So I finally just finished my first playthrough of Fallout: New Vegas (I didn't really start until just before the beginning of the month), and so far I'm in the "it's a good game but doesn't match up to Fallout 3" camp. Here's at least one reason why....

I should first state that one thing I really like about RPGs is deciding on some basic personality traits of my character early on, and then trying to stick to those throughout the game. So if that doesn't appeal to you, you probably won't find my ramblings very interesting.

For my first shot at NV, I played a female Courier and decided that she would be a person with strong ethics, who prefers to settle things with wits rather than guns, but somewhat skeptical of authority figures and not likely to rush into combat unless she or some other innocent bystander is clearly about to get killed. For example, she generally wouldn't get involved in the Kings vs. Freeside Thugs skirmishes in Freeside, though she might have if it ever looked like one of the Kings was actually about to die, and she programmed the robot to serve as Primm's sheriff rather than bringing in the NCR or the guy at the correctional facility.

Of the various factions, she would have been most drawn to the Followers of the Apocalypse, but didn't run into them until fairly late, and she got drawn into helping the NCR partly because she quickly came to despise the Legion after the initial encounter at Nipton, and the NCR seemed to be the best prospect for keeping the Legion at bay. For quite a while she wasn't all that inclined to go to the Strip or pursue the people who tried to kill her, since it wasn't clear that they were going to come after her again or that they even knew she was alive, so I mostly just did side quests for quite a while, eventually recruiting Veronica and trying to help her resolve her issues with the Brotherhood.


When I got to to the Strip and started to unlock the various possible lines for the main quest, I found that I couldn't really keep playing the character the way I'd envisioned. In a nutshell, there were too many situations where I felt like this character would have simply said, "Screw it, I've had enough of these stupid battles." For example, when she first met with Mr. House, I thought her attitude really would have been, "That chip almost got me killed once already. I'm not chasing it, and as for my contract - here, take your caps back if it's that important." While she was motivated to keep the Legion from taking over, she wasn't particularly inclined to anoint either the NCR or Mr. House, and given her anti-authority disposition, taking over the Strip herself wasn't an appealing prospect either.

So you can probably see where I'm going with this. Eventually, the game forces you to go down one of these paths, unless you just choose not to finish the game and wander around the wasteland instead. The character I was playing, IMO, would not have been willing to kill Mr. House (or expose him to enough germs to kill him later, or whatever) just to get him out of the way of the NCR, and would have taken an immediate dislike to Colonel Moore. But from browsing fallout.wikia.com, it looked like working for Mr. House would require you to be even more ruthless, so I decided to follow the NCR path for better or worse. (Even then, I was left perplexed as to why, in the ending sequence, the NCR supposedly chased the Followers out of Old Mormon Fort, as there didn't seem to be much conflict between the two.)

It may sound odd, given that Fallout 3 actually restricts your path, and your character background, a little more than NV does, but I actually thought FO3 mostly avoided this problem, for a couple of reasons.

First, the Lone Wanderer has a clearer motive for getting involved in all the craziness of the Capital Wasteland. He (I mostly played male LWs) wanted to find his father, of course, and given that the LW is a newcomer to the wasteland, there are a number of reasons for exploring and interacting with the population regardless of the character's stance. An altruistic LW would be shocked at the low quality of life and want to help, a more selfish LW would still need some caps and equipment to get to GNR and thus take on some jobs, a scientific/intellectual LW would be curious about the wasteland and want to explore it, and so on. After the LW's father is killed, again, there are a number of reasons for staying in the thick of things. The LW is presumably a wanted enemy of the Enclave at that point and probably needs the BoS on his side, plus more personal reasons (wanting his father's death to mean something, and again on the altruistic/selfish scale, either stopping the Enclave's oppression or getting revenge against them). So while you may have a little less choice in the overall direction of the story, there are at least some reasons for LWs of different personalities and ethical dispositions to follow this path.

Second, because the LW is a newcomer to the wasteland, he's discovering things at the same that we, the gameplayers, are discovering things. One moment that sticks with me from early in FO3 was, shortly after venturing out of Vault 101, I saw an Enclave Eyebot out in the distance, and my reaction was probably exactly what my character's reaction would have been: "What on earth *is* that thing? Should I approach it and see what happens? Will it try to kill me? Will it report my location to the Enclave?" (I hadn't played any Fallout games before but vaguely knew that the Enclave were bad guys - the one part of this that wasn't both an OOC and IC reaction.) For the most part, the LW had no more idea who any of these people or the various factions were than I, the gameplayer, did, but at the same time, the LW had more of a backstory - he has at least one family member, as well as a community back in Vault 101 that eventually lures him back in "Trouble on the Homefront."

By contrast, where did the Courier come from and what does she know about the various goings-on in New Vegas? Does she have a family somewhere? Has she ever encountered the NCR, Caesar's Legion, the Great Khans, etc. before? Has she even *heard* of any of them? Beats me - I think there's one line of dialogue where you can say you saw someone's act in New Vegas before, but other than that, the Courier seems to be someone with no history and no background who gets dropped into the middle of New Vegas just in time to be shot in the head for unknown reasons. Given that everyone else seems to know something about the NCR and the Legion and about what's happening on the Strip, it seems odd that the Courier doesn't. Selecting some of the more inquisitive dialogue options (which I wanted to do, just to get a better idea of the situation) felt a bit off, as I found myself thinking, "Wait - wouldn't she know this already?"

If the idea was not to make the player character a newcomer to the Mojave Wasteland, because they just didn't want to do another "escape from the vault" setup or whatever, then I wonder if maybe it would have been better to give the player a choice of several different backgrounds. For example, maybe you're already an undercover operative for the NCR or the Legion, or you're a merc (again, with an ethical outlook of your choice) who's used to taking on dangerous assignments, or maybe something more personally valuable to you than the Platinum Chip was stolen and you really do have to get it back. Instead I felt like I was sticking my nose into things even though there wasn't necessarily any reason to do so, and my character still felt like kind of a blank by the end - I certainly didn't come across any sidequests with the personal relevance of "Trouble on the Homefront." (On the positive side, Veronica's sidequests and dialogue nicely developed her character and surpassed the writing of the companions in FO3 - I only ever recruited Fawkes, Cross, and Dogmeat in FO3, but none of them had the same kind of storyline, and from what I've heard, Jericho, Clover, Charon, and RL-3 also do not.)

Anyone else have the same experience playing through FO:NV?

I went into New Vegas with a "Reilly's Rangers" merc type outlook, so I never had any real problem with the choices I had to make in the game. Morally decent, no problem helping people, but expecting to get paid for my work. I also believed the bullet to the brain completely scrambled my memories, so the only thing I remember before waking up in Doc Mitchell's is a checkered suit and a gun shot. Since this is the only thing I remember, my whole goal in life was to find this "Benny", if only to find out what happened and why. This way, my character learned about the world just as I did.

I made my decisions about the factions as they were presented to me. Nipton gave an initial hatred of the Legion, but Mr. House and the NCR were still rather undecided to me. I did a little work for both, but in the end I decided to side with the NCR. They have their darker side to be sure, but I didn't feel right about giving all that power to just one man, no matter how incorruptible he claims to be. Claiming that power for myself also wasn't going to do it for me. I became a courier for a reason. I like to travel and see the world. I didn't want to give that up.

In short, I had just as good of an experience with New Vegas as I did with Fallout 3, but only because I went into it with the right character in mind. Fallout 3 hands the backstory to you, so you don't have to worry about it. Fallout 3 did have a greater sense of wonderment though.

I look forward to experiencing more of the follower's backstories and questlines in another playthrough. I played on hardcoe, so they tended to die a lot if I actually took them anywhere. I'm also gonna go through and check out the other major factions. No matter my choices and moral compass, the bullet amnesia is going to be a constant with every character.

I think you can run into character troubles in NV just like with any other Fallouts. But I think F3 is way worse about it given how rigid the main quest is. Sure, it *may* be in the Lone Wanderer's interest to find dad right after you exit the Vault. But I mean, there is still the problem of, if you don't find your father after a while, you can really grow independent and strong on your own in the wasteland and where does that leave us?
But beyond that, I think the real problem occurs after we find James and how we are forced to help out with Project Purity, how he is plot flagged (along with many other characters) so that he can die in a dramatic fashion, how we're forced to bring the eastern BoS along for the ride and so forth. It's constantly forcing you down a path which I found it immensely hard to justify, even with more "sensible" characters. There was no option to try and interact with Autumn for example, or try and use the Enclave's vast resources (you're telling me these people don't know how to purify water?).

I can see where Beth wanted to go with this, a more dramatic story and all that. But I think it fell flat on its face for a few reasons. 1) Fallouts have never been about that kind of emotional connection. Even the old ones say that, yes, you grow up here and here. But it's never dictated to you what you think about the place, personal relationships aren't developed and "forced" on the player. It was much more about the player being able to tell *his* story throughout the game, how he shapes the wasteland through his actions, and the main quest is more or less just the motivation to "get going" (though I would have to say that I really didn't like the premise of Fallout 2 either). And 2) I really didn't feel Bethesda had even close to the writing chops to pull off the drama of the story in a satisfactory way.

I think the Courier works much better, even though it would really be assumed that he would know of stuff like the NCR beforehand. But that is a small "hurdle" for me to overcome at least. Just the openness of the Courier background makes me think of much more interesting character concepts than what would've been logically possible in F3. Whether it's an aging survivalist, slightly insane cannibal or a young, slick, smooth-talking, money-driven energy weapons user. I never felt characters like that would've been viable in F3 given how "tight" the background and story is wrapped around you.

So I would humbl have to disagree, hehe.

Personally, I liked the fact that when I ported over my "Walks on Water" do-gooder from Fallout 3 and not too long into New Vegas, the water started getting really murky.

It helps grow a character by putting them in situations that they're forced to adapt to, rather then paint the world in a Black and White manner where there is no real deep complexity to the issues. It's for this reason my Do-Gooder is opting for the Independent path. He's done work for all the major factions, and frankly he realizes no matter who is in charge: NCR, Legion, or House, it's the common Men and Women in the Wasteland (and indeed, within the NCR and Legion themselves) that get trampled on for the sake of "progress".

He's not taking power for himself out of selfish ambition, but rather to ensure the people of the Mojave Wasteland have a chance to aspire to their own destiny, not one dictated by the whims and fancies of outside interests.

Yes! This is exactly what I find myself thinking as the second act rears its head, particularly when not going down the NCR route. Neither House nor Caesar make any great effort to convince me of the wisdom of their positions, and I'd have to create a character who was a megalomaniac before I went down the Yes Man route (which I will at some point, but it's not an attractive proposition for any of my "normal" characters). I have no problems up until after I catch up with Benny, at which point I find it really difficult to maintain any sensible motivation beyond "well I haven't seen that ending yet".

I actually agree that FO3 restricts your path a little more than NV does. I just thought that FO3 did a better job of justifying the restrictions. Even if the Lone Wanderer gets to a point where he no longer *needs* to find dad (because, as you say, he's become self-sufficient in the meantime), he might still want to do so, if nothing else to get some answers about where he really was born, what was the reason for fleeing the Vault, etc. Plus, even if you're concentrating on other things for a while, it's not too hard to end up back on dad's trail if you just end up visiting Galaxy News Radio or Rivet City in the course of exploring or doing sidequests. As for what happens after James' death, I think it makes some sense that the LW and the BoS need each other as allies at that point, assuming that the LW simply won't trust the Enclave after the initial confrontation at the purifier.

I guess if FO3 had been structured in a manner more similar to New Vegas, there would have been some more dramatic detours from that path available, like siding with the Enclave over the BoS, or a greater role for the Outcasts, or working with groups from Rivet City or Megaton to establish "native" control over the purifier. And I'm not saying that those sorts of options wouldn't have been a positive addition to FO3, just that that I don't have a big problem with their not being included.

With NV, I felt like my character was being asked to take sides in what was arguably an even larger-scale conflict than the BoS/Enclave battle in FO3, but with less of a clear reason to do so. The NCR doesn't offer a particularly inspiring rationale for their actions (which is something that the Brotherhood and the Project Purity folks did do in FO3), so while a more altruistic/heroic Courier would side with them against the Legion, it's still a big leap to go from there to acting as a sort of black ops specialist for Col. Moore. Mr. House is enigmatic to the extreme and won't tell you much about what he wants or why. And even if the Courier buys into Caesar's ideology, is that enough of a reason to go to war against the NCR?

Now obviously, if you were actually given the option to just say, "Screw it, I'm going home," then you'd potentially have a real head-scratcher of a game, at least for players who took that option. I'm just suggesting that *if* you're going to design an RPG where the character is forced to take sides in something this monumental, then perhaps restricting the backstory and motivation a little more might actually be the lesser of two evils.

What happens in New Vegas impacts more than just the Mojave, it also threatens the stability of the NCR and Caesar's Legion which are huge multi-state organizations. In other words, what happens in New Vegas impacts the Courier no matter where he or she goes. If you had the power to influence a major event that will impact your life however it plays out, wouldn't you do whatever you can to ensure that the events play out in your favor? I'd call that a pretty clear reason to take whatever side fits your character's history and philosophy.

i agree that FO3 was better than FONV. in fallout 3 you had a purpose for doing what you did (finding dad and revenge) but in NV there are too many sides and it hard to get an ending you want, for example i want the great khans to rule the wastes but i cannot have that becuase it is between NCR, legion and house. i also think it is silly that we are involved at all in the conflict, we are a package courier for goodness sakes, also there is a lack of development with the character like when we go to the mojave express office and talk to the guy he does not even recognise you or give you any information about you

they could have made the intro a bit better by playing a cutscene of you running from the khans then let you play for a few minutes before being knocked out and the intro we have now plays.