Starfield - Epic Shit Takes from Bethestards

[Stella Brando]

Todd is a strange character. The media sometimes portrays him as the nerd who lives the impossible dream of making video games for a living, but this doesn't seem right to me. He's not a classical nerd, he's in a class of his own. And since when were nerds kept out of the gaming industry?

I'm struggling to think of someone to compare him to. His main class features seem to be a lack of imagination and a dislike of complexity. Nerds have always been imaginative -- look at science-fiction and fantasy. Todd's type is different.

He's a manlet who likes sports. Never had the athleticism to actually play, so he played sports video games. Then he glommed on to the most basic and superficial aspects of Bethesda's RPGs (You can go Anywhere!) and lucked into the position of being in charge. This is where his min-maxed charisma came into play. Being friends with Altman had it's benefits.

Every time I hear about this Altman character, I picture the director of McCabe & Mrs Miller running a game studio.

 

[Vyvian]

Todd just sounds tired lately. I think he's about done honestly.

 

[Fedora Master]

Starfield was somewhat redeemable as an exploration looter shooter game with starvival and deadly hazards mod paired together.

"It was somewhat good if you ignored the story and modded it" applies to ALL BETHESDA GAMES

 

[Child of Malkav]

Todd just sounds tired lately. I think he's about done honestly.

Of course he is. Lying all the time with a straight face takes its toll.
BTW this reminded me of a joke: an 80 year old woman starts jogging one day and after a few meters shes stops to catch her breath. She hears a voice. It's her heart, telling her: "Bitch, either you're stopping, or I am."

 

[Devastator]

Todd just sounds tired lately. I think he's about done honestly.

Of course he is. Lying all the time with a straight face takes its toll.
BTW this reminded me of a joke: an 80 year old woman starts jogging one day and after a few meters shes stops to catch her breath. She hears a voice. It's her heart, telling her: "Bitch, either you're stopping, or I am."

There doesn't seem to be any enjoyment or passion left in his job. When your lifestyle is under control, you eventually amass more money than you can spend. While a larger paycheck is appealing, you come to realize there's little fulfillment in your work. Thus, you begin to plan your next move. Frankly, I don't see the point in him staying on for another TES or Fallout release. If he derived joy from engaging with the public or felt a desperate need for it, then this would be the ideal job for him. However, in such a scenario, it should invigorate him rather than leave him looking exhausted. Instead, he should seek a managerial role free from the burdens of PR nonsense. He's a master manipulator, adept at overpromising yet delivering just enough, and very skilled at conning his fan base. I believe he's had a remarkable run.

 

[Child of Malkav]

He's a master manipulator, adept at overpromising yet delivering just enough, and very skilled at conning his fan base. I believe he's had a remarkable run.

A remarkable run and just a remarkable stupid fanbase that likes to eat shit and order double.

 

[Devastator]

He's a master manipulator, adept at overpromising yet delivering just enough, and very skilled at conning his fan base. I believe he's had a remarkable run.

A remarkable run and just a remarkable stupid fanbase that likes to eat shit and order double.

Of course. I would not ever deny his despicability. He is simply the result of supply and demand.

Alas, the masses have developed a voracious appetite for shit; hence the demand. So... There arises the need for a purveyor of shit. Which is no ordinary job. It has to be one who not only supplies the shit but also sprinkles it with a veneer of joy, convincing their worshippers that this year's shit surpasses that of yesteryear.

Enter Todd, the virtuoso of feculence.

 

[Lemming42]

An alternative explanation might be that people enjoy the games.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/t...oo-different-than-youve-seen-from-us-in-past/

Moving past the clickbait headline, this seems to be the first step taken by Todd Howard towards admitting that Starfield was a fundamentally different type of game from the subgenre established by Morrowind, though he's still pretending that complaints are prompted by the players being required to do things in a "certain way" rather than the underlying game design.

 

[ArchAngel]

An alternative explanation might be that people enjoy the games.

People are dumb. Proof is that they vote for Biden.

 

[ind33d]

The new weight limitations completely change the game. Before, you would only loot legendary weapons (and ammo because it's weightless) and leave helmets, packs, etc. on the ground. Now, deciding an exact balance of how much food, water, medicine, and ammunition to carry is very interesting. Also we know what ship doctors were supposed to be for, since with the new difficulty settings, conditions worsen over time and require a physician to heal.

Bethesda should remove the whole mining sequence at the beginning and start you on a random planet with no spaceship. The intro only serves to set up the Crimson Fleet as villains, except the majority of the game's content consists of running missions for them, so even narratively it's a total waste of time. Make the first artifact spawn in a randomly generated cave on your starting planet and have Barrett appear randomly later on like the Dark Brotherhood attacks in Morrowind.

It would have been much better if you started by doing Activities (Terrabrew coffee delivery mission, scanning planets, eavesdropping on Akila), ended up hired as the crewmate for a faction's ship, THEN bought a piece of junk of your own just to leave your initial system. The power process is all fucked up. Why would I deliver someone's coffee AFTER I already own a fucking starship?

Also, ships are way too good by default. There should be Class 0 Ugly ships whose grav jumps always end up in the wrong place, engines fail, weapons misfire, etc. Starting as a mediocre ship and getting slightly better is way less impressive than starting with a Space Ford Fiesta and graduating to The Normandy.

There was probably supposed to be a way to build other Lodges and connect them in a jump network or something (Propylon Index), since as-is, settlements are a waste of time.

 

[Old Hans]

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/t...oo-different-than-youve-seen-from-us-in-past/

Moving past the clickbait headline, this seems to be the first step taken by Todd Howard towards admitting that Starfield was a fundamentally different type of game from the subgenre established by Morrowind, though he's still pretending that complaints are prompted by the players being required to do things in a "certain way" rather than the underlying game design.

cant wait till years from now, when he finally admits the game was total garbage

 

[markec]

An alternative explanation might be that people enjoy the games.

People are dumb. Proof is that they vote for Biden.

Many Codexers fail to understand that majority of people who play games are normies that have low standards.

 

[Konjad]

And although Howard thinks that's "perfectly understandable," he says it's just not the experience Starfield sets out to provide. "I do think for us—particularly me—going into a science-fiction game, I want to be able to land on all the planets. I want the game to say 'Yes' to us, knowing that that content is gonna be different than you've seen from us in the past."

I like Todd but his head seems stuck in, like, 1990. He still seems to think Starflight is the pinnacle of gaming because you can "go anywhere" (which was also his favourite thing about Arena, apparently). Doesn't matter that there's nothing to actually do when you land, the appeal is simply that you can go anywhere.

If Starfield had released in 1990 - exact same game, but with older technology and released on DOS - it would definitely have been an all-time classic that people would still be playing/pretending to have played today, and would have been absolutely seismic and influenced games to this day. But it's not 1990, it's 2024, and I don't get how he can still think it's impressive to be able to click on a planet and be greeted with a giant empty procgen space with nothing in it. Even Mass Effect already did this with the shitty Mako maps. His "dream game" is shit that's already been done over and over again. He literally thinks, speaks and acts like someone who's been in a coma for three decades and has just woke up.

Next up he'll release a game that plays exactly like Wolfenstein 3D and enthuse that "it's my dream game because you're in first person, it's like you're really there".

I'm pretty sure he doesn't play non-Bethesda games that aren't sport games. He never did, and he is simply not interested in playing. That's why he's so out of touch that he has no idea 'you can travel anywhere' in hundreds of games by now - for him Starfield was the first game he could travel anywhere.

 

[Hydro]

So has it flopped?

 

[Hydro]

Inconclusive. I hope it has. I dream seeing Bethesda going bust for all it’s done to Fallout.

 

[ArchAngel]

Inconclusive. I hope it has. I dream seeing Bethesda going bust for all it’s done to Fallout.

M$ bought Bethesda, I doubt it is going bust anytime soon.

 

[ind33d]

Inconclusive. I hope it has. I dream seeing Bethesda going bust for all it’s done to Fallout.

76 is probably better than fallout 2

Enhance clinics in SF should have more gameplay ramifications. Giving your character bionic eyes for night vision or gills to breathe underwater would be interesting. Problem is the game is already too easy, so cybernetic augmentations might make things worse

 

[Robotigan]

i heard DLC are less subject to Sweet B*by oversight, it's possible that todd purposely delayed House Varuun to bypass censors because the vetting process is frontloaded

Bethesda has never used Sweet Baby.

 

[Robotigan]

Looking forward to more space

Enhance clinics in SF should have more gameplay ramifications. Giving your character bionic eyes for night vision or gills to breathe underwater would be interesting. Problem is the game is already too easy, so cybernetic augmentations might make things worse

Why would you need body augmentations to breathe underwater when you're already wearing a pressurized suit with oxygen tanks?

 

[Lord_Potato]

Reminder that Starfield does not allow diving and underwater exploration.

 

[Butter]

Reminder that Starfield does not allow diving and underwater exploration.

I would almost bump it up a grade if it had explorable ocean worlds like Kamino.

 

[ind33d]

Reminder that Starfield does not allow diving and underwater exploration.

I would almost bump it up a grade if it had explorable ocean worlds like Kamino.

actually yeah, New Atlantis not having a place to swim is giga-retarded

 

[ArchAngel]

Reminder that Starfield does not allow diving and underwater exploration.

I would almost bump it up a grade if it had explorable ocean worlds like Kamino.

actually yeah, New Atlantis not having a place to swim is giga-retarded

Not like there would be anything interesting below water lol..

 

[Late Bloomer]

I would almost bump it up a grade if it had explorable ocean worlds like Kamino.

So an F to a D-