Yes, except Bethesda straight up ripped the Enclave from 2. Pretty easy to have an intimidating faction when the work has already been done for you and all you have to do is make an excuse for them to appear.
The series was never intended to be Mad Max forever. Chris Avellone was the only one at the old Black Isle team who wanted that and it got us Lonesome Road.
The Dark Ages didn't have guns, underground bunkers with water purifiers and modern medicine, or useful tech from hundreds of years prior that could be salvaged and then rebuilt/repurposed.
And? Most people didn't have any of those things. Maybe if you were lucky and you were born into the Enclave or the Brotherhood, you may have them, but most groups didn't have them. Eden even mentions how clean water escapes most wastelanders, and they either wait long times for a pure bottle of water or they drink from water sources that are centuries old. Again, the East Coast didn't have someone lay the groundwork for a working state until Fallout 3 came along.
Same thing goes for New Vegas. The only new major faction they've ever invented since Fallout 2 is Caesar's Legion, and the Legion is practically just every evil empire trope rolled into one. Their leader is their father, king, and god, all rolled into one. Their top general kills his own men for failing-something that the Romans eventually phased out in the Imperial era. They enslave every woman they come across. They crucify people to set an example. It's basically so comically evil that any historian of Rome would laugh at Obsidian for thinking that the Romans actually acted that way.
True. But that eventually means that later games wouldn't even have a nuclear apocalypse as a background unless you set them in a past event. It just becomes the Middle Ages with guns and power armor. That's fine, but that basically becomes so far different from what the first five games had. (Fallouts 1-3, tactics, BoS) New Vegas, for all intents and purposes, is just KOTOR in the wild west. You have an ineffective and failing republic (NCR, Galactic Republic) fighting against a rising empire (Caesar's Legion, Sith Empire) led by a savant who used to be from said republic, (Edward Sallow, Revan) and said empire is run by a self-sabotaging warrior cult that would fall like a house of cards if their leaders die. The only thing different is House and New Vegas being a third wheel, but they're just basically Rapture in the desert, complete with a capitalist in charge.
Yes, the New Vegas team definitely didn't include a bunch of dudes from Black Isle. Also, apparently Mr. House doesn't exist.
Fallout 2 is nowhere near Mad Max levels of apocalypse and was the beginning of society moving on from the nuclear war in the games. Klamath and the Den are about on par with Fallout 1's level of sophistication specifically so when you get to Vault City, New Reno, San Francisco and NCR you'd be amazed by the level of progress.
And the most they came up with was New Rino with Andrew Ryan, and a barbarian version of the Sith Empire from KOTOR, complete with a savant leader who was formerly from the republic he's now fighting, and a brute of a man who's their second in command. The only difference is that Lanius is loyal, while Malak wasn't.
Where did I say that he doesn't exist? Did I not say this:
It's still within a post-apocalypse level of a society. Nowhere near say, New Vegas, with its army of high-tech battle droids and complete security, with two large, nation-state armies competing for control of it. In fact, when you compare New Rino to New Vegas, Stella from the Honest Hearts DLC says this:
Guns and tech generally speed things along very quickly.
The Vault Dweller wiped out the Super Mutants. The Chosen One eradicated the Enclave. Without either one, the NCR would have never grown into a nation state; they would have gotten stomped back into the muck by either the Master or President Richardson. Notice how in Fallout 3, the BoS were just recent arrivals, and the locals couldn't do anything against the pervasive Super Mutant threat. After the Lone Wanderer defeated the Enclave and helped the BoS rise to become a stable power, DC stabilized and became safe enough that the Lyons' Brotherhood started going on crusades against faraway lands, because DC had been stabilized. Just as the NCR at first had to deal with the Enclave and the Brotherhood at home before expanding into the Mojave.
True. But it's more like a war between two superpowers than exploring a post-apocalyptic wasteland. I love New Vegas, because it was a lot like KOTOR, and I love KOTOR. But it's no longer what the first two games had; the post-apocalypse has given way to the Middle Ages and the rebirth of civilization. If pre-war America was Rome, then the New Vegas NCR is akin to Medieval France or the Holy Roman Empire.
I went into New Vegas expecting something like KOTOR, and I was very pleased with what I got. But it's radically different from Fallouts 1 and 2 in that now, civilization is a factor that you actively have to worry about.
None of that has to do with technological progress and everything to do with government structure (or lack thereof). For example, that quote comes from New Vegas, when New Reno ostensibly should have gotten the same technological progress that you say the NCR has gotten. Anyways, I'm not really sure what you're trying to argue anymore. The point of the series is technological progress and rebuilding the world in whatever way you think works best. Society rebuilds itself from Fallout 1 to 2 to New Vegas. 2 isn't as advanced technologically as New Vegas but is nowhere near 3 levels of bad. New Vegas definitely feels closer to 2 than 3 does to 2.
Again, FO2's world was not that civilized. Power-armored freaks can still wander around and kill whoever the fuck they want. Whereas in New Vegas, the post-apocalypse is completely gone, and any power-armored twats or super mutant freaks who think that they can repeat what they did in the previous games are put down by organized, professional armies if they dare to repeat their shenanigans in the original Fallout games.
Yes, and even Fallout 2 is radically different from FO1 in that regard. The NCR is already pushing at the borders of Vault City, trying to get them to submit.
And Chinatown is totally the post-apocalypse:
If FO1 is the Dark Ages, FO2 is the start of the Carolingian Renaissance, and New Vegas is seeing it totter. Will the nascent empire continue to rise, or will it fall under its own weight, unable to sustain itself in the new world it created?
The NCR in New Vegas drove both the Enclave and the Brotherhood underground. The Fallout 2 NCR is trying to get Vault City to submit. The New Vegas NCR would've just sent the boys in and forcibly annexed it before they could act.
In a very isolated enclave. Same thing in the Dark Ages; lands owned by powerful nobles and factions had paved roads, safety and security, ample stores of food, but outside their enclaves, it was a very different story. There was a reason that serfs weren't allowed to leave most of the time, and it wasn't because the local lord was a dickhead.
Not really, no. FO2 is nowhere near the Carolignian Renaissance, since they were still weak enough that power-armored hooligans could wander around town killing people and getting no reprisals from it. The most trouble the Carolignians had outside of civil wars were Viking raids, but even those bastards stayed away from fortified castles and cities that were too well-manned to raid. FO2's version of Byzantium (the Enclave) was still way too strong for the NCR to take on, whereas the Carolignians were far stronger military-wise when compared to their Byzantine rivals.
Unlike the West Coast, motherfuckers picked up trash, wiped their asses, and swept the fucking floor.
That’s what bothers me the most about Bethesda Fallout. By Fo4, it’s been 200 years, and people are still living in bombed out houses with no roofs and skeletons in the living room. Prewar clothes and food have lasted just as long, and you can still raid military supply depots. Either go with the Threads or The Road aesthetic and have the game take place within 1-5 years of Armageddon, or actually go all in on tribal civilizations after six generations, where resources from the old world are scarce or used up.
And I suppose all those super mutants and raiders are likely to just stand aside and let you clean the place, instead of killing you or selling you as a sex slave for some caps.
Yeah, we're seriously supposed to believe that people can dress themselves well, speak basically the same language as now and in general seem sophisticated enough to enjoy the same leisure activities we do but they can't clean their shit up. Like you said, they should either be ooga booga tribals or Bethesda should make their cities look more livable than they are now. The rest of the world and smaller settlements can still look shit, in fact it would be better to have a huge contrast between clean areas and the wasteland.
True, but I'm also referring to NCR, San Francisco and New Reno, which all have incredibly different power structures but are still actual cities with working electricity, modern amenities and paved roads.
