Fallout: New Vegas - Fall 2010

tanstaafl wrote:

Here's something impressive. This guy finished the entire game without ever firing a single shot. He didn't kill a single person or critter at any point.

I'm not sure I'm that dedicated myself, but an impressive achievement nonetheless.

I can't even wrap my brain around how you'd do this given the number of critters in some of the vaults. If your stealth is 100 can you pretty much sneak past anything?

I guess you can also just run away quite often

Just a tip on Caravan that took me four straight losses in a row to figure out.

You can play cards on your *opponent's* caravans. Ah. Interesting.

I could totally see how you can play New Vegas like that. In fact, my current character is a bit like that too. She's sort of a pyschopathic version of Rain Man who's brilliant, evil and very very lucky in the casinos. Unfortunately, she's very weak and only now figuring out how to use energy weapons.

S = 1
P = 10
E = 1
C = 1
I = 10
A = 9
L = 10

Also, she dresses like a prostitute.
IMAGE(http://i707.photobucket.com/albums/ww80/grubber788/ScreenShot0.jpg)

Does the game count kills that your companions make? If not, the zero kill rule sound more possible.

Grubber788 wrote:

I could totally see how you can play New Vegas like that. In fact, my current character is a bit like that too. She's sort of a pyschopathic version of Rain Man who's brilliant, evil and very very lucky in the casinos. Unfortunately, she's very weak and only now figuring out how to use energy weapons.

S = 1
P = 10
E = 1
C = 1
I = 10
A = 9
L = 10

Also, she dresses like a prostitute.

lol, epic. You must die a lot though.

I played through Vault 11 last night, and reading the last 2 notes made me open my eyes wide and just say, "wow."

I tried messing with an evil unarmed character and I have to admit I'm a bit disappointed. It feels like the evil path suffers greatly, I tried doing the NCR correctional facility missions, but if you stay and helped to the end of that route

Spoiler:

NCR, a major faction, is hated. That's a ton of quest lines for a starting character that are now denied. Goodsprings I can understand, but now I don't know if I want to stick with it.

Sometimes the rep system feels wrong too. Only select merchants ever give you good prices, even if you're idolized by the community. Other than the Followers of the Apocalypse and Primm, most factions feel like dirty cheapskates.

Alright, just went through Vault 22:

Spoiler:

Did I miss something or is this just the most boring Vault in the game? Am I suppose to go here on a quest or something? It just wasn't very interesting, at least compared to the one other Vault I've gone through (34 I think). Fungal spores, man eating plants and mantises, not very compelling, especially when Boone kills everything as soon as it twitches. I guess it was kind of cool to see a little bit of green in the wastes.

Also finished Return to Sender:

Spoiler:

The voice acting for Chief Hanlon was fantastic, turns out it was country singer Kris Kristofferson. To bad I knew how it would end if I turned him in even before it became in issue. Poor old guy,I kind of agreed with him, still turned him in and he still shot himself. Got a cool gun out of the deal, though. What did you guys do?

i38warhawk wrote:

Alright, just went through Vault 22:

Spoiler:

Did I miss something or is this just the most boring Vault in the game? Am I suppose to go here on a quest or something? It just wasn't very interesting, at least compared to the one other Vault I've gone through (34 I think). Fungal spores, man eating plants and mantises, not very compelling, especially when Boone kills everything as soon as it twitches. I guess it was kind of cool to see a little bit of green in the wastes.

Also finished Return to Sender:

Spoiler:

The voice acting for Chief Hanlon was fantastic, turns out it was country singer Kris Kristofferson. To bad I knew how it would end if I turned him in even before it became in issue. Poor old guy,I kind of agreed with him, still turned him in and he still shot himself. Got a cool gun out of the deal, though. What did you guys do?

Vault 22

Spoiler:

That Vault has two things in it that solve other quests.

Return to sender

Spoiler:

I ended up covering it up and letting him go his own way, can't exactly remember why though.

I finally.. FINALLY.. fixed my crashing issues.

I thought that older dx9.dll had helped a bit but after a few more sessions I realized it didn't really do much for me. I think I just got lucky with that first play through that I was able to play a couple hours without crashing. After that I was back to the usual crashing every 10-20 minutes of gameplay. I spent today trying all kinds of different settings and at one point I Alt-Tabbed out of the game to mess with the CPU core affinity and priority and noticed down in my systray an icon for FFDShow. I immediately smacked my forehead as I recalled there being a conflict with Fallout3 and FFDShow. I went into the FFDShow Audio and Video decoder configuration and added "FalloutNV.exe" to the "Don't use ffdshow in" settings.

I've played twice today for several hours each time and haven't had a single crash. I can finally give my F5 key a rest.

I just hit level 16 and apparantly I don't have the "reach level 10" achievement...

Strewth wrote:

I just hit level 16 and apparantly I don't have the "reach level 10" achievement...

If you had used a console command during the play session where you would have unlocked that achievement it wont go through.

I'm around Primm right now, I headed there just after Goodsprings.

Spoiler:

I've liberated the deputy, and now I'm tasked with finding a new sheriff. Thinking of heading out to NCRCF.

However, I have a bunch of stuff I want to keep, mainly different armors and guns, that weigh a lot. Does anyone know if I'm close to finding a home, or at least a reliable container where I can store my stuff, or should I just sell it?

There's a Mojave Express box in Primm and another in Goodsprings. Mail it to yourself in Goodsprings; I'm pretty sure it will stay safe in the box until you go pick it up.

oMonarca wrote:

I'm around Primm right now, I headed there just after Goodsprings.

Spoiler:

I've liberated the deputy, and now I'm tasked with finding a new sheriff. Thinking of heading out to NCRCF.

However, I have a bunch of stuff I want to keep, mainly different armors and guns, that weigh a lot. Does anyone know if I'm close to finding a home, or at least a reliable container where I can store my stuff, or should I just sell it?

There are two safe houses in Goodspring too, that I both personally used/tested for quite a while, the NPCs won't ever enter these buildings.

Victor's shack, and when you fast travel to the town, there's a reddish house a lil bit on the left. The house belongs to no one, and has many containers in the bedroom I separated my gear by. You can also sleep in both

If the gas station in Goodsprings is empty, you can use that for storage and sleeping. I've also had success hot-bunking with some of the Goodsprings npcs, since I tend to wander at night and sleep during the day.

Ah cool guys! Thx for the info. I actually squatted on that red house while questing around Goodsprings. Since I'm idolized in that area now, I guess the locals won't mind if I extend my stay ^^ The mailing trick is also pretty neat.

This game is really awesome, and it's been holding up quite nicely for me. No weird bugs or crashes so far. Unrelated with stability, I recommend you guys check the Depth of Field mod. The game looks a lot prettier, and it helps you ignore the "pop-up" textures and objects in the distance. In short, it smooths the horizon. What's not to like?

And I really dig the Caravan card game Once you figure it out, it's a nice way to mix the gameplay.

mooosicle wrote:
oMonarca wrote:

I'm around Primm right now, I headed there just after Goodsprings.

Spoiler:

I've liberated the deputy, and now I'm tasked with finding a new sheriff. Thinking of heading out to NCRCF.

However, I have a bunch of stuff I want to keep, mainly different armors and guns, that weigh a lot. Does anyone know if I'm close to finding a home, or at least a reliable container where I can store my stuff, or should I just sell it?

There are two safe houses in Goodspring too, that I both personally used/tested for quite a while, the NPCs won't ever enter these buildings.

Victor's shack, and when you fast travel to the town, there's a reddish house a lil bit on the left. The house belongs to no one, and has many containers in the bedroom I separated my gear by. You can also sleep in both

I've also used the trailer behind the saloon and general store in Goodsprings. It has a mattress and a couple of boxes and I haven't noticed anything I've left in it disappearing.

I think the first "home" you get is in

Spoiler:

Novac

at least, that's the first place I got a bed that gave me "well rested" status. Anyone found one sooner?

I got into the Strip last night, and got handed 250 Tops chips when I got into the casino. I promptly turned that into 500 chips at Blackjack, and am now swimming in more caps than I can use. I think tonight I'll see if I can't turn this into a small fortune.

I really like the fact that in this game, as opposed to Fallout 3, almost every skill has some kind of check with someone. On the strip I found a guy who I can do a Sneak check with, someone I need a Perception 9 for, and the usual Speech, Barter, Science, etc. I remember in Fallout 3 most conversation checks were either Speech or Barter, with a very rare Intelligence. I like being able to take alternate routes to success, so I'm a big fan of having more of this.

Does anybody know if you have any chance of passing a check if you aren't at the level of the check? Like say you have a barter check where you're 45/50. You can still select them so I was under the impression that the level means you are guaranteed to pass but anything under it still has a chance but I haven't passed any checks like that (even reloading and retrying one ~10 times).

I think I liked the system in Fallout 3 better where it gave you a percentage.

iaintgotnopants wrote:

Does anybody know if you have any chance of passing a check if you aren't at the level of the check? Like say you have a barter check where you're 45/50. You can still select them so I was under the impression that the level means you are guaranteed to pass but anything under it still has a chance but I haven't passed any checks like that (even reloading and retrying one ~10 times).

I think I liked the system in Fallout 3 better where it gave you a percentage.

I feel like that's the sole purpose of magazines. In fact, I generally don't raise my science and lockpick skill above 90 because I can always just buff myself before instances where I would need such skills.

ahrezmendi wrote:

I got into the Strip last night, and got handed 250 Tops chips when I got into the casino. I promptly turned that into 500 chips at Blackjack, and am now swimming in more caps than I can use. I think tonight I'll see if I can't turn this into a small fortune.

I had Luck of 10 and by the end of the game I had over 50,000 caps. First casino I went into, it took me less than 1 min to get kicked out with around 2,000 - 4,000 caps. I think it's great that that is an option. My barter skill is about 10, but I had so much money, I never needed to loot things after that point. There also wasn't much room in the inventory since I had a low endurance as well.

PandaEskimo wrote:
ahrezmendi wrote:

I got into the Strip last night, and got handed 250 Tops chips when I got into the casino. I promptly turned that into 500 chips at Blackjack, and am now swimming in more caps than I can use. I think tonight I'll see if I can't turn this into a small fortune.

I had Luck of 10 and by the end of the game I had over 50,000 caps. First casino I went into, it took me less than 1 min to get kicked out with around 2,000 - 4,000 caps. I think it's great that that is an option. My barter skill is about 10, but I had so much money, I never needed to loot things after that point. There also wasn't much room in the inventory since I had a low endurance as well.

My 2nd character has a luck of 10, and I played the slots in the casino in freeside for about 15 minutes, then hit the jackpot. 32,000 caps. I hit up the other casinos for a bit and have about 60,000 caps to my name right now.

iaintgotnopants wrote:

Does anybody know if you have any chance of passing a check if you aren't at the level of the check? Like say you have a barter check where you're 45/50. You can still select them so I was under the impression that the level means you are guaranteed to pass but anything under it still has a chance but I haven't passed any checks like that (even reloading and retrying one ~10 times).

I think I liked the system in Fallout 3 better where it gave you a percentage.

Nope, it's an either/or proposition. You'll need to buff yourself with drugs or magazines if you aren't good enough to pass them.

I prefer New Vegas' way of doing things, since it prevents me from quicksaving/quickloading until the dice roll my way. It's cheesy, but sometimes I can't stop myself. I also appreciate that they made the effort to write a failing and passing version the lines for each check.

Serengeti wrote:

My 2nd character has a luck of 10, and I played the slots in the casino in freeside for about 15 minutes, then hit the jackpot. 32,000 caps. I hit up the other casinos for a bit and have about 60,000 caps to my name right now. :-)

I have a luck of 1 my character never wins anything :-(. Anyone else notice that occaisionally you'll go to a trader and they'll have a ridiculous number of caps. Visited my old friends from Goodsprings and stopped by the General Store, the guy had over 9000 caps. Very strange.

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.

I'm coming around to this as well. I didn't have much interest after about hour 12 of FO3. NV, on the other hand, I'm at about 25 hours. The biggest issue for me right now is that the NPC AI is poorly scripted to boring sometimes. Before I started playing this I was playing Red Dead Redemption. I really miss random events happening around me and instantly taking action against them. I'll walk up to people arguing and I know there's a quest in there to solve things, but I just want to shoot them, RDR style.

I can't believe I forgot to post this here. I had an awesome moment in Ultra Luxe's basement the other day.

This was for the Beyond the Beef quest:

Spoiler:

So my evil character had just spoken to Mortimer in the Ultra Luxe about what to do about the young man who's father is a beef baron and is currently locked in a freezer in Ultra Luxe's basement. I suggested to Mortimer that I could easily kill the guy and frame his father. Mortimer agreed and told me to either convince the kid to stay quiet or kill him. My speech is 9, so I knew what was going to happen. So I go to the basement and tell the guard that I was taking care of business for Mortimer. I confront Ted Gunderson (the captive) in the freezer and tell him that I am going to kill him. So the dialog ends and I realize I have no weapons. I had forgotten to smuggle anything into the casino. Ted makes a bee line for the kitchen and grabs a knife off the counter. I follow him and do the same. So it's a one on one knife fight in an abandoned kitchen beneath a luxury casino.

Also, my melee was about 13.

After about a five minute fight in which I used probably 15 stimpacks, I beheaded the bastard. It was glorious.

Grubber788 wrote:

I can't believe I forgot to post this here. I had an awesome moment in Ultra Luxe's basement the other day.

This was for the Beyond the Beef quest:

That's much more appropriate than what I tried to do.

Spoiler:

At first I told him we were escaping. Then he made a bee line out the door and was murdered by the staff. Then I tried to trap the chef in the freezer since it's obvious you're supposed to do this. My character wasn't tricky enough with speech so I'll I could say was something like, "Hey...you should go check the freezer...yeah..." Then I just shot him in the face and didn't remember how to pick up objects.

When I presented the son to the group who were supposedly eating human, I showed the kid and killed Mortimer, but then couldn't get out the door. Sort of silly since I then had to go back through the basement where the guard turned hostile and I had to run to the next door before he killed the son.

Oh, I took my usual approach on that one and killed EVERYONE.