Game News Oblivion modders will design Fallout 3 dungeons!

[Rat Keeng]

Exactly. Why raise the bar with one game, when you'll have to make a worthy sequel a few years later?

 

[Baphomet]

That's an interesting take on the problem, suibhne. I'd say you changed my mind. By definition, indie types make a living off of niche markets, so there is light at the end of the tunnel. Ideally one such title would catch on with the larger community.

 

[Rosh]

1. In the industry, among real developers, Bethesda's name is SHIT. Worse than EA ....

reading your posts, i get the impression that you are a game developer yourself? how do you know that bethsoft's employees are badmouthing their company? just curious.

First, because more than a couple have told me themselves, the ones I have had contact with since...well, Daggerfall. More developers liked Usenet then because it was a centralized location devoid of any one site or BBS's bias. Now it's all a game about which site can kiss a developer's ass hard enough so they'll visit, because the average video game consumer has been dumbed down to the point where posting onto Usenet is a challenge. Sad.

Second, this can be verified by the revolving door of talent at Bethesda. They are giving people without much, experience, evident talent, nor much of a clue, lead positions. They are also having to forum-recruit for people. Both are incredibly poor design/development decisions. Why are they having to do that? Because the oldtimers have been leaving out of disgust with how Bethesda operates and designs, and there is no way Bethesda can recruit anyone with much self-respect. Take a look at Emil on the DAC forums - once was a great level designer, turned into "the part of Oblivion that didn't *totally* suck", and now he's publicly tossing Todd's salad. There really isn't anyone else on the core Fallout 3 design team with much experience or a clue, so if anyone's REALLY expecting Fallout 3 to not suck...now's the time to have your tearful breakdown.

No it won't. Regardless of how this game turns out, the industry will be focused on making millions.

And that means the industry has truly sold out. Fallout was a champion of the old school, since it was more focused upon gameplay and designs that weren't for the Lowest Common Denominator. It, released around the same time as Diablo and others, stood for gameplay when others were trying or have died already due to chasing trends (Ultima and Might & Magic, for examples), and hence why it gained a lot of word of mouth. It's been eight years since then, and the ideals that Fallout stood for are the same, with an industry full of even more lame copycat whores that think you need to copy success in order to make success. Clones don't sell worth shit, as FOS proved.

And frankly you don't make millions by doing RPGs right. You make millions by appealing to the lowest common denominator.

Hmmm, care to look back a few years at RPG Series Done Right, at Wizardry, Ultima, Might & Magic, etc? They each had sales numbers in the millions, and could be released across the globe. The Japanese were influenced by Ultima and Wizardry, mostly, because the genre was created by western titles. But now, the Japanese are the envy of the US developers, because the US developers drool at their sales figures while believing the same western lies about trendy bullshit. Such things as TB gameplay, isometric view, etc. All of which are currently still being developed by the Japanese, because they have a clew with a crue. They understand genres, and for the most part, understand how to treat series so customers will come back. About the best the US developers can do is stick "developed on x engine" and "by the same newbies that suckered you into believing you bought a real game of Oblivion" somewhere on the box.

People seem to expect that you can just suddenly shit out a game and it will instantly sell like a series sequel, or that if you change the formula to appeal to the Lowest Common Denominator, that it will still sell. Ultima, Wizardry, and Might and Magic ALSO serve as prime example for why series FAIL AND DIE when the Lowest Common Denominator is pandered to.

In the RPG genre, you get millions by either selling yourself out to the consoles (while earning the contempt, not jealousy, of real designers that treat their audience better), or by faithfully continuing a series so it gains a larger audience. Generally, if you want big sales through a respectable route, you have to earn them, which takes years of hard work. We know which way Bethesda went, and the moronic X-Box crowd really doesn't know any better. Bethesda decided to take their core franchise of TES and make a shitty sequelf called "Battlespire", to feebly take advantage of that "multiplayer" fad going around. Then they made a couple of shitty TES adventure games that played like a third-rate budget Tomb Raider, but without any 40DD reason for the cattle to buy them. Out of denial of how their fans weren't buying the shitty spin-offs, they decided to dumb down the game for the X-Box market, and now you have the degradation of a series and genre, if this bullshit is supposed to qualify as "Bestest CRPG Evar" by some gaming rags.

Really, does the X-Box market generally have an interest in RPGs? Not in the conventional sense, as most titles are vapid action crap.

So, Bethesda's choice to put it upon X-Box was entirely upon greed, at the cost of the game's design, and ultimately the once-faithful audience. The faithful audience has been replaced by people who apparently don't care about the series or anything of that sort, but want to mod in fixes for Bethesda's laziness and the obligatory nude mods.

Plus...that's all the morons know how to do, make crappy action games with a stat system and scam them off as RPGs, and you can certainly use newbie talent as filler for that quality of "work". Which means the "talent pool" of those TES modders still left around are about the best they can hope for, and those are going to be the mappers for Fallout 3.

Fallout 3 = FUCKED.

Indie gaming FTW.

Ironic that indie gaming is able to easily tap the market that the mainstream has been neglecting out of denial over their own incompetence. It is much like the Adventure genre all over again. :D

 

[Volourn]

Fans are NEVER faithful. That's bullshit. Fans are selfish pieces of shits who are only in it for themselves. Period.

 

[Rosh]

Fans are NEVER faithful. That's bullshit. Fans are selfish pieces of shits who are only in it for themselves. Period.

From a pragmatic approach, yes, they are. If they don't get what they want, why should they keep following a series and even treat the developers nicely? Quid pro quo, the developers are promising a part of a series, and don't deliver, but instead deliver some total shit to a consol. Should the fan care about the developer's designs for pandering to a console, and be appreciative of that? Or should they instead be more interested in a game delivering what they expect for the money they paid for it?

Yeah, the fans are pretty selfish for expecting that. But then, so are the developers who don't care about the fans...unless "fan" is to mean the number of sales the developer wants to get over design integrity, using the name and the appreciation of the title as a mechanic to sell out the game.

Yeah, damn those selfish fans.

 

[psycojester]

Volourn you should become a marriage councilor

 

[galsiah]

That's gold right there. The essence of an RPG done right. Now here's the real question - does this appeal to the gamer community at large? I honestly don't think so. Hence, the process of making a real RPG is incompatible with the process of making a blockbuster game which sells millions of copies.

That's not the point.
The issue isn't whether that stuff has appeal to the mass market (and perhaps some of it would). The issue is whether such elements can be included in a game which appeals to the mass market - perhaps for other reasons.

The real question, as suibhne points out, is whether the gains from "doing it right" merit the development resources necessary (or are perceived to).

The problem imo is that these things take a lot of development time...

But do they? Certainly some of the items on my list wouldn't - the "nice" parts as Baphomet describes them.

As for the consequences beyond stats/gold/items..., does that really take that much to get right? Look at Fallout. Many of the consequences there don't have implications beyond their area and situation. Players still care about them simply because they have a chance to have a large effect on the way things go.
Whether Gizmo or Killian ends up in charge of Junktown has no effect outside Junktown (right???), and doesn't require any amazing non-linearity or other resource intensive investment. It's still a consequence player's care about.

Clealy, the ideal is to have consequences which often do have far-reaching effects outside their locale. Fallout rarely did though.

What I said (and what you quoted) is that an RPG "done right" will fail to reach blockbuster sales...Tell me with a straight face that you can see marketing specialists establish branding based on a game's awesome decisions.

Again, that's not the issue. The game doesn't have to be advertised (in most media situations) on the basis of the codex-friendly features - it just needs to include them. There's nothing to stop such features being included in a game which gets advertized for its graphics.
There's also no reason that something which isn't the primary pull of the game for most players can't also be a significant reason they'll enjoy it, and be inclined to buy future games in the series.

No matter how you improve the core experience of your example, Oblivion, the player's most important decision will always be in what order he or she will experience game content.

I'd dispute that (though I haven't bought/played it - so your "joke" does makes little sense). I'm arguing from direct knowledge of Morrowind, and indirect knowledge of Oblivion.

For example, by switching the character creation/development system, you could quite simply allow highly specialized characters. That choice (albeit a starting choice, not an in character choice) would have a very significant effect on gameplay throughout the game.

In any case, I'm not arguing that tweaking Oblivion will create a great RPG. Your argument works just as well backwards: however many important character decisions you add, you won't change the core experience. So what's wrong with adding such choices?
Again, in Fallout much was essentially cosmetic (few implications, small development cost), but still made a large difference.

Fans are NEVER faithful. That's bullshit.

I agree, but they are often faithful for at least the next game in the series (certainly in the absence of a demo). Their faith usually disappears as soon as one game goes horribly wrong, but it's still useful for that one game.
Keeping fans faithful will create a lot more anticipation before the game, and guarantee many sales of that game. It won't mean that people continue with the series if that game sucks (in their eyes), since - as you point out -, fans are out for themselves.

 

[suibhne]

The real question, as suibhne points out, is whether the gains from "doing it right" merit the development resources necessary (or are perceived to).

You provided my answer for me. :wink: Yes, I don't think it matters much whether good branching design (i.e., TEH TYRANY OF CHOYSUS) takes a lot more development time; what matters is that it's apparently perceived to take a lot more development time. Many of our interactions with Bio employees around here have ended with them pointing out that they can spend an extra 150% of their total design resources creating complexity that only 10% of their fans will ever see - and they clearly don't think this is a great approach. But I've never seen any dev in any interview sit back and say, "How can we better organize the entire design process so that branching narratives, alternative solutions, etc. don't actually take an extra 50% or 250% of design resources?"

 

[Volourn]

"From a pragmatic approach, yes, they are. If they don't get what they want, why should they keep following a series and even treat the developers nicely?"

No, they shouldn't.

But, that's the point.

Fans are loyal to one thing - themselves and their own enjoyment. And, that's all fine and dandy but this talk of 'betrayal' is plain bullshit.

Why should companies have loyalty to a group of people who are inherenetly selfish.

Quite frnakly, companies should make the games they want based on whatever factors (the aghme they wnat to make, if it well sell, whatever) then customers cna choose what they want to buy based on their selfish desires.

People who use the term loyalty when disucssing what 'fans' feel about x company don't really know what loyalty is.

Afterall, how many times do you hear people whine that x game wans't worth the money they spent on it. The moment that loyalty comes down to dollars it's no longer loyalty. Period.

You can't buy or sell loyalty. And, since that's exactly what the relationship that a company and its fans/customers have; ther eis no chance for real loyalty.

What loyalty actually means here from the fan's point of view is "I'll buy your games as long as you make games I want to buy."

That's not loyalty.