Fallout: 76 - Take Me Home, Country Roads

And while I described it as darkly amusing, I don't actually find it that funny. Leaking customer info like this is extremely dangerous and irresponsible. Makes nylon bags seem pretty trivial in comparison.

@Soble re: /r/FO76 — That subreddit is actually infamous for being the biggest pro-Bethesda hugbox on the net right now. Well, it was - seems even they have limits, and the increasingly frustrating and unhelpful "patches" combined with the above-mentioned privacy leak were the straws that broke the camel's back.

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Dec 5th 2018 at 6:28:28 AM

Wouldn’t be surprised these events will result in making this game a Creator Killer or a Franchise Killer.

Edited by doggieboy9 on Dec 5th 2018 at 9:41:14 AM

Ok, yeah, fair enough. I was amused by Bethesda's consistent failures and failed to consider the potential problems arising from it. There's a lot of potential damage there. This is indeed a more serious problem than the bags, by a long shot.

I wouldn't expect it to be a creator killer outright, but it's certainly doing some very extensive, very lasting damage to Bethesda's name. Far more than a silly multiplayer spinoff had any right to do.

Edited by TheLovecraftian on Dec 5th 2018 at 12:43:25 PM

At this point i'd not be surprised to learn the replacement bags are actually lethally radioactive coz someone at Bethesda wanted them to be authentic to the lore.

More likely the canvas bags will turn out to be moldy due to poor shipping and handling.

Edited by M84 on Dec 5th 2018 at 11:45:05 PM

, Let’s go with the third option in that it will be both annnnnd radioactive.

Edited by slimcoder on Dec 5th 2018 at 7:47:05 AM

Huh.

Well fancy that. I didn't know that.

Seriously I feel like the news report of someone's copy of Fallout 76 making someone's computer come alive, transform into a Decepticon, and attack people on the street is just days away.

Edited by Soble on Dec 5th 2018 at 7:55:19 AM

I do however think this might be a Franchise Killer. At the very least, Bethesda will probably try to steer clear of Fallout for a while after this. Kind of like what Andromeda did to Mass Effect.

^^ Which is exactly why I say when r/fo76 isn't happy, it's bad sign.

I wonder if people might sue Beth over data breach or not though...

Edited by onyhow on Dec 5th 2018 at 8:52:17 AM

In their latest attempt to patch the game Bethesda accidentally creates Skynet. Who then decides to give the players a much more realistic post-apocalypse survival experience.

Edited by M84 on Dec 5th 2018 at 11:54:52 PM

That could mean Betheseda has secretly saved us from our superior mechanical overlords. Who I am not speaking poorly of in the slightest.

Yeah, I suspect I'm not getting my Fallout 5 until I'm good and married with grandkids because of this.

Also yeah, I'm out. This has been an intriguing study of how to destroy consumer goodwill.

Edited by Soble on Dec 5th 2018 at 9:35:41 AM

"Hmm, we pushed our decrepit engine to its limit, tried to laugh off a slew of potentially game-breaking bugs, tore out everything that defined a franchise but its setting and props for the sake of a half-assed open world survival game, misled our customers about what they were buying, and botched every attempt at damage control. Yeah, that IP is definitely trouble, let's focus on figuring out what kind of microtransactions to include in TES VI."

At least we will know how to beat it if Skynet spawns from Bethesda's engine. Those engine bugs don't go away.

If the Creation Engine ends up spawning Skynet, I don't think we have anything to worry about. Everyone I've seen talk about Fallout 76 has said the AI is completely braindead. All we'd need to do to beat it's machine soldiers is kite them back and forth over a piece of terrain, and they'll bug out and stand there while letting us shoot them.

Edited by Gault on Dec 6th 2018 at 1:23:12 AM

IT KEEPS GETTING WORSE.

A couple months back Bethesda advertised that they were partnering with an outside company to make a real version the Nuka-Dark Rum from the Nuka-World DLC. It was implicitly (but not explicitly) advertised as having custom Nuka-Rocket bottles. As the above video from the bottling company shows, this "custom bottle" is a cheap plastic case housing a boring regular bottle. A single bottle costs 80 dollars. People are rightfully pissed.

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Dec 5th 2018 at 9:35:05 AM

Yeah if we have AI War or STALKER AI becoming Skynet, then we can be worried.

@Tacitus: There are posts on Reddit that says it's a lot more on Beth laziness than purely engine issue (although they say that there's some things that just can't be changed, period, like Physics tied to FPS, cell-based loading, and limited NPC on screen)

Skynet crashes every time it tries to launch more than one nuke at once. Endoskeletons are stuck on the battlefield T-posing to assert machine dominance instead of firing their weapons. Aerial Hunter-Killers fly backwards and scrape themselves along hills and buildings, and HK-Tanks occasionally lock up and do nothing but take hits until they explode. Infiltration units are easily caught because they never bother to don clothing, and only communicate with "Yes," "No," sarcasm and "What?"

Well of course it's expensive, you're buying two containers. That's twice as much container as rival brands! And I guess you can keep the "bottle" case to put less expensive drinks in, so you're really making a long-term investment.

Yeah, I guess it's not really fair to blame the engine for a game's bugs when the developers are so lazy that they let the community patch their games for them. And then are too lazy to integrate those unofficial patches in their updated rereleases, which is why Skyrim Special Edition still has the double Gildergreen bug after five years.

Edited by Tacitus on Dec 5th 2018 at 11:41:26 AM

Oh dear lord, say it ain't so! This has to be one for the history books, right? Call up the Guinness World Records, 'cause I think we have a winner for, "How many times can one corporation fuck up in a month?"

Coming off the back of the canvass bag controversy, this kind of shit is exactly what people did not want to see from Bethesda! They couldn't even spring for actual replica rocket-shaped glass bottles, instead they did this piece of shit plastic shell nonsense and charged 80 dollars for it! Christ Jesus.

Edited by Gault on Dec 6th 2018 at 1:43:04 AM

What is Bethesda's stock looking like right now?

Bethesda is a private company.

Edited by M84 on Dec 6th 2018 at 3:53:23 AM

Bethesda is steadily reaching Aperture Science levels of managerial stupidity...

I just hope this mess doesn't affect the Elder Scrolls series. I can deal with Fallout going on a small hiatus, but if they take the Elder Scrolls along...

Edited by TheLovecraftian on Dec 6th 2018 at 7:29:39 AM

The worst part for me is that I truly love Fallout 76 and think if it gets the Elder Scrolls Online treatment it would truly be wonderful. Now all this corporate fuckery probably ruined it.

Edited by evilface on Dec 6th 2018 at 5:23:14 AM

^ Eh, don't get you hopes down. It's still possible that Beth will at least try to genuinely improve the game over time.

Maybe don't hope for too much, but it's still possible.

Maybe it's just me, but even if things so far have been fun schadenfreude, I really don't want this to be the Franchise Killer. Of course, if Beth doesn't learn...

Edited by onyhow on Dec 6th 2018 at 7:16:31 AM

I don't think it'll be a franchise killer. Truth of the matter most people are never gonna hear about 90% of the issues this had because most people don't follow gaming news that closely. Plus a single player fallout won't have the issue of being a thing that part of its core audience is initially hostile to. To the vast majority of games, 76 is that game they skipped, and the announcement of a Fallout 5 would far eclipse that.