The Outer Worlds

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I first took notice of The Outer Worlds when the first trailer was released last December. This new first-person sandbox RPG developed by Obsidian Entertainment piqued my interest with a trailer that looked energetic and fun in a way that Obsidian games had not yet been. My familiarity with Obsidian came from Fallout: New Vegas, and the infusion of frenetic tension with their proven aptitude for scope and storytelling looked promising.

Fast forward to when the game released and I queued up a video to see what it was like. I was taken in first and foremost by the character creation mechanic, but soon after by the story and narrative structure that seemed familiar yet flavorful. It immediately felt like I knew the recipe so well that I was compelled to take my turn in the kitchen and I bought the game without much preamble.

Having now spent my time with the game, I've found that it is a mashup of successful elements from other games. In fact, as I broke the game down into bite-sized pieces, I've found allegories to help me describe each of them.

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Gameplay: While a class war rages on in Fallout 76 following the release of premium subscriptions, let's ignore that dumpster fire to talk about The Outer Worlds. Fallout is the dominant flavor in The Outer Worlds. The sequences of questing, combat, and looting are nearly identical to any Bethesda RPG. As a result, the game feels like the Fallout sequel that 76 wasn't. When many gamers look at The Outer Worlds, Fallout is what they see.

The comparison between Fallout and The Outer Worlds is easy: visually and narratively the games have some similarities, but in terms of gameplay The Outer Worlds follows Fallout step-for-step. Questing takes place in story hubs, typically settlements or groups of NPCs, and that is where the narrative is driven forward. Combat invites a variety of strategies and the game's "sandbox" style allows the player to choose how to engage enemies. Looting directly or indirectly improves the player's combat ability and draws the player out into the "sandbox" before looping them back through a story hub. This is the basic flow of any Bethesda RPG, and it's the same in The Outer Worlds except that where Bethesda RPGs provide huge and vibrant worlds to explore to the point that you can forget your quests altogether, Obsidian designed The Outer Worlds without that scope. Clear, direct paths dominate your map and moving away from them slows your progress with simple-minded enemies who offer little to no reward. As you clear these enemies for the hell of it, suddenly you find your game world feeling empty.

As a result, the player is disappointed to find themselves corralled and railroaded from point-to-point. The quest selection is too few and the story hubs feel like they have more closed doors than open ones. Ultimately, when the game is done you don't feel like you've had the Bethesda RPG experience--you feel like the game is far smaller than you had been led to believe. From high hopes at the beginning, The Outer Worlds disappoints as the story and narrative turn linear more in the style of Mass Effect. As you clear your quest log, you find that apart from a smattering of side quests offering pointless rewards, a quest for each companion, and the main story quest, there isn't really all that much to do. The Outer Worlds is less of a "sandbox" and more of a scavenger hunt--every location serves a purpose and, once that's done, you never need to go back.

To sum it up, The Outer Worlds starts by opening up and showing you such a wide array of possibilities for play style, for locations, for enemies, and so on that you get drawn in. Before long, however, you find that the game has run out of new things to show you. Your Assault Rifle gets replaced by an "Assault Rifle II", you don't get any new visuals or interactions. Not at all unlike the marketing strategies of corporations which the game satires, The Outer Worlds sells you on an incomplete experience ripe for monetization by DLC expansions in the future.

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Visual Effects/Art Style: The visual elements of The Outer Worlds are stylized in a way that's reminiscent of Borderlands. There is further congruence in the role that corporations play in the game world. Lootable items are highlighted in a blue outline that leads the player to ignore other elements of the game world and makes it hard to perceive the details of the things you are looting. When you make a point of looking at the scenery, it seems like there was more attention to details than attention to the overall appearance. Individually, visual components are unique and interesting, but altogether they don't stand out from one another and they don't particularly feel like they fit into their settings. The environments feel like they were built-to-suit a linear and singular purpose leaving few paths for traversing and little reward for exploring. While the grass may look good to a pixel, it loses any appeal when it's the same textures over and over. The world doesn't feel lived-in, it feels manufactured and not in the satire-of-a-corporate-world kind of way. The artists did their job, sure, but the game ends up looking like it was built to a deadline and a budget.

Sound Effects/Music: I'm not sure if the soundtrack for The Outer Worlds was made before or after the rest of the game, but it doesn't connect to the experience. It offers a sense of wonder, space, and intrigue that the game itself utterly lacks. The soundtrack is good, but not fitting for this game. Can you imagine if the main menu theme was the introduction to an episode of Rick and Morty? Yeah, it's like that.

The voice acting is a bright spot that brings the various characters to life in a way the game does not. Milquetoast archetypes are livened by the acting and this makes for one of the best parts of the game. For the characters you spend time with, this feels right. For characters who only pop up a few times along the way, it's a bit jarring. On the one hand, you want to give time and attention to this part of the game and on the other hand you're hoping to find more narrative than most of these conversations ultimately offer you. This leaves you torn between slowing your progress and hunting for the experience you were promised. I'll spoil that search for you: take your time with the characters.

Story and Narrative: I've already mentioned the broad aspects of the story and narrative in the gameplay section, so I want to keep this short. The Outer Worlds lends itself to comparisons with Rick & Morty, Firefly, and Mass Effect. There's a crazy scientist on the run, a Robin Hood-esque captain trying to do a bit of good in a corporate galaxy, and a team of needy companions asking for someone to fix their dysfunctions. The story opens up after a few hours and the player is encouraged to find and complete quests at their own discretion, but this is only one layer deep. Completing quests means that the area they sent you to is now empty. The characters you helped lose interest in you, and as you complete hubs, you find that you have no reason to go back. The planets and towns aren't destinations and they aren't places you go to explore the game--and, for that matter, neither are the parts outside of the story hubs. The game is at its most memorable when it is also at its most linear. The "sandbox" in The Outer Worlds is the worst part of the experience and very likely one of the biggest reasons you would buy a Fallout-esque game by Obsidian Software. The linear sections seem to have been given more time and attention in development, but they don't last. It's like the game they wanted to make was too small, so they stuffed it with flavorless sandbox elements.

The Outer Worlds doesn't offer satisfaction like Skyrim does. Look at how a challenging quest made a moment for this Redditor:

Oh my god, I finally did it. After all this time. from r/skyrim

The Outer Worlds doesn't invite you to live in the world. When you go for a sandbox game, you want to act and think like you are really there like Fallout 4 did for this Redditor:

After spending countless hours perfecting a single settlement in FO4, I can't help but take offense when my settlers complain about "hard times" or how hungry they are. They live in a fucking resort compared to the rest of the Wasteland. from r/Fallout

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Entertainment Value:  With all of the remakes and remasters around today, The Outer Worlds doesn't suffer for being familiar. Mechanics and playstyles are easy to understand making the game easy to pick up and play. From the start, you'll feel like you're in control and although the game does expect you to figure out a lot of things by the time you gain your first level, you are helped by these things being similar to things other games you've played. This leaves The Outer Worlds difficult for new gamers and without a hook in the gameplay to keep old gamers.

The Outer Worlds starts well and finishes poor. Early on, the story and the world and the rapidly expanding options are enough to keep you excited to play. As the game wears on, the familiar and the repetitive aspects lose their luster. You are no longer finding new and interesting places to explore, you're just traversing as little as possible between fast travel points and skipping through dialog as you hunt for something to enjoy.

When I finished the game, I had no desire to keep playing. I wasn't interested in going back to try the other choices I could have made along the way. I felt like I had gotten the best experience the game had to offer for me. After a week of this, I did go back to try again to test those feelings. There is no new game plus, so from a new start I found myself rushing through the main story. I wasn't stopping to enjoy any part of the game. I now knew where to find everything, I knew that if there was a dialog option related to a skill I would choose it without reading, I knew that if I ran just far enough out of combat the whole area would reset sans whichever few enemies I had picked off the first time... In other words, I had solved the challenges. In a few minutes and on a higher difficulty, I had made more progress than I made in two hours on my first playthrough. The only thing to do was to rush along to major plot points, change the outcome, and then rush onto the next so that I could see two different sentences about my actions by the games' end.

In short, the game is entertaining once. You should wait to play this game. If they build the world up with DLC, that's a sign that you should wait longer. There is value in The Outer Worlds, there are brilliant moments and fun to be had, but it's nowhere close to worth it's price. Go play anything else and don't buy in until this game has more to offer.

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Conclusion: The Outer Worlds feels familiar, but lacks it's own identity. The Outer Worlds fails to make a strong impression on the future of gaming, instead choosing to live in the past. There's nothing in the game that's on the cutting edge of game design or technology, and that makes it the sort of game you can put on your wishlist for awhile and wait for a deal. Don't hurry to play this game, find it in your own time or not at all--at this point it doesn't matter. If more is added to this game in the future, then it only moves itself closer to being worth your time rather than adding value to a complete product.

Should you try Kingdom Come: Deliverance?

Picture Source: https://www.deepsilver.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2016/11/bg_image_kcd.jpg

Kingdom Come: Deliverance is an action RPG released in February of 2018 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One. This is the only game developed to date by Warhorse Studios from Prague, Czech Republic. I first came across this game while hunting for games on Steam that were similar to Bethesda RPGs. Beta testers' reviews were mixed between loving the ambition and complaining about the bugs. While I remained cautious, I recognized these complaints as some that often come with Bethesda RPG-esque titles. I followed up with some research about the game and it held my interest. Even so, I waited until the game had received a few patches before deciding to give it a go.

I'll say that my patience was rewarded. While bugs and glitches remain an issue for the game, I found myself immersed and enjoying what Kingdom Come: Deliverance had to offer. I found that the game had really great qualities but that these came conditionally. To explain, I've made a list of the three things that are absolutely required to enjoy this game:

1. You should be interested in playing a historical, sandbox-style game.
2. You should be able to commit to long play-sessions with the game.
3. You should know that this game will thoroughly test your patience.

Now, if the above doesn't seem too difficult for you, read on and you might find out that Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a game you would love to play.

1.  Be interested in an historical, sandbox-style game

Picture Source: PC Gamer article "Kingdom Come: Deliverance release date revealed, along with new trailer" https://www.pcgamer.com/kingdom-come-deliverance-release-date-revealed-along-with-new-trailer/

As I said in an earlier post, a Bethesda RPG comes down to three qualities which, when done well, provide an experience like Elder Scrolls or Fallout. Those qualities are the immersive world, the quality sound design, and the player-driven narrative. Kingdom Come: Deliverance delivers a Bethesda RPG-esque experience in all three categories.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance takes place in Bohemia in the year 1403. This 15th century setting puts the player at the beginning of the Hussite movement, near the end of the reign of Wenceslas IV, and during a period of papal schism in the Holy Roman Empire. All of these elements come into play in the story, and shape the world of KC:D. Without any foreknowledge of these events, KC:D provides a historical perspective that engages the player more deeply than a textbook.

This historical setting means the game lacks certain fictional elements common in other games of the genre (i.e. magic, deific influences). The Christian religion of that time has it's role to play in the story and the game-world overall and, while it's understandable that this would be off-putting to some players, I found this to be an immersive element that connected the world to an even longer history. Moreover, religion in KC:D is responsible in part for developing characters' personalities as it influences their actions and their language.

Picture Source: "How Big Is Kingdom Come: Deliverance's Map?",  https://www.shacknews.com/article/103324/how-big-is-kingdom-come-deliverances-map

The characters in KC:D both fictional and historical contribute to a world that feels deep and personal. The characters act and speak with historical aspect; a shout in Old Hungarian let's you know that a foreign foe has found you, or a bit of Latin clues you in that a character is educated. This not only solidifies a character's place in the world, it also engages the player with their protagonist's position in all of this turmoil.

Unlike other games of this type, the player is not given choices for character creation and this leads the game to tell a more linear story. As a result, the game exerts greater control over how the player advances their position in the world and doing so comes as a result of playing the main story. This gives the main quests a necessary edge in rewards over side quests. Playing through the main story makes side quests more accessible, and that is a great dynamic to create for a game where exploration can consume hours of playtime. The downside comes at several points in the game where the player is warned that continuing the main story will result in the failure of side quests which stand to become obsolete. So while KC:D benefits from character-driven elements in a player-driven narrative, the range of available quests suffers a bit for it. The best solution is to seek balance--don't be afraid to miss some quests, but don't push on too quickly past them either. I found myself stopping when I reached one of these thresholds and assessing the options in my questlog before deciding how I wanted to proceed.

A lot can be said for a game where making progress in quests isn't the only way you want to play it. Kingdom Come: Deliverance has a lot to offer purely as a sandbox playground. In particular, this is the area where the sound design shines through. Exploring on horseback through the wilderness and the towns provide some of the best interactions between the player and the environment. The peaceful nature sounds of the forest, the period music of medieval instruments, and the snippets of conversation between NPCs create an endearing and immersive ambiance. The presence of multiple languages and characters of varying nobility provides a breadth of experience in the voice acting alone.

Here's a short clip I made in the game where I call my horse. Notice how the game creates a mood using the music and the ambiance:

2. Be able to commit to long sessions of play

Picture Source: '‘Kingdom Come: Deliverance’ Preview Accolades Teaser & Gameplay Videos'  https://www.geeksofdoom.com/2018/01/10/kingdom-come-preview-accolades

If you're hoping to make meaningful progress in Kingdom Come: Deliverance, you should plan to play for at least an hour. Playing for less than that is a detriment to your experience of the game. KC:D isn't paced to suit gamers who can spare it fifteen to thirty minutes at a time. For one thing, the game is stingy about save points--you can only create a save by exiting the game or by using an item in the game (called "Saviour Schnapps"). Since the game's initial release, the ability to save upon exiting the game as well as some auto-saves have been added. While this has defeated one of the more "hardcore" gaming elements of the game, it does help gamers who can't play for multiple hours in one sitting. Even still, KC:D is best played when you can give it more than an hour of your time.

Combat is a good example of why the game doesn't work for short sessions. Running across a single camp of bandits can result in around ten minutes of combat. When you run into this and you only have a short time to play, it means you won't get to make any progress towards your goal. If all you get out of a play session is one prolonged interruption, you won't get to have a good time with this game and you'll put it down before you get the value out of it. Combat is not only vital to training your skills, it's also your primary source of better gear and income. Grinding out those long interruptions is to your benefit, but when time is short you won't have a good time learning and progressing this way.

The nature of many quests in KC:D is such that if you're willing to take more time with them you can get a better result. Quests include "optional" extras, like providing a military camp with meat (that you'll probably have to poach illegally, if you should so choose) and these "optional" branches take more time. Completing these extra parts is a fun and satisfying part of the immersive experience of the game, but when you're budgeting by the minute you won't be compelled to complete them and your enjoyment will suffer for it.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance gives you a wide open sandbox. You won't be restricted by level or gear requirements and so you can spend your time by simply exploring the world. There are "interesting sites" to be found all over as you explore, and treasure maps to give you an objective while you do so. You'll have to make the trek yourself until you can come by a horse, and even then you can expect to climb over every hill and through every dale in your hunt for riches. Moreover, you can expect to find more than a few other folks out in those woods looking for their own quick profit.

But beware, if you let yourself get caught up with exploring you'll run into problems keeping yourself fed, awake, clean, and punctual. Yes, punctual. If you're asked to find someone who will be around for two days, you can expect to fail your quest if you don't find them before then. The same is true for battles--if you're lord tells you to be there and you shirk your duty, you can expect that battle to happen without you. Along your way, you'll need to keep unspoiled food and find places to sleep and bathe.

All of these items come together to create a need for longer play sessions in KC:D. Interruptions are all too common along your way. Quests are better experienced in full. Exploration is slow going and you'll never be sure how close you are to a reward. Throughout all of this, you'll need to keep track of how your character is holding up. All of these things are better experienced with enough time to get yourself immersed in the world--Kingdom Come: Deliverance just isn't the same otherwise.

3. Be patient with the game

Picture Source: "KINGDOM COME: DELIVERANCE DLC PLANS - EVERYTHING WE KNOW" https://www.gamewatcher.com/news/2018-15-02-kingdom-come-deliverance-dlc-plans-everything-we-know#

Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a game that looks familiar to gamers who have played Bethesda RPGs or the Mount & Blade franchise. But appearances can be deceiving in KC:D. Sure, there are plenty of similarities but you need to come to this game prepared to learn it's own rules. It's easy to forget that from Bethesda RPG to Bethesda RPG, you are playing game governed by very similar rules and KC:D isn't beholden to any other game you've played.

It will take time to learn the limits and the flaws of KC:D. The game has long been criticized for its bugs and you should absolutely expect to find these every time you play. Some are quickly fixed, while others will require a re-load that could set you back hours. KC:D is an ambitious project taken on by a new company and those challenges show in frustrating ways. I've lost hours of progress due to crashes, and I've encountered various bugs large and small. Through it all I've kept coming back to play the game because the experience is really great. There's a bigger picture that it is important to consider when you find yourself set back.

When I was starting to play this game, I thought I would quit it on two separate occasions. I'm very glad that I came back to give it another try each time. Combat was a big problem for me early on--it felt unfair and unbalanced. It wasn't fun to die again and again, and the game wasn't helping me learn what I needed to know. Now, I could go off on a tangent about how all games nowadays are too easy and there aren't enough games that let you die until you solve the problem yourself, but I won't do that. I'll just say that the feeling I had when I overcame that first really challenging fight was the first thing I'll remember about this game for a long time. I was also intimidated by the complicated alchemy system until I was forced to spend some time learning it and I found it to be very rewarding. In both examples, my patience was rewarded in KC:D. The game isn't always tough to learn, but sometimes it is and that's actually refreshing from a game like this. I don't get that kind of satisfaction from a Bethesda RPG developed with Gamebryo or Creation Engine game engines anymore.

When you're patient with Kingdom Come: Deliverance, you'll find that the ways it challenges you are enjoyable to overcome. If you have the time to commit to the game, the game will reward you with immersive gameplay and a compelling, historical narrative. Most of all, if you're looking for an experience like a Bethesda RPG (to tide you over until we learn more about Elder Scrolls 6) that hits the right notes without busying itself trying to be a copycat, Kingdom Come: Deliverance is worth your time and money.


Happy Holidays!

What is good about Fallout 76?

Posted to Reddit by u/SammieSammy https://i.imgur.com/FGy3suw.jpg

There is a lot of negativity surrounding Fallout 76 at release. Eurogamer called it "a bizarre, boring, broken mess", the Metacritic numbers are remarkably low, and most discussions of the game include more people upset than satisfied. I'm being reminded of the release for Mass Effect: Andromeda. That game didn't deserve the reputation it quickly earned, and the same seems to be true for Fallout 76.

I'm finding that people who have played the game say things like, "I enjoyed playing it, but..." and that's a sentiment I understand. On the other hand, people I've talked with who haven't played the game are saying, "I've heard it's really buggy, so I'm not interested in playing it." I know that this isn’t a game everyone is going to like, and I do believe the game will get better with some time for bug-fixing, but I find that the discussion surrounding the game is so negative that it is turning many players away for good.

The thing is that I’m enjoying my time with Fallout 76 and, for all it’s flaws, I don’t want to discourage all players from giving it a try. All Bethesda RPGs of the last decade have been terribly buggy at launch. Bugs can be patched, and the game can be improved, but if the reputation is that the game is unplayable, none of that is going to matter.

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FO76 takes risks and tries something new

The fact is that it would be very easy to write a post about all the problems with the game, but I want to talk about Fallout 76 in a positive way because I do have a positive feeling about the game overall. In order to do that, I’ll need to overlook a lot of points. For integrity’s sake, I’ll make mention of them before I write down any conclusions, but please understand that I’m interested in discussing here only what is good about this game. Don’t expect this to be an even-handed review on its own—please look at what others are saying and weigh these positive points against those indubitably negative ones.

The first and most important positive point I want to make is that this game represents Bethesda taking a risk with one of their most beloved franchises. It would be easy to make and sell the same game again. I don't mean that it wouldn't take time, effort, and resources--I mean it would be easy from a "make something we know we can sell" perspective. That's working for the stockholders, and I would rather see Bethesda working for people who like to play games. The willingness to take on the risk of trying new things is vital to staying relevant in the gaming industry. Any developer doing otherwise is probably suffering at the hands of small minds wearing expensive suits. I'm making a soft point here, but it really is important to me that Bethesda made a Bethesda RPG that pushes the boundaries of  "The Bethesda RPG" without losing that identity. Through all the negative noise surrounding this game right now, it’s important that we as gamers take a moment to appreciate that.

The release of Fallout 76 reminds me of Mass Effect: Andromeda in a scary way. Andromeda wasn't perfect-- it suffered from myriad issues both technical and narratological--but it made an effort to expand and explore the Mass Effect franchise beyond the original trilogy. Now, the sequel to Andromeda has apparently been "shelved indefinitely". I'm not saying that Fallout is destined to die if Fallout 76 sees some bad press, but I am saying that the initial reception of a game creates a sentiment among gamers that can have real and lasting effects on a franchise. Andromeda was received in a similar way to Fallout 76--enjoyed by those who were playing it but critically panned for buggy gameplay and cutscenes.

Fallout 76 deserves more respect than its getting only if the next few patches do fix many of the bugs. If you're on the fence about this game, check out whether it's patched up by Christmas.

From "Fallout 76 multiplayer: How to unlock PvP and Wanted Bounties explained" at https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-11-15-fallout-76-multiplayer-pvp-5076

Proving the Multiplayer "Bethesda RPG"

Fallout 76 proves the hardware and the concept of a multiplayer Bethesda RPG. A Bethesda RPG can be explored without NPCs, and this frees the player from the quest-hub-centric gameplay of previous Bethesda RPGs. A world of FO76's size hosting over a dozen concurrent players is a promising prospect for the future of Bethesda's franchises. I'd like to see a hybridized version of the FO76 multiplayer and the Skyrim/FO4 single-player. In other words, the best of both worlds could be the next big Bethesda RPG.

With Elder Scrolls VI still distant on the horizon, I'm wishing to fulfill my dream from back in 2006 to play a game like Oblivion in a co-op capacity. I'd really prefer that future iterations forego the full-on "multiplayer" of FO76 in favor of a simplified co-operative gametype. All I want is to be able to play Skyrim with a group of friends. Is it possible to have multiple players share a persistent world that works for "drop-in/drop-out co-op"? If Bethesda keeps improving the systems they've proven in FO76, the next Elder Scrolls game could benefit tremendously.

From "Fallout 76 Best Perks - All Perks Cards, Perk Charts" at https://www.usgamer.net/articles/14-11-2018-fallout-76-perks-perks-list-perk-card-packs-special-mysterious-stranger-professional-drinker-lone-wanderer-everything-we-know

The Leveling System in FO76

Leveling up in Fallout 76 rewards the player in two ways. This works well because the first system serves the player as they level up, and the second serves the player who has reached a high level.

Leveling rewards the player with a S.P.E.C.I.A.L point to spend. Maxing out one or two stats first seems to be the way most players are going in order to gain certain skills that benefit their teammates. Leveling as a well-rounded character is reasonable, too, especially if you need to be a jack-of-all trades, but you'll miss out on extra information and/or loot. This serves the player as they level up because they can choose their path for progressing.

Leveling also rewards the player with access to Perk Cards. Perk cards are available for each S.P.E.C.I.A.L stat, each costs an amount of points depending on its level, and your ability to equip them is determined by how many points you have in the associated stat. This serves the player in the late game as they can spec (and re-spec) their character to have certain advantages.

These systems are introduced slowly so the player isn't overwhelmed with choices. At times some things aren't clear, but there is time to slow down and figure out what is going on. It's not terribly complex, but it is largely customizable--and those are both good things.

From "Fallout 76 Find Responder Caches Locations Guide" at https://www.gamerevolution.com/guides/456959-fallout-76-find-responder-supply-caches-locations-guide

Progress and Regress in FO76

Unless you're trying to grab all of the fast travel points right away, the game doesn't ramp up the difficulty too quickly. Staying near the early game areas is relatively safe, and journeying further away brings more challenging enemies. Staying around low level areas gives the opportunity to gather supplies in relative safety before continuing into higher level areas where those supplies are consumed more quickly. Games that scale enemy difficulty to player level don’t offer the player the opportunity to relax in lower level zones.

Progress is also guided by the main story quest. There is virtually no sense of urgency bestowed on the player, and so pursuing this part of the game is easy to put on the back burner for hours. By exploring the world, the player finds that they are near a quest objective and can grab that bit of progress while still pursuing other ends. Unlike other Bethesda RPGs, the multiplayer aspect can impart a different set of interests for the player and the emphasis on crafting and modifying gear means hunting for resources can provide more hours of distraction. As these varied interests develop, players might very well find that the negative, pessimistic things they thought they knew aren’t really true after all. For example, I hadn’t seen any Faction quests until I stumbled across a curious dead body in a dark alleyway. Only chance led me to it, but the ensuing quest led me to the pleasant realization that Factions were alive and well in Fallout 76.

I've had several up-and-down moments while playing Fallout 76. When I started making notes for this post I noticed that they were hot and cold. As I play more Fallout 76 and adjust to its shortcomings, I'm finding that there are more things to enjoy than I first thought. Still, those shortcomings are very real....

From "Fallout 76 Map Is Called Appalachia; New Sleeping, Trading Details Revealed" at https://wccftech.com/fallout-76-map/

The Negatives in FO76

Briefly and broadly, I need to point out some of the problems in Fallout 76. The single player experience is much worse  than playing with even one friend. The game is best experienced with a team, and that's a problem in a busy world. 

Leveling is more important than progressing, and progress gets locked away by level requirements more than any other game. In Skyrim, if you find a nice item you can have it. In Fallout 76, the coolest things you find have to be carried around until you can level up to their requirements. Currently, the game penalizes players for trying to hold onto items they aren't actively using (reportedly for technical reasons), so this is frustrating.

The world lacks the details of a full Bethesda RPG. It still shows touches, but there are more areas that feel empty and passionless. The size of the world in Fallout 76 was too much for the amount of development the game received. Bethesda can always fill a bigger and bigger world in their spectacular way, but that job grows exponentially with the world and Fallout 76 doesn't get there. The size of the world isn't a point that makes any impact on my interest in the game, and I think the only reason it still gets talked about is a competitive sense of one-upmanship driven by critics.

The PvP elements are haphazard and unsatisfying. They feel like they were an afterthought but there should have been a clear system in place from the beginning. I'd much rather not have these elements at all. They are neutered to avoid griefing, but there is so little point to having them at all that griefing is all they are good for. The game is meant to be played with a team of friends, and there isn't any place for a competitive element in a co-operative experience. Again, this is a feature that makes no impact on my interest in a Bethesda RPG, and Fallout 76 doesn't accomplish making this feature feel worthwhile.

From "Fallout 76 server crashes under triple nuke strike" at https://www.techspot.com/news/77496-fallout-76-server-crashes-under-triple-nuke-strike.html

              

Conclusion on FO76

Fallout 76 is a game that players will warm up to if they spend time with it and if they have the opportunity to play and make progress with friends. There are a few easy takeaways that I can share from my experience:

• Don't jump in yet, especially if you think you'll be playing solo. Wait until Christmas time and check in on this game again.
• Don't listen to the critics right now. By all means ask for someone's thoughts if they've played it, but withhold judgment on the game for a few weeks. Complainers are making a lot of noise because they are getting attention for it. That'll die down, and the game isn't what they're making it out to be.
• If you've got someone who wants to play the game with you, that's the best time to jump in. Whether that's now or later, the best version of Fallout 76 is the version you experience with friends. Don't expect the game to connect you with players that you want to play with.

In my opinion, Fallout 76 is the worst Bethesda RPG you could play right now. That being said, it's still a Bethesda RPG and if that's a style of game you enjoy, Fallout 76 is worth playing if you have a friend to play it with.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The "Bethesda RPG"

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"Bethesda RPG" is a term which describes Fallout 4, Fallout: New Vegas,  Fallout 3, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind.

The term conglomerates the work of Bethesda Softworks on these particular games. Though Bethesda makes many other games, these are grouped together by their high degree of similarity. The term is useful when talking about RPGs or when looking for games to play. I'll focus on the three most important aspects that make up every Bethesda RPG: transcendent soundtracks, expansive worlds, and player-driven narratives.

I'd like to talk more about Bethesda games and sandbox RPGs in the future, so this post gives me a basis for those discussions.

1. The Transcendent Soundtracks

The sound design in Bethesda RPGs is second to none. Particularly outstanding is the music composed by Jeremy Soule for the Elder Scrolls franchise. Along with those exemplary entries, the soundtracks in all Bethesda RPGs are a mark of their quality. The attention to this detail demonstrates passion for their art and an understanding that success in the genre relies on a players immersion within their fantasy. The Bethesda RPG is able to connect emotionally with the player because the sound design transcends the medium.

Consistently, music from Bethesda RPGs makes its way from the game to other parts of life. The soundtracks offer such a strong emotional connection that they bleed their influence into the quiet and reflective hours outside of the game. The music has its place among the most iconic of movie soundtracks as it engages the listener's senses of wonder, wanderlust, and nostalgia.

If Elder Scrolls games can offer you nothing else, at least take their music with you.



The Fallout franchise offers solid original soundtracks, but the real treats come across the Wasteland through your Pip-Boy over the radio waves. Fallout games have repeatedly found golden oldies and forgotten hits that create the games' sensational aural repertoires.These weren't written for the Fallout franchise, but in another sense they absolutely were.

This playlist is far from comprehensive, but it includes a few of my favorites from throughout the franchise:



2. The Expansive Worlds

Taking place in huge sandbox-style worlds,  Bethesda RPGs are open to exploration and encourage non-linear progression. The player is allowed the agency to decide where they want to go and what they want to do. This has long been a selling point for these RPGs, as so many others offer more linear experiences.

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It's a two-edged sword: it gives the player unrivaled freedom for exploration and creates insurmountable design problems. Bethesda RPGs try to maximize the positives and minimize the negatives, but the issue is intrinsic to the design. Neither the impertinent, lackadaisical wanderer nor the pedantic, focused uber-gamer are left completely satisfied. For the significant swathe of consumers between those types, there's a lot to enjoy. Considering what Bethesda RPGs accomplish, there aren't other games to prove this can be done better.

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Even with flaws, the expansive worlds in Bethesda RPGs are in a class of their own.

3. The Player-Driven Narratives

The story changes in each Bethesda RPG, but they follow "the hero's journey". This core component of the story makes them comparable to many similar RPGs. There's still more to a"Bethesda RPG" game in terms of it's storytelling, but this trait is essential to making useful comparisons.

The story aspect of a "Bethesda RPG" can still be defined more closely than a single narratological term. "Bethesda RPGs" tell stories that expand the world in which they take place I'll call them "ambient stories", and they are one of my favorite aspects. . The environments themselves have stories to tell and these are some of the most artful and subtle touches I've ever experienced in games. For example, a player might find a rotten note on a desk--does it's message lead the player to treasure or ambush? It's up to the player whether they find out, but in a Bethesda RPG you can expect that there is something to find. None of this is followed as a "quest" and there's no game progress tied to whether or not you care to find out--it's just a small part of the world's story.

A "Bethesda RPG" can touch on your sense of imagination because it shows you in many ways that the game designers  care enough (and are clever enough) to understand the player experience in the moment. A "Bethesda RPG" proves to you that it can surprise you, and from there you begin to seek out those surprises. A hidden path leads to treasure, a trash can holds a letter of unrequited love--these are the ambient stories that the player might only find upon replaying the game multiple times. These special kinds of stories engage the "Bethesda RPG's" narrative with it's world in a way that many other games lack.

The player is also connected to the world by Karma systems that exist in each Bethesda RPG. This assigns meaning to the player's actions. The amount of fame or infamy you possess will determine how non-player characters interact with you and can make certain parts of the game more or less accessible. While Karma plays a role in every Bethesda RPG, Bethesda chooses to inoculate it in favor of keeping player choice less restrictive to the player experience.

Factions, on the other hand, are an aspect which the Bethesda RPG handles much better. Faction quests are independent from the main storyline, allowing the player to make progress in a variety of ways. Following a faction's questline can provide hours of game content without touching the core story of the game and allows for a variety of experiences between individual players and playthroughs.

The combination of these elements (the core story, the ambient stories, Karma, and Factions) is interpreted through the lens of the role-playing player. The games are renowned for their varied experiences, and serving this point is the character creation and development process. Beginning with an in-depth character creator, the player's play style guides their character's development. These processes vary between the individual entries in the series of Bethesda RPGs, but certain types of characters tend to recur.

posted on Reddit by u/lallapalalable https://i.imgur.com/6vXDTsz.png

Conclusively, the Bethesda RPG is a player-driven, sandbox-style role-playing game with an immersion-enhancing atmosphere. Many similar games exist, but those similarities always come with stark differences. The Bethesda RPG isn't the type of game most developers could make due to how expensive they are to develop. It is the type of game that appeals to a relatively wide audience in it's genre and the type of game that engenders proliferous story-telling across a variety of mediums. They happen to be some of my favorite games that I've ever played and I always look forward to new entries in their respective franchises.

The Future of the Bethesda RPG

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Looking forward, there are two important new entries coming to the series of Bethesda RPGs: Fallout 76 and The Elder Scrolls VI. The latter was announced just a few months ago and a discussion of it only brings on speculation.. The former, Fallout 76, is presently between a short beta testing phase and it's scheduled release on November 14th. I've had the privilege to play in that beta test and what I've experienced deserves it's own post, but let me briefly discuss this game as it relates to the Bethesda RPG.

World: Fallout 76 does a few interesting things in terms of its immersive world. In fact, this is probably the area where you can see the most fresh ideas coming up. The game revamps the "quest hub" issue by removing NPC quest-givers. In fact, the game is devoid of friendly NPC's altogether except for a few robot vendors. As players are asked to fill those vacancies as vendors and villagers, the bugs, glitches, and exploits inherent to the design of Bethesda RPGs are greater issues. There is greater competition for space and resources than in any other iteration and that makes cheating more of a hindrance to every player's experience. As the world grows and continues to develop, these new ideas will prove to be either clever or clumsy. I remember having a dream of a game much like this one in the Elder Scrolls universe when I played Oblivion. The Elder Scrolls universe would introduce another set of unique challenges for a game like Fallout 76, but it is true that I want to see Fallout 76 prove the verity of this concept.

Music:What I've heard in the beta so far is a lot of repeats. It seems that the music from Fallout 4 is being re-used in Fallout 76. The original soundtrack is good, but the original soundtracks in Fallout games have never been their greatest feature (unlike Elder Scrolls games). While the music isn't bad or wrong, I find myself hopeful that there will be more that I haven't heard on the radio when the game officially releases. If the soundtrack's only addition is "Country Roads Take Me Home", I'll be sorely disappointed. For now, I'll wait to know more.

Narrative: If the narrative of other Bethesda RPGs is player-driven, the narrative in Fallout 76 is player-centric. New quests  are found as the player explores Appalachia, but these seem to follow in the vein of the radiant quest system from Fallout 4 in that they aren't necessary or important to the story. I hope that the joy of exploration will not wear off in Fallout 76 as the stream of new quests relies on it. For the moment, I don't hold that opinion because I haven't had that experience. Some early criticism of the game has focused on this point and I concur that there is a certain listlessness in the quest progression which comes from feeling like "oh, this is a fetch quest" or "oh, this is an escort quest". The questlines should draw in your interest, but there isn't much to offer in the way of Factions in a world without NPCs and Karma isn't much of a system at all except by way of bounties placed on players who steal or murder (which you can totally do by accident, by the way). It's a world lacking the feeling of progress and the substitute is leveling to unlock Perks and stronger equipment. Fallout 76's greatest shortcomings will likely be in this area. The game might be taking too much influence from MMORPG style games and losing its connection to the role-playing roots of the franchise. I discussed above why it's important for the story to be tied to how the game world interacts with the player, and in an endless-endgame MMO-style RPG this just can't exist. It remains to be seen, but as of yet I have not been feeling like I'm only grinding to farm and farming to grind.

In summation, the world is a fresh idea, the soundtrack is a repeat, and the story is shallow. This sounds like the game is 1 for 3, but my experience in the beta was wholly positive despite these shortcomings. I'm concerned that this is a game many will miss because of the state of the game maraket right now and how easy it is to nitpick this game to death. I'm looking forward to an extended and even-handed review of this game following it's release.

Smite is (still) the best game you aren't playing

Back in August, I wrote my first post about Smite. Lately, I've been playing the game again quite a bit. A few friends of mine are playing it with me regularly and I find myself wanting to post about it again.

Since August, the game has received updates and new gods. The interfaces have undergone numerous face-lifts and the game modes have been expanded and refined. The new mode, Assault, is a copy of League of Legend's ARAM (All Random All Middle) and works very well in Smite. Randomly assigned gods push players to learn new characters and play-styles while making teamwork essential to victory. Not only does this make the mode exciting, it also encourages players to branch out in other gametypes. Several older gods have gotten new looks along with brand new gods from Central American and Chinese mythologies. Unlike new characters in LoL, they don't come out overpowered to garner interest and instead require the player to learn a new combination of abilities.

The game does a great job of just being fun to play. Since I've been learning to play with more gods, I've grown more enamored with the variety of play and importance of teamwork. Over the course of just a single game, as a team learns to play with one another, you can witness huge swings of momentum that turn a blowout into an exciting comeback. Too few games offer that kind of emotion.Smite is a game where even when things seem lost you can come back and win with a little luck and the right items.

And speaking of items, it's one of the things I still don't love about the game. There are a few that are essential, and a number that simply aren't. It would be nice if there was a greater variety in what items were good for each character, but as it is there are a few that are simply too good. It's not a huge problem; there are some items obviously geared toward certain styles of play while others offer better all-around stats. That said, it makes the game a little easier to learn, and that's good for helping out new players a bit.

In certain gametypes, the right items can be game-breaking. Hi-Rez removes some items from certain types, but it's still possible to make certain gods nearly unkillable and others so deadly that, all other things being equal, some games are decided before they start. In the real world, of course, "all other things" are never held equal, and sometimes you can have a lot of fun stealing victory from a match you shouldn't win. But, in any case, it's a problem when the players are being assigned gods (like in the ARAM-style Assault Mode) that can't do the job.

A good game lets you start it up and get playing fast. Smite could do this better. Queues tend to take about a minute and a half, whereas in games like LoL and Starcraft 2, queues can take only a few seconds. Their current queuing system is pretty dedicated to the countdown aspect, with a new round of each game type beginning every 4 minutes, but if I never had to sit in another 3-minute queue I'd like the game more.

All that aside, there is truly just one thing keeping me in this game: I'm playing it with friends. The simple fact is that without a few people who want to play with me I wouldn't still be playing this game. It takes too much teamwork and I haven't found many other amiable players online. I worry that the community in this game is toxic in the same ways as the LoL community. Old players should try to be more understanding of new players and, if they can't be encouraging, should at least offer substantial criticisms that describe what was being done wrong. It doesn't do the team any good to throw insults--if something isn't working, you should fix it, not yell at it.

If this game keeps finding ways to improve itself, and if my friends stay interested in playing it, then I expect this will not be my last post about this game. I really look forward to people finding the game and the community of players growing. It should be coming out of beta in the near future and so I'm hoping to see it make a splash with a little well-placed advertising (Steam sale, anyone?).

ESO Impressions

I recently got a chance to participate in a weekend beta test of the Elder Scrolls Online. While I won't be talking specifics, I would like to talk a bit about my impressions on the game and how my expectations have developed.

My first Elder Scrolls game was Oblivion. I remember envisioning my dream game as something that could combine my fascination with the fantasy genre with the gameplay style of Halo, and in TESIV I realized that dream. Suffice it to say I fully explored Cyrodiil.

I spent so many hours in that game that it only stands to reason I had fantasized about being able to take it multiplayer (if only to show off my fabulous wealth and treasure chests that took entire minutes to load). My desire for a game like Elder Scrolls Online began there, several hundred hours into Oblivion.

When I heard about the ESO project, I could not help but send an e-mail asking for more information. I got no reply, but, undeterred, when the beta sign-up became available I wasted no time submitting my information.

Ultimately, what I'm saying is that this game was sold to me six years ago and I've just had to wait to buy it.

That being said, I was still apprehensive going into this beta weekend. I had similar aspirations for SWTOR and, while the game at launch was very fun, it has since been micro-transactioned out of my good graces. I've seen a lot of discussion about ESO's expected pay-to-play model and a lot of it hasn't been positive, so I worry that ESO is following SWTOR down the same crooked path.

What I found in the game has reassured me, however, as I am once again sure that I will be playing the game at launch (game servers willing). The developers have certainly paid attention to making the game sound and feel like any other Elder Scrolls title. That doesn't just mean they have all the playable races or that the first-person mode has the health bar in the right spot, it means being able to descend into the rabbit hole and find oneself (or one's elf) wholly enrapt by the familiar variety of people and places characteristic of the franchise.

I enjoyed questing, earning achievements, and sifting through loot in ESO. I was disappointed that I was not able to be as loot-crazy as I am in Skyrim, where I check every body for loose change, but I also feel that if such a thing were an expectation in the game it would be rather pedantic. The voice acting which was present  contributed to getting the feel of the game just right, but in the beta there were also a number  computer-generated voices that, while providing a enriching contrast, upset that same atmosphere.

Speaking of things that were missing in the beta, the crafting systems had not been implemented. I was able to gather a variety of resources, even a few of rare quality intended for crafting specific items, but I was not able to tell if the number of resources I was able to gather easily would suffice to level a crafting skill. It basically meant that I was picking up a lot more vendor-fodder than intended and I really would have liked to try a little enchantment.

And some things were downright bad. I'm talking about the PvP, which I won't discuss in detail any further than to say it faces the same problems that Guild Wars 2's World vs. World combat system did. I haven't been back to play GW2's WvW since around the time of the game's launch, so I don't know if they've managed to improve it, but if they have then I would hope ESO can follow their lead. If not, then I really just need a better way to get where I'm going to die than running for five solid minutes.

While the character choices are nice, I think we all have a tendency to make the same characters. During my time I seldom felt that my character stood out in any real way from the hordes of other player-characters. Don't get me wrong, when you're at the character creation screen making your toon you'll be able to get him or her just the way you like them, but when you enter the world you'll find that there are about a hundred other bodies that look just like yours. That upset the feel of the game for me, but I'd wager that it's a smaller problem once your character has levelled some and had access to a wider variety of gear. If too many armor pieces end up being based on a single model, however, I think the problem of characters not looking unique is going to be a real issue. At least in SWTOR if you wanted to look remarkable you could always choose the fat toon--no such luck in my experience with ESO.

But similar character models is small potatoes compared with my disappointment in the combat. Let me say, first, that it is reminiscent of past games but that, as you might expect, first-person isn't a great choice in an MMO kind of game. So, you will be playing the game in third-person, which isn't so bad and it's nice that first-person remains an option for when you're feeling adventurous. And, moreover, the third-person view tends to look pretty good: the game is pretty, the models, motions, and armor are all pretty. The effectiveness of this control was lacking for me, however, as having my reticle just to the right of my character while I was trying to swing while facing head on was problematic for me a few times. The problem, in short, is just that the player needs to watch the reticle and not the toon, but that kind of sucks, doesn't it? And that's not all that wasn't peachy keen, but laggy controls and interrupted/bugged animations are the sort of things that can be expected in a beta so I'm willing to forgive and forget those little hiccups. Also, the controls felt like they were limited by the constraints of  mere controllers and that was unequivocally sad.

But enough with nearly bashing the beta because all-in-all I really did enjoy getting a chance to play the game. I look forward to its release albeit with somewhat tempered expectations, and I suppose that's got to be a good thing when it's all said and done, but I'm also not thrilled by the prospect of paying fifteen dollars a month. WoW was worth 15 a month when there weren't so many good, cheap options out there, but today MMOs are a dime a dozen and perfectly good ones are F2P (with micro-transactions). Like I said, I haven't played GW2 in months but it wouldn't cost me anything to go back and as a consumer I really, really like that.