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Official Q&A thread, Lead Artist and Writer for the Nightingales/NLTC

WetRats said:
I've been playing a dry run of Chapter 2 while sorting out my load order for a full playthrough once Chapter 3 drops.

I had turned off the disease mechanic (it still hits too close to home), and never got the beginning of the Nightingale quests. Are they linked?
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You can get it through HQ at a minimum (quest "Is There a Doctor in the House?"). That happens toward the end of Chapter 2. Otherwise you would get it from having 30 housed people at a minimum across three settlements, but you would get it by going through the red door at the Diamond City entrance and talking to them. Unlike CPD, there's no mechanism for it to just be handed to you other than the HQ quest. If you go to Diamond City and the red door isn't there yet, then check back later. Even when it is there, they may talk to you but not give you the quest, which also means you are not ready yet.
 
Captain LaserBeam said:
You can get it through HQ at a minimum (quest "Is There a Doctor in the House?"). That happens toward the end of Chapter 2. Otherwise you would get it from having 30 housed people at a minimum across three settlements, but you would get it by going through the red door at the Diamond City entrance and talking to them. Unlike CPD, there's no mechanism for it to just be handed to you other than the HQ quest. If you go to Diamond City and the red door isn't there yet, then check back later. Even when it is there, they may talk to you but not give you the quest, which also means you are not ready yet.
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Thanks, Cap'n!
 
WetRats said:
I've been playing a dry run of Chapter 2 while sorting out my load order for a full playthrough once Chapter 3 drops.

I had turned off the disease mechanic (it still hits too close to home), and never got the beginning of the Nightingale quests. Are they linked?
Click to expand...
Nightingales are linked to the number of residential plots, I believe. but they will also forcibly trigger at a certain point during CH 2's main quest. The wiki says:
The Nightingale Camp will appear across from Diamond City Entrance when you have 30 residential plots across all your settlements and control at least 3 settlements.
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Edit: Whoops, someone beat me to it
 
I've noticed that every time you complete the dialogue with Raphael, the one where he thanks you back at the hospital, He will always run away full tilt straight after. Was that a design choice or a happy accident?
 
Firefox.jco said:
Why not include a Mirelurk Queen on the ship when you go to Rafael's rescue? It had atmosphere and everything for it....
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I honestly thought there'd be one given the noise and the amount of Mirelurks. Was waiting to find a path to the great belly of the ship with a Queen guarding an optional treasure or something. But looking back at the size of the ship, there didn't seem to be any room for that. For reference, it seems to be the same model as the FMS Northern Star (the stranded ship by Warwick), so even if the entire ship was still intact, a queen would barely fit inside - let alone leave room to fight it properly. ...and with this engine, I'm sure she'd get stuck in the wall, and that'd be more trouble than it's worth.
 
Someone might just put a kraken in there eventually. Or some other sea horror that's not absurdly tall.
 
Firefox.jco said:
Why not include a Mirelurk Queen on the ship when you go to Rafael's rescue? It had atmosphere and everything for it....
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Mirelurk Queen was considered, but ultimately I didn't want it to be that kind of dungeon. The monsters and the mirelurk king are there more as flavor. This is due to my general attitude that I can't predict how under- or over- leveled the player is gonna be by the time they get to my quests, so I don't fuss with that stuff. In essence, I was focusing more on the story than on the monsters, and the level designer handled the actual building and placement of enemies.

Antoine Soverie said:
Someone might just put a kraken in there eventually. Or some other sea horror that's not absurdly tall.
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That would be cool as hell but I'd nope out. I have a fear of deep water as is, I'm not dealing with giant monsters on top of that...

KezzDaddy said:
I've noticed that every time you complete the dialogue with Raphael, the one where he thanks you back at the hospital, He will always run away full tilt straight after. Was that a design choice or a happy accident?
Click to expand...

Haha I'm not entirely sure, I didn't set the actions for most scenes. My guess is at that point the quest is just trying to get him from point A to point B at mark speed!
 
CynicalBounce said:
Haha I'm not entirely sure, I didn't set the actions for most scenes. My guess is at that point the quest is just trying to get him from point A to point B at mark speed!
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Well I hope it never changes. Reminds me of in anime when characters say "Its not like I like you or anything, baka!"
 
I was curious about the design of the Nightingales outfits, which is quite striking. Was it to make them look spooky and drive Raiders and Gunners off so they could go about their business or what? When I first encountered one, and being Mr Nice Guy when I see some new figure in the Commonwealth, I approached though I wondered what the heck I was seeing.
 
Btw I just wanted to say I found it a bit disappointing that the Nightinggales broke up so quickly seemingly as a result of meeting the PC.

While it's great to get what's her name as a research had of dept, arguably far more useful in the HQ.. still it would be great to not have them abandoned in Mass General forgotten about in Ch. 3 but having the gang get back together again at some pt.
 
fathamburger said:
Btw I just wanted to say I found it a bit disappointing that the Nightinggales broke up so quickly seemingly as a result of meeting the PC.

While it's great to get what's her name as a research had of dept, arguably far more useful in the HQ.. still it would be great to not have them abandoned in Mass General forgotten about in Ch. 3 but having the gang get back together again at some pt.
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Maybe they could eventually all just move to HQ. I have Cassandra and Circe there already so why not. Though they might not agree with our future course of action, if it involves a lot of dead people. And (spoiler spoiler spoiler alert) it will. Not that we have much choice in that matter.
 
stryker1999 said:
I was curious about the design of the Nightingales outfits, which is quite striking. Was it to make them look spooky and drive Raiders and Gunners off so they could go about their business or what? When I first encountered one, and being Mr Nice Guy when I see some new figure in the Commonwealth, I approached though I wondered what the heck I was seeing.
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Their original concept was 'wasteland plague doctors', and I liked the idea to carry it forward. When I was exploring them in sketches, I went through a couple of ideas, trying out a World War medic aesthetic before settling on the apron/jacket as sort of a wasteland version of medieval plague coats that would keep them covered against diseases. The masks were a pretty core element, though I didn't want to go the more cliched gas mask route (which would obviously be more practical) so I settled for something in the middle-- like a jury-rigged gas mask, essentially. The 'spooky' element was unintentional, but fit them pretty well into the world!

fathamburger said:
Btw I just wanted to say I found it a bit disappointing that the Nightinggales broke up so quickly seemingly as a result of meeting the PC.

While it's great to get what's her name as a research had of dept, arguably far more useful in the HQ.. still it would be great to not have them abandoned in Mass General forgotten about in Ch. 3 but having the gang get back together again at some pt.
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Technically even the departed Nightingales are still part of the group, same as the nameless ones that wander around the Wasteland. So, Cassandra and Circe are still Nightingales that are working abroad. The hospital is intended to be far more populated with NPCs than it currently is (which was a problem with time crunch and may be addressed in the future). Honestly the hospital overall is one of those things on my wishlist to further develop, but currently I can't say if or when it'll be addressed.
 
From Sirick's thread we know Cassandra is 5'6, How tall are the other Nightingales?

And thank you and again for writing such compelling characters and creating great concept art, can't wait to see you have created for chapter 3.
 
KezzDaddy said:
From Sirick's thread we know Cassandra is 5'6, How tall are the other Nightingales?

And thank you and again for writing such compelling characters and creating great concept art, can't wait to see you have created for chapter 3.
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Thank you so much for the praise, it always means the world the hear it! I can't wait to get chapter 3 into your hands as well!

Far as heights I never really thought about the specifics, but I would say.... Fiona is probably the shortest, so about 5'5 (my own height, incidentally...), Ellis is a string bean at 6, Raphael is probably around the same (like heck is he growing any taller with that wasteland nutrition) and Circe probably 5'7 in the middle there.
 
I have a couple questions about the shipwreck. Did you take any inspiration from other games (like Bioshock or Soma), or existing mods like vault 120? Have you played any of them (and if you do, what do you think)? Or perhaps cut content? I've ran into a very detailed video about what vault 120 was supposed to be (youtube.com/watch?v=7IbBPazE2Qg), and it's epic. And reminds me a lot of your quest. Which I enjoyed a lot, I think it has the perfect atmosphere and underwater creepyness about it. Probably the closest we ever get to an underwater adventure, and it's in a questline about postwar doctors of all things.
Edit: I re-read the thread (funny word salad there) and remembered that I already asked about the ship a bit. And about your fear of deep oceans so that's probably a solid nope on that. But...
 
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