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Chapter 1: Sun Vulture and the Killer Headache Music: Blue Moon  This intro alone gives a great presentation of the game, honestly.    It’s very similar to the one in Fallout 3, with the pan out of old world treasures to new world wreckage.  But it goes deeper, showing us that the new world is still thriving in some way.   People are even out relaxing and enjoying themselves, and there are even some unicycle-bots to keep the peace.  We leave the bright and glowing paradise, though...     and witness some badass in some sick gear (which we hope to get in the game at some point) sniping some poor soul outside the walls of New Vegas.  A beacon of splendor, and our goal of the game.  But, getting there is going to be a challenge, as some LARPers in sporting goods equipment scout the area.   And finally, here we are, bag over our head, hands and feet bound, some grunt digging our one-foot grave, and no way out of this.   War. War never changes. When atomic fire consumed the earth, those who survived did so in great underground vaults.   When they opened, their inhabitants set out across the ruins of the Old World to build new societies, establishing villages, forming tribes.  As decades passed, what had been the American southwest united beneath the flag of the New California Republic, dedicated to Old World values of democracy and the rule of law.  As the Republic grew, so did its needs. Scouts spread east, seeking territory and wealth in the dry and merciless expanse of the Mojave desert.    They returned with tales of a city untouched by the warheads that had scorched the rest of the world - and a great wall spanning the Colorado River.  The NCR mobilized its army and sent it east, to occupy Hoover Dam and restore it to working condition.  But across the Colorado, another society had arisen, under a different flag. A vast army of slaves forged from the conquest of 86 tribes - Caesar's Legion.   Four years have passed since the Republic held the dam - just barely - against the Legion's onslaught. The Legion did not retreat.  Across the river, it gathers strength. Camp fires burn, training drums beat.  Through it all, the New Vegas Strip has stayed open for business, under the control of its mysterious overseer, Mr. House, and his army of rehabilitated tribals and police robots.  You are a Courier, hired by the Mojave Express to deliver a package to the New Vegas Strip.  What seemed like a simple delivery job has taken a turn for the worse.   You got what you were after, so pay up. You're crying in the rain, pally.  Guess who's waking up over here?  Time to cash out. Would you get it over with? Maybe Khans kill people without looking them in the face, but I ain't a fink, dig?  You've made your last delivery kid. Sorry you got twisted up in this scene. From where you're kneeling it must seem like an 18-carat run of bad luck. Truth is...the game was rigged from the start.     Enjoy your stay.    Why don't you just relax a second? Get your bearings. Let's see what the damage is. How about your name? Can you tell me your name?  I tend to use a [Monkey][Bird] naming convention for my in-game characters, but this one has more meaning than previous names. “Sun” refers to the Chinese word “sūn (猻)”, which translates roughly to “monkey,” and is used in the name “Sun Wukong,” the mythological Monkey King known for his immense strength, speed, and proficiency with a staff. Vulture is a bit more self-explanatory: they are scavenger birds of prey most commonly portrayed to inhabit wastelands and deserts, circling in front of the looming sun. Huh. Can't say it's what I'd have picked for you. But if that's your name, that's your name. I'm Doc Mitchell. Welcome to Goodsprings. Now, I hope you don't mind, but I had to go rooting around there in your noggin to pull all the bits of lead out. I take pride in my needlework, but you'd better tell me if I left anything out of place.  How’d I do? There’s our courier, everyone. It’s...more effort than I’ve put into any of my personal character creations in Bethesda games.   Ow, ow, ow. My head. Well, at least you don’t have the majority of two bullets in your noggin. Majority? Good. Why don't you walk down to the end of the room? Over by that vigor tester machine there. Take it slow now. It ain't a race. Sun shambles over to some kind of bar game. Looking good so far. Go ahead and give the vigor tester a try. We'll learn right quick if you got back all your faculties.  So that’s how strong I am without some booze in me. I’d say I can’t believe some suit got the jump on me, but then again... Must be this sturdy if I could survive two bullets to the head. Being a traveling courier, I gotta show off my silver tongue for better prices. Whiskey tends to help. If my mouth weren’t gagged, might’ve had a chance to talk my way out of sleeping with the radworms. Yes, two plus two DOES equal four. Been called a fast walker most of my life. Life’s short and roads’re long. Don’t try to rely on luck, myself. Well, we know your vitals are good. But that don't mean them bullets didn't leave you nuttier than a Bighorner dropping. Can I, uh, put some more clothes on, first? From the books I read, all examinations must be done with the patient being as uncomfortable as possible. Dog Pet! Oh, uh, please keep your reactions limited to the list of choices provided by my cheat sheet. … Dog. Feed. House. Demolish. Night. Campfire. Enemy. Crush. Light. Torch. Mother. Tantrum. Okay. Now I’ve got a few statements. I want you to tell me how much they sound like something you’d say. First one. “Conflict just ain’t in my nature.” Well, not anymore. I ain’t given to relying on others for support. Wouldn’t be sitting here if I didn’t. I’m always fixing to be the center of attention. Only when it comes to getting paid. I’m slow to embrace new ideas. Gotta keep an open mind when it comes to certain jobs. I charge in to deal with my problems head on. Oh definitely. I’m too embarrassed to say what it looks like. No, that’s the response to the next-- I meant what I said. Two guns side by side? Uh... *sighs* just say it. Two bears high-fiving. Well, that's all she wrote. I don't have nothing to compare it to, so maybe you'd better just have a look at the results. See if it all seems right to you.  Alright, let’s talk about character building in Fallout: New Vegas. In every Fallout game, the player is given seven SPECIAL stats to distribute points towards, which dictate your starting skill levels. Skills determine how effective you are at certain things. Guns for, well, guns. Barter for prices, Medicine for healing items, Repair for equipment maintenance, etc. Survival was added to New Vegas and offers an alternative playstyle for those who don’t mind carrying a bunch of food and ingredients, but we’ll get into that later. We are allowed to Tag three skills at the beginning, adding fifteen points to each one. We are given the option to respec after leaving the tutorial town of Goodsprings. For now, I just chose Barter, Speech, and Unarmed, but I’ll be changing them once we leave the tutorial.  After that, we get to choose two Traits of our liking. They are ways to shape your character, but they have drawbacks. For instance, Heavy Handed makes our Unarmed and Melee attacks deal 20% more damage, but we also deal 60% less critical damage. With our Luck pretty low and my decision to not sneak around backstabbing people, we aren’t going to really get a lot of critical hits, so it’s a DPS increase for us. As for Logan’s Loophole, we can freely use addictive chems for longer and with no risk at getting addicted to them, but we stop leveling up at 21. In the base game, it stops at 30, but we are using the jsawyer mod (essentially a Director’s Cut), which rebalances the whole game and thus nerfs this otherwise overpowered trait. It’s fine though; after level 20, we won’t need to level anything else. In fact, half the skills available to us are going to go untouched this playthrough. After the obligatory character building, Doc lets us loose. All right. I guess that about does it. Come with me. I'll see you out. He starts to lead us to the exit, but we can just talk to him again to get some answers from the good doctor.  I hope you don't mind but I gave the note a look. I thought it might help me find a next of kin. But it was just something about a platinum chip. Well, if you're heading back out there, you ought to have this.  They call it a Pip-Boy. I grew up in one of them vaults they made before the war. We all got one. Ain't much use to me now, but you might want such a thing, after what you been through. I know what it's like, having something taken from you. And put this on, too, so the locals don't pick on you for lacking modesty. Was my wife's.  ...she didn’t die in this or something, did she? She hardly wore it after we left the vault. Felt it was too brazen. Oh, thank god. Don’t remember if we washed it, though... You should talk to Sunny Smiles before you leave town. She can help you learn to fend for yourself in the desert. She'll likely be at the saloon. I reckon some of the other folks at the saloon might be able to help you out, too. And the metal fella, Victor, who pulled you outta your grave. Anyway, you ever get hurt out there, you come right back. I'll fix you up. But try not to get killed anymore.  Skills, perks, and SPECIAL stats all give some form of dialogue option for the player to use, which will give us experience and other useful stuff/progression if successful. Of course. You been through a lot. Ain't much, but these'll do you right if the pain flares up. <received three stimpaks (heals for an amount based on Medicine)> I expect you'll be wanting to go outside after being cooped up for so long, but if you have any questions, I'll answer what I can. Tell me about yourself, Doc. Well, I already told you I came from a vault. After that, was a traveling doctor for a spell. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Most folks out here ain't educated, so people with medical knowhow are hard to come by. Found that I could help a lot of people with what I knew, and that was all right with me. Eventually, I went back and married my childhood sweetheart and that was the end of my traveling days. Didn't miss it none then. Still don't. What town is this? This here's Goodsprings. Named after the water we got here, just down the road to the southeast. Goodsprings Source, they call it. It's a quiet town, and that's how we like it. We don't go looking for trouble, though occasionally it sees fit to come looking for us. What else can you tell me about Goodsprings? Well, there's a general store just up the road. Run by a fella named Chet. He don't got nothing fancy, but he's got your basics covered. If you're looking to wet your whistle, just past Chet's is the Prospector Saloon. The bartender there, Trudy, knows everyone in town. Other than that, there's not much to see. Just people trying to scratch out a living. Who was it that rescued me? That'd be Victor. Curious fella. Sort of odd. And I don't just mean 'cause he's a robot. I couldn't tell you much about him. He's real friendly, don't get me wrong. You just get the sense that ain't the whole picture. Just a feeling. Keeps to himself, mostly. You want to know more about him, you'll have to ask him yourself. He has a shack on the southern edge of town. Do you know anything about the man that shot me? I didn't see him or the men with him. You might ask around town, though. Could be someone saw which way they was headed. Your best bet would probably be Trudy, the bartender at the saloon up the road. If anyone saw anything, she'd know about it. Good to know. Thanks for patching me up, Doc. Don't mention it. It's what I'm here for.  Before that, let’s look at what we got from him. The player always receives items and weapons based on the tagged skills; for instance, since we chose Unarmed, we got some boxing gloves which deal bonus fatigue (knocked down, unconscious) damage. Good for pacifist runs, but we aren’t going for that. If we tagged Melee Weapons, we’d get a Straight Razor, which deals small damage but has a bonus crit rate/damage. The items are varied, but reflective of the build the player chooses, which really helps to compliment their playstyle early on.  With Doc’s dialogue exhausted and the rundown of the town finished, we can explore his home. First up are some stimpaks, rad-x (grants radiation resistance), and antivenom (cures Poison). In one of the boxes is a Laser Pistol and the ammo for it, in case players decided later that they wanted to try out energy weapons.  We have a Doctor’s Bag (restores limb damage) at the foot of the bed we woke up in.   Next to the bed is a broken gun we can repair and use if we met the Repair requirement, and a chemistry set we can use to make some chems, but only if our Science was high enough.   Nice digs. I’ll pass that on to the previous owner of this building when I see them in the afterlife. Never been much for decoratin’. In his hallway, we have a knife, snacks, food ingredients, and containers. Certain containers will have a random chance of carrying items corresponding to their purpose. For instance, first aid kits can have stimpaks and rad-x, and ammo boxes can have, well, ammo!  Hey, nice dress you got here. I feel more...agile in this. Oh, that old thing. Was here when we moved in, too. Wife never got to try it on, though... We are playing on Hardcore mode, meaning we will need to eat, sleep, and drink to keep ourselves from dying. Thankfully, Doc has a sink that dispenses clean water for us to drink!  In his kitchen, we grab his coffee pot and mugs. This will be useful for the rest of our playthrough.  Raiding his fridge, we find some good food, but no booze, which we will be needing much of.  After a debilitating ordeal, Sun sits down and enjoys an iguana on a stick and a warm Sunset Sarsaparilla, clueless of the grand journey she will embark on just to finish her job.
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Feb 4, 2018 02:04
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I'm quite liking this so far. I wouldn't have expected F:NV to translate so well to an SSLP, but you seem to be making it work; I look forward to seeing where this goes.
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Feb 4, 2018 02:09
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As someone who has done a punchyfist run of every Fallout (never finished 4's though), I am so on board with this.
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Feb 4, 2018 02:12
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I loved doing a melee run of New Vegas. I had explosives as a backup though in case of annoying snipers.
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Feb 4, 2018 03:58
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If your problems can't be solved by punching, they can be solved by having Veronica do the punching.
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Feb 4, 2018 05:12
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Glad you're not doing an unfunny comedy courier like most LPs of this game. That said, no Wild Wasteland?
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Feb 4, 2018 17:35
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eating only apples posted:Glad you're not doing an unfunny comedy courier like most LPs of this game. That said, no Wild Wasteland? I'll...do something to show that off, don't worry. Edit: VV Oh this will be a...special run. ApeHawk fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Feb 4, 2018 |
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Feb 4, 2018 18:13
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Oh poo poo, I'm so excited for this LP to get 40% through the game and then stop! (not a knock on you, just a trend I've noticed with NV LPs here) I like the inclusion of third person perspective camera shots as well. Adds more flavor than if it were just first person ones. Lastly, given the skills you're focusing on, you do plan on dining on... the ultimate game, right?
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Feb 4, 2018 18:58
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Unarmed and melee together, huh? Okay, that'll be interesting to see.
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Feb 5, 2018 02:33
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Any plans to do the DLC?
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Feb 5, 2018 08:23
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Siegkrow posted:Any plans to do the DLC? I plan on it, yes, as well as at least checking out every location I can in the game.
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Feb 5, 2018 08:35
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Chapter 2: Sun Vulture and the Star Cap Stalker Music: One More Tomorrow  Hey Doc, mind if I borrow this hat? To keep the sun out of my eyes? Not like I’m gonna go outside anytime soon. Just make sure to hang it back up when you’re leavin’ town. The humdrum town of Goodsprings is a peaceful place. It has everything a traveler needs: a bar, a general store, a roaming robot.  I've never seen a robot like you before.  I'm a Securitron, RobCo security model 2060-B. If you ever see any of my brothers, tell them Victor says howdy. How did you happen to find me? I was out for a stroll that night when I heard the commotion up at the old bone orchard. Saw what looked like a bunch of bad eggs so I laid low. You couldn’t’ve jumped in, or warn the locals at least? Ma’am, I’m a Securitron, not a Protectron. All I can do is observe the crime and report it later. Once they'd run off, I dug you up to see if you were still kicking. Turns out, you were, so I hauled you off to the Doc right quick. Well, since you watched the whole thing from a safe distance, do you know who those men were who attacked me? Can't say that I'm familiar with the rascals. Some of the fine folks in town might be able to help you out with that. How did you end up in Goodsprings? I moseyed into town, oh, ten, fifteen years ago? Before that, I... hmmm, I can't quite seem to recall. Odd. Anyway, it's a right peaceful town and I reckon it's as fine a place to settle as any. Thanks for digging me out of that grave. I guess doing the bare minimum is better than absolutely nothing. Don't mention it! I'm always ready to lend a helping hand to a stranger in need.  The buildings in Goodsprings are a near replica of their real-life counterparts. Of course, because of copyright laws and what-have-you, they can’t be exactly the same, but it really helps to make the world seem familiar and interesting.  Fallout: New Vegas has these dropboxes all over the world, and by that I mean there are five in total. The idea is that you put items into the dropboxes, send them to another dropbox in another town, and the items will be there waiting for you. Since there are a small amount of them and it isn’t a universal storage system, they are frequently ignored. Besides, there are player homes, rented rooms, and safehouses for the player to unlock for storage.  Inside the Goodsprings general store, we meet Chet, the owner.   I've got plenty of supplies for sale. Even got some weapon mods and special ammo - well worth the caps, if you ask me. If you're hurting for caps, I've also got boxes of surplus ammo in the miscellaneous section. They're not great, but you get what you pay for. Do you know anything about the people who attacked me? The leader was a New Vegas-type, typical city boy. He had a bunch of Great Khans with him, probably hired guns. The Great Khans normally stay in their own territory way up northwest, on account of them being enemies with the NCR. Anything else you can tell me about Great Khans? They're tough sons of bitches, mean but not crazy - they'll leave you alone unless you've got something they want. The Great Khans deal in illegal chems. There's a good chance that most chems you come across were made by Great Khans. Have you ever been to New Vegas? Twice. Both times, I drank a lot of liquor and lost most of my caps at the card tables. In that order, now that I think about it. If you ever get to New Vegas, be sure to visit Gomorrah. It's the best casino in the city. You won't regret it. Word of advice - behave. Between the NCR military police and Mr. House's robots, you don't want to be causing trouble on the Strip. I'd like to know more about Mr. House. I'm afraid I don't know much myself. Mr. House has got his own casino, the Lucky 38, but nobody goes in or out except his robots. The other casinos follow Mr. House's rules, so I guess that makes him the leader of New Vegas. As far as I know, nobody's ever laid eyes on the guy. I think that robot who pulled you out of the dirt belongs to Mr. House. If Mr. House is looking after you, that's gotta be a good thing, right? Funny he never mentioned that. Anyway, thanks for the info. Anytime. Mind at least browsing my stock as additional thanks? Fallout games’ merchant system works by trading caps (the main currency in the Fallout universe) and goods of equal value. The Barter skill increases the value of stuff we sell and decrease the value of stuff we buy. Chet also exposits that there are different types of ammo for each gun, for certain situations, and there are mods we can equip to make our weapons better. We won’t be buying anything from Chet yet, since he doesn’t have anything we need immediately. I was hoping he had some Brass Knuckles for sale to make better use of my Unarmed skill, but he sadly didn’t. Oh well, Melee Weapons this early will suffice.  Outside Chet’s are a workbench (for crafting items and converting energy weapon ammo types) and a reloading bench (for crafting or breaking down ammo).  Next stop, the Prospector Saloon!  Doggy! (growl)   Cheyenne, stay. Don't worry, she won't bite unless I tell her to. What do you do around here? I hunt geckos, mostly. The meat's pretty good and I can always find a buyer for the hides. I also help keep the town clear of radscorpions and coyotes. Not many people live in Goodsprings, so wildlife is always creeping in. What kind of creatures are out there? Around here, mostly coyotes and geckos. The coyotes are pretty dangerous in large packs, but otherwise they're nothing to really worry about. The geckos aren't too tough, but they've got a nasty bite. I've heard about bigger, nastier versions out in the wasteland, but I've never seen them. Stick to the roads when you can, and steer clear of the hills north of Goodsprings. The critters up there are big and poisonous. Let's talk about the areas around Goodsprings. Southeast of here is Primm - can't miss it, since it has this giant old rollercoaster right in the middle of town. The NCR's got an outpost there. If you follow the road north, you'll eventually hit Sloan and Quarry Junction. They mine rocks or something, but I heard they got troubles lately. I wouldn't head that direction if I were you, though. Got critters up there that don't take kindly to getting shot. NCR? Just pretend I don’t know anything about the major faction in the west that’s been around for almost 100 years. The New California Republic. Bunch of settlers and soldiers coming in from the West, fixing on making Nevada their own. They can be right pushy, but the roads are safer 'cause of them, so I tend to let it go. Not that I got a choice. What does the NCR keep you safe from? Well, the wildlife for one thing. Rowdy locals for another. They're protecting their own. Just happens to help us They've been holding off this other group from the East, too. What do you know about the other group? Got a funny name. Call themselves Caesar's Legion. Never seen 'em in these parts, so I couldn't tell you much. I hear rumors, that's about it. Supposedly they keep slaves and they got some real nasty ways of killing folks. But maybe that's just something folks in the NCR cooked up to make themselves seem more useful here. Less uninvited. I need to get to Primm. Can you suggest a route? Sure can. Take the road southeast out of town till it hits the freeway. Primm is the town with the roller coaster, straight south. Can't miss it. NCR patrols do a good job of keeping the highway clear, but I'd keep your gun where you can reach it easily. You never know who you'll run into. Off the road, you'll probably start running into hostile wildlife. My advice would be to stick to the highway when you can. Cool. So, Doc Mitchell said you could teach me to survive in the desert. Okay, step one: don’t get killed. … That’s just some general advice, honest. Yeah, I guess there's a thing or two I could show you. Sounds like you need all the help you can get after what they done to you.  Sunny leads Sun outside, hands us a Varmint Rifle, and instructs us to shoot some bottles.  She doesn’t tell us WHERE to shoot them from, though. It’s really just to show that this game has ironsights, which Fallout 3 didn’t. You just sorta...hunched forward with your gun out.  Although, from where you were standing, I’d recommend some...additional trainin’. Tell you what. I gotta go chase geckos away from our water supply anyway. Darn critters are attracted to it. Why don't you come along?  The geckos are gathered around the area that Goodsprings get their water. It’s a never-ending power struggle between them and the townsfolk. Their own Hoover Dam, if you will. Anyway, that knife we got from Doc’s house will be enough.   Geckos are bipedal goofy-running demons are lunge at you, fangs first.  They go down quickly enough, though. There’s two more water sources to clear, so we help Sunny out with those, too.  VATS is a great tool for players with terrible computers/consoles to run the game and wish to get by with the combat. It pauses everything, displays targets in front of the player, and allows them to select specific limbs (only with guns) to damage, with each attack costing Action Points. The percentage is the chance you have of actually hitting the target. Also, please pay no attention to the dog’s eyes.  We find a shovel at the second water source (which we can drink for more clean water and keep us from getting dehydrated), and equip it. It deals more damage than our knife, but is noticeably slower.  Hark, a distressed damsel dissecting dewinged dragons! DEATH FROM ABOVE! Saving the settler give us two things: one, three bottles of purified water, and two, some positive reputation with Goodsprings! We are now Accepted by them, meaning they will reflect on our relationship with the town and offer better prices to us.  This reputation system is almost everywhere in the game, and can either make the game easier or harder for you, depending on how you act towards each faction.  Here's a little spending money for the trouble. <50 caps> One more thing I wanted to show you. Thought I might teach you about living off the land, and making useful things for yourself. Interested? Might as well. Gives me a chance to mosey around town. All right, then. We'll need a couple ingredients to get started. Gonna want some Xander Root and a Broc Flower. Lemme think now... I know I've seen Broc Flowers growing up at the graveyard. And I seem to remember there being Xander Root over by the schoolhouse.  Towns generally look like this in the Fallout world. Nuclear blasts tend to leave a wave of destruction.  Mailboxes are found all around this town and others. They will generally contain grenades, cherry bombs, and skill magazines, which give the player a brief +10 boost in the skill the magazine specializes in. For example, this copy of Future Weapons Today will give us +10 to our Energy Weapons skill.  Homes will also sometimes actually belong to NPCs. Which means almost anything in them will belong to them, and thus be considered stealing (which I’m not doing this playthrough, for a bit more of a challenge. Sun Vulture is, if nothing else, a professional), which will get us into trouble if we are caught, or make us lose karma at the very least. Karma is...well, it’s there. Some NPCs react to it, but it’s nothing game-breaking.  Special items, though, will always be free for us to loot. This Sunset Sarsaparilla Star Bottle Cap, for instance, is one of many. These special caps can be found in specifically placed locations, or randomly from drinking Sunset Sarsaparilla (drinking a bottle will always result in a normal cap).   Goodsprings is a small farming town, which means they have harvestable crops (though that would be stealing for us) and cattle like this Bighorner right here. Little touches like this help the game feel lived in.  Nothing eerie about returning to the place you died just to pick up some groceries. Hovering around the cemetery are Bloatflies, annoying bugs that spit at you and are a nuisance to shoot.  We get our broc flower, and gaze at the bright lights of New Vegas, with the giant warning sign between us. The sign is no joke, either; there are some nasty creatures that way to prevent players from just beelining it to the main attraction of the game.  Our grave, which Victor easily dug us out of. Don’t know why the lamp is there though. Shouldn’t robots not need outside sources of light? Anyway, there are some cigarettes to the upper right of our grave. We take them, as we remember that the rear end in a top hat in the checkered suit was smoking them nonstop and they can probably lead us to them. I mean, who else could be a heavy smoker in this wonderful utopia?        We can dig up these graves for some goodies, thanks to our shovel. Not a lot except for a few guns which we’ll sell later.  Alone in the graveyard is this snowglobe, which we’ll take with us. Surely some loser wants them.  It’s getting dark out, so we need a place to crash for the night.  Thankfully, Victor’s shack has a bed to the immediate right of us, which we sleep in for a doctor’s eight hours.  Refreshed, we come across a Mantis.  Horrified, it gets crushed by our heel.  The schoolhouse is right next to Victor’s shack.  That’s the xander root. Now to turn around and hea- AH! What the hell, man? Don’t sneak up on me like that! Don't suppose you'd care to trade? I'm missing a few essentials and- oh, screw this. Lying just ain't in my nature. I'll tell it to you straight. I've been following you for a good bit now. Don't follow me. You'll live longer. Okay, you're a dangerous sort. I get that. But I have some information I think you'll find useful, which made me follow you for a spell. “For a spell?” I just got into town. Why were you following me, anyway? It started off innocently enough. I was traveling, as I often do, and happened to observe you picking up one of those blue-star caps. I found this inside a house and left immediately. I was watching you through the window. Of...course you were. You didn't show any reaction to it, so I figured you didn't know what you'd gotten your hands on. Why didn't you say anything then and there? I had to make sure of your disposition. I went right to sleep after finding it. Oh, I just waited outside, in case I saw something that’d make me think you’re the dangerous sort. There's a lot of jumpy folks out there that'd shoot a man as soon as talk to him. Well, you don’t have to worry about that with me. I figured so. I prefer being...blunt. … Now that we're conversing, though, I can tell you what I know about those caps. What's so special about these caps? There's an old wasteland legend that says somewhere out there is a fabulous treasure from before the war. Those caps with the blue star on them, the tale goes, are the key to that treasure. They're called Sunset Sarsaparilla Stars. They’re all over the place. The easiest place to find them is unopened bottles of Sunset Sarsaparilla. You'd think they'd all have been picked clean by now, but somehow new bottles keep appearing in the machines. Some say it's old Festus that does it, hoping someone will finally collect enough caps to earn the treasure. Other than bottles, you'll just have to scavenge. You can find caps in the unlikeliest of places, and blue-star caps are no exception. So you collect these caps too? Nah, I gave it up years ago. Too dangerous. And even if I did still collect them, I'd tell you the same. There's people out there so mad with the idea of treasure that they'll attack strangers just on the suspicion that they have some of those caps. What kind of treasure are we talking about? No one knows. Money? Weapons? Water? It is, or maybe was, something of value, and that's enough to get people motivated. You mentioned someone named Festus. Who's that? It's said that the treasure is guarded by a man named Festus, and he's the one who asks for the blue-star caps. It's also said that he's been around since the war, standing a lonely vigil, waiting for someone to come and take the treasure off his hands. That'd make him pretty drat old, but I've met a few people in my travels who claimed they actually met him, and they weren't the lying type either. Fascinating. This is getting creepy. I'm leaving, and don't follow me. Fine. Just do me a favor. If you find more of those things, and plan on keeping them, watch out for a man named Allen Marks. He's killed more than a few people to collect as many of those caps as he can, and your ignorance as to what they are won't protect you.   Oh no no no. You don’t stalk me and get to live, pal. A stalker AND a liar. Well, now I’m even MORE vindicated. We head inside the schoolhouse, which is abandoned except for a few Mantises. Mantisi. Manti.  Desks are knocked down all over the place, with more skill magazines on the ground.  In the corner is a computer and a safe. They are both Easy, requiring 25 in Science and Lockpicking, respectively. We don’t have enough in Lockpicking to try the safe, even with a skill magazine and drugs, but we can read a Programmer’s Digest (+10 Science) to hack the terminal.  The hacking minigame is pretty simple. There are words on the screen, and you have to select the right one. You have four chances before it locks you out until you can get the password some other way. The words have the same amount of letters, and if you select the wrong one, it tells you how many letters are the same match (and they will be in the same place the correct word is). You can also select non-letter characters that form a string to either remove a word from the screen that’s a dud, or replenish the chances you get. Lockpicking is pretty much just rotating a bobby pin and pushing a screwdriver using controls until either the bobby pin breaks or you unlock the mechanism. Fallout: New Vegas introduced the Force Lock option, which gives you a small chance to unlock the mechanism without doing the minigame, but if you fail it remains locked forever until you find the key that unlocks it normally. Which means no one uses that option since bobby pins are plentiful. We hacked the terminal, which allowed us to unlock the safe connected to it, and got some random loot, as well as a Stealth Boy (increases Sneak drastically, puts stealth field over player).  We meet up with Sunny, who is standing by a campfire pit littered with empty whiskey bottles and tin cans. Let me see what you got. Yeah, these'll do just fine. Just fine. All right now. We're gonna be making something folks on the trail call Healing Powder. Go on over to that campfire now. Give it a try.  Campfires (and hot plates in the DLCs) are used to craft food and other consumables. We make the Healing Powder (heals us based on our Medicine skill, but also reduces our Perception by 2) and also put that coffee pot and mug we took from Doc’s place to use. Black coffee is a DLC consumable that gives us minor food, water, and sleep relief, but also a decent boost to our Intelligence! It doesn’t consume the coffee pot, but the mugs it uses break as soon as we drink the coffee. Hey, that's not bad! See? All it takes to make a recipe is the right ingredients and the right know-how. Hey, do me a favor. Trudy - she's the bartender up at the Prospector, kind of the town mom - she likes to meet newcomers. She'd be cross with me if I didn't ask you to poke your head in and say hi.  Per Sunny’s request, we head back to the Prospector Saloon, and run into another local.  Didja have to kick that tumbleweed all the way over here? Sir, I’m just lucky the thing didn’t kill me when I touched it. I getcha. Anyway, what can Easy Pete do for you? Why are you called Easy Pete? Was a prospector until I decided to settle here to get away from the NCR. Now I just take it easy and help out with the Brahmin and Bighorners. What's wrong with the NCR? Don't get me wrong - the NCR's got a lot of decent folk in it. It's just that they make you part of them whether you like it or not. Towns like Goodsprings and Primm don't stay independent for long, not if you've got something the NCR wants. Still, the NCR keeps the Legion away. You will find that this is kinda the air that surrounds the NCR. An organization that tends to keep the peace, but they are basically just another faction claiming territory and imposing their flag over any settlement they can, no matter what. As evil as the Legion sounds, they are the main reason why the NCR hasn’t conquered further east, and some people find that to be a good thing. I’m really glad the writers chose to paint the NCR this way this early in the game. It gives the player a grayer perspective on the whole “Order vs. Chaos” thing going with these two factions. Tell me about the Legion. They're slavers, led by a guy named Caesar. Or Caesar. Not sure how you're supposed to say it. How do you say it? Caesar, or Caesar? Caesar. Oh, cool. A couple of years ago they tried to take over Hoover Dam, but the NCR beat them back. The NCR didn't - or couldn't - finish the job, though. The Legion's got its strength back and is getting ready for another round at the Dam. My money's still on the NCR winning, but you never know. We've been hearing stories about Legionaries on the Nevada side of the river, so keep a gun handy. You don't want to get caught by them. What's so important about Hoover Dam? The Dam powers a lot of New Vegas. And then there's all that clean water lying in Lake Mead, too. Anybody who owns the Dam owns the territory. What do you use the Bighorners for? Meat and hide, mostly. Can't put a pack on 'em - they just lay down until you take it off. Can find a bunch of wild ones high up in the hills, but gotta be careful around 'em. They can put up a decent fight if cornered. You were a prospector - like digging for gold and silver? Nah, nah - means I poked through old buildings looking for working tech and such. Some folks just call it "salvaging," but never liked the term. Way I see it, salvage means it's broken, near-worthless. Me, I looked for the good stuff - guns, chems, spare parts. Good money in it. Do you know anything about the people who attacked me? The one in the fancy suit seemed to be calling the shots, that's as much as I know. Other folks in town might know more Word of advice, though: if you ever catch up with him, watch out. The man's got cold eyes like a snake. Can't be trusted, I'd say. We have more information, and should head off to Primm when we can, but Town Mom Trudy is inside the saloon now, so we go inside for now.  Oooh, an argument.   The threatening stranger in old world riot garb walks off.  We sit down and drink the coffee on the bar, ready to ask Trudy just what that episode was all about next time. <coffee mug shatters>
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Feb 7, 2018 00:59
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I've seen that hosed up dog eyes thing in my own playthroughs and what the poo poo kind of bug causes that
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Feb 7, 2018 01:17
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Oh, this is going to be a treat, at this rate. Loving the content so far, dude, good luck!
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Feb 7, 2018 01:52
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Fun thing: Bloatflies don't spit at you. They are mutated botflies, they shoot their larvae at you. The thought is that if you die, your corpse will become a nest for them, and one day in a few weeks hour bloated corpse will explode into dozens of Bloatflies.
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Feb 7, 2018 02:52
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My favourite thing about Malcom is that he is wearing two pairs of goggles. A stylish man, to be sure.
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Feb 7, 2018 06:50
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I'm glad I'm not the only one whose game had issues with Cheyenne's eyes.
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Feb 7, 2018 09:10
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Star caps. This was one of the few NV quests I didn't like. For being something of a wasteland myth, I expected more petty warfare over the caps. There's a couple setpieces, and that's it. Then again, all the HQ has is money and Pew Pew, so it scales well I guess?
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Feb 7, 2018 12:41
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Malcolm Holmes is in the unfortunate situation where he 1.Stalks you like a creepy motherfucker 2.Has a ton of star caps despite saying he doesn't while telling you of their value 3.Has a trader hat and outfit, the only one of its kind in the game from what I remember 4.Is completely alone and nobody will ever miss him It's so hard to not kill him. 
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Feb 7, 2018 12:56
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nah, the trader at the 118 wears one and I swear I've seen a roaming npc (that isn't malcolm) wear one as well.
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Feb 7, 2018 21:39
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The main thing is that there is literally no reason NOT to kill him. I have no idea if Malcolm was supposed to actually have a questline and it got cut, but he's basically holding a giant "kill me" sign with his loot.
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Feb 7, 2018 22:17
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Nuckelavee posted:My favourite thing about Malcom is that he is wearing two pairs of goggles. A stylish man, to be sure. For a while, a helmet with goggles, a suit with goggles and an actual pair of goggles was my go-to outfit. I want my characters to look like they had a fight with a thrift shop and lost.
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Feb 7, 2018 23:30
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Chapter 3: Sun Vulture and the Goodsprings Gang Music: Chain Gang  Man, these are some big bar counters for such a small town drinking hole.  Does Goodsprings get many visitors?  Mostly traders looking to buy Bighorner meat and hides. The traders are the main reason the general store manages to stay in business. Most travelers heading south on in the I-15 just push on towards Primm unless they're in desperate need of supplies. Yeah, I saw the signs. Why is that? That whole area's overrun with the kind of critters that just get mad if you shoot 'em. Merchants avoid that whole stretch of I-15 like it's radioactive. Which it could be for all I know. Anything interesting going on in the rest of the wasteland? There's always something interesting going on, but the biggest news has to be the coming dustup between the NCR and the Legion over the Dam. Why do you think the NCR and the Legion both want the Dam? I'm pretty sure the NCR wants to hold onto the Dam because it's one of the few places around that can make electricity. The Legion are a bunch of savages, though. No idea why they'd want the Dam. Probably plan on destroying it or something. Tell me about the NCR. The New California Republic's got the most power in Nevada. Money, troops, you name it. They do what they can to keep things safe in the region, but if you ask me, they're trying to do too much. They're spread too thin. What can you tell me about the Legion? Slavers, killers, and all other kinds of trouble. They dress up like Roman soldiers, so there's no mistaking it when you see them. The rumor is that the Legion is far larger than the NCR lets on, and that it's been due to luck that the Legion hasn't overrun the territory. I overheard your argument. What was that all about? It looks like our little town got itself dragged into the middle of something we don't want anything to do with. About a week ago, this trader, Ringo, comes into town. Survivor of an attack, he says. Bad men after him, needs a place to hide. We figured he was just in shock, so we gave him a place to lie low. We didn't actually expect anyone to come after him. Who was that man you were arguing with? He's a convict. Just without the chains. Said his name was Cobb. "Powder Gangers" is what they call themselves. Plenty more like him out there. Powder gangers? You mean like coke? Chain gangs, really. The NCR brought them in from California to work on the rail lines.  I feel like this is the perfect sentence to describe the NCR. Was a big escape not too long ago. Some of 'em stuck together so they could make trouble. That's what we're dealing with now. So, gunpowder. Not coke. drat. Where is Ringo now? He's holed up at the abandoned gas station up the hill. Why not just kill Cobb and be done with it? You mean murder him? That's not our way, even if Cobb is scum. He can bluster and threaten all he wants. Then how do you see this situation panning out? Cuz I don’t think he’s going to like being ignored. Some of the others, like Sunny, will probably stand up for Ringo if he asks for help, which he hasn't. Personally, I hope he sneaks out of town one night and takes the Powder Gangers with him. ...where the hell would he sneak off to? The areas you just told me merchants avoid because of deadly critters? Because there’s not a lot of other places to go. I dunno. Hide in a barrel and...roll on down south? Speaking of which, it's odd that Cobb wasn't able to find Ringo. The town's not that big. Cobb hasn't exactly been looking for Ringo too hard - I think he's afraid that Ringo will ambush him, which is probably true. Enough town drama, time for the real questions. Our employer needs his package! I'm trying to track down the people who attacked me. Know anything about them? Not much, other than they're a bunch of freeloaders who expected a few rounds on the house. I was able to get them to pay up, though.  Did my attackers say where they were going? They were having some kind of argument about it, but the guy in the checkered coat kept shushing them. Sounded like they came in from the north through Quarry Junction. If that's the case I can't say I blame them for not wanting to go back. So where were they headed? I didn't hear exactly, but the leader was talking about the Strip. Fella wants to get there and avoid the 15, he'd have to go east. Take Highway 93 up. Do you know the robot that rescued me? I know that... thing... as much as anyone else around here. It mostly keeps to itself, which is just fine by me You don't like him? It acts friendly enough, but I don't trust that whole "cheerful cowboy" act. I find it all very creepy. What does he actually do around here? Other than rolling around once in awhile, it doesn't do anything useful as far as I can tell. I don't know why it took an interest in you, but I'd be careful. It's never helped anyone before. Trudy seems to be the only one in town to actually suspect Victor of having alternative motives. Could be paranoia, or could be town mom’s intuition. Show me what you have for sale. Got a special discount for you, after what you done for us.  The “special discount” is basically a 1:1 ratio on the value of goods we can sell or buy from her. Meaning that whatever the item says is worth on the information it gives us (not how much they are willing to part with) is how much we are getting from it. Otherwise, we would be getting far less than the 28 caps the Magnum Revolver is worth. Increasing or decreasing Barter through other means does not affect the discount, either. Positive reputation is a great thing to have. With the guns and ammo we are carrying but won’t be using, we manage to sell them and buy everything we need from her: beer, liquor, food, skill mags, the works.  Trudy mentioned her broken radio, and we just so happened to find some gear that increases our Repair enough to fix it.  Want me to take a look at your broken radio? Sure. The outside looks okay, but I think something broke on the inside. There'd be caps in it for you. I do like to hear what's going on in the world. And that Mr. New Vegas seems like such a gentleman.  Oh, just need to pop some of these wires back in. At least the circuitry is still intact. Hey Trudes, I fixed your radio. Yep, I heard it turn right back on after you got done tinkering with it. Here's some caps for the work.  Not at all! I'm never sure how much is normally charged for this sort of thing. Here's some additional caps - that should be enough. <received 75 caps> After finishing the quest of...talking to Trudy at Sunny’s behest, we gain enough experience to level up! We dump all our points into Survival for now and take a random perk, for now.  Chet has considerably more caps than Trudy does, being a general goods merchant instead of a bartender. Which means I want to get them all, get all the goods I can get from him, and offload the rest of the useless junk I’m carrying with me. First, we equip Malcolm’s Roving Trader gear for +10 Barter.  Then, we drink some beer, giving us +1 Charisma, translating to +2 Barter.  But that only brings us up to 7 Charisma, so we guzzle down some moonshine (which stacks with beer/alcohol), giving us 2 more Charisma.  We then read our Salesman Weekly for another +10 Barter.   Our outrageously drunk courier, brushing up on her haggling tactics in front of the merchant two feet away from her, is ready to make a killing!  Maybe he’s just impressed that someone who just downed a whole jug of moonshine after her beer appetizer was still able to read. Or he’s afraid. Either way, we get rid of all our useless baggage and load up on more food and drugs. Now, yes, I could’ve just spent all those skill points I just got from leveling up on Barter, but I wanted to show off the effects of stacking skill buffs and how beneficial they are. Besides, I’m gonna need the additional Strength for more loot to carry. I will have more than enough caps throughout the game, and plenty of things to buy.    Trudy told us where Ringo is hiding out, so let’s hope he doesn’t mind us barging in.  If you’re going to shoot, you better not miss. Sorry about the gun. You just caught me off guard, that's all. We got off to a bad start. What say we start over with a friendly game of Caravan? Alright, we got our first minigame challenge! So, here’s how you play Caravan. I don’t care about Caravan. I don't have time for a game right now. <puts cards back into pocket> Coulda just said “no”. No I couldn’t. Did you know there's a man named Joe Cobb looking for you? Yeah. He doesn't look very tough, though. I hear he's afraid I'll shoot him down from one of the windows when I see him, and he's right. I'll have a much bigger problem once his friends show up. There's no way I could handle all of them in a gunfight. Why are the Powder Gangers out to get you? My caravan was on the return trip from California and heading back up to the company branch in New Vegas when we got jumped. Not even a "drop your weapons and hands up" before the bullets started flying. We put up a good fight, but there was too many of them. I took a few of the bandits down before I ran, so I figure their friends are out for revenge. What are you going to do about the Powder Gangers? I'm going to lay low for as long as I can, assuming the town doesn't throw me to the wolves. I've got no chance against the gang on my own. Tell me more about the Crimson Caravan Company. It's been in business for a very long time, and is probably the biggest trading outfit in California. There's a branch up in New Vegas, but it hasn't been doing so well. Word is that the big boss herself, Alice McLafferty, is coming in to fix things. What are you going to do about the Powder Gangers? I'm going to lay low for as long as I can, assuming the town doesn't throw me to the wolves. I've got no chance against the gang on my own.  Leaving Ringo to his thoughts, we raid the gas station. It has some great stuff in it, such as this Doctor’s Bag, yeast (which we will want for much later), a Boxing Times skill mag, booze, caps, a safe that we can’t open…  But the REAL loot is truly amaizeing. This food is both a great source of relieving hunger and thirst, and is an ingredient we will want for later.  Joe Cobb is to the south side of town. Let’s see if he wants to chat.  What do you want? What was that you said about Ringo? He's some trader who decided he'd rather shoot than pay the toll for being in our territory. He's hiding somewhere in town. Would serve these idiots right if me and my guys shot the place up after we got payback on Ringo. This area is your territory? It is now. Me and the rest of the guys busted out of the NCR prison east of here and took over. Now we're calling the shots. What were you in prison for? None of your drat business. You ought to know better than to ask a man that kind of question.  Robbed some people, burned some things, killed a few guys. So you must know quite a bit about the Mojave. What’s been going on in the rest of the wasteland? Same old poo poo that's been going on for years. The NCR and Legion are still fighting over Hoover Dam for some reason. Tell me about the NCR. "New" California Republic - nothing new about it. Just a bunch of people with money and power pushing everyone else around. They've got troops all over the Mojave, but it's a big desert so it's pretty easy to avoid them if you want. What do you know about the Legion? I've run with some tough gangs, but I gotta admit they all got nothing on the Legion. I hear they stick you up on poles and it takes awhile to die. I ain't saying I'm afraid of them or nothing, but I'll be staying out of their way. You can't find Ringo yourself? There are too many places to hide around here. He'd see me coming and then "bam", I'm dead. He doesn't know you, though. He probably won't shoot right away. What say I help you take over this town? And just why the hell would you want to help a bunch of escaped convicts? This town is nice and all, but I have business to take care of, and I’m gonna need all the help I can get. You guys are further down the road where I need to get, while everyone here most likely want to stay home. And even if they did, they can’t really do much. Two of them are old geezers, the trader is a pushover, the bartender doesn’t like killing, and the farmers are too stupid to even get their own water without dying. The only one you’d have to worry about is the redhead with the blind dog. Basically...if I help you do this, you get your own town, and you can tell your buddies to lend me a hand, or at least leave me alone. poo poo, yeah. Mayor Cobb - I like the sound of that. Running my own town will give me more pull with the guys at the prison, too. First things first, though. You go settle things with Ringo and put a bullet between his eyes while I round up my crew and let them in on the plan.   No going back now. Stimpaks are for pansies. And for me to sell. There’s more than enough food and drinks to recover health. We even randomly get Star Caps from drinking Sarsaparillas! Gotta minmax that poo poo!  Cobb’s crew is waiting outside of town, just like he promised. Tough-looking bunch.  Good. We'll still need a plan before we rush the town. I don't want to embarrass myself and get beat by a bunch of townies. We ain't got much in the way of supplies, so if you could shake down the old doctor and the store owner for some stuff, we'd be in good shape. Once you're done with that stuff - or none of it - say the word and we'll make our move. The other old guy has some dynamite. Want me to shake him down? Nah, we got plenty. ‘sides, I don’t think your Explosives skill is nearly high enough to get them outta him. Before the alcohol wears off, we go towards a cave near Goodsprings called...the Goodsprings Cave. Since it’s just outside of the tutorial bounds, we get a chance to respec our courier.  We tag Barter, Melee, and Survival. A decent level Barter is great this early on, Melee is going to be our main source of damage before we get the good Unarmed weapons, and Survival will allow us to get the most out of our food and water. The experience from our level up comes back, but we need to stop whatever is attacking us first.  Why does every dog in this drat town hate me!?  With our level-up finally available to us again, we properly put our points towards Melee, Speech, and Survival. Why am I getting Survival this high this early?  Because I want this perk. Getting this early will make our healing situation even better, and we will always be eating and drinking before fights.  This bloody water is clean to drink. Yeah, I dunno. The Goodsprings water source is already a safe place to get clean water; why this also needed to be purified despite looking clearly infected just seems like overkill.  There are also some corpses (and more coyotes) hanging around, but this one is pretty great for Energy weapon-users  The Recharger Rifle has its own supply of ammo, which is slowly regenerates by itself. Think of it as those low-energy flashlights you can crank to charge. Not the most powerful, but it basically has free ammo.  What? Why the hell would I want to do that? [BARTER 25] Give up some supplies now and you won't get your store looted later. All right, all right. I've got some extra leather armor and spare ammo for you. Don't hurt anybody if you don't have to, all right?  The Leather Armor has a decent DT (Damage Threshold), and we can combine it with one that we bought from him earlier to repair this one.  Armor in this game works off of both Damage Threshold and Damage Reduction (DR). DR is applied first, capping at 85% of initial damage taken being reduced. Then DT is applied, subtracting damage that made it through DR. That doesn’t mean we can just take no damage; a little will still get through even the best armor.  Are you sure? What kind of injuries are we talking about? Owies? Booboos? Don’t tell me it’s Ouchies! That does sound messy, but not too bad. I can't spare supplies for cuts and bruises.  Even though we don’t have Doc’s medical supplies (we can also buy them off him, or pickpocket them, or just kill him and loot his corpse), the Powder Gangers still have the Leather Armor Chet promised.   Let’s just make this quick. Drugs time! Med-X gives us DR…  while Buffout gives us extra health, Endurance, and Strength. Together with some Scotch we bought from Trudy and a bit of junk food, as well as the Leather Armor and a Tire Iron we got from Chet, we can tank nearly all the fire and still damage them quickly.   At least...I got to...hear Mr. New Vegas...one...last...time. That tumbleweed shoulda ran you over when it had a chance!  I was wrong to trust your gut instincts, Cheyenne. Sic ‘em! (growls)   Killing enough of the townies nets us negative reputation with them, but it doesn’t revert back to Neutral. Instead, we have the positive rep from before combined with the negative rep we just got. Basically, they know we did good for them, but that we’ve also done wrong by them.  The job isn’t done, however.  Hold on a sec, I need to cauterize your wounds! Doc    Mr. Medicine Man proves to outdamage our armor with his Laser Pistol, so we lead him back to our new posse, we proceed to blow him out of the sky.   Hope this was all worth it. STOP THROWING THE DYNAMITE! THEY’RE ALREADY DEAD! Sorry! It slipped! Just tell them I sent you and you should get in without a problem. Keep a close eye on some of those bastards, though. Oh, not all Powder Gangers out there are friends of mine - like the group in Primm. They'll be gunning for you no matter what, so keep that in mind. ...gently caress.    Sun laments over the harsh decision she made with some beer and a gecko steak, determined to make it worth it when she finally finds the man in the checkered suit. It’s going to be a long trip.
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Feb 10, 2018 00:00
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I like how "oh by the way, this probably isn't going to get you out of any fights" is at the end like a big coda of regret.
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Feb 10, 2018 03:17
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So we're not a good person. Check. Well at least we're not murdering minorities with a machete. This should be entertaining.
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Feb 10, 2018 04:04
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I could never bring myself to kill Doc Mitchell, mainly for the practical reason of who else is going to fix my broken legs every time my stupid rear end steps on a mine?
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Feb 10, 2018 05:42
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Long term results of siding with Cobb are one less merchant and one less doctor available for a little bit of ganger reputation. really not worth it.
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Feb 10, 2018 07:35
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And I show that off in the next two updates. The Powder Gangers could have been interesting, but with time constraints or oversight, they really just serve to show the player a more oppressive side of the NCR and an extended tutorial to the reputation system. If you really wanted to give them more credit, they give you dynamite every day you visit them, to provide Explosives players another source of ammo early on, but that's kinda stretching it. Not exactly spoilers, just some early game explanations. Also, this path is reflective of my first playthrough of the game, where I expected the PG to help me out further down the road, and then Cobb drops that "by the way, you're on your own" line and my frustration skyrocketed.
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Feb 10, 2018 14:15
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RickVoid posted:So we're not a good person. Check. Ohhh I remember that one. How DID that guy think that was gonna fly?
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Feb 10, 2018 20:06
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literally murder joe cobb and put his body in the shallow grave you came out of
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Feb 10, 2018 20:51
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Coolguye posted:literally murder joe cobb and put his body in the shallow grave you came out of I have a better fate for both.
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Feb 10, 2018 20:54
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That would have been glorious in video format. Still bloody good though
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Feb 11, 2018 00:36
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 ApeHawk posted:
In respects to a topic talked about in the Fallout Thread in the Games forum, it's interesting how the Courier's line "Tell me about the NCR" is a subtle mix of allowing people new to this aspect of the series'  deep lore to find out about the NCR and allowing those familiar to the story to find out what the NCR are doing in this place.
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Feb 11, 2018 01:13
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LashLightning posted:
Unfortunately, there is the instance of the dialogue option with Sunny Smiles earlier ("NCR?"), but that may have been an oversight. There is a TON of dialogue in this game, most of it having to be recorded, so the writers can be thrown a bone here and there. And Fallout 4 is atrocious at this thanks to whatever they were thinking when they made the origin of the PC. As for the "murdering minorities with a machete" comment (not to derail my own LP), is this in reference to that banned LP of this game? Because if so, yeah, I'm not RPing as a racist or anything. I'll make jokey jokes and stuff, but the playthrough I'm going for is someone who is advantageous, lighthearted, professional, and vindictive. Sorry if I don't get the reference!
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Feb 11, 2018 06:41
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Chapter 4: Sun Vulture and the Primm Prison Problem, Part One Music: Jailhouse Rock  New morning, new destination: south to Primm, with a detour to the NCR Correctional Facility.  The Powder Gangers who took over the town of Goodsprings are enjoying their early drinks in Trudy’s bar.  There’s a room with a safe connected to a terminal (which is no longer considered stealing since the owner is now dead), which contains a significant upgrade to our Tire Iron! It even lets me show off a cool swing we can do with these types of weapons.   Speaking of looting the property of dead people, Trudy’s home has a copy of a skill book in her living room bookshelf: a Chinese Army: Spec Ops: Training Manual(+3 Sneak, permanent).  Let’s hope this was all worth it. Can’t look back. After making some more food by the campfires Sunny Smiles trained us at, we find this man...in the middle of something. Yeah, I’m not helping you with THAT, rear end in a top hat. Oh, not that. It’s my girlfriend; she’s in trouble! My girl is trapped by geckos on the ridge and I can't get to her. Please, she's going to die! Sorry, got my own problems. I could pay you. 50 caps or I walk. I'll give you whatever you want, just hurry! I'll see what I can do. Where is she? Go up the path past the broken radio tower and go to the right... they're at the top of the trail.  Just a couple of geckos? Easiest 50 caps I ever m- AH! AMBUSH! AGAIN! After some retreating and healing, we manage to pick them off one at a time.  ...either his girlfriend is five different people, or this was a trap. sigh Bartholomew here carries a Plasma Pistol, which eats through our armor pretty quickly.  Fortunately, our new Sledgehammer can destroy his limbs and disarm him in just a couple of swings, making him flee in terror.  What is up with weird dudes being liars in these parts? Didn’t even have 20 caps on him. At least his clothes seem to make me better at swinging my death stick. Up the hill isn’t exactly a stash. A fridge with some food in it, an empty footlocker, a corpse with decent gear (worse than ours, though) and an ammo box with a gun and ammo. If you came here with the Wild Wasteland trait (the one that fills the game with wacky references) you would see Mr. Johnathon Cincospades or whatever. Here’s basically what it’d look like:  yeah  Oh crap, the robot. He’s coming to exact his vengeance upon me for slaughtering his neighbors! Or not.How did you know I was in trouble? Also, why not hel-oh look who I’m asking. Heck, I can smell trouble a mile away. Some trick without a nose. Heh, I like you, friend. Have I mentioned that? I can take care of myself. Sure you can, friend, but everyone needs a hand from time to time. Maybe you'll return the favor one day. You saying I owe you? I wouldn't put it exactly like that, friend. ...[/i]alright. Well then. See you. Bye.[/i] See ya round, buckaroo.    On our way to the NCRCF, we come across the Jean Sky Diving shack. It doesn’t have a whole lot in it, but it does have a star cap, which we take. (note: I will most likely miss some star caps, but I’ll do my best to show the locations of them.)  There’s also some Gangers hanging out back, near the old airplane.    We just need to head down the train tracks, which will lead us to the prison.  Thanks, bargain bin Jason! Pretty dinky place. I’m sure the warden was more than happy to stuff as many convicts inside as they could.  Hell yeah, I do! <slams down two jugs of moonshine> Um, I wasn’t talking ‘bout that kind of party... <puts away moonshine> Then it ain’t no fuckin’ party, is it? So, what is this place? This? This is - or was - the big house. The New California Republic Correctional Facility. Not much "correcting" went on here, just slave labor. One day, us prisoners decided to liberate ourselves. Killed the warden, killed the guards, took over the whole drat territory. If you're free, why are you sticking around? We've got the biggest, baddest fort in the wasteland. There's water and power, and if we need grub, we just go out and steal it. What did you do to end up in here? Me? I ran with the toughest gang in the Hub. You've heard of the Hub, right? It's, uh, west of here, I think, back in California. Who's in charge of the prison now? That'll be Eddie. You can usually find him sitting in the warden's old chair up in the main building. Can I go in? Well, I don't know. Depends on if you can make it worth my time. A hundred caps sounds right to me. Wait, Joe Cobb said he’d let you guys know to expect. Shouldn’t I just be able to walk in? Never heard a peep from him. You must be lyin’, or he hasn’t gotten word to us yet. He told me this seven hours ago. Then he musta lied to you. Sorry. Hundred caps. Fine. Maybe Eddie will be truer to his word. <gives 100 caps>Note: If you help Joe Cobb take over Goodsprings, you are supposed to have the option to tell Dawes so he lets you inside without the “toll”. I honestly don’t know if I did something wrong, or if it was a bug. Either way, nothing run-breaking. 100 caps is nothing, even this early in the game. Still, it’s annoying.  I honestly cannot tell if the place was like this before or after the “liberation”.  Why are you still here? I'm not quite sure the kind of greeting NCR troopers will give an escaped con like myself. Figure it's better to stay put for now. What did you do before you ended up incarcerated I was a sheriff, believe it or not, for a small town far to the west of here. The short version is that sometimes justice is a little slow, and I helped speed it up one too many times. I'm not sorry for anything I did, but I will do the time. Fair enough trade, if you ask me. Tell me more about what happened in the prison. I understand that Cooke was behind it all. I kept my head down the whole time. Didn't want any part of it. I stuck around, figuring the NCR would show up and put things back the way they were. No sense in making myself look guilty, right? Who's Cooke? Some kind of anti-NCR rebel. Some people just don't like being pushed around and told what to do. Where can I find Cooke? He went north with some of the other guys. Didn't say where, didn't say why. All I know is he's got some kind of score to settle with the NCR.   Surprised the spotlights still work.  Why are you "sort of" the doctor?  I was an NCR medic for six months, so I'm not exactly a "doctor." Still, it's more medical training that any of the other guys here. It also gives me an excuse to stay out of any raiding parties. The gang can't lose its only doctor now, can it? What did you do to end up in here? Medical supplies go for a decent amount of caps in the right markets. I figured the quartermaster wouldn't notice any missing. I was wrong. What did you do before? Let's see... I've been a farmhand, a bouncer, a bandit, and an NCR trooper. I don't recommend any of them. What's your reason for staying? The location to the highway makes it a good spot to shake down any travelers passing through. That's why Eddie and the rest are still around. How did you all manage to escape? One night, there was a big explosion from the other cell block. I had no idea what was going on, so I took cover in my bunk. When it was all over, the guards were dead and we were free. Most of the other prisoners scattered, but a few of us stuck around, obviously.   Eddie, the man in charge, is just upstairs, guarded by his crew.  What do you need done?  This is Powder Ganger territory - my territory. Most of the guys around here understand that. One, Chavez, doesn't. Chavez formed his own crew and have been hitting traders on their own. Everybody I've sent after him either got killed or weren't able to catch him. That leaves you. What do you say? I’ll do it. Good. Chavez and his boys were last seen south of here. If you're lucky and he's careless, he might still be there. Now that Eddie is more friendly with us, let’s talk to the man next to him.  Why are you called Scrambler?  Cuz I make scrambled eggs. Really? I have these gec- No, you moron! It's because I mess up people so bad they don't know what part goes where when I'm done. Oh. Original. What do you do around here? I keep an eye on my buddy Eddie. Anybody messes with him and I scramble them real good. What did you do to end up in here? Not much, just killed a bunch of people. Maybe a couple of kids, too. Whatever. How did you all break out? Dynamite. Lots and lots of dynamite. You should've seen the body parts flying everywhere. I can see why Eddie wants you close by... Look’s like Eddie was right: Chavez and his stooges are still here.  There’s a Lad’s Life (+10 Survival) skill mag in the leftmost crate, hidden between the burned books.   Must be talking about Cooke’s gang. We read a Meeting People (+10 Speech) skill mag, to see if we don’t have to deal with a few dudes with dynamite. [SPEECH 30] Eddie's just going to keep chasing you. Quit while you're ahead... and alive.  All right. Pickings were getting slim around here anyway.  The bonus experience pushes us to level 3, which gives us the opportunity to boost our Melee and Survival.  Something that a lot of players might not know when first playing this game: Survival affects how much you get from eating food and drinking water, but it ALSO affects the amount of stats you get (and lose) from food and liquor. So we now get an additional point in both Strength and Charisma (and one less point in Intelligence) from beer, scotch, wine, whiskey, and vodka at 50 Survival! We return to Eddie for hopefully some good reward.  <gives three dynamite and some ammo powder> ...that’s it? We’re the Powder Gangers, not the Loot Gangers. You get what you get. ...uh huh. Chavez has been dealt with. You won't see him around here anymore. I'm happy you cleaned that up for me, but we've got another situation to worry about. There's a merchant hanging around near the prison. Something feels funny about him, and I want you to deal with him. Shake him down if he's legit, but if he's not, take him out. What exactly is "funny" about that merchant you want me to check out? Most people already know we run this territory, and are usually in a hurry to get out. Not this guy. It's like he wants us to come get him. The suspicious merchant is hanging around the Jean Sky Diving shack.  So what are you doing sticking around here?  Uh, you know, just filling up water and stuff. This is Powder Ganger territory, and there's a toll. Pay up. Huh - didn't know there were women Powder Gangers. Oh, well - the NCR will still give me a nice bounty for your corpse.  Hard to be a bounty hunter if there’s no official hunt.  Good. Had him figured for NCR, one of the rangers maybe. Anyway, speaking of the NCR, I need you to take a walk down to Primm. Hey, about Primm, some of your dudes are there; think you can tell them to help me out? No can do. They ain’t my crew. Okay, then how about having one of your guys here come down to Primm with me? That’s gonna be another “no”. They’re just standing around, doing nothing. They’re standing around, keeping me safe. Now that that’s settled, the NCR hasn't raised hell over our breakout, and I want to find out why. They're up to something, I can feel it. What am I looking for in Primm? I know the NCR has troops near Primm, so talk to the locals and find out if any of those troops are going to be coming our way. ...you know what, I was just wondering that myself.  The Mojave Wasteland is a savage hell filled with the most needless of feuding foes.  On our way to the NCR base near Primm, we are stopped by a trooper.  What's going on in Primm? Some convicts from the prison up the road have taken over the town. Everyone inside is either dead or in hiding. What's more, there are two tribes of raiders causing trouble in this area as well. You'd be safer heading back up to Goodsprings. Yeeeaah that ain’t happening. Shouldn't you be protecting the town or something? We'd love to, but they don't fall under NCR jurisdiction. Even if they did we're in no shape to protect them. Why can't you protect them? We don't have the equipment to take out the convicts, and even if we did we need some extra hands for backup. You should talk to Lieutenant Hayes. He's in a tent down the road. Just stay on the west side of the overpass if you don't want to get shot. I can take care of myself. It's your rear end. Don't say you weren't warned.   What are you doing out here?  We were sent out here to hold back the tide of convicts from the correctional facility. As you can probably tell, we aren't doing the kind of job we could be doing. What's the problem with your mission? The mission isn't a problem. The problem is with supplies. The convicts are better armed and organized than our intel initially suggested. I'm trying to get some reinforcements here, maybe some guns with some firepower, but... poo poo... things are just going slow. Does the NCR have any plans to attack the prison north of here? Military operations are classified information. The brass is familiar with the situation at the NCRCF.  Well that was a bust. Let’s see if we can get some info out of someone else. Where are you from?  I'm from Hub originally, but it's been a long time since I saw it. I'm on my second tour here. Most Non-Commissioned Officers are. Powder Gangers have taken over Primm. Do you think I'm blind? Of course I can see the Powder Gangers have taken over Primm. You have any other obvious facts you'd like to share? Don't fist fight with Deathclaws? No kissing Cazadores? Yeesh, touchy. Does the NCR have any plans to attack the prison north of here? I have no idea. I just go and do what they tell me.  0 for 2. Maybe if we do the NCR’s job for them, the locals here will be mor- JESUS gently caress!! So, yeah, the baddies (or the NCR, so that no one bothers them sitting on their hands) mined the most immediate passageway to Primm. With our Explosives skill at...well, we might as well not even have an Explosives skill...we don’t have a lot of time to disarm the mines.  Thankfully, there’s a safe detour we can take.  Another real-life location translated to the game world, Primm is known as being a New Vegas-lite town. But we’ll cover that later.  Right now, we have some nuisances.  Our limbs are pretty much gone at this point, but liquor and food keep us going.  We are regenerating our health back almost immediately after being shot.  Sure, we get a little beat up and lose some resources…  but early game in RPGs are mostly always a battle of attrition before ascending to near invincibility, and Melee/Unarmed runs are no exception.  Ah yes, NCR money. Nothing more noble than trying to replicate the old world in your own image. Still, getting half your body crippled is never fun.  Don’t worry, I’m not one of those guys. Well, they like me, but these guys don’t, so we’re cool, right? What happened to Primm?  Let's see. Been tough around here for a good while now. Worse since them thugs kidnapped our deputy. It started with that breakout from the prison up the road. First there was just a few thugs rolling through town, but then they got organized. Little while ago a good chunk of them left whatever kind of organization they got up there to squeeze all the food and drink out of us they could. Do you know if the NCR is planning to attack the prison north of here? I might know something. 'Bout 100 caps worth of something, let's say? [BARTER 30] I could see giving you 50 caps, maybe. I guess that'll do. <gave 50 caps> I swore not to say a word to no one, but an NCR deserter passed through some days ago and traded for supplies. According to him, the NCR's decided enough's enough and's going to send in a mess of troops to take back the prison any day now. That was easy. Look, they haven’t exactly done any good for us here. Ya think I have any faith in their plans of taking back a whole prison of the very convicts we have to deal with now? Now that THAT business is concluded, who are you? Johnson Nash's my name. Husband to Ruby Nash. Lived in Primm going on eight years now, thick and thin. I'm a trader primarily, for what it's worth with things like they are. I also run the local Mojave Express outpost. What can you tell me about this job? <Show Delivery Order>     Oh, so you're talking about one of them packages. That job had strange written all over it. But we couldn't turn down the caps. What was strange about it? That cowboy robot had us hire six couriers. Each was carrying something a little different. A pair of dice, a chess piece, that kind of stuff. Last word I had from the office, it looked like payment had been received for the other five jobs. Guess it was just your chip that didn't make it. First deadbeat we hired to do the job canceled. Hope a storm from the Divide skins him alive. Well, that's where you came in. He canceled? Yeah, got this look when he saw you next down on the Courier list. His expression turned right around, asked me if your name was for real. ‘No, let "Courier Six" carry the package,’ that's what he said - like the Mojave'd sort you out or something. Then he just up and walked out. Do you know who he was? Where he went? No idea. Sounds like you two had a history for him to act like that. And turn down the money, too. Hope he didn't see any trouble in that package of yours. Maybe he thought your name was bad luck. Not for me to say. Would hate to run into that guy, then. Well, now that you mention it, a few nights back one of the townies was out scavenging for supplies. He said he saw a fella with a daisy suit come through with some of them Great Khan misfits. They was talking about a chip. One of those men shot me. I need to know the best way to get to them. Well for that your best bet is going to be talking to Deputy Beagle. Well, you can call Beagle a deputy so long as you don't harbor too high an opinion of the word. Boy was 'bout as useful as tits on a radscorpion. Only qualification he ever had was to be brother to the wife of the sheriff. Anyway, since they came to town he was keeping a good bit of notes on them, and he was slinking around Bison Steve when your pretty-boy friend came through.  How much for this here NCR paper money? Depends. Does it come in two-ply? Cuz that flimsy excuse for currency ain’t even worth wiping with. Why the NCR thinks weightless varying forms of exchange would be valuable to traders is beyond me. Now, how’s about spending the fifty pounds of caps your lugging around in your pockets? Crippled but still in good health, Sun Vulture takes a moment to reflect with some squirrel stew and purified water she purchased from Johnson Nash. All she knows is that the Powder Gangers may not have been the best horse to bet on. First things first, though: Sun needs to get that info from Beagle. ApeHawk fucked around with this message at 14:38 on Feb 12, 2018 |
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Feb 12, 2018 14:35
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The flippancy is interesting compared to the other New Vegas LPs. Will the lottery-winning goon receive similar treatment?
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Feb 12, 2018 16:05
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I vote siding against the bomb throwing criminal rapey anarchists.
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Feb 12, 2018 17:18
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I agree it's more fun to gently caress them over. And much better in the long run too.
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Feb 12, 2018 22:08
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 15:35 |
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Kind of difficult IIRC, but yeah, worth it. There really aren't any "good" people in this story are there? Just evil and less evil. Actually, The King might be the best person. Maybe a certain octogenarian gardener, too. Everyone else is a gradient of suck.
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Feb 12, 2018 23:47
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