Topic: Official Push Square Xbox Thread

@CJD87 I don't see that happening either because, unlike Cyberpunk 2077, there isn't a GotY caliber game there that is being held back by boatloads of technical issues. I've never played Starfield to give my opinion on it, but Cyberpunk 2077 eventually became a great game once the PS5 version came out (and now even better with the 2.0 update). It's a shame they had to release it like that, but at the same time I'm just happy to have a game that quickly became one of my favorite games of this generation (and I'm happily playing it again as of today).

I'd be fine with Starfield not being a GotY caliber game if the Series X was my main console, but I just don't have time to sink into that when I have so many games to play on my PS5. I'm glad some people at least got plenty of enjoyment out of it, even if it didn't live up to expectations.

@KilloWertz Yeh agree fully re Cyberpunk.... just imagine if CDPR had managed to launch that game in the condition it sits in now, probably would have been a GOTY contender itself!

I've just downloaded it to my deck, not started yet, but looking forward to getting stuck in after BG3

@CJD87 It definitely would have been, especially with as much hype as it had at the time. Extremely hyped game that actually delivers almost always cleans up at the awards (at least with nominations).

Cool. I hope you enjoy it... in several months since BG3 is a huge game.

That was a well done "article" there. Even Xbox fans should just take it in stride and have a little fun with it. The Phil Spencer "quote" that ended with the line "C's get degrees!" was probably my favorite.

Those ai-generated responses to steam players whom left a negative Starfield review are priceless 🤣:

Some of Starfield's planets are meant to be empty by design - but that's not boring. "When the astronauts went to the moon, there was nothing there. They certainly weren't bored."

@colonelkilgore Ha ha, I'm not sure you can compare landing on the moon to playing a video game....I certainly didn't think that when I played Moon Patrol years ago.
Going back to your comment about Xbox tax, that is phooey, however the Sony tax is definitely real....
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8fEhkMOxfY
Year in review, Sony C, Xbox B. Mind you, Xbox did give us the thrill of walking on the moon.

@colonelkilgore Nice to see they are putting that multibillion dollar investment into OpenAI to good use trying to turn around the fortunes of a game they paid multiple billions of dollars to lock down.

@CaptD ign doing their utmost to disprove Xbox tax, while rendering their objectivity totally redundant 🥸.

@render first step, ai tells us our honest opinions are wrong, second step Skynet.

I think the difference with Starfield vs Fallout/Elder Scrolls is that the scale is 'very' different and as such, it makes 'exploration' more of a chore. In Fallout for example, you can just walk to any place on the map - whether there is something there to 'find' or not. It maybe 'empty' but if you 'walk' long enough, you'll inevitably find something.

As Starfield isn't limited to one large area, it becomes more of a chore to explore - even missions become more of a chore because you have to jump to different places and can't just make your way in that general direction and discover new things en-route.

I do get that what one person finds 'interesting/exciting' doesn't mean that everyone else will - same with what some consider 'boring' too. Some will spend hours collecting everything, some maybe spend hours building bases or farming resources that bores others. You don't have to visit areas that are Empty.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think 'Starfield' is the 'best' game ever. It's still quite dated at its core and pretty much what I expected a Bethesda game to be. The only 'difference' is that it seems a lot more bug free and better optimised (not 'perfect') for Console than it probably would have been under Zenimax control. I think that people expected Bethesda to 'evolve' with the times - especially now with MS at the helm. But they have stuck with the same engine, same aesthetic/style, same fundamental game-play loop etc and just changed the setting. Conversation with NPC's may have worked back in Morrowind/Fallout 3, but the bar has been raised by many other great RPG's with much more cinematic and more immersive interactions.

I can see their point about 'Space' and the fact is that even in our Solar System, there is a whole lot of Emptiness - but that doesn't stop some people from wanting to travel the stars, visit planets with 'nothing' there (yet) etc - very NASA. But as a game, it may not be as exciting or enough action for some.

Yes Bethesda may have been one of the best RPG makers back in the day, but in reality, they haven't really evolved and have kept the exact same template for their games for decades. Fallout 4 felt and looked more like Fallout 3.1 with a bit more of a colour palette and some clunky base-building tacked on.

@BAMozzy the point was never whether some people might enjoy a game that other people do not, neither whether Bethesda’s format hasn’t evolved with the times or anything to do with the Game of the Generation by itself. The point is, while we can somewhat understand your typical gamer or fanboy responding to other gamers’ perfectly fair reviews/opinions, we do not expect developers/publishers/platform holders to individually respond to the people who spent their hard-earned money to buy the game, to explain to them why their opinions on it are wrong… let alone with such a ham-fisted delivery.

@colonelkilgore I disagree - you expect Devs/Publishers etc to 'defend' their work - just like Directors/Actors, Musicians or Artists may defend their work too. I could be very critical of games like BG3 and argue that 'Turn Based Combat' is a game breaking design choice for me and they could turn round and I would expect them to 'defend' that decision - even if I don't agree.

You see it a lot in the industry - either devs/publishers 'responding' to criticisms or spinning things around to 'justify' their decisions. Whether its coming out and saying people are 'wrong' to criticise their sequel because Player Engagement is the highest they have seen, or that it was 'designed' that way on purpose for 'reasons' so you must be wrong to think it was a mistake. I would be much more surprised if they came out and didn't defend themselves. The only time they don't is often when the game isn't as polished as expected and they can't exactly 'spin' why a game is buggy or not running as smoothly as expected - but then its apologies and promises of patches, but the 'design' of a game is often defended - like the 'emptiness' of Space in Starfield, the choice to kill off 'characters' or whatever other things they decided to do. If Guerilla make a Horizon MMO GaaS and people say they should have stuck to keeping it a Single Player, I'd expect them to come out and defend their decision to make the game the way it is...

Consumers should expect a product to 'work' if they spent their money on it. That means as bug free and as stable as possible. The 'content' is subjective and its up to the consumer to do due research to know if that 'content' is for them. Its like buying an Album without hearing a single song or at most, just the Single, and then finding out the rest of the Album isn't really to their taste/preference. You could have researched more and got a better idea of whether that Album was for 'you' or not...

I wouldn't buy Marvels Midnight Sons because I really hate Turn Based Combat and can say they were 'wrong' to use that design choice because I dislike it. Had I not researched properly, then I would be out of pocket on a Game clearly not 'designed' to suit me - but that won't change the game or suddenly see them patch in Real Time Combat just so it appeals more to me and/or maybe would have helped Sell more too. I would expect the Devs to defend their decision to make their game the way they wanted, the vision they had for it etc - or for people to accept that NOT EVERY GAME is BUILT for them and vote with their wallets/in-game actions instead of complaining about something that is not even 'required' to do. You don't have to visit empty barren planets/moons, so don't go to them if that 'bores' you. Having the option was a 'design' choice and as a player, you have a choice to visit or not. There will be some who want to claim they visited EVERY planet, did everything a game has to offer, including seeing every possible ending, every collectable, every trophy etc, and others may just play through the main campaign once only, never doing any side content or going off the beaten path...

@BAMozzy well you’re perfectly entitled to your opinion… you see what I did there 😉 (probably not actually given your propensity for missing points 🤣).

@BAMozzy you might enjoy the first section of Skill Up’s latest video… well I say enjoy, vehemently disagree with might be more accurate I’d imagine:

@colonelkilgore @BAMozzy Remember when Apple bought out the iPhone 4 and people complained that you could knock a few bars off of the signal strength depending on how you held it? Rather than come out and confirm there was a problem with the design Apple suggested their users were just holding it wrong. This is that moment for Bethesda. It's them telling people who've bought the game that it's meant to be like that and they've been playing it wrong all this time.

@render hey you’re preaching to the choir with me bud 🙏

@render I see it more like buying an iPhone and then complaining that it has Apps built in that you never wanted or would never use because they don't appeal to you. The point was that they designed the game that way on purpose, that a LOT of the planets wouldn't support life or have any real reason to visit - other than to say you did. Give players that 'NASA' experience of flying to the 'moon' despite 'nothing' to do there - but maybe you'll find resources or set up a base in your Starfield game.

Its like complaining about Gwent in the Witcher 3, saying its a boring 'card' game and ruins the game for them, despite the fact its 'optional'. You never have to visit those 'empty' worlds and they never promised ALL 1000+ planets would have 'life' or things to do, they just said you can visit IF YOU WANT!. Yes I find it tedious and boring too. Yes I would rather have 'reasons' to travel to any playable space - regardless of whether I can get their by just walking/driving or have to get in a ship and go there specifically to discover it was 'empty'. But I can't criticise them for choosing to have a LOT of empty planets - much like our own Solar system. Maybe it would be better to only have focussed on 'specific' play-spaces rather than open up a massive Galaxy with many 'empty' places, but that may not be part of their 'design' goals of giving players that 'NASA' approach of wanting to explore, just because its there, even knowing its empty and devoid of any life or harvestable resources.

I don't agree that devs shouldn't respond or try and justify their design choices. I don't necessarily agree with their choices at all and I have said I think the problem is more about the engine which makes even travelling to planets with activities etc more of a chore than a single open world design (like Fallout/ESO) offer - even if principally its the same 'design'. Numerous quests can take you all over a map and you'll stumble on stuff if you choose to travel on foot but as this is spread out across 'numerous' maps and having to jump back and forth is the big difference.

Going to a barren planet to find nothing there is no different than deciding to climb a mountain and finding nothing at the top - its an empty point on a Map that you can explore if you want, but no reason to...

@BAMozzy great straw man as per.

Btw I think you should change the part of you sig that reads “Why can’t life be more like gaming? Why can’t I restart from an earlier checkpoint?” to:

“Why can’t gaming be more like life? I want to go to the moon and there be nothing there?” 🤣

Is Starfield like No Man's Sky where empty planets would still have stuff to collect on them, or is there just... nothing to do there? Haven't played the game yet. I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with a naturalistic open world that's not stuffed to the gills with stuff to do, though, so long as some meaningful interactivity is present. tbh I enjoyed the lonely beauty of the worlds in games like Breath of the Wild and Shadow of the Colossus.

I think the bigger issue is that the game's apparent lack of inter-connectivity ruins a lot of the thrill and immersion of exploration.

@colonelkilgore If they had made it clear that life would exist or everything would be worth your while to go visit, that would be different - they had made it clear that they had created their 'universe' based on NASA data/exploration and with their 'future' vision of What if 'Mankind' and NASA had moved onto settling in this and exploring 'beyond' many centuries later - an element of 'Realism' so 'many' Planets like there are in our Solar System, won't support Life. Completely Barren except maybe some resources or some 'random merc camp/mining facility outpost thing' who may also have 'explored/settled' for resources too in 'reality' even if somewhat repetitive after a while...

It's there in its whole set-up and 'grounded' that way in some 'reality'. Cutting them out too would be 'odd' so leave them in and let AI based on actual data decide whether that planet would support life or not which doesn't 'equate' to many in real life solar systems and you don't have to visit ANY that aren't scripted to visit as part of a Quest/story or significant reason... They 'exist' because they have to exist in game by 'design' and as 'players', you have the 'freedom' to visit EVERY planet in every system in the game even if only 10% (around 100 or so!) have any reason to waste your time in visiting...

That is the game they 'built' by design because the 'story' and setting specifically calls for it. The fact you can 'stray' outside to all those other planets, maybe discover some life on a few (if that planet could naturally support it) based on 'real' science, fitting the 'setting' is 'player choice'

People went to the moon, just because it's there and if you want to go to a planet too, even knowing it's barren like the moon, you can in Starfield by DESIGN.

Again, I don't fault them for that, its people not understanding what they built and even stated this prior to launch that its 1000+ planets are 'there, and you can visit, but many of them, like reality, are not life sustaining or particularly interesting to visit yet now people are complaining about that...

The 'barren' and/or some of the life sustaining planets off the 'main' section are meant to be that way and you maybe the first to visit or reason why no-one else chose to go there despite traveling across systems - but you can go there if you want by Design....

So no I don't fault the Devs on this one - if people are cross about that - which as I said is by design in keeping with the setting and story, then that's just ridiculous fanboy bashing and deserves to be pointed out. If you CHOOSE to go to a Barren planet, knowing its a barren planet, then who is at fault? Not the game designer, it had to be 'barren' by design to fit the whole premise of the game....