Fallout: New Vegas Con previews, #5

Sam Ecorners

Sam Ecorners

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Crispy Gamer.<blockquote>Until Fallout 3, the Fallout game had always contained a certain amount of mature sexual content. Fallout had brothels and a quest where you had to talk down an angry john in order to save a girl’s life. Fallout 2 let players get married (gay, lesbian or straight), pimp out their spouses, and even become a porn star. Though in Fallout Tactics and Brotherhood of Steel these themes were more story based than interactive. While a bit risqué at times, the depiction of sexual content in Fallout games was never actually pornographic. Instead sex was treated the same way it is in the Fable games. Intimate interaction was initiated and then the screen would go black for a second or 2. With Fallout 3, the team at Bethesda decided to completely avoid those themes. To quote Emil Pagliarulo at the QuakeCon “Building Immersive Worlds and Stories” panel, regarding sexual content, they “didn’t want to do it…it would be goofy, cheesy and set the wrong tone.” However, sexual themes are a major part of the post apocalyptic genre and some classic movie titles like A boy and his dog center around them entirely. With that in mind, I asked Ms. Treadwell if Fallout: New Vegas would see the return of these mature themes to the Fallout series. Her response was that so far the folks at obsidian hadn’t shown off any of that content but to a certain extent, yes that sort of content would be present in New Vegas. While Fallout: New Vegas will have more mature content than Fallout 3, it won’t be quite as much as we saw in Fallout 2.

I was never a big fan of Fallout 3, and I feel that in many ways it failed to live up to it’s predecessors. However after getting my hands on Fallout: New Vegas I can’t help but feel optimistic about this game. What the folks over at Obsidian have produced has little in common with Fallout 3 aside from the software engine it uses. Fallout: New Vegas looks and feels like the sequel Fallout 2 deserved, and i can’t wait until it finally ships this October.</blockquote>Dealspwn.<blockquote>There were a bunch of empty streets, a whorehouse looking for employees and a garishly lit passage of interest leading to The Strip guarded by a robot that required some kind of passport or an exorbitant 2000 caps. It was, by far and away, possibly the least remarkable demo of the convention so far.</blockquote>
allaboutgames.co.uk.<blockquote>Once you're done with finding out who you are, you want to find out who shot you, and so begins the quests. Things here are working pretty much like Fallout 3 with the game offering flexibility over which missions to take and when. I found myself spending most of my time in the desert, crossing from town to town, but despite the lack of Vegas, I still got to enjoy some colourful neon lights, some new enemies, and a guy taking shots at me from a rollercoaster. I also had experience of some of the new gangs who took a disliking to me very quickly; though I blame the dodgy beard for that. You will find yourself spending time to gain both good and bad reputations for the various gangs, tribes and alliances in the game, but in my playthough I decided the consequences of getting in trouble were fairly minimal.</blockquote>
 
" I was never a big fan of Fallout 3, and I feel that in many ways it failed to live up to it’s predecessors. However after getting my hands on Fallout: New Vegas I can’t help but feel optimistic about this game. What the folks over at Obsidian have produced has little in common with Fallout 3 aside from the software engine it uses. Fallout: New Vegas looks and feels like the sequel Fallout 2 deserved, and i can’t wait until it finally ships this October."


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I was never a big fan of Fallout 3, and I feel that in many ways it failed to live up to it’s predecessors
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And now it's time to admit that Fallout 3 wasn't exactly the most adequate successor Fallout could have had. Man, it's about time :lol:
 
DocConrad said:
thenightgaunt said:
They also posted a preview over at crispy gamer.
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By far the most intriguing. Thanks for the heads up.
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LionXavier said:
I was never a big fan of Fallout 3, and I feel that in many ways it failed to live up to it’s predecessors
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And now it's time to admit that Fallout 3 wasn't exactly the most adequate successor Fallout could have had. Man, it's about time :lol:
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Thanks guys. I'm the one who wrote the Crispy Gamer piece. If I did nothing but blather on about how "amazing" and "wonderful" it was I don't think I'd ever be able to show my face around here again. Though it really was pretty good. Here's hoping the retail version lives up to the demo.

Pete Hines was walking around that press area in a t-shirt that read "I mande Timmy Nausbaum Cry", and it was all I could do not to hit him.
Also, had there not been 30 feet between me and Emil Pagliarulo during the few moments I saw him, I probably would have done something to ensure I was never invited back to QuakeCon.

The Obsidian folks actually came across as pretty cool though. ^^
 
thenightgaunt said:
Thanks guys. I'm the one who wrote the Crispy Gamer piece.
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Congratulations, it was a good read, really. I don't exactly share your optimism about FO:NV, but you certainly say things that should have been said very long ago.
 
To quote Emil Pagliarulo at the QuakeCon “Building Immersive Worlds and Stories” panel, regarding sexual content, they “didn’t want to do it…it would be goofy, cheesy and set the wrong tone.
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Ummmm....And Aliens, Hillbillies, and a colony of immortal children aren't? I can always count on the Bethsoft crew for a good laugh.
 
The former two were DLC, so are not really good examples of the game, and the latter is simply a consequence of a interesting idea (colony of kids after nuclear holocaust), gone a little wrong to some people. Who cares if they are immortal, you wouldn't want to kill them, would you? Kids are annoying, so lets shoot them? .... I think in Fallout 3 they went for a serious and more dreary tone for most of the game, with a few exceptions. Lighten up, why all the negativity?
 
NiRv4n4 said:
Who cares if they are immortal, you wouldn't want to kill them, would you? Kids are annoying, so lets shoot them? .... I think in Fallout 3 they went for a serious and more dreary tone for most of the game, with a few exceptions. Lighten up, why all the negativity?
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That's exactly where you're missing the point - the awesome thing about Fallout was the fact that you could do nearly anything (as in, ROLE PLAY?) like dig up graves, join the slavers, kill anyone, have sex, take drugs, drink booze.

The game never forced you to do anything evil, but you always had the option. If you got sick on anyone, you could give them a shotgun blast in the face instead of doing their quest, as long as you were prepared to deal with the consequences (bad karma, bounty hunters on your ass, addiction etc.) - that is what ROLE PLAYING means, not the fact that you get to level up.

I for one thought Lamplight was one of the biggest spit-in-the-face moments to the original Fallout. Those kids are purposefully extra annoying and you can't kill them. Hell, you can hardly do anything in that location. I expected at least a possibility to rat out their location and defences to the slavers or something, but no - you're forced to be the good guy for no apparent reason. That is cheap, lazy, overly "PC" and not at all in the spirit of the original Fallouts.

I understand the game might have trouble publishing, but in that case, if I was the developer I'd go for one of these options:
1) Make the children killable anyway and deal with the "PC" whiners
2) Scrap the Lamplight location altogether
3) Make 2 versions (kids and no kids), one 18+

What they've done instead is a crappy compromise that gives you the worst of both worlds.
 
Who cares if they are immortal, you wouldn't want to kill them, would you? Kids are annoying, so lets shoot them? ....
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Do you understand the idea behind "post-apocalypse" and "anarchy"? A world without moral? You can't say that it's wrong, since there are no rules around it.

I think in Fallout 3 they went for a serious and more dreary tone for most of the game
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You can't have "serious and more dreary" without the sinister options. The things that people call sins and gives them nightmares.
 
iamgamer.de talked with Sawyer on the GamesCom. While most of the stuff in the interview is already known, there are some interesting little infoparts to get: Sawyer says, you hear in New Vegas about Redding, Gecko and Klamath. Also Crimson Caravan are named once again and the army of the master.

In a later question, Sawyer talks about how he is working for Caesar's Legion in the moment or at least the legion thinks that he is working for them. Instead, he just wants to earn reputation points with them.

Another example: He was liked by the NCR, then one of his companions asked him to cause damage to some group that is related close to the NCR. He has done it and then the NCR rangers wanted to get him down. When the NCR rangers got him, he got the choice to either "make good" again with the NCR or to get beaten up like never before.

He also said that it's hard to reach the level cap 30. Right now, he played approx 60 hours, made 30 quests and is level 23. He still has a lot quests possible to do, to level up though.

/Edit: And he talked about difficult setting in various areas. He explains, that they have areas with fixed difficult and areas, where it is a bit variable. There are areas, where you get beaten up very fast, even if you are level 20 and have good gear. As example for the difficult rate, he names the Sierra Army Depot from Fallout 2: If you go there right in the beginning of the game, you have no chance. If you level up a bit first, you will have at least a little chance and if you are level 20, you simply roll over it. Some areas in New Vegas will feel like that.
 
thenightgaunt said:
Pete Hines was walking around that press area in a t-shirt that read "I mande Timmy Nausbaum Cry", and it was all I could do not to hit him.
Also, had there not been 30 feet between me and Emil Pagliarulo during the few moments I saw him, I probably would have done something to ensure I was never invited back to QuakeCon.

The Obsidian folks actually came across as pretty cool though. ^^
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Who's Timmy Nausbaum again? And how was Hines trying to be humorous with that?

Also yeah, the folks from Obsidian come across like regular people, which is pretty cool in comparison.

ps good read, it was good that you focused on other things than most previewers. I especially liked this part:
As in Fallout 3, the moment I stepped outside I was blinded by the intense sunlight. Unlike Fallout 3 though, as my vision began to clear what I saw wasn’t a desolate hellhole, but a small desert farming community. Some buildings looked salvaged, but others looked new and farmers were tending their fields. A pair of shiny new motorcycles sat out before the town’s saloon and in a nearby pen grazed a buffalo with giant ram horns (a Big Horner). Rather than going with Bethesda’s interpretation of the wasteland as being dead, empty, and devoid of any growth or renewal, the world of Fallout: New Vegas is one of life and rebirth. That’s not a bad thing as the events in New Vegas take place 203 years after the nuclear war that almost destroyed the world. Though even Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics depicted a world in which mankind was rebuilding and surviving, so it’s more likely that Fallout 3 just missed the point by making it seem as though the war had only occurred 50 years earlier.
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I like that unlike Fallout 3, this time there's at least a subtle explanation of wtf do all these wasteland dwellers live on. Putting some farms in the game was such a simple, obvious thing it was annoying Bethesda didn't care enough to think about it.

and this one:
I had noticed an object off in the distance and after a long walk it turned out to be the Yangtze Memorial (a large iron cross on a dais). The memorial was old and weather beaten, but the hand painted signs around it proclaiming “Danger, Deathclaws ahead” were quite new. I didn’t really care if my character died or not, so I wandered off in search of deathclaws. What I found was a giant scorpion. Confident in my fighting skills after killing off a coyote and a gecko, I entered VATS and started firing upon the chitinous beast. As each bullet hit a small red shield appeared next to its health bar and it appeared to take no damage. As I franticly ran backwards, I fired until my rifle was spent and then until my pistol ran dry as well. Finally I pulled the laser pistol I had stolen from the old doctor’s house and as I ran down its batteries I noticed that all of my efforts had only knocked the scorpion’s health down by 5%. Then, with a single trust of its stinger, I died again in the desert sun. As the game reloaded to the last autosave, I checked my watch and yes, it had only been 5 minutes since I first left the town. Later on, Theresa explained that in Fallout: New Vegas, certain creatures, such as the giant scorpions, had thick natural armor, and in order to bypass it players would need to either use special Armor Piercing rounds, or deal enough damage to actually break through the armor (a daunting task). Additionally, the owner of the general store in Goodsprings mentioned the existence of “surplus ammunition”. While cheaper than normal ammo, he warned that it’s use might damage guns, requiring that they received more maintenance than usual (basically they reduce a weapon’s durability faster than regular ammo).

As strange as it sounds, my character’s swift and brutal death made me feel optimistic about this game. One of the things that I hated about Fallout 3 was how easy the enemies were to kill. The first time I played the game, I wandered into the DC ruins and ran into a pair of Super Mutants. One was armed with a minigun while the other was carrying around a missile launcher. As a level 1 character, I was fairly sure that within the next few moments my ingame avatar would meet a rather sticky end. I was unpleasantly surprised to discover that even though my strongest weapon was a single shot rifle, with VATS I was able to kill both of the Super Mutants without taking much damage I the process. Fallout 3 was not a difficult game and there was never a point where I felt worried for my character’s life. After playing Fallout: New Vegas for only 30 minutes, I found myself fearing the wasteland and the horrors it conceals.
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Finally, you can get killed by a radscorpion at level one. I liked how you descriped the way damage threshold works, and I love how a simple change in the mechanics like damage threshold can add so much to the gameplay.
 
Lexx said:
He also said that it's hard to reach the level cap 30. Right now, he played approx 60 hours, made 30 quests and is level 23. He still has a lot quests possible to do, to level up though.
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Sounds good to me. :)
 
Lexx said:
iamgamer.de talked with Sawyer on the GamesCom. While most of the stuff in the interview is already known, there are some interesting little infoparts to get: Sawyer says, you hear in New Vegas about Redding, Gecko and Klamath. Also Crimson Caravan are named once again and the army of the master.

In a later question, Sawyer talks about how he is working for Caesar's Legion in the moment or at least the legion thinks that he is working for them. Instead, he just wants to earn reputation points with them.

Another example: He was liked by the NCR, then one of his companions asked him to cause damage to some group that is related close to the NCR. He has done it and then the NCR rangers wanted to get him down. When the NCR rangers got him, he got the choice to either "make good" again with the NCR or to get beaten up like never before.

He also said that it's hard to reach the level cap 30. Right now, he played approx 60 hours, made 30 quests and is level 23. He still has a lot quests possible to do, to level up though.

/Edit: And he talked about difficult setting in various areas. He explains, that they have areas with fixed difficult and areas, where it is a bit variable. There are areas, where you get beaten up very fast, even if you are level 20 and have good gear. As example for the difficult rate, he names the Sierra Army Depot from Fallout 2: If you go there right in the beginning of the game, you have no chance. If you level up a bit first, you will have at least a little chance and if you are level 20, you simply roll over it. Some areas in New Vegas will feel like that.
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A good interview? And obviously it's not in english. Seems like great news to me, thanks for reporting that Lexx! :salute:
 
It doesn't sound like there's any level scaling in New Vegas. If you can run into deathclaws and scorpions that can kill you early then they did it right.
 
NiRv4n4 said:
The former two were DLC, so are not really good examples of the game, and the latter is simply a consequence of a interesting idea (colony of kids after nuclear holocaust), gone a little wrong to some people. Who cares if they are immortal, you wouldn't want to kill them, would you? Kids are annoying, so lets shoot them? .... I think in Fallout 3 they went for a serious and more dreary tone for most of the game, with a few exceptions. Lighten up, why all the negativity?
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I think the major problem with Little Lamplight and the immortal children has nothing to do with the game mechanic (ie: you can't kill kids in game). The immortality issue relates to how the place has survived for 200 years following the war.
There's no explaination about how they're replacing their numbers or how they're enforcing these laws (the first gen of kids would all reach 16 about the same time, so who kicked out all of them). They have no medicine and no food (the eat the alge on growing on the walls) so there's no way a pregnant female would either bring her baby to term or survive giving birth.

Basically, LL only works in it's current form if these kids are what's left of the first class. Meaning that the war only took place a few decades ago. There could be other explainations (kidnapping babies) but the devs ignored them and left it all unsaid which was damned unprofessional given that this was a area you had to go through for the MAIN QUEST!.
 
Crispy Gamer FTW

Lexx said:
/Edit: And he talked about difficult setting in various areas. He explains, that they have areas with fixed difficult and areas, where it is a bit variable. There are areas, where you get beaten up very fast, even if you are level 20 and have good gear. As example for the difficult rate, he names the Sierra Army Depot from Fallout 2: If you go there right in the beginning of the game, you have no chance. If you level up a bit first, you will have at least a little chance and if you are level 20, you simply roll over it. Some areas in New Vegas will feel like that.
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And hardcore mode will help with that for sure
 
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