Should Obsidian be the only one making Fallout games?

Yeah that's true. Bethesda games allow you to ignore the story completely, Obsidian actually have immediate story ramifications, wherein people talk to you about the main story. Obsidian is more like Bioware in story with roaming, Bethesda stuff is more like Rockstar in free roam with story.

@hh: Or story fans simply do not feel the sandbox elements make up for other lackluster portions of the game.

so basically you see Bethesda games as a set of weaknesses rather than the set of strengths it's fans see?

the point is story fans are never gonna get their way with Bethesda, because steps in that direction undermine their worth as a developer.

@hh: I never said that, but feel free to put more words in my mouth.

Rather I said that fo3 was inferior relative to new vegas, that sandbox features did not make up for poor story and lackluster elements. To expand upon that: I thought both were buggy, but new vegas had a number of superior systems as well as story, though the wasteland felt more dense and had more opportunities to run into random things. Ultimately the game has to keep me interested to do that however, which fo3 didn't. New vegas did keep me interested, and as a result I saw and explored a lot more of the game including all of the dlc.

I played dozens of hours of both, and think both are good for what they are; but while I might have spent upwards of a hundred in new vegas, I likely spent half that much in fo3.

Maybe sandbox fans should look to franchises that are not historically story based, I hear minecraft is big and has none of that pesky story business. ( though I did see a number of 'unofficial' minecraft novels at the store this morning, which was weird...)

Sounds like a great idea to me, cause then BGS can concentrate on making good games like Elder Scrolls.

Eh I dunno about that. While I do prefer New Vegas, I did really enjoy 3 as well. I played them both for the first time like a year or two ago and didn't think there was a huge difference in quality between them.

As for the bugs, I played both GOTY editions on PS3 (yeah, known to be the best platform for bethesda games :P) and found them both fairly equally bugged tbh. Fallout 3 was a probably bit worse in this regard, I remember having to restart that alien DLC several times because it kept glitching in a way that made it actually impossible to continue.

Fallout 3 and New Vegas were both good for different reasons. Bethesday makes the great looking, if maybe a bit shallow when you start digging, roller coaster rides, while Obsidian can realize a dense, if maybe a little clunky, world to not only explore but interact with. No reason they can't coexist, and I think making the side games is a good place for Obsidian.

what do you find weird? the fact that people in minecraft, much like in bethesda games, like to make up their own stories? or the fact that other people might want to read them?

because this is exactly what i'm talking about. to me it's a more natural gaming impulse than paying attention to whatever motive the developer has come up with this time for you to justify your presence in the game.

anyway there's no point in going over the same thing again and again, it's derailing slightly, and without doubt it would be a best of both worlds scenario if Obsidian did chip in with the writing in Fallout, so long as that story remained optional for those that wanted to do their own thing.

New Vegas was more interesting in every way. Better mechanics, better world building, terrific characters, terrific storyline, actual Brotherhood of Steel that wasn't just Bethesda making them into some dumb Elder Scrolls knights. Fallout 3 was just Bethesda making another bad Elder Scrolls game with a Fallout skin. Seriously if Bethesda is making Fallout 4 then I'm out. This comes from a hardcore Fallout fan. I even own a copy of that Brotherhood of Steel beat em up, so you know that if I'm not buying it then it's probably a bad Fallout game.

I'd love to see a hot collabo. I like both 3 and NV but the world and quest stuff in 3 was what makes me prefer that game. NV has some great characters and a better core story, which is stuff Bethesda have never been quite as good at. But I love the world construction that Bethesda do, so let them build the world and set up a bunch of side quests while Obsidian help them craft characters and write the main story.

Agree. It doesn't even really make sense in universe. By fallout 2 Super Mutants are already dying out, and kind of only appear in small scattered groups. Then in fallout 3 they city is just teeming with them as soon as you hit level 10. I know this is a complaint that will easily be dismissed as being too into early fallout or something but it just seems like that's not a hard thing to get right. I had similar feelings about the feral ghoul thing.

And all that would have been fine, I think, if they'd really tried to make fallout their own, but they didn't, really. The main story is kind of just a mish-mash of Fallouts 1 and 2, only somehow more over the top.

I probably enjoyed playing Fallout 3 more than NV, I 100% did everything in that game, but hell New Vegas is sitting in my 360 right now, I still have a couple of story lines to see and I thought all the dlc for both games was fantastic, either way I'm excited for the barely existing next game in the franchise, its got both of my styles of serious and stupid that I can get behind in the same world

Yah as a person that loved those first two games and actively disliked Fallout 3 and felt indifferent towards New Vegas I honestly think they should just let someone else take a crack at it. Although I realize this is incredibly selfish because each time I mentioned how Fallout 3 was in many ways a travesty I'm reminded that this sentiment belongs to the extreme minority and the rest of the world apparently loved it. Honestly when I played RAGE I felt like that game reminded me a lot more of Fallout than Fallout 3 ever did.