Even people on Bethesda forums are unhappy at fallout 4. Is fallout 4 really a cookie cutter game ?

Is fallout 4 a 'Cookie cutter' game ?

  • Yes

    Votes: 39 84.8%

  • No

    Votes: 7 15.2%
  • Total voters
    46
Well thats the video game industry for you. It all sounds kinda pointless (missing the point i frist place) So yeah people might aswell just create the games the want rather just getting involved with shitty franchises ect They might well start for the beging because they might actually make something that is really good
 
CT Phipps said:
I know a few people in the Triple A gaming industry who basically summarizes the problems with it. It's generally been backed up by other material I've read on the subject.

1. All video game developers are, with rare exceptions, video game fans but they aren't necessarily fans of the series they are involved in. Indeed, very often they're dumped in the middle of games they know nothing about or are of a genre they don't like.

2. They are often dumped in the middle of projects which are already half-developed or partially developed in a way they may or may not agree with.

3. They only have so much time to familiarize themselves with the continuity and style of existing franchises.

4. Very often they are given orders from on-high which make no damned sense for the setting they're doing. Like, for instance, "a dark gritty reboot' of a franchise which is overthetop and ridiculous on a fundamental level. Another is making a game which is known for ultraviolence, sex, and maturity more accessible (i.e. lighter and softer).

5. Being told to make a game able to be jumped upon for new gamers while not alienating the existing fans.

6. Contradictory orders between managers ("I really love Dark Souls. Throw in as much about that as you can") and ("I fucking hate Dark Souls. Don't even mention it around me.")

7. Arbitrary additions which completely throw off your time schedule (Multiplayer, In-game Purchases)

8. The departure of the founders or heads of projects who have guided them from the beginning to be replaced by people who have entirely different styles, wants, or needs.

9. The request to put elements from other games into the game despite their unsuitability or the difficulty of doing so.

10. Competing writers. Far Cry 3 was a particularly interesting case as the two lead writers had completely contradictory views on what the game was about. One wanting to do a wacky deconstruction of video game tropes and the immersive experience while the other wanting to do a serious Heart of Darkness-esque exploration. The guys who did the Multiplayer for AC5 were told the Assassins were supporting the Revolution and overthrowing the King while the main writers wanted to tell a story about how the Revolution was stupid with the villains behind it.

11. Writers being told to "fix" problems with focus groups when they're problems on a structural level.

12. Constant focus group testing and rewrites as well as orders to throw away months of work or patch others together.

The scary thing? It's basically been said this isn't for "troubled productions" but all Triple A publications everywhere.
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Those are problems I keep hearing about for triple-A game productions from some of my own readings on the subject (along with what I hear on podcast-like shows). Executive meddling, different writers, time constraints, working with already half-developed work (Duke Nukem Forever comes to mind) etc often are raised when talking about the failings of triple-A games as products.

Personally, I see executive meddling as the most prevalent of those problems as there are times when the executives appear out of touch with the gaming audience and would only rely on focus group tests rather than actually making something innovative and unique (risky with the triple-A audience in mind but it could be successful in the long run). Their decisions are ultimately the ones with the most impact on the final product due to their lofty positions which ends up inflicting the most damage on the product (like with EA and several of their games i.e Command & Conquer, Dungeon Keeper etc.)

It's a real shame that most triple-A productions end up being affected by those problems with only a select few being relatively unaffected. It's the reason why indie games (and niche titles) are looked upon as sources of good games these days rather than the triple-A (though I am still open to the idea of a triple-A game actually being the exception to the norm).
 
CerberusGate said:
Those are problems I keep hearing about for triple-A game productions from some of my own readings on the subject (along with what I hear on podcast-like shows). Executive meddling, different writers, time constraints, working with already half-developed work (Duke Nukem Forever comes to mind) etc often are raised when talking about the failings of triple-A games as products.

Personally, I see executive meddling as the most prevalent of those problems as there are times when the executives appear out of touch with the gaming audience and would only rely on focus group tests rather than actually making something innovative and unique (risky with the triple-A audience in mind but it could be successful in the long run). Their decisions are ultimately the ones with the most impact on the final product due to their lofty positions which ends up inflicting the most damage on the product (like with EA and several of their games i.e Command & Conquer, Dungeon Keeper etc.)

It's a real shame that most triple-A productions end up being affected by those problems with only a select few being relatively unaffected. It's the reason why indie games (and niche titles) are looked upon as sources of good games these days rather than the triple-A (though I am still open to the idea of a triple-A game actually being the exception to the norm).
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It's easy to blame the executives for their meddling but it's a bit more complicated than that, I think. While executives have always been the easy scapegoat, there's a long history in both movies and video games of the "out of control auteurs" who really are obsessed with their vision and go nuts once they're no longer reigned in. John Romero is a particularly infamous example for the fact, once he didn't have any controls, created one of the worst video games of all time.

There's also the constant conflict between the fact developers routinely don't actually want to make the game which they're commissioned to make. While not a gaming example, one particularly infamous example was the development behind Terminator: Salvation who were outraged when the developers "ruined" their production by changing the ending, changing the focus on the characters, and refusing to go with their "bold new direction" for the franchise.

Which was, to clairfy, killing John Connor and attaching his skin to the face of a Terminator replacement who would lead the resistance from that point on.

Being the artist is no guarantee, basically, of being good.
 
CT Phipps said:
It's easy to blame the executives for their meddling and they're often very much to blame but it's also something which is a bit more complicated than that, I think. While executives have always been the easy scapegoat, there's a long history in both movies and video games of the "out of control auteurs" who really are obsessed with their vision and go nuts once they're no longer reigned in. John Romero is a particularly infamous example for the fact, once he didn't have any controls, created one of the worst video games of all time.

There's also the constant conflict between the fact developers routinely don't actually want to make the game which they're commissioned to make. While not a gaming example, one particularly infamous example was the development behind Terminator: Salvation who were outraged when the developers "ruined" their production by changing the ending, changing the focus on the characters, and refusing to go with their "bold new direction" for the franchise.

Which was, to clairfy, killing John Connor and attaching his skin to the face of a Terminator replacement who would lead the resistance from that point on.

Being the artist is no guarantee, basically, of being good.
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That is a good point. It's usually a combination of all those factors that hurts the final product. I do recall reading that Romero had a bunch of other factors working against him though (aside from his own lack of restraint) for Daikatana.

As an aside, not all auteur developers are bad though if left to their own devices. Kojima is routinely successful with his games and in the past, there have been cases of good auteur developed games with ideas that most executives would have shot down if the concept for said games were pitched to them(i.e Psychonauts, Shadow of the Colossus, Journey). Ultimately like you said though, it's more complicated than that.

Also, I guess they wanted to make Terminator Genisys early? With how poorly received the aforesaid film was, that direction may not be received well... :confused:
 
My general view is you need to have someone with a strong central guiding hand for a work acting behind the scenes like David Gaider in Dragon Age or Chris Metzen in Warcraft. Even then, both described the constant never-ending fight from the fact they had to deal with the executives above them wanting too much and the people beneath them often times going off-script.

You also need a strong Bible which everyone is working from and needs to memorize. A lot of game companies don't.

Effectively, what do you need to do to "save" Fallout? Basically, you should put Chris Avellone or Joshua Sawyer in charge of the writing and development and give him a budget worthwhile for it. Preferrably both.
 
DirtyOldShoe said:
Thing is, Fallout 4's map is smaller then Skyrim's.
Skyrim has more verticality.
If you factor in Blackreach and all the underworld of Skyrim, not including world spaces like Japhet's Folly, I would venture to say the exploitable cells in Skyrim, I think it would be safe to say that Skyrim has at least double the exploitable space. quadruple the quests.
"Why you comparin' Fallout 4 to Skyrim bro?"
"Because they are the closest iterations on basically the same engine."
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Fallout 4 got city ruins tho.
 
Fallout 3 was basically "much improved post-apocalypse Oblivion."

I wanted "much improved post-apocalypse Skyrim."

What I got was "pretty much the same post-apocalypse Oblivion plus Minecraft."
 
Of course it was. Fallout 4 was a blatant cash-grab made to profit off of the Fallout IP. Bethesda completely streamlined it to the point that it no longer resembles an RPG. It's more like a Far Cry, Mass Effect and Minecraft chimera with a superficial Fallout theme. Say what you like about Fallout 3, but at least there seemed to be some genuine effort. Fallout 4 is just a hodgepodge of half-baked game mechanics which don't work or advance the series at all. I counted on Bethesda learning some things from Fallout: New Vegas, but no. We got the most shallow Fallout product to date created purely to bank off the success of other franchises.

People say that Bethesda have been getting worse since Morrowind. But I think this will be the definitive point in which Bethesda begin to lose their prominence in the industry. Fallout 4 may have sold extremely well, but its critical reception was far lower than previous games. I think people are realizing how cheap Fallout 4 is. It's going to hurt Bethesda in the long-run. Especially when games like The Witcher 3 are already massively outperforming their games from every angle. And Bethesda's community are going to split between those that want games which actually resemble RPGs and others who like this more action-oriented approach. You can already see this happening.
 
Are there responses from Bethesda? I would like to know under what shield they feel comfortable with the game. Maybe they have lots of newcomers to the series and they don't have a reason to look at the old cranky fans.
 
metal Fish said:
Are there responses from Bethesda? I would like to know under what shield they feel comfortable with the game. Maybe they have lots of newcomers to the series and they don't have a reason to look at the old cranky fans.
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I haven't paid much attention, the only thing I know about is that Todd Howard admitted that the dialog system didn't work out.

FO4 had good sales, with the kind of numbers only the biggest publishers can even dream of. They've been pissing off their fans since Oblivion, but their sales keep improving (yes, Skyrim sold more, but fantasy gets bigger numbers, and it looks like FO4 significantly outsold FO3). My bet is that they're not worried about it unless they see an issue with their next games sales. If that happens, there will probably be some soul searching.
 
RangerBoo said:
Speaking of cash grabs, there are new Halloween costumes this year and guess what is a costume you can buy at your local costume shop? That's right, Vault 111 vault suits! https://www.spirithalloween.com/pro...82/c/1326/sc/1328/134982.uts?thumbnailIndex=9
Fuck my life! :evil:
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Oooooo, I love it! GIMME!

Random aside, the reason Playboy actually shifted its focus was because it made more money from its merchandise in China than it did from its magazine so they wanted to clean it up so they could sell more rabbit-themed bookbags.

And it worked!
 
CT Phipps said:
Oooooo, I love it! GIMME!

Random aside, the reason Playboy actually shifted its focus was because it made more money from its merchandise in China than it did from its magazine so they wanted to clean it up so they could sell more rabbit-themed bookbags.

And it worked!
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My point was to give more evidence to @Phenotype statement about Fallout become more of a blatant, streamlined cash-grab. Bethesda, as well as Todd Howard, have admitted in the past that they want Fallout to become their Call of Duty. I would not be surprised that Fallout 5 becomes as over commercialized as Star Wars.
Also, how come their where never any Vault 13 or Vault 21 vault suits? I would buy those in a heart over being reminded of fucking Fallout 4.
 
RangerBoo said:
My point was to give more evidence to @Phenotype statement about Fallout become more of a blatant, streamlined cash-grab. Bethesda, as well as Todd Howard, have admitted in the past that they want Fallout to become their Call of Duty. I would not be surprised that Fallout 5 becomes as over commercialized as Star Wars.
Also, how come their where never any Vault 13 or Vault 21 vault suits? I would buy those in a heart over being reminded of fucking Fallout 4.
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I'm actually support. Fallout: Shelter might end up outselling Fallout 4 completely and then who cares about shooting or roleplaying!

Sell Vault Boy dolls, idols, Pip-Boys, and more!

FORGET THE WHOLE GAME!

WE DON'T NEED IT!

:weep:
 
The potential was there for a decent game but it tried too hard to lure in the mainstream market rather than provide a deep RPG experience not all would enjoy.
 
ArkBird said:
The potential was there for a decent game but it tried too hard to lure in the mainstream market rather than provide a deep RPG experience not all would enjoy.
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The big issue is that Fallout is already incredibly mainstream. The only things more mainstream are GTA and CoD.

WHY try harder?
 
RangerBoo said:
My point was to give more evidence to @Phenotype statement about Fallout become more of a blatant, streamlined cash-grab. Bethesda, as well as Todd Howard, have admitted in the past that they want Fallout to become their Call of Duty. I would not be surprised that Fallout 5 becomes as over commercialized as Star Wars.
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When did they say this? I don't doubt it. It explains why Fallout 4 was more action-oriented and streamlined quite well.

RangerBoo said:
Also, how come their where never any Vault 13 or Vault 21 vault suits? I would buy those in a heart over being reminded of fucking Fallout 4.
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I don't get this. Who was actually emotionally connected to Vault 111 and its inhabitants? It's place in the lore is dull. There's no interesting social experiment, culture, community or lore behind it. It just exists as a plot device to get the player into the current timeline and to be cinematic. I'd much rather get a Vault 13, Vault 21 or even a Vault 101 jumpsuit before I buy that.
 
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