Zippy's Thread

[UncannyGarlic]

Yeah, but I think that was really all it was missing.. I know many here don't agree, but I enjoyed the visuals and the combat was ok, what I got let down on mostly was the story and the lack of depth to the locations. If they simple take the engine and craft a set of new locations with a good story and actually provide a bit more narrative to the locations you find, I think it will be quite a satisfying game.

Whether it will be a satisfying game and whether it will be a satisfying Fallout sequel are two seperate things.

Is a game only really good if you obsessively play it for 10 years? Because I'm pretty sure that says something more about the player than it does about the game.

Oh yes, because everyone on this site clearly obsessively plays Fallout 1&2. I play through it once every year or two and still enjoy it, just like I can play old Mega Man games and still enjoy them. A good game ages well and can be replayed after many years and still be found quite fun. Titanic was a great success at the box office and recieved glowing reviews on it's release, these days some critics have looked back on it and completely flipped their opinion about it, hell the movie has even made "Worst Film of all Time" lists.

Remember back before the GECK was released? People still played then, on their second, third, and fourth playthroughs. Unless you think Bethesda somehow would have been better off NOT releasing it, and not releasing DLC that you're not required to buy.

Yeah guys, how much people played it in the first three months after release is a clear indicator of how much they would have continued to play it without mods! Don't you know anything?!?!

Most of the reviews you see today for games do not have this concern, unless you only read PC Gamer, GameSpot, and IGN.

Any commericially employed game reviewer does have this concern because the lion's share the publications' funding and information comes straight from game developers and publishers. You piss them off and they won't run ads, won't give you exclusives, won't give you interviews, and won't invite you to events. Blogs are written by non-professionals and thus are equally shitty because the authors rarely have the quallifications to appropriately do the job. Add in that journalism in general is full of shit because there is no regulatory body which determines who is and is not a proffessional journalist (like lawyers and engineers have).

The deviations being talked about on this forum - isometric view, turn-based combat, all-text dialogue - IS a recipe for some pretty mediocre sales right now.

Prove it.

And plus, those are Japanese games.

OH MY GOD!!! NOT JAPANESE!!! HOLY SHIT!!!

No, I didn't. That'd be stupid. What I said was that if we're measuring how good a game is, I'm going to take sales and critical response over the most curmudgeonly of forum denizens.

Short term metrics and metrics which have no bearing on quallity (sales) are inherently bad/innacurate ones. The best method is to examine the quallity of the elements of the game and then come to a conclusion based on the quallity of those elements. Of course long term reception is a good metric too, for example whether the game is still played and supported a decade after release.

I played the game entirely on the merits of what was in front of me, and while I didn't like the game, I can admit that it's still a good game - just not one I enjoyed. Some people in this forum could probably do well to think about that for a bit.

Yeah assholes, come on! You never do that!

The real question is whether or not you can admit whether a game is bad even if you enjoyed it.

 

[zippy1]

Whether it will be a satisfying game and whether it will be a satisfying Fallout sequel are two seperate things.

One of these things matters. One of them does not.

A good game ages well and can be replayed after many years and still be found quite fun.

I had a blast playing Oblivion and Morrowind last month. They're damn good games. Please refute.

But the actual point is that I don't let those games ruin my experience of every damn game that comes out since, something that some people here seem to have a real problem with.

Titanic was a great success at the box office and recieved glowing reviews on it's release, these days some critics have looked back on it and completely flipped their opinion about it, hell the movie has even made "Worst Film of all Time" lists.

It was sappy and annoying and not really my kind of film, but it was a fantastic movie for millions of people. That's what makes it good.

Yeah guys, how much people played it in the first three months after release is a clear indicator of how much they would have continued to play it without mods! Don't you know anything?!?!

Considering some of the opinions here that it's unbearable after five minutes, I thought that argument would have some impact on them. Clearly it doesn't on you.

Any commericially employed game reviewer does have this concern because the lion's share the publications' funding and information comes straight from game developers and publishers.

You ever actually look at ads on most game sites? Most are general internet-based. The lion's share is most definitely not from game publishers. There have been some highly publicized issues on a couple sites, but I can counter any Kane & Lynch example with an IGN McGriddles example.

General advertising is where the funding comes from, not game companies. If a publisher puts you up in a hotel for a night or two to preview a game out in California, that's a business trip. It's not a lavish vacation. It's work.

You piss them off and they won't run ads, won't give you exclusives, won't give you interviews, and won't invite you to events.

Many game publications and sites, including quite a few who gave Fallout 3 a good review because they *gasp* enjoyed it, do just fine without this.

Blogs are written by non-professionals and thus are equally shitty because the authors rarely have the quallifications to appropriately do the job.

Journalism != game journalism. A normal journalist covering game stuff very rarely gets things right. Additionally, there is no Game Journalism degree. The qualifications in game journalism come from experience in game journalism - they build their skills as they do the job.

The deviations being talked about on this forum - isometric view, turn-based combat, all-text dialogue - IS a recipe for some pretty mediocre sales right now.

Prove it.

There have been no multi-million-selling games the way I described in the last few years. Nor have any gotten any kind of universal acclaim. Games get panned now for having no voice acting, for not being immersive with a closer viewpoint, and for having slow and plodding gameplay in what otherwise is an action scenario.

There are some exceptions on mobile platforms where you just can't pack in full 3D environments and voice dialogue.

OH MY GOD!!! NOT JAPANESE!!! HOLY SHIT!!!

Meaning that they won't have the same audience as a Western game.

Short term metrics and metrics which have no bearing on quallity (sales) are inherently bad/innacurate ones.

Game sales are a good metric to determine whether they're good or bad. Or at least, combined with critical acclaim, better than the opinions of a few hundred jaded gamers.

The best method is to examine the quallity of the elements of the game and then come to a conclusion based on the quallity of those elements.

Sounds rather subjective. Maybe a review would do?

Yeah assholes, come on! You never do that!

I remember reading this. It's like he had to put on his fanboy hat and grit his teeth to say anything nice at all. It's a far cry from what I'd say is a pretty damn significant cross-section of what's being said on this forum.

The real question is whether or not you can admit whether a game is bad even if you enjoyed it.

If I was in the minority, I would. I have, in the past. Can you admit that you're in a vast minority by saying Fallout 3 is mediocre at best?

 

[zippy1]

Pete: May, I point out to Obsidian, sir. They aren’t as good as us, but the old fanbase value them high, and appreciate anything goes out of them. It’s a sure hit.

Bethesda is not trying to sell this game to NMA. They're selling it to the new Fallout fanbase.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

Bethesda is not trying to sell this game to NMA. They're selling it to the new Fallout fanbase.

don't be daft, lad.


they could have chosen anybody. they chose Obsidian for a reason. they're hoping to cater to BOTH camps.

 

[zippy1]

Is your rhetorical question silly?

Though you attempted to avoid the question, you failed. Let's have your answer.

It was a stupid question. Some here mildly like Fallout 3 and will rationally discuss its perceived upsides and downsides, but many of the vocal people will jump on just about every chance they get to rail on about its failings and how bad Bethesda is and how the guys that made it are terrible people. Actual personal insults toward developers - you don't think that's kind of shitty?

Yep, which is why he never said that most games become money makers. He said that most major games (AAA) are successes nowadays and it's true, especially with game journalism being how it is.

Many AAA games wind up doing pretty bad, and that's not counting the ones that never see the light of day. The latest example is GTA: Chinatown Wars on the DS, which sold something pitiful like 89,000 copies.

Sure, the game claims to be an ARPG first but does that change the fact that it sucks at something that it does?

Opinions presented as facts, with the actual word "fact" attached to the opinion. Good work.

Stats have a minimal impact on the game, other than intelligence, are never directly used in game.

Agility. Strength. Endurance. Admittedly, Charisma and Perception were pretty weak, and Luck was kinda mid-ground.

Another example, every skill can be maxed out before level twenty with a few different builds, further reducing the importance off skills which are already pretty worthless due to drugs.

Fine. Get different perks on the next playthrough. And what do you do before level 20?

Drugs and magic clothing give you massive stat/skill bonuses without any significant penalty (oh no, you have to sleep, go to a doctor, or buff your doctor skill enough that you can cure it).

The clothing had a small effect. And it's not like we've never seen this in RPGs before. Unless you mean to tell me that Chain Mail shouldn't give you a lower (er, higher - 3rd gen rules) armor class.

*bunch of nitpicks and poorly-backed opinions*

Skipping.

 

[zippy1]

Bethesda is not trying to sell this game to NMA. They're selling it to the new Fallout fanbase.

don't be daft, lad.


they could have chosen anybody. they chose Obsidian for a reason. they're hoping to cater to BOTH camps.

I think they can do without the few thousand sales generated from here. It's probably much more that the number of competent and experienced RPG developers not already embroiled in a project or their own IP is pretty low right now. Bethesda needs someone to pick up the torch while their own team moves on to the next Elder Scrolls.

Obsidian is definitely the right choice to make another Fallout if it's not going to be the FO3 team (and maybe, post-FO3, even if they were going to), but you probably shouldn't delude yourself that it's because of the relatively small number of FO fans who don't even like Bethesda's work.

 

[zippy1]

Everything is swayed by opinions. Game sales are fueled by opinions brought on by marketing, word of mouth, availability of the game, critical response, and accessibility on whatever hardware the buyer has. It's a combination of them all. Plenty of bad games with huge marketing have done poor as one would expect. Ask EA.

Many haters of popular media, FO3 haters included, like to think that a massive majority of opinions are wrong and their opinions are right. They have to justify their opinion to try and give it some kind of factual basis. They have to prove their opinion. They have no way to come to terms with the fact that their opinion differs from most people's and can't see that that's actually alright.

As far as sales go: neither KOTOR2 nor NWN did well - certainly not in the way that Bethesda has been putting deeper and deeper RPG experiences in to the hands of gamers who otherwise wouldn't play them.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Console games are easier to make (they make the game for two systems, unlike the PC, where they have to deal with hundreds, maybe thousands, of possible configurations and hardware combinations), they sell better, and they're pirated far less. Even better, giving console players a game that's deeper than they are used to results in hugely rewarding sales and nearly universal praise. The alternative? Merely decent sales at best, rampant piracy at worst, and a bitter hatred from the people who can't let things go.

Thats not completely correct, to say that as someone with a bit knowledge in education and jobs around IT and software development, of course you have a lot of different systems but its not like there are NO standarts at all particularly when it comes to drivers, and interfaces. Of course when people use crap hardware its a issue, and you can not know every PC configuration so a lot of issues are definetly on the side of the gamer like not updated drivers or a not clean hard drive. But developers have as well a big range of tools to use an ways to work around such things if they do it. I mean that is what seperates the "pros" from the ... simply people like some in Bethesda for example. It just happens many way to many times today that gamedevelopers, one that call them self "professionals" want to pass the buck to the gamers, sure yes, its nto runing? Well update your machine. Not runing again ? Wait for patch. If you ever get one.

If anything making games on the PC is today easier then ever. Anyone remember the crude past 20 years ago? Yes you maybe did not had all that fancy graphic, different shaders models, 3d aplications etc. etc. but you also had for that much smaller teams. When you make today games you have teams of sometimes 50 or 70 people which in the past have been maybe 5, some projects (see Sim City) started with 2 people and 3-4 PCs or so. And it was a BITCH to code anythin in that time. No standarts in source codes (almost), very old hardware (compared to the processing power today) and you had not always acces like today a world wide web and community to search for issues when ever you had a issue. Literaly everyone today can learn over the net C, Assambler, PHP or any other language. What you have today are more standarts and of course much more specialization. But making games is not rocket science trying to send a man to the moon and back to earth. Which doesnt mean that its easy work. But hey ... if you cant do it, you should not call your self a pro.

Even better, giving console players a game that's deeper than they are used to results in hugely rewarding sales and nearly universal praise.
...
The alternative? Merely decent sales at best, rampant piracy at worst, and a bitter hatred from the people who can't let things go.

Uhm Ok? And thats the fault of the PC or something? The market gets simplified and now everyone has to follow the trend? This somewhat might lead to a thinking where someone could believe that "PC gamers are to demanding" (which is what so many devs as well like to say ...) which I just do NOT believe. The Console is capable of giving people games that are just as complex and rich in story and content compared the most complicated PC games. Just Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid and Pokemon (what ever if you like those games or not is a entirely different issue) prove that people indeed like complex gameplay and story, or with Pokemon tourn based combat for example.

The question is just how you sell it to people. What kind of marketing you are using.

What is just easier is to throw out mediocre crap and hype it till no tomorrow instead of making good content and quality gameplay which takes a hell lot of skill. Se Bethesda, mediocre crap, big hype, great sales.

 

[Ulysses]

Everything is swayed by opinions. Game sales are fueled by opinions brought on by marketing, word of mouth, availability of the game, critical response, and accessibility on whatever hardware the buyer has. It's a combination of them all. Plenty of bad games with huge marketing have done poor as one would expect. Ask EA.

Many haters of popular media, FO3 haters included, like to think that a massive majority of opinions are wrong and their opinions are right. They have to justify their opinion to try and give it some kind of factual basis. They have to prove their opinion. They have no way to come to terms with the fact that their opinion differs from most people's and can't see that that's actually alright.

As far as sales go: neither KOTOR2 nor NWN did well - certainly not in the way that Bethesda has been putting deeper and deeper RPG experiences in to the hands of gamers who otherwise wouldn't play them.

Ok, how is any of that relevant ?

 

[zippy1]

Oh how foolish of me, 18 months is plenty of time to completely overhaul the Fallout 3 engine so that it's a TPP TB/RTwP engine along with creating an entirely new game which uses that engine. If they had three years or more and Pete Hines hadn't said that it would have the same gameplay as Fallout 3, I'd agree with you, it'd probably end up buggy as hell and incomplete but they'd do something more faithful to the first two games (I doubt Beth would allow TB because they have an aversion to it).

They have an aversion to it because it's not how RPGs get out to large audiences anymore.

But you're absolutely right, Obsidian is definitely not going to go and make the NMA wetdream game here. They're going to make a game in the style of Fallout 3 and the sooner you guys all realize it, the sooner you can get back to hating life.

 

[Ulysses]

Can you admit that you're in a vast minority by
saying Fallout 3 is mediocre at best?

Actually, I've heard from a lot of regular gamers that Fallout 3 is "ok". Not great, or outstanding but just "ok". There aren't legions of people that think they game's the second coming of Christ compiled.

 

[zippy1]

that they first refuse to let any of the original developers in on Fallout 3, piss all over their work, then tease some of them with the rights to develop another Fallout game only to take away those rights again. and so on, and so forth.

Show me where there are (or were) a bunch of ex-BiS developers trying to get hired by Bethesda and all getting rejected because LAWL

The persecution complex is strong in this one.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

Actual personal insults toward developers - you don't think that's kind of shitty?

No I don't. As long as it is alright for people to make personal compliments about the developers it should be perfectly acceptable that people who criticize them as well. That said, comments that go both ways are meaningless so it's pretty stupid to get upset about.

Many AAA games wind up doing pretty bad, and that's not counting the ones that never see the light of day. The latest example is GTA: Chinatown Wars on the DS, which sold something pitiful like 89,000 copies.

Considering that I've never heard of it or seen an ad for it, I severely doubt it was a AAA game. That said, the quantifier was most, not all.

Opinions presented as facts, with the actual word "fact" attached to the opinion. Good work.

It is a fact, a fact which Todd Howard freely admits.

Fine. Get different perks on the next playthrough. And what do you do before level 20?

You can max it out before level 20 and a large portion of the perks simply add points to skills.

The clothing had a small effect. And it's not like we've never seen this in RPGs before. Unless you mean to tell me that Chain Mail shouldn't give you a lower (er, higher - 3rd gen rules) armor class.

AC is a measure of hard it is to damage a target, a stat which is logically effected by armor. Yes, fantasy games with magic do make sense when equipment enhances skills because it can be explained away with magic. There is no magic (or equivalent) in the Fallout universe so it makes absolutely no sense that any clothing would improve your skills. Tools were used in past games in order to improve your use of skills but the improvements offered were proportionally smaller and they are a logical device to improve skills.

So, did LucasArts call on Obsidian because they wanted to appeal to the hardcore FO fans? This argument would be more compelling if Obsidian had ever produced a full game that wasn't a sequel to a more successful RPG dev's original work. It's certainly nice that they have an interest in FO, but this sort of thing is their bread and butter. It's how they have made it this far.

I think it's a combination of the two. I mean it's not like Obsidian has ever made a game with FPS gameplay before so I think it's fair to say that having former BIS employees on staff wasn't damaging to the decision. Still, I'd agree that it probably wasn't the main motivator.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

Bethesda has been putting deeper and deeper RPG experiences in to the hands of gamers...

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!


oh, wait...wait...i'm sorry...that was just-


BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

ohhhhhhhh-hoooooo.....*grabs table, takes deep breath*

ok, no seriously....how exactly is Bethesda not doing the complete opposite of what you just said? because you can get tttly k</s>ewl immurshins from wandering around all day watching lackluster ragdoll animations? no really, put another log on....and tell me how the Bethesda RPG experience is getting "deeper" and not just becoming a sad alternative to LARPing or Second Life?

 

[Crni Vuk]

yeah but it is kinda strange what kind of hardcore Fans Bethesda has that really swallow everything and holds them on a holy podest giving you the impression that you dont have a game developer in front of you but Hare-Krishna in the form of a company.

I mean serously, some people get the worst bugs out of Oblivion, its DLCs, and now from Fallout 3 and its DLCs and some STILL think about Bethesda as the best company out there? That is beyond taste. Thats true fanatism. Katholic church almost ...

 

[zippy1]

Bethesda has been putting deeper and deeper RPG experiences in to the hands of gamers...

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!


oh, wait...wait...i'm sorry...that was just-


BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

ohhhhhhhh-hoooooo.....*grabs table, takes deep breath*

ok, no seriously....how exactly is Bethesda not doing the complete opposite of what you just said? because you can get tttly k</s>ewl immurshins from wandering around all day watching lackluster ragdoll animations? no really, put another log on....and tell me how the Bethesda RPG experience is getting "deeper" and not just becoming a sad alternative to LARPing or Second Life?

Morrowind was a somewhat hardcore niche action-RPG. Oblivion was not. Oblivion was a little like baby's first true RPG, especially at first. And Fallout 3 did a lot less hand holding than that. See my quote above? Where you cut it off and took the first part out of context and left out "in to the hands of gamers who otherwise wouldn't play them"? Well don't cut it off, because that was the key part of the sentence.

 

[zippy1]

Ok, how is any of that relevant ?

Because saying things like "Fallout 3 sucks" is an opinion, and the best thing you have to back it up with is more opinions. "Millions of people bought Fallout 3 and relatively very few people who wrote or talked about it didn't like it" is fact. And that fact is what I can use to back up the notion that FO3 is a good game.

So yes, the game is good, but you happen to not like it, and that's ok.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Morrowind was a somewhat hardcore niche action-RPG. Oblivion was not. Oblivion was a little like baby's first true RPG, especially at first. And Fallout 3 did a lot less hand holding than that. See my quote above? Where you cut it off and took the first part out of context and left out "in to the hands of gamers who otherwise wouldn't play them"? Well don't cut it off, because that was the key part of the sentence.

We had this kind of discussions here many times already ...

But to make it a bit more serious. What made Oblivion a "true" RPG for you ?

By the way, why are you posting 2 times when you could use the dit button to throw everything in one post ?

 

[zippy1]

No I don't. As long as it is alright for people to make personal compliments about the developers it should be perfectly acceptable that people who criticize them as well.[/quote]
That's not what I'm talking about, and you know it. I meant personal insults.

Considering that I've never heard of it or seen an ad for it, I severely doubt it was a AAA game. That said, the quantifier was most, not all.

I've seen TV commercials and the game has gotten a ton of press. But the more time you spend at NMA, I guess I'm not surprised. GTA = Grand Theft Auto. Heard of that?

It is a fact, a fact which Todd Howard freely admits.

That is also an opinion - from someone being modest.

You can max it out before level 20 and a large portion of the perks simply add points to skills.

Not significantly before 20. You can get dozens of hours in and not have most skills maxed.

Tools were used in past games in order to improve your use of skills but the improvements offered were proportionally smaller and they are a logical device to improve skills.

The Utility suit had tools in the pockets to help you with repairing and lockpicking. There, explained. Who cares anway? This is the kind of nitpicking I was talking about.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Not significantly before 20. You can get dozens of hours in and not have most skills maxed.

But sure you can.

At least max out the most important skills before reaching lvl 13-14.