RyanAtToms
First time out of the vault
waldo said:
It wasn't a press release, it was an email exchange that I had with Pete. See the link - Kotaku was just quoting us.
http://www.tomsgames.com/us/2008/10/10/fallout3_leaked/
Bethesda hunting down Fallout 3 leak
- Thread starter Brother None
- Start date
First time out of the vault
It wasn't a press release, it was an email exchange that I had with Pete. See the link - Kotaku was just quoting us.
http://www.tomsgames.com/us/2008/10/10/fallout3_leaked/
Odds are the leak will impact Beth's sales of FO3.
I'm actually old enough to remember going to Egghead Software as a kid, back when once upon a time they existed offline, and having maybe a dozen and a half games to choose from. Few were a uniform size, and many were tricked out quality packages to draw the eye. Of which I could maybe whine my way into a parent's purchasing one of to occupy me for a couple months.
You had to be extremely selective of what you bought back then and you expected it to last you for a long time.
And they often COULD. Many lived up. Graphics sucked, were even nonexistant for such a long time it was a surprise to have any, and in the absence people actually had to have such a thing as a plot. Many plots involved possibly months of gameplay. I had a friend play Might and Magic I (or maybe II) off and on over the course of 10 years and I don't he finished it. Think he lost a piece of the 10 year old computer he played it on, which used to be mine, when he went to college. Wasn't that he was even bad at it, it was just that big a game and he'd even map most of it on graph paper - cause that's what you did back then or you got hideously lost.
It's no surprise that games from that time are often the beginning of chains we still see sequels or successors from today and of which people are awfully protective of.
Games twenty years ago practically were an art form and had a level of quality you just don't expect to see often these days cause few of them could really expect easy patches to be distributed if they made a mistake somewhere.
Now days games are prepackaged uniformly and fat kids wander out with 3-4 of them in thier grubby little hands which they are unlikely to finish before they see some other bit of sparkly flash they can buy next week. How many even finish most of the games bought anymore anyway to even see if it has a good ending?
Rarely do companies bother to polish or finish a game because people are at the point they'll pay money for anything new based on the hype and flash and big businesses thrive off of low consumer expectations because they can. It's not really profitable to insist on a quality release because thiers so little expectation let alone actual demand for one. If no one insists on a polished product anymore theirs very little reason to provide one.
So companies milk anything that they can churn a dime from and much like Hollywood has run out of ideas and keeps remaking old movies and television series from back when we had higher standards or from something they see internationally game compaines like to rip and run on old franchises.
Fallout 3 is basically the bastard child of FO: POS which has the same motivation as that Interplay travesty in porting to console for fast cash and foisting blood and bikini's on console kids who's expectations for what's good is based on limited experience with limited quality titles.
Writing and cohesive story elements used in a compelling fashion are white elephants these days, you practically give up on seeing them which makes them all the more precious when found - but outside of Bioware and Obsidian I just don't expect it, and given that Obsidian is the survivors of Black Isle and Troika it seems regrettable that bothering to actually tell a story doesn't actually seem to be a strong business plan anymore when writing doesn't even rate a back seat anymore to graphics. Writing might get to ride in a plastic travel pet shelter in baggage while Graphics rides in First Class getting blitzed on cocktails and pinching stewerdess ass.
The thing is even given all that, the whole reason to call it Fallout THREE and even play lipservice to the idea of appealing to the fanbase. Taking it 'seriously' and giving the franchise the treatment it 'deserves' is all hype geared towards actual fallout fans shelling out thier money to buy the game in the 'hope' the mere 'hope' that however unlikely the game will turn out better than they think it will be. The continual shine on by Bethesda is all geared towards maintaining that hope through careful reveals of what they want to show us until we hand over our money and buy our ticket to the freakshow. Once inside whether they keep the lighting low enough to hide the glue and stiches on the freak is immaterial since they have the money anyway.
If you have clicked on any spoiler threads though and read about the abyssmal storyline, however, maintaining any hope at all is nigh impossible.
The freak is in the light, thank you pirates.
Whether you reallly want to preorder or even pick up a game that will in all liklihood be in the bargain bin within 3 months is now a far easier decision process.
I so want to cancel my pre-order. I don't want to support Bethesda and this crap at all. It's painful, it's insulting, and a recycled Oblivion ending which was crap the first time around simply adds to the injury.
But I want a lunch box.
I'm not really a big collector of camp, but that really appealed to me when I heard of it and is the main reason I pre-ordered. Not paying 50$ more for a clock... and my gag reflex is seriously warring with my desire for the lunch box anymore, but I still have better than 2 weeks to see which desire of mine will win out.
Others will probably have a far easier decision though, and I see that hitting Bethesda's sales more and more with nearly 30 days of time to talk about how badly they bent poor old Fallout Boy over, and without even leaving a ball gag in his inventory afterwards.
It'll still make some money undoubtably, especially given pitiable articles like this I found as a link at the bottom of the OP's link regarding Beth going after the pirate: http://kotaku.com/5057227/how-fallout-3-is-different-than-oblivion
Now reading that I was struck with how painfully young the author was. I actually pitied them for not knowing any better and myself that vaguely 18 year olds were reviewing my games with the journalistic quality I believe I would have displayed at 12, but with better taste.
They are however Bethsoft's target audience though, especially if they think turning away from a plotline and combat system that dared to make you think is an 'evolution' rather than regression or pandering. Frankly if Oblivion was your first RPG you don't really know what to expect from RPGs cause you have little to judge it from and it sets the bar so low for what you assume to be 'good'. It's like thinking Star Wars III is a great movie because the only other Star Wars movie you'd seen was II and being confused if anyone even mentions there was a IV, V, or VI.
Quite the opposite.
I never even bothered to patch anything from Black Isle or Troika. I don't think I even had the internet until Arcanum came out, and I played it happily without it. For additonal playthroughs I found some nice mods online later for Arcanum, Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, but ALL of those games I could happily play out of the box.
Bethesda on the otherhand typically counts on the modding community to make thier games playable, or at least enjoyable.
Interplay itself was a dead fish long before it finally sold off it's franchises, but most of it's successes were also pretty early and before it became so common to release games figuring the buyers would 'expect' bugs on release and know to look for patches online. The later years when it was attempting to stave off losing money on crappy games by producing more crappy games they weren't really worth picking up to patch, so I can't see the relevance either.
Hard for a lot of younger gamers to believe, but their actually was a time before patching when we only bought games developers bothered to finish. I think older folks have simply given up expecting quality for the most part, it's just a downhill struggle.
I'm actually old enough to remember going to Egghead Software as a kid, back when once upon a time they existed offline, and having maybe a dozen and a half games to choose from. Few were a uniform size, and many were tricked out quality packages to draw the eye. Of which I could maybe whine my way into a parent's purchasing one of to occupy me for a couple months.
You had to be extremely selective of what you bought back then and you expected it to last you for a long time.
And they often COULD. Many lived up. Graphics sucked, were even nonexistant for such a long time it was a surprise to have any, and in the absence people actually had to have such a thing as a plot. Many plots involved possibly months of gameplay. I had a friend play Might and Magic I (or maybe II) off and on over the course of 10 years and I don't he finished it. Think he lost a piece of the 10 year old computer he played it on, which used to be mine, when he went to college. Wasn't that he was even bad at it, it was just that big a game and he'd even map most of it on graph paper - cause that's what you did back then or you got hideously lost.
It's no surprise that games from that time are often the beginning of chains we still see sequels or successors from today and of which people are awfully protective of.
Games twenty years ago practically were an art form and had a level of quality you just don't expect to see often these days cause few of them could really expect easy patches to be distributed if they made a mistake somewhere.
Now days games are prepackaged uniformly and fat kids wander out with 3-4 of them in thier grubby little hands which they are unlikely to finish before they see some other bit of sparkly flash they can buy next week. How many even finish most of the games bought anymore anyway to even see if it has a good ending?
Rarely do companies bother to polish or finish a game because people are at the point they'll pay money for anything new based on the hype and flash and big businesses thrive off of low consumer expectations because they can. It's not really profitable to insist on a quality release because thiers so little expectation let alone actual demand for one. If no one insists on a polished product anymore theirs very little reason to provide one.
So companies milk anything that they can churn a dime from and much like Hollywood has run out of ideas and keeps remaking old movies and television series from back when we had higher standards or from something they see internationally game compaines like to rip and run on old franchises.
Fallout 3 is basically the bastard child of FO: POS which has the same motivation as that Interplay travesty in porting to console for fast cash and foisting blood and bikini's on console kids who's expectations for what's good is based on limited experience with limited quality titles.
Writing and cohesive story elements used in a compelling fashion are white elephants these days, you practically give up on seeing them which makes them all the more precious when found - but outside of Bioware and Obsidian I just don't expect it, and given that Obsidian is the survivors of Black Isle and Troika it seems regrettable that bothering to actually tell a story doesn't actually seem to be a strong business plan anymore when writing doesn't even rate a back seat anymore to graphics. Writing might get to ride in a plastic travel pet shelter in baggage while Graphics rides in First Class getting blitzed on cocktails and pinching stewerdess ass.
The thing is even given all that, the whole reason to call it Fallout THREE and even play lipservice to the idea of appealing to the fanbase. Taking it 'seriously' and giving the franchise the treatment it 'deserves' is all hype geared towards actual fallout fans shelling out thier money to buy the game in the 'hope' the mere 'hope' that however unlikely the game will turn out better than they think it will be. The continual shine on by Bethesda is all geared towards maintaining that hope through careful reveals of what they want to show us until we hand over our money and buy our ticket to the freakshow. Once inside whether they keep the lighting low enough to hide the glue and stiches on the freak is immaterial since they have the money anyway.
If you have clicked on any spoiler threads though and read about the abyssmal storyline, however, maintaining any hope at all is nigh impossible.
The freak is in the light, thank you pirates.
Whether you reallly want to preorder or even pick up a game that will in all liklihood be in the bargain bin within 3 months is now a far easier decision process.
I so want to cancel my pre-order. I don't want to support Bethesda and this crap at all. It's painful, it's insulting, and a recycled Oblivion ending which was crap the first time around simply adds to the injury.
But I want a lunch box.
I'm not really a big collector of camp, but that really appealed to me when I heard of it and is the main reason I pre-ordered. Not paying 50$ more for a clock... and my gag reflex is seriously warring with my desire for the lunch box anymore, but I still have better than 2 weeks to see which desire of mine will win out.
Others will probably have a far easier decision though, and I see that hitting Bethesda's sales more and more with nearly 30 days of time to talk about how badly they bent poor old Fallout Boy over, and without even leaving a ball gag in his inventory afterwards.
It'll still make some money undoubtably, especially given pitiable articles like this I found as a link at the bottom of the OP's link regarding Beth going after the pirate: http://kotaku.com/5057227/how-fallout-3-is-different-than-oblivion
Now reading that I was struck with how painfully young the author was. I actually pitied them for not knowing any better and myself that vaguely 18 year olds were reviewing my games with the journalistic quality I believe I would have displayed at 12, but with better taste.
They are however Bethsoft's target audience though, especially if they think turning away from a plotline and combat system that dared to make you think is an 'evolution' rather than regression or pandering. Frankly if Oblivion was your first RPG you don't really know what to expect from RPGs cause you have little to judge it from and it sets the bar so low for what you assume to be 'good'. It's like thinking Star Wars III is a great movie because the only other Star Wars movie you'd seen was II and being confused if anyone even mentions there was a IV, V, or VI.
Zumbs said:
Quite the opposite.
I never even bothered to patch anything from Black Isle or Troika. I don't think I even had the internet until Arcanum came out, and I played it happily without it. For additonal playthroughs I found some nice mods online later for Arcanum, Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, but ALL of those games I could happily play out of the box.
Bethesda on the otherhand typically counts on the modding community to make thier games playable, or at least enjoyable.
Interplay itself was a dead fish long before it finally sold off it's franchises, but most of it's successes were also pretty early and before it became so common to release games figuring the buyers would 'expect' bugs on release and know to look for patches online. The later years when it was attempting to stave off losing money on crappy games by producing more crappy games they weren't really worth picking up to patch, so I can't see the relevance either.
Hard for a lot of younger gamers to believe, but their actually was a time before patching when we only bought games developers bothered to finish. I think older folks have simply given up expecting quality for the most part, it's just a downhill struggle.
Sorrow
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
Next gen? It was done long time ago. Check out TacOps (1994) or Laser Squad Nemesis (2002).Morbus said:
Sorrow
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
Disappearing car, crashes and other weird things. Yeah, it was awful.Blackfyre said:
aronsearle said:
BIS even provided free downloadable content with Trials of the Luremaster for Icewind Dale. To make up for Heart of Winter being so short, but still.
I don't see what's the big deal here at all. As in how it got stolen, that is.
It was official that the game went gold. If that was true (and I don't see a reason that tehy would lie about that) then there were tons of holes from where it could leak. The manufacturing stage for instance. Although people over there of course have monitoring of stuff like that, but it's not their game, not their baby, and they probably don't really worry that much about the game being stolen. And right there it can be anyone from a genitor guy to a night shift supervisor who could easily grab one copy without anyone noticing. Or let's say you have access to the terminals that have a copy of the master, how hard would it be to copy that on anything that has a memory card?
Internal leak is harder for sure, but all it takes is a one smart cat, right? Or a pissed of one for that matter. If an employee is pissed at his boss, what a nice revenge and a stab in the back to steal their precious and just share it with everybody.
And the claim that they have now that they have the search narrowed down. Please. If I'd would be an investigator I would release such statement to the public just to make that thief think he is all cool and safe, just to sneak up on him when he least expects it and bust him. Peace of cake!!!
Or they just say that cause in reallity they have no leads and they want to sound like they are in control so they don't look bad cause it's the pre-release days and what not.
It was official that the game went gold. If that was true (and I don't see a reason that tehy would lie about that) then there were tons of holes from where it could leak. The manufacturing stage for instance. Although people over there of course have monitoring of stuff like that, but it's not their game, not their baby, and they probably don't really worry that much about the game being stolen. And right there it can be anyone from a genitor guy to a night shift supervisor who could easily grab one copy without anyone noticing. Or let's say you have access to the terminals that have a copy of the master, how hard would it be to copy that on anything that has a memory card?
Internal leak is harder for sure, but all it takes is a one smart cat, right? Or a pissed of one for that matter. If an employee is pissed at his boss, what a nice revenge and a stab in the back to steal their precious and just share it with everybody.
And the claim that they have now that they have the search narrowed down. Please. If I'd would be an investigator I would release such statement to the public just to make that thief think he is all cool and safe, just to sneak up on him when he least expects it and bust him. Peace of cake!!!
Or they just say that cause in reallity they have no leads and they want to sound like they are in control so they don't look bad cause it's the pre-release days and what not.
I wonder if you can go un-gold?
My happy smiliest moment of the day is the laugh I'd get if the godawful ending and rampant bastardization of such a beloved franchise so obvious through the leaked footage led to enough cancelled preorders to forfiet the gold...
That is my new happy thought next time I need to fly to Nevernever Land.
My happy smiliest moment of the day is the laugh I'd get if the godawful ending and rampant bastardization of such a beloved franchise so obvious through the leaked footage led to enough cancelled preorders to forfiet the gold...
That is my new happy thought next time I need to fly to Nevernever Land.
Zumbs
Lurking Swamp Thing
I experienced *fewer* bugs in unpatched Oblivion that I did in patched Arcanum or Fallout 2. If we look at crashes, unmodded Oblivion is pretty stable, compared to Arcanum that (in some places) would have to be restarted every ½ hour.Mane said:
As for your last comment, I do not agree. I'm quite sure that Bethesda figured level scaling and an in-your-face in-game help to be a great thing. If they did not, they wouldn't have taken the time to develop and implement those "features".
I knew it was a review copy that got leaked. I just don't understand why a review copy wouldn't be on a disc? when it clearly was leaked for the xbox 360, not the pc. (I'n still not supporting piracy).
As for glitches and bugs in older games, I have had 1 in the original Baldur's Gate series; the dreaded 'global variable bug'. The patch fixed this. And 1 in the BG2 series; the dreaded 'x appears busy bug'. The patch also fixed this.
I don't think I experienced any major bugs in Icewind Dale and other old(er) games...
As for glitches and bugs in older games, I have had 1 in the original Baldur's Gate series; the dreaded 'global variable bug'. The patch fixed this. And 1 in the BG2 series; the dreaded 'x appears busy bug'. The patch also fixed this.
I don't think I experienced any major bugs in Icewind Dale and other old(er) games...
Zumbs said:
C'mon... fewer bugs?
Here's what fans had to fix in Oblivion:
http://www.baldurdash.org/TESOblivion/UOPFixList.html
Great job Bethesda.
almost.dust
First time out of the vault
Mane said:
If you can substitute Bard's Tale, Wasteland, Dragon Wars, Zork, and/or Ultima for M&M... I can agree with pretty much everything in your post. Months were lost happily to each of these games.
After my MOO3 disappointments, I thought I would never again pre-order a game.
But FO 1&2 were great games, and who would pay $$$$$$ for the franchise and then not deliver a similarly great game? And while definitely not a "game stuff" collector, I too "really" wanted the lunch box. So I pre-ordered.
But in a post-FO3-leak review world, I've now canceled my pre-order.
As for the much sought after lunch box... I take my chances on ebay in a few months. If FO3 does hit the bargain bin I might well come out ahead.
Zumbs said:
Also, many have had to use fanmade patches to even PLAY the game.
Because apparently the official system requirements for Oblivion were not entirely true. That is why I hope to enjoy Fallout as a game, but bascially given up on it as a Fallout game.
I'm still renting it first though. I'm not a gambling man. Especially if I'd have to put my money on Bethesda. Morrowind was just too much. I got confused with all the quests and just didn't care enough to finish it.
I want a roleplaying game where I can actually BE something, instead of SAY I'm something. I shouldn't have to use my imagination to make a game better or to correct it's faults.
Havign said that, using imagination for games is great in cases like using the tools given to have fun, not believing you are somehting the game doesn't support.
Zumbs
Lurking Swamp Thing
I know full well that the UOP fixes some 2000 bugs in Oblivion, but my basic point still stands: Patched Fallout 2 and Arcanum still had loads of bugs in them (as other posters have noted). Both games (like Oblivion) has unofficial patches, that try to fix the bugs that were left in the games by the developers.rcorporon said:
And please note that I were refering to a *personal* experience with the three games, and not an absolute truth.
Are you refering to Oldblivion? The fan-made mod to allow the game to run on (old and) unsupported hardware?Mrxknown said:
Zumbs said:
Indeed. And Fallout 2 got a metric ton of flak over the state it was released in. So did Arcanum.
Mystically, Oblivion got a lot less of it.
But Bethesda is just as bad, and while I could make excuses for Troika I can't for BIS or Bethesda. The state Fallout 2 was release in was inexcusable, as was the state Oblivion was in on release.
in my country all people does it 
sighMane said:
"Going Gold" with a Vidio game just means they made and sent off the Master copy of the disk to the company that makes the final game. I t has nothing to do with the numer of copys presold.
The reason why its refered to that way was originaly in the early days of CD Rom games the "Master disk" used for producing a mass produced CD was gold tinted and was literaly a Write once disk.
So bascialy going gold just means that the Game in question went from Vaporware to a real game.
At least in theory.