Brayko
Self-Ejected
He does have talent but his style is rather drawl most of the time. I do have a keen memory of all his work that I've heard, even stuff I haven't heard in 15 years. It doesn't have a "wow" factor but it does stick.
-
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Bethesda bashing thread
- Thread starter likaq
- Start date
Sjukob
Arcane
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2015
- Messages
- 2,067
Sounds like quantity over quality , and as you registered on codex you should already know that some people have no taste at all , and most of the time awards don't mean anything . Want to know why I think that Jeremy Soule's work is mostly weak ? Well , here is an example .
Battle theme from Morrowind ( also known as " ONE OF DA BEST GAMES EVAH" )
Here is battle music from not so famous game
Here is an exploration track from Skyrim
Here is a non-combat track from Serious Sam
Here is battle music from not so famous game
Here is an exploration track from Skyrim
Here is a non-combat track from Serious Sam
I find his music very monotonous and unmemorable , but as I said earlier he made some good music , but his overal performance doesn't justify the praise he recieves .
Unmemorable is best for a game where you spend half of the playing time walking the road and other half sorting through your equipment, journal and dialogue. If you got epic orchestra every time a rat of cliffracer spawned on you in Morrowind you'd cut your ears out before you reached Balmora.
It actually happened in Skyrim where you fight dragons all the time and they play same epic track for it. Memorable but becomes annoying as hell when combat begins with "HA. HU. HO" every single time.
Plus part of soundtrack for these games is ambiance. Music like that is designed with ambient sounds in mind. King's Bounty has separate combat screen so it has more catchy music, like HoMM.
One problem with Morrowind's music though is that there is not enough of it. OST has about half a hour of music which is not enough for such a big game. Thankfully you can just slip your own MP3s into the folders and it works.
It actually happened in Skyrim where you fight dragons all the time and they play same epic track for it. Memorable but becomes annoying as hell when combat begins with "HA. HU. HO" every single time.
Plus part of soundtrack for these games is ambiance. Music like that is designed with ambient sounds in mind. King's Bounty has separate combat screen so it has more catchy music, like HoMM.
One problem with Morrowind's music though is that there is not enough of it. OST has about half a hour of music which is not enough for such a big game. Thankfully you can just slip your own MP3s into the folders and it works.
Last edited:
Sjukob
Arcane
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2015
- Messages
- 2,067
Yes , I thought that for TES it's better when music plays in the background mostly . But do you remember Gothic 2 soundtrack ? I do and I think it's better than TES and it's memorable , and like TES music it plays in the background mostly . Here is a link if you need to recall it .
Aoyagi
Scholar
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2015
- Messages
- 140
Heh, the first example is in favour of Soule in my ears. As for the second track, I don't think I've even heard it. But surely you're aware of the concept of cherry-picking.
I don't think there's any composer whose entire music repertoire is even noteworthy. I just go by the total number of tracks I remember from them and if the music made me search for the name of the composer.
Sjukob
Arcane
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2015
- Messages
- 2,067
I do the same , but I rarely searched for Soule's music . There are over 100 tracks in Guild Wars 2 , but I listened only 2 of those and remember only one .
rohand
Cipher
Brayko
Self-Ejected
Kai is also a hit or miss composer. Never understood the mad love for Kai especially amongst Gothic fans.
rohand
Cipher
Kotaku users are now engaged in the good ol' 'what is an RPG' debate
Ah Kotaku, you so crazy
dextermorgan
Arcane
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/...screen/nlipoenfbbikpbjkfpfillcgkoblgpmj?hl=en
http://imgur.com/
Bros don't link bros to Kotaku.
rohand
Cipher
it was linking to a shock site wasn't it
Found this on 8chan, it's pretty good. I have no idea if it's copypasta or not.
I'd like to preface this by saying that I have zero doubts Fallout 4 will be a runaway
mainstream success, selling 25+ million copies and being an Action RPG staple for most games
in the years to come. If you enjoy the Bethesda Shallow Sandbox Experience first featured in
Morrowind and perfected in Oblivion, then you will probably be happy with Fallout 4. Also,
you probably think that the only real criticism that old Fallout fans have against Bethesda-
Fallout is the change from turn based isometric gameplay to third person action based real
time gameplay, when that is more of a byproduct or a symptom of Bethesda-Fallout problems,
rather than the cause of them.
To nip that particular argument in the bud, the reason turn based combat and an
isometric perspective was so beloved by Fallout fans was because they were mechanisms that
best helped to portray Fallout as the PnP campaign simulator in video game form that it was
designed to be from the very beginning. Before Fallout became it's own distinct franchise, it
was supposed to be a post-apocalyptic game based on Steve Jackson's PnP ruleset G.U.R.P.S
This game had five key tenets and this is part of what I will focus on;
Rule #1: Multiple Decisions. We will always allow for multiple solutions to any obstacle.
Rule #2: No Useless Skills. The skills we allow you to take will have meaning in the game.
Rule #3: Dark humor was good. Slap-stick was not.
Rule #4: Let the player play how he wants to play.
Rule #5: Your actions have repercussions.
After licensing issues prevented the Vault 13 G.U.R.P.S game from eventuating, we got a
homebrew system in it's place that became known as S.P.E.C.I.A.L. However, these core design
goals still permeate just about every aspect of Fallout's design. Removing key aspects from
that framework without considering how it would affect everything else, like Bethesda did,
greatly damages the game as a whole.
It should also be noted that the cancelled Black Isle Fallout 3 'Van Buren' project
would've featured an adjustible 3D camera and optional real time combat in the vein of
Arcanum anyway
. It's easier to blame nostalgia driven neckbeards and that's what the gaming
community at large has generally put it down to, but it's not the truth at all. Rather than try
and take into consideration what makes Fallout good and design around that, they (Bethesda)
try to shoehorn their own features and design principles even if it directly contradicts central
aspects of the Fallout franchise. This is why Bethesda is incapable of creating a good Fallout
game.
"If you play Fallout 3, you know, Liam Neeson is the voice of your dad, and there are some good
emotional beats there, but there’s only so much you can do when you’re clicking on a line of
dialog and there’s no spoken response. So the emotional depth that we got by having a voiced
protagonist has actually [made the story] way more tense than I ever expected."
3
- Emil 'books don't have emotional depth' Pagliarulo
This speaks to a deeply flawed vision that Bethesda continues to push with their
version of Fallout. Specifically, they attempt to build a connection between the player and the
game by integrating the player's personal story into the main plot and making it the focus of
the experience. In Fallout 3, your connection with a "middle aged guy" was put forth as your
primary motivation for completing the game's main story. The likes of the radio jockey Three
Dog, also emphasise the point. Three Dog is a character who, if listened to on the in-game
radio, will extol the player's virtues if morally acceptable decisions are made in quests, or the
opposite and condemning you if the player engages in less than scrupulous actions. The player
character is at the centre of the gameworld and should take centre stage in the narrative
under this design philosophy. Bethesda sees this as 'emotional depth' because when the world
looks to you to make a decision, presumably, you'd care more about it. Making conversations
cinematic and giving the player character a voice is just another a way to make the player
character a stronger presence in the game world.
However, this is in vast contrast to what Fallout has been doing from the very
beginning. In Fallout 1 and 2, the player character has a backstory and a story arc, but the
protagonist is ultimately used as a window into the world. Fallout is a series about society and
human nature, not the player character. The character's personal story arc merely places them
in convenient circumstances in which they're able to explore the world and see first hand how
their actions can affect it. This is different to what Bethesda does in at least one crucial way.
The PC in Black Isle's Fallout games is presented as the agent of change whereas in Bethesda
games, the player character is presented as a literal messiah. Simply put, in Black Isle's Fallout,
the protagonist's story arc is important because it gives the player an opportunity to explore
the world around you through your interactions. In Bethesda's Fallout, the protagonist's story
arc is important because the world revolves around your character and progressing with the
story allows you to define your character as 'good' or 'bad'.
Black Isle's Fallout gives the player many, many forms of interaction with the
gameworld as a way to become immersed in it. The West Coast is dirty, gritty, violent and it
can showcase the best or worst of humanity depending on who you run into. You can seduce
people, become a Porn Star (with the right stats), become a Heavyweight Boxing Champion
(again with the right stats), or a Slaver or help Myron create addictive drugs. You can say and
do all sorts of things if you are roleplaying that kind of character. And all these actions are
optional side content that are structured around your skills and attributes.
These kinds of “down to earth” interactions already weren't part of Fallout 3 but Fallout
4 with it's voiced protagonist compounds the issue. The overwhelming majority of voiced
dialog would be tone neutral conversation progression. Because all interactions are cinematic
and voiced, there's less room for non-conventional interactions covering controversial
subjects. With changes to the skill system, all special dialog might be loaded onto a Speech
skill like in Skyrim. This links back to Rule #1 mentioned above. By offering less ways to
interact and navigate through dialog situations, you are offering the player less and less ways
to overcome obstacles and challenges in the game. While the game is set in an open world, the
quest design becomes more linear. The end result is an experience where the player doesn't
feel as connected to the player character. This is because the player character can no longer
express themselves through any nuance that relates to their skillsets or non-binary morality.
This isn't that much of an issue if the game is filled with well written dialog sequences that
allows the player to express a complex range of emotions, motivations and skills. However this
is Bethesda we're talking about.
“One of the things we really tried to avoid is surprising the player with whether they've been
good or bad. We wanted to be clear to you that you're making a conscious choice to be one or the
other. I've played games where I made a choice and I thought I was being the nice guy, and then
it's, "Wait, wait, why is he upset?" We didn't want it to be a surprise. Sometimes it's a surprise in
terms of how a person reacts if you are being a jerk, but it's not a surprise as to whether you're
good or bad.”
- Pete 'I need to be told when I'm a bad boy' Hines
The lack of character depth for the protagonist becomes all the more apparent when
you look at the Karma system from Fallout 3. Karma in Fallout 1 and 2 are minor systems that
can be summed up as a "moral reputation". They have specific titles for levels of Karma and
consequences that relate mostly to interactions with potential companions. But as a whole, it's
not very relevant. Unless you cross certain lines (like killing children), the Wasteland in
general isn't going to care about your morality. Why would the people of the Den or the
gangsters of New Reno care if you've eaten your vegetables and been a good boy? The people
in the game care about the tangibles. And it's this dilemma that provides much of the fodder
for the moral quandaries you'll face if you wish to play as a virtuous or selfless character. The
role of morality in a post-apocalyptic Wasteland that's so far removed from what we are
familiar with, is absolutely central to how the Fallout games are put together because Fallout
deals with how society rebuilds from the brink of destruction. It asks 'how do we rebuild in a
way that this will never happen again?' As such, many of the situations you encounter are
coloured in shades of grey as opposed to strict black and white. Power struggles by forces in a
conflict of ideology, instead of clearly defined perfect good and satanic evil. Granted, the
original two Fallout games had plenty of situations where you choose between an asshole and
a non-asshole, as well as featuring many broadly good v evil decision points. But in the ending
slides, no significant consideration is given to your morality. The games don't assume your
motivations and judge you for them, it just lets you navigate the setting and push the changes
you want onto the gameworld through your choices.
Your character is defined by your personal moral code, your narrative choices, your
skillset and your physical attributes. That's why moral dilemmas are a staple of Fallout games,
it's a game predicated on challenging the player, to see if it's possible to change the human
nature that got the world to this point, and show the player the results of their choices. “War
never changes”.
Bethesda's Fallout however, turns this concept on it's head. Just about every action you
are able to undertake is given a moral value through the Karma system and through characters
like Three Dog, and your Father, the game constantly reminds you of your character's morality.
Your decisions throughout the game are categorised neatly into 'good' and 'evil'. This is also
reinforced through the endings. Unlike the other Fallout games, where huge variance is given
based on your decisions in each of the communities you encounter with some level of overlap,
the Fallout 3 endings emphasise the player's morality in each of their decisions. The effect you
had on society is second to whether the PC was naughty or nice.
By forcing the player into strict moral guidelines that the game hammers in at every
opportune moment, the player loses a real connection with the world that they're exploring.
The player is forced to see everything in a lens of good and evil, and this harms any potential
nuance that the game could display when it comes to morality and characters. Everything is
either 'good' or 'bad. This absolutely destroys the protagonist as a well rounded character,
because they're ultimately defined by what the game can allow you to do. In other Fallouts,
you can define your character by your skillset, which informs your playstyle, as well as your
narrative choices. But in Bethesda's Fallout, your range of potential actions to define yourself
is more limited, your interaction with the skill system for roleplaying purposes is much more
narrow because it can't fit into the mold of 'good or evil'. The range of actions you can take in
the game are boiled down to 'I am good' and 'I am bad'. You are shoehorned into certain
character archetypes that are shallow in nature and the game works so hard to define your
experience using those archetypes and nothing else.
"That's what we try to create, that sense of going anywhere and doing anything. GTA V does it so
well. It puts you in its world and it makes you its director. It says yes to the player a lot, and that's
what we try to do. It's just a phenomenal game."
- Todd 'don't believe his lies' Howard
Bethesda have long stated that a major goal in their games is that the player should be
able to 'go anywhere' and 'do anything'. This central tenet of Bethesda design is at the core of
why Bethesda's Fallout is so obsessed with the player character (and moralising him/her).
The player is at the centre of the experience, and the player should be in control of their own
destiny. As an ideal, this isn't necessarily bad. In fact, it fits in nicely with Rule #4, however,
Rule #4 and #5 work in concert for a roleplaying experience. You should offer the player
freedom, but you need to have consequences for their actions too. The problem is that
Bethesda chooses to understand this idea as 'nothing should overpower the player, the player
should be allowed to do anything they want'. We've seen this manifest in the Elder Scrolls
games in the form Quest Compasses, Zero Barriers to Guild Progression and Level Scaling.
Removing repercussions and meaningful barriers for players in the name of player freedom.
Bethesda games are designed to be a sandbox to be played with at will. The settlement
building features being advertised as 'optional' content for Fallout 4 seems to support this
idea even more. Modular features over an interconnected, reactive roleplaying experience.
Nobody wants their WRPGs as an 'on the rails' linear experience. The problem is that player
freedom and player agency requires proper context. The context being the ruleset, the game
mechanics and the laws of the setting for internal consistency have to take precedent.
Roleplaying needs to be structured around those things, otherwise you end up playing pretend
instead of actually roleplaying. The difference between roleplaying and playing pretend is
whether the game acknowledges what you do within the confines of the ruleset and acts
accordingly
But it's that reactivity and design which Bethesda has been actively fighting against
since Oblivion, because the Bethesda Shallow Sandbox Experience is against inconveniencing
players with things like 'internally consistent game logic' or 'mutually exclusive content'. They
encourage you to play pretend and call it 'roleplaying choices'. What happens in the end, is a
game where the player is a 'tourist' and the internal rules/logic of the setting are more like
suggestions. But the reason for it in the first place is that it allows players to create a character
concept, and identify with that concept if they want to succeed at the various challenges the
game throws at you. Rather than spending millions of dollars on voice acting and limiting
what the player character can say, simple lines of text that relate back to a player's build can
allow the player to have a profound emotional connection with their characters through
roleplaying. That is the reason for Rule #2, all skills will be meaningful throughout the course
of the game. It doesn't mean to say that any kind of build should be able to overcome every
challenge. Indeed, certain skills in Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 only had limited usefulness. But it
means that skills shouldn't be trivial or disposable, all skills should offer something important
to the experience so that any kind of character concept based around a certain skillset can find
something to hang their hat on.
By having a sanitised game world that gates off risk from players and insulates them
from the challenges that the setting provides, for the sake of gameplay convenience, Bethesda
shows explicitly that they do not care about the core tenets of Fallout.
Designing an easily navigable and sterile environment that poses few risks for the
player can also close off ways in which developers are able to reinforce narrative tones or
themes through difficulty and gameplay situations. Something as simple as 'The Glow' from
Fallout 1 would not exist in Bethesda's Fallout. Unless the player has the right build and items,
it's completely impossible to fully explore the entire location before dying. The player in most
cases has to sacrifice blind exploration and focus on what their goals are, constantly going out
of their way to manage their radiation levels. Limiting the player using the game mechanics
like that is complete anathema to the Bethesda Shallow Sandbox Experience. However by
doing so, Black Isle designers are able to hammer home the idea of The Glow as a literal
treasure trove of the Old World. It makes you want to explore it. The risk/reward at play
makes the player more invested in the location and it's story than any kind of cinematic or
high fidelity texture.
“Violence is funny! Lets all just own up to it! Violence done well is fucking hilarious. It’s like Itchy
and Scratchy or Jackass – Now that’s funny!”
- Todd 'Komedy Klub Kustodian' Howard
As funny as childish violence might be, the humour of the Fallout setting is mostly
grounded in irony and juxtaposition as a means of telling the player a chilling message about
the society they are exploring. This goes back to one of Fallout's central themes. "War never
changes". Many people (including Bethesda themselves) have taken that to mean that 'history
repeats itself'. However, the main takeaway from the quote isn't about history repeating itself,
it's about why history repeats itself. War never changes because people never change. The
opening statement of Fallout is an indictment of human nature and informs the player that
Fallout is a dark and cynical setting. It's that cynicism that drives Fallout's dark humour, it's
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Vault_13:_A_GURPS_Post-Nuclear_Adventure
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uuDKrY7eW0
https://archive.is/SOOvN
https://archive.is/IiTZz
https://archive.is/g1PIu
https://archive.is/BdaLs
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...nd-crpg-mechanics-discuss.78412/#post-2389938
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Cp44Pr5b30
mainstream success, selling 25+ million copies and being an Action RPG staple for most games
in the years to come. If you enjoy the Bethesda Shallow Sandbox Experience first featured in
Morrowind and perfected in Oblivion, then you will probably be happy with Fallout 4. Also,
you probably think that the only real criticism that old Fallout fans have against Bethesda-
Fallout is the change from turn based isometric gameplay to third person action based real
time gameplay, when that is more of a byproduct or a symptom of Bethesda-Fallout problems,
rather than the cause of them.
To nip that particular argument in the bud, the reason turn based combat and an
isometric perspective was so beloved by Fallout fans was because they were mechanisms that
best helped to portray Fallout as the PnP campaign simulator in video game form that it was
designed to be from the very beginning. Before Fallout became it's own distinct franchise, it
was supposed to be a post-apocalyptic game based on Steve Jackson's PnP ruleset G.U.R.P.S
This game had five key tenets and this is part of what I will focus on;
Rule #1: Multiple Decisions. We will always allow for multiple solutions to any obstacle.
Rule #2: No Useless Skills. The skills we allow you to take will have meaning in the game.
Rule #3: Dark humor was good. Slap-stick was not.
Rule #4: Let the player play how he wants to play.
Rule #5: Your actions have repercussions.
After licensing issues prevented the Vault 13 G.U.R.P.S game from eventuating, we got a
homebrew system in it's place that became known as S.P.E.C.I.A.L. However, these core design
goals still permeate just about every aspect of Fallout's design. Removing key aspects from
that framework without considering how it would affect everything else, like Bethesda did,
greatly damages the game as a whole.
It should also be noted that the cancelled Black Isle Fallout 3 'Van Buren' project
would've featured an adjustible 3D camera and optional real time combat in the vein of
Arcanum anyway
. It's easier to blame nostalgia driven neckbeards and that's what the gaming
community at large has generally put it down to, but it's not the truth at all. Rather than try
and take into consideration what makes Fallout good and design around that, they (Bethesda)
try to shoehorn their own features and design principles even if it directly contradicts central
aspects of the Fallout franchise. This is why Bethesda is incapable of creating a good Fallout
game.
"If you play Fallout 3, you know, Liam Neeson is the voice of your dad, and there are some good
emotional beats there, but there’s only so much you can do when you’re clicking on a line of
dialog and there’s no spoken response. So the emotional depth that we got by having a voiced
protagonist has actually [made the story] way more tense than I ever expected."
3
- Emil 'books don't have emotional depth' Pagliarulo
This speaks to a deeply flawed vision that Bethesda continues to push with their
version of Fallout. Specifically, they attempt to build a connection between the player and the
game by integrating the player's personal story into the main plot and making it the focus of
the experience. In Fallout 3, your connection with a "middle aged guy" was put forth as your
primary motivation for completing the game's main story. The likes of the radio jockey Three
Dog, also emphasise the point. Three Dog is a character who, if listened to on the in-game
radio, will extol the player's virtues if morally acceptable decisions are made in quests, or the
opposite and condemning you if the player engages in less than scrupulous actions. The player
character is at the centre of the gameworld and should take centre stage in the narrative
under this design philosophy. Bethesda sees this as 'emotional depth' because when the world
looks to you to make a decision, presumably, you'd care more about it. Making conversations
cinematic and giving the player character a voice is just another a way to make the player
character a stronger presence in the game world.
However, this is in vast contrast to what Fallout has been doing from the very
beginning. In Fallout 1 and 2, the player character has a backstory and a story arc, but the
protagonist is ultimately used as a window into the world. Fallout is a series about society and
human nature, not the player character. The character's personal story arc merely places them
in convenient circumstances in which they're able to explore the world and see first hand how
their actions can affect it. This is different to what Bethesda does in at least one crucial way.
The PC in Black Isle's Fallout games is presented as the agent of change whereas in Bethesda
games, the player character is presented as a literal messiah. Simply put, in Black Isle's Fallout,
the protagonist's story arc is important because it gives the player an opportunity to explore
the world around you through your interactions. In Bethesda's Fallout, the protagonist's story
arc is important because the world revolves around your character and progressing with the
story allows you to define your character as 'good' or 'bad'.
Black Isle's Fallout gives the player many, many forms of interaction with the
gameworld as a way to become immersed in it. The West Coast is dirty, gritty, violent and it
can showcase the best or worst of humanity depending on who you run into. You can seduce
people, become a Porn Star (with the right stats), become a Heavyweight Boxing Champion
(again with the right stats), or a Slaver or help Myron create addictive drugs. You can say and
do all sorts of things if you are roleplaying that kind of character. And all these actions are
optional side content that are structured around your skills and attributes.
These kinds of “down to earth” interactions already weren't part of Fallout 3 but Fallout
4 with it's voiced protagonist compounds the issue. The overwhelming majority of voiced
dialog would be tone neutral conversation progression. Because all interactions are cinematic
and voiced, there's less room for non-conventional interactions covering controversial
subjects. With changes to the skill system, all special dialog might be loaded onto a Speech
skill like in Skyrim. This links back to Rule #1 mentioned above. By offering less ways to
interact and navigate through dialog situations, you are offering the player less and less ways
to overcome obstacles and challenges in the game. While the game is set in an open world, the
quest design becomes more linear. The end result is an experience where the player doesn't
feel as connected to the player character. This is because the player character can no longer
express themselves through any nuance that relates to their skillsets or non-binary morality.
This isn't that much of an issue if the game is filled with well written dialog sequences that
allows the player to express a complex range of emotions, motivations and skills. However this
is Bethesda we're talking about.
“One of the things we really tried to avoid is surprising the player with whether they've been
good or bad. We wanted to be clear to you that you're making a conscious choice to be one or the
other. I've played games where I made a choice and I thought I was being the nice guy, and then
it's, "Wait, wait, why is he upset?" We didn't want it to be a surprise. Sometimes it's a surprise in
terms of how a person reacts if you are being a jerk, but it's not a surprise as to whether you're
good or bad.”
- Pete 'I need to be told when I'm a bad boy' Hines
The lack of character depth for the protagonist becomes all the more apparent when
you look at the Karma system from Fallout 3. Karma in Fallout 1 and 2 are minor systems that
can be summed up as a "moral reputation". They have specific titles for levels of Karma and
consequences that relate mostly to interactions with potential companions. But as a whole, it's
not very relevant. Unless you cross certain lines (like killing children), the Wasteland in
general isn't going to care about your morality. Why would the people of the Den or the
gangsters of New Reno care if you've eaten your vegetables and been a good boy? The people
in the game care about the tangibles. And it's this dilemma that provides much of the fodder
for the moral quandaries you'll face if you wish to play as a virtuous or selfless character. The
role of morality in a post-apocalyptic Wasteland that's so far removed from what we are
familiar with, is absolutely central to how the Fallout games are put together because Fallout
deals with how society rebuilds from the brink of destruction. It asks 'how do we rebuild in a
way that this will never happen again?' As such, many of the situations you encounter are
coloured in shades of grey as opposed to strict black and white. Power struggles by forces in a
conflict of ideology, instead of clearly defined perfect good and satanic evil. Granted, the
original two Fallout games had plenty of situations where you choose between an asshole and
a non-asshole, as well as featuring many broadly good v evil decision points. But in the ending
slides, no significant consideration is given to your morality. The games don't assume your
motivations and judge you for them, it just lets you navigate the setting and push the changes
you want onto the gameworld through your choices.
Your character is defined by your personal moral code, your narrative choices, your
skillset and your physical attributes. That's why moral dilemmas are a staple of Fallout games,
it's a game predicated on challenging the player, to see if it's possible to change the human
nature that got the world to this point, and show the player the results of their choices. “War
never changes”.
Bethesda's Fallout however, turns this concept on it's head. Just about every action you
are able to undertake is given a moral value through the Karma system and through characters
like Three Dog, and your Father, the game constantly reminds you of your character's morality.
Your decisions throughout the game are categorised neatly into 'good' and 'evil'. This is also
reinforced through the endings. Unlike the other Fallout games, where huge variance is given
based on your decisions in each of the communities you encounter with some level of overlap,
the Fallout 3 endings emphasise the player's morality in each of their decisions. The effect you
had on society is second to whether the PC was naughty or nice.
By forcing the player into strict moral guidelines that the game hammers in at every
opportune moment, the player loses a real connection with the world that they're exploring.
The player is forced to see everything in a lens of good and evil, and this harms any potential
nuance that the game could display when it comes to morality and characters. Everything is
either 'good' or 'bad. This absolutely destroys the protagonist as a well rounded character,
because they're ultimately defined by what the game can allow you to do. In other Fallouts,
you can define your character by your skillset, which informs your playstyle, as well as your
narrative choices. But in Bethesda's Fallout, your range of potential actions to define yourself
is more limited, your interaction with the skill system for roleplaying purposes is much more
narrow because it can't fit into the mold of 'good or evil'. The range of actions you can take in
the game are boiled down to 'I am good' and 'I am bad'. You are shoehorned into certain
character archetypes that are shallow in nature and the game works so hard to define your
experience using those archetypes and nothing else.
"That's what we try to create, that sense of going anywhere and doing anything. GTA V does it so
well. It puts you in its world and it makes you its director. It says yes to the player a lot, and that's
what we try to do. It's just a phenomenal game."
- Todd 'don't believe his lies' Howard
Bethesda have long stated that a major goal in their games is that the player should be
able to 'go anywhere' and 'do anything'. This central tenet of Bethesda design is at the core of
why Bethesda's Fallout is so obsessed with the player character (and moralising him/her).
The player is at the centre of the experience, and the player should be in control of their own
destiny. As an ideal, this isn't necessarily bad. In fact, it fits in nicely with Rule #4, however,
Rule #4 and #5 work in concert for a roleplaying experience. You should offer the player
freedom, but you need to have consequences for their actions too. The problem is that
Bethesda chooses to understand this idea as 'nothing should overpower the player, the player
should be allowed to do anything they want'. We've seen this manifest in the Elder Scrolls
games in the form Quest Compasses, Zero Barriers to Guild Progression and Level Scaling.
Removing repercussions and meaningful barriers for players in the name of player freedom.
Bethesda games are designed to be a sandbox to be played with at will. The settlement
building features being advertised as 'optional' content for Fallout 4 seems to support this
idea even more. Modular features over an interconnected, reactive roleplaying experience.
Nobody wants their WRPGs as an 'on the rails' linear experience. The problem is that player
freedom and player agency requires proper context. The context being the ruleset, the game
mechanics and the laws of the setting for internal consistency have to take precedent.
Roleplaying needs to be structured around those things, otherwise you end up playing pretend
instead of actually roleplaying. The difference between roleplaying and playing pretend is
whether the game acknowledges what you do within the confines of the ruleset and acts
accordingly
But it's that reactivity and design which Bethesda has been actively fighting against
since Oblivion, because the Bethesda Shallow Sandbox Experience is against inconveniencing
players with things like 'internally consistent game logic' or 'mutually exclusive content'. They
encourage you to play pretend and call it 'roleplaying choices'. What happens in the end, is a
game where the player is a 'tourist' and the internal rules/logic of the setting are more like
suggestions. But the reason for it in the first place is that it allows players to create a character
concept, and identify with that concept if they want to succeed at the various challenges the
game throws at you. Rather than spending millions of dollars on voice acting and limiting
what the player character can say, simple lines of text that relate back to a player's build can
allow the player to have a profound emotional connection with their characters through
roleplaying. That is the reason for Rule #2, all skills will be meaningful throughout the course
of the game. It doesn't mean to say that any kind of build should be able to overcome every
challenge. Indeed, certain skills in Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 only had limited usefulness. But it
means that skills shouldn't be trivial or disposable, all skills should offer something important
to the experience so that any kind of character concept based around a certain skillset can find
something to hang their hat on.
By having a sanitised game world that gates off risk from players and insulates them
from the challenges that the setting provides, for the sake of gameplay convenience, Bethesda
shows explicitly that they do not care about the core tenets of Fallout.
Designing an easily navigable and sterile environment that poses few risks for the
player can also close off ways in which developers are able to reinforce narrative tones or
themes through difficulty and gameplay situations. Something as simple as 'The Glow' from
Fallout 1 would not exist in Bethesda's Fallout. Unless the player has the right build and items,
it's completely impossible to fully explore the entire location before dying. The player in most
cases has to sacrifice blind exploration and focus on what their goals are, constantly going out
of their way to manage their radiation levels. Limiting the player using the game mechanics
like that is complete anathema to the Bethesda Shallow Sandbox Experience. However by
doing so, Black Isle designers are able to hammer home the idea of The Glow as a literal
treasure trove of the Old World. It makes you want to explore it. The risk/reward at play
makes the player more invested in the location and it's story than any kind of cinematic or
high fidelity texture.
“Violence is funny! Lets all just own up to it! Violence done well is fucking hilarious. It’s like Itchy
and Scratchy or Jackass – Now that’s funny!”
- Todd 'Komedy Klub Kustodian' Howard
As funny as childish violence might be, the humour of the Fallout setting is mostly
grounded in irony and juxtaposition as a means of telling the player a chilling message about
the society they are exploring. This goes back to one of Fallout's central themes. "War never
changes". Many people (including Bethesda themselves) have taken that to mean that 'history
repeats itself'. However, the main takeaway from the quote isn't about history repeating itself,
it's about why history repeats itself. War never changes because people never change. The
opening statement of Fallout is an indictment of human nature and informs the player that
Fallout is a dark and cynical setting. It's that cynicism that drives Fallout's dark humour, it's
http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Vault_13:_A_GURPS_Post-Nuclear_Adventure
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uuDKrY7eW0
https://archive.is/SOOvN
https://archive.is/IiTZz
https://archive.is/g1PIu
https://archive.is/BdaLs
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...nd-crpg-mechanics-discuss.78412/#post-2389938
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Cp44Pr5b30
Sjukob
Arcane
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2015
- Messages
- 2,067
You know , I see people talking about how Bethesda ruined Fallout often enough , but I rarely see somebody who thinks that they ruined TES series , by that I mean games previous to Morrowind . I think Daggerfall is a controversial game , but I respect it's ambitions and would prefer to see the old team .
Aoyagi
Scholar
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2015
- Messages
- 140
Nice. I'll paste it to Bethesda's forums someday.
likaq
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 28, 2009
- Messages
- 1,198
Kotaku 2008 - "Fallout 3 is an epic experience that manages to channel the odd combination of dark humor and bleak despair of the original series while being more than strong enough to stand on its own two feet, stepping out into the sun for the very first time."
Kotaku 2015 - fallout 3 isnt really an rpg.
Nice flip-flop retards.
Kotaku 2015 - fallout 3 isnt really an rpg.
Nice flip-flop retards.
Crevice tab
Savant
- Joined
- Jul 4, 2013
- Messages
- 224
Well TES was Bethesda's from the get go so you have to praise Bethesda to bash it.
Morrowind had an excellent concept and good execution- even if some bits were cut the loss in width was by and large made even by the increase in depth.
Oblivion was the true beginning of the decline.
Sjukob
Arcane
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2015
- Messages
- 2,067
Tell me what was good about Morrowind .
Lemming42
Arcane
As amazing as Daggerfall often was, there's just no way to make an actual playable game of that scope. Morrowind feels like a logical next step from Daggerfall, stripping away all the stuff that was either unnecessary or was never going to work but keeping the setting and open world spirit of it alive. To claim that it "ruined TES series" is pretty bizarre, to be honest.
Sjukob
Arcane
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2015
- Messages
- 2,067
Of course , the logical progression is done through dumbing down skill system , character creation , going to mysterious lore that nobody really understands ( the decision to make every ending canon was especially smart indeed ) , censorship and in the end some things are fucked up in gerenal ( thieves straight up telling you about who they are , protagonist being the chosen one , swimming in armor , small towns with little npcs and no schedules and other things ) . But yes , the step was logical , because Bethesda was close to become a bankrupt , so they had to make a game that will attract more people and this was one truly good thing Morrowind , the marketing . It brainwashed people so well , that the effect is still holds even today , with help of it Bethesda made people think that their games are good . Morrowind isn't any diferent from Skyrim or Oblivion in that way , it is a simplified game aimed at large audience to take people' money and they think it's good because of powerful marketing programme . If Bethesda would continue on what they are doing , eventually we would see people claiming that Skyrim/Fallout 3 was a masterpiece and new TES/Fallout games suck and are made for casual gamers . But for now Morrowind lovers hold this position , actually I noticed that a lot of those lovers either never played Daggerfall or played for about 30 minutes and got lost and never launched the game after that , so who are the real casuals here ?
Also
http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...d-sucked-the-douglas-goodall-interview.10408/
Miner Arobar
Educated
- Joined
- May 28, 2015
- Messages
- 64
I really like Daggerfall, but...
The same thing which makes it so admirable - the enormous, one-to-one scale, means there's really no sense of place in the game. The cities are all nicely enough done, with small details like barking dogs, carts, etc. - and totally indistinguishable from one another. Procedurally generated dungeons are so gigantic that they seem to have no specific purpose in the game world, unless the Iliac Bay was home to a now extinct population that really, really liked digging tunnels. NPCs, aside from the Main Quest-related ones, have no individuality whatsoever.
I'm not sure how Morrowind can be held to be anything but an improvement. The size is downscaled - but virtually every RPG I've seen aside from precisely Daggerfall is downscaled in some fashion. Dernholm and Tarant in Arcanum, Trinsic and Britain in UVII are "small", and it doesn't matter. With isometric and top-down perspectives, there's another layer of abstraction anyway. For a 3D game, Morrowind does nicely enough in creating an illusion of size. Balmora seems large enough for a sleepy provincial town, Maar Gan is perfectly sized for an Ashlands outpost, Hla Oad for a fishing village of ill repute, etc. Downscaling becomes much more conspicuous in Oblivion and Skyrim (but the 'towns' of Ultima IX are worse than either of these two!). NPCs in Morrowind are actually NPCs, with specific stats, faction loyalties, disposition, etc., and relationships among each other (granted, most of the dialogue is generic but Daggerfall is arguably worse in this regard). Lore in Morrowind is actually present (Daggerfall lore is pretty rudimentary), and as far as relevant to Morrowind itself, not very mysterious. Aside from the 36 Lessons, but they're supposed to be mysterious. The more bizarre and impenetrable stuff is post-Morrowind discussion between Kirkbride and his fans. I agree the "Dragon Break" every-ending-is-canon thing is a bit of a cop-out but it is not particularly central to Morrowind or any later game. As to the Thieves Guild in MW, I can't say I mind very much. Most of their members won't want to talk about it anyway, and the TG in Morrowind is basically the interest organization of poor outlanders (and Morrowind makes abundantly clear you're an outlander). Oblivion brought back the "commit crimes and be contacted" mechanics, but I can't say I like Oblivion's TG more.
Anyway, if all the above is "casualization", I guess I don't mind a bit of casualization. Not being casual isn't some kind of value in and of itself.
The same thing which makes it so admirable - the enormous, one-to-one scale, means there's really no sense of place in the game. The cities are all nicely enough done, with small details like barking dogs, carts, etc. - and totally indistinguishable from one another. Procedurally generated dungeons are so gigantic that they seem to have no specific purpose in the game world, unless the Iliac Bay was home to a now extinct population that really, really liked digging tunnels. NPCs, aside from the Main Quest-related ones, have no individuality whatsoever.
I'm not sure how Morrowind can be held to be anything but an improvement. The size is downscaled - but virtually every RPG I've seen aside from precisely Daggerfall is downscaled in some fashion. Dernholm and Tarant in Arcanum, Trinsic and Britain in UVII are "small", and it doesn't matter. With isometric and top-down perspectives, there's another layer of abstraction anyway. For a 3D game, Morrowind does nicely enough in creating an illusion of size. Balmora seems large enough for a sleepy provincial town, Maar Gan is perfectly sized for an Ashlands outpost, Hla Oad for a fishing village of ill repute, etc. Downscaling becomes much more conspicuous in Oblivion and Skyrim (but the 'towns' of Ultima IX are worse than either of these two!). NPCs in Morrowind are actually NPCs, with specific stats, faction loyalties, disposition, etc., and relationships among each other (granted, most of the dialogue is generic but Daggerfall is arguably worse in this regard). Lore in Morrowind is actually present (Daggerfall lore is pretty rudimentary), and as far as relevant to Morrowind itself, not very mysterious. Aside from the 36 Lessons, but they're supposed to be mysterious. The more bizarre and impenetrable stuff is post-Morrowind discussion between Kirkbride and his fans. I agree the "Dragon Break" every-ending-is-canon thing is a bit of a cop-out but it is not particularly central to Morrowind or any later game. As to the Thieves Guild in MW, I can't say I mind very much. Most of their members won't want to talk about it anyway, and the TG in Morrowind is basically the interest organization of poor outlanders (and Morrowind makes abundantly clear you're an outlander). Oblivion brought back the "commit crimes and be contacted" mechanics, but I can't say I like Oblivion's TG more.
Anyway, if all the above is "casualization", I guess I don't mind a bit of casualization. Not being casual isn't some kind of value in and of itself.
Crevice tab
Savant
- Joined
- Jul 4, 2013
- Messages
- 224
Except the protagonist isn't the chosen one- that's left explicitly ambiguous (and raises some interesting questions), the lore is by and large awesome and interconnected- and even the weirdest of Kirkbride's writings are meaningful and understandable and the character creating is just fine- it merely starts slow which is excellent because it throws the player off the frantic pacing most games have and introduces a slower, less questline oriented style of play. I'll admit there was some dumbing down in terms of skills but it's tiny compared to what happened in every other Bethesda title.
On the plus side Morrowind's a lot less buggy, vastly more detailed, less repetitive, more logical (in terms of locations, atmosphere- no 10 km of dungeons in random farmlands), has excellent lore and good dialogue without forcing the constant boring binary choices (no, Doug, binary choices in expressing your character aren't good for a free form open world game where you're supposed to be able to do basically anything). The environment and exploration is simply stunning, the setting, towns and local culture are very well developed and while the combat has serious problems it's still solid and stat based like any proper RPG.
There's a lot more atmosphere, lore, background and substance in Morrowind than in any other Betheasda game and it's all focused in a vastly smaller space. It succeeds at the whole build an interesting new world from scratch that so many RPGs, even decent RPGs fail or fall flat.
Does Morrowind have problems? Yeah- plenty. It isn't more finished than Daggerfall- it is a prototype in creating depth just as Daggerfall was a prototype in creating breadth.
Still it comes from the same spirit of innovation that spawned Daggerfall and has almost nothing in common with Oblivion and company.
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