Fallout What's the reason for the courier to care about the main story of New Vegas?

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

I heard stories about Cleve sucking mad dick in the army like the faggot that he is. It was a different time.

You heard a story or you made up a story while masturbating? Can you tell the difference any more?

 

[Daedalos]

The main premise of new vegas is alot weaker than fallout and fallout 2 starting - but most rpgs are weaker than that, so.

New Vegas is kind of interesting, because after you kill Benny the game kind of falls apart for some, but only further deepens and entangles for others, myself included.

I really liked Mr. House story and all the different approaches to that.

 

[RNGsus]

 

[DalekFlay]

My two main playthroughs I played as an NCR spy who was working as a courier for cover, and as a genuine courier who decided to take the better payday from Mr House and be his merc, but then was persuaded to go for the independent ending because he became best buds with Veronica and didn't want to kill her family. In both cases I maybe had to ignore a brief bit of dialogue a few times, but nothing crazy, and they worked out quite well.

 

[somewhatgiggly]

If the player doesn't skip directly to The Tops (such as by sneaking across the Deathclaw highway, waiting for a NCR soldier to die to a Fiend and using their uniform to board via monorail), they've met NCR and Legion if they've followed the crit path. Goodsprings will direct you to go to Primm, and from there you you're directed to Nipton where they meet the Legion (and likely visit the NCR border post along the way). After Nipton you continue to Novac, where you get some more NCR background from Andy, Boon and Boon's partner in Novac and likely run into all the Legion v NCR stuff in that area (Searchlight, the legion camp, forlorn hope ect.). They'll generally encounter plenty of the conflict by the time they're approached to take a side.

Once you hit Benny's, you're actually given plenty of ways to go. Mr. House just outright hires you. Depending on how you dealt with Benny, you may encounter Yes Man who will appeal to power (you could become ruler) and compasion (you've likely seen how the balance of power can screw over the common man). NCR and Legion both call you to meet with a representative who will detail the factions and why they should win.

This nails it on the head. The Courier sees the local situation and then decides to do something about it.

If not, just take them to some corner of the map after finishing the chip shit and uninstall the game I guess? Or just fuck around a bit and never do the main four questlines after. (Hell I just load up some mods to shoot more things/hunt more things anyway).

That's the whole point of a RPG, playing a role. The Courier might be a goody-two-shoes, a merc for hire, or a evil bastard using the courier gig as a cover to run around and kill farmsteads. They might be a proud NCR citizen, a wastelander, a legion spy, or just someone from up north who's mucking about Vegas for fun.

The only real canon is that the courier really gets around and due to the damn DLC was a courier for a few years? at least and delivered some package in the divide that set off some nukes and wiped out two armies and a booming townstead. Oh yea nothing deep there.

 

[CrunchyHemorrhoids]

The motivation for the first half of the plot seemed done well enough. That little intro cutscene where you get mugged, shot and left for dead by a charismatic antagonist should be enough motivation to set just about any player on the path of revenge.

Once that was done with the idea for what motivated the player character was likely that over the course of his revenge quest he got to know enough characters & factions and the lay of the land well enough that he hopefully grew to care about some of those characters/factions and what was happening to them (as opposed to something like Elex where you're expected to join a clique on your first day of school). And in case he didn't care about any of it perhaps there should have been a significant gameplay carrot/reward for joining them. However FONV's gameplay mechanics weren't really geared towards creating faction membership/rewards that felt like something your character truly needed. The closest thing the game had to a needs/cost of living mechanic to motivate the player to go questing or choose sides in a conflict after he was done with revenge was the out of place hardcore mode from an fo3 mod that was already ill fitted to a poorly designed overworld where you're never more than a 1 minute jog away from a fresh food or water source.

And if you cared about some of the characters/factions involved in the main quest -which would quickly progress after the revenge part was done with- it didn't make much sense for you to go about exploring and doing random side quests either (let alone grab all the companions and do their quests). Add to that the fact that the game ends after the main quest and you end up with a majority of content off the beaten track that's at odds with the main quest.

They make these open world games where the real fun is in wandering around finding random towns/characters/ side quests/dungeons but still primarily design the main quest for people who just want to be told where to rush to next -even though those types don't make it halfway through the main story- putting it at odds with the open world design.

 

[vota DC]

Name 1 ONE good thing about New Vegas? I double dare you.
Its nothing but trash.
Well, I guess the guns are decent but they sound like fucking garbage.
I'm not trolling.
There is absolutely NOTHING interesting in the whole godforskaen running simulator.
Its dumb, eyerolling cringe and banal shit boring. Ugly. Crippled.

People talk its CnC up but who cares if you want to ignore faction after faction, town after town. God, kill em all and sort em out yourself....

I cared about Shady Sands, the village, in F1 more than ANY fucking thing in NV.

I am fairly certain that it was Sawyer who completely KILLED any soul the writing could have had.
Its dead like a wasteland.

What had Shady Sands so special? They give you nice quests but the place wasn't that cool. You even have science dialogue to teach to a farmer how rotation crops work...I was suprised at the ending that this place rather than Hub become NCR.

Khan's camp was more memorable since you can duel hand to hand with Garl, buy hostages, join them, become Garl's ghost dad.
Junktown had casino and a small gang inside. Also it was memorable that It grows faster if the bad guy wins.
Hub you even have Robin Hood. Tons of different merchants. Cannibal kebab.

Maybe Shady Sands was the least memorable location with npc.

 

[Joseph Stalin]

I heard stories about Cleve sucking mad dick in the army like the faggot that he is. It was a different time.

You heard a story or you made up a story while masturbating? Can you tell the difference any more?

Are you the guy who took 20 years to make the ugliest character portraits in existence?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

That's the whole point of a RPG, playing a role.

I don't consider this a valid excuse.
There are plenty of RPGs(I'd say the majority, even) where the character is given a reason(often many different reasons) to want to participate in the main plot rather than having to make a reason up in your head.
If anything, it seems early drafts were intended to push you towards House but then it moved towards being faction-based in later iterations without properly giving the courier motivation.

Amusingly, Deadfire is nearly the same except with a hamfisted reason for caring about the main plot. Maybe Sawyer was aware of this and decided to solve it in a terrible way

 

[Atlantico]

I don't consider this a valid excuse.

What the fuck is your basic comprehension problem, you shaved ape?

Fallout NV is an RPG, you think it is an interactive story. You're literally whining about a game not being an absolute decline, you fucking 'merritard.

 

[DalekFlay]

Someone on the GOG forums a while back complained about having to choose your background in Shadowrun: Dragonfall, because "I want to be told a story, not make it up!" Maybe that was rusty_shackleford.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Someone on the GOG forums a while back complained about having to choose your background in Shadowrun: Dragonfall, because "I want to be told a story, not make it up!" Maybe that was rusty_shackleford.

I swear you guys are autistic and think a blank book is the best thing in the world, I don't know why I even bother.

According to this thread, planescape torment, fallout, etc., is decline trash.

 

[Terenty]

Name 1 ONE good thing about New Vegas? I double dare you.
Its nothing but trash.
Well, I guess the guns are decent but they sound like fucking garbage.
I'm not trolling.
There is absolutely NOTHING interesting in the whole godforskaen running simulator.
Its dumb, eyerolling cringe and banal shit boring. Ugly. Crippled.

People talk its CnC up but who cares if you want to ignore faction after faction, town after town. God, kill em all and sort em out yourself....

I cared about Shady Sands, the village, in F1 more than ANY fucking thing in NV.

I am fairly certain that it was Sawyer who completely KILLED any soul the writing could have had.
Its dead like a wasteland.

Glad i'm not the only one who sees this shit game for what it is.

 

[jf8350143]

Shouldn't you be the one to come out with a motivation for the Courier? He/She is your character after all.

 

[Roguey]

According to this thread, planescape torment,

Why should you care about who you were before when all indications are that you won't like the answer? Just have fun as an immortal.

 

[CaffeineConquistador]

Shouldn't you be the one to come out with a motivation for the Courier? He/She is your character after all.

You do. You’re a drifter working the wasteland gig economy. You decide what is what and what your own motivations are. That’s something the OP can’t get his head wrapped around. It’s just herr durrr muh RP. It’s nothing more sophisticated than that.

Doesn’t matter, though. The game is trash and the motivations are lazy - be whatever you want but we’re still railroading this strong narrative down your throat. They try to get around the blank slate origin problem somewhat with the Ulysses character, but Ulysses was actually awesome. Why not make him the main actor?

It’s perfectly fine to define a player’s characters and motivations. Deus Ex, Gothic, KCD (forgive me, my Lord, for I have sinned by listing any of these in comparison to FNV and also forgive my sins of invoking your name in this crap at all)...shit even quasi-ARPGs like Bitcher did just that. With FNV, the room for “muh RP” is just had-assed.

 

[CaffeineConquistador]

According to this thread, planescape torment,

Why should you care about who you were before when all indications are that you won't like the answer? Just have fun as an immortal.

Because it’s lazy and half-assed.

 

[Roguey]

Because it’s lazy and half-assed.

The more a writer defines your character, the less you're able to define it for yourself. I don't want that all the time.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Because it’s lazy and half-assed.

The more a writer defines your character, the less you're able to define it for yourself. I don't want that all the time.

How is giving you a reason to care about something "defining your character"?
This logic is asinine. Might as well remove 90% of the story in PST because we can just imagine one instead.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

According to this thread, planescape torment,

Why should you care about who you were before when all indications are that you won't like the answer? Just have fun as an immortal.

But yet you perfectly described PST if it was designed and written like FNV. Wake up and then you just do whatever, just imagine the story bro.
Moral arguments for caring about people you wronged in a previous life? Pfft, no need. Deionarra doesn't need to be a part of the story, gets in the way of MUH ROLEPLAYIN'.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Why does the Vault Dweller have to care about what happens to Vault 13 after leaving it?

Same reason the average person would care if someone was going to burn down their family home and massacre their family, I'd assume

House saved the courier and offers a job. He is sort of family for him, so stick with House make sense.
Independent Is the obvious choice for powerhungry characters.

Ncr and legion paths make less sense for courier and can be only explained with patriotism. Every soldier that you encounter complains that ncr Is stretching too much and keeping Mojave Is a problem so even if you plan to leave New Vegas and go in California you don't need ncr to win.

Legion never made sense for me to join them. They always seemed too stereotypically evil from what I remember, and it was only at the end when Caesar rationally explains their world view to the PC.

On the Cross with you profligate, seriously Legion can be seen as evil only from perspective of current year liberal, Women put onto kitchen? Slavery? Military Conquest as means of foreign policy and expansion and and Monarchy as system of rule? It was standard for most of humanity history and is practiced to this day (also mostly ignored by liberal (((Media))) cause Saudi Barbaria is Kwan and ITZrael bfb, which speaks about seriousness of this liberal ideology)

From the perspective of the world which was reseted to pre industrial era though? Legion is most logical choice unless you are in House camp which is also viable option... maybe if nobody will hack securitrons again and House survive , NCR is just US which ended up blowing the world wannabe and Free Strip would turn either in total anarchy and being conquered by either Bull or Bear or if Courier is capable one in new Monarchy but... it would need at least three generations of rule to form onto some coalescent form... and Commissar can bet neither of powerful neighbors would allow you the sixty or so years to do it.

From the game perspective Courier is tramp and vagrant he would perhaps neutralise Benny, give chip to either faction and the GTFO from arena but this is Role Play Game so you are free to make courier who is stupid enough to be NCR patriot for some reason etc...

 

[DalekFlay]

[How is giving you a reason to care about something "defining your character"?
This logic is asinine. Might as well remove 90% of the story in PST because we can just imagine one instead.

RPG stories are best when they present you a well designed world with good lore and cool characters that you then interact with and play off each other according to a character type you design.

 

[Roguey]

How is giving you a reason to care about something "defining your character"?

Because a lot of players don't care. A lot of people don't care about finding the dad in Fallout 3 and resent the plot hook for being there in the first place, being forced to play a character who cares about his/her dad.

But yet you perfectly described PST if it was designed and written like FNV.

That could be one approach, yes, if one removed the amnesia and immortality elements and made a game about a character navigating life in Sigil.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Because a lot of players don't care. A lot of people don't care about finding the dad in Fallout 3 and resent the plot hook for being there in the first place, being forced to play a character who cares about his/her dad.

Did a lot of players resent having to find the waterchip in Fallout? Did they resent having to solve the iron crisis in BG? etc.,
You're confusing a bad story with actually having a story(something FNV doesn't have, it has worldbuilding)

The main story of FNV is: Find the guy who shot you -> ??? -> DAM BATTLE!

 

[rusty_shackleford]

[How is giving you a reason to care about something "defining your character"?
This logic is asinine. Might as well remove 90% of the story in PST because we can just imagine one instead.

RPG stories are best when they present you a well designed world with good lore and cool characters that you then interact with and play off each other according to a character type you design.

That's not a story, that's worldbuilding.
It's like comparing the Silmarillion to Lord of the Rings.