Lmao. They are basically speedrunning enshittification% at this point.
At this point?! My dude, do you remember horse armor? They literally started this shit.
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That sounds like a lot of work. And what for? The game sold well, the next one will as well. Why people buy it? I have no idea.
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Starfield’s big problem is it’s a huge universe built on an engine that really can’t support massive worlds like that. The reason you can’t fly around on the surface of a planet is because their crappy engine can’t cope with that much space existing, and it can’t load more environment when you get to the edges like every other game does because their engine doesn’t support proper level streaming.
If you mod the game to force the issue it gets glitchy very very quickly.
Starfield could have been a way better game if all they did was fuck it up like 45% less.
Compared to the KOTOR series, it was lifeless. Compared to Mass Effect, it was very boring. Frustrating for a game with such strong precedents to land so weakly. But they put so much energy into quantity of content that they forgot to invest in quality.
They could have alternatively just delivered on their promises of making the game easy to mod and let the community handle the rest but they fucked that up too.
The goal was to create a game that procedurally generated itself, not one where individual hobbyists expanded it manually.
Skyrim came with a built-in mod editor?
Are you perhaps thinking of the manager they added on Xbox?
They always release their “Creation Kit” which is apparently also what the Bethesda employees use to build the quests and NPCs in their games:
- https://store.steampowered.com/app/1946180/Skyrim_Special_Edition_Creation_Kit/
- https://store.steampowered.com/app/1946160/Fallout_4_Creation_Kit/
- https://store.steampowered.com/app/2722710/Starfield_Creation_Kit/
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The Starfield Creation Kit was only released a week ago (but I think to remember that there was a big delay in its release for Skyrim and Fallout, too - haven’t done any modding since the Skyrim days).
It’s got more content than horse armor though. Totally worth it. /s
Fallout 5 is going to suck
Fallout 4 sucked, too.
Its a fun shooter game, but its not a fallout. Throwing supermutants into a game doesnt make it a Fallout. Especially with how they fucked SPECIAL.
Fallout TV is probably the last decent product from Bethesda, and I’d wager thats only cause Bethesda isnt in charge of writing.
Fallout 3’s world doesn’t feel like Fallout but the tone of the writing comes close.
Fallout 4’s tone and writing doesn’t feel like Fallout, but the world does.
New Vegas is the only 3D Fallout game that feels like Fallout in both the world and the writing.
I can almost guarantee that unless Josh Sawyer and the other original talent that made 1, 2, and tactics that also worked on New Vegas are working on it, it will never feel like a true Fallout game.
I would love for Obsidian to get another crack at Fallout, but I don’t think they are the only ones capable of making a good fallout game (though they would undoubtly be the best).
It just takes passion for the property, and a vested interest in the world. Something Bethesda is clearly lacking. Bethesda seems to be in the phase of “throw darts at a bunch of sticky notes on the wall” of trying to figure out how to make a game, and it just leads to a disjointed experience.
For me it’s the fundamental difference in design philosophy. Bethesda does power fantasies, which works great for TES, but not for Fallout. You should be barely scraping by, not making the wasteland your bitch.
Obsidian is off doing things and making games better than Fallout, they’d only come back because their studio isn’t extremely profitable and needs the cash.
Really though, please just go buy their games and play them. Outer Worlds got slated as pretty average but I’m still really excited to play that and Outer Worlds 2.
Outer Worlds is a great, fun game.
The only bad thing about it is idiot gamers heard the basic premise, and that Obsidian was making it, and immediately stroked their hype boners up over “OMG NEW VEGAS IN SPACE!” when it was nothing of the sort.
I liked Outer Worlds, but while I do see some “NV magic” there, it feels like both Bethesda AND Obsidian are no longer the same companies that they once were. Obsidian are still quietly putting out some solid games…but not to the same quality of two generations prior.
Fallout 4 is like 4 different games crammed into a trench coat.
- high emotion story game. Go rescue your child!
- high action shooter. Boom! Headshot!
- stats driven RPG. That naked bandit is level 40 so you can’t kill him even if you shotgun his face
- settlement management game. Build and decorate a little town! Set up trade routes!
All of these are kind of badly done, and mashing them all together didn’t make something greater than the parts.
And the only aspect thats any good is the shooter part. Cause it is a fun shooter. Especially at higher levels with more exotic weapons.
But the story is shit
The RPG Elements… the SPECIAL/Stats were shit on and ruined to enable some vague idea of nearly infinite growth within an uncapped level system.
and the settlement building is somehow worse than how a New Vegas mod managed to do it.
I hate modern gaming. Opinions aren’t allowed to be held. I don’t like this thing so ITS THE WORST OF THAT THING
Once you take high school English your teacher will tell you not to write “in my opinion” in front of everything you write because it is unnecessary. Of course it is your option, you said it.
Someone with basic logic can extrapolate from that that if someone says something like “Fallout 4 is bad” that is clearly someone presenting an opinion and not an objective truth.
I hate having discussions. Opinions aren’t allowed to be held because theres always some entitled ass that has to come in and misrepresent what everyones saying so they can fulfill their personal fantasy of being offended and attacked.
The perk system was fine imo, but the fact that attributes (except for charisma) did not influence dialogue at all was extremely disappointing.
Roleplay opportunities were traded in for a better gunplay experience. It became an FPS, not an RPG.
Look the perk system was bad but it’s wasn’t Fallout New Vegas bad. It was okay for a Fallout game but they probably should’ve done level ups by doing each 5 levels gives you 2 SPECIAL points to spend rather than spending normal points on the core stats.
Eh, I liked it better than 3.
talk about damning with faint praise…
I had fun with both. Fallout 4’s flaws are still there, but if you’re going to make a punching bag out of one of them, 4 is a better game than 3, IMO.
No ones disagreeing with that.
Fallout 3 was all around an inferior game. Not just an inferior fallout, but an inferior game, compared to 4.
Mostly cause Fallout 3 was a disjointed mess.
But just because Fallout 4 is better by comparison, Doesnt mean fallout 4 is good.
I hate beets. But give me the choice between a bowl of shit and a bowl of beets, and put a gun to my head? I’ll eat the beets gladly and happily. Doesnt mean I love them.
Neither is shit. 4 is way better. 1, 2, and New Vegas are better still. But 3 doesn’t tend to come up in these conversations when people talk about Bethesda Fallouts being worse. They always go to 4, and that surprises me.
because Fallout 3 is at least fallout-ish despite its horrible writing, story, and world building.
4 is just a shooter game with Vault Tec and Super mutants thrown into it.
Better than 3 maybe, but doesn’t even hold a candle to New Vegas. Hell, id argue 3 with NV’s engine is leagues better.
As an RPG player, people kept saying I should play Fallout, but I never have because it always looked more like a shooter than an RPG, and I want to play an actual RPG, not a shooter with RPG elements (especially because I despise shooters).
In all the previous shooter Fallouts, you can basically use VATS to never have to aim yourself if that’s what you want to do (or melee build!), it’s like an auto-aimer. You won’t miss that much and maybe that way you can enjoy the universe.
Play 1 and 2 if you dont mind isometric, cause they are a definitive roleplay experience.
and New Vegas if you gotta have that 3d.
Then play Fallout 1, 2, and New Vegas.
Only if you don’t buy the Season 1 Vault-Tec Access Pass for $49.99. Imagine not doing that and then not ever being able to get your Overpowered Armor at pass level 5. You would absolutely be ruining it for yourself by not investing into the seasonal passes.
🏴☠️
Crypto would at least offer a non-zero chance of ROI.
Why are we surprised? They were the ones who pioneered the DLC microtrans model. I would legitimately have been more surprised if this headline were the converse statement.
Hehe microtrans. That’s me
Is repetitive buying of Bethesda games a new kind of litmus test for stupidity? I mean they do this shit constantly and people are still surprised when it happens. Did people really forget horse armor they tried to sell? Or forget about items that were free in Fallout 4, but had to be purchased in 76? It’s Bethesda and only one thing Todd dreams about is scamming another dollar from their fans.
Used to be that they’d sell you both worthless DLC and actually good DLC.
Knights of the Nine?* Awesome. Horse Armor? Worthless.
Similarly, Skyrim had Dawnguard and Dragonborn which were great. It also had Hearthfire which was kinda meh, but at least it had stuff to do and was cheap, so I’m not too mad about it.
*There was also Shivering Isles, but at the time that was marketed as an expansion pack, not merely a DLC.
Pretty sure shivering isles was Morrowind and horse armor/ nights I’m the nine was oblivion. Those would have come out years apart.I don’t know what I’m talking about this early
Thats not accurate at all. Shivering isles is oblivion and one of the best parts of the game.
I just buy Bethesda games years after release and have a blast playing them.
If you find that worth it, then sure. Although that won’t be the case soon it seems as Todd has a hardon for live services.
The company that introduced horse armor is charging horrendous prices for small DLC?
I mean considering that single skins cost 20 in Overwatch or Dead by Daylight, 7 for an actual mission is almost generous.
Fuck gaming is fucked…
Eh, skill up had a great take on this. The thing is it’s wayyyyy easier to be a small indie developer than it ever was before. Making a game (or any art) still isn’t easy, it never was and never will be, but it’s viable without a giant publisher in a way it just hasn’t been before.
Its the AA titles that are on the most precarious footing, but I bet even those do ok. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy some AAA stuff time to time, I’ve got a stupid amount of hours in overwatch, but I’ve never once paid for a skin because… why would you?
The thing that’s going to suck is losing the studios like Arkane. Their games weren’t perfect but they were freaking cool, and they basically always got the raw end of the deal. Even Prey(2016), their masterpiece, is the product of corporate bullshitiery they had nothing to do with. So we’re probably going to miss studios like that for a while (as they get re-tasked to fortnite/cod support teams) but “indie” stuff has already been stepping up to fill that void, and is less indie all the time.
Look at Dave the Diver. That’s not exactly an indie studio. They had resources. There’s going to be a gap for a bit, but there’s still a demand for good games and art. Those AA breakthroughs are what people want. Again, I continue to spend dumb amounts of time on overwatch, but it’s not where I spend my money. Microsoft hovelled themselves by buying all these studios and not taking the leap with supporting them. Distribution just doesn’t have the value it once did. So if microsoft wants to become CandyCrush, feeding an addiction loop to grab the whales, sure, whatever, but there’s plenty of bread out there for studios doing other stuff.
The one and only point that I disagree with you on is your take on mtx. They may not affect you, but everything about them is designed to be psychologically exploitative, and the wealthy whale is largely a myth. The vast majority of money from mtx is made from people with addiction issues and other mental health issues or atypical neurology, like people with depression or ADHD.
Microsoft bought up all those studios and didn’t support them, but that’s business as usual for Microsoft, and the money that they’ll make from mtx like this will more than make up for it. I recently watched a former Blizzard dev who was talking about how a single $15 mount for WoW made more money than StarCraft 2 did.
The big issue I see is that most people largely don’t know about anything beyond the big AAA releases, and as we’ve already established, that’s an exploitative wasteland nowadays. There’s plenty of demand for good games and there always will be, but while the indie scene is the best that’s it’s ever been, the majority of indie companies go under after their first game. It’s still hard out there for them, too. There’s just enough of them popping up and putting out truly great games that they can actually compete with the AAA space.
It was Thor from pirate software on Twitch talking about the mtx beating SC2 for folks who care great guy to watch if you want to chill and hear some good life advise.
That’s the one. He’s got it as a clip on the YouTube channel, and that got served to me by the almighty algorithm.
oh yeah, I didn’t want to be dismissive of the mtx stuff. It’s absolutely predatory and awful, but I don’t think it fully stands in the way of developing good games.
Which is related to what you’re saying about indies going under even after success. Game development takes time, and you need money to underwrite that time. I just think there’s going to be a split; right now AAA studios are shitifying their games, turning them more into CandyCrush skinner boxes. But the demand for good games hasn’t gone away, there’s just less financial upside than making CandyCrush. My point is, even though it’s less money, there’s still a good amount of money to be had there. Eventually the gaps going to be filled. Microsoft cant fill it because on the balance sheet, things like COD and anything from King are where they should be focused. And it sucks right now because they sucked up a stupid amount of talent and thanos snapped them, but thats not a sustainable practice.
But yes, it’s going to be painful. It’ll suck seeing really nifty indie stuff have to struggle so hard. Like I said I’m also going to miss the polish that comes with AA stuff. I’m going to miss the hell out of Arkane. Their games weren’t perfect, but they had so much soul. They didn’t deserve to have Redfall be their epitaph.
I kind of feel like anyone who spends $20 on a video game skin shouldn’t be allowed to make any financial decisions for themselves. Like, it was a test and you failed.
Except that shit is designed by literal psychologists to prey upon people with poor fiscal responsibility, like people with ADHD, depression, addiction issues, and kids.
It’s like blaming people for smoking cigarettes after they got addicted from secondhand smoking.
It’s fucked because there are people buying that shit, in numbers that turn a profit over the cost of developing it. And it’s a very low cost because the skin support is something they put in when they make the game, and then get an intern to shit out a gaudy skin.
If you don’t like it you’re obviously not the target demographic anymore. It’s mobile gaming tactics creeping their way on PC.
Also remember they were purchased by Microsoft. Who in turn also just purchased Activision/blizzard
Also remember Horse Armor DLC for Oblivion, released by Bethesda? Considered by many to be the catalyst of this kind of BS.
Horse armor that didnt even give the horses armor. It just gave them a cosmetic appearance change and increased their health by like 3 times.
I swear gamers have the memory of a gnat. How many times has Bethesda pulled shit like this and people continue to support them? no one remembers the Horse armor all the way back in Oblivion? no one remembers the Skyrim paid mods in 2015? hell can’t even remember the SKYRIM PAID MODS IN DEC OF 2023!
This isn’t an outrage and no one should be upset AT Bethesda over this, but disappointed and upset with yourselves for yet again falling for their constant desire to nickel and dime their playerbase.
You have to understand.
The overwhelming bulk of gamers just don’t care
Nothing will stand in the way of getting their current precious. Not even their own complaints and bitching.
They’ll sit there and complain about how a company is evil, its practices exploitative, and how everyone should avoid buying from them so they can die in the fires of Bankruptcy.
Then the second the next game/expansion/DLC/Whatever is announced, they are immediately in line to preorder the ultra deluxe mega fuck you 500 dollar package. because it comes with a unique mount and a special armor skin, and they just cant miss those things! they’re rare! and they’ll never be able to get them otherwise! /s
And then they’ll go into the obfuscated-cash-shop and spend another 700 dollars on digital bullshit.
Then, when they are all done, the overwhelming majority of them will come back to the internet, and cry and whinge and moan about how a company is evil, its practices exploitative, and how everyone should avoid buying from them so they can finally die in the fires of bankruptcy.
Cause the majority of gamers are brain damaged fucktards who, at the end of the day, just love throwing their wallet at things.
I mean this is kind of true of all people everywhere. The marshmallow test has flaws but I think it’s still revealing. A lot of people are really bad at self control and delayed gratification.
Well most modern gamers are probably like 14 years old and probably never even played Skyrim. So I’m not surprised young kids are buying this creation kit garbage with Mommy’s credit card.
Don’t know. Don’t play a whole lot of Bethesda games. Didn’t play Oblivion. New gamers join the ranks every day. Not everyone has been gaming since the 80’s.
I swear gamers have the memory of a gnat
It’s more a “sucker born every minute” thing.
This is what happens everywhere: they’ll just keep chancing it until such a time as it’s acceptable.
Bethesda announced that players could download a new series of missions for a group known as the Track Alliance. The problem is that The Vulture is the second mission in the Tracker Alliance, and it costs $7 to buy. But it’ll actually cost players $10 because they must purchase 1,000 Starfield creation credits to afford it.
So they put the first mission out for free, but it turns out the first mission was a fucking advertisement. I remember being super pissed when Dragon Age pulled this shit.
And of course they pull the classic cost-obfuscation trick because it would just be far too convenient to just be able to buy a DLC for actual money and then download it.
I’m glad I’m not the only one to remember that Dragon Age: Origins quest.
Its the specific and singular reason why I never bought any of the DLC, or any of the sequels.
There’s people playing Strarfield to get upset in the first place?
Has Bethesda actually released a decent game since Daggerfall?
TES III - V were all amazing. Can’t wait for TES VI to come out in 2035.
You’re wrong, but I’m glad you have had fun and I hope that TESVI isn’t a micro transaction fuelled pile of tripe.
Their games are certainly getting dumber/simpler, I’ll give you that. Hope one of their future games will eventually live up to your standards again.
Ok boomer let’s get you to bed
And in my day we couldn’t just send boomers to bed with a hand wave, we had to sit through the Clintons’ saxophone show first and then we…
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I tried a bunch of Bethesda games in the past and didn’t like any of them. I known I’m in the minority when I say that.
You mean the game that shipped with a bug breaking the main questline?
Terminator: Future Shock was also a janky mess. They’ve always released broken games and have some how survived this long.
Yup, that’s the one.
Company that scammed players scams players, more at 7.
So some people are actually playing starfield?
Bethesda has chosen to make their shit exclusive to a console that is outsold by its completion 2:1.
They’re not exactly the bastions of good ideas.
Microsoft owns Bethesda, so they probably didn’t have a choice
They knew beforehand- and did it anyway:
The article clearly states Microsoft chose to keep it off Playstation, not Bethesda.
And it’s well know that Microsoft knew they were going to do that before Bethesda sold off to Microsoft. So again, they’re not making good decisions.
If you’re getting a big heap of money from Microsoft, who cares what decisions you make? (Playing devil’s advocate)
What do you mean by this? I’ve played starfield on pc, is it exclusive to pc?
Can you play it on a PS5? The console that I mentioned that is outselling the Xbox 2 to 1? And both FO and Elder Scrolls will be exclusive. Again, they’re not making good decisions over there.
I didn’t mention PC. What I’m talking about isn’t about PC. It’s about consoles and their decision to side with Microsoft and lose money.
Well, it’s not siding with Microsoft, it is Microsoft. This is a Microsoft game.
Was it a hostile takeover?
No, Microsoft simply bought them.
So like I said… they knew what was going to happen. And allowed it. So… big brain ideas happening over there.
Honestly I don’t care, that’s a pretty reasonable price compared to the lot of the content sold for AAA games. This isn’t even noteworthy in 2024
