So a Bethesda title?
Let's not get ahead of ourselves. There's still plenty coming out right now and the next two months towards the end of the year. You got all of October.
Starfield - No Man's Bethesda
- Thread starter CriticalGaming
- Start date
Well, wow…a planet hopping space game where you can’t fly a spaceship. Um…yeah, screw that.
I’m pretty convinced at this point that Bethesda thinks people are actually ants. They don’t really factor “fun” human type stuff into their design equations. Only millions of mundane tasks - whether coded in-game or modded in - meant to keep the
There is Forza one Oct 10th and spiderman this month but nov and dec are dead iirc.
- Alan Wake II
- Sonic Superstars
- Mario Wonder
- Mario RPG Remake
Not for the AA & Indie scene.
"It's totally a new engine, guise! Not yet another rehash of Gamebyro! Sure, it's got a whole bunch of the same problems as Skyrim and even Oblivion, but ignore that!"
Honestly that's what I like the most about the game. I'm sick and tired of fighting the bbg or trying to stop the apocalypse. The fun part of game is usually the backstory and the small character/faction moment (ie, the side quest are better than the main quest). Problem is this always clash with main quest because its stupid for Shepard to waste time trying to save one kids when every seconds he's not stopping the Reaper millions of people are dying (to say nothing of finding random NPC#457 wedding ring). If I want to roleplay a Shepard that do all the side quest, I have to play a stupid Shepard, and that kill a lot of my interest in most story.
Honestly I wish there was less in starfield, fuck the star people, why not just have them be alien that also collect the artefact? Just have a large section of the game being dedicated to first contact and establishing communication and meeting and knowing the alien and their story. Of all the sci fi game, 99% are either case where the universe is already mostly explore, including meeting alien, or the alien you do first encounter are just monster you have to kill. There's almost never any exploration in space exploration game.
I think Bethesda have gone for a certain vibe, and that there are no aliens and no "big bad" is totally fine. There is a certain heavy irony involved with people complaining about AAA games doing the same shit again and again, and then hammering a AAA game for trying something different. It seems clear to me Bethesda took a look at NMS, E: D and Star Citizen and thought they'd get in on the "explorer" act. I actually think the narrative idea is good, and actually kind of cool for how it links into the New Game Plus. I also like the idea Bethesda seem to be striving towards for a massive world with lots of stuff going on you can get involved with.
So I have very mixed feelings on it. In ways such as the engine and the shallowness it seems old, tired, and in need of significant upgrade. Cyberpunk, RDR2 and BG3 are all miles ahead in one or more forms of depth. There are some serious shortcomings (outpost and ship design, ship combat and travel). But I think it does represent some sort of reach towards something awesome. Although maybe miscarried, a more successful iteration of it in a forthcoming ES/Fallout/Starfield stable could be amazing.
Actually I don't have a problem with games doing the same shit as another game. There is a reason why people like sequels so much, it's more of the thing they liked the first time. But why do people complain about sequels? Well they complain when they try the same shit as last time except worse.
If you look at my thread "Why derivative game design doesn't matter" you'll see more discussion about this. But the bottom line is that Starfield isn't just copying No Man's Sky's homework, it's copying NMS and still getting the answers wrong.
I agree, the IDEA is good, the execution absolutely piss poor. Why couldn't the Starkids be a faction of people who believe if you crack open the multiverse you'll destroy everything. Making it seem like doing your mission would make you the baddie, but come to find out the leader of the faction has already been to multiple universes and each time he goes he gains power (perhaps limiting the Star powers to one per universe), and he doesn't want other people discovering this source of power until he gets as much for himself (themself) as possible. Thus motivating you to not only persue the main quest but to also do NG+ and keep growing your power base.
The problem with this idea is that in other for there to be something to explore, or at least something to find, you have to accept someone was there before you. Discovering an ancient temple means someone has already been there by sheer requirement.
A game where there isn't any conflict, or have factions, or any BBG could work in theory. But there would have to be some other core element of player agency. Player agency is what makes a game a game, without it you just have digital space. So perhaps something like early Minecraft where there weren't enemies, but you have agency to mine blocks and build yoursefl....something. I don't see why that couldn't be the case in a space exploration game. You go around with a ship from planet to planet to not only get resources but also find a suitable place to build a home, upgrade your ship, and maybe even expand out with your own little alien colony.
I just don't think the concept works in a AAA-galactic wide RPG.
You don't need a conflict for agency, the desire to explore can in and of itself be enough to carry a story forward. How many people played trough skyrim to... I don't even fucking remember what the main plot was, something about evil dragon? Take the same idea, you find weird artifact, and just don't have any bad guy after them, you just explore (in this version you use the money you save by not having the starpeople to instead make finding the artifact more interesting).
The lazy version of this could be that your character own a lot of money and they hope finding the artifact will be their big score, but then you have the problem that the player could just earn enough money to pay his way out.
But that's conflict. Conflict doesn't always have to be a "Bad guy" but can be something as simple as trying to pay off debt or whatever force that is in your character's way or providing some sort of hassle.
In this scenario the mystery is the driving force or the "conflict" there is always something to provide agency to player to do SOMETHING in a game, regardless of what it is.
And that isn't to say that Starfield doesn't have that, because it technically does, by nature of "go get these artifacts". The problem is that the "hook" for driving the player forward is boring and doesn't go anywhere.
I mean, setting aside whether people engaged with Alduin the generic fantasy cliche prophecy of cliche or not. Most folks could cite the handful of cool things they found in Skyrim, whether that be a daedric quest or whatever. (Sure, you could easily rip that up to and point out that the memorably moments were probably 2-3 hours out of an alleged 100 and <5 % of the game too)
There's an entire thread here with people not really having much to say other then one dude saying well the random space explloration might occasionally generate a cool desktop picture screenshot (more or less).
There's plenty of ways to have hooks. But the game clearly seems to have little to no strong character or dramatics hooks in that vein. The mystery presented (much like its spiritual ancesotr NMS) is there but seems to fall pretty flat. And the exploration factor is mostly banking on that 1 in 1000 chance the procedural generation happens to spit out a cool thing.
I don't think so, maybe its marketing fault, but I seriously doubt the randomly generated planet are supposed to be the game hook at all, they're just there for people to build outpost on if that's what they're into and otherwise ignore. Whenever a quest need you to find something, you just land within a minute or two of it, the game never really force you or even push you to explore the random world. The random world are to exploration what radiant quest are to real quest in skyrim, just a side thing.
You're prettymuch just poking the dead horse at that point by effectively saying that hook is also prettymuch non-existent or low grade <_<
What’s funny is, while I’ve never played it, people say Skyrim got exploration right, but here it seems extremely hamstrung and uninspired. It’s almost like the extent of Bethesda’s logic was, “Well, space is a bajillion times bigger, but also a bajillion times emptier…sooo that’s doable, right?”
It's a hook for people who brought the game because they want to build complicated structure in the middle of nowhere with complex 3D structure that can only really be delivered by AAA studio. But did anybody go into the game thinking "randomly generated world make for great exploration"?
I don't know. Why doesn't Lord Of The Rings end with a massive, climactic fight between Gandalf and Sauron, Gandalf obliterating Sauron with a blazing spell of destruction? Surely that would be cooler than just dropping a ring into a volcano.
There's no useful answer to your objection. You don't have to like their decision, but it was their artistic creation and it's perfectly valid.
The narrative throughout - The Pilgrim, The Emissary, The Hunter - are people who realise they can go through multiple universes and have to come to terms with it and find meaning in it all. This isn't a narrative setup that requires anyone to "save the universe", and indeed needing to "save the universe" would ruin that narrative. One might note that narrative also supports the player just sodding off and ignoring the main plot. Find your own way. Like Achilles was offered the choice of a short and glorious life, or to live long as a farmer and be forgotten. Well, maybe in another world, Achilles chooses the farm.
So you'd say Christopher Columbus discovering the Americas was no big deal, because the native Americans got there first? It wasn't totally amazing for someone to find the tomb of Tutankhamun, because they were just finding what the ancient Egyptions buried?
I don't think this argument really holds water. This is a bit like arguing you can have an action game requiring fast thinking, reflexes, etc. and you can have a strategy game where you need to plan, think, devise tactics and so on, but it doesn't really work if you mash them together.
And yet real time strategy games were, and remain, wildly successful.
I would argue that there is an incredibly obvious appeal to a sort of simulated whole world, where countless people are going about their lives that you can interact with in all sorts of ways. As you note with Minecraft: people can make their own amusement farming, decorating their houses, etc. The Sims, and so on. There's an obvious appeal to a narrative adventure full of quests to perform. It seems to me eminently sensible to have the two merged: a narrative adventure built into a highly developed, wider setting where everyone is going about their daily lives. I also think this idea of stuff going on the players can explore but may be off-piste from the main quest is absolutely consistent with the idea of traditional tabletop RPGs: it's part of the immersion of being in a world.
I mean then you are getting into semantics of game design. Every game can appeal to someone even incredibly bad games and Starfield isnt bad so there is going to be appeal for some. The crazy thing is that Bethesda gets some sort of shield for making a game this mediocre for reasons that dont make sense.
If any other game launched this year with these issues and this game design it would absolutely get blasted. In fact No Man's Sky kinda launched like this. Yet Bethesda gets a pass and a whole litanty of stanch defenders when they really dont deserve pretecting. They are too big of a studio with too big of a budget to put something out that wouldnt have been impressive 7 years ago when development started.
I get it you like it despite the flaws. Thats cool i think weve both said our peace on it. So it is what it is. I hope Starfield entertains you for many hours to come.
If any other game launched this year with these issues and this game design it would absolutely get blasted. In fact No Man's Sky kinda launched like this. Yet Bethesda gets a pass and a whole litanty of stanch defenders when they really dont deserve pretecting. They are too big of a studio with too big of a budget to put something out that wouldnt have been impressive 7 years ago when development started.
I get it you like it despite the flaws. Thats cool i think weve both said our peace on it. So it is what it is. I hope Starfield entertains you for many hours to come.
Sure, .... but what is the hook then? Sure seems like this thread is full of a lot of what ISN'T a good hook in the game, and absolutely nothing about what IS.
Like the only person in my usual group thats kept playing it beyond a week is the same guy who has 95 new gun mods installed in Fallout (and as to why you'd chosoe Fallout 4of all games to play as an RNG looter shooter, idk
Honestly, I just think you're not right to say Bethesda has a shield.
Quite the opposite, it seems to me a lot of chatter was out to hammer Starfield before it even arrived, and some metadata sites suggest review-bombing with a mass of minimum mark scores. No-one in this thread is praising it to the skies. Numerous major professional reviewer magazines (e.g. here, here and here) made their reservations clear and gave it marks that were solid, but well short of stellar.
I think these are fair reviews. It does most of what it does fairly well, but it also has some very significant flaws. People who like the sort of FPS/3rd person camera RPGs can get plenty of hours of decent entertainment out of it. It is definitely not great, or a classic. It has probably sold a lot in part because of Bethesda's reputation and hype, and I would not be surprised if some players are then underwhelmed. But I think it's very hard to call it a bad game.