Mojave Meanderings and Wasteland Wanderings, The Fallout "Where are you now" thread Options

[McBadgere]

I thought it would be nice that as many peoples either are, or at least intending to play a Fallout of some kind, that a "Where are you?/What are you doing?" type o' thread was in order...

Apologies to Mods if this is out of line btw... ...

However...I believe this thread is warranted...



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Arnaud and ED-E are currently stood outside the Gun-runners' Vendotron, trying to decide on whether to buy a humongous gun or not...

Next stop...Camp McCarran(?)...NCR airport camp thingy anyways... ....

[SubRosa]

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.

[Colonel Mustard]

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.

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...

[SubRosa]

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.

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?

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Mar 4 2013, 06:03 PM

[Colonel Mustard]

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?

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.

[SubRosa]

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.

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.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Mar 5 2013, 11:59 PM

[Pseron Wyrd]

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.

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.

This post has been edited by Pseron Wyrd: Mar 10 2013, 10:19 PM