I haven't played either but I'd like to start, which should I buy?

It seems like there are a lot of mods that make FO3 look better and add features. Kinda hard to know where to start.

absolutely new vegas. fallout 3 is an ok game but its really just oblivion with a fallout skin, new vegas not only *feels* like a fallout game but its a much better designed game in virtually every way. i can't recommend it enough. the only reason i would say get fallout 3 is if you're absolutely determined to play both, because i can't imagine fallout 3 being anything other than a complete chore after playing through new vegas

there's lots of cool mods for new vegas too btw: http://www.newvegasnexus.com/ if skyrim hadn't come out i'd do another playthrough just to try out this one http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=40040
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Originally posted by turtleman
A normal person wouldn't say that in real life because it's ridiculous and insulting. Yet here you are spouting the most hateful garbage that your demons can muster out of your darkened soul. All because of the internet.

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Thanks a lot, I'll get New Vegas and try that mod out.

I'm digging skyrim, only 10 hours in or so though. My character is pretty much a mage and I just use fire on everything.

you might want to try playing vanilla before installing mods but that's just me, if you don't care go hog wild. i'm just saying i haven't played project nevada so i can't say how well it actually plays, but i've heard good things. you can't really go wrong with new vegas anyway. about the only real criticisms i have of it are just as bad or worse in fallout 3 like the console interface (which there are mods for) and general bugginess. i never had any really annoying/game breaking bugs but some people have so uh, save often and get all the updates
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quote:

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Originally posted by turtleman
A normal person wouldn't say that in real life because it's ridiculous and insulting. Yet here you are spouting the most hateful garbage that your demons can muster out of your darkened soul. All because of the internet.

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quote:

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Originally posted by InsaneWL
I haven't played either but I'd like to start, which should I buy?

It seems like there are a lot of mods that make FO3 look better and add features. Kinda hard to know where to start.

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in that case, to explain why new vegas is way better:

- much more interesting quests first and foremost. fallout 3 quests, for the most part, are more similar to the classic linear rpg fetch quest than the fallout tradition of open-ended quests that can be solved in a variety of ways with a variety of different skills. i can only remember two quests off the top of my head in fallout 3 that do offer you interesting choices in how you solve them, megaton and tenpenny tower, and even those choices aren't very deep.

for example in megaton (this is the start of fallout 3 so no spoilers) you can either detonate the nuke in the middle of town for some mysterious weirdo or disarm it for the sheriff. the only real way to modify either of these quests is if you have a high enough speech skill you can get a better reward. in the opening of new vegas you wake up in a town under siege by a gang of escaped prisoners, and you can either join the prisoners in taking over the town or help the townspeople defend themselves. besides this simple choice, your skill layout and who you talk to before the big battle can dramatically change how the battle plays out. for example, if your explosives skill is high enough, you'll have a dialogue option with one resident to set up an explosive trap for the gang. all throughout new vegas you'll come across dialogue checks that will allow you to more easily complete or in some cases totally bypass side quests. for example, if some guy needs some obscure part to fix his robot, if your science skill is high enough you might have a dialogue option to fix the guy's robot using spare parts around the lab instead of hiking to a vault on the other end of the map and fighting through 50 ghouls for it.

-to build on the last point: skills and perks are much better balanced. there's still a kind of a problem where in the endgame you'll get enough experience to basically have everything at 100 (really easy endgames is more of a general rpg problem tho), but for the most part its much better than fallout 3 in this department. there's some skills that could be better (explosives) but for the most part everything is useful and however you specialize yourself you're likely to not only not be gimped, but you'll probably even have new ways to complete quests you wouldn't have had with a different skill set. again, practically nonexistent in fallout 3 - dialogue in that game is mostly limited to speech and barter skill checks, and most quests are of the "go here, kill this, bring this" variety. new vegas has a lot of these too of course but it also has a lot of fun, unique quests that can be solved in a variety of ways

- atmosphere, story and setting. i dunno if you've played fallout 1 and 2, but fallout 3 makes it clear bethesda just doesn't "get" fallout. like i said, its basically a fallout skin over oblivion, even including the story. the ambiguity that fallout is known for goes completely out the window in fallout 3, with the brotherhood of steel basically just being Knights In The Future instead of the xenophobic fanatics from the previous games. the world in F3 doesn't feel alive - for the most part, your actions do not affect the game world (excepting megaton and tenpenny tower again), people don't react to your past actions beyond thinking you're a good guy or a scary guy, and its boring. new vegas was made by people who worked on the original games and you can tell. quality of the writing is much better and has the quality you'd expect from a fallout game and the great dark sense of humor as well. the various towns, vaults, and so on you visit feel like they belong in a fallout game - if you've never played fallout you might wonder why you should care about this, but trust me, you really really should. its a huge part of what makes fallout so special, fallout 3 was disappointing largely because while it had the same types of characters, weapons, post-apocalyptic setting and so forth, it just didn't have the right *feel*. it felt like you were just playing another straightforward rpg in the fallout universe. a fallout game should be creepy as hell, genuinely hilarious, and full of moral ambiguity. this is new vegas but not fallout 3. you will have a good time with fallout 3, but i don't think you'll enjoy it or have as much of an experience as you would new vegas

-way more and cooler weapons, especially certain weapon categories that were really neglected in fallout 3 (melee and unarmed especially)

-fallout 3 has good guy faction and bad guy faction. new vegas has a variety of factions that you have an independent reputation with (so people in town A who you were nice to all game don't suddenly start hating you because you murdered everyone in town B), with three (four?) main "story factions" that you will eventually align yourself with until the endgame. while one of the factions i think is kinda obviously the more "bad guy" one, its probably the most ambiguous kind of thing i've seen like this in a RPG, as each faction i think has a pretty decent argument for being in the right, so even if you ARE role playing a straightforward good guy or bad guy the decision isn't quite so simple. can't go into detail without spoilers obviously but trust me, this mechanic really owns as far as video game storytelling goes

-companions are better in every way: more interesting characters, easier to control. kind of minor but really sticks out when thinking about how bad fallout 3's npc companions were

probably forgetting a lot, because i really love new vegas, but yeah, thats why you should get new vegas instead. imo.
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Originally posted by turtleman
A normal person wouldn't say that in real life because it's ridiculous and insulting. Yet here you are spouting the most hateful garbage that your demons can muster out of your darkened soul. All because of the internet.

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I agree with everything you had to say there. I still enjoyed fallout 3 though. I thought it was a pretty good game, but the moral ambiguity in New Vegas, and all the options you have, really make it feel like your decisions are having an effect-which is what the fallout games are known for. Fallout 3 was more of a linear RPG in the fallout universe.

It's the same as Skyrim. Skyrim is a great game, but the decisions you make, no matter how grand, all eventually lead to a bottleneck that is the main story, which carries on as if the things you decided didn't even matter.

i don't think fallout 3 is a terrible game either, like i said he'll have fun with that. just not as good

you're kind of right about skyrim but i don't mind as much because i feel like elder scrolls are more about the exploration and emergent sandbox type stuff than it is about ambiguous moral choices and branching quest paths. fallout 3 was so disappointing because "fallout" makes you expect a fallout game and it didn't really feel like one
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quote:

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Originally posted by turtleman
A normal person wouldn't say that in real life because it's ridiculous and insulting. Yet here you are spouting the most hateful garbage that your demons can muster out of your darkened soul. All because of the internet.

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quote:

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Originally posted by hassan-i-sabbah
in that case, to explain why new vegas is way better:

- much more interesting quests first and foremost. fallout 3 quests, for the most part, are more similar to the classic linear rpg fetch quest than the fallout tradition of open-ended quests that can be solved in a variety of ways with a variety of different skills. i can only remember two quests off the top of my head in fallout 3 that do offer you interesting choices in how you solve them, megaton and tenpenny tower, and even those choices aren't very deep.

for example in megaton (this is the start of fallout 3 so no spoilers) you can either detonate the nuke in the middle of town for some mysterious weirdo or disarm it for the sheriff. the only real way to modify either of these quests is if you have a high enough speech skill you can get a better reward. in the opening of new vegas you wake up in a town under siege by a gang of escaped prisoners, and you can either join the prisoners in taking over the town or help the townspeople defend themselves. besides this simple choice, your skill layout and who you talk to before the big battle can dramatically change how the battle plays out. for example, if your explosives skill is high enough, you'll have a dialogue option with one resident to set up an explosive trap for the gang. all throughout new vegas you'll come across dialogue checks that will allow you to more easily complete or in some cases totally bypass side quests. for example, if some guy needs some obscure part to fix his robot, if your science skill is high enough you might have a dialogue option to fix the guy's robot using spare parts around the lab instead of hiking to a vault on the other end of the map and fighting through 50 ghouls for it.

-to build on the last point: skills and perks are much better balanced. there's still a kind of a problem where in the endgame you'll get enough experience to basically have everything at 100 (really easy endgames is more of a general rpg problem tho), but for the most part its much better than fallout 3 in this department. there's some skills that could be better (explosives) but for the most part everything is useful and however you specialize yourself you're likely to not only not be gimped, but you'll probably even have new ways to complete quests you wouldn't have had with a different skill set. again, practically nonexistent in fallout 3 - dialogue in that game is mostly limited to speech and barter skill checks, and most quests are of the "go here, kill this, bring this" variety. new vegas has a lot of these too of course but it also has a lot of fun, unique quests that can be solved in a variety of ways

- atmosphere, story and setting. i dunno if you've played fallout 1 and 2, but fallout 3 makes it clear bethesda just doesn't "get" fallout. like i said, its basically a fallout skin over oblivion, even including the story. the ambiguity that fallout is known for goes completely out the window in fallout 3, with the brotherhood of steel basically just being Knights In The Future instead of the xenophobic fanatics from the previous games. the world in F3 doesn't feel alive - for the most part, your actions do not affect the game world (excepting megaton and tenpenny tower again), people don't react to your past actions beyond thinking you're a good guy or a scary guy, and its boring. new vegas was made by people who worked on the original games and you can tell. quality of the writing is much better and has the quality you'd expect from a fallout game and the great dark sense of humor as well. the various towns, vaults, and so on you visit feel like they belong in a fallout game - if you've never played fallout you might wonder why you should care about this, but trust me, you really really should. its a huge part of what makes fallout so special, fallout 3 was disappointing largely because while it had the same types of characters, weapons, post-apocalyptic setting and so forth, it just didn't have the right *feel*. it felt like you were just playing another straightforward rpg in the fallout universe. a fallout game should be creepy as hell, genuinely hilarious, and full of moral ambiguity. this is new vegas but not fallout 3. you will have a good time with fallout 3, but i don't think you'll enjoy it or have as much of an experience as you would new vegas

-way more and cooler weapons, especially certain weapon categories that were really neglected in fallout 3 (melee and unarmed especially)

-fallout 3 has good guy faction and bad guy faction. new vegas has a variety of factions that you have an independent reputation with (so people in town A who you were nice to all game don't suddenly start hating you because you murdered everyone in town B), with three (four?) main "story factions" that you will eventually align yourself with until the endgame. while one of the factions i think is kinda obviously the more "bad guy" one, its probably the most ambiguous kind of thing i've seen like this in a RPG, as each faction i think has a pretty decent argument for being in the right, so even if you ARE role playing a straightforward good guy or bad guy the decision isn't quite so simple. can't go into detail without spoilers obviously but trust me, this mechanic really owns as far as video game storytelling goes

-companions are better in every way: more interesting characters, easier to control. kind of minor but really sticks out when thinking about how bad fallout 3's npc companions were

probably forgetting a lot, because i really love new vegas, but yeah, thats why you should get new vegas instead. imo.

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her quests are total fetch quests....

anyway i'm not a fanboy, i said fallout 3 isn't a bad game and i had fun playing it. new vegas is just an improvement in practically every way...
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Originally posted by turtleman
A normal person wouldn't say that in real life because it's ridiculous and insulting. Yet here you are spouting the most hateful garbage that your demons can muster out of your darkened soul. All because of the internet.

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quote:

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Originally posted by hassan-i-sabbah
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is anyone else bored with skyrim?

i mean, the first thing i did was join the "mages guild" and like seriously they automatically made me the president of the whole guild after a couple weeks gametime. then i just kinda wander around fighting dragons and stuff. it's getting kind've repetative. it was fun for the first week or so now i'm a little bored though.

quote:

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Originally posted by _Ataxia_
is anyone else bored with skyrim?

i mean, the first thing i did was join the "mages guild" and like seriously they automatically made me the president of the whole guild after a couple weeks gametime. then i just kinda wander around fighting dragons and stuff. it's getting kind've repetative. it was fun for the first week or so now i'm a little bored though.

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**CAUTION FALLOUT NEW VEGAS SPOILERS ALERT*** ONLY FOR PEOPLE WHO'VE ALREADY PLAYED THROUGH THE STORYLINE

I'm at the point in New Vegas where I've killed Mr. House, and if I ally with Caeser I fail a bunch of NCR quests, and if I ally the NCR I fail a ton of Legion quests. Are any of these quests worth pursuing or am I going to miss out on something good when I chose a path? Also, if I chose the NCR path is it worth saving the president? Or just do the other quest to upgrade Mr. House's robots? Too many choices for me. Opinions on the best paths without giving away too many spoilers?

Obviously I want to side with the NCR against the legion and save the president I guess ... this would be the most obvious path but maybe not the best/most fun

I made some mistakes like helping to complete the Omertas plans to slaughter the strip just to gain some experience points, not realizing that now I'm forced to let them slaughter the strip whether I want them to or not. FML
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"If we are the only mammals that cannot take care of ourselves out of the womb, how are we here?" - GoldHP

Last edited by GenOciDe- on Thu Jan 12, 2012 2:58 pm; edited 1 time in total

quote:

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Originally posted by GenOciDe-
**CAUTION FALLOUT NEW VEGAS SPOILERS ALERT***



I'm at the point in New Vegas where I've killed Mr. House, and if I ally with Caeser I fail a bunch of NCR quests, and if I ally the NCR I fail a ton of Legion quests. Are any of these quests worth pursuing or am I going to miss out on something good when I chose a path? Also, if I chose the NCR path is it worth saving the president? Or just do the other quest to upgrade Mr. House's robots? Too many choices for me

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quote:

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Originally posted by turtleman
A normal person wouldn't say that in real life because it's ridiculous and insulting. Yet here you are spouting the most hateful garbage that your demons can muster out of your darkened soul. All because of the internet.

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quote:

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Originally posted by hassan-i-sabbah

quote:

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Originally posted by GenOciDe-
**CAUTION FALLOUT NEW VEGAS SPOILERS ALERT***



I'm at the point in New Vegas where I've killed Mr. House, and if I ally with Caeser I fail a bunch of NCR quests, and if I ally the NCR I fail a ton of Legion quests. Are any of these quests worth pursuing or am I going to miss out on something good when I chose a path? Also, if I chose the NCR path is it worth saving the president? Or just do the other quest to upgrade Mr. House's robots? Too many choices for me

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before i can answer that question: have you talked to Yes Man yet?

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I'm thinking I will probably have to play through it twice. Mistakes have been made
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"If we are the only mammals that cannot take care of ourselves out of the womb, how are we here?" - GoldHP

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Originally posted by GenOciDe-
I proceeded down the Legion path but once I realized the NCR hates you for it I backed out. I think my save is just after I talked to yes man and he's in the casino now .. I'm trying to figure out if I should save the president or not

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quote:

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Originally posted by turtleman
A normal person wouldn't say that in real life because it's ridiculous and insulting. Yet here you are spouting the most hateful garbage that your demons can muster out of your darkened soul. All because of the internet.

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oh wait i missed the last few paragraphs of your first post, hold on
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quote:

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Originally posted by turtleman
A normal person wouldn't say that in real life because it's ridiculous and insulting. Yet here you are spouting the most hateful garbage that your demons can muster out of your darkened soul. All because of the internet.

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quote:

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Originally posted by GenOciDe-
Obviously I want to side with the NCR against the legion and save the president I guess ... this would be the most obvious path but maybe not the best/most fun

I made some mistakes like helping to complete the Omertas plans to slaughter the strip just to gain some experience points, not realizing that now I'm forced to let them slaughter the strip whether I want them to or not. FML

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ok, if you want to side with NCR go ahead. i did that at the last minute and i sort of regret it, but not because it's not fun - i just think the NCR are boring and huge motherfuckers. i was kind of paralyzed by all the options (except house, who i murdered ) so i just went with what i thought was the most "normal" faction so i could get what i figured was the most "normal" feeling ending, if that makes any sense. the actual quest lines are really fun and i've only played through the endgame once but i highly doubt the legion, house or yes man paths are so much better that you're making a huge mistake by choosing NCR. i've read a lot about the game on forums and such and i've never seen anyone say anything to this effect. if you're REALLY worried about it you can always save right before you commit yourself all the way (i think the president mission? again, not sure) and then explore other branches from there

what happened with the omertas exactly? i just fucked their shit up. is that a gameplay thing, or do they just kinda go "mwahahaha, now we'll own the shit out of the strip" and then you don't see it? because in that case all that it will effect are the ending slides. sucks if you're trying for a Perfect Ending (which is almost impossible to get in this game btw, there's so many variables) but its not going to ruin anything for you gameplay wise

quote:

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Originally posted by turtleman
A normal person wouldn't say that in real life because it's ridiculous and insulting. Yet here you are spouting the most hateful garbage that your demons can muster out of your darkened soul. All because of the internet.

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yea that's how I've been playing too, just trying to do the most "normal" quests since it's my first time through. Yea I think i'll save the president then since I'm at that point, but I was afraid I wouldn't get houses robots upgrade if I did this quests cuz I'm assuming the attack on the dam is imminent after the assassination attempt?..

The Omertas boss' asked me to help them secure weapons and shit so they can massacre the strip when the times comes, after I helped them out of a jam. I went along with it for the experience points but now the stupid Yes Man says they are going to massacre the strip and I have no say anymore WTF. Anyways, it's good if that won't change the story line. Really fun game though. When I work up the energy i'll try a play through again and side with the legion to see that side of it
_________________
"If we are the only mammals that cannot take care of ourselves out of the womb, how are we here?" - GoldHP

quote:

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Originally posted by GenOciDe-
yea that's how I've been playing too, just trying to do the most "normal" quests since it's my first time through. Yea I think i'll save the president then since I'm at that point, but I was afraid I wouldn't get houses robots upgrade if I did this quests cuz I'm assuming the attack on the dam is imminent after the assassination attempt?..

The Omertas boss' asked me to help them secure weapons and shit so they can massacre the strip when the times comes, after I helped them out of a jam. I went along with it for the experience points but now the stupid Yes Man says they are going to massacre the strip and I have no say anymore WTF. Anyways, it's good if that won't change the story line. Really fun game though. When I work up the energy i'll try a play through again and side with the legion to see that side of it

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Originally posted by turtleman
A normal person wouldn't say that in real life because it's ridiculous and insulting. Yet here you are spouting the most hateful garbage that your demons can muster out of your darkened soul. All because of the internet.

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quote:

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Originally posted by hassan-i-sabbah

quote:

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Originally posted by GenOciDe-
yea that's how I've been playing too, just trying to do the most "normal" quests since it's my first time through. Yea I think i'll save the president then since I'm at that point, but I was afraid I wouldn't get houses robots upgrade if I did this quests cuz I'm assuming the attack on the dam is imminent after the assassination attempt?..

The Omertas boss' asked me to help them secure weapons and shit so they can massacre the strip when the times comes, after I helped them out of a jam. I went along with it for the experience points but now the stupid Yes Man says they are going to massacre the strip and I have no say anymore WTF. Anyways, it's good if that won't change the story line. Really fun game though. When I work up the energy i'll try a play through again and side with the legion to see that side of it

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i'm not totally sure about the robot upgrade from where you are....again, IIRC, i upgraded the robots when house asked me to, before i killed him. i got to caesar's camp and told caesar i was doing whatever he wanted me to do down in the bunker (don't remember what he asks you to do), so they all let me in. i completed that, house was stoked, then i killed him. you may or may not be locked out of the robot upgrades at this point, i really don't know. have you been to caesar's camp yet? do they hate you yet? even if they do, by the time i got to the endgame i was able to kill everybody in the camp, so even then you can probably just storm the place guns blazing

yeah it sounds like the omerta thing is just post-credits. basically you do whatever with all these little factions and yes man's update will tell you what's up, sounds like you completed the omerta quest through siding with them and that one's over.

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You can save the president and still go with House. That's what I was able to do. I saved the president, but House basically came in and saved the day for the big final battle. The House questline was quite fun.

quote:

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Originally posted by GenOciDe-
Yea as soon as I got the platinum chip and came back to Mr. House I killed him cuz fuck that guy. Yea, I tried going back to the legion camp and telling Caeser I killed Mr.House but then he asked me to go down in the bunker and kill the Brotherhood of steel, which I didn't want to do. So I just backed out at that point and played on without returning to the camp, so now the legion hate me and I missed that quest by siding with the NCR.. but I doesn't sound like it would have changed too much anyways

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Originally posted by Kith-Kanin
You can save the president and still go with House. That's what I was able to do. I saved the president, but House basically came in and saved the day for the big final battle. The House questline was quite fun.

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quote:

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Originally posted by turtleman
A normal person wouldn't say that in real life because it's ridiculous and insulting. Yet here you are spouting the most hateful garbage that your demons can muster out of your darkened soul. All because of the internet.

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