Rowan,

Thank you, Trail!

Can anyone explain what the numbers after the ammo means? For example: Shell(12/42)

your weapon has total 54 bullets. 12 are loaded and 42 remain in cache.

Boshettee.

Does anyone know where you can buy lockpicks?

You just have to find them; at least I haven't bought any. I will always save the game just before attempting to use a lockpick. If it should break, I reload the saved position and try again. I guess I have @40 lockpicks(bobby pins).

You just have to keep your eye open for Bobby Pins, that's what you use to pick locks. Occasionally, they show up at a wasteland trader or Moira's.

Hi, guys! I just want to say: I finally beat the Main Quest!
Perhaps now I can have my life back again.....

As the game properly ends, I'd have to reload an earlier save to complete all the side quests I haven't yet done, but I think I probably did most of them (I stopped Moira's quests with the "damage" one - so there might be quite a few I missed there). The end seemed very abrupt, and this game doesn't seem as big as Morrowind or Oblivion to me.

(Perhaps they were preparing us for a sequel?)

I'll probably now continue with the Witcher where I left off.

Moondancer

Will you play this one again?

I don't like Fallout 3, it's distracted my Guild Wars guild leader, he hasn't been on since he got it.

Probably not entirely, you know. This is one of those Good/Evil games, and being my saintly self, it was quite natural for me to end up as a goodie-two-shoes, with "good" karma.

Now, apparently the ending is different depending on whether you have good or bad karma. As it is, I tried out about 4 small variations on how you could have done the ending, but the cut-scene at the end was almost the same, with those variations, but with me as a good guy.

I think sometime I'll reload just a bit before the ending, and go off to do some side quests, and perhaps just do some random "bad" stuff, to try and get my karma low enough so that I can see the alternate ending. (With me as a "bad guy" )

This was not really a very pleasant, attractive gameworld to be in, for me, so I doubt that I'd want to restart again from scratch.

They did leave the ending very open for a sequel, so I suppose it won't be too long before we see either an expansion of some sort, and eventually a sequel, as I believe the game sold very well.

I've actually become quite hooked on this game. I didn't like it at first and almost quit playing. I still don't know the difference between all the gun and ammo types but levelling up helps a lot and I'm aiming better. It's also amazing the amount of damage a simple melee weapon can do. I'm also playing on easy now.

I try to keep my karma at neutral. From there it's easy enough to become evil for a time just by stealing (for survival, of course). It's also easy enough to become good again by giving water to the beggars, donating to the atom church, or by donating scrap metal to the water reservoir guy.

I do wish there were a completed on-line guide to help out. So far I have found only 2 incomplete ones.

I've now found a new pet puppy called Dogmeat. He follows me and helps me to fight or find items for me. However, I'm so afraid he'll get killed thatI left him with my home robot to keep him company.

I was surprised at the ending as well. Just to reiterate what Moondancer mentioned. While this game is made by Bethesda and does resemble Oblivion in some ways it is not the same style of story.

If you purely follow the main quest line to fruition the game ends-Period. There's no going back unless you go to an earlier game as Moondancer (and I ) is doing.

So if you want this to last longer, do some exploring of the other vaults and cities, that's where you will pick up other side quests. You can move in and out of the main quest line up to a point.

I can't believe that I'm 25 hours into the game and haven't gotten sick of it yet Every time I go to progress the main storyline I discover a new area with at least one interesting quest I want to try. I thought "The Underworld" rocked and I'm currently doing a quest for Reilly, the female merc who was in a coma.

I do find it too easy to get distracted though, so sometimes if an area doesn't interest me straight away or I'm wasting too much ammo fighting off bad guys, I'll just leave and carry on with whatever I was doing before hand.

I was poking around around trying to march in a stright line to the Mine field but failing because I'd see something I "NEEDED" to check out. Anyway I found a wooden quonset hut/barn building with a fellow all decked out in a vest with granades carrying a rifle but he was sitting in the middle of the hut and asked me for a drink of water and I gave it to him and a soda bottle appeared in his hand and he drank it and then walked off and only spoke set phrases to me (he had a name and of course I've forgotten it). There was a motor cycle in the hut and some other good stuff BUT upstairs there was a ham radio set that you could turn on and leave on.....which I did.
Has anyone else seen anything like that and do you know if the ham radio is conected to a quest?? I hope it was OK to leave it on as I'm not sure I could find the hut/barn again....even though I was headed to the minefield I think the hut/barn was near vault 101...don't ask how I got there. I must have set out for the minfield like 10 times and I never make it because I fill up with loot.

There are ham radios to turn on/off all over the place. So far fiddling with them hasn't done anything in my game. I've met only 2 people who have asked for water: The guy sitting outside Megaton and Carlos who is outside Rivet City. There may be more. I think their only purpose to boost your karma.

Have any of you found a place called Oasis? I just come from there and the area is amazing - very different from the rest of Wasteland. I won't say any more.

I've been near Oasis, so will have to check it out. Another interesting place is an area inside the Museum of History. I was very surprised at what was on the other side of the door.

Is there a way to holster the weapon?

I walk around with my pistol in hand and sometimes with a sudden movement it shoots, not the most friendly attitude .

The R key should work. You may have to hold it down a couple seconds, depending on which weapon you are using.

Yup, it's any weapon that requires reloading, because the reload command is also the [R] key.

Thank you Pokey,
I had tried the R key and it hadn't worked but it was a normal hit not a hold, I tried again now holding it and it did.

Mcc

Glad it's working for you now

So anyone come across a Death Claw yet? I seem to be a magnet for these allegedly rare and dangerous creatures. I'd actually like to get one as a Guard Dog Luckily after being relentlessly pursued by them I have come across an almost fool proof defense:

Trail, that is one of my favorite techniques in most games

Yes, I have met one Deathclaw and that was enough. I did think it was ever so considerate of it to wait during his attacks while I stimpacked myself over and over again.

Does anyone know if you can spoil a quest by exploring too soon in an area before a quest for that location has been triggered? I find I am opening a lot of new locations en route to one quest and I'm easily side tracked to explore. However, I've located more than I can handle at once and am afraid I will forget what I have been in and what is still unexplored.

It seems to be dependent on the situation Rowan. I came into what should have been midway through a quest, but because one of the main quest characters had been killed in a battle the others perceived me as a threat. I had to defend myself against them, after which I received the ominous "Quest Failed" message. So, it's not when you come across a quest line, it's what the circumstances are surrounding it.