Obsidian has never not fracked up a game. This puts me in a bit of a bind, since I really like Fallout, but I sure despise Obsidian Entertainment. I assume they will ship an incomplete product, like always, and after a few months of patches it will become tolerably playable, yet still inferior to it’s predecessors. Like always.
I would love to be dead wrong.
In Fallout 3 there was a kinda either/or thing going on between Science and Lockpick; you didn’t need both - so I usually plump for Science, as with my INT Science is usually the better option. Having said that, I’m gonna have to be a lot more selective with skills this time around - by level 30 of Fallout 3, the only skills that weren’t 100 were Unarmed, Melee, Speech and Barter. Master of all is a thing of the past, and I’m gonna have to plough a load of points into the new Survival skill (for HC mode). I’ve always been a fan of Explosives too, so I’m gonna be torn this time round just what to put the points into.
Barter is going to be a hell of a lot more useful this time round - two new perks have Barter skill as a requirement; Pack Rat which halves the weight of items under 2 pounds, and Long Haul which allows fast travel while overencumbered.
Actually, I put points into both lockpick and science as well, since both were useful at different times. I think by the time I got to level 20 I had a hundred to both. By 30, as you say, I was pretty much maxed out on everything important and had even started building up less important skills (less important to my own style of game play, which is more a brute force approach).
Well, I’ve got the game down both at home and on my travel laptop, but still no indication as to when tomorrow it will activate. Was hoping they would give a count down like Civ V did when it was going to be active, but if there is one I can’t find it. Hopefully some of the 'dopers in this thread who pre-ordered from Steam will let us all know when it’s active and what their initial thoughts are.
-XT
According to Steam, it’s active in 1 day, 3 hours.
That’s 1pm Eastern! Damnit it! I read elsewhere it was going to be a midnight launch 
Alessan, where do you see that? I must be missing it.
-XT
OK, now it says 3 days, 9 hours. Wierd.
(It’s in the Steam Store - just click the Fallout New Vegas button under Coming Soon).
Same, but less because they were useful at different times (far as I can tell, anything important had a lock that could be picked, while Science really only got you turret control), but more because you could double-dip on XP. 
I’d hack the terminal to a safe, then pick the safe.
Mine says it unlocks in 16 hours (which would be a midnight release here…woohoo!).
-XT
There are different release dates for different countries. I can confirm the 16 hour time on the US release.
Yeah, I did the same thing. Also, you could hack a terminal (and get the XP), and then turn the turret back on and kill it (again, getting the XP for it). I’m thinking that going Hard Core mode in this game I might be a bit more cautious about doing stuff like that, however.
I’m totally stoked for this game to come out tomorrow. I just hope that it works better on my (older) hardware than Civ V did (I STILL can’t play the game except in DirectX 9 mode, and the game is pretty slow for me).
-XT
Yeah, but did you really have to? It’s not like it was that hard to get your levels anyways.
Not really, but I wanted to. And isn’t that enough in a game? 
I’m a fan of squeezing every drop of XP I can get as early as I can.
I originally played Fallout 3 on the PC, but I was toying with the idea of getting the PS3 version this time. Anyone have any thought on how good an idea that is? Was the PS3 version of Fallout 3 any good?
I normally HATE FPS games on consoles, but I figure with VATS that shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
Dammit. And I thought we were a global village.
I started back on an old FO3 saved game last night, the one in which Megaton blowed up real good. Trying to maintain no higher than Neutral.
We’re discussing that over here.
I did that once - robbing, slaving, killing everyone in my path; I eventually grew weary of my wicked ways, made a 1000-cap donation to Father what’s-his-name in Rivet City, and voilא: instant sainthood! Indulgences rock.
My other four characters are the saints. 
Supposedly NV is going to make morality more natural, we’ll see. Should make a character in 3 named Martin Luther who is committed to ending indulgences and other methods of buying morality. Of course you’ll have to commit suicide at level 24 when you can buy your own morality at the cost of a perk.