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Starfield Pre-Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

whydoibother

Arcane
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bulgaristan
Codex Year of the Donut
I've yet to read anything that would make me think this game will actually be "good". In the "it's better than the usual Bethesda game" sense.
The audacity of selling "1,000 planets" only to later imply that 99% of them will be of no interest, saying "you will know in advance if they are shit!" as if it was a brilliant marketing point, is astounding.

Four "big" cities, "bigger than anything we have ever done before" (as if that meant anything), is depressing. Twice as big is already bigger, but we all know that Skyrim's cities were so pathetically small that twice as big wouldn't be close enough to what we could expect a 2023 open world RPG's cities to look like.

Of course the Bethesda fanboys are eating this shit up with joy.
Sounds to me like 4 big zones, and each has missions to fly to 996 small zones, where you do a mission.
So like a World of Warcraft thing, with a few big open zones and a big city in each as a hub, and then you go to instances through portals (fly with the ship) where you have a few concentrated quests.
The Witcher 3 was sort of structured that way.
 

Fedora Master

Arcane
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Edgy
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Jun 28, 2017
Messages
27,805
People spend too much time thinking about the Space RPG they wanted Starfield to be that they don't consider what Todd wanted Starfield to be. In early interviews he said Wing Commander and Star Control 2 were some of his favorite games. Goddamn if Starfield isn't a Bethesda game with Wing Commander space combat and Star Control 2 space exploration.
I'm sure that's just as true as his chess club stories.
 

Zeriel

Arcane
Joined
Jun 17, 2012
Messages
13,378
The only thing epic here is the microstutters in a prefilmed video. Bethesda truly always finds a way.
 

whydoibother

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Codex Year of the Donut
The only thing epic here is the microstutters in a prefilmed video. Bethesda truly always finds a way.
IIRC I spotted one NPC running with its face turned 180 degrees backwards. It was either in this game, or another Bethesda presentation.
And of course the NPC going calmly from crouching animation, slowly standing up, slowly turning, and then exploding into dying animation, not reacting to the 20 bullets it ate in the meantime.
The jank is obvious, and its obviously a modified version of the same old engine.
 

ADL

Prophet
Joined
Oct 23, 2017
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3,677
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Nantucket
People spend too much time thinking about the Space RPG they wanted Starfield to be that they don't consider what Todd wanted Starfield to be. In early interviews he said Wing Commander and Star Control 2 were some of his favorite games. Goddamn if Starfield isn't a Bethesda game with Wing Commander space combat and Star Control 2 space exploration.
Todd also cites Betrayal at Krondor, Ultima 7 and Darklands as his favorite RPGs when talking about Skyrim and Fallout 4 so I wouldn't put too much stock in what inspired him. He doesn't seem to appreciate depth.

A worthwhile reminder that Todd Howard has more prestigious taste in computer games than most Codexers.
Shame his games don't resemble what "inspired him" at all.
 

Zeriel

Arcane
Joined
Jun 17, 2012
Messages
13,378
IIRC I spotted one NPC running with its face turned 180 degrees backwards. It was either in this game, or another Bethesda presentation.
And of course the NPC going calmly from crouching animation, slowly standing up, slowly turning, and then exploding into dying animation, not reacting to the 20 bullets it ate in the meantime.
The jank is obvious, and its obviously a modified version of the same old engine.

Honestly I'm used to the non-performance jank and just find it funny. But the performance side of it is godawful. I remember having to spend actual days editing the (sometimes not working) ini files of Fallout 4 just to make it run at a basic level of performance and have proper mouse aiming, and even then it really wasn't that playable.

It's always a huge fucking red flag to me when a marketing department is spending months culling footage they can pre-select to have the best fidelity and smoothest quality, and it still comes out looking like the PC is using 10 year old hardware.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
IIRC I spotted one NPC running with its face turned 180 degrees backwards. It was either in this game, or another Bethesda presentation.
And of course the NPC going calmly from crouching animation, slowly standing up, slowly turning, and then exploding into dying animation, not reacting to the 20 bullets it ate in the meantime.
The jank is obvious, and its obviously a modified version of the same old engine.
It just works.
 

DeepOcean

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,394
The shooting looks weird, is it scripted bs for the trailer or will be like that at release? It looks awful, sub Fallout 4.
 

taxalot

I'm a spicy fellow.
Patron
Joined
Oct 28, 2010
Messages
9,613
Location
Your wallet.
Codex 2013 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015
Sneaking in a space suit...!? How the fuck do you pick pocket people in spacesuits?

You are fighting pirates on a world where you can only survive inside a pressurized, anti-radiation, heat moderating space suit.. But still everyone has regular pant pockets full of digital-only currencies and space-lint, I guess...?

:philosoraptor:

At least there'll be a plausible explanation about why there's no ladders.
 

Gargaune

Magister
Joined
Mar 12, 2020
Messages
3,136
At least there'll be a plausible explanation about why there's no ladders.
Oh, no, they have ladders now. But you can only climb them all the way up, you can't stop halfway. You see, the middle of the ladder is really hard to process, we'll need quantum computing before we can have real-time dynamic ladder climbing.
 

Robotigan

Learned
Joined
Jan 18, 2022
Messages
397
Whole game looks bit goofy, ships look like they have been made from scrap.
Modular, utilitarian designs make a lot of sense for a space game. Aerodynamics doesn't make much sense in a vacuum. That it incidentally works really well with a building system is an exciting coincidence that I'm glad Bethesda has taken advantage of.
 

Skdursh

Savant
Joined
Nov 27, 2018
Messages
734
Location
Slavlandia
Yep - the more you look at it, it is more No Man's Skyrim.
It has survival mechanics, of course.
And crafting.
And settlement building.
And all other Bethesda checkboxes.
i think I even saw space Cazadors in one moment.

But, still... Space!


Todd always sounds like he just got done huffing an extra large helium balloon.
 

purupuru

Learned
Joined
Nov 2, 2019
Messages
414
you own two of the most important and historical IPs in gaming
And that's exactly why when you do the biggest update on your development tool-chain since 20 years ago, you test the water with a shitty new IP no one cares about.
 

Shog-goth

Elder Thing
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Feb 23, 2018
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596
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R'lyeh
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
And that's exactly why when you do the biggest update on your development tool-chain since 20 years ago, you test the water with a shitty new IP no one cares about.
In words it always seems to be the biggest update, in fact reality is instead a little different. And potentially throwing away nearly a decade of development I wouldn't call it anyway "testing the water" but rather "risk of drowning".
 

Gastrick

Cipher
Joined
Aug 1, 2020
Messages
1,704
It's always a huge fucking red flag to me when a marketing department is spending months culling footage they can pre-select to have the best fidelity and smoothest quality,
Are you sure about that?

pUM5pKC.png
 

ropetight

Scholar
Joined
Dec 9, 2018
Messages
984
Location
Lower Wolffuckery
Whole game looks bit goofy, ships look like they have been made from scrap.
Modular, utilitarian designs make a lot of sense for a space game. Aerodynamics doesn't make much sense in a vacuum. That it incidentally works really well with a building system is an exciting coincidence that I'm glad Bethesda has taken advantage of.
Ship design can be modular and still not look like something scavengers put together.
Aerodynamics aside, for radiation shielding in deep space and armor (for combat and against space debris) you would want ship modules to be grouped more tigthly, to have more form.

Bethesda stick with this design probably because it was easier to implement in ship designer.
But, somehow I have feeling that scrap freighter ship design will be the least of our concerns when Starfield launches.
 

Zeriel

Arcane
Joined
Jun 17, 2012
Messages
13,378
[Trigger Warning]

I wish the graphics were better. I need the graphics to be better.

There's something off or just plain bland about the art style. People will say "Skyrim is ugly in comparison", and sure, maybe technically, but it is evocative. There is nothing evocative about this. It just isn't exciting to look at, save maybe the space battles.
 

Late Bloomer

Scholar
Joined
Apr 7, 2022
Messages
2,816
[Trigger Warning]

I wish the graphics were better. I need the graphics to be better.

There's something off or just plain bland about the art style. People will say "Skyrim is ugly in comparison", and sure, maybe technically, but it is evocative. There is nothing evocative about this. It just isn't exciting to look at, save maybe the space battles.

I heard the same thing from a few different friends. None of them like sci-fi much at all though. Are you a fan of sci-fi?
 

Zeriel

Arcane
Joined
Jun 17, 2012
Messages
13,378
[Trigger Warning]

I wish the graphics were better. I need the graphics to be better.

There's something off or just plain bland about the art style. People will say "Skyrim is ugly in comparison", and sure, maybe technically, but it is evocative. There is nothing evocative about this. It just isn't exciting to look at, save maybe the space battles.

I heard the same thing from a few different friends. None of them like sci-fi much at all though. Are you a fan of sci-fi?

Not as much as fantasy. But I do like it a lot when done well. Certainly more than modern day stuff.

Pandorum is one of my favorite films, I even enjoy average but mediocre stuff like Oblivion. I just don't think there's much interesting here. Ironically I kind of digged the "NASA-punk" thematics they were teasing originally, but the final result just looks extremely generic to me where it's not very exciting. Not sure why, I'd have to really drill down and think about it.
 

Gargaune

Magister
Joined
Mar 12, 2020
Messages
3,136
There's something off or just plain bland about the art style. People will say "Skyrim is ugly in comparison", and sure, maybe technically, but it is evocative. There is nothing evocative about this. It just isn't exciting to look at, save maybe the space battles.
Agree on what we've seen on Starfield, but I wouldn't say Skyrim had great art direction either regardless of tech. It was pretty in the way natural vistas usually are, but both it and Oblivion were pretty subdued in their visual compositions. Bethesda's Fallout entries had a stronger visual identity, but that's 'cause they leaned into the original aesthetic.
 

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