This thread is a relatively simple thread, what is the order you place the DLCs in?

For me personally, I'd say:

#1 Dead Money
#2 Lonesome Road
#3 Honest Hearts
#4 Old World Blues

OWB/DM
HH
LR

OWB and DM is a tie for me for two reasons: DM's story and OWB's humor and gameplay.

Dead Money
Old World Blues/ Lonesome Road
Honest Hearts

I like OWB and LR about the same, HH is last because I HATE tribals. The .45's were good though.

Lonesome Road
Honest Hearts
Then its a toss up between OWB and Dead Money. I find those two to be the most frustrating to play at times. I do love the idea of Dead Money, and how it is tougher. But at the same time, its so frustrating. I like a challenge, but I want to have fun at the same time. I'll be attempting DM again on my next character though. And OWB grew a little more on me with just finishing it recently. The enemy spawning in it is a joke though.

Gnnn hard...

OWB
LR/DM
HH

I honestly can't decide between LR and DM for second place...

1) Old World Blues
2) Dead Money
3) Honest Hearts
4) Lonesome Road

I just love OWB's wacky humour to bits, and I like the Sink base. Good ol' Muggy always cracks me up. I always have the most fun with OWB. There's also such a profound melancholy to the Big Empty that imo even surpasses that of Dead Money.

"There is an expression in the Wasteland: 'Old World Blues'. It refers to those so obsessed with the past they can't see the present, much less the future, for what it is. They stare into the what-was, eyes like pilot lights, guttering and spent, as the realities of their world continue on around them."
/wipes tear

Dead Money's environmental puzzles were super tedious, but the Sierra Madre is such a fantastic setting that the puzzles gets a pass. And I really like the heist motif, I thought that should have been in the base game. I love how it ends. Do you risk dying so that you can maybe lug all that old world gold back home? Do you take as many gold bars as you can while leaving the less valuable unique SM loot behind? Or do you let go and recognize that you already have more than enough back in the Mojave? This to me is great writing and game design.

Honest Hearts' biggest plus is Joshua Graham. He is simply a fascinating character, the repentant warmonger who pays penance for his past crimes with his constant pain. Plus he has a great voice actor. And I like both Follows-Chalk and Waking-Cloud. However, writing-wise it's the least ambitious, and is, dare I say it, pretty boring. I know a lot of people cite the Survivalist's story as great writing. I liked it fine, I didn't think it was transcendentally exceptional. The in-game Zion also doesn't really do the http://www.nps.gov/zion/photosmultimedia/images/ClassicCanyonOverlook.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Zion_angels_landing_view.jpg any justice, probably because of graphical limitations.

Lonesome Road, unlike HH, is ambitious. The story just doesn't work for me. I understand the whole story of the Divide, I'm just saying it makes no sense. And I don't like Ulysses. To me he comes across as a petty, bombastic existential buffoon who assumes that he's the first and only person to think clearly about politics, and that the rest are sheeple who just don't see the truth, man. That's fine, but unlike Elijah the game clearly also wants us to think he's profound and has a point. I also really don't like the trope in RPGs where devs put a character in near the end to berate the player for choices he/she made, because it's very ham-handed. Trust your players to figure out the message of your game without shoving it in their faces. After all that build-up throughout the DLCs, Lonesome Road was a letdown.

Dead Money is definitely my favorite for its backstory, atmosphere and characters.

#1 Dead Money
#2 Honest Hearts (very enjoyable and really like the Survivalist's backstory)
#3 Lonesome Road (for its setting and ED-E's backstory)
#4 Old World Blues (love the locations, dislike the repetitive and fetch quests)

Best DLC is Old World Blues.

Worst DLC is Dead Money.

In between are Honest Hearts and Lonesome Road. I would put HH ahead of LR. I enjoyed the setting and story of HH more than LR, but LR is more of a challenge.

Honest Hearts
Lonesome Road
Dead Money
OWB

I enjoyed the top two a lot, whereas the other two I pretty much despised (was enjoying DM by the end though and loved its story, but what with the sensor 'puzzle', poisonous air and dull ghost-people for combat really let it down) especially OWB. Would probably never do HH again because it's not too thrilling, but it was enjoyable. LR only comes second because I found it quite a big let down.... I did the DLC's over probably 6 months (pacing myself with them) so when it finally came to LR I was so excited about what the story would come down to... and found its conclusion disappointing and anti-climatic.

Couldn't have said it better, especially about the profound bit. I thought he was interesting up until the point when you actually figure it all out at the end... and then I just thought he was an idiot, a character with no depth. The story couldve been so good - that's the worst bit - and we got something that, in the end felt rushed. Waste of time.

Dead Money is the Best DLC - I played on hardcoe mode and the change in pacing, feel and gameplay was really pretty striking. I Started at level 4 and was level 15 by the end, which may colour my experience a bit, but I loved having to sneak past and dodge fights I didn't think I could win, use traps and chokepoints (Gas bomb in stairwells were a favourite) to maximise my advantages and conserve ammo, and the constant threat of dying. The cloud's health-sapping effects made being outside in the Villa feel unpleseant, as it should have! and the Ghost people were interesting to fight - It never felt unfair fighting them - If I lost a battle, it was cause I'd approached it wrong.

On the story side, Dead money had the best overarching story of all of them, relatable, interesting characters with their own story arcs, and best of all, good pacing. I felt like My power level kept pace well with the challenges I was facing - In contrast with the base game.

Old World Blues is the worst. Dull, uninspiring story. Flat, uninteresting characters who are played for cheap laughs. Frustrating, Irritating gameplay with bullet-sponge enemies who deal very little damage, making every battle devolve into a mindless [censored]fest slog. No innovations with regards to the base game's gameplay whatsoever - not even an attempt.

My abiding memory of OWB is spending most of it chilling in Ulysses point waiting for the damn CIU to refresh so I could buy Primer and Powder packs to make .308 JSP. I saved and stockpiled resources for the "assault" on the forbidden zone... only to find I needn't have bothered.

OWB's setting could have been so great, but they abandoned the potential for a genuine, chilling mileu (It's there in little yangtze, for instance) in order to make a hammed up, "Ironic" mad scientist B-movie reel.

Honest Hearts is the only DLC I keep installed, ditched LR and OWB as soon as I was done with 'em

Dead Money I have never played and never wanted too either

But why not keep it installed for the increased level cap and perks? You can just not do the DLCs. Not to mention you can duck in the Divide to nab some nice loot before you even have to fight anyone then duck back out.

I think the best word for my playstyle is minimalist?

I like to keep my the level cap as low as possible, I never read skill books, half my perks are useless "RP perks" (like Hunter or Night Person), I dont use chems or magazines, I dont use unique weapons

but beyond that I hate the weapons and perks in OWB and LR, plus its bad enough taht with HH my cap is 35, if I got any more I would have to take Logans Loophole to take the cap back down yadda yadda

1) DM

2) OWB

3) LR

4) HH

DM is the most rewarding to play again, IMO.

1-Lonesome Road
2-Dead Money
3-Honest Hearts
4-Old World Blues

Dead Money was superb. It is the highlight of my New Vegas experience. It was thematically flawless and I will never forget the feelings it evoked in me. It was uncomfortable, it was painful but at the end I felt as if I had gone through a journey. Not only was I emotionally engaged, I enjoyed the new mechanics it introduced.

Honest Hearts was fun, but I think Obsidian missed too many tricks with it. Graham could have been expanded upon and it could have felt a little more story driven. I enjoyed the side story with the diary entries, but that was about as personal as it got.

I have not played Old World Blues or Lonesome Road. I don't have a rig capable of running the game at the moment, but the first thing I am going to do when I get my new PC is reinstall the game and play through all of it.

Alright!!! A second vote with me on Lonesome Road. Absolutely love this DLC. With my new character, I will be exploring the Long 15 and the Courier Mile, and maybe Dry Wells. I have never tried those before, but my legion character couldn't use rad drugs, so I would have died too easily. Can't wait to explore those new sections though.

Lonesome road
Dead money
Owb
Hh

I enjoyed the first three. Honest hearts i thought was really lame. The legend of the burned man could have been amazing. Instead it was a big let down. Wanted to knock daniels head off the moment i met him.

and did you?

I don't think you're giving Ulysses enough credit.
He's definitely jaded about everything and everyone, but he doesn't seem to consider himself smarter and wiser than everyone and everything. Even after all his complaints and criticisms, he still feels it worthwhile to support the Legion to the end; his plan is to bomb the NCR, both to eliminate a "tribe of children" and to prevent the Legion from growing too large and turning on itself. He's trying to set it up so only one flag is left over the Mojave, and he asks you to "let that one fly, or destroy itself trying." He STILL wants to give the Legion a chance, thus he still has respect for Caesar and the morality of the Legion. Likewise, he's capable of having a nice, unaggressive debate with an Indy supporter about how to best address the issues he's noticed, and he's more than willing to view the Courier as an intelligent leader who may know better.

Aside from that, do those same two playthroughs in Lonesome Road and you'll find he DOES treat you differently. He's FAAAR less confrontational with Legion supporters, and has far less to say to Indy supporters up until the end, at which point he has a more extensive discussion with them.


I do sorta see your point though in that it seems a bit disingenuous when Ulysses is designed to oppose you at any cost. I DO think it's nice that you'll notice differences between how he treats you if you're NCR and if you're Legion, but House, for example, it definitely feels like Ulysses is just opposing House for the sake of opposing House, without really providing nearly as much debate, opinion or discussion about House as he will with the other three.

unfortunately no. Only cause it would cause everybody to go hostile. Which is lame. But from future playthroughs i may have to. So i can finish the dlc in record time

+1 with Ulysses approaching you differently when you are supporting the Legion. I actually had to avoid a few Legion rep dialogue options as it was threatening to kill him, but I wanted to convince him to fight with me. And I am suprised he is against House so much too, and calling him an old ghost spirit, when Ulysses keeps talking about the idea of America, or how it was. You think he would want part of the old world back with the flag that he wears on his back, and how much that gets referenced through out OWB, and LR.

I love them all, but this the order I put them in:

1- Lonesome Road
2- Dead Money
3- Old World Blues
4- Honest Hearts

I think the "hole" with House is that Ulysses presents himself as thorough. He wants to know the potential of the Legion, the NCR, the BoS etc, and yet he never really gives the impression he gave House a good look-over or the time of day. He just immediately discounts House as running a failure nation, which just seems really out of character for him, even if he DOES make good points about House. I liked his line about the Courier carrying "29 less coins than other traitors have carried" in reference to the Courier giving House the chip, in reference to how self-interested a Courier that supports House likely is. It still works, it's just kind of a stretch cause Ulysses still presents himself as someone who'd want to experience House's nation first-hand, yet we receive no stories of him having done so.
But yeah, his treatment of NCR is expected, his treatment of the Legion is rather sympathetic, Indy is basically discounted until the very end when Indy gets the longest and most diverse "speech fight" with him, and House is the one that feels like a sore thumb and a blatant tie-in to the concept of Ulysses being your nemesis.