I wpyld not call x reward instead if y reward a consequence


I would say having to potentially kinng a follower a consequence for a staff but not in the case if barbas


F4 does a nuch better end game of factions and factions play a role in far harbor.


Dai, witcher 3, f4 allow do a better job in consequences, immersion, and tug your heart string moments


I play skyrim as much ss the next person but it lacks these things(lydia walking in front of my sword doesnt count or cotizens running into dragon attacks). F4 address's this


There is no difference on holds treat you. I

kill the vampire in morthal and nobody cares. Companions dont register . I dont think faendal even talks to the head of the blades and they are from the same town


There is 2 much pretending of you can be what u want. Im a necromancer (see the thralls and robes) actually no only guards will comment on stuff like that. Even though preston in f4 is annoying i still get the say hi im with the minutemen

Ok, i can understand that, and for the most part i agree. Skyrim tries to have a world which recognises what you do, but in the end it's lack of any real tracking mechanisms beyond 'Have you completed X' relegates the impact of your decisions and your character to inane, pointless and awkwardly omniscient comments from guards. It's definitely an area which they need to improve, though as i've said, i'm not a fan of large-scale mutually exclusive decisions.

This is the crux to the problem. They need a functioning Economy simulation to be able to make any of that remotely relevant. Even if Gold has weight, it's far easier to just stash it somewhere than to waste time with a Bank. Daggerfall got away with it because you couldn't place items in the world, but in a modern TES, things work a little differently.

In order to make Taxes, Banks, Property Values and even Income Jobs function, you need more than just a randomised price-point for regions. You need a semi-developed sully and demand system with a way to track relative wealth of regions, and to make financial values dynamically adjusted to what happens in the world. On top of that, you need a model for adding disruptions and variations to the system.

It's something i fully endorse, of course, and have spoken about in the past (and, in fact, would mesh very nicely with a non-player-linked scaled leveling system that doesn't rely on static world leveling) but it's a significant amount of work. Just putting Banks back in, or imposing taxes, isn't going to resolve the issues with the non-existent economy that exists.

Personally, I think the inclusion of banks might be interesting as additional detail to cities, as places where you could take out a loan to pay for expensive items or houses, and even have them in for bank heist quests for the Thieves Guild. As far as taxation goes, I don't know about that. That could require quite a bit of work for a feature that could ultimately be rather annoying. It could be an interesting feature if they do a hardcoe mode and had ways for the player to earn a regular income without having to constantly do something, though (like Fighters Guild members earn money on a weekly basis or something, as an example). I'm not saying taxation won't work at all, but it probably shouldn't be done in a way to create a sense of urgency to delve into a dungeon for loot every in-game day or something, either. A taxation feature should be able to mesh well with other concepts like exploring, hanging around a town or city, doing quests, speech checks, etc.

The simplest way to handle taxation would probably be having a tax collector NPC approach you periodically when you enter a town or city (similar to the couriers in Skyrim) where you could either pay according to how much you have, bribe the tax collector and pay less, convince or intimidate the tax collector to get out of paying the taxes (which could get a bounty on your head if you fail the speech check), or choose not to pay at all and risk arrest. In the simplest execution of the taxation idea on the NPC front would be the occasional disgust at tax collectors and how annoying they are (and in turn, the tax collectors could be the next Annoying Fan/Nazeem/Preston Garvey).

At the very least, it could be an interesting idea for a mod.

Taxation seems like a useless feature to me. Sure, easiest way to handle it is to automatically subtract from whatever total you have in your bank as opposed to interacting with an NPC, but then the opposite would ultimately be true where you receive a steady income that is deposited into your bank based on whatever you have going on. The total amount of money you ultimately make is going to be easily outstrip whatever tax rate you go for, rendering it a pointless mechanic that serves no purpose beyond "muh immersion". Cute idea, sure, but its not what I'd call a good one. That's not even taking into account that the PC can easily be a homeless vagrant, and that there are locations in the wilderness that you could theoretically set up shop at.

Banks in of themselves though would be alright, provided that A), there are different types of currencies to exchange, and B ), gold is weighted. If not...again, neat idea, but I could just as easily keep everything in a vault I have in my house.

Technically:

1) Make the PC version from ground up for PCs.

2) Make the game and engine 64 bit. (Probably would be.)

3) Make it DirectX 12 or Vulcan compatible, and so make use of both integrated and dedicated GPUs. (Integrated GPUs are getting quite good.)

4) Make a Linux version.

1) A lot of us PC gamers ask for this.

2) It will be both 64-bit the PC version of Fallout 4 supports 64-bit only.

3) Will most definitely have DirectX 12 support.

4) Will not have Linux support until Linux market share is at like 5%. Most AAA video game publishing companies will not take a risk of having Linux versions of their AAA video games for the 1% or 2%.

On the issue of immersion breaking convenience features, such as quest markers and fast travel, I think Bethesda should take a trick out of the Pillars of Eternity book and simply balance and design the game as if there were no quest markers or fast travel, and then add an option when creating a new character that you may choose to either have those features active or inactive on that character, similar to the "Trial of Iron" option in PoE. Hell, I think that a Trial of Iron, call it hardcoe mode or Ironman mode or whatever, could do wonders for the game's longevity. Simply have these options decided at character creation and then lock the settings for that particular character. (naturally, this would include the incredibly handy feature of sorting out your save games by character; I'm sure someone at Bethesda has played Pillars of Eternity and knows how it was done). This way the world will have immersion for everyone, and designing for a game without fast travel and quest markers simply forces a certain degree of quality to the game.

4) it's not a risk, it's an additional cost. While it might not pay itself back immediately, it could increase the amount of linux users in the long run. Also, good PR as everyone and their dog hates Windows and Microsoft, and more than a half of those hate Apple just as much.

An additional cost is always a risk.

It might not pay itself back at all. Hence, a risk.

That's unfair to say. I for one rather like windows and microsoft, even though i don't agree with all their decisions. It's become 'cool' to hate on them for their success and for the fact that they have a tendency to work around their largest market (which, fun fact, is NOT people who actually know what they're doing) but on the whole they've consistently delivered relatively easy to use products which don't rely on all the brute-force restrictions of Apples idiot-box programming.

Linux is something of an elite OS which only works if you know what you're doing. The vast majority of computer owners still have no clue what they're doing (which is, ironically, responsible for Microsoft's latest fiasco with Windows10 upgrades) and until the entire developed world is populated by computer literate people, Linux is going to remain an insignificant portion of the market.

There's no positive PR in supporting an OS that very few even know exists, let alone use, especially if you're trying to use that support as a giant middle finger to the systems which, you know, actually have a big enough share of the market to earn your investment back.

Linux has struggled to maintain a foothold for more than two decades, and has actually become LESS popular over the last 5 years as a dexktop OS. It's not worth the effort.

Already done. Fallout 4 and Skyrim Remastered use 64bit engines. The limitation was the last generation of console, and the problem has been resolved.

Won't happen. It's a poor use of time because it basically requires making two games, and frankly, it's becoming a non-issue. Microsoft in particular is quickly breaking down the distinction between Console and PC, and within the next 5 or so years has the goal of near total cross compatibility of systems. Consoles are becoming low to medium end computers, rather than distinct systems in their own right.

Even then, the time involved isn't really worth it. Most of the problems people have with their games on PC has to do with the memory limit of the 32bit engine, which isn't an issue anymore. Beyond that, it's a problem with Bethesda, not the system they build for, and making them build the game twice isn't going to solve that problem.

There ARE some problems with their attempts to port to the keyboard and mouse interface, but it has more to do with the fact that they won't commit to a single control scheme than the porting its self.

Making TES games for Linux won't directly affect the amount of Linux users. People don't get Linux just to buy a couple of video games.

And, as Lachdonin said, Linux is not something that just anybody can use. You have to have a great deal of knowledge about computers if you want Linux, which very few people have (I certainly don't). I hate Apple for various reasons, but I wouldn't exactly say I love Microsoft. Shoving Windows 10 down people's throats hasn't exactly endeared me (although fortunately I have been able to avoid automatic installation). Still, overall I am pleased with the Microsoft products that I have.

It depends on the distro. When I was broke and didn't have the money for a new Windows license after my XP install finally died, I installed Ubuntu and got it up and running with little effort. I even installed Wine and got most of my old Windows software installed again. The hardest part was getting used to a new UI, and doing it again when they switched from GNOME 2 to Unity. That said, Ubuntu was specifically designed to be more user friendly and a relatively easy transition from Windows. I wouldn't expect someone completely new to Linux to get very far with Arch, though.

Anyway, Linux is in a kind of catch-22 with regards to game support. Devs are unwilling to develop for it because of low market share and poor driver support, hardware developers aren't optimizing their Linux drivers because there aren't enough games or users, and users aren't using Linux because, in part, there are poor drivers and a lack of games. I still maintain a separate Linux partition, but I don't game on it simply because I have Windows again and games perform better there.

not going to happen I can tell you that right now.. as it would either mean


A ) having to make both the console and PC versions completely separately, which would majorly harm total potential profit

B ) no console version at all, which once again would hurt profits..

Ultimately, that's how things go. Just because you have a superior format, program or technology doesn't mean it's going to become the norm. If you can't secure a reasonable portion of the market, quickly, you end up slipping into the black hole and self-perpetuating depression of low consumer base. No one wants to make things for your product, because there's no consumers, and you have no consumers because no one makes things for your product.

At this point, Linux is unlikely to ever gain the traction necessary to become a worthwhile part of the Desktop OS market. It was a great concept, but frankly, too many people are too dumb to make it work. I haven't even booted my Linux partition in over a year because there's just so little to really do with it.

I don't hate MicroSoft and Windows at all.

I'm not happy with some decisions that MicroSoft makes though.

wide spread, no.. but worth while? heck yes



it may not be the kind of OS the average consumer will want, but us techies love it.. the low system requirements on certain distro's allows us to turn old laptops that can barely run XP into a great on-site testing machine that runs pretty fast, and if your on a low budget certain versions can work as a good alternative to Windows Server (which isn't a cheap piece of software)




a product does not have to find super widespread use to be "worthwhile"..

from a financial sense, yes it does. otherwise, I suppose the Linux crowd should get used to the whole crowd funding up-front costs to offset the expensive for devs.

Fair enough. Linux definitely has a great deal to offer, and in many ways is flat out superior to Windows of Mac OS. If it were to totally supplant them, we'd probably be in a generally better boat. By worthwhile, i meant more in terms of its commercial presence. It's unlikely to find enough purchase in the home, at this point,which would warrant more consumer development.

There's not many of us techies on this planet though.

For AAA video game publishing companies Linux just isn't worth it much to develop PC versions of video games for Linux as well or port them to Linux.

For running servers though that's a whole different topic.

MicroSoft is trying to make Windows 10 and DirectX 12 have low overhead though and be more efficient at running software.

Another thing to remember about Linux development is that just because you create a program that works on Ubuntu doesn't mean it will work on Fedora. A pre-built DEB won't install on Fedora, and an RPM won't install on Ubuntu. The only way you can ensure it runs on all Linux distros is to release the source code and have the user compile it themself, which most studios would never do. As a result, if they release it in, say, Ubuntu's Software Center, they'll only get maybe half of all Linux users, which is a vanishingly small group to begin with. As a result, any dev that want's to support Linux really needs to support at least two major distros, which means even more work. Valve's Steam Machines offered a potential solution, but they seem to be dead in the water, and the Linux version of Steam isn't getting a lot of support either.

you realize most of the major linux distros are free OS's right? there isn't much of a "financial sense" other than what people choose to donate

But for people developing programs to run ON them, there is a degree of financial sense.

i agree, linux is not a platform for gaming.. i am just arguing against the whole "linux is worthless" stance that seemed to arrive in this thread

The companies do need to pay their employees, though. Every man-hour spent on a Linux version is another man-hour they have to pay for.

I got more of a 'Linux is fantastic, but not popular enough to warrant dev time' impression. It could be made into a good gaming platform if the hardware developers, particularly AMD and Nvidia, stepped up their game on the drivers, though. The lower overhead means there's a lot of potential for improved game performance.

That's a chicken and egg problem - Linux will gain more marketshare, if gaming studios ported their games to Linux. If Linux has a bigger marketshare, gaming studios will port their games to Linux. Hence the conundrum.

Anyway, would porting a game to Linux require a lot of work? It's not like the entire game would have to be programmed from scratch. The only reason I have a Win 10 dual boot on my system, is because I want to play Skyrim. Otherwise, Linux is a much better OS today. Including in the areas of graphics and usability.

Also, low marketshare is one thing, but don't absolute numbers matter? The number of Linux users on PCs and laptops is in the millions. If enough of them purchase can be targeted by Bethesda, it might make the porting worthwhile. I'm sure the publishers can figure out the cost-benefit ratio; I'm just suggesting that they should think about it, and see if it could be worthwhile.

I for one would gladly play it on Linux, and be in a position to throw away my Win 10.