Great article from an unlikely place.

[chestburster]

Bioware insist on making crappy movie-esque games,

But the formula itself is not the problem. Witcher 2 follows the exact same formula and is not half bad.

It's Bioware's execution of the formula that is incompetent (at least they found their own niche in the LGBT crowd).

 

[DalekFlay]

But the formula itself is not the problem. Witcher 2 follows the exact same formula and is not half bad.

It's Bioware's execution of the formula that is incompetent (at least they found their own niche in the LGBT crowd).

You keep missing the point. Bioware act like their cinematic shit is the ONLY way to make money with an RPG in today's market. They insist the market has forced their hand. However games that go the opposite direction make MORE money. Dragon Age 2 sold LESS than the original. There is a market for the cinematic shit, for sure. It's smaller than focusing on video-game-ass video games though.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

focusing on video-game-ass

sorry, couldn't resist

 

[Infinitron]

Perhaps a better comparison would be Dragon Age 2 and Skyrim. I posted a lot on Bioware's forums in the lead-up to Dragon Age 2 and heard all of Bioware's bullshit direct from their developers' mouths about how you HAVE to make these concessions, you HAVE to have voiced PC dialog and cinematic presentation, you HAVE to make it feel like a movie, and on and on and on. Whatever you might think of Skyrim it's a video game first, not a movie, and it blew Dragon Age 2 out of the fucking water sales wise. There isn't even comparison there, Skyrim is the Empire State Building of sales compared to Dragon Age 2's bagel shop. Completely different leagues.

Video games sell better. Minecraft, Skyrim, Everquest and early days WoW, Nintendo's shit and on and on down the line. People want their video games to play like video games. It even applies to mobile shit.

Here's a recent article that makes this point: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-04-18-return-to-skyrim

At launch, Skyrim was both a pinnacle for video games and evidence that AAA budgets can still leave room for poor quality control. It claimed a rightful position as the state-of-the-art for freely interactive virtual worlds, but did it with many a glitch, bug and "immersion breaking" script clanger. But those bugbears (or calamitous game-ruining disasters, depending on your luck) don't diminish the achievement - Skyrim offers the greatest freedom and the finest resolution of world we've ever seen in a mainstream videogame. GTA 5, for all its gloss and swagger, still can't let you pick up an apple, let alone shoplift the contents of an entire shop by putting a basket over the keeper's head. That jape, discovered early on in the game's life, evidences Skyrim's chief mandate - to explore what you can do and what you can (or want) to be.

This is perhaps the most important value of video games as a media distinct from all the others. It's inviting you to explore a rich land on your own terms, and makes huge allowances to let you find and define your own way. In this context, Skyrim represents the last great landmark in a three-decade march of truly great games that transcended their peers. All the way from 3D Monster Maze, via Elite and Mercenary to Ultima Underworld and the original TES games, Skyrim is, perhaps, the finest expression of video games fulfilling their true (and unique) potential that I can think of. And that's coming from a Fallout fan that hates goblins and dragons. Despite the generic fantasy elements, Skyrim the best "consolised" game design of the last generation.

Skyrim's big win is more than something to be glad for - it's as much a signpost to the future as it is the contemporary champion. In many of the last generation's most-lauded games, the idea of "what's next" is painfully obvious. It's in climbing the increasingly steep slopes towards parity with films and TV. The question that's rarely asked is: to what end? To be just like whatever edgy box-set US pseudo-soap is in vogue? To have virtual humans that look and feel like real ones,, where the sole aspiration is to inspire emotion or offer provocative choices in how a story plays out? To finally be "as good" as literature, theatre, films and TV? To me, that's a hollow aspiration.

(except from GameBanshee)

 

[Kane]

Skyrim offers the greatest freedom and the finest resolution of world we've ever seen in a mainstream videogame.

Skyrim's big win is more than something to be glad for - it's as much a signpost to the future

 

[DalekFlay]

You're missing the point raw. The point is: make fucking video games.

 

[RK47]

Skyrim offers the greatest freedom and the finest resolution of world we've ever seen in a mainstream videogame.

Skyrim's big win is more than something to be glad for - it's as much a signpost to the future

Bethesda = Best Sand Box RPG Developer Ever

 

[Angthoron]

Skyrim offers the greatest freedom and the finest resolution of world we've ever seen in a mainstream videogame.

Skyrim's big win is more than something to be glad for - it's as much a signpost to the future

Bethesda = Best Sand Box RPG Developer Ever

Best Ever, The Heros Every Sandbox Desires, Assholes!

 

[Kane]

You're missing the point raw. The point is: make fucking video games.

if bethesda is the pinnacle of video games we should stop making video games right now.

 

[RK47]

Hirato needs to know this too.

 

[Infinitron]

Yes, it's a painfully fanboyish article, but I think it's interesting how he, uh, damns it with faint damn at times:

Despite the generic fantasy elements, Skyrim the best "consolised" game design of the last generation.

If there's one point I want to hammer, it's about seeing Skyrim as a superior overall design for single-player games, irrespective of its implementation.

(with the implication being that the "implementation" in Skyrim was far from perfect)

A Bethesda fanboy who has peeked at the Codex a few too many times and come up with a sort of compromise worldview?

 

[Turjan]

Bethesda = Best Sand Box RPG Developer Ever

That title isn't really hard to achieve. How many sandbox RPG developers are there?

 

[Kane]

(with the implication being that the "implementation" in Skyrim was far from perfect)

true, and as everyone here should know, I have always been a strong proponent of sandbox game design. but there have been much better implementations of said 'overall design' in the past, so why then does he claim skyrim should be a "signpost for the future"? that is a threat more than anything else. and let us not forget that skyrim shares the exact same overall design with its predecessors, especially the even worse obshitaton.

Yes, the future will be one of glorious sandbox worlds. But bethesda will not be part of that future.

 

[RK47]

Bethesda = Best Sand Box RPG Developer Ever

That title isn't really hard to achieve. How many sandbox RPG developers are there?

How many of them sucked at it and gave up?

 

[abnaxus]

Amalur > Skyrim

 

[Turjan]

How many of them sucked at it and gave up?

Nice rhetorical question, but the number is limited, anyway. Arcanum is sort of a sandbox game, but not really. Might&Magic probably is.

 

[RK47]

Amalur > Skyrim

 

[Kane]

How many of them sucked at it and gave up?

Nice rhetorical question, but the number is limited, anyway. Arcanum is sort of a sandbox game, but not really. Might&Magic probably is.

Most Sandbox games are also MMOs, historically I'd say Daggerfall and Ultima Online had the biggest influence on sandbox design. Which is good, because both games have yet to be replicated in quality.

 

[Infinitron]

Might & Magic is an open world blobber. There's nothing particularly "sandbox" about it.

 

[RK47]

Ultima was great. It has an over-arching gameplot of Guardian and a slew of sidequests and content to go along with it.
Exploration is encouraged, going off the beaten path is a normal thing to do.
But Garriot lost the plot past Ultima 7.
Ultima 8 was ruined by retarded jumping that had very little margin for error.
Ultima 9 is best left unsaid. Ultima 7 was THE sandbox game for me before Daggerfall arrived.

As for modern ones, hardly any dev tries to do so. Those who did are unable to match the amount of community modding support that made modern TES get better and better past its released date.

 

[Turjan]

Might & Magic is an open world blobber. There's nothing particularly "sandbox" about it.

Right. There isn't much more than enemies and treasure. However, games like M&MVI come at least close. If you define "sandbox" very narrowly, there isn't really much left outside of TES and Ultima in the RPG genre (and GTA-likes outside of it).

 

[chestburster]

You keep missing the point. Bioware act like their cinematic shit is the ONLY way to make money with an RPG in today's market.

I think Bioware is correct in that the cinematic shit is the only way FOR THEM to make money with an RPG. The whole current Bioware team had no experience outside of making linear, cinematic RPGs (and they still suck at their own trade).

You can't expect Bioware to suddenly start making openworld sandbox games, at least not according to the genuine meaning of "openworld" and "sandbox." Because openworld is hard.

The most Bioware could do is throw in a big map and call it "openworld".

 

[Gord]

You're missing the point raw. The point is: make fucking video games.

if bethesda is the pinnacle of video games we should stop making video games right now.

You're really trying hard to miss the point, aren't you?

It's not about how Bethesda is the best developer ever (they aren't) or how they make perfect games (they don't).
It's about how at least they don't try to follow the "games need to be Hollywood movies" route that has become so common these days.*
There's a lot of shit design in their games, but they are closer to "real" computer games than many of Bioware's recent inteactive movie-novel-somethings.

The signpost to the future here should be - don't aspire to hamfistedly turn games into Hollywood flicks or romance simulators, that's not the strong point of computer games.
Of course there's no guarantee that publishers or devs will read it as such. They might as well see the more retarded aspects of Skyrim and decide that e.g. dumbing down and shallow quests and story is what gamers want.

* At least not for now.

 

[Kane]

You're really trying hard to miss the point, aren't you?

No, I perfectly got the point of the article the first time around. That doesn't change the fact that the point of the article is wrong. Bethesda is as much part of the "hollywodization" of games as any other developer. In fact, if you ask Todd or Pete, they can hardly stop blubbering how great they think their particular Hollywood is, once you trigger them. The only thing that can be said in their defence I guess is that it takes Bethesda several iterations to completely decline their franchise, probably because it started out strong and it is resisting the hollywood all the way down into the gutter. In which it will land eventually (and has already for many).

 

[DragoFireheart]

Even if Skyrim is a mediocre video game and a terrible Elder Scrolls game, it's still a video game unlike the pile of shit Bioware produces.

And fuck you assholes for making me defend Bethesda.