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When has Bethesda ever followed the industry norm when it comes to releasing games? I mean, come on. It is really foolish to expect them to do that at this point. It would be like expecting Valve to be working on Half-Life 3. If it happens, it will happen when they want it to. Not you.

So thinking Fallout 76 is robbing you of Fallout 5 is silly, at best. It is Bethesda. Come on.

I expect them to follow their own norm when it comes to releasing games. New games in old franchises of ever decreasing quality, then, re-releases of those same games for the next couple years until finally its time for the next game of questionable quality.

 Dreadwinter wrote:
When has Bethesda ever followed the industry norm when it comes to releasing games? I mean, come on. It is really foolish to expect them to do that at this point. It would be like expecting Valve to be working on Half-Life 3. If it happens, it will happen when they want it to. Not you.

So thinking Fallout 76 is robbing you of Fallout 5 is silly, at best. It is Bethesda. Come on.

Uh.. It IS Bethesda. But as far as that norm goes: Dishonored 1, 2 and Death of the Outsider as a final churn and burn? Rehashing the rehashing of old staples like doom, quake and Wolfiestein?

for other industry norms: horse armor DLC? not!hearthstone, the elder scrolls CCG and legal bullying against another company daring to use the generic word Scrolls for their CCG? Their acquisition of several studios was borderline illegal, and hostile takeovers at best.

Bethsoft isn't some weird outlier with a prestine special snowflake rep. They're down in the mud with some of the most exploitative release cycles and tactics right alongside EA and Activision. They dodged the loot box cycle on the basis of not having a game ready to go, not because they differ from the industry norm. They basically pioneered microtransaction dlcs for single player games with that bloody horse armor. Remember when they tried to charge players for mods by other players in Skyrim and Fallout 4? It didn't last, but they still pulled that crap.

Even without all that, I still wouldn't expect a FO5 in anything less than 5 years (more likely 6-7), and 4 has been out for three already. They will try to ride this horse for a long time.

I'm glad you finally understood my point in your last sentence there. But you expect in 6-7?

Lol, check out this optimist.

Level of excitement for this on a scale of 1-10. 1.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
I would be surprised at a Fallout 5 so soon, without even a new Elder Scrolls in between. Guess we'll see soon enough. I wonder if it will be an all-new engine?

Don't think of it as Fallout 5 but Fallout Online, so its a product out of the normal single player sequence.

If there's no mods, I don't see a point in getting it. Nobody plays vanilla Bethesda RPGs.

Not the first time Bethesda has taken one of its properties and gone to new game types in an attempt to bring in money. Battlespire and Redguard were both attempts - a *very* long time ago - to do something new with the Elder Scrolls setting. Battlespire was a first person shooter, and Redguard was an action-adventure game (with sword fighting).

Obviously they didn't work out, as we never saw Battlespire 2.

squidhills wrote:
If there's no mods, I don't see a point in getting it. Nobody plays vanilla Bethesda RPGs.

You can mod other survival games. I see no reason why this one wouldnt have that option.

 Dreadwinter wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
So, basically dead on arrival. That's good to know.

Yeah, I mean Rust, Ark, and Conan are all dead games closing their servers down soon. They would all still be alive had they not left early access. Grumble grumble dang kids grumble grumble

Yes, everyone that find's this dissapointing is clearly just "Old man yelling at cloud", and totally not just sad that a franchise they really like is turning into something they know they wont like.

Ark, Rust and Conan are all games that either didnt interest me at all, or managed to keep me going for an hour, maybe two, before I threw them aside due to it not being my cup of tea. The market has a bazillion friggin MP-survival games at this point. Seriously, every second game on steam is some sort of "Survival/crafting/building" type of deal, and often a dumpsterfire to boot. Why would I be any sort of excited for this? Even if I liked the genre to death and the game turned out to be decent, it's just another piece for the rapidly growing pile. And not the kind of Fallout that I started playing the series for.

Look at it from this perspective: I've played Elder Scrolls starting from Daggerfall all the way up to Skyrim and liked all of them. Then came TESO (Which was bad) and endless rehashes of Skyrim. And Skyrim could cure cancer and dispense Pudding, and I would still appreciate it if we wouldnt have to wait a Decade before they make the type of game again that I like the series for.

Same goes for Fallout. F1 until New Vegas including the DLC was great, only F3 was a little janky in my book. Then came F4, which was mostly bad with one or two good aspects. And now they announce some weird spinoff that's mostly F4's bad aspects, with the added benefit of Players who can not enjoy the game alongside me.

This is the kind of track record where I will stop buying anything from them until they produce an actually GOOD product again, and until then shun every piece of other garbage they put out. Bethesda isn't CD Projekt Red, where I would support products that are off the usual norm because it's a good company that cares about customers. They are also not some indie-deal that might just be trying to figure out what they are good at. They're one of the biggest companies in the industry, and also blatantly trying to muscle their way into the turf of EA, Ubisoft, Acitvision and Konami, where everyone competes on whos the worst company in gaming right now.

I'd really like for Bethesda to get back on track and be the company that I used to love again. Especially because they used to be one of the few companies that still cared about making quality Singleplayer-RPG's as opposed to more Multiplayer Garbage.

Stuebi wrote:
Look at it from this perspective: I've played Elder Scrolls starting from Daggerfall all the way up to Skyrim and liked all of them.

You even liked Battlespire and Redguard?

As I mentioned above, this isn't the first time that Bethesda has taken an existing franchise and made a new type of game utilizing the setting. If you don't like it, then don't play it. It's that simple. But don't carry on about it.

 Dreadwinter wrote:
I'm glad you finally understood my point in your last sentence there. But you expect in 6-7?

Lol, check out this optimist.

Your point wasn't hard to understand, it just wasn't much of one. They will ride the 76 train for quite a while, leaving single player fans in the dust. Exactly as they've done to Elder Scrolls fans, who probably aren't going to be satisfied with a few seconds of a teaser for long.

And at least 6 or 7.

 Dreadwinter wrote:

squidhills wrote:
If there's no mods, I don't see a point in getting it. Nobody plays vanilla Bethesda RPGs.

You can mod other survival games. I see no reason why this one wouldnt have that option.

How about game balance? Since it is online, with multiplayer as a core design feature/component, I see a very good reason for not letting people mod their 10mm pistols into Fat Man-tier damage dealers. Strictly cosmetic mods won't affect game balance, but the Nexus has a lot of mods on it that exist to adjust weapon damages up or down, insert new (occasionally OP) weapons into the game, improve the defense rating of armor, and so on. I don't see Bethesda allowing those on any kind of online game with a competitive component.

Voss wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:
I'm glad you finally understood my point in your last sentence there. But you expect in 6-7?

Lol, check out this optimist.

Your point wasn't hard to understand, it just wasn't much of one. They will ride the 76 train for quite a while, leaving single player fans in the dust. Exactly as they've done to Elder Scrolls fans, who probably aren't going to be satisfied with a few seconds of a teaser for long.

And at least 6 or 7.

You realize we are making the exact same point right? Bethesda Will not release a new single player Fallout game until they are done ringing every single drop of cash out of the one they have. Then maybe they might start development. Fallout 76 does absolutely nothing to postpone another single player game.

squidhills wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:

squidhills wrote:
If there's no mods, I don't see a point in getting it. Nobody plays vanilla Bethesda RPGs.

You can mod other survival games. I see no reason why this one wouldnt have that option.

How about game balance? Since it is online, with multiplayer as a core design feature/component, I see a very good reason for not letting people mod their 10mm pistols into Fat Man-tier damage dealers. Strictly cosmetic mods won't affect game balance, but the Nexus has a lot of mods on it that exist to adjust weapon damages up or down, insert new (occasionally OP) weapons into the game, improve the defense rating of armor, and so on. I don't see Bethesda allowing those on any kind of online game with a competitive component.

On dedicated servers I am sure there will be no modding. Since those would have to be applied server side. Player run servers, anything could happen. They could mod in unicorns with laser manes that shoot fat man's out their butts. Player Servers are really the only gamble with mods and even then, you usually get a warning up front about what is going on because you will need to do some downloading.

Eumerin wrote:

Stuebi wrote:
Look at it from this perspective: I've played Elder Scrolls starting from Daggerfall all the way up to Skyrim and liked all of them.

You even liked Battlespire and Redguard?

As I mentioned above, this isn't the first time that Bethesda has taken an existing franchise and made a new type of game utilizing the setting. If you don't like it, then don't play it. It's that simple. But don't carry on about it.

I was relatively young when I played the two (Over a Decade ago, no less), so I might be nostalgiasurfing on that one.


As I mentioned above, this isn't the first time that Bethesda has taken an existing franchise and made a new type of game utilizing the setting. If you like it, play it. But don't carry on about it.

Or we could not deny people their opinions in a forum discussion? Just a thought.

 Dreadwinter wrote:

Voss wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:
I'm glad you finally understood my point in your last sentence there. But you expect in 6-7?

Lol, check out this optimist.

Your point wasn't hard to understand, it just wasn't much of one. They will ride the 76 train for quite a while, leaving single player fans in the dust. Exactly as they've done to Elder Scrolls fans, who probably aren't going to be satisfied with a few seconds of a teaser for long.

And at least 6 or 7.

You realize we are making the exact same point right? Bethesda Will not release a new single player Fallout game until they are done ringing every single drop of cash out of the one they have. Then maybe they might start development. Fallout 76 does absolutely nothing to postpone another single player game.
.

Uh... if you think that not starting development (of a theoretical fallout 5) until they're done milking 76 doesn't constitute 'postponing,' then... No, we aren't making the exact same point.

It seems pretty straightforward to me. Fallout fans that don't like this won't be all that happy wih waiting til 2023/2024(or later) for a fallout game that they might like. The same way ES fans weren't/aren't happy that ESO, other experiments and Skyrim ports have them kicking their heels until 2020/2021. Or later depending on the DLC cycle for 76, Starfield and its DLC cycle and then finally the focused attention of the studio on ES6.

And while I liked FO4 for what it was, it mostly wasn't an RPG. So taking its base building and shooter aspects, swirling in multiplayer and calling it a game... I can see why quite a lot of existing fallout fanbase won't buy into 76 and will absolutely want something else.

The other risk is, well, the base building interface in FO4 was pretty janky. If they don't bring it up to the level of modrrn survival games, they'll have trouble with the new audience they're chasing.

Voss wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:

Voss wrote:

 Dreadwinter wrote:
I'm glad you finally understood my point in your last sentence there. But you expect in 6-7?

Lol, check out this optimist.

Your point wasn't hard to understand, it just wasn't much of one. They will ride the 76 train for quite a while, leaving single player fans in the dust. Exactly as they've done to Elder Scrolls fans, who probably aren't going to be satisfied with a few seconds of a teaser for long.

And at least 6 or 7.

You realize we are making the exact same point right? Bethesda Will not release a new single player Fallout game until they are done ringing every single drop of cash out of the one they have. Then maybe they might start development. Fallout 76 does absolutely nothing to postpone another single player game.
.

Uh... if you think that not starting development (of a theoretical fallout 5) until they're done milking 76 doesn't constitute 'postponing,' then... No, we aren't making the exact same point.

It seems pretty straightforward to me. Fallout fans that don't like this won't be all that happy wih waiting til 2023/2024(or later) for a fallout game that they might like. The same way ES fans weren't/aren't happy that ESO, other experiments and Skyrim ports have them kicking their heels until 2020/2021. Or later depending on the DLC cycle for 76, Starfield and its DLC cycle and then finally the focused attention of the studio on ES6.

And while I liked FO4 for what it was, it mostly wasn't an RPG. So taking its base building and shooter aspects, swirling in multiplayer and calling it a game... I can see why quite a lot of existing fallout fanbase won't buy into 76 and will absolutely want something else.

The other risk is, well, the base building interface in FO4 was pretty janky. If they don't bring it up to the level of modrrn survival games, they'll have trouble with the new audience they're chasing.

At least we have wasteland

The new trailer has my interest moving from a "hard PASS" to a "I'll be keeping a disinterested eye on it". It does look like the FO I know and love.

I played Fallout 3, then New Vegas and enjoyed both. Tried to go back to the older ones, but it felt a little bit like trying to get through the original Neverwinter nights (aka, probably worthwhile if you have several spare weeks to master the controls and mechanics but otherwise too much bother).

I picked up 4 and had a blast. Logged about 300 hours on the game with no mods. Switched console, added mods, did it again. Saw lots of people complaining that 4 was somehow worse than the likes of New Vegas, but frankly couldn't tell a huge amount of difference. Sure, there were less prostitutes and ammunition construction (something which drew a ridiculous amount of ire for some unexplained reason), and I think the storywriting was generally a little bit worse. Much prettier, and lots of other little touches which I came to enjoy over time though. All in all, about equal.

Then came the creation club stuff, to which some of the fans were /very vocal. Given that I"ve enjoyed some of the releases (the doughnut one was fun and added some quality content), I don't have to buy the crappier stuff (Morgan's space suit, etc), and some modders are actually enjoying getting paid for their work? I don't see a problem. I know it can mess your mods up if you buy something and it conflicts with a previously installed mod, but that's the same for any dlc/expansion content. It's the risk you take when installing mods.

I played the mobile Vault game. Entertaining for a few weeks, but got boring.

Now we have a new Fallout which seems to be survival themed online. Hmmm. I'm pretty flexible/tolerant of new formats. This could potentially work I suppose, but it's always difficult to produce quality story in MMO format. You end up with five guys queuing up to complete the 'Only you can save the world' quest at the same time and it breaks immersion. On the other hand, not having those quests makes it feel pointless. LOTRO attempted to do it by having you teleport away for set scenarios, but I don't think that would work for Fallout.

I don't know. I'll keep an open mind until I see it. Bethesda has generally given me games I enjoy, so they've earned the right to a little benefit of the doubt. There'll be time enough to gnash my teeth when it comes out if its crap.

 Ketara wrote:
Now we have a new Fallout which seems to be survival themed online. Hmmm. I'm pretty flexible/tolerant of new formats. This could potentially work I suppose, but it's always difficult to produce quality story in MMO format. You end up with five guys queuing up to complete the 'Only you can save the world' quest at the same time and it breaks immersion. On the other hand, not having those quests makes it feel pointless. LOTRO attempted to do it by having you teleport away for set scenarios, but I don't think that would work for Fallout.

I think that may be thematically easier given the premise of Fallout 76. You'll probably run into a lot more trouble with every player being from Vault 76, drunk and oversleeping reclamation day, with no outsider, ghoul, wastelander, raider or whatever to be seen, but that's at least something you may forget as you play and the start of the game becomes a distant memory. Seems the end game will be clearing the world of critters, which everyone can do, scavenging materials to build a settlement, which everyone can do, and terraforming West Virginia with nukes. Which everyone may be able to do given the limit of players per server is said to be in the dozens, and getting the access codes is said to be hard.

I have no experience with survival games or most online games for that matter, so I have no real grasp on the subject matter yet. I have a good feeling about this game, though, as long as the repeated remarks that griefing (a term which I hadn't encountered before - yeah, a single player life makes things so much easier ) is supposed to be kept to a minimum are true.

I think if one likes Fallout 4, Fallout 76 shouldn't be too bad as far as immersion goes. Fallout 4 has a lot of respawning and radiant quests that don't always make a lot of sense but that, if you like that kind of stuff, can extend your game meaningfully for a long time. For me it does so mostly in conjunction with quests and other features by providing filler that doesn't feel like filler. If Fallout 76 provides a goal worth working towards, I'll happily procrastinate the hell out of it and do all the filler stuff instead. I think that with regard to immersion that should be easier to justify than Fallout 4, since there's no kidnapped kid's life at stake. Just you rebuilding the world. Shouldn't feel like you'll be pressed for time even if you hardcore role play it.

 Ketara wrote:
I played Fallout 3, then New Vegas and enjoyed both. Tried to go back to the older ones, but it felt a little bit like trying to get through the original Neverwinter nights (aka, probably worthwhile if you have several spare weeks to master the controls and mechanics but otherwise too much bother).

I picked up 4 and had a blast. Logged about 300 hours on the game with no mods. Switched console, added mods, did it again. Saw lots of people complaining that 4 was somehow worse than the likes of New Vegas, but frankly couldn't tell a huge amount of difference. Sure, there were less prostitutes and ammunition construction (something which drew a ridiculous amount of ire for some unexplained reason), and I think the storywriting was generally a little bit worse. Much prettier, and lots of other little touches which I came to enjoy over time though. All in all, about equal.

I mean, everyone's free to prefer what they like, but your characterisation of the differences between the two is pretty far off the mark. Fallout 4 is categorically a lesser RPG than New Vegas, by any measure - character customisation, dialogue options, just options for how you approach quests generally especially the main one, in every way Fallout 4 is a narrower experience with fewer opportunities to roleplay and define yourself in the game world. The plot of the main story itself is also pretty pedestrian by comparison, which is surely an odd thing to say about a game as ludicrous and gonzo as Fallout 4, but it's true, the game falling into the "Developer Dads" trap that a lot of games are these days.

It does the power armour better than the previous two games, I don't actually have a problem with the inclusion of the settlement mechanic(though it's implementation is often half-arsed and it doesn't tie nearly closesly enough into the game's factions and "plot", such as it is, to really elevate the game), and the actual moment-to-moment gunplay is certainly the best of the three, but those three things come at the cost of all the mechanics and focus on storytelling that made the previous games and NV especially reasonably worthy successors to the original two games despite the radical format change. Most fans did not buy Fallout 4 wanting an OK but pretty empty-feeling open-world FPS game, they wanted a roleplaying game, and F4 failed to deliver relative to prior games in the franchise.

Then came the creation club stuff, to which some of the fans were /very vocal. Given that I"ve enjoyed some of the releases (the doughnut one was fun and added some quality content), I don't have to buy the crappier stuff (Morgan's space suit, etc), and some modders are actually enjoying getting paid for their work? I don't see a problem. I know it can mess your mods up if you buy something and it conflicts with a previously installed mod, but that's the same for any dlc/expansion content. It's the risk you take when installing mods.

And again, you skate right over the actual complaints and pick a minor one you can easily dismiss. Modding is a community thing and it has a certain ethos to it in the same way that Open Source does, people object to paid mods first and foremost because it fatally undermines that ethos and makes modding a mercenary, money-focused affair. Modders already had a way to get paid for their work - get hired by the developer, as many, many modders had in the past. They also object because it takes control of modding out of the hands of the community and puts it into Bethesda's - lets be real here, "just" offering paid mods alongside traditional mods was never going to be the end of it, because they would have no way to prevent traditional modders from making versions of all the paid mods for free; if they'd been allowed to get paid mods going the way they wanted, the eventual result would have been modding being tied into their distribution platform, and modding tools only available to people publishing on that platform, ie the end of free mods. People also objected because if you pay for something, if you purchase a product as opposed to downloading what is basically a work of fanart, then you become a consumer and you should have consumer rights, ie the product being sold should be fit for purpose and functional, and you should be entitled to support and have a right to a refund if it isn't, and none of that was on the cards - they fully intended to let people offer mods for sale without any obligation to offer support and without any vector for users to reclaim their money. As well as all that, despite the claimed incentive to create great content that paid mods would supposedly provide, the first attempt largely generated a mix of low-effort reskins and even outright theft, with a good portion of the mods that went up for sale just being free mods that had been downloaded off the Nexus.

And all of that is why fans(including most modders, remember) were "vocal" about Creation Club - Bethesda already showed their hand with their first attempt at paid mods on Steam, and nobody believes them when they say CC will be different, in the long term. Any more than people believe that EA's very public and tortured apologies and rollbacks over gambleboxes and pay-to-win multiplayer after the Battlefront 2 fiasco is actually a genuine and lasting change of attitude, or that the patents filed by Activision for multiplayer matchmaking systems designed primarily to encourage microtransaction sales are really "just theoretical" and "not actually in use or planned to be in use".

I played the mobile Vault game. Entertaining for a few weeks, but got boring.

Now we have a new Fallout which seems to be survival themed online. Hmmm. I'm pretty flexible/tolerant of new formats. This could potentially work I suppose, but it's always difficult to produce quality story in MMO format. You end up with five guys queuing up to complete the 'Only you can save the world' quest at the same time and it breaks immersion. On the other hand, not having those quests makes it feel pointless. LOTRO attempted to do it by having you teleport away for set scenarios, but I don't think that would work for Fallout.

I don't know. I'll keep an open mind until I see it. Bethesda has generally given me games I enjoy, so they've earned the right to a little benefit of the doubt. There'll be time enough to gnash my teeth when it comes out if its crap.

I mean, wait and see is a fine approach if you think there might be something there for you to enjoy, but there's already plenty enough information out there for some of us to know the game holds no appeal. Online only and more importantly a world with no other non-player human NPCs or factions designed to be played with others, meaning even if they do allow you to to play completely alone the game will be threadbare in comparison to a proper RPG, probably even in comparison to Fallout 4. What quests there are will be available only from robots, audiologs, and notes. If you do play solo, the building aspect won't even be as satisfying as the undercooked Fallout 4 implementation, since there won't be any NPCs to inhabit and use your creations. And of course, no mods at launch.

And hey, whatever, if some people would enjoy Rust reskinned with a vaguely Fallout theme and none of the things that actually make a Fallout game what it is, that'd be great for them, the issue is the opportunity cost for the rest of us. This game being made means we won't get whatever the Fallout 4-based version of New Vegas could have been. It means resources will be spent on this that won't be spent on Fallout 5 and TES 6. And it means that if this game finds a big audience and makes Bethesda tons of money, future Fallout games will look even less like RPGs than Fallout 4 did.

 Yodhrin wrote:

I mean, everyone's free to prefer what they like, but your characterisation of the differences between the two is pretty far off the mark. Fallout 4 is categorically a lesser RPG than New Vegas, by any measure- character customisation, dialogue options, just options for how you approach quests generally especially the main one, in every way Fallout 4 is a narrower experience with fewer opportunities to roleplay and define yourself in the game world.

Errr.....Mate, did we play the same game? New Vegas basically had about the same level of hairstyles, half a dozen fetch quests, a dozen odd 'go and talk to people and follow the story quests', and a crapton of 'Go to point A and kill stuff' quests'. Like most first person RPG's, including Fallout 4. You get the odd more interesting one here and there (going through the faux-aristocrats on the strip, etc), but then again, you get that in 4 too (for example, Nick's companion quest series,etc).

I think New Vegas had a more interesting storyline generally, but only by a hair. Until you get to Mr House, it's boring as crap. Vegas also had much better/more interesting Vault stories, but then again, 4 has it's own stuff. Vanilla survival mode was way better for example. Both had a similar number of endings. etcvetc

Seriously, you could cut the difference with a cheese knife in terms of true RPG elements. In terms of being able to control the story, neither has a patch on something like Mass Effect.

Most fans did not buy Fallout 4 wanting an OK but pretty empty-feeling open-world FPS game, they wanted a roleplaying game, and F4 failed to deliver relative to prior games in the franchise.

I remember 3 as being virtually empty beyond the main storyline. You got a handful of amusing odds and sods in the corners (tree guy, Republic of Dave, Violin Lady, Nuka-Cola Girl, etc), but they were sparse and far between. I finished poking around every corner of 3 and was frankly let down by the lack of content for the size of the world. The storyline meanwhile, was 'Girl finds dad', instead of 'Dad finds son'. Which is literally apples and oranges.

New Vegas was a bit better, but only about on par with 4 in terms of content for space. I felt it was slightly better written than 4, but again, this is a matter of a hair margin. It's not literature, it's just a few more lines written here, and a slightly more entertaining short story twist there. If I want story as my main priority, I wouldn't touch any of them. Even in terms of atmosphere, they all lose out to something like Bioshock in the FPS RPG category.

And again, you skate right over the actual complaints and pick a minor one you can easily dismiss.

The actual complaints were a load of self-entitled baloney. I mean, seriously.

Modding is a community thing and it has a certain ethos to it in the same way that Open Source does, people object to paid mods first and foremost because it fatally undermines that ethos and makes modding a mercenary, money-focused affair.

This is a terrible argument against Creation Club. It's like saying publishers should stop writing books because some people write for pleasure, or artists shouldn't be hired because some people draw for pleasure. Just because a community chooses to do something in their spare time doesn't make those fields of artistic leisure pursuits 'mercenary money focused affairs' when remunerated any more than...well, any other one of tens of thousands of similar examples. You paint models for fun, right? That doesn't mean 'Eavy Metal are somehow demeaning and making your endeavours 'mercenary, money focused affairs'.

I mean, really, what kind of argument is that?

Modders already had a way to get paid for their work - get hired by the developer, as many, many modders had in the past.They also object because it takes control of modding out of the hands of the community and puts it into Bethesda's

Isn't this counter-intuitive? Hiring the modders and making them only do what Bethesda wants is good, but creation club is bad because 'it takes control of modding away from the community'?

- lets be real here, "just" offering paid mods alongside traditional mods was never going to be the end of it, because they would have no way to prevent traditional modders from making versions of all the paid mods for free; if they'd been allowed to get paid mods going the way they wanted, the eventual result would have been modding being tied into their distribution platform, and modding tools only available to people publishing on that platform, ie the end of free mods.

Citation needed. Waving your hands and going, 'They'll take our mods away from us, maaaan' when they never said anything of the sort is just tinfoiling. Furthermore, it's physically impossible to stop modding (people can code and upload it to the web regardless of what Bethesda wants).

Heck, given that both have co-existed very nicely for some time now with no attempt by Bethesda to shut down Nexus or the like, I'd say the proof is literally in the pudding right now.

People also objected because if you pay for something, if you purchase a product as opposed to downloading what is basically a work of fanart, then you become a consumer and you should have consumer rights, ie the product being sold should be fit for purpose and functional, and you should be entitled to support and have a right to a refund if it isn't, and none of that was on the cards - they fully intended to let people offer mods for sale without any obligation to offer support and without any vector for users to reclaim their money. As well as all that, despite the claimed incentive to create great content that paid mods would supposedly provide, the first attempt largely generated a mix of low-effort reskins and even outright theft, with a good portion of the mods that went up for sale just being free mods that had been downloaded off the Nexus.

1. You are a consumer for Creation Club Content and have the appropriate rights for licensing digital content, No different to Steam or anything else.
2. All Creation Club Content is fully compatible with other CC content, the game, and official DLC.
3. All CC Content is coded from scratch. The Hellfire armour, for example, is not the one on Nexus. Anything else would open Bethesda up to legal action, and they're not that dumb. Plus, it's not like it took them much time to model a 'low-effort' reskin, as you put it.

And all of that is why fans(including most modders, remember) were "vocal" about Creation Club - Bethesda already showed their hand with their first attempt at paid mods on Steam, and nobody believes them when they say CC will be different, in the long term.

That's weird. I've read stuff from a number of modders saying they're very happy to finally be making some money out of it. Do you have a statistical survey or something to support this assertion that 'fans' and 'most modders' were against it? Because I remember a handful of very vocal blowhards going on and length, and most people not caring. Primarily on account of the fact that we're all aware that we can buy it if we want, or ignore it if we don't.

I mean, wait and see is fine approach if you think there might be something there for you to enjoy, but there's already plenty enough information out there for some of us to know the game holds no appeal.

To you, perhaps. I couldn't possibly say. I'll wait to find out before jumping to my keyboard to slate it.

And hey, whatever, if some people would enjoy Rust reskinned with a vaguely Fallout theme and none of the things that actually make a Fallout game what it is, that'd be great for them, the issue is the opportunity cost for the rest of us. This game being made means we won't get whatever the Fallout 4-based version of New Vegas could have been. It means resources will be spent on this that won't be spent on Fallout 5 and TES 6. And it means that if this game finds a big audience and makes Bethesda tons of money, future Fallout games will look even less like RPGs than Fallout 4 did.

And the resources being spent on your game could be spent on feeding starving children in Africa. Or making a Duke Nukem that was actually good. Or lots of things. If I got annoyed every time Sandy Mitchell decided to spend his time doing something other than writing me a new Ciaphas Cain book though, I'd never get anything done.

OK, so we're into disingenuous nonsense and not actually reading what was said territory now.

 Ketara wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:

I mean, everyone's free to prefer what they like, but your characterisation of the differences between the two is pretty far off the mark. Fallout 4 is categorically a lesser RPG than New Vegas, by any measure- character customisation, dialogue options, just options for how you approach quests generally especially the main one, in every way Fallout 4 is a narrower experience with fewer opportunities to roleplay and define yourself in the game world.

Errr.....Mate, did we play the same game?
...
Seriously, you could cut the difference with a cheese knife in terms of true RPG elements.

New Vegas was a bit better, but only about on par with 4 in terms of content for space. I felt it was slightly better written than 4, but again, this is a matter of a hair margin. It's not literature, it's just a few more lines written here, and a slightly more entertaining short story twist there. If I want story as my main priority, I wouldn't touch any of them. Even in terms of atmosphere, they all lose out to something like Bioshock in the FPS RPG category.

Evidently we didn't, and I've no idea what games it was you were playing because this is complete alternate-reality stuff. Bioshock is barely an RPG at all, it's just an FPS with a good story. Fallout 4 barely allows you to define your character, heavily limits your options in resolving quests, and has substantially inferior quality of writing to FNV for everything from supporting characters to minor sidequests. It also doesn't Flanderise the retro element of the Fallout aesthetic to the same degree as F4.

I remember 3 as being virtually empty beyond the main storyline. You got a handful of amusing odds and sods in the corners (tree guy, Republic of Dave, Violin Lady, Nuka-Cola Girl, etc), but they were sparse and far between. I finished poking around every corner of 3 and was frankly let down by the lack of content for the size of the world. The storyline meanwhile, was 'Girl finds dad', instead of 'Dad finds son'. Which is literally apples and oranges.

TBH I played it once and blanked it, so it obviously wasn't very good relative to F1, 2, and NV, but my dislike of F4's mediocrity is active, so F3 can't have been as bad.

The actual complaints were a load of self-entitled baloney. I mean, seriously.

Ah yes, "entitlement", the battlecry of people who can't actually respond to an argument.

Regardless, everything else you trundle through has the same slight flaw - you didn't bother to read what I wrote and so you're arguing against a phantom you conjured yourself. All of the things you're dismissing as "that's not an argument against Creation Club" aren't actually arguments against Creation Club, they're the reasons people were against Bethesda's first attempt at paid mods, and that attempt is why people are wary of Creation Club, because Bethesda's initial attempt burned away any goodwill and benefit of the doubt.

And all of that is why fans(including most modders, remember) were "vocal" about Creation Club - Bethesda already showed their hand with their first attempt at paid mods on Steam, and nobody believes them when they say CC will be different, in the long term.

That's weird. I've read stuff from a number of modders saying they're very happy to finally be making some money out of it. Do you have a statistical survey or something to support this assertion that 'fans' and 'most modders' were against it? Because I remember a handful of very vocal blowhards going on and length, and most people not caring. Primarily on account of the fact that we're all aware that we can buy it if we want, or ignore it if we don't.

Do you have a statistical survey to support your position? Of course not, but since your anecdote is "a number"(ie, a small handful) of modders, and my anecdote is "a backlash big enough for Bethesda to drop their first attempt and go completely back to the drawing board and a substantial number of modders refusing to ever upload their material to Steam again", I'm entirely comfortable in my assertion. This last bit is actually almost charmingly naive, but some of us have actually been paying attention to how game publishers behave when given an inch.

I mean, wait and see is fine approach if you think there might be something there for you to enjoy, but there's already plenty enough information out there for some of us to know the game holds no appeal.

To you, perhaps. I couldn't possibly say. I'll wait to find out before jumping to my keyboard to slate it.

 feeder wrote:
Bethesda with a new teaser tweet

New Fallout?

F3 remaster?

Switch port?

Skyrim for the pip-boy?

It's an MMO, called Fallout76 , set in West Virginia woodlands (!) and sets 25 years AFTER the Great War / Reckoning.

I don't understand why Beth prefers to focus each Fallout Games in JUST ONE city (and a handful of complexes/settlements around it) rather than a free-roaming like the Black Isle era? yet the FPS combat still suits me better.

 Yodhrin wrote:
OK, so we're into disingenuous nonsense and not actually reading what was said territory now..... Bioshock is barely an RPG at all, it's just an FPS with a good story.

.....Errr.....you made a comment about me not reading what you're writing. And then straight off the bat, made it clear that that is precisely what you're doing. Not the most....encouraging thing, I'll say that.

Scroll back and re-read. If you go back and actually look at the sentence, you'll see that I said Bioshock won out in terms of 'atmosphere'. That is to say, the feel of a game, the general setting, the way in which it builds a sense of emotional connection and immersion. Not RPG elements.

Fallout 4 barely allows you to define your character, heavily limits your options in resolving quests, and has substantially inferior quality of writing to FNV for everything from supporting characters to minor sidequests. It also doesn't Flanderise the retro element of the Fallout aesthetic to the same degree as F4.

Sorry, can you tell me what you mean by 'define your character' here? Because both have the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. thing, 4 has more character design elements, and as said, there was about the same number of Fetch/Kill/Follow quests.

4 also had more detailed back stories for most of the companions. Let's look at them one by one to take that claim to pieces.

Gannon and Veronica were the only two in New Vegas with anything approaching rounded out character status; with the caravan woman being blander than Dogmeat, and the Ghoul companion even more so (I literally can't even remember his name he was that 'unfleshed' out - pun intended). And unless you followed a specific series of steps, you didn't even get Gannon's backstory. Granny was interesting from a character design POV, but had little story or character beyond 'look at the demented Super mutant'. Boone was surprisingly annoying for a character that had about five lines of backstory. ED-E was cute, but not exactly a character given there were like six of them made.

So we've got Veronica and Gannon, as compared to Nick Valentine (very heavily fleshed out, possibly the best written character in Fallout so far), Piper (somewhat annoying but reasonably well rounded as character both from design and story), Paladin Danse (same again), Hancock (great character design, as well fleshed out as Piper - pun intended again) Cait and Macready (not a huge amount of story, but something to get your teeth into), and Preston Garvey (go away Garvey). Not to mention the two robots, who are both quite endearing in their own way if not much as characters. Strong is the only one I that's half as boring as most of the NV ones.

All of the FO4 characters have scripted lines for areas throughout the game, full-on conversations, quantitatively waaaaay more in the way of supporting character development quests, interaction with NPC's, and more. As compared to maybe three short conversations each with Gannon and Veronica and their respective side quests, and ED-E's involvement in the NV DLC.

Both quantitatively and qualitatively, in terms of design, writing, and gameplay elements, FO4 is far superior with regards to companions. The more I'm actually considering the merits/demerits, the more apparent it actually becomes. If you're perceiving 'superior writing' there, then you're clearly not playing the same game as me and we might as well pack it in.

 Yodhrin wrote:

Ah yes, "entitlement", the battlecry of people who can't actually respond to an argument.

No. the word being applied to people, 'believing oneself to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment.' The actual, literal textbook definition. Because most of the arguments present are, to some degree or another, entitled. In the very literal sense of the word.

Regardless, everything else you trundle through has the same slight flaw - you didn't bother to read what I wrote and so you're arguing against a phantom you conjured yourself. All of the things you're dismissing as "that's not an argument against Creation Club" aren't actually arguments against Creation Club, they're the reasons people were against Bethesda's first attempt at paid mods, and that attempt is why people are wary of Creation Club, because Bethesda's initial attempt burned away any goodwill and benefit of the doubt.

I am not sure that arguing people were only tinfoiling against things that might happen, and then did not happen, is quite the strong position you think it is.

Do you have a statistical survey to support your position? Of course not, but since your anecdote is "a number"(ie, a small handful) of modders, and my anecdote is "a backlash big enough for Bethesda to drop their first attempt and go completely back to the drawing board and a substantial number of modders refusing to ever upload their material to Steam again", I'm entirely comfortable in my assertion. This last bit is actually almost charmingly naive, but some of us have actually been paying attention to how game publishers behave when given an inch.

I'm quite happy with my impression remaining anecdotal. I don't care enough either way. I'm happy to be convinced otherwise, but if you want to tell me my impression was wrong, you'll need more than your own.

Either way, you're implying here that CC was going to be something other than it currently is, that it was going to have these many undesirable aspects that were dropped.It is possible I missed something. Could you link me (to take a random one of your claims so far) to the Bethesda notice that they were planning on shutting down free mods, or conceding that they were dropping their plans to get rid of them because of gamer backlash? I'm quite happy to be proven wrong here, a press release will do.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Yodhrin wrote:

And this is just garbage. I mean, you must know it's garbage, right? Which means it's also trolling, odd behaviour for a mod.

The fact that someone can recount what is effectively your reasoning/logic back at you and you perceive it as trolling may indicate that the argument is not that great.

The point is that being a little disappointed regarding how someone allocates their resources to one thing instead of another is fine, but getting upset is entitled behaviour. Why?

Because in this specific case, it's a luxury item. There are plenty of games out there. As indeed, there are plenty of 40K books out there. I might get sad Sandy Mitchell doesn't want to to write anymore, but actively hating on/begrudging whatever his other latest literary/creative endeavour is on account of that would be extreme. Sometimes people decide to create different things. Game studios are no different. I have no claim on Sandy's time or his future output, and to start talking crap about him and his upcoming work in a negative manner because I'm disappointed I'm not getting more Cain books would be entitled behaviour. Seriously. I would very literally be acting as if my wants were something to be respected and adhered to above what he, or other people might want.

I'm not using the word entitled here as an insult curveball, I'm using it as a basic adjective. If that's not what you're doing, and you're just wistfully mentioning you'd have liked more classic Fallout instead, then that's fine and perhaps I misread things. You're coming off as the other to me right now though, whether you mean to or not.

I have to say Ketara, while your opinion is totally valid about what Fallout games you preferred over others, I have to say that you are in the *vast* minority in liking FO4 over either FO3 or FNV.

I am a bit myself also as I prefer FO3 to FNV but I am with Yodhrim on my active dislike of FO4. Any decision you made in FO4 didn't matter, at all until literally the *very* end of the game. It removed even more RPG elements than FO3 and FNV did and I dare anyone to actually provide a coherent reason for the institute replacing people with synths or what the hell their long term goal was. They are literally the underpants gnomes of the Fallout universe.

Just watched a fun documentary on Fallout 76 that has some gameplay information (skip to 18 minutes if you want just that):

 Lone Cat wrote:
I don't understand why Beth prefers to focus each Fallout Games in JUST ONE city (and a handful of complexes/settlements around it) rather than a free-roaming like the Black Isle era? yet the FPS combat still suits me better.

I think you'll have a hard time combining what seems to be the most popular thing these days, an ongoing and cohesive world, with the large maps with points of interest like you had twenty years ago in Fallout and Baldur's Gate. They actually insert some of the latter into their games with DLCs. Far Harbor is quite a distance from Boston, Nuka World is just across the mountains. Fallout 3 had the Pitt and Point Lookout. Skyrim had Solstheim. All of these are maps in their own right outside the main map, with a means of traveling from one map to the other like in the old Fallouts (without red lines and Indiana Jones music, though).

But these go against the feel of the game where you get a cohesive world. You climb up on the roof of Red Rocket and see Mass Fusion tower in the distance, and you can actually walk there. In Fallout you would have exited the local map, got your world map out and traveled from, say, Vault 13 to Junktown, get there and open that local map. That's an entirely different experience. The closest to that that you get in modern Bethesda games is fast travel, which strikes me more as a convenience than a deliberate callback to the old mechanic.

The limit is that the cohesive world they apparently want (which I approve of, by the way) is limited is size because of the limits of development. They can only make such a big landscape, so many different textures, quests, landmarks, etc. before the game gets too expensive and unwieldy. If they want all parts to smoothly blend into each other, it's necessarily limited in size.

I can only speculate why they prefer this, but I can tell you why I prefer it. There's just something about remaining in the same view mode, especially if it's first person, that immerses you in the game. You don't get taken out by gamey elements. I found Fallout 1 pretty disjointed in that regard. You have to make it to the edge of the map, then you're safe. Then you get your world map and you can click anywhere, but you only have the big landmarks that do anything. There's no mountain cabin halfway between here and there that might be fin to explore. There's no Raider camp that you need to walk around if you don't want to get into a fight. There are random encounters, with exactly one map per terrain type with you always starting in the middle and getting ambushed by whatever you encounter. No way to sneak up on them instead. Simply put, interaction is severely limited. Modern Bethesda games are a lot more immersive and better games for it, if you ask me. If the price for that is a somewhat smallish map, I'll happily take it.

 vonjankmon wrote:
I have to say Ketara, while your opinion is totally valid about what Fallout games you preferred over others, I have to say that you are in the *vast* minority in liking FO4 over either FO3 or FNV.

I am a bit myself also as I prefer FO3 to FNV but I am with Yodhrim on my active dislike of FO4. Any decision you made in FO4 didn't matter, at all until literally the *very* end of the game. It removed even more RPG elements than FO3 and FNV did and I dare anyone to actually provide a coherent reason for the institute replacing people with synths or what the hell their long term goal was. They are literally the underpants gnomes of the Fallout universe.

NV and 4 both had pretty poor storylines. Number 3's main storyline was probably the best.

The thing here is that I don't actually like 4 /more than I did NV or 3. All were enjoyable games. But all had pros and flaws. Three had the best storyline but fell flat on most other things. NV had a worse storyline than three, but was much better as an all rounder. Four had a fraction of a hair worse writing than NV, but made up for it with additional content and better developed characters. Four had much better mechanics generally (from survival mode to the combat) but New Vegas had a much grittier atmosphere that I enjoyed. Four had terrible Vault backstories (seriously I want twisted stuff, that's the point) compared to three and New Vegas.

It's give with one hand and take with the other. I'd probably give three a 3.5/5 and the other two a 4/5 if pressed to grade. If I want to do serious roleplaying or feel really immersed though, I'm better off looking elsewhere altogether. Trying to yeah-uh and nuh-uh that one is better than the other on that basis is like trying to ascertain which of two kinds of home brand cheddar is the stronger cheese. Utterly pointless. If you want a strong cheese, you go and buy a strong cheese, rather than dickering about with cheddar, criticising and trying to argue over that fractional difference.

But I'm fine with Fallout being the way it is, because it gives me that nice open world feeling. I do like the background, even if aspects of it are as deeply thought out as a ham sandwich. If the new game is a bit different, I'm cool with that so long as it's half decent. If it's not, I'll buy something else that scratches my gaming itch (be it for FPS, roleplaying, or whatever at the time). We live in a Mecca of different and interesting games these days. I've a 'to play' list of games longer than my arm. I'm currently wringing pleasure out of Total War 2, but once I'm done with that, I've the new Dishonoured games, the new Wolfensteins, Shadow of Mordor, etcetc. That's on top of some classics like Devil May Cry and Mech Commander I want to go back to.

So if the next Fallout ends up being a bit naff (see ME:Andromeda), I'll shrug and move onto something else. Video games are not serious business, and there's plenty of other fish in the sea.

 vonjankmon wrote:
I have to say Ketara, while your opinion is totally valid about what Fallout games you preferred over others, I have to say that you are in the *vast* minority in liking FO4 over either FO3 or FNV.

I am a bit myself also as I prefer FO3 to FNV but I am with Yodhrim on my active dislike of FO4. Any decision you made in FO4 didn't matter, at all until literally the *very* end of the game. It removed even more RPG elements than FO3 and FNV did and I dare anyone to actually provide a coherent reason for the institute replacing people with synths or what the hell their long term goal was. They are literally the underpants gnomes of the Fallout universe.

That's pretty fair. I expected them to do something with the institute scientist who didn't like synths, but if you take over, your only option is to continue as is. There isn't any followup, and the dlc just doesn't deal with the main story.

That said, I don't think NV is any better. (And Lonesome Road makes any character building utterly problematic). You the courier go for revenge and optionally get neck deep in stupid (or stop playing). Go for the pointless empty boss fight or side with rapists and slavers.

 vonjankmon wrote:
...I dare anyone to actually provide a coherent reason for the institute replacing people with synths or what the hell their long term goal was.

Aside from being overt comic book villains in some respects, the game actually provides you with a logical framework for why synths are thought to be a good idea. It's mostly just hinted at and you need to ask the right questions and look in the right places, but I think the Institute is actually pretty well written in that regard.

The Institute as a society is focused on scientific pursuits in the "hard" sciences. In the dire events of a nuclear war and its aftermath, that's a pretty sound survival strategy, but as a byproduct social science is neglected and it leaves them largely "ethically challenged". The most notable place to pick this up is when two Bioscience (the division responsible for physicians) guys discuss ethics and humanity and agree that these are topics best left to their colleagues in Robotics. Meaning that if there are dedicated psychologists in the Institute, their work is closer to engineering than figuring out what's going on with the actual people in the Institute. This the foundation for everything that goes wrong inside the Institute and the spillover that affects the Commonwealth.

Facilities Division is constantly struggling for space and (electrical) power. Excavation is a slow process and somewhat dangerous. Power is very limited. Space for growing food is limited As an enclosed environment, the Institute only has so much room for its human population. That makes synths a logical choice to overcome some of the problems the Institute faces. Synths are ideally low maintenance, don't take up much room (ie they don't compete for living space), can act as an absolutely loyal guard force (which is convenient because smart people tend to get funny ideas at times and think they know better than the Directorate) and workforce, and can undertake excavation and surface operations without risk of injury or death to the small human population of the Institute.

Gen 1s and 2s are noted to be flawed in their pathfinding (and thus presumably independent problem solving) skill, and there may be power limits and a need to recharge often that limits them for extended operations. While Gen3s are not particularly well explained (they seem to be able to extract power from food like humans, which is part of why they can blend into society, but don't require sleep, so it begs the question if different power sources can keep them going as well) they are supposed to be physically and mentally superior to humans, which makes them automatically superior to earlier generations. They're more expensive to make, but better and more reliable. Most importantly, as far as Institute doctrine is concerned, they are still tools. If one breaks (not dies), you repair it or just make a new one. They can be sent out to do the same dangerous jobs as earlier generations without risk to the human population of the Institute.

Importantly, while the Directorate and SRB acknowledge one more useful function of Gen 3 Synths, they are decidedly not replacing the population with Synths as is the common fear among wastelanders. Just key individuals that act as spies or agents that further the Institute's limited ambitions on the surface. The ones that are actually undermine human society are the Railroad. To the Institute, Synths are simple tools and nothing is gained by a large scale replacement of people on the surface. In fact, a part of Synth retention is not just to get the Institute's property back, but also to limit the harm free Synths when living unchecked among wastelanders.

It is made very clear that doctrinal view in the Institute is that Synths are tools and their mental makeup approaches, but is not equal to, free will. They can and should be controlled. Their minds can be wiped and altered to allow the Institute to correct mindsets that are not in line with the Synths appointed duty.

The long term goal of the Institute as far as Synths are concerned is no different than their long term goal for toasters. They are a convenient slave force that comes with none of the ethical challenges because they are in every sense machines created by Institute scientists to complement that underground habitat that serves as the living space for the Institute's human population. Just another cog in the machine that keeps the self-appointed future of mankind able to work on their scientific projects and living comfortably and safely.

That's really all there is to the Institute in Fallout 4. They don't actually have the typical megalomaniac plans for taking over the world as is implied if you listen to their enemies: In spite of their slogan "Mankind Redefined", by Father's admission they give up on the surface world (at least for the immediate future) to hide away in their little underground paradise.

They are, of course, dangerous to mankind as propagated by the Brotherhod of Steel, for stalwartly refusing to acknowledge the problem of giving robots free will. Whether it's actual free will or not, the result is the same. What they do acknowledge and act upon is that Synths need oversight and can't be let off the leash. The big premise worked into the Institute's background is the same that gave us several Jurassic Park movies: scientists who believe that they can control their works under any and all circumstances and that nothing could go wrong. Technically, which is to say as long as nothing goes wrong, the Institute's plan is sound. But if it does go wrong, it'll go wrong in the most spectacular way.

And that's not what goes wrong as far as Fallout 4's time frame is concerned. Instead, some Institute kid thinks he can help the poor enslaved Synths (he's young and idealistic) and that he's going to show the old farts running the show what a genius he is by circumventing their security protocols and setting free Synths. You know, because he can and because he's cleverer than them, not because he means any harm or actually believes in Synth freedom if it comes at the expense of the Institute's welfare. The real problem is the terrorist group waiting on the surface (you know, the Railroad) that willfully infiltrates Synths into human society and thinks it's doing the world a favor, which ultimately leads to an extremist military state (aka the Brotherhood of Steel) fixing its gaze on the Commonwealth and trying to impress its vision of the future on the Commonwealth and ts people.