Now I've played through most of the Old World Blues add-on to NV.

IMO that Add-On is like a 50-50 mixture of everything that is wrong with Fallout 3 and everything that is great about NV.

The story and characters in OWB are great, but...

I had to complete the "retrieve the student records" quest six different times...because my quest log prompted me to do that quest on three different occasions (those three different occasions did not occur consecutively though), and on each occasion, I had to do it twice in a row in order to get credit for it on my quest log. I still have no idea why it appeared as a quest two more times after I had already completed it twice in a row, successfully, the first time.

I hated the dozens of "find the upgrades for the Sink" fetch quests. Those are mostly repetitive pixel-hunts. Yet, sometimes they had really interesting surprises, like the gigantic Securition and the Legendary Bloatfly.

I loved the gigantic dog Gabe. They should have designed real quests like Gabe's around the gigantic Securitron and the Legendary Bloatfly too, rather than have the latter two be merely welcome interruptions to the bland filler content which houses them.

Old World Blues also made something stick out to me like a sore thumb that I hate about both Fallout 3 and New Vegas: a lot of the core gameplay in both games involves searching every container in the world in order to scavenge endless piles of crappy loot, and then haul it back to town and sell it for caps, or craft it into slightly-more-useful stuff. And you have to do that infinitely in order to repair weapons & armor and in order to replenish ammo. After playing for a long time, those things become a really, really, really repetitive grind.

I think both games would have been way more fun if there was no weapon or armor degradation, period - because that change would eliminate the grind cycle. Or at least they should have had Perks you can take so that your armor and weapons never degrade. Then players who hate the grind wouldn't be forced to do it any more.

Also, the repair prices in New Vegas are an enormous rip off which makes the game unbalanced against the player. I had to pay the Sink 7000 caps to repair a Valence helmet to 100%. Half an hour later I found an identical helmet at 100% condition, and the Sink would only pay 3000 caps for it.

On a similar note, the Chainsaw (and I assume similar weapons do likewise) degrades at a ridiculously fast pace, which further exacerbates the problem of repair costs being obscenely unfair.

And I don't like how NV carries over the problem from FO3 where even though I have a 100% repair skill, I can't do anything to repair my gear if I don't have similar parts. Yet any merchant with any lower repair skill than mine can still repair anything I have even when those lesser-skilled merchants have zero similar parts.

Plus, I don't understand why there is a weapon repair kit but no armor repair kit. The game needs an armor repair kit just as much.

Moving on to a different subject, a random thing that blew my mind in NV was when I picked Boone up again after I hadn't seen him for a long time. The first thing he did was yell at me because he heard about me helping Caesar, even though I didn't even help Caesar that much. Then the game gave me the option to make an excuse (that I was just spying) and reconcile with Boone, or tell Boone off, or attack him. Gameplay-wise, I totally wasn't expecting Boone to give me a hostile reaction when I walked up to him. I know he hates the Legion, but I didn't think the devs would put enough attention to detail into the game that they'd have Boone know about me working with the Legion even though I only did two quests for them, and Boone wasn't with me when I did them. That's amazing game design IMO.

But I also have a contrasting example of very poor game design in NV. Cass told me to eliminate the character Alice McLafferty. So I did. When I shot her, the game made her head explode. Even after years of in-game time has passed, the headless corpse of Alice McLafferty remains sitting upright at the desk in her office. The whole town acts like nothing has happened. The man who sits a few feet away from her continues to do so, and he never even notices that Alice is a headless corpse who he always walks past, and sits near, all day, every day, forever. That's definitely the most immersion-killing thing I've seen in either Fallout 3 or New Vegas. I'm not sure how the devs could have failed to notice that glaring flaw with their game.

Another similar thing happened when I did the Van Graff quest. While Cass with already with me as my companion, the Van Graff dudebro told me to bring to him the woman "Rose of Sharon Cassidy." I had no idea who the heck that was. Eventually I had to look it up. Then I found out it was the very same Cass who I already had following me everywhere. That oversight by the devs was especially confusing, because there is no way realistically that the Van Graff dudebro wouldn't have seen Cass with me in his shop, standing right beside me, at the exact same moment when he told me to go find her and bring her to him. Therefore, the game caused me to infer that the Van Graff NPC couldn't be asking for Cass, and must be asking for some other NPC, even though he was asking for Cass all along.

The quest marker also exacerbated my confusion about this point...because it kept telling me to leave through a specific door, and then immediately after I did so, it told me to go back inside that same door which I just left. That was driving me nuts!...until I finally figured out that the quest marker was doing that because it was right on top of Cass, and it was moving with Cass's movements, and Cass was following me.

When I re-entered the shop again, the Van Graff dudebro's anti-Cass dialogue triggered, but it didn't even fit the situation, because he acted like he hadn't seen her for a long time, even though he had just seen her a short time ago, when he asked me to bring her to him while she was already literally standing right there (LOL?!?!?!).

Personally I'm also torn about OWB. While the characters and plot points in general are pretty good (and your home base there is pretty cool), the fact that practically the entire map is crawling with hostiles bugged me a bit, since you couldn't just clear an area and then explore at your leisure.

I know the main game has hostile areas etc., but in OWB they were much more frequent. It probably bothered me more than most because I try not to use fast travel, preferring the immersion of wandering around.

OWB is probably my favourite NV DLC though.

Which reminds me - why do none of the recent Fallouts have vehicles again? The only Fallout that had them ever (if you don't count Tactics) is Fallout 2, and it made that game better (mainly because of the large trunk).

And your argument is retarded, to be perfectly honest.
Even in a case where the fans regretted the new ownership of their favorite franchise, and wished the IP to return to the "hands" of the company that gave "birth" to it, what is wrong with it being imperfect? Why you seem so triggered by the NMA crowd?
Is Bethesda perfect? No it isn't.
So tell me what is wrong with Interplay being imperfect and releasing bad games, as well (you're not gonna tell me all Bethesda games are wonderful, are you? Actually, I prefer to not know)?
Should we burn people for wanting a different Fallout, developed by anyone other than Bethesda?
So we should burn people that want Interplay AND people that want Obsidian to create a Fallout for them?

In your first post you managed to trash F3 and didn't had anything negative to say about NV. In your second post you asked "Where did I say New Vegas was flawless?" and then put up some examples.
On your question (rhetorical or not) I answered with "You didn't. You left no good hair on F3 while praising NV without even 1 negative point."

If you can't put an answer in correlation with the quotation used, that's not my problem.

Right back at you. Or where did you brought in evidence and not just speculation or personal opinion? And no, you don't have to answer that.
And yes, I was talking about Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, the last Fallout published by Interplay.

But you wanted evidence - here you go: No Mutants Allowed, Scarleteen and Armenian Club.

You can think of Bethesda and their output what- and however you want, but putting it in comparison with Interplays track record after they dropped Black Isle (aka Obsidian) and STILL wanting the IP to stay with Interplay.... I'll use your own words and call that retarded anytime. ;=)

Allow me to clarify my statement, then.

When my character left the vault cave in Fallout, it felt a little like I was leaving it for the first time. The adventure was ahead of me. I still feel a little of that to this day, when replaying Fallout. When my character left the vault in Fallout 3, it felt like that damn intro sequence was finally over. I could finally start the "real" game. And, since this is a 3 vs nv thread, let me add that nv's start was short and sweet, and the tutorial part of the intro is entirely skippable. The intro area felt like part of the game, rather than part of some damn forced intro march, and I could just walk right out of town without doing anything if I wanted to. I was sort of jarred when the "you can change your character now" thing popped up as I was leaving the area. The only good thing about the FO3 intro is that if you remember to save before exiting, and did everything perfectly in the vault, at least you never have to see that crap again.

Maybe it's because you can only leave the vault for the first time in your life once (which may be part of why 2 and NV didn't even try), or maybe it's because Fallout's intro cave wasn't a damn slog like Fallout 3's vault 101. Fallout 3's birth sequence ranks at the top of my "worst starts in gaming history" list. Then again, Bethesda has been trying real hard to make all their games have such annoying intros. Daggerfall (which I played obsessively for too long) was the last Elder Scrolls game that just dropped you into the action after quickly creating your character (if you skip the intro videos, which you can). If I wanted an hour-long unskippable "interactive" cutscene at the start of my game, I'd play a jrpg -- I loved Xenosaga, especially the card collecting mini-game. The cutscenes and religio-pseudoscience were more tolerable than FO3's intro.

Many people justify the FO3 intro as making you care about your father. There's nothing I hate more than games telling me I should care about someone they created, especially if the game claims freedom of choice. NV at least gives me a reason to chase after they guy who shot my character, and took all of 10 seconds to "establish the relationship".

You assume she actually bothered to play the first game.
She probably doesn't remembers that because she didn't experience that. I feel bad for her.

I'm sure some FO2 players will disagree with me, but I liked the "outside world" of Fallout 1 more than 2.

I still loved exploring the world map in FO2, but to me they did a better job in the original game. For one, it had memorable points that made me anxious, like The Glow and Mariposa. I had to face many dangerous before finally reaching that location (The Glow, or West Tek research facility), and it didn't disappoint me.
One of the scariest places of the franchise, in my opinion.

Another thing is that I liked much more how the world looks, than in Fallout 2. Luckily, a user in NMA changed the visual of the world map to look more like the first game.
You can install that simple mod made by .Pixote. when you install RP.
If you are interested only in changing the world, it should be easy to find his mod if you search by the username (you can PM me if you need help, too).

You assume too much. I'm one of the oldtimers who first bought it as boxed copy in a store.
Yet this is a thread about F3 vs. NV - Fallout 1 and 2 will likely remain the best Fallout games ever, no matter what may come, as games like them aren't being made anymore.

Really? Was she near you while you were talking? Regardless, that's unforgivable. Reminds me of one of the reasons I never got into Wasteland (which, admittedly, I probably would've if I had tried it when it came out, but I had different tastes in '88): the companions, like in many games, lose all of their personality once they join the party. Mayor sends you to rescue his wife, you do it, and get wife in party, return to the mayor, and he doesn't react at all. Russian spy lady with character art loses character art on joining. Pool of Radiance: RoMD - rescue wizard from having been frozen by his true love, get him in party, discover true love's remains: no reaction.

You're welcome. :-) I am always happy to advertise that blog -- lots of interesting reading on games there -- and by the way, it seems that a new series of "Lets unsuck F3's writing" just started there today. :-)

Onto other stuff of the thread.

That's just how this quest is -- you're supposed to run it multiple times, each time with increasing difficulty. Have you looked into the jury rigging perk? Needs 90 in repairs though. Also, your companion Raul fixes your stuff for free (ED-E too, methinks, but he's not as good as Raul), and if you travel with Raul, your stuff does not degrade as fast.

(Personally I do not have a problem with draconic costs. It's a money sink - a measure to prevent the PC from accumulating all the wealth in the game, just like ridiculous prices of GRA weapons) Oh? Between endlessly respawning viperdoggies, lobotomites, unkillable titanium roboscorpions, chatty insecure stealth suit that wastes your Med-X and stimpacks as soon as you stub your toe, mines on every narrow path, bullet sponge enemies on higher levels etc., what pisses off you the most is pixel hunt? ;) And that's why the correct way to do BoS quests is to blow up that BoS bunker! :D

Now, about those "unrealistic reactions". Things like people being oblivious to corpses, Caesar letting you work for you even when you blow up that camp in Lonesome Road, or using stealthboy in Silver Rush and stealing everything right from under Van Graff's nose is game mechanics-related (like, say, bucket-meet-head thing in Skyrim) and therefore are very difficult to un-stupid without griefing the player. I don't think players would be happy to find out they locked themselves out of the whole branch of the main game just by finishing an expansion, or that the only way out of Silver Rush if you start the heist is by being swept out as a pile of ash. But what a game can do, is to let some of its characters react believably. This establishes credibility of the world and allows players -- now that they know they're not in a theme park populated by androids -- to suspend disbelief more easily.

Take the same Caesar for example. You can get easily vilified by Legion even without Lonesome Road -- obliterating Dog-Hat's little raiding party in Nipton is in fact enough. Still, you get his invitation anyway, you come, you talk to him, and he's all "Dude, you are such a pain in the ass for us all, I hate you so much, I keep sending assassins after you, and you just show up here? I can't believe you bought into that "pardon" thing, chump!", and you're "Welp" and he's "Chill...I'm totes shitting you :D". This here is a twofer: 1. Lets you know the world noticed your shenanigans; 2. establishes Caesar as a pragmatic.

Now remember Dad (Dad. Family. Husband to your dead mum. Person closest to your character. One of the very, veeeeery few characters to even comment on that event) in Fallout 3 reacting to you nuking Megaton for no reason at all: *in calm, soothing Liam Neeson voice* "Blah blah water purifier blah project blah finish...oh and by the way..." *in the same calm, soothing Liam Neeson voice* "that was really bad of you to blow up the town like that, I'm so wagging my finger at you".

...yeah.

This is a good point - Caesar is not only a pragmatist, his whole philosophy isn't exactly based on caring about his own people. If anything, the very fact that you can wipe out chunks of his people AND you have the chip and have met Mr. House is reason enough for him to leave you alive, to see if you'll help him out. If not, well then you've had your chance.

While the above makes sense, it doesn't explain why he's willing to let you go into the bunker, all by yourself, take your word for it that you destroyed it, and then give the chip back to you. One would think that at the very least, he'd send some people with you - at least some expendable fools to make sure you do what you say. Then you could have had the following options:

1. Do what you're told and destroy the bunker.
2. Activate the robots, and then either:
a. Lie to Caesar about how you can use the chip to control them down the track for him (still far-fetched though).
b. Either kill the guys escorting you or get them killed by the securitrons, then make up something to Caesar about how you only just managed to destroy them but his men didn't make it (this would be the most believable IMO).

Then after that you should have to convince Caesar to give you the chip, steal it from him, or take it from his cold, dead hands.

They could have easily implemented something like the above - given all the other stuff that's in the game (not to mention the DLC), and given how <i>most</i> of it isn't completely full of plot holes, it does seem really strange that in a quest that everyone has to do (and that has a number of options of how to get to it), there isn't something clever or at least logical required at the end of it.

You're stepping into hot water - good luck with that. :p

But you're right and I agree with everything you wrote.
The easiest solution would have been to contact Mr. House via computer screen again once you leave and let him confirm, he now has full control from his place. Then disable the Platinum Chip of it's previous function and give the now no longer working chip back to Caesar.

Excellent news! You just made the day brighter with this news, I'll check it immediately. =D

Well that still wouldn't solve the whole Caesar trusting you to go down there all by yourself issue though - IMO it would make much more sense if he'd send some lackeys with you.

Not sure about the remote access part - it's probably even easier to just tell Caesar the chip got destroyed somehow while you were down there (and keep the chip).

That was just adding to your solution - so yes, agreed.
Get down with some of his lackeys, ignore the computer terminal (or use it, speech check with lackeys you setting Mr. House up, if failed kill lackeys yourself), activate the place, make a run from it (if still alive, leaving lackeys to the Sentry Bots), contact Mr. House again, confirm he has control, disable Chip, closing the whole thing behind you permanently for anyone except Mr. House. Give Chip back to Caesar, so he has no reason to not trust you as he's making believe he can go check himself anytime.
Why you want to keep the Chip? It's only use is to open / start the place. Your level of OCD here is disturbingly high. :P

Get sent down alone is one thing. The whole "being pragmatic" thing is much harder to swallow (at least for me), since the Chip is what Caesar really wanted in the first place. And a "I set you up / chill, just kidding" bar joke among old friends, don't really work for me among perfect strangers / enemies who just had a 5 minute chat.
Even more so playing a female character, which the game tells you time and time again, are only used as slaves and for breeding. Suddenly you're the big exception and there's no consequences in the ending? It doesn't change Caesars view and you're the only woman walking around free and on your own, thanks to the golden coin he gave you?
There are 6 endings for Caesars victory, none even touches the male / female view of Caesar's Legion, despite the player might be playing as female.

Yes, Fallout 3 isn't a Shakespeare's play, but how this passes as quality writing done by Obsidian, will likely never get into my head - sry about that folks.