Topic: Official Push Square Xbox Thread

@colonelkilgore There was never any doubt 🤣

Rule number 3. “use quotation marks whenever possible”

@colonelkilgore I'm sure it would be possible to create an AI with these rules and... ah damn they've already done it!

@render 🤣 BAMGpt… still working out the wrinkles since 3rd December 2014 though.

@render Not at all! Its similar to MS Rewards in that there are activities to complete for points and get enough points over 3months, you get a FREE month Game Pass Ultimate as a reward. Its just things like clicking to find out what Games are coming to Game Pass.next week, interviews with Devs/Studio's about their Game and/or Accessibility, Download/Play the game of the week...

Its really the antithesis of Toxic Fanboy behaviour which obviously you wouldn't understand... 🤣 🤣

@BAMozzy And that's exactly what I'd expect an AI to say 🤣

@render I see its resorted straight to Rule 1. Strangely Rule 3 seems to have errored… for once 😁

@colonelkilgore Good catch, I'll file a bug report 😉

@AgentCooper I'm going in to Starfield expecting it to be a boring trek around space and anything else is a bonus. I'm hoping theres scope to just go off and do whatever you feel like, ala Skyrim. It is surprising how familiar it feels to Skyrim in other ways so far, some areas feel ripped right out of it just with lights and metal instead of wood and stone. The opening elevator is clearly the opening cart scene, and I feel like I'm in The Companions as soon as I arrived at Constellation, for example. Very strange.

It is a little weird how it throws side content at you, though. I just wanted to get one main quest done just to see if it had a natural "and now you may do anything you want" moment. But people were throwing themselves at me with side content and factions instantly. I have managed to make inroads with a semi logical path for the main quest. There was a moment where you need funds to advance, and even though I had a bunch from hoard selling as soon as I landed on the first planet, I kind of pretended I hadn't done that had to go and hunt a job to get the credits I'd need for the information and was fairly happy with the tangents I ended up on. Sometimes you have strong-arm Bethesda games to get what you want out of them 😅 and I want that feeling of having to work up from nothing in a crazy space universe, despite it being really easy to make money.

Ah, well played. So it converts to 8/9 months for the price of 3ish? I'll keep that in mind when my trial ends 👀

@Ravix Go into Starfield expecting it to be a typical Bethesda Game, just in a different setting. I'm sure they used their previous RPG's as a 'template', borrowing animations, missions etc and tweaking them to suit the new setting. That's why it feels so familiar to Fallout/Skyrim gamers. Even the Conversations with NPC's look and feel like any other Bethesda game, the same Camera and conversation style...

With something like Fallout, you may find a side quest that's the other side of the Map for example but with Starfield, it's more likely to be on a completely different Planet. With Fallout, that never feels too bad as you can always take your time, discover stuff on route etc. With Starfield, it kind of breaks that as you can't do 'everything' without having to jump in your ship and go to a new 'Map'. To me, it feels more 'bitty' as a result of having to jump to different planets instead of making your way across a single map where everything feels contained within.

I am considering a 'reset', Starting again from Scratch and Focusing only on the Main Path to get to NG+ as I haven't reached the end yet and then go explore, do side quests etc. Money isn't an 'issue', deciding what items to drop when over-encumbered is more of an issue for me LOL

The setting and hand-crafted areas you'll visit may have been built from Scratch, but it does feel like a LOT has been cut/pasted and 'tweaked' to suit this setting. That's why I think its a 'typical' Bethesda game. I got the impression that people expected MS and/or MS's Money to change Bethesda - when in reality, MS's money/influence perhaps only meant that they didn't release such a buggy, unoptimised game at launch like they did under Zenimax. Therefore its 'typical' Bethesda style, that is somewhat dated now, is divisive. On the one hand, you have those that love their games and this is 'more' of what they loved about Bethesda RPG's and others that hoped they'd evolve and take more inspiration from newer RPGs as games like Skyrim/Fallout 4 are very much showing their age (not just visually).

Yes you can go off and explore anywhere - however instead of just setting off in a direction, passing through areas of 'nothing', seeing what you 'discover', some of that is 'lost' when you have to jump in a Ship.

@BAMozzy I don't think I've ever finished a Bethesda game tbh 😅 so there's that. But I love sci-fi and and really enjoyed skyrim a few years ago, just there was newer games out I wanted to play, and at that time it was quite dated so I moved on from it. Fallout 4 is good up to a point, but again, dated.

This is why I'm really interested to see what Obsidian have done with Avowed, as Obsidian are maybe just a bit better at it than Bethesda, definitely better at the RP elements. Initial trailers I was a bit sceptical, but I'm looking forward to trying it out on GP when it releases, and it has looked better recently during the deep dive.

Obviously Starfield has some The Outer Worlds vibes too, but TOW was a lot more colourful and characterful, and I think Starfield is aiming for the bleak vastness of it all, which I'm prepared to get in to if that is what they are serving up. I'm already wanting to ditch Sarah so I can simply explore alone 😅

@Ravix Yeah - Starfield is a bit more grounded in reality in that aspect. A LOT of Space is empty and/or barren and certainly 'vast'. Its taking what NASA's exploration and 'ideas' of settlements on the moon and/or Mars have done so far and created their game around that - what the universe could look like if we do start settling on other planets. Some of course are still 'unexplored' - either because they had no reason to explore (no worthy resources, not on their Flightpath or not explored region) or because there was 'more interesting' Planets to visit.

I'm just mentioning that very different feeling between having everything on a 'Single' Map and everything being spread out over '10's' if not '100's' of different maps. Everytime you pick up a new quest that's telling you to go to a different planet can feel annoying/frustrating when you just want to get stuck in and explore the map you are on, get most, if not all quests 'done' before moving to a new area/Map to complete.

I've only 'Finished' Falllout 3 - not a fan of the Elder Scrolls games. By that, I mean its the 'only' Bethesda game that I have finished the Main Story - although I feel that was more by Accident as I was randomly exploring and happened upon that 'end' story mission despite barely playing on a 3rd of the Map. Fallout 4 I have a LOT of hours in, but I haven't reached the 'end' of the main Story. I get distracted by side quests, faction missions etc. I start off heading in the direction to 'complete' the next story mission, but get distracted...

Outer Worlds was OK but again, didn't finish - its fun, but never really grabbed me enough to keep going until I finished - something else would release that interested me more. I have dipped back in to do a bit more for an hour or two, and its in my Backlog to finish, but I haven't really had the opportunity to really get stuck in. If I only have an hour or two, RPG's aren't ideal as I feel I barely get anything done. Avowed looks interesting but I have never played a Pillars of Eternity game before. Outer Worlds certainly has more 'humour', fun and more Character than Starfield but I think Starfield is more 'Grounded' LOL

I tend to explore alone rather than have a Companion as support, unless I have to for a Mission...

For anyone that's interested. In my Starfield playthrough I finally got to grasps with outpost building, and I now import materials from two other outposts on a moon of the planet I picked as my home base just to build storage containers to store the materials that build storage containers 😁

There's a good chance I could just sell iron, aluminium and structural frames, and retire before even doing the second of the "branching quests" for Constellation 😅

But really, it gives me a nice way to hoard materials on my ship and have somewhere to drop them off, as managing a heavy ship all the time is annoying.

I have no idea what quests I'm doing, one decent side quest bugged out and now the person is just in their ship in space and not going back to the marker on a farm. And that bugged out my other quest markers a bit too. So I may progress the main story a little, or seek more side quests that, you know, don't break (FFS Bethesda) 😅

@Ravix ahh Bugthesda… always worth juggling around 10 or 12 separate game saves 😁

@colonelkilgore ooh, it has just fixed itself for no reason now 😁 maybe it just needed a rest. I never try to understand how their games function

@Ravix nice, glad that it worked itself out. How does it compare on an enjoyment level compared to the Elder Scrolls and Fallouts of this world?

@colonelkilgore for me, enjoyment is pretty decent. I don't feel like I've truly gotten into the meat of the game yet either, I've just been making my own fun, testing out the systems, doing random side content.

It's hard to compare the games, as this is really more FPS than the others, Fallout is VATS heavy, and this is just all out shoot everything in live action. The FPS elements are maybe not great, it feels a bit like a much worse cyberpunk at times in that regard. But I'm going to unlock the stealth ability next to add some variation to combat, as at the moment it seems like as soon as I turn up to a place, the enemy all know where I am and it's a 1 vs 30 fire fight, fun in its own way, but lacks any tactical enjoyment.

I went in expecting it to be not great in terms of gameplay, excitment or writing, but I've enjoyed the parts that others may not have, so far. I quite like looking for the resources and exploring a planet, without expecting anything more than that, but it usually leads to emergent gameplay, which I love. And I've been sidetracked a bunch, in a good way because of that. There are also dialgue options, but I'm not really sure how deeply they impact anything, sometimes you can pursuade someone with a really stupid statement, sometimes the actual smart reply will fail, I think it is just a hidden dice roll.

It can be a bit overwhelming how it throws side quests at you, as all you need do is walk past someone and an overheard conversation will go into your quest log for you to later see and have no idea what the quest is about as it just says "talk to this dude", but if you pick and choose and go with the flow how you want to, it is okay.

Peak gameplay will be: a main quest leads you to a new system/planet. You then head to a settlement and treat it like any other RPG where you can help or hinder the locals on your way to doing what you came for, this may even lead you back into space for a while, you will then either do some sneaky spy stuff, manipulate some people, steal stuff, or go somewhere for all out combat, until you come back to wrap up a part of it and move on, selling all your space loot and upgrading your ship while you are there. Clear anything else you want, or explore the surface for hidden areas or to collect resources. Then head back to wherever you call home where you can either head out for more quests you've picked up, or spend a bit of time plotting upgrades and making your own path to go and find what you want/need.

I made myself a little bio at the start just to help digest the game, as there is no real drive to go and do the main quests early and I want to avoid just going along with stuff just because it is there. It's not like there is impending doom, or dragons, it's just "I touched a thing and some people want to investigate it some more" and as my character is not a science geek I'm not that bothered about going to do that, i'm more so taking advantage of the fact that someone gave me a spaceship to go and be able to make a name for myself, or get myself in to a position where I'm established in the Galaxy, before going to do what this organisation want of me.

9 months of GP Ultimate for a shade under £34. Seems like good value to me 😱 cheers Big Phil, you trumpet 😛

I very much enjoy people realising the BS that comes out of Xbox HQ. Compulsive liars in court, and to the community. No price increase because of Actiblizz buyout. Two price increases in a year 🤡

@Ravix What's hard to believe is that anyone actually believed them in the first place. Gotta love the people who defend them at every opportunity.