If you want to take the temperature of a game’s community, often you’re left to some of the more acerbic places of discussion like official game forums and subreddits, neither of which is likely a happy place in the case of Fallout 76. Luckily, a more measured write-up from Forbes asks a number of players their thoughts.
The piece asked several players about current affairs in the game, most of which is focused on the Fallout 1st subscription and the row it’s caused.
There are a number of Fallout 76 players who offer some solid explanations as to why they pay the subscription. “I’m able to add six or seven of my friends, and we can let loose and not be afraid of trolls,” says one player. “I like that I can make it to where it’s sensory-friendly for those who may have anxiety and things associated with that; I like the peaceful environment I can create with it.”
“I work thirty-six hours straight, and then I’ll come home and have like two and a half days off,” said another player who is a paramedic. “Our chief lets us bring our gaming consoles to work. Because our job is stressful, and this is my outlet. It’s always been my outlet.”
Others, of course, were not so kind. “Private servers and mods were promised to us pre-launch. I don’t like how they’re taking promised features and player ideas and selling them to us, like, ‘But you guys wanted these things,'” said one player.
“Right before the release of Fallout 1st they got rid of the Survival mode, where PvP players could play a more [aggressive] style. So the Survival players came back to Adventure, where farmer characters work cooperatively, and caused trouble. Then they released these ‘private worlds,’ and the farmers felt obligated to get away from the Survival players. Bethesda forced the conflict, then made you pay to get out of it,” reasons another.
While the piece is hardly drawing from a large sample size, it does seem to keep things in context in a community where people are supposedly dressing their avatars in bear suits to beat up subscribers or a sect of subscribers have formed a clan of aristocratic jerks.
