Starfield Review Embargo ends August 31 at 9AM PT (UP: Many UK outlets did not receive code, Eurogamer has a code now, review will be late)
- Thread starter Theorry
- Start date
- Status
This whole discussion about zones and borders actually proves something Bethesda has talked about in the past regarding the way they build their Elder Scrolls games.
Specifically, they talked about the inclusion of hundreds of readable books in those games and how the vast majority of players perhaps look at one or two of them and then never do so again. The question was why Bethesda even bothered adding those books when players interacted so little with them. After all, wasn't this a lot of work for very little payoff?
The answer was that they wrote the books not with the expectation that players would actually read them, but to give players the knowledge that they could choose to do so if they so wished, even if they never actually did. It makes the world feel more real and immersive and strengthens the feeling that you can do anything in these games. After all, choosing not to do something can be equally as important as choosing to do it.
Nobody is going to ever reach the borders in Starfield, based on what we've heard, unless they deliberately go out of their way to get to them and waste a ton of time doing so. But what I think this discussion reveals is that a lot of players want those borders to be gone in case they ever choose to walk across the planet, even if almost nobody would even try. It's about the illusion of choice and making the world feel big, and having these borders takes away one of those illusions.
Personally, I don't give a shit. I'm never going to reach those borders anyway, and I'm not going to try. But I definitely see why some players feel like seamless planets are important to a game like this, even if they would never ever take advantage of them. It's also fascinating how Bethesda seems well aware of the psychology behind this.
Specifically, they talked about the inclusion of hundreds of readable books in those games and how the vast majority of players perhaps look at one or two of them and then never do so again. The question was why Bethesda even bothered adding those books when players interacted so little with them. After all, wasn't this a lot of work for very little payoff?
The answer was that they wrote the books not with the expectation that players would actually read them, but to give players the knowledge that they could choose to do so if they so wished, even if they never actually did. It makes the world feel more real and immersive and strengthens the feeling that you can do anything in these games. After all, choosing not to do something can be equally as important as choosing to do it.
Nobody is going to ever reach the borders in Starfield, based on what we've heard, unless they deliberately go out of their way to get to them and waste a ton of time doing so. But what I think this discussion reveals is that a lot of players want those borders to be gone in case they ever choose to walk across the planet, even if almost nobody would even try. It's about the illusion of choice and making the world feel big, and having these borders takes away one of those illusions.
Personally, I don't give a shit. I'm never going to reach those borders anyway, and I'm not going to try. But I definitely see why some players feel like seamless planets are important to a game like this, even if they would never ever take advantage of them. It's also fascinating how Bethesda seems well aware of the psychology behind this.
The zones aren't the only vital information the show left out. I think they didn't clarify in-atmosphere flights and vehicles as well. They didn't show boarding ship, fly into space and land on planets how it looks during gameplay.
And some people obviously care if you can travel the whole planet or just a few zones. I am not one of them.
It was quite clear that you dont pilot your ship in atmosphere, and I believe they answered Q&A about there not being vehicles. They have shown the animation of getting in your seat and taking off, or landing like on a city landing pad, etc. and boarding an enemy ship.
Going to be playing it on my Series X using Gamepass. I'm not spending extra money to play a game early, so I'll be diving in on the 6th.
I guess we just have different ideas as to what is vital, then.
Well written. This is how I feel even though I can't imagine myself reaching these borders either.
Uhm they literally showed take off being an animated sequence lol
So i dont know if this question has been answered. But we know we can board and hijack ships pirate style and take them as our own. However, do we know if we have a landing pad somewhere we can store them? Or some kind of space garage? How many can we "own?"
Im curious how these mechanics all will work together.
Im curious how these mechanics all will work together.
31 for the GP upgrade and then I'll buy the full game when it's 30 this holiday if it has anywhere the longevity of Skyrim.
I was tempted to upgrade my 3600 to a 5800x3d but i feel that is a waste of money when I want to upgrade my entire pc next year for a hybrid of video editing and gaming.
3600/3060ti/32gb of ram, don't fail me.
3600/3060ti/32gb of ram, don't fail me.
oh, well that's good enough for me then. I'm sure I will play it again with mods in a year on a better system.
this videogame won't run on the piece of plastic I've pledged undying devotion and eternal allegiance to so I will make it my quest to go on the internet and embarass myself trying to make others realize they won't be having fun with it
We can board and hijack ships. I believe I saw a landing pad at a player built outpost in the direct but no kind of hangar to my knowledge.
Yeah. Im just curious how many ships we can store and where would store them, essentially.
I swear I saw it referred to as a "fleet" and it's basically your roster of saved ships. Im assuming you could save it to your roster as an unregistered ship.
If I can save more sandwiches than I can ships, this game deserves an F.
WTF I can't do that in starfield? Fuck the missions or progressing the story, I wanted to land on every planet and spend countless hours walking until I came back to where I started from.
Gamepass sub cancelled
They've been clear since their 2022 presentation that in-atmo flying wasn't a thing, and they've never said anything about vehicles at all. They also told us that taking off and landing was a cutscene in 2022.
Common sense extrapolation would dictate that the act of boarding is probably just holding down a button or something as the game lines up your ships' hatches automatically, then a load when you go through the airlock to the other ship. Perhaps akin to how you boarded ships in AC4 Black Flag.
I don't think not going into granular detail about how literally every last thing in the game works mechanically constitutes some sort of willful omission of 'vital' information. The problem is that peoples' imaginations have become completely untethered about what will be possible, to the point that they thought it was going to be some kind of 'everything game' in space like Star Citizen will be when it reaches alpha in 2070. There's a reason the only two good examples of full-planet exploration are the very simple planets of NMS, and the $600 million dollar boondoggle with no release date in sight of Star Citizen.
Assuming these limitations are even accurate, they're boundaries that 98% of players would never encounter. I'll probably be putting hundreds of hours into Starfield and doing everything there is to do, and even I doubt I'll ever actually wander so aimlessly so far from my landing sport that the game literally stops me.
I get the 'immersion' factor of "I don't plan to do it, I just like to know that I could if I wanted to", same as doing sub-light burns between planets or whatever. But in terms of the actual game experience, this is the nothingest of nothingburgers. It's a bun with a black hole in the middle.
The only console warring I'm seeing is people responding to that idiot nobodies Twitter post. Like the last 3 pages is people bitching about something that isn't even happening in this thread.
Also, while it was probably unreasonable to expect to fully roam the planets, Bethesda was more than happy to let you think that you could do that up until now. And it's not like they aren't known to hide secrets in off the path areas.
I'm happy to have a, well not FOCUSED, path but at least not world spanning exploration area. Too many times in games I spend a hundred hours doing that instead of continuing the game, and then getting burnt out.
Also, while it was probably unreasonable to expect to fully roam the planets, Bethesda was more than happy to let you think that you could do that up until now. And it's not like they aren't known to hide secrets in off the path areas.
I'm happy to have a, well not FOCUSED, path but at least not world spanning exploration area. Too many times in games I spend a hundred hours doing that instead of continuing the game, and then getting burnt out.
Seems like they're accessible from the ship menu. The amount no clue.
I like the idea of having some sort of "chop shop." Acquire ships. Change them up a bit and sell them for big bucks (if possible)
What about a ship made to look like a sandwich?
I mean that's pretty much my approach to all their games.
I think on one of the q/a they mentioned 9 ships you can own/have registered to yourself at once
Aye. It could be frustrating but given the likely use cases etc I can't imagine it's going to even affect most players.
All of this.
In heavily edited gameplay snippets. There was never uncut gameplay hence I was so relieved when I watched the leak because there are just very short cut to black "loading screens".
Comparing it to Bethesda's insistence on making every tiny mundane object interactable makes a good point. Their games are immersive sims, and part of that philosophy is knowing the game world has functions far beyond what most players will realistically do in them. It gives the sense that the game world lives and breaths beyond what the player does.
My theory though is that the bounding boxes are there for two reasons:
1) Adding procedurally generated planets and solar systems bumped up against the limits of what the Creation Engine could do while also still offering all the same gameplay as Skyrim and Fallout. Elite: Dangerous still doesn't let you land on Earth-like planets, for comparison.
2) Because each landing space procedurally places a handcrafted POI, there are a limited number of handcrafted POIs, and the game will eventually run out of them.
I had the same dilemma, hoping my 3600 and 6650xt do well.
For real, the dogpile defense is almost as bad.
I wonder how threads will be set out for this.
obviously there will be the OT's, but what about creations? will there be one thread for characters/ships/bases/settlements, or would there be separate?
would there be a thread for cool locations (I.e. if you go to planet x in system you, and land at coordinate z, you can find an awesome outlook that makes an awesome spaceship landing dock)
obviously there will be the OT's, but what about creations? will there be one thread for characters/ships/bases/settlements, or would there be separate?
would there be a thread for cool locations (I.e. if you go to planet x in system you, and land at coordinate z, you can find an awesome outlook that makes an awesome spaceship landing dock)
Well, there is a character thread here: https://www.resetera.com/threads/st...-here-with-a-character-sheet-template.757645/
There are several threads for other games, so why not.
The coordinates thing won't work because the worlds are newly generated for every playthrough.
fairly certain that the landscape of Planet X will always be Planet X no matter what . Planets are not procedurally generated for every play through or person.
I ended up upgrading to premium since I'll be using my sister's gamepass. I wouldn't have it I were buying the game but since I'd have access either way, why not.
I'll double dip on steam someday in the future when it goes on sale in case modding or such is different. Makes me wonder if there will be some way to convert saves.
I'll double dip on steam someday in the future when it goes on sale in case modding or such is different. Makes me wonder if there will be some way to convert saves.
Imagine having 3-5 (at least) "tiles" per planet that are the size of the entirety of Skyrim and people thinking that's not enough. It's insane lol…
I believe you have to register them and store them at Space Ports…i think Todd talked about this during the KF interview, could be wrong though. I know I heard it somewhere.
Many people, including myself, said seamless worlds were unlikely due to the creation engine, and Todd's words can be interpreted in this exact manner.
One thing that is kinda weird is that they don't have an in lore reason to limit it, like oxygen. Just a screen that says you've reached a limit is lame
if it takes 20 minutes to cross Skyrim from east to west and it takes 40 minutes to cross from your ship (at the center of an explorable area) to a border then we're talking about maps that are possibly the size of sixteen Skyrims each
That's crazy lol….and we have a 1,000 planets. My brain is melting. 🤣
Looking at the Direct again, there are some expansive environments to be seen. If you can still walk to any point that you can see from your landing spot, that is still an absolutely gargantuan map size.
And sure as shit I'm gonna try it, too. "See that mountain? I'mma walk there."
And sure as shit I'm gonna try it, too. "See that mountain? I'mma walk there."
Theyve literally never had a reason for hitting the boundary in any other game theyve made, its pretty much always been 'you cannot go this way'.
skyrim
rdr
horizon
elden ring
god of war
gears of war
halo infinite
fallout 3 4 76
Theyre not, the planets, biomes, and even terrain itself is the same for everyone. Its only the dynamic locations that change.
Wtf, the landing spots/areas/tiles are the size of Skyrim?
And people are mad about this?
- Status