Bethesda Surprised. Lol.

That'd be every game out there that isn't coop.
Not sure you'd find that fun.
 
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Ostensibly, what players want and what is profitable would be the same thing. That it isn't necessarily true must mean that there are two different groups of consumers involved, with far less than 100% overlap. I would hope in a perfect world that Bethesda (and any company) would care about what the players who have been with them for decades want, which has still allowed them to make boatloads of money, but like every company that's led by bean counters, the players they care about are the ones who are going to put the most money in their pockets. And in many cases, those aren't the people who bought Morrowind, Fallout 3, Oblivion or even Skyrim.

You have me thinking about this more than I expected. Sure, there are people who want social games and PVP shooters. I think there's relatively little overlap between old-school Bethesda fans and social or PVP gamers, but if that's Bethesda's new intended audience, so be it. I would think that they would be more successful delivering the same experience as before, but improved. (With better graphics, for example. Instead of social/PVP added, which I would consider a different experience rather than an improvement on the same experience.)

But what I'm really wondering is how much people actually spend money on what they want--i.e., in economics, to what extent are people rational actors? A drug-addict doesn't actually want more drugs, but buys them anyway because the drug-addict is no longer a rational actor. I have to believe that free-to-play whales don't actually want to spend thousands of dollars on loot boxes, but they do so because they're not rational.

Someone somewhere decided that loot boxes, real-money auction houses, premium currency, and subscriptions were more profitable than the traditional buy-once-get-all-the-content-forever model. Even though no one seems to want the former, apparently gamers don't spend enough on the latter. So even though we don't want it, that's what we're getting, and developers and publishers are trying to hook us with externalities not directly related to the quality of the game. Those externalities might be things like gambling addiction, or having friends there.

Luckily for me, I have neither money nor friends, and can easily walk away from games that require on them.
 
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I should probably try this thing of actively disliking games I neither play nor understand - so that I can concoct obvious conspiracy theories about them, and then repeat them until I convince myself they're true.

Seems like a lot of fun :)

Here is the problem. There are really two gigantic camps of people. PVE and PVP. It's pretty simple.

There is a much MUCH smaller group of players that like to mix the genres but it is very small

When you go multiplayer it gets tricky.

There are MANY PVP oriented games and almost none of them spend nary a thought about a PVE experience. There are designed an optimized for PVP and they are very successful.

But online multiplayer games always seem to try and balance a combined PVE with PVP experience.

This is because that small group of mixed PVP/PVE and the PVP group are a GIGANTIC vocal minority that sort of drowns out what the very vast majority of what players want.

And balancing them is impossible and ruins many many games, Rift being an example as well as FO76

Blizzards own numbers show that only a very small number of WOW players want or participate in PVP, yet PVP is one of their highest priorities because of the vocal minority. And it greatly weakens the game.

Amazon developed New World around PVP with some PVE elements shifting the balance more towards PVP and what their own numbers showed them was the vast majority of people even in their PVP oriented game, were just doing the PVE elements of the game and completely avoiding PVP. Well PVP was really the "content" so most of their players were actively avoiding the actual game. The PVE stuff in the game is great so it was sustainable for a while. Eventually they closed down the game testing and greatly emphasized more PVE content but it is probably still at least 50/50 PVP with the core element still being massive PVP oriented guilds so I suspect New World will struggle.

In my opinion, especially for MMORPGs, developers need to choose either PVE or PVP and NOT cater at all to the fringe players that want both. I suspect the overall "available" market goes down, but the actual subscribers and those into the game would be more loyal engaged and easier to monetize.
 
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I really like the idea of looting robbing and beating the shit out of other players in an online game to make them cry to mommy.
 
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Because he's an evil shit.
 
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Here is the problem. There are really two gigantic camps of people. PVE and PVP. It's pretty simple.

There is a much MUCH smaller group of players that like to mix the genres but it is very small

When you go multiplayer it gets tricky.

In D&D PnP you do get XP for killing your fellow PC's. Ego trips happen all the time over the table and they have a tendency to devolve this way. I've had this happen to me a few times as a teenager so I just stopped being anywhere near the guy. My friends weren't much help.

Most people co-op'd on my server but conflict and PvP were part of the game and part of the setting. Conflict creates drama.
 
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I don’t think Bethesda understands the pvp crowd. Seems they thought they could throw pvp and guns in to an open world and have a hit.

The competitive shooter players i know are just as passionate about their genre as we are of ours. Instead of TB vs RTWP debates they discuss hit boxes and bullet trajectories.

The most popular PVP shooters spend endless time tweaking and balancing and we know Bethesda isn’t going to take that much time.

Interestingly enough in talking to my son and his friends who are all competitive shooter players and purchased FO76. They said they quit playing because the game lacked content and what it did have was bland. The all said they’d never buy a bethesda game for PVP. Seems even shooter fans know that.
 
In D&D PnP you do get XP for killing your fellow PC's. Ego trips happen all the time over the table and they have a tendency to devolve this way. I've had this happen to me a few times as a teenager so I just stopped being anywhere near the guy. My friends weren't much help.

Most people co-op'd on my server but conflict and PvP were part of the game and part of the setting. Conflict creates drama.

Then I guess that I should be happy that this doesn't work in TDE.

Personally, I value cooperation over ego trips.

They threw out a player out of my former TDE pen & paper group because of that. Big ego trips, his character behaving like a munchkin, always betraying the rest of the group. He was also much younger than the rest of the group.
 
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There a huge difference between evil and crybaby.

I rather think that my question stopped his provocation. I mean his reply sounds like nothing but attention whore.
 
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Then I guess that I should be happy that this doesn't work in TDE.

Personally, I value cooperation over ego trips.

They threw out a player out of my former TDE pen & paper group because of that. Big ego trips, his character behaving like a munchkin, always betraying the rest of the group. He was also much younger than the rest of the group.

What's TDE? Remember, no abbrevs.
 
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Yep.

First they kept screwing with modding, culminating in mods via store - a dumb move IMO since mods are a huge reason why ES/FO games enjoy so much longevity and popularity.

Second they ruin one of the best single player series of all time by squishing it into an MMO nobody ever wanted. No more SP ES games since, which is what ES lovers really want.

Third they ruin another of the best single player series by making a service/forced online with weak single player content, release in an alpha state to further insult, and pile on the crafting gimmick many of us never wanted or liked in FO4 (it's OK but I don't play monster single player RPGs to get my minecraft on, I have modded MC for that and nothing will ever match it for that kind of awesome).

And to cap things off, and show they have absolutely no clue whatsoever is going on with their players, they introduce PvP to a beloved single player franchise that was never MP or having anything to do with PvP.

You almost have to make this up. How can anybody run a gaming company and be this utterly clueless?
 
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because its fun? being bad is fun why else do so many people love the gta series? plus it outs a smile on my face seeing cocky gamers lose their shit. ever played star trek multiplayer back in the day? everyone would un ally and best the shit out of their former allies and it was a fun time to be had lol.
 
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The dark eye, I’d guess.

Right.

My most favourite games, still, like "The Dark Eye : The River Of Time".

because its fun? being bad is fun why else do so many people love the gta series? plus it outs a smile on my face seeing cocky gamers lose their shit. ever played star trek multiplayer back in the day? everyone would un ally and best the shit out of their former allies and it was a fun time to be had lol.

Even as a kid, even as a teenager, and most certainly when I became older, I could never find any kind of "fun" in doing things like you descibe it.
To me, this sounds simply immature.

According to your way of thinking you have outlined there, a certain virus is having LOTS of FUN right now.
 
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then you probably are a normie especially when it comes to your gaming. you probably never pick the lawful bad or unlawful evil or any of the bad options you have in infinity engine rpgs either I assume nor do you ever rob and kill store clerks in the elder scrolls series like the normie you are?
 
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In D&D PnP you do get XP for killing your fellow PC's. Ego trips happen all the time over the table and they have a tendency to devolve this way. I've had this happen to me a few times as a teenager so I just stopped being anywhere near the guy. My friends weren't much help.

Most people co-op'd on my server but conflict and PvP were part of the game and part of the setting. Conflict creates drama.

I think a lot of this has to do with your group and maturity. I always was the DM, and I let this go as a teenager, because I thought everyone should have the freedom to play as they want. As I grew older, I came to realize it was no fun for me to run these scenarios, so at two points I told players "I'm not going to play this situation out. Either we play together as a team, or you can find a new DM. In one situation a player left the group (which was no loss) and in another the player left for one session and then asked to return after agreeing to not try to off or steal from the other players.
 
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I'm surprised more games haven't implemented the social model similar to Dark Souls where you can recruit, team up and have the occasional (and totally avoidable) PvP invasion. 100% PvP is very niche.
 
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