Yah idk i have always been partial to FO3 because to me it just seemed that it was scarier and had alot more to explore. But hey thats just my opinion. And because one of the DLCs had aliens!!!!! (but so does NV just not on a large scale) :teehee:

Nevernever:


This is writing 101 dude, you don't create motivation by telling the reader that he should be motivated, you create it by showing the conflict/tension from the POV's character's perspective. "Finding my father" doesn't fit the bill because you've just introduced the damn guy before yanking him away.

Meanwhile Fallout:NV shows you getting shot in the head and dumped in a grave. It doesn't get any more direct and universal than that.

SentientSurfer:



Even if your character wasn't driven by revenge, the visceral nature of the opening lends urgency to the other questions which motivate the main story arc like "why was I shot?" and "what was I carrying?"

Okay you and I officially have no common ground. LOL.

I'm going to guess you are the same age as my youngest (13). He would agree with you and proclaim me a "tard".

I agree with you on this 100%, but I'd also extend it to other aspects of the writing and setting as well. My biggest problem with the way Fallout 3 was put together as a narrative and as a setting is that it was full of pretense and lacked follow-through almost completely. There was a lot of stuff all over the place, lots of characters, lots of things going on in the story, but almost all of it was 2-dimensional. Dad is a great example of the many characters, places, factions, etc. that were cardboard cut-outs that would fall over under too much scrutiny. It felt like an outline that somebody forgot to come back and fill in the details of.

This is pretty typical of video game plots, so I'm not complaining so much as pointing out why I enjoyed NV's setting so much more than FO3's. Sure, NV's setting isn't exactly "realistic" either, but overall it felt a lot more deep and plausible to me. For a video game, especially a free-roaming video game, I was impressed by the overall depth of the characters and setting. I did enjoy the bleak atmosphere in FO3, but to me it was cheapened by a lack of follow-through in other aspects of the game. Somewhere in the back of my brain I just wasn't buying it.

Speaking of the bleak atmosphere, keep in mind that Bethesda was doing somewhat of a re-boot of the atmosphere for Fallout 3, and they had that luxury since they were working on an entirely new part of the setting. New Vegas was built on already-established lore. The NCR was already well on its way in Fallout 2, so there wasn't really much of a choice but to make NV's setting more developed and civilized than that of Fallout 3.

:shakehead: You clearly have no emotion. If your Father went missing on the same day as you being shot in the head by a stranger. Who would you look for first?

Your whole english lit/lang thing isn't working either because I disagree. I had more motivation to find my father than find some guy out of F.R.I.E.N.D.S

Lastly, the scene were you get shot lasts 5seconds, you are with your father for a good 30mins and spend 17 years with him (in game time)

I pity the fool who disagrees.

My character:

Whoa. . .that was too close. Better lay low for a while. . .

But seriously, my opinion: F03 was an excellent post apocalyptic simulator like the box said. New Vegas was a post - post - post apocalyptic shooter with heavy RPG elements. It just didn't do it for me. Just my humble opinion. I'm not going to argue which was a better RPG or more fallout-er(?)

That presumes that I'm using the game as a proxy for my own life. Part of the appeal of RPGs is playing roles other than your own.



That's because the game is relying on you to bring that baggage with you. It's telling you, "hey he's your father, shouldn't you be worried?" rather than developing that attachment throughout the story (which it can't, because it doesn't have to room to do so). Don't underestimate how hard this is to accomplish. Writers go through whole novels without pulling it off, expecting a game to do it in the first 10/20/30 minutes is hugely unrealistic.



Five seconds is all you need. You're confusing length with effectiveness.

Ok, I'll try and explain it another way, from the narrower perspective of RPG writing rather than the fiction writing in general.

First of all, let's rule out players who are treating the game as solely a shooter, or a sandbox exploration game, or a loot simulator. They don't care about the story. What can we assume about the player?

Well, they've probably spent a fair amount of time customizing their character's appearance. They've probably thought of a general outlook on life, they might have an idea of how he or she talks or dresses. Maybe they've come up with an elaborate backstory, maybe they didn't. Maybe that backstory is the player's own, or maybe it's something completely different. They may have imagined their character's family and friends in detail, or maybe they didn't bother at all.

So all we know is that they've spent some time in creating their character and as a consequence, are at least a little invested in him or her.

What then, is the most universal, effective way to start the story? A traumatic event that directly impacts the player character and is likely to provoke strong reactions one way or the other, or an event that relies on an attachment to a secondary character that the player may not have even thought about until then?

Fallout 3 had too strong of a pull. It basically 'forced' you to do the Main Quest, while the other was casual... Well more.

Ok, I am going to compliment you here. You are really good at English and I actually enjoy reading your responses, They are well thought out and make sense unlike mine :tongue:

I guess you are right...but, how come I felt more motivated and attached to fallout 3's Dad story? Time for you to become a psychologist for me haha

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with this. In fact, a lot of players are just like you. They strongly identify with the main character, they invest him or her with their own history and relationships and personality, so it's natural to say "hey, where'd my dad go?" when it happens.

The thing is, you can''t assume that. It could work, or it could fall flat on its face. For you, it worked.

On the other hand, you can actually measure stuff like "players spend 10 minutes on average on character creation" and thereby get a rough indicator of how "much" they care about their character. But you can't really know what else the player brings with them.

That's why I think NV is better crafted--Obsidian knows how to work within the limitations of the medium.

Ok, you have swayed me with your wise words

People have varying opinions of which none are right or wrong. I personally like Fallout 3 more. It's the setting and the exploration that I love, and, as I can see it now, don't try and tell me "but it's not a good Fallout game".

Agree'd oh wise Seti.

I already said earlier that although I recommend NV I thought FO3 was better. I remember looking forward to it each day (only a couple of years ago) to play and I sunk hours into it much quicker. The music pick was better and the much greater frequency of random encounters sticks in my head as a key reason why the game was better. I find NV unfortunately boring at times and that's unfortunate. I never really feel like combat is very difficult perhaps because I never feel I have much of it.

Actually, now that I think about it the story in FO3 was superior. It pulled you along the entire time. In NV, though, once you figure out what the situation was with Benny the rest just feels kind of pre-ordained, perhaps because in the past there had already been a battle of the dam.

Yeah, sadly i have to agree.

You're missing the most obvious question: "Who am I?" It is a narrative chasm that the Courier seems willing to ignore at every point. Also, you're previous point about the Lone Wanderer not knowing his father is invalid. Many narratives have begun in medias res, even if we ignore the fact that the player is given scenes to show you of your father raising you. Honestly, it seems like a pretty stable premise: children care about their parents--unless, of course, you have daddy issues. :rolleyes: Whenever someone discounts this as a motivator I feel saying:

[Medicine] Okay, show me on this doll where your daddy touched you.

Also, I've made this point before when disusing the Courier and the other Fallout protagonists: What is his motivation outside of finding out who shot him and why? Is it the Courier's prescient ability to foresee how his decisions will affect the region? Excluding the people who RP as Nostradamus, I'm thinking this is unlikely. His connection to the region is never established because he inexplicably never pursues it. From his point of view any alliance could be a bad decision. It's up to the major factions to convince him to keep risking his life to insure a decisive victory in their interest. That is the point after all. The battle is happening either way. "All" the Courier can do is insure one side wins decisively. But what does he get from it? A future he will have no part of? A gold coin? A boyscout merit badge? Only House says specifically you will get this and this. (By the way, it is possible that there are ultimately only 3 outcomes for the Courier's action: House, NCR and Caesar; pay close attention to what Yes Man says at the end and remember that House has survived the war and wastelands based on his calculated predictions.)

Your post got me thinking how great it would have been if the Courier was on a quest not only to find out who shot him/her, but also to find out who he/she is or was before becoming a courier. Memory loss from being shot in the head? Items on them when they were found and patched up could have been clues. That would have interested me more and would have lent a little mystery to the story. I just didn't care who took over the damn dam.

OK to DopeSickKid you said would the start of fo3 be what a vault dweller would do.But the start of fonv is so [censored] you have no lasting effects of being shot in the head and make a full recovery like a day later after being shot in the head and the atmosphere is what i personally think puts fo3 above fonv .Fonv is technically better but fo3 as an experience is better it will be remember as a better game than fonv.In all honesty fonv was a disappointment it could of pushed the series on but they chose to play it safe.

That's something the player has to answer, not the devs.



That's a nice strawman, but I said the player doesn't know the Lone Wanderer's father. Which is true.



Given that FO3 starts at birth you can hardly say that the story begins in media res. :rolleyes:

And starting in media res means that the reader has to pick up the necessary background information from context. It doesn't mean you can introduce people that the POV character knows and expect the reader to immediately have the same reaction that said character would. Characterization still has to be done on screen.



It only works if you a. identify yourself with the PC, and b. identify the PC's father with your father. The actual in game time you spend with dear old dad isn't nearly sufficient to build that attachment sans those two pre-requisites.

Generally speaking, canon negates all your points. This is the Fallout Series forum right? Not the how to role-play forum. Specifically, your father's background and motivation is given as you play, assuming you don't have some sort of cognitive bias blocking you from seeing it. The Lone Wanderer's story begins once Amata wakes him; the conflict has already started.

Finally, it's convenient you ignored my points about NV. This is and will always be the problem with threads such as these. NV has the burden of proof, not Fallout 3 or Fallout or Fallout 2, and compared to all three, it is lacking.

"Canon negates my points"---what does this even mean? Canon determines what is and what isn't part of the official storyline. It doesn't say anything about how effectively that story is told.



I don't know if you're not reading my posts, or just ignoring them, but I never said anything about the the Lone Wander's father's "background and motivation". That's neither here nor there. If you're trying to claim that constitutes character development, that's all well and good except that occurs halfway through the game instead of at the beginning (which isn't even possible to do, given the time constraint). That's why FO3's story is structurally flawed.



No see, that's now how it works. If you begin a novel with "It all began when John was born" you don't get to turn around and claim "Oh well, the _real_ story starts on page 47, so the story's in media res". The book (or game) starts where it starts.

Not that in media res changes anything, as I've already pointed out...


You're not really making any points except to say that the game doesn't spoonfeed you a reason to assist one faction or another, which is silly. How could it? That's the player's choice. You're supposed to exercise your own judgment. The way that NV models the law of unintended consequences is actually quite refreshing.

Also, NV is far closer to the original two in terms of writing than FO3.

@Athenau

A good chunk of the complaints about lack of interest in the NV main questline stem from people expecting to be told what to do by the developers.... They expect to be told who is good, who is bad, what the character wants, what the game world needs from the victorious faction. The idea is for you, the player, to go out and explore the towns and factions and see what you feel about the factions, the situation, and ultimately who should be on top when the smoke clears. People need to be able to form their own personality and goals in NV and if that is too much to ask it probably means the players need to start exercising the creative muscle in their noggins.

BTW: Started playing Planescape: Torment again today after ...10 years and wow how I appreciate the rich and powerful story in that game..... It makes all of the current RPG's feel like children's books.

Its funny how this small arguement turned into a full blown debate !

On the quest matter I fell more comfortable stumbling upon Quest locations/Characters so on Fo3 I pretty much completely ignored the main quest and did the side quests . Also this is just a problem i found today on new vegas theres to much happening at once ,
My Quest section (pipboy) is clogged up and I get confused where im going and what im supposed to be doing .

Great another forced back story telling my who my character is.

Thanks but no thanks. The only good thing about Oblivion was you could RP your own backstory.




Who says it's a day? Maybe it's months later? Very easy to RP your own conclusions and background.....unlike FO3 which spoon feeds you and sticks you in a moralizing box you can't get out of.

Yes, what's truly awesome is playing a nameless, past-less, family-less, friend-less, motivation-less character who was just dropped down from the sky. . .and who can't get a new haircut no matter how many caps he's accrued.

Action figures have more character depth than the courier.