Spoiler Warning S5E31: Hermetically Sealed

By Shamus Posted Thursday Jun 9, 2011

Filed under: Spoiler Warning 237 comments


Link (YouTube)

We spent most of this week pointing out the ridiculous contrivances with regards to the Sierra Madre Gas Chamber & Casino. A few of you are offended because there are in-game explanations for some of these things. I’ve seen the end of the DLC now, and I’m not so sure. Yes, the place was designed to be a trap, but… this? Why were we gassed when we came in the front door? Why were we dragged to different areas of the Casino? Why weren’t we simply killed? Who dragged us? Where did they go? Why can’t Dean go through a curtain? Why didn’t he knock out that holo-emitter? Allowing for the fact that the vault itself is a trap, why is the rest of the building designed like Jigsaw’s summer home? Where do all these ghost men come from? Why does the “one collar goes off, they all go off” feature seem to come and go without explanation? And so on.

But since I didn’t play the DLC, I’ll allow that maybe all of these seeming absurdities are explained on a terminal or something somewhere. Josh was fairly thorough with the dialogs, but maybe there were characters we missed or questions that he glossed over somewhere. Even so, you need to have a heart of inert concrete to not be able to enjoy the supreme absurdity of the situation the player is in.

Mel Brooks once said: Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when YOU fall in a sewer and die. (paraphrase) If that’s true, then the Sierra Madre is a Fortress of Timeless Comedy. Even if it’s all explained, it’s still a hotel designed to lock the doors, gas everyone, and then send in holographic Tron guys to gun down the stragglers. If you don’t find that funny then we can’t be friends.

 


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237 thoughts on “Spoiler Warning S5E31: Hermetically Sealed

  1. kanodin says:

    Actually Josh just barely scratched the surface of the dialogs, doing the later ones but none of the 10 minute long earlier ones. Also one thing I really liked is that Dog is so obsessed with having a “Master” because he was one of the right hand men of well the “Master.

  2. AyeGill says:

    If you don't find that funny then we can't be friends.

    We can be friends. Although i’m sad to announce, i don’t think the writers were joking when they wrote this.

  3. Museli says:

    I find it amusing that the prevailing internet opinion on the next DLC, Honest Hearts, is that the story isn’t as good as Dead Money’s. As far as I remember from one HH playthrough, its plot doesn’t have holes you could drive a Nuka-Cola truck through.

    Any chance you’ll be running through HH? It’s a lot shorter than DM.

    1. Someone says:

      Yeah, well it’s probably because it’s plot has the length, width and depth of a bottlecap.

    2. Eric says:

      Honest Hearts has good writing and characters but 95% of it is backstory and exists to flesh out the lore and set up the conflict in the DLC. The remaining 5% is actual story, and what’s there is paper-thin and extremely brief. Contrivances aside, Dead Money has good writing, dialogue and characters, but more importantly it has a real story, pacing and actors who actually go through arcs and who participate in forward-moving events, rather than serving as lore dumps and quest dispensers.

      Remember that “good story” and “good world/character/lore design” are not the same thing. It’s why a game like The Witcher 2 has an infinitely better story than something like Dragon Age: the former has events which occur in sequence, sub-plots, character arcs, twists and turns, plays with audience expectations, etc., while the latter has a lot of background lore and characters with strong personalities, but very little in the way of actual story. I’m not going to say one approach is better than the other (after all, Fallout did the “thin story, massive amounts of lore” thing), but it’s good to be careful and not confuse the two.

  4. Raygereio says:

    I'll allow that maybe all of these seeming absurdities are explained on a terminal or something somewhere.

    Pretty much everything is explained somehwere. But I’ll be the first to admit that some of the explanations will make you raise an eyebrow. Mayhaps even two.

    Though honestly, is this an issue? I like some measure of logic in my fiction, but (ignoring the fact that you’ll be hard pressed to find any sort of fiction where you can’t point out some flaw somewhere in it’s internal logic) I only went “Hold on, does that make any sense?” until long after I completed the DLC and thought about the story. This unlike for instance FO3 where I had nearly constant an expression of utter befuddlement while playing it (also ignoring the fact that in FO3 there where either no explanations or really dumb ones).

    I guess the difference is how good the narretive is and if you allow yourself to enjoy it. In Dead Money I was to busy enjoying the atmosphere and writing to be immediatly annoyed at any breaks in logic while playing it.
    Maybe this is my inner Obsidian fanboy talking, I don’t know. But is this a bad DLC? Well, I didn’t think so; I had fun with it. Regardless this LP of it certainly hasn’t made it look good. That’s for sure and I do think that’s a shame because I don’t think it deserves that.

    1. poiumty says:

      Sniping out flaws in logic and proudly proclaiming “It doesn’t make sense!” is more or less what Shamus always does in SW.

      1. Raygereio says:

        True, but generally he know what the explanation the game gives is (that or knows the game gives nothing) and can comment on that.

        This is more of less aking to Shamus standing around in July of 1914 and going “There’s a war going on? What for? That doesn’t make any sense!”, while completely being oblivious to what happaned in the last century or two.

        1. Eärlindor says:

          Well when you do look at what caused the Great War it really was a an absolute mess in politics, logic, and all that wonderful stuff which led to a tragic conflict where countless people died for, essentially, no reason.
          An outsider really can look at that war and say, “There's a war going on? What for? How did THAT happen? This doesn't make any sense!”
          Sure, if you look at it, the reasons for what caused it are easy enough to understand, but the whole thing was still a nonsensical mess just waiting to collapse on itself.
          When all it takes is one crazy dude to assassinate some other dude in order to throw the entire world into chaos, you know that spider web of alliances was a bad idea.

          1. Raygereio says:

            Nah, things couldn’t have been that complicated. Even Baldrick could understand it (sort of) when it was explained to him (sort of).
            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk37TD_08eA

          2. Littlefinger says:

            Disagree. World war one was complicated and confusing, but at least it wasn’t as badly written as World War II.

            Excerpt:

            I think the worst offender here is the History Channel and all their programs on the so-called “World War II”.

            Let’s start with the bad guys. Battalions of stormtroopers dressed in all black, check. Secret police, check. Determination to brutally kill everyone who doesn’t look like them, check. Leader with a tiny villain mustache and a tendency to go into apopleptic rage when he doesn’t get his way, check. All this from a country that was ordinary, believable, and dare I say it sometimes even sympathetic in previous seasons.

            I wouldn’t even mind the lack of originality if they weren’t so heavy-handed about it. Apparently we’re supposed to believe that in the middle of the war the Germans attacked their allies the Russians, starting an unwinnable conflict on two fronts, just to show how sneaky and untrustworthy they could be? And that they diverted all their resources to use in making ever bigger and scarier death camps, even in the middle of a huge war? Real people just aren’t that evil. And that’s not even counting the part where as soon as the plot requires it, they instantly forget about all the racism nonsense and become best buddies with the definitely non-Aryan Japanese.

            Not that the good guys are much better. Their leader, Churchill, appeared in a grand total of one episode before, where he was a bumbling general who suffered an embarrassing defeat to the Ottomans of all people in the Battle of Gallipoli. Now, all of a sudden, he’s not only Prime Minister, he’s not only a brilliant military commander, he’s not only the greatest orator of the twentieth century who can convince the British to keep going against all odds, he’s also a natural wit who is able to pull out hilarious one-liners practically on demand. I know he’s supposed to be the hero, but it’s not realistic unless you keep the guy at least vaguely human.

            Read it all, It’s hilarious.

            1. Eärlindor says:

              Thank you for the article, it was very entertaining. :) XD

              Anyway, no, you’re missing the point. I agree, WWI was a complicated mess; in fact, that’s what I basically said. What I was trying to say in the third line of my comment was that there is a difference between a reason for something and it making sense. The reasons for WWI are easy enough to understand. the short and simple version is that everyone made alliances with each in an attempt to prevent war. However, as Blackadder points out, “There was one small flaw: the whole thing was bollocks.” The whole affair was such a dense interconnecting mess that all it took was one nutjob to assassinate some random archduke to bring the ENTIRE thing crashing down, killing millions in a pointless war. A complete total complicated, nonsensical mess.

              1. ehlijen says:

                No actually. All the powers involved knew war was coming. The economies were reliant on the expansion of the colonies, but there were no more colonies to be had. Everyone wanted more but the only place to get more was from the rival superpowers.

                The alliances were made so that when the inevitable war rolled around, each side would be confident in victory. Everyone wanted war, but not before they’d made just one more ally.

                The war happened before either side could secure a position of confidence, so the ‘best of the worst’ emergency plans were kicked into action.

                It’s a fairly simple to understand concept. Civ and Risk players encounter it all the time. 5 players, finite game board, victory by elimination. Go play!

                1. Raygereio says:

                  Yup.
                  Sure the actual reasons for the war were mind bogglingly complex and frnkaly utterly stupid in hindsight, but everyone who paid the slightest bit of attention to politics at the time knew a war was comming sooner of later.
                  The only surprise was that a certain assassination would be the catalyst everyone would use to start the war.

    2. Mumbles says:

      I’ve been reading your comments lately and I really think you’re mistaking a difference in opinion for us being simply wrong. After some researching I still truly believe the casino’s security in this DLC is absurdly over the top and idiotic. That’s my opinion, dude.

      I’m glad you liked the atmosphere and the characters. I agree that was done pretty well and Josh loves the NPCs enough to not kill them. But, I personally don’t see the issue with us going off topic when Josh is just bear trapping faces off or if we ask for a plot point to be explained if we didn’t understand it the first time.

      I liked the DLC up until it broke for me. I did not like watching Josh play it. I’m really sorry if my personal feelings upset you and I hope that’s not going to get in the way of you watching the rest of our season. We’re doing vaults soonish and I have nothing but praise for one in particular.

      1. Raygereio says:

        I did not like watching Josh play it.

        Honestly, if I hadn’t played Dead Money before then my impression of it from watching this LP would be that it sucked. Though I don’t really see how one can LP this DLC (and most of New Vegas for that matter) in such a way that it wouldn’t suck as hunting down every single dialogue option, read notes, etc would be really, really boring for both the side-commentators and the audiance.

        What does bother me a bit with the some of commentary in this season – and in this DLC in particular – is that it feels misinformed in some areas and in other as if you’re really just reaching for things to mock and following that people will think that this game is bad because of this LP and I don’t think the game deserves that.

        Also:

        I really think you're mistaking a difference in opinion for us being simply wrong

        No, if I made that impression then let’s be clear: if you think this DLC sucks then that’s fine with me. I don’t care about your opinions. Why should I? You’re just some faceless entity on the Interweb I don’t know and have pretty much no interaction with.
        Though, I’ll probably shut up from know on as there are view things more demeaning then being viewed as some sort of Internet Warrior. I do have some measure of pride.

        1. Mumbles says:

          Finishing up this DLC, I know it was a mistake to do on Spoiler Warning. It sucked my energy out completely and diminished the role I think I’m supposed to have on this show. The reason why is because it’s a ghost story set in an almost a literal sci-fi ghost town. The trick to horror is to let it creep up on you and that’s nearly impossible with the four of us.

          I don’t think you’re a troll and I’m not trying to start an argument with you. I just wanted to understand where you’re coming from while making sure you at least sort of understand my point of view.

          1. Raygereio says:

            I think a LP of a more narretive driven DLC like this could have worked better if you aproached from a more analytical mindset. With at least one person who played the DLC fully, knows the story (don’t care if he or she likes it or not, the only requirement is knowing what’s going on) and can explain things as they are happening.
            This instead of just jumping in with both feet and hoping stuff will happen that you can comment on (which was the impression I got that you guys’ attitude was going into this).

            You’ll then still miss out on the atmosphere, but really the only way you can showcase that through a LP is with a completely different playstyle then whatever Josh is doing, no voice commentary whatsoever and maybe a few subtitles. However, we would then miss out on Rutskarn’s beautifull cockney accent and no one wants to miss that.

            Just my 2 worthless guilder cents.

            I just wanted to understand where you're coming from while making sure you at least sort of understand my point of view.

            I understand yours, hopefully you understand mine.

            Wait, that sounded weird.

            1. Mumbles says:

              Somehow it’s impossible to avoid awkward word innuendo around me.

              Thanks for being cool. Internet handshake!

              1. X2-Eliah says:

                This needs to be a drinking game addition – drink every time Mumbles gets involved in an internet innuendo.. ;)

                1. NotACat says:

                  Seriously, dude, are you trying to kill us all?

                  ^_^

      2. krellen says:

        For what it’s worth, I don’t enjoy watching Josh play it either, and i think Dead Money was extremely well done. I don’t think it’s really the sort of set-up that can be “enjoyable to watch”; it’s really something you need to play to really get in to.

        1. BenD says:

          I mostly enjoy watching Josh play it, actually. I loved this DLC and Josh’s style is different enough from mine that it’s really enlightening to see him go at it ‘his’ way.

          There’s just one thing bothering me – I’m feeling like the floors are too smooth and the camera holds still too much. Like Cuftburt is walking normally, when we all know he can only hop…

          1. Von Krieger says:

            You fool!

            You’ve cursed us all!

        2. Irridium says:

          If I could be honest as well, I just don’t enjoy watching him play New Vegas proper, and I didn’t like the Fallout 3 one either. Not because Josh, Shamus, Ruts, and Mumbles are/were bad hosts, but just because the games can just go on and on and on and on and, especially the case with Fallout 3, the scenery rarely, if ever, changes. Not to mention they’re rather slow-paced games, which are nice to play, but excruciating to watch.

          For me at least.

      3. Raynooo says:

        I certainly hope you won’t do the New Vegas Vault. As someone (you ?) already said : what’s with the insane size of this vault with absolutely nothing but ONE real quest (Gomorrha guy I think) and the vault jumpsuits fetch quest ?

        I think the highly irradiated former Boomer Vault also asks for a little too much running back and forth but overall the settings were cool. Too bad the textures and mood were too similar between vaults though. (And why can’t we have one really unopened Vault that would still be shiny white as in the first game ?)

        1. krellen says:

          Because a Vault being unopened 200 years after the war is not how the Vaults were designed (Vault 101 having “never opened” was a giant lie, you know) and Fallout 2 already had Vault City being the way the Vaults were supposed to work.

          1. Raynooo says:

            Yeah but what if one of the experiment was “Let’s not be stupid and build a vault that is supposed to last until most radiations die away (ie more than 50 years) and let’s not introduce any kind of dumbass experiment in them that no one is ever gonne check”.

            Maybe not a Vault Tech one, maybe competitors who were truly looking to protect themselves from atomic war. Or maybe the only faulty part (and I insist on ONLY) would be the blast door ?

            1. krellen says:

              That was Vault 13.

    3. kanodin says:

      The only thing I find absurd is the knockout gas at the entrance to the casino, it feels like a contrived way of showing that the other three are here as well and then spiriting them away.

      For the gas leaks, it makes sense to me to hermetically seal the area, after a window of time saying “get out of here” that Dog presumably ignored, so it doesn’t kill everyone until someone trained in dealing with this stuff comes in with a key.

      Edit: and the Ghost people getting in, that’s also pretty ridiculous and only there so they could throw more combat at you.

      1. Someone says:

        Well, you HAVE unsealed the casino door, all ghost people had to do after that is go up the mountain.

        1. kanodin says:

          Actually this is one spot where reading everything works against the game making sense. There are several things pointing out that this is not the first time the Gala event had to be done to get in, and that Elijah somehow activated it as well. So the Ghost people getting in way after you without somehow learning to open the gate themselves makes no sense.

          1. acronix says:

            Maybe they are atracted to Player Character scent.

          2. BenD says:

            Those things also note that the Gala Event doesn’t leave the casino doors open forever. They open for a while – then shut again. Presumably whomever triggered the Gala before and came in had to put down a few Ghost People then, too. (Where their corpses went? That is the real question. But there aren’t nearly enough piles of bones in this place for it to have been an operating casino when the bombs fell, anyway.)

            1. Alexander The 1st says:

              Re: The Corpses:

              It’s obvious – the Ghost People turn the bodies into coins, then spread them all around the Villa, Easter Bunny style.

    4. Kale says:

      To be fair, with the exception of maybe the first Mass Effect, and even then probably that too because it’s been a while since I’ve seen it, ALL of the Spoiler Warnings have done a decent job at making the respective games look bad.

      As for the logic flaws being a big issue? Not really when you’re playing, or at least for me. I went through Fallout 3 just fine without noticing half the silly story stuff they groaned about here, aside from the stupid flashbang immobilizing me for no reason, but bad guys coming to take your hard earned plot items is a pretty common trope so I got over that fast enough. I tend to do the same with movie plots until someone brings it up and I start looking for kinks.

  5. ProudCynic says:

    Yay! DoGod lived! I’m honestly really surprised; I always thought the SW policy was to kill just about everyone and snap the plot into pieces like a twig across my knee.

    Also, how much longer are you guys going to be playing NV? ‘Cause at this rate, Old World Blues will be out by the time you’re done, and based on previews, that’ll definitely be worth a playthrough.

  6. Eärlindor says:

    I was glad to see Josh talk to Dog/God, he’s my favorite too.

    It’s okay Josh, we can talk about the parts that are actually good and let the old women you play with bicker on about the bad stuff. ;)
    Oh wait, Sham- can read this…

    Btw, Shamus, I apologize in turn for taking a while to get back to your email. It can be an adventure getting a hold of the guys.

  7. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Man,christine really has bad short term memory.She is worse than woman in Rutskarns hitman stream.

    That part with dogod made me so sad that this was done with such a poor engine.It wouldve been such a great thing if it had just a bit more emotions in it.Instead,we just watch the nightkin breathe calmly while his voice is clearly upset.*sigh*Such a waste.Which is why old games that had just text were better.Yeah,you couldnt hear the stress in the characters voice,but you couldve read about his face contorting,his arms flailing,etc.This way it just seems rong.

    1. kanodin says:

      There was a woman in his hitman stream?

      1. Hitch says:

        I think a better meme than the woman in Rutskarn’s Hitman stream would be, “I used to like _____ until Rutskarn started talking about it.”

        1. Daemian Lucifer says:

          Now look what you did!Youve broken the chain!

          But youre right,they need a new meme.I know,theres one that they forgot to mention.See ncr troopers have this habit to say “Patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for a nuclear winter”.

          1. Littlefinger says:

            I saw a Mudcrab the other day.

            1. Raygereio says:

              You’re a masochist!

            2. Roll-a-Die says:

              Terrible creatures, I avoid them whenever I can.

          2. Alexander The 1st says:

            Nah, they don’t have that habit. They’re too busy trying to find Kai-Zar, but they keep hearing about this “Ceasar” person.

  8. Entropy says:

    Well, surely the Ghost people just came in through the door you opened? The Gala Event is the grand opening of the Casino, yes? I don’t think they need to do that for every guest, just to get the doors open in the first place.

    1. And yet, once you’re in the doors lock behind you and you can’t get out without a key. I’m pretty sure that’s exactly the case.

  9. Zukhramm says:

    I have not played Dead Money so I can not comment on it, but I have to say that “makes sense” and “has an explainatin” is not always the same thing.

    1. Moriarty says:

      I don’t try to argue wether the plot makes sense or not. The problem I’m having with this is about entertainment value. Watching the crew nitpick their way through a game is entertaining when they actually know what they’re talking about.

      Here, they just make fun about stuff they don’t understand, it’s just not funny if you can point out where they are wrong everytime they talk about the plot.

  10. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Oh yes,one more thing thats irritating me more and more:Why do developers think that pouring more ineffective mooks makes it more challenging and more fun,when its just tedious?Yes its fun in some cases,like the zombies and bugs,but most of the time its just stupid.Unless you make it fun to chain your attacks like in arkham asylum,you should leave it out.

    1. Eric says:

      Because it’s an easy way to flesh out content. Building levels takes a long time, for the most part, even if you’re working with existing art assets and have a clear design ahead of you. Placing a few more generic enemies down and scripting them to appear under X conditions? Takes maybe five minutes, and pads out the length a bit. Do that throughout and you’ve got a significant amount of extra play-time added in, even if it’s completely wasteful and redundant.

      Just about every game does this, from respawning enemy mobs in Baldur’s Gate to the “hold off the waves of enemies” scenarios you get in Call of Duty. I recently played through Fable III’s Understone DLC for review purposes and found that despite it taking place in a reasonably-sized dungeon area, it was probably 3x longer than it should have been simply because of the absurd amounts of (weak, boring) enemies you have to fight. It’s the oldest trick in the book, and the sad thing is, frankly, it’s rather necessary, both for production reasons and because players will complain about their game not being long enough. I guess people really do like boring fetch quests?

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        “It's the oldest trick in the book, and the sad thing is, frankly, it's rather necessary”

        But its not.Take a look at f.e.a.r.It is populated almost entirely with mooks,but fighting those never gets repetitive.And that game is old now,yet no one even tried to emulate its ai,which is quite a shame.

        1. Eric says:

          It’s much easier to mask these problems in shooters, which have a running time of about 5-15 hours, than it is in an RPG which is expected to take 25-50 hours, minimum. I do agree that FEAR handles it better than most, but you’re still ultimately fighting a small collection of the same enemies throughout most of the game, even if they’re intelligent enough for it to stay enjoyable.

          Pacing also really helps shooters here, which is much harder to control in a more open-ended game like an RPG. It’s an unwritten design burden in sandbox-type games that just about 100% of the pacing has to come from the mechanics themselves, since it’s impossible to rely on the narrative pacing that shooters have largely figured out how to do well.

          1. Daemian Lucifer says:

            But new vegas already has variety of enemies,some of which(deathclaws)are already quite enjoyable to fight(if difficult).Improving the ai of these enemies would do wonders for many parts.

            And while you can mask your poor ai in shooters,not many are doing so.Aside from half life 2,I cant think of a single well scripted shooter at the moment.I recently played modern warfare 2 at a friend,and was very disappointed by how similarly the fights go if you reload and replay a section the same way.

        2. poiumty says:

          I absolutely disagree on F.E.A.R. The repetitiveness of the shoot-walk-shoot-walk pacing is what made me quit the game.

          1. Daemian Lucifer says:

            Well thats a problem of many shooters,not just f.e.a.r.What is different,however,is that these shooting parts actually are good here.If you like constant shooting that is.

            1. poiumty says:

              No no no. I play “many shooters” (if not all shooters) and the only one with which I’ve had problems with repetition so far is F.E.A.R. Because it follows a standard corridor crawl structure of shoot 3 guys – walk around – shoot 3 guys – walk around(and maybe something goes BOO). Maybe it gets more diverse later but I couldn’t stand the first parts of the first game for this.

              1. Daemian Lucifer says:

                And that differs from modern warfare,wulfenstein,doom 3 and halo how exactly?Well ok,modern warfare has less walking,and more shooting.(talking just about singleplayer here)

                1. poiumty says:

                  You do some other stuff too, you know? Besides, in Modern Warfare it’s more like “shoot 20 guys”. But still, there’s usually an objective/more varied enemies beyond “kill these 3 dudes then walk down this hallway and up that ladder”.

                  1. Daemian Lucifer says:

                    It sure didnt seem like that to me.Especially in mw2 where I didnt even read over half the objectives,I just followed the pointer.As for the varied enemies,enemies in f.e.a.r. just look the same,but they never act the same.I never had the same fight numerous times like I did in those other games.Heck,some levels in mw I can pass through blindfolded because of the sheer amount of times Ive reloaded them,and every single time it was the same guys hiding in the same places.

                    But dont get me wrong,f.e.a.r. is not a good game.The non-shooting parts of it were cliched,short and boring.It only has has great enemy ai.

      2. Zukhramm says:

        I’d love a game where, when you kill someone, that’s really serious. Where the game treats it as if you really killed another person.

  11. Matt says:

    I know this is a bad idea, but I’m only going to do it because I liked Dead Money and I love Spoiler Warning and Twentysided. So here we go.

    Why were we gassed when we came in the front door?
    The casino zapped you because you had massive amounts of radiation on you, which is what it was designed to do, because Sinclair designed it with the approaching nuclear holocaust in mind. This was to stun people who tried to break in after the bombs dropped, which as you can see, it did.

    Why were we dragged to different areas of the Casino?
    Christine was profiled as Vera Keyes by the Casino, presumably because she looks and sounds like her. Dean was recognized by the casino somehow (maybe due to his voice, again), and sent to where he shoould be. You’re not a guest, so you were left there, to later be dealt with by the human security which of course doesn’t exist. I’m led to believe the same happened to Dog, and that he just wandered off to kill himself.

    Why weren't we simply killed?
    The casino wasn’t trying to kill you at this point, those parts of the casino are deeper in. This part was built to receive guests, and normally you wouldn’t even notice it since those pre-war people were not irradiated.

    Who dragged us?
    This is actually one of my biggest problems, besides not being about to call Dean out on his previous villainy (though you can shoot him). I really have no idea HOW you got moved, they should have at least put some robots in that casino to justify this. Elijah just says that “the casino” moved you, which makes me think of a modular Aperture Science sort of building, except that there is no evidence of that.

    Where did they go?
    No idea, once again, huge hole.

    Why can't Dean go through a curtain?
    This is why you shouldn’t reason based on what you see through Reginald Cuftbert’s bunny-hopping whiskey-soaked eyes.. Dean was talking to you from the stage, the reason he couldn’t leave was because the holographic security would attack him if he did. He was trapped on stage until you turned off the security. I don’t know why the curtain is solid in the game, but it has no bearing on the plot.

    Why didn't he knock out that holo-emitter?
    I don’t know, maybe he lost his gun when he was moved to the theater to perform, maybe he didn’t notice it, maybe if he tried, the security would attack him. You can’t break the emitters with melee or unarmed, so if he lost his weapons, he wouldn’t be able to break it. The epilogue does mention that he was afraid to leave the theater and explore the casino, with good reason, so maybe he was staying there just because he already knew the dangers, and the holograms would protect him from new ones. Also, if you threatened him when you met him, he would try to kill you at this point, so maybe they only programmed based on that situation (which is a careless oversight). He could be hoping that the holograms kill you. Either way, when you show up, if he wants to help you, he should have broken it (assuming he could), I agree that this was pretty stupid for a “good” playthrough.

    Allowing for the fact that the vault itself is a trap, why is the rest of the building designed like Jigsaw's summer home?
    The holograms were programmed by Sinclair to keep everyone outside that was outside, and to keep everyone inside (specifically Dean and Vera) that was inside. I suppose any kitchen is dangerous if you turn on all the gas. I can’t remember the explanation for why the casino records your final words and makes a hologram out of you, that was probably done specifically for Vera, as part of Sinclair’s plan to get revenge and then replay(?) it later, but either way it was very creepy at the time, and very silly after the fact.

    Where do all these ghost men come from?
    The ones in the casino came through the door you came though, because you opened it. The ones in the Villa are hinted at, but not fully explained, to be more frightening. The best theory one can make from reading the terminals left by the construction crew is that the Cloud somehow turned them into the ghost people. The reason the ghost people are dressed the way they are is because those suits were intended to keep the Cloud out, which they failed at. I pretty sure the writing staff knew that any explanation they wrote would sound stupid, and of course, it’s creepier just to leave their origin and numbers ambiguous.

    Why does the “one collar goes off, they all go off” feature seem to come and go without explanation?
    Sinclair built the casino to block/interfere with outside communication, due to the fact that he was making the place into a deathtrap. Elijah says that this is interfering with the collars’ communication with each other (and his master control), and that is why you have more time to get away when someone’s collar goes off. He also explicitly states that each floor is completely cut off from the signals of the others, which is why you can escape to another floor.

    I know that Dead Money has holes, and some explanations (or lack thereof) are stupid and poorly-written, but I do not think Spoiler Warning has treated it fairly, and I just wanted to weigh in and maybe clear some things up. I love Spoiler Warning, and I do not think you were wrong in your assessments that you wouldn’t enjoy Dead Money.

    1. krellen says:

      Well, good, now I don’t have to do this.

    2. Someone says:

      Why can't Dean go through a curtain?

      The real problem with the curtain is that you can’t go through it if Dean decides to be a jerk and feed you to the holograms, making you take a detour through Radio Valley, look for keys, etcetera, when you ought to have been able to just walk up that catwalk and punch Domino in the face.

      Allowing for the fact that the vault itself is a trap, why is the rest of the building designed like Jigsaw's summer home?

      Another important point is that, while envisioned as this perfect utopian post-war resort thing, Sierra Madre was an overambitious and flawed project, built in a hurry and using lots of untested technology, the contractors had to put up with secrecy, one hand didn’t know what the other was doing… at the end of the day, it ended up being a thrown-together-at-the-last-minute, unfinished, faulty deathtrap and a disaster waiting to happen (and, indeed, actually happening).

      Where do all these ghost men come from?

      I thought the origin of Ghost People was explained pretty well in that one terminal entry. Basically, it started with a group of maintenance personnel using novelty hazmat suits to deal with The Cloud vapours which were leaking even before the Great War happened, but they ended up “welded” into their suits and mentally ill. Then, when the nuclear holocaust came, the place took severe damage and The Cloud started leaking out everywhere, forcing everyone who had access to the suits to use them or risk suffocation. Over time, they also “grew” into their suits and started to rely on them for life support. This partially explains why Ghost People die when you tear off their limbs, as that compromises the integrity of their suits.

      1. Irridium says:

        But how do they survive for hundreds of years?

        That’s the main issue I have with this DLC. Does the cloud prolong their life or something? If so, how does it do that? If not, how are they still alive after 200 or so years?

        1. krellen says:

          Presumably, they’re all ghouls of some sort.

    3. Hitch says:

      Thank you for taking the time to write all of this. I was sure there was more explanation than is coming through on Spoiler Warning. Seeing this play through has not convinced me to buy the DLC which I wasn’t inclined to before hand. I appreciate your taking the time to fill in some of the back story.

      I still have a lingering problem with the Ghosts in the casino. On the one hand it’s obvious that they came in through the door you opened to get in. But, if I’m following things correctly, you can’t leave because the door locked again behind you. The only way to get out is complete the mission/heist. So we again have the problem of Ghosts coming through a locked door.

      The curtain is less of a problem for me. You can’t see behind the curtain because you can’t move the curtain. There could be a solid wall behind that. The problem I have is that Josh just hopped over the rail and down to the stage at the end of the conversation. I can’t come up with any justification why Dean didn’t do that.

      1. BenD says:

        He would have been shot by security (unless he runs like hell and is partly bulletproof like Cuftbert, but Cuftbert is a PC so he has characteristics that NPCs don’t!).

    4. Myth says:

      It isn’t that there aren’t plotholes, it is that about half, or a third, of the complaints are legitimate ones – but when overwhelmed by the ones that are just misunderstandings, it is hard to take any of them seriously. (I know, I know – why in the world are we trying to take Spoiler Warning seriously?)

      Of the ten questions that Shamus asks in his post, I believe 5 were answered directly in the dialogue (much of that in dialogue that did indeed happen in this playthrough, but just went unnoticed amongst the various complaints.) Two more are answered in the terminals in the villa (which delve a bit more into the ghost men and the construction). Of the remaining three, one of them (why didn’t Dead shoot the transmitter?) has no given explanation, but reasonable answers can be imagined. Which only really leaves two questions – about who dragged you around – that are truly unanswered and inexplicable.

      1. Deadpool says:

        Bingo. This is the only problem I have with the complaints. The “wrong” complaints are obscuring the “right” complaints.

        Btw, the Holograms hurt you, which means they are “solid” light. They can interact with the physical world. They can sell items, exchange money for chips, deal cards. They can carry people just fine.

        Dean’s situation is a huge plot hole because they had to design the puzzle for BOTH people who are nice to him AND people he hates, which was a stupid thing for them to do. Dean has a gun because he shot me with it…

        1. krellen says:

          I think you’re “supposed” to be hostile with Dean, but friendly with the others.

          1. Yeah, I went through the first conversation just picking speech checks and he ended up hostile. Not that I really minded.

            1. Deadpool says:

              It’s not a matter of HOW you said it, but WHAT you said. Speech means you convince him, but you still threatened his life. Some first impressions LAST.

    5. BenD says:

      This is a thing of beauty. I think you have a couple of things fuzzier than they should be, but this does summarize the plot and explain for those who may have missed it (or who may miss it in the coming episodes) that Sinclair built this place the way he did on purpose – because he wasn’t as huge a rube as Dean thought he’d be.

    6. 4th Dimension says:

      Than can you explain to me why radios (radio RECIEVERS) interfere with the SIGNAL. They aren’t broadcasting anything. Same for speakers.

      1. krellen says:

        Because they’re emitting a static that the collar interprets as Elijah’s killcode.

        1. 4th Dimension says:

          Those things look like radio recievers. They can’t emmit anything except sound weaves (and certan amount of background EM radiation all electric equipment emmits).

          1. acronix says:

            Don`t judge the book by its cover: if it looks like a radio receiver, it may be a frying pan on disguise.

            After all, remember this is the universe in which the tool used to shoot an orbital cannon comes in the shape of a space gun toy.

          2. krellen says:

            “A static” is sound. One that some devices might interpret as electronic commands. Just think of the collar-bomb receivers as being modems.

            1. SlowShootinPete says:

              The electronic commands that the collars receive come from radio signals, though.

              Elijah does mention that the collars have a weird defect, so it’s not so bad, but in reality things don’t work that way.

              1. krellen says:

                In reality we don’t have microfusion cells, or hard-light holograms, or lasers, or lots of other things in Fallout. Why get hung up on this particular detail?

    7. Moriarty says:

      Why didn't he knock out that holo-emitter?
      I don't know, maybe he lost his gun when he was moved to the theater to perform, maybe he didn't notice it, maybe if he tried, the security would attack him. You can't break the emitters with melee or unarmed, so if he lost his weapons, he wouldn't be able to break it. The epilogue does mention that he was afraid to leave the theater and explore the casino, with good reason, so maybe he was staying there just because he already knew the dangers, and the holograms would protect him from new ones. Also, if you threatened him when you met him, he would try to kill you at this point, so maybe they only programmed based on that situation (which is a careless oversight). He could be hoping that the holograms kill you. Either way, when you show up, if he wants to help you, he should have broken it (assuming he could), I agree that this was pretty stupid for a “good” playthrough.

      Actually he still has his gun, after all he starts shooting you if you anger him. I think he hasn’t shot the emitter because he’s a stupid npc. there is a science dialogue option about the emitters when you first meet him on stage, maybe that was to tell him to shoot the emitter?

      1. I think it would be safe to make the call that Dean saw the emitter, made the reasonable assumption that it wasn’t emitting anything and so didn’t bother – how was he to know it could emit through walls? He probably thought it was a different one doing that.

        1. Deadpool says:

          If I’m trapped in a room with killer machines outside, I’d take my chances. It’s ONE BULLET…

    8. Fang says:

      *Slow-clap*

      Good job my man/woman/goblin. I couldn’t have taken the time to write all that.

  12. nawyria says:

    Omg Shamus, they named an achievement after your book!

  13. MrWhales says:

    I can see a logical reason of why the city has the toxic clouds. Although why the city outside of the casino has vents everywhere is beyond me. Also I see the knockout gas purely as a choice of not thinking of another way to get all the characters in their respective places for the next set of fallacies.

    Also, where did all these ghost-entities get gas masks? shouldn’t they have been dead long before a reasonable supply of them were found to mask up /that/ many creatures?

    I do like the characters and the interplay between them, to say something good about it all. And definitely like how it ties to the rest of the world. I can even remember Dean Domino things from other Fallout games, although I’d be no help finding where.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      The ghost people are actually just looking for their mommies.

      1. SKD says:

        I don’t know if it was because I have Wild Wasteland on, but I ddistinctly remember the wine cellar on the way to the bell tower having a wall that says “I AM NOT YOUR MOMMY”

        http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m23/EntropicMaster/ScreenShot0.jpg

        1. Daemian Lucifer says:

          According to the wiki,it is.Also,its a shame that they didnt let dog take over for a few combats,because apparently he says om nom nom while eating if you have wild wasteland.

          1. SKD says:

            I really wish they had played up Wild Wasteland more. I love the easter eggs, but to make it a full trait I would have liked more of them particularly considering the length of the game. Oh, well.

            Edit: Just checked the fallout wiki and either they added more over time or some took a while to be recognized.

            1. Irridium says:

              They use it for something awesome in Honest Hearts. I laughed heartily when I saw it.

            2. The problem with Wild Wasteland is there’s like a dozen things that are kind of odd in the wasteland, and you have to look for the icon otherwise you’ll probably miss them. It felt really half hearted

              1. Daemian Lucifer says:

                The thing is,I dont see why wild wasteland didnt get the same treatment like black widow and similar perks.Those have a few places that give you special conversation,but also give you a bonus while fighting.So wild wasteland could have the same effect,like maybe doubling the chances for criticals both for you and your enemies.

    2. Kelly says:

      The Ghost people are workers that were stuck in the special hazmat suits, which like everything else at the Madre went horribly wrong. The suits keep them alive, but between the Cloud and the Holograms they all went nuts.

    3. acronix says:

      The ghost people are the workers of the casino. They got their masks (and uniforms) from before the nuclear war, due to a mysterious gas that poured into the lower maintenance levels of the casino (if I don`t remember wrong). There`s a bunch of hints about that on the Villa section, spread on some consoles.

      *Ninja`d by Kelly!

    4. Someone says:

      Dean Domino, as well as Vera Keys, was on posters shown on loading screens. I believe those posters were also in some of the casinos ingame, but I never paid attention to them so I’m not sure.

  14. Kelly says:

    HE WAS NOT THOROUGH WITH THE DIALOGUES, THAT’S WHY SO MANY OF US HAVE BEEN COMPLAINING! And he didn’t read a single damn terminal. YES there are some things about the casino security that don’t make sense even counting the fact that most of it is broken and going haywire, but MOST of the things you’ve been pissing about this whole time have an explanation, and everything ELSE you’ve been talking about simply isn’t funny aside of Josh just spending one episode doing nothing but crafting for no apparent reason.

    These episodes are bar none the worst thing you have ever done in this series.

    Also for the love of god stop telling that “oh Mumbles doesn’t know about Batman EXCEPT SHE DOES HAHAHAHAHAHA” bit. It’s not funny.

    That said, I think Honest Hearts would be a lot more interesting for this show, even if you don’t look at the Survivalist Terminals that are the most gutwrenching thing in any Fallout game.

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      “Also for the love of god stop telling that “oh Mumbles doesn't know about Batman EXCEPT SHE DOES HAHAHAHAHAHA” bit. It's not funny.”

      But it is.

      1. Kelly says:

        No it isn’t. It’s annoying. And driven into the ground.

        1. Daemian Lucifer says:

          Meh,tastes differ.I dont mind it.Just like I dont mind them complaining about stuff that are explained somewhere out there.Besides,how else are they going to make people come out of the woodwork and explain it?They cant just ask.

          1. Kelly says:

            Well see there’s a difference between say, getting it wrong once and repeating the incorrect statements/terrible Batman jokes over and over and over and OVER AGAIN. And it doesn’t help that Shamus in particular rarely admits he’s wrong once he’s corrected about this sort of thing.

            Again, I can totally see why they usually insist on most of the team having played something now: they are utterly incapable of making it entertaining. That’s the real problem with these episodes, they aren’t funny, they’re just boring AND infuriating.

            It also bugs me that Josh went into the DLC at much lower level than it required with poorly distributed skill points so he could barely pass any of the skill checks.

            1. Daemian Lucifer says:

              “they are utterly incapable of making it entertaining. That's the real problem with these episodes, they aren't funny, they're just boring AND infuriating.”

              Correction,they are boring and infuriating TO YOU.Not everyone shares your sentiments here./serious part

              “And it doesn't help that Shamus in particular rarely admits he's wrong once he's corrected about this sort of thing.”

              But he is an old guy,you know how old people are.

            2. BenD says:

              Barely pass skill checks, but slaughter the enemies like they’re made of tissue paper due to their not being balanced for levels below 20. I could not one- or two-shot GPs with the bear trap fist at lv 22. (Admittedly, the fist IS the best weapon for the GP in the area. The holorifle really only shines once you’re in the vault… or outside of the DLC.)

              1. I played around level 30 with unarmed 100 and they took far longer than anyone else in the wasteland to kill. Might be because I had a ballistic fist prior to this, might be because they scale weirdly.

                1. poiumty says:

                  They scale weirdly. Later levels are a pain with the crummy pistol only doing around 20% per normal hit.

          2. Eric says:

            It was funny the first time.

        2. krellen says:

          I don’t really mind when the hosts do it; there, it’s just friends sharing an in-joke (just one we happen to be able to get too). I am annoyed when folks insist on continuing it in the comments, though.

          1. Daemian Lucifer says:

            You didnt mind the kelly jokes in comments.

            1. krellen says:

              No, I just didn’t speak up against them.

    2. Shamus says:

      You need to calm down. You’re taking this WAAAY too seriously.

      I think about 9/10 of your comments on this site the show are angry, argumentative, critical, or nitpicky things aimed at us, so you’ve got NO room to be telling us we’re complaining too much.

      1. Kelly says:

        “I think about 9/10 of your comments on this site the show are angry, argumentative, critical, or nitpicky”
        I’ll skip the obvious joke here.

        Anyway, yes, I have rather DESPISED this set of episodes, but again this isn’t saying I don’t like the show overall. They’re awful episodes and I’ll pick them apart (not as effectively as Matt up there though, who pretty much destroyed your arguments), but I do like the show.

        The complaint I have isn’t that YOU are complaining to much really (I love the Fallout 3 series the most, which nothing BUT complaints), it’s that most of the complaints are invalid due to 3/4 of the team not knowing what the hell is going on and the off topic stuff isn’t very funny I.E. I find that your piece of entertainment is not entertaining me. Thus the complaints on my end.

        As I said, Honest Hearts is probably a lot more suitable to screwing around, it’s a lot more open and the story has a lot less twists and hidden lore to it.

        1. Shamus says:

          I’ve read through your past comments. You don’t like how Josh plays, how he distributes his skill points, our running jokes, or our commentary. According to you, he sucks, we’re all wrong, and our jokes aren’t funny. Why do you watch? You just love the ending theme?

          1. Kelly says:

            I usually only comment when something annoys me (or to make a small correction). This episode set REALLY annoys me, and skipping Caesar annoys me (especially since one of your major complaints was that the Legion is fleshed out enough, so why would you skip the man who does most of the fleshing out?). I do in fact mostly like this show, whether you believe me or not. The ending theme is cool too (especially compared to the music in the ME2 episodes, which sucked).

            1. Daemian Lucifer says:

              Why dont you skip the shows about dead money,watch the first one afterwards,and if it still annoys you,wait for the next game?

              I get it how watching a series youve been a fan of from the start makes you hope that every next episode will be the one that gets back on track.But sometimes you just have to give up and wait for the next season.And I wish I knew this before season 2 of heroes.

              1. poiumty says:

                “Don’t like it, don’t watch it” was never a good argument for anything.

                1. Kelly says:

                  As Shamus himself has, ironically, said many times.

          2. acronix says:

            Of course he loves the ending theme. Who doesn`t?

            1. ehlijen says:

              I like it a lot (not as much as the ME2 SW opening theme though, can’t watch shepard dying without humming happily now :D), but I like the funny titles you guys give yourselves even more!

              How do you come up with them? Is it Josh during editing? Or do you discuss them? Do you claim them for yourself or do you award them to others?

        2. Topaz Wolf says:

          If you wanted them to give you all the lore and background, perhaps you can talk them into reading a book out loud and commenting on that. It is a tad over expecting to firmly believe they should read all the terminals (many of which everyone but Josh can’t really read, so he would have to read it aloud) and speak with everyone while keeping a commentary. With four people, keeping a commentary sparse enough to clearly hear dialogue is hard enough. The only reason they manage it in the games normally is because they have all played it and know what it is without having to listen to it. And when they went off track, they were just walking, a fairly boring and long activity in the wastelands.

          I fail to see your argument. If you have played this DLC, shouldn’t you already be aware of these facts? Why exactly are to complaining about them, so that you can troll the authors?

          EDIT: I see you have 10 trolling comments in this spoiler warning alone. This has lead to the conclusion that you are in fact just trolling the authors. And not in a funny or amusing way.

      2. krellen says:

        The thing that bugs the most, Shamus, is that I really do think you would honestly have greatly enjoyed Dead Money had you played it yourself without the Spoiler Warning experience.

        I’m not so sure it would work any more; it’s already been sullied, and I’m not sure how much of a fair chance you (or anyone else) would be willing to give some of the things that are slightly more obscure or explained later after going through all this.

        1. Kelly says:

          Hell, Mumbles said way back when that she thought it was BRILLIANT, and she couldn’t even get out of the fucking VILLA!

          It’s a great DLC, and these episodes not only annoy a fair number of viewers, they really ruin it for YOU GUYS!

          1. BenD says:

            This is the part that hurts me most. This is a genuinely good play experience and I feel like Ruts and Shamus are being robbed of it (and having it massively spoiled). D: I like Ruts and Shamus so this is sad and frustrating!

            1. Dude says:

              You like… Rutskarn?

              What, do you also like Andy Dick?

              OH NO I DIDN’T!

              (Just kidding. Like.)

        2. Daemian Lucifer says:

          Its not sullied for me.I still am going to play it.Just dont want to start before the other 2 get out.Also,I hate obsidian for making me actually want the dlcs.

          1. krellen says:

            “I played it” and “I loved it” are not even remotely the same thing.

            1. Daemian Lucifer says:

              If it is as good as people are saying,Im sure Ill love it.

        3. Myth says:

          Yeah, this is certainly part of it. It was especially jarring when we had Josh talking to one of the companions early on, and in the background Shamus complains, “Ugh – more [i]conversation[/i]??” – despite normally championing that sort of thing over mindless shooting.

          Shamus is someone who clamors for more story and depth in games, and here we have something that focuses on exactly that, and does a good job with it – compelling characters, interesting background, a nice-looking locale (aside from the overdose of muddy brown). But because of the format in which he is experiencing it – as a second-hand viewer fast-forwarding through the dialogue and distracted by the shared experience of three other players – it comes across as a jumbled mess. Which means he has nothing but complaints for it, which sends the message to the game industry that, hey, story [i]doesn’t[/i] actually matter, why not ignore it completely?

          I should clarify that my complaints, here, aren’t actually about what is happening in the show itself, but more the choice to do Dead Money without most of the crew being able to make informed comments about it. Rutskarn, earlier this week, mentioned that people were asking both for (1) you guys to do more on-topic commentary and (2) to say good things about the game, and that just wasn’t going to happen. For myself, that’s not what I’m looking for – it [i]is[/i] a confusing and nonsensical mess to you guys, and I wouldn’t expect you to do otherwise than share your honest opinions. That ship has sailed, and I’m more regretful that this is how things played out, and that you guys (especially Shamus) were deprived of a genuine experience that, I suspect, would have been much more enjoyable than experiencing this content in this fashion.

          1. Slip says:

            I have always sought out games with a riveting story and relatable characters, but I found it hard to enjoy Dead Money regardless. While the dull, lifeless, repetitive scenery and a horde of cloned mooks with no personality may have successfully conveyed the message of death and suspended time, I loathed it.

            I think it would only be fair to accept the impressions of the DLC that Shamus and the rest of the Spoiler Warning crew are offering us without trying to convince them that their experience would have differed “if they were only prepared/had played through it.” Maybe they would have liked it, maybe not; I like to imagine that truly inspiring games can capture the attention of their audience even if they have a Ruts reciting every pun known to mankind in their ear. :)

            1. Kelly says:

              Shamus himself is on the record saying that survival horror should be played alone.

            2. acronix says:

              Try to enjoy Mozart`s work while hearing Metallica. Or the other way around.

              1. Sekundaari says:

                After too little effort: try this. Problem is, you have to turn the Metallica part to something like 1/4 volume.

                Another one, same problem. They are kind of funny though.

                1. acronix says:

                  AHHHH How dare you! *chases Sekundaari with an oversized, spiky frying pan*

                2. krellen says:

                  While I can (sort of) hear Mozart over Metallica (even turned down to 1/4), I don’t think I’m really enjoying Mozart with the Metallica played over it.

                  1. Sekundaari says:

                    I enjoy it, but not in the normal way, that’s for sure.

                  2. Zukhramm says:

                    Enjoying something involving Metallica is hard.

                3. John Alexander says:

                  That first one actually worked until the Mozart got quiet. It didn’t work as well as Mozart alone, but it was good.

            3. Myth says:

              Oh yeah, I’m not saying that they would have absolutely loved the DLC had they played it solo, or that the problem is in them for ‘playing it wrong’. But I think it is a shame that we will never know – and that, while I don’t object to someone legitimately not liking the DLC, so many of their reasons seem rooted in the shared-play experience rather than the DLC itself, that they are hard to take as legitimate criticism.

              And, honestly, if they had played it beforehand and disliked it, and had more genuine complaints about it, that probably would have made for a perfectly entertaining experience, even for those who liked the game – no one is claiming it is without flaws!

      3. Sombersome says:

        Are you aware of how hypocritical you sound? You are calling someone out on doing the exact same thing as you, the only diffrence being a thinly veiled guise of being funny. Now I admit that most of what you put up here is interesting, you succeed at being humorous some of the time, I do enjoy your programming exploits, and the rest of the cast do a good job of keeping SW entertaining. That being said, the sheer amount of complaining coming from your end can oftentimes be offputting, even noticeably affecting my mood from having read one of your posts. I trust this isn’t intentional, but the way you’re responding makes it seem like you’re unwilling to entertain the notion that there might be a limit to how much whining people will stomach. If I were you, I would put serious effort into focusing on positive aspects of whatever you’re talking about. I think it would go a long way to making your content more enjoyable. That’s my opinion, anyway.(As a side note: I do not necessarily agree or disagree with anything Kelly has stated.)

        1. Drexer says:

          This is his blog. His ‘home’ in some sense. He’s complaining about things in his territory.

          When people come here and get extremely nervous and annoyed time after time and complain about it, it’s a totally different thing. If you don’t like a belief someone has, you can very well say so when you talk to that person for the first time. But if you’re coming back to that person’s home time and time again to hear her talk about that thing you do not agree with and you’re going to complain every single time then you’re the one being obsessive and who should stop, not them.

          Those are the common social norms and I think what Shamus you talking about, he’s not withholding from Kelly her right to be angry, but he’s withholding her right to feel like it’s her right to just come here time after time to complain about something which she knows will stay the same when Shamus is the ‘host’.

          1. Sombersome says:

            This is not mr. Young’s “home”. It is, like you said, his blog: A public place for him to publish content that he wishes to share. As such, he should not be surprised that there are people who come here who are of a diffrent opinion than him who want to express it. Secondly, there’s nothing wrong with posting your views on a particular subject several times, unless it’s somehow irrelevant, copypasted, or otherwise unfitting. I can even understand why someone would do so, given that mr.Young doesn’t respond to the vast majority of the comments. Knowing that he reads most, if not all of them makes it seem a futile effort though, I will admit.

            1. Shamus says:

              I read ’em all.

              ALL I TELL YOU.

              On topic:

              To be clear: Kelly is certainly welcome to leave comments here. They’re critical, but civil, which is what matters.

        2. Shamus says:

          Congratulations. You spotted the VERY DELIBERATE IRONY that I was using to make a point. :)

          Kelly was constantly complaining to be about my complaining too much. She was ironic first. I just closed the loop.

          1. Matt says:

            And that’s why Shamus is great. (and old)
            Also, I want to clarify that I’m not involved or affiliated in any flaming here, I was only trying to answer some of the questions that the SW crew presented, in a completely non-confrontational way. I’m a huge fan.

          2. Deadpool says:

            It’s a vicious circle. Just keeps going around and around.

          3. Kelly says:

            Again, wasn’t complaining about complaining to much, I was complaining about you complaining about things about which you have an entirely incomplete knowledgebase of. You’ll mention that there’s 12 plotholes in some quest, except no there isn’t, it’s explained in terminals that are skipped and dialogue that’s sped through. It makes for a torturous viewing experience. This is such a direct contrast between the rest of the LP. You’ve all played Vanilla New Vegas, and in particular Ruts has played it to death (albeit with completely psychotic roleplaying limits tacked on), so you’re all obviously commenting from a position of understanding, and it’s fairly enjoyable to watch. This is the opposite. This is like watching 5 clips of Star Wars on youtube, then writing a review of it talking about how it’s an incomplete version of Battlestar Galactica.

            1. Slip says:

              Well, now that we all know you were complaining about him complaining, I might consider complaining about you complaining about him complaining… and then hopefully, someone will complain about me complaining about you complaining about him complaining. :)

              1. X2-Eliah says:

                Hi. This is me complaining about the exercise in recursion that you are perpetuating. Unlike me >.> <.<

          4. Sombersome says:

            Wow. Just wow. You’re condecending me for not catching up on your so-called irony, when in fact this was made completely, and I do mean completely, opaque by your seeming compulsion to have a go at everything, not to mention that text is well-known for not carrying sarcasm to any degree? I took Kelly’s post at face value, thus your post was either dismissive, and very rude in mocking him for his opinion, or a more serious response. By the looks of Kelly’s subsequent post, it would seem that I did indeed have the right impression, which means that you misinterpreted it as a joke. Also, you did not say anything about what I was actually talking about, which further cements my previous statement (“…unwilling to entertain the notion that…a limit to how much whining people will stomach”). If this is how you handle honest input, I do not see the point in commenting further.

            1. Mincecraft says:

              His blog, I think he can do whats he likes.

  15. acronix says:

    I dislike the holo-guards so much. I don`t know how the writer justifies them being able to damage people, or detect intruders through their “own eyes” instead of a detector, but the premise is silly. It`s like they wanted an excuse to put ghosts in the game without going all fantasy-ish and magical-ish.

    1. poiumty says:

      Yeah they’re my main gripe with this DLC. A field of emitted particles… which are projected through emitters… which posess sensory detection… and can also emit lasers… our of their… particles…

      WHO IN THE NINE HELLS THOUGHT THAT WOULD MAKE SENSE

      1. krellen says:

        I’ll admit, when I first heard about the holograms, I thought the emitters were small devices that floated in the body of the hologram itself, and things made sense that way (horror-wise, this makes the holograms only killable via explosives, which would be an interesting variety (and make you horde those gas bombs more).)

        When I found out the truth, I was somewhat disappointed.

      2. Deadpool says:

        The BIGGEST problem is their “sight.” The idea of “solid light” is an old one in sci fi, and not as far fetched as one would iamgine.

      3. ehlijen says:

        I think many of the problems of the hologuards could have been avoided if they’d named the control guffins ‘Holo controller’ or ‘holo computer’ or something. Naming the ’emitter’ evokes clear expectations as to how they behave that the game then wilfully ignores.

        But if they’d just been funky consoles or wireboxes, not only might players have been more forgiving for their odd placement, they could have added Repair and Science as ways to deactivate them for players who prefer that.

  16. psivamp says:

    Hit-spam: Blood Meat

    An genetically-modified anthropomorphic pig makes a living as an assassin killing farm animals by using precariously placed farm machinery…

    1. Daemian Lucifer says:

      Id like to play that one.And the opening song should,of course,be spam spam spammity spam!

  17. AlternatePFG says:

    I think Honest Hearts will be a lot better in that regard, it isn’t complicated, so there aren’t any major logic issues that would come up if you are rushing through it for an LP. Most of the basic plot elements come up right away in the dialogue and your don’t need to dig too deep in dialogue or read terminals (Dead Money is still pretty up front about it, but I understand why you wouldn’t want to read the terminals and more of the dialogue) Still though, pretty much everything in Dead Money was explained at one point, a couple were pretty iffy and some of it is left ambiguous (like the origin of the ghost people) on purpose.

  18. X2-Eliah says:

    You guys have got to do a good game every now and then too, y’know? So that there is more stuff to say about it instead of just ‘x sucks y sucks z makes no sense’.

    Also, for all the commentators who are nagging about Josh’s playstyle – it’s a goddamned show, he can’t afford to spend 8 minutes on every terminal and half an hour per each conversation; nor can he afford to do every single side-thing in the whole game – simply because of time limits. And having three people constantly speaking and having to answer questions / contribute to a discussion and having to play the game as well.

    That said… Please pick a different kind of game next, not an open-world long-running slow-burn rpg.

    1. poiumty says:

      New Vegas was actually pretty entertaining thus far. It’s this DLC that has been mostly dull and boring, and not for the right reasons.

      Besides, I think Shamus can find plot holes and things that don’t make sense in EVERY GAME EVER MADE (including Portal 2) if he puts his mind to it.

      1. Daemian Lucifer says:

        “(including Portal 2)”

        Whats that 2 doing there?First one was better.Or do you think that he cannot find any flaws in that one(because even Yahtzee couldnt)?

        1. poiumty says:

          I remember Shamus being a bit of a fangirl over Portal 2. I don’t think he shares our sentiment about the first being better.

      2. Someone says:

        Its not very hard to find plotholes in Portal 2. Here’s a couple:

        1. How does the potato survive the fall?
        2. How can there be deadly bottomless pits if we’ve spent two games establishing the safe landing boots?

        1. 4th Dimension says:

          APERTURE Spikes at the bottom?
          Oh, and if you do survive the fall, you would loose valuable time getting back up, and you wouldn’t be on time to stop Weasly.

        2. Keeshhound says:

          1. The bird caught it. In midair.
          2. Because its bottomless. You reload because you die, you reload because you’re going to fall forever. And that would get boring after the first five or so minutes.

          1. Someone says:

            I’m pretty sure the bird would be killed by the potato at that velocity.

            1. Daemian Lucifer says:

              Ah,but what was the airspeed velocity of that bird when it was unladen?

              1. poiumty says:

                Well, was it african or european?

                You have to know a lot of things when you’re on the internet you know.

        3. acronix says:

          An alternative response to 2 would be that, once on the pits, you wouldn`t have any way to shoot your portals anywhere to scape. But because it`s not fun to be trapped in a game forever (besides, by how platyer logic works when gaming, we`d all think there`s a way out. Why would they design the botomless pit, otherwise?), it just fades to black.

          1. It’s basically that and by the time you get to the majority of the bottomless pits Wheatley is in charge and if you were to climb up again you wouldn’t have enough time before the entire place exploded.

    2. Kelly says:

      Of course he can’t do any of that. That’s why doing this DLC in the first place was a bad idea. It would have been easier to just ignore DLC entirely (or go for Honest Hearts, but Dead Money teases all the other DLC which might have been why he did it).

      1. Adam P says:

        If you’ll recall, they were doign the Boomers before Dead Money. I think Josh’s exact quote for the switch was, “fuck the Boomers, we’re doing Dead Money.”

        1. krellen says:

          Yeah, this was fueled by Josh’s desire to get away from crap he didn’t like and go do something he did like. Unfortunately, Dead Money isn’t really designed as a “show” sort of game; it’s really a “play”.

  19. Myth says:

    For myself, in terms of complaints, this episode touched on one of my big ones – missing dialogue options.

    As Josh mentioned, the game strongly hints that Christine had been involved with Veronica. But… can you mention that you know Veronica? That things are going well for the BoS? Any of it? Nope.

    Same with Elijah. I understand there is some small hidden dialogue hidden in there, requiring you to have said the right things at the right time elsewhere… but for myself, I found it impossible to bring up any of the things I wanted to bring up, and it was definitely a mild bit of frustration.

    Similarly, I get the concern about not being able to call out Dean for his actions. It wasn’t a problem for me – I had pissed him off early on, accidently, which meant he was out for my blood. The only companion I had to kill… and, in my case, I was glad he told me about the horrible things he had did, so I no longer felt bad about having to gun him down. But I do think that having their attitudes be so binary was a bit of a downside.

    1. Deadpool says:

      This is a problem with noth (and maybe ALL) New Vegas DLC: They don’t feel like an addition to the world, but more like a “mission.” It’d be much more interesting if these things integrated into the “real” world.

      The fact you can’t say anything about Graham to KAIZAAAAAAAAAR is really, really stupid…

    2. I did manage to bring up Veronica with Elijah, and you can in turn talk to her about him afterwards, even delivering her a message from him.

  20. Dovius says:

    “What happens when you go into the water, Dog?”
    Why he will- */Nathan* LIVE. THERE. DIE. THERE.*/kick-ass song*
    Gotta love Metalocalypse.

    1. Von Krieger says:

      WE REJECT OUR EARTHLY FIRES
      GONE ARE DAYS OF LAND EMPIRES

      1. Dovius says:

        LUNGS TRANSFORMED TO TAKE IN WATER
        CLOAKED IN SCALES, WE SWIM AND SWIM

  21. Jibar says:

    Hey, Josh, you going to grab Old World Blues next week?
    Don’t know if Honest Hearts will show up due to all the criticisms of this DLC and the fact Mumbles/Shamus/Rutskarn probably haven’t played it either, but Old World Blues sounds significantly sillier so it might get a better reception.

    1. acronix says:

      Sillier than shooting holograms?

      1. Jibar says:

        Robot scorpions, seductive light switches and a toaster planning to destroy the world?
        That’s kinda silly.

        1. More like kind of AWESOME.

          Actually it sounds like they’re trying to do Aperture Science, only a bit more varied.

        2. Eärlindor says:

          A toaster bent on world destruction? I’m totally buying that.

    2. therandombear says:

      Best to wait an extra week before you get new fallout DLC me thinks….atleast I had to do that with DLC for FO3, it was always bugged the first week for me

    3. Mumbles says:

      I’m looking at the description here:

      “you unwittingly become a lab rat in a science experiment gone awry. You will need to scour the pre-War research centers of the Big Empty in search of technology to turn the tables on your kidnappers or join forces with them against an even greater threat.”

      hmmmmmmmmm that premise sounds oddly familiar I just can’t seem to put my finger on it…

      1. kanodin says:

        I gotta tell ya I’m 100% behind Fallout Aperture Dead Money here.

  22. Slothful says:

    That bear trap on Reginald Cuftbert’s fist is the worst trap ever. It’s supposed to trap a limb, not remove it and let a bear hobble away.

  23. Flavius says:

    After reading about this DLC on the wiki and watching your play through, I feel saddened due to the sheer squanderance of potential. It seems as though the entire staff of Obsidian is composed creative, talented, and intelligent people; however, right before finishing a project, they become tired of it, or get lazy, and end it as quickly as possible with the bare minimum of polishing and refinement.

    You keep comparing the DLC to Bioshock, yet in my mind, Silent Hill II is a more apt comparison. Now, before Shamus tries to track me down to consume my liver over that analogy, let me explain (Possible spoilers ahead). The characters in Silent Hill II were a group of deeply troubled individuals who, haunted by the past, were drawn to the town of Silent Hill and forced to confront their dark histories. The four NPCs from Dead Money, as Josh noted, fill this description perfectly. Dean Domino seems an especially pathetic character, having the last 200 years chewing on the frayed ends of a plot against a man who has long since died…This, and the other stories, can be compelling stuff, and are staples of classic horror and revenge sagas. However, even with strong writing up to this point, it seems that in conclusion the writers forgot to finish the story. Continuing with the analysis of Dean, it doesn’t seem like we are given a compelling reason why he was able to let go of his obsession. He sort of drops out of the picture; what he needed was a come-uppance and a chance face the absurdity of his time at the Sierra Madre.

    I mentioned that the Sierra Madre has Echoes of Silent Hill, but I also find it reminiscent of another miserable and tortured locale: the Shalebridge Cradle. The Cradle attempts to maintain a semblance of life by holding the ghosts of its former inmates, and resists the attempts of those entering it to leave. The Sierra Madre’s Holograms in many respects mirror the Cradle’s ghosts; both are pale attempts to provide life to that which is fundamentally dead.

    Actually, it would be fun to run with this idea; it could have been established that the holograms are run by a primitive AI; nothing so advanced that it would be possible to speak with it, let alone reason with it, but enough so it could have (and thus the entire casino could have) vague intentions and desires. Make one of these desires to be populated, and PRESTO! You have spooky and somewhat reasonable explanations for various plot holes. Why did the security holograms kill everyone when the bombs fell? Because they tried to flee the casino! The casino did not wish to be abandoned, so it killed the guests and replaced them with identical holograms in an effort to convince itself that its guests had never abandoned it. This is not Shakespeare by any stretch, and I know others can think of better explanation, but this possibly shows how easily the plot could have been smoothed over.

    Another weakness brought up by the SW crew is the bomb collars. I will say I cannot blame Obsidian for doing this. As already mentioned, all of the NPCs have deep psychological problems that prevent them from leaving the Sierra Madre…The player is a blank slate. The easiest way of giving the player a reason to stay is through the fear of death, but I doubt this would be the only means. Indeed, although it would not have worked for the DLC at large, the final vault seems to pose the player with a conundrum that may cause many players hesitate for a long while before leaving…A brilliant touch.

    So, I agree with the SW crew…But at the same time, I feel like I can see in the dregs what could have been an absolutely brilliant piece of storytelling.

  24. therandombear says:

    I recently finished Dead Money, and I liked it tbh…I liked HH too….if only I didn’t have to walk so fucking far in HH..only to realise I was supposed to be on top of the mountain shelf and not under it…then having to backtrack to a road and walk the right way…*eye twitch*

    Only thing with Dead Money I found incredibly stupid…is how brokenly easy Fallout gets after it…I have 150.000 Pre-war money from Sierra madre chips…and I managed to sneak out 7 Gold Bars from the vault….money is no issue and you can use the vendor machine in Elijah’s bunker to exchange cigarette packs for chips and chips for more stimpacks….xD

  25. Bubble181 says:

    First off, I’ve actually stopped watching these episodes…I’m not a religious follower of SW in any case (not enough time to watch 20 minute videos every day, sorry), but I am actively e waiting for Cuftbert to get back to regular FNV before I continue watching

    Secondly, I think that all of the (sensible) complaints can be summarized (by which I do not mean all complaints are sensible, but that the ones who do, can be) simply by: PLAY THE GAME BEFORE COMMENTING ON IT.

    I haven’t played ME2. But all comments the SW crew made, I knew to be well-founded. If one of you says something makes no sense, or ridicules something, I know that you really mean the explanation isn’t there (or is so ridiculous it isn’t worth considering). You’re pointing out flaws, or mentioning problems, with the game and its internal logic.
    Now, you’re pointing out problems with *your understanding of* the game. Which isn’t entirely fair, since you’re only going by a fast-play, crazed play-through, skipping lots of dialogue and text.

    If you had all (or most) played through the DLC, and then commented on this, chances are you’d still be mocking the broken logic of some quests, still talking about the amount of similar enemies, the stupidity of the holograms, the overpoweredness of the bear claw, plot holes,… but you’d come across as intelligent people giving good commentary. Now, to me, you’re coming off as prats. Saying something isn’t explained, while there *is* a perfectly good (or horribly bad, as the case may be) explanation in the game but too lazy to read it, is something I’ve seen Shamus rail against in the past. The group comes off as Halo fans playing through Oblivion and saying it sucks because there’s too much blabber and not enough explosions. I can certainly see people not liking Oblivion (I’m not a big fan), but I expect them to have decent arguments.

    1. Naota says:

      See this reply, now see Kelly’s one further up the page. This is the kind of feedback I’m sure the Spoiler Warning crew likes to read, and will probably take into consideration for future endeavors. Kelly’s response, full of hostility, insults, subjective complaints stated as objective facts? Not so much.

      This is how you make a constructive “complaint” about things that you think should be changed. By not being an asshole.

      I applaud you, sir. This message is the one that should be getting the attention.

  26. ProudCynic says:

    …So can we all agree that Dead Money deserves a playthrough from just about everyone? Has Spoiler Warning done anything else which has inspired this much controversy? I don’t think BioShock–frickin’ BioShock, what was probably 2007’s GotY and the best written game in a long time–caused this much argument.

    If so many people are getting mad about the way it’s getting treated, maybe then there is something worthwhile in there, right?

    1. X2-Eliah says:

      Dunno. I haven’t seen any reason to play the dlc, frankly. the location design is horrible, the enemy spread is lousy, the visual ambience is ugly, it completely ruins the game economy, and it would probably take 2-4 hours to finish..

      Y’know, that easily gets a ‘skip it’ stamp.

      1. ProudCynic says:

        Ok. This is not the best defense of anything ever, but Obsidion’s level design has never been top-notch and the economies have been about as brittle as… a really brittle thing-y… since at least Fallout 2. Regardless, the fact that it inspires all these people to defend it, including the only host who has actually played all the way through it, must mean that it can’t be all bad, right?

      2. Littlefinger says:

        a) Not going to mention your first 3 points, they are valid criticisms (with the attendum that after a while I started to ignore the enemies. You can outrun them relatively easy, and they rarely follow you on zones. Bit of an annoyance in a new area though).
        b) By the time you should do this dlc (level 10 or better), you already have +4000 caps to get into Vegas, where Blackjack already broke the game economy in the vanilla version. And I found almost all of my equipment on dead enemies. Money was used for stimpacks and repairs. And you should really do this dlc at level 20 or above. Not because it’s difficult, but you have more skills you can pass skillchecks with, leading to more content.
        c) I’m an explorer, and I wanted to see every nook and cranny of this dlc, so this isn’t representative, but I spent +- 8 hours on it. Of course, you could cruise through Cuftburt-way, but you lose all of the backstory and stuff that’s stored on various consoles. Also, there is some really good loot if you find it, skill books, magazine boosters, and so on.
        d) the number 1 reason for this dlc are the 4 (5?) characters. What you saw here is only 20% of all of their dialogue. At a guess, I think you probably get around 20 minutes of dialogue per character on average (Elijah a lot less, but still significant), and it’s very good quality.

      3. Myth says:

        Well, some of that depends on how much you put into it, but yeah, not every DLC will be for everyone. For myself, even at level 30 it made for a pretty cool survival horror scenario, despite that not normally being my thing.

        As far as the economy goes – as noted, that already breaks down pretty early in the game anyway. I actually liked this because, via the Sierra Madre Chips, it temporarily resets the economy. I went from being able to have everything I needed… to running around with shoddy gear, desperately rooting through the trash for cigarettes and grimy clothing.

        Now, once partway through it (again, primarily once you hit the casino), you eventually get past that point. But the first fight I was in, I lost a chunk of health but was victorious, and didn’t think it was too hard. Until I realized all I had to heal was a few bits of food I had picked up, and whatever I could get from the vending machine. Not having hundreds of stimpacks on hand was a huge wake up call, and made every fight, every approach into the cloud, a much bigger deal – at least for the first few hours of the DLC.

    2. I’m happy to listen to any criticism they make as long as they play it beforehand so they know what they’re talking about. Having one or two not play it is fine, just so long as it’s more than Josh so there’s always one person who can provide context while he plays.

  27. whiteadder says:

    ahem…
    1.The Madre’s security system reactivated upon the completion of the gala, this was mentioned by father Elijah seconds later.
    2.Said security system then distributed the party throughout the casino based on various attributes, dean to the theater as he was expected to perform there, Christine to Vera Keyes room as Christine had Keyes vocal cords, and Dog… apparently wandered to the kitchen… (I’ll admit these aren’t all gems.) Again Elijah mentions this.
    3.This was originally a casino, random murder of people at the entrance would have been presumably frowned upon. Of coarse once you all wandered out of your designated areas you were fair game. Again Elijah.
    4.The security system holograms presumably. Elijah
    5.Wherever holograms go once deactivated. Elijah
    6.Because he’s a gigantic coward and doesn’t want the security holograms to kill him. Inferred through Deans behavior, he also says that he doesn’t want to provoke the holograms.
    7. You needed a fairly high repair skill to deactivate the emitters, Dean apparently didn’t put enough points into that.
    8.100+ years of decay whilst in the middle of a corrosive cloud led to various hallway collapses/activated security systems, resulting in the level layout.
    9. Decedents of the hotel maintenance staff mutated by the cloud. Lots of terminals/notes that hint at this.
    10.The radio frequency’s that control the collar detonation are blocked due to the solid construction of the casino/it’s building materials. Elijah! Missed you!
    I really admire you Shamus. This isn’t meant to be harsh criticism, but you guys really need to shut up and read every last line of dialog if you want to get to grips with the setting.
    This is of coarse rather poor way to design a game.
    Anyway, the plot inconsistencies are addressed, but you have to really pay attention to every last word, and even then you get minor plot holes.
    Don’t hate the game for the plot holes, hate it for the truckload of plot spackle they needed to apply to make this story work.

  28. Littlefinger says:

    One thing to note, that hasn’t been mentioned. About the monsters. If you listen closely, they sometimes make noises very much like ghouls. Add to that a console note that explains how the gas corrodes the locks on the environmental suits, locking them sealed, and you have an answer on why they are still alive after all this time.

    Also, there are convos with dean where he explains that ghost people like to drag their victims into the toxic cloud, where they vanish. So a possibility is that they ‘recruit’ new people this way. ( And you are NOT the second, third, fourth party to venture here. Who do you think wrote those messages ‘the treasure is MINE’ on walls back in the villa?)

    1. krellen says:

      Dean did.

      1. Keeshhound says:

        Now I have an image of Dean just lugging HUNDREDS of markers, pens, knives, cans of spray paint, etc., all over the Sierra Madre campus, and compulsively renewing his messages, adding new ones, and just in general being a post-apocalyptic Banksy.

  29. Deadpool says:

    Btw, the Nightkin thing… Unless something’s changed and I missed it, the Nightkin were a VERY closely guarded secret of the Master’s army. No one knew they existed in Fallout 1, there’s no mention of them in 2, and I can’t think of anyone other than the Enclave doctor and other Super Mutants that show knowledge of this in New Vegas.

    Remember, Elijah is a member of the ORIGINAL Brotherhood (not that Fallout 3, DC chapter PoS). Their Scribes are focused almost exclusively on weapons tech, and he himself has been an Elder (a job primarily for the Knight “caste”) for years.

    1. That and the nightkin were invisible 99% of the time, so most people wouldn’t know about their different colouring.

  30. Daemian Lucifer says:

    Wait,those collars stopped working because they lost signal?Its not really a plot hole,but a dumb way to make prison collars.What if the prisoner escapes and gets out of your range?They are essentially free at that point.It would make much more sense for the collars to detonate once the signal was lost for a minute or so.

    1. Deadpool says:

      Well, they were experimental collars. They were never finished because they had a bunch of problems (like the radio signal interference thing).

      1. ehlijen says:

        But for radios to possibly set them off, that’d mean any signal could trigger them.

        So the only way not to trigger them is to not recieve any signals?

        The interference thing makes a lot more sense if they need a signal to not blow up, but then they should blow up if the signal is interrupted…

    2. whiteadder says:

      Remember these things have been sitting god knows where for the past couple hundred years. That probably resulted in some deviation from the original intent.

  31. Moriarty says:

    About the “letting go of obsessions” thing as the theme. I LOVED the part at the end where the game gives you 1500pounds of GOLD BARS, worth two thousand caps each. And then gives you a time limit to leave the area.

    god, I crawled through there two times while overencumbered just to haul all those bars out. In the end I had to let nearly all of them in the area you can never go back to. It’s the only time I actually felt the whole “too greedy to let go” angle actually work in a game.

    1. krellen says:

      Maybe they patched it, but the specifics I recall was each bar weighed 135 pounds, and was worth over 15000 caps.

      I thought it was a really nice way to drive home the “let go” to players, who are used to looting everything of high value.

      1. Irridium says:

        Must have patched it. For me the bars were 35 pounds, and worth about 10,000 gold.

        But I agree. I saw them, got happy, saw the weight, noticed my inventory encumberence, and remembered all my items I’ll get back when the DLC’s over.

        Think I pulled a “NOOOOOOOOOO”.

        I did manage to get one though. Thanks to my barter skill I could get about 13000 caps for it. But of course nobody has that kind of money to buy it.

        So I just put it on my desk in my suite at the Lucky 38. A nice, expensive reminder of my time in the Sierra Madre…

        1. The first time I actually cheated to give myself a tonne of turbo and slow motion speed ran out with all of them. The second I just took as many as I could carry (about 4 or 5). It’s not like I’m ever low on money in these games.

          But yeah, I just tend to use them to buy up all the gun runners decent stock and such.

          1. Moriarty says:

            Actually in the vault area there is one dead body you could use to transport all those gold bars without cheating (altough you could call it exploiting the loot system). Haul the body to the exit and the head to the gold bars, put the gold bars into the head and you can take them out of the body when you’re leaving the area.

            I didn’t do it though, somehow felt like the game deserved to win that one.

    2. Even says:

      I remember them being actually way over 10k in caps. What really drives the theme home even more here is the fact there’s no traders in the Mojave that would have that kind of money with them by default. It’d be fun to see a chart of many actually tried to carry all of them when they tried to leave the vault the first time. I sure as hell fell for it. Managed to carry only two out in the end.

      EDIT: Ninja’d, dammit..

      1. kanodin says:

        There are actually a lot of people out there who totally missed the point of the dlc and glitched their way to having all of them. Also I played it 2-3 weeks ago and they were still worth over 10k.

        Personally I went straight to the gun runners with the bar I smuggled out.

        1. Even says:

          Well gotta give it to them for being persistent.

          And, yeah, I forgot to add that you CAN sell them, it can just be hard and you most probably won’t get the kind of price out of it as you’d like barring you’ve spent enough cash at a trader for them to actually have enough to buy one.. Even with the Gun Runners you’re most likely going to have buy some weapons or ammo to get the full price out of one single gold bar.

        2. Deadpool says:

          I got the point, but I always liked breaking games. you can sneak past Elijah while encumbered just fine, no glitch needed…

    3. Keeshhound says:

      Anyone want to take bets that Reginald dopes himself to the eyeballs and drags them all out?

  32. ehlijen says:

    I find it ridiculous and amusing, but not truly funny in and of itself. Can we still be friends?

    But even if those explanations are there, they all seem to hinge on ‘the builder knew a nuclear war might come’. But then why make it a hotel or casino? Why build a security system designed to keep people out of a place designed to invite them in (casinos want fools with money to come in after all) all the while using power that has to come from your vault if a nuke attack were to actually happen.

    Was he thinking ‘Let’s build a casino, but just in case the nukes’ll fall, let’s add a vault’ or ‘let’s build a vault, but just in case the nukes won’t fall, let’s add a casino’? Neither truly makes sense to me.

    1. krellen says:

      Because Vera would come to a casino; she wouldn’t come to a vault.

      Sinclair had a serious greed-on for Vera; he wanted to own her, possess her, keep her, save her. And the casino was her trap. Even the holograms are the evidence that Sinclair could not let go, until it was too late.

      The vault later became a trap for Dean, after Sinclair found about him.

      1. ehlijen says:

        Fair enough, thanks for that explanation :)

    2. Deadpool says:

      What I gather is this: Sinclair was building a casino. Dean makes his plan. Sinclair sees it coming and spends a LUDICROUS amount of money to torture the guy probably cuz he figures, hell, war is coming, what else will I do with this money (Why not buy a place ion A Vault?)?

      Problem is, he fall in love with Vera HARDcore. Vera feels bad and tells him the truth before the casino is finished. So he repurposes the Casino as a safe haven where Vera can treat her illness and be safe from the bomb and whatnot.

      Bomb hits earlier than planned. It all goes pear shaped.

    3. Naota says:

      The one that really gets me is the frequent gassings the player has to endure for some reasons that seem incredibly flimsy to me at the moment, though I have yet to finish the DLC. It’s a little hard to believe that Sinclair had the omnipotent foresight to build a defense mechanism intended specifically for gassing curious wasteland-dwellers he had no assurances would even exist 200 years after the apocalypse, denoted as such only by radiation signatures they may or may not have. Why not just build a giant crusher plate that smashes any and all unwanted intruders flat? Perhaps a trap floor? Giant impractical boulder of doom?

      On top of that, you are neck-deep in corpses defined by their prominent gas masks. Why can’t you wear one? At the very least I would have liked them to lampshade the player wanting to not get gassed continuously. Perhaps this does happen and I’ve just yet to encounter it?

      Why does being on different floors of the casino nullify the signal that detonates your collar? Why is it even built this way? Any proper exploding collar would go off the instant it lost signal, either to the main transmitter or to any of the collars it was linked to. That way the person wearing it couldn’t just escape. Which is exactly what you do. Engineering fail?

      A lot of the explanations I’m seeing here go out on a limb and only sort of make sense once you’ve read about them in depth, which is sort of a failing in and of itself. If you have to think up reasons for why something makes sense when the game provides none, it’s not succeeding at telling its story. Maybe (*cringe*) “holograms” did drag you to the fountain after you passed out, but we don’t know. The game itself should have told you how you got there rather than relying on the player to rationalize its plot holes for it.

      1. CalDazar says:

        “a defense mechanism intended specifically for gassing curious wasteland-dwellers”
        It knocks everyone out, but because it doesn’t know what to do with you, leaves you there.
        I want to know why Dog/God was placed in the kitchen, or did he go there himself? I don’t know and it’s very confusing.

        “corpses defined by their prominent gas masks. Why can't you wear one?”
        Because it takes two people to get inside one of those things, and the cloud has corroded the suits making them stuck on. Yeah the suits don’t stop the gas, nothing does.

        1. Naota says:

          But why even use the gas as a defense mechanism against its intended target of… postapocalyptic future-looters (?) when you can just outright kill them and permanently solve the problem? The system is smart enough to spot its very specific quarry, incapacitate them, move them (somehow) to predetermined locations, and yet it just leaves anyone else lying there for a few hours. That’s… not very secure. They’re going to wake up angrier than before, and unless it gasses them again (and again, and again) they’re eventually going to get inside.

          The reason I find the gas so peculiar is that it’s completely at odds with the rest of the casino’s design. The place is packed to the roof with indiscriminate automatic deathtraps, but when a potential saboteur and/or communist supersoldier comes knocking, all it does is render them unconscious and forget about them. Why rely on human security staff in just this specific instance, yet automate literally everything else?

          I was proposing using one of the ghost suits’ air filters on its own in order to avoid being repeatedly floored by the Casino’s patented knockout gas, not the stuff outdoors. Hell, it doesn’t actually have to be the filters from these suits. It doesn’t even have to work. I’d just have preferred that they lampshade the fact that my character is tired of being repeated gassed out of nowhere and is pondering ways to avoid it in the future, even if there are none available.

          1. krellen says:

            The casino gassing is part of the casino’s decontamination routines, not its security routines (Sinclair designed the casino to ensure no fallout got in to endanger the residents (ie, Vera).)

            This fact does have to be pieced together from a couple terminals, though.

            1. Naota says:

              Ah, that does indeed shed some light on the situation, though the fact that it has to be pieced together like that is hardly ideal game design. How hard would it have been to insert an angry red detector light and a synthetic voice to inform you that “Irradiated material detected. Commencing purge” before it became impromptu happy hour?

              Now I’m curious why you were gassed multiple times… Assuming the decontamination actually did its job I imagine you wouldn’t trip the same radiation detector again. If you were still irradiated afterwards, it should probably not have let you walk in and rub your fallout-encrusted face all over the fine upholstery.

          2. Jabrwock says:

            But why even use the gas as a defense mechanism against its intended target of… postapocalyptic future-looters (?) when you can just outright kill them and permanently solve the problem?

            Maybe it was just to protect against contaminated customers? Like making you check your weapons at the door kind of thing? Badly executed, in that it rendered you unconscious instead of just making you go through a “coat check” decon room or something, but perhaps it was set to stun anything out of the ordinary, and expected Security to decide what to do with you after you’d been detained.

      2. krellen says:

        Dog dragged you to the fountain, because Elijah told him to. The game does explain this.

        It doesn’t use the same excuse for the casino, though. I actually don’t remember (or really care) how that happened. It’s not like the four of you entered simultaneously. You were already split up all over the Villa, so being split up all over the Casino seems perfectly reasonable to me.

  33. Adam P says:

    I think it’s really cool, despite how much stuff Josh is apparently skipping, that each episode focuses on one part of the DLC. Every companion in the Villa section got their own episode and they got their own episodes for the Casino section. Good pacing, there.

  34. Manny says:

    I didn’t play any of the games from Spoiler Warning. The fact that most of the crew didn’t play this DLC made it actually more accessible for me, and I figure I’m not the only one.

    When most of the crew have completed the game and I didn't touch it, they tend to discuss subtle plot holes or inconsistencies in the game universe that I can’t appreciate because I don’t know enough about it. Fore example, I had trouble connecting to their thoughts during a lot of the Mass Effect 2 episodes, to the point that I often didn't watch them to the end. Maybe I would be able to follow their arguments by scrutinizing all previous episodes of the season, pausing to read all the dialogs and reading through wikipedia plot summaries, but I’m not willing to invest so much time in it. I’m not complaining because I figure the series were aimed at people having played the game.

    In this season, Josh frequently explains to the crew (and therefore also to me, thank you Josh) what is going on, and then Shamus and the rest point out flaws about the things you actually see on the screen . They are on the same page as the viewer who didn’t play the game, and everyone can easily follow what they say. I enjoy this season much more because of that, and I can even drop in and out of many episodes and still enjoy the show.

    So what I’m saying is, while this season is the worst for people who played the game, it is actually the most enjoyable season for me, and maybe also others who didn’t play any of the games. Unfortunately it heavily pisses off people who have played the game, since there are some uniformed remarks that aren’t rectified afterwards. This is actually similar to the reactions that Yahtzee gets to some of his reviews. Since he doesn’t invest that much time in playing the reviewed games, he sometimes points out non-existing flaws. People who liked and played the reviewed games rage, but all the others get a good laugh.

    So, maybe this points towards a more generally accessible format of the Spoiler Warning series? Shamus not having played the game will help people follow his thoughts, because he discovers the game at the same time as the viewers. Josh needs obviously to have played the game, but since he is busy exploiting game mechanics and trolling the AI, he can’t at the same time cover in depth discussions to debunk “false” plot holes. So I think one more person (Mumbles or Rutskarn) should have played through the game in depth to explain the non-obvious things to Shamus (and to the viewers). The fourth person should probably not have played the game to give Shamus some support and avoid one-sided discussions were Shamus might get left out otherwise.

    And – tadaah – everyone will be happy, high-fives and cookies for everyone. Except maybe Shamus doesn’t enjoy doing Spoiler Warnings were he doesn’t know the game – but it’s the same pain that viewers not having played the game experience otherwise.

  35. Fang says:

    Josh must be drinking along with this game.
    He is so drunk he doesn’t even know he is drinking any more!

  36. HerrSunk says:

    This “He said X about Y! That is so wrong! Rawr! Z defines X! Correct it! Z!!” and “You play different; burn, witch, whargglebarghle!” thinga-majigg seems (or rather; is) prevalent in LPs, I’ve noticed. Bit silly innit?

    Give me banter/snark of whatever kind above/about the gameplay any day. Give me a Rutpun, Mumtroll, Joshrage and a Sha-… and I will smile. Whenever I read about someone complaining on how the game is represented/perceived/played in these sort of things I hear a distant roar and ten, very bearded, creatures pops up chanting “Losing is Fun!”. Before they melt away in the magma sea because a stupid insane NOBLE JUST HAD TO PULL THE BLOODY LEVER THAT CONTROLLED THE VOLCANO-SPANNING BRIDGE, WHERE MY ELITE MILITARY WAS PATROLLING!

    I lost my train of thought.

  37. Jabrwock says:

    Something just occurred to me about the problem of “solid” holograms.

    I realize this is probably trying to justify bad modelling after the fact, but drawing on experiences of other holograms in other scifi such as ST:Voyager, you can *sometimes* have holograms that can physically interact with the real world, depending on how the hologram is projected.

    In ST:V, the Doctor was a hologram, but could interact with patients and tools because he was both a projection of light and forcefields (he was essentially a standalone holodeck projection). He could turn the forcefield part off and on, allowing him to pass through things, but it also allowed him to manipulate objects.

    That would explain why the hologram dealers can a) be pushed around, and b) manipulate the cards and chips.

    The ability to turn it off/on allows allows the security holograms to walk through the walls when they need to, or drag you to places you need to be taken (such as when they put Christine in Vera’s room, or Dean on stage…)

  38. Smejki says:

    Yes, Shamus, most (if not all) of these things are xplained ;-)

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