Is it always Christmas in Maryland ?

Most people just want to be critics and complain all the time.

If I was a developer, I wouldn't want to talk to them either... Spend 3+ years of my life making a game that well over 90% of people love, and then go put myself out there on a pedestal for those other 10% to throw tomatoes at and unjust accusations...

As a game developer you shouldn't have to answer to the accusations of people who don't even understand what the term 'game engine' actually means, though they still throw around phrases like 'the game engine is ancient and should be scrapped'. It is just silly to me.

That vocal 10% who just want to complain and bring everyone down make me as a modder just want to stop and not ever build anything again. I can't imagine what it would be like to actually be one of the developers and be thrown to the wolves like that. This website as well as the Nexus can turn into an organized Bethesda hate club real quickly.

I just have to keep reminding myself that I mod for the other 90%, the ones who are sitting back quietly enjoying their games. Got to keep reminding myself that winners don't complain, and that the people who truly do love it are just not vocal because of that.

Bethesda deserves better than having to deal with these armchair critics.

your not allowed to say Christmas in Maryland

Every single game that gets big enough has a handful of people who have some sort of weird problem with the company that makes it and latches onto them with the sole purpose to spread hate.

I cannot think of a game that has sold to more than 200k people and doesn't have some small group of people talking about how the developers personally ruined their life. At least some of the crazier ones ive seen around here aren't posting anymore. I can't really blame the developers for not wanting to talk to a group of people who contains a small cadre of people who take their hard work on a game as a personal insult to them.

So the entirety of NMA?

They claimed that the Fallout Anthology being in a Mini-Nuke was legitimately meant to be antagonizing them.

"Winners don't complain".

Word.

People who are wrapped up in complete approval from everyone in the world prolly don't get that, a viewpoint that's prolly familiar to any fan of single player games. We're a selfish bunch.

Anyone, who truly wants to affect more folk than himself, must learn to deal with folks who may not think he is the Bees Knees. Goes with the Lofty Territory.

The irony is that the devs of games meant to appeal to so many varied individual ideas while still pleasing the masses can appear to be so disconnected, yet obviously have a firm grasp on what works.

Boggles my mind.

Not only that, but you have to realize there is nothing that's going to change the moinds of the FO1&2 crowd anyways. To argue, even discuss with them would be a galctic waste of time.

I'd rather the developers spent their time fine tuning the game, than combing through this forum. There are community managers out and about that most likely gather legitimate complaints, bugs, etc.... and relay them back to the team. Once in a while you get a few devs poping in... like vsions... but more often than not, if they are on... they are lurking. I don't blame them.... If I were in their place I would do the very same thing. Why subject yourself to a barrage of insults, or to the whims of every joker and "fan" when you can have someone else relay the information to you. I wouldn't take it as a personal insult, just realize that because you want something to happen... doesn't make it actually happen.

The Devs at Beth provide us with a product (or perhaps service, depending on your POV). They create a product which they then try to sell, and which is then purchased by us if we find it desirable and worth the price. For some reason, many of us feel that it is imperative that our feedback get a response from the devs... but I don't have a clue why we would expect any such thing.

If you buy a car, do you have a forum to talk to Ford or whoever to complain about the switch from rear-wheel drive to front wheel? Do you think Ford's designers are going to spen much time trying to explain every aspect of their design to everybody who bought one?

Do you complain to the people who made your jeans about a switch in material, and if you do, do you complain to the starving ten year old who actually stitched the jeans together, or the company who makes a fortune from selling them?

It's capitalism, folks game or auto, or blue-jeans. Somebody designs something, somebody else builds it, somebody else markets it, and then we decide whether to buy it or not without much in the way of contact with any of those people who actually have any control in its creation. That's just how it is, so either get over it or keep your money in your pocket, eh?

Plus, most of the complaints are coming from people who don't know the first thing about how making a videogame actually works.

Modders who have only ever worked with Bethesda's creation kit seem to like to complain a lot, but if they had ever actually used another game engine such as Unreal or the Cryengine or Unity or Source, they would realize that the problems they are blaming on Bethesda are common across the board in a complex industry like designing videogames.

Bethesda having their games so open in their vanilla state, and then opening up every inch of it for people to poke around at with the creation kit is pretty much just letting you see behind the facade that games present to the public and actually see the duct tape that is holding it together...

It is basically the difference between seeing a Playboy Centerfold, and then having that model post pictures of herself with no Photoshop work and no makeup and no special posing and angles and accessories. In one case you have the planed out image that the company wants you to see, and then the other you have the reality.

Most games are not transparent like that, so you never see behind the facade. As someone who has worked with 5 different game engines and an allotment of other industry standard tools, I really find most of the so called 'critiques' people have for Bethesda to be totally unfounded and out of place.

No different than a guy who has never thrown a football in his life yelling that Tom Brady made the wrong pass, when Tom Brady has 4 Super Bowl rings...

I'm sure if any of these people would ever stop their wannabee career of being a videogame critic and actually picked up a pencil and tried to write dynamic dialogue for a videogame, they would be crying about how hard it is within the first 45 minutes.

People who make games like this don't do it because it is a great way to make money, because it isn't. People make games like this because it is their passion. It is a lot of work with little reward at times, but you grit through it because you love the art form.

The people at Bethesda deserve better than to have to listen to a bunch of uneducated critics tell them how to make a videogame.

Oh, NMA.

This has been a message from Bethesdas Legal team, back to you, [censored]ERS!

"If a reader tells you something is wrong with your work, they're probably right. If they tell you how to fix it, they're probably wrong."

Basically sums it up. The whole "I'd like to see you do better" argument is, as always, an absurd one to make. You don't need to be an expert to point out a flaw or criticize something you don't like.

Back in the day, Emil Pagliarulo actually used to post every so often. I think his username was Emilpags or something along those lines. Pete Hines even stopped by here and there. His account was simply, "Pete."

When Fallout 4 launched, i paid close attention to the bottom of the forum index to see if developers would be logging in. And a few did. Some of the names I was not familiar with, but when you hover over their names, you can see what they're currently reading and it was usually something negative (bugs, fallout 4 ruined, settlement mode terrible, etc..) so I can understand why they probably don't frequent this place as much.

Very good point.

Feedback is infinity important, but as an artist you can't let you art be spoiled by the voices of those far less skilled than you.

Basically, if you want to make the videogame of your dreams, then go open up a game studio and make it. You are not entitled to tell Bethesda how you want them to make their videogame, because quite frankly, if you knew better, you would be the one standing in front of a full E3 conference telling everyone about your latest creation.

This also applies to FO3 crowd as well, so go figure, both parties are hypocrites.

Then they should make better games.

Bethesda purchased the Fallout IP. It is theirs, but they're actively working to retcon nearly everything fans of Fallout 1 and 2 loved about those games.

Instead of releasing Fallout 3 and Fallout 4, why the hell didn't they just reboot the franchise with Fallout and Fallout 2 again? They're already largely ignoring the lore established by the previous Fallout games, so why make "sequels" that don't adhere to previously established content?

It's not even like they were ever pandering to the existing Fallout fans anyway. Fallout 3 wasn't developed for the people who played Fallout 1 and Fallout 2. It was developed for everyone else. Same goes for 4. Bethesda doesn't care for existing fans. They're always trying to expand their market, even at the cost of alienating those who were at one point loyal to them.

Can you blame them not being on the forums much?

I've seen forums degenerate into a flamefest the moment a dev poke their head in. There's always one person that because the game wasn't made EXACTLY how they wanted it, then they'll make sure everybody knows, especially that dev who just posted.

Only incident I really remember here was on the New Vegas forums, one of the devs poked his head into a thread to explain why they'd chosen not to have Area 51 (There had already been aliens with Fallout 3's Mothership Zeta and the 'cool tech facility' was handled by Old World Blues.

The Op of that friend then all but stalked the dev, ranting and flaming as he went.

Hit the nail on the head. If Bethesda truly cared about the art, then we wouldn't be having this discussion. Obsidian on the other hand, they tried to revive a dead carcass as best they could. I feel Obsidian should of been the ones to own fallouts rights

Well... to put it bluntly...

Bethesda didn't go bankrupt, discussion over.

Bethesda hasn't gone bankrupt because they care more about making money than entertaining their fans.

That's usually what a business entails. And that's what a developing studio is, a business or at the least, part of one.

Make game for the many = Make money = make more games.

Make game for the few = make less money = make no more games.

Obviously, there are exceptions, but primarily those tend to be indie companies operating on tiny budgets, but with tinier expenditures.

But really, there's a difference between critiquing and outright hatred. Fortunately the majority are able to critique sensibly and without ranting. But there are one or two people on these forums firmly in that second group, who's every post seems to be little more than flamebait. That second group rarely lasts. There was that poster who ranted about the lack of child killing. Haven't seen him since release.

Except that isn't the case for Bethesda.

Arena made enough for Daggerfall made enough for Morrowind made enough for Oblivion made enough for Fallout 3 made enough for Skyrim made enough for Fallout 4. They very clearly don't need to churn out titles meant to attract the greatest amount of gamers in order to stay afloat, otherwise they'd have gone bankrupt after Arena.

Budgets were also far lower then.. And they don't exactly 'churn out'

Call of Duty is churned out.

Assassins Creed is churned out

Pokemon is so churned out, it's butter.