That has been a feature atleast since Oblivion. I remember picking a very hard lock in a chest in Oblivion that had 8 gold inside it, good thing the Oblivion lockpicking minigame is ridiculously easy and requires no (character) skill.

I totally agree with Davor on this, and I'm going to try and restrain myself from ranting too much in this post.
I have been playing New Vegas for around 40 hours, and It is extremely obvious that Obsidian lacked the special touch Bethesda seemed to have with Fallout 3 (which was amazing :fallout: ). And yet I don't understand it because I would have thought that Obsidian had less content to develop this time around. Coupled with the fact that Obsidian sequels I've played before now have been ok, I would have thought they could have gotten this so much better.


There are so many shacks, passages and campsites which serve no purpose other than to infuriate me. Fallout 3 had it's share of "drive-in" and "picnic site" locations but they made up a tiny amount of the others, each with missions or ruins to explore. Whenever I discovered a location I'd know that there was at mimimum an hour I would spend there exploring. A luxury very much lost in New Vegas.

Next, I was shocked at just how complicated looting had become. The reputation system was a great addition however I really dont understand how you can defeat enemies i.e. the people trying to KILL you and then lose karma for taking stuff from their settlements. Yes, in a present day situation you could argue that "theft is theft no matter who its from", but this is the WASTELAND, people now live by scavenging what they can find. If nobody is alive to claim the loot it will be picked up by people good or bad. Simple.

The invisible walls are problem as well as the terrain in general which seems to have been designed to trap you and your companions at every turn. Why on earth must I fast travel to the same location I was just at in order to escape being trapped between two awkwardly placed rocks? As a result, feeling immerse becomes more and more difficult.

Still though, I could forgive all of the above as "points for improvement" that the developers could take on for next time, but what I can't forgive are the bugs! How does a game with over 300 testers miss so much, Its not even things that are hard to notice. I hadn't played long before I had to start reloading my games multiple times praying that this time an event would trigger, NPCs would pathfind correctly, companions would listen to what I said or not attack random NPCs. One bug actually occurred without my knowledge at one stage in the game, and after discovering it hours of gametime and saves later I realised that a plot mission had now become locked out. It is unacceptable, I actually had to start reading walkthroughs just to prevent bugs from occuring at times, walkthroughs that contain spoilers which therefore renders any plot twists pointless!
Fallout 3 was definitely not without its bugs, but to me it actually felt tested. I actually never patched my original Fallout 3 and had no real game plot threatening bugs. What went wrong?
(wow didn't succeed in the restrained ranting part )


I did too, but it is a Fallout game so I'm still trying to enjoy it. However I can't speak for everyone but I can certainly speak for myself, and as geeky as this sounds I'm going to have to say it;

Obsidian, Bethesda, New Vegas....and the NCR

Fan Infamy Gained :cryvaultboy:

i miss the mystery of the DC ruins. trying to sneak through the Mall was amazing, ive never felt so scared for my character. What happend?

What to get scared for? the next mob only armed with Pool cue?

:rofl:

EDIT: no seriously, in FO3 i can even beat a Deathclaw in lower levels

Like every third Fiend?

I remember Fiends with knifes, switchblades and baseball bats, but pool cues?,

Very common weapon in my encounters with them, actually. They do use a lot of Laser Rifles and RCWs too.

Like every other Viper Gunslinger you meet?

(Seriously, why are they called gunslingers? They never wield guns. Never. It's always lead pipes and pool cues.)

Not my experience. Nothing scared me in FO3 because the baddies were nerfed and the Lone Wanderer was a demigod with over powered weapons.

I'll probably never play FO3 again even after playing the vanilla, unpatched New Vegas. Can't wait to see what this game is like a few months down the road (However I will not buy any DLC's that add levels to the 30 we have).

This is what bothers me most about NV. I wish the 30+ pointless gas stations/caves/abandoned shacks either had more to them, or weren't in the game at all. They just get in the way when I'm looking around the map to fast travel.

After going through what seemed like the 5th or 6th random cave across the Mojave, only to find absolutely nothing in them other than some mutated animals and some random ammo crates, I just KNEW I would come across some sort of quest that brought them into the game somehow. i thought I would come across somebody who would want me to go through all those caves and rid them of baddies, but it never happened.

Nope, only if you created and equiped him that way.

It still doesn't change the fact you can still easily create a master-of-all-trades. Now add the 'perks' which are nothing more but straight OP upgrades(Gun Nut, Little Leaguer...) and we have our demigod! :celebration:

So unless you plan to keep running around in a settler outfit or pumping every skill point into lockpick or science....

Yes, in the vanilla game this seemed to be the case for me as well, personally. I had some mods going after a bit that made the game almost frustratingly hard though, so it's difficult to remember the days the Mall was a breeze, heheh. It was downright scary with XFO and MMM installed.

The guy who lived there turned into a ghoul. I think he was doing research since there was a lab set there, but thats just my opinion.

Actually, the only way to create a "balanced" character is to nerf the hell out of yourself.
So you do become a demi-god if you play normally even without the aim of becoming super powerful.

Maybe because I live near Vegas, but I find the locations more interesting because when we were driving to laughlin we passed by the sign that said Las Vegas Searchlight and I didn't even know it was a real place. I love that the towns and everything can be found on a map, mostly.

True, on the other hand “you can still easily create” a character that remains a challenge through at least the mid-levels.

It’s been my experience that any game, for the most part, gets easy when you reach the highest levels. Which is exactly when I like to run around in settler outfits and such.

I get fiends with energy weapons so I don't know about yours.

That's what I hated about Fallout 3. I was forced to intentionally design a character that svcks in order for the game to be a challenge at even level 10.

- invisible walls easily the #1 hated thing
- CTD's. even with NO mods enabled, brand new powerful win7 box, fully updated. from 1-5 CTD's in a 3-hour session is normal. I need to hit quicksave before and after EVERY significant combat or lengthy voice interaction to keep the CTD's bearable when they occur.
- the bug where you buy something, get charged for it, but it remains in the vendor's inventory. normally it's not noticeable when, say, gunrunners refreshes and you buy all the ammo and the cheap weps/upgrades etc - most times you won't even notice you didn't get the 3 stimpacks or whatever. you'll definitely notice when it's a $7k item that bugged though.
- broken companion stuff. ED-E initiating aggro on friendly npc's. Rex randomly deciding to 'sit and wait' on his own although he is in reality still set to follow .. I have often fast-traveled a couple of times, get in position to start shooting .. and realize i'm short a companion. the damn dog is on the other side of the map because the damn dog decided to toggle himself to 'i'll wait here' out in the middle of nowhere - not bad enough he does this, but now you have to fast travel to the nearest landmark, hoof it to where he's sitting around, find him, toggle him to 'wait here' then back to 'follow me', make SURE he is actually up and following, then fast travel again. that one, i have to say, is worse than invisible walls if you like using the cyberdog.

The first has a Laser RCW and the second a Cowboy repeater

I’m running across the same thing with FNV. But that’s a good thing. Both these games are flexible enough to appeal to hardcoe and casual gamers, thus increasing the chance of commercial success and the ability to continue making games we enjoy.

See I don't have that same problem. I have the flexibility to choose the character design that I want without needing to sacrafice using some of the better things in the game. Fallout 3 was never able to do that for me... It was just too easy to begin with.

Then the third one with pool cue....