1000 planets? Really?

[kyew]

I don't get what the attraction is for so many planets. Elite: Dangerous had the whole galaxy and the planets looked like crap. Not to mention the vast majority of those planets were little more than just rumor. Too far away to bother visiting, and underwhelming if you did spend the time to go there.

1000 planets (if it happens) would be more realistic in a game setting and reasonably doable if your inner completionist really insisted on visiting them all. But even then, Starfield will be using a hybrid procedural generation, so I imagine many of the planets will feel a bit samey like the planets in No Man's Sky after playing a bit.

But why not something like 25 star systems, with an average of three planets per system? That would make it doable to actually "create" all of the planets, and populate them with assets not procedurally generated. Rather than spread your playworld to the width of the ocean with the depth of a puddle, condense it down for a little more depth.

I'd probably still be playing Elite occasionally if it had more depth. But with one of the same four or five station models in every system, planets that look half-baked, compounded grind mechanics, ugly ships, and teenage level flight mechanics, it couldn't hold my attention, much less my loyalty. And that's not even to mention the Odyssey release that basically killed the game.

Anyway, I'm skeptical whether BGS can pull off 1000 planets without them seeming cookie cutter.

[patrick68794]

Publicado originalmente por kyew:

Publicado originalmente por patrick68794:

Skills are just numbers on the screen. Combining them doesn't actually make the game simpler. And you can travel across Morrowind in just a few seconds if you abuse acrobatics and the jump spell. Vvardenfell is only around 4 square miles. Cyrodiil in Oblivion is 16 square miles and Skyrim in about 14.5, not counting Blackreach which adds roughly another square mile. Morrowind is objectively the smallest modern TES game by far. Moving slower doesn't make the game bigger.

Levitation was taken out for design reasons because of hardware constraints, not because they wanted to simplify the game. They also added far more variety to offensive spells in Skyrim beyond touch spells and target spells with varying areas of effect. The magic item creation is essentially the same too, it's spell creation that you're thinking of and again, that was done because they wanted spells to actually be more unique.

The AI is infinitely more complex and more reactive to your actions and the world than it was in Morrowind (where it was essentially nothing more than walking between waypoints until you got too close or attacked), the quests are on average longer and more complex, the games actually have physics now, and the random events in the world add more content and make the worlds seem more real.

And having "all of Tamriel" when the game is as simple as Arena was doesn't mean anything. Sure, there's a lot of content but it's all essentially indistinguishable and outside of the short main story there is no reason to do almost any of it. The same goes for Daggerfall. Those games being big just for the sake of being big is not a positive and it does not make them more complex nor does it actually give them any more meaningful content because damn near all of it is procedurally generated. Skyrim has procedural content too by the way so it technically has just as much content as Arena or Daggerfall and more than Morrowind.

Hardware constraints? Explain that please.

Levitation was removed because they had to place the cities in their own cells because of memory limitations on the Xbox 360, and most PCs at the time.

[kyew]

Publicado originalmente por patrick68794:

Publicado originalmente por kyew:

Hardware constraints? Explain that please.

Levitation was removed because they had to place the cities in their own cells because of memory limitations on the Xbox 360, and most PCs at the time.

Yeah, that makes sense.

As far as Arena and Daggerfall being simple, only by today's standards of PC capabilities. I may be expecting too much. I haven't really looked into it, but if hardware tech is surpassed by game tech, that would make sense that they couldn't keep up.

[thestile]

If Bethesda could handcraft five whole planets with a couple thousand fully-formed cities (with multiple languages and cultures) on each one.. I would prefer that.

They would have their work cut out for them! :)

[patrick68794]

Publicado originalmente por kyew:

Publicado originalmente por patrick68794:

Levitation was removed because they had to place the cities in their own cells because of memory limitations on the Xbox 360, and most PCs at the time.

Yeah, that makes sense.

As far as Arena and Daggerfall being simple, only by today's standards of PC capabilities. I may be expecting too much. I haven't really looked into it, but if hardware tech is surpassed by game tech, that would make sense that they couldn't keep up.

Wayward Realms might be something you want to look into if you haven't already. It's being made by Julian LeFay, Vijay Lakshman, and Ted Peterson, the original creators of Arena and Daggerfall. It's basically a modern version of what they wanted TES to become and is supposed to be roughly the same size as Daggerfall with the complex game mechanics and systems they didn't have the ability to create at the time.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1685310/The_Wayward_Realms/

In my opinion though, TES games haven't gotten less complex, they're just complex in different ways in the more recent games. They've put more focus into expanding the depth and complexity of the world, and its inhabitants, around the player instead of the gameplay mechanics directly experienced by the player.

[kyew]

Publicado originalmente por thestile:

If Bethesda could handcraft five whole planets with a couple thousand fully-formed cities (with multiple languages and cultures) on each one.. I would prefer that.

They would have their work cut out for them! :)

That would definitely be impressive.

[kyew]

Publicado originalmente por patrick68794:

Publicado originalmente por kyew:

Yeah, that makes sense.

As far as Arena and Daggerfall being simple, only by today's standards of PC capabilities. I may be expecting too much. I haven't really looked into it, but if hardware tech is surpassed by game tech, that would make sense that they couldn't keep up.

Wayward Realms might be something you want to look into if you haven't already. It's being made by Julian LeFay, Vijay Lakshman, and Ted Peterson, the original creators of Arena and Daggerfall. It's basically a modern version of what they wanted TES to become and is supposed to be roughly the same size as Daggerfall with the complex game mechanics and systems they didn't have the ability to create at the time.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1685310/The_Wayward_Realms/

In my opinion though, TES games haven't gotten less complex, they're just complex in different ways in the more recent games. They've put more focus into expanding the depth and complexity of the world, and its inhabitants, around the player instead of the gameplay mechanics directly experienced by the player.

That I can agree with. Sadly, those are the parts I enjoyed the most. I hated it when I played Morrowind for the first time and realized there was no such thing as climbing and bashing doors and chests anymore.

And thanks for the heads up on the game. It looks very interesting.

Edit: I wonder how good their procedural generation is. Hopefully at least better than NMS.

[kyew]

Publicado originalmente por patrick68794:

Publicado originalmente por kyew:

Yeah, that makes sense.

As far as Arena and Daggerfall being simple, only by today's standards of PC capabilities. I may be expecting too much. I haven't really looked into it, but if hardware tech is surpassed by game tech, that would make sense that they couldn't keep up.

Wayward Realms might be something you want to look into if you haven't already. It's being made by Julian LeFay, Vijay Lakshman, and Ted Peterson, the original creators of Arena and Daggerfall. It's basically a modern version of what they wanted TES to become and is supposed to be roughly the same size as Daggerfall with the complex game mechanics and systems they didn't have the ability to create at the time.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1685310/The_Wayward_Realms/

In my opinion though, TES games haven't gotten less complex, they're just complex in different ways in the more recent games. They've put more focus into expanding the depth and complexity of the world, and its inhabitants, around the player instead of the gameplay mechanics directly experienced by the player.

Damn, the more I look at that game, the more I think I like it. The graphics are a bit "last gen", but if it's as big as you say, they'd have to cheese the graphics some.

[The Seraph of Tomorrow]

Publicado originalmente por kyew:

Anyway, I'm skeptical whether BGS can pull off 1000 planets without them seeming cookie cutter.

When hasn't Bethesda made a game that didn't feel like 90% cookie cutter? Their whole model is quantity over quality.

I'd rather have 50 well thought out planets (levels) instead of 1000 filler planets (levels) any day. Though in all seriousness, I mean this for quests as well. I'd much rather have a hand full of quests with branching paths and lasting consequences in the game with the quality of a DLC main quest, than 100's of filler quests from generic NPC's that no one cares to do.

[The Seraph of Tomorrow]

Also lets be real, Bethesda struggled to make Fo4 feel meaningful to explore. And it was just a single city... let alone the idea of creating meaningful content for a 1000 worlds.

[-OrLoK- Слава Україн]

Publicado originalmente por Tech-Priest:

Also lets be real, Bethesda struggled to make Fo4 feel meaningful to explore. And it was just a single city... let alone the idea of creating meaningful content for a 1000 worlds.

explain.

to me, if anything, I kept tripping up over stuff and adventures every 10 feet. I prefer my encounters to be a rarity not every 2 minutes.

gimme space in my space whilst I'm in space.

[Flippy]

Publicado originalmente por Tech-Priest:

Also lets be real, Bethesda struggled to make Fo4 feel meaningful to explore. And it was just a single city... let alone the idea of creating meaningful content for a 1000 worlds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=libKVRa01L8

Ok i got some math wrong in previous comments i made on this topic to start with. :)

I guess there are alot less Earth like planets out there than i thought. There are still lots that are possible though.

Anyway that video explains things fairly well, with gas giants and all that, very few planets will be interesting as a matter of realism. Meanwhile the 1000 planets will provide a good sim.

Jupiter has some interesting moons and alot of fictions have those in them, even terraformed to being Earth like or other sci-fi scenarios.

1/3 of stars with planets have a planet in the habitable zone. With Venus in the same solar system as Earth and being almost the exact same size, its likely, or even for sure that there are Earth like planets out there somewhere.

No one actually knows whats out there hardly at all but they are smart, they can tell if a star has a planet because it creates a shadow and things like that. So alot is a mystery and lots to learn still, for real.

[Angela]

I'll be modding my weird creatures and events and base attacks in to happen a lot and everywhere possible, I prefer chaos.

[Flippy]

My worst story of real life chaos was spectating a hockey game just sitting in the stands like everyone else and because i was a representative hockey player i was asked to referee it. I was stupid enough to say yes. LOL

It wasnt easy because the players were my age or even older and they didnt make it easy on me. But i learned it isnt easy being a referee.

I most likely deserved it because there was epic hockey games out of town where half my team was in the penalty box the entire game, but we never lost a game one season, and we played super loud music in the dressing room so everyone in the entire arena heard it and epic times.

At that time i would practice hockey before going to school, then do gym at school, then play a rugby match after school all in one day sometimes.

Then i played for 2 city representative hockey teams for my age group and older at the same time. I said i didnt want to because of loyalty for my old team, but i was told i had to because the older team was doing badly. So i didnt go to practice just played games for both the teams, so everyone on my old, and new team hated me because i didnt practice just played games for two different teams. It was tough. I wasnt even that good, because i played rugby and lacross also, and did other tough things, but i was fast enough to keep the other teams busy covering me.

Learned a few lessons playing rugby also. Different lessons playing lacross.

Not easy lessons, alot of hard hitting and fighting and sweating, playing sports in the cold rain and mud wearing shorts and time and space and lots of things.

After that i worked hard labour doing highest skilled construction, on hundreds of jobs, modern greenhouses that are surprisingly cool with tractors and fields inside, at the time future energy factories, malls, high rises, warehouses, shipyards, and everything else imaginable, sometimes in way below zero conditions etc.

I didnt even start with the interesting stuff. :)

Its all about perspective.

[wesnef]

Publicado originalmente por Tech-Priest:

Also lets be real, Bethesda struggled to make Fo4 feel meaningful to explore. And it was just a single city... let alone the idea of creating meaningful content for a 1000 worlds.

I'm gonna have to ask for your definition of "meaningful exploration", because I love exploring in FO3 & 4. And that was also why I liked FO3 better than FO:NV (even though it's technically the "better" game) - the worldspace just wasn't as interesting to explore.

(and yeah - this is also why I'm concerned about the "1000 planets". Because the fun of exploration in Beth games is finding all those interesting details. Which hundreds of procedurally-generated planets won't have.)

[kyew]

Publicado originalmente por Tech-Priest:

Publicado originalmente por kyew:

Anyway, I'm skeptical whether BGS can pull off 1000 planets without them seeming cookie cutter.

When hasn't Bethesda made a game that didn't feel like 90% cookie cutter? Their whole model is quantity over quality.

I'd rather have 50 well thought out planets (levels) instead of 1000 filler planets (levels) any day. Though in all seriousness, I mean this for quests as well. I'd much rather have a hand full of quests with branching paths and lasting consequences in the game with the quality of a DLC main quest, than 100's of filler quests from generic NPC's that no one cares to do.

I'm not sure what studio you're talking about, but BGS has, IMO, the best RPGs on the market. But they've never tried anything like this before, so I'm wondering if they'll "stick the landing" or not, and usually games that don't quite stick it have very cookie cutter assets.

I guess we'll find out once it releases.