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

[Cross]

To be fair, that unfinished game from almost 20 years ago is the definitive go-to example whenever anyone complains about modern facial animations, there ain't been that much stuff to top it.

I think a lot of games have had better facial animations than Bloodlines. The animations in general were often bugged and had weird expressions.

It's just not many CRPGs have had better facial animations. Big fish in a small pond, so to speak.

When your main competition is Dragon Age and Mass Effect, it's not hard to stand out.

This is dumb. None of the games in that video let you freely talk to NPCs with a variety of different situations and responses, they're all standard cutscenes. You might as well compare Bloodlines to Pixar or Disney.

And while Bloodlines might not have the technically best or realistic facial animations, they have much more personality than the facial animations in other games. It's a great example of stylization.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Amazing time-traveling copying going on there then.

Nigger, I'm not accusing them of copying anything. I'm saying it's has a similar feel to Freelancer because it's a game many of us have played. I call it a rip-off to be derisive. If you want to talk about who ripped whom off, take a look at Wing Commander's release date.

It's generic space schlock. Nothing about it, from the "story" to the world to the combat, is memorable or especially enjoyable.

Go from point A to point B. Fight with generic NPC ships. Repeat infinitely.

Again, maybe the X series is great to you. It's not to me.

 

[racofer]

Is it me or the NPCs faces in starfield look worse than in Skyrim?

Many of them do look worse, the legions of noname NPCs.

IIn specific cases, where you are having a conversation with a story NPC, in a game area that's also part of the story, therefore there's a higher chance it has been tested - the animations can be significantly better, especially when combined with the tested lighting area/room lighting.

It was a similar situation in Cyberpunk - conversations with NPCs from the main quest chain always had superior lighting and face animations.

While it's true that main characters and quest-related NPCs had superior quality in TW3 and Cyberpunk, even random NPCs from those games look better than what Shartfield offers.

Just a quick example from a NPC I just found from wandering around in TW3:

 

[Lord of Riva]

so basically just play No man's sky which by now is pretty good?

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

so basically just play No man's sky which by now is pretty good?

Is it though? I played it a while back and it's a dull, lifeless game too. Just with planetary landings etc.

 

[Grauken]

so basically just play No man's sky which by now is pretty good?

I think the main difference is, NMS has only aliens, Starfield has only humans and some robots

 

[Vic]

so basically just play No man's sky which by now is pretty good?

never played NMS so was wondering too how it compares, but somebody said it's basically boring if you play alone

 

[deuxhero]

20 years and they still haven't implemented npcs reacting to you pulling out a weapon, how hard can it be?

They've actually regressed. Morrowind had a disposition penalty if you had your weapon unsheathed. Not much, and actually a benefit with how persuade success chance works, but it's something. Oblivion and Skyrim have nothing.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Is it me or the NPCs faces in starfield look worse than in Skyrim?

Many of them do look worse, the legions of noname NPCs.

IIn specific cases, where you are having a conversation with a story NPC, in a game area that's also part of the story, therefore there's a higher chance it has been tested - the animations can be significantly better, especially when combined with the tested lighting area/room lighting.

It was a similar situation in Cyberpunk - conversations with NPCs from the main quest chain always had superior lighting and face animations.

While it's true that main characters and quest-related NPCs had superior quality in TW3 and Cyberpunk, even random NPCs from those games look better than what Shartfield offers.

Just a quick example from a NPC I just found from wandering around in TW3:

Witcher 3 will forever remain a game where the devs pulled very smart tricks in order to do a lot with a little.

Their NPCs look good because, first - they are not random generated, they are all hand placed and have their own routines. If you load the same savegame 1000 times you will see the same npcs walking around in novigrad and its outskirts. Second, NPCs are reusing faces. Indeed those faces are well designed, but they are often reused. In the case with this woman on the screenshot, CDPR have used the dress and hat to mask the fact that her face isn't unique. Starfield I believe generates its pedestrians on the fly, likely cycling predefined face presets. But in Witcher 3 nothing is modular about the faces, the game simply doesn't have a face generation system as such. If you check out Cyberpunk where there is a face generation system, and where pedestrians are actually generated and streamed by the engine, the face variety and quality is lower.

 

[Lord of Riva]

so basically just play No man's sky which by now is pretty good?

Is it though? I played it a while back and it's a dull, lifeless game too. Just with planetary landings etc.

so basically just play No man's sky which by now is pretty good?

never played NMS so was wondering too how it compares, but somebody said it's basically boring if you play alone

I played it only alone and never got into the hype on release so I only played it after it was fixed up and found it pretty enjoyable.

I am just reading the posts of you guys here and from what i am reading Starfield is pretty much the same gamedesign wise but it's also pretending to be an RPG and looks a bit arse imho.

 

[Vic]

While it's true that main characters and quest-related NPCs had superior quality in TW3 and Cyberpunk, even random NPCs from those games look better than what Shartfield offers.

if you look in the games files they have like 12gb for facial animations alone afaik, while the rando NPCs can look weird, facial animations are very fluid in starfield, I sceenshotted a couple and they looked at me like real people almost, except for the blacks which have some issue with their eyes, but somebody said that look was normal for the blacks in his area

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

This is dumb. None of the games in that video let you freely talk to NPCs with a variety of different situations and responses, they're all standard cutscenes.

We're talking about the quality of animations on a technical level, usually with mocap, as is the case with BG3.

Putting a few dialog options to select which facial animations play doesn't make it any different.

You might as well compare Bloodlines to Pixar or Disney.

All studio games are big budget productions these days and the technology is similar. The difference is that Disney can piss away money all day long and they have entire studios dedicated just to mocap and animation editing. So, no, that would be a ridiculous comparison to make.

I'm comparing games to games. You're coping for some weird reason.

It's a 20yo game, dude. It looked good for the time, but there's been better looking games. Get over it.

 

[Vic]

I am just reading the posts of you guys here and from what i am reading Starfield is pretty much the same gamedesign wise but it's also pretending to be an RPG and looks a bit arse imho.

idk about no man's sky but I'd say starfield is a looter shooter

 

[Butter]

Is it me or the NPCs faces in starfield look worse than in Skyrim?

They look worse than Oblivion's.

 

[AwesomeButton]

While it's true that main characters and quest-related NPCs had superior quality in TW3 and Cyberpunk, even random NPCs from those games look better than what Shartfield offers.

if you look in the games files they have like 12gb for facial animations alone afaik, while the rando NPCs can look weird, facial animations are very fluid in starfield, I sceenshotted a couple and they looked at me like real people almost, except for the blacks which have some issue with their eyes, but somebody said that look was normal for the blacks in his area

The huge size might mean lack of optimization because of the old underlying tech, not necessarily high volume or fidelity. Like "how can the Chinese put down 1 km of fiberoptic cable per day? Easy, take 1000 Chinese, hand each one a shovel, and assign one meter length to each"

 

[General Disarray]

It seems that even Death Stranding shits on this game's exploration and hiking. It actually has land vehicles. One more point to the beloved gaming master Hideo Kojima! Suck it Todd! You will never be gaming's top auteur.

 

[Vic]

It seems that even Death Stranding shits on this game's exploration and hiking. It actually has land vehicles. One more point to the beloved gaming master Hideo Kojima! Suck it Todd! You will never be gaming's top auteur.

I think that's because he doesn't want players to see how empty the planets are. For exploration I stick to the spaceship, only land on locations that are revealed from orbit. But I guess it makes sense that uncolonized planets would be mostly empty space.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

if you look in the games files they have like 12gb for facial animations alone afaik, while the rando NPCs can look weird, facial animations are very fluid in starfield

They're very fluid, yes. But the engine sabotages them, jerking the head to look at the player abruptly or at a weird angle. It's the preprogramed animation stuff that's terrible. The lip-synch is usually ok.

Witcher 3 looks a million times better than this.

 

[Konjad]

Is it me or the NPCs faces in starfield look worse than in Skyrim?

They look worse than Oblivion's.

It's a technological achievement for sure.

 

[Vic]

But the engine sabotages them

I think the engine sabotages a lot of things for the game

 

[Vic]

good show of facial animations in the game:

 

[AwesomeButton]

I had one random event today - a Trade Authority station was radided by spacers, only one guard had survived, wounded. Offered me a top weapon held in a locked storage box if I clear the spacers out of the station. My first 0G combat. It was fun, although a linear sequence. Not much space for maenuvering. Maybe this is more realistic strictly speaking, but not very fun gameplay. I think people will widely overestimate how spacious "Space" actually is, both for space combat and travel and for interiors. There was this film some years ago, called "Gravity" with Sandra Bullock, I really liked it, and was somewhat realistic too.

Also, fuck, how could they fail to add the boot tracks you leave behind when walking on a respective planet surface? It's an iconic thing about walking on a different planet's surface.

 

[mediocrepoet]

There is a point in playing, you wanna make your character stronger. In Starfield there is no point

Numbers. Go. Up.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

I think the engine sabotages a lot of things for the game

It's amazing to me that Bethesda still has issues like stiff, awkward NPC movements, which have been an issue for them since Morrowind. Yet they refuse to change engines, or fix their current one.

Every game just gets a few bells and whistles added to the engine. Shadows, lighting, shaders etc. The core is always the same, and has many of the same problems.

 

[Vic]

I think the engine sabotages a lot of things for the game

It's amazing to me that Bethesda still has issues like stiff, awkward NPC movements, which have been an issue for them since Morrowind. Yet they refuse to change engines, or fix their current one.

Every game just gets a few bells and whistles added to the engine. Shadows, lighting, shaders etc. The core is always the same, and has many of the same problems.

they're afraid to lose their lifeblood, the modders