Fallout 76. Worried? Excited? Both?

[Winthur]

What makes this (potentially) bad game different from the thousands of other bad games you haven't played that you'd buy it anyway? Just because it's Fallout?

Don't listen to this NMA grognard who forgot what fun is. Remember, it just works. If you don't buy this game that you like so much we will not be able to make more of those games that you like so much. And you do want to play our games. Everyone does, why would you be different? You a nerd or something?

[Rodin]

What would you like then? Its the post apocalypse. There will be a lot of wrecked houses and most of the ruins that are even partially fortifiable will be occupied.

I agree crafting was pretty tedious. I usually just killed people until I got what I needed. Took a while to find the best sniper rifle/Combat rifle parts tho. But its doable if you don't mind going through the corpses of everyone you killed for a single part.

The immediate counter-example would be Wasteland 2, which managed to have most of the quests be in towns helping the citizens. There's very little wandering through ruined cities looking for loot, you're always going somewhere on a specific objective.

For a Bethesda comparison, Fallout 4 vs Skyrim. Fallout has 2 major towns along with a whole lot of ruins and a couple of isolated faction quest hubs. Skyrim meanwhile has 8 major cities as well as a goodly number of smaller towns.

Heck, even Fallout 2. You spend a lot more time in the actual towns questing than you do in the wastes picking through abandoned neighborhoods.

[Triaxx]

I wasn't really bothered by the crafting, or the building. I played any number of characters who did no crafting beyond stripping parts from looted weapons. It's no big deal.

That said, those characters who did go into crafting, found they weren't missing anything, because my looting involves taking nothing but ammo until the end of the dungeon, then looting anything and everything that's not nailed down.

[GloatingSwine]

From what I can tell it's "Rust: Slightly left of Capital Wasteland Edition".

I don't care about Rust. I don't care about this.

[GloatingSwine]

Also Three Dog is IMO the worst part of FO3 and I always (that is, when I actually play FO3, which is mostly for turning off my brain) mute him out / set a radio with only the songs.

If you want a radio with only the songs, accidentally leave a landmine in Three Dog's trousers.

Unlike literally every other annoying git in a Bethesda game, he isn't invincible.

(When they made Mayor Macready Satan smiled. When they brought him back in Fallout 4 still invincible Satan wept bitter tears of envy).

[Triaxx]

They seem pretty frantic to tell people it's not like Rust.

[Cheesegear]

I for one thoroughly enjoyed Fallout 3, despite it's flaws, and it in no way compared to the vitriol poured upon it in the early days...

Fallout 3 is still the 'most like Fallout'. I don't understand why people don't like it.

[Winthur]

Fallout 3 is still the 'most like Fallout'. I don't understand why people don't like it.

Because it's a theme park. "Hey, here are all the things you know (or kinda sorta vaguely fit) from Fallout - super mutants, deathclaws, vaults, ruined buildings, ghouls, everything looks derelict and ruined".

Also the amount of bad dialogue and storytelling ("You're an abomination of science", everything to do with Moira, Little Lamplight) has seen plenty of critique. Shamus Young wrote a pretty extensive retrospective about it.

Pretty much all of the criticism of Fallout 3 revolves around those two issues, if taken barebones.

Besides, seriously, what vitriol? Game sold like hotcakes. You guys are going on like Fallout 3 is some underappreciated gem made by a small indie company that got buried in the trashcan of history because some virgins backlashed it on the internet. Once again - if you belittle any and all arguments against it as being made by screaming manchildren, there's no point to this thread being anything other than blind advertisement.

[Cheesegear]

there's no point to this thread being anything other than blind advertisement.

You mean it isn't?
A 1:10 footage trailer with zero gameplay or explanation.

ARE YOU HYPE OR NOT!?

[Spore]

Also the amount of bad dialogue and storytelling ("You're an abomination of science", everything to do with Moira, Little Lamplight) has seen plenty of critique. Shamus Young wrote a pretty extensive retrospective about it.

Care to link it? Fallout never was a super serious thing to begin with. Or are you telling me, prank calling the Enclave, the Super Mutant couple of Broken Hills or when your player character is more stupid than the cyber dog K-9 is srs business?

Of course it is a weird tonal shift from super serious family or vault business (where is my father or son, how can I save these people dying of thirst in my vault) to super-wacky meme-y movie and internet references. But Fallout is a game not a guided story experience. It was always very sandbox-y (actually the first game I know where you can run from your vault straight into deadly encounters, sans Baldur's Gate's Ankhegs) which usually ruins any narrative pace.

If it were like Bioshock Infinite were certain events unfold resulting in each other, (and there is still place for side gags) I would understand ANY critique towards its tone or content. but Fallout always WAS somewhat of a theme park filled with radiation, deadly monsters and secret organisations.

And it actually did abandoned theme parks a few times. And New Vegas is a fricking amusement strip. (Can't find anything but I swear I recall a broken down amusement park map in either FO 1 or 2).

[Morty]

I enjoyed Fallout 3 for what it was, but the writing was pretty stupid. New Vegas was much, much better... but I had to stop playing because of a bug switching off my escape menu. I think a major but rarely mentioned thing the FPS Fallout games struggle with is reconciling mechanics made for an ages-old isometric RPG with a first-person perspective.

I don't know what to think about Fallout 76. I skipped FO4 because of crafting and base-building, so if it focuses on that... no thanks. But maybe it won't.

[Triaxx]

Winthur, you seem to be reading into what we're saying and coming up with something we're not saying. For all the people fawning over a new Fallout after all these years, there were people who did not like it. Some people didn't like the setting, because it was as much rooted in West Coast culture, as it was in 50's Americana. Moving to the East Coast changed that as much as it did seemingly erasing any progress humanity had made since the 'war'. Any problems people saw pre-launch, were pretty heavily overshadowed by the positives post launch. Of course launch brought it's own set of complications, such as the whining about being a theme park, and the bad dialogue and story telling.

Personally? I enjoy the thousand or so hours I put into it, before New Vegas and Skyrim came out. I still enjoy it for that matter. Every so often, I install it, mod it until it hurts, and then gleefully wander around the wasteland depopulating it of raiders, ghouls and random mutated animals.

See the dichotomy of: They Changed it, now it sucks and It's the same, now it sucks You can't please all of the people all of the time, and most of the time you can't please anyone.

Still, this is a thread all about hype, and I'm very hyped for Fallout 76. But I'm not about to be fooled into another early purchase.

[Winthur]

Still, this is a thread all about hype, and I'm very hyped for Fallout 76. But I'm not about to be fooled into another early purchase.

Which is my entire point - I don't see the reason to buy this game solely because of the brand name.
Having reservations about the direction of the new games is valid; even though I do not particularly condone getting up in arms about video games, I also do not think everyone who had issues with newer Fallout games was "screaming" about the issue
Besides, I feel like the Fallout fanbase is quite mellow on that point; the portion of the fanbase who generally really, really disliked Fallout 3 has been mostly appeased by New Vegas solely because of the different direction and actual original Fallout writers and designers on board of that game.

I just think it's fairly dishonest to assume:
1) there was some massive outrage at the Fallout franchise. A fringe minority that didn't even put a dent in the game's sales and came nowhere close jeopardizing Bethesda's enormous success seems like such a blight on the radar that to hinge on to that issue feels silly.
2) that the people who have their doubts, complaints and issues don't have some semblance of a point, especially since I distinctly recall Todd saying some of the things they tried with FO4 didn't work out. Besides, the recent RPG renaissance (through indie stuff) showed that these same people who complain do have an outlet for what they actually do want - and they tend to vote for those things with their wallet.

As for the Shamus Young retrospective, it's here.

The Fallout thread over here constantly has people complaining about stuff that doesn't make sense even though they generally seem to like the games (enough for the Fallout thread to constantly spawn iterations). At this point in the thread, like, two-three guys said they aren't particularly interested (without really contesting the point or being antagonistic) and then we somehow managed to segway this into "grandpa still remembers nerds violently rioting on the streets over the fact that Megaton and Little Lamplight made no sense", which is silly.

[Xenopax]

These days you can easily check out a stream or YouTube video of gameplay. You don't have to trust anyone's review before buying except your own.

What makes this (potentially) bad game different from the thousands of other bad games you haven't played that you'd buy it anyway? Just because it's Fallout?

You see, I don't trust youtube either. I thought i'd hate Overwatch but after buying it, I loved it. So i need to play it.

Pretty much. I've played all the other fallouts and it feels weird if i don't play this one. At the very worst, it'll be a good waste of my time.

[GloatingSwine]

Fallout 3 is still the 'most like Fallout'. I don't understand why people don't like it.

Eh, it's less unlike Fallout than other Bethesda efforts, but it's not a lot like Fallout.

The key elements of making things like fallout are multiple inputs, multiple outcomes.

Quests should be soluble in different ways narratively and mechanically and the consequences of the player's narrative choices should be explored in the epilogue.

That's what the original ethos behind Fallout was.

Fallout 3 has a few quests where you can deal with them in different ways mechanically, but most of them not so much. It has quests where the immediate narrative outcomes can vary but none of them explore any long range consequences in the way Fallout 1, 2, and New Vegas do in their epilogues.

What happened to the Capital Wasteland if you kill Roy Phillips? What's different if you get him into Tenpenny Tower? The residents of Tenpenny are the alleged "elite" with the wealth to live there, so what happens if they all die? How does it change based on whether you kill Tenpenny for "You gotta shoot 'em in the head" but leave the rest alive?

It's not even an exaggeration to say that your toaster in Old World Blues gets a more detailed ending than either Fallout 3 or 4's main quest.

Those are the things that make a Fallout game Fallout.

[Wraith]

Fallout 3 is still the 'most like Fallout'. I don't understand why people don't like it.

I feel that it's a lot like Mass Effect 3... Or rather, ME3 was like FO3. Otherwise a solid, entertaining and engaging game, but the last 10 minutes weren't what people were expecting and it retroactively coloured their opinion even after the patch to replace it.

Both have echoes of what I'm seeing in Fallout 78 - people were expecting something, were thrown a curveball, and did not appreciate it. I, for one, remember how Fallout ended and I have to say that a noble sacrifice of a death is far, far better than we deserved in comparison

Because it's a theme park. "Hey, here are all the things you know (or kinda sorta vaguely fit) from Fallout - super mutants, deathclaws, vaults, ruined buildings, ghouls, everything looks derelict and ruined".

I'm a grumpy, jaded old man, but yet I seem to remember that theme parks are.... well.... fun?
Apologies, but I genuinely do not understand the complaint here. It reads like "It's Fallout, but with more to do" and given how blank much of the FO map was that is only a good thing?

Besides, seriously, what vitriol?

Specifically, people writing in to video gaming magazines to complain about it before it was released, and similar Forum posts on the internet. Pretty much the same as I've seen for Fallout '78, except that it predated YouTube and some other social media.

Which all turned out to be unfounded, as you say; it sold ridiculous amounts of units and (flaws aside) was highly praised, proving such criticisms unfounded. And thus far, I believe that I have been advocating that people remember this, appealing for measured consideration and not aggressive condemnation.

You guys are going on like Fallout 3 is some underappreciated gem made by a small indie company that got buried in the trashcan of history because some virgins backlashed it on the internet. Once again - if you belittle any and all arguments against it as being made by screaming manchildren...

That's about as strawman-y as what you are accusing us of. No one has been attacked, I feel that we might just be at cross-purposes here.

Which is my entire point - I don't see the reason to buy this game solely because of the brand name.

I think this may be the crux; we're BOTH saying "don't buy it yet". I'm saying it because people have been burned in the past and they should wait for more information, and you seem to be saying it because those 'burns' weren't as bad as many people make them out to be. Neither of us are wrong I think, just of different priorities.

I just think it's fairly dishonest to assume:
1) there was some massive outrage at the Fallout franchise.

Similarly, you have been referring to this thread and the other GitP Fallout thread, whereas I am specifically referring to YouTube, Reddit, Twitter and few others. I know that *we* tend to be a calmer, level-headed bunch, so when I say "anger and vitriol" please understand that I'm addressing it to the internet at large, which I admit is not necessarily a sensible litmus test for calm, rational consideration....

Of course it is a weird tonal shift from super serious family or vault business (where is my father or son, how can I save these people dying of thirst in my vault) to super-wacky meme-y movie and internet references.

Given that in Fallout you could reliably stumble across a TARDIS, and in Fallout 2 the man-eating plant from Little Shop of Horrors, I suspect that this is somewhat exaggerated but not necessarily true.

[Anteros]

See the dichotomy of: They Changed it, now it sucks and It's the same, now it sucks You can't please all of the people all of the time, and most of the time you can't please anyone.

Blindly dismissing all criticism of something you like is just as time-honored an internet tradition as blindly criticizing things though.

[Cheesegear]

The key elements of making things like fallout are multiple inputs, multiple outcomes.

Mr House: Kill/Truce with Lanius
NCR: Kill/Truce with Lanius
Independent: Kill/Truce with Lanius.

Three out of the four endings of the game, end the exact same way.

Quests should be soluble in different ways narratively and mechanically

Which Fallout 3 does fantastically. Just not as part of the main quest. The other problem being that a whole bunch of the 'more fun' quests aren't on the main trail, and/or are unmarked. A huge thrust of the questing in New Vegas is done by people walking up to you, and telling you to go somewhere.

and the consequences of the player's narrative choices should be explored in the epilogue.

*Shrug*

Fallout 3 has a few quests where you can deal with them in different ways mechanically, but most of them not so much. It has quests where the immediate narrative outcomes can vary but none of them explore any long range consequences in the way Fallout 1, 2, and New Vegas do in their epilogues.

Who cares about Epilogues? The gameplay is over by that point.

What happened to the Capital Wasteland if you kill Roy Phillips? What's different if you get him into Tenpenny Tower? The residents of Tenpenny are the alleged "elite" with the wealth to live there, so what happens if they all die? How does it change based on whether you kill Tenpenny for "You gotta shoot 'em in the head" but leave the rest alive?

If you let Roy Phillips into Tenpenny Tower, if you come back a few days later, all the human residents are dead.
You either kill the Ghouls, or the Ghouls kill the Humans. Even if you tell them to live peacefully with each other.

The problem is that you have zero excuse to ever go back to the areas you change. You never need to go back to Big Town, where the Traders have now what you taught them to use. You never have to go back to Oasis. You definitely don't need to ever revisit the Republic of Dave. Once you complete it, you're done. If you don't live at Tenpenny Tower, you will never notice that the Ghouls kill everyone the second you leave.

One of my friends didn't even know that Vault 101 reopens halfway through the game, because he never listened to the radio.

I guess that's me, though. In RPGs I don't like it when the game holds my hand and tells me what to do. Especially in a sandbox-style game like Fallout. New Vegas has very little exploration. All of the major Factions are directly on the main questline, you can't miss them, and all quest-givers for any Faction generally hang around in the same place so you can very easily find them, and you have to frequently return to the same areas, over and over and over again. Even if you choose not to follow New Vegas' directions...There's no point. Literally everything good is found on the main trail.

[Xenopax]

Mr House: Kill/Truce with Lanius
NCR: Kill/Truce with Lanius
Independent: Kill/Truce with Lanius.

Three out of the four endings of the game, end the exact same way.

Fallout 4
Minutemen: Blow up Institute
BoS: Blow up Institute
Railroad: Blow up Institute
I'm not complaining. The how and why of blowing up the institute matter and make it different.

Who cares about Epilogues? The gameplay is over by that point.

The Epilogue tells you the consequences of your actions. I enjoyed knowing the impact I had on the Mojave in the long term. Then again one of the reasons I play fallout is for the story, but that might be just me.

[GloatingSwine]

Mr House: Kill/Truce with Lanius
NCR: Kill/Truce with Lanius
Independent: Kill/Truce with Lanius.

Three out of the four endings of the game, end the exact same way.

Except they don't, because who shows up at the Battle of Hoover Dam is responsive to other quests you've done throughout the game.

Which Fallout 3 does fantastically. Just not as part of the main quest. The other problem being that a whole bunch of the 'more fun' quests aren't on the main trail, and/or are unmarked. A huge thrust of the questing in New Vegas is done by people walking up to you, and telling you to go somewhere.

Fallout 3 does it occasionally, and forgets about it the second it's done it.

Who cares about Epilogues? The gameplay is over by that point.

People who understand satisfying narrative structure in choice based games (ie. not Bethesda). Without consequences attached to your choices the choices are irrelevant. Fallout's epilogues deliver on the consequences of the player's actions..

If you let Roy Phillips into Tenpenny Tower, if you come back a few days later, all the human residents are dead.
You either kill the Ghouls, or the Ghouls kill the Humans. Even if you tell them to live peacefully with each other.

And how does that affect the Capital Wasteland. Tenpenny Tower is supposed to be where the high flyers and bigshots live. What happens when they're summarily removed? How does the world change based on your choice? That's what Fallout is about.

I guess that's me, though. In RPGs I don't like it when the game holds my hand and tells me what to do. Especially in a sandbox-style game like Fallout. New Vegas has very little exploration.

The Fallout games were not sandbox style. They were never supposed to be. They are supposed to be about narrative and mechanical roleplaying not "I wonder what's in this bombed out suitcase".

The "exploration" they offer is "how many ways can I find to resolve this situation and what comes out of it if I do?".

[Cheesegear]

Except they don't, because who shows up at the Battle of Hoover Dam is responsive to other quests you've done throughout the game.

They show up.
They don't show up 'cause you ignored them | They don't show up 'cause you killed them.

Do you need help to win the game? Does it matter whether they're there, or not there? No. Your choices make no difference to outcome of the game - confront Lanius.

All's that matters is doing the quests (e.g; Gameplay), which you can't miss. You can only choose not to do. But, like I said, every playthrough, regardless of your SPECIAL or Skills, gives you access to every quest. What New Vegas also does do, is that it tells you when you need to do a skillcheck, and, more specifically, what number you need to have, to achieve it. So you just go out for a while, kill a few Raiders, and do the quest again for the optimal reward.

A good example in Fallout 3 is Hubris Comics. There are literally no quest markers or Inventory Notes () telling you to go there. But, if you do, and read one, specific Terminal, you get a bonus option for dealing with The Super Human Gambit.

...And now I'm doing exactly what Winthur said I was going to do.
Damn it.

[GloatingSwine]

They show up.
They don't show up 'cause you ignored them | They don't show up 'cause you killed them.

And already we're at several layers of differentiation in how the endgame plays.

Which do not exist in any of the Bethesda games because no consequences allowed, follow the big stompy robot whilst it plays the game for you. Maybe convince Colonel Autumn to walk away but have absolutely no recognition about what he did next because writing epilogues is hard.

Do you need help to win the game? Does it matter whether they're there, or not there? No. Your choices make no difference to outcome of the game - confront Lanius.

But they do present consequences of choices the player made.

All's that matters is doing the quests (e.g; Gameplay), which you can't miss. You can only choose not to do. But, like I said, every playthrough, regardless of your SPECIAL or Skills, gives you access to every quest. What New Vegas also does do, is that it tells you when you need to do a skillcheck, and, more specifically, what number you need to have, to achieve it. So you just go out for a while, kill a few Raiders, and do the quest again for the optimal reward.

New Vegas generally doesn't have optimal rewards other than the epilogue you prefer (which you said you didn't care about).

What it does have is lots of different ways to approach how you deal with quests and who is standing or not at the end of them.

I'm going to need to post this again:

A good example in Fallout 3 is Hubris Comics. There are literally no quest markers or Inventory Notes () telling you to go there. But, if you do, and read one, specific Terminal, you get a bonus option for dealing with The Super Human Gambit.

But nothing acknowledges that what you do in The Superhuman Gambit changes anything.

What happens to Canterbury Commons if you kill them both, how is it different from making them both quit peacefully. Does the AntAgoniser begin a reign of terror over the northern Capital Wasteland if you remove the Mechanist?

Or are there no consequences for player decisions?

(Hint it is option two).

[Cheesegear]

And already we're at several layers of differentiation in how the endgame plays.

No we aren't.

Maybe convince Colonel Autumn to walk away but have absolutely no recognition about what he did next because writing epilogues is hard.

Does it matter?

But they do present consequences of choices the player made.

The consequences of my choices were already made apparent instantly after completing the quest.

What it does have is lots of different ways to approach how you deal with quests and who is standing or not at the end of them.

So does Fallout 3. The only problem is that it isn't the main quest.
However, as I've mentioned, the end of New Vegas, three out of four times, is confront Lanius. But there's a whole walking segment that may or may not be different every time, which 'tricks' people into thinking that the ending is different. The problem, is that in FO3, the option to have the robot there, or not there, isn't available. However, there isn't a reason to let everyone live, and have everyone backing you at Hoover Dam, because having everyone alive at the end of the game...Is the optimal reward. It turns the Hoover Dam battle, well, into a jaunty walk - the same thing that everyone criticises about Liberty Prime.

But nothing acknowledges that what you do in The Superhuman Gambit changes anything.

You don't listen to Three Dog, do you?
*I* know, because I did it. I don't need a cue card at the end of the game telling me that I did what I already knew I did. Because I already did it.

Does the AntAgoniser begin a reign of terror over the northern Capital Wasteland if you remove the Mechanist?

Actually, yes.
The problem is that such a thing goes into the 'deck' of random encounters. Which you may never see.

"Because you never see it. You assume that it was never there in the first place." - Fallout 3 in a nutshell, and why you play it multiple times.

[Brookshw]

I'm a grumpy, jaded old man, but yet I seem to remember that theme parks are.... well.... fun?
Apologies, but I genuinely do not understand the complaint here. It reads like "It's Fallout, but with more to do" and given how blank much of the FO map was that is only a good thing?

As I understand the point, it's grabbing all the trappings of the original Fallout just to keep a comparison alive in the mind of the player, but missing a lot of the "essence" that made the original games what they were. Things like deathclaws make no sense in F3/F4, here in the north east we don't have lizards/chameleons/tarrasques around to have mutated into Deathclaws. Same for FEV virus, it didn't make any sense for it to be on the east coast given it's history in Mariposa and the strict crackdown the military imposed on it's research pre-war. That the institute has it in F4, suddenly after roughly 100 years of isolation, doesn't make much sense either, they certainly never gave any explanation for how it ended up in their hands. Window dressings are nice and all, but if the underlying structure is the issue they aren't really that important.


Absolutely Fallout has always had it's zany moments, and took itself a lot less seriously at certain points than we do in the analysis (apparently how much zanyness to put into F:NV was a debate they solved with the wild wasteland perk, giving the players the option). However I agree there are certain development elements that were substantially differentiated in F3/4 as debated by Cheese and Gloating, i.e., the epilogues. Fallout originally did want to take a semi-serious look at morality and ethics in the post-apocalypse and this was explored in many ways in the epilogues. As an example from the original Fallout, Junktown was originally going to have a terrible ending if you side with Killian, but would have done pretty well if you side with Gizmo. It would have been a good challenge to the preconceptions placed on how people viewed the game if we couldn't just project our current morality on the situation and needed to consider how that world was really working. Though they ended up having to swap those endings around (iirc it was the marketing department that got them to change it, but it's been a while since I read the Fallout Bible), that they really took the time to consider and build the world asking themselves how things work really shows - to me at least - a deeper level of thought and care. A more current example is the variety of endings you could get in Honest Hearts showing a much more nuanced view on how the players interactions and actions would impact the future of the people affected in the DLC. The more that nuances are considered and incorporated the better imo.

The immediate ramifications of a character's actions really isn't a good measuring stick for understanding how the character changed the world, the long term ramifications are what gave many players the sense of ownership in the game. These were my choices, for better or worse, and here's what they ultimately resulted in. 3 dog doesn't and can't tell you that.

Anywho, I didn't plan on picking apart 3/NV/4, too each their own. On topic re: F76, if it's PVE focused then great. If it comes across as PVP with players ganking each other for loot, then I'll be very disappointed. If they made a real survival game that includes a strong and compelling story(ies) and compelling world that makes me question various elements of society and the nature of humanity then I'll probably be very happy with the game. Can I tell what it's going to be from a 1:10 video with a few mild leaks? Nope, not in the slightest. I'll wait till more info become available before I care one way or the other.

One last thought, I'm going to regard every review with a pound of salt. In F3 the reviewers were praising the freedom of choice, for my tastes I didn't consider watching the NPCs make all the major decisions -and logical alternatives to be forbidden - to be freedom of choice.

[Triaxx]

Deathclaws are an oddity. They were a pre-war military experiment. Many people seem to not know this. That said, assuming they're like the Dino's from Jurassic Park, who get out when the power fails, it's not impossible for even the stupid ones to have gone where the food is, and followed it cross-country. Given how few things are capable of taking on a Deathclaw and winning, it's not surprising they'd have the ranges of an Apex predator.

[Brookshw]

Deathclaws are an oddity. They were a pre-war military experiment. Many people seem to not know this. That said, assuming they're like the Dino's from Jurassic Park, who get out when the power fails, it's not impossible for even the stupid ones to have gone where the food is, and followed it cross-country. Given how few things are capable of taking on a Deathclaw and winning, it's not surprising they'd have the ranges of an Apex predator.

Pre & Post war given the Master continued the experiments with FEV, which, along with their original sightings and...broods?...being around the boneyard tells us they were on the west coast. Granted, there isn't a ton of lore on them. Not sure that justifies them being so far outside of the habitat the base creature exists in in either case, and what would they have followed across the country? the BOS? Harold?

Anywho, looking into it a bit it seems tactics introduced a new South East variety which never appeared in F3/F4 so more oddities abound.

[Spore]

You people seem to take your Fallout extremely seriously. This is not high art nor does it try to be anything more than a compelling and fun experiene as a game.

[GungHo]

This is 20 years after the war rather than 200, so even if Three Dog was the third dog, this would be well before One Dog. Maybe there's a Three Coyote to represent a common ancestor.

[LibraryOgre]

The Mod Wonder: Merged two Fallout 76 threads; keeping it separate from main Fallout till it actually has more than a whisper and rumor.

[Triaxx]

Welcome to the internet Sporeegg, this must be your first visit.