DraQ
Arcane
Yeah, no, I don't care. I don't care about developers' trials and tribulations if all that's left is a shitty, distinctively low-effort looking turd of a product. Either show me a great game or a game that is flawed but has indelible mark of attempted and partially even achieved greatness.Oblivion schedules and NPC AI were heavily castrated during development.
You need to dig really deep to find traces of original implementation: There is a war between goblin clans which are invading and stealing totems off one another, with one guy that self-identifies as a goblin taking part in it. There were members of Mythic Dawn hiding among the population there were supposed to wreak havoc.
The problem for Bethesda was that just like in real world, those stories play on no matter if players takes a part in them or not. You may find dead Breton named Goblin Jim somewhere in the mine, and never know why and how he died.
Designers basically chickened out and remade Oblivion as paint-by-numbers action-RPG with AI and schedules acting only as a decoration.
Dead guy in a cave is not such a mark unless he is your lead artist/programmer/designer who succumbed to overwork while desperately trying to make the game a little bit less shitty. On a second thought, that's not a mark of greatness either, but at least it can elicit some genuine pity.
If you aim for the moon, but fail, that might deserve admiration. It also produces tangible artifacts.
If you aim to go out of your
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