Fallout 76 - Multiplayer, online, BGS Austin

So, I decided to give this a whirl, and while it has it’s quirks and drawbacks, for the most part I’m enjoying it. A few thoughts follow up to my current level 25:

  1. I’m enjoying the exploration part very much. WVA gives them a variety of environments, and they had created some unique wasteland hell holes (looking at you, Ash Heap). I also find interesting (and sad) the various stories about the attempts to survive and maintain some sort of civilization by the various survivor groups. I wish the game had allowed some of them to survive and us to help them rebuild. So far I’ve note done anything with the NPC’s in Wastelanders or the BoS DLCs so i can’t comment on them.
  2. On a more negative note, you can really see the MMO grind paradigm in this game. Weapon plans that allow you to craft higher level weapons are pretty rare (and I really wish you could do something to level up your favorite weapons and keep it, but no), so until you get them you are dependent on RNG to find new higher level ones. I don’t have any armorer/gunsmith perk cards yet - I’m assuming I’ll eventually find the necessary perk cards And don’t get me talking about legendaries.
  3. The people I’ve run into have been pretty cool for the most part. The first high level character I ran into gave me 20 stimpacks. Another helped me fight off a group of mirelurk hunters that I stumbled into and was ill equipped to handle.
  4. Overall, I think the game is a truer survival experience than Fallout NV/4 because you are pretty much on your own, without companions, and the fact that there aren’t a lot of NPC’s around. You really are just wandering around, coming upon quests as you travel for the most part.
  5. Difficulty seems “weird”. Early on I thought it was pretty easy as long as I was careful not to stumble into the middle of large group - this lasted until about level 20. then it became pretty hard because i was still using lower leveled weapons (I had not found any new ones) and I just couldn’t kill anything. Then around level 25 I found a couple, and got a great piece of armor that gives me chameleon - I’m invisible until I move. Which means EVERY shot gets the sneak attack critical, so I tear through everything. I’ll also add that some of the wildlife seems much more dangerous to me than humans.
  6. Conversations are soooo sloooow. You have to wait forever for some of the responses. This just kills me.
  7. You can easily respec SPECIAL points and perk cards once you reach level 25, which is very nice. You can also create alternate builds (say one for combat, another for buying/selling/crafting) which is pretty neat.

These are just some impressions. Overall so far, I’m happy and the game is fun for me, YMMV of course.

It’s a fun ride for a lot of the time for sure. You just have to have modest expectations and a modicum of patience, and it can be wicked fun for a while.

I didn’t know they were doing some kind of in-game radio drama. I’ll have to listen to it sometime.

The latest patch fixed the most annoying bug - getting locked up at a workbench where you can’t do anything but fast travel (if you can even do that). This alone makes me very happy given how much repair/crafting there is.

So… pay us to play your game modded?

No, you can join the public mutated servers without subscribing at all. You need to pay to make your own mutant server.

On a side note, how the hell did these ridiculous jackholes not use the mutate/mutator terminology for this? Do I need to do their job for them?

Anyway, they aren’t mods, in that you can’t create anything. Every mutator has to be built by BGS and then you can select it for your custom mutated server if you’re stupid enough to subscribe to the game.

On side note part deux, I find it hilarious they didn’t fix the “where every surviving human is a real person” bit in their site’s metadata. That shit failed, the game has had NPCs for like a year now.

I subscribe occasionally, for a month or so, play around and explore new stuff, then cancel for about ten months. I don’t play it without the storage upgrades and stuff from Fallout 1st, but I don’t play enough to keep a sub going either.

I guess they are getting desperate and trying anything including “cheating” to get more players.

Yawn.

The Mothman was a pretty cool concept, and occasionally the encounters were kind of creepy in a good sort of way, but like most everything else in the game it ends up being sort of janky and tacked-on. The game world, which is a really good and nicely executed environment full of great locations and possibilities, is mostly a theme park, with everything sort of plopped down in discrete attractions and little integration overall, IMO.

John Carpenter fans might find this interesting… hes a fan of Fallout 76!

AVC: How many hours would you say you’ve logged with Fallout 76?

JC: I don’t know. It’s sick. Whatever it is, is really sick. I’m addicted to it. It’s too many hours, okay? That’s what it is.

AVC: Have you ever thought about adapting a game?

JC (John Carpenter): The only one I can think of, and I’ve mentioned it before, is Dead Space. That would make a real great movie. I could do that.

I would love to see a John Carpenter Dead Space movie.

Roger Corman already did it, certainly Carpenter can’t top that!

Damn, its even got Bryan Cranston! And its free on Tubi! I guess I’ll report back on it in the appropriate thread

Who cares about Bryan Cranston, it’s got Marc Singer, the Beastmaster himself!

Bit of a necro. There’s Shakespeare going on in Fallout76 now.

One crisp spring evening, the Wasteland Theatre Company gathered to rehearse Romeo and Juliet. Jonathan “Bram” Thomas was playing Romeo. A self-confessed Shakespeare geek, he’d graduated with a BA in theatre, and this wasn’t his first time playing one half of the star-crossed lovers. But it was the first time a mutant scorpion the size of a Jeep had rampaged on to his stage.

Panicking, the show’s crew rained bullets down on its blackened shell, but not before Juliet fell to its sting. A poison death, certainly – just not one the Bard ever dreamed of writing.