BadAstronaut posted:So, Josh Sawyer gave me some of his time to answer a few questions about New Vegas. Give it a read - hope you enjoy. That's a link to the comment section fyi.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2017 00:19
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 7, 2024 21:19 |
|
|
I like his comments on the independent ending and how it's open ended nature encourages players to reason on their own time how well a decentralized government would work based off of their decisions made in the game
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2017 01:27
|
|
|
Arcsquad12 posted:I like his comments on the independent ending and how it's open ended nature encourages players to reason on their own time how well a decentralized government would work based off of their decisions made in the game One thing I wish he talked more about ( and was my largest issue with the Independent ending, and Independent endings in most RPGs ) is the "what comes after." phase. Like when the Courier is long dead, the NCR will still be around, so supporting the NCR makes a certain amount of sense. If you support House, he'll live past you just as he has been living. Hell, he might set you up with a longer lifespan as well. Your choices continue here. If you support the Legion......well ok, there are a lot of problems with the Legion and longevity. But presumably/ideally you or Caesar would be able to sort them out before you both died. But if you go Anarchist? What happens when you die? Who runs Vegas then? Who controls the robots? Do you gain a protege? But doesn't that open up the possibility of an Augustus/Anthony/Lepidus situation? Like when the strongman finally falls, historically that situation has led to his closest allies and friends picking apart his empire as "rightfully theirs". You also still have the problem of the powerful NCR and Legion to either side, the NCR you defeat in Vegas proper isn't a core force, it's described as a scouting force. The full NCR army with tanks and more is right behind the Divide. The Legion is the full Legion, but it's really silly to assume they'd fade into obscurity after a defeat at Hoover, they have the numbers to come back in force. This is something that happens often in Obsidian games, as they are one of the few groups to really push factions with a unaffiliated ending.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2017 01:49
|
|
|
Lurdiak posted:That's a link to the comment section fyi. Whoops - thanks, fixing now.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2017 01:59
|
|
|
Josh is very wellspoken.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2017 05:19
|
|
|
Rookersh posted:But if you go Anarchist? What happens when you die? IF I die.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2017 05:27
|
|
|
If house can be immortal until the almighty courier intervenes, then so can I.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2017 15:14
|
|
|
In an Anarchist run, you have to kill House, correct? I would assume the courier would figure out some way to get House's immortality secret from him (through force or coercion)
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2017 15:55
|
|
|
Gyshall posted:In an Anarchist run, you have to kill House, correct? I would assume the courier would figure out some way to get House's immortality secret from him (through force or coercion) You can unplug house and let him slowly die in an iron coffin since his immune system is entrely gone. Make up your mind on whether to torture the info out of him or not.
|
|
#
?
Jul 17, 2017 19:36
|
|
|
Rookersh posted:Like when the Courier is long dead, the NCR will still be around, The Fallout setting isn't *that* cynical and hopeless.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2017 04:01
|
|
|
I dunno, certain endings for the NCR in the Independent ending could potentially trigger a social reform. If Hanlon returns to the NCR and doesn't retire to Redding, he starts a political campaign to oust Kimball running on an anti corruption platform.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2017 04:07
|
|
|
Arcsquad12 posted:I dunno, certain endings for the NCR in the Independent ending could potentially trigger a social reform. If Hanlon returns to the NCR and doesn't retire to Redding, he starts a political campaign to oust Kimball running on an anti corruption platform. Seems like he would have trouble doing that, being dead and all.
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2017 16:30
|
|
|
Only if you killed him
|
|
#
?
Jul 18, 2017 16:44
|
|
|
I always took Independent to mean "okay, I assassinated the tinpot dictator and kicked the two empires out of the Mojave, Yes Man's robots will kept those assholes out and keep the peace on The Strip but that's it, now Imma peace out and leave the remaining factions in the Mojave to fend for themselves, later y'all." That's what Anarchist means after all: nobody's in central control. If you assume you assume dictatorship of the Mojave in that ending instead, how, exactly, does that make it different from the House ending? Aside from The Courier not being a piece of human jerky plugged into a radio antenna?
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2017 01:11
|
|
|
Because I have the biggest gun and the goofiest hat and I'll shoot lasers at anyone who thinks that doesn't make me king of the shitpile
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2017 01:15
|
|
|
According to the interview with Josh Sawyer, Independent is meant to be an ending where the Courier leaves the Mojave to govern itself with the ultimate freedom for everyone to choose their own path, but things will inevitably fall through the cracks because there's no strong centralized government to take care of everything. He also describes House as the libertarian option.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2017 03:58
|
|
|
Despite any ending, the inevitable ending is that the NCR will expand further. While the Mojave may be pushing the NCR to its breaking point, the endings all put NCR in one of two positions from which to regain strength. Either they fully encompass New Vegas and solidify their new territory, or they are pushed back to defensible borders that are too big to fail in the short term. Doctor Hildern expects mass starvation in the coming decades, but that still gives the NCR time to regather itself or reform. In a hypothetical endgame scenario for the Fallout franchise, I can really only see the conclusion being the resurgent East Coast Brotherhood going up against the strength of the NCR. Barring some massive superpower in the midwest that could challenge an entire nation or a growing army of fascist power armored nutjobs, it will come down to two factions embracing the worst aspects of the old world driving the USA back into oblivion or finally reuniting the country from coast to coast.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2017 04:13
|
|
|
Arcsquad12 posted:Despite any ending, the inevitable ending is that the NCR will expand further. While the Mojave may be pushing the NCR to its breaking point, the endings all put NCR in one of two positions from which to regain strength. Either they fully encompass New Vegas and solidify their new territory, or they are pushed back to defensible borders that are too big to fail in the short term. Doctor Hildern expects mass starvation in the coming decades, but that still gives the NCR time to regather itself or reform. I suppose it depends on what version of events in Lonesome Road you take as canon, since for example going through with Ulysses's original plan to nuke the Long 15 chokepoint would obviously have severe long term repercussions for the NCR. Or if you even accept Lonesome Road and the othe DLCs as canon at all. Also, complete aside, but I personally take the Black Isle/Obsidian Fallouts and Bethesda Fallouts as being "shifted canon" with each other. That is, I assume some version of the events of Fallout 3 broadstrokes happened in the Fallout 1/2/New Vegas canon, and likewise some version of 1/2/NV happened in the 3 and 4 canon, but I don't consider the games all happening in the same canon. Yeah, it's headcanon nonsense, but it's either that or accept Bethesda's bad writing world can be in the same one as Edward "Hegelian Dialectics" Sallow.  (obviously, this means Tactics is in shifted canon with both of them, because that game is just silly) chitoryu12 posted:He also describes House as the libertarian option. So, House is just Andrew Ryan without the cognitive dissonance-induced mental breakdown? Sounds about right. Lord knows my preferred method of killing him is always with Nephi's Driver.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2017 06:06
|
|
|
I'd rather fallout 4 had avoided referencing Vegas altogether. Kellogg being from there isn't bad, really, but it does make the mental connection that is hard to reconcile the big differences in writing and style between the two developers. Plus it would encourage Bethesda to create something new rather than referencing the past. I'd love to see a Bethesda take on Ronto rather than obsidian, for example.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2017 06:17
|
|
|
Fallout 4 barely references New Vegas, and the Kellogg story arc is mostly tied to Fallout 2 stuff.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2017 07:56
|
|
|
Yeah, Kellogg is from pre-Fallout 2 era NCR, and Fallout 4 seems to actively try to avoid referencing NV considering it's packed with references to 3 and the original games. There's like a reference to House one time and Nuka World mentions Sunset Sarsaparilla in a loading screen as well as, bizarrely, Vera Keyes from Dead Money.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2017 12:23
|
|
|
Vera Keyes was a famous singer, so it makes sense she'd have nationwide fans.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2017 13:10
|
|
|
Fallout 3 and 4 both have the same strange design that Bethesda wants for the post-war world and how it talks about the pre-war world. Not only does it have way more of the pseudo-50s Americana than any of the West Coast games, it also has a weird obsession with American history being garbled and appropriated by the post-apocalyptic society. Fallout 3 is in Washington DC and has stuff like quests based on Abraham Lincoln's memorial and rifle and the history museum on Rivet City. Fallout 4 is in Boston and has a ton of Revolutionary War stuff, including a ghoul dressed as a redcoat and the USS Constitution. Plus the thing with Button Gwinnett. Also, the East Coast games have a lot of Chinese stuff. It feels like every Chinese infiltrator in the 2070s was stationed in DC and Boston and completely ignored the coast that was closer to China.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2017 13:59
|
|
|
Crosspostin'Acebuckeye13 posted:
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2017 19:41
|
|
|
That cazador is giving me ALL the PTSD.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2017 20:09
|
|
|
I really like the areas they suggest you look in Bleed me Dry. The high mountain pass for the cazadors or the cave with the fire geckos are super neat locations
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2017 20:22
|
|
|
chitoryu12 posted:Fallout 3 and 4 both have the same strange design that Bethesda wants for the post-war world and how it talks about the pre-war world. Not only does it have way more of the pseudo-50s Americana than any of the West Coast games, it also has a weird obsession with American history being garbled and appropriated by the post-apocalyptic society. Fallout 3 is in Washington DC and has stuff like quests based on Abraham Lincoln's memorial and rifle and the history museum on Rivet City. Fallout 4 is in Boston and has a ton of Revolutionary War stuff, including a ghoul dressed as a redcoat and the USS Constitution. Plus the thing with Button Gwinnett. On the one hand, I really like that poo poo; it makes a lot of sense that people would be interested in what the world was like before the Great War and that they'd misunderstand a lot of what they could piece together, too. On the other hand, it doesn't really feel appropriate to the kind of stories that Fallout usually tells. Which adds an interesting subtext to Old World Blues' epilogue discussing the phenomenon of people getting wrapped up in their longing for the world that was lost.
|
|
#
?
Jul 20, 2017 23:28
|
|
|
I love the weird not quite right cultural re-appropriation. I think that's one of the best things about the FPS games. It IS a bit weird that it's like 200 year after the bombs but people still jerks napoleons dick like he didn't lose so~
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2017 01:28
|
|
|
I like that cabin by the lake when you do the mission to raise the bomber for the boomers. Ok, I got the little airbags set up, now I'll just swim to the coast and deton-OH GOD CAZADORS EVERYWHERE. The best was when you were just walking along and then you'd see 8 red ticks pop into your compass, and you'd stop everything to see if they were stationary, or if they were whipping side to side really quickly.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2017 01:35
|
|
|
DamnGlitch posted:I love the weird not quite right cultural re-appropriation. I think that's one of the best things about the FPS games. He was winning up until the point where he lost. Kind of...
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2017 08:11
|
|
|
I mean, I don't think you can single out Fallout 3 and 4 for that reappropriation stuff when New Vegas has the Kings. But it's true that they didn't really push the pre-War stuff nearly as much in the originals, save for anything that was tied to the military-industrial complex.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2017 08:14
|
|
|
Fair Bear Maiden posted:I mean, I don't think you can single out Fallout 3 and 4 for that reappropriation stuff when New Vegas has the Kings. But it's true that they didn't really push the pre-War stuff nearly as much in the originals, save for anything that was tied to the military-industrial complex. And the libertarian zombie in charge of the entire region. And all of the Western movie affectations.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2017 13:21
|
|
|
Internet Wizard posted:And the libertarian zombie in charge of the entire region. And all of the Western movie affectations. I don't think those were in the original games
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2017 16:11
|
|
|
ThaumPenguin posted:I don't think those were in the original games I never said they were?
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2017 17:48
|
|
|
The western movie affectations were in 2, but like in NV those are more an allusion the similarities that the (west coast) Fallout world shares with the wild west as a new frontier, rather than being a deliberate act by the people of the world. NV makes the parallels more explicit with the NCR aggressively expanding into "uncivilized" territories like the Mojave, even down to perpetuating atrocities against natives who aren't receptive to their presence.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2017 18:13
|
|
|
The only west coast imitators who are so blatant about it are from the new Vegas region anyways. The Kings started impersonating elvis, and then when house booted them and the Khans off the strip, he decided to emulate old world Vegas based off of holo tapes of the old world to better use it as a tourist trap. Even the Khans themselves aren't really as blatant in their imitations, and they've been around forever. With the exception of the Vegas types, the West coast seems to take more inspiration from the last than outright imitation.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2017 21:44
|
|
|
Is house even imitating Vegas so much as trying to restore something that he'd already participated in?
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2017 21:50
|
|
|
Yeah, House was already a big player in Las Vegas when the bombs fell. He's just got a bad case of them Old World Blues.
|
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2017 23:09
|
|
|
On a replay of fallout 1 and I was looking through the GOG files and found the fallout bible. That poo poo is awesome and I'd kill for a modern one about New Vegas. There's just so many fun and interesting tidbits in there. At least we have ropekid.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2017 01:04
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 7, 2024 21:19 |
|
|
Internet Wizard posted:I never said they were? Oh sorry I misread Fair Bear Maiden's comment and somehow blanked out at the New Vegas part and only noticed them mentioning the originals
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2017 01:09
|
|