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If they let RDR2 get nominated for anything, Rockstar should have just laid down its cards and nominated it for game of the year, just to embarrass everyone. Elite Dangerous should steal the ship building from Starfield, it's probably the most fun part and motivated me to complete as much of it as I did. I just need two more points in aneutronic fusion, then I can play the game.
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Dec 16, 2023 18:36
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My suspicion—while I’m just making stuff up totally randomly; I’m sure they really worked on this for 7 years and it wasn’t jammed into the last 18 months—is that the ship building survived the big (purported) reset and therefore had more time to simmer and get the feel good. Imagine how good the game would be if everything had got that attention. (I love that Microsoft said “hey give the team the time they need” and Bethesda decided that they were done in that state.)
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Dec 16, 2023 20:11
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We all know they spent most of that extra time developing the paid mods system
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Dec 16, 2023 20:17
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I hope we hear one day what happened.
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Dec 16, 2023 21:23
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For the price of 5 drinks at GDC in the right hotel lobby after dinner, I bet one can learn most of it.
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Dec 16, 2023 22:07
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Jason Schrier will inevitably make an essay drawing on anonymous current and open former interviews.
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Dec 16, 2023 22:31
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well I got to the quest to collect the last two artifacts, and one of them is sending me to a big POI I've done twice already. just don't feel like doing it. 7/10 I guess
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Dec 18, 2023 02:07
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Once I'd tried to stealth my way through all the different POIs, it was pretty satisfying to just storm through them with a shotgun. It certainly made them shorter.
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Dec 18, 2023 02:36
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Yeah, using the Magshear as a point and click enemy removal tool is certainly satisfying, but it does kinda make clearing POIs trivial.
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Dec 18, 2023 03:30
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It really blows my mind that they didn’t randomize the POIs even a little. Every time you hit that frozen one there’s always that same exact scientist hanging out of that same exact vent with the same key card that gets you in a loot room. Why?
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Dec 18, 2023 03:34
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Scrungus posted:It really blows my mind that they didn’t randomize the POIs even a little. Every time you hit that frozen one there’s always that same exact scientist hanging out of that same exact vent with the same key card that gets you in a loot room. Why? They didn't have time in their EIGHT YEARS OF DEVELOPMENT to get to that. Mods will fix it
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Dec 18, 2023 03:37
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hawowanlawow posted:well I got to the quest to collect the last two artifacts, and one of them is sending me to a big POI I've done twice already. just don't feel like doing it. 7/10 I guess One of the two actually has a neat quest associated with it.
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Dec 18, 2023 05:08
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Scrungus posted:It really blows my mind that they didn’t randomize the POIs even a little. Every time you hit that frozen one there’s always that same exact scientist hanging out of that same exact vent with the same key card that gets you in a loot room. Why? And it's not like there's even that many different ones. It feels like maybe less than 10.
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Dec 18, 2023 05:54
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I'm not that deeply familiar with how the engine works, but my theory is that it cannot randomize object placement beyond containers. It's all hand-built. They probably spent a lot of time to get the mostly pointless space bits in. Procgen terrain does look fairly good though.
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Dec 18, 2023 06:50
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Sandepande posted:Procgen terrain does look fairly good though. Does it? You go up high enough and it becomes obvious just how flat everything is and the boundaries between bespoke terrain and generative are fairly easy to see.
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Dec 18, 2023 07:00
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Sandepande posted:I'm not that deeply familiar with how the engine works, but my theory is that it cannot randomize object placement beyond containers. It's all hand-built. SCheeseman posted:Does it? You go up high enough and it becomes obvious just how flat everything is and the boundaries between bespoke terrain and generative are fairly easy to see. https://www.reddit.com/r/Starfield/comments/18k9os6/procedurally_generated_grid/
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Dec 18, 2023 07:09
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The linked reddit post seems to be in the spirit of "this looks bad", but it doesn't look that bad to me? There is a very obvious grid, but the same visual effect is pretty common in other games, too, where only the basic textures are applied due to LOD.
Wipfmetz fucked around with this message at 07:47 on Dec 18, 2023 |
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Dec 18, 2023 07:44
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Sandepande posted:I'm not that deeply familiar with how the engine works, but my theory is that it cannot randomize object placement beyond containers. It's all hand-built. It could circa Fallout 3
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Dec 18, 2023 09:08
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That just had been "table and shelf physics happen without you looking", sorry.
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Dec 18, 2023 09:50
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Wipfmetz posted:That just had been "table and shelf physics happen without you looking", sorry. I had a multi-pack of sushi rolls or something spawn in one of those toaster ovens, but it's too big for the oven so it went spinning around the room non-stop. Some of the smoothest physics jank you'll ever see!
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Dec 18, 2023 09:58
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Sandepande posted:I'm not that deeply familiar with how the engine works, but my theory is that it cannot randomize object placement beyond containers. It's all hand-built. So they could have made slightly different versions of the POIs by showing/hiding doors to make you follow different routes for example. That would still get annoying after a while, but it would have been a tiny bit better then seeing an abandoned research tower and sighing at the exact same layout of mines in front of the door that you've seen a dozen times already. If something like that was considered, it probably was removed from the design board because it would have taken too much time. But on the other hand Starfield had a devteam of 500'ish people, while Skyrim had a 100. So what the gently caress were those people doing? I still suspect that Bethesda wasted a fuckton of resources on getting procgen to work right. Only to realize too late that they could only get decent result for exteriors, but that the output for buildings & interiors was poo poo. And they slapped the POIs we got together at the last minute as a fix.
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Dec 18, 2023 11:19
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Raygereio posted:I still suspect that Bethesda wasted a fuckton of resources on getting procgen to work right. Only to realize too late that they could only get decent result for exteriors, but that the output for buildings & interiors was poo poo. And they slapped the POIs we got together at the last minute as a fix. It really does sound like they were hoping everything would come together when they got the procgen working, and then they put a bunch of effort into trying to get it to work and it just sort of didn't as much as they wanted to and it just couldn't do the things they wanted it to. There's still a lot of issues unrelated to that but it does seem like that was at the heart of a lot of the issues, they wanted exploring procgen related worlds to be at the core of the game, and they just couldn't get it to work. That the dlc's not come out until a year later, which is a super long time compared to all their previous dlcs makes me think their hoping they can fix thing by adding in a whole bunch of extra content in the dlc that will look to fix the procgen worlds being empty. If there smart they'll be looking carefully at No Mans Sky, but who knows if they can actually manage anything like that comeback. It would require a lot of self reflection on their part on exactly whats gone wrong and what they need to do to try and fix it, not just hope that mods will some how manage that for them.
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Dec 18, 2023 12:08
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dr_rat posted:If there smart they'll be looking carefully at No Mans Sky, but who knows if they can actually manage anything like that comeback. It would require a lot of self reflection on their part on exactly whats gone wrong and what they need to do to try and fix it, not just hope that mods will some how manage that for them. (view response).
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Dec 18, 2023 14:00
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Raygereio posted:Going on Skyrim-era knowledge of the engine here. But while objects are hand-placed, what the engine can do fine is show/hide objects. That's how upgrades to houses in Skyrim worked for example. When you first enter Breezehome that kitchen is already there, just not visible. After you purchase the upgrade, the kitchen area becomes visible and interactable. AFAIK there are a couple variants for those standard buildings like the research tower, I've run into a few where there's an obstruction blocking a path or just part of the floor plan seemingly missing. The problem is, there's only maybe one or two variations, and there are a hundred planets that all have one, and the individual items, data pads, and flavour text are identical between them. So you're more likely to notice that you've seen this before, than that it's slightly different than the 20 other ones you've seen.
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Dec 18, 2023 14:01
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Wipfmetz posted:A developer has responded And I found out about this Emil persona and his opinion that RPG players are too stupid to count to three. Also neat.
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Dec 18, 2023 14:06
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dr_rat posted:It really does sound like they were hoping everything would come together when they got the procgen working, and then they put a bunch of effort into trying to get it to work and it just sort of didn't as much as they wanted to and it just couldn't do the things they wanted it to. Have they really said the first dlc isn't coming out for a year??
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Dec 18, 2023 14:22
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1glitch0 posted:Have they really said the first dlc isn't coming out for a year?? I thought i remembered someone from Bethesda mentioning it but I did a quick google and as I can't seem to find any mention of it, it's very possible I just misremembered it.
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Dec 18, 2023 14:33
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this might sound weird, but I think one of the issues is that BG3 came out just prior, and absolutely stuck the landing on a whole bunch of RPG stuff to an astonishing degree. I know they're focused on different things, but going from BG3 where the world reacts in an insane number of ways to your choices and actions, to Starfield where literally nothing changes the entire game is like night and day. Not to mention stuff like the awkward camera angles, odd dialogue choices (Yes, Yes with sarcasm, No but I'll do it anyway), and the hilarious persuasion minigame which ultimately boils down to "please? pleeease? pleeeeeease?" And while I'm ranting - it's a game supposedly about exploration and discovery. Why is there no encyclopedia? "Oh I need 200 sealant to level my weapon? Cool, I've found a few creatures that drop sealant, let me just figure out where they were ..... gently caress"
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Dec 18, 2023 14:35
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webmeister posted:And while I'm ranting - it's a game supposedly about exploration and discovery. Why is there no encyclopedia? "Oh I need 200 sealant to level my weapon? Cool, I've found a few creatures that drop sealant, let me just figure out where they were ..... gently caress" fans will fill out the wiki, it'll be fine
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Dec 18, 2023 14:45
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dr_rat posted:I thought i remembered someone from Bethesda mentioning it but I did a quick google and as I can't seem to find any mention of it, it's very possible I just misremembered it. Oh good. I was dumb enough to pre-order it and that would be pretty frustrating.
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Dec 18, 2023 14:53
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dr_rat posted:I thought i remembered someone from Bethesda mentioning it but I did a quick google and as I can't seem to find any mention of it, it's very possible I just misremembered it. Only thing I can find is that shattered space is expected to release "early next year" but that's from an article back in August that still calls this "an expansive rpg experience"
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Dec 18, 2023 15:05
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Karma Comedian posted:Only thing I can find is that shattered space is expected to release "early next year" but that's from an article back in August that still calls this "an expansive rpg experience" Yeah i saw "early next year" come up as a release date but as far as I can see that was just based on traditionally how long Bethesda have taken with DLC not anything Bethesda said. Looking around couldn't find any sort of information coming from Bethesda about it.
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Dec 18, 2023 15:17
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Raygereio posted:I still suspect that Bethesda wasted a fuckton of resources on getting procgen to work right. Only to realize too late that they could only get decent result for exteriors, but that the output for buildings & interiors was poo poo. And they slapped the POIs we got together at the last minute as a fix. You're giving them far too much credit. All of beth's previous titles--thanks to being fantasy and post-apocalyptic settings--really only needed the following systems: 1. Combat 2. Dialogue/Quest 3. Inventory A game like Starfield needed more systems and bespoke work, and they knew--or should have known--that they needed all of this stuff before the procgen systems were known to be inadequate. The only such work they did was adding a ship builder, and ship 'combat'. The list of what they needed to add, but didn't, is longer and involves work that no one at the studio knows how to do: 1. Communications devices 2. Video screens (for advertisements, sprucing up set-pieces, etc.) 3. Mini-games. This is a huge one--when Todd Howard compared SF to RDR2 before release, I knew the game was going to be a disaster, because Rockstar are masters of engaging mini-games, whereas Bethesda has rarely even bothered. (This is the one area where their engine actually does hold them back; adding new gameplay systems is extraordinarily difficult because of how hardcoded it is around the three core systems I listed above) 4. Scene-specific animations (there may have been two or three of these, but not more than that) 5. Scene-specific interactions. In SF these were relegated to simple pop-up text boxes. 6. Proper ground vehicles There was no chance that a studio with only 410 employees could have done all of the above. Starfield was never going to be a worthwhile game because the studio wasn't correctly staffed to make it, and the people who run the place are comatose after a decade of huffing their own farts. The whole thing is a fascinating study in what-not-to-do for anyone interested in making games.
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Dec 18, 2023 15:18
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Megazver posted:fans will fill out the wiki, it'll be fine There are a dozen Starfield wikis and they're all article stubs, presumably because no one playing Starfield can be bothered to fill them out.
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Dec 18, 2023 15:19
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Counting on procgen to fill out your game world is like when a film director just goes “We’ll fix it in post”. It’s never fixed in post, it just ends up more expensive and lovely.
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Dec 18, 2023 15:43
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infernal machines posted:There are a dozen Starfield wikis and they're all article stubs, presumably because no one playing Starfield can be bothered to fill them out. Nah that's just standard practice when it comes to game wikis, you get a dozen people all making one hoping to become 'the' wiki and rake in that ad revenue while doing zero work. BG3 has that garbage fextralife wiki and it's still clogging search results.
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Dec 18, 2023 16:34
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Lollerich posted:Nope. I don't play the game at an elevation so high up there's nothing but LOD, though To be fair, it's a game Reddit, can't expect much
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Dec 18, 2023 16:42
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Chillmatic posted:
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Dec 18, 2023 17:56
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I like how we originally had two Starfield threads: 1. Games thread - People wanting to play SF, people talking about playing it, some people complaining that it’s not good. 2. GBS thread - people who do not want to play, people asking if it’s bad, people saying it’s bad And by now thread 1 has turned into thread 2 and thread 2 has mostly died off due to disinterest/kicking a dead horse.
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Dec 19, 2023 03:00
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I've played it for about 160 hours. I just find it a bit disappointing that it is the game it is. Still had fun with it though.
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Dec 19, 2023 05:27
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