Yes, really.

"Fallout, hmmm never heard of it. I wonder what the 3's about. Wikipedia + Fallout. Oh, it was a post-apocalyptic RPG, etc. Cool."

Is that really that much to expect from people? It would certainly cut down on the amount of shock fans introduced to the series via number 3 seem to have over this game resembling the first two more than it. :shrug:

Yes. It's only a video game.

What you're saying, while it may make sense to Guild members and such, lacks real world perspective. People often buy games because their friends have it or told them about it. That is not necessarily going to inspire them to go on line to research some PC games from back when Hanson and the Spice girls were on the charts.

Generally the same type of consumer who actually takes the time to register at a fan-site or the game's company's official board, is exactly the sort of person who should be spending 5 minutes reading a wiki article. They register because they are "into" the thing enough to spend more time with it, discussing it with others. The kind of customer you're talking about is the sort of casual customer who would never spend 5 minutes posting on a board for any reason. Likewise, it's only the internet. It's only politics. It's only religion. It's only life. If you want to get right down to the random meaningless of any given thing you might as well go all the way. Nothing really matters in the end. But if you're interested enough in being a member of a message board and entering a discussion, yes, I do believe you should at least have enough background on the subject you want to discuss, if you want to add anything meaningful to the discussion.

The lack of action is a real problem. I'm desperately wanting to spend a few hours slowly navigating one large complex full of traps and baddies, but I know that I'm not going to find it.

I strongly agree, FO3 was much more intense, but i think New Vegas is better for RPing, which i do a lot, and i too am still looking for another Germantown Police HQ, or Lady of Hope Hospital, but cannot find one, and screw the sewers, i hate underground dungeons, of course, thats basically what a dungeon is, but thats probably because i played oblivion WAY too much and explored every nook and cranny of every nook and cranny of every nook and cranny (etc.) of every dungeon, so caves and sewers and whatnot aren't that interesting anymore. But New Vegas is still awesome, even though it lacks the intensity and complexity of the world in which every fallout game should have, so i still love fallout and Bethesda, and also thank Obsidian for making FNV :fallout:

Amen.

A lot of action on my end!
you just got find the places they are there!

For example

You obviously haven't explored any.

Thank you, saved me typing it out!

I agree, I always look to these games for the roleplay aspect, I can spend hours in a game just exploring and scavanging, I mostly build my characters with stealth and agility so that I can avoid fights where possible, to me the fallout series is about roleplay first and action second.

As to the OP not finding action, well I can tell you as an explorer, it's out there!

Oh yeah, one word... Boomers.

Remember, comparing Fallout 3 and New Vegas is like apples and oranges. Bethesda (nowadays, anyway) loves open-world games that are heavy on action and light on story. Obsidian likes making games with that much-needed old-school RPG feel.

Totally different types of game.

I mean, sure, they use the same engine, but so does say, Civilization IV. So that argument doesn't really hold water.

That is a straw man argument. I said nothing about what is reasonable prerequisite work to participate on a discussion board. I was addressing only what is realistic for a company to expect of their customers.

The "casual customer" is the person that every entertainment industry (be it video games, sports, television shows etc) covets. It's who they NEED to be successful. The hard core gamers and hard core sports fans are already all in. To thrive you have to have the casual viewer/gamer or whatever the industry is.

If you cater only to the "Guild Member Guy" living in his mom's basemant with a tin foil hat on his head, and require any research/background for your product to be fun/make sense to the laymen, you WILL be looking for work soon.

As far your comparison of the triviality of video games to politics, religion (which have shaped or destroyed nations, sometimes sparking wars that have cost countless millions of lives) or the internet (only revolutionized nearly every culture on the planet), the lack of perspective is so mind boggling, I just can't fathom where to BEGIN to address it.

I agree that the game suffers a real dearth of dungeons - the ones that exist could stand to be a bit longer, with the exception of the Vaults, which were fantastic.