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[Ass of Can Whooping]

its not like I'm gonna sit down on my ship and fly for 2 hours.

You should try it. The planet I was chasing and running away from? We got to know each other and we're pretty intimate now.

 

[SJRB]

Yeah, it's a fallout game in space with better writing and missions but you are basically fast travelling around. Flying seems like its for dog fights and looting ships, but you're not just gonna fly through space.

They could build on that side, but I'm just in love with the missions, the conversations, the raiding outposts. Doing missions basically. The flying is fun for me but its not like I'm gonna sit down on my ship and fly for 2 hours.

My gripe is just how barebones the travel and exploration experience is. When you land on an objective on a planet, why not have the ship land 1000 meters from the objective and have some exploration? See some things, experience the planet. It literally goes from loading screen to spawn right on top of the objective. Such a missed opportunity, I still can't believe this is a thing that actually happens.

 

[Kilau]

Reading the impressions from some people online. “I’ve played 20 hours so far and loving it! But… (laundry list of complaints)

 

[ZehDon]

70 Billion dollars

I think you’re trying to reference the purchase price of Bethesda’s parent company, Zenimax Media. Which was USD$7b. If you’re going to shit post, please be funnier.

 

[Yoboman]

I guess you're seeing this on twitter?

Nah not at all.

Yeah Twitter, people here are pretty chill

 

[BouncyFrag]

One day, we all shall ascend.

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

Everyone seems to be focusing on the disappointing aspects, of which there are, but on a positive note- im impressed with the voice acting and natural dialog in a lot of NPC interactions. There are lots of cool little scripted events that have made the first couple hours really immersive.

Im expecting less of this as the game progresses but so far npc behavior and dialogue is a huge imprpoement over any other bethesda game. I even like the little persuation system. Can't speak on character choice and consequence yet. Also, the combat is a nice improvement over fallout 4.

 

[DeepEnigma]

But why...

 

[Mr Reasonable]

gave up on this one boys.

First bethesda game I wont ever finish. It's just ass.

Absolutly confused as fuck why they would make out the game is this big vast open explorable universe and it literally is you just clicking on a star map where to go and teleporting there back and forth. I have had more exploration and sense of adventure taking a shit.

I've seen lots of people complain about that, and I get it, but I'm not sure what the alternative is. If you want to manually fly to a planet, would it be a case of aiming at the coordinates of a planet that's too far in the distance to see, setting engines to full and waiting for it to appear? I think that expecting to fill the void of space with enough dog fights, asteroid fields and comets to make it interesting would surely get repetitive pretty quickly. People would be saying "I just want to advance the story, not fly through another asteroid field."

The game's an RPG, not a space flight simulator. People make entire games (Everspace 2 just came out) of that, but this would represent a small part of what Starfield sets out to achieve, which is to offer stories for players to immerse themselves in, it's a different game to Elite Dangerous, which is what these criticisms would seem to satisfied by, to me.

I think there's obviously an impact going on where reality is meeting expectation, it's a shame it's gone this way, but I would say that Bethesda would be able to argue their case that players are given freedom to explore, even if they're not able to fly a spaceship in the way some players want to and even if the generated surfaces can be disappointing for various reasons.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

My gripe is just how barebones the travel and exploration experience is. When you land on an objective on a planet, why not have the ship land 1000 meters from the objective and have some exploration? See some things, experience the planet. It literally goes from loading screen to spawn right on top of the objective. Such a missed opportunity, I still can't believe this is a thing that actually happens.

I can imagine the complaints that would come in from that - "all I want to do is talk to this character to advance the quest, why can't my ship land at the city's port? Why have I got to trudge through a desert for 5 minutes each time?"

And if it's not a desert, then what is it? How much work would it be to make this a good experience? To me it sounds boring, I'm not saying it would be for everyone, but I don't personally get the appeal and think the game would be absolutely crucified for it.

 

[DeepEnigma]

I can imagine the complaints that would come in from that - "all I want to do is talk to this character to advance the quest, why can't my ship land at the city's port? Why have I got to trudge through a desert for 5 minutes each time?"

And if it's not a desert, then what is it? How much work would it be to make this a good experience? To me it sounds boring, I'm not saying it would be for everyone, but I don't personally get the appeal and think the game would be absolutely crucified for it.

It doesn't have to be one or the other. Why not both in their space exploration RPG sim?

Technical reasons is my guess.

 

[GHG]

Having watched this it's now abundantly clear that some people are telling fibs about what the game is. Why?

Got it, im seeing some mods already that could fix my problems, but im on xbox

Playing a Bethesda RPG on anything other than a PC is akin to swimming upstream against a tide.

 

[Die Namek Ability]

Having watched this it's now abundantly clear that some people are telling fibs about what the game is. Why?

You know why.

 

[bender]

I mean, those guys are nuts. Let the guy give it a 7. He's wrong but that's fine lol.

I feel the closest to @Karak review. Amazing review that mirrors my thoughts exactly.


They are going to be brutal on it. Doing these comments after 3 hours of play. This game will be around for years, and the people that love it will play it for years. It's not for some people and that's fine.

 

[Yoboman]

There's no way

 

[GHG]

The flying is fun for me but its not like I'm gonna sit down on my ship and fly for 2 hours.

And yet across a playthough you'll collectively spend dozens of hours traversing barren landscapes on foot for little to no reward because of the way they've designed the planets and the fact that there are no vehicles.

Make it make sense.

 

[solidus12]

There's no way

PlayStation missing on Bethesda’s games is truly a blessing in disguise.

 

[jorgejjvr]

Having watched this it's now abundantly clear that some people are telling fibs about what the game is. Why?



Playing a Bethesda RPG on anything other than a PC is akin to swimming upstream against a tide.

Shouldn't be the case

 

[Kilau]

And yet across a playthough you'll collectively spend dozens of hours traversing barren landscapes on foot for little to no reward because of the way they've designed the planets and the fact that there are no vehicles.

Make it make sense.

Landing on planet #850:

 

[Die Namek Ability]

PlayStation missing on Bethesda’s games is truly a blessing in disguise.

Not having content they otherwise would have is a net negative.

However, if it came down to a bid war and they lost but now can use that financial resource elsewhere, i agree.

 

[lefty1117]

I've seen lots of people complain about that, and I get it, but I'm not sure what the alternative is. If you want to manually fly to a planet, would it be a case of aiming at the coordinates of a planet that's too far in the distance to see, setting engines to full and waiting for it to appear? I think that expecting to fill the void of space with enough dog fights, asteroid fields and comets to make it interesting would surely get repetitive pretty quickly. People would be saying "I just want to advance the story, not fly through another asteroid field."

The game's an RPG, not a space flight simulator. People make entire games (Everspace 2 just came out) of that, but this would represent a small part of what Starfield sets out to achieve, which is to offer stories for players to immerse themselves in, it's a different game to Elite Dangerous, which is what these criticisms would seem to satisfied by, to me.

I think there's obviously an impact going on where reality is meeting expectation, it's a shame it's gone this way, but I would say that Bethesda would be able to argue their case that players are given freedom to explore, even if they're not able to fly a spaceship in the way some players want to and even if the generated surfaces can be disappointing for various reasons.

Elite Dangerous is literally the same thing ... go to galaxy map, plot a course, make the jumps at each star. After a while it gets old. Most Elite players would agree. Autopilot as an option comes up from time to time, FD actually implemented a super cruise autopilot as a halfway measure. My guess is the STarfield guys foresaw that it would get old after a while and decided to just implement the fast travel options. I think should have gone the route of manual flight first and then autopilot for the people that want it. But honestly having played these games where mindless travel seems to take the bulk of time, I'm not really missing it here ...

 

[Mr Reasonable]

It doesn't have to be one or the other. Why not both in their space exploration RPG sim?

I think it probably does have to be one or the other purely because of the manpower required.

I'm not sure how you make exploration compelling, entertaining, high quality and entirely optional without extending development time or bringing a couple of hundred extra people onboard. If there's a scripted exploration part then people will say it's on rails, if it's random then you need to make sure the system is robust enough to make it a good experience, and not a tedious trudge to an x on a map where you do something to advance the game.

You could do those things, of course, if budget was unlimited, but I can imagine that there's relatively few circumstances where you'd get sign off on the budget required to make a full featured RPG and a spaceflight simulator and an FPS/TPS and a truly explorable galaxy of planets all in one game.

I'm not saying anyone shouldn't be disappointed, but I think that there are logical reasons that the game is the way it is. That's not to say that it couldn't be improved/better at all.

 

[Topher]

I've seen lots of people complain about that, and I get it, but I'm not sure what the alternative is. If you want to manually fly to a planet, would it be a case of aiming at the coordinates of a planet that's too far in the distance to see, setting engines to full and waiting for it to appear? I think that expecting to fill the void of space with enough dog fights, asteroid fields and comets to make it interesting would surely get repetitive pretty quickly. People would be saying "I just want to advance the story, not fly through another asteroid field."

The game's an RPG, not a space flight simulator. People make entire games (Everspace 2 just came out) of that, but this would represent a small part of what Starfield sets out to achieve, which is to offer stories for players to immerse themselves in, it's a different game to Elite Dangerous, which is what these criticisms would seem to satisfied by, to me.

I think there's obviously an impact going on where reality is meeting expectation, it's a shame it's gone this way, but I would say that Bethesda would be able to argue their case that players are given freedom to explore, even if they're not able to fly a spaceship in the way some players want to and even if the generated surfaces can be disappointing for various reasons.

Everspace 2 is not a flight simulator. I see no reason why Bethesda could not have implemented a simple space exploration system like what Rockfish did in EP2 though. Actually that's not true. The one reason I can think of is probably the answer: their engine is not technically up to date enough to handle it. I'm not really bothered by all the loading screens myself, but every time I open a door I am reminded of Skyrim. Either way, Bethesda oversold the exploration aspect of this game heavily.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

My guess is the STarfield guys foresaw that it would get old after a while and decided to just implement the fast travel options

Agreed, I don't think it would be any fun to do interplanetary flight.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

Everspace 2 is not a flight simulator.

1000 apologies, please forgive me.

 

[GHG]

I think it probably does have to be one or the other purely because of the manpower required.

They are owned by Microsoft for fucks sake.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

They are owned by Microsoft for fucks sake.

So budget is unlimited?

 

[DeepEnigma]

So budget is unlimited?

Seems to be when they want to buy up the largest storied third parties.

 

[ulantan]

So budget is unlimited?

400 million dollars

 

[AGRacing]

I was finally able to play for several hours today on PC. It's a little hard wrapping my head around the idea of giving this game a 7.

 

[Dracor]

Man, I was hoping Starfield would be amazing and get GOTG level reviews, like Bioshock Infinite (94 Metacritic score).

Sadly, it’s looking like it will end up being a hot pile of garbage, like Spider-Man (87 Metacritic score).

Spoiler: Spoiler

If it’s not obvious, I’m pointing out how crazy the review score obsession is.

 

[Alex Scott]

400 million dollars

That is on the very high end. If Ragnarok costed PlayStation 200 million, then it is safe bet Starfield cost atleast 300 million dollars.

 

[Slicker than your average]

Now we know why more established reviewers were refused review copies, so the shill review could flood the internet at early access and release.

 

[Katatonic]

PlayStation missing on Bethesda’s games is truly a blessing in disguise.

Even more ironic is that Starfield highlights a lot of what could've benefited from being on PS5 hardware (ex. seamless loading, DS pressurized triggers and haptics for different tools and weapons, just to name few)

 

[Topher]

Elite Dangerous is literally the same thing ... go to galaxy map, plot a course, make the jumps at each star. After a while it gets old. Most Elite players would agree. Autopilot as an option comes up from time to time, FD actually implemented a super cruise autopilot as a halfway measure. My guess is the STarfield guys foresaw that it would get old after a while and decided to just implement the fast travel options. I think should have gone the route of manual flight first and then autopilot for the people that want it. But honestly having played these games where mindless travel seems to take the bulk of time, I'm not really missing it here ...

It doesn't have to be Elite Dangerous. Everspace 2 brings space exploration down to an much simpler level and is still very immersive. The games that take a bulk of time like Elite Dangerous have their fans because they want that realism. I don't think anyone is suggesting Starfield should be that.

1000 apologies, please forgive me.

Just wasn't sure if you were aware my man. No need for silly sarcasm.

 

[Lokaum D+]

That is on the very high end. If Ragnarok costed PlayStation 200 million, then it is safe bet Starfield cost atleast 300 million dollars.

thats atleast 290mi wasted on this game, hopefully Bethesda ll use the next check to change their shit engine.

 

[GHG]

So budget is unlimited?

Wasn't one of the justifications of the acquisition from a gamers perspective being that people were excited to see what Bethesda could come up with when given more money and resources (and without financial pressure)?

But now that people are discussing the shortcomings present here it's "oh but resources/manpower/blah blah".

Give me a break.

This isn't a resource or manpower issue, it's a game engine and game design one.

 

[ungalo]

The exploration on foot is alright. It's definitely a weird structure but some of the old DNA is still preserved. You land in an area and you got point of interests surrounding you everytime. Sometimes it's shit (caves seem to be really shit so far, like really, or 3 abandoned farm copy pasted in the area of New Atlantis, like wtf) sometimes it's interesting (questgivers, big and complex structures), although you can tell easily what's not handcrafted. What i mean is that it's not like exploration disappeared, it would be false to say that.

In space on the other hand, it's not just that the structure is weird, it's laughable. When you want to explore a new system on the fly, scan some planet, you have to load for any planet, transition for each little moon. And that's a shame because i think space has the most interesting random events. In fact it's not just a shame, it's a fundamental problem that's hard to swallow.

But the game still compliments the strenght of Bethesda games, i have a hard time explaining why but "it just works". I love it, more than Fallout 4. You can tell they were passionate about those themes, they wanted to make the game so hard for this reason.

 

[adamsapple]

Now we know why more established reviewers were refused review copies, so the shill review could flood the internet at early access and release.

"More established reviewers"

 

[Unknown Soldier]

PlayStation missing on Bethesda’s games is truly a blessing in disguise.

The next Doom game disagrees and wishes it wasn't associated with Bethesda's shit brand

 

[BlackTron]

But why...

Can't have player freedom without bugs. They're almost the same thing now! It's a feature and design choice, don't question it

 

[ByWatterson]

I've seen lots of people complain about that, and I get it, but I'm not sure what the alternative is.

They literally just needed to put Bethesda questing into No Man's Sky.

 

[adamsapple]

FYI — in this game, you can walk on the moon without your helmet, breathe the air, and not die.

But why...

There's "space magic."

FYI this is not true.

Without a helmet you take continuous damage and die in 20~ seconds.

I just tested it.

 

[Draugoth]

 

[GHG]

Worth a buy review:



4.5/10

 

[FIREKNIGHT2029]

Worth a buy review:



4.5/10

The review I was waiting for, legendary

 

[GHG]

The review I was waiting for, legendary

He's actually more disappointed in it than anything, he was massively hyped for this game.

Too much stuff coming out now that doesn't align with what some people are saying that game is, nowhere to hide anymore. Steam reviews are not going to be pretty.

 

[cripterion]

That's awesome lol

 

[cripterion]

Yes, I blame them too. Bethesda set those expectations, however. Calling it a space exploration sim themselves and once again, allowing people to run wild, even Hines saying you can explore an entire planet on twitter where people then used that as proof you can run completely around it like NMS or other games last gen.

Will be interesting to compare Ubisoft upcoming's Star Wars game to this. For all the shit Ubisoft gets, I have no doubt it will be more seamless than Starfield and that game wasn't hyped to no ends.
I'll take Starfield for what it is... no doubt the game will thrive in a couple of years with the modding scene.

 

[GHG]

Will be interesting to compare Ubisoft upcoming's Star Wars game to this. For all the shit Ubisoft gets, I have no doubt it will be more seamless than Starfield and that game wasn't hyped to no ends.
I'll take Starfield for what it is... no doubt the game will thrive in a couple of years with the modding scene.

I'm actually interested to see how their Avatar game stacks up considering the lofty expectations the reveals for that game has set.

But I know deep down we'll end up let down again.