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The main goal was to beat the game with zero kills but, at the same time, I wanted to act as humanely as possible. I reasoned House's systems would keep him alive indefinitely and there was always the possibility the Courier or Yes Man would discover a method of letting House interact with the outside world without gaining control of the securitrons or the Lucky 38. Afterall, Robo-Brains exist and House himself built a securitron with the brainwave patterns of his favorite actress. Of course, House seemed like a Tony Stark-level genius with intimate knowledge of old world tech whereas the Courier's just a smart dude with a dusty copy of the Big Book of Science and some back issues of Programmer's Digest, but there's nothing in the game to suggest that couldn't happen.

DeathQuaker RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8 |

Continuing on this playthrough, some additional thoughts on what I like--and dislike--about New Vegas.
Likes:
- The world is large, larger than at first appearance. I can understand some complaints about New Vegas, but I've heard some folks say "there's nothing to explore" and I just really don't get that. I thought on my first main playthrough I had really thoroughly gone through the game and discovered nearly every location on the map at least, and done most of the sidequests. Now on this playthrough I've stumbled into stuff I never saw before, both locations and quests. Most notable for me was discovering the New Vegas sewers. They're huge and related to some quests, and I never saw them at all in my first game. There's been some quests in North Vegas and some other small settlement locations I missed the first time around too.
- Some quests and challenges are really well designed to provide multiple routes through places. My first playthrough was a "get into anything" type thief/salvager and I boosted Science and Lockpick really high as soon as I could, so could hack/pick my way anywhere. First character also eventually got a high Speech, so I talked my way through a lot of stuff. It's interesting to play through with a different character where those skills aren't on my priority list to raise, but others are. Current character has decent Repair, Medicine. That actually got me some dialogue options in some cases that made things easier (dealing with some of the doctors in the NCR camps, convincing Cpl. Betsy to get help). Other things I have to find other ways around things--can't pick that lock, look for the key. Can't hack the terminal, find another way through. Can't convince the person to do what I want, do a quest for them instead. While I feel like sometimes I've been "locked out" of an opportunity, the skills I do have have given me opportunities I didn't have in the first game. There's some very clever path threading in many quests and challenges to be sure you can always complete it. Sure, sometimes not having Speech means I have to kill someone instead of find a nonviolent solution (but this isn't the pacifist run) but that is A solution. Relatedly, I've been trying to finish some quests with different solutions than I did the first time -- even though I'm also still playing largely helpful (if mercenary) good guy this time around. I "failed" Return to Sender by deciding to turn the endgame character in; interestingly, the storyline still ended and I got paid (I think that's one where the "fail state" is really more of "different resolution state").
- I said this before, but pleased to see how different combat styles work. Used to be convinced you HAVE to use guns to win Fallout. My melee with energy weapons backup character proving this is not the case, and melee is more satisfying than I thought.
DISLIKES:
- I was wrong, from an argument I'd had with someone about karma. It is stupid easy to earn good karma. My "saint" character got most of her karma from killing fiends and feral ghouls. That makes no damn sense, given she killed them all just so they wouldn't kill her, absolutely no charity in it whatsoever.
- Inconsistent quest design and some ridiculously limited/buggy quests. Despite what I said above, and I think what is above is the majority of cases, some quests fall into a "Guide Dang It" trap where if you don't follow the breadcrumbs exactly right (and the breadcrumbs are not always obvious) you can ruin a quest very easily. There's a quest where I figured out a guy was a traitor, by picking evidence out of his pocket. But I was given no option to either confront him with the evidence or to inform his superior officer. You HAVE TO follow the quest to a certain point (which in itself is really easy to screw up for the dumbest of reasons) and then do it. And if you just kill him, the quest fails, and you don't get to take credit for stopping the bad guy (meaning no rep boost, etc.). This is also in turn messing up another quest that I can't complete for complicated reasons. There's other stuff like, I "failed" one quest without knowing why--apparently killing a big bad from one quest keeps you from finishing another, but there's absolutely no way for you to know that.
A big problem is some of the companion quests are like this. If they aren't with you at exactly the right time and moment--which you have NO WAY of anticipating without looking up a walkthrough--you can miss their quests entirely. Some of the companion quests are better written than others -- Veronica has a number of easy trigger points so that provided you just travel with her a bit, you'll probably set her off. Cass is beautifully easy--her quest triggers just as part of your recruiting her, and then from there she tells you exactly where you need to go/what you want to do. Raul, though, you have to talk to three very specific people and you have to know who they are and why you want to talk to them, to get his thing going---and there's NO indication in his dialogue that gives you a hint as to who these people are. I'm trying to start Boone's quest right now and it's really annoying because looking stuff up, apparently I did some stuff that will trigger him before I had him as a companion, meaning those actions I did "don't count." I still have a chance of setting off his quest, but it's really freaking annoying, because part of this play through is to see companion stories I didn't see the first time. Also, there's annoying stuff like, Boone and Veronica both have trigger points at Cottonwood Cove and Camp McCarran, but you can't have them both with you so if you do things wrong, you might ruin things for one or the other.
Tangenting on companions: I love the idea of the companion quest, the implementation was just really inconsistent. And the thing is, I still love the companions--they're really well written. I'd kill for New Vegas-like companions in Skyrim -- who needs 40 or so different cookie cutter warriors with the same damn dialogue tree when you can have six unique characters each with different skillsets, ways they support you, related quests, and unique dialogue which changes as the game goes on? But if such companions ever get seen in a Fallout or Elder Scrolls game, then how their quests work really need to be streamlined and be sure they can be easily accessed (not necessarily easily solved) without having to consult a walkthrough every step of the way.

Rynjin |

Yes, I loved the companions in NV. Though Boone is busted on a Fawkes level though, because every time his headhear shifts his Perception goes up (to above 10) and he has a scoped rifle. Do the math.
Oh and it's not that there's nothing to explore in NV, it's that the map itself is literally smaller. So everything is more densely packed together.

DeathQuaker RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8 |

Hm, that's interesting.
Here's a map of the Capital Wasteland.
Here's the map of New Vegas and its environs
Eyeballing it, it looks like the New Vegas area is technically larger than the Capital Wasteland -- in that the grid looks to be the same size, but NV is 19x19 and the CW is 17x17.
But more of New Vegas is impassable canyon, so more of the locations do tend to be closer together, and the CW's locations are more spread out from one another.
There are also 187 New Vegas locations, and 161-3 Capital Wasteland locations (not counting DLCs for either), so there are more locations, making it feel fuller.
It makes sense though, for the setting--it is a less devastated and more heavily populated area. Also in that of course Washington, DC is in reality located in a flat wetlands area near relatively broad terrain beyond, and Las Vegas is located in a desert surrounded by mountains/canyons, so there's that.

atheral |

I'd like to say that seeing this thread pop up repeatedly lately has inspired me to go back and try another play through of FONV but this time downloading that massive community bug fix patch. 15 Levels in I have to say that patch makes all the difference in the world, 27,000 glitches and bugs patched makes New Vegas a much easier place to explore.

DeathQuaker RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8 |

Which patch is that? I'd be interested in giving that a go, official-patched NV is decent but I'm still hitting some irritating bugs at times. Nothing game breaking but still.
I do have installed some of the mods which restore uncut content (much of which is just some extra dialogue and making Freeside and the Strip feel properly fuller), which is nice.

atheral |

Which patch is that? I'd be interested in giving that a go, official-patched NV is decent but I'm still hitting some irritating bugs at times. Nothing game breaking but still.
I do have installed some of the mods which restore uncut content (much of which is just some extra dialogue and making Freeside and the Strip feel properly fuller), which is nice.
This one called Mission Mojave they claim to have 27,000 fixes patched as of Jan 4 of this year. So far I've noted a marked decrease in crashing on my system with only one freeze issue after several days of play.

DeathQuaker RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8 |

Ah, requires GRA, which is not on my current install, unfortunately. Due to a kind soul I have a disc of Fallout NV Ultimate Edition but I received it in the middle of this current replay so I decided to not do any new installs until I finished this one.
Sadly never had any desire for the GRA or Courier's Stash---I always felt utterly overwhelmed by the vast amount of weapons already in the game, so why would I want more? But unfortunately some mods require them. JESawyer's mod for one, which is another one I really want to try.
Fortunately I've very seldom had issues with crashes so that isn't something I need to fix. The other fixes could be useful though. Will keep it in mind when I do install the UE. Thanks.

DeathQuaker RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8 |

Yeah, the problem is "utterly overwhelmed by" does not get fixed by "more stuff," regardless of how nifty it is.
Plus I just get frustrated by weapon mods because as soon as I can afford to buy them, I've already found some unique version of a weapon I like that can't be modded.
Not to piss on the parade of people who like it, I know some folks really get a lot out of the gunplay of Fallout and are really into all the different stuff you can get. Me, I just look at it as a chore of additional inventory management. Wish I could see it another way, believe me, but just doesn't tickle my fancy.

Rynjin |

Inventory management gets me off.
But getting weapon mods for your melee/unarmed weapons is nice too.
Superheated Saturnite Gauntlet. Mmmmmmm...
But IMO you're cutting out a good chunk of the game if you ignore the different weapons. Just ignore the ones that aren't your main area of expertise (usually Unarmed and Explosives for most of my characters) and it's not much to keep track of.

Werthead |

I must admit that once I got the Cyberdog Gun and the power axe (both from OLD WORLD BLUES) I never had a need to even look at another gun in the whole game again (aside from a sniper rifle on the last mission to take down the last assassin before he kills the president, otherwise it's difficult to get close enough to use another weapon).
And yeah, the companion trigger stuff in NEW VEGAS can be problematic. It's one of the areas where Obsidian's ambition and open world/plot design didn't mesh well with Bethesda's game engine and quest structure.
Incidentally, apparently Obsidian have pitched NEW VEGAS 2 to Bethesda and are waiting to hear back on it. That would be pretty interesting. They've also suggested that they'd be interested in doing a NEW VEGAS-style 'side-game' (if that's the right term for it) for the ELDER SCROLLS universe. That's something I'd quite like to see.

atheral |

I must admit that once I got the Cyberdog Gun and the power axe (both from OLD WORLD BLUES) I never had a need to even look at another gun in the whole game again (aside from a sniper rifle on the last mission to take down the last assassin before he kills the president, otherwise it's difficult to get close enough to use another weapon).
And yeah, the companion trigger stuff in NEW VEGAS can be problematic. It's one of the areas where Obsidian's ambition and open world/plot design didn't mesh well with Bethesda's game engine and quest structure.
Incidentally, apparently Obsidian have pitched NEW VEGAS 2 to Bethesda and are waiting to hear back on it. That would be pretty interesting. They've also suggested that they'd be interested in doing a NEW VEGAS-style 'side-game' (if that's the right term for it) for the ELDER SCROLLS universe. That's something I'd quite like to see.
Do you have connections in the Industry or something? I mean you are the one who put up that post about FO4 awhile back ,way before I saw anything substantial from anywhere else and thanks the Three Dog's VA teasing that's sounding very likely very soon.

Werthead |

Bethesda is known for making buggy games, but unlike Obsidian's apparently, they're usually not BROKEN like New Vegas was on release. So many crashes, jeez.
FALLOUT 3, OBLIVION and even SKYRIM have all crashed a lot more for me than NEW VEGAS ever has. If NEW VEGAS was broken on release, then it has been comprehensively fixed since then. The Bethesda games have not.
Do you have connections in the Industry or something? I mean you are the one who put up that post about FO4 awhile back ,way before I saw anything substantial from anywhere else and thanks the Three Dog's VA teasing that's sounding very likely very soon.
Not in the game industry, no. That was just a story that was reasonably widely-reported in the gaming press at the time. The NEW VEGAS 2 possibility was raised by the head of Obsidian in an Kotaku interview back in December.

Rynjin |

Quote:Bethesda is known for making buggy games, but unlike Obsidian's apparently, they're usually not BROKEN like New Vegas was on release. So many crashes, jeez.FALLOUT 3, OBLIVION and even SKYRIM have all crashed a lot more for me than NEW VEGAS ever has. If NEW VEGAS was broken on release, then it has been comprehensively fixed since then. The Bethesda games have not.
I never had many crashes with Oblivion, Skyrim, or FO3. There were plenty of bugs mind you, but most fell into the category of exploit or "Lolwtf bugs".
Meanwhile, New Vegas crashed every time someone sneezed in a room where it was running (for me and everyone else I knew who had it, about 10 people), and while it's been fixed since, it's still as buggy as any Bethesda release. I enjoyed the game overall but when your game is buggier than a Bethesda developed game, you've got some serious issues in bug testing.

DeathQuaker RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8 |

Bethesda is known for making buggy games, but unlike Obsidian's apparently, they're usually not BROKEN like New Vegas was on release. So many crashes, jeez.
Bethesda, as the publisher of Fallout: New Vegas, is responsible for Quality Assurance testing. Publishers are almost always responsible for testing to be sure the game is ready for release. So New Vegas releasing buggy is as much their fault if not moreso.
(A worse thing happened with Obsidian's Alpha Protocol. If I've got the story right, they sent an alpha/beta copy of the game to Sega for initial feedback and testing, and Sega just released it without testing it at all. Which is a real shame because Alpha Protocol, underneath its issues, is a really good game.)
That said, I very seldom buy video games on release, especially RPGs. RPGs are complex bastards that almost never get adequate playtesting regardless of who the publisher is, and can perform vastly differently depending on the hardware and OS running it (which is why you end up with one person having a gajillion crashes and one person who never sees a single crash). I prefer to give about 6 months for patches to come out. No one should ever be shocked or appalled by a game being buggy on release, especially an RPG, or rather, it certainly is basically to be expected. If you don't want games to be buggy on release, don't preorder and tell the publisher why you're waiting to buy. Then the publishers might take QA testing more seriously.
But as long as people throw money at the publishers for an on release game, even though time after time after time the games are released buggy---all customers are doing are telling the publishers they will pay full price for half-assed work. And no one will do better work as long as they get paid well for doing it halfway.
Whoops that kind of turned into a tangential mini rant. Anyway: moral of the story: push publishers for better beta testing.
Now, I'm gonna be curious to see how Wasteland 2 and Project Eternity look on release. I backed those Kickstarters, so I'll get copies right away. There's no publisher in these so it will be interesting to see how the developers fare giving their own time for QA testing and so on. It could be a great success or a great disappoint, but either way be interesting to see.
Not in the game industry, no. That was just a story that was reasonably widely-reported in the gaming press at the time. The NEW VEGAS 2 possibility was raised by the head of Obsidian in an Kotaku interview back in December.
That's exciting news. I really hope Bethesda takes them up on it.

atheral |

As I understand it New Vegas was made on a super compressed timeline and budget compared to the rest of the games mentioned. That would account for having less time for QA that was needed, which really screwed over Obsidian as their bonus was tied to Metacritic scores and they got dinged badly for the amount of bugs on release. Enough so that they missed the bonus by 1 point.
As far as the copyright, well actually I believe it was a trademark, claim goes that's just Bethesda/Zenimax covering their collective legal backsides. There was an existent mark on that as well as for a film and various other media that was due to expire so they re upped it.
Not saying that it's not a real possibility seeing as how the FO4 buzz is that its set in Massachusetts and having Three Dog's radio station reaching that far north might be a stretch.

Rynjin |

Rynjin wrote:Bethesda is known for making buggy games, but unlike Obsidian's apparently, they're usually not BROKEN like New Vegas was on release. So many crashes, jeez.Bethesda, as the publisher of Fallout: New Vegas, is responsible for Quality Assurance testing. Publishers are almost always responsible for testing to be sure the game is ready for release. So New Vegas releasing buggy is as much their fault if not moreso.
(A worse thing happened with Obsidian's Alpha Protocol. If I've got the story right, they sent an alpha/beta copy of the game to Sega for initial feedback and testing, and Sega just released it without testing it at all. Which is a real shame because Alpha Protocol, underneath its issues, is a really good game.)
That said, I very seldom buy video games on release, especially RPGs. RPGs are complex bastards that almost never get adequate playtesting regardless of who the publisher is, and can perform vastly differently depending on the hardware and OS running it (which is why you end up with one person having a gajillion crashes and one person who never sees a single crash). I prefer to give about 6 months for patches to come out. No one should ever be shocked or appalled by a game being buggy on release, especially an RPG, or rather, it certainly is basically to be expected. If you don't want games to be buggy on release, don't preorder and tell the publisher why you're waiting to buy. Then the publishers might take QA testing more seriously.
But as long as people throw money at the publishers for an on release game, even though time after time after time the games are released buggy---all customers are doing are telling the publishers they will pay full price for half-assed work. And no one will do better work as long as they get paid well for doing it halfway.
Can't. =/
I have to play them and write stuff on them. But the developer is supposed to do QA as well, not just the publisher. It's generally the publisher's job to say "Go back and do it again" if too many kinks haven't been worked out.

Werthead |

But the developer is supposed to do QA as well, not just the publisher
This varies on the terms of the contract. In Obsidian's case, they are an independent developer who does work-for-hire, which means that the publisher employs them, sets the terms for their work, sets the deadline and the release date and how much time and money they have for QA. So yeah, in that case the onus was very much on Bethesda to check the game before launch or, if the game was not ready, to delay the release date.
The same thing happened with Obsidian and LucasArts over KotOR 2 as well. When Obsidian were actually given more time to work on a game and do their own, proper QA, the result was DUNGEON SIEGE III, a game notable for not being brilliant but being almost completely bug-free.

R_Chance |

Ah.Bethesda dropped the ball a little on that one then. It just seems odd to me that they would do so, what with the success of Fallout 3, you'd expect them to have an extra bit of interest in making sure NV went over well.
I never had a crash with F:NV. I remember when everybody and his grandmother was complaining about the game though; I guess I just live right (and I use high end gaming rigs). Had a couple with F3 though. I recall a couple of crashes with Oblivion, none with Skyrim. Wierd bugs yes, but not a lot of crashes. All good games regardless. Bethesda games tend to be "big", that is long, open world, and chock full of stuff. The bigger the game, the more room for bugs.
And yes, I'm signed up for the beta of Elder Scrolls Online. And patiently waiting for Fallout 4 too...

Rynjin |

I'm very aware of that but it seems in order of bugginess it went something like Oblivion > New Vegas > Fallout 3 > Skyrim, which seems like a bit of a step backwards.
Now, I played all of these on Xbox first, so that may have something to do with it. New Vegas seems less buggy on PC though compared to Skyrim.
Not too excited about ESO though (mostly because an MMO has to try very, very hard to hold my interest for more than a week). FO4 can't come soon enough IMO.

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PC releases tend to be less buggy in my experience too.
As a PC gamer, we get stuff like DLC a month after consoles get it. I view this as a benefit for us though as I think they probably use the additional time in shoring it up, whereas the consoles probably get it as soon as it passes its initial tests.
Just my theory though.

Werthead |

Bethesda dropped the ball a little on that one then. It just seems odd to me that they would do so, what with the success of Fallout 3, you'd expect them to have an extra bit of interest in making sure NV went over well.
Regardless of the bugs, NEW VEGAS sold almost 5 million copies in its first month on sale. AFAIK, that's more than even SKYRIM sold in its first month, and almost twice what FALLOUT 3 did. Bethesda made money out of the game regardless of its buggy or not-buggy state.

DeathQuaker RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8 |

FO3 didn't require GFWL though, it was optional. You had to use it if you wanted to download and play the DLC though.
Even if you chose not to log in, the game still loaded GWFL .dll files on startup and tried to "phone home" to the GFWL server to check in with it. If you didn't play connected to the Internet, it would still try to do this. For me, this caused my game to take 10 minutes to launch (I am not exaggerating) and then crash to desktop shortly after startup.
I replaced the .dlls specifically related to the Windows Live "check-in" with a hacked file so that it would skip this, and my crashing issues were instantly fixed.
This is an extremely well-known issue with Fallout 3 -- Google it for more info.
Never got the DLC though. By the time I got them the computer I had played F03 on died, and I've never reinstalled the game. At this point it's probably cheaper for me to buy the GOTY edition on Steam (although getting it on Steam doesn't necessarily bypass the potential GFWL issues).
Rynjin -- I ran FO3 on Windows XP Pro, that wasn't a problem. The crashes were because of above, and once I disabled the Live dlls, the game (usually) worked fine.

DeathQuaker RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8 |

Yes, that FNV actually starts and runs without issue (in my experience) is a definite improvement. It only coming with Steamworks also eliminates a lot of meta-issues; FO3 had a SecuROM disc check and between that and GWFL a lot of people had major start up problems they shouldn't have. Of course, if you don't like Steam, you're kind of screwed. But of alternatives, in my personal experiences it's a better one.

DeathQuaker RPG Superstar 2015 Top 8 |

Just FYI the Ultimate Edition of this is on sale for 5 bucks. Even if you think this game has its issues, even if you're not sure, even if you don't think it's one of the top RPGs ever like I do... it's FIVE BUCKS. And not just five bucks, FIVE BUCKS for the original campaign, all four extra content modules (including the most excellent Old World Blues), and both gear packs, patched and ready to go (plus you can always install extra usermade patch mods if you are wary).

Werthead |

Just FYI the Ultimate Edition of this is on sale for 5 bucks. Even if you think this game has its issues, even if you're not sure, even if you don't think it's one of the top RPGs ever like I do... it's FIVE BUCKS. And not just five bucks, FIVE BUCKS for the original campaign, all four extra content modules (including the most excellent Old World Blues), and both gear packs, patched and ready to go (plus you can always install extra usermade patch mods if you are wary).
I endorse this message.
In the UK it's only £3.74, which is ludicrous. Buy the game! Buy three copies and give the rest to friends!