Playing modded Fallout 3 (or Oblivion, or Morrowind) can be an exercise in frustration.
On the one hand, you have the tantalizing promise of fantastic gameplay. With the right mix of mods, these games provide hours of exploration, dynamic encounters, thousands of quests and a level of replay value simply unmatched.
On the other hand, the game engine (Gamebryo), promises instability, glitches and crashes once you start dealing with too many mods. Even with careful tracking of mods dependancies, and their infamous load order, you can never tell when the game will crumble under its own weight, or when an obscure issue will corrupt your game beyond repair.
In the latest instance of random issues, I started experiencing crashes when going from level 16 to 17 in my current Fallout 3 game. Some research pointed to a known issue with Martigen’s Mutant Mod. Uprading to the latest version of this mod fixed the problem…. except it also triggered an upgrade of Fallout Wanders Edition (FWE), Energy Visual Enhanced and a removal of the huge FOOK2 mod because of incompatibilities with the latest version of FWE. The result is a dangerously unstable game, with frequent crashes in some areas. I may have to start again from scratch if I cannot find a solution to clean this current game.
And this is on top of gameplay issues (dialogues, combat system, inventory or interface) proper to each game.
Yet, even with these endless stream of issues, Bethesda managed to create virtual worlds that keep begging to be visited. They feel like your own personal MMO… except without other players.
I invested hours visiting the ash covered hills of Morrowind, the lush valleys of Oblivion or the irradiated roads of Fallout, and yet, I know I will go back and explore them some more.. even if it means starting a brand new game to smooth out issues with bloated saved game or too many changes in my list of mods.