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Grass, do games w Why Bethesda Responding to Starfield's Steam Reviews Is Part of a Rising Games Industry Trend

Tl;dr: everyone does it, but the examples provided don’t sound like a child going nu-uh and making defensive excuses.

Hypx,
@Hypx@kbin.social avatar

Developer feedback is usually about answering questions that the players have, or finding bugs that were missed in QA. What Bethesda is doing is quite a bit more ridiculous.

originalfrozenbanana,

I think the article goes out of its way to describe how rare this is for a AAA game

Raz, (edited ) do games w Bethesda Is Responding to Negative Reviews of Starfield on Steam

No Man’s Sky has had no loading screens during gameplay, and space to planet transitions on full planets, since what… 2016?

The Creation Engine is just too damn old.

Edit @Dark Arc: You’re right. Creation Engine is just too damn shitty, I guess. I called it “old” because the gameplay feels so antiquated.

CaptnNMorgan,

No man sky also barely has a story and has zero voice acting. It’s apples and oranges, just because they’re both fruit doesn’t mean they can be compared

Adalast,

Except you just compared them in saying they are both fruit. In fact, saying they are both fruit is finding a commonality between them when comparing. There are many metrics on which Apples and Oranges can be compared. They are different colors, have a different internal structures, and different juice content. These are negatively correlated comparisons. More positive correlations would be that they are both roughly spherical, provide vitamin C, and grow on trees.

I have always hated that expression. You can compare anything since comparison is just the act of identifying similarities and differences (positive and negative correlations). One can make meaningful comparisons between and apple and a suspension bridge if the situation calls for it.

petrol_sniff_king,

Ohhh my godd, me too. It’s so anti-intellectual.

To anyone who might care, you can identify an apple as a low-quality orange, but that doesn’t also mean the apple is a low-quality apple; they’re optimized to different ends. That is, I think, the point of the expression.

But, if we’re trying to evaluate them on something like taste, which is entirely subjective, yeah, I’m comparing those shits. And, I’m going oranges all the way.

CaptnNMorgan,

You shouldn’t compare apples and oranges because they are both great but for different reasons and purposes. It isn’t anti-intellectual to recognize that apples are way better for pies than oranges are but if you want some amazing juice and don’t want to go through a whole process to make it good; oranges are the way to go.

This and the many other examples I didn’t want to fill this page with are the reason why it’s a saying. It’s much faster than prefacing what exactly said apples and oranges are going to be used for before giving a real answer and I personally feel it shouldn’t at all be taken literally.

Adalast,

While I don’t disagree with you in spirit, the use case for most instances of the expression are to dissuade the act of comparison at all because the two quantities are so dissimilar that the correlations are irrelevant.

It is an anti-intellectual statement because it presupposes that the person doing the comparing is not able to distinguish between meaningful comparisons and ones which are irrational but support their argument. It ranks up there with “big words” as far as I am concerned, saying more about the person they are being said by rather than the person they are being said to.

CaptnNMorgan,

So why not stand on that hill when it’s relevant?

Adalast,

I do. That is a side effect of always standing on the hill. I am there when it matters, but also when it doesn’t. Such is the curse of my superpowers.

Captain Pedant AWAAAAYYYY!

CaptnNMorgan,

This made me giggle like a little girl

zeze,

deleted_by_author

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  • mellejwz,

    It’s relevant because it’s there. If you don’t play those parts it doesn’t mean it’s there. They put the time in other things more important to the game than transitions. Also, the engine is completely different.

    CaptnNMorgan,

    If you don’t like Bethesda games just come out and say it. Those are two games that provide completely different experiences to anything Bethesda has ever made.

    Do I wish Starfield had less loading screens? Sure, but the only thing I’m really upset about is that it doesn’t show the ship animations every time I take off and land. But that’s an immersion issue and Starfield is more immersive than either nms or cyberpunk either way.

    As far as technical issues go, I couldn’t play it when I had popOS installed but since I switched to Windows I’ve had zero issues on a 3080ti

    Dark_Arc,
    @Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

    “Engines” are not static things. What we call “Unreal Engine” goes back to the 90s.

    These comments always bug me as a programmer because it’s like someone calling a 2023 Camero old because it doesn’t have the acceleration of a 2023 Mustang… The “age” almost certainly isn’t the problem, it’s where the effort has or hasn’t been put in to the engine and more importantly the game itself (e.g., carrying on the metaphor, the Camero might be slower getting up to speed because all the R&D for the last 3 years was on a smooth ride).

    Zoboomafoo,
    @Zoboomafoo@lemmy.world avatar

    That’s true, but the comments are valid when talking about Bethesda games

    applebusch,

    Yeah to be honest what strikes me the most about companies like Bethesda is just how little they’ve improved over the decades. There’s nothing stopping them from making major improvements like removing loading screens, adding vehicles finally (I wonder if the ships are really a hat like the train in fallout 3), fixing the buggy ass collisions and physics, or any number of dumb shits they just keep leaving in game after game. It really speaks to the institutional inertia and spaghetti mess their code must be.

    Dark_Arc,
    @Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

    I would assume those things are just not prioritized by management because they’ve never been things that have caused sufficient outrage and/or aren’t seen as things that can increase sales… You can’t exactly use “look we fixed physics” in a marketing video to sell a new game. Maybe you can use “look we have vehicles”… but what’s the number of people that will really care? What % will that increase sales?

    e.g. maybe someone would care if EA made your need for speed character able to get out of the car and walk around… Do I care? Nah.

    (I bothered to look at the Wikipedia page and) they added multiplayer support to Creation Engine for Fallout 76, that was a huge undertaking.

    applebusch,

    I mean fixing these things can definitely increase sales, but you’re right not in the sense that they are directly marketable. The thing that makes games really blow up is word of mouth, people recommending them to their friends, and you get that best by making a game with overall quality. It’s basically a given at this point that Bethesda games are buggy messes that get fixed by modders. Every time you have a major bug, game crash, or save corruption it takes you out of the world and forces you to remember you’re playing a game that barely works, which makes you like it less. All of this hurts sales, if not today in the future. So yeah, they probably aren’t prioritized by management, but management is wrong. They often are.

    Dark_Arc,
    @Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

    Fair assessment, though I’d critique:

    Every time you have a major bug, game crash, or save corruption it takes you out of the world and forces you to remember you’re playing a game that barely works, which makes you like it less.

    These aren’t the improvements you said you wanted ;) Fixing physics, adding vehicles, etc are features/major changes that can increase instability/take a lot more time to QA.

    MeanEYE,
    @MeanEYE@lemmy.world avatar

    Creation Engine is static. Others, you are right, change.

    Dark_Arc,
    @Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

    Bethesda revealed in June 2021 that they were working on a new iteration of the engine called Creation Engine 2, and that it would power their upcoming games Starfield and The Elder Scrolls VI. Creation Engine 2 features real-time global illumination and advanced volumetric lighting.

    en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_Engine

    Case and point

    MeanEYE,
    @MeanEYE@lemmy.world avatar

    Just slapping number 2 at the end doesn’t mean it’s better. That’s like how Microsoft made Edge browser by forking IE11 and it’s suppose to be better. And how big of a joke is volumetric lighting and “real-time global illumination”… hahaha. Oh my. Source 1 had that when Half-Life2 was released. Advancement.

    Here’s an in-game example of that global illumination.

    Dark_Arc,
    @Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

    Creation Engine is static. Others, you are right, change.

    Points out it does change.

    jUst sLappInG a nUmbeR 2 aT tHe End dOesN’t mEan iT’s bEtTer

    That’s like how Microsoft made Edge browser by forking IE11 and it’s suppose to be better.

    It is… By a lot, ask any web developer. Even before they switched to using Blink under the hood it was a significantly better browser. Now it’s literally a reskinned Chrome. Meanwhile IE11 is a complete mess that requires a ton of hacks to get it to do what you want.

    In both cases IE -> Edge and Edge -> Chrome Microsoft changed the literal browser engine. … This just kinda makes my point even more so, the general public has no idea what constitutes an “engine change” and can’t judge whether that will yield the results they want.

    Oh my. Source 1 had that when Half-Life2 was released. Advancement.

    You’ve seen how low poly Half-Life 2 is right…? Destiny 2 only allows certain areas to have the flashlight on because if they don’t plan for it the flash lights can tank their frame rates (seriously) – but hey “Left 4 Dead 2 had a flashlight in source engine!” /s.

    I can almost guarantee Half-Life two also didn’t have “Global illumination”, maybe real time lighting for the flashlight, but Global Illumination is a much bigger thing.

    This is Half-Life 2 with global illumination: youtu.be/WWYpKRETv8k?si=9eTDmx10m3l9nwdR

    Here’s an old forum from 2005 talking about how “real global illumination isn’t yet possible” gamedev.net/forums/topic/…/3282572/

    MeanEYE,
    @MeanEYE@lemmy.world avatar

    Points out it does change.

    In case you haven’t figured it out, it’s a joke that their engine doesn’t change. Whether they want it or not, they have to at least adapt some things and am well aware of that. Joke is that they do so seldomly and we don’t see much progress in quality.

    By a lot, ask any web developer.

    I am a web developer and have been for 20 years almost. So I know what am talking about. I know IE, whether I like it or not, so intimately I can still quote all the bugs they had from IE6 onwards. All Edge did, was drop legacy compatibility mode, nothing else. Underlying Trident engine got a minor bump. Hence why I quoted it. But by all means please enlighten me with your Google skills in order to justify the fact Bethesda scammed you out of your money once again.

    You’ve seen how low poly Half-Life 2 is right

    Yes, and number of polygons means nothing. Which is why there’s an ongoing joke about people needing to upgrade their computers to run Starfield, when there are better looking games out there which run much much better.

    And you are equating global illumination with ray tracing, which is not the same thing. You can do partial global illumination without doing ray tracing. Only thing that means, coming from Todd Howard’s mouth is that they are not using baked in lights, which I don’t believe him either. Remember how FO76 had 16x the details? But in reality they copy and pasted foliage that many times and called it a day with same shitty textures. Yeah, that kind of Todd treatment is expected whatever he says. Even if they did do ray tracing it doesn’t matter one bit if game is boring, which it is.

    Also, I gave HL2 and Source engine as an example as a joke as well, since game looked awesome and ran on pretty much any hardware. With the release of Lost Coast, which is what you should be comparing Starfield to, it was demonstrated what Source can do. Lost Coast was released in 2005 and looks significantly better and demonstrates many things Bethesda these days boasts about.

    In the end, if all that matters to you is what Todd tells people and then pretends he didn’t and number of polygons so be it. I on the other hand like my games to be entertaining, regardless of how they look.

    Dark_Arc,
    @Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

    All Edge did, was drop legacy compatibility mode, nothing else. Underlying Trident engine got a minor bump.

    Really? So Chakra was just a fever dream I had? (windowscentral.com/microsoft-edge-gets-better-aga…)

    The initial release of EdgeHTML on Windows 10 included more than 4000 interoperability fixes. (en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EdgeHTML#cite_note-13)

    Initial public release of Microsoft Edge. Contains improvements to performance, support for HTML5 and CSS3.

    “Minor bump” that fixed 4,000 bugs, and added HTML5 and CSS3.

    I suppose ES6, C++11, Java 8, Python 3, etc are also just “minor bumps.”

    I didn’t even buy the game, it didn’t seem interesting to me. I just am frustrated by the fundamental lack of understanding about what an “engine” is and the fact that they’re almost always being iterated on in different ways.

    Diversity of engines is a good thing, everything shouldn’t be Unreal Engine, Blink, V8, Clang, etc

    Nihilore,
    @Nihilore@lemmy.world avatar

    Case in point

    Dark_Arc,
    @Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

    Huh, thanks for the tip!

    jomoo99,

    Casing point

    aidan,

    They are completely different games though. Watchdogs 2 had less loading screens than Hitman 3, but that doesn’t really mean much to say.

    zeze,

    deleted_by_author

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  • aidan,

    I’m not saying it to justify it, I’m saying that not having loading screens doesn’t make No Man’s Sky a better game. I think Star Citizen is a better comparison to Star Field in terms of style- and is much more empty.

    Nudding,

    I’m not saying it to justify it, I’m saying that not having loading screens doesn’t make No Man’s Sky a better game.

    It makes it better in terms of loading screens.

    wildginger,

    They are compared because they both are advertised as filling the same niche, of space exploration with emphasis on exploration.

    aidan,

    Except they don’t really? And I didn’t see that much. Starfield to me seemed like it was being advertised as for RPG fans, and that they would have a lot of dialogue. And that space was just a setting, not the main character.

    haruajsuru, do games w Bethesda Is Responding to Negative Reviews of Starfield on Steam

    I have played most of the fully 3D Bethesda RPG games and I am accustomed to their game design, bugs, and janks.

    But the only thing I hate about Starfield is just the way the game always talks about how amazing exploration of the unknown is (heck, your main character is even a part of the explorer group name Constellation) while trying everything it can to stop player to do just that (overly rely on teleportation, cannot travel seamlessly between planets, etc…)

    It feels like you are playing an institute scientist in an fallout game, always stay in your high tech base and only travel using teleportation to the outside world

    This is a major turn off for me and there is no way to fix it

    acosmichippo,
    @acosmichippo@lemmy.world avatar

    100%. The best part of Bethesda open world games is exploring the open space between towns, quests, objectives, etc. Fast travel is an option, but rarely necessary. If you rely on it you will miss lots of cool stuff.

    Not so in Starfield, the space between objectives is literally empty space.

    z00s,

    I mean, that’s why it’s called “space”, right? That’s literally what it is.

    acosmichippo,
    @acosmichippo@lemmy.world avatar

    yes. the point is it doesn’t work well in a video game.

    z00s,

    So why are you playing it then?

    wildginger,

    And space travel isnt actually a fun adventure, but the point of a video game is to romanticize the concepts. Not make them as boring and realistic as possible

    Pwnmode,

    I agree. Unless that’s the whole point of the game you are making, and then it’s just the nature of the game. Flight Sim is one of my friend’s favorite games, but not so for me. At least they aren’t telling people that they are wrong about it being boring because it’s realistic and realism is better or some crap.

    wildginger,

    There is, in fact, a very heated debate on whether or not simulators that stay true to form are actually games. With the argument being, they are either toys or simulators.

    “I had fun playing with it” isnt exclusive to games, as a ball is not a game but I would gladly throw it against a wall for hours by myself with some music.

    But lots of people would likely shit on an attempt to rebrand those things as “video toys” when the distinction is largely only relevant to people studying design, so the heated debate is mostly between academics and pedants.

    echodot,

    There’s lots of actual stuff in interplanetary space that you can pull on for inspiration on how to make an interesting game.

    You can have counters with shady trader types that are only in the vast gulf between the systems, there could be rogue planets with billion year old abandoned cities to explore filled with automated defences for you to fight and interesting loot at the end. Distant ancient asteroids that contain the seeds of the first life in the universe that when you interact with temporarily give you status change that you can only get from asteroids and temporarily gives you super strength or something, allowing you to complete missions in a way you otherwise would not necessarily have done.

    The way these kind of side quests are supposed to work is the player is plodding along trying to get from point A to point B and on the way they get sidetracked by this side quest (the clue is in the name Bethesda). Maybe it changes their priorities or how they’re going to tackle and upcoming mission. Side quests are not supposed to be independent standalone things, they’re supposed to integrate with the main story. They’re not supposed to be something you find easily there’s supposed to be something you come across on your own as you’re exploring the environment, but you can only do that if the developers bothered to provided environment for you to explore. If they just teleport you to your destination then there’s no opportunity for this kind of emergent gameplay.

    Loads of stuff you can put between the star systems.

    aidan,

    That’s a fair opinion to have, but my preference is actually exploring the towns. I love that Starfield removed many of the middle of nowhere winding dungeons that I got so bored of. (Dwemer/Nord ruins in Skyrim and office buildings/other skyscrapers in fallout 4.)

    Aux,

    I’m actually fine with personally, but what I dislike is that Starfield is too grindy and slow.

    BananaTrifleViolin,

    Yeah it’s quite an accomplishment to make the vastness of space feel claustrophobic and small.

    Some of the response to the reviews is bizarre - one seems to try to claim that the planets are not boring because they’re realistic and the real world is boring, and that the player is probably just overwhelmed by the awesomeness of it all.

    It almost feels like the game Devs have convinced themselves that they’ve been working on the greatest game ever made and when told “no you haven’t” they’re responding by saying “you just don’t get our vision”.

    It’s an ok game. I’m actually less bothered by the loading screens and more by the old fashioned story telling. This game would have been amazing if released closer after Skyrim. But it’s been 12 years and we’ve had Witcher 3, Cyberpunk and Baldurs Gate 3 that have changed expectations. All of them are better at evoking a sense of emotional engagement with the game, and actions having meaningful consequences in the plot. Subplots like the bloody baron in Witcher 3, or Judy in cyberpunk have stuck with me in a way characters and events in Skyrim and now Starfield just never have.

    Problem is I suspect Bethesda will focus on all the loading screen / sense of scale complaints and not register the more important (imo) issues with the stories, characters and gameplay. Less but better is the real lesson I think.

    MeanEYE,
    @MeanEYE@lemmy.world avatar

    Funny thing is, they don’t care. As long as they have fans who will complain but still buy their product at full price… they simply don’t care. This is evident with every product of theirs. Fallout76 had bugs originating from FO4 that were patched by community but were reintroduced in FO76.

    ampersandrew, do games w Creator of Bloodborne 60fps Patch Says Sony Has Sent Him a DMCA Takedown — but Why Now?
    @ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

    Jeff Grubb has said that, based on what he’s hearing from sources, do not get your hopes up for this to mean anything official is happening for Bloodborne.

    Brunbrun6766,
    @Brunbrun6766@lemmy.world avatar

    Jeff “Metroid Prime 4 Announcement Tomorrow” Grubb? Jeff “Switch Pro Imminent” Grubb?

    ampersandrew,
    @ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

    Jeff “Metroid Prime Remastered coming this year” Grubb, but plans changed after he heard of them, yes. It’s really not a good way to try to discredit someone because they don’t literally have a crystal ball.

    ampersandrew, do games w Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 Dev Says Big Budget Games Are Failing in Part Because Teams Are Over-Scoping Their Projects
    @ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

    Games got bigger to their own detriment. Halo and Gears of War are open world games now, and they’re worse off for it. Assassin’s Creed games used to be under 20 hours, and now they’re over 45. Not every game is worse for being longer, as two of my favorite games in the past couple of years are over 100 hours long, clocking in at three times the length of their predecessors, but it’s much easier to keep a game fun for 8-15 hours than it is for some multiple of that, and it makes the game more expensive to make, raising the threshold for success.

    fishos,
    @fishos@lemmy.world avatar

    Unpopular opinion: open world ruined Zelda. I thought I’d love the concept. But actually give it to me? Ughhh… Spend forever doing side quests because you don’t know if the equipment will only be good now or if youll need it down the road… No real guidance so you can end up just meandering around…

    I liked the more structured narrative. Don’t get me wrong - it’s cool to play Link and just do whatever you want. But for a story game, a more defined linear path is more engaging imo.

    Semjaza,

    For me it took away the joy of the puzzles and building on a theme that the older Zeldas did.

    I’ve not played TotK so maybe it brings back more of the dungeon feel from the older ones that I enjoyed, but I don’t have huge amounts of time for gaming these days.

    dragonfucker,

    Drag finished BOTW and now likes riding around Hyrule on a motorbike looking for koroks. Drag thinks the game is great if you use it as something to pick up and play a little bit of every now and then. Good game for bringing on airplanes and playing on the bus. Drag would have very much liked to have a game like that when drag was a child being dragged to boring dentist appointments and waiting to be picked up from school. Drag thinks maybe Nintendo is making games for children.

    SuperSaiyanSwag,

    BotW and TotK are some of my favorite games of all time, but I really do hope we get another big dungeons focused game in the future.

    fishos,
    @fishos@lemmy.world avatar

    To me, they would be perfect games if they weren’t Zelda. That is to say, they are great games, just not what I expect from a Zelda game. Something I’d expect from Bethesda moreso(style, not gameplay lmao).

    I feel like Wind Waker was the right balance between freedom and linear story.

    Evotech,

    Just pretend it’s not a Zelda game then

    SuperSaiyanSwag,

    They used og Zelda as an inspiration for it

    CookieOfFortune,

    Wasn’t Zelda always open world? LttP was about as open world as they come back in the day?

    fishos,
    @fishos@lemmy.world avatar

    Open world while still needing to go through the temples in a certain order. Various gadgets were required to progress, but crafty players often got around this. Pokemon would also be called “open world”, but could you just walk up to the Elite 4 from the beginning? Nope, had to get them badges first.

    There’s “open to exploration” open world and “here’s a giant map, go wild”(a la Fallout/Skyrim). I prefered a Zelda with more guidance. Even Wind Waker, arguably the most open world, still had a progression the game tried to keep you on.

    CookieOfFortune,

    Yeah so today there’s more of a spectrum. Back in the 80s and 90s there were far fewer choices.

    I get what you mean though, just wanted to point out it’s more complicated to judge older games by new standards. Eg. if Zelda were a new franchise it might just be a fully open world from the get go.

    fishos,
    @fishos@lemmy.world avatar

    How is saying it’s not the same game mechanics “judging it by different standards”? That right there is the problem: this idea that everything modern is better. Not everything needs all the same features tacked on.

    intensely_human,

    Halo as an open world is fucking awesome. I love Infinite.

    The next step, in terms of budget and computing power required, which I eagerly await, is a massively multiplayer co-op Halo:

    • open universe
    • Humanity versus Covenant
    • massively co-op
    • 10,000+ humans in perpetual battle against endless Covenant invasion

    That’s probably gonna require billion dollar budgets and quantum computers to pull off, but it’s coming. And I can’t fucking wait.

    Evotech,

    Planetside already exists. Just do that and scale up to more planets

    intensely_human,

    Planetside blows

    Cethin,

    You think Planetside blows and you’re asking for Planetside. That’s odd. What don’t you like about it? It’s probably a symptom of what you’re asking for.

    (Also, you don’t really seem to know what you’re talking about anyway, because quantum computers aren’t super powerful computers or something. They’re like a GPU. They’re specialized processors that are better at a few specific tasks. Binary CPUs are still probably always going to be what’s used for most computation.)

    intensely_human,

    No, I’m not asking for Planetside. You said what I’m asking for is Planetside, not me.

    What I don’t like about Planetside is the shit graphics, the fact that the entire game is circle-strafing polygon spiders around on a GTA motorcycle, the fact that enemies simply teleport into existence and in perfect proportion to the number of people nearby, the monotonous world design, etc.

    Quantum computers can solve some differential equation problems in essentially zero time. You seem to assume that most heavy lifting cannot be expressed in terms of this data type; that seems premature to me.

    Quantum computers are insanely powerful computers. Their performance on the class of problems which they can solve is essentially infinite.

    Cethin,

    The graphics aren’t that bad, considering how old it is. Yeah, a modern game would probably look better but good graphics don’t make a good game, nor should realism be confused for good graphics.

    IIRC Planetside used to at least have totally lopsided battles. They’d mark zones as hot and people could spawn there to even things out, but we used to do large server-wide organized attacks where we bring a large number of troops to capture zones before the enemy could organize a counter. I don’t know if this is still true, but the fact it isn’t (if it isn’t) means there were issues they were trying to solve, which there totally was. How do you suppose a Halo skin would fix the issue, especially if they can’t just spawn in there? How do they prevent one team from being rolled (which will be even worse without a third faction to level things out against the one faction doing the rolling)?

    I actually prefer the world design of PS2 to Halo Infinite. Most of the world in HI is identical. PS2 at least has a few planets with very different terrain, and they also have regions that are largely different from the rest. The terrain also makes some vehicles more or less useful, which doesn’t really happen in HI. In HI every vehicle is essentially exactly as good in all locations.

    ampersandrew,
    @ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

    We’re in here talking about how big budget games are making the industry unsustainable, and after Infinite came and went without making a huge splash, you think the next one ought to be even bigger?

    UnderpantsWeevil, do games w One Year Later, Larian Reflects On Baldur's Gate 3's Success, Future Plans, And Canceling DLC: "Ever Since, We've Felt Better"
    @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

    In March, Vincke announced the studio’s plans to end its partnership with Wizards of the Coast, meaning Larian won’t be making DLC or a sequel to their critical success. Several months after this announcement, Vincke says the folks at Larian have no regrets about the decision.

    Genuinely sad to hear, as WotC has a ton of rich properties that a studio like Larian could have brought to vivid life. Would love to have a Larian treatment of the MtG Multiverse or a rendition of the Dragonlance series or setting.

    Excited to see what they do next, but its a shame to see these companies part ways.

    CosmoNova,

    I‘m happy they got out to work on something better and less restraining. There‘s already a lot in their Original Sins games that couldn‘t be brought over to BG3 but I‘d love to see return in future games and there‘s so much more to come on top of that.

    sigmaklimgrindset,

    Considering that Vincke (or another person from Larian) has stated that everyone from WotC they worked with has now been laid off despite the huge success of BG3, I’m glad Larian are focusing on their own IP instead of bringing in money for WotC/Hasbro.

    UnderpantsWeevil,
    @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world avatar

    everyone from WotC they worked with has now been laid off despite the huge success of BG3

    Yesh. That’s ugly.

    hoshikarakitaridia,
    @hoshikarakitaridia@lemmy.world avatar

    I mean considering the last mainstream headline I remember about WotC is them sending the Pinkertons to chase after a random streamer because they fucked up and sent him unrevealed cards for MtG, I think they are a really bad company and I pray for their downfall, so someone else picks up the IP and runs with it.

    I mean the layoffs are bad as well but there’s a non-exhaustive list of reasons to not like WotC and to not be associated with them.

    ICastFist,
    @ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

    so someone else picks up the IP and runs with it.

    My bet is that either Disney or EA would pick it up

    Anticorp,

    Puke

    aksdb, do games w Bethesda Is Responding to Negative Reviews of Starfield on Steam

    If a significant amount of people “misunderstood” you, it’s not their fault, but yours for not clearly communicating or not tailoring your communication for the target audience.

    Same here: if people play the game “wrong”, you didn’t design it properly and/or marketed it completely wrong.

    Sure, there will always be “dumb” (or too clever) individuals who you simply can’t properly address and satisfy, but if the group is large enough to be loud, you failed your job.

    Kolanaki,
    !deleted6508 avatar

    If a significant amount of people “misunderstood” you, it’s not their fault, but yours for not clearly communicating or not tailoring your communication for the target audience.

    I find this ironic, because even the tutorials in the game only communicate half of the information you need. A lot of them just outright expect you to have played one of their games before. I could imagine if this was someone’s first Bethesda RPG, they’d be confused as hell. Plus there are a few things unique to Starfield that are confusing even if you’ve played every one of their games before.

    Carighan, do games w Ubisoft's customer values
    @Carighan@lemmy.world avatar

    I wish you had kept the original title, because that has significantly more content than yours.

    Anyhow, getting back to:

    Ubisoft Exec Says Gamers Need to Get ‘Comfortable’ Not Owning Their Games for Subscriptions to Take Off

    That’s hilarious, because as usual Ubisoft is blaming anybody but themselves. Subscriptions did take off. GamePass is quite popular overall. Not owning your games is completely normal, look at how many games everyone has on platforms such as Steam et al.

    It’s just that Ubisoft’s absolutely shitty subscription for their absolutely shitty games, Ubisoft+, has not taken off, because surprise, you only get Ubisoft’s shitty games with that, not all kinds of games like on GamePass. It’s almost like they’re trying to jump the enshittifcation-process that video streaming sites were and still are going through, jump straight to single-publisher services with tiny catalogues, then wonder why nobody would want to pay for that when the service where you get games from ~everyone still exists as a competing service.

    It’s just an exec trying to justify why they want their bonuses despite failing to meet targets. And blaming gamers, of course. They’re always at fault, never the bad execs making stupid decisions that completely fail to capture the amrket.

    d00ery,

    Point taken, I’ve updated the post to include the headline

    Rentlar,
    NoneYa,

    Just the way they go.

    Steam is a success. Well we can too! We’ll force our launcher on them and they’ll love it like they love Steam. Forget that people hated Steam when it first came out and that they had years to work out the bugs and they offer more than just Valve games and it’s not always required. Also the remember me button actually works!

    GamePass was a success. Well we can too! We’ll force our subscription on them and they’ll love it like they love GamePass!

    They just keep repeating this same cycle of copying the other guys, wanting the pros that come with it but not thinking about the small parts that made theirs work and Ubisoft’s suck.

    simple, do games w Starfield Paid DLSS Mod Creator Hits Back at Pirates, Threatens to Add 'Hidden Mines' in Future Mods

    That’s hilarious. I can’t believe someone would openly admit to putting malware in a paid mod, I’m surprised anyone actually bought it in the first place.

    ArchmageAzor, do games w Modder Behind Oblivion Fan Remake Vows to See It Through Whether Bethesda Releases a Remaster or Not
    @ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world avatar

    Bethesdas remaster would probably be nothing more than a version with updated graphics and lighting and support for modern software. This guy is rebuilding the game from scratch in a modern engine.

    LittlePrimate,
    @LittlePrimate@feddit.de avatar

    in a modern engine.

    Well, at least more modern than oblivion, Skyrim’s is 12 years old…

    vaultdweller013,

    Fun fact there were olny six years between Oblivion and Skyrims release. Thats right skyrim has been out longer than the release time between oblivion and skyrim.

    AmbientChaos, (edited )

    You can add Morrowind to that timeline too, which came out in 2002, so 9 years between Morrowind and Skyrim. Crazy…

    Summzashi,

    Which is in itself a slightly updated version of Oblivions gamebryo, which was conceived in the 90s. Calling it a modern engine is extremely generous if not completely wrong.

    cuacamole,

    Which happens with most engines. UE5 is an update version of UE4 and so on.

    Virkkunen,
    @Virkkunen@kbin.social avatar

    These people are rebuilding the game from "scratch" in Skyrim's Creation Engine version, but it's still nothing more than a version with updated graphics and lightning. Bethesda's probably going to be using FO4 or Starfield's CE version, which will have the same result albeit shinier.

    Raab,

    skyblivion.com/about/

    It’s much more than a lighting and graphics overhaul.

    Fades,

    updated graphics and lighting and support for modern software

    even that would be expecting too much, I’ll be shocked if that “graphics update” is anything more than only slightly better texture replacements

    GreenMario,

    Oblivion already is 4K/60fps on XSX thanks to FPSBoost and resolution enhanced. They’re gonna have to justify if just a bit more than that.

    Fix potato faces and leveling system would be a good start. Add real beards for Nords.

    TowardsTheFuture, (edited ) do gaming w Starfield and Baldur’s Gate 3 Revive Age-Old RPG Debate About Encumbrance

    It’s not “here to stay” it’s a feature that is used or not used depending on the level of realness wanted. Some are fine with hand waving away encumbrance, some are not.

    If you’re playing a walking simulator, it is kinda part of the immersion.

    If you’re running around killing every Greek god under the Sun, but suddenly you pick up your 7th weapon that’s just chains with something at the end of it, and BOOM you can’t move anymore cuz your too heavy, then it’s getting in the way. Instead of implementing encumbrance they just, limit you to 6 weapons and tada, they could explain it as “it’s too much weight” but they won’t give you the option for it to happen as slowing you down would kill the pace and feel of the game.

    Baldurs gate is a DND based CRPG and Starfield is a loadscreenwalking simulator. Of course they have encumbrance.

    bob_lemon,

    Baldurs gate is a DND based CRPG

    Although DND games usually handwaive encumbrance with bags of holding.

    TowardsTheFuture,

    Fair, depends on the game. CRPG’s will tend to have it in. I mean for example WotR and Kingmaker you can get a bag of holding if you buy it or put stuff into strength on characters or etc in order to not have to worry about it much but it’s still there, and not spending the money on it or building any characters with strength means you will be limited.

    Dee,
    @Dee@lemmings.world avatar

    bags of holding.

    It’s true. The character in my current campaign has two bags of holding and a bag of devouring.

    RickRussell_CA,

    And you’ve got KOTOR and Pillars of Eternity and others that are clearly D&D derivatives, but solve the problem handily with a “stash” whose contents are never accessible in combat.

    I have never understood the fascination with inventory management. I just want to find stuff, and use that stuff later on. If I wanted something as boring as my actual job, I’d just do my actual job and get paid for it instead of buying a game.

    Schlock,

    In BG3 it is a balance mechanic. Heavy objects tend to be completely OP and are used to cheese combat. encumberance limits this and even allows building your character specifically for this playstyle.

    In Bethesda games encumberance is in part there to protect players from themselves. If every object can be picked up (and that is a design principle in those games) and every object has a Value, then the optimal strategy is always to grab every single object you can find and then sell everything at once. If that does not sound like fun to you that is because it is not, but still i know multiple people who play those games this way even with encumberance in place. Players will always find a way to ruin their own fun, the only hing you can do is to put systems in place that disincentivise these behaviors.

    leftzero,

    Heavy objects tend to be completely OP and are used to cheese combat.

    You shut up. Barrelmancy and goblin tossin’ are perfectly legitimate martial arts!

    RickRussell_CA,

    A “stash” that is only accessible outside combat mostly preserves that balance, IMO.

    Most games come up with a range of ways to get around the problem, even when they do have a strictly limited inventory with encumbrance:

    • Zero weight quest items
    • Ability to run or fast travel while encumbered (FO4 selectable perk)
    • A pet or NPC capable of carrying your less valuable stuff back to the vendor for sale (Torchlight had this, did Diablo? I haven’t played in decades.)
    • Pack animals/robots
    • Portable vendors (Skyrim had a demon vendor you could summon once a day)
    • Bags of holding (or similar)
    • Warp chests (many chests with same contents/inventory around map)

    etc. ad infinitum. The fact that most games implement a variety of ways to deal with absence of an infinite inventory is kind of a tipoff that it’s more of a burden than a desirable aspect of gameplay. Most of these games are holding up a carrot (or several) to get you to pursue certain achievements just to reduce the monotony of inventory management.

    SkyeStarfall,

    Just because you don’t like inventory management doesn’t mean others don’t.

    as boring as my actual job

    Again, subjective, considering the popularity of job simulator games, like truck sim.

    RickRussell_CA,

    “I” is a first person pronoun that refers to the one who is speaking or writing.

    midori_matcha, do games w Switch 2 Tutorial Game Welcome Tour Costs $10, Nintendo Explains Why It's Not a Free Console Pack-In - IGN
    @midori_matcha@lemmy.world avatar

    $10 is the “go fuck yourself” price for things that would otherwise be free.

    You’ve already spent $450 on the console, $90 on a game, and $50 for the full online subscription. What’s $10 more dollars for the welcome demo? Go fuck yourself, pay the plumber man.

    Hoimo,

    Yeah, I expected them to ask the full $60 for it, which would be completely unreasonable, but at least I understand why they wouldn’t give it away then. But 10? They could easily eat that, they just don’t want to.

    Either way, I can’t imagine anyone paying for a “game” that’s nothing more than an instruction booklet. If it were free, maybe someone would open it while Mario Kart is downloading.

    jordanlund,
    @jordanlund@lemmy.world avatar

    You expect Nintendo to do MULTITASKING? ;)

    HipsterTenZero, do games w The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remake Will Reportedly Be Revealed Soon, and Released Not Long After That
    @HipsterTenZero@dormi.zone avatar

    Yeah its called skyblivion.

    Plastic_Ramses, do games w Baldur’s Gate 3 Dev Larian Says Its 'Full Attention' Is on Its Next Game, 'Media Blackout' for the Foreseeable

    Larian has said in the past that two games are in development. One that is their ip and one that is a licensed ip.

    I would literally murder someone for a larian fallout.

    addie,
    @addie@feddit.uk avatar

    So far we’ve had “amazing Fallout RPG on a janky engine” when (Black Isle / Obsidian) developed it, and “bland Fallout RPG on a janky engine” when Bethesda have developed it. Having both great writers and a decent engine would be amazing for Fallout, although just Obsidian and their Pillars of Eternity engine would be perfect with me.

    Larian have said that they’d like to get away from DnD 5e after working on BG3 for so long, so I’m assuming they won’t have licensed Pathfinder either. If we take the set of all possible IPs and strike out those two, then that must make Fallout more likely. (Albeit not very likely.)

    Makeitstop,

    With the renewed interest from the show, it would make sense for Microsoft to get someone else working on a Fallout game since Bethesda isn’t going to do it any time soon. However, I would think that Obsidian would be the more natural choice. I would guess that MS would prefer to utilize one of the studios they own rather than license it out, but I could be wrong about that.

    And even if they did license out development on a Fallout game, I would assume that they would be in a hurry to get something out there, which would make Larian far less appealing to them. I agree that they would probably make an amazing Fallout game, but another studio would probably make a decent enough game that costs less to develop and pays off sooner.

    tal,
    @tal@lemmy.today avatar

    Bethesda has said that they aren’t going to do one until after the next Elder Scrolls game, so if anything in the Fallout world is going to come out on any kind of a near-term schedule, it’s going to have to be via someone with available bandwidth licensing it.

    etchinghillside,

    I predict a Marvel or Starwars game.

    RebekahWSD,
    @RebekahWSD@lemmy.world avatar

    I’ll help you hide the body to get a larian fallout!

    Jumi,

    I give you two believable alibis

    Gork,

    A new IP is smart. Many game developers have gotten huge when a successful franchise takes off. Assassin’s Creed, The Elder Scrolls (Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, ESO), Fallout (like you mentioned), Mass Effect, Grand Theft Auto, Far Cry, Witcher, just to name a few.

    padge,

    Divinity Original Sin is their IP, there’s a chance they’re working on a game in that series

    Awesomo85, do games w PS5 Homescreen Now Replaces Unique Video Game Art With Annoying Ads You Can’t Turn Off

    $700 gets you a pretty nice PC these days…

    Flamekebab,
    @Flamekebab@piefed.social avatar

    Or two Steam Decks!

    celsiustimeline,

    Or one Steam Deck if you are in Canada!

    brian,

    Or 73% of a PS5 pro if you’re in Canada!

    Empricorn,

    Or 1 US Steam Deck and a hooker!

    SynopsisTantilize,

    Or one steam deck and a fuck ton of games!

    celsiustimeline,

    Hmmm, I don’t know about “pretty nice”. You’d be lucky to build something with a 12th gen i5 and a 3060 for under $1000. More like you can get a serviceable PC that runs 1080p games at 60fps, but no AAA title from the past 5 years will perform reliably.

    GladiusB,
    @GladiusB@lemmy.world avatar

    It’s still worth it for the freedom and then upgrade with time

    BigPotato,

    I’m still using a 1070ti and hitting stable 60fps with newer games. Medium to low settings, usually but most slow down comes from poor optimization since I’m running a 12th Gen and regularly see medium usage on both GPU and CPU.

    Rai,

    12th Gen i5 and a 3060 will outperform a PS5 pro

    CaptDust,

    That sounds like a pretty nice PC to me. Probably not going to play everything on ultra, but neither do consoles.

    wellheh,

    With a 2 min search I found a cyberpowerpc prebuilt for $700 that included a r7 5700 and rx 6700. And yes, you can absolutely get 60 fps at 1080p on some aaa titles; I don’t know where you get that idea you can’t, especially if you can tweak graphics settings (for the record, most pc gamers don’t even use ultra- high and medium presets are the most reasonable settings). I’m sure a title like Diablo 4 doesn’t require tuning at 1080p at all.

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