The Fallout New Vegas topic (might be spoilers)

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Figured we get an topic going here to discuss our playing experiences.

I currently have about under an hour now before the game unlocks for me. PC version here. (Gotta wait on west coast Steam... )
Those who got the console versions have probably already started.

For detailed info about the game, the Fallout wiki is quickly growing on NV info.
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Portal:Fallout:_New_Vegas

So far, DLC has been confirmed for winter release for the XBOX version(Lucky bastards :p ). Nothing on what it is yet though.

So I've been doing some thinking about how I'll approach my first play through.
I'm right now looking to make a female character who will specialize in stealth and hacking who will be generally good and side with the NCR, (I'm trying to the reverse of how approached Fallout 3. My male characters tended to be good while my females were evil). I have a vague idea for my male characters after that, a strong melee based neutral, and a big guns evil who sides with the Caesar's Legion.

Once I get started and all I'll post a bit more details about my character.

I'll be doing the hardcore mode which really doesn't sound as hard as it's made out to be. It's explained more in detail in this thread I found: http://forums.bethsoft.com/index.php?/t ... explained/

Oh, and it's currently suspected that the Wacky Wasteland trait includes alternate end credits. There's an alternate end credit file on my system for it... so, something?
I haven't thought if I'll do Wacky Wasteland on my first play through... I'm leaning towards saving it for my second play through.

I'll update later on after I start playing and give my initial impressions.

I'm installing it to my PS3 hard drive right now. I just got it at a midnight event I'm guessing I'll be spending a few hours in the character edit phase. I'll be playing as a girl but I don't know what I'll be doing with her. I am always good alignment with stealth and small weapons though

Okay so here's my character set-up:

Name: Sarai (Using the name of one my techie characters from another story so it fits)

Specializations in Guns, Repair, and Sneak.

Traits are Small Frame and Trigger Discipline

Strength: 4
Perception: 6
Endurance: 5
Charisma: 5
Intelligence: 7
Agility: 7
Luck: 6

So far I've pretty much explored the Goodsprings area and done the basic training quest in hunting geckos. Talked to everyone I found to get a idea of what was happening. Did one side-quest... a tiny one a at that in hunting more geckos and having some bastard try to trick me. Yeah, he dead now.
From here it looks like I'll be going to Primm to the Mojave Express office to follow the trail... or I could go investigate the NCR Prison nearby... (Oh well that is thing about Ringo too)

So, some initial thoughts... I like the feel, theme... Music sounds good. Graphics... about the same as vanilla F3. There's more junk to pick up if you're that kind of person. You can collect plants and herbs to make ... stuff. Empty gun casing can be reused to re-shell ammo... although I've found enough ammo to get by for now.
My lord though, the timescale moves too fast for my liking. I felt like I hardly did anything and two game days have passed already. Also... I don't know if it's just me, but the player runs kind... odd... It just doesn't look right.
Still don't care for the selection of hairstyles they offer... They still all look awful IMO for the women... the males aren't so bad.

Only ran into a couple of bugs so far. Can't change the button setting for the quicksave... the audio spazzed out when I tried, but it didn't crash the game. I did get one crash, but that was only on exiting the game... and I was quitting anyway, so no loss there. Performance wise the game defaulted to very high settings me, but I am noticing a bit of a stutter. I've just seen on another forum a couple having the same issue and suggesting lowering the water effects. Might try that later on today.

Anyway, my caffeine is wearing off so I'll get some sleep and continue on later.

Oh yeah, console users... Remember to clear your cache regularly to save yourself some serious headache.

I have been waiting for the FedEx truck to show up all morning, I am a nervous mess I can hardly wait. I am like a crackhead waiting for his next fix.

Okay, having my lunch and another break. Didn't actually sleep that much...

So I made some more progress... I helped and Ringo and killed some Powder Gangers. So now I'm on their s**t list but I don't really care.
Made my way south to Primm and fought more Powder Gangers(and looted all of them and sold their equipment. I have muchos caps now) People in Primm tell me to continue south to Nipton and then east to Novac.

But first, I wanted to explore a bit and go to the Strip... or maybe not... That was an experiment in futility. The entire area just north of Goodspring is one huge killzone. Can't even sneak my way through. I think the killer enemies in those areas are scripted to always take you out. No matter what they always know where I am and act like they're level 20+
So basically I gave up on trying to reach New Vegas after dying a few times so I tried going west instead... no dice. The mountains are a virtual wall.

I followed the mountains south back towards Primm... Found something interesting, some old wrecks with graffiti that appears to be taunting the courier?
A bit farther south and to west of Primm is another killzone? This one full of strong ghouls. Walked right into that one before I realized there were ghouls everywhere. Died a few times trying to work my out of it...

Anyway I continued south and reached the NCR Outpost. Did a side mission killing some bugs and that's where I'm at now. I love having the shotgun for killing bugs.

The game seems intent on me having to take the long way around to get to New Vegas, down south and through the east.

So, some other things of note so far...
I do sometimes keep having a glitch where enemies get stuck under the ground and I can't kill them. Very annoying...
Other thing is that I seem to get a perk every other level up instead of with each level... Again, that's kind of annoying. I'm not sure why that is. Is this the same with anyone else?

Enjoying it so far and not tired at all(considering I worked 8 hours yesterday and have only had about 3 hours of sleep...).

Fewer skill points and perks every other level are Fallout/Fallout2 (old school) rules!


Just got done with classes for the day. I still have a ton of homework for an online class left to do...

Once I'm done, I plan to play all night and then go to my writing workshop at 8:15 am...

At least I don't have work until Friday night!

Zara,

What do you think of Trigger Discipline as a trait?

I am looking forward to this, as I am huge fan of the Fallout franchise!

So I finally crashed... me, no the game. Fell asleep for three hours and just back up.

But not before finally making it to the Strip!

So picking up, I went to Nipton. First encounter with Caeser's Legion right there and boy does the game make them off to be evil bastards right off the bat,
So of course, I killed them all... which probably wasn't the smart thing to do since they were tough and my character isn't built for a firefight. Anyway, survived that, barely but had to drag myself back all the way to Goodsprings to fix my crippled injuries while making sure Legion goons weren't trying to follow me. Some did follow, but a few mines and a exploding car took care of them.

On the way back I went back through Primm and i was able to fix ED-E and got my first companion and his perk really does help in spotting enemies... like a mile away. Not that useful in combat though...

After that I didn't want to bother to go all the way back to Nipton so I searched for a way to reach the east side of the map and found a pass between the mountains... Just have to kill one Deathclaw, but no biggie right? (Had there been more, I would have been screwed since i used up most of my ammo sniping it to death) But I made it across and snuck my way over to the highway leading up to New Vegas. Passed through Novac and the 188 Trading Post where I found Veronica who just insisted she join me, so now I have 2 companions. I just kept following the highway north, sneaking and running ahead and eventually reached the New Vegas area.

Took me a bit to find a way in though... but the city is split into several sections. I went in through Freeside. Getting into the Strip though actually requires a passport(which maybe you get at some point in the wastes) or by having 2000 caps(You won't lose it, you just have to have 2000 caps on you).

Whee! The Strip is a busy area with many more NPCs around. I haven't perused it too much yet. Looked in the Gormorrah casino. It's a huge place. I guess all the casinos are going to vast inside. Wasn't really much to do there at the moment so I went to the Lucky 38 and met Mr. House.

Mr. House does reveal a lot of plot stuff so I won't spoil the details but i do know now who shot me in the beginning and where I can find them.

So some more thoughts... I'm wanting a hideout now to start stashing some loot and to keep my companions at. Still don't think I'm anywhere close to finding one...
I haven't found a single Snowglobe yet... but there's supposed to be one in the Lucky 38 somewhere so I'll start there.
Game has been running constantly since this morning and hasn't crashed at all. I'd say it's definitely running better than F3 did. Still got a bit of a framerate issue though.

Screenie time!

I'm going to pick it up wednesday and continue to browse the FO:FN mods site for any interesting mods to supplement my pc experience. =/

WooHOO!

Old school Fallout is back baby!! !

Finally got to play for a bit...

My character:

Name: Tanner

Tagged Skills: Guns, Repair, Survival

Traits: Built to Destroy, Wild Wasteland

Hardcore mode

Stats:

S 6
P 6
E 5
C 5
I 7
A 6
L 5

So, I got out of Doc Mitchell's place, donned my armored vaultsuit (vault 13), loaded my weathered 10mm pistol and filled my canteen... Then I found Sunny and started my tutorial quest. I never thought I'd get to hunt geckos in a fallout game again!! !!

Anyway, my first impressions are VERY POSITIVE. I love the original Fallout feel with the classic gear and the gecko hunting. I also like the iron sights. I'm going to TRY to play the game without VATS at all (guess we'll see).

The game looks and runs GREAT on my rig--a 2.5 year old I7 with and ATI 4850HD.

The only thing I'm mildly disappointed in is the HARDCORE mode... I wish it was harder. Oh well.

It's still early (I haven't left Goodsprings yet), but so far so good!

I'm still around good springs. I'm going to help the guy from the Crimson caravan as soon as I level. The Powder Gangers hate me... I've been preying on them quite a bit. I've been using the disguise mode (really nifty) to sneak around the prison and get some xp and gear!

I cleared a room of powder gangers with my 10mm in iron sights mode! It was fun, but I went through a lot of ammo!! ! I think I'm gonna have to get REX as my non-human companion just so he can sniff-out ammo for me!

I'm also liking the music... Just wish there was more Marty Robbins!

Well, back to the wasteland before my "Big Iron" gets too cold!

It's been a couple days now so I'll fill in a bit more now on my progress...

I spent a good portion of time just exploring the wastes and finding dozens of locations. After that I starting working on more quests, the rocket quest, Helios One, Caravan quests, and doing several quests to strengthen the NCR. I'm starting to get into the personal quests of my companions and have discovered the Brotherhood of Steel and some more about ED-E's Enclave origins. Still haven't done much in New Vegas yet, just holding off on advancing the main plot until I feel like continuing with it.

Oh yeah, right after that pic I got my hideout from Mr. House. About time...

Almost done with the Boomers questline, but I will give one piece of advice for those who haven't started that yet; Leave your companions behind when you start this, otherwise they'll get blown to smithereens and killed. You can come back for them later after you've made peace with the Boomers. Other than that, run like hell for the fence. (You'll know what I mean when you get there )

I tried doing a quest for Vault 34 but that became a no go. Took nearly everything I had to clear the first level of that place and the ghouls there are too strong to fight right now. I'm have to wait on that on that till later.

For anyone looking to make enemies out of the NCR, you better be careful. They aren't that tough, but they are everywhere. They have dozens of locations all around New Vegas... As now of now I've only come across about four Legion locations(maybe three now considering I had the NCR wipe out one). Haven't tried to cross the Colorado river yet... I imagine the other side is crawling with Legion...

Oh, and my most hated enemy now are the Carazors. God damn killer wasps. They're always in places where I want to go exploring and damn near impossible to shoot with iron sights and take a lot of bullets to take down. I've taken out more Deathclaws than Carazors now...

There are some fixes for the frame rate drops out there now and I've tried one and it seems to help. It's a modified .dll that can be found on NewVegasNexus. If anyone wants it I can point out where to get it.
Other than that, I'm using a pipboy mod that lets me view all my survival stats on one page now and I don't have scroll through lists so often.

AI pathing still has some issues... It hasn't been fixed much since Fallout 3. Seeing a message telling me my companion was killed way off screen somewhere because they weren't following behind me does not make me a happy explorer. I have seen my companions take the most bizarre routes to reach me when I get too far ahead of them even when there shouldn't be anything blocking them...

Also ED-E has some strange propensity to want to get really close to enemies with it's laser and this often gets itself killed. Veronica doesn't have nearly so much a problem since her power fist is quite powerful. She often steals kills from me with her one shot punch. Only other companions I've found so far are Cass, Lilly and Arcade Gannon. Cass isn't recruitable until you complete the caravan quests, Arcade Gannon is in the Mormon Fort in Freeside, and Lilly is in Jacobstown far to the west. REX should be with the King gang in Freeside but I haven't poked around them yet. No idea where Boone is yet.

I've found four of the snowglobes thus far. Saw no need to keep them so I sold to Mr. House. I have nearly 10000 caps now. I spend most of my money on buying water, doctor's bags and gun mods.

I keep hearing there's a doctor that can do implants somewhere that can boost your SPECIAL points and other enhancements... Somewhere near Freeside but I haven't been able to find him yet. I mean I got the money to do some enhancements, just can't find the guy.

That's it for now.

As a long time player of Bethesdas games, which i have loved played over the years, and Fallout 3 as well, i went home after work, installed my new ATI 5770 card with EyeFinity (multi monitor support), i expectedly put the DVD in the tray at around 18:00 CET, and after 3 hours i can wholeheartedly say:

f**k STEAM!

I'm still liking the game a lot! I'm taking things very slowly. So, far I've managed to piss of the Powder Gangers and the Legion, but I'm trying not to suck up to the NCR too much...

I'm currently in NoVac. I just finished the rocket factory thing and still need to deal with Boone and several unmarked quests in the area before moving on.

I must say, between my self-imposed no VATS/only guns rule and the new combat model, the game is very challenging! So far, my favorite shooting iron is the Cowboy Repeater. It's good for most people /ghouls/smaller animals, but I've yet to find a gun that's effective for higher level Super mutants, deathclaws, giant radscorpions or those damn wasp things!! !! That's okay... It's good to live in fear. I can't remember being scared of anything in FO3.

It's too bad that I'm in the middle of the midterm grind. I probably won't get much more playtime 'till Thanksgiving!


I notice a lot of people over at Bethsoft b!tching about how empty the game world is and how uninvolving the story is... I just don't get them. I LOVE the story and I've yet to run out of things to do (NoVac feels like Fallout 2 in 3D).

It seems you either love the story/style or you hate it.

Here's my take: Fallout 3 is a Disney movie with its find Daddy/help the altruistic Brotherhood (where'd they get that?) save the wasteland plot, while New Vegas is a REVENGE FLICK (think Kill Bill) with its hunt-down-the-scumbags-who-shot-me plot...

I guess it's a matter of taste.