After Starfield, I don't know if 'increase our output' is a good thing.
this post was submitted on 02 May 2024
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Depends.
If it means doing more deals like when Obsidian was allowed to make New Vegas, might finally mean that Bethesda franchises get some decent entries again.
I think you've hit the nail on the head. They clearly skimped on the content for all those planets and handwaved it away as perfectly normal and expected, when it clearly wasn't good. Why? To add breadth without adding time to the development. To "increase their output" without adding more input.
It clearly didn't work there, but it could have worked with some decent mechanics and a little more thought into the content. It worked for No Man's Sky.
Luckily for Bethesda, AI has suddenly gotten a lot better, and they'll be able to use it to generate a ton of content that feels better than standard old procedurally generated content. That is, of course, if they can manage to work it into their tooling for their ancient engine.
handwaved it away as perfectly normal and expected
"Yes, but space is boring and therefore it's realistic" is still one of my favorite excuses for a game.
Space is also filled with planets and moons containing several isolated, human built facilities, which is very realistic
/s
It's really hard to fill a space game with content. It's not that surprising that a lot of the world's are empty. This is an issue for all space games, not just Bethesda.
I agree! Which is partly why so many people were surprised and excited that Bethesda took this challenge on. They failed at it.
Which is why smarter devs either keep all the action in space, or limit it to specific places in specific planets. Besides, do we really need to land on literal hellscape planets like Mercury or Venus?
I don't think the devs are making the decisions in AAA games like that. They're pretty much always just doing what they're told to do.
By devs I meant developer studios in general, not the actual coders.
Emil Pagliarulo and Todd Howard are pretty much the two "they say it, you do it" voices in Bethesda and, as far it's been shown, Microsoft was very hands off with how BGS handled Starfield.
In this specific case, it really looks like it was a case of terrible design decision from high up, either Todd or Emil, to "let the player land on every solid rock" and have half of them have human buildings
As a comparison, Elite Dangerous, which is not AAA, but as close to mainstream as a space game gets, is a game about space activities, including exploration, and it took ~6 years to release a DLC that added planetary landing, and that was super limited, too.
More Skyrim remakes!
They are making people crunch and we get an unfinished buggy game on release.
That's just business as usual
People will fix it for free over time.
Six months later and still no Creation Kit is saying something else.
They'd need better writers for one thing. I don't know about Starfield but skyrim and fallout 4's writing was dreadful.
Starfield is probably the worst of the bunch when it comes to writing.
I want to agree with you, but Starfield would need to have writing in the first place. The whole main story boils down to "there is no story, why would you think there would be?" I honestly believe Todd Howard shot down every idea to cross his desk because he thought he knew better.
Emil Pagliarulo is the actual head responsible for that piece of shit that tries to pass for a story way more than Todd. He's also the asshole responsible for the main story of FO4.
They need a new engine actually...
What's wrong with a 27 year old game engine?
Nothing at all, if it's been maintained and "upkept" much better than theirs has. But, y'know.
Starfield is starting to seem pretty spackled together, and the engine was already sort of infamous for bugs. It's not just BSW being sloppy about content (although they are), it's also the engine and tooling. The CKs tend to look... grim.
Translation: Were going to rush out some games while the iron is hot from Fallout tv series. They won't be great but they'll sell!!!