It wasn't my favorite. Actually it was my least favorite. That saddens me to kind of sat that, because it would have been a great DLC, if it wasn't for that damn cloud. I didn't mind the collars. Taking constant damage was the thing that I hated to no end. Constantly taking damage, not only affects my character, but affects me, as a player as well.

It's hard to explain. It's like when you were a little kid, sitting in the back seat on a long trip and your brother or sister has their finger on your shoulder going..."I'm touching you, I'm touching you, I'm touching you.", for hrs on end.

OMFG! Will I EVER get any piece!? NO! Now do as I ask, before the irritating cloud of "I'm touching you" consumes your soul! MOOHOOHOOHAHAHA!

If your explosives is at 30 and you are careful with the tripwires in the residential area, you should be able to disarm the frag bouquets and have enough frag grenades to disable almost every non-shielded radio in the rest of the game.. The best part is you don't even need a line of sight, just toss one in the general direction of the radio. The blast radius goes through walls and whatever and will know those pesky radios out. It's also handy in taking out nearby holographic emitters.

These topics make me miffed. People say 'Dead Money was bad' but what they fail to do is say all of their thought, ie 'Dead Money was bad because I couldnt be an OP over equipped tank that solves all the quests by shooting it and getting my loot.' Seriously, it's not the end of the world that a DLC provides a challenge. 'WAH! THE COLLARS svck BECAUSE I COULDNT RUN THROUGH THE ENTIRE MAP WITHOUT CAREFULLY TESTING EACH STEP!' Then learn patience. 'I HATE THAT DUMB CLOUD ITS SO STUPID YO!' Then avoid it, a good 85% of the time you can skirt around it or avoid it. "I HATE THE HOLOGRAMS CUZ DEY UNKILLABLE!" True story, you dont have to fight them, just avoid them or disarm their emitter. I feel like by the time people get to recommended DLC levels, they are to spoiled and dulled into the 'KILLEMALL!' logic that most quests in the base game provide, I enjoyed Dead Money because it provided a challenge, or at least a unique gameplay style.

I'm so tired of people equating their skills not matching up to a games meaning the game itself is bad. No, it is not, it provides an unfamiliar challenge that we can learn to overcome.HH was a fetch quest kill em all, OWB was a fetch quest, LR was kill em all and linear. DM was a linear DLC yes, but it provided a unique set of boundaries and rules that provide a new challenge for a player. I feel like the gaming community is to rooted in herp derp shootemup gameplay that it forgot what a real challenge beyond 'generic army bad guy with a heavily armored vehicle you must keep missle spamming' is.



@Derragon- As a rule, I just use the police pistol on speakers, explosives run the risk of throwing good loot god knows where. (Is a pack rat)

You know what miffs me? People stating their opinion, only to get bashed by others, that have their "wittle fewings hurt" because someone disagrees with their favorite game or DLC. Get over it already!

I'm not bashing any particular users, I'm chiming out against the common complaints about DM. I don't care if someone doesnt like DM because they think it svcks, but when someone states 'Those ____ make the DLC svck'. It's because it's likely someone to impatient to take a step back, stop, and think 'Okay, theres a beep of the collar/cloud in front of me/ whatever, what should I do to make my next move worth it?'. I feel like most of New Vegas's approach of quests being 'Go to X, shoot Y, get exp and loot' sort of plants people at one expectation and never puts them at a challenge beyond a bulletsponge foe. I blame the devs for not commonly shaking it up, and I blame impatience and unwilling to take the time to try it with more thought in a move.

I admit, some people genuinely have a tough time, but they say 'I like this DLC but boy was ____ a challenge for me, that's fine because they at least admit they, not the dlc, is at fault. When someone dies for the 5th time in 10 minutes because they refuse to think of a way AROUND instead of through something, ragequits and says 'THIS DLC svckS', it frustrates me.

Certainly not me. I thought Dead Money was my second favorite DLC.

Loved the atmosphere, loved the enemies, the story, and the challenge it brought (found myself being forced to use primarily melee despite my character only specializing in energy weapons as a combat skill: and that led to some intense hand-to-hand combat battles with Ghost People :toughninja: ).

Personally the only time I generally had a "Wtf really?" moment in the DLC was a particular area in the vault, which frustrated me to no end. If it hadn't been for that, Dead Money would be my favorite DLC.

To be fair, I don't think that the OP was saying anything of the sort. He put his argument, quite reasonably, in my opinion, that the gameplay consists of a lot of trial and error, punishes every tiny mistake, and can get quite repetitive. And learning by dying generally isn't fun. I can see where he is coming from as I certainly felt that way as well at times. You're told to take it slow....collar starts beeping, back up, look around, then try again. Fine, but in hardcoe mode you simply don't have the time to spend ages doing this as your health is depleting all the time. I found this to be my main gameplay bugbear.

But you make a good point regarding DM providing a new challenge, and one that you have to adapt very quickly to. Its a very steep learning curve from wandering wide open wastes, with healing items and ammo aplenty, to navigating the labyrinthine the Sierra Madre villa with barely any equipment at all. I certainly didn't adapt quickly enough and used a lot of ammo at the beginning that I would have done well to preserve. Be that as it may, I do feel that the gameplay consisted of a lot of trial and error. For example, you can hear your collar beeping but can't find the speaker...do you make a run for it and hope that you find another safe spot, or better still find the speaker itself? Fail at either, and you're reloading your last save. Sometimes there is no other way.

For me, I liked the whole idea, the setting, characters, story and location. It was claustrophobic and nicely done, but also frustrating after a while. I've only ever completed it once (just last week, in fact) and died more times than I could care to remember. Second time around, it will be much better and I'm sure I'll enjoy it more. But first time in DM is a rough experience, no matter what level you are and it can quickly lose its appeal.

Well your first few statements, sure come across as a bash. Yes I hated that damn cloud and because of that, I hated the DLC. It had nothing to do with challenge, strategy, playstyle or character build. It didn't inflict that much damage. I never died from it. It was just a pain in the ass. I hated it because of the way it made me feel, as a player. That was VERY frustrating. It added no other gameplay element, other than the fact it just plainly pissed me off.

EDIT : I'm not saying, I will never go through it again. It does have it's good points. It was just my least favorite and I will dread that part of it every time.

Nope, I wasnt bashing any user per se, just the general attitude I've seen that's floated around this forum since December of 'I can't beat it, ergo this DLC was terribly made'.

I never really had a difficult time because like I said, if I had a collar ping noise, I'd step back and try to find the source first, if I couldnt, I'd tease the area just in range of the ping, then step back to the safe point, the only place I had trouble was in one portion of the Vault where it's a little tricky getting to the alarm disable terminals.

As to the Cloud, I never had TO much trouble, since I like Dean and kept him around over the other two, I had the cloud delay perk, which helped me alot. And the holograms are easy enough to avoid, they work like robots, very linear path patrols. Just follow them and look for their emitter and disable it.

I think I just never had as much trouble because I explore and observe everything by nature, so DM was pretty much biased in favor of patient scavengers over quick combatants.

I agree with the collar strategy. I didn't mind them as much. Did they kill me? Yep...and more than once. Did it make me sad? To say the least. It did pose an interesting challenge. I just approached them the same as you.

As far as the DLC being in favor of the slow play over the fast, I feel just the opposite. My favorite character type, is a slow and calculated Sniper, with a support skill in Explosives. I like being able to camp out and observe and take my time exploring. Granted there were simple strategies around the cloud. I was just thrown into a state of teeth grinding and felling rushed the entire time i was in it.

Today is a historic day, I agree with Lt. Andonicus.

Dead Money had the best atmosphere of all the DLC, and it was pretty easy, I don't see why people thought it was super hard and frustrating.

I still can't choose my favorite.

No the gameplay is at fault. Like I posted earlier - I was able to get around the radios and the holograms. But is just plain annoying and boring. Throw in one of those traps here and there is fun and a change of pace. But spending hours wandering around some maze that looks identical and dealing with the same thing over and over is not fun. After the tenth time hearing the beeping collars you just get annoyed. After the tenth time trying to find your way around some crappy maze - it gets annoying. Same goes for the combat - another stupid ghost person to kill. The same thing over and over again. I am all for switching things up - just don't lock me into it for hours on end. They should have made zones that were different - not the same thing the whole DLC.

Besides the bulk of the quests in DM are basically fetch or escort type quests. Not sure why you think they are great. Meet this guy, take him here. Go press this button. Nothing in the quests are particularly amazing. The characters were cool though.

All quests in all RPG's are nothing but fetch quests, and escort quests are pretty much fetch quests.

A carelessly thrown grenade, does make a mess of things...

I have to admit, my natural skill level in comparison to DM was abysmal and I was dying like crazy. It forced me to try different strategies even if it mean drinking out of a toilet and taking the radiation hit to get my HP back up because I'm down to 2 bars of health from the last ghost fight have no ammo left and there's another ghost lurking around the corner.

You forgot seek and slay the evil (insert your antagonist here) and/or rescue the (insert princess/president's daughter/child who is the antidote to the deadly plague/the one person that can ensure lasting peace/etc.)

I think the biggest cause of the complaints is that some people prefer to run around killing things as if you had god mode enabled like in most of the Fallout 3 DLC's, but there are two sections near the end of Dead Money that are just brutal. Specifically the large room with stairs and multiple undestroyable speakers, and then the room with all the holograms and the locked door to get to the vault. Both of them are classic examples of trial and error game design, and I don't blame people for being upset about it.

I really hate all of this bashing on Dead Money.

I think it provided a great mysterious feeling where most of the time you didn't want to round a corner for fear of what's out there. Being forced to run through clouds gave the disorienting feeling, I never knew where I was and wanted to get the heck out of there! It gave a great rush of energy that made me hungry for more. The environment was beautiful, it had the great apocalyptic feeling. I personally never had a survival issue in the game, I guess my survival instincts are more on par than others.

I just hate that you guys are complaining about a game being hard, plus, it's not the Dev's fault that you're trying to beat a PURPOSEFULLY challenging game on a DiD. The day someone beats Dead Money on their FIRST TRY with no deaths, is the day it's proven that the Dev's couldn't successfully create a challenging DLC. But for now, the have successfully made a challenging DLC in fact so challenging that it pissed half of you off.

I love survival horror. Resident Evil started me off with its (at the time) controller-throwingly-hard puzzles that required you to get fifteen keys and a heart transplant just to get one piece before you could get in there only to get killed the first time by the one shotting enemy you hadn't encountered yet (yes, I have 'Nam style flashbacks sometimes to RE).

That said, what I don't like is how DM doesn't give you any choice but to be railroaded into a boring and repetitive maze with ridiculous Nintendo Hard false difficulty "cuz the old dude said so."

I don't ragequit when I play, but I don't enjoy that part of my playthroughs either. I see it as work, not play, and that's not what I look for in a video game.

What people don't understand is the story. The story of Dead Money explains EVERYTHING.

The 'Old Man' is holding you hostage. When you begin Dead Money you're knocked out by your first experience of the Cloud. That acidic poison in the air knocks you out, just like any other acidic poison in real life would. It wasn't a Blue FEV Reject with a sledgehammer that knocked you out. It was a rush of poison gas, enough to knock you out but not kill you. That poison serves at a desensitizer to the Cloud, it's how you can breath Sierra Madre air without dying. THICK pockets of Cloud have too much concentration of the poison, which kills you.

You're breathing poison, stripped of all your weapons by the automated systems of the Sierra Madre. You're disoriented, you have no idea where you are you've got a BIG EMPTY BRAND COLLAR. It's not simple Police collars you unlock in Fallout 3. It's a Big MT bomb collar used to keep commies captive! Plus, no one ever said you could take YOURSELF out of a bomb collar, you can take out OTHERS but not yourself, it makes sense because when you work on YOURSELF you must do it the opposite on how you do it for someone else. It doesn't matter how high your intelligence is. That thing is not coming off, deal with it.

In the Big Empty you find out why the frequency is so weak and blows up at the sound of the radios. It's not because they had some megaradios playing their music, Sinclair PURPOSEFULLY designed everything to interfere with bomb frequencies. He was paranoid of a communist attack and if someone came to his resort with a bomb, they were screwed from the start. It's also why the INSIDE of the Hotel, the frequencies are jammed so a bomber can send a message from afar to blow up a bomb in the basemant or something.

It's all in the name of security and you're all too focused on loot, exp and complaining to actually listen to the story of the Sierra Madre! GAHH. :gun:

+1. I admit I didn't catch all of that on my second run, but half of this is explained in dialog with Elijah and Christine, and the other half by various terminals and notes if memory serves. :swear:

Seems the problem is that people are STILL clicking through dialog and avoiding terminal notes. :swear:

This whole "I'm gonna shoot people and grab loot and to hell with past, present, or future" thing is what drives me NUTS. :gun:

-Nukeknockout

No, it's railroading at it's worst. An NPC Ranger in the Main Game at low level can remove explosive collars without tools, yet a player with explosives, repair and intelligence maxed can't do so. It's the kind of dumbassed, no-brained stunt pulled by first-time gamemasters in a tabletop game, and Obsidian should have goddamed well done better than that. I don't mind -as much- Elijah pulling off a good ambush and getting the drop on the Courier. Happens to the best, it can happen to us. It's all the BS afterwards that propels Dead Money into the "pile of garbage" section.

And before you chime in with more of your screed, I breezed through Dead Money on Very Hard. It wasn't a challenge at all. Didn't even die once, because my Courier had, you know, the proper skills. That apparently didn't apply when the writers didn't want them to, but worked everywhere else.

Yeah, if you go into Dead Money at level 25 or above, you should be more than fine. Mobs are easy to defeat and locks are easy to pick. Frankly, I think its hilarious how upset people are with the slave collars. That tells me you didn't learn the basic lesson of slave collars the first time your head blew up. You just ignored the lesson of moving slowly and carefully and identifying threats. If you think you should be able to run through a survival horror dlc like Rambo, its you who is playing the game wrong.

Wait....that's not possible. :tongue:




Yep, exactly how I feel. :foodndrink:

Collar never claimed me once. Caution keeps characters alive. "Survival Horror" only works when those on the receiving end are too goddamed stupid to keep a level head, their eyes peeled and a count on their ammo. I tend to do all of those by relfex, so all the genre is for me is a pathetic and failed attempt at suspense.

Or, as I put it once before, Elijah doesn't get to **** with the courier. She's above his pay grade. The bullet to the head was his punishment for wasting her time.

That is pretty much a fetch quest when you boil it down.