Anyone Else think Shoddycast has become a Bethesda Bum-licking channel?

[Crni Vuk]

I'd say New Vegas is good enough to be considered up there with the originals. Fallout 4 though? Yea if you absolutely LOVE Fallout 4 more than any other Fallout game then I'm sorry but there's no way you're a Fallout fan. You're a Bethesda fan.

We had those discussions before ... in my opinion, only if you completely ignore gameplay, then yes, New Vegas absolutely is up there. In many ways even superior to F2. But, in this day and age New Vegas is probably the absolute best we can expect from a big studio. For anything else you have Wasteland 2, Underail, Age of Decadence and the like, they at least offer something that is close to F1 gameplay. For me personaly, when it comes to something like Fallout gameplay and setting are inseparable. This might be to extreme for some, but I simply stick to what the developers said, and you can not get closer to a definition than the original Fallout 1 developers. It would be like trying to explain Van Gogh what he wanted to say with his paintings.

 

[CerberusGate]

Hmm... I assume what you mean by that is Obsidian was allowed to change the format of %-based dialogue checks into the static one. Even if that's not what you meant, I don't see how much of Fallout 3's dialogue system that needed rework. The format was fine as it was.

Still, there IS quite a number of people who willingly defended Fallout 4's dialogue system:

and as you can see, they aren't few in numbers (especially if you take other places into consideration). So I don't see how Obsidian would be 'allowed' to scrap FO4's system with THAT many people defending the format.

At least some of them are disagreeing with the masses who praise FO4's dialogue system. I can understand why the more rational-minded would not wish to critique Bethesda on Facebook since many Bethesda fanboys are unusually quick to resort to petty insults and spamming to defend so no one would want to get into that particular pit.

I do recall that among the many mindbogglingly positive reviews of Fallout 4, some of them have heavily critiqued the dialogue system so there is hope that they would go back to Fallout 3/NV's system in light of those critiques.

 

[Millim]

Even Todd admitted the System was a bad idea.
Then again I wish he would admit most of the ideas for Fallout 4 were bad.

In all honesty, his words don't mean anything unless the next game improves.

But this is Bethesda, I doubt they improve anything.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Yeah, well he didn't say outright that it was a bad idea, more that it simply didn't worked out as hoped. But I think we all know, that he knows, that he fucked up. That simple. I mean he was stating the obvious anyway, you would have to be close to brain damaged to actually think that Fallout 4s dialog and gameplay is awesome for an RPG. Like I said a couple of times, you can enjoy the game, but you really can't say that it is an great RPG.

You know, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if someone who's higher on the food chain than Todd actually gave him some very hard time, because of the metacritic and other mediocre/bad reviews by players. Unreasonable? Well, they made a whole deal based on metacritic with Obsidian and New Vegas, remember? Who knows how much of a role it plays in their development.

But hey, that's just a guess.

 

[eissa]

so shoddycast is clean then..?

 

[Black Angel]

Supposing that its got the worst Metacritic User Score and the worst Steam Satisfaction score of any Fallout Game available on PC

And that's where Bethesda doesn't give a fuck. Ever since post-Morrowind, their game are getting more and more console-oriented, to the point of needing SkyUI for Skyrim. Hell, there are even those who are more than willing to play the game over and over again without mods, and it correlate with the fact that they are much more popular on console. Seriously, even if they make TESVI exclusively for console, it would still score hundreds of millions of bucks the first week. But then, the console community has tasted mods (even though they haven't yet tasted the best of mods), so we never know.

Although it IS baffling me why the fuck did they even try to fuck their PC audience, where all the mods are being made.

 

[Jogre]

"bethesda, your [insert lore] doesnt make any God damn sense!"

He usually jerks off Bethesda for about 5 minutes before he actually says there lore doesn't make sense.

Like "I absolutely love Bethesda, and they give us amazing games, which always have amazing worlds to explore" or "Bethesda, this addition you made to Power Armor was brilliant, it really helped me with my fear of heights blablablabla"

And besides, if he genuinely wanted to show why Bethesda's lore doesn't make any sense, he could have a field-day. He could go on for at least an hour about how The Institute's goals are inconsistent. He just wants to scientifically disprove video games, as opposed to actually questioning Bethesda's logic.

 

[eissa]

He usually jerks off Bethesda for about 5 minutes before he actually says there lore doesn't make sense.

Like "I absolutely love Bethesda, and they give us amazing games, which always have amazing worlds to explore" or "Bethesda, this addition you made to Power Armor was brilliant, it really helped me with my fear of heights blablablabla"

And besides, if he genuinely wanted to show why Bethesda's lore doesn't make any sense, he could have a field-day. He could go on for at least an hour about how The Institute's goals are inconsistent. He just wants to scientifically disprove video games, as opposed to actually questioning Bethesda's logic.

to me, that is not bethesda licking channel. they are not blind of defending bethesda, unlike say..mrmatty. so to me your title sentence is rather unfounded

 

[Gorefiend]

I really didn't hate their first videos, kinda enjoy the elderscrolls and DA series..but FO4 has brought in a new wave of Beth drones and all that so I guess, just like most of society the are catering to the lowest common denominator

 

[Shardik]

Yeah, well he didn't say outright that it was a bad idea, more that it simply didn't worked out as hoped. But I think we all know, that he knows, that he fucked up. That simple. I mean he was stating the obvious anyway, you would have to be close to brain damaged to actually think that Fallout 4s dialog and gameplay is awesome for an RPG. Like I said a couple of times, you can enjoy the game, but you really can't say that it is an great RPG.

You know, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if someone who's higher on the food chain than Todd actually gave him some very hard time, because of the metacritic and other mediocre/bad reviews by players. Unreasonable? Well, they made a whole deal based on metacritic with Obsidian and New Vegas, remember? Who knows how much of a role it plays in their development.

But hey, that's just a guess.

I just don't see how Todd's higher-ups could give even the slightest bit of a shit about negative reviews and Metacritic scores, as long as they can continue to laugh all the way to the bank. Whatever you say about Fallout 4, it sure as hell allowed them to do just that.

And on top of that, it seems to have opened up a vast market of lowest common denominator console kiddies who will happily line up to be sheared by Bethesda again and again and again. From their perspective, all their failures should be so lucrative.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Yes, but there is a tipping point, and maybe they reached it. Who knows? There is only so much simplification you can do before a role playing game, well stops being a roleplaying game. Interplay was once really big too. And look where they are now.
I guess it is one of the reasons why Zenimaxx decided to buy a couple of more teams and to diversify. Bethesda is a publisher as well, but they really had for a long time only Elder Scrolls and now Fallout. And both games pretty much share the exact same formula. One very bad game with low sales, and Beth might be out of business. Who knows? I certainly don't, I mean I have no insight in their structure or finances. But like I said, they wouldn't be the first really big studio that was closed because of one error. And we should not forget that from what I can tell, their Elder Scrolls MMO hasn't been on a steady decline as well. Maybe that one was a real drain on their resources, but they simply can't pull the plug.

 

[Shardik]

Yes, but there is a tipping point, and maybe they reached it. Who knows? There is only so much simplification you can do before a role playing game, well stops being a roleplaying game. Interplay was once really big too. And look where they are now.
I guess it is one of the reasons why Zenimaxx decided to buy a couple of more teams and to diversify. Bethesda is a publisher as well, but they really had for a long time only Elder Scrolls and now Fallout. And both games pretty much share the exact same formula. One very bad game with low sales, and Beth might be out of buisness. Who knows? I certainly don't, I mean I have no insight in their structure or finances. But like I said, they wouldn't be the first really big studio that was closed because of one error.

I understand what you're saying - Gopher made a video a couple months back touching on that point, and his opinion was that a lot of Fallout and Bethesda fans rushed out to pre-order FO4 on the basis of their experience with FO3 and Skyrim, and that probably won't happen with the next release, after what we got with 4. Certainly Bethesda will hit a point where they can no longer coast on their reputation from previous releases, and maybe you're right that FO4 will be that tipping point.

But the attitude among the big publishers, and in too many other businesses these days, is to go for the huge score now, and deal with the repercussions to the brand later. No one seems to think long term any more; it's swoop in, make the huge killing and then parachute out and let the next poor schlub clean up the mess they left behind.