Goodsprings is a real place, apparently

ZigzagPX4

ZigzagPX4

The Swiftness of the Ranger
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Primm's an actual place too, so is Sloan, but not Novac (yes, I knew it meant No Vacancy, but I hoped there was a real motel there). But if you didn't know Boulder City was already a real place... :seriouslyno:
This is an amazing level of attention to detail I missed. Apparently locations were actually studied pretty well, to even the most obscure of real-life places to the side of random highways.
Pretty cool. Hell, I don't know how much work they actually put into this, but any developer even willing to take a couple of hours at Google Maps to make sure the real-life region is spot on is a good developer.
Heavily assuming that's not all Obsidian did though.

Feels very opposed to Bethesda's approach of dotting settlements around landmarks as to make them easy to compare. That's cool too, but pulling off subtle influences like this creates a better feeling of alternate history, that's for sure.
 
As I recall it, Sawyer took a motorcycle tour of the area, camping out and making his way around the Mojave. He took a ton of pictures for the team to use as reference and that is how they shaped the area. I haven't been able to find much info about it anymore, so I can't provide links but I recall it rather distinctly, so I don't think it was some fever dream scenario I made up.
 
Nelson, Camp Searchlight and searchlight airport, which for some reason is angled around toughly 90 degrees to the real one, Jean Sky-diving(sort of), Cottonwood Cove are based on real locations. That's what I've found in 5 minutes of looking at Google maps. :)

Edit: Is it just me, or google maps has some issues with zooming in around nevada? I can't get a good look at New... Las Vegas in the "Earth" mode, it's all blurry.
 
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Baker California also has the worlds tallest thermometer, no dinosaur holding it though. I lived in Las vegas for 5 years and most of my family are in California which is probably part of the reason New Vegas is top 3 of my all time favorite games; like an RPG set at home lol.
 
99,99% of Fallout locations are from real-world, sometime keeping the name, but most often changing it.
And it the case for all games of the series, main-line, spin-off, Beth, Black Isles, other companies etc..
 
Jubal Quintus said:
As I recall it, Sawyer took a motorcycle tour of the area, camping out and making his way around the Mojave. He took a ton of pictures for the team to use as reference and that is how they shaped the area. I haven't been able to find much info about it anymore, so I can't provide links but I recall it rather distinctly, so I don't think it was some fever dream scenario I made up.
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That's my recollection as well. Most all of the major locations in New Vegas are inspired by something in the real world, the majority of what they did was lower the sight lines in order to make it more video gamey (there's much more change in elevation in the actual Mojave). Like the hill on which the house that's Doc Mitchell's house in the game is a lot taller.

This guy took a tour of the region a while back trying to track down a bunch of locations from New Vegas, it's kind of neat: http://www.falloutnewvegastour.com/
 
PossibleCabbage said:
That's my recollection as well. Most all of the major locations in New Vegas are inspired by something in the real world, the majority of what they did was lower the sight lines in order to make it more video gamey (there's much more change in elevation in the actual Mojave). Like the hill on which the house that's Doc Mitchell's house in the game is a lot taller.

This guy took a tour of the region a while back trying to track down a bunch of locations from New Vegas, it's kind of neat: http://www.falloutnewvegastour.com/
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I love that fan tour! I saw that a while back and it inspired me to add a few Fallout stops to a cross country trip my wife and I are planning.

I would love to see the notes Sawyer took from his trip; I might ask if he'd share them on his tumblr.
 
If I ever go to Las Vegas I will genuinely be more interested in the Fallout tourism more than anything else. Wish Howard Hughes' Landmark Hotel still existed though.
 
Yeah, knew this already, but still very interesting. If I ever go to Nevada i'm definitely going to stop there and take a look.
 
naossano said:
99,99% of Fallout locations are from real-world, sometime keeping the name, but most often changing it.
And it the case for all games of the series, main-line, spin-off, Beth, Black Isles, other companies etc..
Click to expand...

Well... not necessarily. Most of Bethesda ones tend to capitalise on the flashy landmarks and the historically significant regions. They don't put much research into the smaller, less noticeable neighbourhoods and the such. Most of the time they slap a generic name on the street and make one apartment in that district a raider base. This is a whole 'nother level of detail entirely.
 
Compare a map of the gameworld and a map of the discrict of Columbia and the states surrounding it.
You will see that even in Fallout 3, the names of the places fit to the names of town and cities around Washington, in the positions they are supposed to be. Same could be said about areas within Washington itself.
Of course, the maps are scaled down, but they are (almost) all inspired by the real locations. (with a varying level of faithfullness)
 
I liked that blogpost where the dude toured the Mojave. I was pretty impressed by how faithful Hoover Dam was, it was obviously scaled down but still.
 
I don't think they scaled the dam down by much; walking across it in game felt much like walking across it in real life. The Colorado is not a large river by most standards, just in comparison to the other rivers we have here in the southwest. The Gila river that runs though the middle of Arizona would probably be considered a creek in wetter environments.
 
Walpknut said:
I liked that blogpost where the dude toured the Mojave. I was pretty impressed by how faithful Hoover Dam was, it was obviously scaled down but still.
Click to expand...

I think they actually scaled the Hoover Dam up in the game. Its smaller in real life.
 
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