So Starfield will have 1000 planets…

[Werewolf]

We don’t know much about the game besides the recent reveal but there is no way that 1000 planets can all be hand-crafted. The current speculation by gamers is that the landscapes are procedurally generated while the settlements are hand-crafted. While it appears Starfield won’t have anywhere near the level of procedural generation that Daggerfall did this is something Bethesda hasn’t done in a long time. I know Oblivion did use a procedural generator for some of the wilderness but the map was still tiny (though admittedly less ridiculously condensed than both Morrowind and Skyrim.) The Starfield planets don’t look that big but still, 1000 planets is a lot of locations to visit.

I don’t think Elder Scrolls 6 will be anywhere close to Daggerfall’s size, it’ll probably just be Skyrim on steroids, but maybe it could have some procedural generation for maybe quests or whatever. What do you think?

[King of Worms]

I think bethesda did not create a good game for over 10 years and I dont see any indicia for a trend change.

[Ralzar]

I think bethesda did not create a good game for over 10 years and I dont see any indicia for a trend change.

This

[numidium3rd]

If you've ever played Elite: Dangerous I have a feeling it will be pretty similar to that in terms of the planets to visit. There are practically infinite planets you can go to in that game but they're mostly procedurally generated dirt hills of varying color with some settlements made of canned block types on them (reminds me a lot of Daggerfall come to think of it). The issue I have is that I get bored pretty quick since, despite there being virtually infinite permutations of things to see in the game's universe, things start to feel samey to my human brain pretty quick. Not trying to be harsh on E:D's devs here. The aforementioned problem is inherently hard to overcome in a game with a huge procedural world.

The biggest problem for me in E:D is that there's a lack of questlines to give you a sense purpose in the big computer-generated galaxy. As long as there are a handful questlines in Starfield with good, heavily hand-crafted content and a bit of wandering around the procedural world in between I believe it could escape the empty feeling E:D leaves me with.

[Interkarma]

Elite Dangerous was one of those games that really grabbed me. I found it very Daggerfall-y in the sense I was exploring the visible top of some algorithm. But most of all, I enjoyed how the game just left me alone when I was out in the black. When stocking my ship for a journey to the other side of our galaxy, I had to plan in detail how I was going to repair, refuel, restock - because I would be cut off from civilised systems for months on end. The game just left me to my own devices to succeed or fail and didn't care either way.

I played Elite mainly in VR on my Vive. The best system I found was a black hole with a distantly orbiting rocky planet. There were no nearby stars for light so these two bodies were visible only to instrumentation. My big moment was landing on that rocky planet in total darkness knowing the ground was rushing up to meet me and I only had the HUD overlay to find my correct speed and angle of approach. With the ship creaking in my ears and rocking gently all around me, I landed gently onto this forsaken rock out in the middle of nowhere. My ship lights cast a feeble puddle on the ground as the engines spun down.

Then I lowered myself down to the surface in my SRV and rolled away from the ship. The terrain was high and rocky, I had to boost around for a bit to find a nice high flat spot with a good view. Finally, I dismissed my Anaconda and watched it lift off and punch back out into orbit, leaving me totally alone on this pitch black rock in the middle of nowhere orbiting a black hole that I could practically feel hungering in the dark nearby.

This is my best experience in VR and in a space simulation. Though Elite Dangerous gave me many more amazing moments, nothing ever topped that one. I was able to have that experience because the game was vast and indifferent. It just left me alone and gave me the tools for my imagination to work. It trusted me to find my own fun in the sandbox.

One of the reasons I bounce off so many games is they keep trying to make me go somewhere, do a thing! Even in Skyrim, I could never feel alone. The game was constantly pointing me to some cave or ruin - the compass was constantly filled with markers and points of interest. When all I wanted was for the game to leave me alone for once. Just give me some tools for my imagination and I'll take it from there.

I don't know if Starfield will give me the kinds of experiences I'm looking for. The trailer leaned heavily into shooting and flight combat and looked light on exploration. Hopefully, I'll be able to find the tools and scope to let my imagination run wild. If not, it's no big deal. Just one more game I tried and put down again without it managing to capture me in it's orbit.

[BadLuckBurt]

I think it's going to feel like The Elder Scrolls: Fallout in spaaaaaace. It's still the Gamebryo (Creation I know) engine I believe which is just sad at this point. Seeing the action-oriented direction they took with Skyrim and even moreso with Fallout 4, I think there will be even more of that in this game so it's probably not for me.

Nice looking cardboard worlds is how their modern games feel to me, depending on how they populated those planets with towns and stuff, this game will probably suffer from that a lot but who knows.

[Jay_H]

It's still the Gamebryo (Creation I know) engine I believe which is just sad at this point.

Wait, seriously the same engine? I thought that was the first thing Microsoft would de-commission; IE: make them actually design a workable engine.

This one's gonna be quite a show to watch, for good or evil!

[BadLuckBurt]

Wait, seriously the same engine? I thought that was the first thing Microsoft would de-commission; IE: make them actually design a workable engine.

This one's gonna be quite a show to watch, for good or evil!

Yep, it's the Creation 2 engine which is another iteration of the engine they've used since Morrowind. It will probably look better but I won't be surprised if people run into the same old engine bugs and limitations again.

Bethesda isn't exactly a Hello Games (yes you can still hate Sean if you want) when it comes to aftercare for their titles, they just move on to their next one which is probably TES VI.

[King of Worms]

One thing is for sure. It will once again sport the

((( 16 TIMES THE DETAIL )))

Rest will be a surprise, lets hope for a more pleasant one, than we were used to recently.

[Cliffworms]

I wasn't much impressed by the video. I just need to remember how different, from Oblivion and onwards, the final products looked from the E3 presentations. Like Fallout 4, I'll probably play it at one point, a couple of years after its release and when it'll have all the DLCs. There are so many other games I've yet to play that are on my backlog that interest me more than this,

I'll leave this low-effort Paint job I did about the 1000 planets.