Microsoft Starfield - Information Thread, update: May Update (detailed surface maps, difficulty options, display settings) to release on May 15

[Keyser_Soze]

15 minutes ago, TheLeon said:

I think I said it before in this thread, but I’m guessing it’s going to be like Mass Effect - most planets are filler/only for resources, some are for quick side mission things, and the majority of meaningful story content will take place on just a handful of planets. 

 

I mean they said as much during the hour long presentation. I don't know why people are freaking out about it now after people are running articles saying the same thing.

[skillzdadirecta]

7 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

I mean they said as much during the hour long presentation. I don't know why people are freaking out about it now after people are running articles saying the same thing.

Because... gamers. 

[Keyser_Soze]

38 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Because... gamers. 

 

The 30fps outrage too. Meanwhile everyone is eating up tears of the kingdom and FFXVI in motion blurry 30fps quality mode

[Biggie]

No Man’s Starfield

[Kal-El814]

Starield? I didn't realise @ohioguy24 worked at BGS, but that explains a lot.

[Biggie]

24 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

Starield? I didn't realise @ohioguy24 worked at BGS, but that explains a lot.

I miss him. 

[skillzdadirecta]

33 minutes ago, Biggie said:

No Man’s Starfield

[best3444]

54 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

The 30fps outrage too. Meanwhile everyone is eating up tears of the kingdom and FFXVI in motion blurry 30fps quality mode

 

I am completely fine with 30fps and that will be the norm going forward unless the Pro console can run all games at 60. 

[Dexterryu]

On 6/19/2023 at 10:21 PM, Bjomesphat said:

I've played about 20 hours of Fallout 3 and 20 hours of Skyrim, and that's it for Bethesda RPGs. I like the idea of them, but just get bored with the execution. And honestly, those games would be better off without any combat. I think I'd rather just explore and do menial tasks rather than deal with a half-assed combat system. Starfield looks different though, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

This is basically me, or close to it. I've finished the campaigns for Oblivion/Skyrim & Fallout 3/4 which took about that time... but by the end the combat and talking to all too robotic NPCs had me just wanting to get the games over with. When I saw Starfield last year, I thought much of the same. Now the hype is growing (which it always seems to with Bethesda games) and I am trying to decide if I want to buy into it or not.

[Xbob42]

3 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

I mean they said as much during the hour long presentation. I don't know why people are freaking out about it now after people are running articles saying the same thing.

"They confirmed most of the game was pointless filler garbage themselves! Why are people upset??"

 

Y'all should not be on the marketing team. 

Also, there were probably like 70 or so scannable planets in ME2 and that's all you did, scan them/send down a probe, you spent maybe 30 seconds at them. Having a big shitty empty filler planet you have to explore for resources? I dunno, man. I'm trying to imagine thinking of a version of Skyrim where I need to spend an hour in the desert looking for an ore vein and it does not spark joy.

[Mr.Vic20]

We all know what we will be getting come Sept 1/6th:

 

• Skyrim in space + some Fallout elements
• Jank character models and canned animations
• Serviceable combat, Platinum games they are not
• A fairly paint by numbers space opera
• Bugs, so many bugs! (yes, they claim it will have less bugs but come on)
• If you liked their previous games, you will like this game but it is unlikely, past the hype, to redefine expectations for Bethesda products
• Will sandwiches be the new cheese wheels? 
• Mods, mods, mods. Early, week one mods will be the usual sad "boobie" mods, followed by a bunch of exploit and power bump (unlimited X,Y,Z) mods.

The future:

• Later mods will flesh out countless worlds with some really cool stories. 
• 2-3 DLC packs (Space dog in space suit? Oh yes! Nuka Cola planet?! probably. )
• Bugs will be reduced to a livable level but it will takes years to squash them all and by that time...
• GOTY edition will be announced! 
• A new crop of bugs and mod compatibility controversies will pop up 
• Total conversions will arise to promise shit that will still be 3 years off, if ever, but makes good streamer fodder
• Special Edition announced! 
• A new crop of bugs and mod compatibility controversies will pop up 

[Dexterryu]

From an Astonomy perspective... 1000 planets with complex multicellular life is likely getting more on the fiction side of science fiction. At especially if the game is set in our galaxy. 1000 planets with maybe a dozen or so that are beyond just being rocky seems about right (assuming we won't be exploring gas planets). 

[Xbob42]

34 minutes ago, Mr.Vic20 said:

Serviceable combat

I will fight every single person on this forum behind a Walmart before I cede one inch on "Bethesda combat is absolutely terrible" -- serviceable is several tiers above!

 

26 minutes ago, Dexterryu said:

From an Astonomy perspective... 1000 planets with complex multicellular life is likely getting more on the fiction side of science fiction. At especially if the game is set in our galaxy. 1000 planets with maybe a dozen or so that are beyond just being rocky seems about right (assuming we won't be exploring gas planets). 

 

Who the hell wants it to be about right?? It's a video game! Get wacky with this shit!

[best3444]

2 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

I will fight every single person on this forum behind a Walmart before I cede one inch on "Bethesda combat is absolutely terrible" -- serviceable is several tiers above!

 

You are spot on about combat and I don't see Starfield being any different which is disappointing. Maybe Bethesda surprises us and actually has hit detection and quality animations?

[TheLeon]

Remember the meme about how no matter what kind of character you start as in Skyrim, you end up becoming a stealth archer? It’s because that’s how you minimize the combat in that game, just hope you can kill dudes with your first shot and you don’t have to do anything else. 

[Dexterryu]

8 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

I will fight every single person on this forum behind a Walmart before I cede one inch on "Bethesda combat is absolutely terrible" -- serviceable is several tiers above!

 

 

Who the hell wants it to be about right?? It's a video game! Get wacky with this shit!

 

This depends. Do we want a Ratchet and Clank/High on Life game or do we want something a bit more grounded? Astronomy/Astrophysics is a bit of a hobby for me so I may be different. I see lots of eye roll inducing stuff from Hollywood/Games when I see things that just wouldn't work from a physics perspective and break my suspension of disbelief.

[Xbob42]

3 minutes ago, TheLeon said:

Remember the meme about how no matter what kind of character you start as in Skyrim, you end up becoming a stealth archer? It’s because that’s how you minimize the combat in that game, just hope you can kill dudes with your first shot and you don’t have to do anything else. 

I think I was the only person on the planet who never went into stealth archery. I wanted to be a mage so bad but everything was sooo tanky and terrible. You crank it up to the highest difficulty and a mudcrab has twice the health of an FFXVI boss but only a single mechanic. Run at player, attack. Repeat.

  

Just now, Dexterryu said:

 

This depends. Do we want a Ratchet and Clank/High on Life game or do we want something a bit more grounded? Astronomy/Astrophysics is a bit of a hobby for me so I may be different. I see lots of eye roll inducing stuff from Hollywood/Games when I see things that just wouldn't work from a physics perspective and break my suspension of disbelief.

If grounded is synonymous with "dead and boring play area" then count me as ungrounded as possible. Now perhaps if they had complex mechanics involving surviving, maintaining your ship, dealing with orbital mechanics, that kind of stuff, then I could see it. That could be really cool. But it's Bethesda, so it's already going to be me stacking 300 identical pastrami sandwiches in my ship and fighting other ships that are, just like Fallout 76, reskinned Paarthurnaxes in space.

[Keyser_Soze]

1 hour ago, Xbob42 said:

"They confirmed most of the game was pointless filler garbage themselves! Why are people upset??"

 

Y'all should not be on the marketing team. 

Also, there were probably like 70 or so scannable planets in ME2 and that's all you did, scan them/send down a probe, you spent maybe 30 seconds at them. Having a big shitty empty filler planet you have to explore for resources? I dunno, man. I'm trying to imagine thinking of a version of Skyrim where I need to spend an hour in the desert looking for an ore vein and it does not spark joy.

 

It must be horribly disappointing to live in our own solar system then. You know where only 1 of the 9 planets (if you want to count Pluto)  have life on them. Or is that just a NASA marketing term?

[Xbob42]

4 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

It must be horribly disappointing to live in our own solar system then. You know where only 1 of the 9 planets (if you want to count Pluto)  have life on them. Or is that just a NASA marketing term?

Is our solar system a fucking entertainment product being sold to consumers to entertain them?

 

"Realism" is not a gameplay mechanic. "It's like that in real life" does not produce better games by default. I hate when realism is used to promote things being less fun when they're intended to be fun. There are realistic-ish mechanics that could be added to make this game more entertaining, "there's nothing on these planets lol" is not one of them.

[TheLeon]

Speaking of realism- realistic expectations! I think they should’ve started by focusing on the planets that they actually developed, highlighting how different they are and how packed full of unique content they are (assuming any of that is actually true). Then say “oh, and there’s a whole galaxy out there you can explore if you want. Maybe you’ll find something on those undeveloped worlds, who knows?”

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

I'd like to point out that 10% of the planets containing some form of life is EXTREMELY unrealistic 

[Xbob42]

1 minute ago, TheLeon said:

Speaking of realism- realistic expectations! I think they should’ve started by focusing on the planets that they actually developed, highlighting how different they are and how packed full of unique content they are (assuming any of that is actually true). Then say “oh, and there’s a whole galaxy out there you can explore if you want. Maybe you’ll find something on those undeveloped worlds, who knows?”

 

And you'll tell by the nervous look in Todd's eyes that the "who knows?" is genuine, nobody on the team has any idea, the QA staff was all fired years ago and they had ChatGPT make the planets.

[Keyser_Soze]

36 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

Is our solar system a fucking entertainment product being sold to consumers to entertain them?

 

"Realism" is not a gameplay mechanic. "It's like that in real life" does not produce better games by default. I hate when realism is used to promote things being less fun when they're intended to be fun. There are realistic-ish mechanics that could be added to make this game more entertaining, "there's nothing on these planets lol" is not one of them.

 

I think you should check out of this one then. It's clearly meant to be leaning more to the space simulation side of sci-fi. Not quite Kerbel levels but It's more Star Trek than Star Wars, you won't be jumping around slicing guys up with a big dick sword and flying around like superman.

 

Also, realism is absolutely a selling point for some people and games. Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport are generally loved because they are like a sim. People even go as far as to make cockpits for racing games. Flight sims, farming sims, the list goes on. People enjoy it but we all know you like to do the most absurd things and this game is not probably going to hit that mark.

[Dexterryu]

54 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

If grounded is synonymous with "dead and boring play area" then count me as ungrounded as possible. Now perhaps if they had complex mechanics involving surviving, maintaining your ship, dealing with orbital mechanics, that kind of stuff, then I could see it. That could be really cool. But it's Bethesda, so it's already going to be me stacking 300 identical pastrami sandwiches in my ship and fighting other ships that are, just like Fallout 76, reskinned Paarthurnaxes in space.

 

I think you're getting what I'm saying. To me wandering around a bunch of planets with a bunch of random fauna with BSG AI that either ignores you or charges you is just as boring because it's the same 1 or 2 enemies with different skins. Now, figuring out how to survive or get a key resource from a dead but dangerous planet is really interesting. How could you solve problems in places with more or less gravity and/or atmospheric pressure? If life does exist how did it evolve in those conditions? Most games always assume everywhere is basically 1 Earth Gravity.

[Biggie]

1 hour ago, best3444 said:

 

Maybe Bethesda surprises us and actually has hit detection and quality animations?

[best3444]

Will they have a mod to fix the disgusting looking NPC'S? As I'm playing FF16 I keep asking myself, how in the hell does Bethesda create such retarded looking characters. Cross eyed... 😆 

[best3444]

Just now, Biggie said:

 

I can dream 😌 

[Biggie]

Just now, best3444 said:

Will they have a mod to fix the disgusting looking NPC'S? As I'm playing FF16 I keep asking myself, how in the hell does Bethesda create such retarded looking characters. Crossed eyed... 😆 

[best3444]

Bethesda will fail me once again 

[Xbob42]

1 hour ago, Keyser_Soze said:

Also, realism is absolutely a selling point for some people and games. Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport are generally loved because they are like a sim. People even go as far as to make cockpits for racing games. Flight sims, farming sims, the list goes on. People enjoy it but we all know you like to do the most absurd things and this game is not probably going to hit that mark.

The games you list have tons of extra mechanics related to their realism, because reality is quite complex. I have almost 0 faith that Bethesda will be able to supply an even remotely comparable or even competent set of systems.

Modders on the other hand, maybe.

[GeneticBlueprint]

I don't want every planet to have life. Or even half of them. Honestly 10% sounds about right.

[best3444]

Yea, in all honesty I could live with 10 planets with life as long as they were detailed and fun to explore. The whole "1000" planets bullshit is typical Bethesda hype. We shall see. I do have faith that this will be pretty damn cool. 

[johnny]

we all know that the gameplay is going to be absolute shit. if you’ve played a fallout or ES game, you know it to be true. 

 

despite that, for reasons i can’t comprehend, i’m sure it’ll be very successful even though it’ll feel like your character has hand eye coordination issues. 

[skillzdadirecta]

Damn this reminds me of all the doom and gloom folks were posting right before Final Fantasy came out only to have everyone jizzing on their keyboards once they played the game  Don't change D1P... don't ever fucking change.

[Keyser_Soze]

13 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Damn this reminds me of all the doom and gloom folks were posting right before Final Fantasy came out only to have everyone jizzing on their keyboards once they played the game  Don't change D1P... don't ever fucking change.

 

I dunno, the jizz started drying up for some people.