What I love about Fallout 3 is starting a quest, setting out to do the quest and getting totally sidetracked by whatever I happen to run across on my way there. And never even get around to do the quest.

In FNV whenever I run across something that's more than a cave with a dead body or a dufflebag at the end, or a shack with one or two rooms of nothing, there is bound to be one or more quests related to it, so I feel urged to leave and come back when I pick up that quest somewhere. Heck, Vault 22 had 3 quests making me go there, the developpers really must have been proud of that one seeing as how they're pushing me to go check it out. Unfortunately going back to an empty vault 2 times isn't my idea of fun. How much much better it would have been to just stumble across that vault on my own and letting it tell its story on its own.

The point to dungeons for me is to explore them and discover the hidden little secrets, not to kill monsters, not to score some loot and not to get a quest objective out of the way. Fallout 3 was packed full with these easy to miss lttle treasures, which I guess people that don't like exploring to begin with missed most of.

Yeah, locations as a whole are forgettable in New Vegas. The only ones that stood out are Camp McCarran and Helios One and both have some of the best quests in the game. Nothing in NV compares to Megaton, Tenpenny Tower, Little Lamplight, Museum of Technology, National Archives, Army Depot and so on.

Btw, the quests in NV are godawful. If Bethesda made this game you'd be hearing non-stop how this is "yet another mediocre Beth game filled with mindless fed-ex drivel" , but hey since it's Obsidian it's okay.

Worst thing about these quests are "rewards". Like I really need to go to some [censored]hole to help some moron and get 200 caps when I already have 10k. In FO3 you'd get lots of exp, caps, perks, unique weapons and armor. You know, exciting stuff. I don't even care about NV quests.

I do agree that some locations in New Vegas did not need a map marker with it, but I really like that a lot of areas have nothing in them, why? Cause it's more realistic.
Why does a place, even if it's a two room house, need to have something special to loot?
I'll take a more realistically designed game-world over a [censored]-load of loot any day.


*Goes to Springvale School*
- "Yay... More raiders..."
*opens tunnel down*
- "Hm, ants huh, whatever."

*Goes to Dunwich Building*
- "When will this [censored] place end!?!?!"

*Goes to Oasis*
/mirelurk cripples head with super brain powers
- "...great.. So can I find his heart already and be done with these things..."

Dude, anything is better than meeting the same enemies over and over and over and over and over again. (imo)
Even if it's a smaller quest.


So if I honestly enjoyed playing Fallout 2 this year then it's not possible for me to enjoy FO3 or FNV?
Well there's where you're wrong.
I hate the engine, sure, but I love a lot of other things about the game.
And Fallout will never be Fallout again so it's either adapt and accept it or chain yourself to the nostalgia.
So yeah, the old games are better for some of us, but we can accept that a decent fallout game has been made on this engine.
While I think the old games are miles ahead of NV and FO3 it doesn't mean I can't enjoy them.
I had fun playing FO3 but half my play-time I was annoyed at things they got wrong, bad writing, bad location design and the whole "the bombs were dropped yesterday"-feel.
And I'm currently playing New Vegas, it's a really really good game even though the bugs.
Point is just cause some of us think the old games are a crapload better than the new games doesn't mean we can't have a blast playing them.

I still have nearly 1000 wads from .... well almost everybody. Momento Morte, the h2hmudfest stuff all that pure gold.

There is enough "Dungeons" (as per number) but not enough levels/area/game time on them.

One of them being the Fort, it could have been a huge factory for player to explore.

How is it more realistic? There were plenty of places like this in FO3, they simply weren't worthy of a map-marker so I could fast travel there whenever I wished to. Generally, if you visit a location and there are 30 raiders making a camp inside, you'd expect to find a bunch of loot, wouldn't you?



If you really felt this way, most of NV must really bore you to death.

Ghost: "Hey! There's smoke coming from Nipton. Check it out for me."
Courier: "Okay."
*Heads to Nipton and kills 20 Legion dogs inside of the town hall before retuning to the Mojave Outpost*
Courier: "Legion forces wiped out the town."
Ghost: "Okay, cool. Nipton deserved it anyway. They were a bunch of scumbags."
Quest complete.

Er, why was it so important for me to check it out then? Why is that even marked as a quest? Better yet...

Boxcars: "Hey! Go rescue my Powder Ganger buddies!"
Courier: "Okay."
*Heads to Legion Raid Camp and unties the two Powder Ganger captives who promptly come right back and resume the kneeling, tied up position despite being saved.*
Quest complete.

Um, okay? I guess this means maybe I'm on somewhat good terms with the Powder Gangers since I rescued three of their guys? Nope. What was the point of any of that? Why is everyone attacking my ED-E droid for no apparent reason? What is the point of wearing faction clothes when they bug out so often and the reputation system barely even works properly?

See? I can exaggerate too. If you honestly hate exploration and actually playing the game so much, maybe you shouldn't play it? At least in FO3 I felt like there was a reason to be at those places. Dunwich, for example, didn't even have a related quest (until Point Lookout came along) and it still had a storyline to keep you moving through it.



This is so thick with rose-tinted glasses it's ridiculous-- I played FO1 and 2 before FO3 had even been conceived and I still like FO3 more-- FO3 and the engine have issues, I'm not disputing that, but the old games are so archaic I'd still rather put up with some bugs than the snail pace game play of the old games. The only reason I'd play the old games at this point is, like I said, for the story and lore. Regardless, you completely missed my point anyway. I said FO1 and 2 aren't comparable as games to FO3 and NV. As far as "things they got wrong (and by they, you mean Bethesda, of course), bad writing, bad location design and the whole 'the bombs were dropped yesterday'-feel" (which I never really got, but whatever) this is worse, if anything, in NV. Please explain to me areas like the Mesquite Mountains Crater (maybe I sincerely missed the reason why that little pocket is a ghoul breeding ground despite no bombs supposedly being dropped there). So much of what you encounter in NV is so token and out-of-place it completely breaks the immersion for me, yet you tell me it's more realistic? Sorry, I'm not seeing it.

If you, yourself, don't consider FO3 a "real" Fallout game, since Fallout will never be Fallout again, why do you insist to compare it to one? That makes no sense. Why do you insist then on comparing NV to one, despite it having far, far, far more similarities to FO3 than the older titles? Because Obsidian made it? Please.

The bottom-line is this... Call Fallout 3 something else-- Oblivion with guns, whatever. Once you've changed the name, you'd never really make a relationship between the old Fallout games and FO3 because they're so different other than what things are called. How can you compare them at this point really? I don't really feel you can, so it's basically just a comparison between Fallout 3 and NV.

In that case, I will readily state FO3 has issues, but so does NV. Strip away all of the bugs and petty grievances both games have you suffer through to get to the meat of the game and FO3 has a much more substantial driving story and is far more immersive than NV, in my opinion. I'm sure once most of the bugs in NV have been dealt with and I can actually play it without the atmosphere being ruined by some random glitch or game-breaking bug every 15 minutes I'll enjoy it far more but that still doesn't mean I wouldn't like to see more worthwhile stuff to explore. If the trade off is quests versus explorable areas (as so many people seem to think it has to come down)-- I'd happily take a Dunwich or Springvale school "dungeon" crawl over quests like "Booted" or "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize." Half of the quests in NV Obsidian could remove in a patch and most people would barely notice, I'm sure (and don't even try to tell me you'd seriously miss half of the quests you've done-- you'd be lying and we both know it).

On the other hand, if you remove places like Dunwich or Springvale, a lot of people notice-- thus, why this thread exists in the first place. And never did I once say you couldn't like both the old Fallout games and the new ones. Hell, if you read what I wrote at all I said I liked both the old and new Fallout games, you really don't have to argue the obvious with me. This whole thing came about because people started bashing FO3 more-or-less because it wasn't a real Fallout game while praising NV, which I thought was ridiculous, which is also what inspired my nostalgia comment and why I said it wouldn't matter how good FO3 was at that point, people would still hate it regardless for no other reason than it's different.

Agreed, F3 feels more like a diablo loot/grindfest with all that random crap across the wasteland(which itself looks kinda overcrowded for a 'wasteland'). Give me quality over quantity EVERY fethin' day.

Yes there seem to be fewer dungeons but to be honest I got a bit bored with them in F3. There was never anything really interesting, well nothing that lead anywhere, like to a quest or something. Just kill all the raiders or super mutants or whatever, pick up all the stuff and move on to the next one.

I'm very glad Vegas put the focus on quests instead. I enjoy quests far more. The number of dungeons seem just about right. Can't get enough quests!

Up until this your posts sounded reasonable. This? Not so much. You come off as exactly what you're accusing others of, in reverse. Someone who is so irrational in their admiration for FO3 that he doesn't like FO:NV just because it isn't FO3.

If you honestly tell me those quests did nothing to you, I'm suspecting you're not even paying attention and you're simply hating on them for the hell of it. The only point you do have is that FO:NV has too many bugs. But guess what, so did FO3.

If you're going to quote what I said, quote all of what I said as to not take it out of context and attempt to make a point where there isn't one to be made.



I was making a point about "rose-tinted glasses" as can readily be seen by actually reading what I wrote.

I tried to avoid the whole Fallout 1 and 2 vs Fallout 3 and New Vegas debate by not comparing them, I only compare Fallout 3 and New Vegas with Morrowind and Oblivion. Avoidance failed.

There seem to be the people who like quests and the people who like dungeons. I like both, combined. Without a dungeon to play through, a quest is just traveling and talking to people. Not that that can't be entertaining, but it's just missing a huge part of what this game can do. There is just far less content in New Vegas when compared to Fallout 3, Oblivion and Morrowind.

Agree with the OP 100%. Liked NV a lot, it has many improvements etc but after some hours of play i wanted to get back to FO3 mainly due to it's exploration aspect. FNV just felt so linear...

In addition i believe that many of those who prefer FNV to FO3 haven't played a heavily modded FO3.

I'm confused. If you did not mean a single thing of what I quoted, then why did you post it? To make a point about exaggeration? I'm afraid that point is lost to me.

But I guess, as you are implying, that can only be because my reading comprehension is awfully bad. Fair game to you, sir.

I think a good "dungeon" is vault 34, there I got the right fallout feeling. Additionally, there is no straight way through the vault, you have many locked dead-ends, where you have to go back, after you managed the lock ...

I think this is one of the dungeons the OP wants to see.

Wrong again.

I finished a full playthrough of FO2 about two weeks before NV came out, just to get back in the Fallout mood. Loved it as much as ever.

You're assuming that I hated FO3. I didn't. I didn't like it enough to actually complete the game, mind you, but I did play it and partially enjoyed it. It's not a spectacular game, but not many games are. It's not bad, either. I posted somewhere else (I think in Fallout Series discussion) where I described the game as "solid." Just not to my tastes at all- I couldn't bring myself to keep playing it after I aborted my first playthrough.

New Vegas, on the other hand, I played almost nonstop from the day after release until I finished (about 50 hours for the first playthrough and I missed a massive chunk of the game's content.)

You say NV is FO3 with a new paintjob... uh, no. Same engine, yeah. Same combat, lots of the same flaws. But fundamentally different this time, and I know that because I liked it.

Why do people keep saying this? I read someone on another thread say "Fallout 3 felt too much like a theme park." Erm, IT'S A GAME! It's supposed to be fun, not a like real life. It's SUPPOSED to be a theme park.

NV forces you to fast travel (which I normally never do in Beth games), because there's bugger all to see if you don't. I walked all the way from Freeside to Novac and my only encounters on the way were with a couple of mole rats and an ant. Oh, and I discovered a map marker, which was a camp site with absolutely nothing of interest there. Unless you count empty tin cans as interesting.

I'm afraid to explore in NV anyway, because every time I go off the beaten path I break a quests. I've got a several quest objects in my inventory that I've no idea what to do with, I keep meeting NPCs and getting dialogue options to ask about people I've never heard of, and other dialogue referring to quests I haven't started.

Lol indeed, i'm a big fan of realism but that argument about it is, no offence, [censored]. You can easilly keep realism and the desert-like feeling while adding tons of more content.
As for the lore its been around 300 freakin years since our time so draw your own conclusions.

Personally i'll wait until at least a couple of gaming changing mods come out and add a lot of content. Hope modders can make it less linear.

Yes. =)

Basically, I'm saying I have an extremely difficult time believing that people thought many of the "dungeons" in FO3 such as the Robco Factory, Dunwich, Oasis, so forth and so on were horrible and boring but find the more linear, quest-driven system in NV fun and exciting, especially when many quests are anything but. If you look at many of the quests in NV they can be summed up as simple fetch quests-- there is really no reason or initiative to do them and they don't even really add anything to the story. When people sincerely attempt to make such an argument with me the only way I can rationalize it is if they're looking at NV with rose-tinted glasses because Obsidian made NV or they simply hate FO3 because of what it is (in which case, nothing will change their mind).

(Going to edit this in quick...) To be fair, I did think many of those quests were pointless and I'd be lying if I said I'd miss it if they were removed, which is why I made the point about the lack of "dungeons" in NV, because people obviously did notice that (including myself). However, I don't think quests like "Booted" or whatever are holding NV back or anything and only even made the sarcastic rebuttal I did in the way I did because so many people seem to think NV couldn't have had more quests and explorable areas / dungeon crawls. If you read a lot of the posts people have been making, everyone makes it seem like it has to be one or the other, in which case, I'd happily trade a lot of the fetch quests for cool areas to explore.

Furthermore, by cool areas to explore, I don't mean subway tunnels (as I've said like 10 times now).



There's nothing wrong with what I said. I said a comparison can't be made between the old Fallout games and the new ones other than in what they're called. Let's put this whole mess BACK into context since people seem to have short attention spans. I originally responded to this...



My response to this is I loved the dungeon crawls in FO3 and that it wasn't wise to speak for fans since I also consider myself a fan of the old games. That nostalgia was a powerful force in this case because the original Fallout games were by no means perfect either and in such a case you could even make a comparison between two totally different games (engine, development team, perspective, gameplay, etc.) I still considered FO3 superior as a game.

This is largely my opinion, I admit that, but when people start speaking for me and speaking what my opinion should be, that doesn't sit well either. Then you posted this (in your own words) RAGING drivel of a post...



Countered by this, since you missed the point...



And this...



Do you understand? As far as my comment about going back and playing the old Fallout games, well I don't even have to write an answer for that one because I described it immediately in the second paragraph...



I'm not saying you can't like both at all. I flat-out say I like Half-Life 2 more than Doom 2 but I still love Doom 2. What I'm basically saying is if you strip out the story and lore from the old Fallout games and judge them purely on the basis of being a game as opposed to something like FO3 or NV, I'd have a very, very difficult time believing people find the old Fallout games more fun, compelling and immersive at this point in time. Some people probably DO like the old Fallout games more-- I'm not saying I absolutely refuse to believe it's even possible, merely I'd have a hard time believing it. If you were to argue with me that you honestly feel that way I'd argue you're either letting nostalgia really ruin the experience FO3 provided and not judging it fairly from the start OR you really hate the entire style of the game... but that can't be the case if you really love NV, which is one-thousand times more like FO3 than it's like the old Fallout games.

I never disagreed once that FO3 had too many subway tunnels. I definitely hated the subway crawls and how you were forced to use them to travel around the D.C. area, but I never once felt like it entirely ruined the game to such extents that NV is clearly ten times better than FO3 merely based on the fact it doesn't have them.

Can we stop this whole quote war please? It's ruining the thread.

Vault 34 is a great dungeon! My point is that there are far more dungeons like it in Fallout 3 and the 2 Elder Scrolls games that Fallout 3 and New Vegas stand on the shoulders of.

I want the whole package, but if you give me a choice between Fallout New Vegas and a DLC pack of 50 vaults to explore without the rest of the game, I'm taking the vaults.

I apologize and yes, I'm done.

I largely agree with you and feel NV could have more worthwhile areas to explore. The part I liked most about FO3 is how it had you going all over the place, scavenging through ruins while unfolding various stories and you could take or leave any of it as you please. It actually felt like a world and seldom did I feel attached to quests that felt like they required my immediate attention. It's still somewhat there in NV but a good chunk of it is watered-down and token feeling.

Sig-ma, you're entitled to your opinion, but your experience with FO3 and FO:NV differs from mine. I'll try to explain why. Because it delves into the storyline, I've put it in a giant spoiler.

I don't really want to pit the games against each other or get into a who knows more about games arguement. My hope is that someone who worked on the game and will work on future games reads this and thinks to him/herself,

"Hey, they really like what we did with the NV storyline by giving the player more choice, but they also miss the massive amount of huge dynamic dungeons. Maybe with this next game we'll include both elements."

It is because when I loot some random house there usually only is something random in there.
There can be a box of ammo lying on a desk or something but I rarely find tons of ammo boxes scattered around like it was a super-sale on them.
And at places where I do meet raiders in New Vegas I do find loot in their camps.



1. Nope.

2. I actually like quests which are of no major importance.
Not every quest has to be an epic adventure.
I don't hate exploration, I just want it to be more than dungeon crawling power level over 9000.
And why I disliked the place in FO3 was because it was always populated by the same damn things.
There were few places I actually liked, like Yao Guai Den, Oldney or even that raider place to the west of Jury Street Metro Station.
And why I liked them is because they were reasonable and I could understand why the organic lifeforms that were living there actually lived there.
But it got boring when almost every building had super mutants or raiders in them.
So no, I see no reason for about 80% of the location in FO3 except for them being dungeons with lots of exp and loot.



1. Rose tinted glasses?
2. I like slower paced games.
3. The game's name is Fallout, don't care if they're different genres in gameplay I'm still going to compare them.


"Bombs were dropped yesterday-feel" Super Duper Mart.


Underground river flowing underneath the place dragging along a lot of radiated water from a different area, maybe there is a crack in this underwater river and some of it's water has surffaced but not enough to break through all together.


Why do you insist that I don't?
And it's a fallout game, if the first game was on a nintendo I would still compare them.
In level design, art design and general game design.


Don't put words in my mouth, I want way more simple quests than we already have, and that is not to go against you but because people in the wastes also have lesser things that need to be dealt with.
And I'd be fine with having it back to the old games style with town/city nodes with quests in them and just drop the exploration aspect all together.
I don't hate exploration but it's not what makes Fallout Fallout for me.


Different isn't always better.
A lot of fans showed that with FO3.
I gave it a shot and I have a love/hate relationship with it.
I had a lot of fun playing it but I hate it at the same time for being a crap fallout game.
So honestly, FO3 should be treated like Tactics, it's major events are canon while the rest should just be brushed under a rug and stomped to pieces. (imo. :angel:)

New Vegas is nice because it is able to fit SUBSTANTIALLY more enemies out in the open, making for more dangerous locations in the game world and not having to resort to a million and one "dungeons". Deathclaw Quarry, Lakelurk Lagoon, etc.