3601

Aren’t there actually two groups of prisoners, the actual Gangers and the plain old convicts? They seem pretty much identical but they’re actually two different factions for reputation purposes.

3602

Sure, that’s normal. It’s just that in Fallout 3, there was content up to the map edge (or very near it) in a square area, the same as the map shape. In Fallout: New Vegas the explorable content stops a long way from the edge of the Pipboy map and in a very irregular shape. Of course this is more naturalistic but what it leads to is never knowing where the content actually stops and which areas it is possible to explore and where the invisible wall actually is. It is not a problem in itself that this is so, it only becomes one because it was handled so differently in Fallout 3.

I propose there could be a highlighted line in Pipboy for the actual blob shape of the map to save the player time in futilely trying to explore places where it is not possible to go. The invisible walls in places where you think you should still be able to proceed make the effect worse.

There are huge areas on the map where you cannot go at all and it would save a lot of time for the explorer type players to know not to even bother trying to go there. Maybe someone could mod the actual map edge in.

3603

Did any of you guys run into a problem where VATS would not activate? This happened to me a lot especially in the latter half of the game. I’d get into a sticky, close-in situation and instead of being able to thin down the opposition with a few well placed shots in VATS nothing would happen when I pressed the PS3 controller button and everything would descend into chaos.

Usually this would just mean my crew would mop up everyone while I confusedly spun around but in the harder fights it would mean death and reload. Often VATS would not work in repeated attempts, either. In many other fights it would work fine. This happened with several controllers so it’s not a hardware problem.

3604

I use the mod which removes all the invisible barriers, both within the map and at the edges. If you do go off the edge of the playable map, it becomes obvious very quickly - there’s just nothing there, nothing on the horizon except scrub/desert texture. Even that disappears if you walk far enough.

3605

All I have to say is: Screw this game, I want my weekend back.

H.

p.s. Cazadors can eat me.

3606

Fuck Cazadors.

3607

I’m finally carrying on with the main quest and Boone is starting to get very awesome and interesting. We just reached the slave camp at Cottonwood … hooo boy.

3608

Well, damn, I’ll have to go back and talk to Boone. I forgot when I was at his area the first time.

I’ve got the floating eye as a companion and it’s way stronger than I am. It can really take a beating.

3609

Okay, how is New Vegas at this point (post patches)? I loved Fallout 3, but the early issues I read have scared me away. Is NV fun?

3610

Some people have had issues but I’ve never hit a single one on 360. Other people can’t even play so … I dunno! If you’re anything like me, you’ll have a great time.

3611

It crashes probably every three hours for me, and I’ve developed a stutter but it seems like that’s a known issue on 64-bit systems, it isn’t bad enough that I’ve bothered to fix it yet.

Actual game content has been completely bug-free and I’m nearly done with it. I do regret buying a bigass rifle, it’s broken a lot of the game as far as difficulty (I wiped out an entire enemy town from a mile away, they never even figured out where I was) but otherwise I’ve had a great time with it. It starts out a bit slow, but in the middle you wind up with more to do than you can handle. I’m avoiding areas just to keep my quest log empty, I can’t resist finishing one once I have started.

H.

3612

Good question. I think you’ll find mixed responses on that point.

The game is fundamentally sound and many of the early bugs have been fixed. It’s not so buggy that it’s unplayable or anything like that. You’ll run into bugs, but generally nothing truly exceptional.

But back to your main question - is it fun? I’ve played both extensively in the last couple of months (so both are fresh in memory). Personally, I didn’t find FO:NV nearly as fun as FO3.

IMO (all of this is opinion), the openness of the game world and the stunning, memorable locations of FO3 are largely absent in NV. Vegas, in particular, was a major disappointment as compared to broken DC. There’s too much civilization in NV surrounded by barren desert. That may be accurate, but it didn’t make for a compelling playing experience.

Furthermore, I like many of the NPCs, quests and factions in FO3 better than those in NV. Without giving any big reveals away, I just found the factions in NV either unbelievable, entirely impotent or overly (utterly) evil and unredeeming. I never really connected with any faction or NPC and I really prefer many of the major and minor (the Republic of Dave) factions in FO3. Furthermore, I like the story more in FO3 - especially at the start. I really missed being a vault dweller.

So back to your question - is it fun? Ultimately, I grew bored with NV and finally just rushed to completion. It’s not a bad game and if you love FO3, you’ll probably at least like NV. But in my experience, I found FO3 to be a superior gaming experience to NV in most ways. So temper your expectations and you’ll probably be fine.

3613

You’re reminding me why I want to go back to FO3. I rushed through because I didn’t really get that it was all about wandering; I just hammered out the main quest. In NV I’ve wandered constantly and have avoided the main quest, and have had a great time. It’s leveled me way past where I should be so the endgame is getting too easy, but it’s so much fun seeing that empty triangle appear on the compass.

H.

3614

Yeah, I tend to use the empty triangles as waypoints as I moved from area to area. It’s a nice way to make the walking less boring.

3615

Yes, it is. Look at the QT3 Goty thread, it’s second (and unofficially-maybe 1st!).

3616

Beware the New Vegas truthers. That way lies madness. Nevertheless, it’s a damned good game that’s worth the attention of any fan of the genre or the series.

3617

Well that is certainly the minority view…

Most people seem to think everything in NV is superior in almost every way, with the possible exception of the DC landscape being more filled with “stuff” than vegas.

Nearly everything has been improved. They even implemented a companion system with actual companions that have depth instead of the floating turrets with human skins in fallout 3.

There are bugs, but almost every one of these bugs are hold overs from fallout 3 that neither bethesda or obsidian have fixed. About the only obsidian caused bug i can think of is a slight chance to see some random roaming animal spawning in the ground every so often, something that has not affected my play experience at all.

At the end of the day, if you were disappointing in fallout 3’s token story and looking for more of the same but with professional writing and tighter mechanics, you will be very happy with new vegas.

3618

Heh, to make it clear, the “maybe first!” was just an in-joke, a reference to the other thread, where they reached a bit of madness.

3619

You’re trying too hard.

48 critics gave FO3 an average review of 91 on Metacritic. 33 critics gave NV an average review score of 85. What that suggests is that both games were highly reviewed, but in general FO3 was slightly more well-received. As such, I think you’ll be hard pressed to try to prove that “most people seem to think everything in NV is superior in almost every way”. There are plenty of people who like both games.

Your claim that “there are bugs, but almost every one of these bugs are hold overs from fallout 3” is not at all accurate. There were plenty of bugs introduced by FO:NV. After all, FO3 didn’t crash XBoxes like NV did.

You have your reasons for liking NV more than FO3. I have mine for liking FO3 more than NV. As such, there’s no reason to make untrue stuff up about either game when trying to prove a point.

3620

Finally getting around to this.

So far it seems about 85-90% as fun as Fallout 3. My biggest complaints are:

  • Vegas itself isn’t nearly as fun as wandering the wasteland
  • The crafting system could use a lot of streamlining. I think they should have made most of the crafting supplies a lot lighter so that you wouldn’t feel penalized picking up crafting supplies before you needed them.
  • VATS is a little too good versus shooting on your own. VATS will claim that I have a 20% chance to hit and yet I still seem to hit 80+% of the time.
  • The companions could use streamlining as well. Why can’t they just let me create a party and then pick who is currently with me instead of making me ditch one person to pick up another?
  • Why are all the best bonuses on the worst clothing? My character looks terrible whenever she puts on her best combat gear (1st recon beret and combat armor).
  • Switching weapons/ammo needs to be a lot easier (that or I just haven’t figured out how to do it).
  • Some of the collectibles are very poorly explained. I just figured out, at level 16, that I should have been looking for star caps.

That said, there have been a lot of great moments and I like my character a lot. I decided to make a geek, i.e. a character with low speech/charisma, ok combat abilities and super high intelligence and technical skills (science, lockpicking, repair). Then as I started looking at perks I started gravitating towards crit-based abilities so I added in a high luck score. That seems to be working really well. I didn’t realize that I needed strength to wield weapons (I didn’t remember that from FO:3) and so the low strength the character has made me focus more on pistols. I’ve been using my .357 revolver a lot which is an interesting dynamic. I deal out a lot of damage with VATS at the beginning of combat but reloads can be the death of me. I just got the perk that gives you +2 strength for wielding weapons though so I think I’m finally going to break out the sniper rifle. The one form of crafting I’ve been doing a lot of is handloaded ammo. That works well since I don’t have to carry around 50-100 pounds of stuff just to craft and with the handloading perk you can make some really nice ammo.

I’ve liked a lot of the content (won’t go into details due to spoilers) but I feel like I’d have a better time if there were a number of small hubs instead of having 1-2 quests in 30+ different places. Outside of Vegas I feel all over the place a lot of the time with each quest/encounter having little to do with the previous one. Meanwhile Vegas is too big, with too much loading, and feels chaotic in a completely different manner. I went from wandering around doing 1-2 quests at a time in a haphazard fashion to having 20 quests all at once and losing track of which one was which.