Rude awakening: Why Fallout: New Vegas felt incomplete

[WelcomeToNewReno]

Wait, did he actually complain about the pc not being from a vault? The reason for the blank slate is so you can make your character anyone you want. You could say they're from vault quintillion if you wanted to. Hell, you could say they're decended from the Vault Dweller and the Chosen One. The good thing about NV is that it gives you that kind of option. I certainly like it better than:
"Hepry derp! You suuuure have high ceilings here! Did I mention I'm from a vault?"

 

[GeeZee]

"how did he know that delivering the Platinum Chip was dangerous"

Maybe the answer lies in Victor itself. He, as a Securitron, may be connected to Yes Man, which tracked the parcels.

Why Victor's involvement? There's an American flag on Victor's Shack's wall. Goodsprings settlers arrived when the Victor was the only resident in town. By that logic, Ulysses left, but he maintained the way to control Victor one way or another. Ulysses might have read Victor's data, just like Benny read Yes Man's data.

This may also explain the fact that he was remotely shut off during Ghost Town Gunfight, as well as why everyone felt he's somewhat shady, hiding dark secrets.

 

[ReedTFM]

He knew the Platinum Chip was dangerous simply by the nature of who was offering the job.

Mr. House is dangerous (for reasons including: he's the old-world CEO of RobCo and STILL FREAKING ALIVE, RobCo and their unsavory Pre-War activities, commander of a Securitron army, his Three Families, he "secured" the Hoover dam to extort the treaty of New Vegas, etc.) + Now, his Securitron wants you to carry random stuff, but won't do it itself = Trouble.

Not an unreasonable chain of inferences.

In fact, the Courier was kind of an idiot for taking the job. The only cowboy themed robot in Mr. House's army wants you to take a single poker chip to Vegas for a big payment. Yeah, sounds like a simple delivery mission, there's nothing deeper at play here.

Victor probably doesn't help you in Goodsprings because he is a weak fighter and House could not care less about the town or the Powder Gangers. He just wants you to get to Vegas, not save the wastes on the way.

 

[Walpknut]

No, the Courier knows it's dangerous because he just got assaulted andshot in the ehad for the package. The Courier didn't know about VIctor's involvement until he asked Nash for more details after getting shot in the head.

 

[C2B]

BTW, why the hell people continue obssessed with radiation, Vaults and barbaric states?
It's two hundred fucking years after the war!
Or humanity should stayed frozen in time?

For some reason people hate to see certain settings evolve (logically)

Actually, New Vegas at the very least hints at large-scale government and bureaucracy, trade and economic systems, and gives the impression that NCR at least is a massive and sprawling, mostly civilized society. The only reason New Vegas and the Mojave are still in shambles is the fact that New Vegas itself was only rediscovered and redeveloped about five years prior to the game, and because it's on the fringes of NCR territory - there's been nobody there to actually rebuild much, save for small settlements, tribes, etc. We don't see it directly, sure, but I think it's a clever way to keep the Fallout atmosphere without denying the fact that civilization goes on.

I mean, yeah, sure, it should have happened 50 years after the Great War, but that's been an issue with the Fallout games, and post-apocalyptic games in general - the idea of a world left frozen in time, with scattered and broken people living off the ruined landscape for hundreds of years has a certain romantic appeal that allows one to overlook the realism of the situation a bit.

New Vegas evolves the setting (in some way) of course.^^

I was referring to the obssession of "fans" who don't want their settings to evolve. A popular example there is when fantasy settings develop into the next technological era.

Of course, could just be I misunderstood brfritos comment.

 

[Stanislao Moulinsky]

He knew the Platinum Chip was dangerous simply by the nature of who was offering the job.

Ok, maybe he knew it was dangerous because of that, but the Courier would have brought a Mr.House package even if Ulysses didn't refuse, it simply wouldn't have been the Platinum Chip. So he knew what was in the package n.6 and knew that people wanted to kill for it.

 

[Courier]

I thought the reason it felt incomplete was because they cut out half the story to sell later as DLC?

Actually Ulysses was cut because they had to meet deadlines, he leaves no plotholes with his disappearance (besides some ominous foreshadowing by Nash), and his story arc and character were rewritten for the DLC.

Chris Avellone said himself that Ulysses was as hard to cut out as he was to put in because of how much he tied in with everything else, I'm assuming that means he was already pretty far along in development. Even if they did cut him out because of time restraints, when they added him back into the game it should have been free. It's not my fault that they decided to release the game before it was finished, don't make me pay extra to have a complete game.

And yeah, Johson Nash's foreshadowing kind of violated the Chekov's Gun rule, "If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there."

Speaking of which, the DLC were developed with a separate budget over a period of months with different project directors so..

I mean, I can understand the gripes with the DLC business model, but aside from the (in my opinion) GRA fiasco I think Obsidian/Bethesda did good with it.

Other than GRA I don't think they did a bad job either, it's just Ulysses and his DLC that I feel a bit ripped off about. Don't cut completed or near-completed content from a game I bought and then sell it back to me. That's a bad business model, not necessarily the DLC model itself. I don't mind buying DLC if they're not just cut content.

Oh yeah and don't bother arguing that they didn't plan on selling Ulysses' story arc back to you when they cut it out; they left his weapon in the game files, there's been a spot for his DLC's snowglobe, and there's been a specific entrance for the DLC since the day the game was released. Not to mention that they left in Nash's mention of him. It's pretty obvious they were planning on selling a DLC about Ulysses before the game was even released.

 

[Walpknut]

MCA:

As far as Ulysses, there's been some talk that the DLCs feature material that was axed in the game, and that's largely incorrect.* Even Ulysses' incarnation in FNV isn't what he came to be in the DLC narrative arc. All the characters and locations in the DLC are brand new, and the most we did was to make sure there were visual and narrative hooks to these DLCs prior to release (signage, hints, discussions about the other courier). Doing these hooks aren't easy to mask because everyone can have access to the GECK and files on release, so as one example - with Felicia Day's recordings where Veronica discusses Elijah post-Dead Money, we had to make up fake topic lines in order to mask who she'd really be talking about when the DLC was released.

The Ulysses in the DLCs is not the same Ulysses that was going to appear in the game, itis a completely different story, and It doesn't cause ANY plot holes at all, and Nash's foreshadowing didn't break any rules, it foreshadows the DLC, just liek the Burning man grafiti, Elijah's story from the BOS and the Big Emty being mentioned by Elijah in Dead Money. You are syaign they should give you it for free because they retooled an axed idea to make a DLC? yeah, tey shouldn't want to get income from their work.

 

[Tagaziel]

Chris Avellone said himself that Ulysses was as hard to cut out as he was to put in because of how much he tied in with everything else, I'm assuming that means he was already pretty far along in development. Even if they did cut him out because of time restraints, when they added him back into the game it should have been free. It's not my fault that they decided to release the game before it was finished, don't make me pay extra to have a complete game.

Chris Avellone called and told me that you're full of... baseless, unwarranted speculation fueled by malice.

 

[Stanislao Moulinsky]

Even if they did cut him out because of time restraints, when they added him back into the game it should have been free.

Even if DLC Ulysses was the same character with the same story of Original Ulysses (and it's not) they had to build a whole new area and narrative around it. It's not like you'll play the DLC in the Mojave desert, isn't it?

And yeah, Johson Nash's foreshadowing kind of violated the Chekov's Gun rule, "If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there."

It would break the rule if that part was part of the main plot.

 

[Janmanden]

Wait, did he actually complain about the pc not being from a vault? The reason for the blank slate is so you can make your character anyone you want. You could say they're from vault quintillion if you wanted to. Hell, you could say they're decended from the Vault Dweller and the Chosen One. The good thing about NV is that it gives you that kind of option. I certainly like it better than:
"Hepry derp! You suuuure have high ceilings here! Did I mention I'm from a vault?"

Well.. The pc actually wear a suit from vault 21 at the beginning, but maybe (s)he just happened to pick it up or (s)he is a vault suit 21 fetishist or (s)he is actually from that vault..

I think it's the rather thin premise of carrying out your contract as a courier combined with a rather distant motive of revenge, that feels quite a bit lacklustre at the beginning and makes it a bit hard to tie that up to a personally gratifying end.. I was entertained, but emotionally distant and I had no feeling of accomplishment in the end. Odd. OWB was a happy relief from the general apathy.

 

[Walpknut]

hemmm no, Mitchell gives you his old jumpsuit presumably because your old clothes got damaged while you were buried or were stolen by the Khans.

 

[whirlingdervish]

In the same way that a leprous person has skin. Skyrim has character shadows and partial object shadows. Walls don't have shadows, rain falls through the roof (from what I've been able to tell) and so and so on. Oblivion 2.0, only this time it's more obvious still.

I'm not about to enter a discussion in which you're going to change the meaning of "no shadows" just to suit your point, sorry.

Well, let's consider his point this way:

2007 Crysis - Has Realtime Shadows For EVERYTHING:
Looks bitchin to this day, even when compared with 2011 games.



2011 Skyrim - Has Shadows for some stuff:
Looks like stamped dog shit compared to older titles.



Making walls and such cast shadows is not some magical art lost in the ages.
Most 3d game engines have been doing realtime lighting for a long time. (Quake 2 in 1998 had realtime lighting effects to go with precalculated environmental light values)

At some point or another the ease of using shaders and bloom has made developers lazy.

 

[DevilTakeMe]

hemmm no, Mitchell gives you his old jumpsuit presumably because your old clothes got damaged while you were buried or were stolen by the Khans.

Nah, Mitchell would likely have cut you out of your clothes, as standard practice would be regarding injured people who have suffered head/neck injuries and are unconscious.

Easier to just cut you out rather than try and fight to get the clothes off of an unconscious patient with a life-threatening head injury. Besides, you're unconscious and you were out for a couple days.

You may have also soiled yourself.

 

[Courier]

hemmm no, Mitchell gives you his old jumpsuit presumably because your old clothes got damaged while you were buried or were stolen by the Khans.

Nah, Mitchell would likely have cut you out of your clothes, as standard practice would be regarding injured people who have suffered head/neck injuries and are unconscious.

Easier to just cut you out rather than try and fight to get the clothes off of an unconscious patient with a life-threatening head injury. Besides, you're unconscious and you were out for a couple days.

You may have also soiled yourself.

Why didn't he cut you out of your undergarments then?

 

[DevilTakeMe]

Why didn't he cut you out of your undergarments then?

For the same reason you take your shirt off for some outfits, but leave them on for others.

Divergence in Fallout causes a Mutation where shirts and boxers appear on your body when you're not wearing a bandoleer full of... dynamite.

 

[Tagaziel]

That's why I use the equivalent of Morrowind's Better Bodies (Beware of Girl Type 3 and Breeze's Males).

 

[Walpknut]

But Type 3 is a huge boobed small waist girl and the Breeze body is an oiled muscled guy.

 

[Tagaziel]

It's called "options". I play with body hair turned up to 11.

 

[Surf Solar]

Who the fuck cares about mods anyway? As long as it doesn't come from the original developers, the only thing I give is the benefit of doubt. "Lol I'm giving the minigun Gauss rifle bursts" "I am giving female characters 4d coups is realistic" and such shit is the new "modding community. Embrace the decline!