this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
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A lot of people seem to want this game to do poorly, half the comments complaining about it also say that they haven't played it yet.
"all these planet are boring"
Yeah, as if Mars and Pluto is interesting. People want this game to fail because it isn't a better game than the darling Baldur's Gate 3. And gamer has been like this for a while: either the game is 10/10 or it's shit/10, there's no between.
I remember the time when zelda botw came out and jim sterling gave it a 7/10,people went banana over that lol. Starfield and Witcher 3 may very well be a 6 or 7/10 game, and that's okay.
The point about planets in general being boring and empty is an interesting one to me because ultimately I think this is either going to be a positive or a negative for people based on their personal preferences. Video games don't have to be realistic after all. It's fine for someone to enjoy Starfield because they like the "realistic haunting empty space" vibe, but it's also okay for someone to not like that.
I can't remember much of how Starfield was marketed but I remember the "1000 planets" thing being parroted a lot. Was the fact that these planets were going to be realistically portrayed and mostly empty wastelands something that was made clear during marketing? If not, that might explain a lot of people's frustration and disappointment.
I agree on your point regarding games that are rated 6 or 7 out of 10. I'm frustrated with people always jumping to a game either being "perfect" or "terrible", and anything lower than an 8/10 being considered as a "terrible" rating. I remember with the first lot of Starfield reviews people were talking about how they were shocked one outlet gave the game a 7/10 when that rating communicates to me they thought that the game was great?
I think the big issue with a personal preference of realism vs. Fantasy is that Starfield has no commitment to realism in its execution (I say this with 12 hours played before I gave up). It is very much made to cater to lowest common denominator in other space travel things. The ship movement is very primitive and simplified. Travelling to new solar systems, landing on a planet, etc. Is done through fast travelling on the map to connect the different cells. It does not feel immersive in the slightest to me, and I have really enjoyed the "realism" of games like Elite Dangerous in the past.
Most damning is the lack of environmental planet differences. The only affect of a planets negative traits is suit protection reduction. There is no life support, your oxygen is just a stamina system. There is no vehicles. You are just running across barren, boring, procedural planets with none of the pomp and circumstance of games that have done effective space exploration.
Maybe in 2 years of mods you might have a more realistic experience out of starfield.
Any Bethesda game is essentially a mod vehicle with an RPG tacked on anyway. I think it's entirely on brand that they didn't go all in on hard sci fi for vanilla. I don't think that's incompatible with having a lot of planets that are mostly barren filler; I'm never going to explore 1000 detailed planets, and rescuing someone from a crash on a barren moon or finding a smuggler base on a frozen rock helps to keep the more interesting places feeling cool. There are still more interesting planets than I'm likely to ever get through.
Yeah there's certainly a debate to be had regarding whether the realism/emptiness is actually implemented well.
I haven't played the game and am not planning to (I'm in the camp of the "realistic haunting empty space" vibe isn't one for me, therefore this game just doesn't interest me at all) so I won't comment on it. But I am interested in following the discussion, so thank you for sharing your thoughts with me.