Tigranes

I'm back home and my second playthrough is now getting into the mid-late game. Again I'm beginning to notice how some bits of NV's dialogue, like so many in the last few years, feel 'truncated'; pass one speech check and they OK everything you suggest, etc. It's likely voice acting amongst other things, and it's been bugging me for a while now in most recent games. I guess the issue is that they've pushed the tree-based dialogue system in ways that it's cracking. Tree dialogues are good when the dialogue within them is built in a way that you still feel like it's a proper discussion, and making your choices feels like making baby steps in a small maze towards the desired exit. They're not so good if it's more like four apples in cups and you press A, B, C or D. I can only think of the Witcher series where they're trying to write in a way that still plays to the tree system's strengths - others, they've gone towards shaking up dialogue mechanics to get where they want to get (i.e. AP/ME/etc dialogue wheel/stance), which is nto necessarily much better IMO. Anyway, still deliberating what side to take for this playthrough. The tragedy about the Legion is that I really really want to hear them out and give them a chance, but in numerous small ways I feel the balance was tipped - i.e. we only ever see their brutal side 90% of the time (e.g. no 'normal' Legion town in the game), we have to wait most of the game to get to Caesar's exposition, as opposed to the likes of Vulpes Inculta being more talkative, and sometimes the Roman art style is over the top (Big Massive Sword Masked Man, really?). We'll see.

Swamp was horrible the first time, and especially because the map is really confusing in what you can go through and what you can't. THEN there was a huge amount of back and forth. Second time I played it I noticed that I was economising the running round and new all the routes, and it wasn't so bad.

It was, actually. You watch a lot of unskippable B-cinema, go through loading screens and training screens, run and ride a LOT, then the interesting part is pretty much reduced to big red dots saying PUSH X HERE. I'm hearing great things about the MP stuff but unfortunately, Ubisoft.

She looks like a chunky Norse barmaid who took the Diablo 2 studded leather armour and turned it into an apron shape. More importantly, though, concept sounds interesting, actually, better than most variations of Paladin.

To be honest, if you're having that many hard crashes then it's almost guaranteed that there is either a major degree of file corruption going on (variety of possible causes), or there is some serious issue between computer and game. i.e. the obvious routes include reinstall, file integrity check, redownload (if possible), and after that, more expert diagnostics that you'd need either smarter people than I or actual tech support. Nevertheless, if this is the first time you're bringing this up, it confounds me why you've put over 30 hours into the game while dealing with such an issue instead of trying to get it fixed? If you've tried a lot of things already, fair enough, but loading from previous saves was never going to fix it, unfortunately. Is it Steam download, DD, or boxed? Mods / patch / comp specs?

King's Bounty is totally awesome and should be gotten for any bargain price. COD - you know what you'll get with that, do you really need to waste the money?

Generally, story concept seems nicely Fallout enough without looking at something more new or unexplored. If that's not your aim it should serve fine. Certain aspects of the mechanic changes, like schematics, sound interesting - I think the key thing is to have your world design complement your mechanic changes, to make your newly jigged skill uses/etc interesting. One thing I'd say is that there should be no reason to have Pistols, Rifles, Support Weapons AND explosives - even if Guns are currently OP that is too many, unless you're going to be even more liberal with skill points? I'd say either reduce to 3 (perhaps merge Support and Explo, though that's iffy) or ensure that people are thus torn between 2+ combat skills & 2+ non-combat.

I just used the Euclid C-Finder for the first time, on the NCR group at Freeside ( ). Oooh, that was nice. And yeah, I don't think the FO SPECIAL mechanic was terribly well designed in the first place, at least in conjunction with the kind of use the skills get in the game - it's fun and it does the job but it was never that balance.d

A few things to balance, though: Maybe in Kim Il-Sung's day, but many NK researchers now believe that there is a good likelihood, as time passes, this is more and more becoming an act of its own - a degree of genuine patriotism mixed with a degree of pragmatic performativity. In short, I don't think we can run with the assumption 90% of the population are sheep that would die for Kim Jong-Il even if there was another option, anymore. But neither that 90% are just waiting for a chance to escape - Volo I don't know which facts you are groudning your beliefs on here, but I'd like to know. The interesting thing about NK defectors is that yes there are many who come and say God NK is borked and Kim Jong Il is a bastard, but also a lot of people who come and say I came because I was starving and our country is in a hard way, but I still believe in / love Kim Jong Il, and I wish I could go back if things worked out (partly because they get treated like subhuman trash in SK, of course...) Anyway, this black-and-white wooden guns nonsense aside, everything suggests that in most instances of wartime scenarios, NK would be able to cause significant damage at least to SK and possibly some to China/japan. That is pretty undeniable.

Do we seriously believe that it's a good idea for SK or US to believe the assumption 9/10 of NK army has wooden guns when negotiating this situation? Seriously? There is substantial evidence that the NK army has a paralysingly rigid organisational structure, and of course depending on how it goes there will be tons of defectors / deserters, but if I had to make any guess I'd say that the resistance would be much fiercer and much more lethal than anything faced during the intiial invasion of Iraq.

Hurlshot I just want to pick up on your point about vidgames being a luxury and if you can't afford it you shouldn't play it, at all. I know it's a fairly common sentiment and one you hold quite strongly. It's correct, but I'd argue you can't slap it on indiscriminately on issues like these and call it a day. Firstly a better analogy might be - if ice cream was $30 a pop would you say there was no grounds for complaint, resistance, and/or people finding less than legal ways towards its procurement? Luxury items are not all the same - with something like skydiving it already occupies, globally, a position where it is understood as a high-cost activity. At the other end of the spectrum you could argue that there's no problem if some people are priced out of soft drinks or movie rentals, but that's neither likely to persuade anybody disgruntled by $30 Coke or be considered a realistic and productive appraisal of the situation. It's a little different I feel from the idea of entitlement, which we always seem to fall back to in piracy discussions - of course at the end of the day nobody's entitled to play video games, but I find we're being too black and white about this and saying "hey you don't need this to sustain your life in a biological sense, stop whining". I think it's very valid to say, or to recognise, that in countries where prices are completely out of whack with the rest of the world, there's a problem that needs to be addressed at that level, not at the level of prosecution (only). None of this denies that piracy is illegal, hurts the industry, is often a coward's excuse for many people, etc. But I feel it's more constructive to look the situation in terms of, how can we balance the technological apparatuses out there (ease of / availability of pirated goods, making legit goods more appealing) as well as the market balances (prices) and the moral side (discourse).

You can sort of link the emergence of starvation as a staple in the NK (which is likely the last 15-20 years) with the increase in posturing - as well as, of course, the increased international prestige and influence SK has gained in that time. But yes, the most likely outcome is not much happening. Lee Myung-Bak has already shown that he will probably be a bit more wary than Cheonnan, when he got burned by not taking care of the China/Russia side carefully enough. The one major variable is how long China will put up with it, until it becomes not so worthwihle to coddle/defend NK.

Cant, simple thing though - if you're going to have a hardcore mode, then you might as well do it properly, esp. if it doesn't take too much extra work. I mean, stimpacks healing over time is a great move. If that was couple up with a few minor tweaks, like slight reduction in XP / ammo drop it would have been nice. I'm not asking for too much, because if you go too far people who don't go for such challenges can't play their way. re: skill checks, where do you use them otherwise? Survival is (still) largely useless, I'd put up Barter and it's nice to see it used in dialogues but you have way too much money anyway. You could put up 2 or even 3 combat skills but again that would just make you a walking shoeless God of War. If you have a moderate investment in lockpick/science/repair/etc then you're usually sweet on every such challenge. I feel the special system is designed for making hard choices, not a superman of all trades. Don't get me wrong, original games had their own kinds of balance problems - power armour, gauss rifles, caravan raid money, etc., etc. Not really comparing here, just thinking FO3/FNV could be better games if the skills weren't so generous both in the points you get and the hurdles you get.

I only found the New vegas square and the sewers in my current (2nd) playthrough - and as has been said there's a tiny quest that sort of uses them. To be honest, once I found how massive and mazy they were, I got terrible nightmares of FO3 sewers and thought screw it. First bit of content in FNV that I won't bother with. Re: Boulder, it's not just there. I remember at least 3 or 4 times in my first through when I used my speech skill, and felt like it was a Jedi mind trick. The dialogues are too abrupt - it's "GRARGH KILL YOU!" "[speech 90] You don't want to do that, my friend." "That's true, maybe I'll ask you out on a date instead. You have dreamy eyes." From Obsidian that's quite poor.. but then when I think about it, a more padded out and complex dialogue tree wouldn't be that much of a challenge because it's still a speech check where you can see a clear numerical threshold (which is stupid, btw, for these kinds of reasons). Much better to have several blind choices and then your skill influencing success behind the scenes, rather than pass number = Jedi trick.

To be honest this is a problem that firstly permeates all Bethesda games Morrowind-onwards; they're all built on that same underlying mechanic of open world exploration and character development (yes, even when they use SPECIAL) where up to level ~5 you generally operate on a principle of scarcity and have to manage limited resources in order to stay above the line; then, the mechanics stay exactly the same, but you start accumulating the money/skill/gear to raise pretty much most/all such resources to comfortable levels, then around level 10, usually, you hit a magic point where the development trajectory is officially broken, and your character is basically a walking hulk of overcompensatory resources that can bring its mighty arm to bear on most challenges. For instance, in FO3/FNV design, it's very difficult to fail any skill check or miss out on loot/etc in any given situation after level 5, unless maybe you are playing a 1 INT character or something like that. Because of a combination of (a) multiple skill check solutions offered, (b) number of points you get, © magazines, (d) overall difficulty of checks, etc., by between level 10 and 14, INT withstanding, these checks as a whole become not something where there is a real possibility of failure, but just a question of which hoops you have to jump to succeed. I'm overstating the case here a bit because there are certain areas where you really do have to get past 75/100 checks and such, but really failure, in a small or major sense, recedes completely from your gameplay in these games at that point. And considering in vanilla FNV you reach that level less than halfway through the game, well. That said I think FNV is most suited to craft a more challenging experience; it's harder to just rob the world like Morrowind, level scaling isn't Oblivionistic, and FO3... I don't really remember that game anymore, but certainly VATS invulnerability "feature" was a contributing factor. If only FNV companions weren't brokenly powerful half the time, and you don't level up after about 3 mobs of moderately difficult enemies, and doctors actually charged the exorbitant fees they surely should.

You should form a research committee towards that initiative, and they can get together to discuss putting forward a motion regarding a workshop to make initial suggestions regarding the development of the said solution.

That reminds me, my vote for worst FNV quest: the emo Khan. Not. Funny.

The game balance has become very odd for me. I started as an explosives character with 9AGL/PER and bumping that up, with only ~25 guns as backup. I used pistols and sniper exclusively the first time and wanted to differentiate. At first it was very fun, lots of exps to be had from powder gangers as well, but then I picked up Veronica and with companions it's harder to control the enemy mobs so you can effectively target your bombings. Actually, the largest problem is probably that I found the Paladin Toaster. Even on Very Hard with XP modded down she ends up killing everything, and I mainly amuse myself by going backup with a Flamer and the Pyro perk (but even then, i feel it does way too little damage compared to FO1/2). It feels like a general limitation in Fo3/FNV, but it might well be my SPECIAL distribution and the way I play - no matter what I do pistols and sniper emerge as the clearly superior option, as opposed to heavier guns, melee or unarmed. Perhaps next time I really will go for a high-STR, dumb-as-hell, energy weapons guy.

The plot isn't that WTF at all - I agree that a lot will depend on how much you can get away with the Legion or the NCR, I haven't really tested that yet. And some level of weirdness always happens with this kind of faction-heavy game (Gothics, Risen) that you sort of accept in return for the C&C. Boulder city standoff was cheaply done though, it did feel like a budget hack job that got the short shaft of development schedules.

Veronica with Paladin Toaster is explosively good, but also fragile in her original robes - need to get her something else, fast. Now that I'm taking the time to look at every nook and cranny I've found dozens of locations I missed the first time. I'm finding that deathclaws are really, really scary when you're just level 10 or so. You end up running over hills and lakes and jumping across cliffs and such all over the map, looking back to see if you've lost them and then running some more. There's pretty much nothing you can do to avoid death at low levels if they get close enough to you. As it should be.

I found the Paladin Toaster about 2 minutes away from where you pick up Veronica, awesome. Had to use a precious stealth boy to walk round the Nightkin, but it's awesome to see lightning flare every time she throws a punch. Wonder how she'll fare against deathclaws, but I'd rather get her some power armour before I try....

My Legion playthrough continues. The thing that always gets me is that every time I play 'evil/ruthless/etc', I feel like I'm only picking the other option to see how it goes - stupid as the ghouls were, for instance, I just sabotaged their rockets to explode and I just don't see how anybody would do that for any good reason, other than sheer maliciousness. Also going solo until I pick up Veronica, as I tried Boone last time and a bit of ED-E & Cass. It's pretty brutal, I still only have 30 Guns and I can't usually survive tougher mobs like nightstalkers and cadazors in open ground.

Hey, I'm useless at fashion terms, I mean the FO3 tunnel snakes.

Oho, the free game thing is nice. Fair Price deal is also nice, too.

I'm going at 5STR 9AGL 4END 6CHA 6INT 9PER 3LCK, when factoring in Small Frame and the +SPECIAL perk thing. Explosives man with rifle backup. You really end up throwing things 40-50 miles are pretty much deadly accuracy (always funny when your dynamite hits the guy and it counts as a sneak attack). I've taken out a few tough encounters by coming at them from the hills above and raining down with dynamites, then hidinig behind rocks. Just now at level 8 I tackled the Viper encampment outside Novac, and that was quite tough - had to pull out the Incinerator and spray it around like nuts once they closed in. VATS is still really weird though, when you target people with explosives they stand still or move veeery slowly, which makes sense as otherwise you'd never hit them; but other enemies move at normal speed (so, essentially, at super-speed), which makes it impractical sometimes. Though if you time it right or if they're not all aware of you, you can time some nice triple-kills that way.