Starfield – September 6, 2023: Xbox Series X and Series S, Microsoft Windows

That is really disappointing as that’s a classic thing with their games. The going off somewhere random and finding something cool.
this being a classic part of their games is one thing.

For me, personally, having a space game with 1000s of planets, where exploration is not really the right mindset.... it just doesnt make sense....
 
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this being a classic part of their games is one thing.

For me, personally, having a space game with 1000s of planets, where exploration is not really the right mindset.... it just doesnt make sense....
It is strange. Apparently space itself becomes a little more exciting when you go to the areas of spaces where there is less control by the authorities. More pirates and other ships. Also I found strange, Bethesda games are known for the big moments when you leave the cave etc to enter the world for the first time, “step out” moments, but apparently even though it’s a space game, there’s no big moment at the start of the game. Find that puzzling to be honest. I was imagining some big wonder moment when you’re in space looking down…
Disappointing in a few ways. There was all that discourse about the barriers of planets (nonsense), but the real issue is the lack of exploration for me. Apparently doing the main quest, will show you all the nice places and you will get more instant enjoyment out of the game. Looking forward to playing it though.
 
Bethesda products are very, very divisive regarding expectations in their games where the community could process the final release differently :LOL:. Some are annoyed with bugs in their games, others can live through them. Some are expecting some sorts of mechanics that eventually are hyped through the marketing process, others already know what they should expect in the next product knowing Bethesda's past DNA and also how they can develop games.

That said, they're using an old engine adapted to modern PCs/consoles, so there are limitations exploring - like parts of the map or through space. Also users can find lots of annoyances in Starfield that were already previously in their past products, or the graphical fidelity that doesn't fit that much to today's standards...

In other hand, I think with the tools that they have right now they did a great job (on the overall product). It's their first game where they're going wild in space, including space exploration (not entirely as No Man Sky), missions, free customizations going back to their roots (not a live service with MTX like was the Fallout76 dumpster fire), a Bethesda type story with some diversity in missions, characters, etc. The part that made me to get into it the most it's that "NASA vibe", coz' it's a game with a more mature blurry, grey/brown pallete (not so vibrant) that feels more photorealistic depicted in those visuals and also the design and shape of objects/weapons/structures. Also, the fact that you can be on a planet and go to another one with your ship/crew feels also as an accomplishment by itself even if there is a procedural generated mechanic that doesn't give much to do for now or even encountering the same type of structures sometimes.

I think the potential of this game is much bigger than what we have right now, so in the future they could polish lots of things, add more content, and those adventures in space or visiting planets will be deeper and more intense. Right now as @Tom mentioned, I adore this game because has really good parts in it like in a "space opera", plus has solid RPG mechanics with customizations and nice combat ground/space combat. After many years, Bethesda is back...finally !!!
 
Game looks neat, but I have my reservations. Some of exploration I've seen leaves a lot to be desired. Many of the planets you visit look the same. I'll get this game when it's on sale this winter holiday season. I just don't think it's worth the current price tag.

I've seen some comparisons with Cyberpunk and I just don't agree with that. Sure, both games were over-hyped, but at least Starfield is playable.
 
this being a classic part of their games is one thing.

For me, personally, having a space game with 1000s of planets, where exploration is not really the right mindset.... it just doesnt make sense....
My biggest problem is I watched a few hours of it and it's just you chatting to lame boring humans and not actually flying...so it's like you are just on Earth really.

Think of the scope of what they could potentially have done with the game and that's their best most creative idea? You can go anywhere and see anything, yet they have you chatting to boring humans and looking in boring offices.

Why not have planets full of strange and wonderful alien races? Some friendly, some smart, some extremely strange and un-human like. Say a planet with War of the Worlds big crazy creatures on, some hostile, some friendly. Let your imagination run wild, but nah we'll just have you chatting to your mates and hearing their problems, like you're still at the pub.
 
Seeing YT vids of people doing what I normally do with games, test for "legitimacy".

A guy has encountered a to the pixel, 100%, exact location 4 times, with enemies placed in the exact same place, on 4 different Planets.

And they think we won't see through this?

On a sidenote...........I see through this similar bullshit on PGA Tour 2K21 and 2K23 where I screen video recorded off the "AI shot taking place on Hole 7" bullshit, and after starting off with around 100 unique shots, I started to encounter these AI shots being 100% to the pixel repeated, in terms of player position on the hole itself, and the ball movement to its end position................i.e. they were all canned. Bullshit x 1000. And its why EA's proper CPU AI opponents in its underated EA PGA Tour makes anyone who thinks 2K's games are better proven to be a bit dim, and settling for "the human player experience". I personally am VERY into CPU AI and cannot stand games that pretend its in a game when it is not.

Sorry to digress from Starfield...........so for a game as huge as this to have the above mentioned "issue", proves they think customers will not notice this.

Organic? Is it feck. Canned bullshit from Beth Hester, because the game has "Procedurally generated locations" and so to encounter a same location pixel perfectly matched to 3 other locations on 3 other planets, is clearly a canned location.

Beth Hester? Got your number mate.
 
Im 35 hrs in, to me its the GOTY, one of the best games iv played in along while, yeah theres bugs, which bethesda game hasnt. Game opens up alot after 15 hrs in, gunplay is fun, AI still tends to stay in one spot but alot better then their previous games, enemies tend to flank alot more and also sneak up from behind you, the planets vary quite a bit so far especially the monsters you face and neon is cyber punk which i love, i understand the frustration for some people that dont like the cut scene when entering and landing the plane, but with the game being so deep and a shit load of content the cut scenes and loading times dont bother me at all. Been a very long time for me when im at work and all im thinking about is what ill experience next.
 
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Im 35 hrs in, to me its the GOTY, one of the best games iv played in along while, yeah theres bugs, which bethesda game hasnt. Game opens up alot after 15 hrs in, gunplay is fun, AI still tends to stay in one spot but alot better then their previous games, enemies tend to flank alot more and also sneak up from behind you, the planets vary quite a bit so far especially the monsters you face and neon is cyber punk which i love, i understand the frustration for some people that dont like the cut scene when entering and landing the plane, but with the game being so deep and a shit load of content the cut scenes and loading times dont bother me at all. Been a very long time for me when im at work and all im thinking about is what ill experience next.

I think the most divisive argument regarding Starfield is related to the exploration aspect (this argument could be seen on both ends with lots of positives and negatives towards it). That's because they introduced some procedural generated elements on those planets where they made people to think that is a No Man Sky clone made by Bethesda where you can feel the entire process without loading screens: decollate your ship, pull it off the planet, fly through space to another planet where you can land on it with a dynamic transition. Those expectations where high because the marketing division knew how to mislead a wider audience, and the response from that part of the audience was also very negative (but I think in the end shares elements from both games: Mass Effect and No Man Sky).

I remember the same happened years ago with the PC version of Cyberpunk 2077 (besides bugs, or also unfinished in certain aspects) because the overall game wasn't like GTA as expected by some. Those expectations and hype was sky rocketed plus the poor console versions and the hype created by the marketing division induced people into thinking that's not a RPG game like The Witcher but the perfect game created by God where you can do literally everything. But in the end, even with all the bugs and all those unfinished parts the PC version was positively reviewed on Steam/Metacritic and overall was a positive reception towards it. So after all that debacle we've got all the content for free, great updates and an amazing big expansion is coming out this month: "Phantom Liberty".

In the end Starfield is a Bethesda product at heart, so those RPG mechanics should be prioritized combining them with the action and atmosphere. The pacing of Starfield and story is very slow at the beginning BUT it gets very interesting along the way after 10-15 hours and the overall game feels way more rewarding. If the developers will show their support and care, this game has lots of potential to be polished into something great, and with more content will become also a great exploration game during the next years (not to mention that modders from Nexus are very busy, already creating cool content). I recommend those videos, that just shows in a nutshell what's so great about exploring besides main/side missions or action/RPG elements, and for that reason alone I adore Starfield:




 
The game is extremely unoptimized on Nvidia cards with a combo of Ryzen 5000 series. I have a 3060ti and no matter the settings there are sudden spikes of cpu at 100% for 2-3 secs bringing suddenly the fps from steady 60fps to 34fps before they reach again 60fps. They need to release a performance patch because it's unacceptable. It doesn't matter if you have everything at low or high or ultra.
For now I had to force 30fps locked via the Nvidia control panel and it runs perfectly on high/ultra settings. Game's installed on a fast SSD so the issue is not the hard drive.
I know this engine is cpu bound with a lot of computing going on in the background but at least a system like mine should be able to maintain 60fps at 1080p on medium/high settings. I wouldn't even call these graphics breathtaking, especially the trees and vegetation are worse than Skyrim, water is worse than Morrowind.
I like the game, I'm playing what I expected to play and I wasn't hyped. Certainly I wouldn't pay £60 or £70 for this one, Gamepass does the job.
For me is a wait for sale or wait for proper fixes/mods game.
 
Huh! You killed my Jedi Master Yoda joke. :BLEH::COAT:


If I can make a forum request? I would say, that I want that all evowebbers talk one month saxonian or berlinain, or something.
So I'm would be a real speaking master, nuh!

And and and aa aa a a a I I I I don do do d d have dyslexia. Only the Jedi master Yoda have it. :))






And to come back to topic: If the rumors are true that stalker 2 will not release this december I will buy and play this game.
 
I had my first session last night and I really enjoyed it. I was quite confused at first after the space battle tutorial and my landing on Kreet, but I quickly found a sort of lab to assault and it was ton of fun. Graphics have nothing ground braking, particularly space battle looks a bit unimpressive (planet texture are quite disappointing), but I can see myself throwing countless hours into this.
The game is running reasonably well on my PC (on the higher end side) with the default suggested settings for 4K.
 
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I'd like to point some big interesting facts about the potential of this game regarding exploration, because I think it's very important and in the future could change everything. The scale of this game is not huge, is beyond huge after I was reading people experimenting and exploring, just made me realize how crazy could be the enhancement of it with new content by the developers and also by tons of mods (those games from Bethesda has one of the biggest community in this regard)... so, I think the best way to describe those parts is to divide them in two: one related to the planetary aspect, and the other one to the space exploration.

1.) Before reading about all those landing experiments, I was thinking that you can go to a planet (just like in Mass Effect) and land on some spot where those markers are procedurally generated and you can explore some points of interest with some limits and that's it. Turns out, if you disable your HUD (via console command) and you'll put the landing spot just to the next pixel where you've landed, you can certainly go there and see new procedurally generated points of interest and you can explore that entire tile on foot until its limits. Then, you can land on the next pixel, and the next, and that could take years to explore an entire planet :LOL:. So technically, you can land on whatever spot you want and explore those new generated points of interest, then you can explore another 1000 planets on those solar systems, so that could take literally your lifetime. Imagine if Bethesda will think next to add hundreds of more points of interest that could procedurally generate on planets, quests or activities... Also can't wait to see how crazy will be the modding content created by that passionate community...

2.) When you are on your ship in space without using those fast travel options, you can literally navigate and fly manually from one planet to another through entire solar systems, but that will take real hours, months, years, depending on the distance. I know that almost nobody wants to do that, but it's crazy that the distance there is really palpable. Also, those calculations of planets are done right and the planetary alignment in our solar system is done correctly including movement, solar day/night cycle (in other systems I guess nobody on Earth knows for now). I like the fact that in space there is movement and interactions: stations, pirates, planetary ships (where players could have some real action), but taking in count the scale of this space I think Bethesda could enhance it way, way more (and can't wait to see that...). I'd also like to see if they could do a dynamic transition when you fly from a planet to space or when you land on a planet, so the player could immerse himself more by those transitions doing the manual piloting. In other hand, if the exploration is divided in tiles I don't think that will be possible to explore the planet by flying close to the ground, but I'll be happy if they'll create some manual landing transitions instead of cutscenes...

I'm so invested in this game right now !!! I'm lucky to be on some working vacation so, (besides kitchen and bathroom :LOL:) I'm enjoying all day long Starfield:DANCE:
 
Also, I'd like to share some interesting and comprehensive videos made by somebody who already spent more than 300h in Starfield touching a lot the sandbox aspect. Those guides could help new players to understand better the exploration part, or to role play freely in factions (as pirate, mercenary, etc):


1.) Planetary exploration guide:





2.) Ship customization, crew, and space exploration guide:





3.) Role-play freely in a faction guide (in this case as a space pirate):




Enjoy the discovery of new mysteries during the exploration of the unknown universe, space adventurers !!! 👨‍🚀 🔫 🚀 🪐 🌌 :SAL:
 
There may still be hope for journalism today ... 🤣😂


- "Todd, why didn't you optimize the game for PC?"
- "Phil, how do you comment on game pass ruining Starfield's sales?"
- "Why are there no land vehicles in the game?"

😂😂
 
Yesterday, I got the chance to play the game at my friend's crib. It's not a bad game. He highly rates this game while I'm more tempered with my impressions. It's an above average game that didn't meet the massive hype that it got IMO. but it's decent enough for most rpg fans like myself. The graphics are good. I enjoyed the combat a lot and the ship customization options are great. Firefights are ok but some of the controls can be clunky. Negatives for me are dead planets that you can't drive around on, no gore (for a space game with big ass alien creatures that can impale their victims) and dialog options that don't mean a whole lot, but not the worst Bethesda game out there. 7 or a 7.5. Maybe a year from now it will become better.

I'm inclined to buy it on steam sooner rather than later, but exploring planets in the game is a daunting task. it wasn't that fun during my playthrough. This would be somewhat forgivable had they included land vehicles. Driving around would mitigate this problem, so lets hope the devs sort that out. Surprisingly, my playthrough was smooth. Performance was good, which I feared would be an issue based on the early access reports, but to my surprise, it wasn't. I did notice some clipping issues like enemies clipping through doors. The character I was using died because he got stabbed by some 40 level spider alien that clipped through a door.
 
The amount of time it will be required to finish this game is beyond vertiginous.
I really like the game, but I am a bit scared at how fast the time goes when playing it. I do find myself spending quite a lot of time in the menus and particularly the inventory. I wish they made quicker short cuts to it.
 
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exploring planets in the game is a daunting task. it wasn't that fun during my playthrough. This would be somewhat forgivable had they included land vehicles. Driving around would mitigate this problem,
They cant add land vehicles coz it would make it easier to reach invisible bubble barriers and as a result exposed lazy design ever more.
Due to the fact that you cant really explore entire planet and you are just stuck in small bubbles - they dont want you to drive anywhere. They want you to get bored and get back to the ship before you reach invisible wall
 
The amount of time it will be required to finish this game is beyond vertiginous.
I really like the game, but I am a bit scared at how fast the time goes when playing it. I do find myself spending quite a lot of time in the menus and particularly the inventory. I wish they made quicker short cuts to it.

Well the main story apparently is only about 30 hours so if you limit yourself to that alone it'll be done in no time ;)
 
Well the main story apparently is only about 30 hours so if you limit yourself to that alone it'll be done in no time ;)
But that would be a pity. My post might have come as a complain but really it isn't (except the menu thing). I like the idea of diving deeply in this fractal world. Just in one/two hour sessions, I can only do so much.
 
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The amount of time it will be required to finish this game is beyond vertiginous.
I really like the game, but I am a bit scared at how fast the time goes when playing it. I do find myself spending quite a lot of time in the menus and particularly the inventory. I wish they made quicker short cuts to it.
I feel you on this and it's why I have been leaning more towards games that give me instant gameplay I want. I just bought Returnal on PC and it's exactly what the kind of game I want.
 
I bloody love this game.
The game is good. Just ignore the Steam forum. Ofc it's unfinished and BGS had many years to make this a masterpiece but we all know the sad state of AAA videogaming now. Tbf I didn't expect to have fun with this one and it's a nice distraction from BG3. Today's NVIDIA drivers are also quite good so finally I can run the game at 60fps (almost) at high settings without a 30fps forced lock.
 
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