Starfield

[Rageonit]

Really...
Here's how you do it. You procedurally generate 1000+ planets. Then, on every planet, you hand-craft a dungeon; or a city; or a base; or whatever. Done.
Every sane player will just visit the dungeon/city/base.
If the planet is rich in resources you need, you may land in the wilderness to do some gathering (and then fly off).
If you like the planet's environments, you may build your own base in the middle of nowhere.
Noone will wander through every planet (well, noone sane that is). Go have a look on the surface of Mars. How difficult would it be to generate it procedurally...? You may put something intersting there (alien pyramids or whatever) and mark it on the map, so you can land in the right spot, visit it, loot it, and fly off.
Noone would wander through the whole surface of Mars. Noone sane that is. But the planets are there (in the game I mean) to create an impression of a huge universe. Not to make you visit them all. It takes no effort to create those planets if you have the right tool (see, dunno, Minecraft). All you have to do is create different biomes and the tool takes care of the rest.
It is absolutely and completely irrelevant how many planets are there in Starfield. It. Does. Not. Matter. What matters is:
1) all the areas that will be hand crafted;
2) good, easy to read UI/mapping feature that lets you find those areas quickly;
3) means of fast travel.
So all you do is: fast-travel to a planet; then use some kind of scanning feature to find interesting places; then interact with the places; then fly to a different planet. Flying between planets is like wandering through forest in Skyrim and finding different caves and ruins.
Yes, the procedurally generated surface is still there, around the hand-crafted location. Is it exciting? No. Should you invest your time to wander through it? No.
But can it serve a purpose? Yes. Can you populate it with mods? Yes. Can you build your own bases there? Yes. And that's the whole point of it. You are not supposed to walk through empty, procedurally generated surfaces. That's not the point. The point is to make it seem like a huge universe - and give you almost infinite number of sandboxes you can play with, or completely ignore.

[Kathandira]

So all you do is: fast-travel to a planet; then use some kind of scanning feature to find interesting places; then interact with the places; then fly to a different planet.

Basically Mass Effect's way to finding planets to visit.

[Makabreska]

Really...
Here's how you do it. You procedurally generate 1000+ planets. Then, on every planet, you hand-craft a dungeon; or a city; or a base; or whatever. Done.

Yeah! Just hand craft 1000+ dungeons/cities/bases!

So simple! 4Head

[Rageonit]

Yeah! Just hand craft 1000+ dungeons/cities/bases!

So simple! 4Head

AFAIK Skyrim had over 300 places to explore, so forgive me for saying "every planet". I will try harder in the future, so you can be less petty. And if you missed the gist of my post, then I'm afraid I can't write it any simpler.

[Zenfoldor]

1000+ planets just hits my fomo but also reminds me of grinding. This article is the exact opposite of how I feel:

https://culturedvultures.com/starfie...-in-whats-new/

In the article, it seems to me, the person wants a space exploration game with ship and base building, and laments the parts of the game that are carryovers from wrpgs. I just want a WRPG. Base and ship "customization" beyond practical upgrades are absolutely meaningless to me. They are cosmetics.

It seems like there are at least two groups who want starfield. The traditional group who is excited about getting a new WRPG from Bethesda, and this other group that I don't relate, who apparently wishes the game was less like Skyrim/Fallout and more of a space exploration simulator.

Please, PLEASE next time you get ready to do a weird genre, dont' take up the time of a top WRPG maker to do so. Hopefully this isn't just a space exploration game, but maintains enough WRPG to actually be a WRPG first and then the cosmetic stickers/parts on your arbitrary spaceship come later for real cash mtx or whatever if they need to upcharge. This will be SUCH a disappointment if this game turns out more like NMS than Skyrim. It's like having Obsidian make Grounded. What a tragic misuse of resources imo.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

AFAIK Skyrim had over 300 places to explore, so forgive me for saying "every planet". I will try harder in the future, so you can be less petty. And if you missed the gist of my post, then I'm afraid I can't write it any simpler.

By 300 locations do you just mean map markers? Because skyrim has quite a few random farms with no NPC’s, one room deep caves with a single bear, or ruined tower with like two mages in it.

Sure they still count as “places to explore” but they obviously don’t have any depth even on a surface level.

[Rageonit]

By 300 locations do you just mean map markers? Because skyrim has quite a few random farms with no NPC’s, one room deep caves with a single bear, or ruined tower with like two mages in it.

Sure they still count as “places to explore” but they obviously don’t have any depth even on a surface level.

If you've played it, you should know yourself if it had enough places to visit or if it was bare and empty.

[Floofi]

I just hope that there is some biome diversity on a single planet. One thing I hated about No Man's Sky is how the entire planet would look exactly the same as the 100m^2 area that you initially landed on. I want to see a planet that has rivers, mountains, oceans, forests, plains, etc.

[Chaotic1962]

Looks ok ish, a bit slow if you will, combat looks off for some reason. The enemies don't register hits at all or something.

Regarding the planets, i have zero faith there because of the wording Howard used. "From barren but resource heavy ice balls to goldilock planets with life." So 990 barren iceballs with resources, and 7 planets with animals, and 3 planets with humans and settlements.

Hey they are there but you just need to find them!

[Lorgar Aurelian]

If you've played it, you should know yourself if it had enough places to visit or if it was bare and empty.

I can’t say I was counting the number of map markers or which ones actually had things to find and which were just empty last time I played. It could very well have 300 locations of note, or it could have 150 and then another 150 map markers that might as well not be there.

The latter would obviously make a jump to 1000 far less likely.

[Kathandira]

The enemies don't register hits at all or something.

Can you explain what that means? I've seen a few comment on how enemies aren't reacting to being shot.

Are people expecting them to rattle around like an actor in an 80's movie with each bullet? Am I completely misunderstanding?

[Iain]

Looks good, only thing I'm worried about is the 1000 planets thing. Seems like an arbitrary number to generate hype and the reality will be a lot of procedurally generated worlds with barely anything of note on them.

To be fair, that's what most planets are. So having 99.9% junk planets is at least immersive. But you're right, it's a meaningless number to hype with and it's going to lead to a lot of people (who arguably should know better by now) being disappointed.

I just hope that there is some biome diversity on a single planet. One thing I hated about No Man's Sky is how the entire planet would look exactly the same as the 100m^2 area that you initially landed on. I want to see a planet that has rivers, mountains, oceans, forests, plains, etc.

I think you can forget that. That's something Star Citizen hasn't even started on yet even though they plan to and they're way ahead in the (semi-)procedural race.

[Iain]

You're half right. In that Star Citizen does seem to be vaporware for the half of it. But at the same time the game is making considerable steps towards procedurally generated content that most games, including No Man's Sky, don't have yet:



Especially 15 minutes in it gets good. It shows how the planets are semi-procedural. It shows that designer can 'paint' characteristics of a planet into a selected surface, and then their software attempts interprets the hand-painting as an algorithm that needs to be repeated across the surface. Not the pattern itself, but the general intention. This means that repeating the hand-painted characters don't just turn into tile after tile of similar patterns, but rather that the patterns develop on themselves and start leading a life on their own.

[Rageonit]

I can’t say I was counting the number of map markers or which ones actually had things to find and which were just empty last time I played. It could very well have 300 locations of note, or it could have 150 and then another 150 map markers that might as well not be there.

The latter would obviously make a jump to 1000 far less likely.

Why would you have to count it? I have 300 hours playerd in Skyrim, which makes it sound like I had lots to do.
I don't understand why is it so important to fixate on the numbers. If there are enough places to visit, what's the difference if there's 500, 1000, or 100000 procedurally generated, boring and empty planets? Why would you visit them, and why does it make you fear the game will feel empty? If you can generate procedurally 1 planet, you can generate any number of them - it takes no effort what so ever. Those planets are playgrounds for the modders (and for you, if you're into it). That's the sole reason of their existence. If you don't care about mods, modding and building, you can pretty much ignore them.
But use your imagination. If this game happens to be popular amongst the players and modders (Skyrim was, and still is), you have the potential to have, in a few years after the release, the biggest game ever created. It's a natural evolution of the Scrolls game design - modding was always an important part of it, but you were restricted by the world. Now you're not. It opens up endless possibilities. And that's the point.
You don't care about that? Stick to the content that was hand-crafted.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Why would you have to count it? I have 300 hours playerd in Skyrim, which makes it sound like I had lots to do.

I’m not the one who brought up 1000 hand made dungeons/city's or pointed to skyrim having 300 I can’t tell you why the number matters to you.

the quantity doesn’t matter to me I care about the quality of locations which is why I brought up the question of how many of those 300 locations have any real depth.

[Koriani]

1000+ planets just hits my fomo but also reminds me of grinding. This article is the exact opposite of how I feel:

https://culturedvultures.com/starfie...-in-whats-new/

In the article, it seems to me, the person wants a space exploration game with ship and base building, and laments the parts of the game that are carryovers from wrpgs. I just want a WRPG. Base and ship "customization" beyond practical upgrades are absolutely meaningless to me. They are cosmetics.

It seems like there are at least two groups who want starfield. The traditional group who is excited about getting a new WRPG from Bethesda, and this other group that I don't relate, who apparently wishes the game was less like Skyrim/Fallout and more of a space exploration simulator.

Please, PLEASE next time you get ready to do a weird genre, dont' take up the time of a top WRPG maker to do so. Hopefully this isn't just a space exploration game, but maintains enough WRPG to actually be a WRPG first and then the cosmetic stickers/parts on your arbitrary spaceship come later for real cash mtx or whatever if they need to upcharge. This will be SUCH a disappointment if this game turns out more like NMS than Skyrim. It's like having Obsidian make Grounded. What a tragic misuse of resources imo.

Seems like, to me, you could have both.

And in fact, you could quite *easily* have both *specifically* in a Bethesda made game *because* of that modding-friendly environment. (as long as that is still true, anyway)

One could take that WRPG and ALSO have space exploration AND ship/base building with customizations. The WRPG would be the base work and 'main game' (or at least, the biggest content chunk of the game developed by the game devs, themselves) with the basic ship/base/building framekwork included - but also designed with big enough 'spaces', or enough planets (even if procedurally generated and/or just resource planets to start with), and the freedom of "elder scrolls" level modding to then develop it into a fully flushed out 'dual-genre' type of game.

I mean Skyrim has hundreds of hours of player developed "WRPG" quest-lines with fully fleshed out cities and NPCs for the entire 'quest'. Dozens of varieties of player designed housing, decorations, etc. The only thing this game has to do is provide the groundwork and give the full "creation engine" access for modders (as they have in Skyrim) and we would *definitely* all then get a WRPG + Space SIM Build game cross-genre experience.

It would be much harder (or much slower?) for the modding community to build the WRPG into a base Space Exploration/Build SIM game; but the other way around wouldn't be all that much of a stretch.

To me - its Bethesda - so if they stay 'with what they know' we're almost guaranteed this game is more "Skyrim in Space" than "Star Citizen/NMS" and the people expecting this game to be otherwise are just not looking at that history. However, I also acknowledge that Bethesda may actually do something not-their-norm -- but I too would be disappointed, and would not purchase, a "space building sim" only game.

But if they were smart - they'd capitalize on how 'easily' they could have both here!

[Zenfoldor]

Seems like, to me, you could have both.

And in fact, you could quite *easily* have both *specifically* in a Bethesda made game *because* of that modding-friendly environment. (as long as that is still true, anyway)

One could take that WRPG and ALSO have space exploration AND ship/base building with customizations. The WRPG would be the base work and 'main game' (or at least, the biggest content chunk of the game developed by the game devs, themselves) with the basic ship/base/building framekwork included - but also designed with big enough 'spaces', or enough planets (even if procedurally generated and/or just resource planets to start with), and the freedom of "elder scrolls" level modding to then develop it into a fully flushed out 'dual-genre' type of game.

I mean Skyrim has hundreds of hours of player developed "WRPG" quest-lines with fully fleshed out cities and NPCs for the entire 'quest'. Dozens of varieties of player designed housing, decorations, etc. The only thing this game has to do is provide the groundwork and give the full "creation engine" access for modders (as they have in Skyrim) and we would *definitely* all then get a WRPG + Space SIM Build game cross-genre experience.

It would be much harder (or much slower?) for the modding community to build the WRPG into a base Space Exploration/Build SIM game; but the other way around wouldn't be all that much of a stretch.

To me - its Bethesda - so if they stay 'with what they know' we're almost guaranteed this game is more "Skyrim in Space" than "Star Citizen/NMS" and the people expecting this game to be otherwise are just not looking at that history. However, I also acknowledge that Bethesda may actually do something not-their-norm -- but I too would be disappointed, and would not purchase, a "space building sim" only game.

But if they were smart - they'd capitalize on how 'easily' they could have both here!

I will say this, if this game could deliver both, I would completely eat crow and say I was worried for nothing. If the game is good, I will be so hyped. I think my worry is only so high because I am excited for what the game COULD become.

[Icelin]

I am a big fan of sci-fi. Lots of movies and a couple shows I have enjoyed. Yet I have never been very big into sci-fi video games. When I took a moment to think of a game that was actually centralized around space. Like the main theme.. all I could think of was this series.




Kos-mos, the character on the front cover is what sold it for me as a younger girl. Long flowy hairstyle (regardless of style), cute outfit, and the wings (which come across as a bit tacky/overdone). Why I see less and less of these characters in franchises is beyond me. I keep telling them what I like as a female consumer. Yet I guess they will give me what they want. I am all for variety, but when it starts to feel one-sided (drastically).. I been pretty vocal about it.

Overall the series was pretty good. Fun characters, decent enough story, gameplay I remember being decent. (It has been a very long time) I never got around to the third installment of this franchise but beat two of them. Closest to a true space sci-fi game I can think of. Spaceships, mech suits, etc.

The thing is no matter how much I like sci-fi for movies or shows to watch. A newer sci-fi game has never really successfully succeeded in grabbing my interest. Which is kinda disappointing, but just how it is. Has Starfield done this? It looks a tad boring to me tbh... Pretty, but very monotone. I do believe a lot of people will like it. As someone said earlier, "it looks like fallout space edition". Which fallout failed to grab my interest. Never been a fan of that franchise. Probably why Starfield is failing for me too.

Gonna be honest here, I am not a fangirl of Bethesda. I played two of the Doom video games a long time ago. I missed out on Elder Scrolls (maybe one day look more into that) and Fallout. What I do know of Bethesda is that Todd Howard upset fans and blatantly lied about the product he was selling. (Fallout 76) I think that hit the company harder than I thought it did. This is all I know of them; that their reputation was demolished and Todd was the representative for it. Now all that aside I hope their Starfield goes good. I hope Todd is able to gain back a tiny bit of creditably. As interest in the products is looking pretty minuscule (When I went to watch the video) and that is a sad thing... for all the people that worked on it. Hopefully the game is fun and they get a bit of redemption in the process. Who knows if that will happen.

[Kathandira]

I will say this, if this game could deliver both, I would completely eat crow and say I was worried for nothing. If the game is good, I will be so hyped. I think my worry is only so high because I am excited for what the game COULD become.

Nothing wrong with healthy skepticism.

- - - Updated - - -

I am a big fan of sci-fi. Lots of movies and a couple shows I have enjoyed. Yet I have never been very big into sci-fi video games. When I took a moment to think of a game that was actually centralized around space. Like the main theme.. all I could think of was this series.




Kos-mos, the character on the front cover is what sold it for me as a younger girl. Long flowy hairstyle (regardless of style), cute outfit, and the wings (which come across as a bit tacky/overdone). Why I see less and less of these characters in franchises is beyond me. I keep telling them what I like as a female consumer. Yet I guess they will give me what they want. I am all for variety, but when it starts to feel one-sided (drastically).. I been pretty vocal about it.

Overall the series was pretty good. Fun characters, decent enough story, gameplay I remember being decent. (It has been a very long time) I never got around to the third installment of this franchise but beat two of them. Closest to a true space sci-fi game I can think of. Spaceships, mech suits, etc.

The thing is no matter how much I like sci-fi for movies or shows to watch. A newer sci-fi game has never really successfully succeeded in grabbing my interest. Which is kinda disappointing, but just how it is. Has Starfield done this? It looks a tad boring to me tbh... Pretty, but very monotone. I do believe a lot of people will like it. As someone said earlier, "it looks like fallout space edition". Which fallout failed to grab my interest. Never been a fan of that franchise. Probably why Starfield is failing for me too.

Gonna be honest here, I am not a fangirl of Bethesda. I played two of the Doom video games a long time ago. I missed out on Elder Scrolls (maybe one day look more into that) and Fallout. What I do know of Bethesda is that Todd Howard upset fans and blatantly lied about the product he was selling. (Fallout 76) I think that hit the company harder than I thought it did. This is all I know of them; that their reputation was demolished and Todd was the representative for it. Now all that aside I hope their Starfield goes good. I hope Todd is able to gain back a tiny bit of creditably. As interest in the products is looking pretty minuscule (When I went to watch the video) and that is a sad thing... for all the people that worked on it. Hopefully the game is fun and they get a bit of redemption in the process. Who knows if that will happen.

Sounds to me that you like Sci-Fi Fantasy, which is an extra tag on the genre. Have you tried something like Star Ocean?

[Chaotic1962]

Can you explain what that means? I've seen a few comment on how enemies aren't reacting to being shot.

Are people expecting them to rattle around like an actor in an 80's movie with each bullet? Am I completely misunderstanding?

Yes, not rattling around per se, but some sort of reaction. A bit of recoil when getting hit sometimes.