My Life In Neon

Fallout: New Vegas Liveblogging – Day 1

I’ve decided to do something a little goofy. I’ll be liveblogging my Fallout: New Vegas experience.

11:01 AM:
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Installing right now. It actually surprised me that this was a Steam-based installer, even on the the disk, which meant had I not been a Steam user, I’d have had to sign up for Steam to verify my game.

Up side: It’s Steam, so even without the disk I can still get it again.

Down side: Eh. I’m not a fan of online DRM. But I can understand the desire for it to delay (not stop) piracy. Also, since it’s Steam, it means I can’t choose an install location. It has to be where Steam puts it.

Feedback so far: Needed a DirectX update and Steam patch. Slowing things down.

11:07 AM:

HOLY MOUSE SENSITIVITY BATMAN!

Even turned all the way down, mouse sensitivity is WAY too high. If anyone has a solution to this, let me know in the comments. The fixes posted for Fallout 3 don’t seem to work.

Found it here

11:19 AM:

For those who got the Mercenary Pack with the game, the instructions leave out one crucial step. After activating it on Steam and downloading it, you need to actually activate it for the game. This takes place before the game is running.

In the launcher, there is an option called Data Files. Select that. Once your Mercenary Pack is finished downloading it should appear in this list.Click the little checkbox next to it. Now hit play and you’ll have it in game.

Also: Hardcore Mode

It’s in the manual, but if you’re flipping through the game options before playing, you might see it here. You can’t turn on Hardcore Mode until after you create your character. Don’t worry, you’ll get to be hardcore soon enough.

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11:39 AM:

Intro was classic cool. The “War. War never changes.” still gets me every time.

New things: You’re not a vault dweller this time. That surprised me. Also, it seems as though Vegas’s vault is Vault 21, which makes sense. (In a tabletop game I had made it the Lucky 7 Vault)

As you can see in the screenshot, the character generation is meta-included by use of one of those goofy novelty machines that tells you everything about your sex drive for the low cost of a dollar.

12:41 PM:

So, I created a luck/intelligence monster as I usually do for Fallout games. We’ll see how that goes now that there’s no Gifted or Bobbleheads. There’s still Intense Training though. I also chose the Wild Wasteland perk which I guess is some sort of weirdness magnet.

The distinction between magazines and books (for temporary and permanent skill gain respectively) is a little annoying, mainly because it becomes a pixel hunt mousing over every single book in the game again.

2:17 PM:

Rounded up a posse to kill some outlaws. I feel like I’ve played this intro storyline before. Still, with a wild west flair, it’s still a lot of fun.

Encountered some strange graphical glitches during the sandstorms, though. We’ll see if it happens again.

Seems like some objects don’t get cleaned up properly when fast traveling. They remain floating nearby or their emitters travel with you.

3:02 PM

Found the prison that’s been taken over by the prisoners. Ever since the original Fallout I’ve wondered why we’ve never seen a prison as a location. They seem like natural places to go in a post-apocalyptic scenario: fortified, stocked, and usually remote.

Good lord the music is annoying. I kept the radio on the whole time while playing Fallout 3. But New Vegas’s music rotation is so short that in 20 minutes you’ll hear all it has. The reason I find it annoying is I like the radio updates from the DJ. Looks like it’s time to find a fan-made patch already.

5:30 PM

Last one for now. Time to take a break for dinner.

I found some red balls on a ridge near Goodsprings. They were next to a body of a guy named Jimmy, and pointing off northeast. I’m wondering if this is tied to my Wild Wasteland trait? Perhaps there will be more and with them one can triangulate a location?

I’d love to post a screenshot of it, but the screenshot is corrupted. Great.