Guy on blog: let's be mean to Bethesda

There exists a stereo type situation where an artist or a band or a filmmaker or, let's say a game designer makes it big, sells out, lets the galleries or the producer or accountants tell them what to do next, hence giving up artistic freedom, vision, and, well, originality for sure, and ends up washed up having produced nothing but crap.

See-Basquiat, Jefferson Starship, Batman Forever, Fallout Brotherhood of Steel

Messing with the lore of an existing franchise that has an existing fan base does not make sound business sense.
 
SuAside said:
not really the most compelling arguments and some parts have been commented on ad nauseum, but who knows, if this convinces even on Beth fanboy to think twice, it was worth it. :)
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I have trouble understanding this mentality... Why are you concerned with what the Beth fans think about anything?
 
quick pockets said:
I have trouble understanding this mentality... Why are you concerned with what the Beth fans think about anything?
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Not sure about him, but for me I'd say the concern is the fact that Beth fans are pouring money into a developer that makes poor games. Of course it's their "right" to do so I suppose, but it would still be nice if they could be convinced to actually support good game development instead.
 
Kyuu said:
I'd say the concern is the fact that Beth fans are pouring money into a developer that makes poor games. Of course it's their "right" to do so I suppose, but it would still be nice if they could be convinced to actually support good game development instead.
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They think they are supporting good game development, which is why this argument against bethesda and oblivion fans will never accomplish anything. If someone told you fallout was a "poor" game you would probably tell them to shut the hell up and to go play halo. They think we are the ones not supporting good game development!

I prefer a live and let live kind of philosophy. Let them spend there money where they will, and we will do they same. Maybe someday a fallout game we consider good will get done, and all this hatred directed at fallout "3" would have been for nothing. : )
 
quick pockets said:
I prefer a live and let live kind of philosophy. Let them spend there money where they will, and we will do they same. Maybe someday a fallout game we consider good will get done, and all this hatred directed at fallout "3" would have been for nothing. : )
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Some times if people don't make a comotion about something, nothing gets done at all.

Strike, protest, getting involved, voting, they're all tools to get change to happen.

If there's one thing in life I've learned, if you want something to happen, make it so.
 
quick pockets said:
If someone told you fallout was a "poor" game you would probably tell them to shut the hell up and to go play halo.
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Fallout's quality is not a matter of opinion or debate! >.>

Also, I'm not one of those Halo haters, so I wouldn't tell someone I disliked to go play Halo. Halo 3, maybe. It all went downhill after Microsoft bought Bungie up and a fair number of the original Bungie developers left. [/tangent]
 
BowserJesus said:
Because they can, tbh. If you had the money to make a fallout game the way you wanted, wouldn't you do it?
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There are two frequently argued motives for Beth having purchased the rights to Fallout. Their stated reason is that they are such huge fans and wanted to make a sequel, which lines up with your thinking, while the other reason people usually bring up is that it was simply a business-driven decision.

My point is that neither of those makes sense. Buying a new franchise to twist it into something almost unrecognizable, to the point that if they didn't slap Vault Boy's face in just about everywhere you wouldn't be able to tell it's Fallout, doesn't sound to me like a good business decision since they could easily have made this game from scratch.

By the same logic, why would a fan want to discard most everything about the games he loves and replace them with his version? They state that they love the setting, the lore and the "feel" of Fallout, but they contradict this by maiming those elements as well. It's like buying the Star Wars license to make a new Holiday Special.

Scare said:
There exists a stereo type situation where an artist or a band or a filmmaker or, let's say a game designer makes it big, sells out, lets the galleries or the producer or accountants tell them what to do next, hence giving up artistic freedom, vision, and, well, originality for sure, and ends up washed up having produced nothing but crap.
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I'd even go as far as to say that Todd Howard's Bethesda simply has no vision whatsoever. A lot of major decisions they made were done because playtesters didn't understand or like their game, such as lessening how skill influences to-hit outside of VATS, or choosing perks on a per-level basis. That's letting the market make the game for you.
 
shamusyoung.com said:
The original Fallout wasn’t a sexy tech demo. It was an ass-ugly isometric game with cheap 2D sprites that offered incredible freedom, immersion, atmosphere, story, characters, and dialog.
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...And this is where I stopped reading the article. You could be more more selective about what rants to highlight - I mean, what good is his opinion (no matter how agreeable) if he doesn't even know a single thing about the graphical limitations of 1997?

Gamespot rated Fallout's graphics 8/10.
fallout_screen003.jpg

It rated Diablo's graphics 10/10.
diabl_screen001.jpg

And this is Quake II (graphics 10/10), one of the best looking 3D games from 1997:
screenshot_screen002.jpg

Ass-ugly isometric game with cheap 2D sprites? Learn some gaming history, kiddo.
 
On one hand I agree with you. Compare to its contemporary mates, Fallout is not half bad. Fallout 2 is especially not bad for a game of its time, graphic-wise.

Still, I do wish you choose another screenie of Fallout. That's a bit lacking in detail. Why not something more detailed?
 
I had forgotten how bad Age of Empires actually looked. AoE 2 was definitely three steps forward, if not more.

BTW: compared with the other games in that list, I'd say Fallout has the looks of a smashingly hot brunette.
 
quick pockets said:
I have trouble understanding this mentality... Why are you concerned with what the Beth fans think about anything?
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it's like christians trying to save souls, only less retarded. ;)

haha.

no, seriously, don't you feel like it'd be good if more people shared your PoV? well, that's the reason right there, i suppose.
i don't care really, but it'd be nice if it were like that. after all, there's strength in numbers.
 
hrm your quake 2 link is 404ing.

that's no good!

for reference here's some screens of quake 2 rendered in opengl, an option on the original engine for those of us that had top of the line vid cards with a whopping 8mb of memory:

this is a map I made last year using almost all stock textures that were made in 97 and came with q2:
http://img147.imageshack.us/my.php?image=wddm07ebfu4.png

these are action shots of the SP campaign (HUD is a bit customized from original) :
http://img521.imageshack.us/my.php?image=q2inactionfo2.png

http://img167.imageshack.us/my.php?image=q2inaction2bb4.png

:)


It's games like quake 2 that prove how much we've been lied to about the supposed graphical limitations of the late 90s and about 3d FPP being the newest and best technology in video gaming.

People are constantly trying to sell us the "Fallout would have been made in FPP if there was a good engine" line when FPP was available already and in a fairly advanced form.

For the time, there was MORE detail shown in Fallout than there was in the best FPP games of the era (even those that were groundbreaking and set the stage for every major fps game since then)

It's not some shoddy pixelated game when taken in the context of what was available at the time. Every one of those "ugly 2d sprites" were beautifully handcrafted in 3d and then pre-rendered.


It makes me really excited and dissapointed at the same time to think of what we could do with 3d engines these days to make beautiful games of all perspectives, as opposed to what currently sells (rehashes of FPP q2 for the last 10 years with subpar multiplayer by comparison).
 
I had forgotten what an eye-sore Diablo 1 was.

I thought it was freaking ugly back when it first shipped.

Quake 2 is ugly as hell as well (an opinion I had voiced in 1997 as well). I had thought that the initial leaps into 3d by FPS's had produced some very... questionable results.
 
I've always found 2D sprite characters to be a lot more beautiful and realistic-looking than 3D characters.
I know that sounds incredibly stupid - it may be a sentimental thing.
 
I've always found 2D sprite characters to be a lot more beautiful and realistic-looking than 3D characters.
I know that sounds incredibly stupid - it may be a sentimental thing
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It only began to sound 'stupid' very recently, when 3D character creators started to come up with facial representations like this
mass_effect.jpg

that could compare to and look as natural as something hand-drawn like this
Minsc_-_Baldur%27s_Gate_2.jpg


Case in point. Deus Ex was a top notch 3D RPG back in 2000, but here's how its key characters looked like:
GuntherHermann.jpg
AnnaNavarre.jpg
PaulDenton.jpg

Hardly beautiful or even good-looking. Oh, did I hate looking at 3D transitions back then, especially at RTS tryouts like Empire Earth or even Warcraft 3.
 
Ranne said:
It only began to sound 'stupid' very recently, when 3D character creators started to come up with facial representations like this
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He said sprite characters, Ranne, not facial expressions.

As for very recently, the most expressive 3D characters I've ever seen in a game are still in this one, BoobPhysX notwithstanding.
 
You can apply this to any 2D vs 3D character discussion out there: 3D characters and especially 3D character animations were incomparably inferior to their 2D counterparts until very recently (~2003-2005). Those hexagon-shaped heads... bleh...

I have nothing to say against Vampire (great game) but I think its a bit too old to compete with Mass Effect in that regard:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mpLqJrGltM (possible spoilers)
 
Ranne said:
You can apply this to any 2D vs 3D character discussion out there: 3D characters and especially 3D character animations were incomparably inferior to their 2D counterparts until very recently (~2003-2005).
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Sure. But even now 2D and 3D simply have different strengths. 3D is a lot more flexible and has wider fields of application, but I do dislike it when people simply see 2D as dead.

Ranne said:
I have nothing to say against Vampire (great game) but I think its a bit too old to compete with Mass Effect in that regard:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mpLqJrGltM (possible spoilers)
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Not at all. Mass Effect has its laughably stupid cinematic camera angles, and the faces are obviously more well-rendered as technology has improved, but the actual expressiveness of the character is inferior in Mass Effect compared to Bloodlines. Not that I'm not talking about looking or how realistically they are modelled, because obviously ME wins out there, I'm talking about how the expressions are animated.
(and I love how the things you pick to say in Mass Effect sometimes barely represent what you actually say, duhlol)

Endgame spoilers, but all Mass Effect has on this or this are flashier graphics. The emoting and expressiveness of Bloodlines characters is infinitely richer.
(from what I've seen. I haven't played Mass Effect, only seen lots of it)

And y'know, this lovely shit:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feby5ghXLpY[/youtube]
 
I really can't argue with you on this. First, I loved The Vampire when I played it back in 2004, and, second, I don't really remember it that well. The video looks convincing, so I'll just take your word on this and have another try at the game when I get a chance.
 
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