Bethesda: Save the Single Player games

CT Phipps said:
It can easily be summarized as I don't think anyone but perhaps me and one other person on this forum thinks Bethesda can create anything of any merit whatsoever.
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I think they can... I just think that they know better; it won't sell as well as sugary empowerment crap. They are not stupid; their work is impressive—on its own merits... but they are not out to make RPGs, and definitely not trying to make a great Fallout title. They make virtual costume-sims for people who want to walk in the virtual world as themselves. The PC—for them (Bethesda), is a vestigial throwback that they'd love to eliminate entirely.

The hatred is crystalized into an axiomatic hatred of everything they've done.
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With good reason. Many here knew the crap that would come of them gaining the license; I was not one of them, but I sure saw it with the release if the first screenshots... and it only got worse from there. They did some beautiful work in FO3, but it's as if they cherry picked the least important aspects to develop and polish the most.
 
nkchan16 said:
You might call NV as a "spiritual successor" to the original games, or an attempt to turn FO3 into an actual Fallout game, but it's definitely NOT a sequel to FO2.
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Oh okay, then it's definitely a sequel to Fallout 1, then. Fallout 2 doesn't have the strong focus and interconnection of Fallout 1, and being too big it suffer for itself. To me, Fallout 2 is on the same even level with New Vegas as a sequel to Fallout 1 because the good and bad balances itself in this game that neither is surpassing the other. I still prefer to replay Fallout 2 because of the basic gameplay, but damn New Vegas was a return to its roots because it brought back the focus and interconnection of Fallout 1.

nkchan16 said:
Taking place in the same world, having common characters, factions etc. isn't enough to make it a sequel, because it's no longer the story of the Vault Dweller or his grandchild.
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But is Fallout 1 or even 2 just a story about Vault Dweller or his grandchild, the Chosen One? Because it's arguable that the story of Fallout, all the way from original, are about civilization rebuilding from the ashes of Old-World. Especially if we count Tim Cain's design principle that he penned when making the GURPS-based version of Fallout
Rule #1: Multiple Decisions. We will always allow for multiple solutions to any obstacle.
Rule #2: No Useless Skills. The skills we allow you to take will have meaning in the game.
Rule #3: Dark humor was good. Slap-stick was not.
Rule #4: Let the player play how he wants to play.
Rule #5: Your actions have repercussions.
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AND his famous quote:
Tim Cain said:
My idea is to explore more of the world and more of the ethics of a post-nuclear world, not to make a better plasma gun.
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then you will know damn well that New Vegas ticked all of the boxes. We can argue on how well New Vegas ticked those boxes compared to Fallout 2, and I will always conclude that New Vegas are on the same even level with Fallout 2 when it comes on ticking all the boxes established by Fallout 1.
 
Since my editing was taking too long, I am making a new post now (since I was editing my old one because I don't like to double post).

Warning, this will be a wall of text and lots of game names, dates and other numbers. You have been warned.


Bethesda saving singleplayer games is really a weird choice of marketing. It will probably work since many people believe anything they are told by companies these days.
Let's see how many games Bethesda Game Studios made in the last 10 years:
  • 2008: Fallout 3
  • 2011: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
  • 2015: Fallout Shelter
  • 2015: Fallout 4
  • 2016: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Special Edition (re-released game)
That's four different games and one of those is a smartphone game.

Now let's see how many other games Bethesda Softworks published in the last 10 years.

2007:
  • Star Trek: Conquest
2008:
  • Ducati Moto - (it's a NDS game and it has multiplayer)
2009:
  • Wet
  • Wheelspin - (It has multiplayer)
  • Rogue Warrior - (It has multiplayer)
2010:
  • Doom II - (XBox 360 version of the 90's game - It has been released several times before that on multiple platforms - It has multiplayer)
  • Fallout: New Vegas
2011:
  • Brink - (It has multiplayer)
  • Hunted: The Demon's Forge - (It has multiplayer)
  • Rage - (It has multiplayer)
2012:
  • Dishonored
  • Doom 3 BFG Edition - (It has multiplayer)
  • Doom - (Playstation 3 release of the 90's game - It has multiplayer)
  • Doom II - (Again - Playstation 3 release of the 90's game - It has multiplayer)
2014:
  • The Elder Scrolls Online - (Multiplayer only - MMOG)
  • Wolfenstein: The New Order
  • The Evil Within
2015:
  • Wolfenstein: The Old Blood
  • The Elder Scrolls Online - (Again - Multiplayer only - MMOG)
  • Dishonored: Definitive Edition - (Again)
2016:
  • Doom - (It has multiplayer)
2017:
  • Dishonored 2
  • The Elder Scrolls: Legends - (Multiplayer only)
  • Prey
  • The Evil Within 2
  • Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus
That's 22 unique games, 2 unique re-releases (Dishonored and Elder Scrolls Online) and 3 re-releases from old 90's games (Doom and x2Doom 2). Now from those 22 unique games, 2 are multiplayer only.

We are left with 20 games that have singleplayer, from those we have 8 with multiplayer, so Bethesda Sofworks released 12 games without multiplayer in 10 years. That's 1.2 singleplayer-only games per year.

How is publishing 1 "singleplayer-only" game per year saving the genre?

Not to mention that around 95% of all of those are Shooters/Action and 99% of the remaining ones that are not Shooters are still Action... Singleplayer is way more than shooters/action games, where are the Strategy games? Where are the cRPG? Where are the Platformers? Where are the Sports? Where are the Simulation? Where are the Puzzle games? Where are the Crafting/Building games? Where are the Tabletop-like? Etc.


Let's take a look at another Distributor/Publisher. Paradox Entertainment:

2007:
  • Ageod's American Civil War - (It has multiplayer)
  • Birth of America II: Wars in America - (It has multiplayer up to 2 players)
  • Combat Mission: Shock Force
  • Europa Universalis III - (It has multiplayer)
  • Frontline: Fields of Thunder - (It has multiplayer)
  • Galactic Assault: Prisoner of Power - (It has multiplayer)
  • Lost Empire - (It has multiplayer)
  • Napoleon's Campaigns - (It has multiplayer up to 2 players)
  • Penumbra: Overture
  • Tarr Chronicles
  • UFO: Extraterrestrials
2008:
  • City Life 2008 Edition
  • Crusaders: Thy Kingdom Come - (It has multiplayer)
  • Dark Horizon
  • Europa Universalis: Rome - (It has multiplayer)
  • Lost Empire: Immortals - (It has multiplayer)
  • Mount & Blade
  • Penumbra: Black Plague
  • Supreme Ruler 2020 - (It has multiplayer)
  • Sword of the Stars: A Murder of Crows - (It has multiplayer)
  • Trainz
  • World War One - (It has multiplayer)
2009:
  • East India Company - (It has multiplayer)
  • Elven Legacy - (It has multiplayer)
  • For the Glory - (It has multiplayer)
  • Fort Zombie
  • Hearts of Iron III - (It has multiplayer)
  • King Arthur: The Role-playing Wargame - (It has multiplayer)
  • Majesty 2: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim - (It has multiplayer)
  • Restaurant Empire 2
2010:
  • Achtung Panzer: Kharkov 1943 - (It has single player (and while I have no idea but since it is a strategy game I think) it has multiplayer)
  • Arsenal of Democracy - (It has multiplayer)
  • Commander: Conquest of the Americas
  • Lead and Gold - (Multiplayer Only)
  • Legio - (It has multiplayer up to 2 players)
  • Lionheart: Kings' Crusade - (It has multiplayer)
  • Mount & Blade: Warband - (It has "independent/separate from the main game" multiplayer battles mode, the real game is an Action RPG/Strategy with overworld map)
  • Rise of Prussia - (It has multiplayer)
  • Ship Simulator Extremes
  • Victoria II - (It has multiplayer)
  • Woody Two-Legs: Attack of the Zombie Pirates
2011:
  • Cities in Motion
  • Darkest Hour - (It has multiplayer)
  • Dreamlords - (MMOG, it has singleplayer)
  • Magicka - (It has multiplayer)
  • Mount & Blade: With Fire & Sword - (It has "independent/separate from the main game" multiplayer battles mode, the real game is an Action RPG/Strategy with overworld map)
  • Pirates of Black Cove
  • Pride of Nations - (It has multiplayer)
  • Salem - (MMO, Multiplayer only)
  • Sengoku - (It has multiplayer)
  • Supreme Ruler Cold War - (It has multiplayer)
  • Sword of the Stars II: The Lords of Winter - (It has multiplayer)
2012:
  • Crusader Kings II - (It has multiplayer)
  • Defenders of Ardania - (It has multiplayer up to 4 players)
  • A Game of Dwarves
  • King Arthur II: The Role-playing Wargame
  • Knights of Pen & Paper
  • Naval War: Arctic Circle - (It has multiplayer)
  • Starvoid - (It has multiplayer)
  • War of the Roses - (It has multiplayer)
  • Warlock: Master of the Arcane
2013:
  • Cities in Motion 2 - (It has multiplayer)
  • Dungeonland - (It has multiplayer)
  • Europa Universalis IV - (It has multiplayer)
  • Impire - (It has multiplayer)
  • Leviathan: Warships - (It has multiplayer)
  • March of the Eagles - (It has multiplayer)
  • The Showdown Effect - (Multiplayer Only)
2014:
  • Ancient Space
  • Supreme Ruler Ultimate - (It has multiplayer)
  • Supreme Ruler 1936 - (It has multiplayer)
  • War of the Vikings - (It has multiplayer)
  • Warlock II: The Exiled
2015:
  • Cities: Skylines
  • Knights of Pen & Paper 2
  • Magicka 2 - (It has multiplayer)
  • Pillars of Eternity
2016:
  • Hearts of Iron IV - (It has multiplayer)
  • Stellaris - (It has multiplayer)
  • Tyranny
  • Prison Architect: Mobile - (re-release for mobile of a 2012 game)
  • Steel Division: Normandy 44 - (It has multiplayer)
That's 81 unique games and 1 unique re-releases (Prison architect for mobile). Now from those 81 unique games, 3 are multiplayer only.

We are left with 70 games that have singleplayer, from those we have 46 with multiplayer, so Paradox Entertainment published 24 games without multiplayer in 10 years (coincidentally it's twice as many singleplayer games Bethesda published :shock:). That's 2.4 singleplayer-only games per year.

Also we need to mention that Paradox games are 95% strategy games (Bethesda was shooters), but the remaining 5% has games from other genres (Shooters, Action, Turn based games both strategy, tactical and RPGs, Tactical, Tabletop games, cRPG, Simulation, Construction, Crafting, Survival, etc). So not only do they publish way more than Bethesda, they also serve singleplayer games from a much greater variety of genres.

Paradox entertainment is saving singleplayer games twice (just in number) or 3 to 4 times (as in many genres) more than Bethesda :shock: and I picked Paradox for the comparison because it mostly makes strategy games (which would have a lot of games with multiplayer too).
If we count the singleplayer games that also have a multiplayer mode/feature, Bethesda released 28 games in total with singleplayer in the last 10 years while Paradox released 70 (that's almost three times more).

Saving Singleplayer games my ass.

EDIT: I also forgot to mention that Paradox still support many of their games for a long time after release with free patches that not only fix bugs but also add new features, and also support their games with DLCs, which extend the game length and keeps making it fresh with new features and systems (it's even a meme to mention Paradox DLC number, but for me, DLCs that extend and improve a great game are worth it, cosmetic ones are useless though). Many Paradox games are also very mod friendly (even more than Bethesda's, if you can believe that :o) and Paradox not only offers their site for modders to hang around and host mods, but also hires good modders sometimes :o.
 
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Phipps: I find Fallout to be an extremely moving game with lots of interesting points about freedom, the tragedy of war, the way we romanticize the past, and amazing design points.

Response: No, no, no. You see, the game is shit and the design is shit and the world-building is shit and the gameplay is shit with the characters being shit plus the quests being shit. The storytelling is also shit.

Phipps: Is there anything you did like?

Response: No.

 
But yes,

For me the appeal of Fallout 3 is that it's a game which makes me feel like what I'm doing has consequences. It's a game for being the good guy or the monster. You really do feel like the messiah of a desperate horrific situation in Fallout 3.

I like the desperate horrifying feel to the environment as well as the purely awful people you oppose. Paradise Falls' despicable slavers and the Enclave embodying the worst of the militarism which destroyed the Old United States. There's a lot of ambient world building which ties into the greater duality of America.

Bad=Military Industrial Complex (Enclave), Slavery (Paradise Falls), Corporate Greed (Tenpenny Towers), and false romanticism of the past (the entire pseudo-Fifties revivalism), Tranquility Lane

Good=The Underground Railroad, taking inspiration from the past (retrieving the Declaration of Independence), and the unification of new ideas.

The Wacky Fun: The Ant-Agonizer, Them!, killing Raiders, Nuka Cola Finding, and the Church of the Atom.

I think of Tranquility Lane, the Vault levels, and the Pitt as some of my all time favorite stories in gaming.
 
CT Phipps said:
Phipps: I find Fallout to be an extremely moving game with lots of interesting points about freedom, the tragedy of war, the way we romanticize the past, and amazing design points.

Response: No, no, no. You see, the game is shit and the design is shit and the world-building is shit and the gameplay is shit with the characters being shit plus the quests being shit. The storytelling is also shit.

Phipps: Is there anything you did like?

Response: No.

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I think that the thing about many people around here and your Fallout 3 opinion, is that you didn't "see" the actual game. This is not meant as an insult, I actually like you and enjoy your posts.

What I mean by you didn't "see" the actual game is that you played the game but you saw/interpreted it with a veil of head-canon and imagination. Instead of how it really was depicted in the game.

Your imagination is so powerful that it distorted the game for you in a way that others can't. Because they actually see what the game is showing them. Since your own imagination is totally mixed with the actual game, no wonder you really love the game, because your brain shaped it to fit your tastes perfectly in most situations.

I noticed many times around here, that you mentioned things in Fallout 3 that just don't exist or work in a different way than you thought they did. Many times I had to correct you because you were spreading false information about the game without realizing (I don't do this with malice, I just have a OCD trait about false information... And I just realized I did it again in this thread about the GECK and Fawkes :aiee:...).

I enjoy playing Fallout 3 (probably one of the very few around here that enjoys the game). I am sure I am the person in here that played FO3 for more time than anyone else (many hundreds of hours, probably closer to a couple thousand hours) and I never really stopped playing it, due to my role in the TTW team I play it regularly and have been, since it was released as the GOTY version. So I have seen pretty much everything inside and out of the game. I have done all the quests, I have played all the character builds, I have used all the Perks, I have used all the weapons, I have been in all locations, I have talked and picked all the dialogue options with all the NPCs and so on. And I have to do this many times, not just once. It's exhausting but rewarding.

I found myself correcting other people (and not only around here) about Fallout 3 quite a few times. I defend the game when it deserves to be defended and I criticize it when it deserves to be criticized. But that gives me a very unbiased view of the game, I know the good and bad of it. And I do see people that hate the game criticizing it in ways that are unfair, and I see people who love the game praise it in ways that are also unfair.

I also enjoy Bethesda games (specially until Skyrim), I also don't bash people for liking their products, what I do sometimes is bash the company for being such an asshole for quite a while now (and many people have no idea just how much of an asshole Company Bethesda is).

And I ended up ranting about nothing :confused: oh well. I hope what I meant to say is understandable in the middle of all that useless text... Sorry about that :wall:.
 
One of the things I find troubling on the forum is the fact it generally is a place where gamers refuse to subject any of their stories to any form of literary criticism. Game as an artform is only going to become something worse pursuing if we have games that tackle deep subjects (Pillars of Eternity for example) or deep characterization. It's something inhibited by the lowest common denominator of game design philosophy which is being discussed here.

However, as much shit as Bethesda gets, it's actually fairly good about inserting deeper subject matter into its published games.

Take Wolfenstein II.



Fallout 3 is a game which people say I'm inserting "headcanon" too but the game makes a statement about with its use of imagery, themes, locations, and interactions. These things may or may not be deliberate as literay criticism does not depend on an author's intents but its value as a work of art is unchanged.

And when people analyze what the end product is...I think people benefit.
 
CT Phipps said:
However, as much shit as Bethesda gets, it's actually fairly good about inserting deeper subject matter into its published games.
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The thing is that in most games Bethesda publishes, they don't have any input on the subject matter. That is up to the Developer.
One Exception was Fallout New Vegas, where Bethesda had rules that Obsidian had to follow. Probably the most they did in FNV was forbid the inclusion of Area 51 and say that from each landmark in the game, the player had to be able to see another three landmarks. But they were still not that much involved in the "inserting deeper subject matter".
 
If Random House publishes Vonnegut then that doesn't mean Random House isn't publishing Vonnegut.

Just saying.
 
CT Phipps said:
If Random House publishes Vonnegut then that doesn't mean Random House isn't publishing Vonnegut.

Just saying.
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Random House probably didn't write anything attributed to Vonnegut either; but Bethesda designs like they expect the world to be Harrison Bergeron's—and very sadly it seems to profit them exceedingly well... With every game they are refining their formula for making cash-funnel products... not complex RPGs. Gameplay-wise FO3 is essentially Oblivion with a new setting, and minor mechanical changes. FO3 exhibits next to nothing of the Fallout series—except a couple of nouns; not the gameplay, not the precepts, not the pacing, and none of the charm or wit.

*And of those nouns... None of them look or behave like their name-sakes, and too many of them don't make any kind of sense in the new location—except marketing sense... They made sure to cherry pick all of the recognizable names and toss them in whether appropriate or not.

I liked playing FO3 when I could forget that it was officially Fallout 3; and that was only when wandering the wastes alone, and apart from any and all NPCs in the game.
 
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CT Phipps said:
Phipps: I find Fallout to be an extremely moving game with lots of interesting points about freedom, the tragedy of war, the way we romanticize the past, and amazing design points.

Response: No, no, no. You see, the game is shit and the design is shit and the world-building is shit and the gameplay is shit with the characters being shit plus the quests being shit. The storytelling is also shit.
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They’re trying to help you.
 
There is a Todd in all of us.
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CT Phipps said:
One of the things I find troubling on the forum is the fact it generally is a place where gamers refuse to subject any of their stories to any form of literary criticism.
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A number of us accept there are problems with the games we do like, such as New Vegas.

You know, I kind of admire the fact you can see so much in Fallout 3. It's a game I loved playing over and over when I first got it but I couldn't enjoy it now, unless I just ignored everything and made up my own stories.

I exaggerate my opinions a bit, I'm not a rabid, unreasonable critic and I think that applies for most of us here.
 
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