-First 2 paragraphs below taken from my original post

Ever since I found out bethesda was taking the reigns on the production of the series, I've always been quite skeptical. After all their track record on making complex games, RPGs,(Not action RPG's, which is what the TES series has been as of late) or at least games that their fans wanted is pretty bad and/or non existant. Just look at oblivion for reference.(Yes I know some of you will probably argue with me on that and I'm more than happy to get into a discussion about it) After the release of their fallout 3 teaser my cautiousness towards the title is still unwaivering as the teaser showed almost nothing about the gameplay, which is pretty much what really matters. Now with bethesda stating that they want to supposedly "reinvent" the series, I have become more skeptical than ever, and this article I found really isn't helping.

Posted on the NMA forums(No mutants allowed) This pretty much talks about the history of bethesda and their general kick in the pants they've given to their fans. I always thought that bethesda didn't really care much about their fans, but this just blew me away. I uesed to be slightly optimistic that bethesda might actually deliever on a fallout sequel and make it worthy of having a "3" in its name, but not anymore. Below you'll read about the various practices that bethesda has currently used to advertise and develop their games and the various fan sites they've used as springboards to use as hype, or to ultimately shut-up. It's pretty long as it will be in 2 blog posts so bear with me, but I'm sure it will be interesting for most people to read throughout.

This is of course the last of the three parts so pat yourself on the back for coming this far. Of course discussion amongst ths topic is recommended if possible.  

Linkage to the original source

Deconstructing the Hype

The purpose of this piece is not to encourage the reader to boycott all products produced or developed by Bethesda. It is instead a warning, that one must be aware of how their hype machine operates, and how not to be drawn in by mindless lingo and false promises, as was the case with Oblivion and Star Trek Legacy.

We'll now take a look at two examples of PR hype from Todd Howard and Pete Hines, the first from the previously cited Escapist article, the second from a recent Shacknews interview[33]

First, Todd Howard's comments in the Escapist article:

Quote:
"You can't repeat yourself," he said. "I think it's a common trap when working on a sequel to just add some new features and content, and keep doing that. I think that's a good way to drive your games into the ground. You start drifting from what made the game special in the first place. So with The Elder Scrolls, I'm careful to not repeat what we've done before, and to really focus on trying to recapture again what made the games exciting in the first place.[34]


This is an interesting statement, considering that while commercially succesful, since Todd has become the head of Bethesda's in-house development studio, The Elder Scrolls has lost precisely what made its predecessors special. You'll remember that we've already established that it was the roguelike elements and massive gameworlds that made Arena and Daggerfall unique. Playing Oblivion and Morrowind it's clear that, for better or worse, they don't feel like traditional Elder Scrolls games.

This odd way of making sequels worries Fallout fans, because it suggests that Todd has a habit of focusing on precisely what hasn't made a franchise special. For Fallout and Fallout 2, specifically, they used Isometric perspectives, turn-based combat, and a simulationist roleplaying experience. None of those features has ever been in the experience of any current Bethesda developer. Certainly not Todd. It's arguable that none of the Elder Scrolls games even come close to being significant roleplaying experiences. Pete Hines has also affirmed rumours that Bethesda refused to hire original Fallout developers, as will be made clear shortly.

Quote:
"That's what happens when you're the first to try something," he said. "We certainly took it on the chin for that in the press, but people are still buying that horse armor! I'm talking hundreds of thousands of people.[34]


Horse Armor, for those of you that don't know, was a cosmetic feature removed from the original release of Oblivion and sold later through microtransactions for $2.50 US. While on the surface, hundreds of thousands may sound like a large number, you'll remember that Oblivion has to date sold 3 million units. Hundreds of thousands could only ever represent a small portion of Oblivion gamers who were willing to give the mod a shot, and doesn't even indicate how many of those customers were even satisfied with the purchase. By quoting big numbers, Todd has attempted to make the decisions of Bethesda seem in the right, when in fact the numbers don't mean anything.

Quote:
"Like I was talking about before, with sequels, you have to define the experience the first one had and stay true to it," he said. "I think the first Fallout's tone is brilliant, but then they start to drift in the sequel and subsequent games. When it comes to humor, I'm very anti 'jokes' in games.[35]


Todd's statement that the series lost quality may appear to sound good to hardliners, but it's that very appearance which raises suspicion. For the longest time Bethesda has remained tight-lipped about what they consider to be important in Fallout, or even what they're doing with Fallout 3. To make such a comment now in the midst of several PR fiascos looks to be nothing more than lip-service.

That aside, his position on "jokes" in games is also questionable, considering that the ad-campaign for the Oblivion expansion, Shivering Isles[36] has focused predominantly on how "funny" the game will be for its focus on madness.

Now moving on to Pete Hines and his Shacknews interview:

Quote:
Shack: You guys have your own trademark series so you're used to dealing with fan expectation, but is it different or intimidating working on a franchise like Fallout that already has such a built in reputation?

Pete Hines: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. For a couple of reasons. Number one is that we're treating it as if we made the first two, with the same care and attention we give to The Elder Scrolls, but the truth of the matter is that we haven't. As a result there's probably a lot more divergent opinion about what it should be, what we should do, are we the right guys to do it, and so on.[33]


Remember how they treated The Elder Scrolls?

It's also interesting to note that he says that they've treated Fallout 3 like the first two games, while then saying that they actually haven't, making the entire exchange completely meaningless.

Quote:
Pete Hines: Internally, not really. Internally, we're a bunch of Fallout geeks. There is nobody [here] who hasn't played that game and enjoyed it. I have that game on my laptop, I take it with me and play it. But it's definitely different, because it's not really considered ours, the franchise. We didn't start it. There is a little bit of that sentiment out there that we have to prove that we're worthy to be the guys to make Fallout 3. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, because we have very high expectations for ourselves. The standard that we hold ourselves to, the kind of games we expect to make in terms of quality, we have a very high level of expectation. There's really nothing like the people from the outside expecting more than we expect ourselves.


The notion that all Bethesda devs have played and loved Fallout is highly questionable, considering that in 2004, one Bethesda developer registered as HayT on the Something Awful forums stated:

Quote:
I also need to find time to play through Fallout 2 now, which is a game I never got to. Don't know when the hell that's going to happen, as I'm a little behind on work as it is.[43]


Whether at the present, all Bethesda devs had played "and loved" Fallout is uknowable, but the fact of HayT's leak, as old as it is, is enough to cast doubts.

Note also that what people "from the outside" expect of Bethesda, in terms of the fan communities, isn't much.

Quote:
It's a lot like when we were doing Morrowind. Everybody said, "Well, the last game you did was Daggerfall, and it was really buggy, and everything you're telling me about Morrowind sounds good but you need to prove it." It kind of has that same feel, that people are saying, "Yeah, I liked Oblivion, and you guys are good at roleplaying, but you have to prove that you aren't going to screw up this beloved franchise." We think we can do it. We are the right guys to be doing this franchise, we do take it seriously, and we do want to make it a powerful force in roleplaying in terms of what these games can do and be. We hope that when we show people what we're up to, they'll agree. Some folks will, and some folks will say it's not what they wanted. At the end of the day, we respect that, but we have to do what we think is right. Again, you can't make the game that everybody wants because you'll get ten different answers about what that game is.


This is also another effective marketing tool that absolves Bethesda of any wrongdoing because you "can't please everybody," including the fans of the franchise they're developing for.

It's been repeated several times in the past by others talking about Fallout spinoffs:

Quote:
We know we cannot please everyone[37] - gluttoncreeper on Fallout d20


Quote:
Yeah, they have their own debates going on about even games that have already shipped. So Fallout was the best, Fallout 2 was the best, etc. So trying to please them was almost like trying to please everybody, but you can't.[38] - Chuck Cuevas on Fallout: BOS


All of these statements ignored the fact that what fans want isn't the feared "Oblivion with guns," a pen & paper game modeled after d20 instead of GURPS (the system Fallout was originally developed for), or an action spin-off instead of an honest-to-God Fallout sequel with similar gameplay mechanics. Considering Bethesda's attitudes towards NMA, DAC, the Codex, STG, and Elder Scrolls fans, it would appear that they too don't care what the fans want.

Quote:
Shack: Have you spoken at all to the original creators of the franchise--who from what I know already had less complete involvement with Fallout 2 than with the first game--in any capacity?

Pete Hines: We have, on an individual basis. Some of those folks have contacted us on varying levels, whether it's a "Hey, good luck" or a job inquiry or what have you. Not really formally though, no. Again, it's one of those things where I have a lot of respect for those guys. I was a huge Black Isle fan, and all those RPGs coming out of Interplay at the time. I loved Baldur's Gate, Fallout. It was fantastic. Way back when, when I wrote for the Adrenaline Vault, Interplay was one of my companies. I used to cover all their stuff and play everything they put out. I still have my shrinkwrapped copies of Baldur's Gate and Planescape. They did great stuff for which I will always have tremendous respect. But at the same time, if we're going to move forward, we're really going to have to move forward. We can't just say, "Well, let's ask these guys what they think." As Fallout fans and guys who make roleplaying games and have for over a decade, we have pretty good ideas about what we want to do and how to do it.


Notice the discrepancy? Despite being "the right guys to be doing this franchise," as self-proclaimed Fallout fans, Bethesda apparently wasn't interested in hiring people like Leonard Boyarsky or Tim Cain onto the project, even as consultants. The people who created the very franchise they're fans of. Surely any fan making a Fallout game would jump at the chance to work with the "masters" that created one of their favorite roleplaying games.

There's very little to interpret from this statement, other than the significant possibility that Bethesda being full of "Fallout fans" is a lie.

Quote:
Shack: How do you respond to certain voices from the PC community who make claims such as that you're dumbing down games for the console platforms?

Pete Hines: Yeah, I can't really... It becomes an issue of "Yes you did, no you didn't." They say that we dumbed down our game, that it isn't as complex as Morrowind or that it isn't as good as Daggerfall. I say, the same people that made Morrowind made Oblivion. There were maybe three or four people total that worked on Morrowind that didn't work on Oblivion. We had designers that had key roles in Daggerfall that designed those same systems for Oblivion. The same ones that people said we dumbed down from Daggerfall were the ones that those same guys made.


So four people worked on Morrowind but didn't work on Oblivion. While objectively true, in reality it discounts the massive expansion to the development team between Morrowind and Oblivion.

According to Moby Games, 46 people from Morrowind worked on Oblivion[39]. Compare that to the massively expanded credits for Oblivion[40], of which 18 people had worked on the Elder Scrolls action spin-off Redguard [41](which Todd Howard was also the project lead on), while only 5 had worked on Daggerfall, in which 26 people[42] are credited in the design of the game. Numerically, only a handful of people who made ****c Elder Scrolls games worked on Oblivion, and logically, simply because a sequel has been made by the same company that made its predecessor, that doesn't mean that the sequel hasn't been "dumbed down."

Don't Buy the Hype

If I were a betting man, I'd say that the Fallout communities should brace for impact. Bethesda has made several indications that it will steer the Fallout franchise away from what made it special.

Bethesda is a clear example of the fact that regardless of how well a company behaved in the past, it still has the chance to develop into a soulless money-making machine. They've used bullying and scare tactics in an attempt to silence fan communities, and have given no indication that they give a damn what the fans think. In addition to all of that, they have recently made the announcement that they are seeking a community manager[44], a move that appears to further Bethesda's policy of seeking control over fan communities.

The current project lead of Fallout 3 is a man whose development experience is dominated by action games, and turned Bethesda's own in-house adventure franchise into an action franchise.

There is tremendous cause for worry. Don't buy the hype.