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The Bethesda Problem


Sly Reflex
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(Mod edit: in reference to a new Bethesda tease)

 

I think that's the TESO Elsweyr thing. There has been a bit of a backlash over it since for lore purposes it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Stuff like dragons and necromancers in the Khajiti homeland seems like a peculiar choice for a story.

 

I'm a bit worried about TES. As much as I love Skyrim it's not as roleplay'y as it should be unless you installed loads of mods. Morrowind is still the most RPG'y of those games and it should have continued on that path, there's a big difference between streamlining and dumbing down and what Bethesda are doing is dumbing down from each iteration of TES.

 

I could honestly do a big fuck off post about that, issue is people will point and laugh and/or not bother reading it, so I won't fucking bother. I really hope they don't bollocks it up is the TL:DR.

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Worth mentioning that the studio formerly known as Battle Cry Studios was responsible for the - surprisingly good in my view - Fallout 76 with BGS just helping out on it. The team that worked on that is very much the Z team, whereas you can be assured the time the next TES roles around it’ll be the A team so cynicism be gone! It’s a bit sad that a company makes one ‘bad’ game and suddenly their name is seemingly tarnished for life, people are fickle.

 

Skyrim and Fallout 3 are my favourite games of all time, they are magnificent masterpieces of lore, story, design and exploration. I have every faith in Todd and BGS to put the record straight with Starfield and TES VI.

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They brought it on themselves though. They released a game that is absolutely packed with bugs. Dropped it drastically in price in less than a week. Lied about the quality of the bag in the special edition. Put micro transactions in a game,at a price so ludicrous that they make the Horse Armor fiasco look like nothing. Released refunds for the Special Edition,which gave away confidential customer information.

 

They fucked up. Repeatedly. And it was only down to people calling them out on it,that they did anything about it.

 

They made it worse by saying that their future games will still use their ancient game engine,the very source of the countless bugs their games are filled with. 

 

They got complacent. And Fallout 76 showed that that is a huge mistake in this business. They absolutely,positively have to learn from their mistakes. 

 

They probably will. But I don’t feel sorry for Todd. He stood up at E3,proclaiming F76 “just works”, and jokingly remarked about “our games have a few bugs”. They’ve got cocky. So need to buck their ideas up.

 

 

And as for “one mistake”, Jim Sterling correctly points out this isn’t the first time...

 

https://youtu.be/uxoYo0wf-0c

 

 

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21 minutes ago, Blakey said:

Skyrim and Fallout 3 are my favourite games of all time, they are magnificent masterpieces of lore, story, design and exploration. I have every faith in Todd and BGS to put the record straight with Starfield and TES VI.

 

What? You are insane.

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I would read your TES nerd rant, Sly

 

I think BSG open world just feels dated. Witcher III characters and story outshone Fallout's. BOTW has its amazing world layout. RDR also has a lot of the hard edges that a game like Morrowind used to have and isn't half bad at putting bits of narrate into its world for you to find.

 

It's a come to Jesus moment for BGS I think. I really think they should go for a throwback style game and do something more dice-rolley personally. Something weird that takes a long time to get into and understand. Morrowind 2.

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I’ve encountered no more bugs in F76 than I did F4 or F3 personally ?‍♀️ @AndyKurosaki 

 

They definitely made a lot of mistakes along the way that were pretty awful and I won’t defend them, personally never had any issues with the MTX though - or even noticed they were in there for that matter.

 

Yeah they got cocky. But then he’s Todd Howard - in my view one of the best Game Designers to ever live - who’s made amazing game after amazing game until Fallout 4 so he can be cocky. I do feel sorry for Todd as I feel Bethesda Execs insisted he sold F76 to the fans and attached his name to the project to try to elevate it above ‘Fallout spinoff’ status.

 

As for Jim Sterling, I got off that gravy train long ago and am all the better for it. I still watch a few of his videos but my respect for him waned after he repeatedly lied in numerous videos or misrepresented them to boost his own viewing numbers. He knows what kind of video his audience expects and he plays up to it. I personally don’t want Sterling’s sensationalised hysterical faux-controversies pushed to me anymore and I’ll make my own mind up.

 

No? @Sly Reflex Megaton is one of my favourite video game towns of all time, likewise with Tenpenny Towers. Exceptional design. Could go on and on.

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So,by that rationale, Todd was powerless to stop F76 being released in the state it was? He was totally unable to stand up to these execs? I don’t find that very likely.

 

 

Also,he went on video talking about how numerous teams were being drafted in to support F76. Hardly smacks of it being “just the Z team”. 

 

Bethesda knew the game wasn’t up to scratch. It launched with a 50gb day one patch, for Christ’s sake. But their opinion, of all us,was “Fuck it. The fans will buy it anyway. Bollocks to them”.

 

To each their own. But neither he,nor Bethesda came off well through the debacle,at all. So people have every right to be sceptical about them going forward. They threw a lot of goodwill out the window last year,through terrible decisions. 

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I'm not going to dig and find them and go on about this particular topic as it has been a source of forum controversy before @one-armed dwarf. Just have a look on ResetEra and you'll find lots of his lies and misrepresentations.

 

Yong Yea and Angry Joe are just sides of the same Sterling coin @AndyKurosaki. All overly sensational faux-controversy merchants in my view. They know what their fans want and deliver time and time again, raking in those views.

 

I do think that Bethesda execs wanted a game released in 2018 so that contributed to them rushing F76 out and Todd having to sell it to the fans as the next big thing. It was mainly developed by former Battle Cry Studios in Austin (now BGS Austin) and polished by BGS Maryland (main studio) for a small portion of its development. Danny O'Dwyer's (great YT channel by the way) documentary on Bethesda and making of F76 is a great watch.

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I'm not sure I'd use O'Dwyer's videos as trustworthy, that seemed a little too close to marketing

 

If you liked Fallout 76 blakey good for you, like what you like, but it's a mess of Bethesda's own making. They knew it wasn't ready, that's why they were making it being broken part of their marketing (B.E.T.A), they released statements before it was released that it wasn't ready. That's part of a greater trend in the industry, but every single story that comes out is something they fucked up, it's not people making up problems, be that the situation with the bags, leaking user info, turning off the nukes, the general bugs in the game, even the criticism of the game itself. They didn't just get cocky, they knowingly released the game in a state that wasn't fit for sale

 

Edit: I want to stress Blakey, like what you like, don't feel bad for it, if you can find the good in something go for it

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Well I dunno, you made the claim and I'm not seeing the evidence so ?

 

I'm no Jim fan or anything, just putting that out there. Saying something is full of lies without explaining why is a bit too "fake news" for me to take seriously.

 

For me personally I think Danny is a bit compromised. The access he gets to studios is great but I think that hinders his ability to be a truly independent and/or critical voice. The stuff he does now feels more like a type of PR than something vigorous.

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Thing is, the negative press that F76 was getting,was not lies. Yong himself made it abundantly clear that he’s a massive Bethesda fan,but he couldn’t help but discuss the absolute disaster that Bethesda was going through. A disaster entirely of their own making. Yong,in each of his videos,pulled out statements that explained his viewpoint. I fail to see how that’s “faux controversy”.

 

Bethesda could have hit the breaks,delayed it,made it actually worthwhile. The BETA was completely pointless,as the full game released almost immediately afterwards. The general point of a beta,is to listen to the feedback,and react to it,making changes where necessary. There was absolutely zero time to do that. 

 

There’s countless videos out there,pulling apart Bethesda’s actions about F76. And because of their increasingly ridiculous actions,a lot of people are sceptical about Bethesda now. And rightly so. 

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1 hour ago, Blakey said:

No? @Sly Reflex Megaton is one of my favourite video game towns of all time, likewise with Tenpenny Towers. Exceptional design. Could go on and on.

 

Areas? That's all you have? Especially considering one is just a tower block. Sure the events that go on around those two locations, but the locations themselves are just locations you'd expect in any game.

 

I'm interested in seeing your "On and on" part, because it those are your main arguments I'm sure I'd have a good laugh at what you consider "exceptional design".

 

I'm heavily invested in TES, I've played almost all of them going right back to TESII and the spin offs like Redguard. Not so much Fallout, I've only played 3 and NV there (with NV having the best roleplay stuff I've seen in AAA gaming), but those games man, they need rebuilding from the ground up. Aside from the world building the rest of it could be binned and brought right up to date. Bethesda have been left in the dust when it comes to RPG's.

 

3 hours ago, one-armed dwarf said:

I would read your TES nerd rant, Sly

 

Maybe. It'd take me a while to put together though, since them games, although absorbing, are completely fucked on mechanical level.

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Yong couldn't help but discuss the disaster? C'mon man he was rubbing his fingers together! Guys like him, Angry Joe, Sterling etc. Absolutely love it when a big game comes out and bombs to some regard so they can make a huge amount of videos on it, get a shit load of views and money.

 

Sensationalising valid controversies and faux-controversies is how they make a living. From my experience it's mostly hyperbole and sensationalised exaggeration when talking about F76 as it's no more or less bad than F4. They put these kinds of videos out with almost every game that is the 'it' thing to target for doing x or y 'wrong' in the gaming world, it's easy money.

 

I don't even think F76 is great, it's just not the train-wreck everyone has made it out to be in my view.

 

Thread for you here @one-armed dwarf plenty of examples there calling out his BS. Won't discuss it further.

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8 minutes ago, one-armed dwarf said:

The thing you linked isn't a lie. Some people find gating progress behing sidequests a form of grinding. You can't call a thing which can be relativized to our individual preferences a lie.

 

There's examples in there of known lies in his Jimpressions vid. He says he's a certain level so can't carry on with the story but the level requirement for the story mission is actually under what he is at in that particular part of the video so he could do the mission easily...just making faux-controversy. 

 

It's all in the thread, I'm not gonna go through it all. Lies and misinformation, all the evidence is on Era.

 

I don't like talking about it because people probably think 'Blakey's gone mad again' ? because of the strength and reach of Sterling et al's voices; opinions, misinformation and lies get taken in as fact so when you call it out you look mad ?‍♀️ 

 

I'll stop now.

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For what it's worth I heard Alex Navarro  raise the same issues with Odyssey. He is a big fan of the series and isn't lacking in integrity.

 

As for Jim, sensationalist? Yes. Click-bait? Sure. Hyperbole? Probably

 

 

Lies? Nah.

 

Personally I miss when sidequests where optional. For me that's against what the definition of the term implies. Or at least what it used to imply before.

 

It kind of ruined Nier Automata for me in route C. Didn't do sidequests and had to drop to easy cause I was level-gated out of beating enemies.

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