Not necessarily. MMOs have a lot of room for emergent story telling opportunities that just don’t exist in other mediums, things like community events that genuinely matter or developers responding to major trends in the player base. although i very rarely see good MMO design like that in MMOs, could be that i just don’t look at a lot of them though.

Really? I’ve never once seen it not work that way

Oh don’t get it mixed up, new Vegas is better than anything Bethesda has ever put out, it’s just not a Bethesda game. 3, meanwhile, is just straight up bad. It’s as unrewarding as oblivion to explore, the gameplay sucked, and the setting was stupid.

To be perfectly honest, fallout 4 is probably the peak of Bethesda game design. For the most part it’s incredibly shallow, like all of their games, but everything having some kind of actual use as scrap instead of a gold/weight ratio makes exploration far more rewarding.

That said, Bethesda sucks and there could be a few reasons why it shines through. they didn’t have the actual TES creators’ work to capitalize on and ruin, they just seem to take fallout less seriously than they do TES, and the bad gameplay becomes more apparent when you focus on ranged weapons.

It’s a bad game that does some things that really make it worth playing, imo. The gunplay is mid and the social systems sucks so much ass, but not many games go for the scavenger fantasy like fo4. Throw some mods on top of the shaky base and you’ve got the only real good post apocalyptic survival game i can think of. Pick a spot to build up while living like a rat and you might get a few dozen hours of genuine fun out of it.

I personally recommend Frost or that modpack that turns the game into a survival horror, because the game is at it’s absolute peak when you are actually desperate for three more rounds in your revolver.

We all know this was completely necessary at any level, but why the hifi guys? Aren’t they the best bets you could hope to invest in? They make good games that sell decently with less investment than AAA massive failures need.

Yeah sony hasn’t been the gaming juggernaut that guy remembers in a very long time.

You know people can look at the world around them, notice trends, and make fairly accurate predictions of the future based on them, yeah?

No

Rain world is up there with the best games of last decade.

Terraria is amazing.

Dwarf fortress is obligatory.

Yeah the rain world Dev fought to get their game back ages ago, it’s why they could continue working on it.

The original Pokemon sucked

Dragon’s dogma 2 is shaping up to be an absolute masterpiece.

But on topic; i think the usual systems of fast travel undermine entire games and we all know humans are very bad at enjoying things (‘players will optimize the fun out of everything’), but people don’t usually bring up the impact it has on game design. A simple fast travel system allows for much worse and scattered design. Generally a good game would keep most quests in an area limited to that area, with a smaller number meant to introduce new areas. A fast travel system encourages Bethesda level shit where a quest can leave you going to the literal opposite side of the map and back.

Much less glowing. It wasn’t the game that set SR (and the studio itself, apparently) on the way to ruin, but it was certainly another step down that road. If someone is into superhero games it’s got some interesting baggage from when it was a saints row game (like better character customization), at least.

Aquaria is absolutely amazing, wish more developers would play around with the ocean as a setting.

Cataclysm dark days ahead is to zombie survival what doom is to demon shooting or monster hunter is to monster hunting. Project zomboid? Can’t even play that garbage now. Cataclysm actually gives you the reigns. Out in the wild? Use the very deep crafting system to go from practically neolithic to the iron age out of a cabin you found . Not strong enough to take on dozens of zombies you’ve attracted raiding a city? Climb a drain pipe and run across the roof tops. Tired of living out of a run down cabin you found? Build an in depth base with it’s own power grid or build your own car. Or train.

Rain world is one of the best games ever, reaching the highest point in that game is an experience everyone should feel.

Lunacid is an old school dungeon crawler with vibes that are completely immaculate.

Kenshi is a genre all it’s own. Be a wuxia style master of whatever style of combat you like most (I’m partial to martial arts and punching off limbs), build up your base, create an army, and go to war against the holy nation.

Cassette Beasts is a monster tamer that is full of charm, had the best soundtrack of any game last year, and had great gameplay to boot. Comparing it to Pokemon (because duh), the type match ups matter so much more due to a reactive system that can change up gameplay instead of just altering damage. the fact that it went unnoticed last year is a crime!

Capitalism ho!

It is, but i don’t think for a second empress is the only person to stumble across the solution. Unless it’s something so crazy only a crazy could do it.

I know there are a lot of reasons why it’s a harder choice to make; you can’t share the secret because that’s a security risk, you can’t make as much money, you are at greater risk. I guess i just miss the old days where people into tech were anti establishment and into doing things because it was cool.

Gog exclusivity would be cool, epic not so much.

I’m still kinda shocked there isn’t anyone else trying. Maybe you need to be crazy to be a legend.