Bethesda: Save the Single Player games

A number of us accept there are problems with the games we do like, such as New Vegas.

You know, I kind of admire the fact you can see so much in Fallout 3. It's a game I loved playing over and over when I first got it but I couldn't enjoy it now, unless I just ignored everything and made up my own stories.

I exaggerate my opinions a bit, I'm not a rabid, unreasonable critic and I think that applies for most of us here.

Seems like alot of people confused NMA with the Codex.
 
It can easily be summarized as I don't think anyone but perhaps me and one other person on this forum thinks Bethesda can create anything of any merit whatsoever.
I believe so and don't like the absolute denial of even a slight of competence from any of Bethesda's employees ever, in the future, present and past, but you're putting them like if they shit rainbows and cure cancer by being oh-so-special, doing what the actual average studio does with way more fuckups.

I wonder really how many gamers on this board took time to really just wander around Fallout 3 soaking up the atmosphere and details versus just running from quest to quest.
Nobody, everyone *totally* came in planning to hate it even before knowing what the franchise was at all. Details being some skeletons in funny shapes and the quests enduring some *hilarious* dialogue or killing some *fascinating* trash mobs before getting a generic weapon with a different name than usual at best, shitall at worst, to repeat that until you get bored and turn it off, or gather the strength to do the campaign.

Thanks for that but I'd be interested in a bit more on the GTA V business because I actually don't know that much about it. Only the basics.
GTA(V) Online is, putting it simply, Rockstar's first MMO. While I don't particularly care for it, nor city sandboxes in general, it's remarkable that it's been out for so long with continuous support, new content and allowing for a great custom content creator community, and be a pretty good extrapolation of the game to the multiplayer aspect (shark cards and take two's mess nonwithstanding). In fact, as games of this decade go, it's the only one of such status along Warframe. Both sure qualified for the "Ongoing" game award more than Overwatch, that's for fucking sure.

I saw Graves say that this is detrimenting from GTA VI but it's pretty clear they are different teams, one with QA and post release support, while another section is in current development of it.

With DLC you can join the Pitt Raiders or Rebels, you can also join Reilly's Raiders, become a slaver at Paradise Falls, become a Regulator, or become President of the Republic of Dave.
The chart didn't count DLC for either, but those are one-off quests and gimmicks, like marriage in Skyrim or becoming ZE JARL. There's no interplay between those factions, and you have one quest at best. Hell, I even bet that "becoming a slaver" doesn't even flag you as a complete bastard forever like it did in Fallout 2, doesn't it?

For me the appeal of Fallout 3 is that it's a game which makes me feel like what I'm doing has consequences
If only there was a game (series) that did that! :biggrin:

One of the things I find troubling on the forum is the fact it generally is a place where gamers refuse to subject any of their stories to any form of literary criticism. Game as an artform is only going to become something worse pursuing if we have games that tackle deep subjects (Pillars of Eternity for example) or deep characterization. It's something inhibited by the lowest common denominator of game design philosophy which is being discussed here.

However, as much shit as Bethesda gets, it's actually fairly good about inserting deeper subject matter into its published games.

Take Wolfenstein II.

Fallout 3 is a game which people say I'm inserting "headcanon" too but the game makes a statement about with its use of imagery, themes, locations, and interactions. These things may or may not be deliberate as literay criticism does not depend on an author's intents but its value as a work of art is unchanged.

And when people analyze what the end product is...I think people benefit.
That¡s fine and dandy, but... It doesn't mean anything. That can apply to ANYTHING that causes some kind of experience, even when not directly related to the object, event or piece of media. Fallout 3 is art, expressive and subjective in experience, yes. As nigh all games. But that doesn't mean that it does so well. And no, game design is a huge part of the, you know, GAME. If it wasn't for it, games wouldn't be good games, they'd be good movies, good books, good shows.

What I can see is that Fallout 3 is an important game for you, that you appreciate deeply. But that's about as far from being objective as we are from the next habitable planetoid. I think all of us have a game that we have close to out hearts like that, be it because of the game itself, the moment where we played it; shortly, that mean to us. But surprise, they do have a pretty big chance of being terrible. To The Moon is one of the few games that have managed to make me cry and I can very confidently say that forcing someone fully conscious to play it would work very well as a torture method. The Legend Of Zelda: Spirit Tracks for the DS was the first title of the series I played, along all my school time friends while we all beat it at once, sharing our experiences and knowledge about the game, fantasizing about that Hyrule and its inhabitants. It so happens that it's one of the weakest titles in the series, even only considering the 2D titles. Pokémon nonwithstanding, Dragon Quest IX was my first (J)RPG to try. The personal involvement I had was one of the hugest I've had in any story, but it turns out it's a quite generic "let's kill the literal antichrist", the memorable party members were replaced with all customs, it was grindy as all hell and if you didn't have had the chance of getting the post-release updates, you had like 33% less content unless you cracked or emulated the game.

I could go on, but it's a part of enjoying videogames to sink in the experience. It's a wonderful thing only they really can do. Be it feeling like living and breathing that world, being in the "zone" in an action game, role-playing with friends, coordinating tactics for either your squadron of fellow players or controlled units. Imagining the endless expanse of space, or the dense maps.

Literature isn't about wanking over whatever work there is. In any competent work, no matter how shallow, the themes WILL be intentional. However, if not represented well enough, and that's NOT juding a 50-100 hour game on two lines at the end, it makes it either a minor example of such because, simply put, it doesn't accomplish what it went for. And yes, that cheecky unnecesary game design also plays out here. Sure, you can have YOUR own conclusions or interpretations as the human that you are. But there are grades of pulling it out of your ass, as my lit teacher used to say.

As you yourself said, you possibly can't praise Bethesda for what they LITERALLY haven't done. They didn't pay attention to that world with as much care as you did. They didn't flesh out the characters for what you say to be anywhere beyond your head. They didn't add further consequences but throwaway lines and a repetitive radio quote variable being thrown into the pool. As Prone said, it's amazing that you can buy so much the fiction, to the point of envy.

One good solid game for this year which have the quality that can save SP games is Horizon Zero Dawn, very likely the GoTY of 2017. Trust me, I'm not fanboying it or anything, I don't even have a PS.
https://www.polygon.com/2017/12/6/16741668/game-of-the-year-2017-goty-horizon-zero-dawn-ps4
Seen about it, pretty cool, albeit the story doesn't really know what it wants to do and the gameplay is an odd mix of Far Cry and even more RPG elements. I'm not even on the ALL SURVIVAL GAMES ARE SHIT REEE train and admittedy I didn't really care for it. You can only play so many of those before reeaching a kind of sandbox fatigue. Currently the one taking my time is The Long Dark, mentioned it in the pointless list.
 
A number of us accept there are problems with the games we do like, such as New Vegas.

You know, I kind of admire the fact you can see so much in Fallout 3. It's a game I loved playing over and over when I first got it but I couldn't enjoy it now, unless I just ignored everything and made up my own stories.

I exaggerate my opinions a bit, I'm not a rabid, unreasonable critic and I think that applies for most of us here.

Interesting words to live by... in theory. Just remember that love and hate are two sides of the same coin. I suspect it is easy for someone predisposed against Bethesda for them to say "I admit, Fallout 1 and 2 are not flawless" than it is for them to say "there is merit in Fallout 3 and 4". And likewise, that would go for the reverse perspective.

But when we reduce each viewpoint to its absolute basic that it just becomes "he said, she said". At least that's my opinion anyway.
 
It can easily be summarized as I don't think anyone but perhaps me and one other person on this forum thinks Bethesda can create anything of any merit whatsoever.

The hatred is crystalized into an axiomatic hatred of everything they've done.

To argue about Bethesda saving single player, there would have to be an acknowledgement it would be possible for them to create a decent SP experience.

Which is a bridge too far on these forums.

:)
I think that most people here "hate" Bethesda, because they can create good things (Whodunit, The Pit, most of the Morrowind) but they choose not to. It's not even that they lack resources, but they choose to spend them making something like Kid in Zeta House.
Guys that oversee their work want Fallout and TES to be something that sells good, not something that is memorable. Just check Steam achievements how many people actually completed FO4.
As to FO3- you can see that they tried. It's game of badly baked ideas, not game of wasted opportunities like FO4. I still play it as part of TTW. It's enjoyable, but in comparison to NV it feels like new lands mod.
 
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Just a personal opinion of mine: I "hate" Fallout 3. But in a good way. My hatred is not for Bethesda, it's for the lost potential.

Even "hating", I had a funtime with this game. I've spoken in this forum more than once, that Moira's quest is one of my favorites of the whole series, even with the shitty written.

Do not be upset about it. There are much worse feelings, like what I have with Fallout 4. A complete and total indifference to this game. It's as if this game is in limbo, while I still remember several good moments that I had in FO3.

Justice be done, I did not play the FO4 DLC's and one day I was curious to see the new creatures. And I think they snapped, I saw many great designs.
 
Damn @Alphons why did you delete that post about dwarfs in Little Lamplight and creepy kid procreation? Because I want to reply to that, "Ha! As if Bethesda have any courage to put something like that in their game! Thinking about it, Arcanum has something similar where Half-Ogres are being bred at somewhat large scale so they would serve as bodyguards for the Gnomes."
 
:confused:

So... what? Yes, what a surprise, you're not the only human being that likes a game that was majorly praised by press and consumers at the time because of being the right game at the right time. Notice that those are on about release too, the general consensus shifted gear a fair lot especially after NV. Also, LOL the one praising the karma system.
 
:confused:

So... what? Yes, what a surprise, you're not the only human being that likes a game that was majorly praised by press and consumers at the time because of being the right game at the right time. Notice that those are on about release too, the general consensus shifted gear a fair lot especially after NV. Also, LOL the one praising the karma system.

Those aren't reviews, FYI, but analysis of the story and themes.

:)
 
Those aren't reviews, FYI, but analysis of the story and themes.

:)
"It's post apocalyptic and I haven't played the previous games, in fact, not many games at all and find that games are somehow still in their diapers and are uncomparable to other mediums, so we'll let slide whatever guff. So yay, post apocalypse, let's throw some bullshit around" What an informative and valuable stance, yes. Never said that they were reviews and never considered them as such.
 
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"It's post apocalyptic and I haven't played the previous games, in fact, not many games at all and find that games are somehow still in their diapers and are uncomparable to other mediums, so we'll let slide whatever guff. So yay, post apocalypse, let's throw some bullshit around" What an informative and valuable stance, yes. Never said that they were reviews and never considered them as such.

Okay, which is that a response to?

But yes, was just trying to share some story analysis about Fallout 3.

Generally, to get back to the original topic, I think Bethesda isn't a great company but it does have a dedication to single player others don't and has sponsored/published some great SP games.
 
Okay, which is that a response to?

But yes, was just trying to share some story analysis about Fallout 3.

Generally, to get back to the original topic, I think Bethesda isn't a great company but it does have a dedication to single player others don't and has sponsored/published some great SP games.
What I was getting at is that you could replace all the "Fallout 3" with any other decadent, collapsing or post-apocalyptic work like say that one Mad Max game a year back or do that was pretty alright.

And yes, pretty much everyone agrees to the latter even considering that it's not all that remarkable even just based in more tangential listings like mine and Risewild's.
 
Okay, which is that a response to?

But yes, was just trying to share some story analysis about Fallout 3.

Generally, to get back to the original topic, I think Bethesda isn't a great company but it does have a dedication to single player others don't and has sponsored/published some great SP games.

They have dedication to anything that's guaranteed to make money, not to support actual gaming itself.
 
They have dedication to anything that's guaranteed to make money, not to support actual gaming itself.
I mean, that's a given. They have to eat, it's just that they just don't have to or should have to do some things.
 
I mean, that's a given. They have to eat, it's just that they just don't have to or should have to do some things.

Of course,. I'm just saying that nothing they do is to benefit actual gaming and only benefit actual gaming.

Besides, as you and some others have shown, singleplayer games are still going strong.
 
I believe so and don't like the absolute denial of even a slight of competence from any of Bethesda's employees ever, in the future, present and past, but you're putting them like if they shit rainbows and cure cancer by being oh-so-special, doing what the actual average studio does with way more fuckups.

*snip*

The big issue is art is entirely subjective and thus what's important IS how it makes the gamer/viewer feel.
 
*snip*

The big issue is art is entirely subjective and thus what's important IS how it makes the gamer/viewer feel.
Yes, but that's not a "Get out of jail free" card and we all know it. Hell, those games you say that are such an insult to their series because multiplayer and whatnot can be subjected to the same, following that string of logic. It's an ouroboros that leads to bloody nowhere!
 
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