Memes

My wife, a couple friends, and I have all put a ton of hours into this game and absolutely love it. I put several hours into the shipbuilder alone. Every hand built sidequest I run into feels like a TNG episode. And I love the kinda Becky Chambers / Star Trek-style utopia with mystery and drama theme they've got.

This is the most Bethesda game they've ever made, for better of worse. It doesn't hand hold you. There are plenty of times where I've looked at my quest log, found nothing i could do except the main quest, and then decided just to jump to a random system - only to get pulled into some crazy new adventure for a couple hours. You're supposed to be an explorer, if you put even the smallest effort into exploring, you will be rewarded.

A lot of people complaining were never going to like this game or any Bethesda game and I don't know what to do with those people. The amount of constant negativity on the internet makes me really appreciate stories like TNG and writers like Becky Chambers and Cory Doctorow, because they're so positive and affirming and optimistic and when they criticise, they also offer solutions. And this game really scratches that itch for me.

And after almost 40 years of life dealing with the constsnt cycle of negativity and hatred and anger and frustration and drama, on the internet, a global scale, and in my own life.....I'm just tired. I can't play games with "edgy dark stories" anymore. I can't go back to New Vegas because its bummer after bummer. And i know a lot of people thrive on that "scortched earth" bullshit but I just can't anymore.

I just...wanna sit down and play a game. And maybe one where everything is okay for once. And this is that game for me.

Why are people pretending the game isn't getting glowing reviews? Is the Bethesda hate circlejerk still going on?

I somehow entirely missed the hype around this game and came across it again only accidentally on early release day when looking at some other sale on Steam. Been playing it and it seems fine to me in a vague Skyrim-in-space sort of way, which is all what I was expecting from a Bethesda RPG.

The world seems alive enough and there are plenty of side-quests and amusing / interesting things to discover. Now suddenly I have been coming across a bunch of posts everywhere where the game is supposed to be terrible or something. Still seems fine to me, but maybe I have lower standards after decades of gaming. shrug.

I don't get it.

People wanted another Bethesda game.

They got what they wanted.

I said in 2008, after playing the first Fallout game by Bethesda instead of Black Isle: "Only Bethesda could manage to make a post apocalyptic prostitute boring."

They've always been boring, they've always had ugly character models, and the writing has always been bad. You get what you paid for. A Bethesda game.

I doubt that OP has played starfield

I literally spent my entire Labor Day weekend playing this game so anybody that says it's boring I'd really don't understand what they're talking about

I like the game

There's a trait you can pick that exactly explains my problems.with the game. The trait is 'Dream Home'. It is described as

'You own a luxurious, customizable house on a peaceful planet! Unfortunately it comes with a 125,000 credit mortgage with GalBank that has to be paid weekly.'...

I thought this was a cool way of adding increased difficulty for myself. I tend not to play at the hardest setting because I don't have much time to play. But having to plan ahead and work around this limitation sounded like it would add an interesting wrinkle to the strategy I'd have in the game.

However, when you start the game you discover that the loan has to be paid off in full... And you have unlimited time to pay it off. The only way to be foreclosed upon is if you actively go tell the bank to foreclose on you. It's like they had the idea, but couldn't be bothered to implement it.

What's worse is 120k is nothing in the game. You can easily get there within a few hours of play. This is just one example, but it speaks to the game's complete unwillingness to give the player anything negative or push them any way from their 'freedom'. The sheer fact you are not locked out of any faction or faction mission is another example. There are 0 stakes in the game and you feel 0 connection to the people you meet or places you visit. Not helped by Sarah potentially being one of the most annoying judgemental characters in any Bethesda game I've ever encountered.

Update: I eventually visited this 'Dream House'. It kinda sucked. The planet it is on is kinda ugly. There is more to this mechanic than I originally thought, however. When you visit you can pay 500 credits for 1 week of access as a 'payment' towards the principal. Still very deceptive of the original description.

I would describe it as a 2015 GOTY. There are areas where other games like Cyberpunk or No Man's Sky show more polish, and the engine is showing its age, but it's clear that many years of work have gone into it and you get a lot of content for your money.

I’ve got about 15 hours in it. So far so good. Not 10/10 GOTY material no, but good. Probably about a 7 maybe 8/10

This thread feels like everybody is pointing guns at each other.

Damn starfield is bad? With its premise being Another basic america glass towers neolib united federation in space, while also made by bethesda? Who could have known.

The game has incredibly bad performance issues and dogshit politics.

For a game they've dubbed "Nasa punk". There's no punk at all. It's 98% corporate fantasy wish fulfillment for musk-brained techbros and 2% punk. The criticism of capitalism is so paper thin that you can barely notice its presence anywhere at all.

The space pirates use guns with anarchist symbols on them and say anarchist slogans but are clearly not anarchists in ideology and instead are straight up thugs and raiders.

The UC military is presented as real professionals, which is not really correct. If they accurately represented the US military that they're based off of then they'd being jarheads, except for the recruiters and media where the professional show is put on. This is fantasy wish fulfilment at best, or propaganda at worst.

There is no bigotry, patriarchy, etc in this universe and it's absolutely absurd. The universe would have these, capitalism provides an incentive to exploit. Marginalised people are the easiest to exploit. Capitalism has an incentive not to solve marginalised people's problems fully and the further away you get from states enforcing laws to try and mitigate these problems the bigger they would get. So in space and because of the colony wars these issues would have gone through the roof.

It is bizarre that there are wars occurring and yet there are no space refugees anywhere? Where are they? Also there's no homeless people which is fucking weird again. Also no slums or self-constructed accomodation on the periphery of the cities which really ought to exist given that the player can do just that. It's all so idealised to a ridiculous extent.

Everyone doesn't have the money for a starship, there is one absurd mission where you apply for an admin assistant job. You're expected to fly into space and to a space station with your own starship to apply for an administration and assistant job? There should be a private shuttle company that people use to taxi around space for things like this.

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In short, the politics are dogshit and the performance is bad. But, the gameplay is good if you like other bethesda titles it plays just like them. Additionally, I think it's probably the strongest ever game they've released for modding.. And probably their best title since Oblivion (not counting New Vegas which they didn't make).

Rule of thumb. Wait until you see top ten mod lists for Bethesda games and is at least on sale.

Its like the 3d version of starbound

Uhh just play Outer Worlds you nerds

Me as fuck. Though I just keep it to myself instead of trying to ruin my friends' enjoyment.

I think it's a fantastic game.

Starfield is fun to me 🤷‍♂️

...not 100% clear on the point of this comic...

hmmm people seem to like this thing i don't like

ah it's because they're actually lying for the purposes of fooling me, the objectively correct main character

Surprise twist on an old comic

Kinda reminded me of Hogwarts Legacy, except it was a great game.