View: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/18llpzt/mittensquad_has_passed_away_at_age_27/
You know, it really sucks to have two subsequent posts announcing the death of someone.
Mitten Squad was a content creator that made a bunch of Elder Scrolls and Fallout challenge runs. His struggle with alcohol was well known, but it sucks to know he lost his life to it.
Rest in peace, king. I'm gonna rewatch some of his old content.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmi5trYwggM
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TzSmz3BokE
Wasn't Bethesda responsible for the QA testing on NV? Also doesn't help that Obsidian kept getting ridiculous deadlines for games that they agreed to for some reason.
Depends on the lead. I think Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky are washed up but I'd trust Sawyer to have made something at least passable.Honestly? Not that fussed over not having an Obsidian Elder Scrolls, especially not with how Outer Worlds turned out.
Article: Starfield's lead quest designer had 'absolutely no time' and had to hit the 'panic button' so the game would have a satisfying final quest
During the talk, Shen and Brigner discussed the design of a couple of memorable quests from Skyrim and Fallout 4, like House of Horrors, where the player investigates a haunted house, and Last Voyage of the U.S.S. Constitution, where robots enlist the player to return an 18th century naval frigate to the sea. Near the end of the talk, Shen spoke about the final quest of Starfield—specifically, what it was lacking.
"We were finally at a state in the project where we could play through the whole [game]. And it became very clear that we were missing the large final location that was going to tie the story together and have a satisfying action-filled payoff," Shen said. "I was both implementing the main quest and leading the quest design team, so I had absolutely no time. The entire quest design was already overbooked."
Part of the issue, Shen said, was the sheer size of the team working on Starfield. Skyrim's development team was around 100 people, which made collaboration between different departments easier. That team size grew to about 150 for Fallout 4, then over 350 for Fallout 76, and 500+ for Starfield. That's not just Bethesda Game Studios but outside developers like Machine Games, Nobody Studios, Arkane, Snowed In, and The Forge Interactive.
Am I right for considering this a sign of shocking incompetence? I mean, there's no doubt that making a game with 300+ people is hard as hell but they're a AAA company. Managing personnel numbers of that size is intrinsic to the concept lolMind you, the game had more than five years of development time and they still felt rush. It seems to me Bethesda works best as a small tightly knit studio vs a massive one.
I'm not sure how effective/valid/(not quite sure about the right word) it'd be to look at Starfield and then build expectations for TES6. After all, the one thing Bethesda always nailed, was to create an amazing world, filled with things to find and stuff to explore. Where you could look at something in the distance, think that it'd look neat, and then walk there and find stuff.One nice thing about Starfield means that I don't have to feel annoyed by it, if there's a good chance that Elder Scrolls 6 will suck then having to wait 5+ years for it doesn't really bother me.
Article: Bethesda's Todd Howard tries "really hard to not be the Last Say Guy"
"All decisions run through Todd."
According to former Bethesda dev Bruce Nesmith, pretty much all decisions about the team's games "run through" Todd Howard, even if the studio head doesn't want that.
Nesmith recently spoke with the YouTube channel MinnMax about all things Bethesda, including when we can expect to hear more about The Elder Scrolls 6. In the interview, he explained his reasoning behind leaving Bethesda, noting it was in part due to just how big the studio had gotten. "There were a lot of changes going on and the structure of the company also was such that, half because of the pandemic and half just because of the necessary changes, you didn't get to interact with Todd as much anymore," Nesmith explained.
Nesmith doesn't seem to hold any kind of grudge against Howard though, saying, "When you're running six different studios and you've got a dozen projects going on at a time, he's only one man." While Howard might be responsible for a whole lot more than he used to, that doesn't mean he isn't overseeing most of the creative decisions being made. "All decisions run through Todd. He would hate, hate, hate me for saying that because he doesn't believe it's true. But unfortunately, it is true."
I agree. This is why I'm saying that it's "likely to be bad" instead of "it's inevitably going to be bad". Bethesda going back to what they're actually good at is a positive move. However it's worth noting that Starfield hasn't gotten the criticism it has just because of the procgen content, there are other issues with the game such as quest design and worldbuilding that would impact ES6.I'm not sure how effective/valid/(not quite sure about the right word) it'd be to look at Starfield and then build expectations for TES6. After all, the one thing Bethesda always nailed, was to create an amazing world, filled with things to find and stuff to explore. Where you could look at something in the distance, think that it'd look neat, and then walk there and find stuff.
And Starfield has basically none of that thanks to the random generated locations. Which was a baffling decisions. I know that they've wanted to make this game for a while, but it should've been pretty obvious early on that they couldn't make a proper Bethesda game out of Starfield yet. So they should've done it later. At least in my opinion.
Am I right for considering this a sign of shocking incompetence? I mean, there's no doubt that making a game with 300+ people is hard as hell but they're a AAA company. Managing personnel numbers of that size is intrinsic to the concept lol
It just says very bad things about Bethesda's leadership and organizational practices that they're finding the growth so unmanageable.