Failure of Emil Pagliarulo, Starfield and Bethesda Game Studios: The Generational Disenfranchisement
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ธ.ค. 2023
- Having been a long time fan of Morrowind and other Bethesda games, I quite enjoyed Starfield for all the wrong reasons. Emil Pagliarulo has recently spoken out about the kind of reception he's gotten regarding Starfield, and I thought I'd address that along with my personal view of the entire Bethesda Game Studios generational cycle. Bethesda alienating their previous fan-base has been a once in a generation spectacle going all the way back to Elder Scrolls 2. Now Bethesda's current fanbase gets to experience what countless fans have before. Let's talk about that.
*My (Mostly) Negative Starfield Discussion Video (I try to be constructive): • My Random Thoughts on ...
*You can see my blind playthrough of Starfield here: • Starfield First Play
* Other Live Content here: www.youtube.com/@Zhakaron/str... - เกม
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*My (Mostly) Negative Starfield Discussion Video (I try to be constructive): th-cam.com/video/6qXKY8crKj8/w-d-xo.html
*You can see my blind playthrough of Starfield here: th-cam.com/play/PL9qQ3PJcmlre_crSvXdyN29_Fh0bOk1rt.html
* Other Live Content here: www.youtube.com/@Zhakaron/streams
A very thorough and balanced take. I would agree with most of it. As someone who has been playing games for 40+ years I've developed a similar view. Its Origin Systems all over, a talented developer scores success, gets acquired (twice) and begins the long slide into oblivion (pun intended). Maybe bgs held on longer than most, probably because all the "faults" mentioned tended to be balanced out at the time. Both ES and FO were ahead of the curve at release in that crucial late 2000s-mid 2010s time frame, where tech/art/money met. You could forgive or at least ignore their faults. Not any more, the track record is clear barring some major management change. That is HIGHLY unlikely. If MS swaps out Emil and Todd, its more likely the entire studio will just collapse like Bioware and all the other studios of the past 30 years. Maybe Bethesda will turn into something like EA, just publishing. But creatively, bgs needs to turn into Nintendo or Capcom and just learn to give their fans what they want and nothing else. I have zero expectations going forward.
while I wasn't super hyped for Starfield, I was interested....until that long 45 minute presentation last summer... after that, all I could see was red flags.
@@philosoaper watch PatricianTV's 8 hour vid if you want a detailed spoiler review of the actual game loop
@@MonkeyspankO no thanks, as someone else who has also played games for over 40 years... I've wasted enough energy on Starefield already
@@philosoaper my thoughts exactly
Nobody is less invested in the Elder Scrolls than the Bethesda team.
Knowing how they make games now I expect the worst now.
can say the same about blizzard or bioware. Honestly depressing af. In the 90s videogames were made by absolute turbonerds from all walks of life, you could have an ex lawyer coder working alongside an artist who used to be a plumber. They all just wanted to make games and were mostly self taught. Nowadays it's corporatized to hell and back, all semblance of ART is removed from the process. Thank god we have engines like Unity and Godot that allow indie games to be easily made by actual visionaries
Fallout is even more neglected.
@moonasha They were indie devs. Back in the 90s large videogame corporations didn't exist. It was niche and the only people who made games were people passionate about them. That slowly changed and all the big names went corporate and started putting profit before passion.
@@lolcatjunior dude Fallout 4 came out later than Skyrim, then there's fallout 76, and now there's a fallout show coming out. Fallout is like the youngest sibling of the Bethesda family and TES is the middle child that's constantly overlooked because at least there's ESO
The funny thing is Emil is categorically wrong about players not caring about a good story and making paper airplanes out of it. And BG3 is the shining new example. If anything its because its built around "what will the player do?" Instead of "so who cares" which is why the BG3 quests can be done in so many ways. Its really a much better way to approach things. Bethesda has a bad habit of removing things that dont work very well instead of trying to make them work.
this.
His frustration in that quote makes sense when you look at the stories they write. BGS quests have become increasingly simplified and linear, giving you little choice for actual roleplaying and out of the box solutions. He wants to have the last word as a writer instead of letting players experiment and rewarding their intelligence.
@@matman000000 I didn't even get frustration from him out of that quote, but just a kind of resigned complacency, as if thats what he tells himself whenever he feels like he could have done better on the writing for a quest. Like he's just phoning it it, and whenever that bothers him he just tells himself that nobody cares about the story anyway and continues. I may be being uncharitable, and I don't know him personally, obviously, but none of his interviews come off as particularly passionate about what he does. When Todd does an interview, you can still get the sense every now and then (it was more common in interviews about older games) that he cares about the games or at least parts of the game that he finds interesting, but Emil always comes across as that its just a job to him, and not one he's particularly invested in besides it covering the bills. Honestly, props to Zhakaron for managing to extract some enjoyment out of this thoroughly uninspired mess of a game. I certainly would not have had the patience for it.
Yeah, most AAA studios build a game and take you on a ride that they want you to experience, where as BG3 just hands you the keys to the car and tell you to have fun.
I don’t think they even enjoy their own games. They just think the audience is dumb enough to eat up anything they put out.
my favorite part of the story is when you go through the UC museum and see the more interesting stories that we don't get to play.
If starfield took place during the colony war it would be a much better game.
@@CUSTARDP00DLETK No it wouldn't, Bethesda would 100% botch it. Just look at Skyrim's civil war
Reminds me of some writing advice I heard to the effect of, "Ask yourself 'Is this the most interesting time of your hero's life?' and if the answer is no, ask yourself 'Why aren't I writing about that more interesting time, then?'" You can definitely apply that to settings as well as individual characters.
@@Potato6153 Yeah the "big battle" would be 20 NPCs fighting each other max.
Wait, you mean all TES lore? That cool lore we see in books but never in the games? That lore?
The biggest problem is that when players skip Emil and Todd's story, they sit astonished that the players would tear out the pages of the next great american novel- Instead of asking themselves if perhaps they had NOT, in fact, written the next great american novel.
Players don't ignore good stories, they ignore EMIL'S stories.
Exactly, players love good stories (See: UNDERTALE, Baldur's Gate 3, What Remains Of Edith Finch, Visual novels as a genre, etc) Emil's stories just suck donkey dick and his ego's too big for him to see that
"I'm over it. I'm shedding paperwork from back then now because I don't legally need to keep it anymore." is such a great line.
Emil be like "players don't care about your stories, they turn them into paper airplanes." Yeah, definitely explains the critical failures of God of War 4 and 5.
Exactly. Tone deaf as hell. How did that absurd notion ever get into his head? It is such a condescending take as well, just treating your players like idiot toddlers.
Emil is a simpleton who got lucky.
It's so fucking absurd for a company that specialises in RPGs. You can't make such a game with lazy writing in 2023 after all the fantastic RPGs that have come out since Skyrim. The Witcher 3, Divinity OS Cyberpunk 2077, disco Elysium, BG3 more recently and so many more...
The success of these games proves people are enjoying good narratives, NPCs that aren't wooden dolls, complex worldbuilding and characters, choices that matter...
@@UnityAgainstJewishEvil I've suspected Pagliarulo was a brain't since Fallout 3, it's nice to have some confirmation. A lead writer saying "players don't care about story" sure is something else. It's like your head chef saying, "customers don't care about flavour".
I don’t think that’s exactly what Emil was saying. Like, if he truly believed players don’t care about the story, then why even have writers? Why not just go back to NES games that had no study?
If anything, Emil’s “keep it simple stupid” approach doesn’t mean “don’t care about stories” but more “most players will probably zoom through, be distracted or forget stuff. Don’t make things too complicated or else they will lose the context”.
Which, on paper, isn’t entirely a bad idea. That’s how something like professional wrestling storylines. They are intentionally designed to be easy to understand because a live audience can’t hear the commentary.
Emil’s issue is more that he doesn’t leave stuff behind for players that do care or are paying attention. It’s simple enough for anyone to understand, but too simple to fully engage with. Especially given that RPGs are known to provide stories and choice.
Imagine how Great Tim Cain and his team were or Julian Lefay and Ted Peterson for Bethesda to last this long riding on their greatness.
Tim Cain, such an old school Legend.
@@Br1cht And he's got a TH-cam channel. It's worth a watch because he's full of advice and anecdotes.
Honestly those people are even riding on their own greatness. They had their one shining moment in the sun but if you look at their opinions and work they are producing NOW... not so great. It's just a reminder that greatness is a specific moment in time where the culture of society interacts with some young people with brilliance and talent all working together, not the production of one or two Great Men. When they later produce complete mediocrities, obviously it wasn't some absolute quality of their person that continues on forever.
Cain mainly did work on F1, while F2, which IMO ended up way better then it's predecessor, is mainly a child of Chris Avellone.
@@zeriel9148F2 was created with Avellone as design lead and main writer, who had and still has a glowing career. From Planescape Torment and Kotor 2, to Prey and Pathfinder RPGs he always provided quality writing and for a time carried Obsidian Entertainment on his back.
Emil is what happens when management doesnt know what its doing
I'm sure he's probably friendly, likeable, a great team player, gets all his work done on time and buys donuts for everyone. Unfortunately he's fucking incompetent.
"Failing uphill"
i safely bet that bethesda has no other person who claims to be a writer and nobody wants to work with bethesda because first 5 points of contract include mandatory praise of failout 4 and skyrim
Classic example of someone being promoted until they reach a position they aren't suited for.
It's just the Peter principle. He was competent at writing Dark Brotherhood quests in Oblivion, so they promoted him past his competency. He's been there forever, his games make money off of leaching off of more talented people's work, so there's no reason to get rid of him. There's a new audience to eat the slop and the old audience eventually gets jaded and learns to love the decline and just do some dungeon crawling in a facsimile of the settings they used to love.
You're as replaceable as those grognards on No Mutants Allowed who hated Fallout 3. Bethesda will turn out trash and milk them casuals til the end of time.
The retcons hurt the most, imo. It's hard to keep a grasp on basic lore when it's changing with every subquent game. To the point where I've stopped caring and barely read books or letters in the games anymore.
I can’t speak for elder scrolls but for fallout there’s basically 2 versions of the timeline. The one that starts from fallout 1 and goes to 4 with only mentions 2 because it had the enclave. And then you have the one people who say they like fallout chose to acknowledge which is exclusively fallout 2 and it’s sequel fallout NV.
@@DeepTissueExplorer like I said “fallout” fans exclusively consider two games as fallout. Unfortunate really but I guess eventually they’ll stop complaining like the terminator fans eventually did
@@creed8712 the issue is that without a design document, no developer has any ability to retain plot consistency.
The games made without a design document are not canon even within its own game. Its sad but we genuinely cannot claim anything made without a DD as being canon as there isnt a canon its following
@@creed8712 The Terminator fans who stopped complaining just stopped watching the franchise.
@@DeepTissueExplorer back in the day I used to rag on the no mutants allowed crowd but I get it now. Gatekeeping is good
Emil Pagliarulo is the posterchild of why nepotism is bad
What modern Bethesda does genuinely well is make a beautiful world to explore. The landscape of Fallout 4 and Skyrim looks beautiful and is varied in biomes. There are lots of dungeons to explore, and many of those dungeons aren't JUST dungeons but also have little stories inside them or could even lead to entire quest lines. This is what people loved in Skyrim and Fallout 4. Finding Black Reach, wandering upon "The Miasma" quest, finding the buried church in the glowing sea, or the hotel vault in Far Harbor.
Starfield removed basically all of this and didn't replace it with anything equally good. That's why it's a critical failure.
Discovering Blackreach might be the single best TES moment I've had out of all the games in the series, and I'm saying that as a Morrowind fan. I stumbled upon it at a point were I had visited all the areas of the map and thought I'd seen what Skyrim had to offer, so it was impactful finding an open world area of that scale under the ground like that. I wonder who came up with the idea of adding it?
Does Starfield have any moments like that at all? Feels like you visit all the true handcrafted areas in the first 10 hours of the game just following the MQ. It's so strange they abandoned the exploration of handcrafted landscapes for pure procgen, when that's what Bethesda is good at and honestly the single thing carrying their latest Fallout titles.
It’s almost like Bethesda doesn’t really ever understand what made their games good.
The guy responsible for the environmental storytelling left BGS. Explains why Starfield doesn't hold up.
They failed to do that in Starfield.
simple; nepotism.. I mean, they could hire someone new and talented writer, or maybe just asking advice from veteran video game writer about your storytelling before you publish the game but nope, Bethesda egoistic and nepotism said "Nope, we're good lmao." 😒
Morrowind was the game that blew me away and made me want to know more about the lore and history. None of Bethesda's recent games made me actually care beyond just playing it seeing the ending and never bothering again.
This. With morrowind, i went deep on who Dagoth Ur is and the political conflicts. I read every piece of lore there is. I don't usually do that. No RPG since morrowind got me to do that again.
If anything as much as I like Skyrim, it also made me look into the lore. People do get into heated debates about the civil war and so lore details are nitpicked. But it also made me want to go look at past games. I do want to play Morrowind and Daggerfall.
@@DatcleanMochaJo If you ever do, you will look at Skyrim and wonder how you could ever think it was a good game.
You won't even have to get used to anything 'new' really. They still use the same engine.. the SAME ANIMATIONS... you will even recognize armor just it will be lower graphics is all. They reuse everything to the point if you played Morrowind you see things from it in Skyrim and just go "What the hell did they even do warrant all the money this supposedly cost?!"
@@Nempo13nothing is reused from morrowind in skyrim you are literally just making things up lol
@@DeepTissueExplorer motifs and reprisals are common ways of tying themes between pieces of music and has been done so since the classical era. they did not copy the soundtrack
CRPG renaissance has slowly crept up and leapt upon a very new audience. Obviously, the chain comparison applies with CRPGs as well (BG1 to BG2 to Pillars to Pathfinder/D:OS1&2 to BG3) but the critical DNA of roleplaying and branching narratives still remained throughout. Even with the gains and losses along the way. If anything, this speaks to the evolution of CRPGs in the background than it does Bethesda's degradation, which really showed itself in 2015 when people started comparing Witcher 3 and Fallout 4.
I'm not sure if witcher 3 and fallout 4 are comparable
@@Tacet137 Well they aren't in the sense that Fallout 4 is shit and Witcher 3 is not, but they are both CRPGs. This is the old example of the "you can't compare our game to Baldur's Gate 3 since it makes us look bad". If you can't make a game that compares favourably to others in the genre, you should probably find a new job.
@@Spurdospede This reminds me of someone's conspiracy theory I heard, where they said that "character action games" as a sub-genre was basically invented by the industry to keep people from comparing their action games to stuff like Devil May Cry and Bayonetta.
@Tacet137 They 100% are comparable.
They're both open world games, so how well did each game present a believable world? How detailed is that world? What is traveling through that world like?
They both have a story, both in the form of main and side quests. How well is that story written? Is it coherent? Are there plot holes? Is the dialog good enough to make you think that you're engaging with a person? Does what happens in that story adhere to previously established lore? Do you have any agency in that story?
Rinse and repeat that for RPG mechanics, combat, ect.
Bottom line is that Bethesda makes mediocre garbage and if it wasn't for the modding community, Bethesda would have died back in the early 2000's.
@twohorsesinamancostume7606 I've expressed myself wrongly I wanted to say that the games are not comparable qualitatively, imo witcher 3 is leagues better
Mom wake up Zaric posted
yes son
Mom left to buy groceries and never came back.
Get the camera
Mom, I want Zaric to continue his TES Lore series🥺
I’ve been waiting since 2017 and now I’m older🥺🥺🥺
damn, Just made it to the point where he explained why he doesn’t do lore videos anymore.
Times were good when I discovered this enthusiastic man in a SUIT talking about the world of a game that I just couldn’t get enough of back then. There is something special about Zaric’s lore videos that can’t be replicated with other lore videos that cover the same topic. Idk if it’s the delivery or his understanding/knowledge of the lore coming from someone who’s played the OG’s (Or it might just be the suit lol), but I always find his lore videos top tier if I were to recommend it to Someone trying to get introduced to TES lore.
Might just be the nostalgia speaking too, Cuz damm those lore videos Felt like ages ago.
If 6 ever releases, and he releases a follow up video on the lore series, ima just smile and Cringe at how old I am
Quiet down honey, you're 35
I've been hearing a lot of "Starfield is badly written because Emil Pagliarulo doesn't keep a Design Document" which sounds suspiciously similar to "Fallout is badly coded because Creation Engine is Obsolete". Well yes, that's true, but there are also several other foundational issues at Bethesda that make it basically impossible for them to make a game like the ones we're all so fond of.
Also, BG3 is scratching that itch at least as well as MW/NV did, so how much do we need Bethesda, really
thats just classic internet telephone for you. thats repeated alot because 1. its fucking stupid and 2. its verifiably true from the mouth of the accused. obviously most of us know its just one facet but its the hot topic that cant be denied so, yeah
All anyone has to do is watch that little Writing presentation Emil did years back to realize he's not a good writer, lol.
@@nickh4354 I know. It's just funny seeing this specific sentiment get brought up in various communities all over the internet, when there's so many more salient criticisms to make. The KISS/'write what you know' thing belies this deep incuriosity that, to me, is alien to good game design. It's a much bigger deal than just simple mismanagement signified by the lack of a Design Doc. It would help avoid unnecessary retcons, and make it easier for the different groups at Bethesda to put out a coherent product, but it's a symptom of a wider problem: being artistically unambitious and kind of anti-intellectual.
Zaric is closer to the mark than anybody else I know of that's currently opining on the topic, and has been for years now.
I just want one more new vegas level of quality fallout game. Just one more. miss that magic.
@@dksoulstice6040 No one at Bethesda is a good writer or ever has been. The game's have had good lore and interesting world building, but they've always been pretty poorly written. It's a bit like Star Wars in that sense.
“If being wrong is beneficial to me, then let no ego stand in the way” 17:11-17:16
I've been playing Rogue Trader, and I don't think it would surprise anyone that Owlcat could pull off a WH40K CRPG with aplomb. But it did just make me think about a world where Bethesda buys WH40K outright and makes a 1st person action RPG where you become Archmagos of the Adeptus Mechanicus, a Rogue Trader, a Grandmaster Inquisitor, Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes, High Marshal of the Black Templars, and cap it all off by making it all the way up to the top dog of the local Underhive Gangers on some backwards-ass hive world out in the Segmentum Obscurus. In a single playthrough, of course.
You are the chosen Emperor who gets given fetch quests for the local Imperial Guard sergeant...
And they break space marine lore when they allow the composite faction grey blob protagonist to get geneseed and become a Chapter Master on top of everything else. "You're a space marine, Henricus,"
GW may be a shit company that makes bad decisions and abuses its customers, but at least you can trust them not to trash their IP quite that hard.
They're still trashing their IP, don't get me wrong, but they're not going to go that far.. yet.
Don't forget joining the Black Templars, being able to do missions for the Alpha Legion and then catching the red thirst from a Blood Angel.
Oh and stealing the Golden Throne for the Dark Eldar - Custodes says afterwards "I've got my eye on you" and let's you wander around the Imperial palace.
Hang on, Bethesda just called. I've got the job.
Playing Rogue Trader made me wish Larian put in the BG3 budget to make another WH40K CRPG as I think I'd like it more than BG3.
You nailed it when describing how each new release would alienate the fans who came before. My first Bethesda game was Fallout 3, I loved it and when Fallout new vegas came out I was only 12 so I didn't know it wasnt bethesda who made the game but actually obsidian. I felt like it was 100x better than fallout 3, so naturally I was over the moon at the fallout 4 announcement. when Fallout 4 released it was brutally disappointing for me. I had never been as hyped for a game before or since FO4, I went to the Midnight release and everything. I remember really enjoying the few hours I played that night obviously, I was really excited. After that though I remember playing it some more the next day and not being nearly as satisfied by the end of my session with the game that day. By the end of the launch week of FO4 I was asking myself while playing "when does it get good?" I felt like I must not be looking hard enough. Where are all the interesting NPCs? Why does everything I do feel the same? Where are all the Side Quests? (Not Radiant Fetch quests) then it hit me in the face all at once lol... This IS everything. I hope you enjoy picking up bent cans and desk fans! lol. I was so sad and Bethesda has been on ice to me until they release a game that is at least on par or better than fallout new vegas (ironically BG3 is the game that is scratching that itch after 10+ years of shit "rpgs")
Obsidian has a habit of making great sequels to ok games. Knights of the Old Republic 2 is one I highly recommend. It is a StarWars game that actually digs into the philosophy of it all in an amazing way (and it challenges your view on things regardless if you go light or dark, you can even stay neutral and be challenged).
My 1st Bethesda game was Morrowind and remember the realization of how bare bones Oblivion was in comparison. I love Oblivion for what it is, but it was a drastic contrast to me.
@@Nempo13 They did, but for the last decade they've been only working with their own original IPs
My hype for Fallout 4 died at the E3 Showcase. I don't know how anyone thought a voiced protagonist with 4 dialogue options on a wheel would be a good thing for Fallout.
Dwarf Fortress is set to release Adventure Mode for the Steam version this spring. That's where you control a single Dwarf in a turn based exploration game mode. Talk about Emergent. 2nd, Dragon's Dogma 2 is going to blow Bethesda out of the water in terms of action. RP elements are scant but boy does it look fun.
I've been waiting for the Steam version of Dwarf Fortress to get feature parity with the old free version I was running lol
@@Zhakaron I'll definitely watch those streams!
Not just a Dwarf. You can choose from a wide variety of adventurer races depending on the world you've generated. I've played as a hawk man, a whale man, a kobold, a two-headed troll and a bunch of others on the pre-Steam version.
To be fair, game development has left Dwarf Fortress behind. Procedurally generated world aren't as innovative or interesting anymore and Tarn and Zach have been fleshing out the world a bit too slowly. Not to dis Daggerfall fans, but Dwarf Fortress adventure mode is right about there in gameplay depth, arguably.
About damn time for Dwarf Fortress to get their heads out of their butts and get Adventure Mode going.
I remember years ago you made a video all about Emil's writing in Skyrim and fallout 4 and you said something to the effect that keeping him around would keep their writing terrible. And yeah thats how it went lol
Great explanation made me realize why I enjoyed Skyrim much more than Fallout 4.
Exactly, although in my case, the inverse. Tried Skyrim at least a dozen times and got bored each time. Heresy, I know.
Keep working backwards in the catalog, then the game influences, then the book influences
than*
Not really. It's very overrated, especially without mods. It's funny, fans are only seeing BGS's faults since FO4, while I saw em since Oblivion.@@MonkeyspankO
@@andrejz8954 thanks
A huge thing I think was Cyberounk is finally something similar to the game that was advertised. I know the RPG mechanics in CP77 are very very minimal compared but man dude. The difference is INSANE. Just one conversation with a NPC in both makes it so clear. Not to mention the no loading screens once your playing cyberpunk unless you actively reload a save or choose to fast travel not via hopping on the metro.
The new CP2077 doesn't give you many options in the terms of quests but it sure does give a lot of options when developing you character and playstyle. It has a great skill tree and imo that is important. Just look Diablo 2, it didn't had any story choices and it is one of the best RPG's of all time. Story choices are good but not mandatory in RPG imo. CP2077 is CDPR best work imo, straight awesome game with current patch 2.1.
@@domagojkersun9630 It's a shame because there was clearly a faction at CP2077 that prioritized player choices, it's apparent in a select few missions- most notable during the All Foods Factory in the prologue- there's like a solid 6 or so different choices/outcomes for that one mission
@@Azerkeux It is worth noting that is one of the first major quests they demoed, the "vertical slice" (which is essentially creating a short snippet of your game that is playable and shows off all major features of the game, and saying "this is our goal. make the whole game like this." as a proof-of-concept that your ideas work in practice) It's entirely possible (and rather likely, imo) that they made that vertical slice first, and intended for the rest of the game to have that level of choices, but as the crunch period set in and they realized the resources that'd require (manpower and time they did not have), it slowly made it into the backseat and they just made the quests super linear in order to just get it finished to ship.
It'd explain why one throwaway prologue quest has like 6 outcomes, while every other quest has none, and none of your choices during that one quest have any real impact on the rest of the story. There's also evidence of a major rewrite late into development, turning into the "biochip brain cancer" story we ended up getting. So it's also possible there were more quests related to whatever the original story was that had player choice, but as they got scrapped in the rewrite, they didn't have time to make new quests with that level of player choice afterwards.
Yeah I get that and I get why some people are still angry.@@Azerkeux
@@fearlesswee5036I know we're still not allowed to criticize BG3 yet, but it's very clear that BG3 repeats that to some extent. It has the same pattern of every previous Larian game that went into EA: a terrific first act and weaker second/third acts. The amount of content that was cut from Act 3 is ludicrous.
I played through the original Deus Ex for the first time recently and it was a wonderful experience of immersive sim design that kept me interested from moment to moment. From being able to sneak my way to an objective, going loud, or just ignoring the problem altogether using boxes and bombs.
Deus Ex rewarded you for thinking outside the box (though the boss fights hurt if you went FULL stealth build).
I love how you summarize what you said for hours on stream in a well spoken and interesting way in this vid. Great commentary as always Zaric!
I've gotten into Morrowind for the first time recently. It feels magical, like the first time I played Skyrim when I was a kid. I never looked for books or lore in Skyrim to help me make in-game choices. Having that experience in Morrowind has been so fun and creatively stimulating, like I'm really exploring an environment. The same feeling that made Skyrim special to me. I've not played video games much for a long time now, but Morrowind's rekindled my interest in them.
People seem to forget that individuals make games (ie. development teams) NOT companies. Just because some fancy company has their name attached does not guarantee a product similar to what was produced in the past
Exactly, for example the team that made baldur's gate 1 and 2, Kotor,dragon age origins and the mass effect trilogy at bioware are mostly gone so how can bioware make a similar quality game if none of the people who created those games are no longer involved.
Im replaying Mass Effect, and its not the gameplay or the charming world that keeps me coming back, the characters are the ones that make the game so much more memorable to me.
I dont really need a good story, I just need good characters.
I wanted to be playing Mass Effect the entire time I was playing Starfield.
I am Krogan!
Good characters an make a story great. Mass Effect has a damn good story (exclude the ME3 endings). The characters definitely make it.
Correct. If you make an rpg and the characters suck, you have failed. Mass effect, dragon age, baldurs gate or never winters have great characters. That is why people come back to these games
yeah
A game I've played a lot recently is Lunacid. It's a dungeon crawler that reminds me of Eldar Scrolls but it's one giant dungeon similar to Battlespire. My friends say it's similar to Kingsfield.
Kingsfield without the HORRIBLE controls.
Yeah, that's fair.
Kingsfield but with DOOM FPS controls if you level speed lmao
@@Zhakaron Aren't the horrible controls supposed to be part of the sense of danger? I can't imagine people would look back to KF so fondly if it had doom-style running around. Not that I ever played it.
@@isitanos Don't worry, there's an option to enable the old KF-style tank controls (including jankier hitboxes to offset the lowered mobility), you can also turn on the KF compass orb and lower the framerate and screen size to various presets for KF1 through 4 for maximal immersion.
This actually made me feel better. I'm less angry at the company now, I just pity them.
If you're angry for them making a crap game I wouldn't invest yourself so much in consumer products that are made to take money from you.
@@Wilhelm4131 This is also sound logic.
Bruh you just got gaslit
The most important thing to me that Bethesda got wrong in everything after Morrowind - they forgot that choice is consequence. If there's no consequence, then it wasn't actually a choice, and if it wasn't actually a choice, then the player had no actual freedom... just a list of chores.
The joy of any given choice in an RPG is the fact that it is a fork in the road. It might be a minor one, and the path you walk along might eventually lead you to the same place as the path you didn't take, but the simple fact that one path negates the other gives you a fantastic sense of discovery. You're not just traversing a road following the signposts, you're exploring.
I recently acquired Cyberpunk, having been vindicated by my decision to hold off on buying it until it was "finished", and the opening origin story selection immediately felt good; only three openings, but each of them was entirely distinct and felt like a proper choice. It's that selection of paths that, at least for me, immediately drags me into a story. I don't need the game to have a million endings, or for every choice to have deep consequences... it just has to be a real choice, not "which one do you want to do first".
This is also why I loved Dark Souls - it had a minimalist approach to storytelling, with most of the lore exposed via item descriptions etc, but the fact that the dungeon crawl was so deep, with every choice (or mistake) having such consequence meant that the story felt far more compelling; the story said "You're a lone adventurer in a vast, frightening realm", and that was genuinely the experience. Moment to moment, every little choice was a genuine choice.
The sad thing is, these "level designers who became writers" at Bethesda... aren't even good level designers. They were competent at best, but nothing special. If they were great level designers, of the same calibre as some of the greats from id and Valve, then their writing would be better too, because a lot of the skills and important lessons are directly transferable. In fact, returning to Dark Souls for a moment - if you want to see how true this is, witness the Anor Londo reveal; the perfect moment of voiceless storytelling... a moment of real discovery and adventure, conveyed through nothing more than level design.
As for the quote about players making paper planes out of your story - if they're doing that? You didn't write it properly. You tried to regurgitate a story at them, instead of making them the protagonist in that story. Meaning there was a fundamental disconnect between the gameplay, and the writing.
Knowing your love for Emil and his works, I knew this video was coming the second I saw his tweets. Boy, this gonna be good. My body is ready 😄
Haha i wish he was more savage
My thoughts: While Morrowind was a wildly better game than anything Bethsoft has made since, the fact that it's design had pivoted to being compatible with the console market (ie. Xbox) for me was the first moment I saw the writing on the wall - in that it was clear that Bethsoft was on a trajectory of distilling their games to appeal to as broad an audience as possible for $profit$. I still maintain that Daggerfall was the best of their games in terms of sheer ambition to create a vast fantasy world that you are free to explore and replay an infinite amount of times and have fun. Although the original game is clearly limited from a technical perspective and has it's flaws, if they did a remake of Daggerfall, I would buy it in a heartbeat. But I don't think they will, because it would probably would be confusing to gamers who are used to the now distilled and simplified Bethsoft games. So, yeah, I share your sentiments overall.
Also, I mean, the music in Daggerfall is timeless and underrated. Listening to the Town Square theme always puts me in a happy mood. So, if that was orchestrally remastered, that would be so awesome.
Games I'm currently playing:
* Steamworld Dig 2 - Always love me some good platforming/metroidvania
* Outer Wilds - Space + Majoras Mask + Myst, what's not to like? :-) But it is a game that really demands all of your brains attention
I’d argue that it actually started post-Morrowind, not with MW.
A lot of the “action-game-ization” of Bethesda’s titles can be traced back to console players not having experience with CRPGs. A lot of those early criticisms of MW were for having “bad combat” and the like, assuming that it was supposed to be an action-RPG. While it’s true that the combat lacks important feedback (even DG has clash and clatter sounds!), the assumption that MW is an action-RPG is incorrect… but at the time, it was entirely understandable. What else are early-2000s console tweens and teenagers supposed to think? They’ve never played an Icewind Dale before. :V
What’s *less* understandable is how Bethesda took those inaccurate criticisms to heart and began making the wrong kinds of changes. Oblivion manages to still be great by the grace of excellent vibes, decent writing and nice art direction, but Skyrim suffers immensely without mods or long stretches of time between playthroughs.
@@SkyBlueFox1 I’m not disagreeing with you about Morrowind, but my point was that Morrowind coming to a console gave me a hunch that this was the direction Bethsoft was going to take.
Would you honestly trust them to remake Daggerfall and not bork it up though?
@@abstr4cted496 Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t know what internal issues post-MW Bethsoft is having. I know that that the leadership sucks and make poor decisions and have a lack of vision other than profit. But do they have a lack of talent in other areas? Hard to say. But they could do what many other big companies do with remakes, which is to outsource it to a smaller talented team.
The game isn't limited by the technology of its time, the problem was that the project had no oversight. There was nobody coordinating and managing what all the devs were doing. And since the devs were DND nerds, they took that freedom to try and turn the game engine into the DM of a DND session. A youtuber known as "Indigo Gaming" managed to track down Julian "LeFay" Jensen and convinced him to do an interview. It's 3 hours long but they go deep into what really went on at Bethesda behind the curtains back then. It says a lot that Jensen didn't enjoy the development of Daggerfall at all, instead describing it as a nightmare, and the development of the smaller spin-offs as "clean." Daggerfall's immense scale and complexity was a freak accident resulting from a lack of competent management. Which is also why the game is such a technical wreck. It's not the technology of the time, it's the fact that nobody made sure all the elements put together by so many people actually smoothly worked together. Which is why the big mainstream gaming studios all have a design document and plan out the development of each game before they write the first line of code.
As for Morrowind catering to as many people as possible, that's unfortunately what Bethesda saw itself forced to do if it didn't want to go out of business. If Morrowind hadn't saved the company, nobody would even know that name anymore.
So a game I'm looking forward to is dragons dogma 2 and why is because the first one was alot of fun and underrated and I'm interested in seeing more of the world in which dragons dogma takes place in
I'm getting into Baldur's gate 1. Larian studio's release has encouraged me to get into the fable on the bhaalspawn
Nature's servant awaits!
42:19 this is too true. I played Morrowind, that was my first game. I recently played Fallout 2 and was blown away by it's realistic style of fast travel, that was actually dangerous. I keep thinking, why are their games not like their older games? You'd think that each planet could at least be TES:Arena sized with some procedural generation and then just superimpose 2D coordinates onto a ball and have that be your taking off point to have 'realistic' taking off and landing. You'd think that you would be able to do a no fast travel run like in previous games, but you can't.
Well to start off Bethesda doesn't make the new games like fallout 1 and 2 because they didn't make them. That was interplay and black isle.
I agree with you on the fast travel in fallout 2, it's realistic but not in an unfun way.
(He's a tip btw, encounters scale off luck and you can get certain perks to avoid fights in fast travel or just get the car)
I also hoped you played 1 first, because if you didn't it's going to feel very empty compared to 2.
I think the answer lies in the ability to drop items.
Given you can drop stuff into the world and it's expected that the game remembers everything you've dropped, having contiguous worlds and space travel would require a lot of "keeping-track-of-your-dropped-crap" and that wouldn't work in our favor over time.
The answer is, of course, to NOT remember all your crap, but Bethesda likes it's unnecessary minutiae.
@ralphengland8559 true, I'm sure players wouldn't care if some chest spawned in with their crap inside that they dropped in exterior cells. Just have that physics stuff be only in interiors. It all stacks into the hundreds anyway
A few games I've played as of late in the off chance you see this.
Metro Exodus (literally right now)
Missed Exodus when it first came out so I went to it after playing the first two earlier this year. Being a big fan of the books, I've fallen in love with the Zones 4A games were able to bring to life. Not sure if it will dethrone 2033 as my favorite in the series but it's definitely a contender.
Fire emblem Three Houses, Engage, Awakening, and Echoes.
I only played the GBA games WAY back in the day and basically pushed into deep diving into the series and I'm so glad I did. The stories, characters, battles, and different kinds of gameplay unique to each game is a draw for me and it's a shame I missed out on alot of this series when I was growing up. Really it's lit a fire in me to try out more JRPGs that aren't just action games like Tales or Star Ocean and I can't thank it enough for that.
Remnant 2
I mostly wanted a shooter to play while I had a bit of a break period and it's certainly not what I expected. Can't say I'm it's biggest fan but it's certainly a game I can see myself coming back to next year or beyond. It had addictive gameplay and a world that I can't really say has been done in other places (at least as far as I'm aware of) and has a pretty compelling story even if it stays in the back of your head for the most part.
As for what I'm excited for? A few games in 2024 have piqued my interest being Visions of Mana, Granblue Fantasy Relink, Suikoden I & II remasters, and especially Dragons Dogma 2. Probably some others I'm forgetting but these are the big ones I'm most looking forward to.
Thoughts on S. T. A. L. K. E. R. 2?
@GldnClaw That is somehow one of the ones I forgot to mention. I'm super Excited. I'm not the biggest fan of STALKER but I have alot of respect for it and I think GSC are gonna make something special.
Personally I love all the elder scrolls, dark souls games, and recently the first Witcher game and I’m drown to those games for many different reasons. I like exploring, questing, character designing, and dungeon crawling. A good story also helps too if it has one.
I agree with most of what you discussed and always love watching these talks it’s inspiring and very informative.
this is the best belated christmas gift I've ever had.
Love hearing you talk about stuff.
To answer the question at the end: I've been playing a lot of Genshin Impact, while I don't like the story, I do like the combat, and the exploration, It's great to just turn my brain off and just run around in a cartoon world and hit stuff, solve puzzles, or grind bosses.
I also enjoy Honkai Star Rail, for funny enough, the story. It just gripped me better than Genshin did, so I put up with the, in my humble opinion, mediocre gameplay. (It's not bad by any means, but it doesn't really scratch an itch as much as Genshin does for me.)
I really wish I could skip cutscenes in genshin though.
To add games I am looking forward to: I am SO excited for Monster Hunter Wilds. I've recently replayed World, and plan on playing through Rise soon, if there's one mainstream game series I actively look forward to, it's Monster Hunter. I played the series on my friend's PSP, got my ass handed to me by a Rathalos, and kinda fell in love with the series. I forgot what game it was exactly though.
Also looking forward to STALKER 2, game looks incredible, but I gotta replay Shadow of Chernobyl before picking up STALKER 2.
Avowed looks like Obsidian's take on an Elder Scrolls like game, so I'm eager to see what they'll put on the table there, while I wasn't the biggest fan of Outer Worlds, I still enjoyed it plenty.
I want to see what the hell is going on with 34Everlast, it's reveal trailer was wild.
And since I play gacha trash.
I'm looking forward to Wuthering Waves, Punishing Gray Raven's combat in a genshin world? Sign me the FUCK UP
Zenless Zone Zero looks good too, I was told it also plays pretty well, but I'm always weary of second hand information.
I played Genshin until I finished with the story they had up until then, but I utterly refuse to resin grind ever. One of these days I'll hop on a private server and finish up the years of story I'm missing, lol.
A brilliant breakdown and explanation of the feelings I've had for this situation. If only Emil's talk we're still on TH-cam, I want this holy Grail of writing anti-quality to learn from myself
Wait what? Those got taken down?
Here's the one I linked in the video about KISS: th-cam.com/video/Bi51-wjcwp8/w-d-xo.html There are a couple more that only survive via transcribed articles online though.
@@Zhakaron Thank you!
Good to hear another one of these discussion videos, and thank you for the recommendations at the end.
Thanks for the 3 recommendations at the end.
The first Bethesda game I played was Oblivion. A friend brought over a burned copy on a disk to my place when we were having a get together and said "try this". I installed it and had to downgrade it immensely just to get it to run on my potatoe. I fell in love. Despite having no shadows. Despite having a very limited draw distance and massive pop-in. Despite having ridiculously low graphic fidelity. I still enjoyed the hell out of the game. And I never finished it. I still went out and purchased my own copy and the DLC for it.
I spent hundreds of hours modding it, both my own and other peoples' creations, and got lost in the world presented to me. I upgraded my computer to prepare for the next game, and was able to run Oblivion at max settings flawlessly. And despite the terrible gameplay systems, and jank within the game, I still enjoyed it.
I tried playing Morrowind and just couldn't get into it. I was used to the real-time response to my input of Oblivion, and couldn't get past Morrowind's presentation, between the "dice-roll" attacks, and the lack of voices for NPCs delivering their lines. The immersion I was having with Oblivion just wasn't happening.
I played Skyrim and enjoyed the hell out it as well. Despite its dumbing down of mechanics, the immesion I felt was intense. The actual gameplay was just so much better than Oblivion, and while the dungeons felt worse over-all in design, I liked delving those caves more.
I bought Starfield on the back of being able to mod it in the future because I want an open world space exploration game. I knew that the overall gameplay was going to be lacking. I knew the story was going to be bland. I knew the content was going to be very missing, and that I would have to wait for the creation kit to be able to fix it. I still bought it and played it. I played it to familiarize with what and how things were included, so I would know what I would need to fix in the future. I was honestly just shocked by just how much was missing from the game, or was poorly constructed. I played for about 70ish hours, and shelved it. I will wait till the CK and hopefully I can fix most of my issues, and go back to the game.
Zaric, I'm really happy to see this. Very well spoken, and I'm glad to hear your opinion on Starfield/BGS as a whole.
since fallout 4 i've been saying the one bethesda has going for it these days is disappointing all their previous customers and making ALOT of money doing it. also sigil 2 isn't quite as good as sigil 1 but as you said it's distinctively Romero and has a nice flow to it once you play it for what it is. great video as always
Elder Kings 2 one of the best Elder Scrolls games to come out since Morrowind. It's a total conversion mod for Crusader Kings 3 and it's absolutely wonderful.
Sure sure, Emil the bad everything but there were probably some people at BGS that, you know, played the game when it was in development. Did they all think it's a masterpiece or did they voice concern over the missing gameplay loop, over all that is missing that is remotely interesting after you've done it once?
This is the story I want to hear.
I never really got into Oblivion, because I didn't want to play against that stupid level scaling. Took all fun out for me. It wasn't even fun with efficient leveling micro managing what you can or can't do all the time.
The scaling was an awful idea for sure. I think the moment it really broke me was when I'd spent a load of time carefully levelling up my character, acquiring a full set of Daedric armour and weapons... and I got accosted by a random highwayman on the road, who was now wearing full glass. And I found myself thinking... do you have any idea how much money that glass armour is worth? Why are you some random bandit, when you have enough money to buy a castle?
Hey, you. You're finally awake.
Todd "people just skip through all our dialog"
Yea, because your writing sucks!!
I didnt know Max Headroom knew so much about elder scrolls and its lore
Man, this brought back memories. I remember how much I loved Morrowind, being in the world, exploring it, reading the books. I remember the hours spent with friends discussing the implications of CHIM and Amaranth and Zero-Summing when it came to the disappearance of the Dwemer. And the excitement while I was installing Oblivion. And the gut-punching disappointment after a few ours of play. Man...
I've just completed Kings Field 2 (US) on the original playstation, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I have found myself playing the series backwards, as I first played The ancient city, as it's the most approachable, then 2US, and now I am adventuring in the opening areas of 1US. The vibe of those games is so strong, as to overcome any graphical or control issues I thought I may have.
I’m currently playing Chrono Trigger for the first time and finding it to be one of if not my favorite RPGs and that’s even through a non-superior port of it. Doesn’t waste my time,fairly unique mechanics even in this day and age,and so far an interesting storyline and world.
It's interesting how people keep mentioning the *"doesn't waste my time."* as a major positive regarding Chrono Trigger. (I fully agree btw.)
The tight, eventful narrative that has a clear ending and limited side content is quite rare nowadays, and oh boy does it get tiresome to play yet another 100+ hour open world with 2-4 hours of actual narrative content spread too thinly on top of it.
@@RuSosan "limited side content"
/makes soft pained noises at the fond memories of all the branching paths and 30 endings you can get plus the sidequests, and that was just in the PS1 port, the DS version added even more extra goodies
In the PS1 version alone, my playtime is around 600 hours. I'm still missing some of the endings because I got sidetracked racing Johnny in the future. For reference, my first playthrough following the "standard" storyline without getting sidequest-distracted (I wanted the NG+ stuff faster) was about 4 hours. Chrono Trigger is DEFINITELY one of those "expansive open world with 2-4 hours of actual story in it" games, the difference is just that the story is COMPELLING.
@@neoqwerty
Not my experience with the game whatsoever.
Methinks if you haven't somehow 100% the whole game at around 100 hours tops you're just overgrinding the same things over and over and acting as if that's the core experience.
Like, cool and more power to you but the core gameplay is the main story (the 4+ hours you described yourself, I would say along 20+) and the side content is never treally he point unless you specifically make it so.
Chrono Trigger is like 2 video games. First you have the Linear JRPG which at it's end, you CAN choose to beat the game under any conditions, or enter an open world JRPG Sandbox and finish up all the side quests for an optimal ending which also better prepares you for said ending. There's a lot of optional content, and all of it is plot relevant. But yes, it's about a 60-80 hour game, mostly because the game nails an end-game traversal mechanic that makes the victory lap at the end fly by.
Finding a JRPG that doesn't waste your time with random encounters and level grinding is like finding a leprechaun.
I feel like Bethesda has largely survived by happenstance, they produce mid-shelf quality games but they have a large marketing budget, a strong underlying IP they coast on, robust modding tools which they share with the community and they are basically the only company producing "Elder Scrolls" style games (first person, hack and slash, sandbox, adventure games with RPG elements).
I mean it's really hard to find other games that scratch the TES itch.
Unrelatedly, I'd really like to hear your thoughts on the imsim genre, Deus Ex, Theif, etc.
Dues Ex was a good franchise, what a rotten way to die.
No better way to close out the year than with new Zaric kino
Great review, man. Thanks for all the content that you create.
No Man’s Sky does a number of the fantasy things you’re talking about, like having an implied set of alternative physics and chemistry. It’s a small thing but one of the many small things that drew me in to that game.
I never knew that the original concept for TES 3 was for Summerset. I first played Oblivion when I was a kid. I had Morrowind on PC but reading all the text was intimidating to me so I only came to it later. Thank you so much for all the lore/guide videos and everything else!
Been recently playing Dragon's Dogma for the first time, and man is that a game that sucks you in despite its flaws. And its flaws are pretty massive too, mostly due to the fact that more than HALF of the intended game was cut due to dev issues, leaving the retail version roughly 40-50% complete. The story suffered the most, with flat characters and plot holes galore, again due to quests and story moments that should've added context and depth not being there. The open world suffered a lot as well, with most of the mainland being unavailable to the player. Heck, you were supposed to go to the moon at one point.
But even then, with so much working against the game, the combat. Oh man the combat. DD was directed by Hideaki Itsuno, the director of Devil May Cry 3, 4 and 5, and had a lot of talent from both the DMC and Monster Hunter teams as well. And it shows, because DD absolutely feels like if an action-adventure team made an open-world RPG. No matter what level, class or enemy, the combat is just so goddamn FUN. The magic especially. And of course, there's the pawn system, the idea that your companions are these interdimensional non-human entities that only join the chosen on their journey, and that move to and from the different chosen ones of the different universes (aka other players).
So yeah, been really enjoying DD, and super hyped for DD2!
Just dropping by to say thanks for those indie recs. Got one for myself from the mentioned.
loved the content, dont know your schedule but I would love to see more videos like this. Not only critiques, I just love the way you think logically, true to yourself.
Skyrim keeps freaking drawing me back. With all my mods, it's just a very cozy game that I can sink hours into.
Also playing Baldurs Gate with my buddy whenever we can find the time.
I found the bad writing already from Skyrim. And you're right; if you like grinding and dungeon crawling, I guess the game is fine but then not worth the full price. :D
I mean if that’s what tou want out of a game then you can play something much better than R2smasherRim lol
Had to keep Wikipedia tabs open to keep up with the knowledge you were dropping this whole video lol (stuff like Appeal to Authority, Appeal to Accomplishment, Mimetic Theory) This video was pure Edutainment for me, and I enjoyed it. Also, I was surprised you didn't describe Emil's twitter behavior conflicting with what the studio told him as Cognitive Dissonance which I think describes that situation perfectly.
As for the game I have been enjoying recently: Baldur's Gate 3, Bug Fables (a wholesome indie title which is like paper mario but with bugs and lore), Cassette Beasts (Another indie game, essentially hipster pokemon), Moonstone Island (yet another indie title, lots of mechanics hard to explain, but people refer to it as stardew valley + pokemon, really good exploration to the world of it -> procedurally generated), and I've been playing Lethal Company with my friends when they invite me to it lol
As for the games I am looking forward to: Wayward Realms, Wyrdsong, and Palworld all come to mind.
Hey ZZ, thanks for covering this topic. Recently I've grown less engaged with the narrative and gameplay directions some recent Bethesda titles have taken. This led me to explore other franchises, and I've been really enjoying what the Warhammer 40K IP has been offering in its recent games.
The Warhammer games seem to be consistently improving and refining their formulas with each new release. Meanwhile I felt Bethesda's recent work moved farther away from what initially drew me to their games.
I'd be interested to hear your perspective on Warhammer 40K as a franchise - how the story, lore and different game interpretations have developed over time. What do you see as its strengths as an IP?
Haven't played it too recently, but I enjoyed the demo of Monomyth by RatTowerSoftware - a hand crafted fantasy dungeon crawler. I loved all the freedom of movement you had during exploration and all the interactivity with the environment. The demo level was full of stuff to find and interesting level design, and makes me want to see the full release of the game. The game is also SUPPOSEDLY going to have a sort of openness to its world design, kinda like Dark Souls 1, with a lot of freedom in choosing how to tackle its main quest.
I really liked it after playing the demo and thinking I'd exploited a lot of the mechanics, just to watch a clip of the developer using a scroll of jump and scroll of speed to go from the bottom left part of the map to the highest tower in the opposite end.
Just compare the quest descriptions in the journal since Morrowind to Starfield: see the descending trajectory.
Calling it a quest journal is a bit of a stretch. It's more just a checklist now.
The really sad thing is... it sells better.
I'm not buying it (since F3 NV), I don't enjoy the parts mentioned in the video so I've skipped F4, F64, Starfield and I probably will skip next TES. But in my place they get 10 people so "mixed" may prick their pride a little but they console themselves with money.
Man it's been YEARS since I've seen one of your videos, and I forgot just how much I appreciate and agree with your commentary (or otherwise just find it to be very reasonable). Gonna have to catch up on some of your stuff.
Not sure if you're reading these, but to answer the question you posed at the end of the video - I've been playing BattleTech (particularly with the RogueTech modpack). It's something I haven't really stopped playing for more than a month or two since I first started mid-pandemic. It's a turn-based tactical game (which I THINK Disgaea also is) with giant robots. It's got a very enjoyable gameplay loop involving building up an interstellar mercenary company by taking squadrons of customized mechs into missions to scavenge pieces of your enemies. It's had a pretty awesome modding community, with RogueTech possibly being one of the biggest and most impressive modpacks I've ever seen for any game ever.
I've missed discussion videos like this on your channel, omgg
Today is a good day, we have been blessed with a Zaric video
See im the opposite. I view old games as waaaaay more complicated than new games. Like you said daggerfall has alot of mechanics that were just interesting like provincial conflicts and faction politics. Thats why i play old stuff i always find it more indepth at the cost of polishment, like graphics. Whereas new games like skyrim has almost zero complexity but all polish.
Maybe remove those last 3 words.
@@Isaakmedextraamaybe that whole last sentence tbh. I wouldn't say skyrim has even close to zero complexity compared to other first person RPGs, what it does is get rid of the friction between the player and wandering the landscape and getting to the action. Its not polishing, its streamlining for a particular experience.
"Dumbing down for consoles" oh man that phrase is a blast from the past :D when every alienated loyal fan is replaced with three new players, sometimes the studio forgets those new players might only buy one game and never the sequels. Loyal fans who are treated well might buy EVERY sequel, so long as quality is improving.
I am really just a bad lurker on this channel... since about 4 years now. Most of the time, I just skip through your videos, because most of them are just way too long to fit anywere into my weekly schedule.
BUT I wanted to use the end of this kinda taxing year for me personally to thank you for something which is not the focus of your videos: The nuanced sharp-dressed appearance of you yourself is something which I simply appreciate.
Of course this is a superficial thing, but in stressful times, superficial crap can make a needed difference at some days.
Keep it up!
After all these years... You still have that haught and arrogant mighty attitude and i find that so adorable in you😅
I've been playing Fire Emblem as of late when not on FFXIV. Specifically, three houses. I enjoy the sim aspects of training my students. The turn based strategy of leading my forces and the challenge of it.
3 houses is still the BEST game on the switch. if they use 3 houses as a template, i am so excited for geneallogy remake next year (its already confirmed finished)
No. I don't like the Monastery at all as it slows the gameplay tempo to a halt. I don't need to move inside my base. I prefer the Tellius Games Base Convos if I need to do stuff outside of battles.
@@thefreshvince879Wait, where is this confirmed?
Yeah, 3 Houses is a good game. I particularly like how they somehow gave all the students interesting enough personalities so I remember them even though it was some time ago since I played it. The story itself was pretty average but that doesn't matter as long as the characters are well written so I care what happens to them.
While Engage actually had better combat, most of the characters in the game were poorly written and 2 dimensional (except Yunaka) and with it's main story worse as well, it was a disappointment to me.
@loke6664 I would like a Fire Emblem game written more closer to Tactics Ogre with it REALLY digging in deep with a Medieval setting. Granted said Era can span through centuries to as late as 1600s. I guess that is why I love the Jugdral and Tellius games most for their story. They seem to at least have well thought out lore and settings that flow well with that Medieval Fantasy in mind as well as Tellius having armor that actually looks somewhat practical at least by video game/anime standards.
Zaric posts a video right when I was going to go to bed... damn you.
I am mortified every single month whenever i stop and think about TES VI.
Bethesda's industry standard "Its a game anyone can boot up and play"/ "Its a game for everyone, not just Elder Scrolls fans" approach to things makes me think the next game will be so dumbed down, so stripped of genuine love and passion for not only Kirkbrides' Xanax infused scribbles, but the mystic and the weight of how much this series means to so many people, that again, as you said, bethesda will alienate all its past fans in search of new ones, probably more focused on seeking those fat stack$$.
Skyrim made Elder Scrolls become so mainstream and culturally acclaimed by gaming as a whole, it opened pandoras' box for newer players to explore the older games in the series, and cemented itself as one of the golden standards of gaming as a whole.
The Elder Scrolls doesn't need to be dumbed down and PG13n'd for a broader newer audience. And im very afraid bethesda is doing just that while we wait on it.
Thanks for the free content Z. Was thinking of starting the Stalker series was hoping to hear your opinion on the games.
Fallout 3 introduced me to this style of game. Even as a big fan of the original Fallout games I still loved F3 because it was fun to play. You hit the nail on the head when it comes to what is good about these games. Open world, do what you want, dungeon crawlers. I've put endless hours into Skyrim and Fallout 4 and never once gotten even halfway through the main quests because story is not why I play these games.
For years now whenever I try to get someone to see the merit of these games I always describe them exactly for what they are. Bad story, fun gameplay. Honestly the story is serviceable for most of these games. They're just there to progress the player into more dungeon crawling as far as I'm concerned.
And whoever says mods don't make these games good are sorely mistaken. Yes it's true that mods do not excuse the shortcomings of the games but how can you sit there and look at someone's fully modded overhaul experience and say it doesn't look interesting or fun. Mods make these games infinitely replayable.
Appeal to accomplishment stans cant tell their steak is burnt because they aren’t chefs.
I remember when Oblivion came out, and I spent a thousand hours playing it and probably more modding it, and I love it to bits, but I was definitely one of those Morrowind Players pointing out the start of the Great Simplification. I don't care what games people have fun playing, it's not my business to tell people how to have a good time, but Tamriel is definitely not being loved and developed by its creators the way it ought to be.
I am from the early 90s mainly of gaming. A few 80s titles but mostly 90s and on. You clearly are further back than I. However it was so good to see someone ACTUALLY describe the issues we are seeing in games. I've had so much dissonance with how people were classifying Bethesda modern day vs Early days.
I also want to say thank you for being in the group before me. The one that ACTUALLY made gaming happen from the consumer level. We literally owe all we have today on you and the devs and the relationship you had from and in the early days of video games. So sincerely, thank you.
Also just to reiterate, I agree with almost every point you made here. Well done. Subscribed!
P.S. The devs would be wise to listen to your advice. We can only be so lucky.
I've been playing ULTRAKILL a lot lately, the massive variety in themes and the thoughtful combat where there's no one solution to every problem but instead lots of options that let you express your own preferences and skills makes it very fun to me. I'm not great with the shotguns so I tend to lean on the nailgun and ricochet revolver more for encounters where either would work. I'm not the best at parrying a lot of attacks consistently so I like to use slide-jumping to conserve dashes, etc.
I absolutely love Turbo Overkill. I tried Ultrakill, but it was insanely demanding and not good for my nerves. Great game though.
I'm playing Fallout New Vegas again as I have done for more times than I can count. Mind you I never managed to finish the main quest as I got sidetracked by modding...
Even though my first Bethesda game was Skyrim on the PS4 and I enjoyed the heck out of that I kinda lost interest in modern Bethesda after discovering their older titles (and yes, I know that FNV isn't really a Bethesda game but it looks and feels similar enough that I can make that comparison). FNV in my mind is pretty much demonstrates what a Bethesda game could be when in the right hands.
I don't doubt for a second that I could enjoy parts of Starfield if I just turned parts of my brain off and went frolicking about in the dungeons, but when I considered buying it, I asked myself "Is my life so bereft of novelty that I'd pay money to do something I'd enjoy less than just playing my other games?", and the answer turned out to be no. When I consider buying a game, I have to consider opportunity cost.
Big true. Considering I live-streamed the game, I certainly made my money back and created a fun social experience online that wasn't just "The game" but rather "The game as an event". Therefore my consumption is not comparable to just sitting down and playing it alone.
I must admit i haven't watched your content since i was into ES lore. Its lovely to see the algorithm decided i should watch you again.
The part about generational disenfranchisement is on point.
This is a REALLY good video, how does this not have FAR more views? It's very well made and I'm not a pre-existing viewer so I hope YT has started to pick up this video.
Bro it was literally posted just 3 hours ago, lol.
I algorithm drown my channel in 8-12 hour live-streams nobody watches. I apologize for nothing.
I am a huge fan of your TES Lore videos. They are the best on the platform.
Since I have been "disefanchised" with the more recent Bethesda games I have been trying out other franchises. My most recent favorite is Elden Ring. It kind of gave me a lot of what I wanted from TES. They are not similar games, but I liked not having my hand held & having an actual challenge.
I also played the Dark Souls games, & I absolutely loved those as well. I am now a fromsoft fan. I still play the crap out of RDR2, that game never gets old to me. & there are some indy games I enjoy playing as well. I like that indy games tend to focus on a niche audience, & do that one thing really well as opposed to Bethesda games that try to pander to such a general audience nowadays that they dont focus on anything or do any one thing very well.
I hope you had a great christmas, & I wish you a happy new year!
Thank you for the recommendations at the end! Ardenfall wasn't on my radar, and it's good to put it on there. Will be playing Mount & Blade Butterlord as we hit 2024.
Starfield cured my insomnia
Starfield gave me necrophilia
Hey Zaric, I had a lot of difficulty enjoying fallout 4 until I tried Fallout Frost. It's very hard and really not for everyone but if you'd like to challenge yourself a bit I'd highly recommend. The atmosphere, and the bits of story you get is pretty nice compared to vanilla.
Just found your channel.
Excellent content mate. Subbed.
What I'm playing now:
Skyrim. It's world design is still great and it's lovely to just walk around and enjoy the landscape. I like how the towns are built, and how people actually go about their day, even if it does feel like a "themepark" depiction of daily life. You also mentioned it: the setting, while not written by bethesda at the time, I feel was decently represented with each town having their own unique feel to them. It also helps that I have mods to spice up the serviceable gameplay and add more well written content, like Beyond Reach.
Lethal Company, for it's brilliance in knowing how to execute horror in a multiplayer setting, understanding that it won't always be scary, but that makes the scarier moments even better by lowering your guard. Everything from the low poly aesthetic to the scathing satire about corporate culture, it's a great time.
Grand Theft Auto 5. While not the most freeform mission structure, the story is well written and the sarcastic satire does work in its favor. The game feels like a wacko version of LA, yet in a sense is more honest version, since America is a crazy place we've deluded ourselves into thinking we're sane.
But most importantly: I play all these games because most or all of the people making them were passionate about games, and cared about the experience the player receives when they play their games. These people were, mostly, not held back.
I wish I could say the same about starfield, but it feels like creatives are tied down, and smart ones left. It feels the project leads just don't really care about games and just do a "job" to make a "product" that should sell well if a formula is followed. I want to say dungeon design is probably part of starfield i feel SOMEONE caring about over there and not being held back at the same time, but starfield only had like 30 or 40 dungeon layouts compared to their previous games' hundreds per game. Maybe I'd still be playing starfield had they actually focused on making more of them and generated them closer to the player's landing spots.
It's honestly like nobody at bethesda with control on the project direction actually plays their own games all that much (emil admits this in that very speech referenced) and it really shows with how not fun most of starfield is. Hell the dungeon delving is mid at best because it's hard to turn your brain off to the shitty in-between moments that don't respect your time, having to walk minutes between dungeons to reach them and all. That and coupled with basic combat that gets repetitive, I don't know how i put 500 hours into the game, and how you put 200 in.
On long term play of starfield: like you said, you put it down once you got through the good bits. The good bits being stuff that lacks replay value once experienced. I highly doubt people will want to mod this game or stick with it long term as a result. You say it's disenfranchisement per game, but that's just because you disenfranchise pretty much ALL of your fans when you make a poor game that has very little redeeming qualities.
Starfield is so boring that I completed the main quest
Doing your laundry is more fun
After finishing bg3 I decided to play the classic games so I'm currently playing bg1 and I think I'm near the end.
Overall I can say that despite me disliking this type of combat, the atmosphere and feel are very appealing to me. The sense of adventure in classic bioware games is brilliant, can't wait to play the second game, especially since most people consider it and improvement upon the original.
Ps. Oh and there's been also TEVI, a really great bullethell metroidvania that I should get back to someday. Definitely can recommend to anyone who's into that kind of stuff, it even has a relatively high production value
Make sure that you have at least one fully charged Wand of Monster Summoning before the final showdown. Trust me.
And yes, BG 2, despite only 2 years difference, makes BG 1 feel archaic somehow. Absolute masterpiece of the genre.
If you want a more streamline version of Baldur’s Gate. The Dark Alliance games are really good.
I was on the fence about BG1 (I'm old, so it was my 1st BG game) ... didn't like the UI and combat style, liked the D&D elements and story, HATED the zany NPCs. I strongly disliked BG2 because the NPCs being zany became too much of a thing. So I gave BG3 a pass because I can tell from the marketing that BG3 quadrupled down on the things I hated in the early ones: the whack a loon characters.
Get yourself the EE version of BG2. It's either available at gog or steam. And they are most likely currently on sale due to both platforms having a winter sale going on. BG2 was a star hour for bioware where they managed to actually create real companions. They banter, they have quests, romance and they have their own thoughts. Some companions are like water and oil and you can't just do some dumb Shepard mass effect magic and press the blue or red persuasion button on your quarreling companions. Meaning they can permanently leave or getting killed by another party member that despises their guts. If you are German then play with the German syncro. They German syncro is just amazing.
@@brock2443 absolutely not
My favorite Elder Scrolls was Morrowind. I just want a next gen graphics game with all the mechanics of Morrowind.
Just discovered your channel and I'm very impressed by this piece of media, thank you! To answer your question, momentarily beside Diablo 2 resurrected (my go to game) I'm very geavily invested into disco elysium, because of this hunter s. thompson style of writing, the concept of the world, the hilariously funny moments I'd call situational comedy that arise with the evolution of your character and how you build that character, the creativity and yes, thats absolutely a game I can't be objective about and am deeply sorry there will probably never be a sequel.
*edit: obviously the story is also one of the big parrs why I love disco elysium
Excellent video.
I've been enjoying Teardown. It's a big physics sim destruction game with puzzle elements. It's the puzzles that engage me the most. Most of them are collecting various objects all around the map within 1 minute of picking up the first object. The challenge lies in choosing your own path between each item you need to collect and destroying and rebuilding the environment to make shortest and fastest route between all objects.
The satisfaction I get from designing my own custom route and laying out the whole plan and running it over and over until its flawless has been incredibly fun,
I appreciate that list of games to check out at the end of the video.
Love those videos !