Todd admits Fallout 4's Dialogue didn't work, you'll never guess what happened next

I've read somewhere, or maybe in the Codex, that the best way for video game developers to make video games is to first let the System Designers work on a system for the gameplay first, and then let the Level Designers work on the levels to compliment the system, and finally let Narrative Designers come up with a narrative to complete the game. This kind of confirmed, as Gizmojunk has always said in the past, that Fallout 1 was first and foremost Top-Down Isometric Turn-Based game, before the levels are laid out and the narrative written down for it. Hence why you will see him and Crni Vuk kept on insisting that even New Vegas isn't 100% proper sequel to Fallout 1&2.

You'll also see how in the Codex people are still arguing whether or not gameplay are the most important aspect of a cRPG, or the story... Fortunately there's still many indie-scale developers like Iron Tower Studio's and Joe of Whalenought Studio who frequently visit and post in the Codex to actively digest direct feedback from their target audience, unlike other game developers who proclaimed they wanted to try 'new' things, and their target audience (who never even played a video game their whole life) just swallow everything they shit upon them.

(Man I love cRPGs)
 
I don't think a workflow that disjointed would result in anything good. It's best if there is a creative director or group of people who have knowledge of all the aspects of the development process (mechanics, level design, narrative) and they should plan from the get go how everything interacts so they can guide each team in a cohesive manner.
 
RoboStang said:
Here's some gems from the facebook page where that article was posted

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Ahh.... Facebook. One of the safe spaces of stupid people right next to Tumblr, Reddit and Twitter. Nice to see that Bethesda will have no problem selling their next game which will be further dumbed down and streamlined thanks to these idiot yes men. Its people like this that is reason why the game industry is stagnating.
 
I think it kind of work. Like Gizmojunk has said many times, that's how Fallout 1 was born, isn't it? They first work on the system, which is turn-based for combat and revolve around the use of SPECIAL and various skills, then the levels was decided to be laid out in the format of top-down isometric perspective, and finally the narrative was written down to be what we know as basically the Vault Dweller's adventure in Post-Nuclear California.

But yeah, without a Creative Director to oversee and guide the development process, it would all be a mess in the end, Fallout 2 is the proof of that when they were given too much freedom without someone experienced to direct them.
 
Black Angel said:
I think it kind of work. Like Gizmojunk has said many times, that's how Fallout 1 was born, isn't it? They first work on the system, which is turn-based for combat and revolve around the use of SPECIAL and various skills, then the levels was decided to be laid out in the format of top-down isometric perspective, and finally the narrative was written down to be what we know as basically the Vault Dweller's adventure in Post-Nuclear California.

But yeah, without a Creative Director to oversee and guide the development process, it would all be a mess in the end, Fallout 2 is the proof of that when they were given too much freedom without someone experienced to direct them.
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Level design is usually very dependant on narrative, so you can't really lay out the levels and then write the story later. Just not how it works. Even if all the details aren't written yet, the designers must have a clear idea of what places the player will visit, where and when these places will be visited, what characters they will meet and if these characters need their own location and so on.

And that leads me to a big issue with Bethesda's games. I'm under the impression that quests and locations are written separately by different people. This in itself is not a problem, but in Bethesda's case this leads to all these isolated little quests and locations that have no real tie to the world around them. They seem to lack a lead writer that makes sure things are coherent, that help the writers tie things together, and that allows for questlines to interact with each other. I know I'm comparing to The Witcher 3 a lot lately, but there's a reason for that. It's quite the opposite. All the bigger quests you do are directly tied to the main plot(s), and characters go in and out. On top of that, you can do a lot of them in the order you choose, and I can only imagine (still on my first playthrough) that there are slight variations depending on what you have previously done.

That is why there's a friggin kid in a fridge. That's why Todd himself said he hasn't seen everything in the game upon release (because he can't be bothered to learn what his team is doing). That's why all the side quests are more or less based on "cool" ideas (such as alien artifacts).
 
RangerBoo said:
Ahh.... Facebook. One of the safe spaces of stupid people right next to Tumblr, Reddit and Twitter. Nice to see that Bethesda will have no problem selling their next game which will be further dumbed down and streamlined thanks to these idiot yes men. Its people like this that is reason why the game industry is stagnating.
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not just that, its also place where the VR will be dead.

thx that, we still have some company like valve, whom product is not just more innovative but also more open.
 
RoboStang said:
Here's some gems from the facebook page where that article was posted

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Seen those people gush over anything Fallout related so many times on social media and it always never fails to make me cringe. It reminds me that those people could be considered Fallout fans. People who would defend all of Bethesda's flaws and screw-ups because of hype and immature fanboy-ism. The same who would attack people on NMA or any other social media for simply being critical of their beloved franchise that is stagnating under Beth. Hopefully someone in Beth actually acknowledges that Fallout 4 was a step back and actually learn from it rather than listen to sycophants blindly gush about their supposed fave game (the latter is probably what Pete Hines does all the time).

At least Morgan in that comment section is not buying Toddie's bullshit.
 
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aenemic said:
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Yeah, it all comes down to whether the Creative Director is a competent person or not. Still, point still stands that video games are best developed started from first and foremost, system/gameplay, as evidenced by Fallout 1. It's turn-based combat and gameplay mechanics that utilize SPECIAL and skills were thought out, decided and worked on first, before the levels and narrative were made to complete it.

Aside from you comparing to the Witcher 3, I'll add to that that the Soulsborne games are also prime example of how levels and narrative really work side-by-side and why they should be, hence why I also argue Skyrim could never hold a candle to Dark Souls (which came out the same year) in terms of exploration.
 
BGS is too lax on themselves, too tame IMO. That's the impression I've gotten from this interview with Todd and his interviews in the months before the release of Fallout 4.

I see some saying that his acknowledgment of the dialogue is a harbinger of progress. But he's used the same tone in the past, which is that something "didn't work well." And did most of those things that didn't work well get better, such as in Fallout 4? No, so I don't trust what he says now.

Just owe up to it and say, "It was a mistake." Then more people will take that as a sign you are listening and not trying to merely appease them.
 
aenemic said:
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Yeah, it really looks that way.

They seem to not have but some sort of nominal guidelines for what content gets a pass in the game. Decisions made by producers watching over the designers and the design lead and game director only glance at if the vague central idea fits with the overall concept (if even that).
 
Found this one in the image section of the Nexus. Maybe Beth "learned" / borrowed something from NV. *cough*

Title:
How FO4 dialogue feels

7077409-1464354482.jpg
 
Of course Bethesda would play with a character that has 1 INT.
Maybe that's why they never got Fallout, cause they always played FO1 and FO2 with 1 INT as well?
 
Black Angel said:
I've read somewhere, or maybe in the Codex, that the best way for video game developers to make video games is to first let the System Designers work on a system for the gameplay first, and then let the Level Designers work on the levels to compliment the system, and finally let Narrative Designers come up with a narrative to complete the game. This kind of confirmed, as Gizmojunk has always said in the past, that Fallout 1 was first and foremost Top-Down Isometric Turn-Based game, before the levels are laid out and the narrative written down for it. Hence why you will see him and Crni Vuk kept on insisting that even New Vegas isn't 100% proper sequel to Fallout 1&2.

You'll also see how in the Codex people are still arguing whether or not gameplay are the most important aspect of a cRPG, or the story... Fortunately there's still many indie-scale developers like Iron Tower Studio's and Joe of Whalenought Studio who frequently visit and post in the Codex to actively digest direct feedback from their target audience, unlike other game developers who proclaimed they wanted to try 'new' things, and their target audience (who never even played a video game their whole life) just swallow everything they shit upon them.

(Man I love cRPGs)
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It simply depends on your intentions. And I simply don't understand why people even argue about this, when the original developers made it clear, they literaly said "we wanted to show how great turn based games can be!" and "we chose TB in a time when real time was super popular". And yet ... some say ... nooo this is not what Fallout was about! It's funny, how some think they know the intention behind the art/work of the creator better than the creator themself ...
 
Kohno said:
You can count me in that school of thought.
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Me too.
Fallout New Vegas is canon to me, barring a few lore inconsistencies like feral ghouls and shit, but it is most certainly not a "proper" Fallout "sequel". It is simply the best we could get out of a bad situation. This is the best we could get out of a Bethesda game design. Cause mechanically? Gameplay-y? It is far more Oblivion With Guns than it is Fallout to me. A proper Fallout sequel shouldn't be held back by limitations, it should be true to what makes Fallout Fallout. And one big sandbox world that scales everything down? First person shooting gameplay? That stupid ugly fucking user interface that Pipboy 3000 uses? The alteration in art design for things like ghouls and molerats? That's just some of the issues I have with it not feeling like a proper Fallout game, let alone a 'sequel' to Fallout 2.

FNV is totally canon to me, but it is canon in the same vein that Fallout Tactics is canon to me.
 
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