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Bethesda revealed Elder Scrolls 6 early due to "pitchforks and torches" from fans
(www.pcgamesn.com)
I honestly don't even care anymore. Bethesda peaked at Morrowind.
this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2023
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Yeahhhh, it was a really sad realization for me when I realized elder scolls 6 would no longer be an automatic day one purchase. After Fallout 4, then 76, and now Starfield (which I was skeptical about since they first started its pre-release marketing cycle anyway), I'm realizing that Bethesda is heading in the direction of so many other legacy game companies and just doesn't seem to be interested in publishing the kinds of games that put them on the map any more; a la Bioware, EA, and Blizzard.
At least SuckerPunch is still putting out good stuff, as much as I miss the Sly Cooper games 🥲
Sly Cooper, damn I miss when games had novel concepts.
They still do. Probably more now than ever.
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That's a funny way of spelling Daggerfall
I can't hear you over the sound of falling through the floor of this daggerfall dungeon for the fiftieth time argh
I'm sorry, wasn't that the new Arena?
I’m about 30 hours into my first serious Morrowind playthrough after a few attempts that never took off. Man it took a while for it to click but this game is genius. I tried getting back into Oblivion and Skyrim after several years but they didn’t suck me in like MW has recently
Even though oblivion and skyrim is significantly bigger neither of their worlds feel as interesting, real or as big as morrowind.
A big part of that is in those games you can just click anywhere in the map you’ve already been and be there in a second. The quest markers don’t do the player any favors either.
Morrowind is equally ridiculous and grounded at the same time. On one hand, you can come up with spells or enchantments that will turn your character into a god. On the other hand, you have to pay attention to quest givers and follow directions like you would in real life. You have to keep your eyes peeled and on the way you’ll run into new things
It's true that is a big part of what makes those different. Truth is initially it's a design shift Bethsoft made out of convenience for themselves, not for the players.
They explained why they did it like that on Oblivion. Basically, while a lot more immersive, Morrowind's actual quest directions were kind of pain during development. Regularly, a quest objective would be adjusted and moved somewhere else, and they had to track down all related dialogues and logs to correct them. In fact, a few quest logs still have incorrect informations in the final game (e.g. west instead of east!).
The problem was made a lot worse with Oblivion since all dialogues now had voice acting. It was not possible for them to record voice lines again when they changed stuff, and I guess even if they got it right the first time, how many more lines would just be "follow that road, turn there, second door to your right" whatever? Oblivion was already an incredible feat of voiced dialogue back then, this is surely one of the corners they had to cut (in general, dialogue was made a lot simpler than it was in Morrowind).
For better or worse, that's the real reason for the compass and quest markers.
They ain't wrong. I mean look at Blizzard when they announced Diablo Immortal. If they just opened with a big red firey "IV" and coming soon, with a little 'yes were hard at work on it but it's too early to show but in the meantime" then did D:I it would have gone over a tad smoother.
Bethesda did this with Fallout Shelter, doing the Fallout 4 announcement first before going oh btw a few of us did a mobile game on the side. Literally zero blowback from that.
But still best to wait a year or two after release and after modding is baked in because Todd's "original vision" can be a bit rough.
Same here, they can have my money after it's good.
poor Todd having his hand FORCED by bullies. 🙄
With Elder Scrolls 6 development out of the concept phase and into full swing,
They just started development.
They have also learned some good lessons. However, let us dispel one notion. "Fans" did not cause the announcement 10 years before it's development.
Looking at the history, Microsoft bought Bethesda in 2021, and Elder scrolls was announced 2018.
Which all things considered, is a three year gap.
Regardless I stand by my conclusion if for the only sake that they would have zero motivation to leak this even if it was just an idea. "Just because of fans." No CEO thinks like that. At least, none anymore.
~~It was shareholders.~~
~~Gamer can wait until the day a good game comes out, a company needs hype to build it's brand for stock holders.~~
Edit:
But at the time of the announcement, Bethesda wasn’t a publically traded company, they were private, were they not? Which means they weren’t overly beholden to stockholders if I’m not mistaken? I could be totally wrong on that, though.
Please go down below and congratulations to iheartneopets for pointing out the nose on my face.
But at the time of the announcement, Bethesda wasn't a publically traded company, they were private, were they not? Which means they weren't overly beholden to stockholders if I'm not mistaken? I could be totally wrong on that, though.
Well I'll be damned, you are right. Fuck me. Going to have to do another edit.
Not counting Microsoft deal, because they weren't bought out until much after the ESVI announcement
Gamer can wait until the day a good game comes out, a company needs hype to build it's brand for stock holders.
This is absolutely not true, gamers freak out whenever a game is delayed, even for good reason. And people were absolutely causing a huge fuss about whether or not there was going to be an ES6 so they released a teaser to say that it was coming eventually.
The shareholders would only want them to release the teaser if the goal was the sell stock immediately. Any bump in price from the teaser would even out after probably just a few months.
Waiting + delay ≠ waiting.
I'll wait for a good game no problem, but if they push the launch three times I start to twitch
Gamers can cause all the huge fuss they want. It matters nothing to developers.
And yes shareholders want short term gains. This has been true for a long time.
They did put a pretty massive gap between Skyrim and ES6. Of course, fans will start to wonder, whether anything's in the pipeline, when it could have realistically been close to release in 2018 already. I guess, they focused on Fallout for a few years, which is a valid decision, but I don't think, they ever announced that this means ES6 isn't yet in the works.
It depends on what you mean by "in the works." Active development? It probably just started, if it has yet. Pre-production and planning? That's been going on for a while now.
Well, active development. Especially for TES fans, it may be difficult to grasp why they would not start with TES6 right after the release + bugfixing of Skyrim. Others may understand that they'll do Fallout 4 in between.
But doing two Fallouts + ~~Fallout in Space~~ Starfield, it would have deserved a comment from Bethesda.
Technically, they only did one fallout, but I get your point from the average consumer view. FO76 was done by a different group than the one who'd be working on TES6.
Yeah, I was considering giving that technicality its room, especially because ESO exists. ESO is kind of FO76 in the TES universe.
But at the same time, ESO wasn't really what most TES fans hoped for either, so from that average consumer view, it may actually even feel like another project that's somewhat misguided, while waiting for TES6.
It felt it at the time. I also think this was the same time that 76 was revealed? I remember reading that they were trying to boost their value for the incoming Microsoft buyout by getting some live service games on their docket (76, Youngblood, Redfall). As meh as they've become, the feeling I had playing Oblivion for the first time is a dragon I don't think I'll ever catch again, no matter how much I chase.
Eh, games haven't been as captivating as they were when I was a teen, but it's not the games' fault
You know what Todd? I don't believe you. Just admit you fucked up by announcing it too early.
Specifically, the famous video game director was asked if he regrets announcing the next Elder Scrolls games so early, as it could take another four years before the game is actually released. “I have asked myself that a lot. I don’t know,” admitted Howard. “I probably would’ve announced it more casually.”
They seem to be going back to procedural generation for huge landscapes, but if Starfield is any hint of it, they still have their work cut out for them. I wonder, when people click on destinations to reach them instead of riding off to them like they did in Daggerfall, will people still call them out as "loading screens"?
I like the Assassins Creed way, where you can only fast travel to places you've discovered already
its the same in skyrim I'm pretty sure. same in starfield (excluding rhe jump mechanic being a form of fast travel anyway but even then you need to visit a system before you can fast travel to individual locations within it directly)
Isn't that most games with fast travel?
That announcement made no sense. They literally had nothing to show. Meanwhile, they were also announcing Star Field... Which also had nothing to show.
They were expecting 76 to be a bigger deal and they were flopping around like a limp fish looking to keep people interested.
Then went back to their true focus,
Microtransactions for Fallout76 and Elder Scrolls Online.
Just watch, they'll maintain support for those game well past when they stop updating Starfield
That’s not true, I’m sure they’ll enable raytracing in Starfield special edition in a few years and charge another $60 for the privilege.
I wonder if they'll make a smart speaker version for this one too
don't forget about the half baked VR port
Look, there’s lots of valid reasons to shit on Bethesda but this comparison isn’t even fair.
ESO is literally an MMO. It’s a genre of game that’s designed to have a very long life-span with regular content releases, updates and balance changes.
Starfield is a single player Action RPG. Yes, of course they’ll probably be done adding to it before an entirely different development team that’s dedicated to an MMO is done.
But are fans ready for Bethesda's new Radiant AI?!
Great.
I'm never buying anything Bethesda makes again. But wowee zowee, ES:6 so poggers let's goooooooooooooo