E3 2010: Fallout: New Vegas Preview
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Once I was finished at the camp, Chris had me check out another save game that they used at a previous press event in order to get a better look at the subtle dialogue changes. The first set of dialogue I was shown had a response with a "[Speech 35]" in front of it, and since the protagonist I was playing had 86 points in every skill, that particular response was a viable option. That same response would have shown up even if my Speech skill had been pathetically low, though choosing it with a score lower than 35 would have resulted in my character spitting out the line incoherently. Ultimately, the recipient wouldn't have been convinced, but the development team felt it was important to take the guessing out of skill allocation and just let players know exactly how many points are required to make a successful attempt. The game's new books that grant a temporary +10 bonus to a specific skill should prove to be pretty valuable, thanks to this mechanic. On the subject of skills and skill books, Mr. Avellone also revealed to me that there won't be nearly as many manuals that grant permanent +1 bonuses. There will still be some scattered around the desert, but the team wanted to ensure that a site like GameBanshee couldn't simply provide you with a list of book locations that will have all your skills above average without a whole lot of work. The skills themselves have seen a slight consolidation, with "Small Guns" and "Big Guns" being grouped into one skill that's just called "Guns". To make up for the lost skill, Obsidian has added a new "Survival" skill that's described as a more fleshed-out version of the "Outdoorsman" skill we had back in the Fallout 1 and 2 days. It will affect how much health you regain from consuming food and other health-inducing items, and even allow you to craft your own. Whether or not it will come into play when stumbling upon special encounters is unclear.
After the demonstration had finished up, I took the liberty to ask a few questions before my "official" interview with Chris took place. Unfortunately, questions about perks, reputation titles, and DLC were off-limits, but Avellone did explain that the team felt it was important that a player could see three points of interest off in the distance (Helios One, Dinky the Dinosaur, Lucky 38, and other notable structures) when spinning around 360 degrees at any time out in the desert. They also made a point of creating a use for every skill within the first couple of hours of the game so that players didn't feel like they had sunk all of their points into a skill that wouldn't be used until much later. And if you were hoping to score some Gamerpoints with Fallout: New Vegas like you did with Fallout 3, you're out of luck. Since New Vegas utilizes Steamworks instead of Games For Windows Live for its DRM scheme, we won't be logging into our Live accounts.
When my time with New Vegas was over, I can honestly say that I was quite impressed. It certainly isn't a revolutionary shift from what we saw in Fallout 3, so if the mechanics in Bethesda's iteration turned you off, Obsidian's entry isn't suddenly going to turn you into a believer. What it should do is address the primary issues many of us had with F3 - the monotonous kill scenes in VATS, the less-than-stellar writing, and the lack of any real difficulty once a decent weapon was obtained (hardcore mode, here I come). The game is already content complete and looking pretty polished, so I don't foresee any reason why we won't be experiencing over 150 hours of post-nuclear entertainment when the game ships on October 19th.
