Fallout 4

[Galerion]

I would say that Mass Effect offers you considerably more roleplay freedom than Fallout 4, even if you have to play Commander Shepard.


I'm going to have to disagree there.

The Minute Men are kinda just there. They're an unambiguously good guy faction, but they don't really have any influence at all on the plot. The story does not change one whit whether the Minute Men exist or not.

The Railroad are those who fight the bad guys out of a moral conviction: they're anti-slavery.

The Brotherhood are monsters.
They're a nazi analogue. "Ad victorium comes" out "sieg heil" in German, and that is not a coincidence.
It is incredibly clear that they care only about three things:

• kill creatures they hate (some of which are upstanding members of society, like non-feral ghouls and liberated Synths like Valentine and Danse.
• steal technology from the population
• the glory of the Brotherhood

It is incredibly clear that the leaders of this bunch of tughs cares not one bit whether the civilian population of the Commonwealtyh lives or dies.

And then there is the frelling Institute. Pure, unambiguous evil.
These clowns have sabotaged all efforts of establishing a united Commonwealth leadership, they are behind the demise of the Minute Men, they have created the Commonwealth Super Mutants, they mmurdered all of Vault 111, except for Sean and the PC, and the list goes on. And they have done nothing that can be cathegorised as 'good'.

Just a few counterpoints to some of the factions.

Railroad: "Anti-slavery" is fine and dandy but they don't care about the state of the commonwealth and it's humans at all. They rather live in the shadows and liberate machines than make the lives of their fellow humans better. I also remember very clearly playing a quest where I have to get a "liberated" Synth back. That Synth ended up being a brutal, murderous Raider leader all thanks to the efforts of the Railroad. The blood of many innocent people are on their hands just because of their conviction that machines deserve the same rights as humans. They scramble them and then set them set free irregardless of the consequences.

Brotherhood: Yes, they are a military force with a strict set of beliefs. They are also the faction that is the best equipped for protecting the people of the commonwealth. They aren't just some random settlers with home-made rifles. They are experienced soliders equipped with hight-tech armor and weaponry. They hate things they call "abominations" but that belief didn't come out of nowhere. Science gone wrong is the exact reason the world died in nuclear fire. They steal technology because world has already seen what technology in the wrong hands is capable of doing. Elder Maxson has indeed a more traditional approach when it comes to leading the Brotherhood but that doesn't mean it has to be always that way. Elder Lyons from Fallout 3 has proven that the Brotherhood is more than capable of helping the citizens of the wasteland and Elder Maxson did grow up there and saw it with his own eyes.

Institute: Yes, they have done a lot of very shady things. There is no argument to be had there. They are by far the most advanced faction/society in the commonwealth if not even on the world though. Their world is an utopia. With their expertise the commonwealth could be rebuild to a new glory. Everyone at the Institute is healthy and fine thanks to their advancements in the fields of medicine and nutrition and they could share that with the rest of the commonwealth. As an experiment at Warwick Farm has shown the Institute is working on a modified type of plant that survives better in the harsh environment of the wasteland and produces way more crop and it's in fact successful. The people at the Institute may prefer the life in seclusion but there is no reason they would do something like this if they wouldn't be at least interested in what is going on above.
The Institute at it's core are also scientists and not politicians or soldiers or whatever. Things like conquering or power are not their main goal. If it would be the commonwealth would have fallen under their total control long ago since nothing in the commonwealth could have stood to their level of technology and an army of synths. Advancements in the fields of science is their main goal and has always been. That some methods used to accomplish that ruffle some feathers is unfortunate but it's not their main intention.
The Synths are obviously the biggest point of discussion when it comes to them and their viewpoint is kinda right. The Institute made them. They are machines. Pure and simple. Generation 3 Synths may look and maybe even act like homo sapiens but they are in fact not and nothing will ever change that.

[Carabas]

Just a few counterpoints to some of the factions.

Railroad: "Anti-slavery" is fine and dandy but they don't care about the state of the commonwealth and it's humans at all. They rather live in the shadows and liberate machines than make the lives of their fellow humans better. I also remember very clearly playing a quest where I have to get a "liberated" Synth back. That Synth ended up being a brutal, murderous Raider leader all thanks to the efforts of the Railroad. The blood of many innocent people are on their hands just because of their conviction that machines deserve the same rights as humans. They scramble them and then set them set free irregardless of the consequences.

The Railroad cares plenty about the lives of the Commonwealth and its humans.
They also care about Synths, which nobody else does.

They have very limited resources, they don't have a big airship, or secret underground cities, or even the manpower the Minute Men can call on.
That (one, singular) Synth becoming a Raider is not something the Railroad can be blamed for. Free will and all that.

Brotherhood: Yes, they are a military force with a strict set of beliefs. They are also the faction that is the best equipped for protecting the people of the commonwealth. They aren't just some random settlers with home-made rifles. They are experienced soliders equipped with hight-tech armor and weaponry. They hate things they call "abominations" but that belief didn't come out of nowhere. Science gone wrong is the exact reason the world died in nuclear fire. They steal technology because world has already seen what technology in the wrong hands is capable of doing. Elder Maxson has indeed a more traditional approach when it comes to leading the Brotherhood but that doesn't mean it has to be always that way. Elder Lyons from Fallout 3 has proven that the Brotherhood is more than capable of helping the citizens of the wasteland and Elder Maxson did grow up there and saw it with his own eyes.

We're talking about the factions in Fallout 4, not Fallout 3.
Elder Lyons was pretty much unique, and the only Brotherhood leader in the entire Fallout canon who was a decent person. Remember that Lyons Brotherhood was an aberration, that he caused mutiny, and that the leaders back home pretty much excommunicated him.
Speaking of Fallout 3, reading between the lines, Elder Maxwell threw the entirety of Rivet City under a bus because he needed their reactor to get the Prydwen in the air.

And it does not matter where their beliefs come from. They're still genocidal maniacs when it comes to Synths and Ghouls.
They also don't really have any kind of plan beyond the greater glory of the Brotherhood.

Institute: Yes, they have done a lot of very shady things. There is no argument to be had there. They are by far the most advanced faction/society in the commonwealth if not even on the world though. Their world is an utopia. With their expertise the commonwealth could be rebuild to a new glory. Everyone at the Institute is healthy and fine thanks to their advancements in the fields of medicine and nutrition and they could share that with the rest of the commonwealth. As an experiment at Warwick Farm has shown the Institute is working on a modified type of plant that survives better in the harsh environment of the wasteland and produces way more crop and it's in fact successful. The people at the Institute may prefer the life in seclusion but there is no reason they would do something like this if they wouldn't be at least interested in what is going on above.
The Institute at it's core are also scientists and not politicians or soldiers or whatever. Things like conquering or power are not their main goal. If it would be the commonwealth would have fallen under their total control long ago since nothing in the commonwealth could have stood to their level of technology and an army of synths. Advancements in the fields of science is their main goal and has always been. That some methods used to accomplish that ruffle some feathers is unfortunate but it's not their main intention.
The Synths are obviously the biggest point of discussion when it comes to them and their viewpoint is kinda right. The Institute made them. They are machines. Pure and simple. Generation 3 Synths may look and maybe even act like homo sapiens but they are in fact not and nothing will ever change that.

They are not an advanced society. They are a monstrous society that has a lot of very cool toys. Almost their entire society is comprised of scientists who have no ethics whatsoever, and slaves.
Their world is perhaps a Utopia if you're a member of the Institute, but they make it abundantly clear that they are not ever going to share any of their toys with the outside world, and in fact don't even consider the people of the Commonwealth to be even really human anymore.
The Institute is what happens when you let a bunch of mad scientists with very poor to none grasp of ethics run your society.

You mentioned this work they're doing at Warwick Homestead... Interesting example because step one was "Kill the father and replace him with a Synth". Sure, the guy was dirtbag, but the Institute didn't know that.
Step two is running experiments and so one.
Final step: kill the entire family and take the research data back to the Institute.

You're also wrong about their goal not being conquest. They absolutely want to rule humanity. They just don't consider people not part of the Institute to be part of that. They don't see anything of value to be found on the surface world.

Whether or not Synths are really sapient... Even a bigot like Maxwell is convinved they are real people. The only ones who say they aren't are also the ones that have a really big stake in not believing Synths are people because that would mean accepting that their utopia is a slave society.

You have three Synth love interests. What does that tell you?

[Galerion]

The Railroad cares plenty about the lives of the Commonwealth and its humans.
They also care about Synths, which nobody else does.

They have very limited resources, they don't have a big airship, or secret underground cities, or even the manpower the Minute Men can call on.
That (one, singular) Synth becoming a Raider is not something the Railroad can be blamed for. Free will and all that.

Well without the tempering like mindwiping and giving him a new personality that Synth would have never become a Raider in the first place so they can very well be blamed for that.
And Im sure that wasn't the first time something like that happened.

We're talking about the factions in Fallout 4, not Fallout 3.
Elder Lyons was pretty much unique, and the only Brotherhood leader in the entire Fallout canon who was a decent person. Remember that Lyons Brotherhood was an aberration, that he caused mutiny, and that the leaders back home pretty much excommunicated him.
Speaking of Fallout 3, reading between the lines, Elder Maxwell threw the entirety of Rivet City under a bus because he needed their reactor to get the Prydwen in the air.

And it does not matter where their beliefs come from. They're still genocidal maniacs when it comes to Synths and Ghouls.
They also don't really have any kind of plan beyond the greater glory of the Brotherhood.

It's pretty convenient to say that the Brotherhood are genocidal maniacs when it comes to Synths and Ghouls when I have met only very few people in the entire Commonwealth who wouldn't shoot a Synth on the spot as soon as it's revealed as such.
People are mistrusting of Ghouls too. Im sure I didn't see any in Diamond City and the Brotherhood had nothing to do with that. Every sane person shoots a feral Ghoul on sight and the way ghoulification works means that even non-feral Ghouls can turn into feral ones when the radiation has done enough damage to their brain at any point in time. It may happen tomorrow, in a week, in a month or maybe in 50 years but it can and most likely will happen at some point and you certainly don't want to become the first victim of it.
The Brotherhood is also not running around gunning down non-feral ghouls every chance they get. They are mistrusting of them like pretty much everyone else.

They are not an advanced society. They are a monstrous society that has a lot of very cool toys. Almost their entire society is comprised of scientists who have no ethics whatsoever, and slaves.
Their world is perhaps a Utopia if you're a member of the Institute, but they make it abundantly clear that they are not ever going to share any of their toys with the outside world, and in fact don't even consider the people of the Commonwealth to be even really human anymore.
The Institute is what happens when you let a bunch of mad scientists with very poor to none grasp of ethics run your society.

You mentioned this work they're doing at Warwick Homestead... Interesting example because step one was "Kill the father and replace him with a Synth". Sure, the guy was dirtbag, but the Institute didn't know that.
Step two is running experiments and so one.
Final step: kill the entire family and take the research data back to the Institute.

You're also wrong about their goal not being conquest. They absolutely want to rule humanity. They just don't consider people not part of the Institute to be part of that. They don't see anything of value to be found on the surface world.

Whether or not Synths are really sapient... Even a bigot like Maxwell is convinved they are real people. The only ones who say they aren't are also the ones that have a really big stake in not believing Synths are people because that would mean accepting that their utopia is a slave society.

You have three Synth love interests. What does that tell you?

You are forgetting one big thing. You become the director of the Institute with everything that entails. You aren't just a high-ranking member like with other factions. You are the de facto leader and as files on the topic of cybernetics (Kellogg) have shown the director can shut down anything he doesn't approve of and thinks is not something the Institute should get involved in.
Who is to so say that my character wouldn't share tech with the outside world and restore the Commonwealth to a new glory?

And when it comes the topic of Synth love interests well the only thing it shows is how advanced Institute technology is. A spoken reset code later though and everything is wiped away because in the end they are only artificial constructs and that's all they will ever be. They are just a more fancy version of a Mr. Handy like your very own Codsworth who as you probably have noticed has also his own opinion on things. He can approve or disagree with your actions just like any human can. He refers to himself as I. He has "feelings" some which he immediately reveals to you when you speak with him the first time after stepping out of the Vault.
KLEO is an Assaultron. A robot model designed for war and killing who thinks of herself as a woman and is an independent store owner.
Curie is a modified Miss Nanny robot with her very own personality.
Should we now also pretend they are more than what they are? That they are human? Do you deserve to be punished for the being the master of such a robot? Certainly not in the world I live in.

[Carabas]

Well without the tempering like mindwiping and giving him a new personality that Synth would have never become a Raider in the first place so they can very well be blamed for that.
And Im sure that wasn't the first time something like that happened.

Synths are people, and once you give them free will a few of them will turn out to be dirtbags. It's not as if there aren't planty of slave Synths who aren't murder machines (Coursers, for instance).
There is also no sign that this is anything but an isolated incident.
There are thousands of human Raiders and, so far, one Synth Raider. This is Fallout. Becoming a Raider is apparently a perfectly valid career choice.

Also, you pretty much have to take Father's word for it that the Railroad has even been involved with this Synth at all. Probably, sure, but not certainly.

It's pretty convenient to say that the Brotherhood are genocidal maniacs when it comes to Synths and Ghouls when I have met only very few people in the entire Commonwealth who wouldn't shoot a Synth on the spot as soon as it's revealed as such.

Considering that nothing of the kind has happened to Nick Valentine, I kinda doubt it
And there is still a colossal difference between maybe shooting somebody on sight and launching a huge crusade to exterminate the species.

People are mistrusting of Ghouls too.

Mistrusting, not genocidal.
And mind you, the biggest non-Brotherhood example of anti-Goul bigotry we see in the game was just more of The Institute fracturing the Commonwealth, when Mayor McDonough banished ghouls from Diamond City.

Im sure I didn't see any in Diamond City and the Brotherhood had nothing to do with that.

Indeed. It was The Institute. Mayor McDonough, an Institute Synth, kicked them out.

Every sane person shoots a feral Ghoul on sight and the way ghoulification works means that even non-feral Ghouls can turn into feral ones when the radiation has done enough damage to their brain at any point in time.

It's not quite like that. Most ferals have always been feral. It's like saying any human can get brain damage and kill people, whicj is strictly speaking true.

The Brotherhood is also not running around gunning down non-feral ghouls every chance they get. They are mistrusting of them like pretty much everyone else.

It's more like non-feral Ghouls are on the list of things they want to exterminate, but it's not that urgent a cause when there's still Super Mutants and Ferals and Synths all over the place.
At this point it would probably cause them to lose support from the Commonwealth civilians too, as I don't think they would be cool with lunatics in power armour starting to kill actual people, even if they are people they're racist towards.

You are forgetting one big thing. You become the director of the Institute with everything that entails. You aren't just a high-ranking member like with other factions. You are the de facto leader and as files on the topic of cybernetics (Kellogg) have shown the director can shut down anything he doesn't approve of and thinks is not something the Institute should get involved in.
Who is to so say that my character wouldn't share tech with the outside world and restore the Commonwealth to a new glory?

Nope, I m not forgetting that.
If you pay attention the game makes it perfectly clear that you are never going to be anything else than a figurehead with no real authority to tell scientists what they can or can't do in their research.
Go on, finish the game for the Institute. See how much you can change about how the Institute does things.

And when it comes the topic of Synth love interests well the only thing it shows is how advanced Institute technology is. A spoken reset code later though and everything is wiped away because in the end they are only artificial constructs and that's all they will ever be. They are just a more fancy version of a Mr. Handy like your very own Codsworth who as you probably have noticed has also his own opinion on things. He can approve or disagree with your actions just like any human can. He refers to himself as I. He has "feelings" some which he immediately reveals to you when you speak with him the first time after stepping out of the Vault.

Okay, first of all, are you aware of this genre called "science Fiction" in which things like aliens and fully scientient AIs are common tropes?

Next up. It looks like you're a bit of a Laura Kinney fan.
Except her real name is X-23.
She's an artificial construct, created in a lab. She was created to be a tool for killing.
She even has a trigger, just like Synths.
And then she evolved into something more.
Such triggers are failrly common in fiction. The Manchurian Candidate, The Stand, the Minute Men from 100 Bullets, the player character in Bioshock...

KLEO is an Assaultron. A robot model designed for war and killing who thinks of herself as a woman and is an independent store owner.
Curie is a modified Miss Nanny robot with her very own personality.

She wasn't modified to mimick personality. She was modified to have a personality based on her owner's late wife. And to be more advanced.
Nobody knows what KLEO's status and history is. Curie is definitely a self-aware AI.

Should we now also pretend they are more than what they are? That they are human? Do you deserve to be punished for the being the master of such a robot? Certainly not in the world I live in.

Your standard Mr. Handy/Protectron/whatever isn't a person. Some however have been upgraded to be such.
They aren't human in much the same way Asari, Romulans, or Geth aren't human, but they are people.
By the by, Super Mutants, those actually are human.

[Galerion]

Considering that nothing of the kind has happened to Nick Valentine, I kinda doubt it

Nick is a prototype Synth somewhere in between the second and third generation but definitely leaning towards the second more. Everybody knows he is a machine because his appearance gives that away pretty quickly and he doesn't pretend to be anything else.
It's established that the human-looking aka third generation Synths are the ones the people are really afraid of because they can actually believably fool people in thinking they are human. Even in the Railroad there is no consensus on how to treat first and second generation Synths.

It's not quite like that. Most ferals have always been feral. It's like saying any human can get brain damage and kill people, whicj is strictly speaking true.

No, when a human gets brain damage they are statistically speaking way more likely to just die or be helplessly lying on the ground and then die. Non-feral ghouls turning mad later is a documented phenomenon though.

It's more like non-feral Ghouls are on the list of things they want to exterminate, but it's not that urgent a cause when there's still Super Mutants and Ferals and Synths all over the place.

You have any proof on this claim or is this more your personal opinion making you believe that? The Brotherhood of Steel isn't the Enclave despite their similarities.

Go on, finish the game for the Institute. See how much you can change about how the Institute does things.

I have and that's a game limitation as you should know. In no Bethesda game could you ever actually lead a faction after becoming the leader. No matter if you are the Archmage of the Mages Guild, Harbinger of the Companions or the master of one of the Great Houses of Morrowind.

Next up. It looks like you're a bit of a Laura Kinney fan.
Except her real name is X-23.
She's an artificial construct, created in a lab. She was created to be a tool for killing.
She even has a trigger, just like Synths.
And then she evolved into something more.
Such triggers are failrly common in fiction. The Manchurian Candidate, The Stand, the Minute Men from 100 Bullets, the player character in Bioshock...

Last time I checked she had a mother and was born after nine months of pregnancy and grew up and still does just like any living thing on this planet. There is no discernible difference between her and normal humans besides the X-gene of course.
Synths on the other hand are assembled by a big machine in a matter of minutes with fake skin, fake blood and fake flesh and as soon as they are assembled that's it. They don't grow old and evolve like people tend to do. They have no childhood.
"Shaun" will still be a little kid even in 100 years when you are long dead because he was assembled that way.
If those are the same to you then that's fine. For me they aren't.

She wasn't modified to mimick personality. She was modified to have a personality based on her owner's late wife. And to be more advanced.
Nobody knows what KLEO's status and history is. Curie is definitely a self-aware AI.

Your standard Mr. Handy/Protectron/whatever isn't a person.

Then I guess it's convenient that you left out Codsworth who is a standard model Mr. Handy. You can even see the packing when you start the game and explore the house.

[Expletive Deleted]

The Far Harbor DLC is out, featuring a new landmass to explore, a three-faction conflict, and a bunch of new stuff.

I've only played a little bit of it thus far and I can't say much about the story (although the synth colony seems promising), but the island itself is really nicely done. Even with the map, you really can get turned around in the fog.

[Gryphon]

Ive decided to go back and replay fallout 1 and 2.

Good times. I need to check out wasteland 2

[America]

Far Harbor was terrific.

[Carabas]

So, being an incarnate god of death who kills Legendary Deathclaws almost by looking at them, I ran into this huge, preying-mantis-looking beasty last night. It was an Enraged Whatever, forgot what it was called. And it pretty much no-sold anything I could throw at it, with only a pile of mines being able to make a visible dent in its health bar.

I couldn't find it again after I spontaneously reincarnated, so I only got one try so far at killing it.

[Tenebrae]

I've only play Far Harbour briefly but already it's giving me more of what I wanted than the main Fallout 4 game. It's a great expansion and I'm actually excited to find out what is going on with the island.

[caramon]

Thinking about buying Far Harbour for PS4 - but there seem to be a lot of bugs - any comments on these or is it just a rumour?

[Carabas]

Thinking about buying Far Harbour for PS4 - but there seem to be a lot of bugs - any comments on these or is it just a rumour?

I haven't noticed any.

Okay, once there this time when I was trying to use Blitz and I got teleported halfway across the island, but that was just that one time.

[tsaimelemoni]

Mods are available on XB1 now. Haven't played with them much, but it's cool to have a little customizability. However, there is a 2 GB size limit for what you can have enabled.

[Zero Hunter]

New Worship DLC next week with stuff like working machines and racks for armour and weapons. Next month new DLC that let's you build and run your owns vaults. August sees the release of the Nuka World DLC.

[Carabas]

Meh... Okay, armour and weapon showcases are neat, assuming random settlers and the occasional enterprising Raider won't run off with my displayed stuff.

What I really want is more songs on the radio...