How Microsoft allowed the NSA access to encrypted messages. Ranging from Hotmail to Xbl messages. The extent of their cooperation with the PRISM programme.
Disney Dreamlight Valley devs have officially teased the second part of the paid expansion titled The Spark of Imagination.
Starting out a new farm, but need help choosing a name? Check out this article for a 100 farm name ides for Stardew Valley.
Waiting a decade for new instalments in franchises as massive as Fallout and Elder Scrolls feels like a waste.
Microsoft have Obsidian but I feel it's Bethesda who just don't want to play ball as they've always said they want to do it themselves.
Once MS bought Zenimax in 2020 they should have put the Outer Worlds 2 on the back burner, allow Bethesda to finish off its own Space RPG with Starfield (despite totally different tone why have two in your first party portfolio with two developers who's gameplay is a tad similar) and got Obsidian for one of their projects to make a spiritual successor to New Vegas.
When the Elder Scrolls VI is finished Bethesda can then onto the main numbered Fallout 5 themselves.
The Outer Worlds 2 started development in 2019 so putting it on the back burner wouldn't have been the end of the world, they'd have always come back to it once Fallout was done and it would have been nicely spaced out from Starfields release once they had most likely stopped supporting it and all the expansions were released.
If they did this back in 2020 when they bought Zenimax and the game had a good, steady 4 - 5 years development, you might have seen it release in 2025.
We are literally going to be waiting until 2030 at the very earliest for Fallout 5 and all they seem bothered about is pushing Fallout 76.
Its not just only Todd not playing ball.
Obsidian have made a name for themselves in delivering stellar RPGs, but most famous once have always been sequels/spin-offs to borrowed IPs like KOTOR 2, Neverwinter Nights 2, Fallout: New Vegas, Stick of Truth etc.
Obsidian wants to invest more in their own original IPs like Outer Worlds or Pillars of Eternity with Avowed.
Similar to what Bluepoint & inXile wants to do or Kojima is doing (i.e not involving anymore in Konami's IPs).
So yea, even if New Vegas has the most votes from 3D Fallout fans, Obsidian just wants to do their own thing, like any aspiring dev studio and MS is likely currently respecting that.
But a future Fallout game from Obsidian will surely happen. Founder Feargus Urquhart has already stated an year ago that they're eager to make a new Fallout game with Bethesda, New Vegas 2 or otherwise. Urquhart was the director of the very first 1995's Fallout game after all.
And don't forget Brian Fargo and his studio inXile, as Brian Fargo was the director of Fallout's 1988 predecessor: Wasteland
Obsidian should take over the FO IP. They're do far better with it than Bethesda who hasn't made a great game for almost 15 years
@KyRo
So, by 15 years, you mean Fallout 3 was the last great game Bethesda made?
You don't consider Skyrim a good game, which came out 13 years ago?
I'd consider Fallout 4 a pretty decent game as well. It's Story & RPG elements were a bit downgrade from New Vegas but the exploration and shooting on the other hand, were upgrades.
FO76 was disappointing and Starfield could've been better at launch I'll agree.
I disagree. Part of these games is the support for the mod community. If they move to releasing a "next game" every 2 or 3 years, the modding support plummets and the franchises turn into just another run of the mill RPG.
Make the games good enough to withstand the test of time, to keep people coming back to them and expanding on them with mod support.
I dont think anyone is saying they need to come out every 2 years (not to mention almost no game is released that quickly anymore)
By the time Fallout 5 comes out, it will be more than 15 years since Fallout 4 came out (same with ES6 coming out 15 years after Skyrim). Even if you want to use F76 as the metric for the most recent release, that one came out in 2018. It will be a miracle if F5 comes out before 2030
The point is that for a studio that doesnt seem to operate with multiple teams doing several projects at once, that their projects normally take 4-5 years as a minimum, and that now they even added Starfield to the rotation, it becomes a 15+ years waiting period between releases for each series, which doesnt make sense. Imagine that Nintendo only released a mainline Mario or Zelda game every 15 years…
They either need to start developing more than 1 project at a time, let someone else take a crack at one of the IPs or significantly reduce their development times
Why should someone else take a crack at one of the IPs? Look at what happened to Final Fantasy as a recent example - there is pretty clear FF fatigue setting in because they are now pumping out titles in the franchise every few years. Pumping out more games faster doesn't always make a series better.
There are plenty of options to make new games, not just create more titles in the same universe at a faster pace.
"Why should someone else take a crack at one of the IPs"
He's literally just told you why
We're waiting like 15 years before a sequel comes out, it's insane
Skyrim came out in 2011, the next game is expected to come out in 2027 at the earliest so that's 16 years apart while Fallout 4 came out in 2015 and might not release until 2031, again 16 years.
We're fine with Bethesda trying new things and doing new IPs like Starfield but adding a new game to the cycle now means a bigger wait. Also Starfield didn't meet most peoples expectations, can you imagine waiting 15 years or so for a sequel and it's disappointing? It would feel even worse because you would have to wait another 15 years to see if they manage to come back from it.
They need to give it to another developer, we don't need main numbered titles but a spin off of Fallout and Elder Scrolls should be cycled in between the long gaps of the main releases.
Once again you are making out people want these games as quick as possible when all we want is a standard development time of at least 4 years or so rather than waiting 15.
Yeah I’m going to say it, who cares about the modding community when making a game? Half the time developers only tolerate modders because they fix there game for them.
Yeah, let's all advocate for smaller gaps between series' releases, then we'll probably get headlines about how the series have dropped in quality and they could have benefited from more time in the oven. Let them cook.
"how the series have dropped in quality and they could have benefited from more time in the oven" So every Bethesda game then? Got it.
Listen, I would agree if this was about From Software or something, but Bethesda?
🤣
C'mon now. What timeline are you from?
Think about it, they're already bug filled messes on their current schedule, can you imagine how much worse it would be if they rushed things?
@Skuletor
Who's saying to rush the releases? No one is saying that...
People just don't want to be waiting 15 years for a sequel, they aren't working on the game for that long, you do realise that right? The issue isn't coming down to them working on the game and us "rushing them", it's the fact they are working on other games like Starfield now meaning bigger gaps before they even get started on them.
I bet you any more Elder Scrolls VI only entered full development last year when Starfield was finished despite being announced in 2018.
Bethesda [or Microsoft] would have to reallocate internal and external studios towards fallout and elder scrolls titles. Bethesda has the issue of developing 2 big IPs that are large RPGs on rotation. If you want more Fallout and Elder Scrolls, development will have to be outsourced.
Thanks to a link at the bottom I've got a new search engine. duckduckgo.com
I've read about most of this before but it's interesting that MS boasts about Azure while at the same time building Skydrive for the NSA. Wonder if they are connected in some way. hmmm.
These Microsoft working with the government articles couldn't have came at a worse time for the company. I wonder how much the kinect device will be linked to these spy claims by the general media? I find it extremely concerning that seeing as I'm not American, the NSA could theoretically force Microsoft into allowing them to spy on me through any of Microsoft's products and can do that without even needing a court order. I'd like to think there is something in the law that would actually stop them being able to use Kinect as a CCTV device but tbh, I'm not hopeful.
Also in before the apples and oranges laptop webcam/smartphone comparison.
In a statement, Microsoft said: "When we upgrade or update products we aren't absolved from the need to comply with existing or future lawful demands." The company reiterated its argument that it provides customer data "only in response to government demands and we only ever comply with orders for requests about specific accounts or identifiers".
Targeting US citizens does require an individual warrant, but the NSA is able to collect Americans' communications without a warrant if the target is a foreign national located overseas.
Quoted because people will still miss it..
No spying without a warrant, unless you are outside the USA.. Obviously.
Your constitutional rights are only valid in the states..
According to PRISM they are collecting all our data without a warrant.
Is encrypted but they can still look at it eventually. A warrant simply speeds up the process since the provider unencrypts it for them.
Well we've never had any problems before. So it'll be ok. And plus the NSA has their own problems right now. Everybody is suing the NSA....firms, companies, and different countries.