Hey i would just like to say that i hate the fact that in 3 and New Vegas that you cant play after the main quest is completed which i really hate.

I am aware of Broken Steel which is awesome but New Vegas doesn't have a fix for this issue.

I am hoping when 4 is released we have this ability available from the start. i would love to continue after the story is completed to further explore the world and manage my settlements etc.

This is not TES, the game should end when you complete the main quest. New Vegas did it correctly.

New Vegas only ended because Obsidian didnt have the time to fully implement the ability to play after the main quest due to all the different ending states and the very limited time they had to make the game when compared to the 3 years bethesda had for fallout 3 and the 5 years they have had for Fallout 4.

Put it this way theres a very high chance that we will beable to play after we have completed the main quest just because of the fallout bethesda go for fallout 3 which ended once you finished the main campagin. it why they made the broken steele DLC

Ehhh if it has a good ending and reason for ending the story there I can live especially if side quests and other things impact the main quest. It all depends on the story obviously it'll appease more people if it continues after so the story would have to be altered and of course there's roleplaying elements that can depend on the player being able to continue. Allowing the player to continue after the main quest will probably also mean it would affect the story of dlc which could be interesting. Nevertheless I'm speculating.

I know its not TES but i love replay-ability. i really hope we can play after the final quest, with all the stuff like settlement management and the overall size of the world i would love the ability to play after the main quest has ended as there will still be much to play after it has finished.

They will tie it to DLC.

replay-ability means the game has option, usually from choice and consequences, that would make you want to play the game again, from a fresh start, to try different things. It has nothing to do with continuing the game after the MQ is completed. You can do all the stuff you want to do, before completing a MQ that ends the game.

Didn't they say that they will never take away the ability to play after the mq is over again?

Cannot speak for anyone else obviously but I personally REALLY hate it when games force you to save before doing the final mission in order to continue playing that save.

It feels like I never actually finished the main quest and always have it hanging over my head.

Honestly people....

If they go with a "play past the real ending" mode then great. If they don't then just Do what most of us did Pre BoS, patch just go back 1-3 hard saves and resume playing while avoiding that point. Seriously your not going to get the Infinity^3 weapon of Mega peownage, the keys to the Milinium Galactica, one Trillion Solid Unobtanium Tripple $€￡￥ coins,and/or the companion you have always dreamed of anyway along with other fabulous prizes.....you get Ron And some of the other voice actors narrating a slide show telling you how good you screwed up....( not a typo )

I'm sure Bethesda said they would never do that again, not letting us play after the main quest. New Vegas was supposed to have post main quest game play, but didn't do to time constraints.

As others mentioned, I had no problems continuing to wander the wastes after doing the MQ/seeing the slides, in either game. I just went back to my "just before the final quest" save, and kept wandering.

And as for replayability - yeah, I've replayed Fallout 3 lots of times. I love making new characters. (NV, I've only restarted once, and didn't finish.... the more linear plotline, and less-interesting-to-explore world, made it a bit harder).

Anyway, OP, http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1524382-please-dont-have-those-endings-like-in-fallout-3-and-nv/ (with poll!), so you can see what others have said. Many seem to share your opinion, even though it feels like a non-issue to me personally.

I have my fingers crossed that I'll be able to continue my dinking around after the main quest. And no no I really don't mind if the world is not massively changed by whatever happens.

No. They knew that they wouldn't be able to implement post-ending gameplay that would actually be representative of the endings. They knew from the get go that they would no be doing it and probably didn't want to anyway.

Either way, Todd Howard already came out around the time of Broken Steel and said that they would not be repeating the "mistake" of an ending ever again.

Well...The fandom will be forever split over whether or not the original ending to Fallout 3 was a good or a bad one...

I personally was underwhelmed, but it seemed to be where the story was going. The quest for the giant brita filter.

Why?

You can quit when the story ends and I can keep going. Problem solved.

Fallout 2 did it, if I recall correctly, and it worked perfectly.

To this day, in spite of hundreds of hours playing the game, I've never actually finished New Vegas. The hard ending is one of the reasons. The other one is that I simply won't do anything in a game that I don't want to do, and New Vegas backed me into a corner of having to either take out Mr. House or the Brotherhood of Steel and I refused to do either. As a result, I opted to maintain the status quo ... and my ability to keep playing.

That was my ending. Not satisfying, but better than the alternatives.

Maybe, but 3 was an awful lot like TES. Which is why it's my favorite. It even did do some things better than TES. Personally I way prefer the local hero/villain to the region changing stuff. I'd be OK with a pretty lowkey and personal main quest. Honestly I don't need a main quest at all. I like a game that continues until I'm tired of it and doesn't end for sandbox games and it what I expect from a TES game. Even something like the Witcher, I'd prefer to keep playing after the main quest ( and not have all my friends just vanish thank you)

If I'm not mistaken, Fallout 2 made it abundantly clear that all the post-game stuff was non-canon and had no effect on the outcomes you achieved with the ending slides. Nothing changed in the FO2 postgame except for NPCs (in New Reno and Vault City?) basically saying "congrats for beating the game". Imho, it's rather pointless and only worth a few minutes of Easter egg fun.

In the end though, it's all about the narrative. If the ending is comprehensive and has far-reaching consequences, it'd be much more difficult to implement a postgame to reflect these changes. If instead it's more like a personal and open ended finish, a postgame world could still work and still be satisfying.

Many people, including me, liked knowing the long term effect of who you choose to help or hinder. An epilogue is hardly a storytelling device unique to Fallout games.

I'm not sold on the idea that all these stories could just be left open. So as long as they work a conclusion in somehow, I'm happy for people to play on after.

This is not many things but what it is, is a huge open sandbox. Go anywhere do anything. They should not limit that by forcing you to go back and reload because you have progressed the MQ to far

Hell in NV I didn't do the MQ for so long out of fear I would lock myself into the end game and one of the main immersion breaking things is reloading a save.

I agree having an epilogue at the end to explain the long term outcome of your actions would be awesome and if they could do both then great. If they can't then I pick they leave it open

They don't have to tell a story that transforms the whole wasteland to the point that it can't be depicted in play. Hell, for all I care the story could be about building a giant laser to destroy an approaching asteroid before it ends all life on Earth, and the consequences of completing the main quest is the world not ending and the game continuing.

When you look at New Vegas and the insane amount of variables and change that is reflected in the end slides, developing a post-main quest gameworld would take a lot of development and resources. Even with more time, I'm not sure if they could do it justice. If they did, having all of the changes talked about in the end slides actually occur in game, I would be all for it. Unless there were more quests I wouldn't necessarily spend a ton of time playing after, but it'd be really cool to see all of the changes. Alternatively, they easily could have had a popup message about playing after the end explaining that the gameworld will stay the same but you can continue playing. But that would be functionally the same as playing a save before the ending.

So the issue about being able to play after the ending has to do with the story. Not just the main quest, but practically every story in the game. New Vegas managed to account for most of the major choices in the game and explained their consequences. It's a reflection of how much content and how varied the choices really are in the game. Contrast with Fallout 3, where the ending does not really account for the consequences of your choices at all, and instead just tells you what you already know about your character. There isn't a whole lot of choices and consequences that need to be accounted for, and Broken Steel, for good or bad, was a feasible project. Look at Skyrim. No real gravity and no major decisions in the storyline, you defeat Alduin and continue, because there is nothing to really account for in the game world.

So if Bethesda wants to let us continue after the main quest and have a gameworld that's consistent with the ending, it is assuredly at the expense of story, choices, consequences, etc. not just in the main quest, but in the entire game. And frankly, that just [censored] svcks.

Oh, I thought the FO3 ending was very poorly done (the whole "hey, we have rad-proof helpers!" thing, for instance).

But I still had no problem with the fact that it did End.

Lets design a very large world filled with tons of lore, npc's and quests. Lets spend our years so every single piece of land looks absolutely beautiful and lets end the game after main quest so people wont experiance half of the things we made.

Cmon people, there is nothing wrong with ability to play after main quests end. In fact most of the time when it comes to beshesta, actual game begins when main quests end.