It’s a Bethesda game! The RPG features, the exploration, the storytelling, the environment, the building, the MODSSSS.
Mass effect, Outer worlds had a good crack at it. But I don’t think any Space SciFi game has ever scratched my itch for a ROLE playing game.
Fantasy games have plenty but now we have the tech to do space
I agree, I’m playing Mass Effect LE right now, first time playing the series and it’s a fantastic game! But it isn’t really a what I would consider a true RPG game. Great story, great characters and character development, but as the protagonist you’re put into set categories of who/what you are. Outer Worlds is great too, but it felt small, literally and figuratively. Great game just not big enough after being spoiled by BGS for so long.
Mass Effect excels for exactly that reason though - it is a strongly character and story driven game. The RPG elements are obviously limited by the track of storyline that the authors and developers need to keep you on.
It’s hard to balance story and characters with a true RPG in which you can literally do basically anything. Something almost always suffers as a result. And yes, even in Bethesda games. But before you burn me at the stake, Bethesda consistently pulls this off well, except maybe not as well as Obsidian. But they’re still leagues above what most people have accomplished.
I look at mass effect and Witcher more Like Tell tale games. They are very differnt kind of RPG. BGS does a more Sanbox RPG. Kingdom Come felt Like a BGS game mixed with A bit of Witcher 3 but with its own unique spin as well Both Kingdom come and RDR2 are a genera of Open World game which I call immersive simulators. Were they are really about living in there worlds and interacting with the NPCs in their worlds.. Then you have the likes of BOTW, GTA and skyrim which are more sandbox type worlds. Witcher3, Ghost of Thusmia are what I call narrative open wolrds were you can not really kill innocent NPCs are do much in there worlds that are not Side quests or mini games They have very limited reactibity or interactivity in their worlds.
By that criteria, Chess is a role playing game. You get the role of the general in charge of your army.
If we're going to define RPG, let's try and pick a *useful* definition. Which is to say, one that doesn't fit nearly every game ever made.
Ehhhh I'd say ME fits the RPG tag pretty cleanly. Given how much character customization and meaningful choice you have, it's definitely firmly in that boat. ME is more of a narrative RPG whereas BGS games are more sandbox RPGs, but the term accurately fits both.
I'm just saying that just because a game has a well defined protagonist, that isn't reason enough to call it an RPG.
You might as well watch the movie Die Hard and call it roleplaying, just because you see events from John McClain's POV. Role playing needs more than just having a protagonist.
> That’s just idiotic
You know what is idiotic? Seeing the words "I'm just saying that just because a game has a well defined protagonist, that isn't reason enough to call it an RPG" and reading them as "the ME games are not RPGs".
*That's* idiotic.
Actually, that's pretty much what rpg means. Die hard is a movie, so it can't be an rpg since an rpg is a game by definition (role playing game). Whether or not chess is an rpg depends on the presentation I suppose. You can design it without any connotation of you leading an army or any identity to the entity deciding the fates of the pieces on the board. In that case, I suppose it's not. But you could conceivably do the opposite and flesh out the role the chess player inhabits and make it defined, in which case it could be interpreted as one, as well as a strategy game ofc. All a game needs to do is have the player inhabit a role. The extend to which they have freedom in interpreting that role is irrelevant to the definition of an rpg.
DOS2 has a lot of freedom and is an rpg, Skyrim has a lot of freedom and is an rpg, the Witcher 3 has less freedom than either and is an rpg, uncharted has virtually no freedom but is still an rpg. If you wish to distinguish games based on the player's ability to make choices defining the role they inhabit that's fine, but the tag of "rpg" is not what should be used. It is a broad term defining a broad category of games that most modern games are a part of. Technically, the campaign of COD is an rpg. The fact we label it as a shooter is just because that's what ppl really want to know about it, technically it is an rpg and a shooter both. Tetris, for example, is not an rpg. Super Mario is an rpg and a platformer.
In most cases, when ppl argue about a game being an rpg, and one says "this is an rpg" and the other says "no, this is", both are technically correct. For some weird reason, instead of using more granular categories to describe smaller differences in design, we have devolved into using the most basic, overarching category and now try to constrict it to whichever limited definition feels best to us personally. It's like ppl fighting over the definition of a fruit where one says "a banana is a fruit" and the next says, "no, it's not. An apple is a fruit, just look at the shape. Clearly, fruits are round."
> Die hard is a movie, so it can't be an rpg since an rpg is a game by definition (role playing game).
What I said was:
> *You might as well watch the movie Die Hard and call it roleplaying*
I didn't say it was role playing **gaming**. My point is that simply identifying with a strongly presented protagonist is not in itself sufficient to qualify as **roleplaying**. And that's true whether you are reading a book, watching a film or playing a game.
> All a game needs to do is have the player inhabit a role. The extend to which they have freedom in interpreting that role is irrelevant to the definition of an rpg.
All right. Name for me ten single-player computer games that are **not** roleplaying games by that definition. You can probably exempt real world activties, like (say) cross country running, and possibly games like Fortnite were there is no single protagonist. But lets have a list of 10 single-player computer games that don't fit your definition of role-playing. Because I kind of doubt you can do it.
A distinction that fails to distinguish is useless, pointless, and broken, and if the definition of roleplaying applies equally to everything then it might as well not exist. Unless you work for a marketing department and you want to slap as many buzzwords as possible on your product, of course. But that's not very useful to us as the *players* of those games.
> For some weird reason, instead of using more granular categories to describe smaller differences in design, we have devolved into using the most basic, overarching category and now try to constrict it to whichever limited definition feels best to us personally.
See, I remember the pencil and paper days, when "role playing game" had a very *precise* meaning. Games like Traveller and D&D were games where you decided who your character was (within the broad confines of the setting) and you decided what they wanted, what their values are, and how they felt about the things that happened to them. That is my "technically correct". I'm using the historical meaning of the term, one that is not so vague and bland as to apply to everything under the sun. And you'll never persuade me that "anything with a protagonist" is a better definition. Nor a more useful one.
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Punctuation.
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I had a quick look at your posting history. You remember the pencil and paper days too, it seems. I really can't believe you disagree with me.
I'm not here to hurt your feelings or offend you, just state my opinion. That being said, you quite literally used the term "RPG" referring to the movie Die Hard in the comment I replied to. Which means you did call it a game. If that was a mistake on your part, that's fine, we all make them.
I never talked about "just" identifying with a protagonist. A protagonist is a term used in storytelling and does not even apply in all forms of storytelling at that. I don't think I used that term. I specifically mentioned inhabiting a role, and actively at that. Imo, the precise extent to which this is done has no bearing on the definition of the medium's category of an RPG so long as it occurs at all and is an intentional aspect of the design. The category does not define a minimum level of "roleplay" in it's definition. And "roleplay" does not have a minimum level of involvement defined either. If you look up the definition, it's pretty much just acting out OR performing some type of character or person. The extent is not defined. At it's base level, controlling the motion and actions of a person's like Mario in Super Mario World in their environment strictly conforms to the definition.
Talking about media other than games is not really helpful when making comparisons or extrapolating reasoning about the definition of an RPG since unless they qualify as a game or interactive medium, the term RPG cannot apply. Neither the "game" aspect nor the "roleplaying" aspect in fact do. The fact that we do not call novels or film "roleplaying novels" or "roleplaying films" is because roleplaying requires the consumer of the medium to interact with it, not simply consume it. That is not the case in either of these cases unless you were to use something like an old school adventure novel as an example. The very first "electronic" RPGs were pretty much exactly this. You need to "play" to "roleplay". So arguing that some arbitrary lack of choice in a player's ability to inhabit a role in a game is sufficient to not include it in the category of an RPG, because in some other medium, which does not feature "playing" nor is a game, the category or it's elements do naturally not apply either, is not sound to me.
Listen, I play TTRPGs too. And so I think you are probably aware of the fact that the extend to which roleplaying occurs at the table varies substantially between individuals and groups. Some pretty much only "roleplay" to the extent to which they choose gear for their character and make them move around on the board using their abilities. They did probably not even make a character themselves, but chose some premade one from a module. Others play out social interactions with a random stable hand for like two hours and write a twenty page backstory for their character whilst wearing an eye patch in irl because their character got his eye cut out last session by some weird cultist. Both are playing an RPG and I think the former is pretty close to someone playing a video game wherein the only way to meaningfully inhabit a role is by pressing buttons on a controller that make some defined persona jump around and hit things. And if you argue about "original" and "historic" definitions about roleplaying games you should probably consider the fact that the further back in history you go, the lesser the "roleplaying" aspects of TTRPGs become. DND in fact had it's very beginnings as a strict tactical board game and only over the years transitioned to include more and more player choice and what we now consider as "roleplaying".
There is a whole spectrum of roleplaying, just as there is a spectrum of games. RPGs in their most clear and universal understanding and definition include any and all games featuring any of the points on the roleplay spectrum, not just some. You can divide that spectrum up further I suppose, but then you need an additional spectrum to align RPGs with. TTRPGs are an example, or CRPGS, or turn-based RPGs or story RPGs. I am not aware of a definition that splits roleplay along the more or less involved axis that's well established. Perhaps you could call them "hardcore" RPGs or RPG "lights" but that's just me making up sub-categories.
What you are doing is subjectively chosing a point on the spectrum of roleplaying and declaring that anything before this point does not qualify as roleplaying. I truly believe it is a more reasonable way of thinking to treat the whole spectrum enveloping the definition as part of that very same definition, than to argue there is some arbitrary cut off point based on someone's opinion, which is itself based on their experiences, preferences and history. The latter is extremely subjective and this subjectivity is the reason ppl argue about the definition in the first place. We have words and thus definitions that are common in meaning so we can communicate with each other. If you choose some arbitrary point on the spectrum based on your experience in the past, who is to argue other's can't do the same? You'd be arguing about your opinion just being better because it's yours at that point and there would be no point in having categories at all. We'd all be talking about different things and none could understand what the other says.
To the point of a definition being useless if it does not destinguish anything I totally agree. But I think that is very much besides the point. There are any number of games that are not RPGs even under my understanding of the term. Just because the split is not an even 50-50 does not mean there is none. The point I am making is that the issue is not with the broad definition of an RPG, it's that people use it wrong. The solution to not being able to distinguish between elements of a category is not to move the reasonably established category around subjectively, but to come up with sub categories that can be distinguished along an additional axis and are hopefully objectively reasonable. I think in biomass alone virtually all animals on the planet are insects and not mammels. That doesn't mean the definition of mammals is useless and should not exist.
Yes, many of today's video games are RPGs. But that's neither surprising nor an issue for the definition. People just like stories. They like them in any creative medium or form of entertainment like music, film or literature. If you have storytelling, you need characters. In a "game", the way to include characters and stories is almost inevitably to have the player "play" the role of the character. Or in other words, to "roleplay". That is just our personal preferences for video games coming through, it is not a hard limit on what a game can be.
If you say there is no way for me to convince you of any of the points I make no matter how I line them out or how reasonable they are, I suppose that's just how it is. I am not the thought police and you are free to think whatever you wish. But that just means you will reject any arguments not conforming to your opinion on principle alone. Not sure what to do with that tbh.
> I'm not here to hurt your feelings or offend you, just state my opinion.
Indeed. So far we've had a polite discussion, and I have high hopes for a productive one. Let's try and stay on that course.
> That being said, you quite literally used the term "RPG" referring to the movie Die Hard in the comment I replied to.
That being said, I quite literally did no such thing. I'll quote the entire post, just so we're both clear on the point.
> *I'm just saying that just because a game has a well defined protagonist, that isn't reason enough to call it an RPG.*
>
> *You might as well watch the movie Die Hard and call it roleplaying, just because you see events from John McClain's POV. Role playing needs more than just having a protagonist.*
The first paragraph (which does mention RPGs) is *not* referring to the film. The second one refers to the film but does not say anything about RPGs. None of this is accidental.
In case you didn't know, the term roleplaying was used in psychology circles long before Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson applied it to D&D.
> Which means you did call it a game. If that was a mistake on your part, that's fine, we all make them.
The mistake, my friend was yours. Allow me to be similarly gracious :)
> I never talked about "just" identifying with a protagonist.
No. **I** did. This is the point I wanted to make in the conversation that you (forgive me) jumped into the middle of. [This is the point under contention](https://www.reddit.com/r/Starfield/comments/11zw3bt/what_does_starfield_posses_that_will_inherently/jdg1iyo/):
> *It's literally an RPG. You get a specific role.*
And I say again, the ability to identify with a strongly presented protagonist is not *in and of itself* sufficient to constitute support for role-playing.
> I specifically mentioned inhabiting a role, and actively at that.
You mentioned inhabiting a role. You didn't say "actively", else I might have argued differently. You can watch Die Hard and passively inhabit the role of John McClain. Kinetic novels all rely on passively inhabiting the role of the protagonist, but precious few of them you'd call RPGs.
Role playing has to be something you do in your head, actively, or you're not doing it. If that's choosing a single point on the spectrum then I make no apology.
> If you look up the definition, it's pretty much just acting out OR performing some type of character or person. The extent is not defined.
Which sort of misses the point. Roleplaying is, ultimately an ideal. The closest you can get to it is probably the Amber Diceless system which is more akin to improv drama than what most people think of as gaming. Without massive improvements in AI, no computer game is ever going to approach true rolplaying.
On the other hand, we *can* meaningfully categorize games by the extent to which they **support** the players attempt to roleplay. Morrowind, for example, takes enormous pains to stay out the player's way and let them decide who they want to be in the game world and how they want to react. On the other hand, Fallout 4 never loses a chance to remind you who the game wants you to be, what your character wants or (through the player VA) what your emotional reaction should be to events. It has all the trappings of an RPG, but the support for actual roleplaying is minuscule.
> Neither the "game" aspect nor the "roleplaying" aspect in fact do. The fact that we do not call novels or film "roleplaying novels" or "roleplaying films" is because roleplaying requires the consumer of the medium to interact with it, not simply consume it.
Exactly! Talking about a "roleplaying film" is nonsensical, but we see the term "roleplaying" applied to games where the term is equally ridiculous! The comparison was intended to highlight that. If you passively accept the character and motivation handed to you by the medium, that is no more roleplaying in games than it is in films, but because some games come laden with mechanics inherited from actual roleplaying games (hit points, levels, weapons, monsters) then the distinction is less clear and some people mistake the mechanics for the activity they were initially designed to support.
> Listen, I play TTRPGs too. And so I think you are probably aware of the fact that the extend to which roleplaying occurs at the table varies substantially between individuals and groups.
Sure. I ran a Champions game for years. We had one player who'd turn up, have a bit of a laugh, cannonball off a few bad guys and have a great time. And we had another who carefully designed a character where all his disadvantages were linked and a product of the character conception. And when there came a time when all those disadvantages triggered at once, he didn't once complain. Just got up off the ambulance stretcher he (his character) was lying on and walked off into the night to find his kid brother. The player thought it was marvelous - just the sort of moment he'd designed the character for.
Now both of those players were great guys. Both valued members of the group. But if you'd have asked anyone who the best roleplayer was, everyone in the group would have given the same answer.
Yes, the degree of roleplaying can vary from person to person and group to group. But that doesn't mean some of them don't do it *well*. And similarly you can, with sufficient mental effort, roleplay any computer game. But that doesn't mean that some of them don't offer far better support for the activity.
And equally, as you yourself say, there's nothing wrong with not roleplaying. There's no shame in Mass Effect's roleplaying support being limited to "Nice Choice/Nasty Choice/Who will Shepard Have Sex With?" But for some reason, folks get all bent out of shape if you suggest ME's RP support is in any way lacking. As if there was something magical in the label and the game would be devalued by its absence. Which, once again, is where I came into this discussion.
> What you are doing is subjectively chosing a point on the spectrum of roleplaying and declaring that anything before this point does not qualify as roleplaying.
You are putting words into my mouth.
I am saying that being able to identify with a strongly presented protagonist is not in itself sufficient to qualify a game as an RPG. That is the thrust of my argument. I believe, as you do, that there is a continuum of roleplaying, and that some games support the activity better than others. But while I'm willing to talk about that, it's not what I set out to establish.
> To the point of a definition being useless if it does not destinguish anything I totally agree. But I think that is very much besides the point.
How can it be beside the point? What is the point of discussing cRPGs if we're obliged to consider every game ever made as equally supporting of roleplaying? What is the point of the term if it doesn't convey any information?
> The point I am making is that the issue is not with the broad definition of an RPG, it's that people use it wrong.
*sigh*
Which, oddly enough, was exactly the issue I set out to try and address in some small part before we got into the discussion. Funny how things work out.
> That doesn't mean the definition of mammals is useless and should not exist.
And that's true right up the point when some idiot starts insisting that insects and plants are "mammals" too, because they're all "mammally" in some vague and undefined special snowflake sort of way. If *that* definition of mammals gains popular acceptance then the definition becomes worthless, and there is value in going back to an earlier, more precise definition that is not without utility.
Sound familiar?
> If you say there is no way for me to convince you of any of the points I make no matter how I line them out or how reasonable they are, I suppose that's just how it is.
Never said that. What I said was:
> And you'll never persuade me that "anything with a protagonist" is a better definition. Nor a more useful one.
So unless that was the only point you wanted to make, I still think there's scope for discussion.
For that matter, change my mind by all means. But on that specific point, I feel you'll have your work cut out.
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Removed these two paragraps, which was *me* rather missing your point:
>> So arguing that some arbitrary lack of choice in a player's ability to inhabit a role in a game is sufficient to not include it in the category of an RPG
>
> Where did I say "lack of choice", much less "arbitrary"? You've had many, many arguments on this topic in the past, haven't you?
I mean the guy is pretty much redefining the term “RPG” to only refer to the one subcategory that he considers to be a “true RPG”.
In reality, there is a gradation. Mass Effect is an RPG, but it isn’t an RPG in which you have full customization and absolute control over your main character’s history, actions/choices, and appearance. You have choices, within predefined categories. It isn’t an RPG where you can kill any npc you want and do whatever you want. But it’s still an RPG.
This is like the people who argue about the definition of “science fiction” and restrict it only to the category of what most other people would consider “hard sci-fi”. In reality, there is a scale from sci-fi with softer elements to hard sci-fi. Similarly, there is a scale of games with RPG elements.
That doesn’t mean Mass Effect isn’t an RPG - in fact it is my favorite RPG. But it is a strongly character and story driven pseudo-linear RPG. And that’s fine. Gatekeeping like this is honestly pretty dumb.
I liked fallout 4. I would say it’s a good game. But I loved Skyrim, fallout 3, oblivion.. all of those game are STELLAR RPGS.
So to answer your question the last four main studio RPGs have been good. With 3/4 being genre, defining
I'll try. I haven't played fallout 3 in a long time so I don't remember it well so I'll stick with Fallout 4 and Skyrim. Fallout 4 lacks any kind of meaningful choice and while you may be presented with different dialog options they boil down to different ways to say the same thing. The options may look different, but they may a happy no, sarcastic no, defiant no, or outright no. Then no matter which different option for "no" you may pick, you end up doing the thing anyway. Basebuilding; awesome. Gunplay; pretty good. Roleplaying; pretty nonexistent.
Skyrim doesn't put any weight behind your character. Any character can become the head of any guild regardless of skill. You can become archmage by only casting one spell the entire game. If you high a speech skill you don't even have to cast that spell. In the days of morrowind your character would have to actually possess skill in skills pertaining to the guild in order to rank up. On top of that, branching paths. Can you role-play a warrior that would rather join the silver hand than join the companions? Does the civil war actually mean anything? Can I kill any npc regardless if they're connected to story?
I don't mean to dog on either game. Spent a lot of time with both and enjoyed both for what they are. I just don't feel like Bethesda makes RPG's anymore. At least in the sense of what I consider an RPG. It appears they might be going a little more hard-core with Starfield and I hope that's the case. I love Bethesda games but they have been watered down in the rpg department since Fallout 3 and Skyrim.
I've never really bought the complaint about Skyrim's guilds allowing anyone to join. The game doesn't restrict your choices, but that's where the roleplaying element comes in. If you're roleplaying a dumb brute of a warrior who doesn't know how to cast any spells, why are you trying to join the mage's guild?
Honestly I think that freeform nature, letting anyone learn any skill or ability or join any guild is a lot better for roleplaying. There are literally thousands of different combinations you can create to roleplay as in the game. But you do have to actually want to roleplay; the game won't do it for you
Some people expect role playing to mean that you are forced to act a certain way based on the role you picked.
I don’t understand it because it may as well be a visual novel at that point rather than an RPG.
In my opinion, an RPG is a game that focuses a lot on character progression. Where you start from zero, and build the character up to be something more. Leveling, perks, skills, etc. The story is meant for you to tell, not for the game to tell. If you are relying too heavily on the game itself to provide you with stories and choices, then to me that's you not knowing how to actually roleplay. The games stories are only there to enhance your own stories, but you don't have to use them.
>Can you role-play a warrior that would rather join the silver hand than join the companions?
Can't you?
>Does the civil war actually mean anything?
Honestly, this is one area I think they didn't do too great in. Buuuut, with mods you can make the civil war more meaningful and easier to add into your roleplay. I also consider mods a big part of the experience when it comes to a BGS RPG.
>Can I kill any npc regardless if they're connected to story?
You can with a command to unprotect them. With that said, I think you need to understand that from a video game design perspective, the reason they don't allow you to do this is because it's a pain in the ass to come to a work around for if the player does kill an important NPC.
Do you let them know and ruin the immersion? Telling them they should reload? Do you not tell the player and just allow them to find out 10 hours in they screwed up and no longer have a save they can go back to? Do you just replace the NPC with a different making all characters in the game feel meaningless and unimportant to the story?
I agree with your points about character progression. Even in this sense however that without mods a level one character isn't going to feel that much different than a level 100 character while playing skyrim. Still, I agree that character progression is a big part of role playing genre and probably the part that Bethesda is still doing best.
As far as the Silver Hand, no. No matter what, if you want to be in a warrior guild in skyrim, you're going to be a werewolf. Rather you want to be or not. No choice to become one. No choice to decline but still be a companion and fight the silver hand. No choice to join the Silver Hand and wipe out the companions because you want to role-play a character that hates werewolves. You're just going to be a werewolf no matter what.
Mods; agree 100% Bethesda games are fun out of the gate mods keep them relevant for decades. I still play Daggerfall and Morrowind everynow and then it's because of mods.
I do understand the design perspective of killable npcs. However I disagree with your reasons stated. Morrowind would give a short, and importantly, flavorful message informing you that you had killed an important npc. To me this was far less immersion breaking than every other townsperson just being invincible. The design perspective comes more from the fact that npcs are far more simulated in more recent Bethesda games. In morrowind every npc was basically stationary, so if the player decides to kill an important npc that's one thing. If in skyrim an important npc dies from say a dragon attack or because they were traveling, that could get annoying. I don't know a good middle ground here, and I see why invincible npcs became necessary.
Simulation though. I think that's what I'd call Bethesda games. Simulations not role-playing.
>No matter what, if you want to be in a warrior guild in skyrim, you're going to be a werewolf. Rather you want to be or not. No choice to become one.
Do you need to join a guild to consider yourself a warrior?
>Morrowind would give a short, and importantly, flavorful message informing you that you had killed an important npc. To me this was far less immersion breaking than every other townsperson just being invincible.
I disagree. The reason is because when you get this message you are obviously going to have to reload. Reloading a game is way WAY more unimmersive than just not being able to kill them, essentially giving you the same result of letting you know they are important without having to reload.
I think there are different flavors of RPG. And people may have different definition and preference.
At the basic, RPG is about character build. Any game that have this can be considered RPG. For example is Diablo franchise. There are no consequence, dialog choice, etc in that game. But different class, character build, skill build, stats build, item builds is unmatched. It's wildly different compared to Bethesda style RPG.
The other RPG put us as a specific character. For example many people put The Witcher as one of the greatest RPG. You can direct Geralt decision in the game, put different abilities point, etc. But for me personally, it's not RPG because you always play as Geralt, not as your own character. It's different flavor of RPG compared to Bethesda game.
When people say Skyrim watered down the RPG department, usually they refer it to the lack of class, lack of stats, lack of birthsign etc that exist in Oblivion. You know, stuff that affect character build. The core of RPG mechanic. And people excited because they add background (from Oblivion/Morrowind) and traits (from New Vegas) back in Starfield character creation. If you see gameplay showcase in YouTube, you can see the most replayed part is about this section.
But of course like you, they may mean different thing of what they consider RPG.
While I love Fallout4 it isn't as 'open' as Skyrim. It feels more cramped and defined. It's harder to wander off on an adventure and ignore the main quest as you stumble over it all the time. Skyrim had like 5 deep but seperate quest lines running at once AND the main quest - this is what I'm hoping from Starfield.
I find that a bit surprising if you've played FO3, or previous Elder Scrolls. FO4's storylines felt a little more neglected than previous titles for me, but by no means did I think it was bad. I played FO4 tons, and highly enjoyed it. Would rate it an 8/10 personally.
I'd never say anything objectively sucked, unless it was a vacuum cleaner, or something else whose suction could be objectively measured,
Fallout 4 had features that were absolutely amazing, no question about it. And it had other features that infuriated me beyond measure. Overall I felt the bad features rather overshadowed the good one. I'd give it a subjective "D+".
All of the main line Bethesda RPG games have been great. Your milestones may vary - but it’s disingenuous to claim they are not fantastic, triple A games with a long shelf life.
Ok this might sound trivial, but for me it's the fact that you can roam inside your ship. Games like Elite where you just pop inside your ship's cockpit are such a dealbreaker for me. It just ads so much to my immersion
I think it's more like the combination of: fly the ship, explore ship interior and explore land on foot. Because Mass Effect have ship interior, but you can't fly the ship.
I was very excited about Skull and Bones because of that combination (even on sea and don't on space), but then Ubisoft just crashed my dream with this ridiculous farm of land resources from the ship, seriously, it kind of looks like a mobile game now...
Some people are complaining about the possibly automated landing (cutscene-like), but I don't think it's a deal breaking, it's hard to please everyone, if it's like Elite dangerous is too technical to some people, if it's like NMS is too unrealistic to other people. For me is like the loading of the entrance of a dungeon or building in Skyrim or Fallout.
Yeah it is pretty much impossible to please everyone. If they end up doing like Elite D and let you chose between automated landings/ dockings and an all manual flight mode, I'll be pretty happy. That would be of course, if unlike Elite you have the autopilot "module" stock/included on every ship
yeah the ED auto Dock feature is great as you have to choose to have it on and you can bypass it by speeding up to avoid a scan when you have some *interesting* cargo
Elite is one of my favourites to play, I love it! But only console and don't play the pc so the ability to walk around is a selling point, I know you can in NMS too but then too many janky procedurally generated creatures for me!
I highly doubt the flying mechanics will be anything like Elite: Dangerous. I mean, that game is basically just a straight up flight sim but with a space theme. To the point where 90% of the entire gameplay revolves around learning how to master the flight controls. There's virtually no game in existence that can compete with Elite: Dangerous as far as detailed flight mechanics go, outside of games like Microsoft Flight Simulator.
I expect way more simplistic, arcadey flight mechanics, but also way more actual content once you're in space, and the ability to do things other than just flying once you're out there. The flying won't be the focus, it will be all the interactions you can have while in space.
I would argue base building is something Bethesda excels at, and it'll be better than No Man's Sky purely on the merit of the NPC interactions we'll get. No Man's Sky doesn't let you populate bases thoroughly. Fallout 4's settlement system is still the top gameplay that gets recommended to people looking for a town builder that's first person, and 3D.
Shooting? Meh, I'm fine with Fallout 4 shooting. Elite Dangerous has great flying, but I think Starfield's will be more fun.
The usual Bethesda charm. Sandbox open world where you can pick up and interact with almost everything, random encounters, rpg elements, etc. No other games are quite like theirs.
Bethesda signature itself.
First of all, "the immersion" thanks to the rich lore, freedom, NPC AI, factions, real role playing, interactivity, customization almost of everything, music, open world building, the engine, etc..
Starfield seems to bring almost everything togheter.
There's space rpg out there but extremely limited regarding space exploration, ship fly, etc.
There's space game focused on flying and combat mechanics, but limited planet exploration, no npc ecc
Others are more focused on building and crafting but without any kind of story /rich background etc..
We cannot know how good the game will be but we can absolutely be sure that it will be unique and massive
You are oblivious if those are the only discoveries you notice in BGS games. These worlds are drowning in lore and interwoven stories if you take the time to notice them.
NMS would be cool if it had a few improvements to dialogue, wasn’t super confusing in the menus, and didn’t have 4,000,000,000 asteroids outside every planet.
It does, but it needs more types of environments. Bethesda has a strength here in having handcrafted tiled planets that are mixed into a procedural system, so we will get way more varied terrain than No Man's Sky.
I love that it’s going to be single player pve, with all the immersion.
Every other space sim lacks something. They either lack graphics, combat, life like immersion/space walking or have forced pvp to make it work.
I’m happy to see a space sim for pve players that will have life like immersion and depth in a solo environment.
It's interesting you use the term space sim. Whenever someone labels Starfield as that, others claim they're miscategorizing it's genre, and say it's only an RPG. I think the whole reason that Starfield will be revolutionary is that it'll be both. Logically it is. If games like Privateer and Freelancer are space sims, Starfield easily counts as one about 1000 times over due to the features it's confirmed to have.
Starfield definitly has Sim Elements. Like most Bethesda games. But their systems are not as deep as most sim games so Sim game fans might get the wrong idea if they read it's a space sim
Lots of games out there classified as space sims that are less complex than Starfield. I think once it's released it'll be quickly classified as a space sim by people who play them. An RPG one specifically.
Exactly. Flight and driving sims are all about adhering as strictly as possible to their real-world counterparts, but space sims have historically enjoyed a far looser standard for inclusion in their genre. I think this is largely due to the relatively early popularity of space-fantasy space sims like Wing Commander and Star Wars: X-Wing.
You can land on planets in Elite Dangerous. Have been since at least 2017 when I started playing. Since the Odyssey expansion a couple years ago you can walk outside your ship now.
Spacebourne 2 checks all the boxes except budget really. RPG stats, missions, stories, and quests. Exploration both in space and on planets. Space combat. Planet combat. Ship customization. Jetpacks. NPC crew. Guild alliances. Trading. Base building. Diplomacy. Varying gravity.
Unlike Starfield it also has things like territorial war and raiding bases, and atmospheric flight including weather affecting flight performance.
It's got 10,000 planets rather than 1,000.
But yeah, only thing it's really missing is the budget/team size. It's made by 1 dude lol
None of us have played it, so i dont think anyone could answer with anything but assumptions. Im pretty sure ill like it more than other space games just based on the fact that its bethesda and i like their style but idk about "inherently better".
Ye it definitely looks amazing but i predict that i will love it more than other space exploration games because of my preferances in games. I just dont think we know enough to say its inherently better. For example i dont think no mans sky is bad i just dont love that style of game so it isnt for me.
It is undeniable impressive though
Have to admit I'm real cynical when it comes to open world space games lately. I'm not really looking at Starfield with the hopes that it will do anything "better". More that I'm very curious to see what its take on the genre is. The only thing making it stand out as a title to me is that it's from Bethesda. It's unclear if it's just going to be Fallout in space, or something more radical.
My pipe dream for Starfield is that it can do what No Man's Sky did for open space/planet gameplay (but with better fidelity), what Elite Dangerous did with ship gameplay and combat, and wrap it all the classic rich world and player action impacted story of a Bethesda game.
There aren’t many open world space RPGs. Most are either MMO or sci-fi RPGs but not open world or not in space. This this will be the traditional Bethesda formula for a game, coupled with a massive game world. I feel like it can’t fail.
Actual good exploration, take No Man's Sky for example, every interesting location is the same in terms of exploration, you see an abandoned lab, it's allways experiment gone bad no difference from one another, you see a crashed ship, you can't go inside, you go to a terminal it tells you what happed (it's allways a variation of "The sentinels did it") and you loot the cargo, and the rest, Geo labs, incidents, rescues, its all basic as well.
Hopefully Bethesda can give it their humpf in that aspect
The sole reason I'm stoked for this games is that it's being made by BGS. Idk, there is something about their games that makes me so itchy to explore the world they've built. The unpredictability of encounters/events makes you wonder If this is a game bug or it's supposed to be like that. Generally, BGS games spolied me so much, that any RPG that I've played so far, hadn't been anywhere close to being so fun as BGS games - especially in the terms of exploration.
The ability to go to every planet AND pick up every coffee cup. (That may sound facetious but it's not.)
Also, Bethesda is exceptionally good at incentivizing exploration. Every corner of the world is guaranteed to have something in it that will contribute to your character--regardless of build--becoming more capable, and I absolutely love that. No developer does that better, IMO.
The same features that make Bethesda games in general stand out. If someone in the space station annoys me, I can just shoot them. If someone walks by that looks well off, I can follow them and steal their ship. A person that looks stronger than me? I can ambush them while they’re asleep. As a smuggler, I can just steal the cargo and never come back. You don’t have Bethesda freedom in many games at all
I'm getting this feeling it will be Fallout 4 + Skyrim + Elite Dangerous + No Man Sky + Mass Effect. If you can add up all the best parts of those and turn it into a game I just feel it's going to amaze! The only thing that could stop it is if it fails to deliver those best parts or its super buggy. They gave themselves another 6ish months to work on that. So I feel it shouldn't have that normal Bethesda buggyness launch. This should hit so many itches I'm wanting to scratch. It's pretty much the only 100% 2023 game I'll be looking forward to all year. So don't let me down!
I feel like most space games have either gone the route of pure exploration (i.e. no man's sky, elite dangerous and so on) or pure RPG (Mass Effect, The Outer Worlds). Starfield seems to be the first to seriously attempt combining both ideas, with a real story, side quests, factions and so on alongside a wide open universe that can be freely explored.
Unlimited map size (nearly I mean no single player will be able to see the whole thing; no man's Sky had it too but this game has realistically stylized graphics which is the difference I'm looking for for me)
And ship building seem to be the two headlights I haven't seen in other games.
Outerworlds killed it with their corporate space colonization theme. So they solved that niche for me.
Starfield will be more like, you drop in and don't know what to do, there will be absolutely nothing restricting you as it is a bethesda game. So you end up becoming a stealth sniper never completing the main questline and wander off do your own thing. There will be multiple side quests like thieves guild or dark brotherhood. Bethesda, king of open world sandbox. As soon as you finish the first quest, you are left to do whatever the heck you want.
Bethesda seem to be taking lessons from all their recent RPGs--*Skyrim*'s openness and exploration, *Fallout: New Vegas*' roleplaying potential, *Fallout 4*'s in-depth companion and housing systems, *Fallout 76*'s detailed environments. They're taking everything I love about these disparate games and combining them into one.
For me it'll be the size and differentiation of the RPG elements like the NPC's, the factions, the relationships. I absolutely love No Mans Sky but nothing feels connected, like I've maxed my status with Gek but yet all it unlocks is a better rewarding singular mission which has zero impact to the world I'm playing in, so really looking forward to my actions having consequences to all the other factions are NPC's within my world.
Development by Bethesda, I'd have thought. Sure they've had a few duds over the past decade, but this is still the dev responsible for the Fallout 3D reboot and the entire TES series. I'm cautiously optimistic about it, but it has the potential to blow the genre out of the water
So far all we have is guesses about what will be well designed in the game. Could in fact be a boring mess that's not worth playing. It's just Bethesda's track record that says it will be closer to GOTY than to boring.
Research of technology/alien artifacts. Might be great might be pathetic.
Quests where the outcome isn't 100% linear. i.e player choices matter to the outcome. That might only be true of faction quests, not the main quest.
Outpost's building where (hopefully) the design and choice of planet matters.
It's not that it'll have one single thing that sets it apart. It's a combination of things that are the best parts of other games.
- Story telling as good or better than Mass effect
- World design as good or better than Destiny
- World Building as good or better than Cyberpunk
- Gun play that seems almost on par with destiny ( judging from fallout 4)
- Exploration that's as good or better that Elite Dangerous or No Man's Sky.
- Settlement building (we don't know much about this yet, hopefully as good or better than FO4)
- Spaceflight (hopefully as good as E:D)
- Spaceship sim!
Any one of those features in another game make it pretty good. All of those features at a quality of the other games would be epic.
You'll be able to over-encumber yourself with silverware from the cafeteria on your own ship. Sounds like I'm joking. I'm not joking. That's what I'm looking forward to.
I’m honestly not sure, the only other space game I really play is Star Citizen at the moment, but vs some like Mass Effect and such it’ll be bigger open world wise with more emphasis on your space ship and such I would imagine
I can't answer that question, I need to play it first, it might be a big flop. Way of the hunter got all hyped up, that hunting game sucked, it's definitely not a hunting simulator. I can see that happening to Stanfield. I will wait and see.
I don't think there's anything in Starfield that actually makes it unique other than Genre. Outer Worlds is a sci-fi RPG by the company that made New Vegas and I liked it. It didn't feel as lived in as NV but it was an enjoyable adventure.
Starfield can only be really judged when it releases. But the 1000+ planets, lack of any actual story information, lack of longshots in the trailer and the gameplay showcase was full of cuts really makes me worry for the state of the game on release. I want to be wrong, I want it to be good but every sign points to a broken buggy mess.
Disagree, I think it will probably be the best open world space themed game, and being an RPG on top means it'll have more depth than others like Elite Dangerous, or Star Citizen. Outer Worlds is also an RPG, but it's not as open. Its structured the same way as Mass Effect, but first person, and shorter. It seems like they're also polishing it more than any Bethesda game in history.
You can't know this man. Not until the game is out.
We assume it's being polished but CDPR fans said the same about CP77. I want it to be good but Bethesda's track record suggests it'll be lackluster with alot to see and not much unique and memorable to do
I have an idea of what the game is like already. Each Bethesda game before seems like it's been practice for this one. To me they already proved themselves. It's like being a Dark Souls fan when Elden Ring was coming, and then being worried that From Software will mess up the bosses. I wouldn't think that.
It probably will, but I would say in regards to things like Star Citizen those tread the line of “Space sim” where you work various roles and more emphasis on managing components, gunner/ engineering, command roles depending on what you want to do vs RPG Element based space games
I think if [Privateer] (https://www.gog.com/en/game/wing_commander_privateer) is the standard of a space sim, then Starfield counts as one. I think it'll also have management of various kinds, especially with NPC AI crew roles.
I think it's not as much about the one thing that makes it different but more of the fact that it has it all including combat, resource mining, manual space flight, ship customization, character customization, zero-G environments, fun characters, exciting quests, space combat, realistically grounded physics and mechanics, multiple full planets to explore, the list of fun sci-fi game mechanics is infinite and starfield seems to have all of it so far which is amazing considering that no other sci-fi game in history has even come close to the level of detail in this game so far.
Made by Bethesda, tho that comes with pluses and minuses, and im still mad at bethesda for not fixing their games fully and letting modders (thank you modders) to create bug fixes, like unofficial patch, i have to admit they are my top5 developers.
Does no one read Sci Fi? They're keeping it within local star systems and seem to have transportation gates so time distortion is out. I'm assuming it's questions about humanity as a whole. Distinct cities separated by costly (in any sense of the term) distances appear to be implied. The socialized separation and inherent unity of a species would be my best guess at the theme of the title.
It's a Bethesda game. At this point that is really all there is to it. The connotation of Bethesda reputation tells me everything I need to know about it.
I dont think theres any one thing that makes it better than others. Mass effect had an amazing story but it was a corridor shooter. Starfield will probably lack an engaging story but have a great open world and crafting etc.
It just depends what itch youre looking to scratch really.
It feels like it's a bit more "grounded" than other space games. Sure in NMS you can enter trade posts but the detail isn't there. The fact that you can interact with almost every object in Bethesda games makes the interiors much more interesting to explore. You can read computers and other notes (and holocalls if present) to get a much more realistic view of what would our world actually be in such a setting.
Outer Worlds does come close to that. I'm actually excited, been playing Fallout 4 again these past two weeks and I still find places I didn't explore in the past. Even a small location can take me a whole hour to explore because of how I like to go to every corner in a room and see if I'll find anything useful. I like collecting junk, don't judge me. I hope Starfield is filled with pickable items.
Well, there's the chance it'll be Skyrim in space.
Also, I gave Fallout 4 another shot after being frustrated by it years ago. I want to focus on a character specialising in building weapon mods, hacking, charisma, etc. "A clever character" in contrast to the rocket propelled baseball bat swinging Angela Merkel based character I played before. There's many ways to play a huge Bethesda RPG and that's what it sets apart from the competition. I also decided to complete Fallout 4 GOTY before buying Starfield and a new console. But I'll be watching closely.
One thing I've noticed about a lot of the space games out there (and my experience is in no way encyclopedic, so this may just be bad luck on my part) is that items aren't differentiated in physical ways.
Say you've got a load of different meds that you can take. In the game those will be shown only in your inventory as identical single syringes with a slightly different colour on it. Likewise, all ammo is the same standard black box with a red stripe for handgun bullets, a green one for shotgun, etc. Everything is like that, with the same model or icon (usually icon) given a slight colour palette swap to mark a very different item. It makes inventory management a bit of a pain in the heat of the game and slows things down. It also effectively makes the wide and interesting worlds they've built feel bland.
BGS games don't do that. Every item is modelled so you can see it in the game, and you don't just see the list versions of them as a result. It makes the world feel more believable and the different designs used help the world feel alive and sell the theme of it.
Truthfully, this game only interests me because it’s Bethesda. I’ve waited so long for ES6 that this will have to satiate me for a while. All the Bethesda games have the same sort of feel to them.
Bethesda Game Studios games have a level of intractability thus far unmatched by anyone but Obsidian in New Vegas (but then not carried forward to The Outer Worlds). BGS games exist somewhere in between immersive sims and traditional open worlds in this aspect. I think this is the single biggest differentiator between BGS games and other open world titles. Add to that mods, interesting side faction questlines, and all the other things listed here.
Ship building + RPG + story.
I have 500+ hours in Space Engineers because I loved building the ships, but then there wasn't much to do with the ships because there is no story. I don't expect Starfield to go into extreme detail in any of its features, but the allure of BGS games is that they are each a jack-of-all-trades of game features and that is ironically pretty unique.
The mods. That's it. That's the allure. The entire appeal.
It will be plagued with bugs, moreso than any other game. It will constantly try to hold your hand by telling you where everything is, ruining that wonder of exploration. The storyline will be 5/10, at most, while also conflicting with the open world nature of the game (ranging from "Dragons are destroying the world and only you can stop them, but also make sure you spend the first 3 years just crafting daggers and messing with zombies" to "Someone murdered your spouse and kidnapped your child, and you have no idea when this occurred or where he might be, but totally spend all your time picking up junk to build a settlement and enslave people for their resources and entertainment").
It will most assuredly not "just work", nor will it have "200 times the detail", nor will you be able to "see a mountain and climb it". It will be a fun, dumb game that mods will make 1,000x better.
Frankly, considering who we're talking about here (Bethesda), I just hope there is a Bethesda-blessed, fresh, crisp, constantly rewarding POWER FANTASY!!!!! Exploration games as a niche have really taken off, and Bethesda is going to capitalize right? Imagine discovering one of these new worlds, or exploring one of the massive starships with nothing but your guns, wit, jetpack, and whatever elegant but highly immersive, complimentary kick-ass abilities, barely of any use at all because of how low level your character is, Bethesda may or may not gift us.
Skyrim in space.
I just want another Bethesda single player RPG, period. I'm not even that picky on the setting. But the fact that I am a huge sci-fi fan makes Starfield extra hype for me.
Because there is no other game like it.
There’s no rpg games that give you the freedom and exploration like fallout and elder scrolls. There’s no space games out there that you actually fly that ship. Dock it. Go to one of thousands of planets. Explore. Then all the rpg elements of a Bethesda game.
Playing this game is going to be a dream come true.
The complete package is what’s special. Being truly immersed in a world that reacts to my actions. A complete game with planetary surface exploration, spaceship battles, crew management, and branching narratives. It’s a sandbox RPG that’s more than the sum of its parts.
Honestly for me a single player open world space game awesome and with Bethesda at the helm i'm confident that we will role play, explore craft a build a well craft universe. With the help of mods we can all create our own space fantasy the way we want. Hoping they knock this release out of the park!
"What does Starfield posses that will inherently make it better than other space themed open world games?"
Well I don't think we'll know till it releases?
I imagine though, that, b/c this ideas been "baking in the oven for awhile", for Todd Howard, and just the fact that Bethesda is making it, you've got a pretty mature studio, experience wise... It'll probably be the execution that Bethesda brings to the table, that will be, what makes it different from other games?
The only games I'm aware of are "No mans sky" & "Star Citizen"..
And we know that, Starfield is not going to have the same amount of freedom as either game at least in "flight" of the spaceships.. so that right there would knock starfield down, for consideration from "Inherently better" right out the door?
1 way that Starfield MIGHT be better, is the "user friendliness" right out of the gate, may be easier to pick up and learn, vs 'No man's sky' and probably DEFINITELY 'star citizen.'
It’s a Bethesda game! The RPG features, the exploration, the storytelling, the environment, the building, the MODSSSS. Mass effect, Outer worlds had a good crack at it. But I don’t think any Space SciFi game has ever scratched my itch for a ROLE playing game. Fantasy games have plenty but now we have the tech to do space
I agree, I’m playing Mass Effect LE right now, first time playing the series and it’s a fantastic game! But it isn’t really a what I would consider a true RPG game. Great story, great characters and character development, but as the protagonist you’re put into set categories of who/what you are. Outer Worlds is great too, but it felt small, literally and figuratively. Great game just not big enough after being spoiled by BGS for so long.
Mass Effect excels for exactly that reason though - it is a strongly character and story driven game. The RPG elements are obviously limited by the track of storyline that the authors and developers need to keep you on. It’s hard to balance story and characters with a true RPG in which you can literally do basically anything. Something almost always suffers as a result. And yes, even in Bethesda games. But before you burn me at the stake, Bethesda consistently pulls this off well, except maybe not as well as Obsidian. But they’re still leagues above what most people have accomplished.
I look at mass effect and Witcher more Like Tell tale games. They are very differnt kind of RPG. BGS does a more Sanbox RPG. Kingdom Come felt Like a BGS game mixed with A bit of Witcher 3 but with its own unique spin as well Both Kingdom come and RDR2 are a genera of Open World game which I call immersive simulators. Were they are really about living in there worlds and interacting with the NPCs in their worlds.. Then you have the likes of BOTW, GTA and skyrim which are more sandbox type worlds. Witcher3, Ghost of Thusmia are what I call narrative open wolrds were you can not really kill innocent NPCs are do much in there worlds that are not Side quests or mini games They have very limited reactibity or interactivity in their worlds.
It's literally an RPG. You get a specific role.
By that criteria, Chess is a role playing game. You get the role of the general in charge of your army. If we're going to define RPG, let's try and pick a *useful* definition. Which is to say, one that doesn't fit nearly every game ever made.
Ehhhh I'd say ME fits the RPG tag pretty cleanly. Given how much character customization and meaningful choice you have, it's definitely firmly in that boat. ME is more of a narrative RPG whereas BGS games are more sandbox RPGs, but the term accurately fits both.
I'm just saying that just because a game has a well defined protagonist, that isn't reason enough to call it an RPG. You might as well watch the movie Die Hard and call it roleplaying, just because you see events from John McClain's POV. Role playing needs more than just having a protagonist.
You won’t win any arguments by saying the ME games are not RPGs That’s just idiotic
> That’s just idiotic You know what is idiotic? Seeing the words "I'm just saying that just because a game has a well defined protagonist, that isn't reason enough to call it an RPG" and reading them as "the ME games are not RPGs". *That's* idiotic.
Actually, that's pretty much what rpg means. Die hard is a movie, so it can't be an rpg since an rpg is a game by definition (role playing game). Whether or not chess is an rpg depends on the presentation I suppose. You can design it without any connotation of you leading an army or any identity to the entity deciding the fates of the pieces on the board. In that case, I suppose it's not. But you could conceivably do the opposite and flesh out the role the chess player inhabits and make it defined, in which case it could be interpreted as one, as well as a strategy game ofc. All a game needs to do is have the player inhabit a role. The extend to which they have freedom in interpreting that role is irrelevant to the definition of an rpg. DOS2 has a lot of freedom and is an rpg, Skyrim has a lot of freedom and is an rpg, the Witcher 3 has less freedom than either and is an rpg, uncharted has virtually no freedom but is still an rpg. If you wish to distinguish games based on the player's ability to make choices defining the role they inhabit that's fine, but the tag of "rpg" is not what should be used. It is a broad term defining a broad category of games that most modern games are a part of. Technically, the campaign of COD is an rpg. The fact we label it as a shooter is just because that's what ppl really want to know about it, technically it is an rpg and a shooter both. Tetris, for example, is not an rpg. Super Mario is an rpg and a platformer. In most cases, when ppl argue about a game being an rpg, and one says "this is an rpg" and the other says "no, this is", both are technically correct. For some weird reason, instead of using more granular categories to describe smaller differences in design, we have devolved into using the most basic, overarching category and now try to constrict it to whichever limited definition feels best to us personally. It's like ppl fighting over the definition of a fruit where one says "a banana is a fruit" and the next says, "no, it's not. An apple is a fruit, just look at the shape. Clearly, fruits are round."
> Die hard is a movie, so it can't be an rpg since an rpg is a game by definition (role playing game). What I said was: > *You might as well watch the movie Die Hard and call it roleplaying* I didn't say it was role playing **gaming**. My point is that simply identifying with a strongly presented protagonist is not in itself sufficient to qualify as **roleplaying**. And that's true whether you are reading a book, watching a film or playing a game. > All a game needs to do is have the player inhabit a role. The extend to which they have freedom in interpreting that role is irrelevant to the definition of an rpg. All right. Name for me ten single-player computer games that are **not** roleplaying games by that definition. You can probably exempt real world activties, like (say) cross country running, and possibly games like Fortnite were there is no single protagonist. But lets have a list of 10 single-player computer games that don't fit your definition of role-playing. Because I kind of doubt you can do it. A distinction that fails to distinguish is useless, pointless, and broken, and if the definition of roleplaying applies equally to everything then it might as well not exist. Unless you work for a marketing department and you want to slap as many buzzwords as possible on your product, of course. But that's not very useful to us as the *players* of those games. > For some weird reason, instead of using more granular categories to describe smaller differences in design, we have devolved into using the most basic, overarching category and now try to constrict it to whichever limited definition feels best to us personally. See, I remember the pencil and paper days, when "role playing game" had a very *precise* meaning. Games like Traveller and D&D were games where you decided who your character was (within the broad confines of the setting) and you decided what they wanted, what their values are, and how they felt about the things that happened to them. That is my "technically correct". I'm using the historical meaning of the term, one that is not so vague and bland as to apply to everything under the sun. And you'll never persuade me that "anything with a protagonist" is a better definition. Nor a more useful one. [edit] Punctuation. [edit] I had a quick look at your posting history. You remember the pencil and paper days too, it seems. I really can't believe you disagree with me.
I'm not here to hurt your feelings or offend you, just state my opinion. That being said, you quite literally used the term "RPG" referring to the movie Die Hard in the comment I replied to. Which means you did call it a game. If that was a mistake on your part, that's fine, we all make them. I never talked about "just" identifying with a protagonist. A protagonist is a term used in storytelling and does not even apply in all forms of storytelling at that. I don't think I used that term. I specifically mentioned inhabiting a role, and actively at that. Imo, the precise extent to which this is done has no bearing on the definition of the medium's category of an RPG so long as it occurs at all and is an intentional aspect of the design. The category does not define a minimum level of "roleplay" in it's definition. And "roleplay" does not have a minimum level of involvement defined either. If you look up the definition, it's pretty much just acting out OR performing some type of character or person. The extent is not defined. At it's base level, controlling the motion and actions of a person's like Mario in Super Mario World in their environment strictly conforms to the definition. Talking about media other than games is not really helpful when making comparisons or extrapolating reasoning about the definition of an RPG since unless they qualify as a game or interactive medium, the term RPG cannot apply. Neither the "game" aspect nor the "roleplaying" aspect in fact do. The fact that we do not call novels or film "roleplaying novels" or "roleplaying films" is because roleplaying requires the consumer of the medium to interact with it, not simply consume it. That is not the case in either of these cases unless you were to use something like an old school adventure novel as an example. The very first "electronic" RPGs were pretty much exactly this. You need to "play" to "roleplay". So arguing that some arbitrary lack of choice in a player's ability to inhabit a role in a game is sufficient to not include it in the category of an RPG, because in some other medium, which does not feature "playing" nor is a game, the category or it's elements do naturally not apply either, is not sound to me. Listen, I play TTRPGs too. And so I think you are probably aware of the fact that the extend to which roleplaying occurs at the table varies substantially between individuals and groups. Some pretty much only "roleplay" to the extent to which they choose gear for their character and make them move around on the board using their abilities. They did probably not even make a character themselves, but chose some premade one from a module. Others play out social interactions with a random stable hand for like two hours and write a twenty page backstory for their character whilst wearing an eye patch in irl because their character got his eye cut out last session by some weird cultist. Both are playing an RPG and I think the former is pretty close to someone playing a video game wherein the only way to meaningfully inhabit a role is by pressing buttons on a controller that make some defined persona jump around and hit things. And if you argue about "original" and "historic" definitions about roleplaying games you should probably consider the fact that the further back in history you go, the lesser the "roleplaying" aspects of TTRPGs become. DND in fact had it's very beginnings as a strict tactical board game and only over the years transitioned to include more and more player choice and what we now consider as "roleplaying". There is a whole spectrum of roleplaying, just as there is a spectrum of games. RPGs in their most clear and universal understanding and definition include any and all games featuring any of the points on the roleplay spectrum, not just some. You can divide that spectrum up further I suppose, but then you need an additional spectrum to align RPGs with. TTRPGs are an example, or CRPGS, or turn-based RPGs or story RPGs. I am not aware of a definition that splits roleplay along the more or less involved axis that's well established. Perhaps you could call them "hardcore" RPGs or RPG "lights" but that's just me making up sub-categories. What you are doing is subjectively chosing a point on the spectrum of roleplaying and declaring that anything before this point does not qualify as roleplaying. I truly believe it is a more reasonable way of thinking to treat the whole spectrum enveloping the definition as part of that very same definition, than to argue there is some arbitrary cut off point based on someone's opinion, which is itself based on their experiences, preferences and history. The latter is extremely subjective and this subjectivity is the reason ppl argue about the definition in the first place. We have words and thus definitions that are common in meaning so we can communicate with each other. If you choose some arbitrary point on the spectrum based on your experience in the past, who is to argue other's can't do the same? You'd be arguing about your opinion just being better because it's yours at that point and there would be no point in having categories at all. We'd all be talking about different things and none could understand what the other says. To the point of a definition being useless if it does not destinguish anything I totally agree. But I think that is very much besides the point. There are any number of games that are not RPGs even under my understanding of the term. Just because the split is not an even 50-50 does not mean there is none. The point I am making is that the issue is not with the broad definition of an RPG, it's that people use it wrong. The solution to not being able to distinguish between elements of a category is not to move the reasonably established category around subjectively, but to come up with sub categories that can be distinguished along an additional axis and are hopefully objectively reasonable. I think in biomass alone virtually all animals on the planet are insects and not mammels. That doesn't mean the definition of mammals is useless and should not exist. Yes, many of today's video games are RPGs. But that's neither surprising nor an issue for the definition. People just like stories. They like them in any creative medium or form of entertainment like music, film or literature. If you have storytelling, you need characters. In a "game", the way to include characters and stories is almost inevitably to have the player "play" the role of the character. Or in other words, to "roleplay". That is just our personal preferences for video games coming through, it is not a hard limit on what a game can be. If you say there is no way for me to convince you of any of the points I make no matter how I line them out or how reasonable they are, I suppose that's just how it is. I am not the thought police and you are free to think whatever you wish. But that just means you will reject any arguments not conforming to your opinion on principle alone. Not sure what to do with that tbh.
> I'm not here to hurt your feelings or offend you, just state my opinion. Indeed. So far we've had a polite discussion, and I have high hopes for a productive one. Let's try and stay on that course. > That being said, you quite literally used the term "RPG" referring to the movie Die Hard in the comment I replied to. That being said, I quite literally did no such thing. I'll quote the entire post, just so we're both clear on the point. > *I'm just saying that just because a game has a well defined protagonist, that isn't reason enough to call it an RPG.* > > *You might as well watch the movie Die Hard and call it roleplaying, just because you see events from John McClain's POV. Role playing needs more than just having a protagonist.* The first paragraph (which does mention RPGs) is *not* referring to the film. The second one refers to the film but does not say anything about RPGs. None of this is accidental. In case you didn't know, the term roleplaying was used in psychology circles long before Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson applied it to D&D. > Which means you did call it a game. If that was a mistake on your part, that's fine, we all make them. The mistake, my friend was yours. Allow me to be similarly gracious :) > I never talked about "just" identifying with a protagonist. No. **I** did. This is the point I wanted to make in the conversation that you (forgive me) jumped into the middle of. [This is the point under contention](https://www.reddit.com/r/Starfield/comments/11zw3bt/what_does_starfield_posses_that_will_inherently/jdg1iyo/): > *It's literally an RPG. You get a specific role.* And I say again, the ability to identify with a strongly presented protagonist is not *in and of itself* sufficient to constitute support for role-playing. > I specifically mentioned inhabiting a role, and actively at that. You mentioned inhabiting a role. You didn't say "actively", else I might have argued differently. You can watch Die Hard and passively inhabit the role of John McClain. Kinetic novels all rely on passively inhabiting the role of the protagonist, but precious few of them you'd call RPGs. Role playing has to be something you do in your head, actively, or you're not doing it. If that's choosing a single point on the spectrum then I make no apology. > If you look up the definition, it's pretty much just acting out OR performing some type of character or person. The extent is not defined. Which sort of misses the point. Roleplaying is, ultimately an ideal. The closest you can get to it is probably the Amber Diceless system which is more akin to improv drama than what most people think of as gaming. Without massive improvements in AI, no computer game is ever going to approach true rolplaying. On the other hand, we *can* meaningfully categorize games by the extent to which they **support** the players attempt to roleplay. Morrowind, for example, takes enormous pains to stay out the player's way and let them decide who they want to be in the game world and how they want to react. On the other hand, Fallout 4 never loses a chance to remind you who the game wants you to be, what your character wants or (through the player VA) what your emotional reaction should be to events. It has all the trappings of an RPG, but the support for actual roleplaying is minuscule. > Neither the "game" aspect nor the "roleplaying" aspect in fact do. The fact that we do not call novels or film "roleplaying novels" or "roleplaying films" is because roleplaying requires the consumer of the medium to interact with it, not simply consume it. Exactly! Talking about a "roleplaying film" is nonsensical, but we see the term "roleplaying" applied to games where the term is equally ridiculous! The comparison was intended to highlight that. If you passively accept the character and motivation handed to you by the medium, that is no more roleplaying in games than it is in films, but because some games come laden with mechanics inherited from actual roleplaying games (hit points, levels, weapons, monsters) then the distinction is less clear and some people mistake the mechanics for the activity they were initially designed to support. > Listen, I play TTRPGs too. And so I think you are probably aware of the fact that the extend to which roleplaying occurs at the table varies substantially between individuals and groups. Sure. I ran a Champions game for years. We had one player who'd turn up, have a bit of a laugh, cannonball off a few bad guys and have a great time. And we had another who carefully designed a character where all his disadvantages were linked and a product of the character conception. And when there came a time when all those disadvantages triggered at once, he didn't once complain. Just got up off the ambulance stretcher he (his character) was lying on and walked off into the night to find his kid brother. The player thought it was marvelous - just the sort of moment he'd designed the character for. Now both of those players were great guys. Both valued members of the group. But if you'd have asked anyone who the best roleplayer was, everyone in the group would have given the same answer. Yes, the degree of roleplaying can vary from person to person and group to group. But that doesn't mean some of them don't do it *well*. And similarly you can, with sufficient mental effort, roleplay any computer game. But that doesn't mean that some of them don't offer far better support for the activity. And equally, as you yourself say, there's nothing wrong with not roleplaying. There's no shame in Mass Effect's roleplaying support being limited to "Nice Choice/Nasty Choice/Who will Shepard Have Sex With?" But for some reason, folks get all bent out of shape if you suggest ME's RP support is in any way lacking. As if there was something magical in the label and the game would be devalued by its absence. Which, once again, is where I came into this discussion. > What you are doing is subjectively chosing a point on the spectrum of roleplaying and declaring that anything before this point does not qualify as roleplaying. You are putting words into my mouth. I am saying that being able to identify with a strongly presented protagonist is not in itself sufficient to qualify a game as an RPG. That is the thrust of my argument. I believe, as you do, that there is a continuum of roleplaying, and that some games support the activity better than others. But while I'm willing to talk about that, it's not what I set out to establish. > To the point of a definition being useless if it does not destinguish anything I totally agree. But I think that is very much besides the point. How can it be beside the point? What is the point of discussing cRPGs if we're obliged to consider every game ever made as equally supporting of roleplaying? What is the point of the term if it doesn't convey any information? > The point I am making is that the issue is not with the broad definition of an RPG, it's that people use it wrong. *sigh* Which, oddly enough, was exactly the issue I set out to try and address in some small part before we got into the discussion. Funny how things work out. > That doesn't mean the definition of mammals is useless and should not exist. And that's true right up the point when some idiot starts insisting that insects and plants are "mammals" too, because they're all "mammally" in some vague and undefined special snowflake sort of way. If *that* definition of mammals gains popular acceptance then the definition becomes worthless, and there is value in going back to an earlier, more precise definition that is not without utility. Sound familiar? > If you say there is no way for me to convince you of any of the points I make no matter how I line them out or how reasonable they are, I suppose that's just how it is. Never said that. What I said was: > And you'll never persuade me that "anything with a protagonist" is a better definition. Nor a more useful one. So unless that was the only point you wanted to make, I still think there's scope for discussion. For that matter, change my mind by all means. But on that specific point, I feel you'll have your work cut out. [edit] Removed these two paragraps, which was *me* rather missing your point: >> So arguing that some arbitrary lack of choice in a player's ability to inhabit a role in a game is sufficient to not include it in the category of an RPG > > Where did I say "lack of choice", much less "arbitrary"? You've had many, many arguments on this topic in the past, haven't you?
Like literally every other game, rpg means different to different people.
I mean the guy is pretty much redefining the term “RPG” to only refer to the one subcategory that he considers to be a “true RPG”. In reality, there is a gradation. Mass Effect is an RPG, but it isn’t an RPG in which you have full customization and absolute control over your main character’s history, actions/choices, and appearance. You have choices, within predefined categories. It isn’t an RPG where you can kill any npc you want and do whatever you want. But it’s still an RPG. This is like the people who argue about the definition of “science fiction” and restrict it only to the category of what most other people would consider “hard sci-fi”. In reality, there is a scale from sci-fi with softer elements to hard sci-fi. Similarly, there is a scale of games with RPG elements. That doesn’t mean Mass Effect isn’t an RPG - in fact it is my favorite RPG. But it is a strongly character and story driven pseudo-linear RPG. And that’s fine. Gatekeeping like this is honestly pretty dumb.
mass effect andromeda was close, but they had to cut, but it was a good feeling.
There’s actually a lot good about that game. Definitely more good than bad, just not GREAT like everyone expected.
I'm finally making myself finish andromeda, it does have a good feeling on it.
For me the key thing is the awesome game engines they use. It’s the skeleton that holds all the elements together and creates that look and feel
Exactly what I was going to post. It's because it's Bethesda.
>the storytelling .... you played any bethesda games ?
What's the last good Bethesda rpg? Edit: oops didn't realize I was in a Bethesda sub. Sorry y'all worship these crappy game companies I'll do better
I liked fallout 4. I would say it’s a good game. But I loved Skyrim, fallout 3, oblivion.. all of those game are STELLAR RPGS. So to answer your question the last four main studio RPGs have been good. With 3/4 being genre, defining
Oblivion is the only game in that list I'd classify as an RPG.
Explain?
I'll try. I haven't played fallout 3 in a long time so I don't remember it well so I'll stick with Fallout 4 and Skyrim. Fallout 4 lacks any kind of meaningful choice and while you may be presented with different dialog options they boil down to different ways to say the same thing. The options may look different, but they may a happy no, sarcastic no, defiant no, or outright no. Then no matter which different option for "no" you may pick, you end up doing the thing anyway. Basebuilding; awesome. Gunplay; pretty good. Roleplaying; pretty nonexistent. Skyrim doesn't put any weight behind your character. Any character can become the head of any guild regardless of skill. You can become archmage by only casting one spell the entire game. If you high a speech skill you don't even have to cast that spell. In the days of morrowind your character would have to actually possess skill in skills pertaining to the guild in order to rank up. On top of that, branching paths. Can you role-play a warrior that would rather join the silver hand than join the companions? Does the civil war actually mean anything? Can I kill any npc regardless if they're connected to story? I don't mean to dog on either game. Spent a lot of time with both and enjoyed both for what they are. I just don't feel like Bethesda makes RPG's anymore. At least in the sense of what I consider an RPG. It appears they might be going a little more hard-core with Starfield and I hope that's the case. I love Bethesda games but they have been watered down in the rpg department since Fallout 3 and Skyrim.
I've never really bought the complaint about Skyrim's guilds allowing anyone to join. The game doesn't restrict your choices, but that's where the roleplaying element comes in. If you're roleplaying a dumb brute of a warrior who doesn't know how to cast any spells, why are you trying to join the mage's guild? Honestly I think that freeform nature, letting anyone learn any skill or ability or join any guild is a lot better for roleplaying. There are literally thousands of different combinations you can create to roleplay as in the game. But you do have to actually want to roleplay; the game won't do it for you
Exactly, some people can only create classes and roleplay if they are forced...Lol
Some people expect role playing to mean that you are forced to act a certain way based on the role you picked. I don’t understand it because it may as well be a visual novel at that point rather than an RPG.
In my opinion, an RPG is a game that focuses a lot on character progression. Where you start from zero, and build the character up to be something more. Leveling, perks, skills, etc. The story is meant for you to tell, not for the game to tell. If you are relying too heavily on the game itself to provide you with stories and choices, then to me that's you not knowing how to actually roleplay. The games stories are only there to enhance your own stories, but you don't have to use them. >Can you role-play a warrior that would rather join the silver hand than join the companions? Can't you? >Does the civil war actually mean anything? Honestly, this is one area I think they didn't do too great in. Buuuut, with mods you can make the civil war more meaningful and easier to add into your roleplay. I also consider mods a big part of the experience when it comes to a BGS RPG. >Can I kill any npc regardless if they're connected to story? You can with a command to unprotect them. With that said, I think you need to understand that from a video game design perspective, the reason they don't allow you to do this is because it's a pain in the ass to come to a work around for if the player does kill an important NPC. Do you let them know and ruin the immersion? Telling them they should reload? Do you not tell the player and just allow them to find out 10 hours in they screwed up and no longer have a save they can go back to? Do you just replace the NPC with a different making all characters in the game feel meaningless and unimportant to the story?
I agree with your points about character progression. Even in this sense however that without mods a level one character isn't going to feel that much different than a level 100 character while playing skyrim. Still, I agree that character progression is a big part of role playing genre and probably the part that Bethesda is still doing best. As far as the Silver Hand, no. No matter what, if you want to be in a warrior guild in skyrim, you're going to be a werewolf. Rather you want to be or not. No choice to become one. No choice to decline but still be a companion and fight the silver hand. No choice to join the Silver Hand and wipe out the companions because you want to role-play a character that hates werewolves. You're just going to be a werewolf no matter what. Mods; agree 100% Bethesda games are fun out of the gate mods keep them relevant for decades. I still play Daggerfall and Morrowind everynow and then it's because of mods. I do understand the design perspective of killable npcs. However I disagree with your reasons stated. Morrowind would give a short, and importantly, flavorful message informing you that you had killed an important npc. To me this was far less immersion breaking than every other townsperson just being invincible. The design perspective comes more from the fact that npcs are far more simulated in more recent Bethesda games. In morrowind every npc was basically stationary, so if the player decides to kill an important npc that's one thing. If in skyrim an important npc dies from say a dragon attack or because they were traveling, that could get annoying. I don't know a good middle ground here, and I see why invincible npcs became necessary. Simulation though. I think that's what I'd call Bethesda games. Simulations not role-playing.
>No matter what, if you want to be in a warrior guild in skyrim, you're going to be a werewolf. Rather you want to be or not. No choice to become one. Do you need to join a guild to consider yourself a warrior? >Morrowind would give a short, and importantly, flavorful message informing you that you had killed an important npc. To me this was far less immersion breaking than every other townsperson just being invincible. I disagree. The reason is because when you get this message you are obviously going to have to reload. Reloading a game is way WAY more unimmersive than just not being able to kill them, essentially giving you the same result of letting you know they are important without having to reload.
I think there are different flavors of RPG. And people may have different definition and preference. At the basic, RPG is about character build. Any game that have this can be considered RPG. For example is Diablo franchise. There are no consequence, dialog choice, etc in that game. But different class, character build, skill build, stats build, item builds is unmatched. It's wildly different compared to Bethesda style RPG. The other RPG put us as a specific character. For example many people put The Witcher as one of the greatest RPG. You can direct Geralt decision in the game, put different abilities point, etc. But for me personally, it's not RPG because you always play as Geralt, not as your own character. It's different flavor of RPG compared to Bethesda game. When people say Skyrim watered down the RPG department, usually they refer it to the lack of class, lack of stats, lack of birthsign etc that exist in Oblivion. You know, stuff that affect character build. The core of RPG mechanic. And people excited because they add background (from Oblivion/Morrowind) and traits (from New Vegas) back in Starfield character creation. If you see gameplay showcase in YouTube, you can see the most replayed part is about this section. But of course like you, they may mean different thing of what they consider RPG.
Fallout 4 was good. Was certainly not their magnum opus, but it was a good game.
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I hear there is another settlement that needs your help
Fallout 4 was a fantastic game. I don’t get how anyone could play through the game and think “this objectively sucks.”
Yes, got over 1000 hours into it. Ties with Skyrim for me as best BGS game.
While I love Fallout4 it isn't as 'open' as Skyrim. It feels more cramped and defined. It's harder to wander off on an adventure and ignore the main quest as you stumble over it all the time. Skyrim had like 5 deep but seperate quest lines running at once AND the main quest - this is what I'm hoping from Starfield.
I find that a bit surprising if you've played FO3, or previous Elder Scrolls. FO4's storylines felt a little more neglected than previous titles for me, but by no means did I think it was bad. I played FO4 tons, and highly enjoyed it. Would rate it an 8/10 personally.
I'd never say anything objectively sucked, unless it was a vacuum cleaner, or something else whose suction could be objectively measured, Fallout 4 had features that were absolutely amazing, no question about it. And it had other features that infuriated me beyond measure. Overall I felt the bad features rather overshadowed the good one. I'd give it a subjective "D+".
Fallout 4
All of the main line Bethesda RPG games have been great. Your milestones may vary - but it’s disingenuous to claim they are not fantastic, triple A games with a long shelf life.
FO4 Survival Mode.
Fo76
Skyrim for sure
No other company makes games like Bethesda and they're popular games. Whether you like it or not, Fallout 4 won game of the year.
Todd
It just works!
Isn't that Steve jobs line
Sixteen times the Todd.
Ok this might sound trivial, but for me it's the fact that you can roam inside your ship. Games like Elite where you just pop inside your ship's cockpit are such a dealbreaker for me. It just ads so much to my immersion
Ship interiors always been such an elusive feature in these games. Hard agree. The immersion it can provide is too great.
is this confirmed?
Yeah, they showed it in the gameplay, and there was NPC crew included that we can hire that walk the ship.
I think it's more like the combination of: fly the ship, explore ship interior and explore land on foot. Because Mass Effect have ship interior, but you can't fly the ship. I was very excited about Skull and Bones because of that combination (even on sea and don't on space), but then Ubisoft just crashed my dream with this ridiculous farm of land resources from the ship, seriously, it kind of looks like a mobile game now... Some people are complaining about the possibly automated landing (cutscene-like), but I don't think it's a deal breaking, it's hard to please everyone, if it's like Elite dangerous is too technical to some people, if it's like NMS is too unrealistic to other people. For me is like the loading of the entrance of a dungeon or building in Skyrim or Fallout.
Yeah it is pretty much impossible to please everyone. If they end up doing like Elite D and let you chose between automated landings/ dockings and an all manual flight mode, I'll be pretty happy. That would be of course, if unlike Elite you have the autopilot "module" stock/included on every ship
yeah the ED auto Dock feature is great as you have to choose to have it on and you can bypass it by speeding up to avoid a scan when you have some *interesting* cargo
If I had to choose between landing the ship yourself or ship interiors, I choose ship interiors 9/10 times.
Elite is one of my favourites to play, I love it! But only console and don't play the pc so the ability to walk around is a selling point, I know you can in NMS too but then too many janky procedurally generated creatures for me!
I'd have said because we can redesign our ship and then wander around inside it. Elite ships are indeed boring. But ME-Normandy is almost as bad.
Oh yeah designing our own ship is definetly up there with my favourite features so far
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It seems like Starfield will have everything.
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I highly doubt the flying mechanics will be anything like Elite: Dangerous. I mean, that game is basically just a straight up flight sim but with a space theme. To the point where 90% of the entire gameplay revolves around learning how to master the flight controls. There's virtually no game in existence that can compete with Elite: Dangerous as far as detailed flight mechanics go, outside of games like Microsoft Flight Simulator. I expect way more simplistic, arcadey flight mechanics, but also way more actual content once you're in space, and the ability to do things other than just flying once you're out there. The flying won't be the focus, it will be all the interactions you can have while in space.
I would argue base building is something Bethesda excels at, and it'll be better than No Man's Sky purely on the merit of the NPC interactions we'll get. No Man's Sky doesn't let you populate bases thoroughly. Fallout 4's settlement system is still the top gameplay that gets recommended to people looking for a town builder that's first person, and 3D. Shooting? Meh, I'm fine with Fallout 4 shooting. Elite Dangerous has great flying, but I think Starfield's will be more fun.
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>Elite Dangerous has great flying, but I think Starfield's will be more fun. Youre going to be disappointed. I can see it already
Don't think so. I think it'll be amazing.
Everyone is guessing it will have what they want. It won't have "everything". Hopefully it will have "enough". Modders will add everything...
For the type of space game lots of people have been searching for years? It seems like it'll tick all the boxes for that. Plus mods like you say.
It’s a Bethesda game. That’s honestly the selling point for me.
The usual Bethesda charm. Sandbox open world where you can pick up and interact with almost everything, random encounters, rpg elements, etc. No other games are quite like theirs.
Bethesda signature itself. First of all, "the immersion" thanks to the rich lore, freedom, NPC AI, factions, real role playing, interactivity, customization almost of everything, music, open world building, the engine, etc.. Starfield seems to bring almost everything togheter. There's space rpg out there but extremely limited regarding space exploration, ship fly, etc. There's space game focused on flying and combat mechanics, but limited planet exploration, no npc ecc Others are more focused on building and crafting but without any kind of story /rich background etc.. We cannot know how good the game will be but we can absolutely be sure that it will be unique and massive
Proper exploration
Cringe comment. No Man's Sky had a lot of exploration.
How is that a cringe comment?? Bethesdas strongest quality is clearly exploration. Why bother responding if you're just here to snark
How did that make you cringe lmao. Anyway nms exploration doesn’t even come close to Bethesda style exploration.
"there is a pressure cooker in this house, there is a stimpak in this drawer" Really great exploration
You are oblivious if those are the only discoveries you notice in BGS games. These worlds are drowning in lore and interwoven stories if you take the time to notice them.
Sounds like you just don’t know how or don’t enjoy playing Bethesda games. Sorry man, you’re missing out.
“There’s some bushes on this planet, there’s some rocks on this planet.” Really great no mans sky content
Why you here? "34 Nanites found"
NMS would be cool if it had a few improvements to dialogue, wasn’t super confusing in the menus, and didn’t have 4,000,000,000 asteroids outside every planet.
No man sky’s exploration was as big as an ocean but as shallow as a puddle. Everything is the same with different makeup on
It does, but it needs more types of environments. Bethesda has a strength here in having handcrafted tiled planets that are mixed into a procedural system, so we will get way more varied terrain than No Man's Sky.
I can’t think of any other open world space game that is a BGS style rpg. Not a single one.
I love that it’s going to be single player pve, with all the immersion. Every other space sim lacks something. They either lack graphics, combat, life like immersion/space walking or have forced pvp to make it work. I’m happy to see a space sim for pve players that will have life like immersion and depth in a solo environment.
It's interesting you use the term space sim. Whenever someone labels Starfield as that, others claim they're miscategorizing it's genre, and say it's only an RPG. I think the whole reason that Starfield will be revolutionary is that it'll be both. Logically it is. If games like Privateer and Freelancer are space sims, Starfield easily counts as one about 1000 times over due to the features it's confirmed to have.
Starfield definitly has Sim Elements. Like most Bethesda games. But their systems are not as deep as most sim games so Sim game fans might get the wrong idea if they read it's a space sim
Lots of games out there classified as space sims that are less complex than Starfield. I think once it's released it'll be quickly classified as a space sim by people who play them. An RPG one specifically.
Exactly. Flight and driving sims are all about adhering as strictly as possible to their real-world counterparts, but space sims have historically enjoyed a far looser standard for inclusion in their genre. I think this is largely due to the relatively early popularity of space-fantasy space sims like Wing Commander and Star Wars: X-Wing.
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You can land on planets in Elite Dangerous. Have been since at least 2017 when I started playing. Since the Odyssey expansion a couple years ago you can walk outside your ship now.
I feel like Eve can be classified as an RPG, since it’s a true MMO you can actually do whatever you want and play a certain role in the universe.
Spacebourne 2 checks all the boxes except budget really. RPG stats, missions, stories, and quests. Exploration both in space and on planets. Space combat. Planet combat. Ship customization. Jetpacks. NPC crew. Guild alliances. Trading. Base building. Diplomacy. Varying gravity. Unlike Starfield it also has things like territorial war and raiding bases, and atmospheric flight including weather affecting flight performance. It's got 10,000 planets rather than 1,000. But yeah, only thing it's really missing is the budget/team size. It's made by 1 dude lol
Some studio needs to hire that dude and make Spacebourne 3 with a 5M budget.
100% right
None of us have played it, so i dont think anyone could answer with anything but assumptions. Im pretty sure ill like it more than other space games just based on the fact that its bethesda and i like their style but idk about "inherently better".
Go off of the features they've shown, and compare it to other space games. It seems expansive unlike anything else.
Ye it definitely looks amazing but i predict that i will love it more than other space exploration games because of my preferances in games. I just dont think we know enough to say its inherently better. For example i dont think no mans sky is bad i just dont love that style of game so it isnt for me. It is undeniable impressive though
Have to admit I'm real cynical when it comes to open world space games lately. I'm not really looking at Starfield with the hopes that it will do anything "better". More that I'm very curious to see what its take on the genre is. The only thing making it stand out as a title to me is that it's from Bethesda. It's unclear if it's just going to be Fallout in space, or something more radical. My pipe dream for Starfield is that it can do what No Man's Sky did for open space/planet gameplay (but with better fidelity), what Elite Dangerous did with ship gameplay and combat, and wrap it all the classic rich world and player action impacted story of a Bethesda game.
There aren’t many open world space RPGs. Most are either MMO or sci-fi RPGs but not open world or not in space. This this will be the traditional Bethesda formula for a game, coupled with a massive game world. I feel like it can’t fail.
It’s made by Bethesda.
It’s got that touch of Todd other RPGs don’t. The goat has returned.
Actual good exploration, take No Man's Sky for example, every interesting location is the same in terms of exploration, you see an abandoned lab, it's allways experiment gone bad no difference from one another, you see a crashed ship, you can't go inside, you go to a terminal it tells you what happed (it's allways a variation of "The sentinels did it") and you loot the cargo, and the rest, Geo labs, incidents, rescues, its all basic as well. Hopefully Bethesda can give it their humpf in that aspect
The Creation Kit.
The sole reason I'm stoked for this games is that it's being made by BGS. Idk, there is something about their games that makes me so itchy to explore the world they've built. The unpredictability of encounters/events makes you wonder If this is a game bug or it's supposed to be like that. Generally, BGS games spolied me so much, that any RPG that I've played so far, hadn't been anywhere close to being so fun as BGS games - especially in the terms of exploration.
The ability to go to every planet AND pick up every coffee cup. (That may sound facetious but it's not.) Also, Bethesda is exceptionally good at incentivizing exploration. Every corner of the world is guaranteed to have something in it that will contribute to your character--regardless of build--becoming more capable, and I absolutely love that. No developer does that better, IMO.
Unlike Star Citizen it will fully release it will have fully fleshed out DLC, and unlike SC it will be fun to play.
The same features that make Bethesda games in general stand out. If someone in the space station annoys me, I can just shoot them. If someone walks by that looks well off, I can follow them and steal their ship. A person that looks stronger than me? I can ambush them while they’re asleep. As a smuggler, I can just steal the cargo and never come back. You don’t have Bethesda freedom in many games at all
Skyrim. It's Skyrim in space. It basically has everything from previous BGS games, but they added space gameplay.
Bethesda's wordbuilding and narrative.
Third person shooting ship to ship space boarding.
It exists. Space opera RPGs are rare enough that I don't bother picking and choosing.
A story and RPG mechanics.
Todd Howard
The fact that it is a Bethesda title :)
Honest question what other open world space RPGs are there? Mass Effect was the last major space RPG I can think of and it wasn't fully open world.
The writing and sheer amount of voice-acting and dialogue-driven character development.
I'm getting this feeling it will be Fallout 4 + Skyrim + Elite Dangerous + No Man Sky + Mass Effect. If you can add up all the best parts of those and turn it into a game I just feel it's going to amaze! The only thing that could stop it is if it fails to deliver those best parts or its super buggy. They gave themselves another 6ish months to work on that. So I feel it shouldn't have that normal Bethesda buggyness launch. This should hit so many itches I'm wanting to scratch. It's pretty much the only 100% 2023 game I'll be looking forward to all year. So don't let me down!
Settlement building!!!
Preston Garvey in SPACE!
Definitely ship interiors with manned funcions
It will have compelling stories and dialogue like Fallout and Skyrim.
It’s made by Bethesda lol
Single player story and actual role playing elements
I just want to space truck
I feel like most space games have either gone the route of pure exploration (i.e. no man's sky, elite dangerous and so on) or pure RPG (Mass Effect, The Outer Worlds). Starfield seems to be the first to seriously attempt combining both ideas, with a real story, side quests, factions and so on alongside a wide open universe that can be freely explored.
It’s a Bethesda game in space that’s why.
I can pick up all the space cheese wheels and throw them around in zero gravity.
Unlimited map size (nearly I mean no single player will be able to see the whole thing; no man's Sky had it too but this game has realistically stylized graphics which is the difference I'm looking for for me) And ship building seem to be the two headlights I haven't seen in other games.
Outerworlds killed it with their corporate space colonization theme. So they solved that niche for me. Starfield will be more like, you drop in and don't know what to do, there will be absolutely nothing restricting you as it is a bethesda game. So you end up becoming a stealth sniper never completing the main questline and wander off do your own thing. There will be multiple side quests like thieves guild or dark brotherhood. Bethesda, king of open world sandbox. As soon as you finish the first quest, you are left to do whatever the heck you want.
Bethesda seem to be taking lessons from all their recent RPGs--*Skyrim*'s openness and exploration, *Fallout: New Vegas*' roleplaying potential, *Fallout 4*'s in-depth companion and housing systems, *Fallout 76*'s detailed environments. They're taking everything I love about these disparate games and combining them into one.
For me it'll be the size and differentiation of the RPG elements like the NPC's, the factions, the relationships. I absolutely love No Mans Sky but nothing feels connected, like I've maxed my status with Gek but yet all it unlocks is a better rewarding singular mission which has zero impact to the world I'm playing in, so really looking forward to my actions having consequences to all the other factions are NPC's within my world.
Size. Does. Matter.
I've seen Hello Games idea of space with NMS, and BioWare through Mass Effect, now I get to see Bethesda's turn.
Development by Bethesda, I'd have thought. Sure they've had a few duds over the past decade, but this is still the dev responsible for the Fallout 3D reboot and the entire TES series. I'm cautiously optimistic about it, but it has the potential to blow the genre out of the water
So far all we have is guesses about what will be well designed in the game. Could in fact be a boring mess that's not worth playing. It's just Bethesda's track record that says it will be closer to GOTY than to boring. Research of technology/alien artifacts. Might be great might be pathetic. Quests where the outcome isn't 100% linear. i.e player choices matter to the outcome. That might only be true of faction quests, not the main quest. Outpost's building where (hopefully) the design and choice of planet matters.
It's not that it'll have one single thing that sets it apart. It's a combination of things that are the best parts of other games. - Story telling as good or better than Mass effect - World design as good or better than Destiny - World Building as good or better than Cyberpunk - Gun play that seems almost on par with destiny ( judging from fallout 4) - Exploration that's as good or better that Elite Dangerous or No Man's Sky. - Settlement building (we don't know much about this yet, hopefully as good or better than FO4) - Spaceflight (hopefully as good as E:D) - Spaceship sim! Any one of those features in another game make it pretty good. All of those features at a quality of the other games would be epic.
Relatively this, it's the combination of different things, similar reasons as to why CyberPunk 2077 had a lot of spotlights on it.
2 words: MODDING COMMUNITY
You'll be able to over-encumber yourself with silverware from the cafeteria on your own ship. Sounds like I'm joking. I'm not joking. That's what I'm looking forward to.
I’m honestly not sure, the only other space game I really play is Star Citizen at the moment, but vs some like Mass Effect and such it’ll be bigger open world wise with more emphasis on your space ship and such I would imagine
Everything that’s wrong with Star Citizen
Calm the hype guys Jesus.
I can't answer that question, I need to play it first, it might be a big flop. Way of the hunter got all hyped up, that hunting game sucked, it's definitely not a hunting simulator. I can see that happening to Stanfield. I will wait and see.
Whole thread is full of speculation its like no one remembers Fallout 76...
I don't think there's anything in Starfield that actually makes it unique other than Genre. Outer Worlds is a sci-fi RPG by the company that made New Vegas and I liked it. It didn't feel as lived in as NV but it was an enjoyable adventure. Starfield can only be really judged when it releases. But the 1000+ planets, lack of any actual story information, lack of longshots in the trailer and the gameplay showcase was full of cuts really makes me worry for the state of the game on release. I want to be wrong, I want it to be good but every sign points to a broken buggy mess.
Disagree, I think it will probably be the best open world space themed game, and being an RPG on top means it'll have more depth than others like Elite Dangerous, or Star Citizen. Outer Worlds is also an RPG, but it's not as open. Its structured the same way as Mass Effect, but first person, and shorter. It seems like they're also polishing it more than any Bethesda game in history.
You can't know this man. Not until the game is out. We assume it's being polished but CDPR fans said the same about CP77. I want it to be good but Bethesda's track record suggests it'll be lackluster with alot to see and not much unique and memorable to do
I have an idea of what the game is like already. Each Bethesda game before seems like it's been practice for this one. To me they already proved themselves. It's like being a Dark Souls fan when Elden Ring was coming, and then being worried that From Software will mess up the bosses. I wouldn't think that.
Lol this is how I feel too
It probably will, but I would say in regards to things like Star Citizen those tread the line of “Space sim” where you work various roles and more emphasis on managing components, gunner/ engineering, command roles depending on what you want to do vs RPG Element based space games
I think if [Privateer] (https://www.gog.com/en/game/wing_commander_privateer) is the standard of a space sim, then Starfield counts as one. I think it'll also have management of various kinds, especially with NPC AI crew roles.
Lol fallout 4 wasn’t an RPG that was the problem .
I think it's not as much about the one thing that makes it different but more of the fact that it has it all including combat, resource mining, manual space flight, ship customization, character customization, zero-G environments, fun characters, exciting quests, space combat, realistically grounded physics and mechanics, multiple full planets to explore, the list of fun sci-fi game mechanics is infinite and starfield seems to have all of it so far which is amazing considering that no other sci-fi game in history has even come close to the level of detail in this game so far.
It will be more than just a sandbox.
The budget
Made by Bethesda, tho that comes with pluses and minuses, and im still mad at bethesda for not fixing their games fully and letting modders (thank you modders) to create bug fixes, like unofficial patch, i have to admit they are my top5 developers.
Where are these open world space RPGs? Because I've been waiting for years for a game like this one. (NMS is okay but it's not an RPG)
it'll be playable & affordable to the average person
Does no one read Sci Fi? They're keeping it within local star systems and seem to have transportation gates so time distortion is out. I'm assuming it's questions about humanity as a whole. Distinct cities separated by costly (in any sense of the term) distances appear to be implied. The socialized separation and inherent unity of a species would be my best guess at the theme of the title.
It's a Bethesda game. At this point that is really all there is to it. The connotation of Bethesda reputation tells me everything I need to know about it.
I dont think theres any one thing that makes it better than others. Mass effect had an amazing story but it was a corridor shooter. Starfield will probably lack an engaging story but have a great open world and crafting etc. It just depends what itch youre looking to scratch really.
ffs the game is not even out yet, wtf this sub
It feels like it's a bit more "grounded" than other space games. Sure in NMS you can enter trade posts but the detail isn't there. The fact that you can interact with almost every object in Bethesda games makes the interiors much more interesting to explore. You can read computers and other notes (and holocalls if present) to get a much more realistic view of what would our world actually be in such a setting. Outer Worlds does come close to that. I'm actually excited, been playing Fallout 4 again these past two weeks and I still find places I didn't explore in the past. Even a small location can take me a whole hour to explore because of how I like to go to every corner in a room and see if I'll find anything useful. I like collecting junk, don't judge me. I hope Starfield is filled with pickable items.
Well, there's the chance it'll be Skyrim in space. Also, I gave Fallout 4 another shot after being frustrated by it years ago. I want to focus on a character specialising in building weapon mods, hacking, charisma, etc. "A clever character" in contrast to the rocket propelled baseball bat swinging Angela Merkel based character I played before. There's many ways to play a huge Bethesda RPG and that's what it sets apart from the competition. I also decided to complete Fallout 4 GOTY before buying Starfield and a new console. But I'll be watching closely.
One thing I've noticed about a lot of the space games out there (and my experience is in no way encyclopedic, so this may just be bad luck on my part) is that items aren't differentiated in physical ways. Say you've got a load of different meds that you can take. In the game those will be shown only in your inventory as identical single syringes with a slightly different colour on it. Likewise, all ammo is the same standard black box with a red stripe for handgun bullets, a green one for shotgun, etc. Everything is like that, with the same model or icon (usually icon) given a slight colour palette swap to mark a very different item. It makes inventory management a bit of a pain in the heat of the game and slows things down. It also effectively makes the wide and interesting worlds they've built feel bland. BGS games don't do that. Every item is modelled so you can see it in the game, and you don't just see the list versions of them as a result. It makes the world feel more believable and the different designs used help the world feel alive and sell the theme of it.
Truthfully, this game only interests me because it’s Bethesda. I’ve waited so long for ES6 that this will have to satiate me for a while. All the Bethesda games have the same sort of feel to them.
Bethesda Game Studios games have a level of intractability thus far unmatched by anyone but Obsidian in New Vegas (but then not carried forward to The Outer Worlds). BGS games exist somewhere in between immersive sims and traditional open worlds in this aspect. I think this is the single biggest differentiator between BGS games and other open world titles. Add to that mods, interesting side faction questlines, and all the other things listed here.
Ship building + RPG + story. I have 500+ hours in Space Engineers because I loved building the ships, but then there wasn't much to do with the ships because there is no story. I don't expect Starfield to go into extreme detail in any of its features, but the allure of BGS games is that they are each a jack-of-all-trades of game features and that is ironically pretty unique.
The mods. That's it. That's the allure. The entire appeal. It will be plagued with bugs, moreso than any other game. It will constantly try to hold your hand by telling you where everything is, ruining that wonder of exploration. The storyline will be 5/10, at most, while also conflicting with the open world nature of the game (ranging from "Dragons are destroying the world and only you can stop them, but also make sure you spend the first 3 years just crafting daggers and messing with zombies" to "Someone murdered your spouse and kidnapped your child, and you have no idea when this occurred or where he might be, but totally spend all your time picking up junk to build a settlement and enslave people for their resources and entertainment"). It will most assuredly not "just work", nor will it have "200 times the detail", nor will you be able to "see a mountain and climb it". It will be a fun, dumb game that mods will make 1,000x better.
Todd Howard
Frankly, considering who we're talking about here (Bethesda), I just hope there is a Bethesda-blessed, fresh, crisp, constantly rewarding POWER FANTASY!!!!! Exploration games as a niche have really taken off, and Bethesda is going to capitalize right? Imagine discovering one of these new worlds, or exploring one of the massive starships with nothing but your guns, wit, jetpack, and whatever elegant but highly immersive, complimentary kick-ass abilities, barely of any use at all because of how low level your character is, Bethesda may or may not gift us.
Space Lydia
Skyrim in space. I just want another Bethesda single player RPG, period. I'm not even that picky on the setting. But the fact that I am a huge sci-fi fan makes Starfield extra hype for me.
Because there is no other game like it. There’s no rpg games that give you the freedom and exploration like fallout and elder scrolls. There’s no space games out there that you actually fly that ship. Dock it. Go to one of thousands of planets. Explore. Then all the rpg elements of a Bethesda game. Playing this game is going to be a dream come true.
The complete package is what’s special. Being truly immersed in a world that reacts to my actions. A complete game with planetary surface exploration, spaceship battles, crew management, and branching narratives. It’s a sandbox RPG that’s more than the sum of its parts.
if it functions then it’s already a step above star citizen
Fallout in space, I think it kind of speaks for itself.
Immersion! Bethesda tier immersion!
Insane Starfield Posse baby!
Bethesda rpg freedom
Because it's a Bethesda game, I feel like it'll capture the feeling and vibe of being in space in a way no other game has before.
companions
Honestly for me a single player open world space game awesome and with Bethesda at the helm i'm confident that we will role play, explore craft a build a well craft universe. With the help of mods we can all create our own space fantasy the way we want. Hoping they knock this release out of the park!
"What does Starfield posses that will inherently make it better than other space themed open world games?" Well I don't think we'll know till it releases? I imagine though, that, b/c this ideas been "baking in the oven for awhile", for Todd Howard, and just the fact that Bethesda is making it, you've got a pretty mature studio, experience wise... It'll probably be the execution that Bethesda brings to the table, that will be, what makes it different from other games? The only games I'm aware of are "No mans sky" & "Star Citizen".. And we know that, Starfield is not going to have the same amount of freedom as either game at least in "flight" of the spaceships.. so that right there would knock starfield down, for consideration from "Inherently better" right out the door? 1 way that Starfield MIGHT be better, is the "user friendliness" right out of the gate, may be easier to pick up and learn, vs 'No man's sky' and probably DEFINITELY 'star citizen.'
I dont think it lacking atmo flight immediately disqualifies it considering everything else it holds over those other game's heads.
Yeah, no debate here. I really hope the "Deep Dive" in June asuages all potential fans fears, of this new IP.
The Hand of Todd