Bethesda might lose Fallout to Interplay

I agree with most of Villain's crticism on Skyrim as I also feel that there is a huge lack of depth and too much shallowness.

As a matter of fact, I also felt my intelligence being insulted in numerous occasions while interacting with NPC's and doing their quests.

For me, one of the major flaws is that they chose quantity over quality. It is also the reason why I am particularly worried about Fallout 4, especially after the huge commercial succes of Skyrim, meaning that they don't have any reasons to change their formula.

Well, at least the discussion is now civil, yea me :-)

Okay I see what some of you folks are saying. And perhaps you're right the dept of your choice is somewhat lacking but I consider even these shallow choices a huge step over what has been. I remember the early Bards Tales where there was I think 2 dungeons and one city and all you did was kill every and any thing in your way, you had no choice but to kill or be killed. But in a game with over 300 locations and associated quests as well, even a simply yes or no decision still can result in a rounded character.

So that "orphanage" quest (Loss of Innocence) could have been way more rounded out as Villain explained. But this type of quest was no where to be found in Bethesda's earlier games.

I guess what irks me is when people announce that there is no role playing in Skyrim and yet that is basically what I have been doing the whole time I've been playing the game. I have no problem with folks pointing out the problems with the game. But to say the game lack a role play experience, is probably only true to the person making the statement and not some generic truth.

Originally Posted by Dajjer
I guess what irks me is when people announce that there is no role playing in Skyrim and yet that is basically what I have been doing the whole time I've been playing the game.

How exactly are you role playing ? there are no choices and consequences , no earth shaking decisions , no dialogue , no fame/infamy , no personality , no paths to follow , no nothing ; all that matters is to put perks into combat skills so you can compensate the atrocious level scaling .
The fact that the game doesn't have a timer in the quests that it forces upon you isn't role play , the way you fight isn't role play …unless of course you consider Mr Icandoeverything Joinallfactions as role play.
Skyrim is a shitty combat simulation with shitty combat, i will too take mount and blade any time .

I wouldn't go as far as saying that you cannot roleplay in Skyrim. You can debate its extent and whether it is light or heavy roleplaying but you can certainly do so IMO.

Of course, the concept of roleplaying itself is also subject to each person's own definition, which is an endless discussion in itself.

In my particular case, a clear roleplaying decision was during the appearance of the Dark Brotherhood.

Unfortunately, such choices are far too few and I think that so much potential in Skyrim is wasted.

Originally Posted by Tragos
How exactly are you role playing ? there are no choices and consequences , no earth shaking decisions , no dialogue , no fame/infamy , no personality , no paths to follow , no nothing ; all that matters is to put perks into combat skills so you can compensate the atrocious level scaling .
.

I just don't know what to tell you. When I fire up the game I have all those things going on. Choices, decisions and fame. Maybe for me, my game time is like those old timey radio shows where your imagination fills in the gaps. My character interfaces in a world where she is liked by some and hated by others. Putting those limited perks into the skills helps me do what I want to do. But my in game character is still guided by the principles I laid out for her. I call that role playing.

Originally Posted by Dajjer
I just don't know what to tell you. When I fire up the game I have all those things going on. Choices, decisions and fame. Maybe for me, my game time is like those old timey radio shows where your imagination fills in the gaps. My character interfaces in a world where she is liked by some and hated by others. Putting those limited perks into the skills helps me do what I want to do. But my in game character is still guided by the principles I laid out for her. I call that role playing.

That's cute. In SMB3 I can guide my character (Mario) based on principles I (arbitrarily) laid out for him (avoid Goombas, don't use warp whistle) and use limited powerups to do what I want to do. I call SMB3 an RPG.

Originally Posted by solosolo
That's cute. In SMB3 I can guide my character (Mario) based on principles I (arbitrarily) laid out for him (avoid Goombas, don't use warp whistle) and use limited powerups to do what I want to do. I call SMB3 an RPG.

That's cute????

If you want to call Super Mario Brothers 3 an RPG, believe it or not that's fine with me. A few year back there was a discussion about whether or not to No One Lives Forever (1) and X com could be called role playing games. While clearly neither game had the typical role playing characteristics, both games had the feel of you playing the in game character. I can't really recall how the discussion thread turned out but it was a civil discourse without any name calling.

Originally Posted by Dajjer
That's cute????

In another thread I described how to roleplay Doom:


[…]
For example over Christmas I played Doom twice.

The first time I played as a lawful good character, who killed all those vicious beast from hell for attacking our civilisation.


The second time I played as a chaotic evil character, who loved to murder all those innocent aliens being stranded in our world by an experiment gone wrong.


Now your post [in the other thread] makes me think of a third playthrough as a neutral charcter who only kills stuff in order to get loot and to keep the number of beasts in balance.


By the way during my first playthrough I was a little bit concerned by the level cap, but then I found the secret level and everything was ok after that.

I have to admit that I didn't bother with any other side quest.

Wow, it really has gone down here….I read one post in here littered with swearing and insults…This may be an acceptable form of communication on the codex, but I thought it was not allowed on here. To say the least, very dissapointed in all this.

Originally Posted by rune_74
Wow, it really has gone down here….I read one post in here littered with swearing and insults…This may be an acceptable form of communication on the codex, but I thought it was not allowed on here. To say the least, very dissapointed in all this.

not only the swearing but also the condescension tinged with an air of my way or no way.

Please try not to show disdain or grief over vulgarity, it would only entice them more. These sort of posters really thrive on butthurt. Villain is no exception.

Villain, the only reason I am not critical of Skyrim after New Vegas is because Bethesda did not develop New Vegas. I do hope that Bethesda continues to work with Obsidian on Fallout games or, at the very least, takes a substantial amount of cues from New Vegas (though I doubt that will happen. I'm not sure why Bethesda would change their model to emulate Obsidian considering that Fallout 3 had better mainstream reception - which is a shame). I prefer Obsidian's style of creating role-playing games myself, but Bethesda's are fun for very different reasons. Elder Scrolls games have always been about massive worlds and endless questing - very different than Fallout games. And Skyrim, if you ask me, is vastly superior to the previous iteration of the series, Oblivion.

I guess I would describe Bethesda as good world-creators and Obsidian as good character-creators.

Originally Posted by Fnord
It is possible that they won't even have to do that, if the court rules that Bethesda intentionally misled Interplay, or are trying to redefine the contract without first consulting Interplay. What started the issue was not that Interplay demanded their licence back, but that Bethesda decided to take Interplay to court over the Fallout MMO. The contract stated that Interplay had the rights to creating an MMO based on Fallout (plus continue to sell the older games), but when Interplay first launched the MMOs website, Bethesda decided to take them to court over using certain iconic images, like the Vault boy (they also have claimed that while Interplay may sell the old Fallout game, they may not use things like the old box art and advertisement material, due to this containing iconic images). Interplay claims that this was never the intention of the contract, and that by licencing an IP, you would also get the rights to use what the IP contains, not just the name. Bethesda have told interplay that they may not use

thus in effect they make Interplay's right to the Fallout licence useless. This is where the whole meeting of the minds thing comes in.

It's one thing to win a judgement in your favor with this type of trademark dispute (which is still probably years away from being resolved) and it would be something else entirely for Interplay to pursue and obtain an injunction against Bethesda under Maryland law. The bar is usually set quite high for injunctions, which is partly to blame for Beth's difficulties obtaining an injunction for Interplay's Fallout MMO.

It's also a safe bet that the agreements signed between Interplay and Zenimax limit any remedies in favor of the seller of the marks (Interplay) to liquidated damages with an express waiver of injunctive relief (obviously making any kind of injunction even more unlikely).

Originally Posted by Dajjer
not only the swearing but also the condescension tinged with an air of my way or no way.

LOL.

Originally Posted by rossrjensen
I'm not sure why Bethesda would change their model to emulate Obsidian considering that Fallout 3 had better mainstream reception - which is a shame).

Don't you think part of the cooler reception for NV was the fact that it followed F3? People had already seen it, sort of, and weren't ready for what was superficially (and technologically, I suppose) more of the same. I seem to recall that the sales wound up either equal or in NV's favour and there are quite a few stout advocates of NV over F3 around the 'net.

You're right about the different philosophies, but I think Obsidian can excel at creating what Skyrim's missing. Things like character and soul… Seems like it would be a smart business move to try to capture the elements of NV that made is such a slow burning success for the next Fallout game. I suspect Skyrim was too far along for them to integrate what they learned from NV when they realized it was doing well.

Originally Posted by Skittles
Don't you think part of the cooler reception for NV was the fact that it followed F3? People had already seen it, sort of, and weren't ready for what was superficially (and technologically, I suppose) more of the same. I seem to recall that the sales wound up either equal or in NV's favour and there are quite a few stout advocates of NV over F3 around the 'net.
.

Seriously??? In my net travels, it seems Fallout Vegas is far more highly regarded than Fallout 3. For me, Fallout 3 was okay, but Fallout Vegas is one of my favorite RPGs of all time, So I guess that, em, puts me in the stout catergory.

I don't have data, but my impression--and his, I think--was that people and most mainstream review sites weren't as excited about the release of NV as F3. It certainly didn't fly off the shelves on release the same way--it was a slow burning success.

And for every person who openly acknowledges that NV was a better game, I feel like I run into somebody who dismisses it out of hand for being buggy. As opposed to all other Obsidian and Bethesda games…

Originally Posted by Skittles
And for every person who openly acknowledges that NV was a better game, I feel like I run into somebody who dismisses it out of hand for being buggy. As opposed to all other Obsidian and Bethesda games…

But it was a buggy mess. It crashed my computer on every play session. And when I say crash I'm not talking CTD but a flat out stopper of the old rig. Sometimes the game would crash every hour. But in spite of that it was still one of the best CRPG I ever played. My play time with Skryrim is mostly bug free. But a few times I have gotten this weird CTD when the game just fades away and then I am on my desktop. Probably the most graceful crashes ever.

In spite of Obsidian buggy history with Bethesda, I would be very interested to see what they could do with the Elder Scroll series.

Anywhoze, The trial was supposed to last 2 weeks - i wonder what's the latest?

Originally Posted by Skittles
It certainly didn't fly off the shelves on release the same way—it was a slow burning success.

FNV has sold around 5.7 million retail units and Fallout 3 about 7 million. In both cases this is all excluding downloads from Steam, etc.

Originally Posted by rossrjensen
Villain, the only reason I am not critical of Skyrim after New Vegas is because Bethesda did not develop New Vegas. I do hope that Bethesda continues to work with Obsidian on Fallout games or, at the very least, takes a substantial amount of cues from New Vegas (though I doubt that will happen. I'm not sure why Bethesda would change their model to emulate Obsidian considering that Fallout 3 had better mainstream reception - which is a shame). I prefer Obsidian's style of creating role-playing games myself, but Bethesda's are fun for very different reasons. Elder Scrolls games have always been about massive worlds and endless questing - very different than Fallout games. And Skyrim, if you ask me, is vastly superior to the previous iteration of the series, Oblivion.

I guess I would describe Bethesda as good world-creators and Obsidian as good character-creators.

On the contrary, FNV is a perfect reason to be far more critical of Skyrim. FNV is basically a TES game, as is FO3. In Toddler's own words: "Fallout 3 is Oblivion with guns". And FNV is basically a commercial FO3 Total Conversion. And everything Obsidian did good, they did it in Bethesda's own game. They showed us that the "Bethesda model of open world game" doesn't have to be so shallow and dull. They showed us that if Bethesda wanted, they had every opportunity to build a meaningful RPG without changing their open world game model.

But they didn't. And for that, they deserve all the criticism they can get. Both are in the business of making role-playing games. Bethesda is drifting away from that premise. Obsidian is not.

As for mainstream reception, as far as I've read, FNV had a better mainstream reception, though it also got a lot of comparatively unfair flak mixed with a bit of condescension, as in "Obsidian made this game, not Bethesda, and it's buggy." As if FO3 wasn't.

Also, the initial sales of FNV exceeded FO3. By the end of 2008, FO3 had sold about 4.7M units, according to teh internets (in a span of 3 months). According to the internet again, FNV sold 5M in just a month. Possibly due to the reputation of FO3, of course, but it's still selling and I'm not sure how much preset expectations based on the previous title can factor into continuing sales. Comparing the sales numbers in the length of time between now and the release dates for both games, FNV is a smashing commercial success and possibly a better one than FO3.

As for bugs, all Bethesda games have been buggy and I mean all the way back to early 90s. Bugginess of FNV wasn't anything new or special compared to MW/OB/FO3. Aside from soft bugs that can break quests or cause weird issues in the game, hard bugs that cause crashes or memory leaks and the like are a very elusive matter. Neither OB/FO3/FNV were troublesome games for me. They all ran butter smooth and I might have had a total of half a dozen of crashes or other kinds of game-stopping bugs for all of them. Then again, there have always been a lot of people who were very drastically affected by bugs and couldn't even play for an hour straight. Neither experience points to a clear cut case, however. PC platform is a bitch like that. So, what I'm saying is, Obsidian inherited all the problems of Gamebryo from FO3, in addition to introducing their own soft bugs that they have a reputation for and got a disproportional amount of flak for it just because they weren't Bethesda.

It might be interesting to compare the number of quest-fix bugs for FO3 and FNV. FNV has a little less than 100 solely related to quests, IIRC. No idea about FO3. Never even cared about quests in FO3 in the first place to seek fixes for them. LOL.

Funny thing is, this is a recurring theme with Bethesda. They are a very conservative developer. Back in 90s, they had their own in-house engine called Xngine. They built a number of games on that, racing games, sports games and all the TES games up until MW: Arena, Daggerfall, Redguard and Battlespire. And all of them extremely buggy. Bethesda had a reputation for buggy games long before they resurfaced with MW. And now they are repeating the same pattern with Gamebryo.

I admit, it's a valid business model. You can't argue with 10 Million retail sales. Or any amount of sales upwards of several Millions.

Originally Posted by rk47
Please try not to show disdain or grief over vulgarity, it would only entice them more. These sort of posters really thrive on butthurt. Villain is no exception.

Nice anti-propaganda there. Xenophobic and antagonising. A real meeting of the minds. You would fit in alright at the Codex.