I think there is plenty of room for all of this.

It is logical there would be things that are time sensitive, and those that are not.

I've never been one to focus more on my hideout than things in the game, but you could make that case that even questing for items or establishing contact with new towns for trade (Exploring) is a means to an ends, regarding the MQ progression. There is no reason it can't be robust enough to cater to people who are driven solely on the main arc, and those that want to play out that role- not as someone passing through, but as someone who is a part of that world.

Non essential time sensitive content doesn't need to mean "I missed out on X" It can just as easily mean "The setting is different in X way", so now things have to be approached differently. Some things could carry a time fail penalty of some sorts, but could just as easily onlymean you have to take another path.

I get what you're suggesting. I did pose a similiar idea a year or two ago where the opening event leaves the player out cold with an empty questlog and the MQ-to-be would need to be found (with the initiation depending on where the player finds it - and it wouldn't be clear until later that the chain of quests is actually the "main quest"); but, despite there being some potentially interesting possibilities to be had there, I abandoned it because there's no drive to do anything when the PC is dropped over nothing (kinda like the post ending gameplay in TES), and the charm of the feature is lost after the first run through.

There is plenty of drive to do stuff so long as the world is interesting.

The opening/main quest primer gives you a reason for doing anything at all in the first place, but once you have that hook established, doing other stuff, even after the MQ is over, becomes a part of simply enjoying the world of the game.

That has never been of interest to me - just "looking at" the game when the overarcing point has already been disclosed. There's nothing to build the character for anymore - sidequests, XP or gear - when the ordeal you built him for in the first place is gone. It's just busywork no matter how interesting the world might be; and while there's play there, it kinda lacks the game. Kind of like playing Tetris with a scrollable infinite screen (what's the point?).

I enjoy of the world what I can and will while preparing (more or less) to the challenges the story has for the PC. Sometimes it takes more sidetracking, sometimes less. Once that story is over the character is concluded; what ever info or intricacies I missed is of no relevance anymore.

Where's the difference? If your actions are to be acknowledged in any way by the game, it automatically means you miss out on content.

The highlight though is that the game's not about what you miss - it's about what you get through your decisions.

Nice of you to say that. Good that you nailed down 2 expressive points:

1) No drive

2) Charm is lost after the first playthrough

To that I say

1) Why not? You know the game leaves you helpless. You know there's got to be something out there. You know you need to find out, because you want to play the game.

2) Yeah, that goes for an initial mq just as well, no? That goes for just about any repeating element. I don't want to paint the 'no initial mq' thing a bigger picture than it deserves (my English).

Your mind proceeds beyond the limits of present and past - a remarkable trait, but you shouldn't trust it. Especially not when it comes at the expense of your heart, which seems to be chained to the fate of BGS. Have you chosen this path out of prideful opposition to the percieved agents of the past? Kiss the present goodbye, AwesomePossum, there's no such thing as time in an endless ocean of possibilities. Don't let these chains cloud your obvious demand for reason and the coupled to it genius of joy.

Let me ask of you this: If the plot (it just seems to be wrong to dedicate that word to the main quest, but I mean the main quest) needs to set in motion the chain of events that lead to or are the game, how much of the game should be experienced narrative through gameplay? If the narrative has no equivalent in the gameplay, then why is it even there? Shouldn't it be fully embraced and incorporated into the very base frame of an RPG? Isn't the narrative more than just a means to an end, opening endless possibilities of interaction itself?

I reinstalled and played Fallout 3 and want to share some things that I think Fallout 4 (or 5 at this point) can learn from this game:

Good stuff, that is to integrate:

- Level Design

- Exposition and transfer of setting-relevant information into visuals

Bad stuff, that is to leave:

- The enthronement of a specific kind of exploration at the expense of every other quality a game (especially an rpg) could possibly have

- Brand recognition at the expense of logic and believability, novelty and creativity

This might sound a bit like bashing, but the good stuff is exceptionally good in Fo3 to the point of defining the game.

Some general suggestions:

Make a game about war and thus about present events. Make a game with tactical combat that requires thought and features a brilliant AI. Make a game where combat isn't the only solution. Make a game that features surprises and where things don't always work as intended and planned. Make a game where my decisions actually influence my experience. Make a game whose setting integrates well into the universe of Fallout. Fire the writers of Fallout 3 or let them try harder instead of treating gameplay elements such as dialogue as boring experiences you'd better leave out altogether anyway.

How to achieve this? Cut the expanse of the ocean in half, then you'll have enough resources to increase it's depth a hundredfold.

Except stuff like lore and world building that could possibly give new insight into the motivations of the things you faced, and possibly change your view on something.

TES is especially notorious for this, with lore changing Dagoth-Ur, Mankar Camoran, and Alduin, from crazy god, crazy wizard, and evil dragon, into "they were right the whole time, and YOU were the badguy".

At least you don't. I always try to get myself into the head of a developer. I'm searching for reasons to dominantly fill the blank canvas of the Capital Wasteland with elements from the west, such as the Enclave, muties, BoS, etc. Some decisions I understand, like ghouls and caps, I don't even have gripes with Jet (although I believe the devs did misunderstand this chem). And Fallout 3's overall world was quite different from the western themes of the original and it's sequel. Like the heavy irradiation 200 years after, which isn't something I'd hold against Fallout 3 in any way (although an explanation would be nice). Mirelurks and Yao Guai are awesome. Yet these things play such a minor role compared to the people, the factions, their importance to the narrative.

And for every reason that could justify the old factions, 2 reasons against them pop up in my head. They could have done anything and decided to go with familiar stuff. I wouldn't have chosen this path and I can't understand it.

Anyway, new suggestion:

Cut the magic reload of Fallout 3 and NV. If you exchange a weapon for another, it's ammunition will automatically reload in these games (due to unobservant devs I assume?). No longer in Fallout 4! This way you'd drastically increase the worth of Rapid Reload or a similar perk. Plus reloading would become more of a gameplay element.

It's a logical point thematically, but within the paradigm of a game these diversions are a welcome change of pace.

Fallout 2 is laden with tangential points of interest, I don't think anyone would argue that being a pormstar or playing chess with a scorpion is conducive to the plight at hand.

Thing is, what does that new insight help in hindsight? The deeds are done, all the considerations have been considered. I think stuff like this should come about naturally through the course of the story and core gameplay should I happen to choose the path that leads to it; it's of no worth afterwards and if I had missed it, that's on me.

I'm not all that interested in TES lore in the first place, if there are some intriguing quirks... that's nice, but I don't need that info outside of the story that I'm unfolding for the character I've set out to play and progress (here, by "story" I mean not just the main quest, but all the things that happen between the beginning and the rolling credits) and I don't consider it very good gameplay to just run around with selfimposed goals be they what ever.

I never said I dont actually.

Im just too tired to do it.

I'm intrigued.

I'll try to refresh you by sending you some mental waves of wakefulness.

Short version is that Fallout, as a series, had been basically dead for years. BoS, which was released in 2004, was god-awful, and wasn't even that big of a game when it released, and Tactics, which released in 2001, while far better then BoS, wasn't that big itself either, nor was it anywhere near as big as Fallout 2, which released in 1998. The Fallout series had long since lost popularity and fame in the general gaming world by the time Fallout 3 came out in 2008.

The reuse of the BoS, Enclave, FEV, and a Calculator like machine, was, IMO, a clear and simple decision choice on the part of the developers to basically go "here is everything you missed from the past canon games so you don't have to play them, and since you probably won't play them anyways, as most people don't find those kind of games fun anymore.", as a means to get everyone "caught up to speed" so to speak on what kind of htings you can expect in the Fallout world.

The use of the east coast was simply so that they could leave the west alone, and prevent any complaining that they are ruining the perfect lore of the west, which had long since been canonized into a god-like status by the hardcoe fans of the series, who argued over why Tactics and BoS weren't "really" Fallout for years before.

The east coast also gave them the opportunity to change those things as well, so they could show "hey, while we totally acknowledge all these things from the past games, we also don't want to just ride the past games by keeping everything EXACTLY the same way, so here's us changing these things so they are different, but still recognizable".

I kind of wish they would go back to turn based combat but still keep it all 3D, like XCOM:EU. Best of both worlds IMO.

Course I know they would never go back to turn based combat based solely on character stats. Everything has got to have more action now.

That doesn't make any sense to me, because

1. As you said, these elements were changed anyway - you'd still need to look up on Fo's and Fo2's lore to know what the games were about.

2. New fans don't need to know these things, because they're new fans and don't expect anything.

3. These icons don't define the franchise and thus don't need to appear to let anyone know what to expect.

They didn't need to acknowledge Fallout and Fallout 2 in my opinion, especially not because of some "hardcoe fans" or whatever. These types of fan don't care for the franchise anyway. They care about BoS and Supermutants.

Edit: They also used the east coast because they are more familiar with it.

The reasons that speak against 'rehashing old stuff and thus eliminating part of the personality the east coast could have had' are obvious.

What if Fallout 3 didn't use BoS, Enclave, Harold, Muties? Would it have been bad in any way? Wouldn't it have been better?

This is why Fallout 4 should abandon these icons altogether. I want locations that are completely independent from the Core Region.

You and me both.

A modder created a turnbased mod for https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFABEnF7b6I back in the day (he never finished it, though, so it was left pretty crude). If a single modder is capable of doing it, I'm pretty sure a multimillion dollar company can do it better. They could tweak their VATS to work as a TB mode somewhat akin to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3t_Qecnpac (in FPP) and have it workable even with zoomed out perspective. I'm not expecting that, but I don't see why it couldn't be done in this day and age (more so seeing how TB games have grown in popularity recently).

You do know that you can win Fallout without finding or even looking for a water chip, do you not? Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout 3 all have two goals in their "main quest" lines. The first is the Find Quest and the second is the Decide the Fate of the Wasteland Quest or in the case of Fallout 2 Rescue Your People Quest. In each game, you are unaware of the second quest, the first is there to lead you to it. In all of the games, you can short circuit the first quest if you wish to varying extents depending on which game you are playing. The Find Quest is only there to give you some background information and to level you up a bit.

In Fallout you can go to Mariposa and Cathedral first. In Fallout 2 you can go straight to San Francisco and start on getting the oil tanker running. Short circuiting Fallout 3 isn't as clean. You actually have to do part of the Find Dad Quest. but you can go straight to Vault 112.

Fallout:NV is similar to the numbered Fallouts in that the "main quest" line has the Find and Decide quests. Short circuiting it like in the numbered Fallouts is a bit problematic because the complexity of the quests are more about deciding how you want to do them rather than the number of steps involved, but there are a few short cuts that can be accomplished in the Decide Quest. Like the numbered Fallouts, the Find Quest is pretty much only used as a device to level you and give you some background information.

All of the numbered Fallouts and NV pretty much require you be at a certain level in order for you to complete the Decide/Rescue Quest which effectively ends the game. If you do bypass the Find Quest in whole or part, you will need to take care of your leveling in some other way. Additionally, you do not gain the background information that can influence how you resolve the Decide Quests. Of course, if you have enough knowledge to short circuit the game you already have that knowledge.

Could BGS create a Fallout game without the FORMAL FInd quest? Sure. You don't really need it to level or even to gain reputation with a faction. You can accomplish leveling and factioning by side quests or pure random slaughter. The background information could be a real problem though. It is this information that gives us players a connection to the game. To one extent or another we also need this information to determine how we want the game to end. But really you are just replacing a formal find quest with an unmarked find quest (for information).

I believe this boils down to semantics.
I am saying it doesn't have to be a downer, as in "I missed out on that content, and now I am really sad." Rather I am talking about a scenario where it could/should be interpreted as, "Hey! Wow, the game world is different on this play through SWEET!I Now I have content that I didn't even know was there and wouldn't have had if I had handled this differently".

See, in this scenario, if you just want to look at the "content missed" aspect of what I am talking about, then go ahead. Either path you choose has you missing out on content.
The idea of "missed content" is not the focus of what I am talking about. Differing content is.

This is one way to keep the game (which should be used in conjunction with others) fresh on multiple play throughs.

I was speaking directly to those that think that time sensitive content will take away from their experience. If this is not you, then my post wasn't for you.

That would be a cogent argument if it wasn't for the fact that in this self-admitted lore lesson from Bethesda if they didn't horribly misinterpret the lore of Fallout.

Super Mutants are unintelligible murderous orcs bar the odd aberration, who seemingly capture and expose people to F.E.V for no reason.

While in the originals super mutants where intelligible and equanimous, even gregarious living peacefully in Broken Hills with ghouls.

The didn't gratuitously dip people in F.E.V it was under the lucid vision of the Master.

This is before we get to the Brotherhood of Steel who have capitulated and abandoned their codex, becoming benevolent force in the wastes a followers of the apocalypse with power armour.

Fallout 3 doesn't work as a lore lesson, it's the original lore transmuted into a poor imitation.It's more like the Fallout lore if it was used in a game of Chinese whispers and this was the product of it and Fallout 3 provides a banol story that almost seems perfunctory from the writers.

Bethesda has misinterpreted key precepts of the Fallout series and tried to rid the success of these referential masquerades, within the context proposed by awesomepossum.

I agree that the factions were quite uninteresting in Fallout 3, but no, they didn't misinterpret them. Supermutants are a new breed, Lyons revolutionized his chapter which caused the Outcasts to follow the old traditions. They acknowledged the transition.

The problem lies in that BoS (in whatever iteration) and supermutants (again) seemed to be necessary. That means that probably the whole of post-war America is to be filled with supermutants and Brotherhood chapters. Which makes the world quite small. And boring. And not getting over Fallout 1 and instead singing it's factions praises to collapse all possibilities of other post-war American states to write their own, independent histories.

No you've misunderstood me, I'm saying that if Fallout 3's mainstory was essentially a lore lesson as awesomepossum has stated then one could say that these precepts of Fallout's lore have been misinterpreted.

Edit:

I probably didn't explain this distinction well.

Bethesda could possibly copy some ideas from Overmare Studios (Fallout Equestria). They have some good ideas for their own game that would be nice to have in the official Fallout series.

Like for example, when playing in hardcoe mode, using your Pip-Boy (as well as other things, including terminals and locks) does NOT pause the game, like it doesn't in FONV and FO3. I would love to see that myself simply because it would make the game more interesting.

1. Not really, as people from those factions, notes, computer entries, and other things, can tell you about how it was back west, and the changes aren't so drastic as to make it that you NEED to play the other games to find out what they were like before. All you need to do is look at how they were in Fallout 3, but then have someone explain that the BoS is more xenophobic, and doesn't accept outsiders, back west, or that the old Enclave acted the same, except they actually tried to kill everyone using FEV, instead of rebelling against someone trying to do that.
2. That's not true at all, you HAVE to establish the basics of the game's universe EVERY SINGLE GAME for all the new fans. That is why TES has had many of the same books that describe the basic fundamentals of the universe in every game since Morrowind. The fact that Fallout 3's player base was even MORE based around new people then most, due to the series having fallen off years ago, just makes this an even greater necessity. You have to redefine the basic every game, or else people don't have any basis to justify what they are seeing.
3. They kinda do though, the BoS, Super Mutants, and Enclave are just as defining to Fallout as the crowbar is to Half-Life. The first and last things were literally the box covers for Fallout 1 and 2. They didn't need to be the focus of the game per-say, but to not represent them in what was essentially a reboot that wasn't a reboot would be a rather poor choice becuase they DO define the series.

They do for anyone who cares about at least some sort of continuity to the story, which many people do care about.

That is likely true as well, but if you really think they didn't decide to move out east becuase they didn't wat to mess with the established lore of the west, then....... well.....

I don't really see them.

Would it have been a better Fallout game to not have anything from past Fallout games? Would a Half-Life game be good if it didn't feature Gordon Freeman, anyone from Black Mesa, the Xen Aliens, or the Combine?

The idea that you can ever truly get away from the core region, which had spread in some form from the west coast, all the way to Chicago, even before Fallout 3, is naive. By their nature of being the first area to devlop new major powers and government means their ideals and factions will fravel farther then anything else.

Tim Cain disagrees.

Different strain, and both Fawkes and Uncle Leo exist, and they dip people because they are animals instinctively drawn to reproduce.

What game did you play? Because in Fallout 3 the BoS is portrayed as being [censored]s, who only accept outsiders so they can be used as cannon fodder, who only want to fix the purifier to get more people to join their order to be used as cannon fodder, and not out of some sense of righteousness or desire to help the people of the wasteland, and who willingly ignore major threats they could easily purge, such as the Evergreen Mills raiders, the slavers at Paradise Falls, and the Talon Company, who pose a far greater threat to the people of the wasteland then the super mutants, who are too busy hounding the D.C. ruins for more FEV to actually attack anyone besides the largely undefended Big Town, in order to continue their single-minded mission set out before them by the west-coast elders to collect the technology of D.C., and kill the super mutants. They are just doing the latter more then the west-coast would prefer over the former.

Did they really misunderstand the lore of Fallout? or did they misunderstand your personal views on what Fallout's lore meant?

You're right. I think the Fallout universe is just not diverse and interesting enough for me. I should move on and accept that the pseudo-continuity of known factions is what the setting's all about.

What a ridiculous over generalization of the statement made.

Things like Point Lookout shows this is untrue, and The Pitt got by with the BoS only being tangentially related to the current events, and being nothing more then a vehicle for Ashur getting to The Pitt.