FALLOUT 76

[TheFeniX]

What I meant by "indie 'developer' who throws few pre-bought assets together" isn't the level of effort which is clearly minimal, but the level of resources avaible since those asset flip "developers" are typically solo or less then 10 people for a whole team, while Bethesda is a reasonbly sized company so they should have the resources avaible for a proper PR-department.

Oh yea, I recall good-ol' Todd Howard talking about how basically EVERYONE was on hand an ZeniBeth (Montreal, Arkane, id, he lists pretty much all of Zeni's holding) to make this thing. So like, when the entirety of what Bethesda is gets together to make something, this is what turns up. Honestly, that would make sense since "cobbled together" is usually what you get when you have multiple separate teams trying to make one product.

Either way, at least the WoW dev team comes up with something marginally more believable like "not enough resources. Might finish later, but it will cost you a raid tier."

I don't even need to go that far, Dartzap (thanks) shot me a link to Angry Dood where he brings this up (the size of the team), among a whole lot of other PR bullshit mentioned before.


Haha, oh man the Power Armor bug is still in the game. Love it.

[Zaune]

I do remember seeing that. I just kind of lumped it in with the official "materials shortage" excuse they cooked up later. The materials shortage thing is what really got me, like Bethesda thinks canvas is woven from the undercoat fur of white tigers or something.

All they had to say was, "We had to switch to nylon bags because actual canvas was too expensive."

[Civil War Man]

Eh, I lump Beth into the "Terrible at being Terrible" group. I recall some dust-up about the Skyrim map which was supposed to be cloth, but turned out to just be some high-quality printer paper. I guess not enough people complained so Beth figured they could get away with it again.

I think part of it may have also been that some people were willing to forgive them that because they liked Skyrim. People are generally willing to forgive a lot of shittiness on the part of the publishers or developers if the actual game is good.

All they had to say was, "We had to switch to nylon bags because actual canvas was too expensive."

Except that's basically what they did with the whole material shortage excuse. And even then it doesn't hold up because after a few seconds of Googling I was able to dig up a wholesaler that was selling canvas in a wide variety of colors for around $4.50 per yard if you bought it in large enough bulk. I imagine that a large corporation that's looking to buy thousands of yards of canvas could get an even better deal than that.

Also, as an aside, the same wholesaler was selling nylon for a little under $3.00 per yard for a similar bulk order, so even if the manufacturing process used up a whole square yard of material for each individual bag, that only adds about $1.50 to the materials cost for a collector's edition that they're already selling for $200.

[bilateralrope]

I do remember seeing that. I just kind of lumped it in with the official "materials shortage" excuse they cooked up later. The materials shortage thing is what really got me, like Bethesda thinks canvas is woven from the undercoat fur of white tigers or something.

All they had to say was, "We had to switch to nylon bags because actual canvas was too expensive."

Even if canvas was too expensive, that's still Bethesda's fault for not figuring that out before advertising the canvas bag.

[Jub]

I do remember seeing that. I just kind of lumped it in with the official "materials shortage" excuse they cooked up later. The materials shortage thing is what really got me, like Bethesda thinks canvas is woven from the undercoat fur of white tigers or something.

All they had to say was, "We had to switch to nylon bags because actual canvas was too expensive."

Even if canvas was too expensive, that's still Bethesda's fault for not figuring that out before advertising the canvas bag.

If they were smart they would have called it a canvas style bag and avoided all of this.

[FaxModem1]

You know, I'm a died hard, tried and true Fallout fan. And I'm so glad I decided to give this game a pass. The more I hear about it, the more I'm glad I didn't purchase it.

[Jub]

I enjoy it but it's not the dive in for an 8 to 10 hour solo session game like the single player versions are. It's a couple hours at a time kind of game for me.

If more friends had it maybe that would change but as it is I put a podcast on in the background and go explore for a bit before playing something else.

[Marko Dash]

i'm going to stop even bothering to claim a worksite, seems like as soon as i get everything built the server shits itself.

boom. goodbye caps, resources, time, and effort.

[Lonestar]

I actually have been enjoying it.

But man, they really do have sudden jarring poorly-rendered details.

Also my guy is running around dressed like a Union soldier and that's neat

[Civil War Man]

So soon after the whole nylon bag thing took off, people started looking at some of the goodies that Bethesda was handing out to the press and Youtube personalities at one of their promo events in West Virginia a while back (the articles call them "influencers" but that's a marketing buzzword that makes me want to throw up in my mouth, so I'm not using it).

So here is a bag that was given to the event guests for free.



Versus the bag that shipped with the $200 collector's edition.



Seriously, the comedy writes itself sometimes.

[Jub]

So soon after the whole nylon bag thing took off, people started looking at some of the goodies that Bethesda was handing out to the press and Youtube personalities at one of their promo events in West Virginia a while back (the articles call them "influencers" but that's a marketing buzzword that makes me want to throw up in my mouth, so I'm not using it).

So here is a bag that was given to the event guests for free.



Versus the bag that shipped with the $200 collector's edition.



Seriously, the comedy writes itself sometimes.

They didn't get positive reviews anyway, so like success?

Regardless people who order $200 special packs always get ripped off. Wait a year and buy the parts for pennies on the dollar from ebay if you need the useless usually cheaply made junk at all.

[TheFeniX]

So here is a bag that was given to the event guests for free.

Here I was being dumb enough to think this was just a material swap at first. But you paid for Indiana Jones' backpack and got a free carry tote from Comcast. The last Collectors Edition I ever bought was for Warcraft 3. More than happy about that at this point.

Still, it's nice to have ample evidence that you can service companies like Beth as much as you want, but unless you got a gaming blog or some shit, you can go get fucked.

[Elheru Aran]

Not particularly invested in this subject at all, but I saw on a pop-culture/geek site (ScreenRant IIRC) this morning that Beth is going to replace those shite bags. So... I guess everybody gets two bags?

[Civil War Man]

Not particularly invested in this subject at all, but I saw on a pop-culture/geek site (ScreenRant IIRC) this morning that Beth is going to replace those shite bags. So... I guess everybody gets two bags?

I just heard that, too. I'm often fascinated by stories of corporate hubris, especially when that hubris is over something really stupid, so this whole saga has been amazing for me.

It's hard to say whether everyone will get two bags. On the one hand, Bethesda probably doesn't want to have to deal with paying for the shipping of thousands of nylon bags, nor have to deal with being mailed thousands of nylon bags that recipients compared, with likely only moderate hyperbole, to trash bags. On the other hand, given the industry's mission to squeeze every single penny out of the players that they can, not requiring a return of the nylon bag might make the shareholders clutch their pearls over customers getting a free* nylon bag, even though it would be less of a waste of money to let them keep it.

I could see it going either way.

[Gunhead]

So let us recap. The whole bag issue aside since it's a moot point, we have a game with no story, no npcs, empty servers, shitty crafting that was pointless and shitty in Fallout 4 now there's apparently just more of it, shit leveling system, totally pointless PVP and to top it off some ass monkey still thinks pipe weapons were a good idea. Did I miss something important or does that just about sum it up?

-Gunhead

[TheFeniX]

No mods or private servers yet either.

EDIT: Nevermind, there's more than a few Quality of Life mods. I should say, "no official mods."

[Marko Dash]

there is a story, lots of it. it's just the participants all died before the vault opened.


on a side note finally got a solo scorchbeast kill, and only my 3rd kill total.

plonked my camp down just outside a fissure site and set up a fortified generator room and four missile turrets.

[FaxModem1]

there is a story, lots of it. it's just the participants all died before the vault opened.


on a side note finally got a solo scorchbeast kill, and only my 3rd kill total.

plonked my camp down just outside a fissure site and set up a fortified generator room and four missile turrets.

So, the story is dependent on listening to audio logs, which you can only really get to by joining a team, who you have to tell to shut up to listen to the audio logs?

I'm detecting a problem here.

[Jub]

there is a story, lots of it. it's just the participants all died before the vault opened.


on a side note finally got a solo scorchbeast kill, and only my 3rd kill total.

plonked my camp down just outside a fissure site and set up a fortified generator room and four missile turrets.

So, the story is dependent on listening to audio logs, which you can only really get to by joining a team, who you have to tell to shut up to listen to the audio logs?

I'm detecting a problem here.

I've played 100% solo and listened to audio logs here and there and have generally just puttered around. This isn't a rush to endgame for me, it's not a theme park MMO with raids and endgame gear. It has some MMO elements but I just like to explore, kill a few dudes, and look for neat little moments.

[TheFeniX]

I've played 100% solo and listened to audio logs here and there and have generally just puttered around. This isn't a rush to endgame for me, it's not a theme park MMO with raids and endgame gear. It has some MMO elements but I just like to explore, kill a few dudes, and look for neat little moments.

That's the complaint of a lot of survival games and F76 does nothing to correct this issue: there's nothing to do at what passes endgame unless you PvP.

I puttered around in Conan Exies, farming mats, thralls, building my (literal) castle, whatever. But when I sat down and said "let's beat the game" it was a sprint between dungeons and my most time spent was burning through the ridiculous boss HP pools (which are not geared for single-players). I did it in a night since we had stumbled across a few of the items needed already.

There wasn't much to it which is to be expected from an early access game I paid $15 for. Now, if I PvPed, I could mess with all the trebuches and firebombs and shit and probably get more value, but I don't PvP anymore. Based on reports, neither do a lot of Fallout fans especially not with the borked F76 system.

If all you want is some random shoot and loot, just play Fallout 4 with "War Of The Commonwealth" and "Search and Destroy." Possibly "Arbitration" for AI improvements. Even THAT would give you more little moments than F76 and F4 is about devoid of moments. You know, except:

"Hey cool, a race track with robot competitors, I wonder if I could place bets and sit back and..... nope, all the raiders are hostile, best follow the Supermutant code:
KILL
LOOT
RETURN"

The problem is when you accept mediocrity for premium prices, they don't up and start raising the bar. They just release more mediocrity.

[TheFeniX]

Ghetto edit: My last comment wasn't aimed at you. People find value where they find value. It's more geared toward people who keep coughing up $$$ for these titles that are continually narrowed in scope and devoid of content, complain LOUDLY on the Internet about "NEVER AGAIN!," but still shell out for pre-orders the next time they even get a whiff of a sequel.

Normal People™ I get. They look at Fallout 4 as some kind of pinnacle of gameplay, graphics, and storytelling: they have proven time and time again they don't know any better. But the other people, I don't understand why they continue to ride the Fallout express elevator to Hell.

[Jub]

That's the complaint of a lot of survival games and F76 does nothing to correct this issue: there's nothing to do at what passes endgame unless you PvP.

I puttered around in Conan Exies, farming mats, thralls, building my (literal) castle, whatever. But when I sat down and said "let's beat the game" it was a sprint between dungeons and my most time spent was burning through the ridiculous boss HP pools (which are not geared for single-players). I did it in a night since we had stumbled across a few of the items needed already.

Then why are people still playing them like theme park MMOs and rushing to endgame? I've seen so many tip videos on how to power level in 76 yet none asking why you'd bother doing so when the game is about exploration and not some grand story leading to an epic end game.

If all you want is some random shoot and loot, just play Fallout 4 with "War Of The Commonwealth" and "Search and Destroy." Possibly "Arbitration" for AI improvements. Even THAT would give you more little moments than F76 and F4 is about devoid of moments. You know, except:

"Hey cool, a race track with robot competitors, I wonder if I could place bets and sit back and..... nope, all the raiders are hostile, best follow the Supermutant code:
KILL
LOOT
RETURN"

Except that you could also have found that hidden holotape with the sidequest and that key to the other sidequest there if you'd looked around, read the terminals, and listened to all the other holotapes in the area. Listening to a holotape as you walk towards the next adventure is no different than watching your character awkwardly talk to an NPC before starting said walk. You could replace every holotape with an NPC that dies after their conversation with you and you'd have the same game, but less people would bitch because somehow a character model makes the game 100% more engaging?

I don't see how this game's story, which works on the one storytelling technique Beth is actually good at, telling small environmental stories is a bad thing. Or did you actually like the on the nose railroad nature of previous main quests?

-----

I guess I see this game as Fallout 4 but without that annoying main quest and I could, in theory, interact with other players of play this in a group. Mods will come eventually, sooner rather than later if it fills up the servers again and they're aiming to get the worst complaints resolved and new events out by the end of the month. I didn't see this as a full on Day Z PvPvE Darwinism simulator or even an ARC style collect/tame/build/repeat loop. This is BethOut with some extra people and less NPCs and a few different than usual bugs and issues, if that's what you expected and if you can live with the warts it's a fun experience.

If you can't I think there was enough beta info out there for people to cancel preorders and not pay for something they didn't want.

[TheFeniX]

Then why are people still playing them like theme park MMOs and rushing to endgame? I've seen so many tip videos on how to power level in 76 yet none asking why you'd bother doing so when the game is about exploration and not some grand story leading to an epic end game.

Probably because there's nothing else to do?

Worse than that, they break into a genre that has two games off-hand that just do exploration better (Ark and Conan) and are also cheaper. For just one point, the maps don't immediately explain everything going on and there's no fast travel.

Except that you could also have found that hidden holotape with the sidequest and that key to the other sidequest there if you'd looked around, read the terminals, and listened to all the other holotapes in the area. Listening to a holotape as you walk towards the next adventure is no different than watching your character awkwardly talk to an NPC before starting said walk. You could replace every holotape with an NPC that dies after their conversation with you and you'd have the same game, but less people would bitch because somehow a character model makes the game 100% more engaging?

Are you talking about F4? Because IIRC, Raider guy drops a key that lets you reprogram the bots. That's it.

If you talking about F76. I have to ask if you're joking. Holotapes in Fallout are annoying as Hell to begin with. But thinking they're some kind of justified replacement for actual NPCs is pushing things into some weird territory. First off: I might actually GIVE a fuck (due to suspension of disbelief) because I'm wired to identify with humanoids, not terminals and holotapes. NPCs also help with world-building. Why the shit do I care about random quests after just getting out of a vault? Why am I leaving the vault in the first place to fight Deathclaws and collect junk in a completely unstructured way, maybe teaming up with randos?

You listen to holotapes. I play something like Divinity 2 and so when a person tortured by the Magisters is all "go kill them please" I'm like "AND HOW!" Then when the magister, who was just commenting on how he's going to enjoy flaying me alive, is begging for "mercy" I can say "ain't no one got time for that" or "How much is your life worth?" or "ok, sure. LOL I'M EVIL!" Then I can let him go, kill him after the fact, and defile his corpse (not even joking, you can damn people to eternal nothingness after mocking their ghosts, which also gibs their corpse).

You might say "different genre" which is true now. But the point is: options. Div2 has them. Later Fallouts do not. You say "the NPCs were dumb loot dispensers." Yes, but what you SHOULD be saying is "do better." If you can just have NPCs die after shitting out dialog: you need better writers. Do you not understand my point? Beth (at least WRT Fallout) being shit-tier writers and focusing on "teh lulz" and cheap emotional gets with the storytelling, does not give them a pass for ditching what they do poorly.

F76 does less than F4 and somehow manages to even do THOSE things worse.

I don't see how this game's story, which works on the one storytelling technique Beth is actually good at, telling small environmental stories is a bad thing. Or did you actually like the on the nose railroad nature of previous main quests?

Good lord, have you DONE any of F4s side-content? Kid in a Fridge is the total joke option (the entire quest was ruthlessly mocked, for damn good reason, because from start to finish it is a total shitshow of idiocy), but a whole heap of side-content is either straight murder-hallways or pure idiocy on part of either the PC or the NPCs.

Beth USED to be good at this. There isn't a single vault in F4 not tied to some kind of long questline. But Fallout 3? Gary? GAAAAAARY!? Or Dunwich Building, which originally had NO quests. THAT was exploration and "side bullshit" worth doing. F4's hilariously bad attempts at copying Dunwich with both a cave and the Witchcraft deal (which was like 3 hallways, then, ZOMG DEATHCLAW FIGHT! SO SCARY) all fell completely flat because they just do not give a shit.

I guess I see this game as Fallout 4 but without that annoying main quest and I could, in theory, interact with other players of play this in a group. Mods will come eventually, sooner rather than later if it fills up the servers again and they're aiming to get the worst complaints resolved and new events out by the end of the month. I didn't see this as a full on Day Z PvPvE Darwinism simulator or even an ARC style collect/tame/build/repeat loop. This is BethOut with some extra people and less NPCs and a few different than usual bugs and issues, if that's what you expected and if you can live with the warts it's a fun experience.

You had better hope the modding community doesn't ditch F76 as fast as they did F4, which is incredibly likely. Because if they do, the only "overhauls*" you're likely to find is sex mods. And even those likely won't be of high quality.

*Stuff aside from reskins and mesh ports. Mods that take time and knowledge of the scripting and quest modules. There's a couple of huge overhauls that fix the dumb as hammers MSQ in F4, but with F76: you can't fix what ain't there.

[Jub]

Probably because there's nothing else to do?

Worse than that, they break into a genre that has two games off-hand that just do exploration better (Ark and Conan) and are also cheaper. For just one point, the maps don't immediately explain everything going on and there's no fast travel.

Explore, look for little interesting bits of the world, if you just treat this like Boarderlands and rush to get to max level because that's where the best gear drops you'll never enjoy this game. Try doing quests like the Mistress of Mysteries or go explore a location and come to your own conclusion about how things were going before everybody died.

If you talking about F76. I have to ask if you're joking. Holotapes in Fallout are annoying as Hell to begin with. But thinking they're some kind of justified replacement for actual NPCs is pushing things into some weird territory. First off: I might actually GIVE a fuck (due to suspension of disbelief) because I'm wired to identify with humanoids, not terminals and holotapes.

Okay, you have a personal issue where a collection of BethFaced pixels yammering while a junky camera pans around gets you to pay attention while a holotape that you can listen to at your leisure doesn't do anything for you. That one is all on you.

NPCs also help with world-building. Why the shit do I care about random quests after just getting out of a vault? Why am I leaving the vault in the first place to fight Deathclaws and collect junk in a completely unstructured way, maybe teaming up with randos?

You left because you were supposed to help rebuild but the real story is figuring out what the hell happened. The area wasn't nuked and yet everybody is dead. Go solve that mystery and if you see a few neat stories along the way that's the goal.

You might say "different genre" which is true now. But the point is: options. Div2 has them. Later Fallouts do not. You say "the NPCs were dumb loot dispensers." Yes, but what you SHOULD be saying is "do better." If you can just have NPCs die after shitting out dialog: you need better writers. Do you not understand my point? Beth (at least WRT Fallout) being shit-tier writers and focusing on "teh lulz" and cheap emotional gets with the storytelling, does not give them a pass for ditching what they do poorly.

Then play more Div2, nobody forced you to buy this, play it, watch content about it, or bitch here about it.

Fallout, post-Beth, hasn't been the deep RPG experience that some people want but OG Fallout was no Baldur's Gate or Ice Wind Dale either. Fallout was never a deep RPG experience packed with choices it just seemed like that was the case because most Fallout fans have wicked thick nostaligia goggles on. Yeah, Beth has made those aspects more shallow and shifted from dry gallows humor to more in your face jokes but that's hardly this travesty that people make it out to be.

Good lord, have you DONE any of F4s side-content? Kid in a Fridge is the total joke option (the entire quest was ruthlessly mocked, for damn good reason, because from start to finish it is a total shitshow of idiocy), but a whole heap of side-content is either straight murder-hallways or pure idiocy on part of either the PC or the NPCs.

Yeah, that happens but that's not what I meant. Look for the little stories, the environmental storytelling, the notes, the terminal entries. The stuff that almost everybody says is the best part of BethOut. Those have been ramped up in 76.

The side quests are also pretty decent if you actually take the time to read and lsiten to the story that's there, which you've all but admitted you don't bother with. It's not anybody else's fault that you ignore the story, rush through things on the way to end game, and then complain that you didn't get any story.

You had better hope the modding community doesn't ditch F76 as fast as they did F4, which is incredibly likely. Because if they do, the only "overhauls*" you're likely to find is sex mods. And even those likely won't be of high quality.

*Stuff aside from reskins and mesh ports. Mods that take time and knowledge of the scripting and quest modules. There's a couple of huge overhauls that fix the dumb as hammers MSQ in F4, but with F76: you can't fix what ain't there.

Eh, I never cared for quest mods and that stuff anyway. I've always played them as a sandbox where I can make dumb shit happen in between exploring. I care more about a mod that gives me the ability to toss 7 legendary effects on a single gun for lulz than something like Fallout 4 Frost which I'll watch an LP of but never play myself.

That said, Fallout 4 has several total conversion mods so to say that it was abandoned is a little off. it's not Skyrim which people find easier to mod or New Vegas which gets worshipped in spite of some serious flaws and very linear world design and fixed encounters.

[bilateralrope]

A 'Fallout 76' Support Ticket Glitch Gave Players Access To Everyone's Personal Information

In what may very well be the most bizarre and unsettling twist in the ongoing saga that is Fallout 76, players reported Wednesday that they inadvertently gained access to the support tickets of fellow Fallout 76 players.

Not only did other gamers gain access to these tickets, they were able to see personal information such as addresses, phone numbers and credit card information.

It gets weirder, of course---I'm not sure it could get any worse---because not only could players see this information, they could actually edit and resolve support tickets themselves, giving them all sorts of power over the fates of their fellow Fallout 76 players. Many of these tickets were apparently related to the canvas bag kerfuffle surrounding the $200 Power Armor Edition of the game---a controversy that feels quaint compared to what just happened today.

This is, to put it mildly, beyond shocking and a massive invasion of privacy. The implications of this security breach could haunt Bethesda well into the future---certainly more than the usual Bethesda glitch. While the issue appears to have been resolved, it's more than a little unsettling to think that anyone with bad intentions could have grabbed up loads of personal information from Fallout 76 players. What they do with that information is best left unspoken. Suffice to say, if you submitted a support ticket to Bethesda, be vigilant.

Writing on the Fallout 76 subreddit, user u/Jessiepie revealed what was going on, though other players quickly discovered that they, too, could see and edit other support tickets:

Hi guys! First time Reddit poster here. I am a gleeful vault dweller as yourselves and as of this moment I am receiving every single one of your support tickets on my Bethesda account. Mostly it's your receipts for you power armor set requesting a new bag. These receipts contain all your info. Your email and home address and the card you used to buy this extremely glitched game. I can see the problems you are having with the game, yes I'm having them too. And I know a few of you want a refund that Bethesda has said can't happen. I can update your ticket for you, if you'd like. And close it! How fun is that? Please rest assure I have no desire to stalk you or mess with your Fallout 76 experience. I just wanted to let y'all know that this is happening atm. Anyway, I gave Bethesda a heads up via the Twitter. So we will see. I wouldn't want to be the person having to respond to all of you. Currently there's 8 pages of canvas bag requests, tickets and "fix or refund me" demands. Is there anyone enjoying the game like me? Oh well! See you in Appalachia. Be nice to each other. I love you!

On the Bethesda forums, a user opened a thread with this:

Beware with what information you put in your tickets, cause they are basically public !

I went on the support website today, to update a ticket of mine, and surprisingly (or not...) I ended up being able to see all sorts of tickets, with people putting their personnal informations in them, like receipt screenshots, names, addresses and so on. I'm assuming this is a bug in the website, because I don't see for what reason Bethesda would make tickets public.

I'm not going to paste screenshots of what I have access to for the privacy of people, but I can see receipts of people from all over the world, and if I can, other people probably can too.

It seems like the code of the web site sucks as much as the one of the game.

Please wake up Bethesda, this is becoming really serious here. You might wanna fire all your disabled coders ASAP, for the good of the players and the Fallout series, thanks.

Both posts initially included screenshots as proof but those were, understandably, taken down to protect private information. And while Bethesda has told customers that the issue has been resolved, there has been no other communication assuring customers of the security of their private information. Bethesda even locked the threads on their own support site, shutting down discussion (though discussion continues on reddit, Twitter and elsewhere.)

This is, if you hadn't gathered yet, a very big deal. It's a much bigger deal than the nylon "bag-gate" controversy. It's honestly a bigger deal than Fallout 76 not being very good. Somehow Bethesda allowed anyone with a computer, an internet connection and a Bethesda account to have access to hundreds of other players' support tickets and private information as well as the ability to edit and close those tickets. I can't even.

Hopefully we get a more detailed statement from the publisher soon. I've reached out to Bethesda for comment and will update this post when we learn more.

Good grief.

They weren't kidding when they warned of "spectacular issues" with the game.