I can totally see your point when it comes to quest design, but in terms of world-building I have to say I feet the absolute opposite; in NV I'm almost literally railroaded by the map design, which is essentially a big highway with unexplorable canyons/empty, mob-filled desert on either side. I have done so many loops on the highway now it's getting really boring, and I find myself using quick-travel far more than I ever did in 3. It wouldn't be so bad but I know I'm not going to stumble across any random encounters etc. when walking the same stratch of highway for the fiftieth time, just the occasional travelling merchant or angry fiend. Basically, I really dislike the feeling of having to stick to the roads.

On the question of DC feeling like a real place, what I loved was the picture I got of life just before/as the bombs began to fall. New Vegas may have more life in it currently, but to me it doesn't look like it was ever a pre-war city. Sure, there's the Strip, but that's just one street essentially and aside from that Vegas might as well be A.N. Other small town. I mean, irl it's a city of hundreds of thousands if not millions of people, right? In New Vegas, it doesn't feel like it was ever anything other than a town of a few hundred people. It feels like a real place *now*, but it doesn't feel like it was once upon a time one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. Downtown DC, on the other hand, is the perfect picture of a huge, sprawling city utterly eviscerated by the war. All that hulking, empty concrete. I find wandering its streets to be incredibly poignant. I love the emptiness of it, just me and the remnants of man's own folly. I really do think FO3 is a remarkable game as a result, but appreciate that this may not be a view shared by those for whom number of quests etc. is the criteria by which a game is judged. Like I say, for me it's all about the atmosphere.

edit: Kjarista sums up what I'm trying to say:

Actually, I thought that the CW was poorly designed. I mean comon! Its been 200 years since the War! There should be at least SOME farming and a country! The CW still felt like the Great War happened only 7 years ago.

In New Vegas, civilization has developed. Its been over 200 years since the war and it shows. Farms abound and the world is improving.

FO3 felt more like a Post Apacalytic Arcade game. New Vegas is a TRUE Fallout Game.

Anyone who even peeked at The Strip during the pre-release videos realized it wasn't going to be as good as it could have been.

Have to disagree with you there chief. All the gritty this and gritty just doesn't work for me. My main problem with F3 is that all I have usually experienced was another bunch of generic cannon fodders(Talon company for example) so we could have our share of PEWPEWBOOMKABOOMPEW. And that's pretty much all. Randomly placed crap across the Wasteland does not add to atmosphere for me.

EDIT: I should probably say IMO before a firestorm rains on mah head. :flamethrower:

This is true. Now, at the risk of pinning a bullseye on my forehead, I'm going to say that, canon be damned, it's a more interesting and affecting gameworld as a result.

Please you know as well as I do your just spewing your own biased garbage.
Look, arguing with people like you takes all life out of a debate, if your going to try and debate something, please, takes your biases out of it.

"Your opinion really doesn't matter." Yeah that sounds pretty objective to me, lol. In the long run, does anyone's opinion matter?

I don't think it was laziness so much as differing design goals. Fallout 3 presents a world that is entertaining to explore while NV presents a world that is more realistic and cohesive to the intended setting and storyline. It's over 200 years after the war. Most desirable items would have been scavenged long ago, and buildings that were once one thing would have been re-purposed for something else. When I say that Fallout 3 was like a theme park that's no intended to be a negative...it's just different. The world felt like it was created for the enjoyment of a video game player rather than a convincing depiction of what things might actually be like.


I think NV feels just as dark as FO3, personally. NV definitely feels more populated, and that does create a different feel to the world. I don't think it detracts, though, it's just different. FO1 and FO2 felt less populated and more desperate, but this game takes place many years after those. Things would have changed.


I agree that FO3 did this very well, and it's probably something that could have been done better in NV.


Really? I did.


There are other types of satire in NV, but I get what you mean.


Yes. Play Fallout 2 and you'll see where that comes from.

I see where you're coming from overall. There is just so much more depth to the characters and factions in NV that I'm 100% more taken with the world than I was playing Fallout 3. That's not to say that there aren't some things that FO3 did better...it's just that for my taste the things NV brings to the table far outweigh those. Overall NV just feels more genuine...like I was dumped into a real-feeling place with a reason to exist outside of being a playground for the player.

I don't understand what you mean by randomly placed crap.
The only thing i can really think that you would be talking about is the battles going on around the wasteland, which would make sense considering you left Vault 101 in the middle of a war going on on the CW.

It didn't made any sense. Fallout 3 takes place in like what... 200 years after the war? Yet we still have people eating pre-war stuff only.

F1(and F2), which happened much earlier than F3 had people farming and making their own food. Seems like Bethesda writers dropped the ball again.

I see what you mean Softnerd, and I would like to say one more time that I do LOVE New Vegas.
I guess my own tastes differ slightly than yours :foodndrink:

Exactly. But WHY were they at the war? Another issue I had was that the factions in F3 made no sense whatsoever. Or they did, in a "typical fantasy good/evil" sceme.
I am afraid that my lack of english skills is putting some obstacles in my communication, so I'll just quote facehugger here who basicly sums it up.

Compare Fallout 3; It's basically a story about a benevolent army of knights versus an army of evil black knights, along with a bunch of mindless monsters thrown in for no reason. Why does the Enclave want to murder everyone? Lolz, because it's what they did in Fallout 2 of course! Why does Lyons want to protect people? Lolz, because he can! Why do the mutants kill and eat everything they can see? Lolz, because they're hungry!

BTW: So eh, we could make this easier. Does anyone here speak czech?

I don't think your quote is really a canon issue. Just poorly done homework in the "logic" of the setting, whether intentional or not. And more over, I don't see how scrapping the canon will make the game better than not scrapping it. If one does not want to make a game faithful to a certain lore and canon, why would that game in that series even need to be made - why not just give it its own name (The Scrollelders - Beam-O).

From what I've seen in terms of comments about what is better, FO3 or NV; fans of the previous Fallouts (1, 2, and Tactics) like NV more than FO3, while the die-hard Bethesda fans love FO3 more and don't sound like they have either played any previous Fallout or a Bethesda game from before Oblivion/Morrowind.

Not "only." There were Brahmin steaks, iguana bits, etc. in FO:3. To me, it seems plausible (in a video game sense only as there is no way food would last that long IRL). The wasteland is a harsh environment and sometimes the only sustenance one could find would be some fancy lads or some such vittle. Not everyone could carve out their own little chunk to be able to farm.

The thing i would like to see (and its very very easy to make in an patch/add-on content kinda thing) is groups of travelers in the wasteland.
Im not talking about merchant's, but random groups, militaire/refugess's/gangs walking around in the wasteland, doing patrols, or killing people, or just trying to get from A to B without getting killed.

New vegas needs more life!

Like I said, in F1 and F2 they managed to do it. 'Harsh' is not much of an excuse here, since West coast seemed to be the same(in terms of harsh) as the East coast.

Im a diehard Bethesda fan yet I like Fallout New Vegas more. I guess that I am weird.

This is why I say canon be damned. When I'm playing FO3, the war has just happened, it's not 200 years later, and it makes a lot more sense as a result.

edit:


I've played Fallouts 1 and 2. I like 3 more. Though the first game is great, so it's a close-run thing. Shame about the second one though...

It's not about canon, it's about logic.

?!?!??!!? The war happened 200 years ago! So your defending a game saying that it makes sense to destroy cannon just so that FO3 happened right after the war?

Fail argument.

I meant the entirety of the wasteland, not just D.C. And yes I know what you mean. I was just pointing out that there were some "new" food sorces in FO:3. Arguably it may not have been on the scale it would "realistically" be. I was saying that some/many may not have the means to farm their own food. Some would have no choice but to scavenge.

I knew that would get people's backs up. I'm not saying anything about "destroying" canon, merely stating that FO3 makes little sense in the wider context of the series but it's perfectly possible to play it without this prior knowledge and indeed it would seem to be a lot less problematic if you do, as evinced by the rage at Bethesda for getting so much wrong. The guy who said "why call it Fallout at all", though I doubt being serious, is actually right. Take the game on its own merits and you might see what it does well rather than what it doesn't do.

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who loves the hell out of this game. In FO3, I stuck to one character build every time I'd play because everything just didn't seem worthwhile. Now, after having completed the NCR side in around 40 hours (with a focus on Guns), I'm now on my second playthrough with an Energy Weapons/Melee build. There are more energy weapons to choose from, in addition to melee weapons, and its great because when I run low on energy cells/microfusion cells, I just whip out Chopper and switch up my playstyle, and it completely changes how I approach the game.

As a side note, having the Super Slam! perk and a baseball bat is just awesome. nothing like using the special attack to knock a guy into the air, then send him flying back jsut as quick with another special attack.

I haven't bothered reading the whole thread, because the OP stated my view of the game perfectly.

I'm not a die-hard Bethesda fan, having only just 'started' a game of Morrowind (to try it out) before buying Oblivion and enjoying it. Then I got Fallout 3, because a few of my friends loved it.

Honestly, I loved Fallout 3. I must have got all but 100% completion in the main game and DLCs, including discovering every location apart from that vault which is overrun by radiation so you can't actually 'legally' get the map marker highlighted.

BUT, Oblivion and FO3 have both got the same problem: They become bland very quickly. It feels like the creators put all this effort into a huge world - and the worlds do look absolutely brilliant - but when it comes down to the creatures and the people, ie. the things which actually make the game worth playing, they seem to fall short.

In both FO3 and Oblivion it feels like I can count the different types of enemies on one hand, maybe two. I didn't really like the whole levelled environment, where no matter where you go you'll only encounter enemies appropriate to your level. The size of the world and its complexity seemed to contradict this ideal, which is why I just recently put the effort into installing FCOM.

Fallout 3's storyline and interaction seemed to be improved markedly over Oblivion, but I have been unable to get motivated to play it through a second time.

New Vegas, on the other hand, is one of the most immersive games I've ever played. I haven't played the original Fallout games, but I think I now understand why there was so much criticism over Fallout 3 just not being the same.