I try to go back to FO3 but the lack of the ability iron sights makes it hard for me to play.

Iron sight would have been nice but I won´t use any of the mods. It should have been there from the start.

Yeah me too, I've played FNV before FO3, I actually started playing FNV on its release day. I tried FO3 much, much later.

Just helped Threedog with his disc problem, so now all of the Capital Wastes can listen to him!

Will never go any longer than that though. I never, never, never progress through any Beth MQ

Why not?

Meh. In these free-exploring games I feel no need to do them. I can have fun anyway doing what I want instead of what someone else wants

Plus, doing the MQ in most Beth games usually means that something/someone I like gets destroyed/killed, and I don´t want that

Eh, fair enough. I personally take a rather perverse pleasure in seeing things I like in books/games/films get destroyed, killed or otherwise mangled; always nice to see the need to progress the story in the most artistically valid way triumph over the easy option of making things easy to please the audience.

I am the same way as mirocu. Most of my FO3 characters do the main quest in that game far enough to get Three Dog back on the radio, but that is it. In FONV I have absolutely no desire to do the main quest at all. I love open world games precisely because I do not want to run down the rail of a main quest. I would play a Bioware game if I wanted that. I do not see any need to have a main quest in games like the Fallout and ES series. IMHO, the open world itself and the freedom to explore it makes a much better focus instead.

Precisely why I played Bioshock


Seconded

Agreed.

Personally I like seeing the storyline unfold as I go on and have the character's skill and power grow as the eventual threat level presented to you by the enemies increases in your typical difficulty curve.

Besides, isn't doing sidequests also just running down a rail? I mean, they're smaller rails, sure, but they're still rails. Hell, I'd take issue with calling the MQ's for those games 'rails' in the first place considering you can complete them however you'd like...

There are two basic kinds of games. In one the game tells you a story. In the other a game allows you to tell your own story. Main quests in open world games, and linear games in general, are all about the game telling you the story. I do agree that side quests are much smaller rails. But well constructed side quests have multiple destinations, and can be mixed with other side quests to allow you to use them to create a unique story for multiple characters. Or simply ignored completely if they do not suit a particular character's tale. OTOH, a main quest typically has one outcome. It might have two if the game designer is feeling generous. Daggerfall is the last Bethesda game where I really recall a large number of different possibilities. Of course they nerfed that by making them all happen regardless of what you actually do.

But even side quests are only a minor thing in my mind. I do not play Skyrim because I am so thrilled with getting a golden claw for Lucan for the fiftieth time. For me, it is all about my character, not the story(ies) Bethesda wrote, big or small. I play it to explore the world and get to know my character. It is just my opinion, but I think the main strength and selling point of an open world game is the open world itself. Why bother creating an open world if you expect the players to ignore the open-ended possibilities and instead follow a main quest? Why not just make a purely linear game instead, and save yourself a lot of extra headaches?

All in all, main quests are not necessary for me when it comes to deciding what game I want to buy. How many things it forces me to do in order for me to just play it however, does.

Bethesda's has, I believe, been to tell a story within a large open world and through the story, encourage the players to explore it as much as possible through the course of completing the main quest. The structure of their main quests (at least from Morrowind onwards; I can't speak for the earlier games as my only experience with those was getting stuck in the first dungeon in Daggerfall) is one that sends the player roaming all across the game world and sets them on routes that are dotted with all sorts of ruins, side quests and interesting places and considering that there's no time limit on any of the quests Bethesda encourages exploration via the medium of the main quest. The TES games/Fallout 3 have never really been about the development of the main character, who's just some stats and a blank slate for the player to project onto, but instead about building the world; through the main quest they actively encourage players to explore the open ended possibilities instead of discouraging them to. Hell, Fallout: New Vegas takes this a step further by tying almost every side quest and location together into it's main storyline of the war for the Hoover Dam. The main quest becomes the goal, and I, at least, find there's little for me to be interested in if I have no goal or target to reach in the main quest; there's no character development or depth of the main protagonist to interested, the dialogue isn't well written enough for me to actively go and seek it out, Cyrodiil isn't interesting or unique enough to warrant much exploration, the combat by itself isn't enough to hold the games up even if Newgen Fallout's VATS system is pretty fun and now I realise that I don't actually like the Elder Scrolls games very much. Huh.

tl;dr: I think you've misunderstood the authorial (well, developer) intent concerning the purpose of an open world game.

Some wasteland scavvin´, a trip to Canterbury and a few dead Outcasts.

Darkness fell so back to Megaton to dump some loot in the appropriate places and then to Rivet City, waiting for the market to open. Hopefully they´ll have some more 5mm ammo in stock. It´s needed, the Vulcan spits them out fast. Really fast...

Yeah I tried Daggerfall a couple of days ago and it is basically impossible to get out of the first dungeon. You can read my rants in the "what are you playing" thread. I can't believe Beth made that game.

Oh, I would not be surprised if Bethesda intended the game to be played in a linear fashion - following the main quest and only visiting other places as they came across them while going from one part of the MQ to another. Skyrim especially feels this way, in the way that you often have to do certain quests in order to do other, completely unrelated ones (such as how you have to do the Mages Guild questline in order to complete the Gauldr Amulet questline). But my observation about the strength of an open world is not based upon what the developer may or may not have intended, but rather from observation of not only my gaming, but others.

What I have noticed over the years is that people like yourself who approach ES games in a linear fashion - following the main quest and the story it tells you - get tired of it and want to move on. That is no surprise, all linear games are like that. You can only do the same thing so many times before it is stale. I loved the KOTOR games, but once I played each a few times, I do not want to again. Been there done that after all.

However, those people like myself who ignore the main quests in Bethesda games - people like Acadian, Mirocu, Pseron Wyrd, etc... - we play the same game for years, and still love it. The reason is because we invent our own stories for our characters, and do not care what story Bethesda wants to tell us. This is why I think the real strength of these games is in the open world and freedom it gives players. Because the people who love the games for years are embracing that aspect of them. We do not expect the game to provide us with character development or depth. We provide that ourselves with our roleplaying. In fact, the developer trying to force that can be a detriment, because their ideas might contradict with our own. For example, I found Mass Effect to be very claustrophobic, because I could not play the character I wanted to. I did not want to be a space marine. I did not want to be a human. I did not want to be a secret agent. My ability to roleplay was constrained by the developer's attempt to force their character upon me, rather than allowing me to create my own. I played that game once, and now it collects dust. By contrast I still love Oblivion years after I first started playing it.

Now I am not saying that one way is the 'right' way to play the games, and one way the 'wrong' one. What I am observing is that the people who love the games for a long time appear to be the ones who ignore the main quests, and instead use the game as a sandbox to play in.

Downtown. Dupont area.

Most Super Muties and other baddies gone and not many new arrivals since last time I was here. After some fruitless re-searching of the area I decided to head back out into the wastes where I can roam free as I please. First visit; RobCo Factories and Tenpenny Tower. The latter proved to have an interesting ammo supply but not the 5mm I wanted.

Standing at the tower gate, gazing into the deadlands. Wonder where I will go next....?

@Subrosa: Hmm, I think I see what you mean. Don't really find the idea immensely appealing, to be honest, but whatever works for you.


In other news, Courier has been lending a hand around Zion Valley, helping the Sorrows tribe out, aided by Waking Cloud. I've always argued that one of the best parts of New Vegas is the companions you can recruit, and Honest Hearts really seems to be working that angle; so far, both Waking Cloud and Follows Chalk have become two of my favourite companions in the game, even though I've only just had them tagging along.

Random scavvin´ and pointless running around downtown and the wastes. Kinda fun though to re-visit Greyditch, seems like I missed out on looting some of the empty houses there last time. I also visited the teddy bear factory. Some.... interesting bears in there I must say

Btw, Mustard. What happened to your other avatar? I liked him

Arthur Tale narrowly escaped being chewed to bits by minigun fire in the mall. He ducked into the Museum of History and is currently taking a breather in the haven of Underworld. Smells a bit but it beats being shot up...

You mean Hedonism Bot? He just lost out to Nikola Tesla, that's all.

Edit; Also, lookit mah pikchuh of Courier! Good shot, right?

Yep Nice to see stuff from NV.

Edit: Re-visited the Nuka Cola plant to pick up stuff I can´t believe I missed last time. I wouldn´t have missed them but got distracted and forgot to come back to the place where the locked safe was.

Still looking for that welcome note...

Edit 2: I found it! But damn was it hard to spot! I also got up on Simm´s roof and out on the balcony. Took me the better part of half an hour jumping from the outside fence. I got up only to find there was a hatch all along from the inside.

I need so many facepalms right now...

I agree with this 100%. As I've said before (probably ad nauseum), I view Bethesda's games as a kind of blank canvas on which I paint my own pictures.

Bioware and Obsidian's games have a really short shelf-life with me. I have a really hard time staying interested. I tend to enjoy these games once maybe, and that's about it. Some of them I've even lost interest in before I finished the first time through. It was that way with Dragon Age: Origins. I lost interest in the game about 3/4 of the way through. But I plan to try again. It's just that, at some point in these linear games, it begins to feel like work. It feels like a chore. If I can't determine my own fate, chart my own course, get into my own trouble, there is not a lot there for me, nothing much to hold my interest.

Roleplaying games are a creative outlet for me. I'm not interested in being a passive observer. I'll watch television before I watch video game cut scenes. I subscribe to the Amazon Queen school of thought concerning main quests: do away with them altogether. Focus that energy and attention on developing interesting and engaging guild quests and miscellaneous quests and random quests. A Bethesda game without a main quest - but with interesting guild quests - would be my a near-perfect game.

I lost interest in Dragon Age within an hour. I forget whether I have Origins or DA2, though. I basically installed the game on my PS3 (that took damn near a half-hour iirc!) and then watched the opening intro. Started at the very beginning (moving my character around) and immdiately lost interest. Turned off DA and turned on TES: IV.

I do wanna give it another chance, though, at some point.

Once again I´m forced to agree with mr Wyrd
-----------------

Another one down. This one with a terrible first name, the other a while back had the terrible last name. Nuff said, moving on.

Rock Creek Caverns is up. Going down the hole with my trusty flamer; best weapon against vermin. No, I´m not going after politicians!

Edit: After Rock Creek, Little Lamplight was visited again and ammo was purchased along with a schematic. Before that some random scavvin´ in the wasteland.

Have found several bobbleheads and Quantums recently, as well as pre-war toasters. Things are going mirocu´s way

Found yet another Quantum today!

I agree with this...I've had much more fun making my own story up around what Bethesda tries to make us do, right up to the point where I have no interest in doing any proper quests with my newest Skyrim one...And now

I'm doing it with my Fallout one too...Well...Except for this one...

Michael Saint-Grey found an old note in his pip-boy and with a great sigh, stored all but the most essential of items and headed off to the D.C. ruins...


--------------------------------



"Who the hell are you? and why are you in power armour? You're not one of ours..."

"Why do you care? You're Brotherhood of Steel aren't you?"

"Lyons Pride." the blonde lady extened a gloved hand, "Sarah Lyons."

"Catchy name, little pretentious maybe." Michael smiled behind his T-51 mask.

"You as handy with that rifle as you are with the sarcasm?"

"Whoa yeah."

"You wanna help or get in the way?"

"Maybe both...Wait!" Michael said as Lyons turned her gun in his direction, "Joking! I'll help...Super Mutants?"

Lyons nodded and raised an eyebrow, "Whoa yeah."

The captain turned her head upwards and shouted, "MOVE OUT PEOPLE! COME ON!! LETS GO! Come on you, point and shoot carefully, we're headed for the Gee-enn-are building."

"Hey, what a coincidence." Saint-Grey said, checking his rifle.

Found a few more Quantums but no more bobbleheads... Have now downloaded a few merchant mods I´m excited to try out, one of them is a caravan of friendly Behemoths!!

Also I plan on getting a mod that enables me to buy Quantums with pre-war money in pristine vending machines.

I didn't find a single Bobblehead in my entire game. But, then again, I wasn't looking too hard. I know I missed at least one, in the beginning. I probably walked right past others too. Well, it gives me something to look forward to in my next game.

Bobbleheads and Quantums are what I go out looking for, it´s my purpose in life Even though I lost quite a few Qs in a quest I still have 41 at home and I almost got every B-head

I discovered that I have 17 bobbleheads this morning, sadly I never found the one that's in Raven's Rock before I caused it to explode...Hey-ho...

Yep, I'm all main-quested for the first time ever...I'm not sure why I never did it, really...It was amazing!!...

I love Fallout 3 hugely, more than New Vegas or Skyrim...Yet I always stayed away from the MQ for some reason...

But no more!!...

I absolutely loved it...The whole end bit where you go over the bridge with the big-guy...Whoa!!...Hell yeah!!...

And now, I'm part way through Broken Steel...It's so brilliant to be doing new stuff after all this time... ...

I've never been too sure of doing The Pitt, but I'm thinking it's a bit better than having part of your brain removed for Point Lookout...

I did Mothership Zeta ages ago...It ruined my first character...Though I can't remember why that particular fact sticks in the mind...As in, I remember finishing MZ, but what happened after that, I can't remember, it's so long ago now... ...

Sadly, Rivet City is ruined on this one...The shopkeepers are all stuck in the "never starting wedding"™ glitch...

So you did the FO3 MQ? As I´ve said many times, I never touch any of Beth´s MQs. I just want to roam free and don´t care if the whole world depends on me

But what did you mean with the Rivet City glitch? What exactly happens?

Erm...If you do the quest called "Young Love" or something...It's the one where you have to get the ant-queen pheromones for the wench and dude to get together...

Well, they have a wedding...Awwwww...Sadly, the glitch means that everyone turns up...Sits or stands where needed, but the wedding never starts... ...And the people stand there until it's time to go to bed...Then come back next morning...

The only advantage is that the bed at the hotel is completely free, because the day hasn't ended properly...

Just means a huge amount of revenue is lost really... ...Even the gun sellers are glitched...*Shrug*...



Ediiiitt!!!...The Fallout MQ was fun, and pretty short really...I had immense fun with it...Loved it...And the payoff at the end was brilliant...Well worth doing...

Not to be an ass but even as I know where Dad is now, I just leave him there....

Weeeellll, it just seems so cozy and restful there, doesn't it?... ...

It´s... well, tranquil

*Points at Microu*...Ooooh, I see what you did there... ...

I was quite pleased with that part of the quest, I got to use me muso thing for the quest down there...I was chuffed!!!...No, you probably don't need to be a muso to do it...But I am, and I did use the muso thing... ...

Haven´t played FO3 for a few days now. Sorta miss it.. But I´ll be back sooner than I think probably. And then it´s off into the wasteland to find ammo to shoot muties with again

Well, I finished Broken Steel...Though the endgame caused my PS3 to freeze four separate times at the same point...I then changed what I was doing at that particular section and managed to avoid the big freeze...

But still, I've absolutely loved this whole MQ/Broken Steel thing, so much so that my new wandering pursuit quest thingie is going around collecting sensor modules and cameras for the Brotherhood of Steel labs...Just so I can keep working with them...Sorta... ...

Brilliant game...Love it!!...

Have you played through all DLCs, McBadgeroo?

Well, I've done Operation Anchorage on every runthrough...I've done Mothership Zeta once...This time was obviously Broken Steel...

But no, I've never done either The Pitt or Point Lookout...

The Pitt doesn't sound all that good tbh, I've read about it in the guide, and it doesn't really grab me...While Point Lookout does sound fun, but the idea that my character would have part of his brain removed right at the start, really put me off...

Maybe I can get past it...I'd need to in order to do Old World Blues on New Vegas...So...*Shrug*...

So I've now done three of the Fallout 3 ones and two of the New Vegas ones...And enjoyed them all to varying degrees...Though MZ caused a big mess to my first character and I abandoned him...I think it was something like every time I came down from the spaceship, laden with goods there'd be a Deathclaw waiting for me, and then there would be a big freezing episode...*Rollseyes*...

The Pitt was alright. The Steelyard in it is a fantastic place to explore! Going kamikaze on all the raiders is also a lot of fun. The end reward of the ammo press is very handy, as it allows you to convert nearly any type of ammo to any other type of ammo. So you never have to worry about running out of bullets again. Plus it gives you a few new guns, and the auto-axes are just awesome melee weapons.

Point Lookout was fantastic! The whole brain thing bothered me too, but I have a mod that circumvents that. But even without the mod, it does not actually effect your character in any way. Plus, you can just not do the main quest and that will never happen anyway. There is still a lot of neat exploration you can do in PL. It was my favorite of the FO3 dlcs.

Mothership Zeta I only tried once, and gave up after half way. It just breaks the genre too much. I play FO3 for the post-apocalypse vibe, not an X-Files kidnapped by aliens one. I did like the Samurai Armor and Sword though. I modded those in the regular game for my character Tomoe Gozen to use.

I never did do Operation Anchorage, or finish Broken Steel.

I started off quite liking MZ and then it just got so unrelenting that I found myself just rushing through it to get it to end...And then I discovered I'd just wasted my time anyways... ...Though the amount of Scoped Magnums up there is truly amazing... ...I liked the alien gel stuff that would repair any weapon...And the design was pretty...But, I'd never do it again...

I tend to be a Heavy Armour type for Oblivion and Skyrim, so I wanted the Winterized Power Armour from Operation Anchorage...It never wears down!!... ...

Maybe I should do The Pitt and at least have a look at Lookout...(Y'see what I did there? )...Give me something else to do...I've really enjoyed being back on FO3...Ach, who needs a teeny bit o'brain anyways!!!... ...

Libery Prime is just so AWESOME!!!... ...

Cracked out my copy on New Vegas recently. Now I'm free of working with my aunt I have time to make up for! haha.

So may character is called Lori. She is a courier, obviously, who is 30 years of age, but she is not on a hellbent mission to find the guy who shot her.

Instead, she saw it as a wake up call, realising that she has to live her life and not be afraid of the wasteland.

Her tagged skills are Guns, Sneak and Medicine. She prefers to avoid confrontation if nessesary; usually only attacking humans if they attack first. She may grow to get over this in time. She is physically very weak and not very suseptible to damage, so she knows a few Medicinal skills just in case of an emergency.

Her starting traits are Small Frame and Trigger Disapline.

A bit of backstory:

She lived quite a secluded life in Primm with her sister, Belle. They were very close, more life best friends.

Lori had always been a courier, but one day Belle decided to join her on one of her contracts.

However, the package turned out to be a lure as what awaited the girls at their destination was a group of cannible ghouls. Lori survived, beating and shooting her way through the attackers... but unfortunatley Belle perished; eaten alive and succuming to the trap.

Lori was devastated, returning home to Primm and remaining locked in her home for days. She couldn;t imagine a life without her sister... she didn;t want to. She had considered taking her own life.

Luckily for her, Johnson Nash noticed something was wrong and managed to just about convince her that life was worth living.

Nearly a year after her sister's demise she was given the package that would get her shot.

Sure, should she ever bump into the guy who shot her she might have her revenge, but until then she is going to live her life and see what she may come across.

She's currently in Primm, trying to regain some order by attempting to rescue Deputy Beagle.

I love the Winterized Combat Armor. I modded it into the vanilla game as well. My most recent FO3 character wore it.

I love listening to Liberty Prime! He is hilarious! "Democracy is life, Communism is Death!"




Great background! Well, not so great for Lori of course... I have always loved the Small Frame trait. I missed it in FO3. I do not remember the Trigger Discipline one. I'll have to look that up.

The whole idea with aliens in Fallout... Just wrong, man! Just wrong! I hate that they put aliens into everything these days

I won't lie, Lori's backround is loosely based on that of a TV character that I've always had admiration for; but the characters are very different.

Trigger Disipline is a great trait for Lori. It increases your accuracy by 20% whilst decreses your firing speed by 20%, which is good for Lori's form of combat.

Back at the Statesman Hotel again. Last time I was there we were in a hurry to leave and I didn´t have time to scavange properly. Found some goodies already

Is that the one where Reilly's bunch are holed up?... ...

I really need to get back to my camera hunt... ...