Adds more dialogue for Boone, along with an optional romance subplot and two new mini quests.
Updates
November 4, 2023
October 30, 2023: v6 has arrived!
September 19, 2023: v5 is here!!
September 10, 2023: Mod page created. Minor grammar/spell checking.
September 6, 2023: Miscellaneous fixes/adjustments.
August 27, 2023: Fixed a small oversight where two new follower topics appeared before Boone is available as a follower.
Dead Money DLC
NVSE (https://github.com/xNVSE/NVSE/releases)
ShowOff NVSE Plugin (https://github.com/Demorome/Showoff-NVSE)
JIP LN NVSE Plugin (https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/58277)
JohnnyGuitar NVSE Plugin (https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/66927)
Stewie Tweaks (https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/66347)
Unofficial Patch NVSE Plus (https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/71239)
YUP (https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/51664)
You should not be playing without these mods anyway, they make the game SOOOO much more stable.
If you don't use a mod manager or just prefer to install manually, make sure all files go into the Data folder.
Set up should look like this:
meshes/clutter/billiards/glassball.nif
textures/clutter/billiards/glassball.dds
sound/voice/bbr.esp/femaleadult11
maleuniquecraigboone
BBR.esp
BBRreadme.txt (not needed, but you should keep it around should you need to double check anything!)
Things to know before playing:
Very Important: Do not save inside the Novac player room! The game absolutely hates loading saves within modded spaces. A general room of thumb; avoid saving your game within ANY indoor space, this makes it more likely to become corrupt. Why? Its a Bethesda game, that's why.
Just like in vanilla, Boone isn't very talkative when you first meet. The more you get to know him, the more he'll open up. Most of the new dialogue won't be available at the beginning of the game!
This mod is only partially voiced, where vanilla voice lines could be reused. The rest is silent dialogue. If I ever figure out how or someone offers to help, I may try spliced dialogue in the future, but for now, this is the best solution. (I did try silent voice generator to at least get lip sync at one point, but the results were...terrifying.)
This mod does not override any of Boone's faction standings or boundaries from vanilla. He will still leave if you shoot too many NCR people or get too cozy with the Legion. If you're in the middle of any of the added quests, this will prevent you from completing them entirely.
Again, check the quest info section below before playing.
Compatibility Concerns
As mentioned above, this mod tweaks the Novac player room for convenient crafting and give it a warm, calming vibe over the original depressing one. As such, any mods that alter the Novac player room will be incompatible.
On the same note, any mods that alter the courtyard outside the Novac Dino Motel, Searchlight Airport, and Silver Peak Mine are also unlikely to play well with this mod.
F*ckable Companions - Fully compatible, but if you want to use this mod for the romance content, there's no point in having both.
JIP Companions Command & Control - Since this is a dialogue only mod, BBR should be fully compatible with this mod, but I can't 100% confirm it. Check in FNVEdit if you're not sure!
If you want to avoid spoilers, you're in the right place. If you don't care and want all the info up front, click on the spoiler box below.
Special Thanks:
Seddon4494 - This mod wouldn't have been possible without his very helpful GECK tutorial series.
Kyle & Kira - If their mod F*ckable Companions didn't exist for me to dissect, I likely would have remained too intimidated to try modding on this scale.
krimsons - Their Novac player room mod inspired a lot of the changes I made. Hats off to you my friend.
Hello peeps! I am excited to talk to you about what I've been up to, but I am aware not everyone is an avid reader, (that's why we play games, right? lol) so if you're not interested in the process or background info, just check out the video towards the end of this article, it will provide a more direct, to the point perspective for you!
How It Started
Ever since Boonetastic Boonefoonery was released to the world wide web last summer, I consistently got the same feedback over and over - "Look into voice work! Silent dialogue ain't it, chief!"
I am exaggerating here, luckily everyone I've talked to has been super nice and understanding of the fact that voice work for modding is nearly impossible. Splicing dialogue from existing voicelines is time consuming, limits your scope to what the character has already said, and very difficult to make sound believable.
The only feasible solution would be AI voice generation, and for the longest time, I believed that the technology wasn't at a point where it would be worth the effort. Its fine and dandy for silly memes on youtube, but to use as a serious, immersive voice-over? From my perspective, it would be better to just keep the silent dialogue because if the voice lines were too obviously robotic, that would detract from the experience even more than silence.
But I was wrong.
How Its Going
Shout out to fellow user and Boone appreciator, BoonesGirl! They messaged me at the end of last year pointing me in the direction of PlayHT, a website for AI voice generation, and made a couple of voice files to pique my interest. They succeeded, and history soon repeated itself.
For a technology that was a mere pipe dream only 5 or so years ago, it is already so advanced! From just a couple hours of tweaking, I could get very human like inflections and pauses out of it. Seriously, check out the video below, I am honestly in awe of how believable it sounds!
Just like when I first started the mod, the moment I realized that I could make what I envisioned with what I had in front of me, a fire begun raging in my chest. I could do it and I would do it!
Unlike the mods infantile days, however, I had far less free time than I did then. I've slowly been working at it and now I've made voice files for 2 of the mods conversations. I plan on adding more in chronological order, meaning the order that the quests happen in the game. However, that doesn't mean everything is smooth sailing...
Obstacles
For starters, AI is AI and its far from perfect. Sometimes the voice AI doesn't have a clue how to render a line properly, and the emotions function in PlayHT is very hit and miss.
For example, the other day I got this utter gem that still makes me laugh -
Don't ask me how that happened, I still don't know myself.
Also, there's the typical issues with Bethesda games and modding in general. Even when you do everything right, sometimes it still doesn't work. More on this in the showcase video below - a few lines refuse to play, even though I quadruple checked they were labelled correctly and replaced the files more than once, for some reason its still silent. Currently trying to figure out what kinda sacrifice the Bethesda gods want me to make before they'll let these lines work.
The other problem is, PlayHT isn't free. You get a certain amount of characters as a demo and anything after that, you need to sign up for a membership. Ah, the joys of capitalism...
I've already used most of my free characters making what I've made so far. I will most likely pay for a membership to continue, as I am very excited to see what else I can do, but at the current moment, I have no spare income. NONE. Zilch. Nada. It will be a few weeks before I can scrounge up enough to justify putting towards a hobby.
Anyway, that's all I have to blather on about! Here's what you've been waiting for - the WIP showcase! Please share your thoughts below, any feedback will be really helpful!
Sharing a link to a helpful FNVEdit tutorial that patches a very common bug around Joshua Graham.
Adds more dialogue for Boone, along with an optional romance subplot and two new mini quests. v6 is a significant content update: check the description...
Adds more dialogue for Boone, along with an optional romance subplot and two new mini quests. v5 is a significant content update: check the description...
Adds more dialogue for Boone, along with an optional romance subplot and two new mini quests.
Having an issue with this mod where I sometimes get stuck rubber banding if I enter the bathroom of the hotel room. Otherwise, love the mod so far!
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Is this compatible with tale of two wastelands?
Hi! I don't know for sure because I never played that mod, but based on that fact I think its a safe bet that they are not compatible. Even if having both mods installed doesn't crash the game, there's a good chance that some behind the scenes shenanigans may make the game(s) freak out if it detects Boone where he technically shouldn't exist.
Hello! I'm not sure where else to put this but the item for the "something blue" quest is an error and I cannot complete it. I could use some help figuring out what I did wrong or if there's an item ID I can use to spawn it in my inventory instead
Hello! Would you mind messaging me with more details about what's wrong? I can't do much for diagnostics without more information.
hi! i posted to this thread last night since the mod wasn't working, but i fixed it by installing thru another mod loader and not vortex. so happy it's working!
i wanted to say that i hope this mod is still being actively worked on when you've the time. i couldn't find any other mod that expands his dialogue/character, so this mod is dear to me. :)
Glad to see this mod exists! Having a compatibility issue with FCO (Fallout Character Overhaul) though. Using this mod changes Boone's model back to the vanilla one. No idea why. Any idea how I can circumvent this?
Hello there! I have to admit, I am stumped as well. This mod doesn't touch any face/race data at all so in theory, the issue you described shouldn't be happening. Here's what I'd recommend...
First, try bumping BBR lower in your load order so it loads AFTER FCO, hopefully that will cause those mods changes to override whatever is causing BBR to revert them without affecting the content of BBR.
If that doesn't work, I'd try making a patch between FCO and BBR in FNVEdit. The program should be able to tell you what content, if any, is conflicting between the two and patching them should fix it. Unfortunately I don't have any tutorial links on hand to share with you, but if you're having problems finding a tutorial, let me know and I'll help you look!
hello, could you please give me pointers on how to create a patch in FNVEedit? i have never used this before and do not want to mess up any plugins with my fiddling, but i have the same compatibility issue with FCO.