Fallout: New Vegas – My journey

FYI, spoiler warning.



I’m ashamed to admit that Fallout: New Vegas is the first Fall Out game I’ve actually played (as in played). Sure there was the Fallout and Fallout 2 dabbling I did in high school back in the day, but I really wasn’t a PC gamer at that point. I passed on Fallout 3 because I don’t buy single player RPGs anymore until they are on a Steam sale (and Fallout 3 has yet to be on a really good Steam sale). So when FO:NV went on sale for $4.99 I was going to pass assuming it required that I have Fallout 3. It wasn’t fathomable to me that a game’s sequel would be on a cheaper sale than the original. A friend spotted my stupidity and bought me FO:NV. Twenty-five hours later, I’m glad he did.

I’m well behind the release of the game with this post, so I won’t bore anyone with the technical or graphical side of the game. The game works well and looks good.

I finished FO:NV in a single week, a rarity for any game I purchase. What kept me coming back for more was the main storyline of the game, which is ironic considering the immense amount of side content available in the game. I really enjoyed the story and world. The various factions in game are interesting and the constant struggle between the sides is well done. It literally blew my mind when I realized all of these different sides were attempting to recruit me as the all-star for their side in the upcoming battle of Hoover Dam. I genuinely felt like each side had a valid offer.

After this was taken, I accidentally shot him in the face.

In the end I decided to go the route of helping Yes Man. Well to be honest, I accidentally shot Mr. House in the face when he was out of his life-enabling chamber which sort of ruled out following his path towards a Mr. House controlled New Vegas. Which by default made me the leader I guess? I wasn’t quite sure at the end if I was in control or whether Yes Man was. The massive army of robots under Yes Man’s control sort of tells me I wasn’t in charge. Either way, I’m pleased with my decisions.

To note though, at one point I was heavily leaning towards supporting Caesar’s Legion. The free supplies every few days seemed like a nice bonus (except trying to remember where the stash was replenished). However, I must admit I’m not into the whole cannibalism and anti-technology thing they have going on.

I didn’t side with the NCR because, well… I really liked their NCR Ranger Armor and ED-E wouldn’t stop getting into fights with them for some reason, so my NCR faction rating was shot. NCR soliders also make for great experience farming. However, it did make trips to the Strip a bit dodgy until I realized I could disguise myself as an NCR member.

I finished at level 15, which is only half of the available thirty levels. I followed a guide that had me start with ten intelligence, which did result in a ton of extra skill points per level. Following the guide really helped towards my enjoyment of the game as I often met the minimum threshold for a lot of alternate paths and having Repair high early on helped me unlock the ED-E companion who is a huge boon to situational awareness in combat.

My character focused on Guns, Lock-picking, Barter, Repair, and Sneak. My weapons of choice were the Assault Carbine and Hunting Rifle, replaced by the Marksman Carbine and Sniper Rifle eventually. My favorite perk to combine with these was the Bloody Mess which is self explanatory.

Being a loot whore, I also kept choosing looting-specific perks such as the one that let me carry up to 250 weight and Jury Rigging which let me repair my massive stock pile of guns I had made outside Gun Runners (btw I’m amazed how this game can remember where I leave just about anything, even if that anything is 100+ different guns).

Now that I finished the game I’ve been going back a little bit and leveling up some. I have an Anti-material Rifle now (.50 caliber sniper rifle). With the weapon handling perk and implants, I can wield it effectively now.

I’ve also just started to dig into some of the side quests that are in the game. I was really into the main story line and did absolutely nothing on my first run through. I’m still clearing out the stuff from Primm and the other starting areas.

Oh and to note, I killed Boone because I wanted his hat. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. It was an otherwise unjustified killing in that giant dinosaur statue.

Here is my collection of screenshots.  And a couple of my favorites below:

Boone's Beret + Boone's Sunglasses + ED-E (robot) + NCR Ranger Armor = I'm a murderin' thief!

Barrels, always getting in the way of my bullets.

On the Brink

Brink had free weekend this past weekend on Steam, so I was able to put a few hours into the game. Brink is great for about two hours, but past that it’s a bore to play. Brink is the rare game that gets all the extraneous features spot on, but fails to inspire with its completely bland game play. Brink, essentially, is on the Brink of being a good game.

Most of the initial two hours is spent in the character creator and then in the tutorial-type challenges unlocking parts for your guns so players can then go back into the gun customizer to outfit some weapons. The customization, of everything about the character, is the impressive part of Brink. Even with the artistic approach to characters (long faces, exaggerated body types), I found an amazing amount of possibilities. On top of this, the weapons can be heavily customized both visually and functionally.

The only roadblock is the fact that many of the customization options are locked behind level or challenge requirements. The challenges are easy enough and within an hour a novice player can have most of the basic gun unlocks and enough character appearance items to make them feel unique. Experience rolls in easily enough while playing and is rewarded for every possible action the player can take, so there is no need to be an FPS god to rack up the points.

The online play is tough to describe. For a new player it is very confusing on what match type does what. A new player will look at a list of servers and game modes and be completely baffled as to whether they are getting into a co-op or team death match or team objective game. While Brink does a good job introducing the game modes in the challenge tutorials, it does not do a good job of explaining what match type a player is getting into.
I started with the campaign game mode first. Initially, I thought I was the cat’s meow as I racked up the top spot on my team several matches in a row. However, my elation came to an end when I realized I was playing against bots in a campaign co-op match. I did a bit of Google research and figured out I needed to be playing the Objective game mode against real opponents. A few matches into Objective and I was brought back to earth, often failing to break out of the middle ranks.

Players can score points from getting kills, assisting team mates, completing objectives, defending areas, and many more non-combat activities. However, there are no kill or death counts on the scoreboard. Players only see the total score of a player’s combined actions. This is something every other team-based shooter needs to take a lesson from. Team and class-based shooters are NOT about kill to death ratios, they are about the objectives, so it makes no sense to display kills and deaths on the scoreboard (I’m looking at you Battlefield 3!). The scoring system in Brink is one of the extraneous features that shines.

The problems with Brink come into play when players start to realize that the gun play is sloppy. Weapons have very distinct ranges and guns with short ranges feature vanishing bullets making it very hard for a new player to understand why they aren’t able to hit an enemy with their gun, even if that enemy seems to be within their range.

The range on weapons plays into the next aggravating feature of Brink: the SMART system. Brink was designed to be about movement and using movement to get an advantageous position on your enemy. The SMART system allows players to vault over obstacles, shimmy up walls, slide around corners, and for the most part live out their parkour fantasies. I found myself making incredible leaps to outflank opponents, but at some point I realized I was being killed more often than not while stuck in a pull-up or hurdling animation. The transitions just take too long to be useful in the middle of combat or the action the player’s avatar takes is not anywhere near what the player was expecting. Add this to the odd vanishing bullets with the limited gun ranges and new players quickly find themselves confused and dead.

The SMART system plays into my next gripe: the maps. The SMART system makes the maps very difficult to learn as many routes are available. A player has to spend a good amount of time learning the nuances of what can and cannot be achieved via the SMART system. Many times a route looks perfectly viable, but the player finds themselves floundering like a fish out of water when they go to make the jump. The jump/move may or may not be doable. Sometimes I would watch a player make a cool SMART move over an obstacle only to follow and fail to clear it myself. The system seemed inconsistent and more damaging than anything.

Also annoying about the maps are the glass walls. I can’t count the number of times I thought I was shooting someone only to find out there was a glass wall between us. Glass, in any game, should break when shot. Glass isn’t the only environmental problem. There are fences and openings around every corner that are invisible walls that bullets cannot pass through.

After a few matches most players are probably confused. Their selection of guns don’t seem to hit what they are aimed at as aside from a loading screen tip, there is no explanation of how gun range works. The SMART system has shown them that there are alternate routes to take on the maps, but they have most likely failed several times trying to take advantage of them. And even when their weapon of choice does manage to hit an enemy it is difficult to tell how much damage needs to be done to kill them. Then there is the grenade spam which the player has probably gotten stuck in multiple times.

Once acquainted with the game after about three hours of play I found myself not making many of the obvious newb mistakes, but I still felt like I was fighting the game trying to figure out the weapons and SMART system. It then dawned on me that it really doesn’t matter as I watched some of the top scoring players. It was better to just sit back and spam a class ability on team mates for points rather than to charge into objectives or to try and kill other players. Through brute force one side was eventually going to push into an area, completely negating the SMART system.

At the end of the day, Brink is a very boring game to play. All of Brink’s best features are outside of the actual game itself. Character and weapon customization are among the best of any FPS I’ve ever played. The art style and visuals are awesome. Unfortunately the gun play and fact that the SMART system is a moot point makes Brink a “what if” contender. I wouldn’t recommend this game to anyone at this point.

Why I failed #NaNoWriMo 2011 (13,825 words)

I was cruising.  It was day 13 and I was already past 13,000 words keeping pace with my 1,000 words a day goal (note: NaNoWriMo officially encourages 1,400 words a day).  And then it all stopped.  I finished on day 14 with 13,835 words in the middle of what I feel was turning into a good story.

The main problem I had was that the time I was allotting to write was during my breaks at work (an hour lunch + two 15 minute breaks).  When work got a bit crazy I had to switch over to using up free time at home each night.  With a family (especially the 2 year old) and games like League of Legends and Battlefield 3 to play, I just couldn't focus on writing at home.  However, there were a couple other things that derailed me as well.

I really screwed up the geography of my world building.  The story is supposed to be taking place in the east, but I ended up calling the land mass the "western key".  Then the nation of Alb I put in the east only to later realize it made more sense for Alb to be in the midlands.  Which means I should of had the ruling Kingdom of the midlands in the east.  The only group I placed correctly it seems was the foreigners from the islands of the west.

At first this mix up didn't really bother me.  NaNoWriMo is about getting words on paper which can be edited and fixed up later.  Rewriting should be the second step to a story, not a part of the process of the first draft, so I pressed on with the bad geography in the idea that I'd clean it up in editing.  However, I ran into some problems with what I wanted to do with the story.  This forced me to think far too much about what I was writing each day and lead to the writers block that ended my NaNoWriMo attempt for 2011.

When the initial writers block set in, I looked into working on just editing my 13,000+ words and getting the geography together.  As I went through the text I started getting really good ideas and started adding in large sections and more descriptive language to previous chapters.  Before long the writers block collided with the changes I was making and I was finding myself creating gaps faster than I was filling them.  So instead of pushing into the second half of the month, I put the work down.

Oh and at some point I realized I really disliked some of the main characters names: Enlil and Orten specifically.  I literally picked the name Orten based on the NFL quarterback Kyle Orten.  And with Enlil, I am not even sure how you would pronounce it.  In Orten's case I have a new name picked out that I really like.  In Enlil's case I am aiming to change up the history of his nation of Alb which will result in some pretty unique names (moving it more towards the naming conventions of the Native Americans).

I still have plans to clean this story up.  It's a story I didn't outline, but I have had the general plot in my mind for some time.  It's a dark story, but a fun one in my opinion.  And it's all aimed at a pretty climatic ending.  I actually started on the story a while ago, but had only written a single chapter.  Even though I failed to hit the full month word count, I feel like NaNoWriMo was still a useful experience for me.  It did get me writing and it did force me to think about this story a bit more.  Even if I don't finish this story I should still be able to use the lessons learned for future story writing.

For anyone interested, here are all the posts tagged for my NaNoWriMo 2011 writing.

FTFY: Steak anology for the game that shall not be named

Lifting this quote from Kill Ten Rats:

It’s like the difference between presenting a nicely cooked steak on a plate and one that has been sliced for the guest to show a nicely cooked interior.

And applying a little FTFY (fixed that for ya):

It’s like the difference between presenting a nicely cooked steak on a plate and one that has been sliced for the guest to show a nicely cooked interior.  It’s a steak either way, except one has let all the flavor run out.

At least I'm not alone - problems transitioning from Bad Company 2 to Battlefield 3

It was nice to find this Battlefield 3 video on Youtube where a player, Aethyal, describes his challenges with transitioning from Bad Company 2 to Battlefield 3.  Aethyal is having almost the exact same issues that I am having coming from BC2.  In BC2 I always felt that I was helping my team and that I was a decent player. In BF3 I feel that I am constantly hurting my team and being an overall liability. 

Aethyal makes a couple good points.  One, his run and gun play style from BC2 doesn't work in BF3 due to the map designs.  Two, the differences in weapons is flip flopped between the two games. 

The run and gun play style worked in BC2 because the maps were well designed and as I've mentioned in other posts, BC2 maps were designed mostly as Rush maps which is meant to be run and gun.  BF3 features maps designed mainly for Conquest game play with more open areas.  Add onto the openness of BF3 maps the fact that there is a ton of enviromental noise (sun glare, smoke, fog, dust, fire, etc.) and Aethyal's point about being unable to "clear" an area before moving on makes complete sense. Players are more likely to die in BF3 to an enemy they never see than in BC2, therefore more tactical game play is required with some brute force to clear the bottlenecks.  Flanking is also more viable in BF3 due to having multiple routes on most maps to get around the enemy, but at the same time this is a negative as defense gets invariably harder with such map design.

The second point Aethyl makes about guns in BF3 may have shed some light on my own transitional problems between the games.  I had been using BF3 weapons as I had in BC2: in short controlled bursts which to my mind should be more accurate.  However, BF3 was designed so that anytime a new burst of fire is initiated the recoil is very significant.  Once the the initial recoil is over, the weapon's accuracy is controlled much easier during the burst (aka the first shots are off target due to recoil, but the following shots are easier to keep on target as recoil is automatically accounted for during the burst).  So in my BC2 style where I am using repeated short bursts I am being penalized with massive recoil on each new burst and am far less accurate because of it.  I will have to see if I can adjust my brain to use sustained burst firing from now on and see if it improves my play.  Or conversely use the weapons that have single shot settings and not rely on any burst at all.

BF3 is the first game where after the first 30 hours I'm just not getting it and feel like I'm regressing more than progressing in my skill level.  I have learned the maps (aside from Metro which I pretty much refuse to play) and game modes.  I have done everything I know to do to be better at the game and it just doesn't seem to be working,  And even in matches where I focus on objectives I don't feel I'm being successful as I can't defend reliably.  It's really frustrating to me that I haven't gotten better aside from when I equip an IRNV scope or spam mortars on unsuspecting campers.  Even then, I am not breaking even on the K:D ratio and I don't even really care about K:D in Battlefield games!  However, it's clear that the guy giving up three deaths to every kill is really hurting the team and sad to say, I'm that guy right now.

Fortunately, there are vehicles.  There are med packs and defibs.  There are supply crates and land mines.  There are other things I can do to try and help my teams in Battlefield 3.  The question is whether I can pick up the rest of my game so I can do more of that instead of waiting for my respawn.

The New Jungle - League of Legends patch 11/29

Riot Games updated League of Legends today with controversial changes to the "jungle".  For the uninformed, the jungle in LoL is a series of neutral monsters that players can kill to gain experience, gold, and buffs during a match.  It is an optional path, but in competitive play there is almost always guaranteed to be a "jungler" on the team clearing the jungle.

Some really good information has been coming out now that the patch is a few hours old.  First up is a numbers post on Reddit covering the new respawn times and camp values based on time of clearing during the match.  They are not set in stone yet, so check back for updates (the Reddit LoL community is great for fast digestion of patch changes FYI).

Prior to this patch, jungling required choosing one of the few jungling champions and a specific set of masteries, runes, and summoner spells.  In this patch the jungle was made "easier" in the aspect that the monsters are now a bit easier to kill and are less likely to be able to kill the player.  However, killing brain dead monsters wasn't exactly a challenge to begin with so saying it got easier is more in regards to the fact that far more champions with more diverse builds can now jungle successfully (instead of just as a joke).

Maokai has been a recent jungle star even prior to the patch due to some play by some top LoL players, so he is a good champ to show off some footage of the new jungle.  If you are not a hardcore LoL player, you may not notice any difference in this footage from the old jungler.  However, the differences are there as Maokai comes away with a very fast and efficient jungle run before emerging with level 4 after clearing the camps.



The new jungle is just the tip of the iceberg for this patch. Many other balance changes came down the pipeline aimed at making the early part of classic LoL games more aggressive in nature which should speed up games and make it a better spectator sport.

Personally I have been playing a lot of Dominion (a different game mode without a jungle). Dominion has faster games and focuses more on champion vs champion combat on a capture the point map. I like the faster game times and the more aggressive play. If this patch cuts down the average game length and increases the action in classic LoL, then I will probably return for some normal solo queue action.

Anyone else have thoughts on the new jungle? On the patch? Share in the comments.

Are CCP and EVE Online back on track?

There is no doubt that EVE Online’s biggest crutch has been its own developers; CCP.  First it was CCP employees giving unfair advantages and preferential treatment to certain in game corporations (aka guilds/clans).  Next it was the micro-transaction debacle and the community unanimously agreeing that CCP was being greedy.  The core community around EVE was starting to crumble and CCPs only answers seemed to be projects completely unrelated to the core of what made EVE tick (Dust 514, virtual monocles, other games like World of Darkness).

This culminated in CCP finally realizing they were overextended as a company.  So they shut down a studio and fired a bunch of people.  They also figured out that it was about time they started to focus on the core of EVE Online before continuing with any of the peripheral nonsense that had gotten them in so much trouble as a company.  The direct result of that refocus is the Crucible expansion.

With the Crucible expansion CCP is returning to the basics of EVE, such as introducing new ships, squashing bugs, and improving the “it’s more like a spreadsheet than a game” user interface.  And that is just a brief overview of what is getting worked on with Crucible.  CCP appears to be digging down deep to work on many of the long-standing, yet minor issues that have plagued the game while at the same time taking a hard look at polishing things such as starbase management and fleet vs fleet engagements.  Graphical flair through engine trails and updated space backgrounds are also featured.

Most important to note is that nothing is mentioned about virtual monocles, console FPS spin offs, or Iceland’s volcanic history.  Crucible is aimed 100% at the core of EVE Online and CCP is selling this as redemption for their past missteps. 

Reading over the notes and feature set for Crucible I can only draw the conclusion that CCP is committed to getting EVE Online back on track.  There are several excellent improvements going into the game with Crucible, some that should have been fixed long ago (like the damn UI font).  I’m sincerely hoping CCP has learned their lessons and they will take better care of EVE Online going forward.

EVE is still the MMO that I’ve always wanted to play and these are the type of changes that will continue to interest players like me.  Unfortunately, I can’t justify a monthly subscription for an MMO with my very limited play time.  Also, I’ve already experienced the gambit EVE has to offer: massive warfare, getting ganked, “rat”ting, and watching your corp implode as the corp leader robs the coffers bare.  Someday I hope I can return and just be a lonely jackass pirate ganking newbs two jumps outside of Jita.

Battlefield 3 is a step back

Battlefield 3 is probably the last new game I will ever buy. The game was not ready to be launched and it is clear that EA and DICE only launched to beat Modern Warfare 3 to the market. If anything, I should have waited for the Black Friday $30 sale. Battlefield 3 is NOT worth $60. While Battlefield 3 is a definite step back for the Battlefield series, it will still be a solid installment once they patch in the rest of the game and fix the glaring WTF balance issues (IRNV anyone?).

Battlefield 3 is a perfectly serviceable game at this point. It runs well for everyone I play with and aside from the initial rubber-banding issue on 64-player servers, I have no technical complaints about the game. The graphics are beautiful, even on low settings, and it plays smoothly. Graphic card manufacturers have been very responsive with BF3 specific drivers.

So if there aren’t any technical disasters, then why would I say the game was not ready to be launched? BF3 is one of the rare games that launches on a solid platform (Frostbite 2) from an experienced team (DICE), but is missing that extra layer of polish and features that could separate it from other titles on the market. On top of this, there are previous Battlefield games that, in my opinion, have far better feature sets. In fact, I’ll reiterate; Battlefield 3 at launch is a step back for the Battlefield series as a whole.

The biggest glaring problem for Battlefield 3 is one of UI design. This is ironic considering that the one thing Battlefield 3 did fix for the series is that of a functional server browser. Some may not like Battle Log, but the truth is that Battle Log is the best server browser to be featured in any Battlefield game. However, the actual in-game UI is terrible and only now with the first patch is it even approaching being useable.

At launch, squad management within the UI was impossible and even after the first patch fixed some of the problems, there is still massive room for improvement. It is entirely possible for a player to be locked out of joining a squad if all the squads get locked to private with less than four players (the max squad size). There is exactly enough squads and spots to accommodate 64 players. On a full server if a squad locks itself private with only two players, two players will not be able to join a squad on that server. I don’t have to state how dumb that UI limitation is. The ability to create an unlimited number of custom squads needs to be added.

The lack of in-game voice further destroys the squad aspect of the game, especially when the in-game chat UI is unusable. The chat window is too big, with no control of text size or font, and features the new and annoying “glowing” text that DICE seems to love. Both of these combine to limit on-the-fly squad creation.
Missing from the game as well is the role of a commander, a prominent feature from Battlefield 2 that set the Battlefield series apart in the FPS genre. In BF2, a single player could take on the role of commander and survey the entire battlefield setting up UAV drones to spot enemies, issue artillery strikes, give squads attack/defend orders, and in general provide that strategic organization so badly needed in a Battlefield game.
BF3 isn’t remiss on the “key components” of the commander role as they have shifted the features into various aspects. Squad leaders can issue attack and defend orders. Any player can spot enemy players (press Q more pls). Artillery strikes are replaced by the mortar of the Supply class. The Supply class can drop ammo boxes to resupply players.

Even though almost all of the functions of the commander role are present, the biggest and most important aspect is missing: organization. There is nothing that ties all the squads and battlefield assets together. Without a commander, the battlefield doesn’t live up to much more than a sparsely connected series of firefights.
To harp on the UI’s last fatal flaw I want to point out how damn impossible the mini-map is to read. Again, DICE chooses to use the glowing neon lines and glowing text that they are so fond of. It’s distracting and annoying; especially considering the map is a blue/black/white satellite image of the map. Other than checking for spotted enemies, the map is worthless leading to the final nail in the organized battlefield coffin.

The UI was the first and biggest step back, but there are a couple other things that equally upset me about the game. The destruction is dialed back significantly from that of Bad Company 2. Mostly, it is a problem of map design. The maps are meant to be larger, but also more “iconic”. And by iconic I mean they feature set pieces which clearly aren’t meant to be destroyed such as large communication antennas, shipping crates, gas stations, refinery pipes, etc. This results in a very confusing play experience where in some instances a tank shell will crumble a wall and in the next instance the tank shell can’t even penetrate a flimsy tin shed. Or the hilarity that ensues when a tank is stopped by a dreaded indestructible light post. The “most destruction ever” bullet point on the box for BF3 is a complete and utter lie.

The destruction is only part of the issue with the maps. BF3 features some truly atrocious maps. Operation Metro is hands down the worst Battlefield map ever designed. It takes out everything that makes a Battlefield game Battlefield and replaces it with a corridor shooter. Caspian Border is a lesson in running and running and running as too few land vehicles spawn and only seem to spawn back at the bases which are located much too far away from the fight. Nashar Canals features a stationary anti-air turret that dominates a third of the map and resides on an almost unreachable ship anchored off the shore. I could go on and on about the maps, but I won’t. Hopefully the Back to Karkand mini-expansion and it’s updated Battlefield 2 maps will bring back some sanity to BF3 maps.

There are also other things missing or altered for BF3. There is no battle recorder which was one of Battlefield 2’s best features. Fun tools like the grappling hook and zip lines of BF2:Special Forces are gone. Night vision is plugged into a scope with infrared (aka IRNV) which is pretty much equivalent to a wall hack. Night vision, as implemented in Special Forces was a much better way to go. There are no custom squad settings. In-game voice is missing.

BF3 should have been a combination of Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 2. Instead BF3 is a crappier version of BC2 that happens to have planes on some of the maps. With all of this said, I still will play the game for a good bit. It is, at its core, a Battlefield game and while some aspects are lacking, it still delivers that Battlefield experience. At the end of the day I rank BF3 in last place on my list of played BF titles, which isn’t too bad considering every BF game has been good to me.

My list:

1. Battlefield 2
2. Battlefield 1942
3. Battlefield: Bad Company 2
4. Battlefield Heroes
5. Battlefield 3

Cyber Monday Gaming Deals

Amazon.com

Rotating hourly lightning deals in gaming (varies based on time, check in often)

Steam

Last day to cash in on the Steam sale!

TIP: How to move Steam games to another drive in Windows 7/Vista/XP

One of the quirks with Steam is that it only allows users to install games to the same drive that Steam resides on.  For many, that is their main C: drive, which often fills up quickly.  This tool, the SteamTool Library Management will automate the process.

Or for those wishing to do it the old manual way, I will detail the process used to move 3rd party games to another drive.  This will be for Windows 7 and Vista (Windows XP users click here).