f03 vs NV

[zerrodefex]

a lot of people here say they miss the apocalyptic feel of fallout, but for me it was a little too much apocalyptic. FO3 was set 200+-? years after the war wich should mean that it should have been a lot more populated then the actuall FO3 was, more lively, becouse i think humanity would have formed larger tribes/villages/cities after such time, trying to get back on feet. But i had the feeling FO3 was set more like 20-30 years after the war, becouse it was too dull and dead and even though you were able to go where u wanted and do what you wanted, there was always this feeling of shalowness/ not-satisfyiness.

 

I found the 200 years thing too hard to believe myself in Fallout 3. Take a look a Pripyat, the city next to Chernobyl, as an example of what happens to modern human structures after only 30 or so years of no maintenance and unchecked natural forces. How are these buildings that nobody is maintaining still standing after 2 centuries, much less having working power? Especially when all the powerlines leading to the structures are down. At least in New Vegas you have a lot of buildings being inhabited and maintained so it's a little less hard to believe.

 

For me .. Ill be playing NV Muuuuuch more then Fallout 3 for the following reasons: Life( The game required more life then meeting 1 Enemy after 30 H Exploring ), Cowboy survival/wasteland theme( This inspired me really really much.. Something ive wanted for AGES ), Better weapon handling & ironsights( This just adds so much more hours to the game.. I just cant get enough of the Brush Gun and Anti-Material Rifle )

 

Better weapon handling is a godsend. I don't like to use VATS unless I'm being overwhelmed, especially as it does stupid stuff like shooting merrily into rocks and walls if the target happens to run behind one during the VATS sequence. It seemed like I couldn't aim worth a damn outside of VATS in FO3, even with max gun skills, unless I had a scope.

 

With Benny it's a case of payback and revenge. While it's unbelievable that you recovered from that head trauma after only a couple days, it's still a very believable motivation to chase him down and it leads to something far bigger that allows you to transcend your humble origins. You also have a choice in how the story ends, rather than FO3 where you're locked into a single path to a single ending.

 

What I meant in the similarity between FO3 and NV is that you have someone to chase after, you catch up with him after a while, you do his quests, then something dramatic happens to him.

 

Also if I'm not mistaken FO3 has two endings, activating the water purifier or sabotaging it.

 

In vanilla FO3 you don't get to see any effects really from putting the FEV into the purifier. In Broken Steel the only effect is that the Aqua Pura is actually toxic to you and everyone else and treated as a minor plot detail.

 

Vanilla New Vegas > Vanilla Fallout 3 minus Mods

 

Modded Fallout 3 > Vanilla New Vegas

 

Modded New Vegas > Modded Fallout 3

 

Anyway..i think those who arent looking for FO3 in NV will like the game..i like the change and the western-style feel of it but i have to agree with LadyMilla on the : "Not to mention that I do not feel the post-apocalyptic atmosphere in this game. By the looks, the region might have been struck by a big global economic crash instead of a global nuclear Armageddon.

 

Yes this is fiction but then again it tends to over-exaggerate nuclear war (especially as we have never actually had one.) If you look at Hiroshima today it's been rebuilt so much that you'd never think that it had been nuked off the face of the Earth less than a century ago.

 

Also remember that Nevada avoided most of the nuclear bombing. It was not a high-priority military target and most of the missiles that did come got shot down by Mr. House's defenses as he will tell you (and Raul if you ask him.)

 

Another one for Fallout 3.

 

Mainly the setting and more connected with my character. NV was a bit lame when they just throw you into it with no background on your character. Any story, be it a book or a movie or a game has to have some character development. New Vegas had very little of it. I didn't care for any of the factions, and didn't want to help any. None of them were likeable. .

 

I was the opposite.. the first time the vault sequence was awesome.. but after I made my 5th or 6th character and they all had the same exact background it ruined the atmosphere for me.. New Vegas starts you on a black slate except that you took a job so I can start of making my character out to have any background I want.. and while it would have been nice if they made a few to chose from that affected the story overall it's better to have it open than the same every time.. as for character development there is more in New Vegas after the start than FO3.. in FO3 your either a good vault dweller or a bad vault dweller.. at least now you can be a good courier or bad and pick a faction option.. While there is ALWAYS room for more.. I felt NV gave a lot more room for personalization of you character and stor than fallout 3 did in multiple playthroughs

 

Yes indeed. I never felt any connection with The Lone Wanderer and got sick of the forced Vault 101 tutorial after the first few playthroughs. One of the things that got me convinced to buy New Vegas right away was when they revealed that The Courier would be a blank slate. It's up to myself to fill in the background and I much prefer that.

[zerrodefex]

Had to split my post into two. Apparently there is a limit on the number of multi-quotes you are allowed, not that the error message tells you what that number is.

 

I liked Fallout 3 a bit more. In Fallout 3, It felt like more things had a purpose. In New Vegas, it's like they dedicated entire world spaces for one star sarsaparilla cap.

It seems like I've found more abandoned shacks in new vegas than I have NPC's.

 

And a lot of buildings in the game, I search through, maybe expecting a dead explorer with a note or something explaining what they were doing (like the people that turned into ghouls at that place on Fallout 3 (cant remember name)). Instead of finding that, I find tons of useless junk, maybe a conductor or fission battery, and a star sarsaparilla cap. It just seems like they focused too much on the strip and quests, than putting in immersive environments to explore.

 

It could be that most of what was useful in those areas (at least to the last prospector) has been taken and they moved on to somewhere else. I've also found a few shacks were I wondered if the owner was off on a trip and I just happened to come by when he was gone. Not every empty shack has to be splattered with blood and filled with corpses like in FO3.

 

It was a good time getting to see the NCR again, as well as the small raider tribes like the Great Khans, the Jackals and some others.

 

I do like that we get Tribals that have names and can actually be interacted with, rather than hordes of nameless Raiders. I also like have a faction system and disguises, it bugged me how in FO3 I could dress like a Raider but still not sneak into Green Mills (or whatever it was called that they hung out) nor that the BoS wouldn't even comment on me parading around inside the Citadel while dressed in Enclave power armor.

 

Other major complaint was that I thought it was missing "feeling". In Fallout 3 it came across as if people genuinely needed you to help them. In New Vegas, there isn't that feeling.

 

Plenty of people need your help in New Vegas, they're just much more willing to pay for it rather than everyone trying to guilt trip you into helping them for free like in FO3. It's refreshing from my point of view.

[BooneoftheWasteland]

I found the 200 years thing too hard to believe myself in Fallout 3. Take a look a Pripyat, the city next to Chernobyl, as an example of what happens to modern human structures after only 30 or so years of no maintenance and unchecked natural forces. How are these buildings that nobody is maintaining still standing after 2 centuries, much less having working power?

 

They won't, they'll fall. Over time this planet will cover everything like we didn't even exist. George Carlin said it best, people think we are destroying the planet, but the planets fine, we're destroying ourselves. Once we're gone this planet will move on like we weren't even here...

 

There's also a really interesting documentary, forget what it's called, something like 'After people are gone' or something like that and it goes step by step what would happen with structures and time and nature over decades then centuries. Pretty much what I said above, buildings, structures, would crumble to dust, back to the earth where it once came. :biggrin:

[Liquidacid23]

 

I found the 200 years thing too hard to believe myself in Fallout 3. Take a look a Pripyat, the city next to Chernobyl, as an example of what happens to modern human structures after only 30 or so years of no maintenance and unchecked natural forces. How are these buildings that nobody is maintaining still standing after 2 centuries, much less having working power? Especially when all the powerlines leading to the structures are down. At least in New Vegas you have a lot of buildings being inhabited and maintained so it's a little less hard to believe.

 

 

see the thing about this is that compared to what the world would really be like after a nuclear war at that level even 200 years after Fallout is TOO alive.. the reason the nuclear explosions we have had are as clean as they are now are because they were very very small.. when you take something this size you not only have to account for the fact the radiation saturation levels are so high they don't dissipate and most weapon grade isotopes half half-lifes of decades if not longer.. then there is the fact that many explosions that large would have thrown up so much dust it would have blacked out the sun, a worldwide nuclear war as they describe in fallout would be larger on an order of magnitudes than the explosion of the meteor that cause the worldwide extinction event and ice age that killed off the dinosaurs plus the added advantage of having tons of background radiation to hit the blind spots .. the Sun is the source of almost ALL life on earth.. it's energy goes into plants and is transfered up the food chain.. no sun plants die.. plant's die animals all die.. so even tho the sky might be clear 200 years later we would either be in an ice-age or everything would already be dead.. the only excuse they kinda have in fallout is according to fallout (aka 50's pulp sci-fi) radiation causes rapid mutations so they use the excuse that thing evolved faster.. even tho IRL radiation does cause mutation but it doesn't make you stronger or faster just causes cancer and death.. IRL after a war like is described in fallout lore there would pretty much be no noticeable life left (maybe some random bacteria or something of that nature) .. as for the buildings.. there are things built out of inferior cement that are still standing after thousands of years.. and because of almost no vegetation to overtake it (radiation and blackout of the sun killed it all) most none degradable structures that weren't close to detonation points would still be standing and probably in better shape than they are in Fallout.. also I'd like to point out those vaults no matter how well constructed and shielded wouldn't really help because even if you didn't die from radiation leaks and extreme cold (the power requirements would be astronomical to heat them when the rock shelf freezes from a nuclear winter) you would still eventually die because the world above would be uninhabitable for thousands of years (no plant life = no oxygen = no breathing) the best case scenario would be that enough basic (again were talking bacteria) survived and began to evolve starting the earths whole life cycle over again, so a few million or billion years at best before the planets had a stable enough atmosphere and environment for us if ever because it is possible to actually blow away the entire atmosphere (like how mars is now).. this is of course if we go with nuclear war on the scale fallout describes it.. this is why countries are so afraid to even use a little nuke now.. So all in all I'd say the Fallout world is in awesome shape for what it went through and only after 200 years

 

also keep in mind we can do this with just nuclear power which has an extremely low mass to energy conversion output when compared to other forms of fusion, fission, or anti-matter materials we are working on right now...and is very very easy to do (an idiot with a manual the size of your cars owner's manual could build an a-bomb in his garage if he had the proper materials)

 

course we could always just as easily bring around the Apocalypse through biological and/or chemical means..they are a lot slower and more disturbing... you should read up on all the M.A.D. (mutual assured destruction) papers, plans and whatnot there are out there.. .. but that's a bedtime story for another time....

;)

 

 

 

There's also a really interesting documentary, forget what it's called, something like 'After people are gone' or something like that and it goes step by step what would happen with structures and time and nature over decades then centuries. Pretty much what I said above, buildings, structures, would crumble to dust, back to the earth where it once came. :biggrin:

 

It's called "Life After People" and that doesn't apply here because that show's premise is that just people were gone leaving the world exactly as it is just without us.. the nukes would render everything that show predicts null and void since all the plant and animal life that would break down what we built would also be dead.. good show none the less tho

[grimfandang0]

I want to thank Lady Milla for the Kudos, and I'm glad you liked what I wrote, oh and there is a PM with a fix for Fallout 2 and windows 7, I just remembered I had this bookmarked and thought I would share it with everyone, I see one of the recent debates is how are things still they way they are 200+ years after the bombs dropped I hope this answers (and quite possibly creates new) questions for everyone,The Fallout Time Line enjoy

[zerrodefex]

It's called "Life After People" and that doesn't apply here because that show's premise is that just people were gone leaving the world exactly as it is just without us.. the nukes would render everything that show predicts null and void since all the plant and animal life that would break down what we built would also be dead.. good show none the less tho

 

You need to rewatch that show. In the segments where they showed Pripyat, the town that was irradiated when Chernobyl blew it's lid, and animal life was THRIVING there despite the radiation.

[soot00]

Creature level scaling ruined Vanilla Fallout 3. I literally had stacks and stacks of unused Stim's playing vanilla FO3. Boy did it get old fast running around with little fear of death since creatures levelled alongside the player character.

 

Thank goodness mods like MMM resolved the levelling scale issue.

 

Thank goodness New Vegas did not instill level scaling in their vanilla version

[Liquidacid23]

It's called "Life After People" and that doesn't apply here because that show's premise is that just people were gone leaving the world exactly as it is just without us.. the nukes would render everything that show predicts null and void since all the plant and animal life that would break down what we built would also be dead.. good show none the less tho

 

You need to rewatch that show. In the segments where they showed Pripyat, the town that was irradiated when Chernobyl blew it's lid, and animal life was THRIVING there despite the radiation.

 

that's because it was a small explosion with plenty of area for the radiation do disseminate into.. a nuclear power plant is basically a steam plant they don't even start a proper chain reaction as a bomb does, they just use the isotope rods to boil water and create steam that runs turbines) .. a global scale nuclear war is something much much different.. that's like comparing me throwing a cherry bomb in your yard to me setting off 100lbs of c4 in your yard.. vegetation and animal life can't reclaim the spot when they are all dead everywhere

[LadyMilla]

that's because it was a small explosion with plenty of area for the radiation do disseminate into.. a nuclear power plant is basically a steam plant they don't even start a proper chain reaction as a bomb does, they just use the isotope rods to boil water and create steam that runs turbines) .. a global scale nuclear war is something much much different.. that's like comparing me throwing a cherry bomb in your yard to me setting off 100lbs of c4 in your yard.. vegetation and animal life can't reclaim the spot when they are all dead everywhere

 

Studies about nuclear accidents show that reactor mishaps/meltdowns/etc. can be worse than a nuclear explosion. First of all there is much more fissile material (there was 192 tons of fissile material in the Chernobyl 4 reactor, 5 percent of which (about 10 tons) was thrown into the atmosphere). In the case of a melt-down or uncontrolled chain-reaction, even though there is no nuclear explosion, the fissile material will be heated to its melting point, then it will melt the reactor and slowly sink into the ground by melting the concrete foundation. If the region is lucky, the cooling tubes will be empty so there will be no steam explosions, but chances are, when the mixture of the melted fissile material and the melted reactor body sinks into the ground, it will encounter pockets of subsoil water which will result in steam explosions. Unless the authorities are able to fill the whole with materials that slow down the chain reaction, you will have a big crater that spews radioactive steam and particles. Of course, this is a worst-case scenario.

 

However, it is true that during 3 to 10 years of nuclear winter, all living things, except those at the bottom of the ocean (there are living organisms and fishes at the bottom of the Mariana trench) would die - no food, no photosynthesis = no happy or not so happy post war future. In fact, no future at all.

[zerrodefex]

However, it is true that during 3 to 10 years of nuclear winter, all living things, except those at the bottom of the ocean (there are living organisms and fishes at the bottom of the Mariana trench) would die - no food, no photosynthesis = no happy or not so happy post war future. In fact, no future at all.

 

Assuming nuclear winter is even really possible. The Chicxulub Impact that killed the dinosaurs was on the order of 100,000,000 megatons, much much more than all the nuclear bombs ever made in the history of mankind.