Ausir

By the way, I do hope that the Brotherhood of Steel won't appear in the game, or at least won't be part of the main storyline. They've been overused already.

I think using the NCR-run Hoover Dam from Van Buren would be a good thing, even if not as an actual location (although it is quite close to Vegas), then as a major faction with its stakes in New Vegas. Hoover Dam's government would be a good contrast to a (likely) mob-run Vegas, and it would be interesting to see what the relations between the two towns are.

1964 is too late, it has to be from the 1950s or older.

Anyway, I suggest we get back to the topic of Fallout: New Vegas. I'd like to see the Jackals in. They're a very unlucky bunch of raiders - they were to appear in 3 Fallout games, but were cut from one and the other two were canceled.

Fallout 3's Flak and Shrapnel are also a gay couple.

Well, it's not only Beth itself, but the whole ESRB rating system. E.g. The Witcher, a Polish game, was uncensored in most of Europe, while in the US the nudity was censored.

It was already possible in Fallout 2. Well, a shotgun wedding isn't exactly romantic, even a gay one.

Not really, walking through towns and through the wastes looked the same, but the world map and town maps had different scales. If anything, it was more like FO1 and 2 than like FO3, since you transitioned through exit grids from the more detailed town map to world map that showed the various locations as single squares, and had random encounters on the way.

By the way, I do hope that if any super mutants appear in New Vegas, they'll look more like they did in FO1 and 2 than like they do in FO3. I don't mind the Vault 87 mutants being different that much, but if any were to appear in Vegas, they'll be from the Mariposa strain, and should look more like they did in the originals. Although I'll also understand if they'll just use the FO3 models because of time constraints.

Humvee is too modern for Fallout's divergent timeline. It did appear in Fallout Tactics, but it was a mistake (Chris Taylor originally wanted a jeep there, but he was overruled by the Microforte devs).

Yes, e.g. the Chinese Stealth Armor (Hei Gui) is originally from Van Buren. Even one of the Operation: Anchorage notes mentions that "This armor appears to be a more recent prototype of the same HG stealth armor captured from enemy infiltrators at the Hoover Sabotage.", the Chinese sabotage of Hoover Dam's secret laboratory being an event described in more detail in Van Buren's Hoover Dam design doc. Actually, Hoover Dam already being mentioned in the Fallout 3 DLC is even more of a reason to include it, if not as location then at least its NCR government as a faction present in New Vegas. To my knowledge, Bethesda owns all these as well.

Bethesda owns the Van Buren designs, and is publishing Obsidian's New Vegas, so I see no reason why Obsidian wouldn't be allowed to use Van Buren ideas, considering that Bethesda itself has used some of them (e.g. events originally mentioned only in the Hoover Dam design document from Van Buren were also mentioned in the Operation: Anchorage Fallout 3 DLC.), as long as they keep their game consistent with Fallout 3.

If by Boulder Dam you mean Hoover Dam, it was a major town in Van Buren, the original Fallout3 project by Black Isle: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Hoover_Dam It would be great if they were able to reuse at least some of that design. After they lost contact with Shady Sands during the NCR-BOS war, Hoover Dam became the self-claimed capital of the New California Republic (a bit of a misnomer, given that it's in Nevada).

I'd also like to see some of the background material, factions, characters, etc. from Van Buren used, particularly from Hoover Dam, which is a Van Buren location pretty close to Vegas. They could mention stuff like the NCR-BOS war, or even, if the game is set around the time of FO3, reference the ending of Van Buren's storyline, saying that 20 years before some pre-War satellite went nuts and nuked a bunch of places like Shady Sands in the middle of their war with the NCR (maybe even people blaming the BOS for it, not knowing anything about Presper's plan?) It would somewhat fulfil the original plan of taking the Core Region somewhat backwards in terms of rebuilding the civilization in Van Buren and incorporate Van Buren's story into the official canon, even if it won't be released as a full-fledged game. Given that Bethesda has been using some of Van Buren ideas, I see no reason why they wouldn't allow Obsidian to use them.

Traits shouldn't be hard to implement tech-wise, removing them was a design decision by Bethesda which should be easy to change by Obsidian if they are allowed to do so.

Well, I'm pretty sure that Josh would like to bring traits back if he's able to. And since traits were supported even in early builds of Fallout 3, bringing them back shouldn't be that hard tech-wise.

Yup, it doesn't make sense for unlooted, functional computers to still stand undamaged in deserted office buildings.

They didn't have huge maps, but they showed a wider variety of locations and covered a wider area of the game's world, even if in less detail, while Fallout 3 shows a very detail view of what would amount to one map square in Fallout 1 or 2.

Traits should be very easy to do, given that they're selected at character creation and optional. Bringing back the old perk system (or an improved one, akin to Van Buren) would be harder.

This is a list of things (both gameplay-wise and lore-wise) that were in previous Fallouts and I'd like to see included in Fallout: New Vegas, and that wouldn't be that hard to do even while keeping Fallout 3's overall gameplay system intact. * Traits * Low-intelligence dialogues * Ending narration that shows you the results of your actions on various communities and people you came across * Perks every 3 levels instead of every level, and more interesting perks * Tying perks only to skills and stats (with higher requirements), without a level requirement (like JE Sawyer originally proposed for Van Buren) * Higher maximum skill level, making it impossible to become a jack of all trades * The higher the skill you want to increase, the more skill points you have to pay for one % * Main stats having more influence on derived statistics and skills * Strength requirements for weapons * Mentions of the NCR-Brotherhood war from Van Buren * Characters from Hoover Dam and maybe the Dam itself, given the proximity * Poseidon Energy - given how important this corporation was Pre-War, I found it weird that it's not even mentioned in FO3 * Lots of references to Van Buren, so at the very least the story and backstory will be officially canon

I prefer the FO1/2 model of more diverse locations with less detail than focus on one location with a lot of detail like in FO3 myself.

Yes, they refer to it as a separate game. Otherwise Bethesda would call it an expansion pack.

Well, that's pretty much what I expect it to be. It will likely be somewhat of an expansion pack to Fallout 3, just released as a standalone title, and not requiring the original game. Of course they won't. It won't have the scope of Van Buren, or likely even of Bethesda's FO3.

Yeah, I actually think Zur did a better job on FOT than on FO3.

Yup, Bethesda owns the story, as evident in a few things taken from VB in FO3 (like the Hei Gui stealth armor and the trogs). However, Obsidian actually owns some of the Van Buren art assets. I do hope that the game will have lots of references to the events, locations and characters from Van Buren, so that they'll at the very least be made officially canon. Maybe e.g. Caesar's Legion could appear? Daughters of Hecate? References to the NCR-BOS war? Characters from the nearby and NCR-run Hoover Dam? Anyway, I started a FAQ for New Vegas at The Vault wiki: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout:_New_Vegas_FAQ