on quests
remember the BoS? and how their longest questline is just 2x3 fetch quests, followed by 3 more that at least have dungeons attached to them?
Biggums claims that BoS quests are just boring fetch quests this is false. 1. Finding the first BoS patrol leads you to Repconn a unique location unlike Fallout 3 it is full of nonhostile robots not a simple location full of raiders.I found Repconn interesting while reading the terminals in that 1. It attests to Mr House pre-war influence and adds more evidence in how Powerful Mr. House was. Where Mr.House was buying out companies such as Repconn, and that there was opposition to this within the company ranks of Repconn. 2. You learn what working in an office job of Pre-war America was like, How more civil liberties where being intruded upon in the name of security, with facial recognition monitors being set up, etc. how there also seemed to be the theme of the looming threat of war, where everyday society is being militarized. You learn that competing companies such as Repconn were committing corporate espionage against one another. Also weird corporate propaganda used such as saying that all employees were part of a family. 3. The increased security measures attest and provide background on why the Brotherhood patrols died. The third floor requires an executive only keycard if you don't have it then Repconn sends Sentry Bots after you to attack. The Brotherhood patrol failed to read the terminals so they did not know this and did not have the third-floor keycard so they were attacked and killed. The increased security measures also attest to the classified research Repconn was focusing on such as plasma weapons like the Q-35 matter modulator. IF you read the terminals then you can learn about this weapon and get your hands on a valuable energy weapon. 4.The game offers a bunch of skill checks in this location some very hard and hard science and lockpick checks that protect the unique weapon and a bunch of ammo/loot. There is also a hilarious low intelligence and high luck dialogue option where you can scream ice cream at the security robot and it works and you bypass security. Repconn is far from a boring location.
Next Patrol can lead you to Nellis air force base where you can learn about the faction called the Boomers where you are bombed to smithereens if you aren't careful. Again not sure how this is just a boring fetch quest , seriously how many fetch quests lead to a faction that rains hell upon you with Artillery, deadly bombs and explosives. From this fetch quest, you can learn about the boomers, that they are a highly militant isolationist faction that believes themselves to be genetically superior. This quest ties in nicely with Vault 34's quests for two reasons, 1 They believe themselves to be genetically superior due to their upbringing in a vault where they were free of radiation. 2. Vault 34 has an excess amount of high powered weapons, this explains why the Boomers are so militant and it also explains why the Brotherhood patrol died. From the note on the patrol's body, we learn Macnamara underestimated, miscalculated the Boomers he didn't account for Vault 34's high tech arsenal of weapons leading to the patrols deaths. Again this also points to deleterious effects of the lockdown and the incompetent of Mcanamara and why Hardin is mad at him and deems him unfit to be elder. If the lockdown was lifted Mcnamara could have sent out more scouts and could have discovered more about the Boomers that they did indeed have high tech weapons, therefore, avoiding the deaths of the patrol members. This fetch quest also leads to arc of quests for the boomers where you can become friends with them and convince them to take your side in the Battle of Hoover dam. So no this is not just a simple boring fetch quest.
The next quests involve finding the patrol near Black Mountain, where you have to fight off some cool looking Centaurs when you find the patrol you learn why they died. This fetch quest ties nicely into Crazy, Crazy, Crazy and you Once again learn about the deleterious effects the lockdown is having and the incompetence/miscalculation from Mcnamara. If you talked to Neil then you learned that Marcus used to be de facto leader of Black Mountain where humans were welcomed yet Mcnamara failed to realize that a bunch of crazy Nightkin(with their leader Tabitha) and second-gen super mutants trickled into Black Mountain. Tabitha then used propaganda to influence and control the 2nd gen super mutants this led to Marcus being overthrown where Tabitha became the new leader. Humans were now declared to be shot on sight so when the Brotherhood patrol came to Black Mountain expecting a warm welcome they were shot and killed. Again if Mcnamara had lifted the lockdown and sent out more scouts he could have learned about this change of events and Marcus being overthrown but he didn't so he was left with outdated information leading to the deaths of another Brotherhood patrol.
The next 3 quests directly tie in and showcase how incompetent the NCR is and how the lockdown has made the Brotherhood blind to the current state of events in the Mojave. These quests also allowed the player to obtain a unique perspective where you can see what the brotherhood scouts think of the NCR. What's also very interesting is that the scouts report change on what actions the courier has done (even if you destroy both camps then the report accounts for it). If you haven't done anything or the courier hasn't intervened then The Powder Gangers, Legion are pretty much allowed to run rampant deep in the NCR territory without the NCR hardly lifting a finger. The scout near Nelson is also baffled as to why the NCR hasn't overrun Nelson due to their technological edge. IF you do help the NCR retake the prison then the scouts will express concern such as why it took the NCR so long to retake the prison and that the powder gangers were wreaking havoc on nearby trade routes. If you do help the NCR retake Nelson then the scout wonders why it took them so long and the fact that the NCR needed reinforcements to do so when he believes that the NCR could have taken them down without reinforcements and the fact that they took so long proves how incompetent they are. If you help the Legion or Powder Gangers destroy the NCR at Forlorn Hope and NCRCF then you make the NCR look even worse to the scouts and they wonder why savages could defeat the NCR with crude melee weapons while the Brotherhood themselves could not. Anyway my point is that these quests add very valuable worldbuilding to the Mojave and are far from simple fetch quests
The last 3 quests again are not boring fetch quests with dungeons. They have meaning. This is another reason why Hardin wants to overthrow Mcnamara in that Mcnamara knows the air filtration system that sustains the entire bunker may eventually die if you don't find the parts to fix it. The fact that Mcnamara hasn't told anybody about this very important finding questions his ability as a leader. I mean seriously he should have told the whole bunker about this not just the courier so they can try to fix it as fast as possible. The first one involves you going to Vault 11. Vault 11 is one of the coolest areas in the game. You learn about a vault experiment where people have to sacrifice a resident every year, then you learn that Overseer kept this info from the public so that is why once the public found out the overseer became the first sacrifice this became a tradition where the overseer is the nominee for getting sacrificed. Pretty much a bunch of pseudo-political parties form out of this that influence the election process anyway and try to plant propaganda on to the other candidates to get them to become overseer. Justice bloc holds the most sway so this one lady starts assassinating their members to prevent their stranglehold on the political system so she can prevent her husband from becoming sacrificed as overseer. She then becomes overseer to change the sacrifice process to basically screw over the Justice party. The Justice party gets triggered over this and then starts a civil war that kills nearly all of the Vault besides 5 people who finally say we are done with this BS and then defy the computer which is what the experiment was testing all along and by defying the computer they passed the test then they are free to go. After coming to this horrific realization four of the 5 commit suicide.
The next strig of quests first leads you to Vault 3. Vault 3 is an interesting place where it is one of the few vaults with a control test with no experiment and the fact that it is the base for the most murderous raiders in the Mojave. The vault opens trade with the outside but then because of this the fiends catch on and murder the entire vault. Visiting Vault 3 and going into fiend territory again exposes the NCR as incompetent where the Fiends are able to run rampant for the most part (with no courier intervention) Vault 3 again ties in nicely with Ncr quests at Mccarran where you learn about a ranger named Anders who is sent to take out Motor Runner but he becomes injured and the Ncr hasn't done anything about it until the courier comes along. The fact that the NCR relies on the courier to do this again proves how much they have failed at securing the Mojave. Vault 3 is very unique in the fact that Unlike other Fallouts 3 and 4 you can make a murderous gang of psychopathic raiders nonhostile by passing a speech check or by wearing Great Khan armor to bypass this. This is because 1. the Khans are friendly with the Friends due to their mutual hostility to the NCR. And 2.Red Rock canyon isn't that hospitable so the Khans mainly rely on the drug trade to make ends meet and they have found a willing customer in the fiends. So by having the fiends become nonhostile to anyone wearing Great Khans armor and by casting a light on the relationship between the fiends and khans Vault 3 adds a good amount of Worldbuilding to the Mojave. Another instance of worldbuilding is that this points to another failing of the NCR the NCR's aggressive expansion has put helped put the Khans into an alliance with the fiends. With the drugs from the Khans, the Fiends have committed some of the most horrific atrocities in the wasteland. So now the NCR is entangled in another bogged down conflict in the Mojave. With their base in Vault 3 Fiends have provoked a mass displacement of people towards the Strip as well
The last quest leads to Vault 22. Vault 22 is also far from a boring location it was a unique vault designed for scientists to work on crops/agriculture to combat hunger for the world and then later for the vault residents. Also designed to make crops more resistant to insects, disease drought, etc. Pretty much everything goes to shit once a fungus is introduced originally for pest control but it actually takes over, infects, and kills humans. Vault 22 contains some very unique and interesting creatures that you hardly ever see called spore carriers. Vault 22 ties into Honest Hearts where the survivors escape and head out to Zion Canyon where the surviving Vault dwellers end up murdering Mexican survivors this is part of the Randall Clark backstory from Honest Hearts where he fights back against the vault dwellers and kills many of their members forcing them to flee. Anyway, the vault becomes infected with plants and spore carriers but it ties into the NCR and the quest Three Stands the Grass where Thomas Hildern believes Vault 22 holds the key to solving a famine so he sends out mercenaries to find it. So if you do go to Vault 22 you can find Keely who was one of the mercenary scientists sent there by Hildern to find it but was left for dead so you can then help her ignite the vents (in a variety of ways) to kill the spore creatures.
How you can characterize these as boring fetch quests is beyond me. It seems like you barely even played the game and had perceived bias against New Vegas. Anyway, the point is that these quests are actually very cool and tie into other quests and they lead you to some very interesting places with their own unique stories. They also added a lot to the worldbuilding of the Mojave as a whole and tie into the fate of the wasteland.
