Fallout: New Vegas

[bkfount]

Re: Fallout: New Vegas

I'm sure combat and some of the mechanics will be refined, but I wouldn't expect huge sweeping changes. Given it's being developed by a number of people who have actually worked on the previous games, I do expect a darker tone, more humor, moral decisions that aren't black and white, and better writing (Obsidian's strength).

great, because the moral decisions and mission writing in Fallout 3 kind of sucked too. They were either very shallow, or didn't even make sense. Some examples include the laughable gaping plot hole at the original ending with Hawkes, vampires, and when ghouls wanted to live in tenpenny tower.

I still enjoyed the game enough to absolutely love a refined sequel, with some better writing.

[Flawless]

Re: Fallout: New Vegas

Info:

http://www.bethsoft.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1074051&st=0&start=0

• First-person action RPG with the same engine as Fallout 3.
• Set in the Mojave wastelands. Vegas didn't get many nukes. More intact buildings, as well as desert vegetation. Vegas itself is mostly intact.
• The Hoover Dam is in the game and is supplying electricity to the city.
• You don't play a Vault Dweller (or descendant of one) but a courier, left for dead and saved by a friendly robot.
• The overarching story is a struggle between the locals, Caesar's Legion (a faction of slavers from the east) and the New Californian Republic.
• NCR base is the McCarran Airport, Caesar's Legion is based in the Vegas Strip, while super mutants are based in a place called Black Mountain. There is also a town called Fremont and another called Primm. A topless revue is mentioned as being in the latter.
• Both karma and reputation are tracked. If I'm reading it right there's separate reputations for each of the settlements, as in Fallout 1 and 2.
• All dialogue options are shown to all players, regardless of whether you have the stats to succeed or not, though there's no punishment for failure.
• Skills have a bigger effect on conversation choices. e.g. someone with a high Explosives skill may be able to have a conversation about explosives where appropriate.
• Bartering is not just lower prices but negotiating for better rewards.
• VATS returns, and melee weapons have special moves in it. The golf club has "Fore!", which is a shot to the golf balls (so to speak) that knocks the opponent down. Weapons also now have knock-back upon death, with shotguns sending mans flying.
• Super Mutants return, but in two varieties - the smarter ones from Fallout 1, and the idiot ones from Fallout 2. On at least one occasion you can convince them to fight amongst themselves.
• New weapons include what appears to be an M4 and a grenade machine gun.
• Followers can be managed through a context-sensitive menu, with orders like "follow", "stay" or "attack".
• Hardcore Mode! In this mode, Stimpacks heal over time (as opposed to instantly), combat is tougher, ammo has weight and you can suffer dehydration, so keep some water on you! Normal mode is more similar to Fallout 3 gameplay.
• There is a quest to rescue a ghoul from some super mutants. The ghoul can then become your companion.
• The Geckos are back.
• One of the screenshots has a Super Mutant with a blond wig and pink heart-shaped glasses.

More context for somethings:

• You're a courier, wounded and left for dead in a shallow grave. A friendly robot, Victor, digs you out, and his doctor owner Mitchell patches you up. You take a "vigour test", which is some sort of electric parlour game. This decides who you are and sets up SPECIAL. You can also take some Rorschach tests, but the mag says this is for fun. The Doc then gives you a Pipboy as he was once a Vault dweller.

• "Hoover Dam", and "Helios" (a solar plant, confirmed by the mag to have been built by Poseidon) are fought into and then you can direct the power to wherever you choose. In the case of Helios you can also keep the plant for your self use the energy to call down a powerful laser, or even try to distribute to all equally, however there is a risk of overloading the reactors.

• There is a "reputation system", in which all three factions (NCR, Caesar's Legion and the locals) will either see you as good or bad toward them individually.

• There is a screenshot of three Capital Wasteland mutants running toward the player, who is wielding what *looks* to be a heavy incinerator, but has a TV screen and no flamer fuel tanks. He's also wearing NCR combat armour, which is in gold/mustard colours.

• There are two separate screens of supermutants that look to be more local, grey skin, and the two are wearing very different clothes. One is Tabitha, who is hearing a blond wig and love heart glasses. The mag implies she's "not all there".

• One that quest, you rescue Raul, a ghoul who Tabitha kept alive to fix her favourite robot. He appears to be a follower, as the mag says you can give him items, and also commands, such as "stay, follow or attack", and also tell him to switch to melee, in which case he'll mutter "sure, I'll put away my rather effective gun, and switch to this piece of um, metal tubing here".

• From what I read, the "all dialog" thing seems to imply there will be failures for skill checks as well as speech checks, though, as the mag states, there is no penalty for failing a skill check. In fact, the mag gives an example: A woman who the player tried a Sneak skill attempt on in conversation failed when convincing her an ambush would help the town be rid of a gang of raiders. She simply says ""Good luck with your, uh, ambush"

J.E. Sawyer (Project Director)

This is how it works. Each skill-based dialogue option has two different texts: one for high skill (which will result in success) and one for low skill (which will result in failure). If you do not meet the required threshold, you see the latter.

There are a few reasons for including this:

• In the same way that a locked safe beyond your Lockpicking skill indicates, it lets the player know that there's an option here.
• Some of the NPC responses to low skill checks can be pretty entertaining.

I also do want to clarify what is meant by "no penalty for failure". All it means is that you won't wind up in a worse position than you were before selecting it. If a dude bursts in and is intent on killing you, he's still going to want to kill you if you fail the Speech check to talk him out of it.

[bkfount]

Re: Fallout: New Vegas

Hardcore mode kind of sounds like the Fallout Wanderer's Edition mod for the PC. Awesome.

Sure, the ending in Fallout 3 was supposed to have some relevance to the improvement of society, but the game failed it. Why should I care about the miracle of purified water, when I went through the whole game without having to even drink a drop of any water at all? Food was just as radioactive, so it was largely ignored too, unless I was too poor to afford stimpaks at the moment.

It'll be cool to play the game with a higher difficulty caused by survival, rather than just raising the number of bullets a deathclaw can take to the face.

[Jistic]

Re: Fallout: New Vegas

Sounds like I'm all in. Very excited!

[WeLLWeLL]

Re: Fallout: New Vegas

Awesome.

[Misfit]

Re: Fallout: New Vegas

I really hope the engine gets a major overhaul. Oblivion's engine was merely passable even at the time of release but really showed its age with Fallout 3. The game looks good at a standstill but once things start moving its just not pretty. Everything is mostly static (clothing, hair, and so forth) and a lot of the movements just look stiff. Playing the game from a third-person perspective was almost laughably bad.

[Fresh Tendrils]

Re: Fallout: New Vegas

I agree Misfit. Standing around looking at the landscape was amazing, but once you started moving you started noticing things. Still, the game is huge so there are going to be sacrifices to the graphics and animations.

[Pokes]

Re: Fallout: New Vegas

Co-sign above. But as log as the gameplay is good I can take a few side effects.

[Buckeyes_Doc]

Re: Fallout: New Vegas

I really hope the engine gets a major overhaul. Oblivion's engine was merely passable even at the time of release but really showed its age with Fallout 3. The game looks good at a standstill but once things start moving its just not pretty. Everything is mostly static (clothing, hair, and so forth) and a lot of the movements just look stiff. Playing the game from a third-person perspective was almost laughably bad.

Yeah 3rd person doesn't look good at all. I never really used it but it was funny to look at sometimes.

[bkfount]

Re: Fallout: New Vegas

3rd person view sucked in oblivion too. The engine just wasn't really meant for it, and it's like they tacked it in just to say they have 3rd person view. It's not even animated properly.

[Jonesy]

Re: Fallout: New Vegas

3rd person view sucked in oblivion too. The engine just wasn't really meant for it, and it's like they tacked it in just to say they have 3rd person view. It's not even animated properly.

Yeah that's very true. It was a good looking game in 1st person but looked like an average ps2 title in 3rd person mode at times.

[jfsolo]

Re: Fallout: New Vegas

I was always going to buy this game, but knowing that Josh Sawyer is one of the head guys just makes it even better.

[Flawless]

Re: Fallout: New Vegas

As I expected would be the case.


New Vegas 'wittier' than Fallout 3

In an exclusive first look at Fallout New Vegas, CVG sister mag PSM3 reveals that developer Obsidian has taken dialogue and scripting up a notch in the sequel to Fallout 3.

Lead producer of Fallout New Vegas, Larry Liberty said: "We had to modify the dialogue engine from Fallout 3 to include the types of dialogue and options that we wanted.

"We want real, memorable characters. I think it helps you to remember parts of the world you'd otherwise forget."

As part of its world-exclusive cover feature, PSM3 played an extensive demo of New Vegas. The mag reported that it was 'apparent that Obsidian are much more comfortable behind the keyboard than the team that made Fallout 3 and, before that, Oblivion. The scripting is wittier, the characters more distinct.'

[Flawless]

Re: Fallout: New Vegas

More:

• The command wheel for followers has 8 commands: toggle melee/ranged, open inventory, toggle stay close/keep distance, back up, toggle aggressive/passive AI, use stimpack, toggle wait here/follow me, return to normal dialogue.
• Opening inventory consists of a kit from the doc, adapted to your starting stats (like Fallout 1).
• The Nevada area is less affected by the nuclear war, so it has plant life, relatively unspoiled houses, and in visual presentation has saturated colours and a bright sky.
• There's a tutorial (led by a character named Sunny who looks a lot like Moira Brown), but unlike Fallout 3, it's optional, so you can hit the open game in 5 minutes from starting.
• "In New Vegas it's all about the player examining the ideologies of the various groups that are controlling the area and supporting one over the others," explains Sawyer. "Each of the ideologies will have something good that you can relate to, but will also have massive flaws."
• The New Vegas strip is still in construction but will have gambling, variety shows and concerts.
• Electrical power is key in the faction struggle.
• Radiation is still a problem, there's a nuclear test site to explore north of New Vegas.
• The soundtrack will blend "Rat Pack style tunes with more Western numbers".
• New Vegas weaves decision into the gameworld and gives you greater power to influence things than Fallout 3 did.
• On top of adding back in geckos, New Vegas has a whole new type of animal: mutated mountain rams called Big Horners.

[WeLLWeLL]

Re: Fallout: New Vegas

Thanks for the info Flawless. Looking good.