Fallout: New Vegas OXM preview scans

[TychoXI]

OK. Can somebody please tell me what is this innovation in the dialogue system?? I'm really hoping for better dialogue, but the whole "skills affects dialog options" was there in FO3 already. One example was that town managed by a bunch of grown up kids. When the muties were coming you could [Science] Activate the robots. [Firearms] Teach the kids how to use a gun. [Explosives] Set a trap.

Nightkin are back, as blue-skinned Super Mutants who've gone schizophrenic through Stealth Boy use.

Schizophrenic huh? I guess that means there won't be any negotiating or dialogue with them like there was with all the non schizophrenic supermutants that we encountered before.

If I remember correctly the stealth boy drives people insane. I don't know a bout the "blue" though!

 

[waldo]

Clearly, you have a responsibility to push the series forward, but there's also nothing worse than a misguided attempt to differentiate a folow-up that only ruins what everyone loved about the original. Throw in a new developer - New Vegas is being developed by Obsidian rather than Bethesda's in-house team - and there is no doubt that a fair few Fallout fans will be more than a little concerned that this could be a recipe for nuclear disaster.

Oh lordy. If anyone needed proof as to how much of a joke the gaming press is, there you go.

 

[Sander]

OK. Can somebody please tell me what is this innovation in the dialogue system?? I'm really hoping for better dialogue, but the whole "skills affects dialog options" was there in FO3 already. One example was that town managed by a bunch of grown up kids. When the muties were coming you could [Science] Activate the robots. [Firearms] Teach the kids how to use a gun. [Explosives] Set a trap.

You clearly must not have played the original games.
The skills and stats affecting dialogue in Fallout 3 was minimal at best.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

I'd rather take retarded monkeys writing the article than those dumbasses.

So you'd take Bethesda's writing staff over OXM's?

OK. Can somebody please tell me what is this innovation in the dialogue system?? I'm really hoping for better dialogue, but the whole "skills affects dialog options" was there in FO3 already. One example was that town managed by a bunch of grown up kids. When the muties were coming you could [Science] Activate the robots. [Firearms] Teach the kids how to use a gun. [Explosives] Set a trap.

Uh, no. Simply putting brackets around a skill to indicate the generic phrase you're about to speak is somehow relevant to that skill does not equal "affecting dialogue options". FO3 failed fucking HARD on this end...as if they didn't even care enough to try. Let me explain:

I fight the good fight on Galaxy News Radio with my voice.

[Intelligence] So you say you fight the good fight on Galaxy News Radio with your voice?

vs

* You have all of your fields planted right now? You could
probably do better with crop rotation.

* Crop rotation? What's that?

* You only plant some of your fields, allowing the others to get
back some of the nutrients that the plants used up. You let the other fields become fertile again by just tilling up whatever grows there.

* Huh. Never thought of that. Makes sense, though. Good idea.

With a science skill above 40% you get this dialogue option. This is what Obsidian are bringing back to the game...fucking thankfully.

 

[el_jefe_of_ny]

That is interesting. Hm. Ok, this might be better then.

I hope the game is BIG time wise as well as size. It will take me a long time of playing to shake the fo3 from me and my skepticism.

 

[General Goose]

Coming from someone who actually liked Fallout 3, even I found the stupidity of the review itself quite offensive. They seem to think the fans of the Fallout series as a whole considered 3 the best game that all the sequels needed to follow. That ain't the case.

Still, New Vegas is shaping up to look nice. The new gameplay features appeal to me, and the writing...well, it looks great already. Hopefully the facepalming Bethesda's writing sometimes invoked will not apply here.

 

[TychoXI]

Hmmm, are you sure about this? Because the examples I have read in those previews look like just the way it was in FO3.

1) The example of Goodsprings looks exactly like the that town in FO3. The Goodsprings example looks like this: [Sneak] I can sneak and killum. [Explosives] Give me some TNT to prepare a trap. [Firearms] blah, blah, blah.
2) The option will always be there. No matter what your your skill. So you will get the dialogue option if your skill is 40% or not. It seems your speech skill will not even affect your success in for example "[Explosives] Give me some TNT to prepare a trap.", only a threshold in your explosives skill will affect success.

Now, I'm certain higher intelligence will allow actually smart options. But I still can't seem to understand the difference between skill dialogue checks in FO:NV vs FO3.

 

[OakTable]

^^^There's dialogue that shows up for a low stat that results in failure, and dialogue for a high stat that results in success. Like so:

[Low Explosives]Hey man, could you give me that... uh... what is that?

[High Explosives]I'll take that Trinitrotoluene, if you don't mind.

 

[Sander]

Hmmm, are you sure about this? Because the examples I have read in those previews look like just the way it was in FO3.

1) The example of Goodsprings looks exactly like the that town in FO3. The Goodsprings example looks like this: [Sneak] I can sneak and killum. [Explosives] Give me some TNT to prepare a trap. [Firearms] blah, blah, blah.

I doubt the [Sneak] and the like will be added in dialogue, but it might be.
In any case, there's also the possibility to convince Tabitha to start a revolt against the other Super Mutants.

And we also know about Obsidian's previous work, where they were a lot more alert in implementing these skill-based dialogue options than Bethesda.

Most skill-based dialogues in Fallout 3 only added additional rewards. Here, it looks like they'll open up different ways to solve quests.

2) The option will always be there. No matter what your your skill. So you will get the dialogue option if your skill is 40% or not. It seems your speech skill will not even affect your success in for example "[Explosives] Give me some TNT to prepare a trap.", only a threshold in your explosives skill will affect success.

No. You'll always see an option, but if you don't have the skill or stat level to be succesful, then you're going to see a different (ie failure) option. This means that skill defines whether or not you'll be succesful.

 

[Brother None]

I play games mainly for the gameplay. When I want to play another "Fallout" game, I want it to be turn-based with isometric view.
It doesn't even have to be set in the Fallout setting, it just needs to have all the strengths of the Fallout's gameplay, while fixing its weaknesses.

I thought this way before Fallout 3's release and still think so now. It didn't make sense to make a Fallout sequel without the core gameplay intact and it still doesn't. In Fallout, the game design philosophy came first, and the setting was folded around it.

But I get Twinkie's point. This is the best-case scenario right now, and while I'll still be critical of it using Fallout 3's engine and gameplay, what has me interested is what they'll do with quest design, faction gameplay and dialogue.

Edit: Oh look - Oblivion 5 is coming.

Hahaha. Yup. Oblivion 5.

They've done away with the pre-Todd Howard Fallout, and now they've done away with the pre-Todd Howard Elder Scrolls.

It's an especially weird stupid because most game journos will know about Morrowind, also made under Todd's guidance and also available on the Xbox. They should know it's TES III: Morrowind, TES IV: Oblivion and TES V: Even Dumber.

 

[OakTable]

Beat you to it, Sander.

Anyway, I'm waiting for E3 to see this in action. I'd find it highly ironic if people got mad because they actually took time in balancing the game.

 

[TychoXI]

^^^There's dialogue that shows up for a low stat that results in failure, and dialogue for a high stat that results in success. Like so:

[Low Explosives]Hey man, could you give me that... uh... what is that?

[High Explosives]I'll take that Trinitrotoluene, if you don't mind.

Aahhh! I had understood that what was different was the response of the NPC (which was rather obvious), not your dialog option.

It still looks like what FO3 did, only that now you will realize you are about to pick a stupid option. Whereas in FO3 you wouldn't know you were about to fail the skill check [EDIT: where checks to fail in those options??]. NV seems smarter though, if you don't know something you shouldn't be able to word your request as well as if you actually know what you are talking about. Also, I would suspect low skill options are not as obvious. But sawyer says "it lets the player know that there's an option here." which coukd indicate otherwise.

Nothing like the original Fallouts. If you weren't stupid you had an average option to choose (well stupid characters still had most of the average options, only worded like a retard and would produce different response from NPC). Then if you where good at some specific skill/attribute a new option, clearly more well worded, would appear. And it would all still be affected by speech. At least that's the way I remember. I'm not bitching though, was just trying to asses how it will work in NV.

 

[Ravager69]

Nothing like the original Fallouts.

It's better.

If you weren't stupid you had an average option to choose (well stupid characters still had most of the average options, only worded like a retard and would produce different response from NPC). Then if you where good at some specific skill/attribute a new option, clearly more well worded, would appear. And it would all still be affected by speech. At least that's the way I remember. I'm not bitching though, was just trying to asses how it will work in NV.

To be honest, I don't recall many skill-based dialogue options in previous Fallouts, most of them were stat-based (so it checked if your strenght was high enough and automatically counted it as a success if it was). As for retarded dialogue, then you are mostly correct - it just affected the spelling and responses. On the other hand, some people wouldn't even bother talking to you if you were indeed stupid, so it shut off some options.

 

[TychoXI]

Nothing like the original Fallouts.

It's better.

If you weren't stupid you had an average option to choose (well stupid characters still had most of the average options, only worded like a retard and would produce different response from NPC). Then if you where good at some specific skill/attribute a new option, clearly more well worded, would appear. And it would all still be affected by speech. At least that's the way I remember. I'm not bitching though, was just trying to asses how it will work in NV.

To be honest, I don't recall many skill-based dialogue options in previous Fallouts, most of them were stat-based (so it checked if your strenght was high enough and automatically counted it as a success if it was). As for retarded dialogue, then you are mostly correct - it just affected the spelling and responses. On the other hand, some people wouldn't even bother talking to you if you were indeed stupid, so it shut off some options.

Yeah it was mostly regarding attributes. But I'm not sure about the option being an instant success, the stat only made the option available in a conversation. Then, speech came into play. I remember once I chose an option that got an NPC angry and in the ensuing fight I died. Then I reloaded, chose the same dialogue option intent on kicking his ass this time and instead of getting angry the NPC agreed with me!

 

[Stanislao Moulinsky]

Whereas in FO3 you wouldn't know you were about to fail the skill check [EDIT: where checks to fail in those options??].

Only Speech checks could fail. You couldn't fail any other stat/skill-related dialogue option.

 

[el_jefe_of_ny]

Coming from someone who actually liked Fallout 3, even I found the stupidity of the review itself quite offensive. They seem to think the fans of the Fallout series as a whole considered 3 the best game that all the sequels needed to follow. That ain't the case.

Still, New Vegas is shaping up to look nice. The new gameplay features appeal to me, and the writing...well, it looks great already. Hopefully the facepalming Bethesda's writing sometimes invoked will not apply here.

Oh, I liked Fallout3. It is clearly sub-level to Fallout 1 and 2 though in a large way.

Morrowind is vastly superior to F3, and the same company made that. Oblivion was kinda rehash and had several mistakes.

 

[Naissus]

I did like Morrowind, but even it was a bit generic, not as bad as oblivion or fallout 3. But still not quite original and memorable like Fallout 1 and 2 are.

 

[Jack The Knife]

Wait... there were Fallout games before Fallout 3?

Aye. It was called Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel.
It featured thongs and was clearly awesome.

 

[Havoc]

It would be nice... if they brought back the dumb dialog - INT < 3 (or was it 4?).

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

It would be nice... if they brought back the dumb dialog - INT < 3 (or was it 4?).

hey, Bethesda's writers did that quite well!

I fight the good fight on Galaxy News Radio with my voice.

[Intelligence] So you say you fight the good fight on Galaxy News Radio with your voice?

oh wait...