Well, I wouldn't say that no killing is always boring in games, I mean, there are some games where the player cannot fight that I still like, but yes, for a game like Fallout, I wouldn't go for a completely pacifist route, after all, when a game has a variety of different types of weapons and several skills aimed at killing enemies, it just seems like a waste not to use them, besides, honestly, I don't think it makes much sense to play a completely pacifistic character in the Fallout setting, from a role-playing standpoint, I like that the designers included the option as it gives the player more options, and I've never complained about too many options in an RPG, it's just that, realistically speaking, I can't see someone accomplishing anything world changing in a post apocalyptic setting without being willing to spill a bit of blood... unless of course we're dealing with someone like Mr. House who has servents that can do it for him. Now, for some quests, I'll probably go the diplomatic route if that seems most appropriate, but I don't have any interest in making a character who avoids combat at all costs. Even if I solve quests through diplomacy whenever I can, if someone attacks me, I'm going to do what I must to defend myself.

Though I fail to see why it's a problem that journalists are focusing on the combat rather than the non-violent options, after all, isn't it natural for journalists to focus on things that interest them? Or that they believe their customers would be interested in? It seems natural to me, and if you look at the gaming industry, where most popular games seem to involve some amount of combat, and many genres are entirely based around it, it's pretty obvious that most of the gaming demographic is more interested in killing things rather than solve their problems through diplomacy, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, as long as they use fiction and games to indulge their violent tendencies rather than take them into real life, and no one is stupid for wanting things they enjoy from video games, the only brain dead idiots are those who can't comprehend that others can have their own interests and opinions. So yes, it's not hard to see that the combat aspect of the game is more likely to draw the attention of players than the diplomatic aspect, so of course journalists will focus on that. And besides, it's not like the articles that gaming journalists write will somehow effect any quality of the game, so why should you even care? It's not going to diminish the non-violent options in the game just because people don't talk about them much, the only problem I can see it causing is that players who might be drawn to the game by that aspect might not notice it because it isn't given much coverage, and I suspect most of the players that are really concerned with that are already Fallout fans, and don't need journalists to draw their attention to the game.



All too true, it's just that with easier access to information, it's easier for people to see it. People need to stop pretending that the world was perfect until some point in the 20th century.

Off-hand, I think it's something better reserved for Obsidian (or more likely, Bethesda's) PR guys to spin than anything else. We won't know until the game comes out, but I still have a feeling that - just like Fallout 3 - "not killing anybody" is going to be one of those high-end personal challenges that only the most dedicated of players are going to be able to actually accomplish. Possible, certainly - something you could set as an ideal for your character to attempt (but ultimately fall short on;) but not something I'm guessing that I'd consider an actual option for your average player.

Because just in the way the game is set-up, there are some serious challenges to this concept. For starters, Fallout 3 (and thus, presumably New Vegas,) like a lot of RPGs, is kind of built around this concept of exploring areas that are populated with people and creatures that are immediately hostile to you and don't want you to be there. Even disregarding the myriad non-essential dungeons (which are a major selling point for Bethesda's brand of RPG,) I'm sure we all remember plenty of times in Fallout 3 where Main Quest objectives pretty much required killing enemies to advance.



On top of that, you're going to have plenty of random encounters to deal with throughout the course of the game. In short, a major (and constant) obstacle you're going to meet in Fallout: New Vegas is going to be dealing with immediately hostile enemies. Even assuming that you're able to pass every Speech or Charisma check (or otherwise achieve a peaceful result,) there's going to be lots of times where you're up against enemies where your only viable means of dealing with them are going to be: fighting, sneaking, or running away. (And unless you're playing with cheats,) you're going to miss a number of sneak rolls, as well.

In short, I kind of view the whole "you 'can' play through the whole game without killing anything at all" thing as a big PR spin, in and of itself. Obviously, we won't know until the game comes out, but I highly doubt the true pacifist route in New Vegas is something that's going to be relevant to more than a handful of really dedicated players. I'm certainly going to avoid violence in my first run-through at all times, but I also have a feeling that I'm still going to be in combat for a large portion of this game. And so are most of us.

So, considering that, I don't think I can really fault games journalists for not jumping on top of a concept that's not A) not really all that new or novel a concept, and B) not really going to be applicable to the vast majority of those that are going to be playing this game.

reviewers are limited by time constraints. Most reviews (so far) have been less than 2 hours play - so they're going to bust out vats and ironsight everything they can to get as much play as possible. And I very much doubt any of them fire up a new game, hardcoe mode, and choose non-violence - doesn't make good copy in a market obsessed with FPS.

I hope it is every bit as challenging as such a ridiculous stance in a Post Apocalyptic Para Military Political War game should be. I am glad the option is there for those who want it, but I would find it dificult to honestly play a character that would be hesitant to kill in this type of situation. Besides Fallout has never failed to populate the wastes with many folk so deserving of death that I would find true pacifism a diservice to the good people of whatever region I am in. Furthermore Fallout 3 was the first game in which I truely enjoyed playing a truely evil character. Besides what are they really gonna say.. We hear you can get through without having to kill... Yep.... well isn't that nifty, doesn't fill a lot of space in any format really.

Haha RvB FTW

Honestly....I'm perfectly find with nobody reporting on it. I don't play video games to be a pacifist. I play them because I want to blow [censored] up. it's that simple.


TestE Want Big Boom.

I don't know what all this "Americans love violence lolz" BS is all about.
Granted there are games packed with gratuitous violence for the sake of violence, and I can't vouch for those.

However, my love for FPS isn't based on the act of murdering other people. It's because it really is the truest form of competition as far as video games are concerned.
There really is no other form of video game competition where I can be judged based on my own merits as far as twitch-reflexes, accuracy, and strategy.
Based on their generally graphic nature, I can see why they're lumped into the category of "gratuitously violent" video games; but to say these games are popular BECAUSE they are violent is an exaggeration.

Kind of off topic, my bad.

While I understand your points about how the killing is the best way to experience a game such as Fallout in a short time, I'm sure that if it was there they would have written about non-violent options from time to time. Things such as doing a quest and either being able to negotiate with someone or just saying 'Go die' and then killing them, which face it, both are very apparent when scrolling through dialogue options while playing a game, especially when the one in question has a large [SPEECH --%] to its left.

I agree completely with this

off - topic: Your avatar is awesome lol

By letting your companions do the killing. How is that "pacifist" i don't really get, though.

I play one character that tries to avoid confrontation as much as possible. High speech and animal friend help, sneak would too, but i have another character that focuses on that, variety is the spice RPG life. I just don't get tired of seeing a plasma bolt melt an enemy to a green pile of goo

I am similar to the OP. The character that I design in all the Fallout games that I play are always mainly a diplomat and a trader that tries to talk first and shoot later.

I guess there are three main reasons why the journalists only talks about killing and shooting in the game:

(1) A lot of them are non-gamers that haven't even played the game ones. All they know about Fallout is that there are guns in the game. So they just make the assumption that it is a mindless shooting game in which you kill everything that moves and ignore the parts about the story, the character interactions, the background, etc.

(2) They are making the assumption that most video gamers are morons that are only interested in the violence, therefore they are making it 'easier' and more 'interesting' for the 'masses' to understand what is going on.

(3) This is kind of a conspiracy theory, but I think the media has been trying to stenotype gamers into either geeky nerds that can only find comfort in cyberspace or violence monsters that wants to kill people in real. If you watch the interviews carefully, you will notice that the developers always tries to explain the deep and interest story of the game, but are always cut off by the reporter and goes into the guns and killings. Just watch this so-called 'documentary' about video gamers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHRSshFkKfY&feature=recentlik
By doing so, they are re-enforcing the idea for none gamers that video games are only about six and violence. This allows the them to blame video games for every problem that children and teens have and help parents to ignore their duties.

Not an assumption so much. But five pages giving detailed "hardcoe" survival accounts don't make for as good a reading as "omg I shot his head off and he exploded!". It's like the trailer to a movie, they always show 1) sweeping landscapes 2) shooting 3) things blowing up 4) snogging. Even if 90% of the movie is two people sat in a pub talking lol

O' I like you...

Good thinking.

I agree more or less fully, but a little lip service to the less violent way is always good in a review, it doesn't even need to be a paragraph, one sentence would suffice.

PS liking the new avatar

Being a pacifist doesn't sell stories dude, thats just how the world goes. When the game comes out you can find out what being a pacifist is like. Me, personally am going to go guns blazing burning bad guy ass and having fun whilst dispensing some sense of justice out there in the Nevada Wasteland :gun: :nuke: :gun:

^ This ^

I know its only a game but im sure games bring out the dark side of people, the kind of dark side you see when your in a taxi and the driver runs over a bird, then looks at you in an insane way and says.... it shouldn't have been in the road!

While I have no issues with killing a video game character (that's why they are there) I would rather find a peaceful solution to most quests.

I will try a pacifist route through the game. I think it will be more challenging than hardcoe. Probably more fun too. I will call this character Grasshopper

Not everyone understands the difference between pacifist and peacefull though.

To be peacefull allows you to resort to violence when not given a choice to defend yourself, your property or your friends.

To be pacifst does not give you any reason to fight back even if you are being attacked. You can attempt to run away or shield yourself but you cannot harm the person attacking you that is the key to being pacifist...to do nothing aggressive ever and that includes others fighting on your behalf. In the real world pacifism often leads to you becomming a none threat or for enemies to simply give up trying to opress you because they don't get a reaction. In the game the AI is never going to give up beating on you its just not designed that way.

Most people talk about playing as a peacefull person not a pacifist.

Actually, in Oblivion if you attack someone and they fight back but actually like you enough, you can put your weapon away and they might actually stop. Maybe there's some sort of mechanic along those lines implemented in NV? Hell, for all I know it was implemented in past Fallouts and I just never tried.

It is implemented in FO3, I accidentally shot the BoS while clearing out the library, they turned on me, I put away my weapon dived out of sight whilst I healed up, came back out expecting more fighting, but instead they had my back again.

For me, the mostly peaceful option would work this this; Playing a spy or secret agent type char. I have a mission, I go in and complete that mission. I get out, bringing as little attention to myself as possable :ninja: . However if someone is inconveniently in my way, I do not hesitate to "neutralize" them to complete my mission. Sure I'll kill people, but alot less then the run and gun method :gun: :ahhh: I'll use in my 1st play through.

I would suspect they don't talk about the no-kill option because the no-kill option is probably pretty hard to do. I don't suspect it'll be as simple as being nice to people. You probably have to have a certain skillset (such as stealth and speach) and likely involves lots of running away.

Samesys, my first playthrough is gonna be basically what I would do IRL - so I would probably avoid killing people if I could find another way. Also I'm gonna take fast metabolism cause I actually do have retardedly fast metabolism

EDIT
I think if you were going for the stealth approach then 0 kills would be logical, but even a pacifist will fire back and even kill those who are trying to kill them.
I wish that when you shot someone in the leg they would just hobble away and hide, then I would just do the terminator thing and kneecap everyone.

I see myself as an NCR sniper, so killing innocent denizens of New Vegas and the Mojave would be out of my perspective. After the first few interviews about how many people you can kill, it got old. I mean, we get it, you can kill almost everyone, now get over it! But no, that's all they want. I hate when interviewers ask developers the EXACT SAME QUESTIONS! That gets lame quick.

I'll most likely be going with the Good Natured trait, as well as Wild Wastelander in hardcoe.
When I first played FO3, I nuked Megaton, and killed every vendor and other NPC's, would've even killed the children too, but then, when I became over encumbered, and realized, I have no place to repair my stuff, I just deleted the character, and started over
In fallout 3, I did this same thing my very last run through the story, played as a pacifist, then when I would begin to get angry, or feel a small simmer of insanity, I'd quickly save the game, and then, live out the destructive and chaotic fantasies upon everything, until satisfaction.