i wish it was delayed i mean

I like the strip. It is such a pathetic facade of pre-war era Vegas, feeding off the expectations and dreams of tourists. Damn thing is built like a citadel too with all those barriers, like someone is worried about a marauding army coming through a killing them all...

I do have to admit that the strip looks 1000% better with the walls removed between the Casinos. I know they needed to add them for Some reason, likely performance related to models or NPCs. In any event, with the walls removed and all 4 major casino's visible along with Vault 21 - it just "looks" impressive. When its split up it looks too small, almost different - like small parks? http://www.newvegasnexus.com/imageshare/images/899612-1290055972.jpg

This is one of the cases where the game engine limited the developers, and caused them to add walls to the strip so that the console's wouldn't melt down.

Happy that Bethesda is making a better engine!

Miax

A little bit more would have been nice I agree. But I like it... I wish it was'nt in sections though, gets annoying getting to my Presidential suite....

It's not a factor of HD space it's the RAM requirements. 360 doesn't have enough. I'm guessing if they did in fact spit it in half your complaints would be why your systems are chugging or freezing when your in the strip!

It also has to do with gamebryo inability to really run lots of NPC at the same time.

What I wanted to add was mentioned above I think. I like New Vegas, but also wish it were bigger/better. To me it does seem to be small scale compared to DC.

Particularly The Mall. You could walk so far, from one end to the other, it was gigantic. I'm not a game designer, so I can't say that one is harder to run than the other (DC or New Vegas). DC had super mutants, BOS at the monument, a character or 2 outside of the ghoul place, some wild dogs, a giant battle at one end (those hitmen, mutants, and robots). All without load screens. Not to mention the Lincoln memorial, right there. Quests involved with it (ie, first one group occupies it, then another) with no load screens (unless you went inside through a door).

New Vegas has more going on on the streets, I don't think a lot more though. Maybe all the flashing lights are hard for an engine? Sure, have a load screen to get into a shop or casino, no problem. The exterior doesnt have to be too vibrant (and it isn't, one vendor of hold out weapon, a woman that sells food, some securitrons) if the interiors are deep and interesting, with more than one quest (I wish the casinos had more story to them, I would really like my character to be more at home at the Ultra Luxe, but its hard when there isn't anything to do but wander around after the quest is done).

Someone mentioned random dialogue/conversations npcs have - this was noticably better in FO3 - it was hilarious (one reason I love FONV is that it IS more realistic than FO3 which is quite ridiculous when you get down to it), but to hear one super mutant talk to another about memories, and that maybe they used to be a woman, was great. It was a fairly deep convo too, I just hid there and listened. In NV you dont really get that.

Load screens wouldnt bother me so much if there was just more quests/story content behind them. I'd be happy if DLC just added more quests to these locations, rather than just adding another map with more one-quest locations.

I'm kinda in agreement that New Vegas is unimpressive to a point. Some of that is due to technological limitations with the number of NPCs, but some of that is in the design of the game. For example, in Fallout 3, DC was impressive. It was full of huge buildings, and you got a real 'mouse in the maze' feeling because you had to look up to see the sky. In New Vegas, they opted to go for far fewer high rise buildings, but make the buildings themselves more unique. This has the effect of making the area feel a lot smaller because there's a ton of empty space around the buildings.

Now, I do understand why Obsidian made some of the choices they made. In Fallout 3, most of the buildings couldn't be explored, and empty space was filled with rubble. Obsidian didn't have that option, the strip is supposed to be at least partially restored, so having ruined buildings and rubble everywhere isn't plausible.

On the other hand, I think they made a mistake in building the casinos up and not out. Having wider, but shorter casinos would fill the screen better in my opinion (Though it would hurt the image of New Vegas from a distance). I would also have liked to see more work done on things like the street itself. The same pot-hole filled asphalt that appears everywhere in the game doesn't cut it. When I saw the gate to New Vegas from Freeside I was excited. The gate had the gawdy style of Vegas down, and then on the other side the roads and sidewalks are the same as Freeside? It was a bit of a let down.

Wha? They did. The strip is not all of Vegas, it's just the wealthiest part. You've got the strip, where it's nice and safe, then you've got Freeside, north vegas square, and westside that are poorer and more dangerous, then you've got outer vegas like Fiend territory that is still within the city of Vegas.

That's pretty much exactly why I was disappointed with Vegas. I thought walking about in DC was amazing in Fallout 3. You just felt dwarfed by everything. New vegas just doesn't feel like a city to me at all. I think that's because of all of the two story buildings that it's made up of. It really needed some highrise buildings in my opinion.





What I would have loved is if they had all of that in there, but spread out around what's already there. So you'd have an outside layer that is basically just ruined buildings and rubble like DC was, filled with enemies and all that jazz, just like DC. Then you'd have the middle layer, which would be Freeside. And then you'd have the strip on the inside layer. Sure, that outside layer would have just been filler for the most part. But it would have made the city feel ten times bigger, and I don't think it would have hurt the game at all.


@The Mango 55, You mean the vast, open spaces around Vegas that look kinda like post apocalyptic car parks? There's hardly anything there. Certainly nothing that feels like a part of the city.

I think the lack of people on the strip just shows that those are the only people wealthy enough to actually be able to get in, or at least stay in. Most of the population is in poverty and have a dad to day struggle just to survive. The few people able to save up enough caps most likely leave soon after they arrive with the casinos taking them for every cap they have.

Though I do wish they had as much quests as New Reno.

Wow it's pretty amazing that it looks so much better without those walls. Now just add maybe six more casinos (make Lucky 38 work) and it would be an epic win.

Yeah I guess the credit check at the front gate goes a long way to explaining the lack of people, if you want to think about it in terms of game lore or whatever you want to call it. I think people are probably right when they say it's down to hardware limitations too though.

I was actually disappointed with the credit check. It should be high enough that you can't just go in as soon as you get to the gate (or at worst go sell off a couple of guns to get in). It should be something like 10,000 caps so you have to either stay in freeside a while making money or get in one of the other ways:

I agree with you

Exactly. 10,000 would have been a great amount. Really make you appreciate getting into the strip, or, someone would have actually bought a passport. Why spend 500 when it's free if you have 2G in your pocket. But, 10,000 might be more trouble than it's worth if you want in, and only have 2G.

The big difference about the Mall was that it didn't have loads of flashing neon lights. That aspect alone has a huge impact on performance. Yes the Strip could have been as big as the Mall, but it would have to ditch the illuminations for performance reasons, and then we'd have been criticising it for not being 'Vegas' and flashy enough...

Honestly I am starting to believe that people who complain about this sort of thing really have absolutely no idea what the innards of their gaming machines are doing, and how stuff like this gets from disk to screen via the way of the circuit boards and chips and what it entails and what their machines are capable (and not capable) of handling....

And New Vegas' strip, pathetic though it may be, is still leagues more impressive than any city in Fallout 3.

Exactly. 10,000 would have been a great amount. Really make you appreciate getting into the strip, or, someone would have actually bought a passport. Why spend 500 when it's free if you have 2G in your pocket. But, 10,000 might be more trouble than it's worth if you want in, and only have 2G.

Yeah, that's fair enough. I did bring that up as a possible reason, and stated that I wasn't a game designer so couldn't comment with certainty. Was merely comparing the two.

I agree.
When comparing it to the Mall in FO3, which was like 4 times the size of the Strip, it really doesn't feel like the 'highlight' of the game (it should be).
I also feel there should have been more quests concerning the few casino's that are there. There's only like 1 or 2 quests in every casino.
IncidentalIy don't like how few people are actually on the Strip or in casino's, although it makes sense because not everyone is priviledged to actually go to the Strip.

It is kinda considering it's a major location. I think the size and the number of casinos is ok, but there should be a few more quests and A LOT more people to talk to. There are too man generic "The Gambler" and not enough people with actually something to say.

To all of you saying it should be 10,000 caps- How much Jet and Psycho have you people been using? 2,000 caps is difficult to scraqe together (In wasteland economics), but 10,000 caps and no one would be gambling and you'd see even LESS people on the strip. 5- MAYBE 10 people in ALL, both in and out of casinos.

The strip is full of WEALTHY NCR citizens and NCR soldiers (who don't need a credit check to get in). The strip is supposed to be almost impossible for Mojave locals to get into unless they basically scraqe together their life savings.

And thats exactly what quite a few people say when you ask about New Vegas, they talk about how they go there only to lose it all.

Yes, but 2000 caps doesn't seem like anywhere near a life savings in the wasteland economy. The NCR homeland is huge and packed with wealthy people, there's plenty of people to fill up the strip.