Bethesda

[Mudran]

I started to be a bit nostalgic with the latest departures of the main devs, so I decided to create this thread. It is clear that they lost the masterminds behind success of Skyrim and their previous titles, and eventhough I didn't always agree with their PR tactics, Pete Hines was part of Bethesda aswell and actually good in what he was doing. Also it is clear that Bethesda is now kind of "swallowed" by Microsoft so whatever their next game will be, if they even manage to create it, it will not be Bethesda I liked. 

There was a recent interview with Bruce Nesmith, which clarified a lot about what was happening there. My impression was that Todd started to be separated from his senior designers and consulted his ideas only with certain people, which lead to very limited and not that successful game designs, which is my main problem with their games after Skyrim. I don't mind bugs, outdated graphics, I actually liked most of Skyrim/Fallout 4 writing, but they were unable or unwilling to continue in their older roleplaying system designs like separated factions you can join exclusively, immersivity, attention to detail and eventhough partially it was still there, the combination with all the other systems didn't work that well, because of their new lead design, which was focused on a simplified action gameplay rather that the previous slower, immersive, choose your adventure mode. Also it seems like Todd also forgot who made his games successful, it is not just about having the right components.  

I didn't play Starfield and I don't intend to - I tried with Fallout 4, I bought the game because of modding and it was full of problems, and it seems to be even worse with Starfield, so my opinion will stay based on youtubers. 

 

 

 

[HeyYou]

YouTubers? HHhhmmmm.... Not sure I would base decisions on reviews I saw there... Those guys are just in it for the clicks.

Yeah, Beth started going more 'main stream' after morrowind, and it got worse and worse with each subsequent game. The went from making RPG's, to Action/Adventure games with some RPG elements... Still, fun games to play, in my opinion. Starfield continued that trend, with the addition of being OVERLY politically correct..... I can ignore it, but, due to that, the game is not nearly as good as it could have been.

[Mudran]

It seems like it was Emil's influence after all: 

 

I'm so upset.

The best part of this tweet is that it was Emil as lead writer, who rejected Kurt Kuhlmann RPG system for nordic gods and used imperial gods instead, then when players were wondering why it is not in the game they are bad now? Also when Bruce Nesmith said that Starfield should have been just a few planets in his interview which was the main suggestions by players, he calls them entitled? and the lead design was probably the reason why Bruce lelft Bethesda because they insisted on 1000 planets with loading screens, so Emil destroyed hard work of other devs and now he is talking about team work?

It was senior RPG designers who disgreed with him and he rejected it, instead he started to promote his - "the writing should be simple, stupid", which didn't matter to me before because I liked the writing, but it seems like it had bigger consequences.

Also I bet it is Call of duty Emil is buying every year, because he has proven he doesn't understand why all of those details are important in RPGs.

Also it really seems like it was Bruce and Kurt work what made me enjoing Skyrim and I would enjoy it even more if it wouldn't be streamlined. And with them gone, there is nobody left in Bethesda who would create RPGs. 

Well it doesn't matter, because with bigger monetization and bad game pass system Microsoft will have problems. I believe they shouldn't add big games which will last for a month, because they are too much expensive to offer it for free, but smaller games, you don't have money left to buy, so Microsoft will add more of microtransactions aswell. It is not good. 

 

 

 

[zixi]

On 12/1/2023 at 5:07 PM, Mudran said:

I tried with Fallout 4

Me too. Bought it... didn't get far. Guessed the ending and abandoned it (along with all hope). I did do New Vegas but I didn't enjoy that much either...

I agree with you; it is sad. It's always sad when enthusiasts start something off and then the suits move in. All they see is the coin. The problem is that some of the games were quite hard to play so if you're maximizing coin you need to pull in as many players as possible which means making compromises and quite often what gets dropped is what made it appealing for a section of the buyers.

2 hours ago, Mudran said:

Microsoft will have problems

I don't think I'll be crying over that any time soon. They'll weather it. They always have.

[363rdChemicalCompany]

Despite the bland main quest, due to the mods Fallout 4 will be  a game I will keep playing for years. There are some mods that turn the main quest off completely on day 1 for example.

Also there are so many more mods to try, I havent even tried sim settlement story lines yet.

I dont understand the subject well, but many modders say Starfield in the way it is set-up is diffcult to mod ( ie fix) and so will never get the attention Skyrim and Fallout got which is sad.

Sounds like this Emil guy is  a piece of work but it does not mean Beth will be forever broken. Other good writers will eventually appear and take over.

[zixi]

17 minutes ago, 363rdChemicalCompany said:

Emil guy is  a piece of work

And presumably not in a good way... 

Fallout 4 is 'lost' on me - as was the rest of the series. I did try - honestly. But I much prefer the sort of medieval feel of Skyrim and the zaniness of Morrowind. I'm glad you're having fun though. It's always nice when other people can 'see' something you can't 'see' yourself. 

 

edit - I know what it is BTW - I didn't enjoy living in the Fallout series and I didn't care what happened to anyone else there. I do really care what happens to people in Skyrim and MW. And I like living in both places. 

[RomanR]

1 hour ago, 363rdChemicalCompany said:

Sounds like this Emil guy is  a piece of work but it does not mean Beth will be forever broken. Other good writers will eventually appear and take over.

Sure, but question is how the rest of developers left or newcomers are capable to bring their ideas to reality. Even in Skyrim I felt unsatisfied how the leveling system works there for example and after I reached maximum level before "make this skill legendary" times I practically lost interest to play it further. For me it looks like their formula to make success is slowly but surely stopping to work. But Microsoft is a huge company and it developed games too. In worst case there can be ES 6 ... but not made by Bethesda.

[LenaWolfBravil]

1 hour ago, zixi said:

I know what it is BTW - I didn't enjoy living in the Fallout series and I didn't care what happened to anyone else there. I do really care what happens to people in Skyrim and MW. And I like living in both places.

I agree - this is the key point. Oblivion and Morrowind for me, but TES5 Skyrim already lost me...

[zixi]

53 minutes ago, LenaWolfBravil said:

Oblivion and Morrowind for me

I should have added Oblivion.  I feel sad now because I really care a great deal what happens to Martin and  Modryn Oreyn. There are others too, along the way whose lives feel important to me. But Fallout doesn't do that. I haven't tried Starfield and can't see myself doing it. The games I played to start with - for example Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 and Neverwinter Nights, had people in that were important to me. I didn't want anything to happen to them. And maybe then that became my expectation. But with Fallout, I wasn't engaged at that level. They never became any more than pixels I'm afraid... 

 

It's interesting isn't it what different people look for in a game?

 

[Mudran]

I was a bit harsh about the whole Emil vs Bethesda situation because of those tweets, I think the worst situation is always when people are not promoting creativity instead they are promoting their friends, who can be good as senior devs, but not as lead designers. And it seems like Todd was good as director, he was able to inspire people, but he wasn't really good in CRPGs or fantasy, so he was promoting similar people like him, that is why Bethesda games became more and more mainstream pure human "grounded" games without good RPG system design and bleeding talented people who didn't feel good in Bethesda. It seems like those few good writers they hired didn't have big impact. 

So when those old buddies who grew up with DnD and new devs who wanted to create the best game, who became desillusioned, left, it became more mediocre and still broken. 

Now I don't think even Todd will have enough of control over it anymore with Starfield bad reputation. Microsoft was never good in gaming area, so it seems like they have no good marketing concept. But even Bethesda softwork publishing went down, and didn't have good games anymore. Maybe once any studio is acquired all creative people would leave and the rest just don't care anymore. All of those people in Microsoft lead positions look as nongamers, corporate managers, and that is bad for Microsoft. Booty said he is over Skyrim, while never created any RPGs, so how he could understand it? 

Some devs said that it is also because of less of control when it will become too big. 

 

Sadly with all the darkness comming into this world, far worse than anything else, all of it feels like problems from another world and time now. I hope with all of those groups who want to destroy western world and culture it will not happen and we will be able to go back to care about games again.