First Person: Saying Goodbye to Vault Girl

Tomo Stryker

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Aug 20, 2010
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Yes, I to can completely agree with those who continue their characters adventures in stories or in imagination. I've been doing that with the Fallout series since I started playing the original.

Sabrestar said:
Good characters really do come to life. It's happened to me and my characters in fiction, in roleplaying, and in videogames. They will tell their own stories.
This, this is exactly why I loved the Fallout series and any other RPG that lets you take the reins in such volume that Fallout does. Despite the poor graphics or terrible writing or lack of realism in dialogue, I let my character talk and let him make the decision of who to spare and who to blackmail. Imagination is part of what makes RPG's different among the gaming genres.
 

Vault101

I'm in your mind fuzz
Sep 26, 2010
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this is exactlaly what hapened with me..I got very attatched to my "Vault girl" (I think I may steal that name)

I hated the original ending because...as far as I was concerned self sacrifice was too sad...too depressing, and the alternitive gave no closure. I prefer definitive endings....but the ones offered didnt satisfy

I guess my vault girl continued down the path of rightiousness....feeling a little more cynical after her experience with "the pitt"

I imagine she settled in megaton, continued to work with the brotherhood..mabye start a family.....and one day...hoped to visit the vault again
 

BabySinclair

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PatrickXD said:
And that's why I didn't buy Broken Steel, I love endgame scenario's.
I like them too, but I don't like it when they half ass the end-game scenario. Charon, Fawkes, and RL-3 all could have gone into the control chamber and walked out just fine. Charon may have gotten a little too irradiated and gone feral, not likely though. My character was high Intelligence and Charisma, so why in God's apocalyptic wasteland won't one of the three people with me (RL-3) who won't die refuse to do it? That's what pissed me off, not the fact that I could sacrifice myself, just that the only two options was kill Lyons or myself when no lives have to be lost.
 

Vault101

I'm in your mind fuzz
Sep 26, 2010
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Gaboris said:
I joined the site cuz of this so be proud of yourself. ;)

got my base equipment on and went to the cliff at Vault101 where I "sat" down and waited for about 5-15 minutes as the screen kept rotating around my character Gaboris(I'm attached to this name sooo...) and when I remembered all the things we were through I saved, quit and uninstalled the game and all the saves.
Did it still hurt? Sure, but it was better then ending in the middle of a road when I was meant to do something.
soooo

your charachter....simply gave up and sat at the entrace to Vault101..and just watied their? waiting and waiting for mabye somone to open the door... untill he died?? alone?

dude thats sad :p

at least my Vault girl was at her nice house..with dogmeat at her feat and wadsworth fetching her a drink, listening to the radio...and fawkes is there, they are chatting about all they have done
 

Cheeseman Muncher

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Apr 7, 2009
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Could just be because I'm a bit drunk, but I genuinely teared up towards the end of this.

+1 internets to you Sir for beautifully summarising a concept I know all too well, though due to a hard drive crash rather than choice. =;(
 

LordVyreth

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Jan 22, 2010
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I've been doing that with my Western-style RPGs lately. In my version of the character, she literally Quantum Leaps into each reality and generally plays the neutral moral role, if possible. Her name? "Hello." The reference is pretty obvious, I think.
 

Alma Mare

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jedizero said:
Honestly, the only thing I hated about the ending, was the ending itself. I am perfectly fine with the game having a definitive end, it was the story of said ending that was, to be quite honest, BULLSHIT.

Hey! Gotten the contract for Charon? congrats! He won't go into the radioactive area to push the button....the ghoul, who is healed by radiation. Won't go into the radioactive area.

Oh hey! Fawkes! the Lawful Good super mutant! You're awesome, you'll help us out, right? After all, you've braved heavy radiation before!

...What? You won't deny me my 'destiny'? Seriously? I SAVED YOUR ASS. I GOT YOU FREE. And you're here saying 'No, I won't save your life in return because I don't want to deny your destiny of DYING HORRIBLY when there is an alternative option?' You....you asshole.

Well, thank goodness I have a robot! Programmed to do whatever I need, and of course, he's made of metal, and lead! He won't be hurt by the radiation....and even then, its just a robot. I can rebuild hi- You won't go in either. Why. Not? .....motherfu- *BOOM*

It doesn't help that the ending is pretty much 2 yes/no questions. Meaning a grand total of four combinations! Wow! Four whole choices!
This, verbatim. I'm fine with irreversible endings that actually mean something, but the Death of Vault 101 was so shoehorned it just felt silly. Like at the climax of the movie you heard the director shout PLOT CONVENIENT HEART ATTACK GO GO GO! Just very poor writing on an otherwise great history :x
 

Averant

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Alma Mare said:
jedizero said:
This, verbatim. I'm fine with irreversible endings that actually mean something, but the Death of Vault 101 was so shoehorned it just felt silly. Like at the climax of the movie you heard the director shout PLOT CONVENIENT HEART ATTACK GO GO GO! Just very poor writing on an otherwise great history :x
Not to mention the BS part of the death-by-radiation part. I mean, what the hell? Ok, if you stay in the rad long enough, you die. But you literally just walked in, shut the door, opened another one, then walked in. Why can you not go back out and SHUT THE DOOR AGAIN? You've got pockets full of rad-away, you probably didn't even get that much radiation!

Jesus, logic flaws galore...
 

AarinSwift

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Nov 29, 2011
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Personally, I am a fan of the old spaghetti westerns and tend I play my games in much the same way. Fans often like to believe that Clint Eastwood?s ?man with no name? is the same character in each of his movies, but any evidence of this has been deliberately left vague. There is no proof that all these movies have even occurred in the same reality much less the same timeline.

When the map is all explored and the quests are all finished in a game I find it is time to move on. The movie is over. This place doesn?t need me (or my character) anymore but I know I still have a great many more adventures in front of me. So we (it seems appropriate to refer to the player/character relationship as a team and therefore as we) get up and leave; we ride into the sunset like old Clint.

The boundaries of the game cannot contain us. We are only bound by them willingly and only for the sake of the game itself. Once business here is concluded we leave. If not in the game physically (/digitally/ whatever) we move on symbolically in my mind and heart. I am not the same as I once was at the start regardless of the game?s quality. Future characters will be shaped by my experiences here whether regardless if that was the intended effect or not. All our characters live on, they teach us and aid us in our real lives; more than any of us may realize.

To paraphrase Hank Hill, ?What is the point of all those violent videogames if they don?t have any effect on the boy??

Pack Vault Girl?s gear, equip her tools and weapons, and take only the essentials. We will not be coming back. All that is required is a final step out the door and it is done. Save and quit. She now travels on, off the map, off past where the game code can begin to imagine, to infinity and beyond.

Because words often fail me I refer you to a short piece of a poem that you may be familiar with:

"The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say."
 

Dfskelleton

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I found it harder to relate to my character, who ended up looking like a combination of Mad Max, Horatio Caine, and the Doom Marine, accompanied with a bizzare laser fetish. I still made him a selfless hero, but it just felt kind of anticlimactic to have him sacrifice himself.

I agree with you, I just wish I had a character that I could like so well. the closest thing I have to that is a sort of Legacy Character my friend and I came up with named Iggy Blazcowicz. The story we wrote that featured him wasn't even that good, and yet to this day we pay homage to him in almost everything we write.
 

Vern

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Sometimes I wonder how old Joseph Stalin is doing, sitting in his room in Megaton. Then I remembered my 360 RROD'd on me a few weeks ago, and realized I'll never find out, and since I spent 190 hours with him I don't really care.
 

David Farnell

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I had much the same experience--I made a female character and she "woke up" in my mind. And she became pretty much Lawful Good, not because of any decision on my part but just because that was who she became. And she sacrificed herself at the end, and I felt really down, but also really happy. I didn't buy any of the DLC, partly because it came to the PS3 so late (if at all--I'm actually not sure Broken Steel, etc, is even available for the PS3), partly because I fell very much out of love with the PS3, and partly because I just felt like it was best to leave her story there.

But I did try to play through again with a selfish character. I designed his face to look a lot like Alec Baldwin and I was going to play him like Jayne from Firefly. But after a couple hours of playing, I gave it up. I could tell he wasn't ever going to come alive in my imagination like my first character did. I doubt very much that I'll ever play Fallout 3 again. It was great that one time through, but that was enough for me.

On the other hand, I try to play through Half-Life 2, with the Episodes, every summer. The story of Gordon and Alyx just never gets old for me.
 

retyopy

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Aug 6, 2011
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Wow, that was really sad. Brought a manly tear to my eye, I'll tell you that much.
 

Gaboris

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Vault101 said:
Gaboris said:
I joined the site cuz of this so be proud of yourself. ;)

got my base equipment on and went to the cliff at Vault101 where I "sat" down and waited for about 5-15 minutes as the screen kept rotating around my character Gaboris(I'm attached to this name sooo...) and when I remembered all the things we were through I saved, quit and uninstalled the game and all the saves.
Did it still hurt? Sure, but it was better then ending in the middle of a road when I was meant to do something.
soooo

your character....simply gave up and sat at the entrance to Vault101..and just waited their? waiting and waiting for maybe someone to open the door... until he died?? alone?
Oh nonono! I'd never do that to my dear characters, my heart would break. :)
I simply gave him a kind of "went off into the sunset" ending, but since I couldn't make a mod that would make an animation like that I had to end at the "looking down at what he knew and then went on for new adventures" part. ;)

But also to tell the truth I don' perfectly fit here with you guys since in my case my characters are representations of me and not the other way around. When I play I place myself in the world and although my characters are basically me they still come to life and through them I grow attached to their whole world.
When I made Gaboris sit on that cliff and then erased the game I said good bye to the capital wasteland and went onto other adventures, like the one where I was assigned to deliver a Platinum chip to New Vegas, but Gaboris took a bit of a longer rest at Goodsprings or where he was about to get his head chopped off, but then a huge dragon came out of the skies and burnt the whole town down. You get where I'm going now right? ;)
 

The Random One

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May 29, 2008
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I agree. Fallout 3 did quite a few things right that made people mad. The ending was one (although it was more a case of robbing us of unfinished content without warning than the actual finality). I also mentioned before how people clamor for quests that don't have a definitive good/evil schism but the only ambigous one I know is Tenpenny Tower, which people just fucking hate.

JesterRaiin said:
Seventh Actuality said:
This is why when I get attached to an RPG character, I just remake them in a different RPG and pretend they're like the Eternal Champion or some shit.
o_O
Been a while since somebody evoked concept of Moorcock's Champion. Thanks for reminding ! :)
Same here. My character in every game you can create your character is the same person. She started out as a skater, but run into the wrong crowd and became an evil gangster in Stilwater. After a while, though, she realized she was immortal, and slowly began to mind her evil ways. She endeavoured to be good when a nuclear apocalypse destroyed the entire world and everything that was older than 1950, and when mankind was back on its track, she decided to take an active role in helping out her species, joining the military and adopting the symbolic name Shepard.
 

The Harkinator

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Jun 2, 2010
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"When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain he wept, for there were no more lands for him to conquer."

I hit this exact same wall, I completed every quest and visited every location. Got to lvl 30 and returned to Megaton to stash the last notable loot. Then I stopped, looked out over the walkway and just watched people go about their lives for a while. Then I realised, there is nothing for me to do in this game anymore.

Saving the game, I turned it off and thought, what shall William (my characters name) do now? I always toyed with the idea of him wandering west to find a new adventure but then I thought, no. My character had become like The Doctor, a mythical figure that appears in the hour of need and saves everyone. The Lonely Angel walking the ruins of the Old World. Instead I decided William was going to do what he had always done, Survive and Thrive. But this time he would take it one step further, he would revive the wasteland.

Travelling to Rivet City he mustered the council and proposed the idea of a proper nation, creating a connection between Rivet City, Megaton, Arefu, Cantebury Commons and many other locations in the Captital Wasteland. Setting himself up as the self-styled 'Governor' William created teams consisting of Mercenaries such as Reillys Rangers and Talon Company (with their leader dead they had no choice but to obey William). The Regulators, Brotherhood of Steel and Rivet City Security. Raider bands could earn their pardons by joining the ever growing 'Captial Guard' and its helpers. They were armed and equipped with the best arms and armour Money could buy (taken from Tenpennys funds) they conducted a huge sweep of the Capital wasteland. From every Metro Tunnel to the high rise buildings still standing, Ghouls and Mutants were cleared out. Uncooperative raiders forced to surrender or die (after early successes many joined up anyway) medical and production equipment was gathered up.

Using the now clear D.C. Ruins William set up camps and structures, more solid and clean than those in Megaton. Where possible old buildings were cleared out and repaired so they could be lived in again. Settlements in the Wasteland were offered the opportunity to join the growing nation, with food, safety and clean water (remember the purifier) they flocked to join. figures such as Ernest Roe managed trade caravans between settlements to be well defended and the settlements flourished.

Returning to Adams Air Force Base with a team of scavengers William stripped the place bare, Vertibirds were taken, weapons and ammunition stockpiled and the twisted metal remains of the base itself carried piece by piece (by vertibird) to the wasteland to provide even more raw materials. Using his foundries at the Pitt William began manufacturing products, rather than scavenging the old he made the new. Habitable vaults such as Vault 112 were cleared and repurposed as homes. Older vaults were cleared such as Vault 94 and 108. They soon became hospitable again. Using the surviving books and resourced from Pre War books in the vaults people became doctors and scientists. During this time Vault 101, which allowed trade with the outside world, remained untouched on Williams orders. However, a message came that Alphonse Almodovar and many of the older members of the vault had passed away and with them gone, hate for William had died down. Vault 101 opened its doors fully to the outside world and William married Amata at the Rivet City church. He continued to rule the Capital Wasteland for years, guiding it through times both difficult and prosperous such as when Brotherhood outcasts firebombed a Brotherhood defended caravan causing tensions to rise to the point of a war. Instead, William offered them an Ultimatum. Either the Outcasts leave their base and are allowed to take all their technology west, back to the brotherhood or soldiers armed with Fatmans and Experimental MIRVs would bombard the place. Unsurprisingly the troublesome outcasts packed up and left.

Years later at the age of 64, William chose his eldest child to succeed him and taught her how to defend and manage his country. He and Amata retired to Vault 101 where they would live for another 17 years. William died first, and Amata only a few days later. They were buried outside the water purifier with a huge Vault Door from Vault Tec HQ (it says 101 on it) as the entrance to their tomb.

When Williams daughter died at the age of 72, her son took over. His name was James. In honour of a brave man who set forth from the comfort of his home to try and save the world.
 

Gaboris

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Dec 22, 2011
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@JaceValm:
Sir... THIS just blew my mind, congrats! :D

This may sound like an overacted fanfic to SOME ppl, but anyone who was just as much immersed in this world would almost wet their seats if they heard this as an ending... at least I know I would've. :p

Great job man hope you have more ideas for other games. :)
 

Ninjat_126

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JaceValm said:
"When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain he wept, for there were no more lands for him to conquer."
I'd like to wish that my Fallout 3 Vault Girl would do that, but I have a feeling she'd probably go to Rivet City, talk to the council, and then punch them all in the face for being dicks. Don't worry, she's got a low unarmed skill, they'd live.

I'm not actually finished Fallout 3 yet, I'm trying to complete all the content and get a cheap copy of the GOTY edition before I take on the purifier. Still, maybe I'm just trying to keep Vault Girl alive a few more weeks?