One very important thing about Dead Money - I never got the lag on the PS3. As soon as I finished DM and was back in NV, Primm/Drive in = major lag had to restart again.

I didn't have to restart at all for the entire length of DM, that was a nice change of pace.

Yep, I agree. I rather liked Dead Money. Its certainly one of my favorite of the DLC's.

The entire backstory and plotline to it was fascinating and emotionally moving.

Since this is getting alot of attention, i'll add something else... i'm not enjoying Old world blues as much as dead money... the perks and prizes are really nice and all, especially the whole situation is a big lol (Muggy is probably the funniest). But, it's just the same thing all the time, go around, blast [censored], get upgrade/explore, move on.

Also, I've lost count of how many freaking ambushes were done on me by the lobotomites, since i'm level 44 atm they carry powerful guns ( they don't semm to care i have 100 sneak, always semm to see me even from afar), that sell for alot (and don't have much weight), my chest in the sink is so full, i couldn't sell all of the items even if i went to every possible store in the game. At least it's challenging, those freaking robo scorpions mk5-4 are a [censored] pain in the ass to kill, and the other mk5 robots, probably the only enemies i can't 1 shot kill with holorifle max charged shots, trough a sneak.

I'm with you in being happy that it's finally getting some love then. Of all the DLC's it's one of the best, easily.

Dead Money is about letting go, being able to go back and loot the place really defeats the purpose of that theme.

I liked Dead Money... except for the severe lack of ammo early on, and the fact that I didn't earn 7500 chips in the casino (allowing me to cash in on the complimentary voucher)... but I won't be making that mistake again.

But overall, yeah, I liked it. It brought in some cool weapons; I still use the Automatic Rifle and the Holorifle, not to mention getting almost 400,000 caps worth of gold out of the Sierra Madre vault, and into the safe in my room in Novac (later the safe in The Sink).

The Ghost People though... they got annoying.

I'd say it's a little bit of both, and also the fact that more pro-Dead Money people have become vocal on these forums in the past year or so.

By now, the haters have moved on to Skyrim and whatnot, and most of the people who are still playing New Vegas are now doing multiple playthroughs. As they play through the game again and again, they are realizing new things about the game (and the DLCs) that make them appreciate it more. Take Longknife's http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1381273-the-four-dlc-antagonists-represent-the-four-armies-and-their-issues/ for example, now that I've made the connection that he focused on in that thread, I can appreciate the writing in the DLCs even more than I used to.

Also, it may have seemed like most people hated the DLC early on because a lot of the people who liked it weren't vocal about it at the time. For example, I always loved Dead Money, both for its challenge/environment and for its characters, but I didn't join these forums and say that until six months after it was released.

the only part i didn't like were the bomb collars, other than that i liked it

They might be a tad annoying gameplay wise, but they're supposed to be.

Plus, they add a lot to the overall story, e.g. they tell us a lot about Elijah, and about how a group of people will work together under the threat of unilateral death. <--- And in doing that, they ask us whether changing human nature through threat of violence is worth the progress that it will lead to, or if it is not worth that progress (as the person wearing the collar, you -- the player -- should probably conclude that it is not worth it.).

I wished there was an ACTUAL reason how the collar was removed at the end. It was just... gone.

To be completely honest, I started it because I wanted to use the Holorifle (which I now dislike) and I didn't want to add it through the console. I expected it to be a tedious "chore factory" to borrow from a thread on this board. I did, however, find it to be the 2nd most enjoyable DLC (behind LR) after I got into it. The story was incredible, the characters were awesome, and the story was vastly enriched by reading all the info about the Sierra Madre that you find in the Big MT. I did get a little frustrated at times but it was a great DLC.

It's more likely the haters have left. I think Dead Money is the type of thing where if they didn't like it the first time, they're not gonna be willing to try it a second time. You're also kinda ruining Dead Money's experience once you learn to remember where everything is. I mean let's be honest, as amazing as it can be your first playthrough, it falls flat on replay-value in some ways.

I'm fully confident that New Vegas will be remembered more fondly than FO3 or Skyrim though and will withstand the test of time better. Hell I expect Skyrim to die in the dust the moment TES 6 is released. As I've always said, a good game can last you a year or two, a good story can last you a lifetime.


Elijah loses his signal to your collar; the collar won't work between floors. I've always assumed that with that, the Courier was simply able to mess around with it and get it off. Christine will tell you (if you tick her off) that she'd been testing with it when given a chance, to understand how it works and figure out how to remove it. By the time you find her I think she says she's "almost got it figured out" but hasn't quite yet. Bomb collars have also been removed before, for example the Lone Wanderer can remove the CW versions without needing a skill check sometimes, iirc, and the slaves at Cottonwood cove can be freed if you have the skill.

The real issue is that if you've got a 2 INT Courier with no skill in Science or Explosives, but yeah I'd imagine it would tick a lot of people off if they completed Dead Money and then it said "your character died anyways because he killed Christine and he's too much of a [censored] to remove the collar himself."

Dead Money is fun, but it's way too easy to "break" the game using the vending machines. On my first completed playthrough (had previously only gotten to recruiting the three (four?) team mates) I noticed a few patterns and tricks to use that ended up allowing me to exchange every bit of scrap in the Sierra Madre for Pre-War Money, Pre-War Money for Sierra Madre Chips, and then Chips into Stimpaks.

At the time I did it purely out of speculative fascination and the thrill of : "Can I?" but after loading myself up with 1,000 Stimpaks and 500 Med-X, a great deal of the challenge was pulled out of the DLC and - indeed - the rest of the game entirely. I was walking through clouds with a Stimpak drip while I casually explored despite the corrosive damage, I was too doped up on painkillers to fear the damage output of the Holograms, and then once back in the Mojave I'd become reckless and found the very nature of exploration a little tedious since I knew nothing would be left to challenge me.

The moral of the story : If you think you can break the game for your benefit, don't. It gets boring.

No one MADE you do it. It's a single player game, if you choose to exploit it as a game, it'd all on you.

Then again, I don't think that players should be able to exploit the game in the first place.
At least not to excessive degrees like the dispensors from Dead Money.
Yeah, it's out choice to do it or not, but with some things we shouldn't have that choice.

There will always be ways to exploit a game, any game, especially open world ones, or at least those in which you have inventories, crafting systems, pick able items etc..

And what Martyr said is the truth, as long as the game is playable without them, don't complain when "YOU" use the exploits.

Sure, but nothing's preventing the developers from patching the exploits so that they cannot be used.
Also, some of us aren't good at restraining ourselves, we get the option to become great by some exploit then we can't help ourselves.
I'm currently working on not exploiting things that are overpowered and I'm getting better at it, but I still think overpowered exploits or core game mechanics should be tweaked so that they aren't too powerful.

Neither can I hold myself back some times. Exploiting means using the game mechanics to achieve something the developers didn't want you to achieve and you wouldn't achieve if not by accident or someone else telling you.

The core game mechanics are, for the most part, what the creators of the game want and if you become powerful at the end without exploits, it is part of the experience. You begin as squishy human(or whatever) in a place fit for your kind, then for some reason you get out of this safe zone and the difficulty escalates. You gain experience by surviving there and at the end, whether it's through sheer power, tactics or both only the most difficult enemies and/or bosses should/would be a challenge. For me something like this is not bad. A game that is based on building characters, their skills, traits etc. should give you the satisfaction at the end that you did do something and not stayed as you were at the beginning. Now when the game is too easy and the developers have to put stupid restrictions, which just makes it annoying and not difficult, that's bs mechanics and they should go back to the drawing board.

Hands down I believe its the best fallout dlc ive ever played by far. As a whole, it accomplished what it tried to do better than the main game.
The charectors were omg wonderful and perfectly fleshed out. I dispise dean and kill him everytime but even though I dispise him, I get sad watching the end slide. It was perfect. God and Dog makes me for the only time in the game wanna break my charectors setup and or exploit ways to enhance skills to save him. And everytime I decide against it and have to watch helplessly and cant save him. Elijah was done perfectly. I didnt like his charector but he played the part and was his charector flawlessly. I disliked him, but I didnt hate him, I understood him.

To me, the part about letting go wasnt trying to figure out what items I needed to drop to make room for the gold. Noit was about deciding to and actually leaving this place that had such incredible atmosphere, incredible and touching story, and the charectors themselves. Its always hard to walk out those gates even though everythings been done...bc I dont wanna leave this experience behind for a new adventure.