I suppose you're right, but I don't like the fact that if you explore and scavenge enough, and find a lot of books, you can raise your skills by quite a lot. I think this is there way of allowing you a temporary benefit but restricing your permanent skill level. What might have been a better idea is if they had the books, but you could only get a skill boost the first time you read it. After that reading the same book would do nothing.

I think that's how they did it in F2. They did nearly everything right in F2.

You get shot in the head at the beginning of the game; rationlize it ala memento style if it really bothers you that much.

What would've been best is if they hadn't caved in to the incessant caterwauling of colossal [censored] who need arbitrary and unnecessarily restrictive rule sets to play a game.

maybe you should stop griping about something like this and maybe think about "OH hey this thing i dont need to survive is coming out on monday, god im glad im not afriacan where i fight for survival every second of my pitiful life"

and maybe you should also just accept it for what it is and move on.

hehehe....

Oh dont forget folks there are only a limited number of magazines.

the "magazineé sytem is ok for me at least you get to think twice when selling or stashing those magazines away, since they can help you for future speciifc situations a bit like a bandaid or quick fix :read:

Look of EVERYTHING you read you only retain maybe 25% of it? Now all a magazine just Refreshes what you know it won't help you remember that permanently because its fluff reading.

The problem with temporary buff items (and that includes all drugs apart from stimpaks and RadAway) is that I tend to overvalue them and instead of using them when I need to, I just keep them "just in case I need them later". So when I eventually finish the game I have stacks of the stuffs that I could've used during the game to make things a lot easier. It's a really hard habit to get out of.

I think this is the best post here. The magazine vs book thing isn't meaningful to me. In fact, these magazines are designed to reduce the effects of choice->consequences paradigm many of you say you want. I'd say that if you don't like the idea of magazines, don't use them, and pay the opportunity costs of your character build.

i wonder if they stack? so you can have lock pick 100 for 5 minutes.

That'd be silly and - given the amount of skill mags - make the need for specialization pointless. So I really hope not.

It would have been nice if they made magazines give more specific bonuses. For example, reading a weapon magazine would make you better at using shotguns or revolver pistols instead of all guns, and reading one type of locksmith magazine makes you better at picking safe locks while reading another type makes you better at picking door locks, etc.

Isn't that like trying to cook up a complicated recipe and ignoring the book, yet expecting to get it right? (It doesn't matter if the mush tastes good, its supposed to taste right.)

**Skill books are a new twist. (as was said) they are likely potions under the hood. Well see how it works out ~but personally I'd rather that they had been left out.

There are already chems in the game to temporarily buff most stats, magazines just add to that gameplay mechanic.

It think it's easy enough to rationalize them; books teach you something, they fully explain it so you understand how it works. Magazines are like a long set of troubleshooting instructions (pull up the command console, type this, press that, wait 3 seconds, hit CTRL-ENTER twice, etc.). They walk you through something, but you don't really understand what you're doing. Since magazines are old and brittle, they fall apart after you read them and you no longer have the information to refer back to later.

Always love these posts where you basically state that games shouldn't be games, but interactive modeling clay.

I learned a whole bunch of stuff on Physics at school, stuff about Vectors and Scalars, etc.

There has only been one point in the past 5 years i've been able to remember a word of it - and that is after a little prompting on the forums - just a question that was asked and a few people half remembering bits but not enough to come to the answer to the question presented, the bits that everyone half remembered was enough to trigger enough of a memory to answer the question.

The fact is, the human brain doesnt have "Always on" access to all the information we have in our head. Sometimes we need a little prompting to get access to the "back room" of our memory. This is what magazines do, they stimulate the mind enough to help shift those memories into the front of the mind.

As this makes me think about it, its slowly coming back, but not enough yet that I can remember the question in full, but in the last few minutes I remember it had something to do with 2 forces and using Pythagurus theroem to work out the net effect.

That actually happened in Fallout 1/2 - Take 2 Psycho (+50% damage resistance each) and you're invincible to all but critical hits