Starfield

[Frindis]

Good find @Pifanjr and it seems Howard listened to you Good questions also, A LOT better than what that other dude gargled up in the extended showcase, that was just embarrassing, whether scripted or not. This is more of what I mean with a little more depth and especially nice to learn more about the ship's functionality. Still not sold on the whole procedural-generated stuff Howard talks about, but as long as the focus is on those few handcrafted planets, that is where the priority should be. Less is more! Here is the link btw:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4j-PV-sSbXs

 

[ZedClampet]

(Note: I haven't read this thread. I'm not responding to anyone here. I'm responding to articles I've read on different sites)

I think we're being way too harsh. Here's the thing. You don't have to go to every damn planet. People are making it sound like you are going to be drudging around on 1000 planets. Why? No Man's Sky has billions of planets. Do you feel like you have to explore each one? If you don't like exploring the planets, don't do it.

And procedural generation has improved a lot. This doesn't mean Bethesda's version will be great, but I don't know why you wouldn't wait to see it before coming out against it. You can absolutely make interesting planets (mostly geological features and alien flora/fauna) procedurally. You can also make a few buildings and put them in appropriate places, and there's your planets. You wouldn't expect every planet to be packed full of stuff. You would expect planets to have an outpost or two, maybe a few would have a city. But it's the geography that will make the planets good or bad. There's hardly "anything" on No Man's Sky planets, yet they are still fun to explore.

Also, why are we slamming the undoubtably incomplete list of things they mentioned you could do? I love building bases. I love building ships. I love dogfighting in space. Give me a game with just those three things and I'll be happy, yet there's obviously going to be a lot more with the narrative and such. What were we expecting you were going to do in a space game? Everyone says it sounds boring. How does this sound boring, exactly? And what things could you be doing that wouldn't sound boring?

There have been at least two articles on PCG about two different games where you play as a taxi driver in a cyberpunk world. That's all you did was drive people from one place to another, and these were described as being superior games to Cyberpunk 2077. This has led me to only one conclusion: Some people are so jaded and angry about the AAA games industry that they have lost the ability to consider "blockbuster" type games rationally. The bigger the expectations for a game, the more it is demonized. Another thing is clear, as well. No matter how good this game is, the press and many players will bash it mercilessly. That's fine. Don't buy it. The rest of us will roll our eyes at your anger and enjoy the game.

 

[Frindis]

(Note: I haven't read this thread. I'm not responding to anyone here. I'm responding to articles I've read on different sites)

Yet it does seem like some of your criticism is partly directed towards my post. If it was or if I am mistaken (just had similar views as others you read) don't you mind bashing out (poor choice of wording), I can take it. Discussions are fun, whether you make a good argument or don't. You can learn from both. I'm sure that is something Socrates would have said while walking around intellectually high on life and red wine.

I think we're being way too harsh. Here's the thing. You don't have to go to every damn planet. People are making it sound like you are going to be drudging around on 1000 planets. Why? No Man's Sky has billions of planets. Do you feel like you have to explore each one? If you don't like exploring the planets, don't do it.

I don't really think that is the problem though. People know that you don't have to go to every planet, it's just the way they are presenting it, like something jawdropping, something out of this world -pun intended. It is just gimmicky and boring, not what I want to hear and they could be focusing on more important things. Most likely and what @Pifanjr mentioned, is that they probably did not have much to say because there is still much to do developing-wise.

And procedural generation has improved a lot. This doesn't mean Bethesda's version will be great, but I don't know why you wouldn't wait to see it before coming out against it. You can absolutely make interesting planets (mostly geological features and alien flora/fauna) procedurally. You can also make a few buildings and put them in appropriate places, and there's your planets. You wouldn't expect every planet to be packed full of stuff. You would expect planets to have an outpost or two, maybe a few would have a city. But it's geography that will make the planets good or bad. There's hardly "anything" on No Man's Sky planets, yet they are still fun to explore.

Less is more. Instead of using time on making this huge space with planets that interestingly enough look like just a bunch of rocks with some trees on them (someone said it looks like Fallout: New Vegas rocks), I'd rather have them focus on the handcrafting parts that Howard talked about in the IGN interview. At least that sounded interesting. I'm sure some people will find it fun to travel to a distant planet and build their home there, even if it looks as naked as the moon. From my own experience with these procedural worlds, they get pretty boring after some visits. Almost the: You seen one, you have seen them all. I did play No Man Sky back at release and can't say I was much surprised by the variety. I guess I'm just not one of them that is eager to explore the countless procedural planets and would instead rather see perhaps 100 hand-crafted ones, than 990 that are not.[/QUOTE]

Also, why are we slamming the undoubtably incomplete list of things they mentioned you could do? I love building bases. I love building ships. I love dogfighting in space. Give me a game with just those three things and I'll be happy, yet there's obviously going to be a lot more with the narrative and such. What were we expecting you were going to do in a space game? Everyone says it sounds boring. How does this sound boring, exactly? And what things could you be doing that wouldn't sound boring?

If they are presenting their new baby, the EPIC game that will shake the foundations we stand on, perhaps we are obliged to bash a little when something looks pretty much like you would have from Fallout 4. It's not like they are reinventing the wheel exactly, but I definitely give them respect for going where no man has gone before. - bad pun intended. It does look like the game will have something for everyone. Personally, I'm more invested in the shipbuilding, that for me is something I have not seen much of in other games.

There have been at least two articles on PCG about two different games where you play as a taxi driver in a cyberpunk world. That's all you did was drive people from one place to another, and these were described as being superior games to Cyberpunk 2077. This has led me to only one conclusion: Some people are so jaded and angry about the AAA games industry that they have lost the ability to consider "blockbuster" type games rationally. The bigger the expectations for a game, the more it is demonized. Another thing is clear, as well. No matter how good this game is, the press and many players will bash it mercilessly. That's fine. Don't buy it. The rest of us will roll our eyes at your anger and enjoy the game.

Yeah, it does not help if you are going too much in one direction, thinking that indie games are the best in the whole wide world and the AAA studios are the big bad wolf. Does not make much sense to me. What does make sense is that a lot of AAA studios are greedy and make poor games, but then you have something like Elden Ring that really ups the ante on just what you can make if you think a little outside of the box. Here is hoping Starfield is such a game.

 

[Ryzengang]

(Note: I haven't read this thread. I'm not responding to anyone here. I'm responding to articles I've read on different sites)

I think we're being way too harsh. Here's the thing. You don't have to go to every damn planet. People are making it sound like you are going to be drudging around on 1000 planets. Why? No Man's Sky has billions of planets. Do you feel like you have to explore each one? If you don't like exploring the planets, don't do it.

And procedural generation has improved a lot. This doesn't mean Bethesda's version will be great, but I don't know why you wouldn't wait to see it before coming out against it. You can absolutely make interesting planets (mostly geological features and alien flora/fauna) procedurally. You can also make a few buildings and put them in appropriate places, and there's your planets. You wouldn't expect every planet to be packed full of stuff. You would expect planets to have an outpost or two, maybe a few would have a city. But it's the geography that will make the planets good or bad. There's hardly "anything" on No Man's Sky planets, yet they are still fun to explore.

Also, why are we slamming the undoubtably incomplete list of things they mentioned you could do? I love building bases. I love building ships. I love dogfighting in space. Give me a game with just those three things and I'll be happy, yet there's obviously going to be a lot more with the narrative and such. What were we expecting you were going to do in a space game? Everyone says it sounds boring. How does this sound boring, exactly? And what things could you be doing that wouldn't sound boring?

There have been at least two articles on PCG about two different games where you play as a taxi driver in a cyberpunk world. That's all you did was drive people from one place to another, and these were described as being superior games to Cyberpunk 2077. This has led me to only one conclusion: Some people are so jaded and angry about the AAA games industry that they have lost the ability to consider "blockbuster" type games rationally. The bigger the expectations for a game, the more it is demonized. Another thing is clear, as well. No matter how good this game is, the press and many players will bash it mercilessly. That's fine. Don't buy it. The rest of us will roll our eyes at your anger and enjoy the game.

I just think it's a matter of people holding views way too strongly on either side. No one should be "slamming" anything. It's just a subjective thing. The reveal is going to appeal to some people and some people are going to be underwhelmed/uninterested for a variety of reasons.

For example, my purely subjective thoughts on Starfield are that, indeed, the game is needlessly large. Here's the thing though: for some people, that's a major feature. There is little doubt that many people are going to absolutely love this game and spend thousands of hours exploring it, likely with mods as well. BUT it is a problem for me. Yes, I could ignore that content, but it's important to remember that development time is a finite resource. Instead of making the game exceedingly large, they could have spent more development time creating a smaller game that is more dense and with higher levels of detail. There is absolutely a trade-off when making a game of this scope.

To reiterate an important point: this is just how I feel. I prefer more curated, constrained experiences, and Starfield does not look to be that. But it absolutely looks like a good game that will be loved by many, played for thousands of hours, and modded for years to come. There's no need to create "sides" for or against the game. I'm pretty lukewarm on Starfield at the moment, but I genuinely hope the game is great and, if it's not for me, I hope the people who are highly anticipating it have a great time.

 

[Krud]

The procedurally generated planets are just there to prevent having to use (invisible) walls or constraining players to only visit 10 planets in the entire galaxy. They don't actually contain anything interesting, but the game won't tell you you can't land somewhere. You can check out any planet you come across, gather a few resources and then take off again. Or if you really like the vibe of it, you can decide to build a base there.

It's just a way for the galaxy to feel big, even if most of it is empty. And it's a nice way to give the players who are really into base building a lot of different environments to build their base in.

Yeah, I actually am glad they're going this route, if only from a modding perspective. I know a game should just succeed on its own merits, but I've always looked at the Bethesda games from a PC modding lens. (I honestly can't imagine being fine with the console versions, though I'm sure I likely would if I had no choice in the matter.)

And if 800 of the 1,000+ planets are "empty" or "boring", that's 800 blank canvases, AKA opportunities for modders to put something cool there. (Assuming they provide the necessary tools to do so. Which is maybe a big assumption now that they're under Microsoft, who isn't really known for embracing the modding community AFAIK. [Though they've been hands-off with Minecraft Java for the most part.])

One of the problems with, say, Skyrim mods, was the world was already crammed full of specific, curated areas, and there were only so many blank spots for modders to place something, so you eventually wound up having to decide what mods would go in a certain spot. (There were often patches for conflicting mods, but ideally you wouldn't need to worry about that.)

I think this will also make "fast travel" (FTL travel?) have more meaning/context, in that you'll probably still have to get to a ship and take off before you can insta-pilot to some other quest planet (if they even allow for fast travel. Might be a "you cannot FTL travel while pirates are orbiting the area" or something.) Whereas fast travel in Skyrim and Fallout 4 made a modest-sized swath of land feel just a bit smaller.

I also like that each planet appears to be [at least relatively] planet-sized, so EVEN IF a modder puts, say, a secret base near the equator of planet Alpha Centauri Gamma (or whatever), someone else could still put something interesting near one of the poles (or even on the opposite side of said equator) and not worry about them interfering with each other. In theory. (We don't have any real details on how these planets "work", so maybe there'd be some shared planetary database to worry about editing, in terms of geographic data, population, etc.)

Anyway, I'm cautiously optimistic (though not too cautious), and am glad they didn't opt for "Here are your six planets: the ice planet, the jungle planet, the desert planet, the plains planet, the rocky planet, and the swamp planet."

 

[Pifanjr]

I also like that each planet appears to be [at least relatively] planet-sized, so EVEN IF a modder puts, say, a secret base near the equator of planet Alpha Centauri Gamma (or whatever), someone else could still put something interesting near one of the poles (or even on the opposite side of said equator) and not worry about them interfering with each other. In theory. (We don't have any real details on how these planets "work", so maybe there'd be some shared planetary database to worry about editing, in terms of geographic data, population, etc.)

I've seen this comment that the randomly generated planets are great for putting in modded content, but it seems obvious to me that any mod that adds handcrafted planetary content would just add its own planet to put it on, so you'd never have to worry about conflicts and it would be super easy to identify them.

 

[mainer]

I'm responding to articles I've read on different sites)

I think we're being way too harsh. Here's the thing. You don't have to go to every damn planet. People are making it sound like you are going to be drudging around on 1000 planets. Why? No Man's Sky has billions of planets. Do you feel like you have to explore each one? If you don't like exploring the planets, don't do it.

Regarding articles about Starfield, both on PCG and elsewhere, I've read several that felt overly critical to me, most with constant comparisons to NMS, which I don't feel was really objective from the amount of content that was actually revealed. We know there are 1000 planets, we know we'll have at least one ship, we know that there will be ship to ship combat; but really don't know much about how space travel is actually going to work in the game. Way too much speculating and overreacting on the part of many writers.

Also, why are we slamming the undoubtably incomplete list of things they mentioned you could do? I love building bases. I love building ships. I love dogfighting in space. Give me a game with just those three things and I'll be happy, yet there's obviously going to be a lot more with the narrative and such. What were we expecting you were going to do in a space game?

Another thing I found aggravating in many of these articles, they rarely mentioned any of the positive aspects of gameplay. I love those elements that you mentioned, as well as weapon crafting, character creation, and the skill building during leveling up. Granted, we only saw brief glimpses, but what I saw looked very promising. But how many articles expanded on those features.

In general, it feels like there is a trend the last few years among most gaming journalists to be far less objective in their articles and far too much personal opinion. Interjecting personal feelings and experience from playing it (as in reviews) is fine, but I think they need to open there eyes a bit wider and talk about all the features a game has to offer even if there are things they don't like personally.

Yet it does seem like some of your criticism is partly directed towards my post. If it was or if I am mistaken (just had similar views as others you read) don't you mind bashing out, I can take it. Discussions are fun, whether you make a good argument or don't.

I don't think there's any personal bashing going on here, but most of us have strong opinions about the games we like to play, or those that we don't or even certain game developers. Some of us are excited for Starfield, some aren't, and a few are somewhere in the middle of that.

I will say that I disagree with roughly 80-90% of the content of your most of your posts here (without going back and quoting each instance). I also feel that the overall tone of those posts tended to be overly critical. When looking at them again, it feels your comments were more about the presentation itself and what content wasn't shown, than it was about Starfield. That's just my opinion with no bashing involved.

It's all subjective based on each individual. As @Ryzengang said:

It's just a subjective thing. The reveal is going to appeal to some people and some people are going to be underwhelmed/uninterested for a variety of reasons.

I know a game should just succeed on its own merits, but I've always looked at the Bethesda games from a PC modding lens.

(Assuming they provide the necessary tools to do so. Which is maybe a big assumption now that they're under Microsoft, who isn't really known for embracing the modding community AFAIK. [Though they've been hands-off with Minecraft Java for the most part.])

Mods are always in the back of my mind for any Bethesda game, excluding ESO and FO76 which I have no interest in since they're online-type games. I never use them my first play through, but I'll take a few mental notes as I'm playing about what I'd like to see modded.

And it is concerning that we haven't heard any official statement yet about mod support or (hopefully) some type of creation kit toolset. That's one of the things I'd like to see confirmed in the near future. I feel that there will, at least eventually be mod support. Look at the longevity and popularity of Skyrim, it wouldn't be the game it is today without a strong community of modders.

 

[Zloth]

The IGN video was a good one and helped out a lot!

"Ohhh, shipbuilding, cool! I can build my own ship! Then you find out you can't really build the whole ship, just tiny pieces, and those pieces come from a selection of not that many unique pieces, and then you find out the best colors are hidden behind a paywall or that they are not that great looking..." kind of like how it was with the building at the early release of Fallout 4.

Errr, actually I think we are plugging in various pieces that are pretty big. That's what it looks like in the video. How many will be available to the console folks will be one thing, but how many will be available via mods on PC?

P.S. The best colors!?!? Well, Tesla charges more for black and even more yet for red, so I guess it's possible.

 

[Pifanjr]

we know we'll have at least one ship

Ship boarding was mentioned, with the option to steal the other ship, so I'm hoping we can have a (small) fleet. Though we might just get to scrap one of the ships for parts and money.

And it is concerning that we haven't heard any official statement yet about mod support or (hopefully) some type of creation kit toolset. That's one of the things I'd like to see confirmed in the near future. I feel that there will, at least eventually be mod support. Look at the longevity and popularity of Skyrim, it wouldn't be the game it is today without a strong community of modders.

In the IGN interview, Todd says "We love our modding community. I actually think this game, for our modding community, is going to be a dream., as there's so much they can do."

 

[Frindis]

The IGN video was a good one and helped out a lot!

Had some much better questions also than that garble at the extended showcase. Amazing what you say when things are not scripted or at least I don't think it was.

Errr, actually I think we are plugging in various pieces that are pretty big.

Are you saying I can't tell small from big? How daaaare you! *kappaface*

In the IGN interview, Todd says "We love our modding community. I actually think this game, for our modding community, is going to be a dream., as there's so much they can do."

Good point. It would be good for the empty planets like @Krud mentioned earlier. Still don't like to have too many of them, but if the modders can actually build on planets and do a lot of stuff, then that'll at least be something good in the long run.

I don't think there's any personal bashing going on here, but most of us have strong opinions about the games we like to play, or those that we don't or even certain game developers. Some of us are excited for Starfield, some aren't, and a few are somewhere in the middle of that.

I will say that I disagree with roughly 80-90% of the content of your most of your posts here (without going back and quoting each instance). I also feel that the overall tone of those posts tended to be overly critical. When looking at them again, it feels your comments were more about the presentation itself and what content wasn't shown, than it was about Starfield. That's just my opinion with no bashing involved.

@ZedClampet, @mainer In retrospect, bashing is slight too strong of a word for what I meant. Being in the spotlight would be a better word of choice.

@mainer 80-90% man, that is harsh! Sure, I thought the presentation was pretty bad and what mattered the most for me was not there in more depth, as I experienced with the Fallout 4 presentation. Basically, it was lackluster in my opinion. Overly critical? Absolutely, I don't really have many good feelings for Bethesda lately so that is bound to seep into my overall reaction also in one way or another, especially when they overhype their product.

 

[Pifanjr]

Still don't like to have too many of them, but if the modders can actually build on planets and do a lot of stuff, then that'll at least be something good in the long run.

They wanted players to be able to explore the entirety of every planet, not just the little handcrafted bits. They didn't want to put up walls and restrict where you could land on a planet to only a small section. So they made a procedural generation algorithm that could fill an entire planet worth of land, with different biomes. Once they made that, they could use the same algorithm with some different parameters to make as many planets as they wanted, so the actual number is completely arbitrary and most players will only ever visit a fraction of them. They're basically background decor and can be completely ignored if you want to.

I've also said this earlier, but modders will probably just add their own planets, not built on existing planets, to avoid conflicts and to have more control over the look of the planets they put their content on.

 

[Frindis]

@Pifanjr So, if I understand you correctly, it does not really matter if they make 1000 or 10.000 planets, it would not take up much developing time? I guess that would make a lot of sense since No Man Sky got an insane amount of them or perhaps that is something way more complex?

 

[Pifanjr]

@Pifanjr So, if I understand you correctly, it does not really matter if they make 1000 or 10.000 planets, it would not take up much developing time?

Exactly. I've read people say the developers probably do a quick pass over every planet, but what I understood from Todd is that every planet is actually planet sized. Meaning the planets are not going to be pre-generated, they'll be generated in real time by your computer. The developers might have hand picked/tweaked the parameters for every empty planet though, to make sure they're somewhat unique, in which case making another 9.000 would cost some extra time. Though I see no reason why anyone would want 9.000 extra empty planets.

 

[Zloth]

So, if I understand you correctly, it does not really matter if they make 1000 or 10.000 planets, it would not take up much developing time?

That's what Todd Howard said in the IGN interview video.

Oh, I've been kappafaced! Errr, is that better or worse than being gammafaced? Or was it you kappafacing me??

 

[Brian Boru]

kappafaced! Errr, is that better or worse

It's complicated.

 

[Frindis]

Oh, I've been kappafaced! Errr, is that better or worse than being gammafaced? Or was it you kappafacing me??

Never heard of gammafaced, but sounds like it could be a new Twitch emote, I'll look into that. I believe I am kappafacing myself since my comment would have been quite ludicrous without any. Perhaps I could have used a clown face also. I believe Twitch peps use that all that time when they say something overly funny or want to be a little edgy in the comments. I hardly find myself edgy though, funny? Well, there are certainly different levels of funny, as Henry Hill and Tommy DeVito would have said in the Goodfellas movie.

 

[Brian Boru]

gammafaced … I'll look into that

Do that, Rygel could do with a makeover.

 

[Frindis]

Do that, Rygel could do with a makeover.

I do have a different avatar for different forums, so perhaps I could change it to one of my absolute favorites, the energy vampire:

 

[Krud]

I've seen this comment that the randomly generated planets are great for putting in modded content, but it seems obvious to me that any mod that adds handcrafted planetary content would just add its own planet to put it on, so you'd never have to worry about conflicts and it would be super easy to identify them.

That's a good point! I hadn't thought of that. Though I think it's all conjecture on both our parts, until they reveal how the different planets work with each other. If they've created some sort of serviceable astronomy physics for the planets, or a star chart, or anything else where the number of planets and their positions are accounted for, then a modder fabricating an entire new planet into existence might run into complications, I don't know.

But as far as super easy is concerned, I would think altering an existing planet that already has a logged location, name/number, etc. would be easier than finding a spot for a new one in a given star system. Yes, a new one would avoid conflicts on an existing planet, but that also assumes someone else doesn't come along and do the same thing at the same location. Which should be less of an issue because of the vast amount of planetary real estate that comes with the game.

Regardless, we won't know for sure until we can find out what kind of scripting and/or Creation Kit retrofitting Bethesda has perpetrated. Either way, I don't think the ability to create, say, Custom Planet #1001-B refutes or invalidates my point about the possibilities with the other thousand planets. You STILL pretty much wouldn't have to worry about conflicts, in either scenario. Just like people could create entire new landmasses in Skyrim, but more often than not people stuck to the land that was already sitting there. Anwyay, I look forward to finding out what the best route will be. (Again, assuming they still release the Creation Kit for it. Or whatever Starfield's equivalent is.)

 

[Krud]

And it is concerning that we haven't heard any official statement yet about mod support or (hopefully) some type of creation kit toolset. That's one of the things I'd like to see confirmed in the near future. I feel that there will, at least eventually be mod support. Look at the longevity and popularity of Skyrim, it wouldn't be the game it is today without a strong community of modders.

I will be very disappointed if their mod support drops or vanishes for this title. I'm not anticipating that happening, because I think Bethesda knows better? (You would hope.) But yeah, until we hear something definitive, it's a bit worrisome. I commend those who play through them once without mods, but I would probably have lost my sh*t trying to slog all the way through a buggy, wonky-UI Skyrim.

 

[Pifanjr]

That's a good point! I hadn't thought of that. Though I think it's all conjecture on both our parts, until they reveal how the different planets work with each other. If they've created some sort of serviceable astronomy physics for the planets, or a star chart, or anything else where the number of planets and their positions are accounted for, then a modder fabricating an entire new planet into existence might run into complications, I don't know.

But as far as super easy is concerned, I would think altering an existing planet that already has a logged location, name/number, etc. would be easier than finding a spot for a new one in a given star system. Yes, a new one would avoid conflicts on an existing planet, but that also assumes someone else doesn't come along and do the same thing at the same location. Which should be less of an issue because of the vast amount of planetary real estate that comes with the game.

Regardless, we won't know for sure until we can find out what kind of scripting and/or Creation Kit retrofitting Bethesda has perpetrated. Either way, I don't think the ability to create, say, Custom Planet #1001-B refutes or invalidates my point about the possibilities with the other thousand planets. You STILL pretty much wouldn't have to worry about conflicts, in either scenario. Just like people could create entire new landmasses in Skyrim, but more often than not people stuck to the land that was already sitting there. Anwyay, I look forward to finding out what the best route will be. (Again, assuming they still release the Creation Kit for it. Or whatever Starfield's equivalent is.)

You make some good points as well. I also wonder if it'll be possible to create content that will be randomly put onto planets, such that you wouldn't ever have to worry about conflicts as you don't choose a specific place for your content, you just choose a planet and the game decides where to fit it in.