Re: [Official!] Project Horizons Comment Crew Chat thread.

[Scienza]

I've played New Vegas so much that I now want to burst into flames every time I see it. At first I was so excited to play it because I had never played anything even remotely like it, but after a while I was like "fuck it".

I took years to play it after receiving it as a gift. I just don't like FPS. I don't even know why.
I played the game through almost two entire times. That was enough.
I think I'll leave Skyrim at 1. Not much stuff to do differently on a prospective second time through.

I'm an FPS and RPG nut (though I still suck at both), and so I have played the shit out of New Vegas. By contrast, I've never really been able to get into any RTS's or their bizarro cousins, the MOBAs. I just can't really think strategically all that well and so I never really have fun while playing either genre.

I also like FPS and RPG games, sadly I can't get into the Fallout series because I immediately run into the 'not sure what stats I want/need' problem, which is immediately followed by 'Ah, big open world, not sure what do or where to go' problem, which is followed by the 'not sure which dialogue option to pick because I don't want to piss anyone off' problem. So you might say that I prefer statless (or at least limited stats with obvious effects) RPGs with a linear story. I like RTS and FPS but I'm nowhere near competitive at them and I'm not willing to sink the requisite number of hours into getting good at them. Also, fuck MOBAs.

Aye, the choices can be a bit overwhelming. The way I usually deal with them is that I have an idea of what type of character I want to do for a certain playthrough (i.e. Neutral, Female, Smooth-talker) beforehand and focus on working around that base. My suave gambler probably hasn't been digging bullets out of a comrade's esophagus or humping one hundred pounds of ammunition through the mud, but they do know how to talk a man in circles and win a hand of cards. Story choices usually follow the same concept of building around the character base ("What do you mean, they don't allow drugs?!"). You can't always please everyone, so it's all about prioritizing who you don't want to piss off the most and who is the most advantageous to keep friendly. Evil NCR and Good Legion playthroughs in particular are always interesting. As for what you're supposed to do, if the game is well designed, you should know basically where you're supposed to go and what you're supposed to do (This is something I thought Fallout 3 was often lacking in).

As for FPS's, I play the hell out of them, but I suck, so they're purely about the fun for me as opposed to the competition (though competition can be fun).

[Scienza]

Evil NCR and Good Legion playthroughs in particular are always interesting.

What's interesting about the Legion?
It didn't seem worthwhile to play pro Legion on my second playthrough. They're all jerks and they constantly talk smack to you. You get almost nothing for it, too. The Legion have a very minor impact on the majority of the New Vegas wasteland. I mean, I guess it was vaguely worth exploring as a curiosity, being their allies, but I couldn't imagine doing so again.
And it's a riot to screw up their plans. To give history books to that one gang that fashions themselves after the mongus or whatever. To expose the bomb plot in New Vegas. Other things I can't recall off the top of my head.
I love to be their "ally" and do as much of that stuff as possible, then go and talk to the Caesar. He does this thing where he says he's okay with you screwing things up "this time", but if you do so a second he'll have you killed. Then you proceed to tell him the dozen different ways you've completely messed up all of his plans and manipulations and walk off grinning like an idiot.
It is absolutely never worth it to be loyal to the Legion. In retrospect, not even just to experience it. I mean, you get one heck of a final boss fight if you do, but that's it. It's not worth it to be loyal to NCR, either, up to a point. That orbital solar gun is too much fun, too, not to kill a few dozen soldiers for.

They're assholes, but they're effective assholes. From a story perspective, other than House, they're the only ones that have proven able to actually control their territory. And House doesn't give a fuck about anyone outside the city. In the short term, their New Vegas would arguably be a better New Vegas for a a majority of its inhabitants (there's all that business about Legion territory being far safer for traders than NCR land and whatnot). They're worth playing with, at the very least. It helps that I'm a history nerd, and so pseudo-Romans are cool (even if they're assholes).

As for the NCR, I did the solar gun quest after I got in good enough with them to avoid killing the troops. The only problem was that I could never really use it on quests for them without nuking a half dozen troopers.

[O. Hinds]

Aye, the choices can be a bit overwhelming. The way I usually deal with them is that I have an idea of what type of character I want to do for a certain playthrough (i.e. Neutral, Female, Smooth-talker) beforehand and focus on working around that base. My suave gambler probably hasn't been digging bullets out of a comrade's esophagus or humping one hundred pounds of ammunition through the mud, but they do know how to talk a man in circles and win a hand of cards. Story choices usually follow the same concept of building around the character base ("What do you mean, they don't allow drugs?!"). You can't always please everyone, so it's all about prioritizing who you don't want to piss off the most and who is the most advantageous to keep friendly. Evil NCR and Good Legion playthroughs in particular are always interesting. As for what you're supposed to do, if the game is well designed, you should know basically where you're supposed to go and what you're supposed to do (This is something I thought Fallout 3 was often lacking in).

That sounds similar to how I've been playing; my four favorite characters/playthroughs so far, at least, have all been built like that, as is my current character.
Oh, and yes, while I've not done an evil NCR character yet, I did play a Good Natured female Legion character; it was indeed interesting. Another of my favorites was also Legion (and I don't recall ever getting a male character out of Goodsprings, for some reason) but probably good only from the perspective of the Great Khans (she liked them, they liked her, and part of my imagined section for that playthrough is her convincing Caesar to let her whip them into an elite fighting force instead of having them broken up and assimilated). The third was a sociopathic mercenary dispassionately disintegrating the enemies of Mr. House. The fourth, for a break from doing terrible things for one reason or another, was a Good Natured NCR citizen who was just plain nice and liked helping people. They've all got more details than what I've mentioned here, of course, but I don't know if anyone wants to hear them.

[Scienza]

Aye, the choices can be a bit overwhelming. The way I usually deal with them is that I have an idea of what type of character I want to do for a certain playthrough (i.e. Neutral, Female, Smooth-talker) beforehand and focus on working around that base. My suave gambler probably hasn't been digging bullets out of a comrade's esophagus or humping one hundred pounds of ammunition through the mud, but they do know how to talk a man in circles and win a hand of cards. Story choices usually follow the same concept of building around the character base ("What do you mean, they don't allow drugs?!"). You can't always please everyone, so it's all about prioritizing who you don't want to piss off the most and who is the most advantageous to keep friendly. Evil NCR and Good Legion playthroughs in particular are always interesting. As for what you're supposed to do, if the game is well designed, you should know basically where you're supposed to go and what you're supposed to do (This is something I thought Fallout 3 was often lacking in).

That sounds similar to how I've been playing; my four favorite characters/playthroughs so far, at least, have all been built like that, as is my current character.
Oh, and yes, while I've not done an evil NCR character yet, I did play a Good Natured female Legion character; it was indeed interesting.  Another of my favorites was also Legion (and I don't recall ever getting a male character out of Goodsprings, for some reason) but probably good only from the perspective of the Great Khans (she liked them, they liked her, and part of my imagined section for that playthrough is her convincing Caesar to let her whip them into an elite fighting force instead of having them broken up and assimilated).  The third was a sociopathic mercenary dispassionately disintegrating the enemies of Mr. House.  The fourth, for a break from doing terrible things for one reason or another, was a Good Natured NCR citizen who was just plain nice and liked helping people.  They've all got more details than what I've mentioned here, of course, but I don't know if anyone wants to hear them.

Hit me with 'em (Maybe in a PM?).

Evil NCR is certainly very interesting, since a lot of it revolves around just how goddamn ruthless they can be. Hell, like half their questline is just Colonel Moore telling you to exterminate various groups that are being difficult.

They're assholes, but they're effective assholes. From a story perspective, other than House, they're the only ones that have proven able to actually control their territory. And House doesn't give a fuck about anyone outside the city. In the short term, their New Vegas would arguably be a better New Vegas for a a majority of its inhabitants (there's all that business about Legion territory being far safer for traders than NCR land and whatnot). They're worth playing with, at the very least. It helps that I'm a history nerd, and so pseudo-Romans are cool (even if they're assholes).

Doesn't stop me from putting holes in their heads.
I really couldn't care less about their ability to hold and control territory. Maybe that's my problem. I'm not willing to make way for a better fictional, unplayable future for the wasteland if they're going to act like they do toward me throughout the effort.
There's way too much satisfaction to be had caving their sculls in (before cheating to get rid of their dislike so everything doesn't just devolve into attack-on-site for the rest of the game).

I get that, to an extent. When I get into the role-playing aspect, I find them interesting. However, outside my Legion playthough, I usually end up stomping them into a bloody smear. They're pretty unlikable fellows. It's sort of like playing as any race other than a Nord in Skyrim and siding with the Stormcloaks.

[Frost]

I'm sort of halfway on this one. I like the Legion's aesthetic and characters, but I never could force myself through more than one playthrough with them because of how limited it was. I guess we can blame development constraints for that--the original plan was for the Legion to be a lot more fleshed-out.

I'd also like to hear more about these characters of yours, Hinds.

Also, on an unrelated note, I've been passing the time in the field by reading Harmony Theory, and it is fucking excellent. I'm only on Chapter 11 at the moment, but I'm absolutely hooked. A Dash done well is one of the more compelling characters in the cast, and this Dash is done very well, supported by solid OC's, and wrapped up in a damn solid plot. I'll update my thoughts as the story unfolds, but at the moment all I can do is recommend it wholeheartedly.

[Frost]

A Dash done well is one of the more compelling characters in the cast

I forget, are you a vanilla dash hater like myself?
I'd just like some context, because I really dislike her so taking on a story wherein she's a main character doesn't sound pleasant if she gets to be at all happy, too.

I don't like any of the ponies in-canon, really. It comes with distorting what should be well-defined characters for the sake of the story, really.

This Dash, though, is what Dash is supposed to be, what every fan trumpets her as and what we thought she would be when the show first came on: confident, but not quite arrogant. She achieves a ton, but she does it through hard work. She's stubborn, but she's not stupid. She's actually loyal--willing to follow friends she just made through Hell. You'll forgive me if I make her sound a bit Sue-ish, but rest assured she doesn't come across that way in-story--she's not even the immediate focus of all the other characters thus far, just another piece on the board between Kingdom and Republic.

[Frost]

I mean she achieves her level of skill and strength through hard work. The flying skills that let her clear the skies in ten seconds flat? A lifetime of constant practice. I can empathize with that well--you look at the average Infantry company in the field, and you'll see about 95% apparently purposeless sitting around or light work, and about 5% of the time spent absolutely rocking the face of the Earth.

Concerning intelligence, it relates to her being able to recognize unfamiliar and complex situations and people. Her response relates mostly towards it being in her forte--you ask me and my buddies to deal with a monster, we're not talking to it; we do what we live for--shoot it in the goddamn face.

[Frost]

Oh, and if I failed to mention, as the title suggest, the story's original framing device is Twilight's research into the Elements of Harmony, and, as excerpts from the beginning of each chapter are slowly revealing, the horrible, terrifying truths she uncovered.

[O. Hinds]

That orbital solar gun is too much fun, too, not to kill a few dozen soldiers for.

Annoyingly, that seems to be glitched in my current playthrough; the rangefinder is always unloaded even when I have a charge available.

What's interesting about the Legion?

They're assholes, but they're effective assholes. From a story perspective, other than House, they're the only ones that have proven able to actually control their territory. And House doesn't give a fuck about anyone outside the city. In the short term, their New Vegas would arguably be a better New Vegas for a a majority of its inhabitants (there's all that business about Legion territory being far safer for traders than NCR land and whatnot). They're worth playing with, at the very least. It helps that I'm a history nerd, and so pseudo-Romans are cool (even if they're assholes).

My Good Natured character was inspired to join them because of how effective they were and how much the person at the top could shape them. The key thing is that she took control of Big Mountain right after her first visit to Nipton, so she had a lot of technology on her side and could expect a massively extended lifespan. He plan was to become Caesar's successor and gradually reform it as its immortal goddess-empress; in the short run, many horrible things would happen, but in the long run, hopefully, humanity would be better off than it had ever been before.

My other favorite Legion character had no such high motives. She was from a tribe down south whose territory had been taken by the NCR; they proceeded to ban traditional practices (which included treating everyone not in the tribe as animals to be hunted and eaten, so, you know, the NCR did kind of have their reasons) and give the tribe a slow death through the introduction of drugs and bureaucracy. The character became convinced that the great "civilizations" would win and that it was just a choice of which one, but she would have preferred a proper fight with the Legion to what the NCR did. She joined the Legion because she thought it'd be the winning side and she wanted to fight the NCR. There was of course the small matter of her being female, but, even without the cybernetics the Good Natured character had, she was quite physically formidable.

Hit me with 'em.

Oh, okay!

Well, let's see, two of them I've just talked about above… I'll just also mention that I thought that the first one, once a handful of centuries had passed and her empire was reformed and covering North America at least, she might be slightly like a more grimdark Celestia. Oh, right, and names: the Good Natured Legion character was named Aur and was chronologically the first of the four, and the other Legion character was named Lata and was chronologically the fourth.

2, Lanjiang:

3, Laura:

Evil NCR is certainly very interesting, since a lot of it revolves around just how goddamn ruthless they can be. Hell, like half their quest line is just Colonel Moore telling you to exterminate various groups that are being difficult.

Aye. So far my NCR characters have tended to take the diplomatic options. I've already been getting some incompatible ideas for my next character, but it might be fun to do that sometime.

but I never could force myself through more than one playthrough with them because of how limited it was.

I've found it much harder to come up with character concepts for them, yes. My first Legion playthrough didn't really have a character; she was a simple "For the Evulz" so that I could see what the Legion were like when not just briefly looked at down a scope (I favor characters who sneak and snipe).

Also, on an unrelated note, I've been passing the time in the field by reading Harmony Theory, and it is fucking excellent. I'm only on Chapter 11 at the moment, but I'm absolutely hooked. A Dash done well is one of the more compelling characters in the cast, and this Dash is done very well, supported by solid OC's, and wrapped up in a damn solid plot. I'll update my thoughts as the story unfolds, but at the moment all I can do is recommend it wholeheartedly.

I second the recommendation! Quite an interesting story, that one, I think.

And I'm just going to post this now, because every time I try to add a reply to a new post to it, another new post has been made by the time I finish.

[Frost]

@Hinds

My tenuous Internet connection isn't playing nice with spoilers right now, so I'll have to read those later, unfortunately.

My personal headcanon for a female Legion playthrough's fallout is that the Legion is forced to re-examine the potential of woman as warriors and spies. A few months after the second battle of Hoover Dam and, lo and behold, the 'Bride of Caesar' (literal marital status unrelated to fancy Legion titles) is merely the first of the fairer sex to receive the blessing of Mars, and henceforth able-bodied women are allowed to be trained as Legionaries and Fruumentarii.

The Legion may be ruthless and superstitious in equal measure, but as their use of Artillery at the dam and heavy 'dishonorable' use of spies shows, there's a ruthlessly pragmatic edge under it all.

[Frost]

I mean she achieves her level of skill and strength through hard work. The flying skills that let her clear the skies in ten seconds flat? A lifetime of constant practice. I can empathize with that well--you look at the average Infantry company in the field, and you'll see about 95% apparently purposeless sitting around or light work, and about 5% of the time spent absolutely rocking the face of the Earth.

It's practice following her own hobbies. Besides, her task was to keep the sky cleared that day. She wasn't doing that because she figured she didn't need to, and was sleeping instead... not working.
She's not diligent and she's not a hard worker. She's self-motivated, sure, and is both talented (she managed her first sonic rainboom as a filly, for crying out loud... that wasn't hard work, that was inborn skill) and enjoys putting herself into her training. I won't say it wouldn't be difficult for her, but it's something she honestly enjoys.
I mean, I'm not faulting her for enjoying her work, but I don't think she sees it as "work" most of the time.
...then again, that pretty much describes the entire cast. Everything they do they love and are the best at. Parties, animals, farming, tailoring and magic/knowledge.

I guess it's just that I empathize a bit with her. I don't really enjoy my day-to-day 'work' of guard details and heavy lifting, but when I get to practice my actual profession--shootin' shit, makin' boom-boom, and slaying my foes with my bare goddamn hands--it doesn't even feel like work or training. It's just a damn good time.

And, as I mentioned before, I don't really get the impression that it just comes easily to her--she's worked at it all her life to get as good as she is, even with the Special Talent-y magic stuff assisting her.

[Frost]

On a quasi-related note, I also like working with machines and driving, so I think I'll also enjoy going Mounted (actually being on the Bradley crew)

That is, if I am. My conversation with the LT this evening was ambiguous as fuck.

[Frost]

Well, one can't deny there's some assistance there (she's even acknowledged in this story as having an insane amount of Pegasus magic even by Pre-Schism standards) but that's a bit like saying that America winning its independence didn't count because we had French assistance. Having resources behind you doesn't negate your own hard work.

[Frost]

I've met plenty of people like that, actually--people who make their jobs look easy between periods of relaxing. There's one in every unit I've been in, at the very least. That's also what we strive for as a whole--solid work/rest cycles, but we're working hard during those 'work' portions. I'm not concerned by the apparent lack of worrying and fretting--that's just effective stress-management, not a lack of effort.

I've also not really noticed the occasional utter thoughtlessness that most of the rest display, like Twilight's nervous lapses, Applejack's working herself to death, Pinkie doing many things (like not noticing that the donkey wanted to goddamn be left alone, which I can sympathize with, or screwing over Rainbow every cider season) or Fluttershy trying to abandon her friends every time there's trouble. I have no sympathy or affection for Rarity whatsoever. Even the greatest of her efforts and dedication are still focused on making goddamn dresses.

[RoboRed]

*snip*

Harmony Theory is fucking fantastic.

[RoboRed]

Swickedbait:
http://astarothathros.deviantart.com/art/Queen-Size-Bed-404375911
http://pixelkitties.deviantart.com/art/Nicole-Oliver-Celestia-Ice-Bucket-Challenge-478035446
http://solipsus.deviantart.com/art/Sad-Trixie-477976778
http://otakuap.deviantart.com/art/Celestia-Portrait-478086715
http://marzipun.deviantart.com/art/Trixie-Belle-477752983
http://fshydale.deviantart.com/art/Quickie-Celly-478227840

Derpmindbait:
http://thedoggygal.deviantart.com/art/The-sky-is-lovely-tonight-477992787
http://alazak.deviantart.com/art/Derp-Pony-478000868

Lastbait:
http://clrb.deviantart.com/art/Chrysalis-478105097

[Scienza]

America is Real Part II:

[Frost]

Eh, it's not something I personally enjoy or enjoy watching (though I do like watching hockey from time to time). But I respect even athletes known for their physical prowess more than people like actors and most musicians known only for their looks and for how good their backers are with computers, respectively.

Slightly hypocritical bait

[Frost]

"You talkin' 'bout my dick?"

CPT McCoughlin, IN, Commanding

[Frost]

"I can hear your heartbeat through your ass."

CPT McCoughlin, IN, Commanding

[Frost]

"My life flashed before my eyes. It wasn't that great."

CPT McCoughlin, IN, Commanding

[Frost]

"I don't quite recall how I got here. I sort of just woke up in a Bradley this morning."

CPT McCoughlin, IN, Commanding

[Guest]

Kinda sounds like Rum.

[Katarn]

*gasp* Maybe it IS Rum?

[Vinylshadow]

Meanwhile, I'm just sitting here playing Pokemon...

[Harmony Ltd.]

Regarding planes, I'll answer later today, when I'm not on my phone.

[Vinylshadow]

ssssssssports?

*hisses and climbs tree*

[Ironmonger]

I used to play basketball. I was good at it when my head wasn't in the clouds.

[Scienza]

I swam as a kid.

[Vinylshadow]

swimming is fun

walking is more fun

[Sponsored content]