Fallout: New Vegas - Page 8

I'm playing Hardcore Normal and can take out Cazadores with the Maria as long as they don't swarm me. If I'm fighting too many, I pull out a modded Hunting Shotgun and they ain't too much of a problem. Dunno what all the fuss is about, pardners.

FWIW, after completing The Moon Comes Over the Tower I found a conversation line glitch which allows you to continue to passing the speech check over and over.

Might be just my game as the Omeritas quest was severely glitched (quest options appeared and disappeared) and the Monorail Quest was glitched. Even though I defused the bomb, the game acted as if the monorail was destroyed.

Apparently, the upcoming "Dead Money" DLC will be raising the in-game level cap to Level 35:

http://www.ripten.com/2010/11/23/fal...make-you-rich/

Hopefully, there will be tougher enemies to deal with to make Level 35 something to strive for. I'm thinking Alpha Deathclaws everywhere, like at the Sloan Quarry. With you taking on 2-3 Alpha Deathclaws at a time.

My one gripe with the new system is that while there are going to be new perks included, you'll only get to pick two of them when you reach Level 35. They've done well with only allowing 15 perks; I know I can really only be effective in one or two combat skills before min/maxing starts making me weaker.

Everybody who plays this game and wants to have a capable character will have a high or maxed-out Speech skill, because it's so important for skill checks. You have to max out either Guns or Energy Weapons. You either max out Unarmed or Melee Weapons. Charisma is always going to be a dump-stat. But making it so people max out Guns AND Energy Weapons now is hardly a disaster, IMHO.

If you don't want an uber-character, than just take some of the non-combat-related perks, like "Terrifying Presence" and "Quantum Chemist." What would be totally hilarious is if the Level 34 perk was "Almost Perfect." That would drive all the so-called "old school" Fallout players completely insane.

Man, are you a sadist? Deathclaws are a nightmare when you're at level 30.

I'd settle for a recruitable Deathclaw companion/pet, like in Fallout 2.

I'll name him "Fluffy."

I demand a DLC involving the Burning Man.

Other than the glitches, the only real drawback is Obsidian's heavy handed "la-la-la-la-la Fallout 3 didn't happen la-la-la-la-la-la-la this is real one."

I hope this doesn't start some in game dis-battle between the two companies.

Yeah, my very first thought upon hearing the first DLC's title ("Dead Money") was "the Burning Man!", for some reason. But we might get that answered down the road (and maybe unlock the Grand Canyon/northwestern Arizona region, to boot).

That said, I think we're seeing a real vibe of classy congeniality between the two companies, seeing as how Bethesda has basically let Obsidian hog most of the media spotlight, in terms of collecting kudos for the game's success (like with the Developer Diaries).

It would've been extremely easy for Bethesda to simply take custody of the finished game, say "sayonara," and then done all of the promotional work themselves, but they've pretty much let the old Black Isle crew come out on stage for a bow, since it was originally their baby in the first place.

Looking at it another way, when you think about it, it would've been rather difficult to acknowledge the events of Fallout 3 in the new game in a more substantial fashion, considering the fractured state of communications on the continent after the war.

Rapid transportation is at an absolute premium, and the game itself is set only a couple of years after Bethesda's entry -- at best, radio chatter and a few other things (like returning Brotherhood Outcasts) might've gotten word out back west by this point in the timeline, but not much else could reasonably be expected in the way of outright nods to its predecessor, I think.

(Although part of me WAS secretly hoping to run into some utterly-improbable "TUNNEL SNAKES RULE!!" graffiti in some New Vegas sewer somewhere...)

The New Vegas takes pains to connect the first two Fallout games to it and not Fallout 3. Fallout 3 has the Enclave firmly reestablished in the Capital Wasteland about 30 years after Fallout 2. So while it's only 3 years since the destruction, the Enclave has owned a major part of the East Coast for decades. So it wouldn't have been impossible to include some references to FO3. Given the ties to the earlier games, you'd expect a little more references to FO3.

Nerd fanfic aside, the game's ante-upping in terms of perks, difficulty, stats and weapons show that they wanted this to be distinct from FO3. Almost saying that FO3 was not the true sequel.

Absolutely, being a major Fallout 3 fan myself, I would've loved more references to it in this game, but what I was saying about spotty communications still holds true, I think. The NCR has been situated on the east coast for maybe 50 years by this point, and is just now starting to push into the Rockies past the Colorado River, but they haven't exactly done a great job with making friends with others who might've had advanced-enough tech to pin down news from other areas of North America (like the Brotherhood).

If there was any real contact to be made out east, it likely would've been through the Brotherhood, which itself is now almost nonexistent in the regions where New Vegas is set. At one point, Veronica mentions the D.C. Wasteland schism between Elder Lyons and the Outcasts, but again, given all the nasty shit lying between the west coast and the east (i.e., Caesar), there's probably very little other hard intel the bunker Paladins have received up to now, I'd imagine. Most travel on the continent takes place on foot, not air transit, which would further slow things down quite a bit.

The Enclave itself plays only a very small role in the overall New Vegas storyline (Arcade's personal quest, the final Dam battle, and ED-E's revealed history), since they were pretty much wiped out/absorbed into the NCR decades earlier, with Caesar's Legion now between their old territories and the Capital Wasteland. The eastern Enclave faction thrived for years on its own after this split, no question there, but they were also more or less cut off from most means of communication with the west. But by 2277, when the events of Fallout 3 occurred, they were largely on their own by that point.

Yet, since playing this new game, I've been curious as to what would've happened if the Enclave and the Legion had ever met at some point in the Midwest...that's one outcome I'd love to see.


My personal take on the differences between the two games' difficulty and stat-building is simply that Bethesda (and by extension, Obsidian) listened to gamers' complaints about the sometimes-aggressive overlevelling that one could do in Fallout 3, and toughened things up a bit. More akin to the first two games for sure, but it also made things much more realistic this time around.

I don't get the sense that there's any real one-upsmanship going on behind the scenes, here -- besides, anything Obsidian did differently would need to be approved by Bethesda. In interviews, the old Black Isle team have mentioned that much of what's in New Vegas right now, content-wise, is stuff that's accumulated in their "what-if?" file for years, and that they've finally gotten the chance to realize onscreen.

For sure, there's some definite continuation of the first two Fallouts going on, but I think this is due more to geographic setting and location than any deliberate attempt to bury Bethesda's work in the dirt. It's certainly the Fallout game they've been itching to make for the better part of a decade now, at the very least.

Speaking of ED-E and the Enclave, I love that all that the Enclave engineers could manage to give ED-E for his supposedly "epic" battle-theme was basically a shitty cell-phone ringtone.

Every time it goes off, I laugh my ass off.

Still 30 years is long enough time for news, events, people to travel back and forth. What I'm saying is if they wanted to put references in regarding Fallout 3, they could have.

As for this:

I guess we have to agree to disagree, as this would be my argument of Black Isle basically wanting people to forget Fallout 3. They used their Fallout 3 template and ideas, continued from the first two stories and had been wanting to make it for decades, especially after having the property sold out from under them.

Regarding the time-lag, I was actually referring to the three years between Fallout 3 and New Vegas there, rather than the 36 years between Fallout 2 and 3 -- you'd be correct about the latter, but I was talking more about the former, and news coming from the east coast to the west in such a short span of time.

As for fewer Fallout 3 references in the game, it's clearly something that Bethesda was behind right from the very beginning, and could've vetoed, had they felt like it. Also, this joint interview sums up both J.E. Sawyer and Chris Avellone's feelings on Bethesda's last entry in the series pretty well, I think.

Don't get me wrong -- I'm with you in wishing there'd been still more nods, but it's pretty clear that Bethesda's belief in standalone, new-gamer-friendly sequels and Obsidian's desire to do another western-U.S.-based Fallout intersected along the way, which resulted in fewer crossovers than some of us would've preferred.

Again I'd site the interview of them as wanting to pretend Fallout 3 didn't happen. They can't come right out and say "fuck that game," but reading between the lines, they are polite but don't give high praise to the game. That's PR speak for "fuck that game."

Oh my god, that's what that sound is. I couldn't figure out what was going on and it only seems to happen when I'm gutted by a Deathclaw.

Im on my way to level 28 (and my current story quest is House Always Wins I), and ive completed a LOT of sidequest, yet I still havent been able to find my favorite weapon, the Gauss Rifle.
Guess I'll bet waiting for the DLC and patch to finish the game...fully inteding with siding with the NCR.

Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm just not seeing how you're reading all of this into this particular situation -- Josh Sawyer dumped close to 100 hours into Fallout 3 during his first playthrough (plus the expansions), which you probably wouldn't do if you couldn't even stand the thing. There was a piece that ran on Kotaku or someplace back in late October where Avellone flat-out called FO3 one of the best RPGs he's ever played.

I've yet to see a single interview where any of the Obsidian staff express anything but due, sincere respect for the game, much less badmouth it. True, the new game is set in a completely different area/environment from Fallout 3, but that's largely because they've been wanting to make a new Fallout game set there for almost a decade now, not because they "hate" the Capital Wasteland or something.

And they've been completely, outspokenly frank about wanting to make certain changes to FO3's combat/levelling system, which Bethesda let them do. They've been plenty up-front and blunt about what they didn't like up to this point. Even factoring in collateral PR-speak, I think that if there was anything else they disliked about the last game, we'd have heard about it by now.


Just kill Paladin Ramos down in the Brotherhood Bunker (assuming House hasn't had you self-destruct it yet) -- he's carrying one around on his back.

ETA: If you're planning on siding with the NCR at the very end, you're not allowed to complete both the "For The Republic!" AND the "House Always Wins" achievements during the same playthrough -- at some point, you'll be forced to choose one side over the other.

It's not worth fully explaining the facts you've been citing help demonstrate that they treat NV as the third entry and try to cut FO3, you're got your view and despite the evidence suggesting the contrary, you are sticking to it.

What "evidence" are you citing, here? Magical clairvoyance into the secret inner minds of the devs?

Where have they made any indication that they loathe Fallout 3 in the press? Seriously -- I'm not getting this. If anything, New Vegas is "Van Buren 2.0," not something else like what you're suggesting.

This whole conspiracy theory you're advancing is mystifying.

Game has become a jarring scarefest after picking up Boone. Too often I find myself walking down the road peacefully listening to the radio and get freaked out when a loud gunshot and quick cut to unseen bug murdered...I think I'm going to head back to that town south of Novak and kill the fuck out of those legion guys.

Do you possess any cognitive ability to read beyond text? Like I've said a billion times, it's more about actions than words.

The only time that I mention that the devs "hated" the game was an interview you cited as the devs praise of the game, which was at best lukewarm praise.

My theory is that the devs treat this a the "real" Fallout 3 and virtually ignore the Capital Wasteland, between storyline and game design.

But like I said before, you'd rather take PR statements and marketing interviews over the actions and end results, so I might as well be explaining this to my one-year old daughter.

I've seen people get butthurt over even more trivial things, but it's a close race.

Personal attacks notwithstanding, what the hell are you even driving at, here? Do you even realize how thorazine-shuffle fucking cuckoo what you're saying all sounds?

I ask you again:

Proof. Where is your proof?

I've posted links to direct interview quotes, where the Obsidian devs praise the last game in no uncertain, glowing terms. You're just posting unsourced, ethereal, in-your-head, tinfoil-hat conspiracy theories (which, by the way, is the exact word you used to describe your beliefs, as opposed to direct evidence).

What "actions" have the Obsidian devs taken to "destroy" the legacy and reputation of Fallout 3, beyond setting it on the other side of the country -- which, before you say anything, you're reading WAY too much into?

I mean, seriously, man -- you seem to be the only person on the entire planet who simply can't take a game developer at their honest word on this particular subject, or who even thinks this so-called "plot" actually exists.

I'm not very far at all, and I'm already coming across invisible enemies. Walked into the hotel in Primm and had an invisible guy start clubbing me with a tire iron. I go into VATS, and the whole this locks up. Not far away, at the highway patrol office, an invisible mantis is zipping around somewhere, suddenly materializes at my feet and immediately dies. I hope I haven't triggered some bug where this shit keeps happening.

Yes and Jonathan Swift really wanted people to each the babies.

As I keep saying, you've demonstrated that don't seem to be able(or willing) to grasp subtext and look beyond the developer statements so it's sort of pointless to keep debating it.

Oh, I can read just fine, thank you very much. I somehow made it through kindergarten, and have a law degree.

Thing is, it's you who keeps reading completely weird shit into things that don't even exist. I already made my arguments. You can re-read them at your pleasure up above, because I don't feel like dragging this out any further. I seriously doubt whether the sun has enough fuel to outlive this 'round-and-'round bickering.

Congrats, so do I.

You cite to what the devs said, which by the way as a lawyer you should know have the potential to be biased statements (ie of course a dev has a self-interested in not bashing the company signing the checks). You'd figure somewhere in your legal education and career you would have picked that up. Even the dev interview you posted mentions the plot of Fallout 3 to be only"interesting". Not, "great" or "innovative" or a different positive adjective, but a vaguely neutral one like "interesting".

You also cited to the timeline saying it was too short. When I pointed out that your time line was inaccurate you shifted to a short period of time, which ignores the fact that the timeline isn't a factor.

Meanwhile, I cite to the ACTUAL game. I cite to decisions for the game to heavily reference the first two games and instead of building off of the highly successful and fresh game, the devs decided to pull out the notes for what was to be the third entry in the series. I cite to a plot that put the main story into the background just like the first two entries. And I cite to other decisions, which lend credence to the idea that they really wanted to focus from Fallout 3.

Here is a movie example: Goldeneye.

The film starts with a flashback (rare if not unique for a Bond film at the time). The flashback was to Pierce Brosnan running around as Bond in the mid-80s. Why the mid-80s? Well storyline and all, but there is the thought that it was a subtle erasing of the Dalton era. An almost Connery-Moore-Brosnan line of succession. That the producers believed that the Dalton era was a betrayal of Bond and that this was a rebooting of the mistake. Maybe there is an interview saying it, maybe there is not, but it is something supported by the evidence on the screen and some deductive reasoning.

Yes, this is reading into the game, but this is what a user is asked to do with every piece of media whether it a film, an album or a novel. Should we not try to decipher a 18th century novel because the author is dead? Can we make sure that Scorsese writes down the meaning of his films otherwise we'll never be able to appreciate the messages?

Say what? The crux of your entire argument here is that the Obsidian devs are, at best, lukewarm to Fallout 3.

You really need to read the appropriate interview-sections again:

Maybe my reading skills are lacking here, but could maybe point out to me where the "damning-with-faint-praise" threshold kicks in? Because I'm kinda not seeing it. To wit, the only "interesting" I'm coming across in that entire passage is attached to Sawyer's description of a particular story-design mechanic.

How are you possibly able to spin or perceive this any other way? Seriously, and no offense meant, but this is damn mystifying, fella. "A rose is a rose is a rose." Maybe things are actually precisely what they appear to be, every once in awhile. Just sayin'.

Again, you don't play the game for one hundred hours -- plus expansions, no less -- if you either outright hate, or are indifferent to, the game in question.


Re-read the posts again. You were discussing the timeline between Fallout 2 and Fallout 3 (36 years). From the outset, I was referring to the timespan between Fallout 3 and New Vegas (three or four years).


Did you not catch the rather lengthy compendia of reasons I posted surrounding why such references would not truly be appropriate for New Vegas (and even justifiable), given the timeline and its setting?

They're all up there; I don't feel like bullet-pointing them all over again.


This is quickly drifting into the realm of hermeneutics, which is inconclusive at best, and downright inflammatory at worst. It all comes down to the individual's take on the material and their "beliefs," rather than hard evidence.

I don't deny what you're saying about meta-analysis of a text or a film or a game in principle, but it ends up becoming a no-win scenario for everybody pretty damn fast.

I know, man...I know. My wife thinks I'm a total prat right now for even getting into this.

She's lying right next to me in bed

Threatening to smash the laptop over my head.

(...sorry, don't have a third verse I can use, here.)

Finally came around and picked up a used copy on the cheap. Is it worth starting up now or is there some patching on the horizon? I don't want to perma-gimp a 60 hour game by hitting a major bug.

It's been patched again very recently (past few days) but I haven't had a chane to give it a spin. Despite ~80 hours of gameplay I didn't encounter anything GAMEBREAKING, although I had 12-15 freezes in that time frame. Also, in my two seperate playthroughs one of my companions became completely passive in each one (different companion each time). Unsure whether the recent patch fixed this. I wouldn't hesitate due to bugs though, just save often in a few different slots and you'll be ok

wow.......just what.....huh. Priorities man, priorities.

Hahaha, the lawyer card. Most lawyers I know would have trouble making it through kindergarten.

And if you have trouble with basic subtext, your law degree is useless anyway. Are you constantly agreeing with opposing counsel?

As for your other arguments, mine speak for themselves, except one.

Saying that you don't play a game for 100 hours seems to discount the attachment these guy have to Fallout. If I created two well received but relatively unknown games, while creating a third entry and then some company bought the property made their own game that came out to critical and financial success, I'd play the shit out of it to figure out what made it tick. I'd want to know if they held true to premise and maybe even try to break it. And I'd definitely would play the game especially if I had the opportunity to create my own using the same engine. Maybe hoping to make an even better version. I'm a weird neurotic like that, but video game devs have never been know to be slightly off neurotics working 16 hour days, 7 days a week.

As for the meta-analysis, it's interesting that you bring it up now. Because if you look back at my posts, I said the same thing about 100 times (even saying agree to disagree) until you dug your heels in the sand and decided that I had to be some sort of tin-foil hat conspiracy theorist for drawing the conclusion that these guys wanted New Vegas to be a true sequel to Fallout 2 and having the temerity to suggest that Black Isle wanted to make their own Fallout 3. But of course, you are the insecure type of guy who needs to be right and throws around the law school card like it's sign of intelligence, so I'm not too shocked.

But of course this is a silly fight, it's an internet message board.

[Entire previous post redacted/pulled by poster, on the grounds that he agrees that this is getting way too unimportant and time-consuming.]

HAHA trev that is the best collection of comics, bought a copy awhile back

and Leto II....noone cares. quit being a douche. majority of us arent lawyers. and dont care for them either.

Any news on the level 30-35 perks? I must have me some more New Vegas! And I'm waiting for this DLC and the soon to be released patch (360) before I start up a new Hardcore game focusing on punching my enemies spleen's out.

Still waiting on news for the perks (and achievements). Now maybe I can get the chance to also max out...bartender skills. Or something. Start mixing up Cosmos at the campfires.

Was playing this the other day, and walked into Mick & Ralph's, over in Freeside. Having completely forgotten about talking to Ralph again a week or three earlier after helping him with the Omertas, I received the "Pimp-Boy 3 Billion" from him, replacing my old model Pip-Boy.

What I love about that is if you look at it in the sunlight it's so bright you can't really look at it. Blingbling indeed.

Just so everyone knows, Jcassady and I have been talking things over via PM, and I offered an apology to him, which he very graciously accepted. We both realized that life's simply too damn short for stuff like what happened in this thread, and I wanted to reiterate to everyone here that I respect him substantially as a poster on these forums.

Stuff kinda went a little crazy, before either one of us even knew what was happening. He's plenty cool in my book.

At any rate, we also both agreed that any time spent in here, good or bad, takes away from gaming, which is the only thing that matters at the end of the day. (Besides animal-husbandry porn, obviously.)

After 40 plus hours of glorious companionship I very reluctantly gave up ED-E to the Brotherhood, didn't think I'd miss the little fella so much.

Also didn't realise how useful his perception perk is, since he's been gone I've been stumbling right into enemies without realising they were right in front of me, I'd become very used to being a sniper and picking them off from afar.

You know you can get him back, right? Why didn't you give him to the Followers?

Yeah, they said they would but it hasn't happened yet. Can't wait to get him and his shitty mobile ringtone battle cry back.

I didn't fancy giving him to the Followers, and I was already at Hidden Valley when I got that option and I couldn't be bothered going back to Freeside. Does giving him to the Followers give you a better reward?

If you give him to the Brotherhood, he comes back with upgraded armor.

If you choose the Followers, his laser gets upgraded.

Bleeding-heart liberal that I am, I turned ED-E over to the Followers...but then again, I'd already wiped out the Brotherhood on Colonel Moore's orders, so I guess I really didn't have a choice, there.

It was a major bitch to have to march all the way back to Primm just to pick him up again, though.

It looks great and all, but it doesn't even feel like the same game. I'm guardedly intrigued.