Some of you are probably familiar to the quest “Brain Dead” from “Far Harbor”, Fallout 4’s latest DLC. If not, be wary, [SPOILERS] ahoy!
A few weeks before Fallout 4’s release, Autumn Leaves, a Fallout : New Vegas Mod was published on Moddb and the Nexus. It featured a colorful cast of excentric robots, in charge of a forgotten Vault where a strange murder happened. Sounds familiar ?
Maybe, to those who played Far Harbor’s “Brain Dead.”
It was only recently that a nice fellow nicknamed “endolex” brought to my attention that there was several similarities between the two. Since I didn’t play “Brain Dead” myself, I did a bit of research on Let’s Plays and Youtube. AND SOON :
Wow, there, people. I knew that Bethesda was keeping an eye out on mods and taking the best ideas to integrate them in their future installments (like they did for Wasteland Defense for Fallout 4), but this!
Let’s take a look at it for ourselves.
The comparison :
First off, both quests begins with a discussion through an interphone with the caretaker of the Vault, a headwaiter robot with a rather distinguished persona. The big mandatory Vault Door opens, leaving the player up for the exploration of said vault.
Up till now, nothing unusual, as Vaults are popular locations in Fallout’s universe. Is all gud.
THEN!
The main quest itself, which consists in investigating the murder by checking the crime scene, and speaking to every robot in the Vault :
The mysterious death of the prime financier of the Vault, who - in both cases - worked alongside Vault-Tec to build the special place.
The importance of voice modulators in the plot, to distinguish the robots between themselves.
The sexytime moment.
And of course, the mandatory “Let’s discuss paintings with a robot.”
Then, there’s the Neural Interface Matrix in BD versus the Neuro Comp Matrix in AL, the presence (and relevance to the plot) of a robotic expert in the Vault, the feel of the central atrium, the quasi-exclusive robotic cast confronted to a murder, the misleading piece of evidence (Keith/Rolland), among others.
Now, now, truth be said, I honestly thought Bethesda’s staff played Autumn Leaves, had a blast with it (I hope) took some things out of it and made their own thing for Far Harbor. And I seriously think this is perfectly okay. After all, Autumn Leaves’ inspirations are countless (Asimov’s, Cluedo, Planescape : Torment, Arcanum, older Fallouts, etc.) and being influenced is a natural part of the writing process.
Of course, it raises some questions : should modders get some recognition from the industry, compensation? How could those two dynamics - paid content and free creation - should be managed? What kind of acknowledgement should a big publisher give to small creators? What is the kind of acknowledgement they can afford?
In my case, why am I making a post of it? Well, to raise some awareness of Autumn Leaves, really. Since I witnessed the interest that “Brain Dead” had raised from the players, I thought it would be cool to jump on the occasion to tell them that more of this kind of quests exists. (Though Autumn Leaves lasts around 6 hours vs 1 for BD.)
Since Autumn Leaves was out but a few weeks before Fallout 4, I always felt that people didn’t have the occasion to discover it by the time they jumped to F4. On another note, I also fear that people who played Brain Dead would stumble on Autumn Leaves and ignore it because “Oh, hey, it’s Brain Dead all over again!"
So, if you liked Brain Dead, want to play a "Whodunit”, but with entirely different themes, different writing, different plot, different music (!) different voice acting (!!) don’t hesitate to download Autumn Leaves
Feel free to drop by Hypatia, Autumn Leaves’ Library. You will be welcomed with open arms.
NB : Screencaps from Far Harbor were taken from Father’s Youtube Channel.
i ******* know it it was teh first thing came to mind but i fud it was just me i know it still this mod is better than the one in teh dlc and i am gane play it right now ^^
Same.
Learn english.
I is not understand what yours taking a boat
I sent this to some smaller games news sites, wonder if they'll be interested in covering it... being the author yourself you might want to contact bigger ones too, like PC Gamer or maybe Polygon, to see if they will be interested in covering it. Hope Beth owns up and gives you some credit.
you should definitely contact some gaming media! Bethesda can't just steal peoples stuff without acknowledging it.
but as we know Bethesda are curled by the media. so I guess nobody will pick it up. they release ****** games year after year but still gets 10/10 reviews every time. that's just corrupt.
Rock Paper Shotgun may cover it, this is the sort of thing John Walker likes sometimes
Dear God, OP, if you're reading this do NOT contact Polygon. Maybe ARS Technica or PCG, but NOT Polygon.
Huuuh, why's that?
Polygon is terrible
They're right.
Polygon, and also Kotaku & IGN too, should all be avoided like the plague with contacting about reporting news stories about.
They're all incredibly biased, shady as ****, and twist stories and opinions out of context to their own personal opinions and agendas.
Stay away from them at all costs.
Tbh hate Polygon too, but, well, the only other big news sites on my head were Kotaku and IGN, and Kotaku is even worse and IGN are AAA lapdog sellouts who'd never cover this.
Try to contact PCGamesN (www.pcgamesn.com). Also Ars Technica is not lapdog of big names.
And I think that RPG sites likes RPGCodex, RPGWatch or Gamebanshee wont have problem with publishing similar news. :)
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RESPONSE - Bethesda claims its coincidence:
Escapistmagazine.com
That's so disgraceful! Bethesda is the worst developer out there.
First they couldn't come up with their own IP, so they bought Fallout. Then they made Fallout 3 which was a lousy and unimaginative retcon of earlier Fallout games. And now this? Can they do anything original?
Even Todd Howard himself calls their own IP, Elder Scrolls, generic.
Bethesda are scumbags.
Yep they release remakes of the shittiest game they made 5x instead of creating something new.
Woah, yeah that's no coincidence buddy.
That's plagiarism right there,
if you sued them for this, you wouldn't lose.
yeah plagiarism! that's the word!
I'd wager there's an easy out for Bethesda to claim ownership of stuff made on mods.
Sorry to break it to ya, but I don't think you know what plagiarism is, or even read the entire post. And yes, he would lose if he sued. He's using assets and ideas from the Fallout franchise.
well not plagiarism in the legal sense but Bethesda are still lazy copycats
A) Has the original mod owner been reached for comment? He may have been contacted by Bethesda at any point.
B) Anything made with the Creation Kit is owned by Bethesda. It's in the EULA that you have to agree to in order to use it. It's been this way since Morrowind and allowed Bethesda to stop anyone monetising the mods.
Beth$oft has obviously not given any credit to the original creator who they stole from.
As chazn21339695561 said, they technically did not steal anything. Everything build with the Creation Kit belongs to Bethesda per EULA of the CK and before it of the CS.
It is just that nobody paid any heed to those:
"You automatically grant to Bethesda Softworks the irrevocable, perpetual, royalty free, sublicensable right and license under all applicable copyrights and intellectual property rights laws to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, perform, display, distribute and otherwise exploit and/or dispose of the New Materials (or any part of the New Materials) in any way Bethesda Softworks, or its respective designee(s), sees fit."
Btw I dislike Bethesda as much as you do, it is just that this was in place since the release of Morrowind's CS - and nobody cared, at all.
I get you! To clarify I didn't mean "steal" in a legal sense.
Even though it's totally legal for the lazy hacks at Bethesda to use modders stuff however they want it's a bit unethical.
"A) Has the original mod owner been reached for comment? He may have been contacted by Bethesda at any point."
This post is FROM the original mod creator.
If you read the post, no... it is not.
The author is one of the mod's developers.
Shameful. Some compensation from Bethesda is a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of revenue they got from the DLC. While not technically illegal it's just a terrible gesture to the community that supports them.
Great post, thanks for sharing, lets hope you get the recognition you deserve!
Thanks for the support, people. I really appreciate it. <3
(buried)
People are all freaking out yelling "PLAGIARISM!!!" but then you have to realize... all of the quests for the game and even the dlc are made months in advance of the release. Those of you saying that the author of the mod would win in court are sorely wrong too... you must realize that bethesda would have hundreds of lawyers and much evidence to support their explanation of how, like i said earlier, the quests and maps are the first things they work on. So sorry although it seems like it, there's not much evidence towards plagiarism, and like bethesda said it's just a coincidense.
Did you even read what he posted here? He created this before Fallout 4 was released, and well before the DLC was released. DLC isn't necessarily created months in advance, and certainly not necessarily before release of the game in all circumstances. Yes, we don't know when they developed this DLC, but we do know they didn't release it until 6 months after the initial game. So it's highly unlikely this DLC was worked on prior to the original game's completion.
So don't spout nonsense as fact when we don't know the actual details of the situation. You're just as bad as the people you're criticizing.
(buried)
Bethesda began developing the dlc before the actual game released because it was one of their many quick fire ideas that they randomly brainstorm towards the end of a project so it easily could have been in development for a long time (5-6 months in advance in this case)... you have to think when it comes to developing games. it takes a long time to develop anything and large games or dlc especially take some time... all i was saying though is that this would be evidence that bethesda would present if the situation was taken to court
Again, you're basing this on speculation of how Bethesda develops their games. There's literally zero information on when development started and how long it took for the DLC. This very well could be evidence Bethesda presents if it goes that far, IF that's the actual case. You're doing nothing but speculating, which is exactly what you're criticizing others for doing.
There's far too little we know to blindly assume the way that you are that Bethesda had all of this in place prior to the release of this mod. Yes, they could have conceptually developed the DLC prior to the games' release, but the details presented create enough speculation to suggest that's not necessarily the case, and can't be so easily assumed with absolutely zero evidence supporting it.
Poland is with you :)
Gry-online.pl
Fu** Bethesda
I feel like people are getting more violent then the actual mod author is.
Like, im sure the mod author himself can confront bethesda about it if he sees it as enough of a problem, but the anti bethesda drone army always gets to these first.
I think Bethesda sucks, and don't you even forget when they tried to sell Skyrim mods with Valve.
They didnt force anyone to charge for there mods though, people chose themselves to follow with the program.
God you're such a tool.
Hmmm...
So, if you liked Brain Dead, want to play a "Whodunit”, but with entirely different themes, different writing, different plot, different music (!) different voice acting (!!) don’t hesitate to download Autumn Leaves.
That is the original authors own words. So he is even saying that the similarities are less than the differences.
People still talking "Fallout 4 is a good game".
I will be publishing another post in the next hours. In the meantime, I'd recommend reading this article : Nymag.com
Prntscr.com btpvn9 Coincidence?
They say learn from the best.
Obviously they ripped you off. But they own the IP, so you dont have any legal recourse, unless you were to try to claim the story itself as what was stolen....
Oh no a company integrated user content into their game, the same one you freely and openly made content for.....
Gimme a break. You know full well that you cant charge for your user-created content and that its not really yours since you made it with someone else's game.
All true, but its still REALLY low for a developer/publisher to steal ideas from its customer base, especially without giving so much as a nod or mention in the credits.
You sound like a right idiot
Well i noticed this before.
lmao, first they tried monetizing mods, that backfired.
Now they literally take content made by community and put a price tag on it, not even giving anything to the original dev. Bethesda has done this same thing before so im not surprised.