Starfield Gets a 15-Minute Official Gameplay Reveal: Over 1,000 Planets to Explore

[Burticus]

Well it's Beth so I'll give it a good 6-12 months to patch up then catch it on sale for $25

 

[MadMummy76]

Despite  owning IdTech, and the availability of UE, Bethesda keeps polishing the turd that is the Creation Engine. Starfield is showing the same failings of every Bethesda game for the last 10+ years. The game could turn out to be very enjoyable, but there is no excuse for the developer's laziness.

I don't know why they insist on it, probably just one or two bullheaded execs who refuse to change up the pipeline. There are also probably a bunch of scripters who know nothing else but creation engine. But if they are good at their jobs productivity would be back to normal in a few months and continue improving after that, not to mention not having to deal with the jank from then on.

As a programmer I know how hard it is to leave your creation behind, but if a better tool becomes available you just have to put your ego aside.

 

[Burticus]

Despite  owning IdTech, and the availability of UE, Bethesda keeps polishing the turd that is the Creation Engine. Starfield is showing the same failings of every Bethesda game for the last 10+ years. The game could turn out to be very enjoyable, but there is no excuse for the developer's laziness.

That's a good point... why wouldn't they use the vastly superior idtech engine? Sure there would be a learning curve but Creation engine needs to be taken behind the barn and shot. I mean at some point you have to park the horse and get a car.

 

[LazyGamer]

but there is no excuse for the developer's laziness.

management's

 

[hubaduba]

management's

Todd Howard, perhaps?

 

[xGryfter]

That's a good point... why wouldn't they use the vastly superior idtech engine? Sure there would be a learning curve but Creation engine needs to be taken behind the barn and shot. I mean at some point you have to park the horse and get a car.

Mods, A huge majority of Bethesda's fans are fans because of the modability of their games. Bethesda is, at best, an average developer with average skills. They have been lifted to godhood by the modders who turn their games into masterpieces.

All their games feel very, very similar with little change since Oblivion. Their character artist is horrible, it looks like every person in their games are related and mildly deformed. Their texture work has barely improved since Oblivion and the lighting leaves a hell of a lot to be desired. They use the same voice actors for way too many characters and their stories are barely passable and all are extremely forgettable.

Their music is generally really good though.

What Bethesda does extremely well is create an incredible canvas disguised as an exceptional walking simulator for their community to work in.
All that being said, I've been playing the Elder Scrolls games since the mid to late 90s and I've put in 200+ hours each on Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Skyrim. I kind of hit a wall with Fallout 4 and played less than 150 hours. I will play the **** out of Starfield, I'll love the first 30 hours then all the normal Bethesda jank will start to annoy me until I hit 50 or 60 hours then I'll stop wait a couple months before coming back to start modding it which will give me, hopefully, another 100 hours or so, then I'll beat it and put it down for a year or so until the really good mods start coming and start the process over again.

 

[MadMummy76]

Mods, A huge majority of Bethesda's fans are fans because of the modability of their games. Bethesda is, at best, an average developer with average skills. They have been lifted to godhood by the modders who turn their games into masterpieces.

I think this statement used to be uttered as sarcasm but it has been said so many times, that it has ingrained itself as truth.
Not saying mods aren't great, but that Bethesda games would not be popular without mods is not true. The reason so many modders gather around it is because so many people love the games. If they weren't any good nobody would bother putting their time into making mods for it.

 

[hubaduba]

Mods, A huge majority of Bethesda's fans are fans because of the modability of their games. Bethesda is, at best, an average developer with average skills. They have been lifted to godhood by the modders who turn their games into masterpieces.

All their games feel very, very similar with little change since Oblivion. Their character artist is horrible, it looks like every person in their games are related and mildly deformed. Their texture work has barely improved since Oblivion and the lighting leaves a hell of a lot to be desired. They use the same voice actors for way too many characters and their stories are barely passable and all are extremely forgettable.

Their music is generally really good though.

What Bethesda does extremely well is create an incredible canvas disguised as an exceptional walking simulator for their community to work in.
All that being said, I've been playing the Elder Scrolls games since the mid to late 90s and I've put in 200+ hours each on Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Skyrim. I kind of hit a wall with Fallout 4 and played less than 150 hours. I will play the **** out of Starfield, I'll love the first 30 hours then all the normal Bethesda jank will start to annoy me until I hit 50 or 60 hours then I'll stop wait a couple months before coming back to start modding it which will give me, hopefully, another 100 hours or so, then I'll beat it and put it down for a year or so until the really good mods start coming and start the process over again.

They can release mod tools for IdTech.

Rather than trying to shoehorn IdTech network code into Creation, they should be expanding the capabilities of IdTech. Gamebryo/Creation needs to die a quick, painful death.

 

[Grimlakin]

An limitation of the engine was on an article I read earlier. There is no smooth transition from planet to space and or from space to planet. It's a loading window or cinematic transition.

 

[Brian_B]

An limitation of the engine was on an article I read earlier. There is no smooth transition from planet to space and or from space to planet. It's a loading window or cinematic transition.

I kinda agree with Bethesda on this one - NBD. Same with “open world” - it’s never been a huge priority — and given the difference between a short loading screen or going through some extremely artificial looking conspicuously placed U-shaped geography to allow time for new assets to load, I prefer the short loading screen.

 

[Grimlakin]

I kinda agree with Bethesda on this one - NBD. Same with “open world” - it’s never been a huge priority — and given the difference between a short loading screen or going through some extremely artificial looking conspicuously placed U-shaped geography to allow time for new assets to load, I prefer the short loading screen.

Time will tell. If this means better overall experience and more detailed worlds I'm for it. The amount of dialog is stunning already. So I'm happy to hear that.

 

[xGryfter]

They can release mod tools for IdTech.

Rather than trying to shoehorn IdTech network code into Creation, they should be expanding the capabilities of IdTech. Gamebryo/Creation needs to die a quick, painful death.

From what I understand, even with ID Tech mod tools, the limitations are still pretty extreme. Creation Engine tools pretty much open the engine completely and because the only games that use the engine are from Bethesda and are intended to be modded it's okay. I don't think ID Tech wants their engine to be that open.

Personally I think they need to build, or have someone build a new engine from the ground up that support modern tech natively while keeping it's modability but I doubt that will happen any time soon. It's a shame they are tied to ID Tech because I think Starfield would have been the perfect game to promote UE5. From graphics, to load times to ease of use within the mod community, UE5 could have made that game sing and they could have made some super powerful mod tools for UE5.

 

[LazyGamer]

From what I understand, even with ID Tech mod tools, the limitations are still pretty extreme.

ID Tech seems to be designed around building responsive games. A noble effort that I applaud and wish we'd see more of, but if you're always optimizing for performance (that meatsack-bound I/O loop), then you're not necessarily giving developers the freedom to create expansive, deep game worlds.

Granted it'd be nice if the 'game world' engine were somewhat decoupled from the 'graphics engine', so that we could have the best of both, but I'm betting that the ROI for that undertaking just isn't there. It will be needed for VR games that attempt to capture the scale and complexity of a game like Starfield, in the sense that you need 11ms maximum frametimes (i.e., 90FPS solid) regardless of what's going on in the game world, but we're not quite there yet either.

 

[MadMummy76]

I kinda agree with Bethesda on this one - NBD. Same with “open world” - it’s never been a huge priority — and given the difference between a short loading screen or going through some extremely artificial looking conspicuously placed U-shaped geography to allow time for new assets to load, I prefer the short loading screen.

Agreed, I don't understand the aversion to loading screens. Loading popping up for a few seconds while walking through a door never bothered me.

 

[Denpepe]

I don't think ID Tech wants their engine to be that open.

They did not mind in the olden days, think that changed around the release of Rage and the changes they made to the engine to allow for the semi open world stuff and the new texture stuff they added.

Still I prefer companies use engines built for the game they are trying to make so you avoid crap like EA and forcing their frostbite engine on all studio's.

 

[Peter_Brosdahl]

I don't mind loading screens when they're relatively quick, like 10s or less but when we're talking Rockstar GTA/RDR2 I absolutely feel like they need to rethink how the heck they're doing things. I grew up with cassette drives so I've got some experience with long loading times. Telengard anyone?