FO3 original ending was better, sacrificing yourself was a win win in my books

You're talking about an ending where you can have a radiation immune companion with you who'll give an asinine reason as to why you or Sarah Lyons have to die because they just don't want to enter the Project Purity chamber for a minute and press a couple of buttons. Saying that Fallout 3's ending was sub-par is giving it too much credit.

Most people didn't seem to care that Fallout 3 ended, others liked that it ended. I myself didn't care, if there weren't radiation immune companions like Charon and Fawkes I would have liked the ending.

I personally like the ending. But having your sacrifice made meaningless because of Broken Steel, I didn't like.

Understand what you mean; yet that was by far the longest run-on sentence I've ever seen.

His helmet with Remnants power armor looks sharp...too bad I cannot prowl the Mojave dressed like that.

No matter where you go, the trolling know-it-alls always outnumber the thoughtful, though it doesn't help that the OP used the old Wall of Text and limited punctuation. You can rant and still receive credible responses, but not if you're not thoughtful with the original post.

HOWEVER, I too would like the game to continue beyond the ending, though I'll try to be more constructive when I present my request.

Firstly, My Reason for Continuity
I made a selection of complex interwoven choices throughout the story arc, and I would like to see the fruition of those. I do not wish to simply hear the monologue. I wish to experience it. This is not a book or audio tape. It's an interactive 3D adventure.

Now for Some Detail
In Fallout 3, I was bad (as I usually am in such games, since they are after all designed to express personal fantasy rather than what we normally do every day), and I got to hear about it constantly from ThreeDog, which always turned me an evil grin. I loved the President's condemnations of contemporary governmental complacency, ignorance and selfishness/greed. These two together created an immersion that was more than just gameplay. I affected the world, and it was noticeably changed (and everyone knew that I did it via broadcast), right down to the smoking remnants of the Brotherhood stronghold. It was my world.

In New Vegas however, there is far less immersive impact from your influence. Mr. New Vegas does mention things that happen in the world based on your actions, but he never addresses you. The closest he gets is a statement about the package courier that got shot in the head. He also never stops reporting extremely aged news. And in general, he has far less to say and far less music to play than ThreeDog did, even to where the redundancy becomes annoying enough to shut off the radio (except for Big Iron, though it plays twice as much as everything else due to a bug). And don't even get me started about Tabitha. That was just annoying. And yes, I know NPCs do make direct comments to you over your actions, but that is just their individual knowledge. It's not being broadcast across the entire wasteland. Chomp Lewis in Sloan directly stated that he would broadcast my Deathclaw killing exploits on his Ham Radio, and I have yet to hear about it on the regular stations. Though if his is that smashed Ham Radio in the sleeping quarters, I understand why. But he shouldn't say it if he can't do it. And no, you can't fix it for him.

I wasn't a fan of Mr. House, the NCR or the Legion. In fact, the only faction that I was really a fan of was the Brotherhood and the Enclave, who are both subfactions. I was hoping to get both of these clans re-established in the event that a future DLC would allow them to expand their progress. Probably because I wanted to recreate the power struggle of FO3. I eventually learned that the Enclave Remnants and their Bunker are exactly that... Remnants with no hope of resurrection. But the Botherhood (according to Page 431, part 23, point 3 - Official Game Guide) retake the Helios I power plant and set up shop. To me, that was a golden opportunity to get these boys an above ground footprint directly relevant to re-establishing their clan. But of course, that never actually happens. You just hear a monologue footnote about it. A few sentences is nothing compared to walking into the facility and seeing my boys running the place and rebuilding their former strength with no opposition to hinder them.

The only things that my actions do to influence this world is to:

• Remove NPC's/factions from the game (which I try to limit as much as possible to try to keep the wasteland alive when I've completed the main storyline)
  
• Hear generic, endlessly repeating news reports about a thing that happened (oftentimes not even being specific about the thing)
  
• Receive feedback about my exploits from individuals (usually not directed at me, just around me, and usually not specifically about me)

What was good about FO3's immersion:

• ThreeDog and The President had a lot more to say, so far less repetition
  
• ThreeDog talked specifically about me and stopped reporting outdated informtion
  
• While the President did not usually focus on me, he would speak extensively about various topics (since it was real talk radio), rather than just a news quip between tracks
  
• There were many more musics tracks, so far less repetition
  
• My activities had direct visual and auditory consequences on the world around me, not just the removal of NPC's

So you can see my real complaint here is NV's personal immersion, which is the heart of a sandbox, IMO. It does have the freedom of choice, but choices unrealized. If I cant have the talk radio and I can't have my influence felt except with some indviduals, I was hoping at least that the major impact that I was going to have at the end of the game could be felt and explored (rather than just heard about once).

And in regards to the reasoning for not creating such a DLC, I dismiss it. For console games, this used to not be the case. But with the advent of DLC's, it's far more MMO-like. Ergo, designed for new material. I've been around for too many years, seeing one developer after another making statements about a thing being too hard, too expensive or outright impossible with the current engine. Only to later double-back and code it in, because now... suddenly,,, it's worth it. This is a game. There's nothing that's impossible. As it is in life. Some things are less likely than others. That's all.

/rant_off

I don't really understand you're argument. You say you want to see the result of your actions, not just have someone talk about them. I can understand that. But, the entirety of your praise for Fallout 3 has to do with how Three-Dog talked about your actions. :shrug:

Although I can sympathise with those who feel remiss because they rushed through the main quest, most of the quests wouldn't work post-hoover dam. Many NCR sidequests would no longer make sense because the Legion is gone. Boone's quest wouldn't make sense. The Kings' quests wouldn't make sense. The quests on the Stip would no longer make sense. Any quests involving any of the main factions (which is the majority of them) could no longer be done logically. So really, you'd be missing out on a lot of the quests anyway, with or without post-game DLC.

The reason Broken Steel worked is because almost nothing changed. All of work and sacrafices of you and your parents amounted to little more than a few water caravans spawning. The Enclave still attack. The supermutants still attack. The beggars are still dying of thirst. Nothing has changed.

Broken Steel left me feeling cheated. It made me feel like I had made no difference. I don't want that happening to New Vegas.

The ThreeDog reasoning was meant to illustrate part of the personal immersion of FO3. Meaning that if the NV talk radio was as extensive and direct as ThreeDog and President Eden, I think I have done without playing beyond the main storyline ending.

Whether you rush through the content or not (which I didn't, got that out of my system in FO3), that only affects the immersive qualities of the game mildly. Meaning that the few NPCs that do reference you, would do so less because you'd nullified the ability to do their quests in the rush.

It's interesting to point out however that the way Three-Dog constantly references you personally was something that annoyed a great many people in Fallout 3, including myself. Especially how the news reports seemed to be there to stroke the player's ego in a rather not-so-subtle way. I *hated* the way the tone was either "oh that gosh darn naughty guy from Vault 101" or "hoorraay, all praise the messiah from Vault 101". I can't tell you how much I preferred the New Vegas radio in that regard in that it would simply report on the consequences of the actions and not go "oh Courier, you so good/bad, aroooo" all the time.

Don't get me wrong, I think stroking the player's ego is important in many ways. But Fallout 3 took it waaaaaaaaay overboard in how it constantly referred to you, you, you and how adamant it was about pushing me into good or bad. Unfortunately, the karma system is still there in NV but at least it doesn't affect much and the consequences you hear of are refreshingly factual instead of constantly downright praising/condemning the Courieor.

President Eden on the radio was pretty much as much of a non-issue as Black Mountain Radio for me. Eden was interesting to listen to (almost solely due to the excellent voice acting) and Tabitha had some extremely funny segments, but both of them were stuff that I'd likely turn off once I'd heard the routines so to speak.

I agree. Although I like Mr. New Vegas, he did get repetitive. However, post-game DLC wouldn't fix this. In fact, it may even detract from the immersion.

What I mean is, if most of the quests have been resolved, what's the point of continuing? So that you could see different factions in different places? I don't see the point.

There are too many variables for Obsidian to factor in if they made a Broken Steel type add on. The only way they could make it work is if they have a "Warp Of The West situation at the Dam occur". That would probably tick off a lot of people me included.

Beth made Broken Steel work because there weren't a lot of variables at the end. The only thing they over writed was if you choose to sac yourself. I don't see it working in New Vegas in a way that's productive.

Or if you wanted to put the F.E.V into the water.BS killed the MQ a little tbh.

Because New Vegas has a satisfying ending you can easily live without doing if you want to keep questing? That, and some of the endings would change the entire population of the game? You think the game's buggy now, wait until they try to replace all the Securitrons and NCR Troopers on the Strip with Legionaries. Also, the game world would be pretty empty in the endings where the NCR has to abandon the Mojave region. And those are just the endings for the MAIN factions.

Honestly, I hadn't thought about it from the perspective. My group of friends feel similarly about sandbox immersiveness in relation to not only creating your own fun, but having your impact felt. Impacting the world while blending into the populace isn't an avenue we'd previously considered. But now that you mention it, I can see how folks could want that. It's not for me, mind you, but I'm not everyone. Thank God for all of you.

Another good point. My memory is that FO3 was just fine before the DLC's, but horrificly frame shuttering (PS3) and freezing after them. NV frame shutters and freezes as well (and of course I've noticed the variety of small bugs here and there that only indirectly impact gameplay), but far less than FO3 post DLC. But then again, I have no DLC's for NV yet. I've been trying to get DM but the PSN outage continually denies me, and I can find no other way to get the pack. For my 2nd run through NV, I was going to wait unitl we had at least one DLC (for PS3) before I played again. But I got busy with EQ2, so I only started over again about a month ago. Which I was glad about because all the SOE MMO's are down too, now! Hehe, my oh my. Whatever.

I'd recommend starting a new character and getting them to around level 10+ in preparation for Dead Money and Honest Hearts, Xayd. PSN'll be back the 31st I believe.

Note the section in bold.

This is the key point for those who, like myself, prefer that the game ends when the MQ does. For us, Broken Steel simply did not work the way it was intended to since your actions essentially did not matter. While it's true that it overwrote the rather badly done original endpoint, the manner in which this was done was fairly poor in its own right.

If there is to be post-MQ play, then [i]it has to make sense rather than just being tacked on[i], and given the fact that there's well over a million possible combinations of faction and location endings it would be a monumental task at best to pull this off for F:NV. There would also be very little left to do, since completing one of the four paths permanently locks out all content from the other three and would likely lock out a lot of side content as well.

A large part of what made post-MQ play work in FO3 is that the side content rarely had anything to do with the MQ, so if you rushed the MQ you could still go and do the side content you hadn't gotten to yet. In F:NV, on the other hand, most of the side content is directly related to the upcoming battle at Hoover Dam and as such it would make zero sense to be doing it afterward, assuming it was still accessible.

I'm still wondering why this hasn't been stickied this threads been rehashed how many times now?

As a rule they don't sticky non-admin threads, but in this case I do wish they'd make an exception.

I just don't understand why it's so important to have post-MQ play when there's no way it would ever be done any justice.

same reason there wont bea musical dance number version of the game singing your achievments

I was wondering if anyone else would point out that fact, and I completely agree with you.

To the argument about impact-yes, a big deal is feeling like you have an impact, but Fallout: New Vegas (overall) puts more effort into the game to make one feel that way than Fallout 3, not less. While the radio wasn't as good about it, it was more realistic about how they mentioned news-it's unlikely someone would obsessively follow one person out there for their updates to the world, even if they were as amazing as a player character can be. More so, he might simply not know(somehow). The argument is more of a theory and somewhat weak-but the thing is, the radio is one of the least important factors on the show of a character's impact on the world. It's a nice addition, but reputation(which effects how a group acts to you entirely, even after three days of in-game time), and recognition of a far larger number of events than Fallout 3 had shown(killing Caesar, defeating a big camp, saving the president, and a number of others that either get random mention from NPCs or direct mention and effect with important characters). Most of all, the final ending with multiple possibilities-based around entirely on what you did or did not do.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, even if you try to make the opposite of your original character, the changes to Fallout 3's ending is only subtle. It's basically on two things: "Was your karma currently good, neutral, or evil?" and "Did you sacrifice yourself?" You're basically forced to do everything else that's truly significant. That is, in a logical discussion, indisputably far less impact than the newer game.


As to the actual question of this thread, it's been pretty much answered. Fallout 3 was the only game (I believe including even the crappier of the series like BoS) to actually have no permanent ending, and the reason that became popular was because there wasn't much to it in the first place and was illogical if you were in the right situation. Fallout: New Vegas took away the option to continue after the "ending"(as it's not an ending in such a case as that) to instead make a well developed story that also allowed your actions(which had quite a range of possibilities) to have impact and the finale to have variety based on what you did. This game series is an RPG, and most well written games(BioShock, for example) have endings anyhow. And it is for the very greatness of that variety that they cannot have a continuation from the ending, because it would either be unchanged and contradict it or it would have to act as a sequel of it's own(and take as much time, money and effort as one) to do that properly. The developers have said it themselves, at least multiple times.

To be honest, this is the only gaming community that I've ever seen complain about endings-why is that?

Because that would be like face palming your self with a 100 unarmed.

To long didn't read, but the unicorn idea sounds like the best thing out of this entire topic. Buy it, print it, and sell it we need more unicorn laser stuff! (oh and the rainbows to, make that 2)

This again?

The game is fine the way it is,i (and a lot more people) like to have and ending and close a playthrough nicely.
Why continue after the ending? Geez,it is an ending because the game ended,every story has an ending,deal with it.Start a new game and follow different paths,or load a previous save and do what you missed.

Wow Deja Vu.

I feel as if I've seen this topic thousands of times before yet it always ends with the game not getting continued.