STARFIELD: I didnt buy a Bethesda game to not have any bugs

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > STARFIELD: I didnt buy a Bethesda game to not have any bugs

FUCK SNEEP: Apr 21, 2007

BlankSystemDaemon posted:

All of these games are using much newer engines where texture streaming et cetera are part of the basic feature-set. The engine Starfield is based upon started development in 1997, and still has bug-for-bug compatibility over 20 years later.
It's not just possible but probable that texture streaming et al simply couldn't be retrofitted like they were hoping.

Nearly every game you play this year will be on an engine that also started development in the 90s.

# ? Aug 29, 2023 15:18

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# ? Jun 3, 2024 14:25

steinrokkan: Apr 2, 2011; Soiled Meat

K8.0 posted:

Hot take : cities and dialogue are the worst parts of every RPG. Bethesda games are popular in large part because they minimize how much time you waste on the parts everyone says they like but actually don't enjoy.

Literally the opposite of reality

# ? Aug 29, 2023 15:18

Chillmatic: Jul 25, 2003; always seeking to survive and flourish

BlankSystemDaemon posted:

The engine Starfield is based upon started development in 1997, and still has bug-for-bug compatibility over 20 years later.

Look, I think a lot of people are going to be upset about what kind of game Starfield actually ends up being. But this take on the engine is dumb as hell. I'm a game designer/writer who works in Unreal Engine--which first released in 1998-- every day, and you better believe there's still code in there from back then.

Game engines are iterative; each has different strengths and weaknesses, but in general those are intentional design and engineering choices, not hard limits.

edit: should have just said this:

gently caress SNEEP posted:

Nearly every game you play this year will be on an engine that also started development in the 90s.

# ? Aug 29, 2023 15:20

Oenis: Mar 15, 2012

Can't wait for the reveal that Starfield was actually Elder Scrolls VI all along and it's not our Terra's future but Nirn (had to look up what the planet is called that Tamriel is on)

# ? Aug 29, 2023 15:22

ImpAtom: May 24, 2007

BlankSystemDaemon posted:

All of these games are using much newer engines where texture streaming et cetera are part of the basic feature-set. The engine Starfield is based upon started development in 1997, and still has bug-for-bug compatibility over 20 years later.
It's not just possible but probable that texture streaming et al simply couldn't be retrofitted like they were hoping.

It is 100% reasonable to work within the confines of what your engine can do and it's much smarter to do so in fact.

That's separate from audience expectations though. There are other games to compare it to and 'our engine just can't do that' isn't necessarily going to be a reasonable excuse to people who've massively built hype up in their head. It doesn't help that this is the year of TotK and BG3 so people are kind of in a mindset of "our ridiculously overinflated expectations can actually be met."

# ? Aug 29, 2023 15:24

thebardyspoon: Jun 30, 2005

BG3 has actually been a nice little reminder that a game can be good, very good even but still have been massively overhyped and a bit disappointing in pretty fundamental ways for me.

Means I'm going into Starfield nicely cynical, if I actually get it.

# ? Aug 29, 2023 15:28

George Sex - REAL: Dec 1, 2005; Bisssssssexual

Anything in game design that you think is bad can probably be done well and is maybe not bad unless it encourages some type of negative behavior. Most things can be good

# ? Aug 29, 2023 15:28

ScootsMcSkirt: Oct 29, 2013

buttchugging adderall posted:

I'd argue the reason they didn't do ground vehicles is specifically because they can't or won't do a seamless planet.

i agree. I think the decision to not have seamless planets was likely made early in development, probably around the time they realized how much work it would have been to have in-atmosphere flight. Once you cut that feature, you no longer need to worry about generating the surface in realtime or even having a coherent surface outside of small chunks that the player navigates

they decided that they would rather spend their time and resources into making nearly infinite chunks that the player could have on-foot adventures in and then use their ship like a glorified fast-travel menu rather than trying to get everything to fit together into a seamless space simulator that most of the playerbase would likely want to skip anyways. In my experience with space games, space travel is still really boring, even with ftl drives and supercruise in-system travel. I dont begrudge Bethesda for focusing on the in-planet stuff instead

# ? Aug 29, 2023 15:30

mistermojo: Jul 3, 2004

I like that people are trying to justify this convoluted tile system by saying theres no point in exploring it. just fast travel to the objectives or better yet open the console and type �movetoqt� then.

# ? Aug 29, 2023 15:31

ImpAtom: May 24, 2007

mistermojo posted:

I like that people are trying to justify this convoluted tile system by saying theres no point in exploring it. just fast travel to the objectives or better yet open the console and type �movetoqt� then.

I think this is something that is going to hit very differently for different players. For some people the ability to just explore around and probably come across something is vital to why they enjoy the game while other people (myself included here) prefer to fast travel whenever possible. Bethesda games usually are great for the former so it's going to be interesting to see how they take to Starfield.

# ? Aug 29, 2023 15:33

DaysBefore: Jan 24, 2019

I have justified the convoluted tile system. Pray I do not justify it further.

# ? Aug 29, 2023 15:38

wizard2: Apr 4, 2022

Father Wendigo posted:

STOP RIGHT THERE, CRIMINAL STAR-SCUM!

https://twitter.com/diversion_inc/status/1695830758760354270?t=uNFPDpOQClfK_kiPpo5qsQ&s=19

sick! I thought that video was a prank

# ? Aug 29, 2023 15:38

Raygereio: Nov 12, 2012

ScootsMcSkirt posted:

i agree. I think the decision to not have seamless planets was likely made early in development, probably around the time they realized how much work it would have been to have in-atmosphere flight. Once you cut that feature, you no longer need to worry about generating the surface in realtime or even having a coherent surface outside of small chunks that the player navigates

Yeah, that's generally how things go in development. If having seamless transitions and whatnot was on the design board at some point, then it was likely taken off early in development because it was it was too expensive too implement. And/or would cause problems with other features that they prioritized higher.

buttchugging adderall posted:

I'd argue the reason they didn't do ground vehicles is specifically because they can't or won't do a seamless planet.

Maybe. Another reason could have been that if you have a vehicle, then all the generated landscapes need to be traversable by that vehicle and it's physics. Making sure it works for a human-sized hitbox might have been less of headache.
I'm really curious how well companions will be able to handle trying to follow the player without getting stuck, or or doing other things.

# ? Aug 29, 2023 15:43

Xenophanes: Nov 8, 2015

ScootsMcSkirt posted:

i think part of the disappointment with the proc gen chunks on planets is that multiple space games have successfully pulled off this trick now. Off the top of my head, you have No Mans Sky, Elite, and hell, even Star Citizen can do this. Its a bit disappointing that one of the biggest AAA studios, known for their large open-worlds, cant pull off a seamless planet in their space game

obviously, in terms of gameplay, its not a big deal, because each chunk will barely have anything to do in it anyways, and the only way to navigate on planet is by foot so a seamless planet would only draw more attention to that massive drawback. People that want a full planet dont really know what theyre asking for and how terrible it would be to play that with the current systems that Starfield has

Now, if there were drivable ground vehicles and in-atmosphere flight with landing anywhere, this would be a different conversation imo

I think No Man�s Sky and MS Flight Sim are pretty good examples of why it is in fact impossible to have seamless streaming planets. I tried NMS last year and I could overlook the tedious crafting and aimlessness, but the atmospheric flight was literally nauseating because of every feature of the planet smaller than a mountain pops in just as or after you fly over it and it just makes for an overwhelmingly terrible experience. Flight Sim is the same unless you stay in one of the sandbox locations or above 20k feet. If you want to look at stuff on the ground, then the pop in is ruinous or perhaps just needs a hardware minimum of gigabyte fiber near the data center required to store the 2 petabyte map.

Perhaps Star Citizen has solved the seamless rendering problem, but it clearly isn�t able to do that and also run a game at the same time.

# ? Aug 29, 2023 15:50

Earwicker: Jan 6, 2003

the last time bethesda tried to make a vehicle was the "horses" in skyrim. try riding those and compare to literally any other game that has horses, and then be glad there are no vehicles in this game.

# ? Aug 29, 2023 15:52

Anno: May 10, 2017; I'm going to drown! For no reason at all!

I�m digging the music that�s slowly showing up on the YouTubes. Never been a huge Inon Zur guy but his style seems to work really well for ~space~ music.

# ? Aug 29, 2023 15:52

Dishwasher: Dec 5, 2006; Congratulations on not getting fit in 2011!

All they ever had to do was keep on selling me Morrowind/Oblivion/FO until the end of time. This looks like "Skyrim 1.8 with Spaceships and Rudimentary Planetary Procgen" and I'm right here for it.

Dishwasher fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Aug 29, 2023

# ? Aug 29, 2023 16:04

dr_rat: Jun 4, 2001

Also not to worried about the all the tiles being boring featureless blobs. Making very nice looking landscapes based off pro-gen is something Bethesda's been doing for ages, and pretty widely agreed to be one of there strength. Boring quests/NPC's and the underlying game mechanics being pretty shallow are more where Bethesda typically tends to fall down.

# ? Aug 29, 2023 16:05

Vichan: Oct 1, 2014; I'LL PUNISH YOU ACCORDING TO YOUR CRIME

Starfield soundtrack leak (possibly):

https://www.youtube.com/@StarfieldAudio/videos

# ? Aug 29, 2023 16:08

steinrokkan: Apr 2, 2011; Soiled Meat

Earwicker posted:

the last time bethesda tried to make a vehicle was the "horses" in skyrim. try riding those and compare to literally any other game that has horses, and then be glad there are no vehicles in this game.

They were still better than Bioware horses.

# ? Aug 29, 2023 16:08

ZeeBoi: Jan 17, 2001

Can�t wait to see the reaction to the game�s space magic feature (that�s a real spoiler)

# ? Aug 29, 2023 16:09

Earwicker: Jan 6, 2003

ZeeBoi posted:

Can�t wait to see the reaction to the game�s space magic feature (that�s a real spoiler)

how is that a spoiler its been discussed openly in this thread for quite a while :confused:

# ? Aug 29, 2023 16:10

VanillaGorilla: Oct 2, 2003

dr_rat posted:

Also not to worried about the all the tiles being boring featureless blobs. Landscapes based off pro-gen is something Bethesda's been doing for ages, and pretty widely agreed to be one of there strength. Boring quests/NPC's and the underlying game mechanics being pretty shallow are more where Bethesda typically tends to fall down.

I mean that�s the thing - the tiles aren�t just featureless blobs. The videos people with the game are posting show that the proc-gen landing points are pretty attractive (because the engine does a pretty good job of creating environments) and that it generates a wide variety of biomes and POIs based on the planet�s seed.

A guy this morning posted a video demonstrating this (it�s in the spoiler thread on Resetera if it�s still up). He�s standing in the middle of a cool looking grassland and there�s a compound off in the distance to explore and it was all generated by the system.

And it�s pretty clear at this point that if you want to stop doing random poo poo there�s a metric ton of curated content too.

# ? Aug 29, 2023 16:10

BlankSystemDaemon: Mar 13, 2009

Vichan posted:

Starfield soundtrack leak (possibly):

https://www.youtube.com/@StarfieldAudio/videos

Inon Zur will be making the ambient tracks.

# ? Aug 29, 2023 16:11

mutata: Mar 1, 2003

Do we know anything about the Vampire side quest line in this one yet?

# ? Aug 29, 2023 16:13

VanillaGorilla: Oct 2, 2003

mutata posted:

Do we know anything about the Vampire side quest line in this one yet?

Someone just nodded Astarion from BG3 in as a companion.

# ? Aug 29, 2023 16:14

K8.0: Feb 26, 2004; Her Majesty's 56th Regiment of Foot

big mean giraffe posted:

Kind of sounds like you just want a generic action game, and not an actual RPG?

No, I like exploration, world-building, and environmental storytelling, combined with looting and character development. Most people do, which is why lovely developers keep ham-handedly trying to force those type of systems into games where they don't belong.

"Conversations you could have in real life, but everyone is an awful caricature by a writer who can't understand anyone else's point of view" is not particularly compelling. Most of the time non-interactive cutscenes or minimally interactive dialogue choices work better. Maybe at some point RPG writers will realize this and things will improve, but it won't be Bethesda who does it.

# ? Aug 29, 2023 16:15

Cardboard Fox: Feb 8, 2009; [Tentatively Excited]

Everyone knows the Dark Brotherhood questline in these games is usually the best. I hope it's aliens this time sending you out to assassinate random people.

# ? Aug 29, 2023 16:17

Tankbuster: Oct 1, 2021

My favorite RPG is the witcher 3 where I roleplay as a badass Geraldo Riviera

# ? Aug 29, 2023 16:19

dr_rat: Jun 4, 2001

Yeah from the leaked screenshots/videos and reviews every ones being say landscapes look pretty and there are plenty of points of interest.

Now that annoying invisible green alien "The Great Gazoo" which only the player can see. No one has anything good to say about them.

**Leaked screenshot**

You can tell no one but the writers like the character at all and they just shoehorn them into everything!

# ? Aug 29, 2023 16:20

Mr. Pool: Jul 10, 2001

My character shall be: Grumpy UC space trucker

Long Hauler

UC Native
Introvert
Taskmaster (bc it sounds op)

Goal: Bully the cowboy faction at every turn

# ? Aug 29, 2023 16:21

steinrokkan: Apr 2, 2011; Soiled Meat

Environmental storytelling is absolutely the worst. So is relying on terminals and audio logs for narration.

# ? Aug 29, 2023 16:22

DaysBefore: Jan 24, 2019

First order of business in the game will be to subject cowboy planet to an unrelenting orbital saturation bombardment

# ? Aug 29, 2023 16:23

isndl: May 2, 2012; I WON A CONTEST IN TG AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS CUSTOM TITLE

Earwicker posted:

the last time bethesda tried to make a vehicle was the "horses" in skyrim. try riding those and compare to literally any other game that has horses, and then be glad there are no vehicles in this game.

This is Vertibird erasure. :colbert:

# ? Aug 29, 2023 16:25

Mr. Pool: Jul 10, 2001

DaysBefore posted:

First order of business in the game will be to subject cowboy planet to an unrelenting orbital saturation bombardment

Sam Coe is forced to watch like Princess Leia

# ? Aug 29, 2023 16:27

Zedsdeadbaby: Jun 14, 2008; You have been called out, in the ways of old.

lol

Eurogamer just said they were deliberately withheld a review copy of Starfield so they haven't gotten the game at all. They've been in contact with Bethesda and Microsoft who are straight up refusing to budge.
DF has the game and they were strictly told by MS not to let Eurogamer play it.

That's shady as gently caress

https://www.eurogamer.net/eurogamer-and-bethesda-starfield

# ? Aug 29, 2023 16:29

dr_rat: Jun 4, 2001

steinrokkan posted:

Environmental storytelling is absolutely the worst. So is relying on terminals and audio logs for narration.

They can be really good done in moderation. Lots of games overuse them massively though. When done well they can help make places more interesting and can add a lot to the setting. When done badly they're just used as crutch and no other story telling's going on. 76 is obviously one of the biggest examples of this, New Vegas did it really well.

# ? Aug 29, 2023 16:30

dr_rat: Jun 4, 2001

DaysBefore posted:

First order of business in the game will be to subject cowboy planet to an unrelenting orbital saturation dynamite bombardment.

It's only fair.

# ? Aug 29, 2023 16:32

big mean giraffe: Dec 13, 2003; Eat Shit and Die; Lipstick Apathy

K8.0 posted:

No, I like exploration, world-building, and environmental storytelling, combined with looting and character development. Most people do, which is why lovely developers keep ham-handedly trying to force those type of systems into games where they don't belong.

"Conversations you could have in real life, but everyone is an awful caricature by a writer who can't understand anyone else's point of view" is not particularly compelling. Most of the time non-interactive cutscenes or minimally interactive dialogue choices work better. Maybe at some point RPG writers will realize this and things will improve, but it won't be Bethesda who does it.

Yes RPGs definitely need to be streamlined and have reduced narrative choice and personal character choice very smart and good opinion about roleplaying

# ? Aug 29, 2023 16:33

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# ? Jun 3, 2024 14:25

ScootsMcSkirt: Oct 29, 2013

Earwicker posted:

the last time bethesda tried to make a vehicle was the "horses" in skyrim. try riding those and compare to literally any other game that has horses, and then be glad there are no vehicles in this game.

while vehicles would be nice, id rather have some form of frictionless boots that could be used in combination with the jetpack to slide down hills and blast off of slopes. Some kind of "skiing" type movement, if you will

# ? Aug 29, 2023 16:33

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