Here's my take on things, personally, I think that NV's beginning was totally drab and colorless. It had absotutely no appeal to draw me in whatsoever that fallout 3's did. Aside from the beginning movie where it was panning out from the lucky 38... that was amazing, but the part where you get shot in the head, and the goodsprings area...was unbelievably drab and pointless.

In fallout 3 you come out of your mom's womb... that's frickin amazing, leaving the player going OMG WTF JUST HAPPENED?!?!?!!! and then there's frantic movements, heart troubles, someone's dying and you can even make the baby cry by pressing the action button... amazing. Then, you hear your father's voice distorted as it settles and you find you're in your own room in the vault, surrounded by toys and you hear a soft lullaby tune as your father brings you over to the bible verse, gets down on one knee, and reads it to you. After that, you go about and 8 years pass, you are a child now, and the tutorial continues, notice, how you never really think about it being a tutorial... it just happens, then you get bullied and get your pip boy 3000, after a while, you go to the reactor room where your dad gives you a new BB gun and you learn how to shoot as part of a child/parent bonding moment, a picture gets taken FLASH you are now 16 years old, and you must take the vault job test and the results give you a unique job title every time....your friend gets bullied and you do something about it... flash, you are suddenly awaken in the middle of the night by your friend... the vault is under attack by infestation and everyone's panicking... you gotta get the hell out of there and you barely have time to rub the dust from your eyes... you escape and are blinded by the sunlight as you exit into the wasteland, no supplies or resources, no one to care for you, no life other than the vault and you are thrust into this hellish conditioned world that you were told nightmare stories about all your life.

THAT's how you set up a story, damn... now, it totally killed the mood when it asked you if you wanted to change anything before you left the vault, but it had to do that...if you made a mistake, BUT that's just me being nit picky.

And so will this be...

New Vegas offers NOTHING like that AT ALL. You just wake up with some old weird guy looking after you that you have no relation to and basically you're thrown into goodsprings... of course your head gets examined but what the hell? where did all that character development go? Where did all the setting up the story go? THat's it? A tiny pre game cutscene, and about 5 minutes in some doctor's office and you're thrust into a world with absolutely NO reason as to why you even took the courier job in the first place? No family? No backstory at all?

As a writer, I know there are many ways to begin a story, sometimes, you don't have that fairy tale "once upon a time", sometimes you begin at the end and then go through the rest of the story in flashbacks or something, sometimes you start in the middle of a hecktick workday and then finally find your bearings with the main characters... but this just seems so kindergarten for me.

I gripe a lot about this game, not because I want to see it do bad, but because I believe it can redeem itself and be GOTY material. If only this game had more time to develop, then it would have been great, it's good now, no where near great. It gets the job done, but when you are a videogame company, GOOD ENOUGH or PLAYABLE isn't what you need... you need to distinguish yourself from the rest of the companies vying for customer's money. Fable 2 had the same problem... the main quest was pretty cool, but it was all hype and no delivery, much like this game. Some things are delivered, but elementary, rudamentary things like a well developed backstory for your friggin' PC should have been done and given extra attention to.

Again, this is my opinion on this subject, a lot of people will probably disagree with me over this.


I played this game basically because i'm a fallout fan and wanted to complete it to see if my opinion changed on it, and just give it a full chance, not just play for 5 minutes and sell it back, not because I liked the game's progression. I played it to get the trophies... not because the factions interested me (they are all basically the exact same thing, don't deny it... you do the same crap pretty much, same kinds of objectives, just with a different boss) or the story pulled me in. If anything, this game's beginning was way too loose and should have done more to give me information, VITAL information about the story. Then, make it as "open ended" as you want it to be, sure, let me go do my own thing, but at least build up the story first, don't just give me a 5 minute medical exam then throw me out and have me go about my merry way with little to no information as to what the hell I should be doing (quest markers and objectives don't coun't as vital information givers...).


now, i'll probably get yelled at and people will take snippets of this in order to rework the words and make my post into something it's not, that's fine with me... not a good thing to do, but hey, no skin off my bones, but I just want to voice my opinion about this. Fallout 3 gets a lot of grief from old fallout vets, and while I started with fallout 2 and then got fallout 3, then NV (never played fallout 1). I must say I enjoyed 3 the best because for ME, it was a superior game, it was made superior in my opinion. Everything fell right where it was supposed to. As a story, and as a "open world" game.


now a lot of people disagree with this and call FO3 crap, which, I think they are crazy to do so, but hey, they can form their own opinions


but again, as a writer, I just really don't think they did a great job with the introduction... the ending could have been much more emotional and dramatic I think... you basically just go in by yourself and wipe out everything that breathes... where was the securitron army? the legionary forces? the NCR army? you get 1 dude with you? seriously? in a population of 86 tribes and 700,000 NCR residents, you can't spare more than 1 or 2 guys for the MOST IMPORTANT MISSION in the game? or show battalions of NCR and Legion duke it out as your walking across the dam? I'm not talking about the tiny skirmishes you see as you progress on the dam, i'm talking about... say, in the distance, see explosions and swarms of NCR, Legion, and Securitons fighting in a no holds barred melee beatdown. Maybe it's the engine used?

One more thing... you have the bible verse being repeated to you a few times over the course of the game, your vault upbringing... little things like that that just top off the story and add that cherry on top. Those are things that make a decent story, a great story, and a decent journey, a worthwhile journey...


if i'm wrong, i'm wrong. But honestly, I thought they could have done much more to beef up the story in the beginning, I just found myself going through the motions, not really caring about anyone in the mojave except when I saw the slaves in the fort, even then, they'd say stuff like "how are you doing" or something, and totally kill the mood. Some NPC's were done well, and I give credit for that but there were a lot of mood killers in this game, and a lot of mood wasn't set up, it was basically "use your imagination".


DISCUSS

Holy wall of text Batman!

The thing is that the devs made the Courier have no set history so that the player could make it up. All it takes is a bit of RPing and imagination. IMO, it's much better than Fallout 3 forcing it down your throat that you are some 19 year old kid who has to go find daddy.

Also, I found the ending to be quite epic. I had at least 10 NCR troops, 5 BOS troops, the Remnants, and a crapload of veteran rangers. And the Boomers dropping down bombs.

Well, the ending and beginning aren't the best, but at least you had fun in the middle, right?

And the factions are kind of the same, but run on different methods.

Hopefully the next Fallout game and DLC for New Vegas have good story-lines.

You're supposed to come up with your own - I've played an NCR Zelot and The Bishop Child, amongst others.

It sounds like your big beef, that you come over to time and time again is that the start was too short - I though that it was far too long in FO3. I had to spend forever going through all that crap before I could actually - you know - play the game. And there's no way to short circut it - I already saw all of this tutorial stuff last time, why do I have to go through it all again? I haven't forgotten where the X button is. Thank goodness they fixed that in NV.

I don't like your wtriting style here, you start to bring up other things unrelated to the intro into several of your paragraphs, but they all seem to come back to you saying "I don't like the intro its too short" - I think you would have done a better job making your argument if you cut out at least a 3rd of your post.

(And I through the ending was rather good - the battle of Hoover dam always seemed well populated for the engine)

You're wrong. This isn't a flaw in the game, it's a design choice. In an RPG they either have to give you a solid character to work with who has a defined history (Zelda, Final Fantasy), or allow you to craft a character and determine the history/personality yourself (Arcanum, Oblivion). Obsidian opted to let you define your character, and that's the way I prefer it. If you disagree, that's fine, there are plenty of RPGs out there that do what you're asking for.



It's a desert. Though I didn't really see it that way, there is certainly a lot of decoration if you actually look around.



I liked the introduction to Fallout 3 the first time through, but after that it gets annoying. More annoying is the fact that I'm pigeonholed into playing a character with a very specific backstory... that doesn't even make any sense. Why exactly does my character walk out of the most sheltered place in the wasteland and suddenly have Rambo style combat skill? You said you're a writer, so please tell me how you would deal with this glaring problem.



Nope. And that's what I want, a chance to create my own character within an open world. There isn't much point even having an open world game if you aren't free to be who you want to be within that world.



Again, it isn't a flaw in the writing (which is undeniably better across the board than in Fallout 3), it's a conscious choice made by the development team to give the player the ability to come up with their own character to roleplay.



You're right, a lot of people will. Like me. New Vegas beats Fallout 3 in every significant way. The story and dialogue blow Fallout 3 out of the water, the gameplay is better, the world is far more realistic and there is far more choice allowed the player.



You claim to be a writer, do you put a well written story very high on list of criteria you judge a game on? If so, I can't fathom how you could like Fallout 3 more. The story was just there as an excuse for the world you can explore. The story was a paint by numbers mess with too many plotholes to mention in one thread, the characters were one dimensional cliches, and the main driving force for the plot was chasing the MacGuffin.

*Which annoyed me then and still annoys me now. It felt like I was playing a Seseme Street game, trying to find a parent when lost in the mall.



Fallout 3 isn't crap, it has a ton of great elements. The writing isn't one of those great elements.



Well, the dam isn't built to scale so it would be hard to fit a thousand soldiers on it. That population of 700,000 is primarily in California... since it's the New California Republic and all. Where exactly would this huge battle in the distance be shown? The battle is for the dam, it stands to reason that the action should all be focused there.

Sorry pal, but I don't want a pre-determined character, I have KOTOR for that. I'd rather create my own world. I have a character who was an NCR Trooper before delivery of the chip, then he discovered what it was for and didn't deliver it and was made NCR Ranger.

I had another who was a Brotherhood of Steel Paladin who was delivering the chip to House since the BoS thought it was just a poker chip.

Well, your opinions are of course valid, but what i'm thinking when i'm playing NV, it's like once i'm out of Doc Mitchel's house, I don't really care about playing, I just want to go discover things.. I have no drive to do any of the quests it offers, certainly i'm not put in the mood to go out and do good/bad to the mojave. I go through the motions, but it's like... meh, I guess i'll do this...


With fallout 3 I was amped up and ready to go, I wanted to get into the game as fast as possible and uncover other nuggets as well as get the main quest underway. Some say you get pigeonhole'd but I like that, direct me in a linear way first, but then after the intro, let me go out and be who I am... I don't really mind that at all, but I suppose it might get annoying after a while, however I just thought it was so interesting that I probably didn't anolyze it as much.

The problem I have with NV is that really, it's so boring and uninteresting for me that it's like after I get out of bed and go to the vigor tester, i'm not interested in the intro anymore, i'm just looking for things to loot out of the house now which should not happen, usually i'm very focused on the game's quests and intro/ending I dunno though.

I can see your point though. I guess i'm just thinking that the devs shouldn't rely on our imagination power, and should implement their own introduction rather than have me RP everything, i'm sorry, i'm not going to do that... it seems to be way too reliant on me to come up with a backstory when even the crapiest games i've played have had something of a backstory for their character. Not to say NV is beneath a crappy game... it's not, but I feel a good backstory, presented clearly, is a pretty good way to start of any long winding journey.

I get the impression you'd rather have more of an epic "save the wastes against impending doomlike peril" questline? I rather liked the nuanced approach and the faction focus rather then epic good vs. evil focus. The game felt a lot more "real" to me, less forced, more mature and meaningful. But on the other hand (the exact opposite), I did kind of miss the lack of purpose and meaning behind my background, and maybe would've liked a bit more urgency and epicness to the whole story. But it seems you can't have both pieces of the pie.

Perhaps a compromise would be to have one truly dangerous faction to everyone, and then 3 factions pissing each other off. Though I can't help but get the sense that Caesar's Legion was more of the real bad guy then anyone else, simply by the way the legion was implemented; less quests overall, less people talk to you, share their beliefs and humanity. Complete absence of a pro-legion companion. No actual legion vendors for armor, weapons and the likes. You're never granted legion armor or legion rank. Less minor anti-NCR quests then vice-versa. So all in all, the Legion is more of the "evil" bad guy, because you don't really get the chance to integrate in them as you do with the NCR or the other parties.

/incoherence

Any intro will be boring after you've already seen it a couple times, the intro is just meant to allow you to customize your character's look and attributes.



Why shouldn't they allow their players freedom to play the role they choose in a role-playing game? You keep coming back to this point, but having a backstory for the main character isn't necessarily a good thing. Fallout 3 already had extremely low replay value with the limited choices you could make in while questing, removing the ability to play the character you want only served to further cut down on how long one can be interested in the game.

Further, what do you mean "I'm not going to do that"? You claim to be a writer, but you're unwilling or unable to create a character that makes sense in a game that gives you the freedom to do so?

The problem with making the questline more urgent is that if they did, you'd lose any ability to reasonably decide to stall the main quest and do some exploring. If the main quest feels too critically important you're compelled to continue, if it isn't important enough you don't feel the need to continue at all.. so they have to strike a balance. I think they did a really good job of that.

This topic is being fought over here: http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1141389-who-was-the-courier-that-passed/