No, it *doesn't* mean there is a pattern. It means that I could look at any semi-random set of data and invent "patterns" by selectively reporting single sets of data. For a "Pattern" of 3's to be proven you would need a comprehensive list of everything in the game that could be related to a number and show that its overwieght.

If I roll a dice 1000 times and tell you on rolls 46, 118, 256, 512, 779 and 804 I rolled a six and not tell you anything about any of the other rolls this doesn't mean there is a "pattern" of sixes.

If I then told you on 10 rolls of that thousand I rolled a 1, do we now have a pattern of ones? Nope.

Bringing it back into fallout - if I show you lets say 10 examples of 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7, 8 and 9 being used in New Vegas, shall we declare there to be a "pattern" of each numeral?

All I can see here is a suggestion of a pattern and a probable case of selective bias. Someone has decided there is a pattern (in this case lots of 3's) and done into the data to "prove" their case.

Then it comes down to perception then, one mans pattern is another mans random set of numbers. If I see a pattern then there is a pattern, if you don't see a pattern then there isn't a pattern The pattern is then perhaps a subjective experience. It exists for one person but not for another, just like God.

This thread has turned into something really weird and off-topic :blink:

I would try to find a pattern in it, but I'm afraid of what might happen.

Well, it looks l ike NV is in the lead!

I can see how you may think it's more of a selective bias then an actual conscious design choice by the devs. I was too lazy to name and go looking for all of the examples of a conscious bias towards quests coming in packs of three, or other situations in which there seems a bias towards three.

To prove my case I'll throw in a few more examples;

How many people does the player have to heal in the medical quest in Camp Forlorn Hope?; 3

How many for a similar quest for the Boomers?; 3

How many quests does the drugmaker in Red Rock have for me?; 3

Not to mention the previous cases listed above.

It's not everywhere that there's a bias, sure. But in the quests that more resemble a fetch quest, or in "short" questlines, they tend to come in threes.

Is this a conscious choice? I can't say for sure. I don't think adding a fourth debtor, a fourth patient needing healing, a fourth hoker needing to be recruited or a fourth fiend on which to collect a bounty would really have changed the essence of those quests. So why didn't they add a fourth? Why did they consistently stick to three?

I think both games and Oblivion own.

Either that, or the world isn't bad.



You state that as fact, but don't demonstrate it. Provide an argument, not just your opinion.

But they do not constantly stick to 3. I've selected the number 4 as my proposed "pattern".

Number of potential prostitue recruits for the atomic wrangler - 4 (you select 3 from the 4).

Number of acts to recruit from for the Tops - 4

Number of people, other than Sunny, you can convince to help you beat the Cobb in Goodsprings: 4

Number of Paladins that Jump you at the end of I could make you care: 4

Number of Stimpacks you get at the start of the game: 4

Number of Journal Checks in the first quest: 4

Time you meet Chancey in the steam room: 4pm

Tasks given by the Van Graffs: 4 (Guard, Deliver, Get Cassidy, Backup in deal)

Number of times each skillbook, aside from the big book of science, appears: 4

Number of targets given in the debt Collector quest: 4 (Collect from 3, kill 1).

Number of solutions to Flags of our Foul Ups: 4.

Number of leaders to "ally" with in the main quest: 4

Number of Unarmed Perks: 4

Number of people you need to eat to get the "meat of Champions" perk: 4 (house, Kimball, Ceasar and the King)

Number of factions to contact ot eliminate in "For the Republic, part 2" - 4 (Khans, Omertas, House and the Brotherhood).

Number of tasks given in I fought the law: 4 (Eliminate the ganger, eliminate the mercinary, get proof of an attack, help or hinder the attack)

I could go on. There is no pattern, just a decision in the mind that there is a pattern there, and then looking for positive proof that it exists, whilst ignoring (probably unintentionaly) any disproving evidence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

Er... even if this is true, why is that relevant?

By the way, they are really using the rule of one. I'll prove it!

How many bombers do the Boomers repair? ONE!

How many wives did Boone have? ONE!

How many platinum chips are there? Just the one!

How many people shoot you in the head? Just one!

How many giant dinosaur statues are there?! One!! But wait! There are more examples!!!

How many chewed up stealth boys are in the cavern north of Jacobstown? One!!

How many securitrons does it take to screw in a light bulb? One!

I rest my case, sir.



I rest my case.

Not that I'm necessarily supporting the theory of 3s, but I went into the Abandoned warehouse and every single Sunset Sarsaparilla case had exactly 3 empty bottles in it and nothing else. It was rather odd.

My first post on Bethesda Forums after reading for awhile and I want to add why I think Fallout 3 is the superior Game.

1. Culture
2. Exploration
3. Gameplay
4. Locations
5. Quests
6. Factions
7. Realism.
8. Companions
9. Radio
10. Items.

1. When it comes to the culture of the games I almost feel like I am playing in a different world then in Fallout 3. In Fallout: New Vegas it has a more Western feel to it then anything else. The strip doesn't seem like what I imagined it to be like, 3 real gambling buildings with 1 Quest in them each, Lucky 38, Vault 21 and the Embassy. They should have added at least 5 casinos a hotel or two ( or a larger 3 Casinos ) , a better gift shop and maybe make the Tops a seperate and more elaborate building. It has a feel to it of trying to create a Western but it seems like it has almost no connection to what Fallout culturally was about. There is almost no retro-50s appeal to it. When I play New Vegas I don't feel like I am in a retro 50s world nuked by reds, I feel like I am playing in like a modern version of mojave with just a societal break down and not a nuclear war with another country. I know Vegas didn't get nuked, but there is no Red Scare no American Exceptionalism no America anything! sometimes I forget that it took place in the former U.S. at all. In Fallout 3 you got that, I was playing Fallout 3 recently and I walked by an old theater and one of the titles for a movie was called "I married a Maoist!" similar to "I married a Communist!" movie from the actual 50s. Between stuff like that, the propaganda posters, the American cultural icons, the Museums writing history about weapon developments, a Vault demonstration, the history of American Space achievement to this alternate world and yes the post apocalyptic hell of Nuclear war brought an almost surrealism. The old world had so much Bravado and Happiness and Charm but after the Bombs fell where did that lead everybody? In New Vegas It felt more frontier like with a big nation like the NCR trying to annex the land and Caeser trying to dominate it, I didn't feel like I was playing in Retro-Futuristic America, I fel like I was mediating between two tribes off in a random desert. The Retro-Futuristic feel makes Fallout.

2. Much shorter and simpler, The fact you could just jump around untill you made it around an object allowed me to make a choice to do whatever I wanted. In New Vegas you have invisible walls that mark off a lot of the map. They essentially forced you to go the path they wanted even though it was inconvient or flooded with enemies. Bottom line, either do it properly like the D.C. ruins or don't do it at all, Invisible walls were crazy in this game and more then once I figured I found away around something or too a hidden ledge only to be blocked. This was on my largest complaints. in Fallout 3 there were few places you couldn't go.

3. This is a big one. Fallout New Vegas seems to be geared towards 3 things weapon wise. Explosives, Melee and Snipers. This annoyed me to no end, now I am only at level 24? with one character but I will tell you it was annoying to find a single weapon I liked. I prefer the guns skill and I like using rifles, I got the Service Rifle fairly early and figured (this should do me fine till I find an Assualt rifle), Did I find one? no I found a bunch of Pistols and SMGs and Melee weapons and lasers that svcked and not untill around 22 did I find the Assault Carbine but it was in semi poor condition and only did 6 damage per shot even though I had 100 guns. In Fallout 3 the ARs do about 26-36 with 100 guns per shot and are fully automatic. They were a balance between a big gun and SMG and I was hoping for that gun to appear. I don't really see the "awesomeness" of a grenade machine gun because I tried using it on the legate and I was more concerned about crippling myself then hitting them given the radius. Snipers too seem almost boring to me as I only used Snipers in Fallout 3 as a Long Range weapon untill I got closer or if I was out of Ammo. Vegas seems like a great game to play as if you wanted to specialize in explosives or stealth/sniper. I found outside of that though weapons left little to offer for guns that wasnt an SMG or Pistol. As for monsters not leveling up with you and just simply existing? it was the dumbest idea combat wise I can think of. When you play New Vegas where do you want to go? VEGAS but you have to at least walk for a half hour if you want to get their straight excusing all the Quests in between. The fact of the matter is they put a huge army of Deathclaws right North of you and you can bet that if you aren't level 25 with a strong weapon your toast. This is what bugged me too the Deathclaws were overpowered and same with the cazadors, you couldn't out run them, you couldn't jump up on to a ledge and pot shot them and you couldn't really fight them. All that happened was instant death and it felt really restrictive. In fact the concept of them getting rid of a levelling system broke what they were hoping to achieve in the first place. One of the better aspects of Fallout New Vegas was the greater speech checks and options, it made it so you really didnt have to be a good fighter to complete a lot of the quests and it felt more like an RPG, this is completely offset with the enemies out in the wastes being beasts because you put a lot of skill in Diplomacy. 100 speech won't help you in the wastes once your done all the talking quests. Fallout 3's combat system was fair and simpler to the player but it also allowed you to be able to use any weapon to kill your enemy, in Fallout 3 I would used AR, Sniper Rifle, Shishkebab, Dart Gun, Minigun and maybe a Nuka Grenade or Mine. In Fallout New Vegas they really seem to want to push specialization when fighting enemies. Also the Human Characters and Super Mutants should have been stronger foes then the wildlife, I found them too easy in Vegas ( I essentially laugh when it comes to Night Kin but Gold Geckos still scare me). However the Black Mountain Mutants were tough.

4. Location is simply Superior in Fallout 3. In New vegas there seems to be a lot of places surrounding the Strip (I needed the Explorer perk to find most of them) but they seem to be like within eye sight but are uninteresting or are percieved as just backround they don't stand out. Some places are neat, like Freeside and Caeser's Camp but a lot of places were boring or not worth travellng to. Novac I visited once and never wanted to return, Boomers had nothing once the quests were done, NCR is a boring faction and as for the Vaults? well lets just say I was disappointed. Jungle Vault versus Blue gas vault? Jungle vault fails. Gary Vault vs Blue Vs Red Vault? come on are you serious? there is one more vault about elections I read up on and am willing to give a chance but come on are you telling me they couldn't think of better experiments? Blue gas was creepy and Gary vault was hilarious I would have liked more like that. I have read abotu Vaults where there was 999 men and 1 woman and then the opposite vault. Those ones would have been interesting to see or somehting to that effect, maybe put a vault that carried on the Retro-Futuristic America where the leader is a fierce American patriot who wishes to operate his vault like it was the U.S.A. of old and have flags everywhere and the civilians dressed in civilian clothes and maybe have a small group in the vault support Chinese communism and you get to either put down the Revolution or Aid it? or a Conspiracy Theory Vault headed by overseer Jones Alex would be interesting. But back to the wastelands in Fallout 3 the areas were diverse different and you had a range of Radio Bunkers, Suburbs, Hospitals, Hotels, Military bases, Corporate Plants and Human settlements post-war. In New Vegas you get Vegas, human settlements post war and a variety of shacks, loose collections of buildings, the occasional factory or 2 and Camps/Forts that were more like occupied old buildings then Forts.

5. Questwise Vegas had more, but Fallout 3's quest felt more fleshed out and though they were kind of silly at times, the writers did their best to make it work. For example rescuing Red from the Super Mutants, that to me was an example of a short Fallout 3 quest that felt like a rescue mission I was excited to do it. Then when I snuck in I overheard two super mutants talking about what they want to do to the Humans and there was great atomsphere. These were the kinds of quests that I enjoyed about Fallout 3 or the one where you have to get the Declaration of Independence that felt literally like a QUEST. Now New Vegas has these quests for sure but they are few and far between in proportion. The Assasination of the President as Legion was amazing a lot more fun then protecting him and probably one of the most memorable moments I had in a video game I was glued to the screen figuring out how I could best killing him it was great or for example trying to help the captured Centurion escape or sabotage the NCR base was a Blast (pun not intended). However I never felt that kind of fun with the NCR or a Mr.House play through and I thought the Brotherhood of Steels quests were boring. A lot of the Quests were dull and sometimes I wish they made Caesars legion control half the map because they were the most interesting faction, but with all Fallout 3 quests I felt the same excitement where as New Vegas not as much. Also too many quests were finished with speech options, its cool you could do it but it made Quests seem like chores in my opinion.

6. Factions wow. The New Vegas factions are good I will say but they kind of don't stack up well via vis the Fallout 3 factions/towns. The only exceptions I will say this to are the Legion, Mr. House and the Boomers. Legion was just well done, Mr.House really gave off a super power aura (though it was a let down when it cam time to kill him) and the Boomers were a great faction with high hopes and interesting dreams, I found their quests were somewhat boring but the faction had neat uniforms and seemed like they were actually trying to accomplish somehting great. That being said let me compare some factions in the Fallout universe.

East Coast BOS vs West Coast - was expecting the West Coast to be like Enclave but instead they turned out to be like Isolationalists and seemed rather lost or frightened. East coast was strong confident and you could really feel their Prescence. East Coast Wins

NCR vs Rivet City - Rivet City surprisingly was more interesting as they felt like a collection of wastelanders trying to get by and rebuild their area, NCR seemed like a fallout version of out current government, when I entered an NCR building I felt like I was inside a federal government building, no Idealism no morality just a your country wants you! mentality. Rivet City wins

Goodsprings vs Vault 101 - 101 felt a lot more realistic and close to your character, revisiting the vault later made me really interested in the "Homefront" as I got to see the consequences of my choices since I was a baby. Goodsprings just got me involved in a powder ganger feud. 101 wins

Caesars Legion vs Enclave - These are both interesting factions that could have been fleshed out more storywise, I love them both equally but for this purpose I have to say Caesar's Legion is better because you get to work with them and see what they believe in beyond doing what Eden says. Caesar Wins

Tenpenny Tower vs Vegas Strip - TT was simply a better place in my opinion plot wise. It served as the capital of the rich Tenpenny and his fortune and you had 3 quests I think relating to him and what he believed in and has done. It was a bastion of wealth in the capital wasteland in the same way the Strip was. Though If I had to compare the Megaton Bomb with Benny, The Ghoul quest with The Ultraluxe quest or Shoot em in the head with the Omerta one I would have to say as good as those strip quests were I would take the Tenpenny Tower quests. This is debatable but I like the Tower more then the Strip. Tenpenny wins imo

Outcasts vs Mr. House

Now Now I know what your thinking how can I compare these two major factions when they are nothing alike. Well Since Mr.House is a third major faction I look at the Outcasts like a third faction of their own aside from say BOS/Rivet and the Enclave. They have a base of operations in fact a few and they have soldiers patrolling the wastes, they give off faction esque feel and have a quest dedicated to them (two with operation anchorage) and they look cool. Their fort is essentially full of strong weapons and strange items and is worth exploring. Mr.House left me feeling like I was just contracted to work for him, the Lucky 38 was boring (unless someone tells me there is something interesting I have overlooked) and he seems rather like an A hole. When push came to shove I steamrolled over him without even a point of damage lost. For someone claiming to be a major faction he was intimidating but was a paper tiger, the Outcasts got my respect and still hold it. Outcasts Win.

Anyways those are going to be the first few points I have to go for an hour or so but I will finish the rest when I get back.

7. Realism, yes I claiming New Vegas lacks realism. I know you are probably like "are you kidding this is a video game set in a retro-futuristic world" which is precisly why I think it needs to be critqued in the context of its enviroment. The fact of the matter is in Fallout 3 the groups of people were trying to survive, lived in isolation from one city to the next and thinking about their own interests as opposed to the entire wastelands (initially). In New Vegas it seems like the people are involved with complex political trials even though the NCR was created in maybe just over 40 years old as an entity in it's whole. I don't see why people in the Mojave aren't struggling to sustain life in a desert, when you go to Goodsprings, Novac or any non-vegas area do you see signs of struggle? do you get the feel of life after a Nuclear war? not likely. You get people living like the ranchers of the old west, almost indifferent from what goes on around them. Instead of wastelanders hundling around burning oil drums you get a New Vegas population living in the sewers, the fact that you are expected to be engaged in so much politics considering everything in the Fallout universe I am just surprised. Also where is that 50s feel that I complained about earlier, how come Californians don't have desire to spread Democracy, Fight Tyranny and boast the "Californian Dream" of making self made men in Post-War America. They almost come across as modern day U.S. as opposed to the U.S. government 50 years ago and aside from a few posters that say "Californian soldier you fight for democracy" I see nothing that would suggest the soldiers have been told that they are fighting for Freedom. Outside of President Kimball I haven't heard a God bless the NCR or a "For California!" in the speech of the soldiers when in combat. There is no Patriotism in them, they sound like they are imperial troops who don't want to be there which takes out their humanity. As for Caesers legion, I think it's hilarious that they all follow Rome to a tee almost, like if they adopted a lot of their principles and spoke Latin/English then I would be fine. But the slavery or women and dressing like legionaires was a little too much. In Fallout 3 I could believe all their factions existing. I can believe that the Military (BOS) would have kind yet independent role in D.C., I can believe the government would try to take over by any means necessary, I can believe a town of kids exists that shuns advlts considering their history, I can believe the Republic of Dave would exist and I can also believe that a group of wastelanders exist on a boat. Can I believe that a bunch of people dressed as Romans parade around the wasteland? That a nation would become so powerful that it could essentially own all of California and still push on in less then 100 years? There are other things that are a little weird about New Vegas that escapes me right now but it just seemed more silly then serious. Mr. House was the only person in the game I took seriously and even then he was a paper tiger .

8. Companions? well I would be dishonest if I said I know all about em. I only have used Cass, Ed-E and Rex and I think they are ok companions. My problem with the companions lie in 3 points.

1. Why do Companions still rush in and potentially kill themselves?
2. Why can't I have more then 1 human and 1 non-human?
3. Why did they make Veronica and Arcade Gannon homosixual? espcially since one being BOS and the other formerly Enclave it would go completely against their values.

Also this may get me labelled a "homophobe" but I was looking forward to siding with these two characters (just because they seemed most interesting) and I don't want to now because I don't like the idea of a openly homosixual character being in my group. Wouldn't it have worked better by simply just making the companions straight or undefined? like if you could use Cherchez le Femme on Veronica or Confirmed Bachelor on Arcade and it would be brought up then I wouldn't have an issue with it. Anyways yeah not a Fallout 3 is better thing but I just expected more with New Vegas

9. Radio, we all know how annoying Mr. New Vegas can get and how annoying 3 dog can get but here is the point. I like hearing 3 dogs impression of John Henry Eden, I like his weather reports and warnings and I like his news updates. Mr. New Vegas is fine I guess but hes always talking about Love this or Love that and some of his news options are about only Big things or Fiends from Camp McCarren. I would have liked to hear a report on the Ultraluxe Quest followed by commentary. The one thing New Vegas did right was Black Mountain Radio, I hated most of the Country music but I found I only listened to that station because of the Commentary with "Best Friend Tabitha" XD it made me laugh more then once. The New Vegas station had country which bugged me, they should have made New Vegas only for the Swing/Jazz and Mojave for both. Not New Vegas for Both. Plus I missed the song Maybe and the Enclave music, I think Fallout 3 produced better radio stations even though the music in New Vegas was just as good.

10. and finally last but not least the items. The Dirty and Grimy Business suit looks the same for men, there is no place to buy any of the gamblers outfits not even Vault 21 which svcks because those are the new clothes. I didn't find any armor that I thought looked espcially cool except for the Ranger Hat and armor. At least in Fallout 3 I can wear a Grimey Business Suit and it not being that awful stripe beige.


Also when I left the Saloon in goodsprings a Giant Radscorpian spawned in town and killed that girl and her dog, the powder ganger, pete and myself. I loaded again and the powder ganger was killed before I got the scorpion. If I didn't have the classic pack I would have died for sure, worst spawn glitch ever and that Quest with the Ghouls was the most disappointing ever. Ok end you may critique my post.

I voted FO3 simply bc it was my first FO game. I still havnt played the first 2 bc im not a pc gamer. I do think FO:NV is better in certain ways, such as the greyness in the story, the DT system, and etc. but i prefer FO3s setting since it had that post-apoc feel to it, while NV jus felt lik a western. NV is a great game, but the bugs is the one thing that makes 3 seem to shine a bit more.

New Vegas. It's everything FO3 should have been.

Look up Van Buren voters of Fallout 3, heh.

Why would i look it up when the game was never made? theres no reason to look it up since its not happening, thats like creatin a false hope for all of u 'true fans' that cant except the fact FO is what it is now. plus if van buren was made it wouldve been on PC only so i would never even kno about FO. So FO3 is not a bad thing since it brought more ppl to the franchise.

Oh look it's turning into one of those threads

I'm a classic fallout fan, and whilst I like a lot of the smaller ideas in VB, I don't like its main quest arc. Going to an orbital nuke platform is just silly (and this coming from someone who is also a fan of the 1960's batman tv show).

Van Buren was meant to be Fallout 3, but really it's Fallout: New Vegas.

That one word was enough to stop me from reading on. Fallout 3 more realistic than New Vegas? That claim is laughable.

Where do the people in Fallout 3 get food in amounts large enough to sustain the population? How do the kids in Little Lamplight maintain a community for over a hundred years without any reproducing population? How exactly can a kid fresh out of a vault with no combat training take out raiders (hardened murderers with guns and combat experience), super mutants, or even mole rats?

Why do scientists who are presumably competent advlts with some common sense want to BREAK A GECK to get pure water? Leaving and finding a new location (any other location would likely be an improvement, considering D.C. likely got hit with more nukes than just about anywhere else on the planet) and actually using the GECK is what someone with half a functional brain would do.

Why does Eden, the super computer, want to shove humanity into a genetic bottleneck that it will never be able to get out of* by wiping almost the entire human species out? Why does Eden give the key to executing his (idiotic) master plan to a known enemy?

*"Mutation running rampant" isn't enough of an excuse. The humans aren't mutated to the point where they cannot reproduce with Enclave humans, presumably, so there isn't a reason to wipe them out except to give the player an 'evil' ending. Further, every generation has mutations from the previous generation. The super computer should be smarter than this. And yes, I'm aware they wanted to do this in Fallout 2. It was stupid then, too.

Well I think you should have read on but ill try my best to explain.

If you remember in Fallout 3 food sources came from a lot of places. Brahmin, Mirelurks, Cave Fungus(in the case of little lamplight) old pre- war food stuff etc. I would imagine little lamplight would be a haven for children of the wastes, remember Bryan Wilkes? you can get him to live in Little Lamplight. LW had training with the BB gun while a kid and presumably it followed through his life, I am not surprised someone from the vault could kill raiders, they are just drugged up gangsters. People like them would be easy to dispatch with even minor combat training like LW has, and super mutants? are you serious? they have no combat "expierience" they get angry and shoot. No tactics there. Mole rats, come on XD

The Scientists of Rivet city weren't geniuses, they were probably just really smart people. What university did the study at? what libraries of information did they have stored? they knew less then the Brotherhood does and probably knew semi-advanced tech and science enough to make rad free vegitables. Not a lot of knowledge in the CW.

Eden wants to do it because in his eyes humanity is impure or corrupt with the exception of the Enclave. This is a perfectly reasonable response considering this is what the Enclaves mission was all along and indeed is restoring old America. In theory Eden could rebuild the human race as it was meant to be if he did what he did. He handed the Lone Wanderer a vial in case Colonel Autumn Failed or betrayed him (as Autumn I believed was against the FEV virus) and hoped that the LW would be his back up plan.

Mutations are never expressed in a pheotype unless two people with the same mutation in their genes have a child and then it will express. Enclave Humans are pure in that they resemble us and they aren't easily mutatable. They would be unlikely to grow a tail or an extra finger or what not, only if they inbred would that be a probably and I doubt it would because the Enclave would genetically modify or monitor their people so it wasn't possible. Mating with an inhabitant of the wasteland means the children could be freakish, sure you don't see it in game but if it were real life you would see some pretty messed up or weird mutations on the characters. In theory you could mate with any woman in the world (if you were a man) and if you were both fertile she could give birth to your child and that child may or may not look like you depending on who you mated with and the genetics you both have. I support the Enclaves desire to keep their people pure, the only problem is they want to kill everyone else in the process. Think of it this way the Enclave don't look at your characters as human but as the same way you look at ghouls, I know some here would tap that but I doubt any of us REALLY would. It is the same situation and humans have been like that for 100s of years.

The super computer was programmed to guide the Enclave and that involves protecting its Genetic as well as National interests.

J_Nightly great posts!

Fallout 3 is better game for me.

I like Fallout New Vegas a lot, but the game doesn't have enough soul compared to F3.
As many said before, devs tried to lure the Bethesdas game crowd making the game more sand box, but they couldn't done it proper. The world is empty, static and boring. Lots of places and nothing to look there. Linear feeling with predetermined path of questing. The story is cool, but not superb. I feel like an errand boy, doing some cheap jobs (MMO feel?)
I tried my best to like the game more than Fallout 3, but couldn't. The only thing making me play it from time to time is the vast arsenal of lever action rifles and the companions.

Now I am waiting for some DLC to make me play it again.

Thanks!

and yeah I sympathize with your statements, I wanted to like it but as soon as I left Goodsprings I was like "that wasn't bad whats next" and then I got to Primm and said that again and I said that all the way untill Novac and then when I had to do the Bright Brotherhood quest I was soo annoyed by this quest I was like "ok it has to get really good once I get to vegas" but no it "wasn't bad" after that the entire way through. I was angry at the invisible walls espcially, the only good time I had in the game (other then today when I was sniping the NCR camps in Return to Sender) was when I did the Caesar's Legion Quests. I believe what happened was that Osbidian assumed that most players would side with the NCR as they resemble our real world America, and what they believe in, So they decided to give them all the straight forward main quests.

Houses were about mid-level and you got paid but were not as rewarding IMO because he was a [censored] and ordered you around like an organ grinders monkey. Caeser's I believe was the one they figured most people would't play untill later so they give him all the unique Quests that were interesting to do and made you feel you actually had an effect on the world. You got a chance to be the bad guy in the story, every bad thing you had to prevent from Caeser when you played as the other guys you got to do yourself. Being a spy and having to assasinate the President were two of the most memorable expiriences I have had in a game.

This is why I have no remorse for the creators of New Vegas, they had the capability, they made Caesers Legion like 75% of what I was expecting I was impressed. Everything else however not as much at all and I think this was because they either poured money elsewhere, slacked off or were trying to make it more RPG then "Sandbox". I could easily see some RPG elements:

- It had straight paths and roads you had to follow as the only safe way
- you would go off the path to fight monsters or explore
- invisible walls blocked off areas you couldn't go
- you really couldn't go to certain areas without a high enough level
- using skill boosts to give you the chance to access certain areas (this I didn't mind but..)
- They put a lot of hard locks on things for you to have to choose to waste a book for 88 caps and a 9 mm pistol or waste skill points on lockpick when there isnt a lot of sneaking and lockpicking skill necessary to do most if not all quests.
- Have a set party amount ( and I know they did this Fallout 3 but there were easy ways around it)
- Making a few weapons or combat styles overpowered compared to the rest ( in my expirience, Explosives, Snipers and Unarmed were what they were pushing here)

I could go on. In Fallout 3 I made a new character with the mindset to never look at the world map and to never fast travel. I started the story fresh as a baby instead of the vault save point so I could make a good story for the character. This is the most fun I have had in the game, you should try it , being able to wander wherever, discover and stumble on to locations and making you guess what is going to be over the next hill. The fact I can CLIMB ANY MOUNTAIN as opposed to the invisible walls of New vegas makes the game feel more RPG like then the tradition they were going for.

As much as people bash Bethesda I am glad New Vegas is out to show people that the days of the traditional RPG are over. With Oblivion and Fallout 3, free roam and well thought out dungeons and random shacks with interesting contents are what people want, they want freedom to be involved in their fantasy world. "grinding" to get to an area I haven't explored yet for the purpose of beating ridiculously higher level monsters then myself isn't realistic or fun. I am not a power gamer, I have other things I like. I may sit down for some fallout for an hour or 2 and maybe if I am having fun 3, but if I am spending 3 hours killing weak monsters, doing stupid quests just so I can get to an area where I can find one Star saspirilla cap, 10 bottle caps, a missle and two skeletons I am will feel like I wasted my time.

The future of gaming is much different from its past. It used to consist of kids and advlts who just couldn't let go. Now it is the staple entertainment form for all young boys and even girls are picking up video games more and more these days. The Future of gaming in the RPG world is free roam, where the player is rewarded with exploration by weapons, clothing or something interesting (like a pre-war diary or a tied up slave or weapon schematics) not penalized for it by putting up invisible walls and killing his character forcing him to level up to kill the ridiculously high level monsters that inhabit the area only to find 5 caps and a sawed off shot gun. I won't be buying dead money, instead ill spend my Xbox Live points to get an arcade game or Fallout 3 DLC for my Xbox version. I may buy a New Vegas expansion if it teaches me more about the fallout universe and as a Fallout 3 feel to it ( having its own culture with a 1950s retro-futuristic twist to it) but untill that time comes adding DLC to New Vegas is like throwing garbage through the window of a broken down house. Your just adding more trash to something that could have been and should have been a great place.

Although I do prefer FO3 myself for the exploration aspect calling New Vegas a piece of trash is a little harsh. I mean sure perhaps it could have been a better exploration experience (although they did create some excellent locations, the area around Jacobstown was brethtaking imo) but it makes up for it with some very good quests, such as the battle for Nelson, that is one of my favourite. It also has it's share of mediocre quests like the one were you have to stop mercs attacking Jacobstown, it porbably would have been better suited as a free form quest but still for quests the good outweighed the bad imo.

F:NV is a return to the traditional RPG but in the modern setting and Obsidian did a really good job in a niche market