Is Obsidian actually full of different people now?

What they released before New Vegas is much better than what was released after New Vegas. So i fail to see the point of bringing that up.

The way i see it, before New Vegas they were a company that were constantly improving, even if their games came out unfinished. After New Vegas, they are now content in releasing at best decent shit that is still far below than what they were releasing before New Vegas.

So anyone that thinks they will suddenly make a good Fallout game because it's a Fallout game are fooling themselves.

 

I'll do you one up: since Bethesda will never let Obsidian make another Fallout game, ever, I fail to see the point of this thread altogether.

There, we can all return to our daily activities.

 

You still responded to it.

 

Yeah, but consider the following factor:

MONEY.

The fanbase has been wanting another Obsidian Fallout for a decade. It's about the only thing the Classic Fallout fanbase and the NuFallout fanbase agree on. The fanbase is also simply starved of Fallout content.

There's also the fact we will likely not get another main entry Fallout until the end of this decade. Bethesda is all Starfield now, and then TES VII. No single-player Fallout until the end of this gen? Preposterous.

We also know Microsoft has been swinging their big money dick around on a mission to turn Gamepass into the Netflix of Games, and its bigger than Long Dick Johnson's dick. The biggest, probably. And its not going to go down until it stands erect and tall above all others. A newly released Obsidian Fallout would help towards that.

Me when I saw the FNV trailer on primordial age youtube: "Meh its not going to be good, Fallout is dead. I have accepted it."

Me when I played Fallout New Vegas: "This is like Fallout 3... but AWESOME and has the soul of Fallout in it. I can feel it in my bones. WHAT THE FUCK! I MISSED YOU! FALLOUT IS BACK!"

 

Good, the longer it takes Bethesda to make Fallout games, the better.

If anything, i want the franchise to permanently die when it comes to new official releases and let the fans make the games like they have doing with the Fallout 1 and 2 mods.

 

Do they still have a say in it?

What disconcerts about both of those two is that they have worked at other companies since Interplay & Troika; likely having been trained out of the wonderful bad habits that made them capable of a game like Fallout. Last I heard, Tim Cain was exploring non-numeric character stats because modern players are intimidated by numbers:
IE.

Sawyer would ensure that the starter knife is just as viable in the middle and end-game as the rocket launcher.

 

You said that it was well received by Bethesda userbase, as in fans of Oblivions, Fallout 3, New Vegas (mostly), and Skyrim. But like I said, Bethesda relies on hype(r) marketing scheme, seemingly to ensure there's a steady or even large amount of newcomers, either newcomers to the Fallout series, newcomers to RPGs, or even newcomers to gaming in general. With each releases, they left their *actual* userbase in the dirt, as they unnecessarily remove features from their previous works, ensuring the utmost comfort for newcomers who's playing a game from the series, a game of the genre, or even gaming for the first time.

Eh, measuring them up from the mainstream angle is probably looking from the improper point of view here. I think it's suffice to say that Obsidian's intended products has always been RPGs, or even more specifically cRPGs as we could garner from the game(s) they tried to make with the help of crowdfunding. Meaning, their target markets has always been solidly niche, despite their upper management's intention to try and breakthrough to the mainstream.

Now, this is obviously a long story that others has already told, especially when it comes to the company's ability in ensuring technically stable launch. Their only releases who has anything to do with the mainstream would be Star Wars, Fallout (and only because Bethesda successfully introduced the 'IP' to the masses with Fallout 3), and probably South Park. That's 3 games, and as has been said they managed to reach the mainstream in the way they probably hoped for the rest of their games. Other than that, the only release that they probably put more eggs into the basket would probably be The Outer Worlds, and as far as I know the reception to it up until this point can be summarized with a flat, "Meh."

My point here is that dismissing that entirety of this genre's niche as a 'cult following' is probably downplaying the size of the actual audience, however niche and small it is compared to the mainstream. It's the ancient tale of trying to sell a product that has always been made for a specific type of buyers, but you altered that product because you want to attract different(!) and not just new(!) types of buyers. What does that has anything to do with the current condition of Obsidian Entertainment? Well, isn't it as simple as familiarity with the market condition, niches and all? Tim's experience in the other fields of the industry, together with the point that video games as a medium has reached, probably altered his own views on how to design RPGs and games in general, as evidenced by his talk at Reboot Develop 2017. I don't know much about Leonard Boyarsky since I didn't kept tabs on him as much, but I'd imagine his views and mindset are pretty much in line with that of Cain's. Sawyer is.... I'm not entirely sure, since his reputation on his obsession with balance precedes him. He seemed like a cool guy when I read his old Tumblr posts, and what mindset he's going with jsawyer mod for New Vegas, but that's about it. As we all know, people changes, unlike war...

I think you're being a little bit too nonchalant and downplaying this. They're not just 'some talented people who left the company'. What do you think happened to Fallout 2 after Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky, and Jason Anderson left Interplay/Black Isle? I'm pretty sure we're all familiar with the sayings, of how talented/learned individuals are worth more than 10/100/1000 beginners, or things like that. Normally, before a veteran left a company, they would've helped the beginners learn the rope. In the specific case of Obsidian, however, it doesn't seem the talents left on a good term. MCA is probably the one and only example here, but I remember there being some spicy things he laid out bare during his May of Rage. And then there's John Gonzales; I don't know the circumstances surrounding his leaving the company, but after the success of New Vegas, wouldn't one think to keep him around? Unless, of course, his time with the company just come to an end, then there's really nothing anyone could do about it. Still, with how people are leaving Obsidian, either on their own will or due to layoffs, seems kinda preach to the choir of MCA's revelation; that they have horrible managements, which has a trace from as far back as Interplay/Black Isle. Remember that even MCA insists that these things (the layoffs) didn't happen because of them being denied of the bonus due to New Vegas's Metacritic score; it happened because of their bad management, among other things.
Yeah, people changes, a company is a company and thus it all does seems like this is how things go. But I'm not sure if that's enough to properly explain and summarized what happened with Obsidian in particular.

What would you say are the criteria of "as good as New Vegas" here? What's your parameters?

I don't think I get what you're saying here. Are you sure that *no one* had *any reason* to think New Vegas was going to be "that" good?

Let us say we ignore many parameters related to technicalities when talking about how good a game is, since it's what Obsidian used to be (and probably still is) notoriously known for. That is; bugs, glitches, optimization, etc etc. So, again, what parameters are now left to say that New Vegas turned out to be as good as that is? Whatever that is, too?

 

What makes the "no one believed New Vegas was going to be that good" more nonsensical to me is the fact that several people that worked on it worked on Fallout 2. So of course people believed it was going to be good because Fallout 2 is good.

This history revisionism is honestly annoying as shit.

 

I don't think this is the case.
They rely on hype marketing for sure, but to say that each single game left the previous userbase in the dirt is a lie. At least the way I understand your post (i.e. Morrowind fans hated Oblivion, Oblivion fans hated Skyrim, Skyrim fans hated Fallout 4).

In my opinion? Yes.

Fallout 3 wasn't hated just because of its writing. It was hated because of how bad the gameplay was.

I would say that I don't think New Vegas, vanilla New Vegas (even if just using unofficial patches and nothing else) is a good game. That's because Fallout 3 was bad, and New Vegas is pretty much Fallout 3 but with better writing, but in an even more boring worldspace.

New Vegas' faction system is something that I don't think anyone ever expected Obsidian to pull off. I think it's the only truly good thing about the game, and even that I think is fairly overrated as the different faction paths are all... very similar, when you get down to them, telling you to do the same quests but from a different perspective (blow up the monorail instead of saving it, kill Kimball instead of saving him and then again only if you are Legion, as three out of four paths require you to save him). Legion content is notoriously missing, and this is on Obsidian and no one else (as they already knew how much time they had to make the game, so it was a matter of managing it better).

Anyone could have expected New Vegas to be closer to classic Fallout in writing, but I don't think anyone expected Obsidian to deliver that faction system, which (again) I believe is the thing that makes New Vegas most memorable.

Of course, if we go back to what I said earlier:

Fallout 3 wasn't hated just because of its writing. It was hated because of how bad the gameplay was.

Then you could say, "you never expected New Vegas to be good" (nevermind I played both games after they had already been released, heh). And yeah, if I could forget everything about New Vegas, I could tell you "there's no way a company is going to turn Fallout 3 into a good game with just 18 months of dev time". There's just too many things wrong with Fallout 3's and Bethesda's development philosophy for that to happen. Obsidian would have needed to start from scratch and build an entirely different game, with no ties to Fallout 3, as opposed to a glorified Fallout 3 total conversion with better writing.

 

Why would this (specifically) be relevant? These are (ostensibly) different game series. Compare instead, FO4 with FO3, and note the omissions, and massive mainstreaming.

Mechanically...Bethesda projects appear to follow a pattern of aggressive simplification over time.

They would seem to have a very poor —though possibly accurate— opinion of their target audience.

 

Isn't this the forum where people refer to Fallout 3 as "Oblivion with guns"?
Fallout and The Elder Scrolls have way too many similarities nowadays, to the point people can happily jump from one franchise to the other, provided the setting isn't uninteresting to them. Many people don't care about post-apocalyptic settings, just like many others don't care about fantasy settings. But if they are okay with both, and they like the gameplay of one franchise, they will probably like the other franchise too.

And not because the gameplay mechanics themselves are similar, but because these people play Bethesda games for their "freedom", which not many RPGs on the market offer.

 

That was the prediction, long before it was proven correct.



*I have read that the world space (in the engine files) is still even called Tamriel in FO3. They would appear to have blatantly re-skinned Oblivion as the basis for FO3.

This is the core problem, and why Interplay management was so idiotic to sell it to them. This was both predictable, and preventable; unconscionable.

 

It's sad that (meme creatures aside) that image is a more appealing Fallout 3 than Fallout 3 ended up being...

 

I don't mean that they completely ditched each of their previous fanbase, that would be the extreme end of the spectrum. But you can't deny that subsequent dumbing down definitely turned off a huge chunk of the actual userbase they've built up until the moment before they released a new game. But, like said, I could see why the userbase built by Skyrim would be more welcoming of the changes happened to Fallout 4, because it was already quite diluted at that point (and somehow Bethesda finds a way to dilute it even further). A huge chunk of Fallout 3's fans, though, were actually disappointed; I remember seeing a lot of new members to this forum proclaimed so, and a lot of comments over at Steam reviews and Youtube videos also preached to the choir.

Actually, both are hated; the gameplay might be salvageable with mods (most especially Tale of Two Wastelands), but no amount of mods could ever hope to fix the shitty writings. Sure, in retrospect after the release of Fallout 4, 3's writing seems acceptable (The Pitt deserves a honorable mention), but shit is shit, no matter how you try to coat it with gold.

For some reason this statement reads vaguely like those dumbasses dismissing New Vegas as merely Fallout 3 total conversion mod, complete with the "it has an empty map" argument. I'm not even sure where you're going with this; what does your perception of the quality comparison between Fallout 3 and New Vegas has anything to do with the way Obsidian is compared to now and then? Are you insinuating that Obsidian has never been good, that people shouldn't be surprised at this point?

Except the faction system was adapted from Fallout 2; yes, Fallout 2 has a similar system, but since the game's focus is on something else, it was quite rough on the edges and doesn't really do anything (with the exception of, apparently, Sulik refusing to join if reputation in Klamath is negative). It wasn't until New Vegas that the factional reputation does something: https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Fallout:_New_Vegas_reputations

Spoiler

Meanwhile, the issue you have with the game's questline in relation to the factions, seems kinda nitpicky. I've seen similar complains regarding Fallout 1.5: Resurrection, specifically with Rat Hole and Corath's questline. The thing about this isn't the quest design per se, more like overarching narrative problem (that is, *IF* you see it as a problem). Honestly, I don't see anything wrong with this; when you have an overarching narrative involving different factions pitted against each other with one thing and one thing only put at the stake, it only makes sense that you see the exact same thing, but from a different perspective, i.e. "the other side". Age of Decadence did more or less the same thing, albeit a whole lot more elaborate, with different starting quest and continuation based on the faction you currently joined (and an extra bonus of opportunities to stab them in the back).

Once again, you lost me with this kind of statement/argument.

1. Rehashing the plot of Fallout 1&2, mishmashing them into an abominable, fanfic-tier version of the stories of those two classic games
2. The absolute stupidity of the worldbuilding, from the lack of sustainability; a shanty town made around a still active nuclear bomb (which isn't wrong in and of itself, except people who lives around it was supposed to be 'normal' and not some crazed post-apocalypse cult); a bunch of trading caravans coming to and from absolutely nowhere at all; 200 years and for some reason there are still canned goods and stuff?; there's slavery, but there doesn't seem to be anyone actually buying from them; Little Lamplight; etc etc
3. Mothership Zeta
4. Instead using GECK to restart civilization like Vault 8 did with Vault City, they used it power up an oversized water purifier; in a setting where absolutely no one has any problem with clean water with an exception of... two bums, each placed conveniently in front of the major 'settlement'
5. Oh yeah, speaking of that goddamn water purifier, when turning it on, despite the fact that it was heavily radiated inside, the potential companion(s?) immune to radiation somehow refused to do the job, because it's your destiny (lol)
6. Tenpenny Tower, and the absolute retardation of getting trashtalked by 3dog if you don't let the ghouls in, or get your asslicked if you do so let them in, only for the ghouls to kill everyone inside the tower anyway. Oh, and don't forget, that they want to activate the bomb in Megaton, "because it ruins the view" (of an absolute shithole that somehow unable to recover after 200 years)
7. What they did to Harold
8. Did I mentioned Mothership Zeta?
9. Liberty Prime (everyone probably would see this coming, fresh after Oblivion, but my entry to Bethesda games was Skyrim, continued by this abomination of a game)
10. And many, many, many more

For someone who've been mingling in this forum AND RPG Codex, you're...absolutely ignorant of what everyone has been saying all these times, huh?

I think I see the problem with your arguments here; at least in relation to Obsidian. You seem to forget, or maybe even conveniently ignored, the background of Obsidian at the time they developed New Vegas. I remembered seeing people regards the company as the Interplay/Black Isle reborn (aside from inXile, maybe). These are the exact same people who made Fallout 2; Chris Avellone and even Feargus Urquhart, more specifically. I remembered reading Sawyer having a hand in Fallout 2's development, but that was my memory messing with me; however, the fact that he joined only a mere year since Fallout 2's release, I would assume he played it, learned what went wrong with the development, and then putting all those into practice many years later when they (miraculously) gotten a chance to develop a Fallout game. Even ignoring all these, doesn't it only makes sense for them to go and play the previous entries, including even the abomination that is Fallout 3? And even then, considering that they were Interplay/Black Isle reborn, isn't it only makes sense for them to try and make a proper sequel to Fallout 2? Especially with Van Buren's design doc having been written (albeit I'm not sure if it's, by any means, 'completed'). Yeah, they definitely wouldn't be able to completely, thoroughly, and truly, adapt Fallout 1&2's design philosophy up to the 1:1 scale, considering the fundamental difference between turn-based vs. real-time action gameplay. Not to mention they have to communicate with Bethesda, AND keep the newcomers to the series in mind.

In the end, I still couldn't get what you truly mean by New Vegas "turning out to be that good." The faction system? Adapted from Fallout 2. They have MCA and Feargus on board, both were prominent individuals of Fallout 2's development, alongside whoever was carried over to Obsidian from Interplay/Black Isle; no matter how we're seeing this, they've had the experience of making a proper Fallout game under their belt. For all the faults found in Fallout 2, they managed to exercised one of humanity's imminent quality, which is learning from mistakes (something that Bethesda has yet to properly learn). Hell, for all we know they may've even gotten in touch with the man, the former myth, the former legend himself, Tim Cain, behind the scene.

So, what gives? Alright, as you mentioned; Fallout 3, and Bethesda's design philosophy in general. Still, your last statement, as I mentioned before, absolutely reeks of dismissing New Vegas as merely a glorified total conversion to Fallout 3. I can see that sentiment coming from either the classical games purist, or some Bethestards refusing to play anything that's not Bethesda's glorified walking simulators. But I can't see you in the purist end of the spectrum (especially since I fancy myself as one, despite the fact that Fallout 3 was actually my first 'Fallout game' ew ), and honestly, I think I know you enough to not be on the other end of the spectrum.

 

I can. I don't think that's the case at all. It would imply that the majority of the fanbase of every new game they release consists of entirely new users, and I simply don't buy that. Hype marketing only gets you so far.

Yes, this is what I said.

Is it a dumbass argument, though?

New Vegas would be a Fallout 3 total conversion mod, if not because it's an official release. It's the same basic gameplay, the same reuse of assets, the obvious differences that come with a total conversion mod.

It's why it was poorly received by many people: they expected Fallout 4, but they received a Fallout 3 spin-off of sorts (for many classic fans, however, New Vegas was the actual Fallout 3, or at least an attempt to be one).

Of course, my mistake was saying that people had no reason to think New Vegas was going to be "that good", mistakenly implying I thought New Vegas was good to begin with. Because depending on what your standards are, you had reasons to think New Vegas was going to be good, or not.

If you are content with Fallout 3 but with better writing and slightly improved gameplay, sure, New Vegas was going to be "good".

I'm not talking about basic reputations, but how your alliances with the major factions (NCR, Legion, House) affect the main quest.

I don't think it's nitpicky at all. I'm much less likely to replay the game for the sake of choosing a different faction, if I can already expect what their side of the quest will be like.

You decided to go on a rant about why Fallout 3's writing is bad... you didn't have to. I know it's bad. I said that people also hated it's gameplay. You know they are not incompatible opinions, right?

The last three paragraphs I addressed earlier about how I think New Vegas being "good" is entirely subjective, even if you think the game is better than Fallout 3.

 

That's an International Women's Day post. This is the dev team that showed up to Game Awards 2019

Spoiler

60% men.

 

But that's the reality. How do you explain the ever increasingly amount of their audience? There's a reason why they not only went all out on hype marketing; they ALSO dumbed down each subsequent games, and it worked. If this is not the case, how do you explain the extrapolating numbers indicated on Steamdb? I'm talking strictly Fallout 3 GOTY edition, Skyrim, and Fallout 4, because Oblivion seems to be too old to have a data in there. There's a humongous increase with each release, going from Fallout 3 to Skyrim the estimated owners went from 3.5m all the way to 18.5m. From Skyrim to Fallout 4 doesn't seem to be as big, with the latter estimated to be owned by 24m people, but we're just talking about PC here; I'm pretty sure the number is even more humongous when we start including consoles.

I failed a [Reading Comprehension] check, apparently.

It IS a retarded argument, through and through. I'm not even going to bother elaborating on this; again, this dumbass argument is held by either the classic game purist, or a Bethestard. There's no in-between, unless you're bringing this up for the sake of simply making arguments.

Going from this statement alone, I'm confident enough to say that you're not even the classic game purist; because taking a shot at the game from the angle of "Fallout 3 but with better writing..." means you don't care enough for the fact that New Vegas is continuing the story of the classic game. Even objectively speaking, it's so strange for Bethesda to label their first Fallout game as 'Fallout 3' when it's not properly continuing the story of the previous games. So in all technicality, regardless of what people think, New Vegas IS Fallout 3.

And saying it only has 'slightly improved gameplay' reeks of downplaying what the game actually achieved, both in context of using Fallout 3's engine and gameplay mechanics, and in context of returning back to its roots as a post-nuclear role-playing game.

I wasn't talking about the basic reputations either, don't you see the screenshot I shared? That's the factional reputations. However, it seems like you're judging the main quest in a vacuum, without considering every other contents related to it.

But back to what I said before, it's the 'problem' with having an overarching narrative (and again, only if you see this as a problem). In retrospect, they could maybe offer some opportunities to stab your current employer in the back; in fact, several opportunities are already present, starting from exiting the Lucky 38 for the first time.

It's nitpicky because you're criticizing it on a very basic level. They decided to go with an overarching narrative, thus seemingly limiting themselves into a corner of having not give the players enough option. But that's where the side contents came in to offer more options and branches for that seemingly rigid overarching narrative. Hence why I'd say you can't judge the main quest in a vacuum, since the factional gameplay is an actual thing now (and not just seemingly tacked on like it was in Fallout 2), and having certain reputation with a faction will either open up or close an option in relation a quest. Thus, I'd say your expectations are rather unfounded.

Fortunately, we CAN judge these games from objective points of view, and thus we can come up with a conclusion where New Vegas being "good" is actually objective, if we're so inclined.

However, one thing still eludes me; what does the quality of New Vegas, either its actual quality or when compared to Fallout 3 (when really, it should've been compared to Fallout 1&2 instead), has anything to do with the current state of Obsidian Entertainment?