Fan Feedback Forgotten for Fallout 3

[Logan Frederick]

Fan Feedback Forgotten for Fallout 3

Bethesda Softworks vice president Pete Hines has stated that his company largely ignored advice from users during Fallout 3 development.

Dedicated Fallout fans and forum rioters swamped Bethesda with complaints about the more Oblivion-like [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/e3-2008/145-Escape-TV-Fallout-3-Sing-It] direction it was taking the franchise.

Bethesda chose to stick with its own direction and only take "feedback from the people who are actually playing the game."

"When you're designing a game, you have this group of people on the inside who are working on it every day and who know everything about the decisions that are being made," he explained. "You don't just take a chunk of that, throw it out to the community and say, 'We don't know how this question works, so let's ask the fans.' You're working and changing every day - it's a constant, fluid process. It's not like we say, 'Okay, everything is done now, let's see what they say then go back and change it.'"

More important than forcing game changes based on what gamers want is testing the title in-house with those who developed it, says Hines.

"We're big believers in playing the game, putting things in and then letting folks see how it feels, as opposed to 'Oh, that sounds terrible!' It turns out that ideas that sound terrible, when slightly tweaked, can be f**king awesome in the game. And it's sometimes the case that awesome-sounding ideas will suck when you actually put them in. You're never a slave to how something is written on paper - you put it in the game an play it. You have to take feedback from the people who are actually playing the game."

Hines might be able to sideline ideas from gamers, but was not so lucky in preventing foreign governments from censoring [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/86057] Fallout 3, which ships in North America on October 28.

Source: Videogamer [http://www.videogamer.com/news/03-09-2008-9207.html]

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[Anton P. Nym]

Bethesda chose to stick with its own direction and only take "feedback from the people who are actually playing the game."

Awesome. I may have to pick this game up after all.

I've been deeply involved in game fandom for five years now, and still the insane degree of backseat-driverness shown by a vocal minority drives me to thoughts of deep, deep wrongness. I'm glad Bethesda is joining Blizzard and others in standing up to these yammerheads who so often don't fully appreciate the consequences that would fall out from their "suggestions".

-- Steve

 

[milskidasith]

Woo! The vocal minority gets struck down!

Oddly enough, this reminds me of Runescape. They generally took the loud minority of people who put in tons of feedback, turned it around on it's ass, and made it into a joke.

Let's see: There were "Dragon Plate's" that were actually just spinning plates with a dragon on them (and not armor). In a much more subtle, and for me, hilarious, update, (comma overload, I know) they finally added crossbows to the game, but they were hideously expensive and were never really better in any way than bows. Of course, that could just prove that Jagex is a bunch of balance retarted idiots (they seem to have a slight case of this) but I (naively) trust in them about the whole update being a big joke.

 

[XSportSeeker]

Yep, as long as they still hear what the fans are saying, this is the way to go.

I mean, you gotta know what gamers truly want... making the whole gameplay mechanics from the opinnion of only a few people that played it can be bad too, but combining those opinnions with a well filtered list of expectations from fans would make the optimal solution.

Because it's true that nowadays, there are too many fans that don't know **** about game design, and still, they want to teach professionals how to do their jobs.

Like the whole discussion about Diablo 3 graphics.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

*cheers* Thank you, Bethesda, for showing them how to do it right!

 

[FistsOfTinsel]

Another "yea" vote for the ignore-the-fans approach, especially when it comes to Fallout. I'm a fan of the first two games, and by fan I mean someone who played the games, enjoyed them greatly, and consider them the best CRPG yet made. Of course, by Fallout fandom standards, that makes me some kind of poser. Fallout super-fans are some of the most obnoxious, hateful and unreasonable bunch I've ever come across, and I'm far from the only one who shares that opinion (e.g. http://www.nma-fallout.com/article.php?id=34629 ). If the most vocal fans were listened to, Fallout 3 would essentially be Fallout 1 all over again, with the exact same storyline, decisions, isometric viewpoint, etc, with the only "improvements" allowed being perhaps a better inventory system and higher resolution on the sprites. There is no way these guys would be happy with anything else, so why should Bethesda listen to them at all - they represent maybe 50 sales anyways.

The other factor comes from the slavering, unreasoning hatred that one category of old-school PC gamers have for consoles in general. Dip your toe in one of the valve forums sometimes, say for Team Fortress 2, and see the unwarranted knee-jerk animosity these guys have for anything to do with consoles - they see the console's success as a genuine threat to their PC gaming lifestyle. As a guy who's been RPGs on the personal computers since 1978 (Beneath Apple Manor, if you must know, the only "Rogue-like" game that is older than Rogue), and I've been playing RPGs on consoles lately, and you know what guys? You've got to chill the fuck out. It's all good.

 

[Joeshie]

they see the console's success as a genuine threat to their PC gaming lifestyle.

Can you really blame them though? Thanks to the mass popularity that consoles have given to video games, we are starting to see more and more games appeal to the casual gamer while almost completely ignoring the wishes of the core gamer. I mean, this shit has been happening for awhile now. Look at what happened to Deus Ex 2 or Thief 3. The development teams went and focused on the console crowd and what we got was essentially watered down games so that little Timmy's mind could digest the games. You get dumbed-down versions so that it's more casual friendly.

Now, fast forward to Fallout 3. Here, we have a long standing franchise that is loved by the hardcore community. There is no question that Bethesda is going to make some decisions that make the game more accessible, while ultimately making the game more shallow. That's what people are rightfully afraid of.

Good games with actual depth to the gameplay are a dime a dozen now, largely due to the popularization that consoles have done for the video game industry.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

^So, good games with depth are more common? That's what "dime a dozen" means.

 

[mark_n_b]

It is a little known fact, especially by a game's fan base, that they don't know shit.

I'm glad someone has actually gone on record with saying that they don't actually care and ignored the forums.

Fact of the matter is it wasn't the fans that designed the title they love so much. And too often do we see that when a developer blatantly caters to shrieks from the fanboy that their game becomes crap.

Fans are just angry because it's being thrown in their face that "really liking something" doesn't necessarily mean they have any worthwhile expertise or influence.

 

[meatloaf231]

Bethesda chose to stick with its own direction and only take "feedback from the people who are actually playing the game."

Awesome. I may have to pick this game up after all.

I've been deeply involved in game fandom for five years now, and still the insane degree of backseat-driverness shown by a vocal minority drives me to thoughts of deep, deep wrongness. I'm glad Bethesda is joining Blizzard and others in standing up to these yammerheads who so often don't fully appreciate the consequences that would fall out from their "suggestions".

-- Steve

I'm very glad Blizzard and Bethesda aren't listening to the screaming monkeys of the internet.

 

[Joeshie]

^So, good games with depth are more common? That's what "dime a dozen" means.

Oops, had that sentence switched around in my mind. I meant "Games without depth to their gameplay are a dime a dozen nowadays".

 

[Joeshie]

It is a little known fact, especially by a game's fan base, that they don't know shit.

I'm glad someone has actually gone on record with saying that they don't actually care and ignored the forums.

Yeah, just like Star Wars Galaxies. They didn't listen to their fanbase and released the New Game Enhancement. That turned out well........oh wait, no it didn't. They royally fucked up the game by not listening to their fanbase.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

The correct thing to do is do what the majority of fans want...if they can make it work. If only a few fans want it, or they can't make it work, they shouldn't do it. It's that simple.

 

[Lt. Sera]

In the case of the Fallout 'community', ignoring them is the best thing you could do. Those guys are mental.

The correct thing to do is do what the majority of fans want.

Imo, this is wrong. Bethesda should make the game they want to make and then put it out there. Games catered to fans only become messed up games. Bethesda is the one telling the story, the game is a medium to do so. Just like with a movie director, fans shouldn't come into play when making art.

 

[Jumplion]

Obviously, fans of a certain game are almost always wrong. I'm glad Bethesda isn't listening to those original Fallout fans because this game is meant to be played by more than a certain fan-base. But in reference to what Joshie said, there's a difference between trying to broaden your audience and being casual, and Bethesda is probably trying to "broaden their audience".

Problem with fans is that they think that the game is being made specifically for them, but obviously it's not made specifically for them.

I can't wait for Fallout 3, even if I havn't played the previous fallouts. Someday I will, but for now I'll be happy with Fallout 3.

 

[MrBliss]

they see the console's success as a genuine threat to their PC gaming lifestyle.

Can you really blame them though? Thanks to the mass popularity that consoles have given to video games, we are starting to see more and more games appeal to the casual gamer while almost completely ignoring the wishes of the core gamer. I mean, this shit has been happening for awhile now. Look at what happened to Deus Ex 2 or Thief 3. The development teams went and focused on the console crowd and what we got was essentially watered down games so that little Timmy's mind could digest the games. You get dumbed-down versions so that it's more casual friendly.

Now, fast forward to Fallout 3. Here, we have a long standing franchise that is loved by the hardcore community. There is no question that Bethesda is going to make some decisions that make the game more accessible, while ultimately making the game more shallow. That's what people are rightfully afraid of.

Good games with actual depth to the gameplay are a dime a dozen now, largely due to the popularization that consoles have done for the video game industry.

You are so wrong.

I've been gaming since I was 8 and my dad bought me a commodore 64, i've had at least one console from every generation, and most handhelds, and i've been playing PC games (including Fallout) since we first got a PC in like 1992.

I've given up on PC games because frankly the cost of keeping up with hardware demands is ridiculous, and many games that are PC exclusives are actually horribly inaccessible or they're MMOs (the worst kind of game ever). Consoles make things a whole lot easier for most games, the only exception I can think of being strategy games. Consoles offer many of the advantages that used to be exclusive to PC, like DLC, and soon web access, and clearly the two formats are converging.

Most people with hang-ups about Fallout 3 seem to want Bethesda to make a game that would have seemed modern in 1998. Guess what!! Time have changed, the game most hardcore fans want wouldn't sell, and the developer would have gone bust making it (just like Black Isle did). People need to move on, and accept that things won't stay the same forever.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

Lt. Sera, you should try not quoting people out of context. Kind of ruins your argument. The context being the rest of my post that you cut out.

 

[Melaisis]

I can understand them totally; its really hard to focus when you have thousands of people shouting demands at you at the same time without knowing how the game is actually coming on. Think Bruce in Bruce Almighty.