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Don't Buy the Hype
In the year of our Lord, 2007 AD, the Fallout franchise turns ten years old. However, since the release of Fallout 2 in 1998, fans have yet to enjoy a true sequel to their favorite roleplaying franchise. Fallout 2 was followed by Fallout: Tactics, which while being technically fun had a cavalcade of setting issues and wasn't the roleplaying game that fans wanted. The company was purchased a while after these events by Titus, the director becoming Herve Caen. In 2003, he started two projects roughly at the same time: Van Buren, which was Fallout 3, and the console shooter Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel. Caen cancelled the former for the latter in an attempt to focus Interplay's resources on the console market.[1]
In an effort to help stave off its impending bankruptcy, Interplay sold the rights to make Fallout 3 to Bethesda Softworks in 2004, including options for a 4th and 5th Fallout, for 1.175 million dollars advance against royalties. This transaction was met with careful optimism. Perhaps despite Bethesda's game history, they could effectively deliver a sequel that the fans could enjoy.[1] However, ever since the release of The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, Bethesda has systematically eroded any faith in an honest-to-goodness sequel to Fallout 2. They have figuratively shat all over the fans of the Elder Scrolls franchise and Star Trek franchise, with their sights soon to be set on the two biggest Fallout fansites, No Mutants Allowed[2] and Duck and Cover[3]. The following is an account of Bethesda's operating methods, and the mishandling of the various fanbases : Origins Chris Weaver, the chairman of Media Technologies founded Bethesda in 1986 in an effort to see if the PC was a viable market for game development. The first game, a football game titled Gridirion, was a success, securing Bethesda a deal with Interplay to develop the first John Madden Football. For 18 years, Bethesda was owned and funded solely by Weaver, with The Elder Scrolls: Arena becoming Weaver's baby. The Elder Scrolls is Bethsoft's only original in-house franchise. [4] In 1994, Bethesda released The Elder Scrolls: Arena[5], an open-ended roguelike played with a First-Person Perspective that took place in the fantasy world of Tamriel. That the game was a roguelike was very important. Traditionally, roguelikes are based on the 1980 game Rogue[6], and usually feature top-down views. However, two important features of roguelikes, namely a fantasy world with randomly-generated maps and dungeons, are predominant enough in Arena and its sequel Daggerfall for fans to refer to both titles as roguelikes. The appeal of a roguelike lies in its replay value. The nature of randomly generated environments guarantees that no two experiences are going to be exactly alike, and gamers responded well to these features. Arena and Daggerfall combined static environments such as cities with randomly-generated dungeons and quests. While there may have not been much depth to the experience beyond the central story, the massive world and random nature kept some players interested in and playing the games even to the present. Following Arena's success, Daggerfall [7]was released in 1996. Daggerfall was a supremely ambitious project which sought to recreate Tamriel in 161,000 square miles, and was inhabited by 750,000 NPCs. By comparison, the sequel to Daggerfall, Morrowind, is about .01% the size of Daggerfall's gameworld, with 6 square miles, while Oblivion only features 16. For players that loved Arena's roguelike qualities it was a phenomenal sequel. Daggerfall also expanded on the impressive lore created for Arena, adding a new cast of fleshed out characters in addition to the 750,000 clones, not the least which being Mannimarco the King of Worms[8]:
It was at this time that Todd Howard had entered the scene:
Following the inability to capitalize on Daggerfall, as well as the release and production of a number of other commercial flops, Bethesda and its parent company, Weaver's Media Technologies were in deep water:
Morrowind And Weaver's Absence The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind[12]was released to critical acclaim and fan dissapointment in 2002 with versions for the PC and Xbox. Despite the alienation of previous fans, the game sold 4 million copies across both platforms, and was able to garner a new fan base for the franchise. Perhaps most distressing to fans of Arena and Daggerfall was the lack of roguelike elements. In lieu of creating a massive roguelike world, Morrowind instead shifted to a comparatively small, hand-crafted static world centered around the island of Vvardenfell in the province of Morrowind. Cited reasons for doing so was an attempt at making more unique NPCs and quests. While in some cases this was accomplished effectively, there were still far too many filler NPCs to give the impression of a fully functioning virtual world. The tradeoff between the roguelike Daggerfall and hand-set Morrowind wasn't enough, and players ended up with a much smaller world to explore. Character skills were also pulled back from the 38 skills in Daggerfall to 27 in Morrowind. Most of the communication skills were removed, leaving only Mercantile and Speechcraft. Most of the old communication-based skills were language skills for most of the species of Tamriel. Contrary to first impressions, however, high language skills mostly reduced the likelihood of creatures attacking you on sight as opposed to actually allowing you to speak with them. Instead of taking the opportunity to support these skills and giving them an interactive application, they were removed. Much of these changes can be attributed to to Todd Howard's sudden promotion to Design Lead on the project. His experiences with the Terminator shooters could be seen as Bethesda effectively turned the Elder Scrolls series from an adventure game with roleplaying elements into a shooter with roleplaying elements. Another complaint about the game was the change in plot development. The main story of Morrowind was completely linear, with only a few optional objectives and a set ending, which was as opposed to Daggerfall's severely branched quest tree and 7 different endings. For comparison, note the difference in the flow charts for UESP's Daggerfall Walkthrough[13] and Morrowind Walkthrough[14]. On the other hand, the game was still faithful to the lore created by Arena and Daggerfall. It also possessed many High Fantasy qualities which gave it an extremely attractive appearance from an art perspective, but was occasionally drab in some areas of the gameworld. It had a lot to offer in terms of exploration and expansion of lore, and is well-written enough to be considered a faithful sequel from a setting perspective, if not a gameplay one. The commercial success of Morrowind and its expansions ensured another Elder Scrolls game, and work soon began on Oblivion. Things weren't looking good for Weaver, however:
Oblivion In 2005 the marketing machine for Oblivion kicked into full swing. Fans were worked into a frenzy over the prospect of a "next-gen" Elder Scrolls title, while some fansites, most noteably the online community RPGCodex[17] expressed tremendous skepticism leading up to the release of Oblivion. On March 21, 2006, the fears of all of these skeptics were confirmed on the release of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion[18] for the PC and Xbox360. In one fell swoop, not only did Bethesda continue to alienate fans of the roguelike Arena and Daggerfall, but also alienated the new fanbase they had acquired as a result of Morrowind's success. If Morrowind was a dumbing down of The Elder Scrolls, Oblivion was borderline retarded. The most telling sign of the loss of depth in Oblivion was the continued drop in skills from Morrowind's 27 to Oblivion's 21. Weapon classes were lumped into Blade, Blunt, Ranged, and Unarmed skills. Axes were considered to be in the blunt category, while spears and crossbows were removed altogether. The magic skills were also whittled down, as the Gamebryo engine didn't allow for the seamless world that every previous Elder Scrolls game featured for the outdoors, so gone were spell classes that aided levitation and necromancy. It was also impossible for the return of the climbing skill, which in addition to levitation was an alternate method of reaching a location in Daggerfall, but had been removed in Morrowind. More significant was the complete loss of any real consequence for the player's actions. The choices for a player were also extremely limited. When talking to a quest-giver, the quest is automatically activated regardless of whether the player actually wants to do it. The factions themselves were all-inclusive, and player characters could be the leaders of all 4 guilds. The player was also capable of completing the guild quests without any skillsets specific to them. A fighter could complete all Mage Guild quests, mostly because of the homogenous nature of the skill system. Curiouser was the lack of any significant impact on the gameworld. Any murder can be bought off with a thousand spetims (the in-game currency), and beyond the deaths of non-quest reliant NPCs, nothing the player does creates an appreciable impact. The player could become the "Hero of Kvatch" after a certain point in the main quest, yet when interacting with NPCs, they still all treat the player character like they've never seen him before in their life, despite having just called you the Hero of Kvatch. Yet even with the amorality of buying off any murder (including the murder of guards), the player was incapable of joining the more evilly-aligned guilds such as the Necromancers or the Black Wood Company, because doing so would interfere with the quest lines of the Mage's and Fighter's guilds, respectively. The loss of any consequences and gameworld impact was a jarring transition from Morrowind, which featured guild quests that sometimes conflicted with each other. There were also three Great Houses which the player character could only be aligned with one of. In Oblivion, the choice of becoming a member of one faction and not being able to join another was removed completely. The much-touted Radiant AI was also exposed to be an of hype. Instead of characters performing contextual tasks and giving themselves goals, NPCs followed strictly scheduled patterns in which they would go to a location just to stare at a wall for 5 in-game hours and have disjointed conversations with other NPCs about mudcrabs. Perhaps the greatest flaw of all was the inclusion of a poorly designed level-scaling system, which scaled all enemies and items to the player character's level. This eliminated any chance of the game being too hard or too easy, eliminating the possibility of any challenge. This resulted in queer inconsistancies such as bandits with plate armour. Because of the scaling, all items were of little use, being set to the player's level. This trivialized any sense of progression and surprise in the game, making it possible to accomplish any task at level 1. The player could become Arena Champion, the greatest fighter in all of Cyrodiil, at level 1, and Mannimarco, the powerful Necromancer, puppet master, and God to the terrible sloads, could be killed by a level 1 character with an iron dagger. Oblivion also offered very little else in terms of lore, and merely accomplished the end of the Septim line and the beginning of the Fourth Era in The Elder Scrolls. Most of the lore in Elder Scrolls games is supplemented through books that are readable in-game. Yet most of the books in Oblivion were copied from Daggerfall and Morrowind, with very little new information. In spite of these flaws, the marketing machine headed by Pete Hines was so effective that media reception was overwhelmingly positive. This helped insure the sale of 3 million copies as Todd Howard and Pete Hines targeted the title to the casual crowd of Xbox360 gamers. Blacklisting the Codex Bethesda's bullying before the launch of Oblivion can be best seen in an interview with Douglas Goodall. Goodall was a writer who had left Bethesda after working on Morrowind over his own disagreements with the direction Todd had steered the franchise. However, the interview in which Goodall aired his grievances was forcibly removed[15] from an Elder Scrolls fansite:
Meanwhile, Oblivion was released to both the derision and despair of the RPGCodex community. A month after release, the Codex's Vault Dweller posted his Oblivion review[20] on the front page. Bethesda responded severely to the critical review:
Where No Trekkie Can Go Anymore While Fallout changed hands between Interplay and Bethesda, the Star Trek gaming franchise was suspended in a state of limbo. STG's[22] Victor recalls in his interview with NMA[23]:
On Jan 24th, Victor announced on the STG forums, that Bethesda had blacklisted their site[27].
What happened to STG wasn't merely a simple blacklisting. Bethesda employed a tactic of Divide & Conquer:
Remember our friend Emil? Posting as Lohan[28], he made a grand total of four posts at No Mutants Allowed on February the second, and the third of 2006. Since then he has yet to make any other post at NMA, and it is perhaps not all that surprising that he made his presence known, and then became scarce shortly before the release of Oblivion. Fast-forward to October, when Emil made his first post at Duck and Cover as Bethsoft _Emil[29]. It was after being announced Lead Designer of the Fallout 3 project, and yet while posting at DAC he had yet to announce himself on NMA. I asked Kharn of NMA about the issue:
He's certainly lied about company loyalties, possibly lied about being a lurker, and possibly even lied about thinking well of NMA. His history with NMA and DAC all suggest that his posting habits are being dictated by the company, possibly Pete Hines himself. Even when posting at DAC, however, he only posted a short amount of time, from October 27th, to November 12th[31], which for the unobservant reader was a month before the release of Star Trek Legacy. Is there significance to the fact that Emil made his presence known and then stopped posting at two different Fallout fansites a month before the release of two titles produced, and one developed, by Bethsoft? It's impossible to say. Yet, considering the fact that MrSmileyFaceDude[32], another Bethesda developer has been posting occasionally at DAC, up to January 23rd (at the time this is being written, it is mid-February), whereas his last post made at NMA was on March 14th, 2006[33], the evidence appears to show signs of favoritism. What does this mean for the future of NMA and DAC? If the evidence from the blacklisting of RPGCodex and STG are anything to go by, there's a significant possibility that as the hype machine for Fallout 3 kicks into gear, Bethesda will attempt to use DAC and NMA in order to serve as marketing tools, as was the case with STG and STGU. Eventually, when Bethsoft finds that NMA and DAC won't tow the party line, they'll be blacklisted, and Bethesda may possibly even attempt to garner DAC's complacency with meaningless benefits and exclusive info. The previous statement serves as a warning. If Bethesda does attempt to control NMA and DAC they are sure to be severely dissapointed. Deconstructing the Hype The purpose of this piece is not to encourage the reader to boycott all products produced or developed by Bethesda. It is instead a warning, that one must be aware of how their hype machine operates, and how not to be drawn in by mindless lingo and false promises, as was the case with Oblivion and Star Trek Legacy. We'll now take a look at two examples of PR hype from Todd Howard and Pete Hines, the first from the previously cited Escapist article, the second from a recent Shacknews interview[33] First, Todd Howard's comments in the Escapist article:
This odd way of making sequels worries Fallout fans, because it suggests that Todd has a habit of focusing on precisely what hasn't made a franchise special. For Fallout and Fallout 2, specifically, they used Isometric perspectives, turn-based combat, and a simulationist roleplaying experience. None of those features has ever been in the experience of any current Bethesda developer. Certainly not Todd. It's arguable that none of the Elder Scrolls games even come close to being significant roleplaying experiences. Pete Hines has also affirmed rumours that Bethesda refused to hire original Fallout developers, as will be made clear shortly.
That aside, his position on "jokes" in games is also questionable, considering that the ad-campaign for the Oblivion expansion, Shivering Isles[36] has focused predominantly on how "funny" the game will be for its focus on madness. Now moving on to Pete Hines and his Shacknews interview:
It's also interesting to note that he says that they've treated Fallout 3 like the first two games, while then saying that they actually haven't, making the entire exchange completely meaningless.
Note also that what people "from the outside" expect of Bethesda, in terms of the fan communities, isn't much.
It's been repeated several times in the past by others talking about Fallout spinoffs:
There's very little to interpret from this statement, other than the significant possibility that Bethesda being full of "Fallout fans" is a lie.
According to Moby Games, 46 people from Morrowind worked on Oblivion[39]. Compare that to the massively expanded credits for Oblivion[40], of which 18 people had worked on the Elder Scrolls action spin-off Redguard [41](which Todd Howard was also the project lead on), while only 5 had worked on Daggerfall, in which 26 people[42] are credited in the design of the game. Numerically, only a handful of people who made classic Elder Scrolls games worked on Oblivion, and logically, simply because a sequel has been made by the same company that made its predecessor, that doesn't mean that the sequel hasn't been "dumbed down." Don't Buy the Hype If I were a betting man, I'd say that the Fallout communities should brace for impact. Bethesda has made several indications that it will steer the Fallout franchise away from what made it special. Bethesda is a clear example of the fact that regardless of how well a company behaved in the past, it still has the chance to develop into a soulless money-making machine. They've used bullying and scare tactics in an attempt to silence fan communities, and have given no indication that they give a damn what the fans think. In addition to all of that, they have recently made the announcement that they are seeking a community manager[44], a move that appears to further Bethesda's policy of seeking control over fan communities. The current project lead of Fallout 3 is a man whose development experience is dominated by action games, and turned Bethesda's own in-house adventure franchise into an action franchise. There is tremendous cause for worry. Don't buy the hype. Citations & Links: [1]http://www.nma-fallout.com/article.php?id=34542 [2]http://www.nma-fallout.com/ [3]http://www.duckandcover.cx/ [4]http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/83/11 [5]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls:_Arena [6]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_%28computer_game%29 [7]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eld...II:_Daggerfall [8]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mannimarco [9]http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/83/12 [10]http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/te...-future-shock/ [11]http://www.mobygames.com/game/skynet [12]http://www.mobygames.com/game/window...-iii-morrowind [13]http://www.uesp.net/dagger/hints/walkthro.shtml [14]http://www.uesp.net/morrow/quest/mq_main.shtml [15]http://www.rpgcodex.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=10408 [16]http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/83/13 [17]http://www.rpgcodex.com [18]http://www.mobygames.com/game/window...ls-iv-oblivion [19]http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/vie...=178347#178347 [20]http://www.rpgcodex.com/content.php?id=129 [21]Private Messages from Vault Dweller [22]http://www.startrek-gamers.com/ [23]http://www.nma-fallout.com/article.php?id=34698 [24]Emails from Victor [25]http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/star-trek-legacy [26]http://www.rpgcodex.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=16428 [27]http://www.startrek-gamers.com/forum...pic.php?t=2375 [28]http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/pro...profile&u=4296 [29]http://www.duckandcover.cx/forums/te...n_minipost.gif [30]Private Messages from Kharn [31]http://www.duckandcover.cx/forums/se...=Bethsoft_Emil [32]http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/vie...=267163#267163 [33]http://www.shacknews.com/extras/2007..._petehines_2.x [34]http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/83/14 [35]http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/83/15 [36]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eld...hivering_Isles [37]http://www.duckandcover.cx/forums/vi...=321682#321682 [38]http://archive.gamespy.com/interview...s/index2.shtml [39]http://www.mobygames.com/game/window...rowind/credits [40]http://www.mobygames.com/game/window...livion/credits [41]http://www.mobygames.com/game/elder-...tures-redguard [42]http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/el...erfall/credits [43]http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/vie...er=asc&start=0 [44]http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=34719 If you liked this piece, please repost it on other forums using the .txt version here: staff.gamingforce.com/brady/don'tbuythehype.txt Jam it back in, in the dark. |
That's the longest post I've ever seen.
And Oblivion was a lot of fun I don't care if they used enslaved African babies to power their machines, it was worth it. How ya doing, buddy? |
You know, when I played Oblivion briefly, once I got over the scenery I began to notice just how samey the combat was and how potentially boring it could be without the option to play evil.
I've never personally found satisfaction in that route, so I enjoy light side in KOTOR, open palm in Jade Empire, Neutral Good in D&D, and so on. But I can certainly see where you're coming from as far as Oblivion being the RPG marketed towards a wider, action game audience. It's not technically a sandbox game, because it limits you in certain fundamental ways. I have a hard time believing a company like Bethesda would want that kind of alienating clout, as I had always associated them with dev companies like Black Isle and Bioware. Namely, the kind of "by gamers, for gamers" vibe that inspired the fandom in the first place. I have yet to try to get through Morrowind or Oblivion, even though I loved Daggerfall, but if what you're saying is true, then I think it's going to stand out like a sore thumb when they try to change Fallout from turnbased into 3rd person action/adventure. Not just to the loyal fans, but to the newcomers to the series, as well. Most amazing jew boots |
Interplay was "by gamers for gamers" and look what happened to it.
Whether or not one likes Oblivion is besides the point, the point is to illustrate its relevancy for the Elder Scrolls franchise and how Todd steers his projects. Also as an aside, I think Bioware is the dumbest RPG developer out there. Compared to Black Isle and Troika, Bioware games are like High School creative writing projects. Then again, Black Isle and Troika are both dead, and Obsidian has been entrapped making Bioware's sequels. Where's the justice, I tell ya. I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body? |
I guess all I'm saying is that you've got an uphill battle ahead of you.
How ya doing, buddy? |
I don't care much for Baldur's Gate, so I guess I do hate rainbows.
What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now? |
Ah....Fallout. That was one damn good series that got lost somewhere along the way of its sequel. Well, it is in the corporate world, and there, money talks. I really did wish there was a true Fallout 3, or even one in the making.
FELIPE NO |
The problem with Fallout 2 was that many members of the team tried too hard to write jokes instead of letting the setting generate its own dark humor. It was still a good game, but you're right that a lot was lost after Boyarsky and a few of the other original dev team members founded Troika.
Updates on the article: It's being featured on the front page of DAC and NMA, while a Digg thread has started up Here. If anybody posts this on another messageboard be sure and say so, so I feel good about myself. What, you don't want my bikini-clad body? |
Actually: do we eat what they feed us, or do they feed us what we eat? That's why there needs to be more threads like this one... Jam it back in, in the dark.
"We are all the sum of our tears. Too little, and the ground is not fertile and nothing can grow there. Too much – the best of us is washed away…" - G'Kar
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http://www.elderscrolls.com/games/sh...s_overview.htm
But man, I really did enjoy Oblivion. There's nowhere I can't reach. Dance party! |
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Still trying to see why this thread demanded a locked thread in RPG forum.
As far as roguelikes goes you would be a fool not to see that Daggerfall was to big, which gave any completist nightmares(I still shudder). This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it. |
Clearly not for the Completist market.
I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body? |