Fallout New Vegas thoughts

Finished. That was one heck of a game! I made a gal with high charisma, speech skills, science, and energy weapons. I was very impressed with how many situations I was able to talk myself out of! I did run into some fairly nasty bugs - especially with one of the casino quests that got completely out of whack - but I was able to have plenty of fun despite them.

There was an energy weapon perk that made everyone you crit explode. That was impressive. All my enemies were essentially live grenades! I'm glad I wasn't playing on hard core because I got Veronica killed a few times with that one and even blew a leg or two of my own off blasting melee enemies coming in fast.

Highly recommended mods:
Fallout Mod Manager (absolute must have)
Community bugfix compilation
Lings Coiffure (ported from FO3, kinda hard to install but worth it)
New Bison Steve Hotel
Few Poses More (if you're into screenshots)

Oh, speaking of posing, I found out what was going on with Steam achievements. If you open the console, your achievements will be turned off until you quit completely out of the game and come back in. That's how I ended up with the level 20 achievement without getting the level 10 achievement.

Speaking of mods, I'm waiting on Mart's Mutant Mod to be ported to FO:NV for my second playthrough - my only complaint about the game is that there aren't enough enemies!

You really need to try Warzones. It sounds like what I thought the wasteland would look like with all those different factions running around. Before I just used IWS- Increased Wasteland Spawns. It's a good mod, but Warzone looks like it took that idea to the next logical conclusion. I'm adding Warzone on my next playthrough.

Plus, Arwen's Realism mod is a nice addition as well if, like me, you could kill everything with a nasty look even when you're playing hardcore on the hardest difficulty setting. I'd stay away from the medtech option in Arwen's Tweaks. She just finished that and while it looks and sounds beyond awesome for any realism freaks out there, I'd still wait until she has had a chance to iron out any bugs that will undoubtedly come from a mod as complicated as medtech.

Seeing mods like those makes me glad I waited to play NV.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Seeing mods like those makes me glad I waited to play NV.

You mod on your first playthrough? That just seems wrong to me.

Originally Posted by DoctorNarrative
You mod on your first playthrough? That just seems wrong to me.

It depends on the game. It was a necessity for me in FO3 for instance. I doubt it's necessary for NV, but I don't mod heavily anyways.

Played the vanilla game the first time, and then again after I upgraded my rig. The mods that I added were along the lines of New Vegas Bounties 1 and 2, along with the bugfix and tweak mods, and a couple of the retextures that made use of my new hardware.

Seriously, it's like playing the game new again. With the new patch getting dropped soon to clean up some of the stability issues, I'm really going to enjoy myself.

I won't mod gameplay the first time through, but I'll look at all the texture mods and add them as I'm playing. Things like UI mods also get a look. BTMod was almost a necessity in Oblivion.

I'm with you, peanut. Although, modding the XP for FO3 was verging on a gameplay mod.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
I'm with you, peanut. Although, modding the XP for FO3 was verging on a gameplay mod.

That was one of those "necessities" I spoke of in regards to FO3. In fact, every change I made to FO3 was gameplay related. I never even tried any of the texture mods.

Well I wouldn't consider UI mods or ironsights mods gameplay related. They didn't change the environment, nor the mechanics. Just the ease of use.

I used an interface mod my first time through FO3 (and New Vegas) but that was it. I'm not much of a modder though, honestly. When I replay Morrowind all I use is a widescreen hack and the draw-distance extender.

I always try to give the game a chance before trying to change it, and I STRONGLY prefer the "pure" experience.

Unfortunately, Bethesda's idea of pure is a streamlined and casual approach with next to no challenge and their way of balancing the character system makes my choices meaningless.

Such things won't work for me, and that's why I have to rely on mods. It's not because I like it, but because I need it to enjoy the game.

Naturally, it has to do with my experience and interest in game design and my knowledge of what I like in a game. It becomes apparent pretty soon what will work and what won't work.

It doesn't help that I tend to obsess over the finer details - and Fallout 3 was particularly painful given how otherwise fantastic it was. It had absolutely brilliant aspects of exploration and freedom. So, since I wanted to enjoy it so bad - I had to make sure the game mechanics and balance wouldn't get in the way.

A case of the opposite, would be something like Gothic or Risen. For some reason, it seems PB feel pretty much exactly like I do about what works in terms of character balance and the overall level of challenge. So, apart from Gothic 3 - I've never had any desire to really tweak their games. They just work for me.