Funny thing is you were supposed to (Look in the Geck and you'll find quest and audio files relating to this) but such a feature was cut due to time constraints.

an ending slide show should be an option when starting the game. when selected the game will allow only a few quest lines outside the main one. this will allow for a shorter game play but with closure. gamers will know in advance that it will be shorter game play. i sort of did this with FO:NV. i took logan's loophole or whatever it is called. when i reached level 30, i went for an ending. don't have to do everything each outing.

why a main quest? i consider such just to be a major quest. perhaps the most important one. or our alto ego spends so much time questing and exploring that he or she no longer has want it takes to save the world. so trains a son or daughter or dog to save the world.

Wait. I thought that ending slideshows were a Fallout staple?

@ Barrelfall They are a fallout staple and have been in Fallout 1, Fallout 2, Fallout Tactics, Fallout 3, New Vegas with the only exception from memory being the Burned Game.

Creating all the consequences to our actions would be a giant, heavy boulder of work.

Unless they decide to do it Skyrim's main quest style.

Or, Broken Steel...

TES main quests have changes afterwards - it's just what you see in-game is immediate.

For example, after Morrowind's MQ, the Blight is gone from Red Mountain, people comment on the death of Dagoth Ur...etc. However, only a few years later, the MQ's events actually destroy a lot of the setting.

I would definitely like the game to be playable after the game ends and I would love for the changes you have made to affect the game after the slides. I've always hated how fallout and elder scrolls just ended after the credits and I'm glad skyrim broke free from that. I hope fallout 4 does the same

Yeah.. it's really fun to have an unfinished story, knowing that I might potentially be locked out of an area or forced to avoid a certain npc because the looming finish is just around the corner to trap me.

People whining about how you can just load a previous save and how it makes no sense why people dont like to do that. There's your reason.

Changes to the world not required. It's way more work than there needs to be, and as many said, most things you do wouldn't be noticed for a while after. If you finish the game and it cuts you off you dont see those choices reflected either.

To those complaining about it not making sense to not just want to load a save before the last quest, I say it makes no sense to care if thats how it works.

If it mattered to you NOT physically seeing any changes exploring after the story, then you could just.. idk. Not finish the game? That sounds stupid though right?

Not allow to continue game after ending, but allow us to have new game plus which transfer all rewards, caps and items in inventory, level, perk and SPECIAL but not reputation and karma. So that I can play as evil scavenger in first round and saint savior in second round.

Everyone's talking like they only play once.

From Morrowind to Oblivion to Fallout 3 to New Vegas to Skyrim, my experience has been to play the main quest with my first character with just a bit of running around on the side. The two Fallouts are by far the most satisfying because they had real endings (until Broken Steel). The three ES games just tapered away in diminished returns.

All the big exploration and sidequests I do with later characters.

I've found in my own experience that both Bethesda-published Fallouts have a sweet spot in the main quest where you can disengage and do the whole exploration thing. In F3 it's right after Dad dies and the Enclave sets up camp; in NV it's after you get the Platinum Chip and before you visit Caesar. You can explore to your heart's content.

I hope F4 has an ending but I hope there's a similar point where we can jump off the rails without it seeming too weird.

no we are not talking like we've only played once. My thing is if I wanted to start over I would just start a new game on one of my other accounts or start a new save and try not to override my other saves. If they allow us to play after we beaten the game and have the choices we made affect the game after its been beaten wouldn't that make multiple play throughs with different choices feel more unique and fun?? Because then you can compare and contrast the outcomes and experience their affects separately. That too me sounds like it would get more people to have more than one play through because it would make us curious and interested in the other outcomes and affects. I've too often felt like why am I doing another play through when im just going to be greeted by some slides? No matter what choices I make the only thing it will change are the slides and not the game I would still be greeted with sorry thanks for playing but you can't continue playing.

I think we might have to wait a few years (for technology to improve) for changes of great magnitude (like those in Fallout) to be reflected in a big sandbox game, though.

I'm not trying to be unsympathetic - I can only go by my personal experience. For me, the wandering through a setting that doesn't reflect my prior efforts isn't all that much fun. I had F3 and NV characters who'd been everywhere and done everything and leveled to ridiculous power levels before finishing the main quest and that was far more satisfying.

By the way - I'm not at all bothered if the game doesn't have a definitive ending or a play after the end option, but I'll still retire my first character once I reach that point unless it looks like my efforts will show in the after-end world.

I wouldn't object to that. I wouldn't use it, but it's not affecting the core experience like an unending would.

I'm not a fan of replay mode in RPG style games.

There are so many variables to keep track of and inevitably, once I've chosen a specific path, I'll repeat it on a second playthrough.
If I encounter something truly interesting, I save before it happens and just reload the savegame so I can do it whenever I want.

I wouldn't mind seeing a continuation of the game reflecting my choices, but at a basic level, I just want to go exploring.
And inevitabitlity, there will be interesting player mods added, so I'd prefer to load my savegame and play with the new mods after endgame.

If there are DLCs added, that will also be something to do after endgame.

Since a newgame+ or a savegame just before endgame lockdown won't satisfy me, I'm going to say no to those suggestions.

Mmm lets see. I'll do a legion one.
Every ncr base and outpost will be empty, littered with bodies of ncr soldiers. Novac will be empty with everyone dead. The strip and free side will mostly be empty and the Kings will be no more and at least one casino will be filled with dead bodies along with the strip itself being full of dead civilians and the base there as well. Mormon fort will be razed to the ground or at least empty. Primm will either be filled with dead bodies or be filled with legion soldiers and its inhabitants. The boomers will be flying around. The khans area will be totally empty. The dam will be filled with legion soldiers. Houses robots will be gone. Lots of reg npcs since they came from or are friendly with ncr will either be dead or be in slave atire.

That is a lot of empty spaces and changes to npcs equipment and schedules. Tbh I believe it was a very smart move they didn't let u continue on.

I thought it was fine. Especially in New Vegas, when the game gave you a glaring warning about what you were in for when you started The Battle For Hoover Damn. I voted for indifference on the poll though.

All I know, is that at some point, I'd better be listening to Ron Perlman do what he does best to some artwork slides.

From the NCR side (the one I chose):

Caesar's Fort was razed to the ground and Casear's lifeless body was tossed to the ground in front of his throne after I "cured" his cancer with extreme measures.
Every Legion outpost was reduced to a few handful of scavengers who are annihilated everytime they quibble with the Courier over the scraps of their once mighty empire.

Helios Array was rebooted properly and used to distribute power to all of the Nevada area within range.
The Boomers showed the Legion why you don't try to zergrush someone who has friends with a functional bomber.
The Kings are ruling Freeside once more.
The Brotherhood of Steel allied themselves with the NCR and secured the 86 highway for their collective use.
The Great Khans did the same.
Mr House's Securitron army is on standby mode, awaiting anyone foolish enough to challenge the Courier and the NCR.

Sounds like the NCR version has the happier ending.

As regards the no population, I used a mod that allows random encounters to happen, so the enemies and allies you have chosen will reappear now and then, so the game is not deserted.

And don't forget, Fallout 4 has the settlement building side project.
What if you don't finish that by endgame?
It is going to be a case of sorry, you didn't finish your settlement, start again next time from scratch?

I was talking about Skyrim, not any other TES game,

Only played the last one, so...sorry

It'll be intriguing to see Ron Perelman's role in Fallout 4, surely he's been tasked with more than a trailer to voice act?

I actually enjoyed Broken Steel, not so much for its own sake, but because it let me continue playing in D.C. after I had "finished" the main game. While I do enjoy a good story with a good ending, this is a sandbox style RPG and I don't consider this one story to be my character's ~only~ story. It may be an important story in her life, but not the only one.

Frankly, I'm more than a little tired of the Chosen One stories where we drastically alter the landscape of the universe with our actions. If you boil it down, "all" that Fallout-3's main story involved really was you finding a way to get Dad's Purifier to work so you could generate clean water. That's a big change, sure, and Broken Steel showed the results of that change, but then you can go on living your (virtual) life, exploring the world, doing other good deeds for other people. Since the "only" point of Fallout 3's main story was the clean-water thing, it was easy enough for them to put Aqua Pura water containers everywhere and alter the Jefferson Memorial and throw in a few quests related to it, and then our impact IS seen, and yet the vast majority of the world is unchanged.

As it should be --- just providing clean water isn't going to make the raiders go away or kill off the supermutants or reconstruct destroyed pre-War towns... there's still plenty to do.

The problem I have with just loading a save-game right before the ending is that thereafter, no matter what you're doing, that main quest is LOOMING. In the back of my mind, I would always be thinking, "Here I am, planting seeds for a settlement garden, and then going to clear out a Super Mart for medical supplies, while this world-changing task needs to be done ~immediately~...."

Heh. Maybe I've just been playing Save The World games like this for too long, but unless there's an actual timer counting down on the screen, I generally have no trouble http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TakeYourTime.

(probably helps that I'm not a "serious" RPer or immersion-dude. It's a game, I know it's a game, I'm ok with that. )

I'd expect introduction and conclusion narration, bare minimum. Seeing as that's primarily what he was hired for in Fallout 3 and New Vegas. If they did a bit extra with him, I'd be more than pleased.

Could you imagine how awesome the in-game radio would be if they shelled out the cash for Perlman to voice it??

My problem with Fallout 3's ending was not that there was an ending, but that it made no sense since I always had a companion who could safely imput the numbers......my Protagonist literally had to die, no matter their character or beliefs, they had to be involved in a big sacrifice moment for the good of the Capital Wasteland.

I therefore welcomed Broken Steel correcting that error.

I can understand that. It's a good argument.

But I like Beth's sandbox games because time has no meaning. The only urgency is what you bring to it. It's sort of refreshing and funny sometimes - how long did that kid stand in that little shelter in Them? I left him in there for months or years sometimes.

I laughed out loud (actually, in real life) when the speech option for Fawkes to do it came up. It was like a big wave of common logic came and washed away the BS.