On the other hand it was an minor quests among hundreds also some people who are blind also have hearing problems or mental ones.

You can find worse stuff as main plot in movies, some movies has plots holes even worse than the Fallout 3 default ending, why not let your ghool, supermutant or robot friend do it. Worse it would be easy to change the ending so it was very cool. Say then the GECK activate it would generate a lot of radiation, too stupid then change the main quest so you have to blow up something instead.

Now the enclave is pushing to stop this, someone has to be the sacrificial rearguard as in 300, you are the far best fighter so you volunteer, some followers like Fawkes will offer to stay with you its up to you to accept or deny this request. Your task is simple hold the enclave at bay until the end. You are given some special equipment by the others to help you.

Now it makes logical sense, its emotional and an hell of an fight.

Am I the only one who barely understood what he was talking about? At first he was saying how they sacrificed good story to deliver an open world experience. Then he was on about how they want to fix that, but that's not the right word or something. Then how they want to use the fact that it's open world. But he didn't say anything directly about what kind of a story they wrote so that it doesn't collide with the open world nature of the game. He just talked a lot without saying anything.

Ah, you're conflating realistic expectations with someone stating it's unacceptable to ask for better writing. Which is not even close to what I said.

I'd love a good story, don't get me wrong, but it's not why I buy Bethesda games. Never has been, nor do I expect it (which is why Dawnguard and The Pitt were both a surprise, very enjoyable). I didn't buy GTAV because I wanted a meaningful discourse on the nature of morality and its place in the human condition and its role in current society.

You know what types of games these are. There should be very few surprises.

It is pretty clear they feel they have mastered the open world experience.

It is pretty bloody clear the next improvement they want to make as a studio is strong story within the open world setting.

THERE CAN BE ZERO DOUBT FROM THE VIDEOS THIS IS THEIR GOAL.

What the hell you you expect him to say when talking about story? WTF? you want him to give you the story for your appraoval in an interview? He was pretty clear. We added systems like a voiced protagonist because in games with STRONG narrative you see a voiced protagonist. That is not PR speak that is definative statements of WHAT and WHY of a feature. The in roads comment is him stating he thinks they have make progress in this area. no claims to perfection or success because that is for critics and fans to determine. An no actual details on the story cuz well it would be a pretty douchy thing to spoil the game during your reveal.

now did they pull it off? I wont know nor will anyone else until Dec of this year because it is going to take more than a couple of sessions playing the game to HONESTLY judge the storytelling.

But hey lets be all worried and scared negative about them doing this because you want X, when clearly they as a studio want y and you have been unhappy with the company for a while now and you just can't wrap your head around their success except to cage it it must be all the CoD kiddies ruining your game experiences. We all get it you hate fallout bethesda style, but your opinion doesn't matter because this is art and business. There is zero business reason to follow your lead as following their own lead has been HUGELY profitable for them and with art well artist make art they want not art submitted for your approval.

And they are. As they see it. They own the franchise, so for good or ill that's how it is.

Yes. They can. The strongest message you can send, as a consumer, is vote with your wallet. If you don't feel it's "Fallout", then don't buy it. If you feel a product is not up to your standards or taste, then don't buy it.

So wait a few weeks after release, read up on the story, and if you feel it meets with your tastes, then fork out the money.

Well said, sir.

By the way, what kind of a profile photo did you have a few years back? I sense a missing memory link.

I couldn't find a better word for it, sorry. * I've seen other people asking the same question as you, and I don't really understand it.

It's still disappointing. It's not like good writing is impossible to have. Writing is Bethesda's biggest flaw, and I'd like to see it improved, so the games can be truly great.

Once people start accepting poor writing/story/quests, there really isn't much incentive for them to improve.

That might not be why you buy their games but they have stated that THEY want to make games with a strong narrative/story within the open world enviorment. That is what they want to do and that is what they have attempted to do. by Dec we will know how successful they were.

You'd think people would be encourage by a company trying to improve their product and not just doing the same things over and over again. Seriously isn't this a positive direction for a company to take, Improve the area they are weakest in?

Don't get me wrong - I'd be happy to see gamesas's writing improve. There's certainly room for it.

What I don't want to see is gamesas focus on story over player freedom. We've already got Bioware for that.

Blurred Lines. Once you make an official Fallout game, that becomes part of Fallout's identity. You can't say a Fallout game isn't a Fallout game, true scotsman.

However I think strong stories are important, because they're fun for me.

Thus it's not that Fallout is the reason for me why they should make an engaging, organic, player-driven and dynamic story, it's that Bethesda implements a story. If they don't want to make a good story, why bother with story at all? Of course quality is subject to subjectivity.

I'd say that Fallout's story wasn't enough, I want a better one. Not necessarily from a writing perspective, but regarding the other qualities.

This is clearer.

https://youtu.be/2KApp699WdE?t=2h22m27s

he did not express himself well in the OP video clip. This interview he expresses his thoughts on the topic of story more clearly.

Neither does bethesda.

https://youtu.be/2KApp699WdE?t=2h22m27s

This clearly states they want to keep the open world experience and add strong story. It does however mean they WILL sacrifice some freedom in character creation, ie they will add voice to the player. They will give a more detailed backstory. But freedom within the open world? That they appear to be saying wont be sacrificed for story.

"In our game, you can be in every quest at once"

So again, linear quest lines with zero branching.

"Really strong story"

Marketing speak. Nothing substantial. He said the same about Fallout 3.

"Story telling and emotional moments"

This undoubtedly means dramatic cutscenes.

It's not that Bethesda doesn't want to make a better story. It's just too dang hard to make a GOOD story that still allows the player to have a lot of freedom. Because you know... Open world. The staple that became standard since Fallout 3 to a fallout game. And the expectation you're held to.

Think about it. Would you SERIOUSLY be able to go on a fricken Killing spree in an entire wasteland. Killing innocents and the jazz. Then approach the Brotherhood of Steel to fricken DESTROY the Enclave, ANNNNND GET THE GECK?


Would you seriously be able to have a chat with BOTH sides of the war? The NCR and the Legion?

Would a vault that sent you out into the world to find the GECK, REALLY take you back at the end of the game after you became a murderer?

Would you SERIOUSLY be able to have a really GOOD story involving conspiracies, betrayal, surprises, heart breaking moments, and build ups to an epic finale WITHOUT neutering the player's open world experience? Meeting time constraints, resource constraints, and for it to be able run on a WIDE range of specifications. Which is technically more like a theme park as no tripple A game can be truly open world. A good story that is comparable to Mass Effect, and most of the Final Fantasy series... whom neither of which could be consider open world, or that your choice matters. And no, in Mass Effect, your choice did not change much in the game. Only a few small things. It was still a rail road.

You already know what the internet's prime concern was from a teaser trailer. Most of a game's budget get's dumped into that.

It's just a matter of, how good can we make this story without tearing apart the game's foundation. Looks like a plausible solution was the Mass Effect dialogue.

And if they do so, I will wholeheartedly cheer their efforts! I hope they can do it. Dawnguard was very enjoyable, and they created a wonderful companion in Serana (the only one I ever used in Skyrim). There was also the temple of the Dragon Priests (I forget the name) where they fought to the very last man, woman and child. Nicely dark. FO related, Dunwich building anyone? The Pitt?

A lot of their "location stories" have been, if not great, at the least interesting, so they can do it. I really do hope they can push that through to a MQ.

But again, it's not the reason I buy BGS games. If it becomes a reason though, I'm not complaining.

You've also got to consider "holes" like in FO1. Roll a low IQ character.

"Hi, yes, you have the IQ of a box of hammers, but we really need a water purifier, and you're the best man for the job".

"Teehee. My thumbs look like little people."

"Hmmm, we might be better off sending the box of hammers, but off you go anyway. Do us proud."

"Thanks, leprechaun guy! Have I told you about my thumbs?"

yeah lets be blinding literal. You could not to EVERY quest in Skyrim at the same time but you could do every available quest. As in some quests were not avialable to the player until you finished an existing quest. This allows for branching stories.

But hey why let reason and logic get in the way of the narrative bethesda fallout = bad Black Isle fallout = good.

Yeah really strong story is just marketing speak when you don't elaberate but he did. He goes on to explain how they added a voice protagonist and why they did it, what the reasoning behind it was. That is not just marketing speak that is giving a definative statement about the what and why of a feature in the pursuit of a goal. You know that goal of strong story.

oh right stupid me facts and logic get in the way of your narrative. Bethesda bad. no use logic. Logic bad. Facts bad no use facts.

Can't believe people are still complaining about a story they haven't played yet. Madness.

All of this can be adressed without sacrificing player freedom or at least perceived freedom. It's just that I don't know any Open-World RPG that's successfully managed that.

Seriously, it's possible to create settlements and have them interact with each other in Fallout 4. Have you seen Weapon Modification? If that's possible then there can also be a way for a story to be organic and dynamic.

You don't understand what branching is, do you? It's choosing one branch and therefore closing access to the other.

He did? How? All he said was that they had to compromise the story in favour of "freedom". And that this so-called freedom was the main focus, ergo story is an afterthought.

Logic and Bethesda doesn't go well in hand as proven countless times in the past.

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I'm not complaining about the story, but about writing overall. Some people call that "story" *shrugh*

For all the people scrutinizing Bethesda's story telling, quest structure, or character dialogue I hope FO4 has a version of the adoring fan who does nothing but recite shakespeare with a bad british accent and that guy lock in on your character and never goes away.

But the "do everything" approach also allowed for some truly idiotic outcomes from a story perspective in Skyrim, the most infamous of which was completing the Dark Brotherhood questline by assassinating the Emperor, but then being able to join the Imperial side in the civil war like nothing had happened at all. How does that make any sense at all from a story-telling perspective? At the very least you should have been shut out completely from the Imperial side of the civil war; even better, you should be attacked on sight by any Imperial patrols you happen across, and maybe deal with random hit squads coming after you, like you did in New Vegas if you pissed off the Legion or the NCR. The only way to end all of this, and completely restore your freedom to go anywhere you wanted without getting dogpiled, would be to join the Stormcloaks and run the Empire completely out of Skyrim.

ETA - look, it's a video game. No one here is expecting writing and story telling on par with what we'd get from Shakespeare or Mark Twain or Shirley Jackson. But at the same time, do we have to set the bar so low that the Twilight books look like literary masterpieces in comparison?

There have been some very intriguing and smart stories told in Bethesdsa games. Perhaps one should not look only at the MQ, but also side quests.

For example in Oblivion, the story of the Who dunnit quest, and the overall arch of the Dark Brotherhood was awesome story-wise IMO. The story of the Gray Fox as a person, I find it great too. Paranoia was another awesome quest that was awesome just for its plot.

Fallout 3 too had some quests that I really liked story-wise. The one where you get trapped in the virtual world, the tree-man, the conspiracy to blow up Megaton... These were good story pieces.

Then came Skyrim, were quests for some reason had all to be written around the same gameplay mechanic of fetch quests, and killed it.

Looking at pre-Skyrim Bethesda games what I find is that there are MANY good, interesting stories in them. The problem with stories in pre-Skyrim Bethesda games has been not in the stories themselves as stories, but in the way they are presented to the player and executed. You know what ? No matter the medium, be it game or movie or book, what makes us enjoy a story more is to get to feel like how the characters feel. No matter how good a plot is, if the actors are bad and bland and the direction is bad, people ain't going to like it.

Look at the Mass Effect trilogy. Up to before the end of Mass Effect 3, everyone loved its story, and many people were saying that the games were the best regarding story. If you just read the main plot though, you will discover that it has nothing groundbreaking in story telling. What made people love ME and think its story is great, was the fact that Bioware managed to make the player care about the characters. And for that to happen many factors had to be right and played a part. A big part of making someone care for characters is to understand their feelings. All those face-close ups in the classic and awesome Spielberg films, are done for that particular reason: to make us understand how the character feels at that point, whats in his or her mind.

But how can the 'rules' be applied in video games ? One thing facial animations. Since a great amount of information about how a character feels is communicated by his face, being able to see the emotions reflected on facial expressions on characters is important. Look at the few games that used motion capture of real actors to capture their facial expressions / feelings and put them in, like everyone in LA Noire and Vaas in Far Cry 3. The main story of Far Cry 3 was rather bad and cliche, but Vaas saved the whole game and made it special. While everything else story-wise in Far Cry 3 was bland and boring, Vaas kept us interested in playing the game, and lots of players quit playing the game at the point Vaas died.

Why ? Because Vass had a personality, and not only that, but both is animations and voice acting were taken from a good actor, that managed to play the role good, and thus we were recieving tons of information just by the combination of the look in Vaas's face, the tone of his voice, and the movements of his body. The combination of these three made Vass interesting and immersed us.

Little details like how he closes his eyes right when he says "I don't like the way you are looking at me", and how he moves his arms and fingers when he says "f**k you ok!" in this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n_1zsCVBxw

might be small, but have a huge impact on the player. Because the body language and expressions and voice tone are natural and their orchestration makes the whole outcome rather natural and realistic,and that makes us suspend our disbelief, which allows us to see Vass as a 'real' person somewhat. Thus we grow feelings about him,

and that keeps us interested in seeing how the game progresses.

Another thing is good, emotional voice acting. To use audio as a vehicle to transfer the feelings of the characters to the player too. And of course camera direction plays importance.

So this is what I think. Only in Skyrim I found a lack of interesting stories. But in past BGS games I found lots of interesting,good pieces.

The major thing with story in Bethesda games IMO isn't the writing itself, but the way the stories are presented to the player.

To break it down even more, Bethesda needs better in quality and more frequently used facial expression animations for its npcs, more emotional voice acting, and have the NPCs show full proper behavior depending in the situation they are into, and by behavior I mean their bodies, to communicate the right things with their body language.

lol..

I think he was just avoiding the question. The way he's talking sounds as if he's just side stepping.

Except you kill anyone who knows you are connected to the Dark brotherhood. You are not unmasked as you kill the guards ordered to kill you. You are in disguise when you do that mission. The only person who knows who you are doesn't know your name only that you were assassin responsible for killing his son. So with him dead why would the imperial army think you are an assassin when you ask to join? You have an established identity as a lowly criminal with the guy who recruits you in the imperial army. Why would he connect you to the dark brotherhood? Its not like they put a bolo out to all the imperials with your picture.