I don't, truth to be told.

I found plenty more place in Capital Wasteland with nothing to do.
Unless harvesting loot cattle counts.

This pretty much sums up this thread. As I've said before, we all play games for different reasons and will naturally prioritize features differently. NV has more of what I play RPGs for than FO3 did by far. I love the exploration as well, but it's not my top priority. We can go back and forth all day about what we liked about one game better than the other, but the fact is that none of us are going to somehow be "right." I still think that a Bethesda/Obsidian collaboration on a future Fallout project could be fantastic, as both companies seem to be inherently better at certain things than the other.


I don't think I'd argue with this. However, I would ask the question, "yeah, but 1.) does it make sense, 2.) is it fun, and 3.) was the content worth my time?" I would answer "no" to at least once when asked those questions about many of Fallout 3's locations. I'm not a mileage gamer or a completionist. I don't have that much time to play games. Exploring a bunch of locations with content that I ultimately don't end up caring about isn't how I like to spend my limited gaming time. I'd rather spend my time with things I can really interact with and leave the giant sandbox/theme park here's-a-bunch-of-cabinets-full-of-wonderglue-and-scrap-metal exploration stuff for world flavor or for when I just feel like going for a walk about. Again, it's just my preference. There's no right or wrong.

Ok - by that rationale you haven't explored the wasteland in NV at all or very little and as such if you haven't so far, you definitely won't do in the future, as most of the locations have little or no context or sufficent substance to go to a first time never mind go back to the second. I'm not sure if you realise it but you are actually putting forward the argument that actually - 'Go do the main quest, it's good but as far as the wasteland in NV is concerned don't waste your time' which rather unfortunately is a point I have been stating from the start. I like both the exploration and the Roleplaying element of the game and is, as such, why I am slightly disapointed in it's outcome.

Thank you for the PM. I'm pretty new to mods as I've been a Mac user for almost a decade now and Apple just recently went Intel with this latest round of Macs so I'm able to run Windows now. The first thing I did was play every PC game I've ever missed out on, and try mods on all my favorites. I don't know a lot of PC gamers so google has been my only guide when it comes to mods.

Thanks again and I don't see the harm of a small side conversation about Oblivion mods, I hate all these little forum rules everyone has. This thread has been derailed many times and I enjoy reading it all. My intent was to discuss the lack of dungeons in NV and here we have people pouring their hearts out about how great Little Lamplight was or wasn't in Fallout 3. Good times.

I think the thing is you have two different groups of people looking to play this. I believe the OP spoke about how he (or she) placed New Vegas with Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Morrowind as games to compare with each other. That's fine. But one also has to consider that many people wanted a Fallout game that would fit with Fallout 1 and 2 (and even Tactics) better, or even people who were going to compare it with say, Bioware's Mass Effect series, or the Bioware to Obsidian KotOR as a sci-fi RPG. New Vegas was put in a difficult position: people came to it looking at the engine and expecting the game to be about the exploration and open world Bethesda, and people came to it looking at the developers and expected it to be a tight story with ugly choices. And of course, both sides consider their way of looking at it- exploring an open world and then a tight story with ugly choices- to be the 'true' Fallout experience.

I do think Obsidian tried to satisfy both groups. To an extent, I think they succeeded. I had fun walking over the hill and doing a 'Oh hey I found a Vault let's go in OMG GAH LET'S GO OUT RUNNNN' as well as running around the REPCON facility exploring the infested tunnels. I also had fun with confronting Benny, and hell, almost every story thing that followed- and with many of the small sidequests, even some you decry as fetch quests- walking back to the Outpost to carry word of the horrors the legion carried out actually made me feel sort of prophet of the apocalypse-like.

Put Oblivion over on the left somewhere, and Mass Effect over on the right. Or Mass Effect on the left, Oblivion on the right- I don't mind. (I'm deliberately trying to avoid bringing up the other Fallouts for this particular companion.)

While I was far more fond of Morrowind (and one can probably use it instead of Oblivion for this example), there were things about Oblivion that were AWESOME. Many of them were the 'walk over the hill simply to see what's on the other side of it' sort of awesome. Reading the fun books, galloping from one side of the map to the next, searching out Oblivion portals, simply waking up and deciding to go beat up a random group that annoyed you- those were fun, and allowed you to ignore that although there were some excellent quests (Dark Brotherhood always comes up now), there were quite a few that... really were sort of dull, and that the story didn't seem the main focus. On the other hand, take Mass Effect (II, for the sake of this argument), which also had things that were AWESOME. Many of them were story related awesome. It was fun to see your Shepard go from just another military (grunt?) to savior of the galaxy, it was fun being able to encourage someone to redeem themselves with 'mere' words, it was fun to make vile decision for the greater good, and all of those fun took away that although some locations were excellently done and gorgeous, there was a lot of 'you have walked through this exact bunker fifty times, and you will walk through probably fifty more' level design.

To give us a better story (that didn't have quests like, say, Booted, which I agree was pointless- although at least my rescued Power Gangers ran off), there probably would have had to be less places simply to wander through. To give us better wandering, we probably would have lost good things like helping religious ghouls with rockets and being able to subvert expectations to take over the strip with Benny at your side. (I imagine the 'give up quests like booted and wandering locations that are one house with four ammo crates to get awesome' doesn't work, or they've have done that.)

Personally, I'm glad the balance seemed to be more on the questy-talky stuff this time, as opposed to Fallout 3- that's what I wanted out of my Fallout game. I'm sorry that it came at sacrificing the things some of you guys liked, though. ...But, but, I do say, particularly now that the games are fully voice acted and the mod tools are available to us all, that unlike back in the Fallout 1/2 era, it's a lot easier to add dungeons and new locations then it is to add new quests that feel like they're a part of the game. Hopefully, in the next few months, people will create more vaults and other basemant areas for explorers to ransack.

I've gotten around. I've got quests taking me all over the map, so I'm running into a lot of the in-between areas in the process. Yeah, so far it doesn't seem like there's a lot of, "hey you randomly happened upon all this stuff that just happens to be going on in the middle of nowhere 1/2 mile from a settlement that obviously knows nothing about it for some reason" places. I like that. It makes sense. In NV people in places know about nearby places and the stories and conversations interact appropriately. Where there's nothing going on there's just nothing going on. The in-between places would likely be totally abandoned and looted bare decades ago. All of these neat little places to find in FO3 were cool to have, but it didn't really make sense for a lot of them to be there. How do they get their food? How do they feel about X being down the road from them? How do they protect themselves? What are their motivations? How is it that this factory full of viable pre-war tech hasn't been looted yet?

Again, the sole reason for a lot of the wasteland content in FO3 to exist is so the player can find it. That's what I mean when I say it felt like a theme park...it was full of "rides" for the player to find that otherwise don't have much reason to exist.


No, I'm really not making that point at all. Ok, in FO3 you pretty much did the main quest, a couple of large-ish side-quests, or you explore around trying to discover these little islands of content of varying sizes. In NV you're constantly finding all of these little stories about how different factions are interacting, the balance of power in certain areas and factions at odds for the upper-hand, local politics, distribution of resources, personal quests/vendettas, etc. If you get involved in these stories it can take you all over the map. You can pick sides and affect outcomes. There's plenty to do just talking to people and getting involved with things. I'm not just talking about scripted interactions. The whole world is set up to be a big, branching, interactive story. I've been having a blast wandering around, talking to people, learning about the world, doing quests, getting involved in power struggles for over 40 hours (at least...not sure exactly) and I haven't even met Benny yet!

CCNA put it best sometime last week: play the game, not the map. :shrug: That's how I look at it, anyway. I can't disagree more about NV being lacking in detail and forethought.

Gosh but it's good to have a civilised conversation with someone who has essentially diametrically opposed views

I will back you on one point though - A proper Bethesda / Obsidian mash up for additional add-ons or indeed new game would in all likelihood be awesome and the best of both worlds . .

I just hope they put in some more exploration/dungeoneering in a seperate add-on.

Imagine discovering a huge underground warren under the sands with a smattering of Vault cave-ins run by a mad cap scientist inserting chicken brains into Supermutated Nightcrawling Fiends . . woohoohoo?!

;)

The saga continues...

I'm not clear on what that last sentence means but I would politely ask that you stop getting stuck on the particulars for a moment and consider the opinion expressed to you in larger terms, please.

Look at it this way: Spring Mt Ranch Estate Park. Bonnie Springs. Horowitz Farmstead. Bitter Springs Recreation Area. Boulder Beach Campground. These are huge areas (Horowitz is as vast the The Mall was in DC) with nothing to do. No loot, no backstory, no uniques, no quests. I was really looking forward to Brewer's Beer Bootlegging. Doesn't that name alone just drip "adventure!" to you?! I killed a bunch of Cazadors, found an empty shack with a door to a basemant filled with empty bottles. THere is a chemistry set down there . . . which the player can't use!

All these above location and just some mobs to kill, so I put your complaint back to you: how much fun is it to get somewhere just to kill some mobs?

You posit that: "all I did in FALLOUT3 was killing ghouls" I could just as well reduce the experience of NEW VEGAS to "all I ever do is shoot Cazadors and Geckos." It's too easy to over-simplify.

In the end, you and I enjoy a different gaming experience. There is no "wrong" and "right" about it. Your expectations are not mine and we leave it at that.

But it is just an untruth to say that NEW VEGAS has more pure exploration than FO3 - the invisible walls all over the SW quadrant alone make short work of that argument.

I agree that FONV doesn't have more exploration in terms of going places on the map than FO3.... What it does have in spades over FO3 is: quests, dialogue, backstory, factions, fleshed out NPCs, faction interactions, more diversity of choices and skills throughout every quest than FO3 ever had, literally 500% more things to do for NPCs that force you to take sides and choose who you are going to have like you and who you are going to piss off.

But I'll give you this: FO3 had a bigger map with lots of places to shoot things. And that's all it had over FONV in my opinion.

LMAO @ all the people who say "FO3 had too many places to explore. I like having nothing to explore in NV, cause that's the way t'was back in '97" crack me up.

I agree with the OP. NV falls flat as an open world experience.

Now, back to the game

Lets not forget that New Vegas is the newer game. If Bethesda had developed this game by themselves there would be a ton of improvements and new stuff as well... and there would be a [censored] load of awesome huge dungeons to explore.

I'm not sure Beth's history bears that conclusion. Questlines from ARENA on have always been fairly simple and straightforward, and not because of tech issues. Quest scripting was one of those things ancient engine could do really well: ULTIMA 7: SERPENT ISLE has some very impressive adventuring in it, and that was made for the 386! (It also had day/night cycles, weather, full NPC schedules, etc.)

But you bring up something interesting: I wonder if the two games had been reversed. If NEW VEGAS had come first and blown us away with the graphic style, the atmosphere, the gory combat and then FALLOUT3. It would have looked like a natural progression of riches and I wager we'd be hearing a different tune from most everyone, irrespective of who developed the game. Of course we'll never know. This is just one of those "thought experiment" - but I do wonder.

I haven't seen anyone say that, so that's what we like to call a strawman fallacy. This really just sounds like flamebaiting to me. I'm not sure why I'm even responding to it, TBH. You know that laying down blanket insults on those who don't agree with you just makes you look like you're not mature enough to have an intelligent disagreement, right?



It wouldn't have made a difference for me. I do think it would have made more sense for NV's story to have come first, though, since it's more of a continuation of Fallout 1 and Fallout 2, and Fallout 3 is the beginning of a new story/setting. As much as I liked Fallout 3, the factions, characters, RPG systems, economies, and the overall feel of the game world were disappointing to me. Again, the developers had different design goals in mind when they made each game, and those are going to appeal to different types of gamers. From my perspective the idea that NV is a failure compared to FO3 is like telling me that Aliens is a failure compared to Alien 3. So, opinions, opinions...

I do think it's cool that Fallout fans have two distinctly different settings to enjoy now, though. I hope we get to see both settings continue to develop for at least a few more games.

Kudos to those in this thread that have been able to disagree without jabbing at each other, by the way. :foodndrink:

Just finished Bootjack Cavern. Beautiful in there, yet sooo tiny.

Sewers were cool and brought back memories of Fallout 3 subway system. Good sized, but still smaller than I expected after being told they spanned a hundred miles. Wish I had some quests down there, still fun to explore on my own. Dead Wind Cavern has a cool name, I think I'll hit that up next.

Edit: Guess Red Lucy has one last egg gathering mission for me, off to Bloodborne Cavern I go. Quite possibly an even cooler name, but let me guess, it's small. I'm about to find out.

Same. I'm gonna stop reporting on these dungeons. They are all very small.

i just started a new character and this time i havent followed the mq whatsoever... 14 hours in and havent made it to novac yet lol but ive found around 15 "dungeons" so far... mostly around the southern end of the map... how many dungeons are in FO3? someone should check it out and compare the actual amount of dungeons in each game..

I've been skulking these forums for a long, long time. But I felt the need to register with this thread.

Let me take the topic of dungeon crawling in a two-pronged approach. To really understand the essential differences in the 'dungeon' style map locations in both games, you have to look at how they are alike and different.

Fallout 3:
Dungeons comprised much of the game. Many were there simply to prolong the length of the pathetically short main quest, which was blatantly obvious to many players, and caused a great deal of negative feedback.
However, what a lot of people never said about it, is that dungeons are often a welcome experience but can be over-done... as well as under-done.
The side-dungeons such as the vaults were exquisitely executed. This is without question. They really put love into a few of the dungeon-crawling areas, and it was very easy to see where the mappers and designers felt inspired, and did not. Most often, it felt that they put more inspired work into the side dungeons, as the metro tunnels felt, at times, very drab and plain. (I actually liked the metro tunnels, though...)

New Vegas:
Very, very few dungeons worth mention. The main quest "features" 3 good ones in the form of the BOS quest, however, it pretty much ends there. The remainder of the vaults are clearly not designed with as much thought, effort, or inspiration. Possibly all 3.

New Vegas did feature some awesome dungeons though. I believe what we have in New Vegas, however, is the polar opposite of the FO3 dungeon situation: There is far too little in the main quest, and almost none offered on the side. I personally love a dungeon crawl, and I was extremely hard-pressed to find any in New Vegas, which wouldn't have been a problem, had there been scripting for events to occur in the wasteland.

As it stands, the dungeon crawl, or lack thereof, is what ultimately causes many NV players to be "done" with the game, because they can accomplish all they'd like (or everything) in one or two save games. In FO3, you had dungeons that would literally just take TIME. You can't replay NV for the story, you've already seen it. You can barely replay it for the action gameplay, because unless you want to wander around killing radscorpions forever, there is little in the way of side-action.

I believe the solution is what many are suggesting. A hybrid-style of Fallout game should be made next. We require the amazing story-telling capabilities of Obsidian with the unparalleled dungeon and map building abilities of the Bethesda (Okay, lets be honest, its probably just a few of the same guys who worked on Oblivion) team.

Just a quick thought - almost a sarcasm but not quite, I promise!

Those complaining about the bigness/sameness of dungeons in FALLOUT3 should load DosBox, fire up DAGGERFALL and go traipse around Scourge Barrow for a year or two . . .

You ain't seen a dungeon 'till you seen a classic Bethesda dungeon!

:smile

Dungeon crawling is.... not fun. At all. For most every gamer there is. Too many sewers in FO3 traversing the DC area. It's funny because dungeon crawling was a common complaint for Oblivion back in the day

In Oblivion's case, there were only like, three types of dungeons. There were the forts, the caves, and the Ayleid ruins. They were all visually identical to each other. There were bajillions of them. It was obvious filler that did little to support the games awful, awful writing and quests.

Oblivion was fun as a hack 'n slash, but you can only go through the same 3 types of dungeons so many times. Shivering Isles was a welcome improvement in writing, atmosphere, and added 2 extra dungeon types or so.

In Fallout 3 there were... well, metro tunnels. And presumably others I don't remember.

I'm mature enough not to have arguments about video games on web forums. Something for you 'maturity' crusaders to think about.

Nah, i think that the 'dungeons' in this game are fine.

Uuhhhh . . . what?

Alright. I'll bite: explain how DIABLO2 is one of the best-selling games of all time, seeing as it's 50% dungeon crawling.

Let's go back in time together: classic "Blue" and "Gold" boxes were all dungeon crawls, as were the ARKANIA, WIZARDRY series. THE BARD'S TALE. Then the "second" generation: HEXEN, LANDS OF LORE, MIGHT AND MAGIC 6-8, DAGGERFALL and the elephant in the room: DIABLO (99.99% dungeon crawling). The new stuff: DUNGEON SIEGE, SACRED, heck, even BALDUR'S GATE had 50% of its gameplay in dank corridors, rooms and caves. And what is BIOSHOCK if not one immense dungeon crawl?

For the last 2 years, the best selling D&D pen and paper products - after the core books - have been adventures reprints of old (literally decades old!) modules. The best selling of those are the biggest ones: B2 - KEEP ON THE BORDERLANDS; I6 - CASTLE RAVENLOFT; S2 - WHITE PLUME MOUNTAIN; L3 - DEEP DWARVEN DELVE . . . T1-4 - THE TEMPLE OF ELEMENTAL EVIL was named 4th greatest adventure of all time. Ever played that? It's frakking HUGE. #3: S1 - TOMB OF HORRORS, #2 is the aforementioned I6 and #1 is G1-3 QUEEN OF SPIDERS.

Third most popular D&D item, sales-wise? Dungeon tiles.

"most every gamer" ?