An utterly brilliant critique of Beth and FO76

[zanity]

Note- this forum is titled "GENERAL fallout 76 discussion". There is a reason (that most of you are in denial of) that The Nexus does not have fo76 mod support forums.

 

Anyway a new, lovingly crafted masterwork video has published on Youtube. Don't know the author- don't recall having seen his other stuff- but ALL peeps with any interest in Bethesda and/or Fallout/Elder Scrolls need to watch it.

 

Author: Camelworks

Vid Title: Fallout 76- A SCARY window into the future of bethesda game studios.

 

Search for it on Youtube. I have no doubt if the content were posted here, it would be thread locked in a hearbeat by moderators who are connected with Bethesda more than the site they are supposed to moderate.

 

Todd Howard's BIGGEST problem is that sane rational predictive criticism of Fallout 76 comes from people who loved Beth games up to Fallout 4- thought Fallout 4 (without mods) a poor effort- and are horrified by Fallout 76. They are also people aware that Fallout 76 was the biggest and most expensive game (by a truly astonishing degree) that Howard has ever produced.

 

This Youtube video, in the most wonderful way, looks at and dissects all the real problems with Fallout 76 from the POV of a player who has played Beth product from Morrowind onward. It is the form of opinion allowed no voice on the two subreddits directly controlled by Bethesda.

 

It is the BIGGEST and most literate fans of Beth's earlier games that are the target of Beth's current paid PR campaign of toxic trolling. In 1984, the 'sheep' bleat out in unison to drown out the voices of rational criticism of the policies of the big bosses (some of the 'pigs'). Today that Orwellian tactic attempts to eliminate critics of Todd Howard's 'game as a service', microtransactions for ever, corporate focus.

 

The TRICK used by the paid PR agencies is to say critics are trying to silence the voice of people who say "regardless, I like Fallout 76". Well the poor damaged Human who has a tendency to smash his/her head against a wall, because they are addicted to the chemicals released when the brain is thusly damaged, 'LIKE' what they do- and as a result padded helmets have to be forced onto the heads of such people to save them against their own damaged instincts. A minority of people can literally like ANYTHING. But this fact never justifies closing down rational voices who explain why a thing is bad.

 

This Youtube video is another voice saying the same thing. Why, when earlier Beth games were so popular AND financially successful, and the entertainment they provided innocent and uncontroversial, should we passively accept the idea that such games can never again be made in the future- in order to serve the ideal of loot boxes (yes, Zenimax has lootboxes in many current games) and microtransactions.

 

I had a thread here (well on the Fallout 4 forum) LOCKED for pointing out FO76 was likely going free-2-play. Why was that thread locked again? Every industry expert now accepts Fallout 76 is going F2P in record time. Anyone who had paid attention to that post would have saved themselves the 60 dollars/50 quid on a game currently discounted by 76% in the UK. But it was locked because BETHESDA wanted it locked.

 

The Camelworks video is exactly the type of content that is Kryptonite to corporations. Because it LAUDS the original direction of a corporation, and only attacks the current cynical management and their current strategies. And the corporation knows that in order to demonise such critics, it has to state that what the corporation did in the past was BAD, non-ideal, foolish, a passing trick to get to the current place.

 

Yet what is the 'crime' of people like Camelworks? It is speaking in DEFENSE of the modern open world RPG - especially such games thaty can be heavily modded after release to merge a corporate vision with a player vision. A game that has a AAA full price ticket price that pays for an experience that is wholly without further cost down the road as free mods extend its existence.

 

Here's the real issue tho. Most of the world has moved on- written Beth off (correctly) as another wholly failed publisher- and will never waste even a breath on the subject again. The last people in the room are the 'fanboys' who bought FO76, don't care how bad it is, and will move on when sated, and people like myself and Camelworks who think the massive fanbase of Elder Scrolls and Fallout should at least try to save the genre of game they love.

 

In America they have to, by Law, publish what a corporation spends to 'buy' the support of a politician. On average, this figure is NOT millions, hundreds or even tens of thousands of dollars. On average it is mere THOUSANDS for a corporation to get a given politician to vote the way they want. This is how corporations crush democracy- in other words the voices and opinions of you and I. Todd Howard feels he has the absolute right to spend Zenimax money to crush the opposition to his current strategy whever those voices may be found.

 

Ultimately, THIS is what makes Fallout 76 so dangerous. In order to promote it, Howard has to re-write history- to make it seem the fans of older games were defective and/or imaginary. To wage PR warfare on everything a fallout 3 and skyrim fan represents.

 

And he is aided by the handful of gamers who genuinely like Fallout 76, for any person who likes a thing tends to hate and/or resent critics of that thing.

 

I know this industry. The problem at Beth is not the coders (who are frankly well below industry average), artists or other rockface craftspeople. The problem is Todd Howard and his little circle of 'special' people - and their relationship with the bullies that own Zenimax. While Todd Howard keeps his job and position, it is systemically IMPOSSIBLE for Zenimax to turn out a 'Starfield' as most of you imagine, even if Howard was not now obssessed with microtransaction revenue.

 

Under Howard's leadership, Beth is way too technically incompetent to do open world games on the current generation of computer- and exponentially less able to do open world games on the coming PS5 and Xbox 2 level of hardware. Fallout 76 REPLACED the release of YEARS in dev hell Starfield precisely because after 3 years Starfield was going nowhere, whereas doing a multi-player version of Fallout 4 seemed as easy as falling off a log at the time.

 

But in the end, Fallout 76 was the most technically incompetent AAA release the industry has ever witnessed- despite the game having almost zero game mechanisms, having already been pared down to the bone.

 

Todd Howard threw the ENTIRE resources of Bethesda at Fallout 76, which is why the DEAD INACTIVE world (land) is so good- but in every other respect the combined power of Beth failed harder than any other massive team in AAA gaming history. And Starfield is ONE HUNDRED times more difficult than Fallout 76 (needing wholly new everything).

 

We fans of Fallout and Elder Scrolls need to be much BIGGER in our thinking- looking to encourage and support projects at every possible publisher and dev team. I now expect NOTHING from Todd Howard's Bethesda, but Beth is just a fraction of this industry. But advancing tech allows even small dev teams to potentially take on projects in the vein we adore- if only they can find away to allow modders to do the 'heavy lifting' that is otherwise too expensive for a smaller budget. Hopefully in a few years time, Nexus is supporting dozens of such projects.

[LadyMilla]

To save readers of this topic the trouble of having to search for it on Youtube, here is the Video zanity mentioned in his original post:

 

 

 

[Deleted3423134User]

Okay, we get it, you don't like Fallout 76.

[TheFriendlyBandit]

I do have some very serious and legitimate criticisms of 76 and the direction Bethesda is going in, as well as the direction of the industry in general. Absolutely. But I think a far more worrisome sign of the growing rift in gaming subculture are 'gamers' like zanity here who treat a game in their favourite series being released that they don't like with the same gravity and severity as the Government abolishing democracy.

[Groogo]

Fallout 76 is such a buggy release Bethesda should be ashamed of themselves for damn near stealing thousands of people's money. I hope that they will improve the game thru patching to make it way more playable. But I will still be going to work every morning hopefully with weekends off :smile:

Edited December 18, 2018 by Groogo

[Tidus44]

Fallout series synopsis

 

 

Fallout 3 - where's my dad?

 

Fallout 4 - where's my son?

 

Fallout 76 - where's my refund?

[TheFriendlyBandit]

And honestly, that's fair. At every turn Bethesda has dropped the ball on this one, and mishandled almost every decision. It is fine to point those things out. But zanity here has been on some hate-fueled crusade for weeks now, and saying everything from 'you're stupid if you like the game even the slightest' to 'if you still don't hate Bethesda as much as I do, you're part of a literal brain-washed cult'. I'm paraphrasing here, but that's what these six paragraph long screeds sum up to. And he doesn't even have the balls to defend his argument, he just moves on and starts a new thread or hijacks someone else's whenever someone challenges him.

[Numbnumb]

Zanity has put this "game"? into perspective. I have loved the Fallout games and thought this would be the same quality as Fallout 4. It is an extreme disappointment to me. I feel like I was robbed of my money. I am on a fixed income and a cancer survivor so I have to make game purchases carefully. But this one! I feel like they stole my money and don't give a flying crap!

[TheGadget1945]

I'm Level 107 and coping with the limitations of the game but generally having a ball. I think it is really sad that this individual has nothing to do but write endless screeds attacking a game he doesn't even play. For gods sake move on with your life.

[ZeroAndOne]

Yes, but bring up anything like this on the Official Forums and it will get trolled no matter how new or good the video was. What's up with that? If the game is a known bad quanity, mentioning that only starts a griefing trollfest about it. It doesn't even matter if the video has good things in it. If you watched the Camelworks it was mixed half good & half bad.

 

This video or any video posted at the official forums are described by other users to be "Clickbait". Do you think they believe that this isn't known quanity at this point? Maybe they don't want to hear it? Is it just a trolly young 10 year old with a keyboard or phone thing? Try your luck. Go visit and see if it even works on Firefox/Mozilla. Experience how official forums is?

 

 

 

*Edit* What if it was me. I watched YouTube videos, and all those videos are just trying to grab views/likes/bells on family friendly content that will get them paid as it relates to the gain in populairty of news bias toward negative/bad that relates to more people consuming it.

Edited January 22, 2019 by ZeroAndOne