Lucky 38 and Mr House cut content

The following cut content concerns Lucky 38 and Robert House and is based on moburma's research (originally found in Spare Us the Cutter):

General[]

There is an early test map for Mr House and the Lucky 38 in the game called Lucky38Penthouse. This contains a stripped down version of the full game penthouse with an early placeholder version of a human Mr House! He's in the game files as MrHouseoutdated. He has no dialogue if you talk to him, but in fact his placeholder dialogue IS in the game. It's just early versions of the proper dialogue, and mostly has no voiced replies, although some lines do. These lines are listed as MrhouseOUTDATED in Vdialoguemrhouse. At one stage he was actually used as the "real" Mr House, as the script Lucky38HouseComputerConsoleSCRIPT shows that the computer Mr House was just a talking activator relaying his lines. At some point the middle man was cut out (so to speak), and the computer terminal itself became the "real" Mr House in the game, saying its own lines. (N.B. This seems to have confused some people - at no point was Mr House ever going to actually be a normal healthy human, he was just implemented this way for some time during development to get around problems with him being a living character and yet being quite literally part of the furniture. They got round this in the end, but I thought it was quite ironic considering the Wizard of Oz style undertones of the character that at one stage he was LITERALLY a man standing behind a curtain speaking for a machine).
It seems it was originally intended that the Lucky 38 doors would be closed every time the player entered the strip and would have to ask Victor to open them again. The code for this is in the game but commented out, likely as it's clumsy/stops the player from gaining entry if they kill Victor. Lucky38EntranceScript
Originally if the player started combat with the Securitrons in the casino, rather than end the whole House Questline, Mr House would shut down the elevator for 24 hours until the player had cooled down. This would be handled by the Quest VMQHouseLockdown, but it's a real mess in the game and doesn't really do terribly much. The quest and the quest script (confusingly the way the Geck works means each quest can have a script assigned to it, but it also has a seperate area where more limited scripts can also be set up to run at certain stages of the quest) work at cross purposes and don't set variables the other is expecting. The quest also contains a huge number of stages for every permutation of the main quest(s) that contradict what is outlined by the quest script and other variables to do with this event. The quest objectives suggest that the Lockdown is simply what normally happens if the player kicks off in the casino, only with Mr House telling them to leave (i.e. Victor no longer controls the elevator, the faction becomes an enemy, and the player can proceed to any level in order to ultimately kill Mr House). However, the quest SCRIPT suggests that what was intended was that the elevator would become completely unusable and the player would have to wait 24 hours in order to use it again. The dialogue for this event also relies on a variable that neither of these two set. vDialogueMrHouseElevatorAlert contains the dialogue for House. The quest implementation would have been impossible, as it relies on the ability to repeat both quest objectives and restarting an already completed quest, which cannot happen on the game engine. The quest script also records the quest stage of the quest Vlucky38elevator, even though it only has two stages (basically normal, and player as Lucky 38 enemy where victor no longer controls the elevator). Possibly this is evidence that this quest was more complex originally, or it could simply be forward planning for something that never happened (and again would be impossible to implement as you cannot repeat quests/objectives in the game).
Mr House has unused dialogue to greet the player on first entering the Lucky 38 Penthouse but not having spoken to him yet. In particular he tells the player that he "invited you here so we could talk, not so you can nose around".
After these entries he has a few blank topics all to do with the Securitron bunker (e.g. vDialogueMrHouseBunkerUpgrade) - it seems originally he would have broadcast these messages (whatever they were) as the player carried out his will (or betrayed him) in the bunker.

Seduction[]

Originally it was planned that Mr House could be seduced (presumably only by female characters). If successful in some sort of speech challenge, the player would be told to enter the secret area of his penthouse and enter some kind of "scanner" (to perve over the player's body - or more likely according to Raul - brain?). It's not clear what would happen next, but presumably the idea would be that it would let the player enter his secret area (fnar!) without setting off the alarm like usual. This is detailed in Mr House's dialogue script:

int seduction ;1 = House has expressed interest, 2 = invited to secret area, 3 = has been scanned

There are also blank placeholder topics for this scene, but they contain no actual dialogue ("Scannerafter", "Scannerbefore"). This likely ties in with Raul's dialogue if you ask him about Mr House. He says House used to "scan women's brains" and "make them dress up in different clothes" in lieu of actual err, sexual acts - this is probably exactly what would have happened in this sequence.
There is also a cut VR pod called L38PlayerPod that contains seduction stuff. The "seduction" variable above is set to 3 by this object, so presumably the player would have gotten into a VR pod to be scanned by House.
Possible seduction dialogue: "Was it just me, or were there signs of attraction earlier?" (VDialogueMrHouseMrHouseTopic087), "Would you like to scan me again?" (VDialogueMrHouseMrHouseTopic211)

Secret room and betraying Mr House[]

There's a real mess involving the Securitron next to the secret room terminal. There are about 3 different aborted ways in which this Securitron would be triggered to tell the Player to stay away from the Terminal using a special dialogue string. There's a talk dialogue package, a special trigger, and the trigger that is used in game to mark when the player has already done this part and got into the secret room (and the commented out code in here is a broken mess that wouldn't do anything). God knows what caused all this (signs point to someone who didn't know what they were doing!), but the dialogue topic that was going to be used is missing in the finished game. In the final game the player is never given any warning to stay away from the terminal.

Originally there were four ceiling gun turrets in the area. They were to be spawned once the player gained access to the secret room. They presumably can't all have been inside the relatively tiny secret room area, so some were likely to have appeared in the main area near Mr House. Early scripts have four turrets, but later scripts (particularly one that is used in the game to handle the player killing Mr House and resetting the Securitrons etc) only feature one single turret that is commented out. Presumably they just found the turrets unbalanced (it's hard enough getting in with just the Securitrons) and removed them one by one until the idea was abandoned altogether. The turret enemy is still in the game files as "L38TurretCeiling01". Code shows that originally all the NPCs in the secret room were disabled until the door was opened, presumably to reduce game overhead, or possibly to hide the fact there is a room with NPCs in there at all.

Once the Secret room area is broken into by the Player, a klaxon alarm sounds. However, originally it was intended for a second warning message to be read out in a stereotypical cold computer voice. This is all set up to run in the game, but the dialogue is missing. Only the blank topic "vDialogueMrHouseRoomBreach" remains. Hidden just behind the control room door is a disabled female NPC called "vLucky38AlarmWoman" and a talking activator that would have broadcast her message.
If the player were to betray Mr House (It's not clear how this would be, destroying the Fort Securitrons was originally NOT the trigger for this), Mr House was supposed to taunt the Player at each area of the Lucky 38. In the casino entrance he would taunt the player with the impossibility of fighting their way to the penthouse, in the penthouse he would tell the player to give up and that winning was "unlikely", and once the player entered his control chamber he would plead with the player to spare him. If the player didn't kill House at this point, somehow the variable 'vStoryEventMrHousePissed' would be incremented to 2, and new dialogue would be played for the latter two stages if the player returned ("you're really going to do this all again?"). In the final game the variable vStoryEventMrHousePissed is repurposed for the events of a) breaking into the secret room (vStoryEventMrHousePissed==1) and b) Destroying the Fort Securitrons (vStoryEventMrHousePissed==2). if vStoryEventMrHousePissed == 2 he is more defiant and angry, and once the player reaches the final chamber he tells them to "get it over with", whereas if the player has only entered the secret room he begs for his life. This dialogue is a mess - There is only dialogue in the casino for "vStoryEventMrHousePissed 1", which is the secret room entry state. Therefore the player would never be in a position to hear this unless they ran away from the penthouse while Mr House was still alive - which is impossible - and if the player has destroyed the Fort securitrons, the dialogue would not meet the criteria to play anyway (as the variable was only later repurposed to refer to this event). Furthermore, several scripts in the secret room area (such as the unavoidable one to open the door) reset the variable to vStoryEventMrHousePissed 1 in the game, so if the player was in the vStoryEventMrHousePissed 2 state (destroyed securitrons), this will be overwritten and the alternative defiant dialogue would not play. VStoryEventMrHousePissed 2 is oddly also set once Mr House is killed, even though I don't think anything checks it at this point.
- The above is shown in the following dialogue topics: vDialogueMrHouseCasinoPissed, vDialogueMrHousePenthousePissed, vDialogueMrHouseControlPissed. This is all academic, however: there are no activators or npcs setup to actually play any of this dialogue to begin with!
The dialogue is also spoken in Mr House's regular face to face voice rather than the echoing style voice that is used when the player is in the Basement, which may be a further reason why it was cut. The files are also in mono, so the game would only play them as regular dialogue audible only a few feet away from whatever is saying them, and they wouldn't be heard across an area, further limiting their usefulness.
It seems these dialogue lines and their associated variables were written before the game's plot/events were finalized and there was originally some other way to betray/annoy Mr House (or at least this was left open to be added later). It appears they were abandoned once they no longer quite tallied up with what would be happening (e.g. it's impossible to gain entry to House's secret room and then leave the Lucky 38 without killing him). This probably ties into the whole Lockdown idea.
Lucky38MrHouseTerminal02 (the terminal that controls access to the final Control Room where the real Mr House resides) offers a hint as to what the idea with the above may have been. There are two options on the terminal, the one used in the final game which has no conditions and will always unlock the elevator, and a second identical option that has impossible conditions (so it doesn't appear in the final game and is dummied out), but also crucially seems to check for either a platinum chip or VIP Keycard. The significance of this is that it would be possible to hack the computer and enter the secret room without either the chip or a keycard, and then be unable to progress. This situation would be one in which the player might legitimately piss off House, be forced to leave and then return later, but it seems a real outside chance to build up so much content around. There's still the problem in the final game where the elevator doors are locked once he goes hostile, however.
There are a ridiculous number of attempts at creating the secret room opening script - at least 3 different variations (Lucky38MrHouseTerminal4 and 5, 4 being the final game one, and a crude button press version visible in Lucky38MrHouseTerminalSCRIPT). The different versions show all kinds of iterations, including a simple button choice to one that still uses the "alarmwoman".
Once Mr House is dead there were supposed to be (presumably regular) broadcasts of this fact in the Strip. There are two randomised takes of this dialogue, and it would explain how people inexplicably know he is dead all of a sudden(vDialogueMrHouseLastWillTestament). One of the lines also informs people to take an obituary leaflet from a Securitron, which makes a lot more sense than what happens in the final game where the player simply has one dumped on them while standing in House's control room.
There are vestiges of being able to convince Mr House to spare the Brotherhood of Steel (you ALWAYS have to eliminate them for House in the final game). All that's left is an unused quest objective to convince him to spare them. No dialogue or scripting exists to achieve this objective, however. Josh Sawyer recently confirmed this was a deliberate design choice to really make the player agonise about whether or not to help Mr House or rebel against him.
Originally the Player had three ways to gain access to the secret room - They had either to pass a hacking skill check, obtain the Platinum chip, or obtain a Lucky 38 VIP keycard. In the final game the latter was essentially removed and is no longer checked (although the items can still be found). There are also several unused quest stages for all the main questlines where the player must obtain a lucky 38 VIP keycard that would be triggered by using the wall terminal without the platinum chip.

The Moon Comes Over the Tower[]

The quest was vastly longer and would presumably supply the player with the information needed to solve the above problem. There were originally three further quest stages; two are deleted but their quest markers exist (one simply links to the terminal, the other to a waypoint in the casino ceiling). A further unused stage still exists, in which the player must "Disable the Lucky 38's network encryption from three executive consoles." On accessing the terminal in the Lucky 38, a message would presumably alert the player the terminal could not be accessed. The player would then have to go to the House Tools Office, New Vegas Steel and Camp Golf to find computer consoles that would allow the Lucky 38 to finally be bugged. It's likely at this point that the data would reveal how to get into the secret room, and presumably reveal the existence and use of the VIP keycards, which are located nearby. In the final game the items are still there, but are not checked by the secret room terminal - only the platinum chip is.
There is no extra dialogue from Emily on the subjects above, but she does allude to possible problems with "network encryption". In the final game there are two versions of what was left; originally the player must have had a science skill of 50 as WELL as the bug to complete the objective. What was eventually used was a guaranteed win with no science check at all, making the quest pretty much redundant as it doesn't even have any meaningful outcome.
There are also a couple of unused markerheadings for this quest placed in seemingly random parts of the Lucky 38 casino. Possibly they were destination markers for stuff on other floors (i.e. the terminal in Mr House's room) before someone else fixed it up and just used conditional markers for the actual doors etc.
Emily Ortal also has lots of extra intended functionality that is never used. She was supposed to a) go into a "sandbox" mode and sleep in Vault 21 if the player turned down her request to bug the Lucky 38, and b) return to the Mormon Fort once her quest is complete. Once 'The Moon Comes Over the Tower' was finished she has a new greet line that lets you once again talk to her about her run in with Benny and her life with the Followers. This only kicks in once she is in the Mormon Fort Worldspace - as She merely stands around the Lucky 38 once the quest is finished, she can never say this line. She's also disabled for good once Mr House is dead as a way of cleaning up her quest if it was not started, which would also wrongly disable her if the quest was completed so the above could never occur. There's a marker named after her in the Mormon Fort where she'd presumably walk to, and there's also an odd patrol route in the Strip that leads to this marker at its end. It's strange as the patrol route starts outside the Strip station, somewhere she never normally goes.

Marilyn and Jane[]

Marilyn remains a mystery. According to J.E. Sawyer she was cut late on due to "problems with her dialogue". Both herself and Jane appear in the penthouse but are also present but disabled in the Lucky 38 suite as well (it's possible originally they would sell the suite upgrades). Looking at Jane's dialogue, it is attributed both to her AND Marilyn. Therefore it's very likely they were merely redundant copies of each other with different dialogue (but with the same outcomes, i.e. giving snowglobes etc). Perhaps they had some kind of "ping-pong" effect planned where dialogue would swap between them between lines (as in Old World Blues), and that is what didn't work?
Marilyn has two remaining lines of dialogue. They are both player only topics with the replies cut: "What kind of upgrades?" (VDialogueLucky38PenthouseLucky38MarilynTopic002) and "I'd like to talk about something else." (VDialogueLucky38PenthouseLucky38MarilynTopic003).
There are two cut lines the player can ask Mr House about Marilyn: "Are Marilyn and Jane your... girlfriends?" (VDialogueMrHouseMrHouseTopic122), and "Don't you get lonely here, with no one but Marilyn and Jane to keep you company?" (VDialogueMrHouseMrHouseTopic209). Mr House's answer lines have been removed.
Marilyn must have been removed quite late on, as her NPC is still manipulated by all the Lucky 38 scripting to automatically disable her if House is dead etc.
Jane has an unused line of dialogue to confront the player if they piss off Mr House, much like Victor does.

Basement[]

The Lucky 38 basement was originally designed to be walked around by the player. Victor has unused elevator lines for this, the securitrons in the middle have scripting to forgive the player for shooting them during their demo, but more crucially still, the terminal on the back wall could originally be used. At some point this was abandoned and the forcefields put in to presumably stop problems with the demonstration, and hide the fact the back wall of the reactor area is (deliberately, to create an illusion of space?) unfinished. If you cheat your way through it is possible to re-enable the reactor here and witness a neat animation of all the pistons etc moving. This whole solution was seemingly abandoned in favour of the much more involved El Dorado substation quest that fulfils the same goal. The original terminal needed a science skill of 85 to fix (it really doesn't make sense that someone as smart as house couldn't have worked out how to do this, so perhaps this was also why it was removed?).

Once the above quest was abandoned, the player was prevented from ever entering the basement of their own volition. Originally the player could enter and explore at their leisure, with no forcefield blocking the room ( there is even code in case the player gets hit/hits the securitrons during their demonstration due to this). Victor would appear downstairs and still has the dialogue necessary to tell the player what level they were on. This is also why Mr House and Yes Man both urge the player to go back upstairs as soon as possible when in the final game you have no choice but to do so.

The original name for the basement was "facilities management". This was then changed to "physical plant", although this dialogue is not heard in the finished game as Victor is of course removed from the basement area. Voiced dialogue exists for both names.

Victor[]

There is dialogue for Victor to introduce the Cocktail Lounge floor in the Lucky 38. For some reason it was deliberately decided to not have him spawn there (perhaps to prevent combat oddness as it's the same worldspace as the penthouse?). Dialogue script comments even note he's deliberately not there and the dialogue is only provided in case someone changes their mind later in development.
Victor also has unused dialogue for moving between floors. He was intended to make extra comments such as "going up!" or "going down!" depending on where the player currently was, and where they asked to be taken to. It seems this is actually a leftover from an earlier attempt at his elevator man functionality that would be done with regular dialogue rather than the message box that is used in the final game. All the outcomes have a dialogue topic, but only the penthouse has actual (recorded) dialogue for moving between floors - the rest are blank.
Victor was originally meant to confront the player on their next visit to the Lucky 38 (outside on the strip) if the player destroyed the fort securitrons/fulfilled the original nebulous vStoryEventMrHousePissed trigger. Dialogue remains but is unused.
It seems it was originally planned that the fort Securitrons being destroyed would somehow result in Mr House passing sovereignty of the Strip to the NCR (presumably once his plans are ruined he just gives up). There is a cut note that details house's intentions (vConcessionMrHouse), and leftover dialogue lines for pretty much every single faction. Securitrons: "Be advised, when Mr. House transfers sovereignty over the Vegas Strip to the NCR, he will remain its sole proprietor. Have a nice day." Westside residents: "{Securitrons at Fort Destroyed}I never imagined Mr. House would concede to the NCR. I wonder what convinced him..." These lines can erroneously be played in the vanilla game.

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