Duck and Cover

__Ranting__

Is it me or does that picture of New Arroyo resemble some kind of steampunk city? Is that a direction Feargus and Co. were considering for a long time I wonder, like long before Arcanum? I woulnd't want to see some of synergistic steampunk FO world, but having a BIS FO3 with gay steampunk elements would have been worlds better than what we got, which is shit.

Anyways, playing as the Bishop child would be a cool idea. It's stupid and literary, but bear with me: You want to live the cougar's life, so you kick out, leaving the city in the care of your asshole uncle [Richard for convenience sake] and his two sons or something.

When you find the insidiuous, gathering, just-over-the-horizon evil TM, you may discover even your cocksucker of an Uncle is in on it with them. Maybe a bid to mutate druggies and pimps into mutants for a New Unity. Really, I don't care about that angle of it. But some family dynasty shit, not too melodramatic or anything. Taking back your city may be tied into the main story plot, but probably shouldn't be the end-all. Too anti-climatic, or something.

Setting up a good formula for the expansion-- you pimping around. Some new shit to do, new clothes for playing dressup, and new high-level shit. I think expansons should be kind of anti-climactic. Digression: probably the best expansion ever was Yuri's Revenge, which reinvented Red Alert 2 and probably stands as one of the best expansions of all time. Hopefully, FO3 won't need that kind of 'reinvention,' and no matter what, we know Bet is going to act like they're 100% satisfied with their product, no matter how shitty it is.

Your father leaves you a note, and you decide to go find him? At any rate, I just hope the game doesn't give you the option of starting as a supermutant or a ghoul, unless of course each starting race has its own starting location and backstory. There should be enough room for variety among the human race, male/female, facial shit, whatever. How about build options that actually reflect our build? Brusier gives you different physical template than Small Frame. Very annoying with Oblivion, that you have all this face technology and A. People in the world still look all Mongoloid and like they've been run through 'randomize face' option and B. No manipulation of your appearance frm the neck down makes the rest silly.

Blah blah blah I really don't want to see a return of Master or the Enclave, but how many gathering evils can be left out there in the wastes? One raider chieftain starts playing Genghis Khan? NCR and/or Brotherhood as the bad guys? Isn't that how VanBuren was heading?

Plots:

1. Cannibalistic tribals seem to be on the rise and you occasionally find whole towns filled with the remains of their victims. You find out that someone or something is influencing them. Perhaps a rogue Brotherhood of Steel member who's taken to ritualistic flesh eating.

2. A rather large group of slaves has freed themselves and overtaken their former masters and are now a more serious threat than they were, as they lash out at humanity with grim purpose.

3. An ancient ghoul who was once a scientist (as old as Harold) designs a robot which goes haywire. It somehow glitches in a way that it seeks out any living thing it can find, kills it, and then uses parts to make it into a cyborg of like mind (these of which seek to do the same to other living things). You don't really know what's going on though until you find the ghoul and he tells you about it (his mind is intact unlike most of the other hybrid cyborgs you encounter). Eh.. that one's a little crazy. xD

4. A group of people from a vault, Vault Dwellers mind you! They come up to the surface and decide they don't like what they see and decide everything must die. (Idea kinda comes from Douglas Adam's third Hitchhiker book).

5. A radioactive fluke causes a particularly potent breed of creature which produces young like crazy. Ultimate goal is to find and kill the queen which is actually the only one capable of laying eggs an is quite grotesque.

6. A fanatical warlord starts taking over EVERYTHING. The town where you live happens to be one of the targets and at the start of the game you start out having to flee for your life. Multiple plots include being drafted into their army if your character looks buff, being a prisoner/slave otherwise, or getting away and getting revenge etc... As a prisoner they force you to clean out rat dens. If you refuse they just blow you away and you reload.

7. You're part of an underground vault and they start letting everyone out and as you explore another vault captures you and wants to know the location of your vault because they want the supplies (like waterchips and stuff). They torture you to death if you don't tell. Once you tell them the location they toss you in jail and things get interesting from there as you try to figure out how to escape and decide whether you care enough to warn your buddies or just do whatever you want. Thus begins the journy of helping them find a new place to life, organizing a defense, getting revenge (if you chose to not tell them and find them all dead), etc... Lots of choices.