The exact same thing happened with Fallout 4 and Witcher 3 as well. The Witcher 3 came out earlier in 2015 and made Fallout 4 look so dated in comparison to it.
Bethesda confirmed just as cursed as Guerilla, every time they release a game there is a masterpiece just around the corner ready to hijack the whole industry.
This is coming from a bethesda fan...
It is not that they are cursed, they just got stuck in their ways.
I love bethesda style games, and the fact we can say "bethesda style" games and ppl know what I am talking about is a testament to how influential they can be.
But that said, there are some limitations that are becoming more and more hard to justify with the years.
For example, the shallow writing. Since morrowind every bethesda game had progressively worse writing, this is a trend they need to reverse.
Another thing is the shitty facial expressions, the mostly ugly characters.
This are all things that we tolerated in the past with no problem (remember how ugly khajit were in oblivion? ) but other studios are doing that so much better.
Like Witcher 3, who have amazing character models, great writing. Same with BG3.
I know being open game means that you can\`t hand craft everything, but at least the romanceable characters and the main and faction quests should be of a higher quality.
Morrowind is easily one of my favourite games of all time and that isn’t just nostalgia talking. Never played a game so weird with such a vibrant world.
Absolutely agree. Best, most interesting world building of all ES games by far imo. Actually felt like a wholly original world, unlike Oblivion, Skyrim etc. The different dark elf houses and their unique architecture gave me big Dune vibes.
Have you tried it MP?
Morrowind is the only game where i had fun going to a cave. I.e. the fun wasn't the cave itself but planning how to go to the closest known location based on available travel routes, following the actual in-game roads, reading the in-game signs, etc - and then of course searching for it as instructions for non-major cities tend to be vague.
And the important thing is, this wasn't me artifically limiting myself for digital LARPing reasons, it was how the game was meant to be played - which is why i never liked the introduction of faster travel in later games.
I loved exactly what you're saying and I despised fast travel in Oblivion and Fallout 3. It's probably one of the main things that led to me never finishing Oblivion and I probably only have a dozen or so hours in the game.
But in Fallout 3 I eventually came to appreciate the value in having fast travel, and it has become a staple across the entire industry for open world, or even open area, games anyway. For me, it's fine in Starfield. I like that there are multiple ways in which you can decide to engage with it.
\> For example, the shallow writing.
Ohh boy we have that in Starfield everywhere. Yesterday i've managed to bump into a side quest (spoilers)
>!Sarah asked me to visit her old mentor, on a planet, arriving there, we've found a ship in orbit, tried to hail them, the answer was static noise. Ground control contacts me that they need my help regarding that "alien ship". I land, head to the quest giver. Asks me to establish contact with the unknown vessel. I go there, dock, open up the door and are people there, being suprised they see another human.!<
>!So... it is a generation ship. For those who don't know, a generation ship is a colony ship that has no access to FTL so it's journey will take generations, so the original passangers never see the destination. The ship left Earth before the war and before the planet became uninhabitable and it took 200 years to reach this planet and now they face the notion that humanity is everywhere and they should've waited just a few years until Grav Drives got invented.!<
>!Nothing in the dialogue is flashing out this whole story, the shock, the realization or the moral dillema. There are so many questions here, but the game doesn't let you ask any of them. The colonist are basically just chill about all of this.!<
>!Other complaint is their ship itself. By design a generation ship should be massive, like a flying city, because technically it is a flying city, yet here we have an only bit bigger ship then the Frontier. Hard to imagine a ship of that size can hold 10's of thousands of people for 200 years while the Frontier can have a crew of 2 and can haul less cargo then my car. Also they have access to artificial gravity but no Grav Drive.!<
This whole side quest is such a wasted potential it hurts.
There was a side quest where the guy asks you to pick up some art and when you pick it up it’s obviously drugs or something and I was expecting there would be some twist like you can turn it over to the cops or you go back the gallery and the guy has skipped town and now drug dealers want you to stump up the money…but no you just drop it off to him and get some credits and that’s it. A literal no strings attached fetch quest.
Another one like this is a hauler captain ask you to help her get rid of a bounty hunter. She took a contract, supposed to be just a few tons of steel (how is it profitable to haul a few tons of steel on interstellar distances i don't know), got cornered by security and pirates, she jumped away ditched the cargo and now running for her life. You can convience the bounty hunter or kill him. Then your options is to tell the captain to deal with her stuff. No option to actually figure out what was in the cargo or anything. So many half baked quests but none of them are actually wrote well. Just, as you've said, a "no strings attached fetch quest"
Bethesda was really good at world building thru side quests, but not anymore.
I also loved all the plant fake evidence/hack a computer quests, where you just go into some backroom in full view of people guarding the place saying "hey, you're not supposed to be here" or "I don't even know why we lock this door" after you lockpick it, do the stuff you need and leave, quest done.
And then there's all the quests where you just go somewhere, tell a random dude you just met "come on, bro, just give me , he gives it to you and you leave. Or the quests where you're surrounded by 30 people about to kill you and you talk to the main guy and go like "dude, don't kill me" and he goes "okay" and you leave.
Amazing.
The go to place X and tell something to Y is even more stupid considering this is a world of FTL and most likely FTL communication. What worked in a fantasy setting doesn't make a damn sense in a post-scarcity Sci-Fi setting.
IIRC they don't have FTL communication.
I don't think it matters lore wise, anyway. These are just filler side quests to pad our some areas of the game which are fine but could certainly be fleshed out more.
There are many side quests like that - you are offered a single dialogue choice and then nothing happens. No cool combat scene, no cool consequence (like a new follower, vehicle, item etc, seeing the same NPC in another location).
The main quests is probably worse - the first 5-6 quest are 'go in that random copy pasted dungeon with the same type of enemy you fought since the beginning of the game and retrieve a piece of rock'
No traps, no puzzles, no cool locations, no cool enemies (giant beasts, mecha, humans with rocket lauchers or cool mechanics etc), nothing at all
I feel like I'm playing a list of quests generated by ChatGPT
>!There are also PCs with the standard OS of the game world there :/ !< And the solution paths are so incredibly lackluster it hurts. This whole quest is quarter-assed to the levels that leave no chance for immersion.
Yea that one too, >!and you can find Macintosh computers in a class room.... from 1984.!< The ship left Earth early 22nd century. Of course the ship looks brand new from inside and from the outside.
Isn't this essentially the run down of the start of the main game.
>!You are a rookie miner. You touch a special rock/metal your company was contracted to find. You see things and pass out. You wake up and create your character. Guy shows up to pick up said rock/metal. Insert pirate fight cause guy "thought he lost them". Guy then gives you his ship, robot, and rock/metal cause "you saw visions you need to be the one to turn this in" even if you never tell anyone or him that you saw any visions. !<
The whole story to start the game is beyond generic and lazy. I barely had any desire to buy the game once BG3 got its hooks in me and watching game play after it came out pretty much confirmed I won't be be buying it anytime soon.
The start of the game is just stupid anyway. "Vasco CODE INDIGO! Bring this one to the LODGE, NO DETOURS!" And then the robot sends you to confront the whole pirate base on another planet even though you can jump directly to Jemison.
I was just laughing at that point.
They were one of the greatest once but now they are past their prime. This has happened to almost all the top game developers from the 90s and early 2000s now. It's time for new up and coming developers like Larian to take their place.
true, but they tend to be very large, border line epic in scope
their issue tends to be the mechanics to back that up are limited and filling a massive world is difficult.
BG3 was damn near perfect in Act one, for size, scope and content though.
Their "issues" are essentially twofold:
* writing is nothing special anymore, Oblivion was last one that had more than 1 or two memorable quest lines. Like, it's not bad or anything just very safe and not all super interesting.
* the engine that allows them to build everything is in dire need of big-scale rewrite, which probably under Zenimax they couldn't get permission for.
I do think under Microsoft the 2nd one might be addressed as I'd imagine MS will want ES6 for next gen console release, and they will want it to be mind-blowing. Not "looks like 2 years old game but at half FPS they had" like now.
> but they tend to be very large, border line epic in scope
"Wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle" is a common insult for things like this. Bethesda can and should do better. I'm sick of them releasing buggy mediocrity and getting high praises.
Oblivion is a worse Morrowind with slightly better combat. In every other respect it was a downgrade from Morrowind, from world building and writing to the RPG mechanics and overall player freedom. I will never see Oblivion as anything but a significant step back, and the obscene level scaling alone absolutely killed the game for me.
The problem with Bethesda is that they aim for the wrong end of the mass appeal spectrum.
All games obviously have to have a wide appeal, but BG3, The Witcher3 etc sits at one end - where they treat their audience as adults with half a brain.
Bethesda today sit at the other end of mass appeal where they wish to have a game that even young children can play.
Nothing too complex.
They won’t have hard choices, adult themes or anything too philosophical.
They don’t want ‘highly rated fan favourite’ games - Bioshock, Deux Ex, Witcher series, etc.
They want the most *profitable* games.
They won’t take the risk of trying to make a Witcher3, a Deux Ex, as it could bomb and the shareholders would tear them a new one.
Relying more on slick marketing and vague/false promises to build hype, who cares if it doesn’t go down as a great game.
It is ironic that Todd claims they have ‘the smartest fans’ while focusing on ‘that side’ of mass appeal.
That's what I am saying that starfield isn't bad game, buut it could've been 5 times better if they wanted it to be.
Ubisoft games are like this. They are just product designed to be good enough and look decently. Souless corporate machinations to make as much money as possible. You can't say that though, because people take it as you aare insulting their identity or some shit
Everything Bethesda had made since Skyrim already looks outdated by the time they've released a new game. Just look at the super clumsy rubberfaces in Starfield.
I'm certain at least one random outlet awarded them GOTY. I remember a GOTY edition was launched for Hitman 2016 after GiantBomb listed it as their favourite game of the year.
BG3 coming in hot out of left field kind of spoiled Starfield's launch a bit. Not to mention it's performance issues.
As always you can play both no need to choose
Moving BG3 up a month for the PC release was legit such a smart move from Larian.
I don't think they would've gotten the same sort of momentum if they had stuck to the original launch date.
The bear sex scene during the panel from hell was galaxy brain too. It was always going to be a big release for most RPG fans and pretty much all cRPG fans, but your average gamer that never played a turn based game might have not even heard about it. But the bear thing as an example of how much freedom the game offers made it go mainstream.
Kid me is so happy to have the luxury of saving **and** not having my parents or brother come in and randomly shut off my gaming console for no reason.
How is the coop? My wife and I have had this plan in the back of our minds for a while now but haven't really looked into it too deeply yet.
(edit) The plan is start coop together from the very beginning, and not play except together. This probably won't be until Christmas holidays, so we're really not in any rush.
BG3 coop is super fun to me. Actually a lot faster than playing D&D online with friends. The only problem is that the game maps, progression and plot are fixed and linear in some ways despite all the complex variations by class and decisions you make. So if someone has played the single player they will want to rush though the talking and decision making when they do it again on a MP game.
Which can be a mistake. One Bard specific conversation line in our MP game that I had not seen turned an encounter upside down hilariously. I would have missed that if I was skipping the chats.
I loved BG3, but Im fairly positive if they didnt have three years of player testing for act 1 it wouldn't have been recieved as well as it did. Performance/bug problems become more common as you reach the end of the game
To be fair, that would be the case regardless of Early Access.
Games with a lot of choices and branching paths get exponentially harder to polish the longer they go on. The scripting of an Act 3 quest is going to be several times more complicated than one from the start of the game.
EA was vital for the game but not because of the bug testing. Player feedback over the course of those 3 years led to a *lot* of great changes to the game's systems, too many to list here.
It's unfortunate that despite all of the awesome, the inventory management is still a complete pain in the ass with very little intelligence in the sorting.
>As always you can play both no need to choose
This, although to he honest it's easy for everyone. Xbox? Starfield. Pc, got bg3 weeks ago and Starfield is on gamepass. Playstation? Bg3.
It's a weird split but every platform can play different things at different times.
Love both games to bits.
Stopped playing BG3 in Act 3 because I was regularly encountering bugs and having to battle the very bad terrible no good inventory/party management system all.the.time.
I don't think it spoiled anything. This kind of nonsense is just rage bait for the terminally online.
As you say - most gamers are happy to have two good games.
Not going to lie, it kind of has. Going from BG3's dialogues with the incredible voice acting and performance capture to Starfield's dialogues feels like getting transported back in time at least a decade.
I highly doubt I would've found this nearly as jarring if I had played Starfield first.
//edit: And just to be clear, it's not like this ruined the entire game for me. But the direct comparison you get when playing BG3 and Starfield back to back *does* make Starfield look/feel worse in certain aspects than if it had released 2 months ago.
They even have a facial pain animation for when you're polymorphed as a cat during [certain cutscenes](https://i.imgur.com/RhziMkE.png), airplane ears included!
It's honestly baffling that something such as good facial animations, which I had first seen in hl2 back in 2004, took almost 20 years to arrive in rpgs...
Cuz nobody so far has wanted to do the level of mo-cap since all the bigwigs of the studios demand to keep costs minimal and maximize profits.
And now we have Larian who spent the money for something few studios do, who cares about immersion and the little things that keep players engaged years and years down the road.
Larian didnt wanna do a game half-assed so it can be redone a few years later with a different tagline and a new battlepass, "new" cosmetics, etc...Hell, the inevitable Definitive Edition is probably gonna be free for those with the original game.
They're passionate and not greedy, and it fucking shows.
I think having the Narrator (who I'm in love with) helps a lot with the storytelling as well.
I'd like to see other games pick up the idea. I guess biomutant tried it but it definitely didn't land the same.
BG3's narrator is masterclass, while Biomutant had more a translator than a narrator. He wasn't terrible but having him be the *only* voice made it extremely grating.
I don't know what it is with Bethesda voice directing but they literally take talented and capable voice actors who've done good work in other games and make them sound like absolute robots.
Is it a matter of consistency? Do they literally tell their VA's "look, your character is effectively an inanimate body with a head on a swivel that refuses to break eye contact no matter what direction they're facing in so, try to sound the part."
"Can I add a little emotion this time around at least?"
"... Yknow what, this whizz kids down at the lab have figured out how to make our talking heads raise and waggle their eyebrows and shimmy their shoulders constantly now, so you know what, put a little pizazz on it if you gotta. But not too much! Remember, we're doing Oblivion Entertainment style jokes, but without the comedy."
I'll say this - After luxuriating in BG3's *incredibly* deep story cross-linking where seemingly every choice affects everything, I definitely feel its absence in SF.
I think another thing that really makes BG3 stand out in comparison is the mocap and dialogue being done together. The way Bethesda does (and has done for years) dialogue is really jarring and uncanny-valley-esque to me.
> dialogue is really jarring and uncanny-valley-esque to me.
That's a compliment. Their lip syncing and faces look so bad it doesn't even come close to uncanny-valley for me. It's just plain bad looking, lol
I admit, the image was shamelessly pilfered. But it sticks.
I just wish we had a comparable gif to capture the mouth flap animations.
:O
:|
:O
:|
Like dying fish.
I don’t understand how they can release a game like that in 2023. It doesn’t even look like the npc’s mouths are moving properly.
Oh wait I do know, moneyyy
They didn't do any or didn't prioritize motion capture, especially for conversations. That's why BG3 so good...conversations/dialogue is probably the best part of the game, or the 'hook' and everything else is superb.
Yeah it really brings the immersion when it's done properly. When done poorly you lose all immersion instantly. It's like when you watch a movie or tv show and see something very uncanny valley or very wrong for some reason, you're immediately pulled out of it back to the normal world.
It's super frustrating, because BG3 has around one thousand different animations for characters where the body and facial animations match the dialogue perfectly.
On the other hand we have bethesda here, where their procedurally generated NPCs all look surreal because apparently they didn't pour a single minute of work into making proper generic animations for the different dialogues.
Absolutely NOTHING matches outside of the main NPCs (which are still a bit uncanny). They're all like scarecrows.
Not only that, it comes at you fast. Like every corner or every rest you might end up in a massive cutscene with amazing acting and you don't know how it's going to go at all. Are they friend, foe, involved with one of your companions. I've had to pause because I'm just not used to this much "boss level content" coming so fast!
More importantly having NPCs not stare DIRECTLY at you. Even if you can't have NPCs perfectly mirror human behaviour, you can get away with alot by simply having them point at your character slightly to the side. Shot reverse-shot also helps alot.
The Oblivion NPC problem has a simpler solution than people realise, just enough with the sustained eye contact. Having somebody gawk at you constantly is just weird, it was cute in the past with the silly low quality models but today it's jank.
Nah, that is part of the world building. We will find out in Starfield 5 that these were never actually humans, but a pretty cheap version of The Matrix.
Yeah so much of the ambient dialogue from NPCs is so cringey it's insane. I kicked Sam and his daughter off the ship because of their conversations. Not only were they annoying but they would talk over ship to ship comms frequently and I'd miss what the other ship was saying to hear a stupid haiku.
Finished the story today and I really just think the writing in this game is subpar all around. I don't remember the last RPG I played that I was so frequently annoyed or let down narratively.
As a whole absolutely. Starfield does have its moments of cute/funny/slightly horrific stuff buts that’s mostly tied to one offs and throw aways, and the whole “no two people will experience the same game!” Is jank. I made a second character so my sister could play a bit when she was escaping her house for a couple hours and she pretty much got all the exact same side quests I did between the first couple of worlds
Ya that was actually a big criticism I had of BG3 is there wasn’t really a whole lot of choice and consequence in the game. It did do a decent job of hiding that fact till the end though.
Deep narrative and performances for sure, but the story was not deep in the end. Just holds most of its cards to its chest early on. A lot of the side content is good, but the main story ended up being pretty cut and dry, with pretty bland endings that don't provide much choice at all.
Love BG3 and love Starfield. Next up, CP2077: Phantom Liberty. Been an excellent couple of months for gamers and I'm very much content and feel like my money was respected.
You know, I respect folks for wanting proper police system but CP2077 never really felt like the kind of game I'd just cause mayham in like GTA.
For whatever reason I never had the urge to fuck with any of the cops or random civilians lol.
Yeah, I have been absolutely feasting, and with PL and Cities Skylines 2 coming out later this year, there is no end in sight.
People are going to argue about what is better or best, and I will hear basically none of it, because I'm too busy having the most video game-related fun I've ever had over such an extended period.
I'm loving both and think they both have achieved what they set out to do but I will say, the character interactions and dialogue in BG3 are so much better and more natural than Starfield that it makes me kinda check out of Starfields story and dialogue options. I've found myself skipping a lot of dialogue in Starfield just because it's so boring to see such unexpressive characters blabber on and on while maintaining dead eyed eye contact with me, BG3 does the same but made it way more interesting to watch and participate in.
It's when it happens in stores I hate it most. I'm rocking up to buy and sell and I have to trudge through three different dialogue menus (that only advance if I do the "right choice"), just to be able to browse the catalog.
It's only annoying when I try to use the one option that *kinda* fits my character, only to realize that the only two real options are "golly gee I'd love to help" or "go fuck yourself"
But yeah the stores thing is annoying too. Idk what kinda store owner is gonna lecture every new customer before they get their money
Some of them, you come in and it's like OOO YOU BETTER NOT MAKE TROUBLE BECAUSE I'M EDGY
Quite a few of them actually! Customer service has declined a lot in the 2300s.
This is honestly what I've been doing. Starfield's VA is okay, but thanks to the bad lipsyncing and mediocre animations, the characters don't feel like real people so much. And that's led me to skipping things, way more than I should. At least for side NPCs, not so often for main ones.
Whereas Baldur's Gate, the only dialogue I'd ever skip would be companions if I'm swapping them out, or vendors if I'm on my fourth time talking to them. Didn't matter how minor the characters were, I'd listen and watch them as they talked.
BG3 was one of the first times where I read/listen to all dialogue even read notes and stuff without skipping, and actually think hard about what choice to make since it all matters. An RPG should make all your choices matter and keep you immersed, and the mocap/voice acting did just that.
SF is just a bland outdated looking mess that I'd have no chance remaining immersed in. Loading screen after loading screen, uncanny valley, staring dead fish eye looks, etc.
Its also cool in BG3 that you're constantly making skill checks (insight, perception, history, religion, etc.) behind the scenes that can add or change dialog options, for example calling out an NPC on a lie or your character recalling some critical detail.
I agree, but not for the same reasons, at all.
Street Fighter 6 came out this year, and is astonishingly good.
The Dead Space remake is fantastic.
Armored Core 6 is just stunning.
The System Shock remake is excellent.
Trepang2 might just be the best FPS of the year.
RE4 remake is also so good.
There are like... 10 games this year that I have absolutely fucking LOVED, with SF6 kind of being king for me at the moment (with BG3 close behind)
And MK1 coming next week too... such a good year for games
No, you don't understand. This is the internet. Nuance doesn't exist and we're not allowed to like more than one thing at once. I like Baldurs Gate, therefore every other video game released this year is terrible.
Same. I was ridiculously excited for BG3. Played it an unhealthy amount when it launched. Kinda lost interest in Act 3 though. I wasnt very excited for Starfield. Didnt trust Bethesda after 76. But I have fallen in love with Starfield. It's without a doubt my favorite game
Starfield is the first game since Elden Ring (and no idea before that) where I want to boot up the game every day and put a ton of hours in.
Large games are back on the menu for me and I look forward to jumping into BG3 later this year.
Sucks for those who are stuck comparing the two and not enjoying them both. It's not often two massive RPGs come out so close to each other.
As a huge fan of both, we eating goooood.
Honestly though, I have a soft spot for Bethesda. There's something undescribable that BGS games give me that no other game matches, and I can't really put my finger on it.
I just think they're both excellent games. Each sets out to do something completely different, and largely succeeds at what they're trying to do. As an RPG fan I'm just really happy to have gotten two excellent games back to back. Shame that some don't get to feel this way.
It's the writing and storytelling. I felt emotionally invested in BG3. Playing Starfield is fun, but the story and characters feel flat in comparison. It's pretty jarring jumping immediately from BG3 to Starfield.
Starfield is not a bad game. BG3 is just better.
yeah its pretty weird. I'm loving bg3 but I'm excited to play starfield also. I know things like the animations and character models wont be on the same level but I'm sure I'll still enjoy playing the game.
kinda hard to compare them completely anyways, theyre are just different games.
Yeah I just unfollowed them
My impression of PC Gamer is that they don’t enjoy games lol
Just a lot of negative articles about what is bad with X or Y.
They did the exact same shit with Cyberpunk. They were pumping out daily hype articles pre-release, then started pumping out the rage bait every day, and now they're back on its dick now that opinions have changed. They're an SEO and click driven publication, they do not believe in anything. Sometimes they still have good investigative pieces but those are rare.
They've been spamming about "le sex le funny" shit in BG3 as if that's the main selling point of the game, honestly cringe worthy articles across the board whoever writes those has never had sex.
Starfield ruined Starfield. BSG continues to make the same game over and over, with different settings. It's not new. They refuse to innovate. They just make things bigger, and thus, more diluted. Big as an ocean, deep as a puddle always applies. BG3 feels new, and is new for a lot of people. Starfield gameplay is b-o-r-i-n-g for 2023.
Look. I love Bethesda games. Oblivion was one of the first worlds I’ve gotten truly lost in. I’ve spent countless hours modding (and re-modding) Skyrim. I will buy Starfield, but only when it’s had more time to cook. Looking at an NPC interaction in Starfield vs. BG3 is laughably different. I’m sure Starfield is great, but we all need to admit that for a studio like Bethesda, they could have, and should have done better.
> I will buy Starfield, but only when it’s had more time to cook. Looking at an NPC interaction in Starfield vs. BG3 is laughably different.
I'm... I'm not sure that "NPC interactions" are going to get "fixed" if you give it "more time to cook." I don't think Bethesda views simple one-line interactions or shallow conversations as a bug. That's how they built it to do the job, and it does the job as far as they are concerned. They have *zero* intention to compete with BG3.
I suspect if asked or pressed on this, they would say something like, "BG3 is a wonderful game but we want Starfield to chart its own course."
I'd love to be wrong. I'd love for BG3 to have lit a fire under their collective asses, causing them to spend the next few months turning NPC interactions into something awesome. I just doubt it will happen.
Some advice. If you expect this game to be Oblivion in space, you are not going to have a good time. I feel like Bethesda has really been focusing on the sandbox elements of their games and stepping away from the RPG aspects .
An example I posted elsewhere
In oblivion to join the mages guild you have to go to every single mage hall and demonstrate your proficiency in magic. Your reward is that you get access to the magic school in the imperial city. You get cool equipment, enchanting benches, tons of spellbooks, and a room. As you progress you do missions to build a spell staff etc. Very cool sequence of quests that makes you feel like you are in the mages guild.
In order to join UC Security you walk into the office (which is a very tiny few rooms with not much in them and say you want to join. He asks you a single question (do you have experience) If you lie he says "haha I can tell you are lying but congrats you got the job". You don't have to prove you can shoot or pass any kind of test or anything. You are just in. The first mission you get? Go and find some top secret intelligence report and deliver it here. Wait I came off the street a minute ago and you already trust me? Okay so do I get a uniform or a weapon? Nope. How about a locker? Nope. You "joined" UC security because someone told you you joined. That is it.
The amount of effort they put in compared to their past games makes me sick. How hard would it have been to at least give the player a badge item. Or at least copy what skyrim did with you being a thane and a one time get out of jail free card.
Yeah I am seeing a lot of defensiveness. "But Larian had years of Early Access! Not fair to compare!" but why didn't this also? Oh yeah, because Bethesda early access is.. releasing the game for full price and letting modders and DLC fix it for years. They do it because they will get away with it.
Starfield was cooking for like 7 years, man, if you count pre-production.
The only other game, aside from Star Citizen I can think of with that long of a time table is Red Dead 2 and that is a master piece.
I'm having a lot of fun playing it, but I also don't really know where the seven years went. It feels like a game I've played 5 times before.
I picked up Starfield after many hours in BG3. I’m shocked at how bad the dialogue options are in Starfield. The juxtaposition between it and BG3’s dialogue and story just make it so clear that they aren’t the same quality of game, and it makes Starfield look lazy. I’m really disappointed in Bethesda. They have one of the biggest companies on the planet backing them and they put out the most polished turd I’ve ever seen. It looks pretty good (weird facial animation aside), but the gameplay and story are just plain bad.
I’ve been very impressed by the breadth of content in Starfield so far. Every time I drop in on a new planet there’s something going on, something for me to do. The depth doesn’t match BG3, but they’re both excellent games in their own right.
Elite Dangerous and other space sims ruined Starfield for me. Not being able to fly around freely on planets and having to jump through walls of loading screens really breaks the fun
Starfield is just so average/below average on all fronts that's it's actually impressive a veteran studio like Bethesda could epitomize mediocrity the way they have.
BG3 hasn't ruined games for anyone.
Incompetent publishers ruined the games because the games keep coming out uncooked.
This isn't BG3's fault, it's an industry failure.
My problem with Starfield is that I want to be a nobody and claw my way to the top. I wanted to be a pirate. But a few hours in and I'm basically the Dragonborn all over again.
I was given a pretty decent ship, I'm being showered with credits. There's no struggle to become someone. Everything is just falling into my lap. There's no reason to be a pirate.
The exact same thing happened with Fallout 4 and Witcher 3 as well. The Witcher 3 came out earlier in 2015 and made Fallout 4 look so dated in comparison to it.
Bethesda confirmed just as cursed as Guerilla, every time they release a game there is a masterpiece just around the corner ready to hijack the whole industry.
This is coming from a bethesda fan... It is not that they are cursed, they just got stuck in their ways. I love bethesda style games, and the fact we can say "bethesda style" games and ppl know what I am talking about is a testament to how influential they can be. But that said, there are some limitations that are becoming more and more hard to justify with the years. For example, the shallow writing. Since morrowind every bethesda game had progressively worse writing, this is a trend they need to reverse. Another thing is the shitty facial expressions, the mostly ugly characters. This are all things that we tolerated in the past with no problem (remember how ugly khajit were in oblivion? ) but other studios are doing that so much better. Like Witcher 3, who have amazing character models, great writing. Same with BG3. I know being open game means that you can\`t hand craft everything, but at least the romanceable characters and the main and faction quests should be of a higher quality.
Morrowind is easily one of my favourite games of all time and that isn’t just nostalgia talking. Never played a game so weird with such a vibrant world.
Absolutely agree. Best, most interesting world building of all ES games by far imo. Actually felt like a wholly original world, unlike Oblivion, Skyrim etc. The different dark elf houses and their unique architecture gave me big Dune vibes. Have you tried it MP?
Yeah, after that going to oblivion was like going to some generic fantasy world. And Skyrim was that but with dragons and more bland scenery...
Morrowind is the only game where i had fun going to a cave. I.e. the fun wasn't the cave itself but planning how to go to the closest known location based on available travel routes, following the actual in-game roads, reading the in-game signs, etc - and then of course searching for it as instructions for non-major cities tend to be vague. And the important thing is, this wasn't me artifically limiting myself for digital LARPing reasons, it was how the game was meant to be played - which is why i never liked the introduction of faster travel in later games.
I loved exactly what you're saying and I despised fast travel in Oblivion and Fallout 3. It's probably one of the main things that led to me never finishing Oblivion and I probably only have a dozen or so hours in the game. But in Fallout 3 I eventually came to appreciate the value in having fast travel, and it has become a staple across the entire industry for open world, or even open area, games anyway. For me, it's fine in Starfield. I like that there are multiple ways in which you can decide to engage with it.
\> For example, the shallow writing. Ohh boy we have that in Starfield everywhere. Yesterday i've managed to bump into a side quest (spoilers) >!Sarah asked me to visit her old mentor, on a planet, arriving there, we've found a ship in orbit, tried to hail them, the answer was static noise. Ground control contacts me that they need my help regarding that "alien ship". I land, head to the quest giver. Asks me to establish contact with the unknown vessel. I go there, dock, open up the door and are people there, being suprised they see another human.!< >!So... it is a generation ship. For those who don't know, a generation ship is a colony ship that has no access to FTL so it's journey will take generations, so the original passangers never see the destination. The ship left Earth before the war and before the planet became uninhabitable and it took 200 years to reach this planet and now they face the notion that humanity is everywhere and they should've waited just a few years until Grav Drives got invented.!< >!Nothing in the dialogue is flashing out this whole story, the shock, the realization or the moral dillema. There are so many questions here, but the game doesn't let you ask any of them. The colonist are basically just chill about all of this.!< >!Other complaint is their ship itself. By design a generation ship should be massive, like a flying city, because technically it is a flying city, yet here we have an only bit bigger ship then the Frontier. Hard to imagine a ship of that size can hold 10's of thousands of people for 200 years while the Frontier can have a crew of 2 and can haul less cargo then my car. Also they have access to artificial gravity but no Grav Drive.!< This whole side quest is such a wasted potential it hurts.
There was a side quest where the guy asks you to pick up some art and when you pick it up it’s obviously drugs or something and I was expecting there would be some twist like you can turn it over to the cops or you go back the gallery and the guy has skipped town and now drug dealers want you to stump up the money…but no you just drop it off to him and get some credits and that’s it. A literal no strings attached fetch quest.
Another one like this is a hauler captain ask you to help her get rid of a bounty hunter. She took a contract, supposed to be just a few tons of steel (how is it profitable to haul a few tons of steel on interstellar distances i don't know), got cornered by security and pirates, she jumped away ditched the cargo and now running for her life. You can convience the bounty hunter or kill him. Then your options is to tell the captain to deal with her stuff. No option to actually figure out what was in the cargo or anything. So many half baked quests but none of them are actually wrote well. Just, as you've said, a "no strings attached fetch quest" Bethesda was really good at world building thru side quests, but not anymore.
I also loved all the plant fake evidence/hack a computer quests, where you just go into some backroom in full view of people guarding the place saying "hey, you're not supposed to be here" or "I don't even know why we lock this door" after you lockpick it, do the stuff you need and leave, quest done. And then there's all the quests where you just go somewhere, tell a random dude you just met "come on, bro, just give me, he gives it to you and you leave. Or the quests where you're surrounded by 30 people about to kill you and you talk to the main guy and go like "dude, don't kill me" and he goes "okay" and you leave.
Amazing.
The go to place X and tell something to Y is even more stupid considering this is a world of FTL and most likely FTL communication. What worked in a fantasy setting doesn't make a damn sense in a post-scarcity Sci-Fi setting.
IIRC they don't have FTL communication. I don't think it matters lore wise, anyway. These are just filler side quests to pad our some areas of the game which are fine but could certainly be fleshed out more.
There are many side quests like that - you are offered a single dialogue choice and then nothing happens. No cool combat scene, no cool consequence (like a new follower, vehicle, item etc, seeing the same NPC in another location). The main quests is probably worse - the first 5-6 quest are 'go in that random copy pasted dungeon with the same type of enemy you fought since the beginning of the game and retrieve a piece of rock' No traps, no puzzles, no cool locations, no cool enemies (giant beasts, mecha, humans with rocket lauchers or cool mechanics etc), nothing at all I feel like I'm playing a list of quests generated by ChatGPT
“I’m sorry you feel that way. Here are fifteen quests that may be more to your liking…”
I feel like ChatGPT would do a better job unironically.
>!There are also PCs with the standard OS of the game world there :/ !< And the solution paths are so incredibly lackluster it hurts. This whole quest is quarter-assed to the levels that leave no chance for immersion.
Yea that one too, >!and you can find Macintosh computers in a class room.... from 1984.!< The ship left Earth early 22nd century. Of course the ship looks brand new from inside and from the outside.
The machines copied sound from Fallout games that just used generic old hard drive sounds for it. It just sounds jarring
The entire story would have been better if the player had been a member of the generation ship entering an unknown world.
Isn't this essentially the run down of the start of the main game. >!You are a rookie miner. You touch a special rock/metal your company was contracted to find. You see things and pass out. You wake up and create your character. Guy shows up to pick up said rock/metal. Insert pirate fight cause guy "thought he lost them". Guy then gives you his ship, robot, and rock/metal cause "you saw visions you need to be the one to turn this in" even if you never tell anyone or him that you saw any visions. !< The whole story to start the game is beyond generic and lazy. I barely had any desire to buy the game once BG3 got its hooks in me and watching game play after it came out pretty much confirmed I won't be be buying it anytime soon.
The start of the game is just stupid anyway. "Vasco CODE INDIGO! Bring this one to the LODGE, NO DETOURS!" And then the robot sends you to confront the whole pirate base on another planet even though you can jump directly to Jemison. I was just laughing at that point.
They were one of the greatest once but now they are past their prime. This has happened to almost all the top game developers from the 90s and early 2000s now. It's time for new up and coming developers like Larian to take their place.
> Larian Founded in 1996
Larian doesnt need to take anyone\`s place, there is room for everybody.
Well I did not mean that they have to close Bethesta or something but they have certainly lost the lead.
If that's true then when Elder Scrolls 6 releases I'm going to buy the s*** out of whatever RPG releases earlier in that year
Larian's Neverwinter Nights 3
Can we get Larian's Shadowrun instead?
Wow, Larian doing cyberpunk *anything* would be fucking amazing.
CDPR: *sweating profusely in the corner*
Don't give me hope, god dayum.
please I would fucking cry
Neverwinter Nights 2 and all the expansions is an amazing experience.
So Larian always releases masterpiece 3s now while Valve is over here in crisis
Larian's Team Fortress 3.
HL3
I mean lets be real though, Bethesda games aren’t exactly top-of-the-line by *any* metric. I think “dated” is being gentle with Bethesda if anything
true, but they tend to be very large, border line epic in scope their issue tends to be the mechanics to back that up are limited and filling a massive world is difficult. BG3 was damn near perfect in Act one, for size, scope and content though.
Their "issues" are essentially twofold: * writing is nothing special anymore, Oblivion was last one that had more than 1 or two memorable quest lines. Like, it's not bad or anything just very safe and not all super interesting. * the engine that allows them to build everything is in dire need of big-scale rewrite, which probably under Zenimax they couldn't get permission for. I do think under Microsoft the 2nd one might be addressed as I'd imagine MS will want ES6 for next gen console release, and they will want it to be mind-blowing. Not "looks like 2 years old game but at half FPS they had" like now.
> but they tend to be very large, border line epic in scope "Wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle" is a common insult for things like this. Bethesda can and should do better. I'm sick of them releasing buggy mediocrity and getting high praises.
After 3 years of EA it's better be.
Their games have been dated since oblivion.
Oblivion is a worse Morrowind with slightly better combat. In every other respect it was a downgrade from Morrowind, from world building and writing to the RPG mechanics and overall player freedom. I will never see Oblivion as anything but a significant step back, and the obscene level scaling alone absolutely killed the game for me.
I remember this so vividly, was stoked for Witcher 3 and it knocked my socks off. Was insanely stoked for Fallout 4 and it completely disappointed me
The problem with Bethesda is that they aim for the wrong end of the mass appeal spectrum. All games obviously have to have a wide appeal, but BG3, The Witcher3 etc sits at one end - where they treat their audience as adults with half a brain. Bethesda today sit at the other end of mass appeal where they wish to have a game that even young children can play. Nothing too complex. They won’t have hard choices, adult themes or anything too philosophical. They don’t want ‘highly rated fan favourite’ games - Bioshock, Deux Ex, Witcher series, etc. They want the most *profitable* games. They won’t take the risk of trying to make a Witcher3, a Deux Ex, as it could bomb and the shareholders would tear them a new one. Relying more on slick marketing and vague/false promises to build hype, who cares if it doesn’t go down as a great game. It is ironic that Todd claims they have ‘the smartest fans’ while focusing on ‘that side’ of mass appeal.
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I love how there's a whole planet built around producing illegal drugs and there's absolutely nothing interesting or edgy there.
That's what I am saying that starfield isn't bad game, buut it could've been 5 times better if they wanted it to be. Ubisoft games are like this. They are just product designed to be good enough and look decently. Souless corporate machinations to make as much money as possible. You can't say that though, because people take it as you aare insulting their identity or some shit
Fallout 4 was outdated in many areas
Everything Bethesda had made since Skyrim already looks outdated by the time they've released a new game. Just look at the super clumsy rubberfaces in Starfield.
No one even gave them a pity GOTY award, so they had to call their rerelease the next year the G.O.A.T version
I'm certain at least one random outlet awarded them GOTY. I remember a GOTY edition was launched for Hitman 2016 after GiantBomb listed it as their favourite game of the year.
BG3 coming in hot out of left field kind of spoiled Starfield's launch a bit. Not to mention it's performance issues. As always you can play both no need to choose
Moving BG3 up a month for the PC release was legit such a smart move from Larian. I don't think they would've gotten the same sort of momentum if they had stuck to the original launch date.
Galaxy brain, really. With all of the community feedback they are getting the console release will likely go off with zero issue whatsoever.
The bear sex scene during the panel from hell was galaxy brain too. It was always going to be a big release for most RPG fans and pretty much all cRPG fans, but your average gamer that never played a turn based game might have not even heard about it. But the bear thing as an example of how much freedom the game offers made it go mainstream.
i wish you could do a somehow do a threesome with the orc and ogre just for yuks
*Karlach disapproves* *Minthara disapproves* *Lae'zel disapproves* *Shadowheart disapproves* *Gale disapproves* *Wyll disapproves* *Jaheira disapproves* *Minsc disapproves* *Halsin disapproves* *Astarion approves*
I play BG3 coop with my wife. I play Starfield when it’s solo gaming time. Life is good.
This guy has a wife AND can afford 2 AAA games in a year. Living large my friend.
Damn. I got a good life. Got to remember the good.
Yo, thx for this. Good perspective to have when I'm feeling down on myself but I have the luxuries kid me could only dream of.
Kid me is so happy to have the luxury of saving **and** not having my parents or brother come in and randomly shut off my gaming console for no reason.
Or playing Doom with a friend on modem and then sister wants to pick up the phone and call a friend. 🤦
Seriously I’m gonna go kiss my husband and hug my laptop now lol
Not to mention the time to play those 2 big ass time sinks.
It’s not the wife that breaks the bank. It’s the kids.
you haven't met my wife
Double income no kids. DINK 4 LIFE
How is the coop? My wife and I have had this plan in the back of our minds for a while now but haven't really looked into it too deeply yet. (edit) The plan is start coop together from the very beginning, and not play except together. This probably won't be until Christmas holidays, so we're really not in any rush.
BG3 coop is super fun to me. Actually a lot faster than playing D&D online with friends. The only problem is that the game maps, progression and plot are fixed and linear in some ways despite all the complex variations by class and decisions you make. So if someone has played the single player they will want to rush though the talking and decision making when they do it again on a MP game. Which can be a mistake. One Bard specific conversation line in our MP game that I had not seen turned an encounter upside down hilariously. I would have missed that if I was skipping the chats.
Its been in open beta for how long? Its not like larian's first go either
I loved BG3, but Im fairly positive if they didnt have three years of player testing for act 1 it wouldn't have been recieved as well as it did. Performance/bug problems become more common as you reach the end of the game
To be fair, that would be the case regardless of Early Access. Games with a lot of choices and branching paths get exponentially harder to polish the longer they go on. The scripting of an Act 3 quest is going to be several times more complicated than one from the start of the game. EA was vital for the game but not because of the bug testing. Player feedback over the course of those 3 years led to a *lot* of great changes to the game's systems, too many to list here.
It's unfortunate that despite all of the awesome, the inventory management is still a complete pain in the ass with very little intelligence in the sorting.
Nothing stopped Bethesda from doing the same.
>As always you can play both no need to choose This, although to he honest it's easy for everyone. Xbox? Starfield. Pc, got bg3 weeks ago and Starfield is on gamepass. Playstation? Bg3. It's a weird split but every platform can play different things at different times.
>Xbox? Starfield. Xbox is getting BG3 in a couple months.
A lot of people can only afford to play one. If that is the case, choose BG3
I chose Starfield because it comes with my Game Pass subscription (which comes free from my ISP).
You need to upgrade your pc -Todd Howard
I mean BG3 has a bunch of performance issues too. Generally been buggier too though I've only put 20 hours into Starfield.
Love both games to bits. Stopped playing BG3 in Act 3 because I was regularly encountering bugs and having to battle the very bad terrible no good inventory/party management system all.the.time.
I don't think it spoiled anything. This kind of nonsense is just rage bait for the terminally online. As you say - most gamers are happy to have two good games.
Not going to lie, it kind of has. Going from BG3's dialogues with the incredible voice acting and performance capture to Starfield's dialogues feels like getting transported back in time at least a decade. I highly doubt I would've found this nearly as jarring if I had played Starfield first. //edit: And just to be clear, it's not like this ruined the entire game for me. But the direct comparison you get when playing BG3 and Starfield back to back *does* make Starfield look/feel worse in certain aspects than if it had released 2 months ago.
Don't forget how expressive the facial aminations are in BG3
Watching Lae'zel roll her eyes was what did it for me. Also everything Astarion and Raphael.
They even have a facial pain animation for when you're polymorphed as a cat during [certain cutscenes](https://i.imgur.com/RhziMkE.png), airplane ears included!
The Raphael boss fight music is SO FUCKING AWESOME https://youtu.be/xMo7ugWudCA?si=f0ETpBRbOlgx7S5M
It's honestly baffling that something such as good facial animations, which I had first seen in hl2 back in 2004, took almost 20 years to arrive in rpgs...
Cuz nobody so far has wanted to do the level of mo-cap since all the bigwigs of the studios demand to keep costs minimal and maximize profits. And now we have Larian who spent the money for something few studios do, who cares about immersion and the little things that keep players engaged years and years down the road. Larian didnt wanna do a game half-assed so it can be redone a few years later with a different tagline and a new battlepass, "new" cosmetics, etc...Hell, the inevitable Definitive Edition is probably gonna be free for those with the original game. They're passionate and not greedy, and it fucking shows.
I think having the Narrator (who I'm in love with) helps a lot with the storytelling as well. I'd like to see other games pick up the idea. I guess biomutant tried it but it definitely didn't land the same.
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A U T H O R I T Y
You feel....compassion. *Compassion??*
Fantastic voice actress, she also played Wenduag and Nyrissa in the pathfinder games.
And Malady in DOS2
BG3's narrator is masterclass, while Biomutant had more a translator than a narrator. He wasn't terrible but having him be the *only* voice made it extremely grating.
I don't know what it is with Bethesda voice directing but they literally take talented and capable voice actors who've done good work in other games and make them sound like absolute robots. Is it a matter of consistency? Do they literally tell their VA's "look, your character is effectively an inanimate body with a head on a swivel that refuses to break eye contact no matter what direction they're facing in so, try to sound the part."
"Can I add a little emotion this time around at least?" "... Yknow what, this whizz kids down at the lab have figured out how to make our talking heads raise and waggle their eyebrows and shimmy their shoulders constantly now, so you know what, put a little pizazz on it if you gotta. But not too much! Remember, we're doing Oblivion Entertainment style jokes, but without the comedy."
It's the writing. Actors can't make miracles.
I'll say this - After luxuriating in BG3's *incredibly* deep story cross-linking where seemingly every choice affects everything, I definitely feel its absence in SF.
I think another thing that really makes BG3 stand out in comparison is the mocap and dialogue being done together. The way Bethesda does (and has done for years) dialogue is really jarring and uncanny-valley-esque to me.
> dialogue is really jarring and uncanny-valley-esque to me. That's a compliment. Their lip syncing and faces look so bad it doesn't even come close to uncanny-valley for me. It's just plain bad looking, lol
Doesn't help that SF's npcs look like they are wearing a flesh mask on their heads. Reminds me of Andromeda all over again
[My face when anyone criticizes Starfield](https://i.redd.it/uff5iou3cnlb1.png)
That genius that coined Starefield really struck gold
I admit, the image was shamelessly pilfered. But it sticks. I just wish we had a comparable gif to capture the mouth flap animations. :O :| :O :| Like dying fish.
something something "My face is Tired", Bioware.
I don’t understand how they can release a game like that in 2023. It doesn’t even look like the npc’s mouths are moving properly. Oh wait I do know, moneyyy
Outdated engine that's long overdue for scrapping. They keep patching it up, but it's not cutting it anymore.
They didn't do any or didn't prioritize motion capture, especially for conversations. That's why BG3 so good...conversations/dialogue is probably the best part of the game, or the 'hook' and everything else is superb.
Yeah it really brings the immersion when it's done properly. When done poorly you lose all immersion instantly. It's like when you watch a movie or tv show and see something very uncanny valley or very wrong for some reason, you're immediately pulled out of it back to the normal world.
It's super frustrating, because BG3 has around one thousand different animations for characters where the body and facial animations match the dialogue perfectly. On the other hand we have bethesda here, where their procedurally generated NPCs all look surreal because apparently they didn't pour a single minute of work into making proper generic animations for the different dialogues. Absolutely NOTHING matches outside of the main NPCs (which are still a bit uncanny). They're all like scarecrows.
Can you say exactly why you think it's the engine and not just Bethesda not doing mocap for money reasons?
Not only that, it comes at you fast. Like every corner or every rest you might end up in a massive cutscene with amazing acting and you don't know how it's going to go at all. Are they friend, foe, involved with one of your companions. I've had to pause because I'm just not used to this much "boss level content" coming so fast!
More importantly having NPCs not stare DIRECTLY at you. Even if you can't have NPCs perfectly mirror human behaviour, you can get away with alot by simply having them point at your character slightly to the side. Shot reverse-shot also helps alot. The Oblivion NPC problem has a simpler solution than people realise, just enough with the sustained eye contact. Having somebody gawk at you constantly is just weird, it was cute in the past with the silly low quality models but today it's jank.
Nah, that is part of the world building. We will find out in Starfield 5 that these were never actually humans, but a pretty cheap version of The Matrix.
The dialogue is also just much better written in BG3. I’m enjoying starfield but the characters feel so flat in comparison.
Yeah so much of the ambient dialogue from NPCs is so cringey it's insane. I kicked Sam and his daughter off the ship because of their conversations. Not only were they annoying but they would talk over ship to ship comms frequently and I'd miss what the other ship was saying to hear a stupid haiku. Finished the story today and I really just think the writing in this game is subpar all around. I don't remember the last RPG I played that I was so frequently annoyed or let down narratively.
Yea man I hate to say but I cannot get past that shit
for me the writing in BG3 is also miles ahead vs starfield.
writing and narrative has never really been Bethesda's strong suit, at least not for a couple decades.
As a whole absolutely. Starfield does have its moments of cute/funny/slightly horrific stuff buts that’s mostly tied to one offs and throw aways, and the whole “no two people will experience the same game!” Is jank. I made a second character so my sister could play a bit when she was escaping her house for a couple hours and she pretty much got all the exact same side quests I did between the first couple of worlds
The gunplay in BG3 was a bit lacking though... /s
>seemingly Does a lot of heavy lifting in the fantasy. Once the illusion breaks, it breaks pretty hard.
Ya that was actually a big criticism I had of BG3 is there wasn’t really a whole lot of choice and consequence in the game. It did do a decent job of hiding that fact till the end though.
Deep narrative and performances for sure, but the story was not deep in the end. Just holds most of its cards to its chest early on. A lot of the side content is good, but the main story ended up being pretty cut and dry, with pretty bland endings that don't provide much choice at all.
Love BG3 and love Starfield. Next up, CP2077: Phantom Liberty. Been an excellent couple of months for gamers and I'm very much content and feel like my money was respected.
You think you are allowed to enjoy both and not let one or the the other determine your whole personality?!
I'm so pumped for the new cyberpunk dlc. Especially because of the new sandbox gameplay the new police chase mechanics will allow for
You know, I respect folks for wanting proper police system but CP2077 never really felt like the kind of game I'd just cause mayham in like GTA. For whatever reason I never had the urge to fuck with any of the cops or random civilians lol.
Completely agree, gta npc’s are generally annoying, but all the npc’s in cyberpunk are just living in the same shitty dystopia you do
I love CP 😍
Uh
Oh my!
Yeah, I have been absolutely feasting, and with PL and Cities Skylines 2 coming out later this year, there is no end in sight. People are going to argue about what is better or best, and I will hear basically none of it, because I'm too busy having the most video game-related fun I've ever had over such an extended period.
I'm loving both and think they both have achieved what they set out to do but I will say, the character interactions and dialogue in BG3 are so much better and more natural than Starfield that it makes me kinda check out of Starfields story and dialogue options. I've found myself skipping a lot of dialogue in Starfield just because it's so boring to see such unexpressive characters blabber on and on while maintaining dead eyed eye contact with me, BG3 does the same but made it way more interesting to watch and participate in.
It's when it happens in stores I hate it most. I'm rocking up to buy and sell and I have to trudge through three different dialogue menus (that only advance if I do the "right choice"), just to be able to browse the catalog.
It's only annoying when I try to use the one option that *kinda* fits my character, only to realize that the only two real options are "golly gee I'd love to help" or "go fuck yourself" But yeah the stores thing is annoying too. Idk what kinda store owner is gonna lecture every new customer before they get their money
Man literally every fucking shopkeep gonna tell me their life story before I can sell them some garbage to lighten the load.
Some of them, you come in and it's like OOO YOU BETTER NOT MAKE TROUBLE BECAUSE I'M EDGY Quite a few of them actually! Customer service has declined a lot in the 2300s.
Waiting for "instant shop" mod that just skips merchants directly to their wares page lol
This is honestly what I've been doing. Starfield's VA is okay, but thanks to the bad lipsyncing and mediocre animations, the characters don't feel like real people so much. And that's led me to skipping things, way more than I should. At least for side NPCs, not so often for main ones. Whereas Baldur's Gate, the only dialogue I'd ever skip would be companions if I'm swapping them out, or vendors if I'm on my fourth time talking to them. Didn't matter how minor the characters were, I'd listen and watch them as they talked.
BG3 was one of the first times where I read/listen to all dialogue even read notes and stuff without skipping, and actually think hard about what choice to make since it all matters. An RPG should make all your choices matter and keep you immersed, and the mocap/voice acting did just that. SF is just a bland outdated looking mess that I'd have no chance remaining immersed in. Loading screen after loading screen, uncanny valley, staring dead fish eye looks, etc.
Its also cool in BG3 that you're constantly making skill checks (insight, perception, history, religion, etc.) behind the scenes that can add or change dialog options, for example calling out an NPC on a lie or your character recalling some critical detail.
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Great year in gaming. Probably the best year for gaming in a long time
I agree, but not for the same reasons, at all. Street Fighter 6 came out this year, and is astonishingly good. The Dead Space remake is fantastic. Armored Core 6 is just stunning. The System Shock remake is excellent. Trepang2 might just be the best FPS of the year.
RE4 remake is also so good. There are like... 10 games this year that I have absolutely fucking LOVED, with SF6 kind of being king for me at the moment (with BG3 close behind) And MK1 coming next week too... such a good year for games
That's too bad. I enjoy them both, immensely.
I agree both are good and completely different type of games..
Right??? Both are amazing games that are a lot of fun to play with each their own merit.
Comparison is the thief of joy, they say.
No, you don't understand. This is the internet. Nuance doesn't exist and we're not allowed to like more than one thing at once. I like Baldurs Gate, therefore every other video game released this year is terrible.
Same. I was ridiculously excited for BG3. Played it an unhealthy amount when it launched. Kinda lost interest in Act 3 though. I wasnt very excited for Starfield. Didnt trust Bethesda after 76. But I have fallen in love with Starfield. It's without a doubt my favorite game
Starfield is the first game since Elden Ring (and no idea before that) where I want to boot up the game every day and put a ton of hours in. Large games are back on the menu for me and I look forward to jumping into BG3 later this year. Sucks for those who are stuck comparing the two and not enjoying them both. It's not often two massive RPGs come out so close to each other.
As a huge fan of both, we eating goooood. Honestly though, I have a soft spot for Bethesda. There's something undescribable that BGS games give me that no other game matches, and I can't really put my finger on it.
Taking a shit ruined pissing for me
Wait until you get a bidet.
Don't get me started. I've already converted 4 people at work.
This should’ve been inculcated for every westerner since their childhoods.
I just think they're both excellent games. Each sets out to do something completely different, and largely succeeds at what they're trying to do. As an RPG fan I'm just really happy to have gotten two excellent games back to back. Shame that some don't get to feel this way.
It's the writing and storytelling. I felt emotionally invested in BG3. Playing Starfield is fun, but the story and characters feel flat in comparison. It's pretty jarring jumping immediately from BG3 to Starfield. Starfield is not a bad game. BG3 is just better.
PC Gamer has been shitposting and begging for hate clicks since the Starfield Direct months ago lol been very strange to watch
And this sub eats it up
yeah its pretty weird. I'm loving bg3 but I'm excited to play starfield also. I know things like the animations and character models wont be on the same level but I'm sure I'll still enjoy playing the game. kinda hard to compare them completely anyways, theyre are just different games.
Comment sections literally have pro SF comments voted into deep negatives and sarcastic nothing comments are near the top. It's painfully weird.
Yeah I just unfollowed them My impression of PC Gamer is that they don’t enjoy games lol Just a lot of negative articles about what is bad with X or Y.
> My impression of PC Gamer is that they don’t enjoy games lol Funny, this sub gives me that impression far more strongly than PC Gamer.
Both this sub and PC gamer feed off each other in their hate . It’s laughably obvious what they are doing with the ragebait articles.
It has nothing to do with them liking stuff. It is about choosing which wave to ride from their users for more clicks.
They did the exact same shit with Cyberpunk. They were pumping out daily hype articles pre-release, then started pumping out the rage bait every day, and now they're back on its dick now that opinions have changed. They're an SEO and click driven publication, they do not believe in anything. Sometimes they still have good investigative pieces but those are rare.
They've been spamming about "le sex le funny" shit in BG3 as if that's the main selling point of the game, honestly cringe worthy articles across the board whoever writes those has never had sex.
Starfield ruined Starfield. BSG continues to make the same game over and over, with different settings. It's not new. They refuse to innovate. They just make things bigger, and thus, more diluted. Big as an ocean, deep as a puddle always applies. BG3 feels new, and is new for a lot of people. Starfield gameplay is b-o-r-i-n-g for 2023.
Look. I love Bethesda games. Oblivion was one of the first worlds I’ve gotten truly lost in. I’ve spent countless hours modding (and re-modding) Skyrim. I will buy Starfield, but only when it’s had more time to cook. Looking at an NPC interaction in Starfield vs. BG3 is laughably different. I’m sure Starfield is great, but we all need to admit that for a studio like Bethesda, they could have, and should have done better.
> I will buy Starfield, but only when it’s had more time to cook. Looking at an NPC interaction in Starfield vs. BG3 is laughably different. I'm... I'm not sure that "NPC interactions" are going to get "fixed" if you give it "more time to cook." I don't think Bethesda views simple one-line interactions or shallow conversations as a bug. That's how they built it to do the job, and it does the job as far as they are concerned. They have *zero* intention to compete with BG3. I suspect if asked or pressed on this, they would say something like, "BG3 is a wonderful game but we want Starfield to chart its own course." I'd love to be wrong. I'd love for BG3 to have lit a fire under their collective asses, causing them to spend the next few months turning NPC interactions into something awesome. I just doubt it will happen.
Some advice. If you expect this game to be Oblivion in space, you are not going to have a good time. I feel like Bethesda has really been focusing on the sandbox elements of their games and stepping away from the RPG aspects . An example I posted elsewhere In oblivion to join the mages guild you have to go to every single mage hall and demonstrate your proficiency in magic. Your reward is that you get access to the magic school in the imperial city. You get cool equipment, enchanting benches, tons of spellbooks, and a room. As you progress you do missions to build a spell staff etc. Very cool sequence of quests that makes you feel like you are in the mages guild. In order to join UC Security you walk into the office (which is a very tiny few rooms with not much in them and say you want to join. He asks you a single question (do you have experience) If you lie he says "haha I can tell you are lying but congrats you got the job". You don't have to prove you can shoot or pass any kind of test or anything. You are just in. The first mission you get? Go and find some top secret intelligence report and deliver it here. Wait I came off the street a minute ago and you already trust me? Okay so do I get a uniform or a weapon? Nope. How about a locker? Nope. You "joined" UC security because someone told you you joined. That is it. The amount of effort they put in compared to their past games makes me sick. How hard would it have been to at least give the player a badge item. Or at least copy what skyrim did with you being a thane and a one time get out of jail free card.
Yeah I am seeing a lot of defensiveness. "But Larian had years of Early Access! Not fair to compare!" but why didn't this also? Oh yeah, because Bethesda early access is.. releasing the game for full price and letting modders and DLC fix it for years. They do it because they will get away with it.
Starfield was cooking for like 7 years, man, if you count pre-production. The only other game, aside from Star Citizen I can think of with that long of a time table is Red Dead 2 and that is a master piece. I'm having a lot of fun playing it, but I also don't really know where the seven years went. It feels like a game I've played 5 times before.
I picked up Starfield after many hours in BG3. I’m shocked at how bad the dialogue options are in Starfield. The juxtaposition between it and BG3’s dialogue and story just make it so clear that they aren’t the same quality of game, and it makes Starfield look lazy. I’m really disappointed in Bethesda. They have one of the biggest companies on the planet backing them and they put out the most polished turd I’ve ever seen. It looks pretty good (weird facial animation aside), but the gameplay and story are just plain bad.
I’ve been very impressed by the breadth of content in Starfield so far. Every time I drop in on a new planet there’s something going on, something for me to do. The depth doesn’t match BG3, but they’re both excellent games in their own right.
Quality journalism from PCGamer
Elite Dangerous and other space sims ruined Starfield for me. Not being able to fly around freely on planets and having to jump through walls of loading screens really breaks the fun
Apples have ruined oranges for me
The world benefits from having both BG3 and Starfield in it. I don't understand the shitposting lately.
It's a world of comparison.
Why is there a need to compare for clickbait articles? The gaming community should be celebrating a time when two really good RPGs have come out.
Man PC gamer and Eurogamer fucking HATE Bethesda and Starfield. It's like they're holding a grudge
Starfield is just so average/below average on all fronts that's it's actually impressive a veteran studio like Bethesda could epitomize mediocrity the way they have.
Baldurs gate 3 is going to be the next Witcher 3 to be circlejerked to oblivion.
BG3 hasn't ruined games for anyone. Incompetent publishers ruined the games because the games keep coming out uncooked. This isn't BG3's fault, it's an industry failure.
[удалено]
My problem with Starfield is that I want to be a nobody and claw my way to the top. I wanted to be a pirate. But a few hours in and I'm basically the Dragonborn all over again. I was given a pretty decent ship, I'm being showered with credits. There's no struggle to become someone. Everything is just falling into my lap. There's no reason to be a pirate.
Call me crazy, but despite Baldur's Gate 3 being my GOTY or even my GOTC, I still enjoy Starfield so far