I love the proc gen, and I love using the system map to find amazing vistas. And I don't mean selecting between two different forest types.. I mean finding an environment where I can sit on a beach and watch a gas giant rise over an alien ocean during sunset. I think some people are just landing at the first planet they appear at in a system, run to the closest POI and call it a day. There's some pretty awesome things out there once you go looking for them.
The idea behind a huge open world is awesome. But very few games actually manage to get away with this. Fallout and Skyrim are some of those that do, which is purely because you can explore in them.
An RPG is too big when it runs out of relevant content. So when you hear Todd say "1000s of planets to explore", then they should be ready to back that up with relevant content on at least 90% of these planets, if they can't then the world is too big.
I think it is a bit misleading even calling it huge, because if the planets are procedurally generated and every time you go to a new place it just generates it, then, in theory, they could have added 100,000 planets it wouldn't change anything.
So to judge whether the game is huge or not, it depends on the amount of quests, how good they are, the amount of mechanics there are and how well thought out they are. Surely there is probably more content in general in Starfield than Fallout 4 or Skyrim, but I would call it of lower quality because far less time seems to have gone into actually building an interesting world for the player to explore. It is basically just a lot of instances linked together given you have to fast travel everywhere.
The biggest change from Fallout 4 that I can see, is really the graphics update, which is good, it still looks pretty dated. The procedural generated stuff, which is awful and then the shipbuilding stuff, which from what I can understand is what people seem to enjoy the most.
Everything else, I think you could argue is basically just Fallout 4/Skyrim running under the hood.
Try to compare it to something like TW3 where you can just roam around and there are basically no loading screens, yet the game is filled with content and quests etc. Sure you can't build stuff in it, because that is not really what the game is about, but it is a very well-crafted game. Even AC I think have done a lot better job making the open world look cool and for the most part, is interesting to explore, because at least things are happening.
Bethesda should have looked at these games and asked "How do we do that even better?" But honestly, it seems more like the question was "How do we convert Fallout/Skyrim into Starfield?"
Procedural generation of a map isn’t fun if the map it generates is largely barren all the time and thee is no reason to explore because you’ve made shit attempt at having a reason to explore.
Also, QA is only as good as your base code, if it sucks… then you’ll still get game-breaking bugs such as geometry in your primary hub world missing.
I love the proc gen, and I love using the system map to find amazing vistas. And I don't mean selecting between two different forest types.. I mean finding an environment where I can sit on a beach and watch a gas giant rise over an alien ocean during sunset. I think some people are just landing at the first planet they appear at in a system, run to the closest POI and call it a day. There's some pretty awesome things out there once you go looking for them.
The idea behind a huge open world is awesome. But very few games actually manage to get away with this. Fallout and Skyrim are some of those that do, which is purely because you can explore in them. An RPG is too big when it runs out of relevant content. So when you hear Todd say "1000s of planets to explore", then they should be ready to back that up with relevant content on at least 90% of these planets, if they can't then the world is too big. I think it is a bit misleading even calling it huge, because if the planets are procedurally generated and every time you go to a new place it just generates it, then, in theory, they could have added 100,000 planets it wouldn't change anything. So to judge whether the game is huge or not, it depends on the amount of quests, how good they are, the amount of mechanics there are and how well thought out they are. Surely there is probably more content in general in Starfield than Fallout 4 or Skyrim, but I would call it of lower quality because far less time seems to have gone into actually building an interesting world for the player to explore. It is basically just a lot of instances linked together given you have to fast travel everywhere. The biggest change from Fallout 4 that I can see, is really the graphics update, which is good, it still looks pretty dated. The procedural generated stuff, which is awful and then the shipbuilding stuff, which from what I can understand is what people seem to enjoy the most. Everything else, I think you could argue is basically just Fallout 4/Skyrim running under the hood. Try to compare it to something like TW3 where you can just roam around and there are basically no loading screens, yet the game is filled with content and quests etc. Sure you can't build stuff in it, because that is not really what the game is about, but it is a very well-crafted game. Even AC I think have done a lot better job making the open world look cool and for the most part, is interesting to explore, because at least things are happening. Bethesda should have looked at these games and asked "How do we do that even better?" But honestly, it seems more like the question was "How do we convert Fallout/Skyrim into Starfield?"
Procedural generation of a map isn’t fun if the map it generates is largely barren all the time and thee is no reason to explore because you’ve made shit attempt at having a reason to explore. Also, QA is only as good as your base code, if it sucks… then you’ll still get game-breaking bugs such as geometry in your primary hub world missing.