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Community MetaSteam | March 2020 - Rise and Shine, Ms. Vance, Until It Is Done!
- Thread starter lashman
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FFVIII is happy happy flowers and rainbows :>
The game is 1080p and locked at 30fps. Were you expecting 4K on a base PS4? Or a crisp image on a 4K monitor from a 1080p output? The patronizing tone of your post is something else. So you had to let it update after not using it for a year and going into the store required you to log in. Oh noes, so much work!
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I’m really not sure what to title this, but I have information regarding BGS, Starfield, and Elder Scrolls.
Hey guys. To start, I’m not going to say where exactly I work or who I might know, because I like job security and leaking information is the first huge step to losing that job security. Suffice it to say I’m close with Bethesda Game Studios and I understand what it’s like to itch for news on a favorite game, and I’m on this and related subs a lot under a different account, so I see how badly you guys, r/Starfield, and r/ElderScrolls want info. I actually have really mixed feelings on having those trailers shown at 2018’s E3 because now everyone is dying for info. I find it easier to be patient when the dev hasn’t even said anything, but having a taste of what’s to come is just plain painful in my opinion. With that said, I don’t want to spoil too much for you guys because discovering new things is part of the magic of Bethesda games, and slowly watching you guys find secrets or react to quests and such is really fun. With that said, here we go.
The Elder Scrolls VI
This is the one I’m more closely involved in and frankly, the one I care about most. I see tons of “leaks” and rumors about the game but they always have something totally off the wall crazy, so I’ll give you a taste.
Now...
- Most of you have guessed right, it takes place in High Rock and Hammerfell. But the twist is that the landmass you see in the trailer is actually Yokuda, the archipelago remnants of the Redguard’s homeland. We’re really excited about this because High Rock hasn’t be really explored since Daggerfall, and Hammerfell has a ton of interesting lore that’s really shaping quests and plot lines. So many players seem to think that High Rock is just generic medieval fantasy, but the truth though is that Arena and Daggerfall were both more closely inspired by DnD, and as a result leaned into that generic fantasy a bit more. Our approach to High Rock is going to be more closely leaning into Mark Jones’s various concept work from Battlespire. Still a bit close to the typical medieval fantasy, but it’s got a really unique style that a lot of us are passionate about. High Rock is shaping up to be really interesting and it really scratches the itch for a mystic world. A lot of the quests revolve around political intrigue and making advancement in magic. Hammerfell is shaping up to be pretty great too, though honestly you can probably tell I’m a bit biased.
- Sword-singing/Hoonding won’t be present, at least for the player character. TESVI is striving to be a bit of a return to roots for RPGs, and making the player character a sword-summoning Jesus only limits their ability to be who they want.
- The main quest revolves mostly around Direnni Tower (aka the adamantine tower), which is still operative. Thalmor are obviously involved because asshole elves wanting to unravel creation itself are still asshole elves wanting to unravel creation itself. Hammerfell and High Rock tensions are heavy though, which is a weakness the Thalmor are exploiting to the best of their ability. As you all know, the title is Redfall, so a lot of that has to do with Hammerfell being threatened.
- Procedural generation rumors are largely false, that’s not how the company today works. Both Todd and Ashley are fans of the “hand crafted” method when it comes to game design. If Julian Lefay were still here, maybe things would be different. The only way that’s actually being implemented is in quests. They’re developing a system similar to the radiant quests, but on steroids. As time goes on, people run into problems and need help. Sometimes someone’s child will get kidnapped, or a thief breaks in and steals a family heirloom. A lot of it is related to the “radiant AI” Todd boasted about during the Oblivion era, the difference being that NPCs don’t just devote their lives to acquiring as many calipers as possible and get themselves killed because they went around trying to steal them. NPCs have jobs, they earn a wage, and they spend that money how they please, be it a crazy night at the tavern, a gift for a friend or lover, a pet, or a new article of clothing. Some turn to a life of crime depending on their financial situation or their own morality. So most experiences will be fairly unique, yes, but it won’t be because the world is completely different just because you started a new game. And obviously plenty of NPCs will be hardwired to be in certain places or act certain ways based around plot points, or important quests. Daedric quests, for example, will always be include the same characters asking the same things every time.
- Todd’s “we don’t have the technology yet” comment a few years back was speaking about how we intend to have a world with no loading screens, save for entering dungeons, the player home, and fast traveling. Every city is to scale and doesn’t require a loading screen to enter. The only reason the player homes will have loading screens is because we’ve seen how many of you like collecting ass loads of gems, skulls, sweetrolls, cabbages, etc. and we don’t want those bringing down the frames in a town or city just because you decided to be weird. It’s also much easier for you to decorate your home more easily and not lose stuff because they might clip through a will or something.
- Since a lot of the quests around High Rock involve magic in some way, the spells you can have are getting beefed up. I think most of us can agree some schools were fairly useless or extremely underpowered for much of the game (alteration, conjuration, restoration, illusion). A ton of new spells are being added and inspiration is being taken from well known mods like Phendrix. Alteration isn’t just magic armor and paralysis spells, it actually allows you to alter the reality around you, so you can pull up giant spikes from the ground, open locks, disarm traps, slow people down, and even fix armor and weapons (item condition is making a return). Illusion is more than just calm, fury, fear, muffle, and invisibility as well, like in Oblivion it can be used to convince people you’re trustworthy or even fool them into thinking you’re someone they know (definitely not inspired by it since we planned this long before the game came out, but it can work similarly to the disguise thing you get from the scientist in The Outer Worlds). It can also be used to more or less hypnotize people later on. Restoration, though, is probably getting the biggest changes. It’s now more than just turn undead spells and healing, they’ve actually taken a bit of inspiration from Dark Souls’ approach to miracles and faith builds, to better suit a paladin type of character. Sunlight is a big feature in restoration now and has offensive spells that can blind enemies, burn them, stun them, and in one case even cause disease damage, though they’re mostly effective against undead and daedra, to make them more balanced and not replace destruction. Speaking of destruction, you can now temporarily buff weapons with frost, shock, or fire damage. Spellmaking returns, as well as my absolute favorite magic from Morrowind: levitation.
- There’s a lot of talk around the crafting system, they’re doing a lot of work on it. I don’t know too much but expect it to be similar to Fallout 4’s. You can modify weapons so they can be more specifically suited to your tastes. You can make a mace extra heavy or add spikes a la a morning star so it can cause bleed or armor penetration. You can somewhat customize them as well from what I understand, making a sword slightly longer at the cost of attack speed, or keeping it slightly shorter so you can swing faster. You can modify hilts so you don’t get disarmed easily or make certain cosmetic choices, like if there’s a jewel in the pommel and such. Armor is similar, so like in Skyrim where you might’ve had a male and female version of the iron helmet with different horns, now you have a choice on if you even want horns and what kind. I haven’t seen a whole lot but it reminds me of Automatron, where you start with a base robot and customize it from there, except now it’s like starting off with the basic shape of a helmet and fitting features to it. It’s interesting and I’m excited to see where it goes.
- Guilds/factions are getting tuned up. A lot of you know Oblivion’s factions were really fun, and a lot of that came from their characters and how much a part of it you as the player felt. Skyrim obviously had a lot of faults in its guilds. The Dark Brotherhood is probably the strongest, but needed more unique contracts. The Thieves Guild departed from their previous Robinhood-esque feel of defending the less fortunate and took on more of a mafia type of vibe. The College was over very quickly and the Companions were fairy uninteresting. So the guild quest lines will be longer and generally more interesting. The Thieves Guild will most likely return to their decent moral state of helping the poor and feeling more like a family that sticks close together in a “us against the world” type of vibe. The Dark Brotherhood is making a return as implied by Skyrim. They’re starting to expand and gain power again, and interestingly enough the new base of operations is no longer in Cyrodiil or Skyrim, but has relocated to High Rock after the chaos of the civil war and the Aldmeri Dominion trying to rip Skyrim a new one. The Fighters Guild makes a return and is struggling to operate under the high tensions between High Rock and Hammerfell. The Mages Guild is long gone, so the court mages of the various towns and cities in High Rock are attempting to unite in an association of their own, and are trying to operate an academy dedicated to the pursuit of magical knowledge as well as alchemy (which is also getting a huge buff so it’s not borderline useless like in Skyrim).
- And because there’s so many political themes, vampire guilds see the light of day for the first time since Morrowind. There are different kinds of vampires, each with different focuses and made for certain players, similar to the great houses in Morrowind. Some are focused on the pure vampiric might and live to tear the there apart and feast on their blood, growing stronger based on who’s blood they drink as well as how often they feed, and can shape shift into the vampire lord form, just with a melee focus. Another type focuses on mage types and heavily leans towards infiltrating various courts and politics to subtly further their agenda. They gain excess to a powerful form of blood magic and have a sort of arch of power depending on when they feed, they get more powerful as they grow in hunger but eventually reach a point where it causes them to act mad, so NPCs will recognize you as a vampire and attack you on site. And the last one focuses on stealth characters. They gain powers (i.e. not spells, powers) that can make them invisible (more powerful than a typical invisibility spell) and the ability to “fly” (aka levitation), which can aid their sneaking.
- DLC hasn’t been planned yet, because it’s usually based off of ideas individuals have after the game is complete or things we wanted to implement but couldn’t after deadlines. With that said, expect some pretty cool stuff. A lot of us are brimming with fantastic ideas and we shoot them around at meetings only to have them written down for possible use later.
- Release date is completely unknown at this point, expect a 2025 release, probably around November since that’s the trend.
STARFIELD:
This one, I REALLY don’t want to spoil too much because man oh man Todd, Ashley, Emil, and even Pete are bursting with excitement about. This is largely Todd’s baby as hes the one that really started bringing it up and shooting the idea out there. Everyone slowly fell in love with it and Emil was excited to explore something completely new for the first time. I won’t say much about it because frankly, you’ll see plenty of it soonBut! I will say this...
That’s all I’m willing to say in Starfield. Be looking around the Bethesda twitter accounts/Instagrams/Facebook pages/these subs because you guys will be enjoying a nice teaser right before E3
- Multiple alien species you get to meet and interact with.
- The quests are incredibly interesting and subvert your expectations in unique and interesting ways. Few of them are “go to X, kill Y, bring back Z” and even fewer of them are exactly what they are supposed to be initially. Most times you’ll run into complications from r you’ll gain new knowledge on the matter and be presented with a choice.
- RPG mechanics that make you feel like your build matters. Admittedly, this is something Bethesda as a whole hasn’t done terribly well, except for maybe Fallout 3. But this game rewards you for being who you want to be, and I’m confident in saying that.
- All in all, your playtime per playthrough will probably be somewhere between 70-120 hours, give or take. That’s assuming you properly learn about every faction, do most if not all the major side quests, complete the main quests, recruit almost all the companions (obviously some are faction-locked) and explore the majority of the “map.”
Edit: I also might be willing to answer a few questions, provided they’re not personal. For obvious reasons (I like my job!)
That all sounds pretty good on paper. I'll be glad to play either of those in 5-10 years :')
Sorry I meant to reply to this, but got lost in the shuffle. I'm curious how well balanced it is, and if the end game is as broken/boring as I've heard it can be - cleaners do the entire mission to save time, etc. Where as with XCOM difficult ramped up and everyone from your team was needed to complete a mission.
Oh and how much the overarching 'spy' plot plays into things
Oh dear. Is Todd as passionate about Starfield as he was about Fallout 76? eeep!
If true that Starfield info sounds fantastic. Really can't wait for that.
Give me a 70hr long Mass Effect or Outer Worlds style game with Fallout 4 production/budget. It has so much potential as long as the story is halfway decent. If they tease it around E3 its definitely gonna be a November game
Give me a 70hr long Mass Effect or Outer Worlds style game with Fallout 4 production/budget. It has so much potential as long as the story is halfway decent. If they tease it around E3 its definitely gonna be a November game
This sounds more like a wishlist than actual features of the game. And I really doubt TES VI is that far along into development. I'll be glad to be proven wrong though.
Nice! Valve just added Half-Life Alyx + pre-order content to my account after I opened a support ticket last month. I had to buy the headset from a third party since it is not officially sold here.
They didn't even ask for the receipt so I'm guessing Valve can use SteamVR to verify that I actually own the hardware. They're also granting the content to people that got Index hardware as a gift:
Article: Alyx FAQ - Valve Games - Knowledge Base - Steam Support
I'm really hoping that the CSGO content will be Alyx's gloves but I think it will only be a combine player model. Either way I'm pretty sure it's going to be non-tradeable. Otherwise it's going to be expensive as hell on the community market. So hyped for Alyx
They didn't even ask for the receipt so I'm guessing Valve can use SteamVR to verify that I actually own the hardware. They're also granting the content to people that got Index hardware as a gift:
Article: Alyx FAQ - Valve Games - Knowledge Base - Steam Support
I'm really hoping that the CSGO content will be Alyx's gloves but I think it will only be a combine player model. Either way I'm pretty sure it's going to be non-tradeable. Otherwise it's going to be expensive as hell on the community market. So hyped for Alyx
I disagree, though I can't really do so fully knowing those other FF's. But I can tell you that as a kid, FFVII was terrifying. Jenova, the whole Sephiroth flashbacks, the whole game conveyed not only dark theme but their horror amazingly well. It was creepy and well executed. It's not so much about which game pulled the most atrocious things - and I'm not sure why there is a need to compare anyway - but more to acknowledge that VII went at times into a horror direction, adopted a tone that was deeply unsettling. It's part of the charm of the game to me.
Thanks for the heads up.
S;G is so damn good, it seems really difficult to top.
"Leaking info is bad. Like lose-your-job bad.
Now I'm just gonna leak all the infos."
Sorry but this whole setup just really put me off. If you know something is wrong, maybe you shouldn't be doing it.
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i mean - let's face it, it's probably fake anyway
I just want Starfield to have a space sim component and everything will be forgiven.
i mean - let's face it, it's probably fake anyway
And even if it isnt, so much can change in game development, especially if ES6 still has 5 (!) years of development ahead of it. I honestly just skimmed the text. Solid info shortly before release is much more interesting than leaks years in advance.
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yeah ... i wouldn't count on that, sadly
if they keep using the same engine (which they are), you're probably gonna just teleport (as in: just load) between places anyway
yeah, pretty much
i mean - let's face it, it's probably fake anyway
Yeah, it just screams 'uncle @ Nintendo'.
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Honestly what I expect from Bethesda's new games are bugs/exploits videos from The Spiffing Brits and ymfah.
Yeah, SG is awesome. It's one of my favorite things not just in games but in general.
Indivisible.
Bwoof.
It's beautiful, but it plays like a slippery Metroidvania (especially with the map being on "hold up" - stop attributing vital mechanics on the damn stick/D-pad!)... not the most engaging but alright, at least it has characters and stuff in the middle of the insanely fast pacing.
But combat is just a non factor. It's boring as fuck.
Enter combat, spam a few basic attacks... maybe a buff/debuff/heal here and there... then more basic attacks. Then more. And even more. And again. One more for mommy, one more for daddy!
And redo all of that in each and every fight. It just ends up as a battle of endurance, where you can't wait to escape those boring, insanely mashy battles where you just go ham on your controller. No, it does not feel like a fighting game. Or an RPG. It feels like it needs a turbo controller.
It is not fun in the first fight, it becomes significantly worse from there on.
They definitely should have gone for a more turn based feel, with more relevant and slower attacks, rather than just vomiting hits every 0.5 seconds, most of them being fluff or guard breakers that do nothing but waste your time and button presses.
And apparently the balance goes out the windows later on, where you don't even really need to fight, and when you do you end it in seconds.
I'm glad I did not Kickstart this... but it is an interesting experiment. I had no idea that including fighting game mechanics in an RPG makes it a complete bore, maybe even worse than cooldown based MMO tropes.
Bwoof.
It's beautiful, but it plays like a slippery Metroidvania (especially with the map being on "hold up" - stop attributing vital mechanics on the damn stick/D-pad!)... not the most engaging but alright, at least it has characters and stuff in the middle of the insanely fast pacing.
But combat is just a non factor. It's boring as fuck.
Enter combat, spam a few basic attacks... maybe a buff/debuff/heal here and there... then more basic attacks. Then more. And even more. And again. One more for mommy, one more for daddy!
And redo all of that in each and every fight. It just ends up as a battle of endurance, where you can't wait to escape those boring, insanely mashy battles where you just go ham on your controller. No, it does not feel like a fighting game. Or an RPG. It feels like it needs a turbo controller.
It is not fun in the first fight, it becomes significantly worse from there on.
They definitely should have gone for a more turn based feel, with more relevant and slower attacks, rather than just vomiting hits every 0.5 seconds, most of them being fluff or guard breakers that do nothing but waste your time and button presses.
And apparently the balance goes out the windows later on, where you don't even really need to fight, and when you do you end it in seconds.
I'm glad I did not Kickstart this... but it is an interesting experiment. I had no idea that including fighting game mechanics in an RPG makes it a complete bore, maybe even worse than cooldown based MMO tropes.
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Final Fantasy II starts with the Empire burning down your hometown, killing your friends and family as your party flees from their genocide. That game has various ally deaths too.
Indivisible.
Bwoof.
It's beautiful, but it plays like a slippery Metroidvania (especially with the map being on "hold up" - stop attributing vital mechanics on the damn stick/D-pad!)... not the most engaging but alright, at least it has characters and stuff in the middle of the insanely fast pacing.
But combat is just a non factor. It's boring as fuck.
Enter combat, spam a few basic attacks... maybe a buff/debuff/heal here and there... then more basic attacks. Then more. And even more. And again. One more for mommy, one more for daddy!
And redo all of that in each and every fight. It just ends up as a battle of endurance, where you can't wait to escape those boring, insanely mashy battles where you just go ham on your controller. No, it does not feel like a fighting game. Or an RPG. It feels like it needs a turbo controller.
It is not fun in the first fight, it becomes significantly worse from there on.
They definitely should have gone for a more turn based feel, with more relevant and slower attacks, rather than just vomiting hits every 0.5 seconds, most of them being fluff or guard breakers that do nothing but waste your time and button presses.
And apparently the balance goes out the windows later on, where you don't even really need to fight, and when you do you end it in seconds.
I'm glad I did not Kickstart this... but it is an interesting experiment. I had no idea that including fighting game mechanics in an RPG makes it a complete bore, maybe even worse than cooldown based MMO tropes.
Legend of Legaia on PS1 attempted this by entering specific button inputs (Up, Down, Right or Left combos) to perform fancy looking attacks. It's still a ps1 game though so that ish draaaaaags.
Gimme a 2x option, emulators pls.
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If I remember correctly you now have to kill the 8 bosses, the first one should be on the map. That confused me at first as well.
So you get live updates? All Amazon shows me are five minutes updates, where it looks like the driver is trying to find the optimal path around my general vicinity, to deliver to me as late as humanly possible.
It's just animated banners and covers (folder EXTRAS\LIBRARY ASSETS).
Regarding FFXIII and IX i have to strongly disagree.
XIII's genocide is something that exists within the plot but you don't see anything of it. It's something you are being told happens but that you never actually get to see. Apart from that, the game often has a strongly upbeat or outright melodramatic atmosphere. Similar with FFIX which is more of a magical fairytale for the most part.
FFVII on the other hand has some real dark moments actually in game, like the entire Shinra Massacre, Cloud becoming a mentally disabled cripple in a wheelchair or that monster scare in the mako reactor flashback.
As well as tons of creepy music
I'd definitely say it's the darkest games in the mainline series.
It's definitely without a doubt that VII owes some of its popularity to nostalgia, but i think to the largest degree it's also well deserved.
Game is pretty strong on all aspects from Music to Story, and even the combat, if a bit simplistic, feels incredibly satisfying thanks to cool visual- and soundeffects
Those things could still have clues for their next port, given how SEGA has marketed their last PC ports
Nothing's happening until someone brings the deets.
You always blow things out of proportion.
I just can't believe how awesome and gorgeous Black Mesa has become since the early mod days. Fantastic work. I wish Valve (especially HL devs) would give the team a nod with a prominent store banner or sth 
I want them remake HL2 in Source2
I want them remake HL2 in Source2
In which canton do you live ? Lock your doors or your Index might mysteriously disappear...Nice! Valve just added Half-Life Alyx + pre-order content to my account after I opened a support ticket last month. I had to buy the headset from a third party since it is not officially sold here.
They didn't even ask for the receipt so I'm guessing Valve can use SteamVR to verify that I actually own the hardware. They're also granting the content to people that got Index hardware as a gift:
Article: Alyx FAQ - Valve Games - Knowledge Base - Steam Support
I'm really hoping that the CSGO content will be Alyx's gloves but I think it will only be a combine player model. Either way I'm pretty sure it's going to be non-tradeable. Otherwise it's going to be expensive as hell on the community market. So hyped for Alyx
On a more serious note, I don't think that Valve actually checked whether you own an Index or not... well, maybe... but I'd find that rather surprising.
Nothing other than 3 different strikes and main mission The Rider (already done, which was suppose to be the one after Scorned) shows up.
You need to go to SteamVR Home, once there you will see a panel full of sessions (on the left of the main panel, not the big screen) with their respective hosts and the map they are using, just select the one you want
It is weird because Valve suggests that non-VR players can connect to VR players, yet SteamVR asks me to plug in a VR headset.
Is it possible to bypass this step? How could I access the panel of sessions which you mentioned?
Nothing says Bethesda like releasing a followup to one of the best selling titles of all time 14 years later... Way to strike while the iron is hot, Todd.
I can't disagree with any of this. I'm also not fond of the way you lose momentum as you're running around. It just seems unnecessary.Indivisible.
Bwoof.
It's beautiful, but it plays like a slippery Metroidvania (especially with the map being on "hold up" - stop attributing vital mechanics on the damn stick/D-pad!)... not the most engaging but alright, at least it has characters and stuff in the middle of the insanely fast pacing.
But combat is just a non factor. It's boring as fuck.
Enter combat, spam a few basic attacks... maybe a buff/debuff/heal here and there... then more basic attacks. Then more. And even more. And again. One more for mommy, one more for daddy!
And redo all of that in each and every fight. It just ends up as a battle of endurance, where you can't wait to escape those boring, insanely mashy battles where you just go ham on your controller. No, it does not feel like a fighting game. Or an RPG. It feels like it needs a turbo controller.
It is not fun in the first fight, it becomes significantly worse from there on.
They definitely should have gone for a more turn based feel, with more relevant and slower attacks, rather than just vomiting hits every 0.5 seconds, most of them being fluff or guard breakers that do nothing but waste your time and button presses.
And apparently the balance goes out the windows later on, where you don't even really need to fight, and when you do you end it in seconds.
I'm glad I did not Kickstart this... but it is an interesting experiment. I had no idea that including fighting game mechanics in an RPG makes it a complete bore, maybe even worse than cooldown based MMO tropes.
Show this to any PC gamer 5 years ago and pretty sure they would say "you crazy, stop with the photoshop"
Actually, you got me there, I didn't know that, so I'm not sure how to help you. sorry
There's no middle term for lashman, it's absolute excitement or absolute doomed lol
Don't stop there
Look at that
Look at that beautiful variety; genres and games for everyone.
Don't stop there
Look at that
Look at that beautiful variety; genres and games for everyone.
SOOO GOOD!!!!! 
I guess these 2 games are getting rereleased in a new game engine and also with new content.
No, you need a VR headset to explore these scenes from HLA. Index owners can access them and people with other headsets can join via the SteamVR Home. Within that there is a panel to choose public rooms.
Bethesda is really slow in developing games...maybe their studio is just too small and didn't grow with their games enough?
A reddit user got the game added to their steam account so there's seems to be some sort of hardware check going on.
But not to worry, there is not a lot to them. I'm sure there are plenty of videos on Youtube already that will show what there is to see. Of course, VR is always different than seeing them on a flat screen, but even so, you can see everything there is to see in about 10 minutes or so.
I'm just a nobody on the internet but I think that out of all the problems Bethesda has, being not big enough might not be one of them. We've seen so many studios collapse due to sudden expansion that I think there is something to be said for keeping things at a medium size.
That being said, they need to deliver something on par with other, ten times larger studios. So... They will have to expand, but I can appreciate them taking their time there.
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