The Vault talk:Fallout 3 NPC overhaul project/Archive 4

Project Update! 5/4/2010
Thank you, participants, for your continued work on this ongoing project! It's a very large project, and progress can be slow at times. However, I am committed to bringing this project to completion before the release of New Vegas. Below are some recent highlights of our progress:
 * The project has been moved forward greatly by the recent template work of Porter.
 * The situations regarding bugs and quotes are now brought to standardization.
 * The Interactions section is now standardized.

We still have a ways to go. Below are several updates to guidelines we should all become familiar with.

Bugs
, our new template, should be placed at the end of all unverified bug entries. Bugs that remain unverified when the timer is up should be removed. When the timer is up, the item will appear on the special page.

, our recently revived template, should be placed at the beginning of confirmed bug entries, choosing the appropriate platforms to include.

The Fallout 3 bugs article is a useful resource for project participants to use when culling the Bugs sections of NPC articles.
 * Remove these kinds of bugs in particular:
 * Graphical glitches: heads spinning, guns upside-down, bodies stretching, etc. These are not unique to any one NPC.
 * Unexplained Aggro: All followers exhibit this, and we do not need to list it.
 * NPCs referring to the player character by the wrong gender.
 * Any of the general or common bugs found on the main bug article page.
 * Megaton residents should still get a bug entry about their dying/going missing problem. See Andy Stahl for a good wording.
 * Do allow entries of usually excluded bugs if their presence can disrupt the NPC's role in a quest. See, for instance, Bryan Wilks.

Notable quotes
New subsection title! We should only include quotes that are
 * unique to that NPC.
 * notable (even a unique way of saying, "Pineapple! Run!" is not notable).
 * 5 quotes is an upper limit.
 * Let's remove the qualifiers from quotes (e.g., "when searching for an enemy" and "random"). When not incorrect, these are often not helpful info either.

Birthdates
Any mentions of the character's age, like in Bryan Wilks or Derek Pacion, should not be in the intro section but in the Background section, and converted to years (2277-the age), like I just did at Ernest Roe. Please also add the dates to the Birthdates article. Ausir(talk) 01:00, February 23, 2010 (UTC)

Interactions section and template
Below is the version of the Interactions section that we will implement. Porter's bot has made most of the template changes necessary. In some cases, pages may still contain remnants of older templates - these should be changed by hand as appropriate. I realize that there has been some confusion and inconsistency regarding the usage of the Interactions section, but below is the form we will be using, including an example based on Moira Brown.

Thanks for everyone's patience while this section has been ironed out piecemeal over several months! That we now have a working way forward is a testament to everybody's involvement in the project.

An example

 * Interactions overview
 * Interactions FO3
 * Quests
 * The Wasteland Survival Guide: Moira needs help with the research for a book.
 * The Replicated Man: Moira is in possession of a Replicated Man holotape.
 * Effects of player actions
 * Convincing her that writing The Wasteland Survival Guide is a bad idea will result in a discount on her wares and an increase of her Repair skill.
 * If you choose to blow up Megaton at the end of The Power of the Atom, she will turn into a ghoul and leave for Rivet City and finally Underworld.

Description of the subsections

 * Quests - We will no longer be using the main template, but instead use the format in the Moira Brown example above. Follow the linked quest title with a one or two sentence summary of the NPC's role in the quest. Random encounters should also go into this section. Please note that there is a redirect for each encounter's name as given on Fallout 3 random encounters for easier linking of individual encounters. See Amata Almodovar for an example.


 * Effects - List effects of the player's actions on the NPC. To use the given example, while Moira is the questgiver for The Wasteland Survival Guide, only dissuading her from writing the book has an effect on Moira herself (increased repair abilities), hence only that is mentioned (and not e.g. the various rewards she gives to the player). As another example, she doesn't really play any role in The Power of the Atom, but blowing Megaton up makes her turn into a ghoul and migrate to Rivet City/Underworld, hence that is mentioned in this section (and not "Quests"). Or to use another example, killing Moriarty makes Gob the owner of his saloon, hence that would be mentioned in the "Effects" section of Gob's article.


 * Other interactions - Optional subsection not included by the template! Only include this section when it is necessary and useful for describing significant interactions between the player and the NPC - interactions not coverable in Quests or Effects. For an example, please see the NPC project sample article.

Concerning the Interactions section
So, do you want us to put bullet points for the quests/effects sections? Instead of the thing? In the main Moira article it still uses this format, but maybe nobody got around to editing it yet. 20:58, May 4, 2010 (UTC)
 * Basically like it's in the project's sample article (minus the no-longer-used "Other interactions" section. -- Porter21 (talk) 21:36, May 4, 2010 (UTC)

I've got another question. Should the Quests section be in any type of order? For example, Desmond starts 3 different quests and is involved in 2 others. "The Local Flavor" ends when you talk to him for the first time, and then he starts the next quest. Should The Local Flavor be listed first, and all of the others in continuity, or should they be listed separately for which ones he starts and which ones he's involved in? Since he doesn't start TLF, but it comes first, should it be listed before the others he starts? That was complicated, I'm sorry :P 02:44, May 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * Putting the quests in sequential order is nice, but, no, there is no necessary order to follow.--Gothemasticator 04:51, May 5, 2010 (UTC)
 * The naming of two template parameters has changed so they comply with the results of the Terminology: "Followers" discussion:
 * is now
 * is now
 * My bot is currently updating the character articles, and I've updated the example above. Just FYI :) -- Porter21 (talk) 09:12, May 11, 2010 (UTC)

Bulleted lists
Small question: should separate entries in the Behind the scenes section be bulleted as well? Ghouly89 (Talk)22:33, May 4, 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, Behind the scenes entries should be bulleted.--Gothemasticator 04:51, May 5, 2010 (UTC)

Displaying Tag Skills of all NPC's
I wish I could do it but I play with Xbox 360 only, so I can't use GECK and have no way of finding out for myself. I think NPC's tag skills should be added with the SPECIAL, especially the ones related to combat. It would help to know what weapon to reverse-pickpocket into them, should it be Small Guns, Big Guns, Energy Weapons, Melee, etc. Eddo36 18:49, September 4, 2010 (UTC)

Laggy edit page
The "Edit" page for this project keeps giving me the Not Responding error for internet explorer. I tried a Windows XP home edition and Windows 7 starter edition, but the problem still occured. After about 5 minutes of yelling and sighing, I managed to sign my name in the project member list. Does anyone else have this issue? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.167.50.17 (talk • contribs). Please sign your posts with ~ !
 * Well, for me it takes a while to save but otherwise it's fine (Firefox). It's probably because it's such a large page due to the progress tables. -- Porter21 (talk) 19:04, June 9, 2010 (UTC)

The latest...
Well, we seem to have settled all the open questions concerning formatting, layout, etc. So, what remains now is to knock out the rest of the pages on the progress tables. Let's get this sucker done in the next month and ten days! --Gothemasticator 01:41, September 14, 2010 (UTC)

Merchants
Apologies if I am out of line here, but I play on the 360 and have no direct access to the G.E.C.K. but info on the merchants here is rather vague and lacking from what I've seen...

See, for the Lock'N'Load unmarked quest "Economics of Violence" at the end, there's actually a fairly detailed set of info on his before and after inventories. I believe the info would be easiest to be found with the G.E.C.K. but I've noticed that most merchants actually have certain items that are common at restock and always in repeating condition patterns, and it's just a random selection of most of their potential items at restock. [I.E. I think Crow (The armor caravan merchant?) before investment always had anywhere from 3-5 fully repaired motorcycle helmets. I found this useful because they're cheap (7 caps at high barter I believe), they weigh very little (1 unit), and they max at 5 DR, which is good to switch to in the heat of battle... but they were always common, a random # of them was always there after each restock point that I happened to meet him at... ]

Could someone find out the list of potential items they can have at a restock point, and the min and max Caps they may have at each restock point to make things easier on things. Mainly, I've noticed the Weapons Chart page for Big Guns AoE type has the Fat Man listed as "Limited" to only "10 copies" "11 with Broken Steel" but I know I've seen 1 in Flak 'N' Shrapnel's Shop, does that not mean it cannot restock and thus is not an infinitely obtainable weapon which can be used to repair other Fat Man(s) or the highly powerful, Highly Dangerous Experimental MIRV? Also, in the FO3 add-on The Pitt, can Friday not stock Infiltrators and Gamma Shield armors in her unique pitt-raider store? Thus making her as apparently useful as every other Merchant in the game except worse at repair with a max skill of 11-21 (I think she wears armor, so the Point LookOut coveralls would give her a relatively useless +10 repair skill boost.

If Friday cannot, then I doubt anyone else would restock Infiltrators or Gamma Shield Armor anywhere else making the items limited and rare, and thus meaning, we should not repair them with second and third copies of them (I tend to hold multiple fully repaired copies of all weapons and armor and sell the excess, I then rotate each copy and only once they get a good 10+ % degraded do I repair on of the copies, until then, whenever I'm back in town, I switch out non-unique weapons with a better condition (fully repaired copy, if possible) and put the other on ice until even the best condition version meets the 10% requirement (usually enough that the use of a nearly-dead version of w/e item I use to repair it is less of a cap net-loss than the cost of selling that item and having the vendor repair my item, with the bonus of being able to repair to 100%)

I personally doubt that Friday restocks Infiltrators, and Gamma Shield Armor meaning she's of no use to me, but it'd be extra helpful if there was a table gotten from the G.E.C.K. itself of what she CAN stock, and the max # of the condition version. and etc. relevant information.

What I mean by "max # of the condition version" is, once again with crow, he can have 4 copies of power armor (after investment, before, I'm not sure. Without access to the files I can't be certain it stops at 4, and my memory may be overexaggerating 4 already, but it will only have 2 of a specific condition (like ~27%) usually lower condition than the separate one that is always separated for having a differing condition (usually higher) and the likes. Same with Combat armor, he can have 4 copies but he tends to have one close to 33% condition that can be stocked in his inventory at restock points, if it gets randomly generated, he can have two stacked copies of combat armor of lesser-but-equal-to-each-other condition versions, and maybe one more of a condition that's either less or more than the stacked copies, I cannot remember. But they're always the same armor and quality essentially. If they appear, they're any of those same versions, and if you buy them and store them somewhere and return with the restocked versions and put them in the same locker, they stack because they're more-or-less identical versions.

One would be a little over 100 caps in value, the next would be a little over 50 I believe, and the last set would be close to 20... the value "19" sticks in my head, though I cannot remember precisely which value stacks two high at restock points...

If I've made my point clear then I would like a response, and I'm seriously sorry for any seemingly-off-topic tangents I went into... I'm trying to fix that, but I am obsessive with being thorough. 99.72.153.15 10:22, January 20, 2011 (UTC)

Point Lookout
Participants, the Point Lookout table is nearly complete! All we need is a background for Catherine and Panada and a revised image of Jiang. Hopefully, we can get this done as soon as possible! Best regards, Kastera(talk) 00:37, March 30, 2011 (UTC)
 * I have just made a background for both Panada and Caterine. If anyone could take a look at them, it would be much appreciated. Also, we need a 14x10 image for Jiang. Best regards, Kastera(talk) 18:21, March 30, 2011 (UTC)