Fallout: New Vegas

[Doomcat]

Seeing as i have played DnD since i was 4 with my parents and my sister (my parents are nerds, they raise nerds) i have grown up really liking RolePlaying.

The problem is, i always find it hard to roleplay when all my statements in conversations are 'set' and the other persons reactions are as well. I'm just used to doing it with other people, on online games etc, though not those things like WoW, people tend to revert to power mongers there, RP or not.

Really though, since i started playing Fallout 3 again, i've been getting into it strangely. I've specialized my character a little more gone for more "intelligent" skills and "agile" skills instead of just doing EVERYTHING. I think that FO3 could be a perfect RPing engine. the one thing that would need to change though would be that interaction character to character.

turning FO3 into an Online RPG (no not a Mass Multi, just Online) where you can have 2 or 3 people playing at the same time...could probably be just a great RPing experience. have a house rule not to fast-travel, and simply go out and adventure. sure it would be tedious in the wasteland wandering sometimes, but thats why i suggest making it multiplayer, because just navigating the terrain of fallout myself is boring at times. a Merchant/Bodyguard relationship could be a interesting one for example, scavving for good items to sell at the next town or settlement but ending up ambushed by super mutants...

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

Problem with f3, oblivion and new vegas

the FIRST time you travel somewhere is new and interesting, the 1+Nth time isn't because you already saw everything

these games necessarily require a stash and a "home base" and you need to move back and forth frequently, particularly in hardcore mode

now to make hardcore mode even more hardcore they need to disable fast travel with any crippled limbs

I'll go you one better: they should do away with the concept of a stash entirely. Make it so that any items you leave behind are vulnerable to theft or decay. Don't go giving the player access to a "house" right away. Then you'd really have to make tough decisions about what you can carry, and stats like "strength" might actually take on some importance in gun-heavy settings like Fallout.

Strength does matter...you need 5 to get the "strong back" perk which is really good.

And you need str to use a bunch of guns or else your accuracy blows so really 4 or 5 is about the minimum you want to go.

But not being able to stash everything would make adventure game OCD people like me have fits....though a "chance" of your stash being raided based on how close to civilization you put it would be cool

 

[RobfromtheGulag]

I know that to a newcomer the flying wyverns and griffons of WoW are impressive, but after the first year or so, at least for me, a big consideration while levelling and doing random minutiae in the endgame was travel. Blizzard has made it easier and easier (reducing hearthstone cooldowns, scrolls of teleportation) to move around the World o.w. instantly.

4 classes can flat out teleport. The others can exploit currently allowed systems such as the battleground portals or dungeon summon stones. And if all that fails, you can usually get on your flying mount, point yourself towards your destination, and turn on autorun while you go eat a sandwich.

And of course mage portals are constantly for sale. So the epic feeling of travel in WoW hasn't been there for a number of years as I see it. But I agree that it takes away from the magnitude of a world if you never actually see large spans of it.

 

[delanofilms]

I really like the idea of a large RPG being more like an episodic TV series. Imagine if in Pokemon, you'd had to handle the weird and wonderful problems each gym leader has, before finally fighting and getting the badge? Instead of just grinding your way to the door and using the same move for every opponent 'mon.

Thank GOD I wasn't the only one to think this. If the Pokemon games actually played out like this i would never be able to put them down.

 

[Venereus]

Civ5 is freaking awful. However, it'd be awesome to see a ZP review tearing it apart.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

I love fast-travelling because it saves precious time getting to the quests that stubbornly make you traipse 5000 miles to every objective.

And why should Yahtzee have to review F:NV when he's already reviewed it in F3? He'd be repeating himself, so you whiners shut it.

Hasty edit: Hey Yahtzee, I know some more games you definitely should get into and maybe even review to get off your depression. Final Fight Double Impact (available on PSN and Shitbox360 stores), the Command & Conquer series (stringently excluding 4), Tom Clancy's EndWar, SWAT 4, Rez, Killing Floor, Battlefield 2 and any Ratchet & Clank title.

 

[RentCavalier]

Hey, he said something kind of nice about Pokemon. That's...shocking. And maybe a little heartwarming. Good on you Yahtzee. I do hope you review Black and White when they come out. Your bleak and blistered soul could use a little manufactured cuteness to warm its dehydrated confines.

 

[Electrogecko]

I think this was one of Yahtzee's best recently, and I agreed with every word of it.
Hilarious too.

 

[SiskoBlue]

Can't say games are getting immersion right for me lately. They all go on about the HUD, and how this breaks immersion. It doesn't. If it's always there you kind of go blind to it.

Bugs, bugs break the immersion. When characters do truly bizarre things, that breaks immersion. Funny, but takes you out of the game.

My biggest gripe with Fallout New Vegas so far is the obvious "path" they've made in an open world game. In Fallout 3, you get directed to the nearest town on leaving the vault. A tip. A suggestion. You don't HAVE to go there. But it's logical in "role-playing" that you would. Actually if I was really role-playing I'd probably spend the first 24 hours curled up in the fetal position weeping and struggling to hide somewhere near the vault door. Come-on. I've spent my entire life underground in cramped tunnels yet don't suffer agoraphobia?

So you go to Megatown. The next major story quests take you deeper into the map and then south. And kind of all over. There's no OBVIOUS direction. Plus you constantly pick up map markers for what will presumably be points of interest and new side quests. And they're scattered all over the place. You can literally wonder in any direction. Of course some areas are tougher than others. Like around the DC monuments but you can still get around them without detouring too much.

And this is what's bugged me about Fallout New Vegas. I wake up in some guy's house. He's saved my life so already I'm being forced to be polite. I don't have to be but it's doesn't feel real or immmersive to be a jerk to him. Then going outside I'm already in a town and expected to start fitting in. For the next 15 hours every mission and side mission I got was pushing me south. I tried going North and meet a dead end. Enemies waaaaay too powerful for me to have any chance of gettnig past them. West there's a gigantic mountain range. Well, not gigantic but it's obviously a "wall", not a mountain range. it's purpose is to stop me getting to it's other side. East, same thing, although I could get through in some parts... no wait, ridiculously over-powered enemies there too, another "wall" then. South it is.

And as I make my way around I can see the "path". A path that leads me gently past most of the major attactions and content the developer paid damn good money for so bloody well look at it. All the way to the doors of New Vegas. At least I'm assuming that because I'm role playing and once I was more powerful I said "F*** you this is MY role-playing, not obsidian's" and took off. Still, it ruined the illusion for me.

The other thing that ruins the illusion is the stupid ass morality system and reputation. Very first contact with a jerk. I shot a guy in the bar because he was threatening the locals. Apparently this horrified them. Instead I'm supposed to convince them the guy is a jerk, rally them together and THEN kill this guy, but now he's brought his mates along? But they like me for it. If they just let me nip it in the bud in the first place stupid yokels.

Secondly what's so bad about martial law in a post-apocalyptic world. It might be necessary for our survival. But clearly Karma doesn't think so. Killing NCR is bad, killing Legion good. Thanks for letting me make my own choices obsidian. Also I'd like to clarify some unusual points;
1) If I kill everyone in the room how the hell does the group they belong to know to hate me? They can't even solve the most basic mysterys or puzzles yet somehow instantly know you've killed their comrades.
2) Having killed every single one of their comrades as and when I've met them, how come they don't attack me on sight? Or how come sometimes they do and sometimes they just decide to sneer at me? We are at war aren't we?
3) So it's ok Karma-wise to stab a sleeping man, and take all his stuff. But not cool to pinch a comic out of his foot locker? He's not going to use it now is he. And as pointed out before THIS IS WAR!?
4) How come the NCR is so stupid? They have these soldiers that will fight to the death guarding a post but they'll let some random idiot come in and steal, break, kill and fiddle with all their stuff.

Still I like shooting things in slow-motion. Guess no one told Yahztee you can press a button to stop the slow VATS at any time, or even turn it off in settings?

 

[killswell]

So... no review of Fable 3? I knew it was similar to Fable 2, but I was hoping you would talk about the second half of the game which you have to make a bunch of political decisions. Although in retrospect it just boils down to you farting on people to get them to like you

Edit: Also I'd love to see if you could get into Civ V. And Hawx 2 has a sequel, you enjoyed the first Hawx, yes? Why not give that a go?

no.. no review of fable three because IT'S SHIT. fable 2 and 3 do not accurately represent the fable 1 system that i fell in love with.. let's just leave it to yahtzee to determine what he wants to review instead of trying to shove horrible mainstream games down his throat like he's sucking our throbbing cock. I've accepted a long time ago that people don't have the same interests in hardly anything. I like fighting games and rpg's mixed with a few fps's where-as someone might be ALL FPS ALL THE TIME (explodes into testosterone) and someone might like racing games (although i'm not sure why..)

the only reason i would want a review of fable three is to see how hard yahztee would tear it apart and make it eat its own regurgitated limbs.

 

[beema]

I dunno, fast travel didn't really break immersion for me. Having to constantly go back and forth on the same terrain with respawning enemies, however, would break immersion for me, or at least bore/annoy me enough to make the game less enjoyable. All those side-quest distractions you spoke of still happen plenty, even with fast travel. After all fast travel only occurs after you've already visited a place, which generally means you've also already explored the surrounding terrain, and all that entails.

I kind of like the way Borderlands handled this system though. They made unlocking a fast travel teleporter system an in-game quest. At least that way it was somewhat more of a challenge, and it made it feel more realistic than just magically warping around the map for no given reason. Of course, you hated that game too, so I guess you don't care about that.

 

[The Harkinator]

There is a good point here, in Fallout 3 there were motorbikes (shoot them, they burn, then explode)but you couldn't ride them. It would have added an element of coolness (Todays adventures of THE LONE WANDERER RIDES THE WASTES) and added an element of survival as you searched for fuel or a fission battery to power it. Also, if you didn't care about planning your journey or being careful then you could be stranded out in the middle of nowhere and be forced to abandon your ride. If you could stash gear on it too to carry loot around that would be a real lesson in the harshness of the wastes.

So all in all, if anyone involved in making Fallout games reads this, put in motorbikes.

 

[The Harkinator]

I do think it's odd that there aren't more vehicles in games like Fallout (well actually I only wonder about it in Fallout)

When you look at some of the most classic apocalypse stories (I'm thinking Mad Max) part of the entire setup is that fuel is now scarce and you have to fight for it. An open world Apocalyptic future world that was so big you needed a vehicle to get around in, but fuel was hopelessly short and fuel-raiders were everywhere trying to steal it from you on the road would be really really rewarding. Simply making it to town would be an achievement, and it would really highlight how much society has fallen that even a trip to a big supermarket a few miles away has become a choice between a slog through open desert or a harrying empty-fuel trip.

You could include a little counter of how much fuel is left in the tank, and then have both roads and open-world travel. If you travel on roads you can get an exact estimate of how much fuel you'll need but all of the best goodies will be off-road. There could be options for taking a certain number of fuel cans with you, but at the expense of weighing down your car so you need more anyway, and taking weapons would always have to be a pick and mix between the light but fairly weak guns which wouldn't weigh down your car but wouldn't fight off anything larger than a lone motorbike raider, or the M60 which doubles your fuel consumption but could take on a tank.

I think I'm starting to just describe my ideal apocalypse game now. Does anyone else think it sounds like fun? And to bring it back on topic wouldn't it make the apocalypse feel just a bit more like the apocalypse? And the world a bit more open to exploration without just making us walk everywhere?

Thing is, vehicles in the Fallout world work on batteries. Yaknow, those things that you get for your energy rifles that come in their millions?

So they really don't have an excuse beyond the limited engine.

Hell, trucks are mentioned and at least two vehicles I remember are positioned as if they'd been parked - complete with supplies being sold out of the back of them.

This is something interesting to think about. What about those Fission Batteries from Protectrons? In their depleted state they could take you maybe 5 - 10 miles on a motorbike? Have them as a rarity though because if you would be killing every protectron you see to get its battery that turns you into a scourge of robots. Could have it so it is profitable to sell them to the right people.

 

[sidwarrious]

I read the first and fourth page of comments and saw no one mentioned this but sorry if I'm repeating someone else but no one seemed to say it like this...

Yahtzee talks about playing games in ways not exactly the way they were intended like GTA and being nonviolent and so on and so forth but then talks at length about the fast travel system but I don't understand why you would just not use the system? I walked everywhere in open world games. I even traveled by foot in Oblivion instead of opting for a horse. Doing this led me to doing more side quests and such. Those side quests are the same as Yahtzee's "pokemon filler" only they don't impede on the main quest like they shouldn't. Fallout: NV has something like 163 quests according to its wiki and only something like 10-20 are for the main storyline. Picking and choosing what you do and who you join is pretty much making your own fun. And honestly if there was no fast travel system wouldn't immersion still be broken by the tedium you'd feel from travel if you weren't enjoying it? I understand not liking a game or hating it even and I can understand why but a nitpick like that on a completely optional system doesn't make a whole lot of sense when you complain about it ruining the game for you. It'd be like complaining the stealth ruins Arkham Asylum because to you Batman should mindlessly beat up thugs. When put into the context of "Well the game lets you beat up thugs easily so why not just do that?" it makes you wonder about why the guy was complaining at all. Isn't that kinda the idea of roleplaying games? Choices? Deciding the be the "Charge-in Badass" or the "Stealin'-Yo'-Shit ************" but playing like one when you only enjoy the other doesn't make the game bad when you could do both.

All that being said, yeah the system could use a bit of an overhaul or for the Fallout Universe a new method of transportation.

Too long, don't read.

 

[mattaui]

I'm just an anthropomorphic dolphin wizard, you can keep all that extra equipment, thank you.

As usual, this was absolutely hilarious and very much spot on. I do agree with the immersion aspect of fast travel, since I was having to trek around a lot looking for some of the more out of the way places, and you really do get more of an immersive feel when you've got to step over the corpses, walk through the piled up cars and around the ancient, abandoned gas station to climb up the hill towards the huge statutes of the Ranger and NCR Trooper shaking hands down at the Mojave Outpost.

 

[JPH330]

I read the first and fourth page of comments and saw no one mentioned this but sorry if I'm repeating someone else but no one seemed to say it like this...

Yahtzee talks about playing games in ways not exactly the way they were intended like GTA and being nonviolent and so on and so forth but then talks at length about the fast travel system but I don't understand why you would just not use the system? I walked everywhere in open world games. I even traveled by foot in Oblivion instead of opting for a horse. Doing this led me to doing more side quests and such. Those side quests are the same as Yahtzee's "pokemon filler" only they don't impede on the main quest like they shouldn't. Fallout: NV has something like 163 quests according to its wiki and only something like 10-20 are for the main storyline. Picking and choosing what you do and who you join is pretty much making your own fun. And honestly if there was no fast travel system wouldn't immersion still be broken by the tedium you'd feel from travel if you weren't enjoying it? I understand not liking a game or hating it even and I can understand why but a nitpick like that on a completely optional system doesn't make a whole lot of sense when you complain about it ruining the game for you. It'd be like complaining the stealth ruins Arkham Asylum because to you Batman should mindlessly beat up thugs. When put into the context of "Well the game lets you beat up thugs easily so why not just do that?" it makes you wonder about why the guy was complaining at all. Isn't that kinda the idea of roleplaying games? Choices? Deciding the be the "Charge-in Badass" or the "Stealin'-Yo'-Shit ************" but playing like one when you only enjoy the other doesn't make the game bad when you could do both.

All that being said, yeah the system could use a bit of an overhaul or for the Fallout Universe a new method of transportation.

Too long, don't read.

Yes, people have already mentioned this "Why not just not use the fast travel system?" thing, and they got the same response I'm giving you: because not using fast travel makes the game incredibly tedious. Did you see what Yahtzee said about WoW's fast travel system? Fast travel should allow you to move more quickly through the world while still maintaining the immersion. In Fallout 3 and New Vegas, you get to choose between incredibly long and tedious hiking, and instant teleportation that doesn't make any sense and takes a lot of the content from you.

 

[DayDark]

now to make hardcore mode even more hardcore they need to disable fast travel with any crippled limbs

I usually disagree with everything you say, but this sounds fucking awesome, not just for the fallout series, but would be good for TES as well.

 

[abyssion1337]

I remember discussing this with with some of my friends, we concluded that this was a great point of why Morrowind was far superior to Oblivion (among many) because while there are options to get around the map, like getting on a boat or traveling by mages guild, they aren't precise and really just give you a closer point from which you launch your adventure to get somewhere

 

[killswell]

it's not that yahtzee would refuse it's that i don't want him to and we shouldn't make him if he doesn't want to. plus it would be like fallout new vegas and just a re-review of fables 1 and 2