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Kinda Funny Xcast Todd Howard Interview - Starfield Questions Answered

Kacho

Member
I am genuinely surprised that Gary Whitta can formulate a question.
Imagine having Todd Howard available to answer questions and you ask something as brain dead as that. Has he even played BGS games? Does he know what radiant quests are and the purpose they serve? Does he think they have unlimited resources to create and endless amount of robust side quests? Good lord. LOL
 
Some planets are barren, by design.

The One Where Estelle Dies Episode 15 GIF by Friends
So what I'm hearing is "artistic choice"
 
No land vehicles, combined with no in-atmosphere flight, feels like it's gonna make planetary exploration pretty tedious. Basically you're just gonna see a really small part of the planet and then get out of there.
Wait, hold on, what!?

You can't even use the ship to fly around the planet itself? So the planets are instanced then? I was definitely not aware of that, it's a pretty major hole here in the "open worldness" of the game.

Is this true?
 

Ozriel

M$FT
It's more that they are bringing things up that should be standard features for games as some kind of "accessibility" win.

They are saying shit like this expecting brownie points when it's what they're supposed to do anyway.



How’s he ‘bringing things up’ when it’s a question he was asked? 😀

Yeah at this point the only thing carrying Starfield is the Bethesda-ism of it all. No controllable land vehicles or ground-to-orbit flight whatsoever is a bummer.

Not all the other things they showed at the Direct?
 

Ozriel

M$FT
Imagine having Todd Howard available to answer questions and you ask something as brain dead as that. Has he even played BGS games? Does he know what radiant quests are and the purpose they serve? Does he think they have unlimited resources to create and endless amount of robust side quests? Good lord. LOL

I kept waiting for one of them to ask about a possible 40fps mode.
But they felt it was more important to ask silly questions like the one you cite, and whether you can put a hat on your robot.
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
Wait, hold on, what!?

You can't even use the ship to fly around the planet itself? So the planets are instanced then? I was definitely not aware of that, it's a pretty major hole here in the "open worldness" of the game.

Is this true?

Yes, they are instanced. You select a location to land and then go through a disguised load screen as the ship lands itself. Then the same when taking off again. These aren't planets that actually "exist" in space and can seamlessly be landed on like in NMS.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
It's more that they are bringing things up that should be standard features for games as some kind of "accessibility" win.

They are saying shit like this expecting brownie points when it's what they're supposed to do anyway.




goddam G, you really live up to the 'bitch eating crackers' meme sometimes :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 

MirageMew2

Member
How’s he ‘bringing things up’ when it’s a question he was asked? 😀



Not all the other things they showed at the Direct?

Customization, deep role-playing elements, companions aka the Bethesdaisms, like I said. Nothing bad about it and it’s certainly pulling its weight. But the absence of major space-sim mechanics is still going to be noticed and draw comparisons. If I wanted all the Bethesdaisms and proper space-sim traversal (again, specifically, ground-to-orbit launch, landrovers, circumnavigation) it doesn’t seem like I’ll get that at launch. And that’s a huge part of the identity the game is going for.
 
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Kacho

Member
Wait, hold on, what!?

You can't even use the ship to fly around the planet itself? So the planets are instanced then? I was definitely not aware of that, it's a pretty major hole here in the "open worldness" of the game.

Is this true?
This has similarities to No Man's Sky but it isn't a 1:1 copy of No Man's Sky. Each planet will be a unique sandbox with points of interests to explore on foot like you do in all BGS games.
 
This has similarities to No Man's Sky but it isn't a 1:1 copy of No Man's Sky. Each planet will be a unique sandbox with points of interests to explore on foot like you do in all BGS games.
Wow... That is absolutely deflating. I was giving it a bit of a pass on framerate and other shit because i thought it would be rendering all the shit real time and all. Basically it's more like destiny or mass effect than no man's sky or star citizen.

The marketing so far was completely telling a different story and I bet a vast % of the people are still thinking what I was thinking.

I should have known with these guys, all smoke and mirrors in every game.

Inexcusable.
 

Kacho

Member
Wow... That is absolutely deflating. I was giving it a bit of a pass on framerate and other shit because i thought it would be rendering all the shit real time and all. Basically it's more like destiny or mass effect than no man's sky or star citizen.

The marketing so far was completely telling a different story and I bet a vast % of the people are still thinking what I was thinking.

I should have known with these guys, all smoke and mirrors in every game.

Inexcusable.
Uh huh. You're not fooling anyone with this but have fun lol
 

analog_future

Resident Crybaby
explain me how this is not a V2.0 of No Man´s Sky....meaning with a single player story behind it better than No Man´s Sky and some fps action

Comedy Waiting GIF by Amazon miniTV

The hell are you on about, i legit thought it was like no mans sky (which is doing it on last gen machines).


So wait, is it bad because it's too much like No Man's Sky or is it bad because it's not enough like No Man's Sky?


Or is it bad because ya'll are looking for something to bitch about regardless of what information is actually being presented?
 
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Apocryphon

Member
Uh huh. You're not fooling anyone with this but have fun lol
If you can’t fly your ship across the planet and it just loads in an area and your only means of traversal is the jet pack, he has every right to be disappointed because that’s fucking dogshit. Even Mass Effect Andromeda has vehicles for exploring.

1000 procedurally generated “planets” to explore my ass.
 

NickFire

Member
Feels like it's gonna be less open than we might have hoped for, but I'm still expecting a 90+ game that a lot of people stick with after the campaign ends.
 

Kacho

Member
If you can’t fly your ship across the planet and it just loads in an area and your only means of traversal is the jet pack, he has every right to be disappointed because that’s fucking dogshit. Even Mass Effect Andromeda has vehicles for exploring.

1000 procedurally generated “planets” to explore my ass.
You do have 1000 planets to explore. You will explore them like you explore any space in a BGS RPG. All this information has been available for a while now so if it comes as a surprise I can’t help you. There’s always NMS to play if that’s the experience you’re looking for.
 
So wait, is it bad because it's too much like No Man's Sky or is it bad because it's not enough like No Man's Sky?


Or is it bad because ya'll are looking for something to bitch about regardless of what information is actually being presented?
It's disappointing because it's instanced content, not an actual open world. Are you pretending not to understand?

What made games like nms or star citizen impressive is the fact they actually run on fully simulated open worlds. I absolutely thought this was the case with this one and literally just realized it's instanced content.
 

analog_future

Resident Crybaby
It's disappointing because it's instanced content, not an actual open world. Are you pretending not to understand?

What made games like nms or star citizen impressive is the fact they actually run on fully simulated open worlds. I absolutely thought this was the case with this one and literally just realized it's instanced content.

That's what i just found out. No. It's like a level. If you want to go somewhere else in the planet, load in, load out, puff, you're there. Fucking unbelievable

Where are you even getting this from? Did you even watch the interview? Or are you just pulling this out of your ass because one other poster said something? \


The open worlds are procedurally generated with handcrafted cities/areas/etc.. placed into them. You can explore the worlds on foot and via jetpack. You aren't just choosing locations off of a menu and waiting for a load screen.
 

Apocryphon

Member
You do have 1000 planets to explore. You will explore them like you explore any space in a BGS RPG. All this information has been available for a while now so if it comes as a surprise I can’t help you. There’s always NMS to play if that’s the experience you’re looking for.
No, I will play the game. It just won’t be the experience I expected. I didn’t realize their was no atmospheric flight and I’m only just finding out today that there are no ground vehicles. I was hoping for more.
 
Where are you even getting this from? Did you even watch the interview? Or are you just pulling this out of your ass because one other poster said something? \


The open worlds are procedurally generated with handcrafted cities/areas/etc.. placed into them. You can explore the worlds on foot and via jetpack. You aren't just choosing locations off of a menu and waiting for a load screen.
Well get your shit straight with the other posters on here that just confirmed it. Until 20 mins ago i was under the impression you could just go anywhere without invisible walls.

If you can't take flight around the planet, it means there's no planet. It's a background painting and all you can move around is whatever area they decided to allow you to.

So either you are wrong or the guys just confirming this are wrong. So which one is it?
 

Fredrik

Member
I have played a bit of NMS all through its release (most recently I spent around 10 hours with the latest updated) and I have mentioned several times I don’t intend to play Starfield, but this games def SOUNDS like early days NMS.

Not having planet based vehicles sounds really weird. I am sure its a design choice for managing planet size, but that still sounds cumbersome.
It takes a long time to get vehicles in NMS, it’s part of the base quests, how have you been enjoying that since launch if you think walking and using the jetpack is cumbersome?

I almost never use the vehicies. The problem here is that it’s not possible to fly with a ship close to the surface. Hopefully they add some snappy beam me up scotty mechanic where you just zoom out and move a marker and transport yourself over the planet that way.
 
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Kinda weird that you're lashing out at others just because you had an inaccurate idea of what the game was.
I believe a couple people were lashing out at me. Do you always get everything wrong on purpose or is it just incidental?

I'm pretty sure i wasn't the only one getting the wrong impression. One of the posters above defending the game apparently has the same perception, would you care to correct him?
 

Zuzu

Member
So only 100 of the planets will have life and 900 of them will be barren. That probably means the vast majority of planets are gonna be pretty boring resource gathering hubs.

I’m also skeptical of the degree of hand crafted sections on each planet. He’s saying that every planet will have a hand crafted section. I find that hard to believe. I expect that all that will look like is slightly different arrangements of fairly similar looking buildings in the majority of cases.

I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s only 20-40 truly large hand-crafted fully fleshed out worlds to explore. People should keep their expectations realistic.
 

Kacho

Member
It takes a long time to get vehicles in NMS, it’s part of the base quests, how have you been enjoying that since launch if you think walking and using the jetpack is cumbersome?

I almost never use the vehicies. The problem here is that it’s not possible to fly with a ship close to the surface. Hopefully they add some snappy beam me up scotty mechanic where you just zoom out and move a marker and transport yourself over the planet that way.
You mean like fast travel? That’s a staple in every modern BGS RPG. You just have to unlock the fast travel points first.
 

Fredrik

Member
You mean like fast travel? That’s a staple in every modern BGS RPG. You just have to unlock the fast travel points first.
I know there is the planet map for fast travel but they could add movement at a level just below the clouds to make it easier to spot cool stuff or find a nice place for a base.
 

Miyazaki’s Slave

Gold Member
It takes a long time to get vehicles in NMS, it’s part of the base quests, how have you been enjoying that since launch if you think walking and using the jetpack is cumbersome?

I almost never use the vehicies. The problem here is that it’s not possible to fly with a ship close to the surface. Hopefully they add some snappy beam me up scotty mechanic where you just zoom out and move a marker and transport yourself over the planet that way.
Was referring to it as being cumbersome for the entirety of the game ie. not having the option at all.
I just fly around the planets in my ships as well, I don't need a land vehicle...but it would be nice to skip around the surface in your ship.

Folks love BTSW games for their story and world building so I would imaging most players will enjoy hotfooting it since they can take part in the lore building etc.
 

Kacho

Member
I know there is the planet map for fast travel but they could add movement at a level just below the clouds to make it easier to spot cool stuff or find a nice place for a base.
Yeah, maybe a ship upgrade or skill/perk. I dunno. I'm not really clear on how big the planet maps are. Are they Fallout 4 map size? 10x bigger? Virtually endless? Still a lot of unknowns.
 

Fredrik

Member
Was referring to it as being cumbersome for the entirety of the game ie. not having the option at all.
I just fly around the planets in my ships as well, I don't need a land vehicle...but it would be nice to skip around the surface in your ship.
Yeah I agree, it’ll take ages to traverse the planet on-foot. Unless you can move fast with the jetpack. In NMS I use the melee jetpack boost.
 

Snake29

RSI Employee of the Year
This game screams at least co-op multiplayer. Building bases just in some singleplayer game is a complete borefest. Hopefully modders add co-op.

But the fact that nothing is seamless or realtime travel like Star Citizen, makes it hard to generate it for starfield.
 
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Fredrik

Member
Yeah, maybe a ship upgrade or skill/perk. I dunno. I'm not really clear on how big the planet maps are. Are they Fallout 4 map size? 10x bigger? Virtually endless? Still a lot of unknowns.
If you can explore the entire planets they have to be gigantic. Just walking on a moon in NMS makes everything else seem puny.
 

Fredrik

Member
This game screams at least co-op multiplayer. Building bases just in some singleplayer game is a complete borefest. Hopefully modders add co-op.

But the fact that nothing is seamless or realtime travel like Star Citizen, makes it hard to generate it for starfield.
Come on it’s fun! I love it on No Man’s Sky, find it interesting enough to max out the mansion in Skyrim and it’s almost all I do in Minecraft. Offline only gamer.

In NMS it’s part of the exploration loop for me. I search for a lush planet and then build a base with a teleporter and landing pad, then I start getting a green house going for harvesting plants and craft expensive things to make money.
 
Where the hell are the water planets??

I haven't seen one planet with a body of water, let alone any "Ocean-based" planets, which do theoretically exist.

No Man's Sky has these and even underwater base building, but so far they don't exist in Starfield...?

If I'm wrong, that's great, as I am hoping they do indeed exist.
OIP.WyzV9mF2CHLpou4jNjiHvAHaEK


This is one of the Starfield concept art images Bethesda showed off last year during one of their behind-the-scenes development videos.
 

JOEVIAL

Has a voluptuous plastic labia
I believe a couple people were lashing out at me. Do you always get everything wrong on purpose or is it just incidental?

I'm pretty sure i wasn't the only one getting the wrong impression. One of the posters above defending the game apparently has the same perception, would you care to correct him?
I too am disappointed that no land vehicles are currently in the game, but it sounds to me like you created false pretenses and expectations of what Starfield actually is.

Starfield is not like No Man's Sky (seamless galaxy). Nothing in the marketing so far has pointed towards that. Anything that has made you believe that is your own wrong impression (which you have self proclaimed). Please point towards something if you have seen otherwise.

The videos and marketing have been very clear... you have to manually click on planets to land where you want. Todd Howard was very clear and direct in the 45 minute presentation of what to expect with Starfield.

To your earlier thought... Starfield is actually open world... but not open galaxy. Once you land on planets – you can explore the entire planet on foot – no invisible walls and no loading screens. Again, I entirely agree with your point about no land vehicles. I do not want to explore a planet without vehicles, so I will likely only land close to content zones. This is the most disappointing thing I have seen about this game, but it is not disappointing enough for me to not purchase this game.

Sure you can be disappointed that Starfield didn't deliver what you expected... but don't confuse your own wrong impressions with what Starfield actually is.
 

Kvally

Banned
So only 100 planets out of the 1000 planets are populated? LAME.

Who am I kidding, I will be lucky if I get to spend time on 5 planets, let alone 100.
 
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