Hey guys, just wanted to post some feedback on my experience with TTW so far.
To begin with, I'll say that this project greatly exceeded my expectations. When I first stumbled upon it and saw the "alpha" tag, I was expecting something that barely worked or had tons of flaws. Wow, was I glad to be so far from the truth. For labeling this project as an "alpha", it's in a damn good state. The only bugs I've experienced have been far from game-breaking and are either totally ignorable, or easily fixable via the console or a simple GECK edit. The play experience with this mod is grade-A and it does an excellent job at fulfilling its purpose. I've always wanted a way to play Fallout 3 with NV's engine and mechanics, and this project is quite literally a dream come true and then some in that regard. It's not just FO3 on the NV engine - it's both!
From what I understand, Jax works on back-end stuff like scripting and the like, and Chuck is more of the actual game world type. I'd just like to offer my praise to both of you for the superb work you've done. My strong point with modding this game is basically Jax's side of the field. Scripting and the like. I thought I knew an exceedingly good share of back-end stuff about New Vegas modding, but I've done some digging around through TTW's scripts (as Jax surely knows by this point :P) and actually learned a thing or two about handling specific scenarios via scripting and quest programming. Your work is top-notch Jax, and I hope it continues for a good long time.
My weakness has always been Chuck's field. I'm absolutely terrible at designing areas for New Vegas. It was all I could do to make a simple square room with some objects and lights in it, and my attempt at a proper Navmesh is pretty sorry. After seeing Chuck's work on the project (namely the train stations) I was thoroughly impressed. It was designed just as well, if not better than the game's developers. I've also dabbled in the DCInteriors mod, and all I have to say is wow. May your work also continue for a long time, Chuck. Well done.
That's about it for the general stuff. Below is my list of things I noticed about the project that are either incorrect or need adjusting/fixing. Most of it is actually already addressed and either fixed for 2.3 or fixed by myself or someone else's plugin, but I kept the list regardless just for reference. For a project of this scope, this list is surprisingly small! :)
[collapsed title=Bug / Problem List]
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Miniature mysterious copies of certain doors (Paradise Falls comes to mind) Fixed for 2.3 as far as I know. -
Hellfire Armor is completely missing from the game. This is due to a leveled item list error in which the armor's level requirement to appear exceeds the NPC's levels that are supposed to potentially carry it, and I have posted a temporary workaround already. I would recommend removing the level requirements on the appropriate leveled item lists. They're quite redundant since you cannot even encounter the enemies that are supposed to use these loot sets until a higher level anyway. -
The basin water in the Capital Wasteland is not purified after completing the Main Quest. Caused by Broken Steel's initial quest script attempting to replace an incorrect water type. I've posted a fix for this already. -
Super Mutants, Albino Radscorpions, and Feral Ghoul Reavers are way too bullet-spongey. This has basically been agreed upon from what I've read on the forums so far. Exactly how to fix it is quite the subject of opinion however, as everyone's view of what is balanced may differ. I've posted a plugin that adjusts these creatures to what I consider to be balanced values. -
The Enclave's Tesla Armor is quite underpowered compared to the rest of the power armor they use. I understand that this is because Tesla Armor was already in NV's GECK with those values. However, it was completely unused in NV, and thus should be brought up to speed in my opinion. In Fallout 3, Tesla Armor was slightly more protective than Power Armor Mk II. Personally, I've adjusted the Tesla Armor's DT to exactly match that of Enclave Power Armor Mk II, but havn't posted this anywhere. This way, if players want to use Enclave Mk II Armor, they essentially get a "choice" on appearance and whether to take the +1 STR bonus or +10 Energy weapon bonus without trading effectiveness. -
Certain textures are missing from the game world and appear as a red exclamation point. From what I understand, this is an improperly defined statue texture, and a workaround has already been posted. -
Robots have become completely blind, deaf, and dumb. This is due to what is supposed to be the base template of each respective robot type inheriting their traits from a leveled creature with two possibilities. This is a problem because in this case, the traits in the template creature's data will be filled with the default values for every field, which causes all the other robots to inherit these incorrect settings. I made a fix for this, but an identical one has already been posted. -
Rivet City NPC's behave strangely, especially around or in the Market. This falls outside my area of expertise, but from what I can tell this has been fixed for 2.3 already. -
NPC voices that are modulated by Power Helmets cause an extremely strange and improper distortion. From what I understand, this is because New Vegas changes how voice modulation is handled, and there isn't much to be done about it. I have read reports about people with high-end sound cards not experiencing this problem. -
Music is completely missing from most of the DLC areas. This is because of a New Vegas change where music markers are required to be placed in the maps. From what I understand, this will be worked on by the team sometime in the future and has already received a very good start from another community member. -
At the end of Operation: Anchorage after you kill General Jingwei, General Chase says an incorrect dialogue line ("The simulation has concluded, soldier.") and will permanently soft-lock, leaving the player stuck there forever. This is caused by that line and the correct line having the exact same conditions to be chosen, and the incorrect line takes priority for some reason. Then the quest decided that you've already spoken to Chase and soft-locks him. This is easily rectified by adding a quest stage requirement to the improper line in General Chase's dialogue to ensure that it will only fire after hearing the correct line and advancing the quest. This way, he will always greet the player with the correct line after killing Jingwei, and then the player will be teleported out of the simulation as usual.[/collapsed]
Anyway, that's about it for my feedback, at least for now. A big thank you to Jax, Chuck, and the rest of the TTW team. You've all outdone yourselves here and I hope to continue to witness improvements to this already great project. Keep on truckin' :D
