I'm a master of subtlety.

I don't think it would be such a good idea anymore.
I thought it was a good idea at first, exploration fans get what they want, RPG fans get what they want.
But then I started thinking about how Bethesda actually makes their gameworlds.
And it's just awful.

For example, Draughr dungeons.
There is one every 100 meters, they are untouched after centuries and they have the most repetitive design in Skyrim.
Would Fallout 4 really be better with an equivalent of this?
What about Fallout 3? It's gameworld felt like an amusemant park, I couldn't take it's gameworld seriously.

Bethesda might make beautiful gameworlds but they also make no damn sense and are just littered with an unnecessary amount of dungeons.
So personally, I've changed my stance on this, I don't want Bethesad involved at all, and especially no with the gameworld.

Maybe Mojave was a bit empty, maybe it could have used more locations, but it felt real, scaled down, but still real.
Whereas Skyrim is literally just a dungeon crawler and Fallout 3 is just a themepark.
I'll take coherency and consistency over themeparks with an unnecessary amount of dungeons.

Honesty is the best policy.

Skyrim is cool, but the same thing happened to me. I played a lot of the NCR quests in NV, then put it down for a long time. Played Skyrim, got some shouts, did the Thieves quest and was like... umm that's really the end of the questline? And now I can go be leader of Mages and Fighters too? Once I maxed enchanting and smithing, there was really no motivation. You can make all the best gear yourself, and most of the quests are fetch.

Started playing NV DLC and higher lvl content and got svcked back into the NV world, quests and gear

I see what you are saying and it makes sense. Maybe don't go as "big" with the number of dungeons and it would balance itself out. Because, like you said, NV felt a little bit too sparse for my liking. I mean that's really the only problem I can find with NV and that's not even a big deal really. And of course I understand people's sentiments that it makes for a better "survival" game and rings truer to the tone of a post-apocalyptic setting to be sparse and barren, but it gets mundane after one or two playthroughs, at least for me. Everyone is different though so what is mundane for me might be perfect for someone else.

I think I got shot down...

The only problem with good games, with actual regard for story and choices, is how more action or adventure driven games seem worse in comparison.

It's okay bro, her, or rather his gender is listed as male anyways.

Knew something was wrong. My manly charm never fails to impress da ladies.

Just finished my chem-addict energy weapons playthrough. Was pretty interesting, might try a survivalist build next. Guns, explosives, survival and unarmed maybe. Also I'll avoid all chems including stimpacks, and will only use healing powders and food for healing. What do you guys think? Any suggestions?

Ehhhhh. Yeah, I do appreciate the ambition behind TES . . . but Skyrim and Oblivion fell flat on their faces.

I was also spoiled by NV, so when I played Skyrim I found the whole experience to be rather flat, especially in regards to the impacts your actions have and the companions--it all felt sort of pointless after a while, especially with those "find and fetch" quests. *sigh* Even the lore wasn't present.

NV was a great game, despite all the bugginess.

About the lore feeling surface deep....it IS.

If you look up the developer team and look into who did what for Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim, you'd basically realize that the main people behind the lore (the books you find throughout the world that explain things in more detail) have all left now. I think there were two dudes left by the time Oblivion came out, and both of them willingly left the company before Skyrim. Hence, Skyrim only has a handful of new lore books, and generally they don't expand on old lore, but rather they just write up new little short stories that don't effect anything at all.
The lead writer has also changed. The current guy (forget his name, think Emil?) that's in charge of writing has only been in charge of the writing department since FO3. So basically most of the old school developers responsible for most of the original ideas of the Elder Scrolls are already gone.



As for fans making excuses, well....

Some people truly haven't played better. Before New Vegas, I played Morrowind, Fallout 3 and Oblivion, with Oblivion being my favorite. They seemed fine then. Why?
Because I had never seen a single player RPG that bothered to involve weapon balancing.
Because I had never played an RPG that truly limits the player and makes them choose a path rather than letting them do anything and depending on the player to be responsible to prevent this.
Because I had never seen an extensive story. Oblivion's Thieves Guild, Shivering Isles and Morrowind's Main quest were the only good written material I'd seen.
Because I'd never seen a developer attempt to encompass consequences extensively. When FO3 had that cop-out enclave ending, I thought "yeah but how can you expect them to bother with an Enclave ending? Impossible, it'd take too long."

New Vegas showed me Obsidian is playing chess, Bethesda is playing checkers. They made an attempt to do things to which Bethesda simply said "nah don't bother, it'd take too much time." New Vegas was especially a wake-up call because it had such a comparatively short development time and yet delivered so much. There was actual weapon and character balancing, there was actual interactivity and consequences in the world, there were much better voice actors and more in-depth characters. They curbstomped Bethesda titles while on a time limit. The whole thing had me asking "wtf why," because until then I'd just been told "not possible because of time restraints," then some company I hadn't heard of until now came along and did the "impossible." Bethesda is either lazy or, more likely, has horrid priorities. Or both. Probably both, since it looks like they're too lazy to do weapon or skill balancing, for example.


As for the fans who continue to defend it despite all this? Hell if I know. Hell, every so often I'll meet someone in the Skyrim forums who scoffs at the mention of New Vegas, saying they didn't bother buying it because "I do have SOME standards." Those are the zealots I guess, who find something they like and then follow it to the end, never questioning it. I actually had no clue New Vegas was coming until about a month or two before release. A friend told me about it and said he was curious if Obsidian would totally [censored] it up or do the job better. I was pretty much the same attitude, ready and willing to see what a Bethesda-esque game by a different company felt like, but I guess some people simply would rather like to stick to something nice they found instead of exploring new horizons, thus they act hostile towards suggestions that their own horizons svck.

Yeah pretty much after morrowind, the whole TES dev team changed up.

Basically horrid priorities, though I wouldn't necessarily word it as such. Horrid, in the respect that it doesn't deliver what a choice and consequence RPG fan wants. But, on the other hand, it delivers exactly what a dungeon delver, happy to explore the gameworld and make up their own game, wants. Neither would be entirely happy with what the other one has produced. But its clear that the main focus was on the detail in the gameworld itself, which is where Bethesda excels. Aesthetics over substance, basically. If Bethesda could get away with just creating a huge sandbox world, as detailed as they like, without any quests at all, open for people to play around in and mod as they see fit.....then I reckon they would do it. Of course, in that case it would cease to be an actual game, and instead be some kind of fantasy world simulator.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with everything you say; I think New Vegas is a superior game to Skyrim. Not just in terms of its game mechanics and weapon balancing, but also in the fact that its a game for grown ups. You're allowed to make choices, you're given the opportunity to fail quests, or build a character badly suited to a particular style of play. Skyrim doesn't do any of this, as it hand holds the player through the game, giving one speech option available at any time, and allows the mastering of every skill. But plenty of people like Skyrim just fine as it is, so they can't all be wrong.

But its as much a design choice as anything else. What is Obsidian's ideal, is not necessarily Bethesda's. Perhaps it all comes down to product sales, and to produce a game that is accessible to as many people as possible. After all, a complete newcomer to Bethesda's game will surely pick up Skyrim a lot easier than they would New Vegas. Nice scenery, nice music, can't screw anything up, dragons...what's not to like?

Incidentally, what I want for Fallout 4 is for Bethesda to give Obsidian the Creation engine, and let them do what they did with New Vegas. It won't happen, of course, but we can dream.

That would be a nice dream, especially if they give them like 2 or more years to do it.

We can still hang out sometime, and have a beer or something.

In that case I hope you have Honest Hearts so you can use Healing Poultice instead of Hydra.

They need more time this time though.
Firstly because Obsidian was forced to cut content to make the timeline, Legion was gonna have 3 more locations and there was gonna be 2 other locations, settlements'ish places, both cut. Hell, Ulysses was gonna be part of the main game, cut.
And secondly, Bethesda had already made Fallout 3, Obsidian could reuse a lot of resources to quickly develop New Vegas. Resources they wouldn't be able to use as they are non-existant as Fallout 4 doesn't have any models, sprites or textures yet as it doesn't exist.

So if Obsidian were to develop Fallout 4 I'd like them to have the minimum of 3 years.
And that development has to take place after South Park RPG and possibly Planescape 2.

planescape 2? *drools*

Yeah I remember hearing Chris Avellone wanted to use Kickstarter for it.
But my brain ain't the most reliable though, you should search for some credible source for the info.
Until then it could just be a rumor my mind conspired.

http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/5089/article/planescape-2-leads-kickstarter-suggestions-for-obsidian-entertainment/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhTiJEYqqY8&t=0m7s

Of course, you're absolutely right. But assuming that the Skyrim/Creation engine will be the platform for Fallout 4, I'd still love to see another Obsidian spin-off title a few years down the line.

Oh definitely, still, Bethesda really has to give them more time.
It would be really nice to have it go like that, Fallout # > Fallout : > Fallout # > Fallout : (Bethesda > Obsidian > Bethesda > Obsidian)
Then again, they might run out of ideas...

How many games should a franchise have before it's too much?

As long as the games are still fun, intelligent and true to the source material then I don't think there is a limit. When the point happens where one of these three things does not happen varies heavily.