Had a successful Fallout 3 stream today! Was super nervous all day, but my morning was taken up by getting dad to the airport for his vacation. I love my dad, and I’m happy I’ve been able to help him out while his living space is rebuilt/repaired, and it’s been great having him around… I do look forward to having some time and space to myself after a month. Maskin’ ain’t easy, and yes, I mask even around close family like dad.
After I dropped him off, though, I headed back to the house and tried to arrange everything for the stream. OBS kept locking up and crashing on me, which was frustrating, but I didn’t have a lot of mental energy to troubleshoot it. It seemed to happen when I was changing scenes, though, so I just decided I would avoid doing that as much as I could. I got my countdown set up, I got some music playing for the countdown – I wanted to play the classic Fallout Galaxy News Network songs, those old-timey showtunes and such, but after a quick google realized that those are still covered by copyright laws and could lead to my stream being demonetized.
Bethesda, however, has very generous terms for fans using the soundtrack music or other visual assets, so I just streamed the Fallout 3 game soundtrack, by composer Inon Zur, on shuffle, for the 15 minutes before go time. That worked!
I also set up an in-game overlay of a headshot of myself as a teenager, one that I had punched up using AI image enhancement, to show folks watching what I was aiming for in creating my character. The conceit is that I would be playing as myself as much as possible, something I did years ago when I streamed and played Fallout 4. For the record, here’s a screenshot of my character from the stream:
And for my S.P.E.C.I.A.L:
- Strength: 3
- Perception: 4
- Endurance: 6
- Charisma: 5
- Intelligence: 9
- Agility: 5
- Luck: 8
Some of those numbers are aspirational. Also, I know, I know, Charisma should be a dump stat, but I just didn’t have it in me to make it 1 for optimal gameplay. I’m not going for optimal, I want to be me, as if I had been raised in the vault.
I played through character creation, my 10th birthday party (I ate the sweetroll immediately and told Butch to back off), taking the G.O.A.T. (and beating the snot out of Butch for threatening Amata), taking the tagged skills Science, Lockpicking, and Repair. I can improve other skills but I wanted the best chance of getting through the vault escape without bloodshed. Which, um, I wasn’t able to do. Had to kill a couple of cops, I mean security, but it was in self-defense; they were going to beat me to death like they did Jonas. I did spare the Overseer, although I do not trust his promise to leave Amata alone. And instead of shooting it out with security at the Vault door, I just ran.
Several friends showed up in chat and I even had to ask their advice at some points. It was fun!
A note about guns: personally, I have made a vow to never touch a gun again in my life. I did that after the Sandy Hook shooting. Even if the revolution comes, I will support it with my other skills: troubleshooting, documentation, computer support, mechanical support. But when I did that, I also allowed myself an exception: in the event of an apocalypse, be it nuclear, zombie, or alien invasion, I will allow myself to use a gun. The Capital Wasteland is not just one of those, it’s all three, in one way or another. Also, it’s a game. But I do intend to try to solve things with words first, before violence, on this playthrough.
Will be continuing the stream on either Wednesdays (Wasteland Wednesday) or Friday (Fallout Friday.) Want to keep a regular schedule. Watch here for updates!