I know Mikemcn already asked this but I wanted to see it in poll form.

2nd probably. But it really depends of how different it is from the mods that I've used that are supposed to do the same thing for Fallout 3.

Second playthrough most likely.

Is hardcore mode a difficulty setting? Or can you play hardcore mode on normal difficulty?

I know I probably should've added a "not sure" option but this time I chose not to provide the "easy out". :)
 
I think I'll try it first, but most likely bail on it so, second for me - tho I have to question whether I'll ever get to a second playthrough.

Hardcore mode seems like it's against the point of a game to me, and would also be waaay frustrating.

Not interested at all.

2nd. I will make Bear Grylls and run around for survival. It's going to be great. Can't wait, but the reason im choosing 2nd is because i need to have a feel for the game first.

Gonna try it out on my first playthrough i think. Typically i find Bethesda games a little easy so i welcome some sort of realism mode. If i don't like it i'll just turn it off.

second

FIRST!

Going to try it on the first time, I hope its going to be really hard because im sick of all the easy RPG's that came out lately.

However, I'm waiting for Christmas to see if my wife gets it for me.  If she doesn't, then I'm waiting for a patch that addresses some of the bugs (if they don't have one before then).

Originally I was planning on waiting until my 2nd playthrough, but uhh... now I think I'm gonna do it right from the start.

I might try it on my second playthrough. Not sure. 

Hardcore, because it makes it more like STALKER.

doing it now, really isn't that hard.
 
water can be a bitch to find though

Not really interested.  Fallout is more about the story, sidequests, and exploration.  Anything that really prohibits me from just exploring at will is fairly annoying.  Rads are easy enough to manage, and I like the health/rads tradeoff you have to make at times, but if you add in food/water/sleep, have to go home to heal properly, and have to worry about weight more, at that point it's just too much added annoyance.
 
I remember the first Fallout game had a time limit to finish the initial main quest (find a water chip for your vault) that I also found quite annoying, especially on my first playthrough.

" @Romination: Survival in the wasteland is a big part of the game. You even have a survival skill that you can put points into.   Survival mode makes the game even more Fallout, but from what I've played so far it doesn't really make it all that much harder. You just have meters for food, water, and sleep that go up over slowly over time, and just like rads if that number go too high it starts affecting your stats.  The biggest thing about survival mode is that healing items heal over seconds and not instantly, but to me this is great. In Fallout 3 after you had a pile of stimpacks you could just charge straight into any battle and it didn't matter. You could pause and pump health into yourself anytime. With survival mode, you now have to be more strategic in your aproach. It make it much more immersive and fun. "

I'll be using it first playthrough because I felt that the first one never gave you a reason to drink water or be concerned about health and stuff like that  

Playing it HC now..... feels like the way it's supposed to be played but they left it optional so folks wouldn't freak out.  It's not too much harder.

" Hardcore, because it makes it more like STALKER. "

Hardcore mode is not what it should have been; food still heals, meaning that you can pause in the middle of a battle and eat 40 meals and still fight.
The formula should be: Stimpacks heal over time, Food does nothing but stop starvation.
 
The game is very lenient about long bouts of starvation and sleep deprivation; there should be penalties for long term deficiencies that only heal over regular schedules.
 
Overall, it does not serve the purpose of a realistic play-through; will wait for mods.
Not very "Hardcore" at all.

" @Romination: Kinda confused about that comment. I thought fallout was to survive a nuclear wasteland...  Second time because im a bit of a wuss. "

" @Laketown:  You're probably too busy playing but I'm super curious about how much things like Stim-packs and ammo weighs.  I love the concept but I'm worried the "more realistic" mode is going to devolve into little more than "more trips back and forth to my house" and "more load times" mode. I'm super excited for work to end, my boy to go to bed and my playing to begin. S'probably why I'm babbling. "

I tended to play Fallout 3 very stealthy and stalker-y so I rarely got into a fight I couldn't instantly end from the shadows.  Assuming I continue that style healing over time instant of instant healing doesn't worry me.  Food I'm not too worried about, there are plenty of critters to kill and eat, I'll just have to keep an eye on rads.   
 
Water might be an issue but I'm not worrying too much about that either.  As Roland (Dark Tower) said "there'll  be water if God wills it."  In the first hour of the game I've currently got three wells of clean water so at the moment I don't even have to worry about rads from the water.   
 
Ammo weight and such will be negligible, it just means I won't carry nearly as much random trash around all the time.   I was super crazy about gutting a place, getting everything out of it and either selling it or just storing it in my house for potential later use.  This often meant making several trips in and out of places to get everything.  I'm sure I'll do the same again.  
 
So, tl;dr version is I'm doing it on my first (and likely only) play through.  I already picked the Hard difficulty so why not also go Hardcore?  Worst case scenario I flip the mode off.

I'm liking this mode, but it would help if you could fill empty bottles with water from faucets and pools.

hardcore. So far it hasn't been too bad, but having the mercenary pack from best buy helps a lot. I'm hoping it will keep the game from becoming super easy at higher levels.

I enjoy a challenge, but it's hard for me to enjoy a enviroment and story along with difficulty. 
 
Second time through fo-sho.

i pick C not interested  at all.

" hardcore. So far it hasn't been too bad, but having the mercenary pack from best buy helps a lot. I'm hoping it will keep the game from becoming super easy at higher levels. "

I will only play New Vegas in Hardcore mode, FO3 was seriously missing any sense of survival.

I'm not sure. I don't tend to play second play through of games unless I couldn't get enough of it (Batman: AA for example). 

I'm doing hardcore on first play through and so far I find it's really helped the immersion.

15 hours in on Hardcore, and if I do another playthrough I can't ever imagine going back to non-hardcore again.  While crippled limbs are a little obnoxious to deal with, it's just so fantastic and adds just a thin layer of planning and complexity, not actual difficulty.  Dumping off your extra ammo and guns always, cooking up food for yourself, and always carrying enough food and water to sustain yourself (although dehydration is the only one you really worry about at all, you should be eating food regularly enough where its never an issue).  Some encounters are a little tricky, but its all the more worthwhile.

I'm on Very Hard/Hardcore right now. I played Fallout 3 so long so I'm doing pretty good.

Hardcore mode is too awesome to pass up.

Im 15 hrs in and its not too bad, thank goodness for companions. Level 5 is where i finally seemed to have a fighting chance.

I'm pleasantly surprised how much of a non-issue Hardcore mode is.  I think everyone should give it a try and turn it off at any time if you don't like it.

Gonna try it first. Big fan of STALKER and the description seems like they just should have called it STALKER mode.

I like hardcore more.. i never cared about food or drink before.. now i do :) adds more depth to the game... 
 
... it isn't very hardcore either. It doesn't make the game harder.

been playing hardcore for about 6 hours, doesn't seem to be that difficult to maintain your characters stats.  The only difficult part is when your limbs are hurt, you need to use a doctor's bag or Hydra to regenerate them, or visit a doctor.