Yes, I have played Bethesda games for decades, going all the way back to Elder Scrolls 1: Arena.
Yes, I play Elder Scrolls Online even to this day, though I am now reconsidering that.
That does not and should not have any consequence whatsoever when it comes to my, or anyone else's, opinion when it comes to how fucked up Bethesda/Zenimax are as corporations, and the corporate ownership at Microsoft for that matter.
My interest in Starfield has diminished significantly and the hype wave is already putting me off. Yes, it's only one individual's story and not the first from the company, but I'm not 
enough to LARP as a perfect logical machine that only does perfectly Rational(tm) calculations regarding whether I should care about something or not.
I expect Hexbear to have a lot of "let people enjoy things" discourse about Starfield in the upcoming weeks and months, and a lot of it will ride on the "everyone does these bad things in game development" thought terminating cliche that primarily serves as a palate cleanser so the consumer can avoid feeling as much guilt or disgust for what they're now consuming.
Fuck that.
And fuck that corporate empire.
I don't see why anyone here would be excited for No Man's Skyrim. It looks really bland and hollow and uninspired. And no, there is no "let people enjoy things" bullshit here for the most part as far as I've seen. Everyone was pretty united on hating Hogwarts Race Cleansing Simulator
I don't see why anyone here would be excited for No Man's Skyrim. It looks really bland and hollow and uninspired.
Yeah it looks so bland, what is there even to be excited about? I bet the combat will be just as wonky and boring as Skyrim or any of the 3D Fallout games but without VATS to make it tolerable
Yeah it looks so bland, what is there even to be excited about?
So-called "NASApunk" marketing tends to present its aesthetic blandness as an intentional perk.
What's the next amazing innovation in mainstreampunk genres?
They're gonna make NATOpunk war games?
No Man's Skyrim
I think a lot of it is spacebrain. By that I mean the same consumerist itch that made some gamedads plunk down thousands of dollars into Star Citizen, all because they really, really want to be spacemen and feel "realistically" spacey when shooting projectile points of light at WWII dogfighting ranges.
And no, there is no "let people enjoy things" bullshit here for the most part as far as I've seen.
I sincerely hope it stays that way. "Multiversus" got some defensive pushback here, and even mandatory psychological abuse of artists working on Mortal Kombat did, as I mentioned already.
And Genshin Impact's predatory monetization grifting is practically a meme, and by a meme I mean accepted standard practice that is just chuckled about.
someone made a thread about it on the ESO forums, it's funny to see some users jump in to preemptively defend the company like 'what if they really got fired for something else' and also ask for the thread to be closed
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/638703/so-does-zenimax-studios-have-an-explanation-for-this/p1
As a paying employer, it is well within your right to want employees that aren’t constantly creating their own schedule due to an elective surgery, or process.
Which doubles back to the point I was making.
The reason they were fired encouraged to resign had nothing to do with their transition, and everything to do with how their work ethic was being impacted.
Tyrant Tim
ONE DAY THE LICKS WILL BE COUNTED AND TYRANT TIM WILL WEAR THE BOOT!
As a paying employer, it is well within your right to want employees that aren’t constantly creating their own schedule due to an elective surgery, or process.
Literally the misogynist argument for underpaying or even refusing to hire women due to the "risk" of them getting pregnant.
You're well within your rights to want anything. What an employer prefers isn't always what they get, same with everything else in life.
Treatbrain is an advanced case of
that will say anything, believe anything, just so they can try to not feel even slightly bad when consuming a product.
In a recently-dropped YouTube video, former Elder Scrolls Online Developer and Bethesda employee Leona Faren claims that her employee health coverage was “held hostage” in an effort to force her out of the company. (CW: Deadnaming, gaslighting, bullying)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kglNioOuK8
In addition to this, Faren shared screenshots and recordings detailing frequent misgendering in the workplace and establishing a clear history of transphobia.
When the time came for Faren to take time off for gender-affirming procedures, the company tried to push her out. Only after taking the complaint to Bethesda HR was Faren given a severance package to cover her healthcare expenses. But the money came at a cost: Faren was placed in a position of having to choose between the money she needed for gender-affirming care, and having the right to sue the company for discrimination.
Now, Faren is speaking out against the company and taking her painful experience public. Like too many trans employees working in corporate climates, Faren was outed at work, disrespected, and made to feel like a liability simply for attempting to access gender-affirming treatment using employee healthcare. When she requested that a public profile picture from pre-transition be updated, she was dismissed and her request was refused. Even after a legal name change, the higher-ups continued to refer to Faren by her deadname.
That wasn’t all: Starting in 2021, Faren was repeatedly locked out of her work accounts, in an alleged attempt to force her to fall behind on projects in the hope that her firing would now have justification. She was excluded from larger projects, told she was a “slow” worker, and ignored by HR. In 2022, she was put under a “performance improvement” plan. Finally, after a hostile campaign to make Faren feel as uncomfortable in the workplace as possible, she was allegedly bullied into accepting the resignation package.
“I signed because I was terrified,” the developer explained. “I wish I didn’t. I wish I wasn’t so scared.”
EDIT: Added CW for some of the events talked about in the video.
Corporate doesn't cover that in orientation.
Employees are expected to be unaware and come to HR for its falsely claimed purpose.
caring about it makes you an inconvenience, and being an inconvenience makes you a liability.
Very similar
wriggle around in 
that claim that difficulty options or even accessibility options are a "waste of resources" and somehow threaten their treats.I see this shit everywhere, including here: "The way the game is intended to be played is Ultra Hardcore MLG Prepare To Die Edition and everyone in the world should play that way or they're having badwrongfun, also any attempt to have accessibility options takes away from the quality of my treats."
Agreed.
I wish such arguments never showed up in ostensibly leftist spaces, but they do, because
I remember being shocked that there was a pushback against SF6's modern controls on this very website. It was only one person but still. I didn't expect it out of people who post on Hexbear.
IT IS NOT THE WAY IT IS INTENDED TO BE PLAYED EVERYONE IN THE WORLD MUST PLAY THE WAY I DEMAND THEY PLAY
and if it does then I'm gonna pirate it.
NBP4G
N ever
B e
P aying
4 for
G ames
Yes, I have played Bethesda games for decades, going all the way back to Elder Scrolls 1: Arena.
Shit started to stink once
got his hands on everything. Still maintain that it's all good Arena thru Morrowind, but Oblivion is when the Todd-i-fication starts to set in. Nice to know the company hurls chunks regardless.And your shitty outdated game engine (which was still used up to Fallout 4 lmao) makes every look like a potato.
Starfield's engine is just the same one they've been updating since then too lol
I don't think there's anything specifically wrong with doing that, but it's especially weird for a studio that makes games as big and profitable as they do.
Idk, maybe I'm simple minded but oblivion and skyrim are really fun and enjoyable
Half Roman and half Chinese
I absolutely do not trust bethesda to be anything other than horribly orientalist if they actually went for that depiction
Paid horse armor DLC should have been the end of it. It wasn't. Years later we got the skullduggery and petite bourgeoisie consumer tribalism of Fallout 76, where spending money on that garbage became a status symbol for the power-players that kept playing it. It didn't end there, of course, but the slide into worse and worse greed lines up with the employee abuse and masked bigotry of the corporate empire.
Now the worst part is that your average cretin G*mer will double down on their support for the company solely because they're "based" for bullying a trans employee.
At least that's an ideologically consistent horrible reason. Still disgusting, of course.
My prior experience in discussions of worker abuse/trauma while working with the Mortal Kombat franchise, the "Multiversus" corporate octopus memberberry dispensing machine, and other game issues has left me prepared for some mix of salad-bar-picked kind-of-leftist arguments to justify buying the product and stamping out any bad feelings about worker abuse, psychologically manipulative monetization grifts, or other issues under whatever convenient pretenses.
My prior experience in discussions of worker abuse/trauma while working with the Mortal Kombat franchise, the "Multiversus" corporate octopus memberberry dispensing machine, and other game issues has left me prepared for some mix of salad-bar-picked kind-of-leftist arguments to justify buying the product and stamping out any bad feelings about worker abuse, psychologically manipulative monetization grifts, or other issues under whatever convenient pretenses.
Yeah that's annoying when people just go that hard into defending their treats.
when people just go that hard into defending their treats
Yeah, some go hard, such as when an established user with significant post history told me to (CW: gore, suicide)
spoiler
slit my own throat and die because I insisted that Mortal Kombat's artists weren't coddled or privileged or otherwise unworthy to report the psychological harm they experienced after being forced to experience emotionally traumatic slaughterhouse/snuff footage to make the treat that much more bazinga for the consumer in order to keep their jobs.
It was based on the belief that Mortal Kombat artists could easily "take their talent elsewhere" and therefore it was cool and good to obligate them to watch psychologically traumatic videos to feed the hogs with greater authenticity. When I refused to budge that worker abuse was worker abuse, that's where the
came out, and immediately after that, crybully whining about how I was uncivil because I refused to acknowledge his oh so very wise point that the artists were supposedly so coddled and pampered that they could easily find work anywhere else but chose to stay.I used to enjoy Mortal Kombat when the fatalities were silly and over the top and even campy. When it became "realistic" hog feeding I lost all interest.
They still post regularly and frankly I wonder why they weren't banned after that. Even their avatar is
associated in the worst way, so that checks out too.
Fuck Bethesda, Zenimax and Microsoft
Also fuck all the gamers who will support this shit
The only thing I was even half excited about was what the modding community was gonna do with this probably buggy mess and that was already wearing off before this news
Way more excited to see what modders do with Armored Core 6 (genuinely hoping someone makes a mod that requires both Armored Core 6 and Elden Ring which lets you call your mech instead of the horse, that would fucking rule) and Baulder's Gate 3 (adding all the 5E subclasses and species options would be a great start and there's a shit ton of 3rd party content and homebrew they could add too)
If Baldur's Gate 3 has the third party creation support that Neverwinter Nights had, it'll be amazing.
I’ve put like 120 hours into the early access.
There’s a reason people are coping on Twitter about “the game being an anomaly, please don’t adjust your standards”
That's just setting expectations for the brainless
types that don't understand that games like that are created by locking developers/artists/designers/etc into the human suffering machine for a decade, right? Nobody with sense expects a game that big on a frequent basis.Honestly, I wish we'd get smaller CRPGs with a decent amount of polish on them. Something like Tyranny, where it's short enough that replaying it doesn't feel like a total slog.
Being more charitable to what the original tweet meant: Larian had literally everything in their favor and that should be accounted for. Essentially, given the perfect conditions they didn’t squander it.
I think that framing that way ignores the real reason why this is unlikely to replicated: Larian is independent and not beholden to shareholders.
They had the chance to nerd out and spend 6 years making their dream game. With the IP they managed to attach to they made back costs off EA preorders and could afford to delay an entire year based off user feedback.
I guess the point is that when the suits aren’t involved artists get to make good art.
Edit: not to say I don’t still dislike the framing of it, just flat out say not everyone has the freedom to treat a big game like a passion project because of assholes beholden to “fiduciary duty” and other such nonsense.
Larian are also really good at figuring how to focus on the right things in order to deliver on an ambitious idea. They make sure that feasibility is a primary consideration, and also clearly have some smart people who can push the boundaries of what is feasible. But it seems obvious to me that they start from a place of only building systems that will work, instead of starting on something cool and then trying to find a way to make it work.
That said, this should also be common sense, and I'm all for holding game studios to a standard of "build intentionally and make working stuff".
That’s something I think the panel shows have highlighted: they focus on systems and reactivity as the mechanism which immerses the player in the role they wish to fill.
There’s something about crpg brain that just loves a convoluted series of interlocking systems that allow the player to enjoy the illusion of being a figure the world reacts to in a realistic/believable manner.
Idk, Starfield looked like an even hollower game than Skyrim in terms of its setting. Not much role-playing to do in such an empty space.
It isn't as bad as the Saint's Row reboot, but it has a similar basic problem of being about nothing
Jokes on them, I havent enjoyed a Bethesda game since Morrowind, and thats just cuz Michael Kirkbride is maniac. Fuck the landlords/capos/compradors/collaborators or whatever the fuck we call them. I'll know them when I meet them.
I think coercion is usually one of the things that allows you to sue even if you've signed a waiver. since she has documentation it's probably worth talking to a lawyer.
A sizable amount of people are going to buy the game because of this aren't they?
Likely saying "BASED" somewhere in their brave posts.
As always, yo ho ho and all that, but for those paying for that and feeling anything from apathy to spiteful pride for it, fuck off forever.
Summary here for those that are "TL;DR" inclined.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kglNioOuK8&t=13824s
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major game studio
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has had shitty people like kirkbride and jeremy soule doing prominent work for them before
wholly unsurprising
Massive CW if you look up anything Kirkbride involving Vivec, especially with Azura.
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Just to clarify, this is from the zenimax people and not the Bethesda dev studio, which didn't work on ESO.
Just to clarify, that was only one such offense and the studio you're knee-jerk defending, presumably because you want to buy Starfield and not feel bad about it, is far from free of such offenses.
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/audio/new-allegations-of-sexual-assault-surface-against-established-game-devs
https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/27/20835249/game-developers-sexual-assault-publicly-accused-allegations-metoo
I guess what I said could be read as a defense but that was not my intention. I'm just attempting to provide additional clarity around who the bad actors are in this story, not reduce any amount of hatred for them. People often mix up the two entities which I suspect is exactly why zenimax used "Bethesda" in the name of their game distribution and operations corp to begin with.
I see it as a big umbrella where the pieces are still connected, in much the same way that Activision/Blizzard is.
Come to think of it the Microsoft octopus reaches there as well and the management that rules over all of it is more than fine with the status quo of worker abuse, in fact participating themselves.
That's fair. That's why I was surprised that MS recognized the QA union that formed under the zenimax umbrella earlier this year.
