PC Gamer blog: everyone will love Fallout 3, except us.

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Brother None

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From Prediction: Week One:<blockquote>1) Fallout 3 will disappoint Fallout fans and delight everyone else.

The only thing that confuses me about Bethesda getting the Fallout licence is why they'd even bother. Fallout, while important and brilliant, was never a runaway sales success. At the moment, Bethesda are arguably the most commercially successful western-style Role-playing Game developer on earth. It'd actually be far smarter for them to develop their own post-apocalypse setting from scratch rather than trying to raise Interplay's child from the nuclear ashes.

The idea of Bethesda doing a post-apocalypse game is as big a story as Bethesda doing Fallout 3. Perhaps even a bigger story. Since it'll be presumably be appearing on the consoles, where it'll have no history whatsoever, the "3" is going to make people back away slowly. (Don't expect it to come out under the name "Fallout 3" but "Fallout: Some Extra Subtitle")

So what have they bought with the licence? Just the enmity of the hardcore Fallout fans who'll hate any game Bethesda make with it just on principle.

So why did they do it? Only reason I can work out is Bethesda are just dirty big Fallout fans and would love to play in the Sandbox. Which is a good a reason for the rest of us to be very excited indeed. </blockquote>Spotted on Duck and Cover.
 
Cross-post from DaC:

VasikkA said:
The sales figures aren't exactly a reliable indicator of the brand value in Fallout's case.
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Fallout 1/2 had sold 900,000 copies by the release of Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, and could be estimated at 1 million now. If that odd "Fallout biggest torrent download!"-thing was even close to reality, it's a big download too.

It has a bigger fanbase than you'd think. Problem is, that fanbase would like another *Fallout*, not a repackaged Oblivion.

The "Bethesda would have been better off on its own franchise" is right. Nobody is going to convince me Bethesda bought the license because they're fans, that's not how a media corporation like ZeniMax works (ZM couldn't give less of a shit about what BethSoft developers are fans of, as long as it sells).

I can only asume they bought it in the hope of name recognition to boost casual sales ("Hey, Fallout, I once heard of that name somewhere, supposed to be really good") and the extra "legendary franchise"-boost to their usual hype.

It's been a failure so far, mostly generating head-scratching and a negative word-of-mouth. The only places it has generated positive word of mouth so far are the kind of places that like whatever Bethesda does (kotaku, QTT, PoNG, those kind of places), so that's not a plus that comes from buying the license. 1.175 million down the drain, if you ask me.
 
Re: PC Gamer blog predicts: every will love Fallout 3, but u

So why did [Chucky Cuevas] do it? Only reason I can work out is [he is] just [a] dirty big Fallout [fan] and would love to play in the Sandbox. Which is a good a reason for the rest of us to be very excited indeed.
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Re: PC Gamer blog predicts: every will love Fallout 3, but u

1) Fallout 3 will disappoint Fallout fans and delight everyone else.

The only thing that confuses me about Bethesda getting the Fallout licence is why they'd even bother.
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Fallacy #1.
Fallout, while important and brilliant, was never a runaway sales success. At the moment, Bethesda are arguably the most commercially successful western-style Role-playing Game developer on earth.
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Fallacy #2.

It'd actually be far smarter for them to develop their own post-apocalypse setting from scratch rather than trying to raise Interplay's child from the nuclear ashes.

The idea of Bethesda doing a post-apocalypse game is as big a story as Bethesda doing Fallout 3. Perhaps even a bigger story. Since it'll be presumably be appearing on the consoles, where it'll have no history whatsoever, the "3" is going to make people back away slowly. (Don't expect it to come out under the name "Fallout 3" but "Fallout: Some Extra Subtitle")
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Like Fallout: A Post-Nuclear Role-playing game?

So what have they bought with the licence? Just the enmity of the hardcore Fallout fans who'll hate any game Bethesda make with it just on principle.
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Fallacy #3.

So why did they do it? Only reason I can work out is Bethesda are just dirty big Fallout fans and would love to play in the Sandbox. Which is a good a reason for the rest of us to be very excited indeed.
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And fallacy #4.
 
I really dislike the "hate it on principle" thing. This gets said over and over, but since none of our critics seem to read it it needs to be restated over and over again: The problem with Bethesda developing the game is that their style of RPG and Fallout's type of RPG are very different, and because of this barely anyone has confidence that Fallout 3 will have anything but a superficial resemblance to Fallouts 1+2. If you like the gameplay of the originals, where would the appeal of a sequel that had nothing in common with that gameplay be? Imagine if the next Civilization game was a first person shooter. Why would any sane fan of the previous games buy it or be interested in it? Does anyone besides the lunatic fringes of the internet really play Civilization and think "You know, this turn based strategy game is awesome, but it would be even better if it was real time and involved shooting people"? The difference between Fallout 1+2 and Morrowind/Oblivion might be a little less extreme than that, but not by much.

If, when Bethesda starts releasing information on the game, it turns out to be very similar to the original Fallout, I doubt many people in the fan base are going to hate it "on principle". If it turns out to be very much like Oblivion, then obviously a lot of fans of the original game are going to dislike it, because it would have almost nothing in common with the original beside some visual similarities. I really don't understand why so many people have such a hard time understanding that. The setting of Fallout was great, but setting doesn't mean much if you hate the gameplay.

Edit: I suck at spelling
 
Doesn't happen too often, but I mostly agree with Sander there...

That's a lot of fallacies.

But I still think it's not totally wrong to say that every fallout fan will hate any Bethesda game. It's just an exaggeration and generalization.
Of course, SOME fallout fans will hate it without ever playing it... but definitely not most of them.
IMHO many fallout fans will like the game but hate the fact that it won't have too much in common with the original games and blame Bethesda for that (at least that's what I'll most certainly do and I guess most others).
 
All we can do is wait and hope that someone at Bethesda wakes up and makes the game the way it should be. It's a fool's hope, but hope no less.
 
I agree with Montez, usually and about most everthing, especially this point that setting is not everything. Fallout's success with a fans is due to the recipe of plot, story line, gameplay, creativity, humor, vision, retro-spection and a host of other elements that were packaged in one game and tried, less successfully, in a sequel.

I don't think I would dislike FOBOS so much if
(1) it wasn't called Fallout
(2) it didn't suck ass.

I wouldn't dislike Fallout Tactics so much if:
(1) It wasn't called Fallout
(2) it didn't suck ass.

So frankly, Bethesda should feel free to make a post-apocalpytic game of its own imagining, it could be great or it could suck ass, but don't call it fallout.

He's right. If you call it Fallout than you are stuck with a lot of baggage. If you drop a lot of that baggage than its not a Fallout Game anymore.

For example, let's say someone were to say, We're going to do Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus - but we're going to cut the highwire act, the clowns, the elephants, the lion tamer, two rings, cotten candy and all those cheap toys. No, what' we're going to do is have a bunch of people run around in tights, do acrobatics in pastal colors in this rather Daliesque story line with some french name and we're going to show tits.

Fine, you can do that. But give it a new name and don't sell it as good ole fashion Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus when you're doing Cirque du Soleil with tits. Why? Because you're going to piss off people.

Seriously, the Post-Apoc genre is a big and popular one. Break the egg that is Fallout and you can do a lot of stuff that you can't get away with in fallout. It's there egg, afterall- they decide what kind of thing will come out of it, a chicken, a alligator, a dinosaur, a Fallout game, or some other thing.

But you are going to make a fallout game, then you have to ask what is a fallout, meaning what is that recipe of elements that makes it work as Fallout and not something else.

I think somewhere down the pike, Bethesda should look at their project and ask, "Ok, is this really fallout or some evil bastardization of something."

Because frankly, I would rather see the Fallout series die then get prostituted again just for the profits of some gaming company. In fact if the game isn't fallout but is pretty good, then they shouldn't call it fallout but start their own damn franchise.
 
nobuo said:
All we can do is wait and hope that someone at Bethesda wakes up and makes the game the way it should be. It's a fool's hope, but hope no less.
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I dont think that'll happen, and not because i think Beth is bleh or anything. What some people dont seem to notice is, Beth has also a (very) large fan-base of people who eat, drink and shit Morrowind and Oblivion. They simply cannot ignore such a huge mass of people in favour of a relatively smaller die-hard fan-base of Fallout who moan and bitch (no offense to anyone, i'm one of the moaners and bitchers myself :D) about what they are doing with the license.

I'm no psychic, but i think people at Beth are just trying to do something to make Fallout 3 appealing to both of the groups. And, being a pessimistic asshole that i am, they'll most probably fail miserably at it.

Oh well, let's just sit on our toes. I mean, seriously, i think almost everyone here will buy Fallout 3 anyway. ;)
 
Madbringer said:
Beth has also a (very) large fan-base of people who eat, drink and shit Morrowind and Oblivion. They simply cannot ignore such a huge mass of people in favour of a relatively smaller die-hard fan-base of Fallout who moan and bitch (no offense to anyone, i'm one of the moaners and bitchers myself :D) about what they are doing with the license.
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Sorry, what huge mass? Oblivion sold on casual sales mostly. That's not an established fanbase.
 
Just a figure of speech. I'm counting Morrowind's and Oblivion's fanbases as one, because of how similar those games are. Anyway, even if we would cut off the Oblivion people from the equation, Morrowind's fanbase alone is big enough by itself.

My point is - it's "them" (Oblivion and Morrowind fans) against "us" (Fallout 1 and 2 fans). And Beth in the middle. :D Hope i showed what i meant clear enough. :)
 
Madbringer said:
Just a figure of speech. I'm counting Morrowind's and Oblivion's fanbases as one, because of how similar those games are.
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They're not. In fact, Oblivion pissed off a lot of Morrowind fans.

Madbringer said:
Anyway, even if we would cut off the Oblivion people from the equation, Morrowind's fanbase alone is big enough by itself.

My point is - it's "them" (Oblivion and Morrowind fans) against "us" (Fallout 1 and 2 fans). And Beth in the middle. :D Hope i showed what i meant clear enough. :)
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Nope, bullshit. If Beth had wanted to tap into the Oblivion crowd, they should be making a game for that crowd: an Oblivion-like game. Buying the Fallout license makes no sense whatsoever if you're just going to market it to a fanbase *you already have*.
 
Sander said:
They're not. In fact, Oblivion pissed off a lot of Morrowind fans.
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Not saying they're the same, and of course, i'm well aware of that fact. What i meant is, how the games are similar in construction, the setting, and the way they decipe the game world. Nevermind how pissed off were some guys at where Oblivion has taken TES games, it's still a whole other world than the way Fallout 1 and 2 were built.

Sander said:
Nope, bullshit. If Beth had wanted to tap into the Oblivion crowd, they should be making a game for that crowd: an Oblivion-like game. Buying the Fallout license makes no sense whatsoever if you're just going to market it to a fanbase *you already have*.
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Dont get me wrong, please. I'm not justifying Bethesda here, and it's true that they have taken upon themselves much more than a simple deed of possession to the title. However, this is the situation they're in now, and they have to deal with it.

So from my stand-point it's either:

1) They re-sell the licenese to someone else (i seriously doubt that, i think they pumped in too much resources in F3 to give up on it now).

2) They release a Morrowind'ish game, pissing off most of the Fallout fans.

3) They release a Fallout'ish game, pissing off most of the Morrowind/Oblivion fans.

4) They fart out a miracle. :)
 
I'm hoping for #3 or #4. If it's an fps or anything that strays heavily from FO1/2 then it's not worth my money or my time. I'll just continue to watch for news and updates and hope.
 
Why do people think that the Elder Scrolls is the only Roleplaying system Bethesda can think of? Morrowind and Oblivion are not the only games that the company has made. There was a game between those that they originally built to be a roleplaying game called sea dogs that was bought and released as Pirates of the Carribean before it was finished. By no means was it a good game, but it was very different from Morrowind and Oblivion. Bethesda has shown in the past that they are capable of making diffferent types of games. There is no reason to think that the game will operate in the same way that Oblivion does.

That being said, Pirates was still a pretty crappy game so it doesn't offer much in the hope area. But still. I'd be angrier at their crappy PR than at the fact that they made a game in an entirely different series that was different than what you want Fallout 3 to be.
 
Rilom said:
Why do people think that the Elder Scrolls is the only Roleplaying system Bethesda can think of?
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Well, it's what the logic would suggest. They have loads of experience in making first-person based RPG's, it's what they're good at. Bah, it's what they do best!

You have to understand, they are walking on very thin ice here. If they decide to make F3 not similar to neither it's predecessors, nor Morrowind, they are basically just shooting blind, and hope they score. But who knows, maybe that would be the best solution? (in the context of the current situation, of course)
 
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