It is more that some people have their heads sticked in Bethesda's ass than anything else as they usually get a lot of leeway on very buggy games.

In an ideal world, sure, but that clearly isn't the case. It's why we see indie games getting high 80's and low 90's metascores frequently, if they were being judged by AAA standards they wouldn't review anywhere near that high. Fallout 76 is a AA game if you really break down it's components and think about it, but it was judged as a AAA, judged as if it were a Bethesda Game Studios Maryland game. Admittedly though, Bethesda themselves are partly to blame for that, they marketed this game as if though it was the next mainline Fallout game. If they had been smart, marketed it as Fallout Online instead of as Fallout 76, made it clear that the Maryland studio didn't develop it but rather the new Austin studio, and released it at a AA $40 price instead of a AAA $60 price, the game would be reviewing much higher for sure. Hopefully they learned their lesson, they tried to market it as a AAA mainline in order to boost it's sales, and it bit them in the butt by killing the reviews. The poor reception on release is partially deserved, I just hope people don't let it color their opinion of the game in the future, there is a solid foundation here for a really good Fallout game after a year or 2 of updates and changes. I hope most Fallout fans will give it a chance in a few years, assuming it stays online that long, because this is the only Fallout they're getting until the middle of next-gen at the soonest, Starfield and TES 6 are coming before Fallout 5, I would put my money on Fallout 5 coming in 2024 or later. 

Came to say pretty much this. Bugthesda strikes again. It may or may not be the engine itself, but Gamebryo / Creation seems to be a shaky foundation for big Bethesda games. Whatever went wrong with FO3 / NV / Oblivion / Skyrim happened again. Bethesda fucked up with FO76. The code is buggy. They should assert(3) more.

Yeah, no.  It's more that people are enjoying themselves by playing what they want without letting people like you make their decisions for them.  If they're having more fun playing a buggy game than a polished game then that is their business.  You don't like it?  Too bad.  It's better than someone who has their head shoved up Metacritic's ass.

I don't have much of a problem with low review scores, to be honest.  I can't fault reviewers who run into frustrations or bugs during their limited play-time.  What I find fault with are the people who let haven't played the game, who probably weren't going to play the game to begin with, acting like review scores are all that matter.  People have had and will have tons of fun playing games with low Metascores.

If Fallout 76 was actually broken I'd agree with this, but it's not (I have only encountered 1 bug, an enemy stuck on a wall, in 12 hours or so personally). I honestly feel like it is being judged by the wrong standards. It seems like critics are judging it by the same standards as previous games by Bethesda Game Studios Maryland, a studio that consistently delivers 90+ quality games. But there is a big problem with that, Bethesda Game Studios Maryland didn't develop this game, it was developed by Bethesda Game Studios Austin, a studio that has never shipped a game before (their first game, Battlecry, got cancelled). Fallout 76 should be judged by the same standards that Elder Scrolls Online was judged by, as they were both developed by new, untested studios. But it doesn't seem like it is being judged by the same standards that Elder Scrolls Online got judged by, Elder Scrolls Online got a 71 meta on release (is now up to 80 after 3 years of updates), while Fallout 76 is sitting at a 49 meta, that is a huge difference. And having played both ESO and F76 on release, I can honestly say that Fallout 76 is better than ESO was on release. F76 actually plays like a Fallout game, with the main exceptions being the perk card mechanic and lack of NPC's, everything else feels like Fallout. ESO on the other hand at release felt like they just tried to make a traditional MMO WoW clone with Elder Scrolls themeing, it had terribly slow, action bar MMO combat that felt nothing like combat in mainline Elder Scrolls (thankfully it was improved on later updates). 

That being said, there is no harm in waiting to play it either. If it is anything like Elder Scrolls Online, it will only get better over time. Assuming it doesn't flop so bad that Bethesda closes the servers in a few months, I suspect they will update it, patch most of these bugs that others say they've encountered, add in voiced NPC's and proper questlines, etc. In 6 months most of the bugs should be ironed out and you should be able to find a copy for $20. 

The importance of mods for Bethesda games cannot be overstated, it adds so much to the experiences. It's equal parts funny and sad that community workaround and solutions have solved nearly all major issues in the last 3-4 major Bethesda titles. It's time they stepped back and took a long, hard look and started doing things a bit differently, and build a new engine for gods sake, it's laughable that they're planning on using the same engine for another 3-4 years at the very least.

I don't understand it. They have id Tech inhouse, why don't theya use that?

I think their (ID) engines are optimized for compact environments with little interaction and would require massive modifications to work in an open world setting. But they may as well make more use of the expertise of one of the oldest, still relevant developers in the industry today. ID are credited with a slew of technical breakthroughs and firsts, after all.

Common thats the "its more fun with friends" argument, we also saw with sea of theives.
Also people can enjoy bad games, and have fun in bad games. Their still  bad games though.

Anyways lets see what player base is like a month or two down the road.