For those who are semi weak and have taken a look at a couple of the walkthrough "reviews" there is a bit on settlements

How Settlements Work :

So it is like some of us figured, we will get messages while away from the settlements. I kind of figured it would be like this. Also, side quests to gain favor of occupied settlements so that you can build them up? That's pretty interesting. Looks like we aren't just walking around finding empty plots and building up. With the Local Leader perk this makes sense. Walk into occupied settlement, befriend by doing some side quests and then gain favor so that you can build up the settlement yourself/ live there. I like that. Seems like we are contributing more to the people around the wasteland.

How do people feel about this?

Expectation's met and exceeded.

Quite right, quite right. Really excellent.

Predicted complaints/concerns:

"Can I turn a settlement into a raider camp?"

"I really wish Raiders would stop attacking me."

Agreed. Some seemed to think that it was going to be severly limited. It seems that the person playing was overwhelmed by the amount you could do. That excites me

A+ right there. I can't wait to build up Sanctuary Hills into something truly remarkable.

I really like the preoccupied settlement thing. If something like that were in 3 I'd think it would be like, help out with these things for people around megaton to gain favor, then you earn your home and can build up that, with the local leader perk you can build up other buildings. Seems like a really good way to tie it into the "rebuilding" theme. Also an easy way for some to walk right into an almost prebuilt settlement if they don't feel like putting together all the building themselves

Yep it's going to happen

Pretty much I'll probably build a settlement in my second play through or late in my first.

I'm atleast hoping for some sort of house assignment system.

I'll likely build myself a personal home in each settlement plot available, and it would be a shame to have random NPC's barging into the one I made for myself in order to sit in a chair, or use the bed.

I will probably try to turn Santurary hills into a settlement the first thing I do after I get out of the vault, got to have a home base to start with.

We saw in the E3 footage that we can place a bed. I'd think that we can assign ownership of that bed as well. Since a lot of "owned beds" were in other titles it makes sense to me that we could asign that function. There may even just be something as simple as a tag while in settlement building that is "select player home" or something along those lines

I'm holding out hope there is a home in Diamond City at the start so I won't have to bother with it when I first leave the vault.

Sanctuary Hills was gonna be my first stop as well. I think it's that way for many of us. It seems as good a place as any to get your feet wet with it. After all...that IS where your house is.

Yea I am hoping we can just build a house/base for ourselves and or garage as it seems we can do, then call it good until later in the game, and then work on settlements.

Can I also build a home then start a settlement from scratch around my home? Thats what Im mostly interested in doing so some confirmation would be nice.

Edit: nevermind, skimmed over what you had said. Good to know I can.

Well, since I already know I won't enjoy dealing with "Your settlement is under attack" scenarios as there are bound to be just way too many attacks. I'm glad that I'll be able to build some stuff but not have to worry about dealing with the settlement part until close to end game. I'll probably finish the game and then roleplay that I'm rebuilding the wastes. I'm looking forward to settlements.. just not while I'm doing the other parts of the game. I mean, if I'm in the middle of exploring a very large complex maze like building.. the last thing I'll want to do is have to deal with a raider attack on the other side of the map.

I suspect it'll be like the complaints when Dawnguard came out. "I really wish vampires would stop attacking the cities."

Pretty hyped about this.

I really enjoyed the wasteland defense mod for NV and this seems to be an extension of that mod.

I can see myself sinking many hours into this feature alone. Cant wait to set up some of the defensive measures featured in that preview video.

Hopefully they learned from Dawnguard and Hearthfire and the frequency wont be that high.

Also if you can assign companions to lead and set up defenses that the settlers can actually use then hopefully you can be exploring, get the message and be like, "Meh, they got this."

On a side note it would cool if they failed and your settlement is destroyed you get a quest to hunt down the raiders and kill them all in revenge. Possibly free your companion and a few NPC's from slavery in the process.

I hope the game allows and responds to any clever defenses we put together. Again, digging down would have to be the next step for Bethesda...would enjoy digging in trenches and adding moats/traps, and tunneling.

Sounds pretty good, OP. For a moment I thought it was going to be a frivolous and gimmicky game play addition. By the sound of it, they really put their minds into it. Boy, I can see the modders giving this new game play another layer of complexity.

Agreed. It seemed like it might have been an attention grab for E3 and not lived up to expectations/be extremely limited. Seems like it will be a great addition to the game and one I'll surely put a lot of time into. Modders are gonna have a field day with this