Forgive me in advance because I'm going to be rambling in this.
I first played a few years ago, and thought it was okay, but didn't nearly get me the way Elder Scrolls: Oblivion did. I got Oblivion out of my system for now though, and my sister recently bought a PS3 along with Fallout so I decided to give it another try. It feels VERY draggy in the beginning, but now stuff is really moving along for me. But it's got me wondering. Is there any way to download updates and new missions for the game? Is there any plan in the works for cheaper additions for it? (Like how Shivering Isles was developed for Oblivion.)
They released a Game of the Year edition that was the base game and the five expansion packs at the retail price of the original game. I do not know how much it costs now, but to get all the additions (which involve something like at least 25 hours more gameplay, along with new level caps and new enemies and areas) on top of the game might make sense. You can get those additions online, I do believe, or through your consoles. If you can somehow circumvent the DRM, you might be able to get it on the cheap...but I don't know.
But as of now, development for Fallout 3 has finished, as Bethesda has moved on to development of the next Fallout game, which is scheduled to come out next year.
Do you think they'll ever develop a partnership of online play so you can log on and team up with others to complete missions? (I'm thinking like in the way SORT OF that Warcraft works.) I see HUUUUUGE potential for this game, and I think it would be amazing to be able to partner up with someone if they brought in harder, group missions. Also for those who've played it, how long would you say it took you before you beat it or almost beat it?
Like Oblivion, you can just do the main quest line and be done...and in actuality, there are ways to shortcut the main quest if you know what you are doing. But in my play throughs? I played Fallout 3 close to 60-80 hours on the XBox 360 and decided to beat it because I had gotten to the point where my ability to play it was going to dry up. I bought the GOTY edition and had sunk close to 80 hours into the game, this time knowing what I had to do but at the same time trying to be more of a completionist, and I had only barely touched the Point Lookout stuff. I still had quite a bit left to do. Broken Steel retcons the original ending, and basically takes you beyond the original ending point (once you get there, you understand why the original ending happened the way it did, even though the logical manner in which this original ending could have been avoided was not available even though it should have been...yeah). If you want, you can make Fallout 3 last you over a hundred hours.
As for the online partnership, I don't think that it would work with the engines Bethesda builds, nor would it work in the worlds they have. Given general density of areas in comparison to World of Warcraft are actually pretty small, and the ability to put that sort of content into the game is a real stretch unless there is some server side management. I think the approach that Borderlands took might have legs, but at the same time, I think that the game is made to be enjoyed a single player experience beyond all others. With WoW, so much of the content someone would buy the game for is locked because it depends on the ability to get on with a group, and it deals with such a time investment to get the maximum value out of the product that it becomes a job. In Fallout 3, you can set up an action plan of what you would like to do on this night, where you could go, what questline you want to hit up. Interplay (the original rights holder to Fallout) has stated they would like to make an MMO for Fallout, but who knows...it's not like the company is actually self funded at this state.
I mean, I can see how people can look at Fallout and say "there is potential for how this could work with multiple people working on questlines", but I think the actual mechanics of the game are not tuned to allow something like that...and also I think the fiction is very much what you make of it. I found the game much more immersive than WoW because things seemed more finite, and I knew I would be able to do the things I wanted to do in the Capital Wasteland. I think the game that scratches some of those itches, as the ones you prescribe, is Borderlands.
Fallout.
