First of all: hello, and thank you for bringing the -original- Fallout to the masses. So to speak
Today being my first day of playing, I have yet to see majority of the game, but definitely appreciate what I've seen so far. Aside from the players, that is...
While all the asshattery one can find in the game makes it more interesting - random encounters with other players in particular, it does lose its charm rather quickly. Having been shot at about every third encounter (I try to run away as soon as I see another player, so the ratio might be a bit skewed
), having been killed three times by another player in only the last two hours, for no other reason than my apparently wearing not a blue but a red shirt (or so I assume), and having yet to earn enough money to get my own tent, makes the very early game rather challenging... to say the least. I have done what quests I could find, but as you may imagine getting the money for 10 pieces of an item going for 100+ caps does take a LOT of time for a new player. Particularly when as soon as I seem to amass enough wealth to actually be able to afford one or two, it ends up in a death-drop. Oh, well. Being constantly manhandled by would-be thieves in town, without the ability to retaliate, does not inspire my confidence in the quality of the average "community" member, either (no offense to all the good-natured people out there). I certainly wish I could slap some of those blue-shirted thieves silly...
That being said, I had a peculiar encounter in Broken Hills. I went into the bank (actually without knowing it was one), and barely managed to open up the dialog with the NPC when I got attacked. Needless to say, I got killed. However, oddly enough, not by the character attacking me (wearing the green-tinted leather armor), who missed (I had a leather jacket on. Wee!). While he apparently attacked me out of stealth, missing, it was the town guards that killed me. Which, given that he initiated the combat, and I had no time to do -any- damage to him (my round did not even happen), seems mighty peculiar.
Why did the guards attack me instead of the person that initiated the combat? I initially considered it having something to do with reputation, but if that person could not hit a level 3 character in leather jacket, how could he have built such a high reputation... and why in the world would I be considered the offending party in the conflict?
I'd appreciate an elaboration on the possibilities from somebody familiar with the game mechanics, as I would prefer to guard myself against such events in the future.
Now, back to getting the 10 tent hides... Kind of a bummer when I was going to Vault City in hopes of finding some free-roaming brahim around. Le sigh.
