The DLC should had been different.

[Deleted member 98605]

It's no secret that the DLC for New Vegas - Honest Hearts, Dead Money, Old World Blues, and Lonesome Road - were miles ahead and better than the DLC for Fallout 3 - Broken Steel, Point Lookout, The Pitt, Operation: Anchorage, and Mothership Zeta. However, with my own personal growth, evolution of taste, and hindsight, I think the DLC were a missed opportunity.

Why is this? Well, one reason is a gripe with the DLC themselves. They appear to be character inserts for Chris Avellone's Ulysses character; and most of the DLC except HH basically talk about how he's so great and is spurring things and it all leads to the showdown in OWB, where he basically makes up excuses to nuke the rest of the wasteland or a significant part of it for his own philosophy, which is also an excuse for 'I want this game and series to go back to being Post Apoc'.

Why is that bad? If you're like me, you see Fallout as a series that doesn't explore the apocalypse but the society, the cultures, the reaction to the apocalypse, way after. The Great War and the primitive drive to survival is not as alluring as the way mankind is rebuilding, and the more ways they build and experiment, the better. A player can basically cook up an ending where the Khans are going to rule the Great Plains, New Vegas is a city state founded on consumerism and luxury, the Romans fuck off to their side of the River to keep playing their cosplay and the NCR is kicked back to lick their wounds and focus on themselves rather than overextending themselves and their reach; and stuff like that. It is never good for Fallout to regress wholly; and that was a bit of a background problem in 3, 4, and 76 where there is little to no advancement beyond the Great War as seen in the Core Region.

The second reason is that a huge complaint about the game, the base game, is about how undercooked some factions were and the map was too small. You can see where I'm going with this.

Thus, if I was in any place to change history, these would had been the DLC that Fallout NV would had been graced with:

The first DLC takes you to the Legion side of the River. I'm not talking about a simple Battle for Bullshead City, I'm talking about deep into Legion turf, maybe as a courier job by a legion employer. This replaces Honest Hearts; and brings you to Phoenix, and deals with an intricate plot of politics and military affairs within the Legion. It would expand, firstly, the legion side of the Map, filling it up, then sends you off to Phoenix.

The second DLC might swing you back to NCR turf; and really throw you into the NCR's rebuilt society - for all the good and ill it has produced. Brahmin Barons, corruption, senators, cops - might even be a whole Murder Mystery quest line.

The third DLC throws you north, to deal with a Ecotopia or Cascadia knockoff starting to interact with the NCR. Can the Green Revolution be used to save the NCR? Or is it better to let them starve and wither off as a failed attempt to rebuild the wasteful, hurtful pre-war America?

The fourth DLC should enhance the Mojave itself, and deal with a existential threat; probably mashing OWB and HH or DM together, swinging into 'Black Swan' territory, emerging from - you guessed it - Area 51 being the big bad 'final dungeon'. Could the horde be stopped? Can NV hold off this new threat? Can the secrets of old war science be used to turn the tide of the current war? Could also open up the eastern side of the map as well to fill it out.

Of course, this is all basically fan-wank at this point, maybe cheap mods if I am ever damned to make it. What do you guys think? Not just of this wank but of the DLCs in general? Could they had been better? Or were they the best we could had hoped for?

 

[Deleted member 116891]

I did expect to come and just say 'no, NV DLC's are brilliant' but your ideas look pretty good from where I am sitting so I'll put more effort into a response.

Why is this? Well, one reason is a gripe with the DLC themselves. They appear to be character inserts for Chris Avellone's Ulysses character; and most of the DLC except HH basically talk about how he's so great and is spurring things and it all leads to the showdown in OWB, where he basically makes up excuses to nuke the rest of the wasteland or a significant part of it for his own philosophy, which is also an excuse for 'I want this game and series to go back to being Post Apoc'.

HH is my favourite DLC, and one of the (many) things I like about it is the absence of Ulysses, save for one throwaway line. Lonesome Road is my least favourite, because though I like the idea, I think Avellone laboured Ulysees far too hard, which was a shame, cause I love PS:T and KOTOR 2 which have similar, but far less annoying characters.

Why is that bad? If you're like me, you see Fallout as a series that doesn't explore the apocalypse but the society, the cultures, the reaction to the apocalypse, way after. The Great War and the primitive drive to survival is not as alluring as the way mankind is rebuilding, and the more ways they build and experiment, the better. A player can basically cook up an ending where the Khans are going to rule the Great Plains, New Vegas is a city state founded on consumerism and luxury, the Romans fuck off to their side of the River to keep playing their cosplay and the NCR is kicked back to lick their wounds and focus on themselves rather than overextending themselves and their reach; and stuff like that. It is never good for Fallout to regress wholly; and that was a bit of a background problem in 3, 4, and 76 where there is little to no advancement beyond the Great War as seen in the Core Region.

I completely agree with this. You're also leading me to agree with you, that yes, the DLC's are backwards looking, with the pre-war casino in Dead Money, the tribals in HH, the Big MT or Ulysses with his US flag. Whereas the main game in pretty forward looking and focusing on the rebuilding-which I agree with you that that is what Fallout should mainly be about.

But where I diverge from you is that I think the NV DLC are much more than looking into the past, and what they are remembered for are the small,compact stories they tell with great skill IMO. Dead Money I think won the last poll on which DLC NMA preferred, largely due to the upscale in difficulty and the desperation of the setting, and the quality of writing in the few people you met. HH has you deal with tribals who have not formed great new civilisations but have regressed, and that's just as valid a way to take a civilisation after the apocalypse. Only LR, in my mind deals really with looking into the past by this deranged man.
And to be honest, I've never launched the nukes., when I wasn't roleplaying hard. In every one of these stories, you always can tell those wanting to make the world post-apoc again that they are wrong, and I personally would want that ending of LR to be the correct one.

The first DLC takes you to the Legion side of the River. I'm not talking about a simple Battle for Bullshead City, I'm talking about deep into Legion turf, maybe as a courier job by a legion employer. This replaces Honest Hearts; and brings you to Phoenix, and deals with an intricate plot of politics and military affairs within the Legion. It would expand, firstly, the legion side of the Map, filling it up, then sends you off to Phoenix.

The second DLC might swing you back to NCR turf; and really throw you into the NCR's rebuilt society - for all the good and ill it has produced. Brahmin Barons, corruption, senators, cops - might even be a whole Murder Mystery quest line.

The third DLC throws you north, to deal with a Ecotopia or Cascadia knockoff starting to interact with the NCR. Can the Green Revolution be used to save the NCR? Or is it better to let them starve and wither off as a failed attempt to rebuild the wasteful, hurtful pre-war America?

The fourth DLC should enhance the Mojave itself, and deal with a existential threat; probably mashing OWB and HH or DM together, swinging into 'Black Swan' territory, emerging from - you guessed it - Area 51 being the big bad 'final dungeon'. Could the horde be stopped? Can NV hold off this new threat? Can the secrets of old war science be used to turn the tide of the current war? Could also open up the eastern side of the map as well to fill it out.

I like number 1 the most-but I think if the Legion was gonna be fleshed out, it should have been done in the base game, but was cut due to the Big Bad's time restrictions.
That's probably the reason the DLC's were smaller scale in characters-the lines of dialogue limit.

Number 2: I would love-but I immediately think we should have that in isometric! Fallout 2 conversion or whatever. Then again, would look nice in 3d.

The other two sound great conceptually, though 3 needs a little greying out to not be too 'black or white' and 4. could just either be Dead Money or Lonesome Road, or OWB's scenarios with a little extra interaction with our world.

Could they had been better? Or were they the best we could had hoped for?

Yes they could have been, especially the last two (so your ideas could replace them and I would love to see mods for that.) But, I've never seen DLC that I've liked as much as NV's, so maybe they were the best we could get with the restrictions? (and if Avellone turned it down slightly.)

But don't get rid of DM or HH

 

[FDO]

I absolutely hated OWB and LR the first time. I still don't like them much, but I managed to 'master' them enough to play through them in a short time apparently, so they aren't that much of a slug after all, despite being writting failures in my mind.

HH is alright, but make no sense in the base game's context to willingly take such a long trip only to go back to the Mohave after.

DM is brillant, if there is one DLC to keep it's that one.

I figure that Bethesda woudn't have let Obsidian use the other DLC's ressources to improve on the main game, yet I think it's what they should have done. Expand on the legion yes, but not by taking a long non sensical trip like in HH, unless we speak of a DLC taking place after the main game ending.
The NCR already have more than enough content in my opinion.

Instead, I think that a DLC completely changing the independant path, making it more about rallying the various factions who would prefer a independant Vegas actually part of it, would have been great. Get rid of Yes Man and it's terrible dialogs. Then start making the people of Westside, North Vegas, East Vegas and Freeside into a coalition of sort. Then they are other independant factions like the Khans, Boomers, Followers who could have allied with this coalition, each for their own reasons.

Keep the original plan of mr House with his securitrons army for obvious reasons, however making it without Yes Man. Once mr House is removed, the courier basically have free reign of the lucky 38 to start with. With some efforts and some help from the Followers, who express great interest in House's secrets, his data and systems could be cracked without Yes Man. Then a more believable independant path could take place without Yes Man, the 'failsafe' ending, and his jokes dialogs, and his joker voice.
Those are just ideas I sort of had to imagine happening in the game but the independant path deserved better than what it had.

 

[Alphons]

Really liked your ideas, but I still think that they did the best they could do with the constraints imposed by Bethesda (number of DLCs, deadlines and even a limit on voice- lines).

 

[naossano]

I like your ideas, but not your initial assumption.

I don't care about Ulysse and i didn't even care while i've met him. And ignoring his character doesn't make the other dlc any bad.

On the other hand, Obsidian had a very limited number on the lines they were allowed to record in the DLC, which is probably one big reason why all the DLC happen in low populated areas with only a couple o npc to speak with. (that and the short schedule)

It would be great to explore the ncr or legion territories, but not with the constraints they had with the DLC.

 

[Octavian]

I agree that the dlc fell short and probably should have differed in concept as well as execution but I'm not sure about your ideas.

Its pretty obvious the design philosophy was that the dlc should be self contained (whether this is a result of gamebryo or not is unclear), which is why most dlcs are microcosms which offer little chance of interaction or lasting effects on the main wasteland. No bringing people back even if they go to the mojave in the ending slides, no dialogue options (with the exception of 1 (one) from dead money) concerning any of the events, etc.

Ideas like yours while good in theory would mesh poorly with the established design philosophy because they would almost need the ability to interact with the base game in order to be properly playable and not totally break down the believability and cohesion of the world. That said a lot of what you suggested may belong in the base game in the first place.