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Fallout 76 - online Fallout spinoff from Bethesda - now on Steam with Wastelanders NPC expansion

thesheeep

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I wonder if anyone working on Fallout 76 is doing their damndest to erase that from their CVs...
Even if your job had nothing to do with the game's failures and you did your job well, this cannot really be too helpful for future prospects.
 

Whipped Cream

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I wonder if anyone working on Fallout 76 is doing their damndest to erase that from their CVs...
Even if your job had nothing to do with the game's failures and you did your job well, this cannot really be too helpful for future prospects.

I'm not an expert on the subject, but I think that generally speaking hiring managers don't care that much about which games you worked on, they mainly care about what you did on those projects. They know that AAA games are made by large groups of people and just because you worked on a well- or poorly received game doesn't mean that you in particular did a great or a bad job. Generally speaking, when a big-budget game flops it is primarily the fault of poor project management and it is the higher ups in the company that deserve most of the blame, not the guy who made the textures for the mailboxes.

Edit: In the case of Fallout 76 I think the games abysmall state is a combination of several factors: 1. The budget was too small and the deadlines too tight for a game of its scope, 2. Bethesda underestimated how hard it would be to modify their engine to work with multiplayer, 3. Most of the work was done by Bethesda Austin (a.k.a Battlecry Studios), an inexperienced studio that has never shipped a game before, 4. Insufficient oversight by Bethesda Maryland (who were probably primarily focusing on Starfield and were dividing their attention between the two projects) and 5. Heavy pressure from their parent-company Zenimax to aggresively monetize the game and make shure that the game has a continous monthly revenue stream.
 
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thesheeep

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I wonder if anyone working on Fallout 76 is doing their damndest to erase that from their CVs...
Even if your job had nothing to do with the game's failures and you did your job well, this cannot really be too helpful for future prospects.

I'm not an expert on the subject, but I think that generally speaking hiring managers don't care that much about which games you worked on, they mainly care about what you did on those projects. They know that AAA games are made by large groups of people and just because you worked on a well- or poorly received game doesn't mean that you in particular did a great or a bad job. Generally speaking, when a big-budget game flops it is primarily the fault of poor project management and it is the higher ups in the company that deserve most of the blame, not the guy who made the textures for the mailboxes.
Usually, I'd agree.
But I'm beginning to feel that Fallout 76 might be a special case that taints everything and everyone involved beyond just giving a bad rep with gamers.
As in, if you have two suitable candidates, entirely the same... except the only difference is that one worked on an unknown project, the other one on Fallout 76: Which one gets picked?

This isn't exactly a new phenomenon. People with middle eastern sounding names getting hired less than people with western names, men over women/women over men depending on the job, etc.
If Fallout 76 keeps on failing like that, I could see it becoming a problem to some who'd like to move on.

I am not mocking these people, I am genuinely worried.
Imagine meeting your friends, all / most gamers as well and you talk about games. Then someone mentions Fallout 76 and this awkward silence ensues as most know you are/have been working on it and you have to say it is okay to shit on the game.
It is one of the reasons I do not take any mobile gaming jobs, as I feel it would hurt me in the long run. Like a taint on the CV.

On the other hand, those poor bastards could make use of it.
"I am working on Fallout 76. Please hire me. I'll do anything to get away!" :lol:
 
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TheImplodingVoice

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Barber : What would you like sir?

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iu
 

Whipped Cream

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People with middle eastern sounding names getting hired less than people with western names, men over women/women over men depending on the job, etc.
I live in Norway. A friend of mine who has a Polish name was turned down for a part-time job in a grocery store back in high school because they said they wanted someone older and more experienced. Then a month later he goes to that grocery store to shop and was surprised to find that the person that they had hired was another person from his own high school class, who was the same age and had never had a job before, but had a Norwegian name.
 
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Codex Year of the Donut
People with middle eastern sounding names getting hired less than people with western names, men over women/women over men depending on the job, etc.
I live in Norway. A friend of mine who has a Polish name was turned down for a part-time job in a grocery store back in high school because they said they wanted someone older and more experienced. Then a month later he goes to that grocery store to shop and was surprised to find that the person that they had hired was another person from his own high school class, who was the same age and had never had a job before, but had a Norwegian name.
Do you really want a polish person touching your groceries?
 

Mortmal

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This sub thing seems really similar to the ESO subscription. like, you get unlimited crafting storage, some cosmetic junk, and some fake $$. same idea as eso

But this game is even more dead than eso, which is basically dead right? Oh well, FO76 could have been a good game but I just don't think beth has it in them to make a good multiplayer sandbox
Eso losing steam when no new extension is released but far from dead. There's still lot of players . No idea on FO76 even at release there wasn't many people already, they left after a few days.
 

Whipped Cream

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Going dead silent and hoping that the backlash will blow over is the normal PR way of dealing with such a controversy. Anything that they say will only fan the flames (DICE's infamous "pride and accomplishment" comment on reddit being the textbook case of why you should stfu in situations like these).

The exception of course is if you are actually intending to backtrack on what you did and make things right, but I think there is zero chance of Bethesda doing that any time soon.
 

ZeniBot

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Fallout 1st subscribers are being hunted down and killed.

The people doing the killing are also playing Fallout 76 though, so it's not like they're any better.

To be fair though a lot of people that I know got the game for free because they played it during Beta, refunded it but Bethesda never disabled their account. That's how fucking desperate they are for players and had been so since the very start. They have made very little money off their customers hence the more and more malicious MTX strategies.

Bethesda wouldn't have had any problems if they had gone Dedicated Servers from the start and probably would have made a lot of money. But because the fucking morons are following trends now they put MTX in their game (soon to be Lootboxes because why the fuck not) as well as Battle Royale. Please tell me its Todd making these decisions because if so Bethesda is effectively dead at this point as that kind of leadership is a death spiral (see how trying to make a WoW killer resulted in the deaths of basically most MMORPG developers). If you are always playing catch up with the rest of the industry it will end badly for you. Todd no longer sets industry trends and is thus fading out into nothing.

Good riddance the asshole has effectively killed video games as a whole over the course of 18 years thanks to his Horse Armor bullshit. (I'm including Morrowind in this because Morrowind was really the start of Decline, Console focused shit! The Xbox version was really the turning point of Todd as this was the point where he realised pandering to that market makes a hell lot more money which is why Oblivion turned out as bad as it did.)

I say turning point because I think his terminator titles did fairly ok and had a good business model. Yeah Redguard and Battlespire weren't great but they didn't have to resort to bullshit the way Oblivion did and I respect them more despite how terrible Redguard was (again Todd has a big problem following trends- that was obvious with Redguard).
 
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Infinitron

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https://www.polygon.com/2019/11/6/2...-peasants-class-war-bethesda-subscription-1st

Fallout 76’s aristocrats are fighting against ‘peasants’ without a subscription
People want a class war? Oh, they’ll get a class war

1st.0.jpg


“I was once one of those, crawling in the dirt,” says Fallout 76 player Shawn Hickman. “But with hard work, some greased palms, honeyed words, I gained my fortunes. In gaining my riches, my sense of class has risen above the common rabble.”

Hickman is joking, I think. Kind of. He’s a part of of a new Fallout 76 group called the Apocalyptic Aristocracy, a clan of Fallout 1st subscribers who come together while wearing the finest and fanciest gear the MMO has to offer.

Bethesda’s launch of Fallout 76’s $12.99-per-month subscription service, Fallout 1st, was a mess. Private servers weren’t really private, basic features were busted, and the servers themselves were buggy. The public, meanwhile, was shocked to see Bethesda charge for premium services when the basic game itself is technically glitchy and, at times, disappointing.

There were even reports of in-game bullying. As the game visibly denotes whether or not you’re a subscriber, word got out that annoyed players were being targeted for daring to pay Bethesda extra money. Media called it a “class war,” or a “class divide.” I spoke to a couple dozen Fallout 76 subscribers, who largely said they didn’t experience any sort of harassment for their in-game status. Even the Reddit thread originally claiming there was an issue was filled with skeptics whose experience did not line up with the popular narrative.

Days after these reports went out, however, I spoke to a couple of players who claimed that their subscriptions caused strife. Khalifa Al-Kuwari on Facebook noted that a crew of players wearing bear costumes ganged up on him after performing an emote exclusive to Fallout 1st subscribers, and that hostility was echoed by a couple of other fans as well.

It’s possible that the virality of the initial reports set copycats into motion, though it’s still an overstatement to say these tensions can be seen game-wide. All the same, the mere existence of Fallout 1st sent the internet at large into a frenzy, with commentators disparaging Bethesda for coming up with the concept in the first place. Fallout 76 already has a stigma. Any time I write about the game, people are surprised to hear anyone is still enjoying it. That negative aura darkened after Fallout 1st’s rocky launch. You could argue the discourse around the MMO has become nearly stifling after the release of The Outer Worlds, a game made by the original creators of Fallout and is widely considered a spiritual successor to the Fallout brand.

The Fallout 76 narrative is this: Why would anyone waste time playing Fallout 76 when there’s something better out there? Why would people pay extra money to have a supposedly shoddy experience?

But fans are paying for Fallout 1st all the same. After all, the service provides utility, like better storage and improved options for loot farming. But most people didn’t care about that part. As far as the internet is concerned, Fallout 76 is a punching bag. The problem was that the toxicity started spiraling out of control outside of the game.

“[The situation] quickly turned from players complaining about Bethesda to insults against those who paid for the subscription,” says VectorZarak, a founder of the Aristocracy.


Screen_Shot_2019_11_06_at_1.09.46_PM.png

Initially, VectorZarak tried easing the tension in various Fallout 76 groups by creating memes about the Fallout 1st situation. Similarly, VectorZarak noticed that other players kept making up jokes about the supposed class war, with some subscribers pretending to give others trading discounts for high-value items, while up-selling “peasants” who aren’t paying subscribers. It wasn’t real, but the anxiety around Fallout 1st fanned the flames all the same. Folks believed the shitposts, because they wanted to believe that Fallout 76 was only capable of becoming a more convoluted mess.

And so, rather than sulking in the shame of enjoying something that the internet has told them they should hate, some of Fallout 76’s players are now embracing the villainous caricature the public made out of whole cloth.

Screen_Shot_2019_11_06_at_1.09.57_PM.png

A meme that purports to show Fallout players charging extra for “peasants” who don’t subscribe to a membership. While meant as a joke, some believed it to be real.

Initially, the creation of the Apocalyptic Aristocracy group was somewhat of a joke — VectorZarak didn’t even have a subscription himself at the time. But, as he started inviting players to the clan, word started getting out, and memes about the Fallout 1st high life started exploding.

“Within a day or two we reached 100 members,” VectorZarak recalls. (As of this writing, the Aristocracy is staffed by nearly 300 players.) “There was a real change in the dynamic as people flooded in. The anti-subscription players had become very toxic, so much so that players could not even discuss the private servers or the bonuses that came with them without being insulted or yelled at. What started as a joke quickly turned into a safe haven, where players who had subscribed could openly discuss Fallout 1st topics without being attacked.”

As VectorZarak tells it, the group doesn’t truly look down on people who don’t have a subscription. In part, the whole idea is meant to satirize elitists, and the people who insist that Fallout 76 has a class tension. But if you speak to the members themselves, the role-play starts blurring the lines a little thanks to folks and memes who refer to non-paying 76ers as “peasants.”

Screen_Shot_2019_11_06_at_1.16.26_PM.png


When I asked players why they’re a part of the group, the first response I got back was from Terry Mollinet, who says, “We joined because we’re better than everyone else.” Mollinet later clarified that it was a joke, but other fans seem to like holding up the veneer, because things are more fun that way.

“I really enjoy getting under someone’s skin and then at the end hitting them with the good old, ‘learn to laugh, it’s just a joke and only a game’ to later double down on my trolling,” said Jeremy Singer, one of the Aristocrat’s leading meme-developing troublemakers.

“I joined to whip ass and chew on peasants, and I’m all outta peasants,” Shibby Hocker said on Facebook.

Donald Meeks, another member of the clan, stated, “We are simply classier and wealthier than the common rabble! Why sully yourself on a public server when you can hoard legendaries for yourself and sell them for a massive profit to the less fortunate!”

Kenny Tull, another Fallout 76 fan, gave me a thoughtful response about how he felt the outrage against Fallout 1st was “manufactured” by YouTubers, given that there’s actually plenty of utility in the subscription.

“I get two days off a week, sometimes less,” Tull said. “I don’t have time to grind challenges for atoms, or fight to farm for workshops,” he continued, noting that the subscription helps him with those issues. But all the same, he ended his rationale with something very tongue-in-cheek. “We’re also definitely superior to the peasant class and we needed to band together to keep them off our slightly scorched front lawns.”

aristocracy.jpg


For the most part, the Aristocracy seems like a good bunch. While many play up the high class aspect, other members seem to just want a respite from the constant barrage against Fallout 76.

“Nothing seems to bring people together like shared suffering, and the past week has seen a lot of venom spewed toward Fallout 1st members,” said VectorZarak. “I want to give players a place to go where they can peacefully discuss and plan with others who use the private servers.”

So far, the group has gotten together for photoshoots where they dress up and embrace their status as premiere Fallout 76 members. But there are also plans to have red carpet events, hunting parties, duels, and perhaps the establishment of official noble houses, to take the role-play to the next level.

“We know [Fallout 76 is] not perfect, but developers don’t work for free, so we do what we can to help fund the improvement and expansion of the game,” VectorZarak said.
 

BrotherFrank

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You know, sometimes at night when I'm struggling to sleep I ask myself the big questions. Questions like "what kind of fucking moron pays for a f76 sub, let alone still play it?"

Now I got my answer, THIS kinda moron:
"“I really enjoy getting under someone’s skin and then at the end hitting them with the good old, ‘learn to laugh, it’s just a joke and only a game’ to later double down on my trolling,” said Jeremy Singer, one of the Aristocrat’s leading meme-developing troublemakers."

Don't get me wrong, I respect a good troll, trolling is becoming a lost art, great trolls can fuck with you in ways that mentally scar you until you grow a pair, realize you've been had, and mature as a person from realizing how much of a fucktard you were. Great trolls can make people show their true colors or have people question previously unshakeable beliefs. Or they can just be genuinely hilarious.

But acting obnoxious/like a twat and then when you've pissed off someone turn around and be like "aha! I was only PRETENDING to be a retard and you fell for my clever deception, oh ho now the egg is on your face!", that ain't trolling. That's just being fucking retarded. Yes, it's no wonder that this is the kinda dousche that pays for a f76 sub and posts on reddit and answers questions from polygon journos, it all makes sense now.
 
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And this is a fine example on how corporate propaganda works. Lure people in with clickbaity article, next in between story bits write a few times dismissively about product criticism and voila. If they were less sneaky and wrote straight article about how Fallout 76 wasn't that bad, there would be a backlash. But by making the piece be about something else and only casually defending the game, they can gaslight the public more efficiently.
 
Joined
Jan 3, 2019
Messages
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There hasn't been a single upswing to this game. Not one bit of good publicity. Every single thing Bethesda has done has been a total fuckup.
 

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