Fallout: New Vegas - Fall 2010

After trying every different setting I could think of (different levels of AA, different levels of AF, music on/off, different resolutions, various levels of details and shadows, bloom vs HDR, etc, etc, etc.) I think I've finally fixed my crashes. Like a lot of people I've been crashing constantly since I first started playing. The Goodsprings area was pretty stable but ever since I've left there I usually crash every 30 minutes or so. Sometimes the game just closes and dumps me to the desktop, but mostly it hard locks with a constant squeal sound from the speakers until I reboot. Finally I decided to give this Dx9 dll everyone keeps talking about a shot. I never thought about using it before because everyone was saying only to use it to fix stuttering and bad framerates which I've had none of even at the highest settings. Other than the crashing the performance of the game has been fine. Figured it couldn't hurt anything so I went ahead and put it in the folder. The game re-detected my video settings, found a completely different (and much less capable) card than what I actually have and basically set everything to the Low settings. That didn't seem like a good sign but I'm pretty desperate at this point to fix it before I snap my keyboard over my knee. I went through the advanced settings and cranked everything back up to where I had it before and I just played about 3 hours or so without a single crash. Oh man, I hope this really did it as I've just reached Novac and things seem to be picking up steam.

Was it pretty easy for you guys to avoid spoilers for FO3? I'm putting aside New Vegas for now. Not necessarily bailing on it, just setting it aside. I hate when games are on that tract where I feel like I have to keep on top of them or they'll get spoiled. Is that this game or am I okay, for the most part?

I actually think the opposite and think New Vegas is vastly superior to #3 and takes a more quest-based/faction based system like FO2. Better crafting system, sneak attack criticals are nerfed so that they're not better than everything else (That unique shotgun with a sneak critical could kill like any enemy in FO3 in one hit), I like the quest/faction system better than the karma system, stats are more meaningful, no more 100 skills in everything, no 300 books scattered in horrible impossible to find without wiki places, no goddamn subway, more balanced monsters. Deathclaws may be really strong, but the way FO3 thought how "Very hard" worked was by giving every wild monster a crapload of hp. If you didn't start out with a crit sneak attack, I would have to pump literally like 75-100 bullets from my chinese AK every white scorpion or super ghoul. Very hard in NV is actually manageable and doesn't feel like I'm shooting BB gun at a cement wall. Some of the collection missions in FO3 and the DLCs were so bad, it was as bad as vanilla WoW. Real time shooting is also way better than FO3.

If I would have to complain, it's that both FO3 and NV npc AI is still dumber than Fallout 2. In FO2 You could select conditions on where NPCs take stims, run away, attack, and they listen pretty well. Passive on NV still is shoot anything that's red on radar. ED-E actually aggros extra monsters, when it shoots its stupid red laser on something really far away. In Black Mountain

Spoiler:

When the Nightkin are being led away from the front gate, Veronica ran up and punched the nightkin. Thanks Felicia Lame

Or better yet, why can't they copy Arcanum, another ancient game. You could give real-time orders to attack targets, run away, follow with simple one button commands.

Also, as I wah wah ed before, the DT system makes a lot of burst weapons pretty sucky. I miss my Bozar

What`s all this "Deathlclaws are too stong now!" ? They`re supposed to be. The ultimate terror of the wasteland, a boogeyman every traveller is afraid of. FO3 had them so underpowered that it was ridiculous. I remember the tingling fear in FO2 when your character finds the Vault full of Deathclaws and all the time I was *afraid* to do the wrong thing, say the wrong thing because I knew that if they decided I was an enemy, they`d smear walls with me in couple of turns.

This really is a game with a wide variety of opinions and experiences, from one extreme to another on whatever scale you like.

mooosicle wrote:

I actually think the opposite and think New Vegas is vastly superior to #3

I agree. Bugs aside -- though I've been pretty fortunate in that I've only experienced crashes every four hours or so -- New Vegas is what wanted Fallout 3 to be.

Alien Love Gardener wrote:
mooosicle wrote:

I actually think the opposite and think New Vegas is vastly superior to #3

I agree. Bugs aside -- though I've been pretty fortunate in that I've only experienced crashes every four hours or so -- New Vegas is what wanted Fallout 3 to be.

Same here. Except some AI bugs, I've had a good experience with it. I don't like how the engine chugs along, but New Vegas has the original beat hands down.

Aside from finally making it to New Vegas, I haven't done much else this past week. Most of my game time went to leveling my new seraphim in Sacred 2.

I actually would fall on the side that thinks FO3 and new vegas are both about the same, both great games but not one is better than the other.

I think I burned out on this by spending too much time with it early on instead of pacing myself. Now, going back, I just feel frustrated that I can't get to a specific location because of land obstacles or brutally tough enemies. It's too bad because I really enjoyed the early parts of the game. Then I got over-burdened with quests. Then the game froze on me a couple times, requiring a hard reboot. Then RDR: Undead Nightmare came out...

I definitely like the game. I feel it's buggier than FO3, but the writing is stronger. There are a few quest duds, but I like the overall variety and multiple ways to accomplish tasks. I've ignored crafting for the most part. Companions are both necessary and annoying.

Things I miss from FO3 are the named travelling merchants (added more personality, imo) and the more frequent occurrence of random NPC encounters. It's probably just my perception, but I seem to recall seeing more wandering NPCs in FO3 and you'd see them fighting super mutants or raiders, or you'd hear something explode in the distance and be able to find out what it was. In NV, the far away gun fire seems to be part of the soundtrack not an actual gunfight (for the most part).

Also, back on companions, I wish they'd incorporated what some of the FO3 companion mods did, allowing you to send your companion to the nearest store to sell excess items for you -- like the pets in Torchlight. Beth/Obsidian also need to follow Bioware's lead to a certain extent in terms on companion interaction in dialogues with other NPCs. For the most part, companions are completely ignored by NPCs and never acknowledged in dialogue. It would have added a lot of flavour to have them chime in with their own dialogue at certain points (the way Mass Effect/Dragon Age companions do).

They should be ashamed of themselves for releasing such a sub-par game. The more bugs I encounter the less goodwill I have for this company. I feel ripped off. Apparently quality assurance is a task they find irrelevant or unseemly, because this game feels like it had none. It makes it impossible to get immersed and have that same "I'm in it" feeling I had with Fallout 3.

After I "finished" the main story line in Fallout 3, I would come home and just load up my character and explore the wasteland. It was something I really looked forward to doing at the end of my day. I did that for weeks on end, because I was completely engrossed with my character and the world he inhabited. All the bugs, lock-ups, crashes, etc. in New Vegas are preventing me from having a similar experience with this game. Just when I start to get into the game, something breaks.

Bethesda/Obsidian...get your sh*t together. Teams with less money, time, and talent have made games of better quality. I am sure it is a difficult and onerous task to test a game of this scope, but that does not mean you are given a pass to sell a game before it is finished. It is a very nice beta though. Congrats!

Maybe a game like this is just to difficult for you to do properly. Time to start thinking XBLA and iPhone games. Hacks.

That's my rant. Now back to playing this game in hopes I can wring some value from it.

I stumbled into this http://www.escapistmagazine.com/arti... (related to this) that echoes those points, and mirrors my thoughts from what I've read. I can't really write much more without duplicating what Shamus Young has already written.

It just gets to me that some people don't want to call a spade a spade, and it somehow has immunity from criticism because of the history of the earlier games/developer/publisher.

Shamus Young wrote:

There aren't that many hard-core western RPG developers left. Shouldn't we be demanding better? First person shooter fans can pick and choose among many games and developers, but fans of freeform exploration, branching plots, and complex leveling mechanics don't have that many options. I don't want to see Obsidian go under. I want to see Obsidian deliver a top-notch game that's not infested with bugs and glitches. This is simply not going to happen as long as gamers continue to accept sub-standard quality and make excuses for them.

This quote from him pretty much sums it up for me. Plus, it reminds me I am part of the problem. I have spent nearly $150 on New Vegas products (360, PC, and Guide), despite my feelings in regards to the game's quality. You can't give a bigger thumbs up than that. Like Dylan said, "money doesn't talk, it swears." But, again, who expects to pay $50 for a major title only to have to drop a hacked dx9.dll, distributed by fans, to make the game playable? Unbelievable.

Old man ranting again about Obsidian/Bethesda: If you're too lazy or inept to fix your bugs before release, then have a beta release and let the fans do your jobs for you. We'll get it done, because, unlike you, we give a sh*t.

One thing I find interesting is that with the ability of consoles to be patched has allowed some companies to reduce their quality rather than improve it. Shipping a game in the state that New Vegas did would be unthinkable on an 'old' console because it was almost impossible to patch it later.

Yeah, I've crashed to desktop a total of three times in 29 hours so. Other than that the only bugs I've encountered are clipping (getting stuck in walls or toilets) bugs, and the occasional side quest disappearing before it's run it's course. I just wish they would have spent a bit more time optimizing. I've been taking my time, and just decided to go into Freeside. As I approached the gate my fps dropped from a fairly steady 55-60 (never dropping below 45) all the way down to 8.

So I deceded to look in he dirextx fix, turns out I can't use the it because I'm running multiple monitors. The trouble of reconfiguring everything each time I wanted to play New Vegas was not an option. We shouldn't have to install alternate directx .dll's to get decent performance. It's a bit ridiculous that QA testing was obviously not a priority.

Still, the game is a lot of fun and I'm glad I purchased it.

Update: Apparently the performance issues are the fault of ATI and NVidia. Across basically every card produced by both manufactures.

What the hell type of system was Obsidian testing on? Intel integrated systems?

Did we kill the thread?

Scratched wrote:

Did we kill the thread?

I think the bugs have impeded the progress of a lot of people and that means a lot less stuff to talk about...accept bugs. I know my playthroughs are stagnating, just because I get frustrated when I do play. For those that take a Sandboxey approach to the game, the bugs might not be blockers. For the hardcore RPG playstyle, where you take your time and really try to build a character and explore the world, the bugs can easily break the spell. I try to take the world seriously, or as seriously as you can in a video game, so I don't want anything to remind me that there is a wizard (an incompetent one at that) behind the curtain.

If anyone heard Jeff Canata talk about the game on Weekend Confirmed, you know where I am coming from. I am feeling a similar type of frustration.

EDIT: As an example...The last bug I had was a severe and sudden drop in framerate. I had to reboot the game to make it go away. After the reboot, I just didn't want to play anymore that night. I tried to reproduce the bug (could not), saved my game, and quit. I was about an hour in and just starting to get into my character again when the bug happened. This type of scenario is typical of my experience so far. I hope it gets better.

It doesn't.

i38warhawk wrote:

What the hell type of system was Obsidian testing on? Intel integrated systems?

I knew I should have picked this up on PC.

Scratched wrote:

One thing I find interesting is that with the ability of consoles to be patched has allowed some companies to reduce their quality rather than improve it. Shipping a game in the state that New Vegas did would be unthinkable on an 'old' console because it was almost impossible to patch it later.

I remember this being an early concern with this generation of consoles since this issue has plagued PCs (Falcon 4.0 anyone)? I have to say my experience has been mostly bug free. My main issue is with the companion AI (passive does not exist) and some quests notifications that have randomly popped up. I also miss all the Red Chinese references, but that's not a bug.

On a lighter not, Boone with a chainsaw is a psychopathic killing machine.

DSGamer wrote:

Was it pretty easy for you guys to avoid spoilers for FO3? I'm putting aside New Vegas for now. Not necessarily bailing on it, just setting it aside. I hate when games are on that tract where I feel like I have to keep on top of them or they'll get spoiled. Is that this game or am I okay, for the most part?

I think ya just got to be wary of these threads. So far most people have been good with spoiler tags, but some stuff has come out.

Malor wrote:

...They've jacked the difficulty into the absolute stratosphere on some creatures ("hardened bots" and Deathclaws are two that I've spotted), and never really give you the tools you need to fight them. Even with a character that blew through the endgame while taking only minor damage, just one Deathclaw is enough to take him out almost instantly. Just one. Even in full Power Armor...

One thing I liked about Fallout 3 was that I started out feeling very powerless, but you can face tough enemies, if you can figure out the right strategy. Take Deathclaws, for example. The Dart Gun+Dogmeat+a VATS/CRIT focused character, made them almost trivial. The cool thing was that I didn't need to be a high level to take them down. The Dart gun took away their speed, Dogmeat distracted and damaged them, then I just hung back and fired my rifles in VATS to take them down. It was awesome.

Another strategy I employed was to sneak close and leave a path of mines as I retreat. I shoot them, they come after me and hit the mines as the pursue. They usually get crippled (slow down) and get pretty damaged and it was not problem to finish them off with guns or a grenade.

The thread so far...

Boy, I would love to play this game.
Why aren't there reviews of this game out?
Lard, shut your hater-mouth, we're trying to enjoy ourselves.
Oh boy this game is jolly gumdrops.
ZOMG BROKEN I CAN'T PLAY POS I ARE HATING!

I'm happy I'm in the jolly gumdrops puppies and rainbows camp, but bummed that so many others are stuck with a POS.

Montalban wrote:

I'm happy I'm in the jolly gumdrops puppies and rainbows camp, but bummed that so many others are stuck with a POS.

Same here. I'm feeling really lucky having crashed once or twice in forty hours. Besides that I saw a scorpion in a rock once, and lost Veronica for about an hour, but I figured that was a the mod allowing multiple human companions failing. She showed back up later, after her associated faction came to its conclusion, so maybe it was a quest thing. I also needed a dll from NewVegasNexus that showed up day one or two to get the frame-rate consistently solid.

Overall I fould Fallout 3 to be more buggy, but that's not a fair comparison, as I played it on the 360. I hope they fix the problems you're all having, cause if it works its great.

Just finished the game -- I rushed through the ending because I ended up a bit bored by level 26 from doing the questies.

I'm a sucker for cut-scenes so once I finish Batman and some more Civ V, I'll be rolling through this again.

Just because the people who are having a great time with it and little to no problems aren't posting within the sudden wave of mass descent doesn't mean that everybody has run into horrible gamebreaking bugs and have ragequit the game. When some people are having issues and others aren't there isn't going to be much discussion between the two.

Example:
Guy 1- huge list of everything that has gone wrong with his game
Guy 2- huge list of everything that has gone wrong with HIS game and comments on previous guy's problems
Guy 3- "well I'm enjoying myself, my game is perfect"

Doesn't really fit.

Though before this wave all the conversation for several pages was everybody's good experience with it. Those are all made moot by a page and a half of bad.

Again, through my playing I have had 1 bug that actually got in the way of my playing. And that was hardly bothersome. Most everything has been smooth sailing on my end.

Also: My new MO for New Vegas is to kill a deathclaw... WITH MY BARE HANDS. And no stimpacks.

Does anyone here go 10 charisma? Sources are incomplete, but if "Companion Nerve" is implemented, each point of charisma adds 5% damage 5% DT to your companions.

That would just be disgusting. Veronica already has maxed out unarmed, with her unarmed speed upgrade perk, and with +50% damage, 50% DT. That would be disgusting DT. She could have like 45 DT, enough to stop anything short of snipers, and the heaviest energy weapons.

I made the mistake of going 10 int like FO3, and I think it's way overboard, and I took educated too. Not the greatest idea - I have three weapon skills maxed out but it's not as great as I would have thought. I would say either Guns or Energy really stands up on their own, from testing many of them. Too many guns roles overlap and it feels really redundant. It isn't the old Fallout mentality of Small Guns into either Big or Energy.

50 cal with Incendiary bullets-FTW. I've watched enemies just explode during a sneak attack.

One tiny criticism, I'd be much happier if the developers seemed to give a crap about the musical variety and DJ banter they had to offer. IMO the GTA series has set the bar for in game radio. I'd love it if records are something you could scavenge in the wastes; i.e. find a record, return it to the DJ and now that track is in your rotation as well. I seriously don't understand why NV or FO3 for that matter give this such short shrift. The repetition of tunes is starting to drive me crazy.

Put me down in the camp of "FO:NV deathclaws are tougher than FO3 deathclaws."

Rat Boy wrote:

Put me down in the camp of "FO:NV deathclaws are tougher than FO3 deathclaws."

I'm in this camp. I died. A lot. Then I snuck by them. Then Boone triggered them. And I died again.

The game has been 99% bug free. There's a few graphical stuff but a big part of that is the engine. No crashes. Consistent framerate. All the good stuff.

Rat Boy wrote:

Put me down in the camp of "FO:NV deathclaws are tougher than FO3 deathclaws."

You want to be in a camp full of death claws? Ok, your funeral.