Bethesda going down a bad path?

Post » Thu Jan 28, 2010 6:22 pm

It's not only Bethesda that's going to wrong direction. It's the whole gaming world. Story, endless options, believable game worlds are displaced by stuff less meaningful, like bloom effects, physics, and celebrity voice actors.

I disagree. First, you're assuming good graphics, voice acting and visuals are mutually exclusive to story and lore. People have already stated the games that not only have great stories but are also visually stunning. Second, we must look (surprisingly) to the Wii. Now, before everyone gets their panties in a wad, yes, it does not have a lot of hardcoe third party support. However, look at the stuff it does have, games like No More Heroes, the Nintendo first party games, Tales of Symphonia 2, etc. Those games can't rely on graphics, so they are very artistically stylized and rely on gameplay and story to propel it, showing that the industry still has plenty of imagination left in it.

As for the specific question of Bethesda, well, what about the Kotaku podcast, where it seems Todd really wants to incorporate the rich cultural lore that made Morrowind famous into future titles? Wouldn't them doing that refute the entire idea that they are becoming shallow? Yes, saying is easier than doing, but it sounds like at the very least they are aware that lore and culture is what we want.
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Flash
 
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Post » Thu Jan 28, 2010 9:40 pm

Oblivion may have attempted to correct Morrowind's faults, and it may have started in the right direction, but it largely overcompensated, skewing and re-breaking things in an opposite manner.

For example, I find Oblivion's guild storylines to be almost too "interesting," particularly regarding the Fighters Guild and the Mages Guild. Oblivion already had a problem, IMO, in actively grasping for "epic" via its main quest. Instead of naturally letting the player gain the feeling of epic, it was my impression that the game threw epic into the player's face at any given opportunity, as though afraid the player might experience a sudden memory lapse and forget how serious and grave and intense the goings-on were supposed to be. That was intensively magnified by several of the guilds (the MG in particular), which similarly insisted on having their own grasping-at-epic storylines unrelated to the already saturated-with-epic main quest, and which similarly threw epic into the player's face. When I join a faction, my expected plot-line from that faction is a disjointed series of tasks and and assignments and maneuverings to make myself the leader of that faction. Nothing more. In fact, when every guild under the sun has a deep and intricate and purportedly epic plot, it begins to feel incredibly unrealistic and unbelievable. Now, that's not to say that a guild can't have its own nuances and sub-plots and schemes. But they are by no means as cohesive and centric and tightly wrapped together as Oblivion presented. These are trade guilds, not conglomerate damsels-in-distress who desperately need saving. It makes sense for them to be large disjointed collections of jobs with barely any central plot-line.


I totally agree here with you. The main questline and Mages' guild questline both had that pressing feeling that you have to do it fast or else a great evil will destroy everything. With the fighters' guild questline it was a little bit better, at least the thread was no supernatural being, but in all these three cases you had a long established faction with its own army, yet you a noone were the only one who was actually doing anything about this immense thread that aimed to destroy the whole guild. It was always you and you alone against a greater evil. Frankly it fell unrealistic. On the other hand, the thieves guild questline was quite decent in this respect. You were building up reputation and it was not until the last stages that you got an important assignment. And beware, you did not have to save the guild form a great thread, but rather help a poor guy to regain his identity. The dark Brotherhood did manage the "thread to the guild" theme much better then the three other ones I have mentioned before. But overall, the questlines in Oblivion feel just too urgent and the stories are not original enough to be interresting. In Morrowind, the guildquests felt quite different form the main questline and could be seen as a way to take a rest form this saving of universe. In Oblivion it was no so.

And as for the combat system, while it visually is smooth and interesting, it's not without its problems due to overcompensation. People take issue with Morrowind's "swing-and-miss" combat dice rolls, and the illogic associated with a sword slashing right through something yet missing. So combat was revamped beautifully, but regarding chances-to-hit and missing, and dodging, skills and attributes were completely taken out of the equation. Instead, the player has complete control over what they hit irrelevant to their character skills, and damage is gimped to compensate. That leads to similarly illogical scenarios where something can take 40+ slashes to actually die.


I do not know. I never had problem with dice rolling and I never had any real problem with Morrowind's combat. Sure, it could have been done a bit better, but Oblivion's system is not the way in my opinion. I think that for me it si especially the combat and magic system that turned Oblivion into a FPS in stead of RPG. It is obviously very hard to maintain RPG feeling if you try to give the player a full control over things. Because it is either you own skills or the ones of your character. The more you strengthen ones, the more you have to nerf the others down. Sadly, beth decided to go the path of giving the player more control, but this inevitably brought the fact that character attributes and skills matter far less then they did in Morrowind. And to simulate the effect of skills, Beth developped the perks, that in my opinion did a further damage rather then solving things up. And watching Fallout 3 I fear that they do not plan on going back from this. For example the lockpick minigame was terrible in Oblivion and is even more so in Fallout3.
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Gemma Flanagan
 
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Post » Thu Jan 28, 2010 9:41 pm

I definitely do not agree with this. Any environment can be made uniqe and interresting.

I agree with you, but certain environments would need a heck of a lot more work than others. If you look at http://www.silgrad.com/oblivion/images/maps/Map_arch_TES2_Daggerfall.jpg, does it not look like Vvardenfell would give the most wow factor? A large volcanic island filled with the minions of Dagoth Ur, and blighted with diseases. Cyrodiil, on the other hand, should have focused more on the diplomatic side. Quests are importantant, and being the Imperial Homeland, it would make sense for them to have a lot of diplomatic decisions. It could have went a lot better that way, and gave the same feeling of being bigger due to content as Morrowind.

(Elsewyr also looks like one of those not so easy places to recreate. I would like that to be joined with Valenwood.)

I think what makes a province easier to create is rough terrains. Cyrodiil, even if it was the jungle it was supposed to be, looks a bit too flat. There needs to be more trees, hills and unique architechture/creatures to make it look well, which can be hard to do, because of console limits, and Bethesda is just focusing on graphics mostly. :(
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Wane Peters
 
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Post » Fri Jan 29, 2010 12:09 am

A recent game that I feel balanced graphics with a deep story was Batman: Arkum Asylum. I HATE, superhero games in general. They are usually too far-fetched and boring, and definitely appeal to kids. But Arkum Asylum held to a darker, mature story line and was fun to play throughout while at the same time looking good. Granted this is no RPG, I just brought it up to say that few though they may be, there are still games out there that can do both. As I've stated earlier in this thread though, I hope Bethseda provides us a TES V that is just as dark and rich as DF or MW. I prefer this to graphics, yes, but to have both isn't unobtainable. Besides, again, modders can change graphics for us. (sorry console owners) I hope TES V is brilliantly done.
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Peter P Canning
 
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Post » Fri Jan 29, 2010 2:26 am

That's why there are mods for the PC version.
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Roberto Gaeta
 
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Post » Thu Jan 28, 2010 5:38 pm

Avatars box office success just shows that visual affects have become greater than the desire for a meaningful experience from our entertainment.
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Lizs
 
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Post » Fri Jan 29, 2010 4:28 am

Avatars box office success just shows that visual affects have become greater than the desire for a meaningful experience from our entertainment.


Yeah that's why it lost out on an Oscar against a film which had one tenths of Avatar's budget but a much deeper and compelling story
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Robyn Lena
 
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Post » Thu Jan 28, 2010 2:40 pm

Yeah that's why it lost out on an Oscar against a film which had one tenths of Avatar's budget but a much deeper and compelling story

Hmm.. Oscar over a fortune.


Yeah, I really don't see the point of your post. A company isn't there to make good stories, it's there to make money. Bethesda has shown us this with the transition from Morrowind to Oblivion.
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sunny lovett
 
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Post » Thu Jan 28, 2010 11:37 pm

Hmm.. Oscar over a fortune.

Yeah, I really don't see the point of your post. A company isn't there to make good stories, it's there to make money. Bethesda has shown us this with the transition from Morrowind to Oblivion.


Yes yes, we all know Morrowind loyalists such as yourself will defend it to the grave and claim Oblivion has no merit as a credible game, and that the changes made from Morrowind to Oblivion were done simply to make more money, whilst some of us enjoyed them and saw that Bethesda was just appealing to a wider audience

To make more money? Yes. To make a game more people would enjoy? Yes too. I think the thousands of volumes of lore, years of dedication to the story and now even books reassure most people that Bethesda does indeed care about TES and the quality of their games
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sarah
 
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Post » Fri Jan 29, 2010 3:41 am

Why do people keep forgetting that all TES games(not including spin-offs) were graphically amazing when they were released? Why are people forgetting that graphics have always been a major part of video games? Morrowind's graphics are being praised on the back of my Morrowind case.
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GLOW...
 
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Post » Fri Jan 29, 2010 12:20 am

Why do people keep forgetting that all TES games(not including spin-offs) were graphically amazing when they were released? Why are people forgetting that graphics have always been a major part of video games? Morrowind's graphics are being praised on the back of my Morrowind case.

In addition to that, why do people act like Oblivion was the first TES game to make a lot of money (selling several million copies), when Morrowind sold several million copies as well (in 2002, when that was really really big and less people played video games).
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Nims
 
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Post » Thu Jan 28, 2010 7:14 pm

In addition to that, why do people act like Oblivion was the first TES game to make a lot of money (selling several million copies), when Morrowind sold several million copies as well (in 2002, when that was really really big and less people played video games).

I have no clue why. However, it is a bit obvious that a fourth major game in a series wouldn't have been created if its predecessors weren't successful. How many copies of Daggerfall were sold? Does anyone here know?
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Oyuki Manson Lavey
 
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Post » Fri Jan 29, 2010 2:29 am

I have no clue why. However, it is a bit obvious that a fourth major game in a series wouldn't have been created if its predecessors weren't successful. How many copies of Daggerfall were sold? Does anyone here know?

No, but it was highly regarded by reviewers of the time, who gave it top scores. It, apparently, was one of the very few good RPGs at the time, as gaming was in a sort of transitional period from 2d to 3d, and many RPGs struggled to get through it.
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Greg Cavaliere
 
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Post » Thu Jan 28, 2010 6:28 pm

I have no clue why. However, it is a bit obvious that a fourth major game in a series wouldn't have been created if its predecessors weren't successful. How many copies of Daggerfall were sold? Does anyone here know?


Daggerfall sold very poorly due to the fact that it was so buggy, and it almost bankrupt Bethesda. Bethesda only exists today because they were saved by Zenimax and because Morrowind sold so well.
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victoria johnstone
 
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Post » Fri Jan 29, 2010 1:56 am

Nah; it was Redguard that almost bankrupted Bethesda. They chose the losing side of a tech war, picking 3DFX and Glide API over DirectX. And despite its own merits and charms, most of the people who loved TES for its RPG style didn't appreciate the action-adventure take that Redguard presented.

From what I remember, Daggerfall sold just as well as most CRPGs of its time, bugs or no. It certainly sold better than Arena.
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Danel
 
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Post » Thu Jan 28, 2010 9:14 pm

Hmm.. Oscar over a fortune.


Yeah, I really don't see the point of your post. A company isn't there to make good stories, it's there to make money. Bethesda has shown us this with the transition from Morrowind to Oblivion.

Like a lot of people have said, one game, still great just not as great, in a continuing series is not enough to establish a pattern. I prefer Morrowind, but still enjoy Oblivion. The book shows that TES isn't dead to storytelling and fallout 3 shows Bethesda can still make a great RPG. If TESV isn't up to snuff, then there may be a problem, but that's doubtful.

Plus, in the Kotaku podcast, didn't Todd say he wanted to really do the in-depth culture stuff in the future of TES or something?
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Emma Parkinson
 
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Post » Thu Jan 28, 2010 6:27 pm

Nah; it was Redguard that almost bankrupted Bethesda. They chose the losing side of a tech war, picking 3DFX and Glide API over DirectX. And despite its own merits and charms, most of the people who loved TES for its RPG style didn't appreciate the action-adventure take that Redguard presented.

From what I remember, Daggerfall sold just as well as most CRPGs of its time, bugs or no. It certainly sold better than Arena.

Yes, Antibody got it backwards. Daggerfall sold pretty well, while Redguard and Battlespire really screwed the pooch, because, as you said, they were on the wrong side of the tech war, which is really a bad place to be in such an important change (considering how important DirectX is today to gaming). It didn't help that their style didn't suit fans, although they are cherished a lot more now days because of their awesome stories.
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kirsty williams
 
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Post » Thu Jan 28, 2010 11:19 pm

Nah; it was Redguard that almost bankrupted Bethesda. They chose the losing side of a tech war, picking 3DFX and Glide API over DirectX. And despite its own merits and charms, most of the people who loved TES for its RPG style didn't appreciate the action-adventure take that Redguard presented.

From what I remember, Daggerfall sold just as well as most CRPGs of its time, bugs or no. It certainly sold better than Arena.


Yes, Antibody got it backwards. Daggerfall sold pretty well, while Redguard and Battlespire really screwed the pooch, because, as you said, they were on the wrong side of the tech war, which is really a bad place to be in such an important change (considering how important DirectX is today to gaming). It didn't help that their style didn't suit fans, although they are cherished a lot more now days because of their awesome stories.


Whoops, that's my bad memory for you. :embarrass:
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Bek Rideout
 
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Post » Thu Jan 28, 2010 4:34 pm

Daggerfall sold very poorly due to the fact that it was so buggy, and it almost bankrupt Bethesda. Bethesda only exists today because they were saved by Zenimax and because Morrowind sold so well.

I read Morrowind saved Bethesda from bankruptcy. Do you know why Arena and Daggerfall seem completely different from Morrowind and Oblivion? Did the development team change between Daggerfall's release and Morrowind's release? Morrowind and Oblivion seem much more like each other than Arena and Daggerfall, which also seem a lot like each other.
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Matthew Warren
 
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Post » Thu Jan 28, 2010 8:35 pm

Yes yes, we all know Morrowind loyalists such as yourself will defend it to the grave and claim Oblivion has no merit as a credible game, and that the changes made from Morrowind to Oblivion were done simply to make more money, whilst some of us enjoyed them and saw that Bethesda was just appealing to a wider audience

To make more money? Yes. To make a game more people would enjoy? Yes too. I think the thousands of volumes of lore, years of dedication to the story and now even books reassure most people that Bethesda does indeed care about TES and the quality of their games

That wasn't my point really, I think Morrowind was a better game, and I was disappointed with Oblivion. But I also realize most changes made in Oblivion were made to make the game better, or as ThatOneGuy so eloquently put it (or at least as best I can replicate his statement) "They tried to fix Morrowind not appealing to a certain group of people and in turn alienated the fanbase already thriving"

I LIKE oblivion fine, the TES series are a style of their own, but I also realize (and seem to disagree with you on this point) the main reason Beth tried to make it more appealing to that "other group" of people was for MORE MONEY.

I realize my last post made me seem like I was saying that Beth are inhumane people who just want to grab your money and run, that is not what I meant, I was merely trying to point out that as a company money is the first issue on the board and the fanbase is next. I like the passion that was shown in both Morrowind and Oblivion, I just think Morrowind did it better.
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Rebecca Clare Smith
 
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Post » Thu Jan 28, 2010 4:06 pm

In addition to that, why do people act like Oblivion was the first TES game to make a lot of money (selling several million copies), when Morrowind sold several million copies as well (in 2002, when that was really really big and less people played video games).


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morrowind
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls_IV:_Oblivion

We'll see what happens to Oblivion sales in a couple of years.
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sally R
 
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Post » Fri Jan 29, 2010 1:32 am

I read Morrowind saved Bethesda from bankruptcy. Do you know why Arena and Daggerfall seem completely different from Morrowind and Oblivion? Did the development team change between Daggerfall's release and Morrowind's release? Morrowind and Oblivion seem much more like each other than Arena and Daggerfall, which also seem a lot like each other.

I heard somewhere that upwards of 80% of the team that was there for Daggerfall is still there now; don't know how accurate that is, though. They certainly got a lot of new blood, but aside from quest designers and level designers and the head honchos for each segment of design, new blood wouldn't contribute to too much changing of focus.

My first instinct would be to attribute the post-Daggerfall discrepancy to the influence of The Kirkbride, but that sort of falls flat for immediately after Morrowind. Aside from the commentaries, KotN, Chim-el-Adabal, and some other stuff, Oblivion is largely devoid of Kirkbridean feeling. Although I suppose that Oblivion still somewhat embraces the Kirkbridean influence laid down in Redguard and Morrowind even though it doesn't add much.

Other than sudden changes in artistic vision, player feedback and sales trends also likely play a factor. You get people who all independently clamor for a specific type of mechanic, or you see growing popularity in gaming styles, etc. Though I am curious what ultimately prompted Bethesda to drop huge-scale random generation and fully embrace small yet detailed worlds.
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Jay Baby
 
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Post » Fri Jan 29, 2010 5:36 am

I strongly disagree with the downward swing the TES games are taking in terms of game play, IMO they should really go back (or in this case forward) to a Daggerfall/Morrowind kind of game for TES 5.

Simplifying things constantly is not something I want to see, but if the Oblivion trend continues then that's all the next game will be.
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Elizabeth Davis
 
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Post » Thu Jan 28, 2010 5:21 pm

I strongly disagree with the downward swing the TES games are taking in terms of game play, IMO they should really go back (or in this case forward) to a Daggerfall/Morrowind kind of game for TES 5.

Simplifying things constantly is not something I want to see, but if the Oblivion trend continues then that's all the next game will be.

Again, it's not a trend if it's one game. I have no problem with Oblivion, I would have a problem if there were more games like it going forward.
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Talitha Kukk
 
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Post » Thu Jan 28, 2010 7:30 pm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morrowind
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls_IV:_Oblivion

We'll see what happens to Oblivion sales in a couple of years.


Morrowind sold 4 million as of 2005, and Oblivion sold over 5 million as of 2009, according to http://www.vgchartz.com/games/index.php?name=Oblivion site. To clarify, the site only lists console sales, which total 4.65 million, but the unlisted PC copies definitely push it well past 5 million.

So I think it's safe to say both sold very well. :shrug:
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james reed
 
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