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[Humdinger]

The fact that I absolutely love Bethesda means I will play this disappointing game sooner or later just to experience it. I already bought it. Still wrapped in plastic. Just waiting for a good patch to jump in.

I'm guessing you will enjoy the game all right, now that your expectations have been lowered. Expectations play such an important role in how we experience a game. After reading/watching all the negative Starfield impressions over the past month, I imagine that your expectations have been ratcheted way down. You certainly won't be surprised by its shortcomings. So, you'll probably end up enjoying the game okay. (just my speculation)

 

[GHG]

 

[Bonfires Down]

49% in recent reviews? They really messed this one up huh.

 

[yet_another_alt]

I'm guessing you will enjoy the game all right, now that your expectations have been lowered. Expectations play such an important role in how we experience a game. After reading/watching all the negative Starfield impressions over the past month, I imagine that your expectations have been ratcheted way down. You certainly won't be surprised by its shortcomings. So, you'll probably end up enjoying the game okay. (just my speculation)

I had low expectations but Starfield still managed to disappoint in multiple ways. I still liked it but that's because I have a tolerance for shitty games with settings that I enjoy.

 

[ZoukGalaxy]

Oh wow, I didn't expect it to go this low (66% for noW). Didn't played yet but looked at some no commentary streams and it's true that the exploration part is incredibly disappointing and looks so generic (copy paste everywhere).
Was expecting a mass effect 1 mako style exploration and... it's nothing like that sadly. Won't prevent me to buy much later the inevitable GOTY edition with all addons, but still, I expected so much more from the exploration of the universe...

 

[onQ123]

Trying to figure out how 11 out of 10 equals 66?

 

[salva]

Haha gamers are such lil bitches. I bet all those neg reviews also put in 100hrs and "don't like it"

 

[Daneel Elijah]

So 2 out of 3 people are positive about it. In the last month that was 1 out of 2. Compared to what ? 4 out of 5 at launch? I already said that this thread will have a lot of copycats. But now for it to continue getting a lower score more than 2 months after launch I think that it will take at least one year for it to get back up to 80%. If Bethesda do the work needed for it of course.

 

[The Pleasure]

For a while nothing showed. I assumed that i needed to wait for a patch or a modder to mod something in.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Not sure if it warrants a separate thread so posting it here.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/st...wo-months-after-bethesdas-biggest-launch-ever

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Not sure if it warrants a separate thread so posting it here.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/st...wo-months-after-bethesdas-biggest-launch-ever

That launch engagement number though….

 

[Unknown Soldier]

LOL the mod really gave up on constantly updating the thread title huh

 

[Heisenberg007]

That launch engagement number though….

The increase in Skyrim's numbers a month after Starfield's release is very telling.

 

[tommib]

49% on recent Steam reviews? What the hell. It’s scoring much lower than Fallout 76.

 

[timothet]

Haha gamers are such lil bitches. I bet all those neg reviews also put in 100hrs and "don't like it"

If you read carefully Steam reviews are about recommending games to other people, not liking them. There is difference between those two.
I definitely have games that I personally like and have dozens and hundreds of playtime in, but wouldn't recommend to other people due to factors like performance, egregious monetisation etc.

 

[artsi]

I read many arguments like "It will have legs for years" because Skyrim had them. With mods, or without.

People need to understand that Skyrim was a very special game and no Bethesda game after it has replicated it's success.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

This is why we can't have new good things.

A developer who has a storied history of making a certain type of games goes above and beyond to deliver a brand new experience. Yet gamers instead of giving constructive feedback are busy hating on it for months.

Enjoy your GTA 5.5 I guess. Todd would be wondering why didn't he just made Skyrim 2. Less work, more profit.

 

[Heisenberg007]

This is why we can't have new good things.

A developer who has a storied history of making a certain type of games goes above and beyond to deliver a brand new experience. Yet gamers instead of giving constructive feedback are busy hating on it for months.

Enjoy your GTA 5.5 I guess. Todd would be wondering why didn't he just made Skyrim 2. Less work, more profit.

Except they didn't really go above and beyond at all.

1) They didn't improve upon their previous formula, which was already ~15 years old.
2) Moreover, instead of improving, they regressed, making mistakes and creating issues that were not even there in their 15-20-year-old games.

They just created a new game. You're right to that extent, but that's it.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

Except they didn't really go above and beyond at all.

1) They didn't improve upon their previous formula, which was already ~15 years old.
2) Moreover, instead of improving, they regressed, making mistakes and creating issues that were not even there in their 15-20-year-old games.

They just created a new game. You're right to that extent, but that's it.

How is this same as their 15 year old game and yet have some things they need to figure out / iron out??

Some of you guys make no sense. Don't have any real criticism for the game outside of whatever is fed to you by media.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

This is why we can't have new good things.

A developer who has a storied history of making a certain type of games goes above and beyond to deliver a brand new experience. Yet gamers instead of giving constructive feedback are busy hating on it for months.

Enjoy your GTA 5.5 I guess. Todd would be wondering why didn't he just made Skyrim 2. Less work, more profit.

Don't worry, that half assed phoned in effort will be met with equally as much criticism and not some hand me out 9's like this game had.

I love ES and if we get this effort there, it will be a huge letdown.

 

[Heisenberg007]

How is this same as their 15 year old game and yet have some things they need to figure out / iron out??

Some of you guys make no sense. Don't have any real criticism for the game outside of whatever is fed to you by media.

Because they regressed in a lot of things.

• Skyrim had hand-crafted content. Starfield has procedurally generated content.
• In Skyrim, there were no loading screens moving between regions. Starfield has loading screen every time you travel to planets.
• There was one seamless world in Skyrim. Starfield doesn't even have an open-world.

They set out to make "Skyrim in space" -- essentially a 13-year-old game in space. Their entire ambition was to just make a 13-year old game in a different setting.

And yet they added more issues and problems that Skyrim didn't originally have. So it turned out to be even worse than a 13-year-old game.

 

[GametimeUK]

I can't wait in a few years time when we get all the "misunderstood classic" reviews. "Underrated af". Etc

 

[Hudo]

goes above and beyond to deliver a brand new experience.

Starfield is anything but Bethesda going "above and beyond". It's a game with severe engine limitations that impact the game design, with gameplay that hasn't evolved since Skyrim and the usual shallow depth in its world reactivity and RPG mechanics. Even worse, in certain details it has even regressed. Where guards and NPC feedback was more detailed than what we got in Starfield.

Starfield is by all accounts a 7.0/10 game that Todd tried to sell as a 10/10 game, while also being disingenuous about what you can do in the game. In his directs, he stated multiple times how the game is about exploration and humanity exploring space. Hell, you even join an explorer's guild during the main story line. And exploration is the weakest part of the game, severely limited by their tech. Can't explore planets, can't explore space; loading screens for every zone change, and the procedually generated areas are uninteresting as fuck and, even worse, don't adhere to a common consistency. You can land in an area outside of a major settlement, with a skyline that should be visible from where you're at, but it isn't because the procedual generation doesn't factor that in. The gunplay feels flat because the enemies are still fucking bullet-spongy and hit feedback is still lacking, which you are supposed to "fix" by investing in talents/perks/skills, but it just isn't interesting in the way they have implemented it. Companions are so fucking shallow in their gameplay depth that they might as well could've been left out. Space ship building is cool but because you can't freely explore space, it's kinda pointless, even though the space combat is nice, at least. For a company that tries to "simulate a world", as they say, the world reactivity to the player's actions is fucking laughable.

In 2011, Bethesda's formula was cool (also helped that the world of Skyrim was much smaller), in 2023 it feels outdated. When I played it, the thought of "that's it?" always came up. I even managed to identify the usual Bethesda "quirks" of how stuff works. This did not change one bit. If they don't rethink their approach to develop games, they can keep TES6.

The game is underwhelming as fuck.

 

[SJRB]

This is why we can't have new good things.

A developer who has a storied history of making a certain type of games goes above and beyond to deliver a brand new experience. Yet gamers instead of giving constructive feedback are busy hating on it for months.

Enjoy your GTA 5.5 I guess. Todd would be wondering why didn't he just made Skyrim 2. Less work, more profit.

If Starfield is your idea of going "above and beyond" or a "brand new experience" then buddy, that's on you.

 

[Gudji]

This is why we can't have new good things.

A developer who has a storied history of making a certain type of games goes above and beyond to deliver a brand new experience. Yet gamers instead of giving constructive feedback are busy hating on it for months.

Enjoy your GTA 5.5 I guess. Todd would be wondering why didn't he just made Skyrim 2. Less work, more profit.

New experience? You can't make this shit up. Fucking delusional.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

Starfield is anything but Bethesda going "above and beyond". It's a game with severe engine limitations that impact the game design, with gameplay that hasn't evolved since Skyrim and the usual shallow depth in its world reactivity and RPG mechanics. Even worse, in certain details it has even regressed. Where guards and NPC feedback was more detailed than what we got in Starfield.

Starfield is by all accounts a 7.0/10 game that Todd tried to sell as an 10/10 game, while also being disingenuous about what you can do in the game. In his directs, he stated multiple times how the game is about exploration and humanity exploring space. Hell, you even join an explorer's guild during the main story line. And exploration is the weakest part of the game, severely limited by their tech. Can't explore planets, can't explore space; loading screens for every zone change, and the procedually generated areas are uninteresting as fuck and, even worse, don't adhere to a common consitency. You can land in an area outside of a major settlement, with a skyline that should be visible from where your're at, but it isn't because the procedual generation doesn't factor that in. The gunplay feels flat because the enemies are still fucking bullet-spongy and hit feedback is still lacking, which you are supposed to "fix" by investing in talents/perks/skills, but it just isn't interesting in the way they have implemented it. Companions are so fucking shallow in their gameplay depth that they might as well could've been left out. Space ship building is cool but because you can't freely explore space, it's kinda pointless, even though the space combat is nice, at least. For a company that tries to "simulate a world", as they say, the world reactivity to the player's actions is fucking laughable.

In 2011, Bethesda's formula was cool (also helped that the world of Skyrim was much smaller), in 2023 it feels outdated. When I played it, the thought of "that's it?" always came up. I even managed to identify the usuall Bethesda "quirks" of how stuff works. This did not change one bit. If they don't rethink their approach to develop games, then they can keep TES6.

The game is underwhelming as fuck.

Are you a game/ engine designer??

Always find it funny everything about game is blamed on engine, not on the fact it's overstuffed game with content.

Adding content on planet surface needs to happen. That will make it's exploration what it needs to be.

It's only thing that's holding it back.

If Starfield is your idea of going "above and beyond" or a "brand new experience" then buddy, that's on you.

You come out of a cave on a desolate planet, immediately you lift off and go to a different planet, that is full of wild life and greenery with a futuristic city.

If this is not new experience then I don't know what is.

 

[Gudji]

Phil each time he logs to steam to check how the game is doing:

"Please stop the count..."

 

[ShaiKhulud1989]

Doesn't surprise me, honestly. Let's ignore the game's utter mediocrity: the PC support is just shit. Game still lags like crazy, DLSS update is still in beta (AAA update in beta, lol), basic things like contrast and HDR are broken still, etc. Almost every, even the silliest launch issue is still there despite the immensive publisher's resources behind the game.

And it's been two months now. No wonder that people are mad.

 

[Hudo]

Are you a game/ engine designer??

I work regularly on and with game engines at work. But I don't design games professionally (but as a hobby, if that counts for anything).

But are you really going to tell me that you don't see what Bethesda probably wanted to do, but just couldn't or had to work around their tech? It begins with small stuff like pathing errors of enemies and companions when you engage in vertical combat, loading for every zone change, lack of reactivity for actions from both the world and its inhabitants, clunky implementation of mechanics like stealth, outdated hit detection and feedback when it comes to ranged and melee combat, akward or no blending of animations, unstable physics, where objects behave erratically when more complex forces have to be approximated, etc.

The ambition is probably there, at least that's what I got from their marketing, but the game falls flat in every way. And yes, I do think a huge part of that is because they refuse to either fundamentally rework their engine or adopt a new one. Also their solution for how to "explore" planets is clearly a workaround. Their stuff can't handle putting and streaming a lot of geometry over vast distances, probably because of how their object management in a level works, so they decided to procedually generate limited areas around your landing point, that aren't even consistently connected to each other. All this stuff to me looks and feels like they're working their way around their tools and their tech stack.

If they don't and this is really "working as intended", then that's even worse. And Microsoft should start looking at firing Todd and the rest of the management.

And don't get me started on their writing and quest design, which hasn't evolved one bit from Oblivion. They clearly have some sort of quest editor with triggers that designers use but I can still verify these bits and pieces they have used a decaded ago in Starfield. And that's all fine and obvoisly a boon for the quest designers. But it would be cool to experience something that has evolved and where you don't go "huh, this works just like it did in Oblivion."

Look, man. I was an "apologizer" for Bethesda and their engine before Starfield, believing that Starfield is a "testbed" for evolving their core pillars, changing out and evolving major modules of their tech stack, which is why they've chosen to do it in a new IP, rather than using an established IP for that. But nope. Yes, they have updated their renderer with some prettier lighting and 4K textures and that looks nice enough for the most part, but pretty graphics get boring quite fast. Especially when everything else is lacking behind.

 

[SmokedMeat]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/st...wo-months-after-bethesdas-biggest-launch-ever

I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner. Skyrim’s a much better game.

 

[Dazraell]

I work regularly on and with game engines at work. But I don't design games professionally (but as a hobby, if that counts for anything).

But are you really going to tell me that you don't see what Bethesda probably wanted to do, but just couldn't or had to work around their tech? It begins with small stuff like pathing errors of enemies and companions when you engage in vertical combat, loading for every zone change, lack of reactivity for actions from both the world and its inhabitants, clunky implementation of mechanics like stealth, outdated hit detection and feedback when it comes to ranged and melee combat, akward or no blending of animations, unstable physics, where objects behave erratically when more complex forces have to be approximated, etc.

The ambition is probably there, at least that's what I got from their marketing, but the game falls flat in every way. And yes, I do think a huge part of that is because they refuse to either fundamentally rework their engine or adopt a new one. Also their solution for how to "explore" planets is clearly a workaround. Their stuff can't handle putting and streaming a lot of geometry over vast distances, probably because of how their object management in a level works, so they decided to procedually generate limited areas around your landing point, that aren't even consistently connected to each other. All this stuff to me looks and feels like they're working their way around their tools and their tech stack.

If they don't and this is really "working as intended", then that's even worse. And Microsoft should start looking at firing Todd and the rest of the management.

And don't get me started on their writing and quest design, which hasn't evolved one bit from Oblivion. They clearly have some sort of quest editor with triggers that designers use but I can still verify these bits and pieces they have used a decaded ago in Starfield. And that's all fine and obvoisly a boon for the quest designers. But it would be cool to experience something that has evolved and where you don't go "huh, this works just like it did in Oblivion."

Look, man. I was an "apologizer" for Bethesda and their engine before Starfield, believing that Starfield is a "testbed" for evolving their core pillars, changing out and evolving major modules of their tech stack, which is why they've chosen to do it in a new IP, rather than using an established IP for that. But nope. Yes, they have updated their renderer with some prettier lighting and 4K textures and that looks nice enough for the most part, but pretty graphics get boring quite fast. Especially when everything else is lacking behind.

This is exactly what bothers me with Starfield. I already had a similar feelings about Fallout 4, and that same thing is just repeated. I think each of their projects brings a unique and creative opportunity to try to improve their technology. Not only in terms of adding new features and better graphics, but also by refining the foundations

When I think about space game, the first thing I immediately thought is that premise feels like a good setup to experiment with some of their core pillars. Each planet is its own worldspace, so a good opportunity to try to reduce loading screens. The same goes with content variety and experimenting with different and unique ideas for each planet.

It just sucks when you think about the game and the thoughts that comes is something in a lines of "damn, this could have been much better if devs would do X, Y, Z"

 

[The Cockatrice]

goes above and beyond to deliver a brand new experience.

 

[Heisenberg007]

I read many arguments like "It will have legs for years" because Skyrim had them. With mods, or without.

People need to understand that Skyrim was a very special game and no Bethesda game after it has replicated it's success.

Also, because Skyrim was a very good game for that time. If Skyrim was released today in that condition, it'd not be appreciated as much.

At that time, Skyrim was special because good open-world games were a rarity. Now, there are plenty of open-world games, most of which have excelled Skyrim in different ways.

 

[winjer]

Bethesda really shot themselves in the foot when they raised expectations so high.
Even if the game is decent enough, players will be disappointed with it and review it poorly.
Todd's constant lies are catching up to him, in a bad way.

 

[Forth]

I absolutely love Starfield on my Series X, the only part that disappoints me is the discovery element when landing on new planets. They really needed to double down on that.

 

[TheSHEEEP]

Skyrim had hand-crafted content. Starfield has procedurally generated content.

Good procedural content can be great, as proven by NMS and others (XCOM or more indie ones like Cataclysm: Bright Nights or such).
The problem is not that they used procedural generation.

The problem is that they did the absolute worst, laziest procedural generation imaginable.
Just some completely uninteresting terrain with some points of interested completely randomly distributed within and absolutely no connecting tissue or coherence whatsoever.
And the "points of interest" are only interesting in case you stumble upon a dungeon, because those are hand-crafted, only minor parts within are procedural (and those parts, are again using the worst, laziest randomness possible).

Zero thought went into any of this, my impression is that their procedural generation is an actual placeholder, but they never got around to implementing the real thing.

And then of course even the hand-crafted content isn't really that interesting to begin with.

 

[keefged4]

I've finished the game and have no desire to go back to it, so not surprised at all by this. There's next to no immersion and it feels completely souless.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Currently ranked 65th on best-selling games on Xbox.
Currently ranked 9th on most played games on Xbox.
Currently ranked 83rd on global best-selling games on Steam.


Basically, people play it on GamePass and that's it. After November/December, we'll see if it has any staying power to suggest that maybe it has boosted GamePass at least.

There are fewer and fewer people suggesting that this game has been a "success".

It's clear that it has failed at all key objectives:

• Failed to sell Xbox Units, couldn't even outsell the PS5 in its launch month
• Failed to create additional mindshare for Xbox
• Failed to be Xbox's holiday season game
• Failed to meet expectations critically on Metacritic
• Failed to meet expectations by consumers both on Metacritic user reviews and Steam reviews
• Failed to help justify Microsoft's purchase of Zenimax as did Redfall
• Likely failed to usher in significant growth in GamePass

 

[Flutta]

This is why we can't have new good things.

A developer who has a storied history of making a certain type of games goes above and beyond to deliver a brand new experience. Yet gamers instead of giving constructive feedback are busy hating on it for months.

 

[JimmyRustler]

This is why we can't have new good things.

A developer who has a storied history of making a certain type of games goes above and beyond to deliver a brand new experience. Yet gamers instead of giving constructive feedback are busy hating on it for months.

Enjoy your GTA 5.5 I guess. Todd would be wondering why didn't he just made Skyrim 2. Less work, more profit.

Yeah, no... If the next TES is like Starfield they can keep that shit.

In Skyrim you had huge amounts of handcrafted quests/enviroment, sprinkeld with shitty generated stuff to fill the gaps.
Starfield feels like the other way around. Even worse, I'm sure there is handcrafted stuff in there but it's virtually indistinguishable from the generated trash.

Who the hell wants to play a game that feels like they put all the assests into a generator and then had it spit out the game?

I mean, the most fun time I had in the game was the Riyujin faction questline and I usually don't like this forced stealth stuff? Why did I like it? Because it at least felt like it was hand made.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

I work regularly on and with game engines at work. But I don't design games professionally (but as a hobby, if that counts for anything).

But are you really going to tell me that you don't see what Bethesda probably wanted to do, but just couldn't or had to work around their tech? It begins with small stuff like pathing errors of enemies and companions when you engage in vertical combat, loading for every zone change, lack of reactivity for actions from both the world and its inhabitants, clunky implementation of mechanics like stealth, outdated hit detection and feedback when it comes to ranged and melee combat, akward or no blending of animations, unstable physics, where objects behave erratically when more complex forces have to be approximated, etc.

The ambition is probably there, at least that's what I got from their marketing, but the game falls flat in every way. And yes, I do think a huge part of that is because they refuse to either fundamentally rework their engine or adopt a new one. Also their solution for how to "explore" planets is clearly a workaround. Their stuff can't handle putting and streaming a lot of geometry over vast distances, probably because of how their object management in a level works, so they decided to procedually generate limited areas around your landing point, that aren't even consistently connected to each other. All this stuff to me looks and feels like they're working their way around their tools and their tech stack.

If they don't and this is really "working as intended", then that's even worse. And Microsoft should start looking at firing Todd and the rest of the management.

And don't get me started on their writing and quest design, which hasn't evolved one bit from Oblivion. They clearly have some sort of quest editor with triggers that designers use but I can still verify these bits and pieces they have used a decaded ago in Starfield. And that's all fine and obvoisly a boon for the quest designers. But it would be cool to experience something that has evolved and where you don't go "huh, this works just like it did in Oblivion."

Look, man. I was an "apologizer" for Bethesda and their engine before Starfield, believing that Starfield is a "testbed" for evolving their core pillars, changing out and evolving major modules of their tech stack, which is why they've chosen to do it in a new IP, rather than using an established IP for that. But nope. Yes, they have updated their renderer with some prettier lighting and 4K textures and that looks nice enough for the most part, but pretty graphics get boring quite fast. Especially when everything else is lacking behind.

As a hobbyist game developer, am surprised you don't find game to be impressive. Or at least don't see the things it does.

Most obvious one is solar system simulation. "See that moon, you can go there". Mustve been one of the hardest things to achieve. In No Mans Sky, it's all window dressing.

Also, it routinely generates some of the most beautiful vistas out there. Dunno how you don't find that to be impressive.

Talking about small tiles in their games without talking about object persistence is also weird.

As for exploration, once you get into the groove of exploring star systems, it absolutely has that magic of exploration in Skyrim.

What it doesn't have, is unique stuff on planet surface. When you are exploring star systems, it needs unique quests that you can run into on planet surfaces. That will make star system to system exploration way more interesting.

Again, all of this is new, never been done before stuff.

 

[Flutta]

Phil each time he logs to steam to check how the game is doing:

"Please stop the count..."

Philip W. Spencer lll when he realizes that even $7b acquisition couldn't get him a GOTY contender

"WHY IS THIS STILL HAPPENING TO ME"

 

[TheSHEEEP]

As a hobbyist game developer, am surprised you don't find game to be impressive. Or at least don't see the things it does.

As another hobbyist (and professional non-game developer), I can tell you that knowing these things allows you to see what is actually easier to pull of in game development and what isn't.
What really is impressive and what just has the appearance of impressiveness.

Most obvious one is solar system simulation. "See that moon, you can go there". Mustve been one of the hardest things to achieve. In No Mans Sky, it's all window dressing.

This is too nonsensical.
You mean NMS, the game where you can actually go to everything that you see, no fake-out loading, no pretending, actual 1st/3rd person travelling? Where the planetary bodies and its NPCs are actually part of the game's simulation?
Whereas in Starfield, you really can't, it's all just a badly done fakery (but glad to see at least someone fell for it?) with a dozen cutscenes and loading screens in-between. No open world, just a fake with large-ish maps for planets and another map that has fake models of planets and where you fly around with ships.

Again, all of this is new, never been done before stuff.

Starfield does not do a single thing, NOT A SINGLE THING, that has not been done in other games before, and done drastically better too.
That includes partly Bethesda's own games.

The only thing it has over other sci-fi action games with ship fighting (and actual exploration) is that it has an RPG system attached.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

This is too nonsensical.
You mean NMS, the game where you can actually go to everything that you see? Where the planetary bodies and its NPCs are actually part of the game's simulation?
Whereas in Starfield, you really can't, it's all just a badly done fakery (but glad to see at least someone fell for it?) with a dozen cutscenes and loading screens in-between. No open world, just a fake with large-ish maps for planets and another map that has fake models of planets and where you fly around with ships.


Starfield does not do a single thing, NOT A SINGLE THING, that has not been done in other games before, and done drastically better too.
That includes partly Bethesda's own games.

The only thing it has over other sci-fi action games with ship fighting (and actual exploration) is that it has an RPG system attached.

This is how NMS solar system works.

 

[GHG]

Most obvious one is solar system simulation. "See that moon, you can go there". Mustve been one of the hardest things to achieve. In No Mans Sky, it's all window dressing.

Peak stupidity.

 

[TheSHEEEP]

This is how NMS solar system works.

In that very Reddit thread:
"That has been explained in one of the first interviews they gave. Real orbits were implemented but playtesters didn't like it. To confusing to big distances"

Which I admit is an odd choice and makes me think their playtesters were complete morons but that's neither here nor there.
NMS still actually simulates planetary bodies and NPCs are active in that simulation - it just happens that those bodies do not revolve around the sun, nor do they rotate.
That makes the simulation not according to our known laws of physics, but it is a simulation nonetheless.

If you think making object A (like a planet) move in an orbit around object B (like a sun) in a video game is impressive, you must have never touched a PC or had any kind of IT lectures in school. Or maths. Or physics. Or geography.
That stuff hasn't been impressive since the first 3D game appeared in the 70s.
I could probably do something like that with basic objects in 10 minutes in any engine (and I haven't actually touched a game engine in months).
And Starfield doesn't do that, either, btw. There is no planetary body simulation outside of "appears in the background" in Starfield because there are no real planets in Starfield, just maps you can get to via loading screens.

 

[Darkness_Arises]

And Starfield doesn't do that, either, btw. There is no planetary body simulation outside of "appears in the background" in Starfield because there are no real planets in Starfield, just maps you can get to via loading screens.

This should be obvious to anybody who has played Starfield. I do not know what kind of copium should a person be huffing to praise Starfield's space simulation, while critcizing NMS.

 

[TheSHEEEP]

I do not know what kind of copium should a person be huffing to praise Starfield's space simulation, while critcizing NMS.

I don't know, man, but I kind of want some of that stuff.
When I'm really down, I think that shit could really help me.

 

[TheSHEEEP]

Just to point that out, I'm not criticizing Starfield for not actually being an open world game. Plenty of great games are not open world.

But Starfield has the audacity to claim being open world and coming from a developer of open world games, while the entire thing is just fakery done so badly it actually makes me angry they had the gall to do it.

This discussion feels like Emperor's New Clothes, but instead of only one guy speaking the truth, only one guy claims His Highness is wearing a fancy dress.

 

[vaibhavpisal]

In that very Reddit thread:
"That has been explained in one of the first interviews they gave. Real orbits were implemented but playtesters didn't like it. To confusing to big distances"

Which I admit is an odd choice and makes me think their playtesters were complete morons but that's neither here nor there.
NMS still actually simulates planetary bodies and NPCs are active in that simulation - it just happens that those bodies do not revolve around the sun, nor do they rotate.
That makes the simulation not according to our known laws of physics, but it is a simulation nonetheless.

If you think making object A (like a planet) move in an orbit around object B (like a sun) in a video game is impressive, you must have never touched a PC or had any kind of IT lectures in school. Or maths. Or physics. Or geography.
That stuff hasn't been impressive since the first 3D game appeared in the 70s.
I could probably do something like that with basic objects in 10 minutes in any engine (and I haven't actually touched a game engine in months).
And Starfield doesn't do that, either, btw. There is no planetary body simulation outside of "appears in the background" in Starfield because there are no real planets in Starfield, just maps you can get to via loading screens.

Sure man, whatever you say.

Starfield uses this simulation to some pretty cool effect already.

But I think there is a lot of potential here they haven't even begin to scratch. They were busy laying the groundwork.