Izak
I Shot The ALBATROSS
What? Why would they have such a small limit for dialogue? did Bethesda impose a limit, or did they do it themselves or was it budget limitations?
Ulysses is kind of a moron...
- Thread starter zegh8578
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Doomfullord
The Lord Full of Doom
From what little information I can actually get, it was mostly budgetary for studio time for recording.
CT Phipps
Carbon Dated and Proud
Ulysses is the Spirit of Fallout 1 and 2.
Chris Avellone is basically bringing up the fact a major theme of the original games is the fact the Pre-War world is dead and good riddance. The new world which has emerged is unique and fascinating in contradictory wonderful ways. It's dangerous as fuck and full of evil doers and lawlessness but you have places like Shady Sands, New Arryo, Lost Hills, and other locations which are wholly unique.
War never changes.
But the WORLD does.
The Bethesdaverse, however, is fascinated with the Pre-War world and has a nostalgia for elements of it. Obsidian underlined this by making it a major theme of the DLC and main game. NCR has become a parody of what Aradesh was building by becoming USA 2.0. Caesar's Legion is like Rome except without the aqueducts or Senate or Republican values. House is as close to a literal ghost of the Pre-War world as you can imagine. None of them want to build a new world, all of them want to rebuild the Old One.
Ulysses is struggling with the fact he bitterly regrets just about every single decision he's made in his life but feels like the door was slammed on him just as he was getting his shit together. Now the man who wiped out his adopted hometown (just like Ulysses had done to so many other people) is shaping the Commonwealth's history with the damned ED-E bot which nuked Hopeville.
So, the Divide is really Ulysses trying to bring the Courier to face his sins but also help Ulysses understand. "Why you? Why do you get to shape things? Don't you know all of these groups suck?"
In a way, you can view it as a metacommentary on those who have cast the Old Fallout world aside for a new violent shiny one.
I will say, though, Joshua Graham would tear apart Ulysses worldview in about five seconds.
"The world sucks and everyone is wrong."
"Then work on making it better, dipshit."
Chris Avellone is basically bringing up the fact a major theme of the original games is the fact the Pre-War world is dead and good riddance. The new world which has emerged is unique and fascinating in contradictory wonderful ways. It's dangerous as fuck and full of evil doers and lawlessness but you have places like Shady Sands, New Arryo, Lost Hills, and other locations which are wholly unique.
War never changes.
But the WORLD does.
The Bethesdaverse, however, is fascinated with the Pre-War world and has a nostalgia for elements of it. Obsidian underlined this by making it a major theme of the DLC and main game. NCR has become a parody of what Aradesh was building by becoming USA 2.0. Caesar's Legion is like Rome except without the aqueducts or Senate or Republican values. House is as close to a literal ghost of the Pre-War world as you can imagine. None of them want to build a new world, all of them want to rebuild the Old One.
Ulysses is struggling with the fact he bitterly regrets just about every single decision he's made in his life but feels like the door was slammed on him just as he was getting his shit together. Now the man who wiped out his adopted hometown (just like Ulysses had done to so many other people) is shaping the Commonwealth's history with the damned ED-E bot which nuked Hopeville.
So, the Divide is really Ulysses trying to bring the Courier to face his sins but also help Ulysses understand. "Why you? Why do you get to shape things? Don't you know all of these groups suck?"
In a way, you can view it as a metacommentary on those who have cast the Old Fallout world aside for a new violent shiny one.
I will say, though, Joshua Graham would tear apart Ulysses worldview in about five seconds.
"The world sucks and everyone is wrong."
"Then work on making it better, dipshit."
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SarcasticGoodGuy
*R O T T E N*
Ulysses was well written, but I felt his character was a bit edgy.
"These bureaucrats are rebuilding the world... just not how I want it- better go blow them up and look cool whilst doing it. I'm Ulysses and this is my nuke silo. I live here with my faithful eyebot ED-E. Everything here has excess radiation and a hub cap. If I've learnt one thing living here it's that you never know who is going to nuke your town."
"These bureaucrats are rebuilding the world... just not how I want it- better go blow them up and look cool whilst doing it. I'm Ulysses and this is my nuke silo. I live here with my faithful eyebot ED-E. Everything here has excess radiation and a hub cap. If I've learnt one thing living here it's that you never know who is going to nuke your town."
Throatpunch
Banned
"a bit" is an understatement.
SarcasticGoodGuy
*R O T T E N*
Yeah...
I have mixed feelings with Chris Avellone's participation in LR. He said something along the lines of "nuking the NCR and Legion to bring Fallout back to what it was" which goes against the whole world rebuilding in New Vegas.
I feel that Ulysses was their way of saying that the world is doomed anyway, but he seemed like a Kylo Ren character- wearing a cool mask for shits and giggles and saying "menacing" things, but ultimately they have the mind of a 13 year old that just learnt what death is.
Throatpunch
Banned
yeah, I quit that DLC half way through chiefly because of edgy teenager philosophy crap and shit scenery. Just like I quit all the FNV dlcs partway in.
That game has the worst DLCs I have ever seen and probably will ever see.
SarcasticGoodGuy
*R O T T E N*
Respectfully disagreeing here.
I thought Dead Money was a great survival horror with good characters and a neat story with a satisfying message to the ending.
Old World Blues I don't mind. People seem to hold it on a pedestal and say it's the best thing ever, whereas I just think it was good- worth ~£7 and whenever I replay the game I'll play through it again.
Honest Hearts was a bit short, but I liked the characters and story. The area looked nice I guess.
Lonesome Road could've benefited from a better engine. This would've really shown the horrors of the Divide if the graphics were better or if it could render more stuff. Combat in NV was never that great to begin with so it lost points there too. And I loved Ulysses story up until the bit when you meet him.
New Vegas had some great DLC. But it's like RE4 and Bioshock- people claim they're 11/10 best things ever, when really they're more 8/10- still good, just not masterpieces.
Throatpunch
Banned
Going to also respectfully disagree.
- Hated Dead Money. Imo it was an overhard nonsensical pile of maze game tat with a story written by a guy who obviously just came off LSD.
- OWB was also boring and nonsensical
- Honest hearts was decent, since it added a badass and awesome survivalists story. Didnt like the story though.
- And I quit Lonesome Road half way through chiefly because of edgy teenager philosophy crap and shit scenery
SarcasticGoodGuy
*R O T T E N*
Well I guess we just like different things,
I can look past gameplay issues because that's not why I play NV, though I do admit I sometimes skip the opening dialogue in OWB on repeat playthroughs. As for Dead Money I enjoyed the story- it was a nice blend of dialogue and environmental- not full on "find the holotapes" that was Fallout 4.
It's just dawned on me that the story in Fallout 4 is literally a find the holotape/note minigame.
Throatpunch
Banned
Fallout 4 was disappointing. The story was OK, I enjoyed playing as BOS, but the rest of the game was just radiant quests. And the actual (non campaign) quests were crap. played the story then got rid of it.Well I guess we just like different things,
I can look past gameplay issues because that's not why I play NV, though I do admit I sometimes skip the opening dialogue in OWB on repeat playthroughs. As for Dead Money I enjoyed the story- it was a nice blend of dialogue and environmental- not full on "find the holotapes" that was Fallout 4.
It's just dawned on me that the story in Fallout 4 is literally a find the holotape/note minigame.
wtf lol
Ulysses may come of as "edgy", but in reality, he is a pretty strong character. He has done horrible things in life to people, he has seen horrible things being done, and horrible things have been done upon him. Every single thing for which he fought in his life is gone, partially by his own fault - and the only thing which could have, in his mind, redeemed him, was violently taken away - in no less but a nuclear annihilation at the hands of ignorant Courier, a colleague, as if in some sort of sardonic twist of fate.
He is somewhat of a metaphor for the wasteland and humanity. Done great harm to each other, done great harm to itself, and when finally given a new chance, a chance to begin again, as in a clean slate after the Great War, humanity repeats its own history. NCR and Legion are two opposites of the same spectrum that is humanity embodied in its civilization. Dishonest, violent, selfish, destructive, corrupt, finite.
Ulysses is personally hurt by this. Being obsessed with history and its endless repetition, unable to come to terms that he himself has helped history to repeat once more, and his own grief over the fact that when given the second chance, hope in Hopeville, it was taken away from him.
His edginess is largely a by-product of a nihilist attitude he has come to harbor - or at least, thinks he harbors. Things he values are gone, are nothing but ghastly memories carried by the wasteland winds. He isn't edgy - he is a broken man, and what may come of to us as edginess is in fact the fractures of the shell which was once a human being, in all its best and worst.
Is there logic in his ways?
In a way, yes. Logic within his mind, but is it foolproof? Hardly. But is hardly the logic one can argue with, because with the humanity it is not the logic or reason that matters, as NCR and Legion have proven, and as the Old World had proven once before - the only thing that matters is the sheer capacity of destruction...and the ability to repeat history, because it is inevitable.
SarcasticGoodGuy
*R O T T E N*
I think he's a strong character. I also think he's an edgelord.
It's the way he shows his personality to the Courier that comes off as edgy. Speaking in riddles, attempting to taunt them, etc. He wanted to show the Divide to the Courier to make them feel bad- OK. He gives them ED-E and then takes ED-E away from them- that's also OK. But then he's gotten it in his head that he needs to nuke an entire faction to help the guys that killed his family, and it all goes downhill from there.
His backstory with Christine, the Big MT and the White Legs was pretty good though.
Hm...I guess I'd rather describe him as poetic in his manner of speaking, than edgy. I can understand why people see him as such, but I simply didn't.
On the other hand I have a strong dislike for "edgy" as a term, so there's that.
I don't it goes downhill from there. His motivations and goals are pretty clear-cut under the layer of his ramblings.
I mean, this man is already pretty "downhill", intentionally so. Comes of as a conclusion to the backstory of his.
The only thing I personally hated about LR are the nukes being all over the place, and you detonating that shit. Reminded me too much of Fallout 3 and its juvenile treatment of nuclear power.
SarcasticGoodGuy
*R O T T E N*
Yeah I see where you're coming from- especially with the word 'edgy' being thrown around so much nowadays. But I don't see why villains (or antagonists would be a better word) speak in poetry, personally I'd rather have actual dialogue.
I don't want it spoon-fed to me that he's crazy and having a downward spiral- but they don't make a huge deal that he's crazy. You can just go "speech 90: hey man Vegas is doing alright" and he'll calm down. He'll give you some cool stuff, have convos with you, and forgets he was about to nuke an entire platoon of soldiers.
I will 100% agree with you on the nukes. They were never meant to be set pieces and toys to be played with. Stuff like the fat man being based off of an existing weapon doesn't count as an excuse to me, because it glorifies the things that turned the world into the wasteland. It would've been a much better ending imo if there were only 2 (huge) nukes in the silo with Ulysses.
Brivoo
Powered by Radiant AI
Ulysses is a fantasy character thrown into a sci-fi setting. I don't blame Avellone; he loves that kind of character, he just suffers from being in the wrong world-type, is all.
If it had been more than the one character, Lonesome Road would have suffered immensely; but since it's just the one, Ulysses benefits from it, as it comes off as his actual personality rather than just the stubborn way all people speak in that world.
I think Ulysses, and Lonesome Road in general, was a very strong final chapter before the battle of Hoover Dam. The decisions the Courier has to make and the general hardships of the DLC make for quite a few character-defining moments.
Perhaps you were a cold-blooded killer who eventually learned that murder solves nothing, so you spare the man and the two nations under your thumb.
Or perhaps you've tried to learn mercy, but the madman in the missile silo forced your hand and you've realized that no matter what you do, violence will always be the only real way out, so you fall back onto the dark path you tried to stray from.
Or perhaps you took his invitation the moment you received it, only to be scared away from the Divide and flee from your past for most of the game.
It's fairly linear, but it has decisions where it matters.
If it had been more than the one character, Lonesome Road would have suffered immensely; but since it's just the one, Ulysses benefits from it, as it comes off as his actual personality rather than just the stubborn way all people speak in that world.
I think Ulysses, and Lonesome Road in general, was a very strong final chapter before the battle of Hoover Dam. The decisions the Courier has to make and the general hardships of the DLC make for quite a few character-defining moments.
Perhaps you were a cold-blooded killer who eventually learned that murder solves nothing, so you spare the man and the two nations under your thumb.
Or perhaps you've tried to learn mercy, but the madman in the missile silo forced your hand and you've realized that no matter what you do, violence will always be the only real way out, so you fall back onto the dark path you tried to stray from.
Or perhaps you took his invitation the moment you received it, only to be scared away from the Divide and flee from your past for most of the game.
It's fairly linear, but it has decisions where it matters.
SarcasticGoodGuy
*R O T T E N*
I still liked the DLC and Ulysses to some extent. He's a well written character, I just don't get why Chris would want to nuke everything to hell again. It's already happened, they're not Bethesda- they don't need to repeat major plot points so that the fans can keep track of what's going on.
Lonesome Road would be a 7/10 for me, lower than every other NV DLC but by no means bad (unless of course you use the IGN scoring system of everything below 8 is unplayable).
Brivoo
Powered by Radiant AI
I'd rate it higher than Honest Hearts, if only because I found that it felt more like an intermission rather than part of the larger arc. It was still good, but it was just kind of there.
I did love all the new crafting recipes, though, since I was using a character with high Survival.
I think the point, this time, was that you could stop it. Ulysses is a madman, and sparing him is more of a dangerous mercy than anything else.
The whole theme of the game is letting go of the past, and Ulysses wants to reset the world so that it may start fresh because of what has happened in his and yours. It's history repeating itself, and your job is to break the cycle before it even occurs, allowing yourself and the world to be free of past sins.
At the same time, Obsidian isn't Bethesda; they're not going to limit you to only do one ending because it's the one they'd prefer. Nuclear Warheads are still a major tactical and strategic advantage; if your character is a ruthless bastard or some similar thing, they won't stop you from ending the world again. Maybe you're like Ulysses, maybe you have an ulterior motive. Character comes before everything.
CT Phipps
Carbon Dated and Proud
Lonesome Road is my second least favorite of the New Vegas DLC, which is different because while I respected Dead Man's Hand, I didn't enjoy playing it. Simultaneously, I enjoyed playing Lonesome Road but had a lot of problems with it. It's a nihilistic and dark story which taints the Courier's narrative arc if you've played them as a heroic figure.
Basically, no matter what you've accomplished as the Savior of the Wasteland, you've unwittingly been party to the mass murder of a civilization every bit as well-developed as Shady Sands in Fallout 2. There's also the fact "flayed human beings" is a bit different than what I expect from Fallout.
It's a depressing and nihilistic story which is, of course, the point.
In a way, I think Lonesome Road really does underscore the idea behind the Bethesda take on the Falloutverse. That the reason society doesn't rebuild after 200 years is that the human survivors of the new world tears it apart.
Basically, no matter what you've accomplished as the Savior of the Wasteland, you've unwittingly been party to the mass murder of a civilization every bit as well-developed as Shady Sands in Fallout 2. There's also the fact "flayed human beings" is a bit different than what I expect from Fallout.
It's a depressing and nihilistic story which is, of course, the point.
In a way, I think Lonesome Road really does underscore the idea behind the Bethesda take on the Falloutverse. That the reason society doesn't rebuild after 200 years is that the human survivors of the new world tears it apart.
Going to interject here but I personally don't think Bethesda has some kind of philosophy behind keeping the Fallout universe in a perpetual crapsack state such as "human nature prevents rebuilding of civilization".
They keep it in this state because that is what they think Fallout is all about as do their fans.
In a way they are right, Fallout is about society after the bomb, but as the games have show, society rebuilds.
Sure, it is a slow painful process, having various problems such as the various raiders, mutants, and whatever mess the old world left behind such as still working robots and who knows what else.
Some places like the Sierra Madre and the Divide will probably never recover, and neither the NCR or the Legion will probably take all of North America or the American continents, but the human society will rebuild unless something else resets it. (some cache of nuclear weapons such as perhaps BOMB space station, a disease, a new army or threat that seeks to make the ruined Earth its own)
So no, Bethesda does not act on any kind of philosophy or reasoning here other than "Fallout should be about a post nuclear war North American wasteland"
They keep it in this state because that is what they think Fallout is all about as do their fans.
In a way they are right, Fallout is about society after the bomb, but as the games have show, society rebuilds.
Sure, it is a slow painful process, having various problems such as the various raiders, mutants, and whatever mess the old world left behind such as still working robots and who knows what else.
Some places like the Sierra Madre and the Divide will probably never recover, and neither the NCR or the Legion will probably take all of North America or the American continents, but the human society will rebuild unless something else resets it. (some cache of nuclear weapons such as perhaps BOMB space station, a disease, a new army or threat that seeks to make the ruined Earth its own)
So no, Bethesda does not act on any kind of philosophy or reasoning here other than "Fallout should be about a post nuclear war North American wasteland"