Fallout New Vegas is the best Obsidian game ever

[Bigg Boss]

This reminds me. I will be working on a Fallout mod soon where you kill Bethesdadrones.

 

[HammyTheFat]

I enjoyed NWN 2 too much to agree with this.

Fallout New Vegas was great, but it was missing that special something that comes from unique dialogue and banter from party members that I expect from my RPGs. Sure NV had companions, and they weren't that bad - just bland, but they were certainly more of an afterthought than a critical component of the game. Aside from Gannon's side quest, none of them were particularly memorable either. This is with NWN 2 having a lot of the party member content outright cut for various reasons.

The writing in NWN 2 was also better.

Though if we include the DLC then it becomes a lot closer. Dead Money was fantastic.

 

[Chippy]

I'm curious as to what the Codex means whenever 'it' says something is the best. Point being that you can't really compare MCA's writing because each game he wrote was about a different thing, with a different tone. And you can't compare the systems in games because everyone will just say Fallout 1 was good combat, PST was crap. Then you've got what can be done in a game - which opens up the argument of new tech vs old; and new isn't always more.

So generally (assuming developers read these threads) and Josh Sawyer types are taking notes on how to make the next game more balanced - what you're really saying is: "This is what we want more of in a game - New Vegas may not have had as good of a story as PST, but if all of your future games are of the same make-up (have all of the things) as New Vegas, we will be forever happy" right?.

Right?.

 

[Invictus]

I'm curious as to what the Codex means whenever 'it' says something is the best. Point being that you can't really compare MCA's writing because each game he wrote was about a different thing, with a different tone. And you can't compare the systems in games because everyone will just say Fallout 1 was good combat, PST was crap. Then you've got what can be done in a game - which opens up the argument of new tech vs old; and new isn't always more.

So generally (assuming developers read these threads) and Josh Sawyer types are taking notes on how to make the next game more balanced - what you're really saying is: "This is what we want more of in a game - New Vegas may not have had as good of a story as PST, but if all of your future games are of the same make-up (have all of the things) as New Vegas, we will be forever happy" right?.

Right?.

No, it just means that New Vegas is their best game
It is like saying that Chocolate is your favorite cake, that doesn’t mean that everything should have chocolate to be good

 

[Sigourn]

I'm pretty sure the answer is "New Vegas is the best package". Sure, it's got lots of flaws. But one has to wonder how much of them are to blame on Obsidian. It usually boils down to:

1. The game feels rushed, which is to blame on Bethesda.
2. The game looks/plays like crap, which is to blame on Bethesda's GameBryo.
3. The game is too easy, which is to blame on Bethesda's desire to appeal to more casual players.

Mods really make New Vegas shine, literally and figuratively speaking. Slap Yukichigai Unofficial Patch, Realistic Wasteland Lighting and jsawyer on it and you've got a game that looks nicer and plays much better.

I always say that New Vegas would be the best Fallout game ever made if it was made in the classic engine. Even better if done in an updated engine.

 

[2house2fly]

I think I remember Avellone saying the 18 month deadline was because of Feargus Urquhart, though I don't know what the context would have been. Basically Feargus is the entire reason all Obsidian games are fucked up

 

[Sigourn]

I think I remember Avellone saying the 18 month deadline was because of Feargus Urquhart, though I don't know what the context would have been. Basically Feargus is the entire reason all Obsidian games are fucked up

I always take this with a grain of salt. Especially because Skyrim released one year later. I can't imagine Bethesda wanting New Vegas to compete with Skyrim.

 

[Chippy]

I'm curious as to what the Codex means whenever 'it' says something is the best. Point being that you can't really compare MCA's writing because each game he wrote was about a different thing, with a different tone. And you can't compare the systems in games because everyone will just say Fallout 1 was good combat, PST was crap. Then you've got what can be done in a game - which opens up the argument of new tech vs old; and new isn't always more.

So generally (assuming developers read these threads) and Josh Sawyer types are taking notes on how to make the next game more balanced - what you're really saying is: "This is what we want more of in a game - New Vegas may not have had as good of a story as PST, but if all of your future games are of the same make-up (have all of the things) as New Vegas, we will be forever happy" right?.

Right?.

No, it just means that New Vegas is their best game
It is like saying that Chocolate is your favorite cake, that doesn’t mean that everything should have chocolate to be good

True, I was also looking at it from the point of view that you've got crap managers that look at the sales and statistics of things and then point all future games in that direction. I know if you take that at face value, everybody will be making Skyrim. But in terms of the classical RPG from Blackisle days its kind of why Fallout 'evolved' into Fallout 3. Personally its taken me this long to just take what I get with games, because its always been about the concentration of talent in one place and their luck to implement it; not the name of a company, genre, or type of game being made - which is to say I'd rather play and enjoy Call of Juarez: Gunslinger than Pillars of Eternity, even though I'm a hardcore RPG player. And I'm not:

 

[Chris Avellone]

I think I remember Avellone saying the 18 month deadline was because of Feargus Urquhart, though I don't know what the context would have been. Basically Feargus is the entire reason all Obsidian games are fucked up

If I said that, I was wrong (as far as I know).

Bethesda did want it out by the time indicated in the contract, which... well, yeah. That's what contracts are for, and we did have an engine to work with, so it didn't seem unreasonable, considering we were a content-focused studio. If we were in better financial shape, we likely could have pushed back, but we were running on fumes by that point, and losing Aliens hurt us a lot.

On a random note, someone sent me this regarding New Vegas sales, but not sure it's accurate, so feel free to debunk:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/504477/global-all-time-unit-sales-fallout-games/

 

[Fairfax]

I think I remember Avellone saying the 18 month deadline was because of Feargus Urquhart, though I don't know what the context would have been. Basically Feargus is the entire reason all Obsidian games are fucked up

If I said that, I was wrong (as far as I know).

Pretty sure you didn't. He might be thinking of Feargus talking about how he prefers 18 month cycles. He once said:

You learn the most when you go through a full production cycle, so if you make a game over forty-eight months then you're only learning every forty-eight months. Not exactly, but I think you can learn more if you ship a game every eighteen months.

On a random note, someone sent me this regarding New Vegas sales, but not sure it's accurate, so feel free to debunk:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/504477/global-all-time-unit-sales-fallout-games/

Seems a bit low to me. It has sold over 5 million on Steam alone. EEDAR put it at 11.6 million in 2015, though they didn't explain how they reached their numbers either.

 

[Nano]

So I'm currently doing a replay of this game. As opposed to the previous times I played it, I'm taking the time to properly explore the gameworld instead of just going along the main plot path & using fast travel. One problem with this is that it exposes the atrocious amount of invisible walls in this game, most of which have no business being there. Isn't the Mojave Desert supposed to be a lot more flat than this game makes it out to be? I guess Obsidian was banking on most players not going off the "intended" path.

 

[HarveyBirdman]

So I'm currently doing a replay of this game. As opposed to the previous times I played it, I'm taking the time to properly explore the gameworld instead of just going along the main plot path & using fast travel. One problem with this is that it exposes the atrocious amount of invisible walls in this game, most of which have no business being there. Isn't the Mojave Desert supposed to be a lot more flat than this game makes it out to be? I guess Obsidian was banking on most players not going off the "intended" path.

Bethesda focuses heavily on exploration. Obsidian clearly had no interest in exploration; there are very few dungeons, and just about every location is quest-related.
New Vegas a CYOA with combat mixed in. The thing about CYOAs is that you have to choose what's been written -- you can't go off sandboxing. Treating New Vegas like a Bethesda sandbox is the wrong way to play the game.

 

[Lord_Potato]

So I'm currently doing a replay of this game. As opposed to the previous times I played it, I'm taking the time to properly explore the gameworld instead of just going along the main plot path & using fast travel. One problem with this is that it exposes the atrocious amount of invisible walls in this game, most of which have no business being there. Isn't the Mojave Desert supposed to be a lot more flat than this game makes it out to be? I guess Obsidian was banking on most players not going off the "intended" path.

Bethesda focuses heavily on exploration. Obsidian clearly had no interest in exploration; there are very few dungeons, and just about every location is quest-related.
New Vegas a CYOA with combat mixed in. The thing about CYOAs is that you have to choose what's been written -- you can't go off sandboxing. Treating New Vegas like a Bethesda sandbox is the wrong way to play the game.

Did you even play New Vegas man? That's completely false.

I remember on my second playthrough I took the perk that shows you all locations on the map (Explorer). It was at the very end of the game, when I did most of the main quest and many, many sidequests. And then the map exploded with dozens and dozens of places to visit. I started doing it. Most of them were just there, to explore. Mostly didn't have any quest.

 

[HarveyBirdman]

I've probably put quadruple the hours into New Vegas that you have.
Those "locations" you find dotted across the map are pointless one room (and often no rooms at all) "dungeons." Traipsing across the desert to an abandoned 7-11 to find 4 shotgun shells in a game where ammo is plentiful isn't good map exploration. It's also not the point of the game.
Obsidian set out to write really good quests, and so that's what they did.

 

[Sigourn]

Did you even play New Vegas man? That's completely false.

I remember on my second playthrough I took the perk that shows you all locations on the map (Explorer). It was at the very end of the game, when I did most of the main quest and many, many sidequests. And then the map exploded with dozens and dozens of places to visit. I started doing it. Most of them were just there, to explore. Mostly didn't have any quest.

I've played New Vegas extensively and he is right. Most of those locations you mention are glorified fast travel spots, like a shack in the middle of nowhere that has nothing of value aside from a SS bottlecap.

New Vegas is not a game that feels particularly rewarding for exploration because as long as you follow the main quest and talk to the people in the towns you are sent to visit during the main quest, you will pretty much visit every single important location in the game.

 

[Funposter]

Isn't the Mojave Desert supposed to be a lot more flat than this game makes it out to be?

Well, yes...

And no

The scale of the world is off, putting more emphasis on the mountains and leaving only very small sections of flat highway for the player to travel along to the north, but the spirit of the geography is correct. There are still multiple ways for the player to "shortcut" their way to Vegas, but they are very clearly meant to go via Primm->Nipton->Novac because that allows the game to introduce the two major factions competing over the region. If new players could just head straight to the Strip, they'd have no idea what was going on.

 

[Roguey]

So I'm currently doing a replay of this game. As opposed to the previous times I played it, I'm taking the time to properly explore the gameworld instead of just going along the main plot path & using fast travel. One problem with this is that it exposes the atrocious amount of invisible walls in this game, most of which have no business being there. Isn't the Mojave Desert supposed to be a lot more flat than this game makes it out to be? I guess Obsidian was banking on most players not going off the "intended" path.

The invisible walls are there to avoid graphical glitches, not to hinder exploration. Sawyer says in hindsight they should have just let it slide.

 

[Quillon]

I don't remember invisible walls, does some popular mod remove them?

 

[Sigourn]

I don't remember invisible walls, does some popular mod remove them?

Invisible Walls Remover I think. But the truth is people encounter invisible walls because they want to climb mountains like retards instead of using roads and navigating rocky terrain normally. In my entire time playing New Vegas I only came across ONE invisible wall that annoyed me, because it was blocking perfectly normal navigation.

 

[Nano]

I don't remember invisible walls, does some popular mod remove them?

There are mods for it, but I opted not to use them because of the various bug reports.

 

[Beastro]

Isn't the Mojave Desert supposed to be a lot more flat than this game makes it out to be?

Well, yes...

Now I wish the Magical Nipton Trading Post was in the game.

 

[Nano]

https://www.reddit.com/r/fnv/comments/fbxl4q/aint_that_a_kick_in_the_head/

 

[Quillon]

That's old artwork by this point but gold.

 

[Dramart]

I've played New Vegas extensively and he is right. Most of those locations you mention are glorified fast travel spots, like a shack in the middle of nowhere that has nothing of value aside from a SS bottlecap.

Bethesda focuses heavily on exploration. Obsidian clearly had no interest in exploration; there are very few dungeons

I had the same feeling. I had a perk that showed all the locations on the map and went to visit all of them and I don't remember anything memorable. Most of the places had nothing interesting, just common items. Still the game has a lot of locations with content, but as you said most of them are related to quests and you find them in specific places just a few of them, like New Vegas, that underground arena outside New Vegas, The Camp McCarran, that big building where mutants live Jackobson or something, the Boomers city, Novac, and a lot more places. But when you see with that perk all the locations revealed on the map, the ones with some important things, like quest related, unique or valuable items, etc are just a few. Still you have hours and hours and lots of quests in spite of that. There is a secret zone in case you don't know, really cool, but is full of deathclaws, you can find a cool looking armor, similar the brotherhood of steel armor, but from fallout one. That place doesn't appear with the perk I mentioned.

 

[Nano]

To be fair, I don't think there are any quests that lead you to Vault 11. But that's just one spot on a big map.