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[tchocky]

"You can't spin if you have an object..." - Patrick, after having been able to spin with a P-Switch.

He means start the spin while holding a object.

 

[Red UFO]

This Tomb Raider game looks rad.

 

[Patryn]

Well, Patrick got barely anywhere in Part 1. If he continues to only play about an hour a day, I can't see him doing it in less than 4 or 5 days, unless he gets hints about some of the puzzle stuff.

 

[Nero18]

I don't think that is a particularly good argument against the criticism. I can understand using the engine again, especially considering the timing of when development started. It's not like they had an assortment of tried and tested open world next generation engines to choose from when this project began, especially when modabliity is such an import factor for these games. However, the performance and bugs that have plagued their games become harder and harder to swallow with each title. These titles are what bring in the money for Bethesda, not investing in improving their tech will eventually catch up to them. The tone of how these games are discussed has become more and more negative and that's largely because of the technical issues that simple do not get any better. The move to a new much more capable hardware baseline, exacerbated that fact.

My point isn't that we should excuse Bethesda jank and just shrug it off, but rather that the criticism "just make a new engine" is really a tough pill to swallow. Expecting Bethesda to make a more solid game with fewer bugs and more stable framerate within the engine is totally valid. But saying they didn't create a new engine because they are too lazy or cheap is just dumb tbh. Making a more stable game could have been achieved through different priorities during development. Making a new engine and developing a new game at the same take would demand resources i don't believe Bethesda have or are reasonably ready to spend.

 

[kAmui-]

read only memories ql

I'm glad I bought the bundle this was in just because I'm a hoarder of steam games! This looks super cool and I'll definitely play it at some point.

Also this QL got me randomly thinking that they should play SciFi classic William Shatner's Tekwar on COOA!

 

[MassiveNights]

If anything, I thought the tone of the last thread was reviewers not being critical enough of the technical state of games. Everything is always "fine" and "playable".

Funnily enough, during Jeff's FO4 mixlr stream I saw Brad retweeted Jason Schreier mocking a GAF post (which was very similar to what dark10x post about being disappointed people don't care, but in a more dickish way) and dismissing it as a typical "lazy developer" rant. There definitely seems to be a divide between people who want a higher priority placed on the technical state of games, and those who prefer to sympathise with the difficulties of game development. The Bombcast should be interesting.

I thought that Schreier tweet was really lame.

First of all subtweeting sucks and second of all, while I am sure people worked hard to make FO4 happen, you could certainly say the vision for it is a bit lazy in itself, being a mild progression on what came before with no progression on technical issues by most accounts.

I think there's certainly conversation to be had on lazy game development without the tiny violins coming out.

No one actually thinks they are sitting around on their hands when they make a comment like that and the mocking, superior tone to that tweet irked me.

 

[Dineren]

My point isn't that we should excuse Bethesda jank and just shrug it off, but rather that the criticism "just make a new engine" is really a tough pill to swallow. Expecting Bethesda to make a more solid game with fewer bugs and more stable framerate within the engine is totally valid. But saying they didn't create a new engine because they are too lazy or cheap is just dumb tbh. Making a more stable game could have been achieved through different priorities during development. Making a new engine and developing a new game at the same take would demand resources i don't believe Bethesda have or are reasonably ready to spend.

When you reach a point where every new release from them has these same exact issues that they band-aid over, calling for a new engine is reasonable. It's the same deal with Telltale. Maybe they've looked at the numbers and they've decided the investment wouldn't be worth it, but that is not the customer's problem. I think calling the developer lazy is ridiculous, but if Bethesda the publisher doesn't want to invest the resources to fix these issues they continuously have then I think it is fine to call them cheap.

 

[Jebusman]

Making a new engine and developing a new game at the same take would demand resources i don't believe Bethesda have or are reasonably ready to spend.

What?

The amount of money they've likely saved over the years by constantly reiterating on the same old broken tech, and the amount of time they probably spent just trying to keep the whole thing from falling apart easily shows that, if the higher ups gave even the slightest fuck, designing a "new engine", however you want to define that, while simultaneously developing a game would be feasible.

It's not that they don't have the money. They likely ran the numbers, and realised that the slight increase of customers they would get from having a non jank engine, wouldn't outweigh the cost of developing it, and while they would still more than likely turn a huge profit on the whole thing, why do that when we could make even MORE money just reusing what we've already had for years when the people are just going to buy it anyway.

 

[Felix Lighter]

My point isn't that we should excuse Bethesda jank and just shrug it off, but rather that the criticism "just make a new engine" is really a tough pill to swallow. Expecting Bethesda to make a more solid game with fewer bugs and more stable framerate within the engine is totally valid. But saying they didn't create a new engine because they are too lazy or cheap is just dumb tbh. Making a more stable game could have been achieved through different priorities during development. Making a new engine and developing a new game at the same take would demand resources i don't believe Bethesda have or are reasonably ready to spend.

I think inevitably, considering that they seem incapable of addressing a lot of the issue with Gamebryo/Creation Engine for one reason or another, they will eventually need to move to something different if they care to make things better. Fallout 4 started developement at a time when the console hardware was still up in the air, investing in an entirely new engine wouldn't have been practical when you're dealing with a moving target. However, if the next Elder Scrolls game comes out and it is just another very iterative update like Fallout 4 is, sharing the same classic Bethesda issues, then I personally can't think of an excuse other than performance, technical and general QA related issues are very low on their list of priorities. I would hope that that approach will appropriately negatively impact their sales but only time will tell. I bought the game, so I'm not helping. I'm enjoying the game overall but can't help but be disappointed that these same problems continue follow each of their games.

 

[Nero18]

I think inevitably, considering that they seem incapable of addressing a lot of the issue with Gamebryo/Creation Engine for one reason or another, they will eventually need to move to something different if they care to make things better. Fallout 4 started developement at a time when the console hardware was still up in the air, investing in an entirely new engine wouldn't have been practical when you're dealing with a moving target. However, if the next Elder Scrolls game comes out and it is just another very iterative update like Fallout 4 is, sharing the same classic Bethesda issues, then I personally can't think of an excuse other than performance, technical and general QA related issues are very low on their list of priorities. I would hope that that approach will appropriately negatively impact their sales but only time will tell.

Yeah, the timing makes this seem way more fair. Not that they are comparable really but Naughty Dog said that the transition from PS2 to PS3 and bringing the engine over almost broke them. Kojima Productions made a new engine and Phantom Pain to go with it and look at how that turned that. Again, not comparable but timing is really key with developing a new engine as it can be a huge task.

 

[Sleeping Lesson]

Excellent new thread, as always! Did we get the top posters list from the previous one? I've got to have dropped a couple spots, I've been super busy these past weeks.

 

[Patryn]

I, personally, suspect that they bought id specifically so they could make a new engine, likely based off the RAGE engine.

However, when that game flopped, and the problems with the engine developed, I think that plan was scuttled.

 

[Felix Lighter]

I, personally, suspect that they bought id specifically so they could make a new engine, likely based off the RAGE engine.

However, when that game flopped, and the problems with the engine developed, I think that plan was scuttled.

Based on the games created with that engine, I think a Fallout sized game with reasonable quality textures would be like 500 GB in size.

 

[Twin Tails]

Excellent new thread, as always! Did we get the top posters list from the previous one? I've got to have dropped a couple spots, I've been super busy these past weeks.

Take the L.

Spoiler

Everybody loses.

 

[Sleeping Lesson]

Take the L.

Spoiler

Everybody loses.

Twin you're eleven posts cooler than me, it is known.

 

[mintyice]

About 4 hours into SF's extra life stream. Does it pick up at any point or is it pretty much like this the whole time?

 

[Felix Lighter]

Actually, to be fair to Bethesda and give them credit where it is due, they are adding the ability to mod the console games and streamlining that process and making available on console had to be a significant undertaking. I guess I forget about that because it doesn't improve the platform I play on at all but I think it's a very admirable feature to focus their attention on. I hope that it works well and is flexible enough to allow for some ambitious mods.

 

[stump sock]

I mean, the folks who were actually developing the game did a shit ton of work, that much is already obvious in the few hours I played it. It's really more of a complaint on the parent company not feeling the need to try to make a more polished end result.

 

[Curufinwe]

Actually, to be fair to Bethesda and give them credit where it is due, they are adding the ability to mod the console games and streamlining that process and making available on console had to be a significant undertaking. I guess I forget about that because it doesn't improve the platform I play on at all but I think it's a very admirable feature to focus their attention on. I hope that it works well and is flexible enough to allow for some ambitious mods.

What are mods going to do to the already crappy framerate on consoles, though?

 

[Nero18]

All of this must really get the Batman players on PC frustrated.

 

[Jebusman]

Actually, to be fair to Bethesda and give them credit where it is due, they are adding the ability to mod the console games and streamlining that process and making available on console had to be a significant undertaking. I guess I forget about that because it doesn't improve the platform I play on at all but I think it's a very admirable feature to focus their attention on. I hope that it works well and is flexible enough to allow for some ambitious mods.

I can't give them credit until we actually see it in action.

And then, even on top of that, I can't see mods actively fixing performance issues, or at least being anywhere near as expansive as they were on PC without absolutely breaking the console.

 

[Archaix]

I don't know if I can support this whole 30 person leaderboard thing that puts my name up there.

 

[stump sock]

I can't give them credit until we actually see it in action.

And then, even on top of that, I can't see mods actively fixing performance issues, or at least being anywhere near as expansive as they were on PC without absolutely breaking the console.

although I will fall over laughing in the event that someone does make a mod that fixes console performance. i really hope it happens

 

[Myggen]

Hail Aurahack

 

[skLaFarebear]

Yeeaaaaaah i made the top ten

 

[Joeku]

Bethesda would generally have to take mods and re-cook them for console, right? Considering the performance already, I expect that most of the mods will be single items and NPCs inserted around the world, not larger packs of world changes and weather and community patches.

 

[mintyice]

I have a dark feeling that mods are secretly something they'll back out of in a month or two.

Either that or they'll never say anything about it and someone will ask and they'll say they abandoned it.

 

[ratcliffja]

But it can be found by clicking on the total amount of posts in the normal forum view.

I post in here far more than any other thread. Maybe I need to just post mindlessly like you chumps. Chumps!

 

[Incandenza]

Just looking at Bethesda's position right now:

- They've been using the same engine for ~10 years
- Their last game sold 20 million copies and their new game seems poised to perform similarly
- They make one kind of game and they're not beholden to a tight release schedule when making those games
- Their publisher owns id Software, who can make the shit out of some engines and aren't doing a whole hell of a lot at the moment

It's in no way going to be easy, but it certainly seems like if anyone's in a position to custom-build an open-world engine, it's them.

 

[giant_frying_pan]

All they have to do is have a The Who track as DLC and BAM: full Mod support.

 

[AcridMeat]

Hail Aurahack

Where's Ryan

Just looking at Bethesda's position right now:

- They've been using the same engine for ~10 years
- Their last game sold 20 million copies and their new game seems poised to perform similarly
- They make one kind of game and they're not beholden to a tight release schedule when making those games
- Their publisher owns id Software, who can make the shit out of some engines and aren't doing a whole hell of a lot at the moment

It's in no way going to be easy, but it certainly seems like if anyone's in a position to custom-build an open-world engine, it's them.

This is why there's so much disappointment they don't. They have all of the tools available to do it. At least far more than most.

 

[jaina]

Someone should add a bunch of jump cuts to Jeff Mixlr - maybe edit it down to 2 mins. That way it can appeal to the kid demographic.

Kinda related: I've tried some scripting and Audacity effects yesterday, to cut silence from Jefflr archives and speed it up 50%. Maybe with this help I can start listening daily. Doesn't remove loud music though.

I'm very excited about Tomb Raider. But the backwards compatibility list did not have surprise Vesperia, which is why I got to wait until next year for Lara.

 

[Death Metalist]

Where's Ryan

.

That's my exact reaction even though it's incredibly well done.

 

[Zaph]

I have a dark feeling that mods are secretly something they'll back out of in a month or two.

Either that or they'll never say anything about it and someone will ask and they'll say they abandoned it.

Yup, or there'll be a couple very light npc swap or combat rebalancing mods, they'll claim more are coming for months and months, then quietly abandon it.

I just don't see what leeway modders have for something substantial enough to be worth all that Bethesda/MS cert.

 

[daydream]

getting strong aai vibes from read only memories, can't wait to fire up my copy

 

[jaina]

The set of interesting mods which

• aren't more demanding on the system
• do not violate any copyright
• do not need a modified executable (as stated in the FO4 EULA)

is limited. Still good to establish a modding feature for console games.

I honestly don't think the console audience has that much of an interest in modding. I think it will be a feature like backwards compatability where everybody says they want it but nobody actually uses it.

yeah

 

[StoveOven]

I honestly don't think the console audience has that much of an interest in modding. I think it will be a feature like backwards compatability where everybody says they want it but nobody actually uses it.

 

[jaina]

.

 

[tryagainlater]

About 4 hours into SF's extra life stream. Does it pick up at any point or is it pretty much like this the whole time?

No it's pretty low energy all the way through.

 

[Infinite Justice]

I think inevitably, considering that they seem incapable of addressing a lot of the issue with Gamebryo/Creation Engine for one reason or another, they will eventually need to move to something different if they care to make things better. Fallout 4 started developement at a time when the console hardware was still up in the air, investing in an entirely new engine wouldn't have been practical when you're dealing with a moving target. However, if the next Elder Scrolls game comes out and it is just another very iterative update like Fallout 4 is, sharing the same classic Bethesda issues, then I personally can't think of an excuse other than performance, technical and general QA related issues are very low on their list of priorities. I would hope that that approach will appropriately negatively impact their sales but only time will tell. I bought the game, so I'm not helping. I'm enjoying the game overall but can't help but be disappointed that these same problems continue follow each of their games.

I would be all to give Bethesda a benefit of the doubt if it wasn't for the fact they tried to pull wool over everyone's eyes with their "brand new engine" horseshit.

Also i believe they won't change it for a while because they can get away with it (mainly due to this bullshit catch 22 situation the user is forced to resolve). Its the same reason why Capcom still has that Monster Hunter engine running for so fucking long.


And for the modding stuff: given the not so great console performance for the original game i'm highly skeptical about the mods especially given the issues the expansions had with the PS3 version last gen.


But we'll see

 

[Death Metalist]

No it's pretty low energy all the way through.

Pretty much, still was fun though.

Spoiler

REDUCED FAT.

 

[tuxfool]

I don't think that is a particularly good argument against the criticism. I can understand using the engine again, especially considering the timing of when development started. It's not like they had an assortment of tried and tested open world next generation engines to choose from when this project began, especially when modabliity is such an import factor for these games. However, the performance and bugs that have plagued their games become harder and harder to swallow with each title. These titles are what bring in the money for Bethesda, not investing in improving their tech will eventually catch up to them. The tone of how these games are discussed has become more and more negative and that's largely because of the technical issues that simple do not get any better. The move to a new much more capable hardware baseline, exacerbated that fact.

Totally. There are things to be said for newer iterations of the engine introducing newer bugs, but these games have bugs that go all the way back to Oblivion.

 

[tuxfool]

All of this must really get the Batman players on PC frustrated.

This is the same issue, but in reverse. The modded UE3.5 engine used in the Arkham games has always had issues, but they really stretched the ability of the engine to handle the assets it was pushing.

Because they never fixed the core issues, this is why AK is in a mess today.

 

[KingKong]

Its really baffling how clunky Fallout 4 is. The intro just sucks (why would the player care about his wife and kid when hes spent all of 5 minutes with then) and then youre just dumped into the world where one of the first things you see is a base building/crafting station with minimal info on how or why you should be messing with it

 

[santeesioux]

PC version seems to be largely fine for most people but it will definitely take you a longer than average time to get the settings to where you want them, as they don't seem to correlate to what happens in pretty much every other video game.

I just used the Geforce Experience thing to optimize it for me and it runs great at a steady 60 fps.

 

[funkystudent]

I really do not like Nu Lara Crofts voice in the new games.

It sounds like someone putting on a accent.

 

[tuxfool]

I really do not like Nu Lara Crofts voice in the new games.

It sounds like someone putting on a accent.

She isn't. But I too find her VO really grating.

 

[Keyser Soze]

Luddington does not sound as posh/pouty as Lara...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6NoGKD8lUk

...she is definitely exaggerating her normal voice, or some might call it acting.

 

[tuxfool]

Luddington does not sound as posh/pouty as Lara...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6NoGKD8lUk

...she is definitely exaggerating her normal voice, or some might call it acting.

I can't see that. But for me it is less of her accent/dialect, but rather just the thinness and lack of substance in her voice.

 

[stump sock]

I just used the Geforce Experience thing to optimize it for me and it runs great at a steady 60 fps.

amusingly, the installer crashed on me three times until I unchecked the Geforce Experience update. so there's that.