|
Sky Shadowing posted:A good twist to the Institute is Evil thing would have been if it wasn't them murdering the people and replacing them with synths. If that had been the Railroad hiding the synths from the Institute. It's a bit of both really? If you poke around in the game and it's files it becomes apparent that the Railroad does some pretty shady stuff to get Synths where they want them to be. Murdering someone is definitely not against their agenda. Problem is it's hidden away from the rest of the game. Much like how the lore revealing that the Institute didn't break up the original Commonwealth gathering is hidden in a freaking loading screen of all things. Really though, the story is just lovely. It's pretty obvious that Fallout 4 got rushed out of the door given the cut content and overall state of what's there. Given that the Brotherhood has cut content that sees Maxson deposed and exposed as the evil poo poo/sock puppet he is and replaced with either Danse or you the Institute and Railroad were probably cut down from their originally intended plans too. That's why they're seemingly cacklingly evil dickheads or parodies of civil rights activists for no reason at all with nothing you can actually do to fix their most glaring issues. Archonex fucked around with this message at 06:29 on Dec 31, 2017 |
#
?
Dec 31, 2017 06:25
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 1, 2024 13:40 |
|
|
Archonex posted:Really though, the story is just lovely. It's pretty obvious that Fallout 4 got rushed out of the door given the cut content and overall state of what's there. Fallout 4's storytelling isn't poo poo because the evil publisher wouldn't give those poor developers the time they needed. They got about 4 years. The more depressing answer is that Bethesda just isn't very good at telling a story and doesn't really seem to get Fallout in general (see FO3). Raygereio fucked around with this message at 15:10 on Dec 31, 2017 |
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2017 15:00
|
|
|
Raygereio posted:The existence of cut content doesn't really indicate a game was rushed though. I mean, every game content cut during development. That's just how development works. The only difference is that sometimes they go through the effort of stripping the content out of the final build and sometimes they don't. Four years puts it on their head, yeah. But the type of cut content is huge in this case. And from what little we know of it basically offered alternate endings to the various faction story lines that were far more satisfying. Usually the only time when something like that happens is if the team doesn't have time to refine what's there, finish it due to skipping past deadlines, or they're just idiots. Granted, Fallout seems to not be their forte. Fallout 3 had similar issues with it's ending prior to them capitulating to the community and creating an entire dlc and altered ending that fixed what a mess it was. But in this case there's just a poo poo ton of stuff missing. Even a lot of the post game content (and there's not much) is pretty lacking compared to what you'd expect to be there. Archonex fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Dec 31, 2017 |
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2017 15:47
|
|
|
Funny, I was thinking about something like that, yesterday. There had to have been tons of Fallout fans working on F4. Dudes who played the whole series and really understood what made the series what it was. I'm trying to think how a group like that could have gone so loving far astray unless it was from publisher meddling. Then, again, if we grabbed ten random Fallout super-fans and had them collaborate on a script for Fallout 5, we'd probably end up with a pile of poo poo .. or the No Mutants Allowed forums. I wonder if we could get Josh Sawyer from Obsidian to make a wager on the various factors that might have contributed to F4 going off the rails, so badly. It would probably be equal parts "most people don't really understand what makes a good Fallout game", "the publisher rushed them", and "the writers were incompetent". I've got New Vegas loaded up, but I'm hesitating to start it, as I always play the same character: the goody-two-shoes seeking justice for the oppressed schtick. I've tried playing sympathetic to House or the Legion, but I just can't get over how corrupt and/or evil they are -- as flawed as the NCR are, I end up seeing them as the only feasible way forward. Any ideas for a new playthrough?
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2017 15:57
|
|
|
null_pointer posted:Funny, I was thinking about something like that, yesterday. There had to have been tons of Fallout fans working on F4. Dudes who played the whole series and really understood what made the series what it was. I'm trying to think how a group like that could have gone so loving far astray unless it was from publisher meddling. Do a playthrough of a libertarian who thinks the Legion, House, and NCR are violating the non-aggression principle, as the entire Mojave is your property (they just don't know it yet).
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2017 15:59
|
|
|
I killed the alien. I shot first, but the alien pointed the gun first! edit: Then I had an encounter with the Children of Atom, one of them fired and I fired back a few quick shots to cover myself, but my lead torso plating seemed to shrug off those green energy rings they fire and I was able to pass relatively peacefully after that. Then I gave Preston the missile launcher and put him up on the wall of the Castle, "disarmed" all of the mines in the tunnels and woke up that bot. I can't hack those yet, but it can't get up the stairs and should handle anything else down there. It was a productive day in the Commonwealth. Cyberpunkey Monkey fucked around with this message at 16:11 on Dec 31, 2017 |
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2017 16:00
|
|
|
Kaiju Cage Match posted:Do a playthrough of a libertarian who thinks the Legion, House, and NCR are violating the non-aggression principle, as the entire Mojave is your property (they just don't know it yet). How would my character rectify this? I'm guessing that I can't take up arms and tell them "git offa mah lawn", given the whole, you know, non-aggression thing.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2017 16:01
|
|
|
null_pointer posted:Funny, I was thinking about something like that, yesterday. There had to have been tons of Fallout fans working on F4. Dudes who played the whole series and really understood what made the series what it was. I'm trying to think how a group like that could have gone so loving far astray unless it was from publisher meddling. Archonex posted:But the type of cut content is huge in this case. You already become the leader of the Minutemen automatically and can become of the leader of the Institute. After Skyrim where you become the leader of every damned faction in the game, I almost admire Bethesda's restraint in that regard. Archonex posted:Fallout 3 had similar issues with it's ending prior to them capitulating to the community and creating an entire dlc and altered ending that fixed what a mess it was.  if you think not killing of the PC somehow fixed FO3's story.Are you getting Bioware and Bethesda mixed up? (Not the Extended Cut actually fixed ME3's story, but that's neither here nor there)
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2017 16:11
|
|
|
null_pointer posted:Funny, I was thinking about something like that, yesterday. There had to have been tons of Fallout fans working on F4. Dudes who played the whole series and really understood what made the series what it was. I'm trying to think how a group like that could have gone so loving far astray unless it was from publisher meddling. Not to get all millions-of-words-I-wrote-in-the-FNV-thread, but House's ending is for the best. Not just for House (because rolling up and murdering your own employer and stealing his poo poo for no other reason than "someone else wants it" is pretty heinous since Vegas wouldn't exist without him) but for the NCR too. It curbs their aggressive expansionism that is already spreading their resources too thin and implies the election of much less dipshit pro-war leaders back home. He himself isn't necessarily moral, but you can mostly steer him in the right direction since he generally just cares about Vegas continuing to function without interference. The only morally questionable thing you have to do for him is killing off the BoS, which is honestly closer to a mercy killing given their refusal to change course (and the fact that they basically religiously oppose his very existence and would already be in open war with him if they had the numbers and the NCR wasn't around). Also, unlike actual modern day libertarians whose entire existence is predicated upon "taxes are bad, and if I didn't have to pay them I would be a billionaire from inventing jetpacks, probably" House actually is a genius who really did build his own army of self healing robots, both save Vegas from nuclear destruction and rebuild it later, and gave himself a workable version of immortality in the process. When he says he has a vision of utopia, he's actually capable of achieving it. In conclusion: House rulz NCR droolz
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2017 17:50
|
|
|
Raygereio posted:The only thing Broken Steel changed about the vanilla ending was letting you play afterwards. I mean Broken Steel does let you send a radiation-immune companion in for the final part instead of forcing you to do it yourself. Then it calls you a coward.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2017 18:15
|
|
|
Wolfsheim posted:House actually is a genius who really did build his own army of self healing robots, both save Vegas from nuclear destruction and rebuild it later, and gave himself a workable version of immortality in the process. When he says he has a vision of utopia, he's actually capable of achieving it. House is literally the Mojave’s equivalent of an Institute scientist, right down to having graduated from CIT.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2017 18:30
|
|
|
Counterpoint: pretty lovely to take your supertech and gently caress off to the moon, regardless of if he can pull it off. Obviously the player softens that if they have positive rep, but it's still a rich (in tech) guy taking his wealth offshore, even if he's einstein that's still not very good.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2017 18:33
|
|
|
With regards to New Vegas: doesn't House basically say that every faction must die if Vegas is to remain independent? I know that he wants the Dam under his control, in order to have a reliable energy source, which means that the NCR have gotta go. At that point, I was all "okay, gently caress you, House" because if the NCR's unforgiveable sin is wanting to protect the Dam from the Legion, then I'm clearly dealing with a megolomaniac. It's hazy in my mind, but I think you can convince him that the Boomers and/or Brotherhood aren't a threat (and, as mentioned, you can instill a more moderate leader at the head of the BoS, making them a lot more humanitarian). But when it comes to the NCR, he seems to believe that it's Us or Them, in which case, sorry buddy -- you have a rockin' casino, but when it comes to the future of civilization, keeping the Legion at bay is more important than slot machines and hookers. If anything, my biggest, most consistent pet peeve with F4 is that there's no room for co-existence. No matter who you choose to side with, everyone else has gotta go. Yeah, the Minutemen are the sole exception, but that's because their mandate is so narrow; and even then, if you side with the Institute, you can guarantee that eventually they're going to get infiltrated and squeezed out. In all other cases, every faction demands the extermination of every other faction. Fallout 4 has exactly zero nuance or subtlety, with no room for diplomacy.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2017 18:41
|
|
|
null_pointer posted:Funny, I was thinking about something like that, yesterday. There had to have been tons of Fallout fans working on F4. Dudes who played the whole series and really understood what made the series what it was. I'm trying to think how a group like that could have gone so loving far astray unless it was from publisher meddling. Except Bethesda is its own publisher. Bethesda just isn't very good at storytelling. I love the Elder Scrolls games, but their story telling and narrative are exceptionally weak. Morrowind is the exception, but even that has a dumb wiki-style conversation system rather than branching dialog that's been the hallmark of the genre since the late 90's. I still love the Elder Scrolls, but what makes them great is notably different than what makes Fallout great. In Fallout 3, you saw them try to ape the design of the original games with speech checks and branching plot paths that were almost universally poorly done; in Fallout 4 they just went full "massive dungeon crawl." Now, New Vegas was rushed. Hence its horribly buggy state on release. But the actual story, quest design, and RPG elements were on par or better than the first two fallouts. So I really don't thin it has anything to do with a rushed schedule.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2017 18:44
|
|
|
Fair enough. I had totally forgotten that Beth is big enough to self-publish, so I guess it really comes down to them being a company that simply doesn't understand what it takes to tell a good story. Great at visual world-building and creating a fun sandbox to gently caress around it, but I got all that plus a compelling story with NV. But, I keep thinking there must have been some group of dudes at Bethesda saying "look, what we're doing isn't Fallout -- we can do better" ... ... buuuuut, having working in corporate for ten years, I could see those dudes getting ignored and told "that isn't our design philosophy for this game -- get in line, or get out"
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2017 18:47
|
|
|
House's plan is definitely not real world realistic-- it's a comic book type scheme. Maybe that makes it a realistic plan in the Fallout universe I can't say. In the real world advancing a technology takes theoretical progress in hundreds of disparate scientific fields by thousands of researchers who in turn all rely on millions of other people to keep their society running, none of which is achievable by House. Even in the best possible case where he is actually a super genius (by human standards) he would grind out lots of generations of the same technology with increasingly diminishing returns until he hit a hard barrier.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2017 18:51
|
|
|
I can see fleshing out the story being an "additional goal" that they just didnt finish before the main goal of 'automate another system" was done. Daggerfall had a procedurally generated map, Oblivion had npc routines you could punch in, Skyrim had randomly generated quests, and now FO4 has added diablo style randomly generated loot and bosses. I wouldn't be surprised if someone high-up is single-mindedly pushing towards a goal of "an engine where the only people we pay are the artists we outsource to."
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2017 19:02
|
|
|
I played House's ending first, and I was genuinely bummed when I had no choice but to kill some NCR guys to throw the switch. I just want everyone to get along 
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2017 19:02
|
|
|
Only substantial cut content I can really think of that actually got far enough were aware of it in game files is the well known alternative ending for Brotherhood of Steel (possibly cut not due to time constraints but to stick with there being no way to make each faction play nice with each other in the end). This looks like it was cut very late in development as we actually have leftover recorded dialogue for it and at least one mod has pieced enough of it together to play. All the under water content, with under water vault, old type of harpoon gun, at least two? Quests, probably cut due to simply not working out either in execution or just technically, especially since it wasn't revisited later in like far harbor. Then there's at least two, maybe three? Diamond City related quests that would have occurred in Act 3 prior to the final moments with the Institute that would have involved presumably stuff like the power to Diamond City going out. As far as I know only way we know of these is there were leftover quest log icons for them, no cut voice overs or text.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2017 19:08
|
|
|
Raygereio posted:The only thing Broken Steel changed about the vanilla ending was letting you play afterwards. I mean You're misremembering things. Originally, the Fallout 3 good ending forced you to go into the chamber and die. If you pointed out that you had a huge FEV tainted human standing next to you that could do it without dying he'd just shrug and make some idiotic remark about how it was your destiny and refuse to go. When people started bitching that this was stupid and it hit the news that the end of the game was so shoddily done Bethesda changed the ending so Fawkes could potentially go inside (Or you would just magically survive it if you had a character that went in, with the explanation getting hand waved away.). This was a change that was done around when Broken Steel came out, since having a post game expansion doesn't really work if the character is an irradiated corpse. And there was way more cut content than just the Brotherhood quest line in Fallout 4. Just for starters, it came out a year or so ago that the reason why a huge portion of the map is covered in water is that it was at one point planned to be explorable and have things to do in it. Some of the stuff left in the release day game files like a diving suit and harpoon gun were in before Far Harbor came out and were later quietly added in to that expansion as items that were obtainable without being forced to mod the game. This is also why there's a ton of interesting little landmarks in the water but no actual locations that can be entered outside of one area that's still technically part of the exterior that someone chanced across like a year or so ago. There's also some neat smaller stuff I can recall offhand. I think some of it is even listed on the wiki. Nick was originally going to have at least one unique robotic part, there were a lot of potentially really powerful perks tied directly to faction membership (and which hints at advancement through what appears to be a ranking system that is in no way present in gameplay), a couple of underwater quests related to exploring the bay that are still in the files, a bunch of armor types and weapon mods, the latter of which would have diversified the combat gameplay a bit, an entire vault that was cut content and probably related to all the missing underwater content, and generally just a bunch of stuff that people have dug up that indicate that a good chunk of the game is in no way what it was originally intended to be. Archonex fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Dec 31, 2017 |
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2017 19:15
|
|
|
null_pointer posted:With regards to New Vegas: doesn't House basically say that every faction must die if Vegas is to remain independent? I know that he wants the Dam under his control, in order to have a reliable energy source, which means that the NCR have gotta go. At that point, I was all "okay, gently caress you, House" because if the NCR's unforgiveable sin is wanting to protect the Dam from the Legion, then I'm clearly dealing with a megolomaniac. You're misremembering, House actually wants the NCR stable so they can continue to fund him. He (rightly) argues that their continued expansion will end up being their slow demise, with factions like the Legion chipping away at them. It's the BoS he has a 'blow them up, no exceptions' deal with, and the BoS isn't doing gently caress all to advance civilization. Seashell Salesman posted:House's plan is definitely not real world realistic-- it's a comic book type scheme. Maybe that makes it a realistic plan in the Fallout universe I can't say. In the real world advancing a technology takes theoretical progress in hundreds of disparate scientific fields by thousands of researchers who in turn all rely on millions of other people to keep their society running, none of which is achievable by House. Even in the best possible case where he is actually a super genius (by human standards) he would grind out lots of generations of the same technology with increasingly diminishing returns until he hit a hard barrier. Yeah, I don't disagree that it's unrealistic but so is a lot of Fallout's tech and general world, but the very idea of the real world genius who singlehandedly built a company and invented all it's super-tech is far from reality as it is. Having said that, he does talk about making his life-extending techniques available to the courier and others once things calm down, so it's conceivable he'll get other scientists on board as Vegas develops. And unlike the Institute, House doesn't seem to have any dumbass plans like "what if we churn out super mutants and let them loose and see what happens" in the works.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2017 19:27
|
|
|
Wolfsheim posted:Yeah, I don't disagree that it's unrealistic but so is a lot of Fallout's tech and general world, but the very idea of the real world genius who singlehandedly built a company and invented all it's super-tech is far from reality as it is. Having said that, he does talk about making his life-extending techniques available to the courier and others once things calm down, so it's conceivable he'll get other scientists on board as Vegas develops. And unlike the Institute, House doesn't seem to have any dumbass plans like "what if we churn out super mutants and let them loose and see what happens" in the works. I don't think being a genius inventor and/or singlehandedly building a company are silly ideas-- give or take some dramatics I'd say that happens regularly enough (the real trick is the 99% of such people failing in obscurity). The part that makes no sense is putting faith in a single such person to continue to deliver new technology without a whole civilization, and competition, generating new theoretical discoveries. Even people like Einstein were leveraging discoveries that others made, during their own lifetime, that they likely were incapable of making. Seashell Salesman fucked around with this message at 22:14 on Dec 31, 2017 |
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2017 20:27
|
|
|
Wolfsheim posted:You're misremembering, House actually wants the NCR stable so they can continue to fund him. He (rightly) argues that their continued expansion will end up being their slow demise, with factions like the Legion chipping away at them. It's the BoS he has a 'blow them up, no exceptions' deal with, and the BoS isn't doing gently caress all to advance civilization. Yup. Okay, I need to stop pontificating on New Vegas until I get back and do another playthrough. I still can't think of a way to play that isn't a neutral good character, though, and I've done several of those. I'm half-jokingly thinking about doing the libertarian / randroid playthrough -- how would they react to finding a Legion slave camp?
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2017 21:42
|
|
|
While we're hijacking the thread into being a new fallout story thread, I liked that even the bad slaver faction in NV had some moral positives that explain how they're as big as they are. Basically, they came from the southwest states which had become raider hellholes (Iirc Arizona in particular), they slowly pacified all the warlords and gayboy berzerkers and forged a functional and peaceful (albeit hosed up) society that was far preferable to hiding in a crumbling shed waiting to get captured by a psycho. IIRC Raul says as much when you ask him about the legion, and he certainly isn't someone who would naturally support them (what with being a ghoul). It helps contrast the nuance absent in FO4, that even the worst faction of NV has redeeming values without muddying their alignment, while in FO4 all factions are objectively pretty poo poo or incredibly stupid.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2017 21:57
|
|
|
Feh. I make motion to rename the thread General Fallout Discussion or something similar.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2017 23:47
|
|
|
Oh boy, time to discuss the critically acclaimed cellphone game "Fallout Shelter" Speaking of, did anyone find the Fallout 4 pip-boy app useful? I used it a little to control my radio, but then I stopped bothering to turn it on.
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2017 23:51
|
|
|
I still have fond memories of the summer of 2000 when I quit my lovely job working customer service and spent the summer playing Fallout: Tactics. I know it's not a good game, and not canon, but goddammit I enjoyed it. I'm trying to think if there are any moments in F4 that approach the level of Caesar's Legion actually having more depth than "rapacious band of slavers". There was one moment when I found out the Railroad had did a catch-and-release on a synth who became a murderous Raider boss, but I don't know if I ever had the opportunity to confront the Railroad about it. I mean, poo poo, even Caesar calls Legate Lanius, his nominal successor, a "butcher".
|
|
#
?
Dec 31, 2017 23:55
|
|
|
Seashell Salesman posted:House's plan is definitely not real world realistic-- it's a comic book type scheme. Maybe that makes it a realistic plan in the Fallout universe I can't say. In the real world advancing a technology takes theoretical progress in hundreds of disparate scientific fields by thousands of researchers who in turn all rely on millions of other people to keep their society running, none of which is achievable by House. Even in the best possible case where he is actually a super genius (by human standards) he would grind out lots of generations of the same technology with increasingly diminishing returns until he hit a hard barrier. House was playing a very, very long game; the first step was getting New Vegas up and running. Then it was using Vegas to get super rich. The next step was putting infrastructure in place over decades to centuries to gently caress off to space. He didn't plan on doing it alone. He wanted to restart all the science stuff humanity was doing before the bombs fell. His main plan was to be a benevolent technocrat; he said democracy obviously failed because "look outside." He wasn't pure good obviously but also wasn't a cackling villain. He had his goals and only really messed around with people that tried to stop him. Anybody that didn't get in his way he just gave no shits about. The Strip was a means to an end, really. He needed the dam under his control and his robots woken up to move toward the next stage of his plans but the NCR and the Legion were goobering that up by, you know, fighting over the thing. He wasn't interested in destroying either faction he just wanted to keep his control over the Mojave. Which points out the big difference between NV and 4; the factions actually had plans. The factions were going somewhere and the fate of the Mojave would be very different depending on which factions you worked with. Their plans all conflicted. 4 is just like "well there are synthetic people and stuff. I guess the Institute makes them and those guys are kind of jerks. The Railroad helps them and stuff, you know? Also this is a Fallout game so the Brotherhood shows up because reasons." The plot basically revolves around "the Institute exists now decide what to do about them." You don't get to really change the direction of much of anything. The Commonwealth doesn't really change all that much; about the only major decision you can make is if you fill it with normal settlers and have them generate stuff for you or fill it with raiders and have them generate stuff for you.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2018 00:04
|
|
|
ToxicSlurpee posted:House was playing a very, very long game; the first step was getting New Vegas up and running. Then it was using Vegas to get super rich. The next step was putting infrastructure in place over decades to centuries to gently caress off to space. He didn't plan on doing it alone. He wanted to restart all the science stuff humanity was doing before the bombs fell. His main plan was to be a benevolent technocrat; he said democracy obviously failed because "look outside." He wasn't pure good obviously but also wasn't a cackling villain. He had his goals and only really messed around with people that tried to stop him. Anybody that didn't get in his way he just gave no shits about. The Strip was a means to an end, really. He needed the dam under his control and his robots woken up to move toward the next stage of his plans but the NCR and the Legion were goobering that up by, you know, fighting over the thing. He wasn't interested in destroying either faction he just wanted to keep his control over the Mojave. This is doing it alone, though. The real challenge here is lots of people and infrastructure, which House doesn't have and doesn't know how to get because he's not a whole political elite and civil service apparatus like the NCR is. The characters in the game who complain about inefficiency frankly come off as just parochial and naive to me. Organization of people and information is the hard part, and it doesn't come for free, so of course ideas like benevolent leaders and ideologies sound attractive but they seem so precisely because they ignore the actual hard problem.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2018 00:18
|
|
|
ToxicSlurpee posted:Which points out the big difference between NV and 4; the factions actually had plans. The factions were going somewhere and the fate of the Mojave would be very different depending on which factions you worked with. Their plans all conflicted. 4 is just like "well there are synthetic people and stuff. I guess the Institute makes them and those guys are kind of jerks. The Railroad helps them and stuff, you know? Also this is a Fallout game so the Brotherhood shows up because reasons." ... The Commonwealth doesn't really change all that much; about the only major decision you can make is if you fill it with normal settlers and have them generate stuff for you or fill it with raiders and have them generate stuff for you. This is probably the most salient critique of Fallout 4 I've read, yet. Kudos.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2018 00:21
|
|
|
Seashell Salesman posted:This is doing it alone, though. The real challenge here is lots of people and infrastructure, which House doesn't have and doesn't know how to get because he's not a whole political elite and civil service apparatus like the NCR is. The characters in the game who complain about inefficiency frankly come off as just parochial and naive to me. Organization of people and information is the hard part, and it doesn't come for free, so of course ideas like benevolent leaders and ideologies sound attractive but they seem so precisely because they ignore the actual hard problem. He isn't going it alone, though; he hires the help he needs as he needs it, hence having the gangs that also run casinos. His plan is literally "get all of the money -> throw it at problems until they go away."
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2018 00:36
|
|
|
ToxicSlurpee posted:He isn't going it alone, though; he hires the help he needs as he needs it, hence having the gangs that also run casinos. His plan is literally "get all of the money -> throw it at problems until they go away." Yeah these general points of the plot aren't at dispute-- he did a bunch of very specific manipulation to get New Vegas running. At best, assuming he manages to hire lots of skilled and experienced civil servants to run his government he would eventually start hitting the scale of the NCR and be caught in the same bottlenecks they are (technologically and economically). That doesn't seen any better than the NCR who are already there. Merely having the idea "I'm pro-technology" tells us nothing about how his society would turn out, if it even got off the ground.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2018 00:51
|
|
|
It's not entirely clear what House would do when he had to manage more than a few casinos. Like, we know he was planning on stomping the Omertas at a certain point, but I'm not sure if that's just because they were planning a terrorist attack or because he's not entirely cool with the pseudo-slavery thing they've got going on. I don't see him paralleling the NCR though, because he makes mention several times that they're attempts to recreate prewar society are foolish and misguided. All we know is that, for the time being, the robots keep the peace and House's word is law, but he seems pretty hands off other than that. Basically like an absentee landlord who just asks that you not set the rug on fire or try to rob the other tenants. Also, the NCR honestly has no right to just roll up and say "yeah, this city you built up from nothing? That's ours now. gently caress you." And because that's been their plan from the start, he's absolutely right to treat them as a hostile foreign power (even if he's playing nice in the meantime to avoid being openly murdered by them).
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2018 01:03
|
|
|
Wolfsheim posted:It's not entirely clear what House would do when he had to manage more than a few casinos. Like, we know he was planning on stomping the Omertas at a certain point, but I'm not sure if that's just because they were planning a terrorist attack or because he's not entirely cool with the pseudo-slavery thing they've got going on. I don't see him paralleling the NCR though, because he makes mention several times that they're attempts to recreate prewar society are foolish and misguided. All we know is that, for the time being, the robots keep the peace and House's word is law, but he seems pretty hands off other than that. quote:Also, the NCR honestly has no right to just roll up and say "yeah, this city you built up from nothing? That's ours now. gently caress you." And because that's been their plan from the start, he's absolutely right to treat them as a hostile foreign power (even if he's playing nice in the meantime to avoid being openly murdered by them).
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2018 01:24
|
|
|
Seashell Salesman posted:This is an internal conflict to all human cooperative projects. The government objectively makes everyone's lives better, but where does their right to rule actually come from? There cannot be a satisfactory answer, just like there cannot be an answer to how events in life are simultaneously dripping with meaning and obviously meaningless and absurd. I don't disagree but it's not the absence of one government over the other, at least in the House ending. I would argue that the reforms that come after an unsuccessful Mojave campaign where all the dipshit warhawks like Moore and Oliver get publicly humiliated does more long-term good for the NCR as a whole than a victory would. I think I put more faith in House because he's the only one who really has his poo poo together. Like, it wasn't even his own arrogance or anything that hosed him over, it was literally being just unlucky enough that nuclear war started just before he could have the platinum chip delivered. He's the only competent and not-evil super-scientist in the wastes, so his plea of "hey, two different armies are trying to rob and murder me for basically existing, can you help me out?"really resonated with me. That, and he just sounds so disappointed in the courier if you choose to murder him 
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2018 05:06
|
|
|
Wolfsheim posted:I don't disagree but it's not the absence of one government over the other, at least in the House ending. I would argue that the reforms that come after an unsuccessful Mojave campaign where all the dipshit warhawks like Moore and Oliver get publicly humiliated does more long-term good for the NCR as a whole than a victory would. To be fair House was also a megalomaniac. He was right that the leaders of the Legion and NCR were kind of lovely but he then made the leap of "everybody sucks but me so I get to decide humanity's future." The first time I beat NV I did it with House because really he just seemed like the least bad option. One of the real issues with the long term idea of an immortal technocrat is that in the events of New Vegas he was kept in check by how weak he was in the face of the other huge powers. He had influence in the Mojave but that was about it. Yeah right then he wasn't interested in much else but he was very much a "the ends justify the means" type. It was certainly possible that after Caesar died, the Legion fragmented, and the NCR quit bothering him he went mad with increasing power. I'd say that the Legion had its poo poo together at that particular moment but it wasn't really going to last. They were irredeemably evil sure but they were at least organized and good at what they did.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2018 05:23
|
|
|
I mean, it's possible House could become an evil megalomaniac later on but the dude seems to care so little about the outside world save having sex with his robot girlfriend and building new cool poo poo in his little slice of the world that I just don't see it. And it wasn't so much that the Legion had it's poo poo together more than the NCR is just that incompetent and unlucky. Poor leadership and one of their main routes into the Mojave being completely cut off (the Divide) did most of the job. I forget who explicitly says it (possibly Caesar?) but in a straight fight on even terms the Legion would have been both outgunned and outnumbered by the NCR, which is why what few Legion missions are in the game are mostly sneaky undercover terrorism.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2018 05:35
|
|
|
Wolfsheim posted:I think I put more faith in House because he's the only one who really has his poo poo together. Like, it wasn't even his own arrogance or anything that hosed him over, it was literally being just unlucky enough that nuclear war started just before he could have the platinum chip delivered. He's the only competent and not-evil super-scientist in the wastes, so his plea of "hey, two different armies are trying to rob and murder me for basically existing, can you help me out?"really resonated with me. That, and he just sounds so disappointed in the courier if you choose to murder him I don't think I disagree on any facts here but two observations-- House has his poo poo together in the role of mysterious theme park administrator and you're comparing that to the messiness of war-time/frontier governments, and the principal significance of the bombs falling isn't the platinum chip it's that the whole society that his inventions were built upon disappeared. He's obsessed with getting the platinum chip back but (unless I'm misinterpreting and his ideas were really meant to be realistic in the story) the world it was made for no longer exists. e: Legion is maybe a better choice than House but it's extremely troubling that they don't have a solid tradition of education and civil service. If I had to bet it would be on the thing splintering after Caesar's death and ending up just as bad as before. Seashell Salesman fucked around with this message at 05:47 on Jan 1, 2018 |
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2018 05:41
|
|
|
Seashell Salesman posted:I don't think I disagree on any facts here but two observations-- House has his poo poo together in the role of mysterious theme park administrator and you're comparing that to the messiness of war-time/frontier governments, and the principal significance of the bombs falling isn't the platinum chip it's that the whole society that his inventions were built upon disappeared. He's obsessed with getting the platinum chip back but (unless I'm misinterpreting and his ideas were really meant to be realistic in the story) the world it was made for no longer exists. The Chip was made for the post-apocalypse. House knew war was coming, that's why he had a private army of robots built.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2018 05:50
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 1, 2024 13:40 |
|
|
The Lone Badger posted:The Chip was made for the post-apocalypse. House knew war was coming, that's why he had a private army of robots built. I didn't remember that, fair enough. Guess it makes that part a mistake rather than an accident, but nothing about the feasibility of his plan turns on the intent part.
|
|
#
?
Jan 1, 2018 05:59
|
|