Jogre
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
So, I've become aware that pre-Fallout 3, lots of Fallout fans took issue with New Reno, claiming that it was implausible, and not fallout like.
Instead of gravedigging, I decided to write this up as a separate thread, writing up a general post defending New Reno.
From what I can tell the main criticisms were as follows: It is too rebuilt, It economically doesn't make sense, the Mafia theme is too silly and that the gang politics don't make sense. I'll address all of these criticisms
I've read a lot more intelligent criticisms of New Reno being too rebuilt in this thread: http://www.nma-fallout.com/threads/what-are-the-issues-with-new-reno.186029/page-3 however(Not going to respond directly there because gravedigging).
A few users pointed out that the NCR is still relatively new, and the majority of the wasteland hasn't really seen proper infrastructure by the time of Fallout 2, and so it feels out of place compared to the rest of the wasteland, with no real explanation.
My response is: New Reno is in a perfect position for rebuilding.
Reading the travel log from Vault City https://fallout.gamepedia.com/Vault_City_travel_log, we find out that New Reno wasn't hit hard by the bombs, and therefore maintained a lot of it's infrastructure. Not only this, but a larger amount of the population would have likely survived.
Not only that, but geographically, Reno is near two fairly large lakes(Lake Tahoe and Lake Pyramid).
So while other towns would have had to rebuild from scratch or from bombed out towns, New Reno has the advantage of building on top of a town that stayed mostly intact.
For the first part, a user on another thread pointed out that the first area of New Reno we see isn't the outskirts of it, but rather we start on Virgin Street, which is in the middle of several buildings and one of the main casinos.
For all we know, there could be plenty of farms on the outskirts of New Reno, but the game throws us right in to where the main action in New Reno is, rather than walking us through the outskirts first.
The tourism criticism on the other hand, points out that New Reno's main source of income seems to be as a tourist trap, but realistically it doesn't make sense for a town to live off being a tourist trap, since why would your average wastelander travel across dangerous wastelands to visit New Reno to begin with?
Firstly I'd like to point out it's not their SOLE source of income. As Frankie in the den points out: (Dialogue File Here: https://fallout.gamepedia.com/DcFranki.msg), he imports his booze from New Reno, and they charge "An arm and a leg" for it.
Sure, lots of towns have distilleries producing it on its own, but if the families of New Reno were able to produce it in much larger quantities, they could realistically make a profit.
Secondly, tying back to the point of how rebuilt New Reno is, it'd make perfect sense for people to want to travel across dangerous wastes to visit as tourists.
Most towns we come across are simple farming or trapping towns, with limited entertainment, just enough fresh water to get by, and not much in the way of electricity.
New Reno by comparison is a Wasteland paradise: Electricity, Working phones, high-stakes gambling, boxing matches, ect.
While not exactly the kind of place you'd want to live(It's kinda a seedy area with huge amounts of drug dealers and prostitutes on every street), visiting New Reno would be an incredibly nice change of scenery for your average wastelander, who would otherwise live a fairly drab and dreary life.
Also, for the record, I feel this idea that tourism couldn't work in New Reno only really holds up because people are imagining people trekking across dangerous wastes alone to reach New Reno, when really this isn't the case.
Ariel from Vault 13(Dialogue File Here: https://fallout.gamepedia.com/Ocariel.msg), was travelling with a caravan to get to the NCR.
Sure this is one example, but this demonstrates a way in which your average wastelander could get from place to place in relative safety(Since caravans are fairly well guarded).
You may wonder why a traveller would head to New Reno, when they could travel a little further and get to the NCR, but I'd say for the same reason a traveller would head to Vault City instead of the NCR: They all appeal to different crowds.
Vault City has hundreds of people waiting in the Courtyard in fairly poor conditions, those people could all move to the NCR, but Vault City is renowned for it's medicine, so it appeals to many people who have serious conditions, who may need a continuous source of medicine.
NCR has fairly strict laws, and wouldn't accept anyone with a less than perfect history, and outlaws jet and prostitution.
New Reno has the advantage over those two that anything goes. Anyone can wind up in New Reno regardless of their past, Jet addicts and other junkies won't have to worry about going clean if they visit New Reno, Even gambling and the Golden Globes would have an appeal for tourists, because some wastelander's may be after fame or fortune in Reno.
My response to this is: Fallout has ALWAYS had areas with silly gimmicks and themes. It's not meant to be a 100% serious series.
Even look at Fallout 1: Junktown is built around being a cop show. Quests there involve you wire tapping, getting in shoot outs with gangs, gathering witness statements, going undercover, ect. , and it's fairly obvious that this is all built around the fact that the mayor played MacGyver.
More overtly: The Brotherhood of Steel are built around being a knights order in the wasteland, literally calling their soldiers "Paladins", and acting like an old knights order.
Were Fallout a serious representation of life after the apocalypse, it'd likely have a paramilitary order that hoards technology, a town ruled by gangs, and a town with a tough, somewhat authoritarian leader. The reason they have cop-show hijinks, wasteland knights and the mafia is because it's more fun that way.
Many people on previous threads have pointed out that it wouldn't make sense to have multiple mafia families vying for power over New Reno.
It's been pointed out that in the real world, the reason gangs exist in stalemates is because of the police, so with no organised structure, why is there a stalemate in New Reno.
This is one criticism that I do partly agree with. The New Reno families probably would have tried to upstage each other at one point or another.
But one thing that this criticism doesn't take note of is that: We don't know how long this stalemate has lasted for. By the time of New Vegas, the main power players in New Reno have completely changed, with the Mordinos and Salvatores no longer being a power.
We don't know how long it's been those specific 4 families ruling over New Reno. For all we know, families could rise and fall in New Reno. We don't know how long the political situation in New Reno has been the way it is, so we can't really comment
And a stalemate does make some sense, given that there are 4 families keeping each other in check. If one goes to direct war against another, what's stopping the other two from ganging up on the weakened victor.
That being said though, I do agree that it'd be more realistic if one family had taken power by the events of Fallout 2, but it's not as big a deal as it's made out to be IMO.
Instead of gravedigging, I decided to write this up as a separate thread, writing up a general post defending New Reno.
From what I can tell the main criticisms were as follows: It is too rebuilt, It economically doesn't make sense, the Mafia theme is too silly and that the gang politics don't make sense. I'll address all of these criticisms
Too Rebuilt
So one common criticism I've read on old threads is that New Reno is too rebuilt. A lot of this is simply people who want to maintain the chaotic atmosphere in Fallout, and don't want full infrastructures even a full 200 years after the war, however some of this is legitimate.I've read a lot more intelligent criticisms of New Reno being too rebuilt in this thread: http://www.nma-fallout.com/threads/what-are-the-issues-with-new-reno.186029/page-3 however(Not going to respond directly there because gravedigging).
A few users pointed out that the NCR is still relatively new, and the majority of the wasteland hasn't really seen proper infrastructure by the time of Fallout 2, and so it feels out of place compared to the rest of the wasteland, with no real explanation.
My response is: New Reno is in a perfect position for rebuilding.
Reading the travel log from Vault City https://fallout.gamepedia.com/Vault_City_travel_log, we find out that New Reno wasn't hit hard by the bombs, and therefore maintained a lot of it's infrastructure. Not only this, but a larger amount of the population would have likely survived.
Not only that, but geographically, Reno is near two fairly large lakes(Lake Tahoe and Lake Pyramid).
So while other towns would have had to rebuild from scratch or from bombed out towns, New Reno has the advantage of building on top of a town that stayed mostly intact.
Economically Doesn't Make Sense
This criticism mainly stems from the fact that A. We don't see many farms so how do they feed themselves?, and B. The City relies on tourism for an income, but it doesn't make sense to have a tourism based economy in the Fallout Universe.For the first part, a user on another thread pointed out that the first area of New Reno we see isn't the outskirts of it, but rather we start on Virgin Street, which is in the middle of several buildings and one of the main casinos.
For all we know, there could be plenty of farms on the outskirts of New Reno, but the game throws us right in to where the main action in New Reno is, rather than walking us through the outskirts first.
The tourism criticism on the other hand, points out that New Reno's main source of income seems to be as a tourist trap, but realistically it doesn't make sense for a town to live off being a tourist trap, since why would your average wastelander travel across dangerous wastelands to visit New Reno to begin with?
Firstly I'd like to point out it's not their SOLE source of income. As Frankie in the den points out: (Dialogue File Here: https://fallout.gamepedia.com/DcFranki.msg), he imports his booze from New Reno, and they charge "An arm and a leg" for it.
Sure, lots of towns have distilleries producing it on its own, but if the families of New Reno were able to produce it in much larger quantities, they could realistically make a profit.
Secondly, tying back to the point of how rebuilt New Reno is, it'd make perfect sense for people to want to travel across dangerous wastes to visit as tourists.
Most towns we come across are simple farming or trapping towns, with limited entertainment, just enough fresh water to get by, and not much in the way of electricity.
New Reno by comparison is a Wasteland paradise: Electricity, Working phones, high-stakes gambling, boxing matches, ect.
While not exactly the kind of place you'd want to live(It's kinda a seedy area with huge amounts of drug dealers and prostitutes on every street), visiting New Reno would be an incredibly nice change of scenery for your average wastelander, who would otherwise live a fairly drab and dreary life.
Also, for the record, I feel this idea that tourism couldn't work in New Reno only really holds up because people are imagining people trekking across dangerous wastes alone to reach New Reno, when really this isn't the case.
Ariel from Vault 13(Dialogue File Here: https://fallout.gamepedia.com/Ocariel.msg), was travelling with a caravan to get to the NCR.
Sure this is one example, but this demonstrates a way in which your average wastelander could get from place to place in relative safety(Since caravans are fairly well guarded).
You may wonder why a traveller would head to New Reno, when they could travel a little further and get to the NCR, but I'd say for the same reason a traveller would head to Vault City instead of the NCR: They all appeal to different crowds.
Vault City has hundreds of people waiting in the Courtyard in fairly poor conditions, those people could all move to the NCR, but Vault City is renowned for it's medicine, so it appeals to many people who have serious conditions, who may need a continuous source of medicine.
NCR has fairly strict laws, and wouldn't accept anyone with a less than perfect history, and outlaws jet and prostitution.
New Reno has the advantage over those two that anything goes. Anyone can wind up in New Reno regardless of their past, Jet addicts and other junkies won't have to worry about going clean if they visit New Reno, Even gambling and the Golden Globes would have an appeal for tourists, because some wastelander's may be after fame or fortune in Reno.
Mafia Theme too silly
One complaint that came up was that the mafia theme was too overt and silly. Having outright gangster hijinks in a city felt too silly and not grounded in realism.My response to this is: Fallout has ALWAYS had areas with silly gimmicks and themes. It's not meant to be a 100% serious series.
Even look at Fallout 1: Junktown is built around being a cop show. Quests there involve you wire tapping, getting in shoot outs with gangs, gathering witness statements, going undercover, ect. , and it's fairly obvious that this is all built around the fact that the mayor played MacGyver.
More overtly: The Brotherhood of Steel are built around being a knights order in the wasteland, literally calling their soldiers "Paladins", and acting like an old knights order.
Were Fallout a serious representation of life after the apocalypse, it'd likely have a paramilitary order that hoards technology, a town ruled by gangs, and a town with a tough, somewhat authoritarian leader. The reason they have cop-show hijinks, wasteland knights and the mafia is because it's more fun that way.
Gang Politics don't make sense
The final criticism I'll address is that the gang politics of New Reno don't make sense.Many people on previous threads have pointed out that it wouldn't make sense to have multiple mafia families vying for power over New Reno.
It's been pointed out that in the real world, the reason gangs exist in stalemates is because of the police, so with no organised structure, why is there a stalemate in New Reno.
This is one criticism that I do partly agree with. The New Reno families probably would have tried to upstage each other at one point or another.
But one thing that this criticism doesn't take note of is that: We don't know how long this stalemate has lasted for. By the time of New Vegas, the main power players in New Reno have completely changed, with the Mordinos and Salvatores no longer being a power.
We don't know how long it's been those specific 4 families ruling over New Reno. For all we know, families could rise and fall in New Reno. We don't know how long the political situation in New Reno has been the way it is, so we can't really comment
And a stalemate does make some sense, given that there are 4 families keeping each other in check. If one goes to direct war against another, what's stopping the other two from ganging up on the weakened victor.
That being said though, I do agree that it'd be more realistic if one family had taken power by the events of Fallout 2, but it's not as big a deal as it's made out to be IMO.
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It's a must buy for motor efficiency... The car is too expensive without it. But just because it would fit most cars, doesn't mean the rest of the car actually runs... It would fit most of the wrecks just peachy; it probably came off of one of them.