Thanks for the insight. I always assumed they killed him because he could no longer be controlled, but it makes sense the other way around. And the point still stands.

People also often seem to keep saying that in NV a legion, house or yes man win would have been impossible to implement. I'm not so sure.

The immediate consequences for a legion win could have been as simple as a new front just west of the dam, some abandoned NCR posts, and NCR characters in Vegas and elsewhere making the occasional comment about packing up and getting ready to leave.

House or yes man wins, the same, but without the new front, and maybe some securitrons patroling outside of the strip.

Adding a few new end game quests, depending on ending would be a good bonus.

Yes it's more work, but probably not as much as many say.

And it is this very reason some people call for a definitive ending with no continuation after the main quest. I'm not one of them but I do see where they are coming from on this issue.

I would have preferred a definitive ending, but apparently it's not going to happen. So hopefully whatever they do for end game play is implemented with at least some believability.

Since its something many people want, it would make sense to put some effort into getting it right.

I agree completely. I was Master of the Mages College, Harbinger of the Companions and Head of the Thieves Guild as well as Dovakiin and SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE WORLD. But I probably don't make it to the Cloud District very often. Do you have ANY idea how many ARROWS I TOOK TO THE KNEE?! MY ARMOR IS MADE OUT OF DRAGONS. I KILLED A GIANT WITH A CHEESE KNIFE. BOW BEFORE ME!

Let me guess. Nobody steals YOUR sweetroll.

Yeah, nothing like having farengar suggest if I want to learn about magic, I should go to the mages college.... as I stand their in my arch-mages robes....... idiot.

This is true. The Courier grew up in the thick of it, and had experience before the start of the game. People try and write it off that he was just a mail man. But hey, a guy has to earn a living right? A job is a job, don't hate.

Think: Pony Express Riders. As that is basically what the couriers are akin to.

The only problem with that is that the Courior almost exclusively traveled in the NCR, which is shown to be fairly safe.

He/she wouldn't have all these skills, since there would be few chances to use them. This is shown as the Courier lacks any sort of real skills at the beginning of the game.

Not saying anything about the realism of it, basically every RPG starts you off in an equally unrealistic manner.

Unless you go to the Lonesome roads and get an idea of some of the locations and events the courier triggered in his past...

Also FO3 the BOS says they DON'T want to announce the water and have the bay swarmed by people coming to get the water so they kept it low key. There's still all the raiders, super mutants, deathclaws, 'lurks and scorpions that will kill people. Not like it suddenly gave a population boon to allow new settlements to appear in it.

The Enclave didn't seem to impact much of the locals other than the radio which I guess is on a loop anyway. Other than BoS getting a ton of new tech and loot, I guess it would of been nice to see them and Rivet city show off more power and tech on their bases+maybe some more camps outside of the ship/pentagon.

The NCR may have been safe, but that still makes him better equipped to handle the wasteland than the Lone Wanderer did at the start. Safe is a relative term in the wastes. That just means you can probably make it to town and MAYBE NOT run into bandits or giant mole rats looking to eat your face, if NCR patrols and local militia are doing their jobs. That's why Caravans still have guards.

Everyone who is arguing whether the courier or the lone wanderer are more believable are missing my point; I wasn't saying either were hard to believe in terms of their survival skills (ya'll are right, the courier is much more believable in that regard; I always thought it was stupid the way they do the "teach you how to live in the desert" starter quest; don't I already know how to do that? It's in my job description!). I was saying that it makes little sense that either of them (and absolute ZERO sense with the courier) are able to roll on up to major players in the wasteland and have said major players go "well, I've never seen you before in my life and know next to nothing about you, but I'm going to entrust the decision-making and future of my entire faction to you RIGHT NOW! WOHOO!"
It's completely immersion breaking. Why the hell would House choose you for a protégé? You're nothing! You're just another wastelander with nothing to suggest you're special. But no, you walked from Goodsprings to the Strip (SUCH AN ACHIEVEMENT!) so I'm going to invite you into the Lucky 38, a privilege offered to no human (not even Benny, who he's been working with for months) in over TWO HUNDRED YEARS.
...I'm sorry. It just completely breaks any semblance of immersion. I know all the 14 year olds want to feel important and big-shot saviors of the universe, but I just want to scraqe by in this harsh post-apocalyptic wasteland, maybe find my kid.

Why did the NCR not just get a few vertibirds and drop mini nukes out of them over the fort, killing the entire Legion leadership in one swoop?

Especially when The Fort has no AA guns.

You can actually start off as decently competent with skills that are relatively plausible to have high in the original games, and certain skills are decidedly low (like outdoorsman in Fallout 1 that defaults at 10% since the PC has never been outside -- you can get it up to 45% but that comes at quite a cost).

How do we know that?

From the E3 trailer.

It would also explain the power armor training. If we have access to that from the get go that is.

Well based on my experience from FO3 you can take down vertibirds using only small guns like the chinese assualt rifle in about 2-3 magazines. So getting shot at by multiple guns from the ground might as well be AAA considering how easy vertibirds go down.

And since it's the legion, I'm sure they'd make a cheer leader pyramid or launch themselves from the arty into the air to hit the vertibird with their machetes.

You can do that in Fo3 and NV also with tag skills, and focusing on certain attributes to boost them a bit more. But it still doesn't REALLY show an accurate skill list of someone who had lived out in the wasteland, or a tribal community for at least 18 years.

If they gave you a realistic begining skillset, the begining game would be too easy. I don't really have a problem with that, despite it being unrealistic. Its just part of it being a game, and needing progression, and needing that progression to be balanced out over X period of time etc. etc.

That was just a gameplay mechanic since vertibirds were treated as a certain kind of object, and thus could be destroyed by gunfire. The entry door of Raven Rock could be blown up by small arms fire for the same reason, despite the fact it logically shouldn't.

In lore, they are actually pretty hardy, which is why the BoS needed you to make the tesla cannon in Broken Steel.

I didn't notice anything that said we were in the military?

His wife mentions him going to the veterans hall during character creation or w/e.

He also apparently has a law degree based on a framed certificate in his house.

Yeah, I remember that. I assumed he was the relative of a military person, like his grandfather or whatever, since there's also a folded up flag on the shelf, like the ones you get when a military family member dies.

I can't remember it exactly but your spouse says something along the lines of "You're going to knock 'em dead at the Veterans Hall tonight " which isn't really undeniable proof but I don't really see what else it could be implying.