# Fallout 76



## Xaios (Nov 6, 2018)

I'm an OG fan of the Fallout games. I first played Fallout 1 and 2 back in 2000 when I was in middle school, basically as soon as I discovered they existed. I didn't play Fallout 3 or New Vegas until a few years after they were released because my computer was old enough that it would struggle to run them. When I did play them, Fallout 3 left me pretty cold, and I admit I never came close to completing it. I ended up loving New Vegas though.

At this point in the narrative, I probably seem like your typical "NMA"-type Fallout fan (for those unfamiliar with the nomenclature, NMA stands for "No Mutants Allowed," an old Fallout website where the sentiment that "Everything Bethesda does with Fallout is tantamount to the Holocaust" is quite pervasive). Admittedly, I was worried about Fallout 4 when it came out because of how much I disliked Fallout 3.

Turns out that I ended up loving Fallout 4.

When Fallout 76 was announced, I was excited but with reservation because of the rumors that it would be an online-only game. That reservation turned into full-blown "fuck this, not buying it" when the rumors were confirmed true.

However, as more info began to trickle out, the game really started to appeal to me. I was initially worried that it would be a hardcore griefer's paradise, a la Rust, but as more details became known, it began to seem more like Minecraft. Watching livestreams of the beta (Oxhorn's, to be specific) this past week really cemented my excitement. The level of environmental storytelling looks truly top notch, and the possibilities for roleplaying really seem to abound.

Admittedly, it's not perfect. I was never hardcore enough to play Survival mode in any Fallout game, so the the hunger and thirst mechanics seem a tad onerous to me, although they don't seem to be too intrusive. The stash limit is also an annoying constraint, especially considering how much Fallout 4 conditioned me to collect anything and everything. Still, these are things that can be worked around.

Anyone else planning to play?


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## TedEH (Nov 6, 2018)

I honestly still can't quite get past the always online thing. It just doesn't appeal to me at all, in the sense that I just don't play online games at all. I'm open to being proven wrong, but the idea of it isn't enough to draw me in to bother giving it a shot. I don't doubt there's lots of good content there, and maybe I'd have a good time if I dove into it, but there are enough games out there that appeal to me much more, so I probably will never give it a shot.


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## Xaios (Nov 6, 2018)

TedEH said:


> I honestly still can't quite get past the always online thing. It just doesn't appeal to me at all, in the sense that I just don't play online games at all. I'm open to being proven wrong, but the idea of it isn't enough to draw me in to bother giving it a shot. I don't doubt there's lots of good content there, and maybe I'd have a good time if I dove into it, but there are enough games out there that appeal to me much more, so I probably will never give it a shot.


That's fair, and at least you're honest about it too, which is appreciated. "Always online" pretty much made me blow a gasket when it was announced, as I also tend to avoid online play like the plague these days. When I look back though, it was because so much precedent has been set in the past few years which creates such a negative connotation for "always online" right out of the gate. Just look at SimCity from a few years ago. That was a game I wanted to love, but the way EA shoehorned in the "always online" but really earned them every bit of ill will that they got from it. For me personally, with everything I've seen of FO76 since the initial announcement, it really leads me to think that Bethesda is trying to institute "always online" is the best possible way: it won't be constantly intrusive and you'll generally be able to avoid it if you want, but it's there _juuuuust_ enough to add a little measure of uncertainty to the gameworld, and at the same time it's there for you to make full use of if you choose to embrace it.

No judgment if it's just not for you though.


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## Lorcan Ward (Nov 6, 2018)

I'm a massive fan as my avatar should give away. I grew up playing 1 + 2 and still do a playthrough every second year. I remember getting fallout Tactics when it came out and thinking how much they had changed things, it doesn't have the biggest rep but it's one of my favourite games, it ticked a lot of boxes for me despite its problems. I would have loved to have seen Tactics 2 and Van Buren get released. They sounded very promising games 

It took me a long time to warm up to Fallout 3 since the previous 2 games were cancelled and fallout had moved away from the 2D isometric view. The core games plot was just recycled from the previous 3 games which I didn't particularly like but on a recent play through I realise now it must have been a fantastic introduction for new players of the franchise despite some very questionable moments. The DLC however is incredible, point lookout and The Pitt bring the game to a whole new level. 

Fallout New Vegas with its DLCs is one of my favourite games. It brought the franchise back to the richer world and RPG elements of 1 and 2, it does feel like a lot of content is missing from the core game but they only had 18 months to make it. Old World Blues is my fav DLC out of any game, it's just so fun and really nails the originals wacky humour. I'd love a remastered edition with console mods like skyrim.

I was extremely disappointed with F4 since they just disregarded the direction New Vegas was taking the newer series and instead went back more to F3s approach. I played a good 40ish hours but couldn't get into it. 76 doesn't appeal to me right now since it's the RPG and story elements of fallout that appeal to me most. I'll still keep an eye on it. There is a lot of potential with future updates. 

I like how NMA has become frowned upon nowadays, some of the main members don't even like 2 so I try not to take that forum to seriously.


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## Mathemagician (Nov 6, 2018)

Fallout 3 was the first one I ever played and I put 84 hours into it over my winter break from college. Sun up to sundown. GF almost left me. Worth it. 

Debating picking up fallout 4 on PS4. I already own Skyrim however, and haven’t put more than an hour into it in 6 months.


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## Grand Moff Tim (Nov 19, 2018)

I'm playing it now, and I really enjoy it in spite of all the bugs and glitches constantly trying to get me to dislike it.

I also watched Oxhorn's beta playthrough vids, and they had pretty much the same effect on me as they did on you. I was on the fence before, but watching the vids really made me want to give it a shot. I think his vids did a good job of conveying what to expect from the game, whether that entails the gameplay, the environment, or the bugs.

Many of the bugs so far are just graphics/physics stuff, and I've played Bethesda open world games for long enough now that those don't even really phase me anymore . However, there have also been some more irritating bugs, like quest objectives not updating until after I exit out and restart, or crafting stations showing the crafting animation but not opening the menu. Those are bugs I can definitely live without, and I hope they get fixed ASAP. It'll be interesting to see how much Bethesda stays on top of stuff like that, since this will be the first time they haven't been able to just say "meh, modders will take care of it" when they release a broken product (they wisely got someone else to do ESO, haha).

The most frustrating thing so far, though, has got to be the camp storage limit. Bethesda _must_ know how much people end up hoarding in FO games, especially after FO4, which taught us to pick up _everything_, because you'll never know what you might need it for when building a settlement or modding a weapon. I don't think I had even passed level 15 before both my player _and_ camp inventories were completely maxed out. That really made it frustrating trying to balance what to pick up, what to scrap, and what to ignore. It's especially frustrating since now you can find items that are locked to a level far above your own, so you have to either find a way to make room for it and save it until you're high enough in level, or just scrap/abandon it. They've said they're working on a solution to that for a future patch, but we'll see.

At any rate, despite all that, I've been having a lot of fun. I actually like the new perk card system, and the world is seriously awesome. I've seen some of the best environments I've ever seen in a Bethesda game, and coming from a FO/TES fanboy such as myself, that's saying something. The New River Gorge bridge, the burning mine, a random unmarked giant tree house in the middle of a swamp... and I've only been to _maybe_ 30% of the map so far. 

I also decided to make it difficult on myself by specializing in unarmed right from the get go, just for some extra challenge, and to see how feasible it is. The answer: Surprisingly feasible. At lvl 20 I solo'd a lvl 50 glowing mirelurk king (barely, haha) and a few other tough baddies, with the one who managed to win one over on me being a lvl 68 deathskull giant radscorpion. I didn't stand a chance, haha.

And then there are the scorchbeasts...


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## KnightBrolaire (Nov 19, 2018)

the overwhelming response I saw about the 76 beta was that it was buggy trash that's kind of fun with friends, but sucks solo (so basically like any other mmo out there). It managed to be a halfassed facsimile of fallout 4's mechanics laden with bugs, glitches and a completely pointless pvp system. The lack of npcs was brought up numerous times as well, since that makes the world feel especially barren. The whole reason I was interested in the game was the idea of "fallout with friends" and it looks like it kind of delivers that...

I watched a lot of footage of the gameplay and it just leaves me feeling meh. I don't want to feel that way about a fallout game since i love the series, but I'm going to go with the popular opinion and my gut based off of what I've seen so far.
I'm done buying meh games that my friends will abandon after a few weeks, leaving me to grind out my money's worth like I did with Destiny 2/ESO/Wildstar/Rust/Ark.


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## Grand Moff Tim (Nov 19, 2018)

KnightBrolaire said:


> the overwhelming response I saw about the 76 beta was that it was buggy trash that's kind of fun with friends, but sucks solo (so basically like any other mmo out there).



Buggy: Definitely. 
Trash: Another man's treasure, apparently. 

I've played solo exclusively so far, and all 35+ hours of Oxhorn and ManyATrueNerd's footage has been solo, too. It's much more doable as a solo experience than many MMOs seem to be.

For what it's worth, though, most of my time in ESO has been solo, too, and I've enjoyed it just fine.


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## TedEH (Nov 19, 2018)

Grand Moff Tim said:


> It's much more doable as a solo experience than many MMOs seem to be.


It's hard to take a statement like that and read it as a positive if you're someone who pretty much only plays single player games.

I can understand from a marketing and sales perspective (and given the usual target audience for the franchise) that it's worth trying to convince single-player-only kinds of players to give it a shot, but all the feedback I've heard (admittedly not a lot though, cause I've been out of the loop this past week) is that it's not really a single player game. Which I didn't expect it to be. I almost always avoid online games - I just don't have any interest in having to interact with randos on the internet while playing a game. This doesn't sound like an exception to me.


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## Kaura (Nov 19, 2018)

Haven't played it nor planned to but I'm definitely enjoying all the negative attention the game has received. Not necessarily to enjoy Bethesda's suffering but it's funny to see people so disappointed in something.


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## Lorcan Ward (Nov 19, 2018)

It has been a hilarious few weeks.



This video was painful to watch. It wouldn't be a fallout game if it wasn't horrible broken.


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## Mathemagician (Nov 19, 2018)

Gonna wait for the GOTY edition this time next year to be on Black Friday sale and play with the holiday noobs if there is more “content”. Idk how a fallout MMO works unless they intend to add raids & gear levels, or they plan on being PvP focused.

But for me fallout gameplay has always been about eventually becoming overpowered and doing dumb shit once I’m done with story missions. Have the devs commented on what the “end game” is?

Just curious because IMO, one puts up with weird buggy gameplay for the story content in Bethesda games.


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## TedEH (Nov 19, 2018)

Kaura said:


> I'm definitely enjoying all the negative attention the game has received


I have to actively fight the urge to come to the defense of a game when it gets torn apart at launch, just knowing how it's insanely difficult to release a tight product on day one - even if some of it is not really excusable. 

Kinda seems like the pattern now -> Games get released, they're rarely very solid on day one, reviews tear it apart based on this initial release, game improves over time, but reviews don't really follow... It's a dumb thing to ask for, but if reviews could just wait a year.


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## Kaura (Nov 19, 2018)

TedEH said:


> but if reviews could just wait a year.



If only the release could be pushed back another year (and therefore also the announcement of the game so you don't have angry people impatiently waiting for the game).


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## Xaios (Nov 19, 2018)

I've also been playing it. Got it on release day, and while I simply haven't had as much time to play it as I would have liked, I've quite enjoyed my time in the world. I'm only level 14 or so, going the whole stealth sniper route, as I am always wont to do in my first playthrough of games like this. I'm only just leaving The Forest now, so we'll see how I fare in the Toxic Valley and then the Savage Divide.

One of the main criticisms of the game is that, because of the lack of NPCs, it's easy to get the impression that the game doesn't have a story. While this is definitely not the case, it does seem possible to completely bypass the storytelling the game offers, which is lots, if you choose to. The storytelling is either told through notes and terminals, or is done environmentally. The case of the latter, the game is trying to get the user to guess what might have happened to these people, to imagine what their lives were like. Yesterday on the road, I came upon the skeleton of a girl in a dress riding a bike, which Royal Jelly and a butterknife next to her corpse. Trying to piece together in my mind what this person was doing, it makes me feel like an archeologist digging through the ruins of Herculaneum. The game is absolutely loaded with these touches, but they're easy to miss if all you want to do is powerlevel. The game absolutely doesn't hold your hand to find these things though, and it really seems like a lot of people are bitter about the fact that it doesn't shove every detail about the game's backstory in the player's face.

As far as bugs go, believe it or not, I haven't really had any. Literally the only thing I've noticed was that, the first time I fired up the game, the animations for the Mr. Handy robots was glitchy. That bug has yet to materialize again though, and I honestly haven't noticed any others. Considering the age of my computer, it has also run fairly smoothly. Obviously YMMV, but that's been my experience so far.

That's not to say everything is perfect. The stash limit is the obvious big one, but Bethesda has issued a statement saying that this will be dealt with before the end of the year.


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## TedEH (Nov 19, 2018)

Kaura said:


> If only the release could be pushed back another year


I would be extremely surprised if this wasn't actually already the case behind the scenes. It's an expectations problem - games get pushed back internally so often, you just don't see it happen. You can just say keep pushing back, but it has to come out at some point. The product is never going to be perfect, so if you wait until it's "done", it basically will just never come out. And that extra time costs money. If I had to guess, I'd say the majority of games end up missing their original launch targets - either because of bugs, or scope, or expectations, etc. I don't mean that to excuse anything - but at the same time, I find it hard to fault anyone too hard either. I'm sure it's not a games thing. I mean, how many albums have people tried to put out that just didn't quite go to plan. I've said it before and I'll say it again -> it's a miracle that a lot of huge projects, be they movies, games, albums, etc., get made and put out there at all.


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## KnightBrolaire (Nov 19, 2018)

the complaints about NPCs had more to do with the barren feel of the game world. Nothing wrong with environmental storytelling/ or using notes to tell stories, but part of why I personally love the fallout series is the mixing of all the different storytelling methods (ie environmental/notes AND talking to npcs). It's not as though bethesda couldn't do it techwise, and I doubt budget was an issue (considering they already have a decent amount of VO work in-game), which is why I'm scratching my head at the "no NPCs" route. ESO managed to hit all 3 of those types of storytelling (voiced npcs, notes/environmental storytelling) so it's not like they haven't done it in an mmo fashion before...

If I do pick this game up I'm going to wait til the price drops/they spend a lot more time working on it.


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## Xaios (Nov 19, 2018)

Whether the decision to go the no-human-NPC route was a top-down decision from the start or a bottom-up decision that was based on technical or budgetary limitations, I don't know. Only the people at Bethesda really do. The narrative I've come up with in my head, however, for the reason the world is this way is as follows (and yes, obviously this is my own interpretation of the world I've seen thus far).

In every previous game, you play "The Hero." Be you the Vault Dweller, Chosen One, Lone Wanderer, Courier or Soul Survivor, you enter the world at a critical juncture. Events have been set in motion before you even begin your quest which have already brought life in the region to a precipitous turning point, where everything is about to change, likely for the worse, and a great enemy is rising. FO1 has The Master, FO2 and FO3 have The Enclave, FONV has Caesar's Legion (Robert House doesn't really fall under this umbrella even though he can be considered an antagonist) and FO4 has The Institute (or the Brotherhood, depending on your interpretation). Just when all seems lost though, you, the hero, emerge from the darkness and stop the world from falling into the abyss once more. FO76 diverges from the others on these points. No hero ever came forward to save the world from impending doom. As such, you're emerging from the vault into a world that is already lost, and so your goal is to merely survive, as any hope of a greater salvation has long since passed. (I also like the story implication that, even though we know that the world will eventually be resettled and things will get better, or character will likely not live to see it.) Additionally, while all previous Fallout games featured environmental hazards, this is the first time where the main threat of the game ostensibly IS from the environment.

Of course, none of that changes how you might feel about the barren nature of the world. Even though it's ultimately intentionally so, if that's not your jam, that's understandable.


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## Grand Moff Tim (Nov 19, 2018)

TedEH said:


> It's hard to take a statement like that and read it as a positive if you're someone who pretty much only plays single player games.



Take it however you want, man. The same post you quoted talked about how other players have already put in dozens of hours doing nothing but solo, and how I myself have yet to touch the multiplayer aspect, but you can focus on whatever you need to to help you reaffirm that you don't like it. For what it's worth, I'm not a multiplayer gamer at all. When I first heard about 76, I wasn't excited about it at all. It was only after seeing how much fun the beta streamers I watch were having playing it solo that I decided I wanted to give it a shot.


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## TedEH (Nov 20, 2018)

I just meant from a personal taste standpoint. My point was more that even if other single-player type people are finding things to enjoy, it's still a very hard sell.


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## wankerness (Nov 21, 2018)

Yeah, this game should be inspiring the same hilarious ultracuts of terrible animations as Mass Effect Andromeda from what I've heard. The Metacritic reviews are quite something. Most "real" reviews sound very bored and annoyed with it, too. Bethesda needs to build a new engine. If Elder Scrolls 6 (confirmed to use the same engine as Skyrim) feels like a super-mod of Skyrim with the same clunky gameplay and NPCs, they're going to look terrible compared to all the huge leaps forward with the Skyrim formula that we've gotten in the last few years (Witcher 3, AC: Origins/Odyssey, HZD, etc). I loved Skyrim to pieces at release, but this is proving that they can't rest on their laurels forever when it comes to mechanics, bugs, and graphics if they want to keep their reputation going.


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## QuantumCybin (Nov 21, 2018)

I didn't notice we had a thread about this. I played the fuck out of Fallout 3 and New Vegas (New Vegas is one of my favorite games of all time). I played 4, but not for very long. Maybe around 30 hours. I didn't really pay attention to 76 at all. Didn't play the beta, didn't watch any reviews or hype videos. I bought it on release day somewhat out of impulse (bad habit of mine), and I have really been enjoying it. I think Bethesda has always done a really good job with environmental storytelling and crafting interesting worlds, and they did an awesome job with West Virginia. I've had positive experiences with other players, and in regards to bugs, well....it's a Bethesda game. Should they be able to release a game this buggy and get away with charging $60? Ideally, no. They shouldn't. But damn, the game is fun and I've been having a great time. Currently level 22. So yeah, I'm probably a part of the problem by paying full price for this 


EDIT: I do agree though, that they need to do something about the Creation Engine. There are still pieces of Morrowind code buried in it because they've just been adding onto it since then. If Bethesda wants to blow everyone away like CDPR is doing with Witcher and (more than likely) Cyberpunk, Bethesda needs to knock it the fuck out of the park and make Elder Scrolls VI un-fucking-believable. I think I have a lot of positive bias towards Bethesda because my first experience with them was when my buddy lent me his copy of Morrowind in 2001 (I was in third grade) and it just blew my little mind. So Bethesda games always give me that nostalgic sense and I think it makes it hard to hate them


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## TedEH (Nov 21, 2018)

QuantumCybin said:


> they need to do something about the Creation Engine


I doubt that the engine can really be blamed for much of what people complain about in these games. I don't doubt it's not _helping_ that it's an old engine, but I don't think it's _hurting_ as much as people think it is. There's very little in software that doesn't hold onto some very old concepts / workflows / tools / code / etc. - I'm sure Unreal 4 still has leftover bits from the original, and the same with Unity.


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## QuantumCybin (Nov 21, 2018)

TedEH said:


> I doubt that the engine can really be blamed for much of what people complain about in these games. I don't doubt it's not _helping_ that it's an old engine, but I don't think it's _hurting_ as much as people think it is. There's very little in software that doesn't hold onto some very old concepts / workflows / tools / code / etc. - I'm sure Unreal 4 still has leftover bits from the original, and the same with Unity.



Yeah you’re not the first person I’ve seen with actual game dev knowledge (I don’t know a single thing about the technical side of making video games) who has said that. I’ve seen people on Reddit saying that essentially no one is or wants to make an entirely new game engine. Everything is built off of old code. But apparently Bethesda’s code for their games is a mess? “Spaghetti code” is the term I’ve heard used; like instead of fixing a problem in the code, they just code “around” it.


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## TedEH (Nov 21, 2018)

I can't speak for their engine, cause I've never seen it, but it's pretty common for people to call pretty much all code "spaghetti code" after a while. I've never worked on a game where, at the end of the project, the people working on it described it as "good code", even if realistically it was actually pretty good. That includes anything from quick and dirty web games to big console releases. I can't give specifics, but I've seen a pretty wide range of game code so far, even in my pretty short time doing this.

Someone sent me this article the other day, and I think it's relevant:
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/


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## KnightBrolaire (Nov 22, 2018)

if you guys want to burn 40$, greenman gaming has fallout 76 discounted already.


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## Kaura (Nov 25, 2018)

KnightBrolaire said:


> if you guys want to burn 40$, greenman gaming has fallout 76 discounted already.



Some places have already been selling it as low as $30. Just tells how desperate they are.


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## QuantumCybin (Nov 25, 2018)

Yeah it's causing a huge upset with people who have bought the game already that Bethesda is discounting it. I paid a full 60 for the game and i'd say I've gotten my money's worth out of it already. I get why they're pissed though, especially people who bought the Tricentennial Edition  some people are concerned that because of low sales, Bethesda is just gonna move on and abandon the game. Idk, I guess we'll see in six months, but for now all I know is I'm enjoying this more than RDR 2 lol


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## KnightBrolaire (Nov 25, 2018)

I know I'd be salty if I bought a game for full price 2 weeks ago and it's 20$ cheaper now. In fact, I've had that happen recently , and I was extremely salty *cough* assassin's creed odyssey *cough*
The more I watch of this game the less I want to play it.


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## Mathemagician (Nov 25, 2018)

Yeah I bought Black OPs 4 full price for it to be 15% off already and I’m like.....well at least I only buy a COD once every 6+ years.


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## Jonathan20022 (Nov 25, 2018)

Why you never buy games at launch anymore. I have an extensive backlog to keep me occupied anyways so I don't feel the need to buy all of these games day 1. I pretty much only pay full price for first party Nintendo games since they notoriously never discount them and I love Nintendo games enough to know they'll be solid.

I'll grab Spiderman and this when they fall under $20


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## wankerness (Nov 25, 2018)

I only buy day one if I'm REALLY chomping at the bit and/or trying to support something other than a monolithic franchise. I think the only things I bought in the last couple years at full price were Yakuza Kiwami II and God of War. 

One other terrible thing about these online games is they can be abandoned by the publisher and you're screwed if you liked the game. It doesn't really matter with single player games since the game is still there. Well, besides Final Fantasy XV which was still a work in progress and they just cancelled the two most interesting-sounding DLCs before they came out. 

Reports suggest this isn't nearly as bad as that Metal Gear base defense game, it's weird it's plummeting in value even faster. Maybe it's just the timing with BF?


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## QuantumCybin (Nov 27, 2018)

wankerness said:


> I only buy day one if I'm REALLY chomping at the bit and/or trying to support something other than a monolithic franchise. I think the only things I bought in the last couple years at full price were Yakuza Kiwami II and God of War.
> 
> One other terrible thing about these online games is they can be abandoned by the publisher and you're screwed if you liked the game. It doesn't really matter with single player games since the game is still there. Well, besides Final Fantasy XV which was still a work in progress and they just cancelled the two most interesting-sounding DLCs before they came out.
> 
> Reports suggest this isn't nearly as bad as that Metal Gear base defense game, it's weird it's plummeting in value even faster. Maybe it's just the timing with BF?



I think a lot of the hate bandwagon is simply just that, a bandwagon. Can't remember if I've said it here, but this game is scoring lower than No Man's Sky did at launch. People just want views on their YouTube channels and shit, so exaggerating to the point of hyperbole in their "reviews" is one easy way to garner publicity. I think a lot of the publications that gave it low scores, judging from the tone of the reviewer, sounded like they were expecting this to be Fallout 5 when Bethesda clearly stated it would _not_ be. 

They have two major patches coming, one on the 4th and one on the 11th, patching a lot of problems and addressing some quality of life issues. Also, yes, their release timing of this is pretty awful. You have Red Dead, Blops 4, BF V...three pretty hard hitters right there and then Fallout is sort of the odd-ball out. These initial negative reviews certainly aren't helping, so we'll see where the game is later next year. I hope they stick with it, it has a ton of potential.


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## TedEH (Nov 27, 2018)

QuantumCybin said:


> scoring


A lot of that is why I can't take reviews very seriously on their own. Review bombs are a real thing. The game might very well be deserving of criticism, but I think it's more a question of trying to find the right audience rather than being just a "bad" game. I much prefer videos that discuss games without the premise of being a review - stuff like Errant Signal where it comes across to me as a "here's what I was thinking while I experienced this", instead of trying to serve as "here's whether or not you should buy this".

I'm seeing kind of a pattern lately though - where audiences seem to have a pretty clear idea of what they want, but major franchises are going in very different directions than that. I can imagine different reasons for that, but there's a weird pattern happening of this disconnect between games people want and games people get.


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## QuantumCybin (Nov 27, 2018)

TedEH said:


> A lot of that is why I can't take reviews very seriously on their own. Review bombs are a real thing. The game might very well be deserving of criticism, but I think it's more a question of trying to find the right audience rather than being just a "bad" game. I much prefer videos that discuss games without the premise of being a review - stuff like Errant Signal where it comes across to me as a "here's what I was thinking while I experienced this", instead of trying to serve as "here's whether or not you should buy this".
> 
> I'm seeing kind of a pattern lately though - where audiences seem to have a pretty clear idea of what they want, but major franchises are going in very different directions than that. I can imagine different reasons for that, but there's a weird pattern happening of this disconnect between games people want and games people get.



I'd like to find more videos like that; discussion about the game rather than arbitrary "review". I've rarely paid much attention to reviews for a long time, but the ones for Fallout 76 are really blatantly unfair and you can tell that they haven't spent much time actually playing the game.


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## TedEH (Nov 27, 2018)

I didn't get through the whole thing, but LGR did a 20 minute long talk about his experience with the game as well. It's not a traditional review so much as him just talking about his experience with it. Kind of a review? And definitely not a positive look at the game. But it's not a "buy/no buy" kind of review.


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## wankerness (Nov 27, 2018)

Review bombing is an interesting phenomenon. I'm wondering if it sprung up partially in response to the moronic policy some publishers had in which pay was directly tied to metacritic scores for the game. 

Has there ever been a POSITIVE review bomb? I'm guessing no, unless it was for something like that school shooting game or something else equally unsavory and "non-PC" since this kind of thing is pure edgelord.


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## TedEH (Nov 27, 2018)

wankerness said:


> I'm wondering if it sprung up partially in response to the moronic policy some publishers had in which pay was directly tied to metacritic scores for the game.


If anything, that would just make it worse. It would be an attempt to directly punish the people who did all the work but made none of the decisions that people are upset with in the first place.

A guess a positive review bomb would be sort of the equivalent of buying reviews?


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## mikernaut (Nov 28, 2018)

I'm at level 54 currently, and yeah, from my experience this game shouldn't have been released in this state. I enjoy the co-op with my brother but we get nonstop facepalm bugs and performance issues. Although a 25 minute video this is a good in depth look at the game and what's going on behind the scenes. I experienced plenty of B.S. and upper management just trying to push games out the door before they are ready while working at Telltale Games. The mentality just seems like quantity of quality and get the $ anyway possible and as fast as they can, more often then not. Obviously we now know how things ended up for Telltale.


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## TheTrooper (Nov 28, 2018)

QuantumCybin said:


> *I paid a full 60 for the game*....but for now all I know is I'm enjoying this more than RDR 2 lol



That's why You are enjoying it more than RDR2, because You have to justify wasting 60$ on it. 

Yeah, It's a joke.

Fallout 76, I meant.

Also, the 60$ joke I did before was a joke.
But Fallout is a better joke.


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## TedEH (Nov 28, 2018)

mikernaut said:


> while working at Telltale Games


Wait, you work in games, but still support this kind of brutal teardown of games?

I mean.... from the inside, you have to be able to see that even if the end result isn't up to certain consumer standards, there's a lot going into these projects. I mean, again, I'm not defending any sort of management or marketing decisions involved but the whole "this isn't up to my standard, therefor it's entirely garbage and everyone involved is a waste of space, and they tried intentionally/knowingly to trick me" kind of criticism is a really unfair projection of otherwise legit criticisms onto people who aren't responsible for them.

I honestly think we're sort of running up against a wall where consumer expectations are getting extremely difficult to meet. I mean, these are insanely complicated bits of software, put together by huge groups of people of differing disciplines, in different places, over a long span of time in a constantly changing and very picky market, while trying to keep up with and manage consumer expectations, etc.


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## QuantumCybin (Nov 28, 2018)

TheTrooper said:


> That's why You are enjoying it more than RDR2, because You have to justify wasting 60$ on it.
> 
> Yeah, It's a joke.
> 
> ...



C'mon man, let me keep lying to myself


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## Xaios (Nov 28, 2018)

I'm still playing solo in the time that I can (which seems like it hasn't been much lately). I really haven't run into many bugs, not nearly to the degree that other people have. Obviously I know they're still there, but it hasn't hampered my experience personally. I'm also still having a great time.


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## PunkBillCarson (Nov 28, 2018)

TedEH said:


> Wait, you work in games, but still support this kind of brutal teardown of games?
> 
> I mean.... from the inside, you have to be able to see that even if the end result isn't up to certain consumer standards, there's a lot going into these projects. I mean, again, I'm not defending any sort of management or marketing decisions involved but the whole "this isn't up to my standard, therefor it's entirely garbage and everyone involved is a waste of space, and they tried intentionally/knowingly to trick me" kind of criticism is a really unfair projection of otherwise legit criticisms onto people who aren't responsible for them.
> 
> I honestly think we're sort of running up against a wall where consumer expectations are getting extremely difficult to meet. I mean, these are insanely complicated bits of software, put together by huge groups of people of differing disciplines, in different places, over a long span of time in a constantly changing and very picky market, while trying to keep up with and manage consumer expectations, etc.




Do we reaaaaally want to go down this rabbit hole again?


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## TedEH (Nov 28, 2018)

I live that rabbit hole, man. Doesn't leave me with much choice. I stand by what I said. 

I think if people really care about games as passionately as they claim, they're discussions that need to be had- otherwise we continue to stay in the loop of every major game announcement or release being a big controversy or disappointment, people being mad about business practices, people suing over bugs and unmet expectations, devs getting burned out, games coming out incomplete or full of game-breaking problems, huge day 1-patches, resentment brewing between devs and gamers, etc. These things don't just happen for no reason, or because devs are idiots or evil or trying to do something malicious.


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## MFB (Nov 28, 2018)

I think the problem is us misplacing our anger more than anything; we're not mad at the developers, we're mad at the publishers and shareholders who demand these quick turnaround to announce a product out at _*quarterly gaming convention that we don't need* _and have it ready to ship by the convenient holiday deadline that's right around the corner; and we as gamers know how that turns out, you end up with shitty unfinished games that people make fun of the animations at best, but the money's already been made, so the cries of outrage become white noise to anyone who doesn't work in PR or didn't take working on the game home with them.


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## PunkBillCarson (Nov 28, 2018)

I think the biggest problem here is not the developers themselves. It's the people making the decisions and the thing that needs to be realized here, especially in the case of Diablo Mobile or whatever it's called and Fallout 76 is that the companies who released or are releasing these games have gotten so damn lazy in comparison. Bethesda used to be an absolute juggernaut for RPG's and now they've sunk as low as coming out and saying "hey, this'll have bugs" instead of pushing the game to a more polished state.

The Internet and the ability to patch have made developers lazy as hell. On a game scale THAT big, yes there will be bugs, but the reaction that has been gleaned from the amount of bugs at launch and their overall general demeanor speaks for itself. There's no reason why anything like that should be happening when Santa Monica, Guerrilla Games, Rockstar, CDPR, and even Ubisoft (the fact that I can even bring Ubisoft into this is laughable and sad) for fuck's sakes are releasing far more polished games at launch with a LOT more going on in them.

It was bad enough that Fallout 76 essentially shits all over everything that made the series great in the first place and if you don't think they did such a terrible job, well now you can buy it for 40 dollars. That's 20 bucks less than it was a couple weeks ago when it released. The price drop alone speaks a thousand words and paints the most vivid picture about the fuck up that Bethesda has put on the fans. I believe I read that 76 has under 30 percent of the players that played Fallout 4.

You're a developer, I'm a consumer. I'm bringing up a problem. Other than telling me and everyone else to stop criticizing developers due to consumers being rightfully upset at this disgraceful jump off a bridge, present an actual solution. All that releasing games in their unfinished state does is send a message. It's that "we don't care about the consumer, give your 60 bucks, we'll do half the job now, half later."


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## TedEH (Nov 28, 2018)

MFB said:


> I think the problem is us misplacing our anger more than anything; we're not mad at the developers, we're mad at the publishers and shareholders





PunkBillCarson said:


> I think the biggest problem here is not the developers themselves. It's the people making the decisions


I agree with you guys on these points. I'd also argue that the people making those decisions probably aren't happy to be making those choices either. On some level, the market in it's own right puts pressure on people. Maybe we don't want mobile games, but those need to exist in order to keep the light on sometimes. Maybe we don't want games to be buggy, but we also don't want to wait a decade between releases. We don't want games to get stale, but we don't want games to veer from our expectations based on what's out there already.



PunkBillCarson said:


> You're a developer, I'm a consumer. I'm bringing up a problem. Other than telling me and everyone else to stop criticizing developers due to consumers being rightfully upset at this disgraceful jump off a bridge, present an actual solution. All that releasing games in their unfinished state does is send a message. It's that "we don't care about the consumer, give your 60 bucks, we'll do half the job now, half later."


That's not how I read the situation at all. I don't think at any point the devs are trying to send the message "go jump off a bridge". Nor do I think anyone's motivation is "give us your money, and we'll deliver the minimum we need to get it". There's a lot of miscommunication that goes both ways, I'll give you that.

I'm also not saying "don't criticize". Absolutely do criticize, but let's do it constructively. The video posted earlier in the thread doesn't come across as constructive to me. It's "Bethesda is morally bankrupt, and I'm going to now explain to you why everything they touch is shit". That's not a dialog, it's not constructive, it's just antagonistic.

The LGR review I mentioned before, and the Kotaku review I just read were both negative/critical, but I think they were fair. And they didn't attack anyone in the process, or antagonize the people at the bottom of the chain doing the development work, etc.


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## PunkBillCarson (Nov 28, 2018)

I mean whether or not it's read like that, that's how it feels to the consumer when something is released as unfinished as it is. Of course the consumer has every right to withhold their money, but in this case and other cases, they didn't because there was an air of goodwill there. People had this belief that "I give Bethesda my money, they take care of me. Rough patches, here and there, we'll get through them." This was an inch turned into a giant ass mile. That trust is pretty much gone for the majority of their consumers because they feel betrayed. It would have been one thing if it was a company that no one knew about. Lesson learned, don't spend there again. This was one of the greatest RPG juggernauts of all time. This was an angel whose wings are now burning, sprouting horns out their heads, and sodomizing every paying customer dry till they bled to death, when all they wanted was a nice decent blowjob from a working girl at the Bunny Ranch.


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## Ordacleaphobia (Nov 28, 2018)

wankerness said:


> Review bombing is an interesting phenomenon. I'm wondering if it sprung up partially in response to *the moronic policy some publishers had in which pay was directly tied to metacritic scores for the game.*



Wait, what? No way this was a thing. Surely nobody would think this was a good idea?
Please be bullshitting right now.



TedEH said:


> I think if people really care about games as passionately as they claim, they're discussions that need to be had- otherwise we continue to stay in the loop of every major game announcement or release being a big controversy or disappointment, people being mad about business practices, people suing over bugs and unmet expectations, devs getting burned out, games coming out incomplete or full of game-breaking problems, huge day 1-patches, resentment brewing between devs and gamers, etc. These things don't just happen for no reason, or because devs are idiots or evil or trying to do something malicious.



You know what's funny, is that it seems like people love it when the devs are idiots. Or at least used to. Game breaking bugs were amusing and memorialized. Missingno., the WoW plague, old Bethesda / Rockstar quirks, were all turned into an inside joke that people actually enjoyed. What happened lol.

On a serious front through, I think this whole thing can be squarely blamed on the fact that *games are not generally a passion project anymore*. Starting around late 7th-gen, games made a very, very visible shift into commercialization. Annual installments, buy our new game. DLC to nickel and dime the customers. Rushed releases to steal hype from their competition, because 'yolo we can patch it later'. Couch co-op dying a very violent, gristly death. Overly sterile graphics, plots, and characters. Everyone shifted from being based around someone's really cool idea, to being based around what would be a great formula to make the most money.

And since people are _suckers_, we all bought into it, and allowed these corporate mega-titans to exist. Now we get EA, Activision, and Ubisoft running the ship. So now these soulless corporations with bottomless bank accounts have the keys to the castle, they go around buying up all of the smaller studios. Now there's no one to compete. You lose.

Which is why, I mean, it may sound petty but, I'm _thrilled _to see that big three absolutely _*tanking*_ this year. Because in my opinion, until they go out of business or _*radically*_ change the way they operate, the industry will only continue to get worse. Because the problem is that we can have these discussions as often as we want, it _*literally doesn't matter*_. They couldn't give a fraction of a fuck about what we think. It's all about what puts dollars in the bank, and so long as people buy the new FIFA every year (spoiler: they will) then why would they _ever_ change? I've been listening to the 'vote with your wallet then' meme since this whole shitshow started and people don't seem to get that that doesn't really matter. Unless a literal majority of the population decides to abstain from EA products because of their deplorable business practices, me effectively giving up my hobby will make no difference. The only people that can defeat them are themselves, and thankfully they seem to be doing a decent job at it as of late.



PunkBillCarson said:


> I mean whether or not it's read like that, that's how it feels to the consumer when something is released as unfinished as it is. *Of course the consumer has every right to withhold their money, but in this case and other cases, they didn't because there was an air of goodwill there. People had this belief that "I give Bethesda my money, they take care of me. Rough patches, here and there, we'll get through them." *This was an inch turned into a giant ass mile. That trust is pretty much gone for the majority of their consumers because they feel betrayed. It would have been one thing if it was a company that no one knew about. Lesson learned, don't spend there again. This was one of the greatest RPG juggernauts of all time. This was an angel whose wings are now burning, sprouting horns out their heads, and sodomizing every paying customer dry till they bled to death, when all they wanted was a nice decent blowjob from a working girl at the Bunny Ranch.



This is also HUGE, and helps explain what's going on with Blizzard. Of all companies, Blizzard probably had _the most_ consumer goodwill. Ten years ago I would have trusted literally anything Blizzard said. They could have said "Yeah we're going to announce a new game probably like 6 months from now, it'll probably launch within the next couple of years. We don't know what it's about yet. Pre-orders are $80," and I would have been *in *on that shit. I'd have known it would have been a dope game with killer support at Blizzard quality.

Current-day Blizzard? Not a chance. I wish I never bought Diablo 3. Hearthstone turned into soulless cash grab in record time. I even stopped playing WoW, which...I mean...I've grown up with the Warcraft IP since I was literally 3 years old. Overwatch is probably the one thing they're doing right business-wise; and I wish I enjoyed team shooters enough to get into it. Right around the time I started referring to them in conversation as "Actiblizz" is right around the same time I stopped blindly expecting quality. Which was shortly after the Activision merger. Really makes you think.

Bethesda, DICE, Ubisoft, all used to have a quality reputation and a lot of faith from their customers. Once you burn that bridge, not only is it _*extremely*_ difficult to get it back, but all of the other flaws with your workflow that nobody ever really stopped to think about are now thrust into the light, which is what's happening with Bethesda right now.

--
I hate to say it because I really do love this medium, and I really do _*want*_ to enjoy video games- I try so hard (and waste so much money) trying to, but I get let down near enough every single time in recent years. Nier:Automata, Halo Reach, and Smash are _literally_ the only games I've played since _*2010*_ that I haven't felt disappointed in in some way. That is a sad, sad state of affairs.


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## TedEH (Nov 28, 2018)

Ordacleaphobia said:


> Wait, what? No way this was a thing. Surely nobody would think this was a good idea?
> Please be bullshitting right now.


Nah, that's real. I've heard stories of bonuses being refused over being 1 point away from required meta-critic scores- actually, pretty sure that one's Bethesda too. I don't know to what extent some of those stories are exaggerated, but they're real on at least some level. I've never been in that spot, but my understanding is that it used to happen a lot.



Ordacleaphobia said:


> *games are not generally a passion project anymore*


On one level I agree, and on another I don't. Realistically, at their current scale, I don't see how how a project can be the passion of a whole team anymore. It's hard enough to get there will 10 people, but 100 or more on a project and you're bound to have some of them on different pages, a handful who don't really care, a bunch who just treat it like any other job. Honestly though - I don't think a game has to be a passion project to be a good product. I've played great games made by people who don't even like games at all. And on big teams, it's less about passion and more about application, unity and consistency of vision, IMO. Maybe those are the things you would call the products of "passion" anyway.



Ordacleaphobia said:


> They couldn't give a fraction of a fuck about what we think


I imagine a lot more devs care much more than you think they do. Even the people at the top. Even the people who have to make the hard decisions that nobody likes the result of.


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## MFB (Nov 28, 2018)

I think a better way to say it would be that the business of selling people on "the next BIG thing" has overtaken the original mentality of "I have this story that I want people to literally play an active role in, and if its good - people will buy it, and then tell their friends, and so on. Then maybe we can tell another story that builds off this and who knows where it can go."


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## Xaios (Nov 28, 2018)

PunkBillCarson said:


> This was an angel whose wings are now burning, sprouting horns out their heads, and sodomizing every paying customer dry till they bled to death, when all they wanted was a nice decent blowjob from a working girl at the Bunny Ranch.


To think that they say that people arguing about this game are being _hyperbolic_.


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## Ordacleaphobia (Nov 28, 2018)

TedEH said:


> On one level I agree, and on another I don't. Realistically, at their current scale, I don't see how how a project can be the passion of a whole team anymore. It's hard enough to get there will 10 people, but 100 or more on a project and you're bound to have some of them on different pages, a handful who don't really care, a bunch who just treat it like any other job. Honestly though - I don't think a game has to be a passion project to be a good product. I've played great games made by people who don't even like games at all. And on big teams, it's less about passion and more about application, unity and consistency of vision, IMO. Maybe those are the things you would call the products of "passion" anyway.
> 
> 
> I imagine a lot more devs care much more than you think they do. Even the people at the top. Even the people who have to make the hard decisions that nobody likes the result of.



I'm totally not talking about the devs, I imagine that it irritates them more than it irritates us. 

I agree on the point of scale, but I think that's part of the problem. AAA titles are so grossly overdeveloped, they must have dropped thoroughly into diminishing returns in the time/quality ratio. When I think about it, most of my favorite games were ones made by smaller teams. Good luck convincing a bunch of suits of that, though.


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## KnightBrolaire (Nov 28, 2018)

when even iron pineapple hates on the game, you know it's janky as shit. Just look at some of these bugs/glitches.


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## PunkBillCarson (Nov 29, 2018)

Xaios said:


> To think that they say that people arguing about this game are being _hyperbolic_.




Yep, cool.


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## TedEH (Nov 29, 2018)

Ordacleaphobia said:


> Good luck convincing a bunch of suits of that, though


There's still a place for that kind of thing though. Games made by huge teams can still be good games, just as games made by one guy can be great. I don't think the scale really determines the outcome, at least not as directly as we might be implying. Look at GTA5 -> That was an enormous team and an enormous budget, and it was very well received from what I understand. Some kinds of games just can't be done with small teams. Saying no to large teams is also saying no to some large/deep games.


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## TedEH (Nov 29, 2018)

PunkBillCarson said:


> there was an air of goodwill there


I'm not sure that there was in this case though. Bethesda already has a reputation for games being kind of janky/buggy - at least at launch, so I don't think there was any expectation from anyone that this was going to be any different. Nor do I think very many people really wanted an online version of the Fallout universe in the first place.

If anything, I almost think there's some of the opposite happening - The wave of criticism is riding on the pre-existing expectation that the game is going to be janky and a bit tone-deaf to their audience. Pretty much anyone I know who has played the game went in with that expectation from the beginning. Lots of games are buggy - but this game's audience is going in _looking for_ those bugs, and primed to share their experience in order to validate their predictions that it wouldn't be a great game. I've not heard a single person go in thinking "yeah, this is gonna be my jam!" just to be disappointed. I think people actually got exactly what they expected. 

Also, makes for some great youtube clicks, amirite?


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## wankerness (Nov 29, 2018)

Yeah, Bethesda was notorious for having the buggiest games even before Skyrim launched, if not before Oblivion. I remember even before Skyrim's release tons of people talking about how it will be great but will likely be filled with gamebreaking bugs. The user-created patches to fix oblivion were GIGANTIC and their wiki was loaded with console commands to do things like resurrect NPCs that could be killed/glitch out/vanish and permanently ruin quests, etc. Hence why I played it on PC instead of console


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## Ordacleaphobia (Nov 29, 2018)

TedEH said:


> There's still a place for that kind of thing though. Games made by huge teams can still be good games, just as games made by one guy can be great. I don't think the scale really determines the outcome, at least not as directly as we might be implying. Look at GTA5 -> That was an enormous team and an enormous budget, and it was very well received from what I understand. Some kinds of games just can't be done with small teams. Saying no to large teams is also saying no to some large/deep games.



True, but I don't think it's unfair to look at trends. Rockstar in particular is one of the few huge studios that still garners a lot of support; you don't usually see people trashing them.
CDPR has a pretty huge staff too I think, and they also have (and earned) a great reputation. It's just like we said earlier, the larger the scale, the easier it is for things to go off the rails.



TedEH said:


> I'm not sure that there was in this case though. Bethesda already has a reputation for games being kind of janky/buggy - at least at launch, so I don't think there was any expectation from anyone that this was going to be any different. Nor do I think very many people really wanted an online version of the Fallout universe in the first place.
> 
> If anything, I almost think there's some of the opposite happening - The wave of criticism is riding on the pre-existing expectation that the game is going to be janky and a bit tone-deaf to their audience. Pretty much anyone I know who has played the game went in with that expectation from the beginning. Lots of games are buggy - but this game's audience is going in _looking for_ those bugs, and primed to share their experience in order to validate their predictions that it wouldn't be a great game. I've not heard a single person go in thinking "yeah, this is gonna be my jam!" just to be disappointed. I think people actually got exactly what they expected.
> 
> Also, makes for some great youtube clicks, amirite?



Also technically true, but I disagree on the optics. My perception was always that everyone knew Bethesda's games had technical issues (they _did_ start the 'modders will fix it' meme), but that it was seen more as a fun quirk than as a real issue. I haven't played Fallout 76 so I can't say for certain to what degree these issues affect gameplay, but given that it's an MMO, I can easily see there being more than usual. Combined with the scattered opinions this game had pre-launch, I'm not surprised there are some people reaching for anything to beat Bethesda with. I think what we're dealing with is a seed amount of people that went in wanting to hate it like you said, and were very loud about it. Then they gave the opportunity to anybody else that went in hopeful/excited and ended up feeling less than impressed with the game to be loud about it without seeming out of place. Pushing a snowball down a hill.

Like I said I haven't played the game or even watched the trailers because the concept just didn't appeal to me, so I don't really have a dog in this fight.
I do like Bethesda as a studio and the Fallout IP though, so this kind of hurts to watch either way. Hopefully something good comes out of it.


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## TedEH (Nov 29, 2018)

Ordacleaphobia said:


> given that it's an MMO, I can easily see there being more than usual


That's the bit that strikes me as.... not weird... I don't have the right word for it. As soon as something gets put online, involves other people, becomes competitive, etc., it makes those bugs much more impactful. Something acting a bit janky in a single player game doesn't matter too much as long as you enjoy the experience in the end. Janky in a way that makes the experience feel unfair because other people are involved? Then add on top the fact that online gameplay is (in my opinion at least) a much more difficult thing to implement, especially if you don't have much experience with it. All of these things just keep ratcheting up the amount of risk built right into the project.



Ordacleaphobia said:


> I do like Bethesda as a studio and the Fallout IP though, so this kind of hurts to watch either way.


I'm with you on that. I don't think anyone is.... enjoying.... the fallout.... of this game... (Bad joke is bad, no regrets though.)

Aaaaand to top it off, I saw some articles this morning about some kind of special edition bag that ended up being swapped out for a cheaper material or something like that. More angry customers. Not good. Very not good.


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## KnightBrolaire (Nov 29, 2018)

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/b...ut-76-refun/1100-6463528/?ftag=GSS-05-10aaa0a
"A law firm has launched an investigation into Bethesda Game Studios over Fallout 76, and specifically its refund policy. The Washington D.C.-area law firm, Migliaccio & Rathod, said in a blog post that it's launched an investigation into the developer for supposedly "refusing to issue refunds for PC purchasers of the game who found it to be unplayable because of its technical problems." The law firm's blog post calls Fallout 76 a "heavily glitched game."

"While minor bugs and glitches are expected with the release of most new games, Fallout 76 launched with a 56GB patch that has proven to be but a starting point for the game's problems," the firm said. "Gamers who have tried to receive a refund because of the game's myriad glitches have been unable to do so since they downloaded the game, leaving them to deal with an unplayable experience until patches bring it back to a playable state."

When even lawyers can smell blood in the water, it's gonna be a bad day for zenimax/bethesda.


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## TedEH (Nov 29, 2018)

KnightBrolaire said:


> Fallout 76 launched with a 56GB patch that has proven to be but a starting point for the game's problems


I doubt the level of technical understanding of whoever wrote that part. 56gb is not a patch, that's a re-download of the game. Also... probably a bug in the launcher, not the game. Also, not something that would make the game unplayable. Of all the things to highlight, that particular point makes no sense to me to bring up.


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## Ordacleaphobia (Nov 29, 2018)

KnightBrolaire said:


> When even lawyers can smell blood in the water, it's gonna be a bad day for zenimax/bethesda.



I don't know, I don't really see this suit going anywhere. It's really hard to make the case that game is 'unplayable.' 
Yeah, they should be better about refunds, but I highly doubt the game is in that dire of a state.


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## MFB (Nov 29, 2018)

And the controversy continues!


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## KnightBrolaire (Nov 29, 2018)

TedEH said:


> I doubt the level of technical understanding of whoever wrote that part. 56gb is not a patch, that's a re-download of the game. Also... probably a bug in the launcher, not the game. Also, not something that would make the game unplayable. Of all the things to highlight, that particular point makes no sense to me to bring up.


nope. it was a separate patch for bug fixes and general crap. The patch was actually bigger than the base game.
https://fallout.bethesda.net/articl...allout-76-b-e-t-a-patch-notes-november-5-2018
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Fallo...-is-bigger-than-the-actual-game.360401.0.html
https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/fallout-76-massive-day-one-patch/


Ordacleaphobia said:


> I don't know, I don't really see this suit going anywhere. It's really hard to make the case that game is 'unplayable.'
> Yeah, they should be better about refunds, but I highly doubt the game is in that dire of a state.


I've seen a lot of reviews mention how incredibly poorly optimized the game is. People with high performance gaming rigs are complaining about it running poorly. Bethesda not only locked the fps to try and improve performance, from what I've heard it made it even worse.
As far as the suit itself goes, we'll see if they even get it off the ground. Given the general rancor I've seen in reviews from players, there's going to be a number of people give evidence to the suit.


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## Ordacleaphobia (Nov 29, 2018)

KnightBrolaire said:


> I've seen a lot of reviews mention how incredibly poorly optimized the game is. People with high performance gaming rigs are complaining about it running poorly. Bethesda not only locked the fps to try and improve performance, from what I've heard it made it even worse.
> As far as the suit itself goes, we'll see if they even get it off the ground. Given the general rancor I've seen in reviews from players, there's going to be a number of people give evidence to the suit.



So was PUBG, but I don't think they got sued. 
There's going to be a lot of pissed off people making a lot of noise, but I don't see them having a case that the game is _*unplayable*_. You may have a bad time slogging through it, but at the end of the day, it's got to be a playable game. If it does get traction though, things will be interesting- a lot of precedents would get set.


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## KnightBrolaire (Nov 29, 2018)

Ordacleaphobia said:


> So was PUBG, but I don't think they got sued.
> There's going to be a lot of pissed off people making a lot of noise, but I don't see them having a case that the game is _*unplayable*_. You may have a bad time slogging through it, but at the end of the day, it's got to be a playable game. If it does get traction though, things will be interesting- a lot of precedents would get set.


I for one wouldn't mind if this fallout 76 crap keeps blowing up in bethesda's face. Even if all this does is generate even larger amounts of negative publicity, if it forces developers and publishers to actually spend more time building a polished product, and actually listen to consumers, then it's a win in my book.


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## TedEH (Nov 29, 2018)

KnightBrolaire said:


> nope. it was a separate patch for bug fixes and general crap


I'm just being nitpicky about terminology, but 56gb is not a "patch" in the sense of an update to the executable part of the game and a handful of data corrections. That's content -> textures, data, sound, etc. If it was a code patch to the game, it would not be that big. That's either a re-download or a major content update. I get why it's called a patch, but what it looks like to me is that you're receiving a whole new patched-copy of the game, rather than it actually patching your existing install.


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## PunkBillCarson (Nov 29, 2018)

TedEH said:


> I'm not sure that there was in this case though. Bethesda already has a reputation for games being kind of janky/buggy - at least at launch, so I don't think there was any expectation from anyone that this was going to be any different. Nor do I think very many people really wanted an online version of the Fallout universe in the first place.
> 
> If anything, I almost think there's some of the opposite happening - The wave of criticism is riding on the pre-existing expectation that the game is going to be janky and a bit tone-deaf to their audience. Pretty much anyone I know who has played the game went in with that expectation from the beginning. Lots of games are buggy - but this game's audience is going in _looking for_ those bugs, and primed to share their experience in order to validate their predictions that it wouldn't be a great game. I've not heard a single person go in thinking "yeah, this is gonna be my jam!" just to be disappointed. I think people actually got exactly what they expected.
> 
> Also, makes for some great youtube clicks, amirite?




Thing is though, like I said, there's always been bugs with Bethesda but never so many as to royally piss off their audience. When you have a Bethesda game, you expect bugs. The outcry here about 76 is big enough and shows that the audience didn't expect NEARLY the amount of laziness that Bethesda thrust upon them this time around. Before this game, there was an air of goodwill with Bethesda that even the 7,500 Skyrim ports didn't destroy and now? Well, they've got Starfield coming when the fuck ever, and the rumor is that TES VI won't be coming for another 3-4, maybe 5 years. So in the meantime, unless Bethesda either drastically fixes this issue or has an ace up their sleeve, they're sitting in the mud at the moment.


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## TedEH (Nov 29, 2018)

KnightBrolaire said:


> to actually spend more time building a polished product


I honestly don't think that's where that would lead. More time means more cost, on top of the fact that the longer the audience waits, the more itchy they get to be very critical. I can see this either going the way of improved processes/management/etc (which I think would be the ideal route) to try to make better decisions with the time they have, or (the less good option) a scaling down of ambition or scope. Or maybe nothing will change. Who knows.


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## Lorcan Ward (Nov 29, 2018)

Angry Joe did a very in-depth 40 min review of the game explaining all the problems and bugs. One of his team got to level 140 so they really put their time into this game. Hate him or love him this is a very informative video.


Its funny to think Fallout Tactics got a lot of hate when it came out for breaking lore, focusing on combat and looting while stripping away the RPG elements.

Bethesda are in hot water right now and they really need to take a hard look at what they just released. The next Elder Scrolls is a good 4 years away but its clear its not going to work on this engine, let alone their current view on a finished product. I never buy games on release so I'd be waiting 6-12 months before buying Starfield or Skyrim II , playing New Vegas on release and New Vegas fully patched is a very different experience.


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## TedEH (Nov 29, 2018)

PunkBillCarson said:


> amount of laziness


Bugs don't really come from laziness in that sense though. If anything, in my own experience, I've seen more bugs caused by exactly the opposite: pushing too hard, crunching, trying too hard to meet demands/deadlines. I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but if I had to guess.... The industry has a problem with burning out their workforce, not with laziness.


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## KnightBrolaire (Nov 29, 2018)

TedEH said:


> I'm just being nitpicky about terminology, but 56gb is not a "patch" in the sense of an update to the executable part of the game and a handful of data corrections. That's content -> textures, data, sound, etc. If it was a code patch to the game, it would not be that big. That's either a re-download or a major content update. I get why it's called a patch, but what it looks like to me is that you're receiving a whole new patched-copy of the game, rather than it actually patching your existing install.


and yet, to the layman, perception is reality. They see that bethesda is cranking out a "patch" on day one that's larger than the game, and it's not exactly building confidence in their purchase. Couple that with the fact that bethesda really didn't quash the major issues from the beta (and from what I've seen likely won't for quite some time, as some of them are big issues like optimization/t-posing enemies/etc in the angry joe review or the iron pineapple vid I posted). The perfect example of bethesda's laziness is in that angry joe vid at 10 minutes. There's a fucking bug from fallout 4 *that was patched by players 2 years ago*, THAT ENDED UP IN THIS GAME AS WELL


TedEH said:


> I honestly don't think that's where that would lead. More time means more cost, on top of the fact that the longer the audience waits, the more itchy they get to be very critical. I can see this either going the way of improved processes/management/etc (which I think would be the ideal route) to try to make better decisions with the time they have, or (the less good option) a scaling down of ambition or scope. Or maybe nothing will change. Who knows.


People don't usually get more critical after waiting years, unless it's something absurd like 10+ yrs in duke nukem forever's case (which there were other factors at play there, like the game being a lackluster hodge podge of shit). Look at the reception to skyrim, which came out effectively 5 years after oblivion, or fallout 4 (7 years after fallout 3). They had very positive initial reception amongst gamers/critics. This is the first fallout game to bomb this hard in a verry long time.
At least in Bethesda's case, they don't seem to be very good at QA over time. If anything, they seem to be getting worse, or at minimum stagnating in that department, especially when compared to other high budget RPGs out there.
Look at the witcher series. Witcher 3 came out 4 years after Witcher 2, and is highly regarded as the best in the series, and ime, the whole witcher series has far less bugs than any bethesda game I've played.
For the amount of money bethesda throws at making these games, you'd think they'd eventually reduce the number of bugs in their games over time. If other companies can churn just as good (if not better) of games in terms of scale/story, then bethesda has no excuse. RDR and RDR2 are also primo examples of high budget games with huge worlds with tons of story, etc but with more polish than any elder scrolls/fallout game.
I'm a huge fan of bethesda's previous games, but anyone who's not blind can see that this game should never have been released like this.


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## PunkBillCarson (Nov 29, 2018)

I'm glad you mentioned RDR2, because CDPR was quoted the other day having said something along the lines of the game will be as polished as RDR2. That's a huge claim for ANYONE, but it's great seeing that one of the best developers out there knows it can improve and aspires to do so. Bethesda though? "Fuck it, we've got bugs and now we're going to fuck them over on actual merch as well." There's only so much here than be defended. Somehow developers are making more polished games in less time with better engines. What do I know, I'm just a consumer.


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## Ordacleaphobia (Nov 29, 2018)

KnightBrolaire said:


> and yet, to the layman, perception is reality. They see that bethesda is cranking out a "patch" on day one that's larger than the game, and it's not exactly building confidence in their purchase. Couple that with the fact that bethesda really didn't quash the major issues from the beta (and from what I've seen likely won't for quite some time, as some of them are big issues like optimization/t-posing enemies/etc in the angry joe review or the iron pineapple vid I posted).



Explaining these types of things to the general consumer base will be impossible. There's nothing they can do on that front. 
I'd like to comment on the stuff not being fixed from the beta, but as an outsider looking in, I have no idea. I can only assume that there were more pressing things that needed to be fixed and that they _literally_ ran out of time.


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## MFB (Nov 29, 2018)

TedEH said:


> Bugs don't really come from laziness in that sense though. If anything, in my own experience, I've seen more bugs caused by exactly the opposite: pushing too hard, crunching, trying too hard to meet demands/deadlines. I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but if I had to guess.... The industry has a problem with burning out their workforce, not with laziness.



This. 

When we were doing our senior game project, we weren't missing bugs because we were sitting around doing nothing, it's because we were working on parts F/G/H/I and the bugs came from us getting parts A/B/C/D working at all.


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## wankerness (Nov 29, 2018)

Everyone needs to just do the Zelda OoT thing and not announce any release dates so if necessary the thing keeps getting pushed back month after month until it's good and ready.


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## cwhitey2 (Nov 29, 2018)

wankerness said:


> Everyone needs to just do the Zelda OoT thing and not announce any release dates so if necessary the thing keeps getting pushed back month after month until it's good and ready.


100% agree.

I have zero issues waiting for and not knowing when the finished product will come out... especially if outs a polished product (when of thay means i have no idea of the product is actually coming out).

No man's sky is another great example of completly failing. So pumped for it...then glad i didn't buy it...ever.


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## Ordacleaphobia (Nov 29, 2018)

wankerness said:


> Everyone needs to just do the Zelda OoT thing and not announce any release dates so if necessary the thing keeps getting pushed back month after month until it's good and ready.



Take notes, Square. Don't get me stiff for FFVII in 2015 and then make me wait until 2028.


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## Xaios (Nov 29, 2018)

cwhitey2 said:


> I have zero issues waiting for and not knowing when the finished product will come out... especially if outs a polished product (when of thay means i have no idea of the product is actually coming out).


This is a bit easier said than done with major graphically-focused projects. These things take several years to build, not only do you have to anticipate the kind of technology and processing power hat will be available years ahead of time, you also have to guess what the average consumer is going to have access to. If you recall, the Witcher 3, as nice as it is, was actually significantly nicer when it was first revealed, and it certainly wasn't the only game like that *cough*WATCHDOGS*cough* that got a graphical downgrade mid-production. The official reason given by CDPR was that they overestimated the available processing power that would be available on release. Of course, my pet theory is that, because the PS4 and XB1 were released after the Witcher 3 was announced, they needed to downgrade the graphics for those (after all, it wasn't announced as a launch title, so there would have been no reason to receive advance consoles for development) so that they would be playable. That same downgrade got pushed to the PC, whose average hardware *might* have been able to handle it, so that the console ports didn't look like shit by comparison. Bethesda projects might get flack for looking ugly and dated on release, but (aside from FO76 which has its own problems on the hardware optimization side of things) they're at least playable on a wide array of hardware because of it.


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## MFB (Nov 29, 2018)

Xaios said:


> This is a bit easier said than done with major graphically-focused projects.



Here's the first problem, games shouldn't be graphically focused. 

We dealt with subpar graphics in the 80's and 90's because it's all we had, and yet those are the same games we tend to replay the most and put aside our complaints of "ugh, look at these graphics" because we're smart enough to recognize the mechanics, the story, everything else compensated for it. We should now be smart enough to know that no AAA studio is going to churn out a bad looking game with the size of the teams they have; so get the graphics to look really good/great, whatever you want to call it (not incredible, or ground-breaking), and then focus on the actual _gameplay_ - the god damn thing that I have to do for however many hours you made this thing - so that I actually want to finish it instead of look at it and go "boy, what an empty husk this is." 

A great _game _with OK graphics will still do well, but an average game with great _graphics? _That'll land you in the discount bin real quick.


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## Xaios (Nov 29, 2018)

MFB said:


> Here's the first problem, games shouldn't be graphically focused.


In theory, I agree. The market kinda bears out though that gamers in general still put a big emphasis on graphics when deciding how to spend their money. After all, what's the point in owning a 2080Ti if you can't raytrace the SHIT out of it?


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## Ordacleaphobia (Nov 29, 2018)

Xaios said:


> In theory, I agree. The market kinda bears out though that gamers in general still put a big emphasis on graphics when deciding how to spend their money. After all, what's the point in owning a 2080Ti if you can't raytrace the SHIT out of it?



I feel like if this was objectively true there'd be a lot more people playing on PC than on consoles. 
I know personally, for just about everyone I know (myself included) the over-the-top graphics in modern AAA games are actually something we _dislike_. We value framerate over graphical fidelity. I feel like a broken record for bringing it up so often, but think about WoW. World of Warcraft ran with the same outdated, low-poly graphics from 2001 until like 2015. If that's not a case for everything else > graphics, I don't know what is.

There's always going to be the people that want to run everything at infinity settings at 1684fps but they'll do their bit regardless of what the games look like.


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## Xaios (Nov 29, 2018)

Ordacleaphobia said:


> I feel like if this was objectively true there'd be a lot more people playing on PC than on consoles.


Just because people base their buying decisions off the graphical fidelity of games doesn't mean that they're informed consumers to begin with, and budget also plays a bit part.


Ordacleaphobia said:


> I feel like a broken record for bringing it up so often, but think about WoW. World of Warcraft ran with the same outdated, low-poly graphics from 2001 until like 2015. If that's not a case for everything else > graphics, I don't know what is.


World of Warcraft came out in 2004, and has received incremental upgrades to its engine with each expension since Wrath of the Lich King in 2008. They completely redid the existing game world in 2010 for Cataclysm and upgraded all the player models in 2014 for Cataclysm. The changes were subtle over time, but if you compare current WoW graphics to how it looked when it was first released, it's actually pretty dramatic. The reason it seems subtle is because a) WoW was specifically designed to look like a cartoon so as to deemphasize realism, and b) these changes happened over more than 10 years.

As a counter-example, look at Crysis and Far Cry. Every games in those series were among the toughest to run at release. There's a reason that "but can it run Crysis" was for years one of the most enduring PC memes on the internet, and yet every single one of those games (aside from maybe Far Cry 2) sold like absolute gangbusters. Yes, they're great games in their own rite as well, but I guarantee their single biggest selling point is their graphics.

*EDIT*: It also bears mentioning that WoW ran like shit when it first came out. I had a brand new high-end computer with the best videocard money could buy at the time (ATI Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition) and I couldn't even always keep it above 60FPS. I had better performance in Half-Life 2, which came out at the same time. It was widely known in the hardware community that WoW was absolutely useless as a benchmark because of how wildly performance would vary even when there was nothing happening on screen.


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## TedEH (Nov 29, 2018)

It's easy to say that you shouldn't announce something too early, but things have to be announced at some point, and for marketing reasons, it has to be before the game is done. Given that you can't always know when a game will be done, it's hard to say when it makes sense to make certain announcements. It sounds like it would be easy, but I see that being a pretty big challenge.



MFB said:


> Here's the first problem, games shouldn't be graphically focused.


Consider that one of the big criticisms of 76 is that it doesn't look good/modern enough. I get that the argument is that this is "a sign they're using an old engine" or another roundabout way to call devs lazy, but really, people _are_ just being picky about visuals. Some people are very picky about visuals in games. I've heard of some games whose low review scores were partly the result of not having enough visual customization options.



Ordacleaphobia said:


> I feel like if this was objectively true there'd be a lot more people playing on PC than on consoles.


There are a lot of PC gamers, even if that's not the experience in your circles. Also, a lot of console marketing is based around trying to graphically out-muscle the competition, because people _do_ sometimes make their decisions on that basis. Should they? Probably not. But some people do.

Besides, the numbers don't matter that much- statistically speaking, more gaming happens on cell phones than anywhere else, but most of the "gaming community" ignores that group entirely, rather than thinking of them as the core of the market.



MFB said:


> We dealt with subpar graphics in the 80's and 90's because it's all we had


Except that this isn't really true either. Look at any of the marketing or reviews for the time, and everyone was _still_ focused how every new game was bigger, shinier, more polygons, more lights, better models, more bits! The standard has evolved alongside the tech, but it's always been about pushing whatever the boundaries of the time were, graphically and otherwise. Nobody wants to waste their time on anything but the best - the best gameplay, the best graphics, the best controls, the best systems, etc. It's why we care so much about reviews and scores and all that nonsense. It was the same then.


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## Ordacleaphobia (Nov 29, 2018)

Xaios said:


> Just because people base their buying decisions off the graphical fidelity of games doesn't mean that they're informed consumers to begin with, and budget also plays a bit part.



Okay, fair point.



> World of Warcraft came out in 2004, and has received incremental upgrades to its engine with each expension since Wrath of the Lich King in 2008. They completely redid the existing game world in 2010 for Cataclysm and upgraded all the player models in 2014 for Cataclysm. The changes were subtle over time, but if you compare current WoW graphics to how it looked when it was first released, it's actually pretty dramatic. The reason it seems subtle is because a) WoW was specifically designed to look like a cartoon so as to deemphasize realism, and b) these changes happened over more than 10 years.



The assets were around since 2001. And we aren't talking about engine framework, we're talking about graphics. Yes, each expansion looked better than the last, but like you said, it was gradual and very limited. The step up in models and textures between each expac was a far cry from what was capable at that time; they were deliberately throttled so as to not be too jarring.
The only big changes that you saw were the overhauled character models you mentioned which dropped for Warlords of Draenor in late 2014 (so a decade later- same models for in the hands of players for 10 years). Everything was upgraded again for Legion, which launched in...I want to say 2016? And once more for Battle for Azeroth, which just launched a few months ago. The increase in graphical fidelity has been exponential over the last 5 years, and is something that's actually quite controversial within the playerbase.



> As a counter-example, look at Crysis and Far Cry. Every games in those series were among the toughest to run at release. There's a reason that "but can it run Crysis" was for years one of the most enduring PC memes on the internet, and yet every single one of those games (aside from maybe Far Cry 2) sold like absolute gangbusters. Yes, they're great games in their own rite as well, but I guarantee their single biggest selling point is their graphics.



Honestly, I think a lot of the reason these games (Crysis in particular) sold so well was _*because*_ of the meme. This trend also started to play out right around the heyday of 7th gen; where lifelike graphics were starting to come together and people were wildly excited. This period made sense because of drastic, immediately visual improvements. What we're seeing today is very modest in realistic visual difference by comparison. Like all this RTX garbage; are they really going to tell me that ray-traced reflections look _*that*_ much better than rendered ones? Of course not- on some of the samples I honestly couldn't even tell the difference, and the examples where I did notice a difference, I wouldn't even say for sure which one was the better looking scene. It's just showing off.



> It also bears mentioning that WoW ran like shit when it first came out. I had a brand new high-end computer with the best videocard money could buy at the time (ATI Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition) and I couldn't even always keep it above 60FPS. I had better performance in Half-Life 2, which came out at the same time. It was widely known in the hardware community that WoW was absolutely useless as a benchmark because of how wildly performance would vary even when there was nothing happening on screen.



This is likely because WoW is an extremely CPU bound game- even today.


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## KnightBrolaire (Nov 29, 2018)

i saw an overview from gamespot and other youtube vids about how bad the 76 pc controls/ visual optimization options are (things that bethesda has always been very good about with previous games on PC). you have to root around in the game's directory to even use a different FOV for fucks sake. 
With all the talk about graphical fidelity mattering or not, I'll chime in and say, that graphical fidelity is always greatly appreciated in games that are using that fidelity as part of the visual language (ie the landscapes/little details in rdr2 or gta5 or witcher 3 wouldn't be nearly as nice to look at with half assed low res textures). 
One of my favorite games of all time is Okami, because of the deliberate choice to use cel shaded graphics that mimic sumi-e paintings. If you're going to utilize semi-realistic graphics then you damn well have an engine and textures that can futureproof the graphics for years past release. Witcher 3 and GTA 5 are good examples of that. They still look incredible to me at times even though i've played the hell put of them.

Part of why crysis did well was that it was a gorgeous game (and still is) but also had excellent gameplay. It managed to balance the smart ai of the original far cry with open ended levels and systems driven gameplay, which allowed for a lot of creativity (like prey, dishonored, dishonored 2, etc). 
the subsequent crysis games were also a ton of fun but they were dumbed down in terms of the systems at play.


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## PunkBillCarson (Nov 29, 2018)

Maybe it's just me, but my favorite example of awesome graphics and gameplay is Horizon: Zero Dawn. Good story, great graphics, smooth as fuck gameplay.


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## wankerness (Nov 30, 2018)

PunkBillCarson said:


> Maybe it's just me, but my favorite example of awesome graphics and gameplay is Horizon: Zero Dawn. Good story, great graphics, smooth as fuck gameplay.



Good choice. I don't remember encountering a single bug in two playthroughs, the gameplay is a combination of everything I liked about the Tomb Raider reboot and the likes of Far Cry, and the graphics are probably the best on the system apart from RDR2 (from what I hear, I haven't played that).


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## MFB (Nov 30, 2018)

TedEH said:


> Except that this isn't really true either. Look at any of the marketing or reviews for the time, and everyone was _still_ focused how every new game was bigger, shinier, more polygons, more lights, better models, more bits! The standard has evolved alongside the tech, but it's always been about pushing whatever the boundaries of the time were, graphically and otherwise. Nobody wants to waste their time on anything but the best - the best gameplay, the best graphics, the best controls, the best systems, etc. It's why we care so much about reviews and scores and all that nonsense. It was the same then.



You're right, and my wording on that wasn't ideal.

I should say, since the 3D market was just emerging at the late-80s/early-90s, we took whatever we could get, since it was legitimately groundbreaking, and we were always wowed by it; but we've been seeing the evolution of the polygon for 20 years now, we're at the point of diminishing returns when it comes to graphics. I like to think more people would care if you pick a style and make it consistent, a la Borderlands, then if I can notice a character's shoe laces are double-knotted because "z0mg realism!"


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## wankerness (Nov 30, 2018)

"AAA" (/Jim Sterling voice) games are victims of the same arms race that CGI effects movies are. With those, you get an army of bitching nerds if you don't look realistic enough, so they have to employ an army of technicians to do anything and budgets just keep increasing, while the increase in visual quality, however that can be quantified, was increasing in leaps and bounds through the 90s and has steadily come closer to plateauing as time has gone on. Once they hit photorealism, I'm guessing that at that point the focus will go to efficiency and we'll start to have end credits that are less than 10 minutes long again, and at some point budgets may decrease enough that there will be a return to the mid-budget effects film like there were in the 90s and earlier, and there will be more of an emphasis on creativity and writing again as you don't have to stake everything on making it as bland and "4-quadrant" as possible to ensure you make the hundreds of millions you spent back. That's my optimistic outlook, anyway.

I think games are exactly the same way and hopefully at some point can start also scaling back staff massively once the ease of pumping out extremely high-quality graphics improves. However, I think there's always going to be a hard limit on how much you can lower budgets on a AAA title as you also need an army of designers, voice actors, etc or you end up with copy-pasted NPCs everywhere. Unless you don't have a game with NPCs everywhere, of course. To say nothing of sound, etcetcetc. The days where you could make an NES game where everything was made up of 20 nearly indistinguishable pixel blocks and your soundtracks had one composer and no musicians are done! (Well, unless you go the synthwave route)


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## TedEH (Nov 30, 2018)

wankerness said:


> and your soundtracks had one composer and no musicians are done!


An interesting thing to think about-> Lots of games are still like this. One composer, lots of VST instruments. Obviously there's a much wider range or budgets/requirements/styles/project etc. now, so you're point is still relevant for sure.



wankerness said:


> scaling back staff


I think what we need is not so much to scale back staff, but to correct our management and planning styles. While I'm fully onboard calling games art, and I hate admitting it, the creation process is much less a creative one than it is a giant software development undertaking - susceptible to feature creep, time lost to iterations, poor architecture, team structure, etc. At least at the scale of games we're talking about here.


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## Ordacleaphobia (Nov 30, 2018)

wankerness said:


> "AAA" (/Jim Sterling voice) games are victims of the same arms race that CGI effects movies are. With those, you get an army of bitching nerds if you don't look realistic enough, so they have to employ an army of technicians to do anything and budgets just keep increasing, while the increase in visual quality, however that can be quantified, was increasing in leaps and bounds through the 90s and has steadily come closer to plateauing as time has gone on. Once they hit photorealism, I'm guessing that at that point the focus will go to efficiency and we'll start to have end credits that are less than 10 minutes long again, and at some point budgets may decrease enough that there will be a return to the mid-budget effects film like there were in the 90s and earlier, and there will be more of an emphasis on creativity and writing again as you don't have to stake everything on making it as bland and "4-quadrant" as possible to ensure you make the hundreds of millions you spent back. That's my optimistic outlook, anyway.
> 
> I think games are exactly the same way and hopefully at some point can start also scaling back staff massively once the ease of pumping out extremely high-quality graphics improves. However, I think there's always going to be a hard limit on how much you can lower budgets on a AAA title as you also need an army of designers, voice actors, etc or you end up with copy-pasted NPCs everywhere. Unless you don't have a game with NPCs everywhere, of course. To say nothing of sound, etcetcetc. The days where you could make an NES game where everything was made up of 20 nearly indistinguishable pixel blocks and your soundtracks had one composer and no musicians are done! (Well, unless you go the synthwave route)



This is pretty much exactly what I was trying to say, but better.


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## PunkBillCarson (Nov 30, 2018)

Ladies and gentlemen and everything in between, I give you the FIRST, the ONLY positive thing that Bethesda has done thus far that has to do with Fallout 76:



https://www.gameinformer.com/2018/1...5ISEfB_oLfnsqoVJuWLqx4XhL4rCnVkan--2F6eR7vU1Y

There's been a lot of news surrounding Bethesda's new multiplayer Fallout game lately, most of it bad. Between rumors of a class-action lawsuit and accusations of false advertising, the publisher has had its hands full dealing with fan response. A new story about the people in the game, however, is one of the more disturbing things to come out from the game.

(Warning: The following story does its best to avoid using strong language, but it is unavoidable in some instances. Content warning for homophobic slurs.)

A Fallout 76 player named AJ tweeted out a video last night tagging Bethesda support showing harassment they received by players. In the video, AJ is confronted by a group of other players lead by a user named NathanTheHicc. Nathan's beef, judging from his voice chat comments, is that he was there to kill AJ because he's gay.

The voice chat in Fallout 76 is meant to work via proximity. That is, voice chat is always on if someone is talking, and you hear it if you're close enough to them. When NathanTheHicc met with AJ and his friends earlier to ask for a Disease Cure item, one of AJ's friends commented that Nathan's outfit or character was cute. After an aggressively homophobic remark, Nathan disappeared. He reappeared later with friends, calling themselves "The Gay Eliminators," to kill AJ.

Player Vs. Player, or PVP, in the game is also a little strange compared to most games of its ilk. After a certain level, players can opt into PVP using a toggle in the options, but the screen warns that players who opt out can still be killed by other players. If you opt out of PVP, it simply means that an attacker does minimal damage to you, meaning anyone intentionally trying to kill you would have to sit there and try for a while. Presumably, this method is to discourage grouping in big area-of-effect attacks while not letting players be killed if they don't want to be.

This did not seem to deter NathanTheHicc, who encircled AJ with his group and proceeded to yell homophobic slurs and insults over the voice chat while doing infinitesimal damage. AJ figured they would eventually just get bored and leave, but they stuck around until AJ's character was killed, prompting him to change servers.

Because there is no in-game report function, AJ took to Twitter with a recording of the incident. Bethesda's Twitter account replied, sending him to a web-based report site, but the site didn't work. In order to file a report, you need to upload video evidence, which AJ had. The problem is the site didn't accept any video files.

"The tweet was forwarded to some community managers for the game and they were very kind and helpful," AJ told Eurogamer. "We were given a link to report the players but had issues with it. The site asked for a video file of the incident but the accepted file types weren't video files. So we couldn't send one. For me, the page would not even load. It seems very difficult to report players."

NathanTheHicc also uploaded video of the interaction to his YouTube channel and titled the video "Cleansing of the queers."

When Eurogamer contacted Nathan, the apparent high school senior was more or less unrepentant. "My version of the incident is more or less the same as the public has taken it, the only differences being the fact that I don't hate gay people. It was just a late night of having fun and after the first encounter (seen on my channel) we felt it would be fun to offend them somehow. You can call that evil but I think it's just playful immaturity. I do not regret the incident. I will not apologize given the opportunity. I don't plan on doing anything like this in the future but to be fair I didn't plan the initial incident, I just found them and decided to go through with it."

Bethesda initially banned him for three days while they investigated, but decided to up the punishment to a lifetime ban soon after, as well as the other players identified in the video.


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## TedEH (Dec 1, 2018)

The unrepentant bit kind of blows my mind.


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## Kaura (Dec 1, 2018)

Instead fixing their shitty ass game they instead decided to ban the few people who actually were having fun playing their game. G fucking G.


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## PunkBillCarson (Dec 1, 2018)

Kaura said:


> Instead fixing their shitty ass game they instead decided to ban the few people who actually were having fun playing their game. G fucking G.




I mean, to be fair, anyone who's pulling the shit that kid pulled doesn't deserve to be having any kind of fun even if the platform is abysmal.


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## TedEH (Dec 1, 2018)

Kaura said:


> the few people who actually were having fun playing their game


Putting aside the current online opinions of the game, everyone I've spoken to in person who said they tried it said that, while janky, they did have fun with it on some level.
Edit: Also, what PunkBill said.


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## Xaios (Dec 3, 2018)

It bears mentioning that, while I'm not personally affected by this and am still very much enjoying the game (somehow ), the shit that Bethesda has gotten for the crap they pulled with the collector's edition is well-deserved. For those that don't know, the collector's edition was supposed to come with a canvas carry bag for the power armor helmet. It instead came with a cheap-ass nylon bag. This is inexcusable for a $200 product by itself, but the fact that the advertised canvas bags were actually sent to influencers instead of the people who paid for them is wholly inexcusable.

I don't buy collector's editions for the simple reason that the included swag is simply never, *ever* worth the extra cost. It's literally always cheap junk. Even still, they generally come as advertised, and so while there is a part of me that says "so you got a cheap nylon bag instead of a cheap canvas bag, big whoop," the fact of the false advertising still isn't cool. Bethesda can protest how they couldn't produce the canvas bag because it wasn't economically viable or because materials weren't available (both of which are _terrible_ excuses), but that didn't stop them from continuing to advertise the canvas bag long after they would have known that it wouldn't actually include one. For that, they deserve whatever's coming.

Although, if I'm being honest, I'm surprised that people didn't actually raise this issue until two weeks after the game was released. Did no one who bought this open the box for 2 weeks?


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## wankerness (Dec 3, 2018)

They sent it after the fact I thought.


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## TedEH (Dec 3, 2018)

I don't normally buy those kinds of bonus/collector things, but I would have assumed they delivered on a different schedule than the game's normal release.

I keep seeing articles pop up about the bag... some are saying that it's not so bad cause the one "influencers" got is not the same bag. I dunno how to feel about it. Cause yeah, it's not the same bag. But it's still giving a better reward away than what the paying customers got.

As you guys can tell by now, I normally try to "side with" the devs by default, try to see their point of view, but the more and more this one goes downhill, I just can't make an argument to defend it anymore.


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## Xaios (Dec 3, 2018)

The power armor editions were sent out at different times depending on the release. Some retailers sent them out early so that the buyers would have them by the release date (November 14th). As such, some people even received theirs early, before the launch date (there are pics/threads on reddit). Others weren't mailed out until the actual release date. Even with the ones sent out early, no one brought it up until a full 2 weeks after the launch date.


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## TedEH (Dec 3, 2018)

Kinda surprised nobody mentioned it until then.


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## Ordacleaphobia (Dec 3, 2018)

Xaios said:


> It bears mentioning that, while I'm not personally affected by this and am still very much enjoying the game (somehow ), the shit that Bethesda has gotten for the crap they pulled with the collector's edition is well-deserved. For those that don't know, the collector's edition was supposed to come with a canvas carry bag for the power armor helmet. It instead came with a cheap-ass nylon bag. This is inexcusable for a $200 product by itself, but the fact that the advertised canvas bags were actually sent to influencers instead of the people who paid for them is wholly inexcusable.
> 
> I don't buy collector's editions for the simple reason that the included swag is simply never, *ever* worth the extra cost. It's literally always cheap junk. Even still, they generally come as advertised, and so while there is a part of me that says "so you got a cheap nylon bag instead of a cheap canvas bag, big whoop," the fact of the false advertising still isn't cool. Bethesda can protest how they couldn't produce the canvas bag because it wasn't economically viable or because materials weren't available (both of which are _terrible_ excuses), but that didn't stop them from continuing to advertise the canvas bag long after they would have known that it wouldn't actually include one. For that, they deserve whatever's coming.
> 
> Although, if I'm being honest, I'm surprised that people didn't actually raise this issue until two weeks after the game was released. Did no one who bought this open the box for 2 weeks?



Yeah that whole bit is ridiculous and I honestly hope they get fined for false advertising.


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## TedEH (Dec 4, 2018)

I kind of like this take on 76:


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## Mathemagician (Dec 4, 2018)

Really glad Bethesda is eating shit for this. I LOVE fallout and elder scrolls so it’s not an “I have a weird personal bone to pick with XYZ developer” thing. 

They released a trash-ass buggy mess with many poorly thought out mechanics (re-specs) and a bait and switch collectors edition, AND heavily discounted it days/weeks after it launched. 

This practice is becoming more and more common in the industry and it’s good to see a big player have to backpedal hard when trying to screw over consumers. 

See Blizzard and their “Diablo” announcement. And Blizzard just had upset fans over a PowerPoint to deal with, the fans hadn’t actually paid money for anything yet. 

People really need to vote with their wallets though, and every single person who pre-orders a game will come back with “well I just had faith in them to deliver a good game, I didn’t think [developer would take ABC shortcut and cut out XYZ worth of content and changed the way cosmetics are gained to make the age 10-15 crowd with zero impulse control spend more] so I paid up front the full price of the game.”

These are usually the same people that willingly spend $150+ on cheap plastic Knick knacks, IE the dev’s most loyal piggy banks.


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## TedEH (Dec 4, 2018)

Mathemagician said:


> People really need to vote with their wallets though


That's something I don't really understand though... That so much time is being poured into this. I mean, I understand if you're someone who makes a living out of criticizing games or something - then sure, put enough time in to get a really thorough view of the product - but for everyone else? There's so much entertainment out there, why continue to pour time and money and effort into something you're actively dissatisfied with? The people who continue to play for hundred of hours just to go online and say they're so angry that the game is bad. The people who insist on modding it into something else. The people who intentionally make it worse by griefing people? Why not just.... play a game you actually like instead? Go outside? Read a book? Not buy a game that you suspect doesn't appeal to you in the first place? These are all good options! But the way people speak about it makes it sound like we're being forced to play a video game.


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## Ordacleaphobia (Dec 4, 2018)

TedEH said:


> That's something I don't really understand though... That so much time is being poured into this. I mean, I understand if you're someone who makes a living out of criticizing games or something - then sure, put enough time in to get a really thorough view of the product - but for everyone else? There's so much entertainment out there, why continue to pour time and money and effort into something you're actively dissatisfied with? The people who continue to play for hundred of hours just to go online and say they're so angry that the game is bad. The people who insist on modding it into something else. The people who intentionally make it worse by griefing people? Why not just.... play a game you actually like instead? Go outside? Read a book? Not buy a game that you suspect doesn't appeal to you in the first place? These are all good options! But the way people speak about it makes it sound like we're being forced to play a video game.



I think it might have something to do with the archaic (lack of) buyer protection that exists here. If you buy a video game that turns out to really, really just suck, then that's it. Peace. Thanks for the $60, loser. There's *nothing* you can do about it. Maybe people just feel played.

Happened to me with The Division. Bought the game, played for about an hour and a half, detested it on a fundamental level. Sony told me to go fuck myself. I was *pissed*. For *months*. Enough that if anyone brought up Sony around me, I'd start ranting about it. But yeah, I dunno, it's not like it was my world or anything. Just if people were talking about it, I'd voice my opinion. I wouldn't have held a grudge at all if they'd have just let me return the damn game. 

And wasn't that what Bethesda was doing here as well? Not letting people return the game? Didn't they launch it on their own platform too, so that Steam refunds wouldn't be applicable?


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## TedEH (Dec 4, 2018)

Ordacleaphobia said:


> detested it on a fundamental level


But did you then play the game for another 100 hours? I understand being upset with the game. I don't understand saying "this game is garbage" and then spending the rest of the week playing it anyway. Seems like, in that case, despite its flaws, you're kind of getting your money/times worth anyway.


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## Ordacleaphobia (Dec 4, 2018)

TedEH said:


> But did you then play the game for another 100 hours? I understand being upset with the game. I don't understand saying "this game is garbage" and then spending the rest of the week playing it anyway. Seems like, in that case, despite its flaws, you're kind of getting your money/times worth anyway.



Nope. I had misinterpreted what you said, I thought you were referring to all of these people that are making a fuss about it; people making videos, giving Bethesda a hard time, etc. 
Yeah I don't get that either.


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## TedEH (Dec 4, 2018)

My bad, I may have worded it poorly.


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## Mathemagician (Dec 4, 2018)

TedEH said:


> That's something I don't really understand though... That so much time is being poured into this. I mean, I understand if you're someone who makes a living out of criticizing games or something - then sure, put enough time in to get a really thorough view of the product - but for everyone else? There's so much entertainment out there, why continue to pour time and money and effort into something you're actively dissatisfied with? The people who continue to play for hundred of hours just to go online and say they're so angry that the game is bad. The people who insist on modding it into something else. The people who intentionally make it worse by griefing people? Why not just.... play a game you actually like instead? Go outside? Read a book? Not buy a game that you suspect doesn't appeal to you in the first place? These are all good options! But the way people speak about it makes it sound like we're being forced to play a video game.



The defense of that behavior that I always hear basically amounts to them WANTING it to be good. So they keep pouring good hours of their life after bad down the drain, hoping it becomes good. 

There’s two types of “gamers”. (Regular folks who can stop playing a game and go walk their dog/play other games/have many hobbies do not count as gamers for this example). 

1) Play GAME for 1000 hours and go “damn man that was awesome I did like everything there is to do I hope they out out more content!” And then they go play other games/do whatever they like. Maybe they come back if there’s an update or expansion 

2) Play GAME for 1000 hours and constantly complain on forums and to people about how little content there is to do and that at “only”1k hours you’re bored and burnt out and how the previous game had so much more stuff and was better and how other similar game is doing so much better and then when an expansion or update comes out they bitch and complain about how little content there is and about how bad it is and how it was “only” another hundred hours or so and wtf are they supposed to do wth that?

These types of people have a lot of things in common, they identify with a game or series and think of it as “theirs”, they refuse to play other things when they’ve realized they don’t like the new thing, they desperately want the new thing to be more like the old thing. 

And that’s assuming the new game is still objectively good. 

When a turd comes out like ‘76? They are useful in that they take it as a personal affront and start petitions/bad press/etc that actually grab developers attention and make others stop buying it. Think of what happened with Battlefront 2 and how it had to re-jigger a lot to be palatable and missed many sales targets.


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## TedEH (Dec 4, 2018)

I like how the definition of gamer now includes the inability to stop gaming for a moment to walk your dog.


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## Mathemagician (Dec 4, 2018)

Bro, I don’t know man lol. 

When I hear people piss and moan about diablo 3 having only several hundreds hours of content, or of “getting bored” of Monster Hunter World in 3 months after 2-300 hours because G-Rank wasn’t included at launch (brand new engine, assets, animations,on and on takes time), of slamming down WOW raids on farm after 2 weeks of them being out, or being multiple prestige in COD in the first month and then BITCHING ABOUT THE GAME like the game is the problem. 

I have to imagine these no-lifers are a small but very vocal minority. “Go outside” sounds mean but like... just go outside tho?


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## wankerness (Dec 4, 2018)

HA, the dungeons and raids forum for WoW was insane, it was almost exclusively the top like 5% of the raiding community (aka, like .05% of the community et large) telling everyone they were garbage at the game if they asked for strats or complained about a mechanic, while they constantly bitched at blizzard for not having enough content. It was wonderful. I don't miss the days of reading those.


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## TedEH (Dec 4, 2018)

But then game addiction can't be real because _how dare you invalidate the way I spend my time_. /sarcasm


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## mikernaut (Dec 4, 2018)

Anybody get any mutations yet? my brother got marsupial and got the higher jumping. I somehow got the 300% health regen from a tougher Scorched but unknowingly used some rad away and cured it  doh!

I'm going to have to invested in the Starched gene perk so I can hold on to any fun mutations. 

I also had no idea you could have more then 1 at a time.


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## Kaura (Dec 5, 2018)

Lol, I heard rumours that Bethesda accidentally leaked their customers' private information like home/email addresses. If it's true then Bethesda really needs to start getting their shit together.


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## QuantumCybin (Dec 5, 2018)

https://www.reddit.com/r/fo76/comments/a3ga47/i_am_getting_your_support_tickets_on_my_bethesda/

How about a random person who bought the game is receiving every single support ticket that is being sent to Bethesda?  and yes it was confirmed


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## Mathemagician (Dec 5, 2018)

Does Bethesda itself run on gambryo? Wtf?


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## ImNotAhab (Dec 5, 2018)

Mathemagician said:


> Does Bethesda itself run on gambryo? Wtf?



Hahahahaha, a late entry for comment of the year!


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## PunkBillCarson (Dec 6, 2018)

Okay, this has just gotten comically sad. 

https://www.gameinformer.com/2018/1...CuyvoRmRrXs93kRuwkkjMI9Rc-iH0-CEuD1Yu3s2MxeEY

Yesterday, users on Reddit began to report they were receiving access to a part of the Fallout 76 website that revealed support tickets submitted by other players. Many of these tickets were from players wishing to replace the controversial nylon bags that came with the Power Armor Edition of the game with canvas bags. The leak enabled total strangers to see other players’ home addresses, contact information, and credit card numbers.

The breach was so bad, in fact, these strangers could go in and resolve the support tickets themselves.

Though Bethesda was able to heal the gap quickly, this is not a good look for a company who has been mired in controversy ever since Fallout 76's buggy launch. When players started to report that they were receiving nylon bags instead of the canvas bags shown in in the original special edition advertisement, community outrage only intensified. Bethesda’s initial response to this didn't make matters any better. 

Bethesda has since begun reissuing the canvas bags to all fans who purchased the Power Armor Edition. Following this debacle, it seems Bethesda's woes aren't over yet.



I swear to God, it's almost like Bethesda are doing everything they can to get themselves shut down. This has gotten ridiculous, even more so than it already was.


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## cwhitey2 (Dec 6, 2018)

PunkBillCarson said:


> Okay, this has just gotten comically sad.
> 
> https://www.gameinformer.com/2018/1...CuyvoRmRrXs93kRuwkkjMI9Rc-iH0-CEuD1Yu3s2MxeEY
> 
> ...



I'm sure at some point someone in upper management will be fired


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## QuantumCybin (Dec 6, 2018)

cwhitey2 said:


> I'm sure at some point someone in upper management will be fired




Lol it's looking potentially worse than that. They are potentially facing a major lawsuit because of this leak of customer information over in Europe because of the GDPR. This is a serious problem for them.


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## MFB (Dec 6, 2018)

In today's stock market news: Bethesda shares say "SELL! SELL! SELL!"


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## KnightBrolaire (Dec 6, 2018)

I for one, am really enjoying seeing bethesda get lambasted for everything they've cocked up.


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## PunkBillCarson (Dec 16, 2018)

KnightBrolaire said:


> I for one, am really enjoying seeing bethesda get lambasted for everything they've cocked up.




Then you are going to love this:




Is someone within Bethesda taking notes of literally everything people don't like in video games and decided to just put it all into one game just to see how badly people would shit on it? Hell, half the problems are the game itself, the other half are the people who handled issues outside the actual game. At what point do you look at this and say, how much fucking worse can it get? The problem with that is, is that someone from Bethesda would probably read a question like that and reply with "hmm, yes, they all seem to hate this and this and this... Looks like we found our new update for next month."


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## KnightBrolaire (Dec 16, 2018)

PunkBillCarson said:


> Then you are going to love this:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



ooh boiii, time to short zenimax/bethesda stock again 
the fact that they came out and said they weren't adding microtransactions besides cosmetics, and then ended up putting in loot boxes which can buff damage is hilarious. The general xp nerf and subsequent lootbox xp buff is exactly what some shit f2p games do..


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## PunkBillCarson (Dec 26, 2018)

Well this is just the gift that keeps on giving isn't it?

https://www.gameinformer.com/2018/1...Qy4MfDj3tdQbkRJve8kT7lBBE_97Lnsdzy6GinL39Cl-M

There's rarely a week where there's not some news about Fallout 76, Bethesda's online multiplayer take on the Fallout universe, for better or worse. It seems the holidays aren't providing any respite to Bethesda, as a story about an alleged customer service interaction is one more log to throw into the fire.

According to Variety, a YouTube video purporting that Bethesda has been banning users for using mods for Fallout 76 has been making the rounds. Banning for mods in general is kind of a strange thing, as some are used just for getting better accessibility or performance out of software. When these modders tried pleading this case to Bethesda's customer service however, the representatives apparently assigned them homework instead.

The video, created by YouTuber JuiceHead, explains that people who were banned received an email back from Bethesda support asking for an essay about why mods are bad. Allegedly, the email sent back says "If you would like to appeal this account closure, we would be willing to accept an essay on ‘Why the use of third party cheat software is detrimental to an online game community’ for our management team to review."

While it's always possible the email could be fake, Juicehead says that he spoke to other banned players who backed up the wording and sentiment of the email asking for essays in exchange for being unbanned. It's certainly a unique take on discouraging online cheating.

Recently, Bethesda announced that they'll be gifting Fallout classic to owners of Fallout 76 as recompense for the game's rocky launch. You can also find our review for the game right here.


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## TedEH (Dec 27, 2018)

That's wacky.... but I can't fault it.


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## PunkBillCarson (Dec 27, 2018)

TedEH said:


> That's wacky.... but I can't fault it.




At this point, Bethesda has no right to demand anything of their customers. The players should honestly get to play the game however they wish especially since them doing it their way is the only way they're getting any sort of enjoyment out of it. That anyone's actually playing this fucking travesty of a game is something Bethesda should be grateful for.


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## Ralyks (Dec 27, 2018)

I seriously don't get how they managed to turn Elder Scroll Online into (from what I've heard) a respectable online game after a rough start, then turn around and COMPLETELY fuck it up with Fallout. Have they learned nothing?!

... Right, right, it's Bethesda. Just hang tight until Skyrim is ported to our phones, and then the next gen consoles.


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## Xaios (Dec 27, 2018)

You might want to take a lot of what Juicehead says with a grain of salt these days. Not that Bethesda doesn't to have their hands rapped for the things they have screwed up, but Juicehead has proven to be inflating his claims to a pretty significant degree. For example, some people have looked into how many users were supposedly banned here, and only 4 people on reddit could actually be found making that claim, some with very dubious history (account made the same day, posts consisting of nothing but slagging Fallout 76, that kind of thing). Juicehead has essentially become the unofficial channel for the "Bethesda are a bunch of fucktards who would rape your mother if given the chance" crowd, and his reporting is no longer credible. Again, Bethesda has fucked up plenty (for example, their initial response to Bag-gate was utterly indefensible), but a lot of the problems that people claim to have been having with this game have been a) not nearly as widespread as people would have you believe, or even in some cases, b) outright fabrications. For example, after one of the patches dropped, rumours started spreading around that the stealth mechanics had been nerfed. It took about a day for people to fully realize that this was an outright lie, and that they hadn't been affected at all. Certain people just started talking shit, and the masses took it from there without checking to see whether or not it was true. That is the kind of shit Bethesda is dealing with: people who are so invested in hating them and the game that they're willing to go on a misinformation crusade in order to "hurt" them.

EDIT: For the record, even Juicehead himself has acknowledged that anyone banned for modding was likely using Cheat Engine. In those cases, where the modding affects other users' experience (which I'll grant that the game should be protected against, so that's a strike against Bethesda), I have zero sympathy for them.


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## Ordacleaphobia (Dec 28, 2018)

I kind of don't get why people care anymore.
I mean, I'm still around because I love a good dumpster fire, but for the people that actually got burned by the game, I hate to be that guy, but honestly....get over it. 
You got got. I'm sorry. The public is sorry. We are all in your corner, and helped make sure Bethesda knew they fucked up. And they do. But people need to let go sometimes. It's $60, it's not the end of the world. I'd carry a chip on my shoulder too, but it's starting to get obvious to me that everyone's now trying to "pile on" to Bethesda, and any move they make in any context people are going to look for any excuse to slam them for now.

It's a prison of their own design, so I'm not necessarily defending them here, it's just more of like a...."don't these people have anything better to do with their time" kind of thing.


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## PunkBillCarson (Dec 28, 2018)

For me myself, I'm just here because I like seeing what all's being thrown into the fire. Truth is though, the decisions they're making are questionable ones. It's almost like they're oblivious to their own failures which is why people keep piling on. It would be one thing if they actually tried to make it right at all, but now they're treating their players like middle schoolers, as if leaking their info wasn't bad enough. It just makes me wonder, if all this has happened in just a couple of months with this game, what's going to happen on down the road? At this point, Fallout 76 is the Jerry Springer of video games. Sure, it's a shitshow, but there's also a part of you that just cannot wait to see what they pull out for the next episode.


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## Kaura (Dec 28, 2018)

I can't remember where I heard it but someone said that FO76 has brought them more entertainment without even playing it than playing some games do and I can agree. I just enjoy the harm-joy of the whole situation.


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## Grand Moff Tim (Dec 28, 2018)

I'm still playing it every day, and I'm still enjoying it. Maybe I'm playing it wrong?


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## Xaios (Dec 28, 2018)

Grand Moff Tim said:


> I'm still playing it every day, and I'm still enjoying it. Maybe I'm playing it wrong?


I've had previous little time to play lately, but I always have a great time when I do.

I guess we're both doing it wrong.


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## PunkBillCarson (Dec 29, 2018)

So I guess these stories about Bethesda's just fake news...

Obviously, this is all just a massive conspiracy by CDProjektRed, FromSoft, and any other game company not suckin' turds right out a tailpipe.


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## TedEH (Dec 29, 2018)

^ Either that, or people, games and situations are dynamic and opinions are bound to differ.  I mean... we have a whole thread about how people have differing opinions.

Clearly, not having a hate-boner for all the video games is internetting wrong.


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## PunkBillCarson (Dec 29, 2018)

^Clearly putting words into people's mouths is the way to debate. 

If you're not having problems or the misfortune everyone else is having, good on you, but to simply act like nothing is wrong with the game or the business practices of the ones who developed it is asinine. That's like saying "well I ain't never been beat up by police, so it must not be a problem."


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## Xaios (Dec 29, 2018)

PunkBillCarson said:


> to simply act like nothing is wrong with the game or the business practices of the ones who developed it is asinine. That's like saying "well I ain't never been beat up by police, so it must not be a problem."


Yes, because that's clearly what's going on, as evidenced by the following:


Xaios said:


> for example, their initial response to Bag-gate was utterly indefensible





Xaios said:


> which I'll grant that the game should be protected against, so that's a strike against Bethesda


_________
Hmm, it's almost like when you say:


PunkBillCarson said:


> ^Clearly putting words into people's mouths is the way to debate.


...you're not actually being sarcastic.


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## Grand Moff Tim (Dec 29, 2018)

Yeah, I've never said the game doesn't have problems, or that Bethesda hasn't handled things poorly. I just said I'm still enjoying it, despite the internet's insistence that I shouldn't because it's objectively bad.

It's definitely a flawed experience, but so far for me the positives outweigh the negatives. I won't make any excuses for the flaws it has or for the way Bethesda has dealt with (or not dealt with) them, but sometimes I do feel like I must be playing a completely different game, given all the vitriol I see directed towards it.


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## PunkBillCarson (Dec 29, 2018)

You can enjoy whatever you like. If you find some sort of joy playing the game, good on you. Myself, I always expect Bethesda games to have bugs. It's a Bethesda thing at this point. Just for everything that's happened in AND out of the game, it's hard for me to feel Bethesda can be defended from anything and for me personally, when an entity like Bethesda is just this clueless about their product and goes a step further in treating their fanbase like toddlers, that's just too far for me. I'm not going to bag on someone for enjoying the game, it just seems like with Bethesda and Blizzard lately, there's been a certain level of defense here who lets things get way too out of hand before they start decrying the actions of these developers, and that just doesn't sit right with me. In my mind, these sorts of transgressions should be rubbed in THAT MUCH FURTHER to ensure that bullshit like this doesn't happen again.


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## Ordacleaphobia (Jan 2, 2019)

PunkBillCarson said:


> It just seems like with Bethesda and Blizzard lately, there's been a certain level of defense here who lets things get way too out of hand before they start decrying the actions of these developers, and that just doesn't sit right with me. In my mind, these sorts of transgressions should be rubbed in THAT MUCH FURTHER to ensure that bullshit like this doesn't happen again.



Can't speak for others but for me personally, I don't like letting other incidents bleed into other incidents. If you do X, I only want to chastise you for X, not X and Y because Y really pissed me off a couple weeks ago. Obviously context varies and sometimes shit happens, but usually that's my motto. So when someone does something dumb, I want to be very firm with them about that particular incident and handle it then. Especially in larger scale cases like this because I don't want to make specific people feel attacked for something that they likely had no control over.

The point where our viewpoints converge is when people _consistently screw up_ and the time has come to just cut the cord. Which is what I've done; I actually landed there before 76 came out. After seeing Fallout 4 I decided I was done giving Bethesda my money. I figure they care a lot more about the $60 a year they aren't getting from me than they do about my honest to god opinion. Obviously 'vote with your wallet' has issues, but it's better for the already-dangerously-high levels of general rage I just carry around with me on a daily basis.

Like the latest episode in the Blizzard trainwreck. Now they're making you tie your account with your Twitch account if you want to properly use the site. I was absolutely livid at first but then I remembered that this was exactly the type of Facebook-esque bullshit that caused me to drop their entire platform after over a decade of support. It literally doesn't affect me and stressing out about it is only going to turn me into an even more tightly wound individual than I already am, and the world isn't ready for that 

--
Just as a post-edit subnote as well; I know the "move on" approach outlined here may not be as efficient for prompting change from a company; but personally, after a company goes as far as these guys do, I wouldn't trust them afterwards anyway. I know they still have the same personnel making the same decisions, this type of thing was clearly what they wanted, and there's just going to be more garbage down the line. Feels like an "I'm sorry for getting caught" more than a genuine "I'm sorry" kind of thing, you know?


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## Xaios (Jan 2, 2019)

Ordacleaphobia said:


> After seeing Fallout 4 I decided I was done giving Bethesda my money.


This really illustrates that what a person is willing to tolerate is also dictated largely by personal preference. For myself, I actually hated Fallout 3, so even during the previews for Fallout 4, I was only cautiously optimistic because I liked what they were showing in the previews, but I also liked the previews for Fallout 3. When I actually played Fallout 3, I was very disappointed, especially as someone who had been looking forward to it for a long time, given that I played Fallout 1 and 2 back in 2000. I also wasn't really that big on Skyrim either in the end, not nearly as much as other people were. But lo and behold, I ended up loving Fallout 4. As such, I also love FO76. Ultimately this means that I likely have a higher threshold for Bethesda "getting crap past the radar" that I'm willing to tolerate. As I've stated _*repeatedly*_ at this point, no, I don't support every decision they've made from a business standpoint, and the game is ultimately flawed technically. However, the kernel of it is something I really enjoy, and that enjoyment ultimately trumps whatever issues I do have with it.


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## KnightBrolaire (Jan 3, 2019)

the memes about fallout 76's fallout are gold:


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## Ordacleaphobia (Jan 4, 2019)

Hah, those are fantastic. 
I miss Obsidian's Fallout. New Vegas was dope.


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## PunkBillCarson (Jan 4, 2019)

I normally don't indulge myself in looking at memes (mostly because people use stupid language like "dank" in association with them) but those are pretty damn nice.


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## Grand Moff Tim (Jan 6, 2019)

Apologies in advance to people who saw the thread bump and expected more hilarious anti-76 memes. 

People complain a lot about how annoying the scotchbeasts are, especially at low levels. It's a valid complaint, of course. They're irritating as hell, with that seemingly infinite ranged attack they constantly spam, or their apparent unwillingness to land so melee users can have a go. 

However, I've found one consequence of that is that once I finally became powerful enough to take them down without breaking all my gear and/or using all my chems, I actually started actively seeking them out so I could destroy them. I used to NOPE the hell out of there any time I saw one on the horizon, or heard the FLAP FLAP FLAP of one approaching. Now, I'm like "WHERE IS THE BASTARD, BRING IT ON." Their behavior definitely caused me to develop a grudge, and I'm out for blood.

On that note, speccing into all levels of the various shotgunner perks + skeetshooter + enforcer is OP af. Want to take out scorchbeasts, deathclaws, behemoths, or mirelurk queens? Cripple them. Just... cripple the _sh!t_ out of them.


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## Grand Moff Tim (Jan 10, 2019)

Ugh. In the interest of fairness, I'll step back from the cheerleading and detail the "gaming" experience I had yesterday:

1) The first time I start it up, I get the "your camp cannot be placed" message. No biggie, I'll just exit to the menu and jump back in. Server hopping to the rescue!

2) Second start-up: After the loading screen, I hear the sound of my camp loading in, but then immediately disconnect from the server and get booted back to the menu.

3) Third start-up: "Your camp cannot be placed." Server hop.

4) Fourth start-up: "Your camp cannot be placed." Server hop.

5) Fifth start-up: Camp placed! No disconnect! Let's do this!

I make my way to the location of the next quest objective, the Wendigo Cave. Upon entering, I discover that a high-level player has been through recently, because the enemies are still scaled to someone much higher level than me. I was lvl 18, and coming across lvl 50 Mirelurk Kings and lvl 60 feral ghouls. I'm a trooper, so I tried to fight my way to the objective anyway. Fruitlessly, it turns out: The Mirelurk King wiped the floor with me. I choose to spawn back outside the cave, but now all the loot I dropped is back inside the cave with the high-level baddies. Rather than risk it again, I opted to sacrifice the precious black titanium scrap I dropped, and logged out for another server hop. That would hopefully reset the levels of the enemies in the cave. Log out, server hop.

6) 6th start-up: "Your camp cannot be placed." Server hop.

7) 7th start-up: Camp placed successfully, I find myself outside the Wendigo Cave. However, I notice that there's no quest objective marker on my compass. I check my journal, and _the entire quest had been reset to the first objective_. Two hours of quest progress from the day before, gone. This not being the first time a quest objective has bugged out on me, I decide to try a refresh / server hop. That usually sorts things out.

8) 8th start-up: "Your camp cannot be placed." Server hop.

9) 9th start-up: Camp placed, back outside the Wendigo Cave, still no new quest objective. Looks like I get to do the previous objectives over again. The closest to a silver lining about that is that, because I had already done the goddamned objectives, I already have the fast travel locations closest to them marked and available for use. That sped things up a bit, but didn't mitigate my frustration all that much.

I make my way to the mine for the first objective, and again find the location has recently been visited by a higher level player, because I was was swamped by lvl 40+ enemies, who swarmed and promptly killed my lvl 18 ass. Not wanting to abandon my loot this time, I said screw server hopping and decided to just run past everything, get my stuff, and hope to be able to beat the final boss of the mine despite the level difference. Turns out dying and re-entering the mine reset at least part of it, though, because after fighting a few lvl 40 idiots, I got to the final boss (a named Glowing One), and he was only lvl 22. Nice.

The next few checkpoints pass without major incident, including finally making my way through the Wendigo Cave and killing a lvl 32 Wendigo (the mirelurks and ghouls had reset to be more level-appropriate, thankfully). I make it to the final portion of the quest, fight my way through a (once again over-leveled) ski lodge, and then...

...disconnected from server.

10) 10th start-up: "Your camp cannot be placed." Server hop.

11) 11th start-up: "Your camp cannot be placed." Server hop.

12) 12th start-up: Camp placed. Loot stored. gear repaired. I head back through the (now appropriately leveled) ski lodge, get to the final objective marker, pick up the piece of tech I've been working towards finding for two days now, and...

...the quest objective doesn't update. It still says "Retrieve the blablabla," and still has a floating quest marker on the shelf that previously contained the piece of tech that is now in my f*cking inventory.

Logged out, didn't server hop, closed the bethesda launcher, went and watched netflix for the rest of the evening.


It was probably the most infuriating gaming experience I've ever had. I've cried "hyperbole!" at all the people shouting "objectively bad!" or "literally unplayable!" about this game, but last night was probably as close as a game can come to being literally unplayable, while still remaining playable. Barely.

Later that night there was supposed to be a new patch released, and it'd better be a f*cking good one, because I do not want a repeat performance of last night. I had experienced disconnects, camp placement issues, and quest progress bugs before, but never so many times in one gaming session, and never a quest objective reset quite as severe as that one. That sh!t _cannot _keep happening.

It sucks even more because, when the game decides it does want to run properly, it's still a genuinely fun experience. I love exploring. I love crafting, and finding new loot. I even like having to fight or sneak my way through an over-leveled area, because it keeps me on the edge of my seat. If Bethesda can just get their shit together and learn how to properly run their servers and fix the coding for some _super _obvious sh!t, they'd have a real gem on their hands.

EDIT: To clarify, "your camp cannot be placed" is not a bug or a glitch. When you build a camp structure in game, it isn't permanent. When you log out, it disappears. That means that while you're gone, someone might end up building in the same place. When you log in again, if the spot your camp was in is occupied in the server in which you're placed, you get the message about being unable to place your camp. You're then allowed to place it somewhere else for free (relocating usually costs caps), or you can log out and try again in the hopes that you'll be placed in a server where your camp spot is available.

What'd be nice, of course, is if the game could search for a server where your camp spot is available BEFORE logging you in, rather than loading you in to a random one and telling you it's unavailable. The current system is still better than the previous "lol ur camp is scrapped" solution, though.


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## cwhitey2 (Jan 10, 2019)

Grand Moff Tim said:


> ...


Thank you for sharing all of that.

I will not be even thinking of buying that game now.


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## Grand Moff Tim (Jan 10, 2019)

cwhitey2 said:


> Thank you for sharing all of that.
> 
> I will not be even thinking of buying that game now.




I'd say if you had some interest in it previously, then rather than just declare you'll never buy it, wait a while instead. I still hope Bethesda will fix all the bullshit and we'll all have an awesome game to play. Until you've heard that that major, game-breaking problems are taken care of, though, nope. I can't recommend buying this game in its current state.


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## cwhitey2 (Jan 10, 2019)

Grand Moff Tim said:


> I'd say if you had some interest in it previously, then rather than just declare you'll never buy it, wait a while instead. I still hope Bethesda will fix all the bullshit and we'll all have an awesome game to play. Until you've heard that that major, game-breaking problems are taken care of, though, nope. I can't recommend buying this game in its current state.


To be fair i was going to Elder scrolls online at some point.... guess what i still don't have even after they didn't charge you to play...

Im sick of games not being finished and company's selling them. Like seriously...fuck those company's. 

Ps. I LOVE Bethesda games.


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## PunkBillCarson (Jan 10, 2019)

cwhitey2 said:


> To be fair i was going to Elder scrolls online at some point.... guess what i still don't have even after they didn't charge you to play...
> 
> Im sick of games not being finished and company's selling them. Like seriously...fuck those company's.
> 
> Ps. I LOVE Bethesda games.




But those poor people's feelings, you heartless bastard!!! Pay the 60, make them feel great about accomplishing a half assed thing for a full assed pay check.


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## TedEH (Jan 11, 2019)

PunkBillCarson said:


> But those poor people's feelings, you heartless bastard!!! Pay the 60, make them feel great about accomplishing a half assed thing for a full assed pay check.


On some level I feel like this comment was written just for me.


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## Lorcan Ward (Jan 11, 2019)

That sounds like such a headache. 



cwhitey2 said:


> Im sick of games not being finished and company's selling them. Like seriously...fuck those company's..


 
Apart from Fallout 1 they've always been massively bug ridden unfinished games but FO76 just took it too far. This time fans weren't as accepting.


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## PunkBillCarson (Jan 11, 2019)

TedEH said:


> On some level I feel like this comment was written just for me.


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## Xaios (Jan 13, 2019)

Lorcan Ward said:


> Apart from Fallout 1 they've always been massively bug ridden unfinished games but FO76 just took it too far. This time fans weren't as accepting.


This is the truth. Fallout 2 is my favorite Fallout game personally, and it has several game-breaking bugs that were never fixed. I also love New Vegas, but the frequency of corrupted-save and stuck-terrain bugs in that game is absolutely infuriating. I know I've probably been one of the lucky ones with regards to Fallout 76 and the bug experience, but the honest truth is I've encountered fewer bugs myself in Fallout 76 than I have in Fallout New Vegas. People have turned a blind eye to the absolutely terrible technical development of that game for 8 years now simply because it's an Obsidian title, or rather because it's not a Bethesda title. Obsidian may have great writers (or, at least we'll see if they still do given that a bunch of their best talent, including Avellone, walked out the door) and game designers, but their technical side is every bit as bad as Bethesda's.


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## PunkBillCarson (Jan 13, 2019)

Xaios said:


> This is the truth. Fallout 2 is my favorite Fallout game personally, and it has several game-breaking bugs that were never fixed. I also love New Vegas, but the frequency of corrupted-save and stuck-terrain bugs in that game is absolutely infuriating. I know I've probably been one of the lucky ones with regards to Fallout 76 and the bug experience, but the honest truth is I've encountered fewer bugs myself in Fallout 76 than I have in Fallout New Vegas. People have turned a blind eye to the absolutely terrible technical development of that game for 8 years now simply because it's an Obsidian title, or rather because it's not a Bethesda title. Obsidian may have great writers (or, at least we'll see if they still do given that a bunch of their best talent, including Avellone, walked out the door) and game designers, but their technical side is every bit as bad as Bethesda's.




I'll tell you an interesting story:

Back in 2010, I bought Fallout: New Vegas. I wasn't aware of developers/publishers/rights or anything like that, I just knew it was another Fallout game. 3 was the first game I experienced and I'd loved it and played the hell out of it. Bought Fallout: New Vegas, got to level 18 inside a day, and then all of a sudden, my save corrupts. I'm pissed the fuck off. All that time, which honestly wasn't much but I'd done quite a bit in that amount of time, down the drain. I took it back, got Red Dead Redemption and didn't play Fallout again until 4 came out (that game is good, fuck all who disagree.) Fast forward to 2018. Red Dead Redemption 2 and Fallout 76 come out near the same period of time. Guess which one I go with, especially after fan outcry and all the PR problems it's had? I didn't even have to play 76 to know that I was going Rockstar YET AGAIN this time around.


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## Xaios (Jan 13, 2019)

Hey, truthfully, if I had to choose (not that I wouldn't have just bought both anyway), I would have probably gotten RDR2 as well. Then again I don't own any current gen consoles, so it kinda removes that dilemma. However, in 2010 I did buy a 360 just to play RDR. To this day, I don't regret it, one of my favorite games ever. Oddly enough though, I know a few people who bought RDR2 on release day because they also loved the original, and none of them actually liked it. One of them actually said it was one of the biggest letdowns he'd ever had, gaming-wise.


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## PunkBillCarson (Jan 13, 2019)

Those people are peons, peasants, and well... just terrible people.


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## Grand Moff Tim (Jan 13, 2019)

Xaios said:


> I also love New Vegas, but the frequency of corrupted-save and stuck-terrain bugs in that game is absolutely infuriating. I know I've probably been one of the lucky ones with regards to Fallout 76 and the bug experience, but the honest truth is I've encountered fewer bugs myself in Fallout 76 than I have in Fallout New Vegas. People have turned a blind eye to the absolutely terrible technical development of that game for 8 years now simply because it's an Obsidian title, or rather because it's not a Bethesda title. Obsidian may have great writers (or, at least we'll see if they still do given that a bunch of their best talent, including Avellone, walked out the door) and game designers, but their technical side is every bit as bad as Bethesda's.



Yeah, it's amusing how people now seem to forget that New Vegas was a dumpster fire at launch. It was shat on all over the place when it was released, and only slowly developed its reputation as "one of the good ones" _years _later. It was actually a bit weird to see the tone with which people talked about that game shift from "lol it's just glitchy $50 FO3 DLC" to "It's great because Bethesda didn't make it."

Don't get me wrong, I loved FONV from the get-go, but clearly bugs don't dissuade me from enjoying Bethesda games, haha. It's just a bit baffling how incapable some people seem to be of doing even the most rudimentary self-reflection.

Anyway, the game seems mildly more stable after the most recent patch. Only _mildly, _mind, since I did still have one CTD and one server disconnect in one evening last night. They're also sloooooowly fixing some of the major stuff people have been complaining about, while also continuing to ignore some of the big stuff (It's nice that they made lockpicks weigh something more sensible finally, or that grenades don't auto-unequip when you sign out, but how about _marking plans as read as unread_, for fuck sake).


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## TedEH (Jan 13, 2019)

Now that I think of it, I think I only really tried to play New Vegas once. I ended up not bothering to continue cause the game struck me as janky. Not in a buggy kind of way, but just the way the UI looked and felt, etc. I dunno how to explain it - it struck me as kind of thin or thrown together. I maybe would have a different opinion if I gave the game a legit chance though.


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## wankerness (Jan 15, 2019)

Grand Moff Tim said:


> Yeah, it's amusing how people now seem to forget that New Vegas was a dumpster fire at launch. *It was shat on all over the place when it was released, and only slowly developed its reputation as "one of the good ones" years later. It was actually a bit weird to see the tone with which people talked about that game shift from "lol it's just glitchy $50 FO3 DLC" to "It's great because Bethesda didn't make it."*
> 
> Don't get me wrong, I loved FONV from the get-go, but clearly bugs don't dissuade me from enjoying Bethesda games, haha. It's just a bit baffling how incapable some people seem to be of doing even the most rudimentary self-reflection.
> 
> Anyway, the game seems mildly more stable after the most recent patch. Only _mildly, _mind, since I did still have one CTD and one server disconnect in one evening last night. They're also sloooooowly fixing some of the major stuff people have been complaining about, while also continuing to ignore some of the big stuff (It's nice that they made lockpicks weigh something more sensible finally, or that grenades don't auto-unequip when you sign out, but how about _marking plans as read as unread_, for fuck sake).



I don't know how long it took, I recall seeing a growing and somewhat widespread opinion that it had a vastly better story than FO3 as early as when its DLC started coming out and was all good, but yeah. At this point it is looked back on like some unimpeachable classic while all the Bethesda ones seem to be largely scorned in the mainstream, and this whole 76 incident has enforced it that much more.


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## KnightBrolaire (Jan 15, 2019)

Grand Moff Tim said:


> Yeah, it's amusing how people now seem to forget that New Vegas was a dumpster fire at launch. It was shat on all over the place when it was released, and only slowly developed its reputation as "one of the good ones" _years _later. It was actually a bit weird to see the tone with which people talked about that game shift from "lol it's just glitchy $50 FO3 DLC" to "It's great because Bethesda didn't make it."
> 
> Don't get me wrong, I loved FONV from the get-go, but clearly bugs don't dissuade me from enjoying Bethesda games, haha. It's just a bit baffling how incapable some people seem to be of doing even the most rudimentary self-reflection.
> 
> Anyway, the game seems mildly more stable after the most recent patch. Only _mildly, _mind, since I did still have one CTD and one server disconnect in one evening last night. They're also sloooooowly fixing some of the major stuff people have been complaining about, while also continuing to ignore some of the big stuff (It's nice that they made lockpicks weigh something more sensible finally, or that grenades don't auto-unequip when you sign out, but how about _marking plans as read as unread_, for fuck sake).


I'll admit, I was one of those people who poo pooed the idea of FNV and didn't like how quickly it came out after F3. I thought it was going to be a half assed reskin of 3. Obviously it wasn't. 
I hated the bugginess, muddy textures and frame drops in FO3 (i originally played it on x360) and FNV did nothing to rectify those issues. What it did manage to do was have a far more robust modification and crafting system, and far more morally ambiguous side quests (unlike 3 which had a lot of binary good or bad choices), along with an actually compelling main story (something that 3 and 4 failed to deliver imo). The DLC was actually really great (except for dead hearts), while F3 really didn't have any particularly amazing DLC ( i did like operation anchorage, but the Pitt was meh).


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## Ordacleaphobia (Jan 15, 2019)

KnightBrolaire said:


> I'll admit, I was one of those people who poo pooed the idea of FNV and didn't like how quickly it came out after F3. I thought it was going to be a half assed reskin of 3. Obviously it wasn't.
> I hated the bugginess, muddy textures and frame drops in FO3 (i originally played it on x360) and FNV did nothing to rectify those issues. What it did manage to do was have a far more robust modification and crafting system, and far more morally ambiguous side quests (unlike 3 which had a lot of binary good or bad choices), along with an actually compelling main story (something that 3 and 4 failed to deliver imo). The DLC was actually really great (except for dead hearts), while F3 really didn't have any particularly amazing DLC ( i did like operation anchorage, but the Pitt was meh).



Yeah this is still a heated ongoing debate between me and my brother; we both put about 200 hours into each game and I walked away with the impression that NV was way better while he walked away thinking FO3 was by far the better game.

I liked NV because I felt more immersed in the world, it felt more like an RPG to me. FO3 felt more like "here's the keys kid, knock yourself out." I also liked the aesthetic of NV a lot more, so that probably helped color my reception quite a bit.

Both were absolutely abysmal piles of garbage at launch, though. I got both pretty much right when they came out and had to maneuver around freezes, save corruption, infinite loading screens, and other issues. One of them actually caused my Xbox to RRoD, although I can't remember which one it was. NV was _*way*_ worse in this regard (so it was probably this one), but for whatever reason, I can't recall ever getting too upset about it. At this point I had learned from FO3 and kept a backup of my save data, so it may have been that.

It's probably because of the brush gun.
It was definitely because of the brush gun.


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## KnightBrolaire (Jan 15, 2019)

Ordacleaphobia said:


> Yeah this is still a heated ongoing debate between me and my brother; we both put about 200 hours into each game and I walked away with the impression that NV was way better while he walked away thinking FO3 was by far the better game.
> 
> I liked NV because I felt more immersed in the world, it felt more like an RPG to me. FO3 felt more like "here's the keys kid, knock yourself out." I also liked the aesthetic of NV a lot more, so that probably helped color my reception quite a bit.
> 
> ...


the guns in FNV were so damn good. I loved This Machine and Ratslayer. Those were 2 of my favorite guns (largely because I end up speccing a stealth sniper almost every time I play it )


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## Lorcan Ward (Jan 15, 2019)

I just finished a full playthrough of NV today and did a full one of 3 a few months ago. Both games have their strengths and their weaknesses. NV's biggest one is that they had 18 months to work on it, parts of the game are so empty like freeside and Legion content. You can see they had ideas for a massive world but they were restricted by time. Still an awesome game with so many paths and endings. 

I had a hard time accepting F3 because I was bitter about Van Burnen. It's easily one of the best open world games where you can just start walking in any direction and play for hours. The story was a rehash of 1, 2, tactics and parts of Van Buren but I can really see now how it appealed so much to newcomers of the fallout franchise. 

Like the original 2 games they now feel quite dated on consoles. I'm not sure where the franchise will head now but why desperately need a new engine and a team working on bugs and stability well before the game is released.


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## Xaios (Jan 16, 2019)

Lorcan Ward said:


> parts of the game are so empty like freeside and Legion content. You can see they had ideas for a massive world but they were restricted by time.


Gameplay wise, that was definitely my biggest issue with it. Well, that, and...






I did really love NV though, in spite of having to save my game every 3 minutes or risk losing hours of progress.


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## Ordacleaphobia (Jan 16, 2019)

Xaios said:


> Gameplay wise, that was definitely my biggest issue with it. Well, that, and...



Man, I will never forget what those mega wasps did to me.
I was literally an order of magnitude more terrified of those things than deathclaws. Deathclaws were a walk in the park.

Cazadores? Nope. They're almost as unsettling in real life, too.


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