The "succeeding" a speech check thing is a major part of Dean dominos character from dead money, in fact I fell victim to that blunder by passing every check thrown at me.
I'm not gonna lie, I was extremely curbstomped by that twist XD. Luckily on my first playthrough, I didn't put points in barter. But the fact that you can succeed a check and actually fuck up specifically because of that, is awesome.
I mean, there's also the fact that the example he brings up doesn't even happen really At no point do you use any skill check that wouldn't work on someone and it does The closest I can think of is telling Ricky you can tell he's a psycho addict or that his pipboy clearly doesn't work, both times it only works because you add an underlying threat to it, where for the psycho one you tell him he's gonna run out of psycho on the journey and for the pipboy one you threaten to tell Jeb that he lied about his pipboy so he doesn't get paid.
Dead Money's a bit of an exception because the treatment of the characters from how you act is more important than anything you say for the most part. All fine and well if you smooth talk Christine or Dean into doing what you want, you still didnt show them they can trust you with your actions
There is a mod that completely rewrites Marko to be a much more respectable character. Plus, more dialogue options during the final encounter. The problem is, it is still unfinished. The voice acting for Marko is disabled to accomodate the new lines. I mean, the new writing is much better, but it's still really off for him to be the only mute character. Besides the better-written lines, New Marko has slightly tweaked look (makes him look more villainous) and his own custom boss theme. The graveyard where you fight him also has it's own brand-new ominous music track to accompany the confrontation. The author promises the mod to be fully-voiced once it hits the V2 stage. They are currently looking for a competent VA for New Marko as we speak.
Especially for the kinds of Couriers that always have evil karma and kill for fun. No option to reveal the player's psychopathic tendencies to Marko. I do appreciate all the Terrifying Presence dialogue options though.
48:49 I NEVER thought that Ulysess was a bad character. I just thought that they could have toned down on the way he talks. I mean, you can sneeze, and instead of "Bless you", he'd probably say something profound about how time for another armageddon could be hinted at with smaller explosions
The idea behind Ulysess is great. What he represents, how he is tied to the courier, the way he is built up as a legendary figure where others pray for you when they hear you went to confront him, and the idea that one can a profound impact on someone else without even knowing it. The problem is in the execution. The dialogue gets pretty heavy-handed and long-winded after a while, to the point you're tempted to just start skipping because you already know what he's getting at. I thought the final confrontation was really good a fitting conclusion for two legendary couriers. It's just that after a while, he clearly loves hearing himself talk a little too much.
My favorite thing about killing The Judge is just how many different ways you can do it. You can go for the handshake, lie to him that you're hard of hearing so he has to lean in closer to you, and if you high enough strength you can break his neck. However in my recent run of the game I had the cannibal perk and had the option of TEARING OUT HIS THROAT with my fucking teeth. I love it so much
Fun fact about bounties 3, it recognizes if you have custom followers with you, and KILLS THEM when you reach that part of the story. Marko even goes ahead and taunts you about it. I had a deathclaw companion from more perks- perkpack which got buried six feet under because of this sequence.
I was using Willow when I first went through the mod and learned this the hard way lol. Funnily enough it made The Better Angels feel better for me, like I was looking for redemption for my gf dying along with everything that went down with Marko.
@@kissmekatut You don't need to go that far. I tried NVB3 again a while later with Willow installed, and she survived just fine when I left her at the house in Novac the mod comes with. Didn't even need to dismiss her, so it should also work with other modded companions as well. Just don't take them with you and you'll be fine.
9:38 actually New Vegas does do this but only a single time that I can remember. In Dead Money if you pass the 50 Barter check against Dean Domino he will ALWAYS turn hostile against you during the final act even if you make sure he's safe during the Gala event as he feels that you've disrespected him and hurt his massive ego. Josh Sawyer said that it was done to punish players who just mindlessly press the auto win button without actually reading what the dialouge says.
My favorite part about New Vegas Bounties 3, you can go out after the mod is finished, find Brookshire in the NCR Embassy, and either let him go, where he'll thusly disappear from the game, or just outright kill him, if if you don't give a flying fuck about your rep with the NCR. Killing him nets you nothing, except personal satisfaction and a note that tells you that he had been backed by the Syndicate in his endeavors.
There is also a few other NPC's that show up in the Mojave post NVB3, like the super mutant bounty can be found in Jacobstown if he's let go, and he thanks you for letting him live, or how if you let the mail bomber live, while he won't appear himself, on one occasion an NCR Courier will arrive at the Strip, and will blow up when getting near the Embassy. That second one I'm not entirely sure on, as it has been some time since I last actually did Brookshire's jobs, but I remember it only occurring after completing NVB3
@@uhglylizard6454 holy shit! HOLY SHIT- this just answered something really weird that happened to me at Mojave Outpost. I was going to repair some armor and a random courier just exploded right outside it. I checked the note and it was all really vague. I figured it had something to do with the Syndicate but not the unabomber that's wild.
Yeah, I remember going into the NCR embassy to do something for Crocker when I saw Brookshare. Man it felt good giving his head some air conditioning with Sweet Revenge. And I got away with it too, had enough NCR rep to not be hated
Doc Fridays voice lines are missing because the voice acting didn't finished all of them and was just gone (Iirc) and Someguy didn't want to replace him, left it open when he comes back.. which never happened I guess
@@ramblelime it's the same reason esther's voice lines in nvb 3 are unvocied. her actoress jsut disappeared on him after voiceing the chracter in nvb 2.
The Inheritance is also supposed to take place/be played after NVB2's main quest since it came out afterwards, so the character worship by that point is even more forgivable
I do think you missed a chunk with the Sand Wolves. For one Russel himself is sympathetic to them and tries to defend them a few times. Two is a holotape you can find in a cave ((dont remember where)) from a Follower of the Apocalypse who met with the Sand Wolves and when NCR settlers came fearing the worst turned the largely non hostile Sand Wolves into warmongers telling them the NCR was there to kill them all. Do I think they should have been fleshed out more? Yes 100% I absolutely love all the tribal stuff on Fallout. However I do think those were important details that should have been mentioned.
IIRC Someguy did originally have an ending where you killed Glanton and saved the sand wolves at the expense of the town, but he eventually removed it for reasons I can’t remember
@@pokemaster123ism he was having issues with the GECK, something about scripting breaking between the diverging quest path, and said, "okay, fuck it. Good enough"
I can see what Someguy was going for, a man with good intentions inevitably fucking things up even worse then they would have been for the natives of the area.
The whole Blood Meridian tie in with the stories was pretty nice for a new vegas setting. Tho itd be cool if you could run with the Glanton gang like the kid then get betrayed
'Tribals' in Fallout are only as 'indigenous' as anyone else after the apocalypse. They're not necessarily native Americans/first Nations, in-lore they are literally just tribes of people who banded together post-great war. IIRC the tribes in Zion in the Honest Hearts DLC are descended partly from European tourists.
Right, nobody ever criticized the White Legs tribe and they're practically the same in regards of violence. The towns people don't hate the Sand Wolves because of their tribalism or their "race". They hate them because of how they savagely brutalize everyone that isn't them. It's a good video but he should keep his white guilt to himself since it's not even warranted to the story.
in HH iirc the Sorrows were decendants of kids who escaped Think Tanks experiments in Big MT, so probbably kids of/would be Chinese first generatiom immigrants, Dead Horses dont really have any explanation so it would be reasonable to say they were just a buch of people who formed a tribe around Dead Horse point
@@comradesam3382 Pretty sure Joshua said the Dead Horses come from "The Res" which is basically the Navajo Nation. From the wiki: "The Res is based on the real-world Navajo Indian Reservation, which was renamed to the Navajo Nation on April 15, 1969. Like its in-game counterpart, it is located to the east of the Grand Canyon and attracts many tourists." "He tells the Courier that he believes the Dead Horses tribe members were originally refugees from Res, and that their language is a combination of their own and that of travelers who were visiting when the Great war occured." Also, I disagree with you saying tribals are descended from europeans. They're basically Native Americans/First Nations descendant. We literally teach French, Spanish and German on the Navajo Nation today; and many natives speak their tribe's language and english along with Spanish or German/French. We're required to take classes for speaking Navajo. It's not a stretch to say the natives from that area just survived and continued using the navajo language in combination with the other languages which formed the language we hear the Dead Horses speak. We should also recognize that Native Americans have already gone through near apocalyptic plagues and genocide on a scale unseen and still managed to recognizably survive and keep their cultures. If anyone is prepared to keep their culture alive through a Nuclear war, I'd say it's them, even with the odds stacked against them.
It doesn't matter if they really are "indigenous" to the region or not, what matters is their presentation; their language, clothing, weapons, all of it is clearly meant to allude to and be a representation of real-life Native American groups. They're more or less a stand-in for real Indigenous groups that live in the Southwest United States.
@@Bister_Mungle at least Navajo keep their language alive. There are so few speakers of Sioux dialects that it is almost pointless to even learn it when less than 100k people speak it with any sort of proficiency
The Bobby Bass tape is incredible. Love the bewildered look at the length of the tape. "That last guy had something going on with babies, and hatches, and-" 🤣
Nice analysis. Now here's some thoughts as a guy who followed this series way more than he should have. 1. In regards to the language, iirc Someguy said in an interview it's a verbal tic he took after his grandfather, who he mentions having sweared allot. 2. One of the big reasons Bounties 3 suffers is because it's pretty much a bare bones mod he made because he felt obligated to finish it. Marko was supposed to have more depth, and the mod would have had a way to save the town by doing some pretty horrible stuff. And there would have been an ending where you meet Marko YEARS after NV as a dying old man with the option to kill him or not. Instead we got what we got. You mention alot how modders tend to quit after a few projects, Bounties 3 almost made Someguy quit and he's since admitted it's probably his worst. 3 (you thought we were done?). While the funny tape with Bobby is a moment I love, it also has a bittersweetness to it. Towards the end he mentions heading to The Commonwealth which was supposed to set up a Someguy series for Fallout 4. But he was one of the many who was disappointed in it, and found the modding very limited. Which sucks considering most of the problems he listed have since been fixed by modders, but by the time they came out it seems modders stopped caring. Someguy did mention a while ago he was contemplating making a "season 2" in NV focusing on the Syndicate, but this IS coming from the guy who still hasn't finished his Skyrim series nearly a decade after the first part, so who knows if it will happen. In conclusion, this mod series is amazing simply because of how much of a bedrock it is for modding as a whole. It would be interesting to see what quest mods today would look like if it was never made.
@@WSBM14 Yeah, and those that tried were too late. Even though there are ways to make dialogue not four versions of yes, and bringing the old UI, it came out at a time when everyone lost motivation. Even some of the few quest mods that come out in a blue moon don't use those tools because they are basically forgotten cause no one pays attention to mods that aren't big tit presets, or settlement overhauls.
@@White_Tiger93 I think you should forget about Firebase Zulu ever happening. That mod burned him out big time and I don't think he's inclined to return to it.
I haven’t heard of them I’m somewhat new to modding on New Vegas and wow there is a lot of mods so it’s not surprising I’m still learning about mods I’ve never heard of any other good recommended quest mods?
All of his mods are currently being remastered by Roy Batty and his team (not TTW) with finished VA from the original actors mostly and a lot of stuff revoiced and bug fixed.
@@Guymanbot97 It's been discussed on the TTW server as well as the Nexus forums. You can find the thread about keeping the British VA for one of the characters on the nexus forums, Hermit posted it.
@@alalvarez7301 It was for a voice acting call, although there was a recent Someguy bug fix mod that had authour of said mod ask if he could use the mod as a basis to speed up the process
My biggest confusion on the Ulysses hate is the complaint of "he talks to much and too long" HE'S LITERALLY THE ONLY MAJOR CHARACTER YOU TALK TO IN THE ENTIRE DLC, IF HE WASN'T LONG WINDED THEN THERE'D BARELY BE ANY DIALOGUE IN THE DLC. Not to mention his dialogue length is less than half than the combined Big Mountain Scientists dialogue length.
the difference is that Ulysses' dialogue isn't just a lot, its dense. Everything he talks about has weight to the point where it gets so figuratively heavy its exhausting - like a massive exposition dump. The Think Tank's dialogue and the overall story of OWB is relatively light and unchallenging. Remember that Ulysses is carrying the weight of all three other DLCs, plus the main campaign on his shoulders. Every single story to this point was leading up to this encounter between the two couriers. I'm also assuming youre combining ALL think tank dialogue into one, right? Not really fair. They are 5 different characters, each with their own cadence, tone and flavor. Ulysses speaks dryly and in a very monotonous, hostile way. I love Ulysses to death, this is just my take on why people probably dislike him. Its a combination of dry, coldness. Something that doesnt feel justified.
Because Ulysses motivation is stupid. He's basing this monumental decision and attempting to wipe out everyone he can over an accident. He then monologues self righteously for 15+ minutes everytime he takes over ED-E. If the final dialogue box didn't have a shut up and fight option he'd monologue even longer. People think he's some deep and interesting character because he has a gravelly voice in the most brown dlc of the brown game in the first real ending of a serious game they've ever played, and he's just a dingus. The ending is a less harsh van Buren ending because obsidian wanted to shoe horn it in.
I feel he suffers from how his dialogue is structured more than anything else. Instead of it being spread out well, it is basically an exposition monologue after every area. If they broke it up better, made him monologue a bit less, and so on, it would work wonders.
I thought your criticism of the Sand Wolves' treatment was pretty on-point for the most part, but I was surprised you didn't mention the diary entries that are scattered around that give more insight into their culture and history, explaining why they act as hostile as they do. It's not as good as it could be, but they definitely aren't entirely devoid of depth.
@@gofuckthyself420 missing out misc notes is an error I suppose but not one that's particularly relevant. The Sand Wolves are still portrayed 1 dimensionally despite what diaries most players miss says
@@jamesmeow3039 so your ignoring the lore so you can say that? The sand wolves and the town are in a turf war. You went to the town and have connections to the town, why would the sand wolves talk to you? Let alone give you lore dumps. Ofc the townspeople are going to act like the "tribals" are all savages becuse turf war. If you go to Ukraine and ask them about the Russians they'll say similar things as the townsfolk, becuse war.
I like how PVB and HH do the presentation of tribes being just more victims of the apocalypse like you. It makes you understand that as the reason the New Canaanites protect them in spite of their backwards beliefs.
@@Otterdisappointment Hey, I know you mean well here-- but I would be careful about saying beliefs of an ethnicity are backwards. Obviously these are fictional characters, so there's no real harm done, but beliefs about fiction often bleed over into real life, so it's best to keep cultural relativity in practice irl AND elsewhere.
Russell doesn't even remotely imply colonialist extermination is okay, even if it would have definitely benefited from greater interaction with the sand wolves prior to the legion attack. The town being treated as resoundingly unpleasant and Russell (himself a victim first of Legion imperialism and then later the NCR's) stabbing the mayor to death before leaving in disgust aren't mild context clues. Plus, yknow, Glanton being named after an infamous historical scalphunter.
I'd recommend trying autumn leaves next. Its probably the only quest mod you can complete without firing a single shot. As for the sand wolves, I'd recommend checking some of the caves in the russel new world space, you might just find an interesting journal.
I mean yeah the people in the town refer to the Sand Wolves in horrible terms, but the mod makes it pretty clear it is because they've both screwed each other over the past couple of years and are pretty much in a state of constant warfare. The raided farmstead outside the town has several notes detailing their interactions with the tribe. If anything it's fitting that they both hate each other.
and you find a note by a fallower where he is so terriified about what the ncr are gonna do to the sand wolves when they find out there are silver in the mines.
I don't want it to seem like I'm casting aspersions, but... it's hard to _not_ notice the similarities between Bobby Bass and Roy Sullivan from the Eliza mod. I'm not saying so-and-so copied what's-his-nuts, because both Bass and Sullivan are depictions of a character archetype. Still, the similarities between the two characters are un-missable. heh
This video is actually a dream come true for me, I've always wanted to see someone analyze the themes of these mods (or quest mods in general) and also how they fit into the game as a whole. It feels like all of these old quest mods were only really reviewed for their gameplay and not really discussed for anything deeper. I've wanted to make my own reviews in this style for a long while, but this is a lot better than what I had in mind! I thought this video was great, I really liked your perspective on this series and I really hope to see you tackle some other older mods that have gone untouched over the years! (Beyond Boulder Dome comes to mind.)
Thank you so much!!!! You should make those videos! One of the things I worried about the most when I started was doing something someone else had already done. My first (now deleted) video was around an idea that someone had made and uploaded only a few days before mine. That creator and I connected, and we both learned a lot from each others' takes on the idea. Every person is different and as such every person will make different videos, even if on the same topic. Thank you again for such a thoughtful and kind comment :) EDIT: i'm working on two projects at the moment, and one of them may or may not be boulder dome... maybe.
Interestingly, NV proper does have some ways to "fail" by succeeding skill checks. Pretty infamously, succeeding a barter check when you meet Dean Domino at the beginning of Dead Money will instill in him the same narcissistic psycho-grudge he had for Sinclair and he'll try and murder you when he gets the chance later for acting "better" than him. There's not much way to know this will happen, though - it only becomes clear as you find out more about Dean and the Sierra Madre that his neurosis makes him incredibly vindictive over real or imagined slights.
isn't that specifically for shitters who find it funny? I don't really see how that counts as a "failed" skill check compared to DM, which is the only ACTUAL unintentional fail.@@changvasejarik62
18:26 that’s actually a reference to “al sweargengen” a historical figure and a character from the show deadwood which had a lot of cussing in it as well
Yeah, except he's not nearly as good a writer as the guys from Deadwood, so it just comes off as a cheap imitation. The swearing in Deadwood is downright poetic and is woven into the iambic pentameter.
I personally don't have much of a problem with the whole "imperialism" thing. it's actually quite interesting to me, because nobody really bats an eye at immediately hostile "raider" groups (or vault dwellers or townspeople or "boomers" etc), with no further nuance. it's only problematic when these npcs get renamed to "tribals". which in the world of fallout carries basically 0 weight in-universe. every faction in the game is tribalistic. the only real weight it carries is the players own drawn parallels between the tribal depicted in the game in their own context, and the "indigenous" peoples/cultures in our world and history. in game, they have the; same on-sight aggression. same lack of reason to explain the immediate hostility, besides the surmiseable "it's the apocalypse". so really, it's more of a critique based on your own realworld sensibilities, than based on anything presented to you in-game. which is absolutely understandable and perfectly fine to feel that way, of course, but levied as a criticism? I'm not sure that's particularly fair. That aside, fantastic analysis, and cool to find out you're a fellow Canadian! I've been binge watching your videos today, and i thought i heard a bit of the accent in a few instances!
I feel like while Someguy has regrets over the Sand Wolves Portrayal, how it is, how they are portrayed as being utterly and totally hostile, nearly animalistic, paired against both Glanton's brutalism against "savages" and the town's venomous hate against the sandwolves shows a weird but great dynamic of everyone being wrong for the right reasons? You and your Pal Russel here seem to be the only human souls amongst the lot of these groups in carruthers canyon. It's a turning of fallout dynamics on it's head again, similarly to the Bradley "fight" in the inheritance bunker. The Sandwolves, not all tribes, but them really are utterly hostile. they are still human. Same for the NCR settlers in the town. No one is correct, all are wrong, and they have credible reasons for thinking and acting how they do. Both the Sandwolves and Glanton kill infants. Silverpeak is full of bigotry brought on through fear, but it's credible fear, and they're the most "innocent" among the groups there. I feel like its supposed to be a no-win scenario, you try to make it out as "best" as you can, which i think is not siding with Glanton, and helping the town to fight the legion, which then gives Russel, your friend, some peace at the end as he faces off against his centurion tormentor. This was a lot of rambling just to say i understand your feelings on the Sandwolves but it's a good portrayal of brutalism in the west, Blood Meridian style, but from it, and this whole excursion, your friend Russell does find some measurement of self improvement. His name is the Mod afterall.
It's based off Cormac McCarthy's novel "Blood Meridian" and the real, historical "Glanton gang" who killed thousands of indigenous people in northern Mexico and southwestern USA. The mod does not condemn Manifest Destiny, imperialism, and genocide as much as the book does. I think someguy may have read the novel and wasn't able to translate it's political/social commentary, and the mod ended up the way it was as a result.
@@UberSchluh I know it has basis in Blood Meridian, that's why I made the comparison. And while it doesn't have a one to one correlation in terms of practice, the message is still the same. Condemnation of manifest destiny but a equal condemnation of what one can equate, in simple terms, to savagery. McCarthy is against Manifest Destiny, but then gets to it's root, that anyone or thing can be capable and has shown to be capable of "that". Greed and savagery and violence and "evil". It's the same in the mod, The sandwolves are having their land being encroached upon, yes, but Silverpeak DID try diplomacy and it didn't work, it was met with brutalism, and such evil begets evil begets evil and so on and so forth, the role of the player and Russell is the intention to stop that cycle, but in the end, instead of putting the entire world on your shoulders, you put an end to the PERSONAL "cycle of evil" that has harmed Russell for a large portion of his life, his slavery and torture and his disillusionment.
@@captainscowllyface Very true! Its been sometime since I played the mod and I had not considered the affinities between the Courier/Russell and the Kid. In the novel, once the Judge becomes the de facto leader, violence begets violence not for sake of monetary gain but for sake of violence itself, 'War is God' and all that. Arguably this was already in place with Glanton, but it reaches its apex in the final third of the novel. What I do not think the mod can recreate, possibly due to its position in the larger world of New Vegas, is the idea that the Judge is some universal constant of violence, a self-correcting system of bloodlust that covers everything in existence. Look at the end of the novel, and the final interaction with the Judge and the Kid: if this had some equivalent in the mod, I doubt many would have liked it. Perhaps the fact that the ideal solution is unattainable is the closest means of rendering that affect. The idea that the NCR, seeking to recreate the structural and institutional aspects of the USA, will fall into the same issues, is very pronounced in the base game. Even their interactions with the Great Khans could arguably be making the same statement regarding indigenous groups, although the Great Khans differ from Fallout 'tribes' in several ways. I think it would be interesting to see this mod remade with more attention paid to the issues discussed in the video and comments. However, since New Vegas quest mods will be expected to function in the larger narrative of the base game (hence why recreating the end of Blood Meridian is untenable), a one-to-one correlate of the novel's thematic sequence is unlikely to take place.
@@UberSchluh I think In a way it would be worse if it did correlate so accurate and closely, it is more an echo or reference then a full on adaptation, such as their already being "The Judge" at the end of Bounties 1, and they are not some vaguely supernatural, semi omnipotent force like the novel, but still a very evil, stalwart, monster of a man. I feel Russell's ending is for the Better with all things considered. The vagueness at it's end I think holds to it a great weight, not just as a correlation to blood meridian, but it's play on fallout ideals and practices. There is no clean way to complete Russell. You can't talk the sandwolves down, you can't convince Silverpeak to give up, nor can the legion be avoided. Violence will occur, there is no peaceful option that much of New Vegas can cater towards. Someguy2000 has done a lot of subversion of fallout practices in his works. In that way, I think the ending is great. You sorta just scraped by, it wasn't clean no matter what your options were for glanton or Silverpeak, but you and Russell for our of there, and you and he are better for it.
The thing I hate the most about NVB3 Is the fact that I'm being judged for actions I had no choice for in NVB1, I get 2 because I had a choice there so fair enough, but for NVB1 I could only kill.And also I hate the fact that you can murk marko and then the game is like " lol courier got shit kicked in, everyone think he coward and dumb and weak and stupid and dumb enjoy the end " though without those issues decent mod.
Fr he was really that unwilling to let's his character look weak in any way and it forces your character into been obsessed with thier "legend" Not forgetting most of your targets are the most evil people that could exist
@@mayalewis2956 The funny part is that the whole "I ruined your legend" thing in NVB3 doesn't even work right. Because, in the run where you kill Marko, you have the Courier buried in a shallow grave for a second time, rising again, slaughtering a saloon full of bounty hunters in a massive gunfight, before facing down Marko in single combat and emerging triumphant, all while bearing the injuries Marko gave them. That's *exactly* the sort of shit that'd show up in those dime novels that are apparently being written about the Courier. That's downright *cinematic* in how amazing a story it sounds. Marko couldn't even ruin your legend right.
Fun fact: Steven Randall is a reference to the 1950s Western show "Wanted Dead Or Alive", starring Steve McQueen as "Joshua Randall", a bounty hunter who frequently uses his earnings to help desperate or less fortunate people.
Someguy loves his (Actor's first name) (character's surname) character references. Tom Quigley, the first bounty, is likewise a reference to Tom Selleck and Quigly Down Under.
Crazy fact about Russel that makes me sad: you can actually find a note in the Sand Sharks' village from one of the tribe's elders, and it turns out: the mayor was lying. They weren't a bunch of savages who refused to negotiate, he never even tried. Glanton was able to talk them into bringing out all their most vulnerable people because they blindly trusted him -- a stranger. They killed people because the mayor was aggressing against them for territory, and the reason they were taking the kids is because they didn't want to kill them but didn't know another way. What a narrative difference a single note can make. 😢
Facts! As much as I love FO4 gameplay wise (especially taking over settlements in Nuka World!) The story absolutely sucks ass (except Far Harbour which is _decent)_
I don't think there's a problem with how the Sand Wolves are portrayed. Even in the world of Fallout, there have been tribes that are essentially evil. The White Legs, for instance, just go around raiding and killing because they're incapable of living off the land. The most you can do in Honest Hearts is show mercy to their leader, but they aren't a nuanced group by any means. The White Glove Society is a group of reformed cannibalistic tribals who used to drag people underground to eat them, and the Omertas were once a tribe known as the Slither Kin (yes, like literal fucking backstabbing snakes) whose whole gimmick was inviting hapless travelers to feast with them before drugging and either murdering or enslaving them. If anything the lack of nuance with the Sand Wolves is more of a missed opportunity than anything actually offensive. In the world of Fallout there are good tribes and there are bad tribes, and the Sand Wolves fall into the latter category.
So far the only Someguy I've actually played is King of the Ring. After seeing youtubers fail to beat it without cheating, or even fail to beat it with moderate cheating. It's challenging, but nowhere near impossible with an actual unarmed build (Piercing strike, Stonewall, Super Slam, Slayer, Unstoppable force) and the right non-melee perks (Rad Child, Toughness, NEMEAN subdermal armor)
If you liked that recording you should've gone for the New Vegas Killer mod as well. Another small tidbit i liked is the whole point with "Sweet Revenge" having a unique dialogue choice with Marco in the final confrontation. And yes i suppose the locale was supposed to be a Western homage, of the highest kind of homages. (too much of a homage of The Good the Bad and the Ugly.
I carried Sweet Revenge ever since I completed Bounties 1 and when I found out that Marko actually recognized Randall's piece before I used it to paint the snow with him was a mind blowing touch for a single NV mod
The best thing these mods achieved was to establish that it's possible to have interwoven stories across multiple entries with varying effects on gameplay based on decisions previously made. personally I think _th3overseer_ produced the more enjoyable series but Someguy2000's work cannot be ignored since it inspired much of what came along later. In terms of fitting in with the story of New Vegas, the series can be mostly integrated since the base game already lends itself to embracing the life of a bounty hunter. You have places like Primm which need a sheriff to bring law and order back to the streets and in North Vegas you have to help out the settlement in order to find out information about a missing person. Then there's checking on Nipton, freeing slaves in Cottonwood Cove and even solving a territorial dispute between the NCR and Jacobstown. The game was _built_ for roleplaying the post-western bounty hunter!
I view theoverseer as directly inspired by Someguy2000 but with a much better understanding of the game engine, and having far more resources available in the modding scene that someguy200 simply had no access to.
10:28 I agree that skill or special checks shouldn't always be auto win button but [Taunt] dialogue isn't a special or skill check, it's obvious a fight option, NV already has [Attack] dialogue so I don't think that's a good example. A good example would be if it was speech check and you got punished for trying to bad mouth a boss.
the ending hit me hard. because i did lonesome road and sacrificed ED-E to disarm the missiles i then went to primm to repair the broken down ED-E. and i went to face Marko with both Russell and ED-E. that was a mistake because he kills any companions that you bring to Utah
Bowdrie: "You're dumber than you look, kid. Did you really expect to get the drop on a seasoned Ranger?" (A pre-positioned force of Boone, Russell, Hope Lies, and Eliza, along with myself and Mole Rat, all open fire on Bowdrie and his two pals with suppressed Marlin 1894s) Me: "That's the rumor."
One thing i found interesting in the inheritance is, when those fiends kidnap the kid, there is a secret ending to it. Spoilers. If you complete all the bounty quest for the NCR to kill the fiend leaders. you can pass a speech check with the fiends who grabbed the kid and get them to leave without giving them caps, or the kid dying. Edit: forgot this, but you also need to kill motor runner, so you need to kill all 4 fiend leaders.
@@mettatonfanboy also for another secret, if you pay the ransom or talk the fiend down, wait a few days then revisit one of the locations added by the mod and the fiend will become a mini boss.
Bobby Bass goes hard. Bobby Bass is literally just a stand-up routine disguised as a character in a mod and I love it so much. ah around 41:08 we get a sliver of Bobby Bass' wonderful routine. Love to hear it. :)
I always forget that this channel only has around 5k subscribers because the quality of your video essays are on par with channels with 100s of thousands of subs, this is absolutely one of my favorite series on youtube and I always look forward to seeing new videos from you! I know for a fact your channel is going to blow up at some point!!
I feel like the fact that Bounties I starts off as what is basically radiant kill quests makes it so intriguing. The kind of mod that adds a set of radiant quests that gives you a bit more to do in the wasteland. Some quests to do on the side. Only for it to completely turn things around and have a proper story start off.
Yeah. It basically existed entirely to be "Three Card Bounty, but more and better." Which it is. Not sure why someguy didn't have you taking heads instead of fingers, though. That was a nice touch for that base game quest.
@@DSFARGEG00 dont remember exactly why but he says its some technique he learnt from marshall cooper,a regulator and a character from a mod in fallout 3. the perks lawbringer and contract killer in fallout 3 also have you bringing fingers back for payment
While I was playing NVB2, I saw parallels between the sand wolves and the Comanche tribe, especially with how the towns-people viewed and feared them. The sand-wolves acts of brutality seem to mirror that of the Comanche, a tribe known for being incredibly hostile to not just white and Spanish/Mexican settlers, but also neighboring tribes. I'm not sure if someguy2000 purposely took inspiration FROM the Comanche tribe, but I still think it's an interesting thought.
@@randomstranger9442 Definitely, I remember seeing more than a few direct references to westerns. My favorite western, Unforgiven, was referenced in NVB2. The whole thing with the sand-wolves could be from any number of westerns. If I remember correctly, the Comanche were featured heavily in The Searchers.
@@garrisonjohnston1355 Josey Wales maybe. Considering NVBIII's final area is literally just the grave from TGTBTU, I have a feeling SomeGuy is more of an Eastwood Guy
That tangent about tribals and fans of the Enclave really came outta left field and broke my focus on the video almost immediately. I get you may have gripes with certain themes, characters or fans. And you can voice them reasonably like you otherwise have. But try not to get overly emotional about it.
The way you describe Russell's companion mod reminded me of what I loved about The Outer World's DLCs so much. Both Peril On Gorgan and Murder On Edinos had a similar kinda feel that I just soaked up as much as I could of
His series of mods along with the the north road and depths of depravity from a different modder to me always felt like they could belong easily in the game and I rarely play without them installed.
On the subject of auto-picking the "bracketed" skill option, Disco Elysium is one of the only other games I've seen do this and I love it. In that game, the "skills" you pick are basically parts of your personality, and you quickly learn that just because a part of you recognized there's something you could say... Doesn't mean you SHOULD. A lot of times just giving into that one part of yourself whenever it comes up actively makes things worse, sometimes giving you additional insight for your trouble but other times giving you useless info or nothing at all. It's great, and now I want to play these mods.
when i first finished Bounties III, just after leaving Frosthill and returning to Vegas, the courier who gives you Randall's message spawned and gave me the letter, at first i thought he was scripted to appear after killing marko as a gag but then i found out that he was supossed to appear after finishing Bounties II, it was pretty funny and kind of poetic
Worked for me especially because the last interaction I had with Randall was him being disgusted with me for killing Glanton. Did so because my character’s general response whenever a revered mass murderer (I.e Red Bear) takes hostages is “well uh, there’ll be the LAST innocents you ever kill!” Which, despite being something we can tell Glanton, is NOT something we can tell Randall to justify it. All that aside, having Randall die without ever redeeming myself in his eyes hurt. Hurt even more when the same courier came to me with that letter after my return to the Mojave.
He's not conflating anything....if you know anything about the history of the American West and Native culture then you can easily spot the references to real life. The Glanton Gang was a real gang of scalp hunters that murdered and scalped hundreds of Natives back in the 1800s. Judge Holden was also a real member of that gang. The mod author probably read Blood Meridian and these are intentional references to "cowboys and indians". The criticism is valid and comes with that territory.
In my ongoing playthrough, my character visited Zion first. He saw the good and bad in tribals. Every cannon and non-cannon tribes are descendents of survivors who adapted. Maybe the white legs and sand wolves were once peaceful but either their supplies ran dry or they got invaded too many times and had to adapt by becoming violent. It would've been better if Someguy fixed the lore of the sand wolves, but we can always imagine why they turned into these horrific killers.
The Someguy Series is a great example of a first of it's kind mod series. I don't think it does the continuous narrative thing the best, but it was the first to do it and do it well. I think the interconnection of Th3Overseer's mods is more interesting, but tragically it looks like that series will never be finished. Though Th3Overseer is now working on the rewrite of The Frontier, so that's pretty rad.
Yes, how dare we like the faction that is genocidal, racist, commits atrocities, experiments on humans, massacres entire settlements and has done a lot more awful shit. We are truly victims for being hated for liking a faction of fucking monsters. Can you taste the sarcasm?
Amazing analysis! One thing I would like to add though is a little bit of a defense for Marko. I think Marko is interesting because he's a deeply personal antagonist for the Courier. Other villains in the series are motivated by money or power but Marko specifically hates you for killing his brother, as you hate him for killing Randall.
marco becomes intresting if you look at him not believing the stuff that comes out of his mouth. he is playing the role of the big evil villain type. he is just pissed you killed his brother he was gonna retire before you killed sergio.
I agree I just wish you could counter him more on alot of the crap he spouts about legends and theatrics as when I play my Courier that isn't how he is he doesn't care about "His Legend" as thats something that other people have built around him so when Virigil is doing his speeches about Marko to the guys he's there to kill I just cut him short and kill them. Same when you meet Marko proper later on there's no I don't care about the dam Legends and your theater.
i mean this series of mods was good enough that i literally had my own irl character arc over revenge lmao, realising that the whole story is about the courier taking on Randalls revenge acting it out to its logical and very bloody conclusion, i mean i killed every bounty avoiding conversations with the likes of the judge, zimmer, and Sergio - opting to taunt them so theyd fight me - right up until New Vegas Bounties 3 and characters like Porter or Doolin. I know it feels an obvious revelation - but for a mod to be so well written that it makes me actually reflect on how my actions as the player escalated a conflict that i could have possibly avoided if i had not been so mad abt the supposed death of Randal in new vegas bounties and the situation with Zimmer in the Inhereitance, i can only imagine the amazing work Someguy could do if he had a whole dev team and funding at his disposal
Randall could've been a comment on the general business nature of bounty hunters and mercenaries, how your courier (no matter their intentions or factions) participates in a brutal profession of death. Despite the ugly nature it's still another opportunity for profit from everybody but the bounty. There could've even been a comment from Randall how killing in defense is defense, no heart or head ache but that spinning it with profit is admitting that it isn't about you, it's about the money. Rewriting Marko doesn't require an empathetic character exactly but one that is way less edgy and prone to evil info-dump. With a backstory filled with slavery and people's disregard, he totally could've been a character that 'roots' for the courier's triumph in death and executions seeing as he found strength for himself the first time he killed. Marko could have been a reflection of cycles and viciousness the wasteland has lent itself to, with the courier given the chance to reckon with the role given to them.
@@peppermillers8361 yeah that fucking sucks. Lost Russell that way. Felt really anticlimactic. Granted I hate Virgil/Marko's stupid edginess and resented the mod for not allowing you to tell him to piss off with the bullshit moralizing
I personally hate Virgil, because his whole "You should feel like a monster" schtick is predicated on me feeling bad... for killing psychopathic murderers. It is certainly tragic that Dana is so far down on her luck, but it isn't my fault Quigley was killing people and got a bounty put on his head. That's how all of his (and, y'know, Markos) shaming feels. Stupid, but he's clearly supposed to seem intelligent, literate, like Dutch if Dutch was straight up evil instead of prancing around like western Robin Hood.
I will disagree on two points: the introductory part of Bounties 3 with Virgil, and the combat. Killing people does have indirect and direct consequences, but what exactly is his point or is that literally the point? Should I try to predict the indirect consequences and ameliorate them? Should I pay attention afterwards and try to fix the problems it causes? At what point is something no longer an indirect result? Are we going to ignore that there are people directly responsible for what we indirectly caused, and are we going to ignore that the people murdered were likely going to do worse things directly than the indirect things pointed out? Should we not do anything unless we understand the outcomes or are able to fix any indirect consequences? What lesson does Virgil want me to learn or is this just guilt tripping? For combat, the massive amount of enemies was just not fun. I slogged through so many contracts that required me to kill like a hundred dudes and then the contract completed. I really enjoyed the sections where you were able to talk with the contract and learn something about them though. Unfortunately, that was not most contracts.
I agree hard with your first point and would have loved dialogue to call him out and an option to kill "Virgil" in the Mojave and either end the quest there or you finding your way to Utah on your own and dealing with the surprise that Virgil was Marko all along
Most, if not all, of the bounty and assassination targets are expies of characters from other properties. The ones I remember off-hand are Matthew Quigley from Quigley Down Under, Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street and Tony Montana from Scarface.
correction: you can actually save Bradley if you have enough medicine skill, you need the someguy series revamped mod though, which at this point is a must IMO, it makes all the mods work correctly together instead of forcing you to install them one by one.
oh and before I forget one more thing: the inheritance and new vegas bounties are a lot more connected than you think- you need to wait after opening that orphanage and then inspect it. thoroughly. this triggers an entire story arc that you can complete alongside new vegas bounties- the first act triggers right after inspecting the orphanage, the second one after NVBII and the 3rd act is the final bounty the NCR guy gives you in a shack near Randall. WARNING: MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THAT STORY AHEAD when you inspect the orphanage it turns out that Esther is running a slave action in the basement, selling the orphans to various scumbag factions. when you confront her she tells you that you can either kill her or promise her safe passage in an exchange for the location of the last slave batch. you can kill her on the spot, dooming the kids, you can let her go and save the kids from being sold to the legion or you can join in on the kiddy slaving operation. if you let her go and saved the kids you meet her again, apparently NCR captured her and is now holdig her prisoner because she has valuable intel on a massive legion slave camp but she said that she'd only reveal the info to you because you are someone worth trusting apparently... weird but whatever. she tells you the location and gives you info, you go to that big ass camp and commence legion removal, maybe slaughter a family that helps them gather slaves if you're into that kind of thing. when you come back Esther is nowhere to be found, she cut a deal with the NCR and gave them some more valuable intel in exchange for her freedom so the slaver bicth escapes once again. you encounter her once again in NVB3, when the other guy in the shack next to randall gives you the bounty to track some man down who has apparenly taken up residence in frosthill, he also lives with a slaver. you can probably guess who that slaver is. you go in the house and meet up Esther for the third time, but this time she is pregnant with the child of the man you were sent to kill. she desperately begs you to spare her and her baby and you're faced with a choice: spare her, kill her of just kill her husband which will make her life and the life of her child extra miserable. personally I always make that bicth eat her own hair for obvious reason.
"the tribe is treated as backwards evildoers by the characters in game" "the only time you see or interact with the tribe is evidence of them being backwards evildoers" > have you considered that the tribe might actually just be backwards evildoers and we can accept that without having to try and heavy handedly mirror that onto unrelated real world issues?
are you aware that things like that are written by actual people? there's a reason why it was written this specific way man. also, fucking hilarious seeing this idiotic take combined with the 4chin funny arrow on youtube.
Bounties 3 is still fantastic, but since Some guy was having a hard time in real life its understandable it doesn't hit its potential, even if the point was to wrap up the trilogy, though I also think it fits well into each chapter of NVB with their own experience, some will prefer one or the other, I actually loved NVB 1 alone and wouldn't of minded if all of them just kept adding more contracts the same way, but I know most love NVB2 and I've seen ppl prefer NVB 3 the most Also I noticed the option to accept The Judges offer to join him, I knew by the end it'd offer even more kills but I just couldn't bring myself to do it, had to get my revenge for Randall xD
Someguy's mods feel like a time capsule of old modding, janky goofy charm that's trying its best even if it's rough around the edges compared to newer mods. It's probably why it's still so beloved despite not being very good in retrospect.
Someguy downsides I've heard of/noticed. Apparently New Vegas Bounties 3 gets pretty railroady, and Bobby Bass the most interesting character is apparently locked to the evil playthrough.
I just started watching this channel last night and I adore your videos! I love how you address your topics with nuance and research, and I appreciate how you put your proverbial money where your mouth is when acknowledging the plight of indigenous peoples. You're definitely one of my favorite essayists and I appreciate the work you put into each of your videos!
As someone who spent a year and a half of his life working with a group of people making a massive mod full of stupid shit that we thought was cool, I just wanted to say that I appreciate the kind words at the start and that everything you said regarding modding is true. The burnout is real and you don’t get much recognition or thanks for the time investment, where the only real satisfaction is getting the damned thing done and shipped out the door in the vein hope that it validates all the hard work and creative juice you sunk into it. I suppose in the end, it’s a lot like any other creative venture.
