My reasonable expectation is that it being better very slightly better than Skyrim and clearly better than FO3, both in story, characters and gameplay. My unrealistic expectation would be them getting some ideas from Obsidian's NV about meaningful factions and quest series.

Seems set to beat out the last 5 games so far. Most of that is due to the new consoles, I think. Even back in 2010 it was painfully obvious that the old consoles couldn't handle it a lot of the time with The Strip in New Vegas being chopped into pieces and patches actually removing NPCs from the game to reduce the load. Now that we've got shiny new consoles that are more in pace with technological development a lot of new things can be done.

My reasonable expectations are...

A good shooter with solid gun selection.

A interesting story that I will end up finding to polarizing, and will choose whatever option lets me keep the giant airship. Because giant airships can't be wrong.

Some interesting locations to explore

And that's it. Anything more will just be a nice bonus.

Now what I want? That is a whole 'nother list.

That's interesting. By your description, now I can understand better those folks who thought the original FO's were better. And now I understand as well why some(like myself)loved NV better than FO3 because NV had more or less those same features. But then again, NV was done by members of the original FO.

And yes, Ultima was groundbreaking in other things. Todd Howard has always spoken about the influence that Ultima had on him.

The only thing that concerns me is the removal of skills.

Yes i know they are being replaced by perk ranks but i assume this was done to dumb down the game to cater it towards more casuals (mind you fallout 3 was already a casual style game). Yet i still have very high faith in the game as its bethesda's game. I haven't played a bad game from bethesda since my first game morrowind. Yes i got annoyed for removal of some things but overall they were all great, oblivion, fallout 3, skyrim, fallout new vegas from obsidian etc.

I liked planning what skills to increase with each level up, finding skill books (without them there is no reason to go to most dungeons which are not related to any quest) and finding lots of bobbleheads. I was fairly annoyed that bethesda removed attributes from skyrim but addition of shouts more then made up for it and it was not as significant as removing of skills all together and just boil them down into perk ranks.

Hmm, I never saw it that way. I mean they were good games, but not really anything new. The story was cool, gameplay worked fine, and the background was interesting, but nothing others before and after had not done better. Baldur's Gate really set the benchmark for RPGs at that time too.

I put Fallout on the same line with Arcanum and Sacred. Intriguing games that I loved to play. Great games too, but not milestones of development. In later years though people came to see all of Fallout's richness concerning lore and love of detail. So the praise came from there.

The real hype started when Bethesda had the rights for Fallout and people were thinking about Morrowind and Fallout 2 merged together. Basically synergizing the best. This really worked out well and helped both franchises.

See my previous post on the subject. I don't know of any RPG that did any of those things before Fallout - if you do please tell.

How about X-Com, Jagged Alliance, all AD&D titles released before 1997, Ultima Series, Wizardry Series, Albion? Timeframe before 1997 literally was packed with mostly RPG's, Strategy Games and Simulations. And all of them had elements and functions imported used in Fallout, prior to the first Fallout title. I remember there was a RPG that achieved exactly the same as Fallout - the 50's element, just can't find the title.

I have to add just one more thing on my expectations list.

It may not be reasonable, but I want,...no, I need there to be heavily modified six robots with 14 inch...attachments.

I was not trying to mock you by the way. Fallout 1 and 2 needs huge fans, they deserve it.

When I think about Fallout 1, which I played two years after release, I saw a lot of mechanics I've seen before, decently ported and adapted. The turn-based combat was similar to that of many games, yet way more intuitive and easier to understand, the character system was complex but borrowed a lot from other RPGs naturally. The one outstanding thing Fallout had though was the lore, but such an immense background could nto fit into people's heads back then. Now, with all the wikis, and general stuff available for everyone this type of thing becomes more important, and does the old Fallouts justice.

This was all off-topic, though.

I wasn't talking about the combat system, or the setting, I was talking about the role playing elements. I don't remember seeing or hearing about any RPGs with fully fleshed out dialogue trees, stats that impact dialogue, and quests that had different solutions depending on your character build prior to Fallout. All of my pre-Fallout RPG experience has been with RPGs that required you to fight your way out of most situations, where dungeon crawling was the emphasis, and at most featured a key word/topic list system serving as the player's dialogue choices where they said a word or phrase, got a response, and moved onto the next one... if the player actually got to have any input during dialogue.

If there are RPGs with those particular elements released prior to Fallout I'd be interested in hearing exactly what they were. This should probably be taken to PMs though, as I think I've derailed this topic enough.

I didn't feel mocked. If I'm wrong about something I prefer to be told.

I hear you. I played the first one but not the second, because the first one really put me off. I bought 3 with my Xbox One because everyone gushing over it and I thought, "Why not give it a chance?". I played it for a little while but it just isn't what I expected. There's nothing really wrong with the game. It's beautiful, the combat is nice, horseback riding is great, etc. but for some reason I wasn't getting into it. You might like it ... a lot of people do.

But back on topic: I plan on going into fallout 4 with a positive attitude. It's more familiar and Bethesda has yet to disappoint me with one of their games.

I'm currently working through installing and testing my collection of around 270 Steam/Origin games on my new laptop (most of them I've never actually played yet) and I can't believe how good some of the more recent titles look. The reason I mention this is because of the screenshots that were leaked, which show Fallout 4 as being utterly gorgeous! And so my reasonable expectation is for me to be constantly blown away by graphical details and unique environmental touches. Eight more days to go, and I literally can't wait!

Gonna play the heck out of it, but I do hope they tweaked two weaknesses of the previous efforts:

-Give me a loot sack or items tags to help sort new loot from what I normally carry around.

It's a major time sink when your normal load-out might be 100+ items mixed into the same pile as the crap you just picked up.

-I hope I don't have to consult wikia with every dialog to avoid losing out on a cool gun or result because I chose the wrong response (that was just as ambiguous as the "correct" answer).

There is usually a "saint" and "evil" dialog path, but the other two amount to discussing the weather. Only one path typically gives that hoped for reward.

Dialog rewards (or penalties) shouldn't feel like a crapshoot.

I expect nothing short of EXCELLENCE from Todd Howard and his team.

Call me a really devoted fan or whatever.

I have COMPLETE FAITH in Todd and his team.

That is all.

I play very few games, but the ones I do play, I play a lot. Fallout 3 has managed to stay in my collection and be played over and over for the last 7 years. I enjoyed NV, but not as much as 3. Yes, the story telling of NV made more logical sense than 3, and was more interesting to me, but 3 was easier to play. I enjoy a challenge, but not to the point of stressing me out. I am not a good gamer by any means, so what many find simple I tend to find fit me just right.

Witcher 3 didn't work for me. I hated the cutscenes. I often play at night after my wife goes to bed, and therefore keep the volume low. With the volume down, having the ability to read the dialog and click through it is an advantage as it saves time and is less obtrusive to my wife's sleep. I am a little hard of hearing, so to hear dialog means I need the TV to be turned up. This worries me about Fallout 4 and the voiced protagonist. I solved part of this by buying a new TV and moving to the basemant to play, but I still hope to be able to sink into the world of Fallout with a strange (not my own) voice coming from my player character. So this part of the game has me reserving judgement, and lowered my expectations a little.

The shooting mechanics. I learned to work around Fallout 3, and they don't bother me much. I am hopeful that 4 has not turned into a twitch reflex FPS as I tend again not to do well with those types of games. I take my time, yet hate turn based combat for the most part. I loved turned based combat in Panzer General on PS2 way back when, even though I svcked at the game, but in general real time combat. Fallout 3 with VATS allowed me to do both, and I loved it for that. I am hopeful 4 will too.

Storywise I think it will be fine, I just hope to God that they don't have a plot twist that makes us an android. I don't need epic novel depth storytelling. Just give me things to do that make sense for what I think my character might do.

While I am a little reserved, and a little nervous it won't live up to what I have built up for 7 years, I am nonetheless giddy with expectation and feel like a little kid again before Christmas. I count the days, tell friends, took time off work, moved a mini fridge next to my gaming chair in the basemant, and will be stocking up on snack food supplies for midnight on the 9th in preparation. Since I am almost positive I will be so engrossed in the game from that point on, I am using the game as a crutch to quit smoking as I hope I will be so engrossed and distracted that I won't even have a chance to think about going outside for a smoke. Just in case I do crack and give in to a smoke, the door to outside is right behind my chair and I can keep playing while I smoking. Hmmm, maybe I should move the chair......

Rich storylines. Exciting side quests. Romance, I love romance. Too bad I can't romance Piper without feeling weird, as that's my daughter's name.