MrMattyplays interview Todd Howard

[Kraven12]

This is a few days old, but Todd goes over Starfield, Elder Scrolls and Fallout 

 

 

[ag12]

The one good takeaway is that they seem to have listened to the feedback regarding lack of depth and Shattered Space will actually be mostly on one planet - and he says they were able to do much more traditional Bethesda world building with it. Which could be cool. Unfortunately it also means that Shattered Space will not address any of the actual shortcomings of the main game. Sucks.

 

The rest of this interview is about as worthless as any corporate interview would be. When it comes to the hard questions and feedback, this guy is about as big of a shill as you'd expect from someone that Todd Howard agrees to do an interview with. Talking about Creations and the launch of them on Starfield, he's phrasing things as if there was some criticism from the players, some pushback regarding certain aspects, when the reality is that Steam reviews past the launch of Creations have dropped to "Mostly Negative". It's basically lying by omission. If this Youtuber wanted to actually have a heart-to-heart with Todd, he should have said something along the lines of "The Community is very upset and they do not agree with your implementation of paid mods at all!" and pulled up a screenshot of the reviews. But of course, if he had the integrity to do that, Todd would not have come on.

 

So, if you have an hour spare and want to listen to someone that used to be one of the greatest game makers out there (and you can still see the passion under all the corpo-speak) but has long since been entangled in an infinitely sticky web of shareholder interest, go ahead and watch this. Otherwise: Shattered Space is one planet. The rest is irrelevant marketing talk, same talking points, same delusion.

[Reigor]

On 6/19/2024 at 10:01 AM, ag12 said:

The one good takeaway is that they seem to have listened to the feedback regarding lack of depth and Shattered Space will actually be mostly on one planet - and he says they were able to do much more traditional Bethesda world building with it. Which could be cool. Unfortunately it also means that Shattered Space will not address any of the actual shortcomings of the main game. Sucks.

 

 

The shortcomings are being addressed separately. For example, the upcoming land vehicles is a response to how surface exploration is considered by many to be "not fun". Same thing for the maps and new game settings.

 

Side note: What would you consider shortcomings that NEED to be addressed? For me its Starfield's setting. There is a lot of logical inconsistencies I want to be at least explained in more dialogue and lore drops.  

 

The other big take away from the interview, is that Starfield will get another big story DLC every year. At least one more after Shattered Space. There is also acknowledgement they need to price their stuff in Creations based on a single player game and not a multiplayer game like 76.  

[ag12]

It was pretty clear to me that Todd is completely out of touch with the Starfield community. They made this big deal around "Creators" now doing it full-time and how that's awesome and that they might have to revisit some of the Creations due to their (outrageous) pricing, but very much made it sound like a "minor" problem and "parts" of the community. The game was "mixed" rated on Steam and has dropped back to "Mostly Negative". It's a bland game with literally no depth to it. And people don't want "full time professional modders", we just want a good game so all the hobbyists can go ham.

The only reason I bother with it is because while the updated Creation Engine is completely inadequate for the "space game" they made, it's still a huge upgrade over Skyrim. Not in every aspect, with upgrade also comes higher entry barrier and the need for external tools such as Wwise and so forth. Also, the engine is very stable. People meme and like to pretend it's this buggy mess (there is bugs) but for a Bethesda game, it's very stable.

 

As to what needs fixing? The whole game. If they wanted to actually "fix" Starfield on the level of what you'd expect out of a Bethesda game when you take the older TES games as a standard, they'd have to literally rework every single faction and the main quest. Whoever at Bethesda thought it was a great idea to have a NG+ mechanic that's integral to the game, but then also make it so you can join all factions at the same time and *literally work against your own interest*, e.g. joining the UC and CF at the same time. It's so fucking lazy.

 

Their tech team made an incredible engine - and this was maybe another good point made by the Youtuber - that is very much improved over F4, while still having the sort of IKEA/Lego approach that enables hobbyists to mod it. And then their story leads decided to take a shit in it. You can still see the quirky cool quests that Beth is known for here and there, and you know its some random dev that got to just fill a POI or smaller location without supervision by the top dogs and actually came up with something cool, meanwhile their "superstars" in the story department concoted the least engaging and least impactful main story + main factions possible. Everything is safe, makes sure not to offend anyone. Starfield is like a three star restaurant kitchen that exclusively produces hard tack. There is no flavor. Nothing matters. Join the UC, then blow up one of their flagships. Nobody cares. Land on New Atlantis right after, wearing full CF gear with a pirate companion, the blood of one of their admirals still dripping down your visor - not even a bounty.

 

It's a fucking joke of a roleplaying game.

 

--

 

Now, having said that, there's obviously a reason why I want to mod it and why I'm still excited for it - because unlike many people I still have the game installed, although I don't play much except for testing and an hour here or there and that reason is the improved engine and the general sci-fi setting. There's a reason why the most popular mods are basically a Star Wars overhaul: the game is bad, but it doesn't *have* to be bad. It's this weird hopeful "everything turned out fine" setting that is just so boring. Sometimes I wonder if it's going to be worth spending the amount of time (collectively as a community) that is going to be required to make the game actually interesting - but then I launch up Skyrim and am immediately bored by every more complex frameworks with no new content to play, and can't wait for Starfield to have the bare minimum of LL mods to make some very cool sci-fi kinks and stories happen.

 

Rant over. Kind of lost myself a little there, lol. Mods might save it!

Edited June 20, 2024 by ag12

[GemGem]

11 hours ago, ag12 said:

Mods might save it!

This is my hope as well, as long as "professional" modders stay out of it.

[landess]

I begrudgingly say newer players wanting to experience what mods can do for a Bethesda game may get some satisfaction from Starfield but as a veteran gamer who's had enough of their offerings (game mechanics-wise) I can't find any motivation to kick rocks in that game instead of tin cans.

 

I'm not so invested in their lore that I can't walk away from bad development practices, bad publishing practices, and overall bad community practices.

 

Starfield doesn't even have any history like Fallout or their own Elder Scrolls.

 

When you live long enough, it gets easier to call BS.

[Reigor]

8 hours ago, landess said:

Starfield doesn't even have any history like Fallout or their own Elder Scrolls.

 

 

One of the challenges that Starfield had, and still has, is that its a brand new universe. So BGS had to come up with a new setting instead of relying on an old one like a fanfic writer. Since BGS, doesn't hire full time writers, just programers who can make missions and who (sometimes) make a basic plot. A few are good at this, many are not. Before they could rely on this process to create good enough content for a large enough audience, but with Starfield they couldn't do that and had to make it all up. 

 

They may have had 25 years to come up with IDEAS. But ideas are easy, actually putting them down and making an interesting, engaging setting to support the story one wants to tell is the real challenge. Worse, for a game, one has to support the gameplay as well.

 

What they should have done is hire a team of published sci-fi writers, give them some constraints, and then let them come up with a setting that Todd and co liked. And then keep them on to write a pool of stories in this universe. Those that can't be made into quests could be used as the overall setting to be found in lore through dropped notes and dialogue. 

 

But they didn't. So here we are. 

 

Still going to play, mod, and now make mods for Starfield, cuz it still has that ability to customize the gameplay to my liking. I'm hoping that eventually a team of modders will come together and create a brand new setting that I can revel and be immersed in.

[landess]

5 hours ago, Reigor said:

So here we are.

 

Yeah. That's more my point. Everyone deserves the chance at the same experience and can make their own decisions.