Although I still consider Old World Blues to be the most FUN expansion pack of New Vegas, I think that having a story arc over the expansions really gave the player a reason to come back to the game. Ulysses' presence in the expansions was highly tangible, and bringing the story full circle with him in Lonesome Road really gave a feeling of grave importance, a feeling like the whole story has led up to this point, to something for more PERSONAL than the NCR/Legon conflict.

But who will be the protagonist's "Ulysses" in Fallout 4?

Will it be one of the corrupt masters of Vault-Tec? Someone you meet near the beginning of the game?

Or will it be Shaun?

Who will be our "SHADOW" of the story?

Probably the baby or spouse.

ED-E - transplanted into an android.

I know I was joking about that, but that would seriously be cool to have as a companion lol

The fruit of our loins.

Though just to point out the obvious: Bethesda didn't create Ulysses.

Ulysses was Obsidian's character.

I imagine the plotline's going to revolve around us finding out what happened to our spouse and child.

I know. But I think they must at least be aware of him, and his story.

Ulysses was a massive bore. Yes, you heard me. BORE!

oooh, I have made pronouncements in a deep and portentous voice, but I have said NOTHING of worth, and I can be passed by an easy speech check when you finally come across me and have to listen to me droning on.

What a massive let down.

I found Ulysses kinda disappointing myself but I DID like the idea of a rival being build up throughout the game and all the expansion packs.

^ Pretty much this.

The buildup was flawless. I was expecting something incredible.

What I got was.... decent. But not enough to justify the buildup.

Me.

Please [censored] no. No more inane pseudointellectual musings from anyone.

But actual intellectual musing are welcome.

Ill settle for musings that doesnt contain The five most common logical Fallacies.....

@Fredward- This was the guy who wanted to nuke the Mojave because of something we didn't even know happen following our delivering...something and it was apparently all our fault. I didn't take anything he said seriously. When he prattled on about Ulysses S. Grant and how he was like the pre-War general, I almost started laughing. Yeah, because Grant would say, "I blame you for something that you could not have had any way of knowing, therefore I'm going to obliterate your home!"

I'm fine with not having a arch-rival I know nothing about but am supposed to somehow care about.

Besides, my favorite New Vegas DLC was Dead Money. Elder Elijah had more emotional connection then Ulysses. Ulysses was a psychotic Three Dog ranting on the radio. Elijah strapped a bomb to my neck and made me his monkey.

I mean, if you're into that kinda thing...

I'm clearly one of the only people in the community who doesn't hate Ulysses' character.

I don't hate him. That implies emotional connection. And that's the problem with the Ulysses character - there is no emotional connection.

In the base game he gets a very passing mention in Novac. Beyond that, he's just a guy who keeps turning up in the DLC as another courier. There's implied history, but it all took place after your shot to the head and Ulysses doesn't honestly do anything to me personally as a player. Nuke the Legion and NCR? Heck, my character was backing the NCR and didn't really care - because there's no emotional investment in it. It's a distant, cold thing much like the Divide itself.

Elijah gets his whole character fleshed out in the forms of HELIOS One and Veronica...so by the time you encounter him, you already have some sense of who he is - and then he coerces you and others to go along with his plan. Ulysses...you don't learn anything about him until Lonesome Road.

Honestly, what Lonesome Road did was make me like ED-E. I learned of ED-E's history and backstory...Ulysses was background noise. Irrelevant, meaningless data. All he did was add junk onto my character's history that held no emotional investment.

Ulysses, although there were hints towards his character throughout the game before Lonesome Road, was never intended to be a fully 'fleshed out character' at the point of introduction. You're supposed to wonder who he is and what his goal is, and it isn't necessarily a bad thing that the answers aren't set out on the table in front of you.

Yeah, except I had other things on my mind - figuring out the mystery of the Serria Madre, dealing with the insanity of Big Mountain, trying to get out of Zion as fast as I possibly could and raging about the fact I couldn't take Follows-Chalk with me (Worst. DLC. Ever.), learning more about ED-E's backstory.

The problem with Ulysses is they buried his mystery in the background noise of other, more interesting (generally. *Glares at Honest Hearts*) stories.

The New Vegas Bounties mod, with Marko, Sergio, and others...I had more emotional investment and interest in those characters then Ulysses.

I loved Honest Hearts too. Our interests mix like water and oil.

Indeed. I suppose we'll agree to disagree.

For better or for worse, Ulysses was an Avellone character, unless they're the ones who hired him don't expect another Ulysses.

I honestly hope they don't try to make a Ulysses.

It felt like Miraak from Dragonborn was an attempted Ulysses 2.0, but it fell so utterly flat because Miraak completely lacked the depth and backstory of Ulysses. We had no clue who the guy was, where he'd been, what he'd done etc. They could've named him "Placeholder Foil Antagonist" and it would've felt more fitting.

Love him or hate him, Bethesda doesn't have the writers to pull off a character like Ulysses. If they tried then you can be sure that the final product would be far worse.

Honest Hearts was great, but you had to side with Joshua Graham to get anything out of the main story. The Daniel path felt halfhearted.

Ulysses is a character that requires some thought out writing above the level of a novel made by a group of 5th graders, so I doubt you'll get anything like that from Bethesda.

Unless you mean the idea of solely a character being part of all the stories. Well, that might as well be THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER.