Fallout 76

[wankerness]

Yeah, this game should be inspiring the same hilarious ultracuts of terrible animations as Mass Effect Andromeda from what I've heard. The Metacritic reviews are quite something. Most "real" reviews sound very bored and annoyed with it, too. Bethesda needs to build a new engine. If Elder Scrolls 6 (confirmed to use the same engine as Skyrim) feels like a super-mod of Skyrim with the same clunky gameplay and NPCs, they're going to look terrible compared to all the huge leaps forward with the Skyrim formula that we've gotten in the last few years (Witcher 3, AC: Origins/Odyssey, HZD, etc). I loved Skyrim to pieces at release, but this is proving that they can't rest on their laurels forever when it comes to mechanics, bugs, and graphics if they want to keep their reputation going.

 

[QuantumCybin]

I didn't notice we had a thread about this. I played the fuck out of Fallout 3 and New Vegas (New Vegas is one of my favorite games of all time). I played 4, but not for very long. Maybe around 30 hours. I didn't really pay attention to 76 at all. Didn't play the beta, didn't watch any reviews or hype videos. I bought it on release day somewhat out of impulse (bad habit of mine), and I have really been enjoying it. I think Bethesda has always done a really good job with environmental storytelling and crafting interesting worlds, and they did an awesome job with West Virginia. I've had positive experiences with other players, and in regards to bugs, well....it's a Bethesda game. Should they be able to release a game this buggy and get away with charging $60? Ideally, no. They shouldn't. But damn, the game is fun and I've been having a great time. Currently level 22. So yeah, I'm probably a part of the problem by paying full price for this


EDIT: I do agree though, that they need to do something about the Creation Engine. There are still pieces of Morrowind code buried in it because they've just been adding onto it since then. If Bethesda wants to blow everyone away like CDPR is doing with Witcher and (more than likely) Cyberpunk, Bethesda needs to knock it the fuck out of the park and make Elder Scrolls VI un-fucking-believable. I think I have a lot of positive bias towards Bethesda because my first experience with them was when my buddy lent me his copy of Morrowind in 2001 (I was in third grade) and it just blew my little mind. So Bethesda games always give me that nostalgic sense and I think it makes it hard to hate them

 

[TedEH]

they need to do something about the Creation Engine

I doubt that the engine can really be blamed for much of what people complain about in these games. I don't doubt it's not helping that it's an old engine, but I don't think it's hurting as much as people think it is. There's very little in software that doesn't hold onto some very old concepts / workflows / tools / code / etc. - I'm sure Unreal 4 still has leftover bits from the original, and the same with Unity.

 

[QuantumCybin]

I doubt that the engine can really be blamed for much of what people complain about in these games. I don't doubt it's not helping that it's an old engine, but I don't think it's hurting as much as people think it is. There's very little in software that doesn't hold onto some very old concepts / workflows / tools / code / etc. - I'm sure Unreal 4 still has leftover bits from the original, and the same with Unity.

Yeah you’re not the first person I’ve seen with actual game dev knowledge (I don’t know a single thing about the technical side of making video games) who has said that. I’ve seen people on Reddit saying that essentially no one is or wants to make an entirely new game engine. Everything is built off of old code. But apparently Bethesda’s code for their games is a mess? “Spaghetti code” is the term I’ve heard used; like instead of fixing a problem in the code, they just code “around” it.

 

[TedEH]

I can't speak for their engine, cause I've never seen it, but it's pretty common for people to call pretty much all code "spaghetti code" after a while. I've never worked on a game where, at the end of the project, the people working on it described it as "good code", even if realistically it was actually pretty good. That includes anything from quick and dirty web games to big console releases. I can't give specifics, but I've seen a pretty wide range of game code so far, even in my pretty short time doing this.

Someone sent me this article the other day, and I think it's relevant:
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/

 

[KnightBrolaire]

if you guys want to burn 40$, greenman gaming has fallout 76 discounted already.

 

[Kaura]

if you guys want to burn 40$, greenman gaming has fallout 76 discounted already.

Some places have already been selling it as low as $30. Just tells how desperate they are.

 

[QuantumCybin]

Yeah it's causing a huge upset with people who have bought the game already that Bethesda is discounting it. I paid a full 60 for the game and i'd say I've gotten my money's worth out of it already. I get why they're pissed though, especially people who bought the Tricentennial Edition some people are concerned that because of low sales, Bethesda is just gonna move on and abandon the game. Idk, I guess we'll see in six months, but for now all I know is I'm enjoying this more than RDR 2 lol

 

[KnightBrolaire]

I know I'd be salty if I bought a game for full price 2 weeks ago and it's 20$ cheaper now. In fact, I've had that happen recently , and I was extremely salty *cough* assassin's creed odyssey *cough*
The more I watch of this game the less I want to play it.

 

[Mathemagician]

Yeah I bought Black OPs 4 full price for it to be 15% off already and I’m like.....well at least I only buy a COD once every 6+ years.

 

[Jonathan20022]

Why you never buy games at launch anymore. I have an extensive backlog to keep me occupied anyways so I don't feel the need to buy all of these games day 1. I pretty much only pay full price for first party Nintendo games since they notoriously never discount them and I love Nintendo games enough to know they'll be solid.

I'll grab Spiderman and this when they fall under $20

 

[wankerness]

I only buy day one if I'm REALLY chomping at the bit and/or trying to support something other than a monolithic franchise. I think the only things I bought in the last couple years at full price were Yakuza Kiwami II and God of War.

One other terrible thing about these online games is they can be abandoned by the publisher and you're screwed if you liked the game. It doesn't really matter with single player games since the game is still there. Well, besides Final Fantasy XV which was still a work in progress and they just cancelled the two most interesting-sounding DLCs before they came out.

Reports suggest this isn't nearly as bad as that Metal Gear base defense game, it's weird it's plummeting in value even faster. Maybe it's just the timing with BF?

 

[QuantumCybin]

I only buy day one if I'm REALLY chomping at the bit and/or trying to support something other than a monolithic franchise. I think the only things I bought in the last couple years at full price were Yakuza Kiwami II and God of War.

One other terrible thing about these online games is they can be abandoned by the publisher and you're screwed if you liked the game. It doesn't really matter with single player games since the game is still there. Well, besides Final Fantasy XV which was still a work in progress and they just cancelled the two most interesting-sounding DLCs before they came out.

Reports suggest this isn't nearly as bad as that Metal Gear base defense game, it's weird it's plummeting in value even faster. Maybe it's just the timing with BF?

I think a lot of the hate bandwagon is simply just that, a bandwagon. Can't remember if I've said it here, but this game is scoring lower than No Man's Sky did at launch. People just want views on their YouTube channels and shit, so exaggerating to the point of hyperbole in their "reviews" is one easy way to garner publicity. I think a lot of the publications that gave it low scores, judging from the tone of the reviewer, sounded like they were expecting this to be Fallout 5 when Bethesda clearly stated it would not be.

They have two major patches coming, one on the 4th and one on the 11th, patching a lot of problems and addressing some quality of life issues. Also, yes, their release timing of this is pretty awful. You have Red Dead, Blops 4, BF V...three pretty hard hitters right there and then Fallout is sort of the odd-ball out. These initial negative reviews certainly aren't helping, so we'll see where the game is later next year. I hope they stick with it, it has a ton of potential.

 

[TedEH]

scoring

A lot of that is why I can't take reviews very seriously on their own. Review bombs are a real thing. The game might very well be deserving of criticism, but I think it's more a question of trying to find the right audience rather than being just a "bad" game. I much prefer videos that discuss games without the premise of being a review - stuff like Errant Signal where it comes across to me as a "here's what I was thinking while I experienced this", instead of trying to serve as "here's whether or not you should buy this".

I'm seeing kind of a pattern lately though - where audiences seem to have a pretty clear idea of what they want, but major franchises are going in very different directions than that. I can imagine different reasons for that, but there's a weird pattern happening of this disconnect between games people want and games people get.

 

[QuantumCybin]

A lot of that is why I can't take reviews very seriously on their own. Review bombs are a real thing. The game might very well be deserving of criticism, but I think it's more a question of trying to find the right audience rather than being just a "bad" game. I much prefer videos that discuss games without the premise of being a review - stuff like Errant Signal where it comes across to me as a "here's what I was thinking while I experienced this", instead of trying to serve as "here's whether or not you should buy this".

I'm seeing kind of a pattern lately though - where audiences seem to have a pretty clear idea of what they want, but major franchises are going in very different directions than that. I can imagine different reasons for that, but there's a weird pattern happening of this disconnect between games people want and games people get.

I'd like to find more videos like that; discussion about the game rather than arbitrary "review". I've rarely paid much attention to reviews for a long time, but the ones for Fallout 76 are really blatantly unfair and you can tell that they haven't spent much time actually playing the game.

 

[TedEH]

I didn't get through the whole thing, but LGR did a 20 minute long talk about his experience with the game as well. It's not a traditional review so much as him just talking about his experience with it. Kind of a review? And definitely not a positive look at the game. But it's not a "buy/no buy" kind of review.

 

[wankerness]

Review bombing is an interesting phenomenon. I'm wondering if it sprung up partially in response to the moronic policy some publishers had in which pay was directly tied to metacritic scores for the game.

Has there ever been a POSITIVE review bomb? I'm guessing no, unless it was for something like that school shooting game or something else equally unsavory and "non-PC" since this kind of thing is pure edgelord.

 

[TedEH]

I'm wondering if it sprung up partially in response to the moronic policy some publishers had in which pay was directly tied to metacritic scores for the game.

If anything, that would just make it worse. It would be an attempt to directly punish the people who did all the work but made none of the decisions that people are upset with in the first place.

A guess a positive review bomb would be sort of the equivalent of buying reviews?

 

[mikernaut]

I'm at level 54 currently, and yeah, from my experience this game shouldn't have been released in this state. I enjoy the co-op with my brother but we get nonstop facepalm bugs and performance issues. Although a 25 minute video this is a good in depth look at the game and what's going on behind the scenes. I experienced plenty of B.S. and upper management just trying to push games out the door before they are ready while working at Telltale Games. The mentality just seems like quantity of quality and get the $ anyway possible and as fast as they can, more often then not. Obviously we now know how things ended up for Telltale.

 

[TheTrooper]

I paid a full 60 for the game....but for now all I know is I'm enjoying this more than RDR 2 lol

That's why You are enjoying it more than RDR2, because You have to justify wasting 60$ on it.

Yeah, It's a joke.

Fallout 76, I meant.

Also, the 60$ joke I did before was a joke.
But Fallout is a better joke.