LadyCrimson

I've definitely found it ridiculous to think that the NCR, or bar/store owners or whatever, who keep telling me how awesome I am, would mind if I took some soda's out of their vending machine. It's a vending machine. Sure, maybe if I broke into a high level security room and stole their tools and parts, but hey, I'm a buddy, it's hot out there, and I'm thirsty.

I'm with Enoch. This average joe uses good butcher/larger knives but cheap everything else. It works just fine. Heck sometimes if others are dirty, I use steak knives to slice carrots. Hubby doesn't know how I can do that effectively ... it's all in the wrist. haha I like the idea of wood cutting boards but everyone I've had wouldn't hold up in the dishwasher or in giant buckets of bleach-water. So I prefer plastic now because I'm (overly) paranoid of nicks in the surfaces & germs. In fact I have three cutting boards ... one only for raw meat, one for vegies/breads only, and the third for actually slicing a cooked roast or whatnot.

This is not related to yoomazir's problem above, since Pushy's a lone item, but I finally figured out that sometimes when I think something has disappeared from my inventory, it's because the game has stacked the items but has failed to put the number in parenthesis to indicate it, like it's supposed to. But if I click on what looks like a single item, it'll still split into two (into a container, or companion inventory) again.

I guess I'm the only one who thought Benny's lines/voice was great....for comedy. Benny's an idiotic sleezeball, the voice was perfect for it, imo. I figured he's supposed to sound a bit wonky, vs. an actual 'wise guy' type. How seriously can you take ring-a-ding-ding and "I hear dig from you, baby, and all I can think of is a shovel,"...to me it sounded like an absurd version of Bogart.

What I'm wondering is if I kill Caesar will there still be a showdown at the Dam? I guess the Legions soldier on without him? Or maybe there's other plots in there I'm ignorant of/forgotten already. Heh. Maybe. I had considered an entire thread of Dear Diary, a concept loose story let's play or something, but figured I'd never be able to maintain it. Game too big. lol

The "problem" with these types of games, imo, is the difficulty is often dictated by what you do within the game. If you do every quest you encounter, pick up/sell everything, play caravan/gamble until you're rich, use companions all the time, etc, it's definitely not a hard game beyond the first 5-7 levels or so. But if you don't use companions/explore than you feel like you're missing half the game or whatnot. Always a conundrum. I'd suggest Very Hard, don't play caravan, and no human companions - or at most, hire them then leave them in a room for the entire game on 'wait' (you still keep their perk). In terms of time...most of mine is spent exploring. Walkwalkwalkwalkwalk......I think I'm finally getting close to having seen the whole above-ground map w/1character. (edit) I would like it more if I didn't feel like I leveled up so fast, too.

Finally dealt with Benny and all heck breaks loose as far as possible quest directions to go in. lol I definitely don't like the Vegas/Freeside stuff as much as the open land/small town stuff (except that Black Widow thing, that was funny). But I guess it's time to let Boone wreak havoc on Caesar.

Turning the mouse turns the bobby pin. Then the W key to check if it'll turn. I find the trick is to not press the W key for a long time because that increases strain/breakage of the pin. Just tap the key long enough to see if the lock is going to turn at all. If it 'feels' loose/turns then press it slightly longer each time while moving the pin in small increments.

Source, please? (Edit: NVM, I found it on the Beth forums) And I was wrong, he doesn't prefer This Machine, he keeps switching back and forth like it's either bugged, or sometimes he wants 8 bullets instead of 5...and I doubt the latter.

Well apparently between having talking to Contreras during the start of "I Put A Spell On You" (causes a note-quest option not to appear) PLUS having Carrie Boyd bugged out/stuck in that room means I can't get This Machine without taking a big hit to NCR rep. AND taking advantage of yet another bug (killing Keller right off gives me the option to tell the weapons guy that I talked Keller into leaving him alone). Boone seems to like This Machine better than the regular Sniper Rifle but I'm not sure it's worth all the buggy trouble since I'm trying to be good "for" the NCR. I suppose there's enough stuff to make up for the rep. hit but bah humbug! lol

That right there is how I feel about it all, as well. My 1st chr became unstable enough to crash so often it was terrible but my 2nd chr, for whatever mysterious reasons, has been much more stable in terms of crashes so I'm good in that area. Everything else is sometimes a bit annoying, but nothing that bothers me enough to make me think 'omg this sucks.' I've never meant a perfect game and I don't think I ever will. The gameplay in NV is awesome and that's what I keep diving in for. Something I've been finding amusing is how doing things out of order produces funny situations with dialogues that are obviously meant to have been read after you've done other things. Doesn't break anything, it's just funny for a chr. to tell me I've done something that I haven't etc.

I was thinking...I don't know if this is actually a bug or if it was intended, but I noticed that all my weapon hotkeys are reset every time gear is taken/given back. I find this very annoying. Maybe someone can make a little fix for that?....

My understanding from reading around is that if you put the extra cards in a container and then take them out again, they'll get properly put into your 'deck'/disappear from inventory like they should...and if you don't do that (still in your inventory), they won't appear for use in the card game. I think that actually is a bug. But I haven't tested any of it since I don't play.

Love is when you're too tired to buy/restock your mt. dew before you crash into bed early and then waking up to discover your spouse went out after you went to bed and bought some for you.

Maybe Lucky's gun is just....Lucky? Oh hahaha....I know, I know...

I'm not sure I ever learned to cook, exactly. I'm no chef for certain. I liked cooking breads as a kid for Xmas, but that was about it until I left the parents, moved in with my boyfriend, and started trying out recipe here and there. From that I learned the basics of general temps for general cooking concepts & other things. Beyond that I usually wing it. For instance, I started with a basic tomato base noodle sauce, decided I preferred tomato paste over tomato sauce, and just toss everything I like into it until I figure out what tasted best. Same with stir-frying. I like beef, so I sliced it up really thin and started playing with sauces, spices, vegies, etc. I decided that cookie recipe needed another half egg, more vanilla, and more chips. To me cooking is either about following known recipes exactly, or about lots of experimentation to make up your own recipes/versions of other people's recipes to suit your personal tastes. I think most of my stuff never comes out quite the same each time because I don't actually follow a recipe. I just go "garlic" or 'needs a little more pepper' and start tossing it in.

I did notice two handed melee weapons were pretty slow to swing, and I did notice the slow down between having a weapon drawn and not having one drawn at all, but not so much between different weapons drawn. Hm. I'll have to pay more attention.

That 'bug fix' feels more like a 'what I don't like about the game' fix, which are two different things. I saw one 'fix' in there that made the sheriff & his wife's dead bodies disappear in Primm because they didn't like that they remained. Sometimes users can solve tech issues but that file doesn't seem to be only about that, thus I don't want it. I'll wait for more official patches.

Oh yeah...also, VATS means I can't pause the game to get a nice monster screenie w/out numbers & squares all over it. I've resorted to rela time & grabbing video frames. I didn't realize armor slows you down, either. Is it only the power suits? I'm wearing combat armor (DT15 I think?) and I don't feel any slower. Maybe it's not enough for me to really notice tho.

I guess there is a point to the issue that the character runs slow. You can speed it up in the editor but...I don't play enough shooters to be always-used to how fast chr. movement/strafing should be. FONV doesn't feel all that slow in that regard to me...that is, I don't find it much slower than Borderlands movements (which wasn't a 'real shooter' either, tho), or what I remember of Half-Life2/Quakes. It mostly feels like enemy movement is faster than in those games. But I'll take your guys word for it. And I'm not complaining either. As long as there are options that help me deal with whatever the weakness (or my weakness), I'm cool. Most times ranged works and like I said, that's why I like at least one companion to cover my arse. It just amuses me/amazes me sometimes how fast the enemies are in RT. lol VATS: the terrible inability to (sometimes) accurately target the piece of a monster that you want is one reason I don't like using VATS. Seemed like every time I tried VATS, I'd want to click on the head or torso, but the game wouldn't let me because it kept insisting my mouse/cursor was clicking on a claw or leg. It drove me insane. Even past that tho, mostly I don't like pausing the game/action because I don't find that fun for my adrenaline. Plus, VATS is just ugly, as pointed out by others.

I think you're right about the fat32. There are probably better programs but likely more than I'd want to spend. Cheaper video editing programs you find on a shelf generally all suck, in my experience. I still use virtualdub for fraps-made avi's. heh Regardless of what file size the original video is when people upload it to YT, if they're uploading 15 min game vids. at least some of them are likely to be recording in resolutions that end up going past the 4GB limit, so either they're splicing segments together before uploading or have other programs. I know YT doesn't use 'real' 1080 ala DVD/BluRay quality or whatnot...it's just that if you give them a high enough resolution and an ok quality to start with, they offer different levels of whatever they use for compression, or something to that effect. If you go full screen between their 480 and 1080 options you can see the difference...assuming the video was decent quality to begin with. It's kind of confusing what they do, actually. I don't really understand it. If you use a video camera and edit w/those type of editors, YT seems to detect/do things differently than when you upload a plain fraps avi compressed via virtualdub...I had to upload in 1920x1080 resolution (I compressed it, of course) before it would come out not looking like crap on YT. If I tried 640x480 resolution that looked great on my monitor, YT compresses it into hell.

I'm not sure if this is 'game' or 'tech' subject but I'll put it in here... I've always used Fraps for game videos and it's been fine and dandy for a long long time. But since I got the new rig & sometimes want to record in the full 1920x1080, I noticed it cuts recordings into approx. 4GB chunks, creating a new file after that size has been reached. 4GB equals about 90-100 seconds. It doesn't cause lag in-game when it starts the new file, but is annoying if you're trying to record dialogue strings and it breaks it apart in bad places or something. Even if you splice the pieces together, in terms of dialogue you may still notice odd jumps. I think if I record at half-size it'd still only mean about 4-5 minutes of record time before it splits off. I see people posting 15 min. high quality game videos on YouTube...they must be using something else. Anyone know of a similar program without the limit? That's not too expensive? If not, I can just live with splicing together I guess... Or is such a limit standard for many because of some kind of average editor/format tech reason...

Can't speak for your game but I don't have any mouse/combat lag. It's not about my own speed but rather that they move faster than my brain can even process information to direct my arm/hand. Enemies with guns usually aren't too bad even close up because they have to stand still more often to shoot/throw, but melee is tougher, in close quarters (like vaults or caves). Uploaded video example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaSyl9dAS18 The big guy running to me, my brain is going like "ok point to the left, wait no to the right, no to the left" as he moves before I can even move the mouse. That's on FRAPS enforced 40fps too, at my more average 60-80fps he moves even a tiny bit faster. If the guy had been, say, a DeathClaw, or a pack of those orange dogs w/lizard like heads, I'd be dead. Yeah, I started on Normal and after a bit the sniping became so easy I bumped it to Very Hard. The sniping is still fairly easy (crits don't always take them down in one or two shots unless crouched) but I can no longer survive many hits from most things of or above my level like I could in Normal. Sometimes only 2 hits. So I can't aim/shoot/kill fast enough before they're on top of me and I'm done. heh (pps...at such speeds I tend to panic after a few seconds which doesn't help, either, lol)

Even set on passive? He doesn't strike first then...but if you don't crit/kill on your first shot, he does tend to finish for you. Sometimes I take away his big Sniper Rifle too, since later in the game that default rifle of his really isn't that strong. He still crits semi-frequently since he is, after all, an aimbot, but will often complain about needing a bigger caliber & takes a lot more shots to kill things. Or you can give him good armor, a sword, passive-mode and then he's your defensive tank. The other thing I use him for is to tell him to 'wait' a little distance away, and then if I get in trouble I can easily run back towards him and he'll react/help me out. I've decided companions are great for people like me who don't like to use VATS but aren't super-skilled at close range combat. I don't know if it's my fast PC or what, but chrs. in combat move/run/turn so fast that once they're close-ish I can hardly respond fast enough to target them accurately in real time. It's almost eye-blink fast, heh. Even in the few shooters I've played + Borderlands, enemies were a lot slower/I could do better at it than in NV.

Cold weather always makes me want soup and noodles. That includes, when I'm lazy, cheap Top Ramen (with added things put in), but good pho, hot & sour, or wonton-styles soup are always the best. Mmm, comfort food!