Planet Fallout posted an interview with Pete Hines:<blockquote>How can the player interact within the environment between the Vegas world and the customization and progression of your character?
The character customization really comes more from the S.P.E.C.I.A.L.S. that you pick, or whether or not you pick any traits in the beginning. Traits is something that we brought back in Fallout: New Vegas where you can now pick up to two traits when you first create your character. Most of which have a positive and a negative effect so you can do your skills that are more pacifist go up by a certain amount but your combat skills go down by a certain amount, kind of a trade off. The perks that you pick along the way obviously have a big effect. But then beyond that it is really the player's actions that determine how your character is customized. So you are not going to go down to the Vegas strip and start gambling or do quests to find new entertainers for a hotel that wants entertainers for their shows, those aren't going to dramatically change your character customization.
It's your actions and how you do stuff that is ultimately going to change. These guys like me better or I've gambled a lot and I've won a lot so I am getting comped now. They are bringing me drinks, they are giving me a room for the night, that sort of is the benefit in oppose to my character does something different now that he couldn't do before. The Vegas stuff is more additive and flavor in terms of how you want to play the game or what kind of things you want to be doing.
You mentioned earlier how interacting with factions will change the story, could you be more specific?
Not without giving too much away, but in general you've got two main factions in the game fighting for control over the Mojave wasteland, NCR and Caesar's Legion. We've tried to have everything in Fallout: New Vegas not to be so black and white. These are the good guys these are the bad guys, if you join with these guys you are bad, if you join with these guys you are good. It's not quite that cut and dry. When you talk to folks, things you are doing may feel a bit more evil or feel more good guy, but you can join either side and help their cause in terms of helping them buy more control of the wasteland. There are a lot of smaller factions in the wasteland that maybe neutral in terms of which way they are leaning. And working through some of those factions and how they act, or the quests that you do for them, or how you resolve things related to those smaller factions as well as those larger faction, you're kind of helping chart the course of what is going to happen in the Mojave and who is going to win.
To put it more simply, if you join Caesar's Legion and spend a lot of time wiping out the NCR then you are helping Caesar's Legion win out over the NCR. While if you join NCR and start wiping out Caesar's Legion then you are helping them take control. So that is a more obvious example of getting involved with factions and helping determine outcome and who is going to the whole.</blockquote>
The character customization really comes more from the S.P.E.C.I.A.L.S. that you pick, or whether or not you pick any traits in the beginning. Traits is something that we brought back in Fallout: New Vegas where you can now pick up to two traits when you first create your character. Most of which have a positive and a negative effect so you can do your skills that are more pacifist go up by a certain amount but your combat skills go down by a certain amount, kind of a trade off. The perks that you pick along the way obviously have a big effect. But then beyond that it is really the player's actions that determine how your character is customized. So you are not going to go down to the Vegas strip and start gambling or do quests to find new entertainers for a hotel that wants entertainers for their shows, those aren't going to dramatically change your character customization.
It's your actions and how you do stuff that is ultimately going to change. These guys like me better or I've gambled a lot and I've won a lot so I am getting comped now. They are bringing me drinks, they are giving me a room for the night, that sort of is the benefit in oppose to my character does something different now that he couldn't do before. The Vegas stuff is more additive and flavor in terms of how you want to play the game or what kind of things you want to be doing.
You mentioned earlier how interacting with factions will change the story, could you be more specific?
Not without giving too much away, but in general you've got two main factions in the game fighting for control over the Mojave wasteland, NCR and Caesar's Legion. We've tried to have everything in Fallout: New Vegas not to be so black and white. These are the good guys these are the bad guys, if you join with these guys you are bad, if you join with these guys you are good. It's not quite that cut and dry. When you talk to folks, things you are doing may feel a bit more evil or feel more good guy, but you can join either side and help their cause in terms of helping them buy more control of the wasteland. There are a lot of smaller factions in the wasteland that maybe neutral in terms of which way they are leaning. And working through some of those factions and how they act, or the quests that you do for them, or how you resolve things related to those smaller factions as well as those larger faction, you're kind of helping chart the course of what is going to happen in the Mojave and who is going to win.
To put it more simply, if you join Caesar's Legion and spend a lot of time wiping out the NCR then you are helping Caesar's Legion win out over the NCR. While if you join NCR and start wiping out Caesar's Legion then you are helping them take control. So that is a more obvious example of getting involved with factions and helping determine outcome and who is going to the whole.</blockquote>
