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 KingCracker wrote:
Border lands would probably annoy you too. I also found Rage to be annoying in many ways, and so tried border lands only to think it looks cool but also it's terribly annoying.

Strange, I really enjoyed them both.

Only thing about Rage I found annoykng was the ending, but eh. The co-ol is great fun with friends on a couch, too.

Rage would kind of be a horrible place to live if you were one of the Arc sleepers (or whatever they were called). They left a lot of the plot out of the game, but it seems kind of gruesome that the supposed saviours of the planet are actually kind of the main threat to those that survived outside the Arcs. I'm not talking about the Authority, though they are Arc survivors too, but more that unless the Sleepers can find a doctor with enough savvy, they'll eventually turn into crazed mutants (was that alluded to in the game, I can't remember). That kind of seems a little crappy if you're one of those Sleepers, and well, given how crappy the world is for the average folks I'd hate to not be an Arc Survivor. =/

Oh and if Mel's pulling the Shadowrun card then I'm picking that. ...Uh, just as long as I don't have to wonder out into the countryside. I guess Deus Ex counts too, though that world's just a wee bit too dystopian for my likes. Fallout. ...Fallout's all right, well for those living in the NCR, and even then it varies. Still, at least Fallout's a world where it can be said that the post apocalyptic world's better off than the world that was there before (the jingoist hell hole that it was). Yup, the guy with the Fallout thread wouldn't want to live in that world in real life. Shocker.

There doesn't seem to be enough urban post-apocalyptic settings.

Which is why I like Shadowrun as a post-apoc, I suppose. I'm an urban kid through and through


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 Wyrmalla wrote:
Fallout. ...Fallout's all right, well for those living in the NCR, and even then it varies.

Fallout 3's setting was better, to me, than Fallout New Vegas.

Because Caesar's Legion existed in NV, but not in 3-- thus 3 was better by default. God that was an uncomfortable, horribly written mess of a faction which needs to die.

Well 3 was written by an entirely different studio and was more of a generic post apocalyptic setting, so I can understand why people like it (that and the worldspace was bigger). I preferred New Vegas' writing and that it actually gave a damn for the plot of the previous games though, which yeah, did bring over some of the 'quirkier' aspects. Caesar's Legion would have worked better if Obsidian had did what they planned with Van Buren and moved most of the faction into a game of their own, with only the Legion's scouts appearing. The original Fallout 4 was going to offset the Legion with the Hounds of Hecate, a faction made up of all the tribals which pulled the middle finger to the Legion, and had a female leading caste (though both would have been as bad as each other, but I guess Hecate's followers wouldn't be quite so stereotypical). Meh, but New Vegas is still my favourite game of the two, its just a pity that the devs only had a year to develop the thing otherwise they could've fleshed out the game more (in particular the Legion's motivations could have been spelled out more, for instance by not cutting the companion who told you why they weren't complete tools. Then again Raul doesn't think too badly of the Legion).

...But I've gone on at length on that subject in my own thread, so I don't know about spewling about it here.

It's impossible for Caesar's Legion to not be complete tools.

They were an utterly irredeemable faction.

There's very few factions I've seen that were outright evil, and they were one of them.

Just because you have the Black Panthers alongside the KKK doesn't make the Klansmen any more likable.

Well the Legion were there to kind of show that maybe the NCR are a bit naive. They've managed to thrive in the wastelands through their harsh rule, whereas the NCR through its upholding of the old world morals and democracy is hardly a well run nation. Well, I guess the devs just wanted to put across that the real life Romans weren't as nice as they come across in history classes, and to make the player question what's worth more; safety or freedom. The sole reason why any player could support the Legion, other than the person being a tool, is that, at least with Caesar in charge, the Legion lands are some of the safest and efficiently run in the post war US. There's so many flaws to them however that to actually side with them in the game the player would have to be aiming to play an evil character (though the Romans hardly thought themselves evil, moral dissonance eh?). So even if there was a bit more exposition about why siding with the Legion wouldn't be a horrible idea, they just have so many flaws that even if humanity would have a better chance of surviving with them in charge, the world they would create just wouldn't be worth living in.

In the end I find there's only two real choices as far as choosing a faction goes in New Vegas; The NCR, and the Anarchists, with the later presumably being to be the canonical end for the area.

 Wyrmalla wrote:
They've managed to thrive in the wastelands through their harsh rule

So did Nazi Germany, doesn't mean they're not still a bunch of tools.

Caesar F:NV's version of real life's HItler.

The only way the Legion could have been likable characters was if they were so completely transformed that they were an entirely different faction.

Uh, I'm not defending the views of that faction, I'm just saying that they weren't a completely horrible design decision. From the standpoint of the average player who cares about morality they're monsters, but if you approach them from a standpoint purely based on survival they might not be regarded as an entirely flawed society. Really from the modern day standpoint its difficult to stand by them, but given that they're just the Roman Legion stuck in a post apocalyptic setting I'll say that history's kind of proven that their methods produce results. Though what they sacrifice, like the real Roman empire, is a region's culture, and well technology, so as long as Caesar's abolishment of the use of technology is upheld, humanity couldn't progress (well at least not along the same lines as it had before). So, whilst their methods and ideology just don't mesh with the other factions who still uphold modern values, to an extent, the reason they were in the game was to show that there's another way for society to thrive in the wastes that's radically different from the way we've grown used to with the NCR. They aren't meant to be likeable, but yes, they could have done with a bit more characterisation. They're meant to be cruel, and for all their flaws, they achieve results.

But again, I don't agree with the faction's views at all, nor do I think they have a hope in hell of prospering if they follow their existing methods. The faction needs to settle down instead of being a roaming army. Perhaps then, eventually, they'll develop past their aggressive nature, maybe not. Its just a pity that the devs didn't explain why a player should side with the Legion rather than giving an entirely on sided argument against them (but yes, as you inferred, that's like saying "hey for all their flaws the Nazis achieved results"-which they didn't. Something which I guess was beyond Obsidian's writer's abilities).

 Wyrmalla wrote:
Uh, I'm not defending the views of that faction, I'm just saying that they weren't a completely horrible design decision.

As an unrepentant, unlikable enemy with no redeeming aspects, they were an okay design decision-- made a good enemy to kill. As a faction that you were supposed to be able to like and even side with, they were not.

 Wyrmalla wrote:
if you approach them from a standpoint purely based on survival they might not be regarded as an entirely flawed society.

Why the hell would I want to?

Even in games about survival, there is more to them than survival itself-- as human beings, we're better than that. Even animals are better than that. The decisions you make while trying to survive say much about you, as a person-- both good and bad things. To give another example-- so what if you survive the last wave of Left 4 Dead 2's final level-- if you intentionally and willfully sacrificed your team to do so? You're still a loser.

Yup, which is why they're a flawed faction. They're trying to apply ideas from thousands of years ago into the modern world, but Caesar's so headstrong he think that his empire won't fall like the original Roman empire did. The man's incredibly arrogant and he's passed that onto his followers. He has this grand scheme in mind, but it doesn't seem to go beyond "take over that nation, after that move onto the next one. Rinse and repeat", which is something that NPCs in the game make light of. Given that the whole Legion came into being as an act of desperation on the part of Sallow and Graham, its not hard to believe that neither really thought about the consequences of their actions. By the time of New Vegas Sallow's become the Caesar persona and's rejecting that there's any reality other than his (to the extent that he had Graham turned into the Burned Man to make a point to his disciples), so its not like he really considers that there's any other option than his grand scheme. Of course now he's a man consumed by revenge and the concept that he could become Mars (something the original Caesar thought too, though I don't think Sallow painted himself red at any point...), but because of this unflinching need to conquer, he'll eventually burn the Legion out and leave the world in a worse state than it was before he had any involvement. At least the other factions want to heal the planet in some way, but Caesar's just taken the aspects of the Romans that suit his needs, whilst ignoring that it was because of these that the whole Roman empire fell to pieces.

So, though all of New Vegas' factions are flawed, the Legion are especially so, which wound up producing people like Ulysses and Hecate.

Which, again, makes them a fun enemy to kill, not a good faction for including as someone the game presents as some kind of viable, non-evil faction you can align with (which it seemed to be trying to do).

Yeah, and that's something that the Devs admitted to after the game was released. They cut too much Legion content that there wasn't enough people around who portrayed them as proud warrior types. Of course they're not nice people, but at least the devs would've made more of an attempt to make them seem viable. That's just me make excuses on Obsidian's part though, but they did only have a year to develop the thing. Interplay had the same problem when making Van Buren to the point they just stripped almost the entire faction out of the game, and hell New Vegas wouldn't have been too bad without the Legion being in it at all (if they were in their own game with the Hounds of Hecate as planned with both giving their similar world views it may not have been so bad). It didn't even seem as though the Legion were making much of a play for New Vegas at all compared to the other factions. It was more like they just turned up one day and wanted to steam roll through the whole place without giving a damn about the locals, which well, that's kind of what happened. In Van Buren it was the NCR Brotherhood war that was supposed to be the central focus, with the Legion being a distant enemy closing in, which I suppose could have been a better plot for New Vegas had it not been for Fallout 3 making them seem like such boy scouts (which they aren't, at least not the ones outside of 3). The NCR's political war with the residents of New Vegas however seems like sufficient enough plot for the game without muddying it with the Legion, but given that Obsidian just wanted to cram in as much of the plot they were stewing on since Van Buren's cancellation, I can't fault them for being a bit too enthusiastic (and wanting their story to see the light of day in case Bethesda didn't greenlight another Obsidian Fallout game, which they ultimately have).

And what I'm saying is that the core concepts of the Legion meant that there was no way they could be anything else other than an enemy to fight-- no matter how much content you gave them.

Even Orks are more likable than them, and Orks are just a bunch of violent, funny, smelly mushroom people with cockney accents and a soccer fan style culture focusing around war.

They aren't salvageable, or worth the effort anyway.

Well they do have a point, its just one that most wouldn't adhere to or at least appreciate. They were meant to be put up against a faction to which they came across as a force of order, but instead their enemy in New Vegas is the NCR, who've taken up that role instead. Though given that if they were against the Hounds of Hecate players would probably just wipe out both factions for being just different kinds of bad, perhaps their implementation could have been better. Rather than being a kind of message about culture and all that, bunging them in as a more relatable type may have caused them to be less like card carrying villains (at least by modern standards), but I'm not sure if that could have been achieved without ruining the whole faction's style. They really needed an entry point for players, as in every other case they just come across as a bunch of gits. I've never played through their questline, but I can appreciate what Obsidian was trying to do with them, even if from a gameplay perspective it didn't work out so much.

I guess the whole faction was a good idea, but neither Interplay or Obsidian could find a way to properly integrate them. Their whole central motif was that the devs wanted to disprove the idea that the real Roman empire was a wonderful thing. The Legion act just like their historical counterparts, but through value dissonance people can hate the video game faction, but heap praise for how great a force their counterparts were. ...Which is to say that Obsidian's games are always a bit heavier on their messages than Bethesda's are, and that isn't a thing many seem to get behind (I've heard many panning New Vegas for being so story heavy and not having 3's world space size). So, I guess if you're looking for a bit more generic a post apocalyptic game then 3's suitable, but New Vegas' wanting to shovel the dev's philosophy down people's throats in expense of gameplay functionality didn't wash well with that crowd. Which is to say that I found 3 to be rather shallow as far as its writing went. It was an immersive world, but as soon as anyone started talking the fact that I was playing a video game became a bit obvious. New Vegas isn't really better on that part, but at leas there's a bit more substance to the plot. =/

But, this is drawing this thread way off topic. So hell, I'd rather keep Fallout fluff discussion to my own Fallout fluff thread, instead of hijacking this one, though that's just coming across as me plugging myself. =P

 Wyrmalla wrote:
Well they do have a point, its just one that most wouldn't adhere to or at least appreciate.

Gee, I fething wonder. A "force of order" that enslaves entire groups of people isn't appreciated as anything other than villains by people who fit in to those groups.

Next you'll find yourself disappointed that Jews don't appreciate media that depicts Hitler as a good guy.

 Wyrmalla wrote:
I guess the whole faction was a good idea

As a villain to be slain, yes. As a playable faction to be chosen, no.

And again, just because you also have black panthers doesn't mean that the KKK are going to be anything other than villains.

 Wyrmalla wrote:
Their whole central motif was that the devs wanted to disprove the idea that the real Roman empire was a wonderful thing.

They succeeded. And in succeeding they made a faction that were wonderful enemies, but no one would want to make friends with.

Mel I'm not agreeing with anything that the Legion does. When I say order I'm saying that at least they have some semblance of martial code and a goal other than sacrificing every other wastelander to a false god. The Hounds of Hecate are a group of batgak crazy tribals who made the people living in the Eastern territories at least content with the Legion's law, horrible as it is, as the alternative's joining a cult which have decided to emphasise those tribal aspects the Legion sought to stamp out.

But, as I've said, yes, the Legion needed more characterisation, and hell shouldn't have been a major faction in New Vegas at all. If they just appeared as a scouting force that talked about an empire to the east and had the odd anti-NCR quest then there wouldn't be the issue of the player trying to drum up a reason why to help those people. In comparison to the other factions they're just not an option that could be chosen by someone wanting to go for any morally correct route, but if they had turned up in a game where its the choice between one "evil" faction or another, then maybe they wouldn't have come off so bad. Then again most would've taken the third route between the Legion and Hecate's followers and wanted an ending where you could say screw you to both groups, but then again, that's not how the world always works and sometimes one has to chose the lesser evil (whichever that is, Hecate's people have genuine grievances). Though how many people would want to play a game where you had to decide whether to let a bunch of racist, homophobic, sexist (yadda, yadda) gakshits win, or a bunch of tribals that just want to see the world burn? So with the NCR as a choice the Legion look like the joke option, but given a hard decision between those two factions instead the lines may be blurred a little (given that there would've probably been more character development too), though it would be simpler just to say that they're all terrible people and nuke the lot of them.

Despite Obsidian not wanting to align factions and their members to the karma system, to us the Legion come across as evil. With their mindset even the regular guys you talk to in New Vegas don't have a lighter side to them, youknow talking about their families and what good the Legion's somehow managed to do, which creates a bias on the player's behalf. A justified one, as like I said there's deliberate value dissonance with the faction, but given the shades of grey the other factions have, it just comes off as odd to have a group of people with a radically different perspective than everyone else.

Edit:

What I'm trying to put across is that there shouldn't be any outright black and white factions in the Fallout games, but Obsidian failed at that with the Legion. I can twist how people within the Fallout world can view the Legion as something that's not entirely bad, but to people in the real world we're separated from those notions. To take up your reference to the Nazis, I'll point out how easy it was for a bunch of people to turn an eye to the negative aspects of the party and just focus on the benefits (and I'm not referring just to those countries the party controlled). If its the choice between anarchy and the threat of death at the hands of Raiders, its obvious why so many communities chose to join with the Legion. The Midwest didn't have the stability that California did, so the people took what they could get, even if that was the Legion's tyranny.

Hey, I just like to have my villains justified. The faction may come across as entirely unjust to you, but all I'm saying is that given certain circumstances people in the Fallout world may not think the same way. However as we control the character that shapes what happens in the games, we're detached from those sentiments and can only apply our own morals to the situation. Fallout's not supposed to be a something happening right now, its about putting people in extreme situations and seeing how society develops. Again, given times of hardship its easy for people to back the extremists, so to people in Fallout doing the same doesn't always come so hard. We aren't in those situations, nor do we believe we'd wind up ditching or twisting our morals like those people did, so I don't think factions of extremist can really interact with a player properly unless you're doing some serious roleplaying. Its the fault of the developers for attempting to have the player understand the Legion's motives really, as at face value, and with our own mindsets, we just can't sympathise as we consider their actions unquestionably 'evil'. I don't really think Obsidian was looking for players to actually agree with the Legion (despite the occasional player doing so), they were just trying to show that the Fallout world isn't the nice black and white place that people would like it to be. =/

I haven't gotten a chance to delve too deep in New Vegas, but isn't the point of the Legion to be your stock "Evil Empire" faction? The fact they are so repulsive seems to me them just doing their jobs as villains?

I think being able to join them is just part of the Fallout "do what you want" style of play. Particularly if you want to be a villain.

Borderlands isn't technically a post-apocalyptic world. It's more like wild west frontier, given it's not even Earth. There was no great human civilization on Pandora, it's a bunch of small towns and villages because Pandora is still being settled.

That said, it would still be kinda cool to live there, assuming bandits and psychos don't murder the crap outta your face.

...and I'm just sitting here thinking about joining Caeser's Legion.

 asimo77 wrote:
I haven't gotten a chance to delve too deep in New Vegas, but isn't the point of the Legion to be your stock "Evil Empire" faction? The fact they are so repulsive seems to me them just doing their jobs as villains?

I think being able to join them is just part of the Fallout "do what you want" style of play. Particularly if you want to be a villain.

Hmn, well I suppose they're a bit like House Dagoth in Morrowind. They come across as bad guys from the player's perspective, but if you can get into their mindset they have a point. My point is that players just can't sympathise with the mindset of extremists and those that our society regards as "evil" (again, I'm not agreeing with these people...). But to talk about House Dagoth, that faction do some bad things, but given Dagoth Ur's aims and history-something the player is ignorant of unless they delve into it- you can at least understand why he's done what he has. Like Caesar people aren't supposed to agree with him or his methods, but at least one can see how they reached the point their at now.

Ah, and it wasn't the aim of Obsidian to have people described as heroes or villains. I think Josh Sawyer (or was it Avellone?) wanted to scrap the whole karma system entirely and just have faction influence as it just didn't reflect how things work in the real world. Its easy to say people are evil based on their actions, but that's just based on our perspective, I mean that person may do bad things for the greater good, or whatever. Rather its better if people are "neutral", or well just people. Of course there is genuinely those who go out there way to hurt others, or people that want to help others, but throwing them into a political karma group just makes everything too simplistic. ...Uh, yeah, can you guess that I play neutral characters in games a lot (yeah they can show compassion, but they also happen to beat people's faces in for being dicks, so what does that make them? Complex). =P

Wyrmalla, why the FETH would I even want to sympathize with someone whom would enslave and rape me for being something I can't change?

The only way you can have sympathy for them is if you ignore the evil horrible gak they do as a matter of public policy.

Hey I'm not asking you to, and I'm not saying you should. I'm just pointing out that the people in the game might. Again, sane people in the real world look upon that faction as being a bunch of dickheads. People in the game do to, but some of them have a different perspective on the matter than we do, as well, not everyone has the same moral code as we do. If you're playing the game and trying to adopt a view point similar to someone in that actual setting then you may understand why Caesar's such a massive tool, but sitting their analysing the actions of that particular faction is a bit much for regular playthroughs. To back the Legion for any reason other than actually thinking what their doing is right, or just wanting to play as an "evil" character seems to be just an exercise in studying philosophy. So there's no real reason for people to back that faction, but the people in the game do because of their circumstances (the Legion may go about enslaving people, but they killed all the other bad guys, so people just take that as a win). I'm just twisting my mind about why a player character could justify backing the bad guys, whilst they themselves might not think their own karma is evil, something that I'm evidently not putting across.

So, can you come across a reason why a female main character would have sided with them, when it was obvious they intended to kill or enslave her afterwards?

I don't even really understand how they justify letting her do any thing at all, tbh. Their view of women as inherently inferior is so deeply engraved that they take offense at women even talking to men without being spoken to first, never mind carrying around weapons and blatantly outperforming all men in the world.

My choice...
Either Fallout or KKnD series (too bad released in the same year )

KKnD was awesome and hilarious. Such a wonderful sense of humor.

Well the Legion are massive hypocrites. They're willing to use people as long as it furthers their own ends, then once they've taken control of a region they stamp out their former allies (take the Twisted Hairs or what will happen to the Great Khans). A female Courier may think that she'll get the better of the Legion and that she could exploit that its members don't really care about Caesar's edicts, they just worship the man. She may think that she's deep enough in Caesar's pockets that nobody will want to touch her. However that's being ignorant of the last guy who put so much trust in Caesar.

 Melissia wrote:
There doesn't seem to be enough urban post-apocalyptic settings.

Which is why I like Shadowrun as a post-apoc, I suppose. I'm an urban kid through and through


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 Wyrmalla wrote:
Fallout. ...Fallout's all right, well for those living in the NCR, and even then it varies.

Fallout 3's setting was better, to me, than Fallout New Vegas.

Because Caesar's Legion existed in NV, but not in 3-- thus 3 was better by default. God that was an uncomfortable, horribly written mess of a faction which needs to die.

Man, personal opinion Fallout 3 was a disaster. Fun game but a terrible Fallout game. That said, oh sweet gosh Caesar's Legion
The worst part is that much of their content was cut out. I spent some time looking it up because there was really no reason to pick them. Everybody else is some shade of grey yet you then have Caesar's Legion basically be absolute darkness, no companions liked Caesar's Legion, etc. Then I found out that Bethesda went on and said this game out no more time and they sliced off an entire sector of Caesar's Legion which probably would have made them far more sympathetic rather than ha ha ha we are slavers + women feth you. Oh well, there's still independent, House, and NCR because I can't bear to even try to play with them

Anyways, onto the question. Shadowrun or Fallout. Tough pick honestly. Both have their perks and drawbacks really.

 StarTrotter wrote:
they sliced off an entire sector of Caesar's Legion which probably would have made them far more sympathetic

It wouldn't.

I'd go with shadowrun. They have cybernetics that don't suck, and that's pretty awesome.

 Melissia wrote:

 StarTrotter wrote:
they sliced off an entire sector of Caesar's Legion which probably would have made them far more sympathetic

It wouldn't.

I'd go with shadowrun. They have cybernetics that don't suck, and that's pretty awesome.

I really can't quite say. There's vague references such as female traders being fine under them but.... hell the game really doesn't really succeed in making their side of the argument all that valuable. Sure, you have security from outsiders but you become a slave and get used like trash. I just wounder what they could have done if they had a year or two extra time to develop the game. That and even if the Legion still were the same... the Strip and Vegas would be bigger and I would have vast tracts of land to free slaves, lead a revolt, and fight the Legion

I guess it is more curious as all the other options feel more logical and fitting whilst Ceaser Legion makes as much sense as playing "Evil" particularly in Fallout 3.

Ha ha ha. Peeeerhaps. I guess it's more of childhood nostalgia from Fallout 1 and 2 hitting me more than anything. Then again.... 'em cybernetics are rather fun...

You wouldn't have vast tracts of land because you'd be a slave, or dead. They wouldn't put up with you, because your very existence defies their social order and inspires the slaves to think they deserve something better. We have numerous examples of this from real life, too, I should note.