"We start to confuse convenience with joy, abundance with choice."

This quote from a rather popular electronics company's recent design manifesto is, I think, the sum of every F3 vs NV thread I've read, recent ones notwithstanding. It's not so much fallacy as it is... what is it? Can we even make sense of it? Is there a chance you might come away from this thread not hating my opinion about two very different games? We'll see.

http://i.imgur.com/C4m7DtD.png

I've been playing a lot of both games lately, and I mean a lot. Some years back I pirated them sans DLC, and played through both once, in order. Playing them again with all the DLC and a better PC was like experiencing them anew. The endings I went for were F3: Good, FNV: House, NCR, and I was actually in the middle of my third NV route as Independent--until I decided to remake my F3 game and attempt the same min-maxing of SPECIAL that I did with NV.

I'd like you to try this experiment at home: Roll a character with 9 Int, and immediately set out to get that last 1 Int upon emerging from Doc Mitchell's/Vault 101.

If you're obsessed with min-max efficiency like me, here's what you probably did for FNV:

9 Luck, a mod to increase running speed, hightail it all the way to the Atomic Wrangler like it's post-apocalyptic Benny Hill, get banned from their joke of a casino, fork out the 4,000 caps at the New Vegas medical clinic for the implant. Done.

As I went through the motions of planning to kill House yet again (Do I return him the Chip before I kill him, or after? I want the caps. But what if his personal Securitrons are upgraded? They're not, just the ones on the Strip.), rolling my eyes as Yes Man went through his oh so hilarious shtick of introducing himself and plotting... my eyes glazed over as I killed Benny for the third time. I went back to F3. Decided to do the same thing with 10 Int.

This is what I did with F3:

Upon emerging from Vault 101, hightail it to the radioactive river and swim all the way to Rivet City. Emerge from it dripping with rads, make your way to the Science Lab, grab the Intelligence Bobblehead, fast travel back to Vault 101. Done.

It then struck me that this, more than anything, was what separated F3 from NV, something detractors of the former who dogmatically champion the latter consistently fail to grasp: New Vegas constantly reminds you that you're playing a game. Fallout 3 doesn't.

Why did I have to use a mod in my min-max runs of NV in order to achieve what was essentially a Rube Goldberg playthrough? Simple--NV devs intended that I make that artificial detour through the bottom half of the map, Primm to Nipton to Novac, and how did they achieve this? By walling me in with Cazadores and Deathclaws.

If you're going to pull out your predictable arguments here, you can stow them away. Yes, Cazadores are supposedly weak towards dynamite. Yes, Deathclaws can allegedly be evaded by way of a single Stealth Boy, of which one is available in the abandoned schoolhouse in Goodsprings. But you're missing the point.

The point isn't that it's possible. The point is that such "loopholes" are nothing more than the fruit of trial and error, a technicality that no casual or ordinary player would be able to envision for the sole purpose of wanting to buy an implant a little too early as a result of exploring an area right off the bat. I haven't tried bombing the Cazadores. I don't plan on using the Stealth Boy to get past the Deathclaws. Why the hell should I have to?

I play games to relax and to have fun, to explore escapist fantasies without breaking too much of what I call "in-game kayfabe". I hate being made aware of the fact that I'm doing no more than moving my hands and fingers in small, precise motions that somehow manage to be in sync with an avatar on this glowing rectangle of light that I'm staring at for hours on end. What I dislike even more is being aware that I'm being herded in a very specific direction by the fuckwits who decided that to wall me in at the outset by placing incredibly tough monsters that can only be defeated through repetition, sheer trial and error before the RNG decides that I get to enjoy the game the way I want it to.

http://i.imgur.com/mlCxjKy.jpg

The disparity between maps only tell half the story. No, stop quoting /u/Retlaw83, Jesus Christ on a shit-covered stick. A mere 1/6th of the map is this "DC metro maze" that you rail at, the Mojave is not flat as evidenced by all the godforsaken impassable mountains, and no one is keeping you out of DC, at least not in the way that NV devs try to keep you out of heading directly to the Strip upon regaining consciousness at Doc Mitchell's. Finally, there isn't something trying to kill me every 20 feet in NV... but there are two very deadly mobs that will do so very efficiently if I have the audacity to want to head north on level 1.

Why are you confusing abundance with choice? Do you really think you are "choosing" to go through that painfully linear, railroaded U-turn through the Mojave? Is it "choice" that's guiding your Courier, or not wanting to be caught up in hours of quicksave reloading as you attempt one of thousands of combinations of NPC kiting and weapon usage that might allow you to clear Cazadores and Deathclaws that clearly outclass you? Presenting two outcomes when one is clearly unfavourable and more difficult is nothing more than the illusion of choice justified post-hoc. Trying to handwave away the CazaDeath wall won't change the fact that you're playing it just like it was intended for you to.

You can swim all the way to Rivet City fresh out of the vault. No mods needed. No messy, painful, annoying, distracting save-reload-save staccato to see if this developer-imposed restriction might yield. What if I don't want that much freedom? Then I'll proceed to Megaton: Lucy West to Arefu, Moira to Minefield, Anchorage Memorial, and if I don't want to pay that shitbag Colin Moriarty because I only have 1 Charisma and don't want to spare the caps, I'll just... be pointed to Rivet City by way of Moira eventually. That's my choice! But I can choose to skip Megaton entirely, and nuke it if I'm sick of "And every eye shall be blind with his glory!". The game allowed me to choose. At no point am I beholden to an arbitrary wall of just-so, and F3 is all the richer for it.

Remember the lack of map markers in Those! that stumped you for the longest while? Or the numerous other quests in F3 that wouldn't point out a dotted waypath, ones that you had to traverse by way of exploration, and dare I say it, serendipity? NV doesn't have those, not by a long shot. Playing debt collector for the Garret twins? Exact Freeside locations for all! Want to look for a new brain for Rex? Have three, two of which have no connection to the NPC giving you the locations! Which brings me to my next point:

Mistaking convenience for joy devalues it. Don't even get me started on the companions. The way in which you're railroaded into NV's companions is sheer spectacle and a handheld crutch, to mix my metaphors. Two of the easiest companions to obtain are ED-E and Boone, who bestow upon you battle advantages so great that it feels unnatural to choose any other combination afterwards. On the off chance that you want a change of pace? Veronica all but jumps you as long as you don't insult the Brotherhood in your initial conversation. Raul is Rapunzel for post-apocalyptia if you wander into the centre of the map. Decided to check out that Elvis impersonation school? Have Rex and Lily on a plate--you know where to find them if you don't, but you'll come back, won't you?

I've never understood why NV made companions essential, until it finally clicked: The developers intended that you play with them. Good intents, for all purposes, but purposefully intentional in the same way that you'll be drawn to that Powder Ganger waving at you from Nipton's entrance, or the NCR grunt stealing focus when you so much as breathe on Primm. The tour guide has strapped you into your seat, and is now yelling at you through a loudspeaker. Pay attention. I suppose it's telling that NV's companions only die on Hardcore mode.

Compare this to F3: You don't get anything resembling a proper companion till Fawkes, which is mid-game as far as the storied quests go. I've yet to discover Dogmeat through exploration, and I doubt I will at this rate. Jericho is inaccessible if you don't speak to every NPC in Megaton, or if you blow it up. Sergeant RL-3 I've seen maybe once outside of Tenpenny Tower, but I had the wrong karma level for it. Butch DeLoria... who the hell goes back to Muddy Rudder at that point in the game? Clover, Charon, and Cross require the same approach as Jericho--an active interest in your surroundings, the lore, the feel and place of the game, not a bit player to your god-like ascension in the epic that is He Who Hoover Dams With Chip. Oh, and they'll die just like Fawkes did that one time he tanked two albino radscorpions for me.

I'm 110 hours into two characters on F3; 140 hours into three characters on NV. The Wasteland Capital is, for all purposes, less "game" and more "experience", more of a fully-formed and explorable world than the Mojave Desert will ever be, yet is in no way the better game for doing so. Appreciation for both in equal measure is not doublethink, or a depleting fossil fuel to be fought over. Once upon a time, I played one after the other, and loved both equally by way of the stories they told me, each with their own strengths, in their own separate ways. I still do.