I know you're not a "fan" really. I just enjoy pointing out how you decimated me in a debate we had over that issue. (No, really. You trounced me. No two ways about it)
That's why I like these LP threads. It's a great way to make friends and have conversations about fun stuff. Like the morality of men who dress up as Romans and run around the wasteland enslaving ALL the people.
For an Obsidian game, the Legion is pretty clear-cut evil. What makes them interesting is that there is some merit to their method despite its evil-ness. They bring security to those who ally with them (unless you're a woman or a soldier). And in a world like Fallout's, I'm not so certain that a lot of people wouldn't forsake their morals for such security.
Even in my Legion playthrough, I played it as a guy who was more wanting that security than as one who identified with the Legion's views. Caesar became a better character to me in that run of the game, but still damn evil.
The first time I encountered the legion, though? Killed them. I was a higher level than the game intended because I sequence broke the game by going straight to New Vegas after Primm (though I backtracked to Goodspring and then made the pretty straight run to New Vegas from there. I mentioned this earlier in this thread, though). It was still pretty tough because I'm not a hoarder. I sell everything. So I had no dynamite, no mines, no grenades, nothing explosive. Just Driver Nephi's golf driver.
The Legion really just exploits the evil that already exists in the wasteland. There are already plenty of horrible raiders and slavers around but everything they do is for selfish and destructive purposes, and they accomplish nothing in the end. The Legion simply redirects all that for the purpose of building an empire that will eventually outgrow such cruelties.
Another update mostly comprised of travelling between areas. This should become less common once we reach New Vegas since the quest areas are usually more self contained.
We do get a couple major things accomplished this update though.
[HEADING=1]Rescue Mission (Kinda)[/HEADING]
We're following that bit of information that Boxcars gave us earlier. We're going to try to save those people captured by the Legion, even if there are only a few of them.
...What? It's for a sidequest and that's where we're going anyways.
First things first, there is another Drive-In to the south of Nipton. This one is a little bit different though... Hmm...
What's that on the movie screen? Mysterious...
We have to walk through Nipton now to get to where we need to go. All the people on the crosses died because of a couple of asshole Bark Scorpions came in here and stabbed them all in the junk. No joke.
Nipton is in between California and Nevada, so not all of the game's map takes place entirely in Nevada. Notice how the California area is (somewhat) safer than the Nevada one though.
This pass through here is where you get ambushed by some Jackals. Normally, I'd climb the mountain and attack them from up there but we'll be taking the route most people would take.
We're already gathering quite a collection of star bottle caps. People just leave them lying around everywhere.
What happened to all of my 5.56 ammo? I suppose using the Varmint Rifle earlier kind of ate it all up.
The jackals attack you from both sides, and it can get kind of irritating, but they're terrible shots anyways, so most of their attacks miss.
They're guns are pretty weak anyway, so none of it is getting past our DT.
Moving on...
We are heading in the direction of Novac for the main quest, but we're still going after those prisoners. We will at least have a fast travel point close to Novac.
Oh look, Legion soldiers waiting on the side of the road. Wonder what they're doing here...
Are you kidding me?
They're fucking Powder Gangers. I guess the final irony of the Legion's punishment was that the only survivors were some of the Powder Gangers. Well, I plan on fixing that.
When you shoot these guys, the Legion guards don't get angry. They say "Fair kill" and let you go on your merry way. I do like this little sidequest, even if I'm not entirely sure that the irony of the Powder Gangers being the sole survivors was intentional.
Welp, back to the Mojave Outpost.
Those Legion soldiers we saw hanging by the road ambush the merchants.
Normally, I would attack and kill them but I want to stay neutral to the Legion at the moment. I do realize that you essentially get a reset of reputation with them when you get to New Vegas, but I'm not sure exactly what we'll be doing before then, so staying neutral to them will be staying on the side of safety.
Back at the Mojave Outpost...
Yeah, she is not going to be pleased with the news we give her.
"Nipton was attacked by the Legion."
"Legion this far West? You're fucking kidding me. That's not outside the border, they're moving in - and fast. Nipton wasn't the most friendly town, but... All right - thanks for checking on that, wish it set my mind at ease, now I'm more on edge than ever."
"Did you have friends there?"
"In Nipton? Hell no. Town was a shithole, asking to be burned. Just not by Legion. Nobody deserves that."
This game already more than fills its quota on hives of scum and villany with New Vegas.
"Well, thanks for hoofing it there and back, even if it was bad news. Wish we could spare the troops to go hunting, but... orders are to stay put."
Another example of the NCR being completely ineffectual.
"Fucking Mojave's going to hell, and all I can do is sit here and watch."
"Legion's attacked Nipton, burned and killed everyone."
This sidequest is kind of ridiculous if you aren't a Legion character. You just randomly walk up to this guy and blurt "THE LEGION BURNED DOWN NIPTON!" in his face.
Not very polite, and as you will soon see, he doesn't take it very well.
"What? There's no way... we're miles from the Colorado. They... they aren't even waiting for the Dam to fall. They're already inside the borders... we'll never stop them, not at this rate. We're doomed. Thanks for bringing the word - even if the news is bad, I'll let the men know."
There's no "Cheer up, things will get better" option to cancel out the dickishness factor here.
At least give us a "Yeah, you're fucked." option.
Back at Primm. Why you ask? Well, we just got enough repair to fix that robot with a skill magazine.
They still haven't cleaned up the body over here. Hrm, maybe I could help with that.
Done.
So apparently getting 65 repair just magically gives you the power to fix this thing, without any parts or anything. Not that I'm complaining or anything.
One quick fade to black and...
We got ourselves a floating death machine, ED-E.
ED-E doesn't talk or really communicate with us (Well until we get to his sidequest and Lonesome Road later, but shhhh) and he counts as a pet companion, a role which he shares with a companion we will get later. Don't let the pet title fool you though, the thing can do a ton of damage.
Companions also give you neat little passive perks. These perks usually get upgraded through doing their particular sidequests. In general, companions are much, much more involved in this game than any previous Fallout game. They aren't just faceless mercs for you to hire like in Skyrim, they have their own personalities and detailed backstories. (Even the pet ones, though ED-E didn't get his moment to shine until Lonesome Road) I wouldn't say companion interaction is quite on the level of some of the better BioWare titles, but they're some of my favorite companions in any RPG. (Especially the Dead Money ones, but again, more on that later)
If I remember correctly, ED-E doesn't have the top two functions in the vanilla game, you get those if you have Lonesome Road.
A better visual on ED-E. Yes, it's the same Eyebot that was in the E3 trailer. Hell, Lonesome Road made it canon.
So now we're back by the Legion Camp we found those Powder Gangers at.
Random mole rat encounter #37
ED-E just blasts them all with it's lasers. ED-E plays a little western tune before going into combat, it's quite cool.
We're back near that area that the second route in the shortcut update left us off.
There are a lot of Jackals wielding grenade launchers all of the sudden. This isn't the only time this will happen this update either.
ED-E already killed the other Jackal that was attacking. Companions make this already extremely easy game even easier.
Ow. There are like three Jackals with grenade launchers here. I don't have a clue why either.
I really thought I was going to die here, but somehow I survived to access my inventory. Of course, once you're in your inventory, healing up is a free action, so you can heal all of the damage pretty much instantly.
7 health left too.
We almost died there. What a novel experience.
Let's follow the tracks to Novac.
There is a Ranger Outpost here. We will be checking back here shorty for a quick sidequest.
Oh yeah, forgot about the Companion Wheel. The companion wheel is something new that was added to New Vegas, to make using companions quicker and easier.
You can have your companions switch between melee and ranged attacks. ED-E currently has a Electic Zap thing for melee, and a his mini-Gatling laser for ranged.
You can give your companions items to carry, they're good for off-loading junk on.
You can tell them to either stay close to you or keep their distance. It's good if you want someone to attack from a range.
You can tell companions to back up or move forward, but I've honestly never used this function much before.
This initiates a conversation with them, obviously.
You can tell them to wait for you, which is an obviously useful function.
You can heal your companions with stimpaks. Not sure that would be very effective on a robot.
You can switch your companions from passive to aggressive.
That pretty much sums up the Companion Wheel. Nifty little thing, but I never got much use out of it because there never were many situations where I had to use any other function than "Wait here".
See that big dinosaur in the distance? We're heading towards that.
This is Novac. I'm not going to explore it at all this update, but I will grab the next quest hook to start off the next update.
Let's walk into the dinosaur.
...
That's something I never thought I'd say today.
"Welcome to Nova-"
NO TIME, HAVE TO TALK TO QUEST GIVER
"I'm Manny. I'm on security detail here. You see a rifle barrel sticking out of the dinosaur's mouth, you got a fifty-fifty shot it's me. Otherwise, it's Boone."
They're kind of hard to see from far away. I suppose that's the point in retrospect.
"I'm looking for a man in a checkered coat."
"Sure, I know him. What do you want with him?"
While at first you'd think "How many checker coated people could there be in the post-apocalypse?" you will be extremely surprised once we get to the Tops.
"I have a score to settle."
"Doesn't surprise me. Guy seemed like he'd do whatever it takes to get what he wants. Probably makes a lot of enemies. Well listen, I can definitely help you find him, but I've got problems of my own."
Of course you do. It'd be a nice change of pace if someone just gave you something for once.
"Maybe we can do a trade. You need my help. There's something I need, too."
"What do you need?"
"Novac, it's home for me now. I want that to be for good. I like it here, and I've left too many homes behind. But the only resource we got here is junk."
Junk is a lot more valuable than you'd think it is, apparently.
"Without that, people wouldn't have anything to trade. They'd all have to leave. We get most of it up the road from the old rocket test site. But a bunch of ghouls showed up one day and took it over. We can't get in there now."
Huh, we haven't fought any ghouls yet this playthrough. If this was Fallout 3, we would have liked dozens of them by now.
"What needs to be done?"
"Well they gotta go, or this'll be a ghost town before long. Doesn't matter to me what you do. As long as the ghouls are out of there, that's good enough for me."
"Okay, I'll see what can be done about it."
"It'd mean a lot to me."
I'm sure that counts for a lot.
Do you like the Companion Wheel? Did you get much use out of it?
Another update mostly comprised of travelling between areas. This should become less common once we reach New Vegas since the quest areas are usually more self contained.
We do get a couple major things accomplished this update though.
[HEADING=1]Rescue Mission (Kinda)[/HEADING]
We're following that bit of information that Boxcars gave us earlier. We're going to try to save those people captured by the Legion, even if there are only a few of them.
...What? It's for a sidequest and that's where we're going anyways.
First things first, there is another Drive-In to the south of Nipton. This one is a little bit different though... Hmm...
What's that on the movie screen? Mysterious...
We have to walk through Nipton now to get to where we need to go. All the people on the crosses died because of a couple of asshole Bark Scorpions came in here and stabbed them all in the junk. No joke.
Nipton is in between California and Nevada, so not all of the game's map takes place entirely in Nevada. Notice how the California area is (somewhat) safer than the Nevada one though.
This pass through here is where you get ambushed by some Jackals. Normally, I'd climb the mountain and attack them from up there but we'll be taking the route most people would take.
We're already gathering quite a collection of star bottle caps. People just leave them lying around everywhere.
What happened to all of my 5.56 ammo? I suppose using the Varmint Rifle earlier kind of ate it all up.
The jackals attack you from both sides, and it can get kind of irritating, but they're terrible shots anyways, so most of their attacks miss.
They're guns are pretty weak anyway, so none of it is getting past our DT.
Moving on...
We are heading in the direction of Novac for the main quest, but we're still going after those prisoners. We will at least have a fast travel point close to Novac.
Oh look, Legion soldiers waiting on the side of the road. Wonder what they're doing here...
Are you kidding me?
They're fucking Powder Gangers. I guess the final irony of the Legion's punishment was that the only survivors were some of the Powder Gangers. Well, I plan on fixing that.
When you shoot these guys, the Legion guards don't get angry. They say "Fair kill" and let you go on your merry way. I do like this little sidequest, even if I'm not entirely sure that the irony of the Powder Gangers being the sole survivors was intentional.
Welp, back to the Mojave Outpost.
Those Legion soldiers we saw hanging by the road ambush the merchants.
Normally, I would attack and kill them but I want to stay neutral to the Legion at the moment. I do realize that you essentially get a reset of reputation with them when you get to New Vegas, but I'm not sure exactly what we'll be doing before then, so staying neutral to them will be staying on the side of safety.
Back at the Mojave Outpost...
Yeah, she is not going to be pleased with the news we give her.
"Nipton was attacked by the Legion."
"Legion this far West? You're fucking kidding me. That's not outside the border, they're moving in - and fast. Nipton wasn't the most friendly town, but... All right - thanks for checking on that, wish it set my mind at ease, now I'm more on edge than ever."
"Did you have friends there?"
"In Nipton? Hell no. Town was a shithole, asking to be burned. Just not by Legion. Nobody deserves that."
This game already more than fills its quota on hives of scum and villany with New Vegas.
"Well, thanks for hoofing it there and back, even if it was bad news. Wish we could spare the troops to go hunting, but... orders are to stay put."
Another example of the NCR being completely ineffectual.
"Fucking Mojave's going to hell, and all I can do is sit here and watch."
"Legion's attacked Nipton, burned and killed everyone."
This sidequest is kind of ridiculous if you aren't a Legion character. You just randomly walk up to this guy and blurt "THE LEGION BURNED DOWN NIPTON!" in his face.
Not very polite, and as you will soon see, he doesn't take it very well.
"What? There's no way... we're miles from the Colorado. They... they aren't even waiting for the Dam to fall. They're already inside the borders... we'll never stop them, not at this rate. We're doomed. Thanks for bringing the word - even if the news is bad, I'll let the men know."
There's no "Cheer up, things will get better" option to cancel out the dickishness factor here.
At least give us a "Yeah, you're fucked." option.
Back at Primm. Why you ask? Well, we just got enough repair to fix that robot with a skill magazine.
They still haven't cleaned up the body over here. Hrm, maybe I could help with that.
Done.
So apparently getting 65 repair just magically gives you the power to fix this thing, without any parts or anything. Not that I'm complaining or anything.
One quick fade to black and...
We got ourselves a floating death machine, ED-E.
ED-E doesn't talk or really communicate with us (Well until we get to his sidequest and Lonesome Road later, but shhhh) and he counts as a pet companion, a role which he shares with a companion we will get later. Don't let the pet title fool you though, the thing can do a ton of damage.
Companions also give you neat little passive perks. These perks usually get upgraded through doing their particular sidequests. In general, companions are much, much more involved in this game than any previous Fallout game. They aren't just faceless mercs for you to hire like in Skyrim, they have their own personalities and detailed backstories. (Even the pet ones, though ED-E didn't get his moment to shine until Lonesome Road) I wouldn't say companion interaction is quite on the level of some of the better BioWare titles, but they're some of my favorite companions in any RPG. (Especially the Dead Money ones, but again, more on that later)
If I remember correctly, ED-E doesn't have the top two functions in the vanilla game, you get those if you have Lonesome Road.
A better visual on ED-E. Yes, it's the same Eyebot that was in the E3 trailer. Hell, Lonesome Road made it canon.
So now we're back by the Legion Camp we found those Powder Gangers at.
Random mole rat encounter #37
ED-E just blasts them all with it's lasers. ED-E plays a little western tune before going into combat, it's quite cool.
We're back near that area that the second route in the shortcut update left us off.
There are a lot of Jackals wielding grenade launchers all of the sudden. This isn't the only time this will happen this update either.
ED-E already killed the other Jackal that was attacking. Companions make this already extremely easy game even easier.
Ow. There are like three Jackals with grenade launchers here. I don't have a clue why either.
I really thought I was going to die here, but somehow I survived to access my inventory. Of course, once you're in your inventory, healing up is a free action, so you can heal all of the damage pretty much instantly.
7 health left too.
We almost died there. What a novel experience.
Let's follow the tracks to Novac.
There is a Ranger Outpost here. We will be checking back here shorty for a quick sidequest.
Oh yeah, forgot about the Companion Wheel. The companion wheel is something new that was added to New Vegas, to make using companions quicker and easier.
You can have your companions switch between melee and ranged attacks. ED-E currently has a Electic Zap thing for melee, and a his mini-Gatling laser for ranged.
You can give your companions items to carry, they're good for off-loading junk on.
You can tell them to either stay close to you or keep their distance. It's good if you want someone to attack from a range.
You can tell companions to back up or move forward, but I've honestly never used this function much before.
This initiates a conversation with them, obviously.
You can tell them to wait for you, which is an obviously useful function.
You can heal your companions with stimpaks. Not sure that would be very effective on a robot.
You can switch your companions from passive to aggressive.
That pretty much sums up the Companion Wheel. Nifty little thing, but I never got much use out of it because there never were many situations where I had to use any other function than "Wait here".
See that big dinosaur in the distance? We're heading towards that.
This is Novac. I'm not going to explore it at all this update, but I will grab the next quest hook to start off the next update.
Let's walk into the dinosaur.
...
That's something I never thought I'd say today.
"Welcome to Nova-"
NO TIME, HAVE TO TALK TO QUEST GIVER
"I'm Manny. I'm on security detail here. You see a rifle barrel sticking out of the dinosaur's mouth, you got a fifty-fifty shot it's me. Otherwise, it's Boone."
They're kind of hard to see from far away. I suppose that's the point in retrospect.
"I'm looking for a man in a checkered coat."
"Sure, I know him. What do you want with him?"
While at first you'd think "How many checker coated people could there be in the post-apocalypse?" you will be extremely surprised once we get to the Tops.
"I have a score to settle."
"Doesn't surprise me. Guy seemed like he'd do whatever it takes to get what he wants. Probably makes a lot of enemies. Well listen, I can definitely help you find him, but I've got problems of my own."
Of course you do. It'd be a nice change of pace if someone just gave you something for once.
"Maybe we can do a trade. You need my help. There's something I need, too."
"What do you need?"
"Novac, it's home for me now. I want that to be for good. I like it here, and I've left too many homes behind. But the only resource we got here is junk."
Junk is a lot more valuable than you'd think it is, apparently.
"Without that, people wouldn't have anything to trade. They'd all have to leave. We get most of it up the road from the old rocket test site. But a bunch of ghouls showed up one day and took it over. We can't get in there now."
Huh, we haven't fought any ghouls yet this playthrough. If this was Fallout 3, we would have liked dozens of them by now.
"What needs to be done?"
"Well they gotta go, or this'll be a ghost town before long. Doesn't matter to me what you do. As long as the ghouls are out of there, that's good enough for me."
"Okay, I'll see what can be done about it."
"It'd mean a lot to me."
I'm sure that counts for a lot.
Do you like the Companion Wheel? Did you get much use out of it?
I wish you said something along the lines of "Open the door get on the floor everybody walk into the dinosuar" when entering the gift shop.
As for the companion wheel, I personalty love it. The wheel makes dealing with companions so much faster.
I always had a companion with me so I used the wheel quite a lot considering I'm a bit of a hoarder.
Also, I'm going to assume you don't really intend on doing much with Boone in this playthrough? Considering you just completed a quest that can raise his approval.
I loved that part in Lonesome Road where the E3 trailer became canon, that was hilarious.
We'll pretty much getting all companions this playthrough and going through their respective sidequests. As for how much I use each of them, I dunno, haven't decided yet. My personal favorite companion in this game was probably Veronica. (If we aren't counting DLC of course, Dean Domino from Dead Money was my favorite of any in the whole game)
Edit: Completely forgot about Arcade Gannon. He was probably my favorite companion in the main game at least, though there wasn't a single one that I didn't really like.
[HEADING=1]Slightly Less Suicidal Shortcuts[/HEADING]
So, let's say you were speed running the game or something, and wanted to get to New Vegas as fast as possible. How would you go about doing it, with all of the Deathclaws around you and such? Well, there are two good routes to take if you really want to get there and they are the least crazy.
Before we start, I do want to point out that the Cazadore route back from the Suicidal Route update is actually quite possible to get through. If you get past that swarm, you are mostly home free. It's still quite the walk to New Vegas, but you'll definitely get there faster.
So we start out in front of Hiden Valley, a location slightly NE of the Powder Ganger Prison. Yes, you can get to this area an hour into the game.
Hidden Valley will have way more significance later in the game, right now it's little more than a collection of seemingly abandoned bunkers.
Oh look, a Bark Scorpion. They're weak and not much of an issue, but they're kind of like bees. Sure, one bee is just a nuisance, but get a whole swarm of them pissed off and you'll be in for a world of hurt.
There are a lot of scorpions up ahead, we going into an area called Scorpion Gulch, so at least the name is accurate.
I used dynamite on the scorpion. Why?
We have like 30 sticks of it, we have to get rid of them somehow.
That's a Giant Radscorpion. That means it's time to run like hell.
Cue Benny Hill music.
More scorpions down in that pit right there, we have to go through it believe it or not.
More on the left as well.
Oh shit. We can take about 3 or 4 hits from them before dying.
You don't want to fight them at all, stopping at any point in here is a bad idea, they will just swarm you.
Oh, a walkway. It should be safe up there.
Huh. This is a strange place for a grave. I wonder what is behind us?
Shit, keep running.
Once you keep going, you're let out right near HELIOS One. That means you're close to Novac, so you can pretty skip the whole Primm/Nipton nonsense in one go. If you're going to take a shortcut, this is the one to take.
So, what if we took a left at Scorpion Gulch instead of going straight?
Lots of angry giant radscorpions are still chasing us.
So we wound up at Black Mountain. This is one of the bad routes I showed you before, the place is filled with Super Mutants who will kill you extremely quickly.
Not only do we have to deal with the scorpions, but we have to deal with Evolved Centaurs. You remember Centaurs right, those really weird and annoying tentacle monsters that follow super mutants around everywhere. Well, now they come in bigger and nastier forms.
There is a heavily irradiated crater that is filled with more Centaurs, including a unique one by the name of Moe. Why is it named Moe? I have no idea.
Alright, a gate. Gates always lead to nice places, right?
Fuck, we're back in Super Mutant central. Erm, let's turn around now.
So now we're by the satellite towers.
Awesome another gate, let's check-
Actually, that's not a good idea at all.
Fuck it.
So, moral of the story is, don't go left at Scorpion Gulch.
Now here is the second much more dangerous route, if you can believe that. It's meant to be a shortcut, but is still very difficult to get through.
We have to follow the train track, but we come across all these Bighorners. You don't want to piss them off in big groups like this, they'll just charge you over and over.
This is where the traintracks lead. We don't keep following them, as they head south, but we take a left up a steep hill here.
We are already detected despite no monster in sight. Hmmm...
OH FUCK
"STOP SHOOTING ME, I JUST WANT TO GIVE YOU A HUG"
I don't know why it's called a blind deathclaw, it seems to be able to spot us from a mile away. In fact, they have a higher perception than normal deathclaws. What the fuck?
Might be a reference to the Deathclaw's weakness from Fallout 1, being shot in the eyes.
Of course, you can't aim for the eyes in these new fangled Fallouts. Nor the groin. A shame, really.
Let's try a different approach.
NOPE (We got killed after that, forgot to get a screen shot of it)
Fuck, even sneaking past it doesn't work. Just run. RUN
Haha, you can't get me down here Deathclaw!
Huh, wonder what's in here...
I stood by the door for about a minute in case the Deathclaw decided to come in.
We take a nap to heal up.
What's that, I can't see it due to the withdrawl effect-
HOLY FUCK THE DEATHCLAW IS IN THE HOUSE
(When capturing these screenshots, I actually screamed when I woke up to have the Deathclaw staring right at me. I swear, I'm not easily scared by games at all, but I was totally not expecting that. 300 or so hours of playtime, and nothing like that has happened before.)
We can still make it!
Great, now there are jackals shooting at us too.
(We died. Again.)
Reloaded an autosave, and this time, the Deathclaw didn't come charging out of the house.
Alright, these guys should be cake.
Alright, so we're just outside of Novac, so this shortcut didn't take us quite as far as the Scorpion Gulch one did. So, here is my recommendation:
Just take the long way around to Vegas. You get more XP, money and rewards for doing so anyways.
So, has anything in this game geniunely scared you? Either something purposefully in the game or some sort of random suprise or bizarre glitch?
This sidequest is completely based on dialogue, so lots of text, not so many pictures.
[HEADING=1]The Dinosaur Did It[/HEADING]
So before we go to REPCONN to check out that ghoul problem, let's explore Novac a bit more. There really isn't much of interest though, I complained about Fallout 3's towns not making any sense, but at least they were worth exploring. (I'm mostly referring to the main towns like Rivet City and Megaton)
This is a view of the town from the East, most people will probably see it first from the direction we took however.
It's called Novac because by the motel there is a No Vacancy sign, but part of the vacancy is removed and it forms the word Novac. I dunno, it's like how Arefu was just a faded careful sign in Fallout 3.
There's also this gas station over here.
Nothing much of an interest other than a lot of junk and a workbench/reloading bench.
Also a bunch of motel rooms, a good chunk of them are simply boarded up. You think they would renovate this place a bit, but apparently they don't get visitors too often.
This is the collection of shacks where everyone else lives. Just like in every single other town in this game.
And keep going north and you'll hit HELIOS One and a junkyard. That's it. Not much else to say about this town really, no casinos or anything else, it's quite boring. Except for the dinosaur of course. That's neat.
So, it's night time now. Let's go talk to that other sniper currently sitting in the dinosaur-
What the fuck are you doing here?
Small world. Well, small game world at any rate.
"What are you doing in Novac?"
"Don't rightly know - I just got the notion to make my way to New Vegas. Reckon I'll find out when I get there."
I think he just followed the rather large trail of murder we left in our path.
"So what's the story with this place?"
Not really sure what's to get. Motel. Giant dinosaur store. Lot's of junk. Not much else to say.
"Novac? Nice enough to place I suppose... but between you and me - when I rolled into town my skin started to itch. Watch yourself!"
Wait, he doesn't have skin...
Oh god, the robot is going to go crazy and kill everyone. We should probably leave before he does.
Or at least hang around to watch.
"It's nice to see a friendly face out here."
"Likewise, friend - likewise. Is there anything old Vic can do you for?"
"I could use a bed and some supplies."
"Well, this ain't New Vegas, but I reckon you can find what you need here. Try the office out front."
"You said the men that jumped me were heading this way, right?"
"No, don't believe I did, but you might ask around- the Novac folk usually see anyone traveling this way."
We did chat with Manny about it, and he will give us information once we help him out with his problem.
"Goodbye."
Well, that was random. This will not be the last we see of Victor outside of Vegas.
Back to the dinosaur!
The shopkeeper isn't here right now. Good...
Good to know!
Unlocking the door that he stands next to leads to this room. It's filled to the brim with all these toy rockets, but you'd be mistaken if you thought that was the only thing in here. On the shelf on the right, is a gun called That Gun.
It's a pistol that uses 5.56mm ammo. It's pretty much just the.223 pistol from Fallout 1 and 2. According to the wiki [http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/That_Gun#Behind_the_scenes], by extension, it's also based off of the gun that the protagonist of the movie Blade Runner uses.
There is also a non-unique version that you can buy with the Gun Runner's Arsenal DLC called the 5.56mm pistol. It's slightly weaker, but it's cheaper and easier to find. You can also use them to repair That Gun if you need to.
This is Boone. He is the other sniper, he is up here during the night while Manny is here during the day.
In hindsight, not really sure why we're up here in the first place.
"Expecting visitors?"
"Yeah. I guess maybe I am. But not like you. Huh. Maybe it should've been you I was expecting all along."
How extremely cryptic. Anyway, I should be going now-
"Why are you here?"
"[Speech 41] If you're looking for someone in particular, I could tip you off if I see them."
This is another speech check that seems rather odd and out of place. It's not like it has any effect on the conversation anyway, and why 41 speech?
"[SUCCEEDED] Yeah, well, you see anybody wearing Legion crimson or a lot of sports equipment, you just let me know."
Fun fact - A normal Legion trooper's armor is mostly composed of sports equipment. Before you start saying "Well, AlternatePFG that was obvious and I saw it right away" I'd like to point out that it took me three playthroughs before I finally realized it.
And that's just because someone pointed it out to me.
"You still haven't answered my question."
"I just wanted to check out the view."
Yup... More desert.
"I think you'd better leave."
"Just making friendly conversation."
"I don't have friends here."
"Well, I'm not from here."
"No. No you're not, are you? Maybe you shouldn't go. Not just yet."
Oh great, here we go. Quest hook.
"So now you want something from me."
"I need someone I can trust. You're a stranger. That's a start."
"You only trust strangers?"
"I said it was a start. This town... nobody looks me straight in the eye anymore."
"What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to find something out for me. I don't know if there's anything to find, but I need someone to try. My wife was taken from our home by Legion slavers one night while I was on watch. They knew when to come and what route to take, and they only took Carla. Someone set it up, I don't know who."
"You're trying to track down your wife?"
Last time we tried to track down someone captured by the Legion, that didn't end so well. Though admittedly, we were the ones who killed them...
"My wife's dead, I want the son of a ***** who sold her."
"How do you know your wife is dead?"
"I know, all right? And that's all you need to know."
Sounds shady.
"What do I do if I find this person?"
"Bring him out in front of the nest here while I'm on duty. I work nights."
You can talk to Boone during the day in his room, while Manny is out in the dinosaur.
"I'll give you my NCR beret to put on. It'll be our signal, so I know you're standing with him. And I'll take care of the rest. I need to do this myself."
Random stranger walks into town, a couple hours later a random citizen is found dead out in front of the dinosaur where he was hanging out. Nah, not suspicious at all.
"I'll see what I can do to help you out."
"Good. I'll make it worth your while."
By that he means 100 caps. Not really worth it, honestly.
"And one more thing. We shouldn't speak again. Not until it's over. No one in town knows that I know what happened to my wife. Best they never know. Or the Legion will be after me next."
Well, we should get to that then.
There is also a tent nearby with a doctor and a table with some food. Again, not much to note except that this is probably the only other doctor than Doc Mitchell you'll meet before you get to New Vegas.
So now it's time to chat with every NPC in the town asking them about any information pertaining to Boone's wife.
It's more fun than it sounds. I do think this is a rather interesting sidequest, there are a few different outcomes to it. It's also nice that on repeat playthroughs that you can get through this sidequest pretty much instantly.
Very rarely do NPC's comment if you just walk right into their house in the middle of the night and start talking to them.
"What can you tell me about Boone's wife?"
Many NPC's in Novac get new dialogue options once you start this quest, but not all of them do. For example, the doctor lady who we saw walking into Novac and the guy who runs the dino shop have no comments on it.
"How should I put it? I guess you could say she was kind like a cactus flower. Real pretty to look at, but there was just no getting close to her. She never did take to living here. She liked the big lights and fast living of New Vegas."
There really aren't that many lights in New Vegas. It would have to get awfully repetitive visiting the same 3 casinos over and over again.
"I got the feeling she was trying to get Boone to leave with her, but I guess she got tired of waiting."
"What's wrong with Boone?"
As if we couldn't tell right away.
"Nothing that wouldn't be wrong with any man who loses a wife, I suppose. Poor dear. I know he thinks she was kidnapped, but I'm not so sure she didn't just run off on her own. You could tell she was thinking about it ever since they arrived."
Hrm, so not much of interest. Let's chat about something else.
"I'd like to rent a room."
After all, we need to a place to store all the crap we've accumulated so far. There is a lot of it.
"Well, I think that's a fine idea. I'll give you a good flat rate, and you can stay as long as you like. Least till the busy season comes. Sound good?"
"Here's 100 caps."
All we really want the room for is a storage space. It isn't the nicest house in the game, but it's probably the easiest to access by far.
"Your room will be the one upstairs, closest to the lobby site. Here's your key. Let me know if there's anything I can do to make your stay better for you."
Welp, let's go check out that room.
It's first on the second floor. Windows are boarded up, so I can't really attest to how nice it is, but it's pretty much just par for the course in Fallout games.
This is the motel room. It's better than nothing I suppose?
Time to play Guess that Motel Room Stain!
Looks like blood to me.
We should probably head back to Goodsprings to get all that Courier's Stash stuff we left there, but we can do that later.
Manny knows Boone, maybe he will have some insight on what's going on.
"Who's Boone?"
Yes, we know who Boone is obviously, but this is the only way to get the dialogue regarding Boone's quest to appear.
"Boone's a sniper, same as me. Used to spot for him when we were enlisted with the NCR. After we got out, I talked him into settling down here. So, here were are."
Wonder how he convinced him. "The town has a giant dinosaur building. Come on, is that not awesome?"
"I'd introduce you, but uh... we're not so friendly right now."
"Why are you on bad terms with Boone?"
"Me and his wife, we didn't see eye-to-eye on some things. We had some pretty big arguements. One day she turns up missing, and he hasn't said a word to me since."
Hmm, suspicious.
"What did you and Boone's wife argue about?"
"Man, you name it. See, I grew up in North Vegas. Me and my cousins. We were some bad seeds. Got in with a gang. I loved it. Then something happened, and I couldn't handle it anymore. So, I enlisted. Earned my future. Brought down my best friend to share that future with me. And here was this woman who was too good for it, trying to take him away. So yeah. I didn't see eye-to-eye with the *****."
"Did you have anything to do with Boone's wife disappearance?"
"Believe me. When I heard the news, my first thought was, I owe somebody. Big. I figured Boone would come around after awhile. But he hasn't. And I'm starting to think that if he doesn't find her that things will never go back to the way they were."
"Who would want to hurt Boone's wife?"
"Man, everybody. That girl didn't have one friend in this whole town. She didn't want any."
Okay, sure she may have been a really unpleasant person, but enough to call out a hit on?
"She wanted to sit in her room all day and make herself miserable. And she went out of her way to be rude. She upset a lot of people. You wouldn't have liked her, either."
Well, so much for any more information about what actually happened. It does seem like Manny could definitely possibly be a suspect, but let's not jump to conclusions though.
"So you were in a gang? Were they tough?"
"Were they tough? I was in the Khans, man. It doesn't get any badder."
We haven't met the Khans yet (Well we kind of have, but we haven't had any meaningful interaction with them aside from being shot by them) but I find it kind of funny comparing Fallout 3's raiders with the ones in New Vegas. In Fallout 3, they're just a bunch of chaotic evil nutjobs killing and eating people at random. Didn't have much of a purpose in the game's story other than to be generic human enemies to fight on the road.
The Khans and another gang we have yet to encounter are actually important to the game's world and story.
One more person to chat with. Believe it or not, he actually gives you useful information involving this quest. If didn't talk to him first or already know about the important piece of evidence, you might have chosen Manny as the culprit.
The fuck?
YES
I was waiting a long time for this conversation.
"I don't mean any harm."
"We'll just see about that. You come any closer and I'm liable to stick you with my stickin' knife. Ol' Sticky's feeling mighty orney this day."
"We can talk from this distance."
"You sure, now? It's kinda hard to hear you."
<Glare at No-Bark>
"Okay, okay. Just speak up a little. But not so much that They hear you. They got people everywhere, always listening."
"Why do they call you No-Bark?"
"'Cause they know I ain't just barking here. What I say's got bite, 'cause it's the truth."
Did we just step into Fallout 2?
"Them quack doctors can say what they want about all the radscorpion stings that done pierced my skull. I know what I seen."
"What's been going on in town?"
"There's been things of a disturbing nature going on at the McBride Corral. Seems every night one of their herd meets a most unnatural death, and always there's holes all over the body. Work of the chupacabra, the livestock vampire, says No-Bark, but they don't pay no mind. Too many holes, they say, and there's bullets in them. Well, says No-Bark, we got a chupacabra with an automatic weapon. And that's when they get real quiet, 'cause now they see the predicament we're in."
"Is anything interesting happening in the area?"
Well, aside from the invisible gun toting chupacabra obviously.
"Folks'll tell you that they seen ghouls up near the rocket factory. Sensationlist hooey, cooked up by superstitious yokels seeing phantoms of their own imagining."
"Who do you think is actually at the factory?"
"Ghosts. Commie ghosts what don't know they're dead. Hoping to steal our rockets so they can fly up and paint the moon pink and draw a Lenin face on it. I seen one of them disappear and reappear before my very eyes. Although being a scientist, I have to admit I might've just blinked for longer than usual, what with the shock of seeing a commie ghost and so forth."
"What else do you know about the deaths at the corral?"
I know this has no relevance to the Boone plot, but this is just too entertaining to stop.
"I come face to face with the chupacabra himself one night whilst I was investigating whether this gecko was hiding his treasure from me. He was the meanest, ugliest chupacabra you could imagine. Had two heads, and fangs down to the ground. Best I could tell, anyways, since when he come up to me he was invisible. Had himself a blunderbuss what would rotate and shoot bullets real fast out of a backpack. Never seen nothing like it. Walked right past me having an argument with somebody. But I only saw the one chupacabra, so I guess the other fella had to be invisible too. Only more invisible than the other one."
Okay, let's get back on track here...
"What do you know about the abduction of Boone's wife?"
"Seen it all. Seen shadowy folk come to his room and leave again in the middle of the night. Thought one might've gone in the lobby, too, for a spell. Could be that person went in to get something. Or use the john maybe. Mighty interesting either way, you ask me. I thought it was cannibals, come to eat us all for sure, so I kept out of sight. But now I know better."
"Who was it?"
"Molerat men, come up from the Underneath to steal young women with promises of riches and fancy mud mansions with all the latest designer appliances. They covet our ladyfolk's long hair for wigs, it's said, being either bald or balding themselves."
Well, that was actually more helpful than talking to Manny. Let's check out the motel lobby.
More dinosaurs...
Here we go, a bill of sale. This is what it says:
We, the representatives of the Consul Officiorum, have this day bargained and purchased from Jeannie May Crawford of the township of Novac the exclusive rights to ownership and sale of the slave Carla Boone for the sum of one thousand bottle caps, and those of her unborn child for the sum of five hundred bottle caps, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged. We warrant the slave and her young to be sound, healthy, and slaves for life. We covenant with the said, Jeannie May Crawford, that we have full power to bargain and sell said slave and her offspring. Payment of an additional five hundred bottle caps will be due pending successful maturation of the fetus, the claim to which shall be guaranteed by possession of this document. M. Scribonius Libo Drusus et al.
Administrators of M. Licinius Crassus, Consul Officiorum ab Famulatus
So Jeannie May was the one who did it, not Manny like you would think. Now all we have to do is get her to go out in front of the dinosaur.
So you just randomly ask them to come with you to the dinosaur and they do.
A lot of times this quest just glitches out and the person doesn't walk towards the dinosaur. Then it's a pain in the ass to use console commands to get them to warp out in front of the dinosaur. Obsidian fixed it in later patches, and now they walk extremely quickly to the dinosaur.
You equip Boone's hat, and he just shoots her right on the spot.
"I found the bill of sale."
"I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It'd be like them to keep paperwork. Here. This is all I can give. I think our dealings are done here."
100 caps? Oh, thanks. That should pay the rent.
"What will you do after this?"
"I don't know. I won't be staying, I know that. Don't see much point in anything right now, except hunting legionaries. Maybe I'll wander, like you."
The quota for wandering protagonists is full, unfortunately.
"Come with me. Let's go after the Legion."
"You don't want to do that."
Why not?
"[Intelligence 6] I thought snipers worked in teams."
Though right now we're not much of a sniper.
"Hnh. Yeah. Working on your own, you're a lot less effective. I've been there and paid for it. But this isn't gonna end well."
Story of my life.
Though you can't see it over the mountains, the next area we're heading to is REPCONN. We have to check out the area and see what is going on with the ghouls to help Manny, and by extension get our next clue to where Benny is.
Did you do this quest correctly the first time? Also, what did you think of No-Bark?
This sidequest is completely based on dialogue, so lots of text, not so many pictures.
[HEADING=1]The Dinosaur Did It[/HEADING]
So before we go to REPCONN to check out that ghoul problem, let's explore Novac a bit more. There really isn't much of interest though, I complained about Fallout 3's towns not making any sense, but at least they were worth exploring. (I'm mostly referring to the main towns like Rivet City and Megaton)
This is a view of the town from the East, most people will probably see it first from the direction we took however.
It's called Novac because by the motel there is a No Vacancy sign, but part of the vacancy is removed and it forms the word Novac. I dunno, it's like how Arefu was just a faded careful sign in Fallout 3.
There's also this gas station over here.
Nothing much of an interest other than a lot of junk and a workbench/reloading bench.
Also a bunch of motel rooms, a good chunk of them are simply boarded up. You think they would renovate this place a bit, but apparently they don't get visitors too often.
This is the collection of shacks where everyone else lives. Just like in every single other town in this game.
And keep going north and you'll hit HELIOS One and a junkyard. That's it. Not much else to say about this town really, no casinos or anything else, it's quite boring. Except for the dinosaur of course. That's neat.
So, it's night time now. Let's go talk to that other sniper currently sitting in the dinosaur-
What the fuck are you doing here?
Small world. Well, small game world at any rate.
"What are you doing in Novac?"
"Don't rightly know - I just got the notion to make my way to New Vegas. Reckon I'll find out when I get there."
I think he just followed the rather large trail of murder we left in our path.
"So what's the story with this place?"
Not really sure what's to get. Motel. Giant dinosaur store. Lot's of junk. Not much else to say.
"Novac? Nice enough to place I suppose... but between you and me - when I rolled into town my skin started to itch. Watch yourself!"
Wait, he doesn't have skin...
Oh god, the robot is going to go crazy and kill everyone. We should probably leave before he does.
Or at least hang around to watch.
"It's nice to see a friendly face out here."
"Likewise, friend - likewise. Is there anything old Vic can do you for?"
"I could use a bed and some supplies."
"Well, this ain't New Vegas, but I reckon you can find what you need here. Try the office out front."
"You said the men that jumped me were heading this way, right?"
"No, don't believe I did, but you might ask around- the Novac folk usually see anyone traveling this way."
We did chat with Manny about it, and he will give us information once we help him out with his problem.
"Goodbye."
Well, that was random. This will not be the last we see of Victor outside of Vegas.
Back to the dinosaur!
The shopkeeper isn't here right now. Good...
Good to know!
Unlocking the door that he stands next to leads to this room. It's filled to the brim with all these toy rockets, but you'd be mistaken if you thought that was the only thing in here. On the shelf on the right, is a gun called That Gun.
It's a pistol that uses 5.56mm ammo. It's pretty much just the.223 pistol from Fallout 1 and 2. According to the wiki [http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/That_Gun#Behind_the_scenes], by extension, it's also based off of the gun that the protagonist of the movie Blade Runner uses.
There is also a non-unique version that you can buy with the Gun Runner's Arsenal DLC called the 5.56mm pistol. It's slightly weaker, but it's cheaper and easier to find. You can also use them to repair That Gun if you need to.
This is Boone. He is the other sniper, he is up here during the night while Manny is here during the day.
In hindsight, not really sure why we're up here in the first place.
"Expecting visitors?"
"Yeah. I guess maybe I am. But not like you. Huh. Maybe it should've been you I was expecting all along."
How extremely cryptic. Anyway, I should be going now-
"Why are you here?"
"[Speech 41] If you're looking for someone in particular, I could tip you off if I see them."
This is another speech check that seems rather odd and out of place. It's not like it has any effect on the conversation anyway, and why 41 speech?
"[SUCCEEDED] Yeah, well, you see anybody wearing Legion crimson or a lot of sports equipment, you just let me know."
Fun fact - A normal Legion trooper's armor is mostly composed of sports equipment. Before you start saying "Well, AlternatePFG that was obvious and I saw it right away" I'd like to point out that it took me three playthroughs before I finally realized it.
And that's just because someone pointed it out to me.
"You still haven't answered my question."
"I just wanted to check out the view."
Yup... More desert.
"I think you'd better leave."
"Just making friendly conversation."
"I don't have friends here."
"Well, I'm not from here."
"No. No you're not, are you? Maybe you shouldn't go. Not just yet."
Oh great, here we go. Quest hook.
"So now you want something from me."
"I need someone I can trust. You're a stranger. That's a start."
"You only trust strangers?"
"I said it was a start. This town... nobody looks me straight in the eye anymore."
"What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to find something out for me. I don't know if there's anything to find, but I need someone to try. My wife was taken from our home by Legion slavers one night while I was on watch. They knew when to come and what route to take, and they only took Carla. Someone set it up, I don't know who."
"You're trying to track down your wife?"
Last time we tried to track down someone captured by the Legion, that didn't end so well. Though admittedly, we were the ones who killed them...
"My wife's dead, I want the son of a ***** who sold her."
"How do you know your wife is dead?"
"I know, all right? And that's all you need to know."
Sounds shady.
"What do I do if I find this person?"
"Bring him out in front of the nest here while I'm on duty. I work nights."
You can talk to Boone during the day in his room, while Manny is out in the dinosaur.
"I'll give you my NCR beret to put on. It'll be our signal, so I know you're standing with him. And I'll take care of the rest. I need to do this myself."
Random stranger walks into town, a couple hours later a random citizen is found dead out in front of the dinosaur where he was hanging out. Nah, not suspicious at all.
"I'll see what I can do to help you out."
"Good. I'll make it worth your while."
By that he means 100 caps. Not really worth it, honestly.
"And one more thing. We shouldn't speak again. Not until it's over. No one in town knows that I know what happened to my wife. Best they never know. Or the Legion will be after me next."
Well, we should get to that then.
There is also a tent nearby with a doctor and a table with some food. Again, not much to note except that this is probably the only other doctor than Doc Mitchell you'll meet before you get to New Vegas.
So now it's time to chat with every NPC in the town asking them about any information pertaining to Boone's wife.
It's more fun than it sounds. I do think this is a rather interesting sidequest, there are a few different outcomes to it. It's also nice that on repeat playthroughs that you can get through this sidequest pretty much instantly.
Very rarely do NPC's comment if you just walk right into their house in the middle of the night and start talking to them.
"What can you tell me about Boone's wife?"
Many NPC's in Novac get new dialogue options once you start this quest, but not all of them do. For example, the doctor lady who we saw walking into Novac and the guy who runs the dino shop have no comments on it.
"How should I put it? I guess you could say she was kind like a cactus flower. Real pretty to look at, but there was just no getting close to her. She never did take to living here. She liked the big lights and fast living of New Vegas."
There really aren't that many lights in New Vegas. It would have to get awfully repetitive visiting the same 3 casinos over and over again.
"I got the feeling she was trying to get Boone to leave with her, but I guess she got tired of waiting."
"What's wrong with Boone?"
As if we couldn't tell right away.
"Nothing that wouldn't be wrong with any man who loses a wife, I suppose. Poor dear. I know he thinks she was kidnapped, but I'm not so sure she didn't just run off on her own. You could tell she was thinking about it ever since they arrived."
Hrm, so not much of interest. Let's chat about something else.
"I'd like to rent a room."
After all, we need to a place to store all the crap we've accumulated so far. There is a lot of it.
"Well, I think that's a fine idea. I'll give you a good flat rate, and you can stay as long as you like. Least till the busy season comes. Sound good?"
"Here's 100 caps."
All we really want the room for is a storage space. It isn't the nicest house in the game, but it's probably the easiest to access by far.
"Your room will be the one upstairs, closest to the lobby site. Here's your key. Let me know if there's anything I can do to make your stay better for you."
Welp, let's go check out that room.
It's first on the second floor. Windows are boarded up, so I can't really attest to how nice it is, but it's pretty much just par for the course in Fallout games.
This is the motel room. It's better than nothing I suppose?
Time to play Guess that Motel Room Stain!
Looks like blood to me.
We should probably head back to Goodsprings to get all that Courier's Stash stuff we left there, but we can do that later.
Manny knows Boone, maybe he will have some insight on what's going on.
"Who's Boone?"
Yes, we know who Boone is obviously, but this is the only way to get the dialogue regarding Boone's quest to appear.
"Boone's a sniper, same as me. Used to spot for him when we were enlisted with the NCR. After we got out, I talked him into settling down here. So, here were are."
Wonder how he convinced him. "The town has a giant dinosaur building. Come on, is that not awesome?"
"I'd introduce you, but uh... we're not so friendly right now."
"Why are you on bad terms with Boone?"
"Me and his wife, we didn't see eye-to-eye on some things. We had some pretty big arguements. One day she turns up missing, and he hasn't said a word to me since."
Hmm, suspicious.
"What did you and Boone's wife argue about?"
"Man, you name it. See, I grew up in North Vegas. Me and my cousins. We were some bad seeds. Got in with a gang. I loved it. Then something happened, and I couldn't handle it anymore. So, I enlisted. Earned my future. Brought down my best friend to share that future with me. And here was this woman who was too good for it, trying to take him away. So yeah. I didn't see eye-to-eye with the *****."
"Did you have anything to do with Boone's wife disappearance?"
"Believe me. When I heard the news, my first thought was, I owe somebody. Big. I figured Boone would come around after awhile. But he hasn't. And I'm starting to think that if he doesn't find her that things will never go back to the way they were."
"Who would want to hurt Boone's wife?"
"Man, everybody. That girl didn't have one friend in this whole town. She didn't want any."
Okay, sure she may have been a really unpleasant person, but enough to call out a hit on?
"She wanted to sit in her room all day and make herself miserable. And she went out of her way to be rude. She upset a lot of people. You wouldn't have liked her, either."
Well, so much for any more information about what actually happened. It does seem like Manny could definitely possibly be a suspect, but let's not jump to conclusions though.
"So you were in a gang? Were they tough?"
"Were they tough? I was in the Khans, man. It doesn't get any badder."
We haven't met the Khans yet (Well we kind of have, but we haven't had any meaningful interaction with them aside from being shot by them) but I find it kind of funny comparing Fallout 3's raiders with the ones in New Vegas. In Fallout 3, they're just a bunch of chaotic evil nutjobs killing and eating people at random. Didn't have much of a purpose in the game's story other than to be generic human enemies to fight on the road.
The Khans and another gang we have yet to encounter are actually important to the game's world and story.
One more person to chat with. Believe it or not, he actually gives you useful information involving this quest. If didn't talk to him first or already know about the important piece of evidence, you might have chosen Manny as the culprit.
The fuck?
YES
I was waiting a long time for this conversation.
"I don't mean any harm."
"We'll just see about that. You come any closer and I'm liable to stick you with my stickin' knife. Ol' Sticky's feeling mighty orney this day."
"We can talk from this distance."
"You sure, now? It's kinda hard to hear you."
<Glare at No-Bark>
"Okay, okay. Just speak up a little. But not so much that They hear you. They got people everywhere, always listening."
"Why do they call you No-Bark?"
"'Cause they know I ain't just barking here. What I say's got bite, 'cause it's the truth."
Did we just step into Fallout 2?
"Them quack doctors can say what they want about all the radscorpion stings that done pierced my skull. I know what I seen."
"What's been going on in town?"
"There's been things of a disturbing nature going on at the McBride Corral. Seems every night one of their herd meets a most unnatural death, and always there's holes all over the body. Work of the chupacabra, the livestock vampire, says No-Bark, but they don't pay no mind. Too many holes, they say, and there's bullets in them. Well, says No-Bark, we got a chupacabra with an automatic weapon. And that's when they get real quiet, 'cause now they see the predicament we're in."
"Is anything interesting happening in the area?"
Well, aside from the invisible gun toting chupacabra obviously.
"Folks'll tell you that they seen ghouls up near the rocket factory. Sensationlist hooey, cooked up by superstitious yokels seeing phantoms of their own imagining."
"Who do you think is actually at the factory?"
"Ghosts. Commie ghosts what don't know they're dead. Hoping to steal our rockets so they can fly up and paint the moon pink and draw a Lenin face on it. I seen one of them disappear and reappear before my very eyes. Although being a scientist, I have to admit I might've just blinked for longer than usual, what with the shock of seeing a commie ghost and so forth."
"What else do you know about the deaths at the corral?"
I know this has no relevance to the Boone plot, but this is just too entertaining to stop.
"I come face to face with the chupacabra himself one night whilst I was investigating whether this gecko was hiding his treasure from me. He was the meanest, ugliest chupacabra you could imagine. Had two heads, and fangs down to the ground. Best I could tell, anyways, since when he come up to me he was invisible. Had himself a blunderbuss what would rotate and shoot bullets real fast out of a backpack. Never seen nothing like it. Walked right past me having an argument with somebody. But I only saw the one chupacabra, so I guess the other fella had to be invisible too. Only more invisible than the other one."
Okay, let's get back on track here...
"What do you know about the abduction of Boone's wife?"
"Seen it all. Seen shadowy folk come to his room and leave again in the middle of the night. Thought one might've gone in the lobby, too, for a spell. Could be that person went in to get something. Or use the john maybe. Mighty interesting either way, you ask me. I thought it was cannibals, come to eat us all for sure, so I kept out of sight. But now I know better."
"Who was it?"
"Molerat men, come up from the Underneath to steal young women with promises of riches and fancy mud mansions with all the latest designer appliances. They covet our ladyfolk's long hair for wigs, it's said, being either bald or balding themselves."
Well, that was actually more helpful than talking to Manny. Let's check out the motel lobby.
More dinosaurs...
Here we go, a bill of sale. This is what it says:
We, the representatives of the Consul Officiorum, have this day bargained and purchased from Jeannie May Crawford of the township of Novac the exclusive rights to ownership and sale of the slave Carla Boone for the sum of one thousand bottle caps, and those of her unborn child for the sum of five hundred bottle caps, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged. We warrant the slave and her young to be sound, healthy, and slaves for life. We covenant with the said, Jeannie May Crawford, that we have full power to bargain and sell said slave and her offspring. Payment of an additional five hundred bottle caps will be due pending successful maturation of the fetus, the claim to which shall be guaranteed by possession of this document. M. Scribonius Libo Drusus et al.
Administrators of M. Licinius Crassus, Consul Officiorum ab Famulatus
So Jeannie May was the one who did it, not Manny like you would think. Now all we have to do is get her to go out in front of the dinosaur.
So you just randomly ask them to come with you to the dinosaur and they do.
A lot of times this quest just glitches out and the person doesn't walk towards the dinosaur. Then it's a pain in the ass to use console commands to get them to warp out in front of the dinosaur. Obsidian fixed it in later patches, and now they walk extremely quickly to the dinosaur.
You equip Boone's hat, and he just shoots her right on the spot.
"I found the bill of sale."
"I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It'd be like them to keep paperwork. Here. This is all I can give. I think our dealings are done here."
100 caps? Oh, thanks. That should pay the rent.
"What will you do after this?"
"I don't know. I won't be staying, I know that. Don't see much point in anything right now, except hunting legionaries. Maybe I'll wander, like you."
The quota for wandering protagonists is full, unfortunately.
"Come with me. Let's go after the Legion."
"You don't want to do that."
Why not?
"[Intelligence 6] I thought snipers worked in teams."
Though right now we're not much of a sniper.
"Hnh. Yeah. Working on your own, you're a lot less effective. I've been there and paid for it. But this isn't gonna end well."
Story of my life.
Though you can't see it over the mountains, the next area we're heading to is REPCONN. We have to check out the area and see what is going on with the ghouls to help Manny, and by extension get our next clue to where Benny is.
Did you do this quest correctly the first time? Also, what did you think of No-Bark?
As for No-Bark he was one of my favourite characters in the game; he made me laugh out loud more than once.
It's a pistol that uses 5.56mm ammo. It's pretty much just the.223 pistol from Fallout 1 and 2. According to the wiki, by extension, it's also based off of the gun that the protagonist of the movie Blade Runner uses.
Did anyone else think "OMG it's Kovu!", when they first met Boone?
No? Just me?
Fun fact - A normal Legion trooper's armor is mostly composed of sports equipment. Before you start saying "Well, AlternatePFG that was obvious and I saw it right away" I'd like to point out that it took me three playthroughs before I finally realized it.
It took me about three playthroughs to realise the dinosaur statue is holding a thermometer.
"There's been things of a disturbing nature going on at the McBride Corral. Seems every night one of their herd meets a most unnatural death, and always there's holes all over the body. Work of the chupacabra, the livestock vampire, says No-Bark, but they don't pay no mind. Too many holes, they say, and there's bullets in them. Well, says No-Bark, we got a chupacabra with an automatic weapon. And that's when they get real quiet, 'cause now they see the predicament we're in."
This sidequest is completely based on dialogue, so lots of text, not so many pictures.
[HEADING=1]The Dinosaur Did It[/HEADING]
So before we go to REPCONN to check out that ghoul problem, let's explore Novac a bit more. There really isn't much of interest though, I complained about Fallout 3's towns not making any sense, but at least they were worth exploring. (I'm mostly referring to the main towns like Rivet City and Megaton)
This is a view of the town from the East, most people will probably see it first from the direction we took however.
It's called Novac because by the motel there is a No Vacancy sign, but part of the vacancy is removed and it forms the word Novac. I dunno, it's like how Arefu was just a faded careful sign in Fallout 3.
There's also this gas station over here.
Nothing much of an interest other than a lot of junk and a workbench/reloading bench.
Also a bunch of motel rooms, a good chunk of them are simply boarded up. You think they would renovate this place a bit, but apparently they don't get visitors too often.
This is the collection of shacks where everyone else lives. Just like in every single other town in this game.
And keep going north and you'll hit HELIOS One and a junkyard. That's it. Not much else to say about this town really, no casinos or anything else, it's quite boring. Except for the dinosaur of course. That's neat.
So, it's night time now. Let's go talk to that other sniper currently sitting in the dinosaur-
What the fuck are you doing here?
Small world. Well, small game world at any rate.
"What are you doing in Novac?"
"Don't rightly know - I just got the notion to make my way to New Vegas. Reckon I'll find out when I get there."
I think he just followed the rather large trail of murder we left in our path.
"So what's the story with this place?"
Not really sure what's to get. Motel. Giant dinosaur store. Lot's of junk. Not much else to say.
"Novac? Nice enough to place I suppose... but between you and me - when I rolled into town my skin started to itch. Watch yourself!"
Wait, he doesn't have skin...
Oh god, the robot is going to go crazy and kill everyone. We should probably leave before he does.
Or at least hang around to watch.
"It's nice to see a friendly face out here."
"Likewise, friend - likewise. Is there anything old Vic can do you for?"
"I could use a bed and some supplies."
"Well, this ain't New Vegas, but I reckon you can find what you need here. Try the office out front."
"You said the men that jumped me were heading this way, right?"
"No, don't believe I did, but you might ask around- the Novac folk usually see anyone traveling this way."
We did chat with Manny about it, and he will give us information once we help him out with his problem.
"Goodbye."
Well, that was random. This will not be the last we see of Victor outside of Vegas.
Back to the dinosaur!
The shopkeeper isn't here right now. Good...
Good to know!
Unlocking the door that he stands next to leads to this room. It's filled to the brim with all these toy rockets, but you'd be mistaken if you thought that was the only thing in here. On the shelf on the right, is a gun called That Gun.
It's a pistol that uses 5.56mm ammo. It's pretty much just the.223 pistol from Fallout 1 and 2. According to the wiki [http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/That_Gun#Behind_the_scenes], by extension, it's also based off of the gun that the protagonist of the movie Blade Runner uses.
There is also a non-unique version that you can buy with the Gun Runner's Arsenal DLC called the 5.56mm pistol. It's slightly weaker, but it's cheaper and easier to find. You can also use them to repair That Gun if you need to.
This is Boone. He is the other sniper, he is up here during the night while Manny is here during the day.
In hindsight, not really sure why we're up here in the first place.
"Expecting visitors?"
"Yeah. I guess maybe I am. But not like you. Huh. Maybe it should've been you I was expecting all along."
How extremely cryptic. Anyway, I should be going now-
"Why are you here?"
"[Speech 41] If you're looking for someone in particular, I could tip you off if I see them."
This is another speech check that seems rather odd and out of place. It's not like it has any effect on the conversation anyway, and why 41 speech?
"[SUCCEEDED] Yeah, well, you see anybody wearing Legion crimson or a lot of sports equipment, you just let me know."
Fun fact - A normal Legion trooper's armor is mostly composed of sports equipment. Before you start saying "Well, AlternatePFG that was obvious and I saw it right away" I'd like to point out that it took me three playthroughs before I finally realized it.
And that's just because someone pointed it out to me.
"You still haven't answered my question."
"I just wanted to check out the view."
Yup... More desert.
"I think you'd better leave."
"Just making friendly conversation."
"I don't have friends here."
"Well, I'm not from here."
"No. No you're not, are you? Maybe you shouldn't go. Not just yet."
Oh great, here we go. Quest hook.
"So now you want something from me."
"I need someone I can trust. You're a stranger. That's a start."
"You only trust strangers?"
"I said it was a start. This town... nobody looks me straight in the eye anymore."
"What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to find something out for me. I don't know if there's anything to find, but I need someone to try. My wife was taken from our home by Legion slavers one night while I was on watch. They knew when to come and what route to take, and they only took Carla. Someone set it up, I don't know who."
"You're trying to track down your wife?"
Last time we tried to track down someone captured by the Legion, that didn't end so well. Though admittedly, we were the ones who killed them...
"My wife's dead, I want the son of a ***** who sold her."
"How do you know your wife is dead?"
"I know, all right? And that's all you need to know."
Sounds shady.
"What do I do if I find this person?"
"Bring him out in front of the nest here while I'm on duty. I work nights."
You can talk to Boone during the day in his room, while Manny is out in the dinosaur.
"I'll give you my NCR beret to put on. It'll be our signal, so I know you're standing with him. And I'll take care of the rest. I need to do this myself."
Random stranger walks into town, a couple hours later a random citizen is found dead out in front of the dinosaur where he was hanging out. Nah, not suspicious at all.
"I'll see what I can do to help you out."
"Good. I'll make it worth your while."
By that he means 100 caps. Not really worth it, honestly.
"And one more thing. We shouldn't speak again. Not until it's over. No one in town knows that I know what happened to my wife. Best they never know. Or the Legion will be after me next."
Well, we should get to that then.
There is also a tent nearby with a doctor and a table with some food. Again, not much to note except that this is probably the only other doctor than Doc Mitchell you'll meet before you get to New Vegas.
So now it's time to chat with every NPC in the town asking them about any information pertaining to Boone's wife.
It's more fun than it sounds. I do think this is a rather interesting sidequest, there are a few different outcomes to it. It's also nice that on repeat playthroughs that you can get through this sidequest pretty much instantly.
Very rarely do NPC's comment if you just walk right into their house in the middle of the night and start talking to them.
"What can you tell me about Boone's wife?"
Many NPC's in Novac get new dialogue options once you start this quest, but not all of them do. For example, the doctor lady who we saw walking into Novac and the guy who runs the dino shop have no comments on it.
"How should I put it? I guess you could say she was kind like a cactus flower. Real pretty to look at, but there was just no getting close to her. She never did take to living here. She liked the big lights and fast living of New Vegas."
There really aren't that many lights in New Vegas. It would have to get awfully repetitive visiting the same 3 casinos over and over again.
"I got the feeling she was trying to get Boone to leave with her, but I guess she got tired of waiting."
"What's wrong with Boone?"
As if we couldn't tell right away.
"Nothing that wouldn't be wrong with any man who loses a wife, I suppose. Poor dear. I know he thinks she was kidnapped, but I'm not so sure she didn't just run off on her own. You could tell she was thinking about it ever since they arrived."
Hrm, so not much of interest. Let's chat about something else.
"I'd like to rent a room."
After all, we need to a place to store all the crap we've accumulated so far. There is a lot of it.
"Well, I think that's a fine idea. I'll give you a good flat rate, and you can stay as long as you like. Least till the busy season comes. Sound good?"
"Here's 100 caps."
All we really want the room for is a storage space. It isn't the nicest house in the game, but it's probably the easiest to access by far.
"Your room will be the one upstairs, closest to the lobby site. Here's your key. Let me know if there's anything I can do to make your stay better for you."
Welp, let's go check out that room.
It's first on the second floor. Windows are boarded up, so I can't really attest to how nice it is, but it's pretty much just par for the course in Fallout games.
This is the motel room. It's better than nothing I suppose?
Time to play Guess that Motel Room Stain!
Looks like blood to me.
We should probably head back to Goodsprings to get all that Courier's Stash stuff we left there, but we can do that later.
Manny knows Boone, maybe he will have some insight on what's going on.
"Who's Boone?"
Yes, we know who Boone is obviously, but this is the only way to get the dialogue regarding Boone's quest to appear.
"Boone's a sniper, same as me. Used to spot for him when we were enlisted with the NCR. After we got out, I talked him into settling down here. So, here were are."
Wonder how he convinced him. "The town has a giant dinosaur building. Come on, is that not awesome?"
"I'd introduce you, but uh... we're not so friendly right now."
"Why are you on bad terms with Boone?"
"Me and his wife, we didn't see eye-to-eye on some things. We had some pretty big arguements. One day she turns up missing, and he hasn't said a word to me since."
Hmm, suspicious.
"What did you and Boone's wife argue about?"
"Man, you name it. See, I grew up in North Vegas. Me and my cousins. We were some bad seeds. Got in with a gang. I loved it. Then something happened, and I couldn't handle it anymore. So, I enlisted. Earned my future. Brought down my best friend to share that future with me. And here was this woman who was too good for it, trying to take him away. So yeah. I didn't see eye-to-eye with the *****."
"Did you have anything to do with Boone's wife disappearance?"
"Believe me. When I heard the news, my first thought was, I owe somebody. Big. I figured Boone would come around after awhile. But he hasn't. And I'm starting to think that if he doesn't find her that things will never go back to the way they were."
"Who would want to hurt Boone's wife?"
"Man, everybody. That girl didn't have one friend in this whole town. She didn't want any."
Okay, sure she may have been a really unpleasant person, but enough to call out a hit on?
"She wanted to sit in her room all day and make herself miserable. And she went out of her way to be rude. She upset a lot of people. You wouldn't have liked her, either."
Well, so much for any more information about what actually happened. It does seem like Manny could definitely possibly be a suspect, but let's not jump to conclusions though.
"So you were in a gang? Were they tough?"
"Were they tough? I was in the Khans, man. It doesn't get any badder."
We haven't met the Khans yet (Well we kind of have, but we haven't had any meaningful interaction with them aside from being shot by them) but I find it kind of funny comparing Fallout 3's raiders with the ones in New Vegas. In Fallout 3, they're just a bunch of chaotic evil nutjobs killing and eating people at random. Didn't have much of a purpose in the game's story other than to be generic human enemies to fight on the road.
The Khans and another gang we have yet to encounter are actually important to the game's world and story.
One more person to chat with. Believe it or not, he actually gives you useful information involving this quest. If didn't talk to him first or already know about the important piece of evidence, you might have chosen Manny as the culprit.
The fuck?
YES
I was waiting a long time for this conversation.
"I don't mean any harm."
"We'll just see about that. You come any closer and I'm liable to stick you with my stickin' knife. Ol' Sticky's feeling mighty orney this day."
"We can talk from this distance."
"You sure, now? It's kinda hard to hear you."
<Glare at No-Bark>
"Okay, okay. Just speak up a little. But not so much that They hear you. They got people everywhere, always listening."
"Why do they call you No-Bark?"
"'Cause they know I ain't just barking here. What I say's got bite, 'cause it's the truth."
Did we just step into Fallout 2?
"Them quack doctors can say what they want about all the radscorpion stings that done pierced my skull. I know what I seen."
"What's been going on in town?"
"There's been things of a disturbing nature going on at the McBride Corral. Seems every night one of their herd meets a most unnatural death, and always there's holes all over the body. Work of the chupacabra, the livestock vampire, says No-Bark, but they don't pay no mind. Too many holes, they say, and there's bullets in them. Well, says No-Bark, we got a chupacabra with an automatic weapon. And that's when they get real quiet, 'cause now they see the predicament we're in."
"Is anything interesting happening in the area?"
Well, aside from the invisible gun toting chupacabra obviously.
"Folks'll tell you that they seen ghouls up near the rocket factory. Sensationlist hooey, cooked up by superstitious yokels seeing phantoms of their own imagining."
"Who do you think is actually at the factory?"
"Ghosts. Commie ghosts what don't know they're dead. Hoping to steal our rockets so they can fly up and paint the moon pink and draw a Lenin face on it. I seen one of them disappear and reappear before my very eyes. Although being a scientist, I have to admit I might've just blinked for longer than usual, what with the shock of seeing a commie ghost and so forth."
"What else do you know about the deaths at the corral?"
I know this has no relevance to the Boone plot, but this is just too entertaining to stop.
"I come face to face with the chupacabra himself one night whilst I was investigating whether this gecko was hiding his treasure from me. He was the meanest, ugliest chupacabra you could imagine. Had two heads, and fangs down to the ground. Best I could tell, anyways, since when he come up to me he was invisible. Had himself a blunderbuss what would rotate and shoot bullets real fast out of a backpack. Never seen nothing like it. Walked right past me having an argument with somebody. But I only saw the one chupacabra, so I guess the other fella had to be invisible too. Only more invisible than the other one."
Okay, let's get back on track here...
"What do you know about the abduction of Boone's wife?"
"Seen it all. Seen shadowy folk come to his room and leave again in the middle of the night. Thought one might've gone in the lobby, too, for a spell. Could be that person went in to get something. Or use the john maybe. Mighty interesting either way, you ask me. I thought it was cannibals, come to eat us all for sure, so I kept out of sight. But now I know better."
"Who was it?"
"Molerat men, come up from the Underneath to steal young women with promises of riches and fancy mud mansions with all the latest designer appliances. They covet our ladyfolk's long hair for wigs, it's said, being either bald or balding themselves."
Well, that was actually more helpful than talking to Manny. Let's check out the motel lobby.
More dinosaurs...
Here we go, a bill of sale. This is what it says:
We, the representatives of the Consul Officiorum, have this day bargained and purchased from Jeannie May Crawford of the township of Novac the exclusive rights to ownership and sale of the slave Carla Boone for the sum of one thousand bottle caps, and those of her unborn child for the sum of five hundred bottle caps, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged. We warrant the slave and her young to be sound, healthy, and slaves for life. We covenant with the said, Jeannie May Crawford, that we have full power to bargain and sell said slave and her offspring. Payment of an additional five hundred bottle caps will be due pending successful maturation of the fetus, the claim to which shall be guaranteed by possession of this document. M. Scribonius Libo Drusus et al.
Administrators of M. Licinius Crassus, Consul Officiorum ab Famulatus
So Jeannie May was the one who did it, not Manny like you would think. Now all we have to do is get her to go out in front of the dinosaur.
So you just randomly ask them to come with you to the dinosaur and they do.
A lot of times this quest just glitches out and the person doesn't walk towards the dinosaur. Then it's a pain in the ass to use console commands to get them to warp out in front of the dinosaur. Obsidian fixed it in later patches, and now they walk extremely quickly to the dinosaur.
You equip Boone's hat, and he just shoots her right on the spot.
"I found the bill of sale."
"I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It'd be like them to keep paperwork. Here. This is all I can give. I think our dealings are done here."
100 caps? Oh, thanks. That should pay the rent.
"What will you do after this?"
"I don't know. I won't be staying, I know that. Don't see much point in anything right now, except hunting legionaries. Maybe I'll wander, like you."
The quota for wandering protagonists is full, unfortunately.
"Come with me. Let's go after the Legion."
"You don't want to do that."
Why not?
"[Intelligence 6] I thought snipers worked in teams."
Though right now we're not much of a sniper.
"Hnh. Yeah. Working on your own, you're a lot less effective. I've been there and paid for it. But this isn't gonna end well."
Story of my life.
Though you can't see it over the mountains, the next area we're heading to is REPCONN. We have to check out the area and see what is going on with the ghouls to help Manny, and by extension get our next clue to where Benny is.
Did you do this quest correctly the first time? Also, what did you think of No-Bark?
This sidequest is completely based on dialogue, so lots of text, not so many pictures.
[HEADING=1]The Dinosaur Did It[/HEADING]
So before we go to REPCONN to check out that ghoul problem, let's explore Novac a bit more. There really isn't much of interest though, I complained about Fallout 3's towns not making any sense, but at least they were worth exploring. (I'm mostly referring to the main towns like Rivet City and Megaton)
This is a view of the town from the East, most people will probably see it first from the direction we took however.
It's called Novac because by the motel there is a No Vacancy sign, but part of the vacancy is removed and it forms the word Novac. I dunno, it's like how Arefu was just a faded careful sign in Fallout 3.
There's also this gas station over here.
Nothing much of an interest other than a lot of junk and a workbench/reloading bench.
Also a bunch of motel rooms, a good chunk of them are simply boarded up. You think they would renovate this place a bit, but apparently they don't get visitors too often.
This is the collection of shacks where everyone else lives. Just like in every single other town in this game.
And keep going north and you'll hit HELIOS One and a junkyard. That's it. Not much else to say about this town really, no casinos or anything else, it's quite boring. Except for the dinosaur of course. That's neat.
So, it's night time now. Let's go talk to that other sniper currently sitting in the dinosaur-
What the fuck are you doing here?
Small world. Well, small game world at any rate.
"What are you doing in Novac?"
"Don't rightly know - I just got the notion to make my way to New Vegas. Reckon I'll find out when I get there."
I think he just followed the rather large trail of murder we left in our path.
"So what's the story with this place?"
Not really sure what's to get. Motel. Giant dinosaur store. Lot's of junk. Not much else to say.
"Novac? Nice enough to place I suppose... but between you and me - when I rolled into town my skin started to itch. Watch yourself!"
Wait, he doesn't have skin...
Oh god, the robot is going to go crazy and kill everyone. We should probably leave before he does.
Or at least hang around to watch.
"It's nice to see a friendly face out here."
"Likewise, friend - likewise. Is there anything old Vic can do you for?"
"I could use a bed and some supplies."
"Well, this ain't New Vegas, but I reckon you can find what you need here. Try the office out front."
"You said the men that jumped me were heading this way, right?"
"No, don't believe I did, but you might ask around- the Novac folk usually see anyone traveling this way."
We did chat with Manny about it, and he will give us information once we help him out with his problem.
"Goodbye."
Well, that was random. This will not be the last we see of Victor outside of Vegas.
Back to the dinosaur!
The shopkeeper isn't here right now. Good...
Good to know!
Unlocking the door that he stands next to leads to this room. It's filled to the brim with all these toy rockets, but you'd be mistaken if you thought that was the only thing in here. On the shelf on the right, is a gun called That Gun.
It's a pistol that uses 5.56mm ammo. It's pretty much just the.223 pistol from Fallout 1 and 2. According to the wiki [http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/That_Gun#Behind_the_scenes], by extension, it's also based off of the gun that the protagonist of the movie Blade Runner uses.
There is also a non-unique version that you can buy with the Gun Runner's Arsenal DLC called the 5.56mm pistol. It's slightly weaker, but it's cheaper and easier to find. You can also use them to repair That Gun if you need to.
This is Boone. He is the other sniper, he is up here during the night while Manny is here during the day.
In hindsight, not really sure why we're up here in the first place.
"Expecting visitors?"
"Yeah. I guess maybe I am. But not like you. Huh. Maybe it should've been you I was expecting all along."
How extremely cryptic. Anyway, I should be going now-
"Why are you here?"
"[Speech 41] If you're looking for someone in particular, I could tip you off if I see them."
This is another speech check that seems rather odd and out of place. It's not like it has any effect on the conversation anyway, and why 41 speech?
"[SUCCEEDED] Yeah, well, you see anybody wearing Legion crimson or a lot of sports equipment, you just let me know."
Fun fact - A normal Legion trooper's armor is mostly composed of sports equipment. Before you start saying "Well, AlternatePFG that was obvious and I saw it right away" I'd like to point out that it took me three playthroughs before I finally realized it.
And that's just because someone pointed it out to me.
"You still haven't answered my question."
"I just wanted to check out the view."
Yup... More desert.
"I think you'd better leave."
"Just making friendly conversation."
"I don't have friends here."
"Well, I'm not from here."
"No. No you're not, are you? Maybe you shouldn't go. Not just yet."
Oh great, here we go. Quest hook.
"So now you want something from me."
"I need someone I can trust. You're a stranger. That's a start."
"You only trust strangers?"
"I said it was a start. This town... nobody looks me straight in the eye anymore."
"What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to find something out for me. I don't know if there's anything to find, but I need someone to try. My wife was taken from our home by Legion slavers one night while I was on watch. They knew when to come and what route to take, and they only took Carla. Someone set it up, I don't know who."
"You're trying to track down your wife?"
Last time we tried to track down someone captured by the Legion, that didn't end so well. Though admittedly, we were the ones who killed them...
"My wife's dead, I want the son of a ***** who sold her."
"How do you know your wife is dead?"
"I know, all right? And that's all you need to know."
Sounds shady.
"What do I do if I find this person?"
"Bring him out in front of the nest here while I'm on duty. I work nights."
You can talk to Boone during the day in his room, while Manny is out in the dinosaur.
"I'll give you my NCR beret to put on. It'll be our signal, so I know you're standing with him. And I'll take care of the rest. I need to do this myself."
Random stranger walks into town, a couple hours later a random citizen is found dead out in front of the dinosaur where he was hanging out. Nah, not suspicious at all.
"I'll see what I can do to help you out."
"Good. I'll make it worth your while."
By that he means 100 caps. Not really worth it, honestly.
"And one more thing. We shouldn't speak again. Not until it's over. No one in town knows that I know what happened to my wife. Best they never know. Or the Legion will be after me next."
Well, we should get to that then.
There is also a tent nearby with a doctor and a table with some food. Again, not much to note except that this is probably the only other doctor than Doc Mitchell you'll meet before you get to New Vegas.
So now it's time to chat with every NPC in the town asking them about any information pertaining to Boone's wife.
It's more fun than it sounds. I do think this is a rather interesting sidequest, there are a few different outcomes to it. It's also nice that on repeat playthroughs that you can get through this sidequest pretty much instantly.
Very rarely do NPC's comment if you just walk right into their house in the middle of the night and start talking to them.
"What can you tell me about Boone's wife?"
Many NPC's in Novac get new dialogue options once you start this quest, but not all of them do. For example, the doctor lady who we saw walking into Novac and the guy who runs the dino shop have no comments on it.
"How should I put it? I guess you could say she was kind like a cactus flower. Real pretty to look at, but there was just no getting close to her. She never did take to living here. She liked the big lights and fast living of New Vegas."
There really aren't that many lights in New Vegas. It would have to get awfully repetitive visiting the same 3 casinos over and over again.
"I got the feeling she was trying to get Boone to leave with her, but I guess she got tired of waiting."
"What's wrong with Boone?"
As if we couldn't tell right away.
"Nothing that wouldn't be wrong with any man who loses a wife, I suppose. Poor dear. I know he thinks she was kidnapped, but I'm not so sure she didn't just run off on her own. You could tell she was thinking about it ever since they arrived."
Hrm, so not much of interest. Let's chat about something else.
"I'd like to rent a room."
After all, we need to a place to store all the crap we've accumulated so far. There is a lot of it.
"Well, I think that's a fine idea. I'll give you a good flat rate, and you can stay as long as you like. Least till the busy season comes. Sound good?"
"Here's 100 caps."
All we really want the room for is a storage space. It isn't the nicest house in the game, but it's probably the easiest to access by far.
"Your room will be the one upstairs, closest to the lobby site. Here's your key. Let me know if there's anything I can do to make your stay better for you."
Welp, let's go check out that room.
It's first on the second floor. Windows are boarded up, so I can't really attest to how nice it is, but it's pretty much just par for the course in Fallout games.
This is the motel room. It's better than nothing I suppose?
Time to play Guess that Motel Room Stain!
Looks like blood to me.
We should probably head back to Goodsprings to get all that Courier's Stash stuff we left there, but we can do that later.
Manny knows Boone, maybe he will have some insight on what's going on.
"Who's Boone?"
Yes, we know who Boone is obviously, but this is the only way to get the dialogue regarding Boone's quest to appear.
"Boone's a sniper, same as me. Used to spot for him when we were enlisted with the NCR. After we got out, I talked him into settling down here. So, here were are."
Wonder how he convinced him. "The town has a giant dinosaur building. Come on, is that not awesome?"
"I'd introduce you, but uh... we're not so friendly right now."
"Why are you on bad terms with Boone?"
"Me and his wife, we didn't see eye-to-eye on some things. We had some pretty big arguements. One day she turns up missing, and he hasn't said a word to me since."
Hmm, suspicious.
"What did you and Boone's wife argue about?"
"Man, you name it. See, I grew up in North Vegas. Me and my cousins. We were some bad seeds. Got in with a gang. I loved it. Then something happened, and I couldn't handle it anymore. So, I enlisted. Earned my future. Brought down my best friend to share that future with me. And here was this woman who was too good for it, trying to take him away. So yeah. I didn't see eye-to-eye with the *****."
"Did you have anything to do with Boone's wife disappearance?"
"Believe me. When I heard the news, my first thought was, I owe somebody. Big. I figured Boone would come around after awhile. But he hasn't. And I'm starting to think that if he doesn't find her that things will never go back to the way they were."
"Who would want to hurt Boone's wife?"
"Man, everybody. That girl didn't have one friend in this whole town. She didn't want any."
Okay, sure she may have been a really unpleasant person, but enough to call out a hit on?
"She wanted to sit in her room all day and make herself miserable. And she went out of her way to be rude. She upset a lot of people. You wouldn't have liked her, either."
Well, so much for any more information about what actually happened. It does seem like Manny could definitely possibly be a suspect, but let's not jump to conclusions though.
"So you were in a gang? Were they tough?"
"Were they tough? I was in the Khans, man. It doesn't get any badder."
We haven't met the Khans yet (Well we kind of have, but we haven't had any meaningful interaction with them aside from being shot by them) but I find it kind of funny comparing Fallout 3's raiders with the ones in New Vegas. In Fallout 3, they're just a bunch of chaotic evil nutjobs killing and eating people at random. Didn't have much of a purpose in the game's story other than to be generic human enemies to fight on the road.
The Khans and another gang we have yet to encounter are actually important to the game's world and story.
One more person to chat with. Believe it or not, he actually gives you useful information involving this quest. If didn't talk to him first or already know about the important piece of evidence, you might have chosen Manny as the culprit.
The fuck?
YES
I was waiting a long time for this conversation.
"I don't mean any harm."
"We'll just see about that. You come any closer and I'm liable to stick you with my stickin' knife. Ol' Sticky's feeling mighty orney this day."
"We can talk from this distance."
"You sure, now? It's kinda hard to hear you."
<Glare at No-Bark>
"Okay, okay. Just speak up a little. But not so much that They hear you. They got people everywhere, always listening."
"Why do they call you No-Bark?"
"'Cause they know I ain't just barking here. What I say's got bite, 'cause it's the truth."
Did we just step into Fallout 2?
"Them quack doctors can say what they want about all the radscorpion stings that done pierced my skull. I know what I seen."
"What's been going on in town?"
"There's been things of a disturbing nature going on at the McBride Corral. Seems every night one of their herd meets a most unnatural death, and always there's holes all over the body. Work of the chupacabra, the livestock vampire, says No-Bark, but they don't pay no mind. Too many holes, they say, and there's bullets in them. Well, says No-Bark, we got a chupacabra with an automatic weapon. And that's when they get real quiet, 'cause now they see the predicament we're in."
"Is anything interesting happening in the area?"
Well, aside from the invisible gun toting chupacabra obviously.
"Folks'll tell you that they seen ghouls up near the rocket factory. Sensationlist hooey, cooked up by superstitious yokels seeing phantoms of their own imagining."
"Who do you think is actually at the factory?"
"Ghosts. Commie ghosts what don't know they're dead. Hoping to steal our rockets so they can fly up and paint the moon pink and draw a Lenin face on it. I seen one of them disappear and reappear before my very eyes. Although being a scientist, I have to admit I might've just blinked for longer than usual, what with the shock of seeing a commie ghost and so forth."
"What else do you know about the deaths at the corral?"
I know this has no relevance to the Boone plot, but this is just too entertaining to stop.
"I come face to face with the chupacabra himself one night whilst I was investigating whether this gecko was hiding his treasure from me. He was the meanest, ugliest chupacabra you could imagine. Had two heads, and fangs down to the ground. Best I could tell, anyways, since when he come up to me he was invisible. Had himself a blunderbuss what would rotate and shoot bullets real fast out of a backpack. Never seen nothing like it. Walked right past me having an argument with somebody. But I only saw the one chupacabra, so I guess the other fella had to be invisible too. Only more invisible than the other one."
Okay, let's get back on track here...
"What do you know about the abduction of Boone's wife?"
"Seen it all. Seen shadowy folk come to his room and leave again in the middle of the night. Thought one might've gone in the lobby, too, for a spell. Could be that person went in to get something. Or use the john maybe. Mighty interesting either way, you ask me. I thought it was cannibals, come to eat us all for sure, so I kept out of sight. But now I know better."
"Who was it?"
"Molerat men, come up from the Underneath to steal young women with promises of riches and fancy mud mansions with all the latest designer appliances. They covet our ladyfolk's long hair for wigs, it's said, being either bald or balding themselves."
Well, that was actually more helpful than talking to Manny. Let's check out the motel lobby.
More dinosaurs...
Here we go, a bill of sale. This is what it says:
We, the representatives of the Consul Officiorum, have this day bargained and purchased from Jeannie May Crawford of the township of Novac the exclusive rights to ownership and sale of the slave Carla Boone for the sum of one thousand bottle caps, and those of her unborn child for the sum of five hundred bottle caps, the receipt whereof is hereby acknowledged. We warrant the slave and her young to be sound, healthy, and slaves for life. We covenant with the said, Jeannie May Crawford, that we have full power to bargain and sell said slave and her offspring. Payment of an additional five hundred bottle caps will be due pending successful maturation of the fetus, the claim to which shall be guaranteed by possession of this document. M. Scribonius Libo Drusus et al.
Administrators of M. Licinius Crassus, Consul Officiorum ab Famulatus
So Jeannie May was the one who did it, not Manny like you would think. Now all we have to do is get her to go out in front of the dinosaur.
So you just randomly ask them to come with you to the dinosaur and they do.
A lot of times this quest just glitches out and the person doesn't walk towards the dinosaur. Then it's a pain in the ass to use console commands to get them to warp out in front of the dinosaur. Obsidian fixed it in later patches, and now they walk extremely quickly to the dinosaur.
You equip Boone's hat, and he just shoots her right on the spot.
"I found the bill of sale."
"I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It'd be like them to keep paperwork. Here. This is all I can give. I think our dealings are done here."
100 caps? Oh, thanks. That should pay the rent.
"What will you do after this?"
"I don't know. I won't be staying, I know that. Don't see much point in anything right now, except hunting legionaries. Maybe I'll wander, like you."
The quota for wandering protagonists is full, unfortunately.
"Come with me. Let's go after the Legion."
"You don't want to do that."
Why not?
"[Intelligence 6] I thought snipers worked in teams."
Though right now we're not much of a sniper.
"Hnh. Yeah. Working on your own, you're a lot less effective. I've been there and paid for it. But this isn't gonna end well."
Story of my life.
Though you can't see it over the mountains, the next area we're heading to is REPCONN. We have to check out the area and see what is going on with the ghouls to help Manny, and by extension get our next clue to where Benny is.
Did you do this quest correctly the first time? Also, what did you think of No-Bark?
I didn't do it right the first time. I looted the hell out of that safe and found it by dumb luck.
The quest though, is without a doubt has the best reward. That cap is just plain amazing. 5% crit boost plus 1 perception? That essentially equal to 5 luck and 1 perception. In my opinion, it's the best hat out there, despite it having no DT.
I didn't talk to No-Bark, but I did pick the right Jeannie-May. I guess I just took the round-and-about way of completing the quest: Talking to everyone in town, looking through all there stuff. I did this until I found the safe.
I did speak to No-Bark later, when I randomly happened upon him walking around during the day. I noticed his weird name and decided there must be something special about him. How right I was.
And to the previous update's question: I actually use the companion wheel quite a bit. If I'm a melee character, I tell my ranged characters to stay behind me. And I change their fighting style (for no real reason other than just to mix it up). And stimpaks do work on ED-E. It doesn't make sense...but it works. And for reference, my A-team is Cass and Rex.
So, I was thinking in what order to do the DLC in for the LP. I haven't decided when exactly to do the first one, but I was considering which ones to do first. I was thinking of going through Old World Blues first, as it gets much more difficult as the game goes on and at low levels the enemies don't take absurd amounts of damage. What one should be first?
Also, there probably won't be an update for a few days, as I'm working on building my backlog of updates back up.
So, I was thinking in what order to do the DLC in for the LP. I haven't decided when exactly to do the first one, but I was considering which ones to do first. I was thinking of going through Old World Blues first, as it gets much more difficult as the game goes on and at low levels the enemies don't take absurd amounts of damage. What one should be first?
Also, there probably won't be an update for a few days, as I'm working on building my backlog of updates back up.
Personally, I would do OWB first, then Honest Hearts, then Dead Money. Leave Lonesome Road until just before you instigate the Battle of Hoover Dam. It would probably be best if you break up the Vegas-centric quests using Honest Hearts and Dead Money, as the quests where you wander back and forth through a casino or in and out of Freeside tend to get a bit dull if you do them all at the same time.
So, I was thinking in what order to do the DLC in for the LP. I haven't decided when exactly to do the first one, but I was considering which ones to do first. I was thinking of going through Old World Blues first, as it gets much more difficult as the game goes on and at low levels the enemies don't take absurd amounts of damage. What one should be first?
Also, there probably won't be an update for a few days, as I'm working on building my backlog of updates back up.
First, you should do Honest Hearts, then OWB, Dead Money after a few quests, and Lonesome Roads right before Hoover Dam. In my opinion, that's what makes the most canonical sense. Also, use the mod A Better Ulysses, please. It's just better for everyone.
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