Problems with FO3 summed up with old quote

E

Eternal

Where'd That 6th Toe Come From?
We wanted a powerful story, and we didn't want to be afraid of it being too deep for mass market; we just wanted to make it good.
We sought to take the role-playing genre in a different direction from most RPGs on the market; building a truly interactive environment for the gamer, where what you believed actually had an impact on the game.

~ Chris Avellone - Planescape: Torment Strategies & Secrets

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Bethesda is afraid of the game being too deep for mass market.
 
Honestly, their TES games before Oblivion had a deep, interesting lore that you could only understand if you really pursued the topic. There's even a lore forum to discuss the history of TES world.

I don't know why Bethesda changed for the worst, but I don't think it stems from a fear of their games being too deep.
 
Morrowwind was great, deep, and original... and very very brown.

But Morrowwind gave Bethesda a big kick in the pants neting them A LOT of hype and so they concentrated more on making games that appeal to a mass market to attempt to keep that hype through sheer sales numbers (The logic of 'well 5million people can't ALL be wrong') and they also have brought in alot of new fans who have never played TES games pre-oblivion (I myself never played Pre-Morrowwind)

Bethesda has lost its intengrety and instead made handfuls of cash, and usually making good, interesting, and deep games does NOT lead to sales as the natural response for a human to something they don't understand is to 'not like it' or even 'fear it'.

this PA comic can sum it up pretty well with EAs current situation:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2008/20081105.jpg
 
You may be right. However, many people do enjoy their style of game environment. A lot of people. Certainly enough to make Bethseda a shed load of money to finance their next outing and allow everyone to keep their job. Personally, I enjoy their games. I can see why people are dismayed with the lack of story and dialogue depth compared to other games such as Torment but that does not mean that FO3 should be labelled as poor quality. Some people may not want as much depth. I remember playing Torment years ago and as much as I enjoyed it, there were times when I just wanted to get on with things rather than wading through reams of text. Agreed, the quality of the writing is far superior in the 'old games' but, for me, it's nice to play a game where I'm given a world to run about in, where I can make my own stories up as I travel between locations. It is possible that a game making the use of very in depth conversation trees and quality writing can evoke a very powerfull atmosphere but can it have the negative effect of leaving no room for the user to use his\her imagination?
 
Think of it like going to the movies.

You go into the theater to see a psychological mystery but the movie they ended up playing was an action flick.

Action flicks are something you go into a theater wanting to 'experience' something like a rollercoaster ride.

Mysteries are something you go into a theater to try and unravel the experience for yourself rather than having it presented to you.

While there are good action flicks, and good mystery movies you come out of each bringing something different. After a good action movie you say things like 'wow that was cool, did you see the part where they did the thing with that other thing to the guy?' and you have a smile on your face but a few hours later thats all worn off. After a mystery movie you come out discussing how the case was solved or if it was concluded at all, when did you figure out who the badguy was? How did you find out? Did you expect such and such? While you don't get the 'high' you get from an action flick, you have a much longer time of enjoyment and you can go back and re-watch the mystery a couple more times and notice clues to the identity of the antagonist that you may have missed.

In short while FO3 is not 'bad' its not deep or thought provoking, it lays all its cards on the table and relies on 'wow' factor to pull it through to the end, the game itself is BIG but thinly sliced. The original Fallouts had so much to them in terms of story telling / character relations / lore, while the game from a technical aspect wasn't and still isn't 'amazing', but once you beat it you can go through and find new things and explore new possibilities. Once you explore the 85 locations in FO3 and try the game on good and on bad, thats it you're done. The game is big, long, but hardly 'robust'
 
I honestly don't believe that Bethesda mainstreamed the TES series to make more money. When Morrowind first came out, it alienated a lot of people, and also got rid of a lot of features that were in Daggerfall. So they brought back those features, including: house owning, horse back riding, fast travel, and the landscape in general was more generic fantasy than Morrowind. I think once Oblivion came out though, people realized how special and deep Morrowind truly was.

As for Fallout 3, I think they took a step in the right direction. It's much more focused than Oblivion, and tells their best story yet. Granted, it isn't Planescape. But story wise...what is?
 
chaosapiant said:
I honestly don't believe that Bethesda mainstreamed the TES series to make more money. When Morrowind first came out, it alienated a lot of people, and also got rid of a lot of features that were in Daggerfall. So they brought back those features, including: house owning, horse back riding, fast travel, and the landscape in general was more generic fantasy than Morrowind. I think once Oblivion came out though, people realized how special and deep Morrowind truly was.

As for Fallout 3, I think they took a step in the right direction. It's much more focused than Oblivion, and tells their best story yet. Granted, it isn't Planescape. But story wise...what is?
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Exactly. Planescape is so out of reach I dont see why people keep brining it up in regards to Fallout 3. And TES isnt out there to make money. Oblivion was a great game, The Shivering Isles is proof of that.

Eternal said:
You go into the theater to see a psychological mystery but the movie they ended up playing was an action flick.
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That suggests Bethesda pulled a 180 on you. which they didn't. If you went in expecting what you knew Bethesda was capapble of, and not overhyping it, you would come out satisified. IMHO...
 
I'd love to hear your explanation of why Planescape is "out of reach".


Planescape actually has one of the best RPG stories to date. And if you believe BS doesn't intend to develop games to make money, you're out of your mind. Why do you think they do it? Because they care about gamers? :roll:
 
Does Bethesda Softworks want to make money? Yes. Money keeps a business in business, and thus, a successful business will have profit.

But that doesn't mean that Bethesda Softworks doesn't care about gamers. I think that the creators of this game honestly, fully thought it was fun and a good game.

They certainly developed the lore and world behind Daggerfall and Morrowind, which was so developed that it's hard for me to buy that they don't care about the material they produce, or about those that play their games.
 
Pope Viper said:
I'd love to hear your explanation of why Planescape is "out of reach".


Planescape actually has one of the best RPG stories to date. And if you believe BS doesn't intend to develop games to make money, you're out of your mind. Why do you think they do it? Because they care about gamers? :roll:
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I'm agreeing that Planescape is a great story, one of the best (I actually picked it up because of you guys at NMA, so kudos to you!) However... its out of reach because of what gamers today play. Things are fast, they progress a lot faster and they are not so wordy! C'mon live in 2008 Pope. Text based games are in the past.

If a Dev doesnt have money on their mind at least some of the time... they wont succeed. Its dog eat dog out there. EA just lost 600 staff. I make movies and I love to make them, but I sure love getting paid as well.

Why so idealistic?
 
They certainly spent a long time developing the lore and world behind Daggerfall and Morrowind,
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Bethesda isn't what it used to be. Most of the people who worked on Daggerfall aren't there anymore, and I think many who worked on Morrowind are gone too.

That said, I never liked their games before either. Really, there was nothing special about them, but the decline in quality is easy to notice.
 
Not too mention that in the case of Planescape, the moons truly aligned. It was a game built on an existing and proven engine, with fantastic lore, and a fantastic team behind it. And commercially it totally flopped. This is what makes it so special, because it will never happen again. I am sure that there are some European role playing game makers that are making games just as deep, but we'll likely never see them, and if we did, they'd be so poorly translated that the story would be lost. Planescape was superb, unrepeatable magic. Obsidian/Black Isle/Troika haven't even come close themselves.

I just finished Fallout 3 last night as far as the main quest goes. I was impressed. It wasn't the best story ever told, but it was told well. I'm probably in the minority, but I really liked it.
 
FeelTheRads said:
They certainly spent a long time developing the lore and world behind Daggerfall and Morrowind,
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Bethesda isn't what it used to be. Most of the people who worked on Daggerfall aren't there anymore, and I think many who worked on Morrowind are gone too.

That said, I never liked their games before either. Really, there was nothing special about them, but the decline in quality is easy to notice.
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Its clear you're pretty against the Bethsoft guys. Your statement about people leaving TES developement has no backing, I am under the impression a lot of them stayed on... where do you get your info?

I found Fallout 3 to be a lot tighter than TES:O...which would mean they are getting better at producing games... this is all opinion...
 
I think Bethesda strikes a good balance between ease of play for the casual gamer, and a lore deep experience for the hard core. The writing is still there. It's in the little notes, computer terminals, side quest and so one that the casual gamer will probably miss. In Oblivion it was in the books. Games like Planescape will stand out more to the hard core gamer, because they smacked you right in the face with "this is a deep game, you're not here for diablo."

The casual gamer can get Fallout 3, roll up a character good with guns and what not, and get absorbed in a huge world where they can kill things most magnificently.

The hard core gamer, and fallout gamers included, who are into the lore and story side will still find that stuff there. It's just not as blatant as before, which isn't a bad thing.
 
That suggests Bethesda pulled a 180 on you. which they didn't. If you went in expecting what you knew Bethesda was capapble of, and not overhyping it, you would come out satisified. IMHO...
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It is a 180 from the original two, I didn't say I don't enjoy the game I'm saying that FO1 and 2 are so completely different from FO3 they are practically different genres.

and I used that quote about Planescape less about that game itself, but more to make a point in change of attitude among video game developers of today versus yesterday. This change is especially evident in Bethesda.

"We wanted a powerful story, and we didn't want to be afraid of it being too deep for mass market; we just wanted to make it good."

They didn't care how the average person could approach the game, they weren't afraid to OVERestimate the intelligence of the average person. They just wanted to make a good story. Many many many games (FO3 included) tend to coddle the player giving them hints tips, and tutorials rather than having the player read the manual. This leads to more shallow game design as a developer needs to be able to make a game where the person can open up their new game, put the game in, and immediately start playing with no problems. Now I'm all for this under certain pretenses and in certain games, however I also believe tutorials should be optional, and should not be a replacement for RTFM.
 
chaosapiant said:
I think Bethesda strikes a good balance between ease of play for the casual gamer, and a lore deep experience for the hard core. The writing is still there. It's in the little notes, computer terminals, side quest and so one that the casual gamer will probably miss. In Oblivion it was in the books. Games like Planescape will stand out more to the hard core gamer, because they smacked you right in the face with "this is a deep game, you're not here for diablo."

The casual gamer can get Fallout 3, roll up a character good with guns and what not, and get absorbed in a huge world where they can kill things most magnificently.

The hard core gamer, and fallout gamers included, who are into the lore and story side will still find that stuff there. It's just not as blatant as before, which isn't a bad thing.
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Good stuff chaos. I'm with you 100%. The museum of tech is a great example. And a few of the vaults.

I loved the "tasteful" softcore stuff in Oblivion ,remember that? With the lizard guys doing the dirty... lol.
 
I would love to see a new Torment, or a remade Torment, or even just another game with that calibur of storytelling. Unfortunately, Torment was superlative, and even Fallout and Fallout 2 didn't reach its heights of narrative excellence. Of course, did BIS try to do the same thing with the Fallout games? No. Some games you want to be dark and fun and satisfying without taking itself too brutally seriously, like Fallout and Fallout 2 (neither of which had a particularly complex or "powerful" main story). Some games you want to capture the essence of the setting and system from which it comes, like Baldur's Gate. Some games you want to tell a powerful story, like Torment. All of these things are present to some extent in every BIS game, but you can tell that on certain games and series, BIS focused on specific things. In Fallout, it was making the Wasteland. In Baldur's Gate, it was capturing Forgotten Realms. In Torment, it was the amazing story. (And yes, I know Planescape is another D&D setting, but I'm talking about different emphasis)

I'm squarely in the "Fallout 3 was good" camp, so I think it's a good example of Bethsoft doing game design right. On the other hand, while I enjoyed Oblivion and played the hell out of it, it felt generic.

Bethsoft does its best when it's not doing generic fantasy. Okay, maybe it was good back in the days of Daggerfall, but now for it to be compelling it really needs some better hooks. Oblivion's main story and setting, while the worlds of Oblivion itself were interesting in a hellish Quake-meets-Xen sort of way, didn't hook me like the story of the Nerevarine and the encroaching Blight. Shivering Isles, on the other hand, brought out a fantastic and terrifying dreamscape that had both a fascinating (and amusingly deranged) story and a great setting that felt fresh.

Oblivion's quests weren't entirely mediocre, though. Some were excellent, specifically the Thieves' Guild and Dark Brotherhood quests. A lot of that cleverness shined through in Fallout 3, especially in certain quests.

[spoiler:fc751a3e52]If you decide to go with Braun's games, Tranquility Lane becomes one big Dark Brotherhood quest, complete with creative murder and innuendo.[/spoiler:fc751a3e52]
 
Your statement about people leaving TES developement has no backing, I am under the impression a lot of them stayed on... where do you get your info?
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Seek and you shall find.

Here:

Daggerfall credits

Oblivion credits

Just a quick glance will show that only Todd Howard worked on both and in Daggerfall he was doing.. ahem... additional design. Which usually means he was just around serving coffee.
 
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