Lex Friedman just released a nearly 3 hours long interview with Todd Howard. Anyone got the stomach?

If I felt like torturing myself, maybe. But I am not desperate yet.

Besides, we already know what to expect, how they 'saved' Fallout and why Skyrim is Magnus Opus, etc.
 
I listened to a good deal of it while I was doing some other activities, but I kinda of tuned out a bit so I don't remember very much, although he didn't say much that was particularly novel or unexpected so that might have been part of the reason. Here's a breakdown of some of the stuff come to mind:


* He says that one ingredient to make combat more fun is by making the NPCs really stupid. He says that they could be made to be far much smarter than they are on Bethesda games, but that would make it too hard for players to defeat them and that would make the game less fun.

* Regarding character creation, he says that many people criticize Bethesda for simplifying the newer iterations of their games far too much (i.e. removing stats and classes, etc..), but he says that they didn't simplify they just moved specialization choices to further down the game so that players aren't stuck with a character they don't like if they make poor choices during character creation (frankly I think that this is a lie because Skyrim never gets as complex or intricate as Morrowind no matter how deep you are in the game).

* Regarding the differences between TES and Fallout, he says that he sees Fallout as a more tongue-in-cheek and comedic game whereas TES is supposed to be more serious.

* He only has a general idea of when TES6 is coming out, not even internally do they have an exact date set (he didn't specify further though).

* Regarding quests and missions, he says that he enjoys it when they are open ended and have more than one solution. He cites as an example an quest where a character has to collect 5 daedric hearts, saying that it can be just as interesting as a more tighly structured and designed quest because there are many different ways in which the player can acquire the hearts.

* Can't remember much else honestly.
 
Eumesmopo said:
* He says that one ingredient to make combat more fun is by making the NPCs really stupid. He says that they could be made to be far much smarter than they are on Bethesda games, but that would make it too hard for players to defeat them and that would make the game less fun.
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We see someone genuinely trying to justify bad AI.

Eumesmopo said:
* Regarding character creation, he says that many people criticize Bethesda for simplifying the newer iterations of their games far too much (i.e. removing stats and classes, etc..), but he says that they didn't simplify they just moved specialization choices to further down the game so that players aren't stuck with a character they don't like if they make poor choices during character creation (frankly I think that this is a lie because Skyrim never gets as complex or intricate as Morrowind no matter how deep you are in the game).
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Skyrim doesn't have 1% of the depth Morrowind has and Morrowind isn't really all that deep (still has plenty of customization, far more than Skyrim).

Eumesmopo said:
* Regarding the differences between TES and Fallout, he says that he sees Fallout as a more tongue-in-cheek and comedic game whereas TES is supposed to be more serious.
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The exact opposite of what that should be, but i'm not surprised because Todd (and Bethesda) never got Fallout.
Eumesmopo said:
* Regarding quests and missions, he says that he enjoys it when they are open ended and have more than one solution. He cites as an example an quest where a character has to collect 5 daedric hearts, saying that it can be just as interesting as a more tighly structured and designed quest because there are many different ways in which the player can acquire the hearts.
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Yes, because a shitty fetch quest like that can rival a quest with actual multiple approaches like stealth, speech, straight up combat and so on. And if we look at this specfic quest in Skyrim, you can only get them from one single area and that Dagon's Shrine which has like five Dremoras.

There's a reason why i don't check out Todd Howard's moronic interviews because most of them are filled with this type of bullshit, just the usual car salesman bullshit. This is the same man that implied Skyrim was somehow ahead of its time when it was already dated in 2011.
 
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He is right. If the combat was harder the game would not be as popular with 8 year old boys.
 
IMO it's not worth the bandwith to view, nor the time spent digesting any of it. Todd Howard (and Pete for that matter) never switch off the game-face, and only ever pretend at frankness; it's the company line 100% of the time.
 
Plus Friedman is so autistic I cannot stand the dude. It is like watching a fucking robot interview a real person every time except this time it is a robot and a company shill.
 
Eumesmopo said:
Pretty sure that's 99% of the nma userbase as well, so I dunno what the problem is. High IQ azpergers > normies.
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The problem is he is a really bad interviewer due to having to hear his robotic cadence. Maybe I should have made that more clear. I am not anti autist I am anti autist acting like a human when he is bad at it. You either have a moron like Rogan or a robot like Fried Man.
 
Reading the comments and i know why Todd has 100 speech and 10 charisma.

And holy shit, Bethesda fans probably suffer the most from battered wife syndrome. Just how many bad games Bethesda needs to release before they realize that Todd, and Bethesda really, doesn't give a shit about them and only see them as ATM machines?
 
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I just watched 1 minute 36.75 seconds. My first impression was Todd's voice moves up and down an octave or 3 and he does the inverted commas fingers a lot. Deffo a bender.
 
Morgan_ said:
Pretty uniteresting from what I've listened to. Not quite on the level as the Carmack interview lol.
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The Carmack interview was awesome, actually got me motivated to learn more about programming and pick up C++ just from listening to it tbh, specially the part where he said he wasn't the math savant people think he is and that he managed to achieve everything he did with just a solid understanding of high-school level algebra and geometry.
 
Eumesmopo said:
The Carmack interview was awesome, actually got me motivated to learn more about programming and pick up C++ just from listening to it tbh, specially the part where he said he wasn't the math savant people think he is and that he managed to achieve everything he did with just a solid understanding of high-school level algebra and geometry.
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Carmack is truly great person, multi talented genius and humble despite that.
Todd is just thinking, wearing, saying whatever in his mind will benefit him in short term, at all costs.
After that, there is spin or apology that isn't apology as part of effort to sell same thing to same people he fucked over before.

It must be pathetic to be him.
But not that pathetic as giving him chance over and over again.
 
Fanboys are all like that not just Beth fans. "Oh they really care what we think!"

No, they want money. You are a fucking ATM machine.
 
It's honestly laughable people saying they owe Bethesda because Bethesda made games that were part of their childhood and thus they have the obligation to defend Bethesda. You don't owe them anything, you just bought their product.

I love a lot of Nintendo games, but i know Nintendo doesn't give a rat's ass about me, so i don't feel any obligation in defending them or that i owe them anything. In fact, i will join the mob that is rightfully criticising them when they fuck up.
 
Norzan said:
I love a lot of Nintendo games, but i know Nintendo doesn't give a rat's ass about me, so i don't feel any obligation in defending them or that i owe them anything. In fact, i will join the mob that is rightfully criticising them when they fuck up.
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Perfect opportunity to do so since Nintendo has essentially given the Smash community a giant "Fuck You" yesterday. Honestly, no game company really deserves respect nowadays.
 
Honestly, the worst part of this interview is Lex and his stupid ass questions. The guy is unbearable.

I get what Todd is saying about dumbing down the AI for combat. He isn't talking about complexity but more about how tough NPCs are. I imagine it isn't difficult to make NPCs lock on to your head perfectly as soon as it is within sight.

Fallout 3 was his favorite game to make. He seems to think that the hardcore Fallout fans were proven wrong when it came out. I wonder if he is delusional or just dishonest there.

Based on what he said about quests in general, seems that he actually thinks the radiant fetch quests are fun (though that wasn't said directly).
 
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