Currently in pre-production at Bethesda Game Studios, the acclaimed developers of Skyrim and Fallout 4. The highly-anticipated next chapter in the iconic The...
I hope they’re using this time to learn lessons from their Starfield flop and gather the talent and budget needed to improve upon Skyrim. A modern engine probably wouldn’t hurt.
However, my expectations are very low at this point.
They haven’t learned from Oblivion, Skyrim, or Fallout 4. Probably others.
Or really, they learned they can just keep releasing games on a hacked-up Morrowind engine, and make huge piles of money. So that’s what they’ll keep doing.
Yup. ES6 is going to sell like condoms on an STD themed swinger convension no matter how many bugs are going around.
And the saddest part is that too many have learned nothing about AAA titles, and will preorder the game, making the game a massive financial success even before releasing anything of quality.
I’m not suggesting that a big budget alone is sufficient to make a good game.
However, enough budget to keep the team employed (note the many gaming industry layoffs lately) and appropriate budgeting (in terms of both money and time) affect things like code, art, and writing quality. It’s kind of important.
I think it’s going to require the people making the most high-level decisions to come to the realization that their old way of doing things is outdated. I don’t have faith that they’ll come to those conclusions.
Friendly reminder that the original “loremaster” of Elder Scrolls left Bethesda before they released Elder Scrolls Online, and they replaced him with someone who has apparently been making pretty questionable decisions with ESO lore.
I mean, they always have the out of dragon breaks rewriting reality/making multiple conflicting timelines simultaneously canon (see the events of daggerfall as referenced in later games) to handwave away retcons, but overusing that just means that no lore actually matters.
I think of it as a pool from which to draw and connect story elements, rather than rigid canon. If good writers were given the chance, I think they would find plenty of material to work with.
at the end of the day they are going to make the game they want, whether we like it or not, microsoft is now involved as well so who knows how that is going to affect them with their decisions
I think I counted 6 quest designers in Starfield, which was a spot in the credits I was specifically looking for given how many quests they had and how many of them would have been better off not even existing. You can’t talk about having 1000 planets and then make quests that aren’t interesting to populate them.
There are more than 50 quests unless you’re getting creative with how you count. There are over a dozen in each major faction, and those ones are mostly okay, but the ones I really take issue with are the nothing quests that aren’t part of any faction; the ones that basically just have you go to a location and then report back. Those are awful. There should be zero quests in there that the quest designers themselves aren’t excited about. Even the bounties that you pick up for a given faction that have you go to a place and kill an enemy mob should be more exciting than what I’ve already described in this sentence.
Perhaps “you’re right”, “you’re wrong and also short, here’s why”, or even “I don’t know”. These would all be things you could tell them and a better response.
It’s a tricky balancing act. They need to recover the investment as early as possible to pay less in capital costs but doing that will mean that later on when the product is sub-par it will cause problems and extra work.
Since the engine, game logic, art, story, testing is so heavily coupled together changing the engine a little bit could cause a month of work down the line.
I think personally the best way is to start by making an engine or taking one off the shelf and then write a mini version of the game with shit art that has a lot of bugs.
At the same time making models with hitboxes that all have the same physical properties otherwise, dialog content and recordings and all other content that can be done separately.
Once that is fun to play then you can start working creating a slightly bigger system with a single short storyline to have a cohesive experience and will have the genaral feel of the game.
Once everything above is done setting up a closed beta is the way to go. Take some feedback, add features and redo the small story to be more fun.
Then once everything is a fun experience but people just want more you do the whole everything.
I think it’s safe to assume they know that and would bear it in mind when choosing or building an engine. Their games are famous for modding, after all.
That’s a years if not decade+ long project though, including major investments of time and money that you could pour into actual games. You can’t just stomp a new game engine out of the ground, especially not with how complex video games in of itself have become, and if you want it to be as moddable as their current one.
You can’t just stomp a new game engine out of the ground
I don’t know what you mean by that, but creating new game engines and migrating from one to another have both been done before.
Is either of those tasks fast or cheap? Of course not.
Are they worthwhile? Sometimes.
Are they possible? Absolutely.
especially not […] if you want it to be as moddable as their current one.
Well, I can understand why you might assume that if you don’t have a lot of experience in software development, but it’s just not true. Making an engine moddable is mainly about planning for it during the design, and either building good tools for the game data or publishing the specs so other people can.
(And for what it’s worth, while Creation Engine is moddable, it has enormous room for improvement in that area. Actually working with it can be a very frustrating experience.)
It would be nice if the game speed and physics interaction were not tied to a inconsistent variable such as frame rate. And it seems that the more they pile on the gambryo engine the less receptive to modding it gets. But i can also accept that the cracks in the games that grow over time may not be the engine, but Bethesda prioritizing MVP centric development over hammering out the problems. Modders are carrying an auful lot of load to even get the games running.
I’m replaying Starfield, and on my second playthrough, I’m noticing the depth they put into this game. Sometimes a single dialogue line you said days ago will have an effect on NPC attitudes through an entire side story. I’m not going to argue that it’s not a regurgitation of their lame formula they’ve milked for the past 15+ years, but they do need to reevaluate where their money/dev time goes to.
Replaying as well, doing side quests I put off and surprised they actually go interesting places. Just did the one where zero G kept turning off and on at the space station that got taken over.
I hope they’re using this time to learn lessons from their Starfield flop and gather the talent and budget needed to improve upon Skyrim. A modern engine probably wouldn’t hurt.
However, my expectations are very low at this point.
They haven’t learned from Oblivion, Skyrim, or Fallout 4. Probably others.
Or really, they learned they can just keep releasing games on a hacked-up Morrowind engine, and make huge piles of money. So that’s what they’ll keep doing.
Yup. ES6 is going to sell like condoms on an STD themed swinger convension no matter how many bugs are going around.
And the saddest part is that too many have learned nothing about AAA titles, and will preorder the game, making the game a massive financial success even before releasing anything of quality.
Don’t forget they learned they can charge for mods, too!
They haven’t learned from 3 of their best and most popular games?
People have such nostalgia boners for Morrowind. Warranted or not, it’s still annoying.
What does that have to do with the comment you replied to?
Also why would it be annoying if people say a good game is a good game and it is warranted?
It’s like people on this thread have some pathological need to complain about SOMETHING.
I think Elder Scrolls is one of those properties whose biggest detractors are its fanbase. Runescape is exactly the same, and it’s totally bizarre.
The budget for Starfield was twice that of Baldur’s Gate 3. Throwing more money at it isn’t going to do a lot if they’re allocating it poorly.
I’m not suggesting that a big budget alone is sufficient to make a good game.
However, enough budget to keep the team employed (note the many gaming industry layoffs lately) and appropriate budgeting (in terms of both money and time) affect things like code, art, and writing quality. It’s kind of important.
I think it’s going to require the people making the most high-level decisions to come to the realization that their old way of doing things is outdated. I don’t have faith that they’ll come to those conclusions.
Sadly, I don’t have much faith in them either. (Hence my low expectations.)
I can still hope, though. Elder Scrolls has enough fans and lore that there’s certainly potential for a great new game.
Friendly reminder that the original “loremaster” of Elder Scrolls left Bethesda before they released Elder Scrolls Online, and they replaced him with someone who has apparently been making pretty questionable decisions with ESO lore.
I mean, they always have the out of dragon breaks rewriting reality/making multiple conflicting timelines simultaneously canon (see the events of daggerfall as referenced in later games) to handwave away retcons, but overusing that just means that no lore actually matters.
I think of it as a pool from which to draw and connect story elements, rather than rigid canon. If good writers were given the chance, I think they would find plenty of material to work with.
at the end of the day they are going to make the game they want, whether we like it or not, microsoft is now involved as well so who knows how that is going to affect them with their decisions
Hopefully it’ll be like Minecraft; that game has gotten way better since Microsoft.
The real number is Morrowind had something like 10-20 writers that worked on it. Modern Bethesda games have 1.
Michael Kirkbride counts as 15 writers-in-one with enough cocaine.
It’s a good thing that he definitely didn’t leave the company years ago then!
He released his Coda, he’s washed his hands of the setting.
Lol he’s definitely worth it
I think I counted 6 quest designers in Starfield, which was a spot in the credits I was specifically looking for given how many quests they had and how many of them would have been better off not even existing. You can’t talk about having 1000 planets and then make quests that aren’t interesting to populate them.
There’s a recent video that adds all of that up. Starfield had some crazy low number of quests, I think 50ish, and Morrowind had like 300+.
And of course Starfield has an astronomical number of devs on it.
There are more than 50 quests unless you’re getting creative with how you count. There are over a dozen in each major faction, and those ones are mostly okay, but the ones I really take issue with are the nothing quests that aren’t part of any faction; the ones that basically just have you go to a location and then report back. Those are awful. There should be zero quests in there that the quest designers themselves aren’t excited about. Even the bounties that you pick up for a given faction that have you go to a place and kill an enemy mob should be more exciting than what I’ve already described in this sentence.
I don’t know what to tell ya dude.
Perhaps “you’re right”, “you’re wrong and also short, here’s why”, or even “I don’t know”. These would all be things you could tell them and a better response.
K
Starfield has more quests than Skyrim (both somewhere around 200 or so quests). Morrowind definitely felt like it was twice as much as those.
It’s a tricky balancing act. They need to recover the investment as early as possible to pay less in capital costs but doing that will mean that later on when the product is sub-par it will cause problems and extra work.
Since the engine, game logic, art, story, testing is so heavily coupled together changing the engine a little bit could cause a month of work down the line.
I think personally the best way is to start by making an engine or taking one off the shelf and then write a mini version of the game with shit art that has a lot of bugs.
At the same time making models with hitboxes that all have the same physical properties otherwise, dialog content and recordings and all other content that can be done separately.
Once that is fun to play then you can start working creating a slightly bigger system with a single short storyline to have a cohesive experience and will have the genaral feel of the game.
Once everything above is done setting up a closed beta is the way to go. Take some feedback, add features and redo the small story to be more fun.
Then once everything is a fun experience but people just want more you do the whole everything.
If it does not have similar levels of moddability then it will absolutely hurt.
I think it’s safe to assume they know that and would bear it in mind when choosing or building an engine. Their games are famous for modding, after all.
That’s a years if not decade+ long project though, including major investments of time and money that you could pour into actual games. You can’t just stomp a new game engine out of the ground, especially not with how complex video games in of itself have become, and if you want it to be as moddable as their current one.
Not if they simply use the latest Unreal Engine.
Yep.
I don’t know what you mean by that, but creating new game engines and migrating from one to another have both been done before.
Is either of those tasks fast or cheap? Of course not.
Are they worthwhile? Sometimes.
Are they possible? Absolutely.
Well, I can understand why you might assume that if you don’t have a lot of experience in software development, but it’s just not true. Making an engine moddable is mainly about planning for it during the design, and either building good tools for the game data or publishing the specs so other people can.
(And for what it’s worth, while Creation Engine is moddable, it has enormous room for improvement in that area. Actually working with it can be a very frustrating experience.)
They already built their new engine. That’s what Starfield is using.
lol, no. Starfield is still using the creation engine, which is based on gamebryo, which they’re using since Morrowind.
Correct. And they made a new version for Starfield. That’s all they’re going to use. Anyone that thinks they’ll ever switch engines is daydreaming.
It would be nice if the game speed and physics interaction were not tied to a inconsistent variable such as frame rate. And it seems that the more they pile on the gambryo engine the less receptive to modding it gets. But i can also accept that the cracks in the games that grow over time may not be the engine, but Bethesda prioritizing MVP centric development over hammering out the problems. Modders are carrying an auful lot of load to even get the games running.
Agreed on all points.
And the topic was about them making a modern engine.
You’re missing the point.
I think we’re only ever see a new engine once Todd is no longer part of the company. Because the quote him out of context ‘it just works’
Thanks, I needed that laugh.
I’m replaying Starfield, and on my second playthrough, I’m noticing the depth they put into this game. Sometimes a single dialogue line you said days ago will have an effect on NPC attitudes through an entire side story. I’m not going to argue that it’s not a regurgitation of their lame formula they’ve milked for the past 15+ years, but they do need to reevaluate where their money/dev time goes to.
Replaying as well, doing side quests I put off and surprised they actually go interesting places. Just did the one where zero G kept turning off and on at the space station that got taken over.
I like Starfield.
Sshhh that isn’t an approved opinion for Internet use
The only thing Bethesda is motivated to do, frothing, absolutely chomping at the bit, is figure out a way to successfully monetize modded content.
Yes, will probably make a monthly subscription that walls off ability to download mods.
(Also, it’s “champing” at the bit. Sorry for the correction but it’s a small pet peeve seeing chomping so much now)
We all know that all they are going to do is re-release new versions of their old games on devices we largely don’t care about.
as long as they don’t have space travel between every objective and hundreds of barren procedurally generated planets it will be fine.
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