Boone and I was walking through Novac pretty early in the game, and i remember playing in the first playthrough that Nelson is probably not far from there, so I decided to massacre everyone in Nelson and save every NCR hostages before even given the chance to start "restoring hope", i heard if i did that then there might be bug in that mission. Is that true? Thanks for helping!
There are a choice of two quests to do this, one at Forlorn Hope the other with Ranger Milo on the road to Novac. Did you pick up the other one at all, even if you didn't you can still go to Ranger Milo and complete it apparently. I've just done this one myself.