Bathesda, Anti-Christ or not?
- Thread starter TerraMGP
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Maybe it's a hype thing.
These games were hyped to unbelievable heights and as a result, a great many people bought them. And, being people, they didn't like to see that the game they thought would make all other games unnecessary actually had a few flaws of its own.
They felt cheated and, being people, they felt the need to go online and anonymously tell the world about their experiences.
More hype + more buyers = more negative noise.
In the end, it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is, did YOU enjoy these games?
I did.
These games were hyped to unbelievable heights and as a result, a great many people bought them. And, being people, they didn't like to see that the game they thought would make all other games unnecessary actually had a few flaws of its own.
They felt cheated and, being people, they felt the need to go online and anonymously tell the world about their experiences.
More hype + more buyers = more negative noise.
In the end, it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is, did YOU enjoy these games?
I did.
Well first of all, I have never heard of this Bathesda of which you speak. But seriously, I like Bethesda. I love Oblivion, and I love Fallout 3. I loved Morrowind too, and I think that Oblivion only served to fix the glaring problems I had with its predecessor. As for Fallout 3, Im glad they changed the formula from the from the first 2. I don't care if I get flamed to a crisp for that, I still like it. If they had kept it the same in today's market, which is obviously more action oriented than it was when Fallout 1 and 2 came out, the game wouldn't have sold.
While I agree with you on Oblivion, Fallout 3 doesn't actually have level scaling and some of the areas are hard to survive in below a certain level of skill and experience with the game.orifice said:
What's good is that they've learned from most of their mistakes in Oblivion, and remedied those issues in Fallout 3. It shows that at the very least they're listening to their fans.
I haven't really seen any of this Bethesda-bashing you mention. The official forums are rife with debate and complaints about technical issues, but nearly every new game that comes out sees the exact same reaction. The vast majority of the response I've seen has been positive, even from people who didn't like Oblivion... and those that don't like Fallout 3 are either those who don't like it because it shares elements they don't like with Oblivion, or those who are die-hard fans of the first two games and wouldn't accept anything else as canon anyways.
I haven't really seen any of this Bethesda-bashing you mention. The official forums are rife with debate and complaints about technical issues, but nearly every new game that comes out sees the exact same reaction. The vast majority of the response I've seen has been positive, even from people who didn't like Oblivion... and those that don't like Fallout 3 are either those who don't like it because it shares elements they don't like with Oblivion, or those who are die-hard fans of the first two games and wouldn't accept anything else as canon anyways.
Actually, it does, it's just not universal. Most of the Wasteland gets "locked" at a certain level by region when you first enter it, i.e. if I go to area X at level 2, the monsters will always be in the range of level 1-4, if I go to area Y at level 8, the monsters will always be in the range of level 6-10, etc. Downtown D.C. as well as some dungeons, specific towns, etc. are locked to a certain level, however. For example, Germantown H.Q. will always have Super Mutants, no matter what level you are, and for the most part, they won't be scaled, so you won't have a hope of beating them at level 2, but you will utterly annihilate them at level 20. Also, while enemy levels and attributes don't scale, the enemies you encounter definitely do scale. It doesn't mean you can't find the Bloatflies in the game at level 20, but it means that as you get closer to that cap, the enemies will get progressively harder, especially as you explore the Wasteland more, and you will find yourself running into way more Deathclaws and Sentry Bots. However, it feels much more natural, as you're more likely to creep further out into the Wasteland from your "home base" in Megaton or Rivet City with each trip you make; it creates a sort of dynamic difficulty that's never too challenging, but still allows you to run into enemies that are way more powerful than you.Theo Samaritan said:
Things wrong with Bethesda.... it's actually a pretty concise list.
(Note: Some of these things may have changed in Fallout 3, which I have not, as of yet, been able to play)
1) Bethesda is incapable of making combat fun.
2) Bethesda NPC's (and usually player characters) often look terrible except for the "monster" races.
3) Bethesda is incapable of telling a good joke. When the "funniest" thing in your game is a conversation about necrophilia or a copy of The Lusty Argonian Maid, you're doing something wrong.
4) Often their "choices" will break down to essentially two choices: kill by stealth or kill by force. More recent titles have found choices even more limited with unkillable people and stores that you can no longer steal from because the inventory is kept in a floating treasure chest in the un-space under the floor.
I think I had another one, but it eludes me right at the moment. Point is, those are pretty good reasons to be cautious of their products. Especially when their newest title is the next game in a franchise which was known for its free-choices and humor, and has a heavy emphasis on combat.
- J
(Note: Some of these things may have changed in Fallout 3, which I have not, as of yet, been able to play)
1) Bethesda is incapable of making combat fun.
2) Bethesda NPC's (and usually player characters) often look terrible except for the "monster" races.
3) Bethesda is incapable of telling a good joke. When the "funniest" thing in your game is a conversation about necrophilia or a copy of The Lusty Argonian Maid, you're doing something wrong.
4) Often their "choices" will break down to essentially two choices: kill by stealth or kill by force. More recent titles have found choices even more limited with unkillable people and stores that you can no longer steal from because the inventory is kept in a floating treasure chest in the un-space under the floor.
I think I had another one, but it eludes me right at the moment. Point is, those are pretty good reasons to be cautious of their products. Especially when their newest title is the next game in a franchise which was known for its free-choices and humor, and has a heavy emphasis on combat.
- J
I thought Oblivion was terrible, and I wasn't alone. This review [http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=129] summed it up quite nicely.
As for Bethesda, I don't see why all the love for them. They made a great game in fallout, but they have been responsible for turkeys too. Look Star Trek:Legacy or the aforementioned Oblivion.
As for Bethesda, I don't see why all the love for them. They made a great game in fallout, but they have been responsible for turkeys too. Look Star Trek:Legacy or the aforementioned Oblivion.
Bethesda pulls in some earned flak about the problems in their games (voice acting), but if you step back and look at the steps they've made from Morrowind to Fallout 3, you can see steady improvement.
Remember Morrowind's dialogue? What little audible dialogue there was sounded okay mostly on the virtue that you didn't hear it all the time, and it was mostly one line followed by text. Of course there would be problems moving to full audio. That's what you see in Oblivion. Fallout has mostly fixed these.
So, the steady improvements make me really like Bethesda.
Remember Morrowind's dialogue? What little audible dialogue there was sounded okay mostly on the virtue that you didn't hear it all the time, and it was mostly one line followed by text. Of course there would be problems moving to full audio. That's what you see in Oblivion. Fallout has mostly fixed these.
So, the steady improvements make me really like Bethesda.
Oblivion paintbrush glitch amiright?
What some people need to start doing is setting their expectations a little lower when jumping into one of these games, people always expect the next big game to be the golden god that will rain fun time and happyness while pissing unicorns and chocolate pudding. Heres some common knowledge that we should all know by now.
Bethesda doesn't make combat fun, that isn't their goal (see Morrowind). The goal is to immerse you into a game so much that you forget about reality until your minutes a way of dieing from hunger or pissing yourself. They tell great stories no matter what setting the game is in and the games are fun despite minor bugs and repetative voice acting.
For those who are upset about scaling monsters keep this in mind. I don't know about Fallout 3 but Oblivion had a DIFFICULTY bar that could make to scale monsters harder in case you weren't felling challanged enough. It's up to you to adjult the difficulty to your play style and while i like a challange getting buttsecks'd by monsters 2x my level just because i took the left turn at albuquerque isn't my idea of fun. but meh, to each his own. Not everyone is the same not everyone agrees so just try your hardest to enjoy the game and stop whining
What some people need to start doing is setting their expectations a little lower when jumping into one of these games, people always expect the next big game to be the golden god that will rain fun time and happyness while pissing unicorns and chocolate pudding. Heres some common knowledge that we should all know by now.
Bethesda doesn't make combat fun, that isn't their goal (see Morrowind). The goal is to immerse you into a game so much that you forget about reality until your minutes a way of dieing from hunger or pissing yourself. They tell great stories no matter what setting the game is in and the games are fun despite minor bugs and repetative voice acting.
For those who are upset about scaling monsters keep this in mind. I don't know about Fallout 3 but Oblivion had a DIFFICULTY bar that could make to scale monsters harder in case you weren't felling challanged enough. It's up to you to adjult the difficulty to your play style and while i like a challange getting buttsecks'd by monsters 2x my level just because i took the left turn at albuquerque isn't my idea of fun. but meh, to each his own. Not everyone is the same not everyone agrees so just try your hardest to enjoy the game and stop whining
Whereas these [http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/elderscrolls4oblivion] reviews would largely disagree with you. I'm not saying that you're wrong and your entitled to your opinion, but one review does not count as proof of your point. Incidentally, Bethesda did not make Star Trek Legacy, they just published it.cuddly_tomato said:
Plenty of developers stick to what they know. What games have Infinity Ward made apart from Call of Duty? What are Harmonix up to these days? It's certainly not unique to Bethesda, who have actually made quite the variety [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bethesda_Softworks#Games_developed_and_published_by_Bethesda] of games over the years.avykins said:
My only experience with Bethesda is Morrowind (which I got long after it was the next big thing) and Fallout 3, so I can't speak to specific complaints about Oblivion particularly.
I actually played Fallout _2_ for the first time relatively recently, and thought that it seemed a lot like Morrowind, albeit with guns, isometric graphics (and really bad, slow combat), and better dialogue. When I found out Beth was doing Fallout 3, I thought, great, all they need to do is get the setting right and write real dialogue, and it should be fine, because obviously they already get the "wander in a vast, well-developed sandboxy world where you can ignore the main quest if you want to." To me, they accomplished these things (they were true to the setting and wrote decent--not the best I've ever seen in the universe, but decent--dialogue).
But I am not looking at Fallout 2--or 3--through the distorted lens of nostalgia, and with all due respect to my fellow gamers who might disagree, I feel that is what is really influencing much (though not all) of the criticism of Fallout 3 in particular. Interestingly, in a few cases, the most ardent critics of Fallout 3 end up admitting they actually haven't played the game (or have only played it minimally), just go by their assumption that Beth could not recreate the Fallout-verse, and they tack on comparisons to Oblivion, which someone else pointed out is popular to bash, for good measure. Others have played it, but are comparing it to an impossible standard created by memories of a game they played a decade ago, and absolutely NOTHING can be seen as good when filtered through that kind of lens.
This is not to say Fallout 3 isn't without flaws, but in a way, all the complaining about how it isn't like the good ol days and comparisons to Oblivion simply obscure valuable discussion of the real problems with the game (specific bugs, etc.). And even if say, Oblivion's main quest was also poorly developed as Fallout 3's is in some places (I don't know if it was because again, I haven't played it), it's better criticism to just try to talk about how Fallout 3 could be improved than continually wailing on about the past.
I have also dabbled on a very small scale in some gamewriting, mostly with editors that have come with other games, and even just writing one single, good conversation tree can take a long time; writing several takes forever. When I look at Fallout 3, even with its flaws, it's hard not to see the number of hours poured into writing and scripting various circumstances; most quests (oddly except perhaps parts of the main quests) have multiple solutions, which is reflective of a lot of both planning and writing time. Graphics were intricately well done--care was taken to make sure the smallest reflection works right, and again, that takes time. So at least for me, I look at Bethesda and while I might see possible room for improvement, I still ultimately see a developer that really has sunk a lot of time and effort into a HUGE game that I find after several weeks of play still completely engrossing. So I can't complain about that.
My only, personal, real complaints about Bethesda lie in the PR and marketing. Their rep, Pete Hines, promised "no invasive DRM" only to include SecuROM software on the disc---yes, it turned out, only the version with a disc check, but given that was specifically the software that was making so many people paranoid about invasive DRM, it was an extremely poor choice on their part to go with that product, because it only resulted in hysteria around the release of the game, when the first SecuROM related bugs were reported. They also made some comments about things like the game's ending which were also clearly exaggerated. I think they also made a poor decision--from a gamer's perspective, not a business perspective, mind--to include Windows Live, since that has also caused game load problems and many are annoyed that they will need to subscribe if they want to purchase DLC (and I am curious to see how that will affect sales. It may not, but it will be interesting to see). Finally, I think the marketing of the game itself was poor, focusing far too much solely upon the combat aspects of Fallout, making it look like an FPS when it is a fairly indepth RPG. I realize just a trailer full of conversations and skill checks wouldn't be very interesting, but there should have been a better balance to show what the game really was about. 6 different demonstrations of VATS isn't that interesting, and is moreover misleading.
So, overall, I'd say the Devs should keep working on improving what they already do extremely well, but they desperately need to get some new PR folks. And fire Pete Hines. And maybe some better QA testers while they're at it, so things like the Live bug wouldn't have gotten through.
I actually played Fallout _2_ for the first time relatively recently, and thought that it seemed a lot like Morrowind, albeit with guns, isometric graphics (and really bad, slow combat), and better dialogue. When I found out Beth was doing Fallout 3, I thought, great, all they need to do is get the setting right and write real dialogue, and it should be fine, because obviously they already get the "wander in a vast, well-developed sandboxy world where you can ignore the main quest if you want to." To me, they accomplished these things (they were true to the setting and wrote decent--not the best I've ever seen in the universe, but decent--dialogue).
But I am not looking at Fallout 2--or 3--through the distorted lens of nostalgia, and with all due respect to my fellow gamers who might disagree, I feel that is what is really influencing much (though not all) of the criticism of Fallout 3 in particular. Interestingly, in a few cases, the most ardent critics of Fallout 3 end up admitting they actually haven't played the game (or have only played it minimally), just go by their assumption that Beth could not recreate the Fallout-verse, and they tack on comparisons to Oblivion, which someone else pointed out is popular to bash, for good measure. Others have played it, but are comparing it to an impossible standard created by memories of a game they played a decade ago, and absolutely NOTHING can be seen as good when filtered through that kind of lens.
This is not to say Fallout 3 isn't without flaws, but in a way, all the complaining about how it isn't like the good ol days and comparisons to Oblivion simply obscure valuable discussion of the real problems with the game (specific bugs, etc.). And even if say, Oblivion's main quest was also poorly developed as Fallout 3's is in some places (I don't know if it was because again, I haven't played it), it's better criticism to just try to talk about how Fallout 3 could be improved than continually wailing on about the past.
I have also dabbled on a very small scale in some gamewriting, mostly with editors that have come with other games, and even just writing one single, good conversation tree can take a long time; writing several takes forever. When I look at Fallout 3, even with its flaws, it's hard not to see the number of hours poured into writing and scripting various circumstances; most quests (oddly except perhaps parts of the main quests) have multiple solutions, which is reflective of a lot of both planning and writing time. Graphics were intricately well done--care was taken to make sure the smallest reflection works right, and again, that takes time. So at least for me, I look at Bethesda and while I might see possible room for improvement, I still ultimately see a developer that really has sunk a lot of time and effort into a HUGE game that I find after several weeks of play still completely engrossing. So I can't complain about that.
My only, personal, real complaints about Bethesda lie in the PR and marketing. Their rep, Pete Hines, promised "no invasive DRM" only to include SecuROM software on the disc---yes, it turned out, only the version with a disc check, but given that was specifically the software that was making so many people paranoid about invasive DRM, it was an extremely poor choice on their part to go with that product, because it only resulted in hysteria around the release of the game, when the first SecuROM related bugs were reported. They also made some comments about things like the game's ending which were also clearly exaggerated. I think they also made a poor decision--from a gamer's perspective, not a business perspective, mind--to include Windows Live, since that has also caused game load problems and many are annoyed that they will need to subscribe if they want to purchase DLC (and I am curious to see how that will affect sales. It may not, but it will be interesting to see). Finally, I think the marketing of the game itself was poor, focusing far too much solely upon the combat aspects of Fallout, making it look like an FPS when it is a fairly indepth RPG. I realize just a trailer full of conversations and skill checks wouldn't be very interesting, but there should have been a better balance to show what the game really was about. 6 different demonstrations of VATS isn't that interesting, and is moreover misleading.
So, overall, I'd say the Devs should keep working on improving what they already do extremely well, but they desperately need to get some new PR folks. And fire Pete Hines. And maybe some better QA testers while they're at it, so things like the Live bug wouldn't have gotten through.
Because then you wouldn't have the Yogi Bear connection. I did mean Yao Guai. It's quite a hard word to spell from memory...Richard Groovy Pants said:
My issues with bethesda are fairly simple..
They can't code worth a damn for rigs that aren't single-core, single-gpu; they are useless at storytelling (the entire last 1/4 of the main quest is terrible, and the ending? good god i've seen better fanfics); and they really did release a total conversion for oblivion as one of the most sought after games in the last 10 or so years.
Fallout isn't a shooter with rpg/tactical elements, it's a tactical rpg. Technically, pure crpg since all pen&paper games use a turn based system for combat, and fallout had the GURPS mechanics under the hood. An rpg is about being part of an ongoing story. Not the fact you can turn someone's head to mush with a pistol shot.
They can't code worth a damn for rigs that aren't single-core, single-gpu; they are useless at storytelling (the entire last 1/4 of the main quest is terrible, and the ending? good god i've seen better fanfics); and they really did release a total conversion for oblivion as one of the most sought after games in the last 10 or so years.
Fallout isn't a shooter with rpg/tactical elements, it's a tactical rpg. Technically, pure crpg since all pen&paper games use a turn based system for combat, and fallout had the GURPS mechanics under the hood. An rpg is about being part of an ongoing story. Not the fact you can turn someone's head to mush with a pistol shot.