Anybody else stumped by Bethesda suddenly losing the plot?

[Damian Cunliffe]

I don't even want to talk about FO76, we all know what's wrong with it and everything surrounding it. I'm instead wondering if anybody has any theories on how a company with so much experience and so many iconic games can totally lose the plot overnight. Has there been a major take over of the company? Have key members of the decision-making staff been replaced?

Previously their biggest transgression was the mod workshop which they mostly handled well... I mean... they didn't FORCE us to use their crappy workshop or pay for mods we could download for free (though every update thereafter did keep breaking the script extender mod, which was a pain). And their biggest problem before that was that their games were bugtastic messes that modders had to fix, but we just accepted this was the way things were with Bethesda... the games were good so we let it slide. In fact, the bugs became a charming part of the TES/FO experience.

It's like they went from healthy to the final stages of terminal illness but with no period of decline between the two.

[Noobc0re]

Can't say I'm surprised. Their recent behavior has been right in line with Bethesda, they've a always been a trash publisher/developer. They, like others, just pushed it too far in 2018. So even fanboys had to admit it was unacceptable.

[Damian Cunliffe]

(psst, politics)

[Damian Cunliffe]

I use a lot of mods for both of those games, FWE and Proj. Nevada are just the main ones. Don't think I've ever used World of Pain. I tweak the two mods I mentioned to make the world deadly, like radiation that seriously hurts you, firearms and explosions are deadly, more npc's and slightly increased enemies and so forth. A Fallout world should be a deadly wasteland IMO. This is why I hated FO4, it was an easy cartoon game.

[twidget]

... Is not an accident. There are corporations with billions in budget, which want to brainwash society (all around the world), so they need propaganda tools, and games are a major tool to get the public wanted. ...

[twidget]

I won't play FO3 or FNV with FWE or Project Nevada.
Do you use A World of Pain 4FO3 or FNV?

[SnarkyJay]

I enjoyed Morrowind and Skyrim. I skipped Oblivion for some reason. I also enjoyed Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Fallout 4 I wasn't as crazy about. I am not sure why they are shitting the bed lately, but I would look to the parent company Zenimax as possibly having a role in pushing games out well before they are ready, with "features" like online and microtransactions that nobody wanted. I know Zenimax was founded by the founder of Bethesda, so theoretically, they should have good ethics, but in today's AAA industry who the hell knows.

[Aidy]

A more accurate observation might be that a majority of Bethesda's games are a derivative of an outdated and buggy engine.

Irrelevant. I was tackling his argument that the people involved in Fallout are no longer at the company.

[Slothcat]

Fallout 76 was derivative of Fallout 4. Fallout 5 will be derivative of Fallout 4. What's your point?

A more accurate observation might be that a majority of Bethesda's games are a derivative of an outdated and buggy engine.

[Aidy]

Fallout 4 is already a derivative work using Fallout 3 assets

Fallout 76 was derivative of Fallout 4. Fallout 5 will be derivative of Fallout 4. What's your point?

[xadu]

I used a wiki to find the people who worked on Fallout 4 and spent a few minutes researching each of them to see what they are doing now. Shall we begin? (TL;DR you're wrong)

Fallout 4 is already a derivative work using Fallout 3 assets

[Baron Baldric]

Everyone likes the conspiracy theories, the reality is that Bethesda copied Fortnite business model in the same way that Battlefield 5, shareholders pressed them to get more profits.

[Aidy]

The dudes that made the elder scroll and fallout series are no more working at Bethesda. They are working on other games and other companies.
So, don’t expect Bethesda to correct itself. It is not going to happen. It is a different company, with different people, and different values.
If you want good games, follow the programmers, not the companies.

I used a wiki to find the people who worked on Fallout 4 and spent a few minutes researching each of them to see what they are doing now. Shall we begin? (TL;DR you're wrong)

People in green are people who appear to still be working at Bethesda accoring to their own twitter\linkedin\reddit etc accounts.

People in blue are people that I couldn't determine the current employment status of, but whose most recent work I could find was relatively recent and at Bethesda.

People in red are people that no longer work at Bethesda, again according to their own twitter\linkedin etc.

People in nomal text are people I didn't bother researching.

Game Director - Todd Howard
Lead Programmer - Guy Carver
Lead Artist - Istvan Pely
Lead Designer and Writer - Emil Pagliarulo
Production Director - Ashley Cheng
Lead Producer - Jeff Gardiner
Audio Director - Mark Lampert
Senior Producers - Craig Lafferty
Producers - Angela Browder, Kevin Kauffman, Nathan McDyer, Phil Nelson, Andrew Scharf
Lead Gameplay Programmer - Christopher Rodriguez
Lead Graphics Programmer - Scott Franke
Lead Interface Programmer - Erik Deitrick
Lead Animator - Josh Jones
Lead Level Design - Joel Burgess
Director of Casting & Production - Timothy Cubbison
Music Composer and Producer - Inon Zur
Programming
Gameplay Programming - Ryan Ashford, Ken Cockerham, Paul Graber, Ahn Hopgood, Steve Meister, Brian Robb, Dan Teitel, Craig Walton, Jay Woodward
Systems Programming - Shannon Bailey, Eric Braun, Joel Dinolt, David DiAngelo, Joseph DiAngelo, Mike Dulony, Jason Hammett, Jason Hasenbuhler, Ryan Lea, Mike Lipari, Jeff Lundin, Henning Seljenes
Graphics Programming - Jonathan Bilodeau, Jeff Sheiman, Orin Tresnjak
Additional Programming - Jonathan Burke, Brett Douville, Chris Doyle, David Fox

[Aidy]

Then what did you mean by your comment "If you didn't notice any bugs in Skyrim or Fallout 3/4 then you need to start laying off the crack pipe."? That's the kind of thing I would say to someone who said they didn't notice any bugs in Skyrim or Fallout 3/4.

Being accused of making strawman arguments because I call out your strawman argument. Wow! I never expected that response!

[fenrif]

Nice strawman. I never said that you said there were no bugs in their games though, did I?
Guess you didn't predict this response at all, huh?