J.E. Sawyer on the Legion and post-endgame play

[Tagaziel]

J.E. Sawyer finally caved in and provided some expanded background on the Legion and what New Vegas would've included, if given a few more months of development time:<blockquote>The additional Legion locations would have had more traveling non-Legion residents of Legion territories. The Fort and Cottonwood Cove made sense as heavy military outposts where the vast majority of the population consisted of soldiers and slaves. The other locations would have had more "civilians". It's not accurate to think of them as citizens of the Legion (the Legion is purely military), but as non-tribal people who live in areas under Legion control.

While Caesar intentionally enslaves NCR and Mojave residents in the war zone, most of the enslavement that happens in the east happens to tribals. As Raul indicates, there are non-tribal communities that came under Legion control a long time ago. The additional locations would have shown what life is like for those people.

The general tone would have been what you would expect from life under a stable military dictatorship facing no internal resistance: the majority of people enjoy safe and productive lives (more than they had prior to the Legion's arrival) but have no freedoms, rights, or say in what happens in their communities. Water and power flow consistently, food is adequate, travel is safe, and occasionally someone steps afoul of a legionary and gets his or her head cut off. If the Legion tells someone to do something, they only ask once -- even if that means an entire community has to pick up and move fifty miles away. Corruption within the Legion is rare and Caesar deals with it harshly (even by Legion standards).

In short, residents of Legion territories aren't really citizens and they aren't slaves, but they're also not free. People who keep their mouths shut, go about their business, and nod at the rare requests the Legion makes of them -- they can live very well. Many of them don't care at all that they don't have a say in what happens around them (mostly because they felt they never had a say in it before the Legion came, anyway).</blockquote>He also clarifies why there is no post-endgame play in the game:<blockquote>We always wanted to support post-Hoover play. A few milestones prior to being content complete, it was obvious that we weren't going to be able to support it to the extent that it deserved (robust reactivity to the choices the player made). Because we didn't have time to do it correctly, I made the decision to cut it.</blockquote>Link: J.E. Sawyer's Interrogation Website

 

[Stanislao Moulinsky]

Man, if New Vegas could have had one more year of development time... Ulysses as intended, better rendition of the legion, post Hoover Dam consequences, and who knows what else.

Looking back it's already a miracle how much stuff they were able to design and cram into the game in such a short time.

 

[GTRichey]

Wow... this makes me wish that there was more development time for FO:NV. He addresses the only real narrative failing (being that siding with the legion makes no sense regardless of character type). If we had these additional areas New Vegas would've been a near perfect game as far as I'm concerned (discounting engine bugs, which the game was already good enough that I didn't mind so much). Post Hoover Dam gameplay would've been a plus as well but not nearly as important unless they had the time to do it right like he said.

 

[Alphadrop]

Got caught up just reading his Formspring stuff for half an hour.
Some of the weapon and design stuff he talks about are great.

Such a shame the Legion wasn't expanded upon, they would have nuanced the story right and proper.

 

[TorontoReign]

Interesting stuff. A couple months of extra development time would have been nice.

 

[Mr Fish]

So, canon, semi-canon, non-canon or flavor material?

I'll use it in any upcoming Legion debates even if it wasn't in the game as it was intended to go into the game and since one of Primm's ending sliders support Legion taking it over peacefully and it's inhabitants living under Legion's watchful eye.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Man, if New Vegas could have had one more year of development time... Ulysses as intended, better rendition of the legion, post Hoover Dam consequences, and who knows what else.

Looking back it's already a miracle how much stuff they were able to design and cram into the game in such a short time.

I guess the fact that many parts of Vegas have been already "visualized" once helped in speeding up the process. I mean it can save you much time if you or someone else has already done the creative work. Remember much of Van Buren is present in Vegas.

 

[Izual]

The more you go East, the more New Vegas truly has this feeling of an unfinished game. Legion's camps, soldiers, quests and all are sometimes ridiculously missing important things. When playing New Vegas, I have the constant feeling of playing in metaphoric locations, like Caesar's camp would symbolize an army's camp, and it simply doesn't work as such a symbol; Hoover's Dam defenses are also quite symbolic, or rather simply lacking. You'd think in a few years NCR would have built more than a few sandbags to keep the Legion away, right?
I'm not blaming the developers here. With more time, they'd have fixed all these things, as J. E. Sawyer said.

As for the legion, they totally underworked on it and overworked NCR, making the player easily chose the NCR instead of the Legion as it will provide more options, more quests, more everything. The funny thing is, I started yesterday another New Vegas game where my character is a loyal Legion follower. I'm having real troubles to level up as fast as my previous characters, and even if I want to be evil I simply can't or I'd purposely make the path to the Strip incredibly more dangerous, especially in the area around Boulder City. To get Legion quests, I'm trying to rush the Strip, but it's not as easy as it sounds.
In my opinion, New Vegas factions in general are deeply unsatisfying. I'm not even talking about their background, but rather about consequences when you decide to "join" one. At some point in the game, if you help a faction much, other factions will think you are part of this faction and treat you as such; however you're not really a part of it and in the end you only get drawbacks and no real advantages - the only advantage I can think of when you help the NCR is the radio that calls some Rangers as backup.

Another thing I forgot, which is the consequence of all the underworked factions... Anyone else had the feeling that if NCR had sent a few trained troopers, they'd be able to wipe out Cottonwood Cove, Nelson and even Caesar's war camp? You can basically do it alone at level 15. Same goes for the Legion which could invade Hoover Dam with three dogs and a few centurions. Symbolic defences can ruin immersion too, sometimes :p

P.S. Sorry for the long post that may be a bit unrelated to the topic (and written in poor English, as usual), but I've started a few New Vegas games recently and this was a good occasion to share some of my views about the topic.

 

[Mr Fish]

Another thing I forgot, which is the consequence of all the underworked factions... Anyone else had the feeling that if NCR had sent a few trained troopers, they'd be able to wipe out Cottonwood Cove, Nelson and even Caesar's war camp? You can basically do it alone at level 15. Same goes for the Legion which could invade Hoover Dam with three dogs and a few centurions. Symbolic defences can ruin immersion too, sometimes :p

The Courier is a demi-god though.
Perks, full CND gear, unique stuff, unique ammo, tons of chems, VATS.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Symbolic defences can ruin immersion too, sometimes :p

Thats the problem you get when you do everything in full 3D to say that.

While I sure love good looking visuals I think the current trend in gaming (most of it at least) leads to a situation where there is a huge focus on visuals but they neglect the representation.

They forget many times the medium they use. Each game comes with its own limits based on the engine it is using. With a game like Fallout where you have many characters that don't even have a voice you can sometimes go crazy with the text and adventures offering somewhat complex options. If you have a game like Dragon Age or Mass Effect though where everything and everyone has a voice then you are limited in what you can offer simply because 1. Its very expensive to do voice acting and 2. the size of the information you can throw on a disk. And then you have a very huge focus on epic story telling in such games. What ever if it is good or bad.

This is one of the things I find a bit disturbing in Vegas. Its somehow a combination of 2 games. You have the storytelling of Fallout but on the other side this try for epic content, battles, constant danger of war etc. Of course that is complaining on a high level. Vegas is pretty good. But I think it could have better if they would have chosen one side of the spectrum and fleshing it out more. Like the conflict between the legion and the NCR I mean was this "huge" war in the end over Hoover Dam really needed? Could they not have done it in a different way? Remember how many times had you a war in Fallout shown to the player. Most of it was only shown by the story. Nothing else. And it worked.

Sadly many games today don't do it that way anymore. They don't leave room for interpretations or trying to do things in a way so they happen in the head of the player where he has to use his imagination. Remember situations where you find old stories, mails and news papers from the past in Fallout? Things where you read stuff and your brain starts immediately working. Where you imagine how the things must have been in 2070. This is something I miss in many modern games today. Its like with 3D there is no reason to "think" anymore. Or well when you use to much of it.

 

[Walpknut]

You can see (but not acces of course) the rest of the emcampment on the Fort from up on the hill, you see a lot of tents, there is this section of land between the Legate Camp we get acces to during the last quest where the rest fo the Soldiers are suppossed to be. If only the have had more time, if only. Brian Fargo is right about Publishers being the bane of creativity in the Game Industry.

 

[Lexx]

Well, don't forget that it's also an engine issue.

 

[Sub-Human]

Well, don't forget that it's also an engine issue.

Quite true. In fact, I'm not very sorry that they didn't get enough development time. Gamebryo can spoil things for me really nicely, and this whole, major experience would have been forgotten by FaceGen, clunky movement, stupid combat, and a poor voice actor.

 

[VRaptor117]

This extensive information is basically a blueprint for modders. I would love if a team of experienced guys picked this up and ran with it. Traveling to AZ with a caravan maybe, like Honest Hearts. Damn, 1 more year. Damn.

Another thing I forgot, which is the consequence of all the underworked factions... Anyone else had the feeling that if NCR had sent a few trained troopers, they'd be able to wipe out Cottonwood Cove, Nelson and even Caesar's war camp? You can basically do it alone at level 15. Same goes for the Legion which could invade Hoover Dam with three dogs and a few centurions. Symbolic defences can ruin immersion too, sometimes :p

The Courier is a demi-god though.
Perks, full CND gear, unique stuff, unique ammo, tons of chems, VATS.

If Obsidian had found a way to gate more content like TW2 or maybe added a in game time limit that only allowed for 30-40 hours of game time, that might have solved the problem of Couriers becoming gods just by sheer length of playtime. I truly believe there's no way to balance that game for a player that tries to do everything in one go. If they had tried, the first 15-20 levels would be awful. But then it wouldn't be a sandbox and people would flipped out worse than the ME3 ending stuff.

 

[Walpknut]

Well, don't forget that it's also an engine issue.

Quite true. In fact, I'm not very sorry that they didn't get enough development time. Gamebryo can spoil things for me really nicely, and this whole, major experience would have been forgotten by FaceGen, clunky movement, stupid combat, and a poor voice actor.

So vocie acting is affected by Gamebryo? what?
New Vegas had better VA for important characters than FO3. Mostly because they hired real Voice Actors this time.

 

[Sub-Human]

So vocie acting is affected by Gamebryo? what?

Well, no, I forgot to highlight it under a different problem. Nevertheless, I didn't really like some of New Vegas' voice acting - although nowhere near as bad as Fallout 3's (remember, I played the Russian version), it still wasn't badass.

 

[Crni Vuk]

while I agree that Vegas would have been better with maybe 1 year more time to develop the game I don't think its that easy to explain everything.

I mean no one forced Obsidian to create places like the Dam in such a way. Or the Strip for that matter which are locations that feel ... extremely lifeless. But not in a good way. Sure the engine has a problem with making locations where you have countless NPCs roaming around. But well, then you have to find ways to work with it. Its the artist that makes the tools not the tools the artist.

Again, I am not saying Vegas was a bad game. Quite the opposite. It was pretty good. But still some areas simply ... didn't impressed me at all.

 

[Tagaziel]

I mean no one forced Obsidian to create places like the Dam in such a way. Or the Strip for that matter which are locations that feel ... extremely lifeless. But not in a good way. Sure the engine has a problem with making locations where you have countless NPCs roaming around. But well, then you have to find ways to work with it. Its the artist that makes the tools not the tools the artist.

Again, I am not saying Vegas was a bad game. Quite the opposite. It was pretty good. But still some areas simply ... didn't impressed me at all.

There are limitations you can't work around. Like the memory limit on consoles, or Gamebryo's inability to work with many characters.

Now imagine NV on AC's engine...

 

[Crni Vuk]

as said. Its the artist that makes the tools not the tools the artist. If you CANT work around it then don't go with it in the first place. In other words. Was it really needed to go for such "epicness"? neither Fallout 1 nor Fallout 2 have put such huge emphasis on a "war scenario". Its interesting. Yes. But CoD in the wasteland? Up to to that point I really liked Vegas but the "last battle" was such an anti climatic event in my eyes. As you say it by your self, there are to many limitations with the engine. Just like the fact that Vegas (like F3) felt extremely cramped.

I am not saying its outright "shit" how they did it. I just feel they might have tried more to work with the limits of the engine instead of pushing it in a direction it really cant handle well ... is like Oblivions "major deadra invasion with 5 creatures vs 10 soldiers" all over again.

 

[Tagaziel]

I much prefer games that reach for the sky, but don't quite get there, rather than games that aim to be "doable". New Vegas is the former and is all the more awesome. A good story, good C&C, well written dialogue and characters on top of engaging gameplay. The end battle doesn't feel anticlimatic to me, it could've been bigger, yes, but isn't terrible the way it is now.