[REL] Decisions With Regrets : Fallout: New Vegas

» Sun Jul 18, 2010 6:25 am

Welcome to Decisions With Regrets, a fully voice acted quest mod by David L Allen. Join a medical research project which may help a problem sweeping the wasteland ... but is the cure worse than the disease? Decisions with Regrets is a medium size quest mod, with emphasis on conversation and moral decisions rather than combat.

This is version 1.2, released February 8, 2011. Download it here:

http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=39782

Changes in 1.2

* Added two unique quest rewards for leaving either Lavelle or Crosby in charge. You can get these rewards, without losing NCR standing.
* More voice acting! Added the last NPC (John Stoyer). Replaced voice for Mark and Cahill. Re-recorded a few lines for Doctor Lavelle and Doctor Crosby.
* Fixed bug in 1.1, first attempt at letting Mark sleep downstairs introduced multiple problems such as being able to enter the shelter too early.
* Added message box to give a clue about why the securitron loses power.

Changes in 1.1

* Voice acting! All but one of the nine NPC's now have voices. There is no lipsync. The tools to do this are too painful and time-consuming for me to use.
* Re-arranged dialog at the climix to avoid problem for some players, where Major Stoyer does not have any conversation to start. For these players it made the quest impossible to complete.
* Fixed bug which sometimes prevented Glowing One ghouls from dropping the Glowing Tissue Sample.
* Multiple small dialog tweaks for clarity and characterization, mostly suggested by phoenix1213 @ gamesas.
* Since female voice acting is harder to find, changed gender of Major Stoyer from female to male.
* Changed appearance of several minor characters to match voices.

Installing

Unzip the files into your Fallout New Vegas\data directory. You should see a new file Fallout New Vegas\data\decwithreg.esm and a new directory Fallout New Vegas\data\meshes\decwithreg. Then, in the Data Files section of the Fallout New Vegas launcher, make sure the decwithreg.esm file is checked before starting the game. For best results, start by loading a save game with as few mods as possible.

Playing

To start the quest, you can find Help Wanted signs at various medical facilities, including Jacobstown Lodge, New Vegas Medical Center, and the Mormon Fort. Or, search for the shack west of Searchlight near the abandoned animal farm.

Please let me know your feedback in the Decisions With Regrets endorsemants thread in the Fallout New Vegas Uploaded Files forum at newvegasnexus.com. If you like the mod, please endorse it. You can find the thread here:

http://www.thenexusforums.com/index.php?/topic/291986-decisions-with-regrets-endorsemants

Known bugs

If you collect tissue samples, kills made by your companions will not produce samples. You may wish to ask your companions to wait elsewhere while you collect.

Uninstalling

Remove the directories data/meshes/decwithreg, data/textures/decwithreg, data/sound/voices/decwithreg.esm. Remove the plugin file data/decwithreg.esm. Remove this readme.

Credits

All design and implementation by me, davidlallen. No elements from other mods were used in creating this mod.

Here's to my alpha tester, ninjababe. The first couple of runs were pretty confusing, thanks for helping me work through it.

Voice credits: Lavelle by me; Mary Alice by Ninjababe; Don, Howard, Jill and Cahill by Reebdoog; Mark and John by DoomMunky2000

Thanks to many people on newvegasnexus forums for help in using geck, including rickerhk, Ez0n3, thc1234, WastelandAssassin, Quetzlsacatanango and others.

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 8:43 pm

Sounds good. Downloaded and installed.

A very small thing to mention. You might want to fix the nexus file's title: "Decisions_With_Regrets" might scare some people away, because it looks kind of a random zip file drop off with the underscores.

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 10:50 pm

Not sure why the underscores should influence people, but I removed them. Thanks for the suggestion.

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 5:30 pm

Not sure why the underscores should influence people, but I removed them. Thanks for the suggestion.

With selling points like "moral decisions and conversation" the mod needs all the help it can get. :lmao:
I mean there's nothing wrong with that, personally I love things like that, it's just the mainstream seems to go more for "action and high poly custom meshes/textures"

Anyway, I played the mod a bit... a few things to bring up.

Some of the first dialogue with Mary seemed to have some large, almost... quadruple spacing between the words.
Story is somewhat interesting so far despite some characters feeling one dimensional so far.
A nice little consequence with the case.
After turning in the replacement samples and having to wait 24 hours when I talked to Jill it just zoomed in on her and then zoomed out and afterwards I couldn't go into 3rd person.

» Sun Jul 18, 2010 3:07 am

Thanks for the feedback!

Some of the first dialogue with Mary seemed to have some large, almost... quadruple spacing between the words.

Can you post (or pm to me) any screenshots?

Story is somewhat interesting so far despite some characters feeling one dimensional so far.

It is hard to make two dimensional characters in the ten lines of dialog you have probably seen. Are there characters in the base game who you consider to be more two dimensional, which I could use as an example? (Companions, with fifty plus lines of dialog, are easier; I mean other relatively minor characters.)

After turning in the replacement samples and having to wait 24 hours when I talked to Jill it just zoomed in on her and then zoomed out and afterwards I couldn't go into 3rd person.

Interesting. It is Lavelle who told you to wait 24 hours and check back with him. Did Lavelle's dialog work? I will double check which dialog options Jill may have at this point; she may be between sections right then.

In general when an NPC has no dialog you can get this zoom-in-zoom-out behavior, but I have never heard of this locking you into first person. I will try that. My best option is to make sure all the NPC's have some relevant dialog at all times. If you spot any other zoom-in-zoom-out indicating NPCs with no dialog, please let me know.

» Sun Jul 18, 2010 8:23 am

Will later (Just got a random crash when I reloaded an old save and headed towards the place.

-----------------------
please don't take offense. I am trying to be constructive with my criticism and give some things that can be done while trying to not ask for too much....Just trying to help basically.

I think I completed the mod now and it's pretty good.

Well for me:
a one dimensional character is someone like "I was born a crimson caravan guard and I will die! a Crimson caravan guard, that is my sole reason for existing!" (an example of this would be pretty much all generic/nameless people.
two dimensional is someone who has motivations for being who/what they are and possibly some background information (most named New Vegas characters and Mary somewhat fit into this category)
Three dimensional is basically a complex character with back story motivations, flaws, internal conflicts, etc.
Four dimensional is probably like a real human being.

Character spoilers for this mod.

Spoiler

Mary's role and her motivations for doing it are fairly believable, and good. In addition the fact that she doesn't open up much could be seen as a part of the whole spy thing. One weird thing.... I told her I was going to tell Mark and let him decide what to do with her and she tells me: "thanks!" What? isn't that what she didn't want me to do?

Mark... I forget if he ever goes into detail about why he's there defending them. and for the characters I can understand why they wouldn't give up any information at first, but after completing two or three tasks you'd think they might open up a little. Without writing my own back story/motivations for Mark I can think of two things to add/fix.
1: When asking about the bot you can agree to help, but then the only way to end the dialogue afterwards is by refusing to do it right now... it's a bit confusing.
2: He says there's a problem with the NCR if you pass the Perception check, but then after both doctors say there isn't a NCR problem I was kind of hoping I could bring up their denial of it to Mark.
.... Also When Mark refers to Mary's boyfriend he call him her brother, that can't be right.... can it?

The doctors: Maybe a bit more conflict and trying to pull you towards their way of thinking. maybe the female doctor would want you to report back to her first before you went to the male doctor if you support her desires. Also when you ask them what the treatment will do they both say pretty much the same thing... you'd think one would be mournful about the potential lost life while the other would be more like "they all deserve death anyway"... Also the matter of motivation comes in. Why does one want ghouls to be saved, while the other wants them exterminated? Perhaps one had their family killed by ferals whereas the other has a family member or lover who is a ghoul...

Don: Pretty good for him, one weird thing though is when he dies the female doctor says she feels sorry for his family when he said he was completely alone, and his family has probably been dead for a long ass time.

Hank: He hates robots, perhaps expand/explain that. Something as simple as being part of one of the rejected tribes when Mr. House rolled in would do.

Jill: I think she may have been one of the worst offenders, can't really think of anyway to expand on her without just making something up on my own.

The NCR lady:She's good for her role as the greedy/evil enemy type, Don't really have to go in depth there... She did say there was four of us there when the securitron was killed by a powder ganger earlier and Mary was fired so that was a bit off...

I think one of the main things was the little weird stuff with accepting and then refusing to reprogram, and NPCs repeating each other (like after you complete the first request and then do the other ones for the other two and they both just say "go see the doctor to proceed." Then for the rest of the mod that seemed to be like what most everyone said after you completed the task: "good, now go see *blank*" Maybe a comment or two when you talk to people after completing
certain tasks like:
Mark:

Spoiler

"Good job fixing the generator for Hank, maybe now he'll be so distracted by all the data he has to process that he'll forget about the Securitron."

The humor bits were definitely worth a chuckle, and I did like that certain actions had some consequences.

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 10:22 pm

I am trying to be constructive with my criticism and give some things that can be done while trying to not ask for too much

This is very helpful feedback. Thank you for taking the time to write it. I have reorganized the feedback a little and split into two posts.

Possible bugs

Spoiler

Cindy did say there was four of us there when the securitron was killed by a powder ganger earlier and Mary was fired so that was a bit off

That sounds like a bug, I'll double check. How did a powder ganger get there?

When Mark refers to Mary's boyfriend he call him her brother, that can't be right.... can it?

I don't see "brother" anywhere in my dialog. Can you double-check?
EDIT: ohai, you are right. It is at the end. I'll fix that.

When Mark asking about the bot you can agree to help, but then the only way to end the dialogue afterwards is by refusing to do it right now... it's a bit confusing.

I am not sure I follow exactly where you saw that. Can you screenshot or write down the exact line?

» Sun Jul 18, 2010 3:52 am

Second post, dialog tweaks

Spoiler

Mary Alice: One weird thing.... I told her I was going to tell Mark and let him decide what to do with her and she tells me: "thanks!" What? isn't that what she didn't want me to do?

That line is lame, thanks for reminding me. I will fix it.

Pretty good for Don, one weird thing though is when he dies the female doctor says she feels sorry for his family when he said he was completely alone, and his family has probably been dead for a long ass time.

Probably true, but she doesn't know that. Lavelle the male doctor's reaction is "I can fix this!" so I was trying for a contrast with more sympathy. Can you suggest a better line for her?

Howard hates robots, perhaps expand/explain that. Something as simple as being part of one of the rejected tribes when Mr. House rolled in would do.
I think Jill may have been one of the worst offenders, can't really think of anyway to expand on her without just making something up on my own.
I forget if Mark ever goes into detail about why he's there defending them. and for the characters I can understand why they wouldn't give up any information at first, but after completing two or three tasks you'd think they might open up a little.

Good suggestions. I'll try to add a line or two for their backstory.

Mark says there's a problem with the NCR if you pass the Perception check, but then after both doctors say there isn't a NCR problem I was kind of hoping I could bring up their denial of it to Mark.

Good idea. Right after the NCR shows up he has another line about this, but I can add one more.

The doctors: Maybe a bit more conflict and trying to pull you towards their way of thinking. maybe the female doctor would want you to report back to her first before you went to the male doctor if you support her desires.

I'll have to think about exactly how to do that, but their philosophical conflict is supposed to be one of the main points of the mod. So it is important to do more.

Also when you ask them what the treatment will do the doctors both say pretty much the same thing... you'd think one would be mournful about the potential lost life while the other would be more like "they all deserve death anyway"...

That's easy to fix. Thanks for pointing it out.

Also the matter of motivation comes in. Why does one doctor want ghouls to be saved, while the other wants them exterminated? Perhaps one had their family killed by ferals whereas the other has a family member or lover who is a ghoul...

Lavelle (the male doctor) does have a line about a family being wiped out, although he does not explicitly say it was his. I can add more motivation into these lines.

... NPCs repeating each other (like after you complete the first request and then do the other ones for the other two and they both just say "go see the doctor to proceed." Then for the rest of the mod that seemed to be like what most everyone said after you completed the task: "good, now go see *blank*"

I think this happens a lot in quest mods. I'll try to reduce the number of times two NPCs have the *same exact* line with more variety.

Maybe a comment or two when you talk to people after completing certain tasks like: Mark: "Good job fixing the generator for Hank, maybe now he'll be so distracted by all the data he has to process that he'll forget about the Securitron."

Good example. I'll add more like this.

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 9:11 pm

Played the first part of the mod again (had a random freeze when going to get the medical case)

Never mind the thing about spacing with Mary. I just noticed that you double spaced after every sentence in dialogue. It looked a bit off because Mary was the first one I talked to and there was a big space in the middle of the dialogue choice:

Spoiler

"I see you have NCR gear. Are you from California originally"

It probably was more noticeable to me because I recently got a wide screen monitor and for some reason it decides to stretch things out a little bit when I talk to people.

For Mark: The thing with only being able to end dialogue with "no, not interested" happens if you already agreed to help him. I think I went through that dialogue tree after helping him hoping that he would be willing to divulge more info but it seemed weird that all I could do was talk about the same things and then refuse to do something I had already done.Maybe just add a: "Goodbye", "Thanks for the info", or "Thanks for satisfying my OCD pursuit of new dialogue" option for that dialogue tree after already agreeing to help.

I don't know how the hell a powder ganger got there. I know that earlier the Vipers at the ravaged farmstead(or whatever it's called) and the fire geckos were rather sensitive to me and Arcade. I managed to kill them before they attacked any of the mod's NPCs.

Spoiler

When I went to test out the darts I went a little overboard and had about 5 ghouls chasing me, I managed to lose them by the time I got back to the compound but Jill was panicking, the securitron was dead, and there was a fresh powder ganger corpse with no items on him except for his clothing.

The comment by the male doctor was kind of what gave me that idea for his background. Note that I am fine with subtlety, it does get to be a bit boring when there is no mystery what so ever in a character and they just spout out their life story with little or no provocation. Basically the dialogue could be fleshed out a bit, but subtle hints without outright explaining something is pretty cool too.

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 4:26 pm

Finished second play through:
The securitron died again, this time with no obvious signs of combat. Might be a bug.... Might be related to me angering Ghouls and then running back to the compound without killing them.

The wastelanders by the case are supposed to be dead right? for me they're alive. I'm kind of a assassin type character so

Spoiler

I killed them both and found a note on one of them. I went through the side quest of finding out about Cindy and confronting the male doctor, but then when Cindy showed up at the compound and I told Mark to let me talk to her she just did the zoom-in-zoom-out thing.(this time I was able to go into third person afterwards though). So I just killed her and completed the quest as normal.

Oh by the way... Mark seems to have this Obsession with constantly changing his armor. Maybe that could be part of his back story/personality? :rofl: A fashionista guard who spends all of his money on clothes and armor.

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 7:20 pm

Thanks for the additional feedback. I will make a bunch of dialog tweaks.

The securitron mysteriously losing power is not a bug. Major Stoyer counting wrong, sounds like a bug.

The two dead guys by the case are supposed to be dead. I had problems earlier with them not being dead, but I could not track down why, and it stopped happening for me. I'll investigate more.

Mark, and Jill and a few of the other characters are supposed to have random weapons and armor, like wastelanders. If you save, and then load, they should have the same outfits. But if you start a second playthrough, they will probably have something different. Is that distracting for named characters? Or do you find that you save, load the game, and they are different? That would be a bug of some kind.

» Sun Jul 18, 2010 3:19 am

This sounds like my kind of quest mod. I intend to try this at some point, but I'm still very deep in vanilla content, the Bounties mod, the NCR mod, and Tales of the Burning Sun.

» Sun Jul 18, 2010 5:21 am

For the Glowing ghoul tissue issue that some people are having (myself included)

My load order:

Spoiler

FalloutNV.esm
More Perks.esm
Tales from the Burning Sands.esm
Weapon Mod Expansion.esm
MikotoBeauty.esm
RaiderGirlCyanNV.esm
drgNV - Melissa Companion.esm
decwithreg.esm
ReactivePeople.esm
Brahmin Companion.esp
Bobblehunt.esp
NewVegasBounties.esp
IIWR 2.1.0.esp
Bella.esp
Brahmin Bess.esp
Wasteland Defense.esp
PerkEveryLevel.esp
Existence2.0.esp
CONELRAD 640-1240.esp
More Perks Update.esp
HoverBoard.esp
RaiderGirlCyanNVmulti.esp
Mojave Express Expansion.esp
SaveCass.esp
Faction Armor Converted to Non Faction.esp
Max Followers 12.esp
NVBabyDeathclawCommander.esp
RemoteControlCompanions.esp
UnlimitedCompanions.esp
Weapon Mod Expansion.esp
MikotoBeauty.esp
Hitman.esp
NVC_Misty.esp

Total active plugins: 33
Total plugins: 35

And here's a save:
http://www.filefront.com/17850939/Save-149---47--Mojave-Wasteland--33-39-40.fos/

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 10:54 pm

Hm. I definitely want to investigate this. In order to run this particular save, I would need to download and install all these 35 mods.

Has anybody been *able* to get a glowing tissue sample from a glowing one?

» Sun Jul 18, 2010 6:22 am

Version 1.1 uploaded at http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=39782. Changes:

* Voice acting! All but one of the nine NPC's now have voices. There is no lipsync. The tools to do this are too painful and time-consuming for me to use.
* Re-arranged dialog at the climix to avoid problem for some players, where Major Stoyer does not have any conversation to start. For these players it made the quest impossible to complete.
* Fixed bug which sometimes prevented Glowing One ghouls from dropping the Glowing Tissue Sample.
* Multiple small dialog tweaks for clarity and characterization, mostly suggested by phoenix1213 @ gamesas.
* Since female voice acting is harder to find, changed gender of Major Stoyer from female to male.
* Changed appearance of several minor characters to match voices.

» Sun Jul 18, 2010 8:29 am

I'm nearly done with all the vanilla quests and scouting every vanilla location and I'm looking to start doing some quest mods. This will be at the top of my list!

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 6:17 pm

Hello.

I just would like to say that I was surprised the same when the Securitron dropped down again, shortly after me fixing him.

At first, I thought that it might indeed have been done on purpose by the mod

Spoiler

by the robot hating guy, or something

, so I started scurrying around, looking for hints, or someone mentioning another incident. Since I couldn't find anything though, I came here to report what I thought was a bug too. Doh

Maybe a short note, or message, or description of the robot upon inspection, would relieve over-zealous players like me in reporting this to you, again and again, if it was meant to be so.

Also, since I can join the on-going discussion here, and if you don't mind an additional opinion, instead of the voice acting, I would very much prefer you fleshing out your characters with more dialog options, or background information, as each of them seem to have quite a story to tell, and I sometimes was left wishing I could... well, interact more.

I haven't finished your mod yet, but I am having fun so far. Thank you

Thanks for the additional feedback. I will make a bunch of dialog tweaks.

The securitron mysteriously losing power is not a bug. Major Stoyer counting wrong, sounds like a bug.

The two dead guys by the case are supposed to be dead. I had problems earlier with them not being dead, but I could not track down why, and it stopped happening for me. I'll investigate more.

Mark, and Jill and a few of the other characters are supposed to have random weapons and armor, like wastelanders. If you save, and then load, they should have the same outfits. But if you start a second playthrough, they will probably have something different. Is that distracting for named characters? Or do you find that you save, load the game, and they are different? That would be a bug of some kind.

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 6:37 pm

Thanks for the feedback. Regarding the securitron,

Spoiler

There are a number of quests where a character takes an action at a certain time, and you can see him do it. As you have discovered, Howard the guy in the shack, keeps removing the battery. For this mod, I "cheated" and I did not actually script him to go out and do this. The battery is simply removed once every 24 hours. I guess you happened to be standing next to it, when the timer went off. I can probably go back and make him actually walk there and interact. But his dialog is where you should be able to learn why it gets powered down. Adding a message box to the powered-down securitron is definitely a good idea and I will do that.

Regarding the interaction with the NPCs, this is an interesting question. Based on earlier feedback I have added at least one dialog line for background to every character. Compared to other side quests in the game, my characters have more interaction than most. If I were to add more to the quest, should it be this type of background dialog? Which non-main-quest characters in the game did you like the most?

Or should I add more things to investigate, such as another quest to power up the generators, or try out other variations of the Treatment?

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 10:22 pm

Version 1.1 uploaded at http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=39782. Changes:

* Re-arranged dialog at the climix to avoid problem for some players, where Major Stoyer does not have any conversation to start. For these players it made the quest impossible to complete.

Thanks for this. I was having a problem. I did not want to side with the NCR but I was forced into it.

I will replay it with the update. I have some suggestions but will hold them until I play through again.
==============================================
EDIT
I replayed V.1.1 and found it progressed smoothly (I wasn't trying to break it :whistling: ) The Securitron got in the way after reactivation, so I moved it. Later

Spoiler

when I was supposed to find it powered down it was gone. There was only the wheel fork left (flopping around on the ground) I thought it had been destroyed. It stayed gone for the remainder of the quest, until the confrontation with the NCR. At that point I could not interact with it. I just got the "Empty" notice. There was no way to determine the battery had been removed, nor any way to replace it. I don't see any reason to remove it every 24 hours if I can't replace it <_< .The dialog with Howard is unclear that he removes the batttery.

I found no problem with the grenade. It was explained properly when I returned.

When the doctor took the sample and went to his chemistry set he was using a wrench?!?!

I remember finding the two dead guys but I don't remember them being near the case. (Could be Olde Tymer's Disease)

The quest stage to find Dr. Lavelle and give him the sample wasn't updating properly.

This time I didn't secretly open the case and wasn't required to get extra samples for Jill. Is that how it's supposed to work?

I was able to get the alternate ending with Maj. Stoyer.

Spoiler

The difference this time is that I didn't turn in and the female NCR (I can't remember her name) was there with the additional dialog. I'll replay it again with her gone to see if I still get it.

BTW I hope you add her brother's quest later.

» Sun Jul 18, 2010 3:00 am

Version 1.2 is released!
* Added two unique quest rewards for leaving either Lavelle or Crosby in charge. You can get these rewards, without losing NCR standing.
* More voice acting! Added the last NPC (John Stoyer). Replaced voice for Mark and Cahill. Re-recorded a few lines for Doctor Lavelle and Doctor Crosby.
* Fixed bug in 1.1, first attempt at letting Mark sleep downstairs introduced multiple problems such as being able to enter the shelter too early.
* Added message box to give a clue about why the securitron loses power.

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 9:32 pm

If you have downloaded the mod, and you like it, please go back to the http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=39782 and endorse it! I can use all the publicity I can get. If you tried it and didn't like it, or got stuck, please let me know so I can improve it. If you didn't download it, what are you waiting for? :-)

» Sat Jul 17, 2010 8:04 pm

Endorsed, I enjoyed the decision making process. Although I have not yet finished the quest I liked the part where I could either kill the ghouls or knock them out.

More info as I finish it.

» Sun Jul 18, 2010 4:21 am

Video walkthrough available!

I hadn't heard about it till just now, but AIChestBreach did a video walkthrough of Decisions With Regrets in January. Use this link, or search youtube for "decisions regrets fallout". His commentary is very amusing! Watch it and send the link to all your friends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2s0iu18WRs

He used version 1.1, and there is a newer version available 1.2. Here is my review, of his review.

* The part that makes the whole mod successful for me, is the point right near the end of the game where you have to make a decision. For the entire walkthrough, he sped through the dialog and immediately chose as fast as he could read. On this choice, he paused for a long time and said, "I got a moral conundrum here". That is *exactly* what I was trying to get. There are multiple endings here, some which don't involve just shooting everybody.

* There are a couple of things I already fixed in version 1.2. The voice acting for Mark is replaced, and the voice acting for John has been added. His comment was, "Wonderful voice acting", and it is even better in the current version. I have also added some quest rewards for the two "good" endings.

* There is one bug in the dialog which I will have to fix. I thought it was already fixed but he came in a slightly different order. There is a part where one character's appearance suddenly changes. However, the dialog choice to ask them about it does not appear. This doesn't prevent finishing the mod, but it's a "loose end".

* There are some small graphical things I can fix also. One quest objective doesn't grey out when it should; the "help wanted" sign is too clean looking; one object is slightly floating; a wrench appears unexpectedly.

Watching this kind of video can be very painful for the author, when the player misses something we "thought" was obvious enough, but it is a great learning experience. Check it out!