Fallout 3 New Content, Adventures In GFWL
Fallout 3 has released its first batch of downloadable newness. The DLC, called Operation Anchorage, is apparently available now. You're trying to gain access to a shelter, which requires you complete a military simulation of the liberation of Anchorage, Alaska, set between 2076 and 2077. Once it's installed, it's announced on the radio, and you [...]
Author: John Walker Category: RockPaperShotgun fallout-3 Games For Windows Live operation anchorage Publish Date: Tue, 27 Jan 2009 12:54:13 +0000
Fallout 3 has released its first batch of downloadable newness. The DLC, called Operation Anchorage, is apparently available now. You're trying to gain access to a shelter, which requires you complete a military simulation of the liberation of Anchorage, Alaska, set between 2076 and 2077. Once it's installed, it's announced on the radio, and you can hot-leap to its location. There's a smattering of new content, including a new perk: Covert Ops. What follows is my attempt to get it.
Fucks sake. I was looking forward to this. Now I've read the effort involved in getting the add on I'm not sure I'll pay for it. It's shit like this that the damn nazi we talked about yesterday thought up. No wonder he got told to sod off.
The effort I had with getting my account for xbox live cancelled was insane. I had the call transferred to somewhere east of africa and was told by eight different people that their machine was broken so they couldn't cancel it. I was told by one special individual that I couldn't cancel the account or have my credit card information taken off their systems. No reason why, just that I couldn't. They then asked why I was swearing at them. Even though they could barely hear me over the noise of the bollywood film they were watching in the background. Shower of absolute cunts.
The only good thing to come of that article was I found out how to get around the muff up that's the GFWL save issue I had.
Turns out F3 dumps the saves in docs/My Games/Fallout 3/saves, and GFWL adds a folder with a profile in it, so you just need to copy the saves into a folder one level deeper.
I'll probably just sweep the expansion, it'll be available soonish.
buzzmong wrote:I'll probably just sweep the expansion, it'll be available soonish.
I did want to buy it. But I fear this may be a far easier method of getting and playing it than the stupid bloatware a lot of games seem hindered with now.
Boils my piss to see the route games companies go to 'defeat piracy' it's this shit that makes us sweep new stuff that we'd probably otherwise pay for. I'm not that bothered about drm or gfwl in and of themselves as long as they break nothing and are inobtrusive. But when they're combined together and with all the other restrictive measures and bloatware they seem insistent on using it induces rage. Make it easy, quiet and fast to use and I'd not complain. But it's all so ass backward.
Yeap, but only a few companies have really cottoned on, most of them are still doing the old mangerial "RAR! PEOPLE ARE STEALING PLUG HOLES!" type crap they used to.
It's the reason why Steam experiences the lowest piracy rate and why Valve are doing so well, the system *works* properly and is easy to use, inobtrusive and well, simple.
"While Games for Windows Live requires you to be online to in order to play Operation: Anchorage, you can find the DLC files (a main .bsa, a sounds .bsa, and an .esm) in the following folder
* C:\Documents and Settings\Your User Name\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Xlive\DLC (Windows XP)
* C:\Users\Your User Name\AppData\Local\Microsoft\XLive\DLC (Windows Fista)
If you copy them to your Fallout 3\Data folder, you will be able to play the DLC without activating Games for Windows Live"
As your local and self proclaimed XBL/GfW Crusader I have bought the game. As documented it doesn't work as you'd expect and I had to download a patch, but given as others had already worked it out I just had to follow the brief instructions.
Also I already had MS points burning a hole in interpocket. My love for the game blinds me to the possibility that I may have just been ripped off.
I will report back when I get a chance to play it. Assuming someone else doesn't beat me to it, which is likely.
What does GFWL actually do for us other than being another steam/xfire thing? If I'm going to install something like that it needs to be something I'd use almost every time I turn on my PC, otherwise it'd just piss me off.
Handily, I'm kind of liking the way it runs in the background if you want it to, load up a game, then log in to it kind of feels like it's all part of one big application rather than multiple smaller ones, like having xfire and other apps open.
Oh, and the achievements are quite nice if you're lacking ideas on what to do.
It's nothing new or special though if that's what you're getting at Pantsu.
Not really, I'm not after anything new or special. In fact xfire does almost everything I want. That's the thing, Steam does the stuff xfire does but not as well, so if GFWL did the same then there's no reason to use it. It just needs to do the same thing but better.
It looks like GfW is similar to Steam, but not as good.
The desktop client gives you access to something similar to the Marketplace on the 360, where you can buy this addon, download some demos and trailers, nothing on the scale of the 360 Marketplace or Steam.
I seems you have to be in-game for the other part, I can't find it in the desktop client. Logging in gives you access to achievements and adding friends, if you want, but for a single player game there's not much point with friends. I don't imagine you can play the addon you purchased without logging in while in-game.
For both you can use your MSN/hotmail/Passport login, which many people already have.
Be warned that if you give your credit card details to MS they are funny about removing these details from their system.
/edit
This is by no means x-fire, steam or anything competition at the moment. Ignore it for that purpose.
GFWL is the thing that ONLY runs when you're playing a GFW game. It NEVER runs at any other point - it's not a background process, it's not a place where you can buy games like Steam, and it's not a chat protocol like Xfire. The GFWL marketplace came after GFWL and is more like a separate program that manages the buying of download content, as far as I can tell. That isn't constantly running in the background either, it only runs if you need it. It's not bloatware and there's no reason at all to refuse to buy a game just because it uses GFWL.
GWFL is mainly for:
- Multiplayer modes - you can send invites straight through GFWL to another user and they can jump into your game by pressing the home key and hitting enter.
- Sending messages to other GFWL users, but only while theyre playing games, and it's not an instant messaging window like xfire or steam. You can also send voice messages
- Linking PC games to the 360, managing achievements and shit. This is mainly what it's in Fallout 3 for, what with there being no multiplayer mode. So yeah, it's pointless in this case.
In games like GTA4 it's pretty useful for joining other people's games. When it's not crashing and kicking you out of the game, of course.
I don't understand the anger people seem to have against GFWL. Like Shada says, it only fires itself up when you play a game that uses it. It doesn't take a noticeable amount of time to load, it doesn't seem to impact on performance at all. Admittedly, it doesn't do a *lot* for you (apart from the joining multiplayer games thing, which is actually rather good), but it doesn't do anything *against* you either. So what's the problem?
It all smacks a bit of "it must be shit and evil, its Microsoft" to me.
The main thing for me is that it's forced upon you, and it's not that good in my opinion.
Take Steam, it works, and works well, and you *need* it to play the games, GFWL you DON'T need to play the games, so having it foisted upon you is a tad annoying.
It's a service not a core part of the application (Steam being DRM software from a critical view), so not having the choice is a bit vexing.
If I'd have had the option, yes, I would have installed it and used it as I like the achievment page, but I'd like to make that choice myself not have it made for me.
buzzmong wrote:The main thing for me is that it's forced upon you, and it's not that good in my opinion.
Yeah... it's only really "forced" on you for GTA4, but even then all you have to do is make an account in the install stage (or put in your details if you already have one, which I did)
For Fallout 3 you don't have to create an account. You don't even have to register your CD key. Shit, if you tweak a few files you can prevent it from even starting GFWL at all.
Fallout 3 New Content, Adventures In GFWL
may be a far easier method of getting and playing it than the stupid bloatware a lot of games seem hindered with now. 
