#the developers are not sitting out there laughing over content being removed while gamers are hurling negative press and abuse at them

[thefirstknife]

I just don't get it.

Forsaken's story was the the entire point of Cayde's departure and exposure to the Dreaming City and Crow/Uldren's background and character development for the last year! Without it Cayde will become another character faded into obscurity, and uldren/crow will lose their character arches and backstory and all of the buildup from last year will be pointless.

Even if they're that strapped for storage can they not just move the previous expansions including Y1 and forsaken into subservers that players can download and go into to play the old raids/strikes/story and should their game become too cluttered, remove it but still be able to access it if they wish? Its already kind of a thing like Ikora's memory missions and the legacy raid so I'm pretty sure it can be done. But if Forsaken's removal is absolute, why not just make it free so as many people can play it as possible?

I don't think they're that desperate for space anyway compared to their competitors.

Warframe is over 8 years old and it has kept all functional content. It only removed its Trials (Raids) due to them being a buggy mess played by less than 2% of the playerbase, that didn't fit the gameplay, narrative, or direction of the game. Besides that, Warframe has literally 8yrs of content packed into it. FF14, WOW, ESO, and even games like Genshin Impact keep all their content. Storylines, progression, and etc are key aspects of "An ever evolving MMO."

Above everything though I don't know why this is being put on the table considering Bungie knows they can't make as much content as they used too so removing something as large as forsaken under the gamble that WQ will be as good if not better just puts more pressure on devs to make more content. I just don't get it.

Ok, point by point:

Forsaken's story was the the entire point of Cayde's departure and exposure to the Dreaming City and Crow/Uldren's background and character development for the last year! Without it Cayde will become another character faded into obscurity, and uldren/crow will lose their character arches and backstory and all of the buildup from last year will be pointless.

Nothing will be lost or faded into obscurity. This content still exists online for people to check it out. The buildup isn't pointless. It was there for years, now it has to go for technical reasons, but the content can still be viewed online. I'm also not sure why people are throwing so much of a fit over Forsaken when arguably equally important parts of the story (Season of Dawn and Arrivals for example) are also gone.

I know a lot of people have some visceral reaction to having to look up content in fandom spaces, talk to the community and watch a youtube recap, but that's simply a problem for those people personally. If that bothers people so much then Destiny is not a game for them. It has always relied on the community and out-of-game sources for lore.

Let's not forget how lore was delivered until Forsaken: not in the game. And yet, I don't see people saying the entire history of the Hive is faded into obscurity or pointless because it was entirely in grimoires online and not in the game.

The rest under read more because I want to have mercy on your dashboards:

Even if they're that strapped for storage can they not just move the previous expansions including Y1 and forsaken into subservers that players can download and go into to play the old raids/strikes/story and should their game become too cluttered, remove it but still be able to access it if they wish?

Obviously they can't. I don't work for Bungie and, presumably, neither do you. If they could keep the content, they would keep the content. I am entirely confused as to why people seem to imply that Bungie is gleefully removing content they worked hard on. Not to mention removing content they could be earning more money from.

What you're suggesting is basically that Bungie create a whole new separate game that would require dedicated servers and tech support and matchmaking. It's basically asking Bungie to simultaneously maintain two games at once. This is ludicrous to me, especially when we take into account your later claims that you want Bungie devs to work with less pressure.

Its already kind of a thing like Ikora's memory missions and the legacy raid so I'm pretty sure it can be done.

Ikora's missions have been gone for over a year now? They were there because the missions were already in the game. Once the missions were removed, they were also removed from Ikora.

Legacy raid is an entirely different thing as well. Vault of Glass had to be fully rebuilt from the ground up to be included into D2. It's not a button press away to drop it into D2 from D1. It had to be built specifically for D2 in a new engine and adapted for both PC and consoles. Same with the Cosmodrome. And they will obviously do more of that in the future as we're getting more legacy raids and locations. They just take time and resources, which is why Bungie is releasing these things one by one.

I don't think they're that desperate for space anyway compared to their competitors.

Warframe is over 8 years old and it has kept all functional content. It only removed its Trials (Raids) due to them being a buggy mess played by less than 2% of the playerbase, that didn't fit the gameplay, narrative, or direction of the game. Besides that, Warframe has literally 8yrs of content packed into it. FF14, WOW, ESO, and even games like Genshin Impact keep all their content. Storylines, progression, and etc are key aspects of "An ever evolving MMO."

I don't have much to say about this besides Bungie and Destiny are not the same as those games. I'm glad those games can keep everything and if that's something that players find the most important, then well. Those games are there for them.

I genuinely don't care for these comparisons. These are not the same situations or the same companies or the same pricing models (Genshin and gacha games can go die in hell, I really couldn't give more of a shit about how much "content" they have). Again, Bungie is not removing this while cackling villanously in their offices: vaulting consistently gives them bad press and loses them money (both from not being able to sell expansions and seasons that are gone and from angry players vowing never to buy anything from them ever again). If they could keep it AND keep the current quality AND be able to fix and update the game more efficiently, they would. It is literally in their primary monetary interest to keep good press.

Above everything though I don't know why this is being put on the table considering Bungie knows they can't make as much content as they used too so removing something as large as forsaken under the gamble that WQ will be as good if not better just puts more pressure on devs to make more content. I just don't get it.

Again, the majority of the content removed was with Beyond Light. And while we didn't get as much content back immediately, what we did get was significantly and overwhelmingly well-received, most notably seasonal stories. Not to mention that the game objectively functions better, updates faster and fixes thing more quickly. Without the removed content, basically live-updating Trials would be impossible, just to mention one thing.

The content going away with Forsaken is minuscule. We're losing one location (that is not being used), 2 strikes (generally not liked by the community) and one campaign (which is going to be over 3 years old when it is removed).

We are keeping: one location (infinitely better looking and more imaginative), 2 strikes, a dungeon, a raid and everything else that came with Forsaken such as subclasses, Gambit, bows.

Witch Queen is also giving us, as far as we know for now: 2 new locations, 2 new raids, X amount of strikes, dungeons?, 4 new seasons with new stories, entire new weapon type, crafting system, replayable campaign on Legendary mode, new enemies, probably more that we don't know about yet.

Witch Queen is absolutely not a gamble. Collector's edition sold out 2 hours after the showcase and then again another time when they restocked it. They specifically delayed two expansions now to relieve the pressure on the devs as well. They are not crunching like under Activision and they never want to be in that situation again. I am confident that the content they're making is going to be just as good as it was for the past two years with excellent seasons, activities and stories. On top of that, I am confident that they're working in better conditions and I am not expecting impossible standards to be met. They are making as much content as they want. Removing old stuff and old code is only making this easier for them.

Witch Queen will be good, same as both Shadowkeep and Beyond Light were good. I know people disliked some aspects of those and I also have my own criticisms as well, but to me, the game was infinitely better than in Y1 and 2. I was so disappointed in Y1 and Y2 announcement that I stopped playing for a year.

I guess my relationship with Forsaken is biased due to that as I played it later to catch up and after I knew everything that had to be known about it. I had more fun with Shadowkeep and all of Y3 seasons, as well as Beyond Light and all Y4 seasons.

Other people should also recognise their own biases with Forsaken though. I know I have mine. But others have their as well. Destiny is currently the best it's ever been. Like, statistically and objectively. Bungie is working at their own pace. That obviously requires some sacrifices to be made, but I would rather they remove bloated old content so the devs can more easily work on making the current content better.

But if Forsaken's removal is absolute, why not just make it free so as many people can play it as possible?

Forsaken and all of its content will be free for everyone on December 7th and the free offer will include the Forsaken pack which comes with all of Forsaken-exclusive cosmetic items such as certain shaders and emotes. People will have until WQ to play it as many times as they want. This was specifically stated in the article about vaulting.

My only complaint and the only legitimate complaint I've seen is that Forsaken should not still be in the store for sale. I think they should've made it free the moment it was announced it's going away.

However, there may be some issue with how they are able to release it for free seeing as it's coming on December 7th which is the same day that the Anniversary will be live and the "mini-season" will start. I don't know if there are some technical issues with dropping Forsaken as free content due to that (as the mini season will be resetting certain things, such as synth bounties).

Either way, I think that Forsaken should not be available for sale for the next two months before it goes free. Some people WILL buy it because they're not aware of the news. But again, I am not sure if releasing it for free is in any way tied to the mini-season (though removing it from the store shouldn't be affected by that). This is a legit complaint that I understand.

Other than that, what I personally don't get is why are people so hellbent on assuming Bungie is doing this to... I don't know, spite us? Make themselves look worse in the eyes of their customers for nefarious schemes?

Again: vaulting is affecting them negatively, same as us. If there was an option available to them where they could keep the old content, they would keep old content. I am sure that a professional team of veteran developers has tried all of the suggestions people are making on Twitter, Tumblr and Reddit. It's really bizarre to me that people are showing up with "suggestions" as if literal professional devs working for Bungie haven't thought of those before.

[text-to-speech-impediment]

THE VAULT IN OUR STARS

An Opinion Piece on How Bethesda Survives (And How You Can Change Them!)

A/N: I wrote this op-ed for funsies. As you may know, I am known to warm myself at a corporate dumpster fire from time to time, but this one is especially close to my heart. I may replace with an actual edited version but for now, just enjoy it in its raw & unpolished glory. If you’re a Bethesda fan, you’re used to it anyway.

           In the words of Todd Howard, “I read on the internet…that sometimes it doesn’t just work.”

           Indeed, after just over two weeks since its 14 November release date, Bethesda Softworks’ release of survival multiplayer sandbox “Fallout 76” has more than merely failed to impress most of its players. The game has garnered an infamously low average score of only 54% on popular game journalism site, Metacritic. It fares no better on Youtube, with dozens of popular influencers obliterating the high expectations of even the most devoted fans of the Fallout franchise; but this will not be another essay to dishonor the multiple technical, immersion and storytelling woes that plague beleaguered “Fallout 76”. That’s for another essay.

           This criticism is one that many previous public complaints have touched on, flirted with, but seldom fully explored while caught up in the disappointment they had in “Fallout 76.” Specifically, this essay is leveled broadly at Bethesda Softworks LLC, the video game publishing division responsible for “Fallout 76”, as well as ZeniMax Media Inc., the parent organization of Bethesda and many other well-known game developers such as Arkane Studios, id Software and more. The upper management of these companies is removed from all but the finances of their industry; they are abusing both their content creators and consumers to calculated effect, remaining foggy at best on the aim of the products their teams are producing and out of touch with the end user’s interest.

           What more can we say against corporations of this staggering size? Corporations and mergers, time and again, continue to exploit art production and consumption then shrug off the backlash by driving screws into their overworked employees and letting them take the fall with the public. Unless we look at past events, this trend of blame shifting isn’t obvious. It’s hard at the moment to see that Bethesda Softworks’ colossal failure to recreate their previous endearing successes with fans in “Fallout 76” didn’t happen overnight.

It is for this reason that I sit on my soapbox today, somehow about to make an analogy of the gaming marketing industry by using Hazel and Gus from good ol’ John Green’s “The Fault in Our Stars.” Never did I imagine I’d see those concepts together, but here I am smashing them together like this is fanfiction(dot)net. Don’t get too excited, though, because none of the wholesome aspects of Hazel and Gus make it into this analogy; no, this essay is all about the essence of what happens when you take a beautiful thing and strip it to the bare bones. Being a gamer in today’s culture of parasitic marketing is roughly akin to being desperately in love with a dying cancer patient. With their pants down and tumors exposed, Bethesda is giving us a rare glimpse into exactly what has made them cancerous: a lack of Vision (not to be confused with Activision.)

You see, Bethesda doesn’t have a vision. If you asked Todd Howard today what Bethesda’s vision was, his response would essentially amount to “get bigger, bigger than we’ve ever seen before,” and you would never be quite sure if he meant to say it would be the games, the bugs, or the pocketbooks that would be getting “bigger.” Bethesda has no vision because they are blinded by what I like to refer to as the survivalist mindset, cancer that has spread through their higher management and public faces so quietly for so long that Bethesda has only just noticed it rearing its ugly head. They have ventured through the past 20 years producing games that fans would merely refrain from harshly criticizing. If only they had seen their culture of undiluted survivalism in time to integrate it into “Fallout 76.”

To see the birth of this cancer that is killing Bethesda, we will travel back in time to 31 October 1998, when “The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard,” along with its related title “An Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire,” were both resounding “commercial failures,” according to Stephan Janicki of Computer Gaming World. These two disappointments brought Bethesda to the edge of bankruptcy before ZeniMax Media swooped in and claimed them as a subsidiary in 1999. In the following years, Bethesda Softworks knew they had to succeed, or they were done in the eyes of both their corporate overlords and their fans. This is when the panicky, survivalist mindset set in. Feverishly they worked until, in 2002, they released “The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind,” and Todd Howard was relieved to find that “It just work[ed].” Upon the laurels of Morrowind, Bethesda skipped happily into the sunset, bringing us many more beloved titles like “Fallout 3,” “The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion,” “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim,” “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Legendary Edition,” and “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Special Edition.”

But they never grew out of that survivalist panic. Like cancer, it festered in the background, that burning fear of “commercial failure,” which is a euphemism for rejection by their fans. Bethesda’s near-death experience had scared them. Their aversion to conflict and attempts to please every consumer instead of maintaining a focused design and lore quickly made them the endearing dweeb of game developers, merely slapped on the wrist for repeat performance flaws that would break the fans of other developers. “Cute” bugs in coding dating back several releases, consistently shipping products with technical difficulties unbecoming of a $60 price tag, multiple rerelease announcements and story-writing so poor that it’s common for players to joke about blatantly ignoring the main plot of the game, often for hundreds of hours, in favor of the things Bethesda did capture: exploration, immersion, and lore.

That brings us to the jokes. After Skyrim-related content pervaded their 2017 E3 press conference, it began to dawn on Bethesda’s corporate half that all those Bethesda memes were laughing at them, not with them. Shaken by flashbacks of Tiber Septim’s conquest of Hammerfell in “The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard,” Todd Howard and Bethesda’s upper management knew they couldn’t sit by idly and allow for history to repeat itself. They couldn’t accept hearing rejection from fans, even if it meant directly ignoring their feedback. Tunnel vision set in in the wake of more Skyrim jokes and criticism over their Creation Club microtransactions. The cancer was consuming them and the only way to heal their fracturing friendly persona and silence their critics was to get bigger, bigger than we’ve ever seen before; but at E3 2018, two decades after their initial “commercial failures,” their realization came many years too late and they didn’t snap out of their survivalist mindset in time.

Their bigger-than-we’ve-ever-seen-before came in the form of “Fallout 76”, not an ambitious venture objectively but very ambitious for Bethesda Game Studios Austin Branch, formerly known as BattleCry Studios LLC, who had never coded a project using Creation Engine, which Bethesda has been using exclusively since 2011.

But wait! say the studious fans of Bethesda. If Creation Engine has only existed since 2011, why does “Fallout 76” have bugs dating back as far as Morrowind? Creation is based off a much older engine called Gamebryo (known as NetImmerse until 2003). A much older engine that has successfully supported huge multiplayer games, most notably the critically acclaimed “Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.”

If the core of Bethesda’s Creation Engine is a game engine that can create an enjoyable multiplayer experience, then why can’t “Fallout 76” do the same? Well, spread this funny honey on a biscuit, baby, because the answer is more cancer!

The fact that Bethesda has recurring bugs dating back over multiple releases suggests that, rather than taking time to address technology advancements, Bethesda’s survivalist mindset has grown upon Creation Engine like a tumor, strapping framework on top in half-baked layers, as quickly as possible, reducing the flexibility and independence of asset files into a fragile, unstable, monstrous whole.

I genuinely do not believe that Bethesda Game Studio Austin’s game developers were incompetent or lazy. Since the “Fallout 76” announcement at E3 2018, many have suspected disorganization in Bethesda’s management as they encountered a truly new set of obstacles for the first time. No one knew what “Fallout 76” would become, not the end users and certainly not the management of Bethesda Studios that for years had ignored the desperate need for ease-of-use coding with conservative couplings (files dependent on other files). They threw BGS Austin, a relatively new team that was inexperienced with designing Creation Engine worlds, into a hyped AAA release with an enormous fanbase; and what it became was an unacceptable byproduct of that insidious culture of corporate survivalism. Bethesda officials became so concerned with what the public thought of them that they never thought to check. They fixated on getting bigger than we’ve ever seen before until their creation became confused and codependent. They obfuscated what brought fans to Bethesda in Morrowind and kept them coming back through every hiccup and every rerelease: the fun to be had in exploration, immersion, and lore, but most importantly, the Vision.

Oh, what a situation Bethesda finds itself in now! Even though they’ve finally seen a backlash from setting profit margins before considering their team’s capacity, many feel this call-to-god moment has come too late. Losing the reverent trust of large portions of their fanbase, they must either find a way to fix their cancerous, bloated Creation Engine or risk losing their Bethesda aesthetic by developing a costly new engine to proceed. Bethesda knows this, and they desperately hope that no one else does because they also realized that by promising not only a decade-anticipated new “Elder Scrolls” release but a new game franchise as well, they’ve already allocated most of their resources. They can’t go back on their promises now without a complete “commercial failure” from fans already stretched thin by “Fallout 76;” now more than ever they need all hands on deck. There is little time and money left to dedicate to the enormous undertaking of designing a new game engine from scratch, much less the even more arduous task of unscrambling Creation Engine, now so distorted that their employees don’t know how to fix it anymore or they would, just to stop seeing memes about Skyrim and floating Scorched Zombies. It’s hopeless. It’s arguable that they deserve help after insulting fans with the lack of focus and attention for “Fallout 76,” multiple buggy rereleases of a buggy title from 2011, and the general sense of not understanding what made a compelling story. They do not deserve sympathy for the vague unease of having to create your own purpose, a job which Bethesda has shifted to its fans to avoid facing its fears from 20 years of trying to please everyone for their own pride and not in the spirit of their consumers.

Bethesda may not deserve our help, but many still believe that The Elder Scrolls does, that Fallout does. If you’re one of those people, there is something you can do, and it’s to ignore the cries to boycott all Bethesda products “forever.”

Bethesda owns the intellectual property to The Elder Scrolls and Fallout; and while Bethesda is an abusive, frustrated company with—seemingly—a vision of self-destruction, they do still care what you think because of their all-consuming fear of the Redguard. But ZeniMax Media owns them, even the neurotic Todd Howard, and ZeniMax Media has only ever cared about your money. You cannot refuse to agree to buy the game you want Bethesda to make and still expect it to arrive, but you can refuse to pre-order their games and indulge in microtransactions for as long as it takes. The game industry’s security and stock values are heavily dependent on fan loyalty, digital merchandise sales and pre-orders. This money gives them their security blanket in case they create “Fallout 76.” Wrapped in their blankies, the management of Bethesda and ZeniMax Media will keep their narrow vision and continue to use their development teams as bad press sponges unless they experience some genuine fear of “commercial failure.” If consumers reject their vision, they will change their vision for money; because Truth is, the game was rigged from the start.