I finally got around to starting a game in New Vegas yesterday and I have to say that I am impressed with the quality so far, even though I haven't gotten past the first village/town or whatever it is. The gameplay is great and it feels a lot more polished when compared to Fallout 3 IMO. I played Fallout 3 when it came out but I didn't spend a lot of time with it (just enough for one playthrough) before moving back to my Elder Scrolls roots. Never touched any mods for Fallout 3 either but I think after my first playthrough in New Vegas I will try out some of the stuff that was made by the community.

After playing Skyrim the story in New Vegas feels great, I was kinda disappointed with Skyrim's MQ and I didn't enjoy the Radiant stuff at all and being constantly thrown into a quest without even showing an interest in what someone had to say was annoying to say the least.I will be back after I play some more to share my opinions as I get further into the game. I am sure that it will remain good.

New Vegas will be your game then. The lacks you had with F3 and Skryim are shot and buried in NV.

Have a good time and welcome to the club

Nice! I'm about to get the Ultimate Edition!

I started two days ago and I have fell in love with the game. Some of the quests and characters you come across are simply outstanding

Please talk to Vulpes when you reach Nipton and don't just shoot him... Same about Aurelius, Severus and Canyon Runner down in Cottonwood Cove and Dead Sea at Nelson and most importantly, talk to Caesar before slaughtering Legion, if you are going to kill Legion then kill them for the right reasons and not just cause they're "evil", at least give them a chance to explain themselves and keep an open mind to it.
If you don't? Then you'll likely fall into the "I hate Legion cause they're evil and will never change my biased point of view".
There are some people who after several playthrough haven't even "tried" to side with the Legion because of their misinformed hate.
So again, please understand Legion before you decide to shoot Legion.

I agree - I truly learned to hate the Legion only once I talked to its members.

I only started playing recently, my policy is to check everybody out from a distance, if they are known friendlies I approach, if they are known enemies I approach (their dead corpses that is) If they are something/one I have never personally encountered before I will approach with my weapon drawn and my finger on the trigger.

The OP will be in for a treat as New Vegas gets much better. Goodsprings is only the tip of the iceberg, maybe only half of the tip if that.

Threads like these make me smile because they make me think it might not be too late for games to have an actual plot and writing staff in future titles.

Recently learned that the lead writer for Skyrim (and possibly FO3 as well, I forget) isn't even a writer. (big surprise) Anyone can be a writer of course, and some people with degrees in language arts svck while others with no degrees do a fine job with writing, but in this case the degrees and experience writing definitely seem to be worth something. Chris Avellone and John Gonzalez, the two main creative minds behind the writing of New Vegas, both majored in English and Fine arts and have both been writing for years. Emil Pagliarulohas been the lead writer for Fallout 3 and Skyrim, and his backround is more involved with level design and journalism. (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3935/the_gamasutra_20_top_game_writers.php?page=11) As I said, a good writer can come from anywhere, but in this case and in my opinion, the fact that he doesn't truly come from a creative writing backround really shows.

What kills me is he supposedly got promoted to lead writer after writing the Dark Brotherhood for Oblivion. That's all well and fine and there was nothing really wrong with the Dark Brotherhood storyline there (though now in Skyrim, the DB storyline feels very similar as if no new ideas have come up), but am I the only one that goes "wait wtf?" when they pass up on promoting whoever the hell was in charge of the Thieves' Guild and promote the guy who wrote the Dark Brotherhood instead?

I know right? FO3 writing was like "Wow golly gosh, hope ya didn't get radiation sickness, oopsy" It's like Sarah Palin wrote the game or something.

Bethesda dosent seem to ever learn. Fo3 was a great gams for its strenghts and had some sever weaknesses. Fonv came along and pretty much made the strs and weaknesses replace it other. I was so hoping that Bethesda would have learned to do an excellent and life filled sandbox with remeberable charectors and an excellent story line. Sadly they went the route on fo3. Not saying fallout 3 is bad, its enjoyable to degrees but I was hoping more after the lstorymaster piece of fonv. Sadly looms like u cant have both.

Oh my god... the writing. Sweet Batman the writing! Was your reply box just a giant mass of red squiggly lines?
Anyway:
Bethesda Game Studios (developer) developed Fallout 3. Obsidian Entertainment developed Fallout: New Vegas. Bethesda Softworks is the publisher of both.
Now I can't really tell what you're trying to say in the highlighted text, but I assume:

I don't want to push my tastes on you or anything, but how do you not see the better writing in NV? I'd argue that both F3 and NV had a good amount of memorable characters, perhaps NV more so. Then that 3rd sentence kind of contradicts what you said above -- I'm guessing I interpreted incorrectly.

This post never happened

I almost blew pop out my nose when I read your Sarah Palin comment! Too funny, and very accurate.

Have fun, I started New Vegas maybe 2 or 3 months ago. Then got Fallout 3, both with all the DLC's.

I can't even imagine how it felt waiting for the DLC's when they were released.

Now I'm obsessed with the Fallout universe.

*I also smoked a lot of weed while playing and blew my mind on moar than a few occasions.

Next I'll be shooting for Fallout 2 then 1… Or whichever comes first.

Haha, definitely this. My *very* first playthrough I was admittedly bored because I figured black/white, good/bad; I grew somewhat tired of the game and the very little it offered me. After reading a few posts from the good folks here on the FO forum, I gave NV a quick second glance and my lord, best RPG, maybe game ever, I've played in six years.

Edit: Hannibal, I believe you are reading Redneck's post incorrectly. He is saying that he wishes Beth would have learned some lessons from NV where they went wrong in FO3, but in their latest title, it seems they've learned nothing, and somehow reduced that (?) He's agreeing with you.

To be fair, a much better job should have been done in representing them. Look at the Enclave in FO3, they're little more than copy-paste Nazi-Commie badguys with the exception of John Henry Eden himself.

...and Autumn who is far more humane than his boss and far more rational than his opponent. While the Enclave was effectively ruined by the ending, I think it was far better than in Fo2 where it indeed was a one-sided nazi faction. At least in Fo3 we have Autumn who hold relatively sympathetic views on the world.

But I agree Caesar has too little screen time, for a faction that was obviously the developers' pet. We see NCR everywhere, know their society from Fallout 2 and have tons upon tons of quests for them. But Legion? Not even close.

I didn't find them to be anything but a one dimensional nazi faction in either game.

LOL Sure, I talked to the guys in Cottonwood, before I wiped them out... as a woman, in NCR uniform... =p

I agree, though it can be said that some NCR quests can be resolved in a pro-Legion way.

For me, the most glaring (and confusing) omission was the lack of a Legion companion. It doesn't detract from the game that one doesn't exist, its just that, to me, it seems like such a natural thing to have included. Oh well

To be honest I don't think there is a single antagonist companion in all Fallout. In Fallout there was no Super Mutant companion, in Fallout 2/3 there was no Enclave companion and in NV there is no Legion companion.

Yes I know that Legion are not "villains", but they are definitely intended to be the main antagonists since their morality is much blacker than the others' and 3 out of 4 endings result in Legion destroyed.

True enough, the Legion gets destroyed in most endings, but then again, so does the Brotherhood of Steel, and yet we have Veronica.

The Legion certainly is blacker, morality wise, than the other factions, and I guess that the NCR was made dominant in terms of content to guide new players to an easy and natural allegiance. However, the whole faction politics thing is so well done that its up to the player to decide who his bad guy is. Its supposed to be a grey area, which is why the story works so well.

I can see reasons why a Legion companion wasn't included - NCR own most of the territory, and the Legion is trying to invade that. So travelling anywhere with a Legion companion would be difficult without starting combat. It works with Boone (he shoots Legion on sight), because most places are safe to travel when you're NCR. Even so, I'm sure it could have worked....somehow.

1. Ask Caesar about help.
2. He tells Dead Sea to help you out.
3. You go back to Nelson and tell him Caesar's order to help you out.
4. He changes wardrobe into something less obvious.
5. His personal quest is about his appeal to Caesar to become a frumentarii, yet he has been stuck doing skirmishes on outposts, so now Caesar has an opportunity to test him. In the end the choices of his personal quest will either make him a frumentarii, a centurion, a praetorian or he'll stay as a decanus in the ending sliders.

How this would work is that high ranking NCR NPC's will open fire on him if he gets within 20 meters of them.
So you can choose, shoot NCR up, or infiltrate them, and Dead Sea has been training for either.


Cakewalk.