bethesda announces game concept.
people freak.
bethesda announces game. 
people hype.
bethesda starts hyping the game.
people go fucking nuts hyping the game as a result. their social media team plants those seeds to make it look organic.
a year or more of speculation occurs.
todd howard being his little schmuck self comes out and boasts about their new game.
people lose their god damn minds.
whispers of shitty gameplay start occurring closer to launch.
the masses tell those people to fuck off how could they know, dishonest review etc etc.
the big names in game reviews all review it and give it out of the park amazing reviews.
people go batshit crazy. people are out in the streets killing their parents for a chance at the new bethesda god game.
the game is released and is somewhat playable but jesus fuck is it lacking, it’s buggy, and every character looks like they’ve been updated from skyrim graphics of yore. the story sucks. the game play is empty but goddamn is there a lot to explore.
everyone rushes in like a madman.
everyone realizes the gameplay sucks.
people start bitching.
others say “oh don’t worry, DLC and user created mods will fill the game out nicely.”
years pass.
the unpaid modding community pours their heart and soul into making the game not fucking suck.
after all the DLC has come out (all with mostly positive or mixed reviews on steam) the game will go dark for a year or so.
todd howard wakes from his capitalist vampire coma needing fresh life force. the blood money of his unsuspecting idiot fans.
todd howard makes it into the office and says we could make a new game or we can milk this game for the next decade and a half. quick come up with names to rerelease the game under. game of the year edition. complete edition. master edition. elite edition. remastered. remastered complete. anything works!
over the course of the next three decades, todd howard is fed the blood of bethesda’s fan base.
he is swollen, like a fat tick upon his harkonen throne, waiting to burst.
“the people. they call for a NEW game”, he says, a devilish sneer contorts his face.
and the cycle continues.
and these fucking idiots. every goddamn time.
This comment is better written than the game itself.
That comment or this comment?
Stop complaining. Play it if you want, don’t if you don’t want to. People just like to be popular and liked. Everyone bandwagoned on Baldurs Gate being good but I can’t think of a type of game I hate more than that. Now everyone is bandwagoning on this because A- they don’t have an Xbox or a PC, or B- they want to be cool and alternative.
I mean come on, last week everyone was saying “omg Baldurs Gate has no microtransactions! Roleplaying! GOTY!” And now with Xbox/Bethesda making a game just like that, you guys instantly roast it for being…a Bethesda game.
Well if you want to get nitpicky there’s no “roleplaying” in a Bethesda games because there are no bad outcomes. Minor spoilers about BG3.
For instance in BG3 I went into a camp swords blazing and murdered everything in sight. Turns out I killed a recruitable companion along the way that I never would’ve found out if I hadn’t read about it online. Technically speaking that’s an undesirable outcome because I’m going to miss out on some content but at that moment I didn’t give a fuck and similarly the game just went along with it. At no point did the game even hint that maybe I shouldn’t kill that character, if anything the game told me the objective is to kill that character. Had it been a Bethesda game I 100% would’ve been prevented from just murdering that companion and the game had given me a chance to recruit them.
Similarly I reloaded one hard fight 4 times to save a character who was relatively important to the story. That bitch just kept on running into AOE effects and getting herself killed. BG3 didn’t give a fuck if that character lived or died because the story would’ve continued without her. We all know how Bethesda handles characters that are important to the story, they literally cannot die.
And finally I’m currently at a point where the game gave me 2 choices, either I send one of my companions into eternal servitude or another character important to the story dies. Maybe there’s a third option that lets me save both but I might’ve missed it. If this was a Bethesda game there wouldn’t even be such a situation because it doesn’t matter what you choose, either option has a bad outcome.
And those are just examples from my current playthrough. From what I’ve seen others play you might not even get to those decisions, which means some decisions will lock out other decisions down the line and that’s once again something Bethesda does less and less with each game
Baldurs gate 3 gets praise because it’s a great game, Starfield gets shit because underneath it’s just Skyrim in space. Are we supposed to give praise for a game that follows a decade old design philosophy? If Doom 93 came out today should we lose our collective minds? No, because the industry has moved forward. Our expectations should be higher than Skyrim. There are good things about Starfield. The moment to moment combat seems excellent and Bethesda clearly has improved the visuals compared to FO4 and FO76. But the rest of the game seems it could’ve just as well been released back in 2011.
And before you think I’m some hyped up tweeb who is now disappointed that Starfield didn’t live up to the hype, I haven’t been hyped about a Bethesda game since Fallout 3. I’m well aware how easily Bethesda springs up hype and how the final product doesn’t really match the hype they promote. I had pretty basic expectations of what Starfield might be and I feel like Starfield was pretty much in the ballpark to the expectations I had: good shooting, lots and lots of loading screens and menus and very little of actual “space”. That’s to say I didn’t have high expectations in the first place.
All that gameplay you described? Is ancient. The industry has moved on as you say. You clicked through menus and virtually rolled dice to do that. That’s so old, it predates video games themselves.
At least Starfield is more modern than turn based gameplay.
Yeah, I’ve been wondering about BG3. It seems like the main game mechanics are horrible, but perhaps the story is good. So it sounds to me like a fantasy Disco Elysium.
My GF played it a lot and I saw so many bugs, quests breaking, and crazy difficulty spikes. But when Bethesda has some bugs? Oh my gosh, people start rioting. People just love to hate when they get the chance.
Yeah it’s weird, I’ve seen a few really annoying bugs in bg3 and a fair bit of plot confusion and quest muddling - if Todd had made it people would be screaming about that and ignoring all the great parts.
Half my inventory is full of random things I don’t know if I need, most from weird side quests that were never really explained or resolved in any meaningful way and I’ve forgotten about. The writing isn’t bad but it’s often confusing, I often find myself having to pick at random because I haven’t memorized enough weird names and background lore to know what I’m actually saying.
The leveling and combat system is top notch though so props to them for inventing that.
And I’m certainly not saying it’s not great, it’s a great game and a lot of fun but if it had been the target of a anti circlejerk rather than a pro one we’d be seeing a totally different side to it.
Exactly. It always seemed to me like the game was held together by tape and toothpicks. If Bethesda, EA, Ubisoft or some other bigger company had made the game, people would give it a 6-7/10 and would complain up and down about the mechanics.
Rule of thumb. Wait until you see top ten mod lists for Bethesda games and is at least on sale.
