Really? My chars all have very rich and interesting backgrounds and varying motivations and morals (or lack therof). It's like playing a different game every playthrough since I'm not locked on a train track. But alas, RP isn't for everyone. Don't despair, Saints Row 3 is coming out next year.

P.S.

And the gay gentleman who cuts hair for the Kings styles my chars hair quite nicely thank you very much. I'd ask why you don't know that but I already know the answer.

I didn't want to be forced to become a king to get a haircut (it wasn't part of my rich [self provided] character motivation - and on the one play through I tried it didn't work anyway - maybe they patched it though. . .

Saints Row? Nice condescension.

Ever play Mass Effect or Dragon Age - where can you RP like a 40yr old virgin locked in his basemant yet are still supplied with a scintilla of character history? Re-check your RPG bible God of RPGs - you can have both - just takes imagination on the part of the devs.

That said, it is a matter of taste, but to claim that someone who didn't like NV has no imagination, is lazy, or just isn't a "real" RPG'er is condescending to the extreme.

No, you're missing the point. Writing a RPG is different than writing a novel. The question "Who am I?" is supplied by the player, not the character. The Courier knows **** well who he is, it's up to the player to answer that question.

Who am I? I am a Courier.

What kind of person am I? I kick *** and chew bubble gum. And I'm all out of bubble gum.

Where did I come from? California. I got bored when the NCR took over so I moved to New Vegas, because it sounded fun.

Why am I a courier though? I got stuck with this loser job when I lost all my caps at the casino and drinking booze. It sounded good at the time, because I got to travel.

I got shot in the head and left for dead, what do I do? I go find the ***hole and go kick his ***.

Okay, now that I killed Benny everyone seems interested in me, because I've met Mr. House. Who do side with? Who do I trust? I like this town, it seems interesting. I don't want to be turned into Ceaser's lackey and I don't want it to turn into a bore fest with the NCR so I'll stick with Mr. House.

That, my friends, is how you RP.

Edit: Try it Win, it's actually quite fun to do. Post what you come up with

Condescending AND an appropriate response to your snarky little post ("Yes, what's truly awesome is playing a nameless......."). You get what you pay for. You want nicey nice to spare your thin skin? Then be civil. It's simple.

I can roll either way. Difference is I won't cry foul if you give back what I dish out. Your choice.




This. Easy sneezy.

Snide? I'd say snarky.

I was critiquing the game, not people who like it or don't like it.

I too have a thick hide, but I've seen many people be attacked in this "your not a real Rp'er" way.

EDIT: Not to single you out.

No, you sarcastically replied to/ridiculed my comment. And I have NO PROBLEM with it. But don't back peddle, it's unseemly.
Man up and own it. It's cool, I'm a big boy and have no problem with you tweaking me.....or tweaking you back.

And I attack no one.....uh......over the internet........over a flippin video game.

P.S. I did say "snarky". Got that word from Summer, when she reprimanded me for being ......uh.....snarky.

Uh, okay. I'm not going to argue with an avatar. I thought your origional comment was ironic and funny when I read it b/c it was everything I saw as a short comming in the game. Not that you were "wrong."

I'm not back-peddling and feel no need to re-justfy myself. Unseemly ? Really? Okay. That about says enough. . .let's just end this little back and forth now. :pinch:

EDIT: Cool. No hurt feeling either way? I like! Thanks for the shout-out and I hope. . ..you. . . .like. . . Saint's Row 3 (cringes :P)

They usually are. Thank you for noticing.

BTW, I'll be buying Saints Row 3 at the midnight release. :mohawk:


To the room,

Have you clicked SentientSurfer's links? A must read.

I like both equally, basically I like how Fallout New Vegas looks better, better gameplay, Damage Threshold, etc. I also like Fallout 3 for being more of a post nuclear wasteland then say new vegas, I like how you can explore pretty much everywhere in the wasteland at low levels, cool DLC's,etc.

Both have flaws, Fallout 3 you can get broken because of Comprehension and the amount of Skill Books in the wasteland. Fallout New Vegas has plenty of bugs, the fact that Reputation can screw you over if your not careful, and Damage Threshold really makes regular enemies hard like the Giant Radscorpion I mean your not gonna kill it at LV 4 like in Fallout 3.

You make that [censored] up, of course. Have some imagination.

Hi U.P.,

I agree entirely, and I’m surprised that NV has been both so popular here and so vociferously defended. I finished it about a month ago, playing the game on hardcoe, and while I was no means glad to put it down, I was not left with the same post-partum depression that I had when I finished FO3.

Firstly , I did not see anything in NV that struck me as being technical steps forward. The slow-acting stimpacks and the wider range of goods and modifications struck me as being little more than patches on the engine of the 2008 game. I suspect the AI was much the same, but looking at it two years down the road with the raised expectations of a rabid fan, I found it lumbering. Communicating with people has become a chore. Bots come right out and offer you what they want from you requiring no savvy on your part, and no matter how you choose to respond to them you still pretty much get driven towards whatever quest they are selling you. There are exceptions, of course, but generally interacting with characters felt wooden, two dimensional and very, very predictable compared with FO3. I think Bethesda missed a trick with the weapon upgrades, cooking, and trading. I’m afraid I just avoided the first two because I could see no real advantage in learning how to cook Radscorpion stew and it was just too easy to pick up a different weapon when the old one wore out. It would have been nice if traders only bought certain stuff from you or if the prices varied a bit more. Why on earth does the guy in the giant dinosaur buy old tin cans? It makes the player lazy and a lazy player is a bored player.

The issue of being pointed in the right direction all the time really narks me. This seems to be an ongoing theme in games, and I really don’t know why you can’t turn the feature off. I hate the fact that every quest gives you marker points on your map, so all you have to do is follow the arrow to figure out what the quest is. If prospector stinky wants you to go find his sister’s shack somewhere between Primm and Goodsprings, wouldn’t it be more fun to actually have to look for it rather than follow the wild west GPS? I will admit that this wasn’t any different in FO3, but there I really felt I had a world to explore (remember the wonder as you discovered the green area at the north of the map in FO3?), and beyond Jacobstown I didn’t find much in the Mojave Wasteland that struck me as interesting or novel. Moreover, I don’t see why EVERY NPC has to be associated with a quest. In FO3 it was nice to meet local loons and not feel obliged to run errands for them. In New Vegas, you start out as a courier and pretty much stay that way throughout.

In FO3 there are interesting major landmarks to discover and more depth to the landscape in which you exist. There’s the aforementioned tree area (that can just be missed), massive cities like Rivet city or the Underworld. There are all the major landmarks of Washington DC, and many different neighborhoods which feel different. In New Vegas there is New Vegas, and beyond an underground base and a giant dinosaur, I kind of felt that everywhere was the same. NCR camps feel the same. Legion Camps – both of them (for being a major antagonist, couldn’t we have seen a bit more of them?) – feel pretty much the same. All the shacks are the same. The farms are the same. The caves are the same. It all felt as though the map was laid out cleverly on a macro scale, but the micro details of the individual places were simply brushed over. Compare this to the unique shops, houses, shacks and landmarks of the Capitol Wasteland.

Finally there is the story. I was OK with the story up until the endgame. Frankly I had no idea what my real options were, despite being spoonfed by Yes Man (‘get to know local tribes’ - was it me or was my only option to have them left alone?). I would have liked to have chopped Mr House, kept the NCR at bay but destroyed the Legion. Somehow I got into some kind of battle and alienated everyone, demonstrating that there are really only two settings for relationships in New Vegas, ‘with us’ or ‘against us’. I also felt that I missed out on the final epic battle. The struggle across the Hoover Dam was nothing like as exciting as the final push in the Capitol Wasteland. In the end, I didn’t feel as though I had accomplished anything more valuable than running a lot of mindless errands and choosing which faction to support (not that it mattered). The route I followed felt overly prescribed, extremely narrow, and I am not sure how different any of the endings or outcomes could have been. Moreover, the endgame came on far too quickly, and I found myself svcked into a linear gauntlet that ended with the credits running and me wondering whether I had done anything worthwhile.

What made FO3 amazing to me was the unknown. You were out of your depth for the first half of the game as you learned how the system worked. You spent hours crawling around with a tire iron because you only escaped Vault 101 with five rounds of ammunition. The Capitol Wasteland was interesting to explore and the people were interesting to encounter (I think of the ‘ant king’ who sat in a rocketship out in the middle of no-where for no reason). In New Vegas, I had already played the game before so my threshold for novelty was high. I expected lots of secret places, lots of subplots and intrigue. I expected a game that leveled up in complexity and depth as I did, and a rich, detailed, and challenging environment to get lost in. I got something that appeared to be such superficially, but which in the end felt empty and fairly bland. Yes there were monsters to kill, caps to make and a few funny moments, but in terms of depth, beauty, character, intrigue, discovery, character or overall class, I’m afraid I found New Vegas to be the inferior sibling.

So no, it’s not just you.

Pelligri

That's exactly what it does. And there have always been canonical endings. It means no matter how hardcoe you role-play there will be a canonical ending. This is the point. Except for siding with House, there isn't a believable motivation on the part of anyone, player or Courier, to continue past who shot you and why. It's just not there. Do you role-play that NPCs say things to you that they don't? You still play the video game while you're doing your role-playing right? It is an interactive medium after all. You know what siding with the NCR, the Legion and Yes Man get you in the end right? Do you role-play a new ending ignoring the one written for the game? Although the side story endings have all been interesting and enjoyable for me, the faction endings or main endings in particular are very weak.




Honestly, I feel the same way. I'd even go further and say the language we're speaking is mutually unintelligible. I could point out that your statements make implicit but necessary assumptions, which you choose to ignore. But it's all irrelevant considering I'm speaking English and you're speaking Role-play.




Oh that's my problem I am asking to be spoon fed--okay, how about I ask for believable narrative momentum, urgency, drive? This is a video game right? It is interactive by nature correct? See my first point above.

Well said.

I’ve been a serious gamer (mostly strategy and RPGs) for 30+ years having played the good, the bad, and the ugly. While FNV is somewhat enjoyable, and I’ve not played FO3 since purchasing NV, the anticipation I feel towards my next gaming session is just not as pronounced with NV as compared to 3.

Because of your opinion, I wonder how many forumites will simplistically surmise that you enjoy Stephen King movies more than the novels from which they were based.

Nicely articulated.

I only disagree with the part after "Hi U.P".

I LOVE the fact that the Courier has no real backstory. I love to roleplay who my character is.


I hated FO3s story because the backstory was laid out for you. I couldn't roleplay because every single roleplay was unfeasible from a vault-dwellers perspective.

Exactly. You end up finding yourself in a reverse A Fistfull of Dollars or Yojimbo type scenario--unintentionally on part of the designers I believe--where you are ultimately played by the major factions instead of you playing them. It's funny people defending NV here on the grounds of their epic mental role-playing prowess fail to see the larger structural flaws with the game's major premise, since it requires the ability to think critically about more than one element in the game at a time.

How is a Black and White linear story going to make me think? In FO3, I plowed through everything without even thinking, hell, I couldn't even join the [censored] Enclave!! FNV made me think, a lot. I was going to support the NCR, but after digging a bit deeper, I went with Yes Man. Why? Because even though I love a republic, I hate a full scale beuracracy, and that is what the NCR would bring to the region.

Exactly my thoughts. In F3 I didn't even remotely cared about the main story at all. It's kinda beyond me how can the holy crusade of the wasteland feel "deep" for some people(not looking from a high horse, just wondering).
T'was just a repetitive "Been there, done that"(and thus a bigger reason to go exploring - Bethesda's strong suit? Guess it's like with games today, you get 3 hours long campaign and the main stuff is the multiplayer.)

I suppose I would agree with your statement......I think..

Something that I always get confused about is when people rip on Fallout 3's storyline. saying that because it in general was not great..the game was also bad.

Personally in the year that I have been playing Fallout 3 and with all the various characters I have created. I have only played through the main quest like 4 or 5 time total. For me, the strong point of the game was the fact that I could make my character who I wanted him to be (and yes I would completely ignore the fact that I was a vault dweller). I would play a raider living at evergreen mills, a regulator on a lonely mission to rid the world of evil, a world hardened slaver at paradise falls, or (my personal favorite) and officer in the Enclave. Right now im playing as a mad scientist with an affinity for Nuka Cola living at the robot repair center... :hehe:

In new vegas, while I like the main storyline, I just didn't feel I could make up those little backstories for my character as easily. just my thoughts though.

Im not saying Fallout 3 is better than New Vegas or vise versa and Im not trying to bring anyone into my line of thinking, because that is simply impossible. What I am saying though is that Fallout 3 is not a bad game....or dare I say it, a bad Fallout game... :bolt:

I felt that Fallout New Vegas generally improved upon F3, but failed to make proper use of what made F3 a good game. F3 is a game that, to a unfortunately poor extent compared to TES, I can keep coming back to and maintaining an on-going roleplay. I must say though that this particular aspect is almost dead compared to TES though. In New Vegas, while I enjoyed where I was able to take my character roleplay, I didn't feel any reason to replay NV or have a day-to-day rp like I do with CoP, SHOC, formerly F3, Daggerfall, and others.

On the other hand, I felt that roleplaying in the main storyline was a much better experience in NV then F3. In F3 I basically had to write off the father character as completely irrelevant for the sake of my evil nature. In New Vegas I was surprised by how motivated the game made me to do good. Cesar's Legion is the kind of group that, in other games with, I'd side with for the [censored] and giggles of evil. Yet I found myself planting C4 around cesar's feet and blowing him sky high, then murdering everyone in his camp for being a bunch of anti-tech [censored]s that couldn't be trusted with the mojave. I killed Vulpes Inculta in moral outrage over his actions in my first encounter with him, and prior to meeting Mr.House, and even afterwords quite frankly, I worked to strengthen the NCR in order to erode the strength of the Legion. Though to be quite honest, I killed Mr.House and worked with Yes Man becuase I wanted the Mr.House's power for myself. Didn't work out Like I thought it would. Oh, and I guess I should mention at the end here, but I like how I actually wasn't forced to adopt a morality, instead I felt completely justified within my own moral framework and not anyone elses.

I also liked how the reputation system was implemented in NV. Even though I completed the BOS questline, I liked how they wouldn't forgive me for that patrol I slaughtered. (They attacked first, the jackasses) I liked how I was eventually forced to activate their base's self-destruct system because I couldn't guarantee they wouldn't oppose the new Mojave order I was building.

The Enviroment is simply stunning in F3, and I genuinely enjoyed exploration. Night time is well lit, but generally doesn't feel strange or weird in any pecuilar way (except for the fact that the lighting at night felt like early morning, where the moon light guides your path and dawn would soon be breaking within the next hour.). NV, unfortunately, does terribly with the enviroment. I'm not sure how Obsidian [censored] this up, but the ground shouldn't look like it's possessed with the pecuilar look of the Construction Set whenever it's night time. I mean [censored], It's like the ground is a low-power lamp at night. As for locations, I think the locations in NV suffer the same problem that Oblivion, F3, and morrowind suffered. Everything feels incredibly underpopulated and lifeless. Unfortunantely, the more spread-out and less cramped feel of NV locations make this a lot more evident then it was in F3. I also feel that Obsidian's lighting screw-ups with the exterior worldspace make a lot of the game areas an eyesore at certain times of day, and this wasn't a problem in F3. NV's towns were however much more interesting on a conceptual level, and the societies presented were more engaging then F3's societies. NV needed a lot more dungeons though. So did F3. They both needed to be bigger.

In short, I think that Obsidian didn't really provide a reason to operate outside of progressing your MQ-related interests, and the enviroments in NV were designed without much heed to the facts of Gamebryonic life. However, NV gave us a major improvement to the MQ compared to F3.

You are STILL not getting it... or are you choosing not to? When you Roleplay you create a character who is SEPERATE FROM YOURSELF. The character DOES NOT share your motivations (though he is inevitably influenced by your motivations since you created him). You DO NOT role-play what the NPCs say to you, because they are NOT the character you have created. The ending slides only show THE RESULT OF WHAT HAPPENS and NOT what your character thinks or feels. Also, you are technically not siding with the Yes Man, you are using him to take over New Vegas for yourself. QUIT thinking of a RPG like a novel. BECAUSE WRITING A RPG is NOT the same as writing A NOVEL.

Edit: You know what? I'm just going to call dead mule on this one.

Fallout 3's atmosphere is poor. 200 years later, people aren't still that foolish.

It's not just you OP I also liked FO: 3 alot more, although NV does do some things better, but IMO they also do some things worse.

I liked FO 3 when it came out, but I like FO NV more. NV just has more role-playing potential and that is what I play an RPG for. I play STALKER to get a "falloutish" shooter fix because it does combat way better. NV brought the fallout franchise a step closer toward STALKER combat and Torment story depth. NV also takes on an ambiguous tone for the main story like Planescape: Torment, made by Black Isle (a chunk of Obsidian worked for Black Isle), which had bare-bones combat and a story that, IMO, is as good as any masterpiece novel. So, harsher combat and easier role-playability tips NV ahead, IMO.



PS. I wonder if anyone anolyzed the works of Black Isle for their doctorate in contemporary American Literature.

Except my father doesn't go missing, he chooses to leave me behind and asks me not to follow him. If my father had been kidnapped or my character was 14 I would agree with you but that is not the case. My character is an advlt, and 18 is a pretty natural age for a child and a parent to separate and communicate henceforth via painfully long phone calls and holiday greetings cards. Initially my only motivation to find him was a mild curiosity about who he really was and the sense that my character didn't really have anything else to do in the outside world. As soon as I hit Megaton I was more interested in dealing with the bomb and working on the survival guide than finding Dad. My character was immediately able to carve out a niche for himself in the outside world on the first day, complete with apartment! I felt like my character had more motivation to settle down in Megaton than to scour the wasteland following someone who doesn't want to be followed.

Getting robbed and shot in the face, especially by a smug bastard like Benny, gave my character plenty of motivation to hunt him down and kill him. Meanwhile witnessing NCR's ineptitude/corruption, the Legion's brutality, and House's brand of high-tech madness along the way gave my character plenty of motivation to intervene in the Mojave's affairs once Benny was taken care of. NV actually has factions with motivations, goals, and philosophies beyond 'Hey stupid, we're the good guys, they're the bad guys.'

So yeah, I personally felt like the motivations to advance the plot were better in NV than in FO3.