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Comment by jvanderbot | Hacker News Reader

That is a shame. But Fallout 2 had ... zero dynamic content? It was absolutely the same scripted events and environments every time, with the exception of random encounters, which I never prioritized "farming".

New Vegas was a special beast, with its myraid choices and great writing. I will have to replay that. But FO4 on survival mode is a great experience, with plenty of danger and tradeoffs, and so much that I literally cannot do everything (I fail quests just due to lack of fast travel sometimes). And for that, I can thank Bethesda for a new kind of "more real" fallout experience.

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> zero dynamic content

This is true, but the reason why Fallout 2 is considered great (and why so is New Vegas), was in number possible paths that player can take during gameplay. Writing in those games was all about presenting gray and grayer dilemmas to the player and leaving it up to them to follow quest lines for either of those.

It was rarely things like "take the lost kitten from a tree or set the tree on fire" types of "good and evil" pseudo-dilemmas that end with player being a paragon of justice or chaotic evil, something that keeps plaguing role-playing games to this day.

Fallout 3 doesn't get enough credit here. Maybe not the whole main quest, but there are tons of side quests that get this for me. Some that I remember toiling over are whether to set Harold on fire and what to do about the Pitt considering I thought the leader was had a set timeline and seemed trustworthy

Not just dynamic content-- It allowed you to approach problems in different ways. You could talk your way out of things, or sneak around, go in guns blazing. In FO4 you have the same skills, but the game consistently forces you into a firefight.

Depends what you call dynamic. The way you handle gecko changes the interaction that you can have later for sure, and the geopolitics of the surrounding area. Same for new Reno.

In Fallout 1, the entire Necropolis arc is time dependent, and what you can do in there depends of the time you arrive: the Vault Dweller can save Necropolis from the slaughter by killing the Master before the Lieutenant and before 25 March 2162 but after 110 days have passed.

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