So I was just thinking about stuff I wish was in the Fallout games or stuff I wish was in the games MORE. Now as this is a modding site I want to make it clear that this isn't a mod wishlist post, it's just me floating ideas around after having given some stuff some thought (and a lot of these things would be difficult or impossible to implement anyway). I'll also mainly be talking about Fallout: New Vegas as it's my favourite, but feel free to chime in with whatever. (Maybe you wish Fallout: Tactics was completely canon, I dunno) So without further ado...

I really, really wish they'd put in that quest involving marrying Cass in Fallout: New Vegas. For those who don't know, there was talk of there being a quest where you get drunk and get married to Cass by the King in the School of Impersonation. I love it because it's the essence of Vegas, getting wasted and married by an Elvis impersonator.

On the subject of the Kings, I wish they'd had the rights to at least one Elvis song. Walking towards the School of Impersonation and hearing Viva Las Vegas would've been a wonderful first impression.

I mentioned this in another post, but I wish the Fiends were more humanised. I dislike the demonisation of junkies as just violent maniacs. Take Breaking Bad for example. Yes you have psycho drug users like Tuco and Spooge and his wife. But then you have people like Jesse Pinkman, Jane Margolis and Combo (going into Combo's childhood bedroom to see he really was just a kid caught up in a bad crowd is one of the more upsetting moments in the show). All of them, including the child of the Spooge couple, are victims of drug use. I think it would have been very affecting if, instead of the Vault 3 Fiends just being even more cannon-fodder scumbags, some of them were shown to be people with real problems. Maybe something as simple as a guy upset that his girlfriend's been killed? Or vice-versa? Or maybe we see people suffering withdrawal symptoms? What is the history of the Fiends even? Why are they just this random drug-pack? I dunno, considering how nuanced every other faction in New Vegas is, it's a detail that's always bothered me.

In a similar vein, I'm frustrated that you don't see more alcohol and drug use amongst the Great Khans. It's mentioned as a detail about them (and I think Cass brings it up) but it just doesn't come across at all because no one, apart from Jack, is a noticeable drug user. Considering how the Khans are supposed to be a commentary on Native Americans in modern America it's a shame that this detail isn't more explicit. I think Dracomies was seeing about adding more details like this in New Vegas Redesigned? Not sure though.

On the flip side to this, I wish you could rescue slaves from the Fiends (I know you couldn't rescue slaves from the Legion originally but there's a mod for that so whatever). Yes there's the captives in Vault 3, but they're all just in a cage? What are they doing even? Dermot's ledger mentions that they sold slaves to Driver Nephi and Cook-Cook. I can imagine what happens to the Cook-Cook slaves but where're the Nephi captives? Stuff like that I think would've added a whole new dimension to the Fiends. I do appreciate meeting characters like Betsy and Pretty Sarah though. On first playthrough I never even met them and just killed Cook-Cook as part of the bounty. But on later playthroughs I loved discovering that there was so much more going on story-wise.

Minor nitpick: The Omertas should have an in-house drug lab. It makes zero sense that a large organisation like Gomorrah would rely on an unreliable source like the Khans for their drug supply.

I wish there more Fallout-specific music in the Fallout universe. I love Begin Again, Home on the Wastes, New Vegas Valley and Streets of New Reno. They're silly and derivative of course, but it implies that art and culture have started moving on since the war and people aren't still beholden either to songs from the '50s or even pre-war culture in general. The only person where it makes sense that they'd still want pre-war music playing is Mr House, with his whole, weird snowglobe complex.  Three Dog playing '40s tracks in Fallout 3 was a fun idea as it implied that those were the only records he could find that still worked, but it's silly that DC, Vegas and Boston all apparently have a '40s music fetish. Come on Fallout, we need that quest where you're putting the band back together. "It's 106 miles to Arroyo, we've got a full fusion cell, half a pack of RadAway, it's midnight, and I'm wearing a 50 year old Vault 13 jumpsuit. Let's hit it."

Anyway, this has been a fun brainstorming exercise. I will now open the floor.

I wish the stories were more branching, as, in my opinion, it's the series' biggest flaw. If you look at any other RPG (at least story heavy ones,) they can have huge amounts of branching, with some games having over 20 different story lines and endings. Fallout, for the first five games in the series, basically didn't do this at all. You could join the Master, but it was just an instant game over screen. In two, there was only one ending, and in three, the story line stayed the same up until literally the final choice of the game, which ended up affecting maybe 30 seconds of narration in the ending slides total. New Vegas tried to fix this, but ended up just having multiple factions that all have the exact same endings and the exact same quests, with the only difference being who controls what. 4 had the same issue as New Vegas, but to an even higher degree due to it's overall poor design. It honestly makes replayability nonexistent, as you basically play the same fifty hours of content for maybe 10-20 lines of new dialogue. Every major choice comes at the end of the quest you're performing, and the only thing it ever ends up affecting is an ending slide, or what a few NPCs around you say or do. It's a complete joke, to be honest. If they were ever going to have a branching story again, I would REALLY like to see the game branch into completely different paths, with no overlapping story or gameplay content. It's alot of work, but it would be well worth it, in my opinion. Some RPGs can feel like completely different games depending on what route you take, and that makes them extremely enjoyable to replay.

Also, just for clarity, I'm not really talking about side quests here; I'm mainly talking about the main quest lines. Although, to be honest, the side quests could definitely use some work too; I honestly cannot think of any overly memorable side quests that stick out to me in any of the games, which is an absolute shame.

Damn, scathing stuff there, heh. Can't say I agree with you on stuff being unmemorable as that would remove companion quests in New Vegas, fixing the car in Fallout 2, even things like the Republic of Dave in Fallout 3. It's all subjective of course but I personally have plenty of fond memories of side quests.

But I agree on the branching. It seems to be an old hangover from the old cRPG days. "Can you get this for me?" Get the thing. Quest completed, and you never speak with that character again, unless they're involved in another quest. It can certainly feel a little pointless and definitely frustrating sometimes. Branching quest lines with multiple characters where your actions have consequences can really help you feel immersed in the story and gameworld. There's plenty of cool stuff you can do. Help Gizmo assassinate Killian, or help Killian bug Gizmo, but once you've made that choice, the quest's over and your interaction with those characters are done. What happens to Junktown after you've made those decisions? Well you get a little slideshow telling you what happened but God forbid you see any of that stuff in game.

Obviously it's all a scripting issue, and a fairly difficult one, but not impossible. When a series is all about player choice it's important to criticise its quest and story railroading.

Good point. Thanks for replying.

@Visible Earth Honestly, everything you said I wouldn't mind if it was in the game. There is Ulysses and Joshua Graham who I wish were companions you can bring to the Mojave. I do have the mods that fix this and they seamlessly fit in the Mojave but I wish they were actually apart of the game.

Yeah it's a shame that Ulysses wasn't in the original companion roster. He would've been the Vincent Valentine of the group. A character with a very different perspective on things. I'm glad he got his own DLC, but it does add to the issue that the Legion just didn't get as much humanising detail as it could of in the main game.

Thank god for mods I guess.

I wish they would put more profane and obscene things in the future. It is a post nuclear apocalypse world after all and all pre-war culture in the wastes that is not in a bunker has died off though I do not think they could do that without making the next Fallout game R18.

Mundane details that makes would also be nice like a person getting scrap then depositing it to get caps before going to a bar to drink and sleep. It really helps you believe that you are in a living breathing world.

A body would also be nice in first person mode. It is a minor thing but it does wonders when it comes with immersing your self in the world.

When you said obscene stuff I immediately thought about a suggestion someone made about the White Glove Society, that their private club should've actually been a Eyes Wide Shut-style club filled with sex and debauchery.

With regards to the profane, I remember there was a quest in Fallout 3 where you had to find the Declaration of Independence. I'd love it if, instead of bringing it back to Rivet City, you could use it to light a cigarette or something of that nature.

Yup something along those lines but it has to make sense. For example if it is a casino and they provide those "services" then it would make sense to put a members only room where you are exposed to all sorts of debauchery.

If it is a Raider Horde/Den, you see stuff that you only hear on a Central African Warlord where they turn kids into soldiers, the women into sex slaves and/or cannibalize on their defeated opponent. An auction block would also make sense to see in a slaver group.

I doubt we would get to see these with Bethesda or any Publisher in the US but it would add realism to the world when you play a Game with a post apocalypse setting.

It would have been nice to see more Sydney from Fallout 3. She had a lot of potential to be a decent companion better than most if not all F3 companions.

I do wish there was a questline of relic hunting with Abraham Washington to fill up his gallery. Seems like such a wasted opportunity.

I wish they didn't cut the old world blues take over and turn the legion into moon-men ending, even using it as a wild wasteland exclusive ending would be great.

@ahyuser001 Damn that's a dark imagination there, heh. I approve. To give the developers their due, cannibalism, child soldiers and sex slavery have featured in the games in some way or another, but I agree that the impact of cannibalism would be a lot more shocking and gruesome if we actually saw people eating human meat, as opposed to just seeing chunks of meat and body parts. Give it time though. Computer game animation is forever improving and video games are protected under the First Amendment now, so technically speaking you can put whatever in games these days. It's places like Germany and Australia that are a bit more picky about ratings and violence and whatnot.

@Corvo Looking over the Declaration of Independence quest I realised that I'd completely forgotten about Sydney. She seemed like a really cool and horribly underused character. It's a shame. I like her sex-positive attitude.

Reilly's Rangers and finding the Declaration of Independence were two of my favourite questlines as I recall. It would've been cool to expand on both of them. As you said, finding more relics for the museum, and in Reilly's Rangers case, going on more reconnaissance missions with the team (and not just finding more locations on your own).

@rojok2 Very much agreed on this. It's a shame. They had the joke ending for Lonesome Road, but weirdly not for the more tongue-in-cheek jokey DLC. Ah well, it'll always be my personal headcanon that a few decades down the line the world goes to hell thanks to the Think Tank. Romans on the Moon, here we come!

That reminds me. Roxie should've been a companion. It's really bizarre that she wasn't to be honest.

I think the tech is already there. There are games that did this already and what stopped other devs from making these controversial scenes is politics. Remember games such as Manhunt, Spec Ops: The Line and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2?

Those scenes made sense looking at it from the perspective of the situations they were put in and helped add realism to the world on the game that I was playing but people will always fearful and opinionated on stuff that they know nothing about. Human violence is sadly not a definitive science and no one can predict what could cause it.

Because of this games that has violence in it will always be the target of blame when something violent happens. I don't know but this are just my observations on this subject and I am just blabbering

Oh sure, the tech to present these violent scenes is there. I would argue it's less politics and more a matter of taste that dictates what the developers decide to put in their games. Manhunt and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II were still published even without First Amendment protections. But violence like cannibalism and uncensored sexual violence could put off potential customers.

Visible Earth wrote:

Damn, scathing stuff there, heh. Can't say I agree with you on stuff being unmemorable as that would remove companion quests in New Vegas, fixing the car in Fallout 2, even things like the Republic of Dave in Fallout 3. It's all subjective of course but I personally have plenty of fond memories of side quests.

But I agree on the branching. It seems to be an old hangover from the old cRPG days. "Can you get this for me?" Get the thing. Quest completed, and you never speak with that character again, unless they're involved in another quest. It can certainly feel a little pointless and definitely frustrating sometimes. Branching quest lines with multiple characters where your actions have consequences can really help you feel immersed in the story and gameworld. There's plenty of cool stuff you can do. Help Gizmo assassinate Killian, or help Killian bug Gizmo, but once you've made that choice, the quest's over and your interaction with those characters are done. What happens to Junktown after you've made those decisions? Well you get a little slideshow telling you what happened but God forbid you see any of that stuff in game.

Obviously it's all a scripting issue, and a fairly difficult one, but not impossible. When a series is all about player choice it's important to criticise its quest and story railroading.

Good point. Thanks for replying.

Yeah, actually I kind of recede that point now. I was in a bad mood when I wrote that, so I kind of overstated the issues. There were lots of quests in Fallout that I actually enjoyed and fondly remembered; although my point on the branching remains.

@1A sure thing, no worries. It can be fun to vent. It's partially why I set this page up. It's all good to say what we wish the game had had but where's the fun if people don't really tear into the game?