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What can Bethesda realistically do to make FO3 not suck?

Solomon Doone

Novice
Joined
Feb 12, 2007
Messages
88
Well, first off they can drop the horrible "I Conan, me smash and adventure with Red Sonja" theme, which frankly made me wonder when I was going to see the armies of Mordor burst onscreen.

If they could do that, it's a minor start.

It's still going to suck ass as a Fallout though, I'm pretty confident in that.
 

flabbyjack

Arcane
Joined
Jul 15, 2004
Messages
2,592
Location
the area around my keyboard
Controlling share of ZeniMax Media

I will interpret the question as follows --
  • What would you do with a controlling share of ZeniMax Media?

1. Make the guys at Bethsoft stick to a two dimensional game(Or possibly 3 -- time)
2. Dress up like the Overseer and hand out bottled water at Bethsoft
3. Perform 'lock down' at the Bethsoft offices and put in Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome, Roadwarrior, and possibly some zombie movies
4. Move the RPGCodex and it's faithful crew to Rockville Maryland[/list]
 

Cimmerian Nights

Liturgist
Joined
Aug 20, 2004
Messages
428
Location
The Roche Motel
yipsl said:
As far as it goes, Oblivion might be the MacDonalds of RPGs, loaded with mainstreaming virtual transfat that makes the game taste good when it's hot but which loses it's taste when it gets cold. It won't have the staying power of Morrowind, that is my prediction. Zenimax won't care, because they'll have the next serving of virtual transfat filled mainstreaming goodness in Fallout 3 and TES 5.
Good analogy. And like any business, they want a sustainable customer base. Why make a deep game with lots of replayability? That would be like an auto parts company putting out lifetime brake pads.
 

Section8

Cipher
Joined
Oct 23, 2002
Messages
4,321
Location
Wardenclyffe
Cimmerian Nights said:
yipsl said:
As far as it goes, Oblivion might be the MacDonalds of RPGs, loaded with mainstreaming virtual transfat that makes the game taste good when it's hot but which loses it's taste when it gets cold. It won't have the staying power of Morrowind, that is my prediction. Zenimax won't care, because they'll have the next serving of virtual transfat filled mainstreaming goodness in Fallout 3 and TES 5.
Good analogy. And like any business, they want a sustainable customer base. Why make a deep game with lots of replayability? That would be like an auto parts company putting out lifetime brake pads.

That's right on the money from mine. For all the trumpeting of "Best RPG Evar" at it's release, it's going to go down in history as being completely unremarkable. Daggerfall still has fans championing it as a classic. Despite its flaws, it really was something special, and the incredible potential was humming below the surface like a crackling transformer.

Morrowind too has its admirers. As a static gameworld, it's unrivalled. It has unusual art direction and apparently has deviant sex appeal galore.

However, Oblivion has no real character. The defining points that stick in peoples' memories are the things that are broken, such as the shabby AI or the level scaling, and Bethesda would be fools to preserve them in the next installment, which will have better graphics, thus making Oblivion's primary feature redundant.
 

OverrideB1

Scholar
Joined
Oct 15, 2005
Messages
443
Location
The other side of the mirror
Section8 said:
However, Oblivion has no real character. The defining points that stick in peoples' memories are the things that are broken, such as the shabby AI or the level scaling, and Bethesda would be fools to preserve them in the next installment, which will have better graphics, thus making Oblivion's primary feature redundant.

That latter point has always been a major bone of contention for me when Bethesda started touting how very next-gen their graphics were. No matter how cutting edge, there's always going to be a prettier programme along that'll wow the graphics-whores who brought Oblivion for it's pretty, pretty images.

Then you're shit out of luck because -- if graphics is all your game has going for it -- you are then forced to make an even prettier game. And, as everyone here knows, resources dumped into pretty graphics are resources that are not spent on the things that really matter.

Expect TESV to feature bleeding-edge graphics, a requirement akin to a super-computer to run, and fuck all by the way of RPG elements other than character advancement in the few skills they deign to impliment.

What really freaks me out is the fact that we, non-game developers that we are (with some exceptions) can see that viscious cycle clearly but it is apparently completely beyond the grasp of the highly-paid suits at Zenimax and the terrible twosome at Bethesda.
 

DarkSign

Erudite
Joined
Jul 24, 2004
Messages
3,910
Location
Shepardizing caselaw with the F5 button.
Ohhhh....but they are in teh induztree!! They have access to numbers and figures and experienced people who can prove you wrong!

Heaven forbid that the cabin boy on the ship stop doing his goatse imitation and tell the captain that the ship is sinking? The game industry is one BIG case of "the emperor's new clothes."
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
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KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
yipsl said:
As far as it goes, Oblivion might be the MacDonalds of RPGs, loaded with mainstreaming virtual transfat that makes the game taste good when it's hot but which loses it's taste when it gets cold. It won't have the staying power of Morrowind, that is my prediction. Zenimax won't care, because they'll have the next serving of virtual transfat filled mainstreaming goodness in Fallout 3 and TES 5.

So true. I've played Morrowind when it came out and had fun with it, downloaded some mods, had even more fun with it and admired the unusual setting.

I've also played Oblivion and, well... it only comes back into my memory when talking about games that screwed up the series, ames which were badly made or just games with pretty graphics. Besides the graphics, everything in the game is so damn forgettable, except of the bad level scaling. It has simply no strong points, nothing which would make it rememberable. Well, only the bad sides were prominent enough to remember. But everything else? Nah.

In 10 years or so, nobody will remember Oblivion. But Morrowind and Daggerfall will still have their fans for the great potential that both games had. It doesn't seem that a strong fanbase is of any importance to Bethesda anymore.

Or is it just arrogance and blindness that has led to their downfall? Who knows.
 

Surgey

Scholar
Joined
Aug 14, 2006
Messages
618
Location
Unicorn Power!
The game needs EXTREME Dialogue choices like in Mass Effect, like "Rumors" and "Junktown." Also, choices like "Directions!" I can see it now... grabbing guards' collars and asking them where the magic power armor store is.
 
Joined
Feb 10, 2007
Messages
7,715
Surgey said:
The game needs EXTREME Dialogue choices like in Mass Effect, like "Rumors" and "Junktown."
That dialogue lacks the depth and intensity brought with words like "damn," "dammit," or "hell."
 

cutterjohn

Cipher
Joined
Sep 28, 2006
Messages
1,629
Location
Bloom County
Subcontract the job to Obsidian with a fixed budget, fixed royalty after 100k copie sold, and zero fuckup(Toddles, Bethesda, Zenimax & co.) interference...
 

OccupatedVoid

Arbiter
Joined
Sep 4, 2006
Messages
1,846
Location
East Texas
cutterjohn said:
Subcontract the job to Obsidian with a fixed budget, fixed royalty after 100k copie sold, and zero fuckup(Toddles, Bethesda, Zenimax & co.) interference...
Instead of Orc Caves we'd get Mutant Caves. :)
 

cutterjohn

Cipher
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Messages
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Bloom County
OccupatedVoid said:
cutterjohn said:
Subcontract the job to Obsidian with a fixed budget, fixed royalty after 100k copie sold, and zero fuckup(Toddles, Bethesda, Zenimax & co.) interference...
Instead of Orc Caves we'd get Mutant Caves. :)
Better than anything that crapthesda could shit out on a good day, though... :twisted:
 

Spazmo

Erudite
Joined
Nov 9, 2002
Messages
5,752
Location
Monkey Island
They could do a kind of random dialog generator where you'd select "RUMOURS" or "GRAY FOX" and then you'd hear Liam Neeson go "Tell me some rumours about Gray Fox, ass hell damn!"
 

Pegultagol

Erudite
Joined
Feb 4, 2005
Messages
1,183
Location
General Gaming
I would not know what the game will really be about even after the trailer is out on June 5th, but all here mostly agree that it will be 'Oblivion with guns'. I think I will have no want of better graphics, as much as how substantial a content is behind them. I just want some tangible and reasonably robust feedback to my actions that transforms the skin-deep immersion into an experience that makes sense and is memorable. And I want the game to be difficult and complex, even near the end of the game.

Maybe because of less burden of developing a new engine, they might have focused more on gameplay and plot this time? How long was the development, last time I heard the development started sometime around 2003.
 

Lord Chambers

Erudite
Joined
Jan 23, 2006
Messages
1,018
SimpleComplexity said:
Intelligence 1 and Strength 9 will be recommended by some Fallout 3 action-walkthrough from some dumbed down game magazine, which gave Fallout 3 92% or 10/10 - Best RPG of the year whatever. And when they finally find a car in Fallout, they will try to search for the next auto pimping workshop to install some neonlights, which they`ll never find. Expect some shitty mod, which adds a Ferrari or a car pimp garage or something, made by a 14 year old boy. And all those critiques will be posted later on the official Fallout 4 forums, while Todd and his dev team already finished like 80 % of the game. Fallout 4 will be like the step from Morrowind(Fallout 3) to Oblivion(Fallout 4).
This is a pretty accurate caricature of today's gaming journalism and Elder Scrolls modding community.

SimpleComplexity said:
Seriously, which NextGenKiddie is interested in playing some 50s setting shit, with music, who reminds them on their singing grandmas or grandpas. Also vaults and all that, which doesn`t make sense to them. They`ll just skip the intro. The only thing, those kids understand is shooting some mutants, just like in Stalker. They will claim that Stalker was the better FPS, Fallout 3 is too complicated and the gameplay was too slow. They will also wonder, why the hell is it possible to have dialogues with people, i guess its not so cool to show it to their homies or friends. Choosing such words like "Shut up bitch" and other shit, just to get some fight.
This is a pretty accurate caricature of the Codex and their absurd, I-live-in-a-basement, don't-know-real-people elitism.
 

DOS-fanboy

Novice
Joined
May 18, 2007
Messages
69
FO3 will be made for the knuckle draggers. Period. Like a previous, more intelligent poster stated, "anyone who doesn't think it will be oblivion with guns is delusional"

For FO3 to "not suck", and for me to want to buy it, FO3 needs the following things, in order from most important to least important:

#1: Turn based combat
#2: Targeting of limbs/eyes/ect. in combat
#3: SPECIAL system
#4: appearances by major FO1/2 NPCs (Marcus, Harold, ect.)
#5: Oddball humor (The HHGTTG and Monty Python references were very memorable)
#6: Dogmeat. Definitely dogmeat
#7: NO multiplayer modes
#8: Line in the ending credits thanking Tim Cain
#9: Complete and total lack of trees
#10: More then 3 voice actors doing the voices for every NPC
 

Eclecticist

Liturgist
Joined
May 17, 2004
Messages
311
Location
Ousuturaria
Spazmo said:
They could do a kind of random dialog generator where you'd select "RUMOURS" or "GRAY FOX" and then you'd hear Liam Neeson go "Tell me some rumours about Gray Fox, ass hell damn!"

:lol:

An authentic representation of the PA-50s setting is the only thing I am looking forward to in FO3 and the only part of the previous games I believe can be well represented by Bethesda. If they manage to fuck that up as well I will be amazed.
 

Hazelnut

Erudite
Joined
Dec 17, 2002
Messages
1,490
Location
UK
How can they make FO3 not suck?


Put all the assets and IP into the public domain so the fans can make, and sell, good fallout games... fuck, what the hell am I on today.


(not enough sleep BTW)
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
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KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Hazelnut said:
How can they make FO3 not suck?


Put all the assets and IP into the public domain so the fans can make, and sell, good fallout games... fuck, what the hell am I on today.


(not enough sleep BTW)

Why not?
This would make FO3 free to the indies.
 

Donkey

Novice
Joined
May 7, 2007
Messages
5
They can't do anything.

Its destined to suck - thats what Bethesda S.P.E.C.I.A.L.ise in
 

MorningStar

Novice
Joined
Feb 11, 2007
Messages
42
Mai'q the liar in oblivion shows how much Bethesda values your opinion as a gamer.
Whatever you may say about what they can do to make FO3 not suck, it WILL suck and they will create a "Pipboy the Liar" to laugh at all the angry comments they got.
 

MessiahMan

Cipher
Patron
Joined
Apr 12, 2007
Messages
390
Location
Shitsville
Codex 2012 Project: Eternity Wasteland 2 Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2
Could I have some background information on this "Mai'q the liar"? I couldn't be arsed to play Oblivion past the first couple quests.
 

Mech

Cipher
Joined
Jul 15, 2004
Messages
634
MorningStar said:
Mai'q the liar in oblivion shows how much Bethesda values your opinion as a gamer.
Whatever you may say about what they can do to make FO3 not suck, it WILL suck and they will create a "Pipboy the Liar" to laugh at all the angry comments they got.

Awe muffin, did somebody get their feelings hurt when they were at the blunt end of a joke?

There there sweetheart, its just a game, its not going to hurt you.
 

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