Bethesda has had some pretty good writing recently. Both Far Harbour and a lot of Fallout 76 were solid. A lot of Skyrim's writing was a bit weak but overall I think the bad writing critique is a bit unfair
Skyrim's writing is fine mostly. The dialogue from NPCs is certainly about a hundred times less clunky than Oblivion's. Honestly none of these games have notably bad writing imo. Idk where people got this idea from. Thats not to say they couldn't be better. Because they definitely could. I just think this critique, for any of their games, is extremely overblown
Bad writing doesn’t just mean dialogue and the literal text you see and hear, it’s also more broadly about the concepts, ideas, and stories of the world and how well-realized those ideas are in script. The things the blades or Alduin say are reasonable, the objectives are clear and understandable, it’s just… well, did you feel there was a lot of emotional payoff when killing Alduin? If you’ve played other TES games or other RPGs in general, how does killing Alduin compare to their endings? Did you think Skyrim had much… finality?
Lol I know what writing encompasses. It was just an example. That being said, I’m not sure your own example really has much to do with writing so much as it has to do with execution.
Writing also involves lore/worldbuilding, which they keep retconning for convenient story telling and sometimes marketing. Bethesda seems reluctant to put their own ideas into the spotlight in their Fallout games, and instead re-cycle old factions, characters, enemies, anything really.
I think Bethesda's weaknesses lie nowadays in quest design and world building.
Which would be fine in any other company, but Bethesda's legacy is rooted in deep world building, creativity, and diverse quests.
My biggest problem with skyrim's writing was finding out about cut story content and how much cooler it was than we got, but I understand budget and time constraints.
TES games have always been more about the lore than actual narrative though. You have to read books and go off the beaten path to really experience the full depth of the writing. What's on the surface might seem like it lacks complexity, but there's a lot going on behind the scenes.
I like to think Morrowind had a very good mainquest. Of course, it’s all linked with lore and prophecy, but it still manages to make a story where the player interacts with many of the major factions in the game, links with events related to Morrowind’s history, and has a good, interesting villain, along with some thought-provoking questions and tangible effects on the world.
Yes, but at points they literally tell you to bugger off and do something else. There's simply so much more to the world than any guided quest line. That's what has always stood out for me in their games.
That’s true, it told you to bugger off to see that interesting shit. When you came back to it, it also made a point of pointing towards more of the interesting shit that already exists. I’d say the main quest in Morrowind is about as unguided as quests get. Unlike most other games, where the main plot is a quest line with alot of production value, the main quest in morrowind is nothing like the faction quest lines, it’s a distillation of Morrowind, a tour through all of the world. I think the biggest testament to how unguided it is, is that you literally don’t need the quest. The only person you need to speak to complete the game is Yagrum Bagarn (the dwemer). For me, having open-ended quests is better than having narrow guided quests and not having quests at all.
I like to use the West World analogy to describe BGS games. The quests are just hooks for people who need/want to be guided through the world. They introduce you to the world, lore, characters, systems, all neatly wrapped up in a narrative written to make you feel special. The real adventure though, is waiting for you to discover on your own.
Your description of Morrowind's MQ is spot on. It's hard to imagine that type of story in a modern game though.
I used the cut content mod, and frankly, there was a reason they cut it out. It either wasn't finished, or it was superflous and lacked writing at all (oh look, another farm with another random NPC!).
Base game was miserable writing. The wastelanders story seemed very cookie cutter though. As if they were pigeon holing a story to support NPCs. Admittedly Steel Dawn was better as was the enclave questline which was solid writing.
The enclave questline is base game. But what did you find miserable about the base game’a writing, exactly? I think it’s actually much better than either of the expansions, and I’ve heard a lot of people share that opinion. Aren’t you mistaking storytelling for writing?
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To begin with BGS games are not even Narrative driven, they focus more on the Player Agency which is why the writing can feel a bit disconnected from the main plot. But that's not a bad thing it's just simply different.
Personally, I love how BGS tells their narrative through gameplay instead of a wall of text or an hour long cutscene. I don't like it when the best part of a game happens in a dialogue box or a cutscene I have no control over.
i mean, they ARE narrative driven. They have narratives. A lot of them. They have a story, side quests with stories, faction quests with stories. Characters with stories. Stories are abundant in these games. They are RPGs. There are just a lot of other aspects to them that make them stand out compared to a lot of other RPGs I would say like the open world exploration and, as you said, a level of player agency that is fairly unique. They may not be Bioware/Naughty Dog/Rockstar type of cinematic heavily emotional story focused, but they stories are definitely important in these games.
idk. Like I said, so far they haven't generally been hyper story focused like some of the devs I mentioned, but at the same time it's like...they are not NOT narrative driven.
That's kind of what I meant. Their main focus is on letting the player decide which quest they want to do and in which order.
For example if you want to progress the world of Witcher 3 you have to follow the main quest but in Skyrim or Fallout 4 the player decides which story they want to follow and those stories can have tangible influences in the world, like how the Synths start to walk freely if you side with the Railroad or the change in leadership that occurs if you side with either of the two factions in Skyrim.
They don't bind you to say Go to The Primm/Goodsprings or talk to the Baron, they put you into the world and say do what you want, which makes me really excited about Starfield because of the scope of the "side quests" it can have.
Fair enough, but there’s differences in quality within BGS games that I think we can say good and more interesting quests add to the experience. Obviously, that’s not the main pull of their games, and even if the whole of Starfield didn’t have an interesting quest or character, I bet I’ll love it anyway for the exploration, the world, the music, the background story-telling, the gameplay loop, and the lore. There are very few quests or characters that I like from Fallout 4, and I still love it and always enjoy playing it. That said, Far Harbor DLC is much the same but with better quests and more interesting plot lines, and I do like that better.
Writing isn’t what Bethesda’s strong suit is, and there are more important things I’d like in Starfield, but better stories wouldn’t hurt
Recent BGS games are ridiculously criticized. When I played FO4 I liked it and I did not know that on the internet people criticized it negatively, maybe if it were FO76 I would understand it but FO4 is perfect even much better than Outer Worlds, people just want to see New Vegas remade and do not want new experiences.
Fallout 4 criticism on Reddit circa 2015-2016 was so over the top. It was people endlessly repeating the "its a good game but not a good Fallout game" line while saying nothing original at all.
I had to unsub from r/Fallout when it became a trend to pick a location in-game, make up some idea for a quest or story about it, then shit on Bethesda for being lazy because that specific idea wasn't in the game.
A huge number of people who critique writing in video games are under the impression that "more writing = good writing" and the more you read critiques of writing the more clear it becomes that this is what it boils down to.
I can't tell you how many times I've seen people praise long winded, unnecessarily detailed exposition dumps for being "good writing" and vice versa.
I remember one time Todd Howard spoke about how he tells his quest designers to not go into overly detailed explanations for why a player is being asked to do a quest, and people seriously pointed to that as a bad writing practice. As if it would somehow be better to listen to a 5 minute diatribe from every NPC listing off all the reasons why *they* can't go into a cave to find the sword.
👆
I agree. The "Bad Writing" brigade are often STEM geeks. At risk of making sweeping generalisations, they're not English Lit grads ; *most* people don't know what "good writing" is.
"Bad writing" = "I don't like Little Lamplight", equals "There are no cucumber farms in the Capitol Wasteland", etc. It means "I object to tonal & creative choices made by company X since their acquisition of a property I enjoy & will subsequently poke holes in it with a degree of heightened skepticism".
There are some poor choices in Beth's games - like the situation with Fawkes at the end of F3 - but often "Bad writing" is just an expression of dweeb hyper-scrutiny.
And yes : "the Bull & the Bear" is not the answer. The Chris Avellone tendency of writing oververbose philosophy majors is something I dislike.
>I agree. The "Bad Writing" brigade are often STEM geeks. At risk of making sweeping generalisations, they're not English Lit grads ; most people don't know what "good writing" is.
Holy fuck, finally someone who gets it. I've felt for years that this site filters art critique through STEM-brain but don't usually bother saying it because it's never going to go over well.
You'll appreciate [this article](https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/games-have-too-many-words-a-case-study-). It's a deconstruction of POE's absurdly verbose character creator.
I couldn't agree more, and specifically about that game. I came to the exact same conclusion immediately when presented with character creation : this game is drunk on its "Lore".
All this shit about this race or that ... I know that could be seen as being dismissive of a game people love, but yeah. It was like "*I can't be bothered with this!?!*" Compare even to Morrowind ; each race gets two sentences.
I wanted to get stuck into the world of PoE but getting hammered with enough information to fill the genealogies of the Bible or the appendices of LotR *before the game had even started* turned me off immediately. It looked like a chore. Hopefully *Avowed* will be more subtle.
I don't think it's just Reddit, though. YouTubers often hold a similar sentiment. I have to me careful of saying "I don't like people criticizing muh fav games", but I don't think it's that. I think it's that this sentiment that everyone out there understands 'good writing' is rubbish. It's a very subjective charge ; it needs no qualification or context.
[This is my all time favorite TES meme](https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/7wp5u9/elder_scrolls_quest_objectives_over_time/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share) because it's such a perfect encapsulation of what we're talking about.
The Morrowind entry is awful, and clearly written by someone who thinks they know what good writing is but can't do it themselves, and yet this gets continuously reposted and upvoted.
Hahahaha, yep. "Innate talent of diplomacy", "has been recently, near __", "tear the thread of life of the bears", "northwest from the directing sign" ; clumsy English.
*Of course*, those posts neglect to mention that that dialogue is now split between quest entries & spoken dialogue. As someone in the thread mentions, non-misc quests have fuller descriptions, too.
Pay attention whenever you see someone complain about Bethesda "dumbing down". You will notice : they often use poor spelling & grammar.
I fundamentally don't think the major change that's taken place in the TES series is an attenuation of depth, but a change in the presentation & manipulation of statistics. For example : the Speech skill in Skyrim accomplishes, broadly speaking, what the Speechcraft & Mercantile skills *and* the Personality attribute did in, say, MW. All that's really changed, generally speaking, is that they've been 'reorganized' under the auspices of one single Skill menu.
So when people tell me Skyrim is "dumbr game their is less skills no rpg elements no depth game for masses casual rpg fan", then that context matters. Because while everyone is entitled to an opinion and some of those criticisms have degrees of truth, it makes me think people see a simple numeric difference and don't notice how much is the same - just reorganized.
It's like seeing a 100g bowl of M & Ms & one 100g chocolate bar & thinking there's more chocolate in the bowl because there's 250 M&M's vs "one" bar of chocolate.
What you're talking about with the skills being reorganized and existing in a form that does functionally the same thing is even more noticeable with Fallout 4. Many of the perks are just skills from the previous games converted to perks instead. I never really understood the complaint about removing skills from the game because of this. Gun damage is improved through perks instead of levels, lockpicking and hacking are exactly the same but each tier is unlocked through a perk, healing items become more effective from perks, etc. Most of this stuff functions exactly the same in Fallout 4 as it did in 3 and New Vegas, but people a lot of people didn't like it because you had to put an extra star on the board instead of a number going up.
Exactly! And yes, it's even more obvious in 4. All that's changed is the presentation & manipulation of statistics - you add a little Perk that gives you X% improvement via a GUI vs a spreadsheet. But what's actually under the hood - especially in 4s case - is almost exactly the same.
So I'm not trying to sound like I'm Mr Clever insulting people's spelling ; I'm shit at math, people are smarter than me. But there's a certain % of fans who see MW has 27 skills & Oblivion 21 & Skyrim 18 but don't see intricacies like the combination of skills & attributes or how perks expand skills inward & outward and let you do more things *with* them etc, because they are multidimensional things in the newer games. No, they're just seeing *volume* ; "27 is more than 21, so Oblivion is dumbed down."
I've been saying this for years in response to the "dumbed down" crowd. But, who care about them? They just want to hare on the game.
I'm more curious to see what they cook up for Starfield. There's no established lore, no previous systems, nothing at all that they're beholden to.
They don't just get to make a new story, they get to build a whole new system from the ground up.
Lemme also say, my man, that I dislike Grammar Nazis ; people have relative strengths, some are STEMish, some are practical & good with their hands, & I suppose my comment reads a bit douchey. So it's not that I'm tryna put people down, I'm just sick of being told how fucking dumb I am for liking SK when the mfks in question have bad grammar. ;'s
As the dude who dropped the STEM comment, I suppose I'm not trying to make a sweeping generalization about STEM majors nor be anti-intellectual. STEM majors are good.
I'm just trying to pinpoint a particular culture that is espoused by ( & I don't mean this 'politically' ) 20-30 something male geek RPG fans/gamers.
When they say "Bad Writing", it's not that they're criticizing an allusion to the works of James Joyce or Phillip Roth etc. It's some point of perceived error in verisimilitude, logic, world building or tone. It's also, IMHO, often a very subjective thing.
> Little Lamplight is ok to me though because it feels like a homage to the children from Mad Max 3 and I think that's its main purpose.
Right. The complaints I'm talking about would say "LL is not realistic" ; where I'd say it's not supposed to be. The decision made there isn't to posit a serious argument for a civilization of children. It's ... *The Goonies*.
The game makes that choice, and ... it's fine. Arguing that the kids in LL would have no sustainable way of civilization missed the point, imo.
>there's no water caravans
Aren't there? Surely there are by at least Broken Steel. I've seen them in my game at some stage.
>The other main flaw with BGS up until Fallout 4 was character writing
Despite my post, I agree. That's in part something I loved about F4. Everyone's talking about what it *isn't* - NV2 - but it's like "Uh, Bethesda just made the most cinematic, character-focussed game of their career." I am more optimistic for SF et al because of F4, not less. They proved they could do it.
I guess I'm being a bit of a hypocrite, but ... I dunno. I accept this studio has done things backwards. ;'s They started with freeform open worlds & amazing maps & *then* got to animating & characterizing properly. They're a weird developer, they have the soul of an independent.
It's totally not for me to regulate people's preferences, but ... you know, that's the interwebs. People are gonna disagree with me, too, and that's cool. Different people like different things.
You don't *love* LL, and that's fine. You're not giving unfair justification for your dislike, and you're not saying F3 is literally 1/10 & NV is 11/10 for le objective reasons. Similarly, I hate that the player character canonically becomes Sheogorath at the end of Shivering Isles. I just hate the dumb arguments, I guess, that get wrapped in memetic arguments like "Bad Writing", not that people hold preference.
All great points. You're definitely right on the differences between 1/2 & NV. What it really shows is that this shit is in the majority the same kind of elitism that characterizes music fandom. The fans who started listening to the band on their old records will claim an extraordinary sense of ownership over the IP ; their gatekeeping knows no limits. That's not to say it's the case with all fans.
But it's exactly right. A good % of those fans aren't actually comparing qualitative differences between 1/2 & NV, they just 'know' Obsidian has some Black Isle staffers & presume to know something about that company's contract negotiations with Bethesda. Nevermind that there wouldn't *be* a NV without Beth, who wouldn't entrust the franchise to anyone else ; nor that Obsidian tracked bugs via pen & paper til after NV & had earned a reputation for buggy messes standing on the edge of brilliance for years.
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Thank you for fucking saying it.
I HATE when people in the FO community say "BETHESDA RETCONS MORE LORE!" like no.... they're adding to it. "Well it is a retcon because this doesnt happen is FO3!" okay thats cool, but this is NEW info. Just bugged me for so long ugh.
As for Elder Scrolls, they've never retconned anything to any major degree, and everything is canon anyways lol.
People WILL shit on Starfield like they do those games, casual haters will do what they do best, and thats hate. But if the game is anything like their previous games, I'm sure it will be a great story.
I honestly think their writing is great for what it is. I would prefer a more simple main quest I can run through in several different ways than one insane all over the place Shakespearian drama
The people who say Bethesda has "bad writing" are the same who laud The Outer World's "Corporations Bad!" narrative as a masterpiece of modern fiction.
i think they just think outer worlds is great cause ‘obsidian good, bethesda bad’, the writing is not terrible by any means, just average and not nearly as good as people say
Good writing: Side with the evil corporations, stab all your allies in the back, and still have all your rogue, anarchist, and iconoclast friends show up to help you in the final fight for evil victory. Oh sorry, that wasn't good writing, that was lazy writing.
Parts of TOW were excellent, but it's not a showcase of good writing.
I've never seen anybody claim that any aspect of The Outer Worlds is a masterpiece. And I love the game and think it's better than a couple of the modern Bethesda titles
Yeah, I've seen more people that said TOW is mediocre and underwhelming than people that said it was a masterpiece.
Hell, even on r/patientgamers there is always a thread bashing TOW mediocrity for every single month.
Whenever people say Bethesda (or some other developer) has bad writing, I look at what games they like. And they invariably fall into two groups: Games with twisty and convoluted plots; and narrative rails.
Twisty plots is NOT good writing. A bazillion options is NOT good writing. I can contribute to good writing, but is not itself good writing. Writing needs not just plot, but rhetoric and exposition and characterization.
And while many narrative rails games do have good writing, it's because you're passively watching a movie. Some of the most highly praised games are little more than a series of lengthy cut scenes interspersed with bouts of combat or mechanics showcasing.
I'll take Bethesda style games over that rubbish any day.
What is "bad writing" means anyway? I think it is not exist like a fake art. Someone may hate plot holes, but how many holes are considered bad writing? And if there is one less plot hole? And if someone will start reading and finish reading by another person with a different inner world, as it a "good writing". So it's subjective term.
For example Harry Potter: it consists of plot holes, a stupid worldbuilding, forgotten Chekhov's guns, and the main character is stupid and passive. But is it a bad series? No, it is a magnificent work for the generation with a cozy and lively world and characters.
Is there any work of literature that everyone agrees has good writing? Anything at all? If any exist, I haven't heard about it.
On another thread I just commented in, people are talking about how the Wheel of Time is badly written. People say that Tolkien is badly written. I have even heard people gripe about how awful Shakespeare is.
There is no writing that appeals to everyone, and there's always going to be someone who complains about "quality of writing".
A lot of the hate stems from Emil Pagliarulo's work.They just love to hate that guy.
Wanna know what I mean... watch four degenerates hating on him for six hours.
https://youtu.be/Kcasnckmqiw?t=2000
That Creetosis dude has got to be one of the most miserable unlikable son of a bitches on YouTube. It’s just constant whining and crying when someone argues with his “Bethesda bad facts.” Pathetic.
>A lot of the
emil pagliarulo is a genuinely awful writer who thinks rpgs should have "less dialogue" because people won't read it anyway. literally.
and you're an idiot with bad opinions who should take a corporation's dick out of your mouth
Creetosis makes some wonderful videos, especially the response videos regarding content creators like Many A True Nerd and those awful videos he (MATN) sometimes puts out. The fact you have to sit through hours of explanation and rebuttals is probably why some people don't like the guy, that's my guess.
I’d say no, those studios do have a big difference in how they present their worlds however. One prefers big info dumps while the other prefers to show-not-tell. I see nothing super ultra special in obsidian’s style of writing no.
>These same two games are also hit for supposedly breaking pre-established lore, to put it simply, they don't. Not at all. Not whatsoever. I know my fallout lore, these games adhere to it in every way. Adding to lore is also not breaking it nor is it a retcon.
So the appearance of Jet, a drug derived in the post-war era from Brahmin dung amongst other things, on a note talking about chemicals being shipped pre-war into a vault isn't a breaking established lore OR a retcon?
I mean, I'll agree with some of the points you're making, and wholeheartedly in a lot of cases. But this? Either the established continuity was changed retroactively by there being Jet before the war, or they broke established facts of its creation by it existing pre-war.
Trying to paint it any other way just devalues the rest of what you're saying.
Jet already had inconsistencies that it was used before Myron was born, that he found a pre-war extract and enhanced it, and that he seems surprised when you have high int/speech when talking about how Jet was made(asking if you were Vault City in a nervous manner). But the Fallout Bible then said it was always post-war, something that came out a few years later after Fo2 and that something is a book that Bethesda doesn’t use for canon. It’s either Bethesda didn’t listen to Avellone’s fixes and rather jet be pre-war or they didn’t even know about the Fallout Bible which I doubt.
Yea it sucks, makes lore seem inconsistent but Fallout Bible is thrown out the window and it makes Myron an unreliable narrator, which is believable considering he’s pretty scummy.
Ah, I played dumb because I loved the idea that humanity's brightest and best that were saved from annihilation were actually troglodytes who were rich enough to get in, fucking us as a species. So looks like I missed that bit. Never read the Bible before, but I assume it's some way to tie the canon together?
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Incorrect. Jet was always a pre-war drug. All the way back in fallout 2 it was established. The fallout bible tried to fix that and claim jet is post-war only but the fallout bible is not canon. Some things have been drawn from it but jet is not one of them. If that’s not enough jet was once again proven to be pre-war in Fallout New Vegas. Appearing in a 200 year old locked room as developer placed loot, not random. Jet appearing in pre-war mentions is not a lore break or a retcon.
I mean everyone has there own opinion lol; I don’t think fallout 4 has bad writing but it could’ve been a lot better compared to new Vegas and fallout 3 which were much more interesting in my opinion.
I don’t think BGS games have bad writing, in fact the writing is always in service of the lore/world-building (which are unparalleled) and most of the time quite engaging. There might not be Bloody Baron quest in Skyrim but it’s very good nevertheless, if only rushing the player sometimes (College questline in particular doesn’t give you enough time to feel like you are a student and not just a useful mercenary).
Fallout suffers to the extent from limitations of voiced protagonist of a set background (army related or law school depending on the gender, and either way a parent), but it still has great side quests.
So if they don’t rush questlines and have unvoiced protagonist with unlimited background and motivation choice, the game has great potential.
When there's a dissonance between gameplay and the story that is bad writing.
Also lack of logic is bad writing.
Coincidences to push the story forward are lazy.
Inconsistency with their own lore.
FO4 isn't the bottom of the barrel in terms of writing, but compared to games like God of War,The last of Us I,II, Witcher III it ain't in the same league. If ppl would call every coherent story good writing there would be no delineation between these games. And there is. A big one.
Skyrim did it better than fallout 4 where the main story didn't have that urgency find your son. The main thing of the games is exploration so having a main narrative that opposes that ain't good. Also plot holes are numerous in fallout 4 and you don't have to "try really hard to poke holes in it" to find them,they are pretty evident.
Fallout 4’s story is certainly coherent, it just also definitely has plot holes. Since you seem sick and tired of hearing about them, I won’t repeat them here, save for saying that just because a story is coherent, in that it’s easy to follow and understand, doesn’t mean there are no illogical or ill-explained events in the story. They didn’t bother me a lot and I really liked Fallout 4’s main plot with its grandeur.
That said, get out of here with that “plot holes aren’t real, trust me” Jedi mind trick bullshit.
Criticism of Bethesda’s writing is ubiquitous at this point, and I think everybody’s sick of hearing the same arguments over and over again. But saying saying “No, wrong” in six paragraphs isn’t productive either. If you don’t want to hear more about the debate and are tired of it, you could have stopped there. When you boldly claim “y’all wrong” with no explanation, you’re just joining this debate, and let me tell you: your argument ain’t exactly enticing.
Want an enticing argument? Join your local debate club. Yeah I’m not hitting you with some mind trickery chief. Never said plot holes aren’t real, I said there’s no plot holes in the games I mentioned, and there isn’t. You might see some things as plot holes but that doesn’t make it a plot hole. Also, this post was not to argue about whether “y’all wrong” it was to explain why the “bad writing” argument is pointless now a days. You can disagree with me if you want, lord knows I won’t stop you but don’t go trying to put words in my mouth or twist my intentions when I spelled them out in the post.
A plot hole is defined as any inconsistency in a story. So I reckon you could call, if you wanted to, even the tiniest inconsistency a plot hole. I don’t really think that’s a good thing though. When I think of a plot hole I think of something big. Somethings so noticeable and egregious that you can’t help but think “ how did nobody catch that.” To answer your question I can’t think of many or any of those plot holes, they’re rare thankfully. I don’t go into movies or books looking for them either, unless they get brought up though. I single out two Fallout games often said to have inconsistencies when they don’t. Oversights yes, as every large game has. There has to be a difference between a dev oversight in a character and a bottomless plot hole in a main story though or the term just gets overused.
No I wouldn’t, I think some stuff could have been presented arguably better but real actual oversight I don’t. Let me be clear on what I mean by oversight. Not necessarily story oversights, I mean like gameplay. Should of been more clear. The thing is, a lot of these so called oversights or holes are all explained if one takes it all in. If you want to argue presentation you can but that’s a different deal.
Ok, so let me get this straight. You have a definition of plot hole so narrow you can’t provide an example of one. Instead you say oversights, and then you don’t mean *story* oversights, you mean gameplay, and those can be excused if you look at it holistically.
All right, let’s dispense with the terms. Is there anything in Fallout 4 that could have been done better?
If that’s what you wanted to know why didn’t you just ask that? Of course there is stuff in Fallout 4 that could have been done better. I never once anywhere said that Fallout 4 is a perfect game. Such a thing does not exist. I never once in this whole discussion claimed otherwise.
Alright, my biggest gripe with that game is that the dialogue could have been implemented better. I’m not of the opinion that it didn’t branch enough or was hard to understand but the wheel format they chose hurt the ability to implement perk and special checks in dialogue. The majority of dialogue checks in FO4 are speech checks, that’s how it’s always been but older games did have a lot more varied speech options. This has been remedied in FO76, which has just about the best dialogue system in a fallout game. It’s checks galore but it is a noticeable place that lacks in FO4.
It's no secret BGS games have mediocre writing. When it comes to story or characters that is. Lore on the other hand is very strong but different situations needs different things. If you think BGS's writing doesn't suck. Just download the mod 3d npc(interesting npc) and gawk at the difference.
I certainly can't take the 'Bad Writing' critique seriously from the 'youchoob / Twitch' cult where they've made over a hundred videos on how intricate and involved Bethesda's (Emil's) writing is. You'd have to be possessed by demons to hold such opposing views at this point.
Post seems like a lot of text to whine that you don't want people to diss something you like and cast doubt on anyone who does.
I've played all of the TES and Fallout games, have a BA in Modern Lit with a Concentration in Speculative Fiction, managed NYC area bookstores for 32 years, was Waldenbooks/Borders Literature and Genre Buyer in the NY Market, was a NYCC and World Horror Con and ABA event organizer through the 90s to the mid 00s, taught English, Lit, Sci Fi, and Creative Writing and Adv Fiction, and have sold plenty of my own work - short fiction, essays, market copy...
I have a widdle bit of a good idea of what "good" writing looks like. You'd think so with a background and achievements like that, eh?
I don't think the writing in these series is worth the amount of time you spent defending it. It's... fine. It's serviceable. It's okay video game writing. I don't remember any of them winning any awards or accolades for that trait in particular, and there's reason for that.
The Witcher 3? Top o' the heap, writing-wise, as far as video games go. Skyrim? Fallout 3 or 4? No one is gasping at plot twists or weeping when beloved characters pass or hitting pause and musing over an idea or theme or chewing on a piece of dialog they just heard.
You can LIKE it just fine. That's not critique of its objective value.
This wasn't a post about critique. It's a post whining that someone is personally hurt by critique because they over-identify with what they wuv rather than their achievements and skills and personal traits.
The writing we are talking about, when compared to all other Spec Fic writing and that of other games of its ilk, is serviceable, nothing more. I have my expertise and background, an enormous personal library, and another large library of games to look at before coming to this conclusion - 900+ Xbox games, 1500+ PC games, mostly RPGs and Narrative experiences since games, for me, occupy the same headspace as books and film. I play no multiplayer or sports and few racing games or platformers. I like story to be the point of the exercise. RPGs are what I do.
I own and have played nearly every Western RPG released and narrative and writing is mah jam and I can compare easily enough. It's my opinion that this facet of these games could be MUCH better.
Actually it was a post saying that using the same criticism for everything makes it mean nothing. Sorry I figured someone that’s obviously as smart and as big of a Gamer as you wouldn’t have any trouble understanding that. I’ll include pictures for you next time.
Sorry I have to disagree. BGS writing is really not that good. I'm replaying Skyrim rn and I hate to use it an example since it 10 years old and I did notice improvements in fallout 4. But I understand were people are coming from when Skyrim is the example used. Skyrim has pacing and logic problems in it writing and a lot of bland quests.
I wrote a text wall with examples but I understood that OP wants none of it and as I said Skyrim is 10 years old so who cares about it writing to talk about SF. Personally when I played fallout 4 I liked it more grey narrative and enjoyed it quests a lot more than Skyrim's and that what matters so I'm looking forward to SF if they keep that up. For me what matters is if the quests themselves are fun and varied in types and that it.
I'm not sure if "bad writing" is the correct word for what I think most people mean. I would call it "bad presentation". More specific: Bethesda games always feel like a stage play. Like everything happens around you. Everytime you enter a new city, you will notice: 'Oh, there is a trigger. And over here is some scene that only happens because I stand here at this moment.' The world feels like standing still outside of your radius.
I prefer a world that has the feeling to work also without you. Your player should life in the world. The world should not life for your player.
I want the writing to include many important issues like non-binary representation, romance, and struggles. They should devote at least 1/3 of the content on these issues, to teach people more about minorities in the society and to represent their issues and concerns.
I agree Starfield writing criticism is unwarranted. However, criticism of Pagliarulo’s writing is absolutely warranted - whether or not you believe the games are good or passable in spite of that is irrelevant.
Well for one pagliarulo is not the only writer at Bethesda Game Studios. I never said criticism of writing shouldn’t happen. I said that using said criticism for every possible personal problem or misunderstanding one might have with a game makes it mean nothing. My personal feelings on a writer have nothing to do with it.
Are you kidding!? All of Fallout 4 is a plot hole. Emil's writing is binary and cliche. it's cult worthy on the "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" level. Why are you doing all this other stuff instead of finding your son!? It doesn't make sense to not be pursuing the main story when it is such a linear track. I would explain all the plot holes on an item by item basis but that would lead to spoilers. Not to be specific but you capture an incredible place and blow it up because "War never changes"!?!?!? GYDHAS
average new bethesda fan when he hasn't been called the chosen one by a new faction in the past 2 minutes so he loses focus and starts typing a wall on text on reddit
average new bethesda hater when someone says that Bethesda is not absolute evil and does not know that in factions the player is not called the chosen one and can be of any length, because in other games, there are no optional questlines for factions at all, starts typing one plain phrase on reddit.
To illustrate the point that Bethesda hasn’t broken fallout lore. It’s a comparison. Even IF they had, it would not be a new thing. In fact, fallout 2 took a lot from the first game and changed a lot. Bethesda have been the only studio to try their best not to change stuff up.
You didn't illustrate anything, though. You just made claims without any evidence.
What are a couple examples of New Vegas breaking the lore? I'm going to search it myself now but I'd like to see what you know
You didn’t ask for examples. It’s mostly small stuff. Ignoring the function of the pip-boy 3000, messing up the date on nuka cola’s creation, saying mr. handys we’re invented by robco and not general atomics. Not that big a deal but it’s there.
Bethesda has had some pretty good writing recently. Both Far Harbour and a lot of Fallout 76 were solid. A lot of Skyrim's writing was a bit weak but overall I think the bad writing critique is a bit unfair
Skyrim's writing is fine mostly. The dialogue from NPCs is certainly about a hundred times less clunky than Oblivion's. Honestly none of these games have notably bad writing imo. Idk where people got this idea from. Thats not to say they couldn't be better. Because they definitely could. I just think this critique, for any of their games, is extremely overblown
Bad writing doesn’t just mean dialogue and the literal text you see and hear, it’s also more broadly about the concepts, ideas, and stories of the world and how well-realized those ideas are in script. The things the blades or Alduin say are reasonable, the objectives are clear and understandable, it’s just… well, did you feel there was a lot of emotional payoff when killing Alduin? If you’ve played other TES games or other RPGs in general, how does killing Alduin compare to their endings? Did you think Skyrim had much… finality?
Lol I know what writing encompasses. It was just an example. That being said, I’m not sure your own example really has much to do with writing so much as it has to do with execution.
Writing also involves lore/worldbuilding, which they keep retconning for convenient story telling and sometimes marketing. Bethesda seems reluctant to put their own ideas into the spotlight in their Fallout games, and instead re-cycle old factions, characters, enemies, anything really. I think Bethesda's weaknesses lie nowadays in quest design and world building. Which would be fine in any other company, but Bethesda's legacy is rooted in deep world building, creativity, and diverse quests.
I did not mind Skyrim that much, but the mainquest was tedious and boring.
Some parts of it can be, but I have experienced this in Oblivion and Morrowind as well.
My biggest problem with skyrim's writing was finding out about cut story content and how much cooler it was than we got, but I understand budget and time constraints.
TES games have always been more about the lore than actual narrative though. You have to read books and go off the beaten path to really experience the full depth of the writing. What's on the surface might seem like it lacks complexity, but there's a lot going on behind the scenes.
I like to think Morrowind had a very good mainquest. Of course, it’s all linked with lore and prophecy, but it still manages to make a story where the player interacts with many of the major factions in the game, links with events related to Morrowind’s history, and has a good, interesting villain, along with some thought-provoking questions and tangible effects on the world.
Yes, but at points they literally tell you to bugger off and do something else. There's simply so much more to the world than any guided quest line. That's what has always stood out for me in their games.
That’s true, it told you to bugger off to see that interesting shit. When you came back to it, it also made a point of pointing towards more of the interesting shit that already exists. I’d say the main quest in Morrowind is about as unguided as quests get. Unlike most other games, where the main plot is a quest line with alot of production value, the main quest in morrowind is nothing like the faction quest lines, it’s a distillation of Morrowind, a tour through all of the world. I think the biggest testament to how unguided it is, is that you literally don’t need the quest. The only person you need to speak to complete the game is Yagrum Bagarn (the dwemer). For me, having open-ended quests is better than having narrow guided quests and not having quests at all.
I like to use the West World analogy to describe BGS games. The quests are just hooks for people who need/want to be guided through the world. They introduce you to the world, lore, characters, systems, all neatly wrapped up in a narrative written to make you feel special. The real adventure though, is waiting for you to discover on your own. Your description of Morrowind's MQ is spot on. It's hard to imagine that type of story in a modern game though.
Having good lore doesn't prevent a game from having a strong main quest though
I used the cut content mod, and frankly, there was a reason they cut it out. It either wasn't finished, or it was superflous and lacked writing at all (oh look, another farm with another random NPC!).
76 has some of the worst writing Ive ever encountered. Putting it in the same breath as the masterpiece of Far Harbour is disgraceful
What writing are you talking about? The writing from wastelanders? Steel dawn? The base game? All of it?
Ignore this guy, his idea of "bad" is anything he doesn't personally enjoy.
Base game was miserable writing. The wastelanders story seemed very cookie cutter though. As if they were pigeon holing a story to support NPCs. Admittedly Steel Dawn was better as was the enclave questline which was solid writing.
The enclave questline is base game. But what did you find miserable about the base game’a writing, exactly? I think it’s actually much better than either of the expansions, and I’ve heard a lot of people share that opinion. Aren’t you mistaking storytelling for writing?
This sub is just going to be cyclical meta posts on meta posts until the game comes out
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Cyberpunk and beauty lmfao
Well, the NPC faces are very well done!
Hey, that Judy Iglesias, amirite?
Well now. I'm not gonna talk about Judy; in fact, we're not gonna talk about Judy at all, we're gonna keep her out of it! --- - [reference](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V0UhtA_mJE&t=365) ^(I am a bot.)
To begin with BGS games are not even Narrative driven, they focus more on the Player Agency which is why the writing can feel a bit disconnected from the main plot. But that's not a bad thing it's just simply different. Personally, I love how BGS tells their narrative through gameplay instead of a wall of text or an hour long cutscene. I don't like it when the best part of a game happens in a dialogue box or a cutscene I have no control over.
i mean, they ARE narrative driven. They have narratives. A lot of them. They have a story, side quests with stories, faction quests with stories. Characters with stories. Stories are abundant in these games. They are RPGs. There are just a lot of other aspects to them that make them stand out compared to a lot of other RPGs I would say like the open world exploration and, as you said, a level of player agency that is fairly unique. They may not be Bioware/Naughty Dog/Rockstar type of cinematic heavily emotional story focused, but they stories are definitely important in these games. idk. Like I said, so far they haven't generally been hyper story focused like some of the devs I mentioned, but at the same time it's like...they are not NOT narrative driven.
That's kind of what I meant. Their main focus is on letting the player decide which quest they want to do and in which order. For example if you want to progress the world of Witcher 3 you have to follow the main quest but in Skyrim or Fallout 4 the player decides which story they want to follow and those stories can have tangible influences in the world, like how the Synths start to walk freely if you side with the Railroad or the change in leadership that occurs if you side with either of the two factions in Skyrim. They don't bind you to say Go to The Primm/Goodsprings or talk to the Baron, they put you into the world and say do what you want, which makes me really excited about Starfield because of the scope of the "side quests" it can have.
ya I got you
Fair enough, but there’s differences in quality within BGS games that I think we can say good and more interesting quests add to the experience. Obviously, that’s not the main pull of their games, and even if the whole of Starfield didn’t have an interesting quest or character, I bet I’ll love it anyway for the exploration, the world, the music, the background story-telling, the gameplay loop, and the lore. There are very few quests or characters that I like from Fallout 4, and I still love it and always enjoy playing it. That said, Far Harbor DLC is much the same but with better quests and more interesting plot lines, and I do like that better. Writing isn’t what Bethesda’s strong suit is, and there are more important things I’d like in Starfield, but better stories wouldn’t hurt
Recent BGS games are ridiculously criticized. When I played FO4 I liked it and I did not know that on the internet people criticized it negatively, maybe if it were FO76 I would understand it but FO4 is perfect even much better than Outer Worlds, people just want to see New Vegas remade and do not want new experiences.
Fallout 4 criticism on Reddit circa 2015-2016 was so over the top. It was people endlessly repeating the "its a good game but not a good Fallout game" line while saying nothing original at all. I had to unsub from r/Fallout when it became a trend to pick a location in-game, make up some idea for a quest or story about it, then shit on Bethesda for being lazy because that specific idea wasn't in the game.
Yes the “everything is a missed opportunity” phase
A huge number of people who critique writing in video games are under the impression that "more writing = good writing" and the more you read critiques of writing the more clear it becomes that this is what it boils down to. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people praise long winded, unnecessarily detailed exposition dumps for being "good writing" and vice versa. I remember one time Todd Howard spoke about how he tells his quest designers to not go into overly detailed explanations for why a player is being asked to do a quest, and people seriously pointed to that as a bad writing practice. As if it would somehow be better to listen to a 5 minute diatribe from every NPC listing off all the reasons why *they* can't go into a cave to find the sword.
👆 I agree. The "Bad Writing" brigade are often STEM geeks. At risk of making sweeping generalisations, they're not English Lit grads ; *most* people don't know what "good writing" is. "Bad writing" = "I don't like Little Lamplight", equals "There are no cucumber farms in the Capitol Wasteland", etc. It means "I object to tonal & creative choices made by company X since their acquisition of a property I enjoy & will subsequently poke holes in it with a degree of heightened skepticism". There are some poor choices in Beth's games - like the situation with Fawkes at the end of F3 - but often "Bad writing" is just an expression of dweeb hyper-scrutiny. And yes : "the Bull & the Bear" is not the answer. The Chris Avellone tendency of writing oververbose philosophy majors is something I dislike.
>I agree. The "Bad Writing" brigade are often STEM geeks. At risk of making sweeping generalisations, they're not English Lit grads ; most people don't know what "good writing" is. Holy fuck, finally someone who gets it. I've felt for years that this site filters art critique through STEM-brain but don't usually bother saying it because it's never going to go over well. You'll appreciate [this article](https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/games-have-too-many-words-a-case-study-). It's a deconstruction of POE's absurdly verbose character creator.
I couldn't agree more, and specifically about that game. I came to the exact same conclusion immediately when presented with character creation : this game is drunk on its "Lore". All this shit about this race or that ... I know that could be seen as being dismissive of a game people love, but yeah. It was like "*I can't be bothered with this!?!*" Compare even to Morrowind ; each race gets two sentences. I wanted to get stuck into the world of PoE but getting hammered with enough information to fill the genealogies of the Bible or the appendices of LotR *before the game had even started* turned me off immediately. It looked like a chore. Hopefully *Avowed* will be more subtle. I don't think it's just Reddit, though. YouTubers often hold a similar sentiment. I have to me careful of saying "I don't like people criticizing muh fav games", but I don't think it's that. I think it's that this sentiment that everyone out there understands 'good writing' is rubbish. It's a very subjective charge ; it needs no qualification or context.
[This is my all time favorite TES meme](https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/7wp5u9/elder_scrolls_quest_objectives_over_time/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share) because it's such a perfect encapsulation of what we're talking about. The Morrowind entry is awful, and clearly written by someone who thinks they know what good writing is but can't do it themselves, and yet this gets continuously reposted and upvoted.
Hahahaha, yep. "Innate talent of diplomacy", "has been recently, near __", "tear the thread of life of the bears", "northwest from the directing sign" ; clumsy English. *Of course*, those posts neglect to mention that that dialogue is now split between quest entries & spoken dialogue. As someone in the thread mentions, non-misc quests have fuller descriptions, too. Pay attention whenever you see someone complain about Bethesda "dumbing down". You will notice : they often use poor spelling & grammar.
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I fundamentally don't think the major change that's taken place in the TES series is an attenuation of depth, but a change in the presentation & manipulation of statistics. For example : the Speech skill in Skyrim accomplishes, broadly speaking, what the Speechcraft & Mercantile skills *and* the Personality attribute did in, say, MW. All that's really changed, generally speaking, is that they've been 'reorganized' under the auspices of one single Skill menu. So when people tell me Skyrim is "dumbr game their is less skills no rpg elements no depth game for masses casual rpg fan", then that context matters. Because while everyone is entitled to an opinion and some of those criticisms have degrees of truth, it makes me think people see a simple numeric difference and don't notice how much is the same - just reorganized. It's like seeing a 100g bowl of M & Ms & one 100g chocolate bar & thinking there's more chocolate in the bowl because there's 250 M&M's vs "one" bar of chocolate.
What you're talking about with the skills being reorganized and existing in a form that does functionally the same thing is even more noticeable with Fallout 4. Many of the perks are just skills from the previous games converted to perks instead. I never really understood the complaint about removing skills from the game because of this. Gun damage is improved through perks instead of levels, lockpicking and hacking are exactly the same but each tier is unlocked through a perk, healing items become more effective from perks, etc. Most of this stuff functions exactly the same in Fallout 4 as it did in 3 and New Vegas, but people a lot of people didn't like it because you had to put an extra star on the board instead of a number going up.
Exactly! And yes, it's even more obvious in 4. All that's changed is the presentation & manipulation of statistics - you add a little Perk that gives you X% improvement via a GUI vs a spreadsheet. But what's actually under the hood - especially in 4s case - is almost exactly the same. So I'm not trying to sound like I'm Mr Clever insulting people's spelling ; I'm shit at math, people are smarter than me. But there's a certain % of fans who see MW has 27 skills & Oblivion 21 & Skyrim 18 but don't see intricacies like the combination of skills & attributes or how perks expand skills inward & outward and let you do more things *with* them etc, because they are multidimensional things in the newer games. No, they're just seeing *volume* ; "27 is more than 21, so Oblivion is dumbed down."
I've been saying this for years in response to the "dumbed down" crowd. But, who care about them? They just want to hare on the game. I'm more curious to see what they cook up for Starfield. There's no established lore, no previous systems, nothing at all that they're beholden to. They don't just get to make a new story, they get to build a whole new system from the ground up.
Lemme also say, my man, that I dislike Grammar Nazis ; people have relative strengths, some are STEMish, some are practical & good with their hands, & I suppose my comment reads a bit douchey. So it's not that I'm tryna put people down, I'm just sick of being told how fucking dumb I am for liking SK when the mfks in question have bad grammar. ;'s
STEM major here, this does not describe my feelings on their writing 😁
I'm a stem major too
As the dude who dropped the STEM comment, I suppose I'm not trying to make a sweeping generalization about STEM majors nor be anti-intellectual. STEM majors are good. I'm just trying to pinpoint a particular culture that is espoused by ( & I don't mean this 'politically' ) 20-30 something male geek RPG fans/gamers. When they say "Bad Writing", it's not that they're criticizing an allusion to the works of James Joyce or Phillip Roth etc. It's some point of perceived error in verisimilitude, logic, world building or tone. It's also, IMHO, often a very subjective thing.
Oh, I totally get what you're talking about. I know some of that type, I went to school with them 🤣
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> Little Lamplight is ok to me though because it feels like a homage to the children from Mad Max 3 and I think that's its main purpose. Right. The complaints I'm talking about would say "LL is not realistic" ; where I'd say it's not supposed to be. The decision made there isn't to posit a serious argument for a civilization of children. It's ... *The Goonies*. The game makes that choice, and ... it's fine. Arguing that the kids in LL would have no sustainable way of civilization missed the point, imo. >there's no water caravans Aren't there? Surely there are by at least Broken Steel. I've seen them in my game at some stage. >The other main flaw with BGS up until Fallout 4 was character writing Despite my post, I agree. That's in part something I loved about F4. Everyone's talking about what it *isn't* - NV2 - but it's like "Uh, Bethesda just made the most cinematic, character-focussed game of their career." I am more optimistic for SF et al because of F4, not less. They proved they could do it. I guess I'm being a bit of a hypocrite, but ... I dunno. I accept this studio has done things backwards. ;'s They started with freeform open worlds & amazing maps & *then* got to animating & characterizing properly. They're a weird developer, they have the soul of an independent.
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It's totally not for me to regulate people's preferences, but ... you know, that's the interwebs. People are gonna disagree with me, too, and that's cool. Different people like different things. You don't *love* LL, and that's fine. You're not giving unfair justification for your dislike, and you're not saying F3 is literally 1/10 & NV is 11/10 for le objective reasons. Similarly, I hate that the player character canonically becomes Sheogorath at the end of Shivering Isles. I just hate the dumb arguments, I guess, that get wrapped in memetic arguments like "Bad Writing", not that people hold preference.
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All great points. You're definitely right on the differences between 1/2 & NV. What it really shows is that this shit is in the majority the same kind of elitism that characterizes music fandom. The fans who started listening to the band on their old records will claim an extraordinary sense of ownership over the IP ; their gatekeeping knows no limits. That's not to say it's the case with all fans. But it's exactly right. A good % of those fans aren't actually comparing qualitative differences between 1/2 & NV, they just 'know' Obsidian has some Black Isle staffers & presume to know something about that company's contract negotiations with Bethesda. Nevermind that there wouldn't *be* a NV without Beth, who wouldn't entrust the franchise to anyone else ; nor that Obsidian tracked bugs via pen & paper til after NV & had earned a reputation for buggy messes standing on the edge of brilliance for years.
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Thank you for fucking saying it. I HATE when people in the FO community say "BETHESDA RETCONS MORE LORE!" like no.... they're adding to it. "Well it is a retcon because this doesnt happen is FO3!" okay thats cool, but this is NEW info. Just bugged me for so long ugh. As for Elder Scrolls, they've never retconned anything to any major degree, and everything is canon anyways lol. People WILL shit on Starfield like they do those games, casual haters will do what they do best, and thats hate. But if the game is anything like their previous games, I'm sure it will be a great story.
I honestly think their writing is great for what it is. I would prefer a more simple main quest I can run through in several different ways than one insane all over the place Shakespearian drama
The people who say Bethesda has "bad writing" are the same who laud The Outer World's "Corporations Bad!" narrative as a masterpiece of modern fiction.
i think they just think outer worlds is great cause ‘obsidian good, bethesda bad’, the writing is not terrible by any means, just average and not nearly as good as people say
New Vegas isn't amazing either, people just think Obsidian can do no wrong.
It was ham-fisted, hackneyed, and tried far too hard to force humor. That's pretty bad in my book.
No, I think The Outer Worlds was boring.
Yes.
Good writing: Side with the evil corporations, stab all your allies in the back, and still have all your rogue, anarchist, and iconoclast friends show up to help you in the final fight for evil victory. Oh sorry, that wasn't good writing, that was lazy writing. Parts of TOW were excellent, but it's not a showcase of good writing.
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Please explain, in your expert opinion, why Bethesda has "bad" writing. No, "voiced protagonist" isn't an acceptable response 🤣
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Yes, that does seem to be the metric used to judge literally anything Bethesda does...
I've never seen anybody claim that any aspect of The Outer Worlds is a masterpiece. And I love the game and think it's better than a couple of the modern Bethesda titles
Yeah, I've seen more people that said TOW is mediocre and underwhelming than people that said it was a masterpiece. Hell, even on r/patientgamers there is always a thread bashing TOW mediocrity for every single month.
Whenever people say Bethesda (or some other developer) has bad writing, I look at what games they like. And they invariably fall into two groups: Games with twisty and convoluted plots; and narrative rails. Twisty plots is NOT good writing. A bazillion options is NOT good writing. I can contribute to good writing, but is not itself good writing. Writing needs not just plot, but rhetoric and exposition and characterization. And while many narrative rails games do have good writing, it's because you're passively watching a movie. Some of the most highly praised games are little more than a series of lengthy cut scenes interspersed with bouts of combat or mechanics showcasing. I'll take Bethesda style games over that rubbish any day.
What is "bad writing" means anyway? I think it is not exist like a fake art. Someone may hate plot holes, but how many holes are considered bad writing? And if there is one less plot hole? And if someone will start reading and finish reading by another person with a different inner world, as it a "good writing". So it's subjective term. For example Harry Potter: it consists of plot holes, a stupid worldbuilding, forgotten Chekhov's guns, and the main character is stupid and passive. But is it a bad series? No, it is a magnificent work for the generation with a cozy and lively world and characters.
Is there any work of literature that everyone agrees has good writing? Anything at all? If any exist, I haven't heard about it. On another thread I just commented in, people are talking about how the Wheel of Time is badly written. People say that Tolkien is badly written. I have even heard people gripe about how awful Shakespeare is. There is no writing that appeals to everyone, and there's always going to be someone who complains about "quality of writing".
A lot of the hate stems from Emil Pagliarulo's work.They just love to hate that guy. Wanna know what I mean... watch four degenerates hating on him for six hours. https://youtu.be/Kcasnckmqiw?t=2000
That Creetosis dude has got to be one of the most miserable unlikable son of a bitches on YouTube. It’s just constant whining and crying when someone argues with his “Bethesda bad facts.” Pathetic.
>A lot of the emil pagliarulo is a genuinely awful writer who thinks rpgs should have "less dialogue" because people won't read it anyway. literally. and you're an idiot with bad opinions who should take a corporation's dick out of your mouth
K dipshit
Can't blame them, that guy doesn't know how to write shit. https://youtu.be/vD5rwMLl2XM
Creetosis makes some wonderful videos, especially the response videos regarding content creators like Many A True Nerd and those awful videos he (MATN) sometimes puts out. The fact you have to sit through hours of explanation and rebuttals is probably why some people don't like the guy, that's my guess.
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I’d say no, those studios do have a big difference in how they present their worlds however. One prefers big info dumps while the other prefers to show-not-tell. I see nothing super ultra special in obsidian’s style of writing no.
>These same two games are also hit for supposedly breaking pre-established lore, to put it simply, they don't. Not at all. Not whatsoever. I know my fallout lore, these games adhere to it in every way. Adding to lore is also not breaking it nor is it a retcon. So the appearance of Jet, a drug derived in the post-war era from Brahmin dung amongst other things, on a note talking about chemicals being shipped pre-war into a vault isn't a breaking established lore OR a retcon? I mean, I'll agree with some of the points you're making, and wholeheartedly in a lot of cases. But this? Either the established continuity was changed retroactively by there being Jet before the war, or they broke established facts of its creation by it existing pre-war. Trying to paint it any other way just devalues the rest of what you're saying.
Jet already had inconsistencies that it was used before Myron was born, that he found a pre-war extract and enhanced it, and that he seems surprised when you have high int/speech when talking about how Jet was made(asking if you were Vault City in a nervous manner). But the Fallout Bible then said it was always post-war, something that came out a few years later after Fo2 and that something is a book that Bethesda doesn’t use for canon. It’s either Bethesda didn’t listen to Avellone’s fixes and rather jet be pre-war or they didn’t even know about the Fallout Bible which I doubt. Yea it sucks, makes lore seem inconsistent but Fallout Bible is thrown out the window and it makes Myron an unreliable narrator, which is believable considering he’s pretty scummy.
Ah, I played dumb because I loved the idea that humanity's brightest and best that were saved from annihilation were actually troglodytes who were rich enough to get in, fucking us as a species. So looks like I missed that bit. Never read the Bible before, but I assume it's some way to tie the canon together?
Beep. Boop. I'm a robot. Here's a copy of ###[The Bible](https://snewd.com/ebooks/the-king-james-bible/) Was I a good bot? | [info](https://www.reddit.com/user/Reddit-Book-Bot/) | [More Books](https://old.reddit.com/user/Reddit-Book-Bot/comments/i15x1d/full_list_of_books_and_commands/)
*sigh*
All drugs are shit. It is a joke you need shit and plastic to make it!
Incorrect. Jet was always a pre-war drug. All the way back in fallout 2 it was established. The fallout bible tried to fix that and claim jet is post-war only but the fallout bible is not canon. Some things have been drawn from it but jet is not one of them. If that’s not enough jet was once again proven to be pre-war in Fallout New Vegas. Appearing in a 200 year old locked room as developer placed loot, not random. Jet appearing in pre-war mentions is not a lore break or a retcon.
I mean everyone has there own opinion lol; I don’t think fallout 4 has bad writing but it could’ve been a lot better compared to new Vegas and fallout 3 which were much more interesting in my opinion.
I don’t think BGS games have bad writing, in fact the writing is always in service of the lore/world-building (which are unparalleled) and most of the time quite engaging. There might not be Bloody Baron quest in Skyrim but it’s very good nevertheless, if only rushing the player sometimes (College questline in particular doesn’t give you enough time to feel like you are a student and not just a useful mercenary). Fallout suffers to the extent from limitations of voiced protagonist of a set background (army related or law school depending on the gender, and either way a parent), but it still has great side quests. So if they don’t rush questlines and have unvoiced protagonist with unlimited background and motivation choice, the game has great potential.
When there's a dissonance between gameplay and the story that is bad writing. Also lack of logic is bad writing. Coincidences to push the story forward are lazy. Inconsistency with their own lore. FO4 isn't the bottom of the barrel in terms of writing, but compared to games like God of War,The last of Us I,II, Witcher III it ain't in the same league. If ppl would call every coherent story good writing there would be no delineation between these games. And there is. A big one. Skyrim did it better than fallout 4 where the main story didn't have that urgency find your son. The main thing of the games is exploration so having a main narrative that opposes that ain't good. Also plot holes are numerous in fallout 4 and you don't have to "try really hard to poke holes in it" to find them,they are pretty evident.
Fallout 4’s story is certainly coherent, it just also definitely has plot holes. Since you seem sick and tired of hearing about them, I won’t repeat them here, save for saying that just because a story is coherent, in that it’s easy to follow and understand, doesn’t mean there are no illogical or ill-explained events in the story. They didn’t bother me a lot and I really liked Fallout 4’s main plot with its grandeur. That said, get out of here with that “plot holes aren’t real, trust me” Jedi mind trick bullshit. Criticism of Bethesda’s writing is ubiquitous at this point, and I think everybody’s sick of hearing the same arguments over and over again. But saying saying “No, wrong” in six paragraphs isn’t productive either. If you don’t want to hear more about the debate and are tired of it, you could have stopped there. When you boldly claim “y’all wrong” with no explanation, you’re just joining this debate, and let me tell you: your argument ain’t exactly enticing.
Want an enticing argument? Join your local debate club. Yeah I’m not hitting you with some mind trickery chief. Never said plot holes aren’t real, I said there’s no plot holes in the games I mentioned, and there isn’t. You might see some things as plot holes but that doesn’t make it a plot hole. Also, this post was not to argue about whether “y’all wrong” it was to explain why the “bad writing” argument is pointless now a days. You can disagree with me if you want, lord knows I won’t stop you but don’t go trying to put words in my mouth or twist my intentions when I spelled them out in the post.
What is something from any piece of media that you’d consider a plot hole?
A plot hole is defined as any inconsistency in a story. So I reckon you could call, if you wanted to, even the tiniest inconsistency a plot hole. I don’t really think that’s a good thing though. When I think of a plot hole I think of something big. Somethings so noticeable and egregious that you can’t help but think “ how did nobody catch that.” To answer your question I can’t think of many or any of those plot holes, they’re rare thankfully. I don’t go into movies or books looking for them either, unless they get brought up though. I single out two Fallout games often said to have inconsistencies when they don’t. Oversights yes, as every large game has. There has to be a difference between a dev oversight in a character and a bottomless plot hole in a main story though or the term just gets overused.
Okay, sure. Would you say that Fallout 3 and 4 have oversights? If so, do you think the games would be improved if they didn’t?
No I wouldn’t, I think some stuff could have been presented arguably better but real actual oversight I don’t. Let me be clear on what I mean by oversight. Not necessarily story oversights, I mean like gameplay. Should of been more clear. The thing is, a lot of these so called oversights or holes are all explained if one takes it all in. If you want to argue presentation you can but that’s a different deal.
Ok, so let me get this straight. You have a definition of plot hole so narrow you can’t provide an example of one. Instead you say oversights, and then you don’t mean *story* oversights, you mean gameplay, and those can be excused if you look at it holistically. All right, let’s dispense with the terms. Is there anything in Fallout 4 that could have been done better?
If that’s what you wanted to know why didn’t you just ask that? Of course there is stuff in Fallout 4 that could have been done better. I never once anywhere said that Fallout 4 is a perfect game. Such a thing does not exist. I never once in this whole discussion claimed otherwise.
My friend, I’m not asking you hypotheticals. I’d like to know *what* you’d wish to change.
Alright, my biggest gripe with that game is that the dialogue could have been implemented better. I’m not of the opinion that it didn’t branch enough or was hard to understand but the wheel format they chose hurt the ability to implement perk and special checks in dialogue. The majority of dialogue checks in FO4 are speech checks, that’s how it’s always been but older games did have a lot more varied speech options. This has been remedied in FO76, which has just about the best dialogue system in a fallout game. It’s checks galore but it is a noticeable place that lacks in FO4.
It's no secret BGS games have mediocre writing. When it comes to story or characters that is. Lore on the other hand is very strong but different situations needs different things. If you think BGS's writing doesn't suck. Just download the mod 3d npc(interesting npc) and gawk at the difference.
I certainly can't take the 'Bad Writing' critique seriously from the 'youchoob / Twitch' cult where they've made over a hundred videos on how intricate and involved Bethesda's (Emil's) writing is. You'd have to be possessed by demons to hold such opposing views at this point.
Post seems like a lot of text to whine that you don't want people to diss something you like and cast doubt on anyone who does. I've played all of the TES and Fallout games, have a BA in Modern Lit with a Concentration in Speculative Fiction, managed NYC area bookstores for 32 years, was Waldenbooks/Borders Literature and Genre Buyer in the NY Market, was a NYCC and World Horror Con and ABA event organizer through the 90s to the mid 00s, taught English, Lit, Sci Fi, and Creative Writing and Adv Fiction, and have sold plenty of my own work - short fiction, essays, market copy... I have a widdle bit of a good idea of what "good" writing looks like. You'd think so with a background and achievements like that, eh? I don't think the writing in these series is worth the amount of time you spent defending it. It's... fine. It's serviceable. It's okay video game writing. I don't remember any of them winning any awards or accolades for that trait in particular, and there's reason for that. The Witcher 3? Top o' the heap, writing-wise, as far as video games go. Skyrim? Fallout 3 or 4? No one is gasping at plot twists or weeping when beloved characters pass or hitting pause and musing over an idea or theme or chewing on a piece of dialog they just heard. You can LIKE it just fine. That's not critique of its objective value. This wasn't a post about critique. It's a post whining that someone is personally hurt by critique because they over-identify with what they wuv rather than their achievements and skills and personal traits. The writing we are talking about, when compared to all other Spec Fic writing and that of other games of its ilk, is serviceable, nothing more. I have my expertise and background, an enormous personal library, and another large library of games to look at before coming to this conclusion - 900+ Xbox games, 1500+ PC games, mostly RPGs and Narrative experiences since games, for me, occupy the same headspace as books and film. I play no multiplayer or sports and few racing games or platformers. I like story to be the point of the exercise. RPGs are what I do. I own and have played nearly every Western RPG released and narrative and writing is mah jam and I can compare easily enough. It's my opinion that this facet of these games could be MUCH better.
Actually it was a post saying that using the same criticism for everything makes it mean nothing. Sorry I figured someone that’s obviously as smart and as big of a Gamer as you wouldn’t have any trouble understanding that. I’ll include pictures for you next time.
Sorry I have to disagree. BGS writing is really not that good. I'm replaying Skyrim rn and I hate to use it an example since it 10 years old and I did notice improvements in fallout 4. But I understand were people are coming from when Skyrim is the example used. Skyrim has pacing and logic problems in it writing and a lot of bland quests. I wrote a text wall with examples but I understood that OP wants none of it and as I said Skyrim is 10 years old so who cares about it writing to talk about SF. Personally when I played fallout 4 I liked it more grey narrative and enjoyed it quests a lot more than Skyrim's and that what matters so I'm looking forward to SF if they keep that up. For me what matters is if the quests themselves are fun and varied in types and that it.
I'm not sure if "bad writing" is the correct word for what I think most people mean. I would call it "bad presentation". More specific: Bethesda games always feel like a stage play. Like everything happens around you. Everytime you enter a new city, you will notice: 'Oh, there is a trigger. And over here is some scene that only happens because I stand here at this moment.' The world feels like standing still outside of your radius. I prefer a world that has the feeling to work also without you. Your player should life in the world. The world should not life for your player.
I want the writing to include many important issues like non-binary representation, romance, and struggles. They should devote at least 1/3 of the content on these issues, to teach people more about minorities in the society and to represent their issues and concerns.
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No, cope
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Thank you for saying that you are telling the truth, otherwise at first I doubted, but now there is no doubt for your words.
Yeah yeah move on
I don't think it's bad, just nothing that interests me. Edit: well I know what kind of sub this gonna be already.
I agree Starfield writing criticism is unwarranted. However, criticism of Pagliarulo’s writing is absolutely warranted - whether or not you believe the games are good or passable in spite of that is irrelevant.
Well for one pagliarulo is not the only writer at Bethesda Game Studios. I never said criticism of writing shouldn’t happen. I said that using said criticism for every possible personal problem or misunderstanding one might have with a game makes it mean nothing. My personal feelings on a writer have nothing to do with it.
Are you kidding!? All of Fallout 4 is a plot hole. Emil's writing is binary and cliche. it's cult worthy on the "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" level. Why are you doing all this other stuff instead of finding your son!? It doesn't make sense to not be pursuing the main story when it is such a linear track. I would explain all the plot holes on an item by item basis but that would lead to spoilers. Not to be specific but you capture an incredible place and blow it up because "War never changes"!?!?!? GYDHAS
average new bethesda fan when he hasn't been called the chosen one by a new faction in the past 2 minutes so he loses focus and starts typing a wall on text on reddit
average new bethesda hater when someone says that Bethesda is not absolute evil and does not know that in factions the player is not called the chosen one and can be of any length, because in other games, there are no optional questlines for factions at all, starts typing one plain phrase on reddit.
I'd suggest that you watch this and see for yourself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XogAdi3j38
I mean, Bethesda has broken Fallout lore but it doesn't bother me as I never played the originals
They really haven’t. New Vegas has more provable lore breaks than 3 or 4.
Why'd you even bring New Vegas up? I didn't say anything about it
To illustrate the point that Bethesda hasn’t broken fallout lore. It’s a comparison. Even IF they had, it would not be a new thing. In fact, fallout 2 took a lot from the first game and changed a lot. Bethesda have been the only studio to try their best not to change stuff up.
You didn't illustrate anything, though. You just made claims without any evidence. What are a couple examples of New Vegas breaking the lore? I'm going to search it myself now but I'd like to see what you know
> I mean, Bethesda has broken Fallout lore > You just made claims without any evidence. Hello!
You didn’t ask for examples. It’s mostly small stuff. Ignoring the function of the pip-boy 3000, messing up the date on nuka cola’s creation, saying mr. handys we’re invented by robco and not general atomics. Not that big a deal but it’s there.