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

[Drakortha]

Who's got time for that gay romance shit? Just grab them by the pussy.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Romance is commonplace in the real world, why shouldn't it be in games?

That's right, but people tend to complain when their ingame romance is as shallow and unfulfilling as those commonplace hookups IRL are.

 

[Robotigan]

I never understood the point of romance in RPGs. I mean, sure, it's "role playing", but the amount of people complaining online about game X not having them or them being limited is astonishing.

This but for the entire companion/party system. Mechanically, it's forcing a multiplayer system into a single player game. Narratively, it feels contrived.

 

[Gargaune]

If you believe this is how it works in NetImmerse you've never played a Bethesda game for 100s of hours. Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, and yes Skyrim on release ALL had playthrough ending bugs that bricked your save until modders created ham fisted algorithms for cleaning it and letting you continue where you left off.

I've played Oblivion, Fallout 3 (and New Vegas), Skyrim and Fallout 4. And in all of those embarrassing hundreds of hours I've never used one of the Unofficial patches, the games "just worked" for the most part. Only just, but they did.

Making something on the scale of Starfield is pushing the limits and I can GUARANTEE that if you REALLY wanted to you could brick your save pretty quick if you ran around dropping tons of shit on the ground in all of the ships you can find or outposts you build, even with it being large address aware. I think you're underestimating where dropped items are going to be able to be saved.

Maybe, but I don't really want to brick my save and I haven't heard of anyone bricking their save by hoarding too many Nuka Cola bottles in their settlement. I have managed to semi-brick some settlements by modding far past their build and settler limits, choked the engine to infinite loads (before using the High FPS Physics Fix mod, funnily enough), but I'd call that a "me" problem. If an issue only ever appears when you deliberately go out of your way to create that issue, it's not really an issue.

Also, just FYI, I think you're overestimating the amount of data that gets serialised for a loose item not in a currently-loaded cell, it mostly boils down to the positional vector, they're just static instances of the same object in RAM.

Again, all of this "oh, it tracks a million objects across a million galaxies" is just marketing waffle, don't fall for it.

its not actually possible. None of these things will be persistent and none of them will be truly unique instances, we just don't have the computational power to do that. Even StarCitizen's approach is a pipedream.
Basically how I see it going, all the ships are going to be Oblivion Dungeons - you can place items onto ships but they'll likely be tied to the player not the ship so unless the player is there that data is unloaded.

Partly correct, the ship interiors will be settlements, just like the planetary ones - your deltas won't get loaded unless you're within the cell range, as is the case with everything else, but they will be "persistent" for practical purposes, i.e. if you put a notepad on a table, it'll be there whenever you come back. The difference is that dungeons reset, settlements don't.

Yea, but I'm talking about save bloat breaking files. Every ship can't use the same cell because they're vastle different modular interiors, and your ships, as many as you have, have to store your item placements. Same for your outposts, all of those saved items in all those locations have to be saved in your save file which the engine won't load if it exceeds a certain size. There are of course ways around this, like making the engine be capable of loading larger files but at this point the question is how large do they have to be, creating location saves and player saves, etc. All these changes to NetImmerse require someone who knows the inner workings of the engine, I doubt anyone who works at modern Bethesda has any idea how to do any of that.

All of the persistent cells - outposts and ships - will be known quantities, a thousand of the former and however many of the latter they let you own. This means Bethesda can ballpark their maximum deltas related to these aspects and configure their limits and buffers, the save's data capacity, accordingly. It's not a dramatic process change from Fallout 4, just more stuff, so they can retool their engine to accommodate those needs.

Now, if you don't think that Bethesda has any engineers that can do that, well... that's just like, your opinion, man, we can't really argue over that, now can we?

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

This would simulate a torus-shaped planet, but you get the idea.

Toroid-shaped planets are the best planets!

 

[HarveyBirdman]

Maybe I'm wrong.

Theoretically, there should be nothing but relatively empty, sparse terrain for an "uninhabited" planet. Bethesda has had enough practice of pre-loading cells for their games, with Skyrim doing a fairly good job of it. As long as you treat the large cities and establishments as compartmentalized instances, which is exactly what they did with Skyrim's cities until mods "fixed" it, I don't see any monumental problems with them realtime generating the terrain until the algorithm of "you've walked all the way around this planet" is satisfied and you're back to where you started (assuming you somehow never varied your direction).

Maybe one of the reasons they didn't include any land vehicles -- nor, for that matter, the ability to fly your spacecraft freewill in atmosphere -- is because they didn't want to spoil the illusion of how large any given planet is supposed to be.

There isn't a technical limitation, and I doubt there's a planet-size-illusion limitation. It's just the vision Todd had for the game.

As you all know, in Daggerfall, you fast traveled to each dungeon. Sure you could traverse the world on foot, but it would take forever and not be fun. Todd transplanted that concept to Starfield. There will be five kinds of gameplay loops:

Gameplay Loop 1

1. get dungeon marked on map
2. fast travel
3. do some stuff
4. fast travel away

Gameplay Loop 2

1. get zone marked on map
2. fast travel
3. explore zone and do stuff
4. fast travel away

Gameplay Loop 3

1. be in large zone (city, or other area set up to be an area of aggregated points of interest)
2. do lots of stuff in it, including quests within the zone
3. get sent out to gameplay loops 1-2

Gameplay Loop 4

1. autistically build settlements and ships

Gameplay Loop 5

1. get ambushed by a random event
2. deal with it
3. get back to Gameplay Loops 1-4

None of these gameplay loops are enhanced by exploring the world like you would in Todd's other games. Of course, the option to explore is still there... it'll just kinda suck, like in Daggerfall.

 

[Drakortha]

There isn't a technical limitation, and I doubt there's a planet-size-illusion limitation. It's just the vision Todd had for the game.

Todd doesn't have a vision.

Todd works for Microsoft to make and shill products with a Bethesda stamp on it. That's all. And the games are only as innovative and ambitious as they need to be as determined by a corporate body.

Too many people in here still falsely believe these games are a culmination of creative expression. They are not. They are too bland and soulless to be considered as art.

 

[Crispy]

Stupid take.

Bethesda, including Todd Howard, were making games long before they came under Microsoft's umbrella.

Think before you post, please.

 

[Drakortha]

Stupid take.

Bethesda, including Todd Howard, were making games long before they came under Microsoft's umbrella.

Think before you post, please.

And they sold out, especially after Skyrim. You living under a rock or something?

Todd is more a salesperson / actor than he is a designer anymore. It's pretty obvious.

"Buy our game, we're Bethesda. You remember Bethesda, don't you?"

 

[Drakortha]

King Crispy is the kind of retard who gets excited about the new Star Wars because Luke Skywalker appears on the screen.

 

[Crispy]

I've been playing Bethesda games before you even existed. They may not be the pinnacle of PC gaming but a game like Daggerfall gets my respect for the boundaries it pushed.

I don't like nuBethesda any more than you do, but if Starfield harkens back to the way things used to be, it'll get my respect, too.

Keep seething in the mean time, Drakortha. Almost everything I've seen you post has been a shit take.

 

[Butter]

Todd Howard is too hands-off for anyone to mistake him for an auteur. Claiming he has a vision, of all things, is absurd. He mostly just lets his employees do shit they think is cool. People like Emil Pagliarulo and Ashley Cheng probably exercise way more creative influence over Bethesda products than Todd does.

 

[Drakortha]

I've been playing Bethesda games before you even existed. They may not be the pinnacle of PC gaming but a game like Daggerfall gets my respect for the boundaries it pushed.

I don't like nuBethesda any more than you do, but if Starfield harkens back to the way things used to be, it'll get my respect, too.

Keep seething in the mean time, Drakortha. Almost everything I've seen you post has been a shit take.

Daggerfall was like 20 years ago mate. A completely different era.

Starfield will harken back to Fallout 4 and Skyrim. Think that's a shit take? We'll see who's right.

 

[Lemming42]

Todd strikes me as someone who's as impressed by the technical side of things as he is by any actual game mechanics. His remarks about the TES series almost always seem to be that the games are "big" and you can "go anywhere". He just finds the idea of being able to walk in any direction you want without guidance to be cool; the actual specifics of what you end up doing in this big open world is less important, beyond shooting/stabbing/burning things.

It explains Fallout 3 - I think Todd genuinely is a fan of the first Fallout, and truly believed that the Morrowind/Oblivion style of game would be a perfect match for the Fallout franchise, because his main enjoyment of Fallout came from being able to go in any direction he wanted and find shit. Fallout 3 makes it even better, because you can go anywhere in FIRST PERSON!!! No more travel map with knockoff Aphex twin playing over it, you can actually walk through empty space for real now! It also explains why his marketing for Starfield revolves chiefly around the size of it - 100000 planets!!!

I'm not sure exactly who to credit for the good points of Morrowind/Oblivion/Fo3/Skyrim era of games. It seemed like there was always a group of people with reasonably good ideas who managed to get some interesting stuff into the games (and Todd, to his credit, let them do it), but those people seemingly just vanished by the time of Fallout 4. And Todd mainly just seems exhausted these days, like he doesn't care anymore. Wrote about it in a big post somewhere else but he didn't seem enthusiastic about Fallout 4, and he doesn't seem to have rallied for Starfield.

 

[EvilWolf]

Maybe I'm wrong.

Theoretically, there should be nothing but relatively empty, sparse terrain for an "uninhabited" planet. Bethesda has had enough practice of pre-loading cells for their games, with Skyrim doing a fairly good job of it. As long as you treat the large cities and establishments as compartmentalized instances, which is exactly what they did with Skyrim's cities until mods "fixed" it, I don't see any monumental problems with them realtime generating the terrain until the algorithm of "you've walked all the way around this planet" is satisfied and you're back to where you started (assuming you somehow never varied your direction).

Maybe one of the reasons they didn't include any land vehicles -- nor, for that matter, the ability to fly your spacecraft freewill in atmosphere -- is because they didn't want to spoil the illusion of how large any given planet is supposed to be.

There isn't a technical limitation, and I doubt there's a planet-size-illusion limitation. It's just the vision Todd had for the game.

As you all know, in Daggerfall, you fast traveled to each dungeon. Sure you could traverse the world on foot, but it would take forever and not be fun. Todd transplanted that concept to Starfield. There will be five kinds of gameplay loops:

Gameplay Loop 1

1. get dungeon marked on map
2. fast travel
3. do some stuff
4. fast travel away

Gameplay Loop 2

1. get zone marked on map
2. fast travel
3. explore zone and do stuff
4. fast travel away

Gameplay Loop 3

1. be in large zone (city, or other area set up to be an area of aggregated points of interest)
2. do lots of stuff in it, including quests within the zone
3. get sent out to gameplay loops 1-2

Gameplay Loop 4

1. autistically build settlements and ships

Gameplay Loop 5

1. get ambushed by a random event
2. deal with it
3. get back to Gameplay Loops 1-4

None of these gameplay loops are enhanced by exploring the world like you would in Todd's other games. Of course, the option to explore is still there... it'll just kinda suck, like in Daggerfall.

I 100% believe this is realistically what we're getting with planet exploration and honestly I'm fine with it.

Stupid take.

Bethesda, including Todd Howard, were making games long before they came under Microsoft's umbrella.

Think before you post, please.

Have you even read his signature? Ackowledge his agenda.

 

[Robotigan]

None of these gameplay loops are enhanced by exploring the world like you would in Todd's other games. Of course, the option to explore is still there... it'll just kinda suck, like in Daggerfall.

Depends how robust the building and crafting systems are. Survival crafting games get more mileage out of exploration than arguably any other genre. There's something primal in our psyche that is compelled to exploit land for all its resources.

 

[Robotigan]

Todd Howard is too hands-off for anyone to mistake him for an auteur. Claiming he has a vision, of all things, is absurd. He mostly just lets his employees do shit they think is cool. People like Emil Pagliarulo and Ashley Cheng probably exercise way more creative influence over Bethesda products than Todd does.

I think Todd's mostly involved at the highest level overview: world tone, broad themes, and pitches some of the defining mechanics. He's not a meticulous director so much as an ideas guy with a good feel for where the industry is headed. Sort of like the Steve Jobs of gaming except his coworkers like him more.

 

[Butter]

Todd Howard is too hands-off for anyone to mistake him for an auteur. Claiming he has a vision, of all things, is absurd. He mostly just lets his employees do shit they think is cool. People like Emil Pagliarulo and Ashley Cheng probably exercise way more creative influence over Bethesda products than Todd does.

I think Todd's mostly involved at the highest level overview: world tone, broad themes, and pitches some of the defining mechanics. He's not a meticulous director so much as an ideas guy with a good feel for where the industry is headed. Sort of like the Steve Jobs of gaming except his coworkers like him more.

This would be more believable if all of his games since Skyrim hadn't been chasing trends instead of setting them.

 

[Reinhardt]

Who's got time for that gay romance shit? Just grab them by the pussy.

"pussy" from "pus"?

 

[Drakortha]

I think Todd's mostly involved at the highest level overview: world tone, broad themes, and pitches some of the defining mechanics. He's not a meticulous director so much as an ideas guy with a good feel for where the industry is headed. Sort of like the Steve Jobs of gaming except his coworkers like him more.

Todd Howard, the Steve Jobs of Gaming?

... Please have mercy on me. I'm begging you..

 

[NecroLord]

Todd, the Steve Jobs of Gaming?

No, he is not nearly as pretentious and insufferable.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

I think Todd's mostly involved at the highest level overview: world tone, broad themes, and pitches some of the defining mechanics. He's not a meticulous director so much as an ideas guy with a good feel for where the industry is headed. Sort of like the Steve Jobs of gaming except his coworkers like him more.

Todd Howard, the Steve Jobs of Gaming?

... Please have mercy on me. I'm begging you..

It wasn't a compliment.

 

[Drakortha]

Ah, my bad. I assumed Steve Jobs was some tech guy that zoomers worshipped. I don't know anything about him tbh.

 

[Kiste]

And they sold out, especially after Skyrim. You living under a rock or something?

How exactly did they sell out (I mean other than by literally by selling the company)?

All I see is a very consistent straight line of , not some sort of post-Microsoft cliff.

 

[Drakortha]

And they sold out, especially after Skyrim. You living under a rock or something?

How exactly did they sell out (I mean other than by literally by selling the company)?

They kicked their own community to the curb. Bethesda forums, which I had been an active member on since Morrowind, got shut down shortly after Skyrim became a major success with the wider gaming sphere. Then came in Bethesda.net in it's place. Bethesda wanted to be like Blizzard.

Ever since then all they've done is put Skyrim on a pedestal for no other reason than it was their biggest seller. Their other titles may as well not exist. Fallout 4 proved they don't care about the source material anymore. At least with Fallout 3 they tried to look like they cared. Todd made a huge post on the forums prior to Fallout 3's release reassuring everyone that the franchise was in good hands. Now look at the abomination that is 76, and now Starfield, where they haven't showcased a single in-depth RPG feature so far. It's a game for people who don't know Bethesda's reputation.

Bethesda don't want to make engaging RPG's. They want to make live service products that are generic enough to capture as wide an audience as possible (does it get any more generic than pseudo NASA in space?) and they want to be regarded as a household brand with their own mascots, as well, so they can sell worthless toys to consumers just like Disney does it.

They sold out. And the people in this thread talking about Daggerfall are seriously delusional.