***The Official Starfield Thread*** (As endorsed by TNA)

[Aegis]

They did fail at managing expectations. I went in lower than most and was still disappointed. It felt like they did not innovate at all from 10-15 year's ago and in some instances regressed.

Still though, I like Fallout/Elder Scrolls type games and once I realised what this game was I still enjoyed it

I mean look at Jono. He was quite the critic from the start and he has now put in more hours than I have

I wasn't ever disappointed with Starfield - baffled and frustrated a few times maybe

I might've gone in considerably less jaded though since the last Bethesda game I played was Skyrim (skipped FO4 and 76).

 

[BUDFORCE]

in some instances regressed.

Yup this is my main criticism over everything really.

I know I've been quite negative the last few post, the game is ok don't get me wrong, I was hoping for more though.

 

[TNA]

I wasn't ever disappointed with Starfield - baffled and frustrated a few times maybe

I might've gone in considerably less jaded though since the last Bethesda game I played was Skyrim (skipped FO4 and 76).

I was. The space stuff was such low effort by them. I would understand if small budget but budget was huge!

I have probably said a dozen times to but the skills and perks were well disappointing also.

The story should have been better. And also needed a lot less copy paste.

I still enjoyed it and gave it a 8/10 though. But was expecting more for sure.

This has made me really lower my expectations for the next elder scrolls now, which is probably a good thing. I am now expecting a bit bigger Skyrim with better graphics, but more dumbed down rubbish too.

 

[Aegis]

I'm still finding some great nods and references.

Yesterday I played a mission called 'The Best There Is' which clearly paid homage (not just in name but also in the story) to the 1982 Clint Eastwood movie Firefox.

Love it

 

[Jono8]

They did fail at managing expectations. I went in lower than most and was still disappointed. It felt like they did not innovate at all from 10-15 year's ago and in some instances regressed.

Still though, I like Fallout/Elder Scrolls type games and once I realised what this game was I still enjoyed it

I mean look at Jono. He was quite the critic from the start and he has now put in more hours than I have

Yeh, I'm still playing and enjoying bits of it.

I just get reminded of how average/behind the times it is whilst playing. I think the frustration stems from squandered potential. It COULD have gone down as a great game/classic, but there are just too many problems.

I really don't think it would have killed them to put decent water/water physics in it, make NPC's run away /security take you down if you aim a gun at them in a city etc etc. Instead of spending time creating inordinate amounts of useless clutter, they should have put the time into making the world they have built more believable elsewhere. We didn't need a 1000 planets , that all have the same abandoned cryo lab on them. A lot of the game is just superfluous. In fact if I had to think of one word that sums up the game , it would probably be 'superfluous"

All those little things that other games have help the immersion, especially in a role playing/sim type game. Starfield feels plastic/cardboard. The world(galaxy) feels fake somehow.

 

[TNA]

I played Fallout 3, NV, FO4 and Skyrim.

FO4 was the worst for me and I skipped FO76.

 

[TNA]

I'm still finding some great nods and references.

Yesterday I played a mission called 'The Best There Is' which clearly paid homage (not just in name but also in the story) to the 1982 Clint Eastwood movie Firefox.

Love it

Lots of nice things like that yes. Hence why I still gave it an 8 out if 10 and enjoyed as much as I did.

 

[Apex]

I didn't suggest they were? "I do think its Bethesda and Microsoft's job to manage those expectations though"

It's another way of saying "Customers should be happy with half-baked game, full a ridiculous price, IF we tell them it's going to be disapointing beforehand".

The problem is low effort releases for too much money, the customer doesn't come into it, they don't make, market or manage the product. They buy it. The responsibility for how a product lands lies soley with the vendor.

You don't eat out and be disapointed with your meal and they say to yourself "Well, maybe I should have managed my expectations" do you? Neither does the restaurantuer come over and apologise by saying "Well, mabe we should have managed your expectations better".

"Managing expectations" - the whole concept is corpo BS. It's just a way of shifting some of the responsibility or blame onto the customer and away from themselves, it is a deflection tactic. It's the same BS as when a game dev says "We didn't meet OUR expectaions" - no, you didn't meed the cusomers expectations...

A vendor makes a product, I buy it, I then decide whether it met MY expectations or not.

 

[Aegis]

It's another way of saying "Customers should be happy with half-baked game, full a ridiculous price, IF we tell them it's going to be disapointing beforehand".

The problem is low effort releases for too much money, the customer doesn't come into it, they don't make, market or manage the product. They buy it. The responsibility for how a product lands lies soley with the vendor.

You don't eat out and be disapointed with your meal and they say to yourself "Well, maybe I should have managed my expectations" do you? Neither does the restaurantuer come over and apologise by saying "Well, mabe we should have managed your expectations better".

"Managing expectations" - the whole concept is corpo BS. It's just a way of shifting some of the responsibility or blame onto the customer and away from themselves, it is a deflection tactic. It's the same BS as when a game dev says "We didn't meet OUR expectaions" - no, you didn't meed the cusomers expectations...

A vendor makes a product, I buy it, I then decide whether it met MY expectations or not.

I'm sorry, but I just can't agree with the assertion that this is a 'low effort release' - there's many criticisms I can level at Starfield but that isn't one of them. Hundreds of devs worked on this game for years and I'm sure they worked an ungodly amount of crunch in order to deliver it in as stable a fashion as they were able to. labelling it 'low-effort' is a petty and unnecessary insult.

Sorry, but I get quite touchy about this 'cause I used to work in game dev and the adage that 'no one *wants* to deliver a bad game' is absolutely true.

Feel free to lambast the leadership for writing cheques the team weren't able to deliver - feel free to bash Microsoft or Bethesda for not giving the game more scope, ambition, time or resources for the team to make something truly amazing - I'm totally on board. But taking something like this which was clearly a labour of love for many of the people that worked on it and calling it low-effort? Not cool.

 

[Apex]

I'm sorry, but I just can't agree with the assertion that this is a 'low effort release' - there's many criticisms I can level at Starfield but that isn't one of them. Hundreds of devs worked on this game for years and I'm sure they worked an ungodly amount of crunch in order to deliver it in as stable a fashion as they were able to. labelling it 'low-effort' is a petty and unnecessary insult.

Sorry, but I get quite touchy about this 'cause I used to work in game dev and the adage that 'no one *wants* to deliver a bad game' is absolutely true.

Well, that's fair enough, we can disagree on whether the game is good not. If hundreds of devs worked on this game for years, why is it so barren?

But anyway - quality aside, I stand by my argument that "managing expectaions" is BS. It's a total phoney marketing concept aimed to blame and responsibility deflection.

Also, there's no-one actually blaming the people who do the actual work for bad games (unless they're clearly incompetent) - AAA games in particular are ruined by corpos.

 

[decto]

It's another way of saying "Customers should be happy with half-baked game, full a ridiculous price, IF we tell them it's going to be disapointing beforehand".

I don't agree on your view of a ridiculous price.

If you just want to blast through the game, it's a month or 2 of gamepass if you don't already subscribe.
If you want to own the game and enjoy mods for a decade to come, the official price is £70 for the base game or £40-50 on key sites.

For potentially 100's of hours of play and exploration, I think it's fair value.

 

[Apex]

I don't agree on your view of a ridiculous price.

If you just want to blast through the game, it's a month or 2 of gamepass if you don't already subscribe.
If you want to own the game and enjoy mods for a decade to come, the official price is £70 for the base game or £40-50 on key sites.

For potentially 100's of hours of play and exploration, I think it's fair value.

I wasn't talking about the GP price, most people would have bought outside of a GP subscription.

The mods aren't value added by Bethesda though, unless you're talking about their crappy in house offerings, they're added for for free by the community. And often they're free game development for the failings of Bethesda, so no I don't agree that £70 for a game that has to be day 1 patched for free by modders is great VFM, but hey everyone has their own concept of value, I just haven't adjusted my concept of value in-line with falling standards.

 

[Aegis]

Well, that's fair enough, we can disagree on whether the game is good not. If hundreds of devs worked on this game for years, why is it so barren?

But anyway - quality aside, I stand by my argument that "managing expectaions" is BS. It's a total phoney marketing concept aimed to blame and responsibility deflection.

Also, there's no-one actually blaming the people who do the actual work for bad games (unless they're clearly incompetent) - AAA games in particular are ruined by corpos.

You're right - 'managing expectations' is condescending corporate-speak and I shouldn't use it.

What we're actually talking about is honesty in communicating what your product is and I wholeheartedly agree that Bethesda failed dismally there - as I mentioned above, Todd Howard is a serial liar and everything he says should be immediately dismissed.

My own expectations for Starfield were based on my previous experiences with their games - I expected it to have a middling main story arc, some great faction quests and side quests, some degree of crafting and customization and some companions along for the ride - I also expected it to be unplayable at launch.

Regarding why the game is so barren - it has at least as much scripted content as Skyrim based on my playthrough - that content is spread much thinner throughout Starfield's 'galaxy' though - I agree with what a number of people have said here - setting the game inside our solar system and having a handful of much more densely populated planets would have made for a much better game.

 

[Apex]

You're right - 'managing expectations' is condescending corporate-speak and I shouldn't use it.

What we're actually talking about is honesty in communicating what your product is and I wholeheartedly agree that Bethesda failed dismally there - as I mentioned above, Todd Howard is a serial liar and everything he says should be immediately dismissed.

My own expectations for Starfield were based on my previous experiences with their games - I expected it to have a middling main story arc, some great faction quests and side quests, some degree of crafting and customization and some companions along for the ride - I also expected it to be unplayable at launch.

Regarding why the game is so barren - it has at least as much scripted content as Skyrim based on my playthrough - that content is spread much thinner throughout Starfield's 'galaxy' though - I agree with what a number of people have said here - setting the game inside our solar system and having a handful of much more densely populated planets would have made for a much better game.

I wouldn't disagree with that.

I tend to think anything space based has a massive baked in audience and therefore will be better recieved than IMO it should be, if SC wasn't a space game, it would have collapsed years ago, but that's another matter.

Let's face it Skytrim went on to be considered an all-time classic not because of Bethesda but because of the modding community. It will be the same way with SF - if it has that longevity.

 

[TNA]

I am hoping the mod community make Starfield great for my next playthrough in a few years time

 

[Noxia]

Love it or hate, you can't deny it's had an impact. People can't stop talking about it in other threads lol.

 

[Aegis]

I wouldn't disagree with that.

I tend to think anything space based has a massive baked in audience and therefore will be better recieved than IMO it should be, if SC wasn't a space game, it would have collapsed years ago, but that's another matter.

Let's face it Skytrim went on to be considered an all-time classic not because of Bethesda but because of the modding community. It will be the same way with SF - if it has that longevity.

See also Cyberpunk - clearly there's an audience that desperately wants a game with the intricacy of Rockstar's worlds and the rich storytelling of CDPR's - and I guess the marketing people know this which is why we keep getting our hopes dashed when Bethesda et al fail to deliver on their promises.

Also, this has been a bad year for PC gaming in general - so many bad releases that display a lack of polish and development resources that should be expected for £60 games - PC gamers are feeling a bit short-changed at the moment and I don't blame them.

 

[Apex]

I am hoping the mod community make Starfield great for my next playthrough in a few years time

This modern gaming in a nutshell. If you are prepared to wait you will get the best first-time and ongoing experiences and much cheaper. NMS, CP, - the list is endless. And this tells you just want modern game dev is all about, they're simply unwilling to do the job properly first time.

 

[Apex]

Love it or hate, you can't deny it's had an impact. People can't stop talking about it in other threads lol.

Oh yeah the GPU forum absolutely loves arguing about it, they argue about it's performance on their hardware far more than they actually play it.

 

[decto]

so no I don't agree that £70 for a game that has to be day 1 patched for free by modders is great VFM

100 hours in and no mods used, that's for another playthrough.

Part of the value is that the game is built to support mods on both PC and console, building and supporting that doesn't come for free so while it is community content is is enabled by Bethesda.