Best way to play?

[Grinch843]

Hi, just picked back up with FO3 about 2 weeks ago, started it when it first came out, but never finished. I was wondering how's they safest way to play? Is it ok to just run around and explore or should you stick to the quest lines? Can you break any of the quests by just running around, ie, find a place you're not supposed to find until later on or shoot someone that you were supposed to talk to in a quest? As for the DLC, I've got all of them installed, is there a specific order you should access these? I was messing around tonight and ran into a spaceship, guess that's the start of mothership zeta? Wasn't sure if it would mess anything up so I restarted from a earlier quicksave and bypassed the ship for now. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

Thanks,

 

Grinch843.......

[psychosomatic]

I've just finished my third game, 1st was a straight play through very few mods (as there were not too many out then), 2nd run was with more mods & 1st 2 DLC as they started coming out (game died, too many mods), and I just finished the 3rd with all the DLC and a few mods I've come to regard as essential.

 

I'd do Op Anchorage first, good way to kit up and you get power armour training, The Pitt I don't think was that hard. I'd level a bit before Broken Steel & Point Lookout, they can be a bit rough for a low level character. Zeta, meh, whatever. I don't know how hard it was as I played through at lvl 23 and it was only a little challenging.

 

(I should add that I use a mod that only gives I think 10% of experience, so I can explore the crap out of the wasteland. I have currently finished every quest, main, side and DLC and have all but a few things (ie

Keller tapes/fat boy MIRV

and I'm only level 24, I like to explore.

 

I'm now doing my fourth game which I plan to mod fairly heavily, as some of the mods mature a bit more, plus DLC. Should take a while, but I've a few other games to play first.

 

Enjoy.

 

PS - I don't think you can break things by exploring, there was an annoying as heck bug that affected start of BS & Scribe Rothschild, but if it happens look for his name on this site - a fix is available.

[Honeybiscuit]

Yea I also played it through the story mode, that went quick I am now playin again combing every crack there is. the best way to see where u have been is look at local map instead of world map and dude youll bee there awhile,lol

[isgod101]

You can skip part of the main quest by going to a top secret location.

[Xenobuzz]

You can skip part of the main quest by going to a top secret location.

 

Yes! This happened to me during my second play-through and thankfully, I'd saved just a few steps back.

 

You would definitely want to make sure that you save before opening certain doors. . .

 

I would also highly recommend never sleeping, nor doing any of the side or unlisted quests that only award xp. As I mentioned before, I just finished my second play-through, and even doing all these things, I still topped out level-wise right before Zeta (and Zeta's pretty large).

 

Dave S.

[Grinch843]

Yeah, I'am using MMM and found I jumped to level 14 in a hurry so I grabbed a slow leveling mod and I'am just kinda roaming around. I just finished the wasteland survival guide quest and a few other smaller ones. As for the main quest, I just got to rivit city, this is where I stopped at the first time I played so everything from here on is new. Anyone know the actual number of Side quests main quests including the DLC?

 

 

Grinch843......

[psychosomatic]

All that follows is a semi-educated guess.

 

Maybe 10 MQ fallout, 20 serious side quests. Plus bobbleheads and whatnot.

 

O:A and The pitt...I don't know, it's more how long they take to finish. Then they over. Broken Steel is similar, 2 side quests plus the main.

Also MZ - there are no real side quests though.

 

Point Lookout is the sweetest. Main quest, plus heaps of other stuff. Don't know how many.

[0borderline]

With DLC like Operation Anchorage and The Pitt, you can only play their quests through once, though you can return to The Pitt afterwards. I read somewhere in an interview that Fallout 3 was intended to be played multiple times - in other words, you won't do everything the first time around. I'm on my fourth playthrough on Xbox (having PC problems), and I'm still finding new things.

 

The first thing I would recommend is not to do what I did with Oblivion, which is to download mods before you've finish the game. Essentially, I ruined my game by having too many unfair or non-realistic items.

 

Secondly, I would recommmend against the Swift Learner and Here and Now perks. They sound useful, but essentially they're worthless because of the level cap.

 

Thirdly, it's hard to know who's essential to a quest and who's not. Generally, my rule is - if their individualy named, leave them alone. My last piece of advice is to not sell any rare or unusual items straight away. For Example, Nuka-Cola Quantums are needed for a side-quest, so saving them is a good idea.

[evilneko]

What's the best way to play a role-playing game?

Why, role-play! Who cares if you screw up a quest? The question is, was it fun?

[puddington]

Exploration, as far as I am aware, is perfectly safe. You run the rather slim risk of maybe skipping a couple steps in the main quest, but nothing outright breaks that I am aware of.

 

Personally, I try to avoid using fast travel. You get more loot and xp that way, and it lets me take full advantage of the hunger/thirst/sleep package that I use. I still find myself using it occasionally when I have moments like when I realize how long the first trip back to Megaton from Rivet City will take me in real time, though. That is a long walk, and everything along the way was killed by me on the way up, so that leaves me with a long walk that I won't really derive any particular excitement or profit from. That's when I use fast travel.

 

As for the DLC, people pretty much covered it I think. If you did Mothership Zeta early into the game, the only thing it would "break" that I can think of is that you'd have a bunch of really awesome energy weapons at a time when the base game only has laser pistols to offer you normally.