Bethesda hired a Skyrim modder to create the "lighting and clutter" in Starfield

I think this is great. Acknowledge the talent and give them an opportunity.

Maybe Sims 5 will hire the wickedwhims creator and add their skills to the next game...haha

I'm kind of surprised that The Sims doesn't have more competition.

It's been many years that the series has been kind of the only entry in the genre.

Yeah, a lot of the other classic Sim games don't have analogs either (though Sim City does), but The Sims is pretty commercially successful.
- There's The Sims at work by Paradox called Life by You.
- Much like Bethesda games, they take quite a lot of work to make for what is essentially a position that has been unchallenged for years. Very high risk, but only like somewhat high reward.
  
  Like just breakdown what the Sims into its fundamental components. The characters, the fashion, the homes, the skills, the jobs, social interactions, possessions. It's a lot of work.
One man can only dream!

That's awesome! Elianora's mods have been basically a mandatory download for me for years because the quality is always incredible. She absolutely deserves this.

I wonder who they hired to do the facial modelling. The environments look really good but the faces look like games from 15 years ago. I really expected more from the game that Microsoft has been making so much fanfare over.

I really expected more

I'm sorry, but why? Why do people do this every time a new game comes out? This is what Bethesda does, and Microsoft isn't much better.

Every new game it's like people forget what these companies do.

You should've expected a Bethesda game.

Btw elder scrolls 6 will suck, too.
- It's crazy.
  
  Bethesda have owned id Software, the best graphics engineers in the business, for a decade. They now even have Microsoft money. This is still, somehow, the best they can do.
- Starfield.....doesn't suck though.
  
  I've sunk 20 hours into it so far and it's amazing. You people just have your expectations up the ass for a company that is great at one formula and expect them to do the other when they never said they would. It's ya'lls fucking fault for expecting No Mans Sky to be the greatest fucking game of all time at release over a company that made fucking Joe Danger.
  
  Cyberpunk 2077 I can understand more as it was made from the guys who made The Witcher 3, so feature wise I can understand the betrayal and they fucked up by lying to us. But it's still ya'lls fault for expecting it to not be buggy and broken as fuck when it was delayed 3 fucking times. The red flags were there, and you STILL bought it.
  
  Oblivion and Skyrim have the same basic formula with little differences sprinkled in here and there mechanics wise that make it feel different, but familiar. Starfield is the same way and I fully expect ES 6 to do the same. But that's fine. I don't want anything groundbreaking. I just want Skyrim but with modern graphics, animations, different setting, and some new mechanics.
  
  Good god you people are negative.
- that's your opinion. A lot of people have a lot of fun with bethesda games...
- You’d think Bethesda would notice what you claim to have.
  
  That’s the point.
- What's the point of this comment? People are allowed to complain and criticize Bethesda for the things they seemingly refuse to improve on.
In Fallout 4 and Skyrim, modders did ultimately put out high-poly-count heads, high-detail eyes, etc. I imagine that if tradition holds, there will be modders doing the same in Skyrim.
- And also probably Starfield 😉
TBH the faces look fine for me. At least on major NPCs that have a role. All of the NPCs out in the cities are the ones that look wonky. I give it a pass though considering you'd have to be fucking staring at them immensely to actually notice.

Either way, modders will take care of it. That's the beauty of these games. Anything remotely dumb that Bethesda overlooks, (which is every game) will be fixed.

Still having a ton of fun.
Meh, being able to build your own ship like Skyrim and kerbal space progran had a baby sounds like it makes up for that but I haven't played the game so idk. Most space games are either a massive ripoff (think Star Citizen) or a major grindfest (Elite Dangerous) so it's good to see someone try to make a space game that isn't like that.

No Man's Sky and Stationeers are almost similar games that are good but in those games the space ship game mechanics and functionality just aren't there.
- I've been playing it and it's a great game. I just wish they could have gotten the faces good enough for the game to showcase what the Xbox and PC are capable of. The environments even look great. They really dropped the ball considering it's Microsoft's biggest first party launch in something like 5 years.
- The shipbuilding is limited in order to try and not break the game.
  
  You can only have one cockpit, warp drive, fusion generator, and shield generator. You can't have dual core and double shielded guns with an cockpit strapped to them that obliterates anything in sight.
  
  It is more like Fallout meets Cyberpunk 2077 in space with a complex loading screen mini game that doubles as a remote inventory, which you can spend hours customizing somewhat.
  
  NMS's use of ships is far better, like being able to fly around from place to place instead of loading screen around. NMS's ship flying with SF's shipbuilding would have been ideal.
  
  Hopefully modders will be able to fix the shipbuilding.
Have no real interest in playing it, but do they still do the Skyrim thing where they have like 5 wildly different voice actors, so it feels like the guards are following you from town to town?

Why do you think Bethesda is so supportive of the mod scene?

It's a job application.

A few folks who worked on Skyrim worked on Oblivion mods.

Folks who worked on Fallout made Skyrim mods.

Id software (Doom) also hired modders.

Everyone hires modders. Bioware has been hiring them since 2005. Mods are basically a portfolio.
At a recent talk at Exilecon, one of the creators of Diablo 1 and 2 said that the best thing you can do to get into the game industry is to mod, the first thing they look at is modding experience.
Not just a job application, it's basically also free training and familiarity as well.
Why do you think Bethesda is so supportive of the mod scene?

Because it creates content for their game without them having to spend money.
- Think of more of a platform being sold. I can't think of any other studio that openly embraces the modding community like Bethesda does.
Not to mention Valve.
No, that's why I think Valve is so supportive of the mod scene. Team Fortress and Counter Strike among others started out as mods that the studio hired.

Anybody remember the Deadly Reflex Oblivion mod that Bethesda essentially based Skyrim's combat on?

Oh yeah I do. Wow that takes me back. Stamina, kicks, acrobatics, finishing animations and beheadings. That was a great mod.
- The lung collapse from a piercing arrow blew my mind. The gasping and desperately grabbing at the arrow while they collapsed was so advanced.
  
  The Skyrim animations were smoother and more polished. The Deadly Reflex mod was more gritty and badass.
Pssh, I fucking wish they based combat on that mod. Skyrim's combat is still a little too basic comparatively.
- I agree with your sentiment, maybe the word I should have used was 'inspired.' The mod was definitely better than Skyrim's system imo.

In 2050, when Bethesda releases TES 7, it will be just a launcher to Creation Engine editor with half-assed models and a single empty map where modders collaborate to make the game themselves.

In 2127 with the early-access TES 8 it will be just a README file where they say that game should be ready for Christmas of 21XX, if modders won't fuck around and finish making the damn engine.

hiring modders, which is what folks have been telling bethesda to do since skyrim, is bad and lazy actually
You joke, but I think a collaborative game project like that would be interesting. Maybe not good, but I'd love to see what would happen with such a thing.

Ooooh... What if the SCP community collectively build the best damn SCP game possible? 🤤
- Skyblivion is showing a lot of promise.
- Twitch plays game dev

I think Starfield has the best lighting I have ever seen without ray tracing. The reflections in puddles of water on Neon are so good.

I found it the worst.

It felt like everyone was sitting under their own personal spotlight. And it’s so harsh on the eyes.
Better than Cyberpunk without RT? Note, I haven’t played both games, just a question
- I haven't played Cyberpunk yet, so I can't say.
Really? I'll have to look at the puddles when I get there; I was disappointed to see that mirrors don't work.
- Keywords: without raytracing
I was on an icy moon today orbiting an orange gas giant that had full sun. The colour of the planet was reflected in the dark blue ice - it was stunning!

Cool to see Bethesda being inspired by modders' work and even hiring them

It's a welcome change from when they tried to charge money for people to use Skyrim mods

Ohhh I knew there was something different about the clutter placement in Starfield! There's so much of it I catch myself triple checking areas to make sure that I didn't miss anything worth picking up.

Like your 345th plant or cup? Just me?
- I gotta make sure I collect all the foam cups.

There are those of us who finished highschool, graduated college, and started careers in the games industry since Skyrim was released. I'm sure there are plenty of developers who cut their teeth on Skyrim mods now working for Bethesda.