I must rant and can't take it anymore! Who else has finished and been less than happy with what you saw?
From the start, NCR is obviously not very well liked by most of the people you talk to. They're an occupying force in a place where they're not really welcomed. (Did we need to go there, really?) But it's the NCR. We helped build them, and saw them grow from seven sand brick buildings and a brahmin pen into the republic. The first two times I played through I sided with them, and while it turned out well for a lot of the individuals I was interested in it was clearly not a "happy" ending.
So my first hardcore play, my third run I went for an independent Vegas. And now while the area itself was better, a lot of the towns had happier results (except Novac, what is with those people!) a lot of the people I was really interested in seemed to take it in the teeth.
Part of it is the Brotherhood is the die-hard core region Brotherhood. They're isolationist elitists that we only used for power armor. No helpful for the good of the wasteland Capital Brotherhood here. Which means they're doomed for a negative ending except if the NCR ends up in control it comes out fairly neutral. (And just about everybody and their mother asks you to destroy them) That leaves Veronica in a bad place in almost every available scenario. She's a bright, sweet and intelligent girl that you can't help feeling for. All of her endings are pretty deeply depressing.
Cass seems like you can only get a truly happy ending when the NCR wins, which I can't really argue against with her being Cassidy's daughter. She's fairly neutral about an independent end. But if you win it for the NCR and solve her quest peacefully, it's Big-Damn-Heroes Time. I feel bad when things don't work out for the companions I actually enjoy having around, which pretty much is Cass and Veronica.
The actual narration segment for winning for the NCR actually seems depressed. The NCR one, and they aren't even that happy about it, it mostly seems like it's there to set up the Rangers segment to show how far the NCR has actually fallen since the days when we saw our statue standing over the capital. Seeing three different not very happy endings there.. really makes me want to let Kimball die.
The Boomers, Followers, Freeside and the Kings seem mostly tied to happy NCR, happy them. An independent Vegas overwhelms the Followers, and an NCR victory can sort of go a bit either way. I had them pushed out of Vegas and disappeared into the north with the Khans once, which I sort of thought was weird. The Khans seem almost noble if you can get on their good side early and see what they're doing, but everyone still sees them as standard raider trash. They do have a happy-ish potential end, but they seem like no matter what they're standins for Indian tribes as the continent was conquered. They're pushed away, isolated on a reservation, or destroyed.
I'm not sure I really like the inability to end up with a positive end for both the area and the individuals and towns in it.. It's yet another new thing. notsureifwant.
