God damn did I hate that metro system in Fallout 3. Unless you had those points already discovered, you had to use it to get ANYWHERE in D.C.
That's HOW I got anywhere in D.C., because just clicking a button and magically appearing at my destination really killed the game, for me. Walking there was much more fun. It would've been more fun if I didn't have compass markers holding my hand and perhaps had to rely on faded scribbles lining the walls in conjunction with the pre-war map kiosks present in the metros, because THAT'S an immersive experience. It's not when rubble blocking your path and forcing you to use these metros tunnels and sewers JUST so you can see a different group of raiders every time that are supposedly telling their own story. I really liked the metro system of 3, I just wish that the overall level of destruction had been consistent with the rest of the city (same old "WHY is the Capitol building still standing 200 years later after getting hit by nukes???" discrepancy) and that there was more complexity to it. Getting lost in a massive maze of pockets of surface ruins and endless tunnels connecting it all with no way out but the exits themselves would have been delightful gameplay. Far more delightful than hoarding 30 Quantums just to deliver them to some otaku bitch in a "town" that makes no goddamned sense, or most of the other quests for that matter.....
You know there's ways to play the game without using the marker right? You can uncheck your quest and the marker won't appear, forcing you to rely on your own instincts. Or you can check a completely different quest so that you will be forced to ignore the marker. Either way, there's ways to play the game without using the marker. I did it on my second playthrough. Still used fast travel though, since it's much more convenient, kind of like the travel map in the first two Fallout's. The game didn't force you to take each individual step when you were walking from town to town (unless for RP purposes, you personally stopped on each square and made your character walk across each desert square until you got to the next town. Which would be fucking tedious, just like walking across the entire map in Fallout 3 or NV.
That advice is like saying I can play
Halo with my friends and not worry about them Screen Cheating because we agreed not to. Having to personally endeavor a solution to a problem neither fixes the problem nor does it address that the problem is there to begin with. It's ignoring the problem, but it's STILL THERE. My friends would always Screen Cheat because they assured me it was hard not to look at my half/quarter of the screen while we were playing, and they were right. The problem was real, and there was no getting around it, even if we endeavored to fix it ourselves. Players who go out of their way to limit themselves or enhance the challenge themselves are simply enhancing their own experiences with the game, and under those circumstances those are wonderful activities. But players having to undergo their own PERSONAL solutions for glaringly poor design problems, or actual bugginess problems, are NOT wonderful activities; they're activities that shouldn't have been necessary to begin with. It's the tired old argument of "Just mod the game, problem solved" all over again, disregarding the fact that the GAME is riddled with problems because SOMEONE ELSE (not the developers) created a workaround solution. That's stupid.
Well why not? There's problems that we were forced to ignore in Fallout 2, such as it's massive amount of bugs. Because if not then our conversation is getting into the general design of all games. That's like saying "I shouldn't have to be forced to deal with bugs because I payed 60+ dollars for this game", or when your watching TV, saying "I shouldn't be forced to deal with commercials since I'm paying for this", or an even better example, say you have a satellite dish for television and it rains/thunders one day, and your TV goes out. You say "I shouldn't have to deal with this because I pay the satellite company. Or even better, if their's a blackout in the city, you say "I shouldn't have to deal with this because I pay my bills". Your expecting perfection (or perfection to your own individual ideals and opinions), and expecting the designers to avoid an inevitability. They added the marker for people not used to Fallout, or people who don't want to play a game where they are not given any information whatsoever on what they have to do. But they also gave the user the option of NOT using the marker. Just like Fallout 3/Van Buren was to give the play the option of choosing to use real time gameplay of turn-based. It was there, but that doesn't mean you have to use it. That's like getting Van Buren, seeing the option for real-time, and flipping out "What the fuck, I shouldn't have to deal with this, and be forced to go waaaaaaaaaaaay out of my way to click this button and choose. This is too overwhelming, and a shitty design choice of the part of the developers. Fuck this, this game sucks!". Like I said, you also expecting them to adhere to each particular individual. Large companies that focus on selling products don't go after an individual, they go after masses. I would do it all the time, for either RP purposes or to enhance the gameplay the way I wanted it. We can't expect the makers of the game to attempt to make the game that would adhere to and please each individual. That would be... well it would be fucking impossible. Fallout 3 wouldn't even be halfway done. Doing this just lets me play it in my own way. It's not that I didn't like the game that they made, but I have my own idea's on how to enhance it and, since I'm not on their design team and unless I know how to mod the game, I go out of my way to incorporate them in my own way.
Let's say you're selling fucking, I don't know... chocolates. But let's say your chocolate company isn't HUGE, but is growing to be pretty sizable. You have a stake in the chocolate game all over the state, some of the surrounding states, and your the largest chocolate producer in your city, but your not national, nor even international yet. Your barely becoming regional. Your 'inventory' you have two dozen storage sheds filled with boxes of your new chocolate bar, and on top of that, you have your own personal warehouse which manufacturers your chocolate products which belongs to your company, and you don't have to pay anyone to make your shit for you. you have a wave of employee's working for you, including salespersons, telemarketers, Vice-President's of marketing, and all that. Do you think your company will last long if you direct your salespersons to go from door to door to attempt to sell one to three chocolate bar's at a time, or if you send your salespersons to Wal-Marts and Albertsons, or candy stores and offer to strike a deal where you will sell them boxes of your shit every month. If you go door-to-door, you will be pleasing each particular individual by allowing them to pick and choose what they want. But, probably over 50% of your 'clients' won't want the chocolate, and when you do make a sell, it will be in extremely low numbers. Your company is way to large for that. So you chocolate scientists, taste testers, and all that shit. You hold a meeting with them, and tell them to find out what "people" like. So they go and do survey's, create new experimental products, and come up with new ideas. Finally, they bring your your next product, a chocolate bare that about 70% of your customers are going to love, another 10% will be 'OK' with, and the rest are going to hate. Then you ask them how you can please each individual, and they bring you a list which has the opinions and recommendations of the individuals who didn't like your chocolates. You find these all vary differently, and you would have to create several different products, which would not sell at mass quantities but instead is something that only appears to a smaller group of individuals. So instead you say put our new chocolate product out on the line now, and if they don't like it, they can go back and get one of our older products they do like. They don't have to eat our new product, but were not going to put our company in financial jeopardy because one guy wanted a special kind of peanut in the chocolate that only grows in Cambodia.
So then, to please your other 20% that didn't like it, you come up with the "make your own chocolate bar" idea. Chocolate's you can specially order what you want on your chocolate bar. It's still going to be YOUR companies chocolate, and if the consumers don't like that there's not much you can do about it. But, your giving them the choice to customize it. Do you want peanuts? Do you want almonds? maybe put a peanut butter cream on the inside.
These are just examples of business tactics Bethesda uses. Business tactics that
work.
Fallout 1 and 2 is all about using your imagination. Doing what I described above, including with the FO 3 marker, is also about using your imagination. Basically though, your telling me you shouldn't have to go through the "trouble" of using your imagination because you paid for the game and it's the designers responsibilities to make you not have to rely upon your imagination whatsoever.
