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[BolognaOni]

I absolutey think they are somewhat unfinished. Ideally, i suppose these are the sort of games thst would benefit from a year or so of early access to help get all the bugs ironed out, as its just not realistic to expect a paid QA department to catch thrm all.

Thst said, I don't really know how people play Bethesda games on consoles and enjoy them. Since Morrowind I have always needed to install a mod, or use the concole to fix bugs or other major annoyances. Granted, still haven't gotten to Skyrim, but can't imagine it's that different.

Despite the warts I usually really enjoy their games, but without the ability to fix, improve and shape them I really doubt that I would be interested.

 

[aravuus]

Yes.

I thought it has always been pretty obvious why some people love NV and hate 3. Both play like utter shit, but NV is so incredibly well written that some people can just look past the gameplay flaws.

Shame it was rushed out. Could have been something absolutely incredible.

e: well, NV IS absolutely incredible in my opinion, but it could have been even betterrerer

 

[Bleeether]

On topic though, i do get the unfinished feeling when playing the vanilla version game. The environment is so huge yet it can feel empty at times.

Both play like utter shit, but NV is so incredibly well written that some people can just look past the gameplay flaws.

Yeah i guess that's me.

 

[Bleeether]

double post sorry

 

[Tagyhag]

I always find it weird when people shit on everything Fallout 3 does but praise New Vegas.

It's probably due to the fact that Obsidian made New Vegas in under a year and still managed to shit on 3 in almost all areas while still feeling more like the original games.

 

[Applecot]

I guess only in the sense that I've not finished them

 

[Warxard]

I did not know about NV having cut content! Man...imagine if NV was finished...

 

[alexandros]

Unfinished no, but unpolished definitely. Bethesda open world games have always been janky as fuck, even going as far back as Arena or Daggerfall. Daggerfall in particular was a mess at launch, tons of issues, problems, bugs and half-baked features. I've come to accept that when it comes to massive games like these it's virtually impossible to polish everything to perfection. That said, I do feel that Bethesda should really step it up when it comes to bug-squashing and polishing. I played Oblivion, Fallout 3 New Vegas and Skyrim on release on PC and while I was lucky enough to not encounter game-breaking bugs in any of them, there were various little annoyances that bothered me.

 

[Machina]

You do realize Fallout 3 was released in 2008, right? On an engine that was built for last gen hardware.

 

[Metal B]

Sadly Bethesda is somehow forced to make every game a open-world-game. Even if it doesn't fit, like in Fallout. The whole theme of the game goes against the open-world-design. It is supposed to be a wasteland in the US. There should be nothing to do their, since everything is dead. At the same time you also should travel through the ruins of giant, real life cities, which aren't just a few houses.

Bethesda should go back to the world map, so that people can skip all the boring Wasteland and give the world some scale. Take some notes, how movies make such transition feel long, dangerous and lifeless without boring the player. If you enter a city, you should only be able to go to the important parts and let the the rest be window dressing. The theme of the story even works into your advantage, since you can create natural borders through highly radiative zones.

If you want to have a open-world-game, then you have to scale up the location. Have it play just in one city and the surrounding area like GTA. There should be enough space for different fraction, adventures and dungeons in the ruins of for example Las Vegas alone.

 

[Machina]

Sadly Bethesda is somehow forced to make every game a open-world-game. Even if it doesn't fit, like in Fallout. The whole theme of the game goes against the open-world-design. It is supposed to be a wasteland in the US. There should be nothing to do their, since everything is dead. At the same time you also should travel through the ruins of giant, real life cities, which aren't just a few houses.

Bethesda should go back to the world map, so that people can skip all the boring Wasteland and give the world some scale. Take some notes, how movies make such transition feel long, dangerous and lifeless without boring the player. If you enter a city, you should only be able to go to the important parts and let the the rest be window dressing. The theme of the story even works into your advantage, since you can create natural borders through highly radiative zones.

If you want to have a open-world-game, then you have to scale up the location. Have it play just in one city and the surrounding area like GTA. There should be enough space for different fraction, adventures and dungeons in the ruins of for example Las Vegas alone.

Would this rule still apply if the world was still large but was chock full of unique content? We saw the early examples of this in New Vegas: every location when taken on its own was unique from the rest.

 

[Turin Turambar]

Remember they are RPGs, and rpgs are "omni-games" where you can always add more and more features. They are never "finished", you can always have a more complete experience.

Guns in the game? You could also add melee weapons!
You have melee weapons? But it would be cool to also have unarmed combat!
And stealth! Because it would suck if you can't avoid enemies!
And accessories for the weapons! and upgrades!
And the npcs should be realistic and having a schedule and their own lives!
It's ok to be able to eat food and drink liquids, but can you get sick?
Talking to npcs? Several options? Good, but I hope your appearance, race, knowledge, charisma, reputation and other factors have influence in the options!

Etc etc

And of course, games that try to have a huge scope like that will implement features without good polish. Like your example with weapon mods.

 

[jerry1594]

The engine isn't even finished, much less the game. You don't go into a Fallout/Elder Scrolls game expecting much in the way of polish, you know?

That shit isn't even held together by shoelaces and bubblegum, it is shoelaces and bubblegum.

 

[Metal B]

Would this rule still apply if the world was still large but was chock full of unique content? We saw the early examples of this in New Vegas: every location when taken on its own was unique from the rest.

It's a wasteland, it should not be full of unique content. Instead the settlements should create the content, similar how Fallout 1 & 2 worked. They follow the rules of almost every apocalypse story: Even after the end people still are assholes to each other; and this creates enough content for interesting stories and mission. Especially if you pack mutants, science-fiction-magic and dungeons on top of it.

In Fallout 3 and New Vegas their is this hard contrast between size, population, distance, story and design.

 

[Phediuk]

New Vegas feels more complete than just about any other RPG out there, so I can't agree with you OP.

 

[MaxiLive]

Nope I think they are finished projects they are just crazy ambitious and don't focus on perfecting systems. Instead the design is based around adding more systems and opening the gameplay in more ways for the player to enjoy/break.

I don't think they spend much time of trying to pretend this isn't a game and hiding the complexity of what is happening behind the scenes.

 

[Stevey]

I played New Vegas on release day on 360 and that didn't feel finished at all.
I own it with all the DLC on Steam now, but that one play through put me off for good, cant even get past the character creator now.

Fallout 3 is a lot more fun to play IMO