BruceVC

Im about 15-18 hours into F:NV and its been the incredible and predicted positive experience that I knew it was going to be The mods I loaded from Viva NV and other additional mods seem to have created the ideal wasteland experience for me And as usual I must talk about MO2 and how it helped with troubleshooting because you typically experience most mods conflicts in the first 2-4 hours and once you fix them the problem is resolved Firstly I noticed immediately that Doc Mitchell had the pink mesh problems around his character and that was related to the Fallout Character Overhaul https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/54460 So I did some troubleshooting from the mod Nexus page and everything seemed fine but then I realized I had made a mistake with this mod and I had installed a hotfix with the " Replace" option and not the " Merge" or " Rename " Merge should always be used for hotfixes because it just replaces similar files which is what you want, Replace deletes all assets and just uses the new ones and that meant my mod obviously wasn't installed properly because you need the original mod files with the hotfix. I then rechecked about 3-4 other mods and reinstalled them with the " Merge" That fixed my pink mesh problem. I then noticed I had a problem with circles in the sky and thats a known problem around Desert Natural Weathers and conflicts with other weather mods. But I was confused because the Desert Natural Weathers was the last ESM in right of MO2 but then I noticed that Realistic Wasteland Lighting was conflicting around meshes in the left side of MO2 so I just changed the order of Desert Natural Weathers on the left so it was lower than Realistic Wasteland Lighting and the problem was solved And then Im using mods like World of Pain which adds lots of new and fun quests like Vault 40 and the Harder Barter Faster Stronger which makes the overall economy and resources much more difficult and Im spending lots of time finding resources and being selective about what I can sell. It adds to the overall survival element of the game when money is always a factor The only thing Im " unhappy " about are my companions and how they too powerful and unbalance the dangers of combat. I loaded a mod that allows Companions to die in combat but I will keep the autoheal for companions after combat because I can live with that convenience and Stimpacks are in short supply anyway with the mod settings I use But great experience so far and modding has really improved the vanilla game

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Faraway_Tree There are a whole series of fantasy books based on the Faraway Tree theme and these books were written from 1939-1951, I had forgotten how much they had influenced my love of fantasy because I had assumed it had started with the Steve Jackson books but when I was thinking about the blog and my journey I realized it had started much earlier. I didnt read these books myself so that was what had created my original love of fantasy And that red box D&D image, I will never forget it

Interesting French election outcome, the general global media got these predictions wrong where they made assumptions that RN would win the second round The bogey man of the " French far right " ruling France is subdued again Here is a good interview with Le Pen where she explains somethings to Christiane Amanpour about the RN and what they stand for and how they not the same as US " far right "

Yes but again, the Heritage Foundation does not define what Trump can and will implement. Project 2025 is there blueprint and most of these ideas are far too extreme for Trump to want to implement Its different if Trump said " my presidency is going to be about Project 2025 '' then we should be very concerned. But at the moment there is no need for fearmongering

Yes, it was a predicted loss for the Conservatives It will be interesting to see what fundamental, if any, changes Labour makes But Democracy is the winner, if you not happy with leadership you can use the ballet box to make your unhappiness realized

Yes I have heard lots of things Trump says, that doesnt mean he is going to do these things which is why I asked you what concerns you the most? And I had never heard of Project 2025 but I looked it up now https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c977njnvq2do Some outrageous suggestions including " Under the proposals, pornography would be banned, and tech and telecoms companies that facilitate access to such content would be shut down " How dare they consider banning porn

What do you think Trump is going to do if he wins in November, what concerns you the most? Im concerned more with his foreign policy decisions like NATO membership and aid for Ukraine I cant see Israel aid changing and we will probably see more escalating tension towards China and Iran?

Thanks, I will take advantage of this for sure

Firstly the " spambot " made a post that I agree with based on my review post of what I posted earlier Secondly I dont use SM comments and videos when its better to ask people on a forum to respond, thats more accurate and its about lived experience. Anyone can find a video on Youtube to support there views, thats not the same as your opinion

Of course you entitled to your opinion but you not explaining why you think its garbage? Maybe just use 4-5 bullet points why you think that?

Absolutely, I have just finished all the DLC for F03 and I added the Explorer Perk and I can see how many dozens of locations I never discovered and this was despite all the exploring I did. I typically wouldnt select the Explorer perk because it ruins the excitement of discovery but Im on level 27 now and I wont continue with the game because I have now completed all the main quests and the DLC So I will be starting on my heavily modded F:NV game and this time I will make sure I explore more so I dont miss out on locations But yes, FO3 is an incredible game for exploring and finding random and exciting locations. Not so much for main narrative

I agree that the contentious legal point to this ruling is going to be " what is official and unofficial " But I dont see why that should be complicated? For example if a US president goes to a fund raising and then sexually assaults a waitress thats not official and he should be charged But you can make a direct link between Fentanyl that is ending up in the US and how several cartels are involved in smuggling this drug so if you stop the cartels bringing in Fentanyl thats in the best interests of the US and particularly the Fentanyl crisis and higher levels of overdoses. So if a US president says " we going to assassinate Cartel leaders until they stop bringing in Fentanyl " thats an official government decision based on a specific outcome So there is a difference between official and unofficial decisions and can the US president be charged and I do think 6 January was unofficial

This wouldnt apply to unofficial acts or decisions the US president made. I think the ruling makes sense, for example lets say the US president orders the assassination of drug cartel leaders and that is an official decision. But lets say something goes wrong and civilians are killed accidently, should the president be now prosecuted because he approved the operation? The US president can still be prosecuted for unofficial decisions like 6 January or lets say something like sexual violence or rape This only protects the US president for decisions made in the interests of the US in his capacity of president

That was probably the funniest juice media ad I have ever seem, it really made me laugh "oh no, killer robots " The girls imitating accents are always hilarious I love the end " authorised by John Connor "

Yes, any delusional leader is a risk but I dont think Putin is like that. He is a warmonger, a nationalist , a liar and he is paranoid but I dont think he wants to see Russia wiped out in the obvious counter attack if Russia used nukes on the USA. I dont think Putin is suicidal, he wants to survive if you think about the virus and how terrified he was about contacting Corona Any world leader that went to those lengths to avoid getting the virus clearly wants to survive And Kim is definitely more delusional than Putin but he also has objectives for NK he wants to achieve and he uses threats of nukes more for brinkmanship

The reality of nuclear war would be so terrible its almost impossible to contemplate but lets say for argument sake it occurred, it would be between the US and Russia\China but most likely Russia vs USA But heres why I think its very unlikely, 5% chance at most I use history as an assessment of these types of concerns and if there wasnt nuclear war between the US vs USSR in the Cold War why would it happen now? Ideological tension and real events like the Cuban Missile Crisis created a reality for decades where people on both sides really hated and resented each other and wanted to go war , Communism was an absolute scourge and blight on the world but there was no WW3 but rather proxy wars and spycraft and this was primarily because of the concern of MAD (mutually assured destruction ) because of nukes that would have been inevitably used if the likes of the US went to war with the USSR So the deterrent of nukes prevented another WW because the consequence was too terrible to risk, Oppenheimer was ironically wrong when he grappled with guilt when he said " I am become death , the destroyer of worlds " His important contribution in the Manhattan Project saved millions of lives that would have been lost in WW3 So if nukes were never used during the years of real ideological hatred in the Cold War why would they be used now? Our geopolitical differences are generally much less than they were in the Cold War?

Yes but Russia can still invade and occupy a country, it just depends on the resistance they meet and the type of warfare the Russians adopt. They have lots of ways they can devastate cities, look at Aleppo, so its not like anyone wants to be invaded by Russia I have also never really believed the whole WW3 narrative but thats not why I support Ukraine

Its interesting how the entire Russian military offensive around Kharkiv has stalled and now looks like its reversed in certain areas There was lots of exaggeration about the success of that campaign and the reasons for it but I do remember Ukraine openly acknowledging they had to make strategic retreats in several areas because they lacked the military equipment. But that was before the US $60 billion had been approved or arrived The US aid to Ukraine is critical to them being able to stop the Russian offensive. Before the invasion I use to think Russia had an effective and well trained military but I dont think that anymore after the last 3 years of warfare The Russians can effectively use cannon-fodder and meat-grinder tactics but even that has its limits

But thats the problem and real criticism towards the Dems political Biden strategy making him the candidate We didnt find it out, we " knew " Biden had a deterioration of his mental acumen and the Dem strategists ignored this. They got over confidant after the midterms but they should have started preparing a different candidate back then But now its too late. Anyway only the undecided voters can save the Dems now but its impossible to predict how they will vote

But Trump is both, he says uninformed and inaccurate things which becomes SNL content but he also jokes and says funny things like the baby comment Also he says certain things just to get a reaction from liberals and the left. And these things shouldnt get the attention they get Im not saying you must ignore everything he says but you have to adopt a Trump filter so you dont waste time on things he says that is more about theatre and his personality than anything substantive or relevant For example I just heard a South Africa interview now about the debate last night and the local anchor said she was so offended by what Trump said about Biden and abortion when he said " He’s willing to, as we say, rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month and kill the baby " and this is classic Trump hyperbole because of course the Dems dont believe in abortion after 9 months unless its health reasons So the news anchor was " offended" which is my point. If you want to be offended and outraged by Trump then you can find it all time It just seems pointless to me because we know how Trump is and how he says certain things

I completed Fallou3 after about 50 hours I enjoyed it but it had its weaknesses and its strengths. I think the biggest reason for much of both the fair and unfair criticism towards FO3 is because people understandably compare it to FO1&2 And thats a big mistake, you cannot do that because FO3 is so different. FO1&2 are excellent, iconic, isometric styled CRPG that literally set standards for post-apocalyptic games F03 is a first person\third person game with very different mechanics and it needs to be judged on that So what I didnt like about F03? The narrative was uninspiring, you want to find your father ....meh. But that also suited me because I tended to abandon the main quest and do side quests because I never felt any urgency to complete the main quest. And then the main quest ended in a very almost rushed way, I found the GECK and went back to the citadel ( @Gorth you were right, those children were very irritating at Lamplight cavern, I wished I had loaded the child killing mod ) and the Brotherhood of Steel said we must attack the Enclave with there giant robot Liberty Prime But Liberty Prime did all the fighting and I just ran behind it until we reached the Enclave ..and then you make a decision about who to sacrifice and thats it??? Game is over, very lacklustre ending Also I had some strange bugs like after Lamplight caverns I still couldnt use weapons in the Vault to get the GECK. The game is suppose to allow you to use weapons to kill mutants but the Child " non-killing" block wasnt removed so I had to use console cheats to kill every mutant which is very frustrating. Once I left Vault 87 I could use my weapons again Now what I liked about the game, its classic Bethesda open-world sandbox which Bethesda is renowned for and the game delivered on this. As I mentioned I loved randomly exploring and doing side quests like the Wasteland Guide. There were lots of interesting places to visit like the Oasis with the strange tree mutant Then the economy was well done, I never had enough caps for ammunition and weapons and that meant I had to constantly explore and find resources to sell which I enjoyed And then the game had some hilarious and memorable characters like Moira Brown and her comments and quests to get you to finish the Wasteland Guide and then Liberty Prime really made me laugh with his anti-Communist comments " "Death is a preferable alternative to communism." " , " Embrace democracy or you will be ERADICATED", " Communism detected on american soil. Lethal force engaged." Overall it gets a generous 60\100 on the world famous " BruceVC game rating system" and thats primarily because of the open world design which is always appreciated Im going to play Fallout:NV next and like F03 I have played it before but this time I will mod it properly and comprehensively and I am using this excellent modding guide as an initial reference but I will add more mods through MO2 https://vivanewvegas.moddinglinked.com/

I have raised this before but Trump is the funniest politician I have ever known and I mean funniest as in comedy and his mannerisms. Thats why SNL had such a field day with him And this will always be my most hilarious Trump moment, it still makes me LOL

Its interesting you suggest Bernie, if I had to choose between him and Biden I would choose Bernie because even though I disagree with on several issues his mental acumen is fine My biggest concern now is even in the unlikely chance Biden wins will Biden make it mentally another 4 years as president and is it fair to expect him? It just seems so irresponsible for the Dems to choose him as the best candidate and this is only because of his age Trump is a terrible candidate in different ways for the GOP but his mental state is more or less okay but he is also making fumbles and getting things wrong in speeches but its not at the same level as Biden

What a disaster for Biden, Trump focuses on the negative and how " terrible " the USA is as a way to motivate people But Bidens age is by far his biggest shortfall and the Dems have basically handed Trump the presidency. Im seriously worried how anyone can want someone of his mental acumen to be president of the most powerful and influential country in the world I like Biden on a personal level, I think he is honest and means well but he should never have been the Democratic candidate. Someone like Newsom from California should have been prepared Undecided voters can swing elections and after that train wreck for Biden because of mental acumen I doubt he would have convinced any of them

It would create an absolute economic disaster for the entire world, lets say you couldnt trade in the dollar. Its almost impossible to think how serious the consequences would be because of how established the dollar is Central Banks and countries would adopt other currencies and international trades would continue but it would create months of chaos and global financial instability would be severely impacted Imagine trying to negotiate what currency a country like South Africa could use for most global transactions, I doubt most people would accept our Rand and we dont have massive amounts of other currencies outside of the dollar in our foreign reserves