Why Bethesda won't listen to the fans

On one hand I can understand that Bethesda needs to make this game their own, but I can also understand where the Fallout fanboys (never played the first two myself, unfortunately) are coming from - especially after how Oblivion turned out. Don't get me wrong, it was a great game, but oh how it was dumbed down on so many levels compared to Morrowind (aside from graphics and combat)...

I completely trust Bethesda to make an amazing Fallout game. I have no idea how they could disappoint the fans.

I think Holy is being ironic :)
But i do agree with you Powered, B-thesda have much to prove themself...

See? And everyone said I was crazy or "nit picking" in my blog I did about Fallout 3 going to suck. Even if you enjoy Bethesdas first person action/RPG games there is no way their gaming formula fits with the fallout universe.

I mean, why change the isometric view? Titan Quest did just fine with it and I know if they made a Diablo 3 and kept it in isometric everyone would still go apeshit over it. So why ruin Fallout with a first person view?

@Tragic Hero: Sure, you could say Titan Quest did 'just fine' in the sense that a great deal of gamers (I'm not saying you, but a lot of gamers still) thought the game was a vapid Diablo2 clone worth invisting 1 hour of time in before throwing it away.

Part of me is still concerned whether Bethesda will hold true to the original dark style of the game with its twisted sense of humor, but the rational side of me realizes that fanboys are going to be pissed no matter what: If it's too much like the previous Fallouts, rabid fans will say it's a cheap rip-off or a bastardized copy. If it's not enough like the originals, those same fans will pine for the good ol' days. Even if Black Isle was still creating the game, the hounds of fandom would bitch because the game was "too little, too late".

Trying to make a Fallout 3 that will make everyone happy is like trying to debate which Evil Dead movie was best- you'll never get the same reason/justification from anyone.

I'm a serious Fallout fan and although I would have liked for the game to stick to the original perspective, I'm willing to trust them with the new format and not whine about it.

A New different Fallout is better than no Fallout at all.
That is unless it sucks balls.

I want to be optimistic, but not listening to the fans who made the game successful in the first place is stupid. But hey, change works right. I mean Brotherhood of Steel for the consoles was such a HUGE hit and well remembered right?

What the hardcore fallout fans want is a graphical upgrade, not a new game. Kudos to Bethesda for ignoring their whining

As long as there are mutiple endings.

A fanboy will not be a fanboy if he/she doesn't complain about something. These fanboys should be glad that a Fallout 3 is even being made. If they wanted Fallout 3 to be as they think it should be then they should learn how to develop a game and do it themselves. But then I'm sure they'd find a way to nitpick and complain about that game as well.

@Tull

It is hard to say because the game isn't out yet but from what I have heard about it so far I think I would rather not have a Fallout 3. Just like I would rather have just one Deus Ex instead of that shitty Invisible War game they came out with.

Emil Pagliarulo is so Goddam right I'd suck his dick. It's what broke UT3. It's what killed SS3. Listening to the hardcore forum users IS a good way to get feedback, but its a terrible fucking way to design a game.

I absolutely 100% agree with them. At the end of the day fans/consumers are, well, kinda stupid. They are. And you know what else? They DON'T LIKE CHANGE. If every single business listened to their consumers they would never come out with anything new. In order to progress, be innovative and do something new you have to not listen to your consumers and create something you know is awesome. Do you think Apple listens to their consumers with new products? FUCK NO. They've said it multiple times. Do you think the Wii would have been possible if they listened to the average gamer? FUCK NO. It would have just been the 360 with Nintendo games. The idea is to give consumers something they they don't even know they want yet.

It's worth pissing off your small but hardcore audience to attract new users. They're doing things right.

Guys, stop being fan zombies. The game hasn't even fucking come out yet.

If you want old school Fallout then go fire-up your old copies! Hell, this could end up being better.

The fact remains that the people who are complaining are likely the most hardcore contingent of Fallout fans. This group of people is likely much smaller than the total audience Bethesda is aiming for, they're just more vocal than the rest. The game is going o sell like hotcakes, regardless of some nostalgic fanboys crying foul.

@Boolean Wasn't Galaxies the other way around? They didn't listen and then the game want to garbage. I thought I remember hearing otherwise.

I used to play planetside and I remember the general outrage over some changes, devs never listened and the game basically tanked. :(

@Tragic Hero:

Well shit, ,man...If YOU say YOU'D rather not have a Fallout 3 at all, maybe Bethesda should listen. Just hold on a sec, I'll give them a call.........yeah, um, they told me to tell you to take your lame fanboy "opinions" and stuff them up your fat ass...Soooo I guess that's that...STFUAJPG!

Funny, this is the first article I read after last night's "Brawl's 5 Biggest Letdowns" thread...

A couple last things while I'm at it.

--How in the world can the quote in the story be considered inflammatory, or anything other than common sense? Someone please explain to me how it's anything but sensible.

--It's funny how for certain games (like Fallout 3 apparently), people want the same "formula" again and again, but they have no problem bashing other games (ie EA Sports titles, GTA series, etc.) for being "the same game every year".

@akathoneguy

Its not that fallout fans, or at least some of us, mind seeing things changed, its that we want the core themes to stay the same.

We want the same quality of writing and dialog, we want to see the game present us with moral choices, with consequences that go beyond what one might immediately think. I also want to see dark humor and lots of it.

For example in Fallout 2, one town full of mutants runs a nuke reactor and a near by town of normal humans is having their ground water poisoned, lets say you play a good character. You go, fix the reactor, but find out you can optimize it so that one town can sell the other electricity and everyone is happy right?

Well wrong, if you go too far you find out that the one town invades the other, and slaughters the inhabitants. You were just trying to do a good thing, but it just went too far.

Bethesda so far has greatly disappointed players on the RPG front with Oblivion, which is more of an action game with RPG elements peppered onto it than something like The Witcher (to name a recent game).

If they wanted to make their own post apocalyptic action-semi-RPG they could, but they chose to take an existing license and that means we now have certain expectations about what kind of game its going to be.

(long comment is long)

That is exactly the kind of thing you should hear from every developer. Like everyone has stated before, there's a time when you listen to the audience and a time when you have to go with your vision and idea of a great product. It's the same for all kinds of media.

Asking Bethesda to make Fallout 3 have an isometric view, with turn based or Diablo styled combat would be like asking an automotive engineer to design a car without using plastics, and composite materials.

Why have point and click on a target to have a character shoot it when the technology exist where I can aim and shoot at the target myself. Why should they use a rts style interface to simulate real time combat when they can put real time combat right into the game? Because the fans want it that way?

As long as a quality story is there Fallout 3 will do fine.

what they should do to make it easier for everyone is just drop the '3' and just call it something else like Fallout: Stabbing East! or something. Ya i know the name sucks but just saying it would probably be easier for everyone. You tag on that '3' and now you have some big shoes to fill.

@LX

Just like soblu said, its an RPG, not an FPS. I think developers really are thinking about things the wrong way. Just because you can do everything real time, doesn't mean that you have to or should.

If I want to play an FPS I'll play Team Fortress, but sometimes I like the game to slow down, pause, and allow me to think about who I'm going to attack, what skills or powers I want to use, ect.

A real time system possibly like KoToR would be fine, just make it so the skill is entirely based on dice rolls behind the scenes for the character and not how accurate I am with a mouse.