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[Neonivek]

Tenpenny embodies everything wrong with Bethesda writing.
Apparently a man managed to organise some way to cross the atlantic ocean in a low resource/tech post-apocalyptic world with no given motive. Decides to settle in the arse end of nowhere in a crappy pre-war hotel despite probably having extreme wealth and power. Demands the closest settlement (and possible only source of trade/customers) to be nuked because he's a caricature with no personality. Not a single person in the universe notes that this is odd.

Tenpenny is a caricature but I never felt it was wrong.

He is a psychopath, he is something who in the REAL world would be locked up or get psychological help and never be taken seriously yet alone run a hotel.

Yet this is the Fallout universe. Where someone that blatantly insane not only can walk freely but also get a bit of power. It helps get you into the mindset of the post-apocalyptic wasteland. He is a MONSTER! but no one is going to come and stop him.

It helps that he is such a small part of the game and his overall isolation allows his "psychosis" to make more sense.

The entire premise of 3 was dumb. IRL you can swim in a fuel rod cooling tank. How did the ENTIRE (according to Point Lookout) ocean become radioactive, but the land stay fine?
You would think they'd do some research on radiation when making a game called Fallout

Dear holy goodness... Fallout is BASED on lousy science. Terrible black and white era science!

They even make fun of this fact with how Rad-away works.

And NO the land isn't fine. Everything is irradiated. Absolutely everything is coated in thick radiation.

[MasterFancyPants]

Dear holy goodness... Fallout is BASED on lousy science. Terrible black and white era science!

They even make fun of this fact with how Rad-away works.

And NO the land isn't fine. Everything is irradiated. Absolutely everything is coated in thick radiation.

Examples? Fallout 1 & 2 Had beneficial mutations, laser\plasma weapons, and eyebots (how the fuck is that supposed to work?). Rad-away is semi believable: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex-Rad
If the ground was radioactive then you would constantly gain radiation.
I can handle radiation being gameified. I always saw it as the amount of radioactive material in your body.
However, Beth took suspension of disbelief and shit all over it.

[Neonivek]

you do constantly gain radiation MasterFancyPants, everyone in the fallout universe (well outside of vaults) suffers from radiation sickness to certain degrees.

The difference is any place you actually gain "radiation" is a incredibly high abundance of radiation. Versus the constant background radiation the rest of the world is infected with.

For example Nukacola has Radium in it. At least I think Radium was the nuclear compound inside it (could have been Uranium or Plutonium)

As for Ex-Rad... What it does and what Rad-away does is quite different. No compound can remove someone's radioactivity in real life. Ex-Rad functions the same as most compounds in that it protects you from radiation (which does in essence make you less radioactive because radiation is self-catalytic. But you still have to wait for it to break down)

--

Though what do you need examples of exactly? Intentional bad science?

[Shadowlord]

Do you really want to argue about whether the portrayal of radioactivity is realistic in a game whose world is designed to emulate 50s (or so) sci-fi tropes?

[Tellemurius]

Don't worry guys, just drink lots of vodka.

[Neonivek]

I'll put it this way.

Remember that movie "Blast From the Past" about the couple and their child creating a fallout shelter that needs to remain closed for Thirty Five Years because if a nuclear bomb hit, then the radiation would be lethal for that long... and even then they fully suspected it would still be a nuclear wasteland that they would need protective suits to survive.

When in reality they could have successfully hoofed it if they waited a year... and five to guarantee their survival... with absolutely no protection whatsoever.

Fallout is using even earlier and even more nonsense science then that. Where the radiation pretty much never dissipates (sort of, there are hints that it has been slowly decreasing for years).

[Majestic7]

Is it only radiation in Fallout though? Wasn't there airborne strain of FEV that has pretty much infected everyone by now, leading into increased radiation tolerance but as well..umm..other stuff like ghouls and insane raiders?

[Neonivek]

Is it only radiation in Fallout though? Wasn't there airborne strain of FEV that has pretty much infected everyone by now, leading into increased radiation tolerance but as well..umm..other stuff like ghouls and insane raiders?

Naw Ghouls were created through basically BS science where the radiation caused a mutation that makes their cells divide perfectly or something along those lines. Though I should check on that.

Super Mutants were created by the FEV virus.

As for everyone being infected with it currently... maybe... I'd have to look it up, it certainly sounds possible. Though Fallout 1 mostly dealt with the Virus and Fallout 3 invented some magical way for there to be even more Super mutants without any brains.

[Shadowlord]

IIRC it was the radiation that altered everyone exposed to it enough that the Enclave considered them non-pure humans, and consigned them to death, if I'm remembering the plot of Fallout 3 correctly.

[BurnedToast]

If you want to mention bad writing, anyone remember the original Fallout 3 ending? There is an irradiated chamber with a lever to pull. The radiation is lethal. If you ask your super mutant/ghoul/robot combination to do it, he says "nope, doing it is your DESTINY". So although the character has a companion who is immune to the radiation, he must go there and die.

I mean, what the fuck? That is the worst writing I have ever seen in a computer game and that takes some doing. They fixed this later, but it showed how crappy Bethes writers are. Some of the side quests in original Fallout3 were really nice - or more like things you could just find that were not part of any quest - but the main story was written by drunk monkeys.

So I expect Fallout 4 to have a completely corny and shitty main story, but hey, it can still be an entertaining game, as long as the ending isn't complete bullshit.

IIRC you actually could send that brotherhood of steel woman in there instead of you (and get a downer ending that called you a coward), so it was not 100% YOU MUST DIE TO SAVE THE WORLD NO EXCEPTIONS...

But yeah. Some people say they made the ending terrible on purpose so they could sell the real ending as DLC, and I'm not completely convinced that's not true.

[Neonivek]

Remember BurnedToast that the ending was actually fixed in a patch.

before the patch? YOU had to go in there and die no matter what. Though the canonical ending is that you went inside...

[PTTG??]

Fallout is not set in reality. It is set in the fears and expectations of the 1950s-60s.

[Virtz]

Is it only radiation in Fallout though? Wasn't there airborne strain of FEV that has pretty much infected everyone by now, leading into increased radiation tolerance but as well..umm..other stuff like ghouls and insane raiders?

Naw Ghouls were created through basically BS science where the radiation caused a mutation that makes their cells divide perfectly or something along those lines. Though I should check on that.

Super Mutants were created by the FEV virus.

As for everyone being infected with it currently... maybe... I'd have to look it up, it certainly sounds possible. Though Fallout 1 mostly dealt with the Virus and Fallout 3 invented some magical way for there to be even more Super mutants without any brains.

It was actually kinda disputed in the Fallout Bible (written by Black Isle staff) and was kinda supported by Harold explicitly being the result of FEV (even in FO1). Might've been something about it in FO2 as well, but I can't remember. Later it was reaffirmed by the writer of the Fallout Bible and the original creator of Fallout 1 that it was just 50s pop-science radiation after all.

[Rolan7]

The East Coast mutants had more FEV, a different strain.  Pretty straightforward.

[SeriousConcentrate]

No, you could send Sarah Lyons in pre-patch. You just died anyway due to sudden radiation outburst or something, I don't fully recall.

Also PTW.