LadyCrimson

::sadpanda::

The males in my family have history of heart disease and my twin cousins have to be very careful. Sometimes genetics kinda sucks. Getting older too. I find the video game diet works wonders, and it's a lot more fun than eating carrots. But yeah, I've done that...carrots, yogurt, fruit. Sigh. Last night I indulged in a fast food burger, which I haven't had in a long time. My mouth nearly exploded from all the grease and stuff. Tasty tho.

I just looked at the age/sex and photo threads at the Beth forums. It didn't surprise me or anything, yet of course, still.... ....I now feel very old. Like, magical tree in the elven forest old. Time for my nap.

@Walsh my own bad upper back is a frequent cause of mild head and neck aches. I don't get truly bad ones very often but still annoying. Couches are often too "cushy" to be comfortable sitting for long for that reason so I have to be reclined/lying down on those. Bah. Hope your issues can get better.

Yay, Beth forums are up. They look...flatter. Don't like the font. Otherwise not much different. As long as I can read and post. Yak yak yak. (you'll have to excuse me, I haven't slept). Oh yeah...I forgot about those really really long load times on console for some people. In that case, such quests would annoy the heck out of me for technical reasons. Yar.

Yea, that's what happens to me too. I think "I don't want to go back there right now" so I don't, but then some other quest I do want to do takes me back or near there so I figure why not.

Sometimes it's really hard to find even an instrumental track for a video that isn't on YouTube's immediate no-no list. If my second choice is on their list I'll scream and give up and go back to making straight up no-backtrack game videos. Recompressing/reuploading is no fun. I'm all for protecting music but man, you can't even use a sample, practically, of something in a YT video anymore. Humbug!

I suppose all my years of playing games like Diablo has inured me to the concept of fetch quests. I generally don't care if they exist. It's true that if they're all very very simple ones ("get me 10 bear skins!" ala WoW) I'll find it exasperating after a while, but I guess I find most of the quests in NV to be at least better than that, so I don't care. I know a lot of them are in the vein of "Kill so and so" or "get info from..." or "find 5 entertainers" but the fact there are usually dialogue options for different ways of solving/doing them makes it less of 'fetch' to me. I mean, how else are you going to design/initially set up a quest but to tell someone to go somewhere to do something, whether it's finding an item or talking to an npc or pulling a switch? It's what's within it/where it may lead to that's more important, imo. The end of the debated quest is interesting, thus to me it's not really a fetch quest, it's a "npc history/motivation quest." I have more antipathy against being forced to run through multiple loading screens in order to get to a merchant or area, that you need to go to multiple times, ala Camp McCarran or The Strip.

Another topic: I've read a lot about how companions will sometimes pick up all these weapons from the dead and such, but I've NEVER had that happen to me. Until last night. Was ambushed by several bandits AND one of those special legion parties that show up randomly once you're vilified, and while being swarmed, Boone scooped up a 10mm machine gun, shot it for 10 rounds, shouted it was empty, and reverted back to his default rifle. I'm guessing I usually equip any companions I have with something other than their default weapon, so quickly, that they don't think most things are worth picking up. That and they're usually at a distance, too far away to 'want' to rush over to pick up something. But this time I left Boone with his default rifle....

No. In real life I think berets mostly look stupid on people. I'll stick to getting him a RedSox uniform.... (edit:no offense to ppl who like berets...I mean military berets, too, not the cutesy knit caps some ppl call berets) Agreed. I think most of the quests (even some of the 'fetch' ones) are done well enough and are non-annoying. There's always going to be a few for every player that they don't like...I don't understand why people get upset over a few quests that they think are 'tedious.' With all the quests in the game, do you expect all quests to fit your personal tastes/reasoning? There's plenty of other quests related to those areas/camps, no one forces you to do the ones you find dull. (edit:except the main quest, in theory, you 'must do'...but then again, no you don't...only if you care about playing the very end game bits)

To be honest, I think I spend more time recording/editing combat videos than actually playing in any sensible fashion, lately. But yeah...kinda makes up for most of the last several games I've bought, which all ended up essentially shelved in a few days. Two Worlds1 I played for almost 3 weeks I think...which until NV was the longest time spent on a game at once in 3 years. NV has renewed my game-time obession, at least for a while. I remember when almost all new games did that to me. *memories*

His name always makes me think of Ludlum. The Boone Identity The Boone Supremacy The Boone Ultimatum I only had three, and the 3rd was on Raul. Poor Arcade. I've grown quite fond of him in an exasperated-sibling kind of way tho... @Cant - yeah, I made a new chr. last night. A no-combat one that's purposely built for multiple companions and Ferocious Loyalty. High END (to survive half-health for FL at times), max CHA, low everything else (includ. 5 INT to get Arcade early via Ant Nectar) and focus on repair/barter/speech/lockpick. No combat/damage/vats perks. Only time I fire a shot is to attract attention once in a while, but mostly I use the followers 'caution' reaction to trigger fights. So far it's been interesting. Multiple followers means it's not hard, but it is interesting/fun! (ps...getting Arcade at lvl2 is a bit too much, tho, with his high dmg. energy pistol. He outspeeds/outkills Boone if you go back to the early areas once you grab him. So I made him Wait for a while. heh)

Apparently, on the PC, if you remove all his inventory stuff (or you'll lose it), then use the console command 'resurrect' on Boone, he'll revert to his original equipment state, thus removing his 'quest armor' and making him a paper doll again. Yay. And as a bonus, you've duplicated his beret!* LOL *not that pc users couldn't dump lots of berets into the game via GECK...but still funny. hehe. Also, I assume it'd work to reset all companions default gear.

Heheh...I still haven't remade a chr. w/10 CHA so I can have all of them. I need to do that just for that area, it would be wicked fun I'm sure. But in general, is going with 6 still working well for you? I continue to have issues anywhere w/self-closing doors because of the way they follow single-file, altho granted such places are rare. The third one always gets stuck behind the door....and out in the open, three has been more than enough for tankage. So far my preference is to stick with just 2, only both of them human...no ED-E/Rex.

Yeah, across the river. No map marker. If you have multiple human companions to tank for you it can be total chaos! But you can also do the usual sniping/can't touch me business. It's also the spot that

The NCR are the closest analogy (?) to a pre-war US government....perhaps a little bias going on there. (edit:the writers I mean, not the forum...) This. There should have been an early way to 'get into' the Legion if the player wants, and that point would have been perfect. The deathclaw promontory has become my favorite place. Going in alone, going in with legit # of companions, going in with 3 or 4 companions. Sniping, sneaking, or charging in head first, whatever. It all = awesome fun. Too bad they don't respawn, forcing me to reload a couple saves over and over. Deathclaw fights are also the most fun thing to take screenshots of. *happysmile*

On Twitter: Me: I always feel bad killing Robobrain/you. But it doesn't stop me. Thanks for the fun. (twitpic of me shooting Robobrain) Wil Wheaton: Hey, it's the apocalypse; I kill Robobrain/me every chance I get. In his defense, though, he usually apologizes.

Love and Hate! .....I still find melee boring.

I used to feel the similar re:voices vs. written dialogue...clickity clickity. But when I turned subtitles off I found I enjoyed listening to the npc's a lot more because there's no text to automatically draw my eye away from the voice. You can still click through them if you want (and sometimes I do, especially when you already know what they're going to say) but for the long npc 'speeches' at least, it really helped with immersion to listen vs. read quickly and click away. Edit: 'nother topic...some ppl tested and Ferocious Loyalty appears to give companions a fairly big boost to their DR (not DT), as they were able to take a lot more hits from deathclaws before falling. Like, 12-15 vs. 2-4. This means if you dont mind keeping your health at 49% or lower all the time, you have constant super-buff companions. Awesome! And I thought FL was useless...

Condolences, Architect. ...this evening, I learned it's fun when you go out to grab some munchies and come home to discover neither of you brought house keys. Being winter, no doors/windows left open. Spent time trying to jury rig the doorlock but despite what the movies try to convince you of, it's not always easy to do. Also, I left my supply of bobby pins in my computer. Good thing the house came with a boarded up pet-door in the garage door. Couple big kicks, one husband's long arm reach later...now to stand in front of the wall heater to warm up. Brr. LOL

LOL....I noticed that very quickly as well. And yes it is a bit distracting. I guess I just ignore it now.

Yeah, the dialogue is a weak point in many things. For me it's definitely not the voice acting (well, in most cases, heh), but the almost see-spot-run simplicity of the dialogue options. I don't expect truly complex trees or long-winded dialogues in today's short-attention span theater but it is very abrupt at times. ...now the companion DT debate is back to being a percentage concept. I guess no one truly knows this stuff yet. I think the percentage base would make a lot more sense, but I can't figure out a way to test it, since the perk to see HP and DT doesn't seem to work for me. I think that's what other people are using to check.

Actually, if you listen to Vulpes whole spiel in Nipton, he makes it quite clear what their rationale is....justice and morality and various other such notions. The voice actor for Vulpes could almost convince me to join up, but then I remember myself. He's supposed to be your intro into what their actual motivations are, and they let you decide whether you think their ends justify their means - or that you can at least live with it. Crucifying and slavery etc. is part and parcel of the CL, and if you don't agree with that kind of law&punishment/work&social model, even if you agree with some of their ideals, they're still likely going to come off as being very "evil." Showing CL playing with their children at home or a quest to romantically link two CL youth are not going to make those ugly things about them go away. May as well put it in the forefront and thus make a possibly difficult role-playing decision for the player to choose to go in that direction from the outset.

I think the CL disparity makes sense, actually. It's not unlikely to have at least one group that's not popular with the majority of a local population during a period of upcoming war, and therefore would be harder to join/have many social repercussions from joining and all of that. I like to think it's by design...that in joining them it's a greater challenge to get around in the world, as well as having less options (eg quests/towns/companions). Not that this has made me any more interested in playing for their side, heh. Re:companion DT...I had read/thought that charisma gave them a percentage bonus to their DT. Example, 10 would give them 50% bonus so if they had on 20DT armor that'd be 30DT. But someone else said this was wrong and it's actually a straight number bonus per charisma point, five to be exact. If so this would maybe explain why I find them so not-fragile? So many forgo charisma for other stats but I tend to have at least 7 charisma and that would give them 35DT on top of whatever armor I give them. That's a lot. Still no good against deathclaws, but yeah, a lot. Have 10chrs. and they'd have 70DT with just reinforced combat armor. Tanks. No wonder 90% of things don't do more than a few pts. of dmg per hit, when I check them. I think the max the player chr. could achieve (power armor+perks+maybe some aids?) is 46 or 47...not sure on that, but mine's never even close to that high anyway.

I need to find better things to do than surf the internet while waiting for huge videos to compress, because it makes me want to eat. And I've lost 8 pounds and hope to lose a little more, so I really don't want to do that. ...if it was summer I could work in the yard, or take some photos, but it's still soggy, plus cold & dreary out there. I could take up the cowbell...it might go well with the door-squeaking parrot the neighbors have.