Pete Hines Interview at Gamescom 24-8-2023 Link to Twitch, Summary, Pseudo-Transcript

[Jerich]

Pete Hines did a tremendous interview on Twitch which I really enjoyed.
Link: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1907198784
Start: 4:47:23
End: 6:00: 52

I tried to do a transcript and gave up quickly because every time I paused, twitch played almost a minute of adds. Instead I just typed as fast as I could while they were talking, but wasn’t able to catch everything and made a more of a pseudo-transcript. That is below, but here are some things that stood out to me:


Things that stood out to me:
* You need to level up piloting to fly bigger ships and will need to do achievements before leveling up skills (The achievement part was already known)
* The game is good enough that their employees are making bad sleep choices playing it and come to work tired.
* Hines has played 250 hours+ and isn't even close to seeing everything. He got lost doing research for over 80 hours he was first playing and then did the main quest for over 50 hours
* Inon's music is so good that he sometimes just stops and chills listening to it while in space or exploring a scenic planet.
* Space walking did not seem to be a big part of the game (No fixing satellites outside of the ship quests that Hine's saw), but he did talk about falling out of a ship to his death.
* There is a new game plus, but describing it is in detail contains too many main story spoilers.
* There is a skill called special projects that let's you build stuff that made Pete feel like Iron-man.
* He hasn't tried to fly from planet to planet and uses the grav drive, but confirmed you can jump to points of interest that are not planets (space stations etc). (My note... It doesn't really make sense to travel from planet to planet or even planet to moon because distances in space are too enormous. Even if the ship speed is faster than current technology and distances are shortened to 1/20 skill, it would still take hours to go from the earth to the moon and days/weeks to go to Mars... Intersteller travel without grav drive takes 100s or even 1000s of years).
* Some companions will get mad if you do things they don't approve of (Like lockpicking), so you'll want to leave them on the ship when you do.
* You can loot NPCs
* You can fast travel to your ship, get up out of your captains seat and store inventory in your ship's holds. There are multiple inventory spots... hold, captains locker etc.
* Tips for beginning: Hoard your skillpoints until you are doing something that will help you get to the next area. Don't sleep on the boost pack skill... It is super important. There is a quest in the beginning after you visit the lodge that takes you to a UC recruiter. It is a big lore drop so pretty important to prioritize and understand the history of the word. The main quest is pretty important to do.. But do your own thing!
* Mods and the creation engine will be focused on after launch. Pete is excited to see what people do and has several ideas for mods himself.
* Hines doesn't know how many creatures there are. Many planets have none, but some have many.
* The biggest unanswered questions from chat I saw were about swimming and underwater bases. Pete avoided the question, so I'm not sure if that means there is no swimming or if talking about it would be too spoilery.



Pseudo-Transcript Part 1 – Note, this is not word for word, but it is my best attempt at keeping up while watching without pausing.
Question 1: Who are you...
Answer: Pete Hines: Head of Publishing for Bethesda Softworks, so is the head of all the teams that do all of the awesome things that aren't the game... example, the amazing live action trailer, the awesome marketing team, to our sales team, to all of our European offices. I get to work with all these people to take awesome games like Starfield and get to explain them to people and show them why we think it's so fun and exciting.

Question 2: When did you hear about Starfield for the first time?
Answer: Around 8 years ago, Todd pitched to Robert Altman (8 years ago) wanted to do a Space Game. They were about to finish Fallout 4 and Todd told him he wanted to do Starfield next or they might not do it. He convinced them to do Starfield before the next Elder Scrolls.

Question 3: What can people expect from Gamescom?
Answer 3: We didn't go overboard because we are launching soon. You get to see how it starts... character creation... how it feels, who you get to be. It starts narrow focused... you're underground and then you emerge... there are planets and systems that expands as the game reveals itself to you. Once you get a couple hours in you get to feel how the game fits for you. You can skip combat with grav drive. It is your game. The number of hours doesn't matter... for instance Pete hadn't even played the main quest for over 80 hours and Todd told him that he had to start the main quest... He spent the next 50 hours working on the main quest. We don't talk about it much... it's my favorite Bethesda game studio story. The game doesn't really start until you finish it... but they haven't talked about it because it is spoilery.

Question 4: What are you looking forward to doing (Hines to the interviewers)
Answer 4 (Interviewer Talking): Build a spaceship.... OMG you can do so much stuff.
(Hines responds) - You can't do everyting immediately. Your skills determine what you can do. You might see a class C ship, but you won't be able to fly it until you level up your piloting skill. You actually have to do things if you want to get better at them. You can't just click a skill and level it up. You have to spend a lot of time being a pilot if you want to be a better pilot.
(Other interviewer): I want to do the main quest first because I want to have the answer for humanity. I want to build a spaceship as well... but I want to do the main quest as a priority.
(Hines responds): Our games are very good at interrupting you... you want to do the main quest and then you spend four days on Mars and doing quests on Mars..
(Interviewer) - I really love Vasco - Says so much funny stuff. He is hilarious and I have such an attachment to him.
(Hines responds): He is literally the first companion you have. It matters which companions you are with. There are some companions that will be mad at you if you see them picking locks and they are watching you. Oh crap, I should have left them on the ship.

Question 5: Can you see any similarities between this and the campaign for Skyrim and Fallout...
Answer 5: Erin Losi, Skyrim was her campaign. Different people have done different campaigns. Every campaign and game is different... Skyrim is not a game that is measured in hours... People are still starting Morrowind. People will lose themselves in games like this for years. One of the reasons video games are so powerful is that the player is in control and have the agency to make choices.... One of the things I measure how big a launch is by the notes he gets from other dev companies at how disruptive the game has been to their employees sleep schedule. They give their employees the game and then they get stories about them losing themselves playing overnight and making bad time decisions. I think there is going to be a lot of that once the game launches...

*They spend some time talking about the stories that people made... One of the interviewers had a colleague have tears in his eyes once he made his first spaceship because it was so cool.*

*They spend some time talking about the trailer...*
Hines - This trailer is the best I've ever seen and I did nothing to make it happen. The Skyrim trailer was good at setting tone, but this trailer does more because it shows that Starfield is not just about exploration, but there is a part about lifting people up.
"5:12:10 They show the trailer"
Interviewer: I could watch that 100 times and I still get goosbumps.
Hines: I have probably watched it that many times.
Interviewer 2: It makes me emotional... I get goosebumps and want to cry each time I watch it and I don't know why.
Hines: Inon's soundtrack is so good for this good. I will leave the game and go to orbit and just let it sit there because I want to listen to the soundtrack.

Since someone asked... we are not doing a making of Starfield. We are careful not to repeat ourselves too much. We didn't do a making of, but we did almost a feature film introducing this (Starfield Direct). That took an enormous amount of work. The challenge of explaining something this big to people.

Question 6: Can we get out of the ship and spacewalk?
Answer 6: I don't know. It's not something I've ever done. You won’t float around... fix a satellite etc. I have been jettisoned out of a ship. It was kind of comical. I created a save game. I waited for a ship to land, followed the people while they were exploring, killed them one by one, snuck in the ship, killed everyone. I was stuck in the cargo load and the pilot took off and I wasn't. I fell out the ship from a crazy height and died.

Question 7: Pete Hines - I saw the new game plus question. I'm not saying anything. It's part of the main quest, but I'm not saying anything because it's really spoilery.

Question 8: Do you remember your first emotional or stunning moment in the game?
Answer 8: Good question... The first time was when I landed on a random planet. Some are barren, some are not. I went to a bunch of different moons and planets and scanned them. On one of them there were multiple moons and there was a planet there. I listened to Inon's music and you could see the planets and moons.... I just left it and sat there for five minutes and just watched it. It wasn't some crazy combat or something... it was being on an alien planet.

Question 9: Will there be a photo mode?
Answer 9: Of course there will be. There was in the Starfield Direct. We are excited to see what people do. My current playthrough I am at 150 hours, but I played over 100 on another playthrough during my holidays. I've played so much. You won't be able tell people exactly where to go to see things because there is some randomization, but there will be some static locations like Akilla City. There is a lot of emergent stuff in space. In Skyrim you are used to radiant quests like bandits jumping you. In space you will find a lot of random stuff like derelict spaceships, and stations etc. Everyone will get to experience them in their playthrough, but you might find them in different areas. You will be able to tell people really cool stories about what happens during your explorations.

Question 10: What is your favorite food in game?
Answer 10: It's not the sandwich. Jamie has cornered the sandwich markets. I eat a lot of chunks... It's a brand in the game. I don't have a specific thing. I'm a picky eater in real life and I don't let my character eat anything I wouldn't eat in real life... no onions, no tomatoes, etc. I know it's weird, but it's a role playing game. Also, I won't eat anything I find out of a package. Not touching something that has been opened.

[Jerich]

Pseudo Transcript Part 2
Question 11: Which is your favorite background in Starfield? Which would you chose in real life?
Answer 11: Not the adoring fan. My current character is named Colonel and was wanted... he was commanded to attack something and was dishonorably discharged, and his former employers are trying to knock him off. There is a way to remove any of them. I'm going to decide what my next character will be about on the flight home.

Question 12: What is your personal playstyle? Do you sneak, do you shoot everything?
Answer 12: I was an actual boy scout so I am still a boy scout in our games. I'm a little bit of a goody two shoes, but I manage to justify in my own head that lockpicking is okay, but I won't steal stuff or transport illegal contraband. Colonel won't steal things, but if he locks things he takes offense at that. I'm a little bit of a jack-of-all-trades. I really like how crafting works in this game... How did I spend 80 hours playing? I went down the crafting rabbit hole, gathered stuff for my research, made a ton of cool mods. I think that was the most fun for me. I got into that, but I do some stealth. I use a cool rifle I built with a suppressor so the sound doesn't give me away. Once chaos breaks out, all bets are off. I can't really talk about combat without giving too much away. Once you do more of the main quest you will know what I'm talking about. What about you?
Interviewer 2: Two characters... first I'll play a good character, but later a bad guy who breaks in houses or gets arrested etc.
Interviewer 1: I want to do the ship building.
Hines: There is a skill much further down the skill tree... it's called special projects that allows you to build mods that are really amazing... I can build guns that do THIS? I can build spaceships that do THIS? I'm ironman, flying around shooting rockets... I'm a badass. The reason it feels so big is that in Skyrim and you want to go town to town you can just go there and it's right there, but here when you are going to Akilla City to Neon or New Atlantis it's like such a different world and it's super impactful.

Question 13: Can we fly between planets?
Answer 13: I haven't tested that it's not my thing since I jump... but you can jump to everything you can see and you also see points of interest on planets etc... If you are looking for something to do it helps you know where to go, but you can also just land on a moon and start exploring.

Question 14: Can you loot armor in the game?
Answer 14: There is no armor in the game, but you can get spacesuits, packs, helmets, weapons etc.

Question 15: Can you get up out of your captain's seat in space?

Answer 15: Absolutely. I'm constantly overloaded with ore etc... I fast travel back to my ship and choose what stuff goes in my cargo hold and what goes in my captain's locker, etc.

Question 16: Is there a level cap?
Answer 16: I don't believe we have a level cap... I mean no one has hit it... but I don't think we have one.

Question 17: Can you kill important NPCs?
Answer 17: I can't answer that one because I haven't tried.

Question 18: Are there other cities outside the main four?
Answer 18: Yeah... the tone of this game is not that we left Earth and made 500 cities.... There are a few, but there are a ton of outposts like Farms, etc. It's not even cities... you can go to starstation or a ship that might as well be a city because it's so enormous.

Question 19: Can NPCs pilot your ship?
Answer 19: I've never tried that because I've always wanted to fly my own ship.

Question 20: Are there Easter Eggs?
Answer 20: Yeah, I don't want to get into specifics, but I've found at least one.

Question 21: Can you have multiple ships?
Answer 21: You can have multiple ships, but you are not flying a fleet. Your ship is a character. You decide which ship to fly... They have different capacities. You might be transporting people and need room for passengers. You might want a lot of cargo or want to smuggle and have a shielding capacity.

Question 22: Is it weird that we get excited that Pete doesn't know everything?
Answer 22: There is no one that knows everything. Everyone works on different parts of the game that there is so much in the game and so much in it that no one is an expert at everything. There is not a chance that all of you will know everything a day, week, or month after launch.

Question 23: Do you have any tips for the beginning of Starfield?
Answer 23: (Long Answer) I really like in the main quest... right after the lodge... there is a quest that has you talk to a few people. One of the person you can optionally talk too... a recruit for the Vanguard... not quite military... you are signing up for service to help the UC... Quests like transport stuff to an outpost... take care of pirates. Before you join, he takes you to a museum that explains the backstory, why aren't we on Earth, who is the UC, who is Freestar collective, what is Neon, etc. This is something I've been waiting to do and am looking forward when starting a new character tomorrow because there is a lot of fun stuff on this quest. Here is one that I want to talk about because
(On saving Skillpoints) I know how people play our games... You need to be careful about using your skill points. For example... If you want to pick locks, you need to pick locks before you can spend your second point. Don't level up and pick lockpicking. Only do it if you are going to pick a lock immediately. You may be in space and then want to board a ship, so you should have picked targeting so you can disable their engines and then board them. If you choose lockpicking you may not be able to use it right now. So I save skillpoints until I actively want to do something. If you are not planning to do research right now... you might not want to pick researching. How the system works is that it takes time to build up skills. Fo instance you might want to fly class C ships, but when you start you can only fly class A ships and you will have to do a ton of flying and combat to reach class B. So if you want to do that, you'll want to pick that skill before you go into a big combat so you can level it up. That one is big for me, but do what you want... This is your story. You can hop from good to bad as you hop from planet to planet. There is a way to remove bounties on yourself. You can always undo or find ways to roll back decisions you have made. Figure out what it is that you would have fun doing and do it.
(Boost Pack Evangelism) When we hear, I wonder if I could.... We love that sentence because it means people are being creative. By the way... pick boost packing! The boost pack is awesome and you can't use it until you unlock it. You can put more points in it and there the Hollywood version of something and the gritty realistic version of something and then what is cool for the player. One of the cool things about this game is we can play with gravity. You might be on a low gravity place and use it and HOLY MOSES... can I get there? I don't really walk anywhere. I boost pack everywhere because I have good skills. There is a mountain... low gravity... I'll just boost pack up there.

Question 24: Is the adoring fan randomly generated or can it be a robot?
Answer 24: No, an NPC is an NPC

Question 25: If you could wish for one headline, what would you wish for?
Answer 25: People are loving Starfield... That's it... that's all I want. People think about video game companies like what franchises they have, what they do. That's not why I am in Bethesda. It's the people. Seeing people make something, that's the best part of the job. I've gotten notes from people who said, "I had to recover from heart surgery, and your game helped me through it."

*They talk for a while about how video games is so awesome because it makes people happy.*
(Hines) As we approach launch, it's important to realize that this is a video game. We aren’t trying to discover the cure for cancer. Yesterday you guys had an astronaut and that is incredible because she goes into space... and you know what happens in space? Death... It is a deathtrap and it's not just a game... And she still does this. People who are taking the risks and going out there... that's not what we are doing... what we are doing is making something thematically and if someone might be inspired to explore space... that's all gravy, but we are trying to make something immersive and fun that you haven't played before.
(Hines): You tell us how long it takes us to explore things... We are not ignoring chat, but stuff is too spoilery or we don't know. Like how many creatures? I don't know.... this one has none, this one has none, and then this one has a lot...
(Hines)Talks about watch he is wearing for a while. He has it on because he is testing it. People don't understand how many things we have to track down and meet people's expecations as much as possible... A launch like this, there are so many partnerships, all of this is work and things like the controller... we have iterated so many times before we have the one. You have to spend so much time obsessing over details because that's what makes things great.

Question 26: Did we miss anything else?
Answer 26: There is going to be Mods. It is post-launch. We don't have any other information yet. We will release the creation kit. It's coming and I get excited about this game because while we made this game and I love it and am excited about what we've done, but the stuff people make for this game will be off the chart... people will make planets, stories, etc... I have a list of things I want to mod.

*One of the Interviewers talks about keeping a notebook while playing and laughs at that.*
(Hines) The game is amazing at distracting you. I picked up a mission board... sometimes you get one that says this planet needs resource X, so you build an outpost, create it and give it to them, but you can also get quests to transport people. One time I got a quest saying two people needed to get to the Mars mining colony so I accepted it and they are on my ship, I played it for a bit, put the game back, maybe went on a trip, came back, did a couple quests and was like, "Who the hell are you two people on my ship?" Oh crap, I was supposed to take them to Mars, but I have a few things to do and I'll get you there, but I got jumped by Crimson Fleet, but oh wait, one of them had a rare thing and I need it to craft something. Now I'm about to fail this quest and I have to go right away.

Question 27: What else? We need to come to an end.
(Hines) Yeah, we will be putting an article today that helps people get ready for launch, like what do you get, how does the watch work etc.

*Laugh about making a doctor's note for people to skip work because they are too busy playing the game.*

Interviewer 1: I think we will have a starter guide in the beginning so that you won't have to start over and over.
*Talks about what they have in Gamescom and all the cool things they have...*
(Hines) Germany... huge PC market. Make sure you update your PC if you don't have the right specs... You absolutely need a solid state drive. If your RAM is low or your video card is too low, you should not play this game without this spec. Our hardcore PC people are really excited about how it works... They run on Ultra and it plays like butter... PC folks definitely check the artifact and go shopping in the next week.
Thank you... we hope you enjoy it and can't wait to see your stories of photo mode. I love you all and the work you have done and can't wait until people play it today.

Question 28: Is Todd always Happy?
Answer: No, he hates this part because he is passing off his baby to the world and is a mixture of excited and terrified like we all are.

End of interview: 6:00:52

[Zunnoab #931]

Kudos for taking the effort to give an overview in text. Thanks.

[A. Silvermane]

Now I want to try being a stowaway on peoples ships just to see what happens

[katzenkrimis]

Originally posted by Jerich:

-The game is good enough that their employees are making bad sleep choices.

-Hines has played 250 hours+ and isn't even close to seeing everything.

-Inon's music is so good that he sometimes just stops and chills listening to it while in space or exploring a scenic planet.

-It doesn't really make sense to travel from planet to planet or even planet to moon because distances in space are too enormous.

All key points, and expected.

This game is going to be an unstoppable blockbuster.

A top 100 chart destroyer. The dreadnought of gaming in 2023.

That London Symphony Orchestra is one of the best in the world. We're talking top-tier film industry quality. When your playing with that level of music, you've got a gold mine on your hands. With Inon Zur at the helm.

People are going to be shocked when they play this game.

I can't even imagine where the haters are going to hide.

This forum will turn into a 3000° furnace for them.

It's getting hot in here. 🎵

[BurrZerka]

Yeah thanks for this!

[Jack Greedy]

Very very cool, i expect this game to be a massive blockbuster.

[***]

Thanks OP

[peppergomez]

Thanks OP, a rare post that actually delivers value

[Knottypine]

Thanks for sharing this info, just watched it. It was enjoyable to listen to it hearing the positive side of what the game is, along with the unknown of how the game will be received.

[A. Silvermane]

Originally posted by sL3nd3rMann:

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a much better RPG and game then Skyrim, Fallout 4 and probably Starfield.

https://youtu.be/lhckuhUxcgA?si=_eJ9wb1ag3252IOK
Yeah that's why I've never replayed Deus Ex: Human Revolution once while I've replayed Skyrim and Fallout 4 dozens of times and will most definately do the same with Starfield. If you think Human Revolution is the better game then all the power to you. I know which games are better to me.