bethesda announces game concept.
people freak.
bethesda announces game. 
people hype.
bethesda starts hyping the game.
people go fucking nuts hyping the game as a result. their social media team plants those seeds to make it look organic.
a year or more of speculation occurs.
todd howard being his little schmuck self comes out and boasts about their new game.
people lose their god damn minds.
whispers of shitty gameplay start occurring closer to launch.
the masses tell those people to fuck off how could they know, dishonest review etc etc.
the big names in game reviews all review it and give it out of the park amazing reviews.
people go batshit crazy. people are out in the streets killing their parents for a chance at the new bethesda god game.
the game is released and is somewhat playable but jesus fuck is it lacking, it’s buggy, and every character looks like they’ve been updated from skyrim graphics of yore. the story sucks. the game play is empty but goddamn is there a lot to explore.
everyone rushes in like a madman.
everyone realizes the gameplay sucks.
people start bitching.
others say “oh don’t worry, DLC and user created mods will fill the game out nicely.”
years pass.
the unpaid modding community pours their heart and soul into making the game not fucking suck.
after all the DLC has come out (all with mostly positive or mixed reviews on steam) the game will go dark for a year or so.
todd howard wakes from his capitalist vampire coma needing fresh life force. the blood money of his unsuspecting idiot fans.
todd howard makes it into the office and says we could make a new game or we can milk this game for the next decade and a half. quick come up with names to rerelease the game under. game of the year edition. complete edition. master edition. elite edition. remastered. remastered complete. anything works!
over the course of the next three decades, todd howard is fed the blood of bethesda’s fan base.
he is swollen, like a fat tick upon his harkonen throne, waiting to burst.
“the people. they call for a NEW game”, he says, a devilish sneer contorts his face.
and the cycle continues.
and these fucking idiots. every goddamn time.
Sixteen times the comment!
If you like Bethesda games, you’re gonna like this one. If you don’t like Bethesda games, you’re not going to like this one. I don’t know what else to tell you, bud.
Don’t mistake the bitching of a vocal minority of lemmy/reddit posters and YouTube influencers (who bitch primarily for clicks) as “everyone”. There are actually a lot of people who like these games - myself included - and a lot of them aren’t on any sort of social media. I loved vanilla Oblivion, Fallout 3, Skyrim, and Fallout 4 and love modded versions even more. I’m having a blast with vanilla Starfield right now - easily dozens of hours over the long weekend. And I’ll probably love modded Starfield even more as well.
Str8 facts
I don’t get it.
People wanted another Bethesda game.
They got what they wanted.
I said in 2008, after playing the first Fallout game by Bethesda instead of Black Isle: “Only Bethesda could manage to make a post apocalyptic prostitute boring.”
They’ve always been boring, they’ve always had ugly character models, and the writing has always been bad. You get what you paid for. A Bethesda game.
As an enjoyer of both Oblivion and Morrowind I’m going to say that I think it’s more likely that the people at Bethesda who were key at making their past games good have either been promoted beyond their positions of expertise or simply left for greener pastures. Bethesda hasn’t always been trash, and people are quick to forget transgressions from nearly a decade ago (yes! It’s been that long!)
It’s been 21 years since Morrowind, and 17 years since Oblivion. Been longer than a decade. Two in Morrowind’s case. I would put Morrowind down as “peak Bethesda,” and their games have been slowly turning to crap since. I agree, I think they lost a lot of key players who worked for them, and they’ve never been able to regain their footing.
21 years since Morrowind
🫠
I’m fine with their writing and their overall gameplay. It’s just that they managed to make space feel boring and tiny. All those little areas in-between the loading screens really don’t feel like a vast space opera at all.
Also I wish they would just invest into some new game mechanics. Proc gen planets look great and exploring them could have been so much fun 🥲
Yeah one of the best parts of the game, the planets look great. There’s just not much to do on them.
Thanks Todd Howard 🙏
“He can’t keep getting away with it!!”
There’s a trait you can pick that exactly explains my problems.with the game. The trait is ‘Dream Home’. It is described as
‘You own a luxurious, customizable house on a peaceful planet! Unfortunately it comes with a 125,000 credit mortgage with GalBank that has to be paid weekly.’…
I thought this was a cool way of adding increased difficulty for myself. I tend not to play at the hardest setting because I don’t have much time to play. But having to plan ahead and work around this limitation sounded like it would add an interesting wrinkle to the strategy I’d have in the game.
However, when you start the game you discover that the loan has to be paid off in full… And you have unlimited time to pay it off. The only way to be foreclosed upon is if you actively go tell the bank to foreclose on you. It’s like they had the idea, but couldn’t be bothered to implement it.
What’s worse is 120k is nothing in the game. You can easily get there within a few hours of play. This is just one example, but it speaks to the game’s complete unwillingness to give the player anything negative or push them any way from their ‘freedom’. The sheer fact you are not locked out of any faction or faction mission is another example. There are 0 stakes in the game and you feel 0 connection to the people you meet or places you visit. Not helped by Sarah potentially being one of the most annoying judgemental characters in any Bethesda game I’ve ever encountered.
Update: I eventually visited this ‘Dream House’. It kinda sucked. The planet it is on is kinda ugly. There is more to this mechanic than I originally thought, however. When you visit you can pay 500 credits for 1 week of access as a ‘payment’ towards the principal. Still very deceptive of the original description.
The only way to be foreclosed upon is if you actively go tell the bank to foreclose on you
Bethesda once again being so scared of the player making a choice, so they lock down anything that actually changes the game behind a giant 🚨 ARE YOU SURE??? 🚨
I mean there are a whole bunch of players that seem to have a problem with actually dealing with consequences. Just look at the bg3 players who are so pissed about “missing content” when they murderhobo their way through the game. Like no shit you killed the people who give you quests, of course you’re going to miss out on their stories.
The sheer fact you are not locked out of any faction or faction mission is another example.
Ah, so Skyrim in space
Someday I’m interested in making an open world game (short on features because I’ll never have giant budgets) that embraces the friction of inconvenience, but finds enjoyable ways for people to circumvent them.
Eg: You can’t easily locate yourself on the map, but you can use a radio to ping towers and triangulate, which gives a breezy interface - or just ask locals. You can’t fast travel, but train stations get you where you’re going - and you might get an interesting conversation or even a whole questline on board.
There’s a little open world game called Miasmata with that triangulation system! It’s an open world survival horror. It’s pretty short though, and I bet you could get it for just a few bucks on sale. I really enjoyed my time in it, and the world is the perfect mix of dreary and serene.
When ARMA Reforger released it was chaos, with 95% of the people hopelessly lost at all times. It’s because the game gave you a map, a compass, and nothing else for navigation. Best. Immersion. Ever.
Always on instant GPS with augmented reality waypoints between abstract objectives is what kills player immersion (and developer creativity). If I can just follow an arrow from point to point and complete a game: it wasn’t worth making the game.
Yep. Theres no exploring, theres just “run to waypoint. grab thing waypoint is on, run to waypoint, hand over waypointed item, find next waypoint source, repeat”
Cause devs want to dumb games down so any mouth breathing reject can conquer it without any effort, to bring in that sweet sweet idiot money.
I think Zelda does this pretty good already.
So if you don’t pay, they still won’t foreclose on you? So what’s the point of paying lol
Why didn’t you pick any of the more negative traits? Like your example is the most basic harmless one. There’s ones with way more downsides. Did you pick the ‘2 loving parents’ trait and are mad they don’t kill you on sight? lmao. Like I picked wanted where I always have a bounty and it’s cool. I’ve had a bounty hunter show up in the middle of a boss fight before. Both in space and on ground. Added a decent complication. A few of the others are pretty long term negatives like weakening aids and food.
I also don’t know if you explored much because the game has a pretty robust ailments system. Like if you pre-plan sure you can have all the expensive cures on hand, but you can get quite a few ailments at once from fucking around. I had a cough for like 4 hours because I couldn’t find an aid for it. I eventually had to go to a doctor to get rid of it.
I did pick other negative traits. My problem with this one is it straight up lies to you in the description. You think it is going to be negative but instead it is the most basic boring version of what that trait could be. I’ve explored many hostile environments where conditions are common and haven’t had a situation where I didn’t already have the sure on hand but I tend to loot a lot.
You can’t change your traits after starting. For my play style, this one should have been perfect. Instead it just sucked all fun out of the potential mechanic.
its like the trait that gives you living parents.
makes a big deal out of having to send them money every week.
Its little more than a rounding error on your accounts, the amount you end up sending.
And they end up giving you several amazing things or free.
spoiler
___ A big honkin awesome ship, Thats got amazing cargo capacity for as early as you get it: Just gotta visit them a few times to get it and a pretty fuckin awesome pistol that, when i got it, was outdamaging everything i had except shotguns by at least a factor of 2.
Seriously, money in this game is a joke. Getting to be a rich removed is easier than building water purifier settlements in Fallout 4.
My wife, a couple friends, and I have all put a ton of hours into this game and absolutely love it. I put several hours into the shipbuilder alone. Every hand built sidequest I run into feels like a TNG episode. And I love the kinda Becky Chambers / Star Trek-style utopia with mystery and drama theme they’ve got.
This is the most Bethesda game they’ve ever made, for better of worse. It doesn’t hand hold you. There are plenty of times where I’ve looked at my quest log, found nothing i could do except the main quest, and then decided just to jump to a random system - only to get pulled into some crazy new adventure for a couple hours. You’re supposed to be an explorer, if you put even the smallest effort into exploring, you will be rewarded.
A lot of people complaining were never going to like this game or any Bethesda game and I don’t know what to do with those people. The amount of constant negativity on the internet makes me really appreciate stories like TNG and writers like Becky Chambers and Cory Doctorow, because they’re so positive and affirming and optimistic and when they criticise, they also offer solutions. And this game really scratches that itch for me.
And after almost 40 years of life dealing with the constsnt cycle of negativity and hatred and anger and frustration and drama, on the internet, a global scale, and in my own life…I’m just tired. I can’t play games with “edgy dark stories” anymore. I can’t go back to New Vegas because its bummer after bummer. And i know a lot of people thrive on that “scortched earth” bullshit but I just can’t anymore.
I just…wanna sit down and play a game. And maybe one where everything is okay for once. And this is that game for me.
I don’t get the hate, fuck 'em. I’m absolutely loving the game, it’s exactly what I wanted and more. In fact, I get the same feeling I did playing Skyrim, you’re doing some side mission, then you see something absolutely stunning. Earlier I was on some grey barren moon looking for resources, I look to the right, see the red planet, it’s ice caps, and other two moons with the milky way behind them.
I like the TNG comparison. The side missions are so much better than in other Bethesda games I’ve played. Even little interactions with the NPCs or little events and conversations that just happen as a part of the world and not some quest. Love it.
Yeah that’s fair. Even if you see negative stuff about a game online, if you enjoy something then just enjoy it. Online toxicity and negativity are out of your control. Just get comfy and find peace in knowing that you’re having a good time.
Head to Paradiso for a StarTreky adventure.
Rule of thumb. Wait until you see top ten mod lists for Bethesda games and is at least on sale.
When this is the first meme I see a community make. I know the game is mid as fuck.
you guys really think it’s boring? :/
People are weird when it comes to Bethesda. If you like Bethesda games, you’ll probably like this one. I haven’t gotten to play myself yet but watching friends who have it it looks fun. Does it look 10/10 GOTY? Not really. But it looks full* of fun stuff.
I think in some way all Bethesda games can feel ‘boring’, but kinda in a good way? Like sometimes you’re just wandering a city with no real goal. It isn’t thrilling or adrenaline pumping, but it’s cool and immersive. Some people find that kind of slower pace boring. I think it’s cool. Not everything gotta be full throttle all the time.
*edit
I think they’ve been putting out very similar games since like fallout 3. If that’s what you are looking for, it’s fun. People for some reason seem to put unrealistic expectations on things. I assume this game is just improved graphics fallout 3 in space. Which isn’t a bad thing, but if you expect a revolutionary game you are in for disappointment.
Some of my friends played and immediately hated it and brought up comparisons to newer games, but this isn’t the new Unreal engine, this is the same Creation Engine they’ve been using for 11 years, which is based on the 26yr old gamebryo engine.
Personally as someone who loves Bethesda games, and who understands the limitations of the engine, I am thoroughly enjoying myself, will it beat bg3 for goty? Unlikely, but it’s still fun
At some point they gotta ditch the Creation engine and make a new one from scratch. The reason Halo Infinite ended up being a turd was because of its engine.
TES6 is confirmed to be using Creation Engine as well… That’s like 4 or 5 years down the line. Think of that
That’s about what I was expecting, glad to hear it’s mostly true. I’ll be able to play it in a couple days
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LOL yeah i missed that one. Not even really a huge fan I just try to temper expectations goin in
It really is. At first I was excited about the apparent scale, but the way they’ve hashed it all together all it does is make you jump through a bunch of janky menus and poorly done travel sequences to get to your next carbon-copy action sequence. Combine that with forcing you into a walking simulator when you COULD just use your god damn space ship and it’s just boring and procedural.
I can see some people really getting into it: the grind to gather resources and build bases etc but really it’s nothing new and if you don’t get off on this kind of mindless gameplay then you are going to be disappointed. Just raid, pick up a bunch of random junk, sell it, build shit. God, how many times have we got to play the same game in a different setting?
I will say that they have dramatically improved gunplay compared to past titles. Like REMARKABLY, and I found the graphics to be pretty decent but if you want to play with everything on ultra and no resolution scaling, you’d better have a supercomputer. Indoor fights are difficult to lose even in the very early game, but trying to raid abandoned space bases etc will put you in a situation where the AI has got a bead on you from 4 or 5 different angles at once. Top, mid and bottom levels, incoming fire from enough places that you simply can’t find cover - the way that you win is by not attempting to take these bases until you have sufficiently upgraded your HP and shields. Literally you are corralled down the story path through sheer necessity until you get to the point you can just jetpack to each enemy whilst taking fire and take them out without too much worry.
EDIT: Another bit of playtime.
Imagine if they left you free to use your ship as you see fit? Crew it with NPC’s, upgrade the firepower and put in a few manned turrets. Maybe let you play with friends and form a pirate crew? You know, the way that battlefield has allowed for this sort of open world vehicular co-op for the last what, 13 years? Once you got good at flight maneuvers you’d be just about unstoppable low flight altitude and it would be fun as hell.
Alas, the ship is nothing more than a teleporter with some janky, repetitive space combat out the front window. What a missed opportunity.
are you playing on PC? I’m on xbox and the shooting feels harder and less natural than it did in FO76 or 4. I wonder if they optimized it for PC more than xbox
Really dial in the sensitivity I’d say. It took me like legit cranking it up and then adjusting down by 2% at a time to find a sweet spot. But it’s definitely much more responsive and tighter than any other Fallout-esque game they’ve done. Those always felt mushy.
I’ll say too it’s probably that the games aim assist is very light. Like almost hardly there. For a single player offline game it could use a small increase. Like I’m still able to head shot dudes but it’s noticeable, and combined with muscle memory for similar games, having hardly any ‘magnetism’ is an adjustment. I keep meaning to look if there’s a slider in the settings.
ok thanks for the tip! i’ll give that a try. i think i got too used to the mushy shooting in fallout and compensated by using a lot of left stick (moving) to handle the finer aiming. so it’s just not what i got used to haha
Yeah playing on PC. It’s certainly not the best combat ever but it is worlds better than any previous Bethesda title save possibly for their involvement with RAGE, but I think that was more of a publishing deal and the gunplay was all ID software.
I can’t comment on using a gamepad, it has always felt like writing left-handed to me.
I’m on Xbox and enjoying the shooting far more than any fallout. My favorite part of the game so far is the combat I think
huh, maybe it’s just me then. i’ll give it some more time, only about 4 hours in the game so far.
Bethesda hasn’t really changed their formula, so if you’ve played Skyrim or Fallout 4 you quickly fall into the ‘quest marker->dungeon->vendor->crafting’ loop and the game stops being stimulating
Except you’ve left out a huge bullet point from that loop that has always kept me enjoying their games: quest marker->EXPLORATION->dungeon->vendor->crafting.
The procedural generation of this game immediately told me I wouldn’t enjoy it (even though I hoped they knew what they were doing), because walking around Bethesda worlds has always been one of the best parts of the exoerience, and they went and optimized it out so that it’s mostly a series of menus. And damn if that’s not been their game design strategy for the past decade-plus—‘optimize’ out all the fun parts, make the game as simplified as possible, even if it means cutting out core features fans love.
How could they? They haven’t played it.
I don’t understand why is it popular to shit on Bethesda games? Just don’t play it if you don’t like it. At least it has no microtransacrions or Battle Pass nonsense.
Bethesda games tend to have awful writing, released with an unacceptable amount of bugs, and not having micro transactions and a battle pass shouldn’t be praised, it must be the standard.
Right now it needs to be praised so it becomes the standard.
The only way it becomes standard is when it isn’t profitable. We can scream all we want, but people still buy that crap.
When will you learn the only thing that gets results is buying or not buying them? Fucks sake. It’s capitalism, if you buy shitty product more shitty product gets made.
It is the standard, idiot fucking gamergoblins dumping their wallets out saying “GIVE ME ADVANTAGES” are the assholes thats are trying to change the standard.
So it should be praised as it currently isn’t the standard in the gaming industry. But hey, let’s shit on it so we can totally tell the industry that this is the wrong path and micro transactions are the way to go!
I expected it to be buggy. I have not yet encountered a bug in my first few hours.
That being said, there’s lots im not liking about it so far.
I had Vasco become a part of the door to the cockpit. I couldn’t enter. I had to leave the ship and hit the specific ‘to cockpit’ button for a few hours because reloading didn’t save him from his torment. Only bug I’ve had but was weird lol.
Vasco quite frequently blocks the door everywhere for me, but at least I have been able to push my way through so far. He’s like my Golden Retriever in that respect so I am used to it from real life.
Real sad that Vasco isnt a full companion. Had so much potential there, instead, all he is is a glorified tutorial escort for the start of the game, and graduates to annoying barricade for the rest of it.
I don’t understand why it’s so popular NOT to shit on them. Remember when Andromeda came out with many of the same issues, and people fucking REAMED it (rightly)? Now Bethesda is finally getting SOME criticism for their shitty business and game development practices and we have lots of people out here suckling at their teat defending them for some reason. “Leave them alone, it’s just a Bethesda game, why do people love to hate them, wahhhh.”
As if Bethesda isn’t one of the most beloved companies of all time, and most everyone started from a place of WANTING to love this game. But they’ve been making shitty decisions for years, hiding behind the nostalgia of their past titles, and they are overdue some criticism. It doesn’t mean everyone hates them.
Remember when Andromeda came out with many of the same issues, and people fucking REEMED it
No, enlighten me, because I fucking hated Andromeda.
Typo on my part, but a definition of ‘ream’ is to reprimand or beat up, essentially
It actually means to make a hole bigger
As a phrasal verb it also means to reprimand severely
I wonder why they’re synonymous.
I somehow entirely missed the hype around this game and came across it again only accidentally on early release day when looking at some other sale on Steam. Been playing it and it seems fine to me in a vague Skyrim-in-space sort of way, which is all what I was expecting from a Bethesda RPG.
The world seems alive enough and there are plenty of side-quests and amusing / interesting things to discover. Now suddenly I have been coming across a bunch of posts everywhere where the game is supposed to be terrible or something. Still seems fine to me, but maybe I have lower standards after decades of gaming. shrug.
Its fallout 4 in space.
But with a worse interface and a lot more menus that are annoying to navigate.
Fallout 4 is a much better FPS. But Starfield is a much, much better RPG.
Eh… I’m not sure I agree with that statement, but to each their own
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If my therapist and my dealer both failed at getting me to do tgat, what chance you think you have?
Tgat? Is that an acronym of "Toke, grin, assess, twerk "?
Occams razor dictates yes.
I think it’s fun, but I’m a run and gun kind of guy. So I’m having a blast shooting dudes in the face. The shooting is much better than Fallout. I LOVE fighting in the zero gravity arenas. It’s so cool like floating between pillars and headshotting a guy off in the distance and his body is now bopping around. Those are so rare though. Idk how I can find more.
But overall I find the game frustrating outside battles. It’s like death by a thousand cuts though. There’s no one thing that’s egregious but there’s just stacking outdated design choices that continually build up. The games indecision around flying your ship being an easy catch all for the multiple failures in making your ship mean anything outside of battles and the map system. For the love of God fix the slide, you slide like 2inches. There’s also a constant battle with backing out of menus. Idk.
But then I find some spacer trap house and have a good time blasting away. Excited for when I can actually can craft bespoke weapons.
Apparently id software helped with the shooting part. They are the best in town for it, I am not surprised that it’s improved compared to fallout games, that have pretty bad shootings
maybe i just haven’t gotten ‘the feel’ for it yet, but it seems much worse to me than FO4 or FO76
They also helped with the gunplay in FO4 as well. There is a clear improvement over it than FO3.
Yea menu navigation is terrible, lack of explanation on how to do anything is confusing, basically no map isn’t great. I’m about 10 hours in and enjoying it, but could have been a lot better.
Also, maybe it’s just me but I can never tell if I’m buying or selling to a vendor and end up totally messing it up and needing to reload multiple times.
yeah inventory management is the worst! i don’t get it
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“not a failure” I called it frustrating and death by a thousand cuts. Just because I don’t screech failure and send Todd Howard death threats doesn’t mean I’m not being critical of the game. Get some reading comprehension and don’t set the bar at hyperbole. Saying the thing you do 75% of the time is fun isn’t calling it a rousing success either by any means.
I literally spent my entire Labor Day weekend playing this game so anybody that says it’s boring I’d really don’t understand what they’re talking about
I like the game
So how much R is in this RPG game? Is there any character customisation? Like at least Skyrim-level (which is already a pretty low bar to conpare to)
More than you expect but somehow still less than you want. Just look at the beard options and that will describe the whole game experience so far.
Are there 3 beards and 17 mustaches again in this one?
Closer to 16 stubble, 2 beards, and your choices are short growth or carnival magician.
It’s like dreadlocks. For some reason games always have 20 different types of dreadlock styles. I know like maybe two guys that have had dreads.
Who tf are all these devs sporting dreads?
Red Dread Redemption devs in action
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If I had a dime for every dumbass who says “the engine is old” or something like that I’d take all of you to Popeyes, asking you guys kindly to stay under 12$ per order.
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We’re going into ship of Theseus territory here, but do you really know the extent to which they overhauled the engine? Because when I hear blocky terrain I think of LOD generation which all modern engines use to save processing power. Unreal engine itself is still the same propeitary engine based on C++, which similar to CE, has been overhauled over the years. Really what I see is you getting into the semantics of what makes a new engine without understanding the changes to the back end.
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I love this game and this engine.
Cyberpunk 2077 has a horrible gameplay style, the action is constrained and clunky, the stories have too many rails. It doesn’t feel free and open. It’s basically just Grand Theft Auto with better stories.
No Man’s Sky seems endlessly pointless (or pointlessly endless?). It’s a cool idea but I enjoy Starfield a whole lot more.
I agree totally.
I don’t get people stanning NMS over Starfield. I mean No Man’s Sky is alright as a tech demo sandbox but even with the latest update, I get bored so quickly. Even the stations and civilization hubs feel dead, the plot is just so haphazard and slapdash. Starfield feels so much more cohesive and…has actual characters. But they’re also just very different games. Starfield is heavier on story content and NMS is heavier on procedural generation.
I loved Cyberpunk’s story but I’ve found very little reason to come back outside of the main plot. GTA5 was a technical achievement under sweatshop conditions and while I hated the story, the world felt alive and full of things to do and places to explore. Cyberpunk feels like GTA if it was made with half the team and with one less year of development (because it was).
And you stanning Cyberpunk and No Man’s Sky as polished games is hilarious to me.
It took several years of fixing No Man’s Sky before it was anything more than a boring tech demo. Cyberpunk took years of bug fixes and a popular anime to break people out of the hate circlejerk and actually experience the fucking game. Starfield hasn’t even officially released yet. People need to chill the fuck out.
Also what are you talking about with “the engine is showing it’s age?”. This is a brand new fucking engine. I’m playing the game on my Xbox in 4k and it looks better than anything I’ve played this year.
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