So, we are so very close now. I can almost smell the sweat, blood, and gun oil. Appalachia is soon going to have humans wandering and settling it again that won't broadcast the sound of their crying infant, or teabag your corpse after stealing your junk at an event. What are you folks hoping for with this addition to the game?

I'm hoping for a return, in some way, of the Order of Mysteries. Some new/returned faction NPCs in the form of people not confirmed to be dead. Maybe some life in places like Whitespring, Top of the World, and Flatwoods.

Given how much disappointment there has been with Fallout 76, I have a feeling the addition of NPCs will be very hollow. It'll probably be very bare bones and buggy.

How I imagine it'll be that it'll start off promising, you'll meet NPCs perhaps learn a bit of new lore and it seems like it's headed into expansive event but then it ends short or a quest you thought would lead to something grand is just infinity looping radiant quests.

I know the Wastelanders update isn't a responsive to the backlash of no NPCs, it was discovered sometime ago that it was always in their plans but still given what we have seen I can't help but picture the promising hope and the inevitable let down like Fallout 4 and the initial 76 launch.

Yeah, while I would really like that to end up being underselling it, I do have a horrible feeling your are right. Even looking at just how half hearted this current 'Operation Cleanup' is. We could have been closing up smaller Fissures with Mininukes. We could have been slaughtering waves of Scorched with the Enclave Patrol Bots; instead it's a kill count tracker on their website, with the 'rewards' being reactivating an event we have barely a month or two ago, and the next tiers of rewards being even more dull. It doesn't inspire confidence that the current team could make something truly special.

Hopefully in just under a month we'll both be proven wrong.

I think Fallout (used to be) very much incompatible with the mmo attitude. It was about changing the world, about meaingful choices. Not kill counts or bland fetch quests or whatever.
A fallout mmo with none of fallout's older spirit is just more evidence that Bethesda is discarding the older fanbase in favor of people who they hope are easy to please. A call-of-duty/counter strike fallout would probably have worked better for them in that regard, though... not that I would have been happy about it.

I'm hoping that, in the end, the lack of any sort of warmth for 76 in the overall community means they realize that is a mistake going forwards and that Wastelanders is a sign of that. Perhaps I'm just too optimistic though.

I myself have never played fallout 76 because it got a lot of shit on launch and people on YouTube reviewing it said it was the worst triple A game of 2018

The only hope I have is that it will actually be a good update that will fix most of the issues but let’s be real for a sec it’s Bethesda so I don’t expect much from the update, I hope I am wrong and if it turns out to fix fallout 76 then I will definitely buy the game

A lot of the core issues have been fixed to a playable level for a while, mostly just the occasional annoyance left. I would actually suggest getting it cheap from somewhere other than the Bethesda store and trying it a few weeks before Wastelanders to appreciate the 'contrast' between what they release. The game world has that 'The Forest' and '7 Days to Die' feel of being largely alone and claustrophobic in an massive world paradoxically. I imagine that will be largely got with NPC settlements, human enemies, and companions.

Is it like the forest and 7 days to die? So fallout 76 is basically a early access survival game for full price, then I might buy it on sale but it needs to be a good one, won’t even buy it for half price if the game isn't finished

I was also wondering but do they update fo76 regularly?

Oh well. Someone restart the count down lol. I hope the extra time they are spending will be really worth it, as I've actually gotten pretty attached to Appalachia, but I'm also out of stuff to do.

100$ sub for a single player mode top quality LULZ

Stuff like this is why I no longer have hope for what may come to Fallout 76 or future games for that matter and for the record even if this thing launched perfectly it still shows their hand and that they clearly don't care for their customers or their own game, they want whales who will buy whatever they shit out next.

Don't forget Wastelanders was seemingly always part of the plan and not a response to fan feedback.
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Fallout 76 human NPCs were always planned, coming in new DLC

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The mentality behind '76 confused the hell out of me (sort of like how Fallout tactics confused me.) Fallout's strength was, from the very beginning, about choice, about the dialogue, about the ability to change the world.
An MMO with few to no NPCS (and as far as I know, no chance to change the world, as it's an MMO) is... an incredibly weird, weird choice for the Fallout franchise, just like I felt that Fallout Tactics was a weird choice, to concentrate on combat over plot and complex dialogue.
Scrap the things the franchise was most popular for, and concentrate on the things that it was (at least originally) not suited for. So very odd. Back in the 90's, Fallout's style and strength, despite being very violent, would have faired better as an Adventure game rather than a mostly combat only game.
But the corporations don't know, or don't care. Somehow. I mean, I didn't think it was that complicated to realize that Fallout was originally meant to be about the story and the changing of the world, rather than... whatever the hell '76 is supposed to be about.

I honestly believe that at this point the 'strategy' is to get what money they can out of the game before it dies. Wastelanders will probably get some players to return, some will subscribe, and then Bethesda can let the game live on life-support with a few interns keeping the servers running. Ireally don't think even they believe it can be 'saved' TESO style now.