Tale

If someone wants to claim that the only way to make profit on a $100 million budget is their way, I would find it more believable if they'd done it themselves first. I too have my doubts that they'll profit, that's a lot of money. But I think he's probably talking out his behind.

It's still a sight better than than the alternative. Claiming that tradeoffs only make sense when the game is difficult seems somewhat senseless. The argument should be to increase the difficulty, not remove the tradeoffs. If your entire argument against the inventory system is that the enemies were too easy in general, then I don't see how you and I can engage in this debate. Because I completely fail to understand the argument. It's not as if vendor trash would have made them harder to fight. So you can't blame the inventory for that.

Tradeoff considerations. Do you want more shields, more armor, or more health? Do you want to have more ammo or do more damage? The heavy pistol was kind of absurd with how low ammo it had, if you remember. The starting armor pistol was fine as a main weapon, but the low ammo on the heavy one meant it's only useful for fighting armor or you'll run out. Assault rifles were very generalist, but that was a benefit of the Soldier class. You could pick it up later as other classes, but it's again a tradeoff to make that choice. You may have to sacrifice upgrading a weapon just to get the assault rifle. Or you might end up having to skip snipers to get assault rifles. It's more thinking than most progression systems. "Is the number bigger? Yes, it is, I'll use it." Who doesn't complain about fetch quests? Are you actually telling me right here and now that if they did away with fetch quests, that would be a bad thing? A system should work to address important objectives. You've so far not mentioned an important objective the old systems attempted to meet except "I'm not sure why." That's not an argument, that's a failure to consider. The system ME2 used allowed for player customization, choice, and even included some element of progression in that the player gained versatility and more choices as the game continued on. If you can think of an interesting objective the old systems tried to meet, I'd love to hear it.

Yes, I'm pretty sure he said that. But it's not an element anyone is supporting, so he's basically just rambling. The topic, in specific, at hand was the inventory/equipment system of ME2. Which still requires thinking and planning. Care to justify the claim? Paring down the inventory system (which is exactly what ME2 did) solved the problem mostly. So, to claim it's not a solution, when it did in fact solve something, seems a bit silly. Equipment progression isn't a bad thing. It's not a good thing either. It's largely an unnecessary thing. Narratively, it's particularly weak. I don't recall any of the heroes I'm familiar with picking up new swords out of every cave or doing comparative analysis to see if the enemy's sword might just be slightly better than the grand one the king just gifted him. And in the case that the enemy swords are weak, he tosses all of them in a sack to lug around to sell to the local smith. But maybe that goes on in the stories I haven't read. Even outside of the narrative consideration, it doesn't actually bring much else to it. If we're talking about weapons with unique properties that make them stronger in one sense and weaker in another, that's all good. But 9 times out of 10, they're simply all around weaker and the sole purpose they serve is to be turned into cash later on. That's not an intelligent system by any means, it doesn't add anything of value.

Too bad combat and dialog aren't inventory. I'll agree with combat and dialog, but don't confuse them. Most inventory systems are ridiculous monty haul systems of picking up tons of junk to sort through and sell, not actual intelligent complexity.

Oh Snapple!

My job here is done.

Do you now, or have you ever, actually been in possession of a kingdom?

I hate packrat systems. I really liked what ME2 did. I've never been a fan of gear progression, preferring equipment to fill different roles instead of simply being stronger. If DA2 is doing it similarly, I'll have to give it credit. The original ME is probably the worst inventory system of all time. Kind of funny how it went from one extreme to the other.

I'll have to check that out. Just found myself wondering why DKS was $10 cheaper than ED, but then I noticed they have different publishers. Edit: Wait a second, Ghost of Sparta is out? It's not March!

Maybe you can sneak in the .357. But your sneak check seems irrelevant, at least for Tops. I know you can't sneak in That Gun. Like I said, maybe I should check the toolset for specifics. Okay, here's what the wiki says.

It may have been a bug. Lily kept her assault rifle! Until I checked her inventory, then she lost that too. And some people report ED-E keeping all his stored weapons. And some people report getting the companion weapons returned to the player inventory. The behavior is wacky. Maybe I should double check it in the GECK. I know for a fact that the best my first character could sneak in with a high sneak was Maria. But maybe there's more going on than I thought.

Two things slow you down. 1) Medium or heavy armor. 2) Having a two handed weapon drawn.

It serves no gameplay purpose outside of casinos. It's pretty much the 'casino gun'. And it's the gun I used to With sneak 50+ you can bring your own pistols/revolvers into the casino. You don't need the .22. Actually, not quite. What Mr. Holdout says is misleading. You don't need a sneak check at most casinos to use the holdout option. Only one casino has the sneak check for it, in fact. The rest have it by default. And it's only a limited selection of weapons that qualify, such as the .22 and 9mm. I don't think revolvers can be snuck in at all.

It serves no gameplay purpose outside of casinos. It's pretty much the 'casino gun'. And it's the gun I used to That's the guy who gave me shield icons! Screw it and use a 9mm.

Silenced .22 has to be the worst gun in the game. I was getting shield icons shooting at guys in clothes.

Yeah, it feels slow. I'll play a Scout in TF2, then load up New Vegas and it'll take 10 minutes to adjust. But it doesn't exactly hinder you.

A decent ranged build and you don't need to run a lot in combat. So all these complaints about it being too slow (too slow for what?) boggle my mind. Heck, you can still kite melee enemies. I did that while running around in heavy armor. And considering that a rather sizeable portion of the game's combat are firefights, the heavier armor is only a benefit. Ballistic fists are a problem, but that's about it. I tangoed with those guys while using a Thermic Lance.

Finished my second playthrough. Was level 30 this time around, tried to recruit all alies (I had two Doctor Henrys. One in an Enclave suit, one in his normal outfit), went NCR, and got more favorable outcomes for all the slides I could think of. The Alien Blaster is cheating. This is probably the best ending for Veronica. And the Cass ending was... interesting. I want to see what Lily's is like without medication.

I'm kind of happy that we don't see a single family member for any of the characters. We don't have to reunite any wives or siblings, mourn any of the companion's parents, or any of that. After DAO and ME2 I was getting kind of tired of that. A lot of them are simply trying to adjust their place in the world. Is Boone the only companion you met?

This game keeps making me want to buy Fallout 3 GOTY and hit all the DLC and stuff I missed when I first played Fallout 3. But I recall getting bored halfway through my last Fallout 3 replay.

Agility effects weapon draw and reload speed.

Let's not forget that headshots have a higher crit chance, as does VATS.

The flooding of those three vaults seems relatively recent. It might have something to do with the attempts to refill the Hoover Dam. There are notes in the vaults about the flooding though. Yeah, but do the notes give any time indication? Vault 3 was only recently taken over by fiends in probably the past decade or so from what I gathered. It sounded like Moterhead was leader back then too. And they only opened their vault in the first place due to flooding. Vault 34, the one the Boomers come from, seems to have flooded sometime after the Boomer exodus and possibly even after they transported the Pulse gun from Nellis. It was already infested with ghouls by the time the flooding started (drowned ghoul). Vault 11, I don't recall any notes about flooding. And the Hoover Dam was only refilled I think sometime in the past 7 years. Which seems like a reasonable timeframe for the fiends to have started occupying Vault 3.

The flooding of those three vaults seems relatively recent. It might have something to do with the attempts to refill the Hoover Dam.