text:
Cuddly Nationalist Robots
companions, making games, romance, story, theme
Some mild spoilers for bits of the U.S.S. Constitution storyline
Finished the really creepy Pickman gallery bit, got Curie, felt slightly bad about Oberland Station now having "0" people, did most of the USS Constitution and it would have been all if the last easy little bit hadn't had legendary mirelurk hunters. What do they hunt, anyway? They eat pond scum.
Didn't side with the scavvers. We'll see what that means.
But here's themes, and I'm thinking about how it all fits in (See? Each thing, a theme in a different way. Thanks, Fallout!)
The Scavvers: "Wait…how did YOU get in?"
Me: ***slightly confused**** "I guess, because…I'm American?"
Them: "That old mumbo jumbo? Pfft."
So we have greedy people who pfft America, old robots who believe in America, we get in with them because we "are American," and Curie is happy because of all the history with the American robots.
There's a lot there.
I'm pondering how it all fits.
I have not been to the creepy gallery. But yeah, the U.S.S. Constitution, right? I mean, it's practically screaming SOMETHING about history and America. It's the freaking Constitution, after all. I kind of love Captain Ironsides, although I think he's completely delusional. I also didn't side with the scavengers, kind of because I figure as a sort of historical figure myself, I really care about this history stuff (and Codsworth, who was with me when I first found the ship, was into me supporting the robots). There are plenty of other things to scavenge: leave the weird history-obsessed robots alone!
I don't remember what I told them about how I got in, but I don't recall that particular exchange, so I was probably just vague and said I was sneaky, or something. But certainly there's a lot to parse regarding the old "what it means to be Us/American" theme: is it these delusional, clinging-to-the-past robots, or the living humans who want to make practical use of the materials in the actual world as it is today?…keeping in mind that I myself am the Queen of the Practical-Use Scavengers what with my obsessive desk-fan-hauling.
They may not be 'American,' but is there still 'America' in any meaningful sense, to the extent that the idea is worth siding with robots over living people who want useful parts? It also goes to the question of what ANY history is 'good' for, and to what extent anything from the past is worth preserving in a present that either doesn't really care about it, or cares about it only to the extent that it could be stripped for parts. Is it worth keeping cool old things just to look at, when we could take them apart and make something ugly but useful with them? Maybe we should just tear down the cathedrals and build cowsheds with the stones! Are our priorities with the preservation of the dead past, or the comfort of the living and the future?
It was not easy to see where the 'best' choice was in that dilemma, but as I said, I figure I care about this history, plus I'm sympathetic to robots, plus as my own scavenging has proved there are plenty of places to loot that don't involve bothering a bunch of historic robots, so I sided with them.
As for me, guess what I did?
I went to help Garvey. All that discussion about how we're never going to help him made me feel kind of guilty, and also I realized that all talk about the horrors of the South Shore commute aside, I had actually already worked my way to within about 30 feet of his meeting place while I was trying to get to the chem lab we heard about after hijacking that drug deal, so it was easy to go meet up with him. He politely didn't say a word about how I'd kept him and his crew waiting for 6 weeks, and we went and stormed the castle, which probably would have been quite challenging when we first heard about it 15 levels ago. And now Garvey's back in Sanctuary, doling out news of settlements in trouble, just as the internet warned he would. I've already been given a quest to go back to the Corvega plant! Man, I should have mined that place before I talked to Garvey.
Anyway, I also helped Curie with her thing, and now we're flirting up a storm, and I'm working on helping Nick Valentine with a personal quest of his. Still haven't been back to Diamond City. But I'm working with people. Trying to help them with their stuff. Like I do, because I'm so helpful and caring.
GET THE FUCK OUT! Garvey?
Yeah, I was kinda afraid that it would be a let down as it was a 15 levels ago quest. But game, c'mon! If you WANTED us to do that when we were level 14 why did you put it over THERE with a ton of a) really tricky enemies and b) XP generating randomness in between? What were we supposed to DO game?
Fuck the Corvega plant, fuck Lexington.
Whenever he brings that shit up with me, I'll just glare and say "Two words dude: Oberland Station."
Ooo! Curie gets cute, doesn't she?
I still haven't been to good neighbor. I walked right by it. Saw the signs, saw the lights, walked on by. Why? Because I need to check shit OFF my quest lists, and, in this game, signs, lights, arrows….that's a million quests that is.
But the Constitution robots…Yeah! They're harmless! I think! I mean, I haven't finished the quest and that could all blow the fuck up, but they seem so nice! And I'm trying to butter up Curie.
To refresh your memory, when you first find the place, a lookout "scans" something and it gives you your Driver's License # (in the correct MA format of S and digits, nice touch), says "lawyer" (interesting) and says that because you are an American, you can come in.
I think you have two things working there. Yes, the "what is history good for" thing is certainly important (add to that "how accurate is history," which was big in FO3, and we've seen both here and in the terrible misunderstanding of baseball), but also what is "America" good for. As a term. I mean, the scavvers don't say "We are the American way." They reject any notion of America as Mumbo-jumbo (their words). Labels. And they're kinda right.
As cuddly as the robots are, they aren't just trying to preserve facts from the past. They are actively "fighting" wars that have been over for centuries. They want to go kill Chinese soldiers, and a redcoat or a Canadian, too, if they see one! That's in there for a chuckle, but if you think on it, it's a dark chuckle. "You can come in! You're American! Like us! Help us do what Americans do, which is fight wars! Forever! Even when they're over!"
So the scavvers aren't just being practical against a bunch of silly old stories. They're living in the now and not wanting to drain resources to fight wars that are centuries old.
Now I'm kinda wondering why I didn't side with them….. cuddly robots?
You make a strong argument for supporting the scavengers. Indeed, in their terms the robots' version of being American (continuing to fight long-past wars) really IS mumbo-jumbo…a nonsensical dedication to things that don't exist anymore. Like me and my driver's license! That's right, I do remember that one scanning me and pronouncing in favor. I was allowed only because I'm an anachronism like themselves.
But…cuddly robots! We should probably have destroyed them all.
Goodneighbor is a morass of new quests. Definitely not the place to go if you want to check things off instead of add them. Although there's at least one I can think of that you've pretty much already done, so there could be some instant XP in it for you. But then, it'll still be there later.
Curie is so cute now! We found a very handsome, shiny robot body to hold her attractive little brain in a jar, and then you can accessorize the brain jar with googly eyes and differently-styled wigs… Ha. But really, she's kind of adorable.
HA! Didn't even notice that driver's licenses are pretty much as silly as old wars in this world. I just kinda ignored that.
See, here we go again with Bethesda and their sneaky storytelling. Silly little side quest/fetch quest. But here's us missing things like driver's license irrelevance, and doing things because of course only to wonder why we did it….
Ain't that what games are supposed to do? Make you think afterward?
So tangent:
There's a lot on the webs knocking this game saying that it's nothing but busy work. Workshops, fetch quests, there's no substance. These people, I think we have established, are flat out wrong. We've pointed out themes a plenty, and good moments a plenty, and we aren't even, like, what, half done? However, I can certainly see how easy it would be to make the mistake that there isn't any substance here, given the volume of workshops and fetch quests. I mean, I read something on Kotaku that talked about the five phases of disappointment in a game. He was talking on FO4. And then, at the end, he casually mentioned that he had spent "almost 40 hours with it" before realizing there wasn't much there.
One one hand, it's Bethesda. I said all along, you can't tell what they're doing until it hits you. And it did, right? Yes, it did. You have to know you have to be patient.
Is having a game that remains a murky bunch of busy for FORTY HOURS bad design? Forty hours is like The Last of Us….twice. I'm fine with a little discovery, but…..
So when I read these articles about FO4 being a vacant, themeless game (incorrect) I can't decide who to blame for the error: players, Bethesda or both.
Tangent over.
Curie is a hottie, isn't she?
We think. We wonder. We second guess our decisions. It's what we do!
And as for the question of substance…well, the people who complain about lots of busywork and fetch quests aren't wrong. There is a lot of busywork crafting and settlement management, and there are a lot of 'clear out the raiders in the Corvega plant' quests. This stuff IS in the game, a huge part of the game time-wise, and to focus on that and be disappointed in the game is not to be making baseless accusations.
And then there's other stuff as well, with grim overtones and/or humor and or thought-provoking asides, and to focus on that is not to be making undeserved justifications, because that's also in the game, and a significant part of the game if you specifically keep an eye out for it.
Is the game post-apocalyptic inventory management, as you quoted Kotaku, with a few themes tossed in? Or is it some theme-y plots, heavily padded with post-apocalyptic inventory management? Maybe it's just about where different people draw the line in terms of whether or not something is worthwhile, and what percentage of 'meaningful content' someone requires in order to take a game seriously.
Curie is pretty cute. And kind of interestingly confused about functions like breathing, and things like emotions. Still pretty handy in a fight, although she no longer has those buzz-saw arms.
Oh no, they're not baseless at all. And it makes me mad at Bethesda for burying the good stuff under them. Even I grudgingly do the settlement crap for fear it will matter. I don't WANT to.
I mean, I was mad a Skyrim because it could have been a good game, but they buried the shell of a good game under busy work. Here, they have buried an actual, real, very good game under busy work. Why, Bethesda, why? But, there IS a good game there.
It's just silly Bethesda being silly. I mean, when they're on their game, they do the whole "subtly different takes on the same theme" thing better than anyone, and man is it good. But then they either choose not to (Skyrim) or choose to do all sorts of other stuff (FO4). It's like some sort of weird game insecurity. And it's bothersome.
I'm gonna like Curie, aren't I?
Still like Piper. I do.
But the games sell like hotcakes, right? I keep coming back to "off the whiny introspective bloggy internet, are there people who LIKE the busywork?" Maybe Bethesda knows their audience better than we do. I mean, Mr. O' loves settlement management. A Minecraft-y game within a game! Maybe there are more people like him than there are like us. (Even I don't hate it, although I get bored with it.) I dunno. Regardless, it's kind of hard for us (or other internet commenters who share some of our sentiments) to make a serious argument for the company to stop making games that sell like hotcakes and focus more on the story, or whatever.
"Do it more like I would do it, and ignore the strategy that has worked very well for you critically and financially in the past!"
I bet you will like Curie. But not until you go to Goodneighbor.
That they do sell. Which is why I'm pleasantly surprised cuz after Skyrim they had no reason to bother with story. That game sold a few copies. And don't get me wrong. I like this game. A lot. It's good. I'd probably like it a lot more had it not had such a tough act to follow.
And I always forget the busyworkers.
Curie's growing on me. She's a nice contrast to Cait. Who I also like.
Hey I didn't get to Don Juan it up in the witcher what being loyal and all. Cut slack.
Curie is so polite and focused on the advancement of science, and Cait is so "why are you helping those stupid settlers? Let them starve!"
But Cait would have appreciated all the locks I picked last night. Curie is indifferent to lock picking. I'm actually not sure what she likes now.
She liked helping the robots.
I got the lock picking bobble and a tumblers today yesterday. But I banged Piper without them. So proud.
Cait will be into me now.
Cait's such a great character. Gotta get south. Gotta see how that ends.
Yeah, I haven't had any chances to help robots lately. I'm done with the Constitution, and I already solved Graygarden's problem for them, damn it!
Yeah I forgot to take Curie there. I took Cait who didn't care but still looks great as Grognak.
If Curie didn't like the library, what can you do?
Yeah, other than robots and science, she's tough. At least she doesn't seem to DISlike things. Not like Strong, always hassling me about picking locks and not smashing.
Even tinkering! I build things, he complains. I wear power armor, he complains.
And I think he wants to eat Piper.
The only things he likes are fighting and intimidating people. He probably wants to eat all of us. Well, not the robots. He'll just smash them to bits.
You know, there is a perk that let's you eat people. Probably the way to his heart.
And out of Curie's.
Yes! I bet you're right! He would love that.
And everyone else would hate it.
As for me…there's so much else to eat in this game, why would I waste a perk on cannibalism? Bah. Impractical.
Go to Hell, Settlements
combat, companions, Fallout 4, Grim Fandango, plot, romance
Some vague spoilers for the end of the Freedom Trail
So what did I do? I met the railroad, at least made first contact. There is a bit there where you HAVE to cheat and look something up. You'll see. It's infuriating game design. We'll talk. Later.
Also….there's what I didn't do.
Oberland Station just keeps getting attacked. It got attacked at a bad time, so I schlepped out anyway and went there only to find like three mutants with miniguns that shredded me. So I decided: fuck them. Fuck Oberland Station. Fuck Garvey. I don't even LIKE settlements. I don't know why I DO settlements. So I decided to say "You know? I'm just going to keep doing this story quest thing that is interesting, and fuck Oberland Station."
This will, doubtless, come back to haunt me, but seriously.
Not Oberland Station! But then how are you going to be able to complete the…thing…with the…whatsit…quest…
Ha–I made that up. I don't have any information about the importance or unimportance of settlements. I haven't let any fall so far, but we'll see. You can tell me if anything terrible happens.
You met the Railroad! Nice. I haven't gotten there. Do you mean you had to look up the password for the stone lock in the church basement? (I stumbled onto that a loooooong time ago, realized it was the end of the Freedom trail and that I'd have to come back around another time following the clues properly, and wandered away.) I wrote down the highlighted letters from the first two stops on the trail, planning to keep track of them as I went. Is that not going to be good enough?
Anyway, last night I backed off from the main story, partly because of our thoughtful discussion about not rushing to the end, but also because it turns out the area where the plot goes next is full of extra-nasty things that want to kill me, and maybe I prefer to come back in a few levels (heed the load-screen warning that says, roughly, "The whole Commonwealth is dangerous, but it gets more dangerous the farther south you go").
So I went and found Curie (at Graygarden hanging with the robots, where I told her to go and where she totally wasn't last time I checked) and took her to the doctor. Talked with the doctor, then basically got told to go away and come back later, so I wandered off to do some Silver Shroud nonsense, and then it was bedtime. And here we are.
You know, even if you hadn't made that up, I'm so over settlements that aren't the co-op or Sanctuary that I couldn't give less of a fuck. Don't care. Don't.
Yes, that's the one, and no, that won't be good enough.
I mean, shit, game. Rant time.
If you're going to have a game that encourages wandering, DO NOT make a winding road THROUGH all sorts of fascinating distractions that you MUST follow making notes. Don't. No one is going to plow through that at once. Most people won't plow through that in a week. Especially if they have to keep LEAVING cuz their fucking SETTLEMENTS are being attacked. I wrote down the first couple, like, WEEKS ago, knowing that a) they were going to matter and b) there was no way I'd remember where the hell I wrote that down because I lose things and c) there was no way I'd find all of those fucking markers and I was three for three on that.
I have no problem with search and find the code quests. I don't. Grim Fandango is full of them. But don't do it like this, with distractions every fucking which way. No one's going to get that.
Cheat.
OK, rant over.
The south…Ah ha. Herding. Yes, FO3 did that as well. It's amazing how a shitload of deathclaws makes you do what the game wants you to do.
It's a big reason why I have a feeling I won't be banging Cait any time soon because she'll probably want me to complete that quest for her, which requires going south. And really, I'm still kinda wimpy.
Of course, part of that is that, when it comes to heavy weapons, I wind up mentally having the same conversation with my companion that I have with Mrs. McP about the diaper bag. Here it is. Substitute "diaper bag" for "missile launcher" and you'll get it:
"Do you have the missile launcher?"
"I thought you had it."
"No, I told you to bring it."
"I thought you said you were going to bring it."
"How could I have brought it? My hands were full of all this other stuff."
"You really should keep it with you all the time."
"I'd love to, but there isn't enough space in the car."
"Well, this sure is a bad time to realize we don't have it."
"Yes, dear, it really is."
But I feel I caught up. A tad.
Though meeting the railroad is….spoiler….something that leads to all sorts of other shit! Because! This game!
Though, without spoiling, it's also a point where stuff you did, that is, choices you made, get referenced, and matter. Which is cool.
Yeah, that's a low blow, game. And odd for them, because usually if you NEED a code you'll see it written down somewhere and then just 'remember' it (like when you pick up a 'password' for that special terminal and it's just a tiny disk and you don't actually even have to type anything in). They don't often do that kind of "what do you mean you weren't paying attention to all the clues you should have noticed when you came back to this quest once a month on a break from all the other quests you were distracted by because we kept throwing locations at you while you were trying to follow this quest?"
Ah well. Cheat. That's pretty much what I was doing in Grim Fandango, because moving took so long, what with there being absolutely no option to sprint, that I didn't have the patience to actually go around and look for clues the honest way. And when even cheating didn't work, well, that's when I gave up.
My motto: "If even cheating fails, then to hell with the whole damn thing."
They definitely were steering me away from the south. Just loads of the usual monsters, but in extremely tough versions. Legendary radscorpions, stingwings that wouldn't die, etc. Plus, as you say, both Nick and I had forgotten to bring the missile launcher.
I'll go back down there…later. Maybe I'll actually help Garvey first!
Just enjoy your relationship with Piper and let this flirtation with Cait simmer on the back burner for a bit.
I actually went through my "MISC" tab looking for something Jessica may have jotted down, but no. No such luck. I assumed she would have. She has a fucking rolodex of everything else.
There was an option to sprint! Not was, IS! There IS an option to sprint! IS!
That herding thing. Another thing they didn't do in Skyrim that they have brought back. Which I am a-ok with, frankly. It's a good compromise for narrative people like us and people who will find a way down there like Buttons.
HAHAHAHA Garvey.
But Cait's cute, dude. She's cute.
I would have gone through the MISC tab too! Because surely a careful planner like me, who saves every scrap of paper I've ever found, would have made some notes on this! I'm glad you did it so I don't have to and can skip right to the cheating.
Poor Garvey. Although based on the internet chat, once you do his big mission he does nothing the rest of the game except tell you that various settlements are in trouble, and honestly, who needs that kind of stress? (Definitely not you, if you're already writing off Oberland Station and Garvey wasn't even involved.) We're actually making a sound strategic decision, keeping him preoccupied with the castle and unable to send us off to hunt raiders in the Corvega plant over and over.
Mr. O' has been there three times for raiders already, at Garvey's behest (and he finished the castle ages ago). They just keep settling in, no matter how many times you clean the place out. I guess all those stairwells and catwalks are just too tempting. Ha–I wonder what would happen if you just completely carpeted it with mines? Would the next set of incoming raiders get blasted, or would they just make all your mines disappear? Or would one set get blasted and the next casually move in on top of them before you got around to going back to check?
I'm going to try that, one of these days when I have a ton of mines.
Skip right to the cheating. It ain't there. Probably the most clicked link in the FO wiki.
As for the Minutemen….
There's three trophies for each faction. Join, do something, then a silver. Taking Independence is #2 for the Minutemen, so there's gotta be SOMETHING else trophy worthy. I can't believe it's settlements. I got the "Ally with three settlements" long, long ago.
I can't be bothered with Corvega. I mean, it's an old car plant. And it's not even accurate, cuz no fucking way would Lexington ever let that be built there. Let 'em have it Preston! Lexington's going to shit anyway.
And you live in Concord, dude. People in Concord have opinions about Lexington.
Hm. I dunno, I could easily see the third trophy being something like "get three settlements to 100 happiness," or "link 10 settlements with supply lines" or the like. Settlements are kind of Garvey's thing. Or maybe after you finally storm the castle, you have to turn it into the most rockin' settlement of all, with hundreds of beds and gun turrets and vast rolling acres of cropland, and that's the last trophy. I bet you'll hate it, whatever it is.
Mr. O' said Garvey's endless settlement-trouble missions are a good source of fairly quick XP, once you can zoom straight to the location, wreck everything, and go right back. So there's that. Maybe it's just meant to be an XP mill for when you need to boost a few levels before heading south to romance Cait. Or whatever you want to be doing, I don't dictate other peoples' travel priorities.
Doubt it. Cuz there's already a trophy for "get a settlement to 100% happiness" and it ain't that. The "settlement" ones are nicely grouped together (they made it rather simple to find what you have to do to plat it, and no silly "complete on death march" or hidden trophies). There's "build 100 items" (even I have that one) and ally with three and get one to 100%.
The story trophies and faction trophies are all "Complete (name of quest)" so who knows?
I don't grind, man. I don't grind.
Plenty of XP in the quests. Got 400 just for finding the Railroad.
Well, no matter what it is, we'll probably never know, because we're just going to leave poor Garvey there forever. It could be "Ride Godzilla into the Corvega plant and fight deathclaws," which sounds awesome, and we'd never get around to it. Because we can't be bothered to make our way out there and help poor Garvey.
There is good XP in quests. I got something decent just for introducing Curie to the doctor! I'm sure we'd be handsomely rewarded if we ever went to storm the castle with Garvey. Which we never will.
I tell you, if and when we actually go there, we'll be all "Oh MAN that was awesome!"
Knowing Garvey, not.
Buttons told us that we should do it and it's fun. Apparently we don't trust him. What does some snowed-under-with-game-related-work professional know about fun, anyway? We're skeptical.
That, and we're so, so easily distracted. And we have a natural aversion to the south shore. It's a perfect storm of never-going-to-help-Garvey.
Seriously. Man never lived in Eastern MA. He does not know the extent to which the South Shore may go fuck itself. It's almost like the developers, who knew enough about Eastern MA to make all SORTS of in jokes, knew this as well. The Drumlin Diner and Walden Pond show me these are insiders. THEY know the South Shore can go fuck itself.
I also think it's funny they made Connecticut (or, at least, like, that general area) a wasteland.
Foxwoods better be there, though.
I'm also still rooting for TD Garden. Fenway got love! I want dudes in hockey masks!
The developers are on our side.
To the extent that they're not trying to drive us mad with settlement issues and shiny, shiny locations to check out. I haven't seen the Garden…haven't been out that way. It's probably there. There are still about 700 locations I haven't visited. Everywhere I go, there are still tantalizingly empty outlines waiting to be filled in.
And so many are around the ONE DAMN CODE that Jessica DIDN'T WRITE DOWN!
Not bitter.
And not sorry I cheated.
The map keeps leading me north, anyway. I now have two new quests that want me to go back up there. Which is fine. There's plenty of stuff up there that can kill me. If the north shore can kill me still, I'm not tough enough for Connecticut.
There's a T shirt in that.
Now that I read it, several.
Which is good. I've been waiting to point out that if even Bethesda can make decent looking lingerie, our burlap empire is officially dead. We need something else for our store.
And that's a whole other discussion, really (lingerie, not our burlap empire…which, yeah, is probably dead). Because where does everyone get these nice-fitting, clean, white undergarments out there in the wasteland? You'd think underpants would be tattered and filthy like half the clothes you find, but no. Also, why do I never find any of them with loot? Suitcase after suitcase with, say, a patched tan suit and a hairbrush or whatever, but no change of underwear. Who packs for a trip without including a change of underwear? Have I been wearing the same undergarments since I went into the vault? That's kind of alarming.
I can only conclude that pre-bomb society worked out how to engineer nanobots that weave undergarments directly onto peoples' bodies, and that these machines have continued to function flawlessly through the ensuing years, drifting around on the air, floating through clothing, creating and repairing clean, perfectly fitted underpants and bras out of some miracle fiber they spin from dust.
Because when it counted, those pre-apocalypse people could DESIGN.
Or, perhaps, they knew a game where you could strip everyone bare assed naked might cause controversy.
Well, sure, that's WHY. We still have to explain HOW in an internally consistent way. (We have to because…uh…we just do. Everything has to make sense! Especially the way adding a pocket to an arm can allow you to carry five extra pounds, or drinking a glowing cola beverage in the middle of combat makes you feel A-OK again despite multiple gunshot wounds.)
I say underpants-weaving nanobots is that explanation, and I'm sticking to it.
Especially a game where often we accidentally strip dead bodies. Eww.
Uh…I do that on purpose. Because I want their gear. Hello.
More Lost Companions
companions, Fallout 3, Fallout 4, Grim Fandango, plot, story
Some spoilers for the Boston Bugle office and the content of the settler recruitment beacon
This game, man.
Even when you don't get sucked into settlements, you play and play and play and….what?
I decided, just because, to follow the freedom trail. That's been on the list a while. Get some Boston in. So follow I did. There's stuff to find, a couple of (real) locations to scout around. Walked right past the way to Good Neighbor because I didn't want to get distracted, then got to Fanieul hall, which, as I mentioned, I had a quest about, so I poked around there, got to the thing I had to find and called it a day.
Note: I did not complete the "follow the freedom trail" bit.
Nor did I complete the fanieul hall quest bit.
I did not, in fact, complete anything.
This in over an hour of playing.
I mean, it was fun. But you play and….what?
I did however blow through like three bits of Grim Fandango in 45 minutes cuz Manny just flies around when you hit the run button.
I hear you. I wanted to take Curie to that doctor last night, but–of course–I can't find her. (Curie, not the doctor.) Went to Graygarden, which is where I told her to go when we split up last time (I figured she'd enjoy hanging out with other robots), and there was no sign of her. Which was difficult to be sure of, given all the other robots there that look just like her (perhaps I didn't think that plan through), but no, I walked all around clicking on every robot, and she was nowhere to be seen.
I am pretty much cursed to lose companions. It's the only explanation.
Anyway, that having failed I decided to try to follow up on the next bit of the story, because hey, it was right at the top of my quest list, and so I trekked off into the middle of the wastes. Enjoyed the sight of a deathclaw fighting two radscorpions: I hung back, threw a few grenades into the mix, and then picked off the victor with my wounding shotgun and looted everything. My kind of battle.
Stumbled across a military supply cache and had to check that out. Ran out of time.
So, yeah, I played for about an hour and got some stuff done, but nothing actually significant. It's so easy to do that!
I'm glad you're working that sprint button for old Manny, though.
Dude! What is WITH you?
Curie, at least, responds to the bell. Ring bells. Then wait until you hear her complaining.
Hey, don't charge too far ahead on the main story. It's not endless. Is it?
And here I was blaming settlements for slowing me down! It's not just the settlements. I didn't do any settlement anything last night. It's just….locations…..
Now I'm being so nuts about finding magazines and shit I will run around in circles looking even when it becomes very clear there is NOTHING to find. This game has made me nuts.
Manny is really, really fast.
Don't know what you're missing.
Yeah, I need to build more bells. Also, I should probably just pick one settlement and send everyone there, instead of trying to pick a place where they'll feel most at home. Because screw their feelings if they can't be bothered to show up when I come looking!
But it's not just me! I'm reading this whole thread on Facebook right now about how companions disappear or show up in weird places like on top of roofs. Apparently they wander. But people recommend the bell method, so I'll work on that.
True, I don't want to wear out the main story too fast. I'm sure it's not endless (although the side missions to clear raiders out of the Corvega plant may be). I'm also a little anxious about having brought Nick Valentine along on this. I may back off and go do some settlements and side quests next time.
Siiiiiiigh…yeah, yeah…I'll just sit here thinking of speeding Manny and all the glory I missed by not looking at the options. Sniffle.
Oh dude! That's what Sanctuary is FOR. They need to guard my armor and magazines!
I have everyone in Sanctuary, I ring the bell, I pick my companion. Except the dog, who does his own shit. Sometimes he's there, sometimes not, he's a dog. What can you do?
Have you done anything at all with the railroad? I'm curious about these dudes.
There's like four billion side quests. Do those. Where the themes are at anyway. There and the radio towers.
Grim Fandango is a very good game, you know.
I kind of wanted to spread the companions around to protect more of the settlements (plus I currently have suits of power armor in three different locations…make that four, but one of them is pretty untouchable), but yeah, at this point the inconvenience is getting to be too annoying. Everybody in one place! Line up when I ring the bell!
I do want to follow up on the Railroad some more. I was on my way to do that the other day, in fact, and then got distracted by something or other, as one does. I THINK the Railroad is supposed to be kind of a major player in the Commonwealth, along the lines of the Institute and the BoS, but given I don't know anything about them because I can't follow their damn trail more than two steps before wandering off track, I don't know for sure.
Yeah, I'm sure Grim Fandango is great. There were things I liked about it. I got pretty burnt out on everything taking so long to do, and that's going to be a hard mental block to get past even if I know intellectually that it doesn't have to take quite so long, but who knows…perhaps one day.
The bell is the only way.
Oh, and I day played cuz baby napped! So I figured out supply lines! Supply lines are great. "Hey! The robots have food! Go get it!"
Funny you should say that about the Railroad cuz….
I was GOING to do the Freedom Trail. I was. But then I had to finish the Fanieul hall bit, and that led me to the Boston Bugle (which was funny but there wasn't much else, poor, poor Red Sox), and to Cabot House…. have you found Cabot House? Cuz….Cabot House……
And have you listened to your own recruitment beacon yet? I meant to talk on that.
Oh man, I keep meaning to figure out supply lines. Because the robots do have a LOT of food. And being robots, half the population of that settlement doesn't even eat, although I did set up a beacon to lure in some humans so I'd have someone to man guard posts…with all that food, they need a lot of defending.
Speaking of which, I did listen to the beacon, some time ago, and then kept forgetting to mention it. It's…rousing. Interesting choice of music there. "Make America Great Again!" is basically what we're saying, huh?
Yeah, the Boston Bugle office…poor, poor Red Sox. "Only the complete obliteration of civilization could keep them from finally winning the World Series on October 23rd!" Funny how the losing streak of the Red Sox is such a historical force that it can still have weight in the game even though in our world they HAVE actually won a few times since 1918.
I have not been to Cabot House. I have a quest for it, but I haven't been there. Just one among many places I need to go investigate.
I am all about the heavy turrets. And when I get laser turrets, it's on.
There is an irony that they have all the food. And I still haven't figured out how the beds work. When you screw Curie, figure it out.
Re: beacon, well, the music was interesting. Especially as it followed up a very "bring me your tired, your poor" plea that was very reminiscent of old pleas from America (which, considering how we treat immigrants, may well be bullshit). She (we) seems so sincere. "We will help you, prosperity lives here." Followed by rousing patriotism.
Which…..well…..
See, here I am again on about FO3's perverted American dream. In that game, these weird little flying "eyebots" would occasionally be seen toodling around the wastes playing a rousing message from the President* that was very similar to Jessica's, followed by EXACTLY the same music. Note, in 3, the President* turned out to be a computer programmed to be a bland, placating, brainwashing President/AI/algorithm. So the similarity is striking.
The Red Sox having won since 1918 in our world is why I don't weep.
More from the past: That whole "the president is nowhere to be found?" Well, that oil rig was the grand finale of 2. You find the president (who only spouts actual Dan Quayle quotes) on the rig, and destroy it, him, yourself, and the head of the enclave at the end of 2. The computer pres was there to "replace" the real one.
It seemed implausible that robots would need beds, but I didn't want to risk the settlement getting unhappy, so I built a bunch. I think if they get larger, though, I'll just wait and see if I get an alert message about it before I make them anymore. Who knows, maybe the robots want beds just for the status: "We're not going to be the only residents without the personal space of a bare mattress in a leaky barracks!"
Oh, yeah, the missing president stories. I lacked the background on that…hm. It is a very interesting choice of music for the beacon, and interesting that the wording and content of the message was not optional, or even approved by us in advance. It's like, we as the PC may, consciously, be sincerely trying to do some good in the world: I just want to give people a safe place to live and some irradiated gourds to eat! And yet, without our meaning it to, it turned into an overtly political statement that might as well be an election campaign. A place in one of my settlements is a vote for me and my patriotic vision for a reborn United States (apparently)!
Are we REALLY doing any good in the world, or are we just replicating the system that got us here in the first place? And are WE really even doing this, or are we being used for our good intentions and established as an inspirational figurehead by some other organization?
I'm Frances the Vault-Dweller, and I didn't actually approve that message…? Although I do continue to allow it to be broadcast, so I'm at least complicit in whatever's going on (and since that's the PC's voice, presumably I recorded it at some point).
Probably yeah…beds as a status symbol.
Are we less? Do we not matter? Here we are making 29 food. All we want is a token of respect!
And definitely yeah. I was actually rather surprised to hear Jessica's voice. I expected a canned message, and got a "Wait…I said that? And I picked that music? What?"
But remember: There's shit we aren't privy to. I KNOW it. Well, I don't KNOW it but I very much suspect it!
The message isn't us, it's our SuperPAC.
Yeah, there's definitely something going on that we're not privy to. That whole "take Shaun, kill spouse, but leave PC alive" thing (given no one else in that vault seems to have survived, only you) feels like Big Overarching Nefarious Plot. Something is up. I don't know what, but making us the figurehead for some new government could easily be part of it.
Thanks for faking my voice and picking me out some nice music for my beacon, Super PAC!
Which implies something Skyrim didn't have: an ending. So pace yourself.
Cabot house gonna be interesting.
But gotta do the railroad. And garveys thing. And the brotherhood. And find good neighbor. And help curie. And Cait. Especially Cait. I like Cait.
True, true. I'm sure most of the quests will still be there after you finish the main story, and I'm more likely than you are to play through a few of them, but a game does lose something once the main story is done.
There's a sense of overall purpose that no longer applies…however vague and non-urgent that purpose may be, it does serve as a framework for the experience of the game: "I'm doing a lot of things, but the backbone of it all is that I'm working towards X."
Maybe not though. Fallout three ended. Boom. End. You died. Want to do the quests you skipped? Load a save.
So we can't assume.
True, true. No assumptions. We can't know until we get there!
Or we could ask the internet. Which I did. But I won't spoil it.
You know the end????
What'd you do that for?
Not what HAPPENS at the end. I only asked the internet if you could keep PLAYING after the end.
I'm not completely mad.
Oh good. Cuz I've spent much effort not spoiling.
I guess the days of hard endings in pow world games are gone. Sad really.
Hey, I carefully didn't spoil that for you!–I didn't say what the internet SAID when I asked if you could keep playing.
Maybe it said yes…maybe it said no. Maybe it muttered to itself about Preston Garvey and his endless missions.
As long as u don't know ends of plots we're good. Plots. Plural.
No, I don't know the end of any storylines. I was careful to only read very specific links.
Playing with fire man. Some shit can't be unseen.
It's true, it's a dangerous game. I have closed the Browser Windows of Augury and seek to learn no more at this time.
As you should. As you should.
Especially cuz if you knew you would eventually blab.
Hey, I'm wounded. I might drop maddeningly vague hints, but what have I ever seriously spoiled? If you're not a certain friend talking about Harry Potter, and I apologized for that.
Companions: Just Tell Me What You Want
companions, Fallout 4, Fallout New Vegas, Grim Fandango, making games, plot, story
Crucial, badly needed spoiler for Grim Fandango movement mechanics
I didn't think it would be this specific, this soon, the "Wow, you're wrong about Grim Fandango" thing.
You said, and I quote:
"Give Manny a sprint mode, and we'll talk."
HE HAS ONE! R2, specifically! He goes rather fast and looks cute doing it!
This took me about 12 seconds to find out.
Besides the fact that I knew there would be instant, ironic mockery it also got me realizing a certain thing about game design and how different people play. See, this button you completely missed was very obvious if you go into options and look around at things like settings and control schemes. Now, you're gonna say "Who does that? I never do that." And the answer is "PC dudes." PC dudes compulsively look at the options. COMPULSIVELY. Cuz graphics, sound, controls, etc. And who makes games? PC dudes. They just expect you to look there! Cuz there it was.
They gotta realize there are non PCers out there…..
Ha! That's awesome. Consider me totally shown. I bow before your options-checking mastery. You're right, I never look at them, and I clearly missed out. Your PC ex trained you well.
If I ever go back to that game, I'll remember this tip and enjoy it approximately 30 times as much. It is still on the machine, so that could happen, although honestly at this point I don't know when.
Last night, I played that OTHER game we're playing. You're right about the Kellogg's brain/doctor/Curie connection. I also learned some stuff, and Piper turned up–in fact, when I went back to the detective agency to talk to Nick Valentine, she was already there. Convenient. When I left she said "I'll be in Publick Affairs," so she'd better be there next time I go. Then there was some rather interesting story material, from both a plot and a mechanics standpoint, and now I have to go…do some stuff. Also I collected some loot.
Non-spoiler: the Institute is heavily involved in the disappearance of Shaun!!!!
Before I even started playing. Burst out laughing in the front of the children then interrupted the game to send you an all caps message. They were pissed, but it had to be done.
I do point out that there is no real AAA game on the horizon after we eventually finish this one. Uncharted 4, maybe, but that's April and I haven't decided about it yet. We're gonna need something.
So you charged ahead in main story? Who are you traveling with? Mechanics? Damn you and your cryptic non spoilery stuff!
Cuz I didn't do much FO. I did finish mopping up depressingtown, which got no less depressing, did some settlement stuff, decided maybe I'd start the freedom trail cuz I knew where it started and it's near good neighbor and the Vault Cait wants me to take her to is forever away, so I fast traveled there, got ambushed by mutants, and somehow Cait has a "gatling laser." I have NO idea where she got it, but I was all "CRAP I'm low on ammo and hey Cait, what's that SHIT WHAT IS THAT and they're dead where did you get THAT?" I must've been all "investigate that" by accident. That thing's a beast.
EXCEPT her laser craze, which did make the mutants go away and how, woke up that Swan thing and I died and died and died and that was it. Fuck that thing.
I think I'll go chat up Danse next. At least I'll sorta be on the same page.
Are you confident we'll be done with FO4 by April? That is only three months from now. I bet we could keep playing this for that long.
I did charge ahead in main story! Figured it was time: I hadn't checked in on the main story in a while. But I may take a break to do side quests again after that burst of energy, because…side quests. I have many of them. Plus there's this hot lead on Curie's issue, which I've been blithely telling her is "my top priority" for weeks. She still hasn't been waiting as long as poor, patient Garvey, though.
I think I've seen the gatling laser, although I don't remember where, or who I might have given it to. I also haven't woken the Swan Pond thing–just stealthed right on past that whole area–so…yeah. I do need to follow up on the Freedom Trail, among other things.
So much to do. So much to do.
Perhaps you'll be done by April, or Mr. O', but I won't be. Nope. Not unless the end sneaks up.
I may not play UC4 at all. I haven't played any others, and this seems like an ending. To a story I don't know. Maybe summer is a time to catch up on the little games. After all, there won't be much time for THAT once RotTR, ME and Cyberpunk hit.
After all, I still have LiS and maybe a witcher expansion I may want to do. We shall see.
Poor, poor Garvey. I love that we both, when pondering what to do next, did not give a second thought to "Help Garvey, who has been down there forever."
You know, maybe the game's trolling us. Maybe we WILL finish the game early cuz we'll get down there and he'll be all "Oh, hey, while I was waiting I found this kid that looks a lot like you….." BOOM credits.
Don't. Wake. The. Swan.
Though I'm getting the sense that good neighbor is important, and it's on my minimap, and, if they get the geography even a LITTLE bit right, then it makes sense to follow the freedom trail cuz two birds. That and I now have something to do at Fanieul Hall, so that's that way, too.
Metagaming, I know, but hey. Jessica's from Boston. It's cool. If she went to Suffolk, she knows that part of town cold.
Ha–or Shaun's been trapped in the castle by the monster all this time, and as soon as we help Garvey he'll pop out saying "what took you so long, MOOOOMMMMMMMM?! Didn't you get this quest, like, 180 hours ago? I want to be adopted by GARVEY, who clearly cares about me, since YOU can't even be bothered."
Sigh. I was GOING to help Garvey, once. I was on my way in his direction and everything. Until I got distracted by shiny things.
That's true, there is another Witcher expansion at some point, and the first one was good so I may want to play the second. That might be a good, not-too-long thing to tackle over the course of a summer. I didn't play any of the other Uncharteds either, except the Vita one (which was actually quite good, but I think was not really tied into whatever ongoing story the three main titles have going on), so while I hear they were good, and 4 probably will be as well, I don't really feel compelled to take it on. Besides, since we own the first three I'd kind of feel I should play all of them first, and…THAT's not going to happen in a timely fashion.
LiS is also definitely worth a playthrough. Yeah, maybe it'll be a summer of smaller stuff. That could work well.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if Shaun is there.
"You love desk fans more than you love me! They don't even have quest markers!"
I was on my way to help him, too, before I realized that it's hard to get to the south shore. The bridges, the traffic….
Really, Garvey should know not to ask someone from Concord to go there. I lived around real Concord much of my life and I've only been to real Hull, maybe, once because it's too fucking hard to get to, and that's without mutants and distracting desk fans (NEW SENTENCE!). Seriously. Jessica would SO be like "Dude, that's, like, south of the pike, so……"
I mentioned UC4 to Mr. O' and he pointed out they rereleased the first three for PS4 and I could get them, and I was thinking…"Yeah, that's a lot…and then you're binge playing FOUR games in a row." I'm not sure I'd even want to binge play something like ME, so…. though it does look very good.
A witcher expansion may be nice because for the first time in forever I can't see any sword and sorcery shit on the horizon. It'll be a while until the next DA, and an even bigger while before the next witcher whatever, so….
Seriously! Our characters KNOW this area. They know what a pain it is to get to the south shore! Clearly they seek every possible desk fan as a means of putting off the trip! Traffic, bridges, raiders…it makes perfect sense that neither Jessica nor Frances are in a big hurry to undertake that trip.
Binge playing four games in a row is a lot, although since UC isn't open-world, I suppose realistically it probably wouldn't actually take that much more time than just playing through an FO4 or TW3 once. Still, it feels like a big commitment to make to a single series/character.
Good point about a Witcher expansion filling in for an otherwise glaring lack of fantasy coming up. I do like swords and magic from time to time.
Especially as the roads are still littered with cars. Even nuclear war cannot fix the traffic on 93.
If there's a mission on the cape, forget it. No way. Can you imagine the back up at the bridge? Jeez.
Bad enough "Nahant PD" is on my map. Nahant. You gotta be kidding me. No one goes to Nahant.
If we have to go to the cape to get Shaun…"uh, sorry, son, but I'm sure you understand why it took 15 years for me to get here." And Shaun, now fully grown and with children of his own, would just nod. "No worries, mom. I would have come to find YOU, but…traffic."
And you'd both sigh, and embrace, and vow to move north and never leave again.
That would, without doubt, be the most believable ending in all of gaming history.
I've decided: Brotherhood tonight. With Cait. I like Cait.
Rooting for that ending.
Is Cait OK with the Brotherhood? I took MacCready when I went, because he doesn't seem to give a damn about anything, and indeed, he expressed no opinion about my joining up. I feel like some of the characters are not big BoS fans, and might dislike it (poor Garvey's out of the running), but I haven't spent enough time with Cait yet to have a sense of her feelings on the matter.
I don't know. She isn't really affiliated (do you know her backstory yet? It's good) with anything, so who knows? I'm not even sure how Piper feels. Only contact I've had was the "I only have Garvey" days. I haven't met MacCready yet. I somehow doubt taking a synth is a good idea. Maybe Curie? She likes tech. Maybe Curie.
Though Cait and I are really getting close. Even after getting her quest, she still talks about other things. Unlike some people. And robots.
Yeah, I don't really want to introduce Valentine to the Brotherhood. Robots, though…they're OK with robots as far as I know, and Curie might like the tech. But if Cait hasn't expressed any opinion, and isn't affiliated with anything else, she likely won't care either. And no, I haven't spent enough time with her to get her story yet, beyond that she had a good thing going in the arena until the raiders took over, and she's addicted to chems.
So true that some people and robots can only talk about their quest once they tell you what it is. "Have you found any leads on how I can become more human?"
"No, Curie, I haven't. You'll be the first to know."
Cait's great. You THINK she's gonna be a stock "Badass chem addict" stereotype, and she isn't.
They wrote characters!
They did! They put some thought into the characters! With backstories and complex motivations and everything! Even Danse was expressing self-doubt and stuff.
Although they wrote characters in FONV, too, we just never met most of them. But Veronica was interesting, and Boone had his moments.
I can't wait to take Curie to this doctor so maybe she'll have something else to talk about. Like, "Have you noticed how much more human I seem lately?"
Siiiiigh…yes, Curie. You seem very human lately. The brain-in-a-jar look suits you.
I know! In a BETHESDA game! And they don't all blindly like you! The relationships develop! Amazing!
Wait wait….New Vegas is not Bethesda, remember? Doesn't count.
And I heard that one of the best characters in that game was Raul, the ghoul mechanic who we met like 15 minutes before the end of the game who we never talked to.
Watch. Curie will be hot. Maybe she'll be blond! Maybe. But probably not. The more I look at Cait the more I think she's not a red head. Maybe brown. And French redhead sticks with the whole bioware BEBHBB/French redhead system. Go with what works.
Oh man, I can't keep these things straight. It was the same overall game, Bethesda published it, they get the credit in my mind. Sorry, Obsidian. I know you did all the work. Perhaps inspiring Bethesda for FO4! I should give you more applause.
Raul…oh yeah…I did meet him about 15 minutes before the end of the game. Which is partly on me, to be sure, I certainly could have met him earlier if I'd happened to magpie in his direction instead of some other direction, but…yeah, it was a shame. We missed a lot of stories, I think. I'm not even totally sure I got to the end of Boone's, and I spent about 3,000 hours with him. Companions were weird and moody in that game.
Indeed! It's bad enough they got jacked out of mad money cuz the game got an 84 and not an 85 on metacritic (true). Poor, poor Obsidian.
I only got Veronica's story in that cuz I cheated and looked at the wiki. It was nearly impossible. You had to be standing next to her when she looked at a painting in a specific location that had nothing to do with her in any way up to that point. Dumb luck. And a long shot at that.
At least in this one you get there doing little besides picking locks and building shit out of fans.
Ouch. Poor Obsidian. But maybe they would have gotten an 85 if their companions had been more forthcoming, OK? Remember this next time!
I definitely prefer the "hey, can we talk?" model of getting the companion stories across to the "randomly in right place at right time" one. Sure, sometimes it seems a little awkward ("um, middle of a conversation with someone else not really a great time?"), but at least I'm not missing their whole story because I took the wrong person along on the quest that involved looking at the painting, if you happened to look at the painting.
Just tell me what's on your mind, companions! I may ignore you for 6 in-game months afterwards while you twiddle your thumbs outside the castle, but at least you'll know you were heard.
I even sorta prefer this way to the bioware way. At least the companion lets you know when things are up. Not like running around skyhold/the normandy all "Hey, cool? Nothing? ok. How about now? Now? Nope? How about now? Ok, now? Oh NOW! Ok, let's talk!"
But yeah, SHE had to look at the painting, so you a) had to have her, b) go in the building and c) hope the AI had her wander right over there.
I also remember in the end of game slideshow where they're telling you who did what that the robot thingy just beeped at you, as if to say "You missed the WHOLE fucking story on this one."
I can imagine that maybe what Obsidian was going for was a highly individualized game experience, where it was really unlikely that you'd have exactly the same game as someone else you knew. I can see thinking that one way to do that, while not building 8,000 unique endings, would be to include a lot of semi-secret optional story trees, and making them kind of hard to find, so that the odds would be good that any given player would stumble across one or two of them, but would also miss a lot more…so if you and I both play and we randomly stumble across the companion stories for a couple of completely different companions, we would be able to think "wow, my game was way different from yours!"
And maybe depending on your style of play, you'd be more likely to stumble across certain story trees while missing others, or whatever. Then over the course of a ton of peoples' playthroughs, you'd have players with a ton of quite different choices and side-stories, with the intention being that no one was getting "the whole picture" with every companion quest, for a game experience that hit the same main plot points, but was individualized on a level a bit deeper than the "customize your stats/gear/weapons" one.
So if that's what they were going for, I can kind of see how it seemed like a cool idea. I don't love the way it turned out in practice, because it doesn't FEEL purposeful, it just feels annoying to have missed out on story content for what seem like totally random reasons…but I can see how it might have been planned, and kind of understand it. I would understand it more in a shorter game where playing it again would be conceivable, because that feels like the kind of artistic decision that would reward multiple playthroughs, but regardless, it makes a sort of sense. Although not a sense I approve of.
So interesting concept, good try I guess–we do support trying interesting new things–but to summarize, next time just make the companions tell us what they want.
Maybe. But I got the feeling that it didn't really change the game so much as was "you got that and I didn't." I mean, I don't think any of it opened any main story lines or closed them. I mean, if you found a settlement at Ten Pines and I don't, that doesn't really change the game in any material way. Or if, say, I did the vampire contract in TW3 and you didn't, that doesn't change the game in a material way.
I dunno. FONV was a good game, I'm glad I played it, but whenever we talk about it we always wind up in the realm of "I see what they were trying to do and I respect it, but……" Which is not bad. Experimentation is good. But man, I think that game reached very high and, well, wound up 84/100.
Yeah, I don't see that that sort of individualization would really change the game significantly (although in theory I guess it could really impact the overall mood, if for example some characters had tragic, horrible backstories and some were more upbeat and positive). I was thinking of it as more giving people another way to experience their playthrough as uniquely 'theirs.' Like, I played a melee fighter and loved my heavy armor and giant Spiked Baseball Bat of Rending, and you played something totally different…it affects your experience as you play the game, but it's basically cosmetic, and doesn't impact anything important in any critical way.
Experimentation is good. We respect it. It doesn't always work, but we salute it.
It's interesting that Obsidian is getting all experimenty in the PC sword and sorcery space these days. Kickstarted their next thing. Was supposed to be good. But the ex, you know.
Strong Words. Perhaps Wrong Words.
Grim Fandango, mechanics
No spoilers, except for my lack of 'looking stuff up' cred
OK, for something different I'm downloading Grim Fandango, so instead of rehashing a game, I can site specific examples as to why you are wrong about something.
Ha! You do that. Tell me all about how much fun I'm missing out on because I lack the patience to spend 3 minutes in real time walking across a freaking bridge. I'm sure it's a lot! I won't even argue with you! I'll just be like, "Yep. Sounds great. And I still totally don't have the patience for that."
Give Manny a sprint mode, and we'll talk. Because look, if I'm going to put 300 hours into a game–and I think it's clear that I am–it's not going to be one where 250 of those hours are spent walking with a stately, measured pace from one place to another. No, it's going to be one where 250 of those hours are spent running frantically from one place to another with loads of desk fans. PRIORITIES.
Subtleties. You new gamers. Never with the subtleties. All about graphics and sex scenes and whatnot.
Yup. The subtleties of constantly moving as if you're 'encumbered' in a game with limited carrying capacity. Really makes you stop and think about…the play of light on the walls…and how really key the fine angles of steering are…and how the way g…r…a…d…u…a…l…l…y approaching the far side of a room rather than just moving up to it all casual can allow you to truly appreciate the fine detail of the pixels…and just how incredibly annoying it is to be encumbered.
You realize I will DUMP LOOT rather than put up with slow movement. That's how important this issue is to me.
But I wish you joy of it, my friend. Have fun with those subtleties.
Ok now you know you're full of it. You never dump loot. Ever. You'd sooner kiss someone normal.
Dude. I will dump loot rather than crawl around at a snail's pace. Granted, sometimes I dump enough to fast-travel, drop off the rest of the loot at a settlement, and come back for it, but not always. There are piles of loot scattered here and there that I dropped AND LEFT BEHIND FOREVER because I didn't want to have to move slowly.
I hope this will sufficiently impress upon you the absolutely critical nature of rapid movement, because as you rightly point out, dumping loot does not come naturally to me.
I even boosted my strength until I could take the Strong Back perk (+25 pounds carry weight)! But of course the loot expands to fill the carrying capacity available, and so I will soon have to take the next levels in that perk, until I've dedicated 5 level boosts purely to carrying my loot. And even then I'll get overloaded, because the desk fans are neverending.
And yet even given this obvious fanatical devotion to loot, I will leave it behind in a deathclaw den to which I never plan to return before I will slog my way across the map with the measured plod of an encumbered character.
Should There Even Be Kids in Games?
children, Fallout 4, music, theme
No particular spoilers this time
Didn't do much. Settlements (It's really getting to the point where when I see "You can now use the workshop!" I'm like, "fuck, now I have to do something….")(Also, why do robots need beds? How does that even work?), wandering. Did a missing person file from Valentine's agency without him, which was a nice XP diversion, but I'm not sure if it's themey. Then I was feeling my oats so I went out to that village with the mutants and the bad respawn point that was just in the blog cuz I decided "Well, we blogged about it" and MAN it was tough, went back, got power armor, took psycho, killed some dudes. I'm about halfway through exploring and there is a LOT there and it's ALL depressing as fuck and very much gamey and very, very good. And depressing. Very depressing.
Kids. I'll leave it at that.
Why do they have to do kids?
I haven't been to that village yet. Didn't do anything last night, so I've got nothing other than…it seems like I'm hearing songs on the radio that I haven't heard before? Like the DJ is breaking out the back catalog or something? Including one song called Diamond City Nights or Diamond City Rock or something about Diamond City, but I totally can't find it on the track listing.
Oh, never mind, the wiki tells me it's because I visited…somebody in a place. Well, at least I'm not imagining it.
Kids are super depressing in this kind of game, and yet if they aren't included in any way it feels like a cop-out. Like, why AREN'T there any kids? Why do we never SEE any kids? Alive or dead.
And then any time they do appear you realize that the reason there aren't any kids as a rule is because it's crushingly depressing…but maybe an occasional bit of crushing depression is a salutary thing, to remind us exactly what it is we're playing at. I mean, we couldn't play TLOU's grim realism for 75 hours and counting, but as a sometime quest, it might not be bad for us to contemplate the actual horror.
And then go back to trying to kill mutants with railroad spike guns.
Oh good! Cuz I was noticing some new stuff, too. Phew. Props to them! Keep it interesting.
Though I have had at least one song from that game in my head since I started playing it. Today it's "Don't they know….it's the end…of the wuh-orld…cuz you don't love me….anymore…..?"
Dude….this….dude. This…..this sucked. And it was a…. wait, fuck it. I'm not going to spoil. Just….dude.
And the kid on the holotape was named David, which really didn't fucking help.
And I'm not even really done exploring the place, and I don't WANT to explore the place.
Once again, this game has given me a found place (this wasn't a quest) that is better than the quests. And, again, from one of those radio tower signals. Do those. Those are great.
If mind crushingly depressing.
Well, we did a bit a ways back where I mentioned that this game was more fun than FO3 but I wasn't convinced it was as good yet. It's a different game, for sure (we touched on the biowareization of it or lack thereof) than FO3, but it's starting to catch up to FO3 both in terms of themeage, but also in terms of depressing. It's hard to imagine a game (that isn't TLOU) that was as relentlessly depressing than FO3. It didn't even have Ellie's jokes. FO4 hasn't gone down that road….too much….yet. But I feel as I play it, it's getting darker and darker and darker. And last night was certainly one of those times that a game has held up a mirror and caused me to basically say "Well, fuck it, fuck me, and fuck you game" because it depressed me to the point of turning it off and going to have a drink. TLOU did that a lot, as did FO3. Which were good games.
But it would be a very valid point to say that if something just makes you toss the controller, say fuck it, and go have a drink cuz you're depressed, that isn't fun. So is that a good thing or not?
Meh. We can talk when you get there. It's very close to Malden. Talk to Piper, then check it out.
Yeah, there will usually be about one song a day that plays in the background of my head. Sometimes this is more annoying than others. Thanks, Butcher Pete.
It's a tough call on balancing realistically crushing depression with fun and games. A game that's absolutely no fun is not really worth it, you're right. I mean, we just wouldn't play it. "When I play this I get sad and hate everything" is not an endorsement. So even with horribly depressing settings, we want a game to be fun, and this does that…the Vault-Tec educational materials are funny, the little remarks on the loading screen have a sense of humor, etc.
But I kind of think it's not a bad thing for a game to occasionally remind us just how black this humor actually is. I mean, the nuclear destruction of civilization is not inherently an amusing concept. It's fine to MAKE it amusing and fun to play with–joking about serious subjects is one of the things people do–but it's also fair to sometimes step back and say "by the way, we are talking about the horrible, violent deaths of nearly every man, woman and child in the world, and that's not usually this entertaining, just FYI."
I respect a game for going there, even if I wouldn't want to stay there for the full 700 hours it will take to play through the whole thing.
Hey fellas ya hear the news going round bout a cat named Butcher Pete….
We played TLOU. I played FO3. Those pretty much made me sad.
People DO like that sort of thing. Look at Breaking Bad.
Hmm. See, I think there was a shift away from the whole "Isn't this fun this nuclear war?" stuff from 2 to 3. 1 and 2 were much cheekier. In three, Fallout boy sort of went from funny clown to creepy, grotesque clown. It was supposed to jar, the happy and the depressing. I'm starting to see that, here.
Well, we previously had a long conversation about games vs. other media, and whether we want to WATCH a bunch of hours of Walter White being a horrible person in a TV show vs. PLAY AS Walter White for a bunch of hours in a game, and I think those remain good points.
We've also discussed how TLOU was grim but short, and how it was tolerable at the length it was, but we probably couldn't stand to play it for the length of time that you have to put in on a game like Fallout. For a game as long as the one we're currently playing, I think you pretty much have to lighten the mood with humor, even dark humor–even grotesquely clownish humor. Robots with thick accents are funny. Super mutants obsessed with the milk of human kindness are funny. Killing people with teddy bears or railroad spikes, if done with insouciant cheer, is darkly funny. Without the bits of funny, the whole thing would become unbearable. Nobody is ever going to make or play a 300-hour video game of The Road.
But yeah, the jarring effect of some comedy mixed with some nods to "seriously though, this would totally suck" is probably intentional.
Large video games are large, they contain multitudes. Perhaps more than any other media, they are ABLE to contain multitudes, and arguably we should applaud them for it. Contradict yourselves, games! It's part of the human experience.
I also had the dark feeling last night I was there with the wrong companion. I was with Cait, but ran into someone who knew someone Strong knew……
I still have that FONV "I missed something" issue…..
Cait's cute.
You know, in some ways we could argue that big games are failing to live up to their potential if they DON'T jar a bit, if they don't contain multitudes. 300 hours of anything gets old: you have to mix up the mood to keep the interest alive. We don't want one note for that long, even if it's a good one. Even if the initial premise is laugh-out-loud hilarious, or simple, honest, flat-out NOTHING BUT ACTION!!!!, you can't sustain that at a high level for 300 hours, so there have to be shifts.
Different quests NEED to feel different, because otherwise they get boring really fast. You can't only kill raiders in the Corvega plant, ho-hum: sometimes you need to stumble on something that makes you sit up and take notice, even if it does that by punching you right in the emotions.
It WOULD be nice if each quest came with a "this companion would particularly appreciate this quest!" note, but it would also kind of feel like cheating. Now, an option to interrupt a conversation with "you know who would really like to hear this?" and then dash off and get so-and-so and come back to finish the discussion, that I could get behind.
I need that little tag of "bring THIS dude!" esp as it was AFTER the big fucking fight that it became clear that said dude would be important. No way I'm reloading THAT shit. Again. After dying 4000 times.
Indeed, games must mix things up. As should kids, who only have one mode.
Companion Quests: Still Waiting on the Dog
companions, Fallout 4, loot, plot, romance, story
Minor spoilers for the Reunions quest and the follow-up to that quest where the Diamond City bartender recruits you in relation to a chems deal…yeah, that one.
Magpied. Did a bloodbank and am now swimming in chems. Found a water plant with ghouls, made level 25 by killing a bloatfly which led to a very disappointing trophy screenshot, finally, FINALLY cleared up that water plant for the farming robots (nice of the BoS to fly over and help) which only led to ANOTHER damn place I have to defend, and got Cait's personal quest. She's a great character.
It's amazing how many times I find myself saying that.
Now, I know we have Boston Mayoral shelter stuff to chat about, but I'll throw this out as well:
The whole character dynamic here is far more like a bioware game than anything Bethesda has done before. This interests me, as we have talked before about how DAI and TW3 were the first bigassed RPGs in the post Skyrim universe. No doubt both took some cues from Skyrim in terms of scope and crafting and shit, as we knew they would. But the fact that Bethesda seems to have taken things from CDPR and Bioware (voiced protagonists, companion quests that MEAN something and can actually be triggered) is interesting. Skyrim sold like 27 billion copies. It makes sense that CDPR and Bioware would want to shift their way. Why not? Skyrim out sold DA2 and TW2 combined by a large margin. I wonder why Bethesda seemed to want to bioware itself. Not that I mind. I'm enjoying that aspect. I'm glad they did. I'm just surprised as they really had no incentive to do so.
But really, in talking to Cait last night, it felt like a bioware game. Which I did not expect.
Ah, the Mayoral Shelter. So packed with loot, tragedy, murderous synths, and deathclaw tunnels. I don't think I got to Fiddler's Green, though. Was there more greed, self-serving behavior, sacrifice, family…murderous synths…?
I did that bloodbank (I think–the one with the freezer in the basement? Which does not keep out radiation from a radstorm, although, tip, the Gwinnett Restaurant will). So many chems!
The BoS will fly overhead a lot now that you've seen them show up. Sometimes helping, sometimes just kind of being distracting. Once I found several of them running through one of my settlements on the way to a battle with some raiders, and I was a bit put off by that.
"Hey! We're trying to grow crops here! Don't just come stomping through my fields alarming my settlers! Who can handle these raiders just fine on their own, thank you."
But as a rule they fight the same people I fight, so we're not in conflict…yet. Actually I traveled with Danse quite a bit the past couple of days, and he's kind of growing on me. And here's why: he seems to understand my obsessive looting! Rather than snidely commenting "I can't imagine what you want THAT for" or whatever, as so many companions do when you pick up a dirty ashtray, he'll say "don't leave anything useful behind," or "if you can't carry all that equipment, I can take some of it for you." He's indifferent to my awesome lock picking and computer hacking, but doesn't object to them, and also doesn't care if I brew chems (although he's not wild about me using them).
He's a bit trigger happy, and there's the whole "devoted member of an authoritarian military cult of technology" issue, but he gets the value of desk fans, and he lets me do my own thing. (Which we'll just assume makes some sort of sense given he outranks me in the authoritarian military cult of technology to which we both belong…handwave handwave…)
I may be in love.
However, although I flirted with him, and he's shared some things and developed as a character, I haven't yet had any moments with anyone that I would necessarily describe as reminiscent of BioWare. Although he did talk and turn out to have some character and stuff, so they're definitely putting in some time on the writing (but that was also true of FONV, if only we'd ever gotten 80% of the companion quests).
I left Cait somewhere when I joined the Brotherhood and started traveling with Danse, and then last night I picked up Curie again, although I'm damned if I can figure out where to start with her "wanting to be human" quest. Perhaps it's something we'll hit on during some other quest, and will just need to know it when we see it.
Oh, and speaking of looting, if you haven't figured this out–pick up burnt magazines! They don't do anything for you, but they also don't weigh anything, and you can sell them for a cap each (for some inexplicable reason). I'd been ignoring them, but now I'm collecting them wherever I see them. So much of my carrying capacity is dedicated to settlement scrap, I need SOMETHING I can gather to sell. Weightless burnt magazines are the perfect solution.
No, what Fiddler's Green is is a trailer park. With a three holotape kid's story in it.
The contrast of a luxury shelter and the story there with a trailer park and the story THERE was….striking. Very. And that radio tower, you got the civil defense signal (that led you to the mayoral shelter) and a distress signal that led you to the trailer park.
Really? REALLY? Danse has a metal exoskeleton AND likes looting? Dude. He's perfect for you.
Desk fans can really overcome any philosophical difference (NEW SENTENCE!). But the devoted member of bad cult….
Though Piper is all "Here are the three enemies of the institute, so that's something, and they're on that list. So ok. Though when I did that first mission for them, long, LONG ago, Garvey did NOT like them AT ALL, so I guess being against the institute is enough for Piper to lump you together, but not exactly something that leads to common ground.
Cait likes running around naked. So there ya go.
It's reminiscent of BioWare in that I care about these characters (for reasons other than cuteness, though Cait is ALSO really cute), and the quests are hard to miss. FONV sorta threw them in as "Ok, you bioware nerds, if you MUST find them, ok, but still. Bethesda game, even though we're not Bethesda," where as here, they come at you. You can't really miss them. They come at you at weird times, for heaven's sake. Last night I was picking a lock in a place filthy with mutants and mirelurks and I guess THAT lock was what convinced Cait I was awesome and she was all "Can we talk?" and I said "Later, maybe?" and she was all "No! Now!"
Really, Cait? Can't we just wait until we're back at Skyhold…uh…the Normandy…uh….Sanctuary?
Ah…that is a good juxtaposition. Sigh…I didn't get them close enough together to compare properly. The Mayoral Shelter was when I was still trying to figure out how to get into the basement in Fort Hagen (remember it took me a stupid amount of time to find that damn elevator), and so when I was done there and concluded the deathclaw tunnel wasn't the approach I needed, I kind of went back to other things instead of wandering around further.
I know: Danse was kind of made for me. Except for the authoritarian military cult of technology thing. But surely that's a minor difference when we can bond over the value of extinguishers and telephone parts! He is VERY dedicated to the Brotherhood, though. I left him at one of the settlements when I picked Curie up again, and the next time I went back to build them some more beds, even though he was just kind of hanging out in a corner, I could hear him talking wherever I went: "belonging to the Brotherhood gives life meaning," and so forth.
Trying to convert my settlers, I suppose. But they seemed to be ignoring him.
So, so true that people will pick the weirdest moments to talk to you very seriously. I was in a basement with Nick Valentine, about to go into the next room, in which I could plainly see a feral ghoul wandering around, and he did the whole "do you have a minute to talk?"
Um…maybe it could wait until after we deal with this ghoul that's probably going to come in here any second? But since you seem determined, fine, go ahead.
When they need to talk, they're going to talk. And as you say, that's a good thing in that it means we aren't going to miss most of the quests the way we did in NV, but it does make for some odd conversational interludes.
What elevator? I just went to the roof and found that door.
Follow the trail of turrets!
I won't spoil. Cuz the "Storytime Simon" stuff is WAY too creepy to spoil. It's out there near fort Hagan. It's icon is a trailer.
Odd conversational interludes…Except not really. See, I wanted to make sure I was dolled up for Piper, just in case. So I'd be all "Can it wait?" and she was cool with waiting until I could head back someplace quiet and put on a nice outfit. Ergo my surprise when Cait did NOT want to wait. Especially since we are flirting.
What? She's cute. Though can I really wind up with the redhead twice? Can I? Who AM I anyway?
How much you wanna make a bet that the dude who needs Kellog's brain (ew) is the one who can help Curie?
My roof door only took me into the main building and a bunch of synths. I had to take an elevator down to the lower levels where Kellogg was actually lurking. I could NOT get down there before I found that (cleverly hidden in a room I somehow missed, it was). If there was some other way down there that I never found!–but hell with it, I don't want to know.
Also, I have not encountered anyone who wants Kellogg's brain (ew), although I am carrying around the 'cybernetic enhancement' items I took from his body if that's what you mean, so I'm just going to pretend I didn't see that.
Ah, see, I guess I've never dared to actually ask anyone to wait, lest they get huffy and be like "fine, just forget it then" and I never hear about it again. Because I want to know what they have to say! But I'll feel more confident in telling them to do wait (or trying it, at least) while I put on my +5 Persuasion Outfit in future.
Here's something that happens as follow-up to that drug deal we did, if the bar dude isn't there to shoot Trish: she tells her boss it was you, even though she promised not to, and then later you meet him in Goodneighbor and he demands that you repay him for the chems you took. And if you're me you persuade-check him into accepting half the money instead of all of it, say you'll pay him in a week, and wander off. And then later you finally get around to raiding his chem lab, and kill everyone there, and you're currently not sure if he's going to want you to pay him for that too, next time you meet. I left no witnesses this time!–but given that Trish probably told him all about how she told me where the secret lab was, he would be justified in assuming it was me. I'm kind of looking forward to going back to see him, just to find out what happens. I'll probably have to kill everyone in sight, though.
Oh, right. That. I found the elevator, then had a whale of a time finding stairs. Makes sense.
On synths, when you had that "I went into a pipe thing with mad loot but then deathclaw and synths waiting to kill me when I came out," was that the shelter? Cuz I can see that being the shelter.
Kellogg's brain is the next story mission! Didn't you go talk to Piper after seeing the airship? Go talk to Piper!
Wait, you had to, as you finished the Reunions quest, didn't you?
Asking them to wait worked with Garvey and Piper. Mostly cuz Garvey kept doing it and trampling other dialog. Dude, Garvey. Just…dude.
Interesting note on the chem lab. Me, I have had two follow ups to that. First, the father of the Nelson guy who we kinda killed showed up all huffy accusing me, and I lied and said "I know nothing" and he kinda doesn't believe me. Second, that bounty hunter? She showed up again and, again, I was all "I know nothing" and she goes "I guess I'll try another way to find my dad" and I was all "Wait…what?" but she wouldn't talk to me any more.
Hopefully, she returns.
I told you, man, I TRIED to go talk to Piper, but I can't find her anywhere. I haven't seen her in weeks. Although I haven't been back to Diamond City lately, so maybe she's finally turned up there.
And no, I haven't completely finished the Reunions quest: the next thing I have to do is go talk to Nick Valentine, which I believe is still part of that. I'll do it next time I'm in DC fruitlessly searching for Piper. Maybe I'll finally find her in the doghouse at Sanctuary.
So right now you're ahead of me on the main plot. Hush. I know way more about the Brotherhood than you do.
Yes, the mad loot, synths and deathclaw tunnel was the Mayoral Shelter. Man, was there a lot of loot there. I should go back…I think I had to drop a ton of good stuff.
Wait wait wait…. who were you with when you did the kill Kellog bit? Cuz I was with Valentine. So I talked to him right there, then it was "Talk to Piper," and she was at the newspaper place, and boom. Next step.
I have a feeling she'll pop up at her place when she is needed for a quest, which'll be after you talk to Valentine, so see him first. Two birds, one stone. And don't lose her again!
You don't have a quest marker on that one? You should. Try his place. And get going! I don't like being ahead of you, and you'll get the cutie back.
You need your own PSN account. I keep forgetting that even though it has the trophy for the mission, it isn't you.
Because I…..I….this is wrong. Ahead of you, into the redhead….I….what is this madness? Get back on the main plot, dammit!
Yeah, those synths in the Mayoral Shelter were a surprise. Fucking synths.
I was alone when I killed Kellogg. See, you remember I couldn't figure out how to get down there to the bottom of the fort, so at one point I gave up in frustration and went to do something else. Then later I went to talk to Piper, agreed to travel with her, decided it was a good time to go back to Fort Hagen, lost Piper along the way somehow, and wound up finding my way into the lower levels all by myself. (You know how a lot of times companions will disappear for a bit, but then show up again when you get into a fight or enter a new location? I kept waiting for that to happen.) By which point I was like "I'm sure it can't be much farther here, I'll just press on alone and get a companion on the next mission. It would take more time to go back for someone right now."
Anyway, once Kellogg was dead I got distracted by loot or settlements or shiny locations or something, and THAT's why I still haven't talked to Valentine. But that's good, that Piper is a key part of the next step. She's bound to show up, then! Having finally checked the chem labs thing off my list, I'll totally do that next time I play.
And maybe I'll run into this bounty hunter while I'm in Diamond City. If I do, I'll totally tell her everything I know, just to keep our progress on that quest as dissimilar as possible. "Oh yeah, I totally worked with that slimeball to backstab his business associates!"
I'm still a little confused by the synths turning up in the Mayoral Shelter. It was so quiet in there, and then I turn around to head back out and suddenly the place is seething with enemies!
Ah. See, I never go on alone. I need someone to distract dudes.
Here's a neat tip: Put your chum in power armor. I had Cait wearing some cuz I wanted to take it back home but didn't want to wear it myself, stumbled into a deathclaw nest (!) and the thing just went after her cuz power armor. I just chucked grenades at it, which didn't knock Cait down cuz power armor, and boom. Dead deathclaw.
I also noticed the suiciders will go for whoever's in power armor. Important tip.
She's less cute in power armor, though.
Yeah, I think that part of the quest will be like Dogmeat popping up. Should be. Cuz I didn't send her to her office; she was just there when the quest needed it. "Oh, hey, I was chilling in your old house and decided I needed to come back here RIGHT when you needed me! What a coincidence!"
Yeah, the synth thing was mean, especially after the deathclaw. You're all "Dude, that must've been the boss. Ok, good, cleared and WHATTHEFUCK?" Mean, game. Mean.
I haven't gone on alone lately. I need someone to help carry my loot, as much as to distract dudes (though distracting is helpful). But for a while there I had a bad streak of losing companions JUST as I was about to embark on big quest stuff. Like the Park Street station, at the beginning of the Nick Valentine bit! Lost Curie somewhere, did it by myself. Then in Fort Hagen.
So these days I try to keep a closer eye on people, and haven't lost anyone recently. Except Piper, who will hopefully turn up shortly when needed.
One of my SETTLERS put on power armor one time, when the settlement was attacked by super mutants. Completely without my direction or input. It was unexpected, but whatever…I wasn't using it at the time, they might as well. I don't particularly like power armor, even though it does raise my carrying capacity, so I kind of figure whoever wants to use it is welcome to it. Giving it to my companion could work.
Yeah Garvey doesn't count as lost. We know where he is. And Piper will be back.
I lost the dog again.
Dude! I thought you had a brilliant plan to scrap every doghouse but one, so he'd always be there!
Next time you see him, send him to Graygarden. There's not even a doghouse there, so he's always trotting around the place when I go. On the bright side, the dog is the least likely of all the companions to tell you about a cool personal quest he has for you.
You watch. I bet if he takes enough radiation he starts talking like Speak in The Tick and has the best quest in the game.
I did scrap the doghouses but he must not like the one he has. He's there about every third or fourth time I fast travel back. Maybe he's too close to mama Murphy and she freaks him out.
Yeah, he probably misses his old doghouse. Quiet, far away from Mama Murphy and her jet cravings.
Now I kind of want to travel with the dog forever in hopes he'll start talking.
His doghouse is also surrounded by a slew of couches and easy chairs I built when I was trying to figure out what mama Murphy's chair was. And it's in the middle of the road. I kinda don't blame him avoiding it.
Yeah, man, that doesn't sound appealing. No wonder he's always wandering off. Although you'd think he'd like to lie on the couches…a lot of dogs do. I guess this one is just too well trained.
They don't look too comfy. Though Cait and Piper always chill on them.
I love how companions will just sit down and chill on whatever furniture's around. Or start typing at computers or something. "We have interests too, you know!"
Fast-Travel or Slow Travel: Which Offers More Desk Fans?
companions, Fallout 4, location, story
No real spoilers, just general discussion
I'm level 45 or so with 15,000 caps. I spent more time than I should have trying to 'finish' quests for Garvey until I realized they wouldn't stop and then wiped out the other few side quests I had that I could, and then started exploring Boston Proper (which I'd been avoiding) and following the Main Storyline. Without spoilers, I met up with the Brotherhood and did some 'ambient' quests for them, I'd been to Diamond City a while ago (I find I generally don't go there often at all), and finally met Nick Valentine and followed that quest line for a while, found the Railroad and did some early quest work with them, and I did check out the Combat Zone (which I would encourage you to do) and… well, if I say any more – Spoilers. I haven't yet met Curie like you two have, but I did meet, befriend, make a companion, and then a relationship with the Irish Redhead Cait. And go do the Castle thing Garvey wants you to do; it's worth it.
In my skill tree I've got all the crafting stuff maxed out (Armorer, Gun Nut, and Blacksmith) and I've got certain ingredients tagged for search, and I think I've met every primary seller in the game so now I'm 'saving up' on ingredients so I can blow through all the weapons and armour I've got stored at Sanctuary and upgrade everything. I've been using ammo I don't use along with grenades, molotovs, medex, radaway, and stimpacks as currency primarily, I always switch to my 'fancy' clothes, and always try to walk away with more money than I left with. I'm anticipating using the caps I have to do some mass-purchase of ingredients so I can fully upgrade everything fully. I'm not as entranced with the 'rename your weapon/gear' as Mr McP seems to be, but I do rename things once I've got them fully upgraded with the suffix 'FU'. Y'know, so I can know the difference.
Sadly, however, while main-questing with Nick V as my companion, I lost him. I think I might know where to find him when I opt back into the main quest, but until I try it, that's a hypothesis and he's lost. I hope the game isn't broken because of him.
As for your taking Kotaku's suggestion about not using fast travel; I actually considered the same thing back in Skyrim, and then again here. I decided 'eff no!' to that because I simply do not want to put in the time. I know I'll have extra experiences, but I don't think they're worth it for the time invested. I do the walking on the way to a place, and when I'm done with an area I've walked to, I'll fast travel back. It seems to be a nice mix of 'walking enough to have some interesting experiences' and 'I don't want to walk all the way back to Sanctuary again, damnit'. Enjoy the walking for me.
That's the update from here.
I lost Dogmeat forever and when I needed him, he popped up. Out of nowhere. You'll be fine.
I dunno. I was thinking on the walking last night. I think the best of Bethesda is the set pieces you just find. They've never been good at main stories, but, when I think back to FO3, so much was just the finding. Agatha. The suburban cannibals. Oasis. Dude, Oasis. If you had fast traveled to your quest points, you missed all of that. And that was the best part.
I mean, last night: one of the best nights I've had with the game, and it came from saying "I'm gonna check out that radio tower," getting three signals and following them. There's the metaphors. There's the themes (we like themes). That's what the game is trying to say.
Yes, yes, yes, gameplay, systems. But the real "storytelling" is in the side bits. I've said before: FO3 wasn't a novel; it was a collection of short stories. Same thing with this one, and the short stories lie off the path.
Kotaku said something along the lines of "So much of the stories of this game are told with skeletons," and it's true. They're just found moments where the fact stuff is just there is the real story. I urge you: fuck the settlements, fuck Garvey, and wander. Therein lies the game.
I think you misunderstand me. I don't fast-travel to new destinations; in fact, you can't fast-travel somewhere until after you discover it (except for a small handful of exceptions). So on the way to a new location I have the experiences you and the Kotaku writer mention. But when the location's cleared/quest is over, I fast-travel back to Sanctuary and dump everything. Ok, new destination? Fast-travel to someplace I've been to nearby, walk over and have those extra experiences. So am I missing all of that content you're talking about? No. Am I experiencing as much as you? No. Am I experiencing more than if I just fast-travel everywhere? Yes. There; happy medium – not too much time spent retracing my steps over old ground, and yet I experience the interstitial tissue of the game. Seems win-win to me.
I am kind of into the walking around and finding things, but also into the "actually getting stuff done," so I've been more or less doing the Buttons "walk there, fast travel back" method lately. Especially because the more you explore, the more loot you collect, so usually once I'm done with some location or quest-part, I NEED to hurry back to a settlement to unload my cargo of desk fans and hot plates.
I've kind of gotten into a rhythm where I'll go out on some quest objective, try not to get too sidetracked, and then once I can't carry any more loot, head back to whichever settlement is complaining the most strenuously and give them my largess and also build them some beds or plant them some food or whatever the hell it takes to stop their whining. (Although those vague 'happiness' alerts are quite frustrating…I have a couple of locations that are just perpetually losing happiness, even though all their other indicators are fine, and I've given them loads of attractive kitten paintings over their beds, houseplants, benches to sit on, etc. What do you people WANT, anyway? And why can't you make it for yourselves out of all the spare parts I've left for you in this workshop? Why am I the only person in this post-apocalyptic wasteland who can actually do anything useful with this precious, precious junk?)
I do tend to get sidetracked, though. It took me about eight tries to finally make it to Morowski's chem lab because I had to check out everything along the way. South Boston police station, high school, Gwinnett brewery…
Kid? Or Desk Fans? Hm…
children, companions, Fallout 4, loot, plot
Minor spoilers for the main, Shaun-finding plot
Got out of the vault, then some settlement crap, then decided to go talk to Nick (did I do that too fast?) and got the whole "Show that to the dog" bit, and was surprised when the dog showed up (even though you mentioned he would) and then, of course, off he went, which took more time than I had, so I got to the bit where some half dead robot said some stuff and hit save.
First, this isn't too big a step ahead, right? Still lots to go after this?
Second, so in Skyrim, the only, paltry themes were in the main quest. Here? I'm….not seeing them yet. I'll chill, and wait, but I feel I moved story along and…for what?
I think a problem is the extended exposition in the main quest. Valentine's cool, but I'm meeting him like 60 damn hours into the game, and, what, four story missions in? Five? And he seems to be a key player in the story.
If you're going to give the player in a bigassed open world game enough free rein to go spend 50 or so hours doing whatever, you gotta get the exposition out of the way fast. Look at TW3. Sure, there were characters that popped up later, but we met Vesimir, Yen, Ciri, The Emperor and the Hunt dude in the first half hour. We heard about Triss in the next half hour. Imagine if, in TW3, we hadn't even heard of Yen, say, until hour 62. That wouldn't have been good. And that's what I'm feeling happened in FO4 last night.
Oh, dude, there's way much more. I pretty much talked to Nick immediately after getting him out of the vault too, and followed up on that, and…I've barely advanced the story. It will come around to involve other things that I've also barely begun to investigate.
I don't know about themes, but the plot stretches onward. I agree that your being able to avoid the 'main' plot this way for 700 hours does diminish it in importance compared to the more cohesive narrative of TW3. But that's the risk when you have 8,000 things to magpie and no real push forward. Other than your parental interest in finding out what happened to your son, and, well, turns out maybe that's not the kind of push one would think when compared with hauling loads of desk fans to settlements.
Science and Culture: Good Things, or Bad Things?
companions, Fallout 4, location, loot, theme
Some spoilers for stuff that happens at Trinity Tower, the Boylston Club and the Boston Public Library
Last night, I went back to Trinity Tower. Fought a bunch of super mutants, found Strong. Love Strong's quest to find the milk of human kindness, drink milk, and become superior to humans. That's going to be interesting.
Sent the heavily-laden dog back to one of the settlements and took Strong with me to Hubris Comics. Strong dislikes me picking locks on safes…what's that about? Tried to put Grognak's outfit on Strong, but he will only wear things designed for super mutants. Siiiiiiigh.
Fought my way through a couple of other locations en route to the Silver Shroud signal. Do you have the wounding shotgun? I. Love. The wounding shotgun.
I've had it for a while but was really using it heavily last night and it is the best thing ever. Shoot someone, then duck around a corner and wait for them to bleed to death! I mean, you have to be pretty close, and only getting two shots at a time is a pain, but the bleeding is so worth it.
Stumbled across Goodneighbor, sold some stuff. Will keep looking for the Silver Shroud (whose costume I already have) next time.
Ah good, discussion fodder.
We've talked a bunch about this game being about what it means to be American. Here we have this dude trying to "civilize" a bunch of super mutants, mutants who already think they're superior to humans. He failed. Or did he? Strong (who I kinda love) wants the milk, but it doesn't seem that he wants it to be "civilized" in the way the actor wanted. The whole quest line seems to be about the stupidity of trying to extend Americanism (or at least Westernism) to people who a) don't get it, b) have no desire to get it and c) really don't want it cuz they're doing just fine or better than we are. One could say that the actor is pretty much indicative of all sorts of American policy (and western policy long before the 20th century), and he's, let's face it, a doofus.
On another note, Cait looks great in the Grognak costume. I'm really, really, REALLY happy you can't put that on Strong.
When Strong met Piper he said "Hmm. Squishy like other humans, but smarter."
Don't have the wounding shotgun. But it sounds damn awesome.
Ok, what's with the Silver Shroud signal? I'm utterly certain that it, and the stuff I found in Hubris Comics is quest related, but I have no quest.
Ok, as you found the common, Boylston Club? Cuz I wanna talk about that.
I kind of love Strong, but he doesn't love me, because he dislikes every time I pick a lock, and I gots to pick locks, man! It's what I do! How am I going to get the good loot otherwise?
But he thinks it's weak and sneaky, not forthright and honest like smashing (I love the way he won't even try to sneak when I get sneaky–everyone else will sneak along with me, even the dog, but Strong's just like "whatever, I walk how I walk").
Hey, if you could smash doors and safes open for me, I'd let you, Strong, but until then, you're just going to have to deal with my lockpicking. It's annoying, though, because it seems to keep bugging him. I mean, Nick Valentine liked the first couple of times I hacked a terminal, and then he didn't really notice anymore, but Strong dislikes Every. Single. Lock. I pick. And I pick a lot of locks. That's going to add up. So I dunno how likely we are to become good friends. He does like when I intimidate people or demand more money, but there are a lot fewer opportunities to do that than there are to pick locks, so I don't think I'm on the positive side of the balance sheet with him right now.
Anyway…I like your theme of 'attempting to civilize savages' (alas, "Civilization–I'll stay right here" was not playing as I talked to Rex Goodman, but it should have been), and I agree that there's some interesting "who's us/who's American" ideas going on. Especially given the specific fact that the actor was trying to civilize the super mutants with Shakespeare, who's not, in fact, American.
There's a whole thing there, really, not just about colonialism/'savages,' but about warring concepts of "the real America": is it the civilized, literate America that is proudly just as accomplished and well educated as the England whose famous playwrights it adopted, or is it the brash, rebellious, "we don't need no education" mutants who stomp around leaving hideous refuse everywhere (seriously, what is UP with super mutants and their bags of meat?), proclaiming their superiority to everyone else/everyone who came before them. "You humans made us, now fear us!" You could kind of make a case for the super mutants.
And then there's Strong, trying in some way to bridge that gap, but for his own purposes: not because he appreciates the glory of Shakespeare's language, but because he thinks he's identified a secret in it. The search for the milk of human kindness could even be linked to the search for the fountain of youth, which was widely assumed to be somewhere in America for years–seeking it could be seen as a fundamentally American quest. The pioneer/explorer spirit hunting for some mythical treasure: another "real American" figure.
I did play some more, but it was largely settlement maintenance. Cleared a few non-quest locations, gathered loot for generator parts, etc. I have not been to the Boylston Club! Although I did get to the BPL.
Ah, see, what I figured out when I was trying to get Piper to dig me is that in order for there to be like/dislike the person in question has to see what it is you're doing. I did a couple of "Hey Piper dig me" things when she had wandered off and got nothing. So maybe if you tell Strong to stay THEN pick you'll be good.
Never mind. You'll lose him. Don't do that. Maybe try to run around a corner or something?
There is that: Shakespeare is also not American. But I think they just loved the idea of "milk of human kindness." See, I think Rex thought he was being "kind" in that way that missionaries do. "I'm HELPING them" says Rex. (Thank you for reminding me of the name). It will be interesting to see what Strong DOES with that kindness if/when he finds it. Metaphorically. Probably won't be kind.
There was some of that more complicated stuff with mutants way back in one. There was a split between these robed, Canticle for Liebowitz dudes who wanted to preserve the knowledge of the past so that we never make the mistakes again (some of those dudes joined the BoS, so there), and the mutants who were created by humans out of viruses and radiation to kill (which, in a game about the US starting a nuclear war, lacked subtlety).
I'm keeping my eye out for a dude named Marcus. Marcus is a supermutant who first popped up in 2 as a sheriff of a town that was welcoming to all, human, mutant, ghoul, etc. You could travel with him. He popped up again in 3, trying again, saying he had walked the whole continent looking for a place where his dream of inclusiveness could comet true, but it kept failing cuz people feared mutants. He had to keep looking. Wonder if he's around Boston. He'd be good for this discussion.
I like the idea of the crazy mutants being the worst of America, brash, dumb, destructive, still superior in their own minds. What do you make of the fact that the most feared/powerful one of them is the one that is willing, if not eager, to commit suicide?
You're so close to the Boylston Club! Just on the south edge of the common.
I'm sure you didn't like the BPL. Dead librarians.
I tried doing it while he's not looking, but he has some sort of super power and always knows. Seriously, I just got Cait, and if she happens to be facing the other way while I pick a lock she doesn't even notice, but Strong can be on ANOTHER FLOOR OF THE BUILDING and I'll pick a lock and hear his yell of disapproval. "Stop fiddling! Smash!"
I was just in the Boylston Club, finally, and he didn't make it to the elevator so he wasn't in the room or even on the same floor, but he still disliked it when I picked the lock to that safe. Siiiiiiiigh. But then, every time I talk to him he gives me a piece of meat, which I assume is his way of being nice, so he's kind of sending mixed messages here.
So yeah, I was in the Boylston Club. Grabbed some poisoned wine, because you never know. Juxtaposed with Strong and that whole discussion, the mass suicide of these elite, upper class gentlemen could be seen as an interesting symbol of one interpretation of "American-ness" just giving up in the face of the challenges of a new world.
And I was sad about the BPL and the dead librarians. Sniffle. I totally wanted there to be a quest tied to that last guy, with the key and the note "please use these supplies only if you are going to help with our mission to protect information" or whatever. I was like "yeah! I want to help with that mission! I want to preserve the knowledge of the past! Give me something to do!"
But there was nothing. I took the supplies anyway, because supplies, but it was a little disappointing.
It's hilarious that I've gotten laid so many times cuz I pick locks and you pick the one dude that hates it. You have terrible luck. Stick with cuties.
As for the Boylston Club, it's more than that. Did you listen to the recording in the terminal? "The light of this America will never shine again." Asking if anyone wants to leave and told no? Only to drink poison together?
It's cult imagery. That's how crazyassed comet cults commit suicide.
All these great men drank the kool aid. Expensive kool aid, but kool aid.
Which begs the question about "Americaness:" Is it a cult? Are we all drinking kool aid?
I also find it interesting there were no enemies. That's rare in this game. Nothing. Not even a ghoul. Just dead men and a terminal. The evil there was already gone.
And we feared there would be no themes.
That was kinda a bummer about not being able to help the library. I wonder what would have happened if we had done that with the BoS.
Interesting, though, that the mutants wanted in. To read or to destroy? Both?
Yeah, Strong's hatred for lock picking knows no bounds. But then he gave me some brahmin meat! Those ribeye steaks are good stuff. And when I ask about our relationship he just says "Strong stay with human for now." I need to take him on cross country strolls or something, where we're going to run into a lot of people to fight, and few locks.
I did listen to the tape, for once–it was right there in the computer. It was indeed very interesting that the Boylston Club had nothing to fight, and that the bodies were all dead by their own hand. We've seen SO MANY scenes in our travels of people who died horribly from radiation or ghouls or mobs or what have you. So many dead bodies strewn around, fallen in some struggle, and with the remnants of that struggle living on, symbolically, in the fact that we have to fight something when we get there.
But these guys, they just sort of checked out. No monsters, no raiders, just poisoned wine. As you say, it's cult-ish, but one could argue that the cult was right: they WERE choosing a way out that was likely easier than the fate that otherwise awaited them.
Very interesting, also, that apparently this club was the most important thing in all these men's lives: they didn't choose to stay home and commit suicide with their families (screw those losers), they came to the club to die among their peers, the people who, like them, appreciated the true horror of what had been lost, the America That Was. One can only assume that, in their minds, the horror was as much about their own loss of social position as it was about the destruction of the world as they know it. "I can't live in a society that doesn't recognize me as its obvious superior!" People who would rather die than live knowing that the fact they're presidents, governors' sons, etc., no longer matters.
And that's very Olde Boston, isn't it? The Boston Brahmins (and not the mutant cattle that make such invigorating ribeye steaks). That society itself is the cult that convinced them to kill themselves.
I just got to vault 114 (with Piper and power armor) and it's interesting that the experiment seems to be taking the rich and making them poor. I'm curious to see how that fits. Still early though.
Took Piper as she mentioned she knows Valentine.
And found Dogmeat!! Cait said "if she dies I'll turn you into a hat".
Making them poor, and also making them subject to someone else's whims, which they're probably not used to. And making that 'someone' intentionally as poorly qualified as possible. Basically, let's mess with spoiled people. Reversal of fortune as a social experiment!
When you think about it, Vault-Tec was essentially just a bunch of reality TV shows. Their long-term plan was probably to broadcast everything for the entertainment of the masses, only the bomb got in the way.
Ha! Yes. I got in like half an hour just now, and got to meet Valentine and see the office there. I listened to the interview tapes, and yeah. Soup Can Harry or something. I hit save after killing a couple dudes with Valentine and Piper.
I have a feeling I'm going to like Valentine. As a character. Not like Piper.
I can certainly see how this bit would have been a pain in the ass without power armor. I'm eating a whole mess of food even with it. And I'm out of grenades and the left arm of my armor is gone.
As for Vault-Tec, their founder was a crazy sadist, so…..
Indeed, the fallout games in general do not have a very high opinion of science. Vault-Tec's scientists are are psychopaths, RobCo's were all greedy (or at least Mr. House). The organization we see concerned with science in all the games (the BoS) is morally grey at best, and the Institute, which I know practically nothing about, is hardly sympathetic at this point. There's really nothing that says "Science! Hooray!"
Which is an interesting tidbit considering yesterday we were yapping about the perceived inferiority of super mutants. Rex was trying to "help" the mutants by giving them culture, which they didn't want, but they also seem to eschew technology. They don't have laser rifles. They have boards. And that might, at first blush, make us say "Pfft! How backwards!" but then a) we are reminded that science isn't all that great and b) they kill us with the damn board.
So why do we think that the human, who keeps getting killed while holding a laser rifle, while walking in a world humans destroyed with science, is superior?
Yeah, I like Valentine. His gleaming yellow eyes and deteriorating appearance were a little disturbing for a bit, but he's a good guy, and you get used to it. I used a LOT of ammunition and Nuka-Cola in that vault. All by myself, with no power armor. You made the right call getting dressed up for it and taking a companion.
I see a lot of super mutants using laser weapons, as well as boards, so they're not totally anti-technology. One does kind of wonder what their ultimate goal is (if they think that far ahead). Wipe out the puny humans, then spend their time…fighting radscorpions with boards? Covering the world with lumps of meat suspended from things and chained to the ground?
As for "science, hooray!" there are all those amusingly over-the-top weapons that are too heavy to ever carry around or use. Like 'The broadsider answers the question "would it be fun to walk around shooting people with a portable naval cannon?" Yes. Yes it would.'
And maybe it would, but I can't carry the damn thing AND all these desk fans. Something has to give, and I think we know by now that it's not going to be the desk fans. I have a wounding shotgun. I don't need your broadsider, science.
And then there's the junk gun, and the gun that shoots railway spikes, and the Fat Man…so they're kind of gung-ho about killing technology, which is funny given that that's what got us to this point in the first place.
"Science is terrible and destructive. Now check out this awesomely destructive gun we made up for you!"
Also, scavenging the products of science is how we build settlements, which seems to be a way to do good in the world, so I don't know that we can really say it's all bad. Yeah, it wrecked the world before, but we're not rebuilding with just sticks and rocks here: we're rebuilding by making generators out of old machine parts. The super mutants might well fare better than the humans if dropped into a totally science-free world (they could probably hold their own better with a board in a battle with a radscorpion), but that's not the world we're in, and the world the presumably anti-intellectual mutants seem to be creating might wind up science-free if taken to its conclusion, but it really doesn't look all that appealing either. It's hardly a back-to-nature paradise (such as is referenced in "Civilization")–more a wasteland of bloody meat. I'll pass, honestly.
Of course, the super mutants are also the products of science, either directly (if they were deliberately engineered as super soldiers or what-not) or indirectly (if they just mutated because of the radiation), so maybe the argument is that they can't create a proper science-free paradise because of the original science sin of their origins. Clearly their world sucks! It comes from science too! Everything we touch is tainted by science!
I am still low on ammo, except .50 which goes to….what? A gun I ain't got, that's what. Certainly WAY out of ammo for anything with a laser.
Love me some 10mm.
Haven't met a super mutant with a laser yet. Missile launchers, yes. Mini nukes, for sure. Not lasers.
Wait…what? What is a broadsider? Where can I get one?
I fight super mutants with lasers all the time, man. (Them with the lasers, not me: I usually don't bother with laser weapons.) You must be dealing with the low-tech crew.
I took that perk that lets you find more ammo, and it was so worth it. Now I am SWIMMING in every type of ammunition I could ever need. I haven't run out (or bought any) in ages.
Not even for the broadsider! (Not that I've used it.) The broadsider is a big heavy gun you can get by completing the robot missions on the U.S.S. Constitution, slacker. Get on that. But I'm more excited about the honorary rank of lieutenant I got, complete with a fancy hat that gives me +1 to Charisma. From now on, THAT's the hat I'm wearing when I get dressed up to charm. That hat, a sequined dress, and black-rimmed glasses. It's THE LOOK. No one will be able to resist me!
What have I done lately, besides get a fancy navy hat? Well, I finally had enough of watching the Brotherhood stomp around my settlements and went and joined up, the better to find out why the hell they're here and what they want. They're not attacking my people or anything, but they're just out there a lot, showing off their flying machines and getting into big public fights…with all the people I tend to get into fights with (raiders, Gunners, super mutants, feral ghouls), so I can't really hold it against them, but it still makes me feel antsy having them hanging around and not knowing what their intentions are.
So now I'm a member. I know…a bit about their plans…and I've got mad Brotherhood quests (only one of which I've so far felt like "I don't know if I want to do that"), on top of my mad other quests that I totally keep trying to complete and being distracted from by cool new locations.
Ooh, I found the Boston Bugle office! You MUST read the saved articles on their computer.
I still haven't talked to Garvey about storming the castle, or been back to Diamond City to look for Piper again. I HAVE started a couple of new settlements (one at the hippie robot co-op place, finally!) and done a lot of maintenance on existing settlements. And I've collected two new companions, MacCready (who doesn't seem to like or dislike anything I do so far) and Danse (who likes when I enthusiastically agree to follow the orders of the head of the Brotherhood…we may not have a promising future together).
Oh–and I got a trophy! "RobCo's Worst Nightmare," for hacking a lot of terminals. I hack much more diligently than Mr. O' does, so for once he didn't get it before me.
I'm ok with fighting the low-tech super mutants, man.
I tell ya though, Righteous Authority (the rifle you get from that Brotherhood dude) is awesome, and try the gamma gun (which you can get off any tech enemy), which is grand cuz it's fire rate is just plain stupid. Bangbangbangbang. And without the spray of a machine gun. Love it.
I gotta get that ammo perk next. I've been too busy loading up on lockpicking in order to get laid.
"Agatha's Dress" is even better than sequins. I don't know if that's a nod to FO3 or not, which had an AMAZING quest called Agatha's Song, which treated the question of "What is really beautiful?" so damn well. Agatha was very old, so maybe.
Dude, I haven't even FOUND the Constitution. Considering I never fucking PLAY, there may be a reason for that.
Ok, so joining the BoS doesn't close doors? You didn't lose quest lines doing that? I gotta do that. Once I get to play again, so never. Shit, I'm still not out of Vault 114.
On that though…..
I did stumble across a "Milk Dispenser" in Vault 114 (with Strong nowhere around) that didn't do much of anything. I pressed activate, a little hatch kinda opened, then closed, and nothing. That's GOT to do with Strong, right?
I have not yet met MacCready. Never heard of him. But then, you mentioned someplace called Good Neighbor, which I've only heard about in passing (from the not quite deceased yet Trish in the bad drug deal). I imagine that has people to meet.
On DC, did you do the DJ bit? I kinda loved that.
I'm getting pretty tired of helping settlements. Can't we all just chill in Sanctuary and say fuck it to everyone? I mean, it would help property values in Concord, and I'm all for that.
DUDE! Even I don't have that trophy. Admit it. There was a twinge of pride.
Oh, have you met Cait? The romanceable redhead?
The only thing keeping me from being completely in your dust and/or from you finishing this two months before me is your lack of attention span.
I used Righteous Authority a lot for a while, but lately I just don't. I like its critical-hit features, but the damage just isn't competitive with what I get on some of my other unique weapons. Like the wounding shotgun.
I have Agatha's Dress! It looks just like the sequin dress when it's on, but yeah, better bonus. It goes great with a lieutenant's hat.
Hmm…I only vaguely recall the milk dispenser. I hadn't met Strong when I was in vault 114, so the idea of milk didn't strike any particular chord with me. But yeah, that connection does sound plausible.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl