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Starfield

24 years at Bethesda with Pete Hines – “There's no question that the company is not the same”

"When it worked, it was magical"

For 24 years Pete Hines was up there with Vault Boy and Todd Howard as one of the public faces of Bethesda...as senior vice president of global marketing and communications, few others at the company had such a broad overview of its strategy and focus, its highs and lows

Two years after his retirement, where he spends his free time as a pro bono advisor for people struggling in the games industry, I got the chance to reminisce with him about one of the most fascinating careers in video games...

https://www.dbltap.com/features/24-years-bethesda-with-pete-hines
 
polonyc2 said:
24 years at Bethesda with Pete Hines – “There's no question that the company is not the same”

"When it worked, it was magical"

For 24 years Pete Hines was up there with Vault Boy and Todd Howard as one of the public faces of Bethesda...as senior vice president of global marketing and communications, few others at the company had such a broad overview of its strategy and focus, its highs and lows

Two years after his retirement, where he spends his free time as a pro bono advisor for people struggling in the games industry, I got the chance to reminisce with him about one of the most fascinating careers in video games...

https://www.dbltap.com/features/24-years-bethesda-with-pete-hines
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"When it worked" being the key words
 
KickAssCop said:
This game died quick.
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What do you mean?

Its a single player story game. One play-through and then you are done with it, like all of them.

You are always going to get a big bump in the beginning, and then have it taper off as stragglers who pick the game up after launch play it, but it was never going to have the replay value of a strategy game with randomly generated maps, like the Civ series, or a competitive multiplayer game.

I have one and done'd some of the greatest single player games of all time, why would this one be any different? 😅

It is a very rare exception of a title that actually gets me to play it more than once, and usually it's only because I remember liking it a lot, but it has been so long that I can't remember the story anymore. But that's usually a decade or more later.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
What do you mean?

Its a single player story game. One play-through and then you are done with it, like all of them.

You are always going to get a big bump in the beginning, and then have it taper off as stragglers who pick the game up after launch play it, but it was never going to have the replay value of a strategy game with randomly generated maps, like the Civ series, or a competitive multiplayer game.

I have one and done'd some of the greatest single player games of all time, why would this one be any different? 😅

It is a very rare exception of a title that actually gets me to play it more than once, and usually it's only because I remember liking it a lot, but it has been so long that I can't remember the story anymore. But that's usually a decade or more later.
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It died at a normal single player death rate. Compared to Skyrim it died quick if that's what he meant.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Its a single player story game. One play-through and then you are done with it, like all of them
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most Bethesda games are single player (exception being Fallout 76?) but they have unusually long shelf lives because of the modding scene and overall replayability...so comparing Starfield to any of the recent Fallout of Elder Scrolls games and it died much quicker

the current player base is not terrible but even Fallout 4 currently has triple the player base (according to Steam charts)
 
I don't understand how anyone can put thousands of hours of playtime into a single player games. Especially garbage like Bethesda games. There are games I truly loved and proabaly never put more then 100 hours into them besides FFXI which was a MMORPG. How do you not get bored? There are so many other games out there to move onto.
 
Well these games aren't about getting max loot, max level. It's about story, making your own story and trying things out for fun. Role play and all.

Also I find the older I get my capacity to replay games diminishes. Even if TES6 is better than its predecessors I probably won't play it for as many hours as I've played tes3/4/5 each. Because of time and because of motivation decline with age?
 
vegeta535 said:
I don't understand how anyone can put thousands of hours of playtime into a single player games. Especially garbage like Bethesda games. There are games I truly loved and proabaly never put more then 100 hours into them besides FFXI which was a MMORPG. How do you not get bored? There are so many other games out there to move onto.
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I feel the same about FF games and others like WoW, but you don't see me complaining.
If you never put more than a 100hrs into a game, you're just a filthy casual who never had a game that grabbed you by the balls and sucked your soul from you.

There are plenty of gamers out there who love to hate on a Bethesda game, but are still playing single player FPS's from like 2011 with mods, that are arguably worse than any Bethesda game today and buggier. You know who you are.

Who am I to criticize? Different strokes for different folks. 🤷‍♂️
 
SecretStash said:
Well these games aren't about getting max loot, max level. It's about story, making your own story and trying things out for fun. Role play and all.

Also I find the older I get my capacity to replay games diminishes. Even if TES6 is better than its predecessors I probably won't play it for as many hours as I've played tes3/4/5 each. Because of time and because of motivation decline with age?
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This.

Back when I could come home from work friday evening and could play solid through monday morning, i would play these things to death. Now with a couple hours available a day, TES6 or GTA6 I am hoping I can stick with them long enough to finish.



I played starfield for about 15 hours or so when it released and stopped. Wondering if it is worth popping back on or starting over, does the game feel much different?
 
TaintedSquirrel said:
Don't worry the upcoming patch will save it. And did you see the selection of paid mods available? Wow!
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How would a patch address the fundamental design issues with the game? There is a rumor that we will get the ability to travel directly between star systems without having to essentially fast travel. But is that really going to "save the game" for people?
peppergomez said:
"When it worked" being the key words
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The Bethesda formula worked before the industry moved on and left them. The dated game design and formula Bethesda uses is over 20 years old at this point. The game engine is even older than that. Games like Cyberpunk 2077 and its expansion Phantom Liberty are considerably more sophisticated in their design and execution. Not to mention, graphically Bethesda hasn't moved on in terms of character design. Their character model animations and faces, etc. look downright primitive now. Though in fairness their environments do look pretty good, especially for being procedurally generated.
qwertyaas said:
So guessing nothing really changed since release?

Played a few hours and just couldn't get into it. Felt so different from prior Bethesda games that drew me in.
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A lot of things have changed from release but if you have a problem with the general design of the game then no patch is likely to fix that for you. It's also not going to do anything to make the story and writing better or the quests more immersive.
peppergomez said:
I think that quote might be a polite way of saying they are done creatively
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They've been done creatively for at least a decade.
polonyc2 said:
most Bethesda games are single player (exception being Fallout 76?) but they have unusually long shelf lives because of the modding scene and overall replayability...so comparing Starfield to any of the recent Fallout of Elder Scrolls games and it died much quicker

the current player base is not terrible but even Fallout 4 currently has triple the player base (according to Steam charts)
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It's hilarious that you'd bring up Steam charts to prove a point while insisting they don't mean anything in threads where those same charts show how unpopular and poorly received some games are.
vegeta535 said:
I don't understand how anyone can put thousands of hours of playtime into a single player games. Especially garbage like Bethesda games. There are games I truly loved and proabaly never put more then 100 hours into them besides FFXI which was a MMORPG. How do you not get bored? There are so many other games out there to move onto.
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Some games like the Mass Effect trilogy and Cyberpunk 2077 can offer a fairly varied player experience from one run to the next. Cyberpunk in particular has multiple endings that are in fact, quite different. Even if you pick the same ending every time, the way you play the game can alter your experience significantly. Some of the larger quest lines in the game can have a great deal of variation and outcome making their replay value high. Mass Effect comes down to binary ending choices but ultimately the experience is still quite variable based on your dialog and action choices. Cyberpunk for example has a great open world that is simply fun to mess around in. I often fire up the game and drive around Night City shooting random enemies and running from the police.

That won't entertain everyone but between all that and mods for some of these games, there can be a lot of replay value and life to games like these.
 
I've given it a few attempts, but haven't got the 'hooks' in me from this game yet.

I am surprised the modding scene hasn't given Starfield more legs... you'd think being able to travel to individual planets - standalone mods would be popular. Something akin to a self contained 'Star Trek' episode on a new planet.
 
SeymourGore said:
I've given it a few attempts, but haven't got the 'hooks' in me from this game yet.

I am surprised the modding scene hasn't given Starfield more legs... you'd think being able to travel to individual planets - standalone mods would be popular. Something akin to a self contained 'Star Trek' episode on a new planet.
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It's not as popular as other Bethesda games. Part of the issue is that the engine was updated enough to become incompatible with the existing modding tools. They had to release a new version of the Creation Kit to mod the game fully. While that is out now, it came out more than a year after the game did and by then a lot of people had dropped the game. Still, there are a lot of great mods out there for it. I actually have dozens of mods installed just for the ship builder alone. Hell most of my time in the game has been spent building ships.
 
SecretStash said:
Well these games aren't about getting max loot, max level. It's about story, making your own story and trying things out for fun. Role play and all.

Also I find the older I get my capacity to replay games diminishes. Even if TES6 is better than its predecessors I probably won't play it for as many hours as I've played tes3/4/5 each. Because of time and because of motivation decline with age?
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Exactly.

I don't get all the hate. I mean the engine is shit, and up until Stalker2 it was one of the worst running titles I had seen, but if you had a sufficient machine to run it well at launch, it was fun.

You play through it once, and when doing so it has a compelling story, with some nice plot twists. And add to that the fun of customizing your own ship.

They oversold many aspects of it though. The AI generated worlds were kind of lame. As was the mining aspect of the game, which I just didn't do in my playthrough. I never built a base.

It was reminiscent of what they tried to do with outposts in Fallout4, and I didn't really care for it there either. Once I finished the story, I stopped playing Fallout4. The outpost mechanic wasn't enough to keep things going. And I never expected it to be either. Same with Starfield. I never expected the mining aspect of the game to make it playable once the story ended.

I also found that they totally oversold the Starborn aspect of it, suggesting that you could replay the game once completing it and the alternate universe would be somehow different. I didn't really think it was, other than some new dialogue options.

I thought it was an OK single player game. Not one of my favorites of all time or anything, but still enjoyable. I liked it better than - for instance - The Outer Worlds. The more open world (or open space if you will) approach helped that, instead of the more linear story. I also liked the more realistic and less goofy approach compared to the Outer Worlds. Building your own ship was a nice feature too.

I don't regret buying it. I got what I expected, and enjoyed my playthrough.

I got about 215 hours out of it. That is well above average. I'm OK with that.
 
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Dan_D said:
The Bethesda formula worked before the industry moved on and left them. The dated game design and formula Bethesda uses is over 20 years old at this point.
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I wouldn't quite say that. I think FO3 and NV had a lot of options when it came to dialogue, and some of the missions and scenarios genuinely had some good options for completing them. There was a lot of control over killing characters that would lead to different outcomes or possibilities. Fallout 4 limited the dialogue options but added voiced protagonists. Starfield eliminated the voice protagonist, but the options were still typically even less varied compared to FO4. The ability to kill key characters, or options for completing a mission dropped significantly.

There were shortcomings with FO3/NV. The menu was trash (I hate the Pip-boy), the combat was trash (FO4 and even Starfield improved this a bit), and some of the minor quests could be lame. But overall most locations had interesting stories, multiple quests, and made them feel worthwhile visiting. That was largely lost in Starfield.

TLDR: I think they devolved their game design. FO3/NV would play great today, provided they were updated with many quality of life features (camera angles, combat, etc.).
 
CAD4466HK said:
There are plenty of gamers out there who love to hate on a Bethesda game, but are still playing single player FPS's from like 2011 with mods, that are arguably worse than any Bethesda game today and buggier. You know who you are.

.
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If thats a reference to STALKER GAMMA that could not be more inaccurate
"You know who you are" 😏
 
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peppergomez said:
If thats a reference to STALKER GAMMA that could not be more inaccurate
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If I was going to call you out, I would of tagged you peppergomez , I ain't no bitch boy.
Although I do think it's funny that you grouped yourself in with the gamers that love to hate on a Bethesda game that I was pointing out.:ROFLMAO:

And btw, Call of Pripyat came out in 2009 and Gamma is just a modpack with like 150 or so mods. So your a little off base thinking I'm picking on you Pepper.
And I would be the last person to give anyone shit for modding the fuck out of a old ass game...no matter how buggy and terrible it was.
 
CAD4466HK said:
If I was going to call you out, I would of tagged you peppergomez , I ain't no bitch boy.
Although I do think it's funny that you grouped yourself in with the gamers that love to hate on a Bethesda game that I was pointing out.:ROFLMAO:

And btw, Call of Pripyat came out in 2009 and Gamma is just a modpack with like 150 or so mods. So your a little off base thinking I'm picking on you Pepper.
And I would be the last person to give anyone shit for modding the fuck out of a old ass game...no matter how buggy and terrible it was.
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Oh I definitely enjoy criticizing Bethesda.You can absolutely group me in with those gamers. Companies that have such a wide gap in quality between their marketing claims and their actual products absolutely deserve to be criticized.
I'll be happy to change my tune if they can deliver the goods with ESVI. We will see.
 
peppergomez said:
I'm hoping Skyblivion is successful. Oblivion is the last Bethesda game that truly bowled me over and immersed me in its gameplay and lore.
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Yes I am looking forward to it as well, as I have very fond memories of both, but I'm going in with very low expectations so I can be really dazzled if they got it right or just shrug my shoulders if they got it wrong.
 
CAD4466HK said:
Yes I am looking forward to it as well, as I have very fond memories of both, but I'm going in with very low expectations so I can be really dazzled if they got it right or just shrug my shoulders if they got it wrong.
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It will be a good idea to wait at least another couple months after its official release for the inevitable post release patching
FOLN is a good example of a big mod being available to play but probably not advisable to do so until at least the v1.03 patch comes out.
 
peppergomez said:
It will be a good idea to wait at least another couple months after its official release for the inevitable post release patching
FOLN is a good example of a big mod being available to play but probably not advisable to do so until at least the v1.03 patch comes out.
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Yeah trust me I know.
I played through the entire mod with it coming out the gate and still had fun while I was pulling my hair out.

Back OT:
I still haven't even loaded Starfield up yet, and I'm glad that I didn't with a new DLC dropping.
I learned my lesson with FO:NV and Skyrim, with waiting on DLC's to go back and continue where I left off. I fucking hate that, I rather just play it with ALL content from the get go.
 
CAD4466HK said:
I still haven't even loaded Starfield up yet, and I'm glad that I didn't with a new DLC dropping.
I learned my lesson with FO:NV and Skyrim, with waiting on DLC's to go back and continue where I left off. I fucking hate that, I rather just play it with ALL content from the get go.
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Typically my preference for games as well. But honestly this game is so long you'll probably get very tired of it before getting to DLC 1. The quest design is okay for some quests, other quests can just be lame. As mentioned before, seemingly travel between solar systems is possible but radio isn't. After you get a bunch of "talk to this person, travel to another solar system for a 3 minute conversation, then travel back" quests you'll see why it can get a bit repetitive. Though it isn't all bad. I think by the time I finished the remaining side quests and started DLC 1, which has horrible writing and quest design, I was largely done with the game. DLC 1 fixes the constant fast travel issue but the writing and quest tasks are so awfully done that it ends up being worse in many cases.

I hope for DLC 2 they learned how to design/write some decent quests.
 
I have hundreds of hours in the PC versions of Oblivion and Skyrim and to a lesser extent Morrowind. 98% of those hours are because of mods, both in the modding process then playing said mods. Without mods I probably wouldn't have made it much passed 50 hours before all the bugs, jank and shitty design choices drove me nuts. Bethesda has never been good at making games. they are, on the other hand, great at making canvases for other, far more talented people, to work on. Now it seems they can't even manage that. Likely because I think they just got super lucky that such a strong mod community developed around Morrowind and caried over to their other games. Without that community they would likely be nothing more than a nostalgic memory for the more hardcore PC RPG lover. I never understood the popularity of the console versions of Bethesda's games.
 
grifter_66 said:
I have hundreds of hours in the PC versions of Oblivion and Skyrim and to a lesser extent Morrowind. 98% of those hours are because of mods, both in the modding process then playing said mods. Without mods I probably wouldn't have made it much passed 50 hours before all the bugs, jank and shitty design choices drove me nuts. Bethesda has never been good at making games. they are, on the other hand, great at making canvases for other, far more talented people, to work on. Now it seems they can't even manage that. Likely because I think they just got super lucky that such a strong mod community developed around Morrowind and caried over to their other games. Without that community they would likely be nothing more than a nostalgic memory for the more hardcore PC RPG lover. I never understood the popularity of the console versions of Bethesda's games.
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Well said. I think this sums up my feelings on the company and its games nicely. Without mods I would have completed the story of Starfield and all its nonsensical fetch quests one time and that would have been the end of it.
 
grifter_66 said:
I have hundreds of hours in the PC versions of Oblivion and Skyrim and to a lesser extent Morrowind. 98% of those hours are because of mods, both in the modding process then playing said mods. Without mods I probably wouldn't have made it much passed 50 hours before all the bugs, jank and shitty design choices drove me nuts. Bethesda has never been good at making games. they are, on the other hand, great at making canvases for other, far more talented people, to work on. Now it seems they can't even manage that. Likely because I think they just got super lucky that such a strong mod community developed around Morrowind and caried over to their other games. Without that community they would likely be nothing more than a nostalgic memory for the more hardcore PC RPG lover. I never understood the popularity of the console versions of Bethesda's games.
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Indeed. I'll be buying FO4 just to play the FOLN mod, wont even bother to play vanilla FO4 bc I have no patience for Bethesda's many limitations.
 
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