New Vegas, for my sins

[argan]

I liked Honest Hearts, but I really did not enjoy Dead Money. I don't know what it was, but I just wasn't having fun with it.

 

 

The part where you stood close to the door in the casino after finishing one task and hearing the Ghost people clawing and banging at the door was nice, though.

 

 

Wasn't too fond of Old World Blues either, way too wacky to fit in well. Actually, Honest Hearts was probably the only DLC I liked...but then again I don't like the entire concept of DLC either.

[Lexx]

But the DLCs are more like mini-addons and totally worth the money, imo. Really can't be compared to rip-off DLCs a la horse armor.

[Cantousent]

I finished Lonesome Road yesterday and I found the end quite moving. While I tended to get tired of Ulysses' dialogue, the various journals I found were interesting and explained a lot of his character. I finally ended up

letting my poor little ED-E kill himself aborting the missle strike. I almost redirected the missles toward the legion, but something like that could have come home to roost for the city of New Vegas and the NCR. My standard play now is to keep New Vegas viable, neutral, and strong.

 

 

I've now gotten into Dead Money. I seem to recall starting it a long time ago and then I had to take a break and never got far. The beginning is a bit tedious, but I enjoy the weird gameplay now. It's not really Fallout so much as a puzzle game set in the Fallout universe. The companions are interesting. I've got them all now and it's fun. I hate the red cloud stuff because I'm always tempted to go in and try to find loot. Truth is, I've gone in and looted quite a bit, but it's always a race.

 

I made a bunch of the ghost sight stuff, and now I wonder if I wasted the cloud residue in doing so. I haven't found a use for the ghost sight yet, but I have found some kickass recipes I can make using that residue. They can call it a Sierra Madre Martini, but I prefer to think it tastes like a dirty martini. mmm MMM MMMM

[argan]

But the DLCs are more like mini-addons and totally worth the money, imo. Really can't be compared to rip-off DLCs a la horse armor.

 

Yeah, I know that logically is should like DLC. But seriously, there's something about creating small add-ons all the time and slapping them onto the game afterwards. I very much preferred the old way of making expansion packs. Maybe I'm just living in the past too much.

[Nonek]

The DLC's of New Vegas weren't slapped on afterwards, they were planned for during the making of the game as I understand. That's why there are hints to each of them lying all around the base game, for myself if all games did DLC like these and Treasures of the Sun I wouldn't have half the inclination to avoid them like I do.

[Cantousent]

I really got into Dead Money. I think it was the most complex of all the DLC. I probably rank it as my third. HH and OWB were my favorites for the reasons that I've already stated. DM is peculiar in that I think the story in many ways surpasses HH. However, if Honest Hearts is simpler than Dead Money, it is also a more personal story deeply intertwined, at least in my run, with the burning man's redemption. On the other hand, where Honest Hearts was more personal to me, Dead Money was all about your companions. You, as the PC, are simply a blank slate. Did you go for greed? Did you go for glory? Curiousity? Adventure? Did you have some desire to see if there were people in need or distress? The player gets to decide those things, and that judgment remains with the player from beginning to end, and that was the lynchpin to Dead Money's excellent story. The companions were the story. The PC was almost just a reflection of them. Even the backstory, unrelated to the companions' personal goals, had good twists and turns. At one point, I achieved something for learning about my companions and at another point by learning about the Sierra Madre. For that reason, I thought the story was most excellent and, just as I feel about New Vegas as a whole, this dlc, along with Honest Hearts, rises to the level of literature. I don't claim to be an expert on literature, but years of reading and enjoying and, many times, even doing my own translations of various works of classical works, I do know what I enjoy, and I enjoyed these two dlc greatly. Honest Hearts nudges out Dead Money, but not by much.

 

OWB is about equivalent with HH, but not because of the story. It's a game in the glorious tradition of games. It had enough backstory to be coherent. It had enough NPC interaction to be engaging. It had tons of new items. Finally, it had awesome exploration in the sort of zany atmosphere that I've loved in the Fallout games since the very first one hit the shelves many years ago.

 

I guess I probably don't have anything more to say about New Vegas that I haven't already said in other threads or reiterated in this one. The DLC added to my gaming experience. I only wonder who was responsible for Dead Money. Anyone know the top dog on the project?

[Lexx]

Avellone did all DLCs except HH. I also like DMs writing, but the DLC itself not so much, because of the maze-like map layout. Though, unlike many other people, I really liked the radio-stuff. You had to listen to your surroundings and try to find the radios or you go booom. With a little care in walking around, they never were a real problem to me.

[Humanoid]

The maze-like layout extended throughout pretty much the whole game. The Kings' headquarters, oh god....

[Raithe]

Just finished Lonesome Road for the first time.

 

I am... curiously undecided on just what I make of it.

[AGX-17]

I have forgotten ... is there a "recommended" clvl for the DLC's? My memory seems to believe you could do HH fairly early if you wanted but DM was more for lvl20's and above or some such? The others?

 

If you want to start them, a popup shows up and tells you the suggested level. Doesn't mean you have to do it with that one then, though.

 

I personally like to do Honest Hearts with at least lvl 14 / 15, because then the White Legs are running around with Brush Guns and Anti-Materiel Rifles. Feels cool. :>

Playing Old World Blues with level 30 right now and it is hard, but not *that* hard. I am doing fine right now.

 

I've done all of the DLCs except OWB (utterly impossible with those bullet-sponge enemies and nerfed sneaking,) with low level characters (hardcore mode on, of course,) and it was always the most fun I'd had with them. All the loot you get in those areas really shines when it's the best gear you've found in the game thus far. Except Lonesome Road's Elite Riot Gear, which is already just about the best armor in the game (crit chance buffing armor + crit chance buffing headgear + crit chance buffing perk + crit chance buffing weapon + 10 Luck + VATS = 100% crits)

 

 

 

I'm playing on Hardcore, so not sure if that makes a difference in combat, but could be the reason

 

Hardcore mode only affects the player by changing how healing/radiation reduction works and adding food, water and sleep needs.

 

Assuming no engine-level changes were made to VATS, VATS should add +15% crit chance like it did in Fallout 3.

 

 

Just finished Lonesome Road for the first time.

 

I am... curiously undecided on just what I make of it.

 

Did you choose to stop the launch? That's the only option that doesn't lead to severe cognitive dissonance once you continue the main game.

Edited October 24, 2012 by AGX-17

[Raithe]

Yeah. Stopped the launch, got to be Idolised by BoS and FotA upon my return.

 

Although so far I only blew up 25 of the warheads scattered around.. Did find all of Ulysses tapes, so I got his back story fairly well sorted.

 

I'm not sure what it was, Dead Money had that emotional payoff when you faced Elijah, Honest Hearts had that serious storyline that had a bit of emotional punch, OWB had that zany side of B-Movie madness that had you chuckling even while facing the serious "science gone too far" type of crazy and a fairly emotive sequence of end slide.

 

But Lonesome Road.. I don't know. Something about it just hasn't seemed to connect properly. It was ...interesting, but I can't really nail down what I liked or disliked about it.

[Enoch]

This has been an interesting read, although I've been skipping over any obvious Lonesome Road spoilers, as I haven't played it yet.

 

Mostly, it's interesting to hear about how highly some of you regard Honest Hearts, which I didn't find nearly as compelling as DM and OWB on my first playthrough of those expansions. The exploration element of HH was excellent (and actually brought back memories of a childhood trip to Zion NP), and the story of the Survivalist journals was really well done. But once I had explored the whole map and found all the Journals, I pretty much wanted to get the hell back to the Mojave, and didn't feel like the story had given me any particular reason to care about the futures of the tribes I had met in Zion. The initial conversation with Graham was cool, in that it told me interesting things about the Legion, New Canaan, etc., but mostly I felt that the expansion's attempts at pathos fell flat. If the story is supposed to be about Graham's redemption, I didn't see anything in him that was especially capable or worthy of meaningful redemption.

 

In particular, it never struck me that Daniel's goal of preserving the "innocence" of a bunch of tribals was an achievable or worthwhile goal in the Fallout universe. I haven't seen the ending slides that occur if you take that path, but I would expect based on my overall impression of core Fallout themes that it describes them all being picked up by slavers within a few weeks of the Courier leaving, and sold off for prostitution and medical experiments.

 

I mean, War Never Changes, right? Why should it change for those guys?

 

</SneeringImperialist>

Edited October 25, 2012 by Enoch

[Cantousent]

You know, I've only done one run of Honest Hearts, so I don't know any other endings. I'll spoiler how I approached it just in case some folks haven't played it but I will say, from the main title, I was always interested in the burning man myth.

When I met him in the camps, I saw someone who was bent on doing the right thing, and I think redemption, was clearly less important than his decision to protect his 'tribe.' I don't even remember if we discussed the idea of redemption openly at the time. As I progressed through the story with a tribe that was hell-bent on waging a war of genocide against the people of Zion, I agreed with the burning man. The white legs never approached to parlay and offered no quarter. After the first few encounters with a recalcitrant enemy, I was perfectly willing to kill them where I saw them. I had no more qualms than I would killing a rat or an ant. Finally, as I reached the end, I slaughtered every one I found until we faced the white leg's leader. Salt Upon Wounds begged for his life and I considered that his failure would mean that his power would be irrevocably broken. My speech was maxed, and I convinced the burning man to let Salt Upon Wounds live. Graham granted mercy to his defeated opponent, and that led to the ending.

 

Granted, my ending was quite sad for the tribes and for Daniel, but Graham was, in my mind, redeemed. That's why I view it as a story of redemption, even if it didn't start out that way. Combined with the journals, which were kinda cool at first and became absolutely riveting by the end, I place the Honest Hearts story as my favorite of the four. Dead Money was probably a stronger story, but Honest Hearts hit me more.

[AGX-17]

This has been an interesting read, although I've been skipping over any obvious Lonesome Road spoilers, as I haven't played it yet.

 

Mostly, it's interesting to hear about how highly some of you regard Honest Hearts, which I didn't find nearly as compelling as DM and OWB on my first playthrough of those expansions. The exploration element of HH was excellent (and actually brought back memories of a childhood trip to Zion NP), and the story of the Survivalist journals was really well done. But once I had explored the whole map and found all the Journals, I pretty much wanted to get the hell back to the Mojave, and didn't feel like the story had given me any particular reason to care about the futures of the tribes I had met in Zion. The initial conversation with Graham was cool, in that it told me interesting things about the Legion, New Canaan, etc., but mostly I felt that the expansion's attempts at pathos fell flat. If the story is supposed to be about Graham's redemption, I didn't see anything in him that was especially capable or worthy of meaningful redemption.

 

In particular, it never struck me that Daniel's goal of preserving the "innocence" of a bunch of tribals was an achievable or worthwhile goal in the Fallout universe. I haven't seen the ending slides that occur if you take that path, but I would expect based on my overall impression of core Fallout themes that it describes them all being picked up by slavers within a few weeks of the Courier leaving, and sold off for prostitution and medical experiments.

 

I mean, War Never Changes, right? Why should it change for those guys?

 

</SneeringImperialist>

 

 

No, they stay dumb and innocent under the protection of the New Canaanites and the Dead Horses, but the White Legs continue to menace the region and they somehow undertake the massive labor operation of transporting industrial trash to Zion apparently for the sole purpose of making it the objectively "bad" ending. JSawyer's been asked about this on Formspring but he was pretty tight-lipped and said it had to do with portraying the mormon religion accurately.

 

 

 

Granted, my ending was quite sad for the tribes and for Daniel, but Graham was, in my mind, redeemed. That's why I view it as a story of redemption, even if it didn't start out that way. Combined with the journals, which were kinda cool at first and became absolutely riveting by the end, I place the Honest Hearts story as my favorite of the four. Dead Money was probably a stronger story, but Honest Hearts hit me more.

 

I don't know how you dealt with the tribes, but the way I read/heard the ending slides was that the

"competetive friction and occasional violence" between the tribes was basically just a side note and the way it's written/read it sounds like these were rare occurrences, not "war never changes" occurrences. It focuses much more on Daniel living in self-imposed misery and despair for the rest of his life anyway.

 

Edited October 25, 2012 by AGX-17

[Cantousent]

I heard the ending slides as pretty much the same except that

the Sorrows and Dead Horses never managed to truly be at peace with one another. They were competitors who occasionally resorted to violence with one another. I don't think the ending is poorly conceived or written. It's just the sad reality of life, especially the harsh life depicted in Fallout. This isn't the ending slide in which you create a union between marginal people or reinforce a community to become the NCR. Like everything else in my run of Honest Hearts, it reinforces how central Graham is to the story.

 

 

I would like to give it a try doing it Daniel's way. I disagree with it in principle because I think it's a failing policy in real-life, but it could be interesting to see how the ending plays.

[AGX-17]

I heard the ending slides as pretty much the same except that

the Sorrows and Dead Horses never managed to truly be at peace with one another. They were competitors who occasionally resorted to violence with one another. I don't think the ending is poorly conceived or written. It's just the sad reality of life, especially the harsh life depicted in Fallout. This isn't the ending slide in which you create a union between marginal people or reinforce a community to become the NCR. Like everything else in my run of Honest Hearts, it reinforces how central Graham is to the story.

 

 

I would like to give it a try doing it Daniel's way. I disagree with it in principle because I think it's a failing policy in real-life, but it could be interesting to see how the ending plays.

 

It's worth doing, but Daniel's... well, Daniel.

It's much better to go Joshua's route with high speech and help him redeem himself and keep Zion preserved.

 

[Guest Slinky]

Okay, I started Old World Blues for the first time and it's driving me nuts. At first it felt absolutely great, the starting conversations with the "doctors" was hilarious and the the whole DLC seemed anartisticly fun.

 

Then I started to wander about. I can't go ANYWHERE without being harassed constantly by all kinds of horrible things. One of the many things why I love FO:NV is how you can explore around with relative peace, some of the critters wont even attack unless you go too close. In OWB there are enemies everywhere and they even seem to respawn. I'm also smelling a horrible level scaler at work, I'm getting hammered by gatling lazers, rockets and everything else, and the enemies take ridiculous amounts of bullets to go down. Started the DLC yesterday and I'm already frustrated as hell.

 

Am I doing something wrong or should I just forget the whole thing?

[WDeranged]

OWB was pretty tough for me too, I remember the turning point being when I upgraded the sonic gun thingy, if it wasn't for that gun being so lethal to robots I'd probably have turned down the difficulty to easy for a while...a desperate last resort for me.

[Starwars]

OWB is easily the worst of the DLCs combat-wise and the main reason I rank it the lowest. It's just... annoying to play.

 

However, don't be afraid to use the melee weapons you find the in DLC, even if you haven't leveled the actual skill. They can be really effective.

[Cantousent]

I was changing the sound a couple days ago and realized I'd started my current run on hard. Combat hasn't been too terribly difficult, but I have to say that I found a couple of things notable about the dlc. First of all, it's hard to sneak. With a maxed sneak and even using a stealthboy and other sneak enhancing stuff, things see you out way farther than in the main title. The other thing is that, since things see you out so far, it's harder (not impossible, just harder) to get great head-shot criticals. However, I'm level 40-something in this run, and I'm still using a sniper variant and a laser rifle variant from OWB. Great goodies in OWB. If you can manage to get some of the good stuff, one of which isn't too terribly far from the sink, then those horrid scorpions won't be so tough after all. I just don't see how lobotomites can have such high perceptions. Sheesh.

[WDeranged]

Lots of New Vegas discussion for those interested.

 

[Cantousent]

I swear to goodness, I think that must be Red's video of her PC and Boone palling around with ED-E. I see it at 7:23. Sorry, a bit into the vino right now, but I had to mention that. I apologize in advance, but I'm going to double post because I had some thoughts about Arcade Gannon, but they're not formed right now. It is a noob sin to double post in your own thread, but I hope you guys will forgive me. Meanwhile, I can't believe Red's Boone vids made it into the interview footage. Brilliant!

 

EDIT: hefeweizen? What the hell is this guy talking about wheat beer? Beer is too fattening. If you're drinking several bottles a night, better to stick with wine. It's less fattening, methinks.

Edited November 14, 2012 by Cantousent

[NOK222]

Some of the restoration mods are pretty neat. The restored intro is especially fascinating, cause Obsidian actually seemed to have had that fleshed out but couldn't get rid of the clunkyness, using a video instead.

 

Time constraints...

Edited November 14, 2012 by NKKKK

[LadyCrimson]

I swear to goodness, I think that must be Red's video of her PC and Boone palling around with ED-E. I see it at 7:23.

What? *looks*

I'm not sure which video of mine you're thinking of, but I don't think that's a frame from any of mine. I don't use the gold UI color. It does feel like I've seen that shot before, but not sure where.

[Yes Man]

I've always loved Old World Blues. Probably because I love Fallout 2's humor, and Old World Blues is like an entire add-on dedicated to the Fallout 2 style of humor.

 

Oddly enough though, my favorite add-on writing wise is Dead Money. I just love the atmosphere and the story.

Edited November 19, 2012 by Yes Man