You can have followers, but how about you go in their shoes and become a follower yourself? Think of it as having a tour guide travelling to random places in the wasteland, not just the main quest destination, and you can follow him/her. The guide will be extremely tough so you can rely on him/her for protection (that's the main point of a guide) And in return you get safe passage to that destination and a small share of the loot the guide finds at the destination. For roleplaying purposes especially, would be cool to roleplay a follower.

Sometimes you can for a limited number of times to ask the guide for a rest break, and set up camp for a few hours so you can explore the local area before heading off again.

As long as they run and don't go that annoying NPC speed that is halfway between walking and running.

Sounds pretty lame to me, no thanks

I'm having flashbacks of every horrible escort quest in every video game ever. In other words, no, very much no. What I'd like to see is companions rather than followers--characters like the Julan mod for Morrowind who have their own goals and agendas and don't always just tag along and do what you tell them. Of course, such characters are always likely to be mods because they'd take a lot of focus off of you--and if there's one thing we learned from Skyrim, it's that the entire freaking world cares about every little thing you do.

No, I would not like it.

Well it wouldn't be fun having the entire game world revolving around you right? Takes the immersiveness away from being part of the general population.

I would enjoy it if I could go into some sort of "autowalk" mode where I can have the PC follow the NPC at a certain distance away and at the same pace as the NPC. I want to worry about looking around and moving while fighting, not running forward and falling back so I can stay near the NPC when all we're doing is walking.

This sort of thing has technically been done in the Fallout series before. There were jobs the player character could take up in the older Fallout games as a caravan guard, which are both rewarding in pay and another way to discover locations. Could do something similar.

So let me get this right. You want to take a game about wide open world gameplay and add linearity to it? Are you for real?

Open world simply means multiple linearities. Everyone picks one by playing a certain way.

I dont really see much of a use, the game is suppose to encourage exploration and curiusity, something a npc guide with a set path doesnt really do.

Plus lots of us are already indoctrinated to dislike following npc in games on a basic level, so lots of folks would try him for ten minutes, get bored, fire him and blow his head off.

Lame

In my games I'm god. Not some tag along, lackey, pack mule, cannon fodder, minion, etc.

if i want to see what somebody else shows me, i'll wait for fallout: the movie.

ok nah, i won't, DON'T EVER DO THAT PLEASE :_)

there's ONE thing i like about it though:

the basic idea of playing a game as the stupid sidekick.

like, you're totally NOT dragonborn, peasant.

you're just the dragonborn's waterboy.

go buy arrows, pick deathbell, carry all the heavy sh*, make sure your overconfident master doesn't get his butt roasted and helplessly watch him take all the worst quest choices )

That is a very Jaden Smith way of looking at it.

I always thought it'd be funny to have an entire game set around the player character being the sidekick of the main character. Everything you did still mattered but your goals wouldn't be to advance yourself, it'd be to advance the prowess of the protagonist. You'd basically be Sancho Panza..

I wouldn't mind it if it were more like a quest where you are a caravan guard or something of that nature. Other than that I'm the one doing the leading and getting my butt kicked.

Funnily enough, I read this title and thought for a moment the OP was saying we could actually control another character and ours would be this NPC that'd tag along with us.

I think it would be amazingly cool to encounter and join a group of mercenaries protecting someone/something...or join a squad/army for protection and salary

adds to realism - that's how raiders and other groups thrived

PC is a veteran afterall

I was thinking of when the PC in Fallout 3 can follow James from vault 112 to rivet city. I did that once, and would never do that again if I had a choice.

it could work, especially at low levels, although i'd much rather it be worded different, like joining a trade guild and being the newbie hire and doing field work, having a boss you had to follow around and take orders from. but that certainly would be a very tiny aspect, and you would/could eventually take over routes or start your own. more roleplay possibilities is always better.

Escort quests end up as frustrating oftentimes, no more than a couple of them.

I think it would be cooler to have a companion that was your character from FO3/NV. If only there was a way you could transfer save files from game to game. Oh wait...other games already do that.

All your choices you made left intact, all the quests and outcomes, people you killed etc could be recorded. Could be aged and stuff. Could make for very cool quests and stuff. It would be cool as well if Bethesda is truly bringing some npc's back, your old PC/new companion could have unique dialog with them etc based on choices made in previous games. Be hostile, nice to them etc. And they could work it so that it doesn't really break lore.....cause correct me if I am wrong, but dont both the LW and Courier just disappear into the wastes at the end of the games?

Nope.

I prefer to go my own way and - if it proves a given direction is too tough - carefully work on a way to make it work. Frankly, that's the best part.

No - I like the illusion of being someone who matters, not just a damned errand boy (even if in a lot of games you end up being exactly that!) - you are (unless you are actually self-employed or rich) exactly that in RL after all (except normally no one is trying to kill you etc.), so it's nothing I enjoy!

greetings LAX

Yes the whole idea has 'disaster' written all over it. AIs are just too damn stupid.

I'm the one doing the leading; not the other way around, bud.