Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Starfield is lame - Bg3 is going to win GOTY - Taking bets.

It's a discussion, not an argument.

ETA: I already put forward my reasoning. Poor reviews, low steam numbers, not as many streamers... all in addition to my own observations of the gameplay itself.

The word argument here means a statement supported by evidence adopting a position. Like a legal argument or an academic argument. The person is saying your position is poorly founded and supported.

The word flop only pertains to weak sales. It has nothing to do with reviews. Starfield is definitely not a flop. It’s a financial success.

Starfield surpassed 1 million concurrent players on Steam a few days ago.

It also surpassed Skyrim at launch. Already 6 million players at launch.

https://metro.co.uk/2023/09/08/star...ch-ever-with-6-million-players-19467363/

An attempt to reiterate a prior point:
What are lessons you would like Larian to observe in the state of new RPGs coming out like Starfield?

The importance of seamlessness

Saying “Yes, and” to the player

Understanding that deep handcrafted content is better than shallow procedural generation

There are better ways to make your game feel up to date and visually realistic other than graphics, like animations, camera positioning, lighting, and environmental context

Deep companions need copious content and expression so they don’t feel like they’re saying the same things over and over

Unless the mini game is really fun in itself, don’t use mini games for skill checks

Sometimes exploration is the end in itself; don’t stop the player from doing it, and give them things to discover.

I don't know that you can say this, and what's more I don't know that you could call this procedural generation shallow. A lot of thought and care goes into procedural generation algorithms, and arguably the most successful game in the history of video games is all about procedurally generated worlds (minecraft.)

+1 million!!!

Would you say that procedural generation makes for a compelling story-driven RPG? It can be fun for exploration, but if it’s empty, it serves little purpose otherwise. On the other hand, handcrafted material can be designed around evoking a specific experience for the player.

Some games are best propelled by procedural generation, but I don’t think Larian games are those games.

Well, let's separate "Larian games" from "compelling story-driven RPGs" in general.

For a compelling story-driven RPG....I think whether PCG is a good fit depends on the story you're telling. Maybe this is a story that involves extended periods of braving a complete unknown, in which case PCG could work very well.

I think there are a few ways in which PCG currently falls a bit short. First, in environmental storytelling - it is common to a lot of open-world games to have little self-contained narratives that you can infer from the environment. Little touches within an environment that make them feel like they were lived in at one point.

The other big one is the social systems on top of the environment. I have never seen a successfully procudrally-generated social interaction.

I think PCG wouldn't work for Larian games because a huge part of Larian games is multifaceted interaction with NPCs, which PCG just doesn't do. However, that is not a necessary component of a all RPGs, even compelling story-driven ones.

Now that I've put some time into BG3 post release, I am coming to the conclusion that it will be a historically important game, much like its predecessor. For the record, I did NOT think this as recently as six months ago.

With that being said, I think GOTY awards are silly. Why should we care what an assortment of "industry insiders" think about games? This is mostly just industry wankery, and I ignore this crap for pretty much the same reason that I ignore the oscars. The only opinion that matters is the opinions of the people PLAYING the game.

With regards to Starfield... Well, I'm pretty sure the poor user reviews on metacritic are due to a review bomb (and I *think* the rationale for that is people mad about microsoft refusing to release it on PS5). So it is not a reliable source for the game quality itself.

I am not yet playing Starfield, but based on my extremely high opinion of BG3 I doubt that it will be as good, because it is very rare for games to be this good. However, I will play it, and I expect that I will find it enjoyable. I have friends playing Starfield right now who are claiming to be having a blast.

I’m with you on a lot of what you’ve written here. There are places for PCC, but they prioritise large scale and diverse environments over smaller details and local narratives. They are also completely at odds with the social element of RPGs. PCGs are most at home in dungeon-delving or exploration-based RPGs, where the trade off for scope over fine tuned detail is most sensible.

However, PCG ought to be integrated with seamlessness and the occasional handcrafted area. Minecraft has no loading screen between biomes (except for different worlds) and its dungeons, villages, and fortresses tell no story. Same goes for a Bethesda game: it has moments of vast exploration, but necessarily interspersed with handcrafted details and stories, yet Starfield de-emphasises the features discussed in this paragraph.

No, it didn't.

The number of concurrent players on Steam didn't come anywhere near that. A quarter of that.

The one million number comes from Bethesday, claiming to tally all the platforms together. As does the comment about six million "launches" of the game.


I understand what the word argument means.

My response is that I'm not making an argument. I'm having a conversation. This isn't me writing a thesis trying to prove beyond doubt that Starfield is this or that.

This is me saying, hey, this game doesn't appear to be doing anywhere near as well as initially anticipated. In fact, I think it's getting a surprisingly poor reception. Based on reviews, etc etc...

I doubt BG3 will reach anywhere near the significance that BG2 has. At best it will be remembered for the porn.
Otherwise it will imo fare like DA:O. Not totally forgotten, but also not exactly remembered with people also more freely addressing the problems it has in retrispect than what is possible now.

https://www.vg247.com/starfield-hits-1-million-concurrent-players

My mistake. That's across all platforms

And it is getting review bombed. Someone gave it a 1 a few months ago.

You saying that is indeed an argument. You are stating a position and supporting it. That’s not mutually exclusive to having a conversation.

The reason they said your argument was weak because you were misusing the word flop, which only signifies a commercial failure, which Starfield definitely is not.

There are multiple definitions for argument. A heated, contentious verbal altercation is one definition, but that is not how WizardGnome was using the word. Whenever you are stating your position on a subject that is being debated, even very informally like here, you are making an argument (different from having an argument).

Time will tell.

I think you're taking this to a pedantic level. Not to mention, someone else used the word flop, which I thought fit well enough even though I specifically stated it wasn't the word I would have chosen.

"I don't think this game is getting the great reception that was anticipated. I've noticed bad reviews and anecdotally, it doesn't seem to be doing as well with streamers, from my observations."

"YOU HAVEN'T SUPPORTED YOUR POSITION!!"

"Dude, I'm just saying it doesn't seem like the game is doing well."

--followed by a "well, ackshually..." about what the word argument means.

As for the word "flop," it's--at best--an informal way of saying something is unsuccessful. There's no objective criteria to how successful or unsuccessful something has to be to get the label "flop."

Can we stop with the completely unnecessary and unenlightening attempts at semantics? Pretty please?

You really can’t effectively ask somebody to cease arguing semantics whilst in the same breath continuing to argue semantics. But if you don’t want to converse, you can just drop the conversation whenever you wish.

Your dramatization of the conversation isn’t accurate:

“It's a discussion, not an argument.”

This is the “well ackshually” moment. You started arguing semantics, but it’s incorrect.

Anyway, you’re taking this too personally, so I’m going to disengage. But I will say, instead of getting defensive, when somebody corrects you, the easiest thing to do is say “oh thanks” or just ignore it if it’s bothers you.

lol, I'm not taking it personally. I just think it's silly and has next to nothing to do with what's being discussed.

It's like, if I say it feels like folks at the office are in an especially bad mood today, and someone comes by and tells me my "gut feeling" about the mood of the office isn't a strong argument... and I'm like, dude, it's just a conversational topic, not an argument, and then some third party pops in to "well, ackshually..." try and define the word argument...

This isn't personal. I'm not defensive. And in no way do I fell corrected. It just seems silly.

Again. I don't feel like Starfield is doing as well as what was anticipated. I believe it's probably dead in the water when it comes to GotY.

Do you have any thoughts about that, other than trying for several posts to explain to me what someone else meant by their comment and subsequently telling me what I meant by my reply? lol

Take it light.