Explosive Zombie
Banned
Okay, I got something like 4 or 5 different endings for the game back in 2010 on the 360. This is my True Achievements page for it https://www.trueachievements.com/game/Fallout-New-Vegas/achievements?gamerid=663167
10 years later I finally return to the game on Steam. https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197983554832
I should have made this thread earlier in my return, as you can see I've amassed 166 hours in the game on Steam. That said, I am making the thread NOW.
First thing I want to say is, I returned for the DLC but have so far not touched the DLC. I've been so obsessed with making the perfect character build and perfecting the vanilla experience. While the game itself seems to have suggestions for what level to play the DLCs at I was wondering what the rest of you suggested? Which DLC first, which last? What level should I be? What perks are best to bring with me to each DLC? Are certain companions better to bring into certain DLCs? I'm not joking when I say I'm a pure newbie when it comes to the DLCs, I only know small details about them.
For those of you interested in a bigger discussion about the game I wanted to re-post some rambling musings I had on my Facebook... this is long and I'm not even sure how I actually feel, so I'm very open to full-on discussion about it...
10 years later I finally return to the game on Steam. https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197983554832
I should have made this thread earlier in my return, as you can see I've amassed 166 hours in the game on Steam. That said, I am making the thread NOW.
First thing I want to say is, I returned for the DLC but have so far not touched the DLC. I've been so obsessed with making the perfect character build and perfecting the vanilla experience. While the game itself seems to have suggestions for what level to play the DLCs at I was wondering what the rest of you suggested? Which DLC first, which last? What level should I be? What perks are best to bring with me to each DLC? Are certain companions better to bring into certain DLCs? I'm not joking when I say I'm a pure newbie when it comes to the DLCs, I only know small details about them.
For those of you interested in a bigger discussion about the game I wanted to re-post some rambling musings I had on my Facebook... this is long and I'm not even sure how I actually feel, so I'm very open to full-on discussion about it...
The game clearly presents a dystopic view of the post-apocalypse. The theme of war and its uselessness is always there in Fallout games but the we get the stuff about gambling thrown in as well. The game is full of tribes and tribalism but none of it is based on race/sex/sexuality. With one single exception, which is Caesar's legion is made out to be sexist, though not racist and they're also in some dialogues said to be fond of reaming each other up the ass.
So save one faction this dystopia with all its problems is post-racial, fully accepting of gays and women have an equal role. Part of me wants to commend the game for not miring itself in those politics because who knows how it would handle it, possibly especially poorly. But another part of me feels like the idea that people would be past such issues in the society of New Vegas is some naive shit. New Vegas isn't the only game to fall into such a trap but it's among the smartest games to do so. Among other things the game also has no rape, no one ever rapes anyone. It's the most violent, wild world you could imagine... except for rape... and child murder... no child murder, even if you want to.
You could even represent racism through the fictional races, but there isn't really much in the way of tribalism there, the super mutants of Jacobstown are only ever bothered by mercs who don't have any direct orders from the NCR to give them shit. The Bright followers don't have any enemies due to their ghoul status. I have noticed some people have negative views of robots but it's often contradictory and not really explored, like if ED-E is my companion in the boomer base people will often offer to "solve that robot problem" I have, despite the base having lots of robot helpers, the robot helpers being the ones who get the ship back for the mission Volare! in fact.
Despite only having the Legion act openly sexist (and not towards you if you're female besides a few comments from a few of Caesar's underlings) you will have companions like Cass make commentary on "STRONG WOMEN" leaders like the ones she wants to take out from the Van Graffs and Crimson Caravan, no male character will talk about how impressive some male leader is because he's a male, though.
Fallout 4 gets more into these ideas, in Fallout 4 the Brotherhood's mission is to clear out all the races they deem scum, from ghouls to synths... in New Vegas the Brotherhood is strictly interested in technology and keeping it out of the wrong hands, unless I missed something they have no real view on different races being lesser. It also has the Railroad who are annoying self-flagellaters over their love of synthetic humans (and there's only real nuance to their hero stance added via DLC when it's pointed out that they think the best way to help a synth is to make them hide in a closet and forget) and they're a perfect example of me thinking "would New Vegas handle this stuff well were it a part of the game?" Because to me much of how the Railroad works is clunky (characters like Tinker Tom and Deacon are great, though) in the same way some of the space Nazi aspects of the Brotherhood feel forced. The minutemen are also ridiculously goody-two-shoes with no real depth to their faction (in New Vegas all your choices have a negative component to them). So they may have avoided issues like race/sex/sexuality/etc. mostly because it'd be hard to showcase a faction as nuanced while making them anti-gay/anti-black/whatever else, they'd probably get shit on for having any sort of depth or dimension to a group of people who were racist/sexist/whatever else, they actually said even the Legion was meant to have more depth to them had they had more time to develop the game, but I think the time excuse might be a cop-out and the reality is Bethesda wouldn't allow them to add depth to sexists who use slave labor and crucify people.
The downside to the NCR being they're imperialists who tax people is interesting but having them be so diverse and full of equality still makes them more utopic than dystopic a faction. The Khans are similar, what makes them an evil faction? The game clearly doesn't have negative views of dealing chems (though it's often suggested the fiends are more of a threat because they are supplied chems by the Khans the only real reason the NCR wants you to deal with the Khans is their potential alliance with Caesar). Which is a weird part of the game, while the NCR tells you not to fool yourself that you can have a peaceful outcome with the Khans and suggests simply eradicating them the Legion, a sexist clan that hates drugs and hates the fiends is willing to make a deal with them (though it's heavily implied they'd simply backstab them eventually and maybe even do, haven't seen the Legion's ending since 2010 when I first played). Maybe if they had given the NCR a clear anti-chem agenda component to them it'd be more compelling they were against the Khans but it was Caesar's legion with the anti-chem agenda so it's weird the Legion has the rep negotiating and not the NCR. Sometimes the game tries to suggest a downside to the NCR but it feels soft, like if you have the NCR take over Primm they mention the heavy taxes but also mention how safe the people of Primm are... the whole point of taxes... the former Powder Ganger occasionally abuses his power if put in charge, so in this game's world military control over a town would only mean safety and heavy taxes, they wouldn't abuse their power, though, another somewhat naive point of view on the issue.
I might be asking for too much, and dev time is an issue, 18 months isn't much to get in all the nuance they did and it is VERY nuanced, moreso than 3, 4 and certainly 76 by a long shot. It's honestly in my top 10 favorite games, potentially top 5... I should say PROBABLY top 5... but this stuff weirds me out, like even the fiends, a faction you can't ally with, a faction that is pure evil and you will receive good karma for murdering outright has women in positions of power all over their ranks and has diversity besides the gender equality, is it naivety? Is the idea that with the issues the New Vegas world deals with such identity issues would be secondary? If it's that then naivety is definitely the cause just looking at history.
This also reminds me of my other problem with all the Bethesda Fallout games (though maybe I'm forgetting 3, it's been a while since I played 3) why isn't disease/viruses/etc a major component of this world? It's not like things like vaccines and anti-biotics are easy to come by. My medicine skill is strictly good for things like curing addictions, patching up wounds from gun shots and such, you can't cure a soldier of dysentery or help someone who has polio because there's no vaccines for it left or some shit. No one has diabetes despite some of the only edible food being shit like cram and sugar bombs. No one is fat, no matter how wealthy they are. Again, this is me possibly asking for too much and with the right resources and time it's possible all this stuff would be there (I need to play Outer Worlds to see where they go with some of the ideas I'm positing) but it does add to the idea I want to push which goes beyond New Vegas, it's an idea that in games both set in the past and the future these issues are for some reason lesser than they are in our current day reality. I still think a big component is just wanting to avoid the backlash they'd get for depicting such things from both sides, sometimes I even think they're going "lol even this fucked up society is more accepting than ours, right?" (as if they didn't author everything about the game's society) and another part could just be games needing to mature more, like how I pointed out the lack of rape/child murder in games that depict horrific realities. Video games need to be treated as just as adult a medium as books or movies but they aren't. And that's a problem considering their transformative nature, a movie, book or TV show is guiding you down a certain specific path, these issues can be avoided due to that, but when you're allowed to roam free and see everything and do everything a game world has to offer it's harder to justify completely ignoring such issues and ideas. Beyond child murder aren't there just not enough children for the human race to survive in New Vegas? You certainly never meet a pregnant woman and how deliveries of babies in such a setting is done is never brought up either. Fallout 4 has an even bigger problem with ducking this issue since the game is about your baby being abducted which makes it harder to ignore it's the only baby in the entire game.
Also despite having bathrooms no one is ever using a bathroom. These games go to the lengths of having people sleep at night, Fallout 4 even has settlements require things like food and ways to make them happy but you'll never catch someone squatting to poop. I expect the next gen Fallout to take such things into consideration but considering these games feel more blind to reality by the entry instead of less my expectations might be the wrong ones.
TL;DR: Man, not even sure how to sum this up, just think it's weird things like racism/sexism/homophobia don't really exist in the Fallout universe with the exception of stuff like the Legion being sexist (which I feel is really surface level stuff to make them more evil that has very little depth or nuance).
So save one faction this dystopia with all its problems is post-racial, fully accepting of gays and women have an equal role. Part of me wants to commend the game for not miring itself in those politics because who knows how it would handle it, possibly especially poorly. But another part of me feels like the idea that people would be past such issues in the society of New Vegas is some naive shit. New Vegas isn't the only game to fall into such a trap but it's among the smartest games to do so. Among other things the game also has no rape, no one ever rapes anyone. It's the most violent, wild world you could imagine... except for rape... and child murder... no child murder, even if you want to.
You could even represent racism through the fictional races, but there isn't really much in the way of tribalism there, the super mutants of Jacobstown are only ever bothered by mercs who don't have any direct orders from the NCR to give them shit. The Bright followers don't have any enemies due to their ghoul status. I have noticed some people have negative views of robots but it's often contradictory and not really explored, like if ED-E is my companion in the boomer base people will often offer to "solve that robot problem" I have, despite the base having lots of robot helpers, the robot helpers being the ones who get the ship back for the mission Volare! in fact.
Despite only having the Legion act openly sexist (and not towards you if you're female besides a few comments from a few of Caesar's underlings) you will have companions like Cass make commentary on "STRONG WOMEN" leaders like the ones she wants to take out from the Van Graffs and Crimson Caravan, no male character will talk about how impressive some male leader is because he's a male, though.
Fallout 4 gets more into these ideas, in Fallout 4 the Brotherhood's mission is to clear out all the races they deem scum, from ghouls to synths... in New Vegas the Brotherhood is strictly interested in technology and keeping it out of the wrong hands, unless I missed something they have no real view on different races being lesser. It also has the Railroad who are annoying self-flagellaters over their love of synthetic humans (and there's only real nuance to their hero stance added via DLC when it's pointed out that they think the best way to help a synth is to make them hide in a closet and forget) and they're a perfect example of me thinking "would New Vegas handle this stuff well were it a part of the game?" Because to me much of how the Railroad works is clunky (characters like Tinker Tom and Deacon are great, though) in the same way some of the space Nazi aspects of the Brotherhood feel forced. The minutemen are also ridiculously goody-two-shoes with no real depth to their faction (in New Vegas all your choices have a negative component to them). So they may have avoided issues like race/sex/sexuality/etc. mostly because it'd be hard to showcase a faction as nuanced while making them anti-gay/anti-black/whatever else, they'd probably get shit on for having any sort of depth or dimension to a group of people who were racist/sexist/whatever else, they actually said even the Legion was meant to have more depth to them had they had more time to develop the game, but I think the time excuse might be a cop-out and the reality is Bethesda wouldn't allow them to add depth to sexists who use slave labor and crucify people.
The downside to the NCR being they're imperialists who tax people is interesting but having them be so diverse and full of equality still makes them more utopic than dystopic a faction. The Khans are similar, what makes them an evil faction? The game clearly doesn't have negative views of dealing chems (though it's often suggested the fiends are more of a threat because they are supplied chems by the Khans the only real reason the NCR wants you to deal with the Khans is their potential alliance with Caesar). Which is a weird part of the game, while the NCR tells you not to fool yourself that you can have a peaceful outcome with the Khans and suggests simply eradicating them the Legion, a sexist clan that hates drugs and hates the fiends is willing to make a deal with them (though it's heavily implied they'd simply backstab them eventually and maybe even do, haven't seen the Legion's ending since 2010 when I first played). Maybe if they had given the NCR a clear anti-chem agenda component to them it'd be more compelling they were against the Khans but it was Caesar's legion with the anti-chem agenda so it's weird the Legion has the rep negotiating and not the NCR. Sometimes the game tries to suggest a downside to the NCR but it feels soft, like if you have the NCR take over Primm they mention the heavy taxes but also mention how safe the people of Primm are... the whole point of taxes... the former Powder Ganger occasionally abuses his power if put in charge, so in this game's world military control over a town would only mean safety and heavy taxes, they wouldn't abuse their power, though, another somewhat naive point of view on the issue.
I might be asking for too much, and dev time is an issue, 18 months isn't much to get in all the nuance they did and it is VERY nuanced, moreso than 3, 4 and certainly 76 by a long shot. It's honestly in my top 10 favorite games, potentially top 5... I should say PROBABLY top 5... but this stuff weirds me out, like even the fiends, a faction you can't ally with, a faction that is pure evil and you will receive good karma for murdering outright has women in positions of power all over their ranks and has diversity besides the gender equality, is it naivety? Is the idea that with the issues the New Vegas world deals with such identity issues would be secondary? If it's that then naivety is definitely the cause just looking at history.
This also reminds me of my other problem with all the Bethesda Fallout games (though maybe I'm forgetting 3, it's been a while since I played 3) why isn't disease/viruses/etc a major component of this world? It's not like things like vaccines and anti-biotics are easy to come by. My medicine skill is strictly good for things like curing addictions, patching up wounds from gun shots and such, you can't cure a soldier of dysentery or help someone who has polio because there's no vaccines for it left or some shit. No one has diabetes despite some of the only edible food being shit like cram and sugar bombs. No one is fat, no matter how wealthy they are. Again, this is me possibly asking for too much and with the right resources and time it's possible all this stuff would be there (I need to play Outer Worlds to see where they go with some of the ideas I'm positing) but it does add to the idea I want to push which goes beyond New Vegas, it's an idea that in games both set in the past and the future these issues are for some reason lesser than they are in our current day reality. I still think a big component is just wanting to avoid the backlash they'd get for depicting such things from both sides, sometimes I even think they're going "lol even this fucked up society is more accepting than ours, right?" (as if they didn't author everything about the game's society) and another part could just be games needing to mature more, like how I pointed out the lack of rape/child murder in games that depict horrific realities. Video games need to be treated as just as adult a medium as books or movies but they aren't. And that's a problem considering their transformative nature, a movie, book or TV show is guiding you down a certain specific path, these issues can be avoided due to that, but when you're allowed to roam free and see everything and do everything a game world has to offer it's harder to justify completely ignoring such issues and ideas. Beyond child murder aren't there just not enough children for the human race to survive in New Vegas? You certainly never meet a pregnant woman and how deliveries of babies in such a setting is done is never brought up either. Fallout 4 has an even bigger problem with ducking this issue since the game is about your baby being abducted which makes it harder to ignore it's the only baby in the entire game.
Also despite having bathrooms no one is ever using a bathroom. These games go to the lengths of having people sleep at night, Fallout 4 even has settlements require things like food and ways to make them happy but you'll never catch someone squatting to poop. I expect the next gen Fallout to take such things into consideration but considering these games feel more blind to reality by the entry instead of less my expectations might be the wrong ones.
TL;DR: Man, not even sure how to sum this up, just think it's weird things like racism/sexism/homophobia don't really exist in the Fallout universe with the exception of stuff like the Legion being sexist (which I feel is really surface level stuff to make them more evil that has very little depth or nuance).
