Josh Sawyer talks New Vegas on IGN unfiltered

Cobra Commander said:
You're going to have to forgive me if I'm wrong, but I feel like you're justifying too much killing the guys when you should not. Killing them is a fully valid option and there is a reason for Vulpes being with the Legion worst armor (Explorer armor) and being accompanied only by recruits. They must be easy to defeat; even by a character like yours, not combat-oriented; because is the perfect oportunity Obsidian finds to introduce the mechanics of hitsquads.

But it would be good to understand one thing in case you don´t know. Due to scheduling issues, most of the Legion's content was cut out. They are an interesting faction, I suggest extracting as much information from them (because there is not much left in the game after the cut :( ) which clearly can not be done if you go out killing everyone in a skirt and football gear.

For example, they do not enslave people because "MUAHAHAHAHA WE ARE SO EVIL", Caesar has a pragmatic reason for this practice.

Also, I'll leave a spoiler here for you to read on another occasion.


Your reason for killing them is just because they massacred Nipton?

Do you know who else goes around slaughtering settlements? The NCR. Hell, Boone was there at the time and you can beat your hat that he also open fire. Are you going to kill them too? ¯ \ _ (ツ) _ / ¯

NV is a complex political game (for game standards haha) so I leave here the suggestion of try to interact to the max with all NPCs in all locations. In its launch, it was the game with the greatest number of dialogues of all time.
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I forgive you, but I can understand why it look like I am trying to justify something, though I didn't mean to. I was just thinking out loud after the facts, and later intel on the legion I came across since.

Believe me, despite possible appearances, I am not playing a character who shoot first and speak later. Like I said before, the real reason I killed Vulpes can be simply explained. I didn't like his attitude with my character, assuming he would just freeze and spread the word because the punks staged a little butchery. And Vulpes was making this little pathetic speech that awoke my murdering pulsions when all he had to say was: 'Look, we had our reasons and it was between them and us, nothing to do with you'. That's what I would have tried to say to later members of the legion, if they didn't attack first.

But later intel make me think the legion often do this, and for even less reason than me. So they can't complain, in fact they should respect my character a little since I only followed their example against them. Common raiders and slavers also have pragmatic reasons, it pay well to raid and enslave, I am not making a mission to hunt them down unless I am payed for it.
I didn't screw further with the powder gangs after the tutorial quests for example, and I even negociated the release of the Khans at Bouncer city. Mcmurphy was already dead and Benny probably already back in his casino, I figured making a little gesture to the Khans pawns might have some use later. (Or not, will see)

And I heard about Bitter Spring already, regarding the NCR, however the soldiers that were there don't try to make it about grand ideas like Vulpes did. They screw up and they know it.
Doesn't mean I like the NCR, but for now they pay well enough for a few neutral enough jobs.

Edit, though I sabotaged the Helios 1 plant, I don't especially want to give this kind of power to any factions I encountered so far, if I can choose.
 
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I honestly kind of resent Sawyer and the team for making the New Vegas Caesar's Legion what it ended up being. It feels cheap, an attempt to get me to clutch my pearls and say "Well I never!" and that is uncharacteristically sloppy for a Fallout game, I think. I wouldn't go so far as to say I feel insulted as a player, but it flirts with the idea of being intellectually insulting, at least on the first few layers. You have to dig deep and do a lot of connecting the dots to even bring CL up to a "gray" status, and of course most people aren't going to do that (hence the spate of YT intellectuals who go for the low-hanging fruit and rip into CL).
 
Pariah Dog said:
I honestly kind of resent Sawyer and the team for making the New Vegas Caesar's Legion what it ended up being. It feels cheap, an attempt to get me to clutch my pearls and say "Well I never!" and that is uncharacteristically sloppy for a Fallout game, I think. I wouldn't go so far as to say I feel insulted as a player, but it flirts with the idea of being intellectually insulting, at least on the first few layers. You have to dig deep and do a lot of connecting the dots to even bring CL up to a "gray" status, and of course most people aren't going to do that (hence the spate of YT intellectuals who go for the low-hanging fruit and rip into CL).
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They had the Legion pretty well planned.
The problem was that Obsidian management always suck with the "paperwork". They accepted a really stupid contract and then run out of time to build the game with all the content they wanted to put in it.

So they sacrificed the Legion content and make them look mostly like a murderous army of slaves that is sexist and pure evil.
Although there is some content there that still points to the Legion being way more than "pure evil", the problem was that the entire Legion territory that the player would be allowed to explore on FNV, was never implemented at all, and many characters, dialogue and information was also never implemented or cut from the final version.

Remember, the creators have had the Legion planned since Van Buren, FNV uses a lot of what was planned with a few alterations, so they had it pretty well established already. But time limits are final and there is nothing we can do about that.
 
If I remember right, Sawyer said the Legion content was cut pretty early on, except for Ulysses. So no, there are no leftover files.
 
Well, it seem I got my truce with the legion after all, via the main story. I caught up with Benny, the poor suit didn't stand a chance and he didn't even have the time to get up from his stool after he said everything he was willing to say. I made sure he knew it wasn't personal of course, 'sorry kid, the game was rigged from the start', you remember when you said that? But that aside, nothing personal.

I found a intriguing securitron apparently reprogrammed by Benny, not sure of anything yet(don't tell me) but it seem I can give a try at usurping Benny original plan, so I am drinking in his memory.
Right now everybody seem to want to be my 'friend', or my boss rather, two concepts I am wary of but on the other hand I don't want to be in charge of anything either, so I am stepping carefully to exploit everyone without showing my hand, I even pissed off mr House a little to let him think he can rely on my greedy short sight while I keep playing dumb puppet man.

I have some side quests on wait so I am gonna do that while thinking.

Now that I played however, I understand better what Sawyer meant, I think. While NV is obviously a compromise to appeal to 'us old players', and still attract the larger public, it has these designs that, speaking only for myself, I find horribly dreadful.

1, If Bethesda 3 has a even bigger open world than NV, then the abysmal chance of me trying it someday has dropped even more below than the abyss. Sometimes, finding people, or anything else like a item to continue a quest, is a nightmare of going back and forth even with the markers, and those on the local map are sometimes very unclear, even misleading.

2, traveling long distances to undiscovered places is a... I have troubles to find polite words to describe how I feel sometimes. Even after discovering places closer to a undiscovered place and saving myself some sanity by shortening the travel, the rest of the trip still drive me mad and the so called 'realism' of the thing doesn't help at all.
To compare with the only modern open world I know, the witcher 3, Geralt has a horse. And you know what? It make traveling so fluid, so natural that I almost never used the fast travel in witcher 3.

3, I dread going inside Vaults or any big old pre-war buildings, it's sad but it's coming to that. Even when a quest send you there, and it's the only thing that pushed me to go so far, you must explore long damn halls and rooms, find clues or follow the markers while shooting things, go back and forth like if the place isn't already over extended, all this to retrieve something from the old days or find the only person still brieving in there, at the end of all the long corridors and levels of course. The history of the said places isn't enough in these conditions to stay motivated.
I did two vaults and two old plants if I am counting right, and you can see how I am already disgusted by these places, with this engine and this design. I would take 10 Glows, 10 Sierra Army Depot and 10 Military Base in Fallout 1/2 engine over this anyday, and these places aren't exactly my favorite part but they are more than tolerable.

So, I miss the worldmap and random encounters from Fallout already, or else this game needed a travel device, a old rusty bike or a solex moped that miraculously work with energy cells, I don't care, even a golf car working with the sun.
Not sure how to 'solve' the other points, all I know is despite the curiosity that some quests keep giving me, and the main story, something in me already want to finish the game and not restart a new one to try other choices or such. Not sure if I will even do the extensions at this point.

Sorry if I rant while I only played for a few days, but what I mentionned are turning in a big pushback for me. It doesn't change that this game really have some true Fallout in it. Unfortunatly it has other problems, added to the three gameplay points above, in my mind that is.
Better stop there and wait until I finish the main story before going in that, but right now I can't say I will be motivated to start a new game even in a year.
 
Lexx said:
If I remember right, Sawyer said the Legion content was cut pretty early on, except for Ulysses. So no, there are no leftover files.
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I remember it like this too.

Also, I'd like to say I'm in the camp that New Vegas was definitely design for Fallout 3 fans in a lot of aspects. I still love New Vegas but there's definitely a balance of old school appeal in the game with a modernized popular appeal in the game.
 
I tried. Following the main story truce, I tried to see any kind of grey, appeal, reasonning, necessity or whatever you want to call it in Edward's legion. And I failed. Each and everyone of the members I spoke to was a little asshole wanting to play the big tough, and those with pathetic speeches 'à la Vulpes' were the worst.

Meeting the 'big man' himself wasn't a big revelation for me. Aside from a interesting backstory, Edward showed himself just as pathetic as his little punks. Still, I tried to roll the dice a while to dig in the legion, I even killed mr House since I was wondering if I wasn't going to 'unplug him' sooner or later anyway.
On that, the game actually surprised me for the first time, you know, I was sure mr House was a ZAX unit. I would have been more willing to let him live if he had been what I thought, it was my plan, just 'disable' him. But when I saw him, I sort of felt he really was a relic from the old world and to kill him was doing him a favor.

Going back to the legion, it seem all I got for trying to roll with their chief was to dirty my image with the NCR a little. Then not sure what happened, maybe because the game might grow on me after all, but I found a second breath and tried the honest heart expansion in the week-end.
Then tonight I went back to Edward's fort after dropping by on a few of his punks who once again made me great speeches on slavery in a quest. Could have convince them to sell the slaves but I prefered to pay them with sneak bullets instead. Then in the fort, a killing spree started, and eventually I grenaded Edward and his guards. My only regret is I coudn't put him on a cross for the rest of his dogs to find when they get back.

Even I don't know what to think of my recent choices, apart that I drastically reduced my choice of 'allies'. I kind of miss mr House I think. So far I play the NCR's dog, what can I say, they pay really well and they have interesting characters in their 'little guys' ranks.
Still I don't want them to stick around as a government so maybe I can yet avoid that with the funny robot who sort of became a more amiable mr House.

The courrier on the radio:
'If I know my pal Edward Caesar he is probably swimming with the big cat already. If he is not too busy getting ass rape by Cook Cook, crucified by vengeful spirits, or comparing notes with mr House to figure out where they have gone wrong'.

Got a question, I quickly read I can't play the expansions after the main story.
I read there are mods to change that, but is there one that would work on a savegame? Or should I be forced to start again, or play from a pre-end save if I find the will to do the expansions?
 
As a side note, if you are waiting until that late in the game to do the DLCs you're really gonna hate OWB. OWB at higher levels becomes a fucking SLOG. Enemies become crazy bulletsponges. (Fuckin' Nightstalker took 2 .50BMG Match rounds from the AMR, what the actual fuck.)
 
Pre end save it will be then. I think I will want to replay this game after all, but not now. I will search a mod when it take me again.

Pariah Dog, thanks for the advice but my character is close to level 40 by now, never got such level even in Fallout 2 but Vegas is generous in exp apparently. I can feel the end is very near so it won't make much differences now. If it's too easy, well it will have the advantage of being relaxing while I discover the stories maybe. Though I didn't find honest hearts to be that easy, even at level +30 or so. Thanks both.
 
Pariah Dog said:
As a side note, if you are waiting until that late in the game to do the DLCs you're really gonna hate OWB. OWB at higher levels becomes a fucking SLOG. Enemies become crazy bulletsponges. (Fuckin' Nightstalker took 2 .50BMG Match rounds from the AMR, what the actual fuck.)
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Yeah, that was my least favorite thing with OWB. Those damn robot radscorpions, specially the big ones, become damage sponges at later levels. Made even worse by the fact they seem to respawn.
 
Oh yeah, roboscorpions are awful. Robotics Expert helps somewhat (pretty decent perk for an "enemy specialization" perk) with them I think, but I have never seen such spongy enemies as in OWB.
 
Euh, oups, look like I mistranslated you? Are you saying there is a level scaling in the expansions, and the highter level you are, more difficult and tedious it can be?
 
FDO said:
Euh, oups, look like I mistranslated you? Are you saying there is a level scaling in the expansions, and the highter level you are, more difficult and tedious it can be?
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Yes. The higher level versions of enemies in OWB are probably some of the worst damage sponges in the entirety of F:NV. Roboscorpions go from being reasonably tough to absurdly resilient, with increased HP, DT and so on.

For example:
If you go into OWB as early as you realistically can you will deal with Roboscorpions at Mk3 status. A Mk3 Roboscorpion Pincer has ~375HP. Go in later, you might deal with a Roboscorpion Pincer Mk5 instead, which has nearly 700HP. On some other Roboscorpion variants you see DT go from 2 on a Roboscorpion Blaster Mk4 to fucking 18 DT on a Roboscorpion Blaster Mk6. List goes on. Big MT is where you go to waste all that extra ammo you accumulated in your Mojave travels, basically.
 
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Pariah Dog said:
Yes. The higher level versions of enemies in OWB are probably some of the worst damage sponges in the entirety of F:NV. Roboscorpions go from being reasonably tough to absurdly resilient, with increased HP, DT and so on.

For example:
If you go into OWB as early as you realistically can you will deal with Roboscorpions at Mk3 status. A Mk3 Roboscorpion Pincer has ~375HP. Go in later, you might deal with a Roboscorpion Pincer Mk5 instead, which has nearly 700HP. On some other Roboscorpion variants you see DT go from 2 on a Roboscorpion Blaster Mk4 to fucking 18 DT on a Roboscorpion Blaster Mk6. List goes on. Big MT is where you go to waste all that extra ammo you accumulated in your Mojave travels, basically.
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Ok, well this sound like it suck but:

Cobra Commander said:
OWB with Animal Friend and Robotic Expert = easy mode
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Will try my luck with that I guess. Or I will keep the expansions for a other playthrough someday. Meanwhile I have to go back licking the boots of colonel Moore.
 
Pariah Dog said:
Yes. The higher level versions of enemies in OWB are probably some of the worst damage sponges in the entirety of F:NV
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I agree. Pretty annoying to be fair.
FDO said:
Pariah Dog, thanks for the advice but my character is close to level 40 by now, never got such level even in Fallout 2 but Vegas is generous in exp apparently.
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If you see just enough of the game and do the DLCs' quests they give you for the most part, you'll be level 50 or damn close by the end of Lonesome Road.
 
Well, I won. Next time I will have to remember of packing some better firepower to take Lanius and his goons out. Noticed a bunch of dialogs options to talk him out of the mess but I saw no consistency in it after taking out so many legion fanatics, including Caesar and Vulpes. Lanius and his guards made a hell of a fight, I give them that, had to reload a bunch of times.
Then came a great moment:

Throwing Oliver from the top of the Dam. I know, I know, plenty of other him back west but I coudn't resist, the invader thought he was untouchable.
If it isn't obvious I went with the independant Vegas road. Not like I had lelft myself a other choice, except the NCR but despite having saved their president and did a lot of work for them, their damn government and other bullshits are too close to our own real leaderships, the bastards want to control everything, one way or the other. You know, 'the progress', like colonel Moore put it. And like the legion, if you are not with them, you are against them. I letted be the regular troopers and other puppets though. NCR had lost already, and my courrier encountered some decent enough people among them. The 'little guys' are what make the NCR grey after all.

There were some good and some bad for the different groups of the Mojave in my endings, but some ended up much better that I would have thought.
I may have been frustrated at times by some of the worst gameplay elements, like looking for THE unique road leading to this or this other undiscovered location, oh boy the cursed dead ends in the hills and mountains, for example. I like hicking you know, but in reality, not in a gigantic open world map while sitting in a chair.
But at the end, the good parts of the game outlasted the bad for me, so I will replay this one of these days. I particulary appreciated the new approach to some of the shady groups like the Khans, they aren't automaticaly some hostiles 'stuffs' to shoot and we can see them in several ways, like real human beings with their good sides, interests and flaws which give you motivation to speak to them and even help them for the sake of their more interesting members, instead of adopting the 'Moore' solution when the game come to that. You can speak a little with some khans in Fallout 1 but they are far less well done, they remain all black without any shades, unlike here.

Hell even some fiends aren't automatical wacko killers if you show up in at least one circumstance, but in the end I still went back to get rid of Moto Runners and his crew of dirty rats. They don't have much shades either, just like other raiders groups in the previous games.

On that note, I sort of letted be the powder gang after the beginning of the game, next time I will go look in their prison to check if there is anything interesting going on I guess. There are likely many other things I missed, but I actually did a lot more quests I was planning to though. I guess that after Benny died, the vengeance stuff was out of the way and so was the feeling of urgency. The rest of the game turning more in a political trap that my courrier wasn't that interested in, except to keep a independant Vegas maybe, as it turned out. Quite a little too much of a power trip but it's not so badly executed in-game, with the story and characters. And it's a nice change compared to other games that bring you to a game over or just won't let you seriously give a try at taking out some characters, even smartly. Fallout give a much better experience in that regard.

Shh, why do I write things that aren't quite news to you eh, well probably because I had a good time when all is said and done.
To conclude, we have Benny making a exclusive interview from his seat next to the big cat:

'Baby, this courrier turned out to be a much more dangerous cat than me. I was a liitle pissed off at first but watching him from up here with my angels's girls made me kind of proud. I can't wait for him to join up the party up there, and I understand some of my new friends like Edward, 'Caesar' I mean, and Vulpes, and Lanius, and general Oliver, and a few dozens more have a few ideas in store for his welcoming party'.

Oh, yeah I forgot, now that I know the main story, what do you think of the consistency of doing the expansions before the end? Got to say I found odd to disapear a month in the Utah for honest hearts, so I didn't try the others yet. If you find some consistency/likelyness in it, at what point of the story, and levels, do you generally decide to do the expansions?
 
Oh, yeah I forgot, now that I know the main story, what do you think of the consistency of doing the expansions before the end?
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Courier´s nemesis takes a large role in the 3 others dlcs, so you must play to set things right, before the final showdown.

My personal recomendation is OWB then Dead Money and finally Lonesome Road. You can change OWB for Dead Money but Lonesome Road must be the last one.
 
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