Plautus
Angry Preacher
I'm not sure how well-received this post will be given my audience; however, I'm still coming from the perspective of a skeptic. Despite the massive quality downgrade from Morrowind to Oblivion, we have evidenced Bethesda improving their general game making skills from Oblivion to the Dragonborn DLC, with each major title and major DLC release featuring noticeable improvements in level design, art design, and writing quality. For example, the political conflict at the center of Skyrim was more textured than the "political" "conflict" at the center of Fallout 3, with the Empire and Stormcloaks seeming more believable than the Brotherhood and Enclave (though admittedly that doesn't take much). Even from Oblivion to the Shivering Isles, there was a noticeable improvement in creativity in terms of both level design and art direction.
Now if we compare the Dawnguard and Dragonborn DLCs to base Skyrim, we see significant improvements in level design and environment design, with more organic-feeling and engaging dungeons and memorable backdrops. The writing of Dragonborn (though it was still Bethesda writing) was also improved over Skyrim: Neloth, the wizard, actually emoted and exhibited personality and character traits; Hermaeus Mora had a genuine sense of menace as well. Additionally, the optional content in Dragonborn involved more exploration than the optional content in base Skyrim. What I'm suggesting is that despite their general ineptitude, Bethesda generally exhibits attempts at improvement from release to release, which suggests a genuine attempt at providing quality content (there's also the free patch content like horseback combat, which, while minor, was still an effort they didn't necessarily need to make) and an interest in the craft of game design.
What I'm trying to say is that I think there's reasonable grounds to expect that Fallout 4 will be an improvement over Skyrim, which in turn was an improvement over Fallout 3. We can debate the extent to which this will be an improvement, but I genuinely and sincerely think that Bethesda exerts at least nominal effort to improve their products. This effort can only work in favor of the audience (I hope).
Now if we compare the Dawnguard and Dragonborn DLCs to base Skyrim, we see significant improvements in level design and environment design, with more organic-feeling and engaging dungeons and memorable backdrops. The writing of Dragonborn (though it was still Bethesda writing) was also improved over Skyrim: Neloth, the wizard, actually emoted and exhibited personality and character traits; Hermaeus Mora had a genuine sense of menace as well. Additionally, the optional content in Dragonborn involved more exploration than the optional content in base Skyrim. What I'm suggesting is that despite their general ineptitude, Bethesda generally exhibits attempts at improvement from release to release, which suggests a genuine attempt at providing quality content (there's also the free patch content like horseback combat, which, while minor, was still an effort they didn't necessarily need to make) and an interest in the craft of game design.
What I'm trying to say is that I think there's reasonable grounds to expect that Fallout 4 will be an improvement over Skyrim, which in turn was an improvement over Fallout 3. We can debate the extent to which this will be an improvement, but I genuinely and sincerely think that Bethesda exerts at least nominal effort to improve their products. This effort can only work in favor of the audience (I hope).
