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darkwasthenight
Jan 7, 2011

GENE TRAITOR

Leinadi posted:

I think the biggest shame of all is that a lot of people just play roughly the same each time, based on their own emotions and views.

I found this was a big stumbling point for me. I tried so hard to play an evil guy, but felt so bad about doing it that I ended up taking the same options playthrough after playthrough. I don't think I can criticize a game for making me feel excessive empathy for a collection of virtual lines of code though...

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Republican Vampire
Jun 2, 2007

Saoshyant posted:

No, that isn't what's implied. What's implied is that there are a lot of merchants happily making a profit in Legion territory to the point the Strip accepts their money. There are no legionaries on the Strip; that would go against everything Caesar tried to condition the tribals to be.

That's why I said Legion Civilians, not Legionaries. We know they exist because we see one of them (Dale Barton) in the game and people like Cass talk about them existing as subjects of, but separate from, the Legion.

It's kind hard to talk about because the legion doesn't really have a name for people outside of it but in its territory. Legion refers to the slave army itself, and I'm pretty sure they're not Profligates since Barton's in Caesar's camp and Profligates aren't allowed inside.

Caufman
May 7, 2007

OctaviusBeaver posted:

I think part of the problem is that Caesar orders you to kill House before he will even talk to you about his philosophy.

I do not understand how people buy Caesar's philosophy. His synthesis would not improve the Wasteland at all. NCR needs to be less militaristic, less expansionary, less hierarchical, and more humane. It certainly does not need more rape, more slavery, or more brutality. To make a better wasteland, NCR needs to move away from Legion philosophies, not towards it.

Cream-of-Plenty
Apr 21, 2010

"The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering."
On that subject, can somebody give me evidence of the Legion being this big army of rapists?

Besides the offhand comment Veronica makes, that is: "Silliest dressed band of raping, slaving marauders you'll see east of California, I'll say that."

Cream-of-Plenty fucked around with this message at 00:57 on May 11, 2012

Merry Magpie
Jan 8, 2012

A superstitious cowardly lot.

Cream-of-Plenty posted:

On that subject, can somebody give me evidence of the Legion being this big army of rapists?

Besides the offhand comment Veronica makes, that is: "Silliest dressed band of raping, slaving marauders you'll see east of California, I'll say that."

I assumed she was referring to the Legion practice of taking tribal women against their will and using them as breeding stock.

OctaviusBeaver
Apr 30, 2009

Say what now?

Caufman posted:

I do not understand how people buy Caesar's philosophy. His synthesis would not improve the Wasteland at all. NCR needs to be less militaristic, less expansionary, less hierarchical, and more humane. It certainly does not need more rape, more slavery, or more brutality. To make a better wasteland, NCR needs to move away from Legion philosophies, not towards it.

I'm not saying I buy it, I'm just saying that most people won't even hear it unless they decide to go Legion from the start. With House and NCR you get a decent idea of what they are about before you have to commit to them.

rope kid
Feb 3, 2001

Warte nur! Balde
Ruhest du auch.

Caufman posted:

I do not understand how people buy Caesar's philosophy. His synthesis would not improve the Wasteland at all. NCR needs to be less militaristic, less expansionary, less hierarchical, and more humane. It certainly does not need more rape, more slavery, or more brutality. To make a better wasteland, NCR needs to move away from Legion philosophies, not towards it.
In Caesar's view, NCR's problems have to do with the corruption of its government and what he sees as inherent flaws in NCR's republican system. All of the strategies he uses to assemble the Legion and march on NCR are means to an end, not social end goals themselves.

Caesar sees NCR as Rome and his role in reforming it as Julius Caesar's role in reforming the republic (by turning it into a dictatorship). When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon and returned to Rome, his legion didn't rape and enslave their way through the city. However, rape and enslavement were common in outer territories of the Roman Empire and were regularly used as tools of intimidation and labor.

When Arcade "jokes" that Caesar thinks that the Colorado River is the Rubicon, he's not far from the truth.

Merry Magpie
Jan 8, 2012

A superstitious cowardly lot.

rope kid posted:

In Caesar's view, NCR's problems have to do with the corruption of its government and what he sees as inherent flaws in NCR's republican system. All of the strategies he uses to assemble the Legion and march on NCR are means to an end, not social end goals themselves.

Caesar sees NCR as Rome and his role in reforming it as Julius Caesar's role in reforming the republic (by turning it into a dictatorship). When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon and returned to Rome, his legion didn't rape and enslave their way through the city. However, rape and enslavement were common in outer territories of the Roman Empire and were regularly used as tools of intimidation and labor.

When Arcade "jokes" that Caesar thinks that the Colorado River is the Rubicon, he's not far from the truth.

I have a question: Did Caesar intend to transition the Legion from a war machine to a settled police force by settling them in the conquered lands and encouraging the growth of a new culture patterned on his ideals?

I never really understood his endgame in the Mojave. An army of hardened killers without an enemy is just asking for trouble.

Republican Vampire
Jun 2, 2007

Caufman posted:

I do not understand how people buy Caesar's philosophy. His synthesis would not improve the Wasteland at all. NCR needs to be less militaristic, less expansionary, less hierarchical, and more humane. It certainly does not need more rape, more slavery, or more brutality. To make a better wasteland, NCR needs to move away from Legion philosophies, not towards it.

If the NCR doesn't expand it will probably collapse because it's facing a water crisis and because it's an advanced economy it relies on agriculture.

Also the rape, slavery and brutality, in theory, would erode once Caesar took over. He specifically says something about the legion's values transitioning from brutal slavery to public service once they were moderated by the more senatorial culture of the NCR, or something of that kidney.

Again, it's not entirely convincing, but neither is anyone else. I mean House is basically a spergy manchild who isn't even going to be the first to post-war space, and independent Vegas is reliant on people like the Followers who aren't remotely set up to take on a leadership role, let alone to do so in a sudden vacuum. You have to pick the side you think is least wrong.

Republican Vampire fucked around with this message at 04:52 on May 11, 2012

Fintilgin
Sep 29, 2004

Fintilgin sweeps!

Leinadi posted:

I think the biggest shame of all is that a lot of people just play roughly the same each time, based on their own emotions and views. I mean, I think the Legion could've been better portrayed, absolutely. But even so, it's still fun to create a character that would support them. Especially if you go all out anti-NCR.

I've tried. :negative:

Nearly every game with an evil option I've tried playing that way. I. Can. Not. Do. It. It sucks all the fun out of the game. I'll come up with a cool concept for a bad guy character and start playing, but almost immediately find I have to force myself to click the 'evil' dialogue options. The moment some innocent NPC starts sounding anguished or suffering because of my playing an rear end in a top hat character I feel repulsed and turned off. Every attempt at an evil playthrough has ended after an hour or two.

I can't even play through the GTA games because I have such a strong distaste for playing a 'villain'. I force myself through the first few missions, download a mod that unlocks the other islands, and just muck around in free-roam. I did manage to get through Saints Row 2 & 3, but I think that's only because they're so cartoonishly silly and over the top.

Gradually, I've come to realize that the only reason I wanted to do evil playthroughs in the first place was because I was curious about missed content and wanted a different style replay. But I've sort of come to realize that it doesn't push any buttons for me, it's not fun in any way, and I've pretty much given up on even attempting it. I've just accepted that there is content and quests I'll never see.

Leinadi posted:

And some options are just fun, plain ol' dick-moves, like selling Arcade to Caesar.

See I get this on an intellectual level, but on an emotional level all I feel is a twist of revulsion. Even a video game, betraying someone and selling them into slavery strikes me as being about as fun or having about as much entertainment value as playing Auschwitz Oven Commander: The Game.

It's funny, because I absolutely defend and support there being evil choices in games like this. Even really evil choices. But I'm always slightly startled that any actually does them, and slightly concerned that anyone might enjoy them.

I may just be an irredeemable softie, though. I can't even kill bugs. Even wasps and hornets I have to gently catch in a cup and let go outside. :ohdear:

Fintilgin fucked around with this message at 03:44 on May 11, 2012

VocalizePlayerDeath
Jan 29, 2009

That reminds me of my play through of Mass Effect 1&2 it wasn't until after I beat the second game that I realized that the responses are color coded to the "Alignment" either paragon or renegade.
From what I had read of other peoples experience playing most people simply chose their alignment before hand and just mash that response every time it comes up. I was just picking whatever response I felt was appropriate to the situation. So my character would seem pretty chaotic in comparison, punching people and throwing them of ledges to their deaths on moment and having heartfelt chats with confused strangers the next moment.

I followed a similar path in New Vegas. If someone tried to swindle me, they are dead. People like Pacer and Fantastic were toast. Others like Vulpes and Caesar who were quite polite, I got along fine with.
Oliver Swank in Nipton won some bullets from me for very screaming in my face while I came up the road. Boxcars got the same for being quite rude while I spoke with him.
I didn't try play evil, just that I was a very busy roaming the wastes and I don't have time to get hosed around.

Synastren
Nov 8, 2005

Bad at Starcraft 2.
Better at psychology.
Psychology Megathread




So, I've run into what I suspect might be a bug in Old World Blues. I'm trying to power up my McGuffin gun to knock out forcefields; I've gathered the 3 records, and my quest updates to tell me to "Start the Advanced Test." Use the terminal... quest doesn't update. Still, I can deal with the dog and pick up the upgrade (and fight my way out of X-8), but even if I go back to the Sink, I can't upgrade my gun, and the Upgrade Quest never advances.

Do I need to exit X-8 and reenter, or something?

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

Cream-of-Plenty posted:

On that subject, can somebody give me evidence of the Legion being this big army of rapists?

Besides the offhand comment Veronica makes, that is: "Silliest dressed band of raping, slaving marauders you'll see east of California, I'll say that."

There's an NCR outpost that you arrive it in the game after a Legion Raid. All the men are dead and the women are missing, and you can find a little audio tape left behind the Legion, declaring in a voice basically devoid of any emotion that they've killed the men and they'll do the same to all the NCR outposts. There is a brief pause and in the same deadpan he then says,"...oh yes, and we took the women."

The implication is pretty drat clear, especially in conjunction with Vulpes' actions earlier in the game. They're trying to demoralize the NCR troops by showing they can strike from anywhere, they'll kill the men and they'll take the women as slaves, with the implication being there that they'll rape them. It's guerilla/terrorist tactics, they're trying to create a climate of fear to take away the troops will to fight.

redmercer
Sep 15, 2011

by Fistgrrl

Synastren posted:

So, I've run into what I suspect might be a bug in Old World Blues. I'm trying to power up my McGuffin gun to knock out forcefields; I've gathered the 3 records, and my quest updates to tell me to "Start the Advanced Test." Use the terminal... quest doesn't update. Still, I can deal with the dog and pick up the upgrade (and fight my way out of X-8), but even if I go back to the Sink, I can't upgrade my gun, and the Upgrade Quest never advances.

Do I need to exit X-8 and reenter, or something?

The upgrade isn't in the part with Gabe, you're going to have to run through the school test one more time.

Bilal
Feb 20, 2012

Fintilgin posted:

Gradually, I've come to realize that the only reason I wanted to do evil playthroughs in the first place was because I was curious about missed content and wanted a different style replay. But I've sort of come to realize that it doesn't push any buttons for me, it's not fun in any way, and I've pretty much given up on even attempting it. I've just accepted that there is content and quests I'll never see.

...

See I get this on an intellectual level, but on an emotional level all I feel is a twist of revulsion. Even a video game, betraying someone and selling them into slavery strikes me as being about as fun or having about as much entertainment value as playing Auschwitz Oven Commander: The Game.

A thing that's bothered me ever since Moral Choice became a big thing in video games (even non-RPG's) is the fact that the developers include evil options, but with no incentive to take that evil option other than because You're Just Evil in the same way a DBZ villain is. In your example above, selling a certain companion into slavery in New Vegas is a complete dick move with no benefit to you, the player, except for the fact that You Are Evil.

I first noticed it in Bioshock where the choice as to whether to harvest the Sisters or not was a non-choice because if you choose to save them they give you gifts that paid out more bonuses than if you had harvested them. In RPG's choosing the evil path generally means you actually have a harder time because you get locked out of quests or attacked by NPCs in towns or whatever.

For some reason people's concept of an "evil" RPG player character means going from town to town killing every NPC in sight. I can't think of any that let you actually be like a realistic bad guy- exploiting people, shaking them down on a regular basis, scamming them, tying village maidens onto your motorcycle and riding away with them, etc. In a lot of RPG's you can steal stuff, but that is usually accompanied by the town guards aggroing on you instead of running away on sight because you're a seven foot tall leather clad barbarian. You never really get to play a raider or a warlord.

Even if there are games where the good choices and the evil choices give equal bonuses, I can't think of a single game where the evil choice actually gives you a greater benefit than the good choice- in which case you would actually have to choose to roleplay as the good path because the bad path, much like real life, would benefit you in the short term (a playthrough of a game being short term considering you don't really get to see your character 20+ years down the road.)

Crime games like GTA don't fall into the above because they are linear and you can't really make a choice about your character's actions on scripted missions.

Pope Guilty
Nov 6, 2006

The human animal is a beautiful and terrible creature, capable of limitless compassion and unfathomable cruelty.
The old Star Wars d6 system did the "the Dark Side is quicker but ultimately not as strong" by providing dark side Jedi more power at lower levels, but having them cap out faster.

Of course, if you're not going to the SWD6 equivalent of 20th level...

Defiance Industries
Jul 22, 2010

A five-star manufacturer


There's Mount and Blade. Looting and pillaging gets you rich fast.

CommissarMega
Nov 18, 2008

THUNDERDOME LOSER
IIRC, freakin' Dragon Age actually pulled that off- asking for rewards and generally being a dick really did net you more rewards than being good did, which often amounted to you getting the warm fuzzies and nothing else. Siding with the ostensible 'bad guy' in one of the main quests also meant you got a better ending.

Strudel Man
May 19, 2003
ROME DID NOT HAVE ROBOTS, FUCKWIT

Bilal posted:

I first noticed it in Bioshock where the choice as to whether to harvest the Sisters or not was a non-choice because if you choose to save them they give you gifts that paid out more bonuses than if you had harvested them. In RPG's choosing the evil path generally means you actually have a harder time because you get locked out of quests or attacked by NPCs in towns or whatever.
This isn't even really an example of this, but my favorite/most memorable implementation of a moral choice in a game was in Jade Empire, which didn't have the strict "good versus evil" dichotomy - instead, it used "open palm" and "closed fist." While in most cases these worked out the same as good and evil, in theory, there was a deeper philosophical difference, between protecting others and defining yourself through struggle.

At one point in the game, you're passing through a den of pirates who are also part-time slavers, and you come across a merchant trying to purchase a young woman as a slave. After you kill the pirates there, you have a few options for how to deal with the situation.

-You can tell the merchant to get lost. (Open Palm!)
-You can demand that he pay you for the slave, who you now 'own' by virtue of having killed the previous 'owners.' (Closed Fist!)
-Orrrr, the one that caught me off-guard, you can say that it's not your decision - that if she wants her freedom, she has to take it for herself, by killing the person trying to buy her. Which she then does. (Closed fist!)

Not really pursuing personal advantage, but it was kind of neat.

Throckwoddle
Jan 3, 2012

You wanna dance?

Jerusalem posted:

There's an NCR outpost that you arrive it in the game after a Legion Raid. All the men are dead and the women are missing, and you can find a little audio tape left behind the Legion, declaring in a voice basically devoid of any emotion that they've killed the men and they'll do the same to all the NCR outposts. There is a brief pause and in the same deadpan he then says,"...oh yes, and we took the women."

The implication is pretty drat clear, especially in conjunction with Vulpes' actions earlier in the game. They're trying to demoralize the NCR troops by showing they can strike from anywhere, they'll kill the men and they'll take the women as slaves, with the implication being there that they'll rape them. It's guerilla/terrorist tactics, they're trying to create a climate of fear to take away the troops will to fight.

You can actually meet the female Ranger they took if you do the male-only Legion arena fights. She's been sitting around in the arena punching centurions to death and has everybody cowed. There's no actual way to help her out though, which is kind of odd. She simply doesn't exist unless you select the "gently caress YEAH I WANT TO BUTCHER SLAVES" option.

Jerusalem
May 20, 2004

Would you be my new best friends?

That's very interesting, I was positive that the audio message should kick off a quest and actually looked around for the Legion raiding party figuring I could rescue the captives. Eventually I just figured it was flavor for the player to show them what the Legion was all about. I never did any arena fights in the game, so I had no idea one of the victims can and does actually show up later, and it's neat to hear she has physically dominated and cowed the male aggressors.

Cream-of-Plenty
Apr 21, 2010

"The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering."

Jerusalem posted:

There's an NCR outpost that you arrive it in the game after a Legion Raid. All the men are dead and the women are missing, and you can find a little audio tape left behind the Legion, declaring in a voice basically devoid of any emotion that they've killed the men and they'll do the same to all the NCR outposts. There is a brief pause and in the same deadpan he then says,"...oh yes, and we took the women."

The implication is pretty drat clear, especially in conjunction with Vulpes' actions earlier in the game. They're trying to demoralize the NCR troops by showing they can strike from anywhere, they'll kill the men and they'll take the women as slaves, with the implication being there that they'll rape them. It's guerilla/terrorist tactics, they're trying to create a climate of fear to take away the troops will to fight.

I'm not trying to be obtuse, but why is it clear that they'll rape them and not that they simply stole them for slaves?

EDIT: What I mean to say is that this is a faction that doesn't like to mince its words in a game that doesn't like to beat around the bush. It seems odd that they would leave a message basically going, "Heh-heh, wink wink, you know what we mean" and then go back to burning down an entire town and nailing people to crosses.

Cream-of-Plenty fucked around with this message at 06:18 on May 11, 2012

thrakkorzog
Nov 16, 2007

Cream-of-Plenty posted:

I'm not trying to be obtuse, but why is it clear that they'll rape them and not that they simply stole them for slaves?

EDIT: What I mean to say is that this is a faction that doesn't like to mince its words in a game that doesn't like to beat around the bush. It seems odd that they would leave a message basically going, "Heh-heh, wink wink, you know what we mean" and then go back to burning down an entire town and nailing people to crosses.

It's pretty clear if you go visit the Legion camp to talk to the Legion that slaves get raped all the time. You can talk to one of the slaves and she'll tell you that pretty much the only way to not get raped as a slave is to be hideously ugly. And if you're playing as a female Courier, several of the Legionnaires will make comments about how they'd love to enslave you and rape you.

If they're willing to rape women who have the audacity to basically be talking pack mules, I doubt those misogynistic assholes are going to hold back when it comes to dealing with women who actually took up arms against them.

redmercer
Sep 15, 2011

by Fistgrrl
I like getting a mixed rep with the Legion so Caesar sends out, like, one assassin at at time after me. It's like he's not even mad, he's just sending the dicks he wants dead anyway.

Zore
Sep 21, 2010
willfully illiterate, aggressively miserable sourpuss whose sole raison d’etre is to put other people down for liking the wrong things

Cream-of-Plenty posted:

I'm not trying to be obtuse, but why is it clear that they'll rape them and not that they simply stole them for slaves?

EDIT: What I mean to say is that this is a faction that doesn't like to mince its words in a game that doesn't like to beat around the bush. It seems odd that they would leave a message basically going, "Heh-heh, wink wink, you know what we mean" and then go back to burning down an entire town and nailing people to crosses.

Writers tend to be more circumspect about sex and sexual abuse than maimingand torturing. There's a reason we saw a town being crucified and never had a single person graphically raped on screen, or see anyone left after an obvious rape. Its far more shocking and taboo to put into a video game that's trying to avoid an AO rating.

Non-sexual violence is way more accepted and mainstream in America.

Edit: plus, in the scene you're talking about the point is that horror is always worse when you don't know exactly what happened. They're just 'hiding the monster' to instill greater fear into their enemies. Ominously trailing off conjures all sorts of horrible ideas that "WE TOOK THEM TO RAPE AND MAKE BABIES" doesn't.

Zore fucked around with this message at 06:55 on May 11, 2012

Cream-of-Plenty
Apr 21, 2010

"The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering."

Zore posted:

Writers tend to be more circumspect about sex and sexual abuse than maimingand torturing. There's a reason we saw a town being crucified and never had a single person graphically raped on screen, or see anyone left after an obvious rape. Its far more shocking and taboo to put into a video game that's trying to avoid an AO rating.

Non-sexual violence is way more accepted and mainstream in America.

Edit: plus, in the scene you're talking about the point is that horror is always worse when you don't know exactly what happened. They're just 'hiding the monster' to instill greater fear into their enemies. Ominously trailing off conjures all sorts of horrible ideas that "WE TOOK THEM TO RAPE AND MAKE BABIES" doesn't.

Yeah, I understand that, but "rape" is basically front-and-center for Cook-Cook's bio in the game. It's not like the suggested subtlety was because Obsidian didn't want to mention rape, which is what you're arguing. There is rape in the game, already.

EDIT:

thrakkorzog posted:

It's pretty clear if you go visit the Legion camp to talk to the Legion that slaves get raped all the time. You can talk to one of the slaves and she'll tell you that pretty much the only way to not get raped as a slave is to be hideously ugly. And if you're playing as a female Courier, several of the Legionnaires will make comments about how they'd love to enslave you and rape you.

If they're willing to rape women who have the audacity to basically be talking pack mules, I doubt those misogynistic assholes are going to hold back when it comes to dealing with women who actually took up arms against them.

This is better evidence of "people in Caesar's Legion are rapists." Thanks.

Cream-of-Plenty fucked around with this message at 07:21 on May 11, 2012

Pope Guilty
Nov 6, 2006

The human animal is a beautiful and terrible creature, capable of limitless compassion and unfathomable cruelty.

redmercer posted:

I like getting a mixed rep with the Legion so Caesar sends out, like, one assassin at at time after me. It's like he's not even mad, he's just sending the dicks he wants dead anyway.

I love Legion hit squads. They're like packages of guns, ammo, armor, and XP that Caesar sends me! I don't even have to keep a high rep or go to a specified drop point- they come to me!

Syrant
Jun 28, 2006
This post is brought to you by: Goat Bouillabaise.

First 9
Didn't Rope Kid say, specifically, that Caesar is using the female slaves specifically to make babies for the Legion? I don't think he even concerns himself with the right or wrong of it, it's just necessary to keep the Legion going.

I don't imagine there are many women volunteering for the job, or many legion soldiers -not- taking advantage of the slaves.

balakadaka
Jun 30, 2005

robot terrorists WILL kill you

rope kid posted:

In Caesar's view, NCR's problems have to do with the corruption of its government and what he sees as inherent flaws in NCR's republican system. All of the strategies he uses to assemble the Legion and march on NCR are means to an end, not social end goals themselves.

Caesar sees NCR as Rome and his role in reforming it as Julius Caesar's role in reforming the republic (by turning it into a dictatorship). When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon and returned to Rome, his legion didn't rape and enslave their way through the city. However, rape and enslavement were common in outer territories of the Roman Empire and were regularly used as tools of intimidation and labor.

When Arcade "jokes" that Caesar thinks that the Colorado River is the Rubicon, he's not far from the truth.

I think my only "wait a second" moment with this idea is that Caesar does not have his Augustus written in his will (or at least we never meet him). I'm at least partially convinced that if the real Augustus had been 10% of a worse leader, then the princeps model might have fizzled out a lot faster.

The republic was a crumbled sham of its former self by the time Caesar came around (not even counting Marius, which changed the game wholesale), but plenty of senators had a lot of money vested in keeping the status quo. At least, that would be true before the Second Triumvirate killed a few hundred rich families and seized their assets

Fintilgin
Sep 29, 2004

Fintilgin sweeps!

Throckwoddle posted:

You can actually meet the female Ranger they took if you do the male-only Legion arena fights. She's been sitting around in the arena punching centurions to death and has everybody cowed. There's no actual way to help her out though, which is kind of odd. She simply doesn't exist unless you select the "gently caress YEAH I WANT TO BUTCHER SLAVES" option.

Yeah, this was one of the only things that really irritated me about New Vegas. There were slaves I couldn't free. It really, really sucked to wipe out the Fort and yet not be able to rescue any of the slaves there. I was infuriating to have a little girl locked in a pen, kill all her captors, but not be able to rescue her. Was there some quest you could find out in the world that would let you do this?

Saoshyant
Oct 26, 2010

:hmmorks: :orks:


Fintilgin posted:

Was there some quest you could find out in the world that would let you do this?

Nope. It's the kind of polished detail missing in New Vegas and there's a quite a few like these, but there's also so much you can implement with the deadline available.

Fintilgin
Sep 29, 2004

Fintilgin sweeps!

Saoshyant posted:

Nope. It's the kind of polished detail missing in New Vegas and there's a quite a few like these, but there's also so much you can implement with the deadline available.

All I want to do is toss her over my shoulder and find her a nice adoptive family back in Goodsprings or something. Not being able to rescue her reminds me of that frigging gnome island quest from Arcanum. Except it feels buggy and half assed instead of just irritatingly incomplete.

So. Mad.


Best moment in the Fallout series is always rolling into Metzgers, incinerating all those fuckers and freeing the slaves.

MrL_JaKiri
Sep 23, 2003

A bracing glass of carrot juice!

Saoshyant posted:

Nope. It's the kind of polished detail missing in New Vegas

And basically every video game? Name an RPG that lets you do the kind of things you might want to do at every point.

Saoshyant
Oct 26, 2010

:hmmorks: :orks:


MrL_JaKiri posted:

And basically every video game? Name an RPG that lets you do the kind of things you might want to do at every point.

I like how you removed the other half of the post. You know, the one that explains I hold no grudge against New Vegas for not being able to fit in even more content due to time restrictions. I also like how you added that I apparently said other RPGs don't have this issue. Yup, you were not trying to make a lame troll there, no sir. :rolleyes:

Fintilgin posted:

All I want to do is toss her over my shoulder and find her a nice adoptive family back in Goodsprings or something.

Good news! You can, assuming you don't mind creating a small mod to do this. One of the great things about FNV is that you can fix whatever you think is wrong with the game. Sure, it would be better if every little detail that made sense like that was covered from the beginning, but at least it's not impossible to fix it.

vvvv fair enough.

Saoshyant fucked around with this message at 14:33 on May 11, 2012

MrL_JaKiri
Sep 23, 2003

A bracing glass of carrot juice!

Saoshyant posted:

I like how you removed the other half of the post. You know, the one that explains I hold no grudge against New Vegas for not being able to fit in even more content due to time restrictions. I also like how you added that I apparently said other RPGs don't have this issue. Yup, you were not trying to make a lame troll there, no sir. :rolleyes:

It's not a lame troll :confused:

Saying "it's the kind of polished detail missing in New Vegas" implies heavily that it's not missing elsewhere, in more polished games; now, "lack of polish" is a stereotypical feature of Obsidian games in comparison to games like Mass Effect (for whatever reason) and the concept of "polish" doesn't really exist in a vacuum anyway. By using the term you're invoking a whole load of comparisons that you might not want to make.

Simultaneously, no amount of time spent working on the game could possibly remove all instances of "game doesn't let me do thing I want to do" so it's not a function of deadlines either. It might be in this specific instance, going by what JS said then it's quite possible. But in general it isn't. I didn't quote the whole thing not because I was deliberately ignoring the rest of it but because the post flowed better if I was only replying to the bit that was structured to allow the kind of reply that I made.

My comment on the lack of ability to do some things, like rescuing the slaves in the fort, would be more that it stands out more in New Vegas because it is generally much better at supplying those options than other modern RPGs. There's plenty of times in Skyrim that I can't do something, or solve a quest some way, that I want to be able to - but after a while I get used to the logic of the game and don't expect things any more. Lets not even get started on Mass Effect.

And there's a load of words on a pointless semantic disagreement, gently caress yeah old school D&D in this thread right naw. In general I agree with you, obviously.

Dush
Jan 23, 2011

Mo' Money

Fintilgin posted:

All I want to do is toss her over my shoulder and find her a nice adoptive family back in Goodsprings or something. Not being able to rescue her reminds me of that frigging gnome island quest from Arcanum. Except it feels buggy and half assed instead of just irritatingly incomplete.

So. Mad.


Best moment in the Fallout series is always rolling into Metzgers, incinerating all those fuckers and freeing the slaves.

At least you can free the slaves at Cottonwood Cove. I think it's got more to do with that they kind of ran out of time for the Fort relative to other locations, which is a problem with CL in general. rope kid has said that they had to cut a lot of planned content for CL.

Fintilgin
Sep 29, 2004

Fintilgin sweeps!
It did strike me that a large part of the urge to play morally in a video game comes from how immersive it is. I have no problem pouring bioterminators down on the Psilon homeworld in Master of Orion, or nuking Ghandi in civ. Running people over in GTA has all the moral weight of hitting a traffic cone.

But RPGs are a whole different story, and the better made the RPG, the more choices it has, the more immersive it is, the more I feel driven to play RPG Jesus. :byodood: WHY YES MA'AM, I'D LOVE TO RESCUE YOUR KITTEN, WHISKERS, FROM THE BLACK TOMB OF FORBIDDEN FATE!! JUST MARK IT ON MY MAP AND I'LL BE ON MY WAY! NO, NO NEED TO REWARD ME! IT'S MY PLEASURE TO HELP OUT!

Dush
Jan 23, 2011

Mo' Money

Fintilgin posted:

It did strike me that a large part of the urge to play morally in a video game comes from how immersive it is. I have no problem pouring bioterminators down on the Psilon homeworld in Master of Orion, or nuking Ghandi in civ. Running people over in GTA has all the moral weight of hitting a traffic cone.

But RPGs are a whole different story, and the better made the RPG, the more choices it has, the more immersive it is, the more I feel driven to play RPG Jesus. :byodood: WHY YES MA'AM, I'D LOVE TO RESCUE YOUR KITTEN, WHISKERS, FROM THE BLACK TOMB OF FORBIDDEN FATE!! JUST MARK IT ON MY MAP AND I'LL BE ON MY WAY! NO, NO NEED TO REWARD ME! IT'S MY PLEASURE TO HELP OUT!

One time I wanted to try out a new gun I'd gotten, so I just turned around and opened up on Cass. I blew off her head, legs and arms and then I looked at her bloodied torso and I genuinely felt kind of depressed about it. Obviously I was gonna reload the save anyway but I kind of feel like the companions in this game have a life and vibrance to them that genuinely bothers me when they get killed. That's in contrast to a game like FO3 where it's like... oh no, Butch died :blank:

But yeah we've all run over hundreds of people in GTA like it's nothing but it's valuable when a game can genuinely make you feel something.

poptart_fairy
Apr 8, 2009

by R. Guyovich
I think this is why, for me, Mr.House is the best version of 'evil' I can think of in a game - you're doing some pretty selfish, abhorrent poo poo but it's at the behest of someone else and has some sort of ultimate purpose (justified or not...). I don't know, it hits a very special spot for me; I've always loved the idea of roleplaying an enforcer and Lieutenant, rather than the Special Chosen One Leader Man. I'm the one you come to in order to get poo poo done dammit, I don't care about prophecies or your morality. It's a pay cheque. :colbert:

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Wolfsheim
Dec 23, 2003

"Ah," Ratz had said, at last, "the artiste."

Bilal posted:

A thing that's bothered me ever since Moral Choice became a big thing in video games (even non-RPG's) is the fact that the developers include evil options, but with no incentive to take that evil option other than because You're Just Evil in the same way a DBZ villain is. In your example above, selling a certain companion into slavery in New Vegas is a complete dick move with no benefit to you, the player, except for the fact that You Are Evil.

There are a couple of good reasons to sell Arcade into slavery:

-You lack the medical expertise to operate on Caesar's brain yourself and don't want to venture into the irradiated hellhole that is Vault 34 to get the autodoc part.
-You want him out of the way early because you're planning on convincing the Remnants to fight against the NCR.
-You're tired of someone constantly expressing moral outrage at all the blatantly evil poo poo you're doing.

Granted I didn't say they were particularly moral reasons, but they're not totally senseless evil either.

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