the end of the day you aren't quite sure what you've accomplished and if there was even a point to it all (West, New Vegas).

by **SirBryghtside** » Fri Apr 08, 2011 10:35 pm UTC

I started playing this game around a month ago, and I have done one mission for main quest. I went to Rivet City, found out something about my dad, and blasted through a Super Mutant Den. Then I found out where he was, but not where the Vault was... I've spent the whole time screwing around exploring. And you know what?

I couldn't play it any other way

I'm having so much fun on a constant hunt for ammo, supplies, better weapons... it's just so much more fun, unpredictable, and exciting than games where I'm told what to do. Almost reminds me of when I used to play Morrowind when I was seven... *reminisces*

by **emceng** » Mon Apr 11, 2011 3:20 pm UTC

Ok some rambling on why I think FO3 was better than New Vegas. - probably spoilers if you haven't beaten both

First off, the bugs. Both had them, but I didn't have to turn off my 360 all the damned time on FO3. The environment - maybe I liked everything being gray instead of everything being brown. Either way, I liked wandering the Capital wastes. The Mojave, not so much. Enemy respawns felt too quick in NV. I liked the repair system in NV better. Deathclaws became ridiculously overpowered, for no apparent reason. There were more options with factions in NV, but I didn't give a damn about most of them. 'Hardcore' added difficulty, but not an ounce of fun. It became drudgery making sure I had enough food and water all the time.

God dammit. Twice now I have accidently hit the back button and it ate my post. I'll update this later.

Also, stealth was gimped horribly in NV.

by **Technical Ben** » Mon Apr 11, 2011 3:52 pm UTC

Vaniver wrote:
jenisebhruvel wrote:Esentially yes. although they share the same engine, the one used for fallout 3 is a modified version. I've talked to many people on the subject and it seems like I'm not the only one who is having a hard time getting into Fallout 3 due to its extreme similarity to Oblivion. It's still fun, especially up until you leave the volt. I loved the game design that went into introducing you to the gameplay and in letting you choose your character. It just seems like more of a God for Oblivion than an entire new and interesting game which makes me keep setting it aside for Far Cry 2 and Left 4 Dead.

I liked the Oblivion engine the first time for expansiveness and fidelity of its environments. But it does feel dated now and while Fallout 3 is an update version it still feels like oblivion in terms of vis, plus some of the effects were not that polished. I didn't really like some of the wind wisp effects, they didn't seem to blend well.
I agree with this some, but to me Fallout feels more natural and Oblivion feels more like Fallout Without Guns. But Oblivion did come first, and regardless it is clearly a Bethsoft game instead of a Black Isle game.

I could swear they use the same music. The same music! Plus a lot of monsters seem carbon copies too.
No problem with the art or game, but really, using such blatant rip offs seems lazy IMO.

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