At seeing how now one can agree on one particular plot here I thought I would state my own opinion and offer an alternative to one main plot.
PaladinHeart wrote:There should always be at least two or three evil menaces that you choose whether or not you want to take them on. It would be interesting to let the player just ignore something and it eventually turn into something worse.
The good part about not killing certain foes sooner would be that they are tougher and provide a harder challenge later on in the game.
What if the whole game was like Paladin said. If the game started out with a whole bunch of power factions that would evolve over the course of the game in a set way based on the assumpution that your char is not invoving themself in any thing of importance. However, if your char gives aid to one faction, there is a realistic fallout from the events you partake in.
Example: There is a town that is split into 3 fighting factions because of a food shortage, you arrange for caravans of food to arrive at one of the factions, that faction's people survive better or fight better or simply convert people from the other factions now take over the town and start spreading thier own idea's to ther towns, which if you play a long enough might become a threat that you have stop, i.e. helping a Nazi-like faction. Thus the game need not actually ever end, which is in keeping with FO2.
It would be a system based off people's needs, wants, problems, paths to solutions, and resources. The scope of such a system could be applied to the smallest trivial thing such as
popscythe wrote:Trivial shit like getting your spear sharpened in Fallout 2
to the main quest itself.
One idea that someone already thought of and implimented in a mod for Morrowind is multiple starting points. What if your baskstory was created by the 2 maybe 3 highest stats you gave your char during char creation? Each backstory could give you a major quest and a minor one or two to start out with. Some of those or even all may not even matter once you get out into the rest of the game, as VasikkA said:
VasikkA wrote: There doesn't even have to be a connection between the beginning and endgame. The waterchip and GECK were merely excuses to send the hero out to explore the unknown. In endgame, they didn't even matter anymore.
This way there it is a lot more programing to create initially but it turns out a much more replayable game, especially if they create a large world that is very detailed. Though it wouldnt be much of a FO if it wasnt detailed.