Starfield - Daggerfall in Space?

My predictions for Starfield, which will most likely be wrong lol
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Timestamps, click to skip ahead!
Introduction 0:00
Procedural Generation 0:45
Hand-Made Worlds 4:06
Quests and Immersion 04:57
Gameplay 07:09
My Thoughts 10:11
Starfield - Daggerfall in Space? in text form:
We’ve all seen the Starfield reveal, and it’s clear that Bethesda has taken some inspiration from their older titles, which is great to see in some areas… and maybe concerning in others.
What we have seen is pretty self-explanatory so far, so in this video, I instead want to predict or theorise, what I think Starfield will be like. How it will be similar to past Bethesda games, and how it may attempt to grow outside of what they are known for.
We can then go back to this video after the game is released to see where I was right, and where I was, most likely, wrong.
Procedural Generation
This is the big word on everyone’s lips. The word is associated with pretty much every space simulator you can find, and it gave The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall its famously, or should I say, infamously colossal game world.
It is all but confirmed by this point that procedural generation will be a cornerstone of Starfield's world design - with 100 Star systems and over 1000 planets, the task of hand-making those would be impossible to the standard people expect. If they were to try it, Oblivion’s 200+ “handmade” dungeons, all put together by a single man with a limited tool set would come to mind.
The first thing to consider is “just how big are these planets going to be?”. I highly doubt we will be able to access every corner of them like in No Man’s Sky, and with landing and taking off being a set animation, it seems far more likely that we will be given a large area of each planet where we are free to explore.
How big will this playable area be, we obviously don’t know yet. If I was to throw out a ballpark size based on nothing but conjecture and my limited knowledge of the Creation Engine, which they are still using - It’s Creation Engine 2 now sure, but it’s still the same dinosaur with a million pieces bolted onto it. Knowing that then, I believe each planet will range somewhere between the size of the Shivering Isles in Oblivion, Solstheim in Skyrim, and on the larger side - Vvardenfell from Morrowind. With an amalgamation of sizes in between.
Much like dungeons in Skyrim, some will be huge and others may be tiny. Think of an Earth-like planet that can sustain life being large, versus something closer to Pluto being small and desolate.
Depending on this planet size, I think there will be 5 to upwards of 100 handmade planets that will have more of that Bethesda TLC fans have come to expect from their titles. People are terrified that everywhere is going to be as barren as Daggerfall, and while that may be true for some of the planets, I feel confident that some are going to be as intricately designed as Skyrim’s game world was.
#starfield #daggerfall #jwlar

[@Jwlar]

What are you predictions for Starfield? Learn about Starfield’s predecessor made by Bethesda in the late 90s: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pZKvlqKuoptjkKc

[@yaldabaoth2]

I see a 7/10 game in the making. We will go through the game, thinking "Wow, the main quest has some good areas and set pieces but when I go off the path, there could have been so much more!" This will lead to continuously feeling unsatisfied. I don't think Bethesda has what it takes to fulfill their own ambition. What Todd promised was so much, I doubt anyone has what it takes with current procedural generation tech. Just look at how much Star Citizen struggles and they have been throwing money at this for 10 years. In Elite Dangerous, which had a whole procgen galaxy, nothing was killing interest faster than the feeling that whatever you might find out there, you could have found it right next to you and nothing is special (except the once in a million occurences where the game created a physics defying exception).

[@MegaSnake001]

I don't care for anything Bethesda makes, I don't trust Todd on anything.

[@krzysztofwozny9742]

@GreenTea💚 Lmao, what? Do you have any actual reason to think it will be quickly forgotten? Or is it just because of your personal dislike of these games? Because so far Bethesda doesn't make forgettable games.

[@krzysztofwozny9742]

@@yaldabaoth2 If we look at their previous games, Bethesda doesn't seem to be the type to make a game that has a nice main quest, but nothing outside of the beaten path. Their games tend to be the opposite: tons of side content to do, but the main quest never matters. And I don't really understand your comparison to Star Citizen, those are different types of games after all.

[@yaldabaoth2]

@@krzysztofwozny9742They themselves know that, too. I expect them to overcompensate in this one.

[@elvis5008]

I think people might have the wrong idea about the procedural generation in starfield. The planets are not going to be procedurally generated every time you load a new game, they will always be the exact same. What they mean by procedural generation is that they made all of the planets using procedural generation and then built on top of them, this is actually how BGS has made all of their maps since morrowind.

[@DovahKanye]

It's how they did Daggerfall too, except to a much larger degree. It was also static.

[@yungchow9555]

@@DovahKanye yeah, no chance their procedural generation has improved since then….

[@DovahKanye]

@@yungchow9555 I don't know why you're mentioning improving or not, because I never alluded to the quality of Daggerfall procedural generation. I want nothing more than Starfieild to be more like BGSs older games. Including Daggerfall. The difference is after Daggerfall, they hand built towns and largely abandoned Daggerfalls procedural generation, but there was nothing wrong with Daggerfalls, procedural generation. I think the best possible thing would be implementing the best of both worlds, have huge maps, that have procedural generated towns, cities, dungeons, enemies, and also have hand built versions like in their later games of all the major cities. I wish they never abandoned the PG from DF, and instead built on it like they did with everything else. So instead of trying to insert what I meant from my comment, and invent your own meaning from what I said, try not doing that and asking first. My statement was entirely factual, there was nothing I was contesting or suggesting about Daggerfalls procedural generation. As being bad or good. Merely adding to the OPs comment letting him know if he didn't that DF was statically generated in it's entirety. As opposed to just making the initial map like the last three Elder Scrolls games made by BGS.

[@jw6588]

@@DovahKanye Good luck with expressing anything nuanced on the internet, man. Peeps are always on the attack.

[@kodan7879]

@@DovahKanye No no no. Daggerfall has procedurally generated geography that is fixed, but then most villages and town besides the most important ones, are completely randomized with (I belive the exception of their location). Quests and dungeons are mostly randomized too, as well as creeps and loot (of course). Meanwhile Oblivion and Skyrim only had generated geography and some quests randomited. Morrowind was hand crafted.

[@nok4799]

Thank God we will be a voiceless protagonist, it annoyed me I could create the most outlandish character, and he would still be "Nate" at the end of the day because of his voice.

[@lfcmike12]

Yeah, kind of kills the replayability of an RPG, I liked my first run of fallout4 but compared to previous titles it's so much less replayable, even mods can't save it in that regard.

[@marcuswalters8093]

I prefer voiced, myself.

[@octavianpopescu4776]

Here's a tip... what I did... I turned off the volume. 😀Joking aside, I don't really care about this aspect, but I've noticed a lot of people are very passionate about it: whether or not the character is voiced.

[@CertifiedClapaholic]

@@marcuswalters8093 yikes. Go play another franchise then. These games are not supposed to box you in and that's all a voiced protagonist does.

[@biorgoanylchem]

@@CertifiedClapaholic id like voiced protagonists myself too. I just wish Bethesda would record maybe over 10k lines/language jus for the main character, speakin randomly, talking to themselves, mood based, etc..would really add to immersion but they sadly don’t like to work this hard to make it happen lol 😞

[@Gradashy]

Daggerfall is only barren because it was released in 1996, they just not only don't have the tech as the processing power to make it better.

[@camraid9]

And Daggerfall is simply a different animal. Personally I like the vast scale, and am happy to compromise a lot to achieve that sense of awe and limitlessness.

[@avatar19822]

@@camraid9 There are deserts and places in the world that are vast and empty in real life. I love DF's vastness. Plus, the mods for DFU help fill in those spaces with mountains, etc...

[@peaceprinceshaxi5978]

@@avatar19822 we have real life for the real life experience of pressing W, but even then something complex and interesting is happening to the body in the process. So really, do you need that kind of realism in a game ?

[@timsimon5413]

Check it out in Unity (Daggerfall Unity - working Beta). With a few texture mods, it can look pretty nice in the modern pc age. Some of those empty spaces really come to life.

[@yaldabaoth2]

Try to walk through the american Great Plains or the Australian Outback. Being barren IS realistic. The largest part of the planet looked like that not 1000 years ago. And we have only 30% landmass on this planet. Bethesda announced thousands of life-sized planets. It is just not possible to make them all interesting. You WILL have seen everything the game can possibly offer after 10 or 20 of them.

[@eichs22]

Can we all realize/agree on the fact that procedural generation is not the same as random generation? You still have a lot of control over the design outcome of a world in proc gen (when working in a robust system of course)

[@maninblack3410]

Procedural generation *is* a form of random generation. I don’t really understand what you’d want to accomplish by making a distinction. Like, do you have an example of what “random generation” is?

[@eichs22]

@@maninblack3410 it's not purely random. A person still has to give parameters and in this instance the parameters could control hills, mountains, clearings. They could even design modular pieces (like the behind the scenes shows them doing) and have that plug in and create an environment from those pieces. I'm sure their tools have dozens and dozens of parameters they can tweak to get a certain result. It is *not* random in the sense that the computer just rolls a dice for every outcome when creating environments

[@maninblack3410]

@@eichs22 so… it’s not a useful distinction then. Absolutely nothing in game design is purely random, it can’t be. Any “random” generation is going to have parameters set by the developers, so all things game related that are considered “randomly generated” fit the criteria for “procedurally generated.” …but also, yes, every time a “decision” is made under procedural generation, a computer *is* essentially rolling a dice. It doesn’t matter how many parameters are there, it is randomly selecting options from that procedural algorithm.

[@eichs22]

@@maninblack3410 yeah, there's a difference between *using* randomness with a robust system of constraints and user input to get a result and having one button that says 'generate planet' is all I'm saying. Many concerns I've seen about the game are that there will be vast swathes of nothingness and then one small area where 20 points of interest spawn on top of each other. That could happen if it was purely random/had very little user input. Procedural Generation uses randomness with large amounts of user input and constraints to get a desired result; can't have more than x amount of points of interest within a certain distance from each other for example would take user parameters to fill that in somewhat randomly with a degree of user control

[@maninblack3410]

@@eichs22 no, there’s not. There’s no meaningful difference between the term “randomly generated” and “procedurally generated.” Any video game you could apply “randomly generated” to would have a ton of constraints and logic, the exact same as a game that’s considered “procedurally generated.” You’re falling into the trap of using corporate buzzwords without understanding what the words mean. Procedural generation *is* random generation, trying to police what people say isn’t going to change that. We’re not going to know how well the procedural generation is until we get the game, but using a different term isn’t going to make it better or worse.

[@harrisonneill2029]

Pretty sure you can land anywhere on the planets, but only certain parts are handmade, like you could land anywhere on the planet with new Atlantis, but there might be a Morrowind sized area around the city that was handmade, this is going off what Todd said in interview when he said you can land anywhere. Also there are way more than 20 voice actors in BGS games Skyrim had 70, silent protagonist means more dialogue options not less.

[@ShadowAimai]

If Bethesda actually manages to create a modern day, functional, Daggerfall, I would forgive everything so far.

[@aarondunn6759]

Hell, if they release a single game that feels almost complete without game breaking bugs upon release I'll be impressed.

[@ToTheNines87368]

I agree with everything but the silent protagonist. It usually leaves to deeper conversation systems, at least in most games, as you're saving a voice actor that has to do a crazy amount of lines. Also I think the shooting looks great, the amount of animation when it comes to hit detection seems vastly improved.

[@brigo1744]

I agree with you, and I believe the shooting system definitely looks more fast pace and a little better

[@justsomedude5727]

Procedural generation with handcrafted elements placed in is the way to go imo, i actually think this game looks decent and somewhat have hope in it. Also people forget Oblivion had procedural generation in it.

[@rhythmmandal3377]

"Same Dinosaur with a million bolts" m8 pretty much all engines are like that.

[@THEFabianValenzuela]

@GreenTea💚 chill

[@rhythmmandal3377]

@GreenTea💚 that the point you idiot, point the finger at the devs not the tech.

[@t.t6294]

don't expect people on youtube to understand how engines work lol

[@NoStereo]

You pretty much matched everything I thought about the game. even my "I'm tentatively excited" for the game :) I predicted 2 weeks ago that this was their attempt to do daggerfall, but better, in space. Hopefully the writing is good.

[@googleisawful1473]

Disagree on The Outer Worlds having better gunplay. Fallout 4's gunplay may not be amazing, but I preferred it to The Outer Worlds by quite a bit.

[@MolotovKiller]

@@samexoldx ?????????????????????????? The hell are you talkiing about? Outer Worlds was made by Obsidian and Doom by id Software.

[@googleisawful1473]

@@samexoldx Are you confused? Fallout 4 was made by Bethesda, who had help from id Software (the makers of Doom) in developing the gunplay. The Outer Worlds was made by Obsidian. And I said I preferred Fallout 4's gunplay. Also, the hostility is unnecessary.

[@EpicWarrior131]

Completely agree. The outer worlds Gunplay is just awful and boring to the max

[@hannie330]

Agree. I enjoyed the Outer Worlds but the gunplay was just incredibly dull. Fallout 4's gunplay was no work of art, but it was much better than in the Outer Worlds.

[@flyshy8806]

Must agree! haha

[@Thru1n]

I don't agree with the Outer Worlds having better gameplay while I agree that it is in a way more polished, but it lacks any of the weight of Bethesda games. It feels like the enemies are made completely oout of paper and there is not really a lot of feedback...

[@LastBastion]

Isn't just any Bethesda game?

[@VSaturn-X]

Heah, Outer Worlds gameplay is really bland, definitely the weakest part of the game.

[@LastBastion]

@@VSaturn-X outer worlds is from obsidian tho, not Bethesda

[@tomaszpawlik5091]

Bethesda hasn't made a game in 7 years and no one makes games like they do. Even if it would be Skyrim but with guns and spaceships i would be satisfied.

[@RSCALES11]

Too bad it’ll just be Outer Worlds v2

[@lucifer0247]

@@RSCALES11 nah Outerworlds is a different game. And OUter Worlds was pretty meh. The Places were not interesting, every planet has the same monsters etc.

[@RSCALES11]

@@lucifer0247 which is again why I’m saying it’ll be Outer Worlds v2, numb nuts

[@lucifer0247]

@@RSCALES11 No, the feel is completely different. Outwer Worlds is just Obsidian Style of Game, and is not even a good one. Its mediocre at its best. Chars are not rly interesting, story is bleh, the worlds are just boring , all having the same monsters and you cant rly explore anything. It is rly hard for me to keep that game playing for some hours before i lay it away again. I dont know why that game gets hyped so much by obsidian fanboys

[@tasospodcast8832]

Not Daggerfall if no "VEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEANCE"!!!

[@DavidCDrake]

Ghosts...in...SPAAAAAAAAACE!!!

[@heetheet75]

1:23 Oblivion's dungeons weren't made by a single man, that's something people keep repeating and it's straight up not true. I can imagine why people think that, though.

[@FDimensional]

I was telling a buddy yesterday my theory with starfields 1000 planets. I bet they are working on a procedural generation system they intend to use in starfield. To test it on new IP. Then improve it for ES6.. and god. I really hope ES6 has GOOD like ground breaking procedural generation and a massive world.

[@camraid9]

Me too!... Maybe you heard Todd Howard say several years ago now, that they intend to make TES6 a game that people can play for 10 years.

[@t.t6294]

there was a rumor that said the generation will be unlike anything we've seen in a game. todd also said they'll probably do another presentation to show that off

[@kaesebrot1682]

@@camraid9 i hope you know that todd says a LOT of good sounding things about their games before they get done with them which will come out to be not true (or very twisted in meaning) in the end.

[@maverickay5807]

Great video!

[@LilHoodRatFriend1022]

You nailed it

[@colbyboucher6391]

Pretty neat considering that since F04, I've said that I think it'd be interesting for Bethesda to try something like Daggerfall again.

[@mp-kq3vc]

My hope is that Starfield blends procedural with direct content. A planet or location with clever procedural generation and then you find something like Leaf Rest (I know it's a mod) where you can spend dozens of hours just learning how to exist in that location.

[@thaddeusmizen8874]

yet another banger of a video from the man himself

[@digitalutopia1]

While procedural generation will likely be involved to a degree, based on my experience with Creation Engine, I'm going to predict that the procedural part will happen during development, rather than in realtime. This will allow for the ability to tweak the result, and place static buildings and objects as needed, for quests - both on release, and through DLCs, without having to regenerate a planet every time the quest team wants to add something to it. Unless Bethesda drastically changes the static nature of worldspaces - an aspect that they have carried on from Netimmerse (Morrowind), through Gamebryo (Oblivion, Fallout 3), and onto Creation Engine (Skyrim+), every planet will have to have a pre-existing worldspace for it. However, hand-building over 1000 worldspaces, would simply be impractical - without taking literal decades to produce. So some form of procedural or otherwise automatic generation of said worldspaces will have to be used. Also unlike Daggerfall, each creature, resource. rock and tree, would have to have a reference id, to a base object - this has the side effect of potentially limiting the size of such worlds - as even if they drastically increase the Engine's capacity for objects in a worldspace, they'd have to revamp the esm data format so that IDs can be larger than 32-bits.

[@lucifer0247]

I heard that creatures are tied to the planets and their biome + gravity.

[@kupokinzyt]

I just left my 100th comment on your Daggerfall video, watching it as background noise as always and here you are, giving me new content on top of that! Still waiting on those lore videos as your documentary type of writing is leagues above most other KZbinrs and you have a fantastic way of talking and expressing easy to understand view points and topics.

[@DirtCobaine]

I literally can’t with all the misinformation. I hate when people gush over Unreal engine 5 and call it a brand new engine but talk shit about creation engine 2 as “the same old engines just upgraded” as if semantic versioning isn’t a thing. Guys they cannot call it 2.0 if it’s not completely new. It’s the same skeleton but it’s new. Just as each Iteration of unreal is new but it’s the same old unreal engine that made unreal tournament. It’s already confirmed the entire planets are explorable and you can land anywhere. Oblivions dungeons were not handcrafted. They were procedurally generated like everything else Bethesda and were touched upon to give it that handcrafted feel. I know this game is going to be good. And I cannot wait to see the industry flip flop like it always does. It’s just so annoying to see everyone make the same videos talking about the same misinformation, not understanding what a game engine actually is, not understanding what procedural generation actually is.

[@naits95]

looking at the recent direct and interviews, it looks like you are on point at pretty much everything here

[@Kevin-jb2pv]

I predict that because of the sheer scope of this game, we are going to be looking for Easter eggs and hidden content for years (or at least until modders have completely stripped down the game files to their core and make a wiki page for every other line of code, like they usually do.)

[@Ma1q444]

You were basically spot on.

[@Negolash]

Over 16,000 times the planets

[@thesupreme8062]

They're really going to have to do really hard work to compete in this genre. No man sky is amazing, star citizen and elite dangerous are really realistic and immersive. They need to make an amazing rpg to compete

[@samd2013]

No one makes games quite like Bethesda, they have a certain feel that no other game has replicated.

[@phyerboss]

Thats just it...ITS AN RPG. All those others you just listed, ARE NOT. So granted they are all in space. They are not the same genre exactly. Thus meaning no one is needing to take the other's lunch. They can all co-exist just fine based off what a gamer wants.

[@kaesebrot1682]

I mean... if it will be Skyrim or FO4 in space, it probably won't be much of an RPG... more an action shooter... they got rid of the RPG elements slowly but steadily.

[@kaanozkuscu5079]

Nah, it´s Arena in space.

[@DavidCDrake]

I would love that. 🤣

[@konstantinavalentina3850]

OK, a note of Procedural Generation: I don't EVER see anyone asking about the TYPES of PG, and going into detail about the benefits and drawbacks of different types of implementation. For instance, if PG is done at studio, reviewed, fiddly bits polished, hand-crafted assets dropped in, and then the whole thing is locked in at the studio so if I tell a friend to go to a certain place on map in their own game, climb a certain hill, and look for a rock that looks like a frog, and under that is a clue to a puzzle, that's WAY different than PG like No Man's Sky where the player system does all the PG, and that hill won't exist on someone else's game, and things will look different because their system generated a whole different landscape ... and sometimes interesting places dropped in by studio by hand, they get covered up by a player-PG mountain and you can't even access them. There's probably hybrid versions of this too. With the former, lots of landscape is PG'd, but, since it's locked in at studio, everybody that places game sees all the same exact places, mountains, valleys, hills, caves, whatever. With the latter, the No Man's Sky type PG, the landscape is generated by the player system live, when it's discovered, and interesting locations can get covered up and hidden by the generated landscape. The locations will still show up on compass, ping on scan, or whatever, but, you can't get to them since they're INSIDE the PG terrain. It might be interesting if someone were to take a closer look at the practice and implementation of PG, and gave us an informed look into all the different ways it's done. We don't know how it's done in Starfield yet. We do, however, know it was used in Skyrim and other Bethesda games, and appears to line up with the in-studio PG version that gets locked in. Also, as far as the sheer number of planets reported as 1000, I'm not bothered because that's unprecedented realestate for the modding community to play with. Something we may see in the future, and even now with modders, are tools like xvasynth v2 which generates voiced dialogue with text using AI to deep-fake any voice you give it to chew on. Your character in Starfield is reported to be silent, but, with xvasynth v2, it's likely someone will make a mod that lets you talk like Darth Vader, Captain Picard, or ... anyone. They may even change the voices of NPCs, and use the tool to create better voiced, player companions than we find in the game. As to the future, as technologies like this evolve, we're likely to see AI doing lots more things than just PG, and radiant quests. On the horizon, we're due to see games with substantial parts of them developed by AI, and hand polished by devs. This might result in absolutely huge games, and I suspect we'll see the first offerings in AI developed games in the next 5 - 10 years. In the next 20, we'll probably have personal computers with enough horsepower for games to generate live, unscripted, believable AI dialogue interactions. That might prove super interesting, but, we'll also see some meme-worthy fails from it too. ... but, that's the future. ... and I babble.

[@camraid9]

seeded is the word your looking for

[@CoffeeSuccubus]

Modders of the future starfield Nexus page: On standby, awaiting your orders, sirs and ma'am's.

[@KellyPerrin2014]

A huge part of Procedural generated in BGS Games is Random encounters, these were perfected in 76 and will probably take centre stage on those planets...outside the main story line.

[@DovahKanye]

I think there will be some barren worlds with almost nothing on them. But according to what the gameplay shows it looks as though they are totally explorable, as you can set a landing zone, of course we still don't know the size of these planets so who knows. I agree with the idea of treating them like a dungeon, I would wager that there will be procedurally generated enemies, structures, inhabited towns etc. For us to explore, trade, potentially raid. I kind of like that too, because in some of their previous games wanton destruction could ruin certain places, at least if there are 1000s of procedurally generated towns, it wont have a huge effect on the game if you choose to wipe them out.

[@FortuneCookieLies]

I could see there being a tailored procedural generation using the NEAT program where the player's game duration, quest interest, enemy types/levels and other aspects get taken into consideration in the procedural generation of the worlds when they explore it. SO what could happen is that the world could have an outpost that has the enemy that the player enjoys fighting the most and they obtain the resources that the player wants the most. It has space ship battles and random events that are procedurally generated based on the most engaging games. Statements on the Xbox microphone or social media posts about how great the game is means that you will likely encounter events and creatures and dungeons, caves, and outposts that cause the player to enjoy the game at an optimal level. But the AI NEAT system would basically take the fitness level of the player and procedurally generate the planet and timed events to where the player doesn't get bored with the game but is fully engaged.

[@Sundiny]

I am cautiously optimistic, but I hope that they can make a great game with it because I love sci-fi fantasy

[@rabidrivas]

A workarround for using voiced dialogue and giving us the freedom of Morrowind or Dagerfall is to have most citizens comunicate through a AI translator, so it makes sense why many people sepeak the same. Plus you could add their actual language in the background and make it something similar to what Banjo and Kazooie people sond like.

[@heart04winds19]

The battlestation with the dragon animation will become a new sensation on the internet

[@tronam]

20 voice actors? Not even close. It’s actually more than 300 and at over 200,000 lines of dialog without a voiced protagonist it more than triples Skyrim’s.

[@Phreno_Xeno]

They'd do well to do something akin to what Ubi did with random NPC voices in Watchdogs Legion.

[@PixPunxel]

Hope so

[@DovahKanye]

I sure fucking hope so, maybe they have finally listened to the fans, and are going back to their roots, I've seen many people talk about how big DF was, the amount of factions, some of the features like being able to have a horse and cart, I often think of how much better Skyrim could have been if it was more like Daggerfall. Sandbox games when done right are some of the best games, you can make your own story, Kenshi, Rimworld, Mount And Blade, some of the best sandbox games there are.

[@saladinbob]

Here's my prediction: It'll be bug riddled, entirely unplayable on the PC on release day, we'll need a day one patch and the rest will be left to the modding community to fix. The MO of all Bethesda games since they shifted to making them for the console rather than the PC. When it comes to actors there's no problem having a small cast if they can provide different accents and voices, unlike Skyrim where almost every accent is American and not one single Nordic one in the entire cast.

[@saisameer8771]

Hell, fallout 76 was such a huge disaster. I would be surprised if it comes out actually playable. Apparently they are still using the morrowind engine for this.

[@t.t6294]

@@saisameer8771 they're not using morrowind's engine for this. my god

[@mcsuck1]

@@saisameer8771 Morrowind used Gamebryo. Starfield uses a new iteration of the Creation Engine.

[@lucifer0247]

There were several nords who had nordic accent.

[@lucifer0247]

@@saisameer8771 u rly should inform yourself more. They using a new Engine Creation Engine 2. ITs vastly updated. Smth like Spaceflight woulndt be possible with the old engine.

[@Charles-Darwin]

Props for not having a whole hour dedicated to ripping on it. However, Todd said procedural generation... not procedurally generated PLANETS. They prob have nearly all the planets with quests and dungeons on them, but I bet the system will work them into the -mostly procedural generated environments... they could flat map nearly all the extraneous content and build a system like this to parse out the data. I'm stoked no matter what, believe it will rock your world 10 fold over any no mans sky and contain the granularity of morrowind

[@amymorgan886]

daggerfall is my fav elder scrolls so it being that but in space sounds good to me lol

[@Things_n_Stuff]

To those willing to go down the rabbit hole with me, here’s what I can’t get over about Starfield: the enemies in the demo are labeled “Pirate.” This is like “Bandit” in TES or “Raider” in Fallout. It hints that Bethesda hasn’t bothered to explore different possible subgroups of these people; likely denoting Starfield’s factions into “good” and “bad,” which further highlights the possibility of Bethesda’s core open world design not having changed much. This could indicate that IF Starfield isn’t plagued by the trademark Bethesda bugs, then their open world design will likely be received as outdated. 10 years ago their design made sense because the industry standard prioritized linear games due to technological limitations. Now however, it seems the common zeitgeist in modern open world games is depth: not just how big you can make something, but how well does one thing connect to everything else in the interactable world. Even Fallout 4 suffered (a little) from changing desires in open world gaming, as the requested tasks began feeling more like busywork rather than fun self-contained adventures. In the end it felt less like an RPG and more like a choose-your-own looter-shooter with all of your choices leading to the exact same outcome. This is a legitimate identity crisis that could tarnish all future Bethesda games if left ignored. Bethesda practically created the template for modern open world game design, but it has changed since they left it in 2015. We are now faced with the reality of Starfield being the first single-player Bethesda game releasing in a world where Bethesda’s core design philosophies have been overtaken by other developers, in games such as Zelda BotW and Eldin Ring. I guess the final question I’ll leave off on is simply: Has Bethesda adapted their core design to keep up with modern desires? My fear is no, they haven’t.

[@taliesin7913]

Elden Ring and BotW sucked ass.

[@moneyboy2779]

the pirates are a joinable faction dumbass

[@kaesebrot1682]

i had the same thought about the "Pirate" thing, it looks like "here is bad guy because we want you to have target to shoot so you dont get bored you poor baby", there is nothing to think about or decide, they are just mindless maniacs. I am not sure i agree that they had to choose linearity, since multiple dialogue options leading to different outcomes, or spells and knowledge that lets you skip parts of the game have been in morrowind before and is more something you need good writers for. The general feeling you get from bethesda interviews is that they don't care about deep stories anymore, more about giving the "unattentive player" mindless busywork while having some heavily guided story they can go back to. I miss the time of deep character creation systems that have more influence than "deal +10% damage perk" and i am heavily looking forward to any game in the future offering that again.

[@bloodrain980]

The "dialogues limited like in Skyrim" comment was very confusing. It was Fallout4 - the game with the voiced protagonist - that had insultingly limited dialogue (2 tones of yes, later, and yes but more money).

[@MrPsyren99]

Skyrims was also really bad

[@bloodrain980]

@@MrPsyren99 For it's time it was great. I played it to ribbons and loved it. The AI was atrocious, the combat mechanics were boring, the dialogues and narratives were uninspired to say the least but man was that world fun to explore and experience. Unfortunately the dialogues and quests can't be fixed by mods but everything else has been. Wish they'd opt for only voicing some lines to give you an idea of what the character sounds like, or if there's a shift in tone. I miss the role playing.. Although Bethesda games are open world sims rather than role playing games I guess (unless modded to smithereens).

[@acksawblack]

@@bloodrain980 Skyrims dialogue was a regression what are you talking about. Even at the time it was seen as shallow.

[@bloodrain980]

@@acksawblack I misread the comment I was responding to - was talking about the game in general. The dialogue was pretty forgettable to say the least but it didn't have hard-coded limitations that even modders couldnt get arund like Fallout 4. Just saying Skyrim's dialogue was shallow but not "limited".

[@WoofInationXP]

i'm just hoping its good lmao

[@johnathonm7813]

They better make procedural bounty hunter quests so I can role-play as a proper bounty hunter as the background suggests

[@rickywalter6707]

The funny thing is that Todd Howard himself called it "Skyrim in Space" in more of the game reveal. Daggerfall in Space however, now that would be even more interesting. O_o

[@AShlaimon]

I honestly feel like the only reason they did 1000 is solely for the wow factor of advertising. Majority agree that there’s no way 6 years of dev time can make all of them littered with adventure.

[@rhythmmandal3377]

I don't get how people think OuterWorld's gunplay is better than FO4, for me at least it feels worse. Also you that crap with the kb+m!!!!!!!!!

[@Ocean_Gaming]

I completely disagree on your "combat" section; not only the shooting in Outer Worlds which you have shown while talking about good action is NOT better than Fallout 4 (indeed it is slightly worse actually), you showed Call of Duty footage which would be a massive mistake if Bethesda took it that way. Let's use Sniper Rifles as an example : In Starfield we see a Sniper Rifle Certificate as a perk (or skill which they are calling). You can obtain it (as far as we know from the trailer) if you are started with a background that gives you that skill or you spend a perk point to obtain that perk. And let's say that this perk either decreases or stops weapon stability for Sniper Rifles. With Call of Duty and games like that, there is no way that would be allowed, to inconvenience the player like that. When you use a Sniper Rifle, you hold your breath and shoot, that is it. But for a ROLE PLAYING GAME, that WANTS to be a role playing game first, it is not the player that holds the weapon, it is the character that does. So more you go the way of a typical action shooter, the LESS you become an RPG. The upper example is jusr ONE of many i can give about this topic. That's why i do NOT want these games to be action heavy, and disagree.

[@StupidIsMyJob]

To be honest with you, I don't know what you mean when you say "the Outer Worlds had better gunplay." I mean, I know what the words mean, but I disagree with them as a whole: the Outer Worlds felt like you were shooting plastic toys. Same goes for a lot of guns in games such as Destiny 2, Borderlands 3, and even a little bit in Fallout 4. Maybe it's just me, maybe I accidentally turned off the rumble functionality in my controller a while back. Maybe it's that a fuckton of guns sound like diddly little Nerf gun lasers, I dunno. But still, lately, my shooter experience's been terrible. Again, at least for me.

[@salamanderavem3782]

I like the emptiness of daggerfall Like a desert. Its a canvas for creativity

[@lobiankk77]

It has it's own charm.

[@iandevine3063]

Yea as long as a good amount (for the normal game play time) are fleshed out and the others have enough cool stuff to do it should be fine. Every planet in the size of morrowind would be way to massive.

[@59768]

I hope you're right about the maps, but there wasn't a single shot in the reveal with any roads or other POIs visible out in the distance. Every single location seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. So for all we know there may not be any meaningfully explorable maps (handmade or otherwise) at all. The "planet exploration" could just be each POI getting it's own landing zone/map with nothing around it. Even the areas around capital cities could just be empty landscapes. I know it sounds ridiculous, but everything we've seen so far seems to point in that direction.

[@adriank8792]

I really don't want Fallout or Starfield to have CoD like shooting because then those games would just be shooters first and foremost. I want my shooting to be stat based

[@JollyOldCanuck]

The gunplay systems for Fallout and Starfield are likely going to be based on the Fallout 4 system designed by ID Software, the creators of Doom.

[@GrimDarkHalfOff]

My predictions: Voiced Main Character Micro-Transactions Day 1,2 and 3 DLC

[@stryre8789]

I think Starfield will be a step towards finding the right balance of STYLE and SUBSTANCE. Fallout 4 had style but not enough substance. Daggerfall had a lot of substance but is lacking in the style department (even looking back on it, you’re largely just a minion to everyone you converse with). If Starfield discourages a well rounded build and encourages focused builds, then I think the game will be closer to finding that perfect balance.

[@redpepperdave]

I'm in the middle of the pack. I hope it's a good game for us gamers but I don't expect anything ground breaking from Bethesda at this point.

[@DarthShadow25]

8:45 How would a silent protagonist lead us to "dialogue options as limited" as Skyrim? But then you go on and say that we will never have a system as large as Oblivion WHICH HAS THE EXACT SAME SILENT PROTAGONIST SYSTEM AS SKYRIM. Your logic does not check out here.

[@kaesebrot1682]

You're probably right, i think the limitation comes from the writer changes in the last games, they don't seem to care about dialogue anymore at all, just a guided story.

[@zavi1919]

Jwlar is still My Hero

[@Jwlar]

Haha! :)

[@rudidellama3718]

These barren planets will be modders dreams to make new quests

[@JonatasAdoM]

I haven't seen the Starfield reveal.. yet* I mean, I still have to watch a bunch of stuff first like E3s and the Olympic games I've been to 6 years ago

[@voidersbeats2011]

To be fair, Yeah, StarField may be, or it will be a really cool and immersive game. That is, only if they invested into making a new engine, hell, Snce Fallout 2 the only vehicle you can pilot is a vertibird in Fallout 4, but no cars, much less car physics, wich only modders managed to do. Now Imagine having to implement Procedurally Generated worlds, NPCs, vehicles, spaceships, and a bunch of things on a old engine (Gamebryo), if they manage to do it good i'd be impressed.

[@purefoldnz3070]

Thank you traveler but another colony needs our help. I'll mark it on your star map.

[@shathaan1763]

the only thing thats throwing me off is the same gameplay as f4, i really think the experience will be at the lvl of skyrim and f4 at least, and i loved playing those games, so im not too worried, even if thats kinda optimistic, but men i wanted better enemies, better ia, smooth gunplay, i hope they listen to everyone and try to spice up the combat in the time the have til launch.

[@nickperfetti7976]

im just excited for the 100s of empty planets for modders to do whatever they want with. Completely seperate terrain from the main game and can't conflict with it. I think thats one of the reasons for all the planets.

[@nickperfetti7976]

@GreenTea💚 im pretty sure modders wont create an entire planets worth of content. I am saying that they have a free canvas to do whatever they want. That could be cities, missions, factions maybe? etc. It isnt bgs job to fill in all the planets because that would just be unrealistic from a time perspective since the game is only like 300 years in the future and it wouldnt make much sense for humans to have colonized even 1% of the galaxy by then. Also I believe modders will happily do this and that's just based on what you can see with skyrim and fallout.

[@CallowG]

I predict hilarious bugs.

[@Slynell1]

did u not hear what he said? "land ANYWHERE and explore" he also never said that we cant land and take off. he only confirmed that we cant pass through the atmosphere. you're either on Earth or in space.

[@Jwlar]

That's what he said, but the animation that doesn't change implies that there will still be "set" places you can land that the animation can use without breaking. Todd like to embellish (and sometimes lie). We'll see when it releases - I'll be happy to be proven wrong :)

[@DarthShadow25]

7:00 Maybe I am misunderstanding you, but there are far more than 20 VAs in the more modern Bethesda games. Skyrim had around 70, and Fo4 had at least that many.

[@Empyrean55]

I really disagree with the criticism on the shooting, of all the shooters I've played fo4 seems to carry the most weight and in comparison to the outer wilds is far more flexible

[@brigo1744]

Dude PLEASE do a video on the 10th planet I only just found out about this and wanna learn more

[@brigo1744]

@GreenTea💚 mm I see, thanks!

[@Jwlar]

Yep! it's in the pipeline :) Gonna do an Arena analysis first, but it will be coming this year :P

[@brigo1744]

@@Jwlar YOOOOOOOO

[@onandonandomnom]

9:40 Outer Worlds does not have better feeling or performing combat than Fallout 4

[@Jwlar]

It’s subjective I guess. FO4 feels sluggish to me, but is improved with just a few mods. OW is crisper out of the box when it comes to shooting, but worse everywhere else (melee, progression etc)

[@onandonandomnom]

@Jwlar shooting may be better yea. I do like the weightiness of 4 though, and 4's melee combat is seriously underrated

[@AerynWalk]

still Outer Worlds does have better Combat and Feeling than Starfield and i would prefer play Outer Worlds over Starefield

[@jeb791]

Daggerfall barren really if you go into the wilderness in most open world games it would seem barren but there is very little reason to go into the wilderness in daggerfall all the quest are in towns or dungeons. If you wonder aimlessly in daggerfall your probably going to be miserable that is why the mechanics of the game make it easy to go to points of interest. The same principles should be in starfiled it should be easy to find points of interest.

[@thehardman9379]

1 guy did all of oblivions dungeons? holy shit

[@MysticMike]

@3:20 I actually had a good chuckle at "your average player plays from 50 to 100 hours". I just remembered back in the day were an average player would be far less and then that's that would be more hardcore

[@JElAlicanto]

my bet the maps will be like Mass effects Andromeda

[@kosmosyche]

I would love to be proven wrong, but I fear that this time Bethesda bit off more than they could possibly chew. I am not optimistic and I am a Bethesda fan from the times of Daggerfall.

[@Jwlar]

This is unfortunately the likely result. I want it to be good, but I'm ready for it to not to be.

[@t.t6294]

@Dyl I don't really care about re used assets. Elden Ring's devs re-used assets from their older games but the final game was still great

[@kaesebrot1682]

@Dyl Problem with Bethesda is, they don't seem like the type of devs anymore that would even CLOSELY try to fix their game like No Mans Sky did

[@kaesebrot1682]

I started with Skyrim/FO4, went to Oblivion and FO3 and then tried the older games, since them i always get a bitter taste from the newer bethesda games, you can see how much they dumbed down... everything. There used to be so much replay value in their games, based on story, making a different character to play the game differently, finding out new things, having different dialogue... now the only thing making you replay their games is "i'm bored and need to shoot something" or "i found this cool mod (having mods isn't anything to praise bethesdas game for imo)". I lost hope for Bethesda already.

[@joaovaldez2746]

TOW combat is almost the same as FO4 too

[@Jwlar]

True, but it’s controls are more fluid (likely just Unreal vs Creation Engine). I could never dial my mouse sensitivity to feel “right” in FO4, always felt off.

[@AmyraCarter]

Hm. Looks like Starfield is going to be interesting.

[@Spartan8278]

I am really hoping they nail the procedural generation blending with handcrafted content, I would love to see a system work out well for that. And I hope that rumor about advantages & disadvantages returning is true, that would be awesome progress!! It's such a cool feature in Daggerfall. I like having limits! It's so boring being the chosen one who is master of everything. But I have a hard time feeling anything positive when I see the world & asset design or gameplay. I personally think it looks absolutely terrible and the shooting.. it's really bad. FO4 shooting looks better than this, which is odd since you would think it would be the same. And the world looks even more bleak and depressing than vanilla Skyrim. It looks really dated and it hasn't even come out yet. I used to be really interested in these kind of "realistic" presentations like Skyrim, but now I kinda wish they had stuck with a less realistic vibe for their games like in Oblivion so it would at least be pleasant to look at and age more gracefully. I do still hope it does some of its rpg mechanics right and is successful because of it so I can have some hope about TESVI.

[@TheKeyser94]

No Man Sky would be fun if the quest weren't so fucking tedious, if you had the equipment right at the start and need money to buy them, with better space controls, at least in PC, and the planet weren't fucking resources hubs, recently I have been playing Chorus and something different to every space combat games that I ever played, because that game empathise being fast and aggressive, even that you only have five planets to explore, the six sky-boxes are huge with tons of things to do, more aggressive you are, better you are at the game, Rebel Galaxy and Outlaw is more about precision, and Starpoint Gemini games are in a similar vain, apart from Starpoint Gemini 3, that like a Outlaw is a successor of Freelancer.

[@Muten1988]

Starfield intro: Hey, you're finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us, and that thief over there

[@Stoonk]

With somehow worse combat and rpg mechanics? This looks more like fallout 3 in space, I cannot believe they are releasing this

[@coureurdesbois6754]

I think it will either succeed or break Bethesda.

[@what4494]

Classic bethesda though, "how do we make leveling up satisfying and feel powerful?" "Oh lets just give 10% increase to actions via perk" this system has proven so broken, think cyberpunk haha. One day we'll go back to oldschool styles, i like my dice rolls

[@honeybadger6275]

Maybe someday we'll get a proper sequel to morrowind that takes all of its gameplay design and mechanics and improves upon them instead of just removing the parts that are too hard to recreate.

[@dingusdangus9299]

It wishes

[@Hammahlovesyou]

I anxiously await this game 😅

[@camraid9]

My prediction is, that every single planet will have at least a few touches by a person, some planets many. Every planet will be 100 percent metres squared explorable, but most of it procedurally generated with, again, a few human touches here and there.

[@AlyxDaFennec]

didnt they confirm the entire planet is explorable?

[@tscotts9699]

2:27 So your guess is between 5 and 100 handcrafted planets? Way to not make a guess lol...

[@suckassmork2972]

if I can't create a freaky tomato-faced bosmer, Starfield will suck. period.

[@proksenospapias9327]

outer weelds. ok buddy

[@Airoch4]

“Morrowind is my favorite in the series.” That’s not what you said at the beginning of your Daggerfall retrospective. 😏

[@Jwlar]

Haha yep! It was true when writing that retrospective, but nothing beats nostaligia I guess. (Also I burnt myself on Daggerfall for a bit). They're honestly neck and neck in terms of the features I like / dislike in each - but Morrowind wins becuase I have more memories with it. Yay for subjectivity lol 😂

[@biohazardousbacon]

I don't think the planets are gonna be small. Todd Howard said in the IGN interview that to make a planet of a believable scale means to make it basically infinite. I think the planets are actually to scale with this in mind.

[@quillclock]

I can't wait for overhyped space sim #87!! this one can't be bad right? I got $100 on it being a buggy mess on launch and everyone forgets about it by the time it's playable

[@Jwlar]

Speaking of overhyped space sims, you may want to check out my newest 10th Planet video. It was a space sim Bethesda were making in the 90s that was as equally overhyped before being cancelled in 99. They have a history of overhyping sadly.

[@quillclock]

@@Jwlar bruh your content is great i watched all 24 of your vids already ;D jus waitin for more. I think this was the second or 3rd to last one i watched. seriously great work man you put a lot of info and research into these videos

[@Jwlar]

@@quillclock Thank you :)

[@AerynWalk]

@@Jwlar its really sad tho. ive always wanted Bethesda to expand on their idea from Morrowind but instead they did slowly move backwards basically like 3 steps forward and 4 steps backward with everygame after Morrowind

[@anenemystand5582]

My problem with Bethesda has always been that they go for scope rather than depth. I don't care how big your world is if I feel like I'm wading through a kiddie pool. Unfortunately it seems what i feel is a flaw. Bethesda sees as a strength. I think their games might just never be for me.

[@Ma1q444]

Lol that’s literally the opposite 😂😂, every Bethesda game gets complaints for its small towns because they put so much depth into their npc. Every named npc has a schedule they go through.

[@anenemystand5582]

@@Ma1q444 and three lines spoken by different voice actors.

[@Ma1q444]

@@anenemystand5582 lmao Daggerfall has no voice actors so wtf are you complaining about

[@anenemystand5582]

@@Ma1q444 and morrowind was only half voice acted. Those games came out more than two decades ago before voice acting was standard in rpgs. Come on. You can't tell me that you love ulfric storm cloak as a deep character. Or think the inner world of guard number 45 is fascinating.

[@honeybadger6275]

@@anenemystand5582 Morrowind was a better game because of its lack of voice acting, you can have a lot more dialogue when you aren't limited by voice acting.