ProgsterJohn

This mod sounds really cool, although I'd really like to see some astute modders take a stab at improving the weak FNV main quest. I think the main quest keeps FNV from being as good a game as FO3. Not only does the main quest story have more holes in it than Swiss cheese, but that end fight at Hoover Dam is incredibly lame. IMHO.

Very good thread all. Yeah, I live about 25 miles from MacDill AFB (Tampa Bay), so I don't hold out much hope for surviving the initial attack. Funny how it seems like we keep going through nuclear annihilation scares about every other decade or so. Of course the worst seemed to be in the 50's and 60's when the Cold War reached its zenith. Then it subsided for a while with President Carter's 'Detente' in the 70's, and resumed in the 80's with President Reagan's 'Evil Empire' speech. As an aside, from an amateur musicologist perspective, I think all the dark music in the 80's (like Punk and the dark electronica) was a result of the renewed Cold War. Anyway, the nuke scares ended with the collapse of Communism in Russia and Eastern Europe, but just when we started thinking we were now safe from nuclear war for good, along comes a resurgent China and radical fundamentalist Islam. Sighs. Oh well, as Plato once said (and for that matter Fallout narrator Ron Pearlman), "Only the dead know the end of war." Yes, I agree about Threads. It was a VERY dark movie. Concerning 'The War Game', that scene where the Brit Civil Defense woman got caught outside by the blast will forever be etched in my brain. BTW, I thought I'd read somewhere that a nuke explosion is like a giant flash bulb going off, and the War Game seemed to substantiate this. One more thing. I'm currently playing a heavily modded Fallout3, and I have to say that the Wanderer's Edition mod taken along with the Enhanced Weather mod with radioactive rain gives an excellent simulation of what it might be like living in a post-apocalyptic environment. As PC Gamer noted, the Wanderer's Edition is a survivalist nightmare. Think of it as the New Vegas hardcore mode on steroids! http://freeartlondon.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/war_game_2.jpg "You tell me, over and over and over again my friend, that you don't believe, we're on the eve of destruction!" ;)

Actually, the docudrama you want to watch is the BBC one called "Threads". It's the bleakest film ever made. Yes, I thought Threads was generally good, and it had the advantage of a bigger budget and the fact that it was done about 15 years after 'The War Game'. I dunno though, for some reason I found 'The War Game' a little more memorable and unnerving than 'Threads'. Maybe the B&W made it seem more realistic. BTW, I remember the Showtime (or HBO?) movie about Hiroshima being pretty good as well, though I can't seem to remember many of the details in that film. Probably need to see it again. Also, Canadian military historian Gwynne Dyer devoted an entire episode to nuclear war in his fantastic 'War' series. It was absolutely stunning! Thinking in terms of Fallout, I recall a medical doctor being interviewed in the episode commenting on how problematic practicing medicine would be in the post-apocalyptic environment.

On a related note, anyone interested in seeing what the real thing might look like would do well to check out the BBC docudrama made in the 60's called 'The War Game'. Far, far better than 'The Day After' or any other film I've seen on the subject. Netflix has it. I watched it once and it was so realistic and chilling that I'm not sure I could watch it again. I mean, people getting caught outside in the blast, little kids getting blinded by the flash, radiation sickness. It is pretty stern and sobering stuff. Consider yourself warned. :nuke:

Interesting man. This brings up the question of why some game publisher hasn't yet done a really good Doctor Who RPG along the lines of Fallout. Seems like a no-brainer.

Yes, Caravan is a great game. Probably the coolest card game ever. What makes it so special is that as far as I know it is the first and only strategic card game. Yes, that is correct, the game is more strategy rather than evaluating probabilities as in luck-based card games. In all fairness to those who've ignored it, the learning curve is a bit steep and the in-game tutorial is dreadful. It wasn't until I found a decent tutorial on the web that I finally started getting the hang of the game. For those who've not played it though, you don't know what you're missing. :smile:

Yeah man, as long as there are quests to do, I feel compelled to keep playing. I think that is the acid test as far as knowing when to cal it quits - When you've done about all the quests you can do. I recall when I finished the Broken Steel DLC in my first Fallout Three game, the Brotherhood offered my character some incentives for going super mutant hunting and scavenging for sensor modules. To me though this seemed kind of pointless without more major quests to do as well. Anyway, although I'm currently deeply involved with my heavily modded game of Fallout Three, I look forward to revisiting New Vegas once all the official add-on packs have been released and the modding community has had sufficient time to create as many mods for FNV as they have for FO3. "And she's here to do some business, with big iron on her hip!" lol

Yeah Floatsup, I suppose it would be easier to just sort of marginalize the main quest and fill up FNV with some user-created quests.. I know the modding community have created some really good quests for FO3, and hopefully they will do the same for FNV. I think I'll do what I did with FO3. That is, wait for Bethesda to publish all their official add-ons in an expansion pack, then I'll mod the game heavily and give it another spin.

Any of you modders out there trying to do anything with the main quest? I agree totally with many of the game critics (Gamepot and IGN for example) who say that the main problem with FNV is the weak main quest. For one thing it's not nearly as compelling as the main quest in Fallout 3, and for another the FNV ending seems rather final compared with the more open-ended main quest finale to FO3. The way I see it one of two things can be done: 1) Mod the hell out of the main quest to improve it and make it more open-ended, or 2) players can marginalize or otherwise ignore the main quest and concentrate on the side quests and user-created quests. My two cents.

Veronica of course. "Everything's coming up Veronica!" lol BTW, it's interesting to note that there is an odd lack of 'babe' followers in both FO3 and FNV. Not sure what's up with that??? No wonder some astute modders created mods in FO3 to enable Bittercup, Lucy West, and Sydney as companions. Also, I tried Cass once, and her dialogue was interesting. She was something of a strange bird. For that matter so was Veronica. I would also note that Cass was the only follower I ever lost playing FNV. In that final confrontation with the Legion boss (can't remember his name), I could not get past him without sacrificing Cass. C'est le guerre. I sort of liked Boone as well, as he was a 'brooder'' like Sir Richard Burton. ;)

I hear you kitkathy. The Fallout series are probably the most addicting games this side of Sid Meier's 'Cvilization', or for that matter 'Elder Scrolls: Oblivion'. In fact my current heavily modded Fallout3 game is so personal and intense that I had to take a break from it last night and go out to the local Goth Club and commune with Bittercup! lol. I'm ready to resume playing tonight though. Anyway, where is the thread on your hubby's New Vegas Miod? I'm curious to see what he has in mind for it. Is he going to rework the main quest? BTW, one side benefit of New Vegas: I got a lot of practice gambling, so my last couple of trips to the Seminole Hard Rock Casino (Tampa) have been pretty good. ;)

Good point EvilNeko, To be be fair the FO3 ending does upset the balance of power a little, but not as radically as it does in FNV. I think this may be because of the tricky balancing act in FNV with the faction reputations. Although the faction reputations in FNV was a nice addition to the game, it's kind of a two-edged sword because now the political situation is a lot trickier to manage and more easily upset, from both the modder and the player's perspective. I think though the point I was trying to make was that as the games stand now it seems much more natural to continue FO3 after the main quest than it would with FNV. FO3 to me seems more open-ended and thus easier to work with. BTW, interesting you should mention the main character motivations in FNV. One person noted on a forum how he felt that character development in FO3 was much more interesting than in FNV because in FO3 you start out the day you were born and by the time you leave Vault101 you already have a substantial back story and you care about your main character. Whereas in FNV you wake up with amnesia and nothing more than a vague idea about going after the guy who tried to do you in. Anyway, I'm currently playing my first heavily modded game of FO3, and it is amazing! Probably the best, most personal and intense game I've ever played. All the new visuals and the Fallout Wanderer's Edition mod make a huge difference. Again though I would say that I loved the FNV milieu/setting, and it seems to me that some good modders could really go to town with it if they could just get around (or marginalize) the main quest. I think you might have the right idea about just ignoring the main FNV quest after a certain point. IMHO it ceased to be interesting after the meeting with Mr. House.

Hey KitKathy, Is your hubby doing a re-working of the main quest? Again, I think it's the rather weak main quest that keeps FNV from being the truly great game it should be. I dunno, I think probably the easiest way to fix the game would be just to extend it so it doesn't end after the main quest is completed, and then add a bunch of user-created quests to the game. Of course the big problem with the main quest is that, unlike the Fallout3 ending, the FNV ending severely upsets the delicate status quo between the various factions. For instance, if you side with Mr House he destroys the Kings at the end whether you liked the Kings or not.

Like I said in my recent thread here, I think the big problem with New Vegas is the main quest. Some of the side quests (like 'Volare' with the Boomers for instance) I thought were better and more compelling than the main quest. I dunno guys, I kind of feel like the main quest in New Vegas kind of limits the player, whereas the main quest in Fallout3 has a more free and open-ended feel to it, which is why it feels natural to keep playing F3 after completing the main quest (as long as you enter the right Project Purity password ;). Again, I was in awe of the Fallout3 ending, whereas with New Vegas I was left feeling kind of 'meh'.

I felt moved to share some thoughts on New Vegas; having actually played it before playing Fallout Three. When I first played New Vegas I thought it was the best thing since, well, Elder Scrolls. I really love how they've mixed in a lot of different melieus in the game, and this is where the game shines. It's sort of the old west meets Howard Hughes meets Panic in the Year Zero meets Viva Las Vegas meets golden age scifi. How cool is that? At the end of the day though I thought both IGN and Gamespot where on target with giving New Vegas essentially a B/B+ rating and not an 'Editor's Choice' like Fallout Three. Although the New Vegas journey was mostly fun, I felt kind of let down at the end. By contrast I was in awe of the Fallout Three ending. In fact as the woman at IGN noted in her video review, some of the side quests in New Vegas were more fun and more compelling than the main quest. Therein lies the big problem with New Vegas and the challenge for modders. I think the main quest needs a serious reworking. For one thing, although on the face of it the war between the NCR and the Legion should be very cool (after all, it is reminiscent of Clint Eastwood and company trying to steer clear of the Union and the Confederates in the 'Good, Bad, and the Ugly'), it seems to be flawed in execution. For another, I've played all the endings except for the Legion, and they all seem pretty much the same. I hated all the running around and sometimes getting lost in the Hoover Dam labyrinth. Comparing the New Vegas ending to the awesome Fallout Three end fight involving Liberty Prime and the final scene reminiscent of Spock's sacrifice in 'Wrath of Khan', New Vegas comes up short. It's interesting to note that Obsidian did both New Vegas and Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic Two, and in both cases although these sequels were good and sometimes great, IMHO they fell well short of the original games. Again though, I think the challenge for the modding community is to either rework or marginalize the main quest and make New Vegas the great game it should have been. After all, by rights the New Vegas/Mojave environs should be a lot more interesting than the Washington DC area. My two cents.