The next Fallout will be Double Plus Good.

[JuJooGuppy]

As people have pointed out, a vast majority of gamers want shiny graphics, and thus it becomes a focal point of the dev's unfortunately. Hell, people went off on FO4 for its underwhelming visuals for quite awhile. I don't find the visuals bad at all, but unfortunately the story content is severely lacking, which given the graphics are "dated", I had somewhat expected more story to enjoy. Afterall, these games are SUPPOSED to be built around story.

[RS13]

If zanity's right,

 

Lolz.

Edited June 24, 2016 by RS13

[midtek]

 

Apologizing for how I felt? Really? How deliciously dismissive. You get to make it my fault. You insult me and it's my fault. You REALLY are good. However, i choose to ignore your insulting non-apology and I am moving on.

Please consider; I am angry, I have a neckbeard, and I don't like the phrase. In the future you may refer to me as an OLD FART. Angry Neckbeard just has too many hard consonants.

 

And I (and the rest of us old farts) have more impact on the market than you seem to understand. I will grant that approximately 70% of the gamers playing are between 16 - 25. But there is an interesting statistic that gets ignored, 9-12% of games are bought for little Suzie or Johny by grandparents. Additionally, 8-11% of gamers are over 50 years of age and we buy our own games. Granting crossover, the conservative number is that us old farts make up 15-20% of the market that actually buys games. So please reconsider your comments about the impact that us old farts have on the market.

 

Finally, I am not a game developer. You tell me that developing "story" is more difficult than than developing landscapes and buildings and NPC's, so I have to believe you. Maybe you all could explain in excruciating detail why that is. Oh ok, keep it simple for the noob.

 

 

Ok, first, what about my feeling? When guys like zantiy keep talking fun of a game saying it's a garbage and no WORKS WERE INVOLVED which was a work of thousands hours of men in my field? You necessarily have to put humor on it. If you take all those things seriously, you go hospital. At least fans never get criticized by their achievements. Why don't they reveal their jobs so I can simply put words 'hoho, not good at the job because it doesn't meet my appetite'.

I will never do it. Because I know how it feel.

Please. It is Internet. You don't take things seriously or otherwise it eats yourself up. I really have no offense to you.

About the old farts, tartar already linked fine articles about that matter. The traditional belief, or let say a common belief, that fans help the development is not always true. Actually, some companies manipulate such belief to keep customers while providing things like 20+ itempacks which are invented to suck their blood. If you are an unsatisfied fan, stop buying the products. I sincerely recommend that way.

Fans influence is much smaller than beta testers during the development. Of course we constantly do research what 'all' customers want. Niche elements which hardcore genre fans tend to offer usually don't go on the list. We just do as what researches say.

Plus, saying someone a fan doesn't mean he's always a fan. It seems many fans are the fans of their urge to meet in their game. What kind of fans say they want to see our company go bankrupt because they didn't like few stuffs? I have seen those more than twice but they were still disposing themselves as fans. That's where Angry Bear humor comes in. You must put humor or you go suicide. zanity is actually a good-natured person because I have seen worse.

About the story development, I don't know how Beth Studio inside works so I cannot represent them. I will put my experience short. Chief writers are always busy to their necks running three games at once. Other writers, the members keep change like seasons. We make reserve list of which story parts will be cut-off first during the development and whenever more deadline-cuts come. Parts get buried and altered during the complicated development and by constant demands from the outside.

More and more the game being materialized, more demands are made to appeal to certain targets.

Bigger guys go through hard times listening and repelling investors. You never saw some lists what investors had offered. At least we feel less guilty because we don't sell addictive games to children. When some fans want more addictive games.

I won't put all the details. We fight against the odds. Fans do no, or cannot, help us. There are only customers, including all fans and sweet worst enemies, help us by sales and answer surveys and make short appreciations like 'thanks'. Or by sending dramatic stories which fill us up, make us put more proud on work next time.

I just went three years of hard time in this field and learnt to be generous to others and their works. While I hope others do the same, but still lets not get mad over things fun intended. It is Internet after all.

[Royhr]

You have to wonder just how much longer game developers will actually develop games for PCs. Everything seems to be driven for the consoles and that 16 - 25 age window. Remember these developers only care about profit which is of course their right. After all it is just a business. So just how many new PC games will there be when the 2020's rolls around? All of us PC users will probably be stuck playing heavily modded Fallouts and Skyrims. Hopefully mod authors will still be creating good quest mods at that time..... :sad:

[TeamBacon]

I think you guys are looking through a very, very narrow window if you think that the big picture of the game industry is any less story driven than it was years ago.

 

There are a select few games from the past that had great stories, but the history of games as a whole is one of poor stories or no emphasis on stories at all.

 

 

 

'Walking Simulators' are actually a thing now. Not for AAA studios really, but for these smaller developers or indie studio that release in 5 episodes on Steam and such. Games that don't have stellar graphics or complex game mechanics, games that exist simply to tell a story. Some of them are great and use the mechanics of the game to engage you into the story, while others just feel like bad interactive movies.

 

The point I am trying to make is not that they are all good, because they aren't, but that there are studios out there that are far more story based than graphics and gameplay based.

 

 

 

The trend that I do see is a step away from the 'fill in the blank with your own role playing' throwback to the 'pen and paper' rpg days. For some people that is a travesty, and I understand your disappointment. I however am glad because I have a slightly different personal preference for role playing.

Edited June 24, 2016 by TeamBacon

[NorthWolf]

Can't we just go the Final Fantasy route and have an option in the menus that allows you to have the entire conversation system automated? It's easy, you just have two options: "Auto-Paragon" and "Auto-Renegade". Maybe a third for popularity's sake: "Auto-Sarcasm". Maybe we can even implement auto-VATS.

Edited June 25, 2016 by NorthWolf

[Rabbit1251]

Gee, I can hardly wait to rebuild New York bolt by bolt. What gaming fun!!

 

 

The Rabbit

[midtek]

I think story quality depends on the view you arrange to yourself. You can enjoy french art films and B minus at the same time when you look from different windows. I try to set my view to the exact level of the contents so I don't get suffered by the lack of elements. But yeah, I agree mainstream game stories get easily overrated especially when cinematic scenes are involved. I guess that's another proving point that visual takes the upper hand in the games.

[kraag]

The '1984' thread title reference sucked me in and the delightful conversation kept me reading. Thanks Nexus.