A couple months ago, I remarked that I was the weirdo still playing Bethesda's twelve year old game Skyrim while the rest of the world had moved on to Bethesda's brand new game, Starfield. Well, it turns out I'm not such an oddball as the number of people playing Skyrim has been edging out the number playing Starfield. At this rate, unless something changes, I wouldn't be surprised if Skyrim was consistently outpacing Starfield by January.
Would could change? There could be a whole bunch of mods, though it'd have to be some pretty drastic ones to overcome the basic lack of joy players seem to have found in the game's principal features. Bethesda games are famous for allowing the player to freely explore vast territory and it seems Starfield's vast territory is dull as dirt. Much of it, indeed, seems literally to be dirt as exploring often involves crossing vast reaches of barren landscape. That sounds like more of a punishment than a game, if you ask me.
It's not so unlike the Fallout games. Fallout 4 may be much more complex, with more character creation options and various forms of dynamic gameplay, but it still all boils down to running around in a junkyard. In Skyrim, you have forests, snowy peaks, and ancient Nordic tombs. Even the worst places have an attractive aesthetic in one way or another.
Starfield, even if it weren't dull and ugly, would still have to compete with the wealth of user made mods that have accrued over more than a decade. Of the 110 mods I use with my copy of Skyrim, several are graphics and and sound mods. You can't honestly call it a purely 12 year old game. In many ways, a modded Skyrim is as up to date as recent releases. And the mods, conceivably, may only improve as years pass. What might this suggest about the future of video games as a whole? For years, people have already been complaining that games are being released unfinished. That doesn't generally include Bethesda games, but many of the mods for Bethesda games are devoted to fixing bugs or streamlining code in the vanilla releases. Could we get to the point where game studios just release bare frameworks, or starter kits of animation and graphics, and then expect online communities to generate free content on their own?
Just look at all the free labour that's gone into the Beyond Skyrim mod that's been in construction for several years. A mod endeavouring to fill out the entire fantasy world in which the country of Skyrim is located, Beyond Skyrim features not only custom graphics, items, coding, gameplay, and writing but even composers of original music, teams of musicians, as well as professional quality voice acting. Are studios asking themselves what is the bare minimum of product they can put out to trigger a volunteer labour force as massive as Skyrim's?
This is my latest character, Grushenka, named after a character I had in Morrrowind over twenty years ago who was originally named after the character in The Brothers Karamazov. Her dress is based on a 1660 gown and comes from a mod. Her sword is a silver rapier which comes from a weapons mod that also includes custom animations. Her hair comes from a mod that includes hair that utilises modded physics and, thanks to another mod, is blown naturally by the wind across the tundra. I'm using a modded combat system as well as a modded survival mode that adds detrimental effects from cold weather, hunger, and lack of sleep. This particular mod was an official Bethesda release but the hunger portion of it was ridiculous. Only a few items of the game's vast collection of foods were actually able to sate the player character's hunger. A helpful user mod revamped the whole system based on a the real world calorie content of Bethesda's assortment of in game foods including bread, fruit, meat, pastries, etc. This, of course, adds a whole new dimension to the game, another thing that keeps it feeling fresh.
X Sonnet #1790
It starts with dust and ghosts of blasted cars.
The restless heath explodes with howling blooms.
But autumn crashed across the tracks of bars.
Another drink at three before her looms.
The plan was never red and blue apart.
Again the arms combine to make a pact.
Where larger feet would tread's a bigger heart.
Where angels like to walk we seldom act.
It's rolling snow that stills the mind.
Collapsing crusts of diamond blanks abide.
The mental world adheres to freezing rind.
In storage, melons broke before the bride.
In scattered clouds, the viewer sees some dots.
The cluttered points reveal confusing spots.
No comments:
Post a Comment