slowpoke checking in: New Vegas

[Grim Monk]

I must admit I'm personally disappointed with the setting in New Vegas.

NCR is more or less a fully fledged Prewar style “Nation”.
They control all of California, and at least parts of Oregon, Nevada, and Mexican Baja California.

Caesar's Legion is less a “Nation” and more a Warlord Army ruling over tributary states, a RL parallel would be Golden Horde ruling over Russia.
They hold northern Arizona, southwestern Colorado, western New Mexico and southwestern Utah.

My problem is that I really wanted to discover the many different micro-societies that arose from the ashes of Nuclear war (which was part of the focus of Fallout 1 & 2).
With the appearance of powerful Centralized States, the wasteland well quickly start to become lawful, civilized, and standardized.

I'm not criticizing the Fallout world recovering and become more civilized, it would be STUPID (AKA Fallout "3") if it were otherwise.

But I am disappointed that they are moving so quickly with this processes, taking huge leaps forward in time (Fallout 1 “2188”, Fallout 2 “2241”, and Fallout NV “2281”) with each game.

They should have either slowed down the time leaps (which is what they where planing to do with Van Buren “2253”).



Or gone back in time, changed the setting to another part of the country, and shown us what the Fallout Universe looked like there...

 

[DragoFireheart]

I must admit I'm personally disappointed with the setting in New Vegas.

NCR is more or less a fully fledged Prewar style “Nation”.
They control all of California, and at least parts of Oregon, Nevada, and Mexican Baja California.

Caesar's Legion is less a “Nation” and more a Warlord Army ruling over tributary states, a RL parallel would be Golden Horde ruling over Russia.
They hold northern Arizona, southwestern Colorado, western New Mexico and southwestern Utah.

My problem is that I really wanted to discover the many different micro-societies that arose from the ashes of Nuclear war (which was part of the focus of Fallout 1 & 2).
With the appearance of powerful Centralized States, the wasteland well quickly start to become lawful, civilized, and standardized.

I'm not criticizing the Fallout world recovering and become more civilized, it would be STUPID (AKA Fallout "3") if it were otherwise.

But I am disappointed that they are moving so quickly with this processes, taking huge leaps forward in time (Fallout 1 “2188”, Fallout 2 “2241”, and Fallout NV “2281”) with each game.

They should have either slowed down the time leaps (which is what they where planing to do with Van Buren “2253”).



Or gone back in time, changed the setting to another part of the country, and shown us what the Fallout Universe looked like there...

They could always have NCR get into a civil war of sorts and bomb itself. Might be forcing it too much but it would fit the theme of "War never changes".

 

[Roguey]

That doesn't sound right. First of all I'm pretty sure most of the Fallout Bible was written during pre-production for Fallout 2. Secondly, in Fallout 1 you meet altruistic people and you can be altruistic yourself without it "backfiring" (with the sort of exception of how Junktown was originally envisioned).

The Fallout Bible was actually written in 2002, in preparation for Interplay's Fallout 3. He wiped out the talking deathclaws and wanamingos among other things.

That TVTropes thing is totally exaggerating though.

 

[Grim Monk]

Another thing I did not like about the NV Setting.

Caesar's Legion already has huge chunks of the country nailed down, destroying the possibly of a games examining the societies that formed in Arizona/Colorado/New Mexico/Utah.

Black Isle was going to set Fallout 3-4 in those territories “while” Edward Sallow was still rising to power, and “during” the Legion's conquest of those "86 Tribes" mentioned in the NV intro...

It feels like I'm digging into "Dessert" having never eaten the "Main Course"...

 

[Gozma]

Not only that but they made it so the Legion had already gotten beat at Hoover Dam in the backstory, which knocked a leg out from under them in their narrative role as an imminent threat. I was like, did they get so committed to their old continuity that they couldn't rewrite this to make sense in this one game? If he hadn't already been beat they'd have to dump their Joshua Graham mary sue bullshit or something? If you're going to play up the angle that Caesar might be one of those guys that historians fall over themselves to forgive for their atrocities because they were just so damn unstoppable (Alexander TG, Genghis Khan) you don't have him get humiliated in the backstory then jerk off for however many years until the PC shows up. The game ended up hardly telling you shit about the Legion while simultaneously making it seem like it must be on its last legs, which gave me RPG ennui about the main quest.

 

[MisterStone]

The Fallout setting is such a mishmash of grimdarkery and silliness mixed with way-too-obvious satirical references to contemporary pop culture that it seems pointless to consider it as seriously as it is being considered in this thread. At some point too many people put their fingers in the pot and decided that Vault Boy gave them all the justification they needed to throw in all kinds of stupid farcical shit (over-obvious humor about mainstream 1950s American culture and retro-futurism) into the games and ignore the more realistic portrayal of a harsh life in a post-atomic war wasteland, except of course for booze and whores, which everyone loves. It appears to have gone off the rails about half-way through FO2 (even though I really liked that game), and the Bethesda people just took that cue and ran wild with it.

Granted, I liked FO2 a lot, but there was a lot of stupid shit in there mixed in with the good stuff.

 

[tuluse]

There is a good number of people on the codex who hate F2 because of the silly shit. Personally, I think it detracts from the game, but doesn't make it bad.

However, none of this excuses Bethesda having it's way with Fallout's still warm corpse.

 

[Gozma]

FNV generally operates at a slightly higher reality-level than FO2 does. Vegas or the Khans/Fiends/Kings are about on par with New Reno or the Enclave stuff for silliness, and that's as silly as FNV gets without Wild Wasteland stuff. There is nothing that compares to San Francisco or Broken Hills.

Edit - I forgot that ghoul thing where they get on rockets.... that's about San Francisco level, yeah

I think as long as you can get a feel for the parts of the game that are on the upper reality-levels FNV can bear some scrutiny. FO2 disintegrates towards the end far worse than FNV because you are forced to do so much shit in San Francisco only to get dropped in Enclave stuff immediately after, while the plot between Benny and the endgame is generally sane if weak.

 

[CappenVarra]

The voices command that I share their wisdom with the world... Even if it is a delusional examination of all things Fallout as a metaphorical career of a single artist... Sheesh.

FO1 is an intriguing sketch - pretty much any part of it you try to examine in detail is underdeveloped or not thought out enough - but the scene the sketch hints at is pretty fucking awesome.

FO2 was a disappointment not because of the ridiculous parts (even if they certainly share the guilt), but primarily because I expected some development of that FO1 sketch towards a proper painting. Instead, FO2 is simply a larger sketch, with even sloppier technique. More weapons & armor, more areas & quests, more types of enemies and random encounters, more of everything - and nevermind the quality, just cram it in. Must expand the sketch! Meh.

In FO:T the imaginary artist takes a break from learning to paint, and fools around with making a comic. And it's all right, even if shows many shortcomings you would expect from some manguydude's first comic. Does this mean he decided to become a comic author now? Perhaps he will stick at it and become good after several attempts more? Uhm, not exactly.

FO3 is a photograph taken with the cheapest wallmart 1-button camera, by a random hobo with exactly zero understanding of photographic technique, framing, light or pretty much anything. The photograph is also a semi-closeup of the aforementioned imaginary artist's hairy ass.

I don't know much about FO:NV, except that is a photograph and is supposedly somewhat more competent. But I don't care because I just wanted a goddamn painting based on the FO1 sketch and it never happened... That is all.

 

[Xor]

In spite of all the sillyness, Fallout 2 is still very well put together. All the major settlements are linked together in some way, and as you explore the game you discover these connections. One of my favorite subplots is about the revelation that an NCR senator hired Bishop to attack Vault City, and that's a really easy quest to miss.

Fallout 3, on the other hand, is...bad. Between the mediocre graphics, broken combat, and awful dialog, all the problems with the silly content become that much more obvious. Maybe Fallout 3 could have been saved if some people experienced with making real RPGs, as opposed to hiking simulators, had worked on it. Building an entertaining experience can go a long way to distract from a game's other weaknesses.

New Vegas has the advantage of development by people very experienced with cRPGs, and they took the entire game much more seriously. There are still some problems, sure, but I think it's obvious that Obsidian really wanted to make a Fallout game, and they put a great deal of effort into it. Their passion comes through in the design and it helps sell the game.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Opened doors in F03 and saw wall with words F... you on them. Will take New Reno, SF, New Vegas and Kings instead of anything Beth will make out... Heck I can't renember any line of Beth dialogue after Dagoth Ur monologue it was all such bland and/or moronic shit. Besides you old cunts are too edgy and jaded; Kings and all FNV factions had good backstory. Cargo cult around mithical figure like Elvis Presley? Why Not?

 

[Zewp]

I was speaking to a few popamoles a while back, and it seems the reason they prefer Fallout 3 over NV is because they actually have to put in some effort in NV. In FO3 all the interesting stuff inevitably found you, whereas in NV you had to go out looking for interesting stuff to see and do.

Fucking instant-gratification popamole shits.

 

[MisterStone]

Opened doors in F03 and saw wall with words F... you on them. Will take New Reno, SF, New Vegas and Kings instead of anything Beth will make out... Heck I can't renember any line of Beth dialogue after Dagoth Ur monologue it was all such bland and/or moronic shit. Besides you old cunts are too edgy and jaded; Kings and all FNV factions had good backstory. Cargo cult around mithical figure like Elvis Presley? Why Not?

THe idea behind the Kings wasn't so bad. What was stupid was the idea that they could emulate Elvis but not have ANY IDEA what Elvis' actual was or who he was. This in a world where there are radio stations playing pre-war music, there is still pre-war junk food, magazines, books, etc. It's like they didn't put someone in charge of maintaining continuity or integrity of the setting or something. That, or I'm missing something.

 

[Gozma]

Speaking of silly, you know how they actually made it a theme in FNV that people in the gameworld are aware that the Brotherhood of Steel is conceptually retarded? They should do that and say the prewar government calling their magical-goodcancer infusion "Forced Evolutionary Virus" was retarded. Free advice Bethesda, all yours

 

[Endemic]

THe idea behind the Kings wasn't so bad. What was stupid was the idea that they could emulate Elvis but not have ANY IDEA what Elvis' actual was or who he was. This in a world where there are radio stations playing pre-war music, there is still pre-war junk food, magazines, books, etc. It's like they didn't put someone in charge of maintaining continuity or integrity of the setting or something. That, or I'm missing something.

Wasn't the best idea anyway given the licensing issues that prevented them mentioning Elvis by name in NV, or using his music.

 

[DalekFlay]

Yeah, Elvis is expensive, because US copyright and trademark law is fucking stupid.

 

[Endemic]

Yeah, Elvis is expensive, because US copyright and trademark law is fucking stupid.

It's stupid in a lot of countries. As for the Kings gang in NV, take away the Elvis trappings and they're not far removed from being street thugs: seizing control of the water pump in Freeside, being on the verge of open conflict with the NCR over the aid to their citizens, shaking people down, Pacer and his jet abuse (I spiked his drug stash to kill him :p )...if it wasn't for the King himself being able to compromise, I'd write the faction off as another blight to be removed from the wasteland.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I just assumed the memory of Elvis and who he was / how he acted degenerated with time.

Opened doors in F03 and saw wall with words F... you on them.

I think those were sprayed on cave-ins in Raider infested places. I'd probably have done the same if I was one of them (I wouldn't litter my room with corpses, though)

In spite of all the sillyness, Fallout 2 is still very well put together. All the major settlements are linked together in some way, and as you explore the game you discover these connections. One of my favorite subplots is about the revelation that an NCR senator hired Bishop to attack Vault City, and that's a really easy quest to miss.

Yeah. Makes me sad so may here seem to talk about it as if it's shit just because of the jokes...well, gotta keep those kkk flowing.

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

I can see how someone who first got into FO1 (which took post-apoc seriously) and loved it would hate FO2 (which didn't take itself seriously at all).

It was the other way for me (FO2, then FO1), so I came to like the setting for the seriousness/lulziness mix and found FO1 a bit too much on the serious side.

 

[Gozma]

Big, enduring fake worlds have always had to deal with the "multiple levels of silliness" problem, like Tolkien's lulzy cockney trolls or Tom Bombadil. Like The Hobbit has a framing narrative that it's a story written by Bilbo, so maybe he's soft-peddling trolls. In much the same way maybe Fallout 3 should have a framing narrative that it was written by the maker of Axe Cop

 

[deuxhero]

Opened doors in F03 and saw wall with words F... you on them. Will take New Reno, SF, New Vegas and Kings instead of anything Beth will make out... Heck I can't renember any line of Beth dialogue after Dagoth Ur monologue it was all such bland and/or moronic shit. Besides you old cunts are too edgy and jaded; Kings and all FNV factions had good backstory. Cargo cult around mithical figure like Elvis Presley? Why Not?

THe idea behind the Kings wasn't so bad. What was stupid was the idea that they could emulate Elvis but not have ANY IDEA what Elvis' actual was or who he was. This in a world where there are radio stations playing pre-war music, there is still pre-war junk food, magazines, books, etc. It's like they didn't put someone in charge of maintaining continuity or integrity of the setting or something. That, or I'm missing something.

I think the fact that there is a Ghoul who was in Vegas pre-war (The followers guard who can be recruited as a hooker) in Freeside is really the big issue. I can believe that The Kings never found any books on Elvis (or at least ones that let them know he was "The King") and that Mr. New Vegas's track list is mostly stuff he played before the bomb (and House just didn't license Elvis songs).

 

[Commissar Draco]

Opened doors in F03 and saw wall with words F... you on them. Will take New Reno, SF, New Vegas and Kings instead of anything Beth will make out... Heck I can't renember any line of Beth dialogue after Dagoth Ur monologue it was all such bland and/or moronic shit. Besides you old cunts are too edgy and jaded; Kings and all FNV factions had good backstory. Cargo cult around mithical figure like Elvis Presley? Why Not?

THe idea behind the Kings wasn't so bad. What was stupid was the idea that they could emulate Elvis but not have ANY IDEA what Elvis' actual was or who he was. This in a world where there are radio stations playing pre-war music, there is still pre-war junk food, magazines, books, etc. It's like they didn't put someone in charge of maintaining continuity or integrity of the setting or something. That, or I'm missing something.

Copy rights issues comes to mind, that's why all tapes got corrupted and besides after such disasters as Nuclear War + 200 years of barbarity lot of thing will fade into legend same thing as with King Artur; we have atleast 3 theories who he was but nothing is sure cause only British book preserved from VI century names Ambrosius Aurelianus not him, Frankish sources have Rhiotmasus; etc. We can't even be sure if our Elvis was same person as one in Fallout timeline.

 

[Jick Magger]

Funny thing, the period in which the fallout universe is predominantly based upon (the fifties, of course), Elvis was actually a spectacular failure in Las Vegas. It's because he was a young, hip, rock and roll upstart in a town filled with the idle rich, the get-rich-quickers/tourists, and gangsters, all of which wanted to listen to 'refined' musicians like Frank Sinatra. It was only in the sixties and seventies return shows that he became the icon there that he is today.

 

[MisterStone]

Big, enduring fake worlds have always had to deal with the "multiple levels of silliness" problem, like Tolkien's lulzy cockney trolls or Tom Bombadil. Like The Hobbit has a framing narrative that it's a story written by Bilbo, so maybe he's soft-peddling trolls. In much the same way maybe Fallout 3 should have a framing narrative that it was written by the maker of Axe Cop

I don't think that's really true. The cockney trolls in Tolkein are a matter of how he chose to render their stupidness for the modern-day reader, it's not something that is inherently inconsistent with Middle Earth. If he had made them reference some shit that didn't belong in Middle Earth then this would be comparable to what we have in stuff like NV. As it is, it's just a matter of tone, which is understandable because The Hobbit was written for kids and Tolkein had not adopted the Srs Bznss mode of LoTR at that point, apparently thinking that he'd never get adults to read novels based on his neo-Wagnerian fairy-land stuff.

 

[Tel Prydain]

Despite the fact that I hated their previews, it turns out I actually really liked the Kings. I'm willing to overlook the ghoul and assume that the Kings didn't want to hear what the monster-looking guy was saying.

The Gamebryro engine is really too shitty to be able to deliver anything that could be described as 'epic'. Ruined the immersion for the whole war, too. I know it's meant to be inferred that the legion outnumbers the NCR in the thousands, but the gamebyro engine constantly made it out to me that the NCR were somehow constantly losing to and terrified of a military which was quantitatively equal to them, but armed with machetes and sharp sticks.

Untill you said it here, I don't think I really understood that the real threat was that they were outnumbered... I haven't read the old FO3 script, so while I understood that the leigion was a lot bigger than the NCR, I didn't quite get that the NCR was so vastly outnumbered in this specific fight.
In my defense, the NCR and Legion bases seem about the same size. The hit teams had the same number of people in them. The few times we see them fight, the sides seem about the same.
Just seeing you type that the leigion in this fight was supposed to outnumber the NCR 2-1, suddenly the whole game makes a lot more sense.