And the shit really starts to boil
This whole shitstorm can be blamed on one thing and one thing only: bad PR. Unfortunately for Bethesda, they did absolutely
everything wrong in this respect and have no one to blame but themselves. Walks with the Snails described the situation deftly, but I want to elaborate a bit more.
HayT said:
Edit: personal thought - I find it fascinating that so many people simply assume we're going to re-texture Morrowind, change a few lines of dialogue, and release a new game.
Well, this is a pretty obvious conclusion to draw when your PR man says things like "We're not going to go away from what it is that we do best. We're not going to suddenly do a top-down isometric Baldur's Gate-style game, because that's not what we do well."
Can someone explain why there is still a Fallout community and why it appears to be full of some of the most pessimistic, xenophobic, and generally fanatical people ever?
Maybe he should look up the definition of "xenophobic" in the dictionary. We're not racists, we're just rumor-mongers.
After calming down and actually reading the thread, I have to say I don't care about perspective, and I don't care about the combat system
This is exactly what gets people pissed off. For a while now, we've been saying that the most important things about Fallout is the perspective and combat
system (they're like yin and yang!). The developers come out and say they don't care about either, then complain when the fans criticize them on this. What is wrong with this picture?
plin said:
It was a business anouncment. [sic] They're in fucking pre-production. It's not their fault some fans get pissed off over rediculous [sic] things like this. They aren't talking now, period. The game sites contacted them! The PR guy does his job and gives vague answers to questions he can't answer yet. Then a dev comes out and said "It's all 100% speculation, we don't have anything decided". And you (whatever fans) throw a shit storm.
The pessimism, the insults, the conslusion jumping is so fucking rediculous. [sic]
If they aren't talking, how come Bethesda staff has been giving 3 interviews a day for the past two days? They throw out vague answers and evade the interviewer's questions, then expect people not to gossip? How naive can these guys be?
But it gets worse! Although my mother never said it, I've heard it's popular advice to say nothing at all when you have nothing nice to say. Instead of taking the rumor-mongering as a clue and keeping quiet, the developers actually come out and insult the fan community without even attempting to allay any of their concerns. Witness:
HayT said:
I stopped reading RPG codex because it made my head hurt.
HayT said:
Yeah, you'd think the Gamespot interview would've calmed them down some, but now they're more angry than ever.
HayT said:
Based on the fact that I had to keep this secret, you can trust that even if I knew any details on the project, I wouldn't really be able to talk about them.
Apparently, these guys are under the impression that saying things like "the game will be good, but we can't talk about anything" will be enough to satisfy everybody!
4too said:
And start cataloging all the great stuff in FO that may or may not make the cut, when the new team starts.
That's what
we've been trying to do, but unfortunately the thread got hijacked by jackasses like you.
Feargus Urquhart said:
I'm sure Bethesda will listen to some of what you guys say if the words "No Talent Ass Clowns" or "it better be better than MW" are not included in every sentance.
The internet is a lot like bathroom graffiti: anonymous and dirty. RPG Codex earned it's reputation for a good reason, and just because this place has some vandals is not a good excuse for Bethesda to ignore what the people here have to say.
Feargus Urquhart said:
Mabye you won't like what they make Fallout into. However, if whatever game they make is successful there is probably a greater chance that the game you down want to be made, will eventually be made.
I think what we're all afraid of is the worst case scenario: Fallout 3 flops, and the license is buried by Bethesda until their bankruptcy (after all, they wouldn't want to make it seem that some other developer can succeed wildly where they failed, and in this case the license will probably be worth so much less than what they spent on acquiring and developing it that it wouldn't make sense to sell it anyway).