Clutter and Objects

[18THST]

Hello, This is my first post so it's probably reasonable to start by thanking some folks, like the admins, etc for maintaining this resource for the community at large. It's also reasonable I suppose to thank Bethesda for the release of their content to the community, it's players, tinkerer's, and mad mutants alike. Thanks most of all to the modders, maddest of all, who churn out all of the extra delightful stuff Bethesda forgot to discover.

Now that all of that is said, I've been tinkering with my game for a little while now. Plugging in mods, crashing my game looking to find those things that seem to fit with my sensibilities. FO3 is pretty wonderful, even in vanilla. It's a staggering amount of content shoe-horned into one world space. The number of links within the narrative that end up adding some little thing here or their is pretty astounding. I mean things like the Hubris Comics building exploration offers a dialogue point to the Antagonizer portion of the Superhuman Gambit quest if you read the editor notes. Or The intersection of Riley's Rangers and Sydney with the, Stealing Independence quest. All of which is great right out of the box. However the world space can be a little limiting after playing through a time or two. Hence mods, hence my long winded note here.

I would like to see of all things, more clutter. By this I'm not proposing density, as much as variation. Things like phone books, take-out containers, wagons, other animals skeletal remains. a more varied selection of boxes and containers. In some instances, items might be redone to represent a specific faction or carry some additional weight within the narrative.

Let's look at camera's first, they're inert tradeable junk. Frequently they're found in safes belonging to long dead subversive elements of the Red Chinese, several are also found in safes in Minefield. Was Minefield a hotbed of spies, spying on spies, or was it just the practice of people to clutter safes with their camera's? Newly designed clutter like a Chinese camera, knock off camera, or American camera's might help nudge the narrative in a direction without overwhelming whats in place. Camera's with downloadable images of DC prior to it's ruin, using the game engine could offer a new device for inserting miny stories into FO3 without breaking the current structure.

The metal containers throughout the game are sufficiently nondescript 50's style milk-boxes that get Alot of mileage as versatile pre and post-war storage devices. However enough paper has survived to make cardboard boxes surviving, a realistic container option. In places like Mama Dolce's or the Super Duper Mart they could be designed to reinforce product branding like, Cram or Blamco and still appear innocuous enough to be tucked next to a broken refrigerator in Greyditch.

An Item like a wagon possibly from the red racer factory could be simply clutter. It might also be used by wasteland scavengers, or even the PC to move around extra items in walk mode. Similarly a phone book might be inert or add a small historical scavenger quest to make it worthwhile. A physical paper map of the campgrounds or parks system surrounding downtown might be worthwhile. A lantern or candles would be excellent additions, as would something in the way of camping gear like Coleman stoves, or a sewing kit perhaps cobbled together from parts. Any of these items could be useful beyond being junk, yet as cast away items they might add a bit more diversity to the world we pick through.

Something like a toothbrush and toothpaste, yes every vault dweller would crave one in the wasteland of dental hygiene. But they're missing, even though they wouldn't need to be included as aids any more than a belt needs to be included as apparel. Coffee is likely a thing of the past, but tea would survive in the form of steeped roots, herbs, or bark. The darjeeling we know of, if found surviving in bag form would be highly prized, not unlike scrap metal or prewar money, it could simply be a trade item.

Telephone parts, how is it that after 200 years, every phone in the wasteland is still attached to its handset? or that such things haven't been repurposed as candle holders, coat racks or shower heads. Bicycle parts would be marvelous Gilligan's island items. Build an ad-hoc generator for powering the lantern by which you bake coconut cream pies for Grandma Sparkle. I installed FOOK2 a couple of days ago and discovered junkmail in a mail box. What a wonderful inclusion, now I check mailboxes again. I think you get what I'm after here, diversity and variation through trash and clutter.

Something I've also thought about, and for the life of me can't figure out why I've not seen one. A jet-pack. C'mon it's the future everyone should have a jet-pack, or at least the military should have had them. Robert Heinlein would sue his mother's left knee to see this happen so why not, make it so. If it cops out as being little more than a device for explaining fast travel, making fast travel impossible without one equipped, or even being used as a doorstop in Andale it would still improve my future immensely.

Then the Jukebox, this humble device really irritates me. If I'm at home and I have it on, I have to listen to 3Dog and his many broke down loops. Yes one Dog is too many after playing through and hearing Herbert Daring Dashwood ad nauseam. The extender mod is fine but a Wurlitzer-esque drop down HUD that allows you to switch between stations would be great. I could catch up on Eden or Agatha while dropping my stuff into storage, or even listen to something like IPIP maybe.

The last thing I think is artwork in game, posters etc. The vanilla game has a design that attempts to embrace the previous titles, it's poster are evocative of the Pipboy illustrations and in rare instances that a photograph is seen, its a still that utilizes the game engine. Sadly though most of the poster mods seem limited to replacing the vanilla images good or bad as they might be with Vargas girls, timely PSA's or even straight up pornography. On that note, cheeky as it may be, full blown porn draping the walls of DC's wasteland is something of a deal breaker regarding my immersion.

Instead, what I'd like to see is more being done to preserve the in game feel. I'd like to see more content, not content that is restricted to 12 images plastered throughout the entire wasteland. Can the wasteland be broken down so that such content shifts from zone to zone. Can photos hanging on walls or sitting on shelves be treated like the Civil War items and grabbed as trophies. Can Cuppa Joe adverts be found in Canterbury Commons while theater posters are in say, Georgetown.

I like the game and its depth. Its bleak commentary on contemporary culture is fascinating without being particularly didactic (depending on where you stand on the nature of nuclear annihilation as a story point). But its a toolbox without a screwdriver. As I experiment and break vanilla over and over again, I'm looking for those things that add a screwdriver without taking away my wrench. I don't need much beyond variety for this to happen. I'm not looking for the shiny new Nuka Cola Machine or a pristine house with a pool, these things reflect my existence here in the real world. My PC and me by extension are explorers, archeologists, in a world not our own. A new bit of clutter next to a toilet or on a table can provide all the reason necessary to keep playing and ruminating over this cynical world of micromanaged consumers trapped in a schlocky sci-fi doom. I hope you agree.

[bfg10k17]

I've seen here many good ideas, I agree most of them, but it vould be a hell of a work to get together what are you asking for. Sad, but the really good modders are pretty buisy whit whatever they doing, and they can't just sit and watch the ideas flowing in. Well if I would be a modder as I'm not (lol) I would definietly made something similar you asked for, but I don't have the skills, and the time for it.

(and sorry for the bad spelling [well if it was any hehehe] I'm still learning english)

[devdrago12]

I wonder if Regent Eagle would help do some of this in his mod- it IS a destroyable environment mod. I'm just a idea mkaer/requester, so I can't help much, but If you need idea help than I can help, but it looks you have all that worked out, lol. I do understand the whole "screwdriver with a wrench" concept, but I'm not sure what modders would be able to do it. Well, good luck- I'll help if I can!

[18THST]

Thanks to you both, BFG10k17 and devdrago12

I'm just throwing out what I see as a reasonable request, clearly tailored to my wants and desires for FO3. I'm not interested in developing more than clutter. Perhaps creating a list of potential items that could be modeled as clutter and potentially be seen as being redeveloped by others to expand larger ideas within the narrative.

I see it something like this, vanilla gives us a useless milk bottle on release. Modders receive that milk bottle and offer up several brahmin related dairy food modes that coincide with or can be folded into eat-sleep immersion mods, or cooking mods, or pack-brahmin mods. That milk bottle was useless to most of us on release. We grabbed those items and traded them to Moria until we could acquire a better gun. After that most of us ignored them and a few enterprising folks even managed to remove them and other "useless" clutter entirely from containers. Suddenly that milk bottle is a net benefit to the entire community, both as a pro and a con.

Although a jet-pack would be cool, c'mon.

[3rdtryguy]

New meshes & textures for all these things, then placing them all over the place?

WOW.

That would be epic in scope. You might find a few really good modders make some of these things and place them into their own mods, but putting them everywhere would be insane, if only because modding everything would cause mod conflicts like crazy. Still, I suppose this is doable, technically; all we need is someone with a LOT of time on his hands...

 

By the way, you really oughta save every camera you find. They actually become very useful at one point.

[18THST]

Thanks 3rdtryguy,

Probably not as epic as modding sexy outfits for Grandma Sparkle, I know. It's the stuff that's truly unremarkable and literally throwaway most, I know this too. I just think that by expanding the size of the toolbox without actually adding new tools limits the options of play. I see FO3 less as a vehicle for killing mutants and more in terms of it being a story engine with an attached economy. That being said the clutter makes the game. The guns and the armor merely facilitate the clutter's ability to be observed and collected for distribution into the economy of the game and thereby propelling the narrative forward.

More clutter, even as inert objects means more possibilities for modders to expand the games premise. I added the mod, DC interiors not long ago. It adds a fair amount of additional interactive clutter such as , Hula Girl statuettes, Robco toys, and collectable blocks and red balls. Most of its a bit cluncky. I thinks its the nav-meshes, not being a modder I'm not hip to the exact causes, but it likes to fall through floors and shelves and such. But the point is that it's there and because it is, it adds an additional dynamism to the overall play.

It's also occurred to me that the games economy could be more expansive. I realized my last play through in vanilla how limiting it is. Bethesda's, Morrowind and Oblivion had wonderfully full economies with engaging barter systems. FO3 lacks this completely. It also seems to lack a place to spend all of those caps you accumulate later in the game. Once you've acquired all of the furnishings for your player home, the PC simply doesn't need to spend money after that. Ammo, guns, armor are fairly easy to maintain or find. With the Pitt add-on ammo issue really do fall by the wayside. So what do you spend all of that money on? You can't upgrade your player home further, nor can you purchase a new one (in vanilla). You can't buy into more caravans. So you're limited by the economy.

I almost wonder if a countdown economy wouldn't be more challenging. The PC leaves 101 with say 7,000 caps, enough to outfit your home maybe purchase some weapons, or upgrade shop-keepers and caravans for better goods and exchange rates. Make all caps nearly non-existent in the actual physical world. No more 1 cap here, 6 caps there. Make acquiring them a necessity by trading goods. Even if those goods are shot glasses and metal plates at .5 caps a pop. Or better yet make the barter system truly a barter system one camera is equal to 2 .32 rounds of ammo and a shot glass.

By the way. I do actually enjoy sniping deathclaws. I don't want anyone to misapprehend that I dislike the game or it's state. I only wish aspects of it were, more challenging. These are merely my thoughts. So take them as you will, but be gentle. I'm still new here

[Tony the Wookie]

I will make you a deal

 

I will model and texture the items you need, if you do the rest of the work

[isgod101]

I want some f*cking toilet paper. Where is it? I've never seen it. What do they do after taking a crap? Just leave it there and hope the smell goes away soon? Spread their cheeks and wipe it on the wall? Wheres the toilet paper?

[spammster]

once your player had to drink from a toilet to recover HP he won't care bout crap (hell nobody in the entire wasteland takes a shower and it does look like a warm place, so you probably loose your sense of smell rather early.

[18THST]

Thanks again for the interest, isgod101, spammster, Tony the Wookie

Tony the Wookie, Didn't I see you involved with the Farming mod that was in development? I spent part of last week reading over those posts, great idea. Is it still rolling? By the way I hope, by the rest of the work you mean, I sit here and type about the importance of clutter. Otherwise I'll be wasting your time, being a low rent newb with barely the skills to set up my FOMM with my FOSE.

As per TP, not even a decent leaf in sight without the proper mod. You might think Hubris Comics would be overrun with traders selling pulp stock to folks tired of wiping with holo-disks.

thanks again