A while ago, someone, probably Todd, said something along the lines of 'fans are setting themselves up to be disappointed because their expectations are too high.' Like nigger, fucking no the expectations couldn't be lower and even then they're going to be disappointed, so yes, in the most roundabout way possible, expectations are too high.
I fully expect the writing TES6 to be so bad that it actively kills off a good chunk of the lore community. People have been able to ignore the ESO garbage because the game is removed from the main setting (and there's a hope it could all get handwaved away anyway), plus only hardcore paypigs still pay attention to it in the first place. The bigger problem IMO is how bad the writing culture in literally every creative industry has gotten since Skyrim came out, and that faggy writers like "punishing" fans for potential no-no think. I posted something along the lines of this earlier in the thread, but the racist jokes in the community are so widespread and high quality now that there's AI dubs of Rolff Stonefist as Nick Fuentes on Instagram with millions of views. I honestly don't know what the fuck they were expecting; they wrote a plot about a race of effeminate, hooknosed ethnic supremacists subverting a transnational government and attacking the native religion of the Scandinavian expy race as a pretext to genocide them. I know things were more lax in 2011, but the fact that they didn't see those jokes coming is a hilarious indictment of Bethesda in the first place. Either way the writers are absolutely going to make sure nothing like that could happen again, so we're going to get a slate of the gayest, milquetoast, forgettable factions imaginable with several dozen homo and nonbinary characters spouting infuriating Whedonesque dialogue.
unironically the last acceptable bethesda game and clearly the last to be made was fallout 4. buggy mess with issues that could still be fun and has large modding community. in a perfect timeline it would have had a f5 a few years later or so that took feedback and was the skyrim to oblivion, but in what we got, 4 was the end and not experimental.
There are times when I wonder which timeline we're in. FO has obviously been ruined in a way that TES hasn't and as someone who prefers TES over 3D FO, I consider myself blessed. Bethesda kicking the TES can down the road and shitting out 76 and Starfield delayed the eventual ruination of TES. Again, I'm thankful that it's going to be Hammerfell that gets thrown to the wolves and not Summerset; current Bethesda could never do the setting justice and it's better that TES: Kangz is the one that gets offered to the outrage machine. Because of how long it takes to release games these days, whatever social commentary that gets forced will be years out of date and knowing that someone at Bethesda and/or Microsoft understands this, knows how well that's turned out for at this point dozens of high profile games in the last few years, and is powerless to stop it makes me giggle.
The Thalmor are clearly based on Nazi Germany though, the ultimate White bad guy. The Empire even has a High Elf general who talks about how they allegedly slaughtered Altmer Political dissident refugees in High Rock. The game arguably does take a semi - biased side against the Stormcloaks with it constantly stating Ulfric is only in it for himself, that the Justiciars are only in Skyrim due to the Stormcloak uprising and that prior people could practice Talos worship (whish isn't really native to Skyrim tbf) privately or that Ulfric is a Thalmor asset (asset not puppet as many people misinterpret) and they are wanting him to either win or keeping the civil war going to drain the Empire. Then there's also the Dark Elves and Argonians in Windhelm (though it's very interesting in the games discourse there is a far better case of the Stormcloaks being repressive towards the Reach folk yet leftists rarely bring it up).
The dynamics are a bit different though. Redguards are much more based on the Japanese and North Africans than sub Saharans. Hammerfell is independent and even under the Empire they had autonomy. It's difficult to ram in Black victimology in that context. The only case for it could be in the context of this reddit post that alleges the Forebears are an artificial construct by the Remen Empire as an allegory for European influence in Japan and the third world - https://www.reddit.com/r/ElderKings/comments/1effbq9/forebears_an_imperial_invention_how_the_reman/
Unless they outsource it like they did with Oblivion, they would fuck it up somehow, like race swapping every major white character or removing "problematic" elements such as slavery or mentions of rape.
Skyrim has a very vague but intentional political propaganda of both sides of the civil war.
i think we've long past the point of 'expectations are too high' onto 'the games framework was fundamentally flawed'
I always wished the games were more "spread out" in when they took place, like instead of Morrowind being 6 years before Oblivion, it could've been like 200 or something, makes it stand out more in my mind.
Well if they set it later it would be a lot of copy and paste with books. I just wouldn't want every question answered if the game is later. Like what happened to the dragonborn for example. Theories are cool but I don't truly want to know. And yes i very much agree that the timeline be spread out more. Let's not pull a veilguard and bring in characters we know from skyrim so we can all soy face at idk, Ulfric or a "canonical" dragonborn. That would he gay.
We see it over and over. Elden ring, the near-mythical game dropped. It's great. And forgotten in favor of DaS 2 not a year later. There is absolutely no way the next TES can beat Skyrim in longevity. Gaming has simply reached that point where a new market is grinded so fucking flat nothing new can be achieved. Double the polygons and nobody will notice.
That's a 13 year old tops, you're talking about a child.
mate it's been 80 years...
Sad thing is, it's largely the minority that'll be disappointed. The majority of people are normies (or Dads if you want to quote Sseth) who will have their fun before moving on the next game, can't disappoint people who don't have standards or investments in what they consume. Best we can hope for is lower sales and higher refunds and pray that either lights a fire under Bethesda's ass (lol no) or it gets their IPs taken and given to another studio. Will that studio be better? Doubt it, but there's a chance.
Got some links? Need a good laugh and I'll be damned if I'll browse Instagram.
I like to call it "Corpo-safe." It combines all of what you said along with some "safe-edgy."
Techies only ever talk about their wages and how much they can work from home. Yet, not once in my life have I read of a game dev type of kiddie talk about their wage. I swear it must be a negative modifier to work at a place someone might've heard of. "Blizzard? Earn $15 an hour? My pleasure!"
