“I can’t escape Garvey. He’s everywhere now. Someone even modded him in to skyrim, so he could tell me about all those settlements that need my help, and then he marks them on my map.
The map is always marked now, I can’t remember what it was like to have an unmarked map.
Send help. God is dead.”
I regret the day I ever helped that nuisance and his worthless band of followers. It’s possible to ignore them, go right to the Brotherhood or Railroad, and beat the game. I don’t think you can join the Institute without first aligning with another faction.
I actually like the concept of the Minutemen, but the execution is pretty poor. I think I’ve seen maybe two groups of Minutemen running around on their own and doing anything as a faction. Ultimately, it’s you going around and rescuing settlers. Aren’t they supposed to be the Minutemen? Why aren’t they out patrolling and taking care of this kind of thing?
Preston is just an extension of the radio station at the Castle. If you disconnect power to the radio, his quests dry up. This means you can have a little peace in Sanctuary. I should stress a little, as random settlers will still come up to you and mewl about kidnappings and stray ghouls, but it’s not as bad as before.
As a companion, Preston is awful. He gets in the way, complains about the weather, and can’t hit the ground with his laser musket. When you reach maximum affinity with him, he becomes horribly maudlin (well, so do the other companions). This would almost be bearable, but he’s voiced by a terrible actor. The only reason I dragged him around was to get his perk, which is one of the best in the game.
Why oh why would anyone want to mod him into Skyrim?
I will say that I’ve enjoyed the settlement building aspect quite a lot, and you can’t do this without joining the Minutemen.
The original Concord Minutemen group is made up of totally worthless NPCs. Sturgess is only good for getting you started on settlement crafting (well, if you want to finish the main story with the Minutemen, he’s necessary). Jun-Long and Marcy are probably the most horrible NPCs ever created in any game. The worst thing about them is that they’re essential, but I guess you could have fun devising creative ways to blow them up repeatedly. Mama Murphy is the only one who can die, but killing her is a little convoluted, and you should really listen to her “visions” if you want to avoid fighting the Institute courser during the quest for the teleportation chip. After that, though, she’s of no use whatsoever.
The fact that this Concord group is so utterly worthless, combined with Preston’s brain-melting persistence in forcing quests on you, makes me think that Bethesda intentionally created the Minutemen as some kind of collective and inescapable irritant. The question is: why?
Poor Preston is just misunderstood. Now the smoking lady at the Castle Fort…. she is the devil.
I would like to see an MMA match between the smoking lady and Carla. That may start another nuclear war.
I took the Castle and then never once went back there. I assume they’ve all starved to death, but there were plenty of beds.
Preston is a terrible and boring companion indeed.
I moved both Preston and Sturgess to the Castle just after capturing it because I didn’t want to go back to Santuary (remember, I avoid using fast travel). However after Institute visit the game moved Sturgess back to Sanctuary.
Yesterday I was following Cabot to finish the quest with his father when, in the middle of nowhere, I came across a woman who wanted to sell me a brahmin and just next to her a guy in Institute labcoat asking for directions to the Bunker Hill.
The game should have more encounters like this.