Interview Pete Hines: Oblivion delivered what was promised

[Vault Dweller]

One day we'll find out.

 

[SlavemasterT]

I can't afford to retire because then it would be fucking dead or close to it.

is that honestly such a bad thing? this isn't 'news', fuck man, this isn't even fun to read.

Directive: You suck.
Sub-Directive: Nothing you post is ever fun to read.
sub-sub-directive: and we can't even avoid it by not clicking on a thread, like you could have with this.

 

[Hazelnut]

Naked Ninja and fellow acolytes, while I usually couldn't give a rats arse about these Oblivion threads anymore either, I tend (Usually) to do what VD does; Keep out of them. Too much to handle for you guys?

QFT.

If Oblivion news starts being posted without the giveaway 'Oblivion' word in the title, then by all means complain.

Some other members do still want to read bits about Oblivion that are in the news, why should certain other members inability to avoid clearly labelled threads mean that it should stop?

EDIT: BTW, the whinging and gnashing of teeth about posting Oblivion news so long after release is far and away more tedious and dull to read than the actual Ob news & discussion ever could be...

 

[mister lamat]

actually, a good chunk of people have left or really curtail they're interaction and discussion here for the same reason. they are missed.

 

[Rosh]

My point being that Bethesda Game Studios etc. did not deliver on what was promised. Maybe there is a reason behind, maybe, just maybe, they needed to turn the RAI down a bit, or the whole world would have been fighting each other. (but that would have been sort of fun and cool, imo).

According to my sources, the Radiant AI was at least a halfway passable behavior AI...until they had to lobotomize it for the sake of the X-Brick. And again, they couldn't very well release the PC version with the full AI, since it would look like they weren't fully supporting the whore box. The original form still wasn't anywhere near what they had hyped, either.

So, the most simple explanation for Bethesda: They're simply console whores that will sacrifice important, integral, and overhyped components of their game in order to fit it onto a console, to cash in on the Lowest Common Denominator.

 

[mister lamat]

One day we'll find out.

fuck these scrubs. just focus on what you know will only turn out for the positive.

 

[Lumpy]

Well, the sad fact is that there's not a single mainstream CRPG to look forward to at the moment and not many indie efforts either. Really, if we stopped bitching about Oblivion/Bethesda/mudcrabs there'd be very little to talk about. It's a fucking shame, but there you have it.

How about making more RP design threads to discuss how role-playing elements should be implemented right. And then realize that fuck, it's be great if they were implemented at all in any game.
But it sure beats mudcrab-sighting.

 

[tunguska]

Oblivion isn't the first Bethesda game that failed to live up to specific promises that were made while the game was in production. Morrowind was the same. So was Daggerfall. In every case, Bethesda promised a tightly-woven, detailed story for the main plot. But what we ended up with, to an increasing degree with each sequel, was basically a big sandbox game with some fedex quests thrown in for good measure. From my POV, <i>that</i> is the essential promise that they reneged on. I didn't pay so much attention to the other promises. Although in the case of Oblivion, Radiant AI was hyped to the sky and then mostly removed for release. I was looking forward to that feature (NPCs setting fire to their dogs etc.) more than anything else in the game, and they fucking just remove it?! And what about all the hype about making the game somewhat Thief-like, sneaking around in shadows and taking out your enemies silently in a way never accomplished before even in Thief?! Did that make it into the game?

Now, given, integrating any serious character AI into a computer game would be groundbreaking and is not easy. Peter Molyneux also had to reneg on his promises to use neural networks for his character AI in Black and White, and he <i>specifically</i> mentioned their use and how ground breaking it was in pre-release interviews. The point is about making promises pre-release and then just releasing the game without any of the (difficult) promised features.

Having said all this it is important to recognize that Bethesda has not really changed their game philosophy in the past 16 years or so. They have <i>always</i> been about sandbox single player MMORPG style open-ended game play. With the holy grail being a true world simulation. Right from Arena. Although I'm a sucker for a good story to keep things moving somewhere as in PS:T, I could live with such a game, as long as it was done right. Unfortunately, even with the best of intentions, and a great deal of money, such a project would be unlikely to succeed with current tech. Radiant AI was actually their first significant move in that direction. The idea being to create a virtual world that seems at least a little bit real. The randomized dungeons of Arena and Daggerfall were also an (albeit very crude) attempt in this direction.

Perhaps one day we will have some kind of holodeck, where a virtual world can be setup and you can just walk in and interact with it and a story could be created based on your interactions, but we aren't there yet. Any developer who genuinely wants to attempt a virtual world with any depth needs to at least be aware of how ambitious it is. Maybe with a billion dollars and a 10 to 20 year development time with tens or hundreds of thousands of man-hours devoted to it, we could come up with a convincing in-computer world (using current display tech). In a true world sim, you would not be able to predict what was going to happen. The overall behavior of the system would be more than the mere sum of its parts. You would need to program in emergent behavior not just in a game characters but in the game world as a whole. It would be seriously cool and would at the very least require some serious AI programming. The promised Radiant AI would have been (if it had lived up to the hype) among the first steps in such a direction. Other steps might be considered the few MMORPGs that have attempted to simulate world ecologies (which usually ended up collapsing).

Any game developer who is not willing to take it seriously, should just shut the fuck up about it! All you're going to create is a setting, not a world. You can fill it with interesting characters and/or a story or not. But don't call it an 'open-ended' world. </rant>

Actually I stumbled upon <a href="http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Articles.Detail&id=12">this interview with Ted Peterson</a> which seems to contradict my statement about Bethesda's philosophy in the early 90s. It sounds like they just didn't know what the hell they were doing (just like the sir-tech devs suspected) and 'open-ended' was just a label marketing tacked on at the end to make a bug sound more like a feature. Actually I am touched that they were Underworld fans. Note the difference in the level of honesty in the interviews with games that are currently being sold and ones that are not <sigh>.

Here's the excerpt in question for the lazy:

Julian, Vijay, and I were all long-time pen-and-paper role-players, and fans of the Looking Glass Ultima Underworld series, which was certainly our main inspiration. There was another game that came out while we were working on Arena called "Legends of Valour," which was a free-form first-person perspective game that took place in a single city. It got pretty pitiful reviews and not many people bought it, but I really had fun with it. It's completely forgotten nowadays, but I probably logged more hours playing it than any other game.

Arena, though, was intended as being an action game with a little bit of role-playing on the side. The initial idea was that there was a series of tournaments in arena, and your character fought in a team to win the coveted title against other teams. A story developed that there was an evil wizard named Jagar Tharn who you could only fight once you made it to the final tournament in the Imperial City. Along the way you could do side-quests which were more role-playing in nature. Eventually during the development, the tournaments became less important and the side-quests became more. We eventually dropped the whole tournament idea altogether, and just focused on the quests and the dungeon-delving.

In the end, we had a game that almost didn't resemble our original idea at all. It was really a hard-core role-playing game, but we had already done the advertising and printed up boxes with the name "Arena." Someone came up with the idea that the Empire of Tamriel, because it was so violent, had been nicknamed the Arena. That explained, kinda awkwardly I guess, why there was no arena combat in a game named Arena.

 

[Section8]

You'd be surprised at how "organic" the designs for a lot of successful games have been. I think Doom's whole design doc was scribbled in lipstick on the back of a napkin by John Romero.

 

[elander_]

So, the most simple explanation for Bethesda: They're simply console whores that will sacrifice important, integral, and overhyped components of their game in order to fit it onto a console, to cash in on the Lowest Common Denominator.

Have you ever heard the expression "quality doesn't sell"?

Are you an old Daggerfall player tunguska?

 

[Rosh]

Say it with me. "Console." The death knell of anything imaginative or noteworthy in gaming. Peter, in order to ship out Fable for the console, had to ax almost the entirety of his planned design. The end result was the title turning into a more or less generic action title.

The same happened with a lot of other things that Microsoft has touched. The PC-and-console dual development is really starting to suck ass and hurt this industry. Microsoft truly owns the bad touch gloves on this account. As long as developers have an eye solely on the bottom line, their quality will be nowhere as possible as it would be on PC, and it keeps making them into liars.

 

[Gnidrologist]

Complaining about quality of discussion on Codex is stupid, because there's no other site that comes even close to variety and depth of crpg related talks as evidenced by Project "Monkey".

As for ''omgzorz beth oblivionz njewz agein'', well duh, it's not coedex's fault Pete and Todd makes one idiotic interview after another, issued on top gaming sites every other week. The fact that 1) Beth is now considered the ''top dog'' of crpg market; 2) are ones making Fallout 3 and; 3) spewing out riddiculous shit; isn't helping to avoid the codexe's news boards either.

 

[tunguska]

I think Doom's whole design doc was scribbled in lipstick on the back of a napkin by John Romero.

Doesn't surprise me. For Carmack game design has always been more about the graphics engine than the game itself. Hell, they could practically be considered demos for graphics engine licensing. But, yes, I played both Wolfenstein3D and Doom for countless hours before finally burning out on the entire genre. After Doom I never played another FPS. I tried others but could never play for more than 15 minutes. Good level design in both games I think. But design? haha.

Are you an old Daggerfall player tunguska?

Who isn't? It was a big deal at the time, hyped like Oblivion, and despite my misgivings about the central story, it was a lot of fun. I had actually been anticipating its release for a long time. Although I spent many hours playing Arena (after playing UW2 into the ground iirc), I also spent countless hours playing Daggerfall. Although I did finish Arena a number of times I never finished Daggerfall. I just got bored of it. And then restarted from the beginning some months later. I was just getting into something involving some witches when I quit for good. I loved fighting the guards in Daggerfall. Great fun. I used to get hopelessly lost in the dungeons. My sense of direction has never been the best.

 

[elander_]

As long as developers have an eye solely on the bottom line, their quality will be nowhere as possible as it would be on PC, and it keeps making them into liars.

It's not only in games but in movies, music and even food. People need to be educated to enjoy better games and most people would not bother to make the difference between an rpg and a fps as long as the game as a story and some personal stats. Being a top-seller in the statistics is the same as lower quality. So i suppose that when some game developer claims to be developing for quality and the mainstream at the same time they are literally pulling crap from their asses since they impose themselves restrictions they know will increase selling figures and reduce quality.

I also spent countless hours playing Daggerfall.

I still play it on occasion just to get lost in one of those big dungeons. Long live Daggerfall.

 

[taxacaria]

And maybe,just maybe, there are reasons behind the quest compass, and the quest arrows, just like if you're going to find the master trainer of something and he isn't where he is supposed to be, you'll need something (or someone) to tell you where he is. And that's what the quest arrows dows.
...
However, Mr. Hines seems to forget one thing: Many console gamers also think that Oblivion was 'dumbed down.'

The compass, the quest marker and compass icons, are NOT the hand-holding, dumbing down babysitter some folks paint them out to be.

That's what they've promised.

I wonder where they see their satisfied customers.

 

[tunguska]

Say it with me. "Console." The death knell of anything imaginative or noteworthy in gaming.

That is a serious problem, but I think it's only part of the problem. That doesn't explain for instance why Looking Glass's first cRPG since Ultima Underworld II transformed into Thief, essentially an action game (albeit a half decent one). Although there is always the possibility that part of their motivation in dumbing down the game was to be able to eventually port it to a console more easily. Who knows.

I was so excited about the prospect of an Ultima Underworld III, in spirit at least. [Paul Neurath <i>did</i> pitch the idea to Origin for an official sequel, but they weren't interested.] And, although it is hard to find the real history of that online (seems like LGS did a good job covering their tracks) an Arthurian medieval RPG titled 'Dark Camelot' seems to be what the game was originally intended to be. How long those intentions were around I don't know. Maybe only a few months into production. The fans, all of whom were eagerly anticipating an UW3-in-spirit (an LGS rpg), were more than a little shocked and disappointed when the announcement was made that the RPG project had been converted into an action game (at first just a stat-less action RPG iirc). I actually remember the day of the official forum announcement. I am just going from my own recollection mostly based on the early Dark Project website forum postings by some of the devs. I also traded emails with one of the devs at the time.

In any case the history of dumbing down games to sell more copies seems to have been going on for a while before cross platform titles became popular. Fewer publishers are willing to risk a niche market. I do agree that cross-platform releases may well be the final nail in the coffin for commercially produced cRPGs though. The future of the kind of cRPGs that we like may eventually be limited to sourceforge projects. Even Obsidian can't seem to manage to escape these trends. They need money to make games and no one wants to give them money to make the sort of games that they themselves would like to make. I have little doubt for instance that not only Chris Avellone, but even Feargus would like to make a sequel-in-spirit to PS:T or Fallout or a totally original RPG with a deep, involving story. They have both said as much many times in the past and their previous games (at least) give them some credibility.

 

[Lumpy]

Thief was a dumbed down action game? ACTION game?

 

[Texas Red]

As much as I dislike Demented I do agree that Naked Ninja or whatever is an annoying fuck. People enjoy voicing their annoyance with Pete, especially when every other site praises Oblivion and the forums are mostly filled with preteens thinking its the Second Coming of Christ.

As said before, Bethesda is considered the big cheese these days. This and due to the company developing Fallout 3, the news of Bethesda are important. I guess Naked would rather have it that the Codex would ban Bethesda news which would serve no porpuse.

 

[Rosh]

It's not only in games but in movies, music and even food. People need to be educated to enjoy better games and most people would not bother to make the difference between an rpg and a fps as long as the game as a story and some personal stats.

Yeah...this is a disposable culture of media-fed chimps. This is the market of "EZ-Mac", microwave mac & cheese for those too lazy (or perhaps too stupid) to afford making real mac and cheese, and instead pay about four times the price for...pasta and dried cheese that freaks me the fuck out.

Hell, it goes the same for ramen. Someone watched me look ill when they ate ramen noodles and broth plain. Funny, with a couple of things that you can prepare in advance, it's a full meal and kicks ass. Bacon or shredded meat/shrimp, napa cabbage, mushrooms, toasted sesame seeds, and maybe a few more things all boiled in while the noodles soften. To me, the cabbage is almost a part of the ramen as the broth.

It is kind of scary, watching the children of the 80's not know how to cook their own food unless it involves pushing a few buttons.

The parallel goes the same for game design. I see a lot...well, everything but bump-mapping and Bloom effexors, and see a load of shit. And excuses. And these shitmongers like Pete try to continue their claims that they delivered what they claim, when people modding their own game prove them to be liars not long after release of Oblivion and Star Trek: Legacy.

It is really, really disgusting. It's like watching someone take another chew of the shit sandwich they just bit into a week ago.

Being a top-seller in the statistics is the same as lower quality. So i suppose that when some game developer claims to be developing for quality and the mainstream at the same time they are literally pulling crap from their asses since they impose themselves restrictions they know will increase selling figures and reduce quality.

It has been the lie of BioWare, Bethesda, and many others for years. A lie that the kiddies keep believing because they know they can't get past the graphics to really clue themselves in about older games, games that were both mainstream and quality back in 92 and earlier. Nobody was more mainstream than Origin, and yet only until EA interfered, did Origin really have problems with design really messing up their titles. UIX, again, and how EA has killed off everyone they brought into the mainstream.

There would be no reason why a game with the legacy and same gameplay as Ultima VII would fare badly today - only that it couldn't be hyped. People have been wanting to play a game like it for a long time, and even Ultima 6, given the Exult and other projects. That is where the new drive of the game companies comes from - the marketing department. If you think the designers are designing the games, still, you're wrong. It is now the marketing department. Unless it can be a clone of a great seller, or unless it's designed to be as wide-market as possible, the members of the same ilk as Pete don't have a fucking clue about designing a game.

I still play it on occasion just to get lost in one of those big dungeons. Long live Daggerfall.

Daggerfall is still one of my favorite games of all time. Pity there's no real sequel.

 

[HardCode]

I thought you posted gaming news, not gaming site news. Is that what the codex is about, posting about what the other gaming sites are posting? Thats pretty lame.

It wouldn't bother me if it was actual news. But its the same old junk, again and again. We get it. Pete and Todd think they made a good RPG, you guys don't. How is this "fresh lies"? They have said they think their game is great before, and the Codex has jeered and "strongly disagreed". How is this any different from any of the other times? It isn't.

Aries has brought up the very valid point about the quest compass. EXCEPT ITS BEEN SAID SO MANY FUCKING TIMES NOW. How often does it need to be said? Aaarrrgh! So.fucking.circular.

I'm searching for a movie quote here ... ah, yes, here it is. "Shut up, stupid."

 

[tunguska]

Thief was a dumbed down action game? ACTION game?

Haha. Good point. Didn't they want it to be called a sneaker? That just makes me look at my shoes. I'm not as sure of what it is as I am of what it isn't. Lots of fun for a few days though. And it had a great intro movie. What a waste of talent though.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

The problem is you aren't letting this go. Does it have to be rehashed over and over? Your bethesda recruiting post, this one, all of them, are just excuses for the Codex to wheel out its tired old Oblivion/Bethesda jokes. Ahaha, I saw a mudcrab, hysterical.

If other gaming sites want to keep talking about Oblivion, why shouldn't we keep reminding everyone how much it sucks?

Besides, as VD pointed out, this thread is at five pages now, yet the news item about Jade Empire - which was posted on the same day - has only 16 replies. We like complaining about Oblivion just the same way you like complaining about us complaining about Oblivion. Especially given the 10 posts you've made in this thread so far alone and the fact that that equates to 10% of all the posts you've ever made here. Clearly you feel you have a message you need to get out. Well, so do we.

Please don't tell me I'm missing facts. The most obvious one is available to all. Just search the forums for the number of threads about Oblivion/Bethesda/Todd/Pete. Its staggering for a site that expresses so much disdain for the game and the company.

Whose idea is it that if you hate something, you're not allowed to talk about it? Gee whizz, there goes the anti-abortion lobby. "Sorry guys, you hate abortion, therefore you've lost the right to talk about it". See how stupid that logic is?

actually, a good chunk of people have left or really curtail they're interaction and discussion here for the same reason. they are missed.

By all means, please feel free to join them.

Well, the sad fact is that there's not a single mainstream CRPG to look forward to at the moment and not many indie efforts either. Really, if we stopped bitching about Oblivion/Bethesda/mudcrabs there'd be very little to talk about. It's a fucking shame, but there you have it.

How about making more RP design threads to discuss how role-playing elements should be implemented right.

And what? Then have to put up with Mr Ninja complaining that "All you guys ever do is talk about fucking RPG design! Gee-Whillickers! All RPG's suck. Get over yourselves! Talk about something else!"?

 

[Lumpy]

Thief was a dumbed down action game? ACTION game?

Haha. Good point. Didn't they want it to be called a sneaker? That just makes me look at my shoes. I'm not as sure of what it is as I am of what it isn't. Lots of fun for a few days though. And it had a great intro movie. What a waste of talent though.

It is a sneaker, because combat is entirely optional, and even forbidden on the highest difficulty level. And dumbed down? Why? Because it's invented a new genre rather than being just another RPG?
To be fair, I don't know about Thief 1. I gave up at level 2 because of the zombies. They just didn't fell right. I'll get back to it some day. Thief 2, on the other hand, was a masterpiece. A masterpiece without zombies.

 

[Azael]

How about making more RP design threads to discuss how role-playing elements should be implemented right. And then realize that fuck, it's be great if they were implemented at all in any game.
But it sure beats mudcrab-sighting.

Sure, except the problem is that pretty much every subject that I can think of has been covered and discussed to death, and as you say it's futile since there's currently absolutely no chance of any of the good ideas put forward making it into a game in the foreseeable future (maybe with the exception of AoD, time will tell). Fuck it, I'm just tired of all this Oblivion and Bethesda bullshit. Bitching about Bioware/Obsidian is a lot more tolerable, because for all their shortcomings they at least have a number of good ideas and their games turn out pretty decent. Honestly, why not just ignore all the minor news items about Oblivion for a while? We all know that the shitstorm will kick in once F@110ut III creeps closer, let's save the Bethesda bashing for that. Honestly though, if Bethesda games are the future of computer roleplaying games, I'll just have to find a new hobby. How's the adventure game genre doing?


[/end rant]

 

[The Rambling Sage]

Say it with me. "Console." The death knell of anything imaginative or noteworthy in gaming. Peter, in order to ship out Fable for the console, had to ax almost the entirety of his planned design. The end result was the title turning into a more or less generic action title.

I would say that the real death knell of anything imaginative or noteworthy in gaming was gaming becoming massive. Every single realm of art or entertainment that devolved in some way, did so because it became massive - or "popular." Consoles have nothing to do with the current state of gaming, at least not by themselves - they, or at least the ideas behind them, are as old as videogames themselves. Had the present world no consoles, gaming would be in the same, sorry state.