Of course I modded. What PC user didn't? Unfortunately not everyone plays on the PC. The vanilla FO3, FONV, MW and OB CC's were very bad in comparison to ME or DA. Modded, that's a completely different story, especially since it is so much easier to mod Beth's games than BioWare's, but again, not everyone can mod their games.

Exactly.. People can afford consoles. That's why they are here. Console makers make consoles that people can afford, game makers make games to sell to the most people. It's a win win. As part of the 99% of the world population that can't afford an amazing godly gaming pc, most of us should be thankful that they aren't constantly pushing the technological graphic boundaries.

I personally think the game looks great and that people aren't taking any time to actually compare the graphics to past games (or recent games) and look at the details. They seem to be conjuring up imaginary graphics in their heads and then getting angry that the game doesn't look like what they imagined it'd look like.

Well, I think the current graphics and art style is intentional. It better portrays the FO universe how should be. And also what others have already stated - They are focusing on so much more then just graphics.

Take Dragon Age: Inquisition for example. Beautiful world but absolutely terrible gameplay and a clichéd cringe-inducing story. Excellent graphics are welcome but not essential.

And, I personally love the graphics. The variations of colors and environments with the lighting and shadow looks great

Excellent post, it's been a while since I've agreed with a post word-for-word.

For all we know, without the accessibility of consoles (financially and their usage) we may not have a large enough demographic of potential buyers to make development of these games possible on this scale, of this cost or of this long a development cycle and for it to still be financially propitious to some devs.

I think console limitations offer at least the salutary benefit of gaming not being a luxury only the elite can afford, which would happen if gaming were subject to the full potential of the pc gaming arms race.

What opinions am I posing? BGS does accommodate consoles over PC. That is their largest market and has been since Morrowind. Graphical fidelity is in direct correlation with console hardware. BGS literally cannot push the visuals any further without compromising performance on consoles. 1080p 30fps is the standard benchmark for every AAA game on the market. Of course BGS will make sure their game falls within the boundaries of what console hardware can handle. Do you honestly believe that anyone who represents a business is going to give you the entire truth for why they aren't capable of doing something when other competitors clearly can? This isn't to say Todd Howard or BGS are "terrible people" for giving us a half truth. They are merely playing their roles and doing what their job requires them. That being said, it doesn't make a ridiculous explanation any less ridiculous if you even know the slightest inkling of how game development works. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to connect the dots or build rational inferences based off of closely related parallels. It just requires common sense and a bit of knowledge in the subject matter.

Only TODDLERS complain about graphics. Half of the people here grew up playing Atari and NES. I don't see why anyone would give a sht about graphics but some of the guys in the rant videos are in their 30s so I don't know what's up with them.
I'm buying even if it still looked like FO3 and NV.

Contrary to popular belief, graphics matter A LOT. It's one of the major driving forces, if not the main driving force, behind video game development and evolution. What is the one component of video games that constantly continues to evolve and improve? Graphical fidelity. Photorealism. Level of detail. It is this unquenchable thirst for better visuals that largely drives the market. If people didn't care about graphics, Sony and Microsoft would never make new consoles. To say graphics do not matter is to be living under a rock. You, who is clearly in the minority, might be fine with buying a game that had the visuals of Fallout 3 or Fallout NV. It is likely the majority of gamers who paid $400+ for a new console or a brand new gaming PC with a top-tier graphics card would vehemently disagree with you.

Forget the Z key. The system does add a lot. First of all everything (that is interactable) reacts to impact from the player and the npcs and creatures. This makes the world feel more alive and dynamic, even though you don't intentionally view it as such.

The ability to move an object is more important, then moving the object.

Looks great to me; especially the realtime wet/dry shaders and the power armor.

I wish it wasn't only that... I remember that even Lands of Lore 2 ~a 2d.5 game, allowed you to move 3D (looking) objects around, but with reasons. Sometimes even to find hidden rooms that you had to stack things to climb and jump from, to reach them.

Personally never found the witchers graphics to be all that good, I mean a tree can only look pretty for so long, inquisition had great visuals but I found it was mostly due to variety whereas batman, gta and the witcher 3 had nothing new to offer past the first hour or so of gameplay, this is where I think (hope) fallout 4 will differ, giving us much more varied scenery so that the graphics themselves wont matter all that much.

Exactly this. I would trade a bit of graphical performance for full environmental interactions.

Finally Bethesda is putting some colour in their game.

Fallout 3 and NV were horribly washed out and tinted. Replaying 3 with a bright and colourful ENB I noticed I have missed so many subtle textures and decals in the world.

As far as detail and resolution go, it looks like things are very clear and crisp this time around.

Ummm didn't Bethesda say that pc gamers aren't locked at 1080p or 30fps like console gamers? Correct me if I'm wrong but don't most companies lock pc gamers to whatever the console is at? Seems Beth didn't do that so you cant [censored] on them for not alienating a large percentage of their fans by focusing solely on "visuals" and making the game only on pc just because you think the dirt texture isn't good enough.

Exactly. I'm not saying that having all this loose stuff affected by "physics" doesn't add anything to the game. I'm saying it's underused and could add a whole lot more.

I suspect the reason we don't ever need to pick up and move anything maybe because it's too hard to show your arms doing it, and floating objects would no doubt be seen by some as an "immersion killer". So they make it an entirely optional feature mainly for those who like to decorate their homes.

/speculation

What games did YOU play growing up?
How were you able to play these games? You don't exactly get to see yourself pixelated in 3rd person on an isometric platform in real life now do you? You're telling me games from previous generations don't matter anymore because they're not graphically up to date?

So your argument is majority of gamers pay for these latest cards as soon as they come out and scrap their usual setups and expect games that have been in development for the past five years to keep up with their tech? Maybe people in Japan who actually have access to tech but certainly not every gamer in the world as you claim.

The Last Guardian, Overgrowth, these games have been in development since 2008. Immersive yet people like you will never be able to appreciate them because of your lust for ultra-realism. You feel you're entitled to it just because you paid for it. Our primate brains can't even keep up with the amount of frames per second technology from last year is able to output.

There seem to be a limit to how many things you can move ~or to how long they stay where you put them; [seen in FO3]. I recall stacking many tires [in FO3] to form columns, and after about three columns, half of them disappeared... and reappeared exactly where they originally were.

As long as I can tell exactly what events are taking place, I'm fine with whatever graphics.
*These mean the same thing to me: http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/Kills-Dragon_zpsfpjwfkeh.jpg

When did I ever suggest PC is locked at 1080p and 30fps like consoles? What I did state is that the visual fidelity of Fallout 4 is the way it is because of BGS wanting to achieve 1080p and 30fps on consoles. PC will not suffer from such performance and resolution limitations, but we will still have the ugly low resolution textures as a result. Your argument of "alienating a large percentage of fans" falls on deaf ears as there are plenty of games I mentioned that are multi-platform and that are visually superior. The underlining point is that BGS is making lame excuses without credible justification. Again, it's a non-issue for PC gamers as mods will undue any low resolution textures with HD texture packs.

Most games do not matter anymore not because they aren't "graphically up to date," but rather they did not age well in general. With the exception of a few classics, such as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, very few games are truly timeless. This is a rare quality that most games do not have, which is generally why we see HD remasters or entire remakes of older games to bring them up to today's standards. I'm more than happy to play pacman, pong, etc. That doesn't mean I think every single game created on the Super Nintendo is still a masterpiece and rivals the standards of gaming today. Times have changed and expectations have changed. Those games are fine for their time but not necessarily for today.

Game development is driven by always constantly improving. Even with consoles having their hardware limited and stagnant, Sony and Microsoft purposely do not unlock the full potential of their consoles for long term retention purposes. Technology is always improving. Developers are always creating more powerful engines. Customers are not the ones driving graphical fidelity, it is big business that does so. I fail to see your point of how obscure Japanese games that have been in development hell for almost a decade are even remotely relevant to the industry moving forward. Final Fantasy XV, formerly known as Final Fantasy Versus XIII, is a perfect example of a game that has been in development even longer and has undergone major technological changes. The same was the case for Final Fantasy XIV. Graphics do matter and games that have been in development too long will in most cases receive upgrades.

You have also claimed BGS has ruined the spirit of the Fallout franchise, yet they have expanded upon it and made it much more popular than it could have ever been under Black Isle/Interplay. Lets also not forget your very obscure and extreme definition of what an "RPG" of which likely few share. You not caring about graphics does not translate into the majority of gamers not caring about graphics.

is there a "block all PC gamers" option on these forums?

Never said you did I'm just trying to say at least they didn't lock it at 1080p an 30fps like most companies do, since again correct me if I'm wrong as I don't know much about modding, but fps an resolution isn't something that can be enhanced by modders but textures can, now I know that's no excuse an I'm not trying to martyr myself in beths honor but if they took the time an resources it took to allow this an instead focused on making better textures from the get go wouldn't they need to lock the resolution and frame rate? (genuine question) assuming Bethesda doesn't have infinite time an money (since fans have been begging for this for years), leaving us stuck at a crappy frame rate and resolution but with all the slightly enhanced texture mods we can shake a stick at.

So I know it svcks we cant have both with the limitations consoles have but if modders can make better textures for pc would focusing on resolution and frame rate be better for the long run?

Again not trying to defend Bethesda completely just trying to give you my (possibly misinformed) opinion.

This is a bad thing. It means that they must compromise it to entice a broad majority. This is always a bad thing.
This is aiming for many targets at once, and one cannot hit the bullseye; one can http://i271.photobucket.com/albums/jj125/Gizmojunk/FO3_Arrow_to_the_Knee.jpg... As in aiming to make it at least tolerable for all, and no one gets their favored gameplay expertly tailored, they get an off the rack generic fit.

Most companies do not lock resolution or fps, at least not these days. The last game I remember doing something like that was Dark Souls, and that was an obvious console port in which they did not care to properly bring it to PC. From Software rightfully so was condemned for their actions. Ultimately if there are engine limitations, there's generally not a lot mod authors can do if the game itself was not built to support certain features. If you don't have a decent resolution, textures won't matter. You need a crisp image in order to appreciate the detail in the world being rendered.

The only one who benefits from performance in this case is consoles, and 30fps is the barebones minimum you need a game to be playable. 1080p is the high mark consoles always try to make when it comes to current generation games. The point is BGS wants to have decent visuals but also decent performance on consoles. If they didn't care about visuals, they could scrap them and get 60fps with really terrible visuals. However, they compromise. This isn't an issue on PC. It just means the community has to do the work BGS would not. Typically BGS will at least release an HD texture pack for their games, but even those are poorly done and rarely actually improve the overall aesthetic of the game.

Video games are a business. If a franchise remains a niche or a cult classic, it fades into obscurity. What you are essentially suggesting is you'd rather Fallout would have become a kickstarter campaign in which a majority of gamers would not care for it.

That'd probably been for the better. Bethesda would've made their own "whatever-TES-knockoff" (and none of the current fanbase would've cared), and Fallout would've remained Fallout in all the ways that mattered.

Oh most indubitably! It's all but guaranteed that the right game would have come from it.

But Fallout has remained Fallout in all the ways that mattered. The existence of Fallout 3 and 4 doesn't belittle the experience of Fallout 1 and 2.

You make it sound as though it would've been better that Fallout 3 and 4 were never made, like they somehow mar the brilliance of the original two games.

Now you can indeed argue that Fallout 3 and 4 haven't done the originals justice and that it's a wasted opportunity. An opinion you are more than entitled to in fact. But the originals still exist in an unaffected state.