If you could see a headcanon justifying any Bethesda retcon, what would it be?

[ZigzagPX4]

I believe that your's is the popular opinion around here; to me the best case scenario is that Bethesda allow Obsidian as much creative freedom as they want but if that's an impossibility then i'd love to see Obsidian make a new post-apocalyptic IP.


It probably relates to the whole ordeal where Bethesda didn't give Obsidian a percentage of the sales of NV because the critics score where one or two points off of Bethesda's mark, I think I remember reading somewhere that Obsidian almost shut down because of it; but no you're right, I'm sure they have a friendly business relationship and it was just Zenimax executives all being bureaucratic dickheads.

Isn't that Bethesda Softworks and not Bethesda Game Studios? Zenimax Media and Bethesda Softworks are almost nearly the same thing (no, really) even when it looks like Zenimax is lording over Softworks. But BGS is the real deal of being a developer under a publisher's thumb. Whether BGS are that good at developing or not is another matter, because I tend to like people with good intentions even if their results are bad.

How strong is the connection between BS (most known by Pete Hines) and BGS (most known by Todd Howard)? Is there a chance that BGS might not be making Fallout 4 bad because they think its actually a good direction, but instead are under orders to appeal to more people?

 

[Izak]

Isn't that Bethesda Softworks and not Bethesda Game Studios? Zenimax Media and Bethesda Softworks are almost nearly the same thing (no, really) even when it looks like Zenimax is lording over Softworks. But BGS is the real deal of being a developer under a publisher's thumb. Whether BGS are that good at developing or not is another matter, because I tend to like people with good intentions even if their results are bad.

How strong is the connection between BS (most known by Pete Hines) and BGS (most known by Todd Howard)? Is there a chance that BGS might not be making Fallout 4 bad because they think its actually a good direction, but instead are under orders to appeal to more people?

Well it's practically certain that publishers will interfere with the production of a game, i've literally never heard of this not happening. At a guess i'd say that BS/Zenimax looked at the finished Fallout 4 and told them to start again and this time make it 'hip' and 'sick' like all the kids wanted and that resulted in the amalgamation of mechanics from unrelated games mashed into a single entity which is known as Fallout 4.
And while BGS probably is another example of developers being kept under a publishers thumb using Todd as an example of one of those poor developers is probably incorrect, he's a corporate puppet if i've ever seen one.

 

[LonesomeDrifter]

The game direction is set from the start, with a few changes later in the development but not as big as to encompass the dumbing down of the RPG elements as seen in Fallout 4. While BS certainly had their hands in what came to be the end product - BGS certainly had the general concept of what the game will be, set before. Their intention is to make a game for the sake of selling not for the sake of making a game. Analyzing the market and then basing their game direction onto the shown results is a way of accomplishing the set goal. The results dictate the game.

It's visible in the repeating Fallout elements and 'nostalgic' references to Fallout 3 - which are more references for the sake of satisfying the fanbase then actual story/plot devices. The settlement system, while I believe was not exactly what Todd had envisioned (at least the end product), took a lot of time and assets to be created, showing that it was part of the original concept, albeit not fully finished thus it was cut from playing a major, important role and dumped as optional content (it is used several times in quest chains throughout the main story). Also, in the development time of Fallout 4, Minecraft was making its nice sweep of the profit; while one could argue that the settlement system (Which I use here only as one of the various examples) could have therefore been implemented later on as a way to jump on the bandwagon of building, introduced with Minecraft, we have an attempt at something similar in Skyrim with the Hearthfire DLC.

I believe that BS and BGS do work hand in hand when it comes to the end product. It isn't as if one of the two was operating independently and then acquired the other as is case in some game development companies. One's the mind the other the brawn.

 

[Izak]

The game direction is set from the start, with a few changes later in the development but not as big as to encompass the dumbing down of the RPG elements as seen in Fallout 4. While BS certainly had their hands in what came to be the end product - BGS certainly had the general concept of what the game will be, set before. Their intention is to make a game for the sake of selling not for the sake of making a game. Analyzing the market and then basing their game direction onto the shown results is a way of accomplishing the set goal. The results dictate the game.

It's visible in the repeating Fallout elements and 'nostalgic' references to Fallout 3 - which are more references for the sake of satisfying the fanbase then actual story/plot devices. The settlement system, while I believe was not exactly what Todd had envisioned (at least the end product), took a lot of time and assets to be created, showing that it was part of the original concept, albeit not fully finished thus it was cut from playing a major, important role and dumped as optional content (it is used several times in quest chains throughout the main story). Also, in the development time of Fallout 4, Minecraft was making its nice sweep of the profit; while one could argue that the settlement system (Which I use here only as one of the various examples) could have therefore been implemented later on as a way to jump on the bandwagon of building, introduced with Minecraft, we have an attempt at something similar in Skyrim with the Hearthfire DLC.

I believe that BS and BGS do work hand in hand when it comes to the end product. It isn't as if one of the two was operating independently and then acquired the other as is case in some game development companies. One's the mind the other the brawn.

I just can't believe that a large group of people whom I assume are intelligent together decided that the best way to make a game is to make a mish mash of disjointed game mechanics and half-baked themes and concepts. It had to have been a group of stuffy old men who reached their position by kissing all the asses on their way up the corporate ladder, they decided to make Fallout 4 the way it is damn it!

 

[LonesomeDrifter]

You can't blame the craftsmen - they did their job. Hell, I feel pity for them in every big game development company. Looking at the concept art pieces, the models, etc. They did their job and they did a good one there - but it's always the guy that pulls the strings, the one with clean hands that makes the actual decisions. And more or less, it's those farts kissing their way up the corporate ladder, as you said.

At times it isn't just the writer who's bad. You can have great writers on board, but what if someone plays around in the process of implementing the written into the game. Too long a sentence? Cut the shit down. And you lose its original meaning if done wrong. Cut a few lines here and there - you get nonsense in the end. Might have sounded reasonable and good on the original draft; now it's just nonsense. We can only speculate where it went wrong as long as we're without some evidence - and I'd really like to get my hands on the original drafts of the story.

 

[ZigzagPX4]

The thing is - people keep blaming Todd Howard for everything that goes wrong, while I believe that his misinformation during advertising (read: Todd Howard's famous lies) is what makes him look like part of the corporate tool that keeps stomping on game developers again and again, when he really isn't one.

It's really just me. I could be completely wrong, but I choose to stay skeptical, because if it turns out he would've been a good developer after all if not mired by Bethesda and Emil's crap writing, then I don't want have been wrong.

 

[Dr Fallout]

Honestly I blame Emil more. Todd may have turned the gameplay to a messy piece of shit, but Emil, god damn it he ruined the Fallout series when it came to writing.