The level cap will be increased to 30 when the third DLC pack is launched. I think March?

I'm generally the same way about games as you. It's not uncommon for me to just get bored with a game and stop playing it before I've truely finished it.

However, I ended up putting in 78-79 hours with Fallout before I finished it, and I am still wanting more.

The DLC begins to come out next month, and the level cap will be raised in March.

Same here... and 120 hours.

I kinda got addicted. I had to made me stop.

I finished the game last night as a disgustingly good character. My last save indicated I spent about 24 hours playing, but it seemed much longer than that. Do any perks transfer over to a new character if I decide to start a new game? I have the guide, but tried to use it sparingly. I found 1(!) bobblehead during the course of my adventure...guess I'm not a good explorer! Luckily, I have a few saved games prior to the last quest, so I'm going to keep exploring until I get tired.

Wow, just one Bobblehead? There's one Bobblehead in the starting vault

I am guessing you mostly stuck to the main quest.

As for your other question, a new game is a new game. Nothing carries over.

Just finished it at just short of 50 hours. Yeah, there were tons more to explore but I'm going to play it again anyways (esp if I get the strategy guide for Christmas... yeah, no Christmas presents yet; long story). I could always go back to a saved game.

The ending sucked! Nothing like parts 1 or 2 (but I was prepared for that). But the parts that led up to the ending were just too cool!

I have been on the fence about this game. Only real RPG types I play have been Oblivion/Morrowwind but I usually give up on them when I get stuck fighting folks that outclass me. Call it frustration.

Think I'd like this one? Story seems like something more my speed and I like guns over swords

I only found one bobblehead in my random wanderings, but I think I'm going to use a faq to go around and find the rest if I can.
Jamieson: this is very much like Oblivion, only better VATS adds almost a "turn based" component to combat so it's not just whack whack whack; I have found (and use) many more ranged weapons than melee weapons, so there's a bit of FPS strategy to it (hide, sneak, big weapon with slow reload vs. faster weaker weapon).
The only complaints I have about it that I can think of now are the level cap, some areas are too dark even with PIPboy light on, and the map in some dungeons is a little hard to interpret. Most of the dungeons though are somewhat linear so you can get out of them with some basic trial and error. Also, there isn't a huge variety of enemy creatures, less than two dozen, I'd say (not counting humans).
I'm playing on Normal difficulty (you can adjust it at any time) and though I've died, there's only been a few times when I got close to frustration; once when I got ganged up on by a bunch of what I think are the strongest monsters in the game, and once when I gave the wrong answer to an NPC.
If you liked Oblivion, and like guns over swords and a postapocalyptic environment over medieval, I highly recommend Fallout 3. It improves on the game mechanics (imho), the world seems more immersive, and the NPCs seem to have more variety and personality. Leveling up and the perk system is much more user-friendly as well. Quests seem like more than just fetch quests or "kill the monsters", and the choices you make, both in dialog and actions, do affect the rest of the game and how it treats you.

Okay just got the game.

But I am having some issues, Just after I leave the vault, There is a small town just outside. There is a guy named Doc Hoff. Problem is, I don't know how to talk to the guy, the only option it gave me was to pickpocket. Or shoot him. I don't think I am suppose to kill him.

Any help?

Generally if their name is in green, they're good/neutral to you. If their name is in red, they're an enemy. I think he's a roaming vendor so you should definitely be able to talk to him. You should be able to walk up to him within arm's reach and click A (on 360) to talk to him. Don't be in VATS mode. Some people are their just for ambience and they'll recite one of a few specific canned lines, others will open up dialog trees.

Pickpocket comes up if you are hidden, so make sure you are not crouching. Doc Hoff is a vendor and should be able to be dealt with.

On the subject of vendors, anyone else have them get killed? I had Lucky Harith (sp?) get caught in crossfire. His guard survived but he did not. Based on a quick guide looksey, it appears the wandering vendors are limited, so I am disappointed to have one less to sell to when needed. But, I sure wasn't above looting his corpse and pack animal either.

And I missed it! The only one I found was in Paradise Falls after liberating it.

Pretty much. Going by the official strategy guide, I only completed five of the miscellaneous quests.

That's a bummer that nothing carries over to a new game, but I'll have fun playing a different way when I decide to do it all over again.

So...he wasn't very lucky.

Yes, I like that things outside your control happen to NPCs you deal with. The guy in Megaton who works at the water plant, I can't find him again, I think he's dead.
I didn't even think about pickpocket/sneak regarding Doc Hoff. I've only pickpocketed twice, and one of those was to get an achievement. The other time I got caught so I had to kill everyone anyway.
One more minor annoyance is click-in to crouch/hide. I never like using L3 or R3 in a game, it just doesn't feel right, and sometimes when I'm fleeing from a big bad I accidentally hit L3 so I'm suddenly crouching trying to flee.

It's pretty easy to fix.

Just go into options and knock up the brightness a level or two (IIRC they have a bar to compare blacks like on a TV tuner dvd). It's definitely worth a few seconds to improve the overall experience.

Currently (as you may have noticed from a lack of other responses) - I'm taking a break and trying to complete most of SR2 (so much more ...fun... than GTA IV).

I hit the level cap REALLY early in F3 (before even finishing the 3rd part of the main quest) and have set that one aside while I try and find all the bobbleheads. That said, exploring kinda slows things down when there's no real gain (all weapons, armor maxed out, skills maxed out, etc) - but I figure I might as well try and get everything the first time round - although I suppose I could save at my current spot - create a new character - and simply run through the main quest for the sake of saying that I've beaten the game. I want to finish the game, but now that I'm on the collectible kick - can't remember if I have 10 yet or not (or more) - it's hard to do it "early". - also with the snippets of other quests that I've picked up and everything showing up on my map with "Explorer."

I hit level 12 or 13 last night, and haven't even been to the bar to talk to Moriarty about my dad yet.

Having a blast just exploring the whole map, hoping I'm not screwing things up by meeting a character I'm not supposed to meet until later on.

Yeah, exploring really does take time. I think I can blow through the rest of the main quest in a couple more hours, but I've been searching for every bobblehead (I'm very close to level 19 now).

I went into thinking I can just stroll in and get the bobblehead, and it took me 30 minutes to an hour just to go through that place, and there's ANOTHER freeform quest to open an additional door after you get the bobblehead, as well as more guns than you will ever need. It doesn't help that I'm a packrat, and scurry off to my house to drop off my stuff whenever I get close to my carry limit. And this was just a freeform quest, it's not even one of the main side quests.

That was my 10th. There are 10 more.

I also realize that if I were really going after the achievements, I should have made saves close to the achievement level marks, then killed whole towns to get my karma down and level up. Oh well, I can do that for level 20.

The level 18 perks stink. Also, there is one hockey mask that which is invaluable, I wish I had gotten it earlier on. And am I the only one that creates a save right before a speech challenge? I haven't invested much into it, and I'll reload just to succeed with my low percentage.

Thanks!!

I have my lockers and cabinets at my house so damned full of crap. Where can I sell more stuff? Moira usually only has a few hundred caps, so I'll come back with a full load, and can only get rid of 1/3-1/2 of it, and end up storing the rest.

How about ammo for the ? I foolishly burned through about 1/2 of it soon after finding the gun. Doesn't seem to be anymore around?

IIRC, there is very limited ammo for that weapon. I think there is some more, but it's hard to find. Save whatever you have left.

Is save-pickpocket-save a worthy strat?

Not if you want to play a good character.

But otherwise I would think it'd work good, I think I did a lot of that in Oblivion.

I can't wait to start another play-through as a mean SOB.

I did not think you lose karma, if are caught. And I read that you can just re-gain the karma back by donating and doing some nice things.

Well, Target has Fallout 3 for $39.99 this week so I now own it. Just need to finish Bioshock first!

There's more of it around.

If memory serves...

There's a building with a guy outside that will buy "technology" from you (it'll be a location on your map). By whatever means necessary, get inside that building and head to the basement. There you will find 40-50 more rounds.

I killed I think 2 out of the 4 travelling vendors, mainly to loot their stuff (hey, the strategy guide recommends it!). That's before I found out that