If my so called memory serves me correctly with regards to the game Ending once you have completed the last of the Main Quest.
The Reason cited by the Obsidian devs was while they would have liked to have the game continue on afterwards, they felt it better to let the game finish at the end of the main quest for QUALITY reasons, as they felt doing a 'hash' job of the 'post endgame' world would be a big mistake.

@ Veraxus5 regarding Spectre's quoted post, I think what he was trying to say is if you finished the main quest having destroyed the Hoover Damn and were able to continue on afterwards and the Hoover Damn was suddenly back in full operation despite the fact you had destroyed it, would be worse.

@Vault Boy. To be pedantic, going by the 'statistics' of the previous Fallout games, Fallout 3 was the only one that had a DLC released that let those who wanted to continue playing after finishing the game, the rest of them (with one proviso) aka Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout Tactics and the thing that is Fallout Brotherhood of Steel all finished once you fully completed the main quest (The proviso being that in Fallout 2, you were asked if you wanted to continue playing once you had completed the main quest but even there if I remember correctly, you have a hard coded time limit of about 13 ingame years). Personally I think that the Broken Steel DLC for Fallout 3, broke if not shattered Fallout 3's game balance as in made it far too easy for all of your characters to become virtually identical clones of each other as far as their skillsets went being one of the main major problems (Hence why I tend to refer to Broken Steel as Borked Steel).


Back to the main purview of the OP, the hardcoe Achievement is given as has been mentioned earlier in the thread is for Completing the game (Finishing the Main Quest) with only playing on hardcoe, as if I remember correctly while you can choose to turn the hardcoe mode off at any point during a playthrough, you can only turn it on at the start of a playthrough. Although even if this isn't the actual case, I think the achievement would be disabled for a playthrough if you turned the hardcoe mode off at any point during that playthrough.

I couldn't tell you if I was in the minority or not, but I have seen quite a few people (on this forums, in real life, and on other websites as well) who all agree that giving the game a hard ending is fine seeing as you can do everything you want before you reach that ending, and that just throwing you back into the world after you reach an ending and letting you do everything that you were already given ample opurtunity to do before the ending is somewhat immersion breaking as the world often doesn't change much. A perfect example of this would be in Fallout 3. They didn't plan on letting you play after the end, but when we got the DLC that let you they could only add a handful of things into the world and it was left mostly unchanged.

As far as sales go, I don't know how many people would do as I do, but if there were enough, ripping us off intentionally by adding a DLC to remove the hardending would hurt their sales more than help in the long run seeing as they could lose a lot of revenue from people who don't buy their games after the company doing what they did.

EDIT: Also, as far as my faith not being well placed, I believe that a dev has already confirmed that their will be no DLC to remove the ending.

You do realize that you are representing a moronic double standard? You don't want to pay Obsidian money... but you will rent the game... Let me ask you this, have you ever take a basic economics class? The people who you are renting the game from already paid the company that published the game in order to obtain a sufficient amount of copies to rent out... Hence, you have already paid Obsidian before you even touch the rental copy. Consequently your purchase of the rental copy will promote a number which represents a populous of gamers outside the standard market of those who buy wholesale. As a result, Obsidian will thank the retailer for their money and forget about you entirely. Conclusion: you are too much of a really devoted fan and you lack the guts to do what is necessary and will ultimately buy their games no matter what they do. Secondary conclusion: shut up and enjoy the game for what it is (even if it's a train wreck).

Is loading a save before the last quest instead of after realy a big deal to you? Were you hoping the last boss drops a gun? Seems extremely trivial to me. Like complaining about default controls when you have the option to customize.

Why always the fighting?

Also, no I have not taken any economics class. But I sure do appreciate you explaining the situation is such a helpful manner bro.

i think its safe to assume you have to finish the main quest (maybe not every mission, but just the end. in FO3 you could skip a few of the main quest....quests) with hardcoe mode on at all times.

No, it's actually the opposite. The game has a firm ending, just like Fallout 1.

Speaking of which, I don't want an open end. I only wanted an open end in FO3 because FO3's ending was quite possibly one of the worst endings in gaming history.

For real, I'm sure it's been discussed at length in the FO3 boards but..

LOL. More or less my reaction to FO3's ending. Obsidian won't make the same mistake. Probably. It sounds like they've got a proper, FINISHED, ending.

as long as you dont get anything after the "point of no return" (like the stuff you got from the general in FO3) that you cant use, im fine with a true ending.

Meh, I don't mind if the game has a hard ending. Been there, done that with FO3 when it first came out and I still put in about 400 hours total on the vanilla version. Easy to get around, and Obsidian said they wanted to add content for playing the game after the ending but just didn't have that much time. So there probably will be "Broken Steel" type DLC, which I don't mind either. I liked the feeling of total completion that I had while wandering around doing whatever I wanted after beating the MQ.

I didn't particularly mind FO3s ending as bad as most did, but I think if they just did the whole "woke up 2 weeks later" thing in the main game, it would've been better, rather than adding that tiny bit into Broken Steel, forcing anyone who wants that to buy it..

Obsidian will be making caps by the bucket load, millions, and millions more in profit, I still call it greed to make all of that and force us to buy a DLC to continue, if even that..

I guess I'll never be beating New Vegas then. Or make a save prior before beating the game.

If they don't release any DLC that allows you to continue playing then DLC would be somewhat pointless. By the time any DLC comes out I'm sure most people would have beaten the game already - and wouldn't want to create a brand new character just to play the DLC, right?

There is the possiblity they would release DLC under the assumption you still have a couple saves from various points in your campaign before you go on to beat it.
So you could go back to one of those previous saves to play the DLC.

However, your comment is pretty much what I predict the dev's logic will be; and they will unlock it.

No no... fallout 1 fallout 2 both had the sliders at the end. (Wich are better then how bethseda made them). I dont want a extend the game DLC. It just dosn't go with the game.

this isn't a spoiler because it's my personal opinion, the main character will probably die and when the expansion packs come out you will go straight to them rather than exploring the wasteland more and going to the expansion pack locations when you feel like it

Last I heard, sorry if this has been mentioned, Fallout New Vegas has a definitive ending. To be honest I like it that way, having to run around the wasteland after the main story was pointless. The story was done, finito, finished, completed etc. All stories have to end at some point, what was important was your actions as a character and how they influenced the world that is Fallout. To me THAT is a good RPG, being able to make a difference, no matter how small, in a game.

Really, it didn't take long for this thread to veer off-topic, the OP's question has been answered, and I don't see this getting much better. So, closed.

Someone wants to make another thread about the game having a definitive ending, that'd be just fine.

EDIT - Re-opened, after some thought, and talking to the OP. Do try to keep on-topic, however. If you want to talk about the game's definitive ending, please make a new thread and carry discussion over that topic, however. :wink_smile: