**** Starfield ****

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119195536#Comment_119195536

It's the same as every new game release these days. You have the hype train who'll expect a life simulator and you have people who will hate it without even playing it. Gaming community is just toxic.

I think Starfield has exceeded my expectations so far, but I'm also mindful of recent disastrous launches so I'm going to remain skeptical until I play it.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119195536#Comment_119195536

You'll always get a bit of that. But there's also people wondering if the hype is justified. I hear 1000 planets to explore and all I can is is grinding resource gathering. I mean no-one can argue there are 1000 planets filled with story content, if that's the case then they really are onto something spectacular.

The other thing worth mentioning is we only got a very brief hint of the story.content, which seems to be faction based. If this jas a strong story to it and I'm not forced.to going out resources then I'll be very happy.

EoinHef

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119195536#Comment_119195536

Not sure how that's the case when I'd be buying the game on PC anyway, like I do with most single player games.

The engine is infamous at this point so yeah this criticism goes back further than when MS owned Bethesda.

Do you remember Fallout 4 at launch? Do you remember Fallout 76 at launch?

I'd say your being a little precious if someone pointing out the framrate looks dodgy is viewed as some kind of anti MS conspiracy.

That's just my observation of trailer.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119195844#Comment_119195844

I doubt all planets have story content. But, it does give Bethesda massive scope for DLC, and plenty of room for modders to work with.

As for resource grinding, it will probably be completely optional, depending on whether you want to get big into base building, which will also probably be optional.

It's like Fallout 4, where the settlement building was mostly optional, bar one quest. Though if you listened to critics of that game, you'd swear it's mandatory.

https://twitter.com/BethesdaStudios/status/1536369312650653697?t=lLgvqw3r1-DHLWimpXG8fA&s=19

Silent protagonist. Good.

Potential-Monke

Not sure what I was expecting, but about 3 minutes in (skipping Howard) I dawned that it's Bethesda, and that's why it looked like a space Fallout. Some parts of it looked spectacular, the detail in the draw distances are very good, and some photo realistic parts, but also within those first few minutes I saw the first issue I have. All this lovely looking grey, metal, dirt, etc, but they can't code prints in mud? Mech walks out and doesn't leave a single print... It's small things like that which stick out to me.

Facial animations are definitely better, but they still all have fairly dead eyes. Having played Forbidden West, I now have a high bar for character interactions, and I don't think this will come close to it. But again, it's Bethesda so... I too thought that the characters were moving quite slowly, and I reckon it was to ensure there was no tearing, etc. But that didn't work fully either. Didn't show going from space to land, not much of the cities. Could be a case of keeping story content secret or there's nothing good to show. Still early days though.

I'll keep an eye on this, if it's GP day 1 I'll surely play it. But I may also wait for the first few patches. Doubt we'll get Dysmantle levels of issue free gaming!

pixelburp

The caveats commence: apparently Todd Howard confirmed that you won't be able to fly from space down to a planet seamlessly. Not that shocking, cos then the whole planet would need modeling, but still.

CatInABox

Weird, I thought that people knew that already? I mean, the first thing in the video was the landing sequence onto a planet, which was clearly a scripted event. Then they have the planet screen, where you can select where you want to land. Reminded me of Mass Effect actually, just finished playing through it recently.

Sierra Oscar

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119204703#Comment_119204703

I think the 'land anywhere' teaser from the reveal got people's expectations up, but I agree - I certainly never thought you'd be able to land outside of a scripted sequence. Pretty unworkable.

I suspect most planets will consist of a few explorable places, a main 'hub' and then a few other locations dotted around the place (thinking of your dungeons from TES). I'd say the 'land anywhere' could essentially just be fast travel to the explorable places that we have discovered. So, you can land at the main 'hub' right off the bat once the planet has been discovered and then you can land in proximity to the 'dungeons' once you've discovered the location. Discovering the location might also include reading about it or being told about it and whatnot, not necessarily just having to stumble across it.

That's how I suspect it will work anyway. If it's truly point and click anywhere on the planet and you land then wow, that would be fantastic. I just find it hard to see how they can implement it though - they'd have to have tens of thousands of landing sequences and whatnot. If the landing system is closer to the former setup then I hope they don't over egg the 'land anywhere' stuff in the coming months because it will just end up with a lot of people being disappointed.

johnny_ultimate

Howard said you can "land and explore anywhere on the planet" - that's a pretty unambiguous promise of freeform exploration. Now we get the caveats. No Man's Sky is a deeply flawed game, but the seamless transition between space and planets and the ability to land anywhere (landscape dependent, of course) remains its most magnificent and often awe-inspiring technical achievement. If Starfield is going to crib so much stuff from NMS, it's a shame they're not sticking with that game's best idea: if a tiny indie studio could do it, Bethesda could do it (and of course there could still be scripted landing sequences as well where appropriate).

Again, I think Starfield aiming for pure size could well be its undoing - but if you're going to do it, at least do it right.

The comparisons to NMS are so absurd, anyone who has played NMS could see this. I think it's a fun game, and a great achievement for such a small team. But many of it's heralded features are hampered by how shallow and meaningless they are.

Sure, you can enter an atmosphere and land anywhere, but there's no point because everywhere on that planet is almost identical and there's nothing to do there other than a few procedural buildings with very little to do. And after you seen a few planets everything just looks the same, so there being a quadrillion planets is just redundant.

In the Starfield clip you see combat while storming a base. Yeah, there's combat in NMS, but again it's fairly shallow and meaningless. You never fight NPCs, just a bunch of sentinels and it never means anything. Plus the combat is terrible, both on foot and in space. It doesn't need to be good because it's pointless. I just run away from combat encounters because there's literally no point in engaging.

I could go on, but this is why I find the comparisons kind of ridiculous. Yeah, there are similar activities, but in NMS there's no purpose to any of it. I tried to play it with a buddy of mine and we just got bored because there's nothing meaningful to do.

Looking at Starfield there at least looks to be actual stories, quests and a meaning to what's going on. Actual combat where you fight NPCs to do a quest and not a swarm of robots for no reason.

I think I'll wait for the dust to settle on this thread before I'll join again for a reasonable discussion. On other threads outside of boards it's an interesting discussion, with fun speculation. On here it's

1. It's a NMS rip off

2. Bethesda/Todd bad

Boring.

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119205151#Comment_119205151

It's a hobby horse for me, but I suspect the reason why Bethesda haven't done it, is because their engine couldn't handle the kind of open universe No Man's Sky implemented. Methinks they just about managed that "1000 planets" without everything running out of memory; as while what used to be the GameBryo engine has been significantly modified you can't just turn it into the kind of engine NMS' would have been from the get-go.

EoinHef

Some people se to be convinced this game is amazing already, a job well done todd😂

It could be, and I hope it is. I've played Elite Dangerous, NMS, Star Citizen, the X series to name a few and love space games but given Todd's record for over promising and under delivering I feel a healthy dose of skepticism and not hyping the game is a valid approach for now.

I will repeat what I said earlier:

"It's the same as every new game release these days. You have the hype train who'll expect a life simulator and you have people who will hate it without even playing it. Gaming community is just toxic.

I think Starfield has exceeded my expectations so far, but I'm also mindful of recent disastrous launches so I'm going to remain skeptical until I play it."

But that doesn't mean you can't be excited about it being potentially good.

Retr0gamer

The heat death of the sun will come before Bethesda stop building upon the husk of the janky **** creation engine they have been using since Morrowind. And calling it Creation 2.0 doesn't make it a different engine.

johnny_ultimate

Whatever about the (entirely justified) NMS comparisons and contrasts, it's still that opening section of the trailer that has me most skeptical. If a dull shootout against generic enemies in an 'abandoned research facility' prefab is the level of bespoke, authored content we can expect from planetary exploration... well colour me unenthused, especially given Bethesda's record of underwhelming combat systems. An extremely strange way to introduce the world to your much-hyped space exploration game IMO.

I am certainly curious about the project, and will almost certainly give it a whirl via GamePass given the non-existent barrier to entry there. But this particular 15-minute ad was designed to drum up hype about the game - inevitably some people are going to be impressed, and some people are going to be unimpressed, and some people will have no strong feelings one way or the other :)

Mr Crispy

^This is the red flag for me. They had 1000 planets to choose from (supposedly), but went with another barren wasteland affair to attempt to build some hype. I'm not surprised so many people are non-plussed.

McFly85

It looks okay. I think that it’s a MS exclusive it might be under more scrutiny, but even if it wasn’t what we’ve seen and heard in recent days has tempered a lot of the expectations for me.

A 40 hour space action RPG with predictable looking combat, optional exploration and unbelievable music. I’ll definitely play it but redfall is looking like the far more interesting Bethesda game at the minute.

mewso

I'm happy enough with what I saw. I'm always fascinated to see what people expect from Bethesda. I expected fallout in space. That entails bugs, poor story, bad radiant quests all trumped by amazing exploration. Every single one of their games I have played, gotten annoyed by many many things and before I know it I have 150+ hours.

I can see they have taken inspiration from NMS but I'm not sure I would make a comparison since there is a Bethesda template here. Slightly enhance the engine without really making it capable of much more. No way would I ever expect their engine to have landing on planets in game. Games advance very quickly and perhaps some people are frustrated that Bethesda haven't progressed in many ways with better writing, characters and so on but I give them credit for being one of the very few developers that make this specific kind of game. Give me a Bethesda world before a ? dotted Ubisoft one.

I suppose this is their first big test since Fallout 76 and they could fail miserably but I am optimistic. Once the modders get their hands on it this could be fantastic.

McFly85

I think while the hype levels weren’t Cyberpunk, they were big - so when people saw the gameplay is largely stuff they’ve seen before, you can understand the reaction.

It will most likely be a good game, but not a great one.

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119207310#Comment_119207310

I'd certainly take a Bethesda game over a Ubisoft game, but I'd take more modern takes on open-world exploration games - Outer Wilds or Subnautica, for example, or Elden Ring - over the most recent Bethesda games.

Happy to remain open-minded about this until the final thing is ready, but I for one found Fallout 4 to be a case study in a studio short on ideas (outside base building, something I'm not personally interested in) and stubbornly sticking to the same formula / technology. It's been a long time since Oblivion, and I'd certainly like to see Bethesda make a more radical or transformative take on the formula they've been playing around with ever since (to mixed effect - some great games, some less great games). Obviously impossible to comment on that here til we actually play the thing - we all only have the same 15 minutes of footage to work off!

New Vegas vs Fallout 3 / 4 also show how Bethesda themselves can be a bit... well... boring or 'vanilla' with their takes on worlds they're creating. They're absent a certain playfulness that a studio like Obsidian can add to proceedings. If we're talking imminent Microsoft first-party titles, Pentiment is a game that really caught my eye due to its novel style, whereas this seemed a bit 'more of the same, but in space' :)

mewso

Yep I get where you are coming from johnny but like I said why are you asking for this from Bethesda? You've got what you want elsewhere.

Retr0gamer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119207944#Comment_119207944

What's the harm in hoping for Bethesda to do better and not phone it in?

pixelburp

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119207961#Comment_119207961

Exactly.

Bethesda are a good studio whose ambition put them in the position they exist in. But they're kinda phoning it on at this stage and it'd be amazing to see what they could do with a new engine, and some new perspectives.

mewso

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119207961#Comment_119207961

Absolutely nothing. I think people are missing my point. This game will come out and I will agree with everyone that they can and should do better but I'll probably put many hours into anyway. If people want them to embrace Elden Ring like open worlds then suddenly we'll have 2 developers doing lonely open worlds with no towns, cities, guilds to join and so on. I don't want From to do things differently just as I don't want Bethesda to either. Improve fine but ultimately if this is not a disaster then I'll get plenty value for money.

So what exactly would you guys have wanted them to do differently with Fallout 4 for example? I disliked not being able to ignore or at least separate radiant quests, story was weak but had it's moments. Base building didn't float my boat but could be ignored or just done on a basic level. Apart from that I had a blast.

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119207944#Comment_119207944

Just would like to see an evidently talented studio push themselves to the best of their abilities and resources :) The flaws of the ‘Bethesda formula’ are evident - just would like to seen them solving some of those problems.

For what it’s worth, I’d also love to see From Software challenge themselves too and make a big break from the Souls formula! Elden Ring might have pushed that formula in refreshing new directions, but I’d love to see something entirely new from them.

mewso

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119208125#Comment_119208125

The flaws are very evident but I still put many more hours into their games than many games I would consider superior and I don't mean bad hours. When I am fed up with a game I stop. Anyway what do I know? My favourite game of all time is Gothic 3. PB are the one developer whose games I buy up front every single time that never has and probably never will change their formula. Maybe thats why I am defending Bethesda for no good reason.

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119208267#Comment_119208267

Hey I put 100 hours into Oblivion back in the day while barely realising it, so I know the feeling :) And we all have our comfort food games / developers. I guess for me the thing is that while most Bethesda games leave me pretty cold there are things I definitely like about them - so I’d love to see them make a game that really gets under my skin one of these years (although that could be quite a few years indeed as their production cycles are getting longer and longer!)

Retr0gamer

Kings field 5 please from.

Sephiroth_dude

Todd Howard has said FO5 will be coming after Elder scrolls 6, which is great and all but that's only entered pre-production and it was announced it was beginning development in 2018, I really wish they would start handing out projects to others studio's, at this rate it will be the next decade before we see FO5.