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

[Bigg Boss]

Yes, even the fans should get something positive out of this. Skyrim 2 will be either better or a total dumpster fire that makes Bethesda build a new engine or else they might tumble into obscurity. Or they will release Skyrim on PS5.

Bethesda's next game is starfield, a space sci-fi game, the next TES is a very far away thing that hasn't even started development.

Looking at the direction Bethesda took with Fallout 4 and 76, I expect that game will also be very thin on content and rely heavily on procedural generation. Probably will feature planetary settlement building and other kind of garbage. Radiant questing galore.

It's also likely that despite being a space game, there won't be any vehicle around, whether driven by NPC or the player.

Unless they manage to completely rework the LOD systems and the way texture streaming works in their engine because this is what happens when you mod a horse to run faster than the engine can handle loads :

Yeah.

If Bethesda's next game had been a TES, I would have agreed that they might have rebounded from Fallout 76's failure. But seeing the theme of their next game, all the while being a new IP, it is not granted for their next game to be another mainstream hit. We have a chance at seeing Beth maybe not dying, but starting to hurt quite a bit at least.

Unless you're called Chris Roberts, space games rarely sell all that well. And Chris Roberts sold a dream more than an actual game.

I forgot Star Field is before the next Elder Scrolls. They must really be clueless (more than usual) to not launch a sure thing after a risky move.

 

[markec]

Fallout 76 is just a gift that keeps on giving.

I dont recall when a game provided to much entertainment and I didint even spend any money on it.

Mass Effect 3?

Yeah Mass Effect 3 was great, I still have fond memories of reading Bioware forums and savoring in all the salt made by destroyed romances.

But I think that Andromeda takes the cake, that was also a massive clusterfuck.

 

[Viata]

Fallout 76 is just a gift that keeps on giving.

I dont recall when a game provided to much entertainment and I didint even spend any money on it.

Mass Effect 3?

TORtanic.

 

[Gerrard]

Fallout 76 was more like Hindenburg than Titanic.

 

[markec]

 

[rusty_shackleford]

somewhere deep in their codebase lurks a compiler warning about a signed to unsigned conversion

 

[Friday.13]

 

[Xor]

Hey man, that's like 3 bucks per unit that could be going to Zenimax managments' coke and hookers fund, and that shit ain't cheap.

 

[Cael]

Fallout 76 is just a gift that keeps on giving.

I dont recall when a game provided to much entertainment and I didint even spend any money on it.

Mass Effect 3?

TORtanic.

Aww, he missed the part where Jack pushes the other guy and tells him to walk through the Valley faster. That was classic.

 

[Tribal Sarah]

I'm not buying their silly game but I really want a canvas backpack now

 

[typical user]

So Bethesda refuses to send these backpacks as compensation for like 10$ with shipping costs and instead gives 5$ of microtransactions to players. Of course it doesn't cost them anything since Atoms are worthless but it just shows how greedy faggots they are if they can't do positive PR for people who paid 200$ for the most expensive edition of their game before it even got released.

Serves you right you jackasses to preorder that game, it's not like Bethesda wasn't scummy for last 10 years (and not even counting their deeds beyond that date). Anyone remember that plastic shit masquarading as Pipboy-3000 for Fallout 4 Collectors Edition?

 

[Oracsbox]

 

[Latelistener]

The beginning of that video:

 

[Orma]

I really hope this will be the game that will open people's eyes.

 

[Taskityo]

Mass Effect 3?

The train wreck of Mass Effect an-Dramada was way more entertaining. F5-76 reminds me of that but 10-fold.

 

[Blaine]

So Bethesda refuses to send these backpacks as compensation for like 10$ with shipping costs and instead gives 5$ of microtransactions to players. Of course it doesn't cost them anything since Atoms are worthless but it just shows how greedy faggots they are if they can't do positive PR for people who paid 200$ for the most expensive edition of their game before it even got released.

Serves you right you jackasses to preorder that game, it's not like Bethesda wasn't scummy for last 10 years (and not even counting their deeds beyond that date). Anyone remember that plastic shit masquarading as Pipboy-3000 for Fallout 4 Collectors Edition?

They certainly deserve each other. Bethesda fans paid an extra $140 for a trash bag and a cheap plastic toy helmet, while Bethesda revealed their true power level to the world.

They really fucked up every step of the way with those tcotchkes. Greed or no greed, it actually boggles my mind that they would try to milk collectors' editions for extra profit rather than sink 90%+ of the additional price into quality tchotchkes. Then again, people have been happily eating their shit for so long that they probably figured this time wouldn't be any different.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[hexer]

Is it possible that Bethesda cannot afford branded bags?
How much CE orders did they receive.. a million?

 

[Blaine]

The influencer bags are a different design than the bag that was supposed to be included with the collector's edition. The collector's edition bag is just a sack with carrying straps, a very basic and utilitarian design that could be found in any department store or military surplus shop. People would have been fine with that basic bag if it had been made out of canvas (as promised) with the game-themed logo applied; the influencer bags would have gone unnoticed in that case, but in light of Bethesda's bait-and-switch, they add insult to injury and a generous handful of the spice of irony.

I searched "canvas bag" on Amazon just now, and found this:

This is a far better bag than the collector's edition tchotchke would have been even if it had been made out of canvas rather than nylon. Bethesda cheaped out to save themselves something like $10 per collector's edition.

 

[Freddie]

Isn't the storyline about how the Scorched Plague broke out after the nuclear exchange? The people on the surface either trying to rebuild or fighting each other while a handful noticed the Scorched Plague and tried to find out where it came from (what is spreading it) while at the same time develop a vaccine or a cure.
Then everyone dies after a while or is converted into Scorched and when the Vault Overseer of Vault 76 goes to the surface she learns about this plague that it is spread by Scorch beasts from far underground, and while she seeks to find out if a cure was developed she also seeks to secure ICBM silos in order to seal the fissures through which the Scorch beasts come (which will reopen somewhere else after a while)
Apparently the Scorched are created by a parasitic fungus which may have been created or modified by a pharmaceutical company for the war effort (basically ripping off Resident Evil's Umbrella Corporation)

Edit: apparently the Overseer already got the orders to secure the ICBM silos by Vault-Tec. This I don't get, did Vault-Tec gave this order on behalf of the Enclave? Or did Vault-Tec actually seek to acquire nuclear weapons themselves? Wouldn't that pit their leadership (if they had survived) against the Enclave leadership?

The writers do not even bother to explain where the cryptids came from other than that they may not be mutants but the real thing! The Mothman for example was summoned by cultists.

Yeah, I could have done without another storyline about a virus or infection that turns people into mindless or hive minded creatures as that is so done to death. In Fallout 1 at least Super Mutants were created by the Master because he thought he was helping humanity to adapt to the post war wasteland by doing this.

And I could have bought the cryptids if they were custom designed genetic engineered lifeforms. Instead Bethesda continues their stupid decision of incorporating the supernatural into Fallout. I think the designers of Fallout 2 admitted that the ghost was a mistake that they should not have done.

I haven't found any Fallout game after NV really interesting and I haven't really followed what's happening. That said, I feel quite weird reading what Betsheda did with F 76. That they decided to go this route is mind bending. It's so utterly stupid and unnecessary in universe which allows far more interesting and unique stories to be told.

 

[Freddie]

[..]
Mass Effect 3 sold mostly on the goodwill of Mass Effect 2, which sold on the goodwill-ish of Mass Effect 1.

Mass Effect 1 managed to pull in a respectable 1.8 million copies sold, which is pretty good. Mass Effect 2 managed to sell 500k copies in two days and then went on to sell several million more. I think like four million. Mass Effect 3 sold 800,000 copies in a day. It was riding high, high on the goodwill of the Mass Effect 2 game. The rest of the month was less impressive, it only pulled in 100k more. After this sales slowed down considerably because word of mouth confirmed the game was bad. Look at Dragon Age II. 700k in a day! And then sales dropped off so dramatically it's embarassng, and despite claims DA:I is the bestest selling Bioware game ever, they will never, ever, ever quote numbers. Shouldn't be hard. "We sold 10 million! Be happy shareholders!" But it didn't. Because DAII was shit. I mean look at ME: Andromeda. It died on launch and that wasn't because of the bugs, the initial rush of "OH MY GOD A NEW MASS EFFECT GAME" should have put in at least a million. But it didn't. Because they fucking killed the hype and interest in the brand and product.

There are ways to market the game again. Make some cheeky references to it being a terrible idea, say "BACK TO SINGLE PLAYER, WHERE WE EXCEL" and so on, but Starfield/TES6 is going to take a hit from this. You cannot produce garbage and get consistently good sales game after game. Most publishers do not understand this and whine and whine and whine.

Man, so many games do this shit. RE4 - great sales. Re5 incredible sales. Re6 meh sales.
Devil May Cry meh sales. Devil May Cry 2 incredible sales. Devil May Cry 3 meh sales. Devil May Cry 4 incredible sales. And on and on and on.

Basically you can make a lot of money by releasing a shit low-effort game, but....

It's interesting how this happens. While reading the thread I couldn't but to think Mass Effect Andromeda and how it faiedl on technical level and both, story and character writing. While it was something quite hilarious and EA/BW had it coming for a long time, similar things happening in other franchises rises some questions.

It takes years of developing to get franchise like Fallout or Mass Effect, lot's of money gone to marketing too. They give studio/publisher a chance to have something against other franchises like Resided Evil series you mentioned (I don't know about DmC but I have understood it's big and have cult following too?) and others like Halo or Gears of War. I don't think Fallout or Mass Effect really ever were as popular or even anywhere near, but there they were doing something right. But instead of taking care of their brand they fucked up, terribly. And it isn't just that the game itself is bad. They decided to cash with micro-transactions in F 76 after EA:s latest Star Wars game fiasco? Do these fuckers live in a vacuum? And the bag thing? Again mirrors ME: Andromeda situation, which in other hand actually sort of perfected the picture; even the tie in products were shit.

And while it's hilarious, it's also that these things are examples of AAA studio/publisher turning hostile towards their audience and not only losing the fight, but wasting entire franchise (Mass Effect), or at least cutting it's potential (Fallout). And these idiots deserve to burn, the more public, the better, but in other hand it doesn't doesn't do good for competition and for gamers, if there are less and less interesting franchises left.

Perhaps someone really should start asking questions about how it happens that people taking care of RE or say, Final Fantasy franchises are able to learn from their mistakes, yet EA or Betsheda can fuck things up and it's like nothing? Perhaps it would be good to ask if there's actually something regarding perceived value and actual value, etc.

 

[Blaine]

They decided to cash with micro-transactions in F 76 after EA:s latest Star Wars game fiasco? Do these fuckers live in a vacuum? And the bag thing? Again mirrors ME: Andromeda situation, which in other hand actually sort of perfected the picture; even the tie in products were shit.

It's very simple: They see other developers/publishers making a boatload of money, so they too want to jump on the bandwagon and get their piece of the golden pie. They very much don't live in a vacuum, but note that they really only have their eyes fixed on money and success. They don't dwell on negatives such as some other developer's PR fiasco, let alone learn from their mistakes (or their own, apparently).

ARK and Rust sold a trillion copies on Steam, so the suits in charge at Zionmax no doubt decided that Bethesda should develop a multiplayer survival sandbox game. After all, what says "survival" more clearly than a post-nuclear game franchise (that they purchased from someone else and then ruined)? Never mind that Bethesda have never developed an actual survival game, have never developed an actual sandbox game, that their gameplay formula hasn't changed since Morrowind, and that they're still using the same tweaked and "updated" development tools they've been using for twenty years. (Come to think of it, Bethesda have never developed an actual Fallout game, either.) The businessmen and investors want their piece of that survival sandbox action, and by God they're going to try to get it. They also want a piece of the microtransaction action; all publishers do.

People love to blame Todd, but in reality Todd is just a squeaky-voiced midget beholden to his corporate overlords. He's guilty only of the same foolishness the rest of his team indulges in: outlandish gushing about cool-sounding features that they imagine can be implemented in their games, but then it turns out they can't be (or are implemented in a much more limited and disappointing fashion, like Radiant AI), because as developers they're too incompetent to bring their ideas from the drawing board to people's computer screens. I genuinely believe they don't mean to deceive people.

Valve is guilty of the exact same type of bandwagoning behavior (as are many other companies). They did it with Dota 2, they've just done it with Artifact (which was famously booed at its unveiling), and no doubt they'll continue this behavior in the future.

And while it's hilarious, it's also that these things are examples of AAA studio/publisher turning hostile towards their audience....

The horse is long since out of the barn when it comes to AAA developers treating their customers with disdain, contempt, and hostility. Once upon a time, the relationship between computer game developers and computer game players was warm, amicable, and mutually satisfying. Now it's a full-blown adversarial relationship of one-way hostility to one's own consumers, as though they were chickens on an industrial-scale farm... and in all fairness, that's not an entirely inaccurate analogy. The industry now centers around shoveling compost into the feeding troughs of hundreds of millions of idiots, rather than at a few million largely upper middle-class American and European professionals as was the case in the late 80s and early 90s.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

I forgot Star Field is before the next Elder Scrolls. They must really be clueless (more than usual) to not launch a sure thing after a risky move.

With that little revelation that the reason Fallout doesn't have cars is because their shit engine can't handle it, it's sure going to be interesting to see how Starfield (which I assume will have spaceships) turns out.

Bethesda seems so unaware of their own limitations and up their own ass that I doubt they ever saw 76 as a risky move. I mean, Jesus Christ, these fuckers thought it was a good idea to build a Fallout game completely around their shitty combat mechanics. Totally absent of self-awareness. The base building aspect seems completely half baked too: like a mechanic without any function other than to play with the mechanic. From the sound of it the building stuff seems like a step back from what they were trying to do in Fallout 4. Funny thing is if they weren't total morons they'd of just done the same thing they always do the same way they do it but with multiplayer and it'd never even kind of been a risky move. It'd still suck though.

 

[Alienman]

Treating your customers like shit have also spilled over to the indie-scene. Gaming has really turned into a cesspool unfortunately. The ones that actively try to keep the old style of relationship between devs and customers must be treasured.

 

[Talby]

The bag is a metaphor for every Bethesda game since Morrowind. Todd is desperately crying out to us for help.