Development Info Fallout 3: Who's who

[Shoelip]

I know, let's send Todd baskets of junk food, if we send him enough maybe he'll have a heart attack.

 

[Hazelnut]

I hate him so much he makes me so mad i could just.

Hate? Really? You mean Kathode? Hmm, I find it hard to hate people who are just normal average mediocre people working at a company. On the other hand I do find Todd & Hynes a distasteful and dishonest pair - I think it stops just short of hate though.


Nice line VD. :D

 

[SimpleComplexity]

The weirdest thing I have read regarding team Bethesda and the "decider" recently is their movie theater for playing new games.

i have saved this one quote from some interview:

When a copy of a new game arrives at Bethesda’s offices, everybody hears about it. A meeting is arranged in the firm’s own movie theatre. The game is played on the big screen. Discussions begin on its merits or shortcomings. But the atmosphere is more like a rollicking matinee than a meeting.

This is hilarious. And it only proves the point that Oblivion wasn`t a game, it was a fucking movie.

Fallout 3 - A postapocalyptic movie. Play it now.

 

[Texas Red]

No, no, it is Bioware which is obsessed with "cinematic experience". Bethesda isnt so bad, really. Compared to Biowhore at least.

I dont really hate the companies as much as the bribed reviewers giving some addon pack a nearly perfect score. God, that just makes a couple of brain cells burst.

 

[Shoelip]

I personally enjoy having a good "cinematic experience" in a game but Oblivion sure as hell didn't deliver that. The best cinematic experiences I've had from a computer game were Mafia, Beyond Good and Evil(which was actually a console port), and the Total War games. Of course there are lots of console only games like this though.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Ok, I see what you're saying. I don't know who those people are though so I guess that's my problem. Can anyone tell me? All I know is that guy Emil worked on the Thief series, which I only played the demos of, and worked on the stealth aspects of Oblivion which were so-so.

Well, Emil is a nice guy, but he follows Todd blindly, being grateful for the opportunity to be a lead designer. Needless to say, he lacks the experience which doesn't automatically mean it's a bad thing, but doesn't inspire confidence either. I would expect a lead designer to establish a some kinda dialogue with the community, but so far it didn't happen. Emil also thinks that Oblivion was a great game, better than Morrowind.

HayT, who "works under him" is a great guy too. He's the one who referred to the criticism as "NERD RAGE!".

MSFD, well... I'll just throw a few quotes at you:
"Oblivion is infinitely superior to Morrowind in every conceivable way."
"You'll be reading LOTS of stuff. All of the quest lines are much more in depth, challenging and interesting. ... The dungeons are better designed, the NPCs are more interesting, the dialogue is better written.

If you think this is a simple, dumbed down hack & slash, you couldn't be more wrong."
"I know you don't want to hear it, but you're just going to have to trust us that the dialogue is better than Morrowind's."
"Oblivion is an extremely rich, complex game with a tremendous amount of depth, compelling quest lines, interesting NPC characters, a huge variety of player character types and intricate character progression set in a huge, varied game world. Combat, magic, and AI have all been dramatically improved to enhance gameplay while still providing a balance between player skill and character skill, because after all, Oblivion is a role playing game."

Sounds like a guy you can definitely trust. I must admit though that his pre-release confidence-filled statements had made me doubt my position and given me hope that I was mistaken in my assessment.

I assume by "Morrowind with guns" you mean; staying mostly true to the series, and providing an interesting world to explore, whereas "Oblivion with guns" means; completely disregarding the spirit of the series in order to pull in as many new fans as possible and a boring, generic world to explore. Is that about right?

No. I meant it literally. I don't expect a Fallout-like game from Bethesda. We have two options here: a tweaked Morrowind model or a tweaked Oblivion model. With guns, obviously. Morrowind was a weak RPG, but at least it was an enjoyable action-adventure game with stats. Oblivion sucked ass in any possible way.

 

[denizsi]

<s>A little correction:

Briosafreak points out in his Fallout 3 blog that Gavin “Kathode” Carter has

I believe "Hayt" is Gavin Carter and I'm absolutely sure that "Kathode" is Pete.</s>

By the way, mainstream games in general can become worse or better, or not change at all and so can levelling; here today, gone tomorrow, but there will always be some dumbfuck like Todd, waiting in some dark corner for an attempt to jump on and rape the "role" in RPG. Therefore, the tag must stay intact for both old-school nostalgia values and purposes. Level scaling comment is brilliant, but too context dependant and trendy.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Kidding?

 

[denizsi]

About? There is some kind of sarcasm in there but I can't tell how you take it.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Kathode and HayT.

 

[Seboss]

Err, I'm pretty sure Kathode is Gavin Carter and Pete is just...Pete.

 

[denizsi]

Ok, Kathode is Gavin Carter. I just noticed an idiocy of mine which has been going on for quite some time (somehow I've come to know Pete as Kathode and bookmarked Pete's ESF profile as Kathode, and even the huge username font reading "Pete" hasn't made me notice it).

 

[Crichton]

Morrowind was a weak RPG, but at least it was an enjoyable action-adventure game with stats. Oblivion sucked ass in any possible way.

Sometimes I feel that the codex hivemind sets up these little dualities between games and to properly scream about how bad game X is, everything about game Y has to be made out to be wonderful.

I never really enjoyed any of the TES games, but viewing morrowind and oblivion through the "action/adventure" lens:

Oblivion has aimed missile fire, morrowind missile fire requires no aiming at all
Oblivion has slow strong attacks and fast weak ones, morrowind has damage dice
Oblivion has manual blocking, blocking in morrowind is outside the player's control
Oblivion has contextual sneaking, morrowind pretty much doesn't
Oblivion has SUPA-TWIRLY-ATTACK!!!!, morrowind has damage modifiers

So which of these is the acceptable action game?

Admitting these things doesn't mean that you consider Oblivion a good action game, I don't. But there's no point in trying to whitewash the "action" of morrowind. This is exactly the same thing we had earlier with morrowind/daggerfall. Just because morrowind is a dead world filled with "4. Rumors" NPCs, doesn't mean that daggerfall isn't a mess of near-identical randomly spewn together junk. It's ok to admit that the good old days weren't that good either. That doesn't mean that the TES series isn't going downhill, it just means it wasn't any masterpiece to begin with.

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Ok, Kathode is Gavin Carter. I just noticed an idiocy of mine which has been going on for quite some time (somehow I've come to know Pete as Kathode and bookmarked Pete's ESF profile as Kathode, and even the huge username font reading "Pete" hasn't made me notice it).

Don't worry, I'm sure Bethesda are going to implement a quest compass on their forums right away

 

[Dhruin]

Admitting these things doesn't mean that you consider Oblivion a good action game, I don't. But there's no point in trying to whitewash the "action" of morrowind. This is exactly the same thing we had earlier with morrowind/daggerfall. Just because morrowind is a dead world filled with "4. Rumors" NPCs, doesn't mean that daggerfall isn't a mess of near-identical randomly spewn together junk. It's ok to admit that the good old days weren't that good either. That doesn't mean that the TES series isn't going downhill, it just means it wasn't any masterpiece to begin with.

I agree. Actually, I found Oblivion significantly more playable than Daggerfall. All the skills and factions in the world didn't change the sheer banality of an oversized random world and getting stuck in a giant ass dull dungeon that couldn't be solved before falling through the floor.

 

[denizsi]

Don't worry, I'm sure Bethesda are going to implement a quest compass on their forums right away

Such a relief thinking about it.. can I have level-scaled forum members too? They sometimes talk too complicated, I can't understand!

edit: grammar

 

[Vault Dweller]

I agree. Actually, I found Oblivion significantly more playable than Daggerfall. All the skills and factions in the world didn't change the sheer banality of an oversized random world and getting stuck in a giant ass dull dungeon that couldn't be solved before falling through the floor.

Without writing yet another long post explaining why DF was a masterpiece and Oblivion wasn't, here is a short analogy:

Diablo 2 is a masterpiece. Dungeon Siege 2 isn't. Apparently, skills and game design can change the "sheer banality" of a random world and dull dungeons. Think about, Dhruin.

DF offered players a huge random world, filled with both random *and* hand-crafted locations and quests. One of the best character systems in games offered very detailed builds with strengths and weaknesses, and the environment was designed with the skillset in mind: pits to jump, walls and shafts to climb, open halls to levitate, underwater levels to swim, etc. Even quests were designed to support and work with the character system. Wanna be a merc? No problems. Enjoy the guard & protect quests. Wanna be a monk? Plenty of temples and quests dealing with deities for you. No, not "find teh statue and click on it to get loot". Have a shitload of magicka? Can cast spells few mages can? Yes, we have quests for you. And so on, and so on.

Morrowind reduced all that goodness by about 50%, and Oblivion took it down all the way to 10% of the original vision.

Now, I understand that sandbox design is not for everyone, just like Bio heavy storytelling isn't for everyone, but that doesn't imply that all Bethesda games were all the same. The last point is aimed at Crichton.

 

[Shoelip]

Don't forget that Daggerfall came out over ten years ago and Oblivion came out last year.

 

[Crichton]

Diablo 2 is a masterpiece. Dungeon Siege 2 isn't. Apparently, skills and game design can change the "sheer banality" of a random world and dull dungeons. Think about, Dhruin.

......

Now, I understand that sandbox design is not for everyone, just like Bio heavy storytelling isn't for everyone, but that doesn't imply that all Bethesda games were all the same. The last point is aimed at Crichton.

Sure they aren't identical, I wasted a few lines showing why oblivion is fully 1000x the action game that morrowind is, but 1000x damn near nothing still ain't much. Diablo 2 and dungeon siege 2 aren't identical either but they're still both shit.

I'm perfectly willing to bash oblivion for having less content than morrowind, I'm even willing to bash morrowind a little for having less content than daggerfall (that's harder since daggerfall consisted of an infinite loop of the same garbage), but of the three, oblivion rises up as an action game by having actual gameplay. I know it's a new concept for single-character RPGs, but hold on to your hats, I think it's going to be big.

 

[Drakron]

Watching people play other games is ... well dumb.

Take FF XII that is a hate I despise from looking at it but oddly enough its kinda addicting playing ... I cannot say why but it is.

Also I disliked Oblivion art direction at first but then when I started to really look I discovered some thing in architecture that I liked, some times are simply not apparent by first look or impression.

But the worst thing is what they imply with the whole "screening", they are not creating their game but creating a game ... that they have no direction or ideas and worst is they are not even experience the game in a interactive form that IS what games are.

 

[dagorkan]

I assume by "Morrowind with guns" you mean; staying mostly true to the series, and providing an interesting world to explore, whereas "Oblivion with guns" means; completely disregarding the spirit of the series in order to pull in as many new fans as possible and a boring, generic world to explore. Is that about right?

No. I meant it literally. I don't expect a Fallout-like game from Bethesda. We have two options here: a tweaked Morrowind model or a tweaked Oblivion model. With guns, obviously. Morrowind was a weak RPG, but at least it was an enjoyable action-adventure game with stats. Oblivion sucked ass in any possible way.

Seriously? Morrowind was a pile of crap, whether you consider it an RPG, an RTS or an FPS. I don't see what there is to choose from.

 

[Claw]

Ok, Kathode is Gavin Carter. I just noticed an idiocy of mine which has been going on for quite some time (somehow I've come to know Pete as Kathode and bookmarked Pete's ESF profile as Kathode, and even the huge username font reading "Pete" hasn't made me notice it).

You have Pete's ESP profile bookmarked? :shock:


Oh, and by the way..

The Codex: Doesn't scale to your level.

Awesome tagline.

 

[sabishii]

Morrowind was a weak RPG, but at least it was an enjoyable action-adventure game with stats. Oblivion sucked ass in any possible way.

Sometimes I feel that the codex hivemind sets up these little dualities between games and to properly scream about how bad game X is, everything about game Y has to be made out to be wonderful.

I never really enjoyed any of the TES games, but viewing morrowind and oblivion through the "action/adventure" lens:

Oblivion has aimed missile fire, morrowind missile fire requires no aiming at all
Oblivion has slow strong attacks and fast weak ones, morrowind has damage dice
Oblivion has manual blocking, blocking in morrowind is outside the player's control
Oblivion has contextual sneaking, morrowind pretty much doesn't
Oblivion has SUPA-TWIRLY-ATTACK!!!!, morrowind has damage modifiers

So which of these is the acceptable action game?

Admitting these things doesn't mean that you consider Oblivion a good action game, I don't. But there's no point in trying to whitewash the "action" of morrowind. This is exactly the same thing we had earlier with morrowind/daggerfall. Just because morrowind is a dead world filled with "4. Rumors" NPCs, doesn't mean that daggerfall isn't a mess of near-identical randomly spewn together junk. It's ok to admit that the good old days weren't that good either. That doesn't mean that the TES series isn't going downhill, it just means it wasn't any masterpiece to begin with.

Action-adventure. I have no problem admitting I had more fun in combat in Oblivion than in Morrowind. However, I found little reason to explore and experience more combat because the world was so dull and whatever you found was level scaled to you rather than hand-placed to actually feel interesting.

 

[Dhruin]

Diablo 2 is a masterpiece. Dungeon Siege 2 isn't. Apparently, skills and game design can change the "sheer banality" of a random world and dull dungeons. Think about, Dhruin.

No, I understand that. I meant specifically with Daggerfall, where for me the skills (etc) simply did not make in interesting. I just don't get the love for Daggerfall which did certain things right but failed dismally with others. Nett result, less playable than Oblivion for me.

 

[Twinfalls]

No, I understand that. I meant specifically with Daggerfall, where for me the skills (etc) simply did not make in interesting. I just don't get the love for Daggerfall which did certain things right but failed dismally with others. Nett result, less playable than Oblivion for me.

What do you mean by 'playable', Dhruin? Serious question.

As for banality, this perennial strike against Daggerfall is something of a trope, especially when it's used in the sense of "Oblivion='handmade'=interesting, Daggerfall='random'=dull"

Yes, Daggerfall used procedural generation. But you really ought to compare its instances of content, rather than just throw out the baby with the bathwater by saying that because there is repetition 'it is all therefore generic'.

My experience of banality in Oblivion (I played enough of the game to be confident of a reasonable appraisal) was myriad. A few examples:

- Banal was the utterly dull, generic temples in Oblivion, compared to those in Daggerfall which were colourful, sordid and sinister, with rivalries and dubious denizens;

- Banal was the overall lack of atmosphere in Oblivion, from the awful, saccharine and monotonous music to the (often, but not always) dull art design. Compare with Daggerfall's mesmerising and outstandingly generous soundtrack, its colourful streets and sunsets and much greater variation in terrain, architecture and people;

- Banal was the linear Oblivion MQ, compared to the multiple-path Daggerfall MQ with its emphasis on political intrigue and player choice in whom to serve;

- Banal was the Oblivion reduction of skills and their use (a Mages Guild which *not once* requires you to have any proficiency with magic?!), as VD summarised;

- Banal was a Thieves Guild quest line rendered utterly pointless when a quest compass would not only point you directly to the house you needed to rob, but also directly to the location of the loot once inside!;

- Banal was the ridiculous number of healing and other potions you would find everywhere, giving the game a Nintendo platformer quality - compared to the scarcity and value of such stuff in Daggerfall.

- Banal was the Imperial City. Read the vision of that place in the Pocket Guide to the Empire? Check it out at TIL.

What struck me most about playing the game was the change of sensibilities which has taken place at Bethesda in the intervening years. I think the people behind Oblivion really do believe their game is a worthy follow-up to Daggerfall. They also (I suspect) love American Idol and can see no wrong in aping the aesthetics of the LOTR movies, ('How could those films be any better!!'). There has been a loss of imagination in that studio.

The thing which ought to be stressed is that Daggerfall is a 10 year old game. Oblivion ought to have built on that base - particularly given its success was so contingent on the existing TES gameworld, a labour of love by Daggerfall's designers, so a straight comparison is setting the bar too low for evaluation.