PC Gamer UK on NMA and AoD
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Thanks a lot Jidai Geki
It Wandered In From the Wastes
As regards NMA's reputation and whether or not it's deserved:
I agree, for the most part, that NMA's news section is fairly impartial. The preview of Fallout 3 was perhaps needlessly bitchy in parts and overly picky, but aside from this the articles are informative and enjoyable to read.
The forums, however: since posting here I would say that it's been mostly confirmed that NMA posters tend towards angry, bitter, and, to use a term that has been unjustifiably thrown at me time and time again, they "troll" newcomers who are optimistic about Bethsoft's title.
I've been called, or had it implied heavily that I am, a dumb fuck, a moron, and an idiotic casual gamer who doesn't "get" RPG's. One poster told me that he feels sorry for my students. All because I'm less than scathing about FO3.
I agree, for the most part, that NMA's news section is fairly impartial. The preview of Fallout 3 was perhaps needlessly bitchy in parts and overly picky, but aside from this the articles are informative and enjoyable to read.
The forums, however: since posting here I would say that it's been mostly confirmed that NMA posters tend towards angry, bitter, and, to use a term that has been unjustifiably thrown at me time and time again, they "troll" newcomers who are optimistic about Bethsoft's title.
I've been called, or had it implied heavily that I am, a dumb fuck, a moron, and an idiotic casual gamer who doesn't "get" RPG's. One poster told me that he feels sorry for my students. All because I'm less than scathing about FO3.
I liked the preview from NMA, if for nothing else, because it was different from all the others. AND it answered the questions that I wished that the other journalists would ask! Most of the other journalists wrote more or less the same things, after you had read one of them you could skip the rest of them!
Keep it up guys, be the pain in the ass for the game producers, so they do their very very best!
Keep it up guys, be the pain in the ass for the game producers, so they do their very very best!
I think we'll have to take this as a default on bonanza's part. Back to the drawing board for me and on to the blacklist for a little while for you. Check back in a week or two.
Given that I won't be replying, for now at least, on those other topics (where, incidentally, you are allowed to be as abrasive towards moderators as you would be against any other poster - imagine that?), except for one bit in case there are others thinking the same thing:
If we hush ourselves down because of fear of being misrepresented, we have already lost something and gained nothing. I know there are some people who seem overly taken with the idea that we at NMA are too outspoken, that even if we are ultimately right and others are ultimately wrong, we still only have ourselves to blame for any bad rep because we played into their hands. I don't subscribe to this view. Sometimes when you think all the rational and reasonable arguments have been laid out in the open and the same fallacies and misdirections keep popping up, a bout of sarcasm is just about all you can muster. That's not something the Internet doesn't do. We're a community. We are primarily our own audience. We don't second-guess everything we type because people with big ears and crooked pens might be listening in. That's how it should be. Also, I kicked two old ladies and a dog today because they said they like BoS. Kicked them in the SHINS.
Given that I won't be replying, for now at least, on those other topics (where, incidentally, you are allowed to be as abrasive towards moderators as you would be against any other poster - imagine that?), except for one bit in case there are others thinking the same thing:
bonanza said:
If we hush ourselves down because of fear of being misrepresented, we have already lost something and gained nothing. I know there are some people who seem overly taken with the idea that we at NMA are too outspoken, that even if we are ultimately right and others are ultimately wrong, we still only have ourselves to blame for any bad rep because we played into their hands. I don't subscribe to this view. Sometimes when you think all the rational and reasonable arguments have been laid out in the open and the same fallacies and misdirections keep popping up, a bout of sarcasm is just about all you can muster. That's not something the Internet doesn't do. We're a community. We are primarily our own audience. We don't second-guess everything we type because people with big ears and crooked pens might be listening in. That's how it should be. Also, I kicked two old ladies and a dog today because they said they like BoS. Kicked them in the SHINS.
Paladin Solo
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
Per said:
You've gotten soft, comrade.
Morbus
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
Indeed...Paladin Solo said:
Great move, now we'll have people coming here to say 'how could you kick old ladies' and that NMA has more and more sick-minded people. And since you've wrote FO's guides they will "think" that every Fallout fan kicks old ladies.Per said:
Well, I don't kick old ladies!
I puch them in the face.
Slaughter Manslaught
Vault Senior Citizen
Sorrow said:
Slaughter Manslaught
Vault Senior Citizen
Let me try it:
I laugh at these puny strikes of thee! I'm inveeencibleee! Your strikes don't affect ME!!
I laugh at these puny strikes of thee! I'm inveeencibleee! Your strikes don't affect ME!!
quietfanatic
Ancient One
Jidai Geki said:
I agree to an extent. In the past,
I said:
A well constructed argument that I disagree with is very welcome. Unclear arguments and stupid comments are not.
Gah, the self-delusion and defense of liars in this thread has provided enough material components for *summon Rosh* to make me register again. Fine then, here comes the Cluex4.
Bethesda has repeatedly been proven to lie about their hype - Oblivion as the poster child. In fact, it beats out Molyneaux's "Project Ego"/"Fable" in terms of overhype and lies. And Derek Smart's Battlecruiser. And Romero's Daikatana. That isn't something to be proud of, but yet they don't care.
Go back through and look at what Bethesda said about Obvlivion pre-release. Then take a look at how much of it turned out to be a lie. I've been around the Ultima folks for years, and even the dreams for the series didn't turn out as horribly mismatched as the list of Bethesda lies around Oblivion, which RPGCodex has compiled in depth. That's even counting "Super Avatar Bros." and "Virtue Raider". I think the thread should be around 40 pages by now, there's a LOT of material for the Codex to use, enough to make Romero run screaming from the mess.
So, we can consider the following:
1. Bethesda has employees unable to tell the difference between Fallout and Fallout Tactics. Two ENTIRELY separate games, genres, and engines. Even the QA chimp hired with free doughnuts should be able to tell you the difference, but apparently Bethesda is still having to hire just any industry noob because of....
2. The revolving door of talent at Bethesda. You know the greats, the fathers of TES, who made the series into something good? The ones who took the design of Arena, what the TES fans then knew as TES, and made an IMPROVEMENT. Then there was a wad of shit called "Battlespire" that threw all of that away even before Todd "Coffee Bitch" Howard badtouched TES for Morrowind. Then Bethesda destroys the known TES design in favor of the ignorant crackheads that make up the X-Brick audience, people too ignorant to know a few other titles to compare, thusly lauding TES as something great when it's probably the only thing their simple minds have tried because of the OMFGraphics! Just like Fable. These are the cattle too stupid to put aside pixelated graphics and possible poor interface design to really play through the history of games. (Heh, my comments about Bethesda's interface design are a separate rant entirely...mostly about how fucking funny it is to see someone on the forums make a hack for certain issues just hours after touching the game...) If only they would, because it would be quite...educational, and they'd probably be irate at Bethesda's lying like the old school have been since Bethesda first raped TES for the console kiddies. Well, the old school were first pissed when a TES title was skullfucked over for multiplayer in Battlespire.
3. Daggerfall still remains the best TES to date, simply because of the design and GAMEPLAY. Oh, and it had real innovation in it, though I doubt today's Bethesda employees could tell where. The garbage in Oblivion's "AI" was much more amusing when you have the right weapons and setting to enjoy that kind of gameplay - see Postal 2. When your muchly-hyped AI is the subject of numerous "Check this funny shit out..." videos on YouTube that do everything BUT what you hype, you might want to consider using some of the manpower spent on hype to do work on the actual game features themselves and LESS time talking about them.
4. Home of the Underdogs is online. I personally don't care if anyone rips the games I have worked on in the past, little as that may be in terms of QA and interface design in my earlier years. I support the free distribution of games whose creators have gone defunct, mainly because the industry would like nothing more to ignore the REAL examples of innovation and ship their garbage out to a new ignorant audience. *coughEAInterplayActivisionUbisoftEtc.cough* Like most disillusioned veterans from the old school I simply wish these kids would learn what the fuck they are talking about, learn how many design aspects are not "innovative" or "technologically advanced" as some asshats like Bethesda would claim, how RT and FP have been in games since...the 80's (and earlier, but for most kids we have to remember that Reality starts with what they can remember - like most Holocaust deniers), and perhaps learn that good game design did exist before they broke in their teeth on a NES controller. That's speaking as someone who considers most of Nintendo's games to be "fucking awful simplistic trash made for a moron majority."
5. Console trash: Bethesda's target audience.
6. Again, I mention the revolving door of talent, because except for Bethesda's older games, there isn't a bit of innovation to be seen. It might be due to something akin to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man_Month and that Bethesda has been hiring a LOT of noob talent lately, while their experienced people walk off. Did you ever wonder HOW Todd "Coffee Bitch" Howard got into a lead position? It might be due to the fact that the departing talent weren't too happy with the new work environ at Bethesda after ZeniMax turned it into "Little Interplay".
7. It often takes a substantial bit of time to get an experienced coder/designer familiar with a code base/design schema so they can progress along with schedule. With an industry noob, you not only have to teach them the game, but they are also inexperienced in the job. So that eats up more production time. Obvlivion's team was chock full of industry noobs, many of which are circa Morrowind. It shows.
8. Star Trek Legacy. Dear Bethesda, WTF is wrong with you? With so many existing and excellent Star Trek titles in the past to learn from, how do you "innovate" into this load of shit even as a publisher? It appears Bethesda and Mad Doc Studios looked at how best to half-ass rip off other ST titles while making their usual promise of key features that never show...and failed miserably. Bethesda might be getting worse at developing, but when it comes to publishing, they have displayed they have problems with editorial control. GameSpy said it best with "Star Trek: Legacy is worth playing through on a lazy weekend if you're a die-hard convention-going Star Trek fan, the game's target audience." Unfortunately, the target audience wasn't too fucking amused, and neither was anyone else. Yet Bethesda believes that alienating the target audience and those who have stuck by the development of a series for OVER 10 years is the way to go. Even more in the case of Star Trek. You don't have a game when the two best positives are the voice acting and how pretty things look, but the rest of the game is broken, unfinished, and pretty mediocre except for "TEH GRAFFIX!" Much like most of Bethesda's recent titles.
9. Oh, yeah...as for knowing about the Fallout setting and why the game was designed the way it was: How many times do we have to tell you utter morons that we've talked to the development team for...OVER 10 YEARS? Even before Fallout 1 was released, fans were discussing it on the official forums with developers who knew what the fuck they were doing because THEY WERE THE ONES MAKING THE GAME. Even the developers themselves, detailed down below, told you what their intents were, and you fuckwits decided to go off and do your own shit regardless of what anyone who KNEW the subject material said. That is probably why the demo comes across as uninspired, or at least heavily Oblivion inspired. You're doing what you do best...no, correction, you are doing pretty much the only thing you can spend time teaching industry noobs to work on. Engine clones of your own IP.
10. The fans talked with the original developers, and still do, something the shitbags at Bethesda didn't see any reason to do, ever, even before securing rights to Fallout. That sets up a big WARNING FLAG to me, because like Chuck Cuevas, Bethesda doesn't have any fucking clue about Fallout, and didn't even have the Bawls to ask.
11. Fallout wasn't designed to be trendy or anything of the sort - Diablo and others were already into action - as was much of the so-called "RPG" developers, and Fallout was designed as a refreshing return to the roots of the genre. Especially after Interplay/BIS' very own dismal failure of an overhyped Descent to Undermountain. For the kiddies too young to remember - it was FP, RT, and sucked huge Godzilla wang. When given a choice between DtU and Fear-Gut's first "SLAM DUNK!" of Fallout 2 for X-Mas 98, it wasn't surprising to see which would have gotten more attention. This is something that every game media chimp has failed to notice or address, simply because it doesn't fit into Bethesda's view, it doesn't fit into the ass-sucking media's devotion to Bethesda Bukkake, and of course it makes every disgruntled fan 100% Fucking Correct. Yes, I know the design of Fallout - Boyarsky, Cain, Anderson, Hendee, and others all explained it to ALL OF US. Those with some design experience could piece it together easily. Now if only the stupid chimps would understand or bothered to pay attention. Generally when someone makes a change from a planned design, they have a reason. So far, Bethesda's only reasons have been "innovation" and "modern", which are both loads of shit considering the other titles released long BEFORE Fallout. Including TES: Arena, which was FP, RT, and released three years earlier than Fallout. Oh, and you can technically innovate a CRPG - it's called Real Development. Look at a real game series and not the X-Box trash you spew for some good examples, Todd. It might also show you WHY GAME SERIES DIE OFF.
12. There are far too many sound bites and quotes to use from Bethesda that it's almost unfair to use their own words against them. As if anyone expects them to learn anything, given the progression of Morrowind into Oblivion, and then along comes the sound of the Bethesda Hype Engine getting into gear for Fallout 3. People expect them to do BETTER work on Fallout 3 than their own IP? Apparently they too have shared the Mythical Bethesda Coke Pile. It's the only thing I can come up with to explain how they believe their own lies.
13. How someone can fuck up a piece of established technology like the Pip-Boy is beyond my willingness to try and understand the terminally stupid. But then again I have to remember that most of the industry noobs they have working on this title probably haven't even HEARD of a dot matrix display, much less have SEEN one. Maybe they just thought it was "inferior graphics" and decided to give the dot matrix and the tubes a much-needed overhaul. And if that's how shitty the talking heads are going to look - swing and a miss. Congratulations on making the original look even better than your miserable attempts to rip it off. Completing this is the Pip-Boy 3000, which is totally stupid given the original was considered a new development near the time things went mushroom cloudy. If anything, it should have been an original with a bit of cobbling of parts together to make new functions work - much like the motion sensor function was an add-on to the original Pip-Boy. The point of a post-nuclear society is that TECHNOLOGY IS IN DECAY, people just don't shit out a new model of equipment. There, that took me five minutes, and fit canon. What the fuck is Bethesda's excuse? Oh, yeah, they're FUCKING CLUELESS. As an electronics engineer, I will definitely be on the lookout for the proper tube-based technology. It isn't a special request to expect Bethesda to do the same, as the original developers designed it already. In fact, it should have been easier for Bethesda, since they don't have to write much of the background, but instead follow the setting. And yet they still fail.
14. On a similar note, I am disappointed to see that the supply of Ritalin ran out at Bethesda, so the artists and designers failed to note the detail of the Vault Suit in both games. Most notably the Temple of Trials video, but many other sources...really, it's getting hard to pretend that Bethesda paid attention to ANY source material given to them except for what Chuck handed over and what they played in Fallout: POS. Yes, the Vault Suit in particular was what a contact described to me when telling me I'd HATE the art (as most of the noob kids they have working on this are fucking clueless), and THEY could tell it was fucked up. But nobody at Bethesda cares, apparently, even when the fans make it an issue that they know more about the game setting than the dipshit artist who obviously never played either Fallout RPG to any depth. And for that picture to be published - A LOT of people had to be clueless, especially those who okayed the art, which means: the original artist, the lead artist, the webmaster, the lead designer, and the producer, at minimum, would have seen this before it was published. Really, this work isn't quite acceptable for a mod due to canon, and though I didn't specifically ask, I just know there's got to be a "black leather samurai outfit" in there somewhere. Since, you know, that's the kind of fan Todd likes.
15. EuphoricOneTriesAgain, the reason why the industry has gone to shit is mainly due to the decline of the gaming press' standards. When everyone smiles and nods at a developer/publisher to make them happy, then standards go into the fucking toilet. Hell, even GameSpy can often tell where Bethesda is firmly coupled between anus and neck, and they're usually the first ones to drop to their knees for a developer.
16. Speaking of which, attention Jeff Green: Mind if we call you Elara from now on? Fallout 3 could use its own spin-doctoring forum whore as another developer's sacrificial lamb, and we're already used to calling our whores "Elara". It worked for Chuck!
17. MCA also had a lot to do with Descent to Undermountain. Enough said.
18. Even Bethesda's webmasters woke up on the retarded side of the bed this year, calling Fallout 3 "America's First Choice in Post Nuclear Simulation". Unless Fallout 3 is going to have nothing to do with a "Post-Nuclear Role-Playing Game", which would make it one of the surprising pieces of truth around Bethesda's publication.
19. "When we started Fallout 3 in 2004, we obviously had big ideas of what we could do with it, and I talked to a lot of outside people, from ex-developers to press folks to fans. What made it special? What are the key things you'd want out of a new one? The opinions, and I'll put this mildly…varied. A lot. But they would all end the same, like a stern father, pausing for affect – "but do not…screw it up." Gulp. Let me write that last one down a few times."
Let me rephrase this for truth:
"When we decided to acquire Fallout 3, we already had plans on it as we'd be retarded to spend money and not have any clue on how to exploi...err use the title, and I talked to a few outside people who agreed with Bethesda's design principles; Chuck Cuevas was so excited I could smell his soiled trousers over the phone and GameBanshee was already licking at my asshole! What made it special to the people who just bought the game on EBay to understand what the hell Fallout was? What are the kewl features and gimmicks from other games that you think should be in here, including the satirized Woo guns akimbo reference in Shadow Warrior and other 3DRealms/Monolith games? The opinions, and I'll put this mildly, varied. A lot. So we decided to ignore everyone who had been following this game for over a decade, including the original developers, because we're all about the hip kids on consoles! But those I had Bawls to talk to would all end the same, talking at me as if I had difficulty understanding simple concepts, pausing repeatedly so it would sink in – "but do not…screw it up, you fucking moron." Gulp, I better get Pete Hines cracking on his mad spin-doctoring skillz! Let me write that last one down a few times because brain...hurt...think...turn-based...hurt...OW!"
Todd, you forgot something else from the "Fallout Vision Statement", though I am more inclined to believe it was purposefully omitted because it turns you into a liar and a con man. "Return to RPG roots" was in there in some form. Why the fuck do you think they initially chose GURPS? Because it sounded cool? So when Steve Jackson didn't like the game design and threatened to pull GURPS from the title...of course they did away with the violence, old school CRPG gameplay, and the child-killing, because tying in the GURPs name was SO much more important. Wait, no, that's not how it happened at all...
Fallout wasn't about "cool", kiddies. It was a vision to design a solid CRPG with old-school roots, which the developers had a keen grasp of given their experience and background, even when other games like Diablo were mainstream and released at the same time or even before Fallout. Fallout wasn't meant to be mainstream, but instead a good game with ideals. Ideals that were obviously sold to the highest bidder.
20. Pete Hines and Todd Howard are two of the biggest lying douchebags in the industry, and that's speaking as someone who has met Peter Molyneaux, Derek Smart AND Jon Romero. Molyneaux's the only one I can still find reason to respect in some form due to his impressive older work, despite his mistakes around having Microsoft as a publisher, and I fucking loathe Fable for its simplicity while being considered "innovative".
So, ask yourself with the above in consideration, what should the Fallout fans be praiseful or even remotely optimistic about?
Or are we supposed to follow the "Romero rockstar" image of turning game developers into primadonnas? You want to know MY personal hero? Seumas McNally, of a relatively little known game studio called Longbow Digital Arts. He's dead now, and yet I still have infinitely more respect for him than I have for most of the current living industry. He worked to see a dream, and it did see completion before he left us. He really had no other motivation than to see it made. He left his mark, his legacy, and did it with a passion that left a reminder that not everyone is interested in brand-name rapes for easy profit as many studios have done shamelessly over the years. He wanted to make a good, fun game. He did so in ways that many "professionals" still fail to accomplish. His effort, akin to the Fallout designers, was to make something that was timeless, would make its mark, and would endure over the years.
It is because of these people who DO have a dream and bust their ass that I am so bitter and hostile, because the dishonest shit merchants piss me the fuck off when they lie and act like a primadonna - while those who do love their work put forth some REAL effort with what little resources they have - while the media whores dismiss them entirely or just outright ignore them because they didn't throw advertising money in the rag's direction. Then some big company asshats come along, overhype their product, and then do a fucking miserable job in every other way but making it a SHINY turd they drop into their audience's lap and damn those who don't like it, to which the ignorant media laps up and chews with a grin like a dog on cat turds. While the ignorant cattle who read the rag are suckered into buying the game based upon the verbal fellating going on, mostly courtesy of Todd Howard. Yes, your lies and those of Pete Hines and others are now visible evident, and we now see the "care" you are offering to Fallout. Just like your lies and hype around Morrowind/Oblivion. In other words, instead of hype mill all over like Bethesda does, Bethesda personnel should get back to work with some real vision and cut the bullshit, because it's getting REALLY deep now with evidence I can now simply point to instead of just drop vague hints in the right direction. With other recent Bethesda titles, Bethesda needs to come up with some evidence they aren't just a one-trick pony with TES. Fallout 3 doesn't look like it's doing well, because from the previews I've seen, people are wearing their best shit-eating grins. Once the full game comes out, no holds are barred.
Bethesda's dreams are all console trash hand fantasies. With Todd Howard and Pete Hines as the two biggest lying asshats in the industry. Sure, we can pretend all of the above doesn't exist and suddenly Bethesda is staffed with a bunch of people with experience in something other than professional hype and spin-doctoring.
But then we'd be living in the realm that has absolutely nothing to do with the Fallout setting.
Fantasy. It worked well for Oblivion and the loads of idiots/ignorants who think it's something special. Fallout was designed with something more substantial in mind than the cares of console trash and the Diablo kids. For a good reason.
Now the old school will migrate to another of their favorite titles, because the series would essentially be dead given Bethesda's butchery, and the RPG genre is said to be dead again because of someone's miserable attempts to whore out a license. Which, ironically, was partially how/why Fallout was born. Because everyone else was going towards action-based games, including Interplay, and the developers wanted to make a solid game with good gameplay that returned to the roots of the genre. "Gameplay", meaning what the original designers had in mind. I can easily say that they weren't looking to make the next Crusader game.
Did I just hear a collective "Oh, shit..." from the Bethesda "talent" pool? No, they're still too deep in the coke pile to care. Such is the luxury of being a whore.
As for the preview, the game isn't turning out as bad as I thought or was led to believe. It's much worse. So much for the darkly ironic humor in the game, instead turning it into something more befitting "Cherry 2000", complete with mini-nukes launched from a portable catapult. That one just leaves me too stunned at the moment to come up with a decently vitriolic rebuke, so I'll get to it in a moment. Oh, hey, another "prediction" turned out correct, and I'd like to thank my sources for proving to be true. And I get to gloat as I have had this already written for about two and a half years:
You missed the point, several points, many years ago. It's too late now, you're fucked. You even do stupid shit like make a "portable mini nuclear bomb catapult" (...WTF?), then when confronted with its ambiguity towards setting style canon, defend it by citing limited ammo. Pete's totally cereal about that. Plus it's like, darkly ironic and not slapstick at all, the demo is just fooling you into thinking a "portable mini nuclear bomb catapult" is a silly idea, when it's in reality the pinnacle of Bethesda's creativity.
Back to the rest, and showing how miserably inept of a designer or how bad of a liar Todd Howard and Pete Hines both are (take your pick, or pick both, you're still a winner!), take a look at the following with their claims in mind.
http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/album_page.php?pic_id=487
Tim Cain says it best himself. "I think Fallout helped revitalise the computer RPG market, which had been dead before then - or at least proclaimed dead by many fans and reviewers. It also showed how popular and fun turn-based combat could be, when everyone else was going with real-time or pause-based combat."
Note he said RPG market, not FPS market. Oh, as for RT = modern...no, Petey, it is just a game mechanic used for years, long even before Arena saw its first compiling, and long before your sorry ass decided to stink up my industry with your brand of dishonest bullshit. That many people are using RT combat means...many people are using RT combat. The same goes for first-person perspective. That your developers CHOSE to use it was a conscious and deliberate decision. The "modern" argument doesn't work against people who have been around awhile and can't be fooled as easily as the X-Brick morons. About the only thing left "darkly ironic" would be that Fallout is being whored off in the same treatment of the RPG genre that it was created to disrupt at its release, as the sequel fans have been waiting for, for many years.
Fallout will have become exactly what it was deliberately designed against, losing all the title stood for. This is seen most obviously with how Bethesda isn't interested in quality talking heads as would befit the sequel of the title that put it en vogue for lame assholes like Bethesda to use "talking heads" in the first place. Ah, I find more dark irony, though it is far from amusing.
Chris Taylor: "We came out with Fallout at a time when there hadn't been a good, solid RPG for quite some time. There were many people who'd basically written off the RPG genre, much like the adventure genre today, so we certainly changed computer RPGs and had an influence on future games."
NOTHING about the preview comes close to "solid RPG" unless you count it as a stool specimen likely required for the G.O.A.T. exam. Speaking of shit, I have to address this little turd:
And what about Tim Cain and the others who decided to use TB and isometric for Fallout when the "mainstream" was going the way of being an action hybrid? I guess their views were "8 years back" in returning solid RPG design back to what it was before all of the action hybrids at the current time in 1997. Yes, around 1989 sounds about right. So I guess Tim Cain and the others were wrong in using "old", true P&P RPG concepts and mechanics, but presenting them in an entertaining and competent manner that was acceptable to the modern-day 1997. You jackals are doing NOTHING remotely similar. Pete, you're so willfully fucking ignorant, you're disgustingly moronic.
Admit that you willfully ignored The words of the original developers themselves, back when you got ahold of the license and didn't even care to pay them any courtesy, not even to listen to what they publicly put out for the benefit of those too stupid to learn from the mistakes of people like Chuck Cuevas. Or people who are dishonest numerous times over and don't care what kind of shit they hype out, as long as it has celebrity voice talent for them to exploit and the morons on the consoles lap it up and defend you because the ignorant shits don't know better. You don't have that luxury with me, shitbag. I know better. It is your continued lies and bullshit that has earned you this.
What the FUCK is your excuse now, Todd?
Bethesda has repeatedly been proven to lie about their hype - Oblivion as the poster child. In fact, it beats out Molyneaux's "Project Ego"/"Fable" in terms of overhype and lies. And Derek Smart's Battlecruiser. And Romero's Daikatana. That isn't something to be proud of, but yet they don't care.
Go back through and look at what Bethesda said about Obvlivion pre-release. Then take a look at how much of it turned out to be a lie. I've been around the Ultima folks for years, and even the dreams for the series didn't turn out as horribly mismatched as the list of Bethesda lies around Oblivion, which RPGCodex has compiled in depth. That's even counting "Super Avatar Bros." and "Virtue Raider". I think the thread should be around 40 pages by now, there's a LOT of material for the Codex to use, enough to make Romero run screaming from the mess.
So, we can consider the following:
1. Bethesda has employees unable to tell the difference between Fallout and Fallout Tactics. Two ENTIRELY separate games, genres, and engines. Even the QA chimp hired with free doughnuts should be able to tell you the difference, but apparently Bethesda is still having to hire just any industry noob because of....
2. The revolving door of talent at Bethesda. You know the greats, the fathers of TES, who made the series into something good? The ones who took the design of Arena, what the TES fans then knew as TES, and made an IMPROVEMENT. Then there was a wad of shit called "Battlespire" that threw all of that away even before Todd "Coffee Bitch" Howard badtouched TES for Morrowind. Then Bethesda destroys the known TES design in favor of the ignorant crackheads that make up the X-Brick audience, people too ignorant to know a few other titles to compare, thusly lauding TES as something great when it's probably the only thing their simple minds have tried because of the OMFGraphics! Just like Fable. These are the cattle too stupid to put aside pixelated graphics and possible poor interface design to really play through the history of games. (Heh, my comments about Bethesda's interface design are a separate rant entirely...mostly about how fucking funny it is to see someone on the forums make a hack for certain issues just hours after touching the game...) If only they would, because it would be quite...educational, and they'd probably be irate at Bethesda's lying like the old school have been since Bethesda first raped TES for the console kiddies. Well, the old school were first pissed when a TES title was skullfucked over for multiplayer in Battlespire.
3. Daggerfall still remains the best TES to date, simply because of the design and GAMEPLAY. Oh, and it had real innovation in it, though I doubt today's Bethesda employees could tell where. The garbage in Oblivion's "AI" was much more amusing when you have the right weapons and setting to enjoy that kind of gameplay - see Postal 2. When your muchly-hyped AI is the subject of numerous "Check this funny shit out..." videos on YouTube that do everything BUT what you hype, you might want to consider using some of the manpower spent on hype to do work on the actual game features themselves and LESS time talking about them.
4. Home of the Underdogs is online. I personally don't care if anyone rips the games I have worked on in the past, little as that may be in terms of QA and interface design in my earlier years. I support the free distribution of games whose creators have gone defunct, mainly because the industry would like nothing more to ignore the REAL examples of innovation and ship their garbage out to a new ignorant audience. *coughEAInterplayActivisionUbisoftEtc.cough* Like most disillusioned veterans from the old school I simply wish these kids would learn what the fuck they are talking about, learn how many design aspects are not "innovative" or "technologically advanced" as some asshats like Bethesda would claim, how RT and FP have been in games since...the 80's (and earlier, but for most kids we have to remember that Reality starts with what they can remember - like most Holocaust deniers), and perhaps learn that good game design did exist before they broke in their teeth on a NES controller. That's speaking as someone who considers most of Nintendo's games to be "fucking awful simplistic trash made for a moron majority."
5. Console trash: Bethesda's target audience.
6. Again, I mention the revolving door of talent, because except for Bethesda's older games, there isn't a bit of innovation to be seen. It might be due to something akin to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man_Month and that Bethesda has been hiring a LOT of noob talent lately, while their experienced people walk off. Did you ever wonder HOW Todd "Coffee Bitch" Howard got into a lead position? It might be due to the fact that the departing talent weren't too happy with the new work environ at Bethesda after ZeniMax turned it into "Little Interplay".
7. It often takes a substantial bit of time to get an experienced coder/designer familiar with a code base/design schema so they can progress along with schedule. With an industry noob, you not only have to teach them the game, but they are also inexperienced in the job. So that eats up more production time. Obvlivion's team was chock full of industry noobs, many of which are circa Morrowind. It shows.
8. Star Trek Legacy. Dear Bethesda, WTF is wrong with you? With so many existing and excellent Star Trek titles in the past to learn from, how do you "innovate" into this load of shit even as a publisher? It appears Bethesda and Mad Doc Studios looked at how best to half-ass rip off other ST titles while making their usual promise of key features that never show...and failed miserably. Bethesda might be getting worse at developing, but when it comes to publishing, they have displayed they have problems with editorial control. GameSpy said it best with "Star Trek: Legacy is worth playing through on a lazy weekend if you're a die-hard convention-going Star Trek fan, the game's target audience." Unfortunately, the target audience wasn't too fucking amused, and neither was anyone else. Yet Bethesda believes that alienating the target audience and those who have stuck by the development of a series for OVER 10 years is the way to go. Even more in the case of Star Trek. You don't have a game when the two best positives are the voice acting and how pretty things look, but the rest of the game is broken, unfinished, and pretty mediocre except for "TEH GRAFFIX!" Much like most of Bethesda's recent titles.
9. Oh, yeah...as for knowing about the Fallout setting and why the game was designed the way it was: How many times do we have to tell you utter morons that we've talked to the development team for...OVER 10 YEARS? Even before Fallout 1 was released, fans were discussing it on the official forums with developers who knew what the fuck they were doing because THEY WERE THE ONES MAKING THE GAME. Even the developers themselves, detailed down below, told you what their intents were, and you fuckwits decided to go off and do your own shit regardless of what anyone who KNEW the subject material said. That is probably why the demo comes across as uninspired, or at least heavily Oblivion inspired. You're doing what you do best...no, correction, you are doing pretty much the only thing you can spend time teaching industry noobs to work on. Engine clones of your own IP.
10. The fans talked with the original developers, and still do, something the shitbags at Bethesda didn't see any reason to do, ever, even before securing rights to Fallout. That sets up a big WARNING FLAG to me, because like Chuck Cuevas, Bethesda doesn't have any fucking clue about Fallout, and didn't even have the Bawls to ask.
11. Fallout wasn't designed to be trendy or anything of the sort - Diablo and others were already into action - as was much of the so-called "RPG" developers, and Fallout was designed as a refreshing return to the roots of the genre. Especially after Interplay/BIS' very own dismal failure of an overhyped Descent to Undermountain. For the kiddies too young to remember - it was FP, RT, and sucked huge Godzilla wang. When given a choice between DtU and Fear-Gut's first "SLAM DUNK!" of Fallout 2 for X-Mas 98, it wasn't surprising to see which would have gotten more attention. This is something that every game media chimp has failed to notice or address, simply because it doesn't fit into Bethesda's view, it doesn't fit into the ass-sucking media's devotion to Bethesda Bukkake, and of course it makes every disgruntled fan 100% Fucking Correct. Yes, I know the design of Fallout - Boyarsky, Cain, Anderson, Hendee, and others all explained it to ALL OF US. Those with some design experience could piece it together easily. Now if only the stupid chimps would understand or bothered to pay attention. Generally when someone makes a change from a planned design, they have a reason. So far, Bethesda's only reasons have been "innovation" and "modern", which are both loads of shit considering the other titles released long BEFORE Fallout. Including TES: Arena, which was FP, RT, and released three years earlier than Fallout. Oh, and you can technically innovate a CRPG - it's called Real Development. Look at a real game series and not the X-Box trash you spew for some good examples, Todd. It might also show you WHY GAME SERIES DIE OFF.
12. There are far too many sound bites and quotes to use from Bethesda that it's almost unfair to use their own words against them. As if anyone expects them to learn anything, given the progression of Morrowind into Oblivion, and then along comes the sound of the Bethesda Hype Engine getting into gear for Fallout 3. People expect them to do BETTER work on Fallout 3 than their own IP? Apparently they too have shared the Mythical Bethesda Coke Pile. It's the only thing I can come up with to explain how they believe their own lies.
13. How someone can fuck up a piece of established technology like the Pip-Boy is beyond my willingness to try and understand the terminally stupid. But then again I have to remember that most of the industry noobs they have working on this title probably haven't even HEARD of a dot matrix display, much less have SEEN one. Maybe they just thought it was "inferior graphics" and decided to give the dot matrix and the tubes a much-needed overhaul. And if that's how shitty the talking heads are going to look - swing and a miss. Congratulations on making the original look even better than your miserable attempts to rip it off. Completing this is the Pip-Boy 3000, which is totally stupid given the original was considered a new development near the time things went mushroom cloudy. If anything, it should have been an original with a bit of cobbling of parts together to make new functions work - much like the motion sensor function was an add-on to the original Pip-Boy. The point of a post-nuclear society is that TECHNOLOGY IS IN DECAY, people just don't shit out a new model of equipment. There, that took me five minutes, and fit canon. What the fuck is Bethesda's excuse? Oh, yeah, they're FUCKING CLUELESS. As an electronics engineer, I will definitely be on the lookout for the proper tube-based technology. It isn't a special request to expect Bethesda to do the same, as the original developers designed it already. In fact, it should have been easier for Bethesda, since they don't have to write much of the background, but instead follow the setting. And yet they still fail.
14. On a similar note, I am disappointed to see that the supply of Ritalin ran out at Bethesda, so the artists and designers failed to note the detail of the Vault Suit in both games. Most notably the Temple of Trials video, but many other sources...really, it's getting hard to pretend that Bethesda paid attention to ANY source material given to them except for what Chuck handed over and what they played in Fallout: POS. Yes, the Vault Suit in particular was what a contact described to me when telling me I'd HATE the art (as most of the noob kids they have working on this are fucking clueless), and THEY could tell it was fucked up. But nobody at Bethesda cares, apparently, even when the fans make it an issue that they know more about the game setting than the dipshit artist who obviously never played either Fallout RPG to any depth. And for that picture to be published - A LOT of people had to be clueless, especially those who okayed the art, which means: the original artist, the lead artist, the webmaster, the lead designer, and the producer, at minimum, would have seen this before it was published. Really, this work isn't quite acceptable for a mod due to canon, and though I didn't specifically ask, I just know there's got to be a "black leather samurai outfit" in there somewhere. Since, you know, that's the kind of fan Todd likes.
15. EuphoricOneTriesAgain, the reason why the industry has gone to shit is mainly due to the decline of the gaming press' standards. When everyone smiles and nods at a developer/publisher to make them happy, then standards go into the fucking toilet. Hell, even GameSpy can often tell where Bethesda is firmly coupled between anus and neck, and they're usually the first ones to drop to their knees for a developer.
16. Speaking of which, attention Jeff Green: Mind if we call you Elara from now on? Fallout 3 could use its own spin-doctoring forum whore as another developer's sacrificial lamb, and we're already used to calling our whores "Elara". It worked for Chuck!
17. MCA also had a lot to do with Descent to Undermountain. Enough said.
18. Even Bethesda's webmasters woke up on the retarded side of the bed this year, calling Fallout 3 "America's First Choice in Post Nuclear Simulation". Unless Fallout 3 is going to have nothing to do with a "Post-Nuclear Role-Playing Game", which would make it one of the surprising pieces of truth around Bethesda's publication.
19. "When we started Fallout 3 in 2004, we obviously had big ideas of what we could do with it, and I talked to a lot of outside people, from ex-developers to press folks to fans. What made it special? What are the key things you'd want out of a new one? The opinions, and I'll put this mildly…varied. A lot. But they would all end the same, like a stern father, pausing for affect – "but do not…screw it up." Gulp. Let me write that last one down a few times."
Let me rephrase this for truth:
"When we decided to acquire Fallout 3, we already had plans on it as we'd be retarded to spend money and not have any clue on how to exploi...err use the title, and I talked to a few outside people who agreed with Bethesda's design principles; Chuck Cuevas was so excited I could smell his soiled trousers over the phone and GameBanshee was already licking at my asshole! What made it special to the people who just bought the game on EBay to understand what the hell Fallout was? What are the kewl features and gimmicks from other games that you think should be in here, including the satirized Woo guns akimbo reference in Shadow Warrior and other 3DRealms/Monolith games? The opinions, and I'll put this mildly, varied. A lot. So we decided to ignore everyone who had been following this game for over a decade, including the original developers, because we're all about the hip kids on consoles! But those I had Bawls to talk to would all end the same, talking at me as if I had difficulty understanding simple concepts, pausing repeatedly so it would sink in – "but do not…screw it up, you fucking moron." Gulp, I better get Pete Hines cracking on his mad spin-doctoring skillz! Let me write that last one down a few times because brain...hurt...think...turn-based...hurt...OW!"
Todd, you forgot something else from the "Fallout Vision Statement", though I am more inclined to believe it was purposefully omitted because it turns you into a liar and a con man. "Return to RPG roots" was in there in some form. Why the fuck do you think they initially chose GURPS? Because it sounded cool? So when Steve Jackson didn't like the game design and threatened to pull GURPS from the title...of course they did away with the violence, old school CRPG gameplay, and the child-killing, because tying in the GURPs name was SO much more important. Wait, no, that's not how it happened at all...
Fallout wasn't about "cool", kiddies. It was a vision to design a solid CRPG with old-school roots, which the developers had a keen grasp of given their experience and background, even when other games like Diablo were mainstream and released at the same time or even before Fallout. Fallout wasn't meant to be mainstream, but instead a good game with ideals. Ideals that were obviously sold to the highest bidder.
20. Pete Hines and Todd Howard are two of the biggest lying douchebags in the industry, and that's speaking as someone who has met Peter Molyneaux, Derek Smart AND Jon Romero. Molyneaux's the only one I can still find reason to respect in some form due to his impressive older work, despite his mistakes around having Microsoft as a publisher, and I fucking loathe Fable for its simplicity while being considered "innovative".
So, ask yourself with the above in consideration, what should the Fallout fans be praiseful or even remotely optimistic about?
Or are we supposed to follow the "Romero rockstar" image of turning game developers into primadonnas? You want to know MY personal hero? Seumas McNally, of a relatively little known game studio called Longbow Digital Arts. He's dead now, and yet I still have infinitely more respect for him than I have for most of the current living industry. He worked to see a dream, and it did see completion before he left us. He really had no other motivation than to see it made. He left his mark, his legacy, and did it with a passion that left a reminder that not everyone is interested in brand-name rapes for easy profit as many studios have done shamelessly over the years. He wanted to make a good, fun game. He did so in ways that many "professionals" still fail to accomplish. His effort, akin to the Fallout designers, was to make something that was timeless, would make its mark, and would endure over the years.
It is because of these people who DO have a dream and bust their ass that I am so bitter and hostile, because the dishonest shit merchants piss me the fuck off when they lie and act like a primadonna - while those who do love their work put forth some REAL effort with what little resources they have - while the media whores dismiss them entirely or just outright ignore them because they didn't throw advertising money in the rag's direction. Then some big company asshats come along, overhype their product, and then do a fucking miserable job in every other way but making it a SHINY turd they drop into their audience's lap and damn those who don't like it, to which the ignorant media laps up and chews with a grin like a dog on cat turds. While the ignorant cattle who read the rag are suckered into buying the game based upon the verbal fellating going on, mostly courtesy of Todd Howard. Yes, your lies and those of Pete Hines and others are now visible evident, and we now see the "care" you are offering to Fallout. Just like your lies and hype around Morrowind/Oblivion. In other words, instead of hype mill all over like Bethesda does, Bethesda personnel should get back to work with some real vision and cut the bullshit, because it's getting REALLY deep now with evidence I can now simply point to instead of just drop vague hints in the right direction. With other recent Bethesda titles, Bethesda needs to come up with some evidence they aren't just a one-trick pony with TES. Fallout 3 doesn't look like it's doing well, because from the previews I've seen, people are wearing their best shit-eating grins. Once the full game comes out, no holds are barred.
Bethesda's dreams are all console trash hand fantasies. With Todd Howard and Pete Hines as the two biggest lying asshats in the industry. Sure, we can pretend all of the above doesn't exist and suddenly Bethesda is staffed with a bunch of people with experience in something other than professional hype and spin-doctoring.
But then we'd be living in the realm that has absolutely nothing to do with the Fallout setting.
Fantasy. It worked well for Oblivion and the loads of idiots/ignorants who think it's something special. Fallout was designed with something more substantial in mind than the cares of console trash and the Diablo kids. For a good reason.
Now the old school will migrate to another of their favorite titles, because the series would essentially be dead given Bethesda's butchery, and the RPG genre is said to be dead again because of someone's miserable attempts to whore out a license. Which, ironically, was partially how/why Fallout was born. Because everyone else was going towards action-based games, including Interplay, and the developers wanted to make a solid game with good gameplay that returned to the roots of the genre. "Gameplay", meaning what the original designers had in mind. I can easily say that they weren't looking to make the next Crusader game.
Did I just hear a collective "Oh, shit..." from the Bethesda "talent" pool? No, they're still too deep in the coke pile to care. Such is the luxury of being a whore.
As for the preview, the game isn't turning out as bad as I thought or was led to believe. It's much worse. So much for the darkly ironic humor in the game, instead turning it into something more befitting "Cherry 2000", complete with mini-nukes launched from a portable catapult. That one just leaves me too stunned at the moment to come up with a decently vitriolic rebuke, so I'll get to it in a moment. Oh, hey, another "prediction" turned out correct, and I'd like to thank my sources for proving to be true. And I get to gloat as I have had this already written for about two and a half years:
You missed the point, several points, many years ago. It's too late now, you're fucked. You even do stupid shit like make a "portable mini nuclear bomb catapult" (...WTF?), then when confronted with its ambiguity towards setting style canon, defend it by citing limited ammo. Pete's totally cereal about that. Plus it's like, darkly ironic and not slapstick at all, the demo is just fooling you into thinking a "portable mini nuclear bomb catapult" is a silly idea, when it's in reality the pinnacle of Bethesda's creativity.
Back to the rest, and showing how miserably inept of a designer or how bad of a liar Todd Howard and Pete Hines both are (take your pick, or pick both, you're still a winner!), take a look at the following with their claims in mind.
http://www.nma-fallout.com/forum/album_page.php?pic_id=487
Tim Cain says it best himself. "I think Fallout helped revitalise the computer RPG market, which had been dead before then - or at least proclaimed dead by many fans and reviewers. It also showed how popular and fun turn-based combat could be, when everyone else was going with real-time or pause-based combat."
Note he said RPG market, not FPS market. Oh, as for RT = modern...no, Petey, it is just a game mechanic used for years, long even before Arena saw its first compiling, and long before your sorry ass decided to stink up my industry with your brand of dishonest bullshit. That many people are using RT combat means...many people are using RT combat. The same goes for first-person perspective. That your developers CHOSE to use it was a conscious and deliberate decision. The "modern" argument doesn't work against people who have been around awhile and can't be fooled as easily as the X-Brick morons. About the only thing left "darkly ironic" would be that Fallout is being whored off in the same treatment of the RPG genre that it was created to disrupt at its release, as the sequel fans have been waiting for, for many years.
Fallout will have become exactly what it was deliberately designed against, losing all the title stood for. This is seen most obviously with how Bethesda isn't interested in quality talking heads as would befit the sequel of the title that put it en vogue for lame assholes like Bethesda to use "talking heads" in the first place. Ah, I find more dark irony, though it is far from amusing.
Chris Taylor: "We came out with Fallout at a time when there hadn't been a good, solid RPG for quite some time. There were many people who'd basically written off the RPG genre, much like the adventure genre today, so we certainly changed computer RPGs and had an influence on future games."
NOTHING about the preview comes close to "solid RPG" unless you count it as a stool specimen likely required for the G.O.A.T. exam. Speaking of shit, I have to address this little turd:
And what about Tim Cain and the others who decided to use TB and isometric for Fallout when the "mainstream" was going the way of being an action hybrid? I guess their views were "8 years back" in returning solid RPG design back to what it was before all of the action hybrids at the current time in 1997. Yes, around 1989 sounds about right. So I guess Tim Cain and the others were wrong in using "old", true P&P RPG concepts and mechanics, but presenting them in an entertaining and competent manner that was acceptable to the modern-day 1997. You jackals are doing NOTHING remotely similar. Pete, you're so willfully fucking ignorant, you're disgustingly moronic.
Admit that you willfully ignored The words of the original developers themselves, back when you got ahold of the license and didn't even care to pay them any courtesy, not even to listen to what they publicly put out for the benefit of those too stupid to learn from the mistakes of people like Chuck Cuevas. Or people who are dishonest numerous times over and don't care what kind of shit they hype out, as long as it has celebrity voice talent for them to exploit and the morons on the consoles lap it up and defend you because the ignorant shits don't know better. You don't have that luxury with me, shitbag. I know better. It is your continued lies and bullshit that has earned you this.
What the FUCK is your excuse now, Todd?
TheWesDude
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
YAY!
the vitriol filled poster is back!
<3 <3 <3
someone to tell it like it is
( just dont direct any of that vitriol at me! )
and before fallout i didnt consider the RPG market dead, we had U7 and U7.2 in the 94-95 areas i believe. although they were more linear than previous titles they were still good. my fav ultimas are 5 and 6 even though i play 7.2 the most.
the vitriol filled poster is back!
<3 <3 <3
someone to tell it like it is
( just dont direct any of that vitriol at me! )
and before fallout i didnt consider the RPG market dead, we had U7 and U7.2 in the 94-95 areas i believe. although they were more linear than previous titles they were still good. my fav ultimas are 5 and 6 even though i play 7.2 the most.
quietfanatic
Ancient One
Good to see you back, even if only for a short while.
I do hope that Bethsoft has at least a shred of interest in real depth and quality, although this might be kneecapped by lack of talent, balls etc., but I'm probably too optimistic.
I do hope that Bethsoft has at least a shred of interest in real depth and quality, although this might be kneecapped by lack of talent, balls etc., but I'm probably too optimistic.
FeelTheRads
Vault Senior Citizen
Welcome back! 
TheWesDude
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
imo, i think beth should just tell the truth...
rather than saying " we want to take gaming forward with next-gen technology while using old ideas and concepts! " and such they should just be honest and say the following:
what the hell ever happened to honesty in PR?
rather than saying " we want to take gaming forward with next-gen technology while using old ideas and concepts! " and such they should just be honest and say the following:
what the hell ever happened to honesty in PR?
Go Rosh, go Rosh, go Rosh!
Damn, I can't say anything more. Seeing the Deathclaw awake and wreak intellectual destruction is... amazing.
Damn, I can't say anything more. Seeing the Deathclaw awake and wreak intellectual destruction is... amazing.
hey Rosh, welcome back, we've missed you.
i hope you stick around a lil'.
i hope you stick around a lil'.
Paladin Solo
So Old I'm Losing Radiation Signs
Aye, unban yourself, dammit.