So ive seen a couple post and talked to a lot of people, and most of them say that Fo3 has a much better reply value than FO:NV. I would like to propose a theory on why this is.

If you look at fallout 3, it was new, it was big, and it had many choices in almost every quest.
But if you look at Fallout New Vegas its almost as if its an expansion except with a full game price tag. You essentially have a very similar environment, smaller map, and it the choice system that was so good in FO3 has gone down in value. What i mean by this is that in New Vegas you very rarely have to make some big decision that will affect the game in a huge way except when dealing with factions. I have played through the game a couple times and basically it seems like i choose a faction and i just do quest for that faction while either killing/ignoring the rest of the factions. Take the NCR side quest for example. How many of those quest actually require you to make a decision? Very few in my opinion. In Fallout 3 right out of the game you had a choice of blowing up an entire city with a nuclear bomb. I mean that's a very important quest with a very important decision associated with it, and its just a side quest. So far in my play through i have rarely encountered quest that require me to make such a decision or even provoke any feelings with the decision i make.

Examples:

Sure you have to decided to eradicate an entire BoS branch. But seeing as how they stay secluded to one bunker and you really dont interact with them through the entire game till close to the end of the main quest line makes it seem pointless.
Same with the boomers and the rest of those ending faction allies quest. You really dont interact with them unless its in the main story.

This is just a opinion and most importantly a theory, it is subject to change and does not directly represent the Gaming community. Enjoyment level of the game will vary from player to player.

For one this is not a theory, a theory is tested and proven to be correct many times. Therefor your statement is merely an opinion. Besides that, theres a lot of choices you have to make in the game. Since you gave only one from Fallout 3 (that didnt impact the game all that much I don't even think there was an ending slide for either way of it. only thing it changed was your home location and your dad saying "im very disappointed in you.") I shall give you one from new vegas. and thats fairly early on, granted not right away. As for the boomers and bos, I found them without doing the main quest and i did quests for them and stuff, so you dont just interact with them in the main quest.

Interesting. I really feel like I have more choices in NV than I did in FO3...by a wide margin. Blowing up Megaton, sabotaging the purifier, and a few other minor ones were really the only meaningful choices you have in FO3. Not only that, but NV makes a much wider range of character builds viable than FO3. If anything, I see myself playing NV two or three times. I couldn't make it halfway through a second play-through of FO3.

IMO the only thing FO3 had going for it as far as longevity was more random locations to explore, but that was a blessing and a curse to me because I felt FO3 had too many things crammed together as though they were put there just to give you more to explore. NV has fewer random places to explore, but the game world overall makes more sense. :shrug: FO3's world felt like a post-apoc theme park as a result...a sort of a caricature of a real place.

Also, as DrBold mentioned above, most of the choices you are given in FO3 have less of a real impact on the game than the ones given in NV do. To me a choice that doesn't have a real impact on the game isn't a very important choice.

As said before, Fallout 3 had almost no meaningful choices. FNV on the other hand....

I agree with OP. I've tried re-rolling in FNV but..... meh I find myself wanting to play something else rather than do another playthrough.

I must have re-rolled at least 4-5 times in F03.

I'm still on my first game so I can only speak from my limited perspective but...I don't see how it could be true that there's a limited replay value. My first game has been completely with Boone and ED-E and I've planned my second game for Veronica and Rex. Each combination of companion is going to change things up. Also, I haven't done all of the quests or visited all of the map and that's going to change things up. Also, I've made some decisions in my first game that I want to change in the next games and that's going to change things. It just seems to me that there are lots of reasons to say the game is incredibly replayable. There's so much to do in so many different ways. I haven't seen the Main Questline yet so if you're thinking about that part of the story, that's not the reason I'm playing...it's the exploration for me...and playing a different role each time like I do in Oblivion. Just my 2 Septims.

:fallout:

actually a theory doesn't mean it has to be tested and they are not proven correct many times....i think your thinking of hypothesis. If you want to go and test this you can.

New Vegas has wayyyyy more meaningful choices, and they are so much more meaningful, I will find it hard to replay because I like everything I did, and became so attached to the people I helped I can't imagine doing it differently!
Had the same problem with fallout 1 and 2.

EDIT: Also, I felt so satisfied with the ending of New Vegas so another play through felt unneeded.

Actually, you couldn't be more wrong. A theory can be defined as an unproven assumption, amongst other things, but most definitely is not proven many times. If a theory is proven, then it ceases to be a theory.

"in modern science the term "theory", or "scientific theory" is generally understood to refer to a proposed explanation of empirical phenomena, made in a way consistent with the scientific method. Such theories are preferably described in such a way that any scientist in the field is in a position to understand, verify, and challenge (or "falsify") it. In this modern scientific context the distinction between theory and practice corresponds roughly to the distinction between theoretical science and technology or applied science"

from wikipedia
Needs Empirical data to be gathered and anolysed in the scientific method, as I understand this to mean. I guess he could be proposing a theory then? And we are challenging it?

I guess if you enjoy rerolling to explore the same metro 4-5 times (dont get me wrong i liked fallout 3 but i couldnt player through more then twice b4 the DLC) New Vegas seems more compelling to play, the different interactions you can have with a single NPC changes so much of the game even down to how citizens talk in passing. There was nothing like that in Fallout 3. I mean I used the FEV virus on the water purifier the only thing different once you can continue after that is that it poisoned all bottled water being passed around but the only one that effected was my character, i could give a bum 20 bottles of infected water and he would live yet my guy dies after 3? noone in fallout 3 pays any attention to the world. (dont get me started on three-dog, I shot him after our first conversation)

This, I am a biochem major, so I use theory as what is defined here because there is a word already for your definition of theory, Deified, its called an OPINION. or even a thought but what you said Deified is the exact opposite of a theory =)

*sigh* it amazes me that this game is considered the "expansion". If New Vegas was Fallout 3, and Fallout: Capital Wasteland was released after, you'd be peeing yourselves laughing at how much like an expansion it was.

Well like you And many people have said. Fallout 3 was a great game. it gave a whole new experience that few games could. Fallout New Vegas comes out and in many aspects it is the same as F3 with new features. Still it is not fair to call it a DLC or and Expansion. I think the reason the replay value has gone down is many of the players were players of fallout 3 so the concept was no longer as fresh or exciting. Whereas for people whos first fallout game will be New Vegas they will probibly like the game a lot because to them this is their first taste of the Fallout series.

I don't agree one bit that Fallout 3 decisions are more meaningful. There are so many different ways to do almost all of the quests, and the decision lies in there.

lol wut?

-The main quest has four totaly different endings
-A large number of side quests in the game that really do matter in the ending slides.
-Many quests have a mutually exclusive partner. Can't do all the quests in the game with a single character.
-There are so many awesome weapons in the game it's impossible to carry them all at once. Several require the right perk(s) behind them to unlock this awesome.
-Impossible to build a "God of everything" character. The choices you make with SPECIAL and skillpoints matters. No more all 10/100 characters and specialization now has it's rewards.
-So many great perk combos in the game it's impossible to have them all on one character.


To run through all the content in NV you'll need to play at least four characters with more likely. Doing the same thing in FO3 required two characters at the most.

How exactly is this important? It has absolutely no bearing on the rest of the game nor does it make any kind of logical sense. Apropos: http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=2013



I gave up on Fallout 3 after the inanity of the main quest was over and never looked back. With New Vegas I am excited and curious about all of the different ways I can go back and play this game as a different sort of character-build and accomplish different outcomes to quests, not to mention the main quest itself. Fallout 3 had barely any instances of this and those it presented seemed bland and arbitrary.

edit - Whoops! Wrong quote.

I may be totally stupid here, but what's the difference between blowing up Megaton and

I've made multiple choices in NV that have affect my travels in the game far beyond what I ever say in FO3. I do not recall ever having to decide friend or foe for an entire group so many times in FO3. My opinion is that siding with whichever of the major players (NCR or CL) is the equivalent of the one big choice from FO3.

Again, my opinion, not necessarily fact.

I heartily disagree with the OP. The examples you give are about 2 factions that are cut off and therefore "not important" when the reason they're cut off is very much part of the story; the BoS are in hiding so they don;t get wiped out and the Boomers seclude themselves and bomb anything that comes near to protect themselves from the wasteland.

With FO3 (which I still think is awesome btw) the main quest was a lot more linear, with less factions. To be comparable to F:NV you'd have to be able to join the Enclave or something similar.

You can assume it has less replay value if you like, but let's face it, it's been out how long now?? Time will tell, but to be honest most of my replays in FO3 were to replay it all with the DLC, twice would have covered it without them.

Meaning full descisions in FO3? even with the expansions that is a overblown statement.


Getting water to the Wasteland Post FO3 and into Broken steel, you still see guys *thirsting* for water on the side of the road.

Blowing up megaton? Big whoop 2 areas to get food and a shop what a loss. It leaves you with less then a handful of *towns* each with less than 9 people each save Rivet city. You never *see* any meaning ful outcomes to what little decisions you have in the game.

Nothing makes me *want* to Kill the Enclave in Fo3, generally I shoot them because they shoot me, I don't see them razing settlements or making peoples lives hard in FO3, same for BOS regarding helping them.

NV on the other hand I will bring up one Point.

Shooting that rat for the kids to eat. AND THEY SAY THANK YOU? that alone floors all the *descisions* in FO3 knowing that I just fed a couple of kids with a bullet, and it wasnt an option flaunted in my face like so many of FO3's Faux choices.

This.

This just made me all tingly. That was a great moment for me as well, and yes - it speaks volumes on the attention directed toward detail difference.

"and it wasnt an option flaunted in my face like so many of FO3's Faux choices."

Exactly.
New Vegas isn't afraid to let you miss/not see some of their content.
Same with F1 and F2. There are options and ways to do quests in there that you might never run across.
F3 however was terrible. It was like a line of kindergartners who all wanted to show you their piece and how cool it was. Everything decision almost could be "fixed" and the whole time I felt like the developers were saying, "oh don't miss this, see this! and see this! and this! and this!"
Players don't need to be aware of everything. In fact it creates these joyful little moments years later when you revisit something and get a surprise you didn't know about before.

And heck, NPCs that can die! Whoa there is an idea...that should have been there in F3

Keep in mind when comparing this game to Fallout 3, that when Fallout 3 came out it was brand new. Everything was WOW! Vegas (in a comparison race) starts out with the huge disadvantage that it's not new, the engine, models, look and feel ect is all the same as Fallout 3. So I think when judging which game is better you really have to keep that in mind.

But secondly, I can't comprehend this notion that because of the point I just made, that it's only DLC of Fallout 3 with a full game price tag, as you put it. I mean... I'm just stupified. I've been playing this game for hours and hours and hours and I feel I've got hours and hours left to go. You're just basing that on the fact that it just looks like Fallout 3. But it's not, it's a stand alone game, that is very long, has it's own story and quests, does not require Fallout 3 to run. It just uses the same engine and is set in the Fallout world. By that logic would you say Fallout 2 is just a Fallout 1 expansion?

"Thanks Mister!"
"Thanks Mister!"
"Thanks Mister!"

It was a nice moment, yes. but too bad all three kids had the same voice.