this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
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The engine is what allows the game to have a thriving modding community already.
Imagine relying on free labor to fix your broken ass game, and then having people defend you when called out for making a boring game that relies on free labor for content.
Imagine having that little understanding of how and why people enjoy modding their games.
Or what an engine is lol.
UE5 is "the same engine" iterated on in the same way Bethesda's is, there are plenty of games using UE that don't run well, and it would take plenty of custom work to build to Bethesda's scale using it.
The current iteration of Unreal is completely unrecognizable from its original rendition, meanwhile this new version of the Creation Engine literally retains bugs present back in the days of Gamebryo. You simply can’t compare the two. But, in Bethesda’s defense, this isn’t due to incompetence or anything. It’s due to resource allocation and incentive.
There’s a reason most devs have been moving towards Unreal and away from making their own engines, and it’s because making your own proprietary engine takes insane amounts of time and resources - time and resources that devs don’t get any return on mind you. For most, it doesn’t make sense to dedicate loads of time to polishing an engine, when that time could be better spent on your next game - a game that you actually do get a return on.
Unreal is completely different in this regard, as Epic actually does get a return on their investment into the engine, as the engine itself is their product. So they have every incentive to polish Unreal as much as possible. That’s why it’s so insanely polished and indistinguishable from its original rendition. Not because all engines magically improve over time and at the same rate.
I know Todd Howard said that engines are somehow meaningless, and then a bunch of Bethesda fans took that and ran with it as a way to defend any criticism of the Creation Engine, but unfortunately it’s just not that simple.
And to be clear, I want the Creation Engine to succeed. I’ve been modding Bethesda games since 2013 and am still active in the modding community! The engine is rough but makes all of it possible, and the community at this point knows it so well that it’d be devastating to suddenly lose it all. But Bethesda needs to sit down and really dedicate some time to overhauling it, and unfortunately, albeit understandably, I just don’t see that happening.
Imagine thinking that what is very probably the most hand-crafted content ever in a 3D game, with one of the broadest variety of choices for anything close to that scale, is a game lacking content.
The most handcrafted what now hahaha holy shit is that satire?
It's not an opinion. If you ignore straight procedural generation with no human input like no man's sky, Starfield is very probably the biggest 3D game ever made. The fact that it's an absolutely massive game isn't debatable in any way.
Nobody who's played it is making the ridiculous claim that they ran out of content. It's fundamentally not possible for "relying on mods for content" to be in good faith.
I'm glad you enjoy the game but compared to the level of detail and polish Read Dead 2 had five years ago Starfield feels straight up antiquated imo
Red dead 2 is obscenely tiny by comparison.
Literally everything about game development is a trade off. It's not possible to make a game at 5% of Starfield's scale as polished as a rockstar game. The difference in scale is too massive.
The scope of Bethesda games is a huge part of the point. Nobody else makes anything similar to what they offer.
Uhh… Baldur’s Gate 3?
BG3 is a top down CRPG. Having 3D assets and being a 3D game with full 3D movement aren't the same thing.
And whether it's more content is debatable. There's more pure story and production, with a lot of branching, but the overall amount of space (not counting Starfield's use of negative space because of the setting) is significantly smaller. And even in terms of total number of quest lines, Starfield has a lot. Which you can get more time out of is all about personal preference. There will be people with 1000 hours in both, easy.
You can literally play BG3 as a third person turn based action game, with an over the shoulder camera. It’s entirely 3D.
Turn based and action are mutually exclusive. It is not and does not resemble an action game.
The assets are 3D. You do not play in 3D. You do not cast a spell and have the physics of your interaction calculated in real time while 10 other characters are simultaneously acting and having their spells calculated based on the real time movements of all the other characters. You do not hit a jump button and have where you land determined by your speed and direction. The actual gameplay mechanics are all pure dice roll. There are no 3D physics in play.
…what do you think 3D physics are?
The absolute bare minimum:
Your jump must be decided by the vector of your movement when you hit the button. If it is not, there is literally nothing you can do to qualify.
Your actions must be aimed in real time and the outcome determined by the vector of your aim. Hitscan is shit, but it can qualify. If the action (not the vector of the shot) is decided by a dice roll, you unconditionally do not qualify.
There's plenty more. But BG3 is not and does not in any way mechanically resemble a 3D action RPG. It has no common traits. The camera perspective outside of combat isn't relevant.
I think you’re simply misunderstanding what “3D” means. 3D does not mean real-time, dynamic, or anything else. It simply means 3D. BG3 is entirely in 3D. Every single asset is 3D hell the entire explorable world is 3D. So yes, it quite literally is a 3D game. With action. Making it a 3D action game.
Think of what the alternative would be. Is this a 2D action game? Obviously not.
If you’re looking for a 3D real-time action game then yeah, this isn’t that. But that’s not what anyone’s arguing.
Edit: Also… is your argument that a game like Morrowind isn’t in 3D? Just because hits are handled by dice rolls? That’s insane lol.
No, it is not. You do not have a position in 3D space. You have a position on one of a small number of discrete 2D planes. BG3 is a 2D pure CRPG that happens to be decorated with 3D assets. Calling it a 3D game is the exact same unforgivable fraud as calling Metroid Dread one. It is not and does not in any way resemble it.
If you aren't strictly in real time for combat, you unconditionally cannot be or resemble an action game.
To be fully 3D, literally every part of the core gameplay physics must occur in real time. Hits cannot be determined by any other factor but the vector of the attack projected through 3D space into a character's hit box. The existence of a dice roll to determine a hit (not the vector) is an unconditional disqualifier in all contexts. There are no exceptions, and no room for them.
Everything about your description of BG3 is fully unhinged nonsense that should be offensive to any human being with any understanding of what games are. They aren't nitpicks. You're fundamentally destroying the core definition of very basic terms in a way that completely destroys all meaning. It would be less disgusting to be a flat earther.
In BG3 you do have a position in 3D space, what’re you talking about? Have you ever even played the game? My money’s on no.
Metroid Dread is a side scroller in which only one dimension is ever viewable outside of cutscenes. BG3 is a full 3D world with full camera movement, to the point of being an over the shoulder third person game should you choose to play it that way. They’re apples and oranges.
If this were true then the term “real-time action” wouldn’t exist, as the term would be redundant. Besides, how do you then define games that have a bit of both, like Chrono Trigger? The whole thing seems a bit silly to me.
So again, by your definition a game like Morrowind wouldn’t be considered a 3D game. That’s completely unhinged lol, nobody would agree with that. Clearly your definition is a bit flawed.
…I think maybe you need to take a break and go outside or something.
ROFL.