starfield, are you excited?

[darwin006]

3 hours ago, maartendc said:

True, but isn't this the case for every game? Do a lot of games release unedited long gameplay videos before release?

Not every company will but a lot do. I wouldnt buy a game without seeing the game play first.

[hollyh88]

On 8/29/2023 at 3:21 PM, Holmes108 said:

 

Then it wouldn't be an expansion?

 

But yeah, I am curious exactly what it entails. The majority of the reason I went with the premium was the early access, but the additional single player content did tip the scales a bit, since I don't really care about skins or gear, etc... 

 

But is this several hours of a storyline, or just a handful of fetch quests? I'm curious.

the dlc comes later usually a bethesda dlc is always full of story and interesting places and characters

[hollyh88]

On 8/29/2023 at 1:30 PM, Tan3l6 said:

Refunded the previous 70€ "standard edition"  and ordered 100€ "early access" edition.

I guess I'm hyped now. 

 

Strange that the first day "expansion" is not included in the "standard edition".

we are almost here

[hollyh88]

i can also confirm they have indeed updated their animation systems and it is now possible to climb ladders in the game  

[PDifolco]

Was pretty excited as I was a big Skyrim fan, and love sci fi settings

But then BG3 came out and I'm fully engrossed in this game, it's using all my playtime and I'm midgame only, it's certainly the best DnD RPG I've ever played  (and I started with SSI Gold Box series in Jurassic era  )

 

[WildDagwood]

Some reviews point out mediocre graphics, but the biggest issue is the lighting. It's honestly horrible.

 

Luckily, a modder will probably fix it.

[ARandomPerson]

I'm kind of excited for the launch, but TBH, It just came with the purchase of my 7600X, so a masterpiece or a flop, free is free to me.

[RejZoR]

Started playing this morning and it's quite interesting. It's like The Elder Scrolls in space with guns. Graphics could be better, but they aren't really that bad. It is odd that game doesn't support HDR tho. Just started using it in some games and now I miss it here... I also hate how some key binds are hardcoded (for example I can't bind Quick Inventory to Insert key above arrow keys). Also lack of FOV controls is annoying though i did find tweak for INI file on Starfields Steam community page...

[Holmes108]

I'll copy my first impressions from elsewhere:

 

I do agree with almost all the criticisms I've seen (re: loading screens, lack of space traversal, etc), even though I KNEW (and argued) that it was never meant to be a NMS/Elite Dangerous type space sim, once in game I still had to get my head around the true realization that it's really just another Bethesda game at the end of the day (and I do love Bethesda games).

 

However, about midway through my 4 hours of playing last night, I still got pretty hooked going around and doing the quests etc.

 

I think you really just have to look at it as a straight up Space RPG, even more akin to Mass Effect than to a traditional BGS game. It has almost all the DNA of a Bethesda game, but I agree it almost doesn't even feel open world.

 

It's open world in that it's non-linear with a million things to do. But not in that seamless, Oblivion/Skyrim/Fallout way.

 

So that's a little disappointing. But now that I have my expectations properly in check, I think I'm still going to really enjoy it a ton as a straight up RPG. And I haven't even really gotten to any outpost building or ship customization (my most anticipated aspects), so hopefully they're somewhat compelling.

 

TL;DR Expectations can be a bitch, but I still think it'll be a really great game.

[Vishera]

One of the worst  optimized games i have ever seen.

The "But, Can it run Crysis?" should by replaced with "But can it run Starfield?"

[xAcid9]

I'm skipping this one, not the Skyrim experience that I'm looking for. 

[Riccardo Cagnasso]

I tried it. I didn't go past the ship flying tutorial.
It's sooo bad, The opening sequence is pitiful.
Say what you want about fallout 4, but the beginning with the bombs falling was kinda epic.
This is so generic. Your generic character have to do a generic task, a generic strange thing happen, another generic character comes by, say some generic stuff, a generic space pirate faction appears and a generic fight ensues. Then everyone is impressed because you shoot to pirates (like everyone else) and they make you captain and git you a ship. So cool.

The combat system is bad. Enemies are bullet sponges who don't even flinch when shot at. The space combat is a joke. Seems like a demo.

[maartendc]

On 9/1/2023 at 2:57 PM, Holmes108 said:

I'll copy my first impressions from elsewhere:

 

I do agree with almost all the criticisms I've seen (re: loading screens, lack of space traversal, etc), even though I KNEW (and argued) that it was never meant to be a NMS/Elite Dangerous type space sim, once in game I still had to get my head around the true realization that it's really just another Bethesda game at the end of the day (and I do love Bethesda games).

Yes, I have not played it, but after watching numerous gameplay videos, this sticks out to me. It almost seems like the game is actually LESS open than a game like Fallout and Skyrim, even though the total playable area is probably technically much bigger, it feels smaller.

 

Its like jumping from map to map in your spaceship, doing a task, then jumping to a different map. It all feels very disjointed.

 

I know there must be technical limitations to their engine, but it is still disappointing for a "space game". The scope actually seems similar to The Outer Worlds, which was developed by a team of 75. This was a team of 500 developers. A bit disappointing they couldn't expand the scope much.

 

I understand it probably wasn't feasible to do No Man's Sky level of freedom. BUT If they could have only implemented at Least ONE of the following:

- fly around on planet surface, even if you cannot land everywhere.

- fly between planets in the same system, even if you cannot fly down to the surface.

- physically fly from orbit down onto the planet surface, even if you can only land in a few places

 

... it would have felt much better.

[maartendc]

2 hours ago, Riccardo Cagnasso said:

I tried it. I didn't go past the ship flying tutorial.
It's sooo bad, The opening sequence is pitiful.
Say what you want about fallout 4, but the beginning with the bombs falling was kinda epic.
This is so generic. Your generic character have to do a generic task, a generic strange thing happen, another generic character comes by, say some generic stuff, a generic space pirate faction appears and a generic fight ensues. Then everyone is impressed because you shoot to pirates (like everyone else) and they make you captain and git you a ship. So cool.

The combat system is bad. Enemies are bullet sponges who don't even flinch when shot at. The space combat is a joke. Seems like a demo.

So you got the early access version and refunded it?

 

I think I will try it on Game Pass, I won't pay $70 for it... And I was thinking of upgrading my PC to play it, but I don't think I will.

[Riccardo Cagnasso]

2 hours ago, maartendc said:

So you got the early access version and refunded it?

 

I think I will try it on Game Pass, I won't pay $70 for it... And I was thinking of upgrading my PC to play it, but I don't think I will.

I played on a friend pc

[Fr33K!e]

I was hyped up until about six months ago... The state that games are getting released in today is far from acceptable and after playing games that have been released over the last few years that have been as buggy as hell I took a step back as I almost pre ordered it!

 

I don't care all that much these days about playing a game earlier than its release date and with having Game Pass and Starfield coming to that I didn't see the point in paying for it.

 

[SydneyBrokeIt]

I've been enjoying it quite a bit.  It's not perfect, but it's what I was hoping for and then some.

 

Actually planning an upgrade to make it run a little better.  It's not bad, just would like to get more out of it.

 

The game is pretty much fleshed out.  The usual open-world/BGS bugs, but it's pretty stable for me.

[05032-Mendicant-Bias]

Starfield is the first Bethesda game I'll try at launch. I waited one year for skyrim, and even today, I cannot play vanilla Skyrim because of how bad the inventory is. I played Fallout 4 only recently, and with the appropriate amount of mods the fallout  inventory is even worse than skyrim, I ended up liking it. I didn't like the weapons, and i still don't like how depressing the Commonwealth is as an environment. I'm also playing Baldur's Gate 3, and I think the holes in Starfield will be all the more glaring when I switch between the two. I'll see if I end up regretting buying starfield day one.

I bought CP77 at launch and liked it a lot, I love the whole digital/soul theme going on. And I find the story amazing. I can tell that three years later is a much improved game, but it's just a good excuse to do a new character with a different build.
 

In Skyrim and fallout I like wandering the map to discover new things, I suspect it's something I'm going to dislike in Starfield that you can't really explore this way. The feature that sold me Starfield is ship customization. I have been waiting forever for a game where you can fully customize and use your starship to do things.

 

I like Sector Six because of the ability to build your ship block by block. I have been waiting forever for a game that integrates ship customization, both inside and out, with functional components. Space Engineers is a survival/sandbox focused on building ships, but that's all there is to it.

No Man's Sky is a sandbox/survival game, and there is a lot I like there, customizing multitools, spacesuit, making bases and starship systems. A feature No man's Sky still doesn't have is the ability to fully customize your ships exterior, you are bound by the RNG of the ships spawing. It takes visiting hundreds of systems to find the shape you like. It would be a killer feature if you could dismantle a No Man's Sky ship to unlock its modules and frame, and build your dream ship module by module. You can build a base inside your large freighter, but cannot customize not the exterior outside the color.

[ARandomPerson]

This comment serves as a reminder for those who got the standard edition to start pre-downloading the game. Especially if you have low-bandwidth internet.

[Holmes108]

11 hours ago, SydneyBrokeIt said:

I've been enjoying it quite a bit.  It's not perfect, but it's what I was hoping for and then some.

 

Actually planning an upgrade to make it run a little better.  It's not bad, just would like to get more out of it.

 

The game is pretty much fleshed out.  The usual open-world/BGS bugs, but it's pretty stable for me.

 

Yep, I'm at 27 hours now and absolutely hooked. Really loving the stories and quests. I've modified my ships a little bit (nothing from scratch yet, that seems more end gameish). About to start messing with outposts. 

 

Now that I understand all the ins and outs of the space stuff I really like it too, and do find it much more immersive than I initially thought I would. While it's missing out a bit on the "explore a massive landmass with many biomes seamlessly" aspect, that's okay to me, and the RPG and general exploration is still top notch. Loving all the varieties of locales, the different city aesthetics, etc.

[Middcore]

Been playing about 18 hours now.

 

I will say that they dropped the ball with the opening to the game. Compared to the dragon attack and subsequent escape in Skyrim, the start of this game is not exciting or memorable. It feels like they went "Uh, and then some pirates show up? Whatever" early in development, slapped this together, and never revisited it. It really gives a poor first look and it certainly doesn't motivate the player to advance the main quest at all, which is a problem because this is a game where I'd say you really should do the main quest for at least a few missions get a feel for things, visit some key locations, and open stuff up.

 

But my impressions of the game have steadily improved the more I've played. FPS combat is solid, a huge step up from the Fallout games.

 

There's more to the ship combat than first meets the eye (did you know there are RCS thrusters? probably not, because the game doesn't tell you).

 

The ship construction is really pretty remarkable even if I wish there was a bit more variety in the aesthetic of the parts.

 

I wish there was a bit more to do in your ship once you've built it, but realistically if they had tried to make the space sequences more Elite-like a lot of players would have decried them as tedious. (In general, in a lot of areas where I'm less than totally satisfied with the way something was implemented in this game, I can also see how doing it a different way would have introduced its own problems.) 

 

I was underwhelmed by planetary exploration at first and I don't think I'm ever going to get into outpost building, but I've never really gotten into that kind of thing in any game and I've had good "WTF is that?" moments finding alien fauna. 

 

Seen lots of angst about performance and optimization. The game runs nicely with my 5600X and RX 6800 (which is below the recommended GPU spec) at high settings 1440p. Consistent 50-60fps outdoors and higher indoors, which is totally adequate for the gameplay. 

 

As for bugs, I basically haven't experienced any worth talking about. I saw an NPC sitting on the floor clip into an object behind them once, that's literally the most notable bug I've seen. Nothing that affects gameplay in any way.

 

The only thing I'm stuck on right now is wondering whether I want to start over with a different character now that I have a better feel for the game, but I'm a person who really overthinks character choices in any type of RPG.

 

It's pretty clear to me that there was a sizable contingent of gAmErS who were pretty much rooting for this game to be be "bad" for the sake of memes and console war toxicity. Hopefully they won't succeed in forming the narrative of popular perception. It's been interesting to watch the general tone of the impressions online shift from "Boy this is a really lame start" to "OK actually once you put in 10-12 hours or so this game slaps" over the course of the early access period. Will be interesting to see if the cycle repeats after the game releases to everybody.

 

 

 

[Holmes108]

8 minutes ago, Middcore said:

Been playing about 18 hours now.

 

I will say that they dropped the ball with the opening to the game. Compared to the dragon attack and subsequent escape in Skyrim, the start of this game is not exciting or memorable. It feels like they went "Uh, and then some pirates show up? Whatever" early in development, slapped this together, and never revisited it. It really gives a poor first look and it certainly doesn't motivate the player to advance the main quest at all, which is a problem because this is a game where I'd say you really should do the main quest for at least a few missions get a feel for things, visit some key locations, and open stuff up.

 

But my impressions of the game have steadily improved the more I've played. FPS combat is solid, a huge step up from the Fallout games.

 

There's more to the ship combat than first meets the eye (did you know there are RCS thrusters? probably not, because the game doesn't tell you).

 

The ship construction is really pretty remarkable even if I wish there was a bit more variety in the aesthetic of the parts.

 

I wish there was a bit more to do in your ship once you've built it, but realistically if they had tried to make the space sequences more Elite-like a lot of players would have decried them as tedious. (In general, in a lot of areas where I'm less than totally satisfied with the way something was implemented in this game, I can also see how doing it a different way would have introduced its own problems.) 

 

I was underwhelmed by planetary exploration at first and I don't think I'm ever going to get into outpost building, but I've never really gotten into that kind of thing in any game and I've had good "WTF is that?" moments finding alien fauna. 

 

Seen lots of angst about performance and optimization. The game runs nicely with my 5600X and RX 6800 (which is below the recommended GPU spec) at high settings 1440p. Consistent 50-60fps and higher indoors, which is totally adequate for the gameplay. 

 

As for bugs, I basically haven't experienced any worth talking about. I saw an NPC sitting on the floor clip into an object behind them once, that's literally the most notable bug I've seen. Nothing that affects gameplay in any way.

 

The only thing I'm stuck on right now is wondering whether I want to start over with a different character now that I have a better feel for the game, but I'm a person who really overthinks character choices in any type of RPG.

 

It's pretty clear to me that there was a sizable contingent of gAmErS who were pretty much rooting for this game to be be "bad" for the sake of memes and console war toxicity. Hopefully they won't succeed in forming the narrative of popular perception. It's been interesting to watch the general tone of the impressions online shift from "Boy this is a really lame start" to "OK actually once you put in 10-12 hours or so this game it slaps" over the course of the early access period. Will be interesting to see if the cycle repeats after the game releases to everybody.

 

 

 

 

Yep, mirrors my feelings pretty perfectly. 

 

In that first hour or two, it really seemed like the ship was going to be nothing but a fast travel/teleport vessel (that you could mostly do from land anyways!), but I'm glad that isn't the case (or doesn't need to be, at least). The random encounters, and variety of stuff to do, even from what's essentially just "orbit" has kept me surprisingly engaged.

 

I'm with you on missing out on some of the "tutorial" type stuff. For example, if you skip out on the main quest as soon as you're able (common in Bethesda games), I'm not sure if or when you'll ever learn that it's possible to stealth by ships if you reduce all your energy except 1 or 2 in engines. There are several things like that.

 

I only knew about the thrusters because as a lefty,  I took the time to remap all the controls.

 

I do wish the game had some more of the interface staples of a top notch RPG, like dialog history, and a few other quality of life things like that. But it can always be patched or modded in I suppose.

[Middcore]

1 minute ago, Holmes108 said:

I'm with you on missing out on some of the "tutorial" type stuff. For example, if you skip out on the main quest as soon as you're able (common in Bethesda games), I'm not sure if or when you'll ever learn that it's possible to stealth by ships if you reduce all your energy except 1 or 2 in engines. 

 

Ha! I didn't know this one yet. Do you learn this in the mission where you're 

 

Spoiler

looking for the missing Vanguard guy and there's some Va'ruun Zealot ships? My character has the Great Serpent trait so I was able to tell Sarah to recite some of their religious litany over comms to get them to let us pass.

 

I wish there were "presets" for the ship energy management you could set instead of manually adjusting each category during combat. 

[Holmes108]

23 minutes ago, Middcore said:

 

Ha! I didn't know this one yet. Do you learn this in the mission where you're 

 

  Hide contents

looking for the missing Vanguard guy and there's some Va'ruun Zealot ships? My character has the Great Serpent trait so I was able to tell Sarah to recite some of their religious litany over comms to get them to let us pass.

 

 

I can't recall. Was that right before 

 

Spoiler

you get sent to sol, looking for Barrett? I think that's where It was. I had to stealth by them, scan a probe and move on.

 

And yes, energy presets is a great idea! I don't tweak them enough during combat because they're a bit of a pain.

[SydneyBrokeIt]

I feel like saying that because it didn't hit the same level of oomph as Skyrim, it failed, is really doing a disservice to both games.  Skyrim's opening was really exceptional in its own right.  Starfield's opening certainly isn't to that level, but it's good for what it aims to be -- I think our meter is busted is all.