Washington's Malevolence is a "DLC-sized quest mod" for Fallout 3 that takes players on a hunt for the Rocky Cape Bank on Maddox Island in Chesapeake Bay, rumored to be filled with untold prewar riches. Mod maker Adam "garfield2004b" Sweet said players "will get to explore the island, visit several new locations, and meet different people from different backgrounds that will shape and mold the events that take place."
"This project has been a self-built labor of love for the past 5 years of my life. Without the help of a great team of voice actors, this project may have never seen the light of day," Sweet wrote. "I'm proud to finally release this thing out into the open; I'm very excited to share the story of Maddox Island and its inhabitants with you, the player."
You'll need to have Fallout 3 installed and updated to version 1.7, as well as all the DLC: Operation Anchorage, The Pitt, Broken Steel, Point Lookout, and Mothership Zeta. You will also need the Fallout Script Extender and WMUpdates.esp.
"You absolutely must have FOSE installed to do anything with this mod as there are FOSE-specific calls in certain important scripts," Sweet wrote. "There is a check in place that prevents the player from starting the first quest, An Apropos Proposal, if the game does not detect a valid FOSE installation."
Assuming you have all the required stuff, you'll extract the contents of the archive into the Fallout 3 data folder, and then add "bLoadFaceGenHeadEGTFiles=1" to your fallout.ini file. You'll also need some form of archive invalidation in place to make it work—this TES Alliance thread has a good rundown of what that's all about. There are a few incompatibilities as well, particularly with regard to companions.
There's some effort involved, but such is the way with mods, and this one looks and sounds impressive. Before you dive in too deeply, however, note that Sweet said in an update posted today that the 1.2 update that's currently in the works will probably reset progress in the mod.
"I'm trying to merge that big update file into the ESM so future updates aren't so huge, something I should have done to begin with. (plus saving a 22MB file in the GECK is a pain) The mod initially launched in that ESM/ESP companion state because of the GECK constantly hanging every time I attempted to finalize the worldspace navmeshes," he wrote.
"It'll also make doing a TTW version easier because I won't absolutely have to work around that plugin. Gives me a chance to actually clean up some of the earlier quests as well!"
He's also working to expand the dialog options in Vault 89.
Fallout 3: Washington's Malevolence is free, and even if you happen to be feeling especially generous, Sweet doesn't want your money. "There will be absolutely NO donations accepted for this project," he wrote. "If you really want to donate to something, donate your money to a local charity that would need it the most!"
