Has fallout as a franchise become morrally bankrupt from the acquisition by Bethesda back in 2004?

[Uber Morpth]

Don't remember, I do remember us who wanted Fallout to not to turn into a bag of dogshit puke telling them (and ostensibly Bethesda) that it would be a bad idea repeatedly. Dunno how many of those Fallout 4 Suggestions threads I wasted my time away in when Bethesda didn't listen to a single one of our compromises and almost did the complete opposite just to really rub our face in it.

This sums up Bethesda's consideration for literally any idea to salvage Fallout:

Well I'm more glad then ever to of never bought into Bethesda's games thinking they were perfect, aside from my new vegas purchase on gog I think I'll be boycotting all of Bethesdia Studio's product's for the foreseeable future as I'm sure many on here has as well to send a message that we aren't gonna tolerate their garbage games.

 

[Mr Fish]

Ayeah, on that note of boycotting, I broke mine momentarily to try out their Creation Club.
I bought two small things that expanded the settlement building items a bit. A donut café with booths, walls, floors, new crafting recipes etc and an arcade machine thingie which allows you to play the little pipboy minigames directly without the need of the holotape. I got both for almost what a FO3 DLC costed.

It is not worth it.

However, I will say FO4's Creation Club content is better than F76. There's no literally one reskin of a power armor for 18 bucks. Everything is still vastly overpriced but not even close to the horrorshow F76 was.

 

[Uber Morpth]

Ayeah, on that note of boycotting, I broke mine momentarily to try out their Creation Club.
I bought two small things that expanded the settlement building items a bit. A donut café with booths, walls, floors, new crafting recipes etc and an arcade machine thingie which allows you to play the little pipboy minigames directly without the need of the holotape. I got both for almost what a FO3 DLC costed.

It is not worth it.

However, I will say FO4's Creation Club content is better than F76. There's no literally one reskin of a power armor for 18 bucks. Everything is still vastly overpriced but not even close to the horrorshow F76 was.

I think correct term for 76 is a dumpster fire, not only the game but the pr surrounding it has been such a mess and I'm not at all surprised Zenimax wanted Bethesda to pump the game up with horrid microtranactions considering Fallout Shelter exist.

While the creation club idea for console sounds fine on PC though is a total rip off from how it sounds, though tbh most of the content on there is "slightly" better then the actual dlc fallout 4 got.

 

[thefalloutfan]

Some argue that skills are still in there in the form of perks.

Although partially true I guess, it's still an entirely different mechanic.

Well, a lot of people asked for a voiced protagonist back when I was haunting the Bethesda forums so they got what they asked for.

I was a member on their forums until they moved to the new one some five years ago or so, and I don't particularly remember this being an ask from the members at the time. Their core fans, mainly Elder Scrolls fan (such as myself, at least up to Morrowind) never wanted a voiced protagonist as it takes away from the immersion.

 

[Uber Morpth]

Although partially true I guess, it's still an entirely different mechanic.



I was a member on their forums until they moved to the new one some five years ago or so, and I don't particularly remember this being an ask from the members at the time. Their core fans, mainly Elder Scrolls fan (such as myself, at least up to Morrowind) never wanted a voiced protagonist as it takes away from the immersion.

^

This, I don't really even feel how a voiced protagonist would add much vs what you lose with the immersion

 

[Norzan]

Voiced protagonist just doesn't work in a series with a character creation. When the devs add that to their games, it's basically: "this is your character and you imagine how they would sound like". The second you add a voice to them you are taking that away.

Voiced protagonist only works when it's an established character that already exists in the universe. Geralt in the Witcher series is not your character, he's an established canon character, so him being voiced is not a problem.

Of course the voiced protagonist in Fallout 4 is really damn funny when either Pete or Emil claimed that they hate too much dialogue in RPGs (which is just ridiculous), but then have Todd Howard brag about how many dialogue lines Fallout 4 has.

 

[Uber Morpth]

Voiced protagonist just doesn't work in a series with a character creation. When the devs had that to their games, it's basically: "this is your character and you imagine how they would sound like". The second you add a voice to them you are taking that away.

Voiced protagonist only works when it's an established character that already exists in the universe. Geralt in the Witcher series is not your character, he's an established canon character, so him being voiced is not a problem.

Of course the voiced protagonist in Fallout 4 is really damn funny when either Pete or Emil claimed that they hate too much dialogue in RPGs (which is just ridiculous), but then have Todd Howard brag about how much dialogue lines the Fallout 4 has.

Wasn't there at one point when Todd himself said the 4 dialogue system wasn't exactly the best choice after Fallout 4 came out? I remember hearing this as a talking point in Mr Captions video, if that's the case they might not try something this dumb again for fallout or even the next elder scrolls.

 

[Mr Fish]

I was a member on their forums until they moved to the new one some five years ago or so, and I don't particularly remember this being an ask from the members at the time. Their core fans, mainly Elder Scrolls fan (such as myself, at least up to Morrowind) never wanted a voiced protagonist as it takes away from the immersion.

We're talking about like at least like 8 or 9 years ago so my memory might not be the best but every couple of threads (they'd lock after like 200 messages) someone would poke their head in and ask about it.

 

[KingArthur]

The dialogue in 4 was so bad it was basically hilarious, imo.

 

[Uber Morpth]

The dialogue in 4 was so bad it was basically hilarious, imo.

Apprently during the conference the lead writer himself did he talked about how it was frustrating and annoying for the other writers to write the hole game around the idea of you having only 4 options and yet for some reason neither him or anyone on the staff team bothered to say this might be a bad idea but just went with it instead.

 

[Mr Fish]

I'll always love this little gem by Pete Hines every time Fallout 4's dialogue system is brought up:

"I like what we’ve done with the dialogue system… and having played Fallout 3 again recently I keep, in Fallout 4 when I’m playing, I keep hitting the button to leave dialogue. I keep forgetting, ‘Oh, I can just walk away’. I don’t have to wait for this guy to stop talking’. And now I’m playing other stuff, where there’s dialogue and I’m thinking, ‘Oh, I wish I could just walk away’. Because I don’t have the attention span for long dialogue!... ...Unless it’s Uncharted or anything by Naughty Dog, and then I never skip any of the dialogue – ’cause theirs is awesome."

- http://metro.co.uk/2015/08/20/bethe...at-other-folks-wouldnt-do-or-dont-do-5352056/

Basically, saying that FO4's dialogue is shit so it's good you can just straight up walk away from it.

 

[Uber Morpth]

I'll always love this little gem by Pete Hines every time Fallout 4's dialogue system is brought up:

"I like what we’ve done with the dialogue system… and having played Fallout 3 again recently I keep, in Fallout 4 when I’m playing, I keep hitting the button to leave dialogue. I keep forgetting, ‘Oh, I can just walk away’. I don’t have to wait for this guy to stop talking’. And now I’m playing other stuff, where there’s dialogue and I’m thinking, ‘Oh, I wish I could just walk away’. Because I don’t have the attention span for long dialogue!... ...Unless it’s Uncharted or anything by Naughty Dog, and then I never skip any of the dialogue – ’cause theirs is awesome."

- http://metro.co.uk/2015/08/20/bethe...at-other-folks-wouldnt-do-or-dont-do-5352056/

Basically, saying that FO4's dialogue is shit so it's good you can just straight up walk away from it.

He was the main writer for Fallout 3 as well? No wonder how both games have such terrible writing.

 

[RangerBoo]

He was the main writer for Fallout 3 as well? No wonder how both games have such terrible writing.

No but Petey is in charge of Marketing over at Bethesda. He has also shown to have a lot of creative control over at Bethesda. A lot of Bethesda's terrible ideas, like the voice protagonist, the striping of RPG elements and the dumbing down of mechanics, have been Pete's idea.

 

[KingArthur]

My theory is that Pete Hines is sabotaging Fallout, while Todd Howard actually doesn’t even give a shit.

 

[Ugly Kid]

No but Petey is in charge of Marketing over at Bethesda. He has also shown to have a lot of creative control over at Bethesda. A lot of Bethesda's terrible ideas, like the voice protagonist, the striping of RPG elements and the dumbing down of mechanics, have been Pete's idea.

I honestly think Todd Howard could make a good Fallout game if Bethesda Game Studios was disconnected from their parent companies. I just really hate Pete Hines but Todd seems like a genuine dude, except for the fact that he lies for the company constantly but that's just because he's being paid to lie.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

I don't think Todd has what it takes to make a Fallout game. I don't see him as such a creative light.

 

[Gizmojunk]

Wait what, why would they ask for this? I'm little confused

I had about 32000± posts on the Bethsoft forum, and I do recall many exchanges about what limitations a voiced protagonist imposes upon dialog & quest design; also mentions of reading faster than the speaker, and of not wanting the wrong voice—or same voice for each character.
There were people that asked for it, and they would not be swayed by logic, reason, or examples.

See... There are people who cannot reconcile that their PC isn't talking aloud; they are often the same people who interpret turn based mechanics as 'just standing there getting hit'. Truly clueless of the intended point.

They always remind me of a scene from the show Growing Pains, where Mike Seaver realizes that TV shows still play when the TV is off... when he cannot see them.

There are people for whom nothing exists unless they see it happen; for them a voiceless protagonist is just creating an awkward silence by saying nothing, and this to them is not how a conversation would be.

Voiceless PCs allow—can allow—for dynamic textual changes to the dialog, on the fly, because they can be invented on the spot. They might never occur in the game—until some player triggers it, but it would have to have been prerecorded if the PC is fully voiced, and has to speak of them.

*I can appreciate (and enjoy) a voiced protagonist provided that it's impressively well done voice work, and that the design does not impair dialog re-writes; needing new recording sessions to accommodate the new additions, and changes —but does this ever happen?

It doesn't help modders, who will need to fully voice the protagonist in their own content, in order to blend their mod seamlessly with the game. The Bethesda Fallout games AFAIK did not include generic lines by the actors to lead into user mod content; like Moira or other saying, "Speak to my assistant for the details" or generic lines for quest conclusion, or generic lines for the FO4 PC, to be used in User mods.

I don't think Todd has what it takes to make a Fallout game. I don't see him as such a creative light.

He has Bethesda's resources; that's enough for anyone to make a Fallout game. Todd doesn't want to; Todd has valid reasons not to. It's sad, but they spend a lot to just keep the lights on, and they must fish where the fish bite most often.

*It's probably also personal dislike of the style, and possibly not truly seeing the appeal.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

In the end the conclusion remains the same that Bethesda should never have bought the Fallout IP to begin with.

It is actually the same with a lot of IPs, games, but also movies, comics, etc. In general they can never be continued by different people than the ones who worked on them in the first place.
Only rare are new producters, writers, or teams as capable as the previous teams or even able to surpass their predecessors.

 

[laclongquan]

Bethesda aim for the lowest common denominator, so dont be surprised that their fanbase has so much higher ratio of dumbass.

 

[Gizmojunk]