Fallout 3 or New Vegas? (yes, this question again)

[Phrozenflame500]

New Vegas >>>> Fallout 3

Obsidian absolutely shits on Bethesda in terms of writing, and that's what really counts in an RPG. Not to mention there were far more numerous quests and each quest had a huge number of different possible resolutions.

Also, this is completely subjective but I prefer the Western theme to the Survival theme.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

New Vegas is way too buggy for me even after all the patches and community fixes. I still can't play that game. It's too frustrating. So I guess my vote goes towards the game that I can play.

Disable all the autosave functions and use the console save command (save GameName01 [alternate between 01 and 02]), general advice for all Bethesda games. This will drastically improve game stability.

Fallout 3 had Liberty Prime. It had alien spaceships (Zeta expansion), but the best part of Fallout 3 was than (with the Brotherhood expansion) you could keep playing after the main quest was complete. Oh, and Liam Neeson. New Vegas has none of these.

I do like New Vegas, it is a fun game and definitely has it's moments, but I always felt it was lacking that certain something that made it as fun as Fallout 3.

 

[loc978]

No other Fallout game handles infrastructure with "SCIENCE!"...

Explain the Mojave then?

-The game takes place in 2281.
-House took over New Vegas in 2274, 7 years before the game began, and 3 years before Fallout 3, in response to the NCR arriving.
-Before House took over, everyone in the Vegas area was wandering nomadic tribals, with no known farms, no known trade routes, and even less animal life, and pre-war food, to live on then the C.W.
-Most towns, Primm, Nipton, Novac, are all based on a trade economy, but they had no one to trade to until the NCR showed up 7 years ago.
-All of those towns have no farms, no remnants of farms, no clean water(as all the local water towers are irradiated), and no mention of any form of water purifiers.

So, if there are no farms, no clean water in most cities, no water purifiers in most cities, less animal/pre-war food, no trade routes, nothing to actually trade FOR to begin with..... what exactly did the people of the Mojave eat for 200 years? and how did they get it?

The only towns that actually have any sustainable infrastructure are Goodsprings and Nellis, everything else just magically survived without anything for 200 years, before the NCR showed up and made all the known farms/trade routes, making it even MORE magic based then Fallout 3 was.

To say Fallout hasn't used SCIENCE! to explain away their instructed is pure lie, especially considering most cities in Fallout 1 and 2, despite being 10+ times the distance apart as cities in Fallout 3 and NV, often showed ZERO infrastructure at all. They just all claimed they got food from somewhere else, despite that the distance between towns in Fo1/2 would cause most food to go back before they could transport it there.

-plenty of indigenous, edible plant life
-plenty of fresh water sources, including lake Mead and the Colorado river
-7 years is plenty of time to branch out and set up shop in Novac... Nipton and Primm are in easy walking distance from Goodsprings.
-"No known caravan routes"? There were plenty of tribal tradesmen. No NCR or Legion != no trade.

-Fallout 1: everyone was supplied via the Hub, which was surrounded by farms (one of which you can visit). Apparently they all have clean well water.

-Fallout 2: Arroyo, Klamath, and Modoc are farming communities. Then there's the Ghost Farm, and Vault City is essentially a self-sustaining future-farm which uses its entire vault for hydroponics. Plenty of trade routes.

No lie, the devs thought this stuff through where Bethesda didn't.

 

[nogitsune]

I like Fallout 3 more, end of story and there's nothing anyone can say to change my mind. I have given NV several chances and saying things like, it wasn't as bad as I thought, so many people like it. But, you know what, Everytime I play it, it's worse, the technical glitches are more troublesome, the writing is more asinine and the characters are dumber. At least FO3 had the good sense to keep the story succinct and simple, hell, I cared about James and that's more than I can say about anyone in NV, save for Rex, I love dogs and really it's hard to mess up but FO3 had Dogmeat too.

I'll be honest, it's my opinion, it's subjective and really in an objective world, they're both buggy games and that's all that's objective. As far as the Story, I like FO3 better too, and I seriously don't care about farms, if they have nothing to add, then it's like having to make a character take a shit, it's boring and pointless! The stark feeling in FO3 is what I come to the post apocalyptic genre for.

I do like that NV tried to have factions but I think they failed, being forced to have the factions act like idiots even tossing away key character traits, like Caesar's misogyny, to suit the plot.

And for gameplay, I hate NV, The balance is crap and they tend to just throw a lot of enemies at the player with lots of health or armor. And the DT system is broken, making energy weapons just plain worse than normal guns in every way. Yay I chose energy weapons, now I have less ammo, harder to repair, acquire and do less damage too! Great! Oh and I love how flipping worthless repair is until it's at level 90 and get the perk, you need the skill but it does jack until you get that perk. I got sick of leveling it and thought I'd just buy repairs, and then they cost more than all the flipping caps.

Not to mention it runs like crap on my PC, which runs Skyrim, Borderlands 2 and Saints Row 4 great. I can't get a decent frame rate and I turned things down to where the game is barely playable, I'm getting shot by invisible people because the depth of view is so blasted low and it still runs poorly.

I played FO3 begining to end and then again having a great time but FO: NV has just been a god awful experience and nothing anyone can say can change that.

 

[Scootinfroodie]

holy crap kid, you don't need to make individual quotes for each thing, dear god.

Easier to read that way. I'll just do "quote" instead of the full name quote from now on though

-And you kill Eden by making him kill himself using a logical fallacy, not through any weapon.

And it was the most cliche thing ever. Any hick from the wasteland could have pulled that off

-It did? Where did you get the idea I said it didn't? They just had no way to distribute it, thus Eden had no reason to give Autumn something he couldn't use.

Because there was no way for him to get it to the memorial through any of the intensely loyal soldiers he had at his disposal?

-Because the only reason they don't co-operate already is because resources are so scare, due to the lack of water, that they feel they need to fend for themselves rather then work together and share? Do you understand how civilization work? or how people act when pushed to the edge?

There was a lot more to it than simply "scarce resources". There were settlements that were actively intolerant of each other, and were aggressive towards outsiders. Those groups don't just "come together".

-Except, again, you DON'T destroy it, you kill a lot of people, and again, only because Eden let you out to give you the chance to, but the base itself is only destroyed by Eden, or by the nuke throwing Liberty Prime, and its all moot because Eden wouldn't have let anyone else out, so no one could have possibly done what you did.

-Except, again, every city proves you wrong, from Megaton to Tenpenny Tower, all of them have water purification system, and ALL of them tell you it isn't enough. You really don't understand how much water it takes to farm, or keep people reasonable quenched do you?

-A super small faction that has tons of pre-war technology, and new technology they made using pre-war machines only they had, which vastly outdoes the BoS's technology in every way. I seriously cant tell if you are being serious anymore. The Enclave are essentially all powerful. As for raiders, the one with laser weaponry are quite few.

A super small faction that had a number of major monkey wrenches thrown into its inner workings by some hick from a vault.

-Except they don't self-replicate, that's a bold faced lie, its explicitly stated that they kidnap people to gas them in the FEV chambers you see in Vault 87. Also, the game explicitly says the only reason the Super Mutants aren't a threat is because the BoS has kept them contained in the downtown D.C. area for the last two decades. Before they showed up Super Mutants regularly attacked Megaton, now, it never happens. Your arguments are beginning to more and more rely on outright ignoring everything stated in the game.

That IS Super Mutants self replicating. Their form of production has always been creation through FEV exposure, but previously that was managed by The Master. Additionally, the mutants aren't contained in downtown DC because that's not where they're coming from. There's no reason why Super Mutants shouldn't STILL be attacking Megaton because they're coming from Vault 87, not sprouting out of the ground in DC

-It actually does, if you PAY ATTENTION to what Fawkes talks about, his entire philosophy is based on zen Buddhism, he very strongly believes in things like destiny, karma, and fate. The fact they changed it in broken steel was pretty stupid.

And, like you said, it was changed. None of that stuff mattered in the end, because a DLC pack actively changed the story so that he just went along with it in the end
Not that that matters anyway, because your lack of ability to point out that his being there could ALSO be part of fate, or any similar thing, means that it's a HUGELY railroaded choice at the end
Also doesn't explain RL-3. Both just utilize contrived last-minute reasons to not press 3 buttons in a room they can both survive in because Bethesda wanted an easy way for the player to not participate in the wasteland post-purification

-People have been outside vaults for 200 years. Hence ghouls, hence Megaton, hence places like The Pitt and Point Lookout. Also, kids don't normally "go" to Little Lamplight, they are born there, and then leave. As for training, what is learning? It actually isn't that hard to train kids to fight, they just have to be put into a situation where they have to.

The children are not ghouls, and ghouls would have been out for a little more than that. Megaton was MUCH later
Learning how to fight from other children, or from people who can barely defend themselves, doesn't make you good enough to fight super soldiers.

-What is a game mechanic that is wildly inconsistent?

I never said it wasn't, but it IS there as a set value judgement system.

-Again, did you PLAY Fallout 3? James EXPRESSIVELY states that
A. The vault water chips aren't sufficient to deal with the radiation in the tidal basin.
B. He isn't using the GECK to fix the water, he is adapting part of the GECK's technology to use in the purifier.
Again, did you actually PLAY the game?

Except just saying "it's not sufficient" doesn't make it insufficient. It's only not sufficient because Bethesda wrote it that way. From a logical standpoint, it really shouldn't be. Water purifiers aren't all or nothing. If you need to purify X number of gallons of water, and one chip can purify 1/5 of X, then 5 purifiers should get the job done. Meanwhile, on the West Coast, the NCR gets by just fine because they don't need to go on a magical macguffin adventure every time they want to expand to a new region.
Did you ONLY play Fallout 3?

-Says who? animal hunting + food scaving + naturally grown food such as mutfruit + real-world scale would make it work.

No, not at all. We're talking about a handful of hunting groups (the groups being 2-3 people, and sometimes they're just cannibals) that are supposed to A: get to each town without getting mutie'd, and B: hunt enough to support what is easily 10 times their number in terms of meat
Like I said before, food scavving shouldn't work after even 100 years, let alone your projected 200. With so many places in the capital waste being closed off, so much of the food being perishable, and with the huge risk of wandering into what is necessarily mutie territory, there's really no sense in that being an adequate source of food

Also, you keep using the word fiat, but I don't think it means what you think it means. And the caravan merchants are wholly capable of making it to town, I have seen them take out everything from packs of raiders, to albino radscorpions, to deathclaws, constantly.

And I've seen them die to those, constantly
They die especially fast when fighting muties too

-Again, what are you talking about? Rivet City, Megaton, and Tenpenny tower are specifically stated to have water purifiers.

Those are not the only settlements

-Hunting rifles are weak weapons, and the only super mutants with mini-guns are masters, which are, in lore, very rare. Any argument based on treating the level scaling game mechanic as canon lore is flawed, and shows nothing more then a very bad attempt to grasp at straws.

Except you don't need to include level scaling for the outpost outside of Rivet City to have a Master in it, or the outpost before it. Also isn't it a bit selective to cry foul at the mention of level scaling but then use in-game stats for weapons rather than how much damage an actual hunting rifle does to a human body?

 

[deth2munkies]

Played both, truthful answer is don't bother with either.

They commit the cardinal sin of being a FPS where the bullets do not go where you are aiming unless you have a certain skill. Not only that, but enemies have independent levels so the game is forcibly linear. If you go into an area you're not supposed to, you will run out of bullets and durability on your melee items before you actually kill some of the enemies in the game.

I like the setting, and TBH, the setup and storyline to Fallout 3 are far superior IMO, but the gameplay is freaking atrocious and Fallout 3 is STILL a buggy mess that crashes all the time for no reason.

 

[SajuukKhar]

snip

Its still rather annoying.

-It's Fallout, the entire series is based on 50's cliches. But thats beyond the point of no one else would have been able to do it since Eden wouldn't have let them out.

-You mean the soldiers who turn on him when Autumn tells them to? Its made painfully obvious the human soldiers of the Enclave follow Autumn more then they do Eden.

-The only settlements actively hostile to outsiders are the raider town of Evergreen Mills, and Paradise Falls. everyone either maintains a level of neutrality, or are allies. So them coming together when they already do isn't hard to understand.

-You mean like.... the hero of every Fallout game from 1 to NV? that is just basic "the MC is magically able to take down entire armies even though he has only ever been a mailman during his life" most games have. the Mc's magic asskicking abilities doesn't prove that anyone else could do it, as not everyone else is a MC.

-Except, as pointed out numerous times in the game, the Super Mutants are looking for more FEV, and think that D.C. is where they will find it, which is why they all pretty much go there, instead of attacking random settlements anymore. They even say in dialog they realize they are loosing to many of them to the "bucket heads" then they can replace with their dwindling FEV resources, which is why they are throwing practically all their numbers to D.C. itself in an attempt to find more FEV.

-Actually, the real-world reason as to why the companions don't go into the purifier is because Bethesda only added the companions into the game right before the game shipped, and they simply had no time to alter the finale of the MQ. In lore, its because they have no reason to possibly die for you if the prufier blows up when you turn it on, especially when turning on the purifier either
A. Doesn't effect them
B. Negatively effects them.

-Actually, Megaton was founded by people trying to get into the vault shortly after the war. As for Little Lamplight, as pointed out before, they don't get attacked much by the super Mutants, and when they do, they don't face them head on. They don't have to outmatch a "super solider" if you can even call the that as super Mutants are idiots.

-Which even the game treats as nothing more then a minor thing.

-Did you actually play Fallout 3?
1. That's not how mechanical systems work
2. The NCR needed the magical Vault Dweller, Chosen One, and Courier to do everything for them every time they wanted to expand. everything they have accomplished, all the alliances that made them what they are, were all formed by magical dues ex machina super-men. the entire history of their survival and expansion has been built on the backs of magical MC's.
3. The water on the east coast would be significantly more worse off due to how much harder it got hit.

-What is game-scale? You do understand that just because the game onyl shows three Brahmin in places like Arefu, it doesn't mean that have JUST THREE Brahmin? Its there to show there are people who do this, not to be 100% accurate since everyone who isn't trying to find faults with the game gets the purpose behind it and understand the concept of game scale =/= lore scale.

Also, those places in the CW are only "closed off" because it would be impossible to model every single building's interior, again, in lore, they would be accessible. Do you even understand the basic of game design?

-I have seen them take out masters with ease.

-I never said they were the only settlements.....

-Not really, as weapon damage is the same throughout the game. whereas what monsters appear where is based on the player's level, rather then what lore says they would be.

 

[Scootinfroodie]

-It's Fallout, the entire series is based on 50's cliches. But thats beyond the point of no one else would have been able to do it since Eden wouldn't have let them out.

And you know that for sure because..?

-You mean the soldiers who turn on him when Autumn tells them to? Its made painfully obvious the human soldiers of the Enclave follow Autumn more then they do Eden.

And the use of the anti-FEV doesn't actively go against Autumn himself

-The only settlements actively hostile to outsiders are the raider town of Evergreen Mills, and Paradise Falls. everyone either maintains a level of neutrality, or are allies. So them coming together when they already do isn't hard to understand.

The BOS takes potshots at ghouls, Tenpenny Tower actively excludes them and prefers to remain isolated from the rest of the wasteland (and its owner is actively hostile towards Megaton for trivial reasons), many ghouls (including those who wish to get into Tenpenny Tower) are hostile to humans (overtly or otherwise), the group of cannibals you meet is initially hostile towards outsiders out of self-preservation, etc.

-You mean like.... the hero of every Fallout game from 1 to NV? that is just basic "the MC is magically able to take down entire armies even though he has only ever been a mailman during his life" most games have. the Mc's magic asskicking abilities doesn't prove that anyone else could do it, as not everyone else is a MC.

Except there are people who lore-wise are said to have greater ass-kicking capabilities.

-Except, as pointed out numerous times in the game, the Super Mutants are looking for more FEV, and think that D.C. is where they will find it, which is why they all pretty much go there, instead of attacking random settlements anymore. They even say in dialog they realize they are loosing to many of them to the "bucket heads" then they can replace with their dwindling FEV resources, which is why they are throwing practically all their numbers to D.C. itself in an attempt to find more FEV.

Running out of != out of, and if you can gain more prisoners, supplies etc. from attacking an outpost it's only sensible to go for it.

-Actually, the real-world reason as to why the companions don't go into the purifier is because Bethesda only added the companions into the game right before the game shipped, and they simply had no time to alter the finale of the MQ. In lore, its because they have no reason to possibly die for you if the purifier blows up when you turn it on, especially when turning on the purifier either
A. Doesn't effect them
B. Negatively effects them.

Except that's not the reason given, that's your own internalized explanation resulting from a last minute decision from the developers.

-Actually, Megaton was founded by people trying to get into the vault shortly after the war. As for Little Lamplight, as pointed out before, they don't get attacked much by the super Mutants, and when they do, they don't face them head on. They don't have to outmatch a "super solider" if you can even call the that as super Mutants are idiots.

Shortly after the war != "Golly lets walk into this still-irradiated hellhole to knock on that vault door". "Shortly" is a relative term
And super mutants really are super soldiers. They are nigh-immortal, super strong giants immune to disease and radiation.

-Which even the game treats as nothing more then a minor thing.

Situationally

-Did you actually play Fallout 3?
1. That's not how mechanical systems work
2. The NCR needed the magical Vault Dweller, Chosen One, and Courier to do everything for them every time they wanted to expand. everything they have accomplished, all the alliances that made them what they are, were all formed by magical dues ex machina super-men. the entire history of their survival and expansion has been built on the backs of magical MC's.
3. The water on the east coast would be significantly more worse off due to how much harder it got hit.

1. Water purification works by volume. We have methods by which one can purify water in large amounts with small machines right now, and they work by the litre/gallon. You don't have a machine that will only purify a giant basin of water, and will only use one purification device to do it
2. The NCR could have developed just fine without the Vault Dweller, whose only notable contribution was saving the person who later became president. The Chosen One's involvement with the NCR is optional, and the Courier was just there to run errands for the NCR if they so chose. The majority of their alliances pre-Mojave were dealt with through meetings that the player never dealt with
3. The water on the east coast is still purified by water purifiers in towns and vaults

-What is game-scale? You do understand that just because the game onyl shows three Brahmin in places like Arefu, it doesn't mean that have JUST THREE Brahmin? Its there to show there are people who do this, not to be 100% accurate since everyone who isn't trying to find faults with the game gets the purpose behind it and understand the concept of game scale =/= lore scale.

The number of brahmin isn't the issue, the distribution of brahmin is. Pointing to 3 brahmin in one town, or an equivalent to that, isn't sufficient evidence for a stable living environment on the other end of the capital wastes

Also, those places in the CW are only "closed off" because it would be impossible to model every single building's interior, again, in lore, they would be accessible. Do you even understand the basic of game design?

A building that is entirely unstable and basically about to crumble is not even accessible in a lore sense. The portions of the city that are walled off by rubble are also not accessible. The sections that nobody goes to because they're filled with muties are not accessible. The sections that nobody goes to because they're too heavily irradiated or are filled to the brim with feral ghouls are not accessible

Also

-I have seen them take out masters with ease.

-Not really, as weapon damage is the same throughout the game. whereas what monsters appear where is based on the player's level, rather then what lore says they would be.

Lore only applies when it supports your arguments apparently. It doesn't matter if a super mutant master is beyond what your typical merchant is capable of, or the fact that guns aren't magically less damaging in the Fallout universe because in game that's different, but it ALSO doesn't matter that the game doesn't actually show you where food comes from, because the lore says otherwise. Good to see that you're being consistent

oh and

-I never said they were the only settlements.....

Sorry, but when you say "these towns have purifiers" and then talk about how every town is capable of supporting itself when there's no sign that these other towns have purifiers, and there's no non-irradiated water nearby
Well... it's a bit silly
Also if they all DO have water purifiers, going back to my previous statement on water purification, wouldn't it be better for them to group up and pool their resources? Maybe see about getting their best minds together and scavving for bits to make more efficient systems for water purification and agriculture?
If the promise of "civilization" is enough to bring people together under one banner, it shouldn't take the Enclave and a macguffin for that to happen

 

[duwenbasden]

I play both and like both.

Fallout 3 has a better atmosphere, and better looking. Though it's lacking features in some areas such as hardcore mode (I know about FWE, it's close but it's still a little off). It is also severely lacking in the companion department (that includes modded companions); and the story is a bit too "you are the only one that can stop them!" for my taste, and why the f is the Potomac still irradiated after 200 years?

Fallout New Vegas has a better faction system and a more coherent story. It also has more features, and better companions. Not to mention looking less like a dump.

Currently I solo on Fallout 3, and run with 2-3 companions in NV (Deathclaw, Reanimated corpse, and sometimes Balls the talking dog).

 

[JarinArenos]

I played both when they came out, and played both to exhaustion, so here goes...

Fallout 3 had some of the most interesting world design that I've seen before or since. I loved exploring every nook and cranny of the game. I loved Megaton. Also, the radio was pretty dang good, compared to FNV, and Three Dog was way more fun than "Mr. New Vegas" ever could be. That being said, the writing pretty much sucked across the board.

Fallout New Vegas had amazing story, characters I actually gave a crap about, and made great strides in game mechanics. Granted, most of the mechanical improvements were just building stock versions of the most popular FO3 mods, but honestly... I wish more games would do that. On the other hand, the Mojave is boring as hell in real life (I lived in the area for a couple years), and the game's version... isn't that much better. It certainly had its moments, but I truly missed the Capital Wasteland at times. Likewise, the forced directionality (is that a word? Eh, whatever) at the beginning kinda annoys me as well. I'm the sort that likes to take a hard left off of the plot-trail as soon as possible in any open-world game, and FNV just really didn't let you do that. Try taking a hard left off of the rails here and you get eaten by deathclaw 5 minutes into the game.

So yeah, FO3 wins on world design and pacing. FNV wins... pretty much everything else.

 

[Doom-Slayer]

Fallout 3 has the better world and atmosphere, Fallout NV has basically more stuff and better quests. NV also has hardcore mode which I love.

Overall the problem I have with NV is the world feels absolutely tiny compared to Fo3 and Im pretty sure it is actually smaller. Its a bit disappointing going from Fo3 to NV in that way, but it makes up for it a bit with new items and better quests and things to do.

 

[Fox12]

Fallout 3 was far more interesting to explore. You could go anywhere you wanted from the outset, and the map was huge. There were hidden stories and details in every nook and cranny of the world. In New Vegas the map was specifically made to shepherd you in a very particular direction. Your too weak to explore north because of the monsters, and even if you make it to the city you can't enter it until you make a certain amount of money. The sense of freedom is completely lost. The developers close off a massive chunk of the map early on, and it drives me nuts. Fallout 3 also had one of the best tutorials I've ever seen. I felt attached to the world and characters, and even enjoyed the tutorial sections I would normally hate. New Vegas, by contrast, had one of the worst and most cliche openings I've ever seen. It took a long time, at least an hour, before anything even vaguely interesting happened. New Vegas was also much glitchier.

Fallout 3 also felt like a real post apocalypse. Everything is dilapidated, and people struggle just to survive. There were some really tense moments in that game, sometimes bordering on survival horror. I'll never forget wndering through the ruins of DC, almost dead, no ammo, trying to avoid the horrors of the capital. New Vegas, on the other hand, felt much livelier. Society wasn't just rebuilding, it was already fully formed with self sufficient constitutional governments, organized modern militaries, and taxation. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is the main reason for the divided fanbase. NV fans prefer the livelier world that stays closer to the originals. F3 fans prefer an actual post apocalyptic game.

In some ways New Vegas is better. The companions are a million times better in New Vegas, and the main plot is much better written. Veronica and Boone were amazing. However, if forced to choose, I would argue that Fallout 3 wins by a narrow margin.

 

[Syzygy23]

Good news, now you can have both at the same time! No longer do we have to choose between which game was the better one:

http://taleoftwowastelands.com/

 

[SeeIn2D]

I prefer Fallout 3. I will be honest that New Vegas is a more refined game. It's much more polished with a better story line. But Fallout 3 had a sort of charm about it that New Vegas was lacking. New Vegas for me felt a bit sterilized for a game that was based in a post apocalyptic Las Vegas. There's also a huge difference in the maps and quest lines. NV felt much more linear. Like they made the main quest line and I'm obligated to complete that before I get into anything secondary. The map as well feels small with a good portion of it being impassable mountains. 3 had a big square of a map and told me "Here you go! There's all kinds of shit here! Go murder your enemies and have a blast. Also we made this quest line so if you ever get around to it, it's pretty fun!".

I also feel like some of the craziness of 3 was overlooked in NV. The Experimental MIRV for instance was a mini nuke launcher in 3 that launched 8 mini nuclear bombs at the same time. It did some stupid amount of damage obviously, like 13,000 or something. There are some crazy weapons in NV but nothing like that. It all feels kind of sterile.