And isn't a lot of the more subtle social game play in the first two, pretty much attributed to the technical limitations of how the actual games functioned back then?
All I'm saying is... I think people expecting each game to be a linear progression, starting from the first... is just unrealistic. I can understand why diehard fans would want that to happen, so that they can move forward and see the Fallout world rebuild. But I just don't think they're going to do that. Most people are going to play each game based on the merits of that individual game. And that's how they're going to design it and market it.
IMO part of the problem is simply that as the concept progresses into their future, it loses it's charm and atmosphere ~but if it doesn't go forward, it loses it's credibility in all forms. So the only choice I see is to have another war or to end the series. IMO the new war doesn't make sense because they would have to be near their previous position as super-powers to be able to launch such a war ~again, but they are all living in as scavengers and farmers (of nothing); also... such a war again, would probably leave no survivors, as the last one left so few, and so few habitable locations.