In Space No One Can Hear You Scream a Funny Thread Title - The Starfield Thread

[Keyrock]

I figure there's enough of us here either already playing Starfield or that will be once the peasant tier unlocks that this warrants its own thread to keep the what are you playing thread more tidy. I'm in the peasant tier so I've got a couple of days to wait. I plan on being a pirate and smuggler so I'm going to ingratiate myself into whatever the pirate/thief/scoundrel faction in this game is.

Anyway, here's everybody's second favorite throwback character to get us started:

Hopefully, M'aiq the Liar shows up somewhere. He has to, right?

Edited September 2, 2023 by Keyrock

[HoonDing]

After clearing a couple of locations I don't like the shooting (I'd like a VATS) but I'm happy you can completely ignore most of the pew pew it seems and focus on surveying planets which can give more xp than shooting 50 generic bandits pirates.

Edited September 2, 2023 by HoonDing

[the_dog_days]

I don't know who else is playing on PC but my only complaint is having to hit two or sometimes three buttons to open menus. Hopefully a mod comes along to fix that.

[Hurlshort]

So far I'm really enjoying the setting. I've been even reading the books. 

[InsaneCommander]

My PC can't run it. But I'll definitely play it in the future.

[uuuhhii]

anyone encounter crash that also shut down pc

didn't heard any game do that in a long time

[HoonDing]

How is this game more demanding than Barrel Gate?

[Wormerine]

30 minutes ago, HoonDing said:

How is this game more demanding than Barrel Gate?

1000 planets! BG3 struggles with just one city.

See you guys once us gamepass peons will be allowed to play as well. I do wonder how playable the game will be without the usual mandatory UI mods.

[Humanoid]

20 years worth of accumulated bugs in the engine will do that to any PC.

But yeah, also pre-loaded, but we'll see how far I get given I'm likely to be finally starting my BG3 co-op campaign tonight. I guess Starfield is going to be my default single-player game for a couple of weeks, up to the moment Phantom Liberty is released.

[the_dog_days]

2 hours ago, Humanoid said:

20 years worth of accumulated bugs in the engine will do that to any PC.

I've seen a few bugs (I tend to be a bug magnet), but this is the cleanest game Bethesda's ever released. As much as some reviewers have bitched about them, those loading walls are doing a lot of heavily lifting in reducing bugs and it's a better game for it.

Edited September 3, 2023 by the_dog_days

[Humanoid]

I've seen fairly little gameplay so far, but the first few minutes of live gameplay I saw went like this (it was the Spiffing Brit on YouTube I believe):

- Player is involved a dialogue with a quest NPC with psychotically exaggerated facial animations (I note that eyebrows in particular seem horrible in the game), player accidentally sits as well but that's actually unintentional good roleplaying as the NPC is seated adjacent.

- Conversation turns hostile, NPC starts firing away while the game plays a 5 second canned "standing up from seated" animation for the player. I'm pretty sure it's the exact same animation they used in Skyrim.

- Player retreats to an airlock and closes the heavy steel door of the airlock. The other airlock door opens shortly thereafter because they automatically operate in sequence, and it just clips through the player (otherwise it would have squished them against the wall).

- The whole exercise was pointless anyway, as the bullets travel straight through the door as it it weren't there.

 

Maybe people no longer classify the above things as bugs, but it's certainly not good gameplay, and it's four immersion-breaking glitches occurring in the space of a minute. It certainly feels neither good nor polished.

Now to be fair, I watched for another 30 minutes or so and there was nothing else that came close to being as quintessentially Bethesda as that sequence, but it also shows that they've made zero improvement to that type of interaction in the 12 years since Skyrim.

____

Found the sequence:

[the_dog_days]

4 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

- Conversation turns hostile, NPC starts firing away while the game plays a 5 second canned "standing up from seated" animation for the player. I'm pretty sure it's the exact same animation they used in Skyrim.

Not a bug.

[LadyCrimson]

Would anyone care to share gpu/cpu and general performance of the game for them?

The one advantage of the $100 early-access period is that apparently the 2hr refund window does not apply during that period.  Which is tempting to folks like me who just want to fiddle, in case it's one of those that takes you four hours to get running the way you want, or something similar. Although who knows, maybe I'll think it's the best Beth game I ever played. Probably not, but never know.

As to bugs/glitches ... from what I've seen, overall no worse - and possibly better - than the average Beth release. Although, it still makes for funny clip videos.  The funnies notwithstanding, I think he's liking the game at least i"ok" in the first 6 hours or so gameplay he posted. 

 

Edited September 3, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[Humanoid]

1 minute ago, the_dog_days said:

Not a bug.

Indeed, just classic Bethesda jank that will live as long as they continue to use this engine. It's just amazing to see a developer with such a pathological inability to improve on past mistakes.

[HoonDing]

I haven't run into Adoring fan yet. That may be a bug.

[the_dog_days]

1 hour ago, Humanoid said:

It certainly feels neither good nor polished.

I've been playing BG3 and Starfield. BG3 has far more bugs and niggles than Starfield. All the complaints, be they genuine or not, are tied to the limitations of the engine and not due to bad design. Is it 'good'? That depends. Do you like Bethesda games? If so, yes. If not, no.

As for the standing animation. At no point in the game are you locked into sitting down to have a conversation. You might do so for immersion. Heck, I did that just a few hours ago before chatting up a bartender. But choosing to sit in a conversation is also choosing to get your ass shot off as you're locked into a standing animation 'cause you suck at talking. To me, that seems to be emergent choice and consequences working as intended. 

[LadyCrimson]

^ A lot of small bugs (and/or a few larger ones), "poor optimization", and whatnot, especially at release, applies to a lot of AAA/big hype games these days anyway. It's not like it's uncommon or overly unique to Beth, Obsidian or just a few others anymore. 

...such is still funny, tho, whatever game.
...although I thought Beth should have given up on that engine long ago. I don't care how often they revamp it, they should have made/rent/use another one at this point.

Edited September 3, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[Deadly_Nightshade]

13 hours ago, Wormerine said:

BG3 struggles with just one city.

I can't say that I have run into any performance issues or major bugs on any of my Baldur's Gate III runs thus far - that said, I also don't have Starfield to compare it to given that I'm a bit tired of the Bethesda formula at this point and probably wont pick-up the game until it's on a significant sale. I've been increasingly less impressed by each of their recent releases in-turn and don't expect this game to break the trend.

Edited September 3, 2023 by Deadly_Nightshade

[HoonDing]

I think I didn't see the adoring fan yet because at the beginning there's only room for two crew members and you get the robot for free. But then I picked up Marika.

[BruceVC]

9 hours ago, Humanoid said:

I've seen fairly little gameplay so far, but the first few minutes of live gameplay I saw went like this (it was the Spiffing Brit on YouTube I believe):

- Player is involved a dialogue with a quest NPC with psychotically exaggerated facial animations (I note that eyebrows in particular seem horrible in the game), player accidentally sits as well but that's actually unintentional good roleplaying as the NPC is seated adjacent.

- Conversation turns hostile, NPC starts firing away while the game plays a 5 second canned "standing up from seated" animation for the player. I'm pretty sure it's the exact same animation they used in Skyrim.

- Player retreats to an airlock and closes the heavy steel door of the airlock. The other airlock door opens shortly thereafter because they automatically operate in sequence, and it just clips through the player (otherwise it would have squished them against the wall).

- The whole exercise was pointless anyway, as the bullets travel straight through the door as it it weren't there.

 

Maybe people no longer classify the above things as bugs, but it's certainly not good gameplay, and it's four immersion-breaking glitches occurring in the space of a minute. It certainly feels neither good nor polished.

Now to be fair, I watched for another 30 minutes or so and there was nothing else that came close to being as quintessentially Bethesda as that sequence, but it also shows that they've made zero improvement to that type of interaction in the 12 years since Skyrim.

____

Found the sequence:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

That  definitely not bugs, thats intentional coding  by design so modders can address it later. Its a Bethesda game after all 

[HoonDing]

It's hilarious, but there's a Shadowheart clone NPC in New Atlantis. She doesn't seem to be in any quests yet though.

[InsaneCommander]

23 hours ago, Wormerine said:

1000 planets! BG3 struggles with just one city.

I heard you need a few loading screens to go from one planet to another. And then you can only walk 300 m before needing to move with your spaceship to explore more of the same planet. Is it true? I wouldn't mind loading screens for entering/leaving the ship and landing/taking off, but I hope the planets are big enough.

13 hours ago, Humanoid said:

- Player is involved a dialogue with a quest NPC with psychotically exaggerated facial animations (I note that eyebrows in particular seem horrible in the game), player accidentally sits as well but that's actually unintentional good roleplaying as the NPC is seated adjacent.

Which is worse, BG3 or Starfield?

2 hours ago, HoonDing said:

It's hilarious, but there's a Shadowheart clone NPC in New Atlantis. She doesn't seem to be in any quests yet though.

Post it in the Pictures thead or it didn't happen.

[HoonDing]

The areas that are created where you land are massive, maybe Skyrim size.

[Humanoid]

15 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

Which is worse, BG3 or Starfield?

Character animations are probably the one thing where it's fair to compare BG3 and Starfield directly against each other. And it's no contest. BG3's motion captured faces are amongst the best ever seen in video games, Starfield's are just one step above using literal sock puppets.

[HoonDing]

Turns out you can actually fly between planets in a solar system, but it takes hours.