Guess what, Prypyat, the Ukrainian city that was home to the Chernobyl reactor fared well. Think of all the low-priority targets in the world ending up like this and New Vegas would fall in this category. Only 25 years later and the place is more national park, urban graveyard, and scientific curiosity than a wasteland. The Russians and Ukrainians field their slacker soldiers there, along with training their special forces to survive hostile environments. Aside from the smoldering reactor under the dome and pockets of intense radiation, the place is survivable if one knows radiation exposure and its effects. Physical and nuclear scientists enjoy the chance to experiment around it.

Keep in mind that the people who moved to DC ARE rebuilding it; they simply haven't had as much time as the West Coast to do so. Any kind of ordered settlement in DC seems to be a few decades old at the most. DC also doesn't have the aid of G.E.C.K's or Vaults like the West Coast did. However, I imagine that with the Purifier now up and running the Capital Wasteland will improve dramatically in a very short time.

And yes, people moving in would have brought stuff with them, but there's only so much you can carry with a few Brahmin and no form of automated transport. I'd imagine they'd have mostly food and some basic tools and weapons, but that's about it.

A few Brahmin can pull a wagon; People did better hiking it out to the old west in wagon trains, and it was just as dangerous. Anyone with mechanical skills would dismantle material from a few dozen buildings in DC and make a new one as a home base, (if none could be found to reinforce). I do not believe there was as much thought put into the society as the forum posters have already put into debating it. The landscape is fantastic, but the people are paper thin.

Do you recall the gardens in Shady Sands? (FO1)
Or the one in Broken Hills? (FO2)

That is exactly what people did for Megaton, though, and as for Rivet City, there was no need to build anything. There just hasn't been a ton of time to expand them into very large settlements, but they are the two main cities of the Capital Wasteland that everyone goes to. There wouldn't be a ton of large settlements, because why build a new one when you can go to an existing and safe one?

Also, scavving from the DC ruins isn't really a viable option for your everyday settlers due to the massive Super Mutant, Mirelurk, Ghoul and Raider presence in the ruins. It'd be near-suicide. As dangerous as the Old West was, settlers there didn't have to contend with enemies that were more numerous, physically vastly superior, and far better armed. DC's a far more hostile environment than the West ever was-cowboys didn't have to contend with minigun-toting bears.

The West also had abundant natural resources in many places, as opposed to the irradiated wasteland that is DC. If the water you drink can easily kill you, there's a problem.

The water thing is new to FO3 ~kinda silly too.

They have had a century. There are few that personally know what that means, but its a lot of time.

You have scavs carrying nuclear weapons, and armed militia groups. That there would be a HUB style (or bigger) settlement should be a given, but its not. This is why I like exploring in the game far away from any talking NPC, and "encampment". Only then does FO3 really shine as FO1 did.

If DC was hit harder than anywhere else there shouldn't be anything left. There's nothing left of Los Angeles, hence why it's called the Boneyard. If DC was hit harder then it should be in worse shape than L.A., but it's not.



Do you have any sources to back this up? I don't think it was ever said in the game that all of the inhabitants of the Capital Wasteland came from other regions, or from Vaults. Vault 101 is the only Vault to my knowledge that kept its people alive and stable. Besides IIRC Manya says that Megaton was built and founded by her grandfather and a bunch of others shortly after the war who wanted to get into Vault 101, so there had to be survivors in the Capital Wasteland.



On the other hand Megaton has been around since before the original Fallout, and they've done absolutely nothing in all that time.

200 years later, there isn't a whole lot of radiation left. I completely disagree with you and it seems most other people here do

I don't get this, why should New Vegas have to be tied down to this archetype? Besides, you haven't even experienced places like Camp Searchlight (irradiated area filled with NCR ferals) and most of the game which could very well fit under your definition of post-apocalyptic.

According to who?

I liked FO3's vibe. Destroyed, dangerous, mankind LOSING. I fear that FO:NV will not be desperate enough...will be too built up...too civilized, too under control. I hope there will be more FO3-esque settlements in the wastes, because the strip looks too unfallout like for me. We really can't tell until we play, though.

But it isn't under control. The entire game is based around a war and your actions determine which faction will control the area, and you can make it so nobody controls the area. Primm is overrun by convicts until the Courier comes by, All of the citizens of Nipton were either enslaved or crucified by Caesar's Legion. There is no unifying law of the land. If there was... then I would agree, it would not be as fun.

So Fallout games are meant to always look like they took place right after the bombs fell?

I don't mind the really desperate, "losing battle" atmosphere in games. Hell, Metro 2033 has it in *spades*. But I think in terms of F3, it just doesn't make any damn *sense* most of the time. Whether it be civilizations rebuilding in California or humanity fighting a losing battle near DC, it has to feel like there is some sense to make of it all. F3 has a settlement of children only that somehow manages to survive against the threat of Super Mutants. It has stores full of supplies after 200 years, but noone is taking advantage of them. It has a town built around a nuclear bomb which hasn't been disarmed, that is until a random dude walks in that the Sheriff entrusts with tinkering with this very dangerous device. What does most of the settlements even live on?

That said, I'm the greatest fan of the setting as portrayed in Fallout 1 where things were harsh, but people found a way to get by. But everything still felt "fresh" and raw after the bombs. People were making their way. I will miss that the most in the franchise and I think the games are kinda breaking the post-apoc feel in many ways. But at the same time, if you wanna move the series forward chronologically, you have to have it make some sense and not just freeze it in the state it was directly after the war.

Why do we have to have this FO1 vs FO3 argument again?

Not much else to discuss around here.

Post-Apocalyptic "Feel"...
I tried that once with this Raider girl I met at the drive in, she stabbed me in the face. When I asked her if she wanted to try my Iguana-on-a-Stick, things really went down hill.

Live and learn...and get stitches, lots and lots of stitches.

Two cookies for making me chuckle. :cookie: :cookie:

When you go as far into the future as Fallout has gone it starts to become ridiculous when people are still moping around and doing absolutely nothing. There should be heavy reconstruction and new civilizations expanding at this point, it wouldn't make any sense otherwise. New Vegas is a fresh experience in the Fallout world while still remaining post apocalyptic, and I find it highly likely that it retains the classic Fallout themes that ring throughout every entry in the series.

It has been over 200 years cents the war.....so civilliazation is starting to rebuild itself, its only natural. Also, the Mojave Wasteland wasnt hit by the nukes, its been ruined only by radiation.

As it appears the west coast had a few more lucky breaks than the East Coast.

For one, the biggest threat for the settlements there was The Unity and we all know that little problem was swiftly taken care of.
On the east coast there are still raiders, super mutants, mercs, other scumbags that will gladly crush whatever you have just rebuild. Therefor, rebuilding would obviously take a little to a lot more effort on the east coast than the west.

[Heck, even the caravan guarding missions would end up protecting the caravan from either a few marauders or dangerous wild animals.]

Second, It also seemed that a lot more Vaults had acces to a Geck, making it easier to restart communities.
On the east coast, there was only vault 87 that had a Geck, whilst on the west we had at least 3 communities started by the use of the GECK.
[Shady Sands/NCR, Vault City and Arroyo Revisited(as in they restarted that little village after you completed FO2)]

Third, most of the vaults and people there seemed to have opened up and produced reasonably stable persons in comparison to the east coast. Perhaps due to the fact that major settlements like Shady sands were already present in FO1, when the Vaults were still used to actually preserve mankind and not as experiments. (that was thought of and implemented in FO2.)
[Granted, Vault 12 (necropolis) door hadn't closed in FO1 but there it was written off as a malfunction, instead of intention. Vault 13 should be obvious, Vault 15 started shady sands and vault 8 resulted into Vault City. On the east coast we have for starters Vault 106 wich uses drugs to drive people insane, who escaped to the wasteland and are basically raiders now. Same for vault 92, different method but still people went bat[censored] insane. Then we have the gary vault, 107 IIRC, also a post apocalyptic Arkham Asylum, not even talking about Vault 87, probably the biggest reason the east coast was screwed for a long time.]

So let's face it, the west coast settlements and people had a little help to get back on track. The east coast (DC) people had their first lucky break after some guy from a vault started the water purifier. They still have the problem of raiders, Super Mutants and other things trying to kill them, but at least a lot less of the 'normal" population wil stop dying of dehydration and assorted symptoms.

Given that NV is a city that is less damaged by destruction, less affected by radiation, and has more means to sustain itself and/or use better equipment. [It isn't destroyed, and can be powered because of Hoover Dam] So I do not find it strange it has been able to get itself back on track a lot faster.

So it doesn't bother me at all, and I even find it logical, even in an apocalyptic or post apocalyptic setting.

Exactly, its just plain illogical to say that mankind is still in ruins after 200 years, if you like the FO 3 atmosphere better then you probably have a pension for the dramatic.

I'm sure there will be that "feel" in the game, but from what I have seen so far it looks much less like it.

What do you have against WoW players? And I think that there should be more torn clothes, with the occasional burnt-out building. After all fires happen naturally, not to mention there will probably be flamers in game.

You do realize that 1) Vegas was never actually Bombed..and 2) It has been almost 200 years since the last bomb fell right? It is not going to remain gray for ever.

I don't worry about "civilisation" much. It's like the old Judge Dredd comicbook - that was post-apocalyptic, and you had the wasteland complete with people living in tin shacks and mutants. BUT the rest of humanity had built a big city with a big wall around it, and inside the city was all futuristic and space-age. I grew up with that, and didn't once worry that "omg this is after a nuclear war, they should be living in rubble eating molerats". Actually, what does surprise me in Fallout is that, 200 years after a war, there isn't MORE civilisation, more government. I understand the storyline reasons for it not being so, the Enclave, the NCR etc. But finally getting to a place where there is some kind of normality (however dark, seedy and twisted) doesn't bother me.

In the immediate aftermath of a war like that, food and water and medicine would be the priorities. But then would come rebuilding, shelter, power, all the things that existed before the war. and security of those things would be a priority too. Like Rivet City - it only had one guard outside. It should have an army defending it, since it was way too easy for a lone gunwoman to walk in and kill everyone, take everything.

New Vegas is kind of following that pattern, from what I can see. They rebuilt it (after it was looted post-war), put a wall around it, and defend it. Makes perfect sense.

One thing is for sure - if there is war tommorow, and you survive, you won't be living in tin lean-tos, or rubble/trash filled houses. That isn't human nature. You will clean up, rebuild. (someone stop me, taking this FAR too seriously lol)

I don't know, I'll just have to wait and see