First off, that would be husband, since I play as a woman. 2nd, the problem I have with him isn't that I don't know him enough to care, it's that he exists at all. 3rd, I *am* ignoring all that stuff, but it'd be better if I didn't have to.

No, I'm suppose to decide who my character is, if *I* don't care *my* character shouldn't care either. And if I don't care about the baby then obviously my character doesn't like babies, so she shouldn't have one. But the game says she does, which contradicts my character, which is bad design. If I wanted to play as pre-defined character I'd play the Witcher, or an action game.

I was really really moved by my family being destroyed.

And [censored] off they killed my wife in the first 10 minutes.

I *WANTED* to roleplay a married man in search of his wife and child.

Fallout characters aren't blank slates. The Courier was the closest one.

This isn't the Edler Scrolls.

Or, to quote the Spoony One, "Listen, do you want to play the game or not? This is the story I'm setting out for you. Go with it or not."

I meant all of the Fallouts. Why should I care about the people in those games just because it expects me to? Neitherof themsucceeded in doing so and only one faction (House) managed to catch my interest in NV. All of the games have generic and poorly written motives with arguably bland characters so why should it only be Bethesda's attempts that catch flak?

In FO3 none of my character's personality traits were decided in advance, I'm not asking for no backstory at all, I'm asking for a backstory that doesn't decide things about my character as a person. The closest to a defined thing was looking for your dad, but it still lets you decide *why* the LW is going after him, it doesn't blatantly declare "because you love him and want to be a united family again".

Because Fallout 1 and 2 were made 15+ years ago, in times, when movies like Independance Day were made, cheesiness was the thing, and plots for games were written by programmers. And now it's been almost two decades and game industry have evolved, other developers managed to hire writers that were able to create interesting plots on a level of successful big budget movies, yet Bethesda managed to stay on the same level for 15 years. The sole fact that you are comparing Bethesda from now, with Bethesda from few years back, with Black Isle Studios from the 90s and it is on the same level, shows what I mean. Is it wierd that I expect a multi billion dollar company to keep up with todays standards? Is it wierd that I except writers that earn big money, to at least stick to the basic story writing principles and make something better, than what a garage indie programmer would do?

It's not rocket science, you can make a sandbox game with a choice to do anything and feel anything and still make a decent story.

The engine is the same, only improved. Game models are low poly, many of them reused from old games. They didn't use motion tracking, animations still look like Morrowind. If everything was reused for minimum cost and effort, you would expect to move at least some of those resources on story telling, right?

I hope modders will turn it around, and I really hope that next game in franchise won't be needing fixing.

There are plenty of successful big budget movies with really [censored] stories, just saying

It's disingenious as hell to complain that Bethesda did something thet EVERY Fallout is guilty of. Makes it extremely hard to sympathize or take you serious.

Yes, because it is so wrong that I complain about story in a game, in which story is an important aspect. Stupid me. Guess I should just shut up, because previous games were bad in this department, so Bethesda should just keep the tradition going.

Well maybe I'm just a big softy, or maybe it's just because I have a young child of my own, but I'm finding it very easy to relate to the Sole Survivor in this situation. If my daughter was taken and wife killed I'd damn sure be hunting them to the ends of the earth. I didn't need much exposition about the family or be connected to Nora or Shaun personally; I can find those emotions within myself by placing myself in that situation and replacing Nora and Shaun with my own wife and child.

Yeah, the whole, "I hate loving someone and having a family!" thing is weird from fandom. I get it but it's not something I'm against.

I was immersed in the Survivor's grief over his wife (because I was hoping the wife would be someone we're tracking down and spent an hour making her).

And it was a gut punch when Shaun was found.

I spent 2 hours making 2 perfect people, so I was very attached to my character's family

Not sure why exactly other people hate it, maybe just on principle because they didn't choose it (which is a reason I also share). Personally it's because I'm an aromantic child hater with very selective empathy. If I can't relate to something I give zero [censored]s about it, or a negative amount of [censored]s even.

Yeah, for me despite the fact I don't have children, I am a big lover of children so I was making my Sole Survivor psychotically engrossed in getting his son back.

I do think the complaints might have been lesser, though if the game had gone with it being the Sole Survivor's sibling who was killed along with their child being kidnapped.

Then you could make whatever character you want as you're trying to get back your nephew.

The main story is good. It's on par if not better than all of the previous Fallout's (significantly better than Fo3, for sure). There are some glaring problems, though. Largely, it has to do with the beginning and the overall pacing.

They pushed for sentimentality with the family, but the game opens up and there's no nagging urgency to find your son, even though you're supposed to be the concerned husband/wife. There's some serious dissonance between what is established and what you end up ultimately doing. Witcher 3 made people care for Ciri not because Geralt cared, but because there was expositional segments told through gameplay to establish Ciri as a character, and then there was an entire act of the game spent helping Ciri as Geralt (further establishing a father/daughter motif).

It's funny, Geralt seemed more like a father to Ciri (who isn't even of his blood) vs the Sole Survivor and his relationship to Shaun. Both games started off in roughly the same way: go find X person. It's just that one built up the relationship better than the other.

I feel like the pre-war segment should have been a longer, more in depth view in the sole survivor's life. It would have been a good opportunity to establish the circumstances of Nora/Nate's relationship, and how they ultimately met and had Shaun. Key talking points would ultimately establish whether the SS was a loving husband and father, or an abusive [censored] that was forced into a shotgun marriage.

Furthermore, the decision to axe the NPC spouse (that early) was the wrong thing to do. I saw another opportunity to more or less iron out the relationship between Nate/Nora. How would the two cope with the loss of Shaun? They could work together (either a companion or not - doesn't matter) to find Shaun or go their separate ways (with the NPC spouse appearing at key points of the game). A lot of this early relationship building could have been established based on how your character treated the spouse and the baby in the beginning.