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Bethesda hired a Skyrim modder to create the "lighting and clutter" in Starfield
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this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
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I wonder who they hired to do the facial modelling. The environments look really good but the faces look like games from 15 years ago. I really expected more from the game that Microsoft has been making so much fanfare over.
I'm sorry, but why? Why do people do this every time a new game comes out? This is what Bethesda does, and Microsoft isn't much better.
Every new game it's like people forget what these companies do.
You should've expected a Bethesda game.
Btw elder scrolls 6 will suck, too.
It's crazy.
Bethesda have owned id Software, the best graphics engineers in the business, for a decade. They now even have Microsoft money. This is still, somehow, the best they can do.
No it is not the best they can do. I haven't played starfield yet, but it should be obvious that no company with shareholders to whom they need to answer is ever going to do "the best they can do".
That isn't even their target, at least not overall. Their target is maximum profitability. Putting forth maximum effort for the best graphics is not going to result in max profits, so they were never going to do that.
And that's to say nothing of the fact that graphical showcases just aren't what Bethesda does in the first place. No one should have expected that. This isn't an id game.
No one's asking for a "graphical showcase". I'm sick of people defending Bethesda by saying that's just what they do. Literally the only company I see people trot this line out for.
I don't care about Bethesda. As I said I didn't even buy or play this game. Sorry about the wording.
I just feel like it's asinine to say things like "is this the best they can do?" when literally no company puts out their best. And it's asinine to say things like "but they own id software" when id isn't the developer making this game. And it's asinine to expect a company whose games have made gobs of money and sold tens of millions of copies not ~~being a graphical showcase~~ having above average graphics, because why would they suddenly spend time and effort on something they haven't had to do before and still had success?
Focusing on wording is nitpicking. I'm quite sure you understood my point.
Starfield.....doesn't suck though.
I've sunk 20 hours into it so far and it's amazing. You people just have your expectations up the ass for a company that is great at one formula and expect them to do the other when they never said they would. It's ya'lls fucking fault for expecting No Mans Sky to be the greatest fucking game of all time at release over a company that made fucking Joe Danger.
Cyberpunk 2077 I can understand more as it was made from the guys who made The Witcher 3, so feature wise I can understand the betrayal and they fucked up by lying to us. But it's still ya'lls fault for expecting it to not be buggy and broken as fuck when it was delayed 3 fucking times. The red flags were there, and you STILL bought it.
Oblivion and Skyrim have the same basic formula with little differences sprinkled in here and there mechanics wise that make it feel different, but familiar. Starfield is the same way and I fully expect ES 6 to do the same. But that's fine. I don't want anything groundbreaking. I just want Skyrim but with modern graphics, animations, different setting, and some new mechanics.
Good god you people are negative.
Yeah, having read over a bunch of comments here, a lot of the comments that are unhappy about Starfield are basically people expecting it to be like No Man's Sky, or some people who just don't like Bethesda games in general. The ones that are happy tend to be people comparing it to earlier Bethesda games that they liked.
I really like Bethesda games, so for me, that's great. But I do also get that there are people who don't like Bethesda games, and for those people, being told that they're wrong and that they should like it drives them nuts.
I think a good rule of thumb is to probably expect Starfield to be similar to earlier Bethesda games, like Skyrim and Fallout 4. If you like those games, you'll probably like Starfield. If you dislike them, you're probably going to dislike Starfield.
But trying to convince people who really like Bethesda games that they suck or to convince people who really dislike Bethesda games that they're great is kind of not likely to work well.
This happens with every Bethesda release because they overhype their games and keep their PR vague enough that people can fill in the gaps any way they want to. They've been doing this since Morrowind. This review/user response controversy is nothing new and neither are the usual criticisms of Bethesda games half-assing everything from accessibility to writing to various gameplay elements.
And then instead of holding Bethesda accountable for their nonsense the fanboys like you go out and attack and blame other fans for it. Getting really sick of Bethesda fans shitting on anyone with criticism of their precious game company while whining about how toxic gaming culture is with zero self-awareness.
If you're ok with Bethesda never innovating that's fine, but stop trying yti shut down other people's valid criticisms or acting like they're stupid for expecting and wanting higher quality releases.
Overhype? Please give me an example of overhyping. That whole, "See that mountain? You can climb it" meme was legitimately true. And he actually said you can WALK to it. Misquote. So there's one debunked.
And no, they really don't keep their PR vague. They had a fucking 40 minute direct all about the game several months before release. How much more specific do people need it to be? Anyone who has ever played a Bethesda game knows what to expect. And even if you haven't, it doesn't take fucking rocket science to just analyze the game and figure out how it works by using your god damn ears and eyes when watching the direct/gameplay trailers. They're not blatently lying like Hello Games did. They flat out showed the cutscene system when landing and taking off, and even Todd himself said there would be loading screens in several interviews.
So the entire writing is half assed in Skyrim? Really? Even though it's extremely memorable, the Dark Brotherhood questline is still considered among the greatest they've ever written, and Morrowinds story is considered GOAT to this day?
I can absolutely understand Fallout 4. That was a major step back and I do not like that games story. It was boring and generic, along with the dialogue. Fallout 3 was a bit better but not by much. But seriously? Every single Bethesda Game? As for gameplay elements you'll have to be more specific.
Bethesda has plenty of things in their games to critique. Nobody is denying that. I already critiqued earlier. And I don't have a problem with criticism. My issue is when people critique a NEW game they haven't even fucking played yet based off of things that existed before in previous games, or just a vertical video recording leak. And then better yet, playing the game and just scraping the barrel for the littlest shit, quirks, to call it "garbage" because it's tradition and they want to feel validated and big. That's not critique. That's just being a fucking idiot.
If you don't like Bethesda games, fine. I think the majority of people who are bitching anyway are just folks who don't like them to begin with. Which makes even less sense as to WHY they feel the need to. Bottom line, you don't got to like Starfield or any Bethesda game, but come up with some legitimate arguments first. And most importantly, JUST DON'T FUCKING PLAY IT.
Other than that, I fail to understand why people want to shit on Bethesda nowadays and act like the games are complete trash when they've won 4 game of the year awards already. So if you have any legitimate criticism, please feel free to add to it. Please explain why Bethesda is just a trashy company apparently.
Edit: That's what I thought.
I mean dark brotherhood is literaly the only thing i even remember from skyrim and not even beacuse of the questline but beacuse of the ability to kill the kidnaper and raid the brotherhood( and the music. The music in skyrim was amazing or at the very least very iconic ). Never finished Skyrim myself beacuse i just got bored at some point. In essence times have changed and they cant really make the same game over and over again. They need to innovate in a more meanigfull way. And that seems to be the main point of criticism. i myself havent played nor do i intend to since at least until i get an xbox or better pc. And probably even then i wouldnt play it . I prefer more story heavy rpgs like dragon age or witcher.
Dude, I'm sorry, but what the fuck is this? Bethesda games have always been story heavy. I've put 23 hours into this game so far and have seen combat maybe once an hour because I get so sucked into the story and lore. The same happened for Skyrim the more I played. I'm sorry it wasn't memorable for you for whatever fucking reason, but the fact that the game and its story has been memed to death and is still talked about means it's clearly memorable. Fuck me even Oblivion was arguably much more story heavy, and I LOVE that games story.
Since when did they NEED to innovate? I mean I could understand the argument for needing to vastly improve animations, facial expressions, etc. But they're not Apple. Why change something that already works? Clearly Bethesda fans and even some critics don't have a problem with the existing formula. Because it works. There's nothing wrong with it, and it's fun. And it's not like Bethesda doesn't introduce anything new to their games. The base building in Fallout 4 was the best fun I had with that game, and even that was a disappointment.
Anything else?
Eh? Point out at what point in my life I ever gave a shit about no man's sky...
Did you reply to the wrong person or...?
Was replying to you, dude above, and everyone else.
that's your opinion. A lot of people have a lot of fun with bethesda games...
You’d think Bethesda would notice what you claim to have.
That’s the point.
No I wouldn't think that, they've never acted in a manner that indicates that they have that capacity, why would I assume they do?
What a negative defeatist POV. A Bummer.
Objective reality doesn't care about how you feel.
Well, we are talking about reviews here. They are opinions.
No, we're talking about people who expect Bethesda to perform differently from historical record. How are you not even following the conversation you're trying to be part of?
Good point. I escalated “why does everyone expect” to be centered around reviews. I’ve seen that thrown back at reviewers over and over this past week.
I did lose track of things. 👍
Lol "objective reality" as if nothing ever changes.
Literacy is not your strong suit, but keep trying.
What's the point of this comment? People are allowed to complain and criticize Bethesda for the things they seemingly refuse to improve on.
In Fallout 4 and Skyrim, modders did ultimately put out high-poly-count heads, high-detail eyes, etc. I imagine that if tradition holds, there will be modders doing the same in Skyrim.
And also probably Starfield 😉
Oops, thanks, yes.
You are not wrong though, they will do the same for the next release of Skyrim.
TBH the faces look fine for me. At least on major NPCs that have a role. All of the NPCs out in the cities are the ones that look wonky. I give it a pass though considering you'd have to be fucking staring at them immensely to actually notice.
Either way, modders will take care of it. That's the beauty of these games. Anything remotely dumb that Bethesda overlooks, (which is every game) will be fixed.
Still having a ton of fun.
But eventually they lose all credibility and everyone abandons the Xbox platform. It's really getting to the point where Steam is the only one worth using. And I've bought every Xbox at launch, except for the Xbox One. Playstation tends to cater to people who like turn based games, aka interactive slideshows. Xbox has just been stagnating for the past few years, and this was supposed to be the game to finally prove to us once and for all that they can put out a good modern game. Overall the game itself is pretty good and I'm not seeing much bugginess at all. But the way the devs speak about this game, I really expected something they could actually be proud of. They can always improve things with patches, of course. But at this point Starfield is a first party game, so I really expect it to showcase what the Xbox hardware can do. It's as if Microsoft has nothing to do with the QA process of all of the studios they've acquired.
What games do you have in mind that are turn based?
Have you ever played a PlayStation?
Huh.
I'm a few generations out of date on consoles, but I was kind of disappointed with console turn-based games.
I normally think of the PC as the place to go, because the mouse and high resolution are often good partners for that.
Turn-based strategy games, stuff like Paradox titles especially seemed to be a PC thing.
Do you mean relative to the other console platforms, or relative to all other platforms in general? If so, what titles?
Maybe turn-based RPGs or something, stuff in the vein of Final Fantasy? Is that what you mean?
Yes all of the Square Enix games are massively popular PlayStation titles and turn based. And most of them are PlayStation exclusives. There's a lot more than just Square Enix. The PlayStation is rife with them. I understand some people like them, but a menu based combat system is not my idea of a fun time.
Meh, being able to build your own ship like Skyrim and kerbal space progran had a baby sounds like it makes up for that but I haven't played the game so idk. Most space games are either a massive ripoff (think Star Citizen) or a major grindfest (Elite Dangerous) so it's good to see someone try to make a space game that isn't like that.
No Man's Sky and Stationeers are almost similar games that are good but in those games the space ship game mechanics and functionality just aren't there.
I've been playing it and it's a great game. I just wish they could have gotten the faces good enough for the game to showcase what the Xbox and PC are capable of. The environments even look great. They really dropped the ball considering it's Microsoft's biggest first party launch in something like 5 years.
The shipbuilding is limited in order to try and not break the game.
You can only have one cockpit, warp drive, fusion generator, and shield generator. You can't have dual core and double shielded guns with an cockpit strapped to them that obliterates anything in sight.
It is more like Fallout meets Cyberpunk 2077 in space with a complex loading screen mini game that doubles as a remote inventory, which you can spend hours customizing somewhat.
NMS's use of ships is far better, like being able to fly around from place to place instead of loading screen around. NMS's ship flying with SF's shipbuilding would have been ideal.
Hopefully modders will be able to fix the shipbuilding.
Have no real interest in playing it, but do they still do the Skyrim thing where they have like 5 wildly different voice actors, so it feels like the guards are following you from town to town?