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

[anvi]

No paper doll = not an rpg.

Oh for sure, FOR SURE the most important aspect of an RPG is making sure at least 35% of the inventory screen is covered by a character model. Its not really an RPG without it. Just doesn't feel right if you can see all your items at once, without scrolling for 20 seconds.

Retarded argument. You get a list of items and have to highlight items on the list so you can't see what you are wearing unless you scroll through a list. Yet 1000 years ago they had a paper doll that people loved and you could see all your gear and what slots were empty etc. Why the fuck would you argue for this to not exist?! It's retarded. They can't have such a basic QOL thing that every game has because they are too retarded to make it work on a console tard controller. That's how much they care about RPGs. Fuck you.

 

[EvilWolf]

No paper doll = not an rpg.

Oh for sure, FOR SURE the most important aspect of an RPG is making sure at least 35% of the inventory screen is covered by a character model. Its not really an RPG without it. Just doesn't feel right if you can see all your items at once, without scrolling for 20 seconds.

Retarded argument. You get a list of items and have to highlight items on the list so you can't see what you are wearing unless you scroll through a list. Yet 1000 years ago they had a paper doll that people loved and you could see all your gear and what slots were empty etc. Why the fuck would you argue for this to not exist?! It's retarded. They can't have such a basic QOL thing that every game has because they are too retarded to make it work on a console tard controller. That's how much they care about RPGs. Fuck you.

Your point is correct, but you can clearly see a 3D representation of your character in the screenshot. What are you complaining about?

 

[Curious_Tongue]

Is there any excitement for this game?

I forgot about it completely for a few months. It's coming out in a couple of days or something isn't it?

 

[Curious_Tongue]

Oh, Septemeber.

I can barely contain myself.

 

[Gargaune]

even bringing in Sean Bean as Isildur's Tiber's heir

Woah, woah, hold up! You actually made me look this up and... you're telling me even in videogames Sean Bean can't catch a break? Christ, Kenny in South Park ain't been fragged as much as this guy!

semantic

pedantic

 

[Jarmaro]

From Baldur's Gate 3's revival of the legendary Dungeons & Dragons series to Warhammer's fantasy football spin-off returning in Blood Bowl 3, 2023 looks to be a year defined by video games rooted in classic tabletop games both explicitly and more indirectly - and Bethesda's sci-fi adventure Starfield will be no different.

Starfield creative director Todd Howard openly cited the influence of tabletop RPG Traveller on the hotly-anticipated release last October, saying that the upcoming video game is "hearkening back to those old roleplaying games that we loved". There's an especially personal connection for Howard too, as he recalled programming a Traveller game for the Apple II computer as one of his earliest coding projects.

When it comes to old roleplaying games, there are few older than Traveller. Released in 1977, only a few years after Dungeons & Dragons revolutionised tabletop roleplaying, the sci-fi RPG has evolved over no fewer than a dozen editions in the last 40-plus years, changing hands along the way from original creator Game Designers' Workshop to current-day studio Mongoose Publishing.

(...)
In acknowledging the RPG's inspiration, Howard noted that "Traveller has a little more 'hard' science-fiction" - using the term typically used to indicate sci-fi rooted in real-life science and technology, even if it's with a forward-looking optimism.

While Traveller does include some more out-there ideas - such as psionics and telepathic powers - the universe also grounds itself with realistic rules such as the effect of Newtonian psychics on ships during space combat and the presence of more traditional firearms in the place of rayguns or blasters. Howard has previously confirmed that ship combat in Starfield will require players to manage systems such as shields, power output and weapons, adding to the sense of a more simulationist-flavoured experience.

https://www.eurogamer.net/whats-tra...tabletop-rpg-that-inspired-starfield#comments

Starfield officialy more RPG than The Elder Scrolls.

 

[anvi]

No paper doll = not an rpg.

Oh for sure, FOR SURE the most important aspect of an RPG is making sure at least 35% of the inventory screen is covered by a character model. Its not really an RPG without it. Just doesn't feel right if you can see all your items at once, without scrolling for 20 seconds.

Retarded argument. You get a list of items and have to highlight items on the list so you can't see what you are wearing unless you scroll through a list. Yet 1000 years ago they had a paper doll that people loved and you could see all your gear and what slots were empty etc. Why the fuck would you argue for this to not exist?! It's retarded. They can't have such a basic QOL thing that every game has because they are too retarded to make it work on a console tard controller. That's how much they care about RPGs. Fuck you.

Your point is correct, but you can clearly see a 3D representation of your character in the screenshot. What are you complaining about?

The 3D representation or animation doesn't even matter, the point is being able to see what slots you have and what's in them.

 

[whydoibother]

The 3D representation or animation doesn't even matter, the point is being able to see what slots you have and what's in them.

Except that's what everyone else is talking about. The big loss of real estate in the middle of the screen, occupied by a picture of your character (or item in Skyrim) instead of more items for the list or relevant information about the cumulative effect of your gear.

 

[anvi]

That screen is fine, you can see the list of products to buy, see what it looks like and a stats window. But I bet the inventory is the same because they are degenerates.

 

[Hace El Oso]

I love the gray NASA punk aesthetics.

Moon was much better at that(and actually accepted as reasonably hard sci-fi by NASA types), Starfield manages to look Warcraft silly (puffy) and ‘sombre’ at the same time:

Spoiler

Though my personal favorite would always be the space trucker/industrial/arctic research station look of the 1970s-80s:

 

[dreughjiggers]

Two more weeks then?

 

[undecaf]

What a mildly interesting project…

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Starfield creative director Todd Howard openly cited the influence of tabletop RPG Traveller on the hotly-anticipated release last October, saying that the upcoming video game is "hearkening back to those old roleplaying games that we loved". There's an especially personal connection for Howard too, as he recalled programming a Traveller game for the Apple II computer as one of his earliest coding projects.

When it comes to old roleplaying games, there are few older than Traveller. Released in 1977, only a few years after Dungeons & Dragons revolutionised tabletop roleplaying, the sci-fi RPG has evolved over no fewer than a dozen editions in the last 40-plus years, changing hands along the way from original creator Game Designers' Workshop to current-day studio Mongoose Publishing.

Starfield officialy more RPG than The Elder Scrolls.

That interview is yet another reminder that Todd Howard has more prestigious taste in RPGs than the majority of Codexers.

 

[Lemming42]

Skyrim enjoys lasting success because it carved out its own aesthetic and identity, and made strong enough use of interesting TES lore to successfully draw players in. Compare with Oblivion, which really was just Middle Earth with scarcely any real TES flavour and is not as fondly remembered years later, one of the chief criticisms made of it these days being that the world feels like painfully generic high fantasy with no strong sense of identity. Even though it's technically a better game than Skyrim in a few areas, Skyrim fans have trouble going back to it because the appeal of these games is in exploring visually and thematically interesting worlds, which Skyrim outclasses Oblivion on completely.

Starfield looks very dull - there's no established lore or worldbuilding to draw from so it really has to blow everyone's cocks off right out of the gate, and from what we've seen so far there's absolutely no hook. Take something like Mass Effect - whatever you think of it, ME1 made a strong aesthetic impression right off the bat with the deliberate cheap 80s movie look (and soundtrack), the distinctive alien designs, the design of the Normandy, the guns that have infinite ammo thanks to some weird science shit, the Mass Effect relays, big ideas like the genophage, etc. Even something like FTL, which has very minimal worldbuilding, hooks you in with unique aliens, an unmistakable ship design for the Kestrel, a quality soundtrack, and so on.

Starfield's looks are so bland and the setting seemingly so boring that its only appeal could be in being some kind of hard sci-fi thing, which it obviously isn't given that it's about fighting fanged penis monsters with your laser guns. For people to spend hundreds of hours running around a game world, the world has to be at least superficially interesting, which I believe is part of the reason for Fo4 and Fallout 76's failure; the Fallout setting as interpreted by those games was completely gutted of anything that even casual Fo3 fans enjoyed about it. Todd somehow has not yet realised this.

They should have licensed Space 1889 or something. It'd probably cost about $3 to buy the rights to it and it's got such a clever yet obvious gimmick to it that even a bumbling arsehole like Todd couldn't fuck it up.

 

[EvilWolf]

No paper doll = not an rpg.

Oh for sure, FOR SURE the most important aspect of an RPG is making sure at least 35% of the inventory screen is covered by a character model. Its not really an RPG without it. Just doesn't feel right if you can see all your items at once, without scrolling for 20 seconds.

Retarded argument. You get a list of items and have to highlight items on the list so you can't see what you are wearing unless you scroll through a list. Yet 1000 years ago they had a paper doll that people loved and you could see all your gear and what slots were empty etc. Why the fuck would you argue for this to not exist?! It's retarded. They can't have such a basic QOL thing that every game has because they are too retarded to make it work on a console tard controller. That's how much they care about RPGs. Fuck you.

Your point is correct, but you can clearly see a 3D representation of your character in the screenshot. What are you complaining about?

The 3D representation or animation doesn't even matter, the point is being able to see what slots you have and what's in them.

I see what you mean. The term paper doll was throwing me off, I thought you meant a literal paper doll like in Daggerfall and Morrowind which evolved into the 3D variant in Oblivion which they seem to be copying for Starfield.

 

[Slaver1]

Feels like the Bethesda formula is finally running its course. Fallout 4 was a terrible miss and ended up leveraging anti-RPG Minecraft crafting shittery of all things to provide some staying power with the Steam plebs. If Starfield goes the same route the other increasingly superficial elements of their formula are probably going to show through this time. Witnessing soulless fights against bland Sci-fi fauna in sterile space and that meaningless inventory list makes me think I'm getting too old for this shit.

 

[NecroLord]

I can't wait to play Starfield: The Definitive edition in 2026 with a bespoke set of mods with impeccable credentials and still be incredibly bored and disappointed.

 

[Kem0sabe]

I hope they do much better with their quests and storylines than Fallout 4. Skyrim wasn't so bad in that regard and managed to keep the player interested in the questing experience for the most part.

But with a 1000 star systems, I fear the hand crafted quests will be bare bones and the entire thing will be full of settlement attack randomly generated fallout 4 crap.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Radiant quests were a mistake. They were introduced in Skyrim and they were shit, and they kept them in Fallout 4 and they were even more shit because there were more of them.
To makes matters worse, they would continue to give them to you even after becoming the Minutemen General or the Director.
Getting sent to do grunt work is what mercs and subordinates do, not Generals and not the Director of a clandestine organisation of scientists. That's literally what Coursers and Synths are for.

Knowing Bethesda, most of the content of Starfield would probably just be some dickhead NPC saying something like "we found a new planet. I'll mark it on your starchart. Now go there"

 

[Gargaune]

Except that's what everyone else is talking about. The big loss of real estate in the middle of the screen, occupied by a picture of your character (or item in Skyrim) instead of more items for the list or relevant information about the cumulative effect of your gear.

There's plenty of room on a widescreen to have a "35%" character preview and all sorts of associated data. I gave you a STALKER SoC screencap as an example, even though it's a smaller preview, because it still has one alongside a grid inventory, space for descriptions, and unused screen realestate to boot. For another example, Cyberpunk 2077 has a (modal) grid inventory, stat blocks and description pop-ups, and a large character preview... all wasted on some of the worst itemisation ever defecated into a videogame, but that's a separate design flaw.

The point is that Bethesda's inventory interfaces don't suck because of the character or item previews or even because of console primacy, it's simply because their UI designers can't be arsed, they see it as a low yield pursuit, especially given the complexity of Bethesda's titles having a lot of equipment slots. Todd's near enough the only who does what Todd does, there's virtually no competition and therefore no impetus to improve. What's the customer gonna do, play Ubisoft Game™ instead of Starfield? No, they're gonna fucking mod it.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

I love the gray NASA punk aesthetics.

Moon was much better at that(and actually accepted as reasonably hard sci-fi by NASA types), Starfield manages to look Warcraft silly (puffy) and ‘sombre’ at the same time:

Spoiler

Though my personal favorite would always be the space trucker/industrial/arctic research station look of the 1970s-80s:

I love this kind of style. It's a great middle finger to current anime oversaturated tastes.

 

[dreughjiggers]

That interview is yet another reminder that Todd Howard has more prestigious taste in RPGs than the majority of Codexers.

I've never heard of Sundogs or Traveler, and I've never heard an oldfag talk about them before, so given he was also member of his school chess club, Todd does have more oldfag RPG/gamer cred than anybody here.

 

[Robotigan]

As a backend engineer, I'm beyond tired of RPG fans judging game system depth by its UI. It reminds me of my job where I'm beyond tired of product managers and clients who judge software utility by BIG DATA. I completely overhauled our failure detection system into a multithreaded architecture that runs 10x more tests per minute. With the extra test granularity, I was able to refactor status notifications from only being based on the most recent test to a more proportional system that takes into account the last several tests. And no one gave a hoot that their service statuses were much more accurate and timely. Meanwhile they tell me they "need more data" so I should post total failures across all their services even though it would take like 5 seconds to add them up themselves. They could even write their own script since all that data exists in the HTML anyway.

Stop pretending you're smart because you use a needlessly convoluted interface with a lot of extraneous information. If you really cared about the nitty gritty, you'd open up the console. Otherwise you're just a poser.

 

[deuxhero]

With all the delays and the only things we even know about the game being tranny pronouns (literally first thing revealed after name/logo), Fallout 4 barely being remembered after release, and a brief video of reskinned Fallout 4 video place your bets
1: Total trashfire that makes Cyberpunk look functional
2: Trashfire
3: Bad game that still has riajyu laping it up
4: Meh game
5: It's actually good.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I've never heard of Sundogs or Traveler, and I've never heard an oldfag talk about them before, so given he was also member of his school chess club, Todd does have more oldfag RPG/gamer cred than anybody here.

Sundog: Frozen Legacy is notable primarily because FTL named one of the player-characters in their next game, Dungeon Master, after the protagonist of Sundog and his quest to find Banville.