As many I am sure here that still lurk around, Bethesda is releasing its first multiplayer of Fallout. Honestly the PC version ugh. I will say this as Professional in the AAA industry. This is only a load test of all of Bethesda's integrated servers, login/web-store/store/digital distribution/Micro-Transactions. 14-15 days until launch I will tell you the game has already gone gold. Physical copies have to be burned to disk and mailed out to customers and sellers like amazon/gamestop/bestbuy the list goes on. It has only gotten the stamp gone gold but in essence from what I have seen its still in alpha. The lag you get in ANY multiplayer game that sluggish delay exist, NPC's are literally sliding over the ground not getting up or popping out of the ground. The graphics to keep FPS up they have put a filter on the camera that blurs the living snot out of your experience limiting the view distance, LOD object kicking in at about 40-50 meters or so in game.  The UI is very clunky for the PC with hickups.  There is no end game, besides hit the max level, get as many resources as possible, get power armor/s, grind for atom or whatever the currency is for in the micro transaction store, I am promising you you will be able to buy it in the near future, build a powerful settlement, get as much junk as you can, maybe find out what happened to the overseer but never find them or at least alive, oh and get access to nuclear weapons. That about sums it up a survival RPG, living world live events with no end game, launching as an alpha.


This game is exactly why I have said a good strong single player game if you value your franchise and customers, keep giving them what they ask for, do not make it multiplayer because of the squeaky gears. Sadly with what I have seen Bethesda is going the way of EA, not a forecast/speculation/prediction...  Oh and since the feedback has been bumping they think giving away Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics will some how appease customers.  Sooo if anyone is thinking of getting this wait for it to be on the bargain bin.


*Update*
Those who have been wondering is Fallout 76 worth it? I had been bashing the game the whole beta. Until the last day with the day one patch hitting early for the Rick and Morty Twitch Stream. So everything that many of us complained about was fixed to show the world. It is a game you need to collect every bit of junk, breaking down weapons & armor is important, food, drugs, cooking, to crafting matters. Having people in your group is also important. Makes things go a lot smoother but can also make it difficult so choose your party mates with care.

 

It is also important you read every bit of lore from notes, to holo disk, the works or you miss the story and have no idea why every human in the area is dead. If you are just there to level and skip the audio to words in notes you are going to miss everything that is important. There is so much stuff of what happened sitting around it makes up with the lack of no human NPC's. The world is more full than you can imagine, with more depth. A lot better than "Another Settlement needs your help".

 

The mechanics are actually great all that stuff we loved in New Vegas that they didn't put into Fallout 4 is in 76 and expanded on. You do not get everything for free with a perk, some stuff you have to work for to get. As already stated nearly everything we get in game matters unlike 4.

 

Variety, there are more weapons, options, special weapons/armor/gear mods to just cosmetic stuff than 4 every had. The list of monsters we have is also way larger than 4. The only thing I wish they would bring to 76 was the strange Centaur creatures from New Vegas, I would also not mind the laser crank musket guns. If they are there have not seen them, but the pure amount of everything else its really amazing.

 

Next up the Atomic Shop, so far everything is cosmetic/social meaning it has no impact on the game itself if you do good or poor. You do not even have to purchase the points, you get them from completing achievements, dailies, doing task. You are not forced to buy a thing. If you support them and want them to invest more money at some point we are going to have to throw more money their way to pay for the upgrades to this game.

 

Next up the few issues that still remain, NPC's sometimes re spawn right after death if you kite them too far away from their spawn locations. A few friends list issues, and quest bugs you can correct by fully exiting the game and that will let you get back on to a new server correcting the bug. Luckily Bethesda has been on top of that now with the server upgrades. Some coding things still an issue but nothing so far that I have ran into that keeps you from progressing forward. Nothing really ruins your experience unless you are an anal cry baby that just like to have something to complain about. Yup got to reclear an area think of it as more XP to level or more loot to get to enhance your adventure.

 

Engine complaints, it is not the same engine since Morrowind. The creation engine got released with the first version of Skyrim. That is why a lot of us in the modding community had some trouble making mods for Skyrim at fist. Yes its based with ideas off the GameBryo Engine but that's it. I have watched this game play really good on a five year old notebook with an I7 and a 670m mobile Nvidia gpu right next to me the past week. Where other games run like crap on it that do not look half as good. That is a huge accomplishment honestly. Bethesda will never change their engine from here on out it will only evolve, like Rockstars, Dice's or CDProjekt Reds, and even Epic Games. The engine is really solid, more so than Gamebryo ever was. Their production pipeline is set in stone. They will do what they want with our without our approval. Enjoy the game hope the next version of their engine includes some none frame rate system tied into Physics, time, AI, Mechanics. Then there is Atlas the changes to the world rendering with multiple people. The strangeness we see is something new for Bethesda as not all computers are the same not everyone has the same connection, those with strange configurations not around the console on the lower end pc will have a few more visual strange issues of things not always loading up. Its honestly no big deal more comical than anything else.

 

Servers this is their first real MP mmo type game, honestly I do not really think they know what they are doing in terms of servers having all systems tied in together. The only advice I could give them is get the logon, game servers, and their creation club/mod servers on their own systems so if one gets taken down for updates/maintenance the whole web site and other games do not go down. But what do I know I am just an Environment Artist and 3d Modeler. Them doing this and tweeting yup servers going down for maintenance and upgrades then people going to see down times only to discover their community forums are down, and some games are not working like say Syrim SE being left in handshaking with the creation club/mod servers with no men u options. It would just be better for the consumer but Bethesda is going to have to spend some real cash to invest in that. But that is the only advice I can offer them that does not matter nor will it be heard. It would make customers a lot happier though knowing when their game will be up or not having their games affected due to a server node going/taken down for maintenance and upgrades.

 

So if you have been on the fence, want a fallout game that is really a survival game once you leave the vault, do not mind listening to reading lore, and like the reality of limited resources and those will determine if you strive or are doomed. Then This is the game for you. Now with the Early Black Friday Sale now is a good time to get the game. You can get the Tricentennial Edition if you want to save your atom points you get to buy other stuff, everything from that edition of the game you are able to purchase in the atom store.

 

Hope my wall of text helps some people out. So far I have had to eat my words and am enjoying the game. I am honestly impressed, and as a developer seeing it with the pre day one patch up to now playing. It is a treat. It is worth the buy only if you are ok with the things I mentioned. It is really fun as hell with this pre black Friday sale going on, snag it up. This is the most flushed and polished out survival game on launch to come out. You will probably not be disappointed.

 

Regular Edition $39.99

https://www.greenmangamin...ames/fallout-76-us-pc/

 

Tricentennial Edition $59.99

https://www.greenmangamin...centennial-edition-pc/

Bethesda also has little experience with fixing their own games, they have relied for years on the modding community to do it for them. I do not see it in the long term, been gaming since the 80's, been a developer in the AAA industry for a decade. Seen every online game live, die and endure. If they cannot even beat CD Projekt Red that had less staff and a smaller budget on the Witcher 3 back on the Fallout 4 release, and didn't hit the standard Obsidian did with Fallout New Vegas. They are going to be in trouble on this one.

I'd compare them more to Ubisoft than EA, but point taken.

The beta launch for FO76 yesterday was an unmitigated train wreck with the pre-install. 49gig pre-installs got lost if you installed into a custom directory. It didn't delete my pre-install, but instead downloaded it again and installed someplace else. For some people connected to the internet with a potato that was enough to totally screw up their launch day. For me, I was getting 35mbps on the reinstall, so it was about 30 minutes of re-download. For a 24-player server instance, I was getting too much rubber-banding at random times of gameplay. I don't think the map has been QCed properly in some places. I got stuck in geometry in 2 places where I had to fast travel to get out of.
 
I was gifted the game from a friend, so I really have no stake in the game other than playing with a few friends. My initial impressions are the graphics are comparable to Fallout 3/4 with little to none done to update the look to modern day render quality. It's especially apparent in the textures and shadow/lighting, which looks very 2010-era and static lighting with everything looking flat and muddy. It looks like this game could be played on an XBox 360 or PS3 era hardware. PvP mechanics were not apparent, so no idea where I was safe or in danger when it came to getting jumped. I got PKed once and other times people just played around me, no rhyme or reason. That needs to be made a lot more apparent in the game mechanics. It also wasn't overly apparent what I drop when I die, some of my inventory did drop other parts didn't. That was confusing to me. I just went back to the death point and picked up the loot from a brown paper bag. Many aspects of the gameplay mechanics are not overly apparent in intent.
 
So far it's playing like a solo game with the typical random cancerous internet generation playing around you. The good thing is you can see them all on the map and purposefully maneuver around to avoid everyone else in your instance. The problem with that is that everyone around you starts to effect your exploration goals in order to avoid them all making it so you truly can't play the game as an open world as to only go places people aren't.
 
I spent most of my first day randomly stumbling around and item hording from crafting station to crafting station salvaging junk I found. Crafted some boiled leather armor and modified my machete with a serrated edge. Typical Fallout 4 crafting mechanics as far as I can tell. Those that are completionists, nothing really to find in the shelter 76 other than the few data terminals to read and get data carts on for the main quest mission. Was sort of surprised there wasn't even random junk to pick up in the shelter, just the things at the stations to pick up on your way out. Made the initial 30 minutes very sterile and linearly boring. For first impressions, that was way off the mark from what it should of been. RPG elements in shelter 76 were a missed opportunity to sell the game and get players invested in it. Instead, it felt like Shelter 76 was an afterthought -- a mere formality to have basic ties to a Fallout title beginning. So far, the lack of neutral or green NPCs is a bad design flaw in FO76. At the heart of Fallout is a RPG genre. Limiting to only non-humanoid NPCs seems to greatly detract from that history. They keep on saying it was a conscious decision by the devs to make human interaction be focused on live players, but in practice it makes the game development look lazy and lacking storyline direction you'd expect from a Fallout series title.
 
My guess is FO76 was born of priorities at ZeniMax and seeing how TESO has unfolded over time. They probably believe FO76 is going to be TESO for the Fallout genre. That's overly optimistic and rather naive at this point in time. We'll see I guess. Ultimately, the fatal flaw of FO76 is that it's online. While they say they'll run the servers indefinitely, we all know what happens to titles that players lose interest in over time that are fatally tied to online resources. You're going to eventually lose all the time invested into this title when the servers are shut off in 6 months or 6 years from now (whichever comes first).

aka_STEVE_b
...before throwing everyone into the open-world MMO trash

But it's not even MMO though. It's 24 player instances with randoms (which is worse). If I had to sum it up, they took the worst elements of online gaming and Fallout and made a game about it.

* slight update *
 
 

Fallout 76 B.E.T.A. Extended
[Oct 31, 2018, 09:56 am ET] -
A tweet from Bethesda Game Studios announces the Fallout 76 beta, or BETA rather, is being extended due to some issues players have encountered. Word is a glitch in the game launcher required users to re-download the entire 47 GB client. DSOGaming digs into other problems with the beta, noting that 16:10 and 21:9 aspect ratios are not supported, and that game speed is tied to framerate, leading to undesirable results when framerates are unlocked, but there's no word on such issues. Here's the revised beta schedule:
We know some users have been forced to redownload the #Fallout76 B.E.T.A. and not everyone will be able to enjoy the game tonight. To make good, we’ll be extending the B.E.T.A. for everyone on Thursday, November 1, 2pm to 11pm ET.

Thanks for your patience. #ExtendtheBeta

 
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/fallout-76-does-not-feature-fov-slider-or-support-1610-219-monitors-game-speed-tied-to-framerate/
 
https://www.bluesnews.com...llout-76-beta-extended

Brad_Hawthorne
I could of sworn that there was a FOV slider in the settings menu. But obscure aspect ratio options? Bethesda has always been the absolute worst about that issue.

Bethesda has been the worst about a lot of issues, only difference is now with this being 100% online is the modding community will not be there to save their bacon this go around.
 

Oh I just saw all their servers go live at 9pm on the 13th west coast, 11pm central, cali 12am est. At the same time I do not think they are ready for this.

So far so good, Fallout 76 has been live for the PC now for over 4 hours early...

I predict in the next 3-6 months this game is going to unsurprisingly go F2P with a microtransaction system. The whole Atom Shop system is a clear indication for such a thing to do. Fallout 76 is going to no doubt in my mind become a cash grab game for Bethesda in order to possibly pay for the next Elder Scrolls and Fallout games. It'll happen because these kinds of things have happened in the past with other games.

$60 AAA game with the title "Fallout" attached to it...
 

I expect Bethesda will patch the game down the road a bit as they figure out what needs to be done.
 

Brad_Hawthorne
I'll just leave this here as on topic. 
 
http://www.vg247.com/2018...store-over-fallout-76/

Legit response to the horrible combination of Fallout 76 and Gamestop.

Those who have been wondering is Fallout 76 worth it? I had been bashing the game the whole beta. Until the last day with the day one patch hitting early for the Rick and Morty Twitch Stream. So everything that many of us complained about was fixed to show the world. It is a game you need to collect every bit of junk, breaking down weapons & armor is important, food, drugs, cooking, to crafting matters. Having people in your group is also important. Makes things go a lot smoother but can also make it difficult so choose your party mates with care.

At the moment, no it's not worth $60. I plays like a $20 early access game. I have also been playing for the whole beta. Got in after that force re-download on the first day of BETA and the first 10 minutes of the day early on the release. The things I complain about are not even remotely fixed. Yes, this game is a hoarding and exploration game and both of those aspects go against each other as an example of why the design and mechanics are so broken. You can't explore when you have 1200 weight on you effectively, but you need to salvage everything to have food, drink and materials to repair and craft. You can't take the time to constantly look at your inventory and rationalize "Do I have enough of X or Y materials?" when searching from room to room. That's downright tedious and bad design. Yes, having people in your group is super important, it's about the only way that persistence works with the unstable connections people have. If you have no one to join back on, that place you claimed after 2 hours of farming it and building it up is gone. Sure it's there on some random server for others to stumble across, but you have zero persistence to get back to it. That is rage inducing to the extreme. Persistence doesn't matter in building. It's just a method of losing the stuff you hoard through random disconnects. Work hard to build up and resist the waves of mobs only to get random disconnects and lose all those resources from the auto-mining equipment.

It is also important you read every bit of lore from notes, to holo disk, the works or you miss the story and have no idea why every human in the area is dead. If you are just there to level and skip the audio to words in notes you are going to miss everything that is important. There is so much stuff of what happened sitting around it makes up with the lack of no human NPC's. The world is more full than you can imagine, with more depth. A lot better than "Another Settlement needs your help".

Yes, the only thing going on in this static world is a story of what happened in the distant past, not dynamic game play happening now. A million different random MISC notes in your inventory that you don't really remember where you actually picked them up after being forced to scan through them while loot hoarding. If you accidentally miss one, well, it's still sitting in your inventory just cluttering it up even more. The HOLOs are the same. Pressing R to play then when picked up doesn't even work. You have to go into your HOLO inventory and manually click it a few times, because even clicking them once doesn't even play them right. If they're storyline quest items of some type get ready to have 40 HOLOs and MISC keys in your inventory cluttering it up even worse that you can't dump even once your done with them. The main story line is one gigantic punchline for why the devs refused to make any human NPCs in the game. THe world is huge and full of the past, not the present in the game -- making connection instability and lack of persistence even more damning.
 

The mechanics are actually great all that stuff we loved in New Vegas that they didn't put into Fallout 4 is in 76 and expanded on. You do not get everything for free with a perk, some stuff you have to work for to get. As already stated nearly everything we get in game matters unlike 4.

The mechanics are actually really bad and totally half baked. Random disconnecting at death causing you to lose your paper bag. Random disconnect causing you to lose hours of location farming and building persistence. The lack of proper tools or incentives to group up with the random people on your persistence. Random encumbrance movement bugs where you have no idea if you're going to be able to walk 1 mph or 15 mph regardless of your endurance bar. The lack of being able to get back to your last connected instanced server after random disconnect is killing this game. Never mind all the broken questlines and escort quest NPCs walking around randomly into walls and trees and getting stuck there.

Variety, there are more weapons, options, special weapons/armor/gear mods to just cosmetic stuff than 4 every had. The list of monsters we have is also way larger than 4. The only thing I wish they would bring to 76 was the strange Centaur creatures from New Vegas, I would also not mind the laser crank musket guns. If they are there have not seen them, but the pure amount of everything else its really amazing.

The amount and diversity of mobs doesn't get around the fact that their pathing is horrendous. You can kite mobs 20 levels higher than you by merely sniping them from inaccessible locations while you watch them bounce back and forth running in circles unable to calculate how to get to you. Or when they're glitching around because of server side lag making it no challenge at all to farm them. All the mob diversity in the world doesn't excuse the horrendous mob AI and pathing issues.
 

Next up the Atomic Shop, so far everything is cosmetic/social meaning it has no impact on the game itself if you do good or poor. You do not even have to purchase the points, you get them from completing achievements, dailies, doing task. You are not forced to buy a thing. If you support them and want them to invest more money at some point we are going to have to throw more money their way to pay for the upgrades to this game.

Except for the fact that there are no real options to differentiate yourself from each other in the game with weapon or armor paints except for buying into the Atomic Shop right now. Problem is the Atomic Shop doesn't even have enough options to make everyone different either. It only has 1 or 2 paint variations. It still means everyone looks the same, just spent their money on the same stuff. Them making a good game and we showing them it's good by playing it, which in turn means health y sales of the game is how they get more money, not item malls whit a misguided thought that an item mall would be the funding source for any DLCs.

Next up the few issues that still remain, NPC's sometimes re spawn right after death if you kite them too far away from their spawn locations. A few friends list issues, and quest bugs you can correct by fully exiting the game and that will let you get back on to a new server correcting the bug. Luckily Bethesda has been on top of that now with the server upgrades. Some coding things still an issue but nothing so far that I have ran into that keeps you from progressing forward. Nothing really ruins your experience unless you are an anal cry baby that just like to have something to complain about. Yup got to reclear an area think of it as more XP to level or more loot to get to enhance your adventure.

"Few issues"? There are quite a bit more than a few issues. Some are by design and some are just slioppy coding and outright bugs. You can't go 5 minutes in the world without running into an issue. In many cases like the encumbrance and stashbox issue, it's the only thing truly persistent in your FO76 play experience.

Engine complaints, it is not the same engine since Morrowind. The creation engine got released with the first version of Skyrim. That is why a lot of us in the modding community had some trouble making mods for Skyrim at fist. Yes its based with ideas off the GameBryo Engine but that's it. I have watched this game play really good on a five year old notebook with an I7 and a 670m mobile Nvidia gpu right next to me the past week. Where other games run like crap on it that do not look half as good. That is a huge accomplishment honestly. Bethesda will never change their engine from here on out it will only evolve, like Rockstars, Dice's or CDProjekt Reds, and even Epic Games. The engine is really solid, more so than Gamebryo ever was. Their production pipeline is set in stone. They will do what they want with our without our approval. Enjoy the game hope the next version of their engine includes some none frame rate system tied into Physics, time, AI, Mechanics. Then there is Atlas the changes to the world rendering with multiple people. The strangeness we see is something new for Bethesda as not all computers are the same not everyone has the same connection, those with strange configurations not around the console on the lower end pc will have a few more visual strange issues of things not always loading up. Its honestly no big deal more comical than anything else.

No, it's not the "same" engine. It's evolved over time and is a derivative product. The main difference between FO4 and FO76 is they PBRed the textures of the FO4 objects they copied over to the FO76 engine. Looking through the files a good 40% of the game is copypasta assets. The NIF file format and the bundle tools for the files are essentially the same, with small differences like the PBR update. Part of being a dev house is making a gaming engine that allows the game to exist unhindered from it's writers and artists visions. That isn't happening with FO76. We are constantly being reminded of the limitations of the 3d engine and how it interferes with the story telling and persistent gaming experience.

Servers this is their first real MP mmo type game, honestly I do not really think they know what they are doing in terms of servers having all systems tied int together. The only advice I could give them is get the logon, game servers, and their creation club/mod servers on their own systems so if one gets taken down for updates/maintenance the whole web site and other games do not go down. But what do I know I am just an Environment Artist and 3d Modeler. Them doing this and tweeting yup servers going down for maintenance and upgrades then people going to see down times only to discover their community forums are down, and some games are not working like say Syrim SE being left in handshaking with the creation club/mod servers with no men u options. It would just be better for the consumer but Bethesda is going to have to spend some real cash to invest in that. But that is the only advice I can offer them that does not matter nor will it be heard. It would make customers a lot happier though knowing when their game will be up or not having their games affected due to a server node going/taken down for maintenance and upgrades.

No, it really isn't. They have TESO and that's been around for awhile now. They need to systematically audit every system in the game. Is it easy to use? Does it allow for proper persistence? Does it incentive grouping and reward multi-player behavior in the mechanics? Are the social tools in place to make multi-player work and be an organic and not forced mechanic? The moment you have to write a paragraph about what is wrong with the game, it's a warning sign that many parts of this game were not properly designed at all and right now is not the time to be muttling through a redesign -- it should of happened a year ago.
 

So if you have been on the fence, want a fallout game that is really a survival game once you leave the vault, do not mind listening to reading lore, and like the reality of limited resources and those will determine if you strive or are doomed. Then This is the game for you. Now with the Early Black Friday Sale now is a good time to get the game. You can get the Tricentennial Edition if you want to save your atom points you get to buy other stuff, everything from that edition of the game you are able to purchase in the atom store.

Food and water management does not make this a "survival game". It just makes it tedious. There really isn't a reality of limited resources, there is just encumbrance and walking around at 1 mph. There are resources everywhere and you will get stuck either dropping them back on the ground or walking around at 1 mph. The Tricentennial Edition is just a few skins and stuff you're not even going to wear. The things like the novelty head hats, leather armor, a power armor and pistol skin. Would be great if they had 10 other sets of skins like that to actually make people look different with mixing and matching, but that's not a thing in the game (yet).

Hope my wall of text helps some people out. So far I have had to eat my words and am enjoying the game. I am honestly impressed, and as a developer seeing it with the pre day one patch up to now playing. It is a treat. It is worth the buy only if you are ok with the things I mentioned. It is really fun as hell with this pre black Friday sale going on, snag it up. This is the most flushed and polished out survival game on launch to come out. You will probably not be disappointed.

I get it, you're emotionally invested in the game now through time invested. Don't become an apologist for the flaws of the game explaining those off as ok in an effort to sell others on buying it in the process though. That's doing everyone a disservice. I'm persisting through this game despite the rage inducing problems it has. I will do a 100% complete run of this content despite how annoyed I am with the game. I bought the game and I'll get my money out of it through game play kicking and screaming at this point. I however will not apologize and explain off the fatal flaws of this game to others.

BioHazardSperm
dont ya hate when Brad pops into a thread and posts some short half thought out opinion :)
 
 
Good points ,im still not buying the game .Just fell way to short of it goals .I dont see it being fixable before most interest draws players to other games

#opinions 
 
There are parts of the game I enjoy, mostly the random exploration, but when the map is done, I'll be done too. There is no end-game content that would keep me around.

fredbsd
I tend to agree with Brad. I’m desperately trying to enjoy the experience but Brad has a good point: they tied a bunch different stuff together without fleshing it all out first. There are things I do like...but the sum of the parts don’t really work all that well together (so far, there is always hope they start to rebalance things).

For example, I was out questing. Happily mowing down mobs and enjoying the game. Then suddenly a few mobs ambushed me. They were a few levels below me...yet I did almost no damage despite having current level weapons and armor. They were normal mobs with no special mods. A wee bit frustrating.

I can handle bugs. But stuff like that just bums me out and I lose interest.

If I could summarizatize, it’s as if it’s suffering from an identity crisis. The game wants to be almost everything but in the process has gimped itself in all areas. Hopefully Bethesda listens to the constructive feedback (not just the normal ‘this game sux’ crowd. The framework I do believe is there. They just have to roll the sleeves up and start fixing it.

The modding community can’t bail them out yet (private servers should help) so it’s up to them. Here’s hoping they are up for it as I really do believe the premise is there for a very fun experience.

I really want to like this game, but too much is getting in the way of that. Frankly, this game is 2 years out from being the game it needs to be. Sure, it'll survive for those 2 years, but a majority of the player base will no longer be around to enjoy those eventual fixes. As with most early access games, there is a window of opportunity for success. By releasing early, publishers squander their titles success in an effort to recoup development costs while not even done with development. One would think they would see the forest through the trees by now and see how that plays out time and time again.

This reminds me a lot of the design philosophy Conan Exiles. For some people that is ok, for me, not so much.