Starfield Pre-Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[rusty_shackleford]

IIRC the Khajiit went to the moon at one point.

Moon sugar is just cocaine dude, cat people don't actually fly to the moon to get it for their drug deals

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:The_Demi-Plane_of_Jode
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Plane_of_Jode
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Moon_Gate_of_Anequina

 

[Zombra]

facts have no place in this discussion

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Standard fantasy developer: "We're going to take Tolkien's work and water it down some."
Todd Howard: "Opium addicted sapient cats with colonies on the moon"

 

[DalekFlay]

Too bad they went more Tolkein after Morrowind, not less.

 

[RNGsus]

Tolkien would be a major improvement from where they've gone.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Standard fantasy developer: "We're going to take Tolkien's work and water it down some."
Todd Howard: "Opium addicted sapient cats with colonies on the moon"

This in itself is a reference to D&D's Known World / Mystara campaign setting, which contains a not-quite-canonical empire of Rakasta (cat-humanoids) on an invisible moon.

Spoiler

Detailed in Voyage of the Princess Ark #7 in Dragon Magazine #160 (August 1990), later referenced by the Champions of Mystara Box Set in 1993.

 

[RNGsus]

TES is a shittier Forgotten Realms at this point.

 

[Caim]

TES is a shittier Forgotten Realms at this point.

Can't be, TES does not have dozens upon dozens of words that differentiate between many different types of prostitutes.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

TES is a shittier Forgotten Realms at this point.

I've never played TES Online and haven't looked into its lore, but Lawrence Schick, the dungeon master whose personal campaign setting was the origin of D&D's Known World / Mystara setting, served as the game's lead content designer / writer / loremaster for a decade, so it might well have further inspiration that separates it from the dullness of TES III: Oblivion.

Although I doubt the original designers of The Elder Scrolls setting, as presented in Arena and Daggerfall, were influenced by the Known World / Mystara, they did take a similar pulp fantasy approach for the human realms. Just as the Known World contains the Northern Reaches (Vikings), the Emirates of Ylaruam (Middle East), the Empire of Thyatis (Roman/Byzantine Empire), and the Grand Duchy of Karameikos (originally conceived as a relatively conventional and generic pseudo-medieval feudal realm), so too does Tamriel contain High Rock (relatively conventional British/French feudalism), Hammerfell (the Middle East), Skyrim (Vikings), and the Imperial Province (Roman/Byzantine Empire).

 

[rusty_shackleford]

TES is a shittier Forgotten Realms at this point.

I've never played TES Online and haven't looked into its lore, but Lawrence Schick, the dungeon master whose personal campaign setting was the origin of D&D's Known World / Mystara setting, served as the game's lead content designer / writer / loremaster for a decade, so it might well have further inspiration that separates it from the dullness of TES III: Oblivion.

Although I doubt the original designers of The Elder Scrolls setting, as presented in Arena and Daggerfall, were influenced by the Known World / Mystara, they did take a similar pulp fantasy approach for the human realms. Just as the Known World contains the Northern Reaches (Vikings), the Emirates of Ylaruam (Middle East), the Empire of Thyatis (Roman/Byzantine Empire), and the Grand Duchy of Karameikos (originally conceived as a relatively conventional and generic pseudo-medieval feudal realm), so too does Tamriel contain High Rock (relatively conventional British/French feudalism), Hammerfell (the Middle East), Skyrim (Vikings), and the Imperial Province (Roman/Byzantine Empire).

ESO is the second best thing that ever happened to TES lore after Morrowind, it's not even close.
Thanks to being set so far before the 'main' lore they get a lot of freedom in what they can actually do.

AFAIK, the game was really shitty about lore at first and the massive fan blowback caused them to create an official Loremaster position and hire Schick btw. He might have moved on to a different job, but the Loremaster position still exists and they have someone else there now.

 

[Ulysa]

Guys play ESO The Clockwork City DLC. Or better just watch the story in youtube. I loved it so much.

 

[Forest Dweller]

I haven’t followed this at all, but how is Bethesda expected to make a game set in OUTER FUCKING SPACE when they can’t figure out how to implement a Z-axis well enough to make ladders work?

Mass Effect style, where you pick different planets to go to? Can't see any other way it could be done.

 

[Forest Dweller]

Apparently 2020 is too much to have a new speech from Todd Howard.

Plot twist: he's fucking her bf.

 

[DalekFlay]

Mass Effect style, where you pick different planets to go to? Can't see any other way it could be done.

Yeah. Outer Worlds was literally a Bethesda style game with that setup, not like it's rocket science. Only question IMO is whether they do a handful of crafted planets or a ton of randomly generated ones.

 

[Trojan_generic]

is it time for "science-fiction, to us, is a robot flying around space in a rocket, killing stuff with a blaster" yet?

Yes, also blasters are now melee weapons.

 

[Wunderbar]

Mass Effect style, where you pick different planets to go to? Can't see any other way it could be done.

Yeah. Outer Worlds was literally a Bethesda style game with that setup, not like it's rocket science. Only question IMO is whether they do a handful of crafted planets or a ton of randomly generated ones.

TOW was way too shallow systems-wise to be even considered a Bethesda style game.

Starfield is probably going to be different, judging by those leaked spacewalk screenshots.

 

[Forest Dweller]

Mass Effect style, where you pick different planets to go to? Can't see any other way it could be done.

Yeah. Outer Worlds was literally a Bethesda style game with that setup, not like it's rocket science. Only question IMO is whether they do a handful of crafted planets or a ton of randomly generated ones.

TOW was way too shallow systems-wise to be even considered a Bethesda style game.

Starfield is probably going to be different, judging by those leaked spacewalk screenshots.

Now I'm genuinely curious (haven't played TOW). How is it more shallow?

 

[DalekFlay]

Now I'm genuinely curious (haven't played TOW). How is it more shallow?

It's more low budget and smaller in scope, but I don't know if I'd call that "shallow." Skyrim ain't some deep RPG experience. Either way, the point is that's the structure I would roughly expect.

 

[Wunderbar]

Mass Effect style, where you pick different planets to go to? Can't see any other way it could be done.

Yeah. Outer Worlds was literally a Bethesda style game with that setup, not like it's rocket science. Only question IMO is whether they do a handful of crafted planets or a ton of randomly generated ones.

TOW was way too shallow systems-wise to be even considered a Bethesda style game.

Starfield is probably going to be different, judging by those leaked spacewalk screenshots.

Now I'm genuinely curious (haven't played TOW). How is it more shallow?

bethesda games have a bunch of interesting systems such as
- physics engine that allows you to pick up random clutter, carry it in your hands, put it into your inventory, etc (no clutter manipulation in TOW);
- items stay where player have put them (nothing like that in TOW);
- player can also put items into containers (in TOW you can only loot containers);
- NPC having schedules and actually walking between locations instead of teleporting (no intricate NPC scheduling in TOW);
- NPC having player-like stats and inventories (TOW NPCs are essentially critters with facial animations, they don't have player-like attributes and you can't loot their equipment or do anything with their inventories);
- one seamless world without loading screens, except for dungeons (TOW world is separated into smaller chunks because it's Unreal engine).
etc etc

Now, you can say that none of this truly matters and TOW is still a bethesda-style game because it's a first-person action/rpg hybrid with a relatively open-ended structure, but personally i think those little details is what differentiate Bethesda's gamebryo games from, for example, Far cry, or Rockstar's later GTA and RDR games. Systems-wise, KCD was the game that got the closest to Bethesda's style despite having a fixed protagonist and a ton of cutscenes.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

TOW wasn't much like bethesda games at all, it was much closer to a bioware game.
Except it didn't have anywhere near as good character development, companion interactions, etc.,

 

[Urthor]

Honestly if you think about it, it's mildly shocking the studio hasn't delivered anything since Fallout 4. I imagined this would be a cross generation game released this year at one point, now it'll be released maybe next year, and the 1st year of a console generation is traditionally not the most commercially successful due to install base.

 

[Tavernking]

I bet they won't have climbable ladders. Bethesda games never do.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I bet they won't have climbable ladders. Bethesda games never do.

daggerfall has climbable ladders, you have been deboonked

 

[DalekFlay]

Now, you can say that none of this truly matters and TOW is still a bethesda-style game because it's a first-person action/rpg hybrid with a relatively open-ended structure, but personally i think those little details is what differentiate Bethesda's gamebryo games from, for example, Far cry, or Rockstar's later GTA and RDR games. Systems-wise, KCD was the game that got the closest to Bethesda's style despite having a fixed protagonist and a ton of cutscenes.

I think other than the physics, the derpy things you can do with them having a lot of appeal, that's a pretty minor list. The basic gameplay of wandering open areas in first-person, talking to people and choosing quest outcomes, picking factions, picking up items everywhere, lockpicking and hacking, reading terminals, getting companions, etc. etc... that's all the same. A ton of that very core gameplay stuff is missing from games like Far Cry, but is fully there in Outer Worlds. To me it's a rather obvious Bethesda clone, but hey... opinions and all that I guess.

 

[Readher]

Honestly if you think about it, it's mildly shocking the studio hasn't delivered anything since Fallout 4. I imagined this would be a cross generation game released this year at one point, now it'll be released maybe next year, and the 1st year of a console generation is traditionally not the most commercially successful due to install base.

They released Fallout 76, though I don't fault you for forgetting about it.