Starfield - Official Gameplay Reveal

I also think the ship travel can potentially play a significant role in the gameplay. It's the equivalent of mounts in fantasy / medieval RPG, or cars in cyberpunk RPGs. It can also play the role of a home place. Without that feature, it would feel half-cooked.

I'm not a fan of building outposts, but I expect the ship must be equipped to access more dangerous locations, so that should be more involving than NWN2. And since we'll spend some time in it, it's nice to be able to adapt and customize it.

Yeah, when I saw the presentation I also thought it was what Squadron 42 was supposed to be, except more focused on RPG, and probably less convincing on physics and space combat (less of a simulation).
 
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I'm not a fan of building outposts, but I expect the ship must be equipped to access more dangerous locations, so that should be more involving than NWN2. And since we'll spend some time in it, it's nice to be able to adapt and customize it.

I am stretching this too far again, but purely thinking the physics, the ship in the video is perhaps vaguely designed for space-warfare and accessing locations with no atmosphere. It does not look aerodynamic at all. It could not fly in an atmosphere as our aircrafts (the engines could provide propulsion, however, and it could hover) and it would use immense amounts of energy to get out of atmospheres. It would require some sort of shields to tolerate these energies. If it was to travel relativistic speeds, it would get bombarded by particles due to it's non-sleek design, slowing it down and again requiring some sorts of shields.

As Arkadia7 mentioned, this is similar to the Star-Wars-like fantasy setting. Nothing wrong in it, but keep in mind that when talking about ship design, the fantasy and science do not always meet.

Another interesting thing to notice is how they solved the issue of gravity. All of those spacecrafts and bases (11:07-12:25) in the video would have the state of weightlessness. I.e. the character would have to float through the spaces, not walk. I notice the pilot does not have seatbelts, but otherwise the segment does not appear entirely unrealistic with respect to gravity and acceleration. They won't show what happens after docking, however. Again, I would be impressed if they had thought of this and modelled the gravity correctly. If I had to project, I would guess the Star Wars type fantasy gravity again.
 
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I am stretching this too far again, but purely thinking the physics, the ship in the video is perhaps vaguely designed for space-warfare and accessing locations with no atmosphere. It does not look aerodynamic at all. It could not fly in an atmosphere as our aircrafts (the engines could provide propulsion, however, and it could hover) and it would use immense amounts of energy to get out of atmospheres. It would require some sort of shields to tolerate these energies. If it was to travel relativistic speeds, it would get bombarded by particles due to it's non-sleek design, slowing it down and again requiring some sorts of shields.

It has to be expected I guess. :)

I'm fine with both genres, sim or fantasy, having both at the same time is too demanding for the development and few people would really need that. Besides, a genuine sim can only be enjoyed with the appropriate hardware like joystick / HOTAS and perhaps VR or TrackIR, which is costly and awkward in "RPG mode".

Regarding accuracy, even if blatant violations of physics tend to annoy me, it's easier to ignore if the game has no pretention in that area. I suppose they can't do without some creativity? For example the fast travel mentioned before, without which visiting other systems wouldn't be practical in that sort of game; this is not only a problem of how to implement fast travel, but of time relativity when the traveler is coming back. There are still too many problems to solve for space travel to be accurately represented in a game or a movie.
 
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There are still too many problems to solve for space travel to be accurately represented in a game or a movie.

Accurately representing physics in a sci-fi game would make the most boring game ever made ;)
 
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I honestly do not expect realistic space sim there. I expect the usual "Fantasy in Space" approach from Star Wars & Co. All ships will have artificial gravity (and be able to land on planets despite being formed like a bunch of bricks glued together), all planets will have earth-like gravity, etc.etc.. Perhaps some planets will require an armour with helmet… erm… "space suit" and there seems to be jet-packs, sure, but other than that?

I fully expect "Skyrim where you also can fly a bit in a spaceship" and not a "AAA realistic Space Sim where you also can walk on planets".
 
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I fully expect "Skyrim where you also can fly a bit in a spaceship" and not a "AAA realistic Space Sim where you also can walk on planets".

Likely. Otherwise they would have already advertised in the first video "look how awesome our physics modelling is". If this game turns out success, there's hoping that someone would still make a space SIM RPG where they modelled physics right(ish). I think that concept could be gamified with great, interesting results. Warhorse Studios, you hear me? ;)
 
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Ok, seems I got the gravity thing wrong, there seems to be some indication that different planets might have different gravity (which affects jumping and fall damage).
 
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there seems to be some indication that different planets might have different gravity (which affects jumping and fall damage).

Did you eyeball from the video? If not, please add a reference.
 
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I fully expect "Skyrim where you also can fly a bit in a spaceship" and not a "AAA realistic Space Sim where you also can walk on planets".

You should repeat the Skyrim in space bit a few more times. You haven't parroted it enough yet. ;)

As for not being a "realistic" space sim, who would really want that anyways? I know I wouldn't.
 
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You should repeat the Skyrim in space bit a few more times. You haven't parroted it enough yet. ;)

Actually, I said it… once (twice, if Skyrim & "Flying a spaceship" counts as the same thing).

But ok, perhaps "Fallout. In Space." might be better, because shooting and all that.

Do you expect something revolutionary new, with only a few obvious roots in the last elder scolls or fallout games? Just curious.

As for not being a "realistic" space sim, who would really want that anyways? I know I wouldn't.

Hm, there are enough people who enjoy games like Flight Simulator, so I guess there might be interest in that. Of course, "realistic" is hard to define, because totally realistic would be "not much" and everything set in the future would already include guesswork about technology.
 
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Do you expect something revolutionary new, with only a few obvious roots in the last elder scolls or fallout games? Just curious.

If you had paid attention to what I've said you should already know the answer to that. No, I don't think it's going to be revolutionary, but how many games are?

Hm, there are enough people who enjoy games like Flight Simulator, so I guess there might be interest in that. Of course, "realistic" is hard to define, because totally realistic would be "not much" and everything set in the future would already include guesswork about technology.

I doubt it. I think people who are playing Flight Simulator are, for the most part, not the same crowd that's into the kind of games Bethesda makes.
 
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The video looks like as if I'd need a wholly new PC for that … Well, at least *mine* is too pld for that, I'm sure ...
 
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I don't really understand why people feel the need to be so reductive when it comes to games. There's a lot more to a game like Skyrim than, I dunno, talking to people? Swords? I don't even fully understand the comparison you're making except that both games are made by Bethesda, so it's the laziest thing you can come up with.

Do people describe every superhero film since Superman as "Superman with bats" or "Superman with webs" or whatever? No, they don't. Why do we do that with games?
 
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Todd did a phone interview with IGN that added a few details.

You can disable and board ships and steal them.

To paraphrase a little they did say that while they considered what to put on them, in the end some planets are ice balls and an ice ball is an ice ball, but they're still there because people can land there and if they like the view they can build an outpost.

Space combat lets you balance power systems (engines, shields, weapons, etc) on your ship a little bit like FTL.

The pace of dogfighting will be fairly slow - faster than mechwarrior but not twitchy fast dogfighting.

Four main cities, with New Atlantis being the largest (both in the game, and in any Bethesda game according to Todd).

Main quest (only, not side quests) will likely be longer than their other games, although it's still being worked on. "If our other game's main quests took 25 hours, this will take around 30 or maybe 40 hours")

Space and surface-level/in-atmosphere planets are separate, they decided that doing a smooth transition between the two (ala No Man's Sky, I guess) wasn't worth it.
 
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While the complaints about Beth's games are often misguided/lazy it is pretty easy to understand why they get the hate.

The trend of their games in the last 15 years has been very reductive. With the current trend I think it is fairly likely it may come down to "guns" or "swords" or "ships" as being all that differentiates their games i.e.

Daggerfall - Peak character build and systems
Morrowind - Slightly simplified but less auto-gen content
Oblivion - Large amount of simplification but still stats/skills etcs
Skyrim - Removal of class system. Large reduction in skills etc.
Fallout 3 - Reduction in skills, focus on combat.
Fallout 4 - Skills completely removed. Perks become the only form of character development. Games morphed into crafting/base building.
Fallout 76 - No NPC's at launch!!!!

To be honest I am just happy Starfield will have npc's on launch :)

On a more serious note, I am actually quite hyped. I am really hoping that Starfield does reverse the trend but I am quite worried about the base building mechanic as I worry it will end up like FO4 and I wonder if it will end up being tied up into the main story i.e. missions to build a base on a planet. Given how hokey and buggy base building was I have concerns.
 
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Someone already mentioned the phone interview and here is a little more detail.

Starfield will use procedural generated content for the 1000s of planets to:

Todd; "We do a lot of procedural generation [in Starfield], but I would keep in mind that we’ve always done that," Howard explained. "It’s a big part of Skyrim in terms of questing and some other things we do. We generate landscape using procedural systems, so we’ve always kind of worked on it. [The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall is] one we look at a lot in terms of game flow. And we had been developing some procedural technology and doing some prototypes, and it really started coming to a head with Starfield, in that we think we can do this."

But players can ignore that too as it's just side content

You also won't be able to fly from space straight down to the planet confined by Todd, Space is one reality and the planet is another think of them as instances. That was decided early in the project according to Todd.

Also confirmed that FO5 will be coming after TES6.
 
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Since I loved FO4 and have over 4000 hours in it I don't mind if Starfield is similar myself. I don't compare games to past versions or other past games when it comes to deciding if I like a game. I simply take each game as it is and decide if I like it based on what it presents and its own merits.

That being said they already made one change. Positive for some and negative for others. I see it as a positive - no protagonist voice actor.
 
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so 2028 by the earliest then as E6 isn't even finished yet. That is not good news.:(

As I was joking with a friend I am hoping I am still alive, have enough of my facilities left, and have the income to keep up on computers, to play it :p
 
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