I came across a response video recently uploaded about some of the claims made by PatricianTV and others about Starfield, Bethesda and Emil Pagliarulo: Lies, Hate, and the Story of Emil...
Exemplary
I came across a response video recently uploaded about some of the claims made by PatricianTV and others about Starfield, Bethesda and Emil Pagliarulo:
It appears that the central criticisms often repeated about Bethesda's lead writer by increasingly vitriolic gamers may have simply been copied from a single Reddit comment which took quotes from his Danish conference video out of context, contributing to snowballing mischaracterisations and outright falsehoods about him.
I have to say that I quite enjoyed PatricianTV's videos about the design of Morrowind and Oblivion, but he does not look good here. It's an uncomfortable feeling to know that I left a long video on autopilot and uncritically absorbed what a YouTuber was saying about a company's game design principles and approach because he simply spoke with such confidence.
Wow. Thanks for sharing this. I’m really disappointed, and now feel the need to do some personal research into the topic. While I agreed with the overall criticisms of the gameplay feeling very...
Exemplary
Wow. Thanks for sharing this. I’m really disappointed, and now feel the need to do some personal research into the topic. While I agreed with the overall criticisms of the gameplay feeling very disjointed, I did not realize how out of context the claims were in regards to the writers were.
While I never thought the main “storylines” were strong in Bethesda games (specifically those made by Todd Howard’s team), I always thought that they did a good job at introducing players to mechanics and the general game loop.
I am not one to ever throw insults at specific people, be it for movies, television, games, or similar due to their nature or being made by massive groups of people that all have input in the end product. I apologize for my own personal neglect in being fairly unaware of what has been happening in regards to the negative reaction that has been caused by takes like this one and various others. I’ll need to be more careful and pay more attention to such things in the future, as any criticisms I personally have over such subjects usually come from a place of enjoyment of the thing in question.
Don't feel too bad, it was pretty shocking to me as well. You place a certain amount of trust in people, and then it turns out they've been either deliberately lying or lazily repeating other...
Don't feel too bad, it was pretty shocking to me as well. You place a certain amount of trust in people, and then it turns out they've been either deliberately lying or lazily repeating other people's lies for years, because there's money in it. When it was on in the background, the worst aspects of the videos just sort of washed over me. But when someone else pointed them out, as well as the behaviour of the uploaders in question, it made me see them in a whole new light.
I guess we'll see whether they do decide to apologize, or just chuck some more "cucks" out.
I'm still making time between work and studies to finish the original design speech that started the almost decade-long rage again Pagliarulo, so I haven't yet been able to view the response video...
I'm still making time between work and studies to finish the original design speech that started the almost decade-long rage again Pagliarulo, so I haven't yet been able to view the response video which was recently uploaded by PatricianTV, located here: retirement.mp4
One painful lesson I've learnt from this mess so far, though, is that it really is too easy a habit to simply view a video title and thumbnail that you agree with (usually from an uploader you like), then scroll down to view the comments underneath it, and develop your opinion on what really happened from that. Because who on Earth has the time to watch several hours of video for themselves beforehand, right? This, combined with the habit of angry viewers and fans to visit the comments page of a video or creator that they dislike/disagree with, then post comments angrily demonstrating they didn't watch it either, is leading to such a bad game of telephone. I think this is the first case I've seen as someone who watched videos by both creators, rather than viewing with relative disinterest from a distance, but it makes me wonder how often this must happen across YT and social media.
I think what's actually likely to happen to you if you view the comments section underneath the videos, or the original talk from Pagliarulo, is more likely to be the opposite of learning anything, with added risks of headaches and depression.
UPDATE:
I watched the talk. All I can say is that, regardless of one's personal feelings re. the relative quality of Bethesda's writing, I do not understand what it contains to be upset about. It's easy to understand, makes sense, has good writing advice and even told me something interesting about cut Fallout 4 content. For someone who started off saying that he wasn't really a comfortable public speaker, Emil did a good job.
It really looks like the years of fury against this speech were indeed the direct result of his words being consistently taken out of context and commenters learning about it through the writings and videos of the people who did that taking. When I actually hear the words that I remembered being repeated as soundbites so many times before, only this time direct from the source and without the surrounding context stripped from them, I felt deeply disappointed in myself. The whole talk was only 45 minutes long. What is that, compared to the average YouTuber "analysis" or "essay" self-assuredly ripping someone's professional work to shreds?
And to think that two of those YouTubers have said to Emil Pagliarulo over Twitter that they're willing to grant him an interview. As though he's the one who should explain himself.
This is why I dislike when any supposed breakdown goes outside the objective. We know the plot of the game. It’s there for all to see. We don’t know the people who wrote it, we just know what...
This is why I dislike when any supposed breakdown goes outside the objective. We know the plot of the game. It’s there for all to see. We don’t know the people who wrote it, we just know what someone else said. There’s plenty of content to discuss without getting into the speculative or the third hand
Thanks for posting this, I watched it last night. These people understand they are lying and they're lying because it's the easiest way to monetize their miserable fan base. Frankly I hope...
Thanks for posting this, I watched it last night.
These people understand they are lying and they're lying because it's the easiest way to monetize their miserable fan base. Frankly I hope Pagliarulo considers legal action because I think he would win a libel case although the vitriol that might shake loose could be unprecedented.
I also found Starfield somewhat disappointing but I just enjoyed the parts I found passable and moved on with my life. I find it bizarre there is an entire group of people who play games that are just absolutely miserable people that cannot seem to do anything else that might make them less miserable. And the Youtube community that caters to them is just the absolute worst.
This is an 8 hour video. How is this quick? This author's creative license is hereby revoked! 15 minutes in, on the point of "the game is the design document": the game can only say what, not why,...
Starfield Analysis | A Quick Retrospective
This is an 8 hour video. How is this quick? This author's creative license is hereby revoked!
15 minutes in, on the point of "the game is the design document": the game can only say what, not why, and it obviously can't include features that are broken and not currently working.
1ish (?) hour in, it got to the point which I kind of expect all retrospectives/reviews to come to: Starfield is Skyrim in space, no of course they haven't learned from the mistakes their past games make.
1hr 59mins: "fahrenheit, no I won't use Celsius, fahrenheit is literally superior in every way" 0/10 please remove this filth immediately and ban ADwS for posting it.
2hr 6mins is talking about how factions and societies are less expressions of underlying ideas and more "hey what if they were Cowboys like from Red Dead Redemptions", which, as criticisms for Skyrim go, is pretty darn cutting.
Will watch more tomorrow, maybe. That's a long video.
I personally only made it to the 1h30m mark myself at this point. I plan on finishing it over the weekend. I think he usually makes very valid points, many of which come across as harsh. I think...
I personally only made it to the 1h30m mark myself at this point. I plan on finishing it over the weekend. I think he usually makes very valid points, many of which come across as harsh. I think that in this particular case, he does not insult Bethesda games because it is “easy” or “popular” to do, but instead does it because he sees the absolute amount of raw potential that the Bethesda formula has, along with the (usually) fantastic world building.
Just watched this since I'm a big fan of Skyrim and worldbuilding, and I think what he brought up was a pretty good point! I think TES tries to make up for a lack of interconnectedness and...
Just watched this since I'm a big fan of Skyrim and worldbuilding, and I think what he brought up was a pretty good point! I think TES tries to make up for a lack of interconnectedness and internal realism with quantity of, well, everything, and somehow manages based on sheer scale to continue to be an iconic series, but Bethesda definitely fails make the world feel actually alive practically in any way.
A "quick" retrospective... that's 8 hours long. Holy crap, and I thought hbomberguy's videos were long! At least it seems fairly understandable even at 2x speed, but even that's still a huge time...
A "quick" retrospective... that's 8 hours long. Holy crap, and I thought hbomberguy's videos were long! At least it seems fairly understandable even at 2x speed, but even that's still a huge time commitment. I'm interested in the subject matter, but I'm definitely going to have to put this in my Watch Later list and slowly work my way through it. Thanks for sharing it though, and making me aware of this channel, @ADwS. Despite the length of this video, and all their other videos, the content does seem up my alley.
I’d be lying if I said I watch his videos in a single day, let alone a single session haha. I usually throw his videos on my second screen while doing something else, listening to it and only...
I’d be lying if I said I watch his videos in a single day, let alone a single session haha. I usually throw his videos on my second screen while doing something else, listening to it and only really looking at the video when something visually important comes up.
His longer videos are usually broken up into pretty organized sections that make it easy to stop and go as you see fit. I wish he just made them separate videos for ease of sharing specific points, but I think the “super long video length” shtick is to act as curiosity bait for new viewers.
I don't think anyone watches these videos on a single day with full attention. It's good that YouTube stores the timecode. I would prefer if they split that into a series. But the length itself...
I don't think anyone watches these videos on a single day with full attention. It's good that YouTube stores the timecode. I would prefer if they split that into a series. But the length itself serves a kind of marketing that communicates "this is exhaustive", and I'm sure there's some algorithmical advantage as well. Many creators do that, although 8 hours seem to be uncommon. And nothing prevents them from releasing a serialized version later on, or even reusing a lot of that material in multiple other videos. It's kind of a win-win.
I enjoyed PatricianTV's other videos on Bethesda games, and figured his new video on Starfield could be of interest to some people. I really do like his early point about how the lack of a game...
I enjoyed PatricianTV's other videos on Bethesda games, and figured his new video on Starfield could be of interest to some people.
I really do like his early point about how the lack of a game design document led to lots of very fun individual parts that don't mesh together well at all.
I don't have any insight on the development of this game, nor have I watched this video, so please correct me if I'm wrong. I have to think the game was designed with a more ambitious goal of...
I don't have any insight on the development of this game, nor have I watched this video, so please correct me if I'm wrong.
I have to think the game was designed with a more ambitious goal of linking these disparate parts and then they scaled back at some point. Starfield is seems like (I have less than 30 hours in it so far) there is a decent game in there that is held hostage by the incongruity of the game experience where you are forced to fast travel around the map rather than immerse yourself in the world.
Yeah, my biggest issue with the game is that the mission/quest experience is constantly interrupted by the constant loading and menu hopping required to do anything. It’s only gotten worse since...
Yeah, my biggest issue with the game is that the mission/quest experience is constantly interrupted by the constant loading and menu hopping required to do anything. It’s only gotten worse since Skyrim.
Take for example a basic Skyrim quest (let’s assume dark brotherhood): first, the quest is given to you (probably by Astrid). She tells you to go to the “contract holder” and talk to them. You leave the sanctuary (loading screen), and travel (or fast travel which is a menu action and loading screen) to the location. Then you talk to the contract holder (which might require another loading screen to enter the building they are in). You then are given your target, which requires more travel/loading screens. You kill the target, go to the contact, then finally return to Astrid.
Compare that to a typical quest in Starfield: you’re given the job, travel to the meeting location. If you fast travel could be as fast as Skyrim’s. If you don’t, then you’ll probably face at least 6 loading screens before you can return to the quest giver. This is because: leaving the building is a loading screen, getting on your ship is a loading screen, getting into the cockpit is an animation, leaving the planet is a loading screen/animation, traveling to the specific planet is a loading screen, traveling to the specific tile on the planet is another loading screen, entering the building is a loading screen, and then to come back you have to go through the same exact process. And this is assuming you don’t have any space fighting. Each time you want to travel requires you to jump into a menu. Space travel is very different feeling than on planet traversal as well.
My problem with Starfield that I didn’t have with Skyrim is that Skyrim felt like a single solid experience. Starfield feels like several: on foot exploration/fighting, space fighting, spaceship building, base building, and then the dreaded map traversal mode.
If they were able to make it easier to stay in the game without the constant loading/mode switching, I probably would have enjoyed it much more than I did.
My issue is that my favourite part of these games is the world. The quests are whatever, they are just an excuse to travel around and check out the world. Starfield is a version of Skyrim where...
My issue is that my favourite part of these games is the world. The quests are whatever, they are just an excuse to travel around and check out the world. Starfield is a version of Skyrim where you can only fast travel between hubs unless your checking out generated planet content. I still am enjoying the game ( I only picked it up recently) but I'm picking away it alongside other games rather than getting sucked into it.
Oh I agree. The world is 100% the reason why I explored, and continue to explore, the world of Skyrim. It’s the immersion, the random encounters, the environmental storytelling, and just...
Oh I agree. The world is 100% the reason why I explored, and continue to explore, the world of Skyrim. It’s the immersion, the random encounters, the environmental storytelling, and just fantastical feel of the world that gets me fired up.
Bethesda’s Fallout games had that as well, although they turned the fantastical feel into that of a depressing and oppressive one. Starfield by contrast just feels sterile. I’m not sure if it’s the way that traveling works, or the way that the extra systems build on each other, or what, but something about it just feels very clean and separated in a way that makes that “exploring” less rewarding and interesting.
I guess it may boil down to the procedural generation…. But I sense the issue may be deeper than that.
A lot of those loading screens are optional. You know you can fast travel directly to the landing point on the quests' destination planet from the quest log, right?
A lot of those loading screens are optional. You know you can fast travel directly to the landing point on the quests' destination planet from the quest log, right?
I’m aware of that, but the issue there is two possible things: firstly, in Skyrim I could walk to my location (or ride a horse). It felt like a journey I was going on to travel. Starfield makes...
I’m aware of that, but the issue there is two possible things: firstly, in Skyrim I could walk to my location (or ride a horse). It felt like a journey I was going on to travel. Starfield makes this impossible without the constant loading screens. Secondly, if you haven’t already traveled to the system, you will need to first travel to nearby systems. Each one is a loading screen. I think this is to facilitate the random encounter system and make it more likely to fire, but it ends up making the experience much more clumsy. I wish they just had a secret internal counter for the number of systems you had to jump between, with each one adding to the chance that you’d get “intercepted” by a random encounter or something. That way the fast travel system could be more streamlined without sacrificing those world moments
The video makes it abundantly clear that the core problem with Starfield's development was lack of communication or consistency, due to the lead not believing in design documents. And honestly,...
The video makes it abundantly clear that the core problem with Starfield's development was lack of communication or consistency, due to the lead not believing in design documents. And honestly, ambition explains screwing up the big things, it doesn't explain screwing up the small/unambitious things like the movement.
Honestly, Starfield shows that Bethesda never knew what they were doing in the first place. They make "the Bethesda game" and it kept working, so they kept doing it. They make one original game unshackled to their existing IPs, and they shit the bed. I don't think that's a coincidence - they tried to improve on the formula and failed miserably because they didn't understand it in the first place.
I find that creators who make these hours-long videos will sometimes title them something like this in a tongue-and-cheek fashion. They know potential viewers can see the length, after all.
I find that creators who make these hours-long videos will sometimes title them something like this in a tongue-and-cheek fashion. They know potential viewers can see the length, after all.
I came across a response video recently uploaded about some of the claims made by PatricianTV and others about Starfield, Bethesda and Emil Pagliarulo:
Lies, Hate, and the Story of Emil Pagliarulo.
It appears that the central criticisms often repeated about Bethesda's lead writer by increasingly vitriolic gamers may have simply been copied from a single Reddit comment which took quotes from his Danish conference video out of context, contributing to snowballing mischaracterisations and outright falsehoods about him.
I have to say that I quite enjoyed PatricianTV's videos about the design of Morrowind and Oblivion, but he does not look good here. It's an uncomfortable feeling to know that I left a long video on autopilot and uncritically absorbed what a YouTuber was saying about a company's game design principles and approach because he simply spoke with such confidence.
Wow. Thanks for sharing this. I’m really disappointed, and now feel the need to do some personal research into the topic. While I agreed with the overall criticisms of the gameplay feeling very disjointed, I did not realize how out of context the claims were in regards to the writers were.
While I never thought the main “storylines” were strong in Bethesda games (specifically those made by Todd Howard’s team), I always thought that they did a good job at introducing players to mechanics and the general game loop.
I am not one to ever throw insults at specific people, be it for movies, television, games, or similar due to their nature or being made by massive groups of people that all have input in the end product. I apologize for my own personal neglect in being fairly unaware of what has been happening in regards to the negative reaction that has been caused by takes like this one and various others. I’ll need to be more careful and pay more attention to such things in the future, as any criticisms I personally have over such subjects usually come from a place of enjoyment of the thing in question.
Don't feel too bad, it was pretty shocking to me as well. You place a certain amount of trust in people, and then it turns out they've been either deliberately lying or lazily repeating other people's lies for years, because there's money in it. When it was on in the background, the worst aspects of the videos just sort of washed over me. But when someone else pointed them out, as well as the behaviour of the uploaders in question, it made me see them in a whole new light.
I guess we'll see whether they do decide to apologize, or just chuck some more "cucks" out.
I'm still making time between work and studies to finish the original design speech that started the almost decade-long rage again Pagliarulo, so I haven't yet been able to view the response video which was recently uploaded by PatricianTV, located here: retirement.mp4
One painful lesson I've learnt from this mess so far, though, is that it really is too easy a habit to simply view a video title and thumbnail that you agree with (usually from an uploader you like), then scroll down to view the comments underneath it, and develop your opinion on what really happened from that. Because who on Earth has the time to watch several hours of video for themselves beforehand, right? This, combined with the habit of angry viewers and fans to visit the comments page of a video or creator that they dislike/disagree with, then post comments angrily demonstrating they didn't watch it either, is leading to such a bad game of telephone. I think this is the first case I've seen as someone who watched videos by both creators, rather than viewing with relative disinterest from a distance, but it makes me wonder how often this must happen across YT and social media.
I think what's actually likely to happen to you if you view the comments section underneath the videos, or the original talk from Pagliarulo, is more likely to be the opposite of learning anything, with added risks of headaches and depression.
UPDATE:
I watched the talk. All I can say is that, regardless of one's personal feelings re. the relative quality of Bethesda's writing, I do not understand what it contains to be upset about. It's easy to understand, makes sense, has good writing advice and even told me something interesting about cut Fallout 4 content. For someone who started off saying that he wasn't really a comfortable public speaker, Emil did a good job.
It really looks like the years of fury against this speech were indeed the direct result of his words being consistently taken out of context and commenters learning about it through the writings and videos of the people who did that taking. When I actually hear the words that I remembered being repeated as soundbites so many times before, only this time direct from the source and without the surrounding context stripped from them, I felt deeply disappointed in myself. The whole talk was only 45 minutes long. What is that, compared to the average YouTuber "analysis" or "essay" self-assuredly ripping someone's professional work to shreds?
And to think that two of those YouTubers have said to Emil Pagliarulo over Twitter that they're willing to grant him an interview. As though he's the one who should explain himself.
This is why I dislike when any supposed breakdown goes outside the objective. We know the plot of the game. It’s there for all to see. We don’t know the people who wrote it, we just know what someone else said. There’s plenty of content to discuss without getting into the speculative or the third hand
Thanks for posting this, I watched it last night.
These people understand they are lying and they're lying because it's the easiest way to monetize their miserable fan base. Frankly I hope Pagliarulo considers legal action because I think he would win a libel case although the vitriol that might shake loose could be unprecedented.
I also found Starfield somewhat disappointing but I just enjoyed the parts I found passable and moved on with my life. I find it bizarre there is an entire group of people who play games that are just absolutely miserable people that cannot seem to do anything else that might make them less miserable. And the Youtube community that caters to them is just the absolute worst.
This is an 8 hour video. How is this quick? This author's creative license is hereby revoked!
15 minutes in, on the point of "the game is the design document": the game can only say what, not why, and it obviously can't include features that are broken and not currently working.
1ish (?) hour in, it got to the point which I kind of expect all retrospectives/reviews to come to: Starfield is Skyrim in space, no of course they haven't learned from the mistakes their past games make.
1hr 59mins: "fahrenheit, no I won't use Celsius, fahrenheit is literally superior in every way" 0/10 please remove this filth immediately and ban ADwS for posting it.
2hr 6mins is talking about how factions and societies are less expressions of underlying ideas and more "hey what if they were Cowboys like from Red Dead Redemptions", which, as criticisms for Skyrim go, is pretty darn cutting.
Will watch more tomorrow, maybe. That's a long video.
I personally only made it to the 1h30m mark myself at this point. I plan on finishing it over the weekend. I think he usually makes very valid points, many of which come across as harsh. I think that in this particular case, he does not insult Bethesda games because it is “easy” or “popular” to do, but instead does it because he sees the absolute amount of raw potential that the Bethesda formula has, along with the (usually) fantastic world building.
I'm going to have to disagree, see this video for why. They have worldbuilding, and a lot of it, but quantity is not quality.
Just watched this since I'm a big fan of Skyrim and worldbuilding, and I think what he brought up was a pretty good point! I think TES tries to make up for a lack of interconnectedness and internal realism with quantity of, well, everything, and somehow manages based on sheer scale to continue to be an iconic series, but Bethesda definitely fails make the world feel actually alive practically in any way.
A "quick" retrospective... that's 8 hours long. Holy crap, and I thought hbomberguy's videos were long! At least it seems fairly understandable even at 2x speed, but even that's still a huge time commitment. I'm interested in the subject matter, but I'm definitely going to have to put this in my Watch Later list and slowly work my way through it. Thanks for sharing it though, and making me aware of this channel, @ADwS. Despite the length of this video, and all their other videos, the content does seem up my alley.
I’d be lying if I said I watch his videos in a single day, let alone a single session haha. I usually throw his videos on my second screen while doing something else, listening to it and only really looking at the video when something visually important comes up.
His longer videos are usually broken up into pretty organized sections that make it easy to stop and go as you see fit. I wish he just made them separate videos for ease of sharing specific points, but I think the “super long video length” shtick is to act as curiosity bait for new viewers.
I don't think anyone watches these videos on a single day with full attention. It's good that YouTube stores the timecode. I would prefer if they split that into a series. But the length itself serves a kind of marketing that communicates "this is exhaustive", and I'm sure there's some algorithmical advantage as well. Many creators do that, although 8 hours seem to be uncommon. And nothing prevents them from releasing a serialized version later on, or even reusing a lot of that material in multiple other videos. It's kind of a win-win.
He has a 24 hour video about Skyrim haha. Its kinda his schtick, as is being a pretentious nerd. I do agree with a lot of what he say though.
I enjoyed PatricianTV's other videos on Bethesda games, and figured his new video on Starfield could be of interest to some people.
I really do like his early point about how the lack of a game design document led to lots of very fun individual parts that don't mesh together well at all.
I don't have any insight on the development of this game, nor have I watched this video, so please correct me if I'm wrong.
I have to think the game was designed with a more ambitious goal of linking these disparate parts and then they scaled back at some point. Starfield is seems like (I have less than 30 hours in it so far) there is a decent game in there that is held hostage by the incongruity of the game experience where you are forced to fast travel around the map rather than immerse yourself in the world.
Yeah, my biggest issue with the game is that the mission/quest experience is constantly interrupted by the constant loading and menu hopping required to do anything. It’s only gotten worse since Skyrim.
Take for example a basic Skyrim quest (let’s assume dark brotherhood): first, the quest is given to you (probably by Astrid). She tells you to go to the “contract holder” and talk to them. You leave the sanctuary (loading screen), and travel (or fast travel which is a menu action and loading screen) to the location. Then you talk to the contract holder (which might require another loading screen to enter the building they are in). You then are given your target, which requires more travel/loading screens. You kill the target, go to the contact, then finally return to Astrid.
Compare that to a typical quest in Starfield: you’re given the job, travel to the meeting location. If you fast travel could be as fast as Skyrim’s. If you don’t, then you’ll probably face at least 6 loading screens before you can return to the quest giver. This is because: leaving the building is a loading screen, getting on your ship is a loading screen, getting into the cockpit is an animation, leaving the planet is a loading screen/animation, traveling to the specific planet is a loading screen, traveling to the specific tile on the planet is another loading screen, entering the building is a loading screen, and then to come back you have to go through the same exact process. And this is assuming you don’t have any space fighting. Each time you want to travel requires you to jump into a menu. Space travel is very different feeling than on planet traversal as well.
My problem with Starfield that I didn’t have with Skyrim is that Skyrim felt like a single solid experience. Starfield feels like several: on foot exploration/fighting, space fighting, spaceship building, base building, and then the dreaded map traversal mode.
If they were able to make it easier to stay in the game without the constant loading/mode switching, I probably would have enjoyed it much more than I did.
My issue is that my favourite part of these games is the world. The quests are whatever, they are just an excuse to travel around and check out the world. Starfield is a version of Skyrim where you can only fast travel between hubs unless your checking out generated planet content. I still am enjoying the game ( I only picked it up recently) but I'm picking away it alongside other games rather than getting sucked into it.
Oh I agree. The world is 100% the reason why I explored, and continue to explore, the world of Skyrim. It’s the immersion, the random encounters, the environmental storytelling, and just fantastical feel of the world that gets me fired up.
Bethesda’s Fallout games had that as well, although they turned the fantastical feel into that of a depressing and oppressive one. Starfield by contrast just feels sterile. I’m not sure if it’s the way that traveling works, or the way that the extra systems build on each other, or what, but something about it just feels very clean and separated in a way that makes that “exploring” less rewarding and interesting.
I guess it may boil down to the procedural generation…. But I sense the issue may be deeper than that.
A lot of those loading screens are optional. You know you can fast travel directly to the landing point on the quests' destination planet from the quest log, right?
I’m aware of that, but the issue there is two possible things: firstly, in Skyrim I could walk to my location (or ride a horse). It felt like a journey I was going on to travel. Starfield makes this impossible without the constant loading screens. Secondly, if you haven’t already traveled to the system, you will need to first travel to nearby systems. Each one is a loading screen. I think this is to facilitate the random encounter system and make it more likely to fire, but it ends up making the experience much more clumsy. I wish they just had a secret internal counter for the number of systems you had to jump between, with each one adding to the chance that you’d get “intercepted” by a random encounter or something. That way the fast travel system could be more streamlined without sacrificing those world moments
The video makes it abundantly clear that the core problem with Starfield's development was lack of communication or consistency, due to the lead not believing in design documents. And honestly, ambition explains screwing up the big things, it doesn't explain screwing up the small/unambitious things like the movement.
Honestly, Starfield shows that Bethesda never knew what they were doing in the first place. They make "the Bethesda game" and it kept working, so they kept doing it. They make one original game unshackled to their existing IPs, and they shit the bed. I don't think that's a coincidence - they tried to improve on the formula and failed miserably because they didn't understand it in the first place.
"A quick retrospective", which is eight hours long.
I find that creators who make these hours-long videos will sometimes title them something like this in a tongue-and-cheek fashion. They know potential viewers can see the length, after all.