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Lugaloco posted:I've watched The Wire three times and only just got that he voiced Caeser. HOLY poo poo. Boy oh boy, am I about to blow your mind with some motherfuckin' Home Depot knowledge.
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Jan 17, 2013 00:56
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Chronojam posted:FO3 is also where we got 200 year old nuclear explosion cars from, that somehow hadn't fallen apart or been harvested for weaponry yet although a few "inert" ones had been used to build fortifications. There's a reason people prefer NV. To be fair, exploding nuclear cars might not have been canon-friendly, but they were fun as balls from a gameplay perspective. Nothing like creeping up on a group of raiders hanging out next to one and lighting it up. There was even a raider gang hanging out in a whole car park full of them. That's yer emergent gameplay right there.
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Jan 17, 2013 00:58
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Eiba posted:That's a fascinating perspective. I've always viewed it as something like late 19th century America. Which is to say, really deeply and badly flawed, but built on a system that allowed for progressive reform. It seemed like a country where a mass movement could change the fundamental values of the government without the need for a revolution. I had that exact same feeling play through the game. The NCR seems to have all the gains and drawbacks of 1900-2013 America. It's a seemingly progressive and democratic system, but inherently flawed that moves unbelievably slowly due to corruption, in-fighting, and just plain incompetence. Imagine if a modern day American government was left to re-inhabit, re-conquer, and re-stabilatize all of America. I don't know about you, but I'd almost rather take my chance with a loving Caesar. I don't want to turn this thread into a political shitstorm, but I guess it all gets back to my feeling that deep down the best thing for the country(even in modern day) would be a (reliably)benevolent dictatorship that enforces socialist policies. House certainly had the potential to be that, so if I were to go into this poo poo completely blind and side with one faction, it'd be House. Sure, the actual ending slide we get isn't the payoff I was hoping for, but which one was, really? I played through as a female Legion courier and expected the game to end with me getting stabbed in the back for my dumb as gently caress move, but nope. Same ending as everybody. I also sympathized with NCR in Fallout 2. But I replayed through it recently and even then they're kind of imperialist assholes, and the top brass treat you like poo poo. I don't know, maybe it's the voice acting that allowed me to overlook the assholes in that game. There were plenty, and even Tandi didn't really give a gently caress enough to give the time of day to the descendant of the dude who saved her loving rear end and her town unless he was doing something for her. NCR in NV's day seems that much worse, I mean, poo poo, pretty much everyone whether they're NCR or Follower or Legion talks about how great President Tandi was. gently caress President Tandi. Anyway, I got off on a little tangent here, what was my point? Oh yeah. I love Fallout's ending slides but come the gently caress on, hire Ron Perlman for the extra hour and add some real variety to them. Did House end up being the benevolent dictator I'd hope he'd be? Does the NCR's greater good routine outweigh its negatives in the long run? Well, I don't loving know!
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Jan 17, 2013 01:13
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Eiba posted:That's a fascinating perspective. I've always viewed it as something like late 19th century America. Which is to say, really deeply and badly flawed, but built on a system that allowed for progressive reform. It seemed like a country where a mass movement could change the fundamental values of the government without the need for a revolution. Though I'd still totally be down for Fallout: Quebec City.
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Jan 17, 2013 01:19
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SpookyLizard posted:Don't forget the Survivalist either. Which was possibly better than the entire rest of the Honest Hearts. wow, I just read a small summary of what I missed and I am going back into Zion to read it all as soon as I get home
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Jan 17, 2013 01:20
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I always thought that the plot of the first Fallout game would make a good film. It's got a pretty clear, straight forward narrative that could be adapted without running into issues over lore or such. I've read the scrapped treatment Interplay wrote, and to be honest, it adds too much stuff and comes off as really cliched, whereas Fallout is really a pastiche of different ideas and influences (they give the Vault Dweller a friend who is a Mad Max rip-off, and literally call him "a Mad Max type" and some silly subplots about Vault 13 being a dictatorship with a subway system). Fallout 1's plot could be adapted into a film script without too many issues. - actually making it would be an entirely separate issue. OldMemes fucked around with this message at 01:27 on Jan 17, 2013 |
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Jan 17, 2013 01:24
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khwarezm posted:To go with House I have to make an awful lot of leaps of faith that he'll totally do all those things hes talking about, but from what I can actually see in Vegas all of the infrastructure, food, water, power and all that was built by the people who lived in the mojave over the years and the NCR, with House just skimming off of them. The infrastructure, power and water are all pre-War things that survived because House shielded the Mojave. Unless the Mojave is livable without Lake Mead.
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Jan 17, 2013 01:27
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Byzantine posted:The infrastructure, power and water are all pre-War things that survived because House shielded the Mojave. I know, I mentioned that (though again he's the only source, and he doesnt seem to have built much of the particularly useful pre war stuff like Helios one and of course the dam), but he didn't have much to do with the next two hundred years of regeneration. khwarezm fucked around with this message at 01:35 on Jan 17, 2013 |
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Jan 17, 2013 01:33
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That DICK! posted:I had that exact same feeling play through the game. The NCR seems to have all the gains and drawbacks of 1900-2013 America. It's a seemingly progressive and democratic system, but inherently flawed that moves unbelievably slowly due to corruption, in-fighting, and just plain incompetence. Imagine if a modern day American government was left to re-inhabit, re-conquer, and re-stabilatize all of America. I don't know about you, but I'd almost rather take my chance with a loving Caesar. quote:I don't want to turn this thread into a political shitstorm, but I guess it all gets back to my feeling that deep down the best thing for the country(even in modern day) would be a (reliably)benevolent dictatorship that enforces socialist policies. House certainly had the potential to be that, so if I were to go into this poo poo completely blind and side with one faction, it'd be House.
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Jan 17, 2013 01:41
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khwarezm posted:I know, I mentioned that (though again he's the only source, and he doesnt seem to have built much of the particularly useful pre war stuff like Helios one and of course the dam), but he didn't have much to do with the next two hundred years of regeneration. House was in stasis, trying to make his stuff work for two hundred years. In the meantime, the people of the Mojave Wasteland were practicing their unique and deep culture of, um, eating people and taking lots of pre-war chems, raiding and killing the people who didn't want to take part in the aforementioned activities. The families before House weren't nice, peaceful tribals like the Sorrows or the Dead Horses with a unique culture or way of living, even Swank tells you the Mojave sucked before House set them up with the casinos. House is more chill than Ceasar too, and less insane and murderous.
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Jan 17, 2013 01:48
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khwarezm posted:I know, I mentioned that (though again he's the only source I think Raul mentions that he could see House's lasers shooting down missiles.
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Jan 17, 2013 02:08
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OldMemes posted:House was in stasis, trying to make his stuff work for two hundred years. In the meantime, the people of the Mojave Wasteland were practicing their unique and deep culture of, um, eating people and taking lots of pre-war chems, raiding and killing the people who didn't want to take part in the aforementioned activities. There are places like goodsprings, Primm and even vault 21 that seemed to be pretty chill before House reappeared, it wasn't all a brutish short existance. But regardless, House has come back and rebuilt most of city, and yet the White Gloves are still eating people, the Omertas are still scumbags, the Fiends are still jet fueled crazies and outer Vegas still rots, has all that much really changed? I think its pretty damning that House doesn't particularly care about these sorts of activities if they aren't actively impeding him, if anything he elevated some pretty shady characters on a whim, Because it reminds him of 'Old Vegas'. Swank has a positive attitude, but he's the second man in a fabulously rich luxury Casino, he hardly speaks for the vast majority of the people in the Mojave. Byzantine posted:I think Raul mentions that he could see House's lasers shooting down missiles. Huh, didn't know that, I thought Raul was still down in Mexico during the war, wasn't he in the Farmstead that got burned down? khwarezm fucked around with this message at 02:11 on Jan 17, 2013 |
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Jan 17, 2013 02:08
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khwarezm posted:But regardless, House has come back and rebuilt most of city, and yet the White Gloves are still eating people, the Omertas are still scumbags, the Fiends are still jet fueled crazies and outer Vegas still rots, has all that much really changed? I think its pretty damning that House doesn't particularly care about these sorts of activities if they aren't actively impeding him, if anything he elevated some pretty shady characters on a whim, Because it reminds him of 'Old Vegas'. Swank has a positive attitude, but he's the second man in a fabulously rich luxury Casino, he hardly speaks for the vast majority of the people in the Mojave. The White Gloves aren't eating anybody yet, it's the quest you do for them that decides that. And if they do revert to cannibalism and you tell House, he orders you to kill them all for violating his terms. The Omertas, meanwhile, are actually one of House's quests, so he does know that something's up. You have to remember also that House doesn't have the kind of army that can police all this stuff yet. It's all in the bunker underneath the Fort. He only has the few Securitrons that were stored in the Lucky 38 - enough to police the Strip and that's it. "The Fiends attacked Camp McCarran during the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, but the NCR repulsed the attack with minimal losses. When Mr. House asserted control over Outer Vegas, his Securitrons eradicated the remaining Fiends entirely." - one of the ending slides if the Courier doesn't wipe out the Fiends on their own.
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Jan 17, 2013 02:23
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khwarezm posted:Huh, didn't know that, I thought Raul was still down in Mexico during the war, wasn't he in the Farmstead that got burned down? He was! He said he could see it from there, which isn't that farfetched - any missile from China to America would likely be orbital or nearly so.
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Jan 17, 2013 02:30
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That DICK! posted:I had that exact same feeling play through the game. The NCR seems to have all the gains and drawbacks of 1900-2013 America. It's a seemingly progressive and democratic system, but inherently flawed that moves unbelievably slowly due to corruption, in-fighting, and just plain incompetence. Imagine if a modern day American government was left to re-inhabit, re-conquer, and re-stabilatize all of America. I don't know about you, but I'd almost rather take my chance with a loving Caesar. He's far more likely to kill organizers trying to unionize than to benevolently uplift humanity. He sees the value of a well developed bourgeois class, as consumers to drive his economy. A high standard of living isn't a goal in and of itself, it's merely useful to power his economic engine. If he needs a mass of poorly paid unskilled labor, well, he'd have slums and sweat shops. House isn't benevolent. He's a sociopath.
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Jan 17, 2013 02:35
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Vault 21 was only chill, because it was, you know, a sealed underground vault deliberately shut off from the outside world. Vault 3 could have been chill, if the fiends hadn't murdered all of the inhabitants in cold blood because there was no-one to help them. You have to remember that what the Courier does is only the start. Wherever Vegas goes from there still has a long way to go - House says as much in his ending. OldMemes fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Jan 17, 2013 |
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Jan 17, 2013 02:40
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Daktar posted:To be fair, exploding nuclear cars might not have been canon-friendly, but they were fun as balls from a gameplay perspective. Nothing like creeping up on a group of raiders hanging out next to one and lighting it up. There was even a raider gang hanging out in a whole car park full of them. That's yer emergent gameplay right there. So if it's cool you just put it into the game right? Exploding cars are cool so just throw 'em in. Doesn't matter if it fits in or anything or makes sense. Cool games have exploding cars, right? Call of Duty has exploding cars, and Call of Duty is the coolest.
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Jan 17, 2013 02:42
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Byzantine posted:
That is slide that no one should see since the Fiends are such a great supply of weapons (and so many drugs) that they should be erased whatever your loyalties. I love rushing there on new games and shooting Queenie and watching Cook-Cook go nuts. By the time he is done you can kit your char with almost any type of weapon.
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Jan 17, 2013 02:43
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Byzantine posted:The White Gloves aren't eating anybody yet, it's the quest you do for them that decides that. And if they do revert to cannibalism and you tell House, he orders you to kill them all for violating his terms. The Omertas, meanwhile, are actually one of House's quests, so he does know that something's up. The impression I got from the Vegas quests was that House has pretty serious issues keeping his own underlings under control. That speaks to some pretty bad decisions of putting people like the Omertas in such a position in the first place and his subsequent 'Hands-off' attitude that lets them get away with literal murder until they start to turn against him. That kind of uncaring attitude is what helps keep Freeside such a choatic tip as well. quote:You have to remember also that House doesn't have the kind of army that can police all this stuff yet. It's all in the bunker underneath the Fort. He only has the few Securitrons that were stored in the Lucky 38 - enough to police the Strip and that's it. OldMemes posted:Vault 22 was only chill, because it was, you know, a sealed underground vault deliberately shut off from the outside world. Vault 3 could have been chill, if the fiends hadn't murdered all of the inhabitants in cold blood because there was no-one to help them. khwarezm fucked around with this message at 04:43 on Jan 17, 2013 |
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Jan 17, 2013 03:56
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SpookyLizard posted:So if it's cool you just put it into the game right? Exploding cars are cool so just throw 'em in. Doesn't matter if it fits in or anything or makes sense. Cool games have exploding cars, right? Call of Duty has exploding cars, and Call of Duty is the coolest.
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Jan 17, 2013 04:14
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I find it weird that, in this discussion, everyone's talking about Vault 22 in the context that it was a vault people actually left on House's behest and not a plant-infested troglodyte hellhole 
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Jan 17, 2013 04:41
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I made a typo, I meant Vault 21, not 22.
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Jan 17, 2013 04:46
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I'd like a post-apoc game where you take a more active role in rebuilding a community. Not just fetch-quests for water chips and the like, but clearing out dungeons so that the villagers can loot the ruins and transform their hovel into a thriving community and such, and eventually setting up supply lines between safe points. Old World Blues' upgradeable home, The Sink, was as close to this as I can currently think of.
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Jan 17, 2013 04:50
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SpookyLizard posted:So if it's cool you just put it into the game right? Exploding cars are cool so just throw 'em in. Doesn't matter if it fits in or anything or makes sense. Cool games have exploding cars, right? Call of Duty has exploding cars, and Call of Duty is the coolest.
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Jan 17, 2013 04:51
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Here are some random, rambling thoughts on Mr. House and morality and social justice and whatnot in a post-apocalyptic world... I wrote most of it earlier, so it conspicuously doesn't address a lot of points raised over the last page or two. If you don't like/agree with House's dictatorship inside the Strip, I don't think you can then also complain about him not doing more to improve the outlying slums. They were complete thugs-and-drugs shitholes before; all of Vegas was (I mean, look at who he picked as the area's three most promising tribes). He was swift and brutal in his takeover of the Strip, but just about everything is brutal in this world. That's not a great excuse, but I can be okay with a bit more "the ends justify the means" in the Fallout world than I'd be in ours, and it's not like House holocausted the entire populace; he simply pushed his "undesirables" out of the Strip and crushed any violent resistance. Many people look at the Strip's wealth-based exclusivity as elitist or unfair or whatever, but fundamentally is it that different from what happens at countless fortified settlements--at least the ones with a shred of common sense--anywhere in the wasteland? People (aside from Courier the Magic Messiah) aren't just strolling into inhabited Vaults, or BoS bunkers, or past the twitchy sentries of car-castle towns unless they meet certain standards or conditions. Sometimes all that's required of you is a simple implicit understanding that you'll be good (or I'll shoot you dead), but often admission/acceptance depends more on whether the outsider has anything of value to offer the community (i.e., specialized knowledge, trade goods, protection, willingness to do tedious fetch quests, etc.). Since the Strip's business is almost entirely gambling and prostitution based, is it really so tyrannical to institute a modest wealth-based criteria for admittance? At the very least, I think House deserves a little credit for (apparently) not discriminating based on sex or race, which is more than can be said for a whole lot of groups in the wasteland. (If you like your fair, groovy open-door policy so much, move to Vault 3. Whoops, sorry, I can't hear you, a violent drug addicted tribal is devouring my flesh as he carves it from my still-living body.) House's drive and vision single-handedly saved Vegas during the war. Benny asks something like, "So does that give him the right to rule it forever?" Maybe not, but his plans have saved enough people and afforded them secure, comfortable lives that I think they owe him the opportunity to work toward his next set of goals; goals that will certainly benefit those inside the Strip, and in time will very likely improve the lives of those beyond the Strip. "And why hasn't Mr. House helped the outlying areas of Vegas already? He's so mean!" House's big key to success is precisely the reason the NCR is struggling so badly: House very astutely recognized his limits. He made a solid plan to rebuild his little corner of the world, and then hunkered down and stuck to it. He's completely avoided scope creep and the allure of expansionism. Both in the geographical sense, and in his internal policies; he faithfully abides by the original (and quite fair) agreements he's made with his citizens. The Followers are a notable exception to the usual Freeside rabble-rousers and poors, but House doesn't seem to bear any ill will toward them ("They're curious about me," he muses about their spying, with no hint of malice), and I have to think it's likely that--as House re-takes an active role in society--he'd be willing to accept them or find a nice place for them in his grand vision. And Mr. House clearly does has bigger plans that will benefit the wider region (or at least shape it toward his vision of a what society should be, which you could argue is a noble or monsterous thing), but he seemed to have deemed them not yet feasible with his pre-platinum chip limitations. House talks to the Courier--and I genuinely believe him--about his most important goals being to rebuild a productive, innovative tech sector and eventually bring the world back up to pre-war human achievement and beyond. Certainly he knows he's not going to rebuild humanity with his Three Dipshit Families; they're just quick muscle and rainmakers. I think it's fairly obvious to him and us that at some point (probably sooner rather than later) he'll need to attract a stable of bright, talented, dedicated individuals and organizations to his cause... Ugggggh I'm headed straight towards Galtsville, aren't I?  What would Vegas become with House out of the picture? More like the rest of the city, probably. Which I guess you could argue is a good thing, if you're into fairness and equality and all that. But if everyone is equally and fairly just barely surviving--worrying about their next meal (*shoots a street rat*) and not getting murdered--not a lot of big picture, sweeping social progress is going to happen. Even without the Legion's threat, would the NCR really have enough resources to properly manage and improve the region? Would the politicians back west even care? Or would most of the Mojave's citizens end up still poor, paying high taxes in exchange for having a few more troops around to keep raiders at bay. That's explicitly the fate of smaller towns like Goodsprings and Primm with an NCR victory - getting economically bled dry under the yoke of taxation, without getting much in return. The region has no industry to speak of (a strip mine for concrete; woo hoo!), and while one of House's biggest goals is to build up industry, I don't see why on earth the NCR would ever feel compelled to maintain that level of commitment. Unless all of new Vegas's industrial effort was funneled into producing military goods for eastward expansion, it's not exactly profitable for the NCR to subsidize the production of goods in the east just so they can get shipped back west. Keep in mind that (aside from holding back the Legion, which yes yes is an massive all-consuming drain on resources, I know), the NCR's biggest achievements in the area thus far are... what? Funding the world's shittiest sharecropping project (which, aside from basically being indentured servitude, is so masterfully engineered that someone like the Courier can doom the entire project to failure with literally the push of a single button). Other achievements? Increased power output of Hoover Dam, and then... sending that metric poo poo-ton electricity back west (if they've even managed to create the long distance infrastructure for that yet). Am I forgetting some crown jewel in the NCR's Mojave improvement master-plan that they're going to implement just as soon as Caesar goes home? I can see why most locals aren't exactly throwing NCR ticker tape parades. I guess the NCR's favorable slapdash treaty with House is an accomplishment, albeit an agreement that NCR leaders know full well they have no intention of keeping in the long-run. And the treaty isn't even a bad deal for the NCR; once the Legion's driven off, is Strip independence really that horrible a price to pay for a free, well-fortified military base, and 95% loving percent of the entire energy output of Hoover Dam? Like, in perpetuity? And House indicates that he'd have no reason or desire to violate that treaty; he's just preparing for the inevitable NCR double-cross. lol you're really reading all this? On one last note, I guess I'm also a little forgiving of House's dictatorship because there's, quite frankly, nobody else around with as much intelligence, vision, and experience. He was THE captain of industry before the war, and after finding a way to cheat death, he's he's done nothing for the last 200 years except for thinking about and working toward his goals (and getting phone sex or whatever from a robot). And while he certainly intends to maintain his position of power so he can push his plans forward, I think it's also clear that he is increasingly putting more power into the hands of the people. Although it was a forced, hasty move, he gave a suprising amount of autonomy to the Three Families, and he doesn't dick them around. He upholds his original agreements with them (re: no uninvited Securitrons in casinos, no restrictions on illicit business, only taking a modest percentage of casino profits, etc.). After that, he takes Benny, and then the Courier, under his wing as an apprentice of sorts. As I mentioned earlier, once the military threat has passed, he'll need to recruit and rely on a wider range of more specialized talent (genius scientists, inventors, engineers, creatives, etc.) to take his vision to the next level, leading all of humanity into a bright, shining future; an exciting future beyond the walls of the Strip and beyond the limits of imagination! THIS MESSAGE HAS BEEN PAID FOR BY THE REPCONN CITIZEN SOCIETY FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SLOPPILY SUCKING ROBERT HOUSE'S COCK. edit: Just a disclaimer, in the past, I've always sided (both philosophically and in-game) with the NCR--they have noble aims and generally do more good than bad--but I'm currently doing a playthrough where I'm trying to think about things a little differently (supporting Mr. House, obviously). You can chalk this entire post up as playing devil's advocate, if you like, but I'm warming up to the old fella, and there's no denying that the NCR does need a wake-up call: cut it out with the loving expansion, and get a clue that other nations maybe just might also have a right to exist. edit_2: Somebody earlier mentioned the NCR showing regret about Bitter Springs. I'd argue that a ton of individuals (especially those directly involved in the massacre) show deep regret, but officially hasn't the NCR top brass back west pretty much said "Oopsie, miscommunication," and quietly swept the whole thing under the rug? As long as the military is successful against the Legion, I doubt the majority of the NCR citizens think much about a few quiet little war crimes happening here and there out on the savage eastern frontier.
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Jan 17, 2013 04:51
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NCR was also attempting to rebuild a railroad (albeit very badly, that's where the Powder Gangers came from) and they are at least marginally concerned about some of the problems their success is creating (Hildern, despite being a jackass, recognizes the problem of resource scarcity.) Also, I don't buy the taxation stuff since, you know, post-apocalyptic wastelands generally don't have them so any amount, let alone the amount necessary to run an army with few if any self-sustaining industries and resources, is going to feel fairly high I think. There's also a measure of pluralism, which is something that House's empire by its very nature cannot have. Also, Hoover Dam was broken when they got there, so they did at least restore a useful electricity source. I just find it difficult to turn my back on them in favor of either House or Caesar's vision when you meet so many people with something invested in it along the way.
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Jan 17, 2013 05:06
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Alright, so I opened up my copy of V:NV for the first time in a year or so and noticed two things: a) the prerendered cutscene at the start has been replaced by a game-engine bit b) everyone is dead. There's NCR hanging around Camp McCarran and Legion Assassin squads that come to attack me occasionally but apart from that every living soul in the game seems to have vanished and no longer owns their stuff e.g. I can sleep in the bed in Raul's Cabin and Raul is nowhere to be found. I'm guessing a) is intentional and has been discussed to death but b) really worries me. This is a lvl49 character who's completed all the DLC and generally sides with the NCR.
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Jan 17, 2013 05:07
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Alright, so I opened up my copy of V:NV for the first time in a year or so and noticed two things: 
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Jan 17, 2013 05:10
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Alright, so I opened up my copy of V:NV for the first time in a year or so and noticed two things: For the first one, did you use this mod?
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Jan 17, 2013 05:11
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2house2fly posted:I don't see how the nuclear powered cars are your breaking point in a series where you can encounter the Tardis and the whale from Hitch-Hiker's Guide, kill the Bridgekeeper from Monty Python by answering his questions about gameplay mechanics, start a gang war with a posse of crazed Elvis impersonators and express a sexual interest in your own disembodied brain. Because 3/5 of those are jokey easter eggs? The fifth one might be too, I haven't played OWB in a while and I dunno if you need Wild Wasteland for that or not. Almost all of the special encounters from FO1/2/T are jokes and not part of the overall narrative. Nevermind my issue isn't with nuclear powered cars, but nuclear powered cars that A) are 200 years old B) have already exploded and C) all it takes to set off a nuclear reaction in what remains of the cars in the fuel cells (which some how both work and have not been scavenged by anyone yet) is a couple of bullets, from any gun, to any part of the car.
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Jan 17, 2013 05:15
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Not going to do a point by point rebuttal, but I'll give my thoughts on the whole piece by addressing a few bits that jumped out.Trustworthy posted:Since the Strip's business is almost entirely gambling and prostitution based, is it really so tyrannical to institute a modest wealth-based criteria for admittance? The whole system isn't progress, it's an economic engine. That people in there live a better life, or a worse life is entirely incidental to the goal of making House money, and making him a player in the new emerging world economy. You make the point that House is just as pragmatic as any other group living in the wasteland with regards to outsiders. I'd agree with that, but then go on to point that that unlike other groups bound together for mutual protection, he's just as pragmatic to people inside his group too. Even if you get into his world, you're still just a cog to be used. At no point do people have intrinsic value to him. Not people outside his group or people in his group. quote:At the very least, I think House deserves a little credit for (apparently) not discriminating based on sex or race, which is more than can be said for a whole lot of groups in the wasteland. But those are just the biases of the people he picked to rule, not House's own. So he does get some credit for this. He has no irrational hateful ideology. If he crushes people in the gears of his industry, well, he never hated them. He just didn't care. And honestly, "whatever works" is not a bad way of doing things, and House is quite good at it. The issue is, what is the goal? He'll do whatever works, but to what end? What is "working" in his mind? There's no such thing as perfect pragmatism. You need some sort of motive to set you in motion. And it's clear. His goal is an economic engine. It's industry. It's science and technology. If he talks about the potential of humanity, he's talking about the ability humans have to join together and create a system that does huge things. He doesn't care about an individual's welfare. He doesn't care about an individual's suffering. If an individual had to suffer to let humanity do something he finds worthy... well, gently caress them. And he's not very patient either. We know the Kings are proud individualists who also care for their community and try to help people out. House never knew that. He didn't care. He saw proud individualists who didn't accept his authority and figured they were more trouble than they were worth. He didn't find a role for them, he erased them. quote:Keep in mind that (aside from holding back the Legion, which yes yes is an massive all-consuming drain on resources, I know), the NCR's biggest achievements in the area thus far are... what? Funding the world's shittiest sharecropping project (which, aside from basically being indentured servitude, is so masterfully engineered that someone like the Courier can doom the entire project to failure with literally the push of a single button). It's pragmatic, at least. The NCR's accomplishments have been unparalleled. Every faction recognizes this. House and Caesar have no respect for each other, and the NCR has no respect for either of them, but they all respect the civilization that the NCR has built. Caesar's goal is to give it a backbone. House's goal is to harness it like an animal for his economy to ride. But everyone can see what the NCR has built. I've said this before, but I'll say it again. If there's one reason the choice is clear, it's this: The NCR purport to be humanists. They often don't live up to their own ideals, but that's what they try to be. House isn't. His goals are not to elevate human welfare, or to eliminate human suffering. It doesn't matter how great he is at intelligently accomplishing his goals, when those goals themselves aren't worthy. Vote NCR.
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Jan 17, 2013 05:42
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khwarezm posted:For the first one, did you use this mod? 
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Jan 17, 2013 05:44
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SpookyLizard posted:Because 3/5 of those are jokey easter eggs? The fifth one might be too, I haven't played OWB in a while and I dunno if you need Wild Wasteland for that or not. Almost all of the special encounters from FO1/2/T are jokes and not part of the overall narrative. Nah you just gotta be gay to want to make love to your brain.
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Jan 17, 2013 05:49
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Trustworthy posted:lol you're really reading all this? Hell yeah I am! You brought up a lot of issues I was going to, so everyone basically just read this post for me and accept the logically best choice that is Robert House, tia. I'd also like to note that a lot of peeps are bringing up House's heartless, such as in this post: Eiba posted:I agree with all of this to some extent, but you clearly weren't paying attention if you think House is remotely socialist at all. He's Randian Capitalism incarnate. He's the ultimate individualist businessman. His plans are utterly devoid of compassion and humanism, and any ideology beyond pragmatism, which in his mind means capitalism. He sees people as laborers and countries as markets. But it ignores what House tells you directly, in that he has no interest in controlling other people's lives, and at no point are they forced into his service. I mean, you can assume he's lying or whatever, but since he doesn't lie to you at any other point in the game it's a strange assumption to make based on no evidence. The closest he comes to when he gives people the ultimatum to work for him or get the hell out of his way, and those that don't may end up getting summarily slaughtered; as can happen with the Kings, who maybe should've accepted the inevitability that comes with a massive army of self-healing missile-launching robots and found another old building to hang out in. I mean, yeah, he's still a sociopath, but he's a sociopathic genius for the greater good! Like Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock. Wolfsheim fucked around with this message at 06:07 on Jan 17, 2013 |
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Jan 17, 2013 06:05
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Trustworthy, I think you misunderstood House's role in the Mojave. To summarize, he positioned himself to negotiate for the Mojave without any claim to sovereignty. He provides no services, allows no representation, and is entirely parasitic. When he realized an organized government was approaching, he recruited three tribes to scam the NCR. Within the year, he signed the New Vegas treaty making Vegas a protectorate and requiring NCR to provide food, water, and power to the Strip. New Vegas, for all its money, is entirely beholden to the NCR for its basic utilities. House cannot even be bothered to ensure that the people of Freeside have access to water. At best, he is apathetic. At worst, he is actively detrimental to the well-being of the Mojave. His "government" is one of oppression and neglect without the safety of the NCR or Caesar. One subject to the whims of a petty man.
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Jan 17, 2013 06:30
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Or he's just clever enough to get some other sucker to do the work for him. At the absolute worst he'd just buy the goods from the NCR, because House, at his core, is a business man. I don't remember the exact details of the NCR/Vegas treaty or whatever they called it though.
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Jan 17, 2013 06:36
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Wolfsheim posted:But it ignores what House tells you directly, in that he has no interest in controlling other people's lives, and at no point are they forced into his service. He has no interest in micromanaging people's lives but he sure as hell wants to control them. He wants to control the courier, Benny and the rest of the tribes, controlled 21 by force, etc. He doesn't want to bother with ensuring that people live happy or fruitful lives so long as they serve his purpose. He's Caesar without the panache, leadership, or vision for society.
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Jan 17, 2013 06:41
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Something that's been bouncing around in my head for a while; all three of the factions are clinging to the old world in some way. It's most obvious with Caesar's Rome obsession, but House's spaceship goal is him resurrecting the space travel dreams of pre-war America, and NCR is trying to do nothing more than recreate American-style democracy in the wasteland. There's probably something I'm missing, but you could argue that Independent is the only option that allows for the possibility of a faction with new (anarchic-collectivism in Las Vegas, wooo!) goals that aren't tied to the past.
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Jan 17, 2013 06:42
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The companions too. Veronica's realising that the Brotherhood has to stop clinging to its old ways or they'll die out; Arcade is caught between the memory of his father and his desire to follow his own path; Lily is deliberately not taking her meds so that she can remember her past life; Raul is facing up to the idea that he's an old man and it might be time to leave his days as a badass adventurer behind; Boone did something terrible and feels that everything bad that happens to him is punishment for it; Rex has a 200 year old brain that needs to be replaced; Cass can't get over the loss of her caravan; ED-E is carrying data to a place that doesn't exist any more, plus in Lonesome Road he spends half the time reminiscing about his creator and the other half reminiscing about the Ralphie show. Oh, speaking of the DLCs: Father Elijah can't get over Helios One, Joshua Graham can't move on from his violent past, the Think Tank are unable to even conceive of the concept of time, and Ulysses can't get over the player character specifically, as well as being obsessed with the symbols of the past. It's a pretty sad game, really. It's like the whole New World is still grieving the loss of the old one. Plus the deathclaws. They make me sad too.
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Jan 17, 2013 07:05
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Sounds like they've all got a case of the Old World Blues.
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Jan 17, 2013 07:13
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