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

[loc978]

Spoiler: snip

snip

A. Fruit in Fallout 1 and 2 was shown as being irradiated, and people ate it all the time without any adverse effects. Its pretty much a constant that people can eat irradiated food all the time and not die, they do feel bad after awhile, and may suffer mutations, but they don't die.

B. The entire C.W. is dangerous they still DO it. Also, as mentioned before, many raiders don't attack the traders, at least in lore, as they, at least the main raider base of Evergreen Mills, does business with them, and you are told that they don't raider with people who have attacked them. I wouldn't be surprised if TC was the same, or the traders simply walked around the small outpost that only has like three guys in it.

C. Uhh look at the map more closely, The Temple of the Union and Paradise falls are around the same distance away from rivet city as Tenpenny Tower is. it takes two days for the caravan merchants to do a complete circuit of the route, and given how fast Fallout's time scale is, it would probably be less IRL time.

D. Besides the fact that all the pipes from the hydroponics bay go into the same room as the door..... I am totally sure NOTHING dealing with the hydroponics bay is behind the door. /sarcasm

E. Uhh... what? The argument was that Rivet City supplies food to the wasteland to supplement the food they get from mirelurks, yao guai, molerats, radroaches, mutfruit, and punga, not that it supplies ALL of it.

Considering how little they produce, it would be suicidal of them to export... which is reflected in the caravans' inventories. They don't exactly carry around bags of potatoes and carrots. You really are overestimating the amount of food that can be grown with hydroponics in the stern of an aircraft carrier.

So unless the wasteland has a lot more mutfruit and punga available than is depicted in-game, there's just no way the towns out in the wastes could survive. Rivet City alone might have a shot, as would Oasis... that's about it.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Considering how little they produce, it would be suicidal of them to export... which is reflected in the caravans' inventories. They don't exactly carry around bags of potatoes and carrots. You really are overestimating the amount of food that can be grown with hydroponics in the stern of an aircraft carrier.

>Overestimating
>Implying fallout doesn't work on SCIENCE!
>Implying hey couldn't make it even though the game says they do.

 

[loc978]

Considering how little they produce, it would be suicidal of them to export... which is reflected in the caravans' inventories. They don't exactly carry around bags of potatoes and carrots. You really are overestimating the amount of food that can be grown with hydroponics in the stern of an aircraft carrier.

>Overestimating
>Implying fallout doesn't work on SCIENCE!
>Implying hey couldn't make it even though the game says they do.

That's the point. Bethesda did a lot of handwaving with infrastructure concerns... sustainability was a poorly constructed afterthought at best. I still love the game, but it really is a nonsensical theme park.

No other Fallout game handles infrastructure with "SCIENCE!"... that's reserved for war tech and mutation.

 

[SajuukKhar]

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.

 

[wizardbaker]

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.

But the tribes that you do visit in the game clearly have farms, meaning that tribes could grow food and sustain themselves. There are farms all over the place, with origins predating NCR arrival. There are massive bodies of clean water that you can go to without radiation, independent caravans outside of the NCR that simply walk the roads. Bighorners could clearly be made into farm animals, and those guys were everywhere. They clearly had a landscape that allowed for growth and sustenance. Vegas folk had the kings supplying them with water and protection, and if you couldn't get into a town, you became a member of a gang (gangs with names, not just a generic raider). Things happened before the NCR came.

 

[hermes]

Fallout 3 is more fun to explore. New Vegas feels far too lineal by comparison.

 

[SajuukKhar]

But the tribes that you do visit in the game clearly have farms, meaning that tribes could grow food and sustain themselves. There are farms all over the place, with origins predating NCR arrival. There are massive bodies of clean water that you can go to without radiation, independent caravans outside of the NCR that simply walk the roads. Bighorners could clearly be made into farm animals, and those guys were everywhere. They clearly had a landscape that allowed for growth and sustenance. Vegas folk had the kings supplying them with water and protection, and if you couldn't get into a town, you became a member of a gang (gangs with names, not just a generic raider). Things happened before the NCR came.

Except they don't, the only town with farms that pre-date the NCR are Goodsprings and Nellis, all of the farms around New Vegas were either built by the NCR, or hijack water from the New Vegas water system, which the NCR fixed once they got there 7 years ago.

Which, again, explains how they survived the past 7 years, but not the 200 before it.

Also, no, the King stuff DIDN'T happen before the NCR came, as it was only AFTER the NCr came that House
A. organized the three families
B. pushed out everyone else who then later formed communities such as Westside, Freeside, North Vegas, and groups such as the Kings.

the King do NOT pre-date the NCR's arrival, no settlement in vegas proper does.

 

[Scootinfroodie]

-Play the game again, you can even ask Eden how you can destroy him and he outright says you have nothing that can harm him. He is too large to destroy.

And yet you can, in a couple of minutes, convince him to totally destroy himself and the entire enclave base

-Maybe because Autumn literally JUST betrayed him?

And the FEV business had never come up beforehand? We're moving rather quickly into the realm of contrivances

-Which would be easy to cover once the people of the wasteland come flocking to you because you have the one thing they want most.

Why would the people of the wasteland magically cooperate in this one instance?

-What are you talking about? The ONLY reason you get out of Raven Rock alive is because Eden LETS you out. they had you trapped in a force field cage with no way out because their security was that good.

Yes, and while still being in the middle of their base, you manage to destroy it, either with Eden's help or without it. The fact that ONE PERSON can pull that off means that the suggestion that a whole group of people couldn't is mind boggling

-Yes there is..... are you being serious? the parts needed to make and maintain one aren't common. Hell, not even the NCR can make more robots.

You don't need that many of them, only one or two per settlement.

-The entire game? seriously.... I don't know wtf you are talking about anymore. Are you seriously trying to say that because The Enclave, a super small faction, has better tech then them, that the boS couldn't level citites full of normal people who hardly have even leather armor? Did you forget about how the BoS effortlessly purged the Pitt losing only ONE man, who turned out wasnt even dead?

The BoS couldn't hold places within their own sphere of influence against said super small faction. As for people in the area, are we going to go with game logic or lore logic? The BoS overall is a rather small group in-game, and both they and the Outcasts regularly have issues with the wasteland natives that the Wanderer helps them out with. What's more, the bandits themselves aren't at all limited to leather armour, and have access to weapons grade explosives and laser weapons.

-Because they are focused on the super mutants... you know, the REAL threat?

Yes, the shoehorned in magically self-replicating muties who apparently don't prevent either faction from controlling what they want. Such a threat. You're beginning to lose consistency here

-again... yes it does.... did you even play the game?

Again, it doesn't. His rationale is that it's "your destiny" unless you shelled out cash for broken steel, in which case he says Ah, of course! My immunity to radiation makes me a far better candidate for surviving in there."
That doesn't sound like someone who is carefully considering all aspects of the situation. Again, your own head cannon != what the game actually states

-Or because they have spent the last 200years doing it and thus know how to? combined with the fact the Super Mutants don't attack them often because kids aren't good for FEV dipping.

The CHILDREN have spent 200 years fighting things?
First of all, people haven't been outside of vaults for 200 years unless you're going to use hearsay from Tactics as canon. 200 years is how long its been since everything got wiped out, and anyone living was in a vault then
Then we've got to consider the fact that we're talking an entirely separate area specifically for kids to go in an irradiated and rather unsanitary wasteland. Childbirth has already got to be quite a pain when it comes to mortality rate, and then you've got to consider the fact that somehow these kids have had to be trained by someone who isn't an adult
THEN you've got to remember that this is a constant cycle of new people coming in, and that there are physical requirements that one must meet before they're even capable of TRYING to fight a super mutant

-No it doesn't, hence why Fallout has been largely morally grey.

What is the Karma system?

-Yes it is, Enclave need a GECK to get the purifier working, the don't know where one is, they have no reason to risk proving the BoS until they get it working, and the BoS has no reason to attack The Enclave, and risk their wrath, when the Enclave is technologically superior, and is focused on something that doesn't work, and might not even work with the GECK.

Okay now lets just go over this GECK business
1. You don't need a macguffin to fix water purification systems. Literally any vault has a water chip that can supply water to a rather large number of people, and that's ignoring real world methods for purifying water. If your organization can deal with forcefields, deathclaw mind control devices, energy weapons and tesla armour, it should be able to deal with creating a larger and more powerful version of a standard water chip
2. That's not actually what the GECK is. It's an item that was established in Fallout 2, and Bethesda actually ignored its original purpose to shoehorn it into the game.
With that in mind, the whole "stalemate" argument you've made is entirely based on these two things being false... only they aren't

Did you miss the whole organization of animal hunters, tech/food scavengers, and caravan merchants?

Animal hunting isn't adequate for the populations shown or implied in FO3. Scavengers bringing back irradiated food shouldn't be able to sustain a population for very long, and after even 100 years scavenging spots should be damned scarce. Caravan merchants can't actually make it to towns without the assistance of dev fiat.

Do you not understand there is a HUGE difference in quantity of water needed to not be thirsty, and having enough water to grow crops?

Do you not understand that most places don't even have a verifiable source of clean drinking water anyway? Even with that aside, it's ultimately an issue of scale, and not an issue of "we don't have a magic suitcase"

Also, the mutants are along the caravan path in like two spots, and the game tells you they constantly dodge muties all the time.

The road to Rivet city is crawling with muties with MINIGUNS and hunting rifles. You don't "just dodge" that on a regular basis. What the game tells you is entirely unreasonable, especially since if you walk with them to these areas, they get DESTROYED

 

[SajuukKhar]

snip

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

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

-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 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?

-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.

-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.

-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.

-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.

-What is a game mechanic that is wildly inconsistent?

-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?

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

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.

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

-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 gmae mechanic as canon lore is flawed, and shows nothing more then a very bad attempt to grasp at straws.

 

[scorptatious]

Personally, I prefer New Vegas. The story, the characters, the setting, the atmosphere, the wide variety of ways to build your character, the multiple endings, I just found it to be a much better game.

*ahem*

In my opinion that is.

Fallout: New Vegas was better.

It had Texas Red.

It also had Johnny Guitar.

 

[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).