Anyone else think NV was too cautious with Wild Wasteland?

Jogre

Jogre

So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
I really liked the idea of Wild Wasteland, as I personally like the silly, over-the-top whacky stuff in Fallout, but I can completely understand why someone would want a more serious playthrough of the game.

Although the way Wild Wasteland is actually handled in New Vegas is way too far IMHO. They went to the point where any reference, no matter how subtle, is hidden behind it.

I don't think references/shout outs to other media is nescessarily silly nor is it nescessarily easter eggy if it could feasibly be what someone does/says in the context of the universe.

References should(outside of Wild Wasteland), for all intents and purposes be a matter of if you get them they are fun little shout outs, if they don't it shouldn't feel out of place or like a sore thumb in this universe.

But look at the kind of things that are hidden behind it. Pretty much every quote from Aliens/StarTrek/StarWars/Whatever or every shoutout to a series can easily be disguised as what someone would feasibly say in that situation, a fridge with a suave gambler hat wouldn't scream reference to someone who hadn't seen Indiana Jones, Graffiti saying funny things wouldn't scream reference either. Most of these are so subtle you don't need to hide them behind Wild Wasteland, unless the person playing has some kind of a crippling phobia of references to other franchises.

Like seriously, of all the 15 Wild Wasteland encounters, there are probably 5 that actually come across as being obvious and/or silly(The UFO, Maud's Muggers, Laddie reference, Holy Hand Grenades, The Witch comments in Freeside). For someone unfamiliar with the references, everything else wouldn't be too in your face.

Out of the 11 in Old World Blues there are maybe 2 that are in your face obvious(Dogs playing poker, dwarves mining) but even the dogs playing poker can be justified because it's generally a silly DLC with lots of crazy experiments being done at Big MT.

Out of all the Wild Wasteland encounters in the other DLCs, a grand total of 0 of them are silly/obvious enough to justify being hidden behind Wild Wasteland.

By overusing Wild Wasteland, the devs have created an all or nothing situation, where either you have to encounter all the over-the-top stuff, or you are deprived of every single reference, or thing you could feel clever for getting.
 
There was several moments where I saw that lil wild-wasteland icon with the ufo-wooo-sound, and frustratedly looked around for anything seemingly out of place, before (quickly) giving up and moving on.

While other perks have a lasting effect through your game, wild wasteland has to almost be searched for, and even then it's easy to miss. Considering it's entirely optional, they should have done a bit more about it. In many playthroughs, I almost us it as a "forfeit" perk
 
Uhmm yeah I think they should of just stuck to there gun and included it into the main game. The whacky thing about the whacky wasteland perk is the sound that comes up. They almost make it over the top but yeah suttle references should be included. The trouble is from making my own mod is how many you should included and how believable they are. There isn't too many situation in NV that it actually really stick out. I mean like it done really well I guess there where worried that maybe people would't like ti witch is fair enough. But dam it was done welland nothing lore break or game breaking was really there. Saying that fallout 4 took it way to far and seems to be every few cells there was some reference that didn't make sense at all. But I guess thats the difference when you have a believe game world or not
 
There's heaps of references outside of Wild Wasteland, its only the ludicrous ones (Indiana Jones fridge, aliens, etc) which are hidden without it.

In any case, you can always add the trait with OWB if you want to see them.
 
I think that they added so many "mild" encounters because they didn't have much time to finish the game and "mild" things are easy to add. Since they didn't have time to add more obvious ones they just added little things, otherwise it would be a waste of a trait with just 4 or 5 "encounters" in the game.
 
Really it just comes down to time, that wasn't on the dev's side. I feel confident in expressing that if given a reasonable amount of time Obsidian could have made a Fallout game which would have easily toppled Bethesda's controlling hold on the IP with fans.

I also think that the wild wasteland perk would have been flush with more interesting "experiences" that would either be much more nods to pop culture as the originals did or cryptic clues to oddities in the environment.

However as it stands now, the wild wasteland perk appears more like an attempt to hold onto some of the original personality the originals had. While bland it at least was an attempt.
 
Einhanderc7 said:
Really it just comes down to time, that wasn't on the dev's side. I feel confident in expressing that if given a reasonable amount of time Obsidian could have made a Fallout game which would have easily toppled Bethesda's controlling hold on the IP with fans.

I also think that the wild wasteland perk would have been flush with more interesting "experiences" that would either be much more nods to pop culture as the originals did or cryptic clues to oddities in the environment.

However as it stands now, the wild wasteland perk appears more like an attempt to hold onto some of the original personality the originals had. While bland it at least was an attempt.
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I agree, although I don't think it was too cautious. I'm not sure what else they could've added to it to be honest.
 
I don't mind the silly stuff, as long as it remains on the side.

Picking examples from Fallout 2 :
- Special encounters in the worldmap. No problem with that.
- Short weird encounters (the ghouls that you run over with your car, Dobb soldier, the guy in Broken Hills Mine, the lunatic in Vault 13...). Those are short encounters, not plotline. No reason to bother arguing about them.
- Frank Horrigan. Silly on the surface, but 1. Has an explanation. 2. Is the top of the iceberg, used to hide much more interesting plot. So, the sillyness made into a big plot, but it isn't the meat of that plot.
- The scientist experimenting with talking plants and scorpions. Is silly. Come with an entire plot and a set of quest, but is a bit silly and doesn't make much sense in context as we are in a small town. Also, it doesn't add anything worthwhile to the city or the gameworld. So i like it less.
- In the same city, we have Typhon quest, who is almost as silly, but has a bit more relevance, showing us that ghoul are indeed getting old and dying (until retconned) and that caps no longer have any value (until retconned)

It depends on the amount, how it is linked with quests, if it is has relevance or not...
 
I think putting it as a trait was dumb choice. They should have done it like hardcore mode and have you turn it on/off whenever you felt like it.

As far as how out of the touch it would be with serious themes, I see it that there's no trouble just to have it integrated into game, as Fallout seems to be series of having some pop culture references, ranging from subtle to plain obvious at times. They are not outright killing the suspension of disbelief for me.

What I do say that it's lacking. Like most of the empty spaces New Vegas has and Legion areas, it lacks this "wackiness" it would provide.
 
Valdetiosi said:
I think putting it as a trait was dumb choice. They should have done it like hardcore mode and have you turn it on/off whenever you felt like it.

As far as how out of the touch it would be with serious themes, I see it that there's no trouble just to have it integrated into game, as Fallout seems to be series of having some pop culture references, ranging from subtle to plain obvious at times. They are not outright killing the suspension of disbelief for me.

What I do say that it's lacking. Like most of the empty spaces New Vegas has and Legion areas, it lacks this "wackiness" it would provide.
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Basically the perk was the option to turn it off and on. But you can only pick it at the start of the game
 
naossano said:
I don't mind the silly stuff, as long as it remains on the side.

Picking examples from Fallout 2 :
- Special encounters in the worldmap. No problem with that.
- Short weird encounters (the ghouls that you run over with your car, Dobb soldier, the guy in Broken Hills Mine, the lunatic in Vault 13...). Those are short encounters, not plotline. No reason to bother arguing about them.
- Frank Horrigan. Silly on the surface, but 1. Has an explanation. 2. Is the top of the iceberg, used to hide much more interesting plot. So, the sillyness made into a big plot, but it isn't the meat of that plot.
- The scientist experimenting with talking plants and scorpions. Is silly. Come with an entire plot and a set of quest, but is a bit silly and doesn't make much sense in context as we are in a small town. Also, it doesn't add anything worthwhile to the city or the gameworld. So i like it less.
- In the same city, we have Typhon quest, who is almost as silly, but has a bit more relevance, showing us that ghoul are indeed getting old and dying (until retconned) and that caps no longer have any value (until retconned)

It depends on the amount, how it is linked with quests, if it is has relevance or not...
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Don't forget about the talking mole rats.
 
I didn't meant to make a hexaustive list, but to provide examples of various situations. The talking mole rat was problematic as he was involved in Gecko's main storyline, while his condition brings nothing relevant to the table.
 
Einhanderc7 said:
Really it just comes down to time, that wasn't on the dev's side. I feel confident in expressing that if given a reasonable amount of time Obsidian could have made a Fallout game which would have easily toppled Bethesda's controlling hold on the IP with fans.
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I really wish that Fallout: New Vegas had come out sometime after Skyrim, so that Obsidian could've used the Creation Engine. A lot of the criticisms I see against the game are ones bashing it for looking like a late XBox, early 360-era game.
 
I don't mind Wild Wasteland being a trait as I interpret characters with it either being insane, brain damaged from Benny's bullets, or suffering from Jet-induced hallucinations.

That said, WW seemed rather tame and could have afforded more wackiness considering an entire trait was based on it.
 
Don't want to create a new topic for this but the sound effect of Wild Wasteland, it sounds awfully familiar. I know it's like these supernatural/space/alien tunes from like old times, but how are they called? When it played for the first time when I played New Vegas, it already sounded really familiar to something.
 
Courier said:
My biggest problem with Wild Wasteland is that it takes up one of your two trait choices. IMO it should have been its own separate option that you could enable or disable as you please, like hardcore mode.
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Pretty much this. WW is a waste of a trait.
It's not bad on its own, and some of the additions are admittedly nice, but for the most part it's disappointing, given how wacky FO and especially FO2 were. I get it that it wasn't a priority for developers, and that's fine, but it's still...meh.

Of only they made it different, like Courier said, it would be okay. This way, I wasn't inclined on grabbing the trait on more than one playthrough, since encounters are meh. The only worthwhile thing that comes with it is Alien Blaster - which I grew to dislike after a while.
 
Atomkilla said:
Pretty much this. WW is a waste of a trait.
It's not bad on its own, and some of the additions are admittedly nice, but for the most part it's disappointing, given how wacky FO and especially FO2 were. I get it that it wasn't a priority for developers, and that's fine, but it's still...meh.

Of only they made it different, like Courier said, it would be okay. This way, I wasn't inclined on grabbing the trait on more than one playthrough, since encounters are meh. The only worthwhile thing that comes with it is Alien Blaster - which I grew to dislike after a while.
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You can always replace it using the Auto Doc from OWB later on. Or do what I did in the past, choose a different perk and add the WW using the console.
Of course, since I use TTW, I get a few alien blasters from Fallout 3 and DLCs, not to mention the 2 unique ones from there too. :wiggle:
 
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