CROSS-CONTENT DISCUSSION: Main Quest

[dandys]

How do you all think we should do the main quest?

I get that maybe in the first release there won't be any coherence and you'll have to use console or something to get between wastelands but this is for later.

My vote is for starting in the vault, and only being able to travel to New Vegas *somehow, I don't care how* after the main quest is complete. Problem is that'd require Broken Steel. So I don't know. Let's come up with ideas.

Some things to consider are

is it important to have an option to start in either zone? Realize that starting in New Vegas then going to Capital Wasteland would make absolutely no sense unless we made a complicated code to autocomplete the Fallout 3 main quest as if some other guy did it, which would be cool but weird.

[JaxFirehart]

Well I intend that to be one of the differences between the base version and the fully-integrated version (we need to come up with names for these). In the base version, I vote for a startup menu to allow people to choose which game they want. Since the two wastelands are separate in that version, there won't be any conflict from allowing the player to start wherever. In the integrated version (hmm how about TTW_Core and TTW_Fusion) I, unforutnately, vote that we force the player to start in the vault. I put some thought into how to get the player to NV from DC.

We need to require the player to finish the wasteland survival guide quest (because they are found throughout the mojave).

As for the main quest, that is a sticky situation. Here are my thoughts: Up until you find James in Tranquility Lane, stuff in DC is basically at an impasse, the enclave has no idea how to get project purity working and the brotherhood is sufficiently capable of fighting off their advances. It feels to me like this stalemate has been in effect for a while. Once you rescue james, shit gets rolling for real, at that point until the end, I vote we restrict travel to NV. As long as the player has finished the survival guide and either not rescued james, or has defeated the enclave, the can travel. I have no issue with requiring Broken Steel. For that matter, I have no problem requiring all DLCs. But that is a discussion for a future date.

[dandys]

Ok. Just an aside (not imporant compared to the main quest) but for the survival guide a trick I used in my personal version was to have global values controlling survival guide leveled lists and an x-marker set to the enable parent for all the survival books. The success stages of Wasteland Survival Guide quest then set the chancenone global value from 100 to 0 (like with Broken Steel aqua pura in lits), adding the guide to leveled lists like skillbookswhatever, and enables the marker that enables the game references.

[JaxFirehart]

I was considering something very similar to that myself. The only downside I see is that, once you finish the wasteland survival guidem suddenly books pop into existence over in the Mojave. Something I was thinking was having a skin change of sorts. Survival books in DC could be "Army Survival Handbooks" and survival books in the mojave are "Wasteland Survival Guides." Just a thought, this is a pretty sticky situation, probably one of the biggest issues for us to overcome.

[yukichigai]

[quote=JaxFirehart]

I was considering something very similar to that myself. The only downside I see is that, once you finish the wasteland survival guidem suddenly books pop into existence over in the Mojave. Something I was thinking was having a skin change of sorts. Survival books in DC could be "Army Survival Handbooks" and survival books in the mojave are "Wasteland Survival Guides." Just a thought, this is a pretty sticky situation, probably one of the biggest issues for us to overcome.

[/quote]

That was basically the way I handled it, since the Big Guns skill is no longer useful.  I just renamed the things "30 Handy Survival Tips", rather than "30 Handy Flamethrower Recipes", and left it at that.  Justifying it in lore would be difficult, but honestly I think we're entitled to a little wiggle room here.

EDIT: Oh yes, as far as the main quest goes, without Broken Steel it would be pretty easy to just make sure you don't die if you convince Sarah Lyons to go start the reactor instead of you.  We can modify things a little bit to remove her from the game, dropping you outside Project Purity with the BoS still in force and guarding it.  Not sure what dialog, if any, would be available, and some of it might get a little weird, but that's stuff to polish later.  The broad strokes - Project Purity active, you aren't dead - is easy enough.

[steviestevens]

I'm sorry but at this point, atleast Fo3 side related, we shouldnt have to worry about DLC compatibility. People should allready have it and if they dont that just sucks for them, the game is what? 4 years old at this point! The only reason it shouldn't be the case is if we release a vanilla file with no DLC support.

Also on a side note as far as traveling to NV, why not another beacon thing in the Mojave from Mothership zeta after completion? No one to my knowledge ever brought that up, as rediculous as that DLC was it's I guess lore friendly. Just throwing another option out there. I like the train method myself, as as much as I hate MZ it makes some if not more sense than any other way of crossing wastelands.

[yukichigai]

[quote=steviestevens]

I'm sorry but at this point, atleast Fo3 side related, we shouldnt have to worry about DLC compatibility. People should allready have it and if they dont that just sucks for them, the game is what? 4 years old at this point! The only reason it shouldn't be the case is if we release a vanilla file with no DLC support.

Also on a side note as far as traveling to NV, why not another beacon thing in the Mojave from Mothership zeta after completion? No one to my knowledge ever brought that up, as rediculous as that DLC was it's I guess lore friendly. Just throwing another option out there. I like the train method myself, as as much as I hate MZ it makes some if not more sense than any other way of crossing wastelands.

[/quote]

Honestly I think we could have multiple methods for traversing between the Mojave and the CW.  Like you said, there are several opportunities, why not use them all?  The Mothership Zeta TP, a train tunnel, traveling caravan, just hoofing it along US 50 and hooking a left when you hit Nevada... lots of options.  I see no reason why we should constrain ourselves there.  Each could have its own advantages, e.g. the Zeta one is instantaneous but requires you fully complete Zeta and perhaps wait for things to recharge (few days?), versus the train someone proposed which would be available at any time but would advance the game date a bit.

[protectorcrimson]

Hi Im protectorcrimson know as athense, I was a writer that was recruited by kuro shortly before it was shut down on the nexus.  We had soem major descusions on how to expand   the story and what would happen to the CW after you returned from NV and perhaps play after the end for NV. some ideas were to integrate mods togeather like dog city, boulder dome,  Alton il. and his own ideas to ad verity and add the feeling that you were achually traveling between wastelands.  IF you like I could go through my old folders and see if I still have the brain storm ideas. As well I would like to help with this porject if you eventually get to the point that you can build the story. Kuro had a neat idea to of his with the bad company faction he created.   I am also a fan fiction writer for the Mothership zeta crew mod,  and that was also A mod i suggested as a way to travel between wastelands.    

If your curious my writings are on fanfiction.net and i use the same username there to.  

[JaxFirehart]

I appreciate the offer and would love to hear some of your brainstoms, thing is, we won't be at the point of expanding the game for some time. The team has agreed that, for now, our goal is simply to get FO3 feeling right and working properly. After that we need to test and update the DLCs and then, finally, we are free to truly start expanding.

[Ein]

Hi, just out of curiosity, could it be done in such a manner that once you've completed the wasteland survival guide quest proper you set it so that after a certain amount of time has passed you can join up with a BoS caravan that takes correspondance between the West and Eastcoast BoS. With explination that they also bought a number of the guides in DC, and just sold them as they went along. They did after all make it to the other side of the country one way or another, and it also gives some legitimacy for the Lone Wanderer also being the Courier.

The idea of traveling along with a caravan also just sits better with me than a transcontinental rail line that's still in opperable condition. If that were the case it undermines the entire BoS back story in FO3, that they're mostly cut off from the west coast brotherhood with the outcasts in particular looking for a means to establish direct communication.