Starfield OT First big update

[SWORDF1SH]

Nice! It's a massive game so don't feel like you need to do everything.

Have you played other games like it?

Not really and the most time I've spent on a RPG is Skyrim. With Skyrim I'll play about 40 hours and enjoy it, have a break, don't go back until a while later, start over again because I can't be bothered to work out what progress I made and what I can and can't do.

I've played NMS and found it just OK even with the major updates. I played Elite Dangerous for a very small amount of time.

So I might enjoy Starfield.  I might play 40 hours and give up or I might not be able to get into it. The signs are promising but it's very rare a game can keep me going back so let's see.

37% downloaded

Is Steam superior at downloading games?  The download speeds is the same as Xbox store but Steam tends to download roughly half the game size while unpacking the other half as it downloads. Starfields game size ~140GB but needs to download ~115GB.
Or is it the same on both Steam and Xbox?

[Legend]

Not really and the most time I've spent on a RPG is Skyrim. With Skyrim I'll play about 40 hours and enjoy it, have a break, don't go back until a while later, start over again because I can't be bothered to work out what progress I made and what I can and can't do.

I've played NMS and found it just OK even with the major updates. I played Elite Dangerous for a very small amount of time.

So I might enjoy Starfield.  I might play 40 hours and give up or I might not be able to get into it. The signs are promising but it's very rare a game can keep me going back so let's see.

37% downloaded

Is Steam superior at downloading games?  The download speeds is the same as Xbox store but Steam tends to download roughly half the game size while unpacking the other half as it downloads. Starfields game size ~140GB but needs to download ~115GB.
Or is it the same on both Steam and Xbox?

Well, it's been 2 hours. Have you finished the game yet!?


No clue on xbox downloads. I have really fast internet so I don't think about it.

[SWORDF1SH]

I played for 30 minutes last night before I went to bed. All I can tell you so far is that it looks nice and the mining feels more natural than any other games I've played.

[Legend]

I don't know how to make more money!

Buyers have a limited amount of cash and I can clear out everyone in the galaxy with one cargo hold. I am limited by how fast buyers can buy, not how fast I can make.

Just shy of a million credits.

[Legend]

And done! Watching the credits atm.

Main story was kinda meh in my opinion while the rest was great. I think I put in around 80 hours which is pretty much the same as every other huge game I've played.

Will prob take a short break and then just keep casually playing. A heck of a lot more to explore.

Edt: outside of a few moments near the end, it was also great how much control I had over things. My custom story in this game was crazy.

Just wish one minor npc had more interaction options.

[the-pi-guy]

Legend 80 hours into Starfield: I have seen enough.

Me 80 hours into Skyrim: I'm just getting started.

/S


I'm actually only like 15 hours into this file...

[Legend]

Over 30 minutes of credits so far. I don't like skipping them but I will this time.

[Legend]

Legend 80 hours into Starfield: I have seen enough.

Me 80 hours into Skyrim: I'm just getting started.

/S


I'm actually only like 15 hours into this file...

Haha I beelined the main quest like I said I might.

[Legend]

Starfield is near flawless once you know "how" to play but oh boy did Bethesda actively sabotage player onboarding. Looking at other players it seems a fair amount of people had a significantly worse acclimation experience than I did.

For example I saw anecdotes of players going into identical cave after identical cave because they didn't realize caves have no purpose if you're not interested in minerals.



It's truly incredible playing a modern AAA game that's not playtested to death like these:

But it's only fun once you understand what the game has to offer. A well crafted 10 minute introductory video would probably do wonders for the game and that's hilariously sad.

a lot of games use "trickery" to make the player feel something that the software can't actually do.

a problem with being a smart and analytical person is seeing though the trickery.   for my wii was the worst in this regard.   so many nintendo games make heavy use of trickery (with wii frisbee golf being the worst of the worst imo) making you think you should use realistic movements when in fact that's the worst possible thing to do if you want to win. 

Yeah trickery is the name of the game.

My big philosophy of game design is all about that actually. In most cases the ideal game looks like this:


The player is always living in willful ignorance and they apply additional meaning that isn't actually in the code. If the illusion breaks though like your wii example then the player experience comes crashing down which feels worse than just starting at the "truth."

[Legend]

Starfield reached a new all time high on steam with 330 thousand concurrent players. Forza Horizon 5 only ever managed 80k and even free to play Halo Infinite only ever managed 256k.

Pretty sure this is Microsoft's biggest steam game launch ever. I think it's Bethesda's second biggest steam game ever. Bigger than Skyrim's 287k and smaller than Fallout 4's 472k.

Incredibly impressive since a large amount of pc players are using gamepass instead.

[the-pi-guy]

I assume it did great sales, but maybe not amazing.

Great to see.

If only Sony made something similar on PlayStation.  

[Legend]

WTF. Starfield actually has full orbits and proper stellar mechanics. I left the game on in the background and I've been orbiting Earth.

The scanner shows the distance to other bodies and those are all updating too. My distance to the Moon increased ever so slightly since I was orbiting away from it, yet my distance to Mars and other bodies beyond the Moon decreased since Earth orbits faster than them.

Why the heck do they have all this detail just for the map screen to be copy pasted from system to system? It's great for getting where you need to go but it's far from exciting for new players.


(it's not perfect though. The planets are in the wrong position for 2330. Also while you can see moons when zooming in, other planets are not rendered unless you're actually near them)

[kitler53]

so i've never actually followed steam charts before but Pi (i think) gave me this link (https://steamdb.info/app/1716740/charts/) and i've been casually watching it.

is it common for to have lower lows and lower highs in the second week already?   era seems to at least imply the highest peak should be in the second weekend so i guess i expected things to at least not go down WoW.

[the-pi-guy]

so i've never actually followed steam charts before but Pi (i think) gave me this link (https://steamdb.info/app/1716740/charts/) and i've been casually watching it.

is it common for to have lower lows and lower highs in the second week already?   era seems to at least imply the highest peak should be in the second weekend so i guess i expected things to at least not go down WoW.

Elden Ring and Baldur's Gate both peaked in their second week.

But there might be a variety of factors at play. Gamepass might be a factor, early access might be a factor.

[kitler53]

Elden Ring and Baldur's Gate both peaked in their second week.

But there might be a variety of factors at play. Gamepass might be a factor, early access might be a factor.

i would expect gamepass to affect the magnitude but not the slope of the trend.   i think it is pretty self evident that the steam numbers would be A LOT higher if the game wasn't available for $15 on PC/xbox gamepass.   but i wouldn't expect the peak to come sooner because of gamepass. 

i dunno.  i've never really followed these numbers so i don't really know what to expect i guess.  i was just reading the era thread earlier and was surprised to see the numbers come in so low this morning.