Imagine relying on free labor to fix your broken ass game, and then having people defend you when called out for making a boring game that relies on free labor for content.
Imagine thinking that what is very probably the most hand-crafted content ever in a 3D game, with one of the broadest variety of choices for anything close to that scale, is a game lacking content.
It’s not an opinion. If you ignore straight procedural generation with no human input like no man’s sky, Starfield is very probably the biggest 3D game ever made. The fact that it’s an absolutely massive game isn’t debatable in any way.
Nobody who’s played it is making the ridiculous claim that they ran out of content. It’s fundamentally not possible for “relying on mods for content” to be in good faith.
UE5 is “the same engine” iterated on in the same way Bethesda’s is, there are plenty of games using UE that don’t run well, and it would take plenty of custom work to build to Bethesda’s scale using it.
The current iteration of Unreal is completely unrecognizable from its original rendition, meanwhile this new version of the Creation Engine literally retains bugs present back in the days of Gamebryo. You simply can’t compare the two. But, in Bethesda’s defense, this isn’t due to incompetence or anything. It’s due to resource allocation and incentive.
There’s a reason most devs have been moving towards Unreal and away from making their own engines, and it’s because making your own proprietary engine takes insane amounts of time and resources - time and resources that devs don’t get any return on mind you. For most, it doesn’t make sense to dedicate loads of time to polishing an engine, when that time could be better spent on your next game - a game that you actually do get a return on.
Unreal is completely different in this regard, as Epic actually does get a return on their investment into the engine, as the engine itself is their product. So they have every incentive to polish Unreal as much as possible. That’s why it’s so insanely polished and indistinguishable from its original rendition. Not because all engines magically improve over time and at the same rate.
I know Todd Howard said that engines are somehow meaningless, and then a bunch of Bethesda fans took that and ran with it as a way to defend any criticism of the Creation Engine, but unfortunately it’s just not that simple.
And to be clear, I want the Creation Engine to succeed. I’ve been modding Bethesda games since 2013 and am still active in the modding community! The engine is rough but makes all of it possible, and the community at this point knows it so well that it’d be devastating to suddenly lose it all. But Bethesda needs to sit down and really dedicate some time to overhauling it, and unfortunately, albeit understandably, I just don’t see that happening.
The only game that scratches the space exploration itch Elite doesn’t quite scratch (I mean, Elite is very good, but has it’s shortcomings when it comes to on-foot stuff). Ship interiors, base building and having actual life on planets, not just some fungoida and bacterium patches, alone are a reason to be excited about Starfield. Also, jetpack combat.
Funny how Elder Scrolls veterans are enjoying the game for what it is while bitter Playstation diehards, wishful thinkers with gigabyte-sized dreams.txt and bandwagon-o’-hate jumpers are complaining about things that never were to be so loud you can clearly hear the “Reeeeeeeeeee…” from Alpha Centauri😏
I’ve actually been really enjoying it. It’s a pleasant universe to just get absorbed in.
Sure, it’s got a lot of very valid complaints (performance, UX etc.) but they matter less to me the more I get into it. Writing is not groundbreaking, but it gets pretty good. Since very good voice acting from otherwise random NPCs.
Also the first game I’ve played that lets me use non-binary pronouns as a third option, rather than just Gendered or not. Very cool and I hope to see more games do that.
I’d say the most disappointing thing is how straightforward almost every quest is. They don’t do what Obsidian does in games like New Vegas and Outer Worlds where lots of quests have multiple resolutions, some hidden. In this game if it’s not in the objective list it’s usually not an option. It’s the typical Bethesda experience of course, rather than Obsidian’s, so it’s still nice for what it is.
It’s the closest I’ve personally felt to exploring and interacting with the worlds of Mass Effect 1 and Knights of the Old Republic in a long time. It’s got that sense of wander about it for me.
Yeah the straightforward quests are sometimes a little disappointing.
I.e. there’s a tiny side quest where you have to get some rich guys wedding ring back from his fiance. You go to the fiance and that say that they saw the rich guy cheating (having a conversation) with the waiter at their favorite restaurant, and that they shouldn’t have to give the ring back.
I went back to the rich guy to find out if this was true, and to insert myself firmly into their drama, but there was no new dialogue from the rich guy. I just had to pick a dialogue option to either take the ring or let the fiance keep it.
It would have been nice to be able to confirm my suspicions that they were just being friendly with the waiter, not cheating, and maybe get the two back together. But no it was go to person A, get quest, speak to person B, return with ring/update that they are keeping it.
There are some great quests, and lots of cool world building, but the RP portion is sometimes a bit lacking compared to (as you mentioned) New Vegas.
Internet commenters keep getting dumber and dumber. I figured anyone with two brain cells to rub together would see that human beings can understand nuance and that not everyone likes or dislikes the same things and that the entire game is not 100% objectively bad.
People tend to think on black and white and not grayscale.
If you objectively compare the mechanics, writings and factions to fallout 4, Starfield is almost a direct upgrade from fallout 4 in several aspects. Gunplay, gun customization, rpg check choices that play more role in having a unique experience, factions that arent totally terribly written like it is in FO4, where almost all factions are unlikable or not interesting.
The people who are let down by starfield expected bethesda to not make a bethesda game in simple terms.
Do i think its GOTY material, hell no (im basically at the point of no return point in the game). Its a helluva lot better than FO4, but people treat the game like it killed their first child.
Well, I wouldn’t necessarily say the exploration is as good, I think the issues about not having maps and there being a lot of loading screens are valid, but those problems don’t automatically make the game horrible, and while the optimization isn’t awesome after the recent update and Nvidia driver it looks decent and runs at an almost always locked out 60 FPS on my RTX 3060 with the settings lowered, so if you want the better visuals you can get there, and if you wanna play with smooth frame rate you can make that work, too. Again, not that that excuses it, but it’s not irredeemably bad.
I think it’s important that people understand what works about the game and what doesn’t, whether they come to an end result of liking it or not, I hate to see people shit on it wholesale, and I also hate to see people defend it wholesale as well. It’s got problems, but it’s got successes, too.
Gamers keep getting dumber and dumber. I figured anyone with two brain cells to rub together would see this would be a shit game
Oh fuck right off, let people enjoy the game.
As if I’m putting a gun to anyone’s head preventing them from doing so
No, but still you feel the need to shit all over something people really like and insult them for it. So explain that. Does it make you feel good?
Yeah not gonna lie it’s pretty hilarious to see people coping and defending a deeply flawed game that they paid full price for
Yeah ok, that’s your opinion. It’s wrong, of course, but keep it to yourself ffs.
Why is it shit?
Outdated engine, non existend optimization, mediocre writing, lacking ship travel, dead looking NPCs, general Bethesda bugginess, lack of DLSS support
The engine is what allows the game to have a thriving modding community already.
Imagine relying on free labor to fix your broken ass game, and then having people defend you when called out for making a boring game that relies on free labor for content.
Imagine thinking that what is very probably the most hand-crafted content ever in a 3D game, with one of the broadest variety of choices for anything close to that scale, is a game lacking content.
The most handcrafted what now hahaha holy shit is that satire?
It’s not an opinion. If you ignore straight procedural generation with no human input like no man’s sky, Starfield is very probably the biggest 3D game ever made. The fact that it’s an absolutely massive game isn’t debatable in any way.
Nobody who’s played it is making the ridiculous claim that they ran out of content. It’s fundamentally not possible for “relying on mods for content” to be in good faith.
I’m glad you enjoy the game but compared to the level of detail and polish Read Dead 2 had five years ago Starfield feels straight up antiquated imo
Uhh… Baldur’s Gate 3?
ROFL.
Imagine having that little understanding of how and why people enjoy modding their games.
Or what an engine is lol.
UE5 is “the same engine” iterated on in the same way Bethesda’s is, there are plenty of games using UE that don’t run well, and it would take plenty of custom work to build to Bethesda’s scale using it.
The current iteration of Unreal is completely unrecognizable from its original rendition, meanwhile this new version of the Creation Engine literally retains bugs present back in the days of Gamebryo. You simply can’t compare the two. But, in Bethesda’s defense, this isn’t due to incompetence or anything. It’s due to resource allocation and incentive.
There’s a reason most devs have been moving towards Unreal and away from making their own engines, and it’s because making your own proprietary engine takes insane amounts of time and resources - time and resources that devs don’t get any return on mind you. For most, it doesn’t make sense to dedicate loads of time to polishing an engine, when that time could be better spent on your next game - a game that you actually do get a return on.
Unreal is completely different in this regard, as Epic actually does get a return on their investment into the engine, as the engine itself is their product. So they have every incentive to polish Unreal as much as possible. That’s why it’s so insanely polished and indistinguishable from its original rendition. Not because all engines magically improve over time and at the same rate.
I know Todd Howard said that engines are somehow meaningless, and then a bunch of Bethesda fans took that and ran with it as a way to defend any criticism of the Creation Engine, but unfortunately it’s just not that simple.
And to be clear, I want the Creation Engine to succeed. I’ve been modding Bethesda games since 2013 and am still active in the modding community! The engine is rough but makes all of it possible, and the community at this point knows it so well that it’d be devastating to suddenly lose it all. But Bethesda needs to sit down and really dedicate some time to overhauling it, and unfortunately, albeit understandably, I just don’t see that happening.
None of those add up to “shit game”, in my mind.
But but modders will fix the 80 dollar game for free so the next game can still be from 2008
The only game that scratches the space exploration itch Elite doesn’t quite scratch (I mean, Elite is very good, but has it’s shortcomings when it comes to on-foot stuff). Ship interiors, base building and having actual life on planets, not just some fungoida and bacterium patches, alone are a reason to be excited about Starfield. Also, jetpack combat.
Funny how Elder Scrolls veterans are enjoying the game for what it is while bitter Playstation diehards, wishful thinkers with gigabyte-sized dreams.txt and bandwagon-o’-hate jumpers are complaining about things that never were to be so loud you can clearly hear the “Reeeeeeeeeee…” from Alpha Centauri😏
I’ve actually been really enjoying it. It’s a pleasant universe to just get absorbed in.
Sure, it’s got a lot of very valid complaints (performance, UX etc.) but they matter less to me the more I get into it. Writing is not groundbreaking, but it gets pretty good. Since very good voice acting from otherwise random NPCs.
Also the first game I’ve played that lets me use non-binary pronouns as a third option, rather than just Gendered or not. Very cool and I hope to see more games do that.
I’d say the most disappointing thing is how straightforward almost every quest is. They don’t do what Obsidian does in games like New Vegas and Outer Worlds where lots of quests have multiple resolutions, some hidden. In this game if it’s not in the objective list it’s usually not an option. It’s the typical Bethesda experience of course, rather than Obsidian’s, so it’s still nice for what it is.
It’s the closest I’ve personally felt to exploring and interacting with the worlds of Mass Effect 1 and Knights of the Old Republic in a long time. It’s got that sense of wander about it for me.
Yeah the straightforward quests are sometimes a little disappointing.
I.e. there’s a tiny side quest where you have to get some rich guys wedding ring back from his fiance. You go to the fiance and that say that they saw the rich guy cheating (having a conversation) with the waiter at their favorite restaurant, and that they shouldn’t have to give the ring back.
I went back to the rich guy to find out if this was true, and to insert myself firmly into their drama, but there was no new dialogue from the rich guy. I just had to pick a dialogue option to either take the ring or let the fiance keep it.
It would have been nice to be able to confirm my suspicions that they were just being friendly with the waiter, not cheating, and maybe get the two back together. But no it was go to person A, get quest, speak to person B, return with ring/update that they are keeping it.
There are some great quests, and lots of cool world building, but the RP portion is sometimes a bit lacking compared to (as you mentioned) New Vegas.
Internet commenters keep getting dumber and dumber. I figured anyone with two brain cells to rub together would see that human beings can understand nuance and that not everyone likes or dislikes the same things and that the entire game is not 100% objectively bad.
People tend to think on black and white and not grayscale.
If you objectively compare the mechanics, writings and factions to fallout 4, Starfield is almost a direct upgrade from fallout 4 in several aspects. Gunplay, gun customization, rpg check choices that play more role in having a unique experience, factions that arent totally terribly written like it is in FO4, where almost all factions are unlikable or not interesting.
The people who are let down by starfield expected bethesda to not make a bethesda game in simple terms.
Do i think its GOTY material, hell no (im basically at the point of no return point in the game). Its a helluva lot better than FO4, but people treat the game like it killed their first child.
Well, I wouldn’t necessarily say the exploration is as good, I think the issues about not having maps and there being a lot of loading screens are valid, but those problems don’t automatically make the game horrible, and while the optimization isn’t awesome after the recent update and Nvidia driver it looks decent and runs at an almost always locked out 60 FPS on my RTX 3060 with the settings lowered, so if you want the better visuals you can get there, and if you wanna play with smooth frame rate you can make that work, too. Again, not that that excuses it, but it’s not irredeemably bad.
I think it’s important that people understand what works about the game and what doesn’t, whether they come to an end result of liking it or not, I hate to see people shit on it wholesale, and I also hate to see people defend it wholesale as well. It’s got problems, but it’s got successes, too.
Them down votes, though…
Lots of buyers remorse from bethesda paypigs