Pip-Boy™ oh boy...
November 20, 2018 5:09 PM   Subscribe

Fallout 76 – a pointless walk in the post-apocalypse [The Guardian] “Fallout 76’s setting is honestly beautiful, with its autumnal forests, irradiated bogs, ski lodges, folktales, and mountains hollowed by mining. It deserves to have a better game attached to it. There are some striking places to find, including a settlement built up from the stripped parts of a nearby crashed aeroplane. Following Vault 76’s overseer’s story is at times heartbreaking, even if it is told through tapes, and a mission that involves a veil, a mansion and a mysterious order was a highlight. But this potential is obscured by the game’s many problems. Previous Fallout games always had something to say about the post-apocalypse and the human factors that led to it; here, it’s reduced to shooting mutants and picking up rubbish.” [YouTube][Trailer]

• Fallout 76 journal, day 1: welcome to the wasteland [The Verge]
“wake up, and I’m so excited. It’s Reclamation Day! I finally get to leave this vault. When I open my eyes, I immediately hear a familiar voice over the vault’s speaker system. It’s the overseer, the leader of this underground bunker, and she’s reminding everyone about the special occasion. Reclamation Day is the time we’ve all been waiting for. The world outside has been decimated by nuclear war, while the residents of Vault 76 stayed safe. Now, it’s time to head back out and rebuild America. Only, I seem to be the only one still around. I must’ve overslept. I grab my Pip-Boy, a wrist-worn computer, and get going. The vault is a mess — we had a big party last night — but there are signs pointing me toward the exit, as if I’d forget. Along the way, the overseer has also set out some tables with useful items on them. I grab some stimpaks, building supplies, and, for some reason, a party hat. There’s also a strange new device called a C.A.M.P. that apparently lets me build my own campsite. It sounds useful, so I grab it, too. The overseer’s voice continues on a loop, while all of the helpful Mr. Handy robots around the vault spew out cheerful advice. But I’m not really listening. I’m just focused on finally getting out of here. My name is Tricks, and this is my first day in the wasteland.”
• Fallout 76: My First Day Out Of The Vault [Kotaku]
“Fallout 76 is out today, three years after the last game in the series, Fallout 4. Unlike its predecessor it’s not a single-player open world role-playing game, but an online multiplayer one. It also went through a lengthy beta period, with players’ progress from those sessions carrying over into official release today. As a result, the game’s official release feels most like another milestone on the difficult journey to predict what the game will become. The more I explore the far corners of the map, trying to decode mysterious radio signals and collect better Power Armor pieces while steering clear of its dangerous threats, the more unsure I am whether to hate Fallout 76 for its stockpile of small frustrations or to love it in spite of them. After 15 hours with the game across its beta and today’s release, I expected my feelings about the game to come into stronger focus, but it’s been the opposite. While it feels increasingly like Fallout 4.5 with multiplayer, I’m increasingly less sure about what the implications of that might be. Is the fact that another player can try to kill me at any moment a distraction from the rest of the game or one of the most important factors undergirding it? It’s still too early to say.”
• Fallout 76 - a bizarre, boring, broken mess [Eurogamer]
“Fallout 76 strips away most of the things I love about Bethesda's Fallout games and replaces them with human-controlled avatars. But while other players are doing the best they can with what they've got, this is a game world that spectacularly fails them - on pretty much every level. [...] What if I ran a town, hosting elections and keeping the peace? What if I opened a shop, selling exotic items to other players in a desperate bid to raise enough caps to survive the harsh wasteland? What if I worked behind a bar, serving drinks to other players, passing on gossip and words of wisdom? What if I was the head honcho of a group of raiders, ordering other players to attack camps and loot the corpses of our enemies? What if I founded my own faction, something like Caesar's Legion from Fallout New Vegas, perhaps? What if I wanted to infiltrate a player-run faction I didn't get on with, befriending their leader before stabbing them in the back? Unfortunately, Fallout 76 does not facilitate any of those fantasies. What it does instead is facilitate boredom, frustration and game-breaking bugs. And I'm not talking about the radroaches that kill you, either.”
• Fallout 76 review: "Just as worn as the world it depicts, without any of the warmth" [GamesRadar+]
“Because one of the biggest questions I have when I’m playing is this: who am I surviving for? In the end, who is all of this for? Everyone is dead. Sure, there are robots, but unlike Curie from Fallout 4 or even Victor from way back in Fallout: New Vegas, these robots have the emotional depth of a toaster. Even the main robotic character you’ll interact with for a significant chunk of your main quests, a modified Miss Nanny called Rose, is sporadically three-dimensional. How she came to be created is a tragic story of grief and fury, but it’s only hinted at in the later stages of her numerous quests and a holotape you can find near her. Like with the rest of Fallout 76, her potential largely goes unrealised. While robotic NPCs could have been Fallout 76’s grand reveal (which would have nicely complemented the ever-present backstory of robots stealing people’s jobs before the bombs fell, by the way), the automations you come across are vendors, guards, or just ornamental greeter bots. You’re left feeling truly alone.”
• Fallout 76 servers crash after synchronised triple nuke launch [VG24/7]
“It turns out that Fallout 76 servers have as much chance of surviving a barrage of three nukes as your frail, fleshy body. Mild spoilers ahead. A group of Fallout 76 players synchronised the launch of three nukes on the map, but as they neared ground zero, the servers crashed and they were kicked from the game. Whatever radioactive monstrosities were incubated in the nuclear fires will remain a mystery for now. YouTuber Nickaroo93 shared the escapades of his group who deployed the nukes after defeating the Scorchbeast Queen. In case you haven’t been keeping up with the various tidbits of Fallout 76 news, Scorchbeasts are high-level enemies that appear after nuking a Fissure Site, with the Queen being a level 95 unit that you have to defeat as part of a timed-event. Digital Trends reports that the players put in enough time in the beta to access the nuke codes before the game’s release, unleashing a nuke on launch day.”
posted by Fizz (78 comments total) 16 users marked this as a favorite
 
I’m enjoying the game, but all of the criticisms are totally valid. It is confused, confusing, and makes little to no narrative sense.

You wander around covered in garbage, collecting more garbage from other things wearing garbage, and crafting homes and items from garbage. Numbers get bigger. Occasionally a cover of a John Denver song plays and you have a drunken sing along with your garbage-collecting friend.

I enjoy it because it makes no sense. It’s like the video-game version of the time Marvel hired Ang Lee to make a movie about a green monster that punches tanks, or the time Disney asked David Lynch to make a G-rated movie about a riding lawn mower.

Maybe it’ll get patched into something great, but anyone with any degree of skepticism about any of the above can probably find a better way to spend hundreds of hours. Save yourself.
posted by FallibleHuman at 5:22 PM on November 20, 2018 [9 favorites]


Coincidentally I just finished watching the Fallout 4 episodes from Polygon’s Monster Factory series. A lot of the comedy there came from doing silly things with console hacking, something I can’t imagine Bethesda is going to allow in a multiplayer game. Which is neither here nor there since the McElroy boys don’t work for Polygon any more either.
posted by ardgedee at 5:27 PM on November 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


I built a nice cabin with lots of cultivated blackberries, mutfruit and tatos. No one has murdered me yet. *shrugs* It's kinda what I need right now. But yeah the criticisms are SO VALID. But Oh man, is West Virginia pretty.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 5:27 PM on November 20, 2018 [3 favorites]


I saw someone on Twitter joke that it was brave of them to put the Metacritic score right there in the title, but Bethesda would kill for a 76 at this point.
posted by Etrigan at 5:28 PM on November 20, 2018 [6 favorites]


I played it by myself, up to level 3. It was boring. Felt like a tutorial without instructions.

Meanwhile, my son leveled himself up to 10, on his own. He said it was "fine".

Then he and I played together for a couple of hours, looting and exploring and fighting together, and it was great. It was exactly what I'd always wanted to do with him in Fallout 4, instead of sitting and watching him play (or vice versa.)

Now I'm up to level 8, and looking forward to getting more father-son time in there. Unfortunately, his friends are still 100% Fortnite.
posted by davejay at 5:35 PM on November 20, 2018 [5 favorites]


In a way, it's like Fallout merged with Minecraft, in that there's only so much to do until you start playing with friends, and then it's whatever you and your friends make of it.
posted by davejay at 5:36 PM on November 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


Can we just go back and marvel at the intro to the marvelousness that is Interstate 76? (Activision, 1997)
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 5:46 PM on November 20, 2018 [18 favorites]


I really try to stay out of the "critical thoughts about a game I haven't played" pond in general but gosh gosh gosh I have been frustrated with just about every development with 76, and it bums me out tremendously because for all it's many faults and foibles Fallout is one of my favorite and formative video game franchises. I was already one foot out the door when it broke that it was going to be an online multiplayer game just for the design implications that came with that, and those implications have basically all borne out my concerns in practice. So for once in I don't know how long, I'm holding off for now and not buying it, and sort of peering through slit fingers hoping to be pleasantly surprised by what I see. So far it hasn't been promising, but maybe they'll make some changes.

The MMOification of franchises I like is a sore spot in general; it did no favors to Elder Scrolls, and Star Wars: The Old Republic wasn't remotely the game KOTOR was no matter how much effort they put into dressing it up. Developers just throw away so many parts of the experience that are of core importance to me when they compromise a design to accommodate ubiquitous multiplayer that as a premise "franchise but MMO" is instant heartbreak. It kills me every time to think of the effort that could have been turned instead to another single-player experience that actually worked as well as what's come before.

For all that I'll probably end up playing it at some point, when it gets cheaper or makes the (inevitable it seems in this genre) move to f2p, and I hope when I do I do it with friends and we wring some joy out of it regardless of all the shit I know is gonna drive me up the wall.
posted by cortex at 5:48 PM on November 20, 2018 [23 favorites]


I picked it up. The first day or so one of my friends who played it with me called it "The most OK game"

But as we started to play more together, it was amazing. Sharing a base, adventuring and wandering together or in a group, it's just FUN to me.

Haters gonna hate.

I am almost certain there is still going to be a "Fallout 5" at some point, and I will play that too as single player.
posted by Paladin1138 at 6:02 PM on November 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


I read some of the reviews, and still sort of considered getting this. For all its faults, I still liked the core gameplay loop of FO4 (kill stuff, collect trash). But really, something that bare bones just didn't seem to justify a $60 buy-in - especially with all of the bizarre irritating stuff like limited use consoles. I don't think I'm necessarily opposed to playing this at some point, if it gets adequately fixed or jazzed up, but it is super disappointing that another studio could've used the liscense and the engine and made a really great single player experience instead of a bland, robot populated theme park.
posted by codacorolla at 6:03 PM on November 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


This is really weird, but I could have sworn I watched a walk-through of Fallout 76 back in the summer. There's the 1950s-style neighbourhood, everyone running to get into the shelter, cryogenic storage, some bad guy, getting out of the shelter, going back to the family home, a robot butler.

If the game was just released, what was I looking at 3 or 4 months ago????
posted by JamesBay at 6:13 PM on November 20, 2018


Oops, sorry, I guess it was Fallout 4.
posted by JamesBay at 6:17 PM on November 20, 2018 [3 favorites]


I found a top hat and a civil war costume so I redid my character to look like Abe Lincoln. The emancipator has come to Appalachia!
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 6:34 PM on November 20, 2018 [7 favorites]


The thing that made the Fallout series so good is how it handles story. Most games tell you a story; Fallout collaborated with you. The story of Fallout is the story of my playthrough which is different from your playthrough. Plot really is character and the character is who you want them to be.

Even Fallout 4 still does this pretty well.

But this thing? This is what happens when an entertainment industry exec believes that buying a bunch of IP is the same as having the skills and talents needed to make a good game. It's a bland shooter containing some Fallout assets.

If the price ever goes under $5, I may pick it up out of curiousity but until then, I'll stick with the earlier games.
posted by suetanvil at 6:44 PM on November 20, 2018 [7 favorites]


Considering my playstyle in Fallout 4 was "turning trash into infrastructure," I would play that. However, paying monthly for XBox Live for -one- game, or dealing with griefing randos... not so much. Yes, that's what gaming is now, and I get that games take money to make etc. etc. Just... if I paid monthly for the time I spent on Fallout 4, to say nothing of New Vegas, I would go broke in short order.

Tl;dr: I am the venn diagram overlap between "walking simulator fan" and "still plays Bethesda games", but I am cheap.
posted by cage and aquarium at 7:32 PM on November 20, 2018 [6 favorites]


It's amusing for me to hear people complain about how Fallout has moved away from the games they enjoyed. I loved the original 2 Fallout games and amazingly for me had legit copies of them both. Not sure how I got the original game, I'm assuming someone gave it to me, but after it got me hooked I bought #2 as soon as it came out. For the longest time I waited for a new game and all I got was Arcanum. I don't think I've even played the newer ones because every game system I've ever had was made by Nintendo and my computers have only been suitable for turn based games.

The reviews seem to say that there are elements of a good game in Fallout 76. Maybe wait for a patch or content update to come out and the game might get closer to what you hoped it would be. If not there is no shortage of other games to enjoy.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 7:41 PM on November 20, 2018


My main objection to this is no way at launch to set up any kind of private server so you can play co-op with your friends/family. I absolutely don't care to play Fallout with any and every rando jerkwad out there with an internet connection, but I know my wife and I would absolutely enjoy being able to explore the wasteland together, just the two of us.

The other objection that I initially had at the time of announcement was that mod support would not be as robust, if possible at all, because to do multiplayer would mean a new engine and a fresh start. After all, that's what happened when Elder Scrolls Online came out. If modding ended up even being possible, the Bethesda Game modding community would have to learn everything from the ground up. I was so very wrong on this.

Because this was a multiplayer title they developed in-house, instead of their parent company Zenimax farming the job out to another studio like they did with ESO, they stuck with the engine that they know inside and out. Those mad scientists actually grafted multiplayer into the same engine that brought you Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Skyrim, and Fallout 4. If you've done mod work on any of those games, this should both thrill and terrify you in equal measures.

On one hand, it has long been a dream of many a modder in the community to get multiplayer added, a dream that always came with a disclaimer that such an addition would be nigh impossible for third-parties to come up with, even with powerful tools such as the script extenders. Anything the community could come up with would likely be doomed to be a kludgy hack. So much of the engine had been designed around the base assumption that there was only one player, Bethesda would be the only ones capable of properly retooling it into multiplayer.

On the other hand, the Bethesda Game modding community knows just how fragile and buggy this studio's games can be. They've seen the limits where things just begin to break down. There's a very real fear that even when Bethesda updated the multiplayer features right into the engine, it ended up being an even kludgier hack than even the mod community could come up with. Certainly early reports of fundamental errors in multi-player design, such as the game physics being bound to the rendered frame rate of individual machines don't bode well.

I did see one interview where it was mentioned they may have private servers and proper mod support later on, and if that comes to pass, I might check it out, but as is, I'm just saving my money and holding off on computer upgrades for Cyberpunk 2077 instead.
posted by radwolf76 at 8:28 PM on November 20, 2018 [5 favorites]


Are there dogs in the game and can I pat every dog in the game, even the ones with mange, and say "Okayyyyy boaaaaah" and "Goood boaaaah" to them, and are there horses in the game and can I feed them sugar cubes and give them neck scritchies and tell them "That's my girl"?

Because if the answer is no then this is just another game in the big pile of games that don't need to exist.
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:34 PM on November 20, 2018 [18 favorites]


I feel lucky in that my life circumstances are such I can't play this game for a couple of months. Maybe by then they'll have improved things, or at least indicated they're on a path to. I think the idea could be great; I'd love Fallout 4's basebuilding game but multiplayer. I'm not at all mad about it not being a single player RPG. But everything I've read since beta is so disappointing.
posted by Nelson at 8:43 PM on November 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


Fallout 76 is what happens when somebody wishes for a multiplayer Fallout on a monkey's paw.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 8:59 PM on November 20, 2018 [26 favorites]


Fallout 76 is what happens when somebody wishes for a multiplayer Fallout on a monkey's paw.

Deathclaw hand.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 9:10 PM on November 20, 2018 [30 favorites]


Rock Paper Shotgun has been covering all of the Fallouts from 5–75 in a Twitter thread. Their fictional Fallouts 8 and 11 are my favorites.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 9:14 PM on November 20, 2018 [8 favorites]


Yeah, a private server option might nudge me towards buying this. I can think of a few communities I'd probably really enjoy playing Trash Scavenger with, but from what I've heard the partying ability is kludgy, and I have very little interest in playing with randos.
posted by codacorolla at 9:32 PM on November 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


Also, lore complaints are probably both incredibly tedious, and also fairly low on the priority scale (or the fixability scale!), but... come on... BoS this soon after the war on the East Coast?
posted by codacorolla at 9:34 PM on November 20, 2018 [5 favorites]


For the longest time I waited for a new game and all I got was Arcanum.

Oh, but Arcanum was so good aside from being a horribly broken mess that crashed constantly! Like I carry genuine massive affection for that game in my heart despite it being utterly fucked to try and play. I tried and tried and tried again. They were really on to something, they just managed to build it out of toothpicks and Elmer's glue and the motherfucker could not stand up to a gentle breeze. It wasn't remotely the Fallout universe but the storytelling spirit was there and it was some good weird steampunk/fantasy nonsense.

Fallout: Tactics was a weird one that I actually like a bit but was basically the converse: all setting, no vibe. Closer to X-Com: Post-Apocalypse than anything, but not a bad tactical squad game.
posted by cortex at 10:05 PM on November 20, 2018 [8 favorites]


It kills me every time to think of the effort that could have been turned instead to another single-player experience that actually worked as well as what's come before.

Well, the reason this exists is because they've got two of those on the hop (a new Elder Scrolls and a new space-based game) that weren't ready for a team of developers. So they make this, build in multiplayer, some new art using existing assets, maybe it's a fun spinoff.

People seem to have treated it as The Next Fallout Game and thus the next Elder Scrolls game will be expected to have or transcend Fallout 76's flaws. This is unlikely.
posted by Merus at 10:12 PM on November 20, 2018 [2 favorites]


It's been interesting here in WV with the news of the release of Fallout 76. Our state is so depressed and largely ignored that any mention of WV is considered a good thing. Officials have even partnered up with Bethesda to promote tourism in our state to Fallout 76 players/fans. Kind of a "Come check us out BEFORE the bombs fall" thing. Also, you can come and pat our doggies on the head and give our horsies sugar cubes anytime you want.
posted by frodisaur at 10:14 PM on November 20, 2018 [13 favorites]


I’ve been playing it a lot with a friend and it’s been great. I’d gotten into a bit of a rut with Fallout 4 and 76 has forced me out of my comfort zone, playstyle-wise. People keep saying the game is about gathering junk, but it isn’t. It’s about using junk, and throwing away what you can’t immediately use, trade, or sell.

And when you stop that dull exercise of picking up and hoarding crap and managing inventory, the game becomes immensely satisfying. Last night I tagged along on what should have been a straightforward quest: go someplace, kill some things. But it all went hilariously wrong, not because it was scripted to go wrong but because the dynamism of the game afforded it. We ran out of bullets, stimpack, grenades, and mines. Then we just ran. It was some of the best fun I’ve ever had.
posted by um at 11:29 PM on November 20, 2018 [1 favorite]


'Fallout 76' Player Hilariously Pretends to Be 'Fallout 4's' Preston Garvey

Lol!


Sadly, I haven’t played any of the recent big Fallout games, though it is totally my jam, because they don’t work on a Mac. I did play Fallout Shelter on the iPad, which was fun and great art, but limited game play.

Anyway, I was just reading up on it and found, to my happy surprise, that the Lead Artist on Fallout 3 and 4, and the Art Director for Shelter, was Istvan Pely. I published his first game, back in 1995! I mean, I was the actual dude who reviewed the beta version he submitted to our publishing company, approved it for publication, negotiated the contract, and worked with him through completion and localization of the title.

I’m ecstatic to see he’s done so well. He was, even back then (23 years ago) an extraordinary talent. And a cool guy. I’ll never forget visiting him in Baltimore once while discussing his second game for us. He and his crew took me to D.C. and asked me what I’d most like to do there. I told them I wanted to go stand on the steps of the Supreme Court building, and they laughingly humored me. I actually have a shoutout in the second game, as a researcher for the bad guys, who gets killed. :P

Both of his first two games were gorgeous, well-designed graphic adventures, in the heart of the Myst craze. A couple of my dumbass co-principles in my company decided there wasn’t enough room for another one on the market to justify a large ad budget. So, rather than launch his game with anemic marketing and watch it fail to thrive, I convinced our company to at least free Pely from the contract for his second game and let him keep all of the dev funds we’d fronted him, so he could shop it to another publisher.

Bethesda was that publisher.

And it looks like it turned out well for Istvan, in the end, if he’s Lead Artist on their flagship franchise. I harbor seriously unresolved anger and frustration over the incompetence and missed opportunities of our old publishing company, and this was one of the most painful experiences of a lot of bad ones. So I couldn’t be more thrilled to see where he landed.

You know, it seems like the one undiluted pleasure the reviewers are raving about in Fallout 76 is the art. I wonder how much of that is Pely’s work, or influence.
posted by darkstar at 11:32 PM on November 20, 2018 [38 favorites]


I'm just really not down for a Fallout game that treats player use of nukes so casually and cavalierly. It's not that I think that subject matter should be off-limits, or that Fallout was ever a 100% grim and serious look at the horrors of nuclear war, but creating a game where they want you to be like "Then I shot a nuke at them! Lol, what fun!" and slapping the Fallout branding on it feels like an intentional middle finger to the themes and ideas the series was built around. I know this ship sailed with Fallout 3 (not only did they give us a portable nuke launcher, but they called it the Fat Man!) which means that at this point there are probably a lot more people who know the series as "those games where I get to kill anyone who annoys me with nuclear weapons" than not, but it always struck me as such a shitty, spiteful thing to do to a franchise. Like, who at Bethesda hated those games so much that they thought it was worth buying the IP just to do this to it?

I can't even think of anything else analogous. It's like if you wanted to release a game where the protagonist is a wacky slave owner and the core message is that slavery is bad but boy it sure is useful and really kind of funny when you think about it, and then you went and bought the IP to be able to release it as a sequel to Roots.
posted by IAmUnaware at 2:26 AM on November 21, 2018 [6 favorites]


I'm just really not down for a Fallout game that treats player use of nukes so casually and cavalierly. It's not that I think that subject matter should be off-limits, or that Fallout was ever a 100% grim and serious look at the horrors of nuclear war, but creating a game where they want you to be like "Then I shot a nuke at them! Lol, what fun!" and slapping the Fallout branding on it feels like an intentional middle finger to the themes and ideas the series was built around.

War. War never changes...
(later)
Oh, I guess war changed. Huh.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 2:33 AM on November 21, 2018 [2 favorites]


Bethesda are bad at everything except graphics and should rebrand as a video game art for hire firm.
posted by Pope Guilty at 2:51 AM on November 21, 2018 [2 favorites]


Making a Fallout game where there was some possibility of humanity redeeming itself would be disingenuous. In the Fallout universe people are the lowest of the low; they destroyed their own society, civilization, and habitat in that order. War doesn't change because people don't change. It's not a series about hope and the indomitable human spirit. Fallout has always had a very black view of people, and offering the chance to use nuclear weapons fits into that perfectly.
posted by um at 3:15 AM on November 21, 2018 [2 favorites]


Bethesda are secretly one of the more evil companies in video games and I'm surprised people keep willing to give them a pass.

Their trick - which they've apparently done multiple times - of withholding agreed milestone payments until the studio goes bankrupt so they can take it over for a song is way more evil than most of the stuff Activision gets up to.
posted by Merus at 3:17 AM on November 21, 2018 [6 favorites]


Hasn't a personal mini-nuke launcher been a regular weapon in every Fallout game?

What I'm getting from this thread is that Fallout 76 should have been regular multiplayer co-op rather than massively multiplayer. Exploring the wasteland with a couple of pals sounds super fun. Getting griefed on by randos, not so much.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 3:36 AM on November 21, 2018 [3 favorites]


Fallout 76 is what happens when somebody wishes for a multiplayer Fallout on a monkey's paw.

The Nuka Cola is also cursed irradiated.
posted by wintermind at 3:42 AM on November 21, 2018 [9 favorites]


Hasn't a personal mini-nuke launcher been a regular weapon in every Fallout game?

Only since Fallout 3. Fallout 3 also has a town built around a dud nuke that you can optionally either defuse or detonate (the second being very explicitly an "evil" choice).
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:48 AM on November 21, 2018 [2 favorites]


Either way, if you're not into darkly irreverant takes on nuclear holocaust, this probably isn't the franchise for you.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 4:07 AM on November 21, 2018 [2 favorites]


No matter how good the game was, some of this backlash was inevitable. Changing genres so sharply is always going to disappoint some portion of the existing audience.

I'm one of 'em. I just never got into MMOs, for all of the reasons mentioned in TFA. If you're going to go to the trouble to build a huge, detailed fantasy world, why would you then populate it solely with racist teenagers who dart frantically around with "[DaNKL0rd69~420]" floating above their heads?

The mechanics of MMOs absolutely strangle narrative and worldbuilding. The players can never have any significant impact on the game world; everything has to be regularly reset, in some fashion or another, in order to keep the game working.

For me, at least, all of this renders suspension of disbelief impossible – and all of that painstakingly rendered artwork and scenery just becomes a bunch of apocalypse-themed decals on top of a transparently gamey experience.

(Disclaimer: I haven't actually played this game. But this is what every MMO that I have played has been like. And, based on the linked review, it sounds like Fallout 76 is no exception.)
posted by escape from the potato planet at 4:29 AM on November 21, 2018 [14 favorites]


Bethesda are bad at everything except graphics

Now where have I just recently seen some criticism along those lines?

Ah, here we are. Rockstar, not Bethesda, but a similarly good point well made.
posted by flabdablet at 5:22 AM on November 21, 2018


I have a lot of thoughts about this game that I will get into later, but here is just a few points for now:

It's fun to play, and it's a fun sandbox to explore. I wouldn't call this game an "MMO" because the servers aren't "massive" -- I don't think I've played on a server that has had more than ~20 players on it at once. It can be a lonely experience, so occasionally coming across another player is a notable, mostly pleasurable, experience.

WV, in game, wasn't directly hit with a nuke during the war that ended the world (nuclear fallout blew in, but the structures stood). All the devastation you see in the game came after the nuclear exchange, but wasn't a result of it. I won't go into spoilers, but the people of WV after the war made some dubious decisions and a failed to work together for a common cause.

No NPC explains this to you. Quests generally don't lead you to finding out how it all went bad; some do, but most don't. As one example, as far as I can tell from my play, there is no NPC, or quest in the game, or even a quest marker that leads you to learn how the city of Charleston was destroyed, or why it was destroyed, or who destroyed it. It's all there if you're willing to look for it, but it doesn't call attention to itself. It's in the game, but the game doesn't hold your hand to guide you to it.

I really like this hands-off storytelling, but my college degree is in history, so a game built around piecing together the story of a place and people through primary and secondary sources is something that really appeals to me. I know this isn't for everyone.
posted by Groundhog Week at 5:30 AM on November 21, 2018 [6 favorites]


As someone who has sunk many hundreds of hours into Fallout games, and even got in line at midnight for the release of New Vegas, it is very weird for me to not want to play this. But they built the whole game around the mechanics I’d grown bored with in Fallout 4 (crafting, base building) and multiplayer (which I never play outside of the occasional Overwatch match) and left out the main reasons I play Fallout (story, characters). I’d probably enjoy just exploring the game world and reading notes and computer terminals [on preview: exactly what Groundhog Week describes], but so far everything I’ve read makes it sound not quite worth my time or money.

I hope that some day down the line there will be a spate of stories saying “Fallout 76 is good now,” and I can jump in unreservedly. If not, I’m fine waiting for Fallout 5.
posted by ejs at 5:36 AM on November 21, 2018 [3 favorites]


From what I gather from the internet, the worst thing about Fallout 76 is that it isn’t Fallout 4 Again. The worst thing about Diablo Immortal is that it’s not Diablo 3 Again.

I keep coming back to something Tevis Thompson’s work seems to dance around, the idea that the role of the critic is to cause the examination of the self in others. To pry apart the assumption, and understand the mechanism within, its moment, axis and inertia. To seek to understand yourself in that fractured, stylized reflection and to find empathy in that instance of understanding. And how the worst possible result of that inquisition is to fall back to “I want only what I’ve had before, again.”

Imagine trying to advance the view that cooking, culinary skill, is a real, challenging, complex and expressive art form entirely its own, in a world where self-described “hard core eaters” insist on a diet made entirely of apple juice and mushy bananas. Imagine trying to explain Twin Peaks, The Wire or The Prisoner to self-described “hard core TV watchers” whose idea of perfection is Paw Patrol with live ammunition.

This is why we’ll get Call Of Duty Battlefield Numbersign NFL every year forever.
"If we honestly want to know why games are still so widely disrespected, we have to be prepared to face an uncomfortable truth: it’s us, the players. It’s not only because of the games themselves, it’s because of how we play them. We haven’t been playing the wrong games – we’ve been playing games wrong. As if they are just entertainment, just a distraction, just a fantasy, just a release, just a hobby, just a toy, just a product, just tech, just mechanics, just systems, just an illustration of theory, just a container for a message, just a cultural object, just an object of any sort. Just anything but an opportunity for a subject to encounter herself. To see and be seen. To have an experience and own it."
posted by mhoye at 5:56 AM on November 21, 2018 [8 favorites]


I don't play videogames to encounter myself, or to be seen. I play videogames to pet horses, enjoy some nice graphics and spend time with my friends and family. I think that's an equally valid choice and I don't think I'm "playing games wrong."
posted by stillnocturnal at 6:06 AM on November 21, 2018 [3 favorites]


Oh, and engaging storylines. Which apparently fallout 76 is lacking, which is why I'm not interested.
posted by stillnocturnal at 6:10 AM on November 21, 2018 [4 favorites]


I am partially picking up what you're putting down, mhoye - I am the first person in line to give at least partial credit to a new/weird idea even if it isn't executed well (note to self, get around to watching Jupiter Ascending already).

But 76 doesn't seem to be innovating much, so much as retreading stuff that other franchises have already done. MMOs / not-massivelyMOs are not a fresh idea. Early on it sounded like they were doing a Fortnite clone, and I'm glad it isn't that, but... it still seems to fall short as a mindblowing breakthrough in new ideas. Though like I said, I'd still play it given some technical ponies like choosing who to play with.

The sweet spot might be:
- New ideas or blends of ideas
- Well executed (writing as well as technically)
- That a reasonable number of players find interesting (cater to my demo of walking/crafting fans and you will go broke; there just aren't enough of us beyond Stardew Valley and fellow weirdos who play Minecraft on peaceful)
posted by cage and aquarium at 6:41 AM on November 21, 2018


From what I gather from the internet, the worst thing about Fallout 76 is that it isn’t Fallout 4 Again.

Fallout 1 & 2 were straight-up RPGs with turn-based combat. Fallout 3 onward turned the game into a first-person-shooter/RPG hybrid. Fallout 76, from what I've seen/read, takes out the RPG part (i.e. talking to NPCs, investigating storylines, recruiting companions, making moral decisions about who to help and which factions to work for) almost completely and leaves you with just the FPS part and a bit of vestigial environmental story-telling. The quest design appears to be entirely "go here and listen to an audio log" or "go here and kill the enemies". It seems like the only thing left from the original Fallout concept is the "leaving a Vault into a post-apocalyptic wasteland" concept and very little of the RPG elements or game mechanics.

Jeff Gerstmann of Giant Bomb describes it on their podcast thus:
"At least Fallout 76 is something different, but it's different in a way that you're like 'this doesn't seem like a full product'. 'This doesn't seem like a complete game'. It doesn't feel like 'oh well we went in a different direction and maybe you'll like it and maybe you won't!' it feels like they went halfway in a different direction and went like 'Eh, they'll buy it, whatever. Put it out!'"
Also the PvP seems really weird? Like there's a PvP on/off flag you can set, but that only stops you harming other people? Even with PvP "off" other players can still harm you (albeit at a lower rate than if PvP is on), which is... stupid. If you retaliate against someone attacking you it switches to PvP mode between you and them and now they can do full damage against you. So seems great for greifing/harassing people I guess?
posted by EndsOfInvention at 6:52 AM on November 21, 2018 [5 favorites]


I still haven't finished Fallout 4, so this isn't anything I'll be picking up soon. Also I've been cheating on my gaming PC all year with my Switch.

The convenience of being able to play on the couch while watching old episodes of The Office or in bed before sleep, it just wins more and more.

Also, also, I think I'm just old now. I like games I can play in bite sizes. These large open world games require so much time. I just can't handle it. And I already have TOO many games as is.

I guess this is me saying if this isn't an itch you feel is bothering you, don't scratch, play the games you own. You're probably like me and have a backlog you'll never finish anyways.
posted by Fizz at 6:59 AM on November 21, 2018 [3 favorites]


You're probably like me and have a backlog you'll never finish anyways.

I have an awesome habit of buying games when they are new at full price, and then not getting around to playing them until the point when they could be bought with all DLC for $15. I may not be playing games wrong but I’m definitely buying them wrong.
posted by ejs at 7:06 AM on November 21, 2018 [11 favorites]


griefed on by randos

Played again with my son last night, which was fun. To date, of the two of us, I've had one person shoot me twice, and to escape I jumped off a balcony and died on impact, because I'm bad at games. I respawned nearby, picked up all my stuff (presented to me as a little paper bag on the ground) and carried on. I definitely get the feeling the game is attempting to balance giving you the opportunity to kill against demonstrating the futility of killing.
posted by davejay at 7:14 AM on November 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


From what I gather from the internet, the worst thing about Fallout 76 is that it isn’t Fallout 4 Again.

The "worst" thing about Fallout 76 (or rather, the thing that's making me hold off from buying it) is that they didn't do a very good job tacking on the new mechanics, and that at its base it IS Fallout 4 again - since the main gameplay loop seems to be collecting garbage to make bases, which is uniquely a Fallout 4 mechanic when compared to the rest of the series. In fact, every review that I've read makes more or less that point - that it's the shittier parts of Fallout 4 with the new material being an unsuccessful graft.

I'd love a Fallout game that meaningfully altered the series-as-genre that Bethesda has settled themselves into. In fact, people loved Fallout Shelter, which is definitely that (although being f2p and a sim game, not my particular cup of tea).
posted by codacorolla at 7:29 AM on November 21, 2018


Honestly, I think they’ve been going downhill for a while, but this is definitely the full stop worst. Fallouts used to say what happened to the places and people you cared about - all of them - and offer you intricate choices and ending. They decided to just say “fuck it” to that in Fallout 4, and at this point they’re just doing the middle finger dance. Will not buy.
posted by corb at 7:57 AM on November 21, 2018 [5 favorites]


I am almost certain there is still going to be a "Fallout 5" at some point, and I will play that too as single player.

Bethesda have said as much, although they're doing Starfield and TES6 first, so it'll be probably a decade before it's out.

Fallout: Tactics was a weird one that I actually like a bit but was basically the converse: all setting, no vibe.

F:T was definitely good, even if it's ~non canonical~. I feel like if that was the only reference point for Fallout spinoffs rather than Brotherhood of Steel, people would be less bothered by the whole concept.

These large open world games require so much time. I just can't handle it.

This was the brilliant thing Bethesda broke by stepping out of their TES > 4 years development > Fallout > 4 years development > TES > repeat cycle that they've been on since Oblivion. Open world games are fucking exhausting. But I really only play the Bethesda ones, with one or two outliers (Shadow of Mordor) and linear games with mild open worlds (Tomb Raider, AssCreed) in between. That four years of downtime is exactly as much time as it takes for me to feel the itch to play another big open world game again.

Fallout 76 is honestly just coming out too soon after FO4 to really interest me, and even if the multiplayer and crafting mechanics were flawlessly perfected I'm not sure I'd feel any different about that.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:36 AM on November 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


Open world games are fucking exhausting.

And we just got Red Dead Redemption 2 (don't own a console to play but the streams I've watched....*drools*). I might make a post about RDR2 because the reaction to that game is the opposite of this one and it offers just as much choice.
posted by Fizz at 8:46 AM on November 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


People seem to have treated it as The Next Fallout Game and thus the next Elder Scrolls game will be expected to have or transcend Fallout 76's flaws. This is unlikely.

The biggest problem with this is that MMOs are a huge time/money sink and a failed one can easily kill a studio. So, looking at this as something that is passing time until Bethesda drops a bomb is really dangerous. Add to that if, on the other hand, this is wildly successful, you can expect the studio to reassess it's future games because who can argue with a bag of money.

I really wish they had done what the did with ESO and spun it out to another company who a) is good at this (eso is actually a pretty good mmo) and b) won't affect the development cycle of the games that Fallout fans love.
posted by lumpenprole at 9:27 AM on November 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


Being from WV, I'll have to get around to this at some point, if only to see how a post-apocalyptic Camden park differs from the one I know
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:30 AM on November 21, 2018 [4 favorites]


I am getting a lot of fun out of this game. My favorite part of Fallout is exploring the map and seeing the underlying story built into places on the map, and there's tons of that. It reminds me of Diablo 2 meets Borderlands and kind of scratches the roguelike itch for me.

You rarely encounter other players unless you are looking for them. It's at most 24 people in a colossal map. Dealing with them feels like a minor social minigame rather than a core part of the experience. I did encounter one griefer in many hours of play, which was more amusing than anything else.

All of my friends are on consoles so I haven't done any group play, but the people doing it seem to be having a lot of fun.

If you are buying this game because you like building buildings, though, you are not going to get value for your money here. It is handy - necessary - having your own outpost and it is fun putting personal touches on it, but it is also minigameish and certainly can't hold up the game on it's own.
posted by quillbreaker at 9:32 AM on November 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


I really wish they had done what the did with ESO and spun it out to another company who a) is good at this (eso is actually a pretty good mmo) and b) won't affect the development cycle of the games that Fallout fans love.

Unless I'm misunderstanding the relationship, I believe that this is a new branch created specifically for this game: Bethesda Game Studios Austin.
posted by codacorolla at 9:42 AM on November 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


Upon further reflection... There is a part of me that misses the more open ended MMO game of yore where there wasn't a man with a golden exclamation mark over his head in your face 5 seconds after you log in. More sandbox and less 50 level quest chain. That part of me is very happy in this game.
posted by quillbreaker at 9:47 AM on November 21, 2018 [4 favorites]


Fallout 76, from what I've seen/read, takes out the RPG part (i.e. talking to NPCs, investigating storylines, recruiting companions, making moral decisions about who to help and which factions to work for) almost completely and leaves you with just the FPS part and a bit of vestigial environmental story-telling.

After the hours of gameplay I've put in, I can't fully agree with this assessment. The investigation of storylines is present, but has been folded into the environmental story-telling, which is certainly not vestigial in FO76. I've explained in an above comment why I find this to be compelling, but I certainly see why others find it wanting. I will say one more thing about it though: the reasons why WV is the way it is in game is multifaceted and complex, and certainly not lazy writing as I have seen it characterized elsewhere. Some of it is quite good writing and very little of it is poor writing.

You can recruit companions, it's just that they are other player characters instead of NPCs. While working on my simple farm (I RP as a farmer), another player came up requested help with a nearby quest. I agreed to help. We succeeded. I then invited him use my farm to make himself a bunch of food, then he was on his way. We're on each other friends list now. Moral decisions still exist, just vis-a-vis other player characters. As for factions? I don't know. There is evidence I've found that known factions are in the area, but I haven't come across them. So I cannot comment on that.

The "worst" thing about Fallout 76 (or rather, the thing that's making me hold off from buying it) is that they didn't do a very good job tacking on the new mechanics, and that at its base it IS Fallout 4 again - since the main gameplay loop seems to be collecting garbage to make bases

This can be a gameplay loop, but it certainly isn't the gameplay loop of FO76. Once you have made your one base, you never have to touch or move it again. It's not like FO 4 where you had a dozen of different settlements you had to micromanage. You aren't even required to make one. Weapons and gear do degrade with use, so you do need to scavenge to upkeep your gear. Upgrading gear needs raw materials too, but isn't required as well. There are plenty crafting stations out in the world, so you don't need to make a base to do any of that stuff. Outside of that, you don't ever need to pick up junk at all.

I don't think this game has one main gameplay loop. For me, I think the whole experience revolves around one observation: all the people in WV died, but not because of a nuclear strike. Civilization continued after the apocalyptic nuclear exchange, but then abruptly stopped for unknown reasons. Essentially, the map is one massive unsolved crime scene [Alternate Title: CSI Fallout]. Does this premise pique your curiosity? Compel you to explore? If it does, you will enjoy this game. Maybe it does, but not for $60 -- I get that. If not at all, I get that too.
posted by Groundhog Week at 10:12 AM on November 21, 2018 [8 favorites]


From what I gather from the internet, the worst thing about Fallout 76 is that it isn’t Fallout 4 Again. The worst thing about Diablo Immortal is that it’s not Diablo 3 Again.

On the contrary. The worst thing about Diablo Immortal is that it looks like a textbook Diablo 3 mobile ripoff - and is made by a studio best known for textbook Diablo 3 mobile ripoffs. If the mobile studio involved in Diablo Immortal was Niantic (the Pokemon Go studio) and they were mixing Diablo with the real world geography to create an entirely new mashup rather than creating a game we've seen 100 times before then I'm convinced people would be very interested.

And by the same token Fallout 76 is a mashup of the least interesting parts of Fallout 4 (the bottle cap collecting) and a lightweight MMO. Neither of these parts is new nor is mashing them together. And this isn't even a very good mash-up.

You can change beloved series and have it go well. For the past few years you just need to look at God of War, Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Pokemon Go, or even Fallout Shelter. None of those have been exactly small games and they've all been unlike the rest of their series - but all have been extremely well received.

People want new things. They want new things that have the parts they like from old things - but what they don't want is what appear to be low effort low energy cash grabs, which both Diablo Immortal and Fallout 76 appear to be. There's just too much missing from Fallout 76, and the reviews normally use the word "incomplete".
posted by Francis at 10:14 AM on November 21, 2018 [6 favorites]


Francis, you must be playing a different game than I because Fallout 76 doesn't feel like a combination of the worst parts of anything to me.
posted by quillbreaker at 10:31 AM on November 21, 2018 [2 favorites]


One of the things that I just really hate about the way we discuss games in general is that nothing is ever just meh. It's either the Greatest Thing Ever That We Must All Praise This Week or else it's The Worst Thing Ever Made And Everybody Involved Should Feel Bad.
posted by tobascodagama at 10:36 AM on November 21, 2018 [5 favorites]


I feel like I am in kindergarten again as I say this, but does anyone want to be my friend? I play the windows version.
posted by quillbreaker at 12:01 PM on November 21, 2018 [3 favorites]


Just found out that my SO will be out of town all next weekend, and I have nothing else scheduled. Sounds like a good opportunity to plunk down my $60, grind some junk (heh), and get lost in WV. Thanks, Groundhog Week, for framing the game in such a way that my curiosity has finally overcome my doubt. (And sorry, quillbreaker, I’m on a PS4.)
posted by ejs at 2:39 PM on November 21, 2018 [2 favorites]


I've been enjoying it so far. It's absolutely gorgeous and I actually like the multiplayer mechanics. I've only come across a small number of griefers, none of whom were targeting me, but I don't think they realized that most of the rest of us on the server were together, so they were pretty quickly dealt with. Plus the map is large enough that with the small maximum player limit, it's easy enough to just avoid people altogether.

On my own, I've been enjoying the environmental storytelling. Wandering off and exploring an area, gradually figuring out the things that happened there is one of my favorite aspects of current Fallout games. And the game is good for that.

I do have issues with it. The CAMP budget system and the standard Bethesda-esque glitches and bugs severely limit the base-building aspects of the game. I have had chunks of my CAMP disappear, and it's failed to move any items to "Stored" that I've told it to. I'm also not fond of the 400lb limit of the storage cache. And I've never liked level-locked weapons and armor.

I sort of like the leveling system for the most part, but, like the building system, the UI is awful (at least on PC).
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 3:21 PM on November 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


So remember the list of fictional Fallout games? A Spanish developer made their fictional Fallout 23...
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 6:55 PM on November 21, 2018


I feel like I am in kindergarten again as I say this, but does anyone want to be my friend?

If you would like to play FO76 with other members of MetaFilter, please feel free to join us at MeFightClub and add your in-game nick to the Google spreadsheet.
posted by longdaysjourney at 8:01 PM on November 21, 2018 [1 favorite]


... does anyone want to be my friend?

I’ll play with you. Look for fermierla in the game. I should warn you I have the Cannibal perk and the animation is pretty gross.
posted by um at 8:17 PM on November 21, 2018 [4 favorites]


i loved all the previous fallouts to death (i still dream of that inkspots song...) but have no interest in this. can i cash in my fallout cred and, even though i havent played this, just rant for just a sec?

fallout was great because it was an offline story. it was a good read in a sense. a fun post-apocalyptic summer novel like dog stars or station eleven... but better.

except now i have to jump up and down to get some 13 year old to help me launch a mininuke? ugghhhh ... i confess.. i dont want to play games with other people on the internet, except for maybe in a giant deathmatch style game. in fact, i dont want to interact with people on any kind social media at all! how many years of evidence that the internet makes social interactions terrible do we need before we stop this nonsense?

eh, whatever. ignore me. i was always a new california republic square.
posted by wibari at 8:53 PM on November 21, 2018 [11 favorites]


"I feel like I am in kindergarten again as I say this, but does anyone want to be my friend? I play the windows version."

"I’ll play with you. Look for fermierla in the game. I should warn you I have the Cannibal perk and the animation is pretty gross."


This is one of the most magical exchanges I've ever seen. I sincerely hope that we've planted the seeds of a beautiful friendship here.
posted by mhoye at 7:13 AM on November 22, 2018 [7 favorites]


A bunch of the mainstream sites have reviews up now and they're all pretty bad, around 5 out of 10. One thing we haven't talked about here much is the sheer number of bugs in the game engine. From Gamespot
I've run into countless issues in the PC version, even after the game received a major patch within its first week of release. Problems like clipping through the world, frozen animations, entire buildings failing to load, enemies getting stuck in walls or just not moving, audio logs not playing, enemies spawning out of mid-air, delayed damage detection and world effects, server disconnections, and being unable to complete a quest because someone else in the world killed your target, requiring you to log on and off again until it respawns.
Game design is subjective and reasonable people can argue about whether choices the developers made make for a fun game or not. But launching a $60 AAA game with these kinds of bugs is just not acceptable.
posted by Nelson at 7:46 AM on November 22, 2018 [5 favorites]


Amazon has a pretty steep discount on this for Black Friday - maybe a way to try and get more players online? If it wasn't tempting at sixty bucks it might be for 30% less.
posted by codacorolla at 8:41 AM on November 23, 2018 [1 favorite]


$35 for a disc you can resell, $40 or $60 for a digital code for a license for the game locked to just your account. I hate late stage capitalism.
posted by Nelson at 9:41 AM on November 23, 2018 [3 favorites]


Yeah, I thought the discount difference was pretty funny. 6% more for something that's nearly free to deliver and manufacture!
posted by codacorolla at 10:08 AM on November 23, 2018


Let's see, $60 for the game, that's not too bad. Oh, wait, I have a PS4, and this requires PS Plus, which is another $10/month, a non seller when I may go months without playing a given game. Same for xbox, if I had an xbox. I could play it on a mac . . . nope, not offered on mac. I have some old PCs kicking around, but I doubt they're up to snuff for a modern game. Guess I'll just have to pass on this one, as much as I like the Fallout series this just isn't the game for me right now. Of course, I usually avoid all Bethesda games for the first year or so, let them get rid of the worst of the bugs and let the price drop in half, so I'll check back in in a year or so.
posted by Blackanvil at 12:02 PM on November 23, 2018 [1 favorite]




Bethesda bans Fallout 76 players for life after shocking in-game homophobic attack (Eurogamer)

I ended up buying this, and am actually enjoying it, which is very surprising! It feels like most of the stuff I like about 3D Bethesda Fallouts (exploration and junk collecting) with less of the stuff I don't (crappy Bethesda writing). But, holy shit, the multiplayer is NOT well implemented. The always on voice chat system is... perplexingly bad. It's really the only way to interact with other players outside of emojis and asking to team up or trade (neither of which I've ever had another player accept). If you're going to shoehorn multiplayer into a game, then at least fucking follow through on it! There are no official structures that allow people to play together outside of a really half-assed friends list, and the aforementioned always on mic (also: get used to hearing lots of heavy breathing and mechanical keyboard clicking).

Like... give me a structured vocabulary to do limited text chat, or let me advertise over a trade channel, or really anything. If they're actually committed to fixing the game, that seems like it has to be one of the first priorities.
posted by codacorolla at 12:20 PM on November 30, 2018 [2 favorites]


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