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It keeps getting mentioned because it’s the new Bethesda game (also its kind of a big deal being their first new IP in, what, 20 years?), it hasn’t been even a year since it dropped (so it’s still fresh to people), and it has more content coming. And because every new update will stir the old users again and bring a new wave of users that will also keep mentioning its improvements and its flaws.
And i mean, even aside from that, Oblivion and Morrowind still get mentioned to this day (in both good ways and bad), and they’re much older. Same’s going to happen to Starfield. It’s just the way it is.
Yup. That second bit should be a golden standard, but…honestly? Knowing companies hire psychiatrists and all that jazz that tell them exactly what they need to put out there to get people to buy, install FOMO, hit addicts where it hurts, or just wear them down till they eventually say “yes”, and that its not just for games, it becomes kinda murky for me to just throw all the blame at the people buying. Not saying that people shouldn’t do their do dilagence (and after a while, to learn to ignore said marketing tricks. Fool me once and all that), they absolutely should, just that the other side are also hitting bellow the belt every chance they can in order to make a sale.
Fair, but here’s the thing:
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It’s a big release with a life cycle. Big release by the guys who made Skyrim? it’s going to continue to get new people even after it’s life cycle officially ends. So as long as Bethesda keeps digging themselves deeper instead of out the hole they made, the negative reviews and press will keep coming; by these new folks and the current players who see Bethesda basically making the situation worse in order to give any curious buyers a warning to be mindful at what they’re going to throw money at. Do some people sometimes go a bit too scathing in their takes? Sure. But honestly? I’m not gonna blame em. I know a disillusioned person when i see one, and disillusioned or otherwise, they’re still not at all wrong with most of their complaints.
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the “hater” thing…yeah, most of these aren’t haters. If they were bringing up BS claims, sure (See: The Pronouns thing). But the majority of “hate” this game is getting is…actual shortcomings the game has, or for the pretty crappy responses the devs put out in response. Dare I say it, most of the “hate” is by actual fans of Bethesda. Again, very disillusioned likely now former fans, but yeah. Haters don’t spend the energy to go this indepth about something, fans passionate about the thing typically do tho.
Like i said in my other comment, the camel’s back broke for a lot of people after 13 long years. Not 5 or 3 years, 13. Even more if you were a Bethesda fan before Skyrim.
On one hand, I kinda understand why people in general, not just game devs, try and implement the “bigger is better” idea. It’s easy, and all you really need to do is, theoretically, be “bigger” than the competition.
Problem here is that the closest competition to Starfeild is No Man’s Sky, despite not being in the same genre (I’ve seen the same thing being asked in so many reviews: “What does Starfield do that NMS doesn’t?” Like, even plotwise. I didn’t even know NMS had a plot TBH). And Bethesda decided to (intentionally or otherwise) ape NMS, not realizing that procedural generation worked in NMS because for one, it’s a survivalcraft at heart while Starfeild isn’t, and because the five main compents of that game are…well, solidly made, and tie INTO the galaxy being procedurally generated (especially the survival and building aspect) instead of it being tacked on for the “wow factor”. Nowadays, i mean. On release tho…gonna assume you could have easily made that argument.
Meanwhile, Starfield’s galaxy is procedurally generated because…the player apparently needs a buffet of locations to explore to kill/rack up time rather than a handful of them with actually handcrafted touches and purpose divided into star systems (so they can get the space Odyssey vibe the game is trying to go with) or something, kinda like the way Mass Effect 2’s map was.
the reviews of Elex are mostly positive
Yes, and Piranha Bytes is small AA German game studio with a staggering 33 people as of 2021 (according to wikipedia) that have always stuck to their lane and made very niche games in the background that are basically only appealling to their audience. They know damn well who they’re aiming at with their stuff too, because they’re not trying to change the formula much as of Elex 2 or grab as much people as possible.
You can compare that to Bethesda (that according to inside sources, wants to act like a AA when they’re acctually AAA in manpower, budget, and project scope), with it’s 450 people on staff and different subsidaries that work together with them as needed, to Piranha Bytes, but that’d be disingenuous as all hell.
No. It’s got nothing to do with “Haters being Haters”. The camel’s back just finally broke.
Frankly, it’s something that I’m surprised didn’t happen sooner. People got tired of excusing Bethesda’s many blunders since they joined Microsoft (because after that, they should have no excuse for mediocre…anything, especially on the technical side) Bethesda also got too used to people giving them a pass and going “oh, silly Bethesda!” when they saw a severe bug or just bad/mediocre mechanics, where if it was anyone else, they’d be rightfully upset that they paid fully AAA price and the game was a broken, bug filled mess (sometimes with bugs that date back to Morrowind, at that), and is finally feeling that burn others normally get. It was cute (apparently) in 2006 with Oblivion, it’s no longer cute in 2023.
It’s also likely to do with Bethesda’s attitude. Them responding to criticism about some planets being empty and boring to explore with things like “it’s not boring. When Armstrong and the gang landed on the moon IRL, they weren’t bored” or just passive aggresively in general to negative reviews with actual critisms of the game instead of taking the critisim to heart and striving to maybe add some content to them as an update (or DLC, but them charging $70, then asking for more money to fix a problem in the base game would bring em more heat than anything) being some examples.
Or the fact that, instead of fixing severe bugs or optimizing their game, they’re introducing this Creations thing and basically doing what i said in parenthesis above.
procedurally generated ain’t all bad, but for this game it was not the move. As soon as I heard about “100+ planets” i kinda lost hope in the game. What they should’ve done instead was make A Solar System. 8 or so planets to land in, explore, and do quests in, and go absolutely ham on those 8 planets to make them as intesting and diverse from each other as possible. The rest would be moons or space stations you’d find exploring space. IDK, this could just be me, but i feel doing this alone would have improved the game significantly
Perhaps it’s just me naively believing that something with a legacy behind it (and fanbase) can be a mega hit then. Because honestly, if KOTOR 3 was announced with a competant studio behind it, or a Warcraft sequel, or a Legacy of Kain continuation…i don’t see how they wouldn’t be mega hits regardless of when they come out if they were all treated with the same care Larian treated Baldur’s Gate 3 with (and they don’t, you know, take forever and a half to release like System Shock Remake did)
I mean, i was far too young to play em when the original games released, but i could still tell that Baldur’s Gate 3 releasing was a big deal and not just your run-of-the-mill game releasing. And I’m hardly the only one either. Its like if Blizzard released Warcraft (not World of Warcraft, just Warcraft) but showed “hey, we’re actually pulling all stops this time and actually trying to make a game for fans first, not a way to nickle and dime yall” in their marketing, interviews, and feedback gathered from a beta or Early Access that is actually incorperated into the final release. Yeah, a LOT of players checking it out wouldn’t be longtime fans, but that’s irrelevant: something with a legacy behind it being continued carries a hype that’s almost infectious–especially when done by folks who not only give a damn about the thing being worked on, but can actively show they can bring a good product to the table (I believe the same happened with Cyberpunk too, but Cyberpunk launched rough as all hell. I hear it’s better now tho).
That it was almost assured to be good also helped it a lot (again, the successful early access + the fact that, while you’re right that Larian’s previous games didn’t make a very big splash, they were shown to very competently made–some even calling the Original Sin games the best modern CRPGs so far–and garnered a lot of fans over time), and not to mention, when it was releaesed–a period where multiple games that went “against the grain” of what we usually get from games released as well, and to great success.
IDK, you say it’s foolish to predict it having as much success it did, but the way I see it, it was kind of inevitable since it did so many things correctly
Hold up sir/madam, is Bandcamp actually dead or is it still kicking? I used to frequent it until the Epic Buyout and honestly haven’t kept up with their goings on. The fact that they bought it just to hold on to it is just ludicrous to me tho, like, they couldn’t find ANYTHING to do with it? Nothing at all? Really?
From the lil bit that I actually played of it: it does take several steps in the direction of the older games, with a more parkour friendly area that brings to mind OG assassins creed (like, it’s meant for you to move around from building to building), significantly reducing if not outright removing the RPG mechanics of the previous 3 games (thankfully, IMO), and even a bigger emphasis on stealth. It brought back social stealth as well, but just like in Valhala it just feels…there? Like it feels tact on instead of there for a reason–could be I’m not using it right tho. Albiet, it IS hampered because of both the limitations with the engine (that was built for the RPG games in mind, and that playstyle) and the fact that AFAIK, this was basically a DLC for the last game originally, before it became its thing. It’s tied to Valhalla’s DNA, even tho it really shouldn’t be, basically.
Dunno, I feel the Devs REALLY wanted to make it more than they did, but didn’t have the resources to do so. Regardless, IMO it’s a solid first step that, while nowhere near perfect, can continue to become better with sequels if this is where the series goes from here. (And prove that “going back to the roots” can bring innovations to something, not regressions)
As strange as the idea of regulations needing to come to the rescue might be to some, that’s a decent way for it to go…seriously, so many problems we deal with on the daily just need a bit of regulations for them to not be as out of control as they are (because, as you said, a LOT of people are stupid/ignorant. Or are taking advantage of said people). Now, this just needs to get as bad as lootboxes–which, IMO, it’s practically there, but maybe it needs to get worse, god forbid–for a legislator to look this way.
You’d have to convince the diehards, casuals, and especially the ones that are willing (regardless of being able to) to spend money on whatever the company throws their way of this. Way, waaaay easier said than done, unfortunately.
Can’t speak for everyone else, but due to the company’s track record, i didn’t even look at Halo Infinite’s direction since it was announced. Then again, as soon as I heard the multiplayer was Free to Play and seperate from the campaign, yeah…not surprised they pulled something like this.
Agreed. To us, it’s not surprising because we decided to look into it because we’re either big into a series, or we got burned enough in the past. for others? It’s either legit the first time they’ve gotten burned, or the straw that broke the camel’s back and made them at least somewhat critical/wary of the media they consume.
If i had to guess at why the downvotes, I’d say there’s a failure of comprehension here.
“Great on Deck” means you can play them well on the Steam Deck with few hiccups (damn near what you get if you ran it on Windows, basically). No more, no less. Doesn’t indicate that the game would feel good to play with a controller, but you CAN play it regardless. I don’t have a Deck, but yeah there’s a couple of games in my library that I look at the Community Controller Layouts and go “nah, that looks like a nightmare to use. I’m just gonna not be lazy and KB&M it”. I’m gonna assume doing the opposite on The Deck is…not impossible, but very impractical. Also gonna assume this is your gripe VS what people are likely taking from your sentence (“it says they’re playable, but they’re not”)
Randomness? What do you mean? If you mean the dice rolls, they’re not too bad if you stick with the class you picked/created in the beginning of CC. And I’d argue they does serve the experience: showing the player’s progression.
Because you’re not some master of all jack of all traits in Morrowind. You can be, but you don’t start as one. You start as a poor soul fresh off the prison boat who kinda knows how to use a weapon and can’t run for long (or maybe you can do both pretty well, but suck at magic, jumping, or wearing heavy armor, or you can’t tell the end of a spear from the front so using one efficiently is going to take a while. All depends on how you made your character), but as you keep adventuring and doing those things your character kinda sucks at, you get better at them–doing much more damage and barely missing hits at all with weapons-- and rather than running slower than molasses, you can can run faster and farther than ever before.
It’s not so much the dice rolls that are the problem…but, they kinda are…let me try and explain what i mean
It isn’t so much that going back to Morrowind’s style of gameplay is a bad thing. Like you said, a lot of games do that and do it well, even today (Baldur’s Gate 3 does Dice Rolls for everything too, and its great) it’s more of is Bethesda going to keep it intact (either completely or modernize it) and risk potentially alienating the part of the fans that have only played Skyrim (A large part of players, at least from what I’ve seen) or are they going to scrap it and replace it with a more Oblivion/Skyrim system, thus potentially alienating the ones that are wanting an Elder Scrolls game to go back to when there were tangiable RPG mechanics in there (and that’s not assuming they don’t try and have it both ways…IDK how that’d look, but if you try pleasing everyone, well…).
Did that make sense? I’m kinda running on an energy drink and a dream atm
But really, i think it’s more of they looked at Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim, and just went “out of those 3, Oblivion’s the one that could use the tuneup the most” (again, it’s the redhead middle child, sandwiched between the much more universally loved Skyrim and respected older Morrowind).
I can kinda see why they went with Oblivion. For one, Morrowind would be harder to do because it relies heavily on invisible dice rolls and she stats of you vs the enemy for…basically everything. From hit chance, to if your spell is succesfully cast, to how much damage your armor (or the enemy’s) eats up. Unless they gut that entire system and do a more modernized one instead (like Oblivion/Skyrim’s)
Another reason i wanna say they picked Oblivion is because, frankly, it’s the middle redhead child of the “modern” elder scrolls main games. Everyone praises Morrowind and Skyrim, but Oblivion…yeah. I love it, it was what Skyrim was to many players, but yeah it can be rough in a lot of aspects. Sometimes even more so than Morrowind (YMMV. I could easily get used to Morrowind, even vanilla. Everytime i go back to Oblivion, I have to make myself look past the roughness to see the good stuff).
IDK, i see this as a great second chance for the game…and, foolish it may be but, I’m also hoping they restore Cyrodiil to the jungle it was hyped up to be in Morrowind and the pocket guides since the tech is there now, plus they no longer have to cash in on the Lord of the Rings movies. They won’t. But i can dream.
I honestly don’t get the obsession with physical media
Pretty straightfoward. And understanable IMO.
If I have a physical disk of something, I can put it in a compatable system and play/watch it regardless of whether my internet is out or just shitty in general, even years down the line (as far as I’m aware, the devs/company have yet to be able to register/tie disks to devices, and they’re not gonna break into my place and take my media away. So while I don’t own the thing, my copy is my copy to do with as I please so long as I’m not passing it around for others to download). It’s also not tied to any account, so my use of the thing doesn’t hang on whether i have a Steam account or a Netflix account or whathaveyou. There’s also media preservation, and just the fact that some people like to have something tangible that they can say “this is mine”.
Discrot and failing hardware is a problem…but personally, as long as I have a receipt or proof of purchase for it, I’m not gonna lose sleep over getting it from alternative sources if i can’t rip the data off the thing myself. It’s simple: the company gets my money, they give me a copy of the software, and that’s it. What they do with that cash is not my business and what I do with that copy (unless I’m either illegally distributing it or reverse engineering it for my own profit) is not thiers.
To be fair, indie games don’t get hounded for that because they more often than not don’t have the big ass budget most AAA studios do to spend on stuff like physical copies and such. Dunno, I’d love to have all my games physically, but I’m also not gonna look at a small dev team or lone indie dev and expect them to be able to pony up for anything other than say, a limited number of physical copies of thier games…but then, what do I know, it could be dirt cheap to do so (but I doubt it).
Eh, easy mode is for those who need or want to use it. Ditto for hard or impossible modes. Adult, teenager, troglodyte, don’t really matter what ya are