The Elder Scrolls

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Always wanted to try one of these IRL, I imagine they're like donuts.
boiled creme treats.webp
 
I posted this in the Starfield thread but it's more relevant here.
https://www.thegamer.com/john-dombr...-bethesda-game-studios-senior-quest-designer/ (A)
Former Dragon Age producer Mark Darrah has been delightfully chatty of late, detailing EA's costly mistakes in the chronic mismanagement of the Dragon Age franchise, with a particular eye toward the nightmare development scenario that was Dragon Age: The Veilguard - a stitched-together, up-and-down, game that honestly could have been a lot worse.

Darrah even suggests that the devs behind the upcoming Mass Effect 5 should use The Veilguard's difficult creation process as a means through which to "scapegoat" EA into giving them the freedom they need in order to deliver a quality title. We'll see how it goes, but in the meantime, some rare good news is here for the overall health of the well-written RPG-loving world: John Dombrow, who helmed much of what we loved not just in the Mass Effect series, but even in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, has made a highly intriguing leap to Bethesda Game Studios.

John Dombrow got his start at BioWare with Mass Effect 2's excellent "Overlord" DLC. While "Lair of the Shadow Broker" is almost certainly the most popular of ME2's post-launch packages, I've always preferred the more 'hard-hitting sci-fi' vibes of the former. But wherever one stands on all that, it's hard to deny the emotional staying power of 'Priority: Tuchanka', Mass Effect 3's phenomenal finisher to the trilogy-long genophage arc regarding the warlike krogan race and the salarian scientists who controversially altered that species' genetic destiny.

Dombrow wrote "all characters within those missions (i.e. Wrex, Wreav, female krogan, turian primarch, portions of Illusive Man, etc.) with assistance from another writer on the character of Mordin". I pulled that quote from the former BioWare scribe's LinkedIn page, where you'll also note that he was a co-lead writer on Mass Effect: Andromeda, a senior narrative designer for Anthem, and a senior narrative designer again on Dragon Age: The Veilguard - the best parts of it, mind you, including Davlin's arc and the high-water mark that is the Siege of Weisshaupt.

But that's the past, and we're here to discuss the future. A Redditor was quick to notice the biggest thing about John Dombrow's LinkedIn page, which is that he now identifies professionally as a 'Senior Quest Designer at Bethesda Game Studios'. That's, uh, quite the twist. Bethesda, of course, is responsible for new projects in The Elder Scrolls and Fallout franchises, as well as whatever's left in the tank for Starfield.

Fallout 5 is presumably not hitting store shelves any time remotely soon, but the ongoing success of Amazon Prime's TV series is something that Bethesda Game Studios has no intentions of ignoring. John Dombrow has just shifted over to Bethesda after finishing two years' worth of work on PlayStation's and Sucker Punch's upcoming Ghost of Yotei, so it's entirely feasible that Todd Howard and the gang have tapped Dombrow's knowledge of science-fiction storytelling for just such a distant project.

Yet, Dombrow's experience on Dragon Age, not to mention the fact that it's probably flawed to think a talented writer can't shift gears across genres, leaves the door open to the possibility that he's helping out on The Elder Scrolls 6, instead. And, again, there's at least a bit more Starfield en route, and as I'm sure you're aware, Starfield and Mass Effect both have the whole space thing going on.

So, who knows, right? For now, all we know is that a stellar Mass Effect scribe is lending their proven talent to a developer who is, frankly, in a far more promising spot than BioWare in 2025. That's good enough news to get me hyped.
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Bethesda hired some hack Bioware writer to come fuck up TES6 the same way he fumbled ME3, MEA, Anthem, and Failguard. Apparently he's somehow involved with Ghost of Yotei too. Expect quests about sucking girldick in TES6.
I'm all in on whatever timeline causes the industry the most damage so I see this as a good thing.
 
The Mass Shooter Ron Soye said:
Ars Technica: A question for the ages: Is The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall a good game? (archive)
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The only thing Starfield has in common with Daggerfall is that the map(s) is flat and featureless. Also, insinuating there's a youtube sphere dedicated to shitting on Daggerfall while ignoring the much larger clique glazing it is pretty disingenuous. Shall we discuss the clique glazing Starfield, because there isn't one.
Also, I don't think this ape has actually played Daggerfall; his story about the bounty and the assault-by-gallop sounds made up or was stolen from a forum somewhere. It reminds me of how Bethesda talked about OG Fallout during the making of FO3 promo vid.
Granted, there's little crossover between the original Daggerfall team and the folks who made Starfield. Daggerfall was pre-Todd Howard-as-creative-director and pre-Emil Pagliarulo, the two main creative leaders at Bethesda Game Studios since the Morrowind days.
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Emil wasn't a "main" creative lead until FO3. He didn't work on base Morrowind at all, wasn't a lead on shit in Bloodmoon, and writing Oblivion's DB didn't make him a "main" there either.
 
Asian tech support said:
Shall we discuss the clique glazing Starfield, because there isn't one.
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That's not fair, NeverKnowsBest glazed Starfield, but only because PatricianTV was bullying his e-daddy Emil Pagliarulo aka the man without a single central design document.
I think it would be more accurate to say that Starfield WANTED to be Daggerfall, in the same sense that Fallout 3 and 4 wanted to be a real Fallout game and Fallout 76 wanted to be a real MMO. They all failed, Starfield is no different, but I guess the effort was there? Nevermind that indie games did the same thing Starfield set out to do on a smaller scale and they're way more fun to play.
 
30+GameOvers said:
That's not fair, NeverKnowsBest glazed Starfield, but only because PatricianTV was bullying his e-daddy Emil Pagliarulo aka the man without a single central design document.
I think it would be more accurate to say that Starfield WANTED to be Daggerfall, in the same sense that Fallout 3 and 4 wanted to be a real Fallout game and Fallout 76 wanted to be a real MMO. They all failed, Starfield is no different, but I guess the effort was there? Nevermind that indie games did the same thing Starfield set out to do on a smaller scale and they're way more fun to play.
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How quickly people forget the shill king.
1755590055548.webp
 
Kharash said:
How quickly people forget the shill king.
View attachment 7800465
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Gman isn't a human being, he is a billboard that shills your product and adds some shitty cuckchan meme as well to try and appeal to zoomers. Nobody should be mentioning him whenever a conversation around content creators or serious reviewers/critique pops off.
Speaking of shills, I do remember Act Ma'am actually defending Starfield, but then again he is pretty much just a slightly less obvious Gman, therefore not a human being.
 
Asian tech support said:
Emil wasn't a "main" creative lead until FO3. He didn't work on base Morrowind at all, wasn't a lead on shit in Bloodmoon, and writing Oblivion's DB didn't make him a "main" there either.
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this is a keiji inafune situation, guy went from character artist that was responsible for making zero to being the "creator of megaman" even though he wasn't and never had anything to do with it, ever.
i hope emil eventually follows the con man route.
 
The Oblivion Demaster is such a mixed bag. The more I look into it, the more uncanny valley I am getting. Like, yeah the graphics are objectively speaking better than from a game released in 2006, but nothing else has changed, so my brain constantly keeps telling me that something is wrong. You can't just make the NPCs look hyper realistic but keep the cheesy voice acting from like 6 different people, or any other quirks the game has, they really should have done a lot more to actually earn that "remastered" title. Also, while the game can be gorgeous at times, I still think the visual direction suffers greatly, it just isn't as good as the original and looks very generic at times. Oblivion didn't look good even for it's time, but you can immediately tell when you're looking at an Oblivion screenshot even today, despite how generic the world is it has it's own identity nothing else has quite captured. Also, I don't like some of the choices they took with this demaster, body type 1 and 2 are obvious but I don't like the regenerating health either. Makes me think that the devs thought the modern audience are too stupid to heal after battle so they had to do it for them, I don't like playing games that treat me like an idiot and Bethesda games(especially modern ones) are already notorious for that enough.

And of course, the modding capability is extremely limited compared to Gamebryo, and as I said when the game released, you can just mod the original game to any way you want and likely have a better time. Very much a wasted opportunity, I weighted adding this game into my backlog, but I just keep asking myself "why not replay the original with mods instead?" and I have no answer. This is likely the best you're gonna get if you're a console pleb and don't have the option of playing with mods, this version is obviously a superior choice to dusting off a PS3 or a 360 to play the original, but I think that PC players are spoiled for choice and this ain't it. They should have done more with it or remastered a game that actually needs modern updates, like Morrowind, Daggerfall or and especially Arena. If Fallout 3 follows in the same footsteps, I can confidently say I will never touch it since I am already too used to playing the original on my 360 every year or two and I am used to the jankiness. If I want it "remastered", I got TTW and there is no way some B team can do a better job than modders did over the last 10 years of polishing that game. Similarly, Skyblivion is coming so if I really want a remastered experience, I don't see why I shouldn't just play that when it comes out.
 
Super Hans v2 said:
What? I remember everybody shitting themselves with how good it looked. Bethesda at the time set the standard for what a 'next gen' title's graphics should be.
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People shat themselves at Starfield, too. Compare Oblivion to Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, both fantasy titles released in the same year.
Maybe it looked good for launch title era of Gen 7 consoles, but that's not a high mark. That said, it does have a great visual direction despite potato looking NPCs, which does let it age a bit better.
 
Super Hans v2 said:
What? I remember everybody shitting themselves with how good it looked. Bethesda at the time set the standard for what a 'next gen' title's graphics should be.
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"HD" graphics in 2006 were still very new and awe inspiring. I don't know what the discourse surrounding how good it looked relative to any of its contemporaries was at the time given I was a child, but I do remember being absolutely floored by the visuals when I exited the sewers for the first time.
 
Asian tech support said:
"HD" graphics in 2006 were still very new and awe inspiring. I don't know what the discourse surrounding how good it looked relative to any of its contemporaries was at the time given I was a child, but I do remember being absolutely floored by the visuals when I exited the sewers for the first time.
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More than the textures sizes; the color palette and the lightning are the top notch of Oblivion, more than else.
 
Prophetic Spirit said:
More than the textures sizes; the color palette and the lightning are the top notch of Oblivion, more than else.
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Yeah, that's what I was talking about earlier, you can immediately tell you're looking at Oblivion instead of a thousand other generic fantasy RPG. I don't see that nearly as much in the new demaster even tho it has objectively better graphics quality, it just looks like a generic UE5 fantasy game because that's what it is. Goes to show you that it's not just the polygon count that matters, so many older games still look decent today because someone on the art team cared.
 
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