Fallout: New Vegas – Old World Blues – Sneak-Spawn City Reprise

I had a small whinge about enemies suddenly spawning in Old World Blues (OWB).  It’s now getting to the stage where this is dragging me out of that pleasant immersion in the game and urging me to explore my knowledge of four letter words.

Iit’s not just when I pick up a ‘treasured item’, but is happening all over the Big MT and taking me back to the days where you’d kill all the enemies in a room, leave that room, then find all the enemies alive again when returning.

This also happens in the main Fallout: New Vegas (FNV) game, but is far less obvious for two reasons.  Firstly, the Mojave is very large, and it may be some time before you revisit a location.  It’s therefore not as obvious that enemies have re-spawned.  Secondly, given that the Mojave  is so large, and set within a world which (logically) exists beyond its boundaries, there is the rationale that beasties might move back in once the genocidal maniac has left for a while.

The Big MT doesn’t really have those advantages.  To take the second reason first, the Big MT is pretty much cut off from the rest of world.  This is most obvious by the types of enemies you encounter.  Lobotomites are created there, and there’s no real evidence of any new ones after you arrive.  The cazadores and nightcrawlers were also created there, and it’s hinted that the populations there are escaped local ones.  The various robots (including the robo-scorpions) are again local, with no new ones entering – with perhaps the exception of the robo-scorpions as perhaps Dr Mobius has created more.

What this means is that as you work your way around the Big MT, wiping out the various groups of species,  you would expect there to be less of them in general.  I wouldn’t expect the place to be completely empty after a few goes around, but there are more enemies than the place can support.

Going back to the first point: The Big MT, while covering a reasonably large area, isn’t so large that you don’t often retrace your steps.  It’s quite possible to clean out an area, then backtrack and find that enemies have respawned.  It’s worse than that, however, in that they can often respawn within a very short space of time.

For example, when wandering around The Cuckoo’s Nest area, I started making my way towards the X-2 Antennae Array.  I changed my mind and turned back, only to be confronted with 5 more lobotomites that simply weren’t there before.  I’ve had a similar issue around Ulyssyes’ Point where – because of previous experience – I’ve snuck in very quietly, done a recon, then moved on, only to have enemies spawn in behind me.  This is just plain unfair.

What’s the solution?  As I’ve said, I don’t expect the place to be a ghost-town after I’ve been through it.  I’d suggest that the solution is to allow re-spawns, but have some kind of set-up where enemies won’t re-spawn for (say) in-game 24 hours.  I’d also add that they certainly shouldn’t re-spawn when you’re within spitting distance of them.  If they need to re-spawn that close, then spawn them out of eyesight or wait until the player is some sensible distance away.

Really, this is all quite annoying as the characters and story are still hooking me.  This re-spawning issue, however, is starting to suck the fun out of the whole DLC and I’m almost willing to cut my losses and finish the main quest-line.

About Lisa

A Geeky Gamergrrl who obsesses about the strangest things.
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