Deject likes side quests, sheriff does not. Discuss.

Sheriff Fatman · Post by **Sheriff Fatman** » April 11th, 2009, 19:16

Don't get me wrong; I enjoyed the side quests. My point is, they had fuck-all to do with the game, as a whole. They were enjoyable; but I would have preferred that they had a little more relevance.

Post by **Joose** » April 11th, 2009, 21:14

ok, so I tried to split a thread for the first time. I dont think I did it right. Anyway...

Carry on!

Shada · Post by **Shada** » April 11th, 2009, 21:15

FIGHT

Post by **Roman Totale** » April 11th, 2009, 21:18

For me the side quests pretty much summed up what it's probably like wondering about in a post-apocalyptic environment. I don't think they needed to be relevant to the main story.

However, the main story did piss me off immensely. It was far, far too short, and the fact you can't continue after completing it really grated. As much as I enjoyed Fallout 3, I've not had the urge to replay it like I did with Oblivion.

Post by **Joose** » April 11th, 2009, 21:27

Roman Totale wrote:the fact you can't continue after completing it really grated

This was the key failure for me. I would have quite happily bummed about for days after completing the main quest, doing side quests until there was nothing left to complete. But it didn't let me. Felt a bit like they had stolen a large part of the game from me, pissed me off.

I know I could just go back to an earlier save game and not finish the main quest, but that's not the point. I shouldn't *have* to do that.

That being said, I'm pretty much with deject here. The main quest was a bit short, easy and dull, but the sidequests were varied and mostly entertaining. Whilst I can kinda see the argument for making them more relevant to the main quest, I'm not sure how they could have done that without either:

a)making the relevance massively superficial, and therefore pointless.
b)making it tie in entirely to the main quest, essentially making them *all* the main quest
or
c)keeping them separate, but making them have small meaningful effects on the main storyline. Which would be a herculean task, both technically and writing-wise, to pull off whilst still having that hueg amount of stuff out there to find.

Plus, im not sure that having all the side stuff relevant wouldn't have made it all seem a little forced and unnatural. I think it made the world a tiny bit more real because not *everything in the whole world* revolved around you and your dad.

Post by **deject** » April 11th, 2009, 21:32

You didn't grab my post Joose.

I know the main storyline is not very long, but there is just so much content to do, I think that more than makes up for it.

And for the record, Three Dog does talk about all the shit you do so it's not like they have no effects at all. If you go straight for the main quest I can see how you'll be disappointed by the game, but I don't understand why the side quests are bad just because they're not integral to the main plot.

buzzmong · Post by **buzzmong** » April 11th, 2009, 21:54

To Joose's point C:
The other Fallout games managed it, Deus Ex managed it, and being honest, with 3d games like that, added missions are mostly just scripting designs, maybe some small level work with some modelling, and the voice acting. They're not massive major coding works or the like.

Fallout 3 on it's own merits was good but not the brilliant game I was expecting and hoping it would be. I have an issue with some of the ingame systems, namely weightless ammo and the repair system with all the issues they caused, but the main plot was a bit thin on the ground.

A game has failed if the side quests are better than the main plot imo, but even then it's forgivable if they let you continue afterwards, THAT was a nail in the coffin and I can't believe that got past the design stage (then again, with some of the other design choices, not too suprising). I think looking back I'm suprised how they managed to break stuff that worked just fine in Oblivion, yet didn't improve on some of it's faults either.

It's still worth a play though.

Post by **deject** » April 11th, 2009, 21:59

I agree that not letting you continue after completing the main quest is lame, but once that happened I just loaded a save from before I finished the game and continued exploring.

I guess I just found the Wasteland itself more interesting than you guys or something. The wide open aspect to it is the real selling point of Fallout 3.

buzzmong · Post by **buzzmong** » April 11th, 2009, 22:08

I enjoyed wondering the wasteland, I was level 20 before I'd even got to the stage where I could wear power armour.

I was just let down massively by the main story, because quite honestly, it was poor. It's like someone put loads of effort into the surrounding backstory and tieing your life (and your Dad's) into the enviroment, then just ran out of time and hashed a loose plot out of it.

I know it was meant to be a bit of a sandbox, but not at the expense of an actual decent story.

Akiakaiu · Post by **Akiakaiu** » April 11th, 2009, 23:07

The game was fun, but once I hit the level cap and finished the main story line I never felt the need to go back. Now the only time I touch it is when I feel like watching something's head explode in slow motion.

Post by **Joose** » April 12th, 2009, 0:06

buzzmong wrote:To Joose's point C:
The other Fallout games managed it, Deus Ex managed it

Nah, no, nyet. Deus Ex, for all the hype about it at the time, was linear as fuck. Ok, so you could punch people *or* shoot them *or* sneak around them or whatever, but that's not non-linear. You still had to achieve objective 1 before objective 2, and so on. There were a few places were you could diverge *a little* (shoot a guy rather than not shoot a guy, for example) but you still progressed through those things in a predictable straight line.

I've got to say, I don't think the other fallout games were that different with regards to their side quests. The ones that were not part of the main story were pretty separate from the rest of the game, just like FO3. Main difference with them was that the main story was much longer, better, and (for the first one more than the second one) made a far larger percentage of the game.

, and being honest, with 3d games like that, added missions are mostly just scripting designs, maybe some small level work with some modelling, and the voice acting. They're not massive major coding works or the like.

Its not the modelling and such that would be the issue, its designing the thing so it actually ties in in any meaningful way. You take 1 random side mission, and make it have a significant effect on 1 main quest event (by significant, I'm taking to mean just different dialogue for this example). Depending on if I have done the side mission before the main quest or not means the main quest needs to have two different dialogues. Now consider the fact that a fair amount of the side quests can be completed in different ways: say just two for this example. The main quest now needs 3 different dialogues for just one side mission. Now consider how many dialogues you would need if there were 2 side quests, or if there was more than two ways of completing the side quests. Now imagine the amount of different dialogues you would need considering the *epically huge* amount of side quests there are. And that's just changing bits of dialogue.

I'm not saying it couldn't be done, im just saying that it would be a hell of a lot of extra work, when they have already given themselves a hell of a lot of work putting the side quests in there in the first place. When you then consider that its debatable that that would have actually improved it...

I guess I just found the Wasteland itself more interesting than you guys or something.

I think that's the problem deej, I *did* find the Wasteland more interesting. Trouble is, I found it more interesting than the main bloody story.

All this being said, I still think it was a damn good game, which kept me entertained for a good while.

Baliame · Post by **Baliame** » April 12th, 2009, 0:18

Joose wrote:I'm not saying it couldn't be done, im just saying that it would be a hell of a lot of extra work

DAMN RIGHT, but you would get the sort of shutout victory Deus Ex did have. That's what the fucking developers have to understand: this kind of extra work is what makes a game GOOD and REPLAYABLE.

Post by **HereComesPete** » April 12th, 2009, 0:30

buzzmong wrote:quite a lot of stuff

Fallout and fallout 2 can both be completed in slightly more time than it takes to install them if you so wish.

I think you're seeing the random stories and places you visit as somehow integral to the main missions in 1 and 2 but not 3. The stories in 1 and 2 are very compelling but all the stuff you do isn't needed to finish either game.

Main quest in 3 - there's a handy dibber that lets you do missions after you complete it. Granted it should have been an option from the studio but it's fixable.

And deus ex was unbelievably linear, didn't suffer from it though.

Joose wrote:Trouble is, I found it more interesting than the main bloody story.

Very much this. Wandering around was great fun. Main quest not so much. But it did offer a vague sense of purpose to it all which helped push you on a little imo.

Baliame · Post by **Baliame** » April 12th, 2009, 0:33

HereComesPete wrote:And deus ex was unbelievably linear, didn't suffer from it though.

Deus Ex was a game where you were doing sort-of-like side missions and not noticing it until you actually read up on them. It's really subtle as well, for example when MIBs raid Paul's apartment you can either proceed with the main quest (run) or do a sidequest (kill the MIBs, subsequently save your brother).

I'd compare Deus Ex linearity to city traffic, you have a destination on the other end, and no matter which way you go, you'll go through the same checkpoints and arrive at the same destination.

Nowadays, linearity is like a fucking train trip from Budapest to Moscow.

Post by **deject** » April 12th, 2009, 3:26

Joose wrote:I think that's the problem deej, I *did* find the Wasteland more interesting. Trouble is, I found it more interesting than the main bloody story.

What I'm trying to say is I don't see that as a negative frankly. It doesn't make me think less of the game at all.

Sheriff Fatman · Post by **Sheriff Fatman** » April 12th, 2009, 8:00

Roman Totale wrote:For me the side quests pretty much summed up what it's probably like wondering about in a post-apocalyptic environment. I don't think they needed to be relevant to the main story.

They didn't need to be relevant, true. The point I am trying to make is that it would be nice if you didn't feel like you were playing two different games.

Take Oblivion, for example. If you did the quests for some of the Kings/Princesses/hangers on, it would have an impact upon your reputation with people in the other kingdoms. Should you go down the assassin route, it opens up other plot-lines that you wouldn't see had you not followed that route.

In FO3, it just seems that you can go to point A, do what generic NPC A asks you to do and then move onto the next village. None of it feels like you are part of a bigger plan.

It's all fine and dandy having an open world to explore but I just felt like I was going through the motions when exploring the wasteland.

buzzmong · Post by **buzzmong** » April 12th, 2009, 11:02

To expand on what I was on about with F1 and F2, you've both missed something.

Fallout 3's side quests are directly unrelated to to the main quest in any shape or form, the other two the side quests DID affect it a lot more as it affected the way the characters reacted to you, and there was some crossover.
It was just subtle and not all that important, but the crossover was there, F3 lacked that.

And Deus Ex, although fairly linear, did give you many paths to take in situations and on the main quest, but you ended up at the same destination (like Bubbles said) as they were central to the plot, but it affected who you fought, and where, which characters did stuff to help or hinder you.

Again, F3 lacks that, the main plot is extremely linear. No alternate choices really. Even the end of the main quest choice of choosing the Lyons Pride girlie or yourself ends with the game ending no matter what.

Shada · Post by **Shada** » April 12th, 2009, 11:25

Sheriff Fatman wrote:Take Oblivion, for example. If you did the quests for some of the Kings/Princesses/hangers on, it would have an impact upon your reputation with people in the other kingdoms. Should you go down the assassin route, it opens up other plot-lines that you wouldn't see had you not followed that route.

In FO3, it just seems that you can go to point A, do what generic NPC A asks you to do and then move onto the next village. None of it feels like you are part of a bigger plan.

The second paragraph describes Oblivion just as well as it describes Fallout 3. Also I don't know what you mean by assassin route - Oblivion had no routes, it was designed for people who want to achieve every single thing with their single overpowered character.

cashy · Post by **cashy** » April 12th, 2009, 12:59

I managed to spend a good few hours on this game this week and I must admit I enjoyed it muchly. Can't comment on the main quest, as one of the first things I did was destroy Megaton. All hope of finding my father seems to have gone up in a mushroom cloud. Entirely worth it.

I've generally been looting and killing my way from town to town and absolutely loving it, I managed to find some random whore who told me I must be there to kill her, so I let her waffle on and tell me why she's not such a bad person, accepted her 300 bottlecap bribe then shot her 4 times in the face. Interesting game.

Post by **HereComesPete** » April 12th, 2009, 15:18

Cashy you shit!