Okay, here we go again, with another long-winded, complaint-intensive playthrough.

This time, I'm planning things out in advance, which is a little different from my usual method of randomly banging my hands on the keyboard and seeing what pops out.

Also, I'm doing it in third person this time. Now this may seem counterintuitive, considering that Fallout 4's design prominently features the first person, even moreso than Skyrim. The voiced player dialogue, for example, and the way the camera swings back and forth between target and player in dialogue, would seem to indicate that the designers wanted the game to be more focused on the player than in previous games.
This is not necessarily the case, at least for me. I find myself far less invested in the player and his/her quests than in previous games. I tend to think it's because I simply have no real interest in playing a parent at all, much less one searching for a lost child, and would rather play a character of my choosing.
Of course, your mileage may vary. Bethesda's attempt to force me to play a specific role rather than the role I choose to play is not innately a bad thing - when I play Half-Life, for example, I don't bemoan the fact that I am playing as Gordon Freeman and wish I could play as Generic McInsertnamehere. I think it's mostly because I tend to expect a certain level of customization from Bethesda's games (specifically the Elder Scrolls franchise, Fallout 3, NV). I don't mean customization about the player's appearance, either - since I play my games in first person mode, appearance is relatively unimportant to me. I mean customization of my goals and play style. Skyrim started the trend of making all playstyles the same by, essentially, disallowing specialization and encouraging players to maximize all stats and skills, and Fallout 4 takes it another step further. And I don't have any say over my goal. In New Vegas, you started out with a clear aim in mind, but you could easily forget about it, playing through the world and only accidentally stumbling on the main quest from time to time. In this game, the vast majority of all NPC interaction either comes in the form of a bullet, and what interaction is dialogue based often revolves around the central plot. Which is also no bad thing, I mean it makes sense for the player character to be primarily concerned with his/her missing child, but again I tend to think it's just my subverted expectations pushing me away from the game.
Rather than descend into an analysis of the thing, which would also necessitate an analysis of the previous games, I'll just skip it and get back to this particular playthrough.

Readers may or may not be interested in my modlist. There's nothing in here that's very exciting, probably mostly because we're still very early in the modding life cycle of the game. The CK isn't even out yet.
There aren't really any mods that affect the game very much. spring cleaning, armorsmith extended, longer power lines, etc... most of them are actually settlement crafting mods of various types.
There are a few cheating mods but I won't be using some of them with this game (personal jetpack, no affinity loss, etc). I will be using some, though. Functional rings, because why else would I wear this wedding band? Easy hacking and easy lockpicking, because I don't want to spend the time it would take to exit and re-enter whenever I fail. A couple of things to make the Minuteman/settlement quests easier, such as better attack alerts, only one quest at a time mod, etcetera.

Not much else to say. I refuse to make any promises like "I'll try not to break the fourth wall as much" or "I'll try to complain about minor things less" because I'll undoubtedly break them. You get what you pay for, and this blog is free. Which says something about the quality, no?

This blog post is the Table of Contents, no actual story. I've got a basic outline of the story and how it will go, but even this is subject to change as the whim takes me. Here goes, everything I've written so far (even if not released yet):

Part 1: This is the way the world ends...
Part 2: In streams of light I clearly saw...
Part 3: The last to fall were the buildings, distant and solemn...
Intermission: Buzzer
Part 4: The blind dogs of the sun in their running...
Part 5: You take your time, you do your work well...
Intermission: Buzzer 2
Part 6: One act of kindness, one act of cruelty...
Part 7: Always be a good boy, don't ever play with guns...
Part 8: We are the order piercing forward...
Part 9: For we who grew up tall and proud, in the shadow of the mushroom cloud...
Part 10: I watched as the Lamb opened the first of seven seals...
Intermission: Buzzer 3
Part 11: Just because there are alternatives doesn't mean they apply to you...
Part 12: In time, you may come back some day, to live once more, or die once more...

I have no release schedule, Real Life (the bastard that it is) taking precedence (as said bastard is wont to do) from time to time. I'm honestly going to try to release one per week, like I did for a while with Skyrim, but no promises.

And that's about it. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy it, at least in part. I'll surely enjoy writing it!

Start at Part 1: This is the way the world ends...