dragonpen61

I play female characters because I spend my whole live as a guy and like the change. I also prefer looking at my female characters as they run and do other things, taking screenshots of them, because to me they are more attractive. At times, just for a change, I have played male characters but it is rare. :thumbsup:

I am from Perth, Western Australia, population roughly just over one million Born in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia Grew up in Katherine and Darwin of the Northern Territory, Australia Lived in Coober Piedy (spelling?) in South Australia Lived now for over twenty years in Perth, Western Australia, most geographically isolated city in world from any other city. Lived in small company town called Camballin outside Derby also in Western Australia (American Company town) Gone around Australia once, half around a Australia once, a few times to Sydney and Melbourne and a few places overseas like UK and Indonesia. Haven't left Perth for a long time and might just spend rest of life here. Have lost travel bug in general but would perhaps like to travel as a writer or artist. Great topic and poll! Kudos!

Perhaps Vault-Tec is still secretly active? It would be interesting to find out that they had a second series of hidden 'real' vaults made and that 'VaultTec' are keeping secret surveillance going in all of the experimental vaults. Then they could learn from the experiments but still have people, settlers of a new world, surviving in the long term. Could form the basis of a whole new mod!?

Lisnpuppy, agree with most of what you say but still believe that true objectivity is impossible but is still a good objective to aim for anyway while being honest about one's subjectivity is important. being at a distance to achieve objectivity can create its own problems because the distance itself can cause problems as one becomes too removed or too reliant on second hand material. also, please define what do you mean by distance do you mean geographical, time or some kind of neutrality being too close can create its own problems because being too close means being swamped or biased or etc. History is problematic but for all that is still rich and very important. Best kind of history is one that is given full, open and free debate. I learned museum studies that spoke of how does one represent history through museum displays, artefacts etc. in a 'successful' manner. Trying to design museum displays that reflect as much realism, as much truth as possible while still being both entertaining and educational taught me much about the troubles of being a historian. That is because it turned out that creating an objective museum display was very difficult because the very limitations and nature of a museum display had its influence on the history being displayed. Museum artefacts actually become historically important objects by being defined as important museum pieces. The museum pieces become the pride and joy of a museum and become removed from their historical context like a 100 year old exhibit of a stuffed bison in my home town Museum of Western Australia, in Perth. Historical texts, such as famous books on history, gain a status of their own seperate from the history. One plans for objectivity but accepts subjectivity as a fact Or so I believe. Thanks for the opportunity to try to recall stuff that I learned back in the 1980s to 1990s but never really got around to using.

Getting all that stuff off my chest has gotten me feeling better about modding and I am going to start again from scratch. Calliton, I will get my info together and pass what I can onto you but for now all I can say is that I have been only doing basic colourations of new styling of textures through the use of Photoshop, that is the use of layering. I have over ten years of practice with Photoshop and am still learning new things about it. I could go deeper with my photoshop learning.

Can appreciate why some modders have left! Came recently into forums though I have been internet surfing for many years and found myself not sure what to write, especially with expressing ideas on new mod ideas. Got all excited and wrote down lots of ideas not thinking any harm would come of being maybe a bit silly. This this mostly in Fallout 3. Did my first texture mods, basic but artistic (I hope) but not, it seemed, fitting. Got mostly ignored except basically neutral one liners except for a couple of nice feedbacks (like drops of water in a desert and I have lived in a hard dry climate) but then came the negs, the nasties and I gave up, destroyed my textures and left Fallout 3 to go back to Oblivion. While still using the forum I stay away from any topics involving mods. Sillly thing is I have gamed for years, have been writing science fiction fantasy for years though am a bit rusty and getting back into it now after writer's block, did programming at one stage, did film and video studies including planning, and did come up with quite practical and good ideas that would make good mods with hopefully not too much effort. But still I do download mods and show any appreciation through my suggetions/feedback. Kudos to you who came up with this topic! And thanks to all those modders who added to the richness of the mods and I am sorry for those who left because of negative reactions.

I both like and go along with your vision of Oblivion's human civilization. It is both fascinating and very observant. I like the elf's view and biases though they might reflect more than those of the elf himself. Anyway, well done! Kudos to you!

I continue to love your writings! More kudos to you! Please keep on writing.

As somebody who studied hisotry including of how history is created etc. I would like to humbly say the following. I know it may all seem obvious but as a past active history shcolar at university and in private I can tell you that it is very easy to fall into various pit traps. History is not truly objective because it is near impossible for any historian to be truly objective and any who believes so is probably fooling him or herself. Historical records are lost or distorted through copying, translation etc. Many things that actually happened were not actually recorded especially when it came to the acitivities of more common peoples even if those actions were vital to the survival of an empire etc. Sometimes the teaching, broadcasting etc. of history is oppressed or even faked by regimes. (i.e. everybody knows we Russians invented the telephone etc.) The victor does often write the history. :wallbash: But for all of this the study of history is important and it is vital that history be taught to every new generation even if it is fairly recent history and done for more practical reasons. :thumbsup:

Bethesda has seemingly fallen to a quick profit path and it would not surprise if they did practices like getting rid of many of their programmers and having only a skeleton staff to do the testing. I hope that I am wrong about this because I truly do like their games. Good idea with the petition. Kudos to you for courage to say what you think.

Loved Doom and Doom 2. Found a randomising program that made all the monsters and items randomly placed through out the levels of Doom so that one could meet a big spider in the very first level or start a level with a dozen missile launchers waiting for one and so on. There were lots of great mods like one that turned a the demons into daleks, well I think it was the demons. Anyway you shot the daleks and they died, the top falling open with green goo dripping out. The horrible mod turned a devil into Barni the dinosaur and he would attack with his awful laugh. Endless Barnies would attack one and one would desperately kill them off. There was a way to turn Doom into the Simpsons, into an Alien scene (Aliens as in Riply) and even a cool Star Wars one that had a Death Star scene plus a few others. It was cool and though graphics were crude by today's standards, one could not climb up or down, it was a great introduction to modding. :thumbsup:

Excellent! I enjoyed all you wrote and found it heartening. I intend to read it again and to do so with all your future writings. Thank you for having the courage to write as you have done.

An odd little story to do with sex and censorship in computer games. The Australian Government had Duke Nukem censured so it could come into Australia but Australian customers could easily, unofficially, get a patch that removed the censureship. I got mine from the shop that sold me the game and had to only pay for the disk (floppy) that it came on. So much for censureship. love the :banana:

Perhaps there could be some kind of control on the game that allowed for varied levels of 'adult' content but what this would be, I am not sure, unless it is simply that if you want the changes you add certain mods (official or otherwise) or not or you have some kind of code. Still there is a big hypocrisy when it comes to nudity and sex versus ultraviolence. How far do people want to go? In Oblivion there was a mod with a female companion with actual sex animations that a male or female player character could be shown having sex with. Two basic positions only. Do people want to go that far? Also there is a difference between having sexual activity say with a prostitute character in a room in the game world and having naked, sexually overdone female monsters running around or naked girlie posters on public walls in DC Wastelands. What sort of adult content do people want? What about the danger of turning Fallout 3 into some kind of sex game? I would be curious to know. Love the :banana:

It is not how it started that really matters; it is how it is all going to end! Love the :banana: because I grew up in the tropics!

Our problems are all linked together. What happens in the Middle East will effect us all. We can't afford to ignore it or to try to make it somebody else's problem. The world gets smaller with every passing day. Love the :banana:

Somebody told me that from Vault 101 went three scouts into the DC Wastelands, which is backed up by some notes on the Overseer's terminals in his office (check them out just before you escape through his nifty secret ext under his metal desk) but also by some other evidence in the vault that I have yet to find. One scout came back but two staid out in the DC Wastelands to gain further information. I am going to try to find out just how real this idea is in the game and will post again if I find out more concrete evidence. Love the :banana:

Would agree except for one reason: As the story goes on in Vault 101 you learn that in truth the vault was only closed up by the Overseer after the main player (as a child) and her father were allowed into the vault. It is even stated by one of the rebels (Amanda) during the return to Vault 101 that the concept of nobody entering or leaving Vault 101 was a lie. If Vault 101's experiment was based on the principle of nobody leaves and nobody enters, then why were the main player character let in as an infant along with her father? Another point is that all the vaults would have had a period of letting nobody in or out as a logical part of waiting out the worst of the after effects of a nuclear war. Each vault could only sustain so many people and others would be far from welcome. Also others would have radioactive sickness and probably other illnesses that would threaten the vault dwellers. You would probably find that other vaults were locked against other people getting in, at least in a logical universe. That is why I think that the 'nobody gets in or out' policy is not Vault 101's experiment. Love the dancing banana: :banana:

The Israeli and Palestine conflict comes on the back of a very long history of hate and conflict but it can also be seen as being driven by fear as both the Palestinians see a future that is possibly grim for them. Actual violence is also driven by the extremists on both sides as moderates on both sides would rather see peace and some hope (perhaps too optimistically) for friendship one day. By their very nature such as Hamas and Zionists, who rose on the backs of past horrors and rage along with the foundation of creating and keeping a homeland at any cost in basically the same territories, are going to find it hard to even find a true common ground to meaningful negotiations. The Israelis are in a strong position but constantly find the need to use force (far too much as far as I am concerned but I can also see their desire to live with out terrorism from extreme Islamic groups who will not even accept that Israel has a right to exist.) and also rely on a large amount of American support. Only a massive sudden input of equipment and supplies saved the Israelis during one of their successful wars against the Arabs. What happens if the USA can no longer support them the way it has done, is doing today? Will Israel become desperate and carry out desperate actions? Israel has a hidden arsenal of nuclear weapons buried beneath the desert. Will it use them if driven into a corner? The Middle East is a powder keg ready to go off. I hope a positive solution is found to the Israeli Palestinian problem and that Obama can be part of that answer before anything terrible happens that will profoundly effect the whole world.

Does anybody else remember playing games like Doom and Doom 2 but also modding them? Sometimes I miss the mods on Doom/Doom 2 though they were often crude and basic compared to mods for Fallout 3. They sometimes were serious like the Star Wars mod that turned many Doom levels into a whole Star Wars story line inside the Death Star. This was actually well done for an early mod with only some problems. :starwars: There was a mod that turned one kind of big demon into a dalek. When you destroyed these the top split open and green ooze came out. The daleks went 'exterminate, exterminate' of course. Somehow I could not take this too seriously. :D Another one was quite good and based on the Alien/s movies complete with whole chambers like those from the space-ship in Aliens and the monsters of course. :sweat: I also miss some of the funny mods for Doom/Doom 2 such as the Simpsons mod that turned stimpacks into plates of donuts and various monsters into Simpsons characters. Fallout 3 and Oblivion could do well to have some funny mods to play with. :thumbsup: The oddest one was a mod that turned a type of monster into Barney (from the American children's show). I thought this was good fun to blow up. :banana: Modding is not a new thing!

Can you make semitransparent or transparent power armour? In Oblivion the glass armour was made transparent by one mod. As much a question as a request for a mod! :banana: :thanks:

Suggest a range of basic home made weapons. Others have made similar suggestions and I have also but here I wish to specify particular models. History (of our world) is full of weapons being re/constructed with low resources and with desperation such as the stengun, crossbows, Molotov cocktail, various 'zipguns' or 'piipeguns' as they have been called in different places. But why not focus more on the Fallout 3 history? I suspect many of these will be hard to put into practice. Flamer cocktail take an empty bottle, fill it with flamer fuel etc. find some way to ignite it and throw. Flamer grenade more sophisticated and expensive version of flamer cocktail Flamer mine Trigger a blast of flame. zip-pistol and zip-rifle Various types of different single shot zip-pistols firing 10mm, .32 and other but all having repair problems because of their make-shift construction. Exceptions being those made by local artisans with experience, skill and equipment. Perhaps these could be classed as fine weapons. zip-scatter as above but firing shotgun shells zip-launcher as above but firing missiles crossbow weapons basic crossbow fine crossbow crossbow-pistol (used to have one myself) taking a bit more skill but being lighter but less powerful and with smaller bolts causing less damage. repeating-crossbow (based on idea of real Chinese weapon used up until start of 20th Century.) Even more skill to make and heavier to carry but with faster firing rate Fixed box magazine of five (ten?) bolts. dart-crossbows versions of above firing darts instead of bolts. Less damage but darts easier to find. dart-tube type of blowgun firing darts (strictly speaking maybe wrong darts but this is a game). Shortbow, longbow firing arrows with varied arrowheads such as hunting, armour piercing, flaming and poisonous. Both bows and arrows could come in basic and fine forms. Arrowheads could vary in price and availability due to their complexity. Of course there would need to be artisans to make fine versions such as fletchers. Nukapult powerful hand-catapult using bb-pellets melted and moulded into catapult bullets. Side note: the DC Wastelands could also see the use of prewar hunting and sporting bows, crossbows and even catapults which could be easier preserved in many cases because of less complexity. cattleprod (others have suggested this in forums but I discussed it outside of forums with other gamers) copies made of prewar cattleprods being of different sizes and length. E-cell powered. zapprod fission battery powered more lethal version of cattleprod. kamikaze robot simply strap robot with explosives, send at enemy and then detonate or have timer. If robot is firing weapons as it moves, even deadlier. Has limited uses as, of course, robots are fairly slow moving and explosives make them more vulnerable. adjusted fire-axe sharpened and perhaps rebalanced fire-axe for fighting. Can not see why this was not in the original game as fire-axes are common in modern civilization. adjusted nailgun prewar carpentry nailgun altered to remove safety so as to fire at distance lighter damage than bullets but able fire rapidly from fixed magazines. explosive charge propelled or air compression (quieter) colour coded charges (based on real nailguns as in this world) savage paintball-gun paintball 'ammo' replaced by lethal projectiles of toxic radiated acidic gunk. problem with this is it might not fit into Fallout 3 world. Spiked baseball bat Like combination of baseball bat and spiked knuckle-busters. Not so good ideas that I have come up with when I have had not enough sleep, too much coffee and have been at the computer too long. Megaton A-Bomb Grenade Turning the Megaton A-bomb into grenade and throwing it at your enemies. As in 'I have been trying to lift this bomb for a year now and it ain't budged'. Mind you, the blast radius might also be problematic. Super Mutant Club Using one Super Mutant as a club to knock down other Super Mutants As in 'stop wriggling damn you, I am trying to hit your buddy over there.' No, I don't think Fawkes will go along with this one. Falling big things weapon Since, at least in my game, cars or robots sometimes fall out of the sky, why not have a wonder switch that makes this happen. Accuracy might be a problem as in 'sorry about that you bunch of innocent Wastelanders'. Or worse, 'Got you... oh no... aaaaahhh) Making enemies sit in water until they get lethal radiation sickness As in, 'What do you mean you are a ghoul and this doesn't hurt you? Blast, another 3 months wasted!' Or as in Lieutenant: 'I saw a flash of pink and then there was an explosion' Sergeant: "Sir, that was a deadly streaker missile!' Sorry about the bad jokes, please don't ban me! :whistling: PS: I am going to post this to another forum view also. Hope this is not a no no as I am still new to the forums. :thanks:

Doesn't have to be exact copies of particular anime shows/characters/outfits to be good. Anime fans could see the link and non-anime people could also appreciate the designs. Can be simply anime style armours, clothes etc. Could go extra well with such oriental character classes as ninja, triad thug or geisha girl even if they are altered to fit into Fallout 3 ethos. Just a thought!

Could be that Vault 101 was a experimental 'control group' that went wrong. In experiments (and testing) there is often a control group that is left alone so that it can be compared to other groups who are experimented with. (A group gets placebos while two other groups get real drugs.) You probably know this! Thus Vault 101's experience could be compared to those of other vaults that had actual experiments. This begs the question of how the results would be recorded and by whom? For example are there tiny hidden cameras and microphones in each vault, including Vault 101, and could this idea lead to a whole new deep conspiracy quest? On the other hand, sometimes I think that the vaults were set up to fail and to be somehow recorded (perhaps secretly somehow) but that the A bombs fell before everything was ready for Vault-Tec to do its dirty work. It annoys that Bethesda made Vault 101 the only successful vault in the DC Wastelands and even that was/is having troubles. By the way I have done university studies on such things as scientific methodologies and experimental procedures and the vault experiments idea is at best a dubious one. What would Vault-Tech or some force behind Vault-Tec hope to achieve from any data gained? Even if the data was gained its actual usefulness is questionable because of all the uncontrolled variables found in all the vaults. Oh well, its only a game! Anyway, just some thoughts.

It could also be overwhelmingly unbalanced. How do you kill thousands of feral ghouls and what ever else like them? Why not just add a few more packs of feral ghouls that only come out at night? Make them special in some way because in the night they have enhanced abilities of some kind. There is a mod called the Battle of Washington which sounded like a fine idea but, even with a reduced version called 'less troops', overwhelmed the game. For instance a whole lot of ghoul Chinese soldiers quickly killed all of the B-of-S guarding the GNR building and they were heavily armed and in power armour. I was there and all I could was run for it (actually I died the first time) and I was well armed and armoured with a powerful companion. Point is I will play that mod again but only when I have finished the whole game, with other mods, at least a couple of times. If I did play a mod as you propose it I would probably only play it the same way. I hope I did not offend.