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CharlieFoxtrot posted:I used to hate the Boomers because of their shoot first policy, but the BoS basically do the same thing and they seem to get a lot less hate for it I don't understand that either. You knock on their door and they bust out and tell you to hand over all your poo poo. If you say no, they immediately attack you. Not even a chance to just walk away. And then if I just defend myself from these psychos, I constantly lose karma for it.The only reason to play nice is to get power armor training, but power armor is so watered down in NV that I usually just burn them all for the crime of being egregious assholes.
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Feb 22, 2015 05:34
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Rookersh posted:Literally everyone who has been further east then Arizona has said "That's where the wild things are. Lets be glad the bandits of Arizona hold that poo poo at bay." People who unironically use the term "statist" (especially in a video game thread) don't understand anything about what governments are and what they do.
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Feb 22, 2015 05:38
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They steal from the makers, give to the takers, and jail/murder everybody who disagrees, right?
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Feb 22, 2015 05:41
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Wingnut Ninja posted:I don't understand that either. You knock on their door and they bust out and tell you to hand over all your poo poo. If you say no, they immediately attack you. Not even a chance to just walk away. And then if I just defend myself from these psychos, I constantly lose karma for it.The only reason to play nice is to get power armor training, but power armor is so watered down in NV that I usually just burn them all for the crime of being egregious assholes. I dunno, imagine you're on the run from the cops and give a password to the one guy who knows where you are, and then one day some other guy shows up and says that password. You don't know if that guy's a cop, or if he'll report you to the cops, or how he got hold of the password, you'd probably be reluctant to let him stride around your hideout taking map references and brandishing a weapon.
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Feb 22, 2015 05:52
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Wingnut Ninja posted:I don't understand that either. You knock on their door and they bust out and tell you to hand over all your poo poo. If you say no, they immediately attack you. Not even a chance to just walk away. And then if I just defend myself from these psychos, I constantly lose karma for it.The only reason to play nice is to get power armor training, but power armor is so watered down in NV that I usually just burn them all for the crime of being egregious assholes. To be fair, I've always seen their response as somewhat justified-they think they're safe and secure in their bunker, hidden from the NCR (Because they're sure that A) The NCR still wants to kill them (True) and B) There's no way they'd be able to survive once the NCR finds them (Most likely true without the Courier's intervention) and then suddenly some rear end in a top hat bursts in with no warning whatsoever, in my case at least with a password from one of their dead patrols. Simply letting you go would be like a giant beacon to the NCR shouting "HEY COME KILL US", so they pull the bomb collar stunt and afterwards take a leap of faith in trusting you with no further options. Personally, I've always seen the Brotherhood as somewhat sympathetic-you have individual members like Veronica and Elder McNamara who know that poo poo's hosed and things need to change, but they're prevented from doing so thanks to the threat from the NCR and reactionary elements of their own faction (Such as Hardin and the assholes from Veronica's quest). Many of them are assholes, but not all of them are, and the fact that they can be turned into productive members of society through the treaty with the NCR speaks a lot about the relatively decent intentions of at least some of its members. They can be assholes, but not every action of being an rear end in a top hat has to be responded to with violence, IMO. Funnily enough, though, typing this reminded me somewhat of Honest Hearts, and how so many people in this thread responded negatively to what Daniel was trying to accomplish. To an extent, of course, Daniel is hopelessly naive, and is overly dismissive of the Sorrows' beliefs and needs, treating them like children. And yet, to an extent, he's right. The typical response by your average wastelander, and especially the Courier, is violent. The typical character in New Vegas sees enemies not much differently from the way we, the players, see them-entities that exist only to be killed, who aren't really human regardless of how they look or talk. For us, of course, this is correct (It is a video game after all), but it's easy to forget that the targets you randomly gun down are, at least ostensibly, representative of real human beings, with goals, aspirations, dreams. We respond with violence so much that violence becomes the default response, and talk of killing groups we don't agree with become commonplace-sure, kill the Brotherhood of Steel! Kill the Boomers! Wipe out the NCR, or the Great Khans, or the White Legs, they're assholes! They're not real people! And of course they aren't, and since it's a game it's difficult to respond non-violently to certain groups such as Raiders, the Powder Gangers, the Fiends, etc. But for other groups, just like in real life, don't have to respond with violence when someone threatens you. You can take the moral approach, treating your enemies with kindness to the best extent that the game allows, and work with them to create a better society. Bitter enemies like the NCR and Brotherhood of Steel can be made allies, and all but the most hostile factions of the wasteland can be turned to good works. Yet, the average player isn't going to try and accomplish all of this. They're going to respond with violence, because the wasteland and the game train them to respond with violence. The Boomers are massacred. The Brotherhood is wiped out, and innocent children are (Presumably) killed en-masse when the bunker explodes. Much of the potential for creating a better Mojave is destroyed when the player reacts violently or selfishly, and this is the kind of destructive behavior that Daniels sees and fears will be implanted in the Sorrows, one of the few entities in the wasteland who don't automatically react with violence. Sure, his goal is naive, and likely doomed to failure when some other group attacks the Sorrows, but you have to admit that if nothing else, Daniel is one of the only people in the wasteland who sees the constant violence and destruction and is disgusted by it, and to an extent, he's absolutely right. He may be paternalistic and naive, but you can't deny that his goal of trying to react non-violently to the threat of the White Legs is absolutely unique and should be considered in the face of the player's own actions. If that makes sense. Also, a question for Rope Kid-how old is Daniel supposed to be? I got the impression he's supposed to be pretty young, which makes an amount of sense: Part of the reason why he reacts the way he does is that he's been thrust into a position of immense responsibility he's not ready for, while still being both incredibly idealistic and incredibly naive. Would that assumption be in-line with your imagining of the character?
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Feb 22, 2015 06:43
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For having such a huge base, I wish the Boomers had a couple more quests around Nellis. I'd like to see something done with the air control tower or something, maybe getting the computers working to transmit stuff to the B-29. Also, how the gently caress can you hear half of Mr New Vegas's radiocasts? Any time I listen to him, it's always about how Goodsprings fended off a group of escaped convicts or how Primm formally swore in a new sheriff. ALL THE loving TIME. I think I've heard the King's address to Freeside following the cessation of hostilities with the NCR once.
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Feb 22, 2015 06:59
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Arcsquad12 posted:Also, how the gently caress can you hear half of Mr New Vegas's radiocasts? Any time I listen to him, it's always about how Goodsprings fended off a group of escaped convicts or how Primm formally swore in a new sheriff. ALL THE loving TIME. I think I've heard the King's address to Freeside following the cessation of hostilities with the NCR once. Seconding this. Despite completing Volare! every game, I've never heard that broadcast from Mr. New Vegas about the B-29; likewise, I've never heard the broadcast related to completing the Helios One quest, only the prologue ("an environment of, quote, severe underappreciation.") It's a shame because Mr. New Vegas is loving amazing.
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Feb 22, 2015 07:14
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Big iron on his hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip.
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Feb 22, 2015 08:50
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Acebuckeye13 posted:Personally, I've always seen the Brotherhood as somewhat sympathetic-you have individual members like Veronica and Elder McNamara who know that poo poo's hosed and things need to change, but they're prevented from doing so thanks to the threat from the NCR and reactionary elements of their own faction (Such as Hardin and the assholes from Veronica's quest). Many of them are assholes, but not all of them are, and the fact that they can be turned into productive members of society through the treaty with the NCR speaks a lot about the relatively decent intentions of at least some of its members. They can be assholes, but not every action of being an rear end in a top hat has to be responded to with violence, IMO. I dunno how much they're really "productive members of society". They're only held in check because the NCR is much much stronger than them; if anything happens to the Republic's strength, the Brotherhood just turns into another gang laying claim to an area and hassling passers-through.
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Feb 22, 2015 09:26
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Byzantine posted:I dunno how much they're really "productive members of society". They're only held in check because the NCR is much much stronger than them; if anything happens to the Republic's strength, the Brotherhood just turns into another gang laying claim to an area and hassling passers-through. They're guarding the roads, preventing bandit attacks, and not starting any poo poo themselves. Sure, potentially they could go back to being assholes, but so could a lot of people. The important thing is that, at the moment, they are benefiting others and not being assholes. This is the conventional definition of "productive members of society".
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Feb 22, 2015 09:29
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chiasaur11 posted:They're guarding the roads, preventing bandit attacks, and not starting any poo poo themselves. Sure, potentially they could go back to being assholes, but so could a lot of people. The important thing is that, at the moment, they are benefiting others and not being assholes. This is the conventional definition of "productive members of society". The only ending where they aren't dicks is the one where the NCR wins but signs a treaty; the NCR hands over all their power armor and the BoS will patrol the highways. The other endings in which they survive they do patrol as well but they also hassle everybody who passes through and confiscate whatever they deem technology. Pretty much as was said, there's no reason to believe that if the NCR ever lost control or weakened in the area they wouldn't go right back to being dicks. To flesh things out a little bit; I would absolutely not call the current BoS sympathetic characters. While they were originally formed by former us military who were trying to restore order to the wasteland, over time the BoS slowly morphed into a technological cult that believes only they should be allowed to own high tech equipment and that anybody that's not part of the brotherhood is just lesser garbage. Even with the endings that hasn't really changed, although the endings don't go very far into the future so it's hard to say what might come of it. Garrand fucked around with this message at 09:55 on Feb 22, 2015 |
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Feb 22, 2015 09:48
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Acebuckeye13 posted:Funnily enough, though, typing this reminded me somewhat of Honest Hearts, and how so many people in this thread responded negatively to what Daniel was trying to accomplish. To an extent, of course, Daniel is hopelessly naive, and is overly dismissive of the Sorrows' beliefs and needs, treating them like children. And yet, to an extent, he's right. The typical response by your average wastelander, and especially the Courier, is violent. The typical character in New Vegas sees enemies not much differently from the way we, the players, see them-entities that exist only to be killed, who aren't really human regardless of how they look or talk. For us, of course, this is correct (It is a video game after all), but it's easy to forget that the targets you randomly gun down are, at least ostensibly, representative of real human beings, with goals, aspirations, dreams. We respond with violence so much that violence becomes the default response, and talk of killing groups we don't agree with become commonplace-sure, kill the Brotherhood of Steel! Kill the Boomers! Wipe out the NCR, or the Great Khans, or the White Legs, they're assholes! They're not real people! And of course they aren't, and since it's a game it's difficult to respond non-violently to certain groups such as Raiders, the Powder Gangers, the Fiends, etc. But for other groups, just like in real life, don't have to respond with violence when someone threatens you. You can take the moral approach, treating your enemies with kindness to the best extent that the game allows, and work with them to create a better society. Bitter enemies like the NCR and Brotherhood of Steel can be made allies, and all but the most hostile factions of the wasteland can be turned to good works. Yet, the average player isn't going to try and accomplish all of this. They're going to respond with violence, because the wasteland and the game train them to respond with violence. The Boomers are massacred. The Brotherhood is wiped out, and innocent children are (Presumably) killed en-masse when the bunker explodes. Much of the potential for creating a better Mojave is destroyed when the player reacts violently or selfishly, and this is the kind of destructive behavior that Daniels sees and fears will be implanted in the Sorrows, one of the few entities in the wasteland who don't automatically react with violence. Sure, his goal is naive, and likely doomed to failure when some other group attacks the Sorrows, but you have to admit that if nothing else, Daniel is one of the only people in the wasteland who sees the constant violence and destruction and is disgusted by it, and to an extent, he's absolutely right. He may be paternalistic and naive, but you can't deny that his goal of trying to react non-violently to the threat of the White Legs is absolutely unique and should be considered in the face of the player's own actions. If that makes sense. I don't know if I agree about the 'average player'. I'd be surprised if the majority of players ended up wiping out the Great Khans, or the Boomers, despite their ostensibly being fearsome raiders - just because they act like human beings in-game, and can be reasoned with and learned from. And actually, that's a more interesting and involved process than blowing yet another bunch of heads off. In general, the Fallout games are actually quite brilliant at programming the player into trying diplomacy first, despite the power to kill anyone or everyone at will. In HH it just isn't a possibility (the White Legs really are just a bunch of near-identical spawns that jump on you in the wilderness every so often), and although I very much enjoyed it, I think it does end up committing to a few big authorial contrivances in its efforts to make Daniel reasonable or right. For instance, I don't think it rings true that the Sorrows can be hopelessly transformed into a warlike tribe by a single night of unified violence, but the loss of their ancestral home and personal guardian deity has no more negative effect on them than, as the endslides say, 'difficulty' adjusting. Or that we don't need to consider the White Legs a threat to anyone post-evacuation, since they don't know how to hunt and end up dying out very soon (this despite their visible mastery of ambush, trapping, poison, flaming gas-fuelled BBQ blades...). I dunno. I've pretty much consistently played through New Vegas as a reasonable quasi-pacifist, but whenever I side with Daniel, I feel completely dissatisfied. It just doesn't seem like a rational choice to make, with all the information to hand...which makes it feel like a bit of a cheat when the endslides pop up to confirm that, yes, it was.
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Feb 22, 2015 10:52
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Bogart posted:Big iron on his hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip. I legitimately love that song. It doesn't matter how many times I hear it.
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Feb 22, 2015 11:16
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I always treated Big Iron as a sign that I should switch to a different radio station, just like the long pause on the jazz station from Old World Blues.
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Feb 22, 2015 12:24
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You are a broken person.  And here I thought I could trust you because I like your avatar.
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Feb 22, 2015 12:41
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Fuzz1138 posted:I legitimately love that song. It doesn't matter how many times I hear it.   The true "time to switch the station" song in New Vegas is Ain't That A Kick In The Head.
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Feb 22, 2015 12:52
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It's played on two stations, even Butcher Pete would get old if you hear it that frequently for 100+ hours
Mierenneuker fucked around with this message at 12:55 on Feb 22, 2015 |
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Feb 22, 2015 12:53
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Mierenneuker posted:It's played on two stations, even Butcher Pete would get old if you hear it that frequently for 100+ hours And yet Big Iron never gets old. 
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Feb 22, 2015 13:35
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Fair Bear Maiden posted:And yet Big Iron never gets old. Legitimately my favourite song in the game, by far. Any time I switched between the radio stations I would stop as soon as Big Iron came on.
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Feb 22, 2015 13:51
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Johnny loving Guitar was my cue to change the station. I hate that song and how often it plays. They really needed a bigger playlist, I mean you have a faction that based on Elvis impersonators and yet there's not one Elvis song on the soundtrack.
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Feb 22, 2015 17:41
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And Elvis songs are really cheap to license!
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Feb 22, 2015 17:53
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Garrand posted:To flesh things out a little bit; I would absolutely not call the current BoS sympathetic characters. While they were originally formed by former us military who were trying to restore order to the wasteland, over time the BoS slowly morphed into a technological cult that believes only they should be allowed to own high tech equipment and that anybody that's not part of the brotherhood is just lesser garbage. Even with the endings that hasn't really changed, although the endings don't go very far into the future so it's hard to say what might come of it.
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Feb 22, 2015 17:57
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hmm yes, you all have great points about your songs but there is only one clear and obvious choice it stays rare enough to never get old and it's always great
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Feb 22, 2015 18:15
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Starhawk64 posted:Johnny loving Guitar was my cue to change the station. I hate that song and how often it plays. They really needed a bigger playlist, I mean you have a faction that based on Elvis impersonators and yet there's not one Elvis song on the soundtrack. I think it was Rope Kid who said they could license the entire soundtrack or a single Elvis song? 
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Feb 22, 2015 18:18
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I don't have any animosity for the Brotherhood out-of-character, but the game forces me to choose between them or House, and I'm gonna go with the guy with plans beyond "harass some poor trader about his 5% condition laser pistol". In-character, my Courier stumbles into Dead Money while looking for the BoS bunker, so when they finally get to Hidden Valley and the BoS marches out and slaps another slave collar on them, they kinda take it personally.
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Feb 22, 2015 18:47
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I will bat for Johnny Guitar, though I don't typically play the game with the radio on. It's almost a shame that the neo-'50s concept is so big at this point, because I feel like Sin City by The Flying Burrito Brothers would be a really good fit otherwise. I think I'm pretty much at the end now so I've decided to try out Lonesome Road. Not very far yet. I was warned beforehand about Ulysses and his monologues, maybe it will be less grating since I might not get to play much this week.
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Feb 22, 2015 19:25
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Dear pro-Brotherhood people: Veronica's companion quest.  Fereydun posted:hmm yes, you all have great points about your songs but there is only one clear and obvious choice I thought that was only in Fallout 3?
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Feb 22, 2015 20:15
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Look at this thread full of people not using the Secret Stash mod.
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Feb 22, 2015 20:18
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Paracelsus posted:The BoS (or at least a decent number of them) can be dicks, but I never felt like they were big enough dicks to justify wiping them out, and I can sympathize with how they ended up where they did. "We have to stop this from happening again, even if it means taking away any advanced technology" isn't an unreasonable response from people who saw horrific human experimentation going on, lived through the world nearly perishing in nuclear fire, then watched the remnants of humanity pick up energy weapons to start killing each other without missing a beat. Further on down the road, depending on Veronicas quest line, a squad of paladins murders a bunch of Followers of the Apocalypse because they were mad that Veronica wasn't there for them to murder.
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Feb 22, 2015 20:28
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There's a radio station mod for Fallout 3 called "Civil Defense Station", or something similar. It's a bunch of accurate emergency civil defense clips alongside nuclear-themed songs from the 50s. I mean, drat.
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Feb 22, 2015 20:48
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Delsaber posted:The true "time to switch the station" song in New Vegas is Ain't That A Kick In The Head. I dunno man, that's still probably my fourth or fifth favorite. But there are very few tracks in the game that I dislike, even after how many hundred hours of play. Definitely hearing the Johnny Guitar thing though. That one got old real quick. Though I usually suffer through it anyway because I'm too lazy to change the station. 
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Feb 22, 2015 20:53
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Fereydun posted:hmm yes, you all have great points about your songs but there is only one clear and obvious choice Most of that song might as well be gibberish to me, because even if I look up the lyrics I don't get half the references in that song (I'm not American so that probably explains some of it). It's like getting a glimpse of how badly some commercial rap songs from our time will age.
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Feb 22, 2015 22:15
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I noticed that when cazadores sting you they make the power fist actuating sound. It's like being hosed by a power stinger.
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Feb 22, 2015 23:38
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if you haven't punched a deathclaw's head off, you haven't lived
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Feb 23, 2015 00:04
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Starhawk64 posted:Johnny loving Guitar was my cue to change the station. I hate that song and how often it plays. They really needed a bigger playlist, I mean you have a faction that based on Elvis impersonators and yet there's not one Elvis song on the soundtrack. My dad stuck his head into my room when he heard Big Iron playing once and he was really jazzed that our musical tastes crossed over 
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Feb 23, 2015 00:08
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Starhawk64 posted:Johnny loving Guitar was my cue to change the station. I hate that song and how often it plays. They really needed a bigger playlist, I mean you have a faction that based on Elvis impersonators and yet there's not one Elvis song on the soundtrack.
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Feb 23, 2015 00:25
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Byzantine posted:There's a radio station mod for Fallout 3 called "Civil Defense Station", or something similar. It's a bunch of accurate emergency civil defense clips alongside nuclear-themed songs from the 50s. I cant play NV without both CDS and couriers stash mods anymore. Just having an actually varied radio channel is essential. Listening to CDS is especially great when you get songs like Stalin Kicked the Bucket [Intelligence 1/7] Old Joe Stalin is dead?  [Intelligence Fail] Who the hell is old Joe Stalin???  Wish there were more radio channels that were actually worth listening to.
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Feb 23, 2015 00:51
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Iretep posted:I cant play NV without both CDS and couriers stash mods anymore. Just having an actually varied radio channel is essential. Listening to CDS is especially great when you get songs like Stalin Kicked the Bucket Mojave Music Radio Extended and Mysterious Broadcast Extended are both excellent. IMO far superior music selection even to CONELRAD or vanilla stations.
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Feb 23, 2015 01:32
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I love these occasional factional arguments. Caesar is worthless, because even if you're pro-fascist, he's gonna die soon, and his lieutenants are all monsters. The NCR is hilariously impotent, given that the player character is literally the only thing standing between them and utter destruction at the hands of the Legion. NPCs essentially say as much in game: "If they get this far, there's no stopping them." Well, you aren't going to stop them from reaching that point, so I guess it's up to me, huh? In NV, it's characterized by lawless cattle barons, forced conscription, the use of mercenaries to harass peaceful settlements, attempts to assassinate leaders of neighboring states (not that House has any democratic legitimacy, but if House has zero legitimacy in New Vegas, the NCR has negative legitimacy, simply because they've done strictly less for the area than he has), and...oh, right, mad scientists who are apparently put in positions of authority. And I'm leaving a bunch of stuff out! The NCR is, essentially, the shittest bourgeois republic imaginable, with the added bonus that it's incapable of defending itself from a force of tribals armed with javelins. The NRC is so worthless that the hero of the First Battle of the Hoover Dam started submitting false reports purely for the sake of trying the persuade the powers-that-be of the NCR to withdraw from the Mojave. He didn't want to see his men slaughtered. If it hadn't been for the PC, they would have been. House is...fine, I guess, in some sense, but he's nevertheless authoritarian. Mentally, he has no capacity to deal with the King, and such cold, inhuman rationalism ill-befits an immortal monarch. House is a tolerable choice if technological advancement is the player's top priority, and hopefully the player can reign in some of his worst impulses, but I dunno, I desire more from a god-emperor. My character is a guy who cheerfully does favors for everyone, possibly because his deep-seated self-loathing has created within him a death wish. As a consequence he is beloved in Goodsprings, Primm, and Novac. Both the Boomers and the Brotherhood of Steel hold him in highest regard, and Jacobstown regards him as a dear friend and ally. Similarly for the Followers. People take the Yes-Man ending as the player taking dictatorial control, but really, haven't you been helping other people throughout the rest of the game? I mean, if you choose to play as a vicious bastard (which I can never bring myself to do, because cartoon evil just doesn't seem fun to me) then fine, the choice of jerks you choose seems borderline irrelevant to me. But give me an army of Securitrons, and I'll create a Mojave Republic (Boomers, BoS, and Jacobstown included) that'll outlast either the NCR or the Legion. Tacky-Ass Rococco fucked around with this message at 02:08 on Feb 23, 2015 |
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Feb 23, 2015 02:05
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Timeless Appeal posted:To be fair, one of the funnier aspects of the Kings is that they don't fully understand who Elvis was and haven't heard his music. They're strictly following the impersonation school's instructions for how to act like Elvis because they mistook it for a church. They didn't mistake it for a church, The King says he knows its a school but he calls it a church because the veneration and impersonation of Elvis was basically a form of worship.
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Feb 23, 2015 05:20
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