Lagamorph wrote:I didn't play a great deal at launch, maybe about an hour or so, but I can already tell it would've been much worse without any of the human NPCs around to make the quests more interesting.
It's never going to really compare to a fully fleshed out single player Fallout experience like 3/New Vegas/4, but it's enough to scratch the itch for more of the IP so far.
I've still not played this since the NPC update (and likely never will) but I'm still confident in thinking it'll have made it worse from my perspective!
The quest writing and NPCs were one of the weakest parts of Fallout 4, I much preferred map exploration and the environmental story telling of what happened to the place. That was almost solely the focus of F76. The main quest was more archaeology than active participation, discovering the multiple histories (both pre and post apocalyptic) of Appalachia. It neatly sidestepped Bethesda's weaknesses and played to their strengths, giving you a huge varied map that's probably the best in the series (not just variety of locale and appearance but in its verticality and much expanded enemy variety) and sending you out into it alone to slowly explore, piecing things together alongside the loot loop where I was always wanting more materials and plans - and cool new locations - for base building.
I can't imagine actual NPCs as being anything other than disappointingly written, and immersion breaking through being static and unkillable MMO quest givers (for me the multiplayer aspects of the game were best in the lightest touches, the rare passing on the road with a wave and exchange of gifts, nothing more, and everything that pushes more of the MMO angle is to the game's detriment).
The direction the game has evolved opens it up to more comparison with the single player Fallout games, and when considering quests and characters that's unlikely to ever be a favourable comparison with Fallout 3 and, especially, New Vegas.
Having no interest in the game as a service model, limited time events and the like I think it's a real shame that the existence of that stuff makes me replaying the game as I originally experienced it impossible, back when it was just me and a deliberately empty and immersive world, which I could explore at my own pace, building camps with no worry about things I will or already have missed.
. I also have canned coffee - that coffee machine in the background was a free item (for Fallout 1st subscribers) a few weeks back; it gives out a few canned coffees each hour which act as a stamina boost (or you can, as I do, sell 'em for a few caps).
.
