My view on this is simple; it's meant to reflect how the 'common man' sees the Mojave.

with golf balls.

You do raise a good point, but I have a counter; a good RPG is not one where you can do whatever you want without consequence, it is one where you can do whatever you want BUT MUST FACE THE CONSEQUENCES!

Let's take your Powder Gangers example - Goodsprings hate them, NCR hates them, just about anyone who isn't a Powder Ganger hates them! Ceaser's Legion is much the same. To use a real-world anology, how do you think people would react to you if you openly signed up to a terrorist organisation? Even if you didn't do anything to them, they would hate you purely because of the company you CHOOSE to keep.

Yes, the NCR are mostly scum, but the alternatives are, in the eyes of most people, a heck of a lot worse!

I think the devs pretty much assumed that if you are choosing the Legion as your ally, you are pretty much playing an evil character. So by that standard, you have to include quests you can do for the Fiends and the Powder Gangers.

Seen this topic crop up several times now and it actually caused me to stop playing my first character, which was a Legion supporter.

The fun of the game has practically been sapped.

It is my strong opinion that the game should NOT have advertised the Legion as a major player-supportable faction. For that matter, there were some pretty bad design decisions made as it's quite easy to land your character into hot water very early on with the NCR, with no way to "repair" the game experience or continue on -- an example is if you stupidly decide you want to play a rebel-type PC, and then support the Powder Gangers. Three "go do this one thing right outside the door" type quests is not worth backing the group, since later it doesn't provide you with ANY sort of foot-in-the-door scenario into winning the Legion's hearts or branching off into other quest paths, but it DOES earn you the privilege of being continuously harassed by higher-level and much-better equipped hordes of NCR rangers while you're still level 6.

If their intent was to provide a player with the excuse to go on a murderous rampage and loot everything on Earth, then I am very disappointed in Obsidian. You can do that sort of crap even if you back the NCR or go independent. It's not hard to make Legion quests that are morally ambiguous or would help color the way you see them and their more average-type people -- an example of what I'd consider to be a SINGLE decent questline was the Brotherhood faction from Oblivion. Dark, shady, but fun and immersive.

That said, there is no reason on God's green earth that all the people in the middle of the crossfire (all those minitowns, Goodsprings, Primm, Novac, etc) should whole-heartedly back the NCR. It's made pretty clear at the start they want safety and to be left alone. At best, these areas should be NEUTRAL, and unwilling to go bat[censored] insane on you if you decided to back the Legion but were cordial enough to bring them trade, kill the ebil supermutants om-nom-noming their battle cattle, and run fetch missions for them.

They made NCR out to be good guys, but they are deceptively so. BOTH groups would draft people from their populations into armies, take supplies, and set up camp. If anything, I would think that the Legion would be a BETTER choice if gone into willingly -- at least they're not incompetent.

The problem is NOT that the area is NCR dominant.

The problem is that there is VERY LITTLE gameplay for the Legion.

If you only had 15% of the map be friendly towards you, but you had 50 hours of missions and an entirely in-depth, new way to approach new areas OTHER than "KILL KILL KILL KILL KILL LOOT LOOT LOOT" then playing as the Legion would be successful and fun. But it's not. It's a tacked on faction that beckons you to back it because it's sixy and a lot more interesting culturally than your average NCR "d00d" or moronic outlaw, but when you do, you find there's nothing to do for them and you've only managed to shoot yourself in the foot.



I will come out and say it. I think that making out that the NCR is all sunshine and puppies and out for the good of everyone in the wasteland is brainwashing pro-American bullcrap. It's like a public high school history book shoved into a video game.

ah yes ncr being everywhere is kinda irritating.

Personally i was expecting more smaller groups of conflicting bureaucracies fighting off gangs in vegas, leaving X direction under control of each faction.

It is kind of a drag when ncr are prettymuch featured or mentioned in every damn quest.

And i thought the brotherhood or the enclave would have played a stronger role in this game too. O.o
The ghouls seem to be unloved really, there isn't any towns for them, and most of them are feral. Supermutants make a passing appearance in a few places but otherwise don't feature in most of the quests.
Leaving me feel like an errand boy for the ncr. also lack of evil, or even remotely evil quests is dissapointing but not unexpected.


Now i would say release more content, but really what vegas would need is a new faction to take over, i mean wouldn't it be cool if you could play off legion and enclave for control of vegas? or legion vs securitrons and robots? NCr should play a smaller role but still be there if the player wants too.
I think there is also an opening for a new small tribe like the great khans, or even allying lots of the small gangs (vipers, powder gangers, fiends) into a larger group. Which would be far more intersesting than svcking up to ncr to do their dirty work for them.
(how would the fiends ever really become so sadistic? it's hard to imagine drugged up people forming a cohesive group that can hold off a military force even as poorly supplied as ncr.)

Also i thought There would be stronger ties or enmities between NCR and brotherhood, perhaps an interesting story could be expanded over the fight of helios one, like idk how about supporting brotherhood in taking helios one back, or supporting ncr or legion to hold it?

I know i'm throwing alot of suggestions out but do you guys see what i'm saying?
A more balanced chaotic mix of rivalries would be nice.
Heck if we do have to play along with the NCR tune perhaps there could be some evil quests to complete for them, like idk for instance:
Town X is about to be attacked by group Y, NCR gives two options, stay at the town and hold off attackers to allow refugees to escape or abandon it to the invaders, or a secret option from group Y support the invasion and sabotage ncr plans?

I also think there was a missed opportunity for sabotage at camp maccarran, to support opposing group X, or pave the way for brotherhood, or enclave. In effect you could play the role of special forces before the invasion.


Long story short, if there are going to be expansions i would like to see a new group contest NCR for power, or at least make the NCR less important to the plotline.

I think a future expansion (or as people say these days DLC - the more we say DLC the more acceptable it seems to make them smaller) will focus on crossing the river and seeing some real hellish Legion territory.

Actually from the conversations I had it seems as though the Legion aren't that bad when you discount the slavery and misogyny. Bandits are supposedly a non-issue in Legion territory. Sorta reminded me of Life of Brian's comment on the Roman Empire.

Slavery, misogyny, torture, and killing your own people in the most brutal and sadistic manners possible for not doing as well as you'd like.

But hey, at least nobody's going to steal your bottlecaps. Because those are what's important.

Yes, because Fallout bandits only take your caps and how the Legion operates militarily is exactly how they treat civilians in their territory. /sarcasm

Obviously it's not all roses and sunshine but as far as bad guys go the Legion at least provides some benefit so as to justify themselves over a state of post-apoc anarchy.

I haven't finished the game, but essentially we see the game from the west side of the Colorado river. That is, the NCR side. CL controls the other side. So in Bizarro Fallout: New Vegas we'd all be playing on the east side of the river and complaining about how there's no NCR around.

Just because you don't see endless hordes of Legion doesn't mean they aren't over there.

You think that with them willing to torture the crap out of their own officers, they're going to treat the civilians respectfully?

The Legion will slit your throat after they annex you if they simply don't think you're civilized enough. There's numerous information to this end. But even the NCR can keep bandits off the roads.

I don't see what's so bad about an NCR bias in the game, I like hearing how they're impressed with what I've done, and it gives me more quests to do. I do wish there were more Legion camps to liberate, it's fun destroying the Legion.


For the Republic!

Thats the point though, the NCR are forcing themselves on the Region, and it's apparant they are putting themselves in to thin. Personally I feel Mr. House is more capable than anyone else.

Actually from the conversations I had it seems as though the Legion aren't that bad when you discount the slavery and misogyny. Bandits are supposedly a non-issue in Legion territory. Sorta reminded me of Life of Brian's comment on the Roman Empire.

All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

Mr. House has one side quest, in which the Followers ask you to bug his computers.