Or they enjoy coming out of said shack to face baddies that have the ability to actually KILL you.

How "scary" is dungeon crawling when you can pimp slap any enemy that crosses your path? It started to get laughable after awhile.

FO3 Deathclaw = Meat Shield. :gun:

FO:3 Deathclaw = FO:NV Deathclaw Snack

the one over by goodsprings? i went in there just fine and got some useful loot...

I believe it was this one

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Coyote_Den

there weren't even any coyotes there at the time

oh well i found a coyote den that i could go in i dunno.

ur thinking of goodsprings cave?

Yes, indeed he is.

The Coyote Den is very far away from goodsprings.

Near Cottonwood cove I think.

I think people forget that FO3 was a dungeon crawler fps with rpg elements and FO NV is an RPG with FPS elements. You could combine the 2 and make an epic game, but 2 years of development time is probably not gonna cut it.

Very true.

The lines between RPG and FPS have blurred.

So Fallout 3 is an FPSRPG and Fallout New Vegas is an RPGFPS? Stop clinging to the need to label every game in one specific genre. Guns or bows and magic doesn't even make a difference to me, it's all ranged combat. Fallout 3 and New Vegas run on the same engine with minor gameplay changes, they certainly aren't in different genres. I consider Fallouts 3 and New Vegas as well as Elder Scrolls 3 and 4 to all be in the same genre, I'll call it open world single player adventuring. You can call it whatever you want.

Not wanting to interrupt here, but those "specific genres" define the diverstity in the gaming market - not to say there's too much diversity left anymore, but nonetheless.

I personally found rooting through all of the random "dungeons" in FO3 to be tedious, but to each his/her own. It would be cool for NV to have more random places to find, but the increased depth in pretty much every other aspect of the game more than makes up for it. If they did add more stuff to explore I'd prefer they make it more organic feeling than FO3 was. I sort of felt FO3 just had places plopped all over the landscape for the sake of having stuff to see...it felt really artificial to me.

:tops: Very much agreed.

Agreed. Once I started a new game and used the console to max stats and gave myself Fawke's gatling laser. Went in to Megaton and used it on everybody and it just made the game no fun at all. Toward the end of a real playthrough it was getting so easy that I upped the difficulty but that just made it annoying cause you had to shoot people in the head 30 times to kill 'em. When I first got NV and came across a radscorpion I was like "oh look, a radscorpion" the proceeded to shoot it in VATS which not almost no damage. Then I turned around and saw like a dozen radscorpions. Then I died. Now I am afraid of radscorpions

What I meant by an "FPS with RPG elements" is that FO3 was all about running around and shooting different "levels" with a bit of control over plot interaction included. "RPG with FPS elements" describes how FO NV is all about how the game experience changes based on interactions with NPCs and has some shooting to go along with it.

*EDIT* To disregard the distinctions between the fundamental game structure is what leads to these rampant flame threads where everyone just spins in circles.

I've always found that if you hop up on a rock or any object a little bit off the ground really, they can't climb up and hit you so you can just stand there and take pot shots at them at your leisure.

That works on them too, eh? I discovered you could do that for the deathclaws in the quarry. Picked 'em off with a gauss rifle and it took like half an hour to get all of them. I've just been running from radscorpions, heh

I'm actually getting a lot out of this thread and find people's opinions very interesting. There is flaming in every thread, it's the anonymity of the internet, some people can't handle it and lose all inhibition.

I just think those labels you put on the two games are your own distinctions between the structures of the game, not mine, and you said it like it's common knowledge and everyone should call Fallout 3 an FPS with RPG elements. I could make a very compelling argument that Fallout 3 is an RPG with FPS elements, but I'll spare you. I could make a compelling argument that Fallout 3 is a mushroom, if that's what I want to call it then that's what I'll call it but I'm not going to make a post about how everyone should call Fallout 3 a mushroom and if you don't you're stupid and not respecting the fundamental distinctions between mushrooms and non-mushrooms.

Why not just post it? What this forum needs is a good discussion.

I'm still working on my thesis about the official genre of Fallout 3, mushroom. It's clear that everyone should be calling Fallout 3 a mushroom not an FPS with RPG elements or an RPG with FPS elements. I'll list all the fundamental distinctions that make it a mushroom in a future post, and if you disagree you're wrong.

Less the better

"Dungeons" in this game give me a headache and make me claustrophobic

Hey, you really should put your thoughts on why Fallout 3 is an RPG with FPS elements instead of the opposite... you just convinced me it is, in fact, a mushroom - the mycelium just spreads too wide for it to be an RPG or FPS. But that's not good at all, being neither I mean. By that definition it's just a simulator of sorts, which never leads to anything actually good, but a mishmash of genres and styles that'll represent nothing in particular.

I think this game comes closer to striking a balance between dungeons and open space than FO3 did, but I still think they went a bit too far in the other direction. A little variance is good, and with FO3 inside was outside but with less light and more metal. Here, the inside is different from the outside. But a few more places to duck my head in when I'm tired of the desert sun would be nice, yes.

Hmmm . .

Interesting point - one that actually compelled me to sign up and post a reply and it's not very often that something like that happens.

By the general concensus of the term 'dungeon' can I assume it falls into one of 2(?) categories?

1. An underground adventure playground (i.e. sewer/cave/subway etc) and/or

2. A vault.

If you refer to 1 then so far - yes, there are indeed to my experience so far a disapointing number of them. If you refer to 2 then I'm not so sure . .

If you will indulge I'll give a little background as to my response and answer.

Personally I have played many RPG's including the classics such as Warhammer, AD&D, Shadowrun etc etc and have coded (not just simply modded using tools) areas for MUDs and others like NeverWinterNights. You get the idea I hope that I'm talking with a little bit of experience in what makes a good dungeon and how to go about making that in computing terms an experience that the player will hopefully enjoy, want to come back to and (fingers crossed) scare them as they escape with some loot after a breathless 1, 2 or 3 hour adrenalin infused ride. It's quite hard to do.

I, millenia ago it seems now actually played the very first couple of Fallout games and quite liked them so with a sense of good expectation purchased and played Fallout 3. I wasn't for the most part disapointed. In fact some of the best gaming moments I've ever had have come in that game. Being a child who loved watching old television shows in black and white of a Saturday morning, I almost cried with joy when I started exploring the wasteland and came across 'Them'. Excellent. Another one was coming back from RavenRock so loaded down with enclave loot that I had to walk back and literally took me 2 and 1/2 days of in game time to return to Megaton. Oh the adventures Charon and I had. This was crowned by reaching the overpass near Megaton to witness a small group of Enclave soldiers. As we engaged the enemy ( 3 soldiers and a sentry bot with gatling laser - fun!) I thought it a fitting end to the conflict as we approached home, only for 2 vertibirds to drop from the heavens and disgorge 5 more Enclave. After the firefight which quite frankly was one of the more hairy moments of the game I stopped to pause and think about the game mechanics of the designer/coder who had obviously sat and thought about exactly that scenario playing through. Again - excellent. It topped it all off for me. This was of course on top of other encounters like the whole Lovecraft/Cthulu Dunwich building escapade. That was a bloody scary hour or two I can tell you. It was sooooo dark - things literally did go bump in the night and it was designed through the teaser holotapes to make you want to go further in, to round that next corner, hearing the scrabbling and the screaming with torchlight off and hoping you didn't meet something to scary. Of course you did and that was the whole joy of it. It was designed to make you jump and it worked.

Enticing people in, to make them want to go into the basemant with no torchlight, when they 'know' that the axe murderer is waiting for them down there with a big smile on it's face is hard to do, so when they (Bethesda) pulled it off is no mean feat. They got it right, the whole shebang.

This time round I just get the feeling that in general the new developers just haven't got it quite right. By all means they have put together a very accomplished game in it's own right and yet in some ways it is a different game to that which I expected and maybe that is why I am a little disapointed. Not greatly I may add but just enough for me to think . .

So far I have explored enough of the wasteland to get a good feeling about why I feel this way and in general the problem may be that they (Obsidian) wanted to do so much in such a short period of time. I have listened to their development team blogs and somehow get the feeling that having had the early development on Fallout want to realise what they were trying to do then with the success that Bethesda re-kindled with their interpretation of the wasteland. Not a bad thing, however maybe they are trying to place their old interpretation into a different and possibly unfamiliar format.

Above ground they seem to do it reasonably and quite competently well (the argument for soooo many locations is for a different thread) but when it comes to inducing that gut wrenching - 'oh [censored]' moment of sheer apprehension as you delve deeper have only come a few times. Playing on the hardest difficulty on 'hardcoe' maybe next time I won't bring a companion along because maybe it is this that is taking away from the whole experience. Having Veronica is at times a godsend, however with DT 24 BOS power armour on she is a tank. Literally. It isn't a challenge anymore. I don't feel the fear. Perhaps this is to make up for the sheer ridiculousness of running into DeathClaws just outside Primm - ( I mean, really?! ) but in essence descending into the basemant isn't scary. I absoloutely love the sheer wackiness of the socio-psychological experiments gone wrong that are part of the whole Vault-tec experience. The ones that I have come across so far - sheer ingenuity - really, and I can't fault the developers for what they have done so far with regards to these aspects - (i.e. no.2 above) but in so far as no.1, I just dont think they have got it. The closest I have got are the Rodents of Unusual Size (funny) who pack just enough of a punch to scare you and leave you smiling. Dungeons don't have to be populated by 'uber' / 'legendary' creatures to be scary. That's taking the easy option. Little tricks like submerged mines or hidden trip wires that cripple you just as the roof gives way to have 5 or 6 merely ordinary ghouls (they don't even have to glow) drop down on you are little moments when your heart starts to pound and you think - 'oh [censored]'. it's amazing the effect surround sound can have on a gaming experience.

. . and i have yet to come across anything like the supermarket to the NW (?) of Megaton with the elaborate death-trap that got set off - I mean dominoes with boxes of detergent - I laughed my ass off, after I reloaded the game and picking the little bits of my character that were left due to my sheer stupidity of wandering into it. Sheer brilliance. That I think is my point - I just haven't come across those little extra details that caused me to go - 'yeah, damn right - this is Fallout' to the same extent in this game as it has done in the last. Maybe i am judging a little too early and maybe this would be in extra add-ons. I am in no way discouraged however. Its still excellent ( ' . . a theoretical degree in physics . . ' ) very good. Bring on the fear Obsidian - swearing is all very well and good and is 'trendy', I know but emotion is where it is at. Give us the fear - we want to get scared. We want to go into the basemant despite that very heavy breathing. Give us an excuse to do so . .

Have to admit, the first cave I popped into in this game left me with a "thats it?" type feeling. Bethesda seems much more inclined to flesh underground areas out than Obsidian.