:tes: I like the new smiley... But not as much as I like TES!

I for one was perfectly happy with DLC's the size and scope of Point Lookout. (EDIT: Though some of the other FO3 DLC's were a bit too small for my liking) My favourite DLC of all time; better than Shivering Isles, methinks. Maybe I'm biased, maybe not, but that's my personal opinion. As Pete said, a DLC the size of SI is too big, but the size makes it even more awesome, and I'd love to see future DLC's similar to SI in terms of size, but smaller would be good too.

Ya know, it's quotes like these that make me really question whether I'm a fan of Bethesda and the Elderscrolls, or simply Morrowind. First of all, you ARE making new games in the series. In fact, ALL of your games have been linearly chronological, which is highly suggestive of a series. So when you PRETEND to make a "new" game each time, what you're really saying is that you are not responsible for scrapping good game mechanics in favor of untried and untested ones which are TERRIBLE (ex. ridiculous level scaling)

Graphics are important: "This determines if someone is interested in the game or not." This leads me to believe that they don't trust their fans, and don't trust themselves to release a game which will be popular with their fans. They need to make a shiny new toy to attract people to replace all the old fans they alienate.

DLCs: Wow. We would rather nickel and dime players over trivial BS than release actual new game content. I've about had it with this company. "Too long for the players to wait?" More like takes to long for you to get svckers money. The whole point of an expansion is that you get it sooner than you would a whole new game. I can wait 2 years for an expansion, because I'm going to wait 4 years for the next game in the series. Paying $5 for trivial content that should have shipped for the game 2 months later is not going to appease me.

Bethesda used to CARE about making good games. Now all they seem to care about is making money. They might continue to manufacture entertaining games on accident, but as long as they get paid I doubt they care. I really expect the quality of Elder Scrolls games to deteriorate with this kind of thinking.

So I never played FO3 so I don't know how big FO:NV was, but it seems it was more than just a few quests and he refers to it as DLC so even though we won't get anything on SI's scale you should still get something worth while. Also, it sounded like he said that when you look at the different DLC's for OB & FO3 financially it came out as a wash, meaning whether it was one big DLC/expansion or several smaller (but still decent sized) DLC's, in the end there were winners or losers in how they released them. They were all profitable.

He seemed more concerned about making people wait.

It seemed to me like there was some contradiction to things Todd has said. In one of oxm's articles, Todd mentioned how he might like to go back and remake the city of Daggerfall, and bring it to life with the technology available now. Pete however was much more along the lines of 'we don't like looking back, and are always looking forward to the next thing.'
Also, in this podcast Pete says that gamesas usually doesn't take any ideas from mods, whereas we've already been told that the changes to archery were at least partially inspired by a mod out for oblivion overhauling bows.

I felt like it wasn't the most relevant interview, although still interesting.

Pete refers to NV as DLC or you think NV was a DLC? (I'm confused.)

Some people seem to forget what DLC really means. Downloadable Content. Shivering Isles is a DLC, but Horse Armor is too. Because they're both downloadable. Calling them expansions or add-ons is fine as well, though, but there's no difference between a DLC and either of those.

Hm. It seems it works if you listen to it from a smartphone though from its native player. Or it is for me. This podcast doesn't shed any new or really anything at all about Skyrom. But it is interesting. It more so goes over Bethesda's philosophy, dev space, and touches on how bethesda's done DLC and why we might not see a DLC of Shivering Isles scope anytime soon. Which is a shame. SI was borderline what an EXPANSION truely is.

Meh, that was a waist of time. They didn't really talk about the game, only stuff around it that I personally don't care much about. Maybe someone else finds it interesting though.

It's the connotations that are attached to them, however, that determine how people use them. Horse Armor and SI are both DLC, but SI has the merit of being large enough to be considered an official expansion and is therefore referred to and marketed as an expansion. Wherever the line is on what makes one thing an expansion and another not, the reason that DLC is associated with shorter bursts of new things is because if they are only referred to and marketed as DLC, they tend to be smaller and more disjoint packets of new content.

I'm not sure if you even heard the words being uttered as they stand against everything you've stated. Sounds a bit like your a Morrowind really devoted fan, which I found inferior to Daggerfall in many ways. That aside your opinion stems from only one TeS game made so far after Morrowind which is Oblivion. Todd Howard has already explaine what was attempted to be done on that game and some hurdles they faced that also explained a few smudges against Fallout 3. All in all its a different type of game. Not a cash in at all. Bethesda might just be one of the lesser greedy dev teams owned by a corporation in existance. If your appaled and can't understand their decisions try reading the Shivering Isles Fan Interview pinned in the Oblivion forum. It explains things quite nicely. I doubt you fully understood all of the interview or any self examinatiins imposed by the BGS team for years now.

SD games wont have a boot on their neck to get the next game out like COD or what EA does to its games. My fault should have clarified.

you're a fan of Morrowind, not of the Elder Scrolls. that's no different from a lot of other people on this board. keep replaying Morrowind until you get tired of it and move on to something else. stop posting here.

No. Hines did throw around New Vegas once or twice but that was really referring to customer opinions on the engine surrounding New Vegas and FO 3. Seeing as your a Fallout fan as myself you already know those "opinions." This centered around explaining how an engine and more importantly graphics can help a game. He notes its not the most important thing to him or others but those who say it doesn't matter at all are liars. Clearly if nothing else it can help the game experience. Thats what Pete was trying to get at. Anyways much of the interview spoke about the team and touches on things such as the team getting no hassles from the management to speed up development and push it out like sports or other ames(Activision gets brought up. Pete basically says their in good financial position but didn't say much more than that. Bethesda does what they do and doesn't go by others judgements. They do the same and respect other dev studios) This also extends to general talk about the franchise and how each game they attempt to start with a clean slate rather than use the previous game as a whole base and develop around it which shys away from repition or two games being alike(Much to Morrowind fans disdain). The closing talk shifts to DLC and how they've progressed through it. Shivering Isles was fine but Pete explained it took too much resources away from new bigger projects and how a lot of time passes to release such. This lead to smaller packs that aim to give value and each have their own feel as FO 3. This allows lower prices while givig a steady supply of DLC. Not to say he discounted a real expansion like SI in the future. Horse armor was mentioned but Pete's gone over it on another interview. It was a guess pricing on the thought that people pay for things like profile picture packs. Can't blame them. Bioware is much worse to this day. On that other same interview interestingly he mentions Bethesda's been more hum on Skyrim due to backlash in Oblivion. This is due to the infamous demo showing off features they couldn't put intothe retail game. Not a surprise, we know from Fallout 3 it would of possibly made the game fall over on itself. But they want to avoid letting fans get too hyped on things they state aren't final, but they pretend it is anyways. All in all I appreciate Pete Hines and Todd Howards approaches. Their not perfect but they admit their mistakes and have broad views. Their close in acknowledging things realistically in the same vein as Brian Fargo, Tim Cain, and Josh E. Sawyer. All in all there's a lot of people posting here and taking things out of context. I'd rather blast Pete if Skyrim fails at many of the features currently hyped and fully stated to be in the gane. Not warp his comments and use it as a weapon against him for no reason.

I think Pete Hines just insulted EA, I approve. A interesting podcast though most of the information I already knew like trying to make each installment different and no more expansions.

:tes:

Well he mentioned they don't have a set 11 month dev time to push out...well some sort of soccer game. It would insult everyone from EA, to maybe Activision and Take-Two's 2K Sports label. It was a general comparison without any sort of hatred or "burn" behind it, it seemed. I wouldn't mind though. EA and their studio/partnerships are getting ridiculous in ripping out content and offering it as small Free DLC packs than a few more paid dlcs with some of the ripped content being more developed. I dislike it, especially all the appearance and the Kasumi pack from ME 2. Then again Ubisoft is no better.

Well, if they won't make expansion packs like Shivering Isles anymore, then I will be very disappointed. I love big expansions, like Bloodmoon and Tribunal, and Shivering Isles. I've never really cared about the DLC's released for Fallout 3, they were all way too small and were finished way too fast. A big expansion in another province, or something similar, that's something that I really look forward to.

I don't like small dlc I want big as Morrowind's or even bigger. I want such a big expansion that it could be easily taken for Tes 5.5

I agree with this. Who cares if it takes a little longer to put out?

Not that the DLC for fallout 3 was bad, but TES games are all about having massive amounts of content. I think their DLC shouldn't be any different.

I'd like an expansion that takes us to a completely underground city, something with the dark feel of Arx Fatalis.

Nice to know how they go about advertising their games, knowing which scenes would appeal most to the most people. Looking back, I gave the response they wanted when I went through Game Informer's Skyrim article, and that's like awesome, even if it's like predicted brainwashing.

:tes:

Very disappointed to hear that they aren't doing expansions anymore. Bloodmoon and Tribunal were so amazing, it was well worth the wait for them.
Seems like Bethesda is turning into a company that just wants to make money off the product instead of giving us genuine quality content after release. I don't want 3 little DLC's that cost 8 dollars a pop. I want one big, well worth it expansion.

The quote to which you are responding is not really a quote but is a poor paraphrase. In the podcast, Pete says that graphics matter, and that they matter more to some people and less to others. He says that it is important for Bethesda to show good graphics in their previews because good graphics spark that initial interest that gets people wanting to read more about the game. He does not say that graphics are more important to the game than are role-playing elements.

The person you are quoting also does not represent Pete's comments on DLC well. Pete says that it takes talented resources and a lot of time to create large, well-done expansions. When they are working on their next big game, they want to put their best talent on it. If that talent is tied up in making expansions for their previous game, then development on their latest game is hampered. I do not recall Pete saying anything about "Too long for players to wait", but I would have to listen to the podcast again to be sure.

Typical Publisher BS. The Shivering Isles was the Best DLC that Beth has done to date and it puts every other piece of DLC that BGS has done to shame. Combine them all and it doesn't equal The Shivering Isles. An absolutely terrible decision by Softworks and it's typical Publisher BS on their part. Hopefully somebody gets common sense and convinces the group that Expansion Packs like The Shivering Isles aren't bad by any means but make the game even better then what it originally was. Shivering Isles made an already awesome game, Oblivion even more awesome and solidified the games status as GOTY of 2006.

Come on Softworks you can do better then this and I'll take everything that I said back if BGS actually has a say in this decision but still regardless it's a bad move, expansions are good not bad and aren't as time consuming to make as People would think.

No publisher called expansions like the Shivering Isles bad, nor did any publisher even hint that such expansions do not improve a game.

Pete said it took too long to make expansion packs like The Shivering Isles, that basically means that expansion packs like The Shivering Isles will not be in Skyrim which is a very bad move on Softworks part. I guess they want more money instead of a better game but still the DLC that BGS makes is going to be good but it's a very disappointing decision.