Disclaimer: I'd really like to keep this thread friendly. Thank you. Btw, any of the games I mention I am not saying they are better than Skyrim, or that Skyrim is bad. Just I felt like getting on my soap box.

But it's still new to me. I finally was able to get Fallout New Vegas, Ultimate Edition with all the DLC and Add-ons. And I find myself slightly gutted. As I am doing the first add-on, Old World Blues in FNV. And it's so funny and intriguing, and hilarious. So many memorable lines already, and the characters themselves despite being robots have so much life and they are so interesting, intricate and funny even though I just started the first mission. Then I'm reminded of Skyrim's DLC, and I feel gutted. Dawnguard, was okay. But it was nothing that made it memorable. Old World Blues, kind of have has that quirky charm that Oblivion's Shivering Isles had. And I know Shivering Isles has been brought up to death, but one of the many reasons it has is because it's that memorable. It had just enough charm, quirkiness, and humor with the right amount of seriousness. In many way you replayed Oblivion to replay Shivering Isles, at least for me. Dawnguard didn't really have any of that. And it guts me. I like being a Vampire Lord and a Vampire Hunter, but honestly it's not that interesting. Or it was implemented interestingly enough.

I want to make a claim, that this thread isn't really to complain. But I feel so bad, every time...I'm like...inspired by something and going "Why didn't Skyrim do this". Skyrim isn't a bad game. I admit it inspires some of my stories and my characters. But, it just doesn't have that...it doesn't have those stories. You remember Shivering Isle. Because of the characters, Sheogorath became kind of beloved after that. What makes FNV memorable are the characters, they are living people.

Even in Witcher 2 one of my favorite scenes is the King: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfUp2iobc9I

Why do I like it? Well it's not because he curses, but the King has spirit, character, he's got an attitude. And his soldiers are feeding off his energy and you're feeding off of his energy. And you're like I'm into this game. Those are what make memories.

What do we get from Skyrim? Arrows in the knee.

Being modeled after a real-life person helps.

Naturally. I just finished a game session and realized FNV had me playing for 2hrs at 4am....and it's now 6am. But I remember telling my brother who was falling asleep, "Now that's how you do "DLC" Skyrim,"

Cause it absolutely guts me. I want Skyrim to be interesting, memorable. I mean it has moments such as when I was exploring and found an abandon prison. But those aren't memories based on stories, or characters. Just environment. Of soulless beings walking to deliver an important message and cannot talk now.

I disgree because I find lots of Skyrim's NPCs memorable, and interesting.

This.

I got about three sentences into your second paragraph, just to see if you'd at least beat that dead horse in new and interesting ways. Alas, I was wrong.

It's a game, dude.

"patrolling the mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter"

I hope that's sarcasm.

@Kdodds: As stated I brought it up as a topic because it was new to me. FNV's add ons.

Been said a thousand times: yes, we all know NV has deeper npcs, more plot choices, and more effects from those choices, but some of us prefer 3 or Skyrim for the world alone. Less civilisation, more wilderness for me.
(And it's all tastes and opinions; I personally love NV but last stopped playing the first time through Old World Blues, sometimes it's too much story, not enough game.)

Of course it was. Everyone obviously finds the exact same things interesting and memorable as you. Individual thought is just an illusion. Every human being shares only your thoughts.

And that is sarcasm.

I did say I hoped. So it wasn't, okay. Do not need to get an attitude. I asked for none of this thanks.

By getting on your soap box you kind of did ask for it.

The thing I didn't like about FO:NV was that 70% of the locations were pointless, most of them were just shacks with nothing in them or buildings you couldn't enter.

That doesn't mean you have to treat people with disrespect.

I stated my opinion, and he said he hoped it was sarcasm. I felt disrespected first so I got snarky.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTYo300c16Y
Intersperse the call "I never asked for this" with the response "I feel gutted" and I can simulate your posts!

Between two characters I've only played about 120 hours, which I understand isn't much for an open-world game, but I haven't really come upon ANYTHING like that in FO:NV... I don't have any addons or DLC though, that may change it.

I'm finding Fallout: New Vegas to be a consistently better game than Skyrim in almost every way. Unfortunately, I actually dislike the backstory of Fallout, though the setting helps a little (I have a fascination with the American Southwest). I much prefer Tamriel, or I'd stop playing TES entirely and shift to Fallout because of it. But Tamriel has echoes and subtle allusions to things I am interested in real life, religion, the occult, philosophy. Fallout is brimming with details for anybody with a detective's eye (or at least, New Vegas is, I've played about two hours of FO3 and just couldn't get into it after playing NV), it has more life in spite of having, you know, less life (I really feel like I'm treading through a desolate waste when I travel, not a North Carolina countryside filled with annoying unoriginal busybodies!), the missions are all original and enthralling, not just "go into this bear den to get my necklace! Go into that bandit hideout to get my hat! Retrieve my sword from necromancers! Kill all the x in this y! Get my staff from a lich!" and ultimately I find myself having a good time. Hell, I actually SMILE while I'm playing New Vegas. Skyrim I just constantly ache for a PC so I can improve the graphics and make/download mods to fix the [censored] character system and add depth to the game and console commands so I can skip tedious and repetitive processes like, you know, killing the same old [censored] for the thousandth time so I can get 200 gold and quest completed.

You know what it boils down to? It's not just the characters. It's not just the missions. It's not just the world, certainly, I have a bias toward Tamriel yet still like this feature of NV better. Fallout: New Vegas makes playing the game rewarding. Skyrim seems, from Helgen to Sovngarde and everywhere in between, to be one big time killer.

What people need to remember is that despite the price tag, Dawnguard was a medium sized dlc comparable to Knights of the Nine in size. Comparing Dawnguard to Shivering Isles is completely unfair, but if you compare it to Knights of the Nine, you'll see how much they've truly improved. With that in mind, imagine how much better the "shivering isles" of skyrim will be.

And then we're back to the same-old, same-old. You don't get Skyrim's "flesh out the bones" minimalist style and I don't get FO:NV, I mean, really, absolutely nothing about it can keep me playing more than a few minutes. About the best I get from it is this: it's actually pretty annoying. At least Skyrim had the decency to give me room for my own stories, not writing on a par with a Charmed episode. Now, I liked Charmed, in the TV show format. I prefer my games to be a bit different. So, yeah, Same Old Situation. Just a big ol' for instance, I find Ysolda INFINITELY more interesting than Sunny Smiles, Old Pete, Chet, and Trudy combined.

It has nothing to do with size. You can still have Dawnguard and write it interestingly

Whcih Bethseda did not do

I dont know how you got that from fallout new vegas. 3 maybe, but nv was just a copy paste from 3 with new additions. I cant tell you how many hours and playthroughs I've played and made. Fallout on the other hand, while still a great game, just isnt nearly as open ended as Skyrim.

I disagree on both counts. If a game has more content, there's more room for everything, including story. Lets be honest here, Shivering Isles story wasnt really great either. It was the new world and characters that drew us in.

Haha, oh man. Best laugh I've had all day.

All the characters in Goodsprings are helpful but obnoxious, it's to make it less of a... *glasses* kick in the head if you choose to slaughter them with the Powder Gangers.

Also, you know that Goodsprings is a (optional) tutorial, right? That's like playing through Helgen and up to Alvor or Gerdur in Riverwood, then saying that you don't like the characters in Skyrim and feel like you're being told a story instead of writing your own. The only choice you get up to that point is who to go with, and it's actually only a matter of money- The only practical difference is that going with Ralof nets more cash when you sell off what you loot, and gives you tutorial-level access to heavy armour, while either choice is equally justifiable regardless of your roleplay.

On the contrary, in NV I feel like the dozens of choices I've made in this past eighty-hour run have seriously impacted the way my story unfolds. Indeed, looking at my first forty-hour file (after my computer fried, before I got Skyrim), my character's label is "Paladin" (my current character is some variation of "Complete Monster Reverse Mary Sue"), and the world is a drastically different place, the history of my character is completely different, her capabilities are different and the reaction to my presence wherever I go is different. There's some interestingly complex interplay with the faction reputation as well, it seems- I'm "revered" or something like that in Goodsprings in my original file, and I'm a "merciful thug" after helping the people of Goodsprings, then slaughtering them, letting the powder gangers take over and helping them in my new file. Indeed, choosing whether to side with Goodsprings or the Powder Gangers is a deeper choice than going with Ralof or Hadvar.

I really think you didn't play for long enough. You figured as soon as you were out of Doc Mitchell's office the game had begun, when in fact you had just entered Helgen Keep after designing your character and running through the wreckage of Helgen. Certainly less... Exciting than that, but a cheap hook like OMGDRAGONATTACK is pretty lame, and, frankly...
I played NV before FO3. I couldn't get into 3, I made it to Megaton, did whatever unmemorable stuff there was to do there and left, and it was really just post-apocalyptic (i.e. not as interesting) Oblivion with a little less character freedom for me. I think I got used to those "new additions" so I took them for granted. And, honestly, if they made NV a better game to me than Skyrim or FO3, how aren't they a valid reason to like it more? If it's FO3 but upgraded, it's FO3 but upgraded, doesn't make it inferiour because it uses the same engine or whatever.

Actually, a smaller addition should be more story-intensive while a larger addition should be more like Shivering Isles. You're right though, SE's strength was in its worldbuilding (which Skyrim, and apparently Dawnguard, are terrible at, which is unusual for Bethesda...).

I just could not get into Fallout New Vegas. I played maybe one afternoon and never touched it again. Loved Fallout 3 though. Fantastic game. Too bad Fawkes isn't in Skyrim. That would be awesome beyond words.

Actually, not really, I used the examples of the NPCs in Goodsprings because everyone will immediately recognize them, as they will Ysolda.

On "deep choice", again, that's where "getting it" comes in. You SAY FO:NV has deep choices, but all *I* see are menu options that I know are either bit fields or qualified numbers (int or float) in a database somewhere. By very virtue of the fact that they're there makes them non-immersive, transparent, "hey you, if you want to throw the rock, turn to page 6, otherwise turn to page 12" moments. For me. Minimalist story telling, again, for me, is BETTER story telling from an RP perspective. I don't want the badge/reward of recognition for my actions. For me, the story is in what happens, not who recognizes it. And, furthermore, the unsaid is often a heckuva lot more interesting than miles of text and dialog options. Just look, one example, at the whole Saadia/Kematu debate.

Sorry, any way, just to clarify, I've maybe 40 hours in FO:NV on one character. And, oh, as a HUGE Wasteland fan, I desperately want to love every iteration of FO, and invariably wind up not being able to play any of them through. Closest I got was with FO3. For me, there's just way too much svckage between sparse cool moments.

Fallout 3 and Skyrim are objectively bad any way.