Starfield (General discussion. No story spoilers)

I'm one of the apparently very few who hated that game's ending simply because of "where you're going with that". And that's also the reason why I'm not excited for it's addon/expansion/dlc/whatever it's supposed to be.



Starfield on the other hand: Single player space exploration game, Bethesda open-world style? Sounds like instabuy for me! Even though it's going to be riddled with bugs on release...

My first thought was Els-whatever the Khajit place is called.

I’m interested in Starfield, but I still have no idea what it actually is.

Now if we can play Starfield in 3rd person without the crappy 3rd person camera that Bethesa love I'll be a very happy.

I doubt I'll ever do much of anything besides walking in third person in a Bethesda game, personally. And even then, it was usually to use the drawn bow in 3rd person trick to speed up my walking when over encumbered. Or just to admire my character when she was stood still. Definitely not combat. Its wonky enough in 1st person as it is. lol

So, ok, even after E3 is over, we really don't know much beyond the teaser trailer, right?

Here are my best (and possibly quite infantile) hopes for what this game will be:

- A decent amount of star systems to explore (I wouldn't even expect too many, maybe a dozen but make those really well instead, see below).
- Quite a few very different planets and moons (and/or space installations) to explore per system.
- Planets are procedurally generated (but better than in No Man's Sky) with half way realistically defined physical parameters dependent on their location in the system, and different biomes on the planet if appropriate. However, NPCs and creatures should not be procedural but hand crafted.
- On these procedural planets there should be hand made points of interest such as landing zones, quest relevant places like dungeons or enemy strongholds, next to some procedural locations (basically a similar design philosophy as for Star Citizen but built for an SP game.
- Planetside the game handles like an RPG-shooter hybred (think Mass Effect or Deus Ex) with the typical Bethesda learning-by-doing RPG mechanics.
- Between planets we fly a space ship, either we can buy/sell different ships or we can extensively upgrade and modify. In any case, we should be able spec it for different roles (freighter/fighter/explorer, etc.). Space combat should be a good mix between sim and arcade (maybe dependent on a difficulty level that could be seperate from ground based). Personally, I wouldn't mind something that handles a little like freelancer, maybe a bit more complex than that but not too much.
- There is a decent main story-line that guides you through the universe (don't expect too much here, it is Bethesda after all)
- It would actually be more important to me that there are heaps of side quests. I am thinking similar to "The Long Journey Home" here. You fly somewhere and anything can happen, based on a rich lore. There might be different factions that you can align with or make your enemy, etc. But basically give us heaps of shorter stories to go through while exploring the worlds.
- Modding Support: make an Editor available that is powerful enough for the community to create their own adventures and place them on the "free" space on the planets or even create their own star systems and add those to the map.

I know, this would be a lot of stuff but this would basically be my dream game and Bethesda seems like one of the few studios in a position to build something like that and hay, a gamer can dream, right?

Ugh, yeah. Keeps syncing with me life, too.

ME1 - Very teenager, high school even. It helped inspire me.
MET (ME1-ME3) - College, mistakes during it, surviving after it, trying to return. It both motivated (awesome stories) and demotivated (ending) me.
... MEA wait - The most boring and uneventful time of my life. Neither horrible as its been before, nor as close to as great as its been. Crappy STASIS.
MEA - Very 20s, fully returning to college, initial stumbling but ending in a place of opportunity, enough success, and progress..?

... ME'5' wait? - Getting everything in order, graduating, advancing.
ME'5'? - Early (or later?) 30s, and sorted out? A new age, more properly? Lessons fully applied?

God I hope so! Ha.


A ME that releases 2022, releases over 15 years since the first game .

Looking forward to this but Andromeda is a good space rpg imo.

They will continue with mod support, I'm sure. Todd said mods are key to their games and it's essentially what keeps their games alive for so long.
I hope for perhaps faster release of the modding tools (because FO4 had the CK released after an entire year IIRC, whereas Skyrim got the CK released after 1 month), and just better tools all around.

You can practically see the gleam in their accountants' eyes from here as they're looking at the Skyrim stats of over 1.6 billion mod downloads. And that's just Skyrim on PC.

But if they try to push Creative Club exclusivity... it'll go thermonuclear. Even I have a hard time believing they would risk that. They might try inching their way in that direction somehow, but still...

Yeah, we faced that kind of problem with the "unmoddable" frostbite engine in DAI. Our modders found a way around it. And the Bethesda modding community has way more people in it to work on that kind of problem. They'd crack the game and make mods possible.

Given the enormity of the mod community, and all the goodwill they bring to Beth, the sales (directly and indirectly), the longevity, I think there's only so far Bethesda would go here. They wouldn't risk hitting a tipping point that would turn all that against them. But I'm sure they'll come close...

I agree we'll likely see incentives and maybe more "Mini-DLC" (with things like proper VA-ing, a little more professional polish, etc.) sold through the CC. Projects that might be more than most the mod community could (or would want to) tackle. Y'know... actually having decent offerings might not be a bad idea. But I think the existing modding community as it stands will continue on and is relatively safe.

Seeing how they aim for toxiplay mechanics and online features in Fallout wossdatnumber I'm pretty sceptic about the future development of Bethesda games.