So as I wait for my download through a currently crippled internet connection, I'm intrigued to hear what people's first impressions of this expansion are?

Are there new gameplay mechanics or loops? Is it still a combination of story quests and settlement building? What is different about it compared to the base game?

[now with correctly spelled thread title! :D]

I'm in the same boat (zing) of waiting.

For me it's the 6GB PS4 download, but I'll be sure to post later once I've spent some time with it. I have high hopes for the landmass being interesting and the quests being plentiful.

I'm excited to play it today after work, Super pumped to see my home state of Maine represented in a videogame!

And i'm genuinely curious; Is the official title outside of the USA shown in text as "Far Harbour"? Because It's "Far Harbor" on every promotional piece I can find, and google doesn't show me any official text including the "U".

I wondered the same thing when people typed out "Dishonoured" talking about that game.

Point taken! :D
I didn't think about that as I typed the thread title but I'd imagine they'd have to go with the US spelling.
(edit: a quick glance at my steam account shows that they did)

Just told my PS4 download it. Will check it out tonight. Hope its good. Because the first two DLCs have been garbage.

Protip: When someone asks you for help in a murder case, do it. I think it's the best quest in the entire game.

Where are the comically overdone New England accents I was promised? I have not heard ONE UTTERANCE of "Fah Hahbah" yet! I fucking LIVE here so I know what to listen for.

Has anyone else a performance decrease on pc? With my usual graphics settings I get a pretty stable 60fps in the main game but in far harbor it dips down to the low 40s often. Mostly due to the fog I am guessing but Im stilling having that issue in areas with no fog at all.

Can't wait to get into this but I'm trying to beat the main game first. Took a long break since December

@xanadu: In vanilla F4 it was the godrays that killed it, and then the Nvidia Physics patch, try those.

As for Far Harbor I've no interest in getting it until later but for the people that do get it now, does it make any major changes to the character progression? The perk system and removal of stats made character buids and progression woefully lacking in vanilla as barely any of it had any substantial impact on the combat or dialogue systems. Most of everything provided just a minor aside and there was nothing that felt worthwhile structuring a character 'build' around. This killed my desire to replay the game until maybe all the DLC's are out or mods to fix it.

Also speaking of dialogue I'd also like to know if Bethesda took any of the feedback to heart and fixed their garbage dialogue wheel and maybe decided to write more than 1 line in 4 different ways.

@baronsamedi: I agree with you that in vanilla character build didn't really matter at all but in survival mode your build becomes very important and nearly all of the perks are useful.If you have any interest it is worth giving it a shot.

@arabes: Yea when I do return to the game I will definitely be running with Survival. I played through Survival first time through and was super bummed out about how shit it was compared to New Vegas. The saves limitation still seems dumb though.

There is a drive-in with a radio station that's just Garrus Vakarian unenthusiastically reading ads for upcoming movies on a loop and it's kind of hot.

@baronsamedi: I've managed to play some now. The dialogue does seem to be better now. I'm actually having conversations that lost longer than a single sentence, which is nice. Already met some interesting characters too.

As for character build, this isn't going to change how it works fundamentally. I have heard there are skill checks this time. I also faced some really strong enemies quite quickly and I did rely on using my drugs perk as I didn't put any points into damage increases. Which was me using the strength of my build. So it does seem to matter more in tougher situations. But the removal of the level cap means you won't get those 'hard' builds back.

I haven't tried survival but that also seems to make otherwise meaningless perks (like having rad free food) viable.

I'll probably post more as I play more. I like it so far, but there's no harm in waiting for all the DLC to be out and for more mods. These games tend to slowly get better.

They haven't even announced what the last two DLCs are even going to be, let alone when they come out. Waiting for it all to come out might be a while.

@baronsamedi: Ya the original survival mode was fucking terrible. Awful bullet sponge enemies. Now I think they have struck a really good balance where you do a lot of damage but are still quite fragile even at high levels. I get why a lot of people don't like having to save at a bed but I really enjoy it. No more save scumming to get through an enemy building I know that I need to do it in a single run so I'm cautious and use traps and stealth a lot more (I now love frag mines!). It also changes the pace of the game for me which I hadn't expected. I generally go and do a couple of 'missions' (scavenge this place or find a safe route to this area and back) and then save at a base and turn it off. It makes the world feel like more of a place and less of a theme park. I think they have really improved this game post launch and am excited to finally get to Far Harbor.

if i haven't finished the main fallout 4 story will i be okay to play this?

@scientificpizza: Yup. You only need to have gotten as far as meeting Nick Valentine in Diamond City and then completing the 'Getting a clue' quest.

I have only done the above and you can then access it.

@arabes:Yea ever since I played STALKER equalized high damage between the player and enemies has always been my favored way to do difficulty in FPS games. It seems Bethesda looked at all the mods that altered the damage values of Survival and just used those. As for the bed saving don't get me wrong I love the idea, save locations are one of my more favourite ways to implement saving. I just have 0 faith in Bethesda's games remaining stable so I won't potentially lose a lot of progress due to a crash or falling through geometry.

@ll_exile_ll:I'm overloaded on games already, I can wait for a better experience.

It's a great quest, but currently bugged for me (my character refers to everyone there as "Hey, <name of NPC from another town>", and I can't turn in the quest.

DLC is pretty great so far (put 7 hours or so into it). I don't know if it's forced or not, but you should take Nick with you to the island. There's a quest that mentions him, and some of his dialogue (both cut-ins during quests and if you manually talk to him) is top notch.

Overall, it's still Fallout 4 - the same bugs and issues with the main game are present here - but the main quest in this DLC is far better IMO. I felt like I got railroaded into a bad decision that wasn't obvious (Far Harbour wiping out Acadia) so reloaded a save, and there is a TERRIBLE puzzle section partway through that just kills the pacing (it's a nice idea, but controls poorly - borders on being a first-person platformer using the base-building mechanics - and goes on way too long). I've been mostly doing the main quests in the DLC, and feel like I've hardly scratched the surface of what could be there - the land mass is huge (feels bigger than Point Lookout).

@extintor:

;)

I tried tweaking some graphics settings to no luck. Even with all the settings turned all the way down Im not getting a locked in 60. Im kind of baffled by Bethesda's decision to cover this new land mass in frame crippling fog. Apparently on the ps4 it can jump down to the low teens in fps. Wow! I just dont get it...

I really like some of the characters, particularly Dima and Longfellow, and I really like the special harpoon gun you can buy from a store. The locations are uninspired and the quests are sort of eh, but in general, this is better than most everything else in Fallout 4.

@paulmako: i more meant like the recommended level i guess. it's been awhile since i last played but i think i was somewhere in the mid 20's?

e: i just quickly checked and i'm level 27

@xanadu: I've been having crazy frame rate issues in far harbor on ps4. If I get into a fight out in the fog with more than two enemies the game slows to a crawl. And I've also been having this strange issue where the game just straight up freezes for like 5-6 seconds. It seems to happen after I kill something. Consistently.

@scientificpizza: I think the game scales enemy levels with whatever level you're at so you should be fine to go visit.

If not you can always come back later. You're not locked into the island and can leave anytime.

When I first booted it up on XBone I had some issues like that and an outright crash, but I downloaded a patch today that seems to have smoothed a lot of that out.

Why there are no reviews for this DLC? Not on GB but in general, seems like the press just do not care.

Put some more time into this today and I actually really like it. The new landmass is great and does a good job of feeling really different from the commonwealth. The new enemy types are cool too. It's a big deal having a different group of enemies to fight against, and makes me wish that Bethesda had mixed things up in the base game instead of sticking to familiar enemies from 3. The writing across the board seems better. I know base Fallout 4 was a pretty low bar for writing but this does seem good in it's own right. I haven't finished the main quest of it yet though, so that can still change.

I've definitely had some decisions appear in side quests that seem important, so that's pretty cool. I mentioned before but the the dialogue does seem improved. It is using the 'four dialogue options' interface but I have had it where one of those responses led to a sub-section of further questions. Basically, NPCs have had more to say and it makes a big difference.

The new weapons and workshop options are also neat. Oh and one of the side quests is probably the best in the game and possibly my favourite from the modern Fallout games?

@paulmako: What new workshop options?

@sterling: It's nothing insane, just a new structure type (barn) that is fun to build with and some far harbour decorations.

Dude, thanks for that! I'd finished the main quest line and had somehow missed this. I just got to the quest area and I can tell this is going to be great!