Starfield

[PACOX]

More like NMS if NMS actually fleshed out their systems, gave us reputation, gave us ship customization, gave us an actual story... and also bethesda jank

I love NMS so I'm not 100% disappointed but i will take the opportunity to take jabs at Bethesda for acting like they came up with something new.

Skyrim and Fallout are easily my most played single player games and it's not like they invented RPGs.

I expect normal Bethesda jankiness when this comes out. I think my biggest peeve will be people who overhype the game and then heavily criticize it when it comes out for being something it's not.

As long as we don't receive a straight uo broken game (Bethesda standards of course ) then I'll be ok. Even Fallout 76 held my attention for a while.

Honestly a new take on NMS more grounded in realism and perhaps more RPG elements is fine. I'll don't want to see NMS forgotten because a much Bethesda has a bigger budget than The NMS devs.

[baskev]

Bro, most AAA games are going to have microtransactions. There is no putting the genie back in the bottle and the mass market doesn't view them as negatively as the niche user forums and Reddit attract.

Yes i know. Does not mean i need to like it .
And i know it does not go away.

I could live with more fair pricing. Or bigger stuff. Instead of x amount of micro transactions. a couple of gaint/decent sized paid expansions.


And my biggest problem is with putting stuff that has been free before, or needed behind pay walls.
Like a cosmetic ( like overwatch skins) i could care less. And does not "force" me to buy it.
But like fallout 76 putting repair kits behind pay walls.

Or using things that where mods previouslly. And then adding it to your game, behind a paywall. Again something fallout 76 did.

I dislike creation club ( or how ever its called). But it seemed more fair, and it gave modders a chance.
But bethesda sometimes just steals stuff.

Take starfields settelers who can help you and mantain your buildings....thats from fallout 4 mode sim settlements.

[qwerty123456]

What is an art style or aesthetic people might enjoy in Starfield? Cartoon-like, pastels, saturated/vivid colors, cell shading, etc.

A different artstyle/aesthetic might have helped it. The humans look like they were plopped in from Fallout. The Aliens look great. The tech/buildings look like Cape Canaveral had a threeway with Detroit and Sydney. It's supposed to be set 300+ years in the future with mining laser and solar systems traversing technologies and yet the tech looks like its 50 years in the future at best.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

My biggest problems with the art direction are 1. the uninspired look of the tech and spaceships, and 2. the boring planets. The humans also look like they're plastic toys (bijin face mods when) but that isn't as pressing as the above two issues.

[Tech614]

It looks like fallout 4, space edition which what I expected tbh. Biggest issue to me isn't the visuals but the fact the gunplay still looked like garbage after all this time.

[Redroniksre]

I think the 1000 planet thing is definitely the point of contention for Starfield. That said, it won't be all procedural, as I can guarantee the stuff you have to visit for the main story will be handcrafted. So it will likely be a few handcrafted planets/locations for story, and then after that...well I just hope they aren't completely empty. (Though modders will have loads of room to go crazy!)

[Fencers]

Yes I know. That does not mean I need to like it .
And I know it does not go away.

That is just life. Liking it is irrelevant for the most part. They are just going to keep doing their thing because it is wildly successful.

These people don't have morals. It's all bullshit. They do it for money, not the love of the customer. They just want our money. If you want to play, you have to pay at some point no matter the game or franchise.

A different artstyle/aesthetic might have helped it. The humans look like they were plopped in from Fallout. The Aliens look great. The tech/buildings look like Cape Canaveral had a threeway with Detroit and Sydney. It's supposed to be set 300+ years in the future with mining laser and solar systems traversing technologies and yet the tech looks like its 50 years in the future at best.

What kind of style do you think would be pleasing to you or the market?

My biggest problems with the art direction are 1. the uninspired look of the tech and spaceships, and 2. the boring planets. The humans also look like they're plastic toys (bijin face mods when) but that isn't as pressing as the above two issues.

Why do you think it is uninspired?

What kind of art direction would you have liked to see?

What makes the planets boring? How could they be more exciting to you?

[Mojo03]

What kind of style do you think would be pleasing to you or the market?

An Art Deco + Futurism hybrid would have been a great fit off the top of my head.

I agree with QWERTY and Val.

it's pretty bland and uninspired, but Bethesda has always had weak art direction, so it's not much of a surprise.

No Man Sky gets its aesthetic influence from vintage pulp Sci Fi comics/movie and it's night and day more interesting.

[hulkgor]

Pretty interesting stuff. Had not seen anything about it before, and am very pleasantly surprised. Very.

2023 is shaping up to be an amazing year for gamers.

[Edge-]

2023 is shaping up to be an amazing year for gamers.

If the past few years are anything to go by, many of these games will be delayed out of the first half of 2023 or 2023 altogether. I mean hell, like half the games that Microsoft showed off at the start of the generation are still basically totally MIA two years out.

I just hope that Microsoft forced the delay to force Bethesda to do more work on the technical front so this game isn't an absolute nightmare of jank as has been standard for every Bethesda title since forever. I hate the media consolidation, but if Microsoft can at least force Bethesda proper to start acting like a god-damned AAA studio when it comes to tech/quality then it'll have at least one benefit.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Why do you think ot is uninspired?

Talking about the design of the ships and robots, it's just generic modern industrial with no personality whatsoever. There are dozens of different, more imaginative things they could have done.


OT Star Wars wasn't just generic bland industrial:




The PT Star Wars had sleek, elegant, clean aesthetics:




EU Star Wars had organic and coral Sekotan spaceships that Anakin and the Yuuzhan Vong used:




Farscape had the sleek, art nouveau living spaceships:




Stargate had the Egyptian esque Go'auld ships and the sleek organic Wraith hiveships:




80s Gundam had its own retro look:




I got into my first MMO, Space Cowboy Online (later rebranded as ACE Online in NA and Air Rivals in Europe) based off of the visual design of the spaceships alone:





Early Battletech's designs by Shoji Kawamori were awesome.





Star Citizen has a lot of generic industrial ships (usually the UEE Navy ships, RSI ships, and sometimes stuff from MISC and Drake), but it also has a lot of unique, stylish ships as well (stuff from Origin, the racing ships, the Xi'an, Banu, and Vanduul ships, etc):





Hawken mechs and spaceships had painfully generic modern industrial designs very similar to Starfield, but at least the mechs had fearsome WW2/Korean War era nose art:





- - - Updated - - -



There are a plethora of other sci fi design aesthetics I haven't mentioned, such as Star Trek, EVE Online (the Gallente ships most notably), the Sins of a Solar Empire ships, stuff from Chris Robert's past works such as Wing Commander and Freelancer, the elegant Empire ships from Legend of the Galactic Heroes, etc, but I think I've made my point.

Nothing about this looks aesthetically pleasing, which is a failure in a medium (video games) where visuals are the principal component along with the interactivity. And that's just the design of the ships and robots, not even touching upon the rest of the game's visual design like the cities or the environments.

[Tech614]

2023 is shaping up to be an amazing year for gamers.

They said that about 2022.

[Calfredd]

SNIP

Not really surprised that your pessimism bleeds heavily through into your take but even this comes off as vapid and uninspired as though you copy/pasted these complaints. It's a bit odd that you'd complain of uninspired when some of the ships you posted look very similar to each other like the 2 white ships in your 2nd Star Citizen picture looks like they could be Star Wars ships. Heck your 4th Space Cowboy Online ship, the blocky one, looks like a Starfield ship.

[Poppincaps]

They said that about 2022.

I feel like I'm eating pretty good in 2022. Assuming games like Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and Soul Hackers 2 live up to the hype.

[Tech614]

I feel like I'm eating pretty good in 2022. Assuming games like Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and Soul Hackers 2 live up to the hype.

2022 is a shit year for video game releases. It's going to get even shittier if Bayonetta 3 and Ragnarok don't make it. January, April, May, June and Sep are all devoid of any games I care to play right away, a drought like that for a multiplatform gamer is sad as hell. Oct-Dec are TBD since a lot depends on Bayo 3 and Ragnarok for me there.

Just because I enjoyed Horizon, Elden Ring and will probably enjoy SH2 and XC3 doesn't make it a good year when half or more of the year was completely devoid of any worthwhile releases. It's primarily because of covid delays for sure but doesn't change the reality the year had some of the biggest gaming droughts we have had in a long long time.

So calling 2023 a hell of a year for games which half of the good games slated for it will probably be delayed to 2024, just like what happened with 2022 is just funny to me. It's going to be 2-3 years until covid delays are no longer affecting the industry 2020 and 2021 releases weren't impacted that hard by it because those games where near completed its the games that where supposed to be out this year and the coming years that where bombed pretty hard by it. that is already delay happy and announces games way too early.

Hey but $70 TLOU1 tho, the year is saved.(Not really, and not against this just the price tag is a joke lol)

[Jtbrig7390]

The game looked lack luster to me (hope those who like it enjoy it).

But even if it looked like a 10 out of 10 I was turned off the moment they said 1000 planets. That is a very easy way to turn me off from a game.

I got Gamepass so ill likely try it a little but that sounds like a wide as a ocean but as deep as a puddle.

[BeepBoo]

They said that about 2022.

I mean we got quite possibly the goat of elden ring... that alone makes this decade amazing imo.

21 and 22 saw some massive delays thx to covid. They can't really pull that again in this year and the next (knock on wood). So starfield should stay right on track.

[Tech614]

I mean we got quite possibly the goat of elden ring... that alone makes this decade amazing imo.

21 and 22 saw some massive delays thx to covid. They can't really pull that again in this year and the next (knock on wood). So starfield should stay right on track.

21 barely had anything of note delayed to covid except ER/Horizon which both came early 2022 anyways. We're feeling the covid delays right now my man lol, you just don't see them actually being delayed because they never had public release dates to begin with, instead you see the massive drought months without notable releases. Covid fucked over games in early stages of development far more than it did near finished games that just needed polish and bug squashing.

Just look at the capcom ransomware leaks if you want to see what covid actually did. SF6 and RE4 where supposed to be a late 2021(SF6) and early 2022(RE4) releases lol... Just wasn't public. Games that where nearly finished already got delayed months, games much earlier in development got delayed years. Games that where in pre production or still in drawing board might of been scrapped entirely in favor of quick flips to make up for the lost dev time.

Like shit just look at MS's releases last year compared to this to see the real covid effect also. They went from being one of the top publishers of the year to having jack shit.

[Lothaeryn]

The Nasapunk aesthetic is very niche without an extra layer to combine it with. I like the fidelity of the visuals despite it being creation engine yet again... But something about their art direction just feels lacking. It almost feels like a B-roll style "space" gimmick that advertisers use for commercials.

Something like Nasapunk/80's casette futurism mixed with solarpunk would have been a wierd yet satisfying combination. Give the vibes of space exploration(nasapunk) and colonization(solarpunk) in one go. With some level of industrialism realized by old time ideas of the future Via Cassete style.

[Nihilist74]

pls no space magic, space magic sucks : (

Yah but just shooting guns is boring! I want light sabers!