Mod idea: Choices with actual consequences

[iammunk]

Hey guys. I just finished the Hard Luck Blues quest (very entertaining!).

(Slight spoilers coming up, but only if you insist on not having a very minor quest spoiled for you :D)

 

 

I chose to redirect power to the trapped vault dwellers, essentially dooming the NCR crops.

Now, I haven't actually gone back to the farm to check if the crops have taken damage, but I can imagine they haven't.

 

It got me thinking, though: why is it that every choice we make in the game that would normally reflect on the game world simply don't? I mean, performing further experiments on Lily would apparently drive her crazy, but we only see that mentioned in the end credits. No matter which faction you choose to side with (or not to), it is reflected in the end credits. Yes, I know the game technically ends there, but what if it didn't?

 

It would be great to have a mod that simply added the consequences of your choices to the game. Whether it be the NCR sharecropper farm becoming so irradiated people have to evacuate or the Legion taking over the strip, it would be present if the player made that choice.

 

I'm sure it would be an almost impossibly large project, but it would really make the game feel like more of an actual world and less of a playground for the Courier.

 

Thoughts?

 

edit: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout:_New_Vegas_endings has an extensive list of the difference possible endings. Many don't matter, such as companion deaths, but the NCR/Legion/House/independent endings are all there, ready for picking :)

Edited March 3, 2011 by iammunk

[kotekzot]

Well, the farms have gotten along fairly well before your intervention, so I doubt not helping them will cause them to crumble. Making them flourish if you did help them would make more sense.

Also, supposedly (I never managed to get Lily's quest), depending on your choice, Lily's psychotic breakdowns and stats will be affected.

But I agree, it would be nice to see more feedback from the world to your actions.

[davidlallen]

I agree this type of real world effect would make the game more interesting. As you guess, it is also very hard. Suppose there are only two side quests which have an effect, and each mission has only two possible effects. Then there are four possible world situations. For each of these four possibilities, the game designers need to create some art, some dialog, etc so that you can play these four possibilities and *notice* that they are different. If they don't make unique art, dialog etc then you won't notice. Now consider one player. He will probably only play through that part once, out of the four possibilities. Then 3/4 of the work they have done is lost.

 

Now suppose instead of two side quests there are ten, then there are 1024 different combinations that need art and dialog, and a player will only notice 0.1% (one out of a thousand) of them. So 99.9% of the work is wasted.

 

As long as artists need to make individual art, and voice actors need to record individual lines, this will probably never happen. But it is fun to think about and I think it would make games much better.

[iammunk]

I agree this type of real world effect would make the game more interesting. As you guess, it is also very hard. Suppose there are only two side quests which have an effect, and each mission has only two possible effects. Then there are four possible world situations. For each of these four possibilities, the game designers need to create some art, some dialog, etc so that you can play these four possibilities and *notice* that they are different. If they don't make unique art, dialog etc then you won't notice. Now consider one player. He will probably only play through that part once, out of the four possibilities. Then 3/4 of the work they have done is lost.

 

Now suppose instead of two side quests there are ten, then there are 1024 different combinations that need art and dialog, and a player will only notice 0.1% (one out of a thousand) of them. So 99.9% of the work is wasted.

 

As long as artists need to make individual art, and voice actors need to record individual lines, this will probably never happen. But it is fun to think about and I think it would make games much better.

 

True, many quests, as you mentioned, wouldn't be worth doing, as the change would be very small. The NCR farm is an example of one of these - would be nice, but ultimately not worth it.

But the whole NCR/Legion/House/Independency situation would be a whole other deal. It would also be a lot of work (just finished reading the list I linked, and wow, the NCR/Legion affect a lot of things!), but watching Legion patrols on The Strip or the Mormon Fort taken over by junkies, that would be great.

 

Let's face it, if you side with the Legion and have a mod installed to keep playing after the Hoover Dam battle, it doesn't make sense to see NCR patrols everywhere ;)