Fallout: 76 Catch-All

PaladinTom wrote:

Have they confirmed the total number of players per server? I can't quite reconcile how say 24 people are ever going to encounter each other in such a big map.

I think that's the idea around everyone being on the map unless they are actively stealthing. the map is apparently yuuuuuge so you really could never run into one of those 24 people without that. Although i'm sure there will be level gated areas so the actual play area at any moment will be smaller than the full map

PaladinTom wrote:

Have they confirmed the total number of players per server? I can't quite reconcile how say 24 people are ever going to encounter each other in such a big map.

I think it's 24-36 per server. With a full server it will happen more frequently than you would think. It will be determined on how they spread out the resources.

You might also imagine that some areas will be a lot more popular than others...

...still, I get the vibe that finding other people is supposed to be at little bit unusual and special. Maybe something that happens every half-hour or hour, unless you're at the most popular points on the map.

Amazon Prime members can get the Standard Edition for 20% off. That was about $13 for me when I pre-ordered. Found the ad on reddit.

TAZ89 wrote:

Amazon Prime members can get the Standard Edition for 20% off. That was about $13 for me when I pre-ordered. Found the ad on reddit.

This makes me super nervous. It's more like $22 with the current amazon prime price point, and I'm forced to wonder what exactly this game is like if they feel the need to pay people $20 to make sure their pre-orders come in before anyone sees the beta.

Amazon does 20% for all pre-orders I thought.

Oh wow really? Thats news to me, but i'd never thought to look, i thought this was a special deal cut for Fallout 76. I guess i need to pre-order something on amazon every year to knock down my prime sub.

That makes me feel less nervous about 76 though.

Amazon Prime members get 20% off pre-orders of the standard version of new games only (they stopped it on deluxe versions awhile back). It's price is $60, so that works out to $12 off, not $13. Not sure where the $22 is coming from.

Oh i totally misunderstood the advertisement. When i read it i thought it meant: If you pre-order Fallout 76, you will receive 20% off your next amazon prime annual payment.

The B.E.T.A. (Break it Early Test Application) will start in October, but Bethesda has (once again) made a mess of the announcement.
They initially said that they'd be starting by picking a small group of people from those who preordered the game and add more people as they get closer to the November release. This sounded an awful lot like them saying people who preordered weren't guaranteed a spot in the beta, just a spot in the pool beta players were drawn from, to the point where several gaming news sites reported that that's what they were doing. Bethesda then clarified (in an edit tot he initial post) that everyone who preordered would get a chance to play in the B.E.T.A. but players wanted to know for how long (would some players get weeks, but most only get a few days?). Finally Bethesda clarified that the small pool of early invites was going to be (essentially) a beta for the B.E.T.A. and that everyone who registered for the B.E.T.A. would have access to it for the entire time it runs.

So the B.E.T.A. will start in October (exact start isn't set yet, nor is whether or not the B.E.T.A. will run right up to launch or end several days before it) and everyone who pre-ordered from the participating retailers will have access to the B.E.T.A. as soon as it starts. There might be a beta for the B.E.T.A. (they're not 100% certain that it's going to happen) with only some of the people who've pre-ordered getting invited to that.

That's annoying... Beta's that close to launch aren't really betas but demos.

PaladinTom wrote:

Have they confirmed the total number of players per server? I can't quite reconcile how say 24 people are ever going to encounter each other in such a big map.

Is this the No Man's Sky thread? :troll-face:

ranalin wrote:

That's annoying... Beta's that close to launch aren't really betas but demos.

That's a big complaint from the announcement thread as well. Not starting until sometime in October means it'll last at most a month and a half. Given how Bethesda releases typically go they're almost certainly going to need more time.

Stengah wrote:
ranalin wrote:

That's annoying... Beta's that close to launch aren't really betas but demos.

That's a big complaint from the announcement thread as well. Not starting until sometime in October means it'll last at most a month and a half. Given how Bethesda releases typically go they're almost certainly going to need more time.

I've yet to see a survival game launch that didn't have performance issues.

It may be more of a networking performance test than a beta. Either way, I'm happy to wait until launch to get as complete a product as possible.

Nevin73 wrote:

It may be more of a networking performance test than a beta. Either way, I'm happy to wait until launch to get as complete a product as possible.

Best wait 3-6 months after launch in that case, given Bethesda's track record.

I'll be there for the B.E.T.A. though, and predict I'll have lots of fun despite the bugs.

Nevin73 wrote:

It may be more of a networking performance test than a beta. Either way, I'm happy to wait until launch to get as complete a product as possible.

Yeah, this is almost certainly what they're actually interested in, though I'm sure they'll be keeping an eye on client bugs as well.

ranalin wrote:
Stengah wrote:
ranalin wrote:

That's annoying... Beta's that close to launch aren't really betas but demos.

That's a big complaint from the announcement thread as well. Not starting until sometime in October means it'll last at most a month and a half. Given how Bethesda releases typically go they're almost certainly going to need more time.

I've yet to see a survival game launch that didn't have performance issues.

I've yet to see a Bethesda game launch that didn't have performance issues, so par for the course?

I get the sense that they are scrambling hard to make corrections in light of the massive push back they clearly didn't expect to get, and intended to start the B.E.T.A much earlier but had to delay for major changes.

We've got all the problems of a major amusement park Fallout game and a major zoo open world survival game all at once - John Arnold

thrawn82 wrote:

I get the sense that they are scrambling hard to make corrections in light of the massive push back they clearly didn't expect to get, and intended to start the B.E.T.A much earlier but had to delay for major changes.

I don't get that at all. They've done this long enough and knew exactly the type of push back they'd get and knew how to handle it. They've been very much in the 'we're doing it our way so take it or leave it' mode from the start. If anything... this late beta date proves that they're not really interested in our initial input.

ranalin wrote:
thrawn82 wrote:

I get the sense that they are scrambling hard to make corrections in light of the massive push back they clearly didn't expect to get, and intended to start the B.E.T.A much earlier but had to delay for major changes.

I don't get that at all. They've done this long enough and knew exactly the type of push back they'd get and knew how to handle it. They've been very much in the 'we're doing it our way so take it or leave it' mode from the start. If anything... this late beta date proves that they're not really interested in our initial input.

Seconded. If us mere plebes know that Bethesda launches (to say nothing of practically every game launch) don't go terribly well, they have to know it, too. This B.E.T.A. is like the worst of both worlds: too late to contribute any meaningful feedback; too early to avoid the nastiest bugs players will see.

muraii wrote:
ranalin wrote:
thrawn82 wrote:

I get the sense that they are scrambling hard to make corrections in light of the massive push back they clearly didn't expect to get, and intended to start the B.E.T.A much earlier but had to delay for major changes.

I don't get that at all. They've done this long enough and knew exactly the type of push back they'd get and knew how to handle it. They've been very much in the 'we're doing it our way so take it or leave it' mode from the start. If anything... this late beta date proves that they're not really interested in our initial input.

Seconded. If us mere plebes know that Bethesda launches (to say nothing of practically every game launch) don't go terribly well, they have to know it, too. This B.E.T.A. is like the worst of both worlds: too late to contribute any meaningful feedback; too early to avoid the nastiest bugs players will see.

I think they have gotten much better over time.It really seems like everything post Fallout 3: The Pitt's launch has gotten better.

Both Skyrim and especially New Vegas (Obsidian-developed, I know, but presumably Beth had some level of oversight) were pretty sketchy at launch.

Fallout 4 was reasonably solid, though, so there's hope.

hbi2k wrote:

Both Skyrim and especially New Vegas (Obsidian-developed, I know, but presumably Beth had some level of oversight) were pretty sketchy at launch.

Fallout 4 was reasonably solid, though, so there's hope.

Other than some oddly flying dragons and the giant space program I don't remember having too many issues with Skyrim. Fallout: New Vegas was barely playable though.

Skyrim had some annoying quest bugs that I ran into. But I played starting on release day and agree that overall the issues with Skyrim were certainly less severe overall than their previous games.

Rykin wrote:
hbi2k wrote:

Both Skyrim and especially New Vegas (Obsidian-developed, I know, but presumably Beth had some level of oversight) were pretty sketchy at launch.

Fallout 4 was reasonably solid, though, so there's hope.

Other than some oddly flying dragons and the giant space program I don't remember having too many issues with Skyrim. Fallout: New Vegas was barely playable though.

I didn't like NV anywhere near as much as so many others did .. but I never understood what people meant about game breaking bugs. I bought it release week, my PC couldn't handle it, so I upgraded some components.. and never had any issues.

I'm not saying my experience invalidates anyone else's, I do wonder if it might be related to what hardware people were using or specific driver issues or something.

beanman101283 wrote:

Skyrim had some annoying quest bugs that I ran into. But I played starting on release day and agree that overall the issues with Skyrim were certainly less severe overall than their previous games.

Unless you were playing on PS3. IIRC the PS3 had an issue where the save file would get larger and larger with every save until the game would run at 1 FPS. It was pretty bad.

Yeah there were severe issues with the PS3 that I didn't encounter since I played on PC, so it's easy for me to forget about those.

If I remember correctly from watching the Danny O'Dwyer Fallout 76 documentary on YouTube it said there will be a maximum of 24 players in each server & that everyone will be able to see where everyone else is on the map.

If they can get their dodgy engine optimised a decent bit from Fallout 4 this could be a really good game, the world is always great to explore & doing it with friends sounds like a lot of fun. I'll be keeping a close eye on this.

Officially not coming to Steam. Only available on consoles and via the Bethesda launcher.

Well that sucks balls. And what the hell is the Bethesda launcher?