they would release the optimal game.

It would never be finished. If Bethesda stopped to consider and add in every option people say they wanted, it would never stop.

I prefer an ending to the game.

Just mucking about doing Odd quests and stuff after a conclusion seems somewhat unrewarding. Id rather do The mucking about when there is a reason and a goal for doing it.

But The game Will be openended, because The last time Beth tried it resulter in a [censored]estorm.

I will say, if they want to give us a closed ending, don't put a huge sense of urgency into the main quest. Support a picaresque narrative where we can roam the wasteland at our own pace, and choose when to get involved in the big plot.

Yeah, it probably will be, at least I hope so.

Also, you finish the main quest and then, guess what? DLC! Though I will say I found the way they did DLC in NV to be pretty good. Loved Dead Money and Honest Hearts, didn't give Old World Blues a fair shake, and never tried Lonesome Road.

I would want it to end. If this is the case, then perhaps it would seriously say something about the game's storyline and the consequences of the character's actions. RPGs are story-based. A story has a beginning, a middle, and an ending.

Fallout 3 doesn't feel right after coming back from the battle of the purifier. My character somewhat feels like a walking corpse because they've outlived their story.

You're free to quit the game or load a previous save after the final battle, you know.

No one will be forcing you to continue, you'll have a little pop-up telling you that the main story is over and now you're continuing outside the "real" game. I don't really see the problem.

Easier workaround: flag the item as "non-playable". It can't be looted by the player, and avoids the whole issue of getting a hold of something that you can never use.

IIRC they've done that before and people still complained about it.

Besides, I 'really' wanna use the Holorifle again.

True, you'll always get complainers. Hell, fans complained when FO2 came out. But it's nowhere near as annoying as "Yay, I get to use the big bad's infinity +1 sword after an epic battle and WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE GAME JUST ENDED?"

This is true, but it doesn't help the fact that the game doesn't have a definitive ending. If I have to ignore portions of the game to get that out of it, it doesn't have one. I'm in the party who feels as if the way Bethesda implemented Broken Steel was a mistake. Perhaps if it had been written better and furthered the story in a good way, playing after the vanilla ending wouldn't have felt awkward.

New Vegas' ending slideshow felt far more accomplishing, moving, and final. I think that's what we should get initially. If they want to add a Broken Steel-type DLC, fine. But write it better than its namesake.

Yes it does have a definitive ending.

Would it really have been the end of the world if at the end of new vegas you got a notification saying something like "Congratulations. You have finished the game and with your help the fate of the wasteland has been blah blah blah. Do you want to continue playing on your own,(not that this does not have anything to do with the story, it's merely for your enjoyment), load a previous save or quit to main menu?"

How can you possibly have anything against that? Is choice all of a sudden a bad thing?

This entire thread is based on the assumption that this isn't an option, and it kind of misses the entire point of the discussion right now.

They wouldn't do that. We would obviously (regardless of game morals) move on, and thus the choice option of catering to both crowds somewhat diminishes. How does Fallout 3 have a definitive ending if the story keeps desperately chugging along afterward?

I want an ending slideshow with tons of different possibilities and tons of different story connections like New Vegas did. Obviously, something like this would be impossible to implement in further gameplay, thus the game would need to end at that point. No use in drawing it out.

My guess is, because Bethesda will stay truer to Fallout 3 and hopefully take some advice from Obsidian's work; They give a more elaborate ending than Fallout 3, but one which is more simplified than New Vegas. Somewhere in the middle.

I created this thread to see what people wanted and see what sort of solutions people could come up with. To be honest I could have worded the title a little bit better.

Did you even read my post before? You still get your ending and meaningful slideshow. But since the game is over and you wouldn't be able to continue anyways, in what possible way would this option to keep playing bother you? You can just choose the option to quit to main menu and we who'd like to keep playing would still have the option to do so knowing that what we do from now on isn't canon in any way and it doesn't affect the story.

I don't really see your way of having it making any sense at all and I feel what they did in New Vegas was a big mistake. We can mod the game for gods sake, do you want Bethesda to remove our ability to mod the game as well because an Iron Man suit doesn't follow the story correctly?

I want the ending to have consequences and not a world like skyrim where no one gives a [censored] about it. Only a closed ending can do that good enough. The main quest should not be just another quest that does not involve anyone else. It should be the reason you play the game and effects everyone in the game and therefore side- quests should not make sense after it.

That's an awful anology and it does not reflect my logic at all. Modders will do what they do with every Fallout game, there are some good ones, and there are some bad, lore-breaking ones. The way to shop for mods is obviously to search for the former -- what we are talking about is an official part of the game. Bethesda allows modders to use the G.E.C.K for a good deal of reasons, but partially because they quite honestly don't care what modders do. It will be more positive than negative, considering that there will be graphics mods which will make their game look better. What they care about is their own finished product.

You also failed to actually read my post; while I wish for a New Vegas-like ending, if the option exists to continue, we all will because that's the simply the way it is, similarly to how people usually don't (even those who hate Broken Steel) choose to stop playing Fallout 3 after the battle for Project Purity. Your "choice" scenario doesn't exist because Bethesda (despite lacking in story-writing compared to Obsidian) will want to be concrete, as they do with all of their games. It will be one way or another. Unfortunately, I do believe that they will allow you to play after the ending, simply because it was successful for them to do so with FO3.

If you don't like the way New Vegas ended, we aren't going to reach a point of compromise/understanding because I really did like it. It's probably best to agree to disagree.

For those who say that Broken Steel ruined the ending and is an example as to why gamesas shouldn't allow play-after-the-end...

... well, that was the initial plan gamesas had with Fallout 3. Then fan outcry, and a emergency DLC release due to said outcry, which resulted in a less-than-stellar ending for FO3 when it was all done and said.

Point is, the ending of FO3 was less than stellar in part because gamesas was pressured into changing from what they originally decided on. If FO4 is planned to be a play-after-the-end style (which it likely will be), the ending is going to be better because gamesas has already incorporated a play-after-the-end scenario into it. Granted, that's subjective, based entirely on whether or not you think gamesas svcks at writing, but it'll be a better ending than if they had to suddenly pull a 180 and release another DLC that allowed it.

I agree with this, mostly. They should have had their minds made up at release. I hope it is the case here as well.

If they are going to let us play after the ending, it would be far more seamless to have it so in the beginning, rather than doing what happened before -- overriding most of what was an okay ending in Fallout 3 and making it terrible.

Perhaps they should've made a better ending. Even the "pro-ending" people were let down by what was there to my recollection (and Bethesda even admitted it was broken).

"If the option exists to continue, we all will". Even though it would ruin it for you? Sorry, but that would be your fault alone. You are free to quit at any time and have it the exact way as New Vegas did.

"If you don't like the way New Vegas ended, we aren't going to reach a point of compromise/understanding because I really did like it." So quit when the notification comes up(if there'll be one)? It would be the exact same thing as New Vegas.

But yes, let's just agree to disagree, this isn't really going anywhere.

Even if the game specifically let you know that what you do after the main-quest is unofficial and only for your enjoyment? It's just to have fun and to keep playing, what's the harm? I have yet to have this explained to me.

It hasn't been explained because they can't explain it without sounding unreasonable.

I voted yes. After the ending slides it could ask if you wanted to continue. Yes/No. Of course continuing would add nothing more to the game other than exploring and doing side quests you may have missed, but the option would be nice.