I had problems with the Cazadors in general, those dudes pack a punch... especially when they successfully poison you. The Legendary Cazador was a nightmare.

Meeting it is the most scared I've ever been in New Vegas.
I literally froze when I saw him.

It certainly made recovering the helmet much more satisfying. Getting the rest of the armor was way harder than even the Legendary Cazador, though.

Nope.
They could've easily made any of the myriad of buildings which are ALREADY there... into much more involved places with depth, traps, enemies, etc.

How hard is it to believe that radscorpions took over an abandoned building and trapped people, still alive, for food. - that is something Bethesda would do and it would be great. You go into a building thinking it is a simple nothing, like Jean's sky diving, and find a trail of blood... hmmm, down into the basemant we go (oops, there's a sneaky turret!) Further down into the basemant is a limb, a head, a carcass, and a radscorpion chewing on someone.

There are a million ways to make the wasteland entertaining. Obsidian just doesn't get it. New Vegas feels like a superb;y designed 8-bit Nintendo game layered over a 3D environment. Shadowrun was a fantastic game on NES, but I would not like to see it implemented as it were now.

I mean, Obsidian did NOTHING with the assets of Fallout 3, they literally did NOTHING. Some of the buildings are exactly the same, like the building from the Republic of Dave. Obsidian did not focus on the environment, the action, or the gameplay... but that is not because it was impossible to do AND keep the feel of the mojave desert. They just weren't interested in anything besides the dialogue, obviously.

Not that there is anything wrong with Obsidian's style of game, but you should be able to understand why people feel disappointed on Bethesda's forum. They were expecting a better Fallout 3. I honestly think that if they just took New Vegas and pushed it into Fallout 3, then we'd have the perfect game. This is completely doable, because Oblivion had major dialogue AND lots of dungeons and action. For whatever reason, F3 and F:NV have split the dialogue and the action into two separate games. It is like having peanut butter but no jelly, or vice versa.

Everyone loves PB+J.
I'm just as mad at Bethesda actually. They should have known to not let the game come with so little action. They must have had some control over this, but there are people who seem to think that New Vegas is the "right" way to Fallout so perhaps they are just buying good rep with them. This is definitely not as good as a gamesas game should be though. Neither Fallout 3 or F:NV are, they are both incomplete without what the other has to offer.

Arkael, please edit your quotation of Tannanbaum.
Can't see which part is yours.


You speak as if this is a fact which it is not.

I've covered the central and SE corner of the map (so roughly 1/4 of the world) and explored most of it.

A few of these places were key-locked and some are still impossible for me to even consider (the Chinese memorial, as you know, is encircled by Deathclaws just west of Hwy 15 station)

I found the molecular disintegrator (not its actual name) and one guy dropped a plasma pistol. Other than that it's the same crap for nearly 12 levels now: cowboy repeater, 10mm smg, .357 pistol and other, worse, odds and ends. I *just not a minute ago* completed Vault 22 and found an experimental energy rifle. Finally!

Of course, it's not really all that useful because my skill is so low. Why? Well, do you remember how in FO3, there was usually two or more ways to get a door / safe opened? You could pick it, hack a nearby terminal, maybe find a key. Not so now: I've had to invest in both Security and Science heavily. Also, OBSIDIAN wisely opted to create many dialogue skill challenges. Thing is, that required me to up Speach to around 60 or so. I have the Cherchez la Femme perk but if it's done anything at all so far, it was without me knowing.

EDIT: There is lots and lots of good stuff in NEW VEGAS: it's owned (often by people long dead - and how does that make sense?). So long as I am willing to steal from everyone, take a penalty for stealing from evil people (whom the game rewards me for killing - and how does that make sense?) or am ready to have every single faction hate me (by killing the bloke who owns it, in his own compound, surrounded by his buddies. Incidentally, Ed-E is attacked on sight inside the NCR main base. Why? Frak if I know.)

Point is: I'm spread too thin. My skills, my caps, my ammo, my armor, my weapons - all spread too thin. And since NEW VEGAS never attacks with fewer than a dozen mobs, I'm . . . well you can guess which orifice I'm speaking of.

As for armor, just Merc and leather stuff except for a BoS suit I can't use (no training and Veronica has no dialogue - which makes ZERO sense because as soon as I stashed it in her inventory, she put it on! and ONE suit of Recon armor I cannot fix: I only found the one (= no spare to fix with) and Lady Gibson wants 6K caps to repair it. I don't have anywhere near that amount of cash . . . because I keep having to fix the one gun that's any use (molecule splitter) and that eats all my $


Screenie or that didn't happen. Also: if it DID happen then, as you so aptly put it, what's the use when no one will buy them -or- barter for useful stuff? 30K is a lot of wonderglue and scrap metal...


Frak the globes. Do they even do anything? How about the implants? And are there skill uppers besides books? There were Bobbleheads for each skill - all in interesting dungeons to explore and some in *really* great places _cough_Rockopolis_cough_

Maybe Las Vegas will yield some good stuff. And Vault 22 was *terrific* - creepy, dangerous in just the right way, with decent loot and a good backstory. I had to quit the game 'cause baby I fear it'll all be downhill from now!

Wow, let me make this simple. Im not saying I don't like the better parts of FNV. But people keep defending some of the mistakes that were made and I can't understand why.

1) Do you guys like the fact they removed most of the unique crafted weapons?
2) In Fallout 3, they didn't have 5% of the invisible walls like in FNV. Do you like invisible walls?
3) Do you like the lack of underground exploring?
4) Do you think having all of the buildings out in the waist land locked? Ok lets say 80% of them?
5) Is it a bad idea to have Blueprints that you can actually view in inventory to see what materials you need before you go to the bench?
6) Would it be a good idea to use a stove or BBQ as well as a camp fire with no flames?
7) As for a Marked location, should it have more than a dead [censored] brahman?
8) The armor variants from Fallout were awsome. So its a bad idea to have a bunch more armor styles?
9) Places like the Museum's were attempted in FNV, but they were poorly done. Yes I would like more of them to exist.... So for the mojave this is not period or geographically in correct?
10) Since when is it not a major aspect of the Fallout series to have a large exploration facet?
11) Again when is it not a major part to find buildings/vaults and dungeons a major part of this type of RPG?

So that is all I have been saying... If you dont agree on the issues I want to see come back in the next installment, thats cool. I was just giving my opinion of n the game.

But yeah.. on an ending note, it is a fact, this will not compare in replay status compared to FO3. Send me a note and I will make a small side bet with ya if you would like.

Yup. +1

There was more inventive loopiness in the Gold Ribbon Grocers than anything I've yet seen in NEW VEGAS.

You thought they were mistake, others don't.
It's hard to see why someone likes something oneself hates sometimes.
And you're not alone about it.
Sometimes I too can't for the life of me figure out why someone likes something I hate.


1. I didn't like most of them anyway so I don't care.
2. If they are placed right then yes. If it's meant to keep you from going around some place meant for high level well equipped players then it should stay, but I agree that there are some that make no sense but they don't bother me too much.
3. Actually, yes. Fallout 3 had too many dungeons in my opinion and with it too many enemies which made it too easy to level up. And it made most of the loot very standard and not very rewarding.
4. Well, it depends, if there isn't going to be any good loot in most of them then I'd rather have them locked instead of going in there and finding nothing. It's okay as it is now but if they opened up 50% more of the houses then I would stop bother going into the houses since I'd rather just explore the outside than find some ammo for a gun I don't even use.
5. Don't really care here either. I'll just memorize what I need or use the wikia to look up at.
6. Stove, yes. BBQ grill, no. There is no coal. And it should have rusted to hell and back.
7. Nope, I think they shouldn't have had this many marked locations anyway. Let me explain, I like the actual locations, but some of them I think we did not really need a marker that we could fast-travel to. [edit] Misunderstood. No, I don't think that all locations should "have" something. It makes for more realism to find absolutely nothing since the place could have been looted during the 203 years before you.
8. There are more in New Vegas actually.
9. Museums... I remember Republic Of Dave's which was just plain awful and then the one in Rivet City, that one was nice. I've seen one in New Vegas. Boomers, and they had a mural with a story attached to it. Liked it way more.
10. In the old games it was really meant to follow the quest line from town to town because of the dangerous encounters. You could go explore for the towns yourself but it isn't very rewarding since you're going to end up at them anyway at some point and most likely end up at them at the proper lvl and proper understanding of what the town is from listening to previous towns dialogue about that town youre going to/went to. It was only in FO3 that they changed it and added Elder Scrolls exploration to it.
11. This type of RPG being Bethesd RPG? Well, it isn't a Bethesda RPG, it's an Obsidian RPG. They went a different approach. Just cause it uses the same engine and even assets and even gameplay doesn't mean it's going to be using the same kind of formula if there is a different development team behind it.

And it isn't a fact, yet.
It might be a fact in a year or two.
But the game has just come out.
So for now it's an opinion.

YES! God, yes! Don't tell me that you liked Fallout 3's endless metro-tunnel corridor shooting? Or Oblivion's several billion visually identical dungeons?

What's fun about trudging through miles of identical looking hallway?



There are already mods that allow you to use ovens for crafting. I don't see how this is a major gameplay flaw.



Since always. I take it you did not play the first Fallout games. There was no real exploration. You could have random encounters on the overworld map, and sometimes the random encounters took place near caves you could go into. There was never anything actually in the caves, though. F1 and F2 were all about traveling from settlement to settlement and doing quests there. There was no boring "dungeon" crawling.



You just complained about the game being an RPG. I'll reiterate: it's an RPG. Character building is a large part. If you want to be an infiltration master, you're not going to be able to pass every single speech check. If you want to be suave and charismatic, you're not going to be able to hack every single terminal. Or maybe you could be able to have a speech and lockpick skill of 100, but then you're only going to have a single combat skill to go on.

I tagged Guns, Repair, and Barter. No, I couldn't pass every single speech check, not even in the endgame. No, I couldn't hack every terminal or pick every lock- there were a lot of places I wanted to get into, but couldn't. But I did have as much money as I needed and the means to repair my gear to the best condition I could get. It's a trade-off. Everything is a trade-off. You seem to be complaining that you couldn't max out every skill and get all of your SPECIAL attributes to 10. Some RPGs do let you build god characters by the endgame; in Oblivion, you could get 100% Reflect Damage, in Morrowind you could of course buff your Intelligence until you could get ridiculous Alchemy potions. Hell, in Fallout 2 you can build a 10 Luck character, get Sniper, and then every single shot you took was a critical hit.

New Vegas is not any of those RPGs. The point isn't to build a godlike character every single time.

If you want Power Armor training, you have to do a BoS quest to get it.




...

What do you mean by "major" dialogue? I hope you are not implying that the dialogue in Oblivion was good. I really, really hope you aren't saying that.

All I know is that if you made video games I'd read more.

I want to take a moment to go over your list, here... just because I know I kind've came across as a [censored] the first time.


1.) Unique weapon crafting from Fallout 3 was one of my least favorite things. None of the weapons seemed particularly inspired to me... and none of them were really what I would consider as being amazing. Would I complain if they were back? Of course not! In fact, I'm fairly certain I saw at least a couple of them somewhere down in the dark abyss of files included with New Vegas. If I can find them, I'll be sure to add them in to my Weapons/Armor Construction Mod.

2.)Invisible walls are evil. EVIL! I downloaded a mod that removes all of them. Including the map's boarder. We agree, here.

3.) No. I don't like it. I -do- miss underground exploration, the ruins of old facilities and tunnel networks which always run beneath major cities. There is even an actual CITY of homeless people living somewhere underground in Nevada/Arizona. We agree here as well.

4.) I know this will be remedied. I don't like it... but someone (like CevSteel and friends) will open them up for me. Console folks are screwed... but that's the price you pay for being on the console. Realistically, the game didn't have LONG enough to suitably design the interiors of all those buildings out in the wasteland. It would have taken them THREE TIMES as long to develop the game. Would I have waited? Sure. Would I have bought Fable 3 instead? Probably. And so I would likely end up waiting another year or three to get my hands on Fallout: New Vegas. We agree here, as well.

5.) Blueprints? Sure... I wouldn't mind blueprints. Blueprints were nice enough. No argument from me, if they were to bring them back.

6.) You couldn't do this, even in Fallout 1, 2, Tactics, or 3. It was never even a GLIMMER of a thought. There was literally zero attention paid to the entire survival aspect, really. At least none which the player could really do anything about. For me, I think the system we have is HEADS above anything ever seen in Fallout before. This really gives me hope that there will be MORE improvements to come, in future titles.

7.) Marked locations are marked locations. They're landmarks. Sometimes a landmark is a broken down car, sometimes its a museum, and sometimes its a dead pack brahmin. They're all there to help you navigate the wasteland. Fallout 3 had plenty of these, too. Fordham Flash Memorial Field, anyone? What the hell was it, other than a means of having somewhere to fast travel to? Or did those two unremarkable raiders running bases really make it -worth- your time? To me this is about as meaningful as any dead cow in the sand, any day. I disagree with you, here.

8.) I -love- the armor in New Vegas. Lots of the Fallout 3 models are back, plus new clothes and hats to wear, plus NEW styles of armor... there's more here than I could have hoped for. Fallout 1 and 2 had maybe... six or seven different armor types. Add in a few 'mk II' variants to spice things up, and maybe you have twelve or thirteen. Most of Fallout 3 and New Vegas' armors are entirely unique models, each of which look different on the player to some degree or another. Am I disappointed? Hell no! I want -more-... but I'm definitely pleased with what I've got. Except the Ranger Armor. I really want the eyes that light up with infra-red vision mode helmet. Plus it's all mostly end-game crap. Bleh. I hate the leveled feel of it all. I hope someone fixes that. I disagree with you, here.

9.) I'm... not sure? I don't really understand what you're asking here. You didn't like the museums, so you want more? Or... erm... I really have no clue. Maybe when you come back you could elaborate with me?

10.) Fallout is about exploration... but it isn't really about exploring dungeons and finding amazing armor and weapons. It never really was. It has always been more about going to meet people and find things which help you along in your main quest to find the water chip/stop the master/kill the Enclave/free your people/save the world kind of game. The exploration aspect only really ever came into play once you had either forsaken all that... or completed your mission. Fallout 3 changed things... but it's story was so weak, that it really never had a chance. It became about mindlessly slogging through hole in the ground after hole in the ground, searching for this, that, the next thing, or Dad... who then proceeds to kill himself. Stupid. I believe we probably disagree, here.

11.) By this point, I can say that I wholly realize where you were going with this whole argument. Your personal message to me helped considerably, as well. And I really do think that I understand, now, what it is you're getting at. So I won't answer this one, because I really can't answer it without sounding like an ass... and you haven't done anything to deserve me being an ass to you. Lets just agree to disagree to some points of this statement.


On the whole... I actually agree with you a good deal more than I disagree.

I wonder what makes us have such radically different -feelings- about the game. That's actually more curious to me than the entire discussion about the game to begin with.


[Edit:] I had to respond to this... so, yeah...




The dialogue in Oblivion -was- good. Random conversations between NPC's were not... and a couple of obnoxious characters made people pull out their hair, but the game's typical interactions with the player were fine. They were actually rather fun, for the most part, and the story was quite enjoyable.

Oblivion's MAJOR downfall was actually one that New Vegas suffers from as well... the game is, by default FAR too highly dependent upon the level of the character.

The biggest difference is that Fallout: New Vegas at least tries to direct the player in such a way as to gradually build them up to higher levels by the end of the game... rather than letting them simply run to the end and kill everyone at level four.

I'm still not getting what you're trying to say.

You say that New Vegas is light on "action," and I'm not sure how that's the case. It's not as if there's less bang bang, shoot the other guy until he's dead going on.

Calm down. You're putting words in my mouth to win your side of the argument.

There are a few points worth addressing:

For one, the Fallout series is a sort of fantasy setting. It's not a sim, say, or a training software (I should know, I've made some). It's the kind of game where Science! takes the place of magic, laws of physics and cause and effect are fudged so we can have a good time shooting up mutated scorpions and not worry too much that the ecology makes zero sense or that, in fact, an exoskeleton wouldn't work on a creature this size. It's all in good fun is what I'm saying. That being the case, why is it anathema to want to be godlike in the endgame? I am, after all, almost always tasked with superhuman goals of epic proportions that no one else could possibly do, no? I am the character who saves a kingdom against the new Darkspawn invasion, who must kill Jon Irenicus, who restores drinking water to the East coast, who defeats a living god, who must choose for the world either a new pastoral age or an omniscient enlightened dictator, who becomes a living avatar of Moral and Ethical paradigm. Becoming godlike filts perfectly well with those thematics.

My gripe with the BoS armor is that, contrary to every bit of logic I can think of, Veronica can neither teach me her skill (*she's* walking around in it, remember?) NOR tell me who taught her. One single line of dialogue is all it took.

Finally, I don't want a fully maxed out character. You're overstating my case to undermine my point, which is this: right now, the game is _almost_ stopped dead in its tracks because I'm spread too thin in skills, money and equipment. And it's not because I didn't plan: I knew to up my INT and get the necessary perk to get extra levelup points, I chose only those skills that made sense for a Sneak/Snipe build, I sold all the equipment I could, I upped my repair skill. The game just keeps putting up these walls, of which I'll mention ONLY ONE: my repair skill is near-useless because I have found a grand total of ONE (1!) suit of Recon armor so far. And that was the only suit of armor better than basic leather I ever came across . . . except of course that BoS suit.

You follow?

Needed skills to progress, needed caps to progress, needed XPs to progress, needed ammo/ammo parts to progress: the game is throwing nothing but junk my way. I already have enough wonderglue and tape to rebuild the Hoover Dam - I don't neen anymore, k?

I need the game to respond: if I managed to survive a difficult area with cunning, skill and strategy do NOT reward me with a bottle of Sasparilla in a garbage can outside a boarded-up building. That all i've been sayin'

Funny.

As it seems we have the reverse of what happened when Fallout 3 was released. Back then we saw the fans of the series upset not only with the re-direction a different company brought the series in, but with their utter disregard for established canon and gameplay elements. Now, in 2010, we're seeing fans of TES-style sandbox games introduced to the series by the company who upset everybody following the series from the beginning - upset that the Fallout series has finally released another Fallout game which is being generally lauded by NMA, DaC, RPG Codex, Iron Tower, and so many old fan sites as a "true successor to Fallout 2", which is really just strange in its overwhelming irony. But what I personally don't understand though, is this:

To all of the fans of the series who were introduced via the 5th game in the series (being Fallout 3), why does it bother you so much that a spin-off game (which includes some of the best dialogue, writing, questing, and complex branching) has been released? You all will still likely get your Fallout 4 with just as much meaningless exploring empty and pointless areas once again. This is a bonus. A bonus considered by us who were here before you as a Fallout game worthy of its title. Let us have our victory, however minor it is, and simmer down since you all will, after all, get your game (as much as I cringe to think of another Fallout game as horrible as I personally found Fallout 3) just let us get ours and be happy too.

Great post, I just hope you're wrong on the point of Fallout 4 ending up more like Fallout 3 than like New Vegas. I'm sure you hope you're wrong, too.

Yes, I do hope I'm wrong. However attractive the thought of Bethesda either working with Obsidian or handing the series over to Obsidian might be, judging from their attitude about the series being theirs (for better or worse, right or wrong, canon or not) before Fallout 3 was released, I am not either looking forward to the prospect of Fallout 4 nor am I hopeful at all that it will be a game I will spend any money on (Fool me once? Shame on you! Fool me twice? Shame on me!).

Who knows? Maybe something surprising will happen, like the developers actually researching lore and proper gameplay mechanics more in-depth.

Given an infinite number of monkeys, and an infinite number of typewriters, over an infinite amount of time? I'll get them to write Shakespeare.

Coming from somebody who thoroughly enjoyed F1&2 back in 99, I loved Fallout 3 in a lot of ways. It may not have lived up to the classics, but it was enough to satisfy me. But to be honest, playing Fallout NV has changed a lot about what I thought about Fallout 3.

Fallout NV's story, gameplay, characters, and everything else puts F3 to shame.

Maybe it's because I've put 200+ hours into F3 compared to the freshness of NV. So much about NV brings back memories of the original games which is something F3 could not do. F3 was a great game on it's own, but it didn't in any way feel like it was part of the series.

@Whiskey Rose
In my opinion, Fallout 3 is the spin off game and NV should be the third in the series. It brings back the NCR from the 2nd game and there are other character like Marcus and many more references to the previous games. Now that I think about it, Fallout 3 was very very distant with the lore of Fallout. Sure it had plasma guns, BOS, super mutants and all of those themes. But it didn't do anything with it like NV has done with the supermutants, NCR and the BOS.

Kudos to you, Obsidian.

Seems like the original post was ninja-moderated. Strange...

I agree, but honestly I'm just happy that after 12 long years I finally have another Fallout game which has made me feel similar to the way I felt upon playing the first two. When Van Buren went down with Interplay I thought I'd never play another Fallout game again. When Fallout 3 came out I felt I was proven right, unfortunately. I never thought I'd see something like New Vegas happening, and I am loving it. 60 hours in with an incredible amount of stuff left to do right now. Kudos to you, Obsidian indeed.

Haha! That's a shame. It doesn't make much sense without it. I'm glad I got the quote in, though...

I don't know how you're playing the game, but it doesn't even sound like the game I'm playing.

Don't you talk to the vendors? At the 188 trading post there's a vendor selling combat and recon armor. At your level you should have access to some of the higher-level lists at a lot of the shops. I could purchase reinforced combat armor MKII at Gun Runners at about level 17 or 18 if I remember correctly. There's also the quartermaster at McCarran (I think) and the "shop" in the BoS bunker. Not to mention the tons of different armors you can find from fighting human enemies whether they're raiders, soldiers, legionnaires, or what-have-ye. Hell, haven't you fought the Fiends at all? They have a lot of weapons you can sell for caps/trade for gear.

It sounds like you're rifling through gas stations expecting to find great loot or something.