Fallout 4

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

Does anyone know if there's a way to rename the dog? Minor point, I know.

[Jace, Extat]

Does anyone know if there's a way to rename the dog? Minor point, I know.

I don't think it's minor. Why can't I name him Doggie Howser? Oh, and I think Doggie Howser died in my game. I haven't seen him in like an hour.

[KiDisaster]

 

I don't think it's minor. Why can't I name him Doggie Howser? Oh, and I think Doggie Howser died in my game. I haven't seen him in like an hour.

Did you send him back to Sanctuary? If so, he'll be in one of the dog houses in the area. Unless you scrapped them all like I did when I went on a SCRAP ALL THE THINGS binge, in which case you can build one yourself and the next time you come back to the area he should be in it. 

So far I prefer Codsworth as a companion. He's kinda funny. Also flamethrower. 

[Howdyphillip]

I have had the game freeze or crash around five or six times in four hours of game play. My system is way above specs, but I am using an AMD chip. It isn't completely broken, but it is frustrating.

 

Also, some of the quest markers lead me to the middle of the road with nothing around. Has anyone tried the Valentine detective quest yet?

[Inigima]

So... I've never played a Fallout game before but the hype is convincing me. Do I need much knowledge of the prior games? What other game is Fallout4 best compared to? (apart from Fallout3)

Fallout is an RPG series set in a postnuclear wasteland. As of Fallout 3, they are first-person rather than isometric as the first two games were. The main things to know are:

- Despite the barren waste of a setting, the tone is typically dark humor, and

- Just as Alien (and the recent Alien: Isolation game) envisioned technological advancement through the lens of the technology of the time -- in that case, the late 1970s -- so too does Fallout view everything through the prism of the 1950s.

[Jack Bauer 24]

http://www.rpgamer.com/games/fallout/fallout4/reviews/fallout4strev1.html

 

Yikes

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

So am I being dumb or are there no skills to level up, just perks?

[KiDisaster]

So am I being dumb or are there no skills to level up, just perks?

Yup. Just SPECIAL and Perks. Skills are a thing of the past. 

[RumHam]

http://www.rpgamer.com/games/fallout/fallout4/reviews/fallout4strev1.html

 

Yikes

Your beloved IGN gave it a 9.5 with the only negative aspect being the bugs. I wouldn't worry about a couple negative reviews. It's great. 

[Fiddler]

So am I being dumb or are there no skills to level up, just perks?

I didn't realize this either going in.  Made my 1st character with 8 in intelligence (more skill points).  Then spent the first four levels wondering how I got perks (I thought the point you get each level was for the SPECIAL).

 

Overall I am liking the changes they have made (radiation, crafting, box looting, etc...) and don't have anything to complain about with the game.  It's fun and the mod system for weapons and armor is great.

[Werthead]

 Each game has its own story, so you don't really need prior knowledge to play Fallout 4.  That said, you may want to spend ten or fifteen minutes reading up on the lore of the series, though, just so that you understand the world and how it differs from our own even prior to the nuclear holocaust.  As for what game it's best compared to, that's easy...Skyrim.  It's basically Skyrim in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

And just for this very eventuality.

[AndrewJ]

People would change Dogmeat's name!? But... that's sacrilege!!!  

 

[RumHam]

People would change Dogmeat's name!? But... that's sacrilege!!!  

 

Well his name doesn't seem to be Dogmeat, he's just "Dog."

[briantw]

Well his name doesn't seem to be Dogmeat, he's just "Dog."

It's definitely Dogmeat.  My character even called him that out loud at one point.

[AndrewJ]

Huh? I'm sure he's Dogmeat in mine.

Hmm... I'm not very far into the game (wasn't able to play last night). But maybe it was just the old lady with the sight who referred to him by name. I thought his name changed in the UI afterwards, but I basically haven't played at all beyond there.

Maybe if people miss that conversation option with her, his name remains forever "Dog"? (the conversation has you saying "so he's your dog, then?" and she replies that he's nobodies - he chooses to be friends with. I may have selected the "Dogmeat?" option from the conversation to trigger it.

So... maybe you need to select the right conversation option, or maybe I'm just mis-remembering.

I'll check when I play tonight and report back.

[briantw]

I can confirm with one-hundred percent certainty that he's called Dogmeat in my game.  

On that note, does anyone find it a little strange that there's a purebred German Shepherd running around the post-apocalypse almost three hundred years in the future?  He also looks exactly like my dog, which is weird.

[RumHam]

So when you guys look at him it says Dogmeat? Huh. I double checked and mine is just Dog. I get messages like "Dog can't carry anymore."

Also apparently you can use the dog to get that awesome gun behind the master lock in Vault 111. 

[KiDisaster]

So when you guys look at him it says Dogmeat? Huh. I double checked and mine is just Dog. I get messages like "Dog can't carry anymore."

Also apparently you can use the dog to get that awesome gun behind the master lock in Vault 111. 

Same. I had the conversation with Mama Whatserface where she tells me his name is Dogmeat (and I knew it was to begin with of course) but when I look at him the tooltip just says "Dog". 

I call all dogs 'dog' and all cats 'cat' in real life anyway though so it doesn't bother me  

[Werthead]

Played about 4 hours. So far it's pretty much as expected: a shinier, more polished version of FO3, complete with most of the same bugs. There's also the same cool emergent gameplay memorable moments and a good sense of place and atmosphere. Writing's not great, but it's definitely a step up over FO3 and Skyrim, if not at New Vegas levels.

The new skill/perk system is interesting. I kind of dig it, it's simplified a lot and wraps everything into a single mechanic which is deceptively simple.

There is even worse narrative dissonance than in most Bethesda games though.

"I need to save my baby right now! After I sort out these two factions, set up this autoturret, find this missing thing for that guy and build a couple of beds for the Minutemen."

Also, what are the odds (don't tell me if you'v already finished the main quest):

That your baby is  like the main bad guy or something? You - and your wife's corpse -  are frozen again after the baby is kidnapped, so the kid could be pretty much any age at all.

[KiDisaster]

Also, what are the odds (don't tell me if you'v already finished the main quest):

Hidden Content

Same prediction I made when the game was announced. I've kept myself from looking at spoilers to see if I'm right or not. But...(minor, not-main-story related spoiler)

 

While I was exploring a random raider cave, I found a computer entry from one of them that talked about how raiders had killed his whole village when he was a little kid and raised him to be like them, and something else about them stealing kids. I'm even more convinced of my Baby Baddie theory now. Pretty sure the final moral choice is whether to kill your own kid for all the evil they've done or not.