this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2025
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I can't even put my finger on the difference. Like... They play the same. They feel the same, mechanically and performatively. And yet Starfield is boring; I have no desire to ever install it again. But I still play Skyrim and Fallout 4/New Vegas. They haven't exactly improved in what they offer, and I don't really go crazy with mods so it's not like rose tinted glasses due to being able to change the game.
The lack of environmental storytelling, the lack of emergent gameplay due to the empty worlds, the overall tone of the story where most of the world building is history and politics given to you in dry, long-winded speeches, the feeling that every single sci-fi reference is as vanilla as you can get like it was written by someone who has never actually read/watched anything in the genre they just have secondhand knowledge of it from hearing others talk about it... It all adds up to something very different from everything else they've ever done while still being in the same janky package.
It's actually kind of remarkable, in a not good way. How the hell does this supposedly project of passion have absolutely no feeling to it?
Each successive TES game has relied more on procedural content, levelled lists, and repeated content(radiant).
These serve to reduce workload for Bethesda, they can make a larger game with less resources/staff, but removes artists further from the specific details in the world.
The parts of the world you enjoy are the one made by the creative process, the ones you don't come to expect, and the ones with thoughtful narrative. That's where the challenge, fun, and the humor in games comes from.
Procedural content specifically lacks this. The artist's touch only able to affect the architecture of the algorithm. It's good for stitching elements between the parts touched by the artist to create seemless transitions. But when used as a replacement for hand placing detail, it removes the creative process, thereby killing the source of enjoyment.
Leveled lists are a big annoyance because they remove danger from the world. Skyrim did have some notable exceptions: giants, a couple odd caster npc's, the frost troll on the way to the greybeards, etc... But then you get issues like normal creatures being more dangerous than fucking dragons, which are supposedly uber powerful(?).
Radiant quests waste time for negligible reward. They're bad, uncreative practice imo.
You haven't played a TES game before Morrowind, have you? :D
Haha no daggerfall for me.
Who has besides the olds?