No Mutants Allowed - A History of Fallout Fandom Part 2

"We hate them and they'll pay for ignoring us" is just a silly position to take, though. To put it kindly.

Is that what the article is all about? Have you actually read it? It simply states why fallout fans in general are more resilient in the long term, rationally choosing the best lines of work in dealing with the obstacles placed in their way, because of their adherence to the fundamentals of the game and love for the franchise, with a critical sense, and that several outcomes can be expected. History proves that irrelevance isn't something to expect from Fallout fans, no matter the circumstances, but other hypothesis should be taken into account. And speaking of hate you really should start going to other places, there is much more "hate" from former Beth fans to them than there is from Fallout fans. Much more.

And tell me can't MOO fans, Star Wars Galaxies fans, Star Treck Legacy fans, Ultima fans, Daikatana fans, Sam and Max (regarding LucasArts) fans, go against their publishers and scream their distaste for choices made by publisher or developers with their loved games? And what is so different about Fallout fans, in case you say yes, besides your prejudice and fear or "hurting" your precious game house? Don't you fanboys think about anything besides what is best for you? No? So why do you want the others to think differently?

FANBOY-TROLL REPLY: GOD. FUCK. BASTARD.

That's an excellent account of anti-fallout fans behaviour here and in many places, so that's a two way sword.

At the end of the day, if you take a hardline anything-goes approach, I don't think you can be surprised if a dev disengages. It's entirely your choice to make but it's an unsurprising result.

For historical accuracy, you didn't check your story properly this time:

And just one thing, Fallout fans aren't up and arms, if we look at it closely. When the game was announced there was a pouring of people from all sides of the web that showed up at the TeS forum and signalled their thoughts. It was on their own that they showed up, and if there was lots of screaming and kicking involved it was from both sides, casual and hardcore Fallout and TeS fans.

On the case of NMA only three or four guys took part on those discussions, the only time we had to organize ourselves was when a Beth dev mocked Fallout fans in general as nerds not worth respect, and when we posted his thoughts the Something Awfull people decided to ban everyone from NMA, a few prepared DoS attacks, and later they were joined by kids from Penny arcade with loads of trolling posts and obscene pictures on the GD forum. By that time we started to talk to the Beth devs, they joined our forum and DAC (some were already at the Codex since it's an CRPG site and not a Fallout fansite, since they were following Oblivion) and everything cooled off.

Just a couple of months ago someone asked me on the Codex why we weren't in arms kicking and screaming, and I just told him that we were forced to post news on Fallout3, since it's our obligation to the fans, but no one was paying much attention to it on the NMA team except Rosh, or very interested, to be honest. Reporting was a task, nothing else, a few of the admins and mods were enforcing the policy on not making wild charges against Beth or stirring things up before we knew more, until one dev from Beth told us that they weren't going to talk to us because there was a lot of anti Oblivion posts on the Gaming forum, we found it weird since only Rosh was being militant against the game at the time but it didn't seem all that important at the time since they were posting at DAC.

They then disappeared from DAC and told the world the X-Box community was going to have the first real info on the game (besides Desslock, that didn't said much), and the tension surfaced again, with old posts from Rosh, that had resigned from NMA in protest to the fact we weren't at war with Beth and Vault_Dweller from the Codex resurfing with the questions about real time combat and first person, the infamous "Oblivion with Guns", gaining more attention since it seemed clear the priority is the X-Box crowd.

So there's no up and arms, but there is some tension. Maybe we'll work things up, there are still a few channels open and a few of us don't dislike everyone at Bethesda, and the regular fans are still voicing their opinions but in a more wait and see stance. We'll talk more in a couple of months, I guess.

And you are trying to rationalise things Dhruin, read these topics:
digg
V3d
TeS

There are voices of complaint, doubt, careful optimism and outright hostility everywhere, should Beth not talk to the INTERNET now because "some of them are meanies"? :)
 
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I was responding to Bradylama, his claims of being blackbanned and his claims that NMA (et al) will reduce the sales from 3M to 500k.

Anyway, I think that's enough from me. I'll close with saying I support a turn-based, iso Fallout true to the original but I dislike hysteria from all sides.
 
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That won't happen Dhruin, it won't be like that, we have to settle on what else can be done to make it something different from FOBOS or the ridiculous AI, worse mini-game ever with the speech one, and worse design idea to brake immersion I ever saw with that levelling thing that was Oblivion.

At least the art was generally excellent, if we don't count the faces, so they have something to start, let's see if they can impress us in other departments, too soon to tell.
 
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I always thought of the art of Morrowind and Oblivion to lack something. Both had a huge gameworld with amounts of locations and npcs (that both lacked depth) but with all the possibilities of the engine the world stayed a little lifeless and blunt (and I'm speaking of the graphics). Compare them to Gothic (first game), which had this technicaly very poor engine with low polycount but just looked great from the "art" side of view ; - ) Don't know if you understand my point (my English isn't that great).

I'm still hoping on something that continues the Fallout lore. I doubt that there'll be a turn-based combat system (developers depend on the "well-known" fact that "such" games don't sell well) but with games like "The Fall" (very buggy but funny and interesting) promising Fallout-like games with realtime-combat aren't so impossible. What counts more are the storyline, the npcs and the player-affected gameworld with twists and tension and humor. I really hope that some of this feature will be implemented in an acceptable way. Never give up hope.
 
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my English isn't that great

Mine either, and I do get your point and agree. One thing, I really hope they won't go into the bloom thing, that would be incredibly annoying.

And blacklisted is excessive, that happened with RPGCodex and ST gaming, we and DAC on the other hand only suffer from a no posting from Beth allowed status, but a few channels remain opened.
 
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However generous your estimation of your influence, it's utterly dwarfed by the Bethsoft marketing machine.

Marketing machine? You mean that one guy with the bad articulation?

Don't overestimate their "machine".

Your efforts won't have any influence whatsoever on whether they sell 3m or 500k - that rests on what Bethsoft do and how they market it.

You base this feeling on...what...gut feeling? The huge fanbase they must have gained by being so honest about Oblivion? The grand pr that Legacy brought them? Past cases in franchise histories?

I don't like defeatism, not even when it's realistic. Right here, it's not even that realistic. Hype is a very dangerous game of poker, it's not that hard to put all your chips on one hand.

Is there more to it than that?

No, which means it might seem overstated in the article. Which would be a bad thing.

What's in it for me? You only would complain about everything I have to offer you.

Please hold of making uninformed comments until after reading the article. Rehashing arguments = tiring.
 
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Marketing machine? You mean that one guy with the bad articulation?

Don't overestimate their "machine".
I'm not going to trade rhetoric with you. If you want to discuss the difference in influence between your word of mouth campaign and a Bethsoft media blitz, fine, but a debater's flourish that reduces the media coverage they receive to "that dude with the two dollar haircut" is just a waste of time.
 
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I'm not going to trade rhetoric with you. If you want to discuss the difference in influence between your word of mouth campaign and a Bethsoft media blitz, fine, but a debater's flourish that reduces the media coverage they receive to "that dude with the two dollar haircut" is just a waste of time.

Dead on! The so-called "marketing machine" is nothing but the ability of one guy to stimulate and influence the media coverage. In that sense, there is no marketing machine, just one guy pulling their strings.

But, negative remarks on the gaming media nonwithstanding, they're not just a bunch of yokels wandering around in the developers' pocket. The media has to factor in several matters, the developer and their pr bureau is just one of them, word-of-mouth and popular response is another. Mainstream articles write to please and in that way they simply propagate and heighten popular opinion. If a game starts hyped, it just grows more hyped. If a game starts with negative word-of-mouth, this also just grows. It's about a tenuous balance that can be tipped either way, both before the release of the game and after it.
 
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I always thought of the art of Morrowind and Oblivion to lack something. Both had a huge gameworld with amounts of locations and npcs (that both lacked depth) but with all the possibilities of the engine the world stayed a little lifeless and blunt (and I'm speaking of the graphics). Compare them to Gothic (first game), which had this technicaly very poor engine with low polycount but just looked great from the "art" side of view ; - ) Don't know if you understand my point (my English isn't that great).
.

While I agree with you about Morrowind and Oblivion being lifeless compared to Gothic, I'd have to disagree about them lacking art. I haven't played too much of Oblivion yet, but Morrowind had some incredibly artistic architecture. I was especially impressed with some of the Dwemer ruins.

It was the (lack of) NPC's and monsters that made Morrowind seem lifeless compared to more populated games like the Gothic series, certainly not the graphics.
 
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You're doing it again. "Here is one thing; here is another." The implication is that they're equal in weight, when that's exactly the point under contention. The question is whether you can generate more negative word-of-mouth than will be nullified by the usual gushing previews and pretty screenshots, not whether negative word-of-mouth, in general, is bad for a game. We know that.
 
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You're doing it again. "Here is one thing; here is another." The implication is that they're equal in weight, when that's exactly the point under contention. The question is whether you can generate more negative word-of-mouth than will be nullified by the usual gushing previews and pretty screenshots, not whether negative word-of-mouth, in general, is bad for a game. We know that.

Sure, but how do you propose to debate the point other than in a "yes-no-you're a poopie head"-manner. Unlike several other points, this is about the vaguest you can get. My impression from past games and interaction with both the gaming media and development is that it is simply a matter of both initiative and intertia and that there is no reason to assume that one guy, no matter how clever or good at his job, has won this battle beforehand. Your impression is that this is not the case.

Ok, what do you want to do about it? Say yes and no a lot? We can do that.

PS: also, the first question is "will the Fallout fans be pushed into generating negative word of mouth" not what will happen if that situation arises. That is yet up to Bethesda.
 
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I think "Oblivion with guns" would be far more marketable than a isometric turn-based rpg in the style of the original 2 fallouts, no matter which one is better to the fans of the original fallout games. Let's face it, the original fallout crowd is not a 1/10 of the size of those who purchased Oblivion. If Bethesda makes a good game like Oblivion, it will sell millions end of story.
 
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Let's face it, the original fallout crowd is not a 1/10 of the size of those who purchased Oblivion. If Bethesda makes a good game like Oblivion, it will sell millions end of story.

A good game like Oblivion? Don't you mean an overly hyped game. Beth's marketing strategy for this game was beautiful and sad. Almost every reviewer loved this game and bashed Gothic 3. It was really funny to see these reviewers bashing Gothic for some of the things they praised Oblivion for. "Give me more creatures that lvl up with me. OH please take away all the fun of exploring an area. Please make it so I can be champion at the arena at LVL 1, YESSS."

Anyways that's just my opinion, but concerning Beth's Fallout I will buy it if it doesn't dumb down the content. I really don't care if it third person or not, just don't make the game as BORING as Oblivion PLEASE!
 
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My impression from past games and interaction with both the gaming media and development is that it is simply a matter of both initiative and intertia and that there is no reason to assume that one guy, no matter how clever or good at his job, has won this battle beforehand. Your impression is that this is not the case.
No, my impression is not that the battle is already won. My impression is that it's not an even fight, and it's not even close. Bethsoft has proven its ability to develop and market a game. The team they have now delivers megahits. If your opinion of your influence rests on the assertion that public perception of Bethsoft hangs in the balance, ready for that fatal nudge, then you want to support that. If Oblivion's failure to live up to its promises has fractured the fanbase, then show how large a fraction of customers felt cheated by Oblivion. If Legacy has cast a pall on its publisher, then show that a statistically significant number of gamers would even know what the hell you're talking about. Otherwise there's no reason to regard Bethsoft as anything but the overwhelming favourite in the battle for mindshare.
 
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No, my impression is not that the battle is already won. My impression is that it's not an even fight, and it's not even close. Bethsoft has proven its ability to develop and market a game. The team they have now delivers megahits.

Yeah, so did Interplay. In its core, the concept of Oblivion with Guns is not that far away from BG: DA with Guns. Hell, the popular defeatist attitude around the BoS fiasco was that this was a SLAM DUNK! hit. But it wasn't, was it?

Also, so far, their marketing hasn't exactly been bumped about by opposition, has it? Hell, Legacy had hella support from the STG fans.

If your opinion of your influence rests on the assertion that public perception of Bethsoft hangs in the balance, ready for that fatal nudge, then you want to support that. If Oblivion's failure to live up to its promises has fractured the fanbase, then show how large a fraction of customers felt cheated by Oblivion. If Legacy has cast a pall on its publisher, then show that a statistically significant number of gamers would even know what the hell you're talking about. Otherwise there's no reason to regard Bethsoft as anything but the overwhelming favourite in the battle for mindshare.

That's a self-fulfilling prophecy anyway. If you're just going to call Bethesda the winner before the mental fight, then of course they win the fight.

And I *just* said it would degrade to a yes-no because all of the above by you is outside of the scope of proof without market analysts and a severe overload of statistics. The *impression* I've formed from the ESF is that there are a lot of pissed off "fans", who represent the fanbase to some margin, since other buyers aren't fans, just casual buyers/customers. Wander over to Star Trek Gamers to see how Legacy has cast a pall on its publisher, with them blacklisting and alienating a 200k-hit-a-day fansite.

But like I said, this is just yes-no-ing

PS: don't say "your influence". I'm not talking about myself nor NMA. All we can do is nudge, not steer.
PPS: what're you proposing anyway? Collectively roll over and give up on quality games? That kind of self-fulfilling prophecy thinking is exactly what just makes it worse, y'know.
 
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I'm proposing that you save the locker room pep talks for your forum. You guys won't win unless you believe that you can, but you won't convince anyone who doesn't already want to believe unless you can support your position, because it's absurd on its face.
 
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