Starke said:
Hardly given that they've said the dialog system didn't work the way they were hoping it would, and were going back to the drawing board with it.
Also, Fallout 4 is hardly an affront to anyone except the early Fallout Diehards. The ones who want new fallout games, but it can't be Wasteland 2 because that's not Fallout enough, even though, Fallout was a serial numbers filed off "homage" Wasteland.
For anyone else, it's there. Fallout 4 might not be your thing, but it's hardly an affront.
After New Vegas and Fallout 3 saying that there's no middle ground is rather absurd on the face of it. Fallout 3 and New Vegas both did quite well in establishing the setting and feeling in a new format. They had some hiccups, but they were very competent at what they did. So it bears on mentioning, that when you take out the flexible story of the originals, the end product seems like a hollowing husk that only bears passing resemblance to the source. Ala Fallout 4
Also since you're pulling the card of "Like Wasteland but..." While Fallout did take a lot of inspiration from Wasteland, they also took huge amounts of inspiration from things like A Boy and His Dog, and in gameplay, from Dungeons and Dragons. So no, Fallout is more than Wasteland "with the serial numbers filed off", it might not have started that way, but it sure didn't stay that.
Starke said:
I'm just going to stop you there,
This line always seems to me like "I'm going to disregard your opinion and say a bunch of unrelated stuff to back up my point.
Starke said:
because until you slap some qualifiers on that sentence, it's kinda comical. Fallout 4 has been hilariously successful. Fallout 4 sold twelve million within the first 24 hours of launch. So, now you're saying... what? That having the largest opening day sales for a video game is a failure, and they really needed to talk to Obsidian.
First off, initial sale numbers don't actually mean all that much. Especially not when you're looking at one of the most anticipated sequels in a popular franchise in recent history. A lot of people bought Fallout 4 before there were even decent reviews of the game, just on the experiences of the previous franchise, especially considering Fallout 3 and New Vegas, both of which were really good in their own right.
Also mind you I never said that Fallout 4 was a
failure, all I said was basically it felt like another game with a Fallout skin. There's a pretty big difference, most of it relying on the story, which was linear, unlike any main line Fallout game and New Vegas to that date.
Starke said:
I understand that Fallout 4 may not be what you wanted. You wanted Wasteland 2... which you got. Or Pillars of Eternity but in a post apocalyptic setting... which judging by J.E. Sawyer's twitter activity, we're probably getting. It's not going to be called Fallout... and depending on how Brian Fargo's feeling it might not even be called Wasteland: New Orleans or Wasteland 3, but we will be seeing more post apocalyptic RPGs from Obsidian.
A projection more than anything else on your part. I wanted a new Fallout that felt like a main line Fallout game like # and New Vegas did. Instead what was dropped in our laps was full 3D Fallout: Tactics with survival/crafting tacked on in a way that made it feel like a last minute addition. Remember that the biggest thing about Fallout aside from the setting was it's non-linear story. I never said I wanted Wasteland 2, because after seeing it, it's not the same thing as Fallout, or really the original Wasteland... It's more like Fallout: Tactics 2, in the Wasteland setting. Not that such is a bad thing, it's just not what I want in a
Falloutgame, same goes for Fallout 4
Starke said:
Hell, I'm actually far more excited by the prospect of Tyranny. It's the opportunity to explore new material from them, rather than simply treading the same setting one more time.
That's great for you, I too like new settings and intellectual properties, but I still also like familiar ones getting sequels. It's not one, or the other in my mind, why can't we simply have both? There's plenty of new talent hitting the field of game development, which is starting to change to accommodate more creative ventures. Rather than just funding the same game with a new number every year, or so, even big developers and publishers are seeing this.
Starke said:
Fallout is a brand name. It's a setting that has been revisited by six different development teams now. Aside from the PS2/XBox title, they've all had something going for them. None of them are perfect games. They've all had issues. And hey, I like those games (again, except for BOS), but I'm not expecting them to all be more of the same. Saying it can't become something else, and dismissing what Bethesda has done as a cash grab shows a fundamental lack of awareness of their previous releases, and the progression that's been visible in their games up to this point. If you want to be angry with someone, then the real target is probably Interplay, for bungling their games so badly back in the early 2000s. Getting pissed with Bethesda for releasing the game they did just means you never saw what Bethesda was doing, nor played the classic RPGs that shaped their design philosophies.
First off, Fallout, 2, and New Vegas had much the same teams, as a lot of Black Isle talent is now at Obsidian, a studio that regularly gets criminally short changed in development schedules. Incidentally the same thing happened to the team that did Tactics, but that's another story, still imagine what Tactics could have been had their release date not been moved up... Several times and against the developers will I might add. Also Fallout is more than just a "brand name", it's an established franchise with a specific formula for it's success, that formula was largely ignored this time around.
Brotherhood of Steel was a train wreck, we can both agree.
I also never said I hated Bethesda, nor did I say that
I personally saw what they did as a cynical cash grab. Fact of the matter is I appreciate them putting their mark on the franchise, in so much as they're trying new things, seeing what works and what doesn't. I fully expect that from a developer who previously had essentially no connection to the franchise. Now Fallout 4 looks like Fallout, it sounds like Fallout, but it lacks the personality and spirit of Fallout and
that's the problem. This is the place I'll say that Bethesda screwed up, where they could have used the help from the Obsidian team who did Fallout: New Vegas. Fallout has a very specific feel and structure, which Fallout 4 lacks, it just doesn't feel right and it's linear story hampers the feeling of agency. In fact that's also the major complaint against Tactics too, the Linear story that strips the player of the ability to have a major influence on the game world... At least by the end of the game...
I'm not pissed at Bethesda, just very, very disappointed in them abandoning such a huge and important part of the franchise they're continuing. Hopefully they take the criticism to heart and make the next Fallout title behave like one, instead of a different franchise that just seems like Fallout. They had some really, really good ideas, some have had crap implementation, others just conflict with the setting, while others are very much against the basic concept that made the franchise great.
I also can't blame too much on Interplay, or Black Isle studios, because the publisher was busy going down the drain in the early 2000's. Still we can't use a developer as an excuse for dropping the ball on a concept that was well established and known to be successful. Games have survived developer transitions intact in the past, there's no reasons Bethesda couldn't adapt with Fallout. I don't particularly blame them for trying to move Fallout into their comfort zone, at the same time they've done other non-linear stories... Ones where the player had a huge amount of agency in shaping the plot... With Fallout 4 they tried an entirely new dialogue system, they had to implement it fast with limited time for scripting and voice acting... Which made the player's actions in the game feel futile, which is probably the most major criticism of the game in general, that really soured fans new and old on the game. We can hope they do better in the future...
Also consider how they tried to nickle and dime for mods in the recent past and how they haven't given that idea up... That's part of where people's thoughts they're making cynical cash grabs comes from, not to mention the introduction of paid DLC adding to that feeling. I don't see it, but plenty of other fans see it that way, and they're not totally wrong either. Still game devs and publishers have to make money to keep making the games we love and far too few people ever consider that.
