4Chan Has a Leaker! Starfield In 2017! TES VI in 2023! TES VII in 2030! Totally Not Bullshit!

[buru5]

So what happened with the raiders?

 

[Makabb]

Not sure, need more choices

 

[Iznaliu]

Not sure, need more choices

It would help my though process if the extra choices were exactly the same.

 

[Somberlain]

Todd "Make RPGs Great Again" Howard is once again going to revolutionize the industry and drop a Tsar Bomba of incline so massive it makes even Grimoire fans blush.

 

[ilitarist]

Fallout 4 dialogue choice system is extremely dumb, but I don't see how Daggerfall's generated choice between "Dear sir, can you please infrom me of whereabouts of Thieves Guild" and "Yo mate, I need to get to the Thieves Guild, if you catch my drift" is any better.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Sounds like straight-up plagiarism from Obsidian's canceled Backspace.

 

[ColonelTeacup]

Fallout 4 dialogue choice system is extremely dumb, but I don't see how Daggerfall's generated choice between "Dear sir, can you please infrom me of whereabouts of Thieves Guild" and "Yo mate, I need to get to the Thieves Guild, if you catch my drift" is any better.

Because you can ask a variety of different questions, and have actual options. Then you can actually fail quests by time limit and other mechanics. Hell, there is actual dialogue to defend yourself in court for violating the law. There isnt even a court in Skyrim or Fallout 4. Fallout 4 is just the same 4 options copy and pasted in different ways with different replies that arent in fact what you actually say because if they were, everyone would know it's the same shit. You're comparing a game with actual options to a game so devoid of choice that the developers had to create fake dialogue choices to pretend that there was an option.

 

[Background Character]

Why is Todd so repulsive

 

[Sceptic]

And here's a friendly reminder that Oblivion was first hinted at in Redguard, about 8 years before the game saw the light of day.

What? where? There was no mention in Redguard of anything to do with Oblivion, be it Dagon, the Amulet of Kings, the Dragonfires, the Deadlands, or anything at all. Redguard's lore ties in heavily with Daggerfall and the at the time unreleased Morrowind, but that's it.

 

[pippin]

Oblivion appears briefly in a book seen very shortly in some scene.

 

[Quillon]

Sounds like straight-up plagiarism from Obsidian's canceled Backspace.

Oh shit, what if Tim & Leo's super secret game is Backspace and they are making it for Bethesda? :D

 

[pippin]

And here's a friendly reminder that Oblivion was first hinted at in Redguard, about 8 years before the game saw the light of day.

What? where? There was no mention in Redguard of anything to do with Oblivion, be it Dagon, the Amulet of Kings, the Dragonfires, the Deadlands, or anything at all. Redguard's lore ties in heavily with Daggerfall and the at the time unreleased Morrowind, but that's it.

 

[buru5]

What does the last one say? Has anyone figured that out?

 

[RNGsus]

These guys didn't even know what they wanted to do after Fallout 4 was released. Talk about plans for 2030 = fake fake fake. No game developer works with those kinds of time horizons.

But Bethesda might actually announce Starfield at E3, and the guy who wrote this is smart enough to realize that. Watch people go "omg the leaker was right" if that happens.

Marvel, WB, and Lucasfilms do, what's stopping another billion dollar entertainment corp from doing likewise? These are just projections of work completed, after all. I'm sure the dates are elastic, and projects could be rolled-over or killed, but at least a general course can be mapped out.

I'm more inclined to take this leak seriously, because the shared universe is such a horseshit idea. It all seems like something they would think is cool, and I'm sure its all very marketable. I don't give a fuck, but millions will.

 

[ilitarist]

Because you can ask a variety of different questions, and have actual options. Then you can actually fail quests by time limit and other mechanics. Hell, there is actual dialogue to defend yourself in court for violating the law. There isnt even a court in Skyrim or Fallout 4. Fallout 4 is just the same 4 options copy and pasted in different ways with different replies that arent in fact what you actually say because if they were, everyone would know it's the same shit. You're comparing a game with actual options to a game so devoid of choice that the developers had to create fake dialogue choices to pretend that there was an option.

You aren't talking about writing but instead about choices and consequences. They didn't add real dialogue choices not because writers are bad at it or didn't want to do it but because of design decision of making a game where you are not afraid of making a decisions but still have an illusion of choice. Their problems comes not from the writing but from switching from complex games with meaningful decisions to action games with some legacy RPG features with inadequate improvement in writing compared to what action games do.

 

[ColonelTeacup]

Because you can ask a variety of different questions, and have actual options. Then you can actually fail quests by time limit and other mechanics. Hell, there is actual dialogue to defend yourself in court for violating the law. There isnt even a court in Skyrim or Fallout 4. Fallout 4 is just the same 4 options copy and pasted in different ways with different replies that arent in fact what you actually say because if they were, everyone would know it's the same shit. You're comparing a game with actual options to a game so devoid of choice that the developers had to create fake dialogue choices to pretend that there was an option.

You aren't talking about writing but instead about choices and consequences. They didn't add real dialogue choices not because writers are bad at it or didn't want to do it but because of design decision of making a game where you are not afraid of making a decisions but still have an illusion of choice. Their problems comes not from the writing but from switching from complex games with meaningful decisions to action games with some legacy RPG features with inadequate improvement in writing compared to what action games do.

I disagree. The lack of choice is a consequence of poor writing. To try and claim that the lack of choice is simply a shitty rpg aspect, rather than an example of poor writing quality shows how little thought you've put into this. It takes a significant deal of effort and skill to create quests with multiple writing hooks and fail/win conditions which would make sense in the context of the plot of the quest. In terms of writing for a game, an aspect of poor writing IS giving only one option for a response, or one success condition, as well as one fail condition as it's significantly easier and far less complex to give only one option when the alternative introduces overlap and possible conflict with quests, especially if those quests overlap with others.

 

[ilitarist]

Maybe I'm an optimist to see a plot instead of incapability. Still I see it as unwillingness to allow a player to fail or to get undesired consequences, the same that was present in Fallout from its first steps - like in Gizmo/Killian quest. Unwillingness to allow a player to piss off NPC. Arena/Daggerfall/Morrowind writers were bad on writing specific responses too and I see more numerous responses as a quality of scripting, not writing.

 

[ColonelTeacup]

Maybe I'm an optimist to see a plot instead of incapability. Still I see it as unwillingness to allow a player to fail or to get undesired consequences, the same that was present in Fallout from its first steps - like in Gizmo/Killian quest. Unwillingness to allow a player to piss off NPC. Arena/Daggerfall/Morrowind writers were bad on writing specific responses too and I see more numerous responses as a quality of scripting, not writing.

I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree then, as I see it as a failure of writing, not scripting.

 

[Infinitron]

Although Bethesda's writers obviously aren't great, the primary reason why their games' quests and NPCs are limited and lack C&C probably isn't a crippling lack of skill, but a restrictive design methodology mandated from above. You simply aren't allowed to design a game like FO:NV at Bethesda.

 

[Metro]

^ That.

It's splitting rhetorical hairs. I'm taking writing in the sense that once the design choices are laid out (multiple factions, branching quests with mutually exclusive alternatives, C&C, etc.) someone goes in and adds the MacGuffins to drive the naratives and fleshes out the characters and settings.

The lack of those things is a design flaw not 'poor writing.' Poor writing is "I'm looking for my father/son, middle-aged guy/infant, have you seen him?"

 

[Abu Antar]

^ That.

It's splitting rhetorical hairs. I'm taking writing in the sense that once the design choices are laid out (multiple factions, branching quests with mutually exclusive alternatives, C&C, etc.) someone goes in and adds the MacGuffins to drive the naratives and fleshes out the characters and settings.

The lack of those things is a design flaw not 'poor writing.' Poor writing is "I'm looking for my father/son, middle-aged guy/infant, have you seen him?"

Fallout 3/4?

 

[Metro]

^ That.

It's splitting rhetorical hairs. I'm taking writing in the sense that once the design choices are laid out (multiple factions, branching quests with mutually exclusive alternatives, C&C, etc.) someone goes in and adds the MacGuffins to drive the naratives and fleshes out the characters and settings.

The lack of those things is a design flaw not 'poor writing.' Poor writing is "I'm looking for my father/son, middle-aged guy/infant, have you seen him?"

Fallout 3/4?

Well, yes. Both FO3 and 4 had terrible narrative/characters which I file under 'writing.' Obviously they were also both poorly designed from a mechanical/C&C/design standpoint but as Infi points out that almost certainly came first and then the meat of the writing/story was tacked on with them knowing you couldn't do things like join the Enclave.

Strikes me as the most natural way to create a game. Just me sitting down thinking up an idea for a potential Fallout: New Orleans. I start with the setting -- Louisiana, small parts of East Texas, small parts of Mississippi, etc. Then you go to major/minor powers and factions you can join and sketch out how they interact (can you ally with A and still be friendly with B, etc.) Then you develop quests that work within that framework and only then are you going to get to stuff like dialogue choices and narrative.

Edit to add: And funny enough where Bethesda mostly fails with their writing is forcing the idea of a personal narrative into a game series where you're better off keeping things open/vague. The PC should be an unknown quantity without much of a backstory. The emphasis should be on the world so you're free to interact with things how you see fit. Forcing some cliche personal quest onto the PC (gotta find muh boy!) is not only derpy from a writing standpoint but it's also a waste of time/resources: you're actually making the game WORSE by adding stuff like that. Whereas leaving things unsaid make things work so much better.

Put another way, the setting is the main character. The story isn't about one man/woman/gender not assumed but about the region the game takes place in and how things eventually turn out depending on the actions of the PC.

 

[ColonelTeacup]

Joseph Anderson on youtube points out a theory that Fallout 4 seems to be built by committee, and they decided to have each employee or at least seperate people decide on what quests would seem "fun", rather than have some designated writers to create the plots and quests. It's why the quests rarely ever overlap, as well as why the quests can go from something horribly simplified like the radio quest, to something horrifically lore breaking like the fridge kid quest, to the USS Thompson, which at least had some aspects of former Fallout mechanics, giving the quests options to advance with specific perks and skills, or attributes.

 

[Infinitron]

My guess is that if you were a young area designer at Bethesda and tried to make a more coherent world with complex interconnected questlines etc, then Todd Howard would gently take you aside and tell you, "I have to cut this. We don't do things like this here, it's too QA-intensive." Eventually you'd learn to not even try.

 

[Delterius]

ITT we conflate area, quest and dialogue design in a bid to make a more nebulous term than RPG.