Starfield's planets aren't all interesting, but they're not all "supposed to be Disney World" - eviltoast

You’ll probably find that a lot of planets in Starfield are pretty boring, but Bethesda says that’s kind of the point.

  • Neato@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    25
    ·
    1 year ago

    There’s ways to make places feel barren, open, unexplored and still be interesting. I’ve played several games that had sections that were essentially “empty” but still hand designed to be interesting. We don’t need 1000 planets, we need good content.

    One of the primary reasons people like Bethesda games is that they give players a large world to explore that’s jam-packed with interesting things to see a do. If Bethesda abandons that and admits that majority of the content they expect players to interact with is going to be boring, procedurally-generated, then why should people play Starfield?

    Bethesda isn’t known for deep, complex stories. Their best writing is traditionally their side content with main stories panned. Their combat is pretty basic, but functional. Their RP is pretty sad and NPCs could be a lot better, especially these days. So it seems Bethesda has given away their biggest plus: an interesting world to explore.

    • sarsaparilyptus@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      1 year ago

      The best part is, they already made a game with a gigantic world full of procedurally-generated content: Daggerfall, which is remembered fondly for a reason.

      • rivingtondown@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 year ago

        Funny you say that, Daggerfall is fondly remembered but only in spite of it’s procedurally generated overworld. Daggerfall’s openworld is extraordinarily barren, remarkably so. You literally will get lost if you walk more than 5 minutes from a town, and not in a fun way but because every direction you look is literally the exact same three tree and rock sprites and you lose sense of direction. Daggerfall’s overworld is so bare and empty and large it actively encourages you to engage in the fast travel system with fleshed out gameplay mechanics like camping supplies and vehicles.

      • Renacles@discuss.tchncs.de
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        Try walking everywhere in Daggerfall and you’ll spend minutes seeing basically nothing, it’s a huge part of why the map feels so huge, it actually is.