And…
I’M RICH!!! RICH!!! RICH I TELL YOU, RICH!!! BUWAHAHAHHAAHAAA!!!
wow - thats pretty nice - I think I had room for 2, maybe three goldbars - Those things weighed a LOT!. As for being helpless, that was the intent of the DLC, but I get what you mean.
Ah crap - I cannot fast travel while overencumbered. Since I never fast travel I never took that perk. This is going to be a LONG trudge, LOL!
That’s really phenomenal. I’ve heard it could be done, but I never managed it. Not that I needed the money, but the idea of getting all the gold out was appealing. I’m curious how you managed it.
Oh, and I got the “good” endings for 2 of the 3 companions. Not Domino, though, I hear you have to be a complete kiss-ass if you don’t want him to try and kill you.
Well, you only have to be submissive when you first meet him, that’s all I did. And his story turned out to be pretty compelling, with a nice epilogue.
I tried a number of ways to get out with the gold, and I didn’t have a Stealth Boy. So what I did was to walk out of the vault and immediately hide behind a big round steam thingie, and watch the marker as Elijah walked toward me. I moved around it to jeep it between me and him as he walked to the vault, then when his back was toward me took the stairs that led to the first vault door, that closes as he sets off the alarms, then it is a few steps to the next one, then you’re almost at the elevator when the beeps start to go off. I was pumped when I hit the button and went up the elevator! Of course I was immediately surrounded by 3 ghost people in the Villa center, which I managed to barely kill before they killed me, then got out.
Yeah, just to repeat myself, it was a great story line, with memorable characters, it just sucked that the game play they used for the story was so weak and “cheap” compared to the story.
BTW - the PiPBoy doesn’t seem to be able to calculate the total value of all 37 bars - it is showing it as 3899-43.
Nice timing. I’ve done a couple of different endings, but I never managed a straight sneak by Elijah as you did, especially not encumbered by all that gold. He’s got some cheaty senses, if you are near the force fields before a certain point, he spots you even if he can’t see you. When I did the “safe deposit box ending,” I ran the long way around immediately, so I was nearly at the elevator before he realized he was screwed.
Yeah, the first time I tried this approach I went up the wrong stairs, and it took too long, and a force field came down and blocked me. But the other stairs provided a very short path to the elevator - just up, through a vault door, a few steps, another door, the a few steps to the elevator, straight line from the first door to the next to the elevator.
Just started Old World Blues and wow, what a COMPLETELY different experience, LOL!
Old World Blues is completely goofy. It took me a bit to adjust after the more-serious tone of the rest of the game. It’s the polar opposite of Lonesome Road and that windbag Ulysses.
Yeah, I left Dead Money, limped to Novac, dumped most of my gold in my footlocker, then took a couple of bars to Gun Runners to spend some. Then right to OWB - and after the confined, linear, “puzzle-ey” Sierra Madre, going through the initial MST3K type interaction was pretty jarring, but in a funny way. And even though, at level 42, some of the enemy in this is really hard, it is SO nice to be able to go where I want, figure out whatever approach I want, etc.
What’s the best order to use in tackling the DLC? Don’t know which one to play first…
Roughly:
[ul]
[li]Honest Hearts[/li][li]Old World Blues[/li][li]Dead Money[/li][li]Lonesome Road[/li][/ul]
Play it in the order it came out is fine IMO, i.e. Dead Money, Honest Heart, Old World Blues, Lonesome Road. More importantly I think you should have gone to New Vegas and recruited all companions before doing DLCs. Honest Heart makes much less sense if you haven’t talked to Caesar with Arcade by your side. Old World Blues makes less sense if you haven’t played Dead Money, and Dead Money makes less sense if you haven’t met and talked to Veronica or Brotherhood. Lonesome Road should be the last because you finally meet that “other dude” people talked about in other DLCs.
I understand people want to wander and not do the main quests in this kind of open world game. But I think you will miss a very big and good chuck of F:NV if you don’t tackle the main quest and go to New Vegas. I think the whole point of wandering adds to the main quest. Because in the end you are asked to choose 1 faction over all others. If you haven’t wandered and experienced different factions first hand, you don’t get enough information, or you use misinformation, to make the call.
Ideally though the story should have moved forward without protagonist intervention (i.e. there is a time limit like the original Fallout).
That’s definitely the intended order. Personally when I did a run which included all 4, I did Dead Money last. Dead Money is the only one that strips equipment from you, so high character level improves your chances enormously.
Honest Hearts needs to come first, because if you’re much over level 10, it’s not terribly interesting.
You do NOT want to do Dead Money first or second. The recommended minimum level is 20, and I agree. Hell, 25-30 is better.
I don’t agree. Old World Blues provides considerable prolog to Dead Money. If you don’t know any of it, hearing all about the characters you’re going to meet in Dead Money works as foreshadowing. Do it the other way, and it’s largely irrelevant. In terms of narrative, Old World Blues -> Dead Money works much better.
I have never spoken to Caesar with Arcade Gannon with me, and Honest Hearts was perfectly clear without this.
It is true that you should talk to Veronica before doing Dead Money, and it’s helpful to talk to the Brotherhood. I don’t think it’s essential, though.
Yeah, I think it is cool in OWB (just doing it now) to hear Vera singing, and seeing references to the characters in Dead Money, but in hindsight it would have been better to have seen those things in OWB and then met the characters later in Dead Money.
I have not yet talked to Caesar but have seen and heard enough that Honest Hearts was fine for me. Honest Hearts is probably the most shallow of the 4 DLCs, IMO. I’ve also never run into Veronica, not sure why, I’m level 42 and have wandered a lot (obviously) outside of New Vegas. I actually think, for my particular role playing, getting to know the various factions through all of the encounters outside of New Vegas and having a strong history before going into New Vegas is a good thing.
I agree that Lonesome Road should be done last. For a lot of reasons.
Dead Money - I doubt I would have played it at all if I had known ahead of time what the game play was like. It was actually a very interesting story, interesting characters, and if you finish it without killing any of the companions, and interesting epilogue. But the gameplay itself, which comprised of wandering a tight, boring maze of all the same alleys, trying to happen upon the right location, while having to trial and error finding hidden speakers that blew up your head in seconds, fighting swarming ghost people that jump back and forth and soak up bullets as if they were marshmallows - well, it’s just repetitive and boring and a grind. Inside the casino is better, but still filled with the same hidden speaker/collar crap.
OTOH, if you play it right you CAN come out with 37 bars of gold that gives you a ton of cash when you get out. And, again, the story itself is compelling. If only the gameplay didn’t suck SO bad; I felt so relieved to finish the DLC.
Are there any “must-have” mods? I’m pulling down the texture pack and thinking of getting into a (third?) play through of FNV. I don’t want to fall too far down the mod rabbit hole though, texture improvements are one thing, but I’m not into changing fundamental gameplay mechanics or adding a single over powered piece of weapon or armor, for instance.
When I tried going into New Vegas, I used Jason’s mod list, that thread should be easy to find. I made all the changes, and fired the game up, and … oh my god, the game looked absolutely horrible. The lighting was worse, the draw distance went on forever, the textures were super detailed but made everything look worse. Everything looked flat and grainy and ugly as hell. And not ugly in a good way, if you know what I mean. Like with Fallout 3, I modded it very selectively, one mod at a time, and if ever a texture mod made things look worse, I got rid of it immediately.
In this case, I installed Jason’s whole list, and had no idea which changes were making the game look so god awful. Then I went with an enb mod that Pogo posted (I think), and the game looked oooooooh so much better. But the frame rate hit was huge and my video card couldn’t take it unless I really cranked up the fan. So that wasn’t a good option either.
I guess what I’m trying to say is: sorry, I can’t help you.
I think it’s best to play the New Vegas without mods the first time, or with at most cosmetic mods. Myself, I never bothered with any of the mods which change appearance, since I felt it was attractive enough as-is.
I agree with Jeff about Dead Money, and yet I’ve played through it twice. Which is weird, I know. I just felt I wanted to play through everything with one character at least once.
I think in general there is less stuff that needs modding in New Vegas since Obsidian lifted some of the best mods from Fallout 3 and implemented them directly. I believe the bulk of what Gopher recommends are textures packs and UI improvements, though it’s been a while since I used his guide to mod my game.
OWB is basically classic Paranoia. I loved it, massive difficulty spike and all.