Obsidian Mailbag
- Thread starter Shamus Young
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" I want to see Obsidian deliver a top-notch game that's not infested with bugs and glitches. This is simply not going to happen as long as gamers continue to accept sub-standard quality and make excuses for them."
You're still completely missing the point, Shamus. Very brave to dismiss any substantive point made against your misplaced rant, as well. Calling it angry fanboyish noise also was so very respectful.
Thing is that the console and gaming press is constantly ignoring huge bugs and gameplay problems from large commercial games. Mafia 2 - not a word. Red Dead - not a mention. Bethesda's Fallout 3, on the same engine - few mentioned bugs in their initial write-ups. And the escapist is no better. This is nothing new, and something that has been pointed out many, many times before.
But when Obsidian makes a game, there's no end to the kind of criticism coming up. And you fail to account for why that is - either by actually describing the bugs specifically, or by perhaps drawing up some guidelines for what type of gameplay bugs reviews easily could note in the future.
If you don't do that, then this simply comes off as the usual console-magazine appetite for internet drama, and nothing more, Shamus. Frankly, it's the least you can do when the entire point with the article was to make a larger point about the industry.
So I'll make a bet with you now - the next time any of the larger and well backed developers make a game, the escapist won't mention a single bug. And they will also not note that this game - in a first in the industry - has absolutely no bugs, clipping errors, visual artefacts, or otherwise things that will be tortured to fit the definition for the occasion.
Care to bet against me on that..?
You're still completely missing the point, Shamus. Very brave to dismiss any substantive point made against your misplaced rant, as well. Calling it angry fanboyish noise also was so very respectful.
Thing is that the console and gaming press is constantly ignoring huge bugs and gameplay problems from large commercial games. Mafia 2 - not a word. Red Dead - not a mention. Bethesda's Fallout 3, on the same engine - few mentioned bugs in their initial write-ups. And the escapist is no better. This is nothing new, and something that has been pointed out many, many times before.
But when Obsidian makes a game, there's no end to the kind of criticism coming up. And you fail to account for why that is - either by actually describing the bugs specifically, or by perhaps drawing up some guidelines for what type of gameplay bugs reviews easily could note in the future.
If you don't do that, then this simply comes off as the usual console-magazine appetite for internet drama, and nothing more, Shamus. Frankly, it's the least you can do when the entire point with the article was to make a larger point about the industry.
So I'll make a bet with you now - the next time any of the larger and well backed developers make a game, the escapist won't mention a single bug. And they will also not note that this game - in a first in the industry - has absolutely no bugs, clipping errors, visual artefacts, or otherwise things that will be tortured to fit the definition for the occasion.
Care to bet against me on that..?
Ugg...
I have a gripe about Shamus' growing habit of using entire articles to respond to gripes about his gripes.
It's not the end of the world if some people don't always agree with you, that's what forums are all about.
I have a gripe about Shamus' growing habit of using entire articles to respond to gripes about his gripes.
It's not the end of the world if some people don't always agree with you, that's what forums are all about.
Note: While your parents might be really proud of your "AP composition" level education, this kind of crap only serves to belittle/anger people in droves. You should only do this kind of crap on a forum devoted to writing or school, it serves no purpose on a *videogame* topic. People make grammatical errors. It happens. Go police another forum.
/climb on soapbox
Just a couple nitpicks:
"I agree that it is far superior to Fallout 3" kinda confused me a bit. What is superior? Less bugs or better plot/itemization/fun stuff? I'm not arguing that it's better or worse than Fallout 3; it seems about the same to me, just different story, factions and items. I just want clarification as to what you were basing that on.
This is more atheory hypothesis than a nitpick. I think that the reason the mechanics are dumbed down is an attempt to broaden the audience from us number-crunching nerds to the neo/contemporary-gamers that play Bejeweled Blitz on their cell phone for fun. I love meta-ing to my hearts content my stats but it does take away from immersion. You need to take into account the graphics (they don't by themselves excuse shortcomings but are a factor in this). The Devs get all excited by their new engines and think of all the awesome stuff they can do to make their game prettier. So they spend less time on the bare bones to spend more on the graphics and world design. They are trying to say "Now, take a quick these basic stats, but don't spend too much time on them. Oh don't worry about speccing, the game will take care of that for you. See our pretty hills and trees from this scenic vista we sent you to, and the detailed rubble, the people that fit the archetypes we made up while stoned drunk, look that cute tumbleweed blowing by, the grungy lighting, those blood stai- Would you stop looking at your Pipboy every two god damned seconds! We're trying to show you how much time, blood, sweat and tears we put into the graphics! Geez! We already told you the stats are just to pick what bland archetype you are! Why can't you get with the times and focus on the wrapping?" So instead of the naturally beautiful, well-groomed woman with tasteful clothing we get something like the anorexic, make-up caked...er..."ladies of the night" that we see plastered all over "Music Television." Our generation is telling them with our wallet that that's what we like so they're sure as hell gonna deliver it.
Lastly, while the good points don't have to excuse the shortcomings, they do have to discussed at some point, if for nothing else than to say: "Hey! See these? We want more of this!" However small, if there is something, some little, infintessimally minute thing of redeeming value, it should be pointed out. I understand and appreciate that you pointed out the objective of this to be an opinion article on a component the game, not an unbiased review of the whole. However, I think the critics haven't been schooled enough in the finer points of debate to recognize this. Weird, ignorant people on forums? I'd never have guessed that.
[http://img840.imageshack.us/i/inconceivable.jpg/]
If your article was biased it would be from your (hypothetical) hatred of WRPGs, games with bugs in them, games made by Obsidian, games that are about the apocalypse or other things of that sort which filter/skew your view as opposed to your actual article which merely addressed a part of the entirety of Fallout New Vegas's worth.
Just a couple nitpicks:
"I agree that it is far superior to Fallout 3" kinda confused me a bit. What is superior? Less bugs or better plot/itemization/fun stuff? I'm not arguing that it's better or worse than Fallout 3; it seems about the same to me, just different story, factions and items. I just want clarification as to what you were basing that on.
This is more a
Lastly, while the good points don't have to excuse the shortcomings, they do have to discussed at some point, if for nothing else than to say: "Hey! See these? We want more of this!" However small, if there is something, some little, infintessimally minute thing of redeeming value, it should be pointed out. I understand and appreciate that you pointed out the objective of this to be an opinion article on a component the game, not an unbiased review of the whole. However, I think the critics haven't been schooled enough in the finer points of debate to recognize this. Weird, ignorant people on forums? I'd never have guessed that.
In Australia if the game doesn't work then your allowed to return it, when you buy anything if its faulty or doesn't work then you have the right to a refund or exchange.Shamus Young said:
I'm also sick of game companies getting $ from games that are clearly buggy and unfinished because the general consensus is people don't care. They'll be on the next game in a month or so, its all about rushing a game out before people get bored and move on.
Seriously this quote almost perfectly pegged me, but I was 14 when I played it, and I didn't skip the splash screens. Also I take the time to read the manual.Shamus Young said:
Still I have to agree with you. Even if I haven't seen these bugs myself I still live in fear of them.
Everyone's mileage will vary. I was expecting a freeze-filled bug fest in New Vegas (for PS3), but surprisingly I haven't noticed any huge bugs yet. The occasional body stuck in the world geometry and stretched like rubber, yes, but nothing horrible. I'm actually surprised. Perhaps if I get a little further in the game, the real bugs will emerge. With so many hardware and software configurations, the situation must be more complicated for PC. But I will adamantly claim that I've seen fewer bugs upon release in New Vegas compared to Oblivion and Fallout 3.
Some of us expect games to let us down by way of being so bug-ridden and unplayable. I think in some ways that cushions that blow when the game crashed before an auto-save and we lose about three hours of progress in the game. I've found if we like something enough, we accept its flaws for some reason and continue. If you don't like bugs, the Fallout series is not for you. It's history, even the unreleased demo for the third game that was never finished (Van Buren) chapter, is full of bugs and crashes and the wrong ending sequence being played and multiplying Ians.
Obsidian did inherit a buggy engine from Bethesda. Yes, Obsidian didn't take point and fix the existing bugs to provide a better experience. They could have. Shame on them. But the fact is that both groups, Obsidian and Bethesda, have horrible track records when it comes to bugs. We either accept that fact and play their games, or stop buying them new. To call BioWare's games "stable" is to ignore many bugs in the games they've released. Minor bugs related to NPC behavior, but still bugs nonetheless.
We should demand more. And as game consumers we do that by starving companies that release bad games. Try before you buy.
Some of us expect games to let us down by way of being so bug-ridden and unplayable. I think in some ways that cushions that blow when the game crashed before an auto-save and we lose about three hours of progress in the game. I've found if we like something enough, we accept its flaws for some reason and continue. If you don't like bugs, the Fallout series is not for you. It's history, even the unreleased demo for the third game that was never finished (Van Buren) chapter, is full of bugs and crashes and the wrong ending sequence being played and multiplying Ians.
Obsidian did inherit a buggy engine from Bethesda. Yes, Obsidian didn't take point and fix the existing bugs to provide a better experience. They could have. Shame on them. But the fact is that both groups, Obsidian and Bethesda, have horrible track records when it comes to bugs. We either accept that fact and play their games, or stop buying them new. To call BioWare's games "stable" is to ignore many bugs in the games they've released. Minor bugs related to NPC behavior, but still bugs nonetheless.
We should demand more. And as game consumers we do that by starving companies that release bad games. Try before you buy.
Good read was good. I still can't believe so many took offence to your last article. I still feel Obsidian need to step up their game. It'll be a long while before I get Fallout New Vegas personally, I just got through playing Neverwinter Nights 2 and... I just don't feel like dealing with Obsidian-bugs coupled with Bethesda-AI.
Same reason I haven't picked up Fallout 3. I spent alot of time recently with Oblivion and... The thought of more Bethesda just doesn't sit well with me right now.
But that's got nothing to do with this article, so back to that.
If we stop asking game-companies to improve, where would the future of gaming lead us? Nothing improves without first taking a few hits from critics. Just look at the Batman-movies. After Batman & Robin, would you have expected The Dark Knight to ever see the light of day?
Same reason I haven't picked up Fallout 3. I spent alot of time recently with Oblivion and... The thought of more Bethesda just doesn't sit well with me right now.
But that's got nothing to do with this article, so back to that.
If we stop asking game-companies to improve, where would the future of gaming lead us? Nothing improves without first taking a few hits from critics. Just look at the Batman-movies. After Batman & Robin, would you have expected The Dark Knight to ever see the light of day?
I wonder how somebody from OE would feel reading this?
Anywho,
Then I hit the strip and they fell on me like a ton of bricks. I kept getting locked out of areas and had to conduct time consuming walk-arounds, often literally. People disappeared and quests randomly failed from across the map.
It's all very annoying, and forces me to keep a backup save so when things go bad I have a way to escape issues. Currently Neil isn't moving or responding to me, which doesn't screw up the "crazy, crazy, crazy" quest, but is a bit of a bother.
Anywho,
That's what I was thinking for a few hours. I'd got the game for my birthday and we started playing hoping to see crazy glitches. We saw nothing and got distracted by the game aspect.Pirate Kitty said:
Then I hit the strip and they fell on me like a ton of bricks. I kept getting locked out of areas and had to conduct time consuming walk-arounds, often literally. People disappeared and quests randomly failed from across the map.
It's all very annoying, and forces me to keep a backup save so when things go bad I have a way to escape issues. Currently Neil isn't moving or responding to me, which doesn't screw up the "crazy, crazy, crazy" quest, but is a bit of a bother.
Wait wait wait... they censored "Temple of Elemental Evil"?Therumancer said:
As far as I can remember, that game had going for it: one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard in a game (seriously, why couldn't the likes of "Oblivion" and "Fallout 3" take a cue from that game and get proper ambient scoring, instead of relying on overblown orchestral scores that just get so damn irritating after the first twenty times you've heard them?) and a good character creation screen.
Other than that it was short, the level-up times were brutal (there was no way you'd get to a decent level by the time you actually reached the elemental planes unless you'd deliberately sought out battles you didn't need to fight in the first place), and the whole thing was buggy as hell. But censored? You remember Bertram, right? If there's one thing the American publishers would've censored, I would imagine Bertram would be It. (Not that I'm suggesting all Americans are homophobics... just the ones who publish videogames.)
What exactly was taken OUT of that game? Or did I just play a different version?
Tbh it's not valid to say that Obsidian are not to blame for the buggy engine they got from fallout 3: surely part of the dev's job is to make sure the game engine is working properly?
This is even more so when the game engine and it's know problems have been passed on to them and they don't fix it.
This is even more so when the game engine and it's know problems have been passed on to them and they don't fix it.
