What happens in New Vegas.... The FO:NV impressions thread

[metallicorphan]

What I have read about the console versions is once you get to New Vegas, there's some type of memory leak which makes your load times progressively longer.  I've seen feeds where load times on the 360 are over a minute long.  I'm not sure if this also happens on the PC version as I haven't reached New Vegas yet.  But I'll be watching for it once I get there.

It's because of the issue making the long load times where the crashes and lockups happen on the console versions as well. 

hmm,that's not good,i hope they are working on a patch for that as well

Edge Magazine gave this game 6/10,and Kotaku didn't give it a nice review either saying that it froze/crash every 10 minutes ...so,maybe i will avoid New Vegas area for the time being,LOL

[Caine]

haven't had much time/energy to play so i hope that by the time i get to there the bugs will have been squashed (except for the radscorpions of course)

[leo8877]

I've played about 6 hours and have had zero issues on the 360.  I wonder what these people are doing?

[Razgon]

man...I just found Vault 11

Spoiler for Hiden:

thats some crazy shit right there...And not that difficult to imagine in a bit more cynical world...hell, experiments are done all the time, but this? Man, crazy!

[metallicorphan]

i now have the 1 minute + loading times,quite annoying if you are passing through and you get two loading screens within say 10 seconds of each other

[jztemple2]

Looks like I'll have to stay off the strip for awhile. Not really a problem, I'm twelve hours in and just got to Novac.

[Soulchilde]

Spoiler for finishing up the Novac area

Spoiler for Hiden:

Man - getting Boon as a companion is pretty crazy...I dont even get to see mobs anymore before he puts them down . a bit overpowered, isnt he? Bear in mind, he's the only companion I've tried.

Spoiler for Hiden:

If you get overwhelmed by a bunch of enemies and they get into melee range on him, he will go down quick

Spoiler for Hiden:

unless he has Tabitha's Super Sledge Hammer 

[metallicorphan]

i cleared my Cache on my HDD on the 360,loading times have improved massively

[jztemple2]

i cleared my Cache on my HDD on the 360,loading times have improved massively

How is this done? I've searched via Google but the results with a bunch of button pushes sounds wonky.

[metallicorphan]

i cleared my Cache on my HDD on the 360,loading times have improved massively

How is this done? I've searched via Google but the results with a bunch of button pushes sounds wonky.

it used to be a bit dodgy before the NXE update as i think it was meant to be an inside thing(not many people knew,and it was some kind of button combination i think),as there was no clear instructions,however since the NXE all you have to do is go into memory from the system settings from the dash,and when you have your HDD on the screen(before you actually go into it)..at the bottom it will say press Y for Options,and in there you can reformat or rename the HDD..and also clear the cache


EDIT:hmm,i just remembered that i am with the new Dashboard,so it may be slightly different


EDIT 2:here you go,Youtube vid

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AzZzr4Szf8

[jztemple2]

Thanks!!

[jztemple2]

Pretty much finished up in the Novac/REPCONN area (I think). So many cool things there. I still am enjoying the game a lot and it was really hard to tear myself away to watch the Korean GP on the DVR today. Nineteen and a half hours of gameplay, I'm at level 8, still only that one lockup at hour four so far.

[Greggy_D]

i cleared my Cache on my HDD on the 360,loading times have improved massively

I don't understand why this would/should make a damn bit of difference in the game, since it holds patch info for all of 360 games.  If it really does, that's pretty shitty coding on Obsidian's part.

[Soulchilde]

I'm not enjoying myself as much as I did in Fallout 3 and at lvl 12 I don't feel as powerful as I did in the previous game.  I had to drop the difficulty from normal once or twice to get past a difficult fight,

Spoiler for Hiden:

I just liberated Nelson with the NCR and got the Great Khans out of Boulder City as I was making my way to Repconn HQ to scavenge I was jumped by a Legion Assassination squad.  Took me about an hour to beat this encounter.  I think the DMG resistance is set to high.  I finally dropped the difficulty down to easy to get past the fight.  Anyway, I had to put the game down this evening as I am not enjoying myself like FO3

Going to complete the game, but I don't think I will put the 100+ hours I put in with FO3

[metallicorphan]

i cleared my Cache on my HDD on the 360,loading times have improved massively

I don't understand why this would/should make a damn bit of difference in the game, since it holds patch info for all of 360 games.  If it really does, that's pretty shitty coding on Obsidian's part.

the clearing the cache trick came about ages ago,i first heard it working for Oblivion and then Fallout 3,more or less the same game as New Vegas,they all use the Havok engine

i am pretty sure it works for other games as well but those two are the only two i can remember from the top of my head

[ras752000]

Started playing on ps3 last night.  Only played past the mission helping they guy in gas station before calling it a night.
 Know it is early but no issues encountered yet.

[msteelers]

I was able to play a bunch yesterday, almost entirely focused on side missions. I haven't even set foot on The Strip yet and I've already been bombarded with missions and tasks to do. I wasted my entire morning on one task that ended up being pointless:

Spoiler for Hiden:

A soldier asked me to recover the body of her husband who was killed by bandits. Getting the body was easy enough, but I thought I needed to bring it back to her. So I dragged this stupid body 15 minutes through the desert back to where she was, only to realize that I was supposed to drop it off with some soldiers back by where I originally recovered him. I didn't have any recent saves, so I had to drag the him back through the desert. After I got the corpse to the right place, they told me to go back to the wife to tell her the good news. So I head back to where she was hoping to receive some type of decent reward. But NOOOOO. All I got was a thank you. No caps. No loot. I didn't even gain any influence, respect, or karma. 

The game still has some bugs after the update, but nothing that really kills the game. It did lock up on me once or twice, but it auto-saves frequently and I try to manually save after any major milestone so I didn't lose too much time.

[metallicorphan]

HAHA,thats quite harsh Msteelers,i haven't come across that yet

i had a 13hr session yesterday and i also have not done much main missions(i am still on the fifth story mission),and only done half a dozen or so side missions(lots more side missions this time round than Fallout 3)

no,what i got addicted to was discovering,i also had a companion with me

Spoiler for Hiden:

Boone

who shot the hell out of everything as we came across enemies and the XPO just racked up,i started yesterday on level 14 and i am now level 24,when i got the level 20 perk explorer(that uncovers everything,you just have to go there and discover them),i already had my achievement for 125 locations revealed...but once i got that perk there must of been a 100 more,LOL...and that's all i did all day


I took a freequest(which are smaller than Side missions and main missions)to get an Deathclaw egg from the quarry...i had to save every few minutes as me and my companion had a right time killing deathclaws,the bastards like to crowd you

[The Grue]

I wasted my entire morning on one task that ended up being pointless:

Spoiler for Hiden:

A soldier asked me to recover the body of her husband who was killed by bandits. Getting the body was easy enough, but I thought I needed to bring it back to her. So I dragged this stupid body 15 minutes through the desert back to where she was, only to realize that I was supposed to drop it off with some soldiers back by where I originally recovered him. I didn't have any recent saves, so I had to drag the him back through the desert. After I got the corpse to the right place, they told me to go back to the wife to tell her the good news. So I head back to where she was hoping to receive some type of decent reward. But NOOOOO. All I got was a thank you. No caps. No loot. I didn't even gain any influence, respect, or karma. 

I know it doesn't help you now, but both she and the note that gets put in your PipBoy tell you where to go.

[Caine]

Ha, that's funny. I would have been tempted to leave the soldier a frag grenade.

Had one annoying issue pop up when I went to play last night. I has been up in the souhern hills hunting bighorns (mutant beef, it's what's for dinner) and saved as I was making my way north, overlooking a road and some bandits. When I loaded the save, I heard this growl and was immediately attacked by a glowing ghoul. It was not there when I saved of course and I had to try a few times to survive while keeping my eyebot alive.

Despite what the guide says, nodding the varmint gun is worn the effort. I have a long range NVG scope and a silencer on it now and between those mods, my decent sneak skill, my eye in he sky and the perk which increases critical damage against animals and I can hunt damn near anything and get the positions marked long before the are even visible to the naked eye. It also works great as a sniper rifle against the rovig gangs.

[The Grue]

Despite what the guide says, nodding the varmint gun is worn the effort. I have a long range NVG scope and a silencer on it now and between those mods, my decent sneak skill, my eye in he sky and the perk which increases critical damage against animals and I can hunt damn near anything and get the positions marked long before the are even visible to the naked eye. It also works great as a sniper rifle against the rovig gangs.

I have an actual sniper rifle that is pretty bad ass (called Sniper Rifle in the game).

[msteelers]

I know it doesn't help you now, but both she and the note that gets put in your PipBoy tell you where to go.

Oh I know. It's just I spoke to the wife but didn't get around to actually helping her out until much later. So I pretty much forgot everything she had said and didn't look at the note until I was back at her location.

[jztemple2]

I'm up to 22 hours in and haven't gotten to The Strip yet. I'm having a good time not just with the main quests, side quests and free Quests but I'm also doing a lot of exploring on the southern end of the map. I have two Companions

Spoiler for Hiden:

Boone and Ed-E

which makes me pretty bad-ass.

I figure I'm not going to replay FONV, I tried to do so with FO3 but never got into it and gave up after a while. So I'm trying to find all the locations in FONV as I go along. In a pinch I'm using the map that came with strategy guide. The main map shows locations but they are coded to be looked up in the book, so nothing is given away other than that there is something there. This gives me a reason to keep wandering in any specific direction.

The faction aspect of the game is a nice addition. I'm totally NCR and so the Legion hates me. This has affected how I approached several quests and I'm wondering that maybe this would be a good way to make a second playthrough of the game worthwhile, by trying to be as different as possible in how I relate to the various factions.

[metallicorphan]

the guides(and maps)for both Fallout 3 and New Vegas are spot on,pretty much my favourite guides

i am in the good books with all factions......i think i am in bad with Legion,i haven't met back up with them yet to see how they will like me,but i have killed a few of their people since i first met with them


just started to mod weapons as i had forgotten all about that

[The Grue]

How do you get the second companion?  Is it a perk or something?  I keep being told I can only have one.

[jztemple2]

How do you get the second companion?  Is it a perk or something?  I keep being told I can only have one.

One human and one non-human I believe.

[msteelers]

I finally made it to the strip last night, and magically my load times increased to the point where I had to turn the game off. I tried to stay away from Fable 3 until I at least finished this game, but I think I'm going to put Fallout away for a little bit. After I get through Fable and COD I'll come back to this. There's a lot of stuff to do and I've mostly enjoyed myself, but playing Fallout is starting to feel like work. And maybe there will be a patch to fix some of these issues.

[jztemple2]

I finally made it to the strip last night, and magically my load times increased to the point where I had to turn the game off...

Well, that's not encouraging. In twenty-five hours of play I've managed to stay off the strip. I guess I can continue on my self-imposed quest of filling in every empty triangle on my compass and continue to do so on the southern end of the map. Having two companions certainly helps, as does Mojave Express (When it positively, absolutely has to get to some rusty mailbox in an abandoned building in the middle of nowhere).

I also picked up Fable III but don't want to start it and get drawn away from FONV. I hoping a damn patch comes out quickly to fix the load time problems on the 360 at the Strip.

[metallicorphan]

yeah as soon as i hit the strip the load times got stupid,then i cleared my cache(see above) and its been great..and still is(20 hrs game play and 15 levels later)

i did a hunting mission today and with Boone and the Eye bot with me,and it got to a point where by the time i saw the enemy the Eye Bot and Boone had dropped them,and XP was just racking up,and of course i got lots of XP for each segment of the hunt..i think i am level 26 now

oh and about the end of that hunting mission:

Spoiler for Hiden:

you get to have sex with the mission giver(Red Lucy or something like that),who is a screamer...so perhaps you will need to turn the volume down,

[jztemple2]

About 27 hours into the game, level 12. Still haven't gotten to the Strip, but I've been helping out the NCR by attacking one place and then going to an NCR camp

Spoiler for Hiden:

attacking Nelson and then going to Camp Forlorn Hope

At the NCR place I found several side quests that were pretty interesting, including one that was NOT a courier or assassination mission...

Spoiler for Hiden:

I got to operate on three wounded soldiers!

I also came across a mission that reminded me of the one of the first ones in Morrowind where you have no real objective location, you are told to just look around to figure out what to do. I finally had to peek into the guide since it was driving me nuts, but I think some of you clever types would have figured it out on your own.

After this many hours I think I can say that this is a better game than FO3, what with the additions of Factions, Hardcore mode, weapon damage ratings, plus a few other things. The faction gameplay really makes it worthwhile to think about how your current actions will affect your future relationships. Shame that they shipped it with bugs which hurt the review scores.

Speaking of factions, I think the Legion is running out of nasty things to say about me. I've been disliked, hated and now vilified. Really, you would think they'd be a bit more open minded  . Has anyone approached the game with the intent of getting on the good side of the Legion? Is it even possible? I hadn't considered replaying FONV since I never did replay Oblivion or FO3, but perhaps in a couple of months I could see starting a new FONV game and trying to flip-flop all my relationships from the first playthrough. I'm sure there are a bunch of quests I can't access this time since, well, the Legion tries to kill me on sight.

[msteelers]

After this many hours I think I can say that this is a better game than FO3, what with the additions of Factions, Hardcore mode, weapon damage ratings, plus a few other things. The faction gameplay really makes it worthwhile to think about how your current actions will affect your future relationships. Shame that they shipped it with bugs which hurt the review scores.

Speaking of factions, I think the Legion is running out of nasty things to say about me. I've been disliked, hated and now vilified. Really, you would think they'd be a bit more open minded  . Has anyone approached the game with the intent of getting on the good side of the Legion? Is it even possible? I hadn't considered replaying FONV since I never did replay Oblivion or FO3, but perhaps in a couple of months I could see starting a new FONV game and trying to flip-flop all my relationships from the first playthrough. I'm sure there are a bunch of quests I can't access this time since, well, the Legion tries to kill me on sight.

Minor spoiler about factions.

Spoiler for Hiden:

After you get to the strip, you will be approached by both the NCR and Legion with "pardons" that will make them forget about any bad things you've done to them. It's needed for where the plot goes, but at the same time it negates all the decisions you made earlier in the game (if you came at it from an angle of worrying about your relationship with either faction). These are one time pardons though, so anything you do after is permanent.

[KePoW]

Has anyone approached the game with the intent of getting on the good side of the Legion? Is it even possible?

I haven't done it yet myself, but I know it's possible.

[metallicorphan]

according to CVG(i haven't checked myself)..the new patch is out

According to senior producer Jason Bergman, the update contains "over 200 fixes" related to quests and scripting. However, players are still reporting severe issues with the game on the official New Vegas forum.

as i have not been having as many problems as everyone else,i hope this patch doesn't all of a sudden start screwing things up for me


nevermind,seems i didn't read the comments on that page CVG are a bit slow and they are talking about the first patch,and i just checked my F:NV and nope,no patch

[jztemple2]

Turns out me and Ice-T have something in common.

Up to 29.5 hours today, still having fun. I did a couple of quests still in the south end of the map. Then I resolved to go to the Strip, finally. Started walking that way from my safe house, almost got about half way there, then got distracted again . There are just so many cool things to do.

[jztemple2]

After 31.5 hours, I finally entered the Strip and got the immediate slowdown . Then I cleared the memory cache and now everything seems to be fine . Slowly, slowly catchee monkey, as they say.

[Space Herpes]

I have an actual sniper rifle that is pretty bad ass (called Sniper Rifle in the game).

Take care of that weapon.  In good condition, it is one of the deadliest guns in the game (that I've found).  I've found one other weapon that's more powerful for a single shot.

Deathclaws are no joke in this game.  Even with my character in the 20's, those things are scary.  I've got good armor and serious firepower.  If I pull of a successful sneak attack to the head, then I might kill it.  If I agro a group of them, then there's a good chance I'm screwed.  Even in power armor, it only takes a couple swipes to kill me.  I'm pretty sure the claws ignore armor, so I might as well be wearing a dress (my character is female). 

Setting and story, I'm finding this game to be so much better than FO3.  New Vegas feels like I'm playing something similar to Fallout 1 & 2.  Sometimes things are black and white.  Many stories are filled with shades of gray.  I'm still not entirely sure which major faction to support.  There are ups and downs to each one that I'm considering. 

While I liked FO3, it had the Bethesda problem of enemies becoming too weak.  I reached a point in the game where I ran around and could blow anyone's head off.  In NV, some enemies are incredibly easy later on, but some enemies are just plain tough no matter how well armed I am.  Bonus, for those super tough bad guys being where they are and the game not having to spawn ninja monkeys.  I thought it was ridiculous in FO3 when, later in the game, suddenly spawned bandits were all sporting plasma rifles and power armor.

A warning about one perk

Spoiler for Hiden:

Meltdown.  The game never warns you that this can be hazardous to yourself.  Then you kill a target with an energy weapon, they explode.  This can be great at long distances and when shooting at a pack.  Taking out melee opponents with energy weapons will end up hurting you, a lot. 

[jztemple2]

Setting and story, I'm finding this game to be so much better than FO3.  New Vegas feels like I'm playing something similar to Fallout 1 & 2.  Sometimes things are black and white.  Many stories are filled with shades of gray.  I'm still not entirely sure which major faction to support.  There are ups and downs to each one that I'm considering. 

+1 to that sentiment. By this time in FO3 I didn't really care about this faction or that, I was just trying to complete quests. Now I'm specifically not ripping off the odd ammo or scrap metal because I don't want to lessen my good relationship the owning faction. It's not because of what I know will happen, but instead it's because I worry about what I think might happen.

[metallicorphan]

yeah i am a bit confused with the story TBH,i still have to see Mr House so i am not that far in,yet all these other missions have popped up and some contradict the others so i have just been doing side quests

Deathclaws-yup,they're bastards...i took Boone along with me,and had to save everytime i took a few steps or killed a deathclaw,sometimes though they mob you which at that time i just reloaded without even trying to kill them

the last 10 levels were ridiculously easy when i had companions(i guess i should of upped the difficulty),my XP just flew up,and there are a lot of fetch quests,which i was getting 500xp at least for each one,and as i had already discovered each place it was just a matter of fast travelling there,getting what i needed and fast travelling back

[TiLT]

There's also a very different feel to the setting between the two games. Fallout 3 was set in a bleak, destroyed and deserted landscape. You could walk for ages without finding civilization, and you could even walk straight past a group of friendly people because their town was so hidden. When you visited the city itself, it was nothing but ruins, with only madmen staying within the city borders. Communities were few and isolated, never having much to do with each other.

In Fallout: New Vegas it feels like you're wandering around in an area where the nuclear war has become a memory and civilization is on the rise again. There's communities everywhere, and they often interact with each other regularly. New Vegas itself is bustling with activity and people. The big, nasty critters are mostly hidden away, and they'll stay there until you wander into their nests. I've been hoping for a Fallout game with less super mutants since Fallout 2 (you destroyed their source in the first game, after all), and this one seems to be it. I haven't even seen a super mutant yet, and I'm level 14. The people you meet are all more concerned about each other than about the wildlife. For the first time in a while, it feels like the Fallout setting is changing and that something of importance is happening again.

[The Grue]

I also agree that the world, quests, and interactions in New Vegas are so much better than FO3. I think if this would have launched with far less bugs, it should easily have outscored FO3.