Since I and others have come to appreciate these kinds of threads in the past, here we go.

I've played about 3 hours now (2 of which I spent in character creation), so I'm really not that far, but I plan to play a lot more today and over the course of the weeken, so feel free to ask me any questions you might have.

To get two questions out of the way: I got it early from an Austrian online retailer and am playing on PS4.

Also "War never changes" gets uttered no less than 4 times in the first 30 minutes.

Some opinions/info so far (I'll update this post regularly):

Pip Boy menus are still terribly clunky. (Like, really.)

I haven't found a quick way to access the map. Also the map isn't great.

There are now legendary enemies around (marked with a skull or star). They are real fuckers.

Weapon/Armer crafting seems easy and fun and it's possible to just store all your junk in a workbench and have access to it from every other workbench afterwards (only in the same settlement, for others you need a perk).

Building a settlement is ridiculous. There's just so fucking you much you can do/need to do, that it's really overwhelming me right now, especially since you have quite a lot of options immediately out of the gate.

Making buildings without using pre-sets sucks. Things don't snap together nicely and interfere with each other all the time. (I had a bed placed on the foundation before building walls around it all, and the walls refused to go there because of it, even though it wasn't anywhere close to it.)

Building shit gives you A TON of XP, so early on it seems like you can just level up over and over working on your settlement. It's weird.

If anyone is interested in the settlement building at all, I'd recommend getting the charisma 6 perk for supply lines immediately.

It looks like you can't kill NPCs, at least not one's living in your own Settlement. (They just sit down instead of dying.)

Encumbrance still fucking sucks. Companions also have a limit, but it's not shown, which sucks.

So far haven't encountered all too many bugs. Just some weird NPC animations and problems in NPC dialogue sequences.

Finally found two out of three (I think?) factions. Not sure if they are actually mutually exclusive since I haven't found the last one, but the have very opposing goals, so make of that what you will.

Another bug: The pictures on save files are completely wrong. (Why? How? No idea.)

Next bug: Companions tend to warp around a lot without rhyme or reason.

Framerate for me has been okay, but there are some drops. The draw distance isn't great.

The power armour system is really weird. You get one practically at the start and use is governed by it's parts and fusion cores (basically batteries). I hate the UI/view changes you get when wearing it, it's worse than the helmet views in Halo 5.

D-Dog might have a contender for best dog in a game after all. Dogmeat rules.

Does general movement feel okay? I recently went back to Fallout 3 and maaaaan. I never realized how clunky that game felt.

Also how is the pacing early on? Does it do a better job of jumping you into things and leading you along a bit more? Maybe it's just me, but the slow prologue sequence coupled with the complete sense of aimlessness once you get out into the wasteland is what made 3 so hard for me to get into I think.

@jjweatherman: The normal walking speed is damn slow, otherwise it feels okay so far (turning while running sucks, though). I really can't remember how Fallout 3/NV controlled, but this feels like Skyrim.

Well, I just stepped out into the world, so no idea how it's going to go from here yet, but the prologue again is a bit slow. It's quite well done, though and shorter than Fallout 3's so there's that.

Imma ask the obvious question, even if you aren't that far into it; has it been fun to play?

Besides that, someone made a thread about them having recorded over x amount of names for the dialog, did yours get picked? And how's the performance, steady/locked 30 FPS?

Does it run ok or like balls?

How long would you say it takes for the game to get going for real? How long do you spend in tutorial mode, not counting the two hours spent on character creation? :P

What glitches have you encountered so far?

@jjweatherman:Melee combat feels a lot like Skyrim's so far, but I haven't found many different weapons yet, so there could be differences. Also you can block now, which I think you couldn't before in Fallout?

@glottery: What I played so far, I enjoyed, yes. The opening sequence is pretty cool, even though it feels a bit rushed after a slow beginning.

Didn't pick a standard name, so nope.

@jesus_phish So far it run pretty smooth and steady.

@sessh Is first person shooting an actual viable option now, or does it still suck?

Pretty funny that you can spill this info freely while the press have been under DOUBLE EMBARGO where THE EMBARGO IS EMBARGOED

Does third person mode look okay or do they still skitter about like in previous Bethesda game?

Also is it doing enough to shut reddit and neogaf up? (Answer: It'll either not do enough or it'll do too much)

How does the name recognition stuff work? Is it all relegated to a few scenes, or is it throughout the whole game?

@girthantoklops: Prologue takes about 40 minutes or so, if you read all the logs etc. (And character creation is serious business, my friend. :D)

@eazyrider1 If you turn the sensitivity way up it's okay (at least when not using iron sights), it's still not great.

@gamehaver Yeah, well, press embargos and broken street dates have always been a weird thing.

@captain_insano It's actually not that bad, even though I haven't played in third person much yet, definitely better than in previous games.

Also no idea what reddit/neogaf is bitching about?

@rongalaxy Didn't pick an eligible name, so I'm being referred to only as "you" or "sir".

How's the radio, assuming you've unlocked it? Any real bangers? (I refuse to listen to any of them before playing, since they'll be burned into my brain soon enough)

@shagge: You get access to the radio with the Pip Boy, so pretty much immediately. Classic channel is okay and the one with actual songs is pretty damn good, so yeah, they will definitely get burned into your brain.

Didn't really know any of the songs except for one, though, if that's what you are asking. There are also some fun originals.

How are the cutscenes and facial animations? Does the shooting feel like normal FPS? Are there any loading screens? But most important is it like Skyrim with guns? I'll let myself out

Does it seem to retain that quirky Fallout charm? From what I've seen of other leaks it seems to have a much more serious tone, far less dark humor and wackiness than F3 and especially NV.

From what I understand you don't start with any perks ? So, considering the amount of perks that's available (and also SPECIAL being part of the perks system) how fast is levelling ?

@edgaras1103: Cutscenes and facial animations are slightly above Skyrims, but don't expect a huge jump. Shooting is to slow to feel like a FPS. No loading screens, even going into caves etc. has been an instantaneous load so far. (edit: Okay strike that, some loading when entering certain buildings, but it's reasonably fast.) It has a Skyrim feel to it, but it's still Fallout.

@baronsamedi Characters still talk some insane nonsense at times and the flavour texts etc. are still fun and quirky. So, yeah, the charm's still there.

It might be a bit darker in turns of main story, though, but I'm very early on, so couldn't tell you for sure.

@ares42 Yep, no starting perks. And instead of skills perks now have multiple levels. Leveling up goes pretty fast so far, I'm almost level 4 now, and barely did anything really. (You once again get xp for everything, hacking/lockpicking/crafting etc.)

@sessh: That's good to here, that's one of the most important things to me in the Fallout games.

@baronsamedi: Yeah, I feel you. I've always loved the Fallout world and humour.

@sessh: Awesome. I do wish they'd have more songs on the soundtrack in these games, but as long as my spurs jingle-jangle-jingle and Butcher Pete keeps hackin' and whackin' and smackin', I can't be too hard on the limited tracklists.

@sessh

.Can human companions die?

.Is the crafting system any good

.How is the voice acting?

..Factions?

I guess my biggest question is: does it feel like this game belongs in this generation with all the advancements video games have seen since Fallout 3 (especially with how far storytelling/writing/quest design has come since then), or does it feel like a weird time capsule from the early 360 days?

Also, is there any kind of age slider in the character customization? I kind of like making my characters decrepid old men with a mullet/beard combo.

One word answer Please:- are you having a super awesome time with it?

So how does the gunplay compare to Destiny (their alleged inspiration)?

Is Karma still there or nah? I've heard conflicting reports.

Ooo ooo, also if you've gotten to it are factions like NV (a permanent choice) or like Skyrim (you can chill with all of them)?

Thanks for somehow pulling yourself away from it to answer these questions!

Is it good?

how about the crit-system? i´m a little confused with this guaranteed-crit-thing in vats...

does the normal combat still have random-crits?

also can you already mod weapons? i want silenced weapons as early as possible...

hope i get it tomorrow

What platform are you playing it on? Run into any bugs yet?

Hello there, thanks for the sharing.

I would like to know how bobble heads works. I guess you haven't found one yet ... i would like to plan my character, and know if taking 10 in a stat at the start is okay bobblehead wise !

@shagge Agreed. Also a larger soundtrack would be nice, maybe not on the scale of a GTA, but more than it has right now.

@chocobodude3 Since the dog can't die, I assume the human companions can't die either. Haven't recruited any yet.

Crafting is pretty cool, at least the weapon/armor stuff. Settlement crafting is overwhelming and insane.

Voice acting has been stellar so far. Haven't seen any real factions.

@teddie Both, it obviously is a lot better from a technical standpoint and story set point moments are cool, but some of the NPC animations and faces are ugly. Also some of the mechanics (menus, map system) feel a bit outdated.

Yes, there are options to make your character look old, but there's no actual age slider.

@bpcupid Yes.

@iggypoptart Not at all. Shooting's still a bit weird.

Haven't seen any obvious karma indicators at least. (No info pop ups, nothing in the character menu.)

No factions yet, sorry.

@altairre Yeah, I like it.

@weazzlflink Haven't noticed normal crits, but haven't looked for them. The crit build up is rather slow right now (I'm also not specced for crits), so it's not too powerful. It is a weird system though.

Modding/Crafting becomes a thing immediately after the prologue (45 mins in).

@colourful_hippie PS4. A few minor bugs in NPC dialogue. Subtitles displaying the wrong sentences or repeating itself, as well as some weird animation hiccups. Overall it's very stable for a Bethesda game. (So far at least.)

@suntoria Yeah, "luckily" I'm home sick right now, so I was really happy it showed up today. And thanks. :)

Have you experimented with Idiot Savant yet?

I'm thinking about picking up Night Person, keeping my Intelligence around 3-6, and picking up Idiot Savant. This way, my Intelligence will be relatively low in the day time and higher at night. This means I should get more XP at night and less at day time, but at day time I'll have a higher chance at getting Idiot Savant to trigger. I think it might be interesting to see how often Idiot Savant triggers at daylight hours vs night hours. What do you guys think?

Edit: It says Idiot Savant is tied to Intelligence, but I'm wondering if Luck also is a factor.

@robertthqi: I've found one bobblehead and it permanently raised my perception by 1, so a 10 does seem like a waste in character creation.

@nobeans_moremeat Sorry, have not tried that perk yet. From the description it seems like the lower our INT score is the more boni you get, I'd assume that the frequency of it popping is connected to Luck (and of course the perk level itself).

I saw you mentioned that the settlement gameplay is a bit over whelming at the start. How much of the settlement gameplay is forced upon you? Is it something where you can kind of do it as you please, or do certain story elements get tied up with how much of the settlement is being developed?

@mightyduck: Haven't noticed any story barriers due to the status of your settlement(s), but I could see it coming up at some point. Making the first settlement able to sustain the first few people you get took me maybe 30 minutes, everything after that seems optional right now.

People in the settlement give you quests to build up the settlement, though.

I know I could probably just look this up but how big was the install size? was there a patch? (probably waiting for release date on that one I guess)

@frostyryan: 41,57 gigs install (on PS4). There was a patch with (I think) 540 mb up already.

How's the writing/narrative so far? I don't want specifics, but have you met characters that are interesting/you care about? Has the overall plot got it's hooks in you yet? Have they set up interesting world conditions / factions? Basically want to know if Bethesda's approach to story has changed any, and sort of hoping they may have taken some inspirations from New Vegas...

Does the shooting still suck?

Thanks for doing this and congrats on getting it early!

Does the game force you to watch over your settlement? I'm afraid this will be one of those systems I'll just try to skip to get back on the road.

Can you insure your settlement or will that be added later?

Whoa, building gives you xp? That seems like an exploit in the making

@monty_vaca: I've only played a very few quest so far, since I'm currently just running around randomly, but the prologue is strong and the first few quests are okay narratively. Also only met two characters I'd say are interesting yet and can't tell you anything about factions currently.

@bollard It's better than in the older games, it's not great.

@voshinova Always found these threads cool, so yeah. Also thanks.

@crazydiamond Well, they can be attacked it seems, but I built some defences, which supposedly lower the odds of it getting attacked and so far nothing bad happened. So it's okay right now.

@rethla Didn't' Konami get that kind of "business practice" patented? Guess it'll only happen after a fierce lawyer battle.

@getz Yeah, it's really weird. I went from lvl 3 to almost lvl 7 just messing around for about 1 1/2 hours in the first settlement.

@sessh: Pretty much what I expected, thanks.

@sessh: How's the role playing? Do you have to commit to making a specific character that's good at some things and not others? Can you still stealth around?

Is it good or is it not good?