When to do what?

[TheLeonardJ]

Hi everyone,
so I just got FO3 GOTY. I don't want to end the game prematurely so I'm wondering in what order I should do all the quests without ending the game.


Thanks for the advice!

[Arkki112]

If you got the GOTY you will have an DLC that will make it so that your game will not end when you complete the main game.

[Tokebec]

Well even if you did finish the game you can still relaod your save game or continue the game so dont worry about it....and the dlc dont do anything on the original game :P I would tell you what to lookout when you're near the end but i dont wanna give you any spoilers :P

[NoMoreHope]

the easy answer is stop doing the main quest after you find your dad

[TheLeonardJ]

Awesome. Thanks!

[Ygolnac]

My advice is to balance exploration and questing. The majority of locations on the map does not belong to any quest, you have to be curious, go there and explore them. They all are amazing and have some little secret/story.

However, if you have Broken Steel installed, the game has no ending, meaning you can go on playing after the end of the final quest, and you can explore all the locations you have left behind after.

So basically make the best out of a true free roaming game: don't fast-travel to the next quest marker, take your time, explore, and follow your character motivations, making your story and not following what others written for you.

Actually you can even totally ignore the main quest and play a survivor that just want to live another day scavanging some food and water.

[TheLeonardJ]

Okay. My favorite thing to do is explore. I just wanted to make sure I didn't accidentally cancel out any part of the game because I didn't do something I should done in a certain chronological order.

[jaretp]

This game seems pretty good in letting you do whatever you want in what ever order you want to do it in.

I like to mostly explore and when I feel like it I will work through a quest, I've played through the game 8 times on my xbox and I still find new things that I never saw before.

Fallout 3 has a ton of mods which really enhance the game even more than it already is. You can find them at Fallout Nexus if your interested in those kinds of things.

[jaretp]

Usually when I start out I go to Spring field school and clean the place out to get gear and XP points, then Super Duper Mart and do the same thing, then I do the Ants quest in Grayditch. After that I just explore a bunch of different places and eventually find my way to Megaton.

[girl beans]

Alrighty, her's what you can do. First of all, know your DLC.

Spoilers coming in, but nothing you don't see from reading a description of the DLC.

First is Operation Anchorage, where you go to help the outcasts in a war simulator. After starting, you can't come back until it's over, but it's a fun quest chain and has new gameplay where you make a squad of teammates to fight the Chinese. After, however, you unlock an armory and get real life copies of the simulator gear so you get some good armor and weapons, but it's best to have Power Armor training to use the power armor. Just go through campaign until you get to the Citadel after the Waters of Life quest. For most of the DLC, you get some pwr armor so it's best to do that.

The Pitt has you go to an oppressive slaver city in what was Pittsburg. You can choose which side to fight for, good or evil, slaves or slavers. There are a few sets of power armor, like 2, you can get depending on what you do. Just remember the more you find out about the slave situation, the grayer the good vs evil will be and you might have to question which side is truly fighting for the greater good so get ready for some moral choices. More guns and stuff come from that, moreso than Op Anc because most of those guns are re skins. This adds some new weapons entirely but not much armor.

The 4th DLC (You'll see why I skipped 3) is Point Lookout. Here you'll get some armor, but nothing to write home about. Some alright weapons but you need a few hundred caps to get there, and bring a lot because there's some chances to spend it. Like the Pitt, you go into a new map zone, but you can come back and forth at any time unlike the other DLC. You go to the swampy areas of the Maryland-Carolinas-Virginia area and uncover a mysterious mansion and ♥♥♥♥, it's really fun but it feels weird to play in my opinion. Each time you go to and from, I'm pretty sure you need to buy another ticket. You also get some new items like the Punga Fruit.

The 5th, last DLC is Mothership Zeta. Forget everything you've heard about the Alien Blaster, this will send you right to it but you get abducted and must finish the quest chain first since you have the DLC. You'll get a lot of new guns, some temporary followers and a fun mission. Not too much armor, but whatever. (Spoiler) If you kill Paulson, you'll get a cool shotgun style revolver (Spoiler End). If you use some mods like FOOK2, this *might* be impossible to start, but I still recommend FOOK2 mod, it's great. If that's the case, just save before you get too close to the spaceship. The weaps you get will be like the Alien Blaster but not as powerful as it by far but you will get more ammo for it.


Finally, the 3rd DLC, Broken Steel. This is last because it allows you to keep playing after you finish the main questline and adds more to the main questline rather than having you go to a new area and do new things. It adds armor, locations to the Capital Wasteland and some awesome weapons as you fight the Enclave's last forces. (BIGASSSPOILER)



If you choose the evil side (Let's leave it at that) at the end, every BoS soldier will attack you *as well as the Enclave.* You'll get almost immediate very evil karma, but a damn uniqe scoped revolver, some ammo and a few mini nukes. Nothing to write home about, and you loose a lot of potential quests, and of course, the follower Star Paladin Cross from the evil karma, and the whole "she probably died in that explosion" thing.



(SPOILER END)


In Broken Steel's awesome allowance of the rest of the game, you needn't worry about doing too much before you finish the game. That being said, try to go for the other DLC, mainly Op Anchorage as you get some cool armor and a differently colored set of the unique T-51b power armor and some cool guns, a nice melee weapon and a great amount of ammo. Make sure you do power armor training first if you want to take the most advantage of this opportunity, and if it wasn't clear before, the outcasts tell you that the armory is your reward, don't think you get bad karma for going in there afterwards and taking anything or even everything. It's all yours.

Remember, Fallout 3 is a big game. A lot of it is learning it on your own experience, but it sucks to screw up accidentally and ruin something, so I'll leave you with one piece of advice that's a semi spoiler. Near the start of the game, when you go to Megaton, talk to the guy in the suit at Moriarty's Saloon. Good or evil, whichever you choose to do for that quest, it relates to the bomb in Megaton. Talk to the Sherrif (Forgot his name) if you want to do the good karma way of that quest. Good gets you a house in Megaton, evil gets you a house in Tennpenny Tower in the southwest of the Wasteland. This is very important: If you want to go for the good method of doing it and defusing the bomb (Explosives skill of 25 I believe, take some mentats and you'll be good to go with a base of about 19), DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES TELL THE SHERRIF ABOUT THE PLOT TO BLOW UP THE BOMB. He will die, and he's good to have, and is always a help for some quests, it's just a ♥♥♥♥ thing to have happen. If you feel confident enough you can kill the man in the suit between the time he takes out his gun and instantly kills Lucas Simms, you do that, but I would not recommend it. Spoiler's over.

If you have any other questions, just ask!

Have fun, and don't let the Yau Guai bite!