I didn’t mention today’s version update anywhere, and had.. zero downloads. But when I do say so, I get a bunch.

Granted, I’m making changes gradually and they’re mostly of the bugfix variety so people who aren’t as obsessed with Fallout probably won’t care, but.. well.. I really wanna get more feedback on said creation. I think I can safely say at this point that Fallout: New Vegas is my #1 favorite game of all time, so I want to do all I can to make it “perfect”, and if that means tweaking, fixing or otherwise improving every single thing in the data files, then so be it.

A reminder that I’m loading NVEC’s Bugfixes patch, then applying my own mod after it, to fill-in-the-gaps. I’m NOT using the “enhancement” portion because I disagree with a lot of the changes.

So, should I keep posting about mod updates here, or regulate such notices to the Steam group only?

“Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”

Of course when I want to update there’s a power disruption, or the cable goes out, or there’s an accident with the can opener.. Anyways, v1.2 since you can use the GECK offline, and I’ll get back to regular Q&A in a bit.

And this is why I NEED a Steam group.. I cannot get anything done when I’m online with the standard list.. it’s even worse in primetime. But with a group? Yay chatroom (which I will try and chill out in now that I have one)! And announcements! Not me having to .. do THAT!

Granted, only a tenth of those people actually wanted to talk to me at that moment, but that’s still a lot, and shows just how limited it can be when you want to “announce” without a group. But I can understand the reasoning for it lacking that feature.. it’d be too easy to spam if you could send messages to your entire friends list with one click.

Littlepip’s Fixes

Check the readme for details, as I go on in my typical style about what exactly is changed or added. Gonna look into getting this included with NVEC’s Bugfixes, as the focus was on fixing stuff that compilation did not.

The Dart Gun thing isn’t included because I ran into some game breaking issues with it that’ll require some additional files, and I wanted the first release to be as simple as possible; just a single mod file w/ readme. Going to focus on bugfixes and spelling / grammar corrections first. Other restored stuff is there, though, like the Deathclaw Gauntlet, Shishkebab and Stun Grenades.

This is just v1.0, of course, but wanted to get it out there. :)

Why did nobody ever tell me about this?!

(Art by elbruno3593)

This.. is amazing. It does for Ace Attorney what Fallout: Equestria does for, uhm, Fallout.. immense respect for both sources and blending the two in a way that feels like it could be a real game. And a rather incredible voice cast who stir genuine emotion in the viewer at certain points, especially once they’ve all gotten familiar with their roles..

It’s literally several HOURS worth of text + speech (and I’ve spent much of today watching all of it), but it is so, so worth it. Also like FO:E, it starts off as just “ok, cool” and then gets into “omg this is awesome and even though it was written before S2 or 3 it’s eerily similar to events that occurred in the actual show canon..” kinda thing.

You don’t need to be familiar with Phoenix Wright to appreciate it, but it helps. I’d suggest brushing up on a summary of that series, but don’t read up on this specific story as, being a mystery, knowledge of anything you don’t see for yourself is a spoiler; even which characters from the show are involved.. that’s the only reason I won’t say more.

If you watch the whole thing, it’ll probably make you a fan of the games, just as FO:E has done for many MLP fans. And showing love to series’ driven by great writing and storylines? Win/win!

EDIT: And yeah, I remember seeing this on EqD a long time ago when it first started, but, honestly.. their standards for post-worthy animation seems to be.. lower.. than their ones for stuff like art and fanfics, so I never watched it until just now. As for Fallout: Equestria stuff that shows up on there, I generally don’t repost that because there’s an entire site dedicated to the subject, as well as the DA group. Exceptions of course, just stating this “for the record”. ;)

All nighter of modding, restoring ever more content. Finding more and more stuff buried within Fallout: New Vegas’ files just waiting to be unearthed. You can haz Auto Axe? Yes, you can.

I get to the Dart Gun and assemble a working prototype with no external files except my .esp and then.. it clicks. There’s multiple common poison enemies in the Vegas region. And there’s also several varieties of Toy Cars; and unlike a lot of other duplicate objects, they’re all placed within the vanilla game. In the perfect numbers for me to balance what I’m about to next say..

If you thought the Dart Gun was scary with Radscorpion poison, imagine another version with Bark Scorpion venom that screws enemy Perception.. or a Cazador sting?! And I don’t even have to worry about the lack of Darts in the Mojave, since I can let the player craft ‘em with Scrap Metal, same way you can make Nails. *grin*

It’s brilliant, brilliant, BRILLIANT!

Another excellent episode of Extra Credits is out now, and while it doesn’t mention Fallout, it does state an important reason for the success of the series: providing the player with lots of ways to get through the same situation. And yes, one of those tools is stealth.

The Fallout games, particularly the modern ones, are interesting in that they actually fulfill the definition of a good stealth game, should you choose to play it as one, with one notable exception. Unless you have a Stealth Boy, it can be difficult to impossible to lose enemies who have already spotted you. Enemies tend to be pretty good about pathfinding, and generally don’t “give up” chasing you easily (a notable, strange exception are Dead Money’s Ghost People), either because their AI is designed to go to your last known position, or because they start firing at you when you’re partially concealed. While it’s not bad if the warning flag is merely [CAUTION], if it changes to a [DANGER] then chances are the only way you’ll be able to evade combat is to leave the area entirely, at least for a while.

This is less of a problem in outdoor areas, where you might have situations like a band of Fiends chasing you, who then get distracted by some Fire Geckos and forget you ever existed, allowing you to go back to picking them off one-by-one with sneak attacks. But indoor areas very rarely have this sort of thing as a possibility, and that’s where the vast majority of traps and other hazards which make you want to be a ninja in the first place are located.

Long story short? If they provide some way to lose enemies which makes sense within the setting (perhaps some kind of decoy explosives?), it’s easily possible for Bethesda to bump up Fallout’s stealth to Deus Ex or Dishonored’s level. I can absolutely guarantee that if there’s a timer provided or a way to add one, someone will make a mod that adds Metal Gear’s danger theme. And everyone can agree that’d be freakin’ awesome. To the max.

Almost at the point where I feel the mod I’ve been working on can be released, but I like playing with it (as in, playing the game while it’s running) so I can keep adding stuff I notice that’s broken or otherwise annoying.

I’m focusing on things which NVEC’s Bugfixes, New Vegas Uncut and JSawyer’s mod don’t fix first, however, and am trying to stick to using already-present resources as much as possible.

Examples? There’s a number of Challenges in the game which never activate since the scripts for doing so were broken, disabled or otherwise commented out. So, I fixed ‘em. These include an additional one for picking locks which is supposed to unlock (heh) after the first one, but never does. There’s also a few sniper related ones which ARE active for Energy Weapons and even Unarmed, yet not for actual sniper rifles!

Other things include recipes for food, chems (a recipe, specifically) and weapons which are normally missing from the game but present in the files, like the Missisippi Quantum Pie and Nuka-Cola Quantum from Fallout 3, or inconsistencies in spelling or grammar in others; why’s it spelled Pre-war money when it’s Pre-War everything-else?

Speaking of which, I have to note a major blow against the otherwise awesome mod I’ve mentioned a while ago.. it’s clear the creator’s first language isn’t English, or they just aren’t very good at it. I don’t understand how the hell you can mispell words like “password” and “mainframe” as “possward” and “mainfraim” though. The actual map design is excellent, but the text-related stuff needs some serious revision.

Yes.

Computer games exist within the Fallout universe, although consumer-level products tend to be rather limited as the focus was on actual robotics, not generated graphics. If you leave your Pip-Boy idle in the original games, a screensaver even pops up!

On the military front and for advanced purposes, however, virtual reality is also a real thing in Fallout, such as Tranquility Lane and the Anchorage Reclamation. So, figure that Pip-Boys themselves (and their FO:E counterparts) would include some basic time wasters like Pong or Tetris. In the latter’s case, probably named something else since the Soviet Union still existed and wasn’t on ideal terms with the U.S.

Imagine original Game Boy level graphics and sound for what one is likely capable of.. primitive by modern standards but incredible for 1950’s-retro-future tech levels.

(Image source is from this thread on Newgrounds)

Of course, Littlepip herself has access to the SPP’s main systems, which ARE military grade hardware, so yes, she should be able to run just about anything in our world on it, too. So uh, it’d be canon to FO:E’s story that she plays some games on her computers(s), but when I’m talking about “real world” games, that’s canon only to this blog.

(As for the TF2 stuff, I’ll save answering that for another time, as that’s good for a question on it’s own. But I like Engineer.. of course I have this equipped when I do play.. ;))

Really busy here today IRL, and got a lot of great questions to answer too, but I didn’t want to post nothing. Yeah. So if you could just.. lemme catch up over the next few days that’d be great..

Eeyup. Legally blind without my glasses, and my mom’s had to have laser-eye surgery too. Fortunately, I don’t have detached retinas (at least not yet), and videogames ensure I’ve got good hand-eye coordination. So, typical geekery in that regard.

I’m not color blind either, but I am a strong advocate for options sensitive to such issues in software. You’d be surprised how many gamers, especially those online, have disabilities, even moreso when you consider those with undiagnosed conditions.

And, honestly, the vast majority of such feature requests are very simple to implement and improve the gameplay even for those without physical ailments. When a game doesn’t allow you to remap keys, think about how much more worse that is for someone without functional hands.. and how you’ll very likely be in a position when you get older where things just don’t work as well as they used to.

Anyone else having issues with Tumblr lately? Avatars not showing up, commands for things like replying to blogs not working, etc.

Maybe just a fluke. Will try again later.

But this is important, and could be considered related to yesterday’s rambl— err, long-winded.. I mean.. you know.

Anyways! Read this, and follow the instructions to remove the update listed therein, before you find yourself unable to boot your system. All the more reason to never have automatic updates turned on, and to manually check for them each week. Of course, since I just reinstalled, I DID have this patch, but removed it with no issues.

Oh my Goddess. Why did nobody tell me about this?! Yes, it’s posted on April 1st, but it’s been a few days and thus confirmed real and … YES!

EDIT: Check out the screenshots on the link above! I see Moxxi in the background in the first.. makes me wonder who else will show up.. the original game had quite a few cameos that you could blink-and-miss..

Last day to pre-order Resident Evil 6 on Steam and get all the bonuses; free copy of RE5, the Season Pass DLC (which I assume is worth $20 or so) and the artbook and soundtrack.

In addition, Bioshock Infinite hit it’s pre-order goal and there’s a few days left on that; buying it now gets you a free copy of both Bioshock 1 AND XCOM: Enemy Unknown (a $50 game!), as well as a ton of themed TF2 items, of course.

Not Fallout, but getting stuff that’s worth quite a bit more than what you pay + what you’re actually buying? [Barter 75] Good deals.

EDIT: This post now contains 100% more pony.