GhostofAnakin

I agree with the sentiment on the previous page about fleshing out one big area, making it full of quests and interactions, rather than making two big areas with half the content in each. Hopefully that's one of the things Obsidian looks at for PoE2.

I thought the gameplay, particularly the combat, in TW2 was an order of magnitude better than in TW1, and the voice acting and dialogue were much superior too. As far as the actual story, though, I though TW1 was significantly better. Overall, though, I definitely think TW2 is better than TW1. I liked the branching story in TW2. I liked how you could play through a completely different 2nd and 3rd chapter based on your decision in chapter 1.

Vault 81 was a major disappointment. All that area, all those people, and there was almost nothing to do there quest-wise. In past FO games, there'd have been a bunch of minor quests, as well as a big main quest associated with that place. What the heck, Bethesda? Did you run out of time after implementing that Sim-like town creator that you didn't have any time left to actually include dialogue and quests?

Obsidian's next Kickstarter!

Looking forward to this. I've held off on playing White March Part I so I could play both in my next play through.

Wasn't the hope that PoE would do well enough on Kickstarter (funding-wise) in order to help them self-fund future PoE titles? I'd hope that's still the case, considering how successful PoE's Kickstarter seemed to be.

Heh, I found Vault 81 for the first time.

I found all three underwhelming. One was just more open world crap, one was a slog through the deep roads (but even more limiting, IMO, with a boring story), and one was kind of traveling through various Eluvians-->fight some more -->travel through Eluvians -->fight some more. Kind of ironic that for all the hate DA2 gets, at least its story DLC were interesting.

Still wish there were more towns/cities though with large populations. IMO, it makes the game feel almost more like a large DLC/expansion than an actual core game.

Hah, these streets are a maze. I can't find Goodneighbor while just randomly walking around. I was hoping to pick up Han**** or McCready early on, but I can't find them.

I'm trying to get a second play through in, but I'm finding it tough precisely because of the lack of choice and consequence. Part of what inspires me to play a game a second time is in most RPGs, there's (at least) two ways various quests can go. So I play it a second time to see how things play out if I chose the second option. Until the very end choice, Fallout 4 doesn't have that.

My first conversation with Trashcan Carla came near the end of the game. I'd traveled everywhere, including Diamond City multiple times. I still got the option to ask her "Diamond City?". Maybe that's the genius of Bethesda's writing. They wrote the dialogue as though every character is mentally challenged!

So FO3 had a child looking for a father, FO4 had a father looking for a child. What are the masterminds at Bethesda going to have as their hook for FO5? Grandson looking for a grandfather? I'd just rather they stuck with something that doesn't attempt (and fail) to pull at your heart strings as a motivation to do the main quest, especially when that main quest is almost always lacking and is the weakest part of the game. They want to make their games all about the sandbox and exploration? Fine by me. But craft a main story that fits with that.

I also got annoyed at the lack of actual say you had, even if you become the new head of the Institute. Father: You're in charge now, son. I have faith in you to lead us. Me: Thanks. Father: Now, let's go attack the Brotherhood of Steel. Me: Uh, actually, I want peace, not war. Father: Sorry, we have to attack them. It's the only way. Me: But you just said I'm the new leader? Why does my opinion not count? Father: It counts. Just not now. Or in basically any decision made with regards to the Institute annihilating every faction in our way. Me: So ... what exactly does my role as head of the Institute entail? Father: You can now leave your inventory in one of these spotless dressers!

I just don't understand why they did away with the big settlements/towns. That seemed to be a hallmark of the Fallout franchise; traveling to each individual town, which had its own struggles and story to tell. Diamond City, the Institute, and ... that's about it. And neither was exactly rife with quests and backstory.

I was just about to ask you about this. You said FO3 is better, I've heard multiple people state it's undeniable FO4 is an upgrade from FO3. I myself? Wasn't so sure, thinking it could go either way. And why? Choice and Consequence. This is the one feature it seems FO3 retains above FO4. Yes, the writing in FO3 is retarded and ridiculous at times, but despite this, you STILL make meaningful choices. Great example, no character in their right mind has any motivation to blow up the Brotherhood of Steel in Broken Steel. It's a stupid evil decision that's incredibly difficult to reasonably justify. Despite this, you do get rather large, tangible differences in gameplay if you make that choice. You might scoff and sigh at how stupid the story is that led you there and how you struggle to explain your character's motives, but all the same you at least have an interest in trying them because you did have full confidence in FO3 to provide choice and consequence on that front. For all FO3's faults with story, it did choice and consequence right. It's just hard to recognize this because of course it could be better, but improvement is always possible, to be fair. More importantly, story reinforces choice and consequence, and the story of FO3 fails so abysmally hard on the "evil" front and the "evil" route that giving such a character motivations is a struggle itself that distracts from how much tangible choice and consequence there is. I've not played FO4 so I cannot say for certain if FO3 or FO4 is superior, but I too have suspected FO3 would be the superior game in my mind, simply because I value choice and consequence far more than many of the oft-cited improvements of FO4. Another minor difference is weapon balance. FO3's weapon balance was pre-school levels of balance. The game had a handful of guns that were clearly "the best" and you had little choice in the matter. Lincoln's Repeater, the Android's Plasma Rifle, Alien technology, Vengeance, The Terrible Shotgun, Backwater Rifle, Victory Rifle, etc etc. Total, there's gotta be less than 10 viable choices for end-game if you seek to utilize the most practical weaponry; all others cannot hope to compete with the ones listed. FO4? I've not played and yet I feel 100% confident FO4 is Skyrim 2.0 on the weapons front. Crafted weapons will undoubtedly be superior to anything you might randomly find, and once you've had a chance to play around with crafting a bit, there's undoubtedly a meta stat that, if you're interested in making the best weapon, you include this or that modification. I sincerely think Bethesda needs to review their design philosophy with crafting and with gameplay in general in regards to the "let the player do anything" mentality. I would attribute a lack of traits (oh my god!!! a negative downside!! Heaven forbid anything bad ever befall the player!) alongside the weapon crafting system to this. It's unfortunate because I think balancing crafting alongside unique weapons you find is totally feasible. Give crafting domain over stats such as crit rate or crit damage or scopes + accuracy while uniques get domain over AP cost and the like, and suddenly the use of crafting will depend upon your character. I think one of the reasons there's no real choice and consequences (other than the aforementioned final choice between factions) is because of how they designed the game world. There aren't your typical multiple "towns" like you had in previous FO games, where you usually had a bunch of quests there, including usually a "big" quest where you decided the fate of that town. So there aren't opportunities to decide to side with NPC A or NPC B, each one wanting you to do something different to that town for their gains. The world itself felt smaller than FO3 because of this. I read somewhere that it's actually bigger, in terms of area you can travel to. But it seemed smaller simply because most areas were either covered with 3-person farm houses, or giant empty buildings that you didn't encounter anything but enemies in. The lack of multiple cities/towns, IMO, really hurt the feeling of it being big.

Agreed on the NPCs. They had a backstory, but it was so bare bones, and you had to jump through hoops just to get to it, with pretty much zero payoff. Cool, you got a perk if you maxed your affection with them. But the actual payoff in terms of learning about who they are was disappointing. Then again, I think this goes in hand with the overall lack of dialogue/exposition/conversations you could have with all NPCs because of Bethesda's (odd) decision to water down that part of the game. I also noticed there was very little choice and consequence this time around, with regards to various factions/quests. Sure, at the end you had to pick a side, but before that? In previous FO games, often times you could do quests multiple ways. In FO4, it felt like when you got a quest, you did it and then collected your XP and reward. Hell, compare that even to FO3 (since we're comparing Bethesda to Bethesda/Apples to apples), where you could decide to disarm that giant bomb or set it off, or you could decide to allow ghouls to live in that apartment building or not. Choice and consequence for your choice. This time around, nothing.

Finished the game tonight (or at least the main story questline). That was the most straightforward and bare bones story I've seen in a RPG in recent memory. It also felt incredibly short. But maybe it felt like that because the various sidequests didn't seem as plentiful as prior FO games (if you don't count the endlessly repeating quests). I can't complain too much, as I did finish it and had fun playing through. But if we're talking strictly about story and depth of quests, I actually think this falls below FO3. And that's sort of saying something considering FO3 wasn't exactly a masterpiece of storytelling.

I wiped out the Railroad and pretty much had no choice in the matter. Apparently just accepting a certain quest (one that, once you start talking about with the character, you have no way of backing out of), the Railroad turned hostile toward me. Apparently they have a spy in the BoS and overheard me talking, because there was no logical reason they'd be hostile toward me.

So I got stuck into siding with one faction, all because I listened to a quest giver but was never given an option to say "I'm not sure about this". Yay for the watered down dialogue system!

Finally doing some sidequests for the Institute. It's a bit of a chore to travel around the place to find the quest-givers, though. Why can't they congregate in one spot, damn it?

There is 26 different quest ids for minuteman from which four I think repeat to infinity. Same thing is true with BoS and Railroad, meaning that some of their quests just repeats to infinity. That doesn't seem right. Even if only 4 are the repetitive ones, that means 22 are new/different quests. I honestly do not recall doing 22 unique quests for the minutemen. And I don't think there will be any major ones coming up as I unlocked the "castle" achievement thingy, which I assume is the major sidequest for them (not including any main quest stuff that's related to them).

Amazon's finally back in stock of Batman Arkham Knight. I got an email saying they're preparing to ship my order which I made back during November's Black Friday sale, when the game was only $39.99.

26 from the Minutemen? Does that include the repetitive "settlement is under attack/needs your help" ones where I've had to save Sanctuary Hills a dozen times already? Similarly, do the Brotherhood of Steel ones include the "find me technology" repetitive quests that that medic you meet at the police station keeps giving you?

Maybe I didn't pay attention as closely to FO3's sidequests, but it seems like FO4 has a lot of repetitive "filler" quests. You know, tasks given by side characters that require the player to basically do the exact same thing, but just in a different location, and with very little actual payoff (ie. not much furthering of the story or whatever). Anyone else notice this?