I've been using Feandel for a while, more as a pack mule than anything actual usefulness. He's been killed by me a lot, but I'm not quite hardcoe enough to leave him dead, especially when its me who kills him.

Oh, and Shagsbeard, it IS for sale with all the dlc, that's a 60$ game with half a dozen 10$ dlc attached. pretty good deal!

Bethesda has never been all that interested in followers for the Elder Scrolls games, or even Fallout 3. It is not really part of how they make games. This is why CM Partners existed for Morrowind and Oblivion.

Eventually, something like CM Partners will exist for Skyrim, although personally, I am holding out for something more along the lines of Willow from FO:NV.

Obsidian have always been brilliant story writers, their mechanics are less than impressive though.

Skyrim could have done something with the followers, but then you'd have to make a decision: Invincible companions, or risk having them die half-way through a companion-related story quest by random act of Dragon?

The only thing Skyrim did unforgiveably wrong was the way they handled the guilds. Advancement was simply far too rapid, and the story delivered far too quickly.

Take the Companions guild: You get initiated in to the inner circle and become a werewolf pretty much right at the beginning of the quest line. The thieves guild's very first heist is quite a major set-up, breaking in to the Honey farm. The Dark Brotherhood lacked the 'creativity' of Oblivion, it was a pretty straight-forward kill-stab affair, and you get given the 'major job' almost instantly - you don't even get to interact with the members in any depth... and the Mage's Guild? You barely get used to the college before you're the Archmage.

this, both games are GREAT and will probably be replayed a million times.

I always felt like Lydia was annoyed to be fighting by my side

Given how often she disappears, I agree. Unfortunately, that is an unintended side effect rather than something deliberate.

Agreed. New Vegas is a better game in a lot of ways (IMO, yours might vary). I like Skyrim better, in large part due to world design preferences, but there are so many things that New Vegas nailed, and Skyrim just pooped the bed on.

I feel like Obsidian and BGS should work jointly on Fallout 4, and then after getting used to each other, the same for TES 6. Bethesda desperately needs some help in the writing department. Also in the character development department as well.

Skyrim is a different game, in a way.

I like to compare apples and oranges, too, and oranges lose every time because they're not apples.

It's just more of a fruit that you can get into than oranges with that thick, clumsy skin.

With the good comes the bad...

Fallout NV also had:

-Much Smaller game world
-Fewer locations to visit
-More linear playing style
-Total lack of random occurances in the game world
-Much smaller interior and underground locations
-many interiors/caves were exact duplicates of others
-Puny Vegas (even if the gates weren't there)
-too many artificial boundries


I played New Vegas twice and then spent many more hours playing with mods. I really enjoyed my time with it but this to me is apples and oranges. My preference is towards Skyrim and Fallout 3 but they did some things very well in NV that I would love to see implimented into Bethesda's games as well. Some of it can typically be gained through modding which is where some of the NV ideas originated anyway. Customizable weapons and some of the other features of NV like follower commands had already been made available for FO3 through the modding community.

The thing that Bethesda does that I really like is that they create a more believable game world, one in which I feel like a smaller part. Things are happening around me randomly that give it character and make it more interesting and life like. As for stories, they are everywhere. Most people just never take the time to find them. There are small stories all over skyrim found in caves, crypts, dungeons, and forts through written materials and hints given by NPC's. I loved that in Fallout 3 and I love it in Skyrim too. NV had none of that and I really missed it. It made the more open parts of NV very boring as there was absolutely nothing to look forward to outside the main story lines.

The best thing for all of us would be a blending of the styles of the two companies. That would be a match made in gaming heaven but I would imagine that will never become a reality.

The problem is, Skyrim is a massive game, much more places, people and things that NV. Yeah it can be looked like bethseda was lazy and obsidiam was more talented, and that can be partially truth, but you have to think too: there is so much you can put in a 5 gb disk.

Maybe if they could, Skyrim would be the best game ever, check video jam, or the awesome potential for mods, but the media is limited, they have to work with that in mind, and in the process, things have to get scrapped so the needed elements cant enter. Maybe if they could put everything they wanted in the game, all followers would have an history, guilds would have more options, and instead of a ton generic quests, we would have many more original and fun ones....but the game then would weight like, i dont know....12 Gb? 20Gb?...

So even if i agree, Skyrim is so huge that it feels shallow in many ways, isnt fair to just point and say is a bad work and developers are lazy. Thats my opinion at least.

Well the think is, one is a post apocaly world, and the other is basicly fantasy world.. Just like the difrence between fallout 3 and oblivion, there were plany of place to explore, go and do in fallout 3(or nv), but in oblivion it was mostly blank grasses..

In new vegas, there was PLENTY of resource and opportuniesto do and history to build,building, crazyness like raiders, homeless pour people, an awesome theme like destruction and hope/hoplesness, awesome faction i mean there are lots of stuff you can place in game, but in a fantasy world you are pretty bount to a middle age stone houses villagers..

Yeah, pretty much. I enjoy Skyrim but New Vegas is a better and deeper game.

18 months actually. :/
Imagine if Obsidian had had 5 years.

Post apocalyptic or not, Bethesda's decision to not spend any appreciable amount of time developing the companions/followers is still inexcusable. To say that Bethesda cannot write a decent story when they put their minds to it is misleading, I am also guilty of doing this. Take a good look at Shivering Isles, or The Pitt from FO3, or even Point Lookout. All three of those on their own merits have much better writing that any quest in Skyrim I've played so far...and all of those were developed by Bethesda Game Studios.

So, in my mind the real question is, what went wrong between the concept stages , development, and ulitmately release? Skyrim had so much potential to be quite possibly the best Elder Scrolls to date, yet it has fallen flat. Unrealistic expectations? Not really, I didn't expect miracles, this is still Bethesda after all, but the writing, quests, and companions are subpar even by their already low stadards.

I never played NV but I just played Oblivion for a few days and Skyrim is a huge imporvement in almost every sense. So yeah...I'd say Beth is improving. Let's hope they keep it up.

I hope you are not so dense that I have to explain that he is comparing the quality of companions in new vegas to those of skyrim. Please be trolling.

That made me me laugh

I wasn't very impressed with FNV until I played the DLC's, and am far more into Skyrim's base game, so I'm pretty sure I'll end up liking Skyrim more. The followers could have had more to them, but that's just one thing. It doesn't make a game. As for hardcoe mode, you're free to rp however you want. Do you really need the game to nag you about eating and sleeping?

Why not? Game already nags us about health bar and experience points.

Imagine if Obsidian was working WITH Bethesda on this game...

The game would probably be pretty much perfect for me if they had collaborated on it. Obsidian getting their hands on quests and giving NPC's some distinct character. Bethesda making the game world and keeping everything right with the lore. Both working together. Fan's wet dream right there lol. Of course there is every chance that it would become an utter nightmare as well...

There are about 40+ followers for Skyrim, not counting the DB initiate and animal followers. What I think they should do next time, is just make two followers for each race (one male, one female). That's a total of 20. They could add a lot more depth to these guys.

That's in combat when **** is going down. I dunno, I liked hardcoe mode for a while in FNV but always ended up disabling it. It's too much like having a nagging mother on your shoulder. Did you brush your teeth, dovaaaahkiiin?

Skyrim is a wonderful game, I love it, cant' stop playing it. Probably the best Elder Scrolls game yet, very narrowly beating it out. That said, New Vegas is one of the best, most fleshed out, most memorable RPGs I have EVER played. I can't remember a single meaningful character in Skyrim, whereas I "miss" characters from New Vegas. Heck, the "lottery" guy from New Vegas had, in just a few words, a more meaningful story than anyone in Skyrim.

That said, both are amazing games, and I REALLY REALLY hope Beth one-up Obsidian when Fallout 4 comes out. But...I truly think New Vegas will never be topped.