I don't know about the *greatest* quest, but it is a fairly neat quest in the context of the Fallout universe. You've been wandering around the wasteland for so long that it seems hard to believe that anything even remotely high tech could have existed outside of the vault, and then the Glow quest comes along to remind you that not only does that stuff still exist, but it was the standard back in the day. Furthermore, exploring it with the meager equipment (depending on the player) and any of the companions that are tagging along really brings home just how far things have fallen since the war; I mean, you're inside a gigantic bunker from yonks ago with and and fighting off the technologically superior enemy with the help of representatives of the average occupants of the wasteland: a psychotic dog and a few gunmen who don't use anything heavier than a simple rifle because that's all that is commonly available.

That's not even getting in to the backstory on the world that can be uncovered in the Glow. I ordinarily hate RPGs that dump all of the exposition establishing the setting into a mass of assorted books that mostly don't actually contribute to the narrative, but actually working to uncover the history of the Glow was actually interesting because it paced itself and gave it the additional significance of providing clues as to the next objective and answering more immediately pressing questions as opposed to dumping the player in a library and expecting the player to read it all in one go. The exposition is actually woven into the narrative, which, on reflection, is something that I am surprised any game can mess up, and yet they keep doing it. Baldur's Gate dumped all of its exposition into mountains of tomes, to the point that any exposition contained in writing was vastly outweighed by ponderous and pointless tomes establishing aspects of the setting that weren't relevant to the main plot at all, and don't even get me started on the nonsense that FFXIII pulled; admittedly, I haven't played that last one, but everything I have heard and seen about the data logs is maddening.

I think of it this way: how many other individual quests would you rank as better than The Glow? How many other individual quests can you even remember by name? The only other quest I like as much as The Glow is the Ocean House Hotel quest from Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines.

Part of the problem is that I tend to not think of individual quests in and of themselves as separate entities; instead, if I remember them, I remember them as a moment or series of moments in a game that I found memorable. But if I were to sit down and try to decide which quests are "better" than others, the problem becomes how to compare quests; some are great for reasons that prevent them from being comparable.

Take the Glow. It's a demonstration on how to weave exposition into the narrative while still having the player work to uncover it via in-game documentation, brings home just how much the world has gone to hell from the old days, and introduces machines as enemies, thereby ramping up the difficulty. It provides good loot and combat while serving the story, which is definitely good, but it's not a quality all quests share.

For contrast, look at the hunt for Ravel Puzzlewell in Planescape Torment. The quest is comprised of following a trail of breadcrumbs through dialogue, all the while hearing nothing but awful things about how Ravel is a villainous monster who tried to destroy to city, ultimately culminating in the player finding Ravel and realizing that the legends surrounding her are distorted and that she is in fact a broken non-threat who made the PC immortal out of love. The combat is servicable, and the loot associated with it is limited to a few magic items and an enchanted dagger in the form of her fingernail, so it's not directly comparable with the combat and loot in the Glow, but it does wonders for the narrative by building up and subverting the player's expectations; this serves the twin goals both of maintaining tension by creating uncertainty in the mind of the player as to what she will do next and of Planescape generally subverting fantasy tropes (in this case, the stereotypical portrayal of Evil). Heady stuff, the stuff of a great quest, but not directly comparable to the Glow.

Me neither, except in a few exceptional cases.

I thought it was generally just common practice for older games, it didn't really need such a stupid title. Makes it sound like some sort of dirty exploit or cheat. :/

It kind of is and refers to kind of cheating with saves, or that's how I've always taken it.

"Save early, save often, keep multiple copies", is one thing and prevents you from having to start all over when you run into a game breaking bug or a situation you can't get out of (like every second fallout player losing hours of playtime or the whole game because of radiation death in the glow),

It's another thing to gamble and reload when you fail, pickpocket and reload when you fail, open a fight with supermutants or a deathclaw and reload if you dont get a critical in the eyes with the first shot. Try a conversation and reload if it doesn't go your way, solve a puzzle by just trying every combination and reload when you fail. That's save scumming.

And I do it all the time, and I use falche to improve my character if I want to.

That reminded me of something. In Codename: Iceman, Sierra busted down the 4th wall to let the player know how "uncool" save scumming is, in a funny but frustrating way. If you find yourself losing all your money at a game of dice, well hey, why not just reload to when you hadn't lost your money?

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hHkr2GNVtg4/UJCQ2zqgSCI/AAAAAAAADt0/sMU2PXc748M/s1600/192+Cheating.JPG

Oh.

Ha ha! I remember that from Codename:Iceman. It actually really pissed me off when I saw this since: 1) it's a game of dice, which as far as I know is random, and 2) it's required to beat Salty at least until you win the bottle of rum.

Luckily winning the bottle isn't that hard, since (as far as I recall) you just have to beat him once (or possibly get your money back and then beat him once). So the game gives you some chances, but if you screw up and lose all your money then you pretty much have to restore anyway - so it's still a bit nasty.

Even more luckily, you don't have to keep playing the game after winning the bottle, since the device you win isn't strictly necessary to beat the game (and the alternate solution is actually more satisfying than using the device). Naturally, I didn't know this the first time I played so I pulled my hair out until I won it.

Luckily I was running this on an Amiga back then, and I had an Action Replay - a (physical) device that could be used to save/restore memory state (and also edit machine code in-memory, among other things). So I was able to save-scum anyway!

Well some games force one to save-scum on gambling failure (e.g. Leisure Suit Larry). Fallout doesn't though as gambling is optional (and pointless IMO, though I'm glad it's there as it adds to the immersion).

I admit to reloading conversations if they don't go my way in the Fallout games, since there are times where you pick something and it just cuts off a quest line for what seems like no reason - sometimes because the thing you picked was designed to do that but it wasn't even slightly obvious, sometimes due to a possible conversation/logic bug or other issue, sometimes due to random conversation rolls.

Scumming, stat-scumming, and save-scumming are not inherently bad, but if you take them to extremes they can really destroy your fun. It depends on the situation. How fun is it to sit at your computer for fifteen minutes reloading time after time just to get the "perfect" result? It's a form of self-punishment; you want to cheat but you want to have to pay a price for cheating so you don't feel guilty. If you're really so interested in getting what you want, there's almost always a way to achieve it in seconds by outright cheating.

On the other hand, sometimes you can scum battles or events to get exactly the result you want, but at the same time you actually enjoy replaying whatever-it-is. Sometimes there's a battle that's so good, playing it once a game simply isn't enough.

Finally, the name "scumming" is here to stay. It's been around for decades already.

P.S. Many roguelikes have "auto-scum" features, so they'll do the re-rolling for you. :)

P.P.S. If your Fallout setup is relatively stable, try playing ironman (i.e. no saving, unless you're actually going to stop playing). It's extremely fun.