Fallout: New Vegas

If you side with House, you do things House's way. Every faction provides you with some kind of ultimatum. None of them is meant to let you feel like you made the perfect choice.

Ehh, House's way has a limited focus and beyond that focus there's leeway. If House lacks the resources to do a job, and what he needs is locked behind a much larger faction's army that his robots can't really beat, he should be able to see the reason in trading instead of raiding. He's not trying to save the world. He doesn't give a shit about the world, only his corner of it. If helping out the rest manages to help him out, I don't think he can resist doing so.

There's a bit of irony with your example because that IS House's plan. If you pick the right dialogue options he explains that he's milking NCR dry for caps because he plans to invest the money back into the city to rebuild the technology available.

When you make a deal with Oliver at the Dam, you also point out House is going to provide NCR with all the electricity and fresh water they need at barely above cost (though that adds up over time) and will be able to provide more because he is much-much smarter than they are and can get the nonfunctional reactors working.

As House explains, he doesn't hate NCR as they're the only customers available for a capitalist society like he needs available—he just wants them to leave Vegas alone.

edited 18th Nov '17 8:17:54 PM by CharlesPhipps

I got the impression that House's sphere of influence would expand as needed, not through conquest but via dependence. A corporate oligarchy, minus the corporation or the oligarchy— a lot of in-name-only authorities who ultimately take all their orders directly from House, or at least follow his step-by-step plans, checking off the boxes with improvisation and consultation as necessary. House is content to let people do what they want as long as they also do what he says— there's a freedom there, but one that is still sharply curtailed. He's not interested in ruling the world per se, but he will brook no challenge to his control, even by ostensibly autonomous states. The NCR can continue to self-govern right up until if and when House should ever have need of the apparatus of their government. It's that unilateral, unassailable power that House would eventually accrue over time that makes his rule a fairly frightening proposition.

edited 21st Nov '17 12:40:22 AM by Unsung

It's actually really easy to make the Legion gray instead of black.

Just remove the Edgy Mc Edgelord "we rape and slave and rape slaves" bit and turn them into legalistic knight templar types. They'd keep the positive bit about their faction (keep their people safe and provide law and order), gain a positive attribute (make it so that rather than deal with the whims of House or the brahmin barons, even officers get punished for infractions in the legion), and have their negatives just be that they're willing to use all the brutal punishments of the actual Romans, and promote an austere lifestyle that while not against some technology, still looks down upon reliance on anything more advanced than gunpowder guns.

Thus you have NCR as the side that's most like the modern US with all its glories and flaws, House as the side of benevolent dictatorship that hopefully doesn't cease to be benevolent, Legion a the side of harsh but fair rule of law, and Independent as the side of live and let live and hope everyone figures it out on their own.

I ultimately backed House because I see no reason other than the writing giving the player a pat on the back why the Courier should actually be capable of ruling the Mojave (or administering and managing the various factions, which is even more difficult). Thus, rather than encourage the expansion of a state that is already collapsing under its own overextension, leave everyone for the rapeslaving douchenozzles, or maintain the currently somewhat terrible status quo, better to just hand everything back to post-apocalyptic Lee Kuan Yew.

House was...

House was seriously creepy though? Forcibly converting the locals into his disturbing Las Vegas roleplay? Murdering all his opposition to this forced vision with his murderbots?

Programming two robot ladies to be more demure versions of real-life female associates of his that cater to his... whatever?

House grossed me the fuck out, and that was BEFORE I found out he was a desiccated human pickle in an underground computer bunker.

Just remove the Edgy Mc Edgelord "we rape and slave and rape slaves" bit and turn them into legalistic knight templar types. They'd keep the positive bit about their faction (keep their people safe and provide law and order), gain a positive attribute (make it so that rather than deal with the whims of House or the brahmin barons, even officers get punished for infractions in the legion), and have their negatives just be that they're willing to use all the brutal punishments of the actual Romans, and promote an austere lifestyle that while not against some technology, still looks down upon reliance on anything more advanced than gunpowder guns.

While I understand the desire to make complex moral antagonists, I'm not sure why we need to make the kind of murderous warlords with private armies that exist in Real Life (and Caesar is just the latest in a long line of even in Fallout canon) as less like their RL counterparts.

In real life, warlords like Caesar generally do operate on the "Disobey and die but you can loot/murder/pillage anyone we fight."

edited 20th Nov '17 4:34:17 PM by CharlesPhipps

I cut House a lot more slack than he perhaps deserves.

House grew up in the 21st century and kept Vegas a stable as well as non-hellish place when the rest of America had degenerated into Nazi Germany. Then he wakes up and finds everything has utterly gone to crap EVEN WORSE.

So, he basically takes over New Vegas and puts an end to the cannibalism and mass murder being conducted by the tribals. Yes, he forces "civilization" on them but they're all assholes and he lets the Great Khans walk away rather than submit.

Really, the only thing I object to is he didn't go far enough as the Omertas still practice slavery.

edited 20th Nov '17 4:41:27 PM by CharlesPhipps

Not the democracy party that bothers me. It's the pre war roleplay sham that disturbs me. It's totally and utterly creepy.

I will admit to being a hypocrite because when the Kings did it, it was utterly hilarious. However the Kings did it from a sense of naivete. House is something just more insidious.

I don't even care much for it when the Kings do it.

That said, it'd be hilarious if you could make every man a King.

edited 20th Nov '17 5:12:43 PM by Balmung

I only loved it when the Kings did it, because I completely missed the joke until I spoke to The King and heard what he had to say, and then I suddenly got it and I nearly died laughing

House doesn't do that to everybody though. He remade the Three Families so they would be beholden to them, to try to take the tribal out of them.

He doesn't insist everyone act like that.

Yeah, it's some actually effective critique of Imperialism when you think about it.

House is doing what people have been doing to native cultures for millennium.

I just downloaded some mods from Oxhorn's list and I guess I'm going to hope the game will run with them. Oh boy.

EDIT: And... game crash. : / Can't handle even a small portion of the mods

edited 20th Nov '17 11:21:50 PM by InkDagger

I've always said House is creepier than Caesar ever was and I stand by that. House's inhumanity takes a different form than Caesar's, perhaps less viscerally unappealing than watching people be crucified, but the women robots and pretty much all of the Lucky 38 stands as a monument to how this man wishes more than anything that he wasn't a man.

Caesar and House are two sides of the same autocratic coin and that's obviousl ynot a mistake. They have a lot of similarities and a lot of differences.

House is an interesting character and has the best plan of anyone in the game but I just don't like him and if you don't like your eternal despot, there's no reason to work for them. With the NCR even all the people who hate Moore can say "she's just one person, the NCR is much greater than the sum of its parts." In fact this is pretty much always the go-to defense for democracies vs. autocracies. A system built on multiple foundations stands better than a system built on one.

Eh, there's another reason to work for House. Specifically, that he's not going to screw you. He's probably the only trustworthy person in the entire game. You'll betray him before House betrays you.

As for the robots, I have the creepy suspicion House's world is actually physical as that's a Tranquility Lane pod.

He's probably got a virtual mansion and he's actually talking to you from a computer in his "prison."

Sounds like he probably would get trapped there if you disconnect him but don't kill him.

Sorry to be asking about mods, but the Realistic Wasteland Lighting mod looks amazing during the day, but the nights are terribly dark and the additional files for 'Brighter Nights' doesn't seem to do anything. I totally want to use that mod, but its making nighttime and impossible setting to play in and I'd hate to just go back to washed out grey and brown again. Anyone have a sugested fix?

edited 21st Nov '17 2:13:06 AM by InkDagger

Camp at night, like in real life. when it's too dark to see.

That's not going to work all the time when the game's day/night cycle could be anywhere when I'm leaving a dungeon.

If you're leaving the dungeon, you probably already killed the guards, yeah?

And... game crashes every couple of cell loadings. And I haven't the slighest on how to fix it. I outright removed the Realistic Wasteland Lighting Mod. Everything looks ugly and washed out again, but at least I could see at night. But, if its going to crash every couple of rooms... Oh boy... I don't even know where to start.

And I honestly think its just game stability rather than a mod issue. Doesn't help that New Vegas crashing won't let me access the task manager to kill the program either.

edited 22nd Nov '17 1:21:36 AM by InkDagger

I had that issue as well (It mainly crashes with fast travel, as it tries to load a whole new area) - I found the extended memory mod REALLY helps (basically, making it actually use your ram) - plus there's some tweak mods on Nexus that can help you manage stack overflow.

Do you have recomendations? I'm willing to try anything to keep me from going back to Vanilla New Vegas.

So, I use:

NV Script Extender (This one is pretty useful if you're downloading say, mission mods) http://nvse.silverlock.org/ - Word of advice, it can be a bugbear to set up as you need to download some extension files too.

New Vegas Anti-Crash: https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/53635/?

4GB Fallout New Vegas: https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/55061/?

I also have New vegas Bounties (Which really need the NVSE) and some of the texture mods to help.

I still get crashes, but not as many; and only one so far in the DLC areas (That's because they're more contained, I think - less to load per cell)

The unofficial Patches are pretty good too at closing stuff down; Mission Mojave is one: https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/45104/?%20%20 - However, you have to have ALL the DLC for it to work (The big stuff, I mean)

Beyond that, I don't have many mods, as they can conflict with textures - I use a Lighting Mod, Nevada Skies (For better skyboxes and weather) plus an ENB (Dynamo ENB) which overhauls the visuals - used in conjunction with a the ON Bueno texture packs makes everything look nicer (Though I haven't manged to get it to look QUITE like some of the youtube videos)

Not sure if it works with Windows 10 (Not sure if you're using Windows 10) but when I was starting out I looked on Steam and found a small file-change that was recommended that really cut down on the crashes and eternal loading screens. If you're using the PC version, you might look it up.