Careful there...you are in danger of burdening a rant thread with facts and assistance.

I'm sure the developers listen, they're professionals after all, but they may not have the same frame of reference as any given critic. As to why they're not throwing themselves at the feet of critics and actively answering every gripe, and thus suffer the criticism of not "engaging the community," I can only say based on what I've seen since launch, and slightly prior, that personally I would keep my distance from monkey's $#!+-fighting in a cage. Just not a lot to learn there, but I might still keep an eye out from a safe vantage point in the unlikely event one happens to throw a gold nugget.

A very good friend of mine warned me about the Beth boards after a game launch...damned if she was spot on.

What exactly is false? I don't see you saying something different. Not talking about bugs etc - strictly gameplay feedback.

Of course Bethesda listens in some cases while in others they don't. As to why or why not I have no idea. I assume "listen" means doing what they're told.

The important question is whether they should listen. In my opinion, no studio should (have to) listen to their fans, nor their backers. Otherwise, welcome to a world of stagnancy. If you want somebody's respect, don't try to impress them.

What are they going to do in 4 days? They just released the damn thing give them some time, they even put in the extra work of a day 1 patch while the game was being shipped.

yeah this is my point to, i mean 4 days and ppl want major patchs. lol

Replicating every bug that is report take time.

Yeah I don't expect a handful of patches already... just that they're listening to some of the major issues we've seen here on the forums.

they are this where u post this isnt the place where they will answer probably they will be focus on the Bug section of the forums

Sounds very silly. Game is going great for me!

Modifications that largely improve certain gameplay features are typically held in the limelight by Bethesda. They took a lot of cues from Duke Patrick's oblivion combat overhaul for Skyrim, as an example.

Doesn't seem like their feedback stems 99% from sales.

Good luck to Bethesda or any other studio if they adopt your philosophy.

They did a lot with skyrim I even got the creator of the Vampire Lord to post in my thread. But agreed, they are rather quiet for fallout 4.

Story time, friends.

It's funny, because the fighting, screaming and kvetching has been going on literally since the release of Fallout 2 (that's a long time, kids). And once upon a time Fallout developers DID in fact join in. Then around 2006-07 when it became clear what Bethesda was doing with (to?) the franchise the fighting, screaming and kvetching got louder than ever before; even louder than during Fallout:Tactics release (i.e. when the term "Glittering Gems of Hatred" was coined by the dev team to describe the Fallout fanbase). And some of the Bethesda devs would pop up at the fan sites, usually to try to justify themselves and their choices only to be immolated within minutes. Then Bethesda made rules: No more devs posting at taboo sites. But the hatred could not be contained. It leaked out onto the official forums and comment threads of every gaming site known to man. And the developers, like a group of turtles, would only dare to poke their heads out ooccasionally to make sure no debris was being hurled in their direction.

And it's honestly pretty dang hard to blame them. At this point all they can do is pat each other on the back and say things like "Well back here in reality, Fred, we did a great job and we made a great game. Let the grognards fight from their basemants" etc, etc. which is obvious in that it is quite a defense mechanism, but moreover a necessary survival mechanism as well. All this is to say: I sincerely doubt we will ever live to see another day where Fallout developers engage with the Fallout fanbase. If Obsidian get another chance, we'll probably see guys like J.E. Sawyer engaging in strangely autistic debates about gun traits, but that's probably about it.

Sorry... you can't just hide when the going gets tough. That would be like Police Officers not leaving the station because the criminals hate them and yell about it. You have to shrug off the nonsense and weed out the constructive criticism. Then you need to address it.

Most game devs do not post in this type of forum. If it's a big company, usually there are staff who read and prepare daily summaries of fan/player/press concerns and feelings from the forums/net (not the rants). And present them around the company.

But it depends. Remember the ME3 ending drama? I took thousands of player complaints, and an article in the NYT before BW even responded. And of course, their silence made it worse. Now that whole drama is legend. And every time you mention ME3, gamers mention the ending. That's BW's fault for handling the drama badly.

There's nothing remotely similar with this game. And you know, us players always QQ. Me included. ")

Yes they took cues from a couple popular mods and improved the game. Like RTS for Fallout 3 integrated into Fallout 4.

How exactly does this show that 99% of their feedback doesn't stem from sales again?

Yes they are listening and reading.. Surreptitiously .. quietly. Can you imagine the overwhelming influx of pm Todd Howard or Pete Hines would get if they posted on these forums?

Didn't they just sell, like, 12 million copies in one week? Whatever conditions are like, "tough" is not among them


There's a team of community managers who summarise and report on what's being said, so "are they listening to my individual post?" No. "Are they gathering broad indications of sentiment, major issues and wishes for future games based on an aggregation of all the posts here?" Yes.

Todd and Pete do post here occasionally, but we're talking once every five years.

actually, it was one day. granted, that was shipped and not sold, but they're shipping more out already. and the game isn't just selling well, it's smashing records left and right.

Are the developers listening? Now they are not. Are we making audio posts now? Are they reading? Yes they are. As was said before, they are just not responding.

Put it this way. Let's turn this around. Let's say you are the developer. Once you make a comment, you will have 5, 20 or 100 people jumping down your throat in what you DIDN'T say or say how crappy your are after all your hard work you have done. Would you come on and start replying then? Yes I know, silence from Bethesda seems like they don't care. I am sure it's company policy that they are not allowed to comment.

I agree, having a public face usually helps a development team or game company. The transparency which companies like inXile, Harebrained Schemes, Iron Tower, DoubleBear, etc provide harkens back to the days of old. What I was pointing out though, wasn't something that's really up for debate. It's a series of events which happened, and now here we are...and it ain't likely to change.

Like others have said, it is tricky for a developer to deliver the personal touch to a forum such as this. I have spent alot of time on the Bioware forum and the lead writer for Dragon Age used to post there, alot! I think he has over 5000 posts, but eventually, as DA:II flopped abit and DA:I wasn't what people wanted even though it delivered in sales and reception. Well anyway he just got flamed and it tore him down and out of the forums. Its a shame, he had some really good insight and was a fun guy. And that bothers me to no end. I get that people do not like this game, and its their right, but they could give their feedback in a healthy manner and with respect for the work these people put into this project. They've planned it since Fallout 3 came out, they've had it in development since Skyrim was finished. Thats 4 years of their lives, and maybe 70 hours work weeks at the worst. And when they release it people go "I didn't want this, bring back Obsidian." "FPS, COD CLONE" etc. I mean i wouldn't engage either. I am guessing that the community manager here gathers feedback and delivers it to the higher ups, and then they sift through it and find some few good things they can build on. If i dislike something, i will give feedback and suggestions to make it better, but i will not rude and act like a child that didn't get what he/she wanted. Its about respect after all. Mini rant over.

Welcome to the internet. If you want proof why that doesn't work well, go to a forum about a heavily politicized hot-button issue, post a well-thought argument against the view of the majority, and watch all the ways people will pick it apart, mock you, or dismiss the post outright.

You'd be lucky to find one or two people who could match the original post point-for-point.

Now, have that done for every tiny change made. People complained that it was a shooter, that it was Oblivion with guns, that VATS was a horrible system, that Vault Doors had their opening mechanism on the inside, that Vault Suits were cloth when they were clearly supposed to be spandex.

Yes, that last one was actually something people complained about.

The problem is the shear number of issues, real or imagined, that people will cry over, and will swarm all over you for. Seperating the chaff becomes an impossible task beyond listening to the trends of complai ts.

I will say that the more I play the more bugs I see. Went to Sancuary at night and behind the workshop house three of the first settlers where sleeping behind the house ... ten feet off the ground. I put beds inside the house but I guess they prefer floating outside. Many times I've gotten the bug where I go to a new cell and my weapon and pipboy don't appear anymore (a quick F5/F9 fixes this though). Other than bugs I do hope they put some time into making a better interface for the settlement/building feature as it's a total wreck now.

Odd, there is very little for the extremely large numbers of crash to desktop at start up problems that countless PC users are facing.

How shameful eh? Most of us are geeks and nerds, we got teased and or bullied in high school and look at us now, we bully other people because we are faceless.

So who are the real bullies, jocks who at least will do it to your face or the geeks and nerds who do it cowardly and never to anyone's face.

Yes I know most of us are not like that, but as the "internet" pretty shameful that it is.