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This is an attempt to overhaul and restore the Freeside worldspace to what was the developer's original intent; a sprawling, densely populated area full of danger and unexpected events. It's clear from even a cursory look at the game's files that the Freeside worldspace(s) in the shipped game is nowhere near as interesting as the original plan for the area, with huge amounts of content culled, and numerous bugs and oversights meaning large parts of content that did ship and were enabled simply don't work. The reason for the drastic downsizing of Freeside and the curbing of ambition of what would occur there is simple - technical difficulties. A fully populated Freeside will cause even mid range PCs to struggle at times, and the extra strain on the notoriously unstable Gamebryo engine increases the likelihood of crashes. This mod, heavily based on Razorwire's excellent modders resource Open Freeside merges the two different worldspaces back into one single worldspace, and also makes the Mormon fort part of the same persistant area as was originally intended. It also extensively overhauls the area, readding the significant cut content, fixing many of the glaring bugs in the area, and adding new original elements to make the town more interesting.
These enhancements come at a cost - this mod is vastly more demanding than the neutered vanilla version of the area. Gamblers will now constantly stream into Freeside on their way to the Strip and its casinos (some will also stop off at the Atomic Wrangler) as they were always meant to. They are of course easy picking for thugs or even the player, so some have hired bodyguards to protect them. Bodyguards will hawk their services to passing Gamblers and the player. With the increased danger of thugs in this mod they may also be a viable option for low level players. Restored around 100 lines of dialogue. All the lines of dialogue for locals were broken due to missing faction conditions. These are restored, along with dialogue for drunks, squatters, gossipers, and pickpockets. These characters were either removed, or had their dialogue conditions completely botched. There's new kinds of NPCs. Squatters will occasionally try and rush the strip gates to get in, with predictable consequences. These are now correctly randomised from the pool Obsidian setup but never used. The first rusher you see when you talk to Old Ben will also be randomised now, instead of the weird looking pasty man it wrongly spawned. Restored cut scenes and quests. Rotface's previously cut quest can now be completed, and some existing quests have new ways to resolve them. Some important NPCs now also have restored dialogue and new roles to play in the game. Warning! Pickpockets operate in this area. Check your valuables! |
