Questionable Questing

Cambrian

Just finished Starfield. Entered NG+ and I think I'm done. No desire to do the NG+ grind, haha. There's potential for a fanfic there though... but maybe later, heh.

d.fish

Yeah, I read the plot and decided I wasn't going to go into it. That CP77 expac looks interesting though!

Cambrian

Yep, I'll probably replay Cyberpunke 2077 completely before playing the DLC. Not going to buy the DLC until about a week after release anyways.

Starfield's main story was definitely one of its weakest parts, but the faction quests and side content wasn't half-bad. Figure it'll be better with mods in a year or two.

Cambrian

Best of all, I played it on Game Pass lol, so it didn't cost me a dime because I got given 10 months of Game Pass as a birthday present literally last month.

d.fish

relying on mods feels inherently unreliable, I mean, on bethesda's part

don't like that

I guess I just... I don't know, expected baldur's gate in space for some reason

Cambrian

Yeah its kind of hilarious how everyone including Larian was so worried about how Starfield would impact BG3. To the point that BG3 even got moved up a month so it wouldn't have to compete.

Meanwhile, turns out Bethesda should have been worried about how BG3 would impact Starfield, pfft.

d.fish

I feel like at this point Todd is kind of a joke, and Starfield was like his last chance to redeem himself. Not sure if Daddy MSFT would the same thing happen to TES6. Still, it seems like there's a lot of internal errors at work or else they wouldn't have such a loose control of creative vision when outsourcing, unlike Larian or CD Projekt.

Cambrian

Eh, the thing is, Starfield is still a fun game. Its not like Cyberpunk was at launch or anything like that.

Starfield's problem is that it doesn't innovate on past Bethesda games pretty much at all.

Cambrian

But by that same logic, Bethesda fans will still enjoy it immensely.

Even with its shallowness compared to BG3, I personally still enjoyed it. I just wouldn't ever recommend paying $70 for it lmao.

Cambrian

From what I can see, Daddy MSFT is very happy with Starfield. Probably just happy it wasn't another Red whatever

Cambrian

As a reason to get on MSFT's Game Pass, it probably does its job pretty well tbh. In that regard its a complete success

d.fish

That's true, it's not another Fallout 76. However, for Game Pass, I wouldn't really find that a reliable reason to "get it", since Game Pass user number stats haven't grown in a while. When applied to Game Pass, it's probably more of a maintenance fee?

d.fish

I think it's basically a Skyrim in space, right? There's nothing wrong with that if that's what people are looking for, that's true.

Cambrian

Yeah its easily on par with Fallout 4. Maybe better actually. If Skyrim is an 8 and FO4 is a 6 for me, Starfield is a 7.

IGN was right on the money tbh.

Cambrian

Of course, it helps that I play Bethesda Games solo. God are the companions in BGS games sooooo shallow lmao.

If I had to play with a companion the entire time it might get knocked down to a 6.

d.fish

I think part of it is that they keep trying to automate gameplay, like since Skyrim, they had their radiant quests, and they always tried to make "unlimited" gameplay, but it's just a set of legos put together differently each time, which is quantity without quality in that respect.

d.fish

Not that I mind this though, I mean, sometimes I just like killing.

Cambrian

Yeah I actually think they did radiant quests a TINY bit better in Starfield. Like, I never bothered with radiant quests in Skyrim, but I did a couple of them for each faction in Starfield before getting bored lol.

d.fish

I hate how there's a huge lack of scifi elements, but I can understand it's going for a more hard scifi thing. Just... I don't know, there's a lot of very creative scifi novels out there these days

Cambrian

Hm, it felt plenty sci-fi to me. There was the hard sci-fi in the general game, but then the mystical sci-fi bits in the main quest/game ending.