Come to think of it, “information kiosk” could be a shout-out to 4’s Tour Bot.
And ISTR a similar comment from a bot in NV, maybe the ammo vendor.
@solost, I went into F76 late, after many of the earlier issues were alleviated, and stopped playing at all a little over a year ago, so my feelings and understandings are based on that window.
NOW there are, but there were none in the initial release. Even so, I feel most of the characters added are somewhat more shallow than I’d expect for a modern game. Still lots of little bits of individuality, but since there are no F4-style companions with unique likes, dislikes, and quest chains, they’re all very much “generic” NPCs.
Several timelines and quest lines exist simultaneously as it were, so you can be doing content from pre-NPC F76, post, etc. In general, quests are single player based, though you can invite friends to do them with you for more firepower (there aren’t differing roles as in a traditional MMORPG), and then there are story beats and events that are fundamentally uncontrolled raid spaz to kill a big bad.
You can’t really create your own adventures, just recruit PC’s to do things with, though you can also do a metric ton of grief-ing if that’s more your style. IIRC, each instance of a world is limited to a pretty small number of players at one time, and it’s determined randomly (though you can invite friends to whatever shard you’re on if there’s space).
For the first, yes, to a degree, but the world is pretty big for a relatively small number of players, but people can be farming where you like to farm, so…
As for the second, some things are sold in relatively small quantities, but the crafting system makes it possible to make most of what you need. And you’re capped on the amount you can sell to vendors every day to make money (IE, you could try to sell 100 units of nuclear material, but all vendors share the same 1200 caps A DAY to pay for them), so …
Lastly, the “best” option is pay-to-win, where you get your own private shard where there’s just you, the NPCs, and the people you invite to play with you, but it’s expensive and overall still worse than playing a single player Bethesda game. Still, for all that, it’s got some very neat stories, questlines, and individual stories interspersed, so it has it’s moments.
[ I bought the game when it was on sale for $7.60 on a promotion ], I would not have been happy if I had paid, say, $30+ at any point. ]
Yes and no.
FO3 (Bethesda) felt like a dead world. The Capital Wasteland didn’t seem like 200 years had passed since the apocalypse. Where did they get their food from, for instance?
FO:NV (Obsidian) felt like a living world. It felt like society had begun to re-establish itself after recovery. There were farms. There were towns.
FO4 (Bethesda) took a lot of inspiration in world building from F:NV. The Commonwealth Wasteland felt alive. But the main problem with FO4 was it essentially removed most of the RPG aspects. The conversation wheel basically didn’t matter because in a typical conversation all choices led to the same outcome. And the quests tended to follow that. Many were just pass or fail. FO3 felt more like an RPG even if the world was dead.
Also, some people didn’t like the change in how character advancement was done. I didn’t mind it, personally.
Thanks PL and @Skywatcher for the FO76 info!
I think I’ll stick to milking nexusmods for the FO4 quest mods all I can for the near future, though. I just downloaded ‘Outcasts and Remnants’ from the maker of ‘Fusion City Rising’ last night, and it’s shaping up to be every bit as fun (and every bit as ‘adult content’) as FCR.
Besides just enjoying the extended gameplay, I really find these mods interesting for the little Easter eggs, idiosyncrasies and general personality these dedicated amateur developers put into them.
Oh, and RE: Fusion City Rising (I missed the edit window):
(Emphasis mine) I got to try the dance gun on a Deathclaw last night-- and it works! Except, instead of obviously dancing, it sort of collapses into a fetal position, twitching. Effective at temporarily rendering it harmless, but I was a little disappointed I didn’t get to see an obviously dancing Deathclaw 
I’ll note that I’ve played and enjoyed ‘Outcasts and Remnants’ (I brought it up upthread in fact) but it is more interesting on an initial playthrough, because it can give you a heavily modified ending. It’s got some fun twists at any point in a playthrough though and interacts interestingly with some vanilla storylines and companions. And yeah, leans towards ‘R’ rated in parts.
Time for another installment of nobody’s favorite gaming thread, wherein I review Fallout 4 quest mods, Boxing Day Edition!
Boon Island
I enjoyed the hell out of Misery Island, which I reviewed previously, and I understood it was part of an ‘Isles of New England’ series— so I went looking for more in the series. ‘Boon Island’ seems to be the only other quest mod in the series I could find. It’s loosely based on a real New England island with a tragic history, as I understand, which is cool. The quest mod itself is kind of underwhelming. No real enemies to speak of other than a couple mirelurks, and one central mystery quest to solve, which is well done but very short- barely a half hour of play. A well- done mod, I just wanted more.
Outcasts and Remnants
From the makers of Fusion City Rising, another fantastic DLC-sized quest mod with lots going on— varied and interesting quests. And just like FCR, very much adult content and not exactly ‘PC’ in some of its content. But very fun. And the story was just as involved as in FCR— there was a whole side quest involving a faction that was trying to reform the Wasteland monetary policy away from caps, ferchrissake. And somehow, it was a hoot! I was sad when I finished the main quest line and triggered the credits, though there are still plenty of, or maybe even infinite, radiant quests left it appears— the kind where you are assigned to go to (X) location, take out (Y) enemies, and retrieve (Z) MacGuffin. Rinse, repeat.
Bethesda should hire the makers of FCR and OaR— ThuggySmurf and their associates. They could have Fallout 5 finished in no time at all!
Since you enjoyed OaR and FCR, I’m going to call back to another I mentioned waaaaay upthread, Fen Sheriffs Department.
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/68276?tab=description
While it did have buggy moments, the story was good, some very cool visual crafting options, and not too unbalanced compared to many. While dark, and adult themed, it isn’t sexually explicit in the way the others referenced above are. And since it’s been patched this month I’d expect it to work with the current version of the game.
Thanks, that was one of the first quest mods I looked into, based on your recommendation. I don’t remember why I didn’t download it then— I think I got a bit intimidated by what seemed like complicated instructions from the mod maker on what and what not to do, since I was early into my quest mod quest then. But now I’ll make it my next quest mod!
Downloaded and am now enjoying Fen Sheriffs Department-- thanks again for the rec (and re-rec).
At first I thought, jeez, what’s with all the day-glo neon purple coloring? Is the mod creator a Prince fan or something? I finally realized after about 30, 45 minutes of play that that must not be intentional, so I re-read the mod instructions. Sure enough, that’s like a texture placeholder-- I also needed to download a separate texture pack. The mod looks much better now.
Well you did mention the intimidation factor of the install process hindering you the first time! And not like I hadn’t done the same on mods before I made it my motto to read the darn instructions more carefully on new mods to me!