TheHarlequin

The game as a whole is awesome and they do change up some of the traditional RTS elements to give it a unique feel. Alao the sound, music and artwork is amazing as well. Are there a few elements that bother me? Yes but nothing game breaking. If you like CRPGs and RTS's you should like you are in heaven. As a whole I'd give this game a solid 85% rating.

# There is an optional hardcore mode, the character needs to drink water, ammo has weight, healing isn't instant etc. # Normal mode is more similar to Fallout 3 gameplay. # The storyline is focused on the New California Republic vs. Caesar's Legion (slavers from the east) vs. New Vegas residents (Possibly the denizens of Vault 21). # You are not a vault dweller but are given a Pip-Boy by someone who is one. # There is a screenshot of a vault suit as well. # There is an assault rifle looking like the M4, as well as a new big gun with a backpack, held like a minigun. # There are special moves for melee weapons in VATS - specifically a move for a golf club called "Fore" which seems to be a groin shot. # The Hoover Dam is in the game and is supplying electricity to the city. # There is a quest to rescue a ghoul from some super mutants. The ghoul can then become your companion # The Geckos are back. # There are both dumb and intelligent super mutants, including the elite Nightkin. On at least one occasion you can convince them to fight amongst themselves. # Some super mutants look similar to the ones in Fallout 3, while others are new. There is e.g. a female super mutant with a 1950s hairstyle who apparently is one of their leaders. # Screenshots include a guy with a beard and straw hat, a ghoul and an NCR Ranger. # The only picture of New Vegas itself is concept art and not a screenshot. # Some location screenshots include a huge model dinosaur advertising a hotel, some satellite dishes, an array of solar panels # A character generation shot showing a "vigour machine" instead of the skill book # NCR base is the McCarran Airport, Caesar's Legion is based in the Vegas Strip, while super mutants are based in a place called Black Mountain. # There is also a town called Fremont and another called Primm. A topless reuve is mentioned as being in the latter. Area 51 also appears. # NCR Ranger armor is similar to a brown combat armor with sleeves, there are concept arts of a Ranger. # Skils have a bigger effect on conversation choices. E.g. someone with a high Explosives skill may be able to have a coversation about explosives where appropriate. # There is a Reputation system in addition to Karma. # First-person action RPG with the same engine as Fallout 3. # Set in the Mojave wastelands. Vegas didn't get many nukes. More intact buildings, as well as desert vegetation. Vegas itself is mostly intact. # Vegas itself is mostly intact # Both karma and reputation are tracked. If I'm reading it right there's separate reputations for each of the settlements, as in 1 and 2. # All dialogue options are shown to all players, regardless of whether you have the stats to succeed or not, though there's no punishment for failure. # Bartering is not just lower prices but negotiating for better rewards. # Weapons also now have knock-back upon death, with shotguns sending people flying. # Followers can be managed through a context-sensitive menu, with orders like "follow", "stay" or "attack". # You're a courier, wounded and left for dead in a shallow grave. A friendly robot, Victor, digs you out, and his doctor owner Mitchell patches you up. You take a "vigour test", which is some sort of electric parlour game. This decides who you are and sets up SPECIAL. You can also take some Rorschach tests, but the mag says this is for fun. The Doc then gives you a Pipboy as he was once a Vault dweller. # "Hoover Dam", and "Helios" (a solar plant, confirmed by the mag to have been built by Poseidon) are fought into and then you can direct the power to wherever you choose. In the case of Helios you can also keep the plant for your self, use the energy to call down a powerful laser, or even try to distribute to all equally, however there is a risk of overloading the reactors. # There is a "reputation system", in which all three factions (NCR, Ceasar's Legion and the locals) will either see you as good or bad toward them individually. # There is a screenshot of three Capital Wasteland mutants running toward the player, who is wielding what *looks* to be a heavy incinerator, but has a TV screen and no flamer fuel tanks. He's also wearing NCR combat armour, which is in gold/mustard colours. # There are two separate screens of supermutants that look to be more local, grey skin, and the two are wearing very different clothes. One is Tabitha, who is hearing a blonde wig and love heart glasses. The mag implies she's "not all there". # On that quest, you rescue Raul, a ghoul who Tabitha kept alive to fix her favourite robot. He appears to be a follower, as the mag says you can give him items, and also commands, such as "stay, follow or attack", and also tell him to switch to melee, in which case he'll mutter "sure, I'll put away my rather effective gun, and switch to this piece of um, metal tubing here". # From what I read, the "all dialog" thing seems to imply there will be failures for skill checks as well as speech checks, though, as the mag states, there is no penalty for failing a skill check. In fact, the mag gives an example: A woman who the player tried a Sneak skill attempt on in conversation failed when convincing her an ambush would help the town be rid of a gang of raiders. She simply says "Good luck with your, uh, ambush" # Regardin dialog (J.E.Sawyer): This is how it works. Each skill-based dialogue option has two different texts: one for high skill (which will result in success) and one for low skill (which will result in failure). If you do not meet the required threshold, you see the latter. There are a few reasons for including this: * In the same way that a locked safe beyond your Lockpicking skill indicates, it lets the player know that there's an option here. * Some of the NPC responses to low skill checks can be pretty entertaining. I also do want to clarify what is meant by "no penalty for failure". All it means is that you won't wind up in a worse position than you were before selecting it. If a dude bursts in and is intent on killing you, he's still going to want to kill you if you fail the Speech check to talk him out of it. # A Vault 21 suit spotted (possibly the inhabitants of New Vegas - speculation) # About Area 51 (Jason Bergman, Bethsda): The Area 51 thing was pure speculation on PC Gamer's part. We did not show it or confirm whether or not it's in there. PC Gamer put it in because it's Nevada, and they think that means it will be in there. I'm not saying it is or isn't, just that we haven't said either way. # The engine is clearly the same, although the colors look more vibrant. # Animations seem to be very similar to the ones in F3; # The models also look very similar, not only the mutants, but pretty much all of the models and enough assets look almost exactly like the ones in Fallout 3 (of course, this doesn't say much about the final quality of the game, just mentioning). # Looks like dynamite might be in as a weapon. # Doctor Mitchell, the one that revives the PC at the start of the game, lives in a town called Goodsprings (described about as "a few shacks with some mutated sheep"). He might also be a ghoul since he says he lived in a vault before the war. He might also own Victor the robot, aparently the one that is digging up the sand in the teaser trailer - and, very probably, the game's intro. # And it seems that the body in the sand is the Player Character. # It might be that we'll have many more options in dialogue based on skills, although this is not clearly explained in the article. (I'm mentioning this because you can't really tell what exactly they say about this: is it more evolved than what Fallout 3 brought or exactly like that, since there are enough skill, stat, perk and karma checks in F3) # A new minor faction is in, the Powder Gangers, which will give some trouble to the player, at least at the start of the game. # The action takes place 3 years after the events in Fallout 3. # One of first quests seems to involve dealling with some geckos - probably the standard "kill the rats" quest. # A new weapon is in until now - Varmint rifle. # Along books, magazines seem to be back. # It seems radio stations are back and one of them is the mutant radio station at Black Mountain, run by their leader, Tabitha. She took control of the place two years before. Every day, on air, she threatens to kill the ghoul - Raul - mentioned somewhere above but stops when he promises he will fix her favorite robot. This probably leads to the quest about helping Raul and making him a follower. # Vegas is under construction. # A grenade machinegun is mentioned. # Helios One is an abandoned solar energy plant built by Poseidon and is currently owned by the NCR. A little description says: "a refractor mirror that could power the Strip and a giant frickin' laser". The NCR want the secrets and weapons (and energy for their base at McCarran Airport) of HO so they hired a screw-up scientist named Fantastic for the job. This leads to a quest and the PC can choose what to do with the energy. It seems if he chooses to keep it for himself he gains acces to Helios' secret weapon, Archimedes II - a "Giant Frickin' Laser". As long as the sun is up, he can call down lasers for an attack.

Well I figured out the issue I was having before.. you cant recruit until you finish the excalibur quest then all the recruiting options open up for you. That said this game is pretty cool. However the way quests get tossed to you almost non-stop makes things difficult especially when some are time sensitive. How ever my only major gripe is the victory locations (VL) on the combat maps. Its seems to degrade the 'tactical' aspect to whack-a-mole. Grab most of the locations first and you will prob win. The enemy AI rather then attack you seems to spend most of their time running around grabbing as many as they can first. So you in turn just end up running around beshind them trying to take them back. Seems like the AI never wants to engage you until it has all the VL's. Its quite annoying and IMO takes away from the game. I would love a option ot tone down or disable VL's on the maps.

So someone please explain to me how to replenish troops. I seem to grasp everything so far but that.. :/ Thanks!

Anyone else pick this up.. only a few hrs into it but its VERY cool. A little RTS.. a little CRPG... a little sim all rolled into one. Is main story line is loosely based on the King Arthur legend. With some celtic mythos tossed in for fun. On top of the main storyline there random side quests and your actions can change parts of the game and story. Very interesting and fairly deep. If anyone else has played this question, how in the gods green earth do you replenish men? I keep reading you can in towns but when I go there nada happens.

You missed the point completely. It's: Freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom freedom Hate to break it to you ronny is dead. The whole 'govt is evil' is such a crock. You rather give the keys to the kingdom to profit wh*res who car nothing for you or the enviroment as long as they can make a buck. Like I said before de-regulation got us IN THIS MESS IN THE FIRST PLACE. Thats a undisputed fact even the rep talking heads on fox don't dispute that. Yet here you are banging on the the same drum with no new ideas.. just the same deregulate everything so big business can have a field day and gov't is 'evil'. Thats the best you got?

In the comparison I read the written pedia had, on average, 2 errors per article, wikipedia 4. However articles that generate strong emotion around the technical savvy that use wikipedia have much higher error rate. The specific example they gave was the wikipeda bill gates entry which if I recall they cited almost 20 errors due to bias and ongoing edit wars. You are grossly oblivious to the issues with wikipedia of you think they only have 1 error per 5 articles.

That's just you being stubborn and not facing the facts. There were several tough moral choices in DA, maybe they the story wasn't good enough for you to actually feel anything for the characters but saying those choices weren't there is just a lie. As an example: On my first play through I went to Redcliffe before clearing the Circle of Magi tower, and when presented with the option to either: , I definitely felt like facing a tough moral choice. Or at the end, before facing the Archdemon, , that definitely felt like a very tough moral choice to make. Redcliffe was clear choice both times for my characters. So the 2nd char was a insane serial murderer you were playing then?

just use the respec mod... issue resolved.

But if its peppered with more errors then that defeats that benefit IMO. *shrugs* You may get more depth but if you get more errors as well it seems to be a wash to me and no advantage. Remind me what the purpose is again of reading a error plauged pedia? So you get more info that erroronus. Seems counter productive to me and illogical. More <> better if its riddeled with bias and errors as wikipedia is.

Wikipedia is great for pop culture info, pc games and music/movie info. Any topic of substance is suspect. Especially ones of hot button topics like religion, science or history. Edit wars, bias, and ignorant folks editing articles they have no idea about are rampant. I have seen such myself more then once. Wikipedia is all about the mob collective, the facts/truth come second. I went to an education conference this summer and there was an entire seminar devoted to using wikipedia in the classroom. Of course it isn't a good primary source, that is pretty much common sense, but as a secondary source and a research platform, it is pretty much unsurpassed. There are inaccuracies everywhere, not just in wikipedia. My textbooks contradict themselves, my encyclopedias miss entire chunks of content. The only way to get close to a clear picture is to examine as many sources as possible, and wikipedia is a great starting place for that. Living in the center of college-ville I don't know any of the ivy leagues or other large collages that allow you to use wikipedia as a source. At least the students/profs I know. and last stats I saw of wikipedia vs its printed brethern (about a yr ago), pedia had on average x2 as many inaccurices per article.

Man has a point. Indeed I will grant him that. I still stand by my view of wikipedia as a whole however. Great to get a cliff notes version of the eps of mad men. Suspect when dealing with history or sciences.

What he (and the others) said above. Took the words out of my mouth.

Agreed. Its the mobo or PS. Also the cmos batt would -not- give you those probs you are describing.

Translation: I have none as I am talking out of my arse... again. *shrugs*

Indeed I am just a big meanie.

Wikipedia is great for pop culture info, pc games and music/movie info. Any topic of substance is suspect. Especially ones of hot button topics like religion, science or history. Edit wars, bias, and ignorant folks editing articles they have no idea about are rampant. I have seen such myself more then once. Wikipedia is all about the mob collective, the facts/truth come second.

Right... because letting big business run things is soooo much better in the end. *rolls eyes* At least the govt does not care about making a profit. Hells they have made loosing money science. Let the ppl who couldnt care less about making a buck run the show is fine by me. Better then some profit wh*re compnay.

Please cite specific examples

Like Dragon Age then? *chuckle* you had combat cutscenes in your DA game? More focused on the 'forced tactical stupidity' and 'You know we love that, especially when outnumbered 1:4' comment.

Fair enough. Again I'd just wash my hands of it and let them sink or swim. Odds are they would sink and would turn into a bloody conflict but it seems thats what they want anyways. So let them. I'll grab the popcorn and watch from 1/2 way around the world. Perhaps after the middle east is turned into a mini-fallout universe they will finally come to their senses. They are not being logical or rational or tactful. They are letting for the most part emotions drive their actions not reason. Thus you can NOT address that as a 3rd party. When you are trying to use rational diplomacy and the other parties involved are running on mostly emotion, unfounded fears its a auto fail sooner or later. Most ppl in this thread are mostly being rational thinkers. They are not and prob will never be until they go at it. I frankly see no other end game result. All this current diplomancy is just delaying what they both want as neither side really wants to compromise and find middle ground. *shrugs* IMO only a matter of time before iseal is wiped off the map or they annex a bordering anti-iseral country and the other arabs sue for real peace as they are getting their arsed handed to them. Either one of the other has to and will happen unless massive political change transpires in BOTH sides of the table. My money is on war as neither side are all that concerned with long term thinking or thinking like civilized human beings.

Like Dragon Age then? *chuckle*

Too much useless, filler combat. Darkspawn that all die in one hit? Why even bother with that. I just wanted to end the game asap at that point. The last boss was very easy too with Leliana around. Agreed with you and Di. The ending seemed rushed and combat for the sake of combat. I also was in the same boat as Di by the time I got to the 'final battle' I just wanted the game to be over. The fun factor was lost a bit after the encounter with howe. It just seemed not far from that point it was just a exercise to shoo us out the door, tie up the story ASAP and end it. At least the impression I was left with. And frankly I was ready for that as it became just a pointless grind by then.

Waiting for it to come to impulse then picking it up!

Not to beat a dead horse but thats a very poor way to go about it, borderline deceptive (again assuming they never retracted it upfront). The 'if we stop talking about something we have for 4 yrs of the development then assume its no more' policy. Seems they wanted to have their cake and eat it too. If we stop talking about it a yr before release we have the defense 'we stopped talking about it.. (just never said so)' yet many people (since they never said other wise) still think it holds true so we won't loose those fans until they buy the game and find out. Seems like your 101 bait and switch tactic to me. *shrugs* But its bioware not like they have not pulled this before. *cough*nwn1*cough* I REALLY hope someone at EA cut peter jackson a check. I mean they ripped off so many of his scenes in their cut scenes, some almost angle for angle, motion for motion. It's actually sad their lack of creativity. Seems when they came up to a mental block the default solution was to pop in a LotR DVD and copy a action scene or middle earth element. If thats true or not I don't know but its the impression I am left with. But as a whole I agree with all your points.