Hey all, I just thought I'd take a second and finally start an official WIP thread for this project.

A couple of weeks ago I decided that I would take my http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=39230 to the next level and turn it into a full blown reconstruction of the Bison Steve Hotel. I had been contemplating that idea from the beginning, but really wanted some feedback on what I had built so far, so I got it to a functional level and released the first version in it's current form found on the Nexus. In that version I just have the casino set up in North Vegas, not at the Bison. But the same interior will be the NEW Bison Steve Hotel & Lucky Casino. (http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=39230)

So, after the better part of the last 2 weekends, I have the basic structure of the quest(s) finished from beginning to end. What started out with 3 simple stages has grown into over a dozen tasks the player gets to do to move the construction forward, and will incorporate 7 different phases of construction. (Each phase will be enabled separately from the others to simulate the progress as the quest moves forward.) I have also incorporated the vanilla quests “My Kind of Town” and “Classic Inspiration” as stages you must complete for the construction to progress as well. All in all, I think it will be pretty enjoyable.

Using the console to move to quest targets, and using other shortcuts for testing, it still took me nearly 40 minutes to get through all of it. So this will add some nice play time if the player doesn't rush through it. It's really set up to just compliment the the main story line for the most part, and the player can do my tasks as they play along the regular story line.

So, like I said, the basic structure is complete and I'm about 2/3 finished with the dialog. It already has nearly 200 lines of dialog with all of the background topics and whatnot. Much is already written and linked up, and I have basic place holders set that I am finalizing.

I've come a LONG way, but I've still got a LOT of work left to do, and have a nice punch list going, but I can see light at the end of the tunnel. I'm working on some custom textures for the chips, blackjack and roulette tables. I still need to decide how I'm going to decorate the entrance area leading to the front door (outside in Primm.) I still haven't connected the actual hotel rooms, and I'm probably going to add a little secret door to a little room the player can use in the hotel office area. Oh yeah, then I got to do the floor managers AI package, and work on the NPC's who populate the casino and steak house. I'm still sweating the floor manager's AI and scripts though. Then there's the voice files (if I actually do them, lol.) I may just release it unvoiced, get some feedback and make any final changes before I consider voice. I'd hate to have to redo a bunch of dialog.

I like it, anything to add more quests and features to the smaller towns is a great idea. To that end you might be interested in a mod that adds the reputation system to Primm http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=39810 .

Just wondering, will you actually "own" the casino, or can maybe buy it and make caps off of it, somewhere to spend/invest all those caps.

From what I've read you just help someone build the casino. You'll be given quests with rewards for completing them.

The way it's set up now, is that you will be a full business partner with it's current owner's Old Laurie who has headed west for a while, and her grandson Steve whom you will help get the place running again. You'll get a leveled share of the profit in your own personal safe like the Fighters Guild chest in Oblivion.

I guess I could actually give the player a 25% Deed of Ownership (simple enough to just add a note), but I don't think that I would give away any more of the place to the player than that. (Steve agrees!)

I haven't really thought much about it thus far, but if enough people like the idea and wanted it, I could certainly add a little perk or something for completing the entire quest. I've been much more concerned with the overall mechanics and getting that all working like I want it than what you get in the end, other than the rebuilt hotel of course.

I have been of the mindset that having a replenishing safe of leveled cash was enough of a reward, but I'm certainly open for more suggestions if folks would like to see more.

BTW, this mod also comes with a huge player home, "Buck's Bobblehead Hunt" and lots of amenities, so it's not like there are not more than just the hotel/casino rewards, lol.

Hopefully, I can strike a balance between those who like lots of rewards, and those who think some things will make the player too godlike. It's a fine line to walk methinks, lol.

Throw me some suggestions!

Oh yeah, one other thing. The way I have it setup now is that the player already has to invest up to 3000 of their own caps into the construction project (1500 if they have STR 6, or INT 6) so you'll have to pony up some cash along the way.

throw in quests where someone's winning big at the tables and you have the option of trying to kick him out (peaceful or not), go after someone who owes the casino, defend against attempted robberies, and other casino boss like concerns

Very interesting! I like it a LOT, but right now my main focus is just getting the rebuilding quests all buttoned up and ready to release. The next step in my plan is to focus on another central character in my story named Buck Brunson. He is mentioned quite a lot in the rebuild quests and you can use his home as your home if you wish to. And who knows, I might try to incorporate some of your ideas in a future update! Awesome suggestion, and thank you for mentioning it. Keep 'em coming everybody!

BTW, what is that critter in your avatar? (I like your sig too. Nice.)

Well cash is often not much off an issue, though I have some mods that I'd like to try for that issue. But I'll say let's not go overboard with it monetary rewards.
I'd say some nice things like equipment is always a good thing to have. Nothing god-like but things with unique advantages (fire resistant leather armor or a energy resistant metal armor).

As for the Buck Bobblehead Hunt, it depends on what the reward for it is. If each bobblehead nets you bonuses, it might go a bit overboard. If it has small rewards for reaching milestones it will probably be okay.

BTW how huge is huge?

also possible for future updates: i havent gotten far enough into the game yet to know what happens to the other possible sheriff candidates if you dont select them but perhaps you could offer them the job of chief security officer at your hotel/casino. and possibility of selecting a "theme" for your casino?

the critter is a dwarf hamster and the sig is one of my favorite verses from the Bible

Huge is about double the size of Dukov's place in FO3. See the pics here: http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=39230

Right now, I have the bobbleheads set for +1 SPECIAL, and +3 Skills. I don't have them set up in a quest per se, but just hidden all around like in FO3.

I've thought about adding in a sort of prototype combat armor that is lighter than the vanilla and is listed as light armor so you don't take the penalty while running. But it would have to be vanilla assets as I know squat about modeling.

So each SPECIAL bobblehead adds one to SPECIAL. Well it's not like I have to gather them.

It doesn't have to have a new model. There's plenty of effects you could add to armor and clothing to give you something unique.

Sounds good. Is it complete yet? I want to download it

Sorry to say, it's not finished yet, but I'm making steady progress. I'm hoping this weekend will be very productive in terms of getting very close to being ready to release. But it depends on how much trouble I run into with the casino floor manager AI package and scripting. That's the one big thing I'm still sweating, lol. But, you can download the current version and take a look at the casino and player home. It's just not set up at the Bison and there's no quest's in it. But it gives you an idea of what it looks like. Heres the link:

http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=39230


Thanks!

Can't wait!!!!!

UPDATE - 1-31-11: The weekend of GREMLINS!!! And "keepin' it REAL(istic)" this weekend!

HOTEL ROOMS - Despite fighting a couple of NASTY gremlins this weekend, I managed to get the hotel room level pretty much completed. It's fully navmeshed and I even placed a handful of wandering tourists around in there, and they seem to be sandboxing just fine. So aside from a little clutter and final touches the hotel room level is finished! I think I ended up with 14 or so rooms. And while I don't really expect many people will actually use the rooms, I think it adds a nice little touch of realism.

PREP KITCHEN & STORAGE ADDED - I also added a little kitchen and storage wing off of the steak house. It just didn't seem realistic not having a prep kitchen and storage area for food and stuff. It still needs to be cluttered and navmeshed but that will go quickly as it's small. Just a little addition for the sake of realism.

DIALOG FINISHED!!! - Also, I pretty much finished the dialog 100%, thank God! Unless I find a typo or grammatical error it should FINALLY be done! There are a couple of places that I need to link optional topics and goodbye's to the trees, but that won't take much time. So goodbye Topic Menu! (I don't care if I EVER copy & paste another line of dialog...) :shakehead:

CASINO DEALERS ADDED - I setup 9 Blackjack dealers with 3 dealers each on 3 shift rotations (1st, 2nd & 3rd shifts) so there are always 3 tables with dealers ready to go! Right now, they are set to work their shift and sandbox in the casino a while, then relax in the steak house. I'm tossing around the idea of having them actually go up to a room to sleep for 6 hours before their shift but I haven't decided on that yet.

CUSTOM FELT FOR BLACKJACK TABLES: I also cooked up an early working version of a hi-res custom Blackjack table felt for the Lucky Casino. I'm not 100% happy with it yet so no pictures right now, but hopefully soon!

Wow, that really don't look like a weekend's worth of work, but it is, lol. But I probably lost 6 to maybe even close to 10 hours wasted fighting gremlins. (see below, lol) :brokencomputer:

Anyway, I have possibly a dozen or so little minor punch list things to tidy up such as tweaking the AI packages for my gamblers, a few idle markers and my custom chips that I should easily finish this week. There are only a couple of big things left as follows:

- AI packages, comps and dialog for floor manager (I'm still sweating this, lol. Likely the last thing I do) :whistling:

- Casino guards outside. I'm going to set up a couple of guards on a patrol outside the casino.

- Decorate the entrance area going into the hotel in Primm. I want to put some planters and maybe some benches out in front and clean up the street a little.

- The final thing on the list will be a thorough cleaning in FVNEdit. Hopefully, with the help of the fine folks around here I can get that done by the weekend or early next week and have her all polished up. I think I will then be ready to release at least a beta version to the public so we can begin to identify any bugs I may have missed during my build testing. Hopefully there will be very few if any. :ninja:

Man, it's finally starting to come together, woo hoo!


For an idea of one of the gremlins, I kept noticing that for no apparent reason my test character kept going into low-light vision mode over and over. It seemed to happen at random, but always inside my casino, lol. I worked for 4 or 5 hours trying different stuff just to figure out why the hell it was even happening, much less how I was going to fix it. I had a feeling like I had been kicked in the gut, because if I could not get that problem fixed, literally 2 whole weekends worth of work would go down the tubes. :swear:

I beat my head against the wall and was getting really, really pissed when I finally figured out that the Nuka-Cola Quartz I had on the shelves was somehow applying it's night vision effect to the player, lol. :shrug:

So I removed them and the issue stopped, lol. :banghead:

The other gremlin was the texture glitch I posted about in the GECK forum.

:fallout:

Can't wait to try the mod, keep up the good work. I can relate, on a smaller scale, to those gremlins you were fighting. Always feels good to come out on top in the end though..

It would have probably been fine with just two dealers per game type per shift, though I imagine setting the first one up is harder than the subsequent once.

Anyway good to hear things are going forward despite those pesky Gremlins. Just remember to not add water and don't feed them after midnight.

One of the reasons I went with 3 shifts instead of 2 are that it adds a little more variety at the tables and splitting into 8 hour shifts is a little more realistic. I ran into a little issue that when the shift changed one shift to the next, I would end up with an NPC logjam with one shift getting off work and the other starting. It's a tight area around those tables, and the dealers would just get all clogged up trying to get around each other and get to their stations.

So instead of starting all of them at 1AM (1st shift), 9AM (2nd shift) and 5PM (3rd shift), I switched it so that first shift starts at 1, 2 & 3 AM, second shift starts at 9, 10 & 11 AM, and third shift starts at 5, 6 & 7 PM.

Now they make a very smooth transition from each shift to the next! (The AI for this game can be really frustrating sometimes. NPC's do some of the stupidest things like walk directly to the ONE place another NPC is standing and try to walk through them, lol.)

I meant dealers per shift and not shifts. As in you two blackjack dealers per shift would probably be enough, no need to make things to hard.


I know about that. I once had a dozen soldiers standing in the middle of Nelson all vying for the same spot.

UPDATE - 2-8-11

Howdy everyone! I figured it was about time for another quick progress update. Despite a couple of setbacks (mostly because I was an idiot!) I'm still making steady progress, and I'm getting closer and closer to having this thing wrapped up!

Unfortunately, I've had to redo some of the work I already had finished like the gamblers in the casino and my dealers and their AI packages. It's a long story, but basically I had a problem where I had to revert to a previous save and start them over from scratch. But, as the saying goes, “there's a silver lining behind every storm cloud” and I'm actually a little happier with how the redo came out than I was with the original setup. But unfortunately that previous save also caused me to have to redo the navmesh for the hotel rooms, sigh. But in the end, if it is better it was worth it. I just hate to have to redo stuff that I already had done, lol.

After all that I started working on all the changes I am making around the entrance area outside the hotel in Primm. I wanted that area generally cleaned up a bit and all those metal piles, debris and old paper removed so the outside will look nice. That was a very time consuming process as I was instructed that the best way to do what I wanted to do was to set the vanilla objects to initially disabled, move them underground where they couldn't be seen, and then add duplicates of them back in so I could set them up to be cleaned up as the construction process is being completed. So I got all that set up, and also added some palm trees and other plants and made a custom rug for the entrance area. I think it adds a little life to what was basically just a very plain area outside without going over the top with decorations.

The last thing's I want to do outside is add a couple of guards on patrol, and possibly some park benches and/or picnic tables but hopefully that won't take to long.

MORE BITS AND PIECES:

Thanks to some much appreciated and needed help from “Asylumer” a fellow member here, I got my profit safe for the player up and running as well.

I think I also have the final version of my custom Lucky Casino Blackjack Table felt done. It's nothing too over the top, but just simple and to the point, but I think it looks great in game.

Last night I worked up an early version of my custom Lucky Casino Poker Chips and added in a model of an actual stack of chips that The Janitor has graciously given me permission to use. They are both going to really look great on my main poker table, even if it's only a simulated game going on. I'm pretty close with the texture and hopefully with a little tweaking tonight and I'll be happy with it.

OTHER STUFF

I'm all about giving players as many options as I can! So I've decided that the hotel needs a private player room, so I will be adding yet another cell to the place, lol. But this should be very quick and easy as I'm not going to do anything too elaborate. I'm just going to copy a basemant cell already in game as my base to start with. It will have all the basics though including a well rested bed, storage, crafting, reloading and work benches and whatnot and of course be navmeshed for followers!

PUNCH LIST

(If I can stop adding new stuff, this punch list could get done, lol.)
- Mentioned above - Private Player room, add guards on patrol outside, add some picnic tables/park benches outside, final custom chip texture.

- Add some clutter to the hotel room level (needs a bit more life to it)

- I have a couple of pieces of artwork I want to replace

- Get bannister/handrail for Buck's Place finished (I'm working with Sputnik from the Nexus on that)

- Casino Floor Manager Package (again, this keeps getting moved to the bottom of my list, lol. I'm skeered! Likely will need a LOT of help with this, lol)

- Final walkthrough checking all dialog and dialog options, quests, skill checks for final completion.

- Clean with FNVEdit (will need a LOT of help with this one, too)

- Make FOMOD, BSA files etc, package and get ready to release!!!

- Finish official website. (It's a WIP right now and it will probably go online after my release.)

So, there you have it! As you can see there are a fair number of little things left to do and separately they shouldn't take a lot of time. Just all added together there's still some work to do, but I'm inching closer and closer now!

Glad to see you are keeping us updated, Balok.

I eagerly, yet patiently, await the final product.