PlayStation Universe interviews Pete Hines

[Brother None]

So what exactly did they do for Fallout to boost the hype? (except stupid interviews and childish narration?).

Big exclusive preview sessions where the journalists are well-taken care of, effective use of exclusive previews for magazines, revealing photoshopped screenshots to build up the look before going for videos, and - of course - the ridiculously large stands at GC and PAX. Oh, and all the goodies.

 

[psychosomatic]

I wonder

Does anyone else wonder whether maybe Bethesda is actually trying their best to make a good Fallout sequel, but all/most of their ideas simply aren't that great, or well informed?

Like with Oblivion - I'm sure they thought level-scaling was a great idea - that way you could always have a challenge. Turns out it sucked the fun out of leveling and feeling tougher than enemies you used to face; you could no longer obliterate people/creatures.

Maybe they honestly don't understand that the sequel needs to have some sense of continuity in terms of what the developers designed the core tenets to be (I suppose these being turn based combat, possibly isometric, branching dialogue and quests that have implications towards the end of the game, (as an aside - I loved that great group of politically-oriented quests between Vault City, the NCR, and New Reno)). Instead they think its just continuity in terms of dark setting, dark humour, and bloody combat.

But if what I'm saying is true (and all I'm really going on is a feeling, I know there's no evidence either way), then criticizing them is kind of like making fun of a retard. I wish I could make it sound a little nicer than that..but..yeah!

 

[Beelzebud]

Well if that's the case then Robert Downey Jr's character from Tropic Thunder has some great advice for them:

"Never go full retard, man!"

 

[Brother None]

Re: I wonder

Does anyone else wonder whether maybe Bethesda is actually trying their best to make a good Fallout sequel, but all/most of their ideas simply aren't that great, or well informed?

Sometimes, yeah.

But I'd rather believe they're competent and fucking it up on purpose, because at least that way I can get my head around it. If they're really this incompetent...man...

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Re: I wonder

Sometimes, yeah.

But I'd rather believe they're competent and fucking it up on purpose, because at least that way I can get my head around it. If they're really this incompetent...man...

Don't be surprised Brother None, some time ago I concluded that the world adores idiots and protects them from their actions quite often.

 

[pkt-zer0]

Re: I wonder

But I'd rather believe they're competent and fucking it up on purpose, because at least that way I can get my head around it. If they're really this incompetent...man...

Hanlon's razor suggests you're deluding yourself.

 

[Brother None]

Guys, please, just...let me keep a little faith, man.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Okay, this is not exactly the right topic for it but I wanted to add my own 0.02 cents regarding faith.

To be honest I have been disappointed with promising titles and sequels so often that I pretty much have lost my own 'faith'.

It feels that all this badly designed media, not just games, is done in some way on purpose, to somehow 'piss' in the face of people who previously liked some things.
And yet, those people manage to get away with it to do it another day.

When I make a blunder or mistake it stays with me for a while and I keep thinking of ways of trying to avoid it the next time.
With them... well they do something wrong and then merrily continue on and no one asks them about it.

 

[gc051360]

Does anyone else wonder whether maybe Bethesda is actually trying their best to make a good Fallout sequel, but all/most of their ideas simply aren't that great, or well informed?

I believe Bethesda is incompetent.

And I think their success as a game company, is an accident. They aren't nearly as good as their sales figures indicate.

And I think that went to their heads. It's why any explanation for why they've done what they've done essentially comes down to "this is what we like"

 

[ushdugery]

Yeah I was angry at them at first, but now I just think they're pretty hopeless. Emil seems moderately competent (I probably shouldn't be criticising developers or whatever when I have no idea about developing games.) but I don't think competent is enough for one of the most respected "hardcore" rpg series' lead designer. Also one competent man standing in a room full of what appears to be retards it isn't good odds they'll get it right even with four years of developement.

 

[Mad Mantis]

Re: I wonder

Does anyone else wonder whether maybe Bethesda is actually trying their best to make a good Fallout sequel, but all/most of their ideas simply aren't that great, or well informed?

Like with Oblivion - I'm sure they thought level-scaling was a great idea - that way you could always have a challenge. Turns out it sucked the fun out of leveling and feeling tougher than enemies you used to face; you could no longer obliterate people/creatures.

If they really are trying then why is it that their games are full of faults that should have been found during beta testing? If you really want to make a good product you should at least be able to listen to problems that come up during testing. Are they that sure of themselves that they can easily ignore all criticism, or is their QA team just not capable of giving informed critique?

 

[aenemic]

Re: I wonder

Does anyone else wonder whether maybe Bethesda is actually trying their best to make a good Fallout sequel, but all/most of their ideas simply aren't that great, or well informed?

Like with Oblivion - I'm sure they thought level-scaling was a great idea - that way you could always have a challenge. Turns out it sucked the fun out of leveling and feeling tougher than enemies you used to face; you could no longer obliterate people/creatures.

If they really are trying then why is it that their games are full of faults that should have been found during beta testing? If you really want to make a good product you should at least be able to listen to problems that come up during testing. Are they that sure of themselves that they can easily ignore all criticism, or is their QA team just not capable of giving informed critique?

probably a combination of both. at the same time, you gotta remember that they're testing the game within the realm of what they want the game to do.

when testing level scaling, they probably didn't even think about how it affected gameplay and how people would feel about level scaling. they just tested wether the level scaling works as intended or is somehow bugged.

Okay, this is not exactly the right topic for it but I wanted to add my own 0.02 cents regarding faith.

To be honest I have been disappointed with promising titles and sequels so often that I pretty much have lost my own 'faith'.

It feels that all this badly designed media, not just games, is done in some way on purpose, to somehow 'piss' in the face of people who previously liked some things.
And yet, those people manage to get away with it to do it another day.

When I make a blunder or mistake it stays with me for a while and I keep thinking of ways of trying to avoid it the next time.
With them... well they do something wrong and then merrily continue on and no one asks them about it.

why would they do that? give me one single good reason why a gaming delevopement team would spend millions of dollars on pissing you and a bunch of other people off?

yes, it's obvious that in some areas gaming has been dumbed down, but that is for one reason only: to make all kinds of games available to more people so you can sell more of them. unfortunately rpg's is where this dumbing down is most obvious and it's a shame no one has the guts to create rpg's with some depth these days. I'm sure it will return though.

but gaming on a whole hasn't exactly been dumbed down and don't suffer from bad game design. what games are you comparing with? old NES games? they were extremely simple. the only reason why those old games were harder was because you couldn't fit in as much content so you had to make the games last longer some other way. was the game design better? well, back then people could still have original ideas so I guess you could say that in a way game design was better. but games were still buggy. games still looked like shit. less things could go wrong though, considering there's so much more going on in games these days with physics engines, graphic engines and thousand upon thousands of different computer setups that all must be able to handle the game.

it's easy to look back at old games you played as a kid and think "damn, it was better back then". yeah, you didn't have the same expectations on games so of course every fun game was impressive.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Actually I am referring to the 90's, especially the later part when PC gaming really took off.

 

[aenemic]

well, I'd like to think that what I said above applies to that as well. parts of it at least.

we were lucky enough to have a couple of gaming companies who created rpg's with a deeper story and fun gameplay. but as for all other genres, things are pretty much exactly how they used to be: we have strategy games of both the real-time and turn-based variations, shooters are shooters and will always be shooters, same goes for sports games etc. rather, I'd say that deeper storytelling and at least some kind of choice has spread from being only in rpg's to other genres as well.

 

[Seymour the spore plant]

but gaming on a whole hasn't exactly been dumbed down and don't suffer from bad game design. what games are you comparing with? old NES games? they were extremely simple.

Simple does not equate dumbed down. That might be a more accurate statement when it comes to RPGs, but even so I find dumbing down more related to the way games treat players nowadays - like spoiled children who must be hand-held throughout its entirety (even final boss fights, for Christ's sake) so as to not get "frustrated". Sure, Oblivion was also extremely simplified (blunt axes, no crossbows or spears, etc) but to me the actual deal-breakers were the level scaling and quest compass systems.

the only reason why those old games were harder was because you couldn't fit in as much content so you had to make the games last longer some other way.

I don't think that's entirely accurate. The industry didn't have this current mindset about hours of play as a defining factor back then, because people simply did not expect squeezing at least 80 hours out of their games. I'd probably chalk the difficulty factor up to the way they were used to design arcade games (to eat up quarters, in a nutshell), though that's still a better standard to me than the current unloseable generation of games.

it's easy to look back at old games you played as a kid and think "damn, it was better back then". yeah, you didn't have the same expectations on games so of course every fun game was impressive.

Though I'll concede that nostalgia does play a huge part in my enjoyment of old games, I think that in adopting certain trends to cater to every single person in the world the gaming industry did lose a lot of what made it good, prioritizing sales over design.

As for Bethesda's incompetence or not, I believe they are the best example of what I just described. They make their games focused entirely on sales figures, to the point of overhauling the whole combat system to what playtesters think feels more natural, and thus are pretty competent salesmen, but crappy designers.

 

[eff-out]

Were any of you guys Shadowrun fans? That is an example of a nightmare sequel/remake scenario. Fallout 3 is not. To suggest that Bethesda is just "cashing in" on the Fallout name is ridiculous. Elder Scrolls 5 would have been a much surer bet.

 

[JESUS]

Well my confidence is in indie developers for good rpgs, and Eastern Europe.

I really don't trust Bethesda after the lies they told before Oblivion was released. They are too secretive about important elements of their games, they know only how to tease without showing anything of substance.

 

[Brother None]

Fallout 3 is just portfolio diversifying, eff-out, you can't just keep churning out sequels for the one franchise you own safely, you have to diversify. That's good business sense, so yes the purchase of Fallout was primarily a business decision. It'd be naive to think otherwise.

This isn't as bad as the Shadowrun fiasco for sure, or the X-Com Enforcer thing. We already went through that level of pain with Fallout: BoS, and even then some people were telling us it could be worst and "hey at least you're getting another Fallout".

But that doesn't mean this is "not bad". "Fallout 3" is essentially a game in a different genre than the originals: the originals were pen and paper emulating cRPGs, this is an FPSRPG. I have never heard a satisfactory explanation of why we should be happy with a sequel that is in another genre.

 

[PaladinHeart]

Re: I wonder

Like with Oblivion - I'm sure they thought level-scaling was a great idea - that way you could always have a challenge. Turns out it sucked the fun out of leveling and feeling tougher than enemies you used to face; you could no longer obliterate people/creatures.

Actually it was just the creatures that get harder. While the people do level scale, their difficulty in comparison to most monsters is usually around 1/3 to 1/5. It doesn't matter how bad your character is, you can always do dzonot cave and improve said character. Of course you don't want to fight all the time to level, and then improve something like personality.

As for the "sequel in another genre". I know, it's bad. The only way TB Isometric RPG style games could really make a comeback is if some game company like Bethesda, that has the time and money, would actually support it. The only really popular TB games these days are the epic war-scale games. Until someone makes one that sells millions of copies then I don't see how anyone else would be willing to jump on the bandwagon.

I thought Final Fantasy Tactics was relatively popular though. Did it not sell all that many copies? I'm still wondering why we don't see a FFT2 for one of the next gen systems.

I'd also like to see a new X-Com and Jagged Alliance. Although I must say I quit with the X-Com series after the 2nd one, because the 3rd one just didn't feel the same.

 

[eff-out]

I have never heard a satisfactory explanation of why we should be happy with a sequel that is in another genre.

Well, firstly it's in a different sub-genre at most. The RPG will trump the FPS, even if it were just a re-skinned Oblivion that would be true. Secondly, Fallout's charm wasn't in it's combat system, it was in it's settings and characters and style. As a Fallout fan that was not a fan of any other cRPG (I wasn't a fan of Oblivion, either, I don't like swords and sorcery) I don't see how they've mistaken the spirit of Fallout. The only way to convince yourself they have is to convince yourself that somehow it all hinged on isometric turn-based gameplay.

As for the lack of depth allegations etc. we literally will not know until the game comes out.

Also:

But I'd rather believe they're competent and fucking it up on purpose, because at least that way I can get my head around it.

Can you help me get my head around that motivation? You've already argued that acquiring fallout was a good business decision.