I want to talk about the Lonesome Road DLC . I want to get into the nitty gritty of it and into all of the nooks and crannies of LR. Let's leave no stone unturned by the time we're done here.

This is a generic,catch all thread to discuss the Lonesome Road DLC. I would like it if you ask me or other posters on this thread questions. Leave comments , converse, contemplate and enjoy. Be super nice and more than respectful of other posters opinions. Jokes are always welcome as long as they are friendly.

My goal is to archive a thread that has intelligent and useful information. I want it to be fun to read and be thought provoking. I would like this thread to be appealing to different kinds of players that share the game.

Fallout Talk is like a fine 20 year malt scotch to be savored and appreciated

To start things off.

I really enjoy writing fanfiction, what should I write about ? What are some of the first few things that come to mind when you think of the Lonesome Road DLC?

Beautiful ruined landscape, crazy tough deathclaws, an improved ED-E, the frustratingly rambling possibly crazy Ulysses, the uber-dangerous Courier's mile,

the partially-forced backstory for your character that is hazy on details, the not- particularly-impressive-to-me new weapons(well Blood Knap is pretty good I suppose),

the major choice you must make at the end.

The most memorable part of Lonesome Road was definitely simply seeing the Divide for the first time. As soon as I trekked through the canyon wreckage, I walked over to the edge of the cliff before the hopeville silo and looked out across the Divide. The view was simply incredible and that was probably the most memorable part of any of the Fallout DLCs. Even though I enjoyed Dead Money more as a whole, it did not have a wow moment on par with witnessing the Divide for the first time. EDIT: I take that back. The Gala event definitely is just as cool, but it's a different experience overall.

When I walked through Hopeville, it very much reminded me of Fallout 3. That DLC was (likely unintentionally) an 'up yours' to everyone who thought that Obsidian could not match the hopeless, desolated feel that Fallout 3 produced. It could, and did better. Not only were these hopeless cities ruined, but they were turned on their sides and covered in dust storms. It was truly hopeless, which is ironic because of its name "Hopeville".

I liked the High Road too. It had fantastic scenery work with the ruined skyscraqers and city underneath. I have to wonder if that is where the civilization the courier unintentionally created was located before it was completely destroyed. After climbing atop the Sunstone Tower and looking across the even more desolated canyon of the 'actual' Divide, that was another wow moment for me. Seeing the final stretch of the ruined divide, with my destination covered behind the destruction of the old world promise, well, that was pretty neat to experience. Confronting Ulysses (killing him, I think, sums the story up better) and sacrificing ED-E made up for the lack of direction in the story earlier in the DLC. Definitely a big part. After the final slideshow, Lonesome Road quickly (and easily) became my favorite DLC.

I enjoy it very much every time I run through it, but after a few playthroughs of it, the DLC as a whole has lost its initial charm and it has regressed to second place behind Dead Money (which would take many times as much as I just wrote about LR to explain).

I was a little dissapointed by the end of the story. Great build up, weak pay off. Motivation of Ulysses seemed kinda weak to me.

I on the other hand thought that LR design was inspired by those F3 fans complaining that in NV "there wasn't post-apocalyptic atmosphere".

Besides, I really hated that damn warhead hunter achievement. It just felt stupid.

I think LR is one of the weaker DLCs. I'm not saying it's bad, but I think it's too linear. There's not really a reward for exploring, which I come to expect in my Fallout/Elder Scrolls games. I think they did a good job with the atmosphere and the overall loot was good, but the only work one had to put in for it was to follow the objective. I really wish they went deeper into the background of Hopeville and what came of it. One of the best parts, for me, was fighting along the elevated highway. As much as I like my fighting, I like my talking too and there was a lack of it. I think Old World Blues is the best because they had a good mix of interesting dialog, where I felt like I learned more about the Fallout world then just the local story point. In LR, talking with Ulysses was interesting, but he didn't divulge information about the old world city (or at least before the player triggered the explosives).

Learning about ED-E's past was the most interesting, from a personal intellectual stand point. It's clear that somewhere behind it, the world has recovered enough to have working TVs in average wastelander's homes.