X-Com is the shit.
Is that a common opinion about Bethesda? I’ve always felt that they made remarkable progress with every new game they came out with. I can see debate over wether Oblivion was a step forward or back after Morrowind, but up until that point, each Elder Scrolls game has improved on the previous by leaps and bounds.
At least, IMO. But then, also IMO, Daggerfall was one of the biggest pieces of shit ever to be burned to a CD, but I understand it was quite popular in some quarters.
Nor did the turn-based mechanic make Fallout Tactics a good game.
Yes and no. It’s a little complicated. Daggerfall was ahead of its time - maybe too far ahead of its time and technology, but permitted an amazing variety of acts and accomplishments. The difficulty lay in that they just didn’t have enough content to fil their gigantic world. Still, they did pretty good.
Morrowind hit a sweet spot where they had a smaller world but lots to fill it up with. However, they cut out a lot of the character-building options and many of the factions. That wasn’t a totally bad thing, since they did add on to the ones they retained, but it did cut down on the character possibilities.
With Oblivion, they cut down even more, and frankly told some pretty blatant lies about their super-cool stuff. Radiant AI turned out to be, well, nothing very special. Most of the cool stuff happened randomly and rarely if at all. As mentioned, their dungeon design was abominable, and the “new” system to keep up the challenge was abyssmally bad.
Their graphics and world-building did improve. They had a very, very cool world to act in. It’s just that they keeps putting less and less in each world. Fewer weapons, fewer character options, the incredibly annoying skill/attribute/level system (which can and has been fixed time and time again by modders, to no avail). And their cool spells keep disappearing. And they make shops less and less useful.
I know they’ve still got the m@4 $k311z yo, but they keep trying to develop it in the wrong direction. Making the world beautiful is an admirable goal, and it does get attention. But content is king. (I loved Knights of the Nine, tough, and will probably get the latest expansion eventually.)
I heard that the concept guy behind Morrowind had a falling out with the production lead, which is why Oblivion came content light. He was the brains of the Elder Scrolls series or something. People were disappointed because Daggerfall-era design concept called for a much deeper and more creative game setting than the conventional fantasy goblins n’ unicorns thing we got.
So Bethsoft took a thrashing from the hardcore fan base, which is probably the root of the whole “oh noes they has the Fallout license” drama. That and Bethesda has shown zero ability for using the branching tree style dialogues that were the heart of Fallout, and they’re twice in the hole with whatever they paid for the license on top of dev costs, so no pressure to sell out and rush the market there. And with the old Fallout core team over at Obsidian not getting tapped for this project by Bethesda, it’s kind of a foregone conclusion that FO3 won’t be like what we’ve enjoyed in the past.
But like you, I’ll take what I can get. Fallout is Fallout, and I can think of worse games than running around in power armor blowing shit up. Oh god please just let me join the Brotherhood of Steel with a supersledge and Pancor jackhammer, that’s not too much to ask.
If someone remade X-Com using today’s tech to improve the GFX and AI while leaving the gameplay alone, I would buy ten copies just to support the team.
There’s some interesting points going back and forth but the main problem I see is that they’re treating it as a direct sequel and not a branch. If it was Falllout: Personal Wars (made up title obviously) it wouldn’t be much of a problem because then people could still hold out hope that there will be a true sequel that featured the gameplay like they always wanted. However by branding it Fallout III they’re saying this is the way the series is going and to just suck it up. That’s unfair to everyone that tried so hard for so long to support the idea of Fallout III.
But yes I do hate fucking whiners and moaners on message boards. I’ve been lurking in the Neverwinter Nights II message board since it came out and woo-boy has that been some big piece of crazy.
“OMG! I’ve arbitrarily decided I hate this because it’s not exactly like Neverwinter Nights I! It’s worse then cancer and AIDs Mixed together!1!@!!! They changed the toolset to make it harder to learn! This just ruins the entire series for me. It’s like I can’t accept the fact that game engines get more complex over time and that a group that was clearly not given enough time to even finish the fucking core of the game couldn’t build 1,000 tutorials and wizards to hold my hand as I learn something new”*
Post after post of people just whining about nothing as far as I can tell. What’s even funnier is when they compare a ‘feature’ of Neverwinter Nights I to II in which II is clearly superior in every single way yet somehow the first still managed to be better. My favorite however was one guy who posted at least six times (three times in a patch thread started two threads on his own and posted in at least one more thread) about some race that should have a feat by default. This is something he could fix in-game with no problems with just a little typing. Even after people told him (including me) he still continued on
“WHEN is this going to be FIXED! Is it going to be fixed in this patch or NEXT?!”*
just very offended about this incredibility minor change (or oversight) to his precious D&D rules. Seriously the game is pretty damn flawed but I had fun playing through the campaign at least twice and about 1/2 a dozen false starts it was more then worth the money I plunked down on it. I’d like to see some things fixed/added but meh even if it doesn’t get better then it is it’s still a good solid game. Certainly undeserving of the pure nerd rage directed at it.
*Please add more misspellings and leet speak I don’t have the heart to do it myself thank you
I wish I had read this thread last week, before I bought a copy of Oblivion. This place is the first where I’ve heard that Oblivion isn’t the greatest thing since sliced bread. I recently let my WoW account lapse and wanted to find a single-player RPG. By far the most highly praised game was Oblivion. The reviews made it sound right up my alley - a single-player RPG with a vast world to explore and gameplay with great depth and diversity. At no point did I find a dissenting opinion; everyone agreed that Oblivion was teh awesome.
Instead, it’s a complete and utter turd. I’ve played for about an hour and I’ve very nearly given up on it already. The graphics are utterly terrible. Every humanoid in the game looks like they have cranio-facial disorders. The interface is the worst interface since the invention of an interface that kills you with cancer, which I admit hasn’t been invented yet but once it has been invented this statement will be true. The designers of the interface for Oblivion should be shot with radioactive explosive dung-beetles.
Maybe it gets non-craptacular once you get out of the first area. I don’t know. But it sucks so bad right now I’m very much regretting my purchase. Maybe I’ve just been spoiled by Blizzard Entertainment’s polished interface and style. Maybe I just need to get more comfortable with the controls and it’ll suck less. Maybe it’s all just an elaborate joke played at my expense. I dunno.
If you have a decent computer go Here and download more high rez textures. It’ll help some graphics look better at least.
I do think Oblivion was over-hyped but only an hour in and you’re ready to give up? That’s a little harsh it’s not supposed to have the same interface as WOW ya know. 
Thanks for the link. I’ll give that a try. I don’t like the fact that I have to download 3rd party add-ons for a game to make it look non-crappy though, especially since one of the big selling points was how it was supposed to have terrific graphics. And I’m not expecting the same interface - I was hoping for an interface that was as logical, useful, easy to use, and intuitive. Or at least not designed by paint-chip-eating nincompoops. I figure an hour is more than enough time to beat my head against a metaphorical wall to see if it’ll stop hurting and start being fun. I can probably sell the game to a gullible friend and recoup some of the cost at least.
Crap. I just realized I’m probably the type of whiner the OP was complaining about. 
I was kinda wondering if I’d been whooshed after I posted. Well I hope you get your money out of it one way or another.
I like it when the criticism is constructive and is carried through to the developers as a suggestion or bug report. Constant whining or non-constructive criticisms do run rampant though.
I recall one particular guy in the original NWN boards crying about the color of one of the monsters. I forget which particular critter, it might have been one of the gian types. Well, in every thread, whether related to this particular monster or not, he would pop in to denounce the dev team as imbeciles because everyone and their grandma knew that (this particular) giant was black not red (or some such).
Man, that was bad.
Personally, I hate WOW. The character customization is one of the worst I’ve ever seen in an RPG (though I come from a background of single player RPG’s not MMOs), the graphics are painfully dated, the beginning quests are mind numbingly dull. Oblivion, even with it’s flaws (the built in world leveling is ridiculous at times - texture problems, poor conversation design, etc), is leaps and bounds above anything WOW offered, IMHO. Minus the MMO aspect of course, which is probably the main draw anyhow.
I would like to say that I fully agree with the Fallout fanboys: Games should just be more of the same. They should never change genres, or try to innovate within their realm at all. They should just be more of the same.
Like Castle Wolfenstein. It was a good solid top-down game where you moved the hero around carefully sneaking by Nazis with timed pattern marches. Damn fine stuff, along with its sequel. But the third version? Look what the company wants to turn it into. Now you ‘see’ from the point of view of the hero and now much figure out the maze from within! How can I do that? I tell you its a plan that will lead nowhere fast.
Now another fine game that is gonna be ruined is Grand Theft Auto. Parts 1 & 2 were great, with their top-down view of the cars and crashing. You couldn’t beat that! Now they want to turn this excellence into you running and driving around a whole city, with other cars & characters and such. What is this? Dungeons & Dragons? There’s another game design that will come to nothing worthwhile.
Didn’t you just describe GTA 1&2?
Innovation is one thing, but when it comes to a series of games fans should be able to rely on a sequel being similar enough to the previous games to still be to their tastes. Final Fantasy has had innovations in every single incarnation while maintaining a style of play (we’ll pretend XI doesn’t exist for this). If FFXIII turned out to be an FPS, I would think that fans would have a right to be pissed.
Wolfenstein 3D was not billed as Further Beyond Castle Wolfenstein and if it was you would be certain that the people who liked the first two games wouldn’t be happy if a game company announced that they were making a sequel to Castle Wolfenstein except instead of a stealth explorer it would be a shooter. Grand Theft Auto maintained the same play style with the transition from 2d to 3d, but if they announced Grand Theft Auto 3 was going to be a straight up racing game then the fans of the series would have complained quite a bit.
Well, go back and read my post again.
I’d buy your hypothetical game and love it and sing its praises, but it wouldn’t be “Fallout.” That wouldn’t diminish my enjoyment of your hypothetical game, but I’d still want more “Fallout.”
I’m not raging aginst Bethesda and I’m not biting the hand that feeds me, I’m just saying don’t call your product “X” when “X” is accepted by me and many others to mean a specific kind of experience.
Well, the new concept art on the homepage has given me a little hope. At least they seem to have the atmosphere pretty correct.
Wolfenstein 3D wasn’t billed as a sequel to Castle Wolfenstein? Do you have a cite for that?
Regardless, I’m sure “certain people” were not thrilled by the change, but the whole point of this thread is that those “certain people” need to shut the fuck up and get over it, so I’m not sure of the relevance of that observation.
I have to go on memory here since my old game magazines are boxed, but this is the pit.
There wasn’t really any advanced promotion. Id at that point was publishing through Apogee who was a shareware game publisher They had a minor hit with the Commander Keen games but no one really promoted shareware games at that point.
My point was that Mr. Miskatonic’s broad statements about people complaining about change was completely irrelevant in the context of the examples given. No one complained about those like Fallout 3 because they weren’t even remotely comparable situations.
And in fact, I might well buy an honest FPS Fallout game (especially if it had some RPG elements). I’d just prefer they’d split into its own line (cough Fallout Tactics, Fallout Brotherhood of Steel cough). But I know if they do that to a full on Fallout game, we’ll never get it back.