Ronnie

It's almost as if they've told us over and over exactly that. Nov 2021: "the Switch is at the mid-point of its lifecycle" Feb 2022: "The Switch is going to exceed traditional hardware cycles" Ultra-conservative Nintendo keeping one of the most successful products on the market for as long as possible? Who'd have thought.

Ok, now I'm in...

Don't let a bit of measured common sense get in the way of people jumping to conclusions, knee-jerk reacting and stating things as if they were fact. Nintendo have absolutely done back to back presentations, or ones very close to each other. It's usually a Smash presentation or an indie showcase, but in 2019 they had a Pokemon specific Direct one week, and an E3 one the next. Same as 2017 with a Dragon Quest XI Direct. Who knows if that'll actually happen this year, but the Xenoblade 3 doesn't rule anything out.

Makes perfect sense.

The series has been building nicely. Obi-Wan slowly getting his mojo back has been a joy to watch. He was never going to be a badass from the start like some people might have been strangely expecting. Most important of all though the show has bridged the gap between 3 and 4 really well. This was of the most intense Star Wars, probably ever, heart was pounding and I was on the edge of my seat throughout, which is pretty incredible given most of the episode took place in or around a cave!

That was outstanding.

That's why you're (probably) not a game designer. The beauty of games like these is that they have layers of different types of content, which you pick and choose to do depending on whatever mood you're in, be it following the main quest, doing shorter side missions, or just chilling running around the world and gathering resources or progress ticking boxes. And it's not a case of 'get rid of the more casual content' and add another 5 hours to the main or side quests. It has to be a full spectrum. If you watch the video, he quite clearly explains that once you procedurally generate a handful of planets (out of necessity for the core story), it's not much of a leap to do that 1000 times. Plus, let's be real, the entire premise of the game is about exploring the universe. Having 5 hand crafted players is the antithesis of that. Outer Wilds is great (or so I hear) but it's a different game, with a completely different design/purpose, and that's ok.

What does it matter if it has a full AAA games-worth of hand-crafted content on top of that? That was literally all NMS had. Starfield is an RPG with a 30/40 hour main quest and 200K lines of dialogue.

You can judge whatever you want before the full picture is revealed, it'll just come across as a bit misplaced and premature. At best. A game about traversing the galaxy and exploring unknown places. Of course there will be procedural generation. Almost every big budget game has procedural generation to some degree. If you watch the video above, Todd Howard explains the reasoning. It's a great interview. People were excited by the prospect of procedurally generated planets in NMS, the issue was the rest of the game and gameplay had the depth of a puddle. Starfield likely won't have that problem.

Totally, but like you suggest I think that Dave benefits hugely from someone like Favreau who brings in the big screen story-telling experience, so the two work well together. I'm sure Dave will get his own film one day but at the moment I think he even admits himself he's still learning a lot. He told a funny little story about how he showed Carrie Beck a little storyline he'd been working on and she was like 'meh' (which gave everyone a good laugh) so he went back and re-wrote it. To be honest, personally, apart from maybe the first half of TROS, storylines has never really been an issue with me since Disney took over, I can get behind things pretty easily, including Rey as a Palpatine. I tend to focus more on the execution, the dialogue, characters when I have criticism. Or even the CGI like those T-47s coming in to save the day looking a bit dodgy. Interesting! Fair enough. I wouldn't say it massively changes my view either, but I find that expectation reset helps ground my opinion a bit more. I enjoy TROS a lot, especially nowadays, but I wouldn't say it's a good "film". I think 7 and 8 are good films, 9 improves massively around the halfway point imo but it's mostly a collection of great moments, like you say, rather than anything more cohesive like the other two. Found myself nodding along to the rest of your post (as opposed to nodding off!), very much agree with it and how you view things. Star Wars fandom can be a bit of minefield (in fact, this tweet made me laugh the other day) but it's nice to have sane and grounded discussion with you on here. And that's interesting about the reviewer who would describe how his day went to give context to the review. Force Center do that when reviewing films and tv episodes, talking about their frame of mind going into an episode for instance. They do fantastic work over there, and they make me feel incredibly dumb during their deep-dives on these shows haha.

You can judge whether you think the game looks good and interesting at this stage, but don't make assumptions about things you (or anyone else here) have no clue about. Wait for the facts about the amount of content, then bring them into your argument. Anyway, moving on , a great interview from IGN's Ryan McCaffrey with Todd Howard. The guy is refreshingly open and honest about the game, and dives into - the balance between procedural generation and hand-crafted content (he says it's their biggest game ever in terms of hand-crafted, 200K lines of dialogue, 3x that of Cyberpunk), why they went with 1000 planets, - how much depth the space combat has (assigning power to 6 different systems in dog-fighting, three different weapon types, docking stations and ships, boarding ships, stealing ships, smuggling) - length of the game (30/40 hour main quest) and lots more, definitely worth a watch...

I think getting the story-teller right is key for sure, and there needs to be a guiding voice (I certainly think Filoni is that man) who helps to guide other writers, but I suppose the trick is where do you draw the line and allow people (like the Kasdans as one example) enough free reign to tell their story. Mando was almost exclusively written by Favreau for instance, with Filoni obviously filling in the details here and there. As a random mention, Filoni made a comment after the Siege of Mandalore screening that a ton of credit for story-telling needs to go to some of the more behind the scenes people like Carrie Beck or Athena Portillo (don't quote me on the latter), and that it's a collaborative effort. On a separate note, in terms of enjoying SW content, I've said it before but re-watches and a bit of distance definitely help when it comes to engaging with new content in a long-running franchise that means a lot to you. It's similar to the Zelda cycle (before BOTW at least), new game comes out "it wasn't as good as the last one" + improved fan response to the previous game. In many ways that's happening with the prequels in general. Return of the Jedi was disliked when it first came out, and now it's beloved etc etc. When I watched the S2 finale of Mando I wasn't a massive fan, but subsequent rewatches and I love it now. Same with The Heiress, it (somehow) didn't do much for me at first viewing, now it's one of my favourite episodes. Star Wars Explained put it really succinctly if you have a couple of minutes and are interested (just a couple of minutes from 3:26 onwards)

I just frankly couldn't believe someone can think that the build of Starfield we were shown looked in any way as shallow as NMS at launch, so I figured your point was more specific to actual game mechanics. How about you don't judge a game when you literally have no idea whatsoever about the balance between hand-crafted and procedural generation? Starfield could have Witcher 3 levels of content plus all the procedural generation on top of that. Or it could be another NMS in that department. We just don't know, so it's pointless to judge before we do.

The shooting of COD looks a lot like the shooting in Battlefield? The racing in GT looks a lot like the racing in Forza Motorsport? The punching in Street Fighter looks a lot like the punching in Tekken? Games look similar to each other. How else do you want a character to collect ore from a planet rather than shoot a mining laser at it? A Minecraft pickaxe? Can't think of many other options. Good thing this is an RPG, not a shooter then. Procedural generation is fine if the balance is right. You don't know what that balance will be, so are in no position to comment at this stage. There could be tons of hand-crafted content, who knows.

Galaxy's Edge, Disneyland, a (mini) review. In a word, amazing. Had an absolute blast, went over two days, and the second was much more enjoyable because it wasn't a bank holiday like the Monday was, d'oh. The place is extremely well made and I had a great time just taking it slow and hanging out the various areas. The first of the two rides, Millennium Falcon Smuggler's Run was good fun, although they sort of rushed us through the boarding part so didn't get to spend too long looking around the Falcon itself. You go in in groups of 6 people and they assign roles, 2 pilots, 2 gunners, 2 engineers. I asked the guy if I could be a pilot which he happily sorted. The right hand position got to make the jump to hyperspace, you pull back on a lever and the effect is triggered on the screens in front of the cockpit. Cool af. The ride itself was ok. it was quite interactive and they assign you points and a rank at the end based on how well you did. The guy flying alongside me did really well so the 6 of us got quite a high score I think. The storyline was serviceable, a nice little offshoot of the Solo train heist/coaxium stealing, but honestly everything goes by so fast it's hard to keep up. Rise of the Resistance though, fuck me, amazing. I did it twice and had a massive grin on my face the entire time. The whole thing is pretty long, a good 15-20 minutes in total, including bits where you walk around. The storyline was fun and all the main sequel trilogy characters/actors showed up for cameos every now and then. Put it this way, Daisy Ridley, whilst definitely not bad here exactly, put in a much better performance in the films themselves Can't say enough good things about this ride, tons of fun, with 3 or 4 different parts to it. The way they simulated blaster bolts on the star destroyer, brilliant. As for Black Spire Outpost itself, it was a lot of fun just wandering around or hanging out. Had both blue and green milk, both tasty. Got there really early so could do a load of shopping at the start when it was quiet. All the merchandise is 'in universe' so you won't see any Star Wars logos anywhere, pretty nifty idea. Sufficed to say I pretty much emptied my bank account buying stuff. Had a breakfast Ronto wrap and meiloorun juice to start the day off. Basically a pitta+hotdog+melted cheese+scrambled eggs (very tasty), and a ice cold fruit drink with every kind of fruit you can think of (also nice). This is where they were being served (engine was fully functional, and noisy af): The Cantina was fun, we struck up a conversation with a couple of guys who'd just been to Celebration too, which was nice as I'd been having serious withdrawal symptoms by then. The server informed me when I was ordering my second drink that it also came in an optional Porg mug for an extra 28 credits and you get to take a boxed version home. There were a couple of experiences you could pay extra for, build your own lightsaber ($220) and build your own droid ($100). Everyone says the former is a must do but tbh I've never been that into lightsabers and the ones you get to build look a little cheap and plasticky plus I'd spent a fortune already. The droid building I would be very much into but again they kind of look a bit plasticky. I'm regretting not doing it now though, the place was awesome to look at. Got some fun merch from the shop though at least The part itself has its own storyline, set between Ep 8 and Ep 9, so they had actors playing Rey, Chewie, Kylo Ren, and a couple of stormtroopers walking around + a character they created solely for the park. It was fun to listen in when they spoke to kids etc, the girl who played Rey did a great job, sounded a lot like her too. The ships that were scattered around the place were cool af. I was geeking out over the starfighters especially. Poe's black X-wing is even more cool in person. There were a ton of shops, all specialising in a different type of thing. This was the coolest, the den of antiquities. Holocrons, sabres, Jedi/sith artefacts for sale. Then random stuff like galactic credits or Mon Calamari money, rank insignias etc Finished the day getting some Batuu mix (popcorn, like in The Bad Batch). It came in an optional mouse droid holder which you could take home. So yeah, all in all, had a great time. It was fun to just hang out, but I'd recommend going at a time when it's not peak holidays, it got really busy that first day, but the second was much more enjoyable with fewer people cause it was just a random Tuesday. PS: That's so weird, I was originally coming on here to reply to your latest post about Kenobi @Julius but it's missing, did I imagine it??

Solid showing of games mostly coming in the next 12 months, and a decent look at Starfield which looks pretty special imo. No massive megatons though. [/non-internet-hyperbole-mode]

Yeah, great isn't it

It looks incredible. The mobility and animations, top notch work. Crazy how it's been almost three and a half years since the reveal trailer.

Very pleased that almost all the stuff they showed was coming out in the next 12 months. I wish more publishers would do that. A lot of gameplay too which is another plus. For me, I'll happily take: Lightyear Frontier As Dusk Falls Pentiment Ravenlok Cocoon Starfield and of course, Silksong.

Agree, but Todd Howard has said they've been in active development on this game since Fallout 4 shipped back in 2015, so that's 7 or 8 years. Plus all the pre-production they'd done for years beforehand, which he also spoke about.

Sign me the fuck up for Starfield, looks incredible. I guess I'm buying a Series X for it. The space combat/flying looked very rough though, but apart from that Love the UI especially.

"Japanese devs are some of the most talented in the world" It's funny, Japanese developed games tend to stick out like a sore thumb to me, and not in a good way. (Nintendo and a couple others the exception.)

Playdead's next game can't be far off surely. Inside was 6 years ago!

Oh wow, Cocoon looks amazing!!

*Adds Ravenlok to my must play list*