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Bethesda On Starfield's Big, Empty Planets: Not Every Location "Is Supposed To Be Disney World"

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
Watching ACG. Karak seem to enjoy the procedurally generated planets, unless I heard him wrong.
Meaning GIF


Played it for a couple of hours, they could take out the spaceship mechanic and it wouldn't make a difference.
Bingo. Feels half-baked from how they hyped your "Han Solo simulator."
 
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imagine making a space game where you can use ur imagination to develope fun planets to explore, create new races, have fun with gravity, have fun with weapons and alien tech and of all this flavours you choose the vanilla one and create the most generic space experiente to date.
I'm actually glad Bethesda went the route they did. I didn't want to play another fantasy game set in space like Mass Effect or Star Wars where a bipedal alien that just looks like a human in green paint talks to you in a New York accent and tells you the fate of the universe rests on your shoulders. If that's what you want, those games exist and are a dime a dozen.
 

StereoVsn

Member
They have been screaming from the top of their lungs since last E3 that this was a "NASA-Punk" type game with a much more realistic interpretation of sci-fi than most other games. I feel like a good portion of people complaining; "why do most planets not have alien civilizations waiting to talk to me" are being intentionally obtuse or just plainly ignorant.
Bigger issue are stupid boundaries and super blatant copy/paste of objects or interest.

They are copying whole outposts with enemies, loot, placement, etc... at least this is according to some fairly objective reviews I have seen.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
Watching ACG. Karak seem to enjoy the procedurally generated planets, unless I heard him wrong.
Different tastes and all, and that's fine. People can still enjoy it.

But it just looks ... not what I expected/hoped for. I usually don't like Bethesda games, but I was interested in Starfield -- and was willing to tolerate the last-gen visuals, Bethesda jank, and average combat at best -- if it let me play out my Firefly TV Show fantasy. The limited planetary exploration killed it for me.
 
The issue is fans thought Starfield would be far and away Bethesda's best game when it came to exploration. When in fact, it is a lot more on the rails than a FO4 or Skyrim. Reviewers are literally telling gamers to complete the main quest before choosing to explore on their own. It's very counter intuitive to the way most people play games. Gamers see something in the distance, they want to go check it out. In Starfield, it's most likely going to be nothing. That is the problem with overly big maps, especially procedurally generated. Exploring becomes tedious and not worth it
 

Bogroll

Likes moldy games
Hanging onto another's opinion as some sort of appeal to authority does not seem so open.
Who's hanging onto another's opinion. What he described happened to him pricked my ears up as I was going to avoid the non essential planets. So now I will check them out and make my own mind up.
 

feynoob

Banned
Different tastes and all, and that's fine. People can still enjoy it.

But it just looks ... not what I expected/hoped for. I usually don't like Bethesda games, but I was interested in Starfield -- and was willing to tolerate the last-gen visuals, Bethesda jank, and average combat at best -- if it let me play out my Firefly TV Show fantasy. The limited planetary exploration killed it for me.
Your problem is that you don't like their games.
It's naturally that you won't like starfield.
This applies to those who don't like their games too.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
12 hours in and exploration is the whole thing, what are you even talking about?
1) The planetary exploration itself is selecting planets on the menu screen.



2) When you're flying, it gives you an illusion that you're exploring space, but you are in a box that you can't go outside of. The planets you're seeing in front of you don't even come closer to you, no matter how much you fly.

 

F0rneus

Tears in the rain
I admit that I have not played the game yet and I definitely will, but videos from players are downright depressing. And you can really feel the...initial wonder go into disappointment when you realize how artificial the world is. I mean....you can fly towards a planet but it's just....an image. You must go into your menus, drop on a landing spot and explore for...about 5 mins before hitting a boundary. See that cool mountain that you can't reach? Try a closer landing spot. Oh look....there's no mountain now. That is beyond immersion breaking.

You stumble on an outpost and....it's the same outpost you have cleared 15 times. Not only is it the same outpost in design, but it's the same enemies at the same exact locations. Over and over and over.

Your hear about this incredible sidequest line, and the NPC mission giver floats through the ceiling. Oh well, you can reload. Nope. Same cat is going to fly away again. Only fix is a new file and hoping that the NPC doesn't Poochie through the fucking boundaries of the game.

Oh you invested in the persuation skill? OK. You know what it changes? Nothing. The quest will continue in the same way no matter what you decide. Sometimes there are quests with two endings but...they are insignificant side distractions. When the game clicks and does that Bethesda magic, then yes, it becomes truly something to behold. But....you have to get lucky with that random RNG of "something cool happening".

This isn't quite "Wide as the ocean but deep as a puddle". It's wide as a puddle, and as deep as some water you sprayed in your driveway.

But hey Skyrim is still one of the top 10 best games of all time. Come at me.
 
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Bogroll

Likes moldy games
Different tastes and all, and that's fine. People can still enjoy it.

But it just looks ... not what I expected/hoped for. I usually don't like Bethesda games, but I was interested in Starfield -- and was willing to tolerate the last-gen visuals, Bethesda jank, and average combat at best -- if it let me play out my Firefly TV Show fantasy. The limited planetary exploration killed it for me.
I would say I'm the similar to you and I was initially disappointed with the travel. But I'm still going to check it out, I'm hearing bits that are getting me interested again.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
ojtNDHd.jpg


It was marketed as primarily a space exploration game.

Edit: Also this:

1QHwS2L.jpg
1) The planetary exploration itself is selecting planets on the menu screen.



2) When you're flying, it gives you an illusion that you're exploring space, but you are in a box that you can't go outside of. The planets you're seeing in front of you don't even come closer to you, no matter how much you fly.


"made the Kessel Run in less than twelve load screens and menus"

harrison ford GIF
 

feynoob

Banned
I don't get why people who don't play Bethesda games complain about?
It's Bethesda through and through.
All your complains means nothing when the game launches.

I will say what I said in the review section. If you like Bethesda games, you will like starfield. If you don't, you won't like this game.
It's simple as that.
 
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DeepEnigma

Gold Member
If these people had it their way, they would then be complaining that it takes too many hours to travel between planets using only ship thrusters and that there is nothing to see in space except stars and distant small planets.
Always the extreme retardation to defend poor design choices of the favorite toys.

These other games do do it, and they do it better without all the need for FUD theatrics.
 

feynoob

Banned
If these people had it their way, they would then be complaining that it takes too many hours to travel between planets using only ship thrusters and that there is nothing to see in space except stars and distant small planets.
They complain, because that is what they do.

I will play this game for a long time. It's Bethesda game and that is what matters to me the most.
 

Draugoth

Gold Member
The issue is fans thought Starfield would be far and away Bethesda's best game when it came to exploration. When in fact, it is a lot more on the rails than a FO4 or Skyrim. Reviewers are literally telling gamers to complete the main quest before choosing to explore on their own. It's very counter intuitive to the way most people play games. Gamers see something in the distance, they want to go check it out. In Starfield, it's most likely going to be nothing. That is the problem with overly big maps, especially procedurally generated. Exploring becomes tedious and not worth it

Fallout 4 was far from perfect, but it delivered on the exploration aspect, you could go nearly anywhere you wanted in the map and only needed loading screens to access buildings, which is what we want from Bethesda games. Starfield doesnt offer the same level of exploration.
 
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