I agree with your point, a few harmless bugs and glitches here and there should not doom a game.

However, while gaming media and gaming critics love to complain about problems in games like AC Unity and Batman, they become like the Three Wise Monkeys when it comes to a big Bethesda release: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

Pretty much this.

I'm not.
I will judge after release.
DRM aspect aside, I have extremely low expectations for that game, though. After Oblivion and Fallout 3 (imo one of the lamest games I have ever played, regardless of what the majority may say) and the oversimplification Bethesda brought to everything, I simply find impossible to enjoy their games any more. Just going around messing in empty spaces gathering the usual standard loot gives me nothing; a good open world game should always be full of interesting things and surprises rewarding your exploration; in Gothic, for exaple, every little bit of the map had something interesting to discover, regardless of its usefulness; in Bethesda's games you always end up in identical dungeons to loot chests or drawers for mostly useless crap to sell later. At least in Morrowind you could go around searching for legendary items by following rumors or plundering dangerous areas... thinking that in Oblivion you could get them only after doing a mission for Daedra lords should tell you something about Bethesda's current philosophy.
Also, I think Bethsoft has by far the worst writers in the AAA industry (Oblivion's quests were ridiculous, and Fallout 3 is so unbelievably imbecilic to forget even the basics of narrative) and the atmosphere falls flat after a short while. Of course, when you exit Vault 101 the feeling is awesome... but what you see in the first 5 minutes is all you'll ever see for the rest of the 100 hours.
From the little I read, Fallout 4 promises to be even worse, especially with that awful "yes, no, what?, bye!" dialogue scheme.

Edit: Oh, and all this is without counting the fact that (considering their past games) Fallout 4 will be so buggy to be still barely playable in January. On PC. On consoles, God knows how long it will need... I'm talking from direct experience, having played Fallout 3 on the Xbox 360 and having tried New Vegas on a friend's PS3 (there, the game is still devastatingly bugged).

Bethesda has such a strong fanboy-ish stronghold in gaming media.
How this media treats Bethesda and their franchises compared to that of others is what annoys me.

The first time you'll hear mentions of bugs and glitches in a big Bethesda release is on forums such as this one, you won't hear about it in gaming media. That is where the problem lies.

Reviewers and critics are supposed to warn us about these things yet turn a blind eye when it comes to certain games and franchises. If people need proof of just how opportunistic and unscrupulous gaming media is the case of Bethesda is a shining example.

Given the history of bugs/issues with Bethesda games; I'll probably wait for a community fix or two. We all know they'll throw it to the community after a few months, because bug fixing is harder than making the game apparently :3

I'm intrigued byt FO4. Not enough to buy it blindly mind you, but enough to see the reviews and then decide the proper procedure for approach.

Personally I really liked the gameplay of FO3. The story was crap, but the gameplay was fun (this coming from a fan of FO1+2). Vew Vegas I also liked, i think, to same extent I liked FO3. The story is better in it as well.

For me Skyrim crashed whenever I did the final battle at the end of the game, so I could not even finish the game.
Not being able to finish a game because of bugs is a pretty big issue to put things mildly.
Two of the longer side-missions also bugged out on me, after having taken many hours to "complete".
Then there's the funny bug where the game crashed whenever I entered water, funny because my character was an Argonian...the capable-of-breathing-underwater race.

Even the most buggy and glitchy of games I've played, which includes titles like Star Trek the 2013 game and Colonial Marines, had less issues for me than Skyrim. So which is the best one if you ask me...Skyrim, Star Trek (2013) or Colonial Marines ? Not Skyrim, that's for sure.

I'm in the group maybe buying it in 2020 or so. I've yet to finish the earlier Fallout games (I've gotten out of the vault in the first Fallout, though). I kinda wish the main story campaign in TES: Arena would be shorter. So this staff is like in 8 pieces, and you have to get each piece one by one from different dungeons. You always have to clear two dungeons per piece, the first as a favor to some ruler, and then he/she will tell you in which dungeon the next piece is.

All the dungeons and places feel so similar, there's no incentive to see new places, and I think my character is already quite puffed up at level 14, I've bought all the spells already, I can kill pretty much all enemies with my mere fists (even though I am a mage), I have more money that I know where to spend etc. I just found the third piece of the staff, I kinda wish there would be only one more piece to find or so.

I'm so fed up now that I just try to run through the dungeons without fighting, only fighting if the enemy blocks a narrow corridor so I can't simply run past. Well, at least the game allows that, it could be worse like all the RPGs with random encounters where you have to stop to fight (even though you can try to flee from the battle maybe).

I must surely be the luckiest son-of-a-bitch in gaming or something. I've played Daggerfall, Morrowind (PC), Oblivion (360), Fallout 3 twice with all DLC (PC) and Fallout NV all DLC (360) twice without any real bugs or crashing issues at all. I'm serious. And the only community patch i've ever used was for Daggerfall which does truly need it.
The biggest crash fest i've ever played is The Witcher and no one ever seems to mention that aspect of the game around these parts.

Story? Who gives a fuck. Role playing is about forging your own story, your own destiny, in your own way. Not being pulled around by scripting and fucking cutscenes all the time, which seems to be what most people mean by story. And if that's what you like, what's the problem?- it's not like there's a lack of that sort of game around.

So yeah, if they give me another huge world to explore inch by inch in any way i feel like in my own time, then i'll be happy enough. And every one else can whine like a bunch of Emo kiddies all they like. Millions of people will just be getting on with having fun in their own way.
My only reservation is the wastelands are starting to look a bit too civilized from what i've seen so far.

No man you are certainly not alone. The machinery of generating and sustaining hype is in full action.
As to be expected games that are more niche, like Siege, are not sexy enough for our gaming media.
Personally, the only triple-a titles I was interested in this fall/winter was Mad Max and Forza 6.

What some of us are reacting to is the double-faced nature of our gaming media, not what individual gamers think of these games.

For example why is the idea of 'forging your own story' only a valid argument when it comes to certain games like Fallout, Scrolls or even Dark Souls ? When other games offer the very same idea or intent our gaming media, and gaming critics too, tend to react by considering these games to have poor and shallow storylines and characters.

When the latest Scrolls or Fallout game offers shallow and dumb NPCs it goes unmentioned by our media, when other developers do the same in their RPGs it dramatically becomes a serious issue. The game is then mocked and dragged through the mud for years.

The clear lack of consistency shows a severe lack of integrity in our gaming media.

I wouldn't know about that, i don't read the media much- especially the gaming media. What i was reacting to really was the title of the thread and directly responding to some others, classify the Bethesda games as dull, boring and whatever.
For what it's worth i don't really rate any of the TES games very highly, but both FO3 and FONV are in my top 5 list. If you consider FONV is deved by Obsidian, then the only actual Bethesda game i truly like a lot is FO3. So i'd hardly say i'm a fanboy or anything only liking one of their games. But if FO4 is more of FO3, then i'm looking forward to it for sure. What the media says i will never even know unless someone tells me.

38 minutes till it's installed... I wonder how big the patch will be though?

EDIT: and it's 00:43 and I need to get up at 06:30 for work. Make that five-and-a-half-hours till it's installed due to shitty Australian internet download speeds :'(

if i remember correctly, the big disappointment was on graphics, which to me is just stupid, since that's not what the game is about. the game is about wandering around and exploring, not top of the line graphics. To me, it's equivalent to someone bitching about it not having multiplayer.

Yeah, I hear you on buying on release from bethesda, and as I said before, this is my first pre-order ever, but I like the franchise well enough to deal with some minor hiccups. However, if it's assassin's creed bad, I will be thoroughly disappointed in Bethesda and will never buy a game from them again unless it's bargain bin. That said, if I didn't have a console and only PC I would never have pre-ordered it b/c of how bad those games still are on PC.

I'm very excited for it. Loved FO3, and lesser but still loved - FNV (and ofc FO1 and FO2).

Unfortunately, I won't be buying it. That's because of 'things'.

Like:

* Requires online connection and (large?) download just to get it to run at all (I can understand a 'day 1 patch' but I should be able to load and run without that if I want).

* Saw something about a Season Pass someplace. Typically I'll pass on season passes until afterwards - when everything is out. (because: 1-I want to know what I'm getting before I get it. 2-I don't want my 'interest' in playing to be 'strung-along' by trickled out content - may as well wait and play it once with everything)

So, excited as I am - I will just wait for the GOTY or even later if I don't like the 'DRM' at that point in time...