All Things Fallout, A Non Game Specific Discussion Thread Options

[Renee]

So true!

[mirocu]

Don't really get it tbh...

[Renee]

Don't really get it tbh...

Ah, you haven't ever played New Vegas. �

In the Capital Wasteland, Bethesda allows us the freedom to go pretty much anywhere. Want to go east toward Super Duper Mart? You can! How about north toward Big Town? Sure, go ahead.

In the Mojave, Obsidian made the game very restricted. The place where that arrow begins is Goodsprings, which is beginner-friendly. If you follow the rest of the arrow it heads south to Primm, south to some other town (help me out here, guys/gals), and then it bends to the east. Goes east for a while, then we head north to NoVac, keep heading north until we get to the Vegas area itself.

Basically, that arrow shows the places we are "supposed" to go as our character gains levels: Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, and so on. If you try to break the rules, If you try to go north from Goodsprings there are actual signs which say ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK or something similar, and they're serious about this. If you try to go in a straight line toward Vegas (which is what that cartoon is showing), you will be pwned within no time, unless you're already high level. 🪦

When I was new to NV that's exactly what my first character tried to do: he headed east. Not because of Vegas, but because of some other cool landmark. It's what we'd do in Fallout 3. But within short time, he was killed by two giant radscorps. 🦂🦂 And I was playing DiD even though it was my first character!

This post has been edited by Renee: Feb 10 2023, 06:25 PM

[mirocu]

So basically they put Point Lookout in the middle of the standard game

[ArtemisNoir]

Don't really get it tbh...

Ah, you haven't ever played New Vegas. �

In the Capital Wasteland, Bethesda allows us the freedom to go pretty much anywhere. Want to go east toward Super Duper Mart? You can! How about north toward Big Town? Sure, go ahead.

In the Mojave, Obsidian made the game very restricted. The place where that arrow begins is Goodsprings, which is beginner-friendly. If you follow the rest of the arrow it heads south to Primm, south to some other town (help me out here, guys/gals), and then it bends to the east. Goes east for a while, then we head north to NoVac, keep heading north until we get to the Vegas area itself.

Basically, that arrow shows the places we are "supposed" to go as our character gains levels: Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, and so on. If you try to break the rules, If you try to go north from Goodsprings there are actual signs which say ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK or something similar, and they're serious about this. If you try to go in a straight line toward Vegas (which is what that cartoon is showing), you will be pwned within no time, unless you're already high level. 🪦

When I was new to NV that's exactly what my first character tried to do: he headed east. Not because of Vegas, but because of some other cool landmark. It's what we'd do in Fallout 3. But within short time, he was killed by two giant radscorps. 🦂🦂 And I was playing DiD even though it was my first character!

Yep! Honestly, I really do enjoy Fallout New Vegas, but open world games do not seem to be Obsidian's forte. I've often wished that Obsidian and Bethesda could collaborate on a game, with the former being responsible for the narrative/rpg elements, and the latter in charge of the world building/exploration. I suppose, given the two devs are now under the Microsoft umbrella, that's technically feasible, but... I'm not sure how much bad blood remains between them, not to mention they both have their own projects in development.

This post has been edited by ArtemisNoir: Feb 19 2023, 09:50 PM

[Renee]

New Vegas IS awesome, I agree. I especially liked all the little changes. NPCs really notice little things our characters do. The crystal-blue sky is beautiful. I love the Survival aspects, and the fact that Obsidian tried a whole bunch of new things. There are more little, random-type quests (something I wanted in Fallout 3) not just the side and main quests.

A lot of people warned me about the bugs, but honestly they weren't that bad, and this was me playing on Xbox. Worst thing I saw were radscorps doing headstands.

But I have probs with the restrictive world. Had a character who got pretty far into the game and was pretty much living in the Fort McCarran area (I think that's how the place is spelled). But then she got killed by a pack of deathclaws, and I mean.... Linda did everything right. She had a Stealth Boy, for instance. She somehow outran the pack (and I do mean a PACK) and found a door she could duck into, but it was locked with a Needs a Key lock.

Fine. The door's locked, fine. But I got pretty upset about the Stealth Boy thing. In FO3 this would be enough to evade a deathie. Make them run around in circles, perhaps. But in NV, it was like there was no difference. Didn't slow them down or confuse the deathies at all.

Even though I wasn't playing her game dead-is-dead style, I couldn't get over this. It just felt like I should start over if I'm going to do it "right" by me.

But starting over means going back to Goodsprings. And then heading south to Primm. And then heading south to the next town with all the Caesar-looking guys, and so on. Pretty much, I decided that for me to get into NV another time there'd have to be mods involved, so I can play with Leveled Lists a bit. But then, that feels kinds like cheating. To me.

Sigh.

This post has been edited by Renee: Feb 20 2023, 02:12 PM

[SubRosa]

The insanely out of whack level to encounters in New Vegas makes me dislike the game as well. They have placed uber monster packs (as you said, not just monsters, but monster packs) in places all over the game world. Some of them are there to restrict your movement in the early game. Some are there just for shits and giggles apparently. It forces you to make your Toon as Uber as possible to survive these encounters. Which in turn has the effect of making every other encounter in the game no challenge at all, and ultimately makes the entire game boring for me.

[RaderOfTheLostArk]

Funny that we should be talking about Fallout: New Vegas, because guess what? I just came back from Vegas for the first time this morning (and the return trip was...well, quite a trip). I had a great time—and even won some money gambling!—though I only had a couple days out there. I did get to go to Goodsprings and Primm, though. Those were cool to see in real life (and luckily, I didn't run into any Powder Gangers). I also ran into the guy that Easy Pete is based on — cool dude!

Anyway...

I prefer Bethesda's Fallout gameplay overall compared to Obsidian's. But while Obsidian's exploration pales in comparison to Bethesda's, Obsidian gets the edge in terms of lore and story. The West Coast lore is generally more interesting than the East Coast to me, though I think Bethesda gets too much flack in the comparisons. Both of their styles have their strong and weak points.

@ArtemisNoir - Honestly, everything about this "feud" between Obsidian and Bethesda is greatly overblown if not outright fabricated, likely by the Obsidian fanboys. (They're as insufferable as Morrowind fanboys. Morrowind and New Vegas are phenomenal games, but their cult-like purists are the worst and just drive people away from wanting to try those games.) I've found little if anything that suggests Obsidian and Bethesda are at odds. In fact, I remember watching an interview with Feargus Urquhart who more or less said that they enjoyed working with Bethesda and that any "issues" with the contract between the two companies was Obsidian's "fault". Todd Howard has said multiple times that New Vegas is great, but I guess anything less than effusive praise is an affront to Obsidian fanboys' existence.

Sorry for that diatribe. That kind of gamer is just unbearably obnoxious and they've propagated this nonsense about Bethesda "screwing over" Obsidian and there being enmity between them. All that being said, I agree that it would be really cool to see a collaboration between Obsidian and Bethesda on a new Fallout game. Maybe they could take a crack at the Midwest again like in Fallout: Tactics (which I have yet to play).

@Renee and @SubRosa - Both game styles have their merits. I wish there was more balance in Bethesda's usage of level-scaled enemies vs. static-leveled enemies, though I think Skyrim and Fallout 4 were improvements on the level-scaling (leagues better than Oblivion's and Fallout 3's). Too much level-scaling and there isn't enough challenge and your character doesn't truly feel like they are getting stronger. Not enough level-scaling and there is too much linearity and restriction on where you can go. Bethesda can veer too much into the former and Obsidian can veer too much into the latter. At least New Vegas opens up considerably when you get first get to Vegas.

[Renee]

WAHT???? There's a real Easy Pete and you met the dude?? How do you know it was him?


"I've found little if anything that suggests Obsidian and Bethesda are at odds."

Me neither. I've never read anything of the sort, although some of their extreme fans are definitely at odds!

Going back to Easy Pete though. That's a real guy???

[SubRosa]

Bethesda had a big legal battle with Obsidian over the rights to the Fallout franchise. Bethesda won the lawsuit, and with it the IP. However, as part of the settlement Obsidian was given the rights to make one Fallout game: New Vegas. The caveat being that Bethesda would do the quality control for the game. Part of the contract stated that if New Vegas got a certain Metacritic score or higher, they would get a big bonus from Bethesda.

Guess what? New Vegas released with an infamous amount of game-breaking bugs, resulting in it missing that Metacritic score by one point. Obsidian had gambled their company's future on making that bonus, and were forced to make massive job cuts when they did not get it in order to avoid bankruptcy.

So Bethesda really screwed over Obsidian in more ways than one.

[Renee]

Wow, I didn't know all that. Sheesh.

I did read about Beth doing the QC for that game, though. Just the other day, ironically.

This post has been edited by Renee: Feb 23 2023, 09:37 PM

[RaderOfTheLostArk]

@SubRosa - Got to push back on this one a bit. The predecessor to Obsidian, Interplay, is who screwed over Obsidian with their bungling of the IP in the first place, especially when Hervé Caen took control of the company. If they didn't run Fallout into the ground, Bethesda doesn't even have the opportunity to buy the rights and, for better and for worse, make it a lucrative big-name franchise. And franchise rights legal battles are always messy. Someone always gets the short end of the stick.

I can't seem to find the interview with Feargus Urquhart that I was referring to, but he talks about this and more. Now, maybe one can say he doesn't state his true feelings in the interview, but it is much easier to take his words at face value. While I can't remember exact words, Urquhart says more or less that 1) Obsidian was responsible for missing the Metacritic cutoff, 2) Bethesda added that stipulation after the original contract signing as an extra incentive, and 3) Obsidian underestimated how intensive it would be to make an open-world game somewhat like what Bethesda makes, among other things that escape me right now. Obsidian agreed to the year-and-a-half contract and fully knew what they were getting into. And a year-and-a-half is a tough window to make a game like New Vegas in, but they also had the benefit of the vast majority of the engine, assets, etc. being already made, which takes up a considerable length of game development time.

And from what I understand, including in statements by Obsidian current and former execs and (I think) an article or two on the company's business practices, is that Obsidian did not exactly conduct business well in those days. If they are hedging their bets on that Metacritic bonus, that's a bad gamble on their part, and I'm by no means a business expert. That's not to say that Bethesda is blameless or anything like that—I don't remember the part about Bethesda being tasked with quality control, but well...their QA on their own games leaves a lot to be desired even with how huge and complex the final products are. But I think Obsidian gets too much leeway.

That being said, I do wish Obsidian were given more time to fully realize what they wanted to put in the game. New Vegas is already fantastic, but the amount of cut content, like with Bethesda games, is a bit disappointing to see not be in the game. Apparently, we were supposed to get a lot more content in Arizona where Caesar's Legion is in control, among many other things that got cut. Josh Sawyer is also on record stating that the Legion was never meant to be a morally grey faction (and it's mind-boggling that there are real-life fans of the Legion that legitimately believe that), but that they would've been much more fleshed-out than they turned out to be. What Obsidian managed was incredible, but there is still a "what could have been". Maybe the people developing the mod "Fallout 4: New Vegas" will be able to do something with that.

@Renee - Yep, he's a real dude (though Easy Pete isn't his actual name, and in real life he is white instead of black like in-game). He even signed a poster I bought at the general store! I've known that he was based on a real person for some time, and the fact that Easy Pete's thing is dynamite is actually related to the fact that the real guy worked in the mines as security for a living, and he had to handle explosives at some point. I forget the full story.

This post has been edited by RaderOfTheLostArk: Feb 24 2023, 02:22 AM

[Renee]

Easy Pete is black in game? It's been awhile, but I'm remembering the guy as Caucasian. Huh. Maybe I need my eyes checked.

Hey, Rader, so... *ahem!* what's up with Val? And Mariah? Last we saw they were stuck in the Zoo. And Langston had gotten his a$$ kicked by that meanie. But the meanie seemed like he knew a bunch of secrets about Langston the ghoul-scientist. Something about human experiments, if I recall. Sure would like to know how all that turned out. That zoo... something really trippy about it. Like, what the heck is it?

Can't remember what's going on with Waller. Been too long. *ahem* so anyway...

[RaderOfTheLostArk]

Easy Pete is black in game? It's been awhile, but I'm remembering the guy as Caucasian. Huh. Maybe I need my eyes checked.

Hey, Rader, so... *ahem!* what's up with Val? And Mariah? Last we saw they were stuck in the Zoo. And Langston had gotten his a$$ kicked by that meanie. But the meanie seemed like he knew a bunch of secrets about Langston the ghoul-scientist. Something about human experiments, if I recall. Sure would like to know how all that turned out. That zoo... something really trippy about it. Like, what the heck is it?

Can't remember what's going on with Waller. Been too long. *ahem* so anyway...

Haha, sorry, I know it's been a long time. Real life has been getting in the way and I haven't been logged into Chorrol for months until I just posted in this thread a day or so ago. The next piece of the story will be coming soon. Hang in there! I appreciate that you still want to read it.

I'm going to start including a "On the last episode of Fallout: Florida" with each new post from now on. And at the beginning of the entire Fallout: Florida thread I'm going to add recaps of Part 1 (and Part 2 thus far) so it's easy for current readers to refresh their memory and bring new readers up to speed, with appropriate spoiler tags.

[SubRosa]

Fallout 4 is now on Gog, for those of us who prefer non-Steam games.

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

Fallout 4 is now on Gog, for those of us who prefer non-Steam games.

How much they want for it?

[SubRosa]

It's on sale right now for $10. Looks like $40 is the regular price.

[Renee]

Lovely, thanks for this info.

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

It's on sale right now for $10. Looks like $40 is the regular price.

That’s a steal!!!

[mirocu]

Just for comparison, what is Fallout 3 and New Vegas on gog now?