Let's Play Fallout: New Vegas [The Servant]

[Immortal_Engines]

Meh, can't say I liked Honest Hearts too much, too me it just seemed like a series of fetch quests, where you automatically lose certain quests without being warned (Follows-Chalk's quest in particular), then get a crap ending.
Loot was pretty good though.

 

[AlternatePFG]

[HEADING=1]Chapter LI - Ghosts of the Past[/HEADING]​

Spoiler

Now, after we've completed the main quest of Point Lookout, let's get to the sidequests and actual exploration, shall we? First, we need to tie up a loose end.

Nadine is there to meet us on the docks by that boat we took earlier.

"As a totally unrelated hint, I'm in charge of his boat, now!"

Honestly, I wouldn't have expected Tobar if he wasn't the only other NPC we've met ouside of the Calvert/Desmond nonsense.

"Wait, Tobar did it?"

"Yeah, looks like it. When the Tribals would send someone to the swamp, he'd be waiting around to nab them when the Punga seeds gassed them."

Wow, that's a lot of people. Where did he get all the time?

"He'd do his amateur surgery for the Tribals and let us wander back, all in exchange for Punga Fruit to trade."

Is selling Punga Fruit really that lucrative?

"Sweet little deal he had going on. Anyway, I figured you'd want a shot at some revenge, so I put him under citizen's arrest, sorta."

"What a bastard!"

"Yeah, he seemed nice enough, didn't he? I wouldn't have figured it out if I hadn't snuck into his engine room while waiting for you. From the look of it, he kept every bit of gray matter he cut out, and he had quite a collection! You can take a look, if your stomach's up to it. And while you're in there, feel free to give Tobar my love. Preferably with the sharp end of a hot knife."

Gladly.

"So, now what are you going to do?"

"First off, I'm claiming this boat. I put Tobar down, so it's mine, them's the rules of the ocean. So that leaves me with a boat, a load of Punga, and a wicked scar. Damn if I haven't earned that adventure I came out looking for."

I like Nadine for the most part. Even though earlier I said that she was like the Moira of Point Lookout, I meant that she was a similar kind of character.

"Think I'll take over running this ship. I can travel as I like, and always head back to the Wasteland to see mom. Not a bad way to live, huh? Of course, you can always ride for free!"

Let's have a chat with Tobar.

Now we're able to enter the door that was locked earlier.

"Why, when you were under, you should have heard some of the things that came out of your mouth!"

Yeah, that was one strange trip.

"But I suppose you're more interested in what came out of your head, aren't you?"

Not really. It's not like you took anything particularly important...

"So it's true? Why did you do it?"

"Why do we do anything? You travel the world, kill people, take trophies that interest you, and move on. I'm much the same."

Slight correction: We run into people who want to kill us, and kill them out of defense as a result. Pretty much the same difference though. This guy's trophies are lame though. Who needs a bunch of brains in a jar when you could have a ton of cool weapons and armor?

"The only difference is that my trophies are somewhat more medical in nature. OH, and to be honest, I probably kill fewer people than you do."

You sail this boat for a living, of course you don't have to deal with as many raiders and other things that want to kill you as we do. But I suppose it's time that came to an end, one way or another."

Does Tobar really think he can win this fight? I swear, all the guys who fight us tend to have insane overconfidence. "A wastelander who is armed to teeth and already killed 5 of my friends? I can take her, no problem."

The battle goes as about as well for Tobar as you would expect. Despite me complaining about it being not a very fun weapon use, the Microwave Emitter gets a lot of use this update. Guess I'm a hypocrite.

Tobar gets turned into a pile of ash.

Tobar's got some decent loot on him, including tools for brain surgery.

Tobar has a collection of bits of brain. Why? I'unno.

There's a chunk of our brain. Let's take it before it starts talking to us.

Now that that loose end is taken care of, let's go do the "Velvet Curtain" sidequest. Nadine will ferry us to and from the Capital Wasteland.

We return to that motel room that we visited earlier.

I might have said it earlier, but "The Velvet Curtain" is my favorite quest in the game, bar none. It's not because you get a huge amount of choice, or at has some really interesting characters in it. I love it because of the mystery behind it, and I think it's set up much better than some of the other sidequests in the game.

After reading that terminal, it starts the quest. We have to go down to the Pier and unlock the guys locker.

Basically, the idea of the quest is that you're picking up the trail of some Chinese spies who operated in Point Lookout before the Great War. There really isn't much of a reason for your character to do the quest, but that could side of pretty much any other sidequest in this game.

This quest makes quite a bit of use out of the whole Pier location, which otherwise doesn't have much of a purpose except for looking pretty damn cool.

We get attacked by some smugglers, but I don't think you can see them with the Microwave Emitter in the way.

I decide to pull out the Gatling Laser, forgetting that I was already starting to run low on the ammo for it. (Less than 1000) Yes, I like to hoard, what of it?

The Galting Laser does get results though.

This smugglers head goes rocketing off.

This is the locker.

Alright, let's head to the bank, which is thankfully also on the Pier.

This is what remains of the bank. It's filled with radroaches, and not much else.

Most of the safety deposit boxes are broken. I assume they were broken into. This intercom thing allows us to get access to the box. We can't actually talk to the intercom and say it however, we have to play the recording while in the room.

So in order to progress through the quest, we have to destroy a submarine that is apparently still intact after 200 years under water. We don't know it's location however, so we have to go to the Naval Recruiting Center to get some intel on it's location.

Everything for this part is conviniently in the Pier.

We read this terminal to find the location of one of the Chinese Spies who has the self destruct codes for the submarines.

Apparently she was detained in the Turtledove Detention Camp.

The Turtledove Dentention Camp is at the northernmost point on the map in Point Lookout. It's a bit of a walk from the Pier. This bridge right here is interesting.

You can see "Help Us" painted at the top of the bridge. No idea of who did it or why.

There's a decent cache of loot here, but the whole bridge is a trap.

You can see some of natives converging on your location from both sides of the bridge.

This guy looks awfully like a boomer.

At lower levels, the Natives are really, really dangerous. They got that inate +35 damage boost, and they have a decent chunk of health, so if you don't have some good weapons, it will take a while to kill them.

Now, we continue further down the road.

We sneak attack a native.

We make it to the camp. No tribals in the area, thank god.

It is however, filled with ghouls.

Thankfully no reavers... Yet.

Haven't seen a glowing one in awhile.

Two ghouls disintegrated in a row.

This gate opens up and lets 3 swamp ghouls out. They're easy to kill however, they're pretty much just slightly different looking.

The camp was being used to torture Chinese spies and get information out of them. It only makes sense that the person we are looking for would be here.

Lots of environmental storytelling here.

And we walk outside and get to fight a Reaver. Awesome. This time, however, we have a trick up our sleeve.

The Microwave Emitter passes all DR. So in other words, fuck you Feral Ghoul Reaver.

So that's one major use for the emitter, we wil probably keep it on us just for that.

We fight another Reaver. Rinse and repeat.

Inside one of the buildings is a rather large armory. This DLC is weird about it's distribution of weapons and such, there's way more ammo in Point Lookout than other places.

We need to get to the morgue to find the body.

So the person we were looking for was in here.

The skeleton has the codes in it's teeth. After getting them, we're able to destroy the submarine out in the bay.

There is a furnace to cremate the bodies in this room. There's an entrance to a sewer that I never explored before in this room, let's check it out.

This is just your standard pipe, but for some reason, the background music for the Brotherhood locations plays. *shrug*

It ends quite some distance from the camp. Let's go back to the Lighthouse, it's the closest fast travel point we have to the submarine.

There's the submarine. Let's find a way inside.

I'm surprised that the sub is intact at all.

Wait, why are we blowing up the sub again?

We initate the sub's self destruct mode. You have to pull a lever down in order to confirm it.

We quickly leave the sub and swim away right before it explodes.

The motel room now has more information for the next part of the quest.

We take these glasses, they're called Cryptochromatic Spectacles. There is no purpose of the glasses, except for one small thing in this quest.

We return to the mansion. The secret bunker we want to find is in that little greenhouse over the there.

Still in decent shape despite the mansion blowing up right next to it.

There's some smugglers in here, for some reason. I'm not complaining, easy loot I guess.

Still, I feel like I'm hitting what I like to call "Mass Effect Endgame Syndrome". You get so loaded down weapons, ammo and caps, eventually it just feels like a waste of time to bother lockpicking or hacking things. (I named it this way because that's how I get at the end of both Mass Effect games, especially 1. Everytime at the end of ME1, I have so many weapons and credits that hacking suddenly became pointless.)

So, there's a bit of a "puzzle" here. It's not really much of a puzzle. You get a combination of numbers and the special glasses. With the glasses, you can see the lines on these pots. The number refers to how many lines there are on the pots. Just do it in the correct order and...

There's the secret passage.

In the bunker there's a protectron waiting for us.

Let's not follow him quite yet.

Some chems and a mini-nuke on this shelf.

And a fucking ton of ammo. Seriously, there is just a ridiculous amount of ammo in this room. We already have more than enough, but I'm not complaining about free ammo.

We follow the robot into this room.

Oh, this seems totally safe and it's in no way, a trap.

Oh look, the Backwater Rifle. It's the unique lever-action rifle, it's pretty good. Also, tiny ribcages...?

So, it was a trap.

I do like this payoff at the end. Despite the lazy attitude of "Let's stack a ton of boxes of ammo in a room, throw in a unique weapon and call it day" I do like how the "plot" ends. It's a unique quest in the game, no dialogue behind it, it's only purely driven by the players curiosity.

The fact that it has no dialogue is a plus, especially considering how terrible most of the dialogue in this game is.

The room floods with radiation. However, little do those communist bastards know, we've gotten out of worse situations involving rooms flooded with radiation.

There's a couple ways to do this: If you have a Science of 71, there's a fusebox that will turn of the radiation. You can shut off a vent to stop the radiation from flooding the room. Either way, you still have to climb the pipes to get out.

And this is the way out. It really isn't that dangerous for us.

We make our way out into the pipe, and with that, the quest completes.

Looks like someone else had the right idea.

You can fall down the pipes and take quite a bit of damage if you move too quickly.

And so, that's it for "The Velvet Curtain". We still aren't done with Point Lookout, however. There are still a few more sidequests to do, and many more places to explore in Point Lookout.

What did you think of "The Velvet Curtain"? What is your favorite quest in Fallout 3?

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

What did you think of "The Velvet Curtain"?

I never did it, but it looks like a cool quest

What is your favorite quest in Fallout 3?

Mmmmmmmm, tough question. How about all those quests in Little Lamplingt?


Kidding, kidding.


I'd say the final mission of Broken Steel. I enjoyed that.

 

[Fangv2]

What did you think of "The Velvet Curtain"? What is your favorite quest in Fallout 3?

One of my favorite quests. Just great job on the entire questline and it got you to explore more of the area.

 

[Aidinthel]

It's been a while since I played Fallout 3 so I don't know that I can really pick a favorite quest. The game was really more about the exploration element to me, which made the overpowered enemies at Point Lookout especially annoying because I was too afraid to wander off the main path very often.

Velvet Curtain was pretty good, though.

 

[AlternatePFG]

This is a really short, almost insignificant sidequest that I don't think I could fit anywhere else, so here's a mini-update.

[HEADING=1]Mini-Update - The Least Dangerous Game[/HEADING]​

Spoiler

So, aside from "The Velvet Curtain" Point Lookout has a few other sidequests. Two of them are boring, collectiony quests we probably won't do and one requires us to return to the Capital Wasteland, so we'll do that one last. We have one we can easily get to though "Plik's Safari".

We start where we ended last update. The place we want to go is by the Cathedral, however, so we need to fast travel back over there.

The entrance is in the side of the cliff by the Catedral. It's a little distance from the sunken boat we went through to get to the cave to meet Jackson.

Unsurprisngly, it's another cave.

"Registered for what, exactly?"

This is really random. I remember my first time playing through this, I thought Point Lookout was mostly abandoned, save for the people on the Pier. Aside from the triabls in the Catedral, there are about 3 other NPCs, including this guy, that you can talk to.

"Only the finest bit of sport you've ever enjoyed!"

He is a ghoul that holds "Safaris" which basically are fights to death between contestants and feral ghouls. I assume, since he's a ghoul, he can corral the ferals in here without any difficulty. He then has people pay like 1000 caps for the "priviledge" to fight them. So basically, if they win, they don't get anything and he keeps his money, and if they die, he gets to loot their bodies as well. Why anyone would do this is beyond me, we're only doing it for LP purposes.

"Once we review the rules and see to a nominal thousand caps registration fee, of course."

Now you're probably thinking, a thousand caps, that's an awful lot. Well, we have the caps to spare, and we can get them back ourselves. (Unlike Ahzrukal, the caps don't suddenly disappear after you give them to him.)

"Here's 1000 caps. Let's get this show on the road."

"That's the spirit! The other participants are waiting, so just press the button inside to let me know when to begin."

Other contestants? Well, I'm sure since this is a one off, short sidequest that these characters will be extremely well characterized before they die a gruesome death at the hands of a feral ghoul, or something.

So I guess to make up for the really short arena part of The Pitt, there is an even shorter arena sidequest in Point Lookout.

This is the guy's room. Notice the mini-nuke on the table.

We walk through here and into his "arena".

This is one of the many cages filled with feral ghouls.

These are the other contestants. They get exactly one non-generic line of dialogue each. They are the definition of disposible NPC's. They really won't last long, especially if they get surrounded. Theoretically, you could reverse-pickpocket some decent gear onto them, but if they survived, they'll walk out that door and disappear from the game with your stuff altogether.

So don't get too attached to them, is what I'm saying.

Let's give them a bit of backstory.

For future reference, the first guy is Hats and the other one is Stache. Hats is a renowned wasteland explorer, famous for his book called "How To Fight and Not Get Killed By Feral Ghouls." Stache is a mercenary, who has gotten tired of his job and with his large amount of money, decided to go on one last adventure.

So we flip the switch and get the show on the road.

As soon as we flip the switch, the ghouls come out. If you're wondering, if you wear the ghoul mask, the ghouls will not attack you, and they will ignore Hats and Stache instead, for some reason.

Ignore the name that the game gives Hats. That is not his canonical name.

No Reavers, thankfully.

HATS, NO!!!

All that research on fighting ghouls was all for naught, as Hats is instantly mobbed and killed by the ghouls. If he read his own book, he might have realized that letting ghouls mob you is the worst thing that you can do while fighting them. Well, at least Stache is still alive...

The Backwater Rifle proves very useful here.

We shoot a Glowing One off of Stache.

I don't know how exactly the game spawns in the ghouls, but they don't all come in at once.

Damn it, they got Stache too. And he was two days from retirement...

Also, Rip Smithy? What kind of name is that? Stache is much better.

We still can survive through this, we're more than a match for this ghouls!

There's a lot of them though...

They do about 10 damage per hit, so we can pretty much laugh off all of their attacks. Hats and Stache weren't so lucky, however.

I continue to prove myself a hypocrite by using the Microwave Emitter.

They eventually back us into a corner, however. It's time for our last stand.

And the Gatling Laser seems to be an apropo last stand weapon as any.

We cut through pretty much all of the ghouls in one clip of this gun.

We pull out the double barreled shotgun to finish off the remainin ghouls.

And we finish off the last of the ghouls.

Some scenes of carnage. Ghoul bodies litter the cavern. Plik must hate having to clean this up...

The bridge is filled with them.

That hall where we pulled out the Gatling Laser is especially filled with them.

I bet he didn't think we'd be coming out of there.

"Let's commemorate your first safari with a token of our friendship, shall we?"

Unique weapon? That's what I'm talking about.

"The axe was, er, 'misplaced' by one of my other patrons. She won't be needing it anymore, and it's a weapon of gruesome distinction. Enjoy it."

It's pretty much a normal axe, except 5 more damage and with an 80% to make enemy explode into gibs when killed like with the Bloody Mess perk. That's it. It also gives a 5 AP bonus upon killing someone. Big deal. If we kill some in VATS we can replenish our AP to full. It's probably the most pointless of the unique weapons, and that's saying a lot. Not worth 1000 caps by a longshot.

To honor our fallen comrades, Stache and Hats, we shoot Plik in the back of the head. What? He drops a finger, so he must be evil...

We get our caps back, plus 600. If we didn't kill Plik, we could do the safari again, this time for 500 caps each time. Why would you want to do it? I dunno, maybe you like wasting ammo.

We take that mini-nuke off his desk. We also read his journal, that gives us +5 damage to ghouls, which is useful I guess, if ghouls weren't already easy to kill.

He's also got his really small med-kit. It's weird, it's like those half-sized ammo boxes.

There's still more Point Lookout, but I personally think it's all downhill from here. Nothing will top the tragic stories of Stache and Hats...

So, what did you think of this little sidequest? Was the axe worth the thousand caps and variable amount of ammo you wasted on the ghouls?

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

This is a really short, almost insignificant sidequest that I don't think I could fit anywhere else, so here's a mini-update.

[HEADING=1]Mini-Update - The Least Dangerous Game[/HEADING]​

Spoiler

So, aside from "The Velvet Curtain" Point Lookout has a few other sidequests. Two of them are boring, collectiony quests we probably won't do and one requires us to return to the Capital Wasteland, so we'll do that one last. We have one we can easily get to though "Plik's Safari".

We start where we ended last update. The place we want to go is by the Cathedral, however, so we need to fast travel back over there.

The entrance is in the side of the cliff by the Catedral. It's a little distance from the sunken boat we went through to get to the cave to meet Jackson.

Unsurprisngly, it's another cave.

"Registered for what, exactly?"

This is really random. I remember my first time playing through this, I thought Point Lookout was mostly abandoned, save for the people on the Pier. Aside from the triabls in the Catedral, there are about 3 other NPCs, including this guy, that you can talk to.

"Only the finest bit of sport you've ever enjoyed!"

He is a ghoul that holds "Safaris" which basically are fights to death between contestants and feral ghouls. I assume, since he's a ghoul, he can corral the ferals in here without any difficulty. He then has people pay like 1000 caps for the "priviledge" to fight them. So basically, if they win, they don't get anything and he keeps his money, and if they die, he gets to loot their bodies as well. Why anyone would do this is beyond me, we're only doing it for LP purposes.

"Once we review the rules and see to a nominal thousand caps registration fee, of course."

Now you're probably thinking, a thousand caps, that's an awful lot. Well, we have the caps to spare, and we can get them back ourselves. (Unlike Ahzrukal, the caps don't suddenly disappear after you give them to him.)

"Here's 1000 caps. Let's get this show on the road."

"That's the spirit! The other participants are waiting, so just press the button inside to let me know when to begin."

Other contestants? Well, I'm sure since this is a one off, short sidequest that these characters will be extremely well characterized before they die a gruesome death at the hands of a feral ghoul, or something.

So I guess to make up for the really short arena part of The Pitt, there is an even shorter arena sidequest in Point Lookout.

This is the guy's room. Notice the mini-nuke on the table.

We walk through here and into his "arena".

This is one of the many cages filled with feral ghouls.

These are the other contestants. They get exactly one non-generic line of dialogue each. They are the definition of disposible NPC's. They really won't last long, especially if they get surrounded. Theoretically, you could reverse-pickpocket some decent gear onto them, but if they survived, they'll walk out that door and disappear from the game with your stuff altogether.

So don't get too attached to them, is what I'm saying.

Let's give them a bit of backstory.

For future reference, the first guy is Hats and the other one is Stache. Hats is a renowned wasteland explorer, famous for his book called "How To Fight and Not Get Killed By Feral Ghouls." Stache is a mercenary, who has gotten tired of his job and with his large amount of money, decided to go on one last adventure.

So we flip the switch and get the show on the road.

As soon as we flip the switch, the ghouls come out. If you're wondering, if you wear the ghoul mask, the ghouls will not attack you, and they will ignore Hats and Stache instead, for some reason.

Ignore the name that the game gives Hats. That is not his canonical name.

No Reavers, thankfully.

HATS, NO!!!

All that research on fighting ghouls was all for naught, as Hats is instantly mobbed and killed by the ghouls. If he read his own book, he might have realized that letting ghouls mob you is the worst thing that you can do while fighting them. Well, at least Stache is still alive...

The Backwater Rifle proves very useful here.

We shoot a Glowing One off of Stache.

I don't know how exactly the game spawns in the ghouls, but they don't all come in at once.

Damn it, they got Stache too. And he was two days from retirement...

Also, Rip Smithy? What kind of name is that? Stache is much better.

We still can survive through this, we're more than a match for this ghouls!

There's a lot of them though...

They do about 10 damage per hit, so we can pretty much laugh off all of their attacks. Hats and Stache weren't so lucky, however.

I continue to prove myself a hypocrite by using the Microwave Emitter.

They eventually back us into a corner, however. It's time for our last stand.

And the Gatling Laser seems to be an apropo last stand weapon as any.

We cut through pretty much all of the ghouls in one clip of this gun.

We pull out the double barreled shotgun to finish off the remainin ghouls.

And we finish off the last of the ghouls.

Some scenes of carnage. Ghoul bodies litter the cavern. Plik must hate having to clean this up...

The bridge is filled with them.

That hall where we pulled out the Gatling Laser is especially filled with them.

I bet he didn't think we'd be coming out of there.

"Let's commemorate your first safari with a token of our friendship, shall we?"

Unique weapon? That's what I'm talking about.

"The axe was, er, 'misplaced' by one of my other patrons. She won't be needing it anymore, and it's a weapon of gruesome distinction. Enjoy it."

It's pretty much a normal axe, except 5 more damage and with an 80% to make enemy explode into gibs when killed like with the Bloody Mess perk. That's it. It also gives a 5 AP bonus upon killing someone. Big deal. If we kill some in VATS we can replenish our AP to full. It's probably the most pointless of the unique weapons, and that's saying a lot. Not worth 1000 caps by a longshot.

To honor our fallen comrades, Stache and Hats, we shoot Plik in the back of the head. What? He drops a finger, so he must be evil...

We get our caps back, plus 600. If we didn't kill Plik, we could do the safari again, this time for 500 caps each time. Why would you want to do it? I dunno, maybe you like wasting ammo.

We take that mini-nuke off his desk. We also read his journal, that gives us +5 damage to ghouls, which is useful I guess, if ghouls weren't already easy to kill.

He's also got his really small med-kit. It's weird, it's like those half-sized ammo boxes.

There's still more Point Lookout, but I personally think it's all downhill from here. Nothing will top the tragic stories of Stache and Hats...

So, what did you think of this little sidequest? Was the axe worth the thousand caps and variable amount of ammo you wasted on the ghouls?

Stache! Hats!

Spoiler: Noooooo!

;_; They will not be forgotten.

OT: You didn't mention the fact that the perk increases the damage you deal to all enemies, according to the wiki. Per bullet. It's pretty overpowered, in my opinion.

Also, acorrding to the wiki, the guy is evil, so I had no quams about shooting his face in. After I got the sepical item, of course.

 

[Aidinthel]

I didn't bother with that quest. It's a post-apocalyptic wasteland. If I want to shoot a bunch of ghouls I can do that without having to pay some jerk 1000 caps for the privilege.

 

[ChupathingyX]

What did you think of "The Velvet Curtain"?

The Velvet Curtain is probably the best quest in Fallout 3.

What is your favorite quest in Fallout 3?

SNIP

Stache and Hats, no!

Heh, that's funny, the only characters I ever really cared about in this game were characters that you semi-created. You should write for Bethesda, you would put the rest of the writers to shame.

 

[AlternatePFG]

[HEADING=1]Chapter LII - Sightseeing in Point Lookout[/HEADING]​

Spoiler

Last update, we did the biggest of the sidequests in Point Lookout. Today, we'll be visiting some of the more interesting locations in the DLC.

Let's just check out a few places in the Pier.

A better look at the Ferris Wheel, we were here before when helping Desmond. I really wonder why Desmond had us put his device here, when we could have put it on top of the Lighthouse.

There's a whole row of broken down machines in the back of there. Too bad there isn't some sort of skeeball mini-game. (Joking)

This is the shopkeeper on the Pier, Panada. She doesn't have any backstory, aside from this weird fortune teller vibe she gives off. I relaly wonder what she does with her free time out here, as it doesn't seem like she'd get much visitors on the pier.

Bumper cars. A shame we can't use them.

Now, a little bit further off from the Pier, there's this small shack.

The lights are on, and it doesn't seem like there are any enemies around. Let's check inside.

We walk in, and see this guy picking something off the ground.

This is Haley. He is another shopkeeper in Point Lookout, he isn't too far from the shop on the Pier. His location makes sense though.

"Is something wrong?"

"No, no. Not at all! I'm just not used to people all the way out here."

Other than smugglers and occasionally Tobar, not a whole lot of people visit Point Lookout for the obvious reasons. Crazy natvies, tribals, it's haunted, filled with ghouls, etc.

"My usual customers, well. I usually smell 'em before I see 'em."

"Who are your usual customers?"

"The swamp folk, mostly. I guess they don't bother me none because I was born here."

You'd think he'd be trading with the tribals as well. They were only crazy and hostile for a short time because of Calvert, or at least that's what I'm assuming.

"They mostly trade meat and fruit. Never any cash or goods. Them mercs are good for some trade in real hardware, so if'n you need ammo or anything like that, I can help you out."

Let's not tell him we're shooting both of his best customers...

"So, how long have you had this store?"

"Oh, you're thinking... no, no. It's not a family thing. I took the name of the store when I found this place a couple of years ago. Truth is, I don't even remember much before that. Woke up here with a headache a couple years ago with the shop already set up."

I'm not sure if this is implying that Haley was one of Tobar's victims or something else. There's a lot of mystery to Point Lookout, I think it really adds to the atmosphere.

"People came in, and started trading. I didn't complain. It just became a job."

"Where do you get your stock from?"

"I found some of it. Some was here when I got here. I get some from them smugglers. And every once in a while, that weirdo with the boat comes up here and trades a few good things."

He's referring to Tobar. Or Nadine, I guess. The term weirdo is interchangeable between both of them I guess...

Haley has this really easily abusable glitch, for some strange reason, every time you walk in and out of the building, that stats of the clothing he's wearing will permanently increase his repair skill. So return to the shop enough times, and Haley will become the only shopkeeper who can repair all your items to 100%.

After a tiny bit of shopping, we leave Haley's Hardware. We need to head in the direction of the Catedral.

There is this random board over here. Apparently, there is a random encounter in which a smuggler is executed on top of here, but I can never get it to trigger for some reason.

On the cliff below that board, there is an entrance to a mine. Let's check it out.

So the mine is kind of spooky. Upon entering it, you can hear this weird sound... like someone faking a ghost's moan. Huh. Let's see what's further in...

The mine is filled with a ton of skeletons. We will find out why a little bit later.

There's a tripwire here, but we can't disable it. Ah well, let's just walk right through then.

This drops from the ceiling...

Doll heads... Not a very effective trap.

More skeletons.

There are some bear traps in places around the cave.

We get stunned by something.

We get pelted by a couple of baseballs until it starts shooting grenades instead.

Got to admit, these are some creative "traps".

There was a pitching machine that flung all of those grenades at us.

One of the natives steps on a mine, explodes and lands right in front of us.

Now, the way is clear.

This is the entrance to another part of the cave.

We can see a light and little shack on the other side of the room.

This is Kenny. He set all of those traps, to keep out the locals. Kenny is the only major kid NPC in this game, that isn't a complete dick to you, and I kinda like him.

"Cut the crap, kid. That light show isn't scaring anybody."

"No, I mean it, lady. The ghost will melt your brain to mush! You need to get out of here. And fast!"

"Your toys might work on the locals, kid. But not me."

"Yeah well, bullets work on everybody. Try me, lady. I dare you."

He has a BB gun. Unfortunately, since we can't actually hurt him, he could probably kill us with it.

"Settle down. I'm not going to hurt you."

"Well... all right. But any funny business and I'll pop you one. My name's Kenny. And I'm the boss of this mine."

The mine has a bit of backstory, remember all those skeletons we saw on the way in?

"Tell me about this mine, Kenny."

"Old Man Herzog's Mine-hole? Isn't much, but it's home!"

"Tell me about Old Man Herzog."

"He was a mean old man, owned this mine a million years ago. Made the miners work real hard and didn't give them any money or food for their kin."

How does he know this?

"One day a bunch of miners sat down and just stopped working. Old man Herzog, he didn't like that. Not a bit. So, he blew them all up! With a million-million tons of dynamite!"

Seems a bit extreme....

"No one wanted to work in the mine after that."

Huh, I wonder why...

"Then Ol' Herzog came down here and hung himself. They say his angry ghost still haunts the mine. That doesn't scare me, though."

I just assume everything outside is much, much more scary than what is outside.

"Why are you hiding down here?"

"Swamp Folk know Ol'Herzog's Mine-hole. Say it's haunted. So I knew most folk wouldn't wander this way, except outsiders like you. Doesn't usually take more than a clapper-jaw on the leg to scare them off."

"How do you survive in here all alone?"

They actually explain how he has survived down here.

"I go out to play some days and might bag me a shellman to eat. Most days I Just sit here with my stories and toys, though."

We then ask him more about himself.

"Where are your parents?"

"I dunno. I ran way a long time ago. I live here all by myself."

"Why did you run away from home, Kenny?"

"I wasn't born right. Mama hid me in the basement and pappy kinda just forgot about me, but I knew I had to go before I grew up."

Kenny is born from one of the natives of Point Lookout, but without any of the disfiguring mutations.

"What do you mean, you weren't "born right"?

"Look at me, I don't got the marks. I go around the wets and folk will shoot at me! Thinking I was one of your type."

So that's why he hides down here, as the natives will shoot at him as well.

"Where are your parents?"

"I already told you. I ran away. Shut up about it, all right?"

He's pretty evasive about the subject.

"Where'd you learn how to make traps like that?"

"I got bored locked up in the basement all the time. So, I started taking things apart and putting them back together again. Things aren't so strange when you can see all the stuff that you makes them. You know? See something's insides? That's where the real thing is."

"So Kenny, what do you want to be when you grow up?"

Just exhausting all the dialogue options, really. Some of them are pretty random. I like the character though, so...

"I'm grown up enough already. And I'm the only thing I can be - me."

"What's it like living in Point Lookout?"

"The grownups like my mama and pop just live in the wet. They're okay, they just don't trust outsiders like you."

Don't trust? More like shoot on sight...

"Most think I'm an outsider too, because I don't got the markings on me. I tend to stay way from the grownups. Except when they have a campfire. Some nighs I hear them dancing. Then I sneak out to watch."

"This seems like a good hideout. I could use a place to crash and stash my gear."

"Hmm, I dunno, lady. You didn't try to kill me, and you seem pretty nice for a grownup. But still... How do I know I can trust you?"

Now, if we pass a speech check or have the Child at Heart perk, we can use this place as a hideout. If we don't, we have to do a really short sidequest for him. We're going to do it anyway.

"[Speech, 81%] I'm not going to hurt you. I just need a hideout from time to time."

"[SUCCESS] Well... I guess you can stay here when you need to. And you can leave your stuff. I won't mess with it. So, do you like games? Wanna play hide and seek, or tag or something?"

Why not?

We play tag with him for awhile. For the purpose of the LP.

So we have to find Kenny now. There is no close your eyes feature in this game, however.

We find him though. Our turn.

We hide in the dumpster filled with skeletons.

Oh come on. Damn crouch feature.

So Bethesda gave the kid quite a few idle animations. He shoots BB's at this stuff.

He has the Pint-Sized Slasher mask. I could be wrong, but this is the only way to get this outside of Tranquilty Lane, if I remember correctly.

There's still another section of the cave however.

That's kind of a high drop, so let's go around.

There's some Swamplurks in here, they're pretty easy to kill with the Backwater rifle now.

There isn't a whole lot of them though.

The Backwater Rifle is pretty good, it's really good against mirelurks as it does a sizeable amount of damage to them, even without hitting their weak points.

So the story of old man Herzog was actually true. He hung himself down here, with a ton of money and some moonshine.

Further down we fight a mirelurk hunter. The Lever Action rifles are really satisfying to use.

We find this teddy bear down here. We can give this bear to Kenny if we didn't pass the speech check or have the Child at Heart perk. We can still give him the bear anyways, cause we're a nice person at all. This is a dead end now.

This is the bottom of that shaft.

We can give him the teddy bear, despite us already being able to stash our stuff in here.

No reward for doing it, but still, the area is interesting enough.

This is a shortcut into Kenny's hideout. That's it for the area. Let's check out the Lighthouse.

Smugglers show up at the lighthouse right after you complete the main quest of Point Lookout.

Let's check out the top of the lighthouse.

Forgot to mention it in the previous update, but you can also start the Velvet Curtain sidequest by looking at any of these posters.

As you can see, the lighthouse goes quite a ways up. Smugglers shoot at you from above.

They're somewhat difficult to hit manually, VATS makes it easy to hit them however.

There is a smuggler shooting rockets at from above.

We take out the guy with the rocket launcher quickly, even though it doesn't do much damage to us at all.

It's quite a long ways down.

We get to the top, and get to the outside of the lighthouse. You can't see much from it, due to the incredibly dense fog.

There's more smugglers up here too.

This is the light of the lighthouse. Let's try to turn it on.

Unfortunately, it seems like the lightbulb is broken. However, do not fret. There is a way to turn the lighthouse back on. Let's head back towards the Catedral.

The rest of Point Lookout can only be made out vaguely from all the mist up here.

The Catedral is the closest fast travel point we got.

And we randomly get attacked by the tribals outside...

In the inside, the same thing happens. I'm not sure at which point did they become hostile: After killing Calvert, or killing Tobar?

They go down really easy though.

So after that, we go back outside.

Eventually we find what we were looking for: this overturned truck.

We find a ton of shattered lighthouse lightbulbs...

And one in still perfect condition. It's pretty heavy, so we had to drop a sniper rifle (We got like a half a dozen of them back in the Capital Wasteland) to continue on.

So we put the lightbulb in...

And turn it on. Pretty cool, eh? Let's see the effects at night.

A little bit more noticeable.

While it isn't extremely noticeable (It's only shining like that because it's right on us) it's cool that we can do this. It isn't even an unmarked quest, it's just a little thing that you can do.

So, a couple more areas of interest to explore.

So we fast travel back to Great Bog entrance. We get ambushed by like 5 natives, and get killed repeatedly, so I reload the save. The natives can be really difficult to fight, but their PER is so low, you can sneak past them quiet easily. They are somewhat frightening, because in groups they can easily overrun and kill you, but their strength tends to discourage exploration, which is a bad thing for this DLC.

Now, this is another little thing that's completey out of the way and inconsequential, but cool. There's an unmarked location at the most eastern point on the map (So much so it's off the map) where you find a giant, named Yao Guai.

It's named after the bear you see on all the posters in Point Lookout, so it's assumed to be mutated and over 200 years old. It's pretty damn big, but the Microwave Emitter takes it down it two hits. It doesn't drop anything special but I think it's a cool little encounter.

The emitter just tears through all the bullet sponge enemies in this game. If only it wasn't so un-fun to use.

We kill this reaver with one sneak attack from the Microwave Emitter, and one normal headshot in VATS.

So, we're at the next area I wanted to show you guys, but a ghoul reaver is in our way. (This place is absolutely filled with reavers once you get on the higher levels.)

And... It just runs in the complete other direction.

Huh. Well, onto the location.

It's a crashed fighter jet. There are a ton of skeletons littering the area, with some axes on the ground around the crater of the impact area.

You can get the information on the planes blackbox. Apparently, the pilots had to land down here right after the first bombs went off in the Great War. After they landed, they were soon killed by the natives in the area. (Presumably the skeleton with the combat helmet and 10mm pistol is one of the pilots)

Before we can finish exploring the place, the reaver comes back for round 2.

It's on.

He takes a blast from the Microwave Emitter to the face.

And, the ghoul goes down with no trouble.

There is a parachute stuck in the tree, not too far from the plane crash site.

So this is what happened to the other pilot who ejected. They were killed by the natives while hanging from the tree.

It's an interesting little location. Point Lookout does environmental storytelling really well.

So, that's it for some of the locations in Point Lookout. There are a few more, but these are the ones I find the most interesting. We're about ready to return to the Capital Wasteland, but there's one last thing we must do before we leave.

What's your favorite location in Point Lookout?

Also, this: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/10/12/tim-cain-obsidian/

I actually audibly cheered after hearing this.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

[HEADING=1]Chapter LII - Sightseeing in Point Lookout[/HEADING]​

Spoiler

Last update, we did the biggest of the sidequests in Point Lookout. Today, we'll be visiting some of the more interesting locations in the DLC.

Let's just check out a few places in the Pier.

A better look at the Ferris Wheel, we were here before when helping Desmond. I really wonder why Desmond had us put his device here, when we could have put it on top of the Lighthouse.

There's a whole row of broken down machines in the back of there. Too bad there isn't some sort of skeeball mini-game. (Joking)

This is the shopkeeper on the Pier, Panada. She doesn't have any backstory, aside from this weird fortune teller vibe she gives off. I relaly wonder what she does with her free time out here, as it doesn't seem like she'd get much visitors on the pier.

Bumper cars. A shame we can't use them.

Now, a little bit further off from the Pier, there's this small shack.

The lights are on, and it doesn't seem like there are any enemies around. Let's check inside.

We walk in, and see this guy picking something off the ground.

This is Haley. He is another shopkeeper in Point Lookout, he isn't too far from the shop on the Pier. His location makes sense though.

"Is something wrong?"

"No, no. Not at all! I'm just not used to people all the way out here."

Other than smugglers and occasionally Tobar, not a whole lot of people visit Point Lookout for the obvious reasons. Crazy natvies, tribals, it's haunted, filled with ghouls, etc.

"My usual customers, well. I usually smell 'em before I see 'em."

"Who are your usual customers?"

"The swamp folk, mostly. I guess they don't bother me none because I was born here."

You'd think he'd be trading with the tribals as well. They were only crazy and hostile for a short time because of Calvert, or at least that's what I'm assuming.

"They mostly trade meat and fruit. Never any cash or goods. Them mercs are good for some trade in real hardware, so if'n you need ammo or anything like that, I can help you out."

Let's not tell him we're shooting both of his best customers...

"So, how long have you had this store?"

"Oh, you're thinking... no, no. It's not a family thing. I took the name of the store when I found this place a couple of years ago. Truth is, I don't even remember much before that. Woke up here with a headache a couple years ago with the shop already set up."

I'm not sure if this is implying that Haley was one of Tobar's victims or something else. There's a lot of mystery to Point Lookout, I think it really adds to the atmosphere.

"People came in, and started trading. I didn't complain. It just became a job."

"Where do you get your stock from?"

"I found some of it. Some was here when I got here. I get some from them smugglers. And every once in a while, that weirdo with the boat comes up here and trades a few good things."

He's referring to Tobar. Or Nadine, I guess. The term weirdo is interchangeable between both of them I guess...

Haley has this really easily abusable glitch, for some strange reason, every time you walk in and out of the building, that stats of the clothing he's wearing will permanently increase his repair skill. So return to the shop enough times, and Haley will become the only shopkeeper who can repair all your items to 100%.

After a tiny bit of shopping, we leave Haley's Hardware. We need to head in the direction of the Catedral.

There is this random board over here. Apparently, there is a random encounter in which a smuggler is executed on top of here, but I can never get it to trigger for some reason.

On the cliff below that board, there is an entrance to a mine. Let's check it out.

So the mine is kind of spooky. Upon entering it, you can hear this weird sound... like someone faking a ghost's moan. Huh. Let's see what's further in...

The mine is filled with a ton of skeletons. We will find out why a little bit later.

There's a tripwire here, but we can't disable it. Ah well, let's just walk right through then.

This drops from the ceiling...

Doll heads... Not a very effective trap.

More skeletons.

There are some bear traps in places around the cave.

We get stunned by something.

We get pelted by a couple of baseballs until it starts shooting grenades instead.

Got to admit, these are some creative "traps".

There was a pitching machine that flung all of those grenades at us.

One of the natives steps on a mine, explodes and lands right in front of us.

Now, the way is clear.

This is the entrance to another part of the cave.

We can see a light and little shack on the other side of the room.

This is Kenny. He set all of those traps, to keep out the locals. Kenny is the only major kid NPC in this game, that isn't a complete dick to you, and I kinda like him.

"Cut the crap, kid. That light show isn't scaring anybody."

"No, I mean it, lady. The ghost will melt your brain to mush! You need to get out of here. And fast!"

"Your toys might work on the locals, kid. But not me."

"Yeah well, bullets work on everybody. Try me, lady. I dare you."

He has a BB gun. Unfortunately, since we can't actually hurt him, he could probably kill us with it.

"Settle down. I'm not going to hurt you."

"Well... all right. But any funny business and I'll pop you one. My name's Kenny. And I'm the boss of this mine."

The mine has a bit of backstory, remember all those skeletons we saw on the way in?

"Tell me about this mine, Kenny."

"Old Man Herzog's Mine-hole? Isn't much, but it's home!"

"Tell me about Old Man Herzog."

"He was a mean old man, owned this mine a million years ago. Made the miners work real hard and didn't give them any money or food for their kin."

How does he know this?

"One day a bunch of miners sat down and just stopped working. Old man Herzog, he didn't like that. Not a bit. So, he blew them all up! With a million-million tons of dynamite!"

Seems a bit extreme....

"No one wanted to work in the mine after that."

Huh, I wonder why...

"Then Ol' Herzog came down here and hung himself. They say his angry ghost still haunts the mine. That doesn't scare me, though."

I just assume everything outside is much, much more scary than what is outside.

"Why are you hiding down here?"

"Swamp Folk know Ol'Herzog's Mine-hole. Say it's haunted. So I knew most folk wouldn't wander this way, except outsiders like you. Doesn't usually take more than a clapper-jaw on the leg to scare them off."

"How do you survive in here all alone?"

They actually explain how he has survived down here.

"I go out to play some days and might bag me a shellman to eat. Most days I Just sit here with my stories and toys, though."

We then ask him more about himself.

"Where are your parents?"

"I dunno. I ran way a long time ago. I live here all by myself."

"Why did you run away from home, Kenny?"

"I wasn't born right. Mama hid me in the basement and pappy kinda just forgot about me, but I knew I had to go before I grew up."

Kenny is born from one of the natives of Point Lookout, but without any of the disfiguring mutations.

"What do you mean, you weren't "born right"?

"Look at me, I don't got the marks. I go around the wets and folk will shoot at me! Thinking I was one of your type."

So that's why he hides down here, as the natives will shoot at him as well.

"Where are your parents?"

"I already told you. I ran away. Shut up about it, all right?"

He's pretty evasive about the subject.

"Where'd you learn how to make traps like that?"

"I got bored locked up in the basement all the time. So, I started taking things apart and putting them back together again. Things aren't so strange when you can see all the stuff that you makes them. You know? See something's insides? That's where the real thing is."

"So Kenny, what do you want to be when you grow up?"

Just exhausting all the dialogue options, really. Some of them are pretty random. I like the character though, so...

"I'm grown up enough already. And I'm the only thing I can be - me."

"What's it like living in Point Lookout?"

"The grownups like my mama and pop just live in the wet. They're okay, they just don't trust outsiders like you."

Don't trust? More like shoot on sight...

"Most think I'm an outsider too, because I don't got the markings on me. I tend to stay way from the grownups. Except when they have a campfire. Some nighs I hear them dancing. Then I sneak out to watch."

"This seems like a good hideout. I could use a place to crash and stash my gear."

"Hmm, I dunno, lady. You didn't try to kill me, and you seem pretty nice for a grownup. But still... How do I know I can trust you?"

Now, if we pass a speech check or have the Child at Heart perk, we can use this place as a hideout. If we don't, we have to do a really short sidequest for him. We're going to do it anyway.

"[Speech, 81%] I'm not going to hurt you. I just need a hideout from time to time."

"[SUCCESS] Well... I guess you can stay here when you need to. And you can leave your stuff. I won't mess with it. So, do you like games? Wanna play hide and seek, or tag or something?"

Why not?

We play tag with him for awhile. For the purpose of the LP.

So we have to find Kenny now. There is no close your eyes feature in this game, however.

We find him though. Our turn.

We hide in the dumpster filled with skeletons.

Oh come on. Damn crouch feature.

So Bethesda gave the kid quite a few idle animations. He shoots BB's at this stuff.

He has the Pint-Sized Slasher mask. I could be wrong, but this is the only way to get this outside of Tranquilty Lane, if I remember correctly.

There's still another section of the cave however.

That's kind of a high drop, so let's go around.

There's some Swamplurks in here, they're pretty easy to kill with the Backwater rifle now.

There isn't a whole lot of them though.

The Backwater Rifle is pretty good, it's really good against mirelurks as it does a sizeable amount of damage to them, even without hitting their weak points.

So the story of old man Herzog was actually true. He hung himself down here, with a ton of money and some moonshine.

Further down we fight a mirelurk hunter. The Lever Action rifles are really satisfying to use.

We find this teddy bear down here. We can give this bear to Kenny if we didn't pass the speech check or have the Child at Heart perk. We can still give him the bear anyways, cause we're a nice person at all. This is a dead end now.

This is the bottom of that shaft.

We can give him the teddy bear, despite us already being able to stash our stuff in here.

No reward for doing it, but still, the area is interesting enough.

This is a shortcut into Kenny's hideout. That's it for the area. Let's check out the Lighthouse.

Smugglers show up at the lighthouse right after you complete the main quest of Point Lookout.

Let's check out the top of the lighthouse.

Forgot to mention it in the previous update, but you can also start the Velvet Curtain sidequest by looking at any of these posters.

As you can see, the lighthouse goes quite a ways up. Smugglers shoot at you from above.

They're somewhat difficult to hit manually, VATS makes it easy to hit them however.

There is a smuggler shooting rockets at from above.

We take out the guy with the rocket launcher quickly, even though it doesn't do much damage to us at all.

It's quite a long ways down.

We get to the top, and get to the outside of the lighthouse. You can't see much from it, due to the incredibly dense fog.

There's more smugglers up here too.

This is the light of the lighthouse. Let's try to turn it on.

Unfortunately, it seems like the lightbulb is broken. However, do not fret. There is a way to turn the lighthouse back on. Let's head back towards the Catedral.

The rest of Point Lookout can only be made out vaguely from all the mist up here.

The Catedral is the closest fast travel point we got.

And we randomly get attacked by the tribals outside...

In the inside, the same thing happens. I'm not sure at which point did they become hostile: After killing Calvert, or killing Tobar?

They go down really easy though.

So after that, we go back outside.

Eventually we find what we were looking for: this overturned truck.

We find a ton of shattered lighthouse lightbulbs...

And one in still perfect condition. It's pretty heavy, so we had to drop a sniper rifle (We got like a half a dozen of them back in the Capital Wasteland) to continue on.

So we put the lightbulb in...

And turn it on. Pretty cool, eh? Let's see the effects at night.

A little bit more noticeable.

While it isn't extremely noticeable (It's only shining like that because it's right on us) it's cool that we can do this. It isn't even an unmarked quest, it's just a little thing that you can do.

So, a couple more areas of interest to explore.

So we fast travel back to Great Bog entrance. We get ambushed by like 5 natives, and get killed repeatedly, so I reload the save. The natives can be really difficult to fight, but their PER is so low, you can sneak past them quiet easily. They are somewhat frightening, because in groups they can easily overrun and kill you, but their strength tends to discourage exploration, which is a bad thing for this DLC.

Now, this is another little thing that's completey out of the way and inconsequential, but cool. There's an unmarked location at the most eastern point on the map (So much so it's off the map) where you find a giant, named Yao Guai.

It's named after the bear you see on all the posters in Point Lookout, so it's assumed to be mutated and over 200 years old. It's pretty damn big, but the Microwave Emitter takes it down it two hits. It doesn't drop anything special but I think it's a cool little encounter.

The emitter just tears through all the bullet sponge enemies in this game. If only it wasn't so un-fun to use.

We kill this reaver with one sneak attack from the Microwave Emitter, and one normal headshot in VATS.

So, we're at the next area I wanted to show you guys, but a ghoul reaver is in our way. (This place is absolutely filled with reavers once you get on the higher levels.)

And... It just runs in the complete other direction.

Huh. Well, onto the location.

It's a crashed fighter jet. There are a ton of skeletons littering the area, with some axes on the ground around the crater of the impact area.

You can get the information on the planes blackbox. Apparently, the pilots had to land down here right after the first bombs went off in the Great War. After they landed, they were soon killed by the natives in the area. (Presumably the skeleton with the combat helmet and 10mm pistol is one of the pilots)

Before we can finish exploring the place, the reaver comes back for round 2.

It's on.

He takes a blast from the Microwave Emitter to the face.

And, the ghoul goes down with no trouble.

There is a parachute stuck in the tree, not too far from the plane crash site.

So this is what happened to the other pilot who ejected. They were killed by the natives while hanging from the tree.

It's an interesting little location. Point Lookout does environmental storytelling really well.

So, that's it for some of the locations in Point Lookout. There are a few more, but these are the ones I find the most interesting. We're about ready to return to the Capital Wasteland, but there's one last thing we must do before we leave.

What's your favorite location in Point Lookout?

Also, this: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/10/12/tim-cain-obsidian/

I actually audibly cheered after hearing this.

I didn't really look around point lookout as much as you did, I guess.

My favorite bit was the Lighthouse. I didn't know you could do that

Oh, and we've just one more thing to do here? Looking forward to it!

 

[ChupathingyX]

Also, this: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/10/12/tim-cain-obsidian/

I actually audibly cheered after hearing this.

Wait, Tim Cain is now with Obsidian?

Okay Bethesda, now you have to ley Obsidian make another Fallout game.

Seriously, one of, if not the, founding fathers of Fallout working alongside the other people at Obsidian on a Fallout game = *faints*

 

[AlternatePFG]

[HEADING=1]Chapter LIII - The Secret of the Krivbeknih[/HEADING]​

Spoiler

So, we're pretty much done with Point Lookout. While there are still more areas to explore, we've pretty much checked out some of the more interesting content in the area. We have on last, non-collection sidequest to do, "The Dark Heart of Blackhall".

Sounds ominous.

So our closest fast travel location is the Homestead Motel. We're not going straight towards the questgiver, as I forgot that the particular NPC we need to talk to later in the quest doesn't actually give you the quest when you talk to her at first. You will see soon enough.

On the shoreline, there's a group of like four tents in the middle of nowhere. All of them are abandoned, except for one.

We now have over 200 stimpaks.

"Pleased to meet you, Marcella."

Marcella is another one of the few non-hostile NPC's in Point Lookout.

"Thee feeling is mutual, child. I'd enjoy sharing my belief in the Faith, if you'll listen."

Marcella is actaully a missionary. The game really doesn't explain really much about from where she's from or what is she doing here, you can point out that she sounds like she's from another crazy cult, but the game made a point of quoting the Bible an awful lot in the main plot. It's kinda silly, really.

"What do you think of Point Lookout?"

"I'm relatively new here myself, but I'll share what I can."

"What do you think of the locals?"

"Hostile, in a word. I try to observe, but the swampfolk are dangerously aggressive to any outsiders. Lucky for us, they tend to keep to the swamp."

They do, but then remember that Point Lookout is mostly swamp. The only really safe area from them is the Pier.

"What do you make of all the bones and dolls on sticks around here?"

"Swampfolk fetishes or totems. They probably mark territorial lines, or maybe are involved with rituals of some kind. I've read about a lot of primitive beliefs that use similar symbols. Vodou magic, Santeria, Obeah. Fascinating, if somewhat disturbing."

Not much about the swampfolk is really reliably explained by the game.

"Though the underlying beliefs seem quite dark, I'm not sure they're anything more than an empty set of traditions to the swampfolk."

"Did you set this campsite up?"

"Sort of - the tents were collapsed when I found them. I was able to put them back together. This one smells the least like a wet Brahmin."

So, why did she put up all the tents if she only needed one?

"I restored a terminal in one of the other tents. From what it would seem these tents were originally put here before the War by medical workers."

"You said you're not from around here?"

"Right, I'm from the Abbey of the Road. I'm afraid its location is secret, however."

"I want to know about your beliefs."

"Would you like me to recite some scripture, or did you just want to know more about the Faith?"

"My mother had a favorite passage from the Bible. Revelation 21:6 - recognize it?"

"Of course! "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely." So lovely. Selflessness like that is a rare commodity these days. I can see why that particular passage inspired her."

"What exactly is your mission?"

"We try to improve the state of the Wasteland by doing good where we can and by spreading the word of the Bible. We also recover and restore religious relics that we can find, but that's a secondary goal."

"How did you become a missionary?"

"I was raised at the Abbey of the Road where I was educted until I could receive my Rites of Mission. That's when I first left the Abbey."

I forgot that talking to hear doesn't start the sidequest, but she has some interesting bits of side information anyway. The lore in Point Lookout is much more focused and sensible than that of the Capital Wasteland.

She does have some info on some of the stuff in the upcoming sidequest. Since we don't know anything yet, see this as a bit of foreshadowing.

We can see Blackhall Manor in the distance from the camp. Like I said, the Calvert Mansion wasn't the only mansion in Point Lookout. There are pretty much no other homes in sight, unless you count some of the rubble near the Homestead Motel.

The entrance to this house just screams welcoming, doesn't it?

Though you think it would be, the house isn't abandoned. There is someone living here.

I'm surprised the old man in the wheelchair and hooked up to an oxygen tank is surviving out here alone.

"[Charisma] I was just admiring the architecture. I didn't mean any offense."

You know what this game really needed? An architect skill. I demand to know why Charisma is labelled under this response, instead of making an entirely new skill just to suit it.

"You're in Blackhall Manor. This isn't a tourist attraction, but I appreciate your good taste. Come, let's talk. Good, good. People should be able to sit and have a conversation, especially in times like these. Civil discourse; the greatest of our lost arts. Wouldn't you agree?"

"I couldn't agree more."

There aren't any other responses except for agreeing with him or making a generic, I just shoot things response.

"I'm glad you think so. Conversation is but one of the virtues that separates us from certins like those swampfolk."

I'm getting a Tenpenny vibe from this guy.

"Swampfolk who, I should mention, absconded with a book, a precious family heirloom. I wanted to ask you, friend; will you get it back?"

The game wastes no time giving you the quest hook.

"Okay, I'll get your book."

"Good. The fools who stole it believe it has powers, so the thing is probably well-guarded. There's a ritual site east of the boardwalk, in the basement of a ruined house. I think you'll find it there. Bring it back to me, and be paid."

Find this guys book and bring it back to him? Seems rather mundane so far.

"Tell me about Blackhall Manor."

"I don't suppose there's any harm indulging you. What interests you?"

"How old is this place?"

"Hundreds of years, and still standing strong. You're within a fine example of Victorian architecture, my friend.

Well, let's get to finding that book.

Marcella is back, with something important to tell us.

"He has, as a matter of fact.

"I thought as much. Listen to me very carefully, child. You mustn't bring it to him. The book is known as the Krivbeknih, and it's a thing of evil purpose."

So, apparently the Krivbeknih is like the Fallout 3 equivalent to the Necronomicon. So now we're not just talking about magical radiation, but also supernatural crap?

"Krivbeknih? What are you on about?"

"Yes, the Krivbeknih. The Blackhall family has a long, evil history with the book. It was lost to them long ago, but it's found a way back to Point Lookout, and Obadiah seeks to reclaim it."

"If I recover the book, I'll consider bringing it to you."

"I ask no more. You can find me at my tent on the beach, south of Blackhall. God bless your path, child."

We were already there, so it should be an easy trip.

So, let's continue heading towards the book's location, that we somehow magically know.

Of course, the book is protected by a ton of natives. Like always, they are extremely annoying to fight.

We can see the house in the distance, of course the natives aren't going to make it easy for us to get there.

This is the entrance to their hideout. Let's go inside. There will probably be a ton of them waiting for us inside, but that's alright.

This seems like no ordinary bombed out house to me. The ruins seem much, much older.

The whole place is surprisingly devoid of natives. Obviously, this must be some sort of trap.

At this point, it's obvious that this book is as important as Marcella let on. The natives have set up an altar around it.

The whole area was pretty damn creepy as it is.

So this is the Krivbeknih. As you can see, it's sitting a pool of blood, alongside a skeleton. Lovely.

And, it turns out, it was a trap. Natives are scripted to come down towards you after you pick up the book. You can mine the hallway down, and just kill them all right away, but I don't usually keep mines on me.

I turn on a stealth boy, in hopes that the sneak crits will take care of these guys before they become a nuisance.

Of course, the Bruiser has so much health, that a good sneak crit won't take it down anyway.

Fighting more than one of these guys is like pulling teeth. Potentially, we could have been fighting five at once, and coupled with their high DR and bullshit damage increase, they can very easily kill and overwhelm you.

We backpedal back down to the altar area, to get a better shot at the enemies.

Now let's get out of here and get the book back to Marcella-

Oh. There are a few smugglers outside her tent that attack us as soon as we fast travel in. It doesn't take long to take care of them.

We level up during the fight as well.

More points in Big Guns and Barter mostly.

Nerves of Steel, because why not?

The smugglers killed Marcella while we were away...

Marcella is kind enough to leave a tape of her last instructions for us [http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Marcella's_last_words].

We have to go back to the Capital Wasteland and bring the book back to the Dunwich Building, but first, there's one last loose end we need to tie up.

Yeah, we're not letting Obadiah live after that.

Nah, we have a better idea.

"I haven't decided what I'm going to do with it yet."

"Surely you're not considering giving it Marcella? Come now, the woman can't rub two caps together. Give it to me and be paid."

We already have plenty of caps.

"Marcella's dead, actually. I figured you had something to do with that."

"Can't say that I did, but that's all the more reason you should give the book to me."

How bout no.

Alternatively, we could have sold Obadiah the book, got the reward and then shot him.

So now we're back at the docks, getting ready to return to the Capital Wasteland. We will not be returning to Point Lookout, so let me just sum up pretty much everything I think about the DLC: It's really good. It's the best Fallout 3 DLC by a mile, and in my opinion, much better than a majority of the actual game. Most of the locations are actually interesting, and while it doesn't exactly have a Fallout feel, it does unique things with the series, and the best part is that none of the aspects of the series were shoehorned in here without any regard for it's own setting.

Only complaint is really just about the bullshit enemies.

This is a poster of the bear that we fought last update, in case I missed it earlier.

So we use the cot to get back to the Capital Wasteland.

And now we're back in the dreary, old Capital Wasteland. *sigh*

Well, at least the ratio of Reavers is much lower.

Nadine's mother gives us a nice reward for helping Nadine.

We fast travel to Girdershade, it's the closest point to the Dunwich Building.

We get attacked by the Outcasts, for some reason. We normally aren't hostile towards the regular Outcasts, but at some point in the game, they just shoot at you on sight. I believe it has to do with Broken Steel, but I'm not quite sure.

What's funny is that their power armor doesn't hold up to two shots from the Backwater Rifle. It's just funny after fighting the natives, that these guys are just so much weaker. I guess the mutations gave the natives adamantium skin or something.

Well, so much for being peaceful with the Outcasts...

It's okay though, because they're evil, apparently.

It don't know if you can see it with all the brown across the screen, but there is a deathclaw near that campground down there.

And, the deathclaw goes down faster than the natives as well, and it probably does less damage. 

The building is practically in the middle of nowhere. It's pretty forboding, even from far away.

And now we get to fight an Albino Radscorpion. You've seen all the new enemy variants that Broken Steel has added now. Like the others, it has a shitton of health and defense, and generally is just a pain in the ass to fight.

The Microwave Emitter doesn't work well against it, and I spend a good amount of time trying to take it down. I just really don't like these Broken Steel enemies, to be honest. Fighting them is just tedious.

So now, we're here. This is the Dunwich Building, apparently the most haunted place in the wasteland. And we're going to have to make our way through the entire building, just to destroy this book.

Well, it could be worse. It's not like there will be a half dozen ghoul Reavers in there like in Point Lookout?

...

Right?

Overall, what did you think of the Point Lookout DLC?

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

Overall, what did you think of the Point Lookout DLC?

Again, using the Busy Street [http://thebusystreet.com/2011/08/01/the-best-rating-scale-is-invented/] scale, I would give Point lookout a 3 to a 3.5.

And considering I've given the other DLCs negative numbers, that's good.

I just killed things quickly there, so I didn't notice the overpowered enemies. Plus, I killed a good number of them with sniping.

Not much in the way of the main quest though. That was a little to brief

 

[ChupathingyX]

Overall, what did you think of the Point Lookout DLC?

Definitely the best DLC of Fallout 3, better than the majority of the vanilla game. Maybe even good enough that I can forgive Bethesda for Mothership Zeta....probably not.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

Overall, what did you think of the Point Lookout DLC?

Definitely the best DLC of Fallout 3, better than the majority of the vanilla game. Maybe even good enough that I can forgive Bethesda for Mothership Zeta....probably not.

I never played Mothership Zeta. Is it really that bad?

 

[Aidinthel]

I never played Mothership Zeta. Is it really that bad?

It's boring. And it messes with Fallout canon pretty hard, too.

 

[AlternatePFG]

[HEADING=1]Chapter LIV - Obligatory Survial Horror Section[/HEADING]​

Spoiler

So, last update we made it to the entrance of the Dunwich Building, a building that is apparently cursed. We have to bring this evil book we acquired in Point Lookout, and destroy it here. Easier said than done, of course.

The Dunwich Building is pretty damn creepy. It'd be scarier if the ghouls were any sort of threat (Reavers nonwithstanding. They're only annoying because they have so much health) but it still manages to be a really atmospheric and interesting location.

The whole building is one prolonged Lovecraft reference, the building's namesake is "The Dunwich Horror".

Notice the skeleton on the ground. This building is filled with them.

[/center[

It's obvious some of the people in the building were trying to fight something off. But what?

The building is falling apart, many hallways are blocked off.

The ghouls go down in like one hit.

The building is pretty damn dark, but this is one of the lighter areas.

We use the shotgun here, most of the ghouls can't survive more than one blast, except for...

Except for the Reavers. There are a ton of Reavers in this fucking building, and we waste a ton of ammo trying to take them down.

This is the only reason we're keeping the Microwave Emitter around. It's decaying pretty quickly, and we don't have anything really to repair it with, I don't think you can repair it with the Mesmetron, and even if we could, I don't think I would.

There are some holotapes scattered around the whole building by a scavenger named Jaime. [http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Jaime's_personal_journal]

This door opens up by it's as you walk by. It doesn't seem scary, but with all of the atmosphere building up, it works.

We encounter another ghoul reaver. Yup.There's even more of them coming up.

We activate one of the rigged computer terminals as the reaver runs towards us.

I love the Blackhawk, but .44 ammo is somewhat harder to find than other ammo.

Now we're further into the building. It's much darker here, having the Pip-Boy light on is almost a necessity.

This might have been a little more disturbing if there weren't severed heads and gore littering common raider hideouts.

There's another holotape here.

He's referring to the ghouls in the building.

The are many supernatural things going on this building. Not only with the doors magically opening and such, but as you progress further in the building, if you listen to closely, you can hear ominous chanting in the background.

For a second, there is a flashback. This is supposed to be this building 200 years ago, but it already looks extremely decayed.

I guess in comparison, it's decent.

In place of that man we saw, is a glowing one.

There's another holotape, and a computer terminal here.

All of them except for Entry 8 are in this room. [http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Dunwich_Building_terminal_entries]

The people who hid out in this building after the Great War turned into ghouls.

Another Reaver.

The Gatling Laser makes short work of that particular one.

This particular computer holds Entry 8. This guy is a scavenger who locked himself in here after he was attacked by the ghouls. He thinks a friend would come back to save him with ammo and supplies, but that skeleton we see right at the entrance of the building, with the two ammunition boxes, is presumably him.

We also find Jaime's 8th personal entry. He found his Dad, who had turned into a ghoul, and found a book by him. Presumably, this was the Krivbeknih, but then how did it get all the way to Point Lookout?

Now we're at the deepest area of the building.

The condition of the building is the worst in this area. The giant hole in the ceiling is apparently supposed to lead outside?

This is Jaime's final holotape. Now it's obvious that Jaime has gone insane. You'd think that skeleton right there would be him, but it's not.

You have to go down through all of the broken floors to get to the bottom of this area.

Eventually we go even further down into the building. The strange voices are becoming even more obvious.

That staircase is a shortcut to back to the entrance, but we're not going there yet.

Now we're down in a cave. I can't quite comprehend the building's layout.

So, this is the big payoff. The craziest cult of them all. There are a ton of ghouls (Including one reaver) worshipping this obelisk down here. We're going to need to press the book against the obelisk to destroy it.

This is what happened to Jaime. Unlike the other feral ghouls, he actually has a gun. Killing him gives you good karma, is assume it's a mercy kill?

We get mobbed by like 5 ghouls down here. It would be really easy to fight them, but the Reaver just makes the battle extremely annoying. I use the strategy of saving some of the weaker ghouls so that I can easily kill them for AP later.

Once the reaver goes down, the rest of the fight is pretty easy.

Let's destroy this goddamn book and get the hell out of here.

The whole room is set ablaze by us destroying Krivbeknih. The quest is completed right after.

The Dunwich Building is interesting, there's actual supernatural things behind what's going on here, rather than magical radiation. I don't think it's really that scary, because the ghouls are just so easy to fight, but it certainly is an atmospheric and interesting location. What's even more interesting, before Point Lookout, your only reason to come is for the Melee Weapons Bobblehead and that's it. It only became significant after Point Lookout.

We can drop down from here from the starting point.

So, that's it for the Dunwich Building, and by extension, Point Lookout. So, what's next?

Mothership Zeta...

Oh.​

So, what did you think of the Dunwich Building and the sidequest for it?​