It's got to be said. This ^. A thousand times this ^.

Honestly, it's bloody ridiculous the way some people go on these days. Speaking as a newbie, it's not that bad on here...but do any of you visit, for example, the Bioware forums?

Jesus wept.

They're that bad? I thought RPG Codex was the worst?

Spell-making was a wildcare because they felt like stats and numbers took over the magic part feel, or that the feel and look of the magic mattered more than the spreadsheet-esque line of stats when making spells.

Seems like a cop-out to me, stats are still fun to play with and wouldn't somehow remove the aesthetic and feel to spells. Doesn't seem like a valid reason to just not have something because focus might be taken away from what they are going for.

To answer the question though, of course Bethesda loves their game. They love the world, they love the money and I'm sure they love the creativity it allows for as many of them are technically "artists".

In other words, the flashy visuals of magic on screen mattered more than the numbers behind it.

Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of being able to manipulate fire in different ways and have it affect the environment differently as a result, but at the end of the day, all fire does is burn, and for the most part, in an RPG, you use it to light your way, or kill enemies. That's about it. And when it comes to your chances of killing a particular type of enemy with fire, regardless of whether you can only throw fireballs at it or not, numbers are the key to handling that, even if the player is never aware of it.

I prefer to be aware of the math involved. I like summoning a pillar of flame beneath my enemy's feet AND seeing the hit points it's shaving off as it burns. My beef with the decision-makers at BGS is that they don't care about me anymore, even though I'm just like the people who've liked this series from the beginning. I'm the opposite of the people who are going to turn their backs on the franchise when it ceases to be trendy to like RPGs.

Even without the supporting evidence of numerous other statements Todd has made over the years, these three videos make any "he loves the game mainly for the money" comment sound like cynicism instead of insight: http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2011/01/13/road-to-skyrim-the-todd-howard-interview.aspx

In the third of those videos Todd says, "One of the things with role playing is it's one of these genres that doesn't define itself by the type of interaction." I agree with him.

Some of the design choices, or the reasons given for them, make me cringe too. Despite my cringing, I can usually see how their decisions make some part of the game work better. Their choices do not strike me as them conceding to sacrifice role-playing goodness for broader appeal.

Yeah, I think Todd and the higher ups with Bethesda get beaked too hard here occasionally. Todd especially has been there since Morrowind.. he's a manager within a company.. but he does love his product. He just wants to change it up and see what really works because he (along with the rest of the Beth staff) want it to work the best it can. Sometimes the results just aren't what everybody wants. These dudes are all nerds too, yknow.

Todd says something to the effect he doesn't believing in making the same game over, that a new game should be designed new. It's a noble endeavor, but you can observe another franchise where each game is radically different: Final Fantasy. People are so polarized about the games in that series, moreso than us with TES. However, Final Fantasy has had a major disaster, and many argue that it has recent disasters. It's an extreme case of discontiguous one-upsmanship between franchise installments. I know BGS is better than Square Enix by far, but TES really should try to improve on things when they work. Inventing entire systems just to throw them out every game is costly.

If there's any particular trend in the series that annoys me the most, it's this inane compulsion to freaking re-invent the damn wheel every time they make a game. I really hope one day they find a happy medium between that approach and the one the makers of the Madden NFL games have, because that balance DOES exist, it IS achievable, and it is bound to help expand their consumer base.

Heh, go figure. FFX, XII, and XIII are my favorite ones in the series.

THAT'S what Todd Howard was talking about when he used the term 'spreadsheet-y'? That's perfectly reasonable. Perfectly logical. People on this forum really know how to pull what he says out of context.

These forums are worse.

As for Todd Howard, when he talks about games, I nod my head. Dude's alright by me.

I dont think Bethesda reinvents everything every game. If anything all of thier actions show natural progressions, not total reinventions.

Yes.

That is actually one of the things I most admire about the series. I often don't agree with some of the decisions Bethesda makes, but I admire them for not playing it safe, for taking the easy road and simply repeating the same game over and over.

I realize this is a minority view around here, but I think it took guts to take things like Attributes and spellmaking out of the game. They are stupid. They had to know this would be an unpopular decision. But they did it anyway. This is a risk, and they took it. And, even though I disagree with the decision, I admire the fact they they made it.

I admire artists who do not play it safe. Most of the artists I admire most are the arists who are willing to risk everything to try something new. I find that exhilarating. It is exhilarating to me even when I think it doesn't work.

The fact that Bethesda took a risk, a serious one, in eliminating spellmaking and Attributes is evidence to me that they care, that they're not resting on their laurels, that they're not coasting. The easiest thing for Bethesda to do would have been to copy-paste the game mechanics from one game to the next and crank games out once a year, or once every two years. They don't take that route. They try new things. Some of them work, some of them don't.

So -contrary to what practically everybody else says around here - I think that the fact that Bethesda removed spellmaking and attributes is evidence that they are not listening to the higher-ups, that they are not listening to the 'suits.' Because if there's one thing that suits have in common everywhere in the world it is that they are inherently conservative. Suits like the status quo, they like to repeat formulas. They don't like to rock the boat. Bethesda's willingness to rock the boat with each new release is proof, to me, of their artistic integrity.

I hooked up with Todd's mom last night.

Had to dump her and end the relationship though. She asked me why.

http://miniganb.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/csi_miami_yeah.jpg

I have to disagree with you there Pseron, I think the removal of attributes and spellmaking can come down to a single question:

Did they remove them to make the game better, or to make the game sell better?

To me, the fact that they removed elements that they thought were too "spreadsheety" rather than try to make them work in a more organic way, suggests the latter rather than the former.

If the suits said that removing those numbers from the games would make it sell better, then the numbers go. They may be conservative, but if they see a game that's more action/adventure than RPG outselling one that's more RPG than action/adventure, that's what they're going to try to emulate. Being conservative for them means maximising the potential target audience as much as possible, so any fans they lose because of the changes are covered by the ones they gain.

I'm with Pseron- that isn't conservative at all. That's taking a massive risk in the hopes of attracting a new audience. Conservative would mean taking the respectable profits they raked in from both Morrowind and Oblivion and making as few changes from that formula as possible in Skyrim.

That said, I'm not sure where this assumption that action/hack-and-slash games sell better than RPGs is coming from, God of War and Legend of Zelda are the only franchises I can think of from that genre that have had any real success.

Like I said, there's a happy medium between what BGS has been doing for some time, and what EA Sports has been doing for some time as well. I would love to see BGS try to reach that happy medium. I don't want them churning out a game a year, or just making the tiniest little tweaks here and there, anymore than anyone else does. But they don't have to get as crazy as they have just to keep old fans happy and create new ones. Skyrim didn't sell like hot cakes because they dumped attributes and brought in the perk system. I guarantee it.

If you make the play of a game feel better, then you are making the game play better, and that suggests an interest in making a better game before it suggests anything else.

I and others firmly believe the games to be RPGs with lots of action and adventure, not to be games that are more action/adventure than RPG. Our belief is not some pretense for attracting more sales. Bethesda's design choices are reasonably explained by our understanding of what an RPG is and by our notion of what makes an RPG good. What Todd says about RPGs, and what TES game documentation says about RPGs, indicates that Bethesda's understanding of the genre is similar to our own.

Is it really much of a risk? Take a look at Fallout New Vegas. You have attributes, which you determine at the start, and don't change unless you make them. Everything else is done by perks, and the game was good. It's not that big a change to no attributes.

And as for action/hack and slash games selling better, casual gamers. By this I mean people who just want a game they can pick up and play. RPGs don't really fall into that category

You want to look at a risk in terms of making a game? Dragon Age Origins. Bioware spent the best part of five years making that game, and it some aspects it's practically a throwback, the "spiritual successor to Baldur's gate". Five years making a game for what can only be called a niche market, that's a risk.

Everytime I look at a gameplay video for Skyrim I always think the same thing: Style over substance. Substance will keep people playing for longer, but style will sell more copies.


But looking at their games, Bethesda's understanding of the genre changes with every game. Either they don't know where they're aiming, or they're shifting their target audience.

Maybe they like streamlined games

Seems kind of funny to me that Todd and the rest of Bethesda would paint Skyrim as a clear-cut fantasy role playing game, yet some people continually throw out the "its an action game!" BS. I agree with Pseron. The changes reflect their desires to make better games and always striving to improve. It might not always work but I applaud them for the things that do (perks imo work). Oblivion was an excellent game and many casuals bought it. The change in sales from Morrowind to Oblivion to Skyrim is not because of action/streamlnedness... the change is mostly due to the gaming industry as a whole becoming bigger and bigger and the audience getting broader and broader.

Bethesda isn't turning their games into something different, the industry and the genre itself is evolving. They don't need to change from RPG to action to get more sales.. there are tons of people who play RPGs casually already.

Bethesda's understanding doesn't change with each game; it doesn't have to. Todd has said that there is nothing you cannot do in an RPG when you are making one. Todd loves adventuring in a big game world with a character of his choice and doing whatever he wants to do there. Arena and Daggerfall suit his taste, and the later games reflect his taste. It is his preference that each new game in the series play differently from the last because it helps to make each new game feel new (he says as much in this http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2011/01/13/road-to-skyrim-the-todd-howard-interview.aspx). Their target audience has always been those who wish to adventure freely as a character of their own making in a large, fantastic world that offers a fun diversity of things to do and see.

Well Toddles is in charge now...

Spoiler alert, "Toddles" was in charge on the development of Redguard and Morrowind too.