Alright, look. Let me go off a bit, I haven't in a while.
There is a slim, narrow possibility that I could be wrong, as I've said, and I can understand why they would disable mods and console commands while gathering data for the beta, but the addition of the DLC list in the menu (implying that they're going to shower the game with piecemeal DLC like they did Oblivion, so much for learning from their mistakes) plus the Bethesda.net login page (apparently they'll disable achievements when mods are in use) felt very player-unfriendly.
Now. I know most of the core Fallout fans won't agree. But for modern standards, I believe Bethesda used to be a decent company. Okay, they took a strategy RPG and turned it into an FPS, but that always seemed more to me like a misguided dev team trying to stay "cool" and "up-to-date" than outright corporate greed, as it is now. You probably get what I mean.
As a wholly seperate game, Fallout 3 was good. Won accolades that it deserved, remembered for its atmosphere and gameplay, and set the stage for future console gaming. They responded well to complaints on DLC, and supported modding communities. In comparison to the small devs from 90s, Bethesda was below average, but by the time I started gaming, that standard was long gone. I don't think I can actually even picture the gaming world without DLCs and microtransactions. I wonder how many of you will consider that sad.
I guess in my view (and that of Fallout 3 fans), they've
just now begun to fall from grace. In the view of core fans (most of NMA's populace), they took a series and drove it into the ground once, then they took that driven down series and drove it down
again, pissing off
even more fans. Plus, they've regressed from large content expansions back to the Oblivion school of nickel-and-dime DLC. Nice. Now I'm just waiting for the smug NMAers to come out and do me in with a "told you so". No, I didn't believe any of you said Bethesda was on the decline. Yes, "you were right all along", blah de blah de blah.
For all its flaws, Fallout 3 actually set standards for its generation of console games. Now we're here. Congratulations, Bethesda, you've managed to alienate every community associated with the name "Fallout" in pursuit of the profit holy grail. You have managed to dumb a series down twice.
Twice! What an achievement.
Here we are, then. I'm not jaded and cynical enough to think on the NMA bitterness wavelength, so I have to ask, what do you predict is next for Fallout? What now for the series? How far will this go on? How will it all end?
