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A simple solution that would make Bethesda games inherently better

anvi

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It's not that they don't care or are stupid. Dumbing down games makes it appeal to larger audiences and make more money. It is also cheaper and easier to make, so win/win. End of story. They do this deliberately, so do most companies, I thought this was understood.
 
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it does make one wonder how Bethesda can be so fucking stupid they don't do fast travel like the original Fallout games; especially after getting the rights to the series and making something called Fallout. The biggest problem with their fast travel system is the lack of random encounter, which makes fast travel completely consequence free. It's the safest way of getting around in their games. But then their games are full of stupid shit like that.

You are missing the point. Fallout wasn't game for all. That's why Bethseda turned Fallout into TES, not other way around. They aren't stupid, actually they are brilliant in what they are doing: making money. They made shit load of them beceause of their game making formula. That's what people wanted.

You could say Capitalism is to blame.
:negative:

They're stupid. They spent $5.75 million to call Elder Scrolls with guns Fallout when they could have kept that money and just made sci-fi post-apocalyptic Elder Scrolls game that would've sold just as well. They want to make Elder Scrolls in the future with a retro aesthetic? They could have done that without spending that money for Fallout. All they basically did was spend $5.75 million so they could have Fallout's Big Boy and a stat system that spells out SPECIAL.
 

Iznaliu

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It's not that they don't care or are stupid. Dumbing down games makes it appeal to larger audiences and make more money. It is also cheaper and easier to make, so win/win. End of story. They do this deliberately, so do most companies, I thought this was understood.

Additionally, I believe that Bethesda genuinely thinks that the ongoing simplification of their games is unequivocally a good thing; they most likely believe that Skyrim is superior to Oblivion which is in turn superior to Morrowind etc.
 

Dawkinsfan69

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Eh morrowind, ob, and skyrim have massive fundamental design problems that beth hasn't sorted out yet and I don't think that "simplifying" made the series much better or worse..

I don't think a fast travel video is going to help at all but that's probably something a mod could add in easily enough..
 
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Bethesda has to make big money, because they run big budgets. So I don't expect that making good games is high on their priority list. Their managers have to solve much bigger problems than the quality of their games, so they don't give a shit. This is obvious by now, because New Vegas showed them how they can make a good game that sells well on their engine, and they still don't care.

And that's bullshit. Bethesda is one of the, if not the, smallest triple A studios around. Unlike bigger studios though, they work on a single game at a time, but even so, their budgets are not as astronomical as some are.

Arena and Daggerfall and off-shoots around the time were made mostly by one man and a handful of contractors. Any talent Bethesda had left around Morrowind, the remaining ones left around Oblivion. What's left are some of the most incompetent veterans you will find in development.

Here is $150M. Invest it all in a videogame and return a winning profit. Good luck.

I promise you that whether your game satisfies serious gamers is not going to be what keeps you up at night.

Shit, $150 million? You're making one of the most expensive video games around if you're getting that kind of money to play with. Bethesda didn't spend that much on either Skyrim or Fallout. $150 million. You're probably getting tv commercials and nonstop ads on YouTube with that kind of money.

I also don't really buy this "games needs to be shit to appeal to the masses" thing. Bethesda's "RPGs" get by on letting the player do a bunch of shit. If their games actually played good, and weren't bug riddled messes, they'd probably have even more people playing them. Bethesda is in a pretty unique place in that they're really the only game in town when it comes to just letting the player do whatever. And for whatever bizzare reason no one has really actually tried taking on Bethesda at their own game. I'd guess if someone like Ubisoft pushes their FarCry games just a bit further, starts letting players do a bunch of random shit, give them some limited adventure game esque dialogue choices, Bethesda would be fucked.
 

Dawkinsfan69

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Bethesda has to make big money, because they run big budgets. So I don't expect that making good games is high on their priority list. Their managers have to solve much bigger problems than the quality of their games, so they don't give a shit. This is obvious by now, because New Vegas showed them how they can make a good game that sells well on their engine, and they still don't care.

And that's bullshit. Bethesda is one of the, if not the, smallest triple A studios around. Unlike bigger studios though, they work on a single game at a time, but even so, their budgets are not as astronomical as some are.

Arena and Daggerfall and off-shoots around the time were made mostly by one man and a handful of contractors. Any talent Bethesda had left around Morrowind, the remaining ones left around Oblivion. What's left are some of the most incompetent veterans you will find in development.

Here is $150M. Invest it all in a videogame and return a winning profit. Good luck.

I promise you that whether your game satisfies serious gamers is not going to be what keeps you up at night.

Shit, $150 million? You're making one of the most expensive video games around if you're getting that kind of money to play with. Bethesda didn't spend that much on either Skyrim or Fallout. $150 million. You're probably getting tv commercials and nonstop ads on YouTube with that kind of money.

I also don't really buy this "games needs to be shit to appeal to the masses" thing. Bethesda's "RPGs" get by on letting the player do a bunch of shit. If their games actually played good, and weren't bug riddled messes, they'd probably have even more people playing them. Bethesda is in a pretty unique place in that they're really the only game in town when it comes to just letting the player do whatever. And for whatever bizzare reason no one has really actually tried taking on Bethesda at their own game. I'd guess if someone like Ubisoft pushes their FarCry games just a bit further, starts letting players do a bunch of random shit, give them some limited adventure game esque dialogue choices, Bethesda would be fucked.

I bet companies would profit more by taking $150M and investing it into 100-200 indie/small team games that appeal to various niche audiences rather than just trying to appeal to EVERYONE with one game by blowing most of the budget on mass advertising and graphics.
 

Deleted Member 16721

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Bethesda is in a pretty unique place in that they're really the only game in town when it comes to just letting the player do whatever. And for whatever bizzare reason no one has really actually tried taking on Bethesda at their own game.

I always thought this, too. But there are literally no other giant, hand-crafted open-world RPGs being made by anyone other than Megalithic Game Dev Corp(s).

ELEX, for example, is a miracle to me, because PB made a huge world that is damn interesting with 27 people and a tiny fraction of the budget Bethesda uses. But other than Bethesda and CDPR's last game, who even attempts giant open-world, hand-crafted RPGs? PB has the balls to do it, but no other devs do. And I'm not counting Ubisoft or any of that crap.

ELEX is doing well for PB and is also a much more hardcore RPG. I bet if a dev team made something like it but eased up a bit on the hardcoreness at the start and then eased the challenge in more, the game would do great.

Ramble Mode off, but the bottom line is if PB can manage to make a game like ELEX with their miniscule resources, other devs should be able to, too.
 
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Bethesda has to make big money, because they run big budgets. So I don't expect that making good games is high on their priority list. Their managers have to solve much bigger problems than the quality of their games, so they don't give a shit. This is obvious by now, because New Vegas showed them how they can make a good game that sells well on their engine, and they still don't care.

And that's bullshit. Bethesda is one of the, if not the, smallest triple A studios around. Unlike bigger studios though, they work on a single game at a time, but even so, their budgets are not as astronomical as some are.

Arena and Daggerfall and off-shoots around the time were made mostly by one man and a handful of contractors. Any talent Bethesda had left around Morrowind, the remaining ones left around Oblivion. What's left are some of the most incompetent veterans you will find in development.

Here is $150M. Invest it all in a videogame and return a winning profit. Good luck.

I promise you that whether your game satisfies serious gamers is not going to be what keeps you up at night.

Shit, $150 million? You're making one of the most expensive video games around if you're getting that kind of money to play with. Bethesda didn't spend that much on either Skyrim or Fallout. $150 million. You're probably getting tv commercials and nonstop ads on YouTube with that kind of money.

I also don't really buy this "games needs to be shit to appeal to the masses" thing. Bethesda's "RPGs" get by on letting the player do a bunch of shit. If their games actually played good, and weren't bug riddled messes, they'd probably have even more people playing them. Bethesda is in a pretty unique place in that they're really the only game in town when it comes to just letting the player do whatever. And for whatever bizzare reason no one has really actually tried taking on Bethesda at their own game. I'd guess if someone like Ubisoft pushes their FarCry games just a bit further, starts letting players do a bunch of random shit, give them some limited adventure game esque dialogue choices, Bethesda would be fucked.

I bet companies would profit more by taking $150M and investing it into 100-200 indie/small team games that appeal to various niche audiences rather than just trying to appeal to EVERYONE with one game by blowing most of the budget on mass advertising and graphics.

For $150 million you could make one big game and some smaller ones. Could even use one of the smaller games as promotion for the bigger one.

If you're spending $150 million you're shooting for that big money, you're looking to make that GTA CoD money where you're making a billion dollars.
 
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I always thought this, too. But there are literally no other giant, hand-crafted open-world RPGs being made by anyone other than Megalithic Game Dev Corp(s).

ELEX, for example, is a miracle to me, because PB made a huge world that is damn interesting with 27 people and a tiny fraction of the budget Bethesda uses. But other than Bethesda and CDPR's last game, who even attempts giant open-world, hand-crafted RPGs? PB has the balls to do it, but no other devs do. And I'm not counting Ubisoft or any of that crap.

ELEX is doing well for PB and is also a much more hardcore RPG. I bet if a dev team made something like it but eased up a bit on the hardcoreness at the start and then eased the challenge in more, the game would do great.

Ramble Mode off, but the bottom line is if PB can manage to make a game like ELEX with their miniscule resources, other devs should be able to, too.

It's even more specific than that. There's a number of open world games that get called RPGs, and a number of open world games in general now. But when developers seemingly try to take on Bethesda, it basically beginning and ends at being open world. The thing about their Elder Scrolls and Fallout games is they're open world FPSs where you can pick up everything in the world, and you can do just about whatever you want...even if you can't do about whatever you want. At the least they give you the impression of being about to do whatever. I'm just surprised how nobody really has taken them on at their own game, especially by this point. I'm especially surprised how none of the big developers have truely tried going after this niche, especially given its not a niche market given the kind of money Bethesda pulls in on their cheap games. Shit, EA is so stupid they've done nothing like Bethesda's FPS open world Fallout despite owning the Wasteland IP. Seems like it'd be fairly easy for EA, Activison, Ubisoft, or Take-Two to take Bethesda on at their own game, exactly, and do it with a higher level of polish than Bethesda over has.
 

Deleted Member 16721

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I always thought this, too. But there are literally no other giant, hand-crafted open-world RPGs being made by anyone other than Megalithic Game Dev Corp(s).

ELEX, for example, is a miracle to me, because PB made a huge world that is damn interesting with 27 people and a tiny fraction of the budget Bethesda uses. But other than Bethesda and CDPR's last game, who even attempts giant open-world, hand-crafted RPGs? PB has the balls to do it, but no other devs do. And I'm not counting Ubisoft or any of that crap.

ELEX is doing well for PB and is also a much more hardcore RPG. I bet if a dev team made something like it but eased up a bit on the hardcoreness at the start and then eased the challenge in more, the game would do great.

Ramble Mode off, but the bottom line is if PB can manage to make a game like ELEX with their miniscule resources, other devs should be able to, too.

It's even more specific than that. There's a number of open world games that get called RPGs, and a number of open world games in general now. But when developers seemingly try to take on Bethesda, it basically beginning and ends at being open world. The thing about their Elder Scrolls and Fallout games is they're open world FPSs where you can pick up everything in the world, and you can do just about whatever you want...even if you can't do about whatever you want. At the least they give you the impression of being about to do whatever. I'm just surprised how nobody really has taken them on at their own game, especially by this point. I'm especially surprised how none of the big developers have truely tried going after this niche, especially given its not a niche market given the kind of money Bethesda pulls in on their cheap games. Shit, EA is so stupid they've done nothing like Bethesda's FPS open world Fallout despite owning the Wasteland IP. Seems like it'd be fairly easy for EA, Activison, Ubisoft, or Take-Two to take Bethesda on at their own game, exactly, and do it with a higher level of polish than Bethesda over has.

The open-world games that get called RPGs now are not close to real RPGs, though. At least not in my book (I refuse to play Assassin's Creed 12: The RPGing or consider Far Cry or what have you as RPGs in the sense that Bethesda's games still are.) Although also not sure about Fallout 4 as I haven't played it yet. Skyrim I'd still consider an RPG for sure.

But Beth's RPGs are more RPG than anything else in that arena of open-world games. You have basically Skyrim/Oblivion/Morrowind, Witcher 3 (CDPR's first crack at an open-world game, but also pulls a lot more from Ubisoft-style crap) and Gothic 3, later ELEX. Other than those few, in the past 10 years where are all the huge, open-world RPGs that are actually hand-crafted and unique, i.e. not just "collect all the hidden objects in a giant, empty world" open-world games or GTA games? There are just no other games I can think of like that being made. Beth definitely has the market to themselves on those.

Going back to ELEX (because I love it, best open-world RPG design overall I've seen since Morrowind, and certainly the most "RPG"), PB is proving you can make a hugely ambitious, large-scale, hand-crafted open-world RPG with minimal resources compared to the big dogs. I hope this shows some ambitious dev teams themselves that if they can maybe scrounge up $10-20 million, they can enter this arena. Someone could scale back ELEX slightly, make it less challenging to get into at the start and focus it a bit more and start a new franchise/IP of open-world RPGs to compete with Bethesda.

I know I'm rambling but I'm in Sleep Deprivation mode right now. Insomnia fettle. I just hope to see more actual RPGs set in open-worlds that don't automatically resemble Ubisoft games.
 

Quillon

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Seems like it'd be fairly easy for EA, Activison, Ubisoft, or Take-Two to take Bethesda on at their own game, exactly, and do it with a higher level of polish than Bethesda over has.

They prolly see it as dying breed/not worthy of investment so when they are not making multiplayer shooters, they invest in action games with big part of it co-op; games as a service and all that jazz. On the other hand its Feargus' dream, he has been prolly pestering them to fund a bethesda-killer RPG for the past 7 years, he also called them out on this in a GI Show 2 years ago. If it ain't happened yet, it prolly won't happen anytime soon. Otherwise I also think:

They should have made GR Wildlands an RPG. They have the resources to create this huge ass beautiful game world, nowadays' popular narcos setting & serviceable story but filled with series of linear quests which people stop talking about after the month of its release.

Especially Ubisoft would have easier time making a game to challenge/wipe the floor with Bethesda or EAware.
 

Trashos

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Eh, seemingly Bioware tried something with DAI, but they fucked up and probably got laughed at out of the building. But at least it shows that EA (owners of Bioware) is testing the waters.

I am curious to see Tim Cain's new project at Obsidian. Tim Cain is no complete stranger to open-world (Fallout- kinda-, and Arcanum), so it is a possibility.

All that said, producing an open world game (especially the engine) is not an easy thing, and most companies probably resort to easier ways of making money. Also, the marketing team at Bethesda are nothing sort of geniuses, selling the same re-skinned turd for big $$$ over and over. It is not clear that anyone else can copy that success.

ELEX, for example, is a miracle to me, because PB made a huge world that is damn interesting with 27 people and a tiny fraction of the budget Bethesda uses. But other than Bethesda and CDPR's last game, who even attempts giant open-world, hand-crafted RPGs? PB has the balls to do it, but no other devs do. And I'm not counting Ubisoft or any of that crap.

Agreed, it is impressive what PB does, and it was impressive since the Gothic engine. The Gothics are the only ones I would call truly hand-crafted though, because all the other games have randomized respawning enemies.
 
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They prolly see it as dying breed/not worthy of investment so when they are not making multiplayer shooters, they invest in action games with big part of it co-op; games as a service and all that jazz. On the other hand its Feargus' dream, he has been prolly pestering them to fund a bethesda-killer RPG for the past 7 years, he also called them out on this in a GI Show 2 years ago. If it ain't happened yet, it prolly won't happen anytime soon. Otherwise I also think:



Especially Ubisoft would have easier time making a game to challenge/wipe the floor with Bethesda or EAware.

See, that'd be a really odd outlook to have, especially after Skyrim in 2011. And even more especially since nobody else is really even in that market. The thing that's so weird about it is Skyrim and Fallout 4 especially are just action game. They're action games where you can fuck about with a bunch of stuff, and they're in a open worlds as opposed to linear levels, but they're none the less action games. More specifically they're first person shooters. And sure they're FPSs that can be melee focused if you wish, but then so was fucking Hexen. It's just kind of funny they totally ignore this type of FPS given how well it's done in the last six years, that all the big publishers have people that could probably do it better than Bethesda, and that it's an extremely untapped market at the moment. The closest any of the big publishers have gotten in the last few years is Ubisoft with Far Cry, although that's also missing some elements that'd make them feel like they're even in competition with eachother.

Bethesda's Elder Scrolls and Fallout games seem like a pretty easy translation into the whole games as a service market. Seem like a pretty easy translation into co-op and something along the lines of GTA Online, or just an outright MMO. Why Bethesda hasn't had jump-in jump-out split screen or online co-op since introducing companions I don't know. Seems like a fun thing to do, you've only got one companion at a time anyways, and having someone actual controlling the companion would be far better than what they have. Those games seem like such an easy translation into MMO land too that one wonders what exactly the fuck Bethesda was thinking when they didn't do the no brainer move and made Elder Scrolls Online play like something totally different than Elder Scrolls.
 
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The open-world games that get called RPGs now are not close to real RPGs, though. At least not in my book (I refuse to play Assassin's Creed 12: The RPGing or consider Far Cry or what have you as RPGs in the sense that Bethesda's games still are.) Although also not sure about Fallout 4 as I haven't played it yet. Skyrim I'd still consider an RPG for sure.

But Beth's RPGs are more RPG than anything else in that arena of open-world games. You have basically Skyrim/Oblivion/Morrowind, Witcher 3 (CDPR's first crack at an open-world game, but also pulls a lot more from Ubisoft-style crap) and Gothic 3, later ELEX. Other than those few, in the past 10 years where are all the huge, open-world RPGs that are actually hand-crafted and unique, i.e. not just "collect all the hidden objects in a giant, empty world" open-world games or GTA games? There are just no other games I can think of like that being made. Beth definitely has the market to themselves on those.

Going back to ELEX (because I love it, best open-world RPG design overall I've seen since Morrowind, and certainly the most "RPG"), PB is proving you can make a hugely ambitious, large-scale, hand-crafted open-world RPG with minimal resources compared to the big dogs. I hope this shows some ambitious dev teams themselves that if they can maybe scrounge up $10-20 million, they can enter this arena. Someone could scale back ELEX slightly, make it less challenging to get into at the start and focus it a bit more and start a new franchise/IP of open-world RPGs to compete with Bethesda.

I know I'm rambling but I'm in Sleep Deprivation mode right now. Insomnia fettle. I just hope to see more actual RPGs set in open-worlds that don't automatically resemble Ubisoft games.

Yeah, but then Bethesda games haven't been RPGs at all since Skyrim. They have the facade of an RPG leveling system, but the system as it is in Skyrim, and even more so in Fallout 4, could just as easily be like a Far Cry or what a Devil May Cry game has...and it'd probably work better than what they moved on to.

Off the top of my head, in regards to open world RPGs since 2007, there's also been:

- Dragon's Dogma
- Two Worlds 2
- Kingdoms of Amalur
- NieR: Automata
- Divinity 2
- Dragon Age: Inquisition
- Risen


The death of Pandemic put a little dent into the GTA clone factory, as they were the ones behind both Mercenaries and Destory All Humans!. But Just Cause 3 and Mad Max came out just a couple years ago, Mafia 3 and Watch Dogs came out last year, and Ghost Recon: Wildlands and Agents of Mayhem came out this year. Unlike with Bethesda, all the big western publishers tried their hand at a sandbox third person shooters. When Assassion's Creed first came out I just kind of figured the end point of that series would be you playing as Desmond in something like their Watch Dogs game.
 

V_K

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- Kingdoms of Amalur
I think here you have the reason why Bethesda isn't so eager to experiment with their winning formula.

- Divinity 2
I never understood why some people call it open-world when it has a very linear progression of areas. None of Larian's games were open-world since the original DD.

Skyrim and Fallout 4 especially are just action game. They're action games where you can fuck about with a bunch of stuff, and they're in a open worlds as opposed to linear levels, but they're none the less action games. More specifically they're first person shooters. And sure they're FPSs that can be melee focused if you wish, but then so was fucking Hexen.
Well, technically in Skyrim you could specialize in conjuration and illusion and not do a lot of shooting/meleeing. Moreover, the density of combat encounters in TES is much lower than what you'd find in a typical shooter - or even other open-world action-RPGs. I'd go as far as to say that pacing is one of the things Beth actually does right.
 

anvi

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It's not that they don't care or are stupid. Dumbing down games makes it appeal to larger audiences and make more money. It is also cheaper and easier to make, so win/win. End of story. They do this deliberately, so do most companies, I thought this was understood.

Additionally, I believe that Bethesda genuinely thinks that the ongoing simplification of their games is unequivocally a good thing; they most likely believe that Skyrim is superior to Oblivion which is in turn superior to Morrowind etc.
In terms of sales, it is better. And I don't think they even think or care about anything else. It is pretty clear to me from Skyrim that they don't care about gameplay or gaming in general. They want the highest shifted units and they nailed it. It is just so blatantly made for money and mass appeal. Every bit of depth the series once had has been purposely sucked out of it. They achieved what they wanted, a big dumb open world action game that blows the mind of 13 year old xboxers. Dude u can haz things u pick from star signs n shit omg! Orsum.
 
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- Kingdoms of Amalur
I think here you have the reason why Bethesda isn't so eager to experiment with their winning formula.[

- Divinity 2
I never understood why some people call it open-world when it has a very linear progression of areas. None of Larian's games were open-world since the original DD.

Skyrim and Fallout 4 especially are just action game. They're action games where you can fuck about with a bunch of stuff, and they're in a open worlds as opposed to linear levels, but they're none the less action games. More specifically they're first person shooters. And sure they're FPSs that can be melee focused if you wish, but then so was fucking Hexen.
Well, technically in Skyrim you could specialize in conjuration and illusion and not do a lot of shooting/meleeing. Moreover, the density of combat encounters in TES is much lower than what you'd find in a typical shooter - or even other open-world action-RPGs. I'd go as far as to say that pacing is one of the things Beth actually does right.

Combat encounters were pretty dense from the little of Skyrim I played, and I was always passing some keeps or whatever you could drop into for a fight.

I also wouldn't say specializing in either of those discount it from being a FPS. For one thing, the game starts you off in a combat focused state. Specializing isn't something you really do until later. I don't think I even played the game long enough for such specialization to be a practical way of doing anything. For another thing, first person shooters have had attack that let summon things to fight for you and attacks that turn enemies against each other.
 

Deleted Member 16721

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Off the top of my head, in regards to open world RPGs since 2007, there's also been:

- Dragon's Dogma
- Two Worlds 2
- Kingdoms of Amalur
- NieR: Automata
- Divinity 2
- Dragon Age: Inquisition
- Risen

Right, but none of those are the same as a Beth game.

I'm talking more about a simulated, huge open-world with "play/build your dude how you want", almost all items can be interacted with, first-person view, large scale, etc..

I know those games you mention have some of that in varying ways, but when I think of how Skyrim is made, none of those on your list matches.

There is room for a game closer to Elder Scrolls that just hasn't been done yet. I play Gothic in first-person and it's cool, especially Gothic 3, but it shows there is a serious lack of first-person huge open-world RPGs, let alone with all the lore and extra stuff that Beth does.

I also believe there is truly room for a Morrowind-style open-world, but no one dares to do one. You know, with more limited fast travel and less level-scaling. They can look at ELEX for great examples on how to do some of that. Tighten up Morrowind's economy and character building more and keep the pen-and-paper approach, stuff like that. That would be amazing.

I have to shout out SureAI. They make amazing overhauls for Elder Scrolls games, and Nehrim (Oblivion) and Enderal (Skyrim) are some of the best open-world RPG that you'll find with a similar to the design I'm talking about. They are sort of like Gothic-meets-TES, in a good way. And while I haven't played a ton of them, Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul and Requiem for Skyrim seek to do some similar things.

But a SureAI style unique open-world with more elements from Morrowind, ELEX/Gothic 3 (the good ones), sheesh. Ambitious, but someone could try to at least make some sort of open-world RPG like this to compete with Bethesda.

SureAI would be a good candidate.
 
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Iznaliu

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It's not that they don't care or are stupid. Dumbing down games makes it appeal to larger audiences and make more money. It is also cheaper and easier to make, so win/win. End of story. They do this deliberately, so do most companies, I thought this was understood.

Additionally, I believe that Bethesda genuinely thinks that the ongoing simplification of their games is unequivocally a good thing; they most likely believe that Skyrim is superior to Oblivion which is in turn superior to Morrowind etc.
In terms of sales, it is better. And I don't think they even think or care about anything else. It is pretty clear to me from Skyrim that they don't care about gameplay or gaming in general. They want the highest shifted units and they nailed it. It is just so blatantly made for money and mass appeal. Every bit of depth the series once had has been purposely sucked out of it. They achieved what they wanted, a big dumb open world action game that blows the mind of 13 year old xboxers. Dude u can haz things u pick from star signs n shit omg! Orsum.

The point I was trying to make here is that Bethesda actually gives a shit about their games, and has consciously chosen the path they have since they genuinely think that makes the games better. If they wanted to roll in the money, they would be looking at releasing a TES/Fallout game or another game with the same core gameplay template on a yearly basis by setting up multiple rotating teams. Instead, after releasing Skyrim in 2011, they took four years to release Fallout 4, and will probably take another four years to release their next game.
 

anvi

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I am sure they care about focusing on keeping their 2 big franchises alive and relevant. I think they care a lot about them selling and making as much money as possible. I don't think they care whether they are good games though, that they will stand the test of time, be landmarks in gaming, be on "best RPGs of all time" lists, etc.. etc.. I think they care nothing about those types of things. They just want to strip everything out, reuse the same engine as before, make the same thing over and over, as cheap as possible, minimum advancement, minimum bug fixing, maximum profit. And dumbing them down is what they think is the most profitable philosophy.

The problem is the game industry doesn't think or use intuition. It decides everything based on recent data, which doesn't tell the full story, or even close. So I think Bethesda games are boring dumbed down crap and would be better if they were completely changed. But the data shows Skyrim outselling Dark Souls by double, and that's about the only action RPG type game I know of that has any sort of challenge.
 

Deleted Member 16721

Guest
It's not that they don't care or are stupid. Dumbing down games makes it appeal to larger audiences and make more money. It is also cheaper and easier to make, so win/win. End of story. They do this deliberately, so do most companies, I thought this was understood.

Additionally, I believe that Bethesda genuinely thinks that the ongoing simplification of their games is unequivocally a good thing; they most likely believe that Skyrim is superior to Oblivion which is in turn superior to Morrowind etc.
In terms of sales, it is better. And I don't think they even think or care about anything else. It is pretty clear to me from Skyrim that they don't care about gameplay or gaming in general. They want the highest shifted units and they nailed it. It is just so blatantly made for money and mass appeal. Every bit of depth the series once had has been purposely sucked out of it. They achieved what they wanted, a big dumb open world action game that blows the mind of 13 year old xboxers. Dude u can haz things u pick from star signs n shit omg! Orsum.

The point I was trying to make here is that Bethesda actually gives a shit about their games, and has consciously chosen the path they have since they genuinely think that makes the games better. If they wanted to roll in the money, they would be looking at releasing a TES/Fallout game or another game with the same core gameplay template on a yearly basis by setting up multiple rotating teams. Instead, after releasing Skyrim in 2011, they took four years to release Fallout 4, and will probably take another four years to release their next game.

I actually agree with that. I think Todd and company actually do want to make the games they want to play and quality RPGs. They have always struck me as wanting to do that.

Thing is, his ideas for improvements are more general audience improvements, not always necessarily RPG improvements for mutants like myself. So yes, unlimited fast travel, less armor slots and the like are "improvements" for most casual players, and make the game more accessible, but the trade-off is less RPG depth.

And yes, before anyone mentions it, I realize I am an RPG Mutant who prefers archaic RPGs designed by dinosaurs. That's not to say I didn't greatly enjoy Oblivion and Skyrim (don't @ me), those games are still great to me. But I still crave a more Morrowind-esque type of open-world RPG.

Someone just make a gods-damned Morrowind on steroids already. Include 36 skills, 10 stats, crafting, every item can be interacted with (no physics on those, though, plz), 10 factions (some with mutual exclusivity), hand-placed loot everywhere (legendary items, hide shit deep in dungeons in secret places, hand-place chest loot, etc. like in ELEX), add levitation (and secrets galore related to it), vertical exploration, a ton of dungeons and points of interest, large towns, villages, and cities (NPC schedules don't need to be there, don't really care), a million words of dialogue with hidden rumors, hidden "advice", etc., secrets to find everywhere, NO LEVEL SCALING (see: ELEX), hidden NPCs, easter eggs and funny/goofy stuff to find occasionally (not too over the top, a skeleton corpse holding a beer bottle, etc..), environmental storytelling, lots of mystery to the story with a slow pace, "figure it out on your own" approach, challenging difficulty levels w/ "hardcore challenge" options, limited fast-travel network (see Morrowind, just adds more places you can mark and recall to, not just one at a time), dangerous areas like Red Mountain loaded with high level enemies from the start, a ton of armor slots, unique and quirky weapons with many ways to creatively use skills, weapons and spells, 100+ different spells, etc. etc.. Morrowind on steroids, breh. Forget graphics, they could even be Morrowind or Gothic 2/3's level for all I care (that would give them more horsepower to add MORE stuff, too), just add all this crazy deep content.

DO IT, SOMEONE.
 

Reapa

Doom Preacher
Joined
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Messages
2,340
Location
Germany
I think Todd and company actually do want to make the games they want to play and quality RPGs.
:abyssgazer:
it's not that far fetched.
for example: in my recent play through of morrowind it occurred to me that backtracking is not that interesting. it is a flaw of the open world design together with quest hubs design and "fetch quests". fast travel is a simple but efficient way of not having to go though that each and every fucking time you get a new fetch quest. i believe the reason why the mark and recall spells are not in skyrim any more is that they have become obsolete. daggerfall had both fast travel from and to anywhere just like skyrim and it had mark and recall too. but it was there for timed quests and having a fast way of getting out of dungeons if you got "lost". the skyrim fast travel system is not a new one. morrowind actually made a mistake from a game design perspective with the introduction of fast travel services. they added more "muh realism" at the cost of having to backtrack. backtracking is not a typical role playing "mechanic" so nothing of importance was lost by removing it again.
 

Zed Duke of Banville

Dungeon Master
Patron
Joined
Oct 3, 2015
Messages
11,756
The skyrim fast travel system is not a new one. morrowind actually made a mistake from a game design perspective with the introduction of fast travel services. they added more "muh realism" at the cost of having to backtrack. backtracking is not a typical role playing "mechanic" so nothing of importance was lost by removing it again.
Morrowind had three different types of teleportation: mark/recall to return to one specific spot, Divine intervention to arrive at the nearest Imperial Cult chapel, and Almsivi intervention to arrive at the nearest Tribunal temple. A character who lacked spell-casing abilities could still use scrolls and rechargeable magic items with all of these teleportation effects. Backtracking long distances was never necessary.
 

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