Starfield Pre-Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Clockwork Knight]

I was about to post that. Being able to pick up things makes the world seem more real, even if there's little use for it in the vanilla game. People used to cum buckets over Shenmue because it lets you look inside drawers in NPC houses, instead of using a typical interact menu.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

You don't realize how much is added by many small features until you play a knockoff game like outer worlds.

 

[Caim]

Betheseda games have a lot of those tiny details, yes, even if some of them aren't fully implemented. Look at the whole goblin tribe war thing in Oblivion:



Long story short, if you steal a tribe's staff and plant it somewhere you can trigger a goblin raid. And with all Bethesda games, mods fix it.

 

[Silverfish]

You don't realize how much is added by many small features until you play a knockoff game like outer worlds.

TOW was exactly what I had in mind. Beth's formula, but minus anything to divert your attention from the critical path. Say what you will about Todd, but if it were easy, everybody would be doing it.

 

[NecroLord]

 

[SharkClub]

Also, Microsoft acquisition might be the only thing that kept this trainwreck from coming out on 11.11.22. I bet they overrode the decision once they saw in what state the game was.

B-but... muh meme release date!

 

[Child of Malkav]

Can't believe it. A page defending Bethesda. I mean, it kinda makes sense and all but.... it's Bethesda, we gotta get our priorities straight.
Btw, why do you mean by theme park design? Curious.

 

[Caim]

Btw, why do you mean by theme park design? Curious.

It's when an open world is designed to lead the players through a series of the game's biggest and most impressive locations to make sure that they see the best the game has to offer during their playthrough. It's still an open world and you go wherever, but there is a significant contrast between the size and quality of the locations of the main quest and various side quests series compared to the other locations.

Skyrim is an obvious example of this: look at the locations of the main quests and faction quests compared to the rest of the game. There's a few more interesting ones out there, but at the end of the day it just works is of a lesser scale and quality.

 

[Latelistener]

Btw, why do you mean by theme park design? Curious.

The opposite of sandbox and systemic design approach. Strictly handmade content that doesn't work without a player, like main quest or guild storylines.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

only faction I found when playing skyrim was the mages guild, feels kind of overstated to me idk
once the game let me leave the intro area I just picked a direction that looked good and went off that way, I didn't follow any quests, played until I got bored

 

[Butter]

only faction I found when playing skyrim was the mages guild, feels kind of overstated to me idk
once the game let me leave the intro area I just picked a direction that looked good and went off that way, I didn't follow any quests, played until I got bored

Well no wonder you only found one guild if you stopped playing after 30 minutes.

 

[Robotigan]

Btw, why do you mean by theme park design? Curious.

"Theme park" design is a term invented by people who really hate World of Warcraft and wanted to disparage that game while maintaining the veneer of impartiality. In theory it should mean a design where player is intended to play through bespoke, linear levels that promise fun the whole way through. And in theory the alternative is a "sandbox" game that is more open and driven by the player's own agency and experimentation within the world. And in theory there are advantages and disadvantages to either design and it all depends on the game's execution.

But in practice, theme park is always used as a derogatory term. Because it was invented by people who were angry that WoW's enormous success spawned a bunch of theme park-esque copycats and dried up interest in the older, more free form MMORPGs. Minecraft's success spawned like a zillion mediocre survival crafting sandboxes and yet no one seems to want to call them that, because it would be an implicit acknowledgement that sandbox != better design.

The lesson is that if you rely on lazy heuristics to inform the games you play, you'll wind up playing bland knock-offs sooner or later.

 

[Robotigan]

Skyrim is an obvious example of this: look at the locations of the main quests and faction quests compared to the rest of the game. There's a few more interesting ones out there, but at the end of the day it just works is of a lesser scale and quality.

Also Skyrim is very obviously more sandboxy than theme park, so I have no idea what this guy is talking about.

 

[King Crispy]

The bugs in Starfield are going to be SPECTACULAR.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I disagree that skyrim is thempark, iirc your map has (almost?) nothing on it at all from the start. You're heavily encouraged to explore and find stuff yourself.

This is themepark:

Themepark tells you exactly where to go to find the content.

Contrast:

 

[NecroLord]

I agree.
Elder Scrolls games are not "themeparks". Whether it's Daggerfall, Oblivion or even Skyrim. You have the choice of whether or not you want to explore or do whatever else.
In Morrowind, for example, you have to explore and ask people for rumors and directions to find some of the more obscure areas of the game. Hell, you can even find a talking mudcrab merchant, who has 10000 septims available for trade.
Your beloved Glitcher 3 is, however, a themepark.

 

[thesecret1]

Themeparks design has nothing to do with whether you are told to go somewhere or not, themepark design means the various locations tend to be self-contained and have absolutely no relation to anything else. Fallout 3 is a good example of themepark design, with many locations having some sort of a theme (super hero fight! Little kids running a town! Vampires! etc. etc.), whose effects (once resolved in any way) have no impact on anything whatsoever and which often don't even make any sense in the world at large. They're themepark rides – they have no influence past the area they physically contain, their surroundings (the rest of the themepark) don't match them, and whether you take the ride or not doesn't affect the themepark at large.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Themeparks design has nothing to do with whether you are told to go somewhere or not, themepark design means the various locations tend to be self-contained and have absolutely no relation to anything else. Fallout 3 is a good example of themepark design, with many locations having some sort of a theme (super hero fight! Little kids running a town! Vampires! etc. etc.), whose effects (once resolved in any way) have no impact on anything whatsoever and which often don't even make any sense in the world at large. They're themepark rides – they have no influence past the area they physically contain, their surroundings (the rest of the themepark) don't match them, and whether you take the ride or not doesn't affect the themepark at large.

I don't understand how kids running a town is unrelated to the world at large in a post apocalyptic world.

 

[thesecret1]

I don't understand how kids running a town is unrelated to the world at large in a post apocalyptic world.

The other NPCs around the world don't give a shit, how they could actually survive (food sources, defenses, etc. etc.) is given no thought, even what they actually do is left unexplained as you never see one of them outside their little town ever to do a little scavenging or whatever. They exist solely to give the player his themepark ride, no thought is put into them past that, and they may as well stop existing entirely after you're done questing there.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I don't understand how kids running a town is unrelated to the world at large in a post apocalyptic world.

The other NPCs around the world don't give a shit, how they could actually survive (food sources, defenses, etc. etc.) is given no thought, even what they actually do is left unexplained as you never see one of them outside their little town ever to do a little scavenging or whatever. They exist solely to give the player his themepark ride, no thought is put into them past that, and they may as well stop existing entirely after you're done questing there.

I disagree.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Skyrim is an obvious example of this: look at the locations of the main quests and faction quests compared to the rest of the game. There's a few more interesting ones out there, but at the end of the day it just works is of a lesser scale and quality.

Also Skyrim is very obviously more sandboxy than theme park, so I have no idea what this guy is talking about.

Yes, in terms of game mechanics it is sandboxy.

I think that what people usually mean with "theme park" is more from a geographical point of view, when you have obviously makeshift worlds where "attractions" are crammed together like in a theme park.

I, personally, if there is not a good reason to have everything crammed together, prefer sparse open worlds with meaningful ways to traverse them. However usually people are scared of sparse open worlds and cry hysterically if they don't find their attractions right in front of them.

 

[Robotigan]

Themeparks design has nothing to do with whether you are told to go somewhere or not, themepark design means the various locations tend to be self-contained and have absolutely no relation to anything else. Fallout 3 is a good example of themepark design, with many locations having some sort of a theme (super hero fight! Little kids running a town! Vampires! etc. etc.), whose effects (once resolved in any way) have no impact on anything whatsoever and which often don't even make any sense in the world at large. They're themepark rides – they have no influence past the area they physically contain, their surroundings (the rest of the themepark) don't match them, and whether you take the ride or not doesn't affect the themepark at large.

This is just critiquing narrative/setting concepts, I don't think it has anything to do with whether or not the game structure is a themepark. Otherwise you're saying Minecraft is a themepark for these same reasons which makes the term a bit fraught/useless.

 

[Modron]

The other NPCs around the world don't give a shit, how they could actually survive (food sources, defenses, etc. etc.) is given no thought, even what they actually do is left unexplained as you never see one of them outside their little town ever to do a little scavenging or whatever. They exist solely to give the player his themepark ride, no thought is put into them past that, and they may as well stop existing entirely after you're done questing there.

I disagree.

Rusty is right it's perfectly explained in the game that children are immortal duh.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The other NPCs around the world don't give a shit, how they could actually survive (food sources, defenses, etc. etc.) is given no thought, even what they actually do is left unexplained as you never see one of them outside their little town ever to do a little scavenging or whatever. They exist solely to give the player his themepark ride, no thought is put into them past that, and they may as well stop existing entirely after you're done questing there.

I disagree.

Rusty is right it's perfectly explained in the game that children are immortal duh.

There's plenty of reasons for a settlement of only children to exist. Most obvious: children running and hiding during a raid, the adults get murdered or captured.

 

[Butter]

There's plenty of reasons for a settlement of only children to exist. Most obvious: children running and hiding during a raid, the adults get murdered or captured.

Little Lamplight has existed as a settlement of only children since the Great War (i.e. for 200 years).