The People Vs. Fallout 76 - Bethesda's Big Bad Nightmare

[Music] once you that chronic people interplay and we we pestered and pestered like are you guys using fallout they weren't doing anything with it can we do something and eventually they said yes it's now ours and we have always taken the approach that fallout 3 is being made as if we made the first two on July 12 2004 in a press release it was officially announced that Bethesda Game Studios would be developing fallout 3 licensing the rights from a struggling interplay entertainment and only a few years later Bethesda would acquire the fallout IP from interplay were forced into selling the IP away due to the company's enormous issue with debt and their need to pay off creditors news of this purchase began around 2006 but it officially became a reality on April 9th 2007 Leonore Boyarsky art director the original fallout infamously said in 2004 about interplays decision to license the franchise away to be perfectly honest I was extremely disappointed that we did not get the chance to make the next Fallout game this has nothing to do with Bethesda it's just that we've always felt that fallout was ours and it was just a technicality the interplay happened to own it it sort of felt as if our child had been sold to the highest bidder and we had to just sit by and watch since I have absolutely no idea what the plans are I cannot comment on whether I think they're going in the right direction with it or not fallout 3 did face scepticism before release with some fans of the franchise feeling left behind as Bethesda drastically changed the beloved IP taking it from 2d turn-based combat to 3d real-time combat regardless fallout 3 was a massive hit receiving universal acclaim from both critics and users who'd also go on to sell millions of copies and when numerous Game of the Year awards Bethesda was on top of the world following the release of fallout 3 of 2006 game of the Year winner the Elder Scrolls for oblivion did not already make Bethesda Game Studios a household name this certainly did Bethesda and a few other developers at the time like Bioware really built the foundation for John Rohr style of games that has become heavily popularized today and that is the open world first-person role-playing experience fallout 3 represented an experience that has really defined this industry in recent years or at the very least the experience that many enjoy today which is a massive dark world to explore tons of choices that actually matter interesting characters unique interactive factions or groups various types of enemies tons of loot customization and a well-written narrative fallout 3 was a truly revolutionary title that at times featured some horrifying dark humour mixed with an art style that truly made players feel they were adventuring in a nightmarish broken and twisted apocalyptic world one of the defining moments from fallout 3 for myself is when or if you decide to blow up Megaton interacting with the sole survivor from the explosion Moira brown was now a ghoul is just uncomfortable considering what had just transpired and her very unique reaction and description of being nuked oh don't be silly why would you blow up our town you're talking crazy talk well okay as long as you're sorry but I expect you to apologize to everyone else in town okay and don't do it again now what am I going to do about work and what's with the weird look have I got something on my face don't be silly I just got some gunk on my face after the explosion but that doesn't explain why it peels away in strips and you know what I think I'm turning into a ghoul this it's fascinating now this single moment is at least in my opinion it's depressing and disturbing which is the right emotion one should feel other moments like the creepiness of Tranquility lain horrors of vault 87 and the reveal president Eden just show the brilliance behind fallout 3 although there still were issues with the writing with some things not really making any sense like the whole concept of little lamplight or even the original main story in its ending which had some extreme logic issues mixed with bad written dialogue following backlash and Bethesda realizing how they butcher at the ending some of this would be later fixed somewhat with the broken steel DLC as good as fallout 3 was in my opinion it's often overshadowed by obsidian spin-off Fallout New Vegas which is considered by many to be the best 3d Fallout game to date obsidian with much of their staff at the time being former Black Isle developers they had a background on the Fallout franchise as some of them literally were responsible for creating it they had a deep understanding for this franchise and in many respects they improved on a lot of things that Bethesda did in fallout 3 obsidian as they always seem to do brought some top-notch writing and far more role-playing choices to new Vegas although yeah this is a very brief overview of the Fallout 3 versus New Vegas debate that still rages on today regardless Bethesda created something special with fallout 3 it's why we even got new vegas and bethesda built upon fallout 3 with some great dlc expansions which included my personal favorites Point Lookout and Broken Steel but after that there was a real hunger for what was next from this talented rising developer fortunately that wait wasn't long because only a few years later the groundbreaking release of the elderscrolls v Skyrim came to be and it solidified Bethesda's reputation as one of gaming's top triple-a developers with hype and anticipation through the roof for the future speculation and rumors would run wild about the long-awaited and expected fallout 4 until the company officially announced it in 2015 but that's really a key point in time when it became abundantly clear to many that Bethesda they were not perfect while the developer enjoyed a great deal of success Bethesda's releases over the years were extremely buggy Genki in some cases completely broken many of these problems were connected to their aging an outdated game engine there was also the issue with monetization as Bethesda drew anger for selling horse armor DLC years before with oblivion and more infamously the company attempted monetizing the massive Skyrim modding scene with paid mods due to enormous backlash that initial plan would be canceled until these somewhat different creation Club arrived a few years later Bethesda had problems glaring ones that did not really get taken serious at all that can be blamed on various factors but even with 2015's fallout 4 these same problems were present but mostly ignored although as with previous titles modders came to the rescue creating massive unofficial patches to address issues and bugs unaddressed by Bethesda's official patches fallout 4 additionally featured a new sort of criticism which was Bethesda's decision to cater towards a more casual audience by scaling back on the role-playing story side of things in favor of improving combat introducing voyce protagonists and adding a settlement building feature among other things there was a time before fallout 76 that this was the most controversial fallout or Bethesda Game Studios experience to date one that has been heavily debated with my own conclusion being that fallout 4 is a good game overall with some bad writing and a main questline again that underwhelmed which seems to be a consistent issue with Bethesda titles so yeah fallout 4 a good game overall but just not a great role-playing Fallout game there were massive mistakes made with the decision to restrict dialogue options to only four having these choices only defined by a few words which often did not represent the actual answer that you wanted to give and the illusion of choice being offered with certain responses just being another way of saying yes or no to a question and not actually being a different response that gives a new outcome also it didn't help dumbing down and lack of skill checks that many loved in both fallout 3 and new Vegas but yours Bethesda's lead writer and designer discussing the difficulty of making that dialogue system work visit so as you see it's very fluid in the game you know you have like every time you talk to him you see there are four options well for the designers this was something of a nightmare because every interaction with any NPC meant that they had to write four responses for anything you know they might want to tell a guy that like yeah the the restrooms are over there but they had to write that for in four different ways right it became a logistical nightmare if you're here to talk me into working on Liberty Prime you can forget it what changed your mind nothing changed my mind I promised you I'd return to the Brotherhood and I've kept my end of the bargain do I need to remind you why you made that promise in the first place no that won't be necessary tell Proctor Ingram to get her scribes ready it's going to take a hell of a lot of work to get Liberty Prime back online but we'll get it done now the good news is that the mighty todd howard himself admitted in an interview at e3 2016 that yeah this system did not work of course bethesda clearly thought during development that the average user didn't want a bunch of boring old dialogue to read so instead offering simplified responses sometimes just based on emotion was the better route to take but they were wrong as all it really did was limit player choice and create problems for the game designers who are at times forced to add extra pointless dialogue but also forced into limiting conversations that sometimes need more than four options simply put saying an emotional goodbye to a character with only dialogue options being goodbye speechless gotta go this can't be the end isn't exactly helping to create an atmosphere that the player you know should feel emotional it really just undermines these moments or situations this is one of the primary issues with fallout 4 as a whole which is Bethesda moving away from traditional role-playing elements in favor of the combat action pack let's shoot some super mutants side of things that was clear with the basic dialogue system and also the overall lackluster writing the settlement loading feature which was a huge focus at launch and post launch but never really had an actual importance in the grand scheme of things in the porn mission design which basically boiled down to go there and shoot that most of the time fallout 4 had problems fallout 4 was somewhat controversial only fallout community with most of the hardcore fence taking issue with Bethesda's design decisions but much of the casual audience feeling the game was criticized too much and actually did a lot of things right like the implementation of a modding feature which made it possible for console players to experience the extraordinary creativity that the fallout community has become known for and the undeniable impressive environmental world design which yes in my opinion is Bethesda's greatest strengths as a developer but see after fallout 4 is released in 2015 and then Skyrim special edition in 2016 a lot of people were wondering what could be next for Bethesda Game Studios Todd Howard had teased in multiple interviews around this time that they had three large-scale long-term projects and development there was all kinds of speculation on what he meant by that with arguments being made that he was including maybe a remaster or VR game or a mobile title as one of these large projects eventually during e3 2016 it would become clear thanks to Bethesda VP Pete Hines and Todd Howard that these three projects were actually $60 triple-a games and one of them was the Elder Scrolls 6 which would be the last of the three to release people shouldn't necessarily look at what we've done and say we're just gonna alternate a fallout in Elder Scrolls there are obviously universes we love but there's things that we want to try and gaming whilst they would still be very much a Bethesda Game Studios style game or something that people would expect from us while being different these are like very like I'm having a hard time it's actually really interesting looking back at all the theories believing that the Elder Scrolls 6 would release in 2019 and fallout 5 would be up by 2022 unfortunately that timeline was quite wrong but for a while it was a huge guessing game of what's next from Bethesda the obvious first option despite Bethesda saying it wasn't coming soon was the Elder Scrolls 6 the second option was a fallout spin-off which made sense as we got that before the new Vegas third was a new IP maybe being a space sci-fi RPG possibly the mysterious trademarked starfield and lastly could a fallout 3 10 year anniversary remaster come to be these were the options I myself expected a fallout spin-off and I was right if you're an older viewer of mine you know that I often cited Bethesda's huge legal dispute over the followed online trademark which led to a settlement and Bethesda Softworks already having an Elder Scrolls online live service I just felt that it made sense a big old fallout 4 with friends like experienced that could be treated as a live service I've discussed this in a recent video but it does appear that followed online is probably next in line this is certainly something that many fans will not want just like ESO but the sad truth is from a business perspective it just makes sense this Triple A games industry has a love affair with turning single-player franchises in to live services with ESO it exists to keep the massive franchise bringing in recurrent consumer spending leaving a single-player franchise dead for a while just is not how this industry works anymore everything is monetized to its full extent everyone wants the next GTA online and a fallout live service made sense as we all knew he fallout 5 was likely years away and I believed a mysterious fallout spin-off live service would be developed by Bethesda because of the company in recent years choosing to use less external development teams it made sense but I ended up being wrong with what Bethesda actually would develop and what it would actually be named on May 30th 2018 following a cryptic day-long stream from Bethesda Game Studios and various developers popping in fallout 76 would be officially revealed for the first time with a teaser trailer now following this teaser trailer nobody's really had an idea of what the game actually was and many assumed it was just a fallout spin-off especially it didn't help that fallout seventy-six pre-orders went live even before anyone knew what 76 was reports from kotaku and other leaks began to emerge claiming this to be an online survival RPG resembling titles like dayz and rust of course many were in denial by this news believing the reports to be lies even I was a bit disappointed at the time but remaining hopeful largely because Kotaku I'd confirmed there still would be a main story lining quests for players to take part in and then came III 2018 when the game was officially revealed for the first time and a larger capacity and Bethesda themselves confirmed the reports but also did a great deal of downplaying concerns that you couldn't enjoy the game as an offline single-player experience like past entries in the franchise we are really excited about everything that we've shown here tonight but I know there are a lot of you who are really here or really wondering about fallout 76 and I'm pleased to tell you that your wait is finally over we have always wanted to tell that story of what it will be like for you and the other characters who were first to leave the vaults but there is one big difference with this game it's that each of those characters is a real person [Music] because yes fallout 76 is entirely online of course you can play this solo all right you'll you'll be who you want exploring a huge world doing quests experiencing a story and leveling up we love those things about our games too it would not have it any other way but also like many of you we have always wanted to see what our style of game could be with multiplayer open world survival every person and character is real and it was an idea that we just couldn't shake we knew we had to do it and do it in a really big way now it was clear that Bethesda knew that they couldn't just come with this fallout 76 announcement because it would leave people feeling underwhelmed so what they did was show what the people have been wanting trailers for most are filled in the Elder Scrolls 6 which offered just a taste of what those games will be about but we're really just title screens and nothing more than that but it confirmed that those games were in development ending the years of continuing speculation even before it happened and Bethesda's belief was that this would help ease concerns about a fallout live service I think it's accurate to say many had indeed expected a fallout spin-off with maybe an optional co-op mode a fallout 4 with friends but a full-blown fallout online was not expected especially because of the dated game engine being used which already has had a lot of problems and issues in the past for Bethesda single-player games there was noticeable fallout 4 but for the most part things remained hopeful for Fallout 76 in the coming weeks and months before release I myself was staying optimistic but also Red Dead Redemption 2 was releasing right around the same time so that was really all I cared about for a while questions surrounding monetization were a big concern following what had transpired a year prior with EA's disastrous Star Wars Battlefront 2 online loot box Casino which backfired big-time with government bodies getting involved but for fall at 76 concerns were met - an encouraging response from Bethesda VP Pete hi when multiple occasions made clear that there would be no loot boxes no pay2win items and the game would be cosmetic only additionally he would also mention all the games post-launch content DLC would be free which was great news until it wasn't and wasn't again and was not again and was not again you get the point but more on that a little later but in the build-up to fallout 76 everything was said opinions were kind of mixed based on some of the previews given from content creators and journalists who Bethesda flew out to take part in a limited play test of the game but I think everyone wanted to see what this actually was in present day for themselves as the preview event was said to be an earlier version of the game so then came the beta which began on the infamous fallout date October 23rd when the bombs dropped and that's where everything started to completely fall apart turning into one of gaming's biggest nightmares ever [Applause] to we always start with the world and this time it features all new rendering lighting and landscape technology it allows us to have sixteen times the detail followed seventy-six was a buggy and broken disaster that had the Bethesda community shook many would complain about the timing of the beta knowing issues raised would likely not be properly addressed until weeks after the game's launch due to the beta being so close so what followed was the actual release on November 14th which included a massive day one patch that was larger than the game itself many had been holding out hope that the giant day one update would drastically improve the game in terms of how it performed in the actual content present but that didn't really happen it was still a big bat buggy broken at times disaster that featured some extremely unique game glitches and some straight-up lazy game design choices with the Scorch beast queen literally being a copy and paste' reskin of Skyrim's dragons with users discovering in the game's code the Bethesda had used the same exact animations and scripts even beyond the hundreds if not thousands of unique bugs that players encountered the actual game itself when working was just bad it was basically a create your own fun experience with friends and little more than that the actual story they're told through holotapes and robots was extremely boring and lacked any intrigue as everyone was just dead around you and the end game content was just launching nukes to stop scorch beasts so who really cares I'll circle back to the story side of things later but I actually do think Bethesda had a somewhat interesting narrative premise that was never explored had there been human NPCs to actually show the tragic fall of Appalachia's Brotherhood of Steel the fire-breathers the free states the responders where the evil and twisted decisions made by the Raiders an enclave I think fallout 76 would have been viewed drastically different it's just that Bethesda didn't want to give that much effort for this live service at release the plan was to buy people into a vision of what it could become instead of what it actually was come launch day a problem this Triple A games industry keeps doing Bethesda thought the Fallout brand no matter the quality would sell itself but they were wrong selling a sixty dollar unfinished unpolished greedy lackluster turd to be a costly mistake what frustrates me the most is that there was potential here instead though Bethesda gave us the post-credits of a tragic story of people not coming together for the common good that could have been interesting but that would have required time and effort and resources which was not the focus at all from leadership it was all about getting this out the door ASAP something confirmed to me from a developer who worked on fallout 76 so I want to circle back to some rather unique remarks that came from fallout 76 design director on building Bethesda stories because it's relevant to 76 so what's the story with Bethesda stories how do we make our stories and how do I personally make my stories I thought you know it's funny I had never really thought of the process that I use to write stories and make games and then I realized I do have a process and I started to put it together I realized that there are three primary points that I use when I create a story from one of our games the first is kiss keep it simple stupid the next write what you know in three this is a big one breaking to play not made this is one of the fastest studio mottos but this is a personal motto for me as well so go into the first plan kiss keep it simple stupid what does that mean well for me that means when I'm coming up with a story for a game I'd like to concentrate on strong central feeds and one or two strong central themes is enough I find that think of a good movie or think of a good game and you can usually think of a good intuitive good game with a good story and you can usually realize that there's a strong scent of theme a strong undercurrent right see a bad movie play a bad game with a bad story and it's usually sometimes it's a mess I saw a movie recently which I will not do that was kind of a mess the story was all over the place and it really didn't know what it wanted to be see the thing is sometimes settling for a basic simple story sets up failure as the narrative of 76 lacked zero intrigue at all also I know a meal problem will again be lead writer on starfield the next Bethesda Game Studios title and I just hope he stops having the stories opening driving force being the player leaving a home in search of someone or following the journey of someone whether that be a dad a son or an overseer or actually maybe just a refund fallout 76 is original story was a missed opportunity that ended up having many players not even bothering to care about it but besides the narrative the actual world design was solid as I said earlier this is one of Bethesda strengths but again because of there being no dialogue options no human NPCs tons of busy work repetitive enemy encounters and events no unique loot locations the intrigue to explore and venture deep into certain locations was omitted fallout 76 was just bad it was a mixture of conflicting ideas that did not blend together at all Bethesda wanted players to make their own fun battle other players through PvP roleplay explore the world with friends and also complete story quests discovering what happened to Appalachia but unfortunately none of this worked well at all the option also play solo was there but again it was honestly kind of depressing overall fallout 76 was universally hated at release with the game receiving a 53 out of 100 based on 136 critic reviews with just seven percent of critics recommending this experience like many vault experiments in the Fallout universe it was a failure but what followed was about a year-long of consistent controversies and disasters that hit this experience almost non-stop I really think Bethesda did the impossible creating so many different types of controversies that people just stopped caring the screw-ups literally became normalized in a somewhat brief rundown as some of the more notable debacles on November 27 2018 just about two weeks following release news began to spread of a united states law firm announcing a deceptive trade practices investigation into Bethesda's problematic refund policy which at the time made it that once you download the game you were not entitled to a refund eventually this would lead to the law firm pushing forward with legal action against Bethesda and almost a year later in Australia ZeniMax the parent company of Bethesda would be forced to offer fallout 76 refunds to CERN Australian customers and they would admit that they likely misled these custom about their rights to a refund when they experienced issues with fallout 76 at launch now on November 28th 2018 this is when the whole nylon canvas bag debacle began to blow up which boils down to Bethesda selling a two hundred dollar version of fallout 76 which comes with a power armor helmet the main draw and a few other items including a canvas bag but for some reason Bethesda decided to do a last-minute switch and material with the bag to achieve nylon and did not at all decide to notify customers before purchase of this change as you might expect many were off set to find out about this change feeling lied to a Bethesda representative would admit an email response to a customer that they did this to save money something that Bethesda would later disputes but Bethesda's first way to try and remedy the situation was offering $5 an imaginary Bethesda money or well the fallout 76 premium currency again they would receive backlash for that backed into a corner this would lead to them eventually promising to send canvas bags to upset customers although that would take about six months days later possessed a would enjoy community outrage with a controversial patch that made the game more grindy with hidden changes not previously outlined in the games patch notes Bethesda would end up making a reddit post apologizing for this and vowing to be more transparent moving forward but a day later on December 5th those customers upset with a nylon change were told to file a ticket on Bethesda support site to ensure that they would get eventually what they were promised and only one you know huge problem the customer data would leak with dozens having their private information exposed publicly due to a Bethesda website bug one week later and yes I really am trying to do a quick run down players would discover a sort of gameplay affecting lunchbox and the games files which was a sort of loot box that was shown later in action and leaked footage of the supposed now cut feature these sort of loot boxes along with perk cards would be found to be connected to the game's atomic shop store which likely meant at one point in development Bethesda planned for these items to be purchasable two weeks later band fallout 76 players were given the option to get their accounts back as long as they wrote an essay on why cheating in an online live service game is detrimental to an online game community so a homework assignment in all honesty this is probably the most funny of the many debacles but fast-forward to mid January 2019 players would discover a secret developer room that included every item in the game including unreleased content it also included a human npc named woobie that was likely meant to be a sort of testing dummy for developers to use unfortunately the secret room was actually not so secret as certain hackers or cheaters reportedly kept quiet on finding the secret room for weeks and would steal or take items from this room towards the end of the month Bethesda would start to break their cosmetic only promise in this instance by selling atomic shop costumes which featured gameplay effects a few months later in April they would follow this up with the atomic shop exclusive repair kits a pay for convenience item as Bethesda describes it that for just a few cents instead of you know grinding for materials you could skip this game system by purchasing or a pair kit create a problem sell solution there would be an improved repair kit that could be obtained through gameplay although that one is a rare drop next we have is the days before e3 2019 in which Todd Howard sat down in an interview with IGN and admitted that they knew fallout 76 would have a rough launch Howard would also admit that their reputation has been damaged they expected some level of backlash at launch and they did not expect to get great Metacritic review scores for this game as Todd Howard would for some reason say that this is not the type of experience that gets those scores an idea of of how it's gonna land or were you caught off guard by the launch of them we knew we were gonna have a lot of bumps that's a difficult development a lot of new systems and things like that hey we're gonna go try this new thing and any time you're gonna do something new like that you know you're gonna have your bumps you know that a lot of people might say that's not the game we want from you difficult development on that game to get it where it was and we were ready for you know a lot of those difficulties ended up on the screen and we knew hey look this is not the type of game that people are used to from us and we're gonna get we're going to get some criticism on it and a lot of that very well deserved criticism we knew that going into this we knew it's not that yeah you would say look this isn't this isn't a game even from the beginning this is not going to be like you know hi metacritic gaming that's not what this is given what it is and but we knew we felt strong this is a game we want to play this is something we really want to do and all of the games like this whether it's us or somebody else you can go back and look at them there's a period once you launch it's not how you launch it it's what it becomes and and you know can't be prouder of the team that's worked on it they've worked tirelessly now Dave's following this interview another one would pop up from PC gamer in which they interviewed some of Fallout 76 as lead designers who defended the company's introduction or repair kits calling them a pay for convenience item that totally is not paid a win at all ignoring the fact that they created a problem in salt a solution moving along to July a patch would go terribly wrong reintroducing tons of old previously solved bugs and again the developer would add another controversial pay for convenience item called scrap kits which this time was exclusive to the atomic shop nearing the one-year anniversary of the game's beta release Bethesda would announce a delay of the wastelanders update to spring 2020 which I think the general consensus was that it was a smart move and best at Bethesda take their time and get it right but unfortunately days later on the actual anniversary of the game's beta Bethesda would announce fallout first a new subscription service that included key Contin that fans had been wanting since day one and it was all pay walled this included private worlds and CR Ranger armor Adams emotes in a scrap box it was a premium membership for exclusive content in items that again goes against what Bethesda promised day zero and the community was enraged about this especially the timing which was simply laughable a few weeks later Bethesda would again come under fire for banning helpful fallout seventy-six community members that had worked with Bethesda Community Managers to discover and test sheets next to mid-december a hacker going by the username erect band would begin wreaking havoc on fallout 76 by unleashing cheat scripts that at first allowed hackers to add fallout for assets like a naked preston garvey or the pretty win - fallout 76 only a week later erect band would follow up with an attack that allowed hackers to steal entire inventories in seconds videos would begin circulating of hackers griefing hundreds of players Bethesda would come out with a hotfix about 24 hours after this hack went public it would eventually weeks later help impacted players get their items back and much more erect band would continue creating chaos on the weeks to follow with various other cheats that turned the online game upside down before the year did end Bethesda put out a blog which downplayed all the chaos that had happened all year long and instead only brought up the good moments that occurred finally though to our last notable debacle we had Bethesda VP Pete Hines sit down with Greg Miller and talk about fallout 76 is disastrous launch Hines would defend the fallout first subscription service admit that he gets angry when people call Bethesda Liars because things just change and he would defend not delaying the game claiming that there were issues they couldn't have envisioned happening I think I've mentioned this to you before but you know you don't get horizon zero dawn if that team sticks to what they were known for and also had always made they pivoted and tried something that I think is substantially different than what they had made before and one of my favorite games of the last five years I mean you're hoping that when you try something risky and different that you end up with horizon zero dawn and not with a lot of bumps and issues but that doesn't mean you you're doing it for the wrong reason right this game that launched the state you weren't happy with certain players weren't happy with everybody knew they're mean we can go further than just certain players here a pretty self-aware yeah I know you are yeah I would have call you on it yeah it wasn't it was more than certain right every hey didn't thought it sucked yes that's the way that gets to that gets to me the most yeah yeah is that is the like you lied to us like it just bothers me because that's not I guess the main thing that I sort of beat the drum on in terms of how we're going to do things but at the end of the day it's also semantics like if I said hey Greg I'm taking the kind of funny crew to Chuckie Cheese on Saturdays gonna be awesome and you were all excited about going to Chuckie Cheese and then Friday I come down with the flu like sorry bud we're not going you know I have boys they're significantly older now but when they were little kids they'd be like you lied you said we were going to Chucky Cheese like no but I didn't lie like I planned on taking you situations changed right at the end of the day he's still mad whether I lied or he's just not going he's mad if I tell you hey here's what I know that the plan is what we're doing and then down the road those plans change you gets I just got so much of the like you're a liar and Bob and it it just bothers me a lot because I know that's not how I approach things but at the end of the day it doesn't matter like even if I convince you that I didn't lie you're still gonna be angry that we changed our minds so what is it matter so these are just the most notable examples there's just so many patches that included problems anger over atomic shop prices with power armor skins or bundles costing the price of many discounted top tier games there was controversy over a holiday sale in 2018 that was basically a scam because the sale items were added to the store discounted creating the illusion that they were discounted there were also tons of exploits and bugs that created chaos and other small things that were more funny than anything else like Bethesda selling a premium fall at 76 jacket for $276 or someone sending a box of bobby pins to Todd Howard to complain about how the item was weighed in the game some people sent letters I got a box of bobby pins the other week that said that said way these letter I got now I would be lying if I said everything went wrong before wastelanders I mean it mostly did but there were some bright moments here and there with the nuclear winter battle royale mode being pretty fun for some time other updates like Wild Appalachia were met to a positive reception from the community and I actually really liked the introduction of the purveyor which allows players to get rid of unwanted legendaries and exchanged them for scrip which then can be used to buy different types of randomized legendaries but none of these updates inspired really any hope of a bright future until now because yes wastelanders is some solid fallout fund that actually improves on some mistakes made with fallout 4 you fallout4 with co-op was exactly what follow at 76 should have been but bethesda didn't want to do that instead they thought pushing out an unfinished monstrosity was acceptable I still believe they wanted this to be a game built on PvP content is that as far cheaper and easier to produce but that interest was never there because surprise surprise fallout fans like narrative and they want just that Bethesda was forced into doing what they always should have done invest the time and resources on story focused content with human NPCs that you can actually interact with this was really the only route Bethesda could have taken fallout 76 is intended to be a live service but as likely around until fallout 5 comes to be and that it really could be another six to seven years away if Bethesda space of releasing new games stays the same the good news is that wastelanders is finally a strong push in the right direction it does a lot of things that quite frankly put a smile on my face maybe it's just because I'm happy to see there are signs of life from Bethesda but a lot of work and passion went into this update so many locations have been updated given a new look and reason to explore there's now two always hostile factions scattered across the world being the blood Eagles and the cult of the Mothman who have taken over and set up camp all over and some of these camps you'll find notes and holotapes which in this capacity it just works it adds to the world building it's why it has worked so well in past Fallout games because the terminals holotapes and notes provide new lore and some interesting background but they're not the main form of storytelling which is key because yes it gets boring listening to hundreds of holotapes with zero interaction with these individuals it's all so predictable knowing all of these holotapes would have the same conclusion ending with everyone dying for whatever reason both a foundation in the crater are really interesting new settlements complemented by the unique characters that you can interact with there I found the Raiders to have a far more compelling cast of characters with a rah-rah being a little chaotic but adorable reminding me a Sally from fallout threes mothership Zeta DLC which also had her going through vents and helping unlock doors for a character as we made our way through a level Jonny Weston was also a really unique character that was well written and overall it just seems like the Raiders are far more fleshed out compared to the settlers in my opinion like even the individuals that take charge of each of these Shen's the leaders Paige and Meg it's at least clear to me that the Raiders Meg is the more interesting character while the settlers page comes off just a bit bland which maybe that's by design but another big addition that Bethesda made was adding some new early game content this update basically has two sections a smaller one featuring the wayward which you see as soon as you exit the vault and the big one which is the settlers vs. the Raiders and the mysterious treasure of Appalachia which is somewhat built up first through the wayward content regardless even the wayward quest line perfectly introduces new game systems for players to take part in like using a camp for the first time and it also gives the first real decisions to the player a solid dialogue system that actually shows that Bethesda has listened to the criticisms of Fallout 4 features skill checks and varying amounts of options that feel like real options not the illusion of more choices a dialog system also allows us to decide how this wayward quest line plays out and I appreciate that you can be a big baddie if you want to do that but probably the biggest interactions we have is with the overseer who will provide her thoughts on certain decisions that we make she mainly serves as an entry to the settler and Raiders quests line but Bethesda did do something really neat which is allowing us to return for a massive reward all the 24 holotapes to her that we can find throughout Appalachia that she left for us it's a nice way to compliment those players who did make their way fully through the base game's story another really neat change that Bethesda has made is adding to the lackluster base narrative of Fallout 76 which is still quite rubbish especially now but at multiple locations as you make your way through the overseer tapes you'll encounter human NPCs which add to these locations and even in some cases if you say the right dialogue options you'll receive some bonus items like a stim pack super nothing major but for a new player this is extremely beneficial also again each of these characters are somewhat unique with most having a sort of connection to this specific overseers tape at said location I particularly found Joe Crais at Camp McClintock really interesting as he's this army private who was really passionate about being in the US Army citing his family's background of serving and he himself is now at this base training but I suppose is too scared or unwilling to go out into the dangerous world throughout Appalachia there's quite a few nice little interactions that you can now have I recall running to a mission but stopping after I found a man chopping wood and complaining about both the Raiders and settlers another interaction was near Reverand which scavenger has a very brief conversation with us about comic books and if you act nice he'll give you one there's also various traders walking around now and even a secret random encounter companion that you can find this is the world-building that was missing from fallout 76 other than that the game actually now has a radio DJ Julie which I personally have not listened to too much of the fallout 76 radio or music board this update I did and I really enjoyed the music choices and dialogue from Julie Bethesda also apparently got Jason Mewes to betray the ghoul Mort and even brought back fallout three Owen Lyons voice actor William Bassett who betrays the companion of the settler forager who I believe is nicknamed Gramps and total I believe there's five companions that the player can gain although only one can be active at a time in your camp and only to Sofia the astronaut and back at the former blood eagle are actually fully fleshed out with side quests for us to take part in unfortunately though while these companions do have some interesting backstories and some choices the quests were tasked with are basically a bunch of go there killed that or go there grab that it's a bunch of boring busy work that does lead to at least something which is a proper side quest conclusion and some good loot there's also the option to romance these characters which besides some dialog it kind of seems pointless at least for now and specifically with Sophie I noticed a few dialogue skill checks with agility to improve her combat skills which I found actually pretty neat overall these companions are okay they do have interesting backstories some great voice work and maybe writing that was a little too basic but I think they just kind of pale in comparison to really all Fallout 4s companions but they're there that's good some other really neat details that I noticed where NPCs commenting on your appearance like if you take too many Kem's they'll point that out if you actually nuke the crater or foundation everyone will just start wearing hazmat suits which I understand this cannot be like fallout threes Megaton because this is an online game with other players but I'm glad that they at least did something although yeah it's a bit goofy but it's something there's some really unique things connected to fallout lore that took me by surprise and we created more questions than anything like why is so-and-so in Appalachia and I'll leave that at that because I don't want to spoil anything the new weapons and armor pretty great like the bow is Fundy used in Chinese stealth armor as a blessing unfortunately a lot of the new items are locked behind a new gold currency which I found a bit disappointing as shelf to grind daily quests and certain events for a while to get the new top to your stuff the game just looks better now with what appears to be lighting improvements and some changes made to how markers are shown in the game's map some nice quality of life improvements all around there's been some new enemies added which includes floaters that I saw quite a bit throughout my time in the new Wendigo Colossus which I unfortunately did not find because it's a very rare spawn in a blast zone some of the new events added I really liked for example riding shotgun which sees you defending a caravan along with some other human NPCs from blood Eagles it's a ton of fun beyond that moving to the actual main narrative a fallout 76 I found it to be it's fine it's not great it's not bad like the base game but it's just fine Bethesda writing has always been rather mad like comparing New Vegas to 3 or 4 76 a night-and-day difference in terms of quality but as I mentioned earlier I still think the base game story of 76 could have been something so more if it had been told differently but that did not happen now wastelanders main questline has some fun missions like the rah-rah level or mission or quest whatever you want to call it I mentioned earlier there's also one mission which takes a very dark turn fast one that has you solving a mystery another with you battling it out in a sort of arena and one that has you dealing with the repercussions of one of your big decisions that you have to make towards the end of the quest line there's a decent amount of variety offered and thankfully it isn't always go there shoot that or grab that like it is with the companion side quests I will say that I found the conclusion of this update a bit underwhelming but Bethesda accomplished what they needed to they created a foundation for a potential bright future but I should emphasize this update is simply the beginning because there's still his problems like the sheer amount of bugs still present is concerning once again another duplication glitch popped up following this update forcing Bethesda to take player vending machines offline although to Bethesda's credit this is the most stable I've seen the game yet besides the reported exploit from this wastelanders update for myself I did experience NPCs glitching through walls or floors occasional interact buttons not showing or working on NPCs but it should work with an enemy AI just not working at all like the beginning of the Becket companion quest was bugged completely with blood Eagles spawning in being invincible naked and not moving this happened another time and another blood Eagles camp as well but I'm thinking that this was later fixed maybe as I have not seen this happen since the day the update went live regardless wastelanders is the most polished content to date and a lot of props has to go to that pts server which should become a permanent thing moving forward overall fallout 76 is wastelanders is a step in the right direction finally if you're hoping this to be fallout 4 with friends it still really is not that and I'm not sure if it'll ever be that based on how the game works which is a lot of grindy busy work that will be unappealing to many looking for that typical Bethesda experience if we're being honest this should have been what fall at 76 was at launch this finally does accomplish one of the goals that Todd Howard claims was president at release and that is the ability to play the game solo and have a good time this is my preferred way of playing games I love single-player it's the first time I can say for a fact yeah I actually am interested in loading up fall at 76 every once in a while but you'll probably recognize a lot of the positive things I mentioned like random encounters or interesting human NPCs is kind of the bare minimum as these are common things that you expect to see in a Fallout game but fallout 76 is a unique case and yeah these basic things are indeed refreshing to see in the game now like choices and consequences at one point with the Raider quests line I was able to convince Meg to do something because I had the necessary skill checks but because I did that I missed out on a quest which would have had me meeting a dying human NPC and later once I finished this update I decided to check the location to see if I could still interact with the dying human NPC but when I got there they were no longer alive it really is the little things that I do appreciate now the actual verdict done fall at 76 is still a wait-and-see largely because the monetization stuff of this game is frustrating and I do have concerns moving forward I truly wonder how this game will continue to be funded or the micro transactions are already implemented enough or are we going to see more pay for convenience nonsense I have to imagine an update like wastelanders was costly and I just wonder if the returning and new players will be enough for Bethesda also why say Bethesda I don't mean Todd I mean the executives and leadership of ZeniMax like Linda Carter's husband Robert Altman leads the company has actually banned from banking after being caught up in a sketchy business deal in the 90s which led to a massive federal investigation and trial that did lead to him being acquitted but he was forced to settle with the Federal Reserve and he did that by agreeing to be banned permanently from banking the more you know other ZeniMax executives include Donald Trump's younger brother Robert baseball legend Cal Ripken jr. former MGM Chairman Harry Sloan disgraced former CBS chairman les Moonves and filmmaker Jerry Bruckheimer among others strange group honestly but getting back on point with 76 as I said before I still really take issue with these utility items which I don't care what people say it's selling a problem that Bethesda themselves created I've heard people consistently claim gaining resources or gaining atoms is easy but the issue is that these micro transactions like the repair kits exist because of a flaw in game design there's no other way to look at this differently other than the fact that Bethesda could fix this with an update to certain perk cards but instead they chose an attractive micro transaction which is even more attractive right now because it seems weapons and armor is degrading faster than usual which may be that's a bug but it's certainly beneficial towards Bethesda now from what Bethesda has outlined for the rest of 2020 it's difficult seeing another massive update like wastelanders coming this year but I have to believe with the foundation set it should be easier adding new NPC content that further gives backstories and quests for a companion like the settler forager or even the Taylor family there's opportunities to expand on what's already here there's not a need yet to bring in another large faction although there was quite a few mentions the pit which makes me wonder if a faction from that area or something to do with that region will become a larger focus in a future update either way fallout 76 is yet another triple a live service game attempting a comeback and for the first time seems possible but I do find it deeply concerning this growing trend of unfinished $60 dumpster fires at release being delivered upon the world with a promise that things will maybe get better one day that's not something I wish to see normalized and I somewhat already think it has which just means fun times ahead especially here on this channel but fallout 76 has transformed into something more it's still not very good but I do think if updates like wastelanders continue to be delivered in the years to come the tune will change on this game already it looks like it's somewhat has with steam reviews of the game turning mostly positive and most of the reviews or impressions coming from gaming websites being pretty positive on wastelanders it's just annoying to me that it took Bethesda so long to understand their own fan base like Rockstar Games with Red Dead Redemption to online they knew that they could not ditch story content in the online mode because the main draw for the franchise and the game is the story so what they did was add a ton of PvP content but also included story and character missions personally I don't find that story content even comparable to the base game story of Red Dead Redemption - but I respect that Rockstar at the very least is understanding of their audience and some of that story content has actually gotten more enjoyable in recent memory with a pretty fun bank-robbery base game characters making an appearance with some missions and even roles that you can play as now although this could start a long debate on why single player DLC should have been considered over this but we'll save that for another day Bethesda VP Pete Hines has indicated content like wastelanders will not be the sole focus moving forward and that's understandable but if this live service has a chance to succeed long term more content like this will be needed because this is the first time in forever that I can actually see more than a small group giving a crap about this fallout spin-off that's quite telling so circling back to a point I made earlier Bethesda still has many problems many issues I do find it encouraging that at least fall at 76 recently addressed one of those problems with a really solid dialogue system with the Elder Scrolls 6 and starfield I hope we see more of a Thesz de listening to criticism I have my doubts that will actually happen as it seems monetization will be a big focus with all games moving forward it appears the creation engine will continue to just be updated and I don't think Bethesda will address one of their biggest weaknesses which is writing but we shall see anyway what do you make of wastelanders have you tried it if not do you plan to try it and what do you make a Bethesda Game Studios last number of years do you think the company is moving back in the right direction learning from their many mistakes over the years like with 76 or not let me know your thoughts down the comment section below but thank you for watching make sure to leave a like if you did enjoy this video or if you found any informative value and make sure to follow my other social media accounts for updates on new videos links are always down in the description below a most active on Twitter giving opinions on news that I do not always get into video form so do make sure to follow me over there also check out my discord for all sorts of discussion on games and again thank you for joining consider subscribing for more videos like this and I'll see you later

Channel: LegacyKillaHD

Views: 683,147

Keywords: Fallout 76, Fallout 76 Gameplay, Fallout 76 News, Bethesda Game Studios, Fallout 5, Elder Scrolls 6, Starfield, Bethesda, Fallout New Vegas 2, Todd Howard, Fallout 76 Is Bad, Fallout 76 Loot Boxes, The Outer Worlds, The Elder Scrolls 6 lawsuit, The Elder Scrolls 6 Redfall, TES6, TESVI, The Elder Scrolls 6 News, The Elder Scrolls 6, Doom Eternal, Fallout 76 Repair Kits, Fallout 76 P2W, Fallout 76 Subscription, Fallout 1st, Fallout 2020, Fallout 76 Wastelanders

Id: d9xoNN453gM

Length: 53min 10sec (3190 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 22 2020