Starfield: Thoughts?

[Tranxalive]

I just watched the Starfield Direct and I am amazed with what I saw. If I typed out everything I liked about it, I’d be here all day, so in short: I think it could be a new favorite game of mine. Of course, there is a chance that it’s an unplayable buggy mess, but all the footage has me fooled.

I’m curious to see what everyone else thinks about it.

[chew-ie]

I said it elsewhere already - Starfield will be awesome. The presentation only confirmed that so far. =)

It seems it will be what NMS tried to be - as Bethesda finally catched up with the tech (NMS pioneered). So I've a good feeling about the 1000 planets one can visit - as they just confirmed they are "real" objects. That hint about the moon one can see AND visit - awesome Speaking about NMS - while the NMS world was awesome, the character designs and story was .. not (too childish for my taste). This is were Starfield will be different - in a positive sense to me.

Really looking foward to it - I hope I can even play it on the steamdeck =)

edit Also - I absolutely love the art direction. The NASA punk is a fitting name I'd say

[Tranxalive]

It seems it will be what NMS tried to be - as Bethesda finally catched up with the tech (NMS pioneered). So I've a good feeling about the 1000 planets one can visit - as they just confirmed they are "real" objects. That hint about the moon one can see AND visit - awesome Speaking about NMS - while the NMS world was awesome, the character designs and story was .. not (too childish for my taste). This is were Starfield will be different - in a positive sense to me.

Really looking foward to it - I hope I can even play it on the steamdeck =)

edit Also - I absolutely love the art direction. The NASA punk is a fitting name I'd say

Well, Hello Games isn't done with NMS yet, apparently. I think them adding new stuff actually might be an obsession. Of course, I’m still happy for the new content. But back on topic,

I’m very excited to go exploring some planets, as well as building some spaceships and outposts. Those features definitely caught my interest,

I’m hoping there’s quite a bit of interesting plots to go through, (I mean, it’s a Bethesda game, there’s no reason there shouldn’t.) hopefully not too generic, but also some with some classic tropes.

The little “space magic” teaser simultaneously made me think “Oh come on, Really?” And “That’s a nice bonus in terms of features.” We’ll see what it adds to game, or takes away. But I think it’s probably going to be interesting. (I actually made a joke about it before that was shown too!)

I do like the art direction as well. It reminds me of Elite: Dangerous, but also mixed with The Expanse. The Expanse had an excellent aesthetic in my opinion.

[mr.WHO]

No Preorders, No release day buys, No exceptions.

[chew-ie]

Actually, I'd preorder the constellation edition. But it seems they only ship to US

[Cpt.Jericho]

It's a Bethesda game. I only buy those looooong after initial release because:

a) tons of release day bugs that get at least ironed out to make it possible to play.
b) modders iron out the bugs that're left.
c) modders need time to add all the stuff that should have been in the game from day one.
d) I don't play Bethesda games vanilla.

Remember: It's not a bug, it's a feature

[felter]

As Cpt.Jericho says it's a Bethesda game, so naturally I expect it to be a massive bugfest at launch, but then saying that, Bethesda is now a Microsoft company and since Microsoft took over they have even been taking care of bugs in their older games and I mean older games like Morrowind, so I'm eagerly awaiting the launch just to see how bad the bugs are. Though, saying that, I doubt very much that I will be buying it at launch.

[notaterran]

Looks like what Osiris New Dawn could've been if they had Bethesda's resources (I still had some fun with that game). I'll probably buy it at launch because since Deus Ex: Invisible War I already have disappointment factored in. I bought Fallout 4 and Cyberpunk at launch but nothing has ever been as soul-crushing to me as Invisible War. So how bad can Starfield be?

I hope that the game will make good use of the computer's resources and we won't get massive stuttering with decent systems. Seems like GPUs will take a real beating though.

[Axeface]

Exactly what I expected. Firstly, why can bethesda not do beards? It really, really annoys me. Secondly, while the game i'm sure will be fairly good (a 75%er, like most bethesda games these days.... good-ish, but no masterpiece), im not seeing much about the story. They showcased the gameplay which looks fine/good, which we didnt really learn much about here, it mostly showed things we already knew. Ide really like to know more about the story and the characters. As for the characters and writing, what I saw today was frankly disappointing - it all seemed very shallow. I have a feeling that Starfield is going to be a big game with very little soul.
I also think the big selling points that they keep talking about dont seem impressive at all if my assumptions about how they actually work are correct (like 1000 planets). I hear 'planet/moon' and I just think 'map' while many seem to make a lot of assumptions and consider this some kind of revolution when it isnt (only Star Citizen with its scale is attempting something worthy of those names). I really want to know more about the story... I want to know why i'll care about these 1000 bethesda scale 'planets' and 'moons'.

I hope that the game will make good use of the computer's resources and we won't get massive stuttering with decent systems. Seems like GPUs will take a real beating though.

I expect that it will run on everything, even potatoes, gotta sell it on every platform imaginable. But the usual bethesda issues could be seen throughout the presentation. Blurry scenes (this annoys me no end, and all bethesda games suffer from this), frame skips and jitter.

Overall. Personally I am actually disappointed after today, I think its going to be just what I thought it was - A distraction until the next TES game. I dont think I will find a new home with this franchise like I did with TES. Everyone seems so positive but I just have more questions. They showed enough content to distract everyone from the real questions AFAIC. I got The Outer Worlds vibes big time, and I consider that game a massive waste of my money and cant refund it.

[chew-ie]

I got The Outer Worlds vibes big time, and I consider that game a massive waste of my money and cant refund it.

Funny enough - this is exactly what got me [even more] excited. The Outer Worlds is just "my game" - hit the same nerve as Rebel Galaxy did. Then again as a kid I loved e.g. Bravestar and Galaxy Rangers. The moment they showed the space cowboy town in the Starfield universe I was like "Yeeeehaaa!"

For me as a cRPG enthusiast and fan of the X series Starfield merges the best of two worlds. The only disappointment so far for me is that there seems to be no turrets on the [player] ships - so we won't be able to build destroyers and dreadnoughts [without mods] it seems.

[Golden_Gonads]

I'm expecting Fallout in Space and thats just fine. My expectations are for a decent/good game which is just a little disappointing.

I've been poodling around with the Microsoft reward points thingy the last few weeks (Use bing search, daily 2 minute tasks etc) so if I can't pick up a copy on the cheap, I'll probably cash some of those in for a months game pass.

[Tranxalive]

I think its going to be just what I thought it was - A distraction until the next TES game. I dont think I will find a new home with this franchise like I did with TES.

I don’t agree with this. The scope and perceived ambition of the game seems way too large for it to be just a distraction. I think they’re genuinely going to make this a new game series, assuming the game does well. But of course, it’d take a decade or two for a sequel. I just hope that they avoid making a game that’s just TES: Online, or Fallout 76 in Starfield’s universe. They probably won’t, but maybe it might be interesting. At least for a few hours.

I’m sure there’s a few things they’re being lazy about, and 1000 planets just means 1000 celestial objects, most of which are unexplorable. But we’ll see. Either way, I’m my opinion the game definitely seems like it’s worth checking out, especially since I believe it’s going to be on Game Pass.

[Alerion_V.X3]

Can't think, am hyped I better not watch any more pre-release videos on that. It's still so long until September.

The game better be absolutely great. If not, I'm afraid I'll have to shoot a kitten. Oh no, I couldn't do that... but then... I'll think of something.

[Cpt.Jericho]

I’m sure there’s a few things they’re being lazy about, and 1000 planets just means 1000 celestial objects, most of which are unexplorable. But we’ll see.

Having still the name Bethesda in my mind I wouldn't be surprised if lots of those 1000 planets will be added via DLCs.

[chew-ie]

It's all out there...

[Observe]

I wonder if one of the planets will be Nirn from the Elder Scrolls? Lets see how dragons hold up against 2330 weapons.

[Golden_Gonads]

I’m sure there’s a few things they’re being lazy about, and 1000 planets just means 1000 celestial objects, most of which are unexplorable. But we’ll see. Either way, I’m my opinion the game definitely seems like it’s worth checking out, especially since I believe it’s going to be on Game Pass.

I think I recall them saying that all the planet's can be visited, but almost all of them will be procedurally generated, with just a couple fully fleshed out and a few more with set locations.

The game will be on Game Pass day one, but I don't know if you'll need Game Pass Ultimate as opposed to regular.

[Tranxalive]

I wonder if one of the planets will be Nirn from the Elder Scrolls? Lets see how dragons hold up against 2330 weapons.

Now that I’d like to see.
Imagine someone fully recreating all of Tamriel and modding in all the enemies too! Bonus points if they add in a couple NPCs with some classic or themed quests. I guess an easy way to explain Nirn being there and being accessible would to just use the weird Ancient Alien Gate thing that probably grants Space Magic abilities, and say that it leads to another universe.
It would certainly be an interesting Technology vs. Magic(k) dynamic.

[chew-ie]

Actually, I'd preorder the constellation edition. But it seems they only ship to US

Silly me - I'm so used to not buy digital goods in retail stores anymore that I didn't thought about getting the CE from there. I just checked the Bethesda store and hit the wall ("only US delivery") So, I placed my order now

And before the judging starts: this CE is one of the very few I bought. In fact so far I only bought the X4 CE and this one. X4 because I wanted to support Egosoft as a whole (#BecomingIndy) and this one because I want to underline that I like the idea of this game - including not giving in to multiplayer crap and other stuff found in todays modern games. This is a consumers choice and it is not only about getting the game. It is about showing support and the "Yes, you are on the right track" sign.

[Feloidea]

As others had noted already, I wouldn't touch Starfield until way, way later because I absolutely expect it to be a bugridden mess for several major patch cycles at the very least. Plus I'm far from being hyped on the vastness of their universe. Procedural generation tends to be repetitive and if we're talking repetitive x1000 for all those planets it's just a recipe for boredom. In addition: quests, encounters, etc. are also going to be randomly generated on these worlds so it's not like I expect anything outside of the typically short main story to be particularily engaging.

Honestly I've just been burned out by most of the last decade's big game hypes falling disastrously short to the point that I just mute the audio and look at the art design and gamplay without having to listen them running down their formulaic buzzword checklist and what I've seen in the Direct presentation wasn't exactly thrilling, looked just like gameplay from any other of their recent games packaged in a different look.

Starfield is only really interesting if they can deliver on most of the grand promises they made, but Bethesda has a long track record of overhyping and underdelivering. Only once I hear from lots of people that the game is actually making good on the hype, that all these planets, moons etc that you can visit actually come with engaging quests, dungeons, combat and/or exploration AND after a suitable amount of time has passed for the game to be (hopefully) patched to a degree that offers acceptable performance would I ever consider getting it, preferably on sale with the inevitable DLC. If it's just another 8 hour campaign with ~20 hours of decent sidequests and a thousand planets with randomized stuff to bloat the game, no thank you.