The Shrine

Sadly, i have never played a Fallout game, but i will probably get this one on STeam tonight when i get home from work as i need something new and cool to play. F3 got great reviews and i just realized now that that one takes place in DC, which would have been fun for me to run around in since i live there. Maybe i'll play it after New Vegas.

Anyways, what to expect from this series? I see its role playing, but its really FPS role playing, right? Alla Bioshock kinda?

No, not really at all. The VATS fighting system freezes time so that you can make targeted shots on specific body parts and targets. This allows precise strikes using statistics more than your reaction time. There's a fairly deep statistics system that typically doesn't go up as you level. Instead you put points into skills as you level and you gain perks that tweak your skills.

Not to mention the ACTUAL role playing and dialog.

Expect a dark series crafted by a lot of the original developers from the first two games when you're playing New Vegas. I'm not really that far in and there's already human slavery, cannibalism, and crucifixion. The game can also become cruelly unforgiving at times if you move into areas ill-equipped. Don't judge combat too harshly in the beginning - it can feel more clunky because of a low skill level in the weapon you're using and the weapon being in low condition. Also the combat is slightly clunky.

Ok cool, i look forward to it, even with clunky combat. Its getting great reviews.

As a side point, my hesitancy to play Fallout 3 and this one is due to the fact that every game is a sequel now, which is really annoying. I havent pickup up other popular games like Left 4 Dead, too, because i feel like i'll be missing something by not having played the first. Obviously, a lot of these games are stand alone, but psychologically it still bothers me when i play a #2,#3, or #4 without having played the predecessors. The industry needs to market better, imo.

Most of the Fallout series is independent of each other, so it's easy to pick up and go. There's a few things here and there that pop up from older stories, but nothing that would get you lost.

Fallout 3 is an awesome game. You can find the GotY edition with all of the DLC on it. It's easily 100 hours of fun gameplay.

Yeah you'll still experience and appreciate the vast majority of the content if you haven't played 1 and 2. Hell, Bethesda made 3 on the opposite coast just because they felt like messing with Interplay's canon would be fucked up. I've played the original two and the only things from the previous games that I've found so far are wink-wink-head-nods basically.

SineSwiper wrote:Most of the Fallout series is independent of each other, so it's easy to pick up and go. There's a few things here and there that pop up from older stories, but nothing that would get you lost.

Fallout 3 is an awesome game. You can find the GotY edition with all of the DLC on it. It's easily 100 hours of fun gameplay.

Maybe its simply worth getting #3 and all the content for the same price as the new one. Or just #3 without the DLC is $30 as opposed to $60. I hear it isnt too much different the more i read about it.

If you're going to get Fallout 3 then get the GOTY version with the DLC bundle or you're going to regret it later.

Flip wrote:

SineSwiper wrote:Most of the Fallout series is independent of each other, so it's easy to pick up and go. There's a few things here and there that pop up from older stories, but nothing that would get you lost.

Fallout 3 is an awesome game. You can find the GotY edition with all of the DLC on it. It's easily 100 hours of fun gameplay.

Maybe its simply worth getting #3 and all the content for the same price as the new one. Or just #3 without the DLC is $30 as opposed to $60. I hear it isnt too much different the more i read about it.

You get 5 extra DLCs that run about 3-4 hours each in length. So you can determine if $30 = 5 additional hours of gameplay.

Great thing is, if you know someone who already has the GOTY edition, you can just borrow the disc and install them. You don't need to verify to play the DLC.

Just started playing New Vegas. Playing a female this time, partially for the Black Widow trait, and then I realized that they fixed that problem by adding a "same sex" trait, so I could have played a male and done that. Oh well. Funny that they fixed a lot of things about the difficulty with the hardcore mode. I'm sticking with it, since Fallout 3 ends up being easy in the mid to end game.

Plus, I'm working towards a neutral character. I'll help out the towns folk, but I'm not against stealing their shit, and I think I'm going to get the Cannibal perk. I already played the goodie-twoshoes role in Fallout 3.

They did a better job with the combat difficulty. I've felt fragile throughout the entire game even with a fairly combat-geared character. In my upper teens death claws could still practicallly three hit me and the more powerful 'boss' dreadclaws could all but one hit me. Armor and damage thresholds play into many weapons being completely useless later. This makes deathclaws all but invulnerable. The only gun that I found could do anything against them was the sniper rifle and even that was very helped out by critical hits.

Also I've been stealing shit all game and I'm still rated in good karma.

My biggest issue with Vegas is you really have to have points in speech to solve certain quests or even advance in them. This goes to a lesser extent in other skills, too (repair, science, barter, and medicine). I have a feeling wanting to play again is going to be a certainty. Especially after seeing what melee weapons can do.

Shrinweck wrote:They did a better job with the combat difficulty. I've felt fragile throughout the entire game even with a fairly combat-geared character. In my upper teens death claws could still practicallly three hit me and the more powerful 'boss' dreadclaws could all but one hit me. Armor and damage thresholds play into many weapons being completely useless later. This makes deathclaws all but invulnerable. The only gun that I found could do anything against them was the sniper rifle and even that was very helped out by critical hits.

Also I've been stealing shit all game and I'm still rated in good karma.

My biggest issue with Vegas is you really have to have points in speech to solve certain quests or even advance in them. This goes to a lesser extent in other skills, too (repair, science, barter, and medicine). I have a feeling wanting to play again is going to be a certainty. Especially after seeing what melee weapons can do.

I am a lot more fragile in FO:NV (3 STR, 3 END, Small Frame trait, Hard w/ Hardcore mode...). That's probably as fragile as you can get, lol. I actually like it a lot better...I am playing careful and cautious, I have to or I will end up splattered. Mines scare the crap out of me.

The armour/DR aspect of the combat really changes things up too. I don't care how pimped out your Varmit rifle is, as even with the right type of ammo, killing a full grown Deathclaw with it will probably not happen. Also, my first character is a sniper type...I'm not sure if I am alone in this, but I've been using non-VATS combat mostly. It just *feels* a lot more polished than it did in FO3 (the mod scopes allow for some impressive distance). From what I read, Obsidian tweaked VATS to support melee combat a lot. I haven't tried melee yet, but apparently there are special attacks that are VAT-only and that sort of thing. Obviously, at some point, I will have a character with minimum INT and melee-only...just has to be done

As for speech, I have high speech in this run and I feel the same way you do -- I wish I had higher in other skills to tackle certain quests (especially the crafting skills and barter). Even though NV is smaller in size than FO3, I think Obsidian did a good job mixing it all up...skills can lead to different ways to complete things or open up entirely new side quests. Which Faction you support dictates which quests you can get in the same areas. Definitely the sorta game you want to play through multiple times, with multiple builds.

Anyway, fun game but pretty buggy.

kali o. wrote:I am a lot more fragile in FO:NV (3 STR, 3 END, Small Frame trait, Hard w/ Hardcore mode...). That's probably as fragile as you can get, lol. I actually like it a lot better...I am playing careful and cautious, I have to or I will end up splattered. Mines scare the crap out of me.

Tell me about it. I'm playing a luck/int build with some agi/per on Hardcore. So, explosives do a lot of limb damage, and limb damage really sucks to try to heal. The Doc bags only tackle one at a time. Otherwise, you just need to fast travel to a doc when you first get the chance.

Though, I think I'm already gimped on my traits from what I've read, so I'm going to see if I can do the rebuild right before I leave the first town, since I'm still at level 2-3. I hope it works for traits.

Not getting a perk every level sucks, but I can see why they balanced it like that. In Fallout 3, I was sometimes left trying to figure out what perk to get, since so many suck or require a lot of skill in something.

I'm only about two hours in. Went the same route as Kali --with a weaking-- but no hardcore (normal!). I put perception, intelligence, and charisma at 9 to start (anticipating bobbleheads for +1 to each), with I think 3-4 in str/end and 1 luck.

I haven't died yet but came close being chased along a stretch by a giant radscorpion, using stimpacks when my health would get low. I eventually got it caught behind the steps at the Yangtze Monument. My current weapons do little vs. armor, so it was not a fight I could win.

Fun so far! Fallout boner all over again. Just wish I had plenty of free time.

There are no bobbleheads. You can get implants that give +1 to each skill depending on your endurance but that costs four thousand caps per implant and the amount you can get is limited by your endurance.

Blotus wrote:I'm only about two hours in. Went the same route as Kali --with a weaking-- but no hardcore (normal!). I put perception, intelligence, and charisma at 9 to start (anticipating bobbleheads for +1 to each), with I think 3-4 in str/end and 1 luck.

Bah, hardcore mode is fairly easy so far. I guess it's too late to turn it on, unless you sped through the quests and stuff real quick.

Also, luck matters a lot. I love luck. My gimped Fallout 3 character was 5s on everything and 10 luck. Now, I've built it a bit better, but it does look like that charm matters more in this game. (It was fairly useless in F3.) You're probably going to get a lot of unlucky hits in by enemies and critical misses all the time.

Shrinweck wrote:There are no bobbleheads. You can get implants that give +1 to each skill depending on your endurance but that costs four thousand caps per implant and the amount you can get is limited by your endurance.

Lame. So every build that counts would have to have a lot of endurance. I'm sure the best build would be 10 END, and 40,000 caps, with a SPECIAL or two perk.

I usually set my luck to 3 to be honest. You can offset how ineffective it is by getting perks and things that up your critical hit chance. Of course with 10 luck you'd constantly be critting and tearing shit up I imagine, but I'd rather have near-10 agility and perception. I think by the end of the game I had something like 6 strength, 10 perception (four eyes trait, wearing a +1 perception hat), 6 endurance (which I think let me have four implants, including the +1 endurance implant), 4 or 5 charisma, 7 intelligence, 9 agility, and 3 luck.

I just beat the game and I must say it's a very satisfying ending, especially compared to the snooze fest of the main story line in Fallout 3... Although I do think Fallout 3 had the stronger final mission. And it even ended with an old school Fallout slide show of the consequences your actions had on the wasteland.

Up to level 8. Decided to wipe out the Powder Gangers for fun at the prison. Made the mistake of going to Black Mt without killing all of the super mutants, so I rescued Raul, and every super mutant was after us. Fortunately, I could kill one of them, then dive into the shelter, and repeat. Looks like I could have had help to kill the guys over there, but I just happened to wander over there.

Decided against the Cannibal perk. It doesn't give enough health for what it is. Also, it's really hard to try to make a Neutral character. You basically have to kill bad guys in one town and kick puppies in the next. Why can't I steal a crapload of items and kill bad guys?

It's getting annoying trying to find RadAway. Weight is also annoying, too, but at least I have Raul for a mule.

Still haven't found a Vault yet. Love exploring those Vaults, but there's not a lot of the "leftover stories" type quests that I've seen. (You know, exploring a empty place with computers and hints of a previous life.)

Stealing is hardly comparable to wiping out a town of innocents. With a karma system where the extremes of your actions are what make you who you are stealing is hardly even a 1 out of 10 in the wasteland. From a quick Google check the karma system is out of 1000 to -1000 and stealing per item is -5, so, steal a lot more? :D

Yeah RadAway is fairly difficult to find and I didn't find myself with a decent surplus in my inventory until the mid to late teen levels. I think the way I went about this was just going to every settlement I'd discovered and going to the doctors and buying up any I could find..

I've started up a hardcore character with basically the same build as my last one but I've been going for science and speech right off the bat so I can see more of the game. It's not as difficult as I thought it would be - purified water is pretty easy to hoard and you hardly ever have to eat and sleeping for an hour here and there for the well rested bonus was something I was already doing - so meh. Ammo having weight totally blows though and I actually had someone insta-kill headshot me when I still had the majority of my health so that was interesting. My guess is if I wasn't such a wuss and turned up the difficulty finding things would be more difficult. Oh and I've been putting points into survival where I can.

I still haven't noticed anything wacky with the wild wasteland trait though :(

Shrinweck wrote:I still haven't noticed anything wacky with the wild wasteland trait though

Neither have I, unless that's what's been causing all the bug and crashes. Sometimes they're neat, though. For instance, I went into the NCR's outpost in south Mojave, walked into a set of cubicles and saw a soldier typing away on a keyboard and staring at me -- only there was no keyboard! Or computer! Creepy!

Shrinweck wrote:I still haven't noticed anything wacky with the wild wasteland trait though

It'll tells you when there is something "wacky", from what little I played with it. After a bit, I rebuild the character to take off the trait.

The difficulty is annoying in some places. I've yet to kill a deathclaw, or a giant radscorp. Anything that requires 50 shots to kill shouldn't exist. It has just plain blocked me from going to certain places. The other thing that blocks me is invisible walls. I don't remember much of this in Fallout 3, but man, they really don't want you to go over certain mnts. For example, it looks like the entire west mountainside is blocked off, and the mountainside east of the prison is the same way. I even found a traincar in a canyon that I could hop over to get to the west side, but there's another damn invisible wall.

This is also a very buggy game. There's clipping issues quite a bit, and sometimes the PIPboy doesn't come into view (like the camera misses my arm). I also had a minor character die (Sgt. McGee) because there's a bug where he random appears in a far off location whenever you're travelling, and sometimes he falls to his death. (Had to look it up on the Wiki to see WTF was going on when I got the death message.)

Sorry, it seems like I'm bitching about the game, but I figured I should get all of that out. Overall, the game is good, but it could have used a few more months in development/beta testing.

The invisible walls keep you from taking routes to places that could possibly screw things up, or whatever *shrug* I've gotten over them (edit: unintended pun) now that I know how to get places. To get through the western mountains just go north by road and take the roads south into them - ends up not taking all that long. They probably should have done a better job with making it more like an impassable terrain obstacle. Hey, it's better than that border in LOTRO where you either have to further the main quest or you die once you cross it.

I've found the only weapon that can take out deathclaws and giant radscorpions in the "guns" family is the sniper rifle and you're still going to be unloading three to five rounds per deathclaw into those fuckers. On the bright side the quests that are involved with their territory don't have to be done until much later.

Also I take back what I said about wild wasteland. I was just attacked by three grandmothers with rolling pins.

I'm switching to Very Easy because there no longer an incentive to playing it hard. In Fallout 3, I played stuff on Very Hard for the XP bonus, but a loading hint in F:NV specifically called that out, saying that there was no XP bonus. Besides, even on Very Easy (and still on Hardcode Mode), Deathclaws still rip you a new one, including my partners which die in two seconds after a few of them gets into melee range.

Psst...there are different ammo types for a reason, slackers.

kali o. wrote:Psst...there are different ammo types for a reason, slackers.

Yeah, and the special ammo types are broken. They are hard to buy and hard to find. The new Reloading Bench is also broken for the same reasons. You can't buy casings/primer, and you can't find casings/primer. You can breakdown ammo to get that, but you would be essentially cannibalizing the same type of ammo to get those type of casings/primer, because those two are fairly specific (unlike lead and powder). I have plenty of leftover ammo, but not for the guns I use. On those, I'm switching between a few different guns with different ammo types when I run out.

And god forbid you give anything but the stock/default weapons to a companion. They like to burn through your ammo stash like it was fucking water. I'd love to find the "QUIT SHOOTING FROM SO FUCKING FAR AWAY... YOU'RE NOT GOING TO HIT ANYTHING AT THAT DISTANCE!" option on the companion wheel, but alas, it's not on there.

You can find/buy casings, it's powder and primer you can't find. I get the special ammo being rare.. it's special ammo. You can usually stash away enough if you buy them at random vendors and then the vendors that carry lots of ammo tend to also have lots of special ammo (the quartermaster at Camp McCarran comes to mind). Also, yeah, fuck companions in hardcore mode. Are you still playing hardcore mode in the hope of the special reward it touts? Because all that shit is is the achievement. The woes with permanent companion death alone were enough for me to have never even finished hardcore mode in the first place. The only mechanic that I miss from hardcore is the healing over time... I liked how if I couldn't heal myself until I was practically dead then I was probably going to die any way unless I did something fancy as the stims took effect whereas in normal mode I can go from 1hp to full instantly, so death isn't something to worry about unless I'm caught by surprise. Or a deathclaw.

Shrinweck wrote:Also, yeah, fuck companions in hardcore mode. Are you still playing hardcore mode in the hope of the special reward it touts? Because all that shit is is the achievement. The woes with permanent companion death alone were enough for me to have never even finished hardcore mode in the first place.

Ummm...I thought it was permanent in Fallout 3. I always reloaded my game when I got that "somebody had died" message.

Besides, I like hardcore mode. Frankly, I wished it was harder. It should reward people like me that are through pack ratters. I have so much stuff in a crate in Goodsprings (which I need to transfer to Novac actually), that I will never go hungry or die of dehydration ever. I have a lot of stuff, just not a lot of ammo, except for ammo that I don't need.

And some of these perk requirements suck. Why do I need 70 barter for the Pack Rat perk?

I never cared to take any companions in Fallout 3. Companions certainly don't die permanently in New Vegas when playing on non-hardcore.

Ok so i got the game and sank some hours into it, but i bet i will not finish it. This thing is an MMORPG without the MMO. I dont like games where i spend 2 hours playing and dont progress at all because all i was doing was looking through shops/houses and trying to make equipment. Dare i say that some games need to be NOT so open ended? In my old age, i like linear. Tell me where to go, i'll go do it. I dont mind straying off the path a little, but geez, i dont know what im doing in this game.

After the opening town, i told myself fuck it, im going to vegas, this is what the game is about, right? So i didnt really stop at the little camps in between or do much of anything. Now im in freeside trying to figure out how to get actually in vegas and doing side quests that dont progress me at all in the mean time.

The game expects people to have played before i think. I looked in the controls mapping but i dont see any buttons that bring up a MAP or QUEST list. One loading tip told me that holstering your weapon might make people stop shooting at you, but i dont see what button puts away your weapon so WTF. Someone please at least tell me how to do those 3 tasks.

I feel as if this could be 8 games in one with the amount of stuff there is to do. I wish i went all physical and just ran around bashing peoples brain in with a bat. In fact, i might go do that and make this thing a little interesting. I'll be the ultimate bat basher who also tries to pick up chicks. Booya.

The game does go over those things but not really as well as it could, I guess. Those of us that have played Fallout games in the past appreciate them not holding our hands through everything. Hit tab to pull out your pip-boy and you can view your stats, the condition of your limbs, radiation, reputation under the Stats stuff. Items has your, uh, if you haven't figured that out I can't help you. Data is the third thing and has your maps and quest stuff, if you highlight/click a quest it shows you where to go on your compass for it.

Have you found the entrance to Vegas? You do need two thousand caps to get into New Vegas proper.

To holster your weapon hold R (reload), but that tip isn't going to work the vast majority of the time.

Not sure I get the MMORPG comparison other than there being tons of things to do. At no points have I had to go to an area to grind powder gangers for four hours.

Shrinweck wrote:The game does go over those things but not really as well as it could, I guess. Those of us that have played Fallout games in the past appreciate them not holding our hands through everything. Hit tab to pull out your pip-boy and you can view your stats, the condition of your limbs, radiation, reputation under the Stats stuff. Items has your, uh, if you haven't figured that out I can't help you. Data is the third thing and has your maps and quest stuff, if you highlight/click a quest it shows you where to go on your compass for it.

Ok, obvioulsy ive been using my pip, but i guess i didnt notice a data tab with all that info, that is pretty logical.

Shrinweck wrote:Have you found the entrance to Vegas? You do need two thousand caps to get into New Vegas proper.

I dont know yet. I thought Freeside was just outside vegas or connected to it somehow. I'll just keep doing stuff there until i figure it out. I guess The Kings run that town and i'll probably have to help or destroy them.

Shrinweck wrote:Not sure I get the MMORPG comparison other than there being tons of things to do. At no points have I had to go to an area to grind powder gangers for four hours.

I just meant that when i play i have the same gut feeling as playing an MMO. When i tried those games, i also spent hours doing nothing. I like to feel good about the 5 hours a week i can pump into a game. On Sunday all i did was move from one camp to another while dodging big ass bad guys that wreck me. When i got the 2nd camp (freeside) i only had time to talk to a dozen people and sell some stuff. The dialogue takes forever! I like wordy games and good stories, but for some reason this game really drags it out with uselessness.

Heh, I have more fun exploring locations than actually progressing the story. I'm about 40 hours in, and I'm only past Novac in the story, but I have about the 50 or so locations discovered in that south-center square between Goodsprings, Outpost, Searchlight, and Novac. Still haven't found a Vault, but I think they are further north.

The entrance to Vegas is really close to the Kings, it's in the same 'zone' as their building. It's the entrance surrounded by robots. And yeah, Sine, you're right about the vaults.

You can also get into New Vegas for 500 caps
I'm melee. 8 str, 7 int, 7 charisma, 5 perception, 5 end, 5 agility, 5 luck

I'm up level 23 now. Playing on normal. 100 melee, 100 speech, 90 lockpicking, 77 science, 75 guns, 58 repair.

Enjoying the game, but not the crashes. I save all the time now, so it doesn't impact me much. I'm liking running around with a Super Sledge and Sniper Rifle. Using Boone as a companion, and he just rapes everything. Kinda wish I went unarmed after seeing what the lvl 100 fist weapons can do.

Yeah but getting into Vegas for 500 caps is a COST while the 2000 is just a check and you get to keep it all.

Ok, the games becomes infinitely more fun just by having the ability to choose a quest and letting the compass lead you around. I'm doing quests and getting good exp and buying wicked energy guns which i specialized in.

Cant believe i didnt realize where the quests were, what has happened to my supreme gaming powersssss......

Don't forget that the unfilled triangles are unexplored areas. I'm usually not paying attention to the quests and just going for those.

Man, I just came back from Vault 11. Fucking creepy. That kind of experience is the reason why I try to look for these things specifically.

Yeah Vault 11 holds perhaps my favorite moments of discovery in the entire game. And once you get to the end... woo I was pretty surprised.

I think the compass is screwed up a little, though. (Spoiler for a Freeside quest)

Finding the sexbot involves

Shrinweck wrote:Yeah but getting into Vegas for 500 caps is a COST while the 2000 is just a check and you get to keep it all.

Well i got in for free anyway:

Some of the dialogue is really funny so far, specifically the foul-mouthed Cass at the south Mojave NCR outpost and Davison the nightkin in the power plant basement. I had to shoot the cattle skull to see if he'd react and he certainly did! I just finished the power plant sequence, details below:

Response to Blotus' post about the Come Fly With Me quest:

Shrinweck wrote:Response to Blotus' post about the Come Fly With Me quest:

The one thing I do hate is no-win situations, like Vault 34's reactor. It's one thing to do the evil thing in favor of something good, but that one was just a no-win. HELIOS One is another deal, since if you do the evil thing, you can get this sweet weapon, but then you're going to have a problem getting people like Boone. I struggled with which route to go on that one.

I mean, they want you to play the game over again as a bad guy, but who has time to play the game for another 100 hours? This game has almost TOO much replay value.

Also I had no problem killing a handful of families in order to save the agriculture of an entire region. Maybe if I had actually gotten to meet them.

Shrinweck wrote:Also I had no problem killing a handful of families in order to save the agriculture of an entire region.

Yeah, that's ultimately the choice I made, too.

What I found jarring about the choice is it practically came out of nowhere.

In regards to the thing about the thing...

Ah I thought it meant Followers of the Apocalypse.

Blotus wrote:Some of the dialogue is really funny so far, specifically the foul-mouthed Cass at the south Mojave NCR outpost and Davison the nightkin in the power plant basement. I had to shoot the cattle skull to see if he'd react and he certainly did! I just finished the power plant sequence, details below:

Spoiler: show

Although I had a lot of difficulty killing a couple of the Nightkins in order to find the trapped Ghoul's dead friend, I really dug this quest. Seems like there were sooo many ways it could have played out. I wanted to make everybody happy so I stealthed past most of the nightkins to find the dead ghoul, got the trapped ghoul (can't remember name) to leave so I could find the info for Davison, got the nightkins to leave, and eventually got the ghouls to leave minus Chris. I convinced Chris that he was a human but that he should help Jason's ghouls on their trip to the Great Expanse or whatever, as they'd revere him as a saint. Despite Jason's bullshit new religious movement, I helped them with a safe launching of the rockets. I rationalized the almost certain deaths of Jason and his followers by hoping that they'd find -even in almost certain death - some happiness they would have not otherwise found in their shitty existence hiding in a power plant.

I had to think about this one a lot, and that's good scenario planning. I hope I find the crashed rockets somewhere later on, but I doubt I will.

Good ol Cass

Currently playing with Veronica, since I wanted to get into those bunkers. Awfully funny watching her beat the shit out of enemies with her power fist, but she can't soak up a lot of damage. Currently in Vault 3, and she tends to run into a group of enemies a lot and gets herself killed before I can start shotgunning/headshotting them.