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Fallout 4 PC Ultra screenshots

PMS341

Member
The answer is they wouldn't, unless they got better terms from Bethesda (which, again, wouldn't happen). But it doesn't stop people from dreaming about that remote possibility.

Makes sense. Obsidian has always been a better set of people than Bethesda ever was (yes, including sweet sweet Morrowind); they're better off on their own.
 
Why would Obsidian work with Bethesda again, especially after the New Vegas Metacritic fiasco?

They might need the money, tbh. Or at least the prospect of working on a project that is basically guaranteed to sell a lot and Feargus (sp?) etc wouldn't have to worry too much about paying their staff.

That said I think as long as crowdfunding works they can pick their projects a bit more. I think Josh Sawyer said he'd still love to work on a Fallout game and its more of a case of the ball being in Bethesda's court.
 

Grassy

Member
You clearly have no idea how ENB works :p

Just to set you straight, no, it won't. FO3 ENB is DX9. FO4 is DX11. These are not cross compatible.

ENB has to be hand-crafted on a per-game basis, and the only DX11 game Borris has ever done is GTA5. He gave up after putting in anti-aliasing. I suspect DX11 is a lot more complicated for him to code for. If he didn't want to do it for a game as huge as GTA5... I have to wonder how much incentive he'll have for Fallout 4. I'm just hoping a lot since it's a Bethesda title which are notorious for being mod-magnets.

You're not wrong. I have absolutely no idea of how ENB works, I just know how to tweak it :p

I didn't realise FO4 is DX11 either. I was actually downloading a Skyrim ENB yesterday and saw this quote from Boris on the forums:

I'm waiting for Fallout 4 as next project for modding and hope to do something similar to Skyrim version. I hope Bugthesda will not bring any surprises like Rockstar did.

http://enbdev.com/enbseries/forum/v...3b51d2767daa095a9c571f02c4ae6&start=70#p65450

So hopefully it doesn't take too long to get an ENB out for Fallout 4.
 
what was this about...

Bethesda didn't have to pay Obsidian a bonus for Fallout New Vegas because the metacritic score was too low by 1 point because it had a bunch of standard Gamebryo bugs. Then Bethesda changed the name of Gamebryo to Creation Engine and made Fallout 4. No relation.
 

Hylian7

Member
Bethesda didn't have to pay Obsidian a bonus for Fallout New Vegas because the metacritic score was too low by 1 point because it had a bunch of standard Gamebryo bugs. Then Bethesda changed the name of Gamebryo to Creation Engine and made Fallout 4. No relation.
ROFL

Was this bigger news back when it happened? I'm surprised they got away with that.
 

tuxfool

Banned
No bonus at all. Kind of shitty deal when you think about it.

It doubly worse considering Bethesda Softworks completely jerked them around on QA. The time constraints on NV were really tight too.

If that game had gotten out in better conditions, the score would probably have been higher.

I have no doubt Bethesda Softworks engaged in shady practices, one need only look at what happened with Prey 2.
 

Skytylz

Banned
Bethesda didn't have to pay Obsidian a bonus for Fallout New Vegas because the metacritic score was too low by 1 point because it had a bunch of standard Gamebryo bugs. Then Bethesda changed the name of Gamebryo to Creation Engine and made Fallout 4. No relation.

New Vegas was extremely broken at launch. More so than any bethesda game I've played.
 

Wallach

Member
C'mon son. Think a bit further, and you're answering your own question there.

Are you actually suggesting Zenimax sabotaged the project they were taking a large share of profits from to avoid having to pay a bonus to the contracted studio? That somehow they knew exactly how many bugs to avoid reporting so that the game would barely slip under the Metacritic requirement of that condition, but just enough to not actually cost them more than 50,000 USD in lost sales due to those review scores and worth of mouth regarding bugs?
 

tuxfool

Banned
Are you actually suggesting Zenimax sabotaged the project they were taking a large share of profits from to avoid having to pay a bonus to the contracted studio? That somehow they knew exactly how many bugs to avoid reporting so that the game would barely slip under the Metacritic requirement of that condition, but just enough to not actually cost them more than 50,000 USD in lost sales due to those review scores and worth of mouth regarding bugs?

Go look at what happened with Prey2...
 
Why would Obsidian work with Bethesda again, especially after the New Vegas Metacritic fiasco?

They want to work and depend on getting jobs since they are independent? If they were offered Fallout, they will take it, cause its a high end title to have your name attached to, which is good for the studio, and because they need to work where they can. Obsidian despite fan acclaim is not rolling in big projects right now
 
Are you actually suggesting Zenimax sabotaged the project they were taking a large share of profits from to avoid having to pay a bonus to the contracted studio? That somehow they knew exactly how many bugs to avoid reporting so that the game would barely slip under the Metacritic requirement of that condition, but just enough to not actually cost them more than 50,000 USD in lost sales due to those review scores and worth of mouth regarding bugs?

While your scenario is absolutely plausible and in line with Zenimax corporate tactics, you should ease up on the tin foil.

Most likely, they just understaffed their QA assignments for the project, with just a few weeks to do it, and called it done.
 

tuxfool

Banned
Most likely, they just understaffed their QA assignments for the project, with just a few weeks to do it, and called it done.

They were pushing for an early release and as the supervising publisher and the ones responsible for QA, the ball was in their court regarding the bugs that needed to be fixed. I seem to recall reading somewhere that Obsidian wanted to start testing at an earlier stage and Bethesda kept pushing it off, but I'm not sure.
 

SparkTR

Member
I hear skyrim made a shitton of money

For Bethesda sure, there's a reason why Obsidian went so hard in developing their own IP with Pillars of Eternity. That's where the money and security is, holding your own IP and dictating your own terms, not surviving on a contract-by-contract basis.
 
It doubly worse considering Bethesda Softworks completely jerked them around on QA. The time constraints on NV were really tight too.

If that game had gotten out in better conditions, the score would probably have been higher.

I have no doubt Bethesda Softworks engaged in shady practices, one need only look at what happened with Prey 2.

Just 6 more months in the oven is what it needed but with the little time they had it was still awesome. Hopefully Bethesda can work out a deal with them for Fallout 4.5
 

Wallach

Member
While your scenario is absolutely plausible and in line with Zenimax corporate tactics, you should ease up on the tin foil.

Most likely, they just understaffed their QA assignments for the project, with just a few weeks to do it, and called it done.

Wait, that just brings me back to my original comment. There is almost zero chance that QA was the bottleneck in that development cycle.

Obsidian did not have significant development time to devote to bugfixing by the time they needed to get the game out. That is a result of their project scheduling and contract agreements. They decided to try and make that much content in that much time, and that is the kind of result that takes place, especially when you are working with something as complex as Fallout. Trying to pawn that off on QA is insane to me.
 

tuxfool

Banned
Wait, that just brings me back to my original comment. There is almost zero chance that QA was the bottleneck in that development cycle.

Speaking in an interview with Ripten, Fargo explained that word rarely gets out about how destructive the relationship between publisher and developer can be because those affected fear "they'll never get another contract" if they blow the whistle.

He then went on to highlight the recent controversy over Bethesda's refusal to pay developer Obsidian a bonus for Fallout: New Vegas as a prime example.

"There is more tension than you can believe. You would not believe the stories you hear about how developers are treated by publishers these days. It is abysmal," he said.

"Look at the most recent one with those poor guys at Obsidian. They did Fallout: New Vegas, the ship date got moved up and, who does the QA on a project? The publisher is always in charge of QA.

"When a project goes out buggy, it's not the developer. The developer never says, 'I refuse to fix the bug,' or, 'I don't know how.' They never do that. It's the publisher that does the QA, so if a product goes out buggy, it's not the developer's fault.

"So, [New Vegas] goes out buggy and they didn't do the QA, their ship date got moved up and they missed their Metacritic rating by one point. Did they get a bonus? No. Do you think that's fair? I tried to get some of my publisher friends, who I used to make a lot of money for, to donate. Do you think they donated? No. Their employees did."

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...destructive-publisher-developer-relationships
 

DarkFlame

Banned
I'm not a graphics geek by any means,but there are 2 things i don't like in the leaked screenshots

1)The geometric shapes of environemntal objects is quite simple and flat

2)the textures are kinda out of focus,like objects are made of clay.Don't know if it's a matter of non existent sharpening filter or something of that matter.

Just my 2 cents.Will play nonetheless as with other Bethesda's past games
 

jILKuNy.gif
 

120v

Member
new vegas was too successful for another obsidian fallout to be off the table. i'd say it's more likely than not
 

We all know what happened with Prey 2 by now, it's just that it's impossible for them to have deliberately sabotaged New Vegas in such a precise manner.

Did Bethesda neglect their QA (budget)? Sure.

Did they do it as part of a coordinated attempt to avoid paying out $50k as a bonus to a development partner at the risk of tarnishing their own reputation and losing sales? Extremely unlikely.

Edit: Now if Bethesda lets Obsidian develop another Fallout, they should anticipate delays and difficulties from handing off the present version of the Creation Engine to a team unfamiliar with it.
 

Wallach

Member

Oh I totally believe Zenimax was trying to get that game out the door. It's part of their job as publisher.

This doesn't change what I'm getting at - Obsidian agreed to a bunch of scheduling terms and contract agreements right out of the gate. There is immediate awareness of what kind of time they have to work with and what goals they have, including what they agreed to regarding earning this bonus.

You don't get to lay at QA's feet, because they aren't the ones with agency in that scheduling. If Obsidian were already slamming into time constraints well before they shipped, then QA isn't the problem. What Obsidian needed was time, because what they were trying to fit through that gap was out of their scope for what they agreed to.
 

tuxfool

Banned
We all know what happened with Prey 2 by now, it's just that it's impossible for them to have deliberately sabotaged New Vegas in such a precise manner.

Did Bethesda neglect their QA (budget)? Sure.

Did they do it as part of a coordinated attempt to avoid paying out $50k as a bonus to a development partner at the risk of tarnishing their own reputation and losing sales? Extremely unlikely.

Oh yeah. I was just pointing out his conspiracy story isn't as implausible as he thinks. The real reason is quite likely neglect and idiotic corporate strategy.
 

tuxfool

Banned
Oh I totally believe Zenimax was trying to get that game out the door. It's part of their job as publisher.

This doesn't change what I'm getting at - Obsidian agreed to a bunch of scheduling terms and contract agreements right out of the gate. There is immediate awareness of what kind of time they have to work with and what goals they have, including what they agreed to regarding earning this bonus.

You don't get to lay at QA's feet, because they aren't the ones with agency in that scheduling. If Obsidian were already slamming into time constraints well before they shipped, then QA isn't the problem. What Obsidian needed was time, because what they were trying to fit through that gap was out of their scope for what they agreed to.

"the ship date got moved up"

Bethesda was within their rights to move up the date and Obisidian were in an abusive contract. Now, for whatever reason Bethesda felt it more important to release the game early, than to give it time on the previously agreed ship date.
 
Oh I totally believe Zenimax was trying to get that game out the door. It's part of their job as publisher.

If you have a plan, and follow that plan, and get to finish that plan, the plan works.
If you have a plan, and follow that plan, and then get told you need hurry up and get it out the door months before your projected end that you based your entire cycle on as per the contract you signed....... ?

At best, you can say it was dumb for Obsidian to make a deal with Zenimax. Anything else, and you're ballwashing them.
 

AMDman18

Neo Member
Getting tired of people being so dismissive of games having poor visual presentations. While, yes, graphics are not necessarily the be all end all for every single game, to say that the visuals of a VIDEO game aren't important is patently absurd. I feel like those who say that graphics aren't important are like the hipsters of the gaming scene. The "I was there before graphics WERE graphics maan!!" type. There used to be a time where reviews actually *gasp* RATED the quality of a game's graphics!! And I find it bothersome that we've entered this time where graphics are looked at as being "unimportant" when the visual fidelity of a game is vital to our own mental immersion in said game, ESPECIALLY considering how much more dense and complex the worlds of these games are becoming. When a developer goes through that much trouble but everything looks "wrong" it shatters the illusion. Imagine if Marvel released a new Avengers title that featured effects on par with a sy fy channel movie. People would flip. Same thing goes here. Games are, at their core, a visual medium. It's a bit silly to say that the quality of those visuals don't matter. As for this game in particular, it very much looks as if Fallout 4 was initially fully intentioned to see release on the last gen consoles. Before they hit a memory ceiling with the size of the world they wanted to create and thus HAD to migrate it to the new consoles but lacking the time necessary to make significant changes to the renderer. I'll still buy the game and play it next week and probably enjoy it a great deal. But the visuals ARE a disappointment. And it's OK that that matters to some people.
 
Getting tired of people being so dismissive of games having poor visual presentations. While, yes, graphics are not necessarily the be all end all for every single game, to say that the visuals of a VIDEO game aren't important is patently absurd. I feel like those who say that graphics aren't important are like the hipsters of the gaming scene. The "I was there before graphics WERE graphics maan!!" type. There used to be a time where reviews actually *gasp* RATED the quality of a game's graphics!! And I find it bothersome that we've entered this time where graphics are looked at as being "unimportant" when the visual fidelity of a game is vital to our own mental immersion in said game, ESPECIALLY considering how much more dense and complex the worlds of these games are becoming. When a developer goes through that much trouble but everything looks "wrong" it shatters the illusion. Imagine if Marvel released a new Avengers title that featured effects on par with a sy fy channel movie. People would flip. Same thing goes here. Games are, at their core, a visual medium. It's a bit silly to say that the quality of those visuals don't matter. As for this game in particular, it very much looks as if Fallout 4 was initially fully intentioned to see release on the last gen consoles. Before they hit a memory ceiling with the size of the world they wanted to create and thus HAD to migrate it to the new consoles but lacking the time necessary to make significant changes to the renderer. I'll still buy the game and play it next week and probably enjoy it a great deal. But the visuals ARE a disappointment. And it's OK that that matters to some people.

The kind of people who pop up to say shit like "I don't play graphics" are generally just defensive fanboys who need to defend the sacred honour of their favourite franchise/company.
 

GHG

Gold Member
Getting tired of people being so dismissive of games having poor visual presentations. While, yes, graphics are not necessarily the be all end all for every single game, to say that the visuals of a VIDEO game aren't important is patently absurd. I feel like those who say that graphics aren't important are like the hipsters of the gaming scene. The "I was there before graphics WERE graphics maan!!" type. There used to be a time where reviews actually *gasp* RATED the quality of a game's graphics!! And I find it bothersome that we've entered this time where graphics are looked at as being "unimportant" when the visual fidelity of a game is vital to our own mental immersion in said game, ESPECIALLY considering how much more dense and complex the worlds of these games are becoming. When a developer goes through that much trouble but everything looks "wrong" it shatters the illusion. Imagine if Marvel released a new Avengers title that featured effects on par with a sy fy channel movie. People would flip. Same thing goes here. Games are, at their core, a visual medium. It's a bit silly to say that the quality of those visuals don't matter. As for this game in particular, it very much looks as if Fallout 4 was initially fully intentioned to see release on the last gen consoles. Before they hit a memory ceiling with the size of the world they wanted to create and thus HAD to migrate it to the new consoles but lacking the time necessary to make significant changes to the renderer. I'll still buy the game and play it next week and probably enjoy it a great deal. But the visuals ARE a disappointment. And it's OK that that matters to some people.

Good post and I agree 100%.

but please put some paragraphs in next time man
 

MayMay

Banned
Getting tired of people being so dismissive of games having poor visual presentations. While, yes, graphics are not necessarily the be all end all for every single game, to say that the visuals of a VIDEO game aren't important is patently absurd. I feel like those who say that graphics aren't important are like the hipsters of the gaming scene. The "I was there before graphics WERE graphics maan!!" type. There used to be a time where reviews actually *gasp* RATED the quality of a game's graphics!! And I find it bothersome that we've entered this time where graphics are looked at as being "unimportant" when the visual fidelity of a game is vital to our own mental immersion in said game, ESPECIALLY considering how much more dense and complex the worlds of these games are becoming. When a developer goes through that much trouble but everything looks "wrong" it shatters the illusion. Imagine if Marvel released a new Avengers title that featured effects on par with a sy fy channel movie. People would flip. Same thing goes here. Games are, at their core, a visual medium. It's a bit silly to say that the quality of those visuals don't matter. As for this game in particular, it very much looks as if Fallout 4 was initially fully intentioned to see release on the last gen consoles. Before they hit a memory ceiling with the size of the world they wanted to create and thus HAD to migrate it to the new consoles but lacking the time necessary to make significant changes to the renderer. I'll still buy the game and play it next week and probably enjoy it a great deal. But the visuals ARE a disappointment. And it's OK that that matters to some people.

AMDman18
Junior Member
(Today, 04:50 AM)
 

Wallach

Member
At best, you can say it was dumb for Obsidian to make a deal with Zenimax.

I don't know if it is even fair to say "dumb" because in Obsidian's position at the time walking past the opportunity to even touch Fallout at that point would have also probably been called "dumb" by onlookers. Whatever they did sign onto was clearly shit, but ultimately that responsibility has to be owned.

It's just nonsense to throw that on QA, like somehow QA was going to distort relativity and turn less time into more. If anything I'm defending Bethesda's QA for not being able to fix or prevent something they wouldn't have been able to in the first place. Those are not the people you get to point fingers at, whether you're Zenimax or Obsidian.
 
Getting tired of people being so dismissive of games having poor visual presentations. While, yes, graphics are not necessarily the be all end all for every single game, to say that the visuals of a VIDEO game aren't important is patently absurd. I feel like those who say that graphics aren't important are like the hipsters of the gaming scene. The "I was there before graphics WERE graphics maan!!" type. There used to be a time where reviews actually *gasp* RATED the quality of a game's graphics!! And I find it bothersome that we've entered this time where graphics are looked at as being "unimportant" when the visual fidelity of a game is vital to our own mental immersion in said game, ESPECIALLY considering how much more dense and complex the worlds of these games are becoming. When a developer goes through that much trouble but everything looks "wrong" it shatters the illusion. Imagine if Marvel released a new Avengers title that featured effects on par with a sy fy channel movie. People would flip. Same thing goes here. Games are, at their core, a visual medium. It's a bit silly to say that the quality of those visuals don't matter. As for this game in particular, it very much looks as if Fallout 4 was initially fully intentioned to see release on the last gen consoles. Before they hit a memory ceiling with the size of the world they wanted to create and thus HAD to migrate it to the new consoles but lacking the time necessary to make significant changes to the renderer. I'll still buy the game and play it next week and probably enjoy it a great deal. But the visuals ARE a disappointment. And it's OK that that matters to some people.

It's also similar in MGS V threads. Apparently the story is pretty bad (I haven't finished it myself) and open world is too empty, but who cares, the game is all about gameplay.
 

MayMay

Banned
Apologies that it took literally months for Gaf to approve my account allowing me to make posts. But I guess since I'm new my point of view isn't valid or worth considering...

Oh, nah - I didnt mean your junior status. I just thought it was funny how your username is AMDman18 and you're here telling us visuals are very important :D
 

AMDman18

Neo Member
Oh, nah - I didnt mean your junior status. I just thought it was funny how your username is AMDman18 and you're here telling us visuals are very important :D

The AMDman tag is something that I've used for years. An old hold over from my first few PC builds when I was in middle school and made the rebel decision of choosing AMD CPUs over Intel. Sorry for jumping on you that's just what it seemed like.
 

tuxfool

Banned
It's just nonsense to throw that on QA, like somehow QA was going to distort relativity and turn less time into more. If anything I'm defending Bethesda's QA for not being able to fix or prevent something they wouldn't have been able to in the first place. Those are not the people you get to point fingers at, whether you're Zenimax or Obsidian.

Nobody is really blaming QA, but Bethesda's handling of it. They were in charge of it, the QA leads would undoubtedly have told Bethesda's producers about the state of the game. Yet they still chose to advance the timeframe.

This is just happening again with AK on PC and WB's handling of QA for this particular sku. The difference here is that Bethesda essentially cut time Obsidian was previously expecting to get.
 

SlashX

Member
Getting tired of people being so dismissive of games having poor visual presentations. While, yes, graphics are not necessarily the be all end all for every single game, to say that the visuals of a VIDEO game aren't important is patently absurd. I feel like those who say that graphics aren't important are like the hipsters of the gaming scene. The "I was there before graphics WERE graphics maan!!" type. There used to be a time where reviews actually *gasp* RATED the quality of a game's graphics!! And I find it bothersome that we've entered this time where graphics are looked at as being "unimportant" when the visual fidelity of a game is vital to our own mental immersion in said game, ESPECIALLY considering how much more dense and complex the worlds of these games are becoming. When a developer goes through that much trouble but everything looks "wrong" it shatters the illusion. Imagine if Marvel released a new Avengers title that featured effects on par with a sy fy channel movie. People would flip. Same thing goes here. Games are, at their core, a visual medium. It's a bit silly to say that the quality of those visuals don't matter. As for this game in particular, it very much looks as if Fallout 4 was initially fully intentioned to see release on the last gen consoles. Before they hit a memory ceiling with the size of the world they wanted to create and thus HAD to migrate it to the new consoles but lacking the time necessary to make significant changes to the renderer. I'll still buy the game and play it next week and probably enjoy it a great deal. But the visuals ARE a disappointment. And it's OK that that matters to some people.

Agreed.
giphy.gif
 

Denton

Member
Was the Obsidian metacritc bonus only $50k? Is that even enough to pay a quarter of their salaries for a month?
Afaik it was actually a million. Zenimax royally fucked Obsidian over, despite what some local fanboys might have you believe.
 
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