You know that nag that so many godawful services employ nowadays? Would you like enable [insert upselling scam]? Be it Siri, OneDrive, or some other form of data sharing with big tech. The thing that bugs me the most is how somebody somewhere – may their soul burn in Hell forever and ever – found out that you get more sales by not allowing the user to say ‘No’.
Instead you can just evade the proposition temporarily. ‘Not now’. ‘Maybe later’. ‘Let me think about it’. It’s the slow wearing down of resistance. It’s the refusal to take no for an answer. It’s incredibly disrespectful. It’s f***ing evil.
(Come to think of it Valve are responsible for this too, when they ask you nag you to review games you’ve played. Is it more excusable somehow, because you might actually be in a better position to review after 30 hours than after 10? Hmmm…)
In Fallout 4 you encounter potential NPC companions all the time. My character’s most core attribute? Lone Wanderer. That trait gives bonuses to damage resistance and damage dealing when playing without companions. More importantly, because of my roleplay and gameplay preferences I would never want to take a companion with me regardless of the maths. Yes, that includes the damn dog.
As pointed out by Adam Something on YouTube recently, Fallout 4 isn’t very accomodating of roleplaying, unless you’re roleplaying the exact character that Bethesda designed for you. A grieving, heart-stricken Goody Two-Shoes looking for Sean. Thing is, that extends to companions, too.
The character I’m playing as never gave a second thought to Dogmeat after telling it to scram at the Red Rocket. Yet Nick Valentine refers to it in Diamond City as ‘that dog of yours’. What dog? That one? I told that dog ‘no’! Turns out, I didn’t. I just said ‘stay there (until I come back for you)’. Because despite not wanting anything to do with you, somehow a random encounter has now joined us at the hip. At least, I think, I will now have to go back to Red Rocket and get it. Maybe I can pretend Nick was just suggesting using a dog to track Kellogg – and I countered with ‘this one I ran into at a gas station’. Nope. Random dog I never had any truck with, shows up outside my door. Because Bethesda doesn’t take no for an answer.
Other companions are mostly worse. You can excuse a dog for not understanding no. It had taken a shine to me and followed me all the way to Diamond City. Nick is also exempt as I am engaging his services in a way and he’s just offering to be useful in that regard. But I’m running out of excuses for the rest of the team. Ada insists that she’ll basically just stand by untill I come round. Are automatons made to be socially oblivious? Isn’t ‘no’ the easiest thing to understand for a machine? It’s as binary as it gets. It’s an off switch.
I get that the game is trying to keep options open for me. Maybe I would want to do Brotherhood of Steel missions later on? If ‘no’ really meant ‘no’ that would no longer be an option. Do I have to shoot Danse in the head to make him stop pining for me?
Honestly, I wish it did. I’ll never play most of this game. I’m mainly here to explore the Commonwealth and see cars blow up and heads turn into gore in slow motion. As much as I’m enjoying all of those things now – and I really am – they will get old soon. So I’m not sticking around for a lot of side quests and content.
Having NPCs get offended by my buff refusal to engage with them as characters or their quest lines would close doors for me. As someone who paid 7.50€ for the GOTY version, however, that’s OK. I don’t require oodles of content for my 7.50. To me it would be more valuable to have it reinforce my sense of who my character is. A asocial loner. A grumpy old man. Someone whose sense of humour is leaving live grenades in people’s pockets. A prick. It would also give more weight to dialogue options. Am I really sure that I want to turn these people down for good?
It would also mean that a game wouldn’t remind me of big tech BS. That kinda ruins my immersion, Bethesda.
