Fallout: New Vegas - Fall 2010

Manach wrote:
BlackSabre wrote:

Done. Completed. 100%. Every last damn achievement is done.

Lonesome road was actually fun. It was nice opening up a container and finding useful equipment instead of a bent tin can or a paper weight. Overall, I've really enjoyed Fallout New Vegas. It was a fun adventure. But I'm glad it's over. :D

As a new comer, how much time do you think I'll be in the game to complete it? (Complete = Done the main story once, maybe adventure in DLCs from time to time.)

Well steam has 158 hours clocked for my full 100% completion. If you just want the main story line, you could do it a lot quicker. For a good experience, you could get 50 hours and you'd cover the main plot and a bunch of the side quests.

As much as I'm done with this game, part of me wants to start a new character and just have some fun again. *sigh*

It is great to be back in the Wasteland. Right after finishing Skyrim, I jumped into New Vegas. I was kind of missing the Skyrim system until I had to run like hell from a giant radioscorpion and deathclaw that I could not even nick at point blank range...

No level 1 characters killing dragons er deathclaws in the future!

I have cleared out GoodSprings, Prim, Mojave Outpost, NCR Correctional facility, and Nipton. But I still am low enough level that I have to find a safe passage to New Vegas and can't just waltz right in. Good Times...

Speaking of wasteland, did you guys see the wasteland 2 kickstarter?

Infernarl wrote:

Speaking of wasteland, did you guys see the wasteland 2 kickstarter?

Yeah, thread is here.

I wanted to pop in with a quick note and mention that I've resumed progress on the third and final chapter of Tales from the Burning Sands. The urge to hit the GECK and script/write/create hit hard yesterday, and it's not showing any signs of slowing. I've made more progress in the last 48 hours on chapter three than I have in the past two months.

Here's a shot of the Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center, a location the player will need to visit in chapter three.

IMAGE(http://www.pucemoose.com/pics/sunrisesmall.jpg)

Puce Moose wrote:

Here's a shot of the Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center, a location the player will need to visit in chapter three.

It looks fantastic, Mister Moose. Great work, as always!

Puce Moose wrote:

Distilled Awesome

Time to re-install New Vegas!

Excellent news, Puce! I re-installed NV two weeks ago, and I'm really enjoying the 2nd chapter.

Thanks for the comments everyone. It's been fun digging back into the G.E.C.K. with a bit of the manic zealotry of my Mr. Crazy-Britches Fallout 3 days.

Speaking of which.. I uploaded a new mod tonight! It's one that I've worked on here and there over the past few weeks, to address my disgruntlement with the implementation of the Gun Runners' Arsenal DLC. Instead of the GRA content being available to only the player, and lazily slapped in the inventory of merchants, the shipments have been stolen and anyone may have stumbled across a piece of pilfered equipment.

IMAGE(http://www.pucemoose.com/pics/grabanner.png)

In Gun Runners' Arsenal: The Right to Bear Arms the content is (mostly) out of the shops, loses its exclusivity agreement with the player, and the expensive toys have to be pried from the cold, dead hands of others (or, possibly pick-pocketed/found rarely in containers). NPCs will use the majority of the weaponry, so you may have the opportunity to be blown up in new and exciting ways (or bear witness to some thoroughly confusing/amusing firefights).

There's also over 30 recipes to be found that will let you craft the GRA ammunition/grenade/mines, instead of it being magically tied to a new perk.

Gun Runners' Arsenal - The Right to Bear Arms

I just released my second side-project (out of two) which adds an alternative to the existing fast travel found in the game. If you're trying to play hardcore (with the added nip to the flank of not using fast travel), but find yourself succumbing to the urge to use it out of convenience, I've implemented an an alternative that you may find appealing.

IMAGE(http://www.pucemoose.com/pics/speedban.png)

  • Nine Speed-E Wheels stations in the Mojave
  • Each station must be repaired (using common materials) before it can be used. Once repaired, the player may travel to any other repaired Speed-E Wheel station.
  • Each station can be hacked, to activate an employee discount, and/or disable the strangely arousing jingle that plays when the player or an NPC wanders too close to an active Speed-E Wheels station.
  • The player may periodically earn FREE RIDE TOKENS that can be used for an obvious purpose. It's also possible the player may find them carried by others or sold in stores.
  • sponsored by the NCR

*EDIT*: Whoops, forgot the link. Click the cool dude on the bike to take you there if you're so inclined!

Haha, that's pretty awesome. Your mods will be the first I install when I do another replay.

Hmm. My rep with the NCR has suddenly gone from very high to neutral with no warning. I've been switching between non faction armour and NCR bandoleer armour while completing lots of NCR missions and killing lots of legion. Is this a known feature?

Yeah faction armor affects your rep, put it on and take it off and note the the change in rep while wearing it vs not wearing it.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

Yeah faction armor affects your rep, put it on and take it off and note the the change in rep while wearing it vs not wearing it.

Absolutely correct. I was thinking of the NCR armour as just faction armour and had forgotten it also acted as a disguise.

I understand that there is no option to continue playing after you complete the main quest line. So if I want to play any of the DLC with my current character will I need to keep a pre end game save to load from?

Yes.

It should automatically make a new save when you reach the point of no return, so you can load that.

If I remember right the game actually warns you when you are at the point of no return.

I don't remember either of those things happening on 360.

Just curious but which DLC is considered the "good" DLC again? I just fired FO:NV up again to finish off the DLC and I loved Dead Money. Tried to play Old World Blues and I want to put a weathered 10mm pistol against my temple after that god awful "will it just END already" intro.

OWB is generally considered the best. It's the one I enjoyed the most by a long margin.

I liked Honest Hearts the best with Dead Money being my least favorite. None of them were that great IMHO.

I only played HH and DM so far, but I'm the reverse of Rykin. The story in HH was bland, while the story (if not the mechanics) of Dead Money was far more interesting to me.

I bought and played them all and finished every last achievement. Old world blues was the only one I really enjoyed. The others were actually pretty crap and I would go as far as saying that Dead Money was irritating and just plane annoying. It introduces new ways to prevent you from doing what you want to do with a lovely radio frequency collar which explodes when you get close to radios and some crappy death fog which again kills you when you get close. The weapons/armour you get from it sucked too.

Stick with Old World Blues and skip the rest.

I liked OWB but I can sort of imagine a "person" who wouldn't like that kind of camp.

The DLCs are definitely polarizing based on a lot of comments I've seen. It seems to be a good indicator that they're all probably doing quite a few things both right and wrong.
Here's my personal ranking system from favorite to least favorite, with a few comments as to my thinking.

Favorite: Dead Money
If there's one thing that Fallout New Vegas lacked compared to Fallout 3, it was scary content. I *loved* the spooky horror vibe of the Dunwich building in Fallout 3, the creepy Lovecraft-y logs, and all of the trappings. Dead Money delivered a spooky atmosphere and dis-empowered the player, which always makes my toes curl with delight. If I feel like I could be brutally slaughtered at any second, weaker than anything around me, and only careful preparation, precaution, and a gentle caress from Lady Luck will see me through another fifteen minutes in a dangerous area then I'm a happy gamer. The whole 'blow up your head thing if you get too close to the radio things' made me utter a child-like squeal of delight, because I didn't think they would *do* it. I thought they would wuss out and merely penalize the player with a slap-on-the-wrist and a return to the playable area, but they didn't. Bam. Brain porridge, back to last save.

I also think Dead Money helped to mitigate another of New Vegas' ills; dull characters. I found the characters and dialog in Dead Money to be a lot more interesting than the majority of the characters in the main game. There were some pretty dog-gone interesting stories going on in the heads and lives of the people encountered in Dead Money.

Second Place (by the slightest of margins): Old World Blues

I loved Old World Blues because it gave me the impression that the developers were finally getting the opportunity to unleash the grey matter and go a little crazy. The setup was horrifying, yet wacky, and the details and characterization were fulfilling and interesting. It played like a love-letter to old Grade-B science fiction movies from the 1950's. I pictured a lot of excited meetings with wild ideas being tossed around, and lots of viewing of old sci-fi movies to garner ideas.
It lost a few points because of the mind-numbing respawn; thankfully that could be modded right out of there with a little careful application of some script surgery, so it wasn't a negative for long.

Third Place - Lonesome Road

This one exists in a strange place, largely because I get the impression that it was just a few changes/steps/breakthroughs from becoming something really special. It ended up being way too linear, and not all that satisfying, and kind of confusing. That said, it does have some neat stuff going for it:
The best-looking area design in all of New Vegas. Look around, and it's a wonder. A lack of floating static objects, thoughtful lighting, attention to detail, angles, clutter, use of space, history sweeps. Multi-leveled areas, far-off vistas, vertical incentives, thought applied to visual effects. Plus, the robot companion is a great deal of fun (if overpowered), and it was amusing seeing him develop and zap things.
On the other hand, the marked men were a neat idea, but ended up being sort of goofy in execution.
The tunnelers, though they were just a re-skinned trog from Fallout 3's The Pitt DLC (as were the spore carriers), were scary and I liked the way they looked.

Fourth Place - Honest Hearts

I've always found caves to be generally the most boring places to explore in Fallout 3/NV, and sadly, Honest Hearts is rife with them. It also featured a central conflict that I didn't much care about. The random White Legs spawns didn't help either.
It does have a few things that I liked:
* The Main Character you meet has some good lines, satisfying voice acting, and some cool idle animations. I also loved that new pistol. I would have loved to see his fate tied back into the main game for an interesting alternate resolution to the main plot, but I understand the reasons that wouldn't be easy to accomplish.
* The Survivalist's Caches/logs were awesome. That was my favorite part of the mod; finding those entries and imagining it as a bit of a darker, more potty-mouthed Z for Zarathustra alternate situation.
* It features a nod to a user-made mod if you have the Wacky Wasteland trait; that was a great surprise to find in the DLC.

Puce Moose wrote:

* It features a nod to a user-made mod if you have the Wacky Wasteland trait; that was a great surprise to find in the DLC.

I assume you mean Two bears high fiving?

BlackSabre wrote:
Puce Moose wrote:

* It features a nod to a user-made mod if you have the Wacky Wasteland trait; that was a great surprise to find in the DLC.

I assume you mean Two bears high fiving?

That's the one! I'd done my best to avoid any discussion on the DLC prior to its release, so it came as a great surprise.

I won't be so arrogant to assume that it was a nod to my mod in Lonesome Road, but I must admit I got a big grin from the Ralphie the Robot posters, considering I had a Ralphie the Robot in my first FO3 mod from a few years ago:
IMAGE(http://www.pucemoose.com/pics/rr1.jpg)

I was stuck without internet at home for 10 months so...

With Old World Blues and Lonesome Road (which I might wait for Steam Summer Sale...hoping), what level should I play them at?

I have 3 characters who have either completed the game or nearly so (I waited to complete with 2 of them, because for instance I wanted to make sure I got the achievement for going through on hungry/thirsty mode).

Anyway, assuming I do play these, I'll just grab a saved game of the appropriate level and wander in. So what level you think?

Just a warning not to rely on achievements to help keep track of how you are doing in game. I got the recruit all companions achievement and only found out much later that there were still two I hadn't even met yet.