its not a black isle fallout game, its a bethesda fallout game, you shouldn't expect any bethesda games to have hard endings, they're all open ended.

I'm an "old" fan, and I'd rather not trade a canned post game slide show that vaguely sumarizes my experience for the ability to rob all the big badies fancy cloths and armor and keep playing while wearing them. I was furious I couldnt walk around with all the unique items from the battle from the dam. Just because war never changes doesnt mean the series has to stay exactly congruent with the first two games

Everyone has an opinion.

I liked knowing what happened to everyone in the long term. Maybe if you'd enjoyed NV you'd understand why?

I'm going to assume you mean most players don't even bother with main quests here?

Even so, I highly doubt it. I'd guess the vast majority play it at least once, even those who don't think it's the main point.

And what about the millions of filthy casuals everyone seems to look down on? You know the ones who go through the game doing a few side quests, then finish it off with less than 100 hours and move on the next thing.

Well, let's think about this for a moment: We need an upward of ~200+ levels to max out. Will any playthrough (main quests/side quests/fully explored) hold enough player interest to get every single perk maxed + 10 in every SPECIAL?

Let's see....I've known people to have logged 100+ hours into a majority of Bethesda games, Fallout 3 included and notably...

Yes, I believe it is in the range of possibility.

Implying that those 100+ hours were sunk into one character.

I, for one, am pleased by this confirmation, though as others have said, it was hardly suprising.

It would be nice if done like this:
-Slides
-Game ending music/credits roll
-Fade into radio playing in your home Where you are just waking up after a much needed rest, having beaten the MQ.

Tend sheep, er... settlements. Tie up loose ends.
See first hand immediate changes to the setting after the MQ.
Or.... simply quit the game after the slides.

It doesn't have to be a big deal.

Do not underestimate the investment one can make in a single character...

I'm sure a lot of people like dedicating themselves to one character. I myself spent 500+ hours on one single character in Skyrim, and it would be foolish to think others don't do that either.

There are a lot of possibilities with so many people playing differently.

I'm not dismissing it. I have a single character with roughly 200+ sunk into him alone. However, he is nowhere near the cap, and that's due in large part to Skyrim's leveling system. However, the assumption being made by people that a single character will max out before even touching half of the content? Nonsense.

Now add that its an good chance the game have an sort of soft level cap, making it harder to level up then you reach an nominal level cap. Sort of like Skyrim however in Skyrim it was natural then your most used skills maxed out. System might be in to not discourage continuing and to let you switch focus late in the game, say you want to build an settlement after done with the main quest lines but can not as you have no way raising the charisma related perks needed for it.

There are folks over in the Oblivion forums who have racked up 3000 hours on one character. And they're still going. They'll be up to 4000+ hours at this time next year, I'm sure.

I myself have played a single character for 1000 hours in both Morrowind and Skyrim. I think my longest character in Oblivion was about 600 hours and maybe 300 hours in Fallout 3.

I imagine that's what the developers were thinking of when they ditched the level cap.

This is exactly why Bethesda's always incorporated level scaling into their games; it helps them keep the difficulty of scenarios consistent, but still lets us grow our character to be very powerful. There are a lot of good reasons to avoid level scaling, but with their last two games I thought Beth did a good job balancing it.

I still don't think that nixing the level cap ruins replayability. You have to play a lot of the game before your character starts maxing out everything; at that point, I might decide to start over, and redo all of those quests as a different kind of character, you know?

That assumes that all perks are worth even consideration, or that special is worth maxing out. The big thing is that you don't need to give any thought on what kind of character you are going to build because you will be getting all that you're ever going to need - and if previous games are anything to go by, with relative ease too.

Unlikely to happen, it would (I presume) require a fair amount of work.

I agree, it doesn't have to be.

As one of those players who like to play through once and get as much out of that play-through as I can, I am happy for this news. Additionally, this is how you could potentially play a Table-Top RPG. I have played a 2.5 year, 474 karma character (around 70 sessions or around 300 hrs.) in Shadowrun and enjoyed most of it (the ending was a bit devoid of character involvement, one reason I get bothered by some ending slides). Had the GM not killed every character, I could have kept on playing that character (if other GMs allowed it) for as long as I wanted, constantly improving.

A few key physical type things changing wouldn't take much
Add to that on a few essential NPCs having an extra line or two of dialogue recorded when the VO artists do their sessions that they are there for anyway.. ?
I can't see it as much. And to be frank, to see everything stay the same would be off putting, so I should think it worth the investment.

Huh... I loathed that game after the first 10 hours...

Not Beth's greatest creation.

That would be my ideal too.

As you say, there's no need to see all the long term effects of the ending in game. Only what happens immediately after the final mission.

Lol, it's a weird game even in the context of TES games. It's missing a lot of the worldbuilding and politics that make Morrowind and Skyrim interesting, but it's got its own redeeming qualities, methinks. I've come to appreciate what it added to the TES formula, though; nowadays it's pretty easy to take for granted the NPCs having daily schedules, or physics-enabled clutter across the world.

I enjoyed the Courts of Mania and Dementia in The Shivering Isles. They kind of added a little intrigue to the mix, in a "I'm a bigger lunatic than you are!" sort of way. Lol

I disagree. The thought you give on how you build your character will most certainly matter in the early, mid, and late stages of the game. The meta game is a totally different matter.

For you maybe.