Starfield: General talk

11 Jun 2023, 7:27pm
It looks great. How my friend would say: "It's not a game you are playing, it's the game you are living." I suspect that I will spend an unhealthy amount of time in it.
11 Jun 2023, 7:57pm
45 minute deep dive gameplay broken up into sections.



@Artie - Yes! Between the story, the open universe, and everything else, I'm just IN. Everything else gets dropped for this game. To just be able to build every inch of my ship from scratch, to the interiors, and then walk around it with a CREW I hire is a dream come true in any space game I've played.
12 Jun 2023, 12:08pm
System requirements as per Steam page:



Minimum:
OS: Windows 10 version 22H2 (10.0.19045)
Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 2600X, Intel Core i7-6800K
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: AMD Radeon RX 5700, NVIDIA GeForce 1070 Ti
DirectX: Version 12
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 125 GB available space
Additional Notes: SSD Required



Recommended:
OS: Windows 10/11 with updates
Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 3600X, Intel i5-10600K
Memory: 16 GB RAM
Graphics: AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080
DirectX: Version 12
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 125 GB available space
Additional Notes: SSD Required

Obviously subject to change, however with that being said, we all believe over in the Starfield Wiki Discord server that the game is done.

I'm inclined to agree. And I'll be quite blunt here: For all the bagging people give Bethesda, there's no denying the very real track record they have of making games with surprisingly low system demands. I was actually expecting this kind of hardware list, and I'm pleased to see I was right.
15 Jun 2023, 3:27am
  • FDev: *sniff* Elite Dangerous doesn't need ship interiors, base building, planetary atmospheres with complex biomes and Flora/Fauna, Cities, EVA, or Ship Boarding combat. ED has 400 billion cold dead star systems to "explore"!. 400 Billion! More than anyone!!! Plus ED/EDO has more grind than any other game combined.
  • Bethesda: Starfield doesn't have 400 billion cold dead star systems, but will 1000 planets to explore with ship interiors, base building, planetary atmospheres with complex biomes and Flora/Fauna, Cities, EVA, and Ship Boarding combat do?
  • Star Citizen: Would you like to buy a new ship for the next alpha? #gamifiedcrowdfunding
  • NMS: Aciiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiid triiiiiiiiiiiip
15 Jun 2023, 5:25am
Kotoku
  • FDev: *sniff* Elite Dangerous doesn't need ship interiors, base building, planetary atmospheres with complex biomes and Flora/Fauna, Cities, EVA, or Ship Boarding combat. ED has 400 billion cold dead star systems to "explore"!. 400 Billion! More than anyone!!! Plus ED/EDO has more grind than any other game combined.
  • Bethesda: Starfield doesn't have 400 billion cold dead star systems, but will 1000 planets to explore with ship interiors, base building, planetary atmospheres with complex biomes and Flora/Fauna, Cities, EVA, and Ship Boarding combat do?
  • Star Citizen: Would you like to buy a new ship for the next alpha? #gamifiedcrowdfunding
  • NMS: Aciiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiid triiiiiiiiiiiip


XD
15 Jun 2023, 8:01am
Kotoku
  • FDev: *sniff* Elite Dangerous doesn't need ship interiors, base building, planetary atmospheres with complex biomes and Flora/Fauna, Cities, EVA, or Ship Boarding combat. ED has 400 billion cold dead star systems to "explore"!. 400 Billion! More than anyone!!! Plus ED/EDO has more grind than any other game combined.
  • Bethesda: Starfield doesn't have 400 billion cold dead star systems, but will 1000 planets to explore with ship interiors, base building, planetary atmospheres with complex biomes and Flora/Fauna, Cities, EVA, and Ship Boarding combat do?
  • Star Citizen: Would you like to buy a new ship for the next alpha? #gamifiedcrowdfunding
  • NMS: Aciiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiid triiiiiiiiiiiip

I'll be reserving judgement on Starfield until it has actually released.

However, my interest in playing is enough that, while I refuse to pre-order (Seriously, people need to stop paying for something that they've no means to know the quality of. Doing similar in the sports I take part in would get you royally mocked, to use polite phrasing), I am willing to sub on gamepass for a bit. There's a fair few other games I want to try anyway so I may as well kill two birds with one stone.

Seriously though the ship building is looking insane. The cowling they showed off looks particularly exciting as I think a lot more shapes are going to be posible than I thought initially. Already sketching up ideas.
15 Jun 2023, 6:20pm
Still refusing to read or watch teasers about the game. Rule #1 of Bethesda RPGs: First playthrough is the best. I'm gonna go in with a blank mind.
15 Jun 2023, 9:27pm
Yuna SakashiroStill refusing to read or watch teasers about the game. Rule #1 of Bethesda RPGs: First playthrough is the best. I'm gonna go in with a blank mind.

Yeah I really don't blame you there.

I normally would say the same, however because I find myself in deep with the Starfield wiki community (Born from the same folk behind Elder Scroll's UESP wiki), it's quite hard for me to ignore trailers, pre-release interviews and the like.

Still, while this is not me telling you that should watch the trialers, I will say that I feel they've done a good job not revealing at all what the heck is actually going on in the game bar very broad details like factions, etc.
15 Jun 2023, 11:30pm
Don't forget modding!
16 Jun 2023, 4:16am
Yuna SakashiroStill refusing to read or watch teasers about the game. Rule #1 of Bethesda RPGs: First playthrough is the best. I'm gonna go in with a blank mind.


Bro WHAT? WATCH THE DIRECT.
16 Jun 2023, 9:45am
The landings are cinematics? I think can't land manually.

Yuna SakashiroStill refusing to read or watch teasers about the game. Rule #1 of Bethesda RPGs: First playthrough is the best. I'm gonna go in with a blank mind.


Do well
16 Jun 2023, 9:05pm
MitxelThe landings are cinematics? I think can't land manually.

Yuna SakashiroStill refusing to read or watch teasers about the game. Rule #1 of Bethesda RPGs: First playthrough is the best. I'm gonna go in with a blank mind.



Do well

That's correct. Landings are not done manually.

Makes sense, as the planets are not part of the same gamespace as space so I'm not entirely sure what else could be expected there.

This is pure speculation here, but going by what we have seen, I suspect that spaceflight will work as follows: Landing is automatic, with a Mass Effect-esque cutscene to put the ship on the ground. In space, well I feel like every piece of footage has shown flying as being close to planet, so I wager that that travel between planets is done with jumps just as jumps to new systems are done.

Honestly, I think that would work well. The game isn't Elite Dangerous and we shouldn't expect spaceflight, both mechanically and by lore, to match ED. What this does is simplify travel between systems. It's important to note that supercruise in Elite exists mainly to allow a period of events to occur: If in ED we could simply jump to planets within systems, piracy, in particular PvP piracy, would be nigh-on impossible. Supercruise is there by design to allow you to get hit by pirates, gankers, etc. (Yes, even the gankers)

In Starfield, Bethesda has obviously taken a different route. Jump to different planets, and traffic above planets is probably somewhat high. That is where things like being attacked, quests, and such can pop up. It also saves them having to have big open spaces of nothing which is clearly something they are trying to avoid. Being a singleplayer game, it's much easier to have these kind of things as there's no multiplayer game to consider.

As for the landing? Well as I mentioned, it's either that it's a seperate "map", so to speak, or that it's simply not feasible to have seamless landing down to such richly detailed worlds. Let's not kid ourselves here: ED can do it only because planets are so barren. Most people suffer serious stutter just for going near a tiny Ody settlement, never mind an entire bloody ecosystem of an earth world.

It's almost certainly a decision to allow the game to deliver the atmosphere desired and it's not actually trying to be a space sim: You shouldn't expect space sim things from Starfield. Anything it might have that fits that kind of bill, is a bonus.
16 Jun 2023, 10:00pm
Kaiden Ryder
MitxelThe landings are cinematics? I think can't land manually.

Yuna SakashiroStill refusing to read or watch teasers about the game. Rule #1 of Bethesda RPGs: First playthrough is the best. I'm gonna go in with a blank mind.




Do well


That's correct. Landings are not done manually.

Makes sense, as the planets are not part of the same gamespace as space so I'm not entirely sure what else could be expected there.

This is pure speculation here, but going by what we have seen, I suspect that spaceflight will work as follows: Landing is automatic, with a Mass Effect-esque cutscene to put the ship on the ground. In space, well I feel like every piece of footage has shown flying as being close to planet, so I wager that that travel between planets is done with jumps just as jumps to new systems are done.

Honestly, I think that would work well. The game isn't Elite Dangerous and we shouldn't expect spaceflight, both mechanically and by lore, to match ED. What this does is simplify travel between systems. It's important to note that supercruise in Elite exists mainly to allow a period of events to occur: If in ED we could simply jump to planets within systems, piracy, in particular PvP piracy, would be nigh-on impossible. Supercruise is there by design to allow you to get hit by pirates, gankers, etc. (Yes, even the gankers)

In Starfield, Bethesda has obviously taken a different route. Jump to different planets, and traffic above planets is probably somewhat high. That is where things like being attacked, quests, and such can pop up. It also saves them having to have big open spaces of nothing which is clearly something they are trying to avoid. Being a singleplayer game, it's much easier to have these kind of things as there's no multiplayer game to consider.

As for the landing? Well as I mentioned, it's either that it's a seperate "map", so to speak, or that it's simply not feasible to have seamless landing down to such richly detailed worlds. Let's not kid ourselves here: ED can do it only because planets are so barren. Most people suffer serious stutter just for going near a tiny Ody settlement, never mind an entire bloody ecosystem of an earth world.

It's almost certainly a decision to allow the game to deliver the atmosphere desired and it's not actually trying to be a space sim: You shouldn't expect space sim things from Starfield. Anything it might have that fits that kind of bill, is a bonus.


I understand that. They said it could land anywhere on the planet, I'm intrigued by how it will do it, being cinematic. Can you really explore an entire planet? In mass effect they were small maps.
17 Jun 2023, 8:55pm
Mitxel
Kaiden Ryder
MitxelThe landings are cinematics? I think can't land manually.





Do well



That's correct. Landings are not done manually.

Makes sense, as the planets are not part of the same gamespace as space so I'm not entirely sure what else could be expected there.

This is pure speculation here, but going by what we have seen, I suspect that spaceflight will work as follows: Landing is automatic, with a Mass Effect-esque cutscene to put the ship on the ground. In space, well I feel like every piece of footage has shown flying as being close to planet, so I wager that that travel between planets is done with jumps just as jumps to new systems are done.

Honestly, I think that would work well. The game isn't Elite Dangerous and we shouldn't expect spaceflight, both mechanically and by lore, to match ED. What this does is simplify travel between systems. It's important to note that supercruise in Elite exists mainly to allow a period of events to occur: If in ED we could simply jump to planets within systems, piracy, in particular PvP piracy, would be nigh-on impossible. Supercruise is there by design to allow you to get hit by pirates, gankers, etc. (Yes, even the gankers)

In Starfield, Bethesda has obviously taken a different route. Jump to different planets, and traffic above planets is probably somewhat high. That is where things like being attacked, quests, and such can pop up. It also saves them having to have big open spaces of nothing which is clearly something they are trying to avoid. Being a singleplayer game, it's much easier to have these kind of things as there's no multiplayer game to consider.

As for the landing? Well as I mentioned, it's either that it's a seperate "map", so to speak, or that it's simply not feasible to have seamless landing down to such richly detailed worlds. Let's not kid ourselves here: ED can do it only because planets are so barren. Most people suffer serious stutter just for going near a tiny Ody settlement, never mind an entire bloody ecosystem of an earth world.

It's almost certainly a decision to allow the game to deliver the atmosphere desired and it's not actually trying to be a space sim: You shouldn't expect space sim things from Starfield. Anything it might have that fits that kind of bill, is a bonus.



I understand that. They said it could land anywhere on the planet, I'm intrigued by how it will do it, being cinematic. Can you really explore an entire planet? In mass effect they were small maps.

Simple answer there is nobody here can tell you the answer to that, as we've only got what Bethesda has said. Until we can play Starfield ourselves, that's the only information we actually have.

Best guess is that it'll simply be a case of picking a PoI on the planet map, and selecting a dialogue to land from there which will take us near wherever said PoI might be.

As for an entire planet? Well, the footage we've seen thus does seem to be very big. Someone over in the Starfield Wiki Discord mentioned spherical maps or something. I am no game dev so I won't make any claim to know how things are made but guessing that means a map wrapped around a sphere? We can only wait and see come September. I doubt we'll get any more big info drops between now and then.
17 Jun 2023, 10:06pm
Actually, it was seen in the Starfield direct already (timestamp 5:45), you can set a point anywhere on the planet and then tell "land here". So yes, it seems we will be able to explore an entire planet. For what they said about the planet tech, they mentioned something about proc-gen, large assets (like 1x1 km size) and "random" handcrafted stuff, so I guess the planets can be pretty large and yet feel interesting.

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