Starfield Thread - now with Shattered Space horror expansion

[Late Bloomer]

Is there a way to view Emil's full rant without creating a twitter account? I deleted mine about 10 years ago and I'm not going back.

Use nitter, this link should work

Thanks

 

[Vic]

the comments on that post

I read this whole thread on the toilet while taking a dump… when I finished I named it “Starfield”

 

[Jonathan "Zee Nekomimi]

I was referring to how most types of tumbleweed are native to Russia (and Europe) and basically an invasive species in the Americas.

Mostly of the ones in the united states comes from down south from central america (northern-central mexico) or are native to the midwest desert/prairie plains.

 

[Caim]

Lmao dude should just get a blog.

 

[racofer]

Honestly feel kind of bad for him

I don't.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Honestly feel kind of bad for him, but I hope the lukewarm-at-best reaction to Starfield is going to shake him and the rest of the team awake. Getting trampled by Baldur's Gate 3 at every GOTY award should help too. Ideally they'll look at what went right for Larian, look earnestly at what went wrong for them, and then make TES VI one of the best games of their entire career.

I know that what will actually happen is that the only thing they'll take from BG3's success is "we should spend half our budget on mocap" and that TES VI will suck balls and play like something from 2010 but still, hope springs eternal.

Fabulously Optimistic: The post.

They only thing Bethesderp will learn from this is that THE AUDIENCE wants more bear sex, more genital choices at character creation, and every male character to (extremely aggressively) pursue you.

I saw a mudcrab the other day too! Horrible creatures. Let's do some magic tricks together.

I tool an arrow to the knee too. Let's do some magic together.

Etc.

 

[Moink]

You really think the company that went full steam ahead on a voiced protag for Starfield, before stopping only due to time restraints will ever learn anything from previous mistakes?

 

[lvl 2 Blue Slime]

Fallout 4 came out in 2015, I just want to know what Beth was doing for those 8 years, do they just sit around the office and occasionally make a model or texture without clocking off?

 

[Lord_Potato]

He got what he deserved - a roast in the comments.

Seriously why does anyone in Bethesda think it's a good way of tackling criticism?

 

[Fedora Master]

He got what he deserved - a roast in the comments.

Seriously why does anyone in Bethesda think it's a good way of tackling criticism?

Developers are scum.

 

[Lord_Potato]

He got what he deserved - a roast in the comments.

Seriously why does anyone in Bethesda think it's a good way of tackling criticism?

Developers are scum.

Regardless of the content of their character, they could have been smarter about it.

 

[Fedora Master]

He got what he deserved - a roast in the comments.

Seriously why does anyone in Bethesda think it's a good way of tackling criticism?

Developers are scum.

Regardless of the content of their character, they could have been smarter about it.

They're also retarded.

 

[Athena]

Those who can't make it as valued programmers or filmmakers, make it to vidya. It's the bottom of the barrel. And they know it, and this breeds more resentment and entitlement in them.

 

[Just Locus]

It all boils down to something called dynamic form IDs. These are strings of data that Starfield uses to keep track of items in the game. As you move through the game's vast, lonely galaxy, you'll find yourself moving items around, taking gear off of deceased enemies, and leaving behind unwanted space junk. This creates more dynamic form IDs to keep track of what you've done with all your loot. The more there are, the more moving parts your save file has, and, as any coder will tell you, this means there are more ways it can crash.

... I'm getting some serious Oblivion flashbacks, Does anyone remember the A-bomb glitch? Where a variable slowly counts up on your save file, after you reach a certain amount of time in a save file, that variable will reach a value and everything will break.

 

[ArchAngel]

I do not think developers are to blame for this. They got narrative and gameplay designers above them that make all the bad choices.

 

[jackofshadows]

Fallout 4 came out in 2015, I just want to know what Beth was doing for those 8 years, do they just sit around the office and occasionally make a model or texture without clocking off?

F76 took them a lot of resources. It wasn't only that side studio.

 

[Ravielsk]

OH, but irony. The one man from the one studio wholly reliant on modders to make his products worthwhile accusing someone of not understanding game development. People have been digging around and fixing Bethesda's engine and tools for well over two decades, I think they know a little bit more than nothing.

In fact judging by the quality of their latest output I would bet money they know ever so slightly more than Emil does.

 

[darkpatriot]

Lmao dude should just get a blog.

Twitter also has ways to post really long tweets now, like article length. Although maybe that is just a feature for paid accounts.

In general though, a company that makes a service or product excusing a product or service for being of lower quality than the consumer expected or not meeting the consumer expectations in some other way by saying making the product is hard to do is going to be poorly received by consumers and it is a bad excuse.

A lot of services are hard to provide and a lot of products are hard to make. Consumers don't care. The company needs to better manage consumer expectations of your product if you think there is a decent chance you won't meet those expectations. What makes companies good and stand out is solving those problems to provide good services and products despite the challenges faced.

And what helps restore consumer confidence is acknowledging the problems and having a plan for addressing them. Excuses certainly don't restore consumer confidence.

 

[Caim]

Lmao dude should just get a blog.

Twitter also has ways to post really long tweets now, like article length. Although maybe that is just a feature for paid accounts.

In general though, a company that makes a service or product excusing a product or service for being of lower quality than the consumer expected or not meeting the consumer expectations in some other way by saying making the product is hard to do is going to be poorly received by consumers and it is a bad excuse.

A lot of services are hard to provide and a lot of products are hard to make. Consumers don't care. The company needs to better manage consumer expectations of your product if you think there is a decent chance you won't meet those expectations. What makes companies good and stand out is solving those problems to provide good services and products despite the challenges faced.

And what helps restore consumer confidence is acknowledging the problems and having a plan for addressing them. Excuses certainly don't restore consumer confidence.

I'm in the electrical infrastructure business. You know what happens when people in our business fuck up the same way that Bethesda did with Starfield?

This picture is taken from an airplane. The long, thin line of smoke you see is what happenes when you stack up multiple mistakes regarding grounding, safety features and trip commands. September last year this line, normally fit to transport 150 kilovolts with a total capacity of well over 400 mVA, suffered a catastrophic fault that sent a current over these lines that was so staggeringly high the lines themselves started to smoke and expand, causing them to sag. One such sagging line touched the overhead line of a train, which normally operates at 1500 volts. The sheer power that was sent through these much thinner lines fried over 100 kilometers of cable in one of the country's connecting railway lines, putting the line out of commision for almost four months. The 150 kilovolt lines themselves were fried and had to be replaced across a distance of almost 20 kilometers and dozens of electrical pylons. The electrical fault that caused this only resolved itself when parts of the substations started to melt away, opening the circuit and allowing the safety features of other stations to shut it down. Damage has been estimated in the tens of millions, and through no small miracle nobody was injured.

Of course, such a catastrophic failure in a country's electrical grid does not compare to VIDEO GAME BAD, but in this business you don't get to drop a "job hard" and expect that to be it.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

Poor Emil. Guys we need to stop being so hard on him because he's stressed... This Game Development Stuff is REALLY REALLY hard! Turns out Keep It Simple Stupid didn't work so he's now changed to the La La La I'm Not Listening strategy.

Emil here's the problem with Bethesda, youre a bunch of nepotistic talent-less hacks. Daddy Altman isn't here to save your ass anymore. Bethesda can't even function now that it has Microsoft's "accountability" and I say that loosely because I've done work for them in the past.

 

[Vic]

Seeing how we are still talking about this, here's his full rant for archival purposes and ease of access

Funny how disconnected some players are from the realities of game development, and yet they speak with complete authority. I mean, I can guess what it takes to make a Hostess Twinkie, but I don't work in the factory, so what the hell do I really know? Not a lot.

Part of me really gets it. When you're a consumer and spend money on things, that gives you the right to complain about those things. I spend a LOT of money on games every year, and sometimes it takes a lot for me not to scream into the internet's collective consciousness.

I don't complain about games on social for two main reasons: 1.) I know how hard it is to make games, and have too much respect for my fellow devs. 2.) I work for a game studio, and it would be uncool and unprofessional for me to do so. But sometimes I want to. Oh boy.

Most people don't have these constraints, and are free to post whatever they want. The internet is a glorious wild wild west, and I wouldn't have it any other way. And there was a time when I exercised that right very freely.

When I was writing game reviews for the Adrenaline Vault forever ago, I was absolutely that person who would say whatever I wanted about a game, good or bad. Sometimes the good was over-enthusiastically too good. And sometimes the bad was me being a sarcastic asshat.

But throughout that time, I actually had no inkling what game development was actually like. How hard the designers, programmers, artists, producers, and everyone else worked. The struggle to bring a vision to life with constantly shifting resources. The stress.

This isn't me complaining about my job. I've experienced all these things, and will again. It's the nature of AAA game development. But I also have a great position, and am still gainfully employed after 21+ years. A blessing considering the thousands of layoffs this year.

I'm not trying to change anyone's mind, because the internet. But given my position, I can't not share the truth. And that truth is, nobody sets out to make a bad game. And most game devs are incredibly talented... even if the game they release isn't up to par.

See, I never knew this before, but if nothing else, video game development is a series of concessions and tough decisions. There's that perfect game you WANT to make... and then there's the game you CAN make. Sometimes, if the gods smile on you, those two are very close.

But in order to get there, in order to get it as close as possible to the vision, the team has to push itself harder and harder... often while dealing with devs being shuffled around (or leaving), looming deadlines, and creative decisions you wish you didn't have to make.

And "team" is absolutely the operative word there. Lots and lots of folks doing lots of lots of work. Writing, level building, making character models, coding game systems, trying to schedule it all so it can get done and folks don't burn out, and on and on.

So sure, you can dislike parts of a game. You can hate on a game entirely. But don't fool yourself into thinking you know why it is the way it is (unless it's somehow documented and verified), or how it got to be that way (good or bad).

Chances are, unless you've made a game yourself, you don't know who made certain decisions; who did specific work; how many people were actually available to do that work; any time challenges faced; or how often you had to overcome technology itself (this one is HUGE).

So yes! Love games, buy them, play them, and complain to your heart's content! It's sort of the nature of the developer/player transactional relationship.

But... just know that the game you're playing is in some ways a freaking miracle in and of itself. Normal people have come together to work FOR YEARS for one goal - to bring you fun and happiness. So it helps to remember that... and them!

 

[Silverfish]

Loved this bit:

And "team" is absolutely the operative word there. Lots and lots of folks doing lots of lots of work. Writing, level building, making character models, coding game systems, trying to schedule it all so it can get done and folks don't burn out, and on and on.

"See? It's not my fault! I may have painted a bulls-eye on my head by making myself a prominent public figure, but really, it's the no-name drones who should take their share of the blame."

 

[ind33d]

When Emil says "Funny how disconnected some players are from the realities of game development" he means the government blackmailed them to make the game shit. You think Bethesda is the one who decided to make a space game with no aliens? Was making all the NPCs black Todd's idea? Grow a brain and read between the lines

 

[Ravielsk]

Of course, such a catastrophic failure in a country's electrical grid does not compare to VIDEO GAME BAD, but in this business you don't get to drop a "job hard" and expect that to be it.

100% spot on. But I have to add that this goes a few steps beyond "GAYM BAD". The entire videogame industry has gotten far too comfortable with standards so low that in any other industry they would have most likely been locked up for fraud. They pretty blatantly lied about the game and this time there is no cushion of pre-established fan base or mod community to break their fall. For once it looks like they will not just get away with it and Emil is too dense to realize that is what is happening.

 

[Yoomazir]

So what's gonna be for our homie Emil, "I'm excited to start a new chapter in my life" or "I am looking foward to spend more time with my family"?