The Potomac River

[ThomasCovenant]

The RL Potomac River is way bigger than that little stream that's in the game.

 

Someone didn't do their homework.

 

Even if the river's size was reduced through erosion in 270 years, the channel would be a lot deeper.

 

So, in 270 years it never(?) rained nor snowed. Come on...bs.

 

The area of DC was once a swamp/wet lands. With no one caring for the land, it would revert to it's natural state.

 

I work for a place that has concrete side walks and an asphalt parking lot. The concrete has only been where it is for 12 years and already it is cracked and broken, same for the asphalt. In 270 years grass and weeds would reign supreme. You'd never know that there was ever any concrete nor asphalt.

 

What has stopped the inhabitants of the 'wasteland' from burning every scrap of wood in existence, every bit of paper, every tire?

Is there, really, that many weapons and ammo in DC that every body for 270 years can own/steal a gun, operate it w/o training, never cleaning it, and still have it operational?

If the fallout is still falling out, radio would not work, nor would robots(unless properly protected), nor computers.

Why are there gas stations? The FO3 cars ran on Nuclear power. ha...this then bugs me...I would NEVER have driven one of those cars. They were unsafe at any speed. Fire a pistol at a RL car will not make it explode, depending on where you hit it. No matter where you hit a FO3 car, it explodes just like a small tactical nuke.

 

Spoiler Alert! When the FEV runs out, and it will, no more super mutants. None of them are smart enough to make more of the FEV and in that vault there are no full containers. BTW if they are that stupid, how do they know how to do anything?

 

For being a scientist, your dad is a stupid man. Why aren't you allowed to tell your stupid dad that the vault people tried to kill you just because he left.

There aren't enough dialog choices.

 

Any way back to the original topic. Even with erosion, the topography of the DC area is all wrong. Only the basic shape of the river and it's length appear to be spot on.

 

Please don't attack me for 'voicing' my opinion.

[evilneko]

All been said. Now please, paraphrase the MST3K Mantra. Or, if you prefer, Bellisario's Maxim. Also, do bear in mind the Rules of Cool and Fun.

[Fatalmasterpiece]

The lack of sunlight and permeating radiation could help to keep grass and foliage from growing back over much of the area. Of course, this would probably spell the death of everyone in the area within 50 years but... that's besides the point. HOwever the water should probably return to the area if not pumped out regularly, levy breaking, retaining walls cracking etc...

 

It would make sense for the robots to be EM shielded given the paranoid stance of the people making them... but the radios, yeah...

If the car's are nuclear, shooting them shouldn't make them blow up. You could shoot an atomic bomb all day and nothing should happen besides possibly giving yourself radiation poisoning. The cars blowing up can only be explained by that they must run on nitroglycerin or this "cool factor".

 

The rest of your points are pretty much true indeed...

Edited February 15, 2011 by Fatalmasterpiece

[7thsealord]

Some valid points, certainly. Noting that this was a built-up area subjected to multiple nuclear strikes.

 

Those heaps of rocks all over the place? I'm guessing that a lot are / were actually the pulverized and weathered remnnants of structures. Kind of post-ruin ruins, so to speak. Multiple nuclear strikes could have also caused a spell of tectonic activity (earthquakes, shifting of strata, variations in sea level, etc.).

 

So, with all that, it would be small wonder if the Potomac had changed considerably from what it might have been a couple of centuries before. A lot of the water that used to drain in there could be simply going elsewhere now.

[Keanumoreira]

The gas station part does make sense if you study the fallout universe more. According to records ingame and from other various sources, the fallout world simply couldn't produce enough nuclear power for every car due to the economic situations going on around the world. As resources ran out, they had no choice but to revert to older ways in order to suit everyones needs.

[7thsealord]

Other things to consider as regards the whole "exploding car" thing:

 

First, just about all of them have been untended, intermittently vandalized AND stuck out in the elements for a couple of centuries. How many safety features will still be working? Properly, that is.

 

Second, whatever explodes may not be the power plant itself. Could be pressure vessels holding .... I dunno, coolant used for the reactor when it is running?

[evilneko]

And you don't necessarily need a nuclear explosion for a mushroom cloud either.

 

Still, Belisario's Maxim, Rule of Cool, etc. This is a game where you can shoot a dog in the head multiple times and not have it die. You can take the full force of a shotgun blast, and even naked, still survive. In a game not meant for the very niche hardcore simulator market, Rule of Fun trumps realism every time.

[7thsealord]

True. Very very true.

 

I accept that there are folks who like to play with "reality" turned up to maximum. Their preference, and fair enough. Just that I'm not in that group.

[madman132]

There are a great many things unrealistic in Fallout 3 and in all the fallout games. How come Popculture basically stopped after the fifties? Not just the Music Three dog plays because he found this old stuff somewhere. The Design of the cars is from the fifties, the houses, the advertisement, the everything. So they basically said "let's just stop designing new things for 120 years!".

 

No semiconductor technology, but there are Robots. The Robobrains fascinate me; to connect every "wire" in the human spinal cord you would need quite a lot of tubes. So much of them that the smallest will will a town.

Robots without semiconductor technology? Not possible.

And so is Power Armor. And the energy Weapons. We can make some Laserweapon, they would weigh as much as a Car, but we can make laserweapons...

How does one create a handheld device to heat up Gas until it becomes Plasma? Let me tell you, that is really really hot.

 

 

 

Lets concentrate on some unrealistic things in Fallout 3. The White house must have been hit by something with so little yield that i doubt it was a nuke. If you barely reach critical mass, the crater would be much larger.

Also, that nuke somehow grew buildings around the white house which where then destroyed again.

 

Soooo, whats for dinner tonight? A Brahmin? What did the Brahmin eat? Oh right, not all that much. But somehow, quite a lot of people survive on a rather slim diet.

 

Maybe they rob other People, like the Raiders. There are more robbers then People that could be robbed.

 

 

 

You'll see there are quite a lot of things that are unrealistic, most of them for a Reason. A realistic Potomac would be annoying to get through, you'd have to swim through and possibly die or you'd have to get to a boat and Bethesda would have had to make functional Boats then. The big River might be realistic, but it would be annoying. Which is by the way also the reason why your character can take several Bullets to the head be be ok with that if you jam a syringe into your Brain. Having to walk back when nearly fatally wounded twenty times before halfway point of the game may be realistic, but not fun.

 

Better yet, some enemy could get a lucky shot to your Head and you die without knowing what hit you. Realism!

 

 

I like washington scaled down, lest there be even more bland subway stations to walk through, everyone of which could collapse right on top of me. And then they could lead to nothing but rubble. Absolutely nothing to find or to do, because in the real world, there aren't treasures dispersed evenly throughout the world for you to find.

[bben46]

It's a game - It isn't supposed to be 'real'. If it was real, it wouldn't be a game. :P