(no subject)

[camwyn]

This is more of a question for those of you who read milliways_bar than anything else. I play the Lone Wanderer from Fallout 3 there, and I had some plot stuff to inquire about.

See, Ellen's at a point in the main quest line of the game where I felt it would make sense for her to completely lose her father's trail. I cut out the last few sentences of her father's last audiotape, so all she knows is that Dad's gone looking for Vault 112. She has no clue where it is, or what it's near, or anything else. She's sufficiently frustrated with her situation that she's half considering not bothering to look for Dad at all, but she's not sure what else she's supposed to do with herself at the moment. I plan on having her get started on some of the less ant-intensive sidequests when she goes back to her world. The first one will probably be the one with the vampires.

Yes, there are vampires. It's canon.

... no, they don't sparkle.

ANYway. Vampire quest comes first, and I think she's probably going to do that alone, but after that she's got a lot of opportunities to putz about the Wasteland. There are several side quests after the thing with the vampires that might well prove to be fruitful opportunities for one or two people to come with her and experience the feeling of "it's not so much that your world is dead or nearly so, it's the part where it's completely frickin' insane" that seems to hit anyone who wanders into the Falloutverse. I thought I'd float 'em past people here to get an idea of who was interested and when.

- Canterbury Commons. It's got crazy superheroes! And a town full of people who wish they'd just go away! Requires no combat with humans unless someone pisses the AntAgonizer or the Mechanist off enough to get them into the fight. Just ants and robots.

- Big Town. Supermutants have carried off two people from Big Town for God alone knows what purposes. A rescue mission is needed, badly. Requires fighting and killing formerly-human sentient beings, although this may be made easier by the fact that they want to eat you and think that leaving piles of human limbs and torsos around their headquarters is a good idea.

- Crazy Soda Otaku Lady. Yeah, yeah, she has a name, but she's a crazy soda otaku lady and if you ever interacted with her you'd agree with me. Her quest involves infiltrating a factory full of grumpy robots and giant mutant crab monsters that glow in the dark.

- The Dunwich Building. Ghouls, a crazy man, and hints of supernatural involvement. Also possibly an evil book. It's mostly just horror and killin' walking dead things, but if people are interested, it's available.

And, entirely separately:

The Pitt. I'm not interested in sending Ellen on this one. If someone wants, for some reason, to wander into her world and get caught up in an urban post-apocalyptic dystopia that has no sense of humor at all, but offers an interesting plot about mutation and what people are willing to do to cure it- and has a hefty dose of zombie creepitude to it- I can arrange that for you.

---

There are plenty of other things in the Falloutverse to dink around with, including a bunch of stuff in DC itself, but for the moment Ellen's mostly gonna be in the wilderness, and these are the ones that lend themselves to lower-level characters in the wild areas. Let me know if you're interested.

Comments

[ebony14.livejournal.com]

If you want to ever return to the Dadhunt, you might consider that the tail end of the tape is damaged. There are plenty of technologically advanced people at the Bar that could recover damaged solid-state recording tech, should Ellen ever wonder why her father's journal fades out into a squelch of feedback. Just a thought....

[camwyn]

Oh, I figure that when she decides that she needs to find Dad, she'll remember that that sweet old lady she found the violin for mentioned something about Vault-Tec HQ possibly having records on where various Vaults were. Either Agatha will be able to tell her where Vault-Tec is, or she'll put Ellen in touch with someone who knows (Crazy Wolfgang makes a nice candidate for this), and so Ellen will get the location of Vault 112 from their records.

(I plan on handling the Agatha's Song quest the same way I did on my first playthrough:

"Oh, hey, neat! A Vault door! Am I allowed to go in? Are there still people! It'll be like going... home... holy bahoogies that's not right- AUGH MIRELURK!"

*runs around screaming for a while*

"Hey, a working computer! I should check. . .it. . . oh God you people were sick."

*gets lost trying to find way out* *checks more computers* "Really sick."

*gets lost again* "Oh, hey, violin. I should take that."

*finds way out*

"Hey, buildings! I should see if there are people AUGH DEATHCLAW"

*fifteen mintes later* "I. HATE. THIS. PLACE. SO. MUCH."

etc.

[duane-kc.livejournal.com]

Dunwich Building. Evil book...hmmm.

Be...interesting if you had an Ash to come along on this one, wouldn't it? [evil grin]

[camwyn]

A typical Deadite
A typical feral ghoul from the Dunwich Building

You make the call, folks. Personally, I plan on Ellen having the flaming homemade sword built from a motorcycle fuel tank, a motorcycle hand brake, an oven's pilot light, and a lawnmower blade before she goes anywhere near that building.

[batyatoon]

I'd be interested!

[camwyn]

Schweet. Got a preference? Care to discuss over email?

[batyatoon]

Verily. I'll drop you a line.

[leeshajoy.livejournal.com]

Dangit, now I'm wondering if I can get Alyx back into Milliways in time to do any of these. :)

[camwyn]

I can take my time on them; there's plenty of quests in the game. And like I said, this is just the wilderness stuff. Alyx might take an interest in something like Reilly's Rangers, which involves having to rescue a team of mercenaries who've been pinned down by supermutants on the roof of a prewar hotel; that's good clean violence. I'd almost suggest the Vault of Gary for a bout of squickitude, if it weren't for the fact that that's really just an exploratory thing with no particular goal. (In-game, there's a stat-raising bobblehead in there, but it's not a quest location of any kind. I might have some kind of information about the Vault program or the Enclave or something in the place to make it worthwhile.)

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Vext might be fun. >.>

[camwyn]

The question then becomes what, exactly, he'd be involved in.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Oh, anything is good. Which ever causes the most pain? XD Likely, I figure, he'd end up there by accident.

[midnightlurker.livejournal.com]

I'm planning to introduce Snoopy the World War 1 Flying Ace to Milliways as soon as applications are open again. Any need for a beagle whose doghouse somehow has the flight characteristics and armament of a Sopwith Camel F.1? :)

[camwyn]

Hrm. *considers* Gonna have to think that one over, but I'll let you know as soon as I have an answer either way...

[cameoflage.livejournal.com]

Canterbury Commons sounds like funtimes!

My favourite early-type quest is The Replicated Man, but that one's more investigaty than actiony. And Ellen's already been to Pinkerton's place (which doesn't preclude going again, but it does add a bit of a wrinkle).

[camwyn]

Most of my games involve bouncing in and out of Rivet City multiple times anyway. I figure the next time she's in the area for some reason, she'll run into Zimmer or Armitage- either that or she'll find a holotape somewhere that she mistakes for one of her own tapes (she's got Dad's recordings and a Keller transcript), plays back, and goes 'o__O' over. Nothin' wrong with androids.

Her next quest is going to start off as Blood Ties and then take a sharp turn into Big Trouble in Big Town. If I take Lucy's 'follow the river' advice, I inevitably wind up getting lost at some point- I mistake some other body of water for the river- and by the time I find the water again I've blundered into Big Town well before I get to Arefu.

[cameoflage.livejournal.com]

I hazily recall doing Big Trouble in Big Town immediately after Blood Ties, but I can't remember if I stumbled into Big Town while looking for the Family or if it was just that I was wandering around afterwards and decided to go take a look at the random houses. Either way, though, it is an easy thing to do.

Also: For me, that was a time of firsts. First encounter with Mirelurks in Hamilton's Hideaway (...I think...), and first run-in with Super Mutants near the theater. (Which killed me. I didn't have very good guns yet; the second time, I survived, but it took me ages and like three different weapons to bring down a Brute.) But Ellen's already familiar with those, so... I don't know where I'm going with this.

[camwyn]

Oh, it's gonna be firsts, all right. At least in terms of OMGWTFGIANTBEAR. Guess who's never seen a Yao Guai before? I'm kind of tempted to have her come into Milliways all bloody and nasty in an attempt to find out if Bar will buy the meat (answer: no, people aren't going to eat radioactive stimulant bear meat) or at least help her out with preserving the hides, as she's never made leather before but figures someone might want it.

And on a side note I've had a look at the Wiki entries for Point Lookout even though I'm not going to buy it. I... am rather glad that I wasn't going to incorporate it into my game. Not because of the hillfolk, but because of something that happens on the main Point Lookout quest. GAH.

[cameoflage.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, OMGWTFGIANTBEAR. Another creature whose first appearance involved my death! (Technically, I the player had seen one before, as my other character. But it was domesticated -- belonged to a trader who got killed by Raiders -- so I didn't find out about the IT TEARS MY FLESH LIKE PAPER aspect until later. And having an alternate-self-guy who'd seen one wouldn't do much for Joanne anyways.)

For me, though, it was over by Tenpenny Tower. Because I wanted to stop in and yell at those guys on my way to Vault 112.

I haven't looked up Point Lookout, but now you've filled me with burning curiosity. I'll just pop over to the wiki after I post this, though.

[camwyn]

HOW can they be that big and that deadly and that fast and not make any noise? HOW??? Mole rats make more noise when they sneak up behind you! You don't find out you have a Yao Guai on your tail until OH GOD MY SPLEEN. Honestly, they're the reason I take Animal Friend more often than not; yes, by level 14 I can kill them without too much trouble, but Lord it's nice not to have to watch over your shoulder for bears all the time.

Ellen will be going to Tenpenny Tower at some point relatively soon, I think. After her encounter with the vampires there'll be a Talon ambush with yet another note about Mr. Tenpenny. Either that or she'll pick up on Three Dog's broadcast about the ghouls down there. Maybe both. I want her to have a good reason to blunder through Andale, and heading for Tenpenny Tower's the best one I can think of.

[cameoflage.livejournal.com]

I kinda fail at situational awareness in games, honestly. In HL2, it's all too common for fast zombies to sneak up on me (although for this I blame the fact that you can't really tell where the sound's coming from). That plus the first and only one I've encountered approaching from within my field of vision means I hadn't actually noticed that they were ninja bears.

Yay! Sidequests good! (I've somehow managed to not encounter Andale as either character, even though they've both made the trek over to the Tenpenny/RobCo/etc area. Probably because I usually try to walk in a straight line if I want to go somewhere specific.)

[camwyn]

I ran into Andale the first time when I was trying to head straight south from somewhere else- I think maybe Grayditch. I don't remember how I got to RobCo the first time, but I'm pretty sure I drifted southwest and then corrected myself, hence missing the town. Either that or I started out from Jury Street Metro; I tend to be of the 'ooh, a place! I should see what that place is and then come back to my plotted path!' school of thought.

[cameoflage.livejournal.com]

See, I do the same 'ooh, place I don't know, brb' thing, so... I'unno. Either I drifted too far away to spot it, or I overlooked it somehow.

[cameoflage.livejournal.com]

AUGH AUGH AUGH AUGH! DO NOT WANT!

[camwyn]

SRSLY.

So glad I wasn't planning on buying it to begin with. Ew, ew, ew.

[cameoflage.livejournal.com]

I'm actually sort of divided on the subject, on reflection: it sounds like it would be interesting to play as a stand-alone, self-contained storyline, but no way in hell am I inflicting that on an existing character. I could get over the DO NOT WANT for a story that piques my interest enough, but messing with my characters = instant veto.

[camwyn]

It really would, but given that when I buy an expansion pack I do my best to avoid any kind of spoilers for it before getting into play, that would have been SUCH a 'back the bloody hell out RIGHT NOW' moment for me. On its own, yes, it works and it makes for an excellent horror storyline (since they did say it was supposed to be an atmosphere of swampy horror), but... no. just no.

[cameoflage.livejournal.com]

*nodnod* Same here, more or less. (I do like to have a general idea of what I'm getting into, but I prefer not to know the complete plot.) If that got sprung on me without warning, I'd feel pretty damn betrayed.