[WIP] New Vegas Bounties III

[RangerBoo]

One of these days I need to make a compilation of all the deaths he's experienced in my mods. Poor Al.

 

EDIT: My all-time favorite is still him getting man-handled by an unarmed ghost in Sword of Sigdan. He was so... surprised. :devil:

It was like watching Bane break Batman's back! :laugh: But my favorite would have to be the exploding slaves from Russell. Both him and Jerry were taken by surprise! :devil:

Edited May 18, 2014 by RangerBoo

[Guest deleted2159825]

 

One of these days I need to make a compilation of all the deaths he's experienced in my mods. Poor Al.

 

EDIT: My all-time favorite is still him getting man-handled by an unarmed ghost in Sword of Sigdan. He was so... surprised. :devil:

It was like watching Bane break Batman's back! :laugh: But my favorite would have to be the exploding slaves from Russell. Both him and Jerry were taken by surprise! :devil:

 

Jerry was taken to the stratosphere, if I remember correctly. ;)

[Guest deleted2159825]

I've got to focus on modding and quit reading goddamn forum posts. Christ, I'm getting cranky with age (and alcohol).

[Brigand231]

I've got to focus on modding and quit reading goddamn forum posts. Christ, I'm getting cranky with age (and alcohol).

Cranky or not, alcohol or not, you're not wrong.

[Guest deleted2159825]

What a night!

 

There has been substantial progress all-around, and an exciting development that I hadn't foreseen.

 

As I was wrapping up the core content for the mod's second act, my mind somehow drifted back to last spring when I was obsessed with procedurally generated (aka radiant) content, which culminated in the infinite bounty system of NVBII. As I was already considering player feedback in the travel poll, I was also considering how to liven up the player's experience in the new worldspace. While some scripted ambushes are in place, I felt that would be formulaic and predictable outside of quests. Therefore, I delved into something I had long since sworn off - random encounters.

 

In the past few hours I managed to piece together elements of FO3 scripts, NVBII's system, and some new designs that resulted in a fully-functional, simple random encounter system for the new worldspace. To be clear - NVBIII is a story-driven mod, so that remains the focus. However, even a handful of random scenarios will really accentuate the jaunts between the quest-giver and various targets. At present there are only a handful of encounters, as I was merely intent on creating a functional prototype. Here are some general details:

- Encounters may involve hostile npc's, friendly npc's, animals, or some combination thereof.

- I may include unique, scripted events related to quests and/or the Someguy Series.

- Each encounter zone is unique, though most will share generic events (outlaws vs. bounty hunters, etc.)

- Each zone will have a 48-hour cooldown.

 

The application for NVBIII is limited, but this could hold real promise in the future. I've always wanted to make a content-oriented random encounter mod, and this prototype could be a winning formula for the Mojave. After NVBIII, we'll see. I have an outline somewhere called "Someguy's Scintillating Scenarios" that I wrote back in 2011 or so.

 

Nonetheless, random encounters are peripheral, though I'm invigorated by the success. It should really add life to otherwise mundane sections of the world.

 

As for NVBIII's quest content, I'm pleased to report that it's about halfway finished. Really, the main quest is not that long, relative to NVBII, for instance. I've really enjoyed penning the dialogue and developing the characters thus far, though a lot of work remains on that front. Furthermore, the town is largely a blank slate right now, so I'll have to buckle down and knock that out in the coming weeks. It's just a touch larger than Silverwood, if you're aiming for a frame of reference. Of course, creating a custom climate (or recruiting someone who can accomplish that end) remains on my list, along with the damn map. I can make a worldspace, clutter it, and navmesh it easily enough, but that damn map still eludes me. If anyone has the slightest urge to assist me on that front, please PM me.

 

Thank you to everyone who voted and contributed to the travel restriction poll. Hopefully the random encounters will mollify any tedium between quests.

 

Ok, I'm ranting again. To randomness!

Edited May 18, 2014 by someguy2000

[RangerBoo]

YEA!!!! I missed random encounters from F03! :dance: Will there be random encounters in the Mojave?

[Guest deleted2159825]

YEA!!!! I missed random encounters from F03! :dance: Will there be random encounters in the Mojave?

No, that would be way outside the scope of this mod. In fact, that might be a future project, depending on how these encounters work out. There would be near-limitless applications for encounters connected to vanilla and modded content.

[RangerBoo]

Understandable. I am interested in seeing how this encounters play out as as well as the type of encounters. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the encounters will be from surviving members of the Sand Wolves. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Sorry about spoilers but I don't know how to make a spoiler tag for the life of me.

Edited May 18, 2014 by RangerBoo

[Necromage5]

I'm extremely glad to see that you and NVB are back. I'm replaying now just so that the experience and characters are fresh in my mind. A conclusion to the Bounties story is definitely something that can get me back into New Vegas after all this time. Are you done with modding again after finishing this, or do you have any other plans? I loved your ideas for The Message, Sinners and Slaves, and Just a Courier, and but something smaller would be just as cool. I'm guessing Zulu is pretty much off the table, but have you considered a very much scaled down side quest in NVB3, or just something that ties in to all the foreshadowing from the Soothsayer and other quests?

Edited May 18, 2014 by Necromage5

[Guest deleted2159825]

I'm extremely glad to see that you and NVB are back. I'm replaying now just so that the experience and characters are fresh in my mind. A conclusion to the Bounties story is definitely something that can get me back into New Vegas after all this time. Are you done with modding again after finishing this, or do you have any other plans? I loved your ideas for The Message, Sinners and Slaves, and Just a Courier, and but something smaller would be just as cool. I'm guessing Zulu is pretty much off the table, but have you considered a very much scaled down side quest in NVB3, or just something that ties in to all the foreshadowing from the Soothsayer and other quests?

Thanks!

 

FBZ is dead. Ironically, it was about as close to Apocalypse Now as I could get in terms of production hell. Besides exceeding the limits of the engine, it suffered from a more insidious issue - varied quality in design and procedure, due mainly to the fact that I worked on it in intermittent sprints in 2011, 2012, and 2013. Suffice to say I had developed methods quite disparate from my earlier, more haphazard approach, and being forced to constantly revamp my own sloppy steps consumed a lot of time. When I laid the groundwork for FBZ back in 2011, I still had a number of poor modding habits, and the foundation for the mod was flawed, in both a technical and stylistic sense. If I were to approach it again, I might be apt to just rebuild it from the ground up. I'm more inclined to leave it be for the time being. I apologize for all the hype that I created. Hopefully NVBIII will fill the void left by an unfinished Zulu.

 

NVBIII won't have the range of sidequests that the player experienced in The Inheritance, as most of those were just scripting experiments that turned into improvised content (with decent results, if I may say so). What I'm considering after NVBIII is a random encounters mod and perhaps a collection of "baby quests" (as Al would call them), all comparable to the sidequests in The Inheritance, with an emphasis on matching vanilla gameplay in quality and tone (grey morality and such).