theres some truth to that and i must admit i enjoyed older games from bethesda more than the newer such skyrim compared to morrowind or even oblivion. mostly because of gameplay issues such as perks instead of skills and i also didnt like how races and six became the same (statistics wise) just with diffirent appearances.
new vegas was an improvement to fallout 3 though.

Ayeee! Oblivion is my favorite TES game as well. With Morrowind being a close second, and Skyrim being a slightly more distant third. When I was a younger Rogue (Sorry I'm so lame), I was bitter when Skyrim came out. It took over a year for me to calm down, collect my thoughts, and enjoy Skyrim for what it is.

That's the key here: BGS is a bit of a wildcard studio, you never know what to expect. I don't always agree with BGS methods, but if you go into their games with no expectations on what should be you will almost certainly always have fun.

New Vegas is my favorite game of all time, friend. Fallout 3 is a bit lesser in my opinion, but both are great games. Of course, Fallout 1 and 2 need no opinion from me, they are fantastic without me needing to say so.

There's some good news to all of this. I have hope for Fallout 4, I don't think gamesas is too stubborn to completely ignore the things that FONV did correctly. I believe we can see a "best of both worlds" situation with Fallout 4 if we're lucky.

Hmmm, I recognize many "veterans" both fallout and tes. I've been around since the beginning (arena, daggerfall, etc.) and on these forums since they were up and running (although I lost my original avatar many moons ago when there was some weird forum mishap). However, to make general statements like "the majority of people" is an assumption unless one can link to real data. Regardless of a changing player population I would agree that the BGS games have been a wonderful source of entertainment and when a person likes one game in a series more than tanother it is only natural (quite often it is our first love that we yearn to go back to). When Dragonborn came out and I first arrived on Solstheim and heard the music scores from Morrowind it was like coming home after a long and tiring journey. I hope FO4 pleasantly surprises you and is at least as good in its own way as the previous fallout games you've enjoyed. Cheers!

Well, I started with Morrowind back in 02? I played that game a hella lot and then moved to Daggerfall and Arena. Oblivion came out, it was kind of a let down in a few ways, but it improved in other areas too. I didn't like it as much as Morrowind, and I still feel it has been the weakest release in the TES franchise. Skyrim came out, I loved it. Brought back a few things that were in Morrowind, did away with the excessive level scaling found in Oblivion. I felt Skyrim was truly Morrowind's successor in many ways.

I don't need Pete Hines or anyone to justify their philosophy towards games to me. I can see it for myself when I play them. I enjoy Bethesda titles so far. There may come a time when they make something terrible, happens to all of them, but that's expected. I have yet to see anything from them that has truly disappointed me, certainly nothing like the disappointment from Might and Magic 9. That's true disappointment right there, and now it's a dead franchise. That is something we should be afraid of. But right now, let's enjoy what we got.

edit: Speaking of Oblivion, it has been "many moons" since I've last played. I've been itching to get back, I might fire it up after my Arcanum binge lol.

I get that sometimes. Then i remember the engine is a disaster even modern hardware can't mitigate

I wouldn't say what Obsidian did was disrespectful of the pillars. It just chose to examine them from another angle. To me, the ideas of the Force, Jedi, and Sith are pillars of the Star Ward universe, but the way they are viewed isn't. Some people in the Star Wars universe don't even believe the Light or Dark Side even exist, including people who believe in the Force. Similarly, the Great War is a pillar of the Fallout universe. If Fallout 5 revealed that the Great War never happened, that would be disrespecting the pillar.

When I think of pillars, I think things like Canon/Lore, Setting, Themes, and things like that. And even then, they need not all be adhered to. Final Fantasy establishes a new setting every time, and with it, a different Canon. But Final Fantasy isn't really a series in the common sense of the word, in that it isn't a series depicting different times and people of the same world. It's a series like the Twilight Zone, an anthology.

This is what I've been saying the whole time! Okay, maybe not the whole time, but I have gone on record to say that one ought not get too attached to certain game mechanics in Bethesda's game. Sometimes try looking at it like if the previous games never existed; does the game still suffer from missing features, or lack of "depth"? As for "dumbing down" or "streamlining", I can't honestly say that Morrowind, Daggerfall, or Fallout 2 had more depth than Skyrim, Fallout 3, or (presumably) Fallout 4 just for having more stats to work with. (and those who outright say streamlining is polite talk for "casualizing" are just showing their hardcoe gamer elitism anyway)

Bethesda makes mistakes, but I feel like they try really hard (and mostly succeed) to never make the same mistake twice. Well, except for the bugs.

This has to be a joke.

No, this is not really true for creative works, at least not good, innovative creative works. Specifically, good creation requires adhering to the creator's philosophy, not the philosophy of whoever originally made such a work.

In this case, Pete is speaking of BGS or specifically about Todd Howard and his team. Todd has stated his and his team's philosophy for many years, certainly ever since Morrowind. This is why (as some posters have pointed out) it is ludicrous for "fans" to approach a new game from BGS and his team with the idea of anything necessarily being like the prior game(s).

However, there is an important caveat to this approach and my observation about why the quoted response is incorrect. What Todd is talking about are the various elements or mechanics of any game, not his and his team's various fundamental design philosophies when creating a new work. Since Todd includes the fundamental element of nothing being sacred when he and his team go to create a new game, this means that anyone should expect that the team's fundamental, most important philosophies will always be in each new product. In other words, it is the team's fundamental design philosophies that are sacred, not the basic elements or mechanics within their games.

For example, "player freedom" has always been Todd's most important goal, so each game that his team creates has that as a critical focus. Obviously, there are limitations of hardware, software, budget, etc that always have to be met, but within those limitations, this critical design philosophy will always be present. How this design philosophy is presented in the product as far as game elements and mechanics should be expected to change between games, though.

That's the entire point that Pete is making - that Todd and his team will make changes to game elements and mechanics rather than repeat what they already did in prior products, and the team is willing to take whatever criticism that results from making such changes to the elements/mechanics. This is very different than many developers who simply recreate another product in a franchise that may be set in a different location or have other superficial changes but still plays pretty much like the prior products in the same franchise. The latter philosophy is merely making iterations, not innovations. BGS' philosophy is riskier from a business perspective but it has been successful, so far, very much so.

Obviously, there is a market for both approaches. However, if some Fallout "fans" simply want BGS to create a new game that has the same elements as the first games in the franchise, they might as well go elsewhere rather than posting complaints here or on other forums. The later act won't change BGS' fundamental philosophy of how to design a successful game and the market response to this philosophy, both from consumers and from the industry, has been far more positive than negative.

I have my own criticisms of Todd and his team despite the support and promotion I have done for BGS products, particularly as pedagogical tools, for over a decade now. My criticisms focus on actual facts of the works rather than merely my own preferences. For example, I have repeatedly called Todd and Pete out for making their standard claims of "be anyone you want and do anything you want" because their character aesthetics do not allow such freedom, therefore they need to stop making such misleading/false marketing claims about BGS products. Of course, I have my own preference for character aesthetics, but my criticism is not about my preference (or not only about it) but actually about the false claims made, as well as the fact that my own preferences have been proven to be significantly popular by the modding community. More choice only makes strides towards meeting the claims of complete freedom to "be anyone you want and do anything you want" after all.

Likewise, I have criticized the poor lighting in BGS products because it undermines the choice to realistically feel like you are playing an intelligent character who takes care with approaching combat rather than a character who simply runs in sword swinging or guns blazing. Along with this criticism is the fact that there is an enormous bias towards melee characters and projectile weaponry with a similar bias against ranged attacks and energy/magic characters.

These are some examples of factual criticism of BGS' games. Overall, Todd and his team do an excellent job, but there is always room for improvement, particular in making much better strides towards meeting their marketing claims.

Sounds like something Ubisoft could take lessons from. *Cough*Assassin's Creed*Cough*

I'm just so underwhelmed with Fallout 2 so far. Usually when I go backwards and play an older game, there's something about it I really like, or find really interesting compared to the newer games. By and large I'm just not getting that with Fallout 2. The gameplay mechanics aren't *that* deep, at least not in ways that make me consider my choices; not to mention a lot of the character system is just imbalanced, which is really disheartening. And the quests, characters, and dialog seem to be just as hit-or-miss as Fallout 3.

Maybe my problem is that I've read a ton of forum posts praising the original Fallouts for being so much more well-made than Bethesda's Fallouts, and that spoiled my expectations. It's not that I'm not having fun playing them, I just don't see what the big deal is.

It's nostalgia goggles. Goldeneye may have been amazing at the time and the most fun I have ever had in a multiplayer game, but going by today's standards it's quite average. Still, was a great game for it's time, but times change.

Your not suffering from rose tinted glasses is the biggest problem. fo1/2 really isnt a god-like rpg the old guard makes it out to be. It had a mostly worthless skill tree,cardboard cut companions that made a meh combat system a chore trying to keep them from killing me or each other that and the insane amount of bugs is just the tip of the ice berg. There is a reason interplay died but to be fair they got the music & art just right.

No, just no. Plenty of fans of the originals still play them to this day. I've watched twitch streamers play the originals, so they can go through the series before Fallout 4 comes out, and it turns out they like them.

The setting is also pretty great. By that I mean the universe.

But the best thing to come out of those games is the price tag that Bethesda paid for them.

Im glad a company like beth saved fallout they have made some pretty good rpgs, can you imagine if EA bought fallout.....*shudders*

Are they still considered nostalgia glasses when I just finished a FO2 run 30 minutes ago?

And there is a reason Interplay died but it wasn't because their games were bad(subjective, but most of their games were well received) or failing commercially.

That's fine, I'm just a bit surprised by the fact that you say FO2 has less depth then Skyrim, and as much as I loved that game (and 3 to a lesser extent) I wouldn't say Skyrim is as in-depth as 2 because it goes a lot deeper than just numbers.

Plus I came into the originals with no pre-conceived notions so I'm sure that helped having no amazing expectations to have squandered.

I think you guys may be being a little hard on Fallout 1 and 2. They're both extraordinary games. Someone else mentioned this earlier, perhaps it's an expectation issue? After seeing so many people rant and rave about how much they like 1 and 2, I find it likely that you're feeling underwhelmed. Hype will do that, especially when you're playing 18 year old games.

I think there is a difference between designing a good game by thinking outside the box and still having a game that is a good and fun example of a particular genre.

Dishonored 2 is an example of that since it looks like Emily has very different powers and plays different than Corvo.

You get what you like from Dishonored (Corvo) and still have something very different to try out (Emily).

If Fallout 4 is any thing to go on then much longer development cycles to go with the shorter release campaigns.

Hopefully meaning a better and less buggy game.

If people are being too hard on it claiming it is extraordinary is praising it far too much.

If you can get past the terrible UI the only interesting thing left is the setting, and the plot to a much lesser degree.

Those are two games you can look at and thank god companies like Bethesda have no sacred pillars.

If they did we'd be stuck with the worst combat system known to man, uninteresting skills and looking at the desert for the 4th time.

Extraordinary at there time perhaps, but they are clearly games of there era and compared to current games understandably clunky, ugly and actually quite limited when ya think about it.

I played them back in the hayday and they are still good but honestly if Van Buren is any clues, as harsh as it sounds Im happy Black Isle shut down and Beth pick up the license.

TES is a weaker game series.


But what the ×××× man, skyrim was a billion times better than oblivion.

Nothing new here really, but its a good refresher for those expecting FO3/NV-2.

If you want to see where this ideology started, it was with Redguard, which was Todd Howard's first game as the leader of Bethesda. He worked on Daggerfall, yes, but Redguard was his first time at the reins. Redguard was truly the birth of Bethesda as we know them today.

More that Skyrim is an good game, however it has flaws, some like the magic system should not pass internal play testing, npc dialogue is also hyper annoying.

None complains about flaws in an mediocre easy to forget game.