You've got these companies like Bethesda, Rockstar, etc... who are wildly successful. Nobody denies that these are the whales of the industry. When Bethesda releases an RPG, it's so impactful that other companies delay their releases so they don't have to compete. Every Rockstar release breaks sales records and dominates the market. The actions of these companies pretty much send ripples through the entire market.

So at what point does all this success give these companies this sort of "[censored] you" attitude. You've got these large companies making seemingly irrational decisions and almost purposely insulated from taking actual measurements of what people want. The entire Elder Scrolls community has been clamoring for some kind of tidbit for years, and what do we get? Elder Scrolls Online. There's a collective groan, and we all go back to playing Skyrim. Then, more clamoring, maybe Bethesda will listen this time? Elder Scrolls Legends.

It just baffles the mind how Bethesda comes to these decisions. They seem to relish in making horrible decisions with regard to the series that MADE them what they are. If it weren't for Elder Scrolls, Bethesda would be a halloween supply store somewhere in Iowa. The only reason this company is anything is because of the elder scrolls, and they just can't wait to take a giant [censored] all over the series, their fans, and the people that have shelled out their hard earned money for their products.

I don't run a massive company, so maybe I'm not privy to the economic or social appeal of saying absolutely NOTHING about your products for almost a decade at a time, in between development cycles, but it strikes me (from a common sense standpoint) that that's a piss poor way to run a business, and a piss poor way to treat customers. Ah, but who am I kidding. I'm going to buy the dumb Elder Scrolls card game they come out with, and I'm gonna buy the next Elder Scrolls.

Define "horrible decisions." That word is totally subjective. Unless you tell us what you mean by "horrible decisions," it is meaningless. And ESO is not a "collective groan," whatever that means. Many, many players love it.

I disagree with your entire premise. Not only do i enjoy, and still play Elder Scrolls Online, but am rather looking forward to Legends.


Frankly, I LIKE the silence. It manages hype and keeps things from getting blown out of proportion. When you announce games years in advance, you get over-blown fiascos like Watchdogs, Destiny, Titanfall and Fable (any of them. Though they were solid games and i enjoyed them, they didn't even come close to the hype surrounding them).

Bethesda behaves like this because it's not a company of media [censored]s clamouring for attention.

The nerve of those people!

Because Fallout 4 totally wasn't an overblown fiasco that many ended up disappointed in.... The issue with all those games you mentioned wasn't that the companies announced them early, it was that they lied about and/or overhyped the content of those games.

I wish Beth was more transparent with what they were doing, because it feels like a lot of the time, they aren't doing anything. I sat back for years and didn't worry about not hearing anything about new Elder Scrolls, because I knew that they were working on Fallout, and assumed they were developing a new engine, or something. Now Fallout 4 is out, and I have to ask where did the 7 years of dev time for this game go? It wasn't a new engine. It couldn't have writing or quest design. It couldn't have been polishing and bugfixing. It couldn't have been character or enemy design.

There still isn't any news on TES6, and I'm left sitting here wondering what Beth has been doing since Skyrim, because if Fallout 4 is any indication, it's probably not been much. I need some hype right now, because right now, I'm hella pessimistic about whether TES6 is going to be worth the wait.

On top of that, since I'm playing on console, I can't even go back and play old titles because I don't have a 360 anymore, and the only backwards compatible game Beth has released is the one game that I'm not really interested in going back and replaying (Fallout 3). I can only assume that that's because they expect people will drop Fallout 4 and TSO, if they're given the opportunity to play Skyrim and New Vegas (and I totally would).

It just feels like Bethesda treats us more like addicts than fans a lot of the time.

It's all a related issue. The earlier you announce a game, the more the media, fanbase, hatebase and internet in general has to talk about it. It's time to scape up hints, half-comments and rough idea sketches, blow them way out of proportion, and take every potential goal and idea as absolute word of god. A perfect example of this is Blizzard, who interacts and consults their playerbase regularly about developments and concepts, and whose forums are absolutely SEPTIC with hate over ever perceived slight.

And on the oppose end, i sit back and ask "How the hell did such a small studio do this in 4 years?". Not only did they do some rather substantial updating to the engine, implementing 64bit operations and DirectX11, but they solved most of their writing issues, many Animation issues that have plagued them for 15 years, retooled gameplay to be something approaching a functional shooter, AND delivered the least buggy Bethesda game i have ever played. All while making a second game on the side, giving input on ESO, AND with a minuscule development team (by modern standards).

Again, i disagree with the entire premise that there's something wrong, or that the 'fans' are somehow entitled to the knowledge of what's going on behind closed doors. The only time they've tried to be transparent and keep the player-base posted throughout development was with Oblivion, and it was such a catastrophic disappointment for me that i almost too Bethesda off my Pre-Order list.

Of course, i've been an avid collector of Warhammer for 20 years. Maybe i'm just used to being patient. But i see nothing wrong with how Bethesda handles themselves. They inform the public when there's something to show. They don't showcase the 'pitch of a pilot that may or may not represent a potential finished product' like so many other companies do. And i for one love them for it. Being a Fan doesn't make one entitled to knowing what's going on at all times. In fact, it doesn't make one entitled to ANYTHING.

I know I'm going to get flamed into next week for saying fhis, but I love Bethesda and since they have not let me down yet, I totally trust what they do.


Not only that, I have too many problems without worrying how they run their company. I just buy their games when they come out.

Do I think Fallout4 is perfect? Hell no! Do I like the game? Yes, very much. Definitely don't think it was an "overblown fiasco" (which was an interesting choice of words considering that one of the points of that post was complaining about Bethesda's strong silent type routine).

You'll get no flames from me!

I don't really care about ESO or Legends. Not really into that type of game so I won't be buying either one. I don't like voiced player dialog so I won't be buying FO4 either.


BUT I don't feel entitled to any particular game from Bethesda or any news of what they are working in behind closed doors for that matter.


If and when they decide to make another Edler Scrolls game, I may or may not buy it, depending on whether it is something I want to play. Based on the direction they are heading, I'm probably not going to be too interested in their future games, unless they continue to allow them to be modded to the same extent as their prior games. I view Elder Scrolls more as modding platforms than games.


Bethesds isn't not entitled to my money, other than the money I've spent on their games I've already bought from them, and as a consumer of some of their products, I'm not entitled to anything from them other than the right to play the games I've already paid for.


I don't understand why some people feel they are entitled to anything more than that.

Well how should I put this... Some more constructive criticism would be nice. I do have a number of problems with Bethesda.

Removing attributes.

Oblivion having no conflict between joinable factions.

Skyrim's main story- many things about it, including just how fast you become special in it.

Skyrim's quest lines being so short.

Skyrim being so easy in general, and Oblivion being so easy at low levels.

Oblivion's overpowered clairvoyant guards.

On top of removing attributes, making stamina effect carry weight and have no effect on magic.

Making stamina less of an essential thing with each TES game.

Getting rid of levitation and especially acrobatics.

Getting rid of teleport spells.

Getting rid of digitigrade Khajiit/Argonians.

No underwater combat in Skyrim.

Not being able to join the Forsworn or Thalmor, and the Thalmor not being fleshed out enough.

Making Daedric armor much easier to get.

Enemies never interrupting your rest and attacking you while sleeping in Skyrim.

Removing durability from Skyrim.

Making smithing improvements more important than weapon materials for damage or defense.

The majority of how the perk tree was handled in Skyrim.

Making things like Skooma have less dramatic effects.

Making enchanting so simple ever since the end of Morrowind.

Closed cities in separate cells than the surrounding world.

Not keeping Michael Kirkbride around for writing. (Big one).

Making regular attacks NOT consume stamina.

Imo gutting the magic system ever since the end of Morrowind.

Getting rid of normal weapon resistance/immunity.

Making each TES game more scaled via level.

Less types of weapons after Morrowind.

In vanilla only one joinable vampire clan by default ever since Oblivion.

Less factions after Morrowind.

What Skyrim did to mages, and nearly everything about Skyrim's magic system.

And hugely the decision that EVERYONE even random commoner NPCs need to have EVERYTHING voiced. Which I feel like with both modern and near future technological limitations is toxic to Elder Scrolls games, because it makes modding much more difficult, and it means there can't be as much spoken content by the characters for the same amount of effort, data, and time as dialogue only. Not to mention the data bloat it causes. With modern technology if everything in Morrowind had to be voiced for instance, it would probably be too expensive, and even if they could afford it, they couldn't spend as much effort on other things, and the data bloat may be too severe for it to run on most computers anyhow.

I'm not all out anti-voice acting- such as voice acting for say big lore bosses or for basic greetings, but I'm anti using voice acting for EVERY SINGLE LINE OF DIALOGUE in TES games, until we have sufficient enough future advances in technology, that make it where that doesn't severely limit how many things NPCs say, and doesn't severely limit Bethesda's development time and budget. All those complaints aside... I love and adore Bethesda, I'm highly pleased with what I know about Fallout 4, and I've been learning a great deal how much better Skyrim's Creation Kit is compared to Oblivion's and Morrowind's. I am a widely outspoken critic of many things I love being removed from the newer TES games, but I always am explicit about what I criticize, so that it is constructive criticism rather than just plain criticism.

The Skyrim Creation Kit has a very good keyword system, replacing and manipulating objects is easier, spells are much easier to customize, I'm extremely pleased with the design of Skyrim's Blackreach, the vanilla object statics are very good, Skyrim's crafting system made modding much easier, Skyrim's AI is phenomenal compared to prior TES games, Skyrim has more factions than Oblivion AFAIK, Shivering Isles was a great expansion, Bethesda made the incredible Dragonborn Expansion, Bethesda released Dishonored, and brought jetpacks into Fallout 4 after so many of their games severely lacked vertical exploration, and now they're even giving Fallout 4 a hardcoe mode.

As for Bethesda not talking to their fans and being tight lipped, well something I think you should know is, Bethesda actually apparently even got death threats when my favorite TES game- Morrowind was released... From some fans after Morrowind's release. And that afaik is a major reason they don't talk to fans very often, which imo is totally understandable. Nobody should be forced to remain in contact with people who treat them that way.

If they were more talkative during Oblivion's development, then I'm guessing they finally had enough vitriol from certain fans, which I can totally understand.

As for me, while many things I described have disappointed me about Oblivion and Skyrim I have trust in Bethesda. Fallout 4 makes me optimistic about the future of TES games... And Skyrim's Creation Kit has allowed many great things, like Chesko's Frostfall and Requiem.

It would be nice for them to simply say, "Yes, we are working on , and no, we don't have a release date" and leave it at that. No constant stream of progress updates, no drip-feeding of screenshots or features. Just a simple acknowledgement.