CROSS-CONTENT DISCUSSION: Returning to the CW

[Senterpat]

So I haven't actually gotten to the point where I travel to the Mojave yet, but while reading the forums someone brought up the point that you leave the CW for 9 years, but everything is the same. So I want to start brainstorming ideas for what changes could have taken place.

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  Oasis- if the courier decided to not kill the trees heart, spread more greenery near the oasis.
  
   


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  NPCs- some changes to NPCs, children growing up, old people dying.
  
   


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  Respawn- after 9 years the ruins have been moved back into. Could have new bosses.
  
   


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  Growth- depending on how things are when you hop the train, towns could be larger.

Any other ideas?

[rbroab]

I was about to rage when I read the topic of this post.

Really loving the ideas, but don't know if it will work. Then again, I have little to no experience with doing any of those things.

[Senterpat]

Well I never did much with the geck, but I imagine it's much the same as the creation kit. It would be a lot of work, but by placing conditions I should be able to disable old references and enable new ones. If someone that experienced with the geck can confirm it can be done.

[TJ]

I'm pretty sure it can be done. Sounds like it would be pretty cool... if it's done right. It'd definitely take some talent to give the whole wasteland a makeover.

[thermador]

Updated title and moved forum - this should be a full cross-content discussion like the others I think...

[MrMedicinal]

I like these ideas! Maybe...

*kill off Elder Lyons, and make Sarah the new DC branch elder.

*Maybe by now either the Brotherhood, or the Outcasts have have a major presence in the CW, (since by now one has had to have wiped out the other, and would surely try to establish dominance in the CW.) It can vary based on whether the player did the Broken Steel quests.

*Kill off Three Dogg and replace him with the older lady DJ, so that way there won't be anymore "Nine Year Old News Updates."

Just brainstorming, any other ideas guys?

[thermador]

The main problem with actually doing this is that you would need to disable all the NPCs (via script when returning to the capital wasteland the first time) and then enable all the new NPCs (again via script).  That part's not so hard; the hard part is creating all those duplicate NPCs, placing them in the world (set as "initially disabled"), and editing them so that they are older and different.

As an experiment for a shortcut, I once tried to make a script that ages all of the original NPCs (no duplicates) with the "agerace" command (i also linked up a few ages for each race that aren't linked by default) but the problem with that approach is that the agerace command sets the hair to default, so all the NPCs suddenly have the same hair.  If anyone knows how to set a random hairstyle via script, then this shortcut would be totally doable and would save a lot of time.

[Risewild]

The problem is what if the player gets out of the vault 101, goes to Megaton does a couple of quests and goes to NV... After the player comes back there will be no Three Dog to give the satellite dish quest so no GNR radio playing, and no next hint of where the father went to, no Elder Lyons that really helps and gives access to the PA training and Citadel Shop and other tons of stuff... etc. Also what if the player starts in NV since TTW will have a select start location in the future, then we would have to change the NV side of the game too so when the player returns things are not the same anymore I do like the idea of some things changing, and would love it would happen, but in terms of the actual game I think it would be a huge effort to make it happen and would have to change FNV too much (if the player begins there) to be in the scope of TTW. Also we can never really know when the player moves to the next wasteland, might be after doing most of the stuff in one wasteland or it might be just as soon as it gets to the train station .

[MrMedicinal]

 Makes sense. All that sounds like a nightmare of an undertaking, with the Player being as unpredictable as they are . (And an actual nightmare when everyone would have the same Clean Cut Hairstyle ) In the end, they are just two different games combined and that's more than enough for me .  

[EvilLordSaxon]

The age thing may be a bridge too far, but you can create almost any quest you want if the conditions are right.

For example I made a quest the that only ran if:

1. You gave the FEV to the Brotherhood

2. You finished broken steel

3. You finished Goodsprings powder gang fight

Then had it activate the next time you returned to Megaton.  It takes work but it is worth it.