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Re: If Bethesda Made a Science Fiction Game...

#31
Or they get all that feedback from modders FO3/Vegas Skyrim/MW/Oblivion and make a hell of a game for FO4 and TES6... We're in 2015, not 2002 or 2006... Modders have a lot of time to make their jewels. The add and polish the mods all the time. Correct a lot of bugs. A studio always has time and money issues to attend. PCs are today a lot more powerful than back then. Modders can add bigger textures, rev the poly count way up, put more and more NPCs on every chunk of map. Bethesda hadn't hundreds or thousands of people to test their games for hundreds of hours to find glitches and bugs.

Of course Bethesda must get money and credit for their work. Modders too, at least for the credit. But this topic was discussed before, so I won't start with it again :)
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Re: If Bethesda Made a Science Fiction Game...

#32
Duck:

You are currently calling all games whichs lifetime and enjoyment was extendef by the modding scene as incomplete and lacking in general.

You are putting bethesda against the wall for not having produced all the content all its customers could ever want.

Without the solid foundation and more than enough game that bethesda built none of the mods would have come into being conceived, much less would they have become the things victor enjoys so much.

You could as well yell at microsoft for freelancer not including the expanded universe, or CCP for not handcrafting all of eve online's wars, or mojang for not making minecraft the magitech paradise i modded it to be.

All of those games are awesome in their vanilla form, and the fact that they got even better by mods which cater to more niche groups of players and are not constrained by executive decisions doesent make them any less worth.
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Re: If Bethesda Made a Science Fiction Game...

#33
I played Oblivion (by far my favorite) without mods for about 300 hours, and Fallout 3 as well, and the only bug I can remember is a floating horse or two. :lol:
Lum wrote:In a rpg in space the fast transport is a must, of course.
I hate fast travel in Bethesda games and I have never used it intentionally, however different planets may be a good justification for it. But that would mean that the game has multiple open worlds basically, a kind of The Elder Scrolls set in full Tamriel made of separate "islands".

I'm not sure if I like the idea of Bethesda making a space game, and as described that would mean that would not be science fiction but fantasy (again). But that's OK with me, not ideal but OK. Just a different concept.
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Re: If Bethesda Made a Science Fiction Game...

#35
Lum wrote:Modders have a lot of time to make their jewels. The add and polish the mods all the time. Correct a lot of bugs.
But dev studios don't make games all the time? They never correct bugs?
Lum wrote:A studio always has time and money issues to attend.
But random modders have infinite time and money? Money that, unlike a development studio, they're not expected to get back?
Lum wrote:PCs are today a lot more powerful than back then. Modders can add bigger textures, rev the poly count way up, put more and more NPCs on every chunk of map.
I'm not talking about mods released years after the original game. Of course you'd expect a lack of support then. I'm talking about the first few months after a game's release.
Lum wrote:Bethesda hadn't hundreds or thousands of people to test their games for hundreds of hours to find glitches and bugs.
Well, they have people to test for bugs before release, at least they should have. Obviously they're not expected to find all of them, though.

However, after release they do have hundreds of thousands of people testing their game. As you rightly said, we're in 2015, not 2002 or 2006. Patches are a thing now, and developers has expectations put upon them. But for some reason, these expectations are waived for Bethesda because "someone else will eventually do it instead".
Cornflakes_91 wrote:Duck:

You are currently calling all games whichs lifetime and enjoyment was extendef by the modding scene as incomplete and lacking in general.

[...]

All of those games are awesome in their vanilla form, and the fact that they got even better by mods which cater to more niche groups of players and are not constrained by executive decisions doesent make them any less worth.
Right; but these games are judged based on not what they are, but what they can be with mods, which... well, I don't disagree with. Mods are great.

However, it's not Bethesda providing the mods, yet it's them reaping the rewards. That's my complaint.
Games I like, in order of how much I like them. (Now permanent and updated regularly!)
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Re: If Bethesda Made a Game Set in Space...

#36
Flatfingers wrote: My feeling is that some of the shape of such a game (that is, a space-based game made by Bethesda) starts to look a little more clear if we consider some of the requirements it might reasonably have, many of which build on the features common to Bethesda's prior games:
  • open-world
  • role-playing
  • player character as protagonist
  • game universe spans an enormous area
  • basic lore of the game world affects the entire vast area
  • game takes place in a relatively small zone of that overall area
  • zone contains oases filled with people with whom the protagonist can interact
  • interesting (valuable|dangerous|funny) things happen while traveling between oases
I don't know what the specific story or backstory of such a game might be. But one thing that suggests itself to me is to define the faster-than-light technology of this game such that FTL engines have to be big -- really big. There wouldn't be any single-person ships.

And the point of that is to insure that when your character travels between planets, it's aboard a ship filled with lots of NPCs. Each ship would have its own distinctive character -- every ship would have a history, a feel, based on the technology of that ship and on the exploits of past captains and crew and passengers. And this character of ships would determine the kinds of quests available on each ship for your protagonist to solve.
I agree that these points are very Bethesda-like, and it would be playing to their strengths if they could develop the game.

Regarding the large FTL-ships - this to me is reminiscent of a book that English science fiction author Bob Shaw wrote, "How to Write Science Fiction". Great title. In it, among many other things (including the difference between true science fiction and mere sci-fi ('skiffy'), as I've annoyed some IRC members with) he points out that spaceships all need something, lorewise, that prevents them from using their warp/ftl/hyperspace drives near planets or other objects of interest. The reason for this is that if they 'could' use warp/ftl/whatever in these zones, they'd never be in danger because they'd only need to jump away and everything would be fine. Obviously there's more to story than mere danger, but it would certainly close down your options if your heroes had escape routes all the time.

The point is, one needs lore-imposed limitations to allow story to happen. In the case of Bethesda, they would need lore-imposed limitations to allow them to play to their strengths, which you enumerated, and the big-FTL-engine idea accomplishes this very elegantly. More broadly, big ships with people on them allow story (or perhaps more properly immersion? in the case of video games? discuss) to happen. This is what was so attractive about Star Trek, especially DS9.

An alternative but probably equivalent FTL idea could be one that Star Ruler 2 (and others, probably) employs as a mechanic: FTL drives are soooo big that they need a dedicated ship to use them - other ships would have to congregate in the vicinity of this transfer ship. This would restrict travel to a ferry-like mass transport system (possible benefit? how?), but it could also open up interactions across multiple ships. But single-person ships would be viable again, and we may not gain that much after all.

What about planetary interactions? Similar to Mass Effect's hub-like system on the Citadel and other major locations? That would facilitate more Bethesda goodness, but maybe they could do something a bit more inventive?

(I'm going to be honest, I haven't read a word of this thread since Flat's last post. Judge me... while you still can )
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Re: If Bethesda Made a Game Set in Space...

#37
Scytale wrote:An alternative but probably equivalent FTL idea could be one that Star Ruler 2 (and others, probably) employs as a mechanic: FTL drives are soooo big that they need a dedicated ship to use them - other ships would have to congregate in the vicinity of this transfer ship. This would restrict travel to a ferry-like mass transport system (possible benefit? how?), but it could also open up interactions across multiple ships. But single-person ships would be viable again, and we may not gain that much after all.
I've seen at least one other game or film or something use this mechanic (it was ages ago and I can't remember what it was) and thought it was a great design. I don't think it was limited to a dedicated ship, but essentially it was explained as requiring a fairly decent particle accelerator (which bumps up the size requirement fairly significantly) and creates a sphere around it, with which everything within the sphere is warped to another location.

Given that ships tend to be long and flat, it means there's lots of space surrounding it in which other ships can fit - whether you want them to travel with you or not.
Games I like, in order of how much I like them. (Now permanent and updated regularly!)
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Re: If Bethesda Made a Science Fiction Game...

#38
DigitalDuck wrote:You say
Victor Tombs wrote: :eh: Skyrim WAS finished. I played the whole of the vanilla game without getting the impression that it was unfinished. It had bugs and glitches but none of those proved to be game breaking for me. :angel:
but yet you say
Victor Tombs wrote:I would have put my armour back on the shelf and headed for the nearest exit long ago if I had to depend on Bethesda for added content and bug fixes in Skyrim.
While you could argue it was "finished", it clearly wasn't anywhere near the game others have made it. What is keeping you playing the game is not the work of Bethesda, but the work of modders. You're not enjoying Skyrim, you're enjoying content produced for it.

Bethesda are not the ones providing your entertainment, and yet they continue to receive the money and recognition for it. And as modding scene increases, they are required to do less and less work while more and more people pay them to do so.:
Well, before I started enjoying the content from modders I'd already played hundreds of hours of vanilla Skyrim. Completing most of the quests and DLC content. I'd say that was value for money from Bethesda. And to all intents and purposes I could have walked away from the game at that point. Then someone here introduced me to some rather exciting mods which not only expanded the landmass of the game but enhanced the actual mechanics. With well over four hundred mods in place now my Skyrim is impossible for me to ignore, or walk away from. :D


As far as recompensing modders is concerned, I do, DigitalDuck. Some of them want merely the endorsement for their mod on Nexus and I give it. Others ask for a donation and if I think it's worthy, I donate. :angel:

Without the original game made by Bethesda there would be nothing for the modders to mod so to say that Bethesda are not providing the entertaninment is over egging the pudding somewhat. :angel:
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Re: If Bethesda Made a Science Fiction Game...

#39
I like that the comments about the features of a Bethesda space game have focused on the one thing I also kept thinking about as I went to bed last night. :D

It would add somewhat to the complexity of the game, and there'd presumably need to be some constraints on it, but I'm mulling over the idea of the player character being able to use a small non-FTL spacecraft while inside a star system.

Getting between star systems would require a big FTL-equipped ship to enable opportunities for interactions with characters. (And of course I assume that after the first visit to a new star system, you'd be able to select a transport ship and do a fast travel back to that location. That's also a standard feature of BethSoft games.)

Once you're in a system, though, it might be OK to let the player use a small spaceship to tool around the place. When you're ready to visit a new star system, you would (as suggested in some comments above) dock your personal ship in the big carrier.

In fact, I see several advantages to this approach:
  • gives the player more freedom to move around in local areas
  • provides a way to let selected companion characters continue to interact with the player character
  • the computer in one's personal ship becomes a companion character
  • upgrading one's personal ship over the course of the game becomes a key roleplaying element
There are still lots of questions to be answered:

Does the entire surface of every visitable planet need to be generated, complete in some cases with people and buildings and objects and cultures? Or would it be OK to make locations more LT-like, where you can only land in one of a very small number of pre-constructed locations in any pre-constructed star system?

Would a game like this benefit from some procedural generation? That's not something Bethesda have used in one of their franchise games before -- would it be necessary or appropriate for a space game by them? If so, how should it be used?

When free traveling in-system in a personal ship, how could that be kept non-boring?

Other constructive thoughts on this subject of what a space game by Bethesda Softworks might look like?
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Re: If Bethesda Made a Science Fiction Game...

#41
Well... I was thinking about the travelling problem in a game with big scope and came to one answer: No Man's Sky. They have already the game and the foundations. We "only" need the rpg part :D

But we're Talking about a Bethesda game. Yes, we're in 2015 and if they start now we'd be talking 2017-2019. Bigger maps won't be a problem. I presume TES6 will have a lot of space to play around, if not all of Tamriel. So big landmasses of some planets and/or moons plus some big ships shouldn't be that difficult to achieve. Since we're talking about Bethesda, we'll have open world with a story and lots of quests. We can't go that crazy and use a think like No Man's Sky. How could we implement a story in a complete galaxy? If we want to play the game in our lives, anyway (I'm looking at you RSI! :twisted: ). So a smaller scale (maybe one to three solar systems, with some planets+moons+ships and all the elements Flat already talked about). On the other hand, they must create the lore and give the new universe a life. Something new. That will be a lot of work, specially if they don't want to make the n-th version of something already in existence...
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Re: If Bethesda Made a Science Fiction Game...

#42
I'd say to keep the focus as far as possible away from moving around in space.

I'd limit it to an "overworld" map where the player can select objects/areas of interest to fly to with his ship and in that locations more or less "classic" bethesda first person adventure.
Maybe a bit of fooling around in a space suit around ships and stations, but flying a spaceship directly wouldnt do much for the core gameplay of a bethsoft game.

Maybe even give the player a bit larger ship as mobile home base. something akin to the normandy or ebon hawk, maybe larger depending on the players rank in the different "guilds" to re-use TES terminology.
(With the very basic ship being in the size class of the ebon hawk with hangar space for the shuttle, over the SR1 and SR2 normandies, maybe up to something cruiser sized where the ebon hawk could barely land in)
If theres some small one-person flyer thingie, it should not be the players interplanetary craft, makes cutting out the boring interplanetar flight and suspension of disbelief easier, as its the big ship with the fast engines, not the small shuttle the player can directly control.

PCG locations would be ideal in terms of terrain to explore, and a great boon for planetary environments, as one doesnt have to bear with arbitary borders.
I'd also enjoy PCG in city environments, as i despise closed off buildings in games.
If there is a door i want to be able to open and traverse it


The small landing craft could work like the VTOL craft in FO4, you dont fly it, you order it to fly to locations.
It could also replace planetary fast travel with some suborbital hop "cutscene", removing that immersive break from the game.
Similar cutscenes could also be used for different long distance travel options when no full planet pcg is used.

The cutscenes would also serve as a general disguise for the inevitable loading screens, with the appearance generally as seamless as possible but removing the necessity for real seamless transorbital movement

There should also be diverse no-fly zones like military bases or pirate outposts, which the player can free using varying gameplay mechanics (getting permits by joining factions, deactivating AA guns etc).

Overall i'd probably keep the player from using vehicles directly, at least flying vehicles, and have them being ordered instead.


If there is something bigger (player controlled/influenced), warfare, trading etc, i'd also keep it more abstract to keep it more in line with the common bethesda game experience.


The rest of the gameplay would be in essence the normal FO/TES gameplay adapted for the world, fighting, sneaking, stealing etc.
with SPAAACE gimmicks added on, as non pressurised and zero gee environments.


against the general power creep could a continous "teching up" process work, with better equipment being introduced all the time, and the old stuff being phased out, the total power spread staying constant.
Providing an infinite cycle of upgrading without the player getting too overpowered towards "late game".
The rate of progress maybe being sped up or slowed down to accomodate for the player, maybe tied to the difficulty settings.

:think:
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Re: If Bethesda Made a Science Fiction Game...

#43
One thing I'd like to see in an upcoming Bethesda game would be more realistic sizes for cities and population. It's not only Bethesda's fault, since all developers do the same, more or less. That feeling that you wander around a relatively big place with some settlements and towns and, all in all, a couple dozens of NPCs across the lands. There are settlements with 3 houses and 5 people and they're called "towns". The capitals are fancy versions of the settlements, with more buildings and little more people. I don't feel like being in a populated area. I hope they can achieve that feeling one day.
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Re: If Bethesda Made a Science Fiction Game...

#44
Bethesda is great at constructing settings. But can it construct a science fiction idea and setting which makes the story the player tells by playing it dependent on that idea or setting? Really good science fiction does this: it makes the 'science-fiction'ness of the story inextricable from the story. While Star Trek DS9 was good, its setting (I would argue) was not essential to the kinds of stories it told. You could set DS9 in a border outpost under a Western setting and you could get, in principle, similar stories. Really quality science fiction is about people. Here is the best example of what I (or Bob Shaw, more accurately) thinks about this. A punchy short story that uses its idea - a glass that slows light so much that it would take years for the light to pass through a window - to tell an intensely human story.

Niven's Mote in God's Eye is such a human story because it's so much about the otherness of how an alien culture could develop. Dune is a complex examination of, among many other things, the afflictions that a hero brings to a people. These stories could not resemble themselves in any meaningful way if they were presented in a non-science fiction setting. Arrakis and the Spice are mere tools, they do not constitute the story.

Let's not fall into the trap of supposing that science-fiction -> good. Do we want Skyrim in space? Is it possible to frame an idea, or the setting, in such a way that we can have our characters tell their story in a way no other game could?
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Re: If Bethesda Made a Science Fiction Game...

#45
Lum wrote:One thing I'd like to see in an upcoming Bethesda game would be more realistic sizes for cities and population. It's not only Bethesda's fault, since all developers do the same, more or less. That feeling that you wander around a relatively big place with some settlements and towns and, all in all, a couple dozens of NPCs across the lands. There are settlements with 3 houses and 5 people and they're called "towns". The capitals are fancy versions of the settlements, with more buildings and little more people. I don't feel like being in a populated area. I hope they can achieve that feeling one day.
This is done because walking long distances between places is boring as hell.
Do you want to walk 20km just to get to the next town over? When it probably won't sell anything good?

Developers realized that space needs to be compressed to allow for action to be more prevalent.
You can see this between Daggerfall and Morrowind.
Daggerfall was 1:1 scale.
Morrowind was about 1:1000 scale.

But morrowind still feels open and large, unlike daggerfall which feels massive and barren.
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