Starfield design director calls out unfair game criticism: 'Don't fool yourself into thinking you know why it is the way it is' - eviltoast
  • HorreC@kbin.social
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    11 months ago

    Its almost like, you had a perfectly good place to openly say why it is the way it is. And instead you decided to just be like you know not the way of wizards.

  • bl4ckblooc@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    At this point I don’t want to play Starfield because I don’t want to support all of these shit asses.

    • BruceTwarzen@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      From all i saw about the game, i don’t think i would play it for free. The loading screens are outrageous and the UI is absolute garbage and even that has loading screens. With all the time you spend in your menues for these games, noooo thank you.

  • Ashyr@sh.itjust.works
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    11 months ago

    Their working culture must be incredibly toxic to be responding like this to valid criticism.

    It really explains the state of the game.

    • Rottcodd@kbin.social
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      11 months ago

      This is the same company that took a weird joke character from Morrowind - M’aiq the Liar - and added him into Oblivion solely so that he could deliver a bunch of lines that were all just thinly veiled dismissals of criticisms that were made during development and/or insults leveled at the peiple who made them.

      This is nothing new for them.

    • stardust@lemmy.ca
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      11 months ago

      Yeah, gives the sense that open discussion amongst employees was heavily discouraged, and it was being led by a few people absolutely fixated on making their vision come true and making people afraid to question them even if they thought it was bad.

  • qwertyWarlord@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    LOL, yup keep bashing the customers. Bethesda are sprinting to their grave. Whole lot of trust has been flying out the window since 76 dropped and it doesn’t seem to be slowing

    • Buck Fucket@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Sprinting to their grave? They could release elder scrolls 6 now in its current state and people would say “it’s a Bethesda game, there of course are bugs!” And move on with their day. Meanwhile Bethesda rakes in millions off a broken and incomplete game.

  • Fades@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    They treat their users like children yet those same children are the ones finishing the broken games they shit out

  • delitomatoes@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    Is it the Creation engine?

    “No, you don’t understand, game dev is hard”

    Is it the Creation engine?

    “Is not that simple! There are complexities abound!”

    Is it the Creation engine?

    “Yes…”

    • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      11 months ago

      And that Emil doesn’t use design documents

      So Bethesda is trying to make sprawling RPGs without a central documentation system to help track it all

      Which is likely why their games now feel so fucking disconnected compared to their old games

  • Poggervania@kbin.social
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    11 months ago

    Doesn’t matter why a design is a certain way - if it’s shit, it’s shit.

    Knowing why something is shit doesn’t make it not shit all of the sudden. I could tell you that Devil May Cry 2 was literally a single animation before they released it 4 months later, but it doesn’t make DMC2 a better game.

  • donuts@kbin.social
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    11 months ago

    Don’t fool yourself into thinking that even a single player cares why it is the way it is.

  • fsxylo@sh.itjust.works
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    11 months ago

    Because you’ve been reskinning Morrowind for 20 years? A game that you can probably ai generate at this point?

  • Russ@bitforged.space
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    11 months ago

    So… then what is the real reason? You can’t go screaming “You don’t understand why it is like this!” without offering an explanation, and then wonder why people are listening to only the offered up reasons where they can get it (which generally is their own experience).

    • ramirezmike@programming.dev
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      11 months ago

      he does kinda say why. Games are difficult to make already and there are a lot of concessions that get made due to time constraints or business choices that are out of the hands of the developers.

      • guacupado@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Maybe they need to stop announcing shit half a decade before it comes out so they don’t need to time crunch for expectations.

    • Kraivo@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Technically you can

      Also, giving people the key to understanding underlying things usually makes people don’t enjoy the scheme. For example, i can’t play most of Blizzard games cus i know, their scheme is “if players suffers enough, he will be happier to get something, so grind justified”

      And to add cherry on top, he might be under some sort of NDA still

      • Russ@bitforged.space
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        11 months ago

        Sure, but I’d argue (and perhaps this is just me) in both cases where you either can’t say anything or the reasoning is awful, that it’s just better to stay silent than to come out with:

        “But don’t fool yourself into thinking you know why it is the way it is (unless it’s somehow documented and verified), or how it got to be that way (good or bad)”

        Now of course, there is some merit to what the rest of his quote says, but people are way more likely to pickup the harsher aspects of what you say (such as what has happened here), and in general this tone tends to go over like a lead balloon.

        I’ve not played Starfield, aside from for 45 minutes because I had the chance to via game pass, so I don’t know what to think about the game. I agree that you shouldn’t go and spew vitriol at the individual developers making the games (management however… I’ll leave that to each person’s choice…) because there is a difference between saying a game is horrible, versus saying that a whole team is horrible. But the way this was approached somewhat comes across as "Don’t you dare " which I’ve never liked, and is only likely to make the situation worse.

    • qdJzXuisAndVQb2@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      I haven’t seen any other videos on the subject, but his seemed to really skewer the game. I won’t even buy it on sale for that shitty experience of loading screens, fast travel and running across deserted planetscapes.

  • 2deck@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Most people don’t get it.

    With the right perspective you can note the sleek curves and suble divets. The way it flows and flops. It becomes possible to appreciate the subtle aromas of digested tendies and ketchup. Then you realise it’s a part of you… you are a part of the poo and the poo is a part of you.

    That’s how you enjoy that thing you don’t understand silly billy

  • Donebrach@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    On the way to work this morning and thought “I’d like to replay fallout 4” and I think now it was because after playing Starfield for 120, bg3 for 140, returning to cyberpunk for now a total of 400 that… uh… I’d like to relive an at-the-time okay Bethesda game?

    I enjoyed Starfield at times but man, it was certainly underwhelming. I was not necessarily disappointed because I was not expecting much from it, but it really did not surprise at any turn.

    Wish they had just done a huge, bespoke solar system and not “an entire galaxy” of 5 outposts featuring literally identical dead npcs and flavor text. Kinda hard to feel the tragedy of a failed farm outpost when you already experienced the exact same failed farm outpost (down to the names of the people writing the logs) two planets over. (Man you get around, Dr. Nadia!)

    • Tavarin@lemmy.ca
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      11 months ago

      Well you did play it for 120 hours so it couldn’t have been that bad. I did enjoy the game as well, though as a 7/10 and not without its issues.

      Wish they had just done a huge, bespoke solar system

      I fully agree with this, the best parts of the game for me were the built up and designed cities.

    • Redredme@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Well, it’s especially jarring if you’ve played a lot of cyberpunk. Cyberpunk does away with loading screens. Cyberpunk discussions with npcs are flowing directly from the gameplay. You’re talking.

      Starfield? Starfield struggles with everything. Emtpy cities with only a few npcs walking around. Enter a building: loading screen. No cars or other vehicles. Flying your ship feels… Weird. Enter your ship? Loading screen/fade to black. Enter the pilot seat? Fade to black and loading animation. Boring fetch quests. Talk with an npc? The game stops and puts the npc in your face. Fast travel here, fast travel there.

      It was acceptable a decade ago. But now? I barely made it 20 hours in. I know i only scratched the surface but Cyperpunk, for all its flaws (and there arent many left) was and still is a way better ARPG. I dislike rockstar games, I don’t know why, but gta4 and red dead2 are way better then this.

      As an Elite dangerous refugee it’s saddening that this game also doesnt live up to its promise. Because just like with elite dangerous, you feel that if they just did those few things different, if they just made some other design decisions it would have been one of the best games ever. But they didnt. And that grandness stays just out of reach. Only a promise of what could have been.