Not doing proper planning is universally an underlying cause of poor quality
games
Monday, December 11, 2023
I have no idea why games, movies, etc keep deciding not to do preplanning/ background work
Replying to Phijkchu_Pikachu #klombak Not doing proper planning is universally an underlying cause of poor quality
emil pagliarulo belives that there should be zero game design document because it "takes time" to constnatly update them
who is this? Some top guy at bethesda?
No wonder every game they have released in complete dogshit (in the last X years)
I liked watching the internet flip from starfield goty to having to admit its not good (or at the very least, admit it has problems)
(Except the cope threads on reddit about it not being nominated in the game awards, those people were funny)
More complicated games for sure need more in depth design documents
and stories need lore bibles
I like to recall the old design documents for mario bros 1, which was drawn on graph paper manually, and he can't even be bothered to have a word document
Replying to taxes #tzfi maybe for a fantasy rpg or something much less mechanically indepth, but going into quest design not knowing what features- mechanics- or rules should even exist for something like that is insane
part of starfields issues though is also todds fault, and their mentality of wanting the game to be for everyone and have no inconvineces
Speaking of long retrospectives, did you watch Joseph Anderson sucking off Lies of P?
Replying to Spooky Phijkchu #spooky.131 Speaking of long retrospectives, did you watch Joseph Anderson sucking off Lies of P?
So yes/no, I stopped before he got into spoiling it
I was surprised he liked it so much, I liked it, but in the same way I liked Hellpoint
Yeah, you'll probably like it. I think it's a better directed game than Nioh/Lords of the Fallen
Tuesday, December 12, 2023
I've been watching the Starfield video ~ 2 hours in, I flat-out don't understand this fixation on a missing "design document"
Not to say I don't agree that pagliarulo is a hack and shouldn't be lead of a narrative/writing dept, but that's its own issue
The criticism that there was a lack of central pre-planning/outlining for the story and/or game mechanics feels like a face-saving deflection, instead of laying blame at an overall lack of talent
It's true to say "if they planned the game out better, it would have turned out better", but its such a BIG statement that its kind of pointless
Replying to Spooky Phijkchu #spooky.131 I've been watching the Starfield video ~ 2 hours in, I flat-out don't understand this fixation on a missing "design document"
oh 100% he overstates it
Yeah, their studio is TINY
For the scale of game they want to make
Esp given their resources
Smaller I think, if you don't count QA
I think it's in the ballpark of 200
From some number I saw getting thrown around
My main gripes with Starfield were the engine/technical limitations that neutered the game, which exacerbated the bad quests and other flawed systems
But, I won't give them the benefit of the doubt that even had they not been limited technically, that they would have designed sound systems
Because A LOT of those are less than half-baked
And that's where I think the criticism of planning, scope management, and talent ring true
Because they were not aiming at a point that would have made Starfield a generation defining game
Despite.... Probably should of doing that