Good looking pack. Don’t forget the weather mod out there. It is fantastic.
Sarkus
4082
This Old World Blues DLC is pretty huge. Relatively large area to explore, plenty to do, a couple of very nice visual moments so far. Tons of loot, too. Not sure why they did that, really. But if you thought there wasn’t enough Mentats in the regular game, this certainly covers that.
The tone is a little goofy, though, mixed in with some disturbing stuff as well.
I tried it today, but I’m totally not up to the challenge yet. Not with this new character, anyway.
I installed my first mod last night, the Primary Needs HUD which displays bars for food, water, and sleep. One thing I remember about playing was that these tended to sneak up on me, particularly getting thirsty, and I’d appreciate more warning.
The display is pretty slick. By default it’s unattractive, but you can turn off all the stuff you really don’t want cluttering your screen (like your current resistances, those don’t change that often), and move them around with the WASD keys until they’re where you like them. But ye gods, installing the related mods (New Vegas Script Extender, Fallout Mod Manager, Mod Menu Configuration) was remarkably difficult. I’m used to games like The Sims 2 or World of Warcraft where you can just drop items into a directory. Installing mods for New Vegas is significantly clumsier, and that’s with the tools like the Mod Manager designed to simplify it.
It doesn’t help that the Mod Manager is buggy - it crashes every time I use it to install a mod. If I hadn’t read online that this was normal behavior the program, and that you’re good to go anyway, I’d have given up right there.
I just started a new character and tried simply running to Vegas along the southern route. There’s an a combat encounter you can’t outrun, and can’t sneak by or fight through at level 1. I’m not going to say where since we’ve got a new player reading the thread, but I think if you don’t take the approach you suggested with the Stealth Boy, it’s not really doable until you’re level 5-6, which isn’t “early” in my book. It’s not like Fallout 3 where there was a route to the +INT bobblehead that avoided all combat, period.
Any tips for avoiding feeling nauseous while playing this? I played through Fallout 3 with no issues, but can’t get more than 15 minutes in without the sweet, sweet nausea.
Strange, same perspective, same engine, etc etc.
The Old World Blues DLC is pretty fun; certainly, better than Honest Hearts, and as good as but maybe (so far) less frustrating than Dead Money. Then again, I started it with a character who was already level 32, an energy weapons specialist, and who had 100s in all but a few skills. So combat ain’t that much of a problem.
Love the music, dialog, and story so far though, even if it is a bit uneven in its swings between creepy/serious and WTF? goofy.
My drive-by opinion on Old World Blues: it’s wonderful and is easily the best of either Fallout 3 games’ DLC. Wombat notes the “creepy/serious and WTF?” above in his post and I’m sure there are a lot of other folks wondering about the DLC’s swerve into oddness after wandering through NV’s po-faced scenarios. Those people have probably never played Paranoia, a PnP game that I think had a huge influence on Old World Blues’ design. Cheerfully brutal scenarios work just fine in a sci-fi apocalyptic distopia, and I wish there had been more of OWB in the Fallout 3s.
Other notes: level 15, the recommended level for OWB, seems about right, unless you’ve been easy-modeing the game with guns/energy and stealth to that point. I headed in with a level 10 sci/med/speech PC (guns/energy at 35) and it’s a bit too lethal – no deaths but massive DRRRUUUUUUGGs usage.
Sarkus
4091
I’m playing it with a character that went in at level 40, and while I haven’t died I wouldn’t say the combat was easy for all the enemies. One class in particular is still a bitch unless I use the Automatic Rifle with some of the new weapons finally (with upgrades) starting to be decent options as well. But maybe energy weapons would be the trick, since I didn’t go in with any.
Like I mentioned above, the size of the area and all there is to do is what impresses me. I don’t know exactly how much time I’ve spent in the DLC so far, but it’s got to be at least five hours, and I’ve only explored about 25-30% of the world from what I can see. Much more content then the earlier DLCs.
Joe_M
4092
I recently modded the hell out of my New Vegas in anticipation of the final DLC release. As I’m wont to do, I created a list of links and noted my install order so I could figure out what’s breaking my game months later if need be. Maybe it will be useful to someone else out there.
I truly wish AWOP didn’t break my NV. The little I’ve seen of it (between hard crashes in Goodsprings) adds so much flavor to the NPCs.
melak
4094
Damn it. The New Vegas Restoration Mod makes the Lucky 38 tower disappear, and it adds a giant empty area behind the Vault 21 hotel. A shame because it looked so promising otherwise. Thankfully the removal of all interior walls on the strip was included in a minimod so I can still keep that around.
Now that I’ve started, I’m finding myself picking over the various mods available before I actually seriously re-start playing. Maybe it’s a sign that I’m not really in the mood to play, despite having 3 new expansions to explore.
In any case, the problem I’m finding is that 99% of the mods out there are way too cheaty. For example, from your list, the mod that doubles the number of perks you get. The reduced perk rate in New Vegas is a good thing, it makes you actually pick and choose instead of making every character into a uberman who can do everything. Or my personal current hobbyhorse, I want to find a mod that turns the Survival crafting into something reasonable, and over and over again I encounter mods letting you craft every rare item in the game, or new super armors.
Joe_M
4096
I can understand wanting a more difficult game. I’m more of an explorer type who just wants to poke around in every corner of the map and enjoy the sights, so a somewhat easier game is a plus.
After some brief testing it appears my AWOP crashing issues are gone with the latest version. Woo!
I’ve a question about stealing and karma (i.e. stealing red-text items): does all stealing result in a karma loss or is it only certain circumstances? If it’s only certain circumstances, is there a way to tell? I tried stealing early on, noticed the karma hit (even though I was stealing from enemies) and avoided it ever since because this character is going karma positive as much as possible. Later, however, in a situation that seemed more appropriate to attempt a steal (in order to solve a mystery), I successfully made the theft without a karma hit. Not only that but, once I noticed that there was no karma loss at that point, I decided to test some theft of a few other random items nearby to see whether the karma loss would occur. It didn’t. I’m sort of at a loss as to why the earlier attempt gave me a karma loss and the latter didn’t. I even left alone an entire area because everything was red text despite me having helped the populace emigrate to a better place and no one else needing the stuff. I’d hate to think I’m leaving behind perfectly good items just because there’s some weird karma thing hampering me, especially when it doesn’t follow my character’s intent.
I’m usually susceptible to motion sickness so I avoid first-person perspective games that are fast-paced. In both FO3 and NV, I play stealthy characters that move slowly and rarely have to run-and-gun in an attempt to avoid making myself ill. It’s worked so far. Have you tried doing something similar? Then again, one thing that may be critical for me is that games with a lot of large open spaces are better than anything with corridors.
Of course, I don’t intend on attempting to play it any other way in order to test whether I would feel nauseous. It’s not worth it.
I get that, though honestly Fallout 3 was a much better game for that sort of thing. There are many, many things about New Vegas I like better, but the one outstanding thing about Fallout 3 was the sheer number of interesting locations, and how even the ones with no quest-connected items had their own back stories. Every nook and cranny was interesting, which isn’t true of New Vegas.
See, and I feel the exact same way…reversed. If you remove vegas from the equation, there are so many interesting nooks and crannies to visit in F:NV I just explore and explore. And leave New Vegas alone for as long as I can.
Stealing is not context-sensitive, it seems; even if you’re in a pitched battle with bad guys and their stuff is marked in red, it’s a karma hit if you take it. You can blow their heads off no problem, though. It appears that objects are either flagged to be lootable without issue, no matter what your faction standing is, or to cause karma hits when looted (stolen), again, regardless of your faction standing. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that you can have all sorts of relationships with all sorts of factions, or something.
