The newest Fallout 76 controversy, for those who don’t know yet, is that people are now raving because the Power Armor editions of the game didn’t have and item it claimed to have it.
The Power Armor Edition of Fallout 76 is a special edition that included the deluxe version of the game, named the Tricentennial Edition, along with a glow-in-the-dark map of Appalachia, a bag of plastic figures cast in the forms of famous Fallout creatures and people, and - most importantly - a wearable T-51 Power Armor helmet with voice modulator and headlamp. This Power Armor helmet came with a West Tek canvas bag to carry it in, or use for your gym socks, whichever you prefer.
The current controversy is that Bethesda did not disclose a specific aspect about this special edition: the canvas bag was replaced with a nylon bag prior to launch. No customers were informed of this change and no disclaimers were given about the contents of the special edition being subject to change.
Understandably, people are upset. They were promised something great and given something crappy. As a buyer of the Defiance Collector’s Edition, purchased solely for the nice messenger bag, I understand why someone would buy a collector boxset or special edition for an item OTHER than the main affair. (The Defiance CE touted a Hellbug statue about 4″ tall, but that wasn’t the main attraction for me.)
However, if people were ACTUALLY upset over this issue wouldn’t we have heard about this the day these special editions started to work their way into eager hands? The outrage has only come in the wake of Fallout 76′s bad reviews and bad PR. It took players 18 days to come to terms with their outrage? Either that, or they’re capitalizing on an opportunity to claim some money back at the cost of Bethesda’s well-being.
Now, Bethesda fucked up - 100%. I’m not arguing that, because it would be foolish to try. The game is riddled with bugs, the customer support teams are being unprofessional and short with some people. If I’m being honest, Bethesda should have known this was coming when players expressed concerned in the BETA, but they did nothing. They released the game anyway and from the looks of things, based on their responses on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, and other outlets, they are planning on fixing it in the future a la No Man’s Sky. In response, consumers are trying to SUE Bethesda.
Now, if the game is so bad then Bethesda SHOULD issue refunds. I agree with that. But, throwing them under the bus and trying to cripple the company you claim to love is stupid. It’s a level of entitlement this generation is infamous for. The game is broken and you deserve your money back, but trying to cripple the company and all those who work for it is ridiculous. I doubt the devs working on this had much of a say in how the timeline of release proceeded. I guarantee it wasn’t their call to release right now, but some higher up “suit” who just wanted the payday. It’s always a bad call, because more time makes a better game and a better game yields a higher payday with a longer sustain. But you can’t convince old-money CEOs that quality is better than quantity when they’re used to rolling devs over and shaking the loose change from their pockets before they dump them aside to move onto the next (looking at you, Telltale execs).
Personally, I “finished” the game. I’ve beat the “big bads” and cleared the main challenges. Mopping up completion points and min-maxing my character are all I have left until new content is added. I enjoyed myself, but only just-so. This isn’t the level of gameplay quality I expected. (Technically it’s on par with the Bethesda brand and all that comes with that relative to the Fallout and Elder Scrolls games.) I give it a 6/10 if I HAD to score it without much more context. And yet, I STILL contacted Bethesda and asked for compensation. I bought the game day 1. I was there when the gates opened and in spite of all the BS I stuck around. I watched the price drop by $25 7-days after release. I didn’t want my money back, but I wanted a little something extra so I asked for $20 in Atoms (which is the average sale value for Black Friday deals). They obliged. I’m Gucci.
People are claiming I’m a fool for taking what amounts to a pittance when a settlement could be on the horizon if the lawsuits go through. I don’t want them to give me money from a suit. I don’t want the company to die off from this. I want them to LEARN from this mistake and to do better in the future. I’m not an apologist. They fucked up and there’s no mistaking that. But without Bethesda Fallout and Elder Scrolls die. I’m not saying we should excuse shady practice or crappy delivery to preserve these franchises, but we should give them an opportunity to redeem themselves.
If you were affected I’m not asking you to not be mad. I’m just asking you to take a chill pill on your anger and see what develops. Bethesda may try to make it right. What constitutes “right” in your book might be different than mine, but keep some perspective on this and maintain your cool. All I’m sayin’.
pinch a fistful of your skin on the side of your chest. fucked up right. it just moves
human biology is the most inconsiderate motherfucker
did you know that a teenager’s rib cage isn’t fully developed so sometimes a rib just sorta pops out of place so that’s why when you were younger you’d just get random ass chest pains and you’d think “ah, its finally time.”
You know what makes ME sad? When Games Journalists aren’t even invested enough in the games they review to know the mechanics.
Forbes has been irking me for quite a while. Honestly, they seem like the position was open because they wanted to capitalize on the possible ad revenue but didn’t really want to bother hiring actual GAMERS because that nerd culture doesn’t really mesh with their “business-y” vibe.
A common trend among these articles is a journalist who hasn’t done enough research about the product and complains about something they personally don’t understand. In this article the write claims that they don’t actually know what gear drops when you die. He speculates it might just be “junk” category items (the ones we use for crafting and repairing of items). If he had done even an hour of research prior to starting the B.E.T.A. or even writing the article he would know that only your “junk” drops and not ever your actual gear (maybe some caps if you were engaged in PvP play).
He goes on to criticize the lack of saves in a Fallout game and while I can’t blame him for the initial complaint the reality is that any Persistent Online game does not have a manual save system least of all one that is built around the potential of random and sudden PvP fights. Fallout games have always required a save system to counter the YASD that the game is known for (Yet-Another-Stupid-Death). Perhaps you threw a grenade at an enemy and the physics of the explosion caused a barrel to hurdle backwards at you and explode in your face faster than you could even see it. Maybe you fell through the world and died. These are things that Fallout games are known for and the main reason that the save system has been used to heavily over the years.
That said, these are not issues we should expect with this game. You have to give Bethesda the benefit of the doubt that things like this will be worked on well enough before the actual release that they won’t affect players of 76.
Paul goes on to give ACTUAL opinions on gameplay and functionality of Fallout 76 that he dislikes. That is the point of these articles, but he takes so long to get there. Some of what he says is legitimately disturbing or saddening, but his lack of knowledge about the games as a whole makes me value his opinion less. Conversely, someone like Oxhorn making these statements would have me more worried because they are so invested in the Fallout world and its lore that if they thought there was an issue it probably IS an issue.
Lastly, the comparison to No Man’s Sky doesn’t worry me, but that it seems to be the Go-To for these articles in generating fear about a product has me a bit upset. No Man’s Sky isn’t a perfect game, but it got better over time and the developers really put a lot of effort into making it a decent game. I can’t say I’ve put a lot of hours into it (none, in fact), but hearing what the general populous has to say about the game change so dramatically over the last few years makes me feel better about the game, even if I wasn’t personally let down by it. Now if Fallout 76 turns out to be just as bad at launch as NMS was that would be fine, because Bethesda will likely improve on the formula over time and it will get better. But using the comparison as a means of detracting from a game that isn’t even released yet for the sole purpose of making people stray from it is just bad clickbait-y practice; typical of the article title and typical of Forbes games journalists.
Calling it now! There will be a huge change in Wild Pokemon Battles before this game is launched.
Notice that in both this trailer and the Japanese trailer there was nothing showing wild Pokemon capturing or battling. Combine that with the questions regarding how players felt about the game on the survey that went out a while ago and I’m pretty sure that The Pokemon Company is taking steps to alter the game based on fan feedback from E3.
Mark my words, there will be some change to Wild Pokemon Battling / Capturing before launch. These trailers make me even more confident than I was before.
This post is one of the first official “I called it!” posts where I either 1) anticipate some change in a game beforehand, or 2) offer an opinion on a valid game design change before it is announced or implemented.
Part of this is because over the last 4 years I have studied a LOT on game design. I’ve also played quite a few games that break a lot of game design rules for no other reason than they couldn’t be bothered (or possibly administrative decision making that goes against designer/developer wishes but I can’t fault that one).
I called the changes for The Division. I called the changed for Fortnite. Most recently I called the changes for Realm Royale. Just a few examples but the most glaring ones, imo.
It’s validating that my time spent studying, playing, and analyzing games is yielding results. I’m going to chronicle these for science.
