Bruce Nesmith, who left Bethesda in 2021, knows a thing or two about rising expectations.
Pantsofmagic
link
fedilink
English
184M

It’s been a long time since 11-11-11.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
-7
edit-2
4M

They haven’t been working on it since then, if they did, they’ve already scrapped it and fired the old devs.

They’re developing games for modern audiences now, they’ll be adding a bard class, there’ll be a traveling circus prominently featuring throughout the story and with a tent near most major cities. And you’ll finally be able to play as a bearded midget lady. That’s what dwemer are now, they decided. A matriarchal bearded civilization whose ancient traditions led to modern circuses. And you have to help the Queen save the world from the Nazi Elves and alt-right Nords.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
74M

Why does none of this sound like it’d make a game bad, unless you’re hoping your fantasy RPG will own the libs?

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
34M

Because it sounds like they’d be ditching everything previous fans love about the universe and lore to hit a bunch of buzzwords. There is insane shit from older games that I’m sure will never see the light of day (unless a modder gets inspired) because Bethesda wants to sanitize and mass-marketize the world.

Will Elsweyr explore at all the fact there are effectively different species of Khajiit tied to under what combination of the phases of the dual moons the baby is born? Or will Bethesda just throw some big, gruff, talking tigers and some small, funny, talking house cats around and call it a day after putting in exactly one (1) version of each of those that inverts that mold?

Will the Mane be like this: https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Mane ? Or will he just be a Khajiit in LaCroix-level flavorings of Middle-Eastern adjacent clothing?

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
-34M

You are why they do these things to games.

Tear out the guts, replace them with industry standard parts and the most recent fad.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
24M

None of those things individually have any impact on the game. And none of them are likely to ever make it into a game by a company like Bethesda. The fact that you’re nitpicking these kinds of things, with no real basis, really makes you wonder the actual reasoning behind your post.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
-24M

Rewriting things like dwemer would have no impact.

Right.

Fuck you.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
24M

Holy shit dude go the fuck outside.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
14M

That’s where modern sequels are best experienced. At a distance, not dealing with them.

Dae
link
fedilink
English
114M

I’ve been saying this even before Bethesda went down the gutter. Everyone is pointing to their recent collosal failures like they wouldn’t still be disappointed even if ES6 was “perfect.”

I don’t think anybody can point out what, exactly, made Skyrim so fucking legendary. It was a buggy, unpolished mess of a game. Its lore was inconsistent. It had a villain and story that should have been deeply intriguing and interesting and yet it does Alduin a disservice and was, quite frankly, boring.

But somehow the game was fun. So fun that people spent an average 80 hours a week playing it, me included! And the only possible exploration is that Bethesda had passion, and then Skyrim inflated their egos. So I can see why people see their recent spree of lackluster-to-terrible games as a very valid reason for agreeing with Tod Howard, for once.

Set that aside, however. Let’s assume they “get it right.” Let’s assume it’s made with passion and recent history has humbled them. People will still be disappointed. Why? Because “it’s not Skyrim.” Just in the same way that hardcore ES fans hated Skyrim because “it’s not Morrowind.” Skyrim set the bar so astronomically high that it would take an absolute fucking miracle for them to, at bare minimum, meet expectation! And it would honestly be better that they didn’t, because then people would expect them to hit that milestone every, single time when the “secret ingredient” to Skyrim’s legendary success is so fucking aetherial nobody can say exactly what it is.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
24M

My expectations of Bethesda, since Oblivion, has been as a mod platform.

Gimme a new engine with updated graphics and great mod support and let the community does what it does best.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
364M

Thank God they lowered the expectations after Starfield.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
21
edit-2
4M

I know I’m in the minority, but I fucking love Starfield.

It’s a galactic scale zen garden when I need peace.

It’s a shooter/space combat sim when I choose violence.

There’s things that aren’t good about it, it needs so many more factions, followers, and NPC interaction points to fill the fish bowl that’s there, but there’s so much to love too, IMHO.

In a time where MOST major studio games have turned to no effort live service dogshit, I think hating on flawed but grand games like Starfield as just more unsalvagable garbage is just an invitation to studios to keep churning out actual garbage like Suicide Squad since there’s no pleasing modern gamers so don’t bother trying, just lean entirely on an IPs nostalgia.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
3
edit-2
4M

So happy for you! I think it’s a fine game with great highs, but it is a different game when compared to Skyrim obviously, which makes one wonder how ES6 would be.

Edit: fixed the ?. I was genuinely happy for you

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
1
edit-2
4M

You make it sound as if I’m the one that brought Starfield up out of nowhere in relation to Skyrim/TE6.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
24M

No wait. That “?” was a typo. I genuinely meant I’m happy for you.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
24M

Ah thank you for the clarification! Sorry socials can be hostile places didn’t mean to take that the most hostile way.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
14M

Yeah. It was my bad.

arefx
link
fedilink
English
14M

That’s awesome but on paper I still think it’s objectively bad. I got the game for free with my CPU and still feel like I got burned some how. There’s no world where I see myself ever finishing that game.

Altima NEO
link
fedilink
English
64M

And Fallout 76, and in some sense, Fallout 4

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
34M

They can try.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
84M

The adoring fan and characters like claptrap are proof that I would never make it as lead designer for game sequels. I would never include a character like those and think to myself “This needs to be more than an annoying minor side character, I need to bring them closer to begin to the identity of the games.”

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
504M

This is true, but it’s not like Bethesda’s past few games inspire a lot of confidence.

arefx
link
fedilink
English
33
edit-2
4M

Fall Out 4, mediocre.

Fall Out 76, bad.

Starfield, bad.

I fully expect tes6 to be ass.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
3
edit-2
4M

been playing Fallout:NV and its so good. They should go back to using elder scrolls as a way to show off new engines and then license them out to new companies to make games.

Skyrim should be seen as an abberation here. If the game turns out good thats just a plus

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
64M

New Vegas was made by Obsidian in 18 months

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
24M

yeah that’s the point, Bethesda generally builds an ok game and engine and puts an above average mod/design system on it. Obsidian is far better at making actual video games.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
74M

I firmly believe that if Fallout 4 wasn’t made on the ancient CE, it could have been legendary. There’s so many good ideas in Fallout 4, you can see what kind of game the devs really wanted to make, but it feels so clunky.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
74M

Ideas are cheap, you can literally list a hundred ideas for good games in a day. The hard part is an implementation that matches your imagination of what it would be like.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
124M

On the other hand it also has one of the worst main stories in an RPG ever

GHiLA
link
fedilink
English
24M

They’re 100% right. I don’t expect Bethesda to make anything good.

@[email protected]
creator
mod
link
fedilink
English
314M

Modern Bethesda and making good games, what a joke.

redfellow
link
fedilink
English
9
edit-2
4M

There is no modern Bethesda. They are still making games based on 15 year old standards, with an engine a lot older and technically more debted than that.

It’s kinda like trying to make Edward Scissorhands a brain surgeon by adding a few more rubberbands between the blades.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
04M

They are still making games based on 15 year old standards

If only. Daggerfall was great for its time, Morrowind was and still remains a classic masterpiece.

The enshittification started with Oblivion, and only got worse from there.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
174M

I mean, even if TES:6 is good it wont meet expectations because expectations are so wildly high.

dindonmasker
link
fedilink
English
134M

My expectations are just be as good as skyrim. I still go and explore skyrim and find new fun things i had never seen before. It’s the best i can ask for.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
104M

Maybe it’ll be as good. I would strongly recommend waiting for reviews in 2032 when it finally launches.

Rhynoplaz
link
fedilink
English
74M

Skyrim launched 11.11.11

Expect ES6 on 2.2.22 oh wait, missed that one, 3.3.33

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
3
edit-2
4M

They’re definitely not going to go back to any of the better earlier games before Skyrim.

dindonmasker
link
fedilink
English
34M

Idk i never played the other games. I’ve heard many times that they are better. I play skyrim in VR only. I might look for mods to play the earlier games in VR as well.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
44M

I’d love to play VR. Someday

Rhynoplaz
link
fedilink
English
44M

You can probably get a used Quest 2 for a good price. It’s definitely capable enough to get a feel for VR, and whether or not you should invest more in a better setup.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
14M

Yeah I know. Unfortunately new toys like new hardware isn’t in my current future. Someday though.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
44M

Really after the mess that was their space game?

arefx
link
fedilink
English
14M

Don’t forget fall out 76

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
14M

I already did. And will again. Mostly because it’s not worth remembering. Not because I’ll ever trust Bethesda

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
64M

TES6 isn’t out yet? neat. wouldn’t know, cuz fuck Bethesda

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
04M

I fell off the Bethesda train around Oblivion. They peaked with Morrowind and it has been downhill since.

AgentOrangesicle
link
fedilink
English
164M

It’s cool. We’ll make it for you (and far more impeccably gorgeous than you would). Just give us the engine.

  • The Modding Community
@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
24M

I’m glad some of them chose not to be enablers after Starfield.

Use 👏 a 👏 better 👏 engine! 👏

Tlaloc_Temporal
link
fedilink
English
74M

Even py.game would be better at this point…

Sabata
link
fedilink
English
174M

If they spend time on a new engine, that would cancel the release of Skyrim on the IBM 5100.

ArxCyberwolf
link
fedilink
English
54M

“Our tech is cutting edge as far as I can tell, the Creation Engine’s aging very well! We’re not planning on doing anything about it.”

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
114M

Whaaaat you think the engine that brought the world Boxfield is horrible after eight years of work on it?

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
24M

box field took me a second but i snorted out loud! lmao

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
84M

I expect nothing and I know that they will still dissapoont me. Marketing isn’t weeping because they don’t know how to sell the expectation, they weep because they don’t know how they can convince anyone to even look at that game.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
54M

Same. Pretty sure I own every Bethesda rpg right up through Fallout 4 and Skyrim. I just couldn’t be bothered with Fallout 76 bullshit, and the handful of my friends that played Starfield said it was just sad.

I don’t much care what they release next. It won’t hold a candle to BG3.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
1694M

I mean maybe if you hadn’t been milking Skyrim for 13 fucking years, expectations wouldn’t be so unreasonably high, would they?

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
-14M

I sincerely doubt that.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
514M

I expect it to be a buggy mess that has lots of potential and doesn’t deliver on half of what it seems like it should do. Then after a year or two it will finally be patched into being mostly stable and mods will have reached a point where it can mostly be turned into the game I actually want. However there will be a few creative decisions that I absolutely hate but which are so unnecessarily locked in that even mods can’t fix them, so I’ll have to just accept them as an irritant that I will do my best to ignore.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
64M

They’re gonna block mod tools, just wait.

NaibofTabr
link
fedilink
English
164M

Considering how the modding community made Skyrim a long-term success, this would be a very foolish decision.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
24M

You say that as if it removes the possibility but I don’t think I need to provide specific examples of obviously foolish decisions ruining modern games. There are plenty to choose from.

NaibofTabr
link
fedilink
English
3
edit-2
4M

Oh absolutely, and Bethesda is absolutely capable of that. It would be very myopic for them though. They can’t possibly be ignorant of the fact that modding is what kept Skyrim selling for a decade.

Preventing modding would be a substantial exercise in hubris (“we don’t need them”), or one of those intentional failure/tax writeoff things.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
134M

They’re going to try make paid mods a thing again.

sp3ctr4l
link
fedilink
English
44M

You’ll have to pay a subscription fee.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
64M

If they did that nobody would even be able to play the game, you expect Bethesda to do their own patching!?

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
-2
edit-2
4M

I know at least Gopher (and probably several others on YouTube or elsewhere) literally spelled out the equation for success for TESVI, or at least the beginnings of it.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
1754M

Really? After the absolute clownshow that was Starfield, my expectations for TES6 are extremely low.

Bezier
link
fedilink
English
684M

I had low expectations before, but Starfield killed them completely. Starfield actually helped me get over worrying about TES6, because I just lost interest.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
54M

Eh, I lost interest about an hour after their initial announcement video 6 years ago. It was obvious that there was no game then, and that it would be a long time before there was anything resembling a game.

So maybe I’ll be interested when they actually launch info about it, but until then, I just assume it doesn’t exist.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
144M

My expectations for a TES game are low by default. They just provide the world, the modders provide the game.

Create a post

Video game news oriented community. No NanoUFO is not a bot :)

Posts.

  1. News oriented content (general reviews, previews or retrospectives allowed).
  2. Broad discussion posts (preferably not only about a specific game).
  3. No humor/memes etc…
  4. No affiliate links
  5. No advertising.
  6. No clickbait, editorialized, sensational titles. State the game in question in the title. No all caps.
  7. No self promotion.
  8. No duplicate posts, newer post will be deleted unless there is more discussion in one of the posts.
  9. No politics.

Comments.

  1. No personal attacks.
  2. Obey instance rules.
  3. No low effort comments(one or two words, emoji etc…)
  4. Please use spoiler tags for spoilers.

My goal is just to have a community where people can go and see what new game news is out for the day and comment on it.

Other communities:

Beehaw.org gaming

Lemmy.ml gaming

lemmy.ca pcgaming

  • 1 user online
  • 76 users / day
  • 408 users / week
  • 1.12K users / month
  • 3.94K users / 6 months
  • 1 subscriber
  • 12.5K Posts
  • 86.6K Comments
  • Modlog