Fallout: New Vegas - New Patch Coming

Jason Bergman brings news that the next DLC for Fallout: New Vegas will be released soon but they've also been working on a patch:

Hi everyone,

On behalf of all of the hard-working teams at Bethesda and Obsidian, I’d like to give you an update what we’ve been working on these past few months.

Well, here’s what happened: our next DLC release (announcement coming very soon, we promise) has been complete while we worked on getting a patch ready for you all. We didn’t want to just release more DLC before we had a patch that would improve the overall New Vegas experience.

The good news is that we do have such a patch and it’s been handed off to the necessary platform owners. It should be released in the next couple of weeks on 360, PS3 and PC (can’t be more specific than that, I’m afraid, although PC will almost certainly get it first).

So what’s in that patch? First and foremost, optimizations and stability improvements. While there are bug fixes, our core focus was on improving stability and performance. We worked directly with first party platform owners to identify issues, and we have fixed a great deal of the crashes and lockups that people were experiencing. In addition, we scoured the forums and this patch includes weapon balance tweaks and other requested fixes.

We know we’re not done yet. There’s still more work to do, and we’ll be monitoring the forums very carefully following the release of this patch, looking for more issues. We do have another update planned further down the line.

So I’d like to apologize for the radio silence. Hopefully you’ll be pleased with the enormous amount of work we’ve put into this update over the last few months, and will enjoy the rest of our DLC releases. We have some pretty cool stuff coming soon. Stay tuned!

Thanks,
Jason Bergman
Senior Producer, FNV

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More information.

Well I sure didn't expect that! I guess it's better late than never but this sure is late.

It's great news, but I wonder how their tweaking will affect the mods I'm using like Arwen's Realism Tweaks.

I hope the DLC is better than the last one.

Honestly I haven't had any issues with the game at all, over two entire playthroughs. People tell me I am lucky... I guess that is possible. In any case, more patching is good either way.

And yeah, I hope Honest Hearts is better than Dead Money.

Better is always good but I liked Dead Money. I think it got a harsh rap in many reviews.

Seriously? I held off buying it because of all the negative reviews and people's reaction to it. They made it sound like one of the more idiotic quests from Fallout 3.

But if you liked it then it might not be half bad.

The quest is quite good, the reason I didn't really like the DLC lies solely in how bad the environment was designed. The entire resort looks the same and is not fun to explore due to how ugly and poorly laid-out it is.

Also it lacks choice, compared to the main game.

This is good news and good to know, thanks for posting.

I'm not turned off by the negative reviews of Dead Money - in fact, I'm incensed by them, because often they're expecting/looking for a gameplay type that New Vegas doesn't incorporate in the first place. The whole argument about it being ugly is a little daft to me as well - considering that's the nature of the setting. It's full of ugliness. Raw human destruction isn't meant be pretty. I have faith that the narrative will make up for the purported gameplay shortcomings.

However, I will wait for more DLC to be released before purchasing.

skavenhorde said:

Seriously? I held off buying it because of all the negative reviews and people's reaction to it. They made it sound like one of the more idiotic quests from Fallout 3.

But if you liked it then it might not be half bad.

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Well, it isn't without flaws, so I would suggest you read up before deciding. Also, I like Obsidian's general approach, so I'm probably predisposed to liking it.

In my opinion, it got bad reviews primarily because you can't treat it like a shooter. It's a self-contained, story-driven, puzzle experience of sorts and particularly suits a cautious or stealthy play style, so some characters are a better fit than others. I love stealth characters and take my time, so it's a good fit for me.

Some people have complained it's not an open-world experience, which is absolutely true. The criticism is why change F:NV best feature? I think Obsidian sat down and said, "there's 70 hours of open-world content already there, let's do an intense, self-contained story that mixes up the gameplay" and that seems perfectly legitimate to me. No, it doesn't embrace one of F:NV's best strengths but you've already got hours and hours of that - here's a different experience for a few hours.

It's much more tense and dangerous than F:NV (seriously, you need to be careful) so the survival aspect is heightened. The characters and writing are simply fantastic.

You are forced to wear a "bomb collar" and radio signals will prematurely set it off, which means you often need to advance cautiously and/or find ways around a radio source - I enjoy that sort of deliberate play.

The environment is a little dull and repetitive - it's a giant enclosed resort that looks rather same-y and its arguably a little long for the content, so I can understand those criticisms.

I still think, on balance, it's quite good and a nice change of pace. If you insist on playing a rush-in-and-kill-everything style, however, you'll hate it.

For the record I enjoyed it and finished it in two days, I just found it lacking compared to the main game.

Playing the game with many mods at the moment, guess it's time to start playing in offline mode, since you can't disable auto updates(steam)and a patch could potentially ruin my current play through.

I enjoyed FNV so much, but I'll wait for all the DLCs to be released before replaying it. I imagine it'll be another year or so, but maybe not. There's enough stuff out already, that I haven't played, so I don't need to go back to replays for a bit.

You know, I really like Obsidian's NPC's way above Bioware's. Bioware's always seem unbelievably over the top, while Obsidian's just seem more real to me. Boone, I can totally understand. Allistair? Not so much.

My thoughts exactly, well elaborated Dhruin.

DoctorNarrative said:

Honestly I haven't had any issues with the game at all, over two entire playthroughs. People tell me I am lucky…

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You are, and I wish I could say the same. Crashing and lockups forced me to finally put the game aside after getting about two thirds of the way thru the main quest. I haven't touched it since, which is a shame, as I was really, REALLY enjoying it before the crashing became unbearable.
This was on the PS3 version btw. I played Fallout 3 on the PC but my wife was also interested in New Vegas, so we went for the console/couch "shared" experience.

Thanks for the post, Dhruin. I'll definetly grab it now, but since I waited this long I might as well wait until the have some kind of compilation where they offer all of the DLCS at once.

Falchor said:

You are, and I wish I could say the same. Crashing and lockups forced me to finally put the game aside after getting about two thirds of the way thru the main quest. I haven't touched it since, which is a shame, as I was really, REALLY enjoying it before the crashing became unbearable.
This was on the PS3 version btw. I played Fallout 3 on the PC but my wife was also interested in New Vegas, so we went for the console/couch "shared" experience.

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Well I was playing on PC. I have heard the PC version is actually the most stable. The PS3 version of Fallout 3 was a train wreck from what I understand.

DoctorNarrative said:

Well I was playing on PC. I have heard the PC version is actually the most stable. The PS3 version of Fallout 3 was a train wreck from what I understand.

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Yep, I'd say "train wreck" is an apt description… I've always played Bethsoft games on the PC; this was the first time I gave the PS3 version a shot. Needless to say I'll be playing Skyrim on the PC, as well as any future Fallouts.

The PC version is the most stable. ~point finger at Obsidian~ awww, you guys rock!

I always liked how Troika made their priorities clear in their logo, of all places.

Maybe Obsidian should consider something similar?

People hated it because of its difficulty. There are a few mods out there if people want to cheat there way through it. If felt like it didn't belong in the game but once you get past that it becomes enjoyable.