Starfield - Todd Howard's latest masterpiece

[Acrux]

Huh, anime girl is correct.

[Wretch]

The lucid anime avis are the most dangerous. Don’t let your guard down.

[Rand]

Reading Emil's pathetic ramblings that go nowhere (and he's supposed to be a writer!)

Exactly. He's a hack.

[Eris]

Emil was actually a good level designer, working in some of the best Thief 1/2 levels. And now he's writing slop and having meltdowns on twitter (sorry, X). This is one of the problems with the way companies work nowadays; guy is good at job A, so let's promote him to do B, which has nothing to do with the former. Very common practice in Japan as well. It's probably the individuals themselves too who are to blame, as we can see with Sawyer, who now thinks he's a talented writer after the usual journalist **** sucking festival he got for Pentiment. Don't entertain some egos too much.

[Vergil]

If I learned anything from the Tim Cain videos, it's that old developers have long since lost their touch. All of them. I don't know if it's because they're surrounded by yes-men, whereas in the past their ideas would often be opposed and they'd have to compromise somewhere in the middle. Reading Emil's pathetic ramblings that go nowhere (and he's supposed to be a writer!), the attitude of entitlement and conceit they've developed over the years becomes clear. The hunger is gone and there's no urgency to achieve perfection.

I think they've just gotten too big for their britches and self important. In the 90s being a game developer was a weird faggy niche job you didn't brag about to your family. Now you've got an army of sycophants willing to blow you over every little word no matter how ********. It's telling that the less stressful/more in total control the games Tim Cain has worked on the worse they are.

[Shillitron]

https://www.mobygames.com/person/1258/eric-baudoin/

On 17th October 2022 Jeff Gardiner announced on Twitter that Baudoin had passed away. The game Starfield (2023) is dedicated to his memory.

Holy ****.

This is really old news.. we had a huge thread on this pre-coterie no?

The only new thing here is the fact that shitfield was dedicated to him. As if his family wasn't suffering enough..

[Shillitron]

Emil was actually a good level designer, working in some of the best Thief 1/2 levels. And now he's writing slop and having meltdowns on twitter (sorry, X). This is one of the problems with the way companies work nowadays; guy is good at job A, so let's promote him to do B, which has nothing to do with the former. Very common practice in Japan as well. It's probably the individuals themselves too who are to blame, as we can see with Sawyer, who now thinks he's a talented writer after the usual journalist **** sucking festival he got for Pentiment. Don't entertain some egos too much.

Has Emil -ever- produced a good story under Bethesda?
If he's really a god tier thief level designer why is he working on writing campy tropes that he apes off whatever {current_tv_show} he watched while working on {current_game}.

Emil Pagliarulo
@Dezinuh
Just watched the pilot miniseries for the first time in 20 years, when it premiered. Crazy that it's been that long. And wow does it hold up. No surprise that this show was a pretty big influence on Starfield.

[Segata]

If he's really a god tier thief level designer why is he working on writing campy tropes that he apes off whatever {current_tv_show} he watched while working on {current_game}.

Guess which position pays better.

[rusty_shackleford]

The only new thing here is the fact that shitfield was dedicated to him.

That was the entire point of the post.

[maidenhaver]

If he's really a god tier thief level designer why is he working on writing campy tropes that he apes off whatever {current_tv_show} he watched while working on {current_game}.

Guess which position pays better.

I hate stories so much its unreal.

[Vergil]

Has Emil -ever- produced a good story under Bethesda?
If he's really a god tier thief level designer why is he working on writing campy tropes that he apes off whatever {current_tv_show} he watched while working on {current_game}.

No, he built his success on the Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion because he made the good decision of front loading the quest line with all the decent/memorable content so people forget that the second half of the questline falls off a ******* cliff. People also forget (as he probably wants people to since he never brings it up) that the other questline he worked on was the arena lmao.
And he wasn't that great of a Thief level designer. He came on during Thief 2 and the levels he worked on are largely considered hit or miss by the community and don't reflect his role at bethesda now anyway.

[Shillitron]

Has Emil -ever- produced a good story under Bethesda?
If he's really a god tier thief level designer why is he working on writing campy tropes that he apes off whatever {current_tv_show} he watched while working on {current_game}.

No, he built his success on the Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion because he made the good decision of front loading the quest line with all the decent/memorable content so people forget that the second half of the questline falls off a ******* cliff. People also forget (as he probably wants people to since he never brings it up) that the other questline he worked on was the arena lmao.
And he wasn't that great of a Thief level designer. He came on during Thief 2 and the levels he worked on are largely considered hit or miss by the community and don't reflect his role at bethesda now anyway.

The dark brotherhood quest in oblivion was one of the more creative quests Bethesda has done. I really enjoyed the party you attend where you need to murder people. It had a very hitman feeling to it (as far as Bethesda goes lol).

It's a little sad that quest apes anything in shartfield.

[Vergil]

he dark brotherhood quest in oblivion was one of the more creative quests Bethesda has done. I really enjoyed the party you attend where you need to murder people. It had a very hitman feeling to it (as far as Bethesda goes lol).

I will admit it is at first but once you look at the quests with any sort of scrutiny you quickly learn it's all just a mirage. You can walk into the party wearing full Dark Brotherhood gear and a giant claymore and mow down everyone as long as you're not detected for a split second and the NPCs will be none the wiser for it. Likewise the rest of the first half is filled with "le dark and wacky humor xddd" that is bearable in 2006 but not today and the consequences of that questline being the highlight of Oblivion gave us Fallout 3's "tone".

[Shillitron]

he dark brotherhood quest in oblivion was one of the more creative quests Bethesda has done. I really enjoyed the party you attend where you need to murder people. It had a very hitman feeling to it (as far as Bethesda goes lol).

I will admit it is at first but once you look at the quests with any sort of scrutiny you quickly learn it's all just a mirage. You can walk into the party wearing full Dark Brotherhood gear and a giant claymore and mow down everyone as long as you're not detected for a split second and the NPCs will be none the wiser for it. Likewise the rest of the first half is filled with "le dark and wacky humor xddd" that is bearable in 2006 but not today and the consequences of that questline being the highlight of Oblivion gave us Fallout 3's "tone".

Totally agree.

Having responsiveness and meaningful gameplay react to what your wearing and how you act in quests - should of been where Bethesda invested their time in the last 20 years. New Vegas scratched at that door with a shoe string budget and 6 months of dev time and it paid off IMO.

The fact we've regressed from 2006 is the most disheartening. Especially when modders are eating Bethesda's lunch using lesser tools and dll hooks to get get at the engine. It just shows how lazy and uninspired Beth has become.

[maidenhaver]

he dark brotherhood quest in oblivion was one of the more creative quests Bethesda has done. I really enjoyed the party you attend where you need to murder people. It had a very hitman feeling to it (as far as Bethesda goes lol).

I will admit it is at first but once you look at the quests with any sort of scrutiny you quickly learn it's all just a mirage. You can walk into the party wearing full Dark Brotherhood gear and a giant claymore and mow down everyone as long as you're not detected for a split second and the NPCs will be none the wiser for it. Likewise the rest of the first half is filled with "le dark and wacky humor xddd" that is bearable in 2006 but not today and the consequences of that questline being the highlight of Oblivion gave us Fallout 3's "tone".

Totally agree.

Having responsiveness and meaningful gameplay react to what your wearing and how you act in quests - should of been where Bethesda invested their time in the last 20 years. New Vegas scratched at that door with a shoe string budget and 6 months of dev time and it paid off IMO.

The fact we've regressed from 2006 is the most disheartening. Especially when modders are eating Bethesda's lunch using lesser tools and dll hooks to get get at the engine. It just shows how lazy and uninspired Beth has become.

Some modders who know programming might have real jobs, but the ones that don't need to make their own easily moddable games so that Bethesda just die.

[Shillitron]

[Vergil]

Only tangentially related but that video reminds me of how much I hate the way dialog is handled in beth games from Skyrim onward. I get that freezing time to talk to an NPC looked weird sometimes but I prefer that to dealing with other braindead NPCs walking into me or the character I'm talking to or having dialog interrupted by a random enemy and then having to roll the dice whether or not that bugged out the NPC.

[Vaako]

Only tangentially related but that video reminds me of how much I hate the way dialog is handled in beth games from Skyrim onward. I get that freezing time to talk to an NPC looked weird sometimes but I prefer that to dealing with other braindead NPCs walking into me or the character I'm talking to or having dialog interrupted by a random enemy and then having to roll the dice whether or not that bugged out the NPC.

Wasnt it in skyrim that you could at least talk to npcs in third person and you could still control the camera? I think they just reverted back to the oblivion system and let time go on. Which was even worse than Skyrim or Oblivion.

[wndrbr]

Boring and barely informative roadmap, in which they are promising to add new means of fast-travel, city maps, and some other qol changes. The first expansion will be released in 2024, i wonder how many people would buy it.

► Show Spoiler

13 million players, 1.6 million of them are starborn (i.e. finished the game). That's a surprisingly large number of completions.

[rusty_shackleford]

That's a surprisingly large number of completions.

The main quest is incredibly short + head start players told everyone to finish it before doing anything else because it's ********.

[wndrbr]

The main quest is incredibly short

just like in other bethesda games tbh

head start players told everyone to finish it before doing anything else

doubt that it was a major influence. Most of the players prefer to **** around in the world instead of doing the main quest.

[rusty_shackleford]

just like in other bethesda games tbh

Never managed to finish any main quest in other Bethesda games because I get sidetracked so easily. Felt like this game was just pushing me through it, perhaps due to the lack of any real side content.

[maidenhaver]

I thonk Starfield will ne saved by dlc and actually have robust modding tools for terraforming those endless locations to be big locations.

[rusty_shackleford]

just like in other bethesda games tbh

Never managed to finish any main quest in other Bethesda games because I get sidetracked so easily. Felt like this game was just pushing me through it, perhaps due to the lack of any real side content.

In FO4:

Get given main quest -> start running to where I'm supposed to go -> stumble upon multiple areas, couple hours later completely forget what I was doing

In Starfailed:

Get given main quest -> click button to fast travel to where it wants me to go

[Vergil]

You forgot the 15 loading screens in between every change of location.

[rusty_shackleford]

You forgot the 15 loading screens in between every change of location.

They're near instant so I didn't care, people who complain about quick loading screens are weird.

[Shillitron]

Never managed to finish any main quest in other Bethesda games because I get sidetracked so easily. Felt like this game was just pushing me through it, perhaps due to the lack of any real side content.

I'm glad this is your opinion now.. but you were gargling this game on IRC when it dropped. CleveFakemore remembers.

[aweigh]

You forgot the 15 loading screens in between every change of location.

They're near instant so I didn't care, people who complain about quick loading screens are weird.

I think you misunderstand the root of the complaint, at least for us PC players (console players have longer load screens so they probably mean just that, that they don't want to wait so long which is understandable).

The way I see it and the way *I* feel about it is that in Starfield travel-by-load-screen is the *only* available method of travel and exploration. In Fallout 3 or Skyrim you get a quest to go to a distant town? You just start walking in that direction and inevitably encounter lots of other interesting events, side-quests, locations, etc, on your way there. You notice that you have a Fast Travel point that's halfway to where you want to go? Neat, fast travel there then walk and explore the remaining distance. Want to fast travel instantly to the place? Cool, you can do that too if you want.

In Starfield when you get a quest to go somewhere you can *only* travel by going through a minimum of 2 long load screens and tedious menu screens. The fact that they're "nearly instant" is not really the point for me, it's that I can't just walk there for obvious reasons (a distant planet), but I also can't just hop into my ship and fly there either. Even if you could it would still be boring for me, I have zero interest in flying between planets and executing some sort of No Man's Sky-style landing just to go talk to an NPC/kill 10 Cliffracers and then return... but then that's also a problem with the very foundation of the game itself.

The "load screen" problem has no fix. I feel that they very foundations of Starfield are not conducive to either fun gameplay or "Beth-style" gameplay. It's a ******* chore to play and the limited options for traveling only exacerbate it. When you load-screen into a planet there will always only be 3 generated PoIs and your quest target, some small procedurally generated cave or a procedurally generated abandoned research lab. The possibility of simply going around and exploring by yourself, on foot or on your ship, just isn't there.

[rusty_shackleford]

The main video that was being shared around was just the person having to go through loading screens to go inside buildings, which is just whatever to me.

[Shillitron]

Isn't the loading screen more indicative that there's lack of gameplay?
1 ms loading screens don't bother me either.. it's the fact I'm fast travelling around like a ****** because the game is empty and every quest is "deliver a doodad to a guy"