Whats the best casino and game for making caps? - Fallout

To start, this should be a single player game. If Bethesda/Obsidian/MS can make it so I can play with 1 or 2 friends, I want that but understand it's not that simple.
So why it should be picked:
First, NY has an amazing history when it comes to Pre-Revolution, Revolution, the Civil War, and beyond. Major events like the battle at Saratoga (which is considered the turning point of the Revolution), the 1980 Miracle on Ice, and Woodstock (along with a whole lot more) all took place in upstate NY. So the rich history of the area is ripe for pro American stylizing and propaganda that gives FO it's unique take on American Atom-punk.
That along with more modern history of things like the Native Americans (The Oneidas) actually taking back their land and forming their own sovereign nation (basically they have their own gov. Pay no state taxes, and self govern with police, fire, and allow gambling which NY does not). So their modern government would not only be some great lore, but I honestly believe could be a basis for the main quest line. Things like their unique tribal leadership, philosophy, and gambling (hello 10 luck) could bring a very grey area to fallout that was kind of missed in FO3 + 4. Plus their mythology would make for a great weird scene that fallout has at least 1 of every game.
Also, for those who don't know, upstate NY is very country with major cities pocketed about. (Utica, Albany, Syracuse, etc). So if you liked NV style of wandering the wastes, or 3s style of city wandering, we've got both. Also, we've got two mountains areas, one in the Adirondacks and the Catskills are the other.
That said, one of the most important parts of fallout are the locations. Where can we go? For that I have a list:
Major locations:
Lake Placid Winter Olympics training facility - the winter olympics world be held in 2078 and if they still exist by then and to play into the game, LP could be the location of those games. Again, the miracle on ice where American Amateurs bested the Communist Russian Pros, was held there. The "Better dead than Red" sentiment would be full force. Not to mention one of a few great locations for a possible vault (80, in this case to house winter olympians). Plus, the weapons could be cool too. Hockey sticks, hockey skate blades on gloves, a goalie mask for armor, you name it.
Cooperstown Baseball HOF - Now when you think Americana, Baseball is one of your first thoughts, don't lie. Cooperstown is baseball central and very pretty. Another great place for pro-american styles and fun gear like baseball base mines, softball helmets (because fuck you "A League of Their Own" style pro-baseball league in FO sounds awesome), and of course bats and baseball grenades. Also a baseball Vault (Vault 4, 5, 7, or 9). Not my idea, but in this vault, there's 32 teams of mens and 32 teams of womens baseball (or coed teams, idk), all of whom are pro players. Vault tec test is simple, winner gets food and drinks, loser gets steroid infused food and drink (but they don't know it has steroids obviously). The idea is, test how good at baseball people can be if given monster amounts of steroids for generations. I'll make a separate post about this in detail if desired.
Canastota Boxing HOF - Another unique area for America. Canastota is pretty boring and empty, but for those of you old enough to remember Rocky when it came out, it basically revived Boxing as a major sport and also had a moment where America bested the Red Menace (Rocky IV). Maybe a spot for a vault or to learn unique unarmed moves. Pugilism Illustrated anyone?
Albany - NYs capital and an easy big city area along the Hudson. A great location for corporate greed, governmental corruption, and side quests. Can't say it'll be the focal point of the game since its very near the eastern border of it, but a good location for exploring and lore.
Buffalo/Niagara Falls - Ya ever gone over the falls in a barrel? Do ya want to? I think using Niagara Falls (which has an American and Canadian side, Canadas is the U-shaped famous one) as Fallouts first "Non-American" location would be fun. First, the falls are beautiful and are a major source of hydroelectric power. Second, in FO, America annexed canada, so it's technically still America! Third, right across the "border" are casinos! More gambling! Third and a half, it's another big city and buffalo is where the buffalo wing was invented (God bless buffalo wings). Besides the cool lore opportunity about the annexation and the city location, the falls could be a major location for the story if the main conflict was about powering the area, similar to NV.
Syracuse - NYs (literal) center city. The Salt City as it was formally known is a big city with some great old and new style. Again, not much about the city to say, but a great opportunity for corporate BS. The main attraction would be the Syracuse Dome (formerly the Carrier Dome). Due to its location and style, it's perfect as a central trading hub for the major cities and people. Think of Great Green Jewel style, people living, bars, shops, etc. BUT the really interesting part is what's right next to the Dome. SUNY ESF (Environmental Science and Forestry). This college is special because (A. I went there) it has very unique programs and with some future tech thrown in, could be a great location for a Fallout 3 Harold or NV vault 22-esq quest. The college already does experiments with major chemicals, evolution (FEV anyone?) and breeding plants for unique purposes. Again, I have a really cool idea for this area, but that can be a different post. Fun fact, ESF is actually working to bring back the North America Chestnut that went (nearly) extinct! Also, some asshole releases the fruit flies the genetics lab work with every year and it sucks.
NYC (Empire, 9/11 memorial, Statue of Liberty) - Yeah yeah, you can't have NY without the City, but frankly there's so much here to explore and deal with, I'd leave it to the pros to really do it justice.
Turning Stone Casino - Gambling, a hotel/restaurants like in NV, and a good spot for the main quest line.
Fort Stanwix - A real revolutionary war fort. HQ or major area for raiders. Safe, well protected and with plenty of history.
Fort Drum and Griffis Air Force Base: Two major bases that could be packed with guns, nukes, and power armor. Heavily guarded by turrets, robots, and security gates.
Main Quest:
Without too much detail, I figure your character will be hired to figure out the future of NY.
You'll be brought to the Turning Stone which is currently the HQ of the Oneida tribe. Your job would be to either work with the other tribes in the former Iroquois Confederation (Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, and Tuscarora [added later]). (Quick note: in my AU, some time after the bombs fell, the IC came to power because of their knowledge of living off the land and attempted to rebuild society. After some time rebuilding and establishing a post-war society, the tribes do the thing all humans do and bicker. Around 2200 the IC broke apart but the tribes retained power in their areas. They fight, trade, yadda yadda but no one is in control of everything.
Throughout your quest, it turns out that what is holding everyone back is a lack of power for things like lights and running water. Your job will be to determine where to get that power (Nuclear power plant in Oswego or the falls in Niagara?) And where to give it (one tribe? A few? Or all?). But that's not all, the tribes can't decide who should be in charge. One tribe wants to remain independent, don't help the outsiders and rebuild society in their image within NY, another wants to help others but would need to sacrifice their own people's safety and seclusion. Maybe another wants to be imperialist and expand their borders throughout America through way of force and fear while another agrees with taking land but wants it done through offers of protection for taxes. And each tribe has its own opinion on bringing the IC back together, staying separate, or taking over the tribes for themselves.
It's up to you character to decide who to help. Do you work hard to try and bring all tribes together under one banner or choose a side and execute their will as a paid mercenary/ambassador?
Other choices would be chaos by siding with raiders, or maybe a BOS path to take out all the tribes, idk, haven't thought it all out. Again, not a writer.
Mechanics:
So personally, I like the idea that if you choose to go with a single faction, there would a battle/war mechanic where you and an army (or alone if you really wanna try) take over and lay claim to areas similar to Nuka World where you fly the gangs flag. Nothing complicated, normal fallout fights, don't die and kill the leadehis troops to win.
Karma is back. You will garner good or bad rep with each tribe depending on what you do. I'd like an armor system like in NV but I can live without it.
There is an ending. Once you beat the game you can continue doing side quests for armoexperience/ammo but only for the tribes left in power. Occasional rebellions will rise up as random events that need to be put down.
Settlements are limited. Like skyrim, but a plot and build. No need to build one everywhere and you don't even need to do it if you don't want to.
Radio host? Gimme a Mr. New Vegas type guy. I don't want an eccentric 3-dog, I want a smoothed voiced person wishing me lady like luck.
Also, smarter AI.
Otherwise, typical FO mechanics. Weapons degrade, can upgrade weapons and armor, etc.
Main problems with NY:
No real borders to the south. Invisible walls would like be necessary which is stupid. Same to the East, but the Hudson could theoretically be used as a border if you put crazy strong mirelurks or something to kill the player if they tried to cross (or more invisible walls)
Don't want to disrespect the tribes. This is an issue with using each tribe as a possible faction. You're bound to piss off or disrespect one. So it'll be a task to make sure it's as limited as possible.
What to do with the city? It's a huge area that can be used for so much, but as a part of NY it's actually pretty seperated. It's a commercial hub now, but there's nothing there that would really be a reason to go down there. So do you make it one or do we just make it a glowing sea type area that's completely decimated from the bombs? That's my personal choice honestly, but it's a tough one to please as many as possible.
Conclusion: NY is rad.
I'll be taking questions as long as they do not involve Canadian trivia. Thank you.

Theory crafting what the the devs are thinking. Updates 4-6

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/288358708742717440/772203828330102784/image0.png
(Above is the link to fallow along with my theory crafting)
About a month prior to the launch of "Beast of the East" which added Texas, Oklahoma, and finally northern Colorado. In additon it added more lore and interest to the legion as well as flavor for the Navajo tribe which I just recently played (Highly recommended, though, don't go for Asymmetric warfare's guerilla tree (which I did), do the decimation one or even conventional if you wanna be spicy. You'll want the defense).
I decided, after creating the home of the Navajo, I should indeed look to other nations to be added, as well as what those nations could possibly be. So, lets check out the update tree:
Update 4.0: Tandi's Legacy
Named after the effective founder of the NCR, this is set to be an update primarily dealing with Fallout 1 / Fallout 2's California as well as the canon majors and updated North-Californian /Oregonian tribes in Arroyo and likely the nation's nearby neighbors as shown in fallout 2. Additionally, the NCR is set to have, "New Election & Crisis system", likely hinting at issues the nation was dealing with during and around the time of New Vegas including the issues of the barons shown, kind of already, in a much less drastic form that needs this major update.
The second half however is the brotherhood of steel, which finally is to receive the maximum content as well as create what seems to be a special GUI / decisions about the other brotherhoods throughout the United States. This is in addition to the Brotherhood's home of Lost Hills getting a total redesign and update of its national focus trees which will likely add much more content for the Brotherhood's homeland. San Fran as well is likely to get an update, as the ever beloved Shi are too getting a new fancy focus tree in addition to their new portrait they where given in the previous update.
Finally, was the, at least confusing to me, addition of: "Explore crime and Commerce within the Big circle", which seems to be implying that their is going to be a major update to the city-states of Vegas, Vault City, and New Reno...I assume, involving gambling and crime? Maybe some extra techs only they can get? Or, maybe, even interactions between them.
Things I would want to see, or would be interesting: Note, "An Expansion Through the whole of California", it seems heavily implied especially by the Big circle update that this means more then just those listed there. Some ideas I have are as fallows:

An actual Enclave in New Reno, especially after the dev for the Enclave reborn mod is now in the team.
The Navada Bandits get some love / national focus trees. These would be the Jackals, the Vipers, Kronos' clique on Area 51, and probably the Yakuza territories since their boss is also into the mainline mod.
Other Oregon tribes, particularly the Rib breakers for instance.

Update 5.0: End of Civilisation (which is either a spelt wrong version of Civilization or is a place that they are adding?)
This, is the Montana and northern map update of your dreams, one which deals in a lot of Steam and religious doctrine. First off, major reworks all around, from Heaven's Gate, to Old Country, and the Bonedancers. As well as totally new National focus trees for Timberline, and the Littlefoot tribe.
Next is some, more interesting lore tid bits relating to the 'best ending for the Great Khans' a migration to the region pushed by the powers at be in Vegas. This is story of journeys in continued in the apparent unique flavor Old Country, a nation of ghouls from Vault 100, maybe journeys into what was once USA occupied Canada?
New arrivals would be the Montana Brotherhood, and more Native American Flavor in the Inuit tribe / nation. Finally is this mysteriously named: CPF, which I have money betting on it being a police force trying to put order back into the region, but I don't know if that is correct since CPF could mean a lot of different things.
Things I would like to see:

If the update is a total expansion to the Northwest, does that mean there is going to be national focus trees for the minor religious nations South of Heaven's gate? Murtagh for example, would it be given a focus tree?
The Art above is, very odd, even for Fallout standards, Most likely its supposed to represent a Ghoul host likely under the Old Country. BUT, if I might speculate, their color reminds me a lot of the Scorched from Fallout 76. It would be odd to see them in Montana but they would be a interesting nation for sure given the Scorch's lore is, very weird and spooky even by Fallout standards.

Update 6.0 A New Tide
OH SWEET MOMA, is this going to get all of the Caribbean?! It seems so given its highlights INCLUDE all the major islands (Cuba, Bahamas, Haiti) but the more here could be both hyping, and misleading depending on the context.
For example it could be that the entirety of update is just the island nations listed and as well as some flavor regions around them. But besides that, the hype can come from that of the major added feature, "Witness a Mighty Bastion of the Old World", unless they are taking from their new lore which they will have to add since the Caribbean's have never been even mentioned in lore as far as I can remember. BUT, it could mean in addition to Caribbean, and the mention of Crocodile Mutants make me think one thing.
Florida, a region that was explored only in a mod for Fallout 4, and has been an interesting thought for regions since fallout 4's completion years ago. Though, I wouldn't hold your breath, because Florida is likely to be a very complex place especially in its proximity to the Eastern Brotherhood.
Other then that, Its mainly a touchup nation, for what is likely the northern Bandit wall in the far south, as well as a possibility of The Housten Rockets getting a naval ambition? Again, this is where we have little to go off of.
Things? : Simply put, this is where I am stopping this post, if interest is high for more discusion, upvote this massive essay and walkthrough. Thank you all for you time and reading!

New Vegas is a Western? And how does this make you feel?

Fallout 1 and 2 are absolutely still worth playing

This game is a masterpiece. (long post)

I love this game so much. I have been paying for this game for 5-7 years and my opinion has never changed. Everything is just so good. I am not going to put a section about side quests because I cover a few side quests in a few sections. I will briefly cover the main parts of the base game. ( maybe I will make a post covering the amazing DLC) SPOILERS AHEAD. I apologize in advance for tangents, grammatical and spelling issues.
TLDR at the bottom
START/TUTORIAL
The way NV starts is a pretty good. It teaches you about the aspects of the game in the small town of Goodsprings. In "Ghost Town Gunfight", the game teaches you about skill checks. To convince Chet to help you pass a barter check, to convince Easy Pete, you pass an explosive check, Trudy requires a speech check, and Doc Mitchell requires a medicine check if you choose to do "Run Goodsprings Run". It also teaches you about the reputation with the two quests I just mentioned. If you help the Powder Gangers, they will like you, at the cost of wiping out Goodsprings, and if you choose to help the town, the Powder Gang hates you, but Goodsprings likes you.

MORALITY
Morality is not black and white in NV for the most part. For example, in the quest "The White Wash", you are asked to investigate the case of NCR Corporal White, a soldier who went missing. You face a dilemma at the end when you find out that a Follower Of The Apocalypse is taking water from the NCR to give to the people of Westside who really need it. He tells you that he killed White to hide the secret about the water, and he feels bad about it. So you have to choose what you think is the best option, do you (A) tell the NCR that their water is being stolen so they can use it, or (B) do you keep the secret at the cost of some NCR working peoples livelihoods? There is no clear good or clear bad, it's all grey. Of course there are some obviously evil people in NV like the Fiends, especially Cook-Cook. But there is a lot, and I mean a LOT of grey.

MINOR FACTIONS
The minor factions are really great in NV. You obviously have the Brotherhood of Steel, the tech hoarders themselves. But there are also other small factions, like the Followers of The Apocalypse. They are a group of scientists and doctors whose purpose is to help people (I believe they debuted in the original Fallout. Can't remember if it was the first or second one.) You also have the Great Khans, a group of nomads who are modeled after the Mongolians. They raid, take chems, sell chems, and kill anyone who gets in their way. But as I said earlier, the morality is not black and white. The Khans hate the NCR because of the Bitter Springs Massacre, an incident in which the NCR slaughtered Khan women, elders, and children. There is also the Boomers. The Boomers are a group of former vault dwellers who stay at Nellis Airforce base and shoot at any outsiders. This is because they do not trust them, but you can help them to prove that outsiders are not as bad as they think. The last minor factions I will cover are the Families of the Strip. The Omertas are an old school mafia inspired group that run the Gomorrah casino. They have shady business that ranges from abusing the prostitutes to killing everyone in the Strip for Caesar's Legion. The White Gloves are a society of people who see themselves as above everyone else in class. They run the Ultra Luxe casino. But there are a handful in the society who want to bring back their old tribal tradition of cannibalism. The Chairmen run the Tops casino and they are the "coolest" family. They use old school slang and are the most laid back family.

Companions
The companions are great. Although I want to cover every single detail about every companion, I will limit myself to brief explanations on my 2 favorite companions (I love the other but do not have the time to cover them) and why I like them.
I will cover Arcade Gannon first. I love Arcade so much as a character. He is a Follower of The Apocolypse and he has an interesting origin and great writing. He has an intense hatred for Caesar's Legion. You trigger his personal quest by siding with anyone but the Legion (and maybe House. I have never tried siding with House while Arcade was in my company). He pulls you aside at certain places and, depending on how you reply, makes him like, or dislike you more. When you reach max affinity, he pulls you aside and reveals his story. He was born in the Enclave and he wants you to reunite the remnants that he knows to fight against the Legion at Hoover Dam. You can tell Arcade to stay in Freeside as a doctor to help people in the aftermath of the battle or you can tell him to fight with the remnants. If you tell him to stay in Freeside, he will give you his fathers Enclave tesla armor. If you tell him to fight, he will wear the armor at the battle for the dam. You will be rewarded with power armor training and remnants power armor. This will affect (effect?) his fate in the ending slides.
The other companion I will cover is Boone. He is former NCR First Recon sniper who participated in the Bitter Springs Massacre that I mentioned earlier. You meet him in Novac and he asks you to find the person who sold his wife into slavery. You can either find who did it or you can make him kill a random person of your choice. By doing things he like and asking him about his past, Boone will open up about the Massacre and you can take him to Bitter Springs. After killing Many Legion bois, you can tell Boone to let go of the past and he will finally move on, or you can tell him to become vengeful and more aggressive. This will affect(effect?) his fate in the ending slides.

MAIN QUEST LINE SUMMARY
To keep this very short, the main plot is to decide who should win the second battle for the Hoover Dam. Your choices are the NCR, Caesar's Legion, Mr. House, an independent Vegas with the help of Yes Man.

THE NCR
The New California Republic is a, well, a republic whose goal is to recreate the government of the old world, like the U.S government. It is a bureaucracy and has the positives and negatives of one. The characters in the NCR are diverse and very well written. Like how Colonel Hsu is a sensible and calm man who can resolve violent situations, as seen in the "Kings Gambit" quest where if you go to Hsu, he offers Freeside extra food and water to stop the violence. But in the same quest, you can tell Colonel Moore about the Freeside situation. Moore is a no nonsense lady who will not hesitate to fight violence with violence, which is what happens if you tell her about the Freeside situation. She sends a squad of soldiers and you to the Kings school to give the King an ultimatum. In conclusion, the NCR is an army that wishes to use the governing methods of old world America. But they also have the flaws of that system, like corruption.

CAESAR'S LEGION
Caesar's Legion is more than a faux Roman Empire. Caesar is a man who is educated on the old world, on old world government and was even an NCR citizen and Follower of The Apocolypse. Caesar thinks that the best way to lead is through dictator control. He tells you this when you ask him about President Aaron Kimball. He says that democracy slows down progress. He actually has an amount of respect for Kimball. The Legion is made up of 86 tribes that Caesar has conquered. These tribals are stripped of their identity and are indoctrinated into essentially worshipping Caesar as a living deity, as Arcade Gannon said. The legion does not believe in modern medicine. They only use "natural" sources of healing like powder. Which is not great when (plot twist) you find out about Caesar's brain tumor. Lets talk about how women are used in the Legion. Woman are used as slaves and mates for the men. When tribes are conquered, the women are forced into slavery, while the boys and young men are made into Legion soldiers. The Legion see's women as less than men. The men are trained to fear their leaders rather than their enemies, because if they fail, they are killed, like what Caesar attempted to do to Joshua Graham when the Legion lost the First Battle for Hoover Dam. The Legate Lanius, who probably has the best voice in the game, is a figure of fear. He kills anyone that gets in his way and has been a full member of the Legion since he was a child. Caesar says that Lanius has no care for the men of the legion. In conclusion, the Legion is a slaver group that is led by an educated warlord who has interesting philosophies.

MR. HOUSE
Robert Edwin House is the founder of RobCo, the company responsible for many of creations in Fallout including the Pip Boy. He predicted the Great War and prepared to survive it, through weird means. The platinum Chip was running late for delivery while the Great War started, so House did not get it. House is very interesting. He is very smart, yet makes very risky gambles, like trusting you (a stranger) in not destroying his secret army of robots. He single handedly saved Vegas from the war and built it up again. He wants you to help him fulfill his wishes for the future. He thinks he deserves the Dam because of what he can do for Vegas. His plan is to remove the Legion and lower the influence of the NCR in the Mojave so that he can bring back the glory of pre war Las Vegas. As another redditor said on the fallout subreddit, House seems to be the only one with long term plans for the future, whether they are good or bad is your opinion. In conclusion, Mr. House is an ambitious man with ambitious plans for Vegas and the Mojave. He is very confident in himself and his ability to predict the outcome of situations.

YES MAN/ INDEPENDANCE
This is going to be the shortest description. Benny had help reprogramming a securitron to help with anything, most notably taking over Vegas. You choose what factions you like and which ones you do not like and you kick both the Legion and the NCR out of the Mojave wasteland to establish independence.
FREEDOM AND DETAIL
This game is a game where you have complete freedom. You don't like Caesar, go ahead and kill him. There's no quest to do it, but you can still do it. You can kill anyone you want and you can make many decisions that impact the world. If you allow the NCR train to blow up, or if you do it yourself with the Legion, people will talk about it. I made a post showing Legate Lanius's reaction to you confronting him while wearing Legion faction armor. Obsidian has done such an amazing job putting so much detail in this game. Another example of detail is wiping out Camp Forlorn Hope. The NCR will talk about that if you do it then talk to the troopers. There are more examples of this that you will see during your own gameplay.

THE WORLD

The games world is so good. The world is great, especially from a 2010 game. The locations are great. The unmarked spots like the Sarsaparilla sign where the Lonesome Drifter is are pretty cool. The spot where you find a dead person with remnants power armor is a pleasant surprise if you just find while exploring. I also feel very immersed in the world when I'm just walking around and see a legion patrolling or NCR patrolling.
SOURCES
https://www.reddit.com/Fallout/comments/3izps8/lets_talk_about_why_mr_house_is_the_best_option/
https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Caesar
https://www.reddit.com/falloutnewvegas/comments/klc6ff/in_my_near_57_years_of_playing_this_game_this_is/
A few Oxhorn videos

TLDR: I love Fallout: New Vegas.

Why the NCR will be the Most Likely Canonical Victor of the Second Battle of Hoover Dam.

Given the recent news that Microsoft has acquired Zenimax in addition to the fact that a direct sequel to Fallout: New Vegas could very well be in the works, I've been inspired to make a post detailing my thoughts as to why the NCR ending of F:NV will most certainly be the canon ending of the game. Let's start from the top, shall we?

The NCR are irrevocably the heroes of the story.

Love them or hate them, the NCR, despite its numerous problems and burdens, are the obvious good guys of the game. This stands in direct contrast to the Legion (who, despite their upsides, are the clear-cut villains of the story regardless of how you try to spin it), Mr. House (who's more of a neutrally-aligned character, if anything (though, in my opinion, he's every bit as evil, petty and vindictive as Caesar himself)) and Yes Man (who's honestly only just there to ensure that the player can finish the game).
None of whom are even remotely close to "good", at the end of the day. And given that the good guys have ALWAYS emerged victorious in EVERY canon Fallout game regardless of whether or not it came from Interplay or Bethesda, it's more than safe to assume that the NCR (which has yet to be given the shaft by any Fallout game, so far) has the canon ending.

The NCR ending is without a single doubt the best ending in the game.

While I honestly believe that even those who either don't like the NCR or just flat-out hate the NCR are forced to admit it regardless of whether they like it or not, the NCR ending is easily the best ending of the game from a purely objective point of view. Not only is it the only ending in the game where EVERYBODY benefits and even flat-out prospers (though, admittedly, it's not all cupcakes and rainbows as the citizens of Goodsprings and Primm can attest to), it's also the only ending where EVERYBODY can survive (provided that one's willing to work for it, of course), as well.
Indeed, even the best Legion ending still sees a huge portion of the local population enslaved or murdered under Caesar's brutal rule, almost every other faction killed off or enslaved and what essentially amounts to a genocidal, mass-murdering, slaving, massively savage totalitarian utilitarian military dictatorship taking over the region, for instance. Meanwhile, even the best House ending still sees Mr. House effectively abandoning everything and everyone outside of the New Vegas Strip and leaving them to fend for themselves whereas a shitload of innocent people still get killed due to his negligence.
As for an Independent Vegas, even the best Yes Man ending (which, admittedly, is easily the second best ending in the game) still sees New Vegas devolve into a completely anarchic, Hellish shithole that becomes completely overwhelmed with skyrocketing crime, massive drug abuse, chronic shortages of even the most basic of necessities and utilities and a total collapse of any semblance of law and order all while the Courier gets rich off of the New Vegas Strip's gambling and resort operations. Either way, the NCR ending is clearly the best ending possible.
And as all canon Fallout endings have ALWAYS been the absolute best ending possible, this further reinforces the notion of the NCR canonically winning the Second Battle of Hoover Dam.

The NCR always wins.

If there's one thing that we can all agree on in regards to the NCR, it's that it ALWAYS seems to win. It won in Fallout 1 when it was founded and very quickly expanded across all of southern California and it won in Fallout 2 when it eventually gobbled up the rest of California and expanded both its territory and influence across all of Oregon, all of the Baja Peninsula, all of Nevada and even as far East as Utah and Arizona (most particularly in Bullhead City and all of its immediate surrounding areas) by the events of F:NV. Something tells me that the NCR is about ready for a third victory in F:NV.

Chris Avellone is gone.

With that prick Avellone gone, any and all remaining anti-civilization nonsense within Obsidian is also gone, as well. Meaning that there won't be any second Apocalypse from the Sierra Madre, Tunnelers, the nukes of the Divide or any other stupid bullshit that Avellone dreamed up. Furthermore, an Independent Vegas just seems incredibly unlikely now that Obsidian is back on track and actively in full support of the eventual full return of civilization to the Wastelands. Something that an Independent Vegas ending would completely contradict. Meaning that a canon NCR ending is quite frankly the only logical choice.

The NCR is by far the most popular out of the 4 main factions.

In every opinion poll that I've ever seen, the NCR ALWAYS either has a commanding lead, a general lead or is tied with an Independent Vegas. The Legion, on the other hand, is always dead-last and often doesn't even get so much as a SINGLE vote (for obvious reasons, of course), Mr. House is either 3rd place with only a few votes or tied for dead last with the Legion (often due to the fact that 1. he's entirely dependent on the player to get anything done, 2. really doesn't do anything in his incredibly boring ending and 3. we're left without even the slightest clue as to whether or not he intends to follow through with his grandiose promises, which is VERY anti-climactic) and an Independent Vegas is always either neck-to-neck with the NCR, barely behind the NCR or just second place (everybody is quite frankly thrilled with the often false notion that they can "rule" New Vegas as their own, after all).
Given the NCR's popularity, which is the direct result of the NCR being the good guys who at the very least TRY to help everyone and actually do a far better job than they're often given credit for not to mention the above fact that their ending is objectively the best ending possible, it's very safe to say that they'll most definitely have the canon ending.

The NCR ending is by far the most flexible ending.

The NCR ending is really the only ending that leaves room for a sequel and paves the way for a logical, realistic route towards continuing the Fallout saga in the American Southwest. The Legion ending doesn't make any sense at all as we all know for a fact that 1. the Legion will inevitably collapse once Caesar dies and effectively cease to exist as an entity, 2. we already know that the Legion doesn't stand a snowball's chance in Hell against the NCR in a total war (meaning that even if the Legion wins the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, they could NEVER win the war against the NCR, which will eventually wipe them out) and 3. the Legion would have a hard-enough time just holding and defending NEW VEGAS ALONE as it is and would eventually destroy itself just TRYING to do so, all but ensuring that a direct sequel to F:NV wouldn't be practical with a canonical Legion victory at Hoover Dam.
The House ending doesn't really work either in that it's extremely boring, highly anti-climactic, completely uneventful and ultimately doesn't leave any room for a sequel. Nothing really happens and everything just more or less stays the same albeit with several minor changes. Something that makes a canonical House ending impossible as a sequel based on that just wouldn't work. In regards to the Independent Vegas ending, while it is far from inflexible (unlike the Legion and House endings) and is actually a very interesting ending (I personally wouldn't mind an Independent Vegas ending myself), I really have a hard time seeing a direct sequel to F:NV emerge from an Independent Vegas ending.
Not only does it directly contradict the pro-civilization aims of Obsidian, but it also just comes off as more of a fail-safe to ensure that the player can finish the game in the event that they both piss off the NCR and the Legion and kill Mr. House, if you ask me. The fact that Yes Man is completely unkillable and the fact that the player can still pursue an Independent Vegas even if they've blown up the Securitron Army over at Fortification Hill (making an Independent Vegas completely pointless, but I digress) definitely helps to support that notion. Either way, the NCR ending is the only feasible ending that would make a direct sequel to F:NV possible.
And that's a wrap. Now before I conclude my post, I'd like to point out that this is pure speculation and could very well be completely incorrect in the grand scheme of things. This is, after all, just my opinion. Do feel free to share your own opinions, if you wish. A penny for your thoughts?

DLC ideas that I think would be awesome to play (Spoilers for the endings of the game)

Wrestling Observer Rewind ★ Mar. 18, 2002

Going through old issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and posting highlights in my own words. For anyone interested, I highly recommend signing up for the actual site at f4wonline and checking out the full archives.
PREVIOUSLY:


1-7-2002	1-14-2002	1-21-2002	1-28-2002
2-4-2002	2-11-2002	2-18-2002	2-25-2002
3-4-2002	3-11-2002

Going into Wrestlemania 18, a cloud of uncertainty hangs over the WWF. While the return of the NWO managed to spike a big buyrate for No Way Out and Rock/Hogan is probably gonna be huge for WM buyrates, it hasn't really affected TV ratings in any meaningful way. And this is the big part of the year. That doesn't bode well for the usual decline in business that always comes after Wrestlemania. From here, Dave just spends paragraphs talking about how bad booking over the last year has tanked the company from the peak they were at the previous year and what they should be doing different. And he's not wrong. In retrospect, with 18 years hindsight, pretty much all of this is right on the money. Way back as far as late '97, Dave was pointing out all the cracks starting to form in WCW and was trying to sound the alarm. Here in 2002, he's trying to do the same with WWF and sure enough, he ends up being right. The next two decades have been one continuous slow decline in popularity, for pretty much all the reasons Dave is warning about here. It's all really interesting, but it's not news. It's just business analysis.
Which brings us to next week's Wrestlemania. Dave says there's never in the past been a Wrestlemania where the world title match had so little buzz going into it. Jericho as the WWF champion has been rendered completely secondary to the Triple H/Stephanie feud. But as of now, that match is still expected to go on last, even though all the advertising and mainstream publicity for the show is built around the Rock/Hogan match. Even Steve Austin, the biggest PPV draw in company history for the last 4 years, isn't being heavily featured in the promotion of the show (and boy, was he salty about it as it turned out). The NWO angle has pretty much been seen internally as a flop and there's not much further for them to go as a group after the show. After Mania is the brand split, which in theory should freshen things up and lead to some developmental stars being called up. But Austin and Rock are supposed to anchor each show respectively and Rock is expected to take a few months off this summer to film another movie (The Rundown) so that's gonna hurt the star power on whatever show he ends up on.
More worrisome is that there have been pay cuts. Several wrestlers were approached this week and asked to take cuts to their downside guarantees. Dave talks about how Vince never wanted to pay anyone guarantees in the first place and only started doing so in 1996 when WCW forced his hand. So far, all the wrestlers asked were developmental stars or former WCW/ECW Alliance members who haven't been used on TV since the Invasion angle ended at Survivor Series. But it's expected more pay cuts are coming, especially for anyone who's contracts are coming due because obviously, no one has any negotiating leverage anymore. Chris Jericho is probably the biggest star who's deal is up for renewal soon and obviously, he's not exactly in a prime spot to play hardball. He's a much bigger star now than he was 3 years ago, so he'll probably still get a raise. But it won't be nearly would he could get if WCW still existed. (For this reason alone, I can't comprehend why anyone would want AEW to fail if you're a wrestling fan. And yet.)
The pay cuts seem to be about $25K-per-year each. So for instance, the guys making $125K per year are being cut down to $100K. Then $100K guys down to $75K. Or in the case of the lowest paid guys, the $75K guys are being cut to $52K. WWF tried to soften the blow by saying that if/when these guys start working on TV and working regular house shows, then they start getting merch money and house show cuts and so they'll probably make more than their downside anyway. But anyone who's ever gotten a pay cut knows that's some corporate doublespeak bullshit. With nowhere else to make a living in wrestling, most of these guys are pretty much forced to smile and take it, but needless to say, they aren't happy. These people aren't rich and a $25K-per-year pay cut makes quite a bit a difference. And it's not like WWF needs to do this. They're still very profitable and they just offered the NWO guys monstrously huge contracts. This is just what happens when you have a monopoly on the industry and you don't have to pay your employees fairly. You could. But fuck them, right? (Man, this sure feels prescient in a world where a company light years more profitable now than at any time in its history just fired a bunch of people when they didn't have to.)
Oh yeah, back to Wrestlemania preview. Dave runs down all the matches and what we know. Rock, Hogan, and Pat Patterson spent all day together at a gym in Florida last week choreographing their match. Apparently during his comeback house show match with Rikishi in Tampa last week, Hogan broke a rib and tried to keep it secret from everyone, but they found out. He's still expected to work Wrestlemania (he wouldn't miss it under any circumstances) but they're concerned about how much he'll be able to do. Also, because this is Toronto and he's so beloved there, WWF is expecting Hogan to get a huge reaction from the crowd (yeah, that's putting it mildly). Jericho/Triple H on paper should be a great match (they've had some classics together in the past) but the build-up has killed Jericho and the result is a foregone conclusion. Austin/Hall should be fine. UndertakeFlair has had the best build and for storyline reasons, Flair should win. But Dave ain't holding his breath. So on and so forth.
Yup, this is definitely a slow news week. Now Dave writes a huge piece on the history of major shows in wrestling and how that led to the birth of Wrestlemania. How Vince gambled everything on the first WM and how closed circuit was such a vital part of the success. Talks about the history of closed circuit with wrestling, with the first national pro wrestling-ish event being broadcast nationally on CCTV was the Inoki/Muhammad Ali match, which featured other wrestling matches on the undercard. The inclusion of Mr. T and Cyndi Lauper were critical to the success of the first Wrestlemania and Roddy Piper's racist promos to Mr. T turned him into an mainstream celebrity along with Hogan. And then WM2 and WM3 and oh god, I'm just realizing as I type this that Dave has written multiple paragraphs about each Wrestlemania. This is fascinating stuff to read as a history buff and I seriously can't recommend it enough if you're subscribed to go read this. But I ain't recapping all that haha.
More news on Jerry Jarrett's planned promotion, with the idea of doing $9.95 weekly PPV shows. Jerry and his son Jeff are now both fully involved with this, with the idea that they would be co-owners. Despite rumors, Jerry has denied that Vince Russo is involved in the company, but others are saying he'll be writing for them secretly (as mentioned last week, Time Warner execs only agreed to represent him in his lawsuit with Hulk Hogan if he doesn't work for any other wrestling company, so he can't openly be working with the company). The idea seems to be to pay the wrestlers $1,000 to $2,500 per show and run about 26 shows per year. In the meantime, the wrestlers would be allowed to work any other indies but wouldn't be allowed to work PPV or TV for anyone else. The problem here is the WWA promotion is still trying to gain a foothold in America and they want to use a lot of the same talent and Jeff Jarrett has involvement in both companies. Jeff is reportedly trying to work out an agreement where they can all share stars and get along but Dave says that's problematic when you have two companies using the same guys and trying to book different storylines and run separate PPVs. Jarrett's new company is looking to sign a core group of names to build around and Dave says you damn well better have them signed, because WWF will pluck away anyone who starts to gain any success. Jarrett is said to be interested in signing Scott Steiner, Eddie Guerrero, and Rey Mysterio for the new company. Anyway, Dave crunches the numbers and being very conservative, this new company would need to make at least $125,000 per week on PPV just to break even. And that's being optimistic. Once you take out the PPV company's cut, Dave estimates they would need to pull 31,000 buys at least to even think of breaking even. And again, that's being extremely conservative and assuming this company runs an extremely low-cost production. To have something with good production values that can be taken seriously as competition, you'd probably have to do double that. And even with national television, WCW and ECW weren't doing that many PPV buys by the end. So Dave is skeptical that this Jarrett promotion is gonna manage it without any TV. Not to mention, where are they gonna tape? Multiple cities? Gotta promote them and draw crowds. Dave thinks you'd have to heavily paper the crowd. And it takes months for PPV money to come in, which means Jarrett is gonna have to eat all these costs at the start. Basically, this idea is gonna be difficult to pull off (yup. If Panda Energy hadn't bailed them out, they were gonna be dead within the first 6 months under this plan).
Big story about how the Vitor Belfort vs. Chuck Liddell fight has been cancelled. Why? Well, Belfort's lawyers sent a letter to UFC officials claiming that the fighter was sick with a malaria-like disease (ended up being dengue fever) and due to the medication he was on, he wasn't able to train properly. Sounds reasonable enough, yeah? Well....turns out Belfort isn't too sick to collect a paycheck in other ways. Belfort is the newest cast member of a Brazilian reality show called "Casa dor Artistas 2" which is basically exactly like Big Brother, in which a bunch of people are locked in this house with no contact to the outside world and are on camera 24/7 online, with daily edited versions airing on TV. So Belfort has now committed to being locked in this house for the next 90 days for a TV show, which means he couldn't make the fight with Liddell, scheduled for May. The winner of that fight was expected to face Tito Ortiz later this year, and Belfort vs. Ortiz is the big fight everyone has been clamoring for, and has already been postponed or canceled two other times (don't end up getting Belfort/Ortiz until 2005, and it ends up being a controversial split decision win for Ortiz).
Former Memphis area wrestler The Dream Machine passed away of a heart attack at age 47. Dave says he was possibly the greatest talker of the last 25 years who never made it big nationally. Dave recaps his career in the 70s and 80s, with lots of quotes from Jim Cornette and Jimmy Hart. I pulled up a promo just outta curiosity.

WATCH: Dream Machine cuts a promo on Dutch Mantel from 1981

All Japan Women held its first ever show on PPV this week, while facing an uncertain future. AJW is the 3rd longest-running promotion in the world (behind CMLL and WWF) but they've been struggling financially for years. And at the end of this month, they're losing their TV deal with Fuji Network, which has aired their show for 25 years. Anyway, the PPV was fine but something was missing. Manami Toyota, unquestionably the greatest female wrestler to ever live, stole the show in an excellent match, but otherwise, nothing memorable.
Kiyoshi Sagawa passed away at age 79 this week. You probably don't know Sagawa's name, but he was the largest shareholder of NJPW and was the founder of Sagawa Kyubin, which is basically Japan's version of FedEx. Sagawa was a billionaire and owned the largest percentage of NJPW stock. He alone owned 40% of the company. It's believed Sagawa's shares will be bequeathed to Antonio Inoki, who currently holds 15%. This would give him Inoki a 55% stake in the company. But Dave doesn't expect much to change because Sagawa always backed Inoki anyway, so it's not like day-to-day is going to be any different.
Eddie Guerrero debuted on the latest NJPW tour, teaming with Minoru Tanaka and Black Tiger. It's interesting because several years ago, Guerrero portrayed the role of Black Tiger. This time, it was played by Silver King. During the match, Guerrero and Black Tiger turned heel on their partner and joined their opponents in a 5-on-1 beatdown of Minoru Tanaka. Word is Guerrero looked really good on this tour so far (yeah, he was on fire during this time. Guerrero only works about 10 shows for NJPW on this tour and then WWF re-hires him and the rest is history).
Hayabusa is said to have regained feeling in much of his body and can move his left arm somewhat, after suffering the career-ending injury back in October that left him paralyzed.
Speaking of, Atsushi Onita and former FMW star Kodo Fuyuki are working an angle together over the dead FMW promotion. At an indie show, Onita came out and accused Fuyuki and FMW general manager Sakichi Nakamura of mismanaging FMW and using the company's money to make themselves rich while allowing the promotion to die. Onita also talked about how they stopped paying Hayabusa's hospital bills and used the money to enrich themselves. This is all leading up to Onita vs. Fuyuki soon, and of course Onita is using Hayabusa's injury as part of his angle. Because Onita is the carniest carny to ever carny.
A made-for-TV movie about the life of Nobuhiko Takada and his marriage to TV personality Aki Mukai aired in Japan this week and was a huge ratings hit. Takada of course is a former pro wrestler turned MMA fighter who, frankly, should have stuck to worked fights because his reputation as a shoot fighter has been destroyed time and again in real shoots. He married Mukai, who is the host of a popular morning TV show (she's basically Japan's Katie Couric, Dave says) and she has been battling cancer recently. The movie was a tearjerker story about their inability to have children due to her cancer. The couple is looking to adopt a kid in the U.S. because adoption is apparently extremely difficult in Japan.
Dan Severn regained the NWA title from Shinya Hashimoto at a Zero-One show in Japan this week. NWA president Jim Miller was there and a NWA Jersey (and American) referee officiated the match. The match ended with a screwjob finish, with the American ref fast-counting Hashimoto to give Severn the victory, which the fans haaaaaated and Dave thinks pretty well tarnishes whatever legacy the NWA title still has, in the one country where fans still sorta respect that belt. Dave says the idea here is Hashimoto is such a bigger star than Severn that he couldn't feasibly do a clean job to him in his own promotion. But Hashimoto doesn't want to go to America and defend the NWA title on a bunch of tiny indie shows for 100 people either, so he agreed to drop it back to Severn this way.
Remember that Matrats promotion Eric Bischoff was involved in that sorta disappeared off the radar? It's not dead! Yet. Bischoff, who hates dirt sheets, thinks they're all lies, and has never confided in Dave Meltzer, did an interview with the Wrestling Observer website this week and talked about the plans for the company. It has been renamed Next Generation Wrestling and Bischoff talked as if they still plan to go into production for a TV series later this summer, but he admitted everything isn't yet finalized. Bischoff said the matches won't have pinfalls or submissions but will instead of have ringside judges awarding points for creativity and execution. Dave doesn't seem to be super on board with this concept (yeah, it goes nowhere).
WWA promoter Andrew McManus claimed after the PPV disaster in Las Vegas that he would never again advertise anyone for a show that he doesn't have signed to a contract. So needless to say, the upcoming tour in Australia has names like Sid Vicious, Jeff Jarrett, Road Dogg, Buff Bagwell, Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, Scott Steiner, Sabu, Juventud Guerrera, and others being promoted. Needless to say, almost none of them have contracts with this company (most of them end up working the shows, but several do not). Speaking of WWA, after claiming they didn't get paid for their appearances at the Vegas show, both Terry Taylor and Larry Zbyszko have now been paid.
Sid Vicious is in a commercial for an Alabama chain of restaurants called Jack's Hamburgers. The commercial shows a guy golfing when Sid comes in and slams him. Then it says "some things don't mix, like golf and wrestling" but then it says some things like the new Jack's bacon and cheddar do mix. The commercial ends with the golfer choking Sid with his golf club. I can't find this commercial, so I'm counting on you Wreddit. FIND THIS VIDEO! I need this in my life.
Remember the story last week about the confrontation at the WWA show between Bischoff and Juventud Guerrera about a petition in WCW that Guerrera signed to have Bischoff fired? Well Dave has more details. The petition wasn't actually to get Bischoff fired, necessarily. After the incident at Bash at the Beach 2000 with Hogan, naturally, Bischoff took Hogan's side and it led to a big blow-up argument between he and Vince Russo. As a result, Bischoff pretty much walked out and said, "Here, let Russo run it and watch him hang himself." Which, of course, he inevitably did. But the point is, when Bischoff walked out, it looked as if there was going to be yet another power-change in WCW. Several of the wrestlers were fed up with their bosses changing on a monthly basis and never knowing who was in charge. So they put together a petition to give to Brad Siegel, basically asking him to give Russo a fair chance to succeed on his own and to let him remain in power in the wake of the Bischoff/Russo split. Bischoff wasn't even mentioned in the petition, it was mostly just a "don't fire Russo yet" petition. Of course, in siding with Russo to be the one in charge, that meant they were siding against Bischoff being in charge, even if that wasn't explicitly spelled out in the petition. Anyway, it apparently worked. Russo got to remain in power while Bischoff went home again. And then Russo spent the next few months booking himself to be WCW champion and screwing up everything else and within a few months, all those same guys were wishing Bischoff would come back. Anyway, a lot of people at the WWA show thought it was funny that Bischoff lashed out at Guerrera over it, because several other WCW wrestlers at the time, including Scott Steiner, also signed it.
XWF's planned house shows for later this month in Michigan and Ohio have been cancelled. Everyone has pretty much been told to sit tight for now until September and have been given hints that a TV deal is imminent. But people have been saying that since this promotion launched (yeah, this obviously never happens. Unbeknownst to anyone, XWF is already dead at this point, they never ran another show).
The plan for now (and it could always change again) is that the brand split will finally take place on the 3/25 Raw the week after Wrestlemania. It was originally supposed to be the very next night but they once again pushed it back a week, so that's where we stand for now. Promotional material for the Backlash PPV is already out and references Vince owning Raw and Flair owning Smackdown (and funny enough, it ends up going the other way) and split house shows are already scheduled for April. Dave still hates the draft idea because when guys (like Hurricane, for example) get drafted 28th, that immediately establishes them in the fans eyes as lower-card nobodies. The idea of a brand split is that it will force them to push new people and create new stars, but they've spent so long telling fans that only 3 or 4 guys matter and everyone else is minor talent. Doing a draft where guys get picked way down near the bottom just hurts them more and makes it harder to rebuild them as major players.
Notes from Smackdown: Flair had a brawl with Undertaker and during the fight, there was a "fan" played by indie wrestler Paul London who got punched. London also worked a dark match against Perry Saturn at the show. Rock returned, with not a scratch on him after being murderdeathkilled in an ambulance by the NWO a couple weeks ago. Rock challenged Hogan to face him right then and there, but of course that didn't happen because c'mon. Vince isn't crazy enough to take Hogan's first televised WWF match in 8 years and just give it away on free TV less than a week before Wrestlemania, right?

WATCH: Perry Saturn vs. Paul London - 2002

Notes from Raw: Dave calls it Raw Is Dog Shit. Oh, this should be fun. Turns out it was literally dog shit. The show was built around Triple H and Stephanie fighting for custody of their dog Lucy and at one point, it pooped on the floor. Stephanie ordered Jericho to walk the dog, because ya know, gotta build up the world champion for his Wrestlemania main event next week. The rest of the show was built around Vince and Flair in a boardroom arguing over ownership of the company with the board of directors. Jericho (while running another errand for Stephanie) accidentally runs over the dog. Riveting television here. They said the dog had a broken leg, which leads Dave to point out that Rock got practically murdered by the NWO a few weeks ago and we never got a medical update on his condition (he just sorta returned and was fine), but we found out about the dog's medical condition just minutes after it happened. As a result, Triple H came out and started attacking Stephanie, pretty much committing spousal abuse while the crowd cheered wildly, leading to Jericho attacking Triple H's quad with a sledgehammer, which would have been a fine angle if it hadn't been proceeded by weeks of making Jericho into Stephanie's whipping boy. And the main event was the 3-on-2 of the NWO vs. Austin & Rock. So yes, turns out Vince is crazy enough to book Hogan's comeback WWF match on a throwaway Raw 6 days before the biggest show of the year on PPV with no buildup whatsoever. It's the first time ever that Hogan and Austin have ever squared off against each other in a match (and it never happened again). Crowd was way into Hogan and Nash as well, since they were in his hometown.
There's a Divas special airing on UPN this week and if it does strong ratings, UPN is interested in doing a whole Divas series. Dave suspects that won't hold up long in the ratings. But for what it's worth, the original idea for Smackdown waaaaay back when it was originally conceived was for it to be an all-women's show based around Sable (who was drawing monster ratings for her segments at the time). They even held auditions for new women before scrapping the idea and making it a second show like Raw.
WWF's recent show in Japan was supposed to air on the TV-Tokyo network but it got canceled and then the network announced it was cancelling all WWF programming on the station. Turns out there was a big misunderstanding. The entire show was filmed by the network and they planned to broadcast it (with Keiji Muto doing commentary). WWF was under the impression that the show was being filmed only so they could air highlights of it as part of a sports recap show or highlight package (basically just a quick few minutes of clips on the news). WWF didn't approve for this show (a house show without all the bells and whistles) to be aired on TV in full, and when they found out, they contacted the network and said.....hey, uh, no. The network was pissed and in response, they canceled ALL WWF programming, effective immediately. This was the channel that aired Raw and Smackdown and this cancellation completely eliminates WWF's only television exposure in Japan.
Speaking of that show, before the event, Antonio Inoki told the media that he hated what WWF had become and expected the show to be a flop. He specifically talked about the Vince McMahon kiss-my-ass club angle, with Jim Ross and William Regal kissing Vince's ass and said that sort of product would never get over in Japan and thus the show would be a failure. As we learned last week, it was actually a HUGE success. In response, Inoki has admitted he was wrong and says that he has lessons he needs to learn from WWF and maybe he shouldn't have been so dismissive of their style. Dave is flabbergasted. He talks about when AAA came to the U.S. in 1993 and outdrew both WWF and WCW by a huge margin for several shows. Can you imagine if Vince McMahon had looked at that and admitted that maybe he could have learned something from it rather than ignoring it? ECW and WCW sure learned from it, and those Lucha Libre stars became a huge part of their success in later years, while WWF still hasn't learned anything from it 9 years later.
Nash and Hall are pushing hard for X-Pac to be included in the NWO and most people in the company figure it's inevitable that it will happen because Nash is pretty much undefeated in backstage political battles. He always gets what he wants somehow. Last Dave heard, X-Pac was expected to interfere at Wrestlemania in some fashion and then join the group the next night on Raw (didn't quite happen like that, but close). Lots of people in the locker room aren't happy about it because, for starters, it proves that Nash is still there to politic for his friends. And also, prior to his injury, X-Pac had fallen to a lower-card nobody status. So there's a lot of people not happy that he's expected to return and leap-frog the entire locker room and be put in the main event faction ahead of everyone else because of who his friends are.
Mick Foley signed a book deal to publish his first fiction novel, which will be titled "Tietam Brown." It's expected to be out in early 2003 and it's not about wrestling. That's all Dave seems to know so far. Foley is also now the full-time host of TNN's Robot Wars show. Foley was also involved in a TV project that was being shopped around in which he would play a former pro wrestler adjusting to real life now that he's retired. Barry Blaustein, who directed Beyond The Mat, was involved and ABC was interested, but they eventually passed and the idea seems to have died (this is basically what that new Big Show show is on Netflix. The Observer Rewind Curious Timing Effect™ strikes again.).
An idea that was pitched for Wrestlemania was for Stephanie to reveal she had been cheating on Triple H with Chris Jericho. Of course, that didn't happen. Dave talks about the Triple H/Kurt Angle storyline from a couple years ago where that almost happened but Triple H nixed it because it wouldn't be "believable" that Stephanie would cheat on him with Kurt Angle....a goddamn Olympic hero and the most legitimately bad ass athlete in the entire company. So of course, it wouldn't make sense for her to cheat on him with Jericho either. Sure, why not?
On OVW television, they hinted that Ric Flair will be coming in soon to team with his son David against Prototype and Sean O'Haire. Looks to be scheduled for next month (indeed, this does happen but for the life of me, I can't find video of it).
Another note from Eric Bischoff's interview with the Observer website, a dirt sheet website ran by a guy who he definitely never would talk to. Bischoff seems to be angling for a WWF job, saying contrary to popular belief, he wouldn't even ask for that much money to do it. He just wants to do something fun. He said they made him an offer last year, right when the Invasion angle was starting, but said he turned it down because he wasn't in good shape and didn't want to appear on TV. That's the story now. At the time, a year ago, Bischoff denied that he was ever given an offer and said he would never consider working for WWF. Dave says, in Eric's defense, the storyline they pitched last year was horrible and Bischoff was right to turn it down (they wanted him to come in and work a match with Vince at the Invasion PPV, get his ass beat, lose, and then that would be it). Adding Bischoff to the NWO angle now would be the obvious idea, but Dave says "invasion" angles never work in WWF because Vince McMahon doesn't commit to them, so adding Bischoff would likely just be another disappointment added to an already disappointing NWO return.
WWF confiscated a "Nash is horrible" sign at the TV tapings this week. Dave doesn't get it. In the past, WWF used to criticize WCW like crazy for "censoring" fans and violating their freedom of expression and all that shit. But then they started doing it too. At first, it was anti-Rock signs that were being taken away, which Dave can kinda understand because he's a top babyface. But Nash is a heel. Don't you want people bringing signs trashing them?
Scott Steiner's WWF physical showed several health issues that still need to be addressed before they sign him. The deal isn't dead yet and Steiner could still come in eventually, but that's the situation right now.
WWF has reached out to both Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio and talked to them about coming in for the new cruiserweight division. Eddie has been busting his ass on the indies in hopes of getting re-hired while Rey has been working in Puerto Rico as of late.

WEDNESDAY: Fallout from Wrestlemania 18, the Hogan/Rock match, Steve Austin walks out (the first time), Vince McMahon talks about failed plan to bring Bret Hart in for Wrestlemania, and more...

Mr House and his Disneyland for adults

Disappointed by The Outer Worlds, an in-depth moan

Welp, I’ve finished The Outer Worlds after getting it at Christmas, and while I’d say I still enjoyed it – obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t have finished it – it’s definitely been a mildly disappointing experience compared to what New Vegas served up. In fact, it’s been a step backwards in pretty much every respect except graphics.
I’m going to outline my thoughts here – feel free to ignore or argue or whatever. I just want to get it off my chest. Just kind of vaguely hoping that a dev will roll by here and perhaps take these thoughts on board for the future.
Guns & ammo
Someone on the New Vegas dev team was clearly a bunker-dwelling gun nut, because the range of firearms was absurd. Not just multiple shotguns, but multiple gauges of shotgun shells! Guns that could be chambered with multiple types of ammo! A range of crappy bargain-basement handguns that everybody ditched at the first opportunity!
But that was really useful in a gameplay sense, because it meant stockpiling any one type of ammo in the early game was difficult, and there was actually a reason to carry around multiple guns other than to make runs to the nearest trader. That .22 pistol is a piece of crap, but if it’s all you have…
In The Outer Worlds, you only have three types of ammo and for some reason people leave little yellow boxes full of the stuff just lying around unattended on the street, so it’s not long before you’re carting around thousands and thousands of each type of round. I didn’t shy away from too many fights and never bought ammo from stores and I still ended the game with something like 5,000+ of each type of ammunition.
And because the guns all share the same ammo pool (can a pistol use the same ammo as a machine gun? A machine gun the same ammo as a shotgun? Sure, why not?), and because so many of the guns are just (gun name) 1, 2 and Ultra, there’s no reason to have favourites or worry too much about your choices. Just pick whatever does the most DPS and suits your skillset and roll with that.
Gun mods are theoretically useful, but really a corrosive heavy machine gun got me through 90% of the game, until I picked up Phineas’s N-ray assault rifle and carried that through Tartarus (which was about the only point where the game felt challenging and tactics seemed necessary).
Speaking of which…
Tactics
New Vegas didn’t have the greatest AI ever, and the gunplay was janky as shit, but at least having grenades/dynamite, rocket launchers and mines allowed for some variety of defensive and offensive action, and the environments you fought in allowed for decent tactics.
In The Outer Worlds, practically every fight is either in a big open plain, or a big open plain with some boxes in it, and beyond an initial bit of sniping (unless you have a scope good enough to keep the enemies at bay for the duration) there’s not much for it but to machine-gun/shotgun/melee through the chaos while your companions suicidally run in. No clustering people to hit them with a bomb, no luring them into traps, no hiding in a disused room and shanking them as they run past. It’s irritatingly samey.
Oh, about those companions…
Companions
The companions in TOW are a step down from NV’s in both function and content.
Functionally, NV’s companions had specific play styles/talents and their passive skills actively changed the way players interacted with the game (eg. Boone’s spotter perk, Rex highlighting nearby items – even Cass and Arcade’s less interesting perks helped the player change up the consumables that they used).
In the field, TOW’s companions are all more or less the same (except SAM, I guess, who at least has unique attacks). As far as I can tell there’s no compelling reason not to just lump the best armour and weapons on them, and let them go charging in. And their perks are minor stat boosts that can be helpful in certain situations, but are basically “invisible” in terms of gameplay. So there’s no real reason to pick any two companions over any other two, since you can just load them out with the same gear and have basically the same experience.
In terms of content – well, TOW has some good characters, but they’re very limited in what they say or do with regard to the overall plot. Aside from a couple of little comments here and there, and those endlessly looping interactions on the Unreliable (oh look, Nyoka is teaching Pavarti to shoot again!), once you’ve got through their subplot there isn’t much to them. Pavarti voiced some concerns in Edgewater, for example, but then didn’t say much else during the missions after that point, and mutely went along with whatever I chose to do.
Meanwhile, in New Vegas, most companions had unique dialogue for various settlements and locations, they could involve themselves (or be involved) more directly in the story (eg. selling Arcade to Caesar, or having Boone open fire automatically if you took him to Nipton before you’d triggered the massacre). Their own arc stories also played out over the course of the game, with Boone opening up and revealing his story, and earning some degree of redemption after “I Forgot to Remember to Forget”. In TOW, all the character development for the companions (eg. Ellie learning to trust people) happens in the post-game epilogue cards.
Character creation and stats
TOW looks like it’s got plenty of ways to customise your character at first, but they’re practically all meaningless. The speech checks are basically the same thing split three ways (and most of the time it's just a way to get a free bit of XP mid-conversation, rather than having substantial uses); hack and lockpick are obviously situationally useful but limited to those specific areas. With the exception of science weapons the guns all act more or less the same, as do the melee weapons.
The lack of things like barterepaimedicine/science/survival means that your ways of interacting with the world are severely limited – and restricted largely to engaging in combat (or avoiding it). There are no skill checks for side missions or alternative routes beyond the speech/hack/lockpick ones. None of those little interactive moments that NV (and even the F4 DLC) had. The little background histories are cute, but they don’t really affect anything about your character in-game – I don’t think there’s even a change to the dialogue options, just a small stat boost.
Hacking and lockpicking
Call me mad but I liked the hacking and lockpicking minigames in the 3D Fallout entries. And increasing the skill level to make them easier actually made it feel like you were actively improving your character, rather than meeting an arbitrary stat check.
Here, it’s just – hold down a button and wait. Boring, unrewarding and rote.
Quests
You’ve all seen the Beyond the Beef flowchart, right? If not, just type those words into Google and marvel at how great the design of this (minor, skippable) sidequest was in NV.
There is nothing in TOW that comes even vaguely close. Probably the most complex quest is Slaughterhouse Clive, but that basically just gives you a few alternative routes up to Clive, and then a few options for how you want to resolve the quest. Like almost all of the quests in TOW, it amounts to GO TO X, KILL Y, TALK TO Z, RETURN. There’s not a great deal of exploration, nor many ways to vary that experience. The limited range of weapons means that even the combat becomes very samey.
Worldbuilding
One of the things I loved about New Vegas was how real and interconnected everything felt. Goodsprings was under threat from escaped prisoners because the prison was overrun. That was because the guards were distracted and overworked. That was because the NCR was stretching itself too thin. That was because it was trying to hold the Dam against Mr House and Caesar. That’s because the Dam is the last foothold the NCR has in the region – and a source of power for the other two competitors.
You started off with something very small, and gradually scaled up through escalating conflicts until you saw the whole picture.
Here you have something similar, but for most of the game you’re experiencing basically the same story over and over: the corporations are failing their duty of care, the people on the ground are barely scraping by, and the working stiff is being exploited. That only really changes in the very last quarter of the game, when you find out about the Board planning to freeze everyone, and Earth doing silent. But both of those feel incidental to everything else, and come across more as a last-minute attempt to ratchet up the stakes than a cohesive part of the world.
Also, the game is kind of repetitive in its themes and humour. Basically everything boils down to “corporations are psychopaths and the working classes are fucked”, which is true but gets kind of old by the time you’ve read your 1,000th passive-aggressive memo from HR. NV had Old West, 50s Vegas/gambling and survivalism vs civilisation as its aesthetics/themes, which made for a richer and more varied game.
Storyline
Like a lot of modern RPGs, TOW's overall story follows the structure of sending your character off on a mission, then having that mission bleed into a bigger, more urgent problem around the midpoint, if not before. In NV it was “Find Benny” (for the chip, or revenge, or whatever reason you cared to invent) but became “Decide who will seize the Hoover Dam”. In Fallout 3, it was “Find your father” but became “Foil the Enclave’s plan to commit genocide”. In F4 it was “Find your son” but became “some bollocks about replicants and the railroad” (I didn’t bother finishing it).
TOW has “Help Phineas free the Hope’s survivors” as its initial objective before becoming “Foil the plans of the Board to freeze almost everyone”. But that switch basically happens in the last mission, while you’re already in the middle of freeing Phineas from the prison. So the story as a whole feels like a long slog not really getting very far, only for everything to suddenly speed up and finish the moment things seem to kick into gear.
It reeks of a last-minute rush to finish the game, and a quick compression of about half the story into a single mission. Why else is Chairman Rockwell going to happen to stumble by the prison in time for your break-out attempt, and be present only for a brief conversation? Why else is the deadly labyrinth just a big, easily navigated warehouse? Why else do the Earth revelations come so late and basically affect nothing? Why else would Akande be elevated from a barely-seen-before minor character to the BIG BAD MASTERMIND, with Phineas desperately claiming in post-battle dialogue that she was a “psychopath” to retroactively justify her presence at the end of the game?
Set design
Just kinda sucks. Why are there all these identical crates and boxes lying around with ammo and weapons in them, in the middle of a street (which company is manufacturing those boxes, BTW, and why are all the corporations so eager to buy them rather than making their own)? Where are all the little dioramas and miniature stories that were all over New Vegas? I know there’s an in-game reason for all the buildings to look exactly the same (and an out-of-game one, in that it reduces the amount of time devs have to spend making rooms), but surely a bit more could have been done to customise them?
Consequences
In NV, if you help one faction you’ll likely just piss off another – and that makes the entire map more deadly, cuts off missions you could have had, and upsets individual characters. There are reasons to think carefully about what you do, and how you do them.
In The Outer Worlds, every place is basically self-contained (even those places within Monarch, the biggest map), and other than occasional skirmishes between human NPCs and wildlife, there’s not much of a sense that doing something in one place will affect anything anywhere else. I kept pissing off the Board, but it didn’t mean much of anything. I could still turn up to Byzantium and run around freely without trouble. I wasn’t forced to skulk around in the sewers or put on a disguise to get by.
And yeah, I got MSI and the Iconoclasts to pal up. Big whoop! Didn’t affect anything other than a bit of Akande’s dialogue and a little bit of help in the Pit at the end.
Basically, I was able to ride roughshod over everything, and by the end I just didn’t care about what my “character” would or wouldn’t do, because it never really seemed to matter.
Conclusion
Look, I’m not saying TOW is a bad game. Obviously it isn’t, or I wouldn’t have finished it. But it’s a big letdown after the depth and creativity seen in NV, and I do hope that future Obsidian games will be a little bit more ambitious.

Looking for a new game to play, but is lost due to being interested in several genres/themes from city management to action games. Listing some games that I've gotten addicted to, hoping it'll help narrow some things down.

Hello, hope this is the right place to ask; I have some extra money and is looking to spend it on a game that I can get lost in for hours. Only issue is, I will try just about anything, and every genre/theme has a lot of games. Researching games after games has been tiring so I'm hoping that people can help me find the next game to get lost into.

Major Games that I've gotten lost in:

Skyrim - (Steam says I had 600 hours in it, but honestly it feels like I've invested 1k+ into it) I love the variety of things you can do in there. Also love the fact that you can decide what kind of characters you are going to be. Be it a hunter, bandit hunter, or just plain old dragon hunter. The world is also pretty awesome to explore, sometimes I would just find a place to stay and just watch the virtual world go by.
Final Fantasy XIV - (Steam says I have 4,500 hours in it, which sounds pretty accurate) My first MMO, and according to many, I am lucky to have this to be my first MMO. Leveling in that game is super fun that I ended up creating 4 characters just so I can focus on leveling. I've tried the end-game savage contents but did not like the "voice chat is a must" mentality that made it harder to find a solid group. Which leads to frustuations (see below).
Kerbal Space Program - (Steam says 500 hours) The freedom to do whatever I want, as long as my computer can handle it, IN SPACE! I like how you decide the challenge to a degree, and the challenges are very challenging, which makes the rewards of achieving it super satisfying. KSP and FFXIV are the only two games that made me bit the bullet and upgrade my potato computer into a less potato computer (see below)

General Theme I would Like:

Open World - In addition to Skyrim, I've also played Fallout 3, New Vegas, 4 as well as Assassin Creed's Odyssey. From what I've been hearing (no idea if it's true or not) that a lot of developers often are being pressured by people to create an open world that it often comes out bland/boring/cliche. So this makes me a bit wary when I hear bad feedback from games that have open world.
Management/Building - Civilization 5 is pure cancer to me, in a good way. I try not to play it outside weekends because if I do, I'll end up pulling an all-nighter without knowing it and have to go to work with no sleep... and I absolutely love it! I've also played Gnomoria which is a super fun game, and a great shame that the developers of that game stopped working on it. I know Dwarf Fortress is much better than it, but I could never really get into the complexity of Dwarf Fortress. Banished is another game that I kinda like, but I feel like it doesn't present much of a challenge when you figured out how to survive winter. I know many people think this but the game would be a little bit better with hostiles throwing a wrench in your strategy.
Character Creation - If the game/program has a solid character creation and nothing else but character creation, I'd probably drop money on it. Games such as Sims 3 & 4 I keep finding myself getting lost either creating the Sims or (as stated by above) building a house. Black Desert Online is another with a pretty good character creation that I often find myself creating characters than actually playing the game. FFXIV's and Blade and Soul's character creation I also enjoy. I don't enjoy games that give you barely anything that you ultimately look like everyone else.

Some honorable mentions:

Horror - I LOVE psychological horror games, which is why it pained me to say that I actually don't like the Amnesia series, I love the first half of those games, but once something starts chasing you and you having to hide, it kinda kills the mood for me and makes the game much less terrifying because I'm not focusing on the ambiance, I'm just trying to escape from something. Doki Doki Literature Club would fit into something like this, to a degree. At least it's the most memorable one for me in this theme. 7 Days to Die, at least the older version is another that I remember. The current version is very plain, every zombie is in very pre-generated building so you always know what you're getting into. While the older version the zombies are more "free-roam" which makes looting more intense/dreadful because you know they're getting closer since they can hear you looting (I know this clash with my previous statement, but I'm not sure how to explain it in an effective manner). Also it makes every decision a gamble: "There could be something in that building, but I don't have a weapon to defend myself. Should I risk it or not?"
Survival - Don't Starve deserves the top for me, I remember dying to everything except hunger in that game and I really enjoy it. I also modded Skyrim to make it into a bit of a survivalist theme and really enjoyed it. Subnautica is a very unique take on surviving as well, also love the building aspect in that game. Despite being kinda limiting.

Platform:

Playstation 4
PC (I don't have the best computer, it can't run any modern AAA games such as Odyssey or any demanding games like that, but it can play older games like Skyrim/Fallout very well)

__________
General Themes that I would rather avoid:

Frustuation/Severe Punishment for messing up - I've mentioned KSP because of its fun challenges; It can be frustrating sometimes but ultimately it doesn't punish you if you fail the challenge (to a degree), but there are games that do punish you if you make too much mistakes. Dark Souls I actually never played, but heard that it's very difficult and frustrating. Bloodborne is another game that I heard punish you severely if you die. I suppose I could consider myself as a casual of some sorts in these kind of regards, but if I find myself resetting and having to go through a bunch of challenges (or the lack thereof) just to risk getting reset again, I'm not going to be having fun.
MMOs - I know I mentioned an MMO as one of my top played games, but I've tried quite a few MMOs such as Black Desert, Blade and Soul, and TERA and they are all very cash-grabby or is very plain that it doesn't stand out.
Puzzles/Walking Simulators - There are a few puzzles/walking simulators that I kinda enjoy, but they are mostly horror-related. I've tried things as The Witness but never got too into it. Never really found the appeal in them due to their very short playtime.

I know this is quite a wall of text, but I figured the more information I give, then maybe someone can suggest a game that I'll end up getting lost in that makes it 100% worth the money. Thank you very much if you made it this far, and thank you again in advance if you have a game to suggest.

What A Day: Curious, Georgia by Sarah Lazarus & Crooked Media (04/23/20)

"Why don’t we just put everybody in a space outfit or something like that?" - Stephen Moore, economic advisor to the president and grown man

Mitch Better Have My Money

More than 4.4 million Americans filed new jobless claims in the last week, bringing the reported unemployment total over the past five weeks to 26 million. Faced with those numbers, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has decided it’s time to pump the brakes on any additional economic relief, and possibly force blue states and cities into bankruptcy, reminding us all why he's the most popular politician in America.

Members of the House returned to the Capitol to approve the $484 billion stimulus bill passed by the Senate earlier this week, modeling varying degrees of personal responsibility on the floor. The funding in that package is expected to be depleted within days: Banks have been swamped with small-business loan applications, and the bulk of the $310 billion being added to the program is already spoken for.
The House also voted to establish a select committee, led by House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, to oversee the administration’s coronavirus spending. The text of the resolution actually gives the panel more far-reaching power than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi initially indicated—it has the authority to investigate Trump’s larger response and U.S. pandemic preparedness, including internal administration deliberations. Pelosi said today that it won’t actually...do that, at least not in the near future.
As Congress shifts its focus to the next major piece of coronavirus legislation, McConnell has suggested that perhaps instead of lawmakers allocating more funds for state and local governments on the brink of economic disaster, those governments should just go fuck themselves? McConnell, who has bizarrely characterized that federal help as “Blue State Bailouts,” said he’d rather invent a way for states to declare bankruptcy than approve more relief, a proposal that Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) today called “one of the really dumb ideas of all time.” More tellingly, McConnell is also at odds with President Trump and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who have both signaled that they’re on board with Democrats’ call to include that funding in the next bill.

In New York, preliminary results from antibody studies indicate that the state’s 250,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus may be just the tip of the iceberg.

Nearly 3,000 people across the state were randomly tested in supermarkets, and about 14 percent of them tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies. In New York City the rate was higher: 21 percent of roughly 1,300 people tested positive. The lag in testing left New York in the dark: A new model from researchers at Northeastern University suggests that there were thousands of infections in NYC, and four other major U.S. cities, long before testing revealed there was a problem.
Further south, Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) is forging ahead with his plan to reopen some nonessential businesses tomorrow, even after Trump abruptly threw him under the bus on Wednesday, saying he “strongly disagreed” with Kemp’s decision, a day after publicly praising him. (The coronavirus task force reportedly convinced Trump to reverse course.) Many business owners and workers in the state do not feel comfortable returning to work, but if they refuse, they risk losing their unemployment aid.

Even with unemployment numbers rising by the millions every week, an overwhelming majority of Americans understand that reopening the economy prematurely isn’t the solution. A Politico/Morning Consult poll from last weekend found that 76 percent of respondents felt social distancing measures should continue for as long as necessary. Kemp and reckless Republican leaders like him are ignoring public opinion in addition to national guidelines, and endangering public health.

Look No Further Than The Crooked Media

So far, 3,660 of you have used the call tool on https://votesaveamerica.com/call to get connected to your representatives in Congress and tell them that they need to include funding to make elections safe and accessible as part of their next coronavirus package. Keep them coming!
Now we want to hear from you: why do YOU need safer voting options this year? Whether you have a preexisting condition that puts you at risk, or don’t feel safe volunteering at the polls, we want to hear your story. Send in a video to us at 323-405-9944 so we can share your story and send a message to Congress and the state governments about how important this is →

Under The Radar

Florida has distinguished itself as a nightmarish place to be unemployed. The state is one of the slowest in the country to process its jobless claims, which means hundreds of thousands of unemployed Florida workers have been waiting weeks to receive their first checks, and many haven’t even been able to file their claims. The state agreed to start accepting paper applications this month, after its unemployment website broke down under the volume of traffic. Florida’s GOP leaders have intentionally weakened its unemployment system over the last decade, leaving its workers particularly vulnerable in this crisis: The state’s unemployment benefits max out at $275 a week.
Nearly all of the major battleground states in the 2020 election are experiencing higher-than-average layoffs. In addition to prying more relief funding out of Mitch McConnell’s cold bloodless hands, it will be on all of us to make sure those voters realize that this level of economic fallout, and the broken systems exacerbating it, were preventable.

What Else?

President Trump’s immigration executive order temporarily restricts some visas, but doesn’t contain the broad freeze on green cards he announced earlier this week.
China pledged an additional $30 million to the World Health Organization after Trump froze U.S. funding. If the U.S. wants to surrender its influence over a key international institution, China is happy to take up that role.
Elizabeth Warren’s eldest brother has died after contracting the coronavirus. Don Reed Herring, an Air Force veteran, died at age 86 on Tuesday.
Las Vegas, NV, workers have pushed back on Mayor Carolyn Goodman’s calls to reopen the city as a “control group,” to see what happens without social distancing. Goodman said she wanted hotels and casinos to reopen quickly, but doesn’t have jurisdiction over the Las Vegas Strip. Goodman also said she wouldn’t go to the reopened casinos herself because “I don’t gamble,” which is (chef’s kiss).
Leaked results from a clinical trial of remdesivir in China showed it carries no benefit for coronavirus patients, though the study ended prematurely because it had too few patients. Other studies are still in progress.
Two cats in New York have become the first U.S. pets to test positive for coronavirus. Health officials emphasized there’s no evidence that pets can transmit the virus to people.
Scientists in the U.K. think dogs might soon be able to sniff out asymptomatic COVID-19 cases. Labradors and spaniels have already been trained to detect malaria, and within weeks, some very good boys may play an important role in identifying coronavirus superspreaders.
The San Clemente, CA, plan to deter skateboarders by filling a skate park with sand has backfired by attracting dirt bikers. The wild BMX bikes have returned to the skate park. Nature is healing.

Be Smarter

In a New York Times op-ed this week, Dr. Richard Levitan described volunteering at New York’s Bellevue Hospital for 10 days. Levitan shared a new insight into what makes COVID pneumonia uniquely dangerous: Unlike most pneumonia patients with very low oxygen saturation (hypoxia), many COVID-19 patients don’t feel short of breath until they’re close to respiratory failure. That seems to be a result of the peculiar way the coronavirus attacks the lungs, and when patients breathe faster and harder to compensate for their “silent hypoxia” without realizing it, their lungs sustain further damage. That may explain why so many patients on ventilators ultimately die: They didn’t get to the hospital until their pneumonia was well advanced. Levitan recommended more widespread use of pulse oximeters to detect hypoxia early.
Since the op-ed was published, pulse oximeters have become impossible to find, which Levitan says is no cause for panic. (Hospitals don't use the same devices, so this isn't an N95 mask situation.) Think of it like a thermometer—something you should probably have in your home eventually.

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Is That Hope I Feel?

Publix has launched an initiative to purchase milk and fresh produce from struggling farmers, and donate it directly to Feeding America food banks.
Braskem America workers voluntarily lived at the factory for 28 days, producing tens of millions of pounds of the raw materials needed for PPE.
Ruth's Chris Steak House, Sweetgreen, and King Sushi announced they’ll return the small-business loans they received from the Payroll Protection Program. Yelling at companies on the internet works!
A federal appeals court ruled that Detroit students (and by extension, all children in the U.S.) have a fundamental right to a basic education.
Virginia has become the latest state to end prison gerrymandering, the practice of counting incarcerated people where they’re detained, rather than at their last known residence.

Enjoy

Geoff Lemon 🍋 on Twitter: "The Pope being schooled in theological biology by an account dedicated to bat PR is perhaps the best combination of things to happen on this website."

I (23F) don't know when to leave him (32M) after 3 years, were these red flags I ignored? HELP?!!!**LONG**

Please bare with me because I need the motivation and courage to take the next steps in leaving my SO! Things have been especially difficult since May so that's where I'll start from.
Some background information: We met on an dating app 3 years ago, I moved in with him and his roommate a little over a year ago, we got a dog for our 1 year anniversary, he's an engineer, I'm a full-time student (in my last year before transferring), part-time worker, I take anti-depressants (have been the last 2 years), he's an only child (I have 4 other siblings), his parents are divorced (my mom raised me by herself) and he's an extrovert while I am an introvert. for the past 3 years I have been pretty much maintaining the condo because it felt fair since I don't pay rent. Instead, I do laundry(fold & put away), wash dishes, meal prep for the 2 or 3 of us, take care of our dog, vacuum, sweep, mop, take out trash, clean the bathroom, make the bed everyday, and basically clean up after him except wipe his ass. I do the chores at least once a week or whenever possible because I know how good it feels mentally to come home to a clean place. This is also the longest relationship I have ever been in so I'm new to what to expect or how to work things. Since I have moved in with him, I don't have anything of mine in our room as decorations, I have a dresser, books, my printer, and that's it. I didn't get an opinion when he got new couches, a bigger bed, color for the sheets, nothing of mine is hung up on our bedroom wall, I could pretty much pack up everything that is mine and leave in maybe 2 hours.
May was particularly difficult not because we were fighting more but because we knew we were falling apart, yet, neither of us said anything about it. We were having less sex (maybe 3x a month), he stopped trying foreplay a long time ago, instead he would play with my breast thinking they were some magic buttons to get me turned on for him, BIG NO. I go to school, workout, and work at least 4x a week, i have to find time for homework, him and maybe then, myself. Anyways, Spring semester had ended and we were relaxing at home after I did all the chores around the house and he abruptly said he wanted to talk. I knew this was no good but agreed anyways; he went on about how he wants me to show more affection, that I've been kicking ass at school, work, and staying fit, and he thinks I'm doing better with my depression but he wants me to let him know I love him more by telling him he looks good after he works out, when he's checking himself out in the bathroom etc. he tell me that in the beginning of the year he felt that we were doing so good he even thought about proposing but once things got rocky, he talked himself out of. I was DEVASTATED, felt as if we were having this talk because he was telling me "we've been great and i thought about marriage but let's just keep things how they are now" and I asked why he didn't bring this up earlier and he claimed he didn't want to upset me because it was close to finals. It made me feel like this relationship was going to go through a restart and it was going to be another 3 years before he proposed.
My birthday came around in July right after I was done with summer school which was also an amazing way to celebrate, or so I thought.I wanted to go to this museum/ship near us that has tours, haunted tours, restaurant, and is a hotel; I have loved going their since I was a girl and their rooms are so romantic, I wanted to spend my first time there with him. But what did he say? No, let's go to Vegas. So what did we do? We went to Vegas!!! We went the day after school was out, got a hotel, I gambled for the first time in the slots, he played crabs and gambled way more, I drank a bit but the Vegas scene isn't really my thing. Anyways, the day of my birthday came and he got me 2 GIFT CARDS, GIFT CARDS!! How insensitive is that? Am I crazy? Did we just start dating the month prior? I mean they were for REI and VS but still. I always get him sentimental despite being tight on money. My traditional gifts for him is getting him socks with our dog's faces on them which he goes crazy for, he has a pair with her as a puppy, one year old, a huge under bite and then his face. So I brushed it off because I didn't want to feel like my day was ruined so the day went on, we ate at awesome places and that night we decided to go to a club together for the first time. Well he went all out with a nice outfit and suspenders, while I went more simple and had me feeling so out of place, I felt like I was under dressed, and the rest of the girls around us were so much prettier; I was in no mood to dance or drink. So what ended up happening? He tried to have me dance/drink and I felt so out of place, I started crying so we stood against the wall for maybe 2 hours while he stood with his arms crossed, clearly showing how upset he was. We left the next day and that was that. Life went on with our usual routines, until it didn't.
August/September we oddly enough were going to a lot of his friend's weddings so I was wondering how or if all these events were taking a toll on him so on our way to one, I asked him if he felt pressured to get married soon because all his friends were getting married. His reply will forever scar me, he said "it's not that I feel pressured to get married. It's just that I don't know how much time I have left before you realize you can do better." I was absolutely speechless. Am I wasting my time? Does he think I'm stupid? Clearly he does, right? Does this mean he'll understand if I break up with him? WHAT AM I DOING? we left it at that and enjoyed the amazing weddings and I never brought it up again.
October was a little crazier than our usual drama and me deciding what I want out of this relationship. After working out relentlessly 6 times a week for an hour each session, I had been feeling good about myself so I decided to buy myself some lingerie to treat myself and figured I could finally look as good as I felt (and I could use the gift card I got from my SO). So I'm browsing through the website and there are a few outfits I can't decide on so I call him over for his input and so he can get a hint of what's to come for him. Anyways, he comes over and is looking over the ones I needed help choosing, I ask him which he likes, and he says word for word "I don't know, I don't really see you wearing that kind of stuff" I felt like I got punched in the gut and got all the air knocked out of me but he wasn't done. I told him I was just going to decide myself when he said "who are you going to wear it for?" I know he meant it playfully but wtf dude. I was shocked and decided I would only wear the lingerie for myself because I fucking deserved it. A few weeks go by and I go out dancing with my best friend and some other girlfriends with their boyfriends but since my SO doesn't like any of my friends, I went without him, had an amazing time, came back the next morning and told him I had picked up a shift and jokingly said I needed it to make up for all the drinks I had to buy myself and his response? "Oh good, that's how I know you weren't whoring yourself around" he said this in front of one of his friend's and then went back to what he was doing like what he said wasn't a jab to my soul. I was upset but brushed it off because he probably meant it as a joke. The following week we had another fallout where my friend called me at 6:45pm and I told her I'd call her after work in 15 minutes. Well while we were on the phone, my SO calls me twice, I ignore it and text him that I'm on the phone and will call him afterwards, he calls once more but this time leaves a voicemail. Once, I get home, I greet our roommate, talk about our days, sit next to him and call back my SO only for him to respond in such a nasty attitude ranting on about how I don't prioritize him, what if it was an emergency, how awful I was and how he couldn't reply to my text because he was driving. He's going off on me and is so loud that our roommate can hear everything he's saying to me so after I apologize and tell him I didn't think it'd be a big deal, he abruptly hangs up on me and my roommate asks if I'm ok, I shake my head no and quickly head to my room before he notices me crying, I'm crying on the bed in the dark when I decide to listen to the voicemail which is just so nasty with the same attitude, it saddens me deeply. He gets home and after 2 hours of being home he finally talks to me, tells me he is no longer mad; I tell him that what he did and said was uncalled for, unappreciated, hurt me, and that I deserve an apology but he refused! He said that he didn't feel the need to apologize since his feelings were valid at the time! Is this how relationships work? I tell him that I refuse to sleep next ti him while we are upset at each other, he claims he's no longer upset but I am so I tell him I'm going over to my friend's house to sleep over, all he does is look at me for a few seconds and says ok! I slowly pack in case he wants to say something more but no, he just continues to tuck himself to bed. I close the door behind me, start to sob when our roommate asks where I'm going, that I shouldn't drive when I'm that emotional, that he's just being stupid, that I could sleep in his room and he'll sleep in the living room so I cry harder because of how much more compassionate and kind our roommate is than my actual SO that I've been with for 3 years! He tells me to at least text him when I get to my destination but not even 10 minutes after I close the front door, my SO texts me "I miss you", was it too hard to run out the door and tell me that himself? Couldn't he just have called? Couldn't he have apologized, told me he loved me and asked me not to go? I guess not. The next day he gave me the whole "It wasn't until you left that I realized how wrong I was and I'm sorry. I shouldn't have reacted the way I did....etc" and I told him that I baby him too much and he never gets consequences for what he does. His changes last a week. We have another talk about how we are falling apart and we don't know what to do, he cries, tells me he's worried, he loves me, etc but there is something wrong that we can't pinpoint but in reality I'm too chicken to tell him how fucked up he is to me so I tell him that maybe we just need space from each other. I suggest I move out for a bit to regain our communication in order to see if that can better our relationship.He refuses but at this point, we need to try anything so he finally agrees, I pack, and he offers to help me get my bags to my car. This whole time I am crying, he is so silent, cold and gives these glares like I'm stabbing his back somehow. He didn't talk to me for over a day and that's when the sweet texts roll in about how we are going to get passed this because we've gone through tougher obstacles, he misses me, wants me home, etc etc. I tell him I want romance back, I want help around the house, how mean he's been to me, and he claims he wants more affection from me, wants me to show him how much I love him more. So I go back and things are great for the first 2 weeks..
November something new happened! We went to a rave kind of concert with our roommate, SO's coworker, and coworker's SO. I know our roommate is a huge raver so I knew he does some appropriate things for the appropriate setting and I was offered some and I politely declined. What I did know is that my SO was going to try a certain "vitamin" despite me telling him I wouldn't feel comfortable with him doing it, well whatever me I suppose. What i didn't know is that when we got there, once my roommate offered "protein powder" to my SO to snort, he just simply said yes without consulting me or anything. The 3 minutes that it took for everything to happen seemed to hit me like a bullet, it was fast, too fast for me to react but when I did, it was painful, dreadful, and scarring. My heart sank further than it ever has, it hit a new low. All I wanted to do was crawl home.
December is when I decided to do something new and spontaneous which I decide to take a cross country road trip by myself for no reason. i had a little over 2 weeks off for the holidays so that was my vacation window. Well, my SO did not like the idea so every time it was brought up,he kept telling me how stupid I was, how I've never driven so much before, I won't be able to enjoy myself, driving isn't fun, there's no reason, I won't spend the holidays with him etc etc. I think he was just hurt that I didn't invite him but I stuck to it and did it which was mind blowing, I regret nothing! Since I had to skip the holidays, we all did Christmas the day before I left, I got him an amazing painting of our dog in a renaissance outfit, a few shirts with awesome designs, a gnome because we collect them, and some grilling accessories like a cast iron skillet etc. What did I get? A set of NEW POTS AND PANS, a kitchen aid, a puffy jacket, some The Office stuff, a new laptop (that he got for black Friday and insisted on still wrapping it), a board game and a puzzle. It was horrible but I put on a brave face and fought on.
**We are almost there!! Thank you for all those that have made it this far, you are amazing*
January came too fast because by the 6th, I was back home, wishing I was still on the road. I was so happy during my trip, the happiest I have ever been in a long time to the extent of telling my waitresses and random strangers I loved them! I wanted to chase that feeling once I got home and was determined too so when I got home, I was so "meh" about seeing my SO, he didn't even greet me with a hug, he was so eagered in showing me how much work he did around the house (he painted the kitchen, cleaned up our room and cleared out half his closet for me), and that's it. No kisses, hugs, or anything that indicated he missed me for the past 16 days.I knew I had to break it off before I was stuck in this loop that I called life again, I had to do it while I still had the courage to want to better myself. Luckily our roommate was heading to Vegas for the weekend and my SO was going for a day so I figured I could move all of my stuff out while he was gone, wait for him to come back and have the talk. So that's what I did, he came back Saturday night and by that time, I had moved all my stuff that fit in my friend's car and were at her place. I waited for him nervously, I started crying once I heard him coming up the stairs, and just started spewing the whole "it's been great, I think we've tried enough, been rocky the past months, told him I didn't have the time anymore with more time consuming obligations, it's me not you, I haven't stopped loving you, I just stopped being happy" he cried, begged me not to do it, told me his door was always open for me, did everything for me, blah blah blah, after 2 hours, I left. I cried the entire ride back to my friend's house, sobbed out loud, poured my heart out from how much it hurt me. Sadly to inform you, it only lasted a week, I cried every night, I replied to all his texts/calls, agreed to see him, I did everything I shouldn't have. I went back to him saying I was wrong, I needed to find myself again, and I wanted to work on things and try harder. We agreed we were going to talk about our feelings every week, talk about our goals once a month, be more open and communicate more about how we felt about our relationship. Well weirdest thing has happened, as soon as I came back, I want back out! I'm terrified that my friends and family won't be there for me for being so hot and cold, I'm terrified because I can't find the courage, I'm constantly nauseous from how awful I feel, I have a constant urge to just run, run and never look back. At the same time, I don't want to be a quitter, I need to live up to my word no matter how miserable I am since I'm unhappy with him but miserable without. It's now been 2 weeks back and it's getting WORSE somehow. This past Thursday we had our goal talk but made it into a date night and went out for dinner and pie. I told him how for the past 5 years, I've been wanting to go to this one University in another country, I want to have kids in the next 5 years,maybe be married in the next and as once I was done, he just started telling me how school out of the country is too expensive, he can't do long distance, there's no way he's moving for me, it's not possible, it doesn't matter where you get your degree blah blah. I started crying and told him that I was passionate about it and was going to be hard to choose between him and my dream. It breaks my heart thinking about it now, I started crying during dinner and he just sat there telling me how lucky he was to graduate school debt free, how he was also working and going to school so he knew the struggle, etc. So we drove home silently apart from his "well that wasn't so productive" comment. Well on Saturday, we talked about my medication because I recently switched and there was an issue with my insurance covering it and i had told him about it, his way of solving it was "have you thought about seeing a therapist? I wouldn't mind us seeing a therapist either together or separately" I was shocked and told him "Yeah I've thought about it and I don't feel comfortable knowing someone has to get paid to hear me talk about my issues and I certainly don't think we should go together", He said "Well they're professionals that can help you, your psychiatrist won't listen to you,she'll just prescribe you meds" (but of course, he's never seen one, we were having this conversation while I was doing homework and he was watching tv) so he sits up and says " Hey, look at me, look at me (so I looked), I think you would honestly benefit talking to a therapist more than I would so you should consider seeing one" and I thought that was a bad subtle way of saying "your'e fucking crazy, go get help" so I said I'd think about it and he went back to watching TV as if what he just said wasn't hurtful. This Sunday, he brought up about how we had to talk about our feelings as I was getting into bed. Is it just me or is that just a bad idea?!! I go to bed to relax and sleep, not to have an emotional conversation that determines our future. I told him how hurtful I was about his therapy comment and he apologized so I told him to just watch the tone, volume, and the gestures he does while he says things because he doesn't seem to be considerate about my feelings. He apologized again and said that he felt as if something was between us, that today felt weird, and how much my school goals mess up the rest of our goals because without the school, our goals can match up but of course, I fuck it up. So I tell him that it's a difficult thing for me to decide on the spot so instead of continuing to talk like human beings, he turns away from me and tries to go to sleep!! And I'm left with 2 options: cuddle him to show him affection or turn away because of how hurt I am from how much a failure this whole conversation was. So of course I spooned him because I've been doing it for the past 2 years.He no longer spoons me, instead I (5'3) have to cuddle him (5'10) while he spoons and holds a pillow. Today, he found out that his grandfather passed away, so I was already done with class and home so I was here to greet him but he wasn't sad or anything; he had already been expecting it. So he started packing his things to go tend to his grandma and everyone else but before he left he pressured me to "keep an open mind and at least consider" doing some "activities" with him but the more I said no, the more he kept getting annoyed/upset. He really tried to push me to do something after saying no countless of times.
I know I need to leave him but I don't know where to start from. How? When? Timing is never on my side. I need courage, motivation, help and patience. Ugh.
TL;DR: I think I've ignored a lot of red flags in my relationship and now I don't know how to break things off with my SO of 3 years.

Why I hated Fallout 4. Why I loved Fallout: New Vegas. Why I accepted Fallout 4. Why I enjoy Fallout 4. Why I'm excited for Fallout 76.

This is just my late night/early morning rant for a question that got deleted as I still in the middle of writing it. The original question was, "Why is it 'trendy' to hate on Fallout 4?" I wanted to answer honestly or at least passionately, but that was before the post was deleted. I spent a few hours compiling my ramblings and didn't want to waste my time commenting a forgotten thread. Maybe someone will get something useful from it.
To everyone that is worried or enraged; To everyone who didn't understand the hate; To anyone that cares. This is my letter to you.
Why I hated Fallout 4 and why I loved Fallout: New Vegas.
It's not that it is a popular opinion to hate it. Most people really like it. But things that other people liked about the franchise were simply missing. Those that were hanging onto the series were expecting a game following FO:NV, but it was really only a sequel to FO3. It was an objective improvement from FO3 in every way, but was only mechanically better than FO:NV(which is mechanically identical to FO3, save iron-sights).
Fans of FO:NV definitely enjoyed the improvements made, but what was lost in the process was not worth it in their eyes.
Things that I believe were not improved upon from FO:NV to FO4:

Factions and Quests. You know how important Goodneighbor is to the plot of FO4? Literally only the Memory Den. An entire town of misfits and scoundrels that despite their differences got together and made something for themselves. How did you change Goodneighbor? They pretty openly hate the Institute, but just accept that they are in charge now? Let me tell you about Freeside, the very model of post-apocalyptic poverty. Freeside is a place you go when you want to gamble, fuck, and get high, at the low cost of whatever you have left, because if you could afford anything better you wouldn't be there. You even have to pay for some goddamn clean water. This is where you are at and stay if you didn't have the cash(or skill check) to get through the big ass fancy gate that leads to the main plot. What you do here and how you do it will determine not only your reputation with the two small factions, but with one of the main factions as well. You can be their messiah and they'll grant you offerings, or be their boogieman and watch hapless idiots run from the sight of you. It feels like a place that people live in. Not just a set piece. It's the smaller factions that you never see in FO4. You never defend the wall of Diamond City, you don't sway the Goodneighbor populace for a new mayor, you can't hire the Gunners for merc work, and what does being more open to outsiders really do for Vault 81? WHY CAN'T I JUST BLOW SHIT UP WITH LORENZO! Really, this is why I made Factions and Quests the same bullet point; FO4 made what could've been a neat way to affect the story into only a side quest. In Fallout: New Vegas I feel like I'm actually changing the world around; FO4 made me feel like all the side quests were good for was was XP and loot.
Companions and Karma. When I say Karma, I don't just mean the measurement of goodness and badness that was arbitrarily weighed. When you make a choice in FO:NV it sticks with you(for better or for worse). I guess I should've made it Reputation, but that isn't exactly right either. Each companion has their own individual likes and dislikes in FO4, but only when they are around to witness it? Only those that belong with a major faction can turn against me. If I saved a settlement that needed my help and no one is around to see it, did I really do it? If I literally slaughtered most of the local neighborhood, would Curie still be in love with me if it was at least 50 meters away from her house. Why would a settlement ask me for help, if I have been sending raiders to take their breakfast? In FO:NV, doing good things made you honest and trustworthy; Doing bad things would made you someone not to be trifled with. Deacon talks about my exploits and feels like the only time my exploits matter. I walk up to Bunker Hill and was asked if I'm a raider. I said raider and get told my bosses were paid. "I'm the Overboss, you pay ME now!" I can never get the same gratification as Walter White. Preston probably is the only one to say something when I turn raiders on settlements. He'll stop being my best buddy and lost practically all trust in me, but will just stand by and let me be the General of literally the only thing he had to live for while I keep his companion perk. While I'm on that, it was a horrible idea to tie companion perks to the player instead of the companion themselves. It made companions a task to complete rather than the friend who tags along. You know what New Vegas did? Let me tell you about Raul. A retired gunslinger turned mechanic that is willing to buddy up with you because freed him from slavery and he is pretty bored. Do you know what completing his quest line get you? Not a damn thing. You know what it does do? It buffs Raul. It didn't have to be a simple upgrade either, depending on how you talk to him during his quest he can go back to his gunslinger ways(getting a fire-rate upgrade) or commit full-time to the whole mechanics shtick(improving his basic maintenance perk). It improves him as a companion and you can only benefit while he is your companion. Exception to this in New Vegas is Arcade Gannon. I always gotta get that sweet Tesla Armor.
Skill Checks. You could probably count non-charisma skill checks in FO4 with your fingers. Giving the benefit of the doubt, I believe the Perk tree to be a serviceable replacement to cover skills checks in these scenarios as it worked well enough for the robot navy. Skill checks did become entirely absent from Speech though. I felt as though my S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats weren't contributing as much to the RPG experience as I thought it would. Any display of might, generosity, or logic was all through Charisma. In this point it's not how much worse they did skill checks in FO4 than in FO:NV; It is about how little FO4 tried integrating skill checks into the game. I appreciated the bits they added in the DLC, but the thought of why they couldn't do that in the first place always crept up.
Immortal Characters. Why am I salty about essential characters? I was given a pretty good impression that I wasn't going to have this problem in FO4. Maybe I just misinterpreted our boy Howard when he said that I could just shoot'em in the face. With the obvious exception of children, I thought everyone was free game. I'm sure most can recognize the stress relief of a good old quicksave>rampage>quickload. Can't really enjoy the post-rampage silence, when people that should've fallen to the might of atom are getting up from their nap and begin taking pot shots at me.

I don't want to start sounding super pessimistic about the whole thing. Plenty of this is super subjective on my end. Now I would like to point out the good Bethesda did, at least in comparison to FO3.
Why I accepted Fallout 4 and why I enjoy it now.
Things that I believe were improved upon from FO3 to FO4:

Better weapons. I don't mean variety or style, FO4 really feel like weapons in my hands. Using a pistol or rifle in FO3 is fundamentally inferior and not just because you can't use iron-sights. Energy weapons do a different kind of damage all together. Being able to tinker with my weapons always felt personalized, even if there were only a linear way to upgrade some of them. THANK GOD WEAPON DEGRADATION IS GONE! (That last part is really my personal feeling about it).
Power Armor. These were meant to be walking tanks. And walking tanks they are! It's not just a heavy armor you needed training to use. It is something you basically take for a ride. It feels unique. Sure, power cells aren't exactly super rare, but maintaining the armor definitely made me use it more sparingly anyway. The only place I don't mind armor degradation.
Radiation. Getting a hit in Endurance or other shit never really felt too bad. As long you kept it from hitting the deadly range, you never worried about radiation too much in FO3. Now that shit is staring you in the face yelling "HEY ASSHOLE TAKE A RAD-AWAY," and I do. Affecting max health was a great way for me to take radiation more seriously.
Factions. Not much of a thing in FO3. I mean, there were factions, but you don't really get to choose which side you take. It was just a good guys vs bad guys situation. There was no nuance. In FO4, it's not just "do the right thing or the bad thing," it becomes "what is the right thing to do?" You can also continue on with your victorious faction after the endgame without needing a DLC pack.
Settlements. You can literally build shit. That's pretty cool. Even if it was shitty, I loved my little shitty shack. Some people did some crazy stuff with settlements and their ability to have fun and make use of it always puts a smile on my face.
Enemies. Holy shit! Do you know how scarred I was when I first encountered ghouls in FO4. They came out the walls! Deathclaws picked me up and grand-slammed me! A super mutant charged me with a MINI-NUKE! Only cazador buzzing ever made me this nervous. Even though experience has brought me courage, survival mode still knocks me down a peg.

There are other things I liked, but they aren't objectively better things compared to FO3. Say what you will, I liked the perk tree. It made planning my levels and how I wanted to play a lot easier. VATS is pretty good too, but it has some kinks to work out as well. Like when I line up a sequence of shots in VATS and the target still moves as I fire which can drastically alter the possibility of shots actually connecting.
I sort of took things in stride when it came to Fallout 4. My first play-through left me with a bad after taste. Like trying oyster or durian for the first time. But I only hated it because of what I was expecting it to taste like. There was so much to the flavor that I had to stop getting hang up on what I wanted out of it. I enjoy Fallout 4 for what it was and not for what it wasn't. Not to say we should ignore it's faults either. Durian may be delicious, but it still smells like a centaur's taint.
Some people loving or hating Fallout 4 don't come from blind faith or high expectations. People that really love Fallout 4 are able to take it as it is: A Bethesda RPG. From those that hate it, it's not out of entitlement, it's out of the love for the Fallout games they spent hundreds of hours on.
This was all I had to say to the individual or whoever made that initial post. Since I'm making this a post I wanted to add something for everyone else. To everyone else that is excited, worried, terrified, or cautiously optimistic, here is...
Why I am excited for Fallout 76.
I love Fallout. Not just the games. I love the community. I love the lore. I love the new things I didn't even know I wanted from Fallout. I love the modding scene. I love the let's plays. I love seeing the knick knacks and trinkets that people made for their loved ones. Fallout were mostly single player games, but I always felt like I was playing with everyone already. If it wasn't for everyone in the Fallout community I probably wouldn't have bothered with Fallout. My first Fallout was FO3, but I couldn't play it because I was using Windows 7. Without your help I wouldn't have been able to step into the Fallout world(somewhat literal in this case). I picked up New Vegas soon after I had my fun with FO3 and I liked NV even better. After 200 hours I thought, "OK what is up with this modding stuff?" 100 more hours later I was finally able to configure a stable load order and play what was essentially New Vegas+. Then a new Fallout was teased. There was a secret code and shit and everyone was excited about this Survivor 2299. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. We had our fun, but many of us were never able to trust the same way. Then it came. "Please Stand By" It was actually happening. We were picking apart every single detail we could from trailer snapshots. So many things were changing at once, a lot for the better, a lot for the worse. Things then got a whole lot better when they brought the new and improved hardcore mode. Things got a little worse when Creation Club dropped. And then a little worse some more when I had police Fallout updates so that it didn't crash F4ES. Things were still pretty good though.
And now it's happening again. A whole new Fallout, maybe something different than anything we have seen before. I have no fucking clue what is going to happen with this one. I can't even give you a guess right now. I think I'm going to like it though. Maybe I'll never get back that New Vegas experience, it wasn't a Bethesda RPG anyway. If Bethesda wants to make Fallout grow out of its RPG roots into something more, something different, then that is alright by me.
I pre-ordered Fallout 4(season pass, pip-boy and all) and I still don't regret it. It wasn't everything I expected, but it was still something to be proud of. It was still something I enjoyed being a part of. Maybe Fallout 76 will suck ass; So did Brotherhood of Steel, not that I personally experienced it. Maybe It'll be something good, but different. I don't know. I do know that I love Fallout and everyone involved with it. The love for it, the hate, and everything in between.
That is why I'm excited for Fallout 76.
I don't have a TLDR, but hopefully the bullets helped. I'm not exactly a writing major so maybe someone out there probably could've put these words together better than I could. Maybe I could've used better examples. If there are any serious grammatical mistakes, let me know so that I can edit it later if you caught them. I was and am incredibly tired after typing this. If you did make it all the way through, thank you for reading.

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