Seriously... there are plenty of us on here that have honest, valid questions. Why doesn't he just get on the forums and answer questions for a few hours or something.

And I'm not just talking about generic questions that are rigged from the beginning to be answered in a positive, misleading way. I'm talking about from-the-heart honest-to-goodness legit questions. Like "Why did you decide to break away from your PC fan base?" or "What made you think that such-and-such quest line was acceptable in length and dynamics?" or "Why didn't you guys actually level a character to find out that [subject] isn't balanced at all?"

et cetera

Thousands of questions, no Todd Howard? Why?

Because of all the trolls / baseless complaints.

Let the trolls get banned then, and let him answer all of the honest questions.

Edit: They could just make an official post, let people ask one question, ban the trolls, close the board, and let Todd post answers to the legit questions. It isn't like he's going to get hit with a tomato or anything.

Maybe he had a dentist's appointment.

Or, maybe he's wise enough to know that doing what you suggest is an exercise in diminishing returns.

It's also possible that he doesn't want to start a trend in which thousands of mouth-breathing fans and haters bug him from dawn to dusk.

But personally I think it was the dentist.

Because the answer to those questions would require him to give extensive courses in game design and project management. I don't think Bethesda wants to double as a University.

Yea they used to be here a lot and it was good, until the cold morning of Trollfall. I still hear the rants in my head, I try to forget that day...but to no avail.

He took an arrow in the knee

B/c if he b.s. his way out of those questions he'd be a politician.

Interesting...

I wonder why too. Perhaps he has had a great deal of experience dealing with the sorts of questions and vitriol seen on the boards, and he has the good sense to stay away.

Maybe he is concentrating on working with the teams to patch things up, or on holiday after the media circus he has had to deal with for the past six months.

He might be setting the groundwork for the next Fallout, or even the DLC final stage stuff for Skyrim.

Who knows.

Of course, that's why Bioware designers never comment on their games. Oh wait, they do! And they put it laymen's terms so that the fans can understand.

man, I'd love it if they did though.

edit: multiquote button fail

Seriously, If he would get on here with his teddy bear face for an avatar, and give real answers to real questions a lot of us would feel like he actually cared beyond the $60.00

Mr. Howard hasn't been chatty on these forums for a really long time, if at all. I assume he posted more on Bethesda's forums back with the company had less than ten staff (before Morrowwind).

hats off to you sir.

You might as well ask Bob Dylan why his voice is different on Nashville Skyline. Skyline... Skyrim.... Hmm. We might be on to something there. Todd is Bob Dylan.

Everyone wants a different game, Skyrim is the game Bethesda wanted. It may not be the game someone else wanted, and for them there's the construction kit or Modern Warfare 3.

There's a significant difference between commenting on your games and answering questions on everything like the OP wants. There's lots of things Bioware doesn't comment on.

I love Zoeller as much as the next guy. I'm a really devoted fan. But him remarking on the fact that daggers were borked and not utilizing dexterity properly is not the same as "Why didn't you guys actually level a character to find out that [subject] isn't balanced at all?"

"Thousands of questions" That would be your answer.

That's because the guys at Bioware don't recieve verbal assault because they "didn't include spears" or some other [censored].

Why bother? Majority of fans and consumers do no have the chutzpah to voice their opinion in the only way that matters - with their wallet.

Bugs and all, the DLC will come and the DLC will be gobbled up. The expansion will come, and the expansion will be gobbled up. Eventually they will roll out TES VI and it will be gobbled up.

It will be the same old ridiculous port. It will be even more streamlined. Less features, less armor, less dialogue. Fans will complain all over again like a vicious cycle, but they will buy it. Too many people, too big a cult following, too great a desire for the game to be epic - whatever it may or may not be.

So why spend time answering forum posts?

Because at the end of the day all that matters to a company is the bottom line.

Because Todd is J Sawyer.

It's not his job.

But the lead developer of DA2 (forgot the name) didn't show his face on BW forums for months after DA2's release because of the ...people the forums were full of. That applies here too

why would you want him spending his time answering our questions? wouldnt you rather he focus his attention to getting them fixed and the patch to be released as soon as possible?

Those are rigged from the beginning... Only answer he can give is "sorry, I was wrong".

That example was slightly exaggerated, and I surely wouldn't ask that exact question if I only had one question to ask. I was just trying to make a point. It isn't going to hurt him to accept a few hundred questions and answer 12 of them to the best of his ability once in his lifetime. After all, he sold us the game.

This was done with a combat flight simulator i was heavily involved with, the main developer regularly posted and was involved in conversation with anyone that he could answer, when he was online every few days, for a number of hours. Went on for years.

It ended up making the guy extremely wary and distrustful of his own fan base because they couldn't control themselves when they 'spoke' to him. It's an open invitation for haters to vent their spleen and it's a bad idea. The people were very rude, unfair, and vindictive. Accusations about everything from national bias towards the nazis in WWII and up to comments on his personal life. I saw it.

But I'm telling you, Howard is at his dentist's. Just a good cleaning.