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Happy Fallout Day!
Oct. 23rd, 2022 11:43 pmYeah, was reminded of this while watching Jon's Fallout video tonight (which was a doozy, see below) -- October 23rd, 2077 is the date of the bomb drop in the Fallout universe! We're officially 55 years away from it! If it doesn't come early because we've already had the fuckin' plague and things are tense with Russia ahahahaha *sigh* Oh, our world today. . .
That being said, I had a pretty decent day today, scoring a win on all the to-do list stuff and catching up on messages and the like (though NOT on tumblr reblogs -- I don't know WHAT it is about my brain, but catching up on my tags and the stuff I genuinely do want to reblog has been HARD lately. I think I need to block out some time for it tomorrow specifically -- I WILL be reblogging your fics, Moose!) And I had plenty of Fallout adventures too:
1. Keep up with the FO4 Playthrough Progression: Check – as per my playthrough, below, Victor, Alice, and Piper were able to successfully clear Mass Fusion of Gunners, including the Commander in his power armor without much issue; claim all the loot within (including a certain strength-boosting bobblehead); bunk down for the night; spend the next morning cooking and helping Victor with gun upgrades while waiting out a radstorm; make their way across Boston, past the Commons and the Public Library, to get back to Diamond City; help the guards outside the stadium kill some super mutants (Victor putting his Mighty Sniper to good use); enter the city itself; and spend the night at Publick Occurrences, catching up Nat and reading funny stuff on Piper’s terminal. (And helping her edit “View From The Vault” instead of just getting the completed paper, because I’m not sure I gave her any time to actually write it properly before she and Victor left. Also because I wanted my in-story Piper to correct a few typos I noticed the in-game version made (notably using “him” where she meant “his”). XD) Good times! And soon we get back to the actual plot of the game. . .
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs, whatever Jon's got next for Fallout, and at least ONE OXBoxtra Watch Later video: Check – though that’s at least partially because Call Me Kevin is still feeling a bit unwell and has pushed today’s video to tomorrow, meaning I had one less to watch this evening. But I did tick off all three required vids –
A) First up, my one OXBoxtra video from the Watch Later – “Resident Evil 4 Remake: 7 Ways it's Different!” Yes, Andy (and company, I presume) got to play the opening half-hour of the upcoming RE4 Remake, and while apparently it’s very faithful to the original, it’s also got a few key differences. For starters, it controls like the modern RE games – no more tank control nonsense! And you can set cows on fire in the opening village sequence to trample your enemies and set them ablaze. XD To balance this out, though, your precious knife now has a durability bar, and the dog you’re supposed to be able to save from the bear trap (and who later comes back to help during a boss fight) is now dead on arrival. D: At least Leon keeps his absolutely ridiculous one-liners?
B) Then it was over to the Subs for GrayStillPlays and “twitch foam pit” – er, Gray Plays Stickman Dismount 3D! The “horribly maim this stick figure in this death course” games have come to the third dimension, and Gray is here to chew bubblegum, make fun of TwitchCon (the title is a reference to someone getting hurt jumping into their foam shapes pit), and find infinite point torture, and he’s all out of bubblegum. You know the drill by now – there is a stick figure, there is a ridiculous vehicle, there is a ridiculously dangerous “kit” attached to the back, and there is a board full of various crushers, pounders, spinning blades, spinning grinders (Gray was VERY fond of these “pikes” as the game called them), fans, bouncy balls, and other implements of stick dismemberment and bone-crushing. The stick figure and its vehicle go into the course and don’t come out until the stick has been MINCED and you get all your points. XD Gray had a fabulous time testing out scooters, skateboards, shopping trolleys, and I guess the car from Baywatch with a couple different sticks, mashing and smashing and grinding his way to new high scores – including, yes, finding a couple of “infinite points” bits (like getting stuck against a thurster, or having his torso just barely touching a spinning bladed pike of doom). A delight for the senses, if you’re into that sort of thing. And when it comes to Gray, I very much am. XD
C) And finally, we had Jon of Many A True Nerd and the start of his latest series – “Fallout: Tale of Two Wastelands - The Lone Wanderer's Greatest Journey!” What is Fallout: Tale of Two Wastelands? It is a massive, massive mod that essentially ports Fallout 3 into Fallout: New Vegas and combines their mechanics and worlds, allowing both games to be played with a single character. I’m not entirely sure HOW yet, as so far we’ve only gotten through the slightly-altered opening of FO3 where you create your Lone Wanderer over the course of their life in Vault 101, but I am excited to find out! As is Jon, who was very eager to play a game that combined two of his favorite games of all time – specifically, the DC wasteland of FO3 with the mechanics of F:NV. :D As stated, this opening episode focused on the beginning of FO3 and the creation of his Lone Wanderer – a girl literally named “Lone Wanderer” – with him playing around with some of the mechanics and showing you how some things work and what happens if you don’t do specific things. For example, if you refuse to interact with anyone at your birthday party beyond the old lady who gives you the sweet roll after the Mr. Handy destroys your birthday cake, you don’t have to get into a punch-out with Butch Deloria, the local bully, BUT you also don’t get a special Grognak comic from Amata, your friend, and thus don’t get it in your room later during the “escape from the vault” sequence, so it doesn’t help you with your melee skills. (Jon wasn’t relying on those, though, so he considered the experiment worth it.) He also used the BB gun to knock out both his father and his friend/colleague Jonas in the “learn how to shoot” segment before they could take the picture of the “big game hunter” (because you kill your first radroach in this segment); showed us that the most good and evil acts in the game are either saving your friend Amata from Tunnel Snake bullying, or helping the Tunnel Snakes WITH their bullying (the game uses this mini-quest to determine your starting karma, so it’s the biggest shift in the game just to make sure you’re knocked into Good or Evil); took us through the G.O.A.T. test to show us how weird it is and how the answers are matched to different skills (hint – if it involves throwing something, it’s PROBABLY explosives) and got the job of next vault chaplain just for funsies (before going for Explosives, Speech, and Survival for tagged skills); showed us how in the escape sequence you could use Butch Deloria to kill one of the vault guards chasing you (it involves giving him your BB gun, making him a very temporary companion, then helping him with the roaches so he’ll turn said gun on the guard) and how to physically drag Amata out of the vault with you (since she can’t actually be killed and won’t fully aggro against you, you can knock her out and then carry her body along into the escape tunnel – though be careful, because she can and will clip through the scenery in some bits – also she can’t fully be taken out, she can only be put in the tunnel); and nearly embraced the raider lifestyle thanks to good armor before getting better leather armor off a passing merchant named Crow. XD Basically a lot happened, and it’s only the very beginning of this game! And he’s planning on doing the most detailed playthrough he possibly can, especially since he’s never done a “proper” series on FO3 on the channel (only “Kill Everything” and “YOLO,” both of which were short by necessity). So this is probably gonna take us a while! I’m looking forward to it – my Fallout of choice may be FO4, but I’m eager to get to know these two previous games better through Jon. :)
3. Play Fallout 4 and continue working my way up to the Strength Bobblehead in Mass Fusion: Check and more check – had a very successful day in FO4 today! :D Let me give you the skinny –
-->Picked up with Victor by the mainframe computer over the busted bathroom, as I previously said – had him check out the entries on it, and found. . .the other half of the convos between V. Summers (now revealed to be VICTOR Summers, of all things) and Jenny Berlin, with Jenny telling Summers to give her a freakin’ minute, what he asked her is a big life decision and she needs time to ponder it! And that she doesn’t give a shit if he has other girls lined up, she knows he can only give her what he’s got. Apparently they’d made up enough by the end of the e-mail chain that she was inviting him over to Thanksgiving dinner to apologize for taking so long to give him an answer. . .but I’m now wondering if this was a proposal, as is implied, or if they were actually doing some sort of corporate espionage or something. Wouldn’t be unlike FO4 to pull the rug out from under us like that!
-->Having caught up on the pre-War drama, Victor and Piper made their way up to the next level via a ramp of fallen floor tiles – there were a couple of Gunners in the office at the top, but Victor was able to sneak around them and kill them without issue. Having picked up some fatigue, though, he took a moment to pop a Nuka-Cherry after looting their corpses for the caffeine before continuing up the nearby ramp. This proved to be something of a secondary lobby of sorts, complete with a “front desk” and everything. The music gave me the “you’ve reached your goal” sting when I got up there, which puzzled me for a moment –
-->And then the Gunner Commander came out of his office in his power armor while Victor was investigating a hole into another wrecked office below, making me go “Oh I see.” XD Fortunately a combo of Victor’s Two-Shot Combat Rifle and Piper’s Fiery Laser Rifle took him down pretty damn quick (even if Victor also got set on fire during the process), and Victor took everything useful from his corpse and his office. And, since we were on the “top floor” of the building (at least pre-the main story quest that takes place here). . .
-->It was time to pick up the Strength Bobblehead! Which, of course, was positioned on the head of a big statue with a LOOONG drop under it. Fortunately, I was able to VERY CAREFULLY hop my way over the couch in front of it and onto the side wall, reach out, and snatch it without issue. :D Victor now has a permanent +1 to his Strength, which should mean he’s natively at 6 Strength now (he’s reading as 7 because of his Champion left arm piece). Which means, in a couple of level-ups, I can get the Strong Back perk. :D (Armorer comes first, though, because I need another level to continue improving backpacks.)
-->With what I came for finally sorted, it was time to do a little exploring – Victor and Piper ventured out onto the Balcony, but there wasn’t really anything of interest out there. The wrecked office down the hole by the Gunner Commander’s little office held better goodies, including a locked safe with bunches of ammo. :D Victor and Piper also explored the surrounding area – near the trashed office was a cleaner one, with a wheelchair and what looked like one of those mobile oxygen tank racks in front of a broken terminal. And LOADS of cigarettes everywhere. I’m thinking one of the employees MAY have had lung cancer. *wince* Ouch. Anyway, Victor had a toilet break, got a message that Graygarden was under attack (I can’t go! I’m busy!), then looped back around up to the Commander’s level to take the one working elevator there back down to the lobby, where he and Piper camped for the rest of the night.
-->Up bright and not-so-early at 9:20 AM, I had the pair head out into the Financial District again (through one of those annoyingly long plain-black loading screens). . .only to find a major radstorm outside. >( I’d just CLEARED the last of his rads, darn it! I had them turn around and go straight back in (through another loading screen), then had Victor pop a Rad-Away before fiddling around with his portable workbench to pass the time. Did some cooking, then took a look at what he could do with his guns – ended up giving the old Tactical 10mm a Large Quick Eject Mag and a Muzzle Brake to help with recoil. He may not use it much, but he can fire it a LOT in VATS, so. . .plus it makes it more valuable in case he wants to sell it. :) Also planning to update the Two-Shot eventually, and maybe make Righteous Authority into a sniper if I can get the parts. We’ll see!
-->Tried again to head outside at 1 PM – THIS time Victor and Piper were greeted with bright sunshine, yay. After orienting Victor via the Pip-Boy map, I had the pair head off toward Diamond City! Notable incidents along the way included going past the Gunner’s barrier outside Mass Fusion to find a trio of raiders – with Pickman’s Calling Card on them (oh dear); working my way back to the Commons and officially tagging Swan’s Pond before sneaking around so I didn’t wake up Swan himself; picking up some nice explosives from the nearby military not-tank (APC?) nearby; finding Hubris Comics and a dead scavenger outside – he had a note, but it was just “heard Hubris Comics has some good loot); being spotted by a random raider in a nearby building – Piper took her out before I could, so I just looted the corpse and her little wreck of a house for goodies; learning that Graygarden didn’t successfully repel the attack on their own (I will do another round of the settlements SHORTLY guys); finding some creepy mannequins just – standing in the road (and then Piper knocked one over and gave me a fright); finding our way back by the Boston Public Library and getting ambushed by some feral ghouls (again, Piper held her own but kept setting Victor on fire as well); and the pair finding their way back to Diamond City – along the path that takes you to where the security guards are fighting the nearby super mutants in what I believe was an old apartment complex. Victor managed to use his Mighty Sniper to take a few out, but for some reason could NOT get a hit on the Legendary Skirmisher up on the second floor! Piper ended up melting him with her gun instead. Ah well. Went inside to loot and found a ton of good ammo, plus an Assassin’s Synth Left Leg on the ashes of the Legendary – dunno if it’ll be any better than my current kit or not, but worth keeping for the moment!
-->With that excitement over with, it was time to enter Diamond City itself! With Victor needing a toilet break almost the minute he stepped in. XD I had him take one while the rest of the city started heading inside for the night – I guess 8 PM is quitting time for most of the shops! I figured Victor’s business with Nick could wait one more evening and had him go and spend the night in Publick Occurrences, catching up on Piper’s interview with him in “View From The Vault” and reading through her terminal for her responses to reader complaints (both published and personal) and her “Agony Aunt” letters (and I think one of them I recognized as being written by the schoolteacher Miss Nanny, Edna!) – before anyone says anything, the terminal was in green, so it was all right for Victor to read it. XD Had him pitch his tent (which DID fit in the little space) and sleep there with Piper overnight, and saved it when they got up around 5:25 AM the next morning. :) Next time – a quick loop around the market to clear out the inventory and do some more upgrades, then it’s time to talk to Nick and get “Reunions” on the road!
4. Work on tumblr drafts: Check – did all the text for my five-part Chill Save update on Victor Luvs Alice this week after lunch, covering Smiler’s graduation, the resultant party, and Victor leveling up to Acolyte after nearly killing himself with Repairio. :p And then, this evening, slapped an ask reply and a thread reply into the queue for Valice Multiverse, so that’s good too.
5. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike tonight, and onto Oxventure Orbpocalypse Episode 10, “Plandemonium!” Having just watched Vocatus vanish after being told of the existence of Liliana, the group had one big question on their mind – what is Dob going to do with Liliana’s hair? He insisted on holding onto it in case it’s useful for figuring out her location, and did not like how they’re all teasing him about it, thanks. Egbert, however, had a different question on his mind – had Vocatus taken his magic before teleporting away? To test, he cast Moonbeam on a nearby tree, over Corazon’s loud protests – tree exploded in a beam of mystical moonlight, so he was good. XD Oh Egbert, never change.
Anyway – Dob was like “so this is what happens when I’m not around, huh?” (Merilwen made more hilarious faces in response) and did a quick recap of what had happened with Vocatus and his probable location now – wherever the hell Liliana is. This quickly revealed a dilemma to the Oxventurers – namely, they can’t have him stealing Liliana’s powerful magic, but they don’t exactly want Liliana to KEEP her powerful magic. Talk about how best to handle this situation commenced – Corazon very much wanted to kill “two birds with one stone,” namely by getting the two in proximity and then chucking a big stone at them. XD The idea of them killing each other was brought up (via magical duel or the like), but while everyone liked the idea, it was acknowledged that it was unlikely to happen. Prudence even pointed out that there was a chance they might like each other and team up. And then she suggested that they bring in the most magical person they know to help out – Binbag! Surely he’d be able to scry Liliana’s location from her hair.
Corazon was instantly like I CAN SCRY I’M THE MOST POWERFUL MAGIC USER HERE LET ME JUST CONCENTRATE REAL HARD. XD At least until Egbert threatened Zone of Truth. XD As all this was going on, by the way, Katy came back with a slightly-bitter smoothie for Dob – Merilwen instantly smacked it out of his hand. Dob was like “Merilwen!” while Katy was like, “It’s fine, I get it, she’s jealous.” XD Egbert ended up tasting the floor smoothie – a little bitter, a lot like floor, but apparently not poisonous. Dob ended up licking it up while Prudence and Katy argued over the pair having no pre-nup (Katy pointing out one wouldn’t even matter if Dob died before the wedding). Corazon took some time to make some notes for his best man speech (calling Dob the wind beneath his wings, which was actually kind of sweet in a Corazon-y way), leading the discussion to derail temporarily into how the wedding was going to go – Dob asking Corazon’s help in getting something new to wear for the wedding, and Corazon excitedly anticipating setting up a stag-do. Merilwen pointed out the Partypocalypse in motion, causing him to go “oh yeah, we can just piggyback off that.” XD Eventually though, things came back to trying to find Liliana, and Corazon’s attempt just led to Dob summoning in Binbag. XD He and Corazon exchanged some barbs (Corazon promptly rewriting some of his speech to turn it into a Binbag roast), and the gang brought Binbag up to speed on the nonsense they were currently experiencing. The question of “how does Prudence get her magic back” was posed, and he said it was just a case of beating it out of the imp – Merilwen was like “crap, why did we stop hitting him?!” Well, at least treating him like a magical pinata (Prudence’s words) fits Prudence’s temporary Barbarian character class!
So yes, Dob handed over the hair to Binbag, and after tasting it and putting it on his tongue for a bit (ew), he was able to scry her location! He dragged over the nearby remaining cauldron of evil wine and turned it into a scrying pool for everyone to enjoy (though, obviously, the image kept getting broken up by the villagers dipping their cups/hats/cats into it on the regular) – turns out Liliana was still on her ship the Inevitability, and was sailing west, towards a port where the gang was known to own property – Necropolis-on-Sea! There was a brief feeling of “ha, sorry Liliana, we’re not there–”
And then they recalled “oh shit, BISMUTH IS.” Having grown some fondness for the old hag, the gang was keen to get there and try and set up some fortifications at the house. Dob asked Binbag to teleport them, saying that he and Bismuth could maybe rekindle their flame (and inviting him to the wedding, making things even more awkward between him and Katy) – Binbag was unsure, but it was the prospect of having to spend a bunch of time with Corazon having some sort of makeover as part of the pre-wedding festivities that convinced him to teleport them and Katy to the manor – or, well, in its general vicinity. XD Dob tried scanning the horizon for the Inevitability – Corazon said it would be easier from the house’s widow’s walk, which very much intrigued Katy and led to Merilwen using Druidcraft to douse her in skunk smell. And then it turned out Dob rolled a crit 1 anyway and saw fuck-all. XD Corazon put his spyglass to good use and was able to JUST see the boat, which seemed to have a lot of people on deck for some reason. He said it looked like the ship was preparing for something and that they’d better get moving to the house, as they had about an hour and a half before it arrived. And so they headed up to the actual manor (Merilwen trying to get Katy to go first until it became obvious that no, Bismuth was not about to greet them with a crossbow, and Dob finally healing Egbert while Corazon devoured a sandwich to take care of his four hit points worth of damage) –
And found it full of delicious smells, like there was a meal going on. There was also light coming from one of the dining rooms. Corazon burst in to find Bismuth there, claiming a surprise inspection – as it turned out, though, the place was in very good repair indeed. Bismuth greeted them and asked if they would be joining their friend for dinner – as it turns out, Vocatus hadn’t gone straight to Liliana, but instead dropped by the house claiming to be a friend of the Oxventurers, who had lent him the house so he could have dinner with a special guest. Prudence immediately was like “oh, he’s gonna charm Liliana with his trickster wiles once she arrives!” It was also revealed he’d shown off some of Prudence’s eldritch power as proof she’d “lent” him her magic, and turned her beloved Eldritch Blast blue. Prudence did NOT approve. XD The gang clarified that Vocatus was NOT their friend and asked where the hell he was – Bismuth admitted she didn’t know, she’d been getting the dinner ready (and besides, she has enough trouble trying to keep tabs on the Oxventurers). I ended it with Corazon saying he would NOT join them for dinner, but, uh, he’d have some food in general. XD We’ll see what happens going forward – though, given the next episode is called “Dine Hard,” I wonder if the plan will be to let the dinner go forward. . .
So yeah, busy day, and I'm still not sure where the hell the time goes, I swear. I used to be so much better at this "time management" thing. . . Like I said, though, tomorrow I'm blocking out some time to properly catch up on tumblr stuff and get back on track with THAT. I hope. Wish me luck -- night all!
That being said, I had a pretty decent day today, scoring a win on all the to-do list stuff and catching up on messages and the like (though NOT on tumblr reblogs -- I don't know WHAT it is about my brain, but catching up on my tags and the stuff I genuinely do want to reblog has been HARD lately. I think I need to block out some time for it tomorrow specifically -- I WILL be reblogging your fics, Moose!) And I had plenty of Fallout adventures too:
1. Keep up with the FO4 Playthrough Progression: Check – as per my playthrough, below, Victor, Alice, and Piper were able to successfully clear Mass Fusion of Gunners, including the Commander in his power armor without much issue; claim all the loot within (including a certain strength-boosting bobblehead); bunk down for the night; spend the next morning cooking and helping Victor with gun upgrades while waiting out a radstorm; make their way across Boston, past the Commons and the Public Library, to get back to Diamond City; help the guards outside the stadium kill some super mutants (Victor putting his Mighty Sniper to good use); enter the city itself; and spend the night at Publick Occurrences, catching up Nat and reading funny stuff on Piper’s terminal. (And helping her edit “View From The Vault” instead of just getting the completed paper, because I’m not sure I gave her any time to actually write it properly before she and Victor left. Also because I wanted my in-story Piper to correct a few typos I noticed the in-game version made (notably using “him” where she meant “his”). XD) Good times! And soon we get back to the actual plot of the game. . .
2. Keep up with YouTube Subs, whatever Jon's got next for Fallout, and at least ONE OXBoxtra Watch Later video: Check – though that’s at least partially because Call Me Kevin is still feeling a bit unwell and has pushed today’s video to tomorrow, meaning I had one less to watch this evening. But I did tick off all three required vids –
A) First up, my one OXBoxtra video from the Watch Later – “Resident Evil 4 Remake: 7 Ways it's Different!” Yes, Andy (and company, I presume) got to play the opening half-hour of the upcoming RE4 Remake, and while apparently it’s very faithful to the original, it’s also got a few key differences. For starters, it controls like the modern RE games – no more tank control nonsense! And you can set cows on fire in the opening village sequence to trample your enemies and set them ablaze. XD To balance this out, though, your precious knife now has a durability bar, and the dog you’re supposed to be able to save from the bear trap (and who later comes back to help during a boss fight) is now dead on arrival. D: At least Leon keeps his absolutely ridiculous one-liners?
B) Then it was over to the Subs for GrayStillPlays and “twitch foam pit” – er, Gray Plays Stickman Dismount 3D! The “horribly maim this stick figure in this death course” games have come to the third dimension, and Gray is here to chew bubblegum, make fun of TwitchCon (the title is a reference to someone getting hurt jumping into their foam shapes pit), and find infinite point torture, and he’s all out of bubblegum. You know the drill by now – there is a stick figure, there is a ridiculous vehicle, there is a ridiculously dangerous “kit” attached to the back, and there is a board full of various crushers, pounders, spinning blades, spinning grinders (Gray was VERY fond of these “pikes” as the game called them), fans, bouncy balls, and other implements of stick dismemberment and bone-crushing. The stick figure and its vehicle go into the course and don’t come out until the stick has been MINCED and you get all your points. XD Gray had a fabulous time testing out scooters, skateboards, shopping trolleys, and I guess the car from Baywatch with a couple different sticks, mashing and smashing and grinding his way to new high scores – including, yes, finding a couple of “infinite points” bits (like getting stuck against a thurster, or having his torso just barely touching a spinning bladed pike of doom). A delight for the senses, if you’re into that sort of thing. And when it comes to Gray, I very much am. XD
C) And finally, we had Jon of Many A True Nerd and the start of his latest series – “Fallout: Tale of Two Wastelands - The Lone Wanderer's Greatest Journey!” What is Fallout: Tale of Two Wastelands? It is a massive, massive mod that essentially ports Fallout 3 into Fallout: New Vegas and combines their mechanics and worlds, allowing both games to be played with a single character. I’m not entirely sure HOW yet, as so far we’ve only gotten through the slightly-altered opening of FO3 where you create your Lone Wanderer over the course of their life in Vault 101, but I am excited to find out! As is Jon, who was very eager to play a game that combined two of his favorite games of all time – specifically, the DC wasteland of FO3 with the mechanics of F:NV. :D As stated, this opening episode focused on the beginning of FO3 and the creation of his Lone Wanderer – a girl literally named “Lone Wanderer” – with him playing around with some of the mechanics and showing you how some things work and what happens if you don’t do specific things. For example, if you refuse to interact with anyone at your birthday party beyond the old lady who gives you the sweet roll after the Mr. Handy destroys your birthday cake, you don’t have to get into a punch-out with Butch Deloria, the local bully, BUT you also don’t get a special Grognak comic from Amata, your friend, and thus don’t get it in your room later during the “escape from the vault” sequence, so it doesn’t help you with your melee skills. (Jon wasn’t relying on those, though, so he considered the experiment worth it.) He also used the BB gun to knock out both his father and his friend/colleague Jonas in the “learn how to shoot” segment before they could take the picture of the “big game hunter” (because you kill your first radroach in this segment); showed us that the most good and evil acts in the game are either saving your friend Amata from Tunnel Snake bullying, or helping the Tunnel Snakes WITH their bullying (the game uses this mini-quest to determine your starting karma, so it’s the biggest shift in the game just to make sure you’re knocked into Good or Evil); took us through the G.O.A.T. test to show us how weird it is and how the answers are matched to different skills (hint – if it involves throwing something, it’s PROBABLY explosives) and got the job of next vault chaplain just for funsies (before going for Explosives, Speech, and Survival for tagged skills); showed us how in the escape sequence you could use Butch Deloria to kill one of the vault guards chasing you (it involves giving him your BB gun, making him a very temporary companion, then helping him with the roaches so he’ll turn said gun on the guard) and how to physically drag Amata out of the vault with you (since she can’t actually be killed and won’t fully aggro against you, you can knock her out and then carry her body along into the escape tunnel – though be careful, because she can and will clip through the scenery in some bits – also she can’t fully be taken out, she can only be put in the tunnel); and nearly embraced the raider lifestyle thanks to good armor before getting better leather armor off a passing merchant named Crow. XD Basically a lot happened, and it’s only the very beginning of this game! And he’s planning on doing the most detailed playthrough he possibly can, especially since he’s never done a “proper” series on FO3 on the channel (only “Kill Everything” and “YOLO,” both of which were short by necessity). So this is probably gonna take us a while! I’m looking forward to it – my Fallout of choice may be FO4, but I’m eager to get to know these two previous games better through Jon. :)
3. Play Fallout 4 and continue working my way up to the Strength Bobblehead in Mass Fusion: Check and more check – had a very successful day in FO4 today! :D Let me give you the skinny –
-->Picked up with Victor by the mainframe computer over the busted bathroom, as I previously said – had him check out the entries on it, and found. . .the other half of the convos between V. Summers (now revealed to be VICTOR Summers, of all things) and Jenny Berlin, with Jenny telling Summers to give her a freakin’ minute, what he asked her is a big life decision and she needs time to ponder it! And that she doesn’t give a shit if he has other girls lined up, she knows he can only give her what he’s got. Apparently they’d made up enough by the end of the e-mail chain that she was inviting him over to Thanksgiving dinner to apologize for taking so long to give him an answer. . .but I’m now wondering if this was a proposal, as is implied, or if they were actually doing some sort of corporate espionage or something. Wouldn’t be unlike FO4 to pull the rug out from under us like that!
-->Having caught up on the pre-War drama, Victor and Piper made their way up to the next level via a ramp of fallen floor tiles – there were a couple of Gunners in the office at the top, but Victor was able to sneak around them and kill them without issue. Having picked up some fatigue, though, he took a moment to pop a Nuka-Cherry after looting their corpses for the caffeine before continuing up the nearby ramp. This proved to be something of a secondary lobby of sorts, complete with a “front desk” and everything. The music gave me the “you’ve reached your goal” sting when I got up there, which puzzled me for a moment –
-->And then the Gunner Commander came out of his office in his power armor while Victor was investigating a hole into another wrecked office below, making me go “Oh I see.” XD Fortunately a combo of Victor’s Two-Shot Combat Rifle and Piper’s Fiery Laser Rifle took him down pretty damn quick (even if Victor also got set on fire during the process), and Victor took everything useful from his corpse and his office. And, since we were on the “top floor” of the building (at least pre-the main story quest that takes place here). . .
-->It was time to pick up the Strength Bobblehead! Which, of course, was positioned on the head of a big statue with a LOOONG drop under it. Fortunately, I was able to VERY CAREFULLY hop my way over the couch in front of it and onto the side wall, reach out, and snatch it without issue. :D Victor now has a permanent +1 to his Strength, which should mean he’s natively at 6 Strength now (he’s reading as 7 because of his Champion left arm piece). Which means, in a couple of level-ups, I can get the Strong Back perk. :D (Armorer comes first, though, because I need another level to continue improving backpacks.)
-->With what I came for finally sorted, it was time to do a little exploring – Victor and Piper ventured out onto the Balcony, but there wasn’t really anything of interest out there. The wrecked office down the hole by the Gunner Commander’s little office held better goodies, including a locked safe with bunches of ammo. :D Victor and Piper also explored the surrounding area – near the trashed office was a cleaner one, with a wheelchair and what looked like one of those mobile oxygen tank racks in front of a broken terminal. And LOADS of cigarettes everywhere. I’m thinking one of the employees MAY have had lung cancer. *wince* Ouch. Anyway, Victor had a toilet break, got a message that Graygarden was under attack (I can’t go! I’m busy!), then looped back around up to the Commander’s level to take the one working elevator there back down to the lobby, where he and Piper camped for the rest of the night.
-->Up bright and not-so-early at 9:20 AM, I had the pair head out into the Financial District again (through one of those annoyingly long plain-black loading screens). . .only to find a major radstorm outside. >( I’d just CLEARED the last of his rads, darn it! I had them turn around and go straight back in (through another loading screen), then had Victor pop a Rad-Away before fiddling around with his portable workbench to pass the time. Did some cooking, then took a look at what he could do with his guns – ended up giving the old Tactical 10mm a Large Quick Eject Mag and a Muzzle Brake to help with recoil. He may not use it much, but he can fire it a LOT in VATS, so. . .plus it makes it more valuable in case he wants to sell it. :) Also planning to update the Two-Shot eventually, and maybe make Righteous Authority into a sniper if I can get the parts. We’ll see!
-->Tried again to head outside at 1 PM – THIS time Victor and Piper were greeted with bright sunshine, yay. After orienting Victor via the Pip-Boy map, I had the pair head off toward Diamond City! Notable incidents along the way included going past the Gunner’s barrier outside Mass Fusion to find a trio of raiders – with Pickman’s Calling Card on them (oh dear); working my way back to the Commons and officially tagging Swan’s Pond before sneaking around so I didn’t wake up Swan himself; picking up some nice explosives from the nearby military not-tank (APC?) nearby; finding Hubris Comics and a dead scavenger outside – he had a note, but it was just “heard Hubris Comics has some good loot); being spotted by a random raider in a nearby building – Piper took her out before I could, so I just looted the corpse and her little wreck of a house for goodies; learning that Graygarden didn’t successfully repel the attack on their own (I will do another round of the settlements SHORTLY guys); finding some creepy mannequins just – standing in the road (and then Piper knocked one over and gave me a fright); finding our way back by the Boston Public Library and getting ambushed by some feral ghouls (again, Piper held her own but kept setting Victor on fire as well); and the pair finding their way back to Diamond City – along the path that takes you to where the security guards are fighting the nearby super mutants in what I believe was an old apartment complex. Victor managed to use his Mighty Sniper to take a few out, but for some reason could NOT get a hit on the Legendary Skirmisher up on the second floor! Piper ended up melting him with her gun instead. Ah well. Went inside to loot and found a ton of good ammo, plus an Assassin’s Synth Left Leg on the ashes of the Legendary – dunno if it’ll be any better than my current kit or not, but worth keeping for the moment!
-->With that excitement over with, it was time to enter Diamond City itself! With Victor needing a toilet break almost the minute he stepped in. XD I had him take one while the rest of the city started heading inside for the night – I guess 8 PM is quitting time for most of the shops! I figured Victor’s business with Nick could wait one more evening and had him go and spend the night in Publick Occurrences, catching up on Piper’s interview with him in “View From The Vault” and reading through her terminal for her responses to reader complaints (both published and personal) and her “Agony Aunt” letters (and I think one of them I recognized as being written by the schoolteacher Miss Nanny, Edna!) – before anyone says anything, the terminal was in green, so it was all right for Victor to read it. XD Had him pitch his tent (which DID fit in the little space) and sleep there with Piper overnight, and saved it when they got up around 5:25 AM the next morning. :) Next time – a quick loop around the market to clear out the inventory and do some more upgrades, then it’s time to talk to Nick and get “Reunions” on the road!
4. Work on tumblr drafts: Check – did all the text for my five-part Chill Save update on Victor Luvs Alice this week after lunch, covering Smiler’s graduation, the resultant party, and Victor leveling up to Acolyte after nearly killing himself with Repairio. :p And then, this evening, slapped an ask reply and a thread reply into the queue for Valice Multiverse, so that’s good too.
5. Get in a workout: Check – back on the bike tonight, and onto Oxventure Orbpocalypse Episode 10, “Plandemonium!” Having just watched Vocatus vanish after being told of the existence of Liliana, the group had one big question on their mind – what is Dob going to do with Liliana’s hair? He insisted on holding onto it in case it’s useful for figuring out her location, and did not like how they’re all teasing him about it, thanks. Egbert, however, had a different question on his mind – had Vocatus taken his magic before teleporting away? To test, he cast Moonbeam on a nearby tree, over Corazon’s loud protests – tree exploded in a beam of mystical moonlight, so he was good. XD Oh Egbert, never change.
Anyway – Dob was like “so this is what happens when I’m not around, huh?” (Merilwen made more hilarious faces in response) and did a quick recap of what had happened with Vocatus and his probable location now – wherever the hell Liliana is. This quickly revealed a dilemma to the Oxventurers – namely, they can’t have him stealing Liliana’s powerful magic, but they don’t exactly want Liliana to KEEP her powerful magic. Talk about how best to handle this situation commenced – Corazon very much wanted to kill “two birds with one stone,” namely by getting the two in proximity and then chucking a big stone at them. XD The idea of them killing each other was brought up (via magical duel or the like), but while everyone liked the idea, it was acknowledged that it was unlikely to happen. Prudence even pointed out that there was a chance they might like each other and team up. And then she suggested that they bring in the most magical person they know to help out – Binbag! Surely he’d be able to scry Liliana’s location from her hair.
Corazon was instantly like I CAN SCRY I’M THE MOST POWERFUL MAGIC USER HERE LET ME JUST CONCENTRATE REAL HARD. XD At least until Egbert threatened Zone of Truth. XD As all this was going on, by the way, Katy came back with a slightly-bitter smoothie for Dob – Merilwen instantly smacked it out of his hand. Dob was like “Merilwen!” while Katy was like, “It’s fine, I get it, she’s jealous.” XD Egbert ended up tasting the floor smoothie – a little bitter, a lot like floor, but apparently not poisonous. Dob ended up licking it up while Prudence and Katy argued over the pair having no pre-nup (Katy pointing out one wouldn’t even matter if Dob died before the wedding). Corazon took some time to make some notes for his best man speech (calling Dob the wind beneath his wings, which was actually kind of sweet in a Corazon-y way), leading the discussion to derail temporarily into how the wedding was going to go – Dob asking Corazon’s help in getting something new to wear for the wedding, and Corazon excitedly anticipating setting up a stag-do. Merilwen pointed out the Partypocalypse in motion, causing him to go “oh yeah, we can just piggyback off that.” XD Eventually though, things came back to trying to find Liliana, and Corazon’s attempt just led to Dob summoning in Binbag. XD He and Corazon exchanged some barbs (Corazon promptly rewriting some of his speech to turn it into a Binbag roast), and the gang brought Binbag up to speed on the nonsense they were currently experiencing. The question of “how does Prudence get her magic back” was posed, and he said it was just a case of beating it out of the imp – Merilwen was like “crap, why did we stop hitting him?!” Well, at least treating him like a magical pinata (Prudence’s words) fits Prudence’s temporary Barbarian character class!
So yes, Dob handed over the hair to Binbag, and after tasting it and putting it on his tongue for a bit (ew), he was able to scry her location! He dragged over the nearby remaining cauldron of evil wine and turned it into a scrying pool for everyone to enjoy (though, obviously, the image kept getting broken up by the villagers dipping their cups/hats/cats into it on the regular) – turns out Liliana was still on her ship the Inevitability, and was sailing west, towards a port where the gang was known to own property – Necropolis-on-Sea! There was a brief feeling of “ha, sorry Liliana, we’re not there–”
And then they recalled “oh shit, BISMUTH IS.” Having grown some fondness for the old hag, the gang was keen to get there and try and set up some fortifications at the house. Dob asked Binbag to teleport them, saying that he and Bismuth could maybe rekindle their flame (and inviting him to the wedding, making things even more awkward between him and Katy) – Binbag was unsure, but it was the prospect of having to spend a bunch of time with Corazon having some sort of makeover as part of the pre-wedding festivities that convinced him to teleport them and Katy to the manor – or, well, in its general vicinity. XD Dob tried scanning the horizon for the Inevitability – Corazon said it would be easier from the house’s widow’s walk, which very much intrigued Katy and led to Merilwen using Druidcraft to douse her in skunk smell. And then it turned out Dob rolled a crit 1 anyway and saw fuck-all. XD Corazon put his spyglass to good use and was able to JUST see the boat, which seemed to have a lot of people on deck for some reason. He said it looked like the ship was preparing for something and that they’d better get moving to the house, as they had about an hour and a half before it arrived. And so they headed up to the actual manor (Merilwen trying to get Katy to go first until it became obvious that no, Bismuth was not about to greet them with a crossbow, and Dob finally healing Egbert while Corazon devoured a sandwich to take care of his four hit points worth of damage) –
And found it full of delicious smells, like there was a meal going on. There was also light coming from one of the dining rooms. Corazon burst in to find Bismuth there, claiming a surprise inspection – as it turned out, though, the place was in very good repair indeed. Bismuth greeted them and asked if they would be joining their friend for dinner – as it turns out, Vocatus hadn’t gone straight to Liliana, but instead dropped by the house claiming to be a friend of the Oxventurers, who had lent him the house so he could have dinner with a special guest. Prudence immediately was like “oh, he’s gonna charm Liliana with his trickster wiles once she arrives!” It was also revealed he’d shown off some of Prudence’s eldritch power as proof she’d “lent” him her magic, and turned her beloved Eldritch Blast blue. Prudence did NOT approve. XD The gang clarified that Vocatus was NOT their friend and asked where the hell he was – Bismuth admitted she didn’t know, she’d been getting the dinner ready (and besides, she has enough trouble trying to keep tabs on the Oxventurers). I ended it with Corazon saying he would NOT join them for dinner, but, uh, he’d have some food in general. XD We’ll see what happens going forward – though, given the next episode is called “Dine Hard,” I wonder if the plan will be to let the dinner go forward. . .
So yeah, busy day, and I'm still not sure where the hell the time goes, I swear. I used to be so much better at this "time management" thing. . . Like I said, though, tomorrow I'm blocking out some time to properly catch up on tumblr stuff and get back on track with THAT. I hope. Wish me luck -- night all!
