Next up: The Elder Scrolls VI

[Sarafan]

I think the Creation Engine has a sort of Ship of Theseus situation going on. I mean how many changes, tweaks, overhauls, and upgrades can they do to an engine before it's no longer the same engine?

Starfield shows that the refreshed Creation Engine does its job. That's the most important thing. No matter how old the engine is in its core. What matters is that it looks good. Technically they could name it differently and people probably wouldn't notice that it's still the same engine. Unless the bugs unmask it that is.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Starfield shows that the refreshed Creation Engine does its job. That's the most important thing. No matter how old the engine is in its core. What matters is that it looks good. Technically they could name it differently and people probably wouldn't notice that it's still the same engine. Unless the bugs unmask it that is.

So Starfield is using the same engine that TES VI will use? That's good to know. I'm pleased with how much better it looks than Skyrim SE.

 

[Sarafan]

So Starfield is using the same engine that TES VI will use? That's good to know. I'm pleased with how much better it looks than Skyrim SE.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but yes. It appears that TES VI will use the same engine. Maybe it'll be upgraded even further. We're still quite far away from the release date of TES VI.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but yes. It appears that TES VI will use the same engine. Maybe it'll be upgraded even further. We're still quite far away from the release date of TES VI.

If it looks as good as or better than Starfield, then that means it's going to look a lot better than Skyrim, which is good news. Starfield's facial models and animations are much better than Skyrim's atrocious ones.

 

[Krud]

If it looks as good as or better than Starfield, then that means it's going to look a lot better than Skyrim, which is good news. Starfield's facial models and animations are much better than Skyrim's atrocious ones.

Way back when we had no idea just how long we'd have to wait, they were already offering up brief glimpses of potential CGI modeling/artwork for Elder Scrolls VI (including an NPC modeled after an elderly Skyrim streamer who sadly probably won't live to see themselves in ES6), and it was impressive even back then, so I assume it's only gotten better since.

 

[Frindis]

@Krud If you are talking about Shirley Curry, she is only 86 and doing YouTube. Clint Eastwood is 92 and still going strong!

 

[WoodenSaucer]

@Krud If you are talking about Shirley Curry, she is only 86 and still doing YouTube. Clint Eastwood is 92 and still going strong!

I'm turning 50 next month, and at this rate, I'm worried that I wont be alive when it comes out.

 

[mainer]

Since Bethesda is using a newer build of the same engine, I hope they've worked on how the engine unloads old data and loads new data when going from an exterior cell to interior cell, or vice versa. It wasn't too bad in Oblivion & Skyrim (especially the SE version of Skyrim), but there were issues in Fallout 4 (which was an updated version of the engine used in Skyrim). It felt like that swapping out of data was very well optimized, which led to long load times and occasional CTDs when "clicking" on a door, especially going from an interior cell to exterior.

Edit: That last sentence should read "It felt like that swapping out of data wasn't very well optimized...."

 

[Zloth]

With the new DirectX feature for using super-fast NVMe drives, a lot of games had better be working over how they load data that's going to the GPU!

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Since Bethesda is using a newer build of the same engine, I hope they've worked on how the engine unloads old data and loads new data when going from an exterior cell to interior cell, or vice versa. It wasn't too bad in Oblivion & Skyrim (especially the SE version of Skyrim), but there were issues in Fallout 4 (which was an updated version of the engine used in Skyrim). It felt like that swapping out of data was very well optimized, which led to long load times and occasional CTDs when "clicking" on a door, especially going from an interior cell to exterior.

Edit: That last sentence should read "It felt like that swapping out of data wasn't very well optimized...."

I rage quit FO4 because of how freaking long it took to load going in and out of buildings. There was one point where I was in a building that I had to go out on the roof of the same building a couple of times in a short period of time. Every time in and every time out took forever to load. I even tried moving it to my SSD, and it didn't hardly help. After that, I just quit. Sometime I might try it on my XSX to see if it works any better on a little better drive than what I was using on my PC.

 

[Krud]

...which led to long load times and occasional CTDs when "clicking" on a door, especially going from an interior cell to exterior.

My current heavily-modded version of Skyrim Special Edition is very much like this; I try to remember to save my game and hold my breath any time I enter or exit a building, as there seems to be a 1 in 10 chance it'll kick me to the desktop, with those odds increasing with each new building I enter. (I don't think I've made it more than two hours without it crashing.)

 

[Barukanen]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but yes. It appears that TES VI will use the same engine. Maybe it'll be upgraded even further. We're still quite far away from the release date of TES VI.

With that in mind then, surely it gives them experience and a better handle of what can be achieved with this engine using Starfield as their testing grounds to make TES6 incredible?

If it looks as good as or better than Starfield, then that means it's going to look a lot better than Skyrim, which is good news. Starfield's facial models and animations are much better than Skyrim's atrocious ones.

Skyrim is quite old, I think people forget how old it really is because of all the remastered and re-releases it's had over the years. There's been some incredible steps forward since, especially when you look at what mods are available that have been created by fans, a development team should smash the new one out of the water with their time and experience.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Skyrim is quite old, I think people forget how old it really is because of all the remastered and re-releases it's had over the years. There's been some incredible steps forward since, especially when you look at what mods are available that have been created by fans, a development team should smash the new one out of the water with their time and experience.

I'm a big fan of Skyrim; it's my favorite game of all time. But the mod thing you pointed out is part of what scares me. Their track record is to have great mod support, put out a buggy game, then depend on the community to fix it and make it better. But I agree with what you're saying.

Do you happen to know if Elder Scrolls Online uses the same engine, or a different one?

 

[Barukanen]

I'm a big fan of Skyrim; it's my favorite game of all time. But the mod thing you pointed out is part of what scares me. Their track record is to have great mod support, put out a buggy game, then depend on the community to fix it and make it better. But I agree with what you're saying.

Do you happen to know if Elder Scrolls Online uses the same engine, or a different one?

Its crazy how talented some of the fans are with their mods and fixes for the game. It's really impressive.

I've read that they started off using the Hero Engine but slowly modified it to their own needs and worked from there. Some reports say they scraped the Hero Engine work entirely and just created their own. Check this for a small idea.

 

[Krud]

I'm a big fan of Skyrim; it's my favorite game of all time. But the mod thing you pointed out is part of what scares me. Their track record is to have great mod support, put out a buggy game, then depend on the community to fix it and make it better.

I know we like to say this, but just how true is it overall? How much of an impact do mods have on console players? I know they have an option to install mods, but my understanding is it's a lot more limited than on PC, and if I were to hazard a guess, the average console Bethesda gamer doesn't even use mods*. (This is an admittedly huge assumption on my part, but I know plenty of PC gamers who also don't use mods, so I would just assume it's even more the case in a more closed system like XBox or Playstation.) I believe they can't use any of the script extender mods, which covers a lot of ground.

Edit: *About five or six years ago I was at a friend's house and they had Skyrim loaded on their PS4, and I blurted, "I'd forgotten just how ugly the default interface is." They didn't appreciate that. =D

 

[Barukanen]

I know we like to say this, but just how true is it overall? How much of an impact do mods have on console players? I know they have an option to install mods, but my understanding is it's a lot more limited than on PC, and if I were to hazard a guess, the average console Bethesda gamer doesn't even use mods*. (This is an admittedly huge assumption on my part, but I know plenty of PC gamers who also don't use mods, so I would just assume it's even more the case in a more closed system like XBox or Playstation.) I believe they can't use any of the script extender mods, which covers a lot of ground.

Edit: *About five or six years ago I was at a friend's house and they had Skyrim loaded on their PS4, and I blurted, "I'd forgotten just how ugly the default interface is." They didn't appreciate that. =D

I think you could get away with saying that against every game on console compared to PC.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

I know we like to say this, but just how true is it overall? How much of an impact do mods have on console players? I know they have an option to install mods, but my understanding is it's a lot more limited than on PC, and if I were to hazard a guess, the average console Bethesda gamer doesn't even use mods*. (This is an admittedly huge assumption on my part, but I know plenty of PC gamers who also don't use mods, so I would just assume it's even more the case in a more closed system like XBox or Playstation.) I believe they can't use any of the script extender mods, which covers a lot of ground.

Edit: *About five or six years ago I was at a friend's house and they had Skyrim loaded on their PS4, and I blurted, "I'd forgotten just how ugly the default interface is." They didn't appreciate that. =D

Yeah, you do have a point. You can mod on modern consoles, and people do. But I'm sure not nearly as much as PC. And I know that the majority of gamers are probably going to play on consoles. And also as Kovanen pointed out earlier, Skyrim is a really old game that was made way before you could ever mod on consoles. So you do have a point.

But that doesn't change the fact that they put out buggy games, and the modding community does fix a lot for them, even if console gamers don't see the benefit.

 

[Sarafan]

With that in mind then, surely it gives them experience and a better handle of what can be achieved with this engine using Starfield as their testing grounds to make TES6 incredible?

Actually I'm pretty sure that they're already experienced with the engine. The core of the engine is the same as in Skyrim. Thankfully it looks quite modern after all of the upgrades. I really hope that TES 6 won't look worse than Skyrim on its release date.

 

[Barukanen]

Actually I'm pretty sure that they're already experienced with the engine. The core of the engine is the same as in Skyrim. Thankfully it looks quite modern after all of the upgrades. I really hope that TES 6 won't look worse than Skyrim on its release date.

If they're that experienced. Why would it look worse out of curiosity?

 

[Sarafan]

If they're that experienced. Why would it look worse out of curiosity?

We'll see how the graphics standards improve in the upcoming years. We're quite close to the first Unreal Engine 5 releases. We all know how great the Matrix interactive experienced looked. TES 6 will be probably released in 2024 or 2025. If the UE 5 games will make a huge difference, the Creation Engine may become quite outdated until then.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

We'll see how the graphics standards improve in the upcoming years. We're quite close to the first Unreal Engine 5 releases. We all know how great the Matrix interactive experienced looked. TES 6 will be probably released in 2024 or 2025. If the UE 5 games will make a huge difference, the Creation Engine may become quite outdated until then.

Creation will definitely be outdated, but it won't look worse than Skyrim. It will look at least as good as Starfield, or better, which is much better than Skyrim. But it will definitely look outdated compared to other contemporary games.

 

[Sarafan]

Creation will definitely be outdated, but it won't look worse than Skyrim. It will look at least as good as Starfield, or better, which is much better than Skyrim. But it will definitely look outdated compared to other contemporary games.

I wasn't suggesting that it'll look worse than Skyrim. I only hope that it'll look at least as good as Skyrim on the release date in 2011. What I'm trying to say is that I hope the graphics progress will be similar to the one introduced by Skyrim.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

I wasn't suggesting that it'll look worse than Skyrim. I only hope that it'll look at least as good as Skyrim on the release date in 2011. What I'm trying to say is that I hope the graphics progress will be similar to the one introduced by Skyrim.

When Skyrim first came out, I heard a lot about it, but I didn't have a way to play it. I didn't play until SE came out, so I don't have a good handle on how it was when it first came out. But what I seem to remember hearing was that people considered it pretty great, graphically. Seems like it was definitely on par or better than other games of that time. Do you think that's right?

I think TES VI will be great, graphically, but I don't think it will outshine other games that come out around it.

 

[Krud]

Yeah, you do have a point. You can mod on modern consoles, and people do. But I'm sure not nearly as much as PC. And I know that the majority of gamers are probably going to play on consoles. And also as Kovanen pointed out earlier, Skyrim is a really old game that was made way before you could ever mod on consoles. So you do have a point.

But that doesn't change the fact that they put out buggy games, and the modding community does fix a lot for them, even if console gamers don't see the benefit.

Yeah, I am in no way intending to say their games aren't buggy AF. I just don't think it's because they're counting on modders. I think their continued SUCCESS on the PC is thanks largely to modders, but I think the bugginess would have been there regardless.

 

[Sarafan]

When Skyrim first came out, I heard a lot about it, but I didn't have a way to play it. I didn't play until SE came out, so I don't have a good handle on how it was when it first came out. But what I seem to remember hearing was that people considered it pretty great, graphically. Seems like it was definitely on par or better than other games of that time. Do you think that's right?

I think TES VI will be great, graphically, but I don't think it will outshine other games that come out around it.

Skyrim was looking great when it came out. Maybe it wasn't the best looking game of its time (I'd say the the best looking game from this period was Crysis 2), but it pushed some limits when it comes to graphics in open world games.

I also hope that TES VI will look very good. We have to remember that open world games are more demanding than linear ones however. Cyberpunk 2077 shows this precisely. If you want to make an open world game that's also one of the best looking, you have to be prepared for high system requirements. We'll see what computer Stafield will demand because the shown gameplay was quite choppy at times.