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[nikolino840]

Starfield's lead quest designer had 'absolutely no time' and had to hit the 'panic button' so the game would have a satisfying final quest

"It became very clear that we were missing the large final location that was going to tie the story together," says former lead quest designer Will Shen.

www.pcgamer.com

"It became very clear that we were missing the large final location that was going to tie the story together," says former lead quest designer Will Shen.

 

[SRTtoZ]

Let's be honest, the final quest/location is not the issue at ALL when it comes to the story in this game. It had issues from the very first quest to the last when it comes to overall story, pacing and dialogue. How the heck did they 'not have time' when this game was in development for so long? WTF are they doing over there at Bethesda? It seems like the only positive from that group is ESO and that's not even technically Bethesda.

 

[WitchHunter]

People thanked by playing the game via Gamepass.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

some people still in denial thinking this games is a misunderstood masterpiece victim of the Xbox Tax.


but countless video assays exposing how bad Starfield actually is cannot being wrong.

 

[TheAtomicPile]

People thanked by playing the game via Gamepass.

*Via a free trial of Gamepass

Thanks Phil!

 

[FeralEcho]

The gaming industry is a mess,"no time" after such a long development,does management at all these studios even know what their job entails to even?

So many problems nowadays in gaming seem to come from poor management, it's ridiculous,how did these people get in charge of these studios or projects.

 

[Wildebeest]

Sounds like modern game development. If you want to add a chair to a level, you have to convene the chair placement committee to schedule consultation with back pain specialists to make sure the chair is not threatening. Only then can you send a request to Bob in London who is the chair cushion specialist and Chen in Shanghai who is the chair frame specialist (bottom), to start the ten-month process of creating the chair and placing it, involving 100 specialist devs scattered across the world.

 

[Topher]

He speaks the truth. The second half of the main story was just horrible. The reason behind all of the big mystery was just bullshit. There was no ending that tied it all together. Just a battle and an ending. Was ridiculously bad.

I felt the side quests were far superior than the main quest and made up for a lot of the issues. I've pretty much always enjoyed the faction quests more than the main stories in Bethesda games.

 

[adamsapple]

 

[Pop]

People thanked by playing the game via Gamepass.

Hey I played for a dollar

Phil looking out for us for real

 

[Sushi_Combo]

I can't wait to play the definitive edition on Ps5 later this year.

 

[Jigsaah]

Starfield's lead quest designer had 'absolutely no time' and had to hit the 'panic button' so the game would have a satisfying final quest

"It became very clear that we were missing the large final location that was going to tie the story together," says former lead quest designer Will Shen.

www.pcgamer.com

"It became very clear that we were missing the large final location that was going to tie the story together," says former lead quest designer Will Shen.

Come on, it's PC Gamer Ybarra, what do you expect?

 

[Ribi]

He had like 12 years!

 

[Rockman33]

some people still in denial thinking this games is a misunderstood masterpiece victim of the Xbox Tax.


but countless video assays exposing how bad Starfield actually is cannot being wrong.

Very few people are acting like this is a masterpiece.

I’m not sure why there’s so much bullying going on because someone likes a game you or other people don’t.

 

[Atrus]

The game was poorly managed and we haven’t really got a tell all as to why we got the clusterfuck of scope creep, half-assed design, and general lack of direction that is the final release. There’s no reason the last quest of the meaningless, forgettable storyline needed to be rushed out at the end when the game has been cooking for something like 8 years. It just sounds like they didn’t know how to end the atrocious story.

In many ways Starfield is worse than the games they released a decade ago but Bethesda acts like the problem is with the consumer and not their poor leadership, which is a poor indicator of their ability to correct issues in future games.

 

[Topher]

Eh.....not sure what these guy's problem is here. The dev said what he said. So what?

 

[Stuart360]

some people still in denial thinking this games is a misunderstood masterpiece victim of the Xbox Tax.


but countless video assays exposing how bad Starfield actually is cannot being wrong.

Its not a masterpiece, and it has a lot of flaws. The game was just too big of a scope for that crumbling engine.
I didnt even finish the story because i spoiled myself and hated how it sounded.
The side content though, which is like 90% of the content in Bethesda rpg's, is top class though and up there with the best they have done.
Its still a 8/10 for me for that side content.

Have you actually played the game ChorizoPicozo?

 

[Kerotan]

Let's be honest, the final quest/location is not the issue at ALL when it comes to the story in this game. It had issues from the very first quest to the last when it comes to overall story, pacing and dialogue. How the heck did they 'not have time' when this game was in development for so long? WTF are they doing over there at Bethesda? It seems like the only positive from that group is ESO and that's not even technically Bethesda.

There's a reason they were happy to accent 7BN. Same for Bungie. They knew there was a rocky road ahead.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

UC Vanguard faction quest line was pretty awesome but the main story was mediocre. I enjoyed the game but it was pretty much just a middle-of-the-road Bethesda game in space. It could’ve been something really special with more work.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Very few people are acting like this is a masterpiece.

exactly. poor souls

I’m not sure why there’s so much bullying going on

1. The game was hyped beyond believe.
2. Bethesda had a couple of controversial releases before it (Fallout4 and 76). so, Bethesda's fans were already in defense mode.

3. Exclusivity fiasco. a First Party game is held to higher standards.

4. attempt to manipulate the initial critical reception

etcetera

because someone likes a game you or other people don’t.

uhhh no buddy. you can like shit and own it.

 

[semiconscious]

Let's be honest, the final quest/location is not the issue at ALL when it comes to the story in this game. It had issues from the very first quest to the last when it comes to overall story, pacing and dialogue. How the heck did they 'not have time' when this game was in development for so long? WTF are they doing over there at Bethesda? It seems like the only positive from that group is ESO and that's not even technically Bethesda.

yeah, this's the equivalent of serving up a bad blt sandwich &, in retrospect, discussing the manner in which the toothpick was placed...

 

[Sushi_Combo]

The game was poorly managed and we haven’t really got a tell all as to why we got the clusterfuck of scope creep, half-assed design, and general lack of direction that is the final release. There’s no reason the last quest of the meaningless, forgettable storyline needed to be rushed out at the end when the game has been cooking for something like 8 years. It just sounds like they didn’t know how to end the atrocious story.

In many ways Starfield is worse than the games they released a decade ago but Bethesda acts like the problem is with the consumer and not their poor leadership, which is a poor indicator of their ability to correct issues in future games.

Hodd Toward needs to go

 

[rhodesianshepard]

For a game with a 7 year development cycle this is crazy. I'm pretty sure Microsoft delayed Starfield over a year just to be the most "polished" Bethesda game ever. This game was not rushed out. It makes no sense they didn't have the time

 

[SirKicksalot]

The final location is pretty good, I enjoyed going through it multiple times.

UC Vanguard faction quest line was pretty awesome but the main story was mediocre. I enjoyed the game but it was pretty much just a middle-of-the-road Bethesda game in space. It could’ve been something really special with more work.

The Vanguard quest was awesome and has better lore than the main quest lol

 

[Deerock71]

I mean, I'm sorry, but that sounds like a giant crock of shit stew. Starfield was in development for nearly a decade, if memory serves.

 

[Little Chicken]

When isn't PC Gamer trash

 

[Laptop1991]

Thought they had 8 years!!, just more excuses for me to justify a mediocre game that didn't have enough hand crafted planets and wasn't as successful as they wanted it to be.

 

[ReBurn]

He speaks the truth. The second half of the main story was just horrible. The reason behind all of the big mystery was just bullshit. There was no ending that tied it all together. Just a battle and an ending. Was ridiculously bad.

I felt the side quests were far superior than the main quest and made up for a lot of the issues. I've pretty much always enjoyed the faction quests more than the main stories in Bethesda games.

Indeed. I enjoyed the side quests way more than the main quest. It felt like the last half of the main quest was phoned in.

 

[Topher]

I mean, I'm sorry, but that sounds like a giant crock of shit stew. Starfield was in development for nearly a decade, if memory serves.

During all that time I just can't imagine they believe they nailed the main story. So valid excuse or not, it should have been better.

 

[Gamerguy84]

I believe it. Sounds like he's venting. A response like this can only invite criticism from your employer and fans.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Its not a masterpiece, and it has a lot of flaws. The game was just too big of a scope for that crumbling engine.
I didnt even finish the story because i spoiled myself and hated how it sounded.
The side content though, which is like 90% of the content in Bethesda rpg's, is top class though and up there with the best they have done.
Its still a 8/10 for me for that side content.

as I said, there are countless of video essays about the game. in depth analyss and critiques... and they keep popping up!!! :

Have you actually played the game ChorizoPicozo?

how can I put this:
i was more intrigued by Starfield's game design execution especially after listening people talk about the game and the overall reception... I was thinking:

"How is it possible that after so many years, Starfield seems like it is not evolving and improving upon the formula that the original Fallouts established?" (because that is my frame of reference)

instead of playing the game (which I was not interested in the first place) I watched the critiques like desing postmortems.

 

[U n i o n 0015]

it's ridiculous,how did these people get in charge of these studios or projects.

Fail upwards American corporate culture. It's a very real thing, I see it everyday. It's why Elon Musk was able to axe 80% of twitter and the site still works fine; the doers never become management, they stay as ICs while the incompetent get promoted.

 

[angrod14]

What about "AI"?. I thought it was good enough to generate Oscar-worthy stories in a fraction of a second.

 

[LordCBH]

I liked the cities. The curated places. But the planets were fucking worthless. They would have been better served vastly narrowing the scope of the galaxy to focus on a core set of planets that were built up and interesting to explore.

Probably could have made the story suck less if they did.

 

[Skelterz]

The game in space with no aliens ahh yes riveting.

 

[violence]

The guy that wrote fallout 3 was having fucking fun. I didn’t feel that with Starfield.

 

[nikolino840]

What about "AI"?. I thought it was good enough to generate Oscar-worthy stories in a fraction of a second.

That is what artists and voice actors says against the ai but not in reality

 

[mitch1971]

it's ridiculous,how did these people get in charge of these studios or projects.

It's quite common for employees to be outstanding at the level they are, get promoted one too many times, then find out they are just average in the new position.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

Man these things are kinda important for a single player RPG but what do I know.

 

[Mooreberg]

The flagship "Bethesda" studio had nothing to with ESO or Fallout 76 right? Meaning Fallout 4 in 2015 was their last major release? How do you have "absolutely no time" with eight years between releases?

 

[Saber]

He had like 12 years!

I'm more impressed to see people getting hopes for Elder Scroll 6, taken into account that they barelly started the project...or if they even started.
If a history of games like that isn't enought reason to doubt what the heck its going on there, I dunno exactly what to tell. I mean, how many years they want to still say things like "had no time".

 

[JTCx]

The game of the gen always has time.

 

[Last Hearth]

The more I think about it the more I’m convinced that the problem with the game is lack of exploration.
When you explore in Starfield you can only random find a dungeon, you can never randomly discover a settlement, a town and interact with the inhabitants like you can in FO3.
You either land at an existing settlement, or you go off to a wilderness planet to shoot outlaws or alien monsters. So you always know ahead of time, no sense of natural discovery and wonder.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

This industry has a serious problem in a few areas:

1) Lack of controls during the prototyping pre-alpha stage - LOCK DOWN scope early, define the project early, and then allow your leads to have the autonomy to make micro-decisions within the overall scope you have established.

2) Scope screep. Completely gut superfluous items in the game that add nothing, bog down development, and only add potential for more things to check, verify, de-bug, etc.

It amazes me that we can't get to that model yet. It should even work well with new IP. Smaller teams get a chance to play around with mechanics and then once they get something that works, fully flesh out the concept of all the surrounding systems before marching head first.

I feel like some games have none of that planning - Starfield being an egregious example. Other games seem to be far more efficiently planned (Square's recent Final Fantasy games, FromSoft's titles, Capcom's games, Insomniac, etc. etc.). Sure, some of these games still take a long time, but they generally release in a very good state and I don't think the dev teams are churning through massive scope deviations so the production vales are super high, something that is severely lacking in something like Starfield.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

This industry has a serious problem in a few areas:

1) Lack of controls during the prototyping pre-alpha stage - LOCK DOWN scope early, define the project early, and then allow your leads to have the autonomy to make micro-decisions within the overall scope you have established.

2) Scope screep. Completely gut superfluous items in the game that add nothing, bog down development, and only add potential for more things to check, verify, de-bug, etc.

It amazes me that we can't get to that model yet. It should even work well with new IP. Smaller teams get a chance to play around with mechanics and then once they get something that works, fully flesh out the concept of all the surrounding systems before marching head first.

I feel like some games have none of that planning - Starfield being an egregious example. Other games seem to be far more efficiently planned (Square's recent Final Fantasy games, FromSoft's titles, Capcom's games, Insomniac, etc. etc.). Sure, some of these games still take a long time, but they generally release in a very good state and I don't think the dev teams are churning through massive scope deviations so the production vales are super high, something that is severely lacking in something like Starfield.

When some of these kinds of giant open world games have giant land, a main quest and 200 side quests, I think internally there's only so much testing that goes on. I dont think all the key employees sit in a board room analyzing if each quest and the huge plot script are good or not. They probably just get relayed by workers if it works or not, and they skim it and if it seems good they trust it will be good. I dont a feeling guys like Jim Ryan or Bobby Kotick sit there all day and night playing alpha builds at home for 100s of hours at a time testing them.

It's like a new product line coming out at Walmart. No CEO or VP of Marketing sits there in a room playing around and testing it to see how good it is. They trust what they hear and if it sounds all rosy they believe their workers. But then feedback comes back from customers it sucks or the peg hole on the top of the package breaks when it's hung on a metal peg and then shit hits the fan. Well, no exec is going to test the product hanging on a shelf peg himself during prototype time. Thats up to R&D and marketing to figure out during development. You'd think this kind of basic quality control would be handled every time. Nope.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

Makes sense.

Game is huge, difficult to comprehend how to play it.

Eventually I settled down on space ship exploration, but different star systems need more unique quests for that to work.

Will get back to it after all expansions are released.

Setting, music, artstyle are all top tier.

 

[Gp1]

12 fricking years and no time.

Imagine the scope creeping on this one.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

some people still in denial thinking this games is a misunderstood masterpiece victim of the Xbox Tax.


but countless video assays exposing how bad Starfield actually is cannot being wrong.

The real Xbox Tax is the unnecessary (MASSIVE and GROWING) hype and demand for being Game of the Eternity placed on an Xbox exclusive title because it needs to quite literally rescue the whole platform. In reality, Starfield was a pretty average Bethesda game

We saw the same problem happen with Titanfall, which was definitely not a bad game but it was no Console Messiah which was destined to Save Xbox and Lead Green Rats to Paradise

 

[havoc00]

The real Xbox Tax is the unnecessary (MASSIVE and GROWING) hype and demand for being Game of the Eternity placed on an Xbox exclusive title because it needs to quite literally rescue the whole platform. In reality, Starfield was a pretty average Bethesda game

We saw the same problem happen with Titanfall, which was definitely not a bad game but it was no Console Messiah which was destined to Save Xbox and Lead Green Rats to Paradise

OG Titanfall was pretty great

 

[Unknown Soldier]

OG Titanfall was pretty great

It was pretty good sure but it was no Lisan al-Xbox

In the end, even though being Xbox exclusive was the kiss of death for Titanfall, it still worked out for Respawn because they went on to make Apex Legends and release it on every imaginable platform and that game was both good and a huge success