Mikhailian

This is all I could think of: Red Dead Redemption Fallout New Vegas (of course) Gran Turismo 5 Final Fantasy XIII Duke Nukem Forever (hey, we all have dreams man) Warhammer 40k Space Marine Warhammer 40k MMO Eve Online ambulatory project (yay, walking around in space stations, and playing space black jack, and tipping space strippers, and bored/logging off) Whatever Eat Sleep Play has planned for Twisted Metal Whatever Smith and Tinker has planned for Mech Warrior, Crimson Skies, and Shadowrun That's all I got. [edit] oops, forgot about Just Cause 2

Ah. Branded '72, I presume. Love the "I'm gonna get you sucka" reference.

doublepost

I'm wondering Mkreku, if you were running the game with mods installed? And if you are, have you tried troubleshooting them? Well, I was using a few different mods, but when I bought the DLC I un-clicked them all in the launcher. I didn't know if they would be compatible. Hmm, maybe I should do a clean install? Or could the mods be affecting the game even when they're not being used (except for one small interface mod, think it was called BetterUI)? On id tech 4/5, oopsie, you are correct sir. I misspoke. As for the mod compatbility thingy... a whole range of conflict sources can come up between the mods and the dlc. Just a few examples: *Playing the game with any patch 1.5-beyond with mods installed that predate 1.5 and alter anything in any world cell will likely cause the game to crash as the cell is loaded, ie right after opening a door that is portal between two cells. *Save games that were originally created using a very large amount of mods and patches predating 1.5 that are later patched up and have their offending mods removed, can rapidly corrupt after patch up. *Last thing I can think of, most 1.5 conflicting mods are of the variety that alter cells, but not all of them. Sometimes a clean install helps things, but it will never cause a patch and a mod to play nice. Luckily there is a tool to help you find and remove the offending mods: http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=637

They're not using gambryo anymore? I thought they were dead set on keeping it. I believe finding a replacement for gamebryo in id tech 4 was the real driving reason zenimax bought out id software. Gamebryo is pretty played out and already strained past the breaking point, whereas tech 4 is being freshly built from the ground up to create the sort of games that are bethesda's bread and butter. Without it, Bethesda won't be able to evolve their software in the coming years and it would mean their eventual financial death.

I'm wondering Mkreku, if you were running the game with mods installed? And if you are, have you tried troubleshooting them?

Heh, that trick also works for FallenEarth with the added benefit of boosted performance for the multicore cpu crowd. I'll have to give it a shot.

FO3 crashes every half to full hour for me. About half the time it's a CTD, the other half it's a hard lockup and I have to hold down my tower's power button for a forced shutdown. :\

oh man... I forgot about that bug *shudder*

Agreed, although for some reason the old FO bugs didn't bother me as much. Well, except for the inventory bug. *grumble*

Lol, Fallout 3 was was buggy as hell, and how long was that bun in the oven?

i bet everyone who doesn't know what a fluffer is, visits the Golden Globes in New Reno during their first playthrough of Fallout 2, and they actually fall for it, ending up with 5 caps, poisoning and a bitter taste in the mouth. i love this game. getting back on topic, will there be fluffers in Fallout:New Vegas? Dear Lord, I hope so. It would be a nice nod (or is that head bob? ) to the originals.

I'll swallow your soul!!!

... I can't seem to find Waldo...

Agreed, the voice acting is horrid, and the radiant conversation (or whatever it was called) was lame. That is less bad writing and more bad design. The problem is they tried to create a dynamic world where NPC's had unscripted conversations with each other. It was an ambitious goal, but it was a failure and they should have cut it out. Agreed. One problem I had specifically with the bsoft's philosophy on npc dialogue, is that you are always the center of attention. If I'm a LVL 1 peon with no noteriety because I've never done anything worth noting, the dialogue ought to consistently reflect that. Too often I've gotten the vibe from npcs that they've been patiently waiting their whole lives for little ol' me to come and fix all their problems. On top of that, there should be little to no npc chatter directed towards the player before they've done anything. I think part of this is born out of a desire to actively demonstrate the whole radiant A.I. thing, but really radiant A.I. is just... A.I.

Additional thoughts I had on how to mitigate the need for massive additional assets... Instead of creating a fully funtional vehicle complete with passengers and driving anims for the player, you just use a generic interaction anim for opening the door, and a "sitting down" animation for the character getting in/out of the car. To prevent additional animations for the player operating and reacting to vehicle motions, you simply armour up the exterior so the player can't see inside. Think of panels of riveted diamond plate with little viewports instead of windows, and probably a few other custom visual tweaks to the model. This would also create the additional benefit of making the vehicle standout amongst the all the dead prop vehicles the player is likely to encounter, and make the vehicle feel a little more special. Once the player and npc models have entered the vehicle and the doors are shut, the game engine can stop rendering them, which will help performance.

I keep thinking about some ideas I'd like to see integrated into the game at launch or afterwards in a patch, and just thought I'd see what other people thought about them here. Where I'm coming from on this: I'd like to see DLC (assuming there will be some developed by Obsidian) that's better integrated with the world in a more logical and rewarding manner, and the global travel system player made mod serves as launching pad for the following idea. I'd like see a vehicle introduced to the game, probably a sedan since it would have the room to bring your party with you and extra cargo room. It wouldn't have to be so fast that it pushed what the engine was capable of, and the physics model for the handling could be pretty basic and still be acceptable. You could move around in the game world at greater speed, with a greater degree of protection (although you'd have to be more warry of the topography and various physical barriers). The idea stemming from that that I'd find most interesting would be using the vehicle as a means to access added dlc areas by traveling to the edge of the map, thereby triggering the option to leave the default player world and enter a larger overland travel map which links everything together, instead of using object triggers such as the handcart for The Pitt, or the sleeping cot for Point Lookout. Returning to the starter area would be handled the exact same way, just in reverse. You might even throw in the ability to access the same overland travel map on foot, just with much longer travel times. Tie in the use of random encounter cells on these long journeys, ala Dragon Age Origins (or really the original Fallouts for those who've played them) and you've a complete and cohesive feature set which adds to the grandness of scale without requiring the areas in between be fully fleshed out. It would also be a boon to those in the modding community by creating a standard system for adding player made areas that aren't directly connected to the default world, but can be accessed via this overworld map. So... thoughts?

Well for me it was kinda mixed. On the one hand, it's not like it made the core game's dialogue any worse. On the other hand, a big selling point of the core game was the GECK and customization. Essentially the community born potential. Patch 1.5 effectively killed the most ambitious projects that were in development, and I tend to think that was a shrewd business move rather than a simple and easily remedied mistake that was overlooked before and after patch release. It's alright though, I can still play with the classic adv. power armour mod, and the classic plasma/laser weapon mods, and the 14mm pistol mod, and the classic fallout radiostation mod, and the global transportation system mod, and the raider companion mod, etc, etc. It just crashes every hour, on the hour. The sad thing is, I don't think I could enjoy the game without lots of mods. Every time I try to actually play the core game, I can't get past the plot, the poor dialogue, and the equally bad voiceovers. It'd be awesome if the next installment had more than 10 voice actors, and they had a little more flavor, and/or personality to their voices.

I happen to be one of those poor misguided fools who bought the dlc for pc, all of it except mothership zeta. I know, I failed my willpower roll and suffered a critical failure. I know this because in the little text box in the lower left part of the screen it said: Critical failure, player has purchased Operation Anchorage. DLC will need to be separated from games for windows live and manually installed like a mod in order to play. This will not be fixed by a patch. Furthermore, the required patch increases CTD's, Borks VATS, and makes grenades/rockets untargetable. Critical failure, player has purchased The Pitt. Dlc works reasonably well, but introduces animation bugs through the silly circular saw thingy. This will not be fixed by a patch. Critical failure, player has purchased Point Lookout. Dlc must be installed in a manner similar to Anchorage in order to run. Surprisely, it's not bad. The brain in a jar guy is both hilarious and well voiced. Just as you are begginning to enjoy yourself you are critically shot in the face by an extremely over powered double barrel shotgun weilding extra from Deliverance. Critical failure, player has purchased Broken Steel. Game introduces an awesome weapon called the Heavy Incenerator that produces reliable CTD's whenever used. Bethesda were unable to bipass their own source code, so the new ending is clumsily tacked on. Many new missions don't work. Giant mobile fortress is spiffy, but difficult to reconsile with logic. Save games become rapidly corrupted, massive collection of mods become unplayable. Broken Steel, has broken Fallout. Player takes critical irony damage for 39.99 US, from patch 1.5 Wallow in shame, nub.

*warning, may contain naughty girly parts + Lemmy*

I propose a compromise: soilent burgers, good for the environment, okay for you. [edit] on second thought, notsogood for you, CUZ IMMA MAEK MAH PEPOL BERGER OUTA U!!1!

The problem with nuclear isn't the risk of another 3 Mile (they're pretty well tamed atm), it's the game of radioactive hot-potato that comes later. There just isn't a good solution for what to do with the waste. Even if the halflife was significantly reduced, there's still the issue of reliable containment. On top of that, being paid to receive the waste from other regions is political suicide, and so whenever it's discovered that a shipment of nuclear waste is coming to a place like New Mexico, the uproar is so intense that the trucks just winde up driving in circles around the country. Sure there's some interesting research in thorium reactors, but passive forms of that, that use other nuclear waste in the reaction are still in the feasibility stage. And they're expensive. On top of all that, nuclear plant tech in the U.S. is in the same boat as cell phones and internet connections, ie: artificially inferior.

Read some Philip K D1ck, which I kinda assume you already have. He has some pretty cool.. induced.. ideas as well. Although he mostly tend to theorize on the nature of time. Valis is especially trippy and interesting in this regard. Your word phrasings reminded me of it, which is why I'm mentioning it. Tbh, I've only read "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" (to my great shame), and I am a Huge fan of Bladerunner (even though there's only a thin connection between the two). I have been influenced by a number of friends who were likely influenced by his books, and my community had a pretty healthy counter-cultural vibe to it when I was in my teens/early twenties. Probably doesn't hurt that the local market penetration for 'inducements' was as deep as electricity and indoor plumbing. I'll definitely look into a copy of that book on your recommendation.

It's funny, I came up with a similar concept while on a... let's just call it a chemically induced sabbatical. My thoughts kept recentering on the idea that the nature of matter, energy, the universe as whole deny the very concept of a beginning or an end. That many things can exhibit dual natured wavelike properties under certain circumstances. Really, it seams the entire universe and everything in it possesses wave like properties and demonstratable patterns. It occured to me that it could be a reflection of the past and the fundamental nature of the universe, played out from the extremes of the finite "beginning", through the current makeup or pattern, to the eventual upper threshold or "end". Neither term is really apt, but simply relatable. What I'm really thinking of put simply is that the universe is an oscillating (expanding and contracting) waveform. There is no beggining or end.

I think it's time to make a serious proposal for this project. Mr. Sawyer, after serious thought i would suggest that at least one of the Non Player Characters in the upcoming title under the name of Fallout: New Vegas, should, in fact, be a Supermutant Elvis Impersonator. Thank you very much. BRILLIANT! Get this man a bigger chair!